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propertyofemilyprentiss · 12 days

Text

Evermore (part 1)

Pairing: Emily Prentiss x fem!reader

Category: Heavy angst

Summary: After Emily’s death, everything comes falling apart, losing yourself into your old habits. Little did you know that you were secretly talking to her the whole time.

TWs: active self-harm, blood, mentions of suicidal ideation, intrusive thoughts. please do not read it if you’re in a bad place. my dms are always open for anyone.

Word count: 7K

“And I couldn`t be sure

I had a feeling so peculiar

That this pain would be for

Evermore”

Your whole world turned upside down with those seven words that came out of JJ’s mouth.

“She never made it off the table”

From that moment, it didn't take more than five seconds for the first stage of grief to settle: denial.

No no no no no no no no. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't…this couldn't be happening. This was NOT how your story was supposed to end. This can’t be it, right? God please make her come back, please…

Your ears started ringing, and you could’ve sworn that your heart stopped too, blood running cold in an instant. With the biggest pain in your chest that you’ve ever felt in your entire life, you got up from that hospital chair without saying a word, going in JJ’s direction.

You needed to see her. You had to see her. This couldn’t be happening.

”I…I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye”, you heard Spencer from behind, and it broke the last piece of strength that you had left.

You didn’t get to say goodbye either.

”JJ, I need to see her”, you heavily let out, like someone was pushing rocks onto your chest so hard that you could barely breathe.

“y/n”, she stopped you in front of her, pulling you into a hug.

”JJ please”, you sobbed in her arms, almost not being able to stand up.

“It’s going to be okay”, she repeatedly whispered into your ear.

And if you would’ve had it in yourself at that moment, you would’ve screamed how it’s never going to be okay.

How could it ever be okay living without the love of your life?

“Let your last memory of her be a good one, y/n. Please. She’d want it to be this way”, she told you.

And you broke down right in the middle of the waiting room, your legs giving out any remaining shred of strength. You wailed and cried and yelled and begged for Emily to come back to you, hoping that she would come right through those doors.

But she didn’t.

This couldn’t be happening.

—

In those almost four years that you’ve been dating, Emily’s apartment was your home more than yours ever was. You had everything there - your toiletries, clothes, CDs - you could say that you were actually living there, even though there wasn’t anything “official”.

But now, standing there in the middle of the hallway, alone, you couldn't stop the new wave of tears coming from your eyes.

This place has never felt so wrong.

I want to go home.

Your soul ached intensely at the thought - you’re never going to be home again. Looking around, you barely recognized the place, even though nothing was out of its place. It was just…wrong.

It was so quiet.

Slowly, your body made its way to the bedroom by itself and you crashed into the mattress, not even caring that you’ve been wearing the same clothes the whole day.

You painfully looked at Emily’s side of the bed, and it only made you cry harder. You couldn’t fathom the fact that you were never going to have her by your side ever again - you still hoped that this was the biggest nightmare you’ve ever experienced and that you’re going to wake up soon to her being alive and well, right there next to you.

”Come back Emily, please come back”, you sobbed into your pillow, “I can’t do this without you”.

—

When you thought you couldn’t feel worse, you quickly realized that you can - and you will.

Because nobody prepares you for burying the love of your life.

The only thing that stopped you from breaking down crying was that you wanted to put on a brave face for Emily, to be able to say a few last words to her before she would forever disappear into the ground.

With a trembling hand, you placed the white rose on her casket, fighting back the tears that were slowly appearing. You were the last one to do it, but that little extra time didn’t make you feel even remotely more prepared.

With your vision already blurry, you made your way to the speaker.

How were you supposed to tell goodbye to the person you love the most?

”I…uhm, hi”, you sniffled, trying to compose yourself, “as you all know me, I’ll skip the introduction. I am not standing in front of you today just to remind you that I am…was Emily's girlfriend, but to say that it was the most beautiful experience of my life to be able to know her…to really know her. To speak of her is to speak of warmth and kindness, of laughter that could light up even the darkest rooms. She was not just my girlfriend, but my best friend, the person who could easily shove away all my fears, who always listened to my stupid ramblings and was my biggest supporter. Her presence was a blessing to all of us, and her absence leaves a void that cannot be filled”, you felt the pain of your words hitting your chest, wishing nothing more but to be able to fill that unrepairable void.

“From the moment we met, which was three years and seven months ago, we were inseparable. Like two pieces of a puzzle - as cheesy as it sounds”, you brought your left hand to your eyes, trying to wipe away the tears.

”She loved those cheesy comments so much, even though she would never admit it”, you chuckled humorlessly, and everyone else did the same, “But Emily’s love didn’t stop at me. She loved you, all of you, so much”, you almost whispered the last words while looking at the team, “and that day we did everything we could to save her, it just wasn’t…wasn’t”…enough, you wanted to say but refrained.

“My love”, you looked at the casket in front of you, “I wish I knew that the last day I saw you would be the last. I would’ve listened to you speak for longer, I would've looked at you longer, I would’ve sat closer to you. And I wouldn’t have left you alone, despite how desperately you’ve asked me to. But you’ve always been so selfless, I can’t be mad at you, not even this time”, you looked at the sky, one more attempt to keep the tears at bay, “I hope you’re happy up there. I love you so much. Forever and always, I won’t stop loving you”.

Everyone was full-on crying by the time you finished your speech, and now that you were done, you finally let go too. You sobbed in JJ’s arms - just like you did at the hospital - wishing that you would wake up in the right arms instead.

—

“Can’t remember

What I used to fight for”

They say time heals everything, but it didn’t seem to work for you - each night, you were dreaming of her, and each morning was bringing you back to the cruel reality of your lost lover.

It was mentally draining you, and you were starting to wish to never wake up - to not have this huge pause when you were somehow supposed to live your life - and to be able to constantly see her.

Everybody was back to work already, of course, serial killers don’t take breaks because of your heartbreak, but you couldn’t. They kept visiting and checking up on you, but eventually their lives went on. Yours didn’t. Your life has stopped from the moment JJ stepped into that waiting room with that look on her face which told you everything.

You just couldn’t.

How were you supposed to function like a proper human being when you had so much pain within yourself that you couldn’t even get out of bed?

How were you supposed to go back to work without her by your side, and still be able to focus on the cases instead of her heavy absence?

You just couldn’t.

“Where am I to store all this heartache?”, you wondered, looking aimlessly around the room.

You just wanted to go home.

You didn’t know what time it was - you didn’t bother to charge your phone. Which you probably shouldn’t have done, considering the frantic knocks on your door that you got later that day.

Ignoring