#might’ve just been looking for food and shelter from rain

[dreams-in-daylight]

.

[troublesomemix]

CLOSED starter for @cherrysugcr || based on this post ( getting caught in the rain ) || ft nicholas

He didn’t sign up for this. Of course, one couldn’t really control the weather, no matter how much one wanted to. Still – Nicholas was extremely internally frustrated at the turn of events. He was supposed to be riding home on horseback all through the night, and yet, here he was. Knocking on a stranger’s house in the middle of nowhere, trying to seek shelter for the night. It didn’t look like they had a stable for his horse;; though, with how dark it was, he couldn’t really tell. He doubted that they would be so generous to let him spend the evening inside of their lodging. But one could hope. Normally he would look all regaled up as he traveled. But this was a quiet journey. One that didn’t require the entourage that had always seemed to travel with him everywhere he went. This time it was just Nicolas. Him and his horse caught in the worst pouring downpour of freezing cold water. He shivering, frustrated, and mentally befuddled after his adventure. Nicholas was returning home from visiting a foreign marchioness. It was supposed to be a mission of diplomacy, and somehow it turned into a weekend of passion. The two monarchs had hardly been able to keep their hands off of each other. Not for sake of attraction, per se, but more that they each were so engaged in a power-play. What had started with words had definitely escalated to the next level and became physical almost immediately.

Nicolas, as per his duties as a duke, was trying to, something about getting peace or establishing a packed… And in that his opponent that he had been negotiating terms with the whole time – well. He hadn’t expected it to be.

The woman he had dealt with the entire time was absolutely infuriating. And not in an encouraging way, no. She was gorgeous, the way she held herself, the way she commanded a room. Something right out of a childhood textbook fantasy. But her mouth and her attitude towards him, and others, beneath her rank (which was not much higher than his mind you ) was atrocious. The only thing they could agree on, was to engage in nuptials? On the table in her bedroom on the floor, just for the sake of expelling frustration. And honestly--- had Nicolas know that he was headed towards a weekend of hate fucking then he might’ve just stayed home. Now, heading home with no political effort to show for it, he was grumpy. No company but a brain full of memorable positions and pleasures that were still affecting his body this late in the evening. Pair that with a rainstorm that was trying to give him pneumonia and the evening was just SPECTACULAR. As he knocked on the door full of hunger for food, a wanting for female pleasure, and despair at having accomplished really nothing for his country, it didn't look encouraging. The man bit his lips in the hopes that something pleasant would be found just on the other side.

[drrealityslenderverse]

New Family

A03 request: Toby is adopted by Tim/Masky and Brian/Hoodie after being found in a car. Neither side knows the other knows about the Operator/Slenderman

Note: This Toby is based on David Near's version so there are some differences from Kastoway's Toby

Back to Contents || Back to One-shot Contents

Rain pattered steadily against the roof of the rusty car he’d been staying in for… He couldn’t recall how long now. There wasn’t any way for him to know the days or time aside from rough estimates, as he lacked anything to tell him besides the rise and fall of the sun. The rare trips to town in an attempt to find any food to stock up on or a hotel room to sneak into for a quick shower didn’t give him much time to check. Toby just knew it had to be a few months since he’d left Pinehearst State Hospital, as the season had started to change and get colder.

The guilt that Dr. Wilson might’ve died was still a weight on his mind. The man had been kind to him and genuinely helpful. He didn’t dare turn himself back in though. He didn’t want to know the truth or be further accused of being the reason behind the incident. Besides, getting help would likely just mean someone else would die. Everyone he got close to died. Toby doubted the tall figure would let him go back anyway. He hadn’t seen it since it took him away but that place with the blood red sky and the nightmares of the dead continued to haunt him.

A loud crack broke through the rain and he jolted before settling down again. It was only thunder. He shivered and curled tighter against the cracked leather; while he couldn’t feel the cold necessarily, there was comfort in the action. The car wasn’t the best shelter and he’d have to find a better place soon. Maybe one that wasn’t so leaky and filled with holes that the wind could blow through. Toby continued to shuffle around for a while longer before finally getting some sleep—not that he’d wake up feeling rested with how badly his nightmares had become again.

The sound of people arguing startled him awake. He sucked in a breath and scrambled to look out the broken window of the car. Not far away, he could see two men bickering and occasionally tossing out wide gestures. Toby’s stomach churned when he noticed they seemed to be directed at his hiding spot. “Did they see me sleeping in here?”

The taller one turned and spotted him before he could duck down. Their conversation died down but he could hear them getting closer. His heart was pounding. The two men were strangers and for all he knew they’d want to hurt him like the majority of people in his past. Toby glanced at the hatchet on the floor, his one weapon that could keep him safe. Part of him was afraid to touch it, afraid that he’d kill more people… and part of him wanted to feel that same release as when he’d slaughtered Frank and his mother for what they’d done to Millie.

“Hey, kid, you alright?” Toby jolted at the voice; he’d been caught up in his internal debate too long. He turned to stare at the two, focusing on the taller figure once more as the light haired man leaned against the car and hunched to look through the window at him.

“I…” He inched away.

The guy backed off as the shorter, dark haired man nudged him. “Sorry… I didn’t mean to scare ya. Are you… living in there?”

“Yes.” He admitted it without meeting the man’s gaze. Toby didn’t want their pity.

The pair exchanged looks before the shorter man spoke. “Come on out, we aren’t going to hurt you.”

Hesitantly, he did so and reluctantly left the hatchet in the car. It wasn’t like he’d be able to feel anything if they attacked him anyway… Not physically at least. “What do you want?”

“Well… to help if we can.” The taller man spoke again. “I’m Brian, that’s Tim. We moved to a place close by and were checking out the area when we found you.”

“I-I don’t need help.”

“You sure? No offense, but you’re living in a car and look like you haven’t had a real meal in a while.” Tim quickly called him on his bluff.

Toby glanced between them. There was this look in their eyes that he couldn’t place. It wasn’t a look of malice but there was something there… Something he couldn’t quite place. Like they shared some dark, haunting secret.

“C’mon, least let us get you some breakfast, okay?” He wanted to refuse Brian’s offer but his stomach answered for him; all Toby could do was nod in acceptance. “Cool, follow us.”

They walked in silence. He wondered briefly if he should’ve grabbed his hatchet before shaking his head. No, they seemed… okay. Besides, if he needed it then surely that… Thing… would help. He didn’t know what it wanted with him but it did seem to want to keep him alive.

Brian broke the quiet, apparently the talkative one between the two. “So, what’s a kid like you doing out here living like this anyway?”

“Oh, a few reasons… Being wanted for murder is probably up there, then broke out of a mental hospital, a whole list of reasons…” He held back the retort. “I’m eighteen. I’m not a kid.”

Should he have told them that? Did it matter? They did seem odd given they’d taken him in so quickly. He’d been prepared to die a lot in his life. What did he care if these two tried to kill him? It wouldn’t be anything new.

“Well, you’re close enough to one. Closer than we are at least.” Brian chuckled.

Toby saw Tim roll his eyes. Their interactions were strange but it did put him at ease. He just tried to lay low and watch where this went.

In the end, breakfast turned into him staying at their place for a few days and from there, several weeks. Toby had been on edge at first, acting as though he were walking on eggshells as he attempted to figure out what was going on. Brian and Tim were okay, though there was still something going on that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Sometimes, one of them would disappear for days at a time. Rarely both of them would seem to disappear without a trace. At times they’d pause and look around as if hearing or seeing something—Toby swore he could hear whispering during these moments. Sometimes he swore he’d see masked figures sneaking around but they’d be gone before he could get a clear look. If the other two ever saw one they didn’t react; Toby had to assume they were visions.

He’d gotten comfortable for the most part. At least until he woke up one night to hear them arguing quietly again. He wondered if this had to do with them both disappearing for a day. Toby hadn’t meant to eavesdrop but if this was going to turn bad he wanted to know what was going on. At least then he could defend himself. He pressed his ear to the wall.

“—sick. Like us!” It was Tim’s voice.

“Oh stop worrying. This isn’t Jay. He’s been fine.”

“Don’t bring him into this.”

“I’m just saying. Being around us isn’t going to get Tobias killed.” Brian’s words confused him. Why would he think he’d die? Who was Jay?

“I still think It brought us to him. If that’s the case—”

“We what, Tim? Throw him out?”

“No, no… Of course not! He’s better off with us helping him.” Tim struggled to find words for a moment. “...I just—I don’t want to get more people involved again.”

“Well you implied he was already part of it by saying that we were guided to him.” Silence. Brian continued on, his voice calming. “Look, the kid’s been pretty happy here. Not to mention I’d say we’re a lot happier, right? What’s the harm? If he wants to leave eventually he can, sure, but I like having him around.”

“It’s nice… Like a family.” Tim’s words made his heart stutter. Did he mean that?

He heard them continue the conversation but retreated away from the wall. Fear was gripping him again. Their conversation was hard to wrap his head around but the fact these two wanted to be a family? It terrified him. He’d wanted Danny and his father to be his new family too and look where that got them: dead. He couldn’t let the same thing repeat with these two.

Toby began trying to distance himself. He hid in his room or went for long walks. As this went on he could see the pair getting worried for him. The looks they’d exchange when they didn’t know he could see them. It twisted his heart to do this after everything they’d done.

Finally, Tim confronted him about it. “Toby… are you alright? You’ve been quiet lately.”

“I’m fine.”

The look on the man’s face immediately told him Tim didn’t believe that in the slightest. His tone remained soft, demanding nothing. “Do you want to leave?”

“What? No.” He bit his cheek, quickly letting go when he tasted blood. “You took me in… I feel like… Like you two are family. You treat me like we are.”

“Really?” Cautious joy brightened his tone, though was swallowed back up by his concern. “Then… what’s going on?”

“It’s… a long story.”

“I’ll listen.” Tim leaned back in the chair, clearly getting comfortable.

Toby stared at the table between them, pretending the patterns in the wood were interesting. “I… I don’t know. It’s bad…”

“Trust me, I’ve got plenty of experience with bad. I’m not going to judge you for what happened back then.”

“You sure about that?” He was sure they could tell somewhat that he’d had a bad run with the scars on his face and how they found him living. But there was so much below the surface…

Toby nodded. “Okay, but, I want Brian to hear it too. You both deserve to know.”

Tim stood and patted him on the shoulder. While he didn’t feel the touch, knowing the reassuring pat had happened was enough. “We’ll do it tonight once he’s back if you feel up to it. Maybe it’s about time you hear more about us too.”

[buckystarlight]

A Blessing, Beautiful And True

pairing: bucky x fem!reader

word count: 3.2k

warnings: use of she/her pronouns; swearing if you squint; mentions of death; mentions of food

a/n: this is a rewrite of one of my old fics that i absolutely hated with my entire being. i hate this a little bit less djaksjsjs also pls ignore how i literally cannot write a good ending to save my life.

dedicated to @xsamsharons for lending me her name. i hope i did it justice mi amor ily <3

Bucky learnt to value things.

Not the great, terribly material things people around him seemed to rush after. Not money, not even when he was barely getting by.

No, for Bucky, it was the small, seemingly insignificant things.

The tiny toy WWII soldier figurine he found at a yard sale one Tuesday afternoon, the one with the missing arm. The near-exact model of the car his father used to drive—rusted around the tiny steel axel, the rubber wheels worn from use. That yellow screwdriver set that sat at the very back of the tool cabinet in the garage, unusable because of the cracked plastic handles and rusted steel, that looked exactly like the kit he had once used to fix up the plumbing in his first apartment.

Bucky was used to valuing the broken little things.

He never truly understood what loving something whole, something complete felt like—not until he met you.

You, in your white sweater and blue jeans, hair tossed up in a braid. You, your eyes that dancing with unbroken light, like the rays of the sun on the ocean on a bright summer’s day. You, with the sort of kindness he never truly thought he would ever be worthy of, not until you showed him that he was.

You, the girl he fell in love with before he could ever truly know what love was.

Steve might’ve been the first to notice. He was with him that day, the day he first saw you. They had been hunting for a Christmas present for Tony, and even though Bucky wasn’t exactly thrilled to have to attend, he wasn’t about to show up empty handed.  

Steve didn’t even realize that the sly-footed assassin wasn’t by his side until he had walked the two blocks from the mall to his car. Hands ghosting over the gun tucked into the holster hooked into his waistband, Steve retraced his steps, his heart thundering in his throat.

Until he heard Bucky’s laugh.

Not the obviously fake chuckles he used to placate those around him. No, this was the laugh he remembered, the laugh he thought Bucky had lost.

This was Bucky’s laugh—his Bucky’s laugh, before the world stole him away. Pure and innocent.

Happy—so undeniably, inexplicably happy.

The tension eased from his shoulders when he saw you. Steve knew who you were, of course. Everyone did—or at least, everyone who had been around after the Battle of New York. Everyone who had seen you walk among the rubble, bleeding through your jeans, helping dig survivors out of the rubble, guiding them to shelters. Everyone who had seen you do everything you could help those who needed it more than you did, until your legs finally gave way and the only reason you didn’t collapse to the floor was because Steve caught you.

But Steve also happened to know why you’d done it. Because you were kind. Because you were selfless. Because you knew what it was like to lose everyone you loved, and to garner the strength to build yourself up anyway.

You’d lost people too—everyone you loved, killed during the Battle. Your family. Your friends. It might’ve seemed cruel to be spared. Might’ve seemed like a cold, dark twist of fate—and for a time, it did.

Steve had never known anyone to be resilient the way you were.

And maybe, just maybe, he thought to himself, as he watched his friend from through the glass, maybe you would teach him to hold on to the tiniest sliver of hope too.

—

Bucky didn’t even like books.

The only book he’d read—aside from the coursework assigned to him in his school days—was The Hobbit. And even that had taken him an ungodly amount of time to finish.

So yeah, Bucky didn’t exactly like books.

But he still visited the tiny bookstore on the corner every day.

He didn’t even buy anything. He just looked around, running his fingertips over the spines of the books that jutted out of the wooden shelves, the sunlight turning his eyes into uncharted waters of the oceans, swimming with undiscovered secrets and untold lies.

You would talk to him. All the time, and with no trace of the usual pity or sympathy that he heard when he spoke to people. You talked to him in a way that made him feel like himself, in a way that made him feel like he just might rediscover the man he used to be.

That first time he’d seen you was burned into the back of his brain, the image of you standing there with a hip braced against a bookshelf, dressed in a white sweater and jeans, your hair pulled into a braid over your shoulder. He had watched as a strand escaped, falling into your face.

And him—he'd stood there, watching you talk to another woman he couldn't recall because really, how could he look at anything else but you? Bucky was certain he looked like a gaping idiot, both wanting your attention to turn to him, and dreading the fact that he would surely make a fool of himself if you so much as looked at him.

Back in the 40s, things would've been so much easier. He would already have said something witty to make you laugh, he would already have been telling you about the carnival down at the beach and asking if you wanted to go with him.

But when your friend left, and you asked him if there was anything you could help him with, his voice sounded strange to his own ears as he croaked, "Books?"

You had laughed—and he found himself laughing along. A true laugh—for the first time in a long time, the sound didn’t sound fake to his own ears. For the first time in a long time, he felt like himself.

Bucky had taught himself to value that which wasn’t whole—because he wasn’t, either. Love was give and take. Love was equal.

If he was to deserve your love, he would have to be whole again. If he was to deserve your love, he would make himself whole again.

—

There was a sudden shift in the way Bucky viewed the world.

It had been three days since he last saw you, but he walked in through those doors anyway. He had no cause, no reason—he just couldn’t go any longer without seeing you.

You were sitting by the bay window at the very back, reading a book. He took a second just to take you in, to get used to the fact that you weren’t just a figment of his imagination.

The second you looked up, your face split into a grin, like you were truly, genuinely happy to see him. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had smiled at him that way. “Hey, you’re back! It’s Bucky, right?”

He nodded. He couldn't trust himself to speak, not when he was sure he would stumble over his words, not when he couldn't bring himself to string together a coherent sentence in your presence. 

"What can I help you with today?" you asked, snapping your book shut and placing it on the table. 

"Uh... What're you reading?"

You glanced down at your book before looking up to meet his eyes again. Blue, you thought, supressing a smile. Icy blue, but warm nonetheless—familiar in the way most things aren’t. "Wuthering Heights. You've never read it?"

He shook his head no. "Never been much of a reader, no. Is it any good?"

"It's one of my favourites," was your answer, watching as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The light caught the steel of the chain around his neck—the chain of one of those military-issue dog tags.

And maybe that was how it started—on that dreary cold Wednesday, when you'd stood next to the bookshelf by the window, telling him about your favourite book, but really all he could focus on was the late afternoon sun rendering the hue of your eyes several shades lighter, the soft slope of your nose, the fullness of your mouth. Every little detail about you was etched permanently into his mind—and he wanted to learn more.

He wanted to know everything there was to know about you. 

It was about closing time when he decided he had to go. Not because he wanted to, but because he had promised he would have dinner with Sam and Steve. And as much as Bucky wanted to stay, he was a man of his word.

Which is why when he promised you he would come see you as soon as he finished reading the book, you knew he meant it.

—

And you were right.

Two days later, he was back. 

It was raining that day, early in the morning when you were just about to open up. And there, standing under the awning in the freezing rain, was Bucky, the collar of his coat turned up against the wind, drenched to the bone.

"What're you doing here?" you asked, eyes wide.

"I just... I don't know," he said. Because he didn't. Bucky didn't even like books—but he did like being around you. There was a strange sort of calm about you, a sense of peace he'd only known in Wakanda. Around you, he was just Bucky—not Sargent Barnes, not the Winter Soldier—just Bucky. 

He liked being just Bucky.

You shook your head, but he could've sworn he saw the corner of your mouth tilt upwards as you fished your keys out of your pocket and unlocked the door. "Well, come on inside. I'll turn up the heat and get you something warm to drink. Christ, Buck, you could get pneumonia or something.”

He only nodded once. It didn't matter that he wouldn't get sick—not when the serum in his veins healed his body faster than normal. It didn’t matter that even if he could sick, he wouldn’t have cared, not when you were looking at him like that, with concern in your eyes for something other than your own safety.

You had a coffee machine in the back room, you told him. He followed you, lingering in the doorway as you bustled about, humming a tune under your breath. He recognized it as a song from that one Marvin Gaye album Sam couldn’t stop talking about. He recognized it as a song he wanted to listen to for the rest of his life, if only you were the one singing it.

He recognized that, for better or for worse, you would be his undoing.

—

After that, he came to see you every day.

When the weather got colder still, he brought you steaming cups of hot chocolate from your friend Bella’s café down the street. And on the days when he didn’t, he would head into the back room and make you coffee. You’d never had to tell him how you took it—after that in the rain, he’d somehow remembered what you liked.

You weren’t about to tell him, but you remembered what he liked too.

It started out simple—plum cider that you found on your weekly trip to the farmer’s market. An old vintage copy of The Hobbit from the forties. Rubber silencers for his dog tags that he never used but carried around in his pocket anyway—until eventually, you had something new for him every week, some insignificant thing that he looked at with the kind of childlike awe that made your heart twist into knots in your chest.

He walked you home too. Every evening, with his hands stuffed in his pockets, slowing his stride so that he could walk alongside you. He would stand outside, across the street, hands in his pockets, waiting for you to walk into the apartment you shared with Bella. Only leaving when the lights came on and he knew you were safe.

Bucky wasn’t much of a talker—you learnt that about him. He would spend all day sitting quietly in a corner of your store, reading one of the books he found on the shelf of used copies you kept in the back of the room.

He seemed to love those used books more than the new ones—books someone had already read, books that had already been loved.

He felt a little that way sometimes, too. A little too used for love, not loved enough for use.

But never when he was with you.

And you—you were falling for Bucky Barnes. A little by little, day by day, without even realizing it—not until it all came rushing to you one afternoon, like a dam breaking, like the ocean of his eyes pulling you under, especially when you felt his gaze on you from time to time, watching you as you worked.

That afternoon, a new shipment of books came in. You didn’t even have to ask him for help—he was already on his feet, snapping his copy of Anna Karenina shut, mumbling a soft, “I’ve got it,” as you signed for the order. Hefted the two cartons of books like they weighed nothing at all, and carried them inside.

There was a strange tightness in your stomach as you watched him, standing in the middle of your store—the only thing the Battle of New York hadn’t taken away from you—and you wondered just how it took so damn long to realize that the feeling of familiarity didn’t lie among these books, but rather, in Bucky himself.

—

It was a slow day, so the two of you spent the rest of the afternoon restocking the shelves. He asked you about each of the books, watching your eyes light up as you talked about your favourite ones, until conversation lapsed into a comfortable silence, the two of you basking in each other’s company as you worked.

You didn't even realize how much time had passed until you heard the door open and your friend Bella breezed in. She'd been here the first day Bucky had walked in, had noticed the way your eyes shifted to him mid-conversation like you couldn’t focus on much else when he was around. “Ready for lunch, y/n?”

You looked at Bucky, opening your mouth to ask if he wanted to come along. Not because you didn’t trust him to be alone at the store, but because you wanted his company. Because being around him felt like coming home.

He only waved you off. "Go ahead. I've got plans with Stevie. I'll be here when you're back though."

You believed him. You believed that he would always be around, for as long as you wanted. And you wanted forever.

"Was that the guy from before?" Bella asked, looping an arm through yours as you left the store, walking down the street. She brushed her fiery hair out of her eyes, turning her head slightly to look at you, yellow-green eyes filled with curiosity. “What’s his name?”

"Bucky. He... He's a friend," you said. 

"Well," Bella said. "He sure doesn't feel the same way."

"What do you mean?" you asked, confused.

