#iv tries to win over the ghosts by doing nice things for them

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everyone say congratulations to the first time homeowners!

edit: i may or may not have been inspired to write some headcanons based on this, if you're interested

[this-haunting-hunger]

fic: don’t take this haunting home - IV

Wei Ying lives with many ghosts. It’s usually not a problem. He used to be one himself, after all. However, ghosts have one glaring fault, and it is this: they are, by definition, people who refuse to stay completely dead.

And as far as Wei Ying is concerned, some dead people should stay that way.

Chapters: One, Two, Three, Four

Content: angst, violence, ghosts

Pairing: Wangxian

Length: 7.2k

read on ao3

//

Waking up is no harder than being resurrected. Which is to say, it is very hard and kinda nauseating and absolutely disorienting and could he maybe go back to being unconscious? There’s a song drifting at the edge of his awareness, all strings and silver, a soft, cradling presence that makes it seem like staying awake might just be bearable. For several minutes, as the music wraps around him, he lets himself sink into it, into the warm embrace of something familiar but enigmatic. A story he used to know but whose ending he’s forgotten. Let me stay, he finds himself thinking, and doesn’t understand why. Please, let me stay.  

Consciousness is relentless. No matter how hard he tries to push it away, it just comes back, nudges him with ever firmer insistence. Like a mangy dog, burying its cold nose against his skin. A groan peels through his too-dry lips – the music stops – and it feels like his soul is separating from his body with the pitiful sound. Like if he breathes too hard, he’s going to end up losing whatever churned up mess is inside. And gods, that will not be pretty for anyone involved.

Anyone involved… Who is involved? With another low moan, he reaches up, prods tenderly at his forehead. It seems to be distinctly Wei Ying shaped, which is a weird enough discovery to pry his eyes open. He’s greeted by a very welcome face, and a much less welcome surge of pain and dizziness as the light stabs at him.

Since the face has been seared on the insides of his eyelids for years now and he doesn’t fear losing it in the next few minutes, Wei Ying shuts his eyes again. The blackness is a pleasant balm to the pain, though the dizziness seems to have lodged itself into his brain.

“Lan Zhan,” he rasps, only slightly more pathetically than he feels. “Ah, Lan Zhan, I swear I didn’t steal the Emperor’s Smile this time.”

There’s no verbal response, but a hand catches his wrist, fingers skimming gently along his skin until they find what they’re looking for and press more firmly against his meridian line. It would be soothing, that touch, if it didn’t almost feel like it was pushing against someone else’s flesh. The transfer of energy is more familiar, though, ticklish and light and refreshing, and Wei Ying’s eyes flutter before he forces them open again.

It would be altogether too selfish to let himself enjoy the elegant lines of Lan Zhan’s face for a few moments… but oh, it is tempting. Even when those lines are just a trifle too sharp, a little too slanted, his lips pressed a bit too hard together. Even angry, Lan Zhan’s beauty is a visceral thing, summoning a bloom of warmth in the pit of Wei Ying’s stomach, and honestly, he should have more near-death experiences just for the pleasure of waking up to that leaning over him.

Of course, near death or not, Lan Zhan is very often nearby when he wakes up. It’s just that the looming thing is kind of sexy.

But because he is not selfish – and because the anger has something guilty and anxious swarming up his throat – Wei Ying swallows hard and tries to sit up. Lan Zhan immediately puts his free hand on his chest and keeps him pinned, though the man isn’t meeting his gaze, eyes fixed elsewhere. Wei Ying thinks he has nice wrists, but probably not nice enough to warrant them being stared at for thirty or so seconds.

“Lan Zhan,” he says, trying to delicately pry the hand from his chest. It doesn’t move. Even when his other hand joins in the attempt, with Lan Zhan’s fingers still curled around his wrist, he can’t get the other man to shift. “Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whines, mainly because the Chief Cultivator still isn’t really looking at him.

“Rest,” is his companion’s flat insistence. It’s not the good kind of flat, either, the kind that is steady and stable and extends forever. It’s the kind that makes Wei Ying feel like he’s going to fall, with absolutely nothing to stop the downward slide.

He wilts, dizziness still swimming across his vision. Head falling back onto the bed, Wei Ying keeps his hands clasped around Lan Zhan’s forearm as he murmurs, “I’m glad to see you.”

There’s a pause, a silence that’s too deep, too thick, too easy to suffocate in, and he almost has time to be really, truly afraid. Almost. But not quite. Because then Lan Zhan is replying, in a voice that nearly breaks, “As am I. Wei Ying, you…” Extra pressure from the hand still pressed against his chest, a tightness in the fingers wound around his wrist. They’re the only physical signs of the aggravation Wei Ying knows the other is feeling. It all comes to nothing. “How are you feeling?” his lover asks, as though that were really what he had been about to say.

It’s – almost frustrating. He almost wishes Lan Zhan would let loose the anger, set out accusations in neat little rows, if only so Wei Ying could knock them all asunder. How is he supposed to be chaotically endearing if there’s nothing to whirlwind his way through?

“I’m feeling well rested,” is his response, a trifle more than a trifle obnoxious, and also a lie. A line actually appears between Lan Zhan’s fine eyebrows, which means Wei Ying is really making some progress on the maddening front. Partly because he knows it will annoy the other man, but mainly because he’s genuinely puzzled, he changes the topic. “How did you get here? And where is here, anyways?”

The room they’re in is a generic one, at least from what Wei Ying can tell when he cranes his neck, still unable to sit up because of a certain stubborn someone. One window is letting in a good deal of light, and the place is clean but largely unadorned. A simple bed, a nondescript table with plain sitting cushions, unadorned sectioning screens, little in the way of decoration. It’s also ghost-free, which may or may not be a good thing, but it’s a thing his head is throbbing too much to think about. At least for the next few minutes.

He hasn’t received an answer, but nonetheless he knows. “An inn, right? Which one?”

“Tiantan.”  

The village at the foot of Suntouched Sanctuary. The one he’d passed through this morning. Or – actually, he has no idea how long it’s been since his feet took him up towards the temple. That’s a realization that has disorientation tumbling down his spine, counting out each vertebra like there might be a few too many jammed in there. He wiggles uncomfortably at the thought, and decides he’s probably let Lan Zhan steep in his protective anger for long enough.

Relinquishing his grip on the other man’s arm, he reaches up, trails his fingers over the exposed hollow of Lan Zhan’s throat, brushing back little strands of silky black hair to bare the skin better. His lover doesn’t pull away, and the quizzical half-tilt of his head, the swallow that Wei Ying can feel through the pads of his fingers, they have a helpless little sound stirring behind Wei Ying’s lips. Gods, how can anyone so beautiful be so charming, too? He resists his impulse to wax eloquent about Lan Zhan’s many virtues and says instead, “You know, if you’re so determined to keep me in bed, I can think of a few ways you might convince me to stay.”

It’s light enough in the room to see Lan Zhan’s pupils flare, dark and intent in the splash of sun spilling across his austere face. His throat convulses, another hard swallow, and for half a second, he leans in closer, unbound hair tickling Wei Ying’s face. It looks like he’s actually thinking about what he could do to keep Wei Ying obediently in place. Wei Ying’s body tenses, an automatic response to the smoldering expression, and it occurs to him that he really could think of a few things they could do on this bed. They’re so close right now, the least they could do was kiss…

Lan Zhan’s frustrated exhale puffs against his lips, and then the other man is straightening and backing away. Wei Ying doesn’t bother hiding his disappointed pout, which, given that his masterplan had been to get Lan Zhan to let him up, is a bit ridiculous. Whatever. No one has ever called the Yiling Patriarch a fount of Maturity and Constancy; he sees no reason to get them started now.

“You nearly died. You think I’d want to do… anything… after that?” Lan Zhan’s voice is so strangled with indignation that it’s somewhat funny, and Wei Ying has to stifle his rash impulse to point out that Lan Zhan certainly did want to do something, if only for a moment.

Quickly discarding his disappointment in favour of a smug grin, he sits up before Lan Zhan can change his mind. He only regrets it by about ninety percent when his stomach immediately lurches, nausea and dizzy pain warring for supremacy. The dizziness wins – thankfully – and, swallowing the urge to retch, he swings his legs over the side of the bed. He even (almost) manages to persuade himself that there hadn’t been a moment, half a second or less, when he’d thought his legs might not respond, given that they still don’t feel entirely like his legs. Nothing about this body feels entirely his, right now. A familiar sensation, but one aggravated by his use of Empathy.   

“Wei Ying…”

Ignoring that, he straightens, rolls his shoulders, mainly to convince himself that he has the ability to do so. Giving the room a more careful scan, he notes Lan Zhan’s guqin settled on the low table. The sight of the beautiful instrument has his throat closing, and it takes him a moment to realize why. The music that had been playing – the cursive, melodic trail he had followed out of the wrenching blackness of Wen Zhuliu’s despair – belonged to those strings. And those strings belong to Lan Zhan. Of course he feels like crying.

Of course he doesn’t cry. “Have you seen a spirit recently?” he asks instead, because really, that should take priority over his ripped up insides. “About this tall,” Lan Zhan’s eyes follow his vague hand gesture, “and really grim? You might recognize him, though it’s been a few –”

“Wen Zhuliu,” the other man says. “Yes. He was near when I found you. After you came back from Empathy...” There’s a pause, stagnant with more words that his beloved won’t say, and Wei Ying shifts restlessly, trying not to picture what pitiful state Lan Zhan had probably found him in. Trying not to remember the gut wrenching desperation in the voice that had called him back. “He disappeared when the connection broke. I’ve had the disciples preparing wards to ensure he cannot attack here.”

That distracts him. “The disciples? The – you brought some of the Lans? Who?”

An impassive expression. “Lan Jingyi, Lan Sizhui, Lan Feiyan, Lan Keung. Clan Leader Jin, who was visiting on Sect business, also demanded to come.”

“The kids? You brought the kids!?”

“Wei Ying.” For the first time since Wei Ying has woken up, Lan Zhan’s stone faced glower softens into something awfully close to amusement. “They are not children, despite your insistence on calling them as such.”

His hands flap dismissively. Semantics! “They’re younger than me,” he says by way of explanation, conveniently ignoring the fact that in some ways, he’s not truly much older than they are. “They’re also innocents! Defenseless idiots! How could you bring them into something like this?” If he had been on the sharp side of panic at the thought of Lan Zhan confronting Wen Zhuliu, that’s nothing compared to the gristly fear currently grinding up his insides at the prospect of the juniors being thrown into the mix. 

“It will be a learning experience,” Lan Zhan replies placidly. “Besides, I am here. Does Wei Ying think the Chief Cultivator is incapable of confronting this spirit? Of defending those he’s sworn to protect?” By the end of that, his voice has sharpened, and the very fact that he’s referring to himself by his title shows how upset he is.

“Of course not,” Wei Ying replies instantly. “If I had to choose anyone to be at my side, anyone at all, it would be you. It’s always you.” He leans forward as he says it, the truth of what he’s insisting stark in his eyes, and his lover doesn’t look away.

“Yet you chose to face this alone. You used Empathy alone, despite knowing how dangerous it is.”

Resisting the urge to wince, thankful that Lan Zhan is willing to speak about what’s hurting him and not bottle it up, Wei Ying smiles ruefully. “And that decision worked out so well. I’m… I might have made a mistake. A small one.”

“That almost got you killed.”

“But lucky for me, I have a handsome cultivator ready to swoop in to save me from demons and ghouls and such.” There’s no budge in his companion’s flat expression – not yet – and Wei Ying curbs his levity. “Ah, Lan Zhan, it’s not that I didn’t want you by me. It’s not that I didn’t think you could protect me from Wen Zhuliu. It’s just…” Lan Zhan is still watching him quietly, and he can’t help but reach out a hand, hopeful and yet a little breathless with apprehension, even after all this time.  

The other man doesn’t hesitate to entwine their fingers, and a second later he joins Wei Ying on the bed. Lan Zhan pulls their clasped hands into his lap, a seemingly unconscious gesture, as unconscious as the way he traces gentle lines across Wei Ying’s knuckles. “It’s just…” he prompts patiently, and gods, what did Wei Ying do to deserve such a man by his side? Perhaps he’d been a Saviour of the People in a previous life.

Not in this one, though. Shame creeps along his shoulders, making them hunch, and the raw vulnerability he feels, drawn out by Lan Zhan’s touch, is no less humiliating. Share his fear? Share his pain? Put yet another burden on the Chief Cultivator, as though Wei Ying deserves to be relieved of this weight? The urge to joke – to lie – wavers uneasily on his tongue.

But this, at least, is a habit Wei Ying has learned to restrain. For Lan Zhan, at least. “It’s just…” His free hand gropes along his sternum, like it could sink through his skin and cradle the pit of energy within. “I saw Jiang Cheng without his core, and I saw what it did to him. And when I gave my core to him...” He laughs, but the sound is hollow, and the smile he affixes to his lips is a reflex more than anything. “Lan Zhan, I know people called me a mad dog back then, but truly, sometimes, when I felt the emptiness inside me, well, they were not as wrong as they usually tended to be. I suppose even fools must be right once in a decade, hmm?” He laughs again and the sound rattles through the room before dying.

Lan Zhan is very, very still. He is not moving at all, except for his thumb, still stroking Wei Ying’s fingers. It is a stress response in reaction to grief and guilt for a tragedy long passed. It’s not a judgement. Wei Ying knows this, yet he still feels restless, restive, waiting for his lover to chide him for his thoughts and weakness. Deliberately careless retorts stack on his tongue, ready to topple off and dismiss what he just said, to reassure with a chuckle that the gouges in his soul are nothing.

Yet the man next to him does not offer a reproach. After a long moment, he just shifts, leans his shoulder lightly into Wei Ying. “You were afraid,” he observes quietly, and Wei Ying stiffens at the implication. Before he can argue, though, Lan Zhan shakes his head, a miniscule movement. “For me,” is his clarification.

Wei Ying is quick to agree to that as he relaxes. In his own way. This is swiftly becoming cloying, and he’s eager to move on. Not because he doesn’t want Lan Zhan to know he cares – that’s a battle he’s glad he lost more than a decade ago – but because there is pain in the tightness of his partner’s lips, and Wei Ying is so tired of this phantom ache that neither of them have healed. So… jokes.  

"What would we do if Wen Zhuliu took your core, and you couldn't cast the Silence Spell? I don’t know if our bond could survive the stress."

Lan Zhan does not laugh, or even smile. His intense stare might have been unsettling for someone else, and it had been unnerving for Wei Ying in a different time and place. Now, however, he basks in the attention, in the fierce devotion that inspires such a focus. "Wei Ying," Lan Zhan says, "I understand."  

As ever, he cuts straight to the heart of the matter, accepts without the need or desire to dwell on it. Before Wei Ying can be appropriately grateful for that forgiveness, the other man adds, "Next time, tell me. Whatever it is."

"Ah, Lan Zhan, I don't think we'll have the misfortune to meet two Wen Zhuliu ghosts in this lifetime."

A light furrow appears on his lover's forehead, and his posture, already immaculate, somehow becomes even straighter. "Wei Ying, promise me. Whatever it is next time, you'll tell me."

So the stare, as it turns out, can still be a bit unsettling for Wei Ying. He looks away, squirms in his seat and then makes to get up. Lan Zhan still has his hand, however, and the man's grasp is an anchor, forcing him to stay in place. "Wei Ying," he repeats, as close to an anxious entreaty as Lan Zhan ever gets.

Despite being a bit of an escape artist extraordinaire, the Yiling Patriarch is helpless to evade the sincerity of that plea. Huffing, he slouches back on to the bed and pouts. "Aish, fine. Next time I'll drag you with me to hell or wherever I end up."

It is a little bit ridiculous, how pleased the Chief Cultivator looks to be told such a thing. Wei Ying senses a shift in the room, a subtle loosening that means, once again, he’s been believed. Lan Zhan is not a simpleton, nor even particularly naïve, but he does have a tendency to think promises are not, in fact, made to be broken, and a habit of believing everyone else must think the same.       

Lan Zhan hums, whether in pleasure or conciliation, it's hard to say. Either way, the sharp lines of his face have softened, and the tension in his fingers has faded away. With a light snort, Wei Ying returns the pressure with his shoulder, the contact grounding him, letting the fear and guilt die down to a low flicker.

He still feels horrible, but at least it's only his body this time around.

"Speaking of our bond... I don't think it's quite strong enough to let you track me down. How'd you end up finding me?"

The smile is finally there, and Wei Ying had long ago learned to love the subtleties of that barely perceptible quirk, the slight tempering that so many people are likely to overlook.

Although he appreciates it slightly less when it’s at his expense.

“Lan Jingyi was to receive punishment for his actions during the Summer Recital of Values,” Lan Zhan explains calmly, as if that cleared up everything. Wei Ying truly doesn’t know how the young man had gathered so many butterflies, not to mention kept them concealed and unharmed until the moment he’d set them loose throughout the Chamber of Orchids, but he suspects there were accomplices. He also doesn’t know what the lecture-halting prank has to do with the Chief Cultivator finding him.

Seeing his befuddled pout, Lan Zhan’s smile grows by at least a millimeter. It’s dangerously close to being a smirk, now. Bastard. “Wei Ying encourages flexible punishments. I gave Lan Jingyi the choice between writing out the Values four hundred times, or keeping me appraised of your whereabouts and actions. He chose very quickly.”

Clutching dramatically at his chest, Wei Ying gasps, “You got him to spy on me? Isn’t that against the Lan Clan rules? What was the one… ‘Do not take part in dishonest practices.’”

“Be loyal,” Lan Zhan replies without hesitation. “Perform acts of chivalry. Believe sincerely.”

Wei Ying shakes his head. “Ah, Lan Zhan, I have been a bad influence. Lan Qiren would beat us both to hear you degrading the Values by actually thinking about their contradictions.”

The other man’s face loses some of its amusement, eyebrows furrowing in solemn contemplation, and Wei Ying has a moment to regret what was supposed to be a joke. However, Lan Zhan doesn’t seem upset. More softly than before, but more firmly too, the Chief Cultivator quotes, “Do not fail to carry out your promise.”

Their eyes meet, then, and Wei Ying thinks about a sky filled with floating lanterns, about hands clasped under his chin in fervent, naïve prayer. Of Lan Zhan, by his side even then. No regrets. "One of the Jades of Lan could not possibly fail at anything, let alone their promises," he jokes, but means it all the same. Lan Zhan might think differently, but the man has never failed him. Not on a mountain, or anywhere else.

That is not a path he wants to go down, however, so he draws himself up with officious huffiness. “Never mind. That brat has been tailing me? How could I not have noticed?”

“Lan Jingyi is very wily when motivated. Besides, I believe he has mostly followed your tracks, not your presence.”

Head cocking, finger going up to rub at his nose, Wei Ying stares narrowly at the Chief Cultivator. Lan Zhan gives nothing away, ghost of a smile still playing across his lips as he waits for Wei Ying to figure out what he means. Very smug. Very bastardly. And all in such an upright way, it’s impossible to challenge him on it.

Besides, Wei Ying’s attention is caught by the quandary. It takes a long moment, sorting through his mind what he’s done in the last month or so that could possibly count as tracks, but eventually it dawns on him. “The library. He asked Lan Kuan what scrolls I requested!”

A shallow nod is all the confirmation he needs, and he throws up his hands in disgust, ignoring the way it makes his head pulse with pain. He had spent weeks in the library, trying to determine where Wen Zhuliu’s former home was located, and, after he thought he'd figured it out, the best route to get there. He'd also familiarized himself with cases of non-aggressive hauntings, and situations where a cultivator's power continued even after death. It hadn’t occurred to him while researching that the old man who helped him wade through Cloud Recesses’ mountains of scrolls might tip off where he was going. “Aish! Lan Kuan, that doddering meddler!”

“Elder Lan Kuan is your senior, and a respected member of Gusu Lan Clan,” Lan Zhan says disapprovingly. He’s about to say more, no doubt a thrilling if stilted lecture about propriety and appropriate deference to the elderly, when they both hear something. A soft rustle at the screen doors, followed by a sharp inhale, more discrete rustling, and then silence.

Pointing at the door, Wei Ying grins. Anyone else would miss the way his lover inclines his head by just a little, but it’s all the benediction Wei Ying needs. Still smiling, maybe a trifle too evilly, he declares abruptly, “At any rate, Jingyi will pay! I’ll have spirits moan outside his bedroom for a month, at least!”

There’s a pause as Lan Zhan decides whether he actually wants to participate, and then the Chief Cultivator blandly comments, “That would be disruptive to the other disciples.”

“Then I’ll make him eat congee for weeks! Let’s see him spy on me when there’s a hole through his tongue!”  

It’s impossible to say if his learning-to-be-lenient lover would have continued the prank, because there’s a yelp from behind the door, followed by someone else’s wordless protest.

“You lunatic! Don’t you dare!” The exclamation comes as the screen is violently slid open, and three people are revealed, two latched on to the other’s white robes and trying to drag him away. Jingyi won’t be held back, however, and he points accusingly at Wei Ying. "Eating your cooking is a worse punishment than copying the Values ten thousand times!"

While Wei Ying gasps in affront like such a comment could actually wound him, Jingyi spins around. "Hanguang Jun," he says in desperate appeal, "I was just doing what you asked. Don't let this lunatic get me!"

Meanwhile, the two people who had tried to stop him from entering the room have relinquished their grip on his robe and now stand in sheepish silence. Lan Sizhui looks properly remorseful for the spying and interruption – and probably feels that way, too – while Jin Ling is just embarrassed and, to judge from his expression, getting sullen about it.

The Hanguang Jun in question hardly looks at the trio, just rises from the bed and puts his arm behind his back with elegant grace. He says nothing and, with the light from the window shining on his perfect form, accentuating the pale blue designs on his white inner robe, he looks like a god removed from them all. Stern, implacable, and hugely unimpressed with the shenanigans of mortals.

Of course, from where he's standing, Wei Ying can just make out a quirk of oh-so-pretty lips, and he rather suspects the reason Hanguang Jun isn't looking at the kids is to avoid any of them noticing his amusement.

"Hanguang Jun, we are sorry. We were coming to report that we've finished our preparations, and we heard you talking and didn't want to interrupt, so..." Sizhui's voice isn't meek or cringing; it's the steady cadence of a man admitting to his wrong.

Or Wei Ying is just a bit biased when it comes to the disciple.

Jin Ling lifts his chin. "Does Gusu Lan Sect own this inn, huh? Why shouldn't we go where we choose?"

"Be polite," Sizhui mutters, which just goes to show that Jin Ling's elevation to Clan Leader didn't destroy the bonds between them; the ever-polite Lan disciple wouldn't have chided a leader otherwise.

With a scowl, Jin Ling is about to reply with something no doubt unflattering, but Wei Ying cuts in. "You mean you choose to lurk in hallways, Jin Ling? Very strange."

The younger man flushes, but it's Lan Zhan's turn to interrupt. "Sizhui. Everything is prepared?"

"Ah, yes, Hanguang Jun. We've assembled the wards and created a watch schedule. The others are downstairs, making final preparations." So, in Wei Ying’s experience, they’re taking the opportunity to goof off away from Lan Zhan’s somber eyes. As much as Lan Clan disciples ever goof off.  

"I still don't see why we're bothering to ward against some random spirit," Jingyi mumbles, probably not purposefully loudly enough for them all to hear. Jin Ling bobs his head in agreement.

Lan Zhan is unmoved, and starting to get serious. "Wei Ying was harmed by it. That is reason enough." Still, his lover's eyes flicker over to Wei Ying, and for Lan Zhan that might as well be a scream of curiosity. Of course, the Chief Cultivator had been too disciplined – and kind – to jump all over him with questions when Wei Ying first woke up, but it's obvious the questions haven't been far from the front of his mind.

Given that his plan to keep them all safe and in the dark has failed so spectacularly, he has no reason to withhold this information now. “That ‘random spirit’ is Wen Zhuliu,” Wei Ying begins. He expects to have to explain further, about who Wen Zhuliu is and why it matters, and is rather taken aback when all three young disciples jump at his name, exchanging looks of trepidation.

“The Wen Zhuliu?” Jin Ling demands, while Jingyi yelps, “Core Melting Hand?”

Is he ever going to stop being surprised that the things so long gone – the things he lived through – are all but revered as legends now? Including the villains?

Especially the villains, he tells himself playfully. You know better than most how much people like a devil.

Waving a hand, dismissing their concerns, Wei Ying replies, “The very same. I assume Lan Zhan told you I was attempting Empathy before my… uh, nap?” Their blank expressions reassure him that the Chief Cultivator had told them no such thing. He resists the urge to roll his eyes, knowing well enough that the more anxious Lan Zhan was, the more he tended to close up, to communicate only what was directly and immediately relevant. It had probably genuinely not occurred to him to let the disciples know what was going on beyond direct orders.

“Well, I was. Wen Zhuliu was skulking around Cloud Recesses for several weeks, and I couldn’t get him to talk to me. So…” His haphazard gesture is meant to indicate everything that’s happened since then.

Apparently it’s not quite enough for any of them. “For weeks!?” Jingyi looks like he’s picturing rounding a corner in Cloud Recesses and running straight into the imposing spirit. “Why was he there!?”

“And why are you here now?” Jin Ling asks.

More tactful but still confused, Sizhui adds, “And forgive me, Master Wei, but why didn’t you say anything?”

Under the onslaught of questions, he can feel his headache surging, but Wei Ying pushes it back and grins. He struggles with some things, but performing under pressure is not one of them. “So demanding! Well, let’s see…” He’s about to start twirling Chenqing when he realizes the flute isn’t tucked into his belt. Now discomfort does writhe in his chest, and he fumbles at his robes like the instrument might be hidden there. Had it been left at Suntouched Sanctuary? Before he can become more alarmed, Lan Zhan moves forward. Chenqing is in his hand.

Wordlessly, the other man hands it over. With a grateful smile, Wei Ying takes it, the wood comforting under his agitated fingers. He doesn’t know why, but this item – this flute, out of everything he’s ever owned – connects him most to… who he is. Reminds him, when it feels like he’s forgetting.

And he forgets so often.

Whirling Chenqing, perhaps too wildly, Wei Ying resets himself. “As I was saying. He was there to find me. He couldn’t contact me, because…” That still wasn’t entirely clear. Slowly, tasting the words to see how they sound, his gaze drifting over to Lan Zhan to include the cultivator in the speculation, he continues. “There are powerful wards up in Cloud Recesses to dampen ghostly presences. Maybe they stopped him.” Which wouldn’t explain why he hadn’t reached out when Wei Ying had left the wards at the beginning of his trip.

“Resentment, too,” Lan Zhan offers, understanding the gap in the explanation.

Wei Ying considers that, then nods. It made sense.

“What do you mean?” Jingyi asks, bold despite the Chief Cultivator’s presence, and the other disciples crowd closer, too, eager to hear the response.

“What are ghosts made of?” Wei Ying replies, grinning at the mingled exasperation and resignation on the faces of his pupils. They well know his preferred teaching style, and how unlikely he is to give them a straight answer.

Sizhui is the first to respond. “Energy.”

“What kind?”

“Resentful!” That from Jin Ling. The Clan Leader announces it like he’s challenging Wei Ying to call him wrong, and it’s almost painfully reminiscent of Jiang Cheng’s belligerent forcefulness. Still, even now, Wei Ying has to wonder if Jin Ling realizes just how much he takes after his uncle – and how much of a blessing that really is.

Mostly a blessing.

“Often resentful, yes. Good!” Beginning to pace around the room, Wei Ying notes his nephew’s quickly stifled pride with inward amusement. “Not always, but often. Particularly when a person is murdered. And what does the culmination of resentful energy cause?”

Jin Ling is blank, which is understandable. Neither the Jiang nor Jin Sects specialize in suppressing ghosts. Sizhui, on the other hand, is quick to reply. “Distorted personalities, mindless rage, and increased aggression.”

“Precisely! So, Wen Zhuliu did not immediately reach out to me after I left Cloud Recesses because…”

This time there is a pause, but it feels more awkward than uncertain. Jinyi is the one to break the silence. “Because Wen Zhuliu hates you for your part in his murder, and that conflicted with whatever he desired to contact you about. So he didn’t attack you, but he couldn’t connect, either. The resentful energy was too strong.”

Wei Ying positively beams, ignoring the awkwardness. Technically speaking, Wen Zhuliu was murdered, so he doesn’t find it an inept description, despite the children being reluctant to describe it as such. “Ah, Lan Zhan, aren’t these students too bright? Who could have taught them so well?”

When he looks meaningfully at the Chief Cultivator, Lan Zhan lets the silence grow before he answers. “I don’t know.” For him, almost a joke. At Wei Ying’s expense.

With an affronted gasp, Wei Ying points Chenqing at his partner. “You lie! Who but a cultivator of renown, of talent, of brilliance, could have taught them so much? A handsome cultivator with a keen mind, a sense of righteousness, a bottomless fount of knowledge, a desirable face and–”

“Wei Ying.”

Though Lan Zhan says it as an interruption, Wei Ying chooses to interpret it differently. “Ah! Lan Zhan, you flatter me. Such kindness from the Chief Cultivator! But of course, I wasn’t referring to myself.” He winks outrageously, and the barest hint of a flush creeps up Lan Zhan’s cheeks, though he doesn’t reply.

Flipping Chenqing with a flamboyant flourish, satisfied as ever to catch his lover a little off guard, Wei Ying snags the flute out of the air and turns his attention back to the disciples.