"Y/n, he looks at you like you put the stars in his sky. Are you sure he's just a friend?"

"I... I don't know, Bella."

Because you didn't know what else to call him. Because you and him weren't friends in the way people usually are—you had always been more.

Bucky was always more.

—

"I've barely seen you," Steve said, picking up his can of Diet Pepsi and taking a sip. "Where have you been?"

"Around," Bucky mumbled. Because how could he explain why he was spending so much time at the bookstore with someone he'd only just met? How could he explain the magnetic pull he felt toward you, the inexplicable desire to just be around you?

How could he explain the way you made him feel like himself again?

But Steve knew. Steve always knew. He saw the growing stack of novels on his friend's bedside table, saw him reading at the kitchen table, book propped up against the jug of milk.

He also knew that all this was because of y/n. Because Bucky mumbled that name when he was too exhausted to even know what he was saying. Because Bucky talked in his sleep—and Steve could hear him calling that name through the thin walls that separated their rooms. "You've been at the bookstore?"

Bucky set his drink down. There was so use denying it—his friend would see right through him. Steve had known him for too damn long to believe in his lies. "She's so... I can't even put it into words. She makes me believe that there's good in this world. That all the things I did wrong don't even matter—not when I'm with her. It’s the way she looks at things, the way she’s capable of finding a little bit of good in everything. Like she found something good in me, Steve."

Steve knew it was true. Because he hadn’t seen Bucky this way for a very long time. Because he hadn’t seen that light in his friend’s eyes in a very long time, and ever since he met you, it hadn’t gone away.

—

Bucky had to leave for a couple of days.

He didn't tell you why—just that it was a work thing. How long would he be gone? He didn't know.

"I'll be back soon," he said. "I promise."

And he was. Five days later.

But Bucky was quiet—quieter than usual. 

It was a Sunday, and you’d somehow managed to drag him along to the farmer’s market with you. He walked alongside you, hands in his pockets, like he was aching to reach out and touch you but desperately holding himself back.

He’d almost gotten himself killed on that mission.

You took up too many thoughts in his head, too much space in his heart. And when the bullet narrowly missed him, grazing his ribs, his only thought was whether or not you’d miss him if he was gone.

You deserved better than someone who’s life was tied to the death of others. Someone who didn’t have so much blood on his hands.

A few paces ahead of you, Bella walked hand-in-hand with Bucky’s friend Sam. You were glad that Bucky had introduced them, glad that Sam made Bella happy in ways you’d never really known or understood before.

“Look at them,” you said, watching with a smile on your face as Sam quietly slipped a couple of oranges into Bella’s bag. “They look real happy.”

Then, turning to look at him, you smiled, and he couldn’t hold himself back anymore. Because you might deserve better, but he was selfish and stubborn, and the only thing he had wanted in so goddamn long was you you you.

“Go out with me,” he blurted, every thread of self-control he had so carefully cultivated to keep his head in your presence snapping. He felt like he was taken back to that December evening he saw you for the first time, when the words refused to leave his mouth, when you’d rendered him tongue-tied and helpless. Only this time, he couldn’t stop the words from coming out, not as he said, “One date, y/n. One date, and if you don’t have a good time, we can just forget it ever happened and move on.”

His heart shuttered when he saw the small frown creasing your brow, your voice soft as you asked, “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything. I want to do this for the rest of my life with you, y/n,” he said quietly. “But for now, I’ll take that date.”

“Okay,” you said, nodding slowly. “Okay, Bucky, I’ll go out with you.”

He couldn’t help it. Bucky wrapped his arms around your waist, drawing you to him, lifting you off your feet and spinning you around until you were both laughing, childlike and breathless, blissfully unconscious of the knowing look on Sam and Bella’s faces.

Because really, how could he see anything but you? You had been it from the first day he saw, and you were it now—a blessing, beautiful and true.

tags:

@goldengoddess @wherearethesantreys @ughlantsov @for-bebbanburg @mriddlemethis @xleiaorgana @xsamsharons

if you would like to be added to or removed from my taglist, just send me a message or an ask off anon!

[lilchibi-chan]

Hewwo! How r u doing??🧐 I would like to ask for a little something where the reader is easily distracted and goes off the path (chasing a butterfly, seeing a dog, etc...) and the boy doesn’t notice until later. 🥰🥺 The bois: Todoroki, Kirishima, and Shinso (BNHA/MHA) ✨✨

Aww I love this! This is so cute! I will try my best for you 🥺

Todoroki

It’s Friday evening and you are on your way home from UA because you wanted to go home for the weekend and Todoroki decides to go with you being the protective boyfriend he is.

It’s spring and the cherry blossoms have just bloomed. The path you’re walking is lined with cherry blossom trees. You stop to take in the soft pink petals, but Shouto doesn’t notice until he reaches the end of the path and sees that you’re not next to him.

He freaks out thinking someone might’ve taken you when he wasn’t watching or maybe you just went off to a convenience store or something. He decided to walk back up the path, asking any and everyone if they had seen you, showing them pictures of you, saying how tall you are, etc.

He finally makes it to where you were, hair sticking to his forehead since he basically ran the whole time.

You were standing under the trees, slowly spinning as the petals fell into your hands. You felt like you were in your own little world, like you were a fairy and you could stay in this moment forever.

You hadn’t noticed him standing there yet, but he was watching as you twirled beneath the flower petals, falling like snow around you. He took out his phone and started recording you and snapped a few pictures. You looked so beautiful to him in this moment and he wanted to capture if forever. The way the sun shone on your skin and your warm smile melted him and he realized just how much he loves you in that moment.

When you finally notice him standing there, you feel your cheeks heat up and you know instantly that you’re blushing.

He makes his way over to you and grabs your hand in his. He looks at them and smiles for a moment. He pulls you close to his chest and kisses you on your forehead.

“I love you...y/n”

You look up at him surprised because his words caught you off guard, but hearing them made you happy, so the as quick as the shock hit is as quick as it left and you just smiled from ear to ear.

You hug him and nuzzle your face into his chest.

“I love you too, Shouto”

You both walk up the path, this time he’s hold your hand and make your way to your house where dinner is already waiting.

Kirishima

It’s summer vacation and your family has decided to go to the beach house that has been in your family for decades. They tell you to invite Kirishima along and whoever else you wanted to come along since there was enough room. It was a private beach, so you basically had it to yourselves whenever your family did go there for whatever reason, whether it be a small gathering or just wanting to get away from the city for a little bit.

When you reach, everyone unpacks and you decide to head down to the beach with Mina, Yaoyorozu and Uraraka. Denki, Kirishima, Bakugou, Sero and Deku all meet you on the beach a little afterwards. You all swim for a while and play games, until your dad decides to barbecue. Once everything is taken off the grill, you all eat together. Your mom bought fireworks and sparklers for you all to end the night with and celebrate your first day on the beach.

After all the festivities are over, you all head inside to rest for the night, but you and your friends decided to have a mini sleep over in the living room and watch movies. You cuddled with Kirishima on the couch while the rest of your friends took the floor. You all end up falling asleep in the middle of the second movie that was put on. You wake up around 3:30 to the tv still being on. You get up to turn it off then realize you can’t fall back asleep. You decide to go out and take a walk along the beach to calm yourself to the sound of the waves. You notice that the waves are glowing due to the bioluminescent krill in the water and you become so entranced that you take a seat on the rocks to watch the beautiful sight before you.

Kiri wakes up an hour later and pops up when he realizes you’re not next to him anymore. He carefully gets up, so that he doesn’t hurt any of the sleeping people on the floor and makes his was upstairs to see if you decided to go up to your room. The thought made him sad, but he could understand if your bed was more comfortable than the couch. He opened the door quietly, as to not wake your parents and saw that your bed was untouched. He decided to make his way to the balcony on the second floor to think about where you could’ve gone. Something told him to use the telescope that was on the balcony and he searched for you along the beach. He finally saw that you were on the far end by the rocks, sitting on them. He made his way back down the stairs, again quietly, and made his way along the beach to get to you. He took a blanket with him, just in case you would be cold.

“Hey pebble,” he says with a soft smile, startling you a bit

“Hey,” you say with a soft smile back

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he says with laughter in his voice,“but you can just consider it a little bit of pay back since I woke up and you weren’t there.” He finished, taking a seat next to you.

“Sorry about that,” you say blushing

“Why are you sitting here anyways?” He asked curious

“Well, I can show you better than I can tell you,” you say picking up a flat rock, then skimming it across the water to reveal the plankton

“Woah, that’s so cool, pebble. I see why you stayed here so long,” he says smiling his big smile

“How long have I been out here,” you ask, kinda freaking out

“Little over an hour,” he says smiling

“We should probably head back before my parents wake up,” you say about to get up

“Wait,” he says stopping you,“five more minutes, then we can go back.”

You nod and he takes a seat next you and wrapping the blanket around both of your shoulders.

After the five extra minutes, you both head back to the beach house, cuddle on the couch and go back to sleep.

Shinso

Shinso and you are out for a picnic date that you had planned for a while. The weather is warm and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. You make it to forest/site you wanted to have the picnic and it’s even more perfect than you imagined. There’s the perfect canopy to sunlight ratio and you’re not too far from the river, causing there to be a comfortable coolness in the air. You set down the blanket and Shinso put some rocks on the corners, so that it wouldn’t lift up in the wind blew. You both start unpacking the basket and you realize you forgot the drinks in the car. You offer to run and go get it, but he protests.

“I’ll get it, kitten. You stay here, I’ll be right back,” he says leaving you there by yourself.

A couple of minutes pass and you start to hear rustling in the bushes. You were definitely a little frightened, but waited to see if anything would come out before you just to any conclusions or scared yourself by jumping to said conclusions.

Just then a bunny comes out and it’s limping. You slowly crawl over to it, as to not scare it.

“It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you cutie. I just wanna help.”

You continue to slowly crawl toward it, extending your hand so that it can get used to your scent. Once it finally puts its guard down, your able to pick it up. You figured it’s borough couldn’t be too far from where you were since it came this way. You decide to walk off, eyeing the ground for any holes.

When Shinso finally returns to your picnic area, he sees that you’re not there. He decides to call for you, but receives nothing. He decides to take the path you took, not knowing that it’s the way you went, but something inside him told him to go that way.

After a few minutes of walking, he decides to try calling for you again. The first time he receives nothing, causing worry to start building. He walks up some more and tries again.

“Y/N!!”

“Over here!”

He walkruns over to the direction he heard your voice come from.

“Shh,” you say, so that he wouldn’t startle the rabbit in your arms. He makes his way over to you slower. You tell him what happened and he helps you find the bunny’s home.

You finally find the borough at the bottom of a tree. You decide it might be best to back away and let the bunny hop in on its own. You crouch down and Shinso follows. You set the bunny on the ground and it’s hesitant to head home.

“Go ahead, it’s okay,” you say encouraging it

The bunny takes a couple hops before fully going for it and going home. You decide to capture this moment by snapping a couple of pictures. While you’re busy doing that, Shinso just admires you and smiles.

“Ready,” you say smiling and catching him off guard

“Y-yeah, lets go,” he says blushing

You both make it back to your picnic and enjoy the food and snacks that were packed.

All of a sudden it starts to rain. You both hurriedly pack everything and try to find shelter somewhere.

You come across a shed and decide to knock in the door. An older woman opens the door.

“Hello ma’am, is it okay if we stay here. It’s just started raining out of nowhere and we don’t have an umbrella,” you say nicely and slightly apologetic

“Of course dears. Come in.”

You and Shinso do as she says and she lights a fire for you both to sit by. She also supplies you with a blanket and leaves to make tea for you both. Shinso wraps the blanket around both of you and he can see that you are shivering a little, so he moves closer to you, causing you to blush.

“Kitty,” he says, grabbing your attention

“Yes”

“I’m sorry the picnic got ruined,” he says apologetic

“It didn’t get ruined,” you say with laughter in your voice,“this was the best day ever.”

“R-really,” he asks expectantly

“Yes, we helped a bunny find its way home and we did still get to enjoy the picnic, it’s just got cut short and that’s okay, cause I got to spend the whole day with you.”

“This is why I love you, kitty. Your so good and optimistic. You see the great in every situation. I wish I could do that more. You’re so perfect and I-I don’t want to lose you.”

“You’re not gonna lose me and you’re perfect too. Maybe not perfect to you, but perfect to me and that’s the most important thing,” you say smiling

He pulls you in and kisses you softly and full of love.

The rain finally clears and you thank the woman for her hospitality. Shinso drives you to your house and before you exit he grabs your hand and kisses it. Then he pulls you in and kisses your lips. He watches you enter your house and then drives off.

I hope you enjoyed. Thank you again for submitting and keeping my asks active. You always give me something new and I really appreciate you letting my imagination run wild (more than it already does). 💖🥺

[feitansluver]

Two Birds on a Wire (THE PROLOGUE)

a Feitan x Reader series (gender neutral)

Genre: romance, angst, fluff, smidge of violence

Series Summary: If you wish to see the series summary, check out my masterlist (which should be up now, if not just give me 10 mins) which you can access through my pinned navigations post on my blog. It might have a teensy bit of spoilers but nothing too drastic since this is a major wip.

Prologue Summary: This story's beginning takes place before the troupe was even a figment of anyone's imagination. Meteor City is a dangerous place, and many can vouch for me when I say this. The place where good deeds never come truly from the heart, but instead for the chance to get what you wanted from someone else. Here begins the story of how Feitan Portor and Y/n L/n would soon meet, for real this time.

Author's Note: This entire series is inspired by the song "Two Birds" by Regina Spektor. I originally wrote this as a small x reader for a writing sample, but I like it so much, it'll be a series instead. This is going to be a slow burn series. As you can tell from my headcanons, I'm super detailed when it comes to adding backstories. It's even worse w actual stories. I'm not too sure how many chapters this will be but, Please enjoy! reblogs, likes, and constructive criticism is appreciated. Heads up, this will be the shortest 'chapter' of them all, so do be prepared haha. Italicized = Flashbacks!

The aroma of decaying matter engulfed the air like a thick fog, pulling down and wrapping itself around the shiny newcomers to the rather large wasteland of an area. These newcomers weren't wealthy, no, instead, they were here for the ego boost that accompanied the action of them tossing any worthless item that would instantly be scavenged by a poor resident, usually a child since they were small and naturally agile. Well, as agile as they could be growing up eating other's waste. Those bastards with their sickening laughs of arrogance. They'd be frowned upon in a normal society, but here, oh here, this was just what they'd call a Wednesday.

Where exactly is 'here,' you may be asking? To the people passing through, they might've considered it to be hell. Perhaps a dumpster. Hell, they might have even passed through with out even noticing the cries of agony as a mother's child passed away from malnutrition, without noticing the way that no resident seemed to acknowledge anything other than themselves, even the murder of a shopkeep in broad daylight. No, see they're too focused on trying to steal to survive, perhaps even slave away to a more fortunate resident for a chance at life, if you could even call this living. 'Maybe they're just introverted people,' oh how naïve you must be to even succumb to that conclusion. 'Here' there is no such thing as introversion, with this trait, you won't survive for more than 10 minutes.

'Here' is none other than Meteor City.

Coughing could be heard around every corner from the ill, penniless residents who were selling everything in their possession just to survive another miserable day. A feeble attempt truly, it's not as though the medicine was at least 50% likely to cause some sort of change. Nonetheless, Meteor City wasn't too bad, no. Children scurried amongst each other, shouting with smiles upon their somewhat sunken faces as they played along the areas of the city that were truly wastelands. There were no true friends created in Meteor City, but these children have yet to understand.

All except for one. A rather small boy, whether that be from malnutrition or genetics, with black hair and heartless black eyes sat upon an old shipping crate with an uninterested look upon his young face as he watched the children run about. "How pedestrian," was all that came out of his cracked, dehydrated lips. Only an 8-year-old from Meteor would consider playing to be pedestrian. Aside from his shocking attitude, with one glance you could certainly tell he wasn't from here, such 'exotic' features couldn't have been bred in this hellhole. The boy was dressed in what seemed to be traditional Asian clothes, ones that were too big for his figure, all black and seemingly thick yet still lightweight enough to where he wouldn't die from a heat stroke, the word "Feitan" engraved over his left breast. Perhaps this was his name, neither he or the townsfolk new, but it was what they called him when they believed he wasn't looking. He was frequently seen mumbling to himself, and paired with his stone cold gaze, he was deemed "unapproachable" to others, adults and children alike.

"Hey, you!" A call from one of the children pulled Feitan out of his thoughts. The blackette raised his gaze to find another small child before him, taller yes, but no doubt younger, no stranger to his eyes yet not an aly. "My name's Marley. Do you want to play with us?" Feitan rolled his eyes in annoyance and spoke with his broken interpretation of the city's language. "Why would me want t-," He analyzed the other children beside the runt Marley and froze his gaze upon another small child, who was smiling as they spoke to a friend, one he's kept his eye on for a long time.

(Y/n) (L/n).

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

2 years ago, Meteor City, 3rd Person Omniscient

The sky boomed a thunderous roar as lighting flashed across the city. Purples and dark ominous grey's colored over the townsfolk as the rushed their preparations for the storm. Adults were sheltering children, even if they didn't know them, most likely with the promise of something in return, while also taking in whatever possessions they needed before the storm's condition worsened.

A 4-year-old child, Y/n, ran about the poorly made streets, hoping to find a place of shelter before it was too late. Of course, since they're small and malnourished, they weren't very efficient, constantly stumbling over their two feet and pausing to catch their balance.

"Please, somebody help me!"

They continued to run through the now damp streets as the rain began to pour violently. Water drenched the poor child as they ran around banging on doors screaming for help, yet still, no one listened. It was almost as though the entire town had become a ghost city.Just as Y/n was about to give up, a hand grabbed their arm harshly and quickly pulled them into a small, dark, poorly-made shack.

Y/n jumped back in surprise with a yelp only to be pushed down by the other party, quite roughly might I add. "Shhh." A firm, seemingly male voice commanded with no other words as he sat beside the younger child. "Are you going to eat me??" Y/n spoke in a panicked tone. "The old lady by the library told me a story about a demon who comes out during horrible storms and eats the children who are wandering the streets." They cried with their arms curled around their legs, staring at the silhouette in fear beside of them.

The strange savior huffed under his breath. Why did he even pull this idiot into his home. Who was he to be providing shelter for others when he could barely take care of himself? God he never hated himself more until that moment. There was no place for some snotty kid, nor did he want to deal with them either. "Me no eat you. you taste bad, too whiny." Was all the boy said, hoping to get the other to take the hint and shut up.

"O-oh. My name's y/n, what's yours?" The 4-year-old spoke, no longer carrying a fearful tone. The older boy rolled his eyes at how naïve and trusting the other was. He didn't bother answering, and in fact, he never said another word to Y/n for the remaining duration of the storm.

Y/n ended up falling asleep after a while from all of the chaos earlier. The silhouette eyed the child beside him before closing his own eyes and leaning his head back against the wall. Soft snoring was all that was heard by the boy, aside from the pouring rain that is. Falling into his thoughts, he began to drift off into a light, alert slumber. Well, he was until he felt a weight hit his left shoulder.

His eyes shot open as he looked to his left with a scowl upon his face. "Idiot pest." He grumbled agitatedly as he noticed Y/n had fallen asleep on his shoulder. As much as he wanted to push them off, he quite enjoyed the quiet he was now receiving. With an annoyed sigh, he closed his own eyes and drifted to his previous light sleep.

When Y/n awoke with a yawn and began to identify their surroundings, they almost screamed in fear and confusion. They jumped up and racked their brain for some sort of explanation. Wait, it was coming to them now: the mystery boy and him providing them shelter. Properly looking at their surroundings, they noticed were still in the shack; however, this time, they were alone. With a quick glance outside, the small child ran out of the shack, patting themselves down to make sure they still had their items in their pockets.

A sigh of relief escaped their lips as they felt everything there. Digging into their pockets to find their last bit of money to buy a bit of food, Y/n noticed there was a folded piece of poorly maintained paper in their pockets. With a confused hum and a head tilt, they unfolded the piece of paper and read in poor grammar and messy writing:

"You owe me, Brat."

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

They blackette's face remained in a deapan expression as his own eyes locked back with Marley's "Yes, me play." He spoke emotionlessly as he hopped down from his crate, dusting himself off as he began walking closer to the group of children. A handful of yays, yippees, and downright cries of joy could be heard from the crowd of children as they gathered one more player for their game. "Okay, great. So here's what we're going to play.."

The voices blurred and faded into nothingness as the eight-year-old fell into his cunning mind, his eyes yet again landed on Y/n with his usual piercing gaze. Only difference was that this time, there was a twinge of excitement and malice, lots of malice.

God how he wanted to make them pay. A total troglodyte they were, so ignorant and easily distracted by such trivial things.

You see, Feitan never got back that favor, and he certainly wasn't one to hold back when it came to exploiting others. Especially younger, naïve children who hadn't seen nor understood just how horrific the world could be. How horrific he could make their world be.

Go ahead, call him a monster. It's such a common title for him, he might've even believed it were his own name if it hadn't been for the thread engraved onto his shirt.

Feeling eyes watching them, Y/n turned to face the newer strange boy with their head tilted in confusion. The blackette walked over to the younger child, the two of them standing at the same height. "Hello." Feitan spoke up with a small smile and a friendly wave. It certainly looked realistic and Y/n couldn't feel any malicious intent within the other boy, though if only they knew how fake that smile was. "Hey there! I'm Y/n, what's your name?" The child spoke with a close-eyed smile as they waved in return.

'Oh this was going to be fun.' The boy thought with an inward chuckle of sadism.