Who are currently struggling to contain their amusement at seeing the Chief Cultivator teased. For all that Lan Zhan has, in his own way, relaxed as the years have gone on, that has assuredly not included encouraging others to badger him. Wei Ying tells himself it’s good for the stately cultivator, and it’s definitely good for Wei Ying himself, so…

“So, you well trained trio, why did I go to Suntouched Sanctuary?” A slightly unfair question, if Lan Zhan hasn’t given them all the information, but he isn’t destined to be disappointed today.

“You were researching Wen descendants and the subsidiary Clans at the library!” Jingyi pipes up, only to snap his mouth shut as Wei Ying side-eyes him at the reminder of just who had been spying on him.

Probably to save his friend, Sizhui rushes to fill the gap. “So you found Wen Zhuliu belonged to the Clan who called Suntouched Sanctuary home?”

Relenting his glare, Wei Ying nods. “Mhm. The Zhao Yu Clan lived in Suntouched Sanctuary before the Sunshot Campaign. Empathy with Wen Zhuliu confirmed it; I saw him with… some others from the Clan.” When he says it, his voice changes. Becomes quieter, and Wei Ying is powerless to stop the sorrow that seeps into the words.

He doesn’t want it. Wants to reject the emotion with a vehemence that’s just short of acidic. He’s been avoiding thinking of what Empathy showed ever since he woke up; filled the space in his head with Lan Zhan and the disciples and questions so much easier to answer than the state of his own soul. What does he owe those dead people he never met, strolling through their garden on that sunny day? What does he owe Wen Zhuliu’s Jiaying, with her firm shoulders and growing belly, with her supportive words and eyes so afraid of losing love?

What can he owe her, when she is dead and gone like so many others?

Lan Zhan heard the change and he’s now at Wei Ying’s side, eyes drifting to the floor but senses acutely trained on his partner. Wei Ying knows, can feel, how intently Lan Zhan is focused on him, ready to offer assistance at the slightest word or gesture. Falling into that quiet support, letting it take the weight of his decades-long fatigue, if only for a moment, is a relief he can’t begin to put words to. Not in a way that would do it justice, anyways.

“Is there any alcohol?” he asks, and of course there is, because Lan Zhan foresaw that particular need.  

Though he could order the disciples to do it, the Chief Cultivator strides over to the side table, swipes up two of the jars resting there. Then he is back at Wei Ying’s side, offering the liquid like he’s offering something else. Because, of course, he is.

Wei Ying accepts the drink gratefully, swallows deep and long. Not as good as the Emperor’s Smile, but it does the trick nonetheless, the mild burn tracing down his throat and soothing the pain of far more caustic emotions. By the time he pulls the empty jar from his lips, it’s taken the sting of haunted defensiveness from his thoughts. Not the alcohol itself – after all, Wei Ying is a first class drinker, and one glass is not anywhere near enough to get him drunk – but the familiarity of the motion, of the taste. It brings him memories, and he grounds himself in the sensation of the tart liquor slipping over his tongue.

The disciples are waiting patiently and without surprise. They know his drinking habits well enough – and more than his drinking habits, he is ashamed to admit. Unstopping the second jar but holding off from drinking more just yet, Wei Ying gathers himself. Another reset. He’s no longer in the mood for the question and answer game, as much joy as it usually gives him.

“At a place with strong emotional resonance such as Suntouched Sanctuary, Wen Zhuliu was able to break through the resentment, to reach out to me.” He doesn’t feel like mentioning the way he’d made his target’s resentment surge first. Doesn’t want to talk about the spirit Wen Zhuliu had ripped apart, doesn’t feel like speculating about who they were, who they had been to Core Melting Hand to shatter his fury like they had. Doesn’t want to admit to yet another murder, for all that he hadn’t held the cutting – melting – weapon.

He’ll tell Lan Zhan. Some night, when the candles are out and their bodies speak truths their throats find hard to say, he’ll tell him. But not today.

Tight-lipped, Wei Ying forces a smile. “However, the barriers were not completely gone,” specifically, his barriers, “so I decided to use Empathy to try to understand him more.”

“By yourself,” Sizhui says, and it’s such an echo of Lan Zhan’s disapproval that he has to laugh.

“By myself. It turned out fine.”

Jin Ling snorts. “You tell us all the time that it’s horribly dangerous to do Empathy alone, and then go ahead and do it by yourself anyways.”

With a light shrug, Wei Ying takes a swig out of the jar. “Do as I say, not as I do.” Smacking his lips to drown out Jinyi and Jin Ling’s protests, he waves off their affront. “At any rate, I learned much.” Much more than he’d wanted to, in fact. “Namely, how to get Wen Zhuliu to stop skulking around. He’s looking for someone.”

“To kill them?” Jinyi asks. He and Ouyang Zizhen both have a penchant for the melodramatic.

“No. They were… taken from him. He wants to find them.”

“Who are they?” Trust Lan Zhan to speak and ask the only question that matters. Well, one of two questions that matter.

There’s a tightness in his shoulders that no amount of drink will ease. Why can’t he get the warm feeling out of his chest, the one that Wen Zhuliu had clutched at so desperately when he was searching for her? It’s not his feeling, he doesn’t want it, doesn’t want anything to do with it.

He forces his mouth not to caress the name. “Mingxia. His daughter.”

The juniors react to that with the expected level of shock. Amid the yelps and rush of speculation, though, Wei Ying doesn’t look at the youngsters. His gaze searches out Lan Zhan’s eyes, and when he finds those dark expanses, he can tell the Chief Cultivator is disturbed. There’s a furrow across his brow, and he’s leaning forward just slightly. Is he thinking about that night, when he’d allowed Jiang Cheng’s Zidian to take one life, and had permitted the brothers to take another life after a great deal of pain and screaming? Or is he remembering the many Wens and Wen supporters he’s killed, cultivators all and none defenseless, but belonging to a family nonetheless?

Or is that just Wei Ying, inserting his own guilt into the honorable man?

Jiaying is probably dead. How else could Mingxia have ended up alone, and in such desperate straits? But how had she died? What had happened from the time Wen Zhuliu left the garden, certain he would see his wife again, to this very day?

What had happened, besides Wen Zhuliu being murdered, along with the man he’d sworn to protect?

Wei Ying thinks, if it had just been the two of them, Lan Zhan would have reached out by now. He would have gladly accepted his lover’s touch, gratefully pressed his face against his strong shoulder and hidden from the world. If only for a moment.  

Alas. They’ve an audience.

Interrupting the excited flurry of words between the disciples, Wei Ying says, “If we recover her, Wen Zhuli will probably stop bothering me.” Or at least his ghost will. The memories… well, some things are better at haunting than even ghosts.

“But who took her? Did you see through Empathy?” That from Sizhui, and is it any surprise he asked the second important question?

Wei Ying spreads his hands in a hapless gesture (after finishing chugging the second jar). “I didn’t see enough to be sure. But I think I know who’ll have an idea where to start.”

Jin Ling frowns, exchanging confused glances with his friends, but Lan Zhan’s mouth has thinned. He suspects he knows who Wei Ying is talking about, and he’s not sure if he’s pleased about it. Wei Ying sympathizes.

He smiles anyways. At least the man is interesting. “What do you say?” he asks the Chief Cultivator playfully. “How do you feel about visiting our old friend Huaisang?”  

[cordria]

Gloves

Jack Fenton sat down in the uncomfortable chair, his bulk moving slowly and carefully to avoid scaring the girl sitting on the other chair. There was something odd about her, the way she held herself, the little glances out of the corner of her eye, the way her hair didn’t quite fall right. Jack couldn’t quite stop himself from cataloging all the little differences about her, even as he tried to stop himself and see her as just a girl. A girl in need of help. “Hi,” he said, keeping his voice gentle.

“Hello,” she said. 

Jack opened his mouth to say something more, but nothing came out. He couldn’t think of anything to say. He let his mouth close again, his lips twisting in frustration. There was certainly plenty that needed to be said. 

“Why are you here?” the girl asked, her thin fingers digging into the cushion of the chair. Although her knuckles turned white with the pressure, the stiff vinyl didn’t seem to notice the effort her hands were putting in.

“I like Seattle,” Jack said. “Nice city. Always wanted to do the haunted tour…” He trailed off, wondering if bringing up ghosts was, perhaps, a bad idea.

She scoffed. “Seattle’s not haunted.” The IV machine she was hooked up to beeped loudly, and the girl flinched. She studied it for a moment before sighing and sinking back against the hard chair. “That’s not what I meant. I called Danny, not you.”

“Danny couldn’t come.” Jack sort of fudged the truth. Danny could come. Danny had come. But not being 18 yet, the hospital didn’t particularly care what Danny had to say in the matter, requiring Jack’s presence. “I’m here to help.”

“I don’t want your help,” she said, shoulders crunching up around her ears.

Jack shrugged, falling silent, watching the girl glare around the small room. He had only the briefest of explanations as to who this girl was - a genetic malfunction, an aberration, a splintered example of a not-quite-human - and he understood almost none of it. His gaze fell to his bag, and he reached down, pulled out his latest needlework project, and quietly got to work. Jazz had said to do that when he was at a loss for words. She’d thought it might be helpful. 

It was nearly twenty minutes of silence, the girl watching him slowly work through his project, before she spoke. “What is that?”

“It’s going to be a quilt,” Jack said, turning the scrap of fabric so she could see a bit better. “All the different types of ghosts from stories around the world. This one’s a banshee. Sits under windows and cries and screams, usually associated with someone dying.” 

She studied it. “You’re… pretty good at that.”

“Lots of practice,” Jack said with a shrug. 

“You don’t seem like… like a guy that would do something like that. Art stuff.”

“It’s calming and good for the mind,” Jack said, tying off the string and picking out a new color. “Jazz got me started on it years and years ago. I’m hoping to have the whole thing done by August, so I can put it in the county fair.” He chuckled. “I won’t win, not compared to the artwork of other people, but it’ll be nice to finish a project.”

Her eyes were blue, just like Danny’s. But there was a shadowed, haunted feel to them - and a blankness that hurt Jack’s heart. 

Perhaps Danny was right. Maybe Maddie should have come instead.

The IV machine beeped again, and this time a nurse knocked and entered the room. “Hello,” he said, walking over to check the machine. “The battery on your IV is getting low. Gotta plug it in.” He smiled at her, holding out a hand. “Back to the bed, please.”

The girl sighed, but reached out for the assistance. She was unstable and barely able to hold her own weight. It was only a few steps, but Jack had to bite back the offer to carry her. She settled against the bed - too skinny, too broken, too empty - and laid her head on the pillow.

Jack was quiet as the nurse fussed for a few minutes, plugging in the IV machine, taking her blood pressure and temperature, setting the blanket over her legs.

Then he turned to Jack. “Parent?” he asked.

Jack wondered how to answer that. He set down his needlework, dug a paper out of his bag, and held it out. It was fake, of course; there were no real legal documents in the world for her. But the stamp was real, and the judge’s signature was real, and that was enough. “Legal guardian, for now.” 

The girl on the bed flinched.

The nurse glanced at the papers. “As of yesterday, huh?” he asked. “Nice to meet you, Mr Fenton. Wanna chat in the hall?”

Jack leveraged himself out of the chair and followed the man into the hallway. “She’s going to be okay?” he asked.

“Eventually,” the nurse said, walking him to a quiet alcove. “How do you know her?”

“She’s a relation,” Jack said, trying to avoid being specific. “Her and my son are very close, although I haven’t had any real contact with her yet. She called him two days ago and we’ve been figuring out how to best help her.”

The nurse nodded. “She was found in a park, unconscious. Came in massively dehydrated, malnourished.” The nurse glanced around, his voice quiet. “She’s not saying much, but she definitely hasn’t been treated right.”

Jack frowned. 

“I’ll send the doctor along, but it doesn’t seem like there’s anything permanently wrong with her, physically anyways. Really fragile mentally.” The nurse frowned. “The police have been around a few times to chat with her. Don’t think she’s said much to them. She’s in for a long road.”

Jack glanced over his shoulder, through the cracked-open door. She was picking at her sheets, staring at the sky through the window of the room. She looked so small. Twelve years old. Her third year of being twelve, if Danny’s explanation was right. And she’d be twelve until her broken body stopped working, whether that was next week, or five years from now, or ten, or twenty. “Anything else I should know?” 

“Gentle, slow, careful. She’s a nice girl, when you can get her to talk. I’ll be around every fifteen minutes or so, checking on her.”

“Can she have visitors?” 

The nurse hesitated, but then nodded slowly. “If there’s one or two people you think would do her good, I can’t see how that would hurt.”

“My son will probably scale the outer walls and sneak through the window if you try to keep him out any longer,” Jack said with a smile. “He’s worried out of his mind about her. He can probably get her to talk like nobody else.”

“Sounds great. You let me know if she needs anything,” he said.

Jack stood in the hallway for a long minute, trying to decide what he would say. From what little Danny had told him, the girl had been literally programmed to hate him. Created, somehow, in a lab from a mix of Danny’s genetic material, donor tissue from the corpse of a dead girl, and a ghost. Created and programmed, like a computer, for a task - to be used and then thrown away.

He walked closer, standing in the door, frowning at how little of the bed her frame took up. Her arms were too skinny against the hospital blanket - almost skin and bone. Whoever had created her had certainly not taken care of her.

She noticed his gaze, turning to study him with those sunken, haunted blue eyes. “You don’t have to be here,” she said.

Jack hummed, walked in, and dropped back down into his chair. The vinyl squeaked. “I want to be.”

“Because Danny told you to.” She sounded sullen. “It’s okay to hate me, you know.”

“I don’t hate you,” Jack said, surprised at the thought. Where had she decided that he hated her? What had he done to make her think that?

“I hate you,” she shot back, eyes narrowing. She leaned forwards a little. Little sparks of green shone against the blue.

Jack shrugged. “Join the club,” he murmured. He rested his arm on the bed, but drew away when she flinched away from him.

“I don’t want you to touch me,” she snapped, clearly uncomfortable. 

He nodded and kept his arms to himself, careful to keep his arms to the small armrests. “I plan on sticking around, just so you know. And Danny’s planning on stopping again by after school.” He picked up his needlepoint, studying the messy shadowing job he’d done with a frown.

“Again?” came her soft voice after a minute of silence.

“He was here… day before yesterday,” Jack said, squinting at the banshee’s arm and trying to decide the easiest way to fix it. “You were out cold, and the hospital wouldn’t look twice at a 17 year old. Came and got me instead.”

“He told you who I am, right?”

“Yup.” Then Jack shrugged a half-shoulder. “Okay, a little. Getting anything out of Danny is only slightly easier than storming Fort Knox.” He grinned at her. “I got that you’re important to him, and that you’re family, and that I can help. That’s enough.”

“I’m a monster, you know that,” she said. 

Jack pointed at his needlepoint. “This is a monster. You look like a scared young woman in need of some help. Maybe you’re not as human as me, but that doesn’t make you a monster.”

She bristled, but didn’t respond.

Jack let the quiet last for a few minutes, slowly fixing the bad shadowing on his banshee. 

“I don’t know what you want from me,” she said.

He glanced at her. She’d drawn her knees up to her chest, and was hugging them close. She looked lost and broken, and somehow even smaller and younger than before. “I don’t want anything from you,” he said, confused. 

She frowned.

“Danny said you wouldn’t trust me,” Jack said, deliberately keeping his gaze on his needlepoint. Jazz had been correct in packing it for him - it did seem much easier for the girl to talk when he wasn’t staring at her. “But you can, you know. Jazz has already cleaned out her bedroom for you, and Danny-”

“Bedroom?” she asked.

Jack blinked at her. “Room. With a bed in it.”

She scowled. “I know what a bedroom is-” she cut herself off, like she was going to say something more. She let out a breath through her nose. “You make it sound like I’m coming to live with you.”

“You are!” Jack grinned. “See, we got the legal-”

“I’m not coming to live with you,” the girl snapped. “We’ve been over this. I hate you. I don’t trust you. Why should I live with you?”

Jack twisted his mouth into a half-frown, turning his eyes back to his needlepoint. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Take off your gloves.”

Jack hesitated. He didn’t take off his gloves. “Why?”

“Because I’m a monster. I’m contaminated. I’m broken, and seeping radioactive liquid, and, and, and I can hurt you just by touching you.” Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see her eyes burning a toxic, horrible green. “And I want you to take off your gloves.”

He watched the way the light gleamed off the black glove, slowly twisting his fingers. He didn’t take off his gloves. He just didn’t. Since learning how contaminated Danny was, Jack had even gone to great lengths to not touch his own son. 

But Jack knew, in the depths of his being, that Danny wasn’t a monster. And neither was this girl. Yes, she could hurt him with just a touch. But...

Slowly, he took off one of his gloves. His skin was extremely pale, fingers a bit wrinkled from the moisture inside the gloves. His fingernails were in need of clipping. He flexed his fingers and ran them over the intricate stitching of his needlepoint, feeling details he couldn’t through the gloves.

Then he held out his hand to her.

[trillian-anders]

chambers - iv

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

warnings: violence, angst, slow burn

word count: 4230

Description: Post-Endgame. Steve Rogers has passed away from old age. The one remarkable thing is that no one knew his heart would be in the condition it was. He was able to save one more life. After receiving his heart, strange things start happening. Including something that would change your life forever. (Very loosely based on the Netflix series of the same name.)

This wasn’t the first time you’ve seen him. Sitting there in the dark. A watchman. He’s gone from a ghost to a solid figure, sitting by your bed in the dark. Hair blond, face without wrinkles, bent over. Elbows resting on knees, hands clasped. Staring. It was unnerving. Usually it was just flashes, you’d look in the mirror and he’d be standing there instead of you, or he’d be standing around in the corner of your eye. But this was new. He was just sitting there, staring at you. Thinking. 

Judging?

Not speaking. 

You had to be going crazy. This seemed insane. This was something outside the realm of living through his memories and feeling the roller coaster of emotions you were becoming accustomed to. Your legs didn’t hurt too badly anymore, they were still a little stiff, but they didn’t hurt anymore. You swung them over the side of the bed, coming to face him. Were you hallucinating? You both held eye contact for a minute. 

“Steve?” Your raspy voice asked. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards and then he was gone. Next blink, just gone. You sighed heavily, hanging your head, “FRIDAY, open the blinds please?” The mechanical blinds rose, revealing a muted blue sky, the sun just breaking over the horizon. Your toes touched the ground, feeling the heated floors as you stood to stretch your arms above your head, feeling your body crack and groan. 

You lifted your phone from the nightstand, checking the time. It was still early, but most of the agents would have already been starting their morning drills, including Bucky and Sam. Wanda should be waking up soon then if she wasn’t already awake. 

You made your way to your ensuite, brushing your teeth, and staring at your face in the mirror. The serum must be doing something to you because the dark circles under your eyes were gone and your skin looked perfectly dewey. The whites of your eyes were whiter and when you looked back down at your recently bruised and broken legs you couldn’t even tell anything had been wrong with them in the first place. But that could also be due to the cradle. 

The bed suddenly felt way too soft, you’d noticed. You’d never thought about it before. Your bed at home was cheap, the mattress springy and almost uncomfortable, but it was close to what Steve used to sleep on while in the military. What he slept on during missions. The beds on the quinjet. You might try sleeping on the floor tonight. 

You changed your clothes, today you’d be getting into the MRI, testing to see how your brain reacts to certain stimuli, seeing what happens to your brain when a memory comes on. So far there are no real negative consequences physically to the seizures you have when a memory comes on, but that doesn’t mean that one day something bad won’t happen. This is just to make sure. 

Now that your legs were healed you were itching to run again, and you figured if you paid attention to pace, maybe it’ll be okay. A pair of stretchy yoga pants and large grey Avenger’s issued sweatshirt later you were stepping outside into the crisp morning air. Sam and Bucky stretching off to the right. “Hey kid, how’s it going?” Sam asked, smiling. 

You cautiously walked over to join them, returning his smile, “Better, for sure.” You smiled at Bucky, he gave a forced one in return. He was trying. “A little stiff, but I’m itching to run again so…” Sam pursed his lips,

“If you’re gonna run you’ve gotta take it easy, you can keep pace with me,” He jerked a thumb over at Bucky, “This fool runs at top speed so just make sure you don’t try to keep up with him.” That’s right. Bucky had some sort of super serum too. Not the same as Steve’s but Hydra’s own cocktail. The three of you took off, Sam jogging at a leisurely pace, easing you into it. You kept a steady pace next to him, watching the brown haired super-soldier’s pace slowly pick up before he was lapping the two of you, easily. 

“They’re giving me an MRI today,” You told Sam when he asked, “Hopefully the seizures are still not doing anything to my brain….” 

“I’m sure Bruce will be able to find some way to keep the seizures from happening at all,” Sam said. You stopped running back where you started, not even close to breaking a sweat, but your nerves soothed for the moment, Sam slowing down to a stop a few feet away. 

“Can I ask you something?” You placed your hands on your hips, breathing regulating. 

“Anything kid.” Sam walked closer to you, both of your eyes shifting over to watch Bucky on the other side of the track, looming closer.

“I know you still go to the VA every week,” You said, “And I get it’s weird and like… I’ve never technically been to…” You couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’ve never technically been to war, but…” 

“What exactly is going on with these memories?” He asked you. You’d explained it to them very vaguely before, but Bucky and Sam didn’t really know the depth of it. Not at all. 

You felt tears prickle in the corners of your eyes, hands coming up to rub them away, “It’s like I lived two lives, Sam.” You sighed heavily, “I’ve never technically been to war, but I can still smell…” You rolled your eyes up to the sky, trying hard not to cry. How did Steve not cry all the fucking time? 

“Hey,” He said softly, walking closer to you, placing his hands on your shoulders. “I get it.” He soothed, “Well… I don’t get the whole ‘two lives’ thing, but the PTSD I get. If you want to come next time…” His voice trailed off as Bucky came to a stop next to the two of you, “You’re more than welcome to join us.” You turned your body away from Bucky, wiping the tears out of your eyes. 

“Join us where?” Bucky asked, stopping to take a long pull from his water bottle. You looked at Sam hesitantly and he nodded, turning back towards Bucky.

“We’ll talk about it later.” He explained, “What time do you have to meet Bruce Y/N?” You checked your phone, 

“Soon, I should probably eat and shower.” You smiled at the both of them, “I’ll see you guys soon yeah?” Bucky nodded tersely. He was going to be helping during the MRI even though you knew he really didn’t want to. 

“If you need anything...” Sam didn’t finish the sentence but it went unsaid. If you need anything, I’m here for you. I’ll be here for you like I was here for Steve. But maybe that was being too hopeful. 

Bucky watched you go in curiosity. “What was that about?” He asked Sam, taking another drink. 

“She’s struggling man.” Bucky scoffed, 

“That’s obvious.” Sam glared at him. 

“I think this whole memory thing goes deeper than just her remembering things Steve has done.” He explained, “She asked me to go to the VA.” Bucky was taken aback at that. 

“She’s not military.” It was a simple explanation. “She can’t go.” 

“Bucky,” Sam sighed, “She’s struggling with this and if she has Steve’s memories, those memories include war. A war she didn’t choose to fight, missions she didn’t choose to go on. She’s scared and uncomfortable with what she’s seeing I’m sure.” Bucky wrestled with this for a moment, he knew Sam was right, but honestly the VA was something he cherished wholeheartedly. It was something he had with Sam outside of the missions and training. Something real. Something normal. And he didn’t know if he was comfortable with her interloping on that. 

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Wanda asked you over a bowl of cereal. You smiled at your friend, reaching in the fridge for the milk to make your own bowl of cereal. 

“A lot better, honestly.” You explained, “Had a nice jog with Sam this morning, my legs feel great.” 

“Are you ready for today?” She was scrolling through her phone, looking at dessert recipes. 

“Maybe?” You sighed, spooning some cereal into your mouth. “I don’t know. I usually have at least one memory a day, but I’m afraid of having a bad one.” Wanda looked up at you from her phone, 

“Do you have bad memories often?” She asked. 

“It depends.” You stared down at the cheerios. “Depends on what triggers it.” 

An hour later you were in scrubs, your hair tied up, laying on the table and ready to go into the machine. You tried not to think about how loud and claustrophobic it all was going to be as Bruce prepped you. 

“You’ll see a series of images first,” He explains, “After that we will begin with Bucky talking to you, just very candidly about a couple of good memories he has of Steve.” He probably hates you for this. It was hard to swallow that thought. You could see Wanda, Sam, and Bucky standing on the other side of the glass, chatting idly as Bruce was securing some sort of cage around your head to keep you from moving. “If it gets to be too much and you need to take a break just let us know and I’ll pull you out okay?” He was reassuring and you could almost feel comfortable if your heart wasn’t beating out of your chest. 

The bed slowly entered the machine and there was a pause as it clicked to life around you, loudly. Was it the machine or your heart beating that loud? 

“Are you okay?” Bruce asked, his voice coming out of the speaker. 

“Yeah I’m fine.” You took a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth, closing your eyes for a minute. 

“Okay so we are going to start with the first picture.” And up it went. Coney Island. The Cyclone at Coney Island. 

“I’m not doing it!” You exclaimed. “You can go alone!” You were a teenager now, Bucky was a teenager now. Bright blue eyes, wide smile, a pimple on the right side of his chin, but otherwise unblemished. Happy. 

“C’mon pal,” He wrapped an arm around your shoulders, “You owe me one anyway.” You felt yourself scoff, turning towards him. 

“You just spent 30 minutes trying to win a stuffed bear for Dot,” You laughed, “If anything, you owe me.” This was one of the first double dates of many you and Bucky had gone on. Both of you fifteen years old, saved allowances in your pockets, Bucky got two girls Dot and Moira to come out to Coney Island with you. You’d been riding rides and eating hot dogs all day. Bucky just spent your last three dollars winning Dot a bear, Moira ignored you the whole day, and you were feeling kinda low. The last thing you wanted to do was ride the Cyclone. 

“C’mon, we have one ticket each left, let’s ride it and then we can figure out a way home.” It was hard to say no to Bucky, especially when he was looking at you like that. You rolled your eyes,

“Fine.” A large grin stretching out on his face, hands clapping together, “Alright, let’s go!” His large hand wrapped around yours pulling you into the queue. A quick trip on the Cyclone found your head in the trash can beside it, small body heaving, the hot dog and cotton candy coming up just as easily as it had gone down. What a waste. 

You came back to consciousness dry heaving, body tilted to the side as Wanda rubbed your back. “Are you gonna throw up?” She asked, Sam was holding a bucket under your head. 

“What was it?” Bruce asked. Bucky stood off to the side, unsure what to do. You took a sip from the water bottle Sam offered you, catching your breath. 

“Threw up after riding the cyclone,” You explained, eyes flickering over to Bucky, then back to Bruce. “Sorry.” 

“No, it’s fine.” Bruce said, typing something into the computer. “Are you okay to go again?” 

“You’re not gonna give her a break?” Bucky asked, turning toward the Hulk. Bruce looked from Bucky and back to you. Sam left the trash can on the floor by your head, just in case, but still stood nearby with your water bottle. 

“Do you need a break Y/N?” Wanda helped you roll back onto the table as you caught your breath. Your throat hurt and you still felt the lingering nausea, 

“No, I’m okay.” You said, “We can continue.” 

The next picture didn’t do anything. It was your own apartment. The one you hadn’t been to all week. The third picture was a drawing you knew Steve had done, a memory of sitting in a cafe, the taste of coffee on your tongue, but no seizure. 

The fourth picture sent you reeling, breath coming out in heavy pants as the machine closed around you, 

“Bucky!” You screamed, arm reaching out to him, watching him hang from the side of the train. The fucking train. How do you get him out of this? How can you save him this time? You couldn’t reach any farther without falling out yourself, his hand not coming close to yours, not close enough. Fuck. 

His watery blue eyes met yours and your heart stopped in your chest, his arm swinging up for one last attempt to grab yours that’s when the bar he was holding onto broke. That’s when it always broke, that’s when you lost him every time. “Bucky!” You screamed again as you watched him fall from sight, the train still rushing onto its destination.

“Get me out!” You yelled. The machine was quickly turned off, you were wrestling with the cage around your face, breaking it accidentally, tossing it to the side. Tears blurred your vision as you sat on the edge of the bed. 

“Y/N calm down!” Wanda’s hands gripped your upper arms, stalling you from moving. You choked on your tears, sinking your head down onto her shoulder as she wrapped her arms around you. You felt so embarrassed, face hot with it, but you couldn’t stop crying. You knew it was ridiculous. He was standing right there. He’s not actually dead. But in that moment Steve didn’t know that. In that moment he just lost the one person who had been by his side through everything and you lost him too. 

“Alright kid, it’s okay.” Sam’s voice was calm, his hand rubbing your back as you tried to control your breathing, your eyes peeking over Wanda’s shoulder to steal a glance at Bucky. He’s right there. He’s alive. He’s safe. He wasn’t looking at you, he was looking at the floor, fists clenched. And you watched him leave the room. 

“What happened?” Bruce asked. 

“Give her a minute man.” Sam said, your tears were drying up but your heart still felt empty. You wanted Bucky, but it wasn’t an option. 

“He fell from the train.” You explained softly, voice thick and watery. “I can never save him.” It didn’t need to be explained who ‘he’ was. They all knew and in that moment what you had been going through was shared with the group. Wanda gripped you a little tighter, 

“Let’s finish for the day,” She told Bruce, “We can pick back up tomorrow or something.” Bruce nodded, shutting the machine off. 