Feitan Portor wasn't one to forgive and forget. Hell, he came from Meteor City, the place where every good action was never from the heart but instead the manipulative portion of people's minds. No matter who or what he had to go through,

He was getting back what he owed, and he was expecting it NOW.

[rainbowbutterfrosting]

Well, Well, Look Who’s Inside Again

Ty to my dear friend @dramaticsnakes for giving me some encouragement for this, they’re my main motivation to write <3333

Wc: 2,392

Cw: Feelings of loneliness, isolation, spiraling, mentions of food, implied/referenced self-harm, pain, vague fear of the dark

Summary: Tubbo isn't home and Ranboo decides to go into his experiment room. He didn't know the lights would go out and the iron door would get stuck though.

AO3

The rain poured heavily onto the windows, the sound making Ranboo quietly exhale. The house seemed so quiet without Tubbo and Michael. Tubbo took the young toddler to the ocean to try and show him how to sail. It was a good idea for the two, but the idea of water alone made Ranboo reject the idea. He instead took a role of cleaning the house. A duty he finished well over an hour ago as he tapped on one of the walls. The sound gently echoed through the home, not by much, but enough for him to question when Tubbo was coming back. The rain started hours ago, and Tubbo had yet to return home from the expedition.

Perhaps his husband wouldn't return home for the day. The thought clutched his chest, but he knew it was more than likely. The rain produced poor signals with their communicators and there might've been a village nearby to stay shelter in. He supposed he would have dinner alone. A habit he used to partake in all the time, but an uncomfortable solitude rested in his chest from the old memories.

He walked over to the kitchen, the quiet footsteps feeling too tranquil to be peaceful. He ignored the lingering feeling the best he could as he grabbed a plate from the cabinet. When he opened the fridge, he quickly scanned its contents before grabbing a raw steak and closing the door once more. The process of cooking felt slower than usual. The silence brought by the house made him pay more attention to his movements, even if a part of him still worried about Tubbo. Still, he placed the steak onto the plate as he grabbed a piece of bread from a shelf, and silverware from the drawer.

He sat at the dining table with his food with loneliness pushing his chair in behind him. He barely realized a sigh left him as he cut into his food. The steak didn't taste good. He took that moment to realize that cooking was much more than putting a steak on a stove. There were seasonings and breading- things Tubbo understood better than him.

Poor quality food didn't stop him from eating all of it. He tore off pieces of his bread and slowly ate them, wondering what he would do with the rest of the day. He wasn't tired enough to sleep, and aside from cleaning, that was the only activity he could really do while the rain was pouring. He cringed at the thought of going outside. Water all over his body, burning his skin.

Yet, a part of his mind instantly went to the basement. The basement with a water tank that reeked of dread and worry. He shook his head to himself as he grabbed his empty plate and went to the kitchen. He placed it inside the sink while his mind spun around his experiments. He told himself he would stop them. With Michael being added to their family, there was more of a risk of being caught and the small toddler took most of his free time anyway.

But Tubbo wasn't here. Michael wasn't here. There wasn't anything stopping him from moving downstairs. While his eyes focused on the room that led to the hidden stairway, his mind told him to stay as far away from that place as he could. For a few moments, he settled on staying still. He didn't feel like he could move at all without going towards the basement.

He let out a shaky breath as his legs took him through several rooms with one left-hand turn placed inside. He shouldn't be going there, he promised himself he would stop. A part of him didn't want to stop walking though. He clicked a button as he went down the stone stairs. The iron door taunted him when he saw it, but he couldn't bother taking his time as he flicked the lever to let him inside.

He blinked for a few moments as he took in the room. It was the same as he left it, but for some reason, he expected the room to change while he was gone. For a few books to be tossed or the glass around the tank to be shattered. But the room was the same. Naturally.

Ranboo ran a hand along the iron wall. It made him shiver despite it not being very cold. He flicked the lever to close the door behind him as his gaze gently hovered over the water tank. He shouldn't be in this room. He needs to leave, he should've never made his way there. The moment he turned around, his breath caught in his throat from a loud crash upstairs. Thunder. He tightly closed his eyes for a moment before turning around to the water tank once again.

Was it a sign somehow? He was about to leave when thunder strikes. It was simple collapsing air, nothing to do with him. But the idea that it did took him two steps towards the tank. He wasn't in enderwalk, he knew that. Yet, he almost felt like it was. His body and his mind were his. He knew that. But how much he wanted to stay in the room combined with the desperate urge to leave made him barely feel there.

Another loud crash of thunder made him jump. He walked with long, quick strides towards the exit when a deafening crash made his vision go black. He immediately gasped from the sudden change before he realized that the lights were out. He tightly closed his eyes as if it would help the darkness.

He just had to make it to the door and get a lantern, that's all. It shouldn't have scared him to walk in the dark. He extended his arms all the way out in front of him as he felt the iron door on his hands. He smiled on instinct as he carefully stepped towards it. He could feel the door clearly by now. The ridges of the iron texture and small dents from his experiments. He moved his hand to the right of the door, moving it around until he felt it brush against the familiar texture of cobblestone. He led his hand up against the cobblestone and found smooth wood attached to it going upwards. It was the lever to the door.

He flicked it down, but nothing happened. No click of the door, no moving away, just silence and stillness.

He frowned as he flipped the lever up. Nothing.

Ranboo took a deep breath as he flicked the lever up and down a few times, all of them being as noneventful as before. He realized with quick panic that the storm must've knocked out any redstone throughout the house. It made sense with how the other lights went out, but he figured it was such a simple system that it was bound to work.

It took a second to acknowledge he was trapped in the room.  

"No, no," He whispered to the empty air. He held the lever up for a few moments and switched it back down again.

"Please," His bargaining was too loud in the isolating room, but not loud enough to make him forget about the water tank. Perhaps his enderwalk could help him out. He tried to push the thought out, but it was a viable option in his mind. He flicked the lever up and down as his thoughts raced. Tubbo might not be back until the afternoon of the next day. At least sixteen hours in the room. That was assuming Tubbo would even be able to find the room and know how to get him out. He banged on the door, hoping the door would give in, but he was hitting too weak for even a wooden door to break.

He took a shaky breath as he took a few steps away from the door. He turned slightly to the side with his right shoulder towards the door.

"One, two-" He ran to the door, ramming it with his shoulder, only to groan at the impact. The pain pulsed through his shoulder, but he stepped back at the door once again. He took a quick breath as he ran into the iron door. A tear formed in his eyes as the pain seemed stronger. But he held hope that the door was weaker. He shouldn't have had hope, but he already lined himself up only to feel even more throbbing pain.

He almost slid down the door with defeat before he flimsily stood back up and walked a few steps away from the door. He exhaled to prepare himself, but it only brought him attention to the persistent pain that seemed to be in time with his breaths. He ran towards the door but he cried out in pain when it hit his shoulder.

"Tubbo!" He yelled his husband's name on instinct, but he was alone. He was so painfully alone. Tears had filled his eyes and fallen out. He didn't know where they fell and he couldn't find himself to care about the exact location as he stood up. He made himself take a few steps back as he forced himself to charge the door once again. He didn't take enough paces back as the pain rushed through him almost immediately.

"Please, please. Just-" He cut himself off with a sob. The pain in his shoulder seemed almost unbearable as he tried to raise his fist up, only to bring it down again from the overwhelming pain. He raised his other fist and banged on the door. If one very very strong punch could theoretically break a door, perhaps a lot of weak ones could.

Or one enderwalk.

He punched the iron door again. The way the sound rang out reminded him how alone he was. His shaky breathing was the only sound in the room as he stood up again. He felt dizzy from his lack of surroundings as he took his good arm to flick the lever again.

Nothing.

Ranboo slowly stood back from the door. He whimpered at the thought of ramming it again, but he couldn't stand the place. either He ran towards the door and screamed in agony at the blossoming pain. He realized that there was no possible chance to break down the iron door, the made it so he couldn't leave. He closed his eyes tightly and whispered, "Tubbo, Tubbo, please. Help me." He sobbed against the door frame as he clutched his arm.

All of a sudden, his communicator beeped. He gasped as he pulled it out, groaning loudly at the pain in his arm.

[3 Missed messages from 'My Beloved']

"Rain is a bitch. Michael and I are hiding under a tree. If the rain doesn't give out soon, we'll just give you some wet hugs."

"I was joking about the wet hugs, I know how you feel about water. We're making our way to the house now."

"Ranboo, where are you."

Ranboo's hands shook as he typed a response. "Stuck. First floor, room with books, wooden button. Please hurry." He was about to delete the last sentence when he accidentally hit enter. He cursed himself for the simple mistake, but he didn't bother connecting himself with a new message. The slow realization hit that Tubbo would find him here. He would find his room.

But as the water tank flooded into his mind, his communicator beeped again, "Coming." The message alone was enough for him to stand up. He took another few steps back as he ran into the door. He screamed in pain, collapsing onto his knees in front of the door. Ranboo whispered for his husband as he let out a sob. He looked at his communicator and crumpled at the sight of no new messages. What if Tubbo forgot about him? There were several things better than him, Tubbo was smart enough to find one of them.

"Please, Tubbo," He whispered despite himself. He was almost glad his husband couldn't hear him. Almost.

His communicator beeped again. Ranboo looked at it instantly. "Stone stairs, where now?"

Ranboo traced through the path in his mind as he typed out. "Go down for a bit. Iron door to the right."

Ranboo stood up, even if he couldn't break down the door, the noise could guide Tubbo. He took a few steps back and hesitantly tilted his shoulder towards and door. He shakily exhaled as he ran towards the door with all of his force. He could hear himself scream louder, but he couldn't find himself to care with the dizzying pain. He let out a broken cry as he heard rushed footsteps from the other side of the door. "Tubbo, please," he called out.

"Ranboo-" the sound of a lever flicking many times "-okay, I've got my pickaxe on me, I'll get you out of there."

"Tubbo," Ranboo whined. He drowned in pain as he felt the door shake. He shuffled his body away from the door as he heard metal clashing against metal. The sound hurt to hear, but he didn't bother to cover his ears since the mere thought of the action caused his arm to pulse. Ranboo stood up, his breath hitching from his shoulder being moved slightly.

It only took a few quick moments for the door to fall down in front of him. Tubbo held a lantern up as he took a step forward, stepping on the fallen door in the process.

Tubbo and Ranboo's eyes met. Tubbo's were determined but quickly switched to shock or surprise while Ranboo's eyes remained watery with a smile now forming underneath. Tubbo ran towards his husband, wrapping his arms around him. Ranboo yelled from his arm as Tubbo quickly pulled away. "I'm sorry," Ranboo said, though his tears clogged his voice.

"Ranboo, you're okay, you're alright." Tubbo took his thumb and wiped away some of the fallen tears. Ranboo clutched his arm as he quickly spoke, "Can we leave here? It's- I don't want to be here."

"Of course." Tubbo gently held Ranboo's other hand as he held the lantern out in front of him to light the path. Ranboo sniffled as he clutched Tubbo's hand.

He wasn't alone with the water tank anymore.

[grim-faux]

2 _ 31 _ Reflections

First 

 The rain slapped against the windowsill, the wood soaked entirely and coming apart by slivers as he shifted. For once, he was working at his fingers and not the soft timber. A particularly stubborn splinter between his fingers refused to emerge, so he sat for the time chewing off callouses.

 Far below in the alley, a pack of children skittered through the gray mist racing boats in a gutter. It’s a group of what might be four, it's difficult to take full stock from the angle and how indistinguishable the shapes are. He knows they are pack because they play a game together and appear mostly organized. Games help children figure out cooperation and interdependence, it’d let them get a grip on skills, and other important things. Playing a small game could also pull them from the hostile world they inhabited, and… he didn’t know how to put it into speek. Reset their heads. Lessened the fatigue of struggle for survive, distanced them from the uncertainties they dealt with constantly. Such as food and safe shelter. It was free and light.

 It would be fun to go out there and meet with the other children. See how they did speek, possibly learn where they came from - if they came from beyond the city or knew nothing but the Pale City. Maybe find out where they planned to go next. Could learn about new dangers or unseen threats. Sometimes kids share foods, but not always, it depended on the situation and how plentiful rations were. He wondered who was winning the game. The boats worked well, bobbing along the deep rapids of the gulley and staying afloat despite the turbulent weather.

 Trying to meet other kids wouldn’t be safe. The Thin Man might frighten the child pack or hurt them. Worst could happen, what if chase and turned them into sad little shadows? True, that didn't always happen, but it did happen to Her. And they were not Mono. Not same. The tall thin man was unpredictable, did without reason, does without knowing the why. In all the time he chased the man in the hat, Mono didn't learn much of his ways or whims. Even for him the game was dangerous. Though the tall thin man usually seemed calm and indifferent, it was always very obvious when  someone something irritated him. The Thin Man did give fair warning.

 He shouldn’t be sitting here watching, but he can’t help it. Even if he can’t pack, he still longed for the together. Share foods and speek, watch for someone and then do sleep. Huddle close when it’s cold, and the weather was punishing. Call for friend, work through a hard puzzle. Trick monsters. The sort of stuff kids did.

 The Thin Man keeps Mono, but that is all. The tall thin man is not child, he is the adult. Maybe once a long-long time ago, the man in the hat was child and did hide, flee from danger, and searched for food, or played games. He might’ve had a pack, or not. All of that means nothing, the Thin Man is adult now, and does not understand cardinal laws about the world. He goes where he wants, does whatever he wants, whenever he wants. The man in the hat has no fears. It’s possible he likes keeping Mono because Mono is a strange child with no friends, and Mono couldn't help but chase the Thin Man.

 Or could be the Thin Man thought Mono was funny child. Not a good kind of funny, but a mean kind. Like with the feather. Mono was funny and sometimes that made the Thin Man happy, but that didn't make Mono happy. The man in the hat liked the few things about Mono that were same, but that was the extent of Mono's frail grasp. So little about company he could get the knack of, the Thin Man always changed the rules. Then again, the Thin Man didn't quite want Mono to begin with; he barely seemed to accept that Mono was.

 The thought was always there, like needing to find foods. Ever present in his mind, nagging when he lost sight of the tall thin man. When the man in the hat left for the fabled "danger-ouse places". This wasn't going to last, and Mono was always nervous when the Thin Man became displeased with his doings.

 “Don’t go there.” “You need sleep.” “Not there, child.” “Where are you?” “How did you manage that?” “Spit that out." "No.” “That is a danger.” “I don’t need that.” “No.” “Stop!” “Stay.” “C̷̥͠o̶̜͑m̷̥͗ë̴̬́ ̴͙̂H̶̞͠ȅ̴͓r̵̲̃ḙ̵̓,̸̳̃ ̶͎̅B̴̠̀o̶͈̾y̶͖͘.̸̯̓”

 Adults. They get mad at the weirdest things. Like now, Mono was uncertain where the Thin Man was inside the whole building they were exploring. The tall thin man was put off about... something or another, and before Mono could collect his wits (after the bad fall) the man in the hat had already faded in a flashy crackle. No sign or indication where he went. As such, Mono began wandering through the twisting corridors, and sneaking around the rundown rooms barely holding together; mind set on food things while his senses remained on full alert.

 The Thin Man seemed more broody than the adults normal, and inclined the quiet, dark glare onto Mono a few times. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, what the tall thin man searched for. It had been some while since Mono saw a smile; not while they strolled through the dismal roads, or broken walls into washed out building interiors. They wandered some long while, the tall thin man might be tired like Mono was. Even if lie and said he wasn't to rest, Mono knew better. The dream haunts got the better of him, despite Mono's best efforts. The Thin Man did not do a good job of look after himself.

 If he could find something interesting, the Thin Man would tell him about it. Maybe. Some things he didn’t like to tell Mono about, but other times Mono could find him a new thing. An interesting thing, which the Thin Man would just tell him all about. Sometimes use the big speek, and Mono would be lost in the rumbling buzz. But it was a good sort of lost.

 That task was hard yet. Not much interested the Thin Man. He liked his game, and Mono was glad not to be alone. They both got something from the company. A win.

 Dull vibrations pulsed in the back of his thoughts, demanding Mono pry his focus from the window, with the children so far away. He dropped off the sill and hurried across the decrepit room, aimed for one doorway wherein the already challenged radiance flashed and dimmed. In short time he reached the portal, right when the figure bent shuffled into the room.

 “Did you get to eat?” The man in the hat stood straight and rubbed at his back.

 Mono rubbed at his own back. When the Thin Man gave him a look, he stopped the motion and shook his head. He showed his empty hands and frowned. If there had been food, the Thin Man would’ve gotten something too.

 With a rustling sigh, the Thin Man resumed his listless stride. To his relief, the man in the hat dismissed the window, and in a distorted flicker, abandoned the room entirely. Before the bulbs winked out in the ceiling, Mono made haste to reach the connecting passage. Soon, he would only have the delicate rap of the Thin Man's heels to offer direction. If the wiring didn't work or fizzled out completely due to the Thin Man's presence, he really had to rely on his hearing and the feel of the air. Mono fancied he was becoming pro at that, regardless the frequent bump or stumble over obscure junk.

 The prolonged search resulted in no meaningful results, nothing worthwhile - aside from more of the same rot, the typical invasion of insects chewing through whatever couldn't crawl away. Mono plucked at the edge of his choice hat, trying to pretend his stomach wasn't growling about the injustice of all this. For the life of him, he couldn't remember what it was that he last ate. Let alone when. It wasn't important, but it annoyed him thinking he'd gone so long without something.

 Probably why he couldn't stop chewing on his fingers.

 "Don't do that. Get your hand away from your mouth."

 When the Thin Man leaned through the next doorway, Mono stalled long enough to stick his tongue at the hunched figure. He didn't want to chew on the bandage, the wrapping was set cozy and right, and neat. A good sum of time elapsed since his last incident, best not to get the Thin Man all riled up over minor hurts. Mono wanted to avoid another episode.

 By the ground level of the building, the two returned to the endless storms via a collapsed portion of wall. Thankfully, the Thin Man ventured through roads that lay open and mostly whole, fluttering as a wispy shadow among chunks of ruble evicted off the warped high-rises. The man in the hat's travel was never restricted, not like Mono was. A chasm wasn’t a frightening void to the tall thin man; he could blink out and appear on the other side. For Mono in his unrefined capacity, he always had to search out a way across. And FAST. The tall thin man wasn't prone to wait or call.

 Sometimes, the man in the hat did offer to carry Mono, but Mono was frightened by the idea and shied away from the offered hand. What if he was dropped or fell, or any number of things? Mono liked to have something solid under his feet, or in his grasp. The Thin Man was always dissatisfied with the response, but it was a rare time when he didn’t grab Mono. They could always search for another way. The city sprawling held no shortage of paths or crevices, ladders or suspicious braided blanket ropes dangling. Mono was a crafty boy - if he was permitted the time, he would find a clever route. All while ignoring the Thin Man's baleful glower. Like the tall thin man, Mono didn't need anybody. He could go anywhere on his own.

 It is a very long excursion of the city roads, twisted alleys, roving within the buckling walls of splintered skyscrapers crumbling brick by brick. None of the rooms of the many locations offered anything, aside from maybe a new child's hat or intriguing artifact. The rain prattled constantly, sometimes low roads are swamped by the converging 'rivers'. In some durations the travel is intense, but Mono is never dissuaded. Nothing would stop him. The Thin Man sought cached passages through the ruble of buildings, or utilized the televisions to reach a whole other section of the city. The Thin Man was always first, only because he isn’t a television serial murderer.

 Mono tried to catch himself when he flew out. The television is atop a low table and he tumbled, nearly breaking his wrist. The Thin Man is already moving, and Mono doesn't waste a second to catch up. The building isn’t in that bad of shape, compared to those they passed through from the other side of the screen. The walls at least look whole in this room, and it’s much warmer, not so damp or drafty. Maybe shelter here? The man in the hat always decided.

 The Thin Man opened a door, which led into a large corridor with branching archways and impervious shade beyond each. Flashing and glitching the tall figure reappeared, bypassing the first two entries. In his wake, Mono emerged from the doorway, straying near the wall. When he didn't follow immediately, the Thin Man stopped and looked back.

 Mono idled along the wall trailing the peeling wallpaper with his hand, ever cautious when peering into the first open portal he passed. As suspected, perpetual depths greeted his eyes. He angled his gaze up and up at the stony silhouette, his current hat hiding most of his face. With barely a click in his step, the Thin Man pivoted and resumed his elected course. While Mono ducked into the next doorway, down a flight of steps and toward another corridor barely perceivable, if not for the bulb framing the walls with a gray haze. Not long, he would be back. The man in the hat wouldn't miss him.

 The jingle from televisions carried along the enclosed stairwell, all the while Mono stumbled. Beyond the depressed gleam of radiance, more doors and maybe another passage further along. An intermix jabber of voices stacked in conversation, rambling speek with no meaning, and other melodies crooned out. Among the cacophony of swirled sounds, a Viewer burbled at the television it gaped at.

 Most the doors he couldn't bother with, even if he was confident to shift through the wood panel, Mono still preferred to conserve his energy. He couldn't be certain if he would have the vigor to pop back through, given how famished he was. It limited his search, but the scout wouldn't go far if he got stranded somewhere. Much of his searching was reserved for bare-open dwellings, and likely areas long abandoned and long looted of worthwhile treats. If a residency appeared quiet and the door could be opened, he’d invite himself in. Foremost, he kept a lookout for foods, but he didn’t want to get distracted.

 The self-imposed quest was mostly focused in the rooms with beds and dressers, not the kitchens - not yet. The rooms would harbor castoff things from a world abandoned, a world detached from the one he knew so well. On top of dressers or on nightstands, he might locate something he’d never seen before. However, many of the trinkets couldn’t hold his interest or didn’t reveal enough upon first examination, to really spur the risk to haul it to the Thin Man. He wanted to find another one of the bulb things with the toy inside, since that seemed interesting for a try.

 In the big living room of one residence, he did find a remote! Something he’d searched for endlessly, especially now since lone televisions seemed prone to shut off while the Thin Man was around. The Thin Man didn’t like Mono looking at the devices, unless he was watched. Bleh.

 Also lingering around was a Viewer, plastered to the television and gurgling. Needing a break from all the pointless wandering, Mono perched on a tall desk table and hit the switch, causing the television to blink out. This of course, annoyed the Viewer. With a shriek it swung around and searched for the source of this outrage. How DARE! Before it could lock onto him, near invisible in the shadows, Mono would give it back its stupid television. He just wanted to have a little fun for a bit, no harm.

 This went on and on, the Viewer wailing each time the television powered off, Mono seeing how far he was willing to let it get without the willies getting to him. The nice thing about Viewers was the predictability, despite how obsessed they were. And creepy. As long as he had the remote, everything would be fine-

 Unless the controller switch stopped… working. Right when he shut the thing off, and the Viewer had gotten a few paces too many away from its precious entertainment box.

 Yeah it was a really dumb game, but he’d not had fun like that in a while. At least he had a head start, racing out of the room and shooting down into a crawlspace beneath the floorboards of one room. He really mourned the loss of the remote, he could have used that later.

 The lower floors still held together mostly, which meant he should be extra careful while exploring around. There wouldn’t be openings or breaks he could dive into if trouble reared up, but he wasn’t seeing too many of the Viewers either, despite the singing televisions. He was also a little lost, creeping from one dwelling to the next, all the corridors felt the same despite erosion in the surface and carpet. He was thinking it would be a good time to try retracing his steps, before he became too lost. He was sure the upper floors could be reached, even without the stairwell – planks of wood in the crumbling wall or anything, if he searched hard enough.

 In one of the smaller rooms he did a last search of, he encountered some child standing off to the side. Their presence startled him so much, and they looked just about as terrified by his intrusion, he back peddled and floundered over his own feet. He snatched up his hat and managed to lurch into a run, shooting through the break in the lower portion of the door and fleeing down the winding hall.

 Only to freeze up when the Thin Man dipped under the threshold leading into the very corridor he was in. For lack of direction, Mono swayed back and forth.

 “Hey.”

 The Thin Man gave him a look, intense eyes glittering beneath the bill of his hat. He was chewing on one of those burn sticks.

 “What is it? Stumble onto a hazard?” he posed.

 Mono tipped his head, unsure how to go about this. “N’t good. No safe.” And then he stood there like a dolt, trying to hide his eyes a bit beneath the lip of his hat. “Foods?” He began to panic internally, when the Thin Man approached. Not looking at him, but glaring at the broken door just behind him.

 “No! NoNoNoNo!” He tried to get in the tall figures way, but the man in the hat just stepped over him. A soured ache formed in his gut, he wanted to stop the Thin Man but also could see himself getting knocked aside or hurt if he was more careless. “No! No!”

 “For the last time, there is nothing to fear while in my presence,” he grumbled. “I won't tolerate this. Wait there!” With a snap of his wrist the door creaked open, and in a deep bow the man in the hat vanished, winking out in a distorted shadow. A long and eerie pause followed.

 Mono pressed his hands over his eyes and backed away. What did he do to children that were not Mono? Some sleeps the phantom screech She made woke him up. He never heard her do speek like that. A sad little shadow. He didn’t want to hear anyone else scream like that. He wanted to stop the Thin Man, but he was afraid! A cowered! He kept backing away from the void that now existed beyond the doorway. Sorry! He was sorry! He ran away! He tried....

 “Mono.” The Thin Man called, from within. Sounding distant and haunting. “Come here.”

 “What!” he challenged, without a thought. What did the Thin Man want to show him? Did he plan to make an example of the child? Or, did they escape? He hoped they got out.

 Once more, the Thin Man beckoned. “Come here. Now.” When Mono failed to inspire his legs into moving, the Thin Man provided ample motivation. “Î̸̪̜̐̚ ̶͎̲̘̊̆̈́̎̊̊W̶̨̙͓͂̓̽͝i̵͓͖̖̰̞̒͛́̽͜͝l̶͎͚̼͙̐̋̅̿͝l̶̩͇̯̱̋ ̴͈̰̺̑̈́͜Ṅ̷̛̬̜͑̾̕͠o̷̫̭͗̃̅͆̕͝t̷̗͎͖̏̿̉ ̷̱̫̜̠̎̇̈̂̕Č̵͍͚̒̏̌̋a̴̦̤̙̹͌̔̆̆͒͝l̷̩͖͈̈́̐͒l̸͙͚͖̤̫̮̈̍͒͠ ̴͕̗̩͓̳̟̕ Ȁ̸͎̜̫͍̫̠̆̽g̷͇̙͋a̶̢̯̻̋̉i̴̗̣̭̩̒͊́̚ṅ̴̮͉̿̓͘͠.”

 He shuffled towards the doorway, gut tightening the closer he moved to the gaping entry. What was waiting? Would the Thin Man have the child in his grip, struggling and terrified by his uncertain fate? Or would the other kid be cringing in a corner, white with terror? If the man in the hat wanted him to do... something, he would flee. He would!

 When Mono finally inched his way hrough the threshold, his eyes locked immediately on the towering figure standing by the wall. A little flutter of relief swirled in his chest, upon spying both of the long arms crossed over the narrow chest. That relief almost popped, when the Thin Man settled his gaze on him. He tugged the sides of his hat down around his face.

 “There’s no need to be frightened,” he crackled. “It was only your reflection.”

 Baffled, Mono shifted his gaze aside and searched. Reflection? He nearly jolted backwards when he spied the child again, instead, this time he stumbled. What was that! The other child appeared flabbergasted as well as lost. What was this?! No, wait… they were wearing his hat. That was His HAT!

 He kept his distance, glaring. The other child followed his lead. Perfectly mimed. This was very confusing and disconcerting, to have a someone imitate him so perfectly. Something was wrong here.

 “You’ve never seen a real mirror before, have you?” He felt like the Thin Man was mocking him again. Before he realized anything is afoot, he’s being pressed forward by a hand. “It won’t hurt you. Have a look.”

 “No….” Mono tugged the hat down fully over his face, but couldn’t get away from the grasp insisting he address this other fake Mono. He dug his toes into the dirty carpet trying to press back, until the forceful hand withdrew. He collected himself and tugged his hat up, fully prepared to retreat… but he was nearly at the doppelganger. Could make out the color of his coat, the details of his hat, his very dour and annoyed expression.

 It was like staring into a window, and someone you’ve never seen before looked back. But he knew them from somewhere. The surface was a bit dusty, the edges tinged with corrosion, but for the most part the window was intact. They were separated. He crept in closer and closer, teetering on the fringe of flight. The closer he moved, the more defined and clear the outlines of the other child became in the dull light.

 Reaching out cautiously, his palm slapped the cold barrier. Solid. He gazed at the other face gawking back, and very slowly reached up. The copy mimicked faithfully, as he pushed the hat off his head. He tried to recall a time when he had viewed himself in such utter clarity, but had nothing. Unless to check for an injury or something, seeking a reflective surface was redundant. Finding a surface that offered anything but distorted complexions, was something else entirely. He never really stopped to look at himself, take in the face the world hated.

 “It’s you,” the Thin Man rumbled.

 “T’s me. Aam Mono,” he hummed. Tentatively, he reached up and touched at his hair, pushed it one way then parted it the other, ruffled the clumpy strands. He tugged at his ears, studying the curls and overall form. Then, mushed at his cheeks and tugged at his lips, made some faces. So that’s what those looked like. He had to look at his teeth, see the crazy gap the missing tooth made. Neat! The spot in his gum looked ugly but didn't hurt. He twirled around, admiring the fantastic coat and all its stitch work. The collar was bent, so he fixed that. Overall, he was a very good looking Mono.

 A little higher in the window surface, he could observe the Thin Man. Smiling.

 “Come? Look.” He leaned away from the glossy pane, peering up at the man in the hat. Who was no longer smiling.

 “No. I’d rather not… tarnish the reflection.”

 Mono returned his attention to the mirror Mono and looked aside. This didn’t count as anything that would make the Thin Man happy. He sat for a moment and nibbled his fingers, having a think. He was… already bored with the mirror, too. The novelty wore off before he knew it. He was still Mono, the world still hated him. The mirror couldn't tell him why. But....

 “Same,” he murmured. Touching his cheek. “N’same.” He turned to the Thin Man and curled his fingers around his eyes. He offered a smile.

 “That we do.”

 The response kind of caught Mono. But the man in the hat knew everything already, and then didn’t say. “Reason?”

 The Thin Man exhaled a thread of smoke. And shrugged. Otherwise, no explanation or insight was given. Not even an excuse.

 “See… n’me you?”

 Another sigh, but the Thin Man sighed wouldn’t look at Mono. “Saw some of me, in you.”

 “Oh.” He was glad there wasn’t a child in this room. This wasn’t much better, but at least no one else got hurt. He tugged at a thread in the roll of his pant leg. “Tell story?” He is a little disappointed when the Thin Man turned away and bent under the doorframe.

 “No, this is not the time nor place for silly stories.”

 Mono snapped up his hat and climbed to his feet, rushing after the gradually retreating figure. “But story?” He hastened his pace to stay beside the Thin Man, bouncing or skipping between every two or three steps.

 “You won’t like the story, I can tell you that. One day though, it will be your story, and it will hurt.” A trail of smoke left his lips.

 Hurt? So many queries blossomed within his thoughts. Was there a fix? A way to stop hurt? The Thin Man knew, but couldn't fix. Though maybe....

 “But… same, be'fer t'hide. And t'flee. Then you, w’th me. Do t's together....” The Thin Man ceased walking and gave him a full on glare. Mono staggered sideways, halting his panicked speek. This wasn’t good. Asking questions wouldn’t work, and the Thin Man didn’t like repeating himself.

 “M’sorry,” Mono mumbled, smothering his words. The man in the hat didn't like the S speek. “Rr’sad? N’yu not say, f'hurt?” He inched closer to the Thin Man’s shoes and raised his arms. If he wanted to, the Thin Man could hold him. Getting snared or clutched frightened him, the mood of the tall thin man was always strange and mystery, Mono never really knew what might happen. But it might make the man in the hat feel better. That too was an unknown.

 Instead, the Thin Man bent over and ruffled his hair. “Never mind that. Let’s move along, I do not believe there will be much food in this place.”

 Mono is still put off by the dismissiveness, but he shouldn’t have pushed. He wanted answers, but the Thin Man wasn’t happy in speek about those sort of tricky topics. He liked explaining other boring trivial pieces, but not when it came to the important questions. Her. The Tower. Other children. Sad little shadows. The bits and pieces of a different world, with different pictures, and different meanings. It could be like dream haunts, it was taboo to ask friends about them. That seemed like a valid reason, despite how it burned up in Mono to know more, anything. So much same in Mono, but wouldn't utter why. Could other children... be....

 The tall figure renewed his fluid stride, exhaling a stream of vapor as he went. Mono plopped his hat on and followed, as usual. In silence, as typical. Questions hovered in his mind but for now he would stash them aside, until a safer time. Perhaps when they settled in a calm and good area, then the tall thin man would want to do share speek. Could be interested if Mono copied picture speek from a book, and made a different sort of book? That seemed like a fun idea, and then, he could show the Thin Man how to make it work. Even if the Thin Man knew everything already, it would be happy to pretend he found something new for the Thin Man.

 The Thin Man maybe only kept Mono because of all the same. Too much of the same, or maybe not enough. He couldn’t really figure out anything of why, the man in the hat did what he did. All of anything he did, was for himself. Yet, he made Mono a part of that, and that was okay. No one else wanted Mono.

 He thought though, that the Thin Man’s lip twitched. He wasn’t sure what he did, but it faded the more he persisted with queries. Mono asked the hard questions, the ones that made the man in the hat dig for something... else. A place where the answers lay, beneath the questions, shrouded by the purpose of doing a something. The Thin Man didn't like giving answers or reasons, because like dream haunts, he had to find where the answers came from. The Thin Man was a strange and troubled adult, brimming with dark thoughts alongside the difficult unknowns. Adults would always be hostile and angered by anything that didn't belong, but the Thin Man wasn't like that. He was mostly just grumpy.

Next

[shadow--writer]

Drive

HELLO JULIAN STANS I HAVE BROUGHT FOOD 

Julian x mc -- Gender neutral-- Modern au Dock Talk

Word count: 2.9k

TW: none

Tags: fluff, angst

~~

The rain wouldn’t stop. 

That’s the first thing I noticed. It just kept coming down and wouldn’t stop. The theatre was starting to let out, people getting in their cars with one another, laughing about the new addition to the play and how well acted and hilarious it was. 

How...how good Julian was in the play. 

I put a hand in my back pocket, rocking back and forth on my heels waiting for him. He hadn’t texted me anyways, and after he dropped by in the play...I knew he wouldn’t have the time to. 

So I just needed to wait a bit.

I hoped the rain would let up by the time he got outside. The walk to his car was a bit of a trek, and we’d be soaked by the time we’d get there. 

I looked back over my shoulder, the guests were starting to wane thin. 

So where was he? 

I fiddled with my scarf, pulling it over my head to hide my hair. I’ll give him a few more minutes. Then I’m walking to his car. If he remembered to lock the doors I’ll just break one of the windows.

A smile flirted across my face. It was a joke, I wouldn’t really break his car window unless I had to. He’d be pissed about it. And then he’d probably laugh, joking about how I was impatient.

I’d shoot back stories about him breaking the windows in my and Asra’s shop. Gods I hoped the curtains would cover the empty window frames. I didn’t know how I was going to explain to Asra why we were missing a window. 

Another minute passed. My bag was starting to get heavy, and the rain started coming down harder. Ooh Julian was gonna get an earful if he didn’t come outside soon. 

Once my feet started to hurt the tall slippery man himself made his appearance. He ducked out of the theatre, all laughter and grins. 

Then he spotted me, cold and barely out of the rain. His grin slipped, apologizes falling off his lips. He had abandoned the mask, his clothes knocked askew from our...activities. 

“You said you wanted to talk. You’ve been saying that all day. And here you are keeping me waiting,” I said with a smile, mirth sneaking into my tone. 

I was mad about waiting so long. But I knew it was probably a struggle to get away. Besides, with a face as cute as his it was hard to stay mad.

And...and I had that vague sinking feeling what he wanted to talk to me about wasn’t going to be good.

He hid the distress in his eyes with a smile. A confirmation that I wasn’t going to like what he was going to talk to me about. “Well well darling! I apologize for keeping such a lovely person such as yourself waiting.” He swept himself into a dramatic bow, making me giggle. 

His jacket swished with the movement, the sleeves starting to get damp. He was a little too broad for the small shelter I found myself in. 

His eye crinkled with affection. It stung a little bit. I had a bad feeling about this all. 

I turned away from him before I could let the seed of doubt flower. “It’s raining pretty hard. We’re gonna need to make a break for it.”

He looked me up and down, a flush spreading across my cheeks. “With those stubby legs of yours? I’d be better off carrying you.”

I huffed, turning my nose up at him. “Carry me at your own risk Devorak. I will not hesitate to break that pretty nose of yours.”

“Ouch, angry tonight are we?”

“You left me out in the rain.”

“Fair, I’m deeply sorry about that sweetheart.”

I sighed, allowing myself to smile. “Race you to the car,” I said before taking off. 

He let out a whine and cried out to me, “No fair! You’re just as bad as Portia you cheater!” 

I giggled, enjoying the spray of the cool rainwater against my skin. It was a nice change from the stuffy theatre. 

I could hear Julian start to catch up with me. Damn those long legs. 

A sly grin worked its way across my face as I thought up a plan. Eyepatch. Little depth perception. Puddles. A slick road. 

Julian. He was very clumsy. 

There was a corner coming up, my chest and stomach were starting to burn from the effort it was taking to keep ahead of Julian. His car was just around that corner and parked up in the Rowdy Raven parking lot. 

I skidded to a stop, taking that sharp turn. 

Dr. Long Legs was not as lucky. 

He, apparently, didn’t have breaks on those legs of his. 

And they took off right from under him.

Making him fall flat on his ass in a puddle forming on the ground. 

He let out a squeak, then a squawk, then a yell. I turned around to see him sprawled out on the pavement like he was making snow angels. I let out a small snort, stopping. My breath had been run short anyways.

“You okay there?” I yelled, smiling. 

He shot me a small glare, before rolling his eyes. “Well I fell on my arse and got absolutely soaked in roadwater. I don’t know what your definition of okay is, but this isn’t it.”

I laughed. “I’ll take you home and make you something warm if you’d like. A change of clothes. I think Asra might have something, no promises on them fitting.”

His eyes widened a tad. “A-Ah! Darling I’m okay! Le-let’s just get to my car and we’ll go from there.”

I looked up at the storm clouds, my hair sticking to my face with the rainwater. I was drenched too. “Okay. Call the race off because of technical difficulties?”

He rubbed his backside, barking out a laugh. “You wound me.”

I smiled, walking back over to him to help him up. My scarf had fallen during my run. “I confess, I might’ve lost if someone hadn’t lost control of his gangly limbs,” I said, holding out my hand to help him up. 

He glanced at it, the beanie in his hair sliding down his head. He was gonna lose that hat if we didn’t get him out of the rain. 

He grabbed my hand after a moment’s thought. His hands were slick and bitter cold. I hauled him up, not wanting to let go once he was back on his feet again.

So I didn’t.

“My dear, are you admitting that you might’ve lost to me if I hadn’t had my accident?” I ran my thumb over his knuckles, making his breath hitch. With a tug I let my hand drop to my side. 

The severing of contact left a small ache in my chest. I forced a smile. “We’ll talk about this when we get out of the rain. You’ll catch a cold.”

He chuckled, the movement made his eye crinkle. He linked his arm with mine, and we carried on. “I’m the doctor here, I should be the one worrying about you.”

I rolled my eyes with a pursed lipped smile. “We all know how easy it is for you to catch a cold.”

“Touché dear. Touché.” 

We walked back to his car in silence. Thunder shook the earth with each crackle. Julian kept jumping at the sounds. 

I reached out to take his hand. He tugged his hand away, jogging up ahead to unlock the car.

It stung. The severing of contact. It stung a lot. Like he was trying to distance himself from me.

Like he didn’t want me anymore.

I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering a bit. The wind was starting to pick up, making my clothes stick even more to my rain slicked skin. 

Asra would have a fit if I got sick.

Julian let out a small cheer as the car unlocked. I allowed myself a small smile as he held the passenger door open for me.

The car was cold when I got in. I untied my scarf, tossing it into the back seat. My hair was going to be a tangled mess when it dried.

Julian got in soon after, starting up the car. We waited in the parking lot, allowing ourselves to get warmed up.

Then he spoke. “My dear...we need to talk.”

The tone of his voice was sad. Thick with it. I could hear the regrets and guilt in his tone.

My blood ran cold.

“Well we’re talking right now Julian,” I said, trying to keep my tone light. I tried not to sound scared or hurt.

He stripped of his jacket, tossing it back with my scarf. Then his hat was off. Also in the back. Everything landed with a soft thump. The radio was playing something softly, filling the silence between us.

Then he spoke.

“Darling…” he seemed conflicted with the nickname. My chest tightened. “It’s...it’s a different talk.”

“Well g-go on then.” I couldn’t hide my stutter and fear this time.

For all his jokes and flirtatious personality, he truly seemed sad and guilty. His mask chipped away with every breath of silence.

“We really...really do need to talk.” He was stalling. Why was he stalling? He sucked in a small breath. “We’ve needed to talk all day but I guess I...couldn’t.” He ran a hand through his hair, little droplets of water spraying everywhere. 

He winced, dropping his hand. I twisted my hair around my hand, the water leaking down my palm.

“W-What’s wrong?” I whispered, keeping my voice low as if not to startle him.

A small smile flickered across his face. His eyes were still singing of hurt. “Too many to count. Give me a number and I’ll tell you it’s too low.” He paused, letting the music fill the space between us for a moment. “I’ve...done the calculations. Looked at every scenario! But I can’t...for the life of me, find another way for this to play out.”

I swallowed, my heart thudding in my chest much quicker than before. 

“There’s only one way I see this playing out. And it...doesn’t have a happy ending.” He looked back at me. “So it’s...I mean...isn’t it best to end things on a high note? Cut things off now. Spare you the tragic ending and tears?”

My lower lip trembled a bit. I looked away, anger snapping up at my stomach. I scrubbed the forming tears away. No matter what he did, it would always end in tears. The way he was…

I looked back at him for a moment. He wouldn’t look me in the eyes. It was like he wanted to run away. 

I thought back to earlier that morning, waking up without him after our night of adventure. 

I didn’t want to feel that again. 

“N-No matter how you p-put it, it’s g-gonna end in t-tears and t-tragedy Julian,” I whispered, trying not to cry. I couldn’t let him see me cry. Couldn’t let him make me cry. 

Hearing the tremble in my voice his head snapped back, tears welling up in his visible eye. “Oh no no sweetheart this isn’t- I didn’t-” he reached out to cup my face, thumb rubbing the runaway tears away. “Please don’t cry darling. I can’t...I can’t stand to see you and tears.”

“You...you weren’t going to stay for breakfast, were you?”

He flinched back, hand recoiling. I wanted it back. I wanted him to touch me. I wanted to touch him. “I- I erm...uhh no. I wasn’t.” He let out a deep sigh. “I may have...panicked. A tad.” 