“Anyone up for Chinese?” 

Bucky didn’t expect that viceral of a reaction. The dry heaving after experiencing a memory of riding the Cyclone, one that he remembered well. Standing by Steve as he upchucked into the trash can, his vomit was tinted pink from cotton candy. Her experiencing him falling from the bridge. The screaming that started before she was even fully out. A blood curdling scream of his name, loud and clear over the microphone that was wired into the machine. Fuck. 

He bruised his knuckles because he didn't wrap them before going in on the punching bag. Something had to break the tension he was feeling in his shoulders. His left one was aching with a phantom pain that almost never went away. The ache of a limb lost. The memories of being half conscious as they dragged his body from the ravine. Where they cut the rest of his arm off in order to attach the metal one to his shoulder. He shudders with the thought. 

Sam was good at distractions. It was a talent, truly. Multiple Chinese takeout containers were littered across the coffee table, reruns of Masterchef playing across the screen as you, Sam, Wanda, Bruce, and later on Bucky, eat in almost silence. 

Bucky was freshly showered, taking a seat next to the recliner that he had placed you in the day before, the one you were currently sitting in, before making himself a plate and sitting back to watch Gordon Ramsay expertly debone a fish. 

“Could you debone a fish Buck?” Sam asked, this is what he’s good at. Bucky scoffed, slurping up his lo mien. 

“Of course I can, what kind of question is that?” Sam smirked, looking over at you and then back to Bucky. 

“Yeah, but not as good as Ramsay, look at the dude.” He gestured towards the man laying out the portioned filets and perfectly removed bones. Bucky rolled his eyes, having shoveled the first half of his plate into his mouth so fast you hadn’t even seen him eat. 

“I can debone a fish twice as fast.” Sam scoffed. He was challenging him. 

“There’s a salmon in the fridge with your name on it buddy.” Bucky glared at him, you all knew what Sam was doing, but none of you were fighting it. 

“Start timing me.” The plates were abandoned and the group of you circled around the kitchen counter, Wanda holding her phone up to record, Sam using the stopwatch on his phone to time him. The whole fish laying out on the butchers block in front of him, knives at the ready. It was possibly the hottest thing you’ve ever seen in your entire life. 

Bucky was a good cook. A decent cook you should say. Steve, when he was a kid and they were living in that shitty apartment in Brooklyn, Bucky would make stews out of almost nothing. A trick he had learned from his Ma. That you remembered from one time you were making a stew and freezing out portions to be more cost effective. You remembered the smell of their kitchen, Bucky with an apron tied around his waist, still in his grey jumpsuit from the canary. Youthful and sweet. His short hair curled on his forehead from the steam coming from the pot. 

He deboned the fish and portioned it out in less than a minute. The food scale in the kitchen weighed each portion as an even 3.8 oz. 

“Well I guess we are having that for dinner tomorrow night.” Sam joked. He elbowed his friend grinning, Bucky looked so proud of himself. He should be. It was an interesting party trick. His dexterity with knives were not just for disarming people, but it could be used for something more wholesome. 

The rest of dinner was eaten in a content silence, Sam booing when the one person he liked on the show accidentally burned their fish and was eliminated. 

You liked this. It was better than going to work and coming home to an empty house. Eating dinner alone and laying in bed scrolling through your phone until you fell asleep. Today was tiring though and you couldn’t wait to go to bed as you helped everyone clean up the mess. There were no leftovers thanks to Bruce who you were sure could put any restaurant out of business just from the sheer volume he could eat now, so it was mainly packing up containers and tossing them. Washing plates. 

“So why don’t we take a break from the prodding and you come to the VA tomorrow?” Sam asked, handing you a plate to place in the dishwasher. Your eyes flickered over to Bucky who was wrapping up the trash to throw down the chute. You know he can hear you, but he’s not making any motion to let you know. 

“If that’s alright?” You ask, watching Bucky’s retreating back. 

“Hey,” Sam brings your attention back to him, “You know how hard this is for him, but it’s hard for you too. You can’t just sacrifice your feelings for someone else. He’ll be okay.” You wanted to believe him. You really did, but everything in your body is telling you Bucky wasn’t okay. It was hard. 

“I’ll think about it,” You sighed, turning to close to dishwasher, “I’ll see you in the morning?” Sam smiled, hugging you softly. 

“Sleep well kid,” Wanda had already retired to her room and Bruce to his, which left you crossing an empty common room back to your own bedroom. 

Bucky was leaning against your door, the dim light from your room illuminating him. You were hesitant to move any closer. He looked at you silently for a moment, gesturing into the room, “Can we talk?” Your heart skipped a beat, 

“Yeah,” You said, “Of course.” 

You’ve been in this room a couple days now, the neutral tones making it look more like a hotel room than a person’s actual bedroom but you weren’t sure how long you’d be staying so personal effects weren’t really a high priority. You had a couple pictures of family, but most surfaces stayed barren. A well worn college sweatshirt was tossed on your bed, but Bucky surely noticed that the room didn’t look typically lived in. 

He sat himself in the chair that Wanda had previously used beside your bed. The one Steve was sitting in this morning. You almost stopped him from sitting there, as though you were waiting for Steve to come take a spot there to watch the conversation that was about to happen. You were unsure whether or not you should close the door, but seeing as you were the only person residing in this hallway you decided to leave it open. 

You sat on the bed across from him, waiting for him to speak. The two of you awkwardly sat in silence for a minute, Bucky’s mouth opening and closing a few times before he began, 

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick to you,” He started. 

“I understand, it’s okay.” You shifted nervously in your seat. His eyes met yours, 

“It’s not okay, you didn’t deserve it.” He tugs his bottom lip between his teeth nervously, “All of this is out of your control and instead of trying to help you, I’ve been keeping my distance and I’ve been relatively cold.” 

“You made me breakfast yesterday and helped me use the bathroom.” You offered. His lips turned into a terse smile, 

“That doesn’t exactly make me a good person, doll.” Doll. Term of endearment or habit? He sighed heavily, rubbing his eyes, “Today… in the MRI machine…” Your throat almost felt as though it was closing up, the air thick in the room. It was hard to breathe. “You feel everything he felt?” He asks. 

“I’ve told you that before I…” You trailed off, picking at a stray string on the pillowcase. 

“You said you could feel the same emotions he felt, but not like…” The scream was echoing in his head, the bloodcurdling scream, “It’s intense?” His chapped bottom lip bled with how hard he bit it. 

“It’s like…” You stood from the bed, creating some distance because he was all of a sudden too close. “It’s like losing you for real.” You explained. His head snapped up to look at you and you felt his eyes boring into your back. “Steve’s emotions and memories… everything he’s ever felt.” You started, “It’s like I know all of you already and none of you know me. I feel…” Your face flushed with embarrassment, growing hot under the pressure. 

“Like I’m your best friend?” You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, turning back to him. His expression unclear to you. 

“LIke you’re my best friend,” You felt tears well up in your eyes. You were so sick of fucking crying. “And you want nothing to do with me.” Coming out as a whisper. Bucky sat back in the chair, studying you for a minute. 

“This is hard,” His eyes rolled up to the ceiling, “So fucking hard.”

“I know,” You cried, wiping at your eyes quickly trying to stop the tears, “I know.” He stood from his chair and slowly made his way over to you, wrapping his arms around your body and pulling you tightly to his chest. Fuck if this isn’t what you so desperately needed, your arms wrapping around him just as tightly. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispered into your hair, “I’m really going to try, I promise.” Your hands were clenched tightly in his t shirt, tears dampening the chest. 

“I don’t know what to do.” You admitted, muffled against him. 

“Come to the VA tomorrow,” He offered, “We can start there.” 

We can start there. 

.

.

.

TAGLIST //  @bookish-shristi​ @nutellakirb​ @witch-of-letters​ @torntaltos​ @emotionallysalty​ @gemgemswift @albinotigerpython​

[lasercruz]

@quarterdollar​ fuck you and im sorry that i took so long to answer and i hope that im mostly coherent because i am. very tired as im typing this

1: Full name Nicky Jackie Marie Cruz !!

2: Age 21

3: 3 Fears Mold, tall heights if I’m not secured (like, I’m not scared of rollercoaster heights but I’m scared of like, cliffs), and balloons esp balloon animals

4: 3 things I love I love so many things uhh hh h. Jjba, adventure zone, and my friendssss 💞

I know turn ons/offs aren’t inherently sexual but i never know what to say for them so im skipping them :0

7: My best friend you 🥺🥺

8: Sexual orientation bi

9: My best first date ive never really been on a actual date :0

10: How tall am I 5′3

11: What do I miss being with my friends physically and just watching stuff or goofing around on the floor 😭

12: What time were I born 11:02pm

13: Favourite color Dark blues

14: Do I have a crush yes shh

15: Favourite quote there so much sappy quotes that are on uquizzes a lot that i like a lot the first that comes to mind is “ You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you.” and so on and also “if i loved you less i might be able to talk about it more”

16: Favourite place As far as just physically and not like people or other stuff that comes with with a place, I miss VT campus a lot tbh more than I thought I would. To pick a more specific place, the gazebo at the duck pond cause its where I’d go if I wanted to be alone or like if my roommate was sleeping or working and i didnt want to worry about being quite and it was always super peaceful

17: Favourite food I dont really have One favorite food it just depends what I’m in the mood for but my go to answer for favorite food category wise is either chinese or seafood

18: Do I use sarcasm Depends who I’m with ?? Generally no not often but if im close with someone and just goofin yeah

19: What am I listening to right now My love song playlist. its my go to thing to listen to cause my playlist with all my music has so much on it that i end up skipping half the songs until i find something im in the mood for and this one has a lot less that i end up skipping. the current song its on is day without you by keep for cheap

20: First thing I notice in new person It depends on the person like if they have something that stands out about them, thats what I tend to notice but like. How they carry themself i guess ? cause i feel like thats a easy way to get a read on somebody before talking to them

21: Shoe size 5 mens / 7 womans

22: Eye color Brown

23: Hair color Naturally dark brown but currently dyed black with rainbow bangs

24: Favourite style of clothing this question is on so many ask games and quizzes and I never know how to answer it cause i feel like i dont really have one specific style,, I like colorful and fun stuff i guess ?

25: Ever done a prank call?  No and if you prank call a place of business youre annoying. i used to answer phones at work and we didn’t get them super often but GOD i hate prank callers

27: Meaning behind my URL emu is an old nickname and what i mainly went by until i settled on Nicky and this. is my blog.

28: Favourite movie Baby driver !!

29: Favourite song my go to answer for this is community gardens by the scary jokes

30: Favourite band THE SCARY JOKES

31: How I feel right now sleeby,,,,

32: Someone I love i love , my friendz ,, 🥺🥰

33: My current relationship status single ✌️

34: My relationship with my parents im close to my mom but i dont really get along with my dad ,

35: Favourite holiday Christmas !

36: Tattoos and piercing i have no tattoos, 3 piercings in each ear (2 on each earlobe and 1 on the top on each side)

37: Tattoos and piercing i want I want a interrobang on my wrist and an Aquarius symbol on my ankle and MAYBE the joestar birthmark, i wouldn’t mind more ear piercings and i want a septum piercing but ive seen videos of them getting done and they make me squirm i dont know if id go through with it

38: The reason I joined Tumblr sdklgkjgh i had a my little pony roleplay blog before i made my personal account

39: Do I and my last ex hate each other? no we’re good friends !!

40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts? no not regularly at least

41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted? no

42: When did I last hold hands? my mom tried to hold my hand when i was half asleep on the couch the other day but like i was so out of it so like it was more our fingers together and the rest of my hand just loosely dangling so if that doesnt count, you

43: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning? i give myself about 2 hours if im doing full makeup but thats purposefully longer than i need so i dont have to worry about rushing and i can relax and take my time

44: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days? no i only shave them if they’re gonna be showing or if the Urge to be Smooth comes over me

45: Where am I right now? my room at home on my bed

46: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me? probably Kaylie cause she doesn’t drink and i assume if im drunk with other friends there she’d be the only sober one

47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? Reasonable, if i have it too loud i cant think so the only time i  have my music loud is if im doing nothing and want to Not Think

48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad? Ye

49: Am I excited for anything? short term im excited for the ai crushes all banks stream tonight and long term im excited to move into our apartment 

50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? no im not a tell everything to someone type of person .

51: How often do I wear a fake smile? i smile most of the time like, at work (before we wore masks) id always be smiling to look nice and like. just in general if i want to Not Look Unhappy or whatever

52: When was the last time I hugged someone? my mom probably like, yesterday

53: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me? ive never kissed any1     .

54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not?  nope i don’t think i really trust easily so like this doesnt rlly happen,

55: What is something I disliked about today? i woke up late cause i was up late last night so ive been tired all day I dont like the feeling

56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? language barriers aside itd be super cool to meet hirohiko araki

57: What do I think about most? Whatever media im currently most into so right now adventure zone and magnus archives

58: What’s my strangest talent? umm i dunno im kinda flexable i guess ? not like ~contortionist~ level but like enough that i can freak people out sometimes

59: Do I have any strange phobias? i mentioned balloons as a fear in an eariler question so yeah that but im a lot better about it than i used to be

60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? in front tbh

61: What was the last lie I told? i was on phones for the last hour and a half of my shift on friday and like. when people call and ask if an item is in stock and i can’t confirm it i, just tell them its not. like, someone asked if we had a specific kayak and i usually just search the walmart app or run over to where itd be to check but the kayaks are to far for me to run to and the app said limited stock which usually means little to none so , i just put it on hold for a bit then tell him we’re out.

62: Do I perfer talking on the phone or video chatting online? i like video chatting in theory cause its nice to see people visibly react to stuff but i tend to get too self conscious about how i look so i  just do audio only

63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? yes to both !! i am both

64: Do I believe in magic? yes in some ways i suppose

65: Do I believe in luck? yes im v superstitious

66: What’s the weather like right now? its a pretty good day its sunny but not too hot :oo

67: What was the last book I’ve read? its been ages since i last read a book in full 😔  i honestly dont knwo what the last one would of been 😔 😔

68: Do I like the smell of gasoline? yes !!! love it

69: Do I have any nicknames? not anything i get consistently called no

70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had? ive never gotten super hurt that i can think of ??

71: Do I spend money or save it? save it

72: Can I touch my nose with a tounge? no

73: Is there anything pink in 10 feets from me? doppio bean plush ,,,,

74: Favourite animal? hedgehogs!!!!

75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM? on my phone probably on tiktok or something waiting for jojo to come on toonami

76: What do I think is Satan’s last name is? I? dont think he has one i guess ??

77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? butterflies by samsa but it makes me happy in the “im crying now” kinda way itss cute

78: How can you win my heart? just by being nice and respectful tbh ,

79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone? idk i dont really want anything fancy just my name (chosen name please god im so scared of dying and geting my birth name on my tombstone if that happens i WILL come back as a vengeful ghost) and my birth and death dates

80: What is my favorite word? saccharine

81: My top 5 blogs on tumblr by my tumblr crushes (which its been YEARS since i looked at) ; frostios, 27names4tears, smollpurrito, happynaru, and warpedlamp

82: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say? if we being real id just get so scared dsjkfsldjglg  theres so much i could say i dont know :((

83: Do I have any relatives in jail? not ? that i know of 

84: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power? why are all the questions worded super basic except this one skdlskdjfj. Shape shifting

85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on? i can really think of anything really as long as a friend is asking i tend to answer truthfully ?

86: What is my current desktop picture? Sobble BUT this reminded me that i wanted to change it to a xenoblade pic so its this now :

90: Failed a class? no

91: Kissed a boy? no

92: Kissed a girl? no

93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? no but oh god just thinking about that im 🥺🥺🥺🥺 id die id melt 🥺🥺

94: Had job? ye i was a cashier for a year in highschool and then i work in wamlart apparel in the summers

95: Left the house without my wallet? not when I know ill need it no, but ive left it home if im just going to a friend or family member’s house or i have my mom’s card or some cash in my pocket

96: Bullied someone on the internet? no !!

98: Played on a sports team? no lmao i dont do sports

99: Smoked weed? no

100: Did drugs? i had a weed brownie like once but it was such a small piece i didnt really feel anything

101: Smoked cigarettes? no

102: Drank alcohol? Ye

103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan? not currently i was vegan for a little bit to encourage a friend that was doing it though

104: Been overweight? no

105: Been underweight? no

106: Been to a wedding?  yes three, my grandma’s when she got remarried, and both my brothers

107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight? probably yes lmao often

108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight? not TV TV but if netflix and the like count then yes

109: Been outside my home country? no :(

110: Gotten my heart broken? not ? really no

111: Been to a professional sports game? ive been to a handful of Yankee games

112: Broken a bone? no

114: Been to prom? yes i went to my highschool’s and a friend’s highschool’s my senior year

115: Been in airplane? no

116: Fly by helicopter? no

117: What concerts have I been to? none :((((

118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex? ye

119: Learned another language? i took 3 years of Spanish in high school but i wasn’t any good at it and dont really remember much of what i did learn

120: Wore make up? yes i do often :0

123: Dyed my hair? ye a lot

124: Voted in a presidential election? yes ever since iv been old enough to i vote

125: Rode in an ambulance? no

126: Had a surgery?  dental surgery yes

127: Met someone famous? Not anyone i’d count no

128: Stalked someone on a social network? depends on what you count as stalking i guess but like not ever in a creepy way like ive been on people’s social media to find out stuff about them like. if theyre in a relationship or especially after highschool ill wonder about someone i havent talked to in awhile and ill see what theyve been up to and what theyre doing with their life and stuff

129: Peed outside? no

130: Been fishing? yes like once

131: Helped with charity? donation wise yes

132: Been rejected by a crush? ive never confessed to anyone and been rejected but once a friend told my crush i liked them and they confronted me about it and rejected me but it made me more mad at the friend that told them than it made me sad about being rejected because i knew it’d probably go like that  and it justmade thing awkward between us for awhile  😔

133: Broken a mirror? ive broken the little mirrors inside eyeshadow pallets but i havent broken full ones

134: What do I want for birthday? usually just money lol or something thoughtful and cute

135: How many kids do I want and what will be their names? i aggresivly do NOT want kids BUT hypohetically Elliot or Xander for a boy and idk what i’d nam a girl

136: Was I named after anyone? no

137: Do I like my handwriting?  its messy so no not really but if im writing something for myself like a not or whatever i dont mind as long as i can read it

138: What was my favourite toy as a child? even as a little kid i always played computer games but other than that, this guy :

139: Favourite Tv Show? Jojo

140: Where do I want to live when older? New york or japan

141: Play any musical instrument? i can kind of play harmonica

142: One of my scars, how did I get it? i burnt my thumb kinda bad on the oven a while ago its still kinda healing but right now it looks like its gonna stay a scar

143: Favourite pizza toping? i like everything/suprieme pizza but if i have to pick one single topping pepperoni

144: Am I afraid of the dark? yes :((

145: Am I afraid of heights? mentioned it earlier but yes if im not strapped in or secured etc

146: Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad? no im so scared of being caught doing something bad that i just. dont

147: Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end? i mean yes but thats life babey

149: What my greatest achievments are ive gotten awards for grades and stuff but that boring BUT i got the english department award or whatever that was called im very proud of that

151: What I’d do if I won in a lottery i donate some and save the rest tbh

152: What do I like about myself i can be pretty  sometimes 👉👈 im cute or whateva ,,,

153: My closest Tumblr friend i dont really havent “tumblr friends” aside from friends i know irl and also tey have tumblrs ,,

154: Something I fantasise about just. growing up and having my own place maybe with someone and. being comfortable and  okay and not having to worry ,,

155: Any question you’d like? dkfjhdskhf japan :000

[jflashandclash]

Tales From Mount Othrys

Fidget Spinners IV

           Once they were aboard the Ferry of the Dead, riding down the River Styx with Charon in his proper creepy and grim black robe, Alabaster stopped vomiting. The ship was an old Greek vessel, something Matthias could have identified immediately. They sat as far from the stern as possible. Apparently this boat was usually brimming with ghosts, but Charon had shoved the three of them aboard in such a hurry, less ghosts had flooded the space.

         This gave them the room to sit on the edge of the boat so Pax, Lou Ellen, and Alabaster could stare off at the inky, polluted river. They wanted to be as far from the ferryman as possible. Charon was cursing under his breath, something about children being electrocuted in bathtubs and getting into car accidents.

         Maybe, in a normal tour, Pax might have been excited by the black stalactites and terrifying horror movie set. For now, all he could do was rub Alabaster’s back. Lou Ellen sat on his other side, pulling one finger off and putting it back in a different one’s place, frequently messing it up. This was her way of acting concerned.

         After he was certain Charon couldn’t overhear them, Pax whispered, “You died coming after us?!”

         Before now, he couldn’t process what was happening enough to ask. The sight of Alabaster with his intestines dragging on the floor and blood spewing out of his mouth—it was enough to make Pax tremble more. And he was already trembling pretty hard in this cold cavern.

         “Of course I died!” Alabaster’s voice rose, making Pax and Lou Ellen flinch. “How else would I be in the Underworld?!”

         Tears threatened to spill down Pax’s cheeks. He could hear Lou Ellen sniffling. Crying would really make her missing-eye illusion less believable.

         Alabaster sighed. Pax thought he was reaching for something in his pocket.

         Alabaster wasn’t. He grabbed the end of his intestines. Casually, the child of Hecate wound them up around one wrist. Once he got towards the end, he ripped off a chunk.

         Pax shrieked.

         “Be quiet,” Alabaster snarled. Softer, he grumbled, “And Mercedes thinks you can keep it cool in enemy territory.”

         Pax wanted to point out that enemies (hopefully) wouldn’t be ripping off pieces of their organs. Was that a thing they did in Camp Half-Blood? Did Percy Jackson, in fact, an organ-eating zombie?

         Before Pax could withdraw his hand, Alabaster shoved the chunk into Pax’s palm.

         Pax almost screamed again. Maybe this was an experience he should have smiled upon—after all, it isn’t every day that your crush tries to hand you an organ, granted, a heart might be better.

         “I knew you idiots wouldn’t bring enough snacks,” Alabaster hissed, shoving another chunk into Lou Ellen’s hands.

         “Oh my mother…” Lou Ellen whispered.

         Pax didn’t want to watch as she held up the chunk for investigation. Then he saw what she saw. The scent of iron vanished like it had been a whiff from a distant breeze. That chunk had some kind of label covered in blood—not blood.

         Pax sniffed.

         The scent of barbeque sauce became overwhelming.

         He rubbed his own chunk with his thumb. The sauce smeared to reveal a packaged sausage, like the kind you’d have on a cheese platter. There was even a bright label on the protective packaging.

         Pax stared at his hand. The spell had been so convincing.

         Lou Ellen made a low whistle. “You’re good,” she said, “Titans, can you teach me how to do that?”

         “When you have enough discipline to pull off your nose instead of your chin,” Alabaster scolded.

         Pax couldn’t think about the spell or the sausage.

         He threw his arms around Alabaster.

         Alabaster made a grunt of annoyance.

         Slowly and firmly, as though not to draw attention to them, Alabaster removed Pax’s arms. There was an embarrassed hue to his pale cheeks as he scowled from Pax to Lou Ellen. “You didn’t come to me to devise this plan?” he demanded.

         “We thought you’d be mad,” Lou Ellen meeped. She sheepishly poked at the fake dent in her head. By comparison to Alabaster’s effects, hers looked like something out of a D-rate horror movie.

         “Oh, I am mad. When we get back, I’m killing you, and then you’ll have to march right back in there and explain to Charon how you’ve shown up twice, then you’ll have to see what he does with you,” Alabaster said.

         Pax couldn’t help but grin. Threats aside, he couldn’t handle looking at this very-much-alive Alabaster. It was cute thinking about it: Alabaster finding their, “Went to Underworld. Will bring back souvenirs,” note and stuffing a bunch of sausage links into his shirt, cussing at the confused centaur that could swear he just took Alabaster and Lou Ellen off the ship. He really cared. At least about Lou Ellen.

         “Are you making us go back?” she whispered, shuffling away from a wandering soul and closer to her brother. Pax understood. Everything here was cold. Touching another warm person was a nice reminder of the above world.

         “How, pray tell, am I to make you go back in our current situation?” Alabaster closed his eyes and rubbed his eyelids. “Mercedes warned me you’d want to go after Axel. I didn’t think the two of you would be stupid enough to throw away your life chasing him or smart enough to get off the boat undetected.”

         Lou Ellen and Pax exchanged a glance over Alabaster’s shoulders. Neither could decide if the comment was more compliment or insult.  

         “So, we’re going after Axel?” Pax clarified.

         “We’re certainly not going back the way we came. I have no interest in angering Charon on his own boat,” Alabaster said.

         That meant that Alabaster had come down here with his own plan. Even if he didn’t have one when he left, trying to catch them before they went into DOA Recording Studios, he would have come up with one by now. Before Pax could hear any awesome details, their ship pulled up along black sand.

         Pax guessed that Hades hadn’t heard the memo—that pink was the new black. If Pax ever got scared while he was down here, he would have to remember to visualize the Underworld in various shades of Easter egg with magenta stalactites meeting a sparkling, rose floor. His stomach dropped about what shade of pink the river would be with its thick eddies. That went too Mayan in his head.

         Alabaster tossed the plastic-wrapped suit backwards into the boat, quickly shuffling the younger two off. They didn’t wait to hear what Charon thought of the contents.

         They walked towards the airport-like security with ghoulish attendants separating people into various lines. There were signs above the lines, ones that Pax couldn’t read since the letters jumbled into incomprehension.

         A low whine, like that of an injured puppy, echoed around the chamber. Yea, there were wails too, but those were human wails. Pax was way less interested in those. He couldn’t find the source of the animal noises until Lou Ellen tugged furiously on his jacket.

         Pax didn’t know how he missed the view before. Unlike Alabaster, Lou Ellen, and Axel, he struggled to see through the Mist. Even so, the Mist deserved a pay raise.

         A few yards ahead of them was a massive Rottweiler with three heads. Maybe the truck-sized dog would have normally been intimidating; Pax had heard some intimidating stories about Cerberus. Instead, the dog just looked pathetic, curled up and nursing a paw. Pax could see why.

         There was a sword imbedded between two toes.

         “He’s hurt!” Pax cried.

         “Ajax, no,” Alabaster growled.

         Lou Ellen joined in the cry, “We have to help him.”

         “What part of—”

         “Please!” Pax and Lou Ellen said together.

         “Grant me the patience of the Furies,” Alabaster said under his breath.

         One of the heads must have caught their scent. It perked up and glanced in their direction, growling.

         The other two were licking at the injured paw still. He looked cute, the way a monster truck might if painted with bambis and rabbits.

         Alabaster stopped in his tracks. He fumbled with his intestines—sausages. Pax really needed to stop thinking of sausage as intestines. “Who do you think stabbed him?” he asked in his you’re stupid if you can’t answer this question and I know you too well to let you play dumb. “See many stray demigods wandering down here with blades?”

         “It wasn’t Axel,” Pax said. Axel was obsessed with mythical creature rights and would have known Cerberus was just doing his job. One caged animal to another—Axel would have likely tried to play-wrestle with the beast. “I’ll bet it was Luke.”

         “Yea, Luke’s an asshole,” Lou Ellen said.

         The two of them vigorously nodded their heads towards Alabaster.

         “Lou Ellen,” Alabaster chided, “I expect more creative insults than vulgarity. And you aren’t going to win me over by insulting Castellan.”

         Despite him saying that, the corner of his lips twitched into a smile. Until then, Pax hadn’t realized how glad he was to have Alabaster along. The Witch Boy would know his way around the Underworld, or Pax guessed he would. Alabaster held that easy calm, even amongst the dead.

         Pax and Lou Ellen would have feigned calm confidence. But, uh, that would have only lasted so long as they got closer to the line’s attendants.

         Another of Cerberus’ heads noticed their movement. It raised and joined in the low growl.

         The noise didn’t seem to bother Alabaster. “How were you planning on getting past?” he asked, gathering the rest of the sausages from his waist—he must have wrapped them under his shirt, and withdrawing them like a towel around a hand wound.

“We brought a chew toy,” Lou Ellen said. Pax could tell that she wanted to sound proud, but had realized a flaw in their plan. There were three heads and only one chew toy.

“Seriously?” Alabaster’s growl chimed in with Cerberus’.

“I heard it worked for Annabeth,” Pax said.

         Although Pax couldn’t see it, he could feel Alabaster roll his eyes. “The amount of inconvenience that girl has caused,” he said under his breath.

         Pax hesitated. Cerberus’ growls were making his body vibrate. This dog was massive, the size of a truck. Pax didn’t even come up to Cerberus’ chest and Cerberus was half-laying down. One of his heads still licked the sword hilt imbedded in his paw. Focus on that, Pax thought, and not on how his teeth are about as long as that sword.

         “We have a treat for you!” Alabaster called. His voice was way too cold for dealing with a ball of cute fluffiness and death. Pax had a feeling that Alabaster had never been allowed pets as a child. Other than Axel and Pax. Pax was fairly certain that they were pets to Alabaster.

         Cerberus stood up. When he applied pressure to his front paw, all three heads whimpered. They pulled the paw up slightly, to alleviate the pressure.

         “Go fix his paw if you wish. I can only hold him for a few moments with this,” Alabaster said. “If you take too long or are sloppy, you’ll get yourself killed.”

         For an instant, Pax wondered if Alabaster was nervous. The Witch Boy unwrapped a link of sausage and tossed it into the air towards Cerberus.

         The two heads less affected by the wound snapped at it, nipping at each other to bite it to pieces, probably the same way they would do with Pax’s limbs if he was caught.  

         Its breath flooded over them, almost as bad as Pax’s little brother’s, Hiro’s breath.

         “You suck at this,” Lou Ellen said, pulling a link from Alabaster. “You heard him, Pax. Have fun getting that sword out. Hey puppers! Look what I got for you puppers!”

         Her voice raised in pitch and excitement. The sentiment worked. Cerberus sat upright, letting his butt drop back onto the ground. From what Pax had heard of Annabeth’s interactions with this dog, he thought their red ball plan might have worked with Lou Ellen’s charm. Uh—natural charm. No witchy charm required.

         Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them, realizing Lou Ellen had volunteered him for the harder job. His heartbeat pounded in his head. It’s just a cute, injured puppy, he told himself, It just so happens that it wouldn’t need to chew to swallow you.

         Alabaster gave Lou Ellen a look that might have been reproachful or approving. He handed her the rest of the sausage as Cerberus’ short tail thumped against the black sand, echoing around the chamber. Pax thought it was weird that interacting with this dog wasn’t a red flag for the Underworld Security. What dead person wanted to poke at the landowner’s attack dog?

         Alabaster made a few signs in the air around Pax’s head, muttering in Latin. Was he making him invisible? Or at least making him blend in with the stone? Or smell less like a delicious treat? Pax hoped all of the above. When Pax glanced down at his hands, they still looked visible and potentially delicious to a monster.

         “We don’t have enough sausages for you to hesitate,” Lou Ellen said.

         Pax swallowed. He thought about Juana, Axel’s jaguar. Their father bought it for him a few months after they were forced back “home.” Axel warned his siblings not to go near Juana without him, since she could tear them to shreds. Juana was a tenth the size of Cerberus.

         From what he knew of Juana, there was no point in trying to sneak up. He approached Cerberus’ injured paw, hands outstretched in attempt to look non-threatening. Not that a 4’7 rail of cuteness could look threatening.

The other two heads were locked on Lou Ellen, or fighting over bits of sausage she threw.

         The last head faced him. The eyes didn’t quite focus on Pax, showing Alabaster’s spell must have done something. Pax heartbeat thudded in his head as he took the last few steps to Cerberus’ foot. The dog hadn’t batted him out of existence yet.

         The head whimpered and pulled its paw closer to its body.

         “It’s okay,” Pax said, the way he did when his littlest brother had a nightmare. “I just want to help. It’ll be quick, like ripping off a Band Aid.”

         That felt like a threat to Pax. Just gonna take that sharp, pointy thing in your paw and move it around a bit.

         “Pax,” Alabaster said in warning.

         Pax didn’t look over to see why. He figured it had to do with how the middle head had turned to sniff furiously in his direction.

         Now or to Xibalba, Pax thought. He wrapped his fingers around the cold metal of the hilt and pulled up, trying not to twist the blade or yank at an angle.

         It slid out easily.

         Pax wanted to gloat about the Sword in the Paw and how he’d be king of the Cerberi.

         His mouth went dry instead.

         When he wretched the blade out, dark liquid splattered up from the paw. Something clear and goopy dropped on his head from above—saliva.

Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them, looking up. The other two heads glowered down at him. Their teeth were barred within inches of his face. Their low growl rattled his skull.

He trembled, thinking at least one good thing would come out of this: if he died in the Underworld, he didn’t need to worry about going through Charon’s Waiting Room again.  

 ***

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! And I hope you and your loved ones are staying healthy and safe!

Stay tuned next week for part X!

[peachywise]

nullify part 3

an umbrella academy fanfiction // klaus hargreeves x reader

- part iii: the difference between truths and lies || part i ⋆ part ii ⋆ part iv ⋆ part v ⋆ part vi ⋆ more parts to be released

- synopsis: Klaus may have terrified your neighbour, broken an unspoken contract, and overall just acted like an absolute ass, but hell. That wasn't anything compared to how shitty your first meeting went when you met the rest of his family.

- notes: Sorry, this chapter took a little longer to get up than expected! Then again, it was delayed because I got a puppy, so yeah man I'm not that sorry lmao. Hope you enjoy! Swearing and minor violence TW.

link on ao3 

________________________

“Did you break my lamp?”

Looking over his shoulder, Klaus peered at the tall beige light lying haphazardly on your floor, its shade squished to shit with little pieces of broken light bulb scattered around. It also just so happened to be right beside the window he had crawled in to get here.

“Would you believe me if I said it was like that when I got here?”

You pinched the bridge of your nose. Patience. You had to have patience. Granted, that would be easier to achieve if you also had a lamp that was intact.

“Hey, if it makes you feel any better, it made a loud enough crash and you didn’t even wake up. Would have thought you were dead if I wasn’t such a brilliant expert on the subject already.” Crossing the room to stand in front of you, he lowered his voice slightly, asking, “what pills do you take for it? Never seen anything like it.”

“Nothing. Just the sheer anger and exhaustion that comes from having been born,” you bluntly stated, only half-joking.

He tilted his head in a funny nod. “Ah, yes. That would do the trick.”  Shaking your head, a little amused despite it all, you brushed past him to grab one of your canvas bags hanging by the front door. In doing so, Klaus’s eyes fell down to your hand, only just noticing the object clasped in your grasp. His face contorted in confusion “Are you actually bringing that clock with you? I was joking when I suggested it, sweetheart.”

Slipping the clock in the bag—which was little more than a defensive weapon now—you snorted. “I’m not taking any chances.” You’d already had a plate thrown at you, a spoon, and a pot dropped on your stomach, and that was all in less than twenty-four hours. If they were going to keep tossing ridiculous objects your way, then the clock was yours to use freely as far as you were concerned.

You almost wanted to smack him over the head with it again to avenge your fallen lamp. At least that’s why you told yourself you wanted to.

“Remind me why I agreed to go meet them, again?” You muttered, slinging your bag over your shoulder as you slipped some sneakers on. Klaus moved back over to your window, gingerly stepping over your lamp like he was afraid of damaging it more than he already had. How nice of him.

“Because I’m incredibly charming. And if you’re thinking of backing out, you aren’t going to get the ice cream cone I was going to treat you too on our midday stroll.”

Well, shit. Couldn’t say no to that.

“Let’s go, then."

Klaus’s grin was way too big, his face a little too excited. It was the same as that almost anticipative, hopeful look in his eyes you saw when you first met. The near intensity that he looked at you was enough to unnerve even the most confident of people. It was confusing. You had begun to think about what they could need. Clearly, they weren’t as interested in your forcefields ability of simple defense, given Five’s early dismissal of it. He was way more interested in learning you could nullify powers. At the very least you knew you could cancel out Klaus’s. Most likely they just needed you to do that with someone else. The question was, who was it?

Moving to unlock your door, you heard a familiar swish and click of a window. Turning back around, you noticed Klaus trying to squeeze himself through it, his body already halfway out.

“I genuinely can’t tell if you’re doing that to be funny, or because you forgot we could leave out the front door.”

Stalling just before he stuck his second foot out on your fire escape, he stayed still for a beat then backtracked, maneuvering himself inside the apartment once more. Clearing his throat as he stood upright, he murmured, “I was just following Ben’s lead,” walking past you to swing the front door open. “Well come on, we haven’t got all day. Early bird gets the worm and all that."

Patting Klaus’s arm condescendingly, you stated a little loudly simply in hopes ghost boy was actually still in the room, “with how much I assume Klaus pins his stupid stunts on you, it's a travesty that you haven't been anointed to sainthood, Ben.”

“Please,” Klaus scoffed, throwing his arm over your shoulder as you moved out in the hallway, closing the door and locking it behind you. “You can’t even hear him and you believe him over me?”

Shrugging his arm off, you span around and walked backward, facing him. “Are you kidding? Currently, he’s my favourite because I can’t hear him. It’s blissful.”

Klaus was about to shoot something back at you, his face lighting with the knowing signs of amusement, but stopped himself before he could begin. Oh, so no clever come back? You’d gotten so used to the rapport you were almost disappointed, despite what you had just previously stated about the quiet.

But then you heard another voice behind you, and Christ, you already dreaded having to explain the presence of your rather scantily clad, eccentrically distinctive acquaintance.  

“Honey, are you okay? I heard some noises coming from your apartment and I was just on my way to check.”

Spinning back around, you gave a tight smile in welcome to your elderly neighbour, Eliza Carr. She was a sweet little woman, albeit nosy as all hell. Shrunken to about 4’9 with overly long grey hair pinned up in a tight bun, you always wondered if she did it too stretch her wrinkles in a make do facelift. Ingenious, really. She’d always kind of reminded you of a fairy. Odd comparison, but it worked when you considered they were often pleasant under the guise cover an impish exterior.

Once you had even caught her looking through your mail. You were pretty sure she had taken a pizza coupon from the stack and hid it in her bra.

“I’m fine, Mrs. Carr. I was just—”

“With me,” Klaus interjected, stepping beside you and looping his arm through yours, pressing you closer to his side as he put on his fake little polite act.

Shit.

Why he interrupted, you had no idea. Maybe it was just his incessant need to hear his own voice, or his need to make his presence known lest he disappears like the invisible ghost who trailed along after him.

“Believe me, I tried to quiet them down but they just can’t keep their hands off! Didn’t help that they ball-gagged me and had my hands and feet tied together, but that’s pretty tame compared to last night.”

Maybe he interrupted because this truly was hell and Klaus was a literal fucking demon given the duty to torment you in every sense of the word. Then Eliza’s hand went to her chest, and you had decided he was actually the grim reaper who just tried to kill the poor old bat.

Widening your eyes, you were completely stunned into silence, unable to cough even the slightest noise or retaliate against his words. Then Eliza dropped her hand and took a small, concerned step forward, reaching that hand out to place it on your forearm in a comforting, though at the moment mortifying, gesture. “Why don’t you come to church with me on Sunday, Hun? I think—”

Sidestepping away from her grasp, you gripped Klaus’s wrist as you finally found your voice again. “Sorry, gotta go! Late for an appointment!” Before she could try to convince you that you needed Jesus—someone who inevitably must have abandoned the earth the moment your present companion was born—you pulled Klaus behind you in your frantic attempt to escape. Then he turned just slightly to yell back at the woman, “we’re trying to adopt! I think we’ll make fantastic parents," as you turned down the hall and raced down the few flights of stairs. Klaus snickered the whole way down.

As soon as you reached the landing of your lobby, musty and welcoming with its stained emerald carpet and all, you dropped his wrist and indignantly ignored him as you exited the building. He trailed behind you like the world’s worst trained mutt. “Give me a minute to catch my breath, will ya?” He huffed, as you walked down the concrete steps and on to the sidewalk. “I’m still a little winded from having that ball gag in my—”

Sticking your leg out casually as he descended from the final step, he comically tripped over it and fell to the ground just as gratifyingly as you had imagined it.  

“Do that again and I’ll shove coal so far down your throat you’ll be shitting diamonds for years to come.”

“You promise?” He smiled, pushing himself off the ground and wiping the gravel from his hands on to his pants. Not like those things could really get any dirtier. “Also, that’s an oddly specific threat. You pick it up from Five? Sounds like him, though it’s a little crude.”

“Do you get off on making a random strangers life hell?” You questioned, crossing your arms over your chest as you glared at him indignantly.

Klaus stepped beside you and bumped his shoulder with yours. Smirking as he bent his face lower to your level, he groaned out, “come on, you had to find it a little funny. That woman probably isn’t a saint herself. Seen plenty of grannies reading Fifty Shades of Grey on the bus. Think she’d want to give it a go with me?”

Okay. It was a little funny.

Taking your silence and the slight upturn of your mouth as a win, he poked your arm as if the last attempt to coax you out of grumpiness. You let out a small laugh. “Fine, whatever,” you conceded, “It was a little funny. But seriously, don’t do it again. She’s tried to get me to go to her church so many times that I think next time she’ll just knock me out and drag me there in her car.”

Chuckling back, he sprang into action as he began walking down the street, calling back, “come on, let’s go get that ice cream.”

“I can’t believe you,” you muttered, pulling the vibrantly pink sunglasses down off your head to cover your eyes, despite being inside.

Klaus turned to glance through his matching pair.

“What? I told you. It will present us as a united front.”

“Not the glasses,” you said, taking another lick of the ice cream. You know, the ice cream that you paid for despite him saying it was his treat? Yeah. At this point, you were just ashamed that you had even believed him. And to trick you with the promise of ice cream, of all things! He was truly and most undoubtedly heinous. “When you say you’re going to treat someone to ice cream, typically that means you’ll pay for it, not just order mine and one for yourself, then look me dead in the eye to tell me to pay the man.”

“Did I not hand it to you? I treated you. It's not my fault you thought I had money.”

Wow. He truly would have thrived in high school debate. How disappointing he was raised to be a freakin’ con man instead.

“You know what? The glasses I was fine paying for. They’re cool. But to make me buy you ice cream, taking back an unspoken contract? Despicable.”

You couldn’t tell if the offended look on Klaus’s face was real or a weak attempt to hide the pleasure you knew he was truly taking from this mindless argument.

“Unspoken contract!” He snorted, exiting the elevator on one of the higher levels of an apartment complex way nicer than your own. “Why are we even having this conversation? We both have ice cream, do we not? I call that a win-win.”

“That’s because you're stupid,” you jeered back, reaching over to take a bite of his ice cream like a passive-aggressive child. He gasped in what seemed like true horror. “Hey, you have your own!” Klaus whined, lifting his ice cream high up like that would actually stop you. You gave him a cheery grin—downright innocent. “I bought it. Both are mine.”

Klaus stopped in front of one of the apartment doors, not even bothering to knock as he swung the door open and entered inside. You followed behind him.

“Honey, I’m home!” He called out, then turned his attention back to you, swooping down to take a bite out of your ice cream in return. You gasped, recoiling back as if he had just tried to take your most precious possession. Man, now you knew how Gollum felt. “Not fair!” You laughed loudly, Klaus’s eyes crinkling as he returned the laughter in kind.  

Then the thunk of something planting itself in the wall right beside your ear had your laughter cutting off rather fast, and you dropped your ice cream too the nicely tiled floor in shock.

Oh, hell no.

“Diego, what did I say?” Echoed a baritone voice from around the corner. Turning your head slightly to stare directly down the hall, you lifted the sunglasses back on your head and made eye contact with one of the family, Diego. Luther soon followed into view and tugged him back.

Klaus muttered a small “uh oh,” beside you.

Peering from the corner of your eye at the knife he had just thrown at you, narrowly missing your head by a fraction of an inch, you turned your attention fully back to Number Two, squinting as you did.

“I am not a fucking steak!” You yelled at him, getting really tired the cutlery this family just kept throwing at you. So tired, in fact, that you ignored the man’s inquisitive look in favour of scrounging in your bag, pulling out your broken clock and throwing it with the intent to clock him on the head, no pun intended. Instead, it just bounced enthusiastically off his chest, falling to the floor and cracking its glass face.

Everything went quiet. Well, apart from the snort Klaus tried so hard to mask by covering his mouth with his hand.

“I don’t see any force field. I told you I don’t trust them,” Diego sneered to Luther, turning back around the corridor with a lasting, “we don’t need to involve anyone else.” You weren't necessarily going to dispute that, but man, he was a bitter boy.

Klaus leaned down close to your ear, whispering, “that was Diego. A ray of sunshine, isn’t he?”

Absolutely delightful.

Luther took that opportune moment to advance towards you too. While his disposition tried to read friendly, you knew underneath it all he was scrutinizing you just as much as the trigger-happy Diego had. Reaching out a gloved hand, you tried hard not to let his intimidating size spook you. When the fuck did he get that big?

“I’m Luther,” he introduced himself, as you shook his hand firmly but briefly.

“I know who you are,” you commented back, dropping his hand and taking a tiny step back. “Care to explain what’s going on?”

A look of confusion fell over his face. “Wait, no one told you?” Wow, the whole family was smart, weren’t they? “Klaus, you were supposed to tell her,” he sighed, turning towards his brother.

“Probably best he didn’t. He’s not the most reliable source for information,” came another voice, slightly higher pitched and overly familiar. Five moved to stand in front of you. “Nice to see you again. Was that a clock you threw?”

“Yes. Probably looks a little different from the Disney themed one you have beside your race car bed, so I understand your confusion.”

The only tell he had of his annoyance was the slightest tick at the corner of his eye. “Are you done and ready to talk like an adult now?”

“What, looking for practice? Can’t remember the last time I played house. Maybe kindergarten.” You were going to milk this as long as you could. It wasn’t just that you were trying to avoid whatever weird, nearly cult-like thing this had evolved into in your mind. It was also because you wanted to see just how much you could push the little tyke’s buttons until he snapped.

And then he snapped.

Giving a small huff, a knowing, almost winning look crossing his features. “And that was before your house burned down with you in it, right? If I recall correctly, that was when you were ten.”

This motherfucker. He knew. He knew everything.

Judging by the perplexed look on Luther’s face, and Klaus’s small exclamation of, “what?” it seemed that he was the only one who did. At that moment, it was the only thing stopping you from falling into a spiraling descent of panic and unbelievable ire.

This wasn’t worth it. No matter your curiosity, this was far from worth it.

Turning to Klaus, you bit out, “I think you need to set the kid down for his afternoon nap. He turns into the world’s biggest asshole when he’s tired,” and then swiftly moved to open the apartment door, slamming it behind you as you left without even saying goodbye.  

[weirdlizard26]

For the ask meme? All of them.

jay,,,

give me a sec to edit this post ok

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?

wine glasses are like reading glasses except you wear them while drinking wine

i’d say water bottles but only the ones that can handle heat and stuff and not poison your drink with plastic or whatever

2. chocolate bars or lollipops?

i havent had a lollipop in a good while so thats my choice

3. bubblegum or cotton candy?

havent tried either but boy i’d love to try just a little bit of cotton candy at leastonce

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you?

bro,,,,,, that was like 10 years ago, how am i supposed to remember that,,,,,,,

5. do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?

i usually drink soda from plastic cups but honestly? nothing beats the experience of sipping that sweet sweet ambrosia from the bottle,,, but also i’d love to try soda in a can some day!

6. pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?

idk what half of these would look like but sportswear always wins in my book

7. earbuds or headphones?

ok i actually googled whats the difference and im more of an earbuds person! theyrejust safer i think and it makes me kinda anxious when im home listening tomusic and cant hear anything going on around me

8. movies or tv shows?

tv shows! well, unless the episodes are like 40 minutes or a full hour because its hard to focus for that long kfjsndkfs

9. favorite smell in the summer?

pavement after rain and also. grass.

10. game you were best at in p.e.?

haha thats a funny joke you made there *starts crying*

11. what you have for breakfast on an average day?

just a couple of meat+cheese+mayo sandwiches! if its summer mom cuts tomatoes or cucumbers for us and as they start getting more and more expensive we replace them with pickles!

12. name of your favorite playlist?

sorry i couldnt choose!

13. lanyard or key ring?

key ring!

14. favorite non-chocolate candy?

aaaa i love fruit flavored ones!

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

aaaaaaaa i dont remember if it was elementary or middle school but we were assigned this really cool ukrainian book that ive actually read before they assigned it. well, nobody here will recognize it but it was Тореадори з Васюківки by Всеволод Нестайко and it was about 2 boys who were best friends growing up in the countryside and they went on adventures and had fun and their friendship made me so happy,,, i guess i was all for cool friendship portrayal even back then! it was mostly laughs and jokes but some moments were actually serious and hit me really hard and i remember them to this day actually

16. most comfortable position to sit in?

its a myth, sitting was created as a personal attack on me

17. most frequently worn pair of shoes?

my trusty old sneakers!! theyre all black and the sole is very soft and nice

18. ideal weather?

when the sun is out and its just warm enough to show off your new graphic tee and also very soft and nice

19. sleeping position?

i just lie on my left side like a fool

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

notebook!

21. obsession from childhood?

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES!!! AND DANNY PHANTOM!!!! i even made a ghost fighting costume once,,,, tho it wasnt much of a costume, it was just fingerless gloves i cut out of paper. they were extremely uncomfortable. but very effective in fighting ghosts!

22. role model?

kfjsdnfk i have a bunch! might sound weird but one of them is bdg i think??? and the other 2 are some online acquaintances whom im too afraid to interact with more often than i do

23. strange habits?

repeating silly lines i hear on tv / in anime/cartoons? and also i never touch food with my right hand unless its plums?? and there are more but. you know. bad memory.

24. favorite crystal?

all of them!!!!!

25. first song you remember hearing?

my grandma used to sing this to me over the phone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUPnqqPXQsw

26. favorite activity to do in warm weather?

go for a walk!

27. favorite activity to do in cold weather?

slep

28. five songs to describe you?

we are the people by empire of the sun

home by cavetown

strawberry blonde by mitski

smile like you mean it by the killers

afterlife by arcade fire

29. best way to bond with you?

wash your hands very thoroughly and make jokes

30. places that you find sacred?

i see nature i go crazy from how much respect i have for it

31. what outfit do you wear to kick ass andtake names?

*wearing hinata cosplay* im here to play volleyball and kick your ass and as you can see ive already played today’s match

32. top five favorite vines?

road work ahead

a avocado!! thanks!!!!!

REBECCA THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK

i fell can you help me :(

that vine where ukulele sounds like human voices and people sounds like ukuleles

33. most used phrase in your phone?

idk how to check that??? sowwy

34. advertisements you have stuck in your head?

the stomach meds ad they keep showing on tv

35. average time you fall asleep?

3am? 4am? idk for sure

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing?

t-trollface…

37. suitcase or duffel bag?

havent used either (cause ive never traveled anywhere too far away) but the latter looks pretty and i feel like it would fit more stuff

38. lemonade or tea?

depends on my mood!

39. lemon cake or lemon meringue pie?

dont kick me but im not sure if ive ever tried either ;w;

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

the school’s cat who hates most people actually kinda warmed up to me even tho im terrible with animals

41. last person you texted?

jay uwu

42. jacket pockets or pants pockets?

afabs cant have both huh

but i want both. please give me both.

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

all of these sound nice but my lazy ass will always go for hoodies

44. favorite scent for soap?

aaaaaaaa im allergic to a lot of soaps but i like flower scented ones

45. which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?

i love all of them dearly but lately ive been more into superheroes i think. im not sure really sure what exactly i feel

46. most comfortable outfit to sleep in?

something really really long

47. favorite type of cheese?

there are different types????

48. if you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

i hope im a pear

49. what saying or quote do you live by?

become a good person. thats all.

50. what made you laugh the hardest you ever have?

i dont remember what it was but i remember i was with my friends and we couldnt stop laughing for several minutes and ive never felt happier

51. current stresses?

UNIVERSITY FUCK OFF!!!

52. favorite font?

i like comic sans

53. what is the current state of your hands?

they arent doing so hot tbh, my dermatitis is back again

54. what did you learn from your first job?

i dont have one!

55. favorite fairy tale?

gonna be honest chief, i dont remember too many of them ;w;

56. favorite tradition?

on new year’s we turn the lights off, light up a candle in the kitchen, laugh at president’s speech and only then starts eating

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

getting over a lost friendship, passing high school finals and uni entrance exams and coming out to my best friend

58. four talents you’re proud of having?

singing!! being able to learn how to do most things pretty quickly!!! and i cant think of anything else but honestly these two are quite enough for me

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

uh oh! guess what! i dont have a catchphrase and im very self-conscious about it!

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

im torn between sports anime and slice of life

61. favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/etc.?

because humans dont have wings we look for other ways to fly

from haikyuu

obviously

62. seven characters you relate to?

tsukishima kei from haikyuu

mae borowski from nitw

apollo justice from ace attorney

flame princess from adventure time

donatello from tmnt

sokka from atla

kageyama shigeo from mob psycho 100

63. five songs that would play in your club?

mr brightside, bohemian rhapsody, smile like you mean it by the killers and allof haikyuu ops and eds

64. favorite website from your childhood?

if social media counts, vkontakte i guess?? i didnt really go anywhere else and it still exists and i thriving so im not sure if it should count fkjsndkjf

65. any permanent scars?

yeah, the one from my very first vaccination from when i was a few months old i think and also some traces of when i had chickenpox

66. favorite flower(s)?

idk a lot of flower names but i really like tulips

67. good luck charms?

dont have any at the moment but i’d love to get one!

68. worst flavor of any food or drink you’ve ever tried?

whatever fish mom used to buy when we were kids >:(

69. a fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?

bro my memory isnt good enough to remember those,,

70. left or right handed?

im a righty but i had to become a lefty for like a month when i broke my pinkie

71. least favorite pattern?

i like traditional ukrainian ornaments

72. worst subject?

history :P

73. favorite weird flavor combo?

ice cream + fries

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen?

idk how pain levels work but i try not to take meds unless the pain is interfering with studying

75. when did you lose your first tooth?

idk but i had a box full of my teeth for so long they turned to dust and i had to throw it away

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

RHNGRHGNRHGRNH EVERYTHING except for freshly made mashed potatoes

77. best plant to grow on a windowsill?

if its green it can stay

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store?

have never had either of those and i hope i never will cause they sound gross!

79. which looks better, your school id photo or your driver’s license photo?

i dont have a license, so.

80. earth tones or jewel tones?

kfjsndfks depends on the mood tbh!

81. fireflies or lightning bugs?

fireflies!

82. pc or console?

i WISH i had a console but this is too broke for that,, i played a couple of times tho and it feels more fun than pc!

83. writing or drawing?

please dont make me choose, ive abandoned both and its making me feel bad

84. podcasts or talk radio?

podcasts :O

84. barbie or polly pocket?

idk what polly pocket is but barbie rules!!!

85. fairy tales or mythology?

i feel like sometimes fairy tales are kinda like watered down myths so i have a right to say i like both

86. cookies or cupcakes?

my heart goes to cookies

87. your greatest fear?

finding out im faking any part of my identity

88. your greatest wish?

get through whatever’s going on right now

89. who would you put before everyone else?

mom

90. luckiest mistake?

when i recorded an undertale medley and got a few notes wrong but it actually ended up sounding better than originally

91. boxes or bags?

boxes!

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

fairy lights……

93. nicknames?

never really had many? my bff calls me mr smith sometimes but thats all i can think of fkjsdnfs but also! steve used to be my nickname before i decided my life my own and i get to choose my name

94. favorite season?

spring ;w;

95. favorite app on your phone?

sudoku

 96. desktop background?

 97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized?

my own and my mom’s

 98. favorite historical era?

eh im not very fond of the past because not every time period had soap

[theskyexists]

Resolution

Liveblogging

I LIKE how the romance actually made me feel fond of these random characters, it JUST made it past sappy. I know because I dread them suffering the consequences of digging up a monster.

Also tentacly thing in plastic bag. Yikes. Genuinely yikes.

Loved the custodians quite a bit. Loved that the fam went around to multiple new yearses.

They love doing continuous moving camera shots and I feel like they did better this time than on Ghost Monument - snappier.

WHO THE FUCK walks closer to a terrifying pulsating GIANT octopus on the wall??? THEN TRIES TO TOUCH IT. She's companion material. No fucking sense.

Instant assumption of authority - oiled teamwork! That's! What ! I'm! Talking about!!!

Ohhh this has really got her worried. That FACE after Yaz escorts em away. (!! Second in command copper Yaz!!)

Lin absolutely has been affected....physically. perhaps even...............taken over?

Is that your intruder alert or mine? - it's the doorbell - oh ha yes...

Hahaha

'oh' instant judgement in the Doctor's voice hahaha

Oh DAMN. Doctor. Wow!!! So! Fearlessly, ....KNIFE UNDER THE RIBS SHARP. That's none of that broiling anger and bluster. That's ....crazy

'dads are, so ive heard'

MORE REFERENCES TO DOCTOR FAMILY LIFE AND CHILDHOOD

Ryan deliberately calling Graham gramps in front of his dad!!!!

Lin didn't tell the Doctor that she swallowed a monster did she. That's what's gonna happen here Huh. She's gonna puke up a Dalek or whatever. Gotta hand it to Chibs. He's finally gotten better at horror.

Oh Yikes. YIKES.

Ok. Yeah. I think. He did well on the Dalek.

Ok uh but I feel like the voice exposition was unnecessary or ruined it a tiny bit

Yikes. Are they gonna delve into how Lin is still in there I wonder...

'dont like when you go quiet' :)) lil character note

Love the acting from jodie. Not sure about the diagonal shots.

Lin's actress does an impressive impression of what I think is an unedited Dalek voice

Hmmmmmmm. Forgot for a sec that police don't carry guns in the UK normally.

Wow. But I liked that speech though. From Ryan. Like his dad too. I can relate. But he shouldn't just explain himself. He should say SORRY.

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! HOW RYAN STOOD UP FOR HIMSELF AND WHAT HIS DAD PUT HIM THROUGH!!!!! god Ryan tho. I love Ryan so much.

I'm really enjoying the pacing and the Doctor getting more and more worried and especially! Revealing so much. Finally

Even tho the companions don't even know how much. 'im not having this'

Ah dead LGBT character again huh. That's the problem with making all your side characters gay. They DIE. Moffat's really got that at least. Chibs.....very much does not. At least I can't get attached. They're literally throwaway.