Uh huh. This was Julian Devorak. He panicked a lot.

“But I wouldn’t have just left you. Even if I wanted to.” Another beat of silence. “...I...don’t want to leave you, but there’s no other way this could go.”

I reached up to cup his face, brushing my fingers over the strong outline of his cheekbones. He melted into the touch, like he craved it.

“I don’t want to drag this out,” he whispered. “It has to end. Before it’s...too late for you.”

Later I would chuckle at the dramatics. It was so...him. 

I forced a wolfish grin, snapping my teeth. “I’m not afraid of pain.”

There was a flicker in his eye. A small smile. He pressed a light kiss to my fingertips. “And that’s what I’m afraid of, my dear. Because I will hurt you. Absolutely. It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve done. I lose myself. I hurt people. Myself. And I don’t want you to be a part of that. It’s who I am and what I will be. A failure.”

Nothing of what he spoke was reason enough to end our relationship. None had anything to do with it even. 

They were just excuses. Stuff to scare me away.

I’ve heard them before. The ‘I’m dangerous’ ‘I’ll hurt you’ ‘You deserve better’. 

None are how he feels about me. None are reason to end anything.

Sure it hadn’t been long. But…

“Don’t...don’t you want me?” I whispered, leaning closer. The armrest and controls stopped me before I could get too close. He’d have to close the distance himself.

He started, his cheeks going red. “I-I’m sorry I must’ve...I must’ve misheard you. Did you…”

I blinked, a few stray tears clinging to my lashes spilled down my cheeks. “I asked if you wanted me.”

If his face could go any redder, it did. “Ooooooh so I didn’t mishear you then.” The tips of his ears were red. I was sure he was blushing right down to his toes.

“T-That’s a strange question to ask me as I’m breaking up with you. N-Not that it’s really a break up. We were never...together.”

Ouch doctor. That stung.

He swallowed, his body tense and tight. Like he’d jump at any moment. “You didn’t answer my question.”

His eye darted back to meet mine. “Well...asking if I want you. Tough question.” He swallowed again, clicking his teeth. “I want to keep you out of my mess. I want...well...it doesn’t really matter what I want.”

“Yes...it does.” My voice was soft. I wondered if he heard me. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

He sighed again, leaning back in his chair. The car had warmed up, but we were still damp. Definitely gonna catch a cold.  

“Stubborn aren’t you? It’s what I like about you. One of your charms.”

“Julian.”

He let out another breath. “It’s what drew me to you. How stubborn and strong you are. If I was a stronger man...not so weak.”

I kept his gaze, my lashes brushing my cheek as I blinked. I watched him follow the motion, a fresh blush running rampant. 

His next words were soft. Ever so soft. He bit his lower lip, looking both defeated and like...like he was really seeing me. My damp clothes, my hair a mess. My eyes. My nose. And my lips. 

“I want you.” 

He looked away. “But there’s no future with us...with me, that doesn’t end in pain.”

My nose stung with fresh tears. I leaned closer, tilting my head. “Then...just for tonight…can we...forget about the future? It’s just you...and me. Under the same rainy sky, in the same car, listening to the same song, in the same warmth.”

“Can...can I be that selfish?” he asked, looking away from me. I allowed myself to touch him. Fingertips against his cheek, cold hands against flushed skin.

I bit my lower lip, my teeth catching on it as I spoke. “Do you want to be?”

He watched my movements, tugging himself out of my touch. My hand fell with my hopes. 

He chewed his lower lip, hands twitching as if he wanted to do...something. 

I wanted him to touch me. 

I wanted selfish. 

I wanted him.

“...yes.”

He closed the small distance, hand under my chin to gently tug me closer to him. Our lips brushed once. It was soft and fleeting. 

Then again. 

He shifted his hands around my shoulders, crushing me into him. His hand tangled itself in my shirt. His other hand brushed the back of my neck, sending shivers down my spine.

“One more,” he whispered. 

We kissed again, soft and slow. He let out a small groan against me. His mouth parted as a shiver ran through him.

“One more.”

Another press. Another groan. A hand tangled in my hair. A feverish sense of no tomorrows. 

One more was whispered again and again. Each time promising pain and heartbreak.

Each time he leaned in again. More desperate each time. Touches needier and more daring. I tugged on his hair softly, making him let out a small moan. 

He turned away, hands dropping to my hips. 

He looked...sad. Desperately so. 

“You know...being here with you, being with you was the first thing I’ve wanted for myself for a long time.”

“Then why don’t you stay?”

He turned away, swallowing. “I’ll...drive you home.”

I blinked, hurt tearing through my skin. I looked away from him, trying not to cry. He was really doing this. 

So then...why did it hurt so much?

“...okay.”

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Chapter 55: Movie Night

Lots of quotes from the movie Lilo & Stitch ahead! Fewer quotes, but some, from Trolls and Frozen.

Bold italics are trollish, ~tildes~ indicate goblin.

Content warnings for this chapter: Swearing. Here we reach the story's first F-bomb.

Also, there is some talk between characters about the harshness of life in the Darklands, how Changelings are treated by the Gumm-Gumms, and mentions of cannibalism.

This was supposed to be a light-happy chapter that got feels-y at the end, but then it went and got all dark on me.

Oh, also-also, (Not) Enrique finds out Claire flirted with Jim a while ago and misinterprets what exactly happened between them, but that gets cleared up fast.

Becoming The Mask

Once again, Javier and Ophelia Nuñez were out for the evening, leaving Claire in charge of Enrique. Claire had gotten permission to invite "some friends" over to watch movies. Jim and Toby arrived to find Mary and Darci already there – Jim suspected, like the time he'd 'babysat', that Claire had purposefully asked him to arrive after she knew her parents would be gone.

They set up piles of cushions and blankets on the floor between the couch and the TV. Jim propped the Amulet up on the coffee table they'd pushed to one side. Maybe some of the ghost Trollhunters would be interested in human movies.

"Finally get your fill of the touchy-feelies?" Enrique teased Jim, seeing how they were all seated separately. Jim snorted.

"Not hardly." He pulled the smaller Changeling in for a hug. "Humans just have different rules about casual touching, is all. Freezing to death's not really a concern in this climate."

"Wait, what?" said Toby, dropping the pillow he'd been holding. Jim looked up to see all the humans staring at him.

"Darklands thing," said Enrique easily. "Gets cold there."

"We'd sleep in piles," Jim explained. "I had a bit of a reputation for being … clingy."

"If you weren't good at finding food and soft stuff, we'd never've put up with ya." Enrique proved himself a liar by climbing onto Jim's shoulders instead of jumping back to the floor. He fluffed the hair on Jim's scalp. "Jimmy-boy got his first nickname for that."

"Shut up," said Jim playfully. "Anyway, humans get weird about touching around puberty. I can still hug Mom whenever I want, but Toby gets embarrassed if I hug him around other people, and Claire, Mary, and Darci haven't given me permission to touch them casually yet."

"… Did you … want permission?" asked Claire. "You, kinda, said you were uncomfortable with that, I thought."

"No, it was more wondering if you were flirting with me that felt weird," Jim assured her. "After that conversation I felt like it'd be awkward to bring up that I was open to hugging and such."

Jim thought he felt Enrique growl, to quietly to properly hear. His hand, still in Jim's hair, changed position so the tips of Enrique's claws were on Jim's scalp.

"When exactly did this happen?" Enrique asked.

"Claire kissed Jim on the cheek on his birthday and then Jim said he wasn't interested in dating her," said Mary.

"Also that I realized she might not have meant it in a flirty way and if I was misinterpreting things she could ignore what I was saying," Jim added. The claws retreated.

Claire looked away. "So what movie did we want to start with?"

"Lilo & Stitch!" exclaimed Darci, looking through the shelves. "I haven't watched this in forever!"

"That's a good one." Jim tilted his head to get Enrique back in his peripheral vision. "Enrique, have you seen it yet?"

"… Yeah."

"Isn't that the one that always makes you cry?" asked Toby.

"It's beautiful. Of course I cry."

Stitch was a constructed 'abomination', who shapeshifted to blend in, and his adopted family found out what he truly was and still wanted him. How could Jim be expected to keep his composure in the face of that?

"So, quick question," said Jim. "Is talking during the movie a crime, or is commentary what makes it a group activity?"

"Commentary," said all three girls together.

"Okay, good." Jim and Toby usually talked during movies, unless one or both of them were seeing it for the first time. Sometimes even then.

+=+

"Not guilty! My experiments are only theoretical, and completely within legal boundaries."

"We believe you actually created something."

"Created something? Ha! But that would be irresponsible, and, unethical. I would never, ever – make more than one."

"What is that monstrosity?"

"Monstrosity?! What you see before you is the first of a new species!"

"You have to wonder if she and Merlin ever had a talk like this," Enrique muttered in Jim's ear. Jim snickered.

"And as for that abomination … it is the flawed product of a deranged mind. It has no place among us."

Jim stopped laughing and cringed. He loved this movie a lot, but some of it stung.

+=+

"A quiet capture would require an understanding of 626 that we do not possess! Who, then, Mr Pleakley, would you send for his extraction?"

"… Does he have a brother? Close grandmother, perhaps?"

"Fun fact," said Darci, "in early drafts Stitch was a career criminal and Jumba was an old accomplice."

"Friendly cousin? Neighbour with a beard?"

+=+

"Surely the teacher won't notice I was late if he doesn't see me come in!" Claire narrated sarcastically.

+=+

"I'm sorry, Scrump!" Mary wailed, as Lilo ran back to retrieve the doll she'd angrily thrown aside.

+=+

"Let me illuminate to you the precarious situation in which you have found yourself. I am the one they call when things go wrong. And things have indeed gone wrong."

"As a cook, that kitchen horrifies me," said Jim.

+=+

"If you promise not to fight anymore, I promise not to yell at you – except on special occasions."

"Tuesdays and bank holidays would be good."

The entire group cracked up.

"How does kid Lilo's age even know what a bank holiday is?" said Claire. "I don't even know what a bank holiday is!"

"Maybe she saw it printed on a calendar?" said Toby.

+=+

A raindrop fell on Stitch's head. He fired his ray gun into the sky. It started raining, hard.

"Oh, no, I broke the sky!" Darci cried.

+=+

"Does it have to be this dog?"

"He survived getting hit by a truck, how much more sturdy and not-gonna-die do you want?" asked Jim.

"Yes. He's good. I can tell."

+=+

"I'm sorry I bit you. And pulled your hair. And punched you in the face."

Mary nudged Claire. "Remind you of anyone?"

Like sunflowers, everyone else popped up and turned towards them.

Claire blushed. "We got into a fight in first grade and for like two days we decided we didn't want to be friends anymore, then our moms made us say sorry."

"He will be irresistibly drawn to large cities, where he will back up sewers, reverse street signs, and steal everyone's left shoe."

"It's weird they get in trouble for everything but this," commented Enrique. "Human grown ups might not believe a dog stole a trike, but wouldn't they think Lilo did it? She's fought the other kid before."

"It's nice to live on an island with no large cities."

+=+

"It's not an angel, Lilo, I don't even think it's a dog!"

"Isn't that the rolling thing Draal can do?" said Toby.

"Yeah, more or less," said Jim. "I mean, I don't think Draal bites his feet – but maybe that's the trick."

"At least with those stick legs you've got," said Enrique. He curled into a ball and rolled in a circle around the group. "Face it, you're out of proportion for this move."

+=+

"626 was designed to be a monster. But now, there is nothing to destroy. You see, I never gave him a greater purpose. What must it be like, to have nothing? Not even memories to visit, in the middle of the night?"

"Now, this next bit I don't care for," said Jim. "The Ugly Duckling is a messed-up story."

"What've you got against The Ugly Duckling?" asked Mary.

"The blatant segregationist propaganda? 'A swan will never fit in with ducks and everyone is better off sticking with their own kind'. You don't even have to read it as a race metaphor. Between that and The Little Mermaid, I thought for while that Hans Christian Anderson was a Changeling writing cautionary tales about why we shouldn't get attached to humans."

"… Was he?" asked Claire.

"Probably not. I couldn't find any real evidence and the rest of his work doesn't match the pattern."

"Counterpoint," said Darci. "The Ugly Duckling is pro-integration. Everyone thought he was an ugly duckling because they didn't know what swans look like. If he'd grown up with ducks and swans around, they could've judged him for what he was instead of what he couldn't measure up to, and he might've had a happy childhood instead of only finding a community that accepted him as an adult."

Jim considered this, and nodded. "I guess I can see that, too."

+=+

"Heard you lost your job."

"Well, uh, actually, I just quit. That job. Because, you know, the hours are just not conducive to the challenges of raising a child –"

"Nani, no!" Jim begged. "I know almost nothing about Social Services but I'm pretty sure choosing to leave your only source of income looks worse to them than just losing it!"

"Thus far you have been adrift in the sheltered harbour of my patience; but I cannot ignore you being jobless. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly."

"And next time I see this dog, I expect it to be a model citizen. Capiche?"

"Uh … yes?"

"New job. Model citizen. Good day."

+=+

"So, we saw Cobra on the beach after all the tourists got scared off … D'you think he was just standing there watching them the whole time?" Mary wondered out loud after the surfing sequence.

+=+

"Until we meet again …"

Lilo was about to tell Stitch about her parents. Without thinking, Jim grabbed the remote – on the coffee table, next to the amulet – to fast forward.

"What are you doing?" Darci cried. "This is one of the big emotional turning points of the film!"

Jim paused it. "Sorry. Uh … Tobes and I usually skip this scene."

"I think I can handle it," Toby assured Jim. To the girls and Enrique, he explained, "My parents died in a storm when I was two. A cruise ship, not a car accident. I got kind of upset the first time we watched this as kids, and, we got in the habit fast forwarding this part. I think I'm okay with it now."

"You're sure?" asked Jim.

"I'm sure."

"Okay …" He rewound to the point where he'd started fast forwarding.

"That's us before. It was rainy, and they went for a drive. What happened to yours?"

Jim watched Toby more than the movie for the next few minutes.

"I'll remember you, though. I remember everyone that leaves."

"Do you remember them?" Claire asked quietly.

"Only the stuff Nana tells me." Toby shrugged, and readjusted the cushions he'd propped up his arms on. "I've seen lots of pictures. A couple home movies."

+=+

"Don't run. Don't make me shoot you. You were expensive. Yes, yes, that's it, come quietly."

"I'm … waiting."

"For what?"

"Family."

"Ah. You don't have one. I made you."

"Maybe … I could –"

"You were built to destroy. You can never belong."

Jim blinked fast to keep the tears back. He sniffed, and pulled the blankets more tightly around him.

+=+

"Okay, talk! I know you had something to do with this, now where's Lilo? Talk! I know you can."

"Claire?" said Mary. "You okay?"

Jim looked over. Claire's jaw was clenched, and her hands were tight on the blanket, and her eyes were huge and fixed on the screen, and she was shaking.

"Ah … maybe the little sib getting snatched by otherworldly forces wasn't the best movie choice," Enrique said. He reached out like he was about to go to Claire, then pulled back his hand and hunkered down where he was.

"LILO! She's a little girl this big, she has black hair and brown eyes, and she hangs around with that THING!"

"I'm. Fine," Claire insisted.

"You're sure?"

"We can just fast forward."

"I said I'm fine!"

"Okay …"

Mary and Darci each scooted their blanket and cushion piles closer to Claire's, bracketing her on either side. Jim tactfully retreated to the Nuñezes kitchen to microwave a few more bags of popcorn. Enrique went with him. They could still hear the TV.

"What? After all you put me through, you expect me to help you just like that? Just like that?!"

"Ih."

"Fine."

"Fine? You're doing what he says?"

"Ah, he is very persuasive."

"Is it normal to feel bad for her?" Enrique asked.

"I think so? It's an awkward situation for both of you." Jim selected the white cheddar flavour. "But it's not like there's an alternative. You're not a polymorph. And really, the only reason she's upset is because she found out."

The Nuñezes had the same microwave as the Lakes. Jim didn't find the popcorn setting especially useful for this brand of popcorn – it tended to burn a third of the kernels– so he used the timer instead.

"I never apologized to you for that, did I?" Jim asked.

"It wasn't all your fault."

"Still, I'm sorry for my part in getting you caught."

The Changelings got back to the living room in time to see the unfortunate tourist lose his ice cream for the third time.

+=+

"Does Stitch have to go in the ship?"

"Yes."

"Can Stitch say goodbye?"

"… Yes."

Like he always did during this scene, Jim cried. He let himself do it this time.

+=+

"Wait, how is Little Mermaid a cautionary tale?" asked Enrique during the credits. The camera panned over a photo of Stitch reading to a flock of ducklings. "For getting attached, I mean. I thought the moral of that one was to control yer temper and be careful who you made deals with?"

"Sure, the Disney version," said Jim. "They adapted it to make a more dramatic, less depressing story. And give the characters names. In the older version, the sea witch is actually a neutral character. The terms of the mermaid's transformation are that she's traded her tongue for legs, but walking on land hurts, and she'll become fully human if the prince marries her, but if he marries anybody else, she'll die."

"That doesn't sound neutral."

"Wait for it. The prince gets engaged to a human princess, so the mermaid's older sisters trade their hair to the sea witch for a magic knife and a loophole; if the little mermaid kills the prince before the wedding, she can turn back into a mermaid and survive."

"Kay, I see it now."

"Except she doesn't go through with the kill, so she dies, and because she wasn't really human, she doesn't have a proper soul, so her spirit's not allowed to go to Heaven."

"… Whoa."

"I know, right?"

"I mean," Mary commented, "not murdering somebody is kind of a low bar for moral decency. It's not as if the prince owed her anything just because she was attracted to him."

"No, no, whether the prince deserved to die or not is irrelevant," said Jim. "The point is that the mermaid had a chance to, objectively, trade one life for another, and because she was attached to the particular person she'd have to kill, she didn't prioritize her own survival, and therefore suffered."

"Wouldn't the guilt of murder have caused suffering anyway?" Toby pointed out.

"Not if she wasn't attached," Jim insisted. How were they not getting this? "If she could've just cut the throat of any random human, she'd've been fine. The moral of the story is that caring about people causes pain. That's what makes it depressing."

"Do you like any fairy tales?" asked Darci.

"Sure. Just not most of Anderson's work."

"What should we watch next?" said Claire hospitably. "If we're on a 'sister movies' theme, I've got Frozen."

"Isn't that one also based on an Anderson fairy tale?" said Mary.

"Not really," said Jim. "The Snow Queen was more 'inspiration' than 'source material'. Elsa never kidnaps anyone, and they left out the broken enchanted mirror. Plus it's fun to see all the different ways humans think trolls are like."

"We also have the Trolls movie," said Claire. "I haven't watched it yet. My dad got it for Mom's birthday because she used to collect the dolls."

"I haven't seen that one yet, either," Darci commented.

"Should we?" said Mary. "Any other votes?"

"I'm game for whatever," said Toby. "This one's a musical, right? Those are always fun."

Jim squirmed.

He hadn't watched this movie despite his curiosity, after an online clip of the opening had explained the premise. Getting eaten alive was his greatest fear. Did he want to watch a movie about trolls narrowly avoiding being eaten? Did he want to explain why he didn't want to watch it?

While he debated, the movie got put in.

"Once upon a time, in a happy forest, in the happiest tree, lived the happiest creatures the world has ever known: the trolls. They loved nothing more than to sing, and dance, and hug, and dance and hug and sing and dance and sing and hug –"

Enrique started laughing.

Oh, shit, Jim hadn't warned him.

"Uh, Enrique –"

"Ssh! This is ridiculous. I mean, the huggy bit's kind of like you, but the rest of it – ha!"

"But then one day, the trolls were discovered by – a Bergen!"

"The trolls are gonna –"

"Ji-im! Spoilers!" Toby hissed.

"They were the most miserable creatures in all the land."

Jim grabbed Enrique and covered his eyes. The smaller Changeling yelped and squirmed. Jim switched forms so his fingers wouldn't bleed from the clawing.

Enrique got his eyes uncovered just in time to see the Bergen flick a troll into its mouth.

The onscreen troll's exclamation of "Oh my god!" was drowned out by Enrique's much more lurid cursing.

"What the –?" The girls and Toby all turned to stare. Claire pointed at Enrique accusingly. "I knew that didn't mean 'I'm sorry'!"

"The hell kinda movie is this?! Why would you watch this?!" He twisted to look at Jim, who let go of him rather than risk yanking his scruff by accident. "You knew?!"

"I saw a bit of it on the internet when it first came out. That's why I froze up when Claire suggested it."

That … that was the wrong thing to say. Enrique rounded on Claire. A techno-rock cover of In The Hall Of The Mountain King boomed from the movie soundtrack.

"Why in FUCK'S NAME would you think we'd WANT to watch trolls get EATEN? Is this some kind of threat?"

"How the fuck would it be a threat?" Claire shot back, stealing some cushions from Mary to prop herself up taller without getting out of her blanket cocoon.

"Most Changelings –" Jim started to say.

"DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I'VE ALMOST BEEN EATEN?" Enrique roared. "I DON'T! CAUSE IT'S A LOT!"

"We've all had close calls," Jim finished. "Nyarlagroths, Hellheetis, goblins if you catch them in the wrong mood, Gruesomes if you're already hurt, Stalklings, and it's a … popular threat from Gumm-Gumms."

"You forgot the sloorbeasts," said Enrique bitterly.

"Nobody's gotten lichen patches that bad." At least, they hadn't when Jim got out. "Have they?"

"Still counts."

"Uh, excuse me." Toby raised his hand. "I think I speak for us all when I say, what?"

"The Darklands are a hostile environment with predators and scavengers," explained Jim. "That's the other reason we slept in groups."

"Bigger targets, but we could have lookouts."

"Okay, that's its own kind of horrifying, but I was more reacting to the cannibalism?"

"Changelings don't count as real trolls," Enrique said sarcastically. "We're Impure."

He left out the part where they'd eaten their own dead. Jim didn't add it.

(It wasn't like they'd hunted each other for food. Sometimes a Changeling just died, somehow, in a way that didn't get them eaten by something else, and … well, food was scarce in the Darklands. They couldn't afford to be picky.

It also paid to keep watch over the sentry posts. Gunmar occasionally used the Decimaar Blade to post a sentry and then forgot to order them to rest and eat. Once they died, the average adult Gumm-Gumm was a meal for twenty Changelings, easily, if they could get to the body before the Gruesomes did.)

"Okay, we're switching to Frozen." Mary made the executive decision. "Wait," she said, while exchanging the disks. "If Changelings aren't trolls, how does Jim's adoption work?"

Because of course this was the perfect moment to tell Enrique about that, right in the middle of a squabble with his adopted sister.

"For one thing, most of Trollmarket still thinks I'm human." Jim switched back to human shape to illustrate the point.

"You got adopted?"

"AAARRRGGHH and Blinky thought I should have legal standing in Trollmarket outside of my job."

Enrique stared at him. Green diamond-shaped ears were pinned back. Buggy, slit-pupil eyes were wide and hurt.

"You get everything," he grumbled. "Two nicknames, and the goblins liked you, and you could always find food, and here you're the boss's favourite even when you're a traitor, and your human family still likes you, and now you get a troll family too? S'not fair."

"Hey, the goblins liked you, too." Jim was fully aware that wasn't much comfort compared to all the rest of it. "They gave you your nickname, remember?"

"They gave you one, too."

"Yeah, but you got yours first."

They probably weren't supposed to hear Darci when she muttered, "I feel like we're missing a lot of context."

"Shit," Claire muttered back. "Not Enrique told me a bit of the name part. They don't remember their names from before they were Changelings, and they don't get real names until they have Familiars, so they use nicknames instead. From each other or from goblins, he said."

"They don't get names?" Darci's voice went squeaky at the end of that.

"We're trying to come up with something other than 'Enrique' for him."

"You're trying," Enrique corrected. Darci squeaked again.

"Can we maybe circle back to the cannibalism thing?" said Toby. "That feels like the kind of trauma that should get unpacked at some point."

"I would rather leave it packed," said Jim.

"The way you blurted it out like that feels like you need to talk about it."

"Not all psychology is Freudian, Tobes."

"Do your parents still have baby name books from when they were picking Enrique's name?" Mary asked Claire. "Real Enrique, I mean."

"They didn't use one. He was named after our abuelo."

"Okay, so what about your other grandfather? What was his name?"

"Jose María." Defensively, "It's gender neutral in Spanish."

On the television screen, the movie menu finished another loop and started again.

"I tried spelling my name like it sounds, en are ee kay, but Claire said it spelled 'Nrek'. You get why I couldn't use that."

Jim laughed.

"What's funny?" asked Toby. "Is that an insult or something?"

"No, it's goblin, in English it means 'bottle'," Jim translated. "Or possibly 'container of food'." The only bottles he's seen them use held formula for the Familiars, and the word hadn't come up on the surface, so the distinction was unclear. "It's either a silly name or a really morbid one."

"Aaand we're back to the cannibalism."

"No we are not!"

"Na na na heyana, Hahiyaha naha …"

Either somebody had decided to start the movie, or the DVD had that feature where it automatically began playing if nothing was selected after a few loops of the menu.

The conversation went in circles a couple more times, then faded out.

+=+

"And who's the funky-looking donkey over there?"

"That's Sven."

"Uh-huh; and who's the reindeer?"

"… Sven."

"Oh, they're – ? Oh! Okay! Makes things easier for me."

"~Riot~," said Enrique.

"Huh?"

"My nickname. Before. It meant 'riot'."

What are you doing? Jim wanted to demand. Was Enrique just – just giving up on a real name?

"You can call me that for now. Till we work out a for-real one. Better than 'Not Enrique'."

Jim stuffed some burnt popcorn kernels into his mouth to keep from protesting. He couldn't undermine Enrique's – Riot's – chosen name, right in front of a bunch of humans, when he'd been arguing with them about how rude that was for weeks now.

"Oh. Okay." Claire half-smiled. "Riot."

Jim shut his eyes to hide the flaring glow.

+=+

Previous Chapter (Angor Rot gets treated much better, and more sensibly, than in canon, and is correspondingly less vengeful)

Table of Contents 

Next Chapter (Featuring either Otto or Gatto)

A quick thank you to Taycin on AO3 for providing some name-gender context when this chapter first went up.

[recentanimenews]

Akebi’s Sailor Uniform – 09 – Pipe Organ of Light

After a string of episodes in which new classmates were introduced, it’s nice to get back to the “core four” of Akebi, Erika, Usagihara, and Koujo, as they meet up on the weekend for a trip to the mall for festival supplies. After getting a haircut from her mom, Akebi actually encounters Koujo on the bus, but Koujo is so absorbed in her book, Akebi doesn’t disturb her, resulting in a beautiful, silent little scene of a bus ride through the gorgeous landscape.

When the four meet up, they all praise each other’s street attire, which is very appropriate for their respective characters: Akebi’s practical tee, slacks, and sturdy sandals; Usagihara with a flowing skirt, pink nails and classy braid; Erika in a very smart, mature blouse, tiny purse, and heels; and Koujo in a super-comfy overalls with huge pockets. A look at the directory is vetoed by Akebi, who says she’ll be their guide.

A number of non-festival-supply-related detours ensues as she gives them a tour of the places in the mall she goes to most—and, this is key, has gone to the most. Akebi has been coming here since she was little, and has a lot of fond memories of shopping with her mom and sister then meeting up with their dad if he was off work. When Usagihara recognizes clothes and accessory chains Akebi never visited, she gains a whole new appreciation for the place.

Everyone gets something out of the mall. The gang follow Kojou’s lead as she’s drawn to a bookstore, and Erika happens to pick out the very book Kojou had just finished on the bus, and offers to lend Erika her copy. Akebi also comments on Kojou’s pressed flower bookmark, which her mom made for her. At lunch, Erika, new to malls, experiences her first fast food hamburger, and her friends get a kick out of how happy she looks eating it.

But when the four are about to leave the mall, Kojou notices the bookmark her mom made her is missing. Since it’s a good luck charm to her, and she has nice friends, the four comb the mall, but come up with nothing. It’s not at the lost and found, nor did it turn up at the depot. Kojou, clearly upset about losing it, nevertheless suggests they head out anyway, as the bus will be there soon.

As luck would have it, somebody found her bookmark by the exit, and tied a red balloon to it, which Akebi spots through the windows of the exit. I breathed a sigh of relief with Kojou, but then the balloon slips out of her hand, and since it’s full of helium, starts to rise into the sky. Kojou’s past memories of the bookmark flash before us. Fortunately, the balloon gets snagged on a tree, but it’s out of reach…or is it?

I half expected Akebi to climb the tree like a lemur and grab it for Kojou, but instead, offers her shoulders as a boost. Kojou says she couldn’t possibly. Usagihara suggests they get all get into mock cavalry formation, but Kojou still needs a few more inches of height. That’s when Akebi suggests they hoise her up by her leg so she can jump up and reach it. Kojou is successful, and for a tick fears she’ll fall to the ground…but Akebi’s got her.

When it starts to rain, three of the girls seek shelter, as the bus stop’s a ways away. But Akebi simply dances in the rain, and her energy and joy compels the others to join her in racing to the bus stop together, wet clothes be damned. They laugh as they run through pink, purple, and blue hydrangeas, Akebi leading the way with her red balloon.

The rain suddenly stops when they reach the bus stop shelter; it was only a passing shower. But the rain causes crepuscular rays, of the same kind Akebi saw a pretty photo of at the bookstore, and which are also called “a pipe organ of light” by a famous writer. The rays might as well be pure love descending from the heavens.

This just might’ve been the loveliest, most life-affirming and heartwarming shopping trip episode I’ve ever seen, and by far the most dramatic lost bookmark dilemma! But it’s also the longest and best sustained interaction between these four and only these four girls. The simplified cast of the episode allows all four to shine.

We’re even given the possibility that Kojou, inspired by her friend of bottomless energy, optimism, and love, might just end up being the writer of Akebi’s Sailor Uniform! This outing was peak comfy slice-of-life/friendship/youth anime, and made me yearn for the days I was actually in awe of the fancier malls of my own youth.

By: sesameacrylic

[gaygryffindorgal]

Chapter 3: The Two Potters

Summary: Effie has to face her own past in quite the literal sense, when she meets three travellers while escaping from her pursuers.

Pairings: None

Word count: 1.6K

Warnings: none

Previous / Next

[From the Beginning]

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

CHAPTER 3:

Effie was tired. She was so tired, and she didn’t know what to do. She’d been on the road for nearly twelve hours without food and without sleep. Getting something to eat was her number one priority, when she hopped off the train in the middle of nowhere. She was far away from London, in the countryside, trying to make all her decisions as randomly as she could, in case these strange people with strange magic wand looking wooden sticks could read her mind or somehow anticipate her next move. That seemed so insane to think about. Absolutely mental. She was half-willing to consider she’d just hallucinated all of this. Except that the actual physical exhaustion and disorientation, she was feeling was giving a very different message. She exited the small train station of the village she had arrived to, bought some snacks from the vending machine, and gobbled them all. With a bottle of coke, she headed off, trying to find somewhere, anywhere to lay low so she could rest her eyes for just a minute.

  ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Eventually, she came across an old building. It might’ve been a barn or some other sort of farm building, in the past but now it was dilapidated and abandoned. In desperation she looked down at her hands and saw them glowing faintly. Whatever was happening to her wasn't anything a doctor could help fix, of that she was now sure. The interior of the building was full of old, dusty farm equipment. Effie ran her hand along the muck-covered handle of an old wheelbarrow. This was better than nothing, she thought. At least she’d have some shelter from the wind and possible rain. She didn't feel the presence of her pursuers, but it was only a matter of time before they found her. The buzzing in her ears felt like it was growing stronger by the hour and soon enough she wouldn't be able to keep running. What would those sickos do to her? The man had said something about a dark lord and to Effie it sounded like she was either about to be forced to join a cult or be sacrificed to Satan or something. She felt dizzy and lowered herself carefully on the floor. It was cold and wet and hard, but at least she wouldn't hurt herself if she fainted. Delirious with exhaustion, hunger, and whatever was happening to her body, she didn't take long to pass out, curling up on the barn floor, too tired to fight the sleep overcoming her.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

The dream began with a snake. A long, pale snake with red eyes. It was coming straight for her. It was going to kill her and there was nothing she could do. Effie was on the floor and despite her scrambling attempts she couldn't get up. As she tried, desperately, to crawl away her hand hit a wall and she knew she was trapped. The snake was still approaching, and it seemed almost pleased, like it was smiling. Effie squeezed her eyes shut and the snake came for her throat—

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

She woke to the sound of the door blowing up into pieces. Groggy and nauseous, she got to her feet just as one of her pursuers, the woman, stepped into the rundown building. She cursed herself for falling asleep like that. She didn't know how long it had been but it was dark now.

"There you are, little bird," the woman cooed, stepping closer holding that wand of hers. "Come with me willingly and you don't have to get hurt, dear."

Effie backed away from the woman, eyes darting around for an escape route. As if reading her mind, the woman said: "Don't be stupid, there's no escape now."

"Oh yeah?" Effie asked, squeezing her hands into fists. "You talk big talk, but I've gotten away from you before."

The woman bared her teeth in a menacing smile. "Better to take you here than a bustling city."

Effie darted for the cover of an old tractor, and the woman sent a bright light after her from her magic stick. This was all just too weird, and nothing like the paganism and Wicca and other stuff she had thought to be magic before.

"Come on out Euphemia..." the pursuer called as Effie crouched behind the tractor, trying to figure out a way to get out of this.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Suddenly she was knocked over, as the tractor lifted up and floated away from her, exposing her hiding spot completely. Eyes wild she looked at the floating vehicle land harshly on the other side of the room. The man had finally caught up and was responsible for the floating tractor. He held his wand ina firm grip and as he moved his hand, the tractor moved along.

"I'm tired of this cat and mouse game, Zeraphina, let's just take her and go," he said in a bored tone.

Effie got up, panic building in her throat. "Stay away from me!" she demanded again, and she knew she sounded like a scared little girl.

The woman ignored her and raised her wand. Effie only saw a flashing red light coming towards her and she squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for pain. It didn't come. Instead, she was enveloped by light all around her, only for a second. It was so bright it hurt her eyes. She heard a crashing sound and then, as suddenly as it had come, the glow faded. She looked around for her attackers and saw them both lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious. She looked at her hands. They were glowing more fiercely, but slowly fading and she knew the light had come from her. Magic was real and she had it. And she was pretty sure it was killing her.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Effie didn't stay to check if the witches were dead. Or wizards or warlocks, spellcasters, whatever they preferred to be called. She was afraid they had used her magic to track her somehow and she had no idea how to stop using it, so she'd just have to put as much distance between herself and them as possible. And then... then just keep running. She had no intention of letting them take her alive, but despite what had just happened, she knew she couldn't fight them either. They'd been taken by surprise by whatever it was Effie had done, and it wouldn't work again.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

She was so preoccupied by her nausea, fear, and exhaustion that she didn't notice the sense that someone was near her again, until she bumped directly into them. The person made a surprised oomph-sound and turned around to face her. Effie scrambled back, terrified.

"Woah there," the boy said, raising his hands in what Effie assumed was a gesture of friendship. "I don't mean you any harm, my name is Ron—"

Effie didn't let him finish before punching him in the face and taking off, running towards the woods. God bless growing up surrounded by bullies, at least she knew how to throw a punch. She stumbled, catching herself on a nearby tree. She could hear the boy, Ron, running after her, calling for her to stop. As if. She kept running.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

At least until she found herself dangling in the air upside down, helpless to do anything but wildly twitch around like a fish on dry land. Her captor stepped out from behind a tree, a young woman, surely not much older than Effie herself. She was dark-skinned with long, frizzy hair and the look of someone who had been on the road for a long time.

"Effie, please listen, we're here to help you," the girl started. "I'm going to put you down, but I need you to listen to what we have to say."

From behind her, she heard footsteps approach, several pairs, she guessed. She was starting to feel lightheaded. "Okay," she said meekly. She was so tired. "Just put me down..."

The girl lowered her on the forest floor gently, and Effie got to her feet with some difficulty.

"I'm Hermione Granger," the frizzy-haired girl continued. "We've been looking for you for weeks."

"Why?"

"Because you're in danger," pitched in the boy he had punched. He had a freckly face and a shock of red hair.

Effie looked from him to the third person. He was shorter than the other boy, dark-haired and looked South Asian like herself. He had glasses and an odd scar pattern across his forehead, like the Lichtenberg figure.

"Euphemia, right?" said the lightning boy gently, stepping closer to her. Effie nodded.

"You used very powerful magic in that shed, and you must be exhausted, we can help you, if you let us."

"I... I don't know what's going on," said Effie, taking a few steps away from the three strangers.

"We have to move before those two Death Eaters wake up," said the one called Ron.

"No!" Effie interrupted. "I'm not going anywhere until somebody tells me what the hell is going on!"

Ron blinked, Hermione looked stern, and the black-haired boy looked... almost sad?

Hermione was the one to speak first: "You're a witch. You're just like us but your magic hasn't been cultivated so you're in a great danger. Bad things happen to witches and wizards who have to suppress their magic."

"What about those two people after me? Those death... what did you call them?"

"Death Eaters," Hermione continued. "There's a war going on in the Wizarding world, and the other side thinks you'll be useful to them."

"But why!?" she demanded, growing more and more frustrated. Her hands were getting brighter again.

"Because," started the black-haired boy, hesitating for only a second. "Because you're my sister."

[youareiron-andyouarestrong]

39 + 87 + rebelcaptain

survival/wilderness + aroused by the sound of her voice 

always had high, high hopes 

It could be worse was the first thing Kay had said after the meeting that officially declared he had been put under Cassian’s jurisdiction. The one they got after Cassian had to convince Intelligence and the members of the Council that walking into the Rebel base with a reprogrammed Imperial enforcer droid was a good idea. 

It could be worse, Kay had said, they could’ve dismantled me down for parts and had you demoted. 

Intelligence agents don’t get demoted, Cassian had replied. We get burned. 

Oh. Kay had sounded like he was recalculating his formulas. Not much worse, then.

Since then, it became a kind of mantra Cassian had adopted. It could be worse. That was what he told himself when times became darker and harder. Things could be worse. He could be dead. It was always easier to feel a little better about your immediate situation when you weren’t irreversibly dead. 

After… well, everything, he had made the mistake of saying such around his team (his people, his network, his rogues). Then of course, inevitably, someone (Bodhi, Kay, Baze, Jyn) would start listing all the ways it could be worse. They could be stuck on a swamp planet. Bodhi could be missing another arm. Baze could lose all his guns, and the spare grenades. Jyn might miss the evening meal. The suggestions would become increasingly more and more ridiculous as time went by and they stretched their imaginations (which were truly considerable) to the limit.  It became a game, a slightly morbid one perhaps, but one that amused them at least, and allowed for them to gently tease Cassian out of his darker moods. Of course, someone would eventually trump them all with pointing out, We could all be dead on Scarif. And then game would end, at least until the next time someone said, It could be worse. 

Cassian was trying to remind himself of that now. Things could be worse. 

He and Jyn were on an uninhabited (hopefully) forest moon, true. They were laying low from the Imperials searching for them, that was nothing new.  Practically routine. It would be about seventy-two standard hours before their ship came into orbit and Kay and Bodhi could reach them. They had food and shelter and it wasn’t raining anything other than water outside their little cave. Frankly, Cassian had survived on less than that. 

If it wasn’t in a Force-be-damned cave, then he might’ve gone so far as to say he had definitely had worse. 

But it was a cave, and anything that wasn’t in the immediate city proper was outside of his experience and thus Cassian hated it. None of his training had covered wilderness survival. He had been placed solely in cities and military bases and maybe an outpost or two, if he was unlucky. He had never needed to learn to survive in anything other than outside the law and within the Empire, and that was hard enough by anyone’s standards. 

This was probably what kept Jyn from needling him too much about his (entirely deserved) grousing. When it was established that they were stuck here for the next seventy-two hours, Jyn had simply nodded, and said, “Time to find shelter.” In the time it took for Cassian to try to set up a transmitter and send Kay the needed coordinates, Jyn had found them a cave, wove a curtain of vines together to disguise the opening, found firewood and then headed out and returned with this particular moon’s species of fish. Somehow she’d gotten wet wood to catch flame and was now comfortably cooking what she’d neatly gutted and cleaned out of her catch. 

Cassian could only blink at her. 

Jyn raised her head, caught his bemused stare. “What?” she asked. “I learned with Saw. He was pretty empathetic about it, actually.” 

“I can see that,” Cassian said finally. “How did you get the fire to catch?”

“I keep a little bit of flint in my pack at all times,” Jyn replied. “Plus, I used your spare flimsy.”

Cassian’s head snapped up at that, only to see Jyn’s grin flash like silver in the gloom. “Very funny,” he said flatly, in much the same tone of voice he used when Kay was attempting to be comforting or encouraging. 

“I thought so,” Jyn replied comfortably, giving the fish a little tweak. “I only used my spare flimsy.” 

The fish was good. Better than good, though Cassian had privately wished he could have a little pepper, maybe some spices to season it. He had given Jyn some of his closely hoarded supply of coarse salt for the fish, a small packet he kept on his person at all times. Along with roasted in the embers an edible root Jyn had also found and brought back, it was, all in all, not the worst meal Cassian had ever had. 

“Are we starting the I’ve-had-it-worse game again?” Jyn asked as she smoored the fire. “You’ve got that look on.”

“I can think of other things to do,” Cassian said, mostly for the form of it.

“Mmm.” Jyn settled down comfortably. “Better string them out, if we’re here for the next seventy-two hours.”

“I have my datapad,” Cassian said, his eyes drifting closed. The sound of the rain was soothing, the smell of woodsmoke and fish comforting, and Jyn’s voice a pleasant hum in his ear. “I could get some coding done.”

A chuckle escaped Jyn. “With what signal?”

He opened his eyes then to give her a look, which just made her chuckle again. “City boy spy.”

“Civilized,” he grumbled, not with any real heat. 

“I can’t believe you never had any wilderness training,” Jyn said, stretching out in the heat of the fire like a lazy felid. “My next training for the Pathfinders is going to cover that.”

“Poor bastards,” Cassian murmured, just to hear Jyn’s chuckle again, a sound he valued more than the beep of a transmitting code, the whirr of a well-programmed droid, a whisper in the crowd, Fulcrum, freedom and rebellion一 “And I wasn’t stationed in the wilderness; there was no use for me there. I was more useful in the cities.” 

“Useful,” Jyn echoed, and then shook her head. “It was still short-sighted and ill-prepared. When you write the report for Draven, you can tell him I said so.”

“He’ll take it under due consideration,” Cassian replied and Jyn snorted. 

A companionable silence fell between them for a moment, until Jyn tilted her head back to glance outside. “We’re going to have to share body heat once nightfall comes.” Her profile was averted to him and her voice now dispassionate, which might explain why Cassian’s initial response was an absentminded “Hmm.” Then when what she said registered, he let out a startled, “Pardon?”