'im your secret conscience.... Not really we both know you don't have one' lel good one doc

FUCKING BREXIT KILLED UNIT HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHA

Why doesn't she have Kate's number holy shit

Aaron and Graham :'))) he grandads EVERYONE

all I can think is, that must have been one cool job!! Playing Lin!!!

Since hits to the heads have been shown to be non-lethal and effective at knocking a person out, the most effective thing Lin can do is knock herself out! Probably. Maybe then it can continue a central nervous system takeover no problem.

THE DOCTOR SENDS EM AWAY. good job. BUT Ok the TARDIS is safe, but they still gotta get there.

'me and a Dalek? It's personal'

Understated, but steel.

Why all this plastic shit, farmer? XD good effect tho.

Noice new design. But lol. That must have taken ages!!! Why did they show up so late when they have a time machine!!! Hahahaha

Love how this Doctor loves humans. 'theyve fought off so much. Even the worst of their own people' hmmm

Daleks and the Doctor, they never manage not to monologue at each other

THAT DARK GLEE AGAIN!!! That grin 'oh mate' (!!! I LOVE HER!!!)

That was weak lol

Doctor must be destroyed. BUT actually I'm flying away now because - other priorities??

They always SOMEHOW underestimate the importance of killing them.

How longs a WHAT? I cannot understand

The Doctor is a lot more generous with the TARDIS nowadays.

Who informed these soldiers that this thing called a Dalek is a Dalek and hostile? Ahhh a drone. Like that. Topical.

Commander says: run

Soldiers say: shoot and die!

This Dalek clearly needed a win or something. Wasted some rockets all that shit. Feel better? After that scary run in with the Doctor?

Why the country and not the world? Not enough juice? No, now I'm rationalising shit away.

Too much telling again.........like he needed to fill up the writing. Too much exposition too much reading from screens repeating the same thing again and again. WiFi internet yes it's all down.

And it makes me think. WELL WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT??? ITS FUCKING RAMPAGING DOCTOR!! THIS IS THE WORST CASE SCENARIO FROM 'DALEK'!!!

That was much too on the nose about New Year's Day. Smacked of 'technology destroys all relationships'

OH NOW! you manage to land - after it's enacted its whole plan and killed a WHOLE LOT of people

' I tried right I really tried' ahhh they're trying so hard. Trying so hard!!

Lol all you had to do was....run an alternating current through the casing???? THATS ALL YOU GOTTA DO???

For that matter, why not burn the goddamn Dalek fleshy bit back at the battle of hope. This broke the back of suspension of disbelief both for this plan and that battle.

One moment it can fly, the next it can be mobbed by ten people easy and get fried.

Absolutely and definitely ducking the question of 'is it dead'

Hahaha 'extended fam'

Taxi-ing a Dalek in a TARDIS - should be shivers!!!

Can you imagine if RYAN LOSES HIS DAD LIKE THIS AS WELL?? GODD NO!! Leave my kid alone!!!

Eh. Killed it. But it was life or death huh.

Ryan SHONE. But I dislike how....the Doctor has to fail for him to get that.

No idea what that goodbye from his dad meant.

'everywhere' means nothing to me. Eleven at least made it an abandonment thing ha!

Nice last shot.

[dumbledearme]

chapter twenty-nine—your indecision

read Child of Land and Sea here

Act IV — To Stop The Tide

Part IV — Though there's no one there to guide you, no one to take your hand, but with faith and understanding you will journey from boy to man.

Luke knelt on a Persian rug in front of the golden sarcophagus of Kronos. "Our spies report success, my lord," he was saying. "Camp Half-Blood is sending a quest, as you predicted. Our side of the bargain is almost complete."

"Excellent," the voice of Kronos was freezing with cruelty. "Once we have the means to navigate, I will lead the vanguard through myself."

"My lord, perhaps it is too soon. Perhaps Krios or Hyperion should lead-"

"No," the voice was quiet but absolutely firm. "I will lead. One more heart shall join our cause, and that will be sufficient. At last I shall rise fully from Tartarus."

"But the form, my lord..." Luke's voice shook.

"Show me your sword, Luke Castellan." Luke drew his sword. "You pledged yourself to me," Kronos reminded him. "You took this sword as proof of your oath."

"Yes, my lord. I just-"

"You wanted power," the titan continued. "I gave you that. You are now beyond harm. Soon you will rule the world of gods and mortals. Do you not wish to avenge yourself? To see Olympus destroyed?"

Luke shivered. "Yes."

"Then make ready the strike force. As soon as the bargain is done, we shall move forward. First, Camp Half-Blood will be reduced to ashes. Once those bothersome heroes are eliminated, we will march on Olympus."

There was a knock on the door. Luke rose. "Come in."

Two dracaenae slithered in followed by Kelli, the empousa. "Hello, Luke," she smiled.

"What is it, demon?" his voice was cold. "I told you not to disturb me."

Kelli pouted. "That's not very nice. You look tense. How about a nice massage?"

Luke stepped back. "If you have something to report, say it. Otherwise begone!"

"I don't know why you're so huffy these days. You used to be fun to hang around." She shrugged. "The advance team is ready, as you requested. We can leave-" she frowned.

"What is it?" Luke asked.

"A presence," she said. "Your senses are getting dull, Luke. We're being watched." Kelli's eyes found Andy and she lunged.

Andy fell off the bed, her body shaking. As she tried to easy her breathing, she noticed that same strange light coming from the fountain. Desperately, she looked for a drachma everywhere until she found one and threw it into the mist.

Nico appeared, but he wasn't in the Underworld this time. He was in a graveyard instead, under a starry sky, watching some gravediggers at work. "Is it deep enough yet?" he asked, irritated.

"Nearly, my lord," it was the same ghost from before. "But this is unnecessary. You already have me for advice."

"I want a second opinion." Nico snapped his fingers, and the digging stopped. Two skeletons climbed out of the hole. "You are dismissed. Thank you." The skeletons collapsed into piles of bones.

"You might as well thank the shovels," the ghost complained. "They have as much sense."

Nico ignored him. He reached into a large Wal-Mart bag next to his feet and pulled out a twelve-pack of Coke. He popped open a can and poured it into the grave. "Let the dead taste again," he murmured. "Let them rise and take this offering. Let them remember."

"In my day; we used animal blood," the ghost mumbled. "They can't taste the difference."

"Be quiet," Nico ordered and began chanting in Ancient Greek. The grave started to bubble. The fog thickened. Dozens of figures began to appear among the gravestones.

"There are too many," the ghost said nervously. "You don't know your own powers."

"I've got it under control," Nico said. He drew his sword – a short blade made of solid black metal. The shades retreated. "One at a time," Nico commanded. A single figure floated forward and knelt before him. "Who are you?"

"I am Theseus." Andy stared at the ghost-man. He was young – younger than she would'd thought – with curly hair and green eyes like hers.

"How can I retrieve my sister?" Nico asked.

"Do not try it. It is madness," Theseus warned him.

"Tell me!"

"My stepfather died," Theseus remembered. "He threw himself into the sea because he thought I was dead in the Labyrinth. I wanted to bring him back, but I could not."

Nico's ghost hissed, "Ask him about the soul exchange!"

Theseus scowled. "I know that voice."

"Answer the lord's questions and nothing more," said the ghost.

"I know you," Theseus insisted.

"I want to know about my sister," Nico said. "Will this quest into the Labyrinth help me win her back?"

Theseus's emotionless voice said, "The Labyrinth is treacherous. There is only one thing that saw me through: the love of a mortal girl. The string was only part of the answer. It was the princess who guided me."

"We don't need any of that," complained the ghost. "I will guide you, my lord. Ask him if it is true about an exchange of souls. He will tell you."

"A soul for a soul," Nico asked. "Is it true?"

"Yes. But the specter-" The other ghosts stirred nervously. "He is coming," Theseus said fearfully. "He has sensed your summons. He comes."

"Who?"

"He comes to find the source of this power," Theseus said. "You must release us!"

The fountain began to crack; the whole cabin was shaking. Andy realized the ghosts were trying to escape right out of the fountain. She uncapped Riptide and slashed at the fountain, cleaving it in two. Salt water spilled everywhere.

Andy sank on the ground, shivering. Tyson found her there in the morning, still staring at the pieces of what had once been a fountain.

Juniper was holding Grover as if they were one. Chiron, Quintus and Mrs O'Leary stood with the other campers who'd come to wish them well. Anthony was doing one last check on his supply pack. When Tyson and Andy came over, he frowned. "Andy, you look terrible."

"She killed the water fountain last night," Tyson confided.

"What?"

Before Andy could explain, Chiron trotted over. "Well, it appears you are ready!" Andy glanced at the crack between the boulders. "Take care and good hunting."

"Well," said Grover nervously. "Goodbye sunshine."

And together, the four of them descended into darkness.

They made it a hundred feet before they were hopelessly lost. The tunnel looked nothing like the one they had stumbled into before. Now it was round like a sewer with iron-barred portholes every ten feet.

Anthony tried his best to guide them. "If we keep one hand on the left wall and follow it," he said, "we should be able to find our way out again by reversing course." As soon as he said that, the left wall disappeared. They were in the middle of a circular chamber with eight tunnels leading out. Anthony swept his flashlight beam over the archways. "That way," he said.

"How do you know?" Andy asked.

"Deductive reasoning."

"So you're guessing."

"Just come on," he said.

The tunnel he'd chosen narrowed quickly. Grover's hyperventilating was the loudest noise in the maze. "I can't stand it anymore," he whispered. "Are we there yet? I mean, why would Pan be down here? This is the opposite of the wild!"

Suddenly the tunnel opened into a huge room covered in mosaic tiles showing the gods at a feast. "What is this place?" Andy asked. "It looks-"

"Roman," Anthony finished. "About two thousand years old."

"How can they be Roman?"

"The Labyrinth is a patchwork," he said. "I told you, it's always expanding, adding pieces. It's the only work of architecture that grows by itself."

"You make it sound like it's alive."

They heard a moan from the tunnel ahead. "Let's move," Anthony said.

Every few feet the tunnels twisted and turned and branched off. After several hours, they found their first skeleton. He was dressed in white; a wooden crate of glass bottles sat next to him. "A milkman," Anthony said.

"What?"

"He used to deliver milk."

"Yeah, man, I know what a milkman is," she rolled her eyes. "But what is he doing here?"

"Some people wonder by mistake, I suppose. Some come exploring on purpose and never make it back." Without another word, Anthony led them to the right, then the left, through a corridor of stainless steel. Then they arrived back in the Roman tile room. But this time, they weren't alone.

He had two faces. They jutted out from either side of his head, staring over his shoulders, so his head was much wider than it should've been. "Anthony," his left face said. "Hurry up!"

"Don't mind him," said the right face. "He's terribly rude. Right this way!"

Tyson frowned. "The funny man has two faces."

"The funny man has ears!" the left face scolded. "Now come along, Anthony."

"No, no," the right face said. "This way, Anthony. Talk to me, please."

The two-faced man regarded Anthony, waiting for him to choose. Behind him were two exits.

"Where do they lead?" Anthony asked, his voice was barely a whisper.

"One probably leads the way you wish to go," the right face said encouragingly. "The other leads to certain death."

"Come one," said the left face. "Choose, Anthony. We don't have all day."

The right face smiled. "You're in charge now, Anthony. All the decisions are on your shoulders. All the responsibility. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"I-"

"We know you, Anthony Chase," the left face said. "We know what you wrestle with every day. We know your indecision. You will have to make your choice sooner or later. And the choice may kill you. Or... someone who matters the most?" he suggested.

The color drained out of Anthony's face. "I don't-"

Andy stepped forward. "Okay, guys. Enough of this bullshit. Who are you again? I'm not good with faces, if you know what I mean."

"Well, I'm your best friend," the right face said.

"I'm your worst enemy," said the left.

"I'm Janus," they said in harmony. "God of Doorways. Beginnings. Endings. Choices."

"I'll see you soon enough, Andromeda," said the right face. "But for now, it is Anthony's turn."

"One bad choice can ruin your whole life," said the left face. "It can kill you and all your friends. But no pressure, Anthony. Choose!"

A brilliant light flooded the room and a woman appeared. She was tall and graceful and extremely blonde, like a barbie doll. "Janus," she said, "are we causing trouble again?"

"N-no, milady!" Janus' right face stammered.

"Yes!" the left face said.

"You know very well your visit is premature," the woman said. "The boy's time has not yet come. So I give you a choice: leave these heroes to me, or I shall turn you into a door and break you down."

Janus bowed and disappeared.

The woman turned toward the others and smiled. "Sit with me," she invited them. "Let's talk." She waved her hand and a picnic towel appeared on the ground with lots of platters sandwiches and pitchers of lemonade.

Andy sighed. "Alright. Who are you now?"

She raised her blonde head. "I am Hera. Queen of Heaven." She sat down, served them sandwiches and poured lemonade. "Grover, dear, use your napkin. Don't eat it."

"Yes, ma'am," Grover said.

"Tyson, you're wasting away. Would you like another peanut butter sandwich?"

Tyson stifled a belch. "Yes, nice lady."

"Queen Hera," Anthony said. "What are you doing here?"

Hera smiled. "I came to see you, naturally."

"I didn't think you liked heroes."

"Because of that little spat I had with Hercules? Honestly, I got so much bad press because of one disagreement."

"Didn't you try to kill him in, like, several different occasions?" Anthony asked.

Hera waved her hand dismissively. "Water under the bridge. Besides, he was one of my loving husband's children by another woman. My patience wore thin, I'll admit it. But Zeus and I have had some excellent marriage counseling sessions since then. We've aired our feelings and come to an understanding – especially after the last little incident."

"You mean Thalia?" Andy guessed.

Hera's eyes turned toward her frostily. "Andy Jackson, is it? One of Poseidon's... children. As I recall, I voted to let you live at the winter solstice. I hope I voted correctly." She turned back to Anthony. "At any rate, I certainly bear you no ill will, boy. I appreciate the difficulty of your quest. Especially when you have troublemakers like Janus to deal with."

"Why was he here?"

"To drive you crazy, no doubt," Hera said. "You must understand, the minor gods like Janus have always been frustrated by the small parts they play in the universe. Some, I fear, have little love for Olympus, and could easily be swayed to support the rise of my father. We must watch the minor gods. Janus. Hecate. Morpheus."

"Isn't that what Dionysus is doing?" Andy asked. "Checking on them?"

"Indeed," Hera said. "You see, in times of trouble, even gods can lose faith. They start putting their trust in the wrong things, petty things. They stop looking at the big picture and start being selfish. But I am the goddess of marriage, you see. I am used to perseverance. You have to rise above the squabbling and chaos, and keep believing. You have to always keep your goals in mind."

"What are your goals?" Anthony asked her.

"To keep my family, the Olympians, together. At the moment, the best way I can do that is by helping you. Zeus does not allow me to interfere much, I'm afraid. But once every century or so, for a quest I care deeply about, he allows me to grant a wish."

"A wish?"

"Before you ask it, let me give you some advice, which I can do for free. I know you seek Daedalus. His Labyrinth is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. But if you want to know his fate, I would visit my son Hephaestus at his forge. Daedalus was a great inventor. There has never been a mortal Hephaestus admired more. If anyone would have kept up with Daedalus and could tell you his fate, it is Hephaestus."

"But how do we get there?" Anthony asked. "That is my wish. I want a way to navigate the Labyrinth."

Hera looked disappointed. "So be it. You wish for something, however, that you have already been given."

"I don't understand."

"The means is already within your grasp." Hera looked at Andy. "Andromeda knows the answer."

"I do?"

"You'll have to be more specific," Anthony told her.

Hera shook her head. "Getting something and having the wits to use it... those are two different things. I'm sure your mother Athena would agree." The room rumbled. Hera stood. "That would be my cue. Zeus grows impatient. Think of what I have said, young hero. Seek out Hephaestus. You will have to pass through the ranch, I imagine. But keep going. And use all the means at your disposal, however common they may seem. And one more thing, Anthony. I have postponed your day of choice, not prevented it. Soon, as Janus said, you will have to make a decision. Farewell." She waved a hand and turned into white smoke.

"What sort of help was that?" Andy complained. "Here, have a sandwich. Make a wish. Oops, I can't help you. Poof!"

"Poof," Tyson agreed.

"Well, she said you know the answer," Grover said.

"You think that if I knew the answer for this, I would be keeping it to myself?"

Anthony sighed. "We keep going."

"Which way?" she asked.

Grover and Tyson both tensed and stood up together. "Left," they both said.

Anthony frowned. "How can you be sure?"

"Because something is coming from the right!" Grover said.

"Something big," Tyson added. "In a hurry."

"Left it is!" Andy decided and together they plunged into the dark corridor.

[kuriquinn]

Meanwhiles and Neverweres [2/?]

Disclaimer & Info:

Almost two months after the end of the Third Shinobi World War, Obito Uchiha awakens in a prison cell at Konoha’s police station.

Or more specifically, on the floor of a prison cell.

It’s not the first time since returning home that he has found himself a guest of Konoha’s Military Police; nor is it the first time he has woken himself up with his own thrashing and screaming. He knows it won’t be the last, either.

Every night since Kannabi bridge, Obito dreams of Kakashi.

Minato calls it grieving, while the one time he mentioned it to her, Rin suggested post traumatic stress. Obito thinks they’re both wrong. He thinks he’s being haunted.

Despite how at-peace Kakashi seemed in death, the ghost that stalks Obito’s nightmares is anything but. It berates him for not keeping his promise, repeating the nonsense he spouted in his final moments.

Names that mean nothing to him and entreaties to listen. Oaths sworn in the face of death.

Rin said that it’s very likely that in his last moments Kakashi was deprived of oxygen, causing the speech centres of his brain to malfunction. During the day, Obito can repeat this to himself and ignore the nagging sense that he is supposed to be doing something important. At night, however, he is unprotected from the memory of Kakashi’s judgement.

Speaking of judgement…

He can feel it practically radiating from the door of his cell.

Obito squints across the room, half-expecting to see Rin standing there, hands on her hips and a disapproving expression on her face, or even Minato with a worried frown. Instead, he stares up into the unyielding, hard-jawed face of Fugaku Uchiha, the captain of the police and the head of the Uchiha clan.

“S-sir,” he mumbles, stumbling to his feet and attempting something resembling a bow.

“Obito,” Fugaku says, his deep voice worryingly neutral as he addresses him. “The Illusionist. Hero of the Kannabi Bridge. Pride of the Uchiha—or so I’ve been told.” He says all of this without any inflection, and each syllable rings with judgement. “Looking at you now, you don’t live up to your legend.”

“Uncle…”

“No. I am not your uncle here,” Fugaku reminds him sternly. “I am your superior and your clan leader. And I am waiting to hear the explanation as to why a hero of the Third Shinobi War is frequenting taverns and picking fights with his clansmen.”

Obito winces.

“We have lost enough of our people to the war, we will not have infighting here,” the head of the Uchiha continues in a forbidding tone. “Especially not from those lucky enough to return home. Others did not have your fortune. Too many of your cousins have died. Inabi Uchiha is more respectable than you, and he and his team gave their lives in the final hours of the war. You dishonour their memory with your behaviour.”

“It’s the memories of those we lost that I was trying to defend!” Obito snaps, and then adds a quick a tentative, “Sir.”

Fugaku narrows his eyes. “Explain.”

Obito scowls, wondering where to begin and how to avoid sounding like he blames Kakashi for all of this.

As the war entered its final months, Obito came into his own completely. His newly awakened Sharingan was much more powerful than he expected it to be. Coupled with the chidori he learned from Kakashi, no man who stood against him on the battlefield lived to tell the tale. He and Rin were instrumental in helping Minato end the war several months earlier than anticipated, once their squad destroyed Kannabi Bridge.

They returned to Konoha as heroes, and suddenly everything was different.

Minato was nominated as Hokage and Rin went on indefinite leave from shinobi duties in favour of working in the hospital. Obito never had responsibilities before the war, not beyond looking after his grandmother, and so he was unprepared for the welcome awaiting him.

Aunts and uncles sang his praises and children followed him in the street. One of his distant relatives asked if she could name her newborn son after him. Cousins who had no time for him before the war—who couldn’t debase themselves by being around a dead-last screw-up like him—were all suddenly clamouring for his attention. They plied him with drinks and spoke to him as if he held the future of the Uchiha clan in his palms.

And he welcomed it all.

Because the drinks numbed the pain and the memory of watching the life leave Kakashi’s eyes. And those loud voices laughing and joking in the background drowned out the cold silence that Rin treated him to since that day.

For a while, he could forget the blatant absence of his friends.

Until the good-natured conversation about the war turned to criticism, and his clansmen started to speak about Obito’s comrades. About how Minato was made Hokage to be a puppet, and how Rin obviously wasn’t strong enough to continue the shinobi lifestyle. About Kakashi maybe not dying to save them, but simply looking for a way to end his life quick the way his cowardly old man did.

That last one is the reason Obito is currently in jail and why he’s pretty sure the knuckles of his left hand are broken.

But he’s not about to explain all of this to the leader of his clan. Fugaku Uchiha isn’t known for his sympathy or patience toward emotional outbursts.

“Those guys were disrespecting the people who fought and died to ensure the peace they currently enjoy,” Obito eventually bites out. “Maybe beating the shit out of them wasn’t the best choice, but it will make them think twice before they do it again.” He pauses, then again adds, “Sir”, though it’s less deferential this time.

Fugaku is silent at this, considering Obito for several moments.

Then his mouth lifts in something that might—if it’s not a trick of the light—be a smirk.

“I imagine they will,” he says. Then narrows his eyes. “But if you do it again, I’ll have you cleaning every public toilet in the village.”

Obito gulps.

“The war is over—now is the time to decide what you intend to do in the future,” Fugaku continues gruffly. “With a little discipline and perhaps learning to practice better judgement, you could do well as an officer.”

“An…officer?”

“Konoha’s police require men of substance, not simply strength.”

Obito’s eyes widen in surprise, having not expected a job offer of all things when he woke up this morning. To be honest, he’s never even considered working for the police force. He intends to become Hokage, after all, and to do that, he needs to rise through the shinobi ranks, which unfortunately doesn’t include the military force.

“Respectfully, I must decline, Sir,” he says. “I, uh, I have other plans.”

Something like amusement twitches at the corner of Fugaku’s mouth.

“I thought as much,” he says quietly.

Then, in yet another surprise move, he opens the cell.

“Go home,” he tells him. “Get your hand seen to. Sleep it off.”

“Y-yes, Sir.” He turns to leave.

“I’m not finished with you yet, Obito. I want you to meet me at this location at sunset,” the police captain orders, pressing a paper into his hand. “Don’t be late.”

His tone hints at the consequence of defying him. Considering he once sentenced an officer of his to a month of manure inspection on the farms surrounding Konoha, just for having a crooked armband, Obito doesn’t question him.

Instead, he swallows and looks down at the paper in his hand, carefully unfolding it. A moment later, he yelps as it bursts in to flames – but not before he sees the words imprinted on it.

Naka shrine.

火

Rin Nohara strides between the beds of several of her patients, making observations on their charts and scribbling notes into her clipboard. Her stomach growls, but she ignores it, used to going with meals while on a mission.

Even if this isn’t exactly the same type of mission she trained for so painstakingly.

Since the end of the war, she has worked as a doctor in Konoha’s hospital. It’s a far cry from the danger of active shinobi duty, but she tells anyone who questions her decision to be here that medicine is her true calling. It’s almost completely true, if not for the gaping hole in her life where her friends used to be.

A wound that will never heal, she supposes. It’s permanent in the same way that Kakashi’s death is. Somehow the idea of going back out in the field without such an integral part of her team—and integral part of her life and her heart—makes her feel sick.

His death should not have happened.

She goes over that day in her head over and over, walking herself through every option she could tried, every sacrifice she could have made for him to live and can’t find out how. She isn’t entirely sure what she’ll do if she ever figures it out.

In the meantime, she refuses to let some other girl go through the pain of losing a comrade in the field, and throws herself into her medical studies. She was always a good student, but now she is obsessed, delving into the most technical basics of medicine and chakra manipulation to come up with a way to battle with Death…and win.

“Don’t you ever go home, Rin?” one of her patients asks, joking tone unable to completely disguise his concern. He’s is an older veteran of the war, who lost both his legs in an encounter with Iwa’s Explosion Corps. “You have to sleep, don’t you?”

“If I slept, who would take care of you?” Rin challenges with a smile, replacing an empty IV bag with a fresh one.

“You’re too young to be so busy. Don’t you have some nice young man to keep your company? I bet he’s missing you.”

Rin schools her features into her usual defence, a smile without substance and a light laugh. “No, no one’s waiting for me. Aren’t you lucky, you get me all to yourself.”

He chuckles and agrees, and Rin leaves.

As she heads to her office, she frowns, thoughs flying to Obito.

It hurts to think of him too much, to think of either of her remaining teammates really, but him especially. She hasn’t treated him very well, and knows it; but she has no idea how to be around him anymore.

The memory of his confession—“Heh…I’d be a pretty crappy guy if I let the girl I love get killed, wouldn’t I?”— is all tied up with everything else from that day. Fear and pain, the taste of blood and tears, Kakashi’s kiss, the loss of a piece of her heart. It’s not something she can explain to Obito, or even Minato-sensei when he tries to get her to speak.

Turning the corner, she almost ploughs headlong into another body.

“Sorry,” she apologises distractedly.

“You should be,” a voice replies. “Parental abuse is a serious offense.”

Startled, Rin peers more closely at her hapless victim, and flushes in guilt as her father gazes down at her. Ryūma Nohara is a tired man in his late thirties, with light brown hair and the brown eyes she inherited, although his are ringed with more worry lines than hers.

“You’re still here?” he asks her, grave and worried. “You should have gone home hours ago.”

“I had to check on my trial results before I left,” she replies.

“Your results won’t be affected by a few hours of rest. Go home and sleep. Come back tomorrow.”

“But I—”

“Consider it a directive from both your father and your boss,” he tells her, affecting a stern frown. “You’re already past your maximum shift hours.”

“How do you…?”

“The nurses. They know everything,” he smirks, but then his expression becomes grave again. “Rin…”

She can hear the worry and disapproval in his voice, and it makes her heart twinge. She only ever became interested in the field of medical ninjutsu as a genin because of him, and now here she is disappointing him.

“Fine,” Rin sighs. “Just let me fill in the last of my charts and I’ll go.” Ryūma raises an eyebrow at her, and she assures, “I promise!”

Her father’s expression softens. “How can I doubt you when you look at me like that? It’s just like your mother.”

Rin smiles sadly. Her mother was an elite ANBU who lost her life protecting the Third Hokage. The wound isn’t as recent as others, but it still stings. She wonders how her father found the strength to go on afterward. She’s never asked, though, afraid he’ll tell her what she already suspects.

Ryūma glances around mock-surreptitiously, and then reaches over to give her a hug, which Rin returns. Then, they go their separate ways as they hear him being paged over the intercom.

Once in her tiny office cubicle, which is really more like a broom closet, Rin jots down the most recent results that she noticed amongst her trial patients. The past few days have been a string of nothing, and it’s frustrating, but it’s also better than she hoped.

No news is good news in this case, she decides with a sigh, sitting back against her chair. Maybe Dad’s right, and I should—

“Rin!”

She sits bolt upright as one of the nursing students hurries in, looking anxious. “What is it?”

“It’s your friend—the Uchiha boy. He’s here and he’s asking for you.”

“He knows better than to interrupt me at work.”

“No, that’s not…he’s in the emergency care wing. He’s been injured—”

Rin drops her clipboard and makes a run for it before the woman has even stopped talking.

Obito! Hurt!

Heart in her throat, her mind casts back to the last conversation they had. She knows he’s on the active duty roster, and Minato-sensei worried he might do something stupid, but she dismissed him and asked him to leave because she had work to do and—

Oh, gods, what if something happens before I see him again?!

She practically throws the door to the examination room of its hinges, fully expecting to one of the other healers desperately trying to grasp him from the jaws of death.

Instead, she sees Obito, eyes clenched shut and gritting his teeth while her father sets the bones in his broken hand.

“Obito?” she croaks, confused. “Dad?”

“It seems your friend here needs to learn to be more specific,” Ryūma says, sounding more amused than he should under the circumstance. “He asked for Doctor Nohara expecting to see you. I think he got a bit of a shock.”

“This is…ouch…not how I pictured meeting you, Sir,” Obito bites out.

“I wasn’t aware that you wanted to,” Ryūma replies brightly, shooting Rin a look that is both knowing and expectant. She can see a particular gleam in his eye that she’s learned to be wary of.

“Well, you look like you’ve got a handle on this,” Rin says quickly, starting to back out of the room. “I finished the last of those charts, Dad, so I’m actually going to head home, just like you said—”

“Now, now, don’t run off, this is your friend,” her father chides. “I have an idea—why don’t you finish fixing his hand, and he can repay you by walking you home? I’d say that works out for everyone.”

Obito’s eyes bulge in panic, like he’s both overjoyed and terrified at the prospect. Rin, on the other hand, feels like she can’t breathe. Ryūma watches her expectantly, like he’s waiting for her to come up with an excuse. She knows if she does, he’ll have questions, none of which she wants to talk about.

“You’re right,” she brusquely, striding forward. “I’ve got it, Dad. You can go back to work now.”

“See you around, sweetheart,” he tells her. Over his shoulder, he adds, “Come by for dinner some time, hey, kid?”

Obito makes an undignified squeak in response.

With that, her father leaves her to finish caring for Obito’s hand. Her own desire to flee warring with her training, she eventually sighs and reaches for the bandages.

They sit together in heavy, forced silence for several minutes, before Obito breaks it.

“So…” he begins. Her eyes flash at him in warning, and he swallows whatever he was going to say. Instead, he clears his throat, and mumbles, “How’s work?”

Rin nods to herself; this is a question she can answer. It’s easy to talk about work.

She checks that the bones have been properly fitted back into place, she concentrates and allows her chakra to flow outward, mending flesh and bone back together. At the same time, she relates in great detail how she’s furthering her medical education, the surgeries she’s sat in on the hours she’s put in at the lab or researching in the library.

“I don’t think I’ll ever master anything like Lady Tsunade’s Sōzō Saisei, but I’m developing a healing pill that could allow for rapid healing in combat,” she tells him. “It’s still in the test stage, though, and there are a lot of kinks to work out.”

“Like what?” he asks.

“It’s excruciatingly painful during the healing process, and there’s a long recovery time. You can be absolutely useless for days after using it while the body tries to recover from such a quick healing—kind of like a coma.”

“That sucks,” he agrees. “But it sounds like it’s a start, though.”

“It is,” she agrees, sitting back. “How does that feel now?”

Obito studies his hand, waving his fingers and flexing his palm. “A lot better. Thanks, Rin.”

“So are you going to tell me what you did?”

“Do I have to?”

She folds her arms, unimpressed.

“There was a…tiny disagreement,” he admits. “That maybe involved fists and jaws.”

“I got that, yes.”

“They were saying stuff they shouldn’t have.”

“And you decided throwing yourself into a fist fight would fix that?” she demands, smacking him not-so-lightly in the shoulder. “Why would you do something so stupid?”

“It’s not that stupid…”

“Getting your hand broken is pretty stupid! Especially when you consider what could have happened if you picked a fight with the wrong person! Just because you’re a hero now doesn’t mean that you can’t get hurt or die just as easily as anyone else!” she lectures him, voice rising out of her control with each syllable. “I’m supposed to watch out for you, which is kind of hard if you get your stupid self killed!”

“Rin—!”

“Go on, tell me what was so horrible that they said which you couldn’t just let it go and walk away?”

“They were talking shit about our team!” he protests. “About you a—”

“How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t need you to defend me!”

“It wasn’t just—” he starts to shout back, and then his shoulders sag and he looks away. “Never mind.”

Her sudden rage stalls, sense returning to her.

She realises he wasn’t just defending her, but Kakashi.

A beat later, she exhales and asks flatly, “Do they at least look worse than you do?”

He glances up in surprise, and then a sheepish smile appears. “Well, I dunno…I ended up arrested. But I think I saw one of them in the emergency room when I came in, so…”

She stands, turning her back on him.

“You still shouldn’t have done it. Picking fights won’t bring him back.”

“No, but it makes me feel like I’m doing something,” Obito returns bitterly. “He didn’t exactly leave us with a way of remembering. Not really.”

She clenches her fists, hearing Kakashi’s voice in her head.

“Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura. Remember those names.”

“And it’s not like I can go to anyone else about it,” Obito goes on. “The only person in the world I know who gets what this feels like…and you don’t want anything to do with me.”

“That’s not true!” she protests.

“Yes, it is. You’re different than you were. Distant.”

“It’s called grieving.”

“I’m grieving too, but I don’t want to be away from my friends while I’m doing it!”

“Maybe that’s because it doesn’t hurt you to be around us the way it hurts me to be around you!” Rin shoots back before she can stop herself.

Silence rings between them, and right away she sees the agony in Obito’s eyes. It’s familiar to her because she saw it the day he said goodbye to his best friend.

“Obito, I didn’t…that’s not what I…I didn’t say that right…”

“Would you have been happier if I had been the one to die instead?” he asks, cutting of her explanation.

Rin instantly feels as if she has been turned to stone, then cracked into a million painful pieces. Her tongue is like lead in her mouth as she tries to respond to such a thing.

Obito obviously takes her silence as a ‘yes’.

“I see,” he says, getting up to go, but she snatches out a hand to stop him.

“How could you haven even asked me that?” she rasps, the words dragged from her throat as if over a bed of knives.

“Well what else am I supposed to think?” he counters. “All you’ve done since we’ve been back is shut me out. I thought it was just the grief at first, but it’s not just that. You’re hiding from something. I never thought you were a coward. You were always so brave, and good, and the best of the three of us. So why are you doing this now?” When she can’t answer, he exhales angrily through his nose. “No, you know what? Forget it.”

“Don’t you dare,” Rin snaps. “You don’t get to…to just start this, and then leave!”

“I think you’ve made it clear you don’t want me around.”

“I do want you around!” she cries. “I just don’t…I don’t know how anymore. It…it just reminds me…and it’s not fair to you when I…”

“I know you loved Kakashi,” Obito tells her quietly. “I know you always will. I’m not asking you for anything that would dishonour that. I just…I want my friend back. I want us to be like we were before.”

“It will never be the way it was before,” she whispers, entire body trembling.

“I’ll wait,” he says. “Your friendship is the most important thing left in my life. And I’ll earn it back if I have to wait forever. I just hope you don’t make us both go through that.”

The way he gazes at her then, she knows he believes that to be true. Tears well in her eyes, and she looks away.

Obito sighs.

“Thanks for fixing my hand, Rin,” he tells her, and she feels the air displace as he moves past her. “I’ll see you around. If you want.”

She waits until she’s sure he’s gone before bursting into tears.

火

The recently elected Yondaime Hokage peers across the desk of his office, considering the man in front of him. The man who, by all rights, should be the one sitting in his chair.

If it weren’t for the distrust of the Elders and fecklessness of the daimyo, he would be.

Fugaku Uchiha is shorter than him, but he still manages to be imposing, with a face like granite eyes that are sharp even when his Sharingan is not active. In Minato Namikaze’s experience, his temperament is even less welcoming.

“Will you have a seat?” he asks the head of the Uchiha clan, offering what he hopes is a disarming smile.

“I’ll stand,” Fugaku replies.

The response isn’t a surprise, but it suggests what the tone of the following meeting will be. Rather than betray his exasperation with the stubbornness, Minato simply smiles wider and stands, walking around his desk until he is a few feet away from the other man. Leaning against the desk, he keeps his eye level with Fugaku, telegraphing a message while his hands rest on the wooden edge in subtle reminder.

We may be equals, but I’m still the one wearing the impractical hat. So even if you don’t respect me, you will respect this office.

One of Fugaku’s eyebrows twitch, and for a moment he looks like he’s about to bestow a nod of approval. But the moment passes, and Minato is once more staring down impassable granite.

So much for breaking the ice, he thinks with a sigh. Out loud, he says, “There were complaints about a disturbance in the Uchiha Compound.”

“A matter which does not fall under your jurisdiction.”

“The whole village is my jurisdiction,” Minato replies, a bit more bite to the reminder than he intended. “The police are an extension of this village.”

“Perhaps on paper.”

Minato narrows his eyes now, losing a little more control over his politician’s mask in the face of this frustrating individual. Something of the elite jōnin must show, a reminder that even if it was a twist of fate that made him Hokage, he is not without the skills to back up that appointment.

“It has been handled,” Fugaku states neutrally.

“And for that I thank you.” He allows his smile to re-assert itself. In a softer tone, betraying a little worry, he asks, “Was Obito really involved?”

“Not in the way you imagine,” Fugaku says, and this time he sounds more weary than guarded. “It was a youthful scuffle. Someone forgot himself and a made a disrespectful remark concerning the dead.”

“Even a grown man could be forgiven for reacting badly in that case,” Minato suggests. “Recovering from a conflict such as we have is easy on no one. Much less so given how many we’ve lost.”

“An Uchiha should be able to better control himself. It does not do well to lose control,” Fugaku dismisses. “What did you really call me for? If it were just a question of security in the village, or concern over a former pupil, a message by hawk would have sufficed.”

No one could ever say he isn’t forthright, Minato thinks with a wince. He knows what follows will not be a pleasant conversation. Still, he decides to grant him the same candour.

“In the spirit of solidarity and to promote lasting peace in the village community, the Elders have suggested that the Konoha Military Police begin accepting candidates from beyond the Uchiha clan.”

He allows the message to set in, keeping a close eye on the clan leader. Fugaku doesn’t betray any reaction as he processes, and after several long moments, he finally says, “I would have to personally evaluate the fitness of each prospective candidate.”

“Well, yes, of course,” Minato agrees, relieved. He really did think it would be more difficult than that.

“Where would these recruits be coming from?”

“I imagine the same place you get your recruits now.”

“They are recommended by current officers based on observations they make in the community and their own knowledge of our values,” Fugaku says. “So, allow me to rephrase: who would be making the first recommendations to the force should my admittance requirements be…relaxed.”

“The Elders have a few candidates in mind, I’m sure. Danzō Shimura in particular has experience choosing capable men and women.”

“Ah. There it is,” Fugaku says, and his mouth finally turns upward in a smile, but it’s a hard and bitter one. “Tobirama’s student wishes to insert his people into the one place in Konoha where he doesn’t have ears.”

“Spying? A serious accusation, and a giant leap to take,” Minato says mildly, though it’s an act.

He’s more than aware of Shimura’s distrust of the Uchiha, having seen it first hand when he convinced the other council members and daimyo, one by one, that Fugaku Uchiha should not be Hokage. He’s even experienced the man’s scrutiny himself. Of those who voted on the position of Fourth Hokage, Shimura is the only one who refused to support Minato’s candidacy. Since then, every interaction they’ve had has left Minato feeling like the older man is looking for the smallest weakness to start chipping away at him.

“It’s better to take that leap if there’s a dragon chasing you,” Fugaku maintains stonily.

“Perhaps. But you make it sound like you have secrets.”

“Every clan in this village has secrets. And every clan is entitled to those, so long as they don’t jeopardise the security of the village. That was put into law by the First Hokage, if my history is correct.”

“And what better way to protect the village than ensure its security is being maintained by the entire village and not a simple few?” Minato points out, returning to the issue at hand.

“If that were truly the case, the police would never have been assigned to the Uchiha,” Fugaku snaps. “It was Tobirama Senju who enacted that as a means to isolate our people. We knew this, but accepted it so as to keep the peace in Konoha. Over the course of generations, we have made it an honourable and worthy institution in Konoha. And now you would take it from us?”

“That’s not what this is.”

“Then please, enlighten me as to what you, in your naivety, think it is,” Fugaku growls. “Generations have passed without Konoha’s leaders paying any attention to the police force or the men who serve. And now suddenly, a war ends and they decide it’s the best time to stir the pot? The distrust was always there, Lord Hokage, but attempts were made to keep it under wraps. This is blatant and unapologetic.”

By the time he finishes speaking, his shoulders heave with anger, and Minato suspects it isn’t often that the leader of the Uchiha loses his temper in that way. His own anger simmers beneath his calm façade, because there is nothing wrong in what Fugaku has said.

“I am not naïve,” Minato states coolly. “I know the history, and I can only guess at the motivations behind this move. But I also trust in this village. The will of Elders is not the will of the people, and the only way to ensure that the people are served is through cooperation. And I will need yours.”

Fugaku frowns at him, calculating.

“You really don’t know what they intend, do you?” he eventually realises.

“No.”

“But you have suspicions.”

“Yes.”

The Uchiha leader raises a challenging eyebrow. “Care to share?”

“A naïve man would say that in light of the recent war, with so many of our heroes hailing from your clan, it’s simply an attempt to extend the proverbial olive branch. A forgiveness of past distrust and a hope that in the future, Konoha will be less divided.”

“If that were the case, restructuring the police is not the way to do it. What do you really think.”

That they’re afraid of you, Minato thinks but doesn’t say.

There were so many heroes among the Uchiha, ninja that are spoken of with awe both inside of the Compound and outside of it. If they become popular enough, there’s no reason why one day, an Uchiha might not become Hokage. It’s something Danzō and the Elders want to stop happening at all costs.

Revealing that to Fugaku, however, would be unwise at this juncture. Not while it’s still only suspicion. It’s better to not sow resentment and suspicion where it isn’t yet warranted.

He flashes an edged smile. “It’s too soon to say. And you never know who may be listening.”

“Well, at least you have some sense,” Fugaku snorts.

“In the meantime, I do have to relay something to the Elders,” Minato says, returning to his chair and sitting down. “If they decide I’m being ineffective, they’ll make running this village difficult. And not just for you or I, but for everyone.”

Red tape, I’m learning, can be a bitch.

A muscle works in Fugaku’s jaw, and it appears like he is doing some rather quick thinking.

“Tell them I will take their suggestion under advisement at the next clan meeting after Konoha’s official period of mourning ends.”

Minato’s mouth tugs upward. “That’s a year from now.”

“Then I suppose you have a year to give more substance to that suspicion of yours.”

“You know they won’t be content with just that, though. They’ll want evidence that I’ve got you well in hand.” Fugaku raises his eyebrow again, the expression somewhat mocking, and Minato feels his cheeks darken. “You know what I mean.”

“What exactly do you have in mind?”

“Some suggestion that the Uchiha are willing to put the village’s needs first.”

“I take it you have a recommendation.”

“A change, perhaps, to that clan law of yours,” Minato says. “The one where anyone who marries outside of the Uchiha has to live outside of clan boundaries. Is that something you might perhaps…relax?”

“So the village doesn’t just want to put their people in our police force, but in our homes as well,” Fugaku snorts.

“Now that is beneath you,” Minato retorts. “Especially since I know you’ve been considering amending that law on your own.”

“And what is your interest in it?”

“Let’s call it personal experience,” he suggests. “My parents chose to marry against their clans’ wishes. I grew up with a name, but no connection to my family on either side. It’s not a feeling I would wish on my child, and I doubt you would wish it on your own.”

Fugaku folds his arms over his chest. “And how does this convince the villagers of my cooperation?”

“It’s all in the manner it’s presented,” Minato points out. The other man makes a gesture like he should continue. “How do you expect the children of your clan to have a connection to their family and their village, when from birth they’re told they’re outsiders? You may see no benefit in the military police opening its doors to outsiders, but surely you can see some in value in allowing your clan to do so? Or do you intend to follow the example of the Hyūga?”

“To live amongst the Uchiha, one must be Uchiha,” Fugaku retorts, and Minato stifles a groan, until he adds, “Any individual who married into the clan would have to renounce their name if they intend to live with their spouse within the compound.”

Minato winces. “That’s…not quite what I meant.”

“It’s the most compromise my clan elders would be willing to accept.”

Minato considers him for a long beat, and then sighs. “It’s a start. I can work with that.”

Fugaku nods in return.

“Alright,” Minato exhales, feeling a little relieved. That wasn’t as completely painful as he thought it would be. Perhaps this meeting can end on a good note, after all. “Now, on to another matter: I was thinking we could have dinner sometime.”

“No offense, but I believe I can do better,” Fugaku replies with neither expression nor intonation.

Minato blinks, realises what he just said, and then sputters.

“That’s not…not what I…what I meant was…I’m not—!” He sees the glint in the other man’s eyes, something merciless but amused at the same time, and he scowls. “Hey…” Fugaku’s expression remains maddeningly unchanging while the Hokage clears his throat, embarrassed. “I only meant that Kushina would like you and Mikoto to come over for dinner. And bring Itachi. Since our wives are already friends, I think we should be as well.”

“Why?” The leader of the Uchiha sounds as if he genuinely can’t fathom a reason for it.

“Well…why not?”

“Hmph. This is not the Academy, boy.”

“You’re like seven years older, that hardly gives you the high ground to call me boy.” Minato grumbles, but when Fugaku continues to look expectant, he says, “Alright, if you have no interest in friendship for friendship’s sake, how about as a means of promoting unity in the village? If people can see the two of us getting along—”

“Ah, so it’s a political ploy.”

“Would-you-stop-twisting-things!” Minato hisses. “This is an olive branch, so stop being a stubborn asshole!”

Silence rings between them, and Minato’s eyes widen in horror. He’s never lost his temper like that before, not least of all while sitting in the Hokage’s office where diplomacy and patience are meant to reign. And in front of a man whose support he’s trying to garner…?

“Forgive me,” he bows his head stiffly. “I only meant—”

“And here I thought you were just the spineless puppet they stuck in a hat to look pretty,” Fugaku interrupts, and that’s definitely something bordering on approval in his eyes. Possibly even respect, if Minato were desperate.

Whatever it is, I’ll take it!

“Blame Kushina,” he says, laughing nervously. “I think she may be rubbing off on me.”

“It’s a poor fool who doesn’t learn some of his wife’s habits,” Fugaku agrees. For a brief moment, they exchange a glance of companionship, the one beleaguered husbands with strong-willed wives always share. Then the other man’s expression turns serious again. “But friendship won’t change generations of distrust.”

“Well, I don’t know if I agree with you about that…but it’s a start, don’t you think?”

Fugaku thinks about this, and then says, “One of many, I suppose.” He turns away. “We’ll see in the coming year, I imagine, if that has any bearing.”

He pushes open the door and disappears, leaving Minato staring at the door.

“So…is that a yes to dinner?” he calls after him. “You didn’t exactly answer me…” There is no response and he sighs. “Uchihas…”  

I was actually going to write more for this chapter…but it is sooooo long already. Besides, let's leave some stuff to be done for next installment. Reviews and constructive criticism are much appreciated! Thanks for your interest in my work!

クリ

[lolia21]

Boruto Part 1: M.F.F

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MOTHERFUCKING FRIENDSHIP. Boruto and Mitsukis friendship is a chocolate covered marshmallow. Its sweet and pleasant and if i'm ever sad it's the first thing i’m going to go to. Mitsuki has no concept of personal space, social queues, or normal “human” behavior and that bother Boruto exactly zero percent. Boruto seems to genuinely enjoy how weird Mitsuki is and Mitsuki might actually feed off of Boruto's positive and cocky energy. Sarada is also a fucking delight when it comes to scheming and teasing her friends. 

Where her father was a self proclaimed loner and her mother had an inferiority complex that drove her to always try and act arrogant and had a quick tempered, Sarada is willing to go along with schemes if they interest her, is quick to tease and take teases and never feels the need to talk down to a friend unless they deserve it.

Her dry wit matches well with Mitsukis blunt yet playful honesty. An the scenes were they team up on Boruto Are genuinely funny but also show how great they are as friends. Because Mitsuki is always on Borutos side, you know what Borut is doing is wrong when he chooses to side with Sarada. It's fun because we get to see Mitsuki and Sarada playoff each other and we also get to see Boruto without the support of Mitsuki, which he has quickly come to fall back on. Also Boruto's actual life goal of support my friends” is just the goddamn best. I loved Naruto's underdog story, how he originally wanted to be Hokage to prove he was good enough, to get attention and hopefully make friends. That's great, good motivation guy. But FUCK THAT!  Borutos goals are so pure and come from such an interesting place that i can’t hate them. He doesn’t just want to support his friends because he cares about them, he wants to give the support he doesn’t feel he has. Boruto feels that his dad has abandoned their family- and he kind of has- and he doesn't want to make anyone feel that way. He wants to be the person who always supports his friends, not the one who leads them. Because leaders have things they have to do, goals they have to put before others and Boruto doesn't want to do that.

To further this point i really want to point out episodes 35-37, were we really get to see the power of MOTHERFUCKING FRIENDSHIP shine through in all the characters. This show has done ten times better than the original when it comes to introducing and evolving a large cast, though this has cost it in terms of pacing and advancing the plot.Or at least thats what ive heard as a complaint. I was to busy in my cloud of loving all of these characters to care. Also i”ve seen and read a disturbing amount of long running action adventure shounen manga, and i've become pretty numb to long over stretched arcs. Shounen anime is my second favorite type of any BTW, My first two being sports anime and magical girl anime. So you can imagine how little fucks i give that the overall plot isn’t going particularly fast.Any way, Those three episodes not only show MOTHER FUCKING FRIENDSHIP at its best it also highlights a really big problem with how the show portrays its character versus how the show -mainly the adults- talk about its characters.

SPOILER,SPOILERs,SPOILERS, GET THE FUCK OUT NOW!

*ahem* Kakashi is hosting the graduation exams this year, but before it he does several interviews were he asks the kids what they want to do and why they want to be ninjas. A large part of this episode is devoted to the fact that Boruto doesn't have a solid “reason” He says he wants to be a ninja because all his friends want to and he wants to support them in their goals and being a ninja is the easiest way to do that. He doesn't really have any plans of his own and is perfectly fine being the Mercy of the group. He originally says he wants to be better than Naruto but that isn’t the only reason. This pisses Kakashi off, he feels that Boruto not really having any plans means he lacks resolve and that can be dangerous on an actual mission. He feels that Boruto should want to become a ninja for some reason and that if he just waltzed into battle because he wants to be with his friends and beat his dad, without any goals of his own he won't have the strength to fight the really tough battles. Kakashi is WRONG. Everything the show ways shown us up until this points completely contradicts this way of thinking, Boruto would never risk a teammate or friend in any situation. His resolve to support his friends would only make him more valuable in a group setting. He has never been shown to  be the type not to make up his mind when it counts and always feels responsible for the safety and care of those around him. The biggest reason he was so obsessed with solving the ghost incidences was because he was the only who could see them and felt obligated to help because of that fact. Boruto has never been afraid to ask for help or get advice when he needs it and nothing about his character has shown the lack the resolve necessary to do what he must for his team and village. 

Though none of this matters because the conclusion the show appears to come to is that Kakashi is in fact wrong. After Boruto loses and the chips are down he states that he was wrong to become a ninja just to be with friends then figure what he wasn’t and that he inslt strong enough to support those goals. And Everyone says “FUCK NO BRO!” Everyone of Borutos friends tell him that it was his support that allowed them to grow and change as people and that if he wasn”t the way he ways they wouldn't be there.The problem with this is that the doubt he had wasn't there until kakashi said something. It's true that Boruto told Mitsuki it was kind of lame that he didn’t have high ambitions but he was fine with that. He’s just not the type to be overly ambitious, he's happy supporting his friends and knowing that they can fall back him when they need to. The show says that Boruto lacks the resolve to be a ninja, but it shows him to be reliable kid whos good to his friends and family -minus naruto- and who always tries to do the right thing. His friends also say that and they win against Kakashi by working together with Boruto.

And its even worse because at the end Kakashis like   “now you have the resolve to do what you have to.”  But Boruto hasn't changed in terms of his goals or his mindset. He still wants to support his friends and see them grow, he still as curios and intelligent as before. All that's happened is that he was forced to confront the previously nonexistent idea that maybe he wasn't doing good by his friends and that he needed have more self oriented goals. Boruto's version of friendship is, in my humble opinion, much better than Naruto's. People seem to actually like each other, they actively seek each other out. While a large portion go Naruto story was about him gaining friends in spite of Kurama, that doesn”t change the fact the supposed “friends” he did have treated im and each other like shit. It was perfect for the story that it existed in but can’t hold a candle to its successor.

If you like this stupidly long discussion-rant-review- thing please let me know. If you think i can improve somehow let me, but like in a nice way. If you’re a troll and going to be a dick no matter what, HI!

[cow3survivor]

Ep. 4: “Trying To Cover Ur Murderous Tracks” - Jones

JENNET 

nash isnt on my tribe but i cant help but feel bad for them :((( the last two days that we were together as old calumma i actually started to connect with them. they will be missed 💔

(a little later)

why am i obsessed with ethan ? *insert meme of that tiktoker just standing there*

(after building a bamboo bed)

super nervous for immunity, if we end up losing i think i might try to push for pennino bc he pissed me off the other night saying he wouldnt be available for the comp and literally SITTING THERE watching us do the comp... i really like sam and ethan (tbh more than i like lindsay and jabari) but thats only bc of how much we communicate with each other idk i do know lindsay wants to push for pennino too bc she was annoyed it too so maybe let her do all the pushing and if it backfires, just push for her to go😳

JESSICA

No song 4 today Last round we voted out Nash. That was not my ideal choice (I wanted Nicole to go) but Pete was paranoid Nicole may have an idol, that Nicole/Mikey/Nash were secretly working together, or just that something might go down. He also trusts Nicole for reasons unknown. I didn't love leaving Mikey in the dark (I think that really only helped Pete, not me) but I was nervous that if I pushed Nicole too hard as the vote, Pete would vote Mikey and then that was really the worst case scenario. If we lose this round, I am voting Nicole no question. She asked me what happened after the vote + if we could talk which I thought was great! I sent her an explanation that basically said I didn't trust Nash because they did not talk to me, I was worried OG Calumma was still a thing, and I didn't trust Nicole because she didn't start talking to me until after we lost + she left me on read a lot. And what does she do right after I sent that? Leave me on read again! I was excited to work with her when we first swapped but I don't see that happening at all now. The nice thing is because Pete lied to her, Mikey and Nicole voted each other, AND Lovelis was already initially down to vote Nicole, I'm hoping if we lose the vote is really easy. I also don't think Nicole has the idol because.... ...I found it! Okay, no I didn't. I did find a ruby though. I think that in each quadrant of the adventure, there is a gem and the four gemstones combined will make an idol. I already have 1, I have a good idea of where it could be in the north, and most importantly I am pretty sure Nicole has no advantages. I think if she had an idol, she might have played it last round, but my guess is that there is only one idol in the game and no one has it yet. However right now I'm not sharing this information with anyone. I hope that if we lose, Pete votes for Mikey out of paranoia (and that Nicole does as well) which means moving forward, Mikey really only has me and that's an alliance I can keep long term. I do also think that we are potentially swapping after this OR we will do a double tribal after this and swap then. I do not want us to lose twice because that's when things get tricky but if we do, I think I will be set up well enough that no one is coming for me.

PETE 

so my og Brookesia alliance of jessica and lovelis (plus me) they want to vote out Nicole but i reeeeaaally don’t wanna do that. Nicole and I had this talk of moving on from our past so if I just vote her out first chance I get that’d just be a huge dick move. They for some reason believe Mikey which I honestly don’t, I think he may be a little weasel. Nash doesn’t talk to me at all, so i’m hoping maybe I can shift the vote onto Nash by scaring them with the thought of Nicole having and idol

(after dropping his rice into the sand)

AAAAAAAAHHHHHH IDIDIT I DID IT IDIDIT literally i have THE biggest fucking knot in my stomach i was SO fUcking NERVOUS this is so fuckignw crazy i cant skdjdbxsjkdb i’ve NEVER been in control of a vote before like everything i told someone to do they did like i’m not gonna get all like egotistical and all that but like sjkdsxkdbsjjdjxjdkdb ive never been in this position before it’s wild i’m usually like the mikey. like i’m just there, hoping people include me but kinda just scraping by until they decide it’s my turn to leave and NOW!!!! I JUST BLINDSIDED SOMEBODYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH

JENNET

trying really hard to do this comp and my arthritis is making my hands spasm :(( powering thru and hopefully we dont go to tribal. if we do im afraid that im going to be voted out :((

JABARI

So i scored for the tribe which is great but then we tie and there is tower of hanoi. Lets just say ill never play that game again but I swear im not giving up no sir....they said they wouldnt boot me because of it but ima make sure of it.

JENNET 

in love with ethan hes the best person in the world

(after staring at Ethan)

really sucks going to tribal council and i know i let my team down so now im trying to find a way- SOME WAY to remind them that old calumma wanted to go after pennino next and to hopefully keep ethan out of the fire. sam approached me about an alliance with him and ethan and tbf idc what anybody calls me or what they think but im honestly closer to the too of them than to anybody on the tribe- closer to ethan than i was to jake even😳

LINDSAY

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12YzvXBooOu3lndrE99YopPOcO4VEAYYB/view?usp=drivesdk lmk if this works also fun fact i just tried to open the camera on the computer im borrowing and the computer bluescreened lol i hate it here

SAM

https://youtu.be/M4E00bmBj0A

PETE

The way this game is going Id say that I’m probably closest with Jessica just because we’ve been talking since the start, she’s really nice & enthusiastic, and we’ve agreed so far on the things that need to happen so we share a lot of information with each other. Lovelis is a little bit of a wild card because he never really talks that much so I’m going to try to bond with him more so that he doesn’t feel like just another number.

LOVELIS

Who knew we’d pull out a win with flash games! Maybe we need to stop shitting on then and start praying for more of them to pop up here LMAO. So glad I can just have this day to speak to people a bit more and just relax a little - I feel like me Jess and Pete are in a comfortable position within this tribe so I’m praying for no more funny business with another premerge swap but I’m tryna stay on my toes!

ETHAN

Ok so tribal time: I am in a minority position right now and it is looking sketchy. I feel like I am going because of how Jabari and Jennet have not talked to me at all today and instead have ghosted me. I have something, but not sure if I want to play it. Do I trust people, or do I just full send and blow it up? Time shall tell

JESSICA 

Yay we won immunity! I love getting my Dolphin Olympics redemption arc, it's been 6 years in the making.

PENNINO

Now, it's 4 hours before the first tribal as Furcifer, and I think that us from OG Calumma will go and do a Pagong to Ethan and Sam. Since Ethan was a beast in  the comps, and we want to keep tribal lines, that puts Sam up for the chopping block. As for Nash leaving, no surprise. Honestly, I feel pretty safe and now i'm just waiting for another swap.

MADISON

I don't know how I've survived four rounds but here we are. I think I've legit gotten the lowest score in the past 2 challenges but everyone else is a beast so I get to stay safe for another round. The downside to being safe so long is that there isn't really a lot of gameplay happening over on Planet Brookesia and some of us might be a little bit too comfy so that when swap time comes or we lose the next challenge, it'll be scramble city to figure something out.

JAKE

https://youtu.be/Hz-Ix0ZeQ7E y'all when I tell you i'm manic just thinking about crazy fringe theories related to this game lmaoooooo

JONES

ok bet lets get strategic:tm: i feel like a lot of my confessionals are rlly like ,, , , ,me just talking ab "wow i rlly like this person, not this person so and so and whatnot" and i haven't rlly gotten to bare bones like ,, what i'm thinking ab game wise ? for starters - i think i'm in a rlly good spot surprisingly? LIKE don't get me wrong its fking dangerous being in a 4-2 but i think i'm set up super super well? i'm officially working with all of Daisy, Sammy, Shane, and Jake, and am in an alliance w everyone of those people besides Sammy. but sammy has vouched saying that he does want to work w me and has my back and i don't have like,, any reason to doubt that rn ? unfortunately the only way to rlly like ,, ,, have everyone prove their trust to me is by going to tribal aldksfjasdlfj but i dont rlly see a reason for them to like ,, , lie to me ? esp when we haven't gone to tribal? i don't see the point in marinating someone this isn't among us and ur trying to cover ur murderous tracks,,, but ya ? i'm in a good spot. i think based on my alliances and allies and whatnot, and i've stated this already so this isn't rlly a surprise, but madison would probs be the target if we'd have to go to tribal. and Jake has stated to me too that he hasn't rlly talked to madison that much either so it doesn't seem like an uncommon thought process. after the challenge tiebreaker yesterday , the newly formed ALLEANCHE! kind of came together as the 4 most active people on the tribe so it SEEMS like it would be madison AND sammy getting targetted and , ,, , sammy going for me isn't rlly cash money bc if sammy DOES have my back then that's me losing one of MY allies,, but i don't think we're going to enough tribals before another swap for that to actually be a thing ? so hopefully if we do go to tribal it'd be madison and not sammy, but i think i, if not i then maybe jake LOL, can make a good case for madison to go over sammy. speaking of jake i have a rlly bad gut feeling that i'm gonna have to think ab cutting him soon - or at least before merge. i've kinda been letting him take the reigns since preswap to make him kind of look like a leader ish ? so i'm rlly hoping that like ,, , hypothetically speaking. lets say i'm AGAIN put on another tribe w jake (bc lbr we're swapping again),, and lets say hypothetically they wanna split up the supposed "duo" of myself and jake,,, whos the smarter person to take out - the leader whos kinda been calling the shots and making the alliances since round 1, or the person whos proven themself to be reliable and to keep their team safe and be able to go to bat for their team ? idk IDK that's just me but i definitely think like ,, in terms of a building threat level i think jake is definitely the easier target asldkfjasd which is UNFORTUNATE like i LOVE JAKE but i feel like if it comes to me and jake and jake is putting me in DANGER then , ,, well,, :( i gotta do what i gotta DO i'm pawned as old reliable for a reason :katenails: but ya uhm,,, shane/daisy/jake/i were talking on call after the tiebreaker ab what could happen and we all basically agreed theres no way in hell that there ISN'T another swap on the horizon or at least like,, a twist or something. u can't just swap at 18 on a 20 person cast and just expect us to sit like lil ducks on sunday brunch, if anything we're probs gonna swap at like ,, , , , 15? OR hosts are cracked and swap us NEXT ROUND bc they're sadistic. but ya there's def another swap it rlly just depends on when and whos there to experience it - i.e whether or not i'm gonna have security from my allies or not ya feel? i feel. also there's definitely probs like ,, , ,a double tribal. or smth. or like, smth crazy and dumb and stupid that i don't have the brain capacity to rlly comprehend. but ya hope i win this was a good strategy talk #fruciferandcallumathrowchallenge

NICOLE

Hello!!! Nash went home and I'm sad so I am PROTESTING confessionals! You won't know anything that is happening with me! Nothing! (Just kidding nothing happened this round, everyone ignored me and then we won immunity so they had no need to)

SHANE

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1TxoVh69i2GPA-agNAfyW0G-Bu07weXyZ?usp=sharing

SAMMY

so I had to write a paper and I'm rushing to get this in...blinks...whats new anyways I have been so off in like the idol hunting and I have felt so detached from this game since I have only been to tribal once? but I think the people in danger would be like Madison or Jake? they have both been brought up to me by daisy...and in all seriousness I would be fine with that? I honestly really am only prioritizing Jones and Daisy in this tribe. I feel fine with my position in this game and I even got a point from the flash games. Luckily Daisy won for us in the tiebreaker and we were able to barely escape tribal. I really do hope I can continue to avoid tribal so that I can get as far into this to make it to the more individual stage of this game.

DAISY

https://youtu.be/3kCYnxDIdQY

TRIBAL COUNCIL

[mysterybustershq]

everton colony camping trip » event.

i can’t believe all of this actually happened.

daniel.

finally getting the fire lit, daniel stood up and headed over to where most of the rest of the team was standing. “hey, i got the fire going so if you wanna come on down, come on down.” he half expected all of them to say no, and really wouldn’t blame them if they did, but it was worth a shot.

blair.

blair wanted to reply with a simple hm, no. but decided against it and walked past him to where his fire was. she didn't want to be alone for the time being so why not try to at least enjoy the trip?

bryce.

bryce had spent most of his time, sitting in his chair, trying not to think about not being able to contact his mom, as well as trying not to let things bother him. it wasn't really working- he was still freaking out, only internally now. but when daniel mentioned a fire, he lit up, a fire would be nice. "i'll join," he replied, as he slowly stood up.

nathan.

as the group slowly started to separate to the fire, nathan tried his best to keep an eye on both groups. the last thing he needed was him losing track of someone (probably trevor), and having to spend the rest of the night hunting for them. "are we even allowed to light a fire out here?" he asked, trying to be cautious, ". . . but sure, i guess i'll join. . . i get my own log to sit on though."

vanessa.

"anyone got some marshmallows?" appearing at Nathan's elbow from what seemed like thin air, Vanessa didn't waste much time in bounding down the slight hill to where Daniel had been hard at work on the fire, joining the small ( she suspected it'd grow, though ) group relocating there. "That's all we need. Fire, marshmallows, logs - spooky stories? I've got THOSE covered."

julian.

julian had followed nat towards the fire, promptly taking a seat on a blanket that was spread out over the forest floor. he leaned back on his palms with his feet out towards the small fire. "oh, we know," julian laughed a little, speaking only slightly condescendingly.

nathan.

"no one is telling scary stories." he snapped, head turning to vanessa, "bryce was already flipping shit before and im on trevor-fleeing-watch right now. the last thing this group needs is getting more freaked out. why can't you just read Goodnight Moon to the group instead?"

naomi.

"boo" naomi says from where she's sitting, wearing one too many layers of clothing. it was cold. "that's what camp fires are meant for. scary stories and group bonding. lord knows you need to bond with us, nathan."

vanessa.

"Meow. Really feeling the frost here, pals," she murmured under her breath only SLIGHTLY passive aggressively, having naturally orbited away from Julian and Nathan before they'd opened their mouths. When Naomi spoke up, Nessa pointed to her and bopped her head up and down animatedly, completely in agreement, "see? Naomi gets it. We can't waste this perfect backdrop and NOT scare our pants off with the stories of my people - it'd be like going to NASA and not taking your chance to announce on the tour guides swiped mic that the moon landing was fake and you have proof... which is something I definitely have never done, and is nothing more than a perfect, random anecdote."

cristian.

cristian was already sitting by the fire pit when daniel called everyone to come, having already been there, sinking into a lawn chair, when the team leader had decided to get a fire started. he took a sip from his beer, gaze nonchalant, as everyone began to join in and start speaking around him, half listening to what vanessa was going on about.

elijah.

eli made his way over to fire at daniel's request. not seeing trevor, he took a seat near nessa, the second most comfortable person and popped a marshmallow in his mouth, eyes twinkling with childlike happiness at the mention of frightful fire retellings. "yeab, we cabnt jus' not tell scarby stories," the beyond the grave cohost mumbled, mouth full of marshmallow. he proceeded after gulping it down. "what else are we gonna do? sing kumbayah? no way! plus, i hate to break it to y'all, but we are the mysterybusters so if you're not a fan of scary things, you're in the wrong line of work."

kimberly.

sitting around a fire and singing the campfire song song sounded about as fun as getting her teeth pulled sans anesthetic, but kimi hurried over to the fire. she didn't comment on the matter of horror stories. this entire job felt like a horror story, and not a good one, either. she focused on finding a place to sit; not yet seeing ashley (thank god) she decided to stand behind the logs opposite cristian. it was purely a coincidence that she stood there, but upon seeing, micah let out a quiet scoff as he took a seat next to naomi. if not for the people around, she would give him a fair suggestion of where to shove his ill-timed humor. alternatively, she silently sent up a prayer for his cast to catch aflame, and looked around with an innocent gaze. "so what are we doing, then?"

vanessa.

nessa visibly brightened at eli's appearance, grabbing a marshmallow and popping it in her mouth before he could protest as she made a bit more room on the log she'd claimed for him. mouth full of soft, pillowy goodness, she accentuated everything he was saying with movements of her head and hands, as so; "what else are we gonna do?" - she raised both hands in a clueless-old-man sorta gesture - "sing kumbayah?" - one shake of her head side to side, curls gone wild - "no way!" - a very animated nod of her head, up and down -"plus, i hate to break it to y'all, but we are the mysterybusters" - a dark glance around at all that were so far gathered, like she was disappointed in each of them - "so if you're not a fan of scary things, you're in the wrong line of work." - a final nod coupled with the folding of her hands over her chest and a noise of agreement, as she finally swallowed the marshmallow that'd shut her up for two seconds and threw in her own, final two cents, "i vote we listen to eli, and naomi, and therefore me, and get cracking with stories that'll ruin ALL our chances of  good nights sleep. for bryce's sake- sorry, bryce, for singling you out, but you ARE the only one who's freaked so far- we can go for a... a pg-13 retelling of the classics. that's a win win, right? right. the answer's right. say it, everyone- i'm right."

julian.

at that point, julian basically gave up trying to combat the girl. he laid his entire body down on the blanket, his hands resting on his stomach. "go ahead, ness." he threw out into the dark, his eyes closed.

nathan.

ive already bonded enough with ashley he thought to himself, groaning in response to naomi. nathan leaned forward, warming his hands near the crackling flame, "fine, i'll tell a scary story first. once upon a time, a guy from seattle just wanted to spend his weekend sitting at home doing class work. instead, he ended up getting dragged to virginia with Ghost Busters Jr. he got bit by mosquitoes, got sweaty, and didn't even have enough signal to use Pocket Camp." he looked back up the group, "there's my contribution. ive done my group bonding."

lana.

“mhm,” as ashley was going on and on about something, lana gave her an occasional hum to let her know she was still listening. she wasn’t. they were coming out of the woods when her eyes went from focusing on the leaves beneath her feet to the group who were huddled around a fire a way ahead. she pointed towards them and cut ashley off mid-sentence, “look! let’s go see what they’re doing.” she picked up her pace to join with the blonde following behind her. once she reached them, she shoved her hands in her pockets and stayed quiet to catch up on the conversation going on.  what she heard only made her shoot nathan a sarcastic dirty look.

vanessa.

she stayed quiet while he talked- at least, no matter what else happened, nessa could say that much. she kept her mouth shut ( something that was often an incredibly hard thing to do ) and she didn't butt in, even though she wanted to the minute she realized where his spiel was going, and when he was done she waited a whole seven point three seconds before she said, very seriously, "if that's the quality of all your campfire stories, please, stick to your day job." and THEN - then, as if she hadn't just dropped that out there into the world, nessa nudged eli with her elbow ( a little non-verbal 'hey, help me spook these ghouls' ) and leant closer to the fire, gaze lifting to go round the circle ( and lingering a bit on the newcomers of lana and ashley ), before saying, ominously, "have any of you ever heard of the huge storm of 1935?"

ashley.

following lana back to the group, ashley took a seat on the blanket julian was on, nudging him with her knee to get him to sit up. "hey," she said, not really paying attention to what the rest of the group was discussing. but she did catch the tail end of vanessa's monologue. "no, what's that?"

micah.

"i don't even remember the storm of 2018," micah spoke dryly. "why would i remember one that i wasn't alive for." his question came out so dully, kimi could hear the lack of proper punctuation.

elijah.

after she'd made her statement and finished her marshmallow, eli already had one roasted on a stick for her — his own kind of thank you for her gestures and generous support — handing it to her wordlessly. his eyes widened at nathan's statement and he leaned in, eyes wide with excitement . . . only to have them dim immediately at the bogus cynical content #teamdad's story. "come on nate you can do better than that! the only thing that was scary about was your lack of enthusiasm and creativity." eli said with a playful huff, a devious smile forming on his face as vanessa nudged him. "ah yes. gather round everyone. it was the huge storm of 1935! where goodness died and EVIL was born." he winked at ness, wiggling his eyebrows at the crowd. "listen if ye wee yellowbellies dare."

nathan.

"i could always tell the sequel where one of the kids he goes camping with disappears and all they find is his glasses and a pinky toe." he responded, tired eyes shot at elijah's direction. nathan wasn't one to get into the festivities, but vanessa's story proposition peeked his interest, "storm? what storm?"

naomi.

"the only storm i know is that vine that's like 'hurricane katrina? more like hurricane torilla' and that's not even a storm." naomi speaks up from where she's sitting,  "so by all means, tell us about this storm."

zachary.

zach, someone who thrived off of group dynamics of any sort, wasn't going to miss out on something as dire as a campfire. making his way toward the group, he caught the crucial end of vanessa's dialogue and interjected confidently, “heard of it?” he said with a tone that was mockingly serious, "i was there." zach smiled as he sat down next to eli.

alex.

alex sat herself besides zach quietly, folding herself onto the front of her legs, and listening with one ear. the prospect of scary stories itself made her animatedly roll her eyes as she rubbed her hands together to keep them warm (gloves were tacky, in her own opinion, and she was a sucker for fashion over comfort). "stop talking bull," she murmured before directing her eyes towards the fire, glaring at it. "honey, you've got a big storm coming," she mimicked.

vanessa.

"what about the closing chapter of a horrifying trilogy, where another one of the kids he's with shoves a marshmallow-on-a-stick so far up his a-" whatever she'd been about to say ( expression ever innocent ) was forgotten as eli silently handed one such marshmallow-stick combo to her, and she abandoned her threat in favor of stuffing her face while her friend reiterated what she'd said ( but, much better ). she WASN'T happy with nathan, that much was clear from the dark look that she kept trained on him for as long as it took for the others to tune back in and get in the spirit of the story, and then even more clear from how she began to avoid looking at him at all. "it was the storm to end all storms - my very own grandmama told stories of how they thought the world was ending...- and the people whom my cohort and i are about to tell you about WISHED it had," she took a deep, quivering breath, choosing to hook onto what zach said and continue with, "you should have waited 'til you heard the whole story before joking like that, zachary. see - not to sound too like a cliche straight from an egyptian tomb raid - everyone who witnessed what happened in the atchison manor that night DIED over the six months that followed. that is... the people who survived. we're not too far from that manor, actually - remember the crossroads? we took a left, but if we'd taken the RIGHT, we would have found it - the place the devil was born."

blair.

blair was really over the whole sitting around the campfire and telling scary stories trope so she waited for vanessa to finish before saying, " anyways, what time are we leaving tomorrow?"

daniel.

"blair," daniel said, his tone slightly harsh. all he wanted was one night where the team could just relax and have fun. maybe it was bad timing, but blair could at least try.

blair.

"don't blair me, cheater." blair doesn't mean to be rude (well maybe a little) but she can't help it. especially since it's daniel trying to get her to relax. "it's a dumb story and i have homework due tomorrow so i'd like to know."

damaris.

"b-" her own softly spoken cut in interrupted by daniel, damaris shut up and sat back instead of trying to throw herself in the middle, eyes wide as saucers as she looked from blair, beside her, to daniel, and back again. she waited for the other girl to quieten once again ( having already winced from her words - people going through second hand wincing was how you knew you'd fucked up, @ daniel ) before she whispered quietly, just to her, "why don't we go and get snacks from the van?- by the time we're back the story'll probably be done, and you...- the story will probably be over, yeah!"

julian.

without opening his eyes, julian poked ashley's side, trying to draw her in closer. "are they fighting? should we move? i don't want to get stabbed tonight." he spoke as quietly as possible, hoping no one else was in earshot.

nathan.

"blair! daniel!" nat shouted, standing up from his log and placing his hands on his hips, "look, if your outdated relationship drama is going to start shit on this trip then you guys better separate and take a chill pill." nat looked to the agitated blair, quickly collecting the roasting sticks that laid in front of her, "just. . . one of you take a walk. not alone though."

elijah.

of all the places to sit, of course zach picks the spot next to him. at his presence, eli paled visibly and shifted towards vanessa, who 1) had defended him and 2) was telling an awesome ghost story, which were 2/2 of the ways into eli’s heart. he listened intently, gasping, whooping and wiggling his fingers while he made ghost noises to add to the paranormal campfire ambience they had going. eli’s eyes were brighter than the fire when she finished, but of course everyone was sullen and sarcastic as ever. for a bunch of paranormal investigators they sure were normal. bo-ring. looking at blair, bored bitchiness illuminated by the firelight, eli whispered. “there won’t be a tomorrow if the devil gets us. and i wouldn't leave if i were you. if you want to get shish-kabobed by satan, that’s on you, but i for one am saying where i am. so, daniel, blair, i would work your stuff out because tonight's the night. and by that i mean the ONLY night."

micah.

micah sighed, already over the arguing. "so, zach was born tonight, he's the devil, none of this is news. but if you think the devil is enough to work their shit out, you're going to be sorely disappointed, eli." as usual, micah's voice had taken on that slightly softer tone, the one he always got when speaking to eli. it was barely noticeable, but it was there. he was still working on fixing that. "why do you think they didn't work out?"

ashley / daniel.

although he probably should've expected it, daniel stiffened at blair's reaction. after nathan got his scolding out, daniel rolled his eyes and stood up. "fine. i'll go." as daniel stood up, ashley followed, grabbing julian by his shirt and pulling him along with her.

vanessa.

great. just GREAT. a quality ghost story, wasted on everyone who wasn't eli - go figure. his theatrics had been perfect, the mood was JUST right, everyone was starting to slowly but surely get engaged in what she was saying ... and blair and daniel had to go and ruin it. thank god she was used to such moments not going to plan, because at the very least she was able to hide her sad annoyance beneath an indifferent expression, eyes darting to whoever chose to speak up next like it was a basketball game, muttering under her breath as daniel stalked off, "if you'd all just waited 'til the end of the story, then you woulda been too SPOOKED to argue and no one woulda had to leave, but noooooooo, you had to go and start RIGHT BEFORE it got good." and then, after a brief pause and considering of her words, she directed the final part at eli, "- you know, they don't appreciate our BOMB story tellings. we should start charging by the minute."

julian.

"oh–what? why? oh–okay," julian had no time to process what was going on. as soon as he felt ashley tugging on his hoodie, he sat up, and was on his feet with her. "you know, to be fair, bud," julian mentioned to daniel, walking just a bit behind the boy, "you really asked for that one to happen."

naomi.

naomi felt really awkward as they began arguing, pulling the strings on her hoodie to make it scrunch up against her face. "if it makes you feel better, i was really intrigued." she tells vanessa, words muffled by the fabric of the hoodie.

kimberly.

kimi watched as ashley dragged julian away after daniel. she wasn't quite sure how she felt about that friendship, considering how much it'd already fucked things up for him. but who julian befriended, wise or otherwise, was his business. she smiled at vanessa, nodding in agreement to naomi. she hadn't believed a word vanessa said since they were back in middle school, but she knew better than to let that show. "it was really interesting. how does it end?"

damaris.

she was beginning to think she needed a new best friend, and after sending blair one long, sad look, turned back to the others and went silent once more ( so allowing the narrator to effectively write vanessa m. wright's night at the campfire ) [ vanessa ] : "you'll survive the night," she intoned, spookily, half-heartedly wagging her finger in naomi's direction to add to the dramatic flare of her words. vanessa wasn't one to be knocked so easily out of a spooky mood ( some would say she was in one 90% of the time ), and she didn't not want to try bring them back to the group dynamic with the story... but she couldn't help shooting blair a wary glance as if unsure how SHE'D take it as she answered kimi with a, "maybe it's a story for another time."

zachary.

zach listened into more than he watched more members of the group gradually get in on the argument at hand. it was the type of drama that made zach wonder why they didn’t recognize how lucky they were to be so tightly wound in regard to one another. as a group, their fucked up dynamic was both a blessing and a curse. the product of a dysfunctional family. zach questioned what he had gotten himself into. he watched naomi with careful eyes as she tightened the strings of her hoodie. it was adorable, but caused a foreignly worrisome feeling to seat itself in zach. he resisted the urge to move to sit beside her; instead settling for a smile directed at her. he tuned back into the group just as vanessa was beginning to retract her storytelling expertise. even when shit had hit the fan, zach couldn’t bring himself to take it all too seriously. “you forgot a crucial part of the story, though, vanessa. as we all know, i was there, and i didn’t die. so what the fuck is up, kyle? a place where the devil was born, though? i’d recommend we go visit it,” zach looked around the group as though he were counting ( a smart-ass kind of move after so many people had left upset mere moments ago ), “but yeah. maybe it’s a little too spooky for tonight.”

ashley / daniel.

“trust me dude, i know,” daniel sighed, perfectly aware of what he’d signed on to. as the trio walked through the woods, ashley felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and pulled it out. “hey, we have service now,” she to neither boy in particular, showing them the way notifications were flooding her phone. turning her screen back towards her, she started to skim through everything she was getting. it seemed as though a lot of them were for the mysterybusters twitter, and all of them seemed to have a common theme. “the backseat killer? is that that new indie band? why is everyone tweeting us about them?” her the question was to both of them, but daniel answered first. “what?” he grabbed ashley’s phone from her hands, unlocking it to read what the tweets were about. “backseat killer escaped from prison.” he read aloud, his heart dropping to his stomach as he clicked on the article link. “mayer willis was being transported to a high security prison when he killed both the driver and the deputy with him and took the car. the car has been found but there has been no sign of willis,” his voice trailed off as he got to the end of the sentence, glancing up at julian and ashley, figuring only one of them would know what his words meant, before he circled back around to the fire. he immediately headed over to naomi, saying nothing but handing her ashley’s phone.

naomi.

naomi rested her head on micah's shoulder and pouted, "well that sucks... i really wanted to hear it." she tells vanessa, seeing daniel coming in her direction. she smiles at him even though her jacket is covering it but it soon fades as she sees the expression on his face.  "what's u—" she pulls the hood from her head and reads what's on ashley's phone. oh no her eyes widened and just like that she feels like the world is crashing down on her. the worst part is that she can't react here, in front of everyone. "uh.. excuse me..." she gets up quickly and begins to walk away from the group, tears blurring her vision.

micah.

when naomi stood up, it didn't take micah long to follow. he would give her space, if asked, but the fact that she was on the verge of tears -- something that, in and of itself, wasn't surprising -- told him that it probably wasn't needed. and as much of a fuck as micah didn't give about what was going on, he still cared about naomi, and this all felt too silverwood-esque to let her walk away by herself.

julian.

following right at daniel's heel, as he passed the phone to naomi, he rested a hand on his shoulder, needing the boy's attention for a second. "hey, man, where was this guy headed? or where was he being held? do you know? like, we have no reason to freak out about this, right?" he kept his voice low, not wanting everyone else to hear the news and react in panic.

daniel.

"i don't know man, i haven't read much more. signal's gone again," daniel answered before lightly shrugging julian's grip off of him and heading after naomi and micah. he pulled her into a hug the second he caught up, one hand rubbing her back and the other resting on her head. "i'm not gonna let anything happen to you this time, nay. promise."

vanessa.

nessa didn't like this. she didn't like it, AT ALL. what had started out as a soft moment - a kindly smile turnt naomi's way as she became the only one there at current moment appreciating her spookiness - went sour with the guys arrival back. a new feeling, set apart from the previous bother, settled uncomfortably in her stomach, and the vibe of her surroundings... the vibe was all WRONG. something had changed, and she didn't like it. "what's going on?" she asked, loudly, sitting up a little straighter, eyes following naomi and micah before drifting to daniel, and julian - the others in on whatever it was, it seemed.

micah.

micah stood aside as daniel hugged naomi. he threw a glance back towards where they'd left the others. he didn't care about them much, but at least they were all together. he looked back to daniel. "won't let who hurt her again?" usually, micah would stay out of it. but if someone was going to hurt naomi, that was irrevocably his business, and no one could say otherwise.

ashley.

"some guy named mayer willis broke out of jail and killed guards and stuff. and now they don't know where he is," ashley announced as she walked back to the fire.

trevor.

trevor had been a bit spacey since they all gathered together, it wasn’t a surprise since before they left he hot boxed himself in the bathroom of their dorm. he was extremely high and he was really relaxed when he was usually panicking at the thought of death, he was just chilling - staring off into the distance thinking about whether or not alex’s hair smelled like cotton candy or was cotton candy in his high little brain. snapping back into reality, the tall man shook his head and glanced around. everyone didn’t seem happy but he was too zoned out a moment ago to know what had happened. “ uh... so... did someone fart ? “ he made an awkward face, not really knowing what to say.

bryce.

bryce looked up in time to see daniel approach naomi, his eyebrows furrowing together as he watched the exchange. he didn't hear anything that they said, but he saw the look on her face- and that said enough. he was getting ready to stand up and follow the group when he heard ashley's announcement- and then he froze. mayer willis. no wonder naomi was upset. casting a glance at the rest of the group, he slowly stood up and made his way to where naomi, micah and daniel were standing.

zachary.

it took a lot out of zach not to insert himself into the conversation—or into the moment as a whole. and if the situation hadn’t been surrounding naomi, he definitely would have. but he had been patient in getting to know her fully. he had taken his time. he wasn’t going to fuck it up now by rushing to be someone she didn’t want him to be. what reassured him the most was the fact that ashley had followed suit. thankfully, vanessa voiced what he had been thinking since naomi was handed the phone, and when ashley showed back up to the fire zach stood up to meet her. “hey, what’s happening? what can i do?” his tone softened just a little as he repeated himself, “is there something i can do?”

nathan.

"what?" he exclaimed, voice booming through the campsite, "alright, trips over. you're all getting in that van and we're staying in a hotel or pulling an all nighter at the airport." nathan was more worried than aggravated at this point. of course there would be some killer running around just when they were out in the middle of west bumblefuck. through the chaos, he kept a close eye on damaris (not that she had done anything guilty yet, but he didnt want her wandering off and possibly causing more of a disturbance). "daniel, sorry to put a stake in your trip, but something has to be done."

lana.

her eyes followed naomi who separated herself from the group, lana's attention stayed on her until ashley’s words snapped her out of the trance. she couldn’t have heard that right. ashley must have made a mistake; it wouldn't be the first time. there was no possibility of that scenario being real and she wasn’t about to freak out until she was sure. she cleared her through before forcing the word out, “w-who?"

damaris.

the effect ashley's statement had on damaris, silent and non-existent 'til that convenient moment, was instantaneous. her face paled, her eyes widened, and though she didn't jump up from the log she'd been perched on to rush to naomi's side - she thought about it, and would have, if it weren't for fearing she'd crowd the girl. it was happening again. everything they'd been through - everything they'd JUST started to move on from, was suddenly at risk of coming to pass again. without thinking, she reached out and took a hold of blair's hand  for comfort, silly as it were,  eyes on everyone else as she waited for the information that hadn't been spilled yet.

naomi.

something about having daniel, damaris, micah, bryce and even blair there surrounding her made her feel a lot better. they had all been terrorized by him that night but, for obvious reasons, it hit closer to home. she hugged daniel back and softly cried into his chest. "i can't do this. what if he finds out where we are? where we work... live. you guys know he's coming for us... me because i'm the reason he was caught. and oh god what if he finds out about the twins and tries to hurt them too... i-i can't do this i have to, i have to leave. how much does it cost to get your name changed? a new passport... micah please tell me you know a guy. do any of you know a guy?"

micah.

her questions hit so hard to home, because god, if micah hadn't been thinking them, too. the evidence was in the discolored skin beneath his eye, and the split of his lip, and the cast on his arm. yeah, he knew a bit about that. but naomi couldn't make the same choice he did. he wouldn't let her. "breathe, nomi. i'm not going to let him hurt you, or the twins. i promise."

kimberly.

kimi watched as the original group stood together, forming a protective sort of semi-circle around naomi. as much as she wanted to know what was going on, she wisely stayed in her lane. she wandered closer to ashley, looking up at nat with wide, terrified eyes. "please, let's go. now."

vanessa.

if she'd thought that blair and daniel's fight was gonna be the worst of the evening, then wow had she been mistaken - evidently, that had just been the tip of the yikesburg. it wasn't her place to be with naomi or the other og's - she hadn't experienced what they had, she didn't know what they'd been through in the intimate way each of them did. her place was by elijah, where she took comfort from his presence and had a pretty great vantage point of everyone's reactions to the news, and where, when nathan spoke up, her "i agree" came softly from. they had to go. if nothing else, so the noise naomi was making wouldn't attract all the wild animals in the area to them ( not that she had scientific proof that crying drew bears, but she didn't want to take the chance ).

julian.

"wait, wait–" julian held his hands up, trying to grather some attention from the group that was still by the fire. "we don't need to go anywhere. and it's way too late to find a hotel with room for, what, twenty people? we're fine here." maybe he didn't really believe it, but julian didn't want everyone else to start panicking.

ashley.

"mayer willis?" ashley repeated, making eye contact with lana. "i could be getting the name wrong, dan has my phone." she shrugged. turning her attention to zach, she shrugged again. "i have no idea. i thought he was just some singer, but apparently i was really wrong." it seemed like she was the only one that didn't know what was going on; was keeping updated on criminals a requirement that daniel had let slide when he signed her on?

alex.

"yeah," alex replied, "totally fine. with a killer who could be hiding in the backseat of our van!" she shook her head, arms crossing as she stood and stomped the ground with the heel of her shoe. "i'm calling a freaking uber."

bryce.

bryce bit his lip as he listened to naomi- he didn't know what to say, and out of fear of saying the wrong thing- he stayed silent, his hands clinching into fists as he thought back to that night. he'd tried his best to block it from his mind- but now it seemed inevitable that he was going to relive it. and he was scared, but for everyone's sake he tried his best to remain calm. "we won't let him hurt you, or the twins," when he spoke his voice was low, and shaky, but he meant what he said.

naomi.

the more she thought about it the more scared she began to feel and suddenly naomi was freaking out the same way she was when she got that ticket for not pulling over for an emergency vehicle ( haha #tbt ) "we have to go. like now i can't do this oh my god i'm going to die, we're all going to die and it's my fault—" she pulled away from daniel and rested her hands on her knees, "i'm gonna throw up."

nathan.

"sorry, julian. supervisor trumps researcher." nathan said, looking around for something to put the fire out, "it's not safe. we can spend the night in the airport or even go to a church. anything is better than here where we have no signal. cristian is a big boy, he knows how to work high beams. he can drive."

alex.

alex glances worriedly at the group surrounding naomi before turning away, and promptly deciding, for once, it was none of her business. "for once... and it pains me to say this," she said, "i think we should listen to what nathan has to say."

trevor.

trevor looked around again, seeing as no one was laughing about his fart assumption he figured it was really serious because no one didn't laugh at a fart joke unless there was something wrong. the tall boy stood up, awkwardly mostly because his high mind made it seem like he was moving slower than he really was. " okay ! i have no clue whats going on - you guys seemed freaked out so i'm guessing either naomi is having a normal breakdown or an actually bad breakdown ? " he looked around once more before glancing at vanessa. " are we gonna die? is this a cabin in the woods situation ? because the stoner ALWAYS dies first ! " he exclaimed.

vanessa.

"trevor, the stoner died LAST in that movie," vanessa corrected cooly ( doing eli's job for him, since he wasn't there ). she didn't have a very good feeling about the night as a whole, now. some would say it was a little late to be listening to bad vibes, but nessa was of the opinion that it was only too late when you were DEAD - something they weren't, yet, and that she was quick to add on and direct trevor's way, "everything is fine. we're going to leave, right guys? leave, get out, slam the door on this WHOLE thing - a healthy case of the SCADADDLES, and once we've relocated this shindig to the airport, everything'll be right as rain! or. as right as rain ever is? you get me."

elijah.

insanity was unfolding right before their very eyes. naomi was crying, screaming, BOTH and everyone was trying to get out of there and eli was inclined to agree when. . . "wait! GUYS HOLD ON ! WAIT I HAVE TO GET MY CAT!"

julian.

"elijah, i told you not to bring tippi!" julian had both hands ontop of his head, a headache already forming from the stress.

julian.

" you brought TIPPI!" trevor exclaimed in more fear than before, the thought of eli's cat going missing even more scary then himself disappearing. " we HAVE to find him NOW ! " he yelled out before turning to almost run to find the cat.

bryce.

bryce could make out part of what was happening around the camp fire, and he found it to be incredibly overwhelming. he just needed to get away- or block it out or something. so without saying anything he sort of just walked a way, still in sight and sat down, covering his ears with his hands, as he focused on taking a few deep breaths.

cristian.

half listening to everyone's bickering for the past couple minutes, cristian had been rolling his eyes ever so subtly in the background, busying himself with relaxing by the fire. he wasn’t about to spend the last few hours of his birthday weekend worrying about ghost stories and people's breakups. however, his indifference only lasted so long. upon hearing the name of the backseat killer, cristian's brows popped up in worry, remnants of the silverwood night rushing a bit too quickly into his mind. many of the faces around the fire probably couldn't understand the magnitude of the terror that rushed through his head, although he could see it in the faces of the other original members. therefore, getting up quickly from his chair and swiftly taking out the van's keys from his pocket, it only felt right to join the others by naomi's side. he wasn’t the greatest with tears, but he could surely understand the horror of the situation, so rushing up behind micah, catching the last of naomi's words, cristian added, “uh, if it helps, naomi, i do know a guy.” he shrugged, trying to keep his calmest face in the heat of the tense moment, allowing her to let it all out. just the group being near each other seemed like enough. however, cristian knew better. so, after hearing everyone's pleas to leave, he nodded affirmatively. " yeah, maybe it's best that we get the hell out of here," cristian agreed, dangling the van's keys so everyone could see. "i actually think i did see a church nearby on the way up here, but we'll see. everyone get what you need and get in. quickly." he gestured toward where the vehicle was parked.

damaris.

while vanessa immediately rushed to eli's side and panicked about tippi with the rest of them, damaris went in the opposite direction, moving to bryce's side. so much was happening - too much, at that - and she knew it was probably overwhelming, so she did what she could and grasped his shoulder, tightly, grounding him in the moment and giving him a few seconds to calm his heart rate before she  gave his jacket a gentle tug in the van's direction. "c'mon, bry. we're going - we're gonna go to a church cris saw. it'll all be better once we're there, ok?"

lana.

lana took one step forward, about to start a trail to the van, after ashley confirmed it and they decided upon leaving. except she was starting to feel like her heart was beating out her chest and she couldn't move. this was a situation that she hadn't been expecting and that was part of the reason why she was silently panicking. she shouldn't have reacting at all, not in front of every one here. she took a long moment tried to contain herself while everyone was talking amongst themselves, not wanting the lightheadedness feeling that was creeping in get to her. but, it was no use. her father, the person who tried to kill her best friend, and someone she'd been trying to escape for years was on the loose. the rest of the group’s distress continued to encourage the sickening sensation. there was no reality in which lana would be able to hold herself together and before she knew it, everything went black-- just in time to not feel the blow of her body hitting the ground beneath her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XjayddbksQ

kimberly.

kimi watched as lana's body hit the floor. "we should... should someone grab her? is she alive?"

nathan.

through the symphony of yelling, crying, and meows in attempt to call tippi from hiding, nathan heard the thud lana's body made as it hit the forest floor. "shit." he murmured, rushing over the the girl on the ground. "uh a little HELP HERE." he called to the group, gently shaking lana's shoulders, "lana? hey lana." he smacked her cheek gently, "lana??"

alex.

alex actually laughed. "stop playing, lana. this is a serious discussion."

bryce.

bryce squeezed his eyes shut- maybe if he pictured something- he could forget about what was going on. it didn't work. but feeling the hand on his shoulder, he opened his eyes as he slowly titled his head to look at damaris. her words didn’t register, but he found himself nodding as he slowly stood up. “t-that sounds nice,” he stammered, as he slowly moved in the direction of everyone else. stopping in his tracks as he watched lana fall to the ground.

julian.

standing up to run to lana, julian was beat by nathan's frantic run. he was frozen for a second, watching the two, waiting for some reaction from the girl. he turned around on his heel, picking into a near-by cooler, and pulling out a bottle of water. he sprinted to nat and lana, his knees digging into the dirt. "did you slap her? no, no–bend her knee, put her on her–" as nicely as he could, julian shoved nathan to the side, gently turning lana's body so that the girl was resting on her side.

nathan.

"is she breathing??" he asked frantically, trusting julian enough to take somewhat over, "put a finger under her nose or something." he bit the skin of his nails anxiously until a bead of blood formed, "fuck. how far is the nearest hospital?"

julian.

"she's fine," julian said, taking the water bottle and placing it under lana's neck, "she wasn't strangled, she just passed out. give her a second." he looked at nathan and sighed, seeing everyone else who had gathered in worry. "someone might want to get naomi. for when she wakes up," he told to anyone in the group who was listening.

kimberly.

kimi bit her lip apprehensively. she thought everyone was being a little dramatic, but even she was starting to get worried. casting another glance at the panicking group, she followed cristian to the van. she stood aside as he tried to get the car started.  her eyes widened when he said the car wouldn't start. "what the f--... why wouldn't it start?" she laughed nervously, hoping to cover her near slip.

naomi.

after many deep breaths and encouraging words from daniel, naomi was able to calm down just a little before seeing julian and nathan around lana. "what— what happened to lana?" she quickly runs over to where they are and gets down on her knees, shaking the girls body. "lana... oh my god why did she pass out is she okay? i'm gonna go get her some water." she looks at both nathan and julian before getting up and walking towards cristian and kimberly. too much was happening and everyone knows how naomi gets when things get tough. she hears cristian say the van won't stop and honestly things could not get any worse than this. "jesus fucking christ cristian i swear to god if you don't get this dumb van to work i'll fucking scream until all of your heads pop!" she begins to roughly hit the hood of the vehicle with her hands, looking at him— expecting him to do something.

nathan.

Nathan bunched up his jacket to create a makeshift pillow to put unless lana's head. he was about to ask julian another question when he heard the oh so familiar shrillness of naomi's voice. cringing, he turned toward the direction of the van, "what the fuck are you guys doing? get in the c!--" before he could finish, he noticed naomi pounding her fists on the hood. he swallowed a nervous gasp that had presented itself in his throat. "guys. . . whats wrong with the van?. . ."

daniel.

watching everything go down hit too close to home for daniel. he'd sworn nothing like this would ever happen again. that was the only reason he'd even agreed to continue the group. "okay," he said, thinking aloud. "everyone just calm down. he was in prison back in washington and everything is from today. there's no way he could get here in that little time, so we're safe for the night." there was no telling what would happen once they left, but for now, they were okay.  and there was no point in worrying everyone if they couldn't leave. "so just stop freaking out. nothing bad's gonna happen to us tonight."

cristian.

shrugging in kimi's direction, cristian gave her an unsure glance. “ i don’t know, i can pop open the front and see what’s wrong, but it was fine like not even an hour ago, i don’t know what’s up,” he explained, running a hand over the top of his head as he contemplated what could have gone wrong, his level of worry beginning to rise substantially and his heart picking up in pace as the pressure zeroed in on him -- although he tried his best to keep a composed expression on his face. however, his face dropped once naomi started to yell and pound on the hood of the van. " whoa! hey! hey! hey! naomi, what the fuck? don't fucking do that!" he shouted back as he approached the girl, losing his composure a bit at witnessing his prized possession get hit, "whatever's wrong with it, that's not going to help." cristian grabbed naomi's wrists and stopped her hands from damaging the van any further. "let me see," he huffed irritatedly as he gave naomi a sour glare and popped open the hood of the car.

naomi.

"don't tell me what to do. you know you should really make sure everything is working before the trips because somehow the van always stops working when we need it, cristian. my best friend is dying, a serial killer is on the loose and i have so many mosquito bites on my arms and legs it looks like i was in a mosquito gangbang— and i don't even know what that looks like." she says everything too fast and her voice cracks, she's going to start crying again. "and daniel thinks it's all going to be okay but it's not and everyone else is freaking out... why did elijah bring his cat and why can't we all just! have a normal camping trip without having to worry about dying, missing pets or our fucking mosquito repellent not working?! so if you'll excuse me i'm going to throw up in that bush over there and if i get lucky enough, there might be posion ivy over there too because why wouldn't there be?!" she laughs through her tears even though there's nothing humorous about the situation.(edited)

nathan.

nathan felt bile in his own stomach start to rise at the mention of vomit. he took a deep breath, shutting his eyes tightly, "uh youre not going to those bushes without a buddy, young woman." poison ivy, tippi, the van, and a killer would be the least of their worries if naomi got attacked by an animal (or person) if she wandered off alone. "can someone go with her?" he asked to no one in particular.

micah.

micah was at least used to naomi's rambling. he held up a hand to nathan, hoping to somehow convey that this was the most normal thing that had happened tonight. "naomi, seriously, breathe. you're going to hyperventilate. lana's not dying. she just fainted." he didn't know why, but at least he knew she wasn't dead. (unfortunately.) "trust me, she doesn't die that easy. i've tried." kimi tried to hide both her blooming annoyance and fear, and elected to ignore micah's confession to attempted murder(??) "guys, we all need to calm down. the guy can't get us. we outnumber him anyway, right? it's, like, twenty of us against one. we can find eli's cat, and hike back to the hotel if we need to. just..." she left the sentence open-ended, unsure of what else she could say.

cristian.

raising his brows in offence, cristian stopped looking at the mechanics of the van for a moment and shifted back to naomi at his side. “wow, okay, fuck me then, huh? for your information, princess, i did check if everything was working! not everything is my fucking fault!” he snapped, letting all notions of wanting to stay calm fly out the window. he exhaled deeply, visibly annoyed with how everything was going down, before turning back to the car and examining it thoroughly. what he saw was a mess -- just a bunch of different wires cut in different locations. cristian almost wanted to laugh. “ yeah, well, this is fucked, ” he shook his head.

julian.

“if we can’t leave in the van,” from the ground, julian glared up at cristian, “then we’re staying put. we can’t even go anywhere until lana wakes up. and i doubt she’ll be in any shape to hike.” julian had to actually make sure the girl was still breathing once or twice, growing more and more worried as she continued to lay unconscious.

zachary.

zach had registered all of the chaos that was unravelling before the team. it wasn’t overwhelming in the slightest. in hindsight, even, he reasoned that he had dealt with much more imminent dangers than they seemed to be experiencing. everyone was getting tangled up in the “what ifs.” it was normal of large parties like theirs. when naomi started fuming and cristian returned the sentiment, taking her by the wrists, zach took a cautious step toward them. micah’s sentiment was appreciated—anything to diffuse the situation was worthwhile at this point. but when cristian began to go off, “don’t fucking patronize her like that. and it’s no one’s fucking fault. no one here has anything substantial to go on right now, so just take a second to breathe or meditate or whatever it is you need to do.” when julian spoke up, it was as though the atmosphere had become infinitesmillay more reasonable. “i agree. we’re not being chased right now. if need be, we can rotate taking watch or some shit throughout the night.”

daniel.

daniel made his way over to cris. although he didn't know shit about cars, even he could tell that the van was useless. "no, cris. it's not your fault," he said as he closed the hood. no one else needed to see the cut wires and worry more. "c'mon guys, let's just take a seat and calm down." he led cris and naomi back to the fire, passing naomi off to zach, maybe he could calm her down. "yeah, julian's right. we stay here tonight. nothing bad's gonna happen. first thing tomorrow morning i'll go find service and call someone. we'll be fine." maybe if he said it enough times he'd believe it.

lana.

slowly regaining consciousness, lana began to hear everyone’s muffled voices. she didn’t dare to open her eyes yet, since the pounding of her head made it too difficult to do so. she didn’t remember fainting, but she quickly remembered what happened right before. which led her to groan out loud, “okay. who the hell knocked me out?” she was too afraid to look at who was around her but she spoke anyway.

nathan.

a sigh of relief came from the eldest, "oh thank fucking god." nathan placed his face in his hands, relieved that he didnt have to explain to the university why a student died on his watch. "no one knocked you out, lana. you passed out. though, i want to knock you out for scaring the shit out of us all." he sighed, "but, youre not dead. so im thankful. do you need water?"

julian.

hearing the girl’s oh so familiar annoyed tone, julian looked down to lana. “stay down, lana. just take it easy…” he listened to nathan, nodding along to him. "does your head hurt at all?" from his position right next to her on the ground, he tried to look at her head, but couldn't see much in the dark.

kimberly.

"i'll go find some water," kimi offered, ready to get away from the group. their paranoia was no longer contagious, it was just annoying. "i have some pain pills in my tent, too." she probably didn't, but if it gave her a bit of space, she would lie her ass off, more so than usual. this relationship drama was old, and she couldn't care for lana on her best days, let alone one like this.

lana.

“no, no,” as she spoke, she felt her cheek tingling. “i just need everyone to not touch me,” lana brought her hand up to feel the side of her face. “you’re sure no one knocked me out? why does it feel like it?” her throat was dry, causing her voice to be seemingly more raspy. she wasn’t sure how long she was out for or what happened once she did. frankly, she was afraid to ask.

julian.

"you might have hit your head hard on the way down," he tried to theorize, but wasn't sure. now that she was awake and alert, he inched back a bit, giving the girl some more space. he turned to where kimi was, waiting for the water. "i don't think anyone saw you get hit." he said, trying to give her some comfort.

kimberly.

kimberly had all of ten seconds to herself. with her back to the group, she let her facade drop. it was almost like art, watching such pretty perfection morph into something so ugly and hateful. her stride took on a new sort of bounce. the others wouldn't have noticed, of course; they didn't know kimberly. not really. but she felt more in her element with eyes off of her. she slipped into her tent and let out a quiet groan of frustration. "this fucking team," she murmured, rooting through her bags for water. there was a bottle of pain pills right on the top, but she pushed it aside. she grabbed a water bottle. she'd brought at least a dozen, not just for herself, but for anyone else who might've forgotten to bring one. most of them were full, but she grabbed a half empty one, before rising back to her feet. she breathed deep, putting back on her mask. when she walked outside, her face was the picture of worry as she rushed to lana's side. she handed the water bottle to julian with a remorseful expression. "this was the only bottle i could find, i'm sorry. and my pills went missing. has anyone seen them?" it was hardly important, but she felt the need to ask anyway, if only to cover her bases.

micah.

micah let out a sigh, dragging a hand through his hair. it was a bad idea, considering it felt like he'd just hit himself with his cast, but it felt appropriate. "let's just... go to bed." he looked around at the group of misfit toys. and he thought he had troubles at home. "sleeping in the van might be a good idea after all. don't worry, i'll keep watch."

honorable mentions:

[marchingfluterino]

last game of the season things:

i walked over to The Corner bc annabeth, stamy, and matt were there among others and.

“don’t fist weed man” —stamy

i immediately walked away again. what the fuck stamy

the Band Amoeba

basically a few kids were in a circleand they kept gathering people into the Amoeba by collectively advancing toward them and opening the circle to absorb them, then closing it again. it was so fucking funny

max wasnt there again. hes in seattle. hannah said their cousin there made him go on a seven mile hike lmao

on the bus i sat with dylan and we were like entirely surrounded by color guard o ops

it was fine tho

the game we were going to was literally like almost an hour away through like forests and even a little farmland which was wild

literally

once we got there we were trapped in the back bc we were two seats behind fucking eric and mattias and they were wrestling in the bus and shit AGAIN.

dylan managed to get us to the front tho. bless up dylan

we heckled maya for “does baked mean high???” and she just yelled “THAT WAS A WEEK AGO” lmao

hannah asked me if i wanted to go to a gearworks guard thing where they teach u How To Do Guard Shit its in the summer and Hoo Boy i wanna go! it sounds so fuckin cool yeeeee

the other band had a bigger drumline than we do, which is not much when u consider that we Do Not Have a drumline. like we have the equipment just. not enough people according to daryl

they had a quad, two snares, and three bass drums. one of them was TINY

while the other band was playing the national anthem, a bunch of what i thought were drunk adults were singing along. nope turns out it was our goddamn student section. i hate my school

luckily though they were on the other side of the field.

actually it was really nice bc we were in the backfield bleachers and then on the other side of the space in front of where this building was there was the bleachers where the other band was. they were SO CLOSE it was AMAZING

there was this one flute in the front that kept dancing it was so lit

me and this one clarinet i think kept waving back and forth at each other it was awesome

idk what they thought of us tho bc like, we tried to start the wave (only a couple kids in their band would do it), and then we did the band dance like from an outside perspective it’s very weird and like a cult. like theres just a couple people at the front doing a little dance and everyones doing it back at them

actually i sorta do know what they thought of us bc we played our parade tune and somebody in the other band looked over at us and did the “so so” thing where u have ur hand parallel w the ground and then you turn it back and forth

at one point while percussion were doing a cadence alex just started playing the “when mom isnt home” song

we got to do The Loud Thing with percussion TWICE and the first time Literally no one realized they were supposed to play except me so for like A Whole Couple Seconds it was just One flute, playing the highest C u can on a c flute (aka like, 6 ledger lines above the staff) and then Everyone joined in it was WILD

before halftime while we were going down the steps to go warm up i like fell on the last couple steps

but like. i was COMPLETELY FINE. like it was the softest fall ive ever seen. like it probably LOOKED bad bc mendelson and rachel (who were behind me) asked if i was ok (AND I WAS), but it just. WASNT.

like no one couldve caught me, bc i wouldve brought rachel down with me if she had tried and besides she was too far back anyway, and mendelson plays sousa, so HE couldn’t’ve. so like how

the only explanation is that it was a marching band ghost who didnt want me to damage my instrument. like. my feet fuckin FLOATED out from under me almost. and my flute barely jostled. thats the only way that couldve happened

there was a doggo. he was very good and he had a job. a police pupperino

the student section yelled shit like “THATS MY BAND” as we ran on and honestly YOU can shut the fuck up chad, im not a goddamn fool i KNOW you dont care i KNOW that

during our show i was worried that my pinky would freeze to the ♭E key. it happened to sam at the last practice and it was even colder at this game

apparently hannah’s been volunteering at the cavaliers since she was TEN

TEN YEARS O LD

for once the water was colder than my hands. which is saying a lot bc my hands were freezing

i kept dancing at the cadences, like i always do

so ellie, my section leader, who is graduating, decided that next year i am in charge of flute choreography

lit

one of the trombones (the one whose name idk, the blond one who always wears this one blue flannel) had to be told to take off his hat. why 

the other bands seniors had FOOD to give to OUR SENIORS it was very nice of them

we did the “i believe that we will wong” thing again

to clarify bc i dont think ive ever talked about that on here theres this one kid in our band named will wong (both of which are common enough names that u will Never Find him) and its based of the “i believe that we will win” chant except u dont usually do the “i” i “i believe” i believe “i believe that we” i believe that we etc etc back and forth thing u just start yelling “I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WONG I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WONG I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WONG” over and over really fast its great

and lowkey a meme

i said to ellie that i thought that that was the best meme and she said she thought band bingo was the best and honestly im flattered

this was the first time i have Actually Cared about the Outcome of a Sportsball

the team we played was like, fourth in the fuckin state and we’re The Worst and for the first game they put the worst team (us) against the best and we ALMOST fuckin won it was insane

im glad it didnt go into overtime tho it was Cold rip

i lost my green screwdriver rip

the bus ride home was nice

(and cold)

the heater only came on in our bus when we were Actually At school

daryl said we could take home the boxes if we wanted so now i have a box. as in From Our Show.

[willridgard]

Ghost Ship Way 👻🚢

As I said in a recent blog post, Ale Trails are fashionable. I therefore thought it’d be best to try another one, albeit slightly different to the last! With injury ruling me out of weekend football for a while, I thought ‘why not treat the better half for a mini-break on the stunning North Norfolk coast’? Obviously, and this was a discussion we had beforehand, the best possible way to enjoy our time together was by trawling through seven different pubs and trying a different ale in each!

That’s the good thing about Ale Trails. They’re versatile. You can do them wherever and with whoever you like: friends, family, loved ones, and even pet tortoises who originate from the Mediterranean! (My tortoise Coco will be fully immersed in them when she gets a bit older. She’s only just turned 2 bless her). My better half loves exploration, adventure and going to new places so was naturally delighted at the idea; she actually planned the trip via and after downloading the CaskFinder App. I know. What a woman. I got lucky.

Overall, we enjoyed good food, good beer and good company throughout; three elements every good weekend should include!

Of course, I didn’t get it all my own way and there had to be some compromise. The ol’ bank account took a slight roasting and it wasn’t just pubs we visited...(There’s a very nice craft shop in Old Hunstanton I’d advise looking in). 

Although, on the Saturday, we had very little alternative but to spend all day in the pub due to the continuous downpour that, try as it might, failed to dampen our spirits. A blazing fire, a pint of Britain’s favourite drink, and numerous packets of crisps and peanuts - what more could you want!? 

As part of CaskFinder App’s World’s Biggest Ale Trail, we decided to explore a section of the Adnams sponsored ‘Ghost Ship Way’ Ale Trail. 

And despite being disappointed by the lack of Suffolk’s finest ale on show, it was good to see so many local brewers (Woodforde’s, Brancaster, and Mauldons) supporting their local pubs (and vice-versa). Here’s the route we took armed with our CaskFinder App maps and scanners… 

Stop 1: The Ancient Mariner Inn (Old Hunstanton, PE36 6JJ). Very impressive, warm and homely - just what you need after a rain-sodden two-hour trip! Plenty of beer selection. Opted for a pint of Fullers’ Seafarers: a refreshing, fruity bitter. Pub’s Halloween decorations inspired the generation of our Halloween Housewarming ideas (which we hosted the following weekend)! Mwahaha.   

Stop 2: The Lodge Inn (Old Hunstanton, PE36 6HS). Different vibe. Very modern. Very hotel. Cool (in both sense of the word) own ale: The Lodge Inn Finest Ale. There seems to be plenty of competition up there in terms of hotel-cum-pubs and the production of their own ales. 

* Sleepover at the King William IV Country Inn, Sedgeford: very good service, dinner, breakfast, beer, wine, price and accommodation. Highly recommend to all.

* Holme beach: a beautiful setting for a Sunday morning stroll. Tide out. Sun glistening. Squelchy sand. Blustery winds. Wrapped in hats, scarves and coats. Very Autumnal. Managed to avoid stray golf balls from the Old Hunstanton course, too...#fore   

Stop 3 (via the above *s): The Lifeboat Inn (Thornham, PE36 6LT). Very old school and very dark, with the only source of light and warmth coming from the fiercely burning fire. Ideal opportunity to put the feet up with half a pint of Woodforde’s flavourful Once Bittern. Could have quite easily stayed longer, but the trail must go on...

Stop 4: The Orange Tree (Thornham, PE36 6LY). Pricey! Lots of oranges. Busy member of staff showed good knowledge on ale choices. Tried another one of those pub / hotel produced ales...Unsurprisingly orange.

Stop 5: The Briarfields Hotel (Titchwell, PE31 8BB). Limited Norfolk phone signal makes for a quite a fun mission! Big car park. Classic hotel. Another one of those ales. Quick pit stop. Stomachs starting to rumble. Sunday Roast calling, but elsewhere...

Stop 6: The Ship Hotel (Brancaster, PE31 8AP). Superb half of Brancaster Best. Certain staff not so superb. After rejecting three elderly customers the offer of food, rude, dismissive northern member of staff gave us the same service. Didn’t sit well when that offer was revamped. We’ll pay our £2.05 and be gone! Cheers. 

Stop 7: The Sculthorpe Mill (Fakenham, NR21 9QG). Stomachs well and truly rumbling now! Opted to break the journey home up. Talk about stumbling across a hidden gem. Beautiful moss-filled lake. Good food. Cosy environment. Friendly staff. Even treated myself to a whole pint of Ruddles Best packed with soft, fruit aromas. Trail over (for now). Home time! 

It was a fantastic weekend, but with my beer head on, it’s fair to say that this trail provided plenty of challenges... 

If it wasn’t the impractical placement of Cask Marque certificates (to scan the QR code and register the pub visit), it was the limited phone signal which was near impossible to obtain! Fortunately, most pubs had accessible WiFi to save the day! 

And if it wasn’t the wet weather, it was the distance between each pub which makes ‘Ghost Ship Way’ an extremely difficult - and perhaps unappealing - trail to complete. While exploring our short section of aforementioned pubs, we had to drive to virtually every destination. And with more than 30 pubs on the trail that spread across the best part of 70 miles from Heacham to Gorleston, I doubt there are many ale trailers who have completed the trail! P.s. When I say ‘we’, in regards to driving, that doesn’t include me...

However, we love a challenge and this weekend was absolutely superb. I’m up to 20 scans now: only another 3,500+ to go until I venture onto the World’s Biggest Ale Trail leader board! The better half also managed to get her first two scans: I’m sure she’s cherishing those and will actively attempt to catch me up.

Good weekends are all about exploration and adventure. New pubs. New beers. Same loved ones. Rumour has it another trip is in the pipeline soon. Maybe Coco will join us on the crawl this time…

Top three pubs of the weekend:

1. The Ancient Mariner Inn, Old Hunstanton, PE36 6JJ 

2. The Lifeboat Inn, Thornham, PE36 6LT

3. The Sculthorpe Mill, Fakenham, NR21 9QG

Top three beers of the weekend: 

1.Fullers’ Seafarers

2. Brancaster Brewery’s Brancaster Best

3. Briarfields Ale

Reminder: The seven step guide to a good Ale Trail 

1. Download the CaskFinder App and register on the World’s Biggest Ale Trail 

2. Tell your friends / family / pets to do the same

3. Find and explore different ales and pubs

4. Scan QR cods to build up your tally and win prizes

5. Read up on beers and give out star ratings

6. Make memories. Take photos. Have a blast!

7. Repeat!