“Body heat,” Jyn repeated, now stubbornly facing away from him. Hiding a blush? The rich light of the fire made it hard to tell. “Plus the bedding. The ground’s not going to do your spine or leg any favors,” she added with a scowl in her voice. Any mention of his bad leg or back always made Jyn glare like she’d like to make the misbehaving tendons and bones work for him, or else.  “And I don’t know how much the temperature is going to drop between now and nightfall. Probably a few degrees, enough to make us uncomfortable. So it’s only practical.”

Cassian felt himself automatically move to wet his lips before checking that tic. Never mind she couldn’t see it.  “I’ll trust you then.”

Now Jyn did look at him, straight through the firelight and into his eyes. “I know.” The words vibrated with the seriousness of the statement, and how Jyn was going to follow through with it with every fiber of her being. The dim red gold light make her look gilded and shadowed, something wrought from gold and onyx and ivory. 

Cassian gave an involuntary head shake. This what came of being in caves. They stripped away all your common sense. 

*

The night came on, and Jyn’s prediction about the temperature came true. It was more than enough to make them uncomfortable and to break out the temperature conserving blankets. Jyn had layered their bedding as much as she could and rolled up their jackets to use as blankets and pillows, as needed. One thing they both knew all too well in this life of theirs was to sleep whenever it was offered to them. Jyn slept facing the fire, and Cassian’s back to the right wall of the cave so that they both faced the entrance. He ran warmer than Jyn, who always seemed to be a degree or two cooler than everyone else. There was some awkward fumblingーwhere to put his arm, where she could rest her head. But they managed it. Cassian could smell the woodsmoke clinging to her hair, the weave of her scarf under his head. He kept himself as still as possible behind her, resting on his good hip. 

It didn’t feel like his life, this part, this small island of quiet. His life was shadows and hard edges and smog filled skylines. It wasn’t the smell of rain and the warmth of a fire on his face and Jyn resting on his arm. 

This wasn’t his life. It was just a respite. 

*           

Cassian woke slowly, only to find that the fire must’ve died down at some point during the night. That would be the only plausible reason for why Jyn was currently so thoroughly entangled with him that he couldn’t tell his arms and legs from hers. 

It was either still dark or almost dawn. That strange, unreal, dreamlike time when the edges of the world were misty and indistinct. It could be worse, he tried to tell himself, registering Jyn’s warmth and her slow, steady breathing. The way her cheek rested on his arm. How relaxed and soft she was in sleep, such a contrast to her waking self.  Things could definitely be worse一

Jyn let out a sigh, a little sleepy sound of pure contentment, snuggled back into him, her rear fit so snugly against his hips that he almost choked. 

He did not want to think about any other time Jyn might make that noise. He absolutely did not want to imagine what other circumstances could possibly arise一

Shut up, Cassian told himself only somewhat frantically. Just shut. Up. He wasn’t some over eager teen falling all over himself over a member of the opposite sex--

Jyn rolled over in his arms, somehow one leg sliding between his, blowing all of Cassian’s rational thought to pieces. Another soft sigh, warm breath brushing against his neck, her left leg slung over his hips一who knew Jyn was a cuddler? Not him. He hadn’t even given himself permission to imagine what Jyn was like when she was asleep一

This is a dream, Cassian thought. It was arguably the worst (best) dream he’d had in awhile, so he might as well enjoy it while it lasted, and hoard the memory for the dark nights and shadowed days. 

Jyn sleeping peacefully in his arms, soft sighs in his ear, warmth against his skin, the sound of rain and a quiet place untouched by anything bad or hard and dark一 

Another sleepy sound, almost like a moan as she tried to get comfortable against him, tugging his arm to better adjust it for her head… 

Don’t let me wake up, Cassian thought. Please, ancestors, the Force, whoever is running this forsaken galaxy, don’t let me wake up. Let me keep this, I have asked for so little for all my life, and this isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, it’s probably the best, please let me keep it… 

Jyn sighed against his neck, shifted slowly and languorously, her lashes falling and rising against his skin. “Cass…?” her voice was a low, husky rasp, one that made his blood run hot and fierce and what time was it even? Was this still a dream somehow? 

In the dim light, he could see Jyn waking herself up, getting her bearings again. Her eyes flicked down to take in their entwined limbs and then back up to his face. Unconsciously his arms tightened around her, and then loosened again immediately. If she didn’t want to be there, then he wasn’t going to keep her there, he would never do anything against her express wishes if he could possibly help it.

“Cass,” she repeated in a whisper. If she wasn’t comfortable in this clench, there was no sign of it in her voice. But her eyes were watchful. “How’s your back?”

“I think it’s fine,” he whispered back. It felt too early to speak. 

Jyn was quiet for a second or two, her fingers flexing against him.  “You need to… do you have to go?” he asked still in a whisper. 

“No,” she whispered back. “Do you?”

Never, ever, they could kill me here and I would die content, only you’d never allow that一

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

They lay there in the dim, the world a very great distance away. 

“We don’t have to go anywhere,” Jyn said softly. “We can just stay here… just for a little while.”

“Yes,” Cassian agreed. This was, after all, a very nice dream. “Let’s just stay here.”

The corners of her mouth lifted into a smile, a smile Cassian had once thought he would die to earn, and maybe still would. 

“You make for a very good pillow,” she murmured, her body utterly relaxed along the length of his. “Best sleep I’ve had in awhile.”

Cassian was silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Me too,” he said back, almost too low to hear. But she heard it. Of course she did.   

[no6secretsanta]

LOVE LOVE LOVE

by @tea-for-you for @crowmunculus

AN: It’s not a songfic, and it wasn’t even consciously inspired by music, but as I was writing the final part of this story, it became increasingly clear that this fic borrowed a lot of mood from the song from which I lifted the title: https://genius.com/The-mountain-goats-love-love-love-lyrics

I hope you enjoy it!

*******

Somewhere out there, he had connections.

Ritsu, who’d run the playhouse, had died in the manhunt, but he hadn’t seen Mami-hime anywhere there, and Hideki would’ve still be hanging on, and Otsu had been out west and had the tenacity of a roach. Inukashi could’ve been an option if he hadn’t been drawn to Shion by the same gravitational pull that Nezumi had found himself in, and Rikiga was a no-go for the same reason. It was useless anyhow; wherever they were, it wasn’t anywhere Nezumi knew to look for them. What had once been the West Block was now an abandoned lot of ruins, its population likely integrated in the rest of the patchwork city. Walking through the empty streets lined with decaying buildings had been uncanny, a play of death and desolation that had never belonged there, shitty though it had been. The only sounds he’d heard was his own footsteps and the occasional animal scattering away; ahead of him, the city proper had shined in greeting.

NO. 6 looked different with the wall in distant ruins, with buildings clearly reconstructed out of rubble and desperation and a population decimated and doubled. Infrastructure looked mostly the same; he recognised the streets in what was clearly still the city centre, even if half the buildings were new. How weird that the city felt more unfamiliar now than it had back when it was hidden behind a wall, more alien now that he could walk right in rather than worm his way through sewage pipes and abandoned maintenance corridors. He hadn’t been planning his return here or anything, but vaguely expected there was someone in the West Block who owed him enough favours from five years ago to set him up with dinner and a spare blanket until he could look for Shion.

Ironically, Shion might be easier to track down than any of them, but not nearing midnight, on the streets, in a downpour that had started halfway into the town and had quickly soaked through every layer of fabric on his body. It was barely above freezing, and Nezumi hated his life, a little, as he stopped outside a restaurant and pulled in a deep smell of fried food and spices from elsewhere, letting himself revel in the annoyance of his own hunger. He had no money and his last meal had been the day before. He’d find someone tomorrow, he’d look for Shion when it was daytime. This would be far from the first time he’d spend a night forcing himself awake, this was far from the worst hunger he’d known. This wasn’t even disappointment, it was an annoyance, an inconvenience. But he was so tired.

He leaned against the wall by the restaurant door to seek some meagre shelter from the icy rain, and stared out at the city that he hadn’t been able to leave, after all. The skeleton of what once had been remained recognisable under what had been built new, but the new was different enough for the city to feel alien, unfamiliar, as inconsequential as every other little town and shanty he’d passed through. As temporary as NO. 2, NO. 4, NO. 5 had been. He’d known what he looked for when he decided to go back here, but the destination he’d navigated towards looked all wrong. It didn’t feel like he’d arrived anywhere he was supposed to be, and he feet were aching, and he didn’t know where anyone he knew could be found.

He closed his eyes in rest, but startled from his doze at a familiar voice from the door opening, certainly as it interrupted its monologue in a startled “... and as I said, the relocation of the bloody hell, where have you been hiding? Word was, you were taken in the last manhunt.”

“Well, yeah,” he replied dumbly to Yuri, who’d once run the most prolific brothel of the West Block and from her smartly cut suit, had moved forward since then. He might’ve made some snide comment if that had been at all relevant, but the other part of Yuri’s aborted discussion was a man with white hair and an unmistakable red mark pulling down his left cheek to disappear into the neckline of his coat.

“Hi,” said Shion, as intelligently as Nezumi himself felt, and it wasn’t just because she’d known every cock in the West Block that Yuri had once gotten away with never paying her credits.

“Right, then,” she said with a lingering look at Nezumi, and placed a hand on Shion’s shoulder as she opened her umbrella. “Have fun. The downriver school, right?”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Shion, meeting her eyes for a distracted moment before she stepped into the rain and he turned back to Nezumi.

Nezumi, who had not taken this into his planning, and who had walked too far for useful improvisation. “Have you got any food?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Shion, and took him home.

It turned out to be a blatant lie; the only edible nourishment in Shion’s flat was a head of lettuce. But when Nezumi had stood in a spray of hot water for ten minutes, and braided his hair and put on clothes that were clean and dry and mostly fitting, the kitchen smelled like hot oil. Shion lifted pieces of deep-fried dough out of it, and kept frying and frying as Nezumi ate and ate.

They barely spoke, Shion keeping busy with his cooking, Nezumi keeping his mouth full of delicious food. He was still eating when Shion sat down across from him, knotting his fingers and studiously not meeting Nezumi’s eyes.

“I’m happy you came back,” he finally said, and smiled, and that, at least, was something that Nezumi could recognise in this transformed city.

“Yeah,” he agreed, closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair and felt finally tethered.

-

Nezumi had learned kissing from Yuri, rather more thoroughly than the other half of the West Block that had at some point frequented her girls. He’d gone there with his first salary from the theatre, old enough to be curious about sex, pretty enough for a few freebies and murmured lessons in how to kiss someone like a pro. She had probably seen it as an investment, but the experience had been hardly more exciting than what he could accomplish with his own right hand. It was only years later that he realised that he found sex a lot more interesting if it involved men.

Shion had played a part in that, like Shion had played a part in a lot of important events in Nezumi’s life. There had been a tacit agreement between them about the keyless door to the bathroom, but some border is crossed when you prove your stamina to another boy by teaching him to waltz until he’s winded. Never mind when you say your goodbyes with a kiss.

But the unspoken attraction between two sixteen year old children was hardly a basis of anything much between two adult men. Now, it was Shion who went to work while Nezumi lolled around the city or stayed at home and read books. He kept the place clean, learned how to operate the laundry room in the basement, left the cooking to Shion because as it turned out, seven years spent in a bakery taught a man a thing or ten about kitchens. They slept back to back, like they had for half a year in a different world.

Inukashi, who had grown from a famished, flea-ridden, feral bastard into something considerably more human and considerably less ambiguous, had not outgrown the ability to go for the jugular.

“So you really were back, huh.”

“Clearly. I see motherhood’s been feeding you well.”

Inukashi’s smile stretched into baring of teeth in the tense silence that followed, and she patted the kid on the back. “Go help Auntie with the washing-up.”

She dragged him out the door by his shirt, and he let her because he owed Shion’s mum not starting a fight in her home. And it would be a fight, because the effortless grip and demonstratively brutal yank was a clear display of the same tenuous power that had kept Inukashi alive and relatively safe in a decaying city without bakeries and doctors and cute bows for your dogs.

“Listen, shithole,” she said lowly as they rounded the corner by the bakery, out of hearing range from the street, “I don’t know what you think you are but I sure as fuck know what you thought you were, and it was bullshit then and it’s even more bullshit now.”

“Right, fine, you haven’t grown that fa-”

He almost missed the hand aiming for his ear. He jerked away just in time, only to feel the lapels of his jacked seized, to yank him down at eye level. “I remember the correctional facility,” Inukashi sneered, “I don’t know what the fuck happened after Rikiga and I ran off, but I remember the reason you weren’t with us. So don’t fucking start with me. I know that you’re here for Shion, and I don’t need you lording around being a snide asshole.”

He stared out at the street wordlessly, tense in his defeat.

“Anything more, mum?”

“Yeah, get the fuck over the idea that it’s a bad thing to care about others. If you want to be with Shion, then fucking be with Shion, and don’t give me attitude for having a kid. Just because I don’t want him to see it doesn’t mean I can’t still kick your ass.”

“Like you could even back - “

The flat of her hand slammed his head back, and this time her hand found his hair and pulled him back so that he had no choice but meeting her eyes.

“Eyes on the target, jerkass. I could’ve had your balls if it wouldn’t make Shion sad.”

The sixteen year old he’d once been could’ve beaten her to the ground for that, but he’d been in NO. 6 for two weeks without witnessing a single act of violence and something else than age-old instinct told him that starting now would not be taken well, not by Shion’s mum and not by Shion and not by the authorities following the laws that Shion had probably helped write. And Inukashi must’ve known it, too; she’d railroaded him into a corner where his only options were to either destroy the peace that Shion had created, or letting her words go without consequence.

There was a word on the tip of his tongue, borrowed from her dogs and pertaining to the gender she’d taken to displaying while he was away, and throwing it in her face would be a definite capitulation. “You’ve made your point,” he spat instead, humiliation souring his voice.

He spent the rest of the day smarting from the way the altercation had turned out, and pressing into all the tender spots she’d known exactly to target. If he followed his own tracks back, then kindness was the reason he was sitting in Shion’s flat in one of the more central districts of NO. 6. He’d been in despair and the only way he’d known to survive was to fight, and where would he have been, had Shion tried to fight back? If Shion had made a different choice that night, the world would’ve looked so very, very different. But Shion had treated his wounds and given him dinner and cake and held him while he slept, and Nezumi was here because he remembered that sweetness more vividly than all the beatings he’d ever taken in his life.

When Shion came home that night, he was still mulling over it into a mug of tepid coffee. If nothing else, he’d at least stopped startling every time Shion entered the room. The first couple of days had frayed his nerves in how he kept forgetting that Shion, too, had changed in the years between them. He’d walked halfway around the world nursing the memory of a boy of sixteen, and maybe letting go of that was the way to move forward with the man who sat down beside him and squinted in the dim room.

“What happened to your face?”

“I called Inukashi fat.”

“Really,” Shion’s voice was flatly unconvinced, and he touched the red cheek with the back of his fingers.

“There might also have been some veiled comments about parenthood.”

“I’m not even going to try and reason that one.”

“Don’t worry, we didn’t let your mama see.” He reached up to take Shion’s hand, and tightened his grip when Shion started to pull back.

Once upon a time, Shion had made a half-sensible, strange confession. Nezumi’s reply had been to mock him for it, part amused by Shion’s silly crush, part annoyed by the dumb way he chose to phrase it, and a part of him had lit up, a part of him that he firmly told that this juvenile bullshit was something for which his life had no place. I’m drawn to you, Shion had said, yet the only thing that ever came out of it was a cowardly, hateful kiss that meant nothing of the sort.

But Shion was letting him hold his hand, and that tiny act had long since said everything he was trying to put into words. It was one thing to make fun of a confused boy who couldn’t tell that a girl was trying to confess to him before she spelled it out. Telling him that he was the closest thing you had to the things you didn’t think you’d ever get to have was a different burden entirely. A slice of cake and a knitted sweater might’ve been enough to seal the fate of a fugitive child, but that was, inescapably, not how it worked between adults.

Shion had shifted his hand so that his thumb was free, and it was stroking Nezumi’s skin in light circles that echoed to the marrow of his bones.

“Listen,” he tried, and gave up. His only experience in confessions was from stories written in a world that no longer existed, but he’d learned kissing from the best whore in the West Block. So he lifted a hand to caress Shion’s cheek, and Shion fell into it as if practised. His lids lowered prettily, and his breathing was growing lighter, and kissing him was instinct, was destiny, was a law of nature.

And they weren’t sixteen, and they didn’t owe each other anything, and no kiss could carry any far-flung promises, and when Shion pulled away to pant against his cheek, the only thing that remained was details.

“Do you want - “ he started again, and the true content of the question was insignificant, because Shion replied by holding him by the back of his neck and scooting closer.

“Yes.”

The second kiss was heavier, the kind that he'd once been taught and that he'd once demonstrated not on Shion, but for Shion, after Shion had been given his first kiss ever from a girl who definitely hadn't been Yuri's. He pressed into Shion and Shion received it with a sigh, and he yielded as Nezumi leaned into him and gravity brought them together on the sofa.

They’d made it to the bed by the time they were naked, and whatever Shion was, he was at least not a blushing virgin; he was eager, and a bit clumsy, and all the things that might’ve been annoyance with someone else didn’t matter at all. Out of all the half-formed answered Nezumi had forced himself to look at today, one was the fact that sleeping next to Shion had been more meaningful than any sex he’d ever had. He’d come back here for Shion, and when he wanted Shion, and Shion wanted him, there was only one place this could end.

"What do you want," he asked as he pulled away from Shion's mouth, wondering what Shion knew, if Shion knew anything much at all. Shion let his head drop against the pillow, and the hand that had been locked at Nezumi's waist drifted lower. He tensed in anticipation, but Shion's shyness chose to manifest itself there, because Shion didn't touch the obvious places. Instead, his fingers wormed their between his tights, and Shion met his eyes and didn't hesitate.

"Like this," he said, and pushed his fingers a bit firmer in before pulling them back, and there was nothing shy about it, nothing at all.

"Okay," said Nezumi, and let Shion do what he wanted, because lying back and squeezing his legs together was the simplest way about it, in the end.

And there was a sweetness to that, too; to feel the weight of Shion's body, to receive Shion's desire, to listen to Shion panting in exertion and whimpering in pleasure, and to hold on to him so that he didn't move away, that he kept up the rhythm, to flex his legs to meet him, just a little, and to hold him down by the hair as he keened against his neck when he came.

The next morning, he woke to Shion combing his hair with his fingers. He closed his eyes and remembered being twelve and waking up next to Shion in the early, early morning after a storm. But he didn’t need to run any longer; no-one cared if he slept in Shion’s bed, and he nestled closer and fell asleep again.

-

Rou’s idea of education was to have Nezumi be beaten until he started hitting back harder. He’d suffered concussions and a fractured shin, countless bruises and scrapes and sprains, because only wear could create callouses. Then along had Shion come, and gotten under Nezumi’s skin with nothing but innocence and kindness.

Once, there had been a life that Nezumi tried his best to never think about, that had born him into a world of the same safety that Shion had known. He only remembered it in fragments; couldn’t have said much about what food they ate, what instruments they played, what gods they prayed to. He remembered the songs, and he remembered the land, he remembered a little sister and he remembered how it all ended.

He must have remembered something more when he was twelve, to recognise it in Shion, to reach for it despite the danger, to take it despite the consequences, and to ache as he left Shion asleep and climbed out the balcony and ran away across soggy grass. At twelve, he’d already known how to let go of useless things.

At twenty-two, he was still learning how to grasp them, because he’d always, always known that Shion’s softness had been the most important lesson he’d ever learned. With the lights off and the doors closed, nobody would judge him for pulling closer, for smelling Shion's hair, for letting out small, embarrassing sounds when Shion stroked his back or kissed his neck or just pushed their feet together.

Outside the bedroom, life moved on in days passing into weeks and months. Otsu had left for NO. 5. Mami-hime had died of influenza a month after the wall fell. Hideki was still hanging on, doing background checks for the law enforcement these days. Yuri was working on the same committee as Shion. Rikiga had looked sincerely happy to see him again. Inukashi was almost pleasant, as long as conversation was kept away from the topic of relationships. Shion’s mum had taken to ask him to help out in the kitchen, but he never knew when she truly needed the extra hands, or when she just wanted to make him do a bit of washing up for then to set him down with hot cocoa and fond looks as she insisted he keep her company as she set the dough for the next day.

As winter was turning into spring, there was the sombre memorial day. It was the day some hundred and fifty people were murdered in the last massacres in the West Block, three hundred citizens of NO. 6 perished in the medical experiments of the old regime, and another five hundred and thirty were estimated to have lost their lives in the earthquake, the storm, and the collapse of the wall, not counting the thirty-five criminals who had been trapped in the Correctional Facility as it was bombed.

Shion got home earlier than he normally did, quiet and subdued by a day of representational duties. He didn’t move to make dinner, but sat down on the sofa and stared out the window. The list of things that could be the matter was too long for guessing, and Nezumi settled for placing a hand on Shion’s back in sympathy.

"Why did you leave, back then?" Shion asked, without turning away from the window.

"Because I was freaked out," Nezumi answered, and Shion nodded.

"Freaked out about what?"

"You. You were - I was - I nearly... shit," he cursed, but Shion still wasn't looking at him. "I wasn't supposed to care so much about others," he finally said. "And when you - " died, and I only wanted to go after you, but that long, painful sunset, the ghost and the goddess and the miracle was the one topic they’d never spoken about.

The silence between them wasn't comfortable, with the way Shion's breathing was laboured and his shoulders tense, and then he buried his face in his knees.

"I'm sorry," he said, voice breaking.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Yes it was. I executed a man for no crime he'd done against me," and Shion was crying in earnest. "Do you know that I had to lie to my mum? I had to lie to - they found his body, and couldn't explain his injuries, and there was an entire investigation into what happened in that chamber, and I was questioned in an official investigation and I lied to the law that I'm supposed to uphold. And he had a child - did you know that? The guy who Inukashi bribed to get in there, he died too, he was my mum's next door neighbour, they were having a baby in just a few weeks."

"It wasn't you who made that place, and it wasn’t you who made them work there" said Nezumi lowly, "and if we hadn't gone in there - "

"But I didn't have to shoot him a second time," Shion whimpered into his knees, "I didn’t. He was defenceless. He couldn't have hurt you. I did it just because I wanted to. I did it because I wanted to punish him. And I lied to everyone afterwards. To Inukashi and Rikiga and my mum, and it’s horrible."

It wasn't your fault was a blatant lie, because it had absolutely been Shion's fault. You couldn't have done differently was no more true.

"I love you," he said, and it was the only truth that he hoped could offer some comfort to Shion. He wasn't sure if he was heard, because Shion was still weeping violently and refusing to respond to any comforting touches.

"Shion, I love you," he repeated, and fell to his knees in front of him. "I love you, do you hear me?! It's been five years. You can't change it. I love you."

"I made you cry," Shion hiccoughed, wiping his eyes as new tears were forming, "you were shot full of lead, but you only cried because of what I did.”

“Yeah, that was why I couldn’t deal. It wasn’t because of what you did, it was because of how I lost my grip when it was about you. People weren’t supposed to matter to me. You weren’t either.”

Shion swallowed tears, and his his eyes behind a hand as a new wave came over him. “I can’t forget it,” he bawled, but he let Nezumi hold him as he wondered if this was how Shion had seen this day passing every year since then.

“I didn’t leave because you killed that guy,” Nezumi said when Shion was quiet, save for a few futile sniffles to clear his nose.

“I didn’t think you did,” said Shion, wrapping his arms around his neck to rest heavy against him. “That would have been incredibly hypocritical of you. But I never knew for sure.”

“I left because it scared the shit out of me how much I loved you.”

He felt the heat across his face as he realised what he’d just said, but in the dim room, no-one would see, and Shion -

Shion wouldn’t think it was embarrassing to say that, at all, because Shion wasn’t afraid of letting other see where he was soft.

But he didn’t reply for a good three minutes, still.

“I could’ve never come up with such a stupid reason for leaving someone for five years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re a fucking coward.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

And so they didn’t talk about it, as the night fell over the city to let it ignore its sins for another year. Shion had changed the city, and he had always changed Nezumi, and as he stroked Shion’s hair in some pitiful attempt at comfort for his own confused feelings, a feeling he couldn’t name was slowly growing.

"Do you wanna fuck me?"

He’d had never felt like researching the process in any detail, but Shion clearly had, or the basic medical education the old regime had given its star students included some truly obscure procedures. When he asked Nezumi to roll over, Nezumi did without a word, and when Shion kissed him and pushed a slick finger against his ass, then there was nothing to it but to close his eyes and receive it, and let his fingers dig into Shion’s hair as Shion touched him in places no-one ever had. He groaned against Shion's clavicle and ground against Shion's thigh when two fingers were sliding easily in and out, and he felt far away, intoxicated and lost when Shion pushed him onto his back and asked him to hold one of his legs.

He let his body go limp as he let Shion tear down the last fences between them, let him in closer than any person had ever been. He slumped down with a shaking sigh, chest heaving against Nezumi's, and this was the terminal, this was the last place he could ever reach.

"Does it hurt?"

"It doesn't," Nezumi said, eyes closed and heart struggling in emotions he couldn’t tell apart, about himself, and Shion, and every tangled knot that existed between the two of them.

Shion lifted himself onto his elbows, and the world collapsed into nothing but his breathing and the way Shion felt on him and in him as he was rocked and rocked and rocked.

Once upon a time, Shion had broken Nezumi in ways bullets hadn’t been capable of, and it had shattered every lesson in living that Nezumi had ever been taught.

“I love you, too,” said Shion afterwards, as if love hadn’t nearly killed him, as if he hadn’t killed a man out of love. And Nezumi held his hand as they fell asleep, because Shion was the one person who would never let him go.

 FIN

[arohawrites]

Stray

Summary: The story of how Binnie and Roa met :)

Author’s Note: I already said to myself that I won’t post this but I miss Binnie so much and I want to do something for him (a.k.a editing this story I made back when I’m relieving writer’s block)

————————————————–

“Where are you going? Mama said to stay here” My older sister told me as I get up.

“But she’s been out for a long time, I’ll find her” I’m worried that something might’ve happened to our mom.

I took a last glance at my siblings and went on my way. I don’t know where to find her but she must be somewhere.

“If only I was bigger, then I can climb the huge walls too” I mumbled. I just can’t wait until I get bigger, all I got now are my feeble limbs.

“Mama! Where are you?” I called while walking at the side to avoid humans walking past me. I want to ask them if they saw her but Mama said that they can’t understand us which is very weird. I understand their language, why can’t they understand ours?

Also, Mama said that not all humans are kind so I better be cautious to them.

There is a kind woman who would always bring us food though. Mama lets her play with us which I really love, she would laugh and would smell sweeter when I cuddle into her hands so I do it often.

“Mama!” I continued to call but I’m not getting any response.

“Child? Are you lost?” I looked up from the source of the voice and saw a cat with black and white fur. He looks like my older brother.

“No, but I’m finding my mom. Have you seen him, mister?” I asked, hoping that I would get any useful information.

“Hmm” He hummed and went down and landed beside me.

“Your scent is not familiar, I don’t think your mom have gone this way. I’ve been lurking here the whole day so I would know if she’s gone here.”

“Thank you, sir” I answered, dismayed. Did I go the wrong way?

“I’ll go tell your mom that I saw you if I happen to see her. Good luck on finding your mom kiddo”

“Thank you!” I exclaimed. Maybe I should ask other cats along the way.

I continued my travel, crossing streets on my own is the hardest.

Why would humans make such dangerous things as cars anyway?

Soon I grew tired of walking and yelling. I also realized that I don’t remember my way back home. I suddenly felt my legs giving up so I went on a corner and sat. I turned my head in all directions, I tried hard to remember where the right path is but it’s all a blur.

“Mama, I’m scared. Where are you? Let’s go home” I wailed. I miss my mom, brothers and sisters…

I jumped from my seat when I felt water dropped in my head.

That startled me.

The small drops became large drops of water…it’s raining. I tried to run for a safe place but humans I presume are doing the same. I got trapped in the middle of the road where humans are running to different directions.

It’s overwhelming me, I feel all lost and scared… someone please help me get to my Mama.

I managed to find shelter but my fur’s all wet from the cruel rain. I tried to clean myself as I shiver from the cold.

Mama said I’m the strongest among us, I won’t cry.

I won’t… I kept chanting but my childish self simply betrayed me. I wept while thinking that Mama would’ve been already home but I’m not.

What if I never see my family again?

“Hello” A human man stood before me. I wanted to run but it’s still raining. He crouched his tall frame and I saw his face up close.

“Poor thing, you’re all wet.” He said and extended his hand.

Does he want me to go to him like that kind woman? I slowly walked towards his hand and felt the warmth I love.

“The hyungs will probably scold me… but you’re so small and all alone. What should I do?” He kept mumbling things I don’t understand.

“Ah! Who cares, I’ll deal with it later.” He picked me up and gently snuggled me in his arms.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked but I remembered that humans doesn’t understand us.

“Don’t worry, you’re safe now.” His voice is very soft, the warmth from him made me sleepy.

–

“Hachoo!” The loud noises from different voices woke me up from my slumber.

“Hyung, you woke her up!” It’s the man who brought me!

“You’re all noisy, don’t blame me” A man with deep voice answered.

I looked around and I’m surrounded by tall men, who are they? Where am I?

“Hey! You’re all startling the poor cat!” The man in my right said. He has beautiful eyes but a very loud voice.

“Look who’s talking” The tallest one said.

“Yah! Sanha!” He answered.

“Anyway, Bin hyung… you know that the company already decided that we can’t keep pets in the dorm because of you and JinJin hyung’s allergies. What are you going to do?” The soft spoken man said and looked at the man who has brought me here.

“Come here” the man with shining eyes sat in the bed, picked me up gently and brought me to his lap.

The man who brought me (is Bin his name?) sniffed before answering, “I’ll take her home but let me keep her for few days please.” He said.

Keep me? Is he going to adopt me? Mama once told us that there are kind humans who would adopt some of my kind and take care of them.

“Leader Hyung-nim, she’s too cute. Let Bin hyung keep her” The tallest one squealed, and pat me in the head.

“Maybe manager hyung won’t mind a few days, I don’t really mind either but my allergies…” He also sniffed after talking.

“Let’s just change rooms for a while” The one with the loud yet sweet voice spoke, he gently picked me up from the other man’s lap.

“You’re so cute!!”

“So what should we call her?” The man whom they called leader asked.

“I’ll call her Roa. She’s Moon Roa” Bin answered.

Another name… Is that my human name?

–

I stayed in that house and learned many things from the humans who took me in. I finally learned all of their names and all of them are very kind to me.

I’m thankful that they’re looking after me but I wish Bin would be careful when he’s asleep. He almost pinned me down in the bed but aside from that, everything is good.

“I’ll bring you back home now Roa” Bin said to me one day.

Home? Isn’t this his home?

We travelled by car and it made me real amazed. So this is what car looks like on the the inside…

“I’ve already told mom about you and she gladly said yes in taking care of you. I really want you to stay in our dorm but we’re going to be busy soon and no one’s going to take care of you” He gently whispered in my ear.

We arrived at another house, Bin is carrying me in his arms as we enter.

“I’m home” He announced and two woman went out from somewhere.

“Woah! Roa is so cute Oppa!” The younger one said.

“Take care of her for me okay?” I suddenly felt sad, he’s going to leave me here. Will he come back?

“Of course we’ll take care of her! But before that, come eat with us.” The older woman reminds me of that kind woman I met before I got separated with my family.

I was left in that house, Bin’s family is also kind. I really like his younger sister, she smells like freshly baked cookies.

Days passed and I never seen Bin again, Sua would always take a picture of me to show him though.

“Look Roa, It’s oppa on TV” Sua said and I saw him along with his members in TV.

I learned that they were idols, humans who are famous singers. I miss him and his members, I also miss my siblings and Mama. I keep wondering if I will ever see them all again.

–

Months have passed and I’m already an adult in cat’s life. I’ve learned many things about the human world by observing. I also learned how busy humans are to earn money, seems like being human bears a lot of responsibilities.

My thoughts are cut off by a familiar scent, an old scent which still lingers in his room.

“Roa” Bin called. He’s finally back. I approached him and let him pet me. I really missed him.

“Roa, our fans want to see you too” He said.

Moments after and he was doing some sort of broadcast, he keeps telling me to go to him but I’m still shy. It’s been months since we last saw each other, I’m contented in watching him from this distance.

I’m contented in that distance, I said, but he’s now holding snacks.

I want…

I gave in and went to him to get the snack. He keeps talking in front of the phone while I munch my snack.

Delicious…

He kept sniffing as he hold me. Allergies, now I know what it means. I took my distance again but he’s persistent, soon he lied on the ground while calling me.

Should I approach him?

“Roa…please come here” he said. I slowly approached him and gently bumped my nose to his.

“I don’t want your allergies to worsen because of me” I said even though I know he won’t understand.

I saw him smile and it was very warm.

Hours have passed and he needs to leave again. I don’t want him to leave and I can smell his mother’s sadness too.

–

Bin would visit from time to time and he would always go and play with me but the visits became less and less frequent.

I’m starting to think that he finally abandoned me but he went home one day again.

I really hope Mama went back home safely for my other siblings.

He stayed the whole day with us, he ate with his family and their smiles made me happy and lonely at the same time.

“Roa, I’m leaving” He said those words again while gently rubbing my tummy.

“Roa, I’m-ah!” I bit him before he could speak again.

“You better go home frequently or I’ll bite you harder the next time you leave the house!”

END

[dwaynepride]

Already A World Away; pt 1

Summary: After an emotional and intense night at the bar, Pride and the reader must deal with the aftermath of a hasty decision.

Words: 2,047

Warnings: None

Tags: @pageofultron @stanathanxoox @starryrevelations @6adb0y @thegoodlonelydalek @consultingdoctorwholock @thebeckyjolene @diaryofafan17 @specialagentlokitty

Notes: a continuation of Stay With Me by @specialagentmonkey. i HIGHLY recommend you read that one first, for some important context. this fic isn’t really a stand-alone fic, it’s a continuation. you might be able to piece together what happened anyway but??? monkey’s fic is so good anyway so just fuckin read it

Part 2 | Part 3

Dwayne’s dreams were merely replaying the events at the bar, last night. In his sleep, he’s touching your hand, feeling the warmth of your skin despite the chill of rain threatening to chase it away. And it hadn’t, because it’s still soft and warm and urges him to feel more of it. Your eyes are on him solely, yet his dreams can’t replicate the exact look you had. The way the low lights glittered off your eyes, looking like stars.

And his dreams surely can’t perfectly recreate that first kiss; searing and intense, his hands cupping your cheeks and trying to put as much of himself into it as he can. There is a small detail his subconscious leaves out, though. That little noise you made in the back of your throat - the noise that fueled Dwayne’s fire and deepened the kiss. But he’s glad he remembers it. Glad it’s seared into his memory because it was one of the best sounds he’s ever heard.

Either way, the dream-kiss is enough to wake him up, dragging him away from the pleasant memory into the faintly-lit reality of his bedroom. Dwayne inhales immediately, air filling his lungs and exhaling to try and slow the quick beating of his heart.

It was a damn realistic dream. Pride rubs his hand over his face to try and clear his head of the images because that’s all it was; a dream, no matter how good it was or how much he wanted it to be real.

And it wasn’t real. You coming into his bar, soaking wet and crying. His offer to stay at the office with him for a little while. The kissing. It had to be a very realistic, very cruel scenario that his brain cooked up for him during the night. Dwayne huffs at the thought, sitting up in bed and blinking around his dawn-lit bedroom. There was no way you were here, in his room, sleeping...

Dwayne is surprised at how quickly he recognizes your shoes in the corner of the room. Your coat, which was soaking wet last night, is thrown over a chair to air dry.

He hears a loud, sleepy sigh from the other side of the wall. His blood goes cold, swallowing as he pulls the covers away to stand and silently make his way around the shelves. Dwayne’s bare feet make little noise against the old wood floor; he’s able to sneak up and squint through the low-light to see your curled up, sleeping form in the old pull-out bed he keeps stashed away for when Laurel comes to visit. You have an old quilt pulled up to your chin, hair adorably messy from sleep.

Dwayne swallows down his shock, stepping away back toward his own bed. It wasn’t a dream. You were really here, using his bedroom as shelter until you find a new little place for your own. And how long will that take? It’s not exactly easy to find a good home in New Orleans; everything was too expensive or too far away from the office or not in the best neighborhood.

The place you had with your ex was perfect...

With a huff, Dwayne shakes his head and quietly walks out of his bedroom, descending the cold stairs to start with breakfast. You had a long night, and you’ll be hungry.

Though, try as he might to distract himself with making grits, Dwayne couldn’t pull himself away from the fact that you were sleeping soundly right above his head. And now that the shock of reality had dwindled away, it was being replaced with the harsh feeling of doubt at the whole situation that he created on a whim, because he was kissing you and it felt right.

Was it really a good idea to let you stay here for potentially weeks? Would Dwayne lose control of his feelings, like he did last night? Initiate another kiss before you were ready - preying on your vulnerability?

No. No, he wouldn’t. Because right now, you needed to be around friends, and that’s what he is. As much as it hurt to think it, Dwayne was still your friend, and one poorly-timed make-out session in his bar in the middle of the night doesn’t change that.

Maybe in time, after you find a new place and you’re moved on, things can continue. A sweeter kiss after a perfect little dinner date and Dwayne wouldn’t have to try to cheer you up because you’d been walking in the rain. It’d be better than anything that ex-boyfriend of yours could stew up, that’s for sure.

But for now, Dwayne forces his attention into cooking.

--

When your eyes finally blinked open, blurry with sleep, things didn’t look familiar at all. The wallpaper of your bedroom being replaced with brick walls and chipped paint and old boxes. For a slight moment, the unfamiliarity of the room startles you, and your head pops off the pillow to the look around.

The old springs of the pull-out bed creak loudly under your shifting weight. Pale sunlight is creeping in from the window on the other side of the room; a nice change from how unpleasant the sunshine beamed in through the window at your place. And after a couple moments, you recognize the room and instantly feel a lot safer.

There was a certain calmness to waking up in Pride’s bedroom.

You sit up, ignoring the creaks of the springs. The room was silent; Pride must be up already. He was a heavy-snorer, you’ve learned. And there was no snores to be heard.

And you smirk at the thought; it took a little longer to fall asleep because of the noise, but it wasn’t all around unpleasant. It was nice, knowing he was just on the other side of the wall. A mere ten feet away, if you needed him.

Though, the smirk fell once you remembered the events leading up to sleeping in Pride’s bedroom. The kissing and touching and the intense feelings they brought. You look down and inspect the hoodie he lent you when your clothes were too soaked to wear, and a rush of heat suddenly makes it too warm to wear. God, you kissed him last night. Kissed him a lot. You could still remember the heat of his skin on your fingertips. How good he smelled and how right it felt to have him so close, standing between your knees, and it only worsened the blush.

What the hell were you going to say to him?

Well, you had until you went downstairs to figure it out, because the last thing you wanted was for him to come back up here and fetch you for breakfast. So you throw the blankets aside and stand, making for the door. Pointedly ignoring Pride’s unmade bed and his shoes laying in the corner next to yours.

You can hear him cooking even from the stairs. The clattering of pots and pants. The smell of biscuits and grits and sausage in the air, and your belly rumbles despite the ball of anxiety making you sick. You’re halfway down the stairs before remembering you’re supposed to be thinking of a way to start the awkward conversation. By the time you cross the archway, you’ve only come up with a ‘The bed was really comfortable.’

Pride looks up when you enter, and he offers a big smile. “Good mornin’!” He greets, head motioning to the table. “Breakfast’ll be done soon.”

He goes back to his cooking, leaving you to numbly pad over to the table. It was confusing, how normal he was acting. As if you’re just the first one on the team who came into work so your breakfast will be the hottest. You sit and look up at him, wondering why. After last night, after the passion he exhibited in his kisses, you kinda found it hard to believe he wasn’t fazed.

Pride might’ve been able to keep up the outward impression that everything was business as usual, but it was hard for him to keep his eyes on the food. It was hard to ignore that little jolt in his gut when you walked in, still wearing his hoodie and shorts and looking adorably wide-eyed, as if expecting a scolding.

But he keeps his conflicting feelings buried, for now. Concentrates on not letting the grits burn.

“Do you need help?”

His eyes dart upwards, seeing you lean forward in your chair, eyeing the breakfast. Pride shakes his head. “Nah, it’s almost done,” he answers lightly.

You’re quiet for a moment before speaking up again, “I can make some coffee?”

Pride blinks, pulling the grits off the heat with another slower shake of his head. “We’re out. I called Christopher and asked him to pick some up on the way over.”

He hears your soft sigh and the slight creak of the wooden chair when you shift your weight in it. “Alright, well, I can wash the dishes after breakfast, okay? All of them.”

This time, Pride’s reaction is much more visible on his face. When he straightens up and fixes his knitted-brow look at you, that’s when your gaze finally drops away from his. “I just wanna help out, okay? If I’m gonna be staying here until I find a new place, I don’t want to be a burden. I can help out with dishes or...whatever...”

The way your voice drops off at the end doesn’t help lift the weight from Pride’s heart at your proposal. “You don’t gotta earn your keep, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Pride responds, pouring some grits into a bowl with care. Puts a buttered biscuit on top before continuing. “You’ve been through enough.”

“But I’d feel bad if I just did nothing. I want you to know I’m grateful.”

He swallows, lips forming a tight line as Pride picks up the bowl and carries it over to the table. And as he sets it down, you’re still not looking at him; he sees a hint of pink in your cheeks, and wonders if he’s blushing, as well. But he sits down, anyway. Head lowering to catch your gaze and a hand resting on your arm. “Look at me,” Pride says, and you do. “We’re friends, and friends are there for each other. I’m happy to help.”

His words hang between the two of you for a few awkward moments. It was odd, saying out loud that you were friends. Obviously, you were; Pride had become one of your closest friends, and that’s a part of what drove you to him last night. But on the other hand, friends don’t make out in the middle of the night in an empty bar. When they do, they don’t normally stay friends.

But, on surface level, his words make sense. So you nod your head and turn into the table, picking the spoon and scooping up some of Pride’s delicious grits. The action seems to please him; he pats your arm and stands up to continue breakfast. The rest of the team outta be here soon.

He’s not sure how he’ll explain the situation to them. It was personal to you. Maybe a little humiliating, even though Pride is certain the team would be sympathetic. He’ll just make it clear that it’s a very temporary thing. Just until you find another place. Chris will definitely offer to help. So will the others.

And deep down, Pride is sure that it’s the best course of action. You’ll get back on your feet, bounce back from that asshole who tried to make you choose between him and your job. And maybe, after all that, you can pick up where you left off at the bar. He’s already missing the feel of your lips against his. He hopes you feel the same.

But if Pride’s being honest with himself, he’s not looking forward to the day when you find a new home for yourself, and he’ll have to pack away the old pull-out mattress again. Lay in bed and think about you and tuck the bar memory away, deep in his mind, in case it never happened again.

Dwayne already likes the idea of having you around all the time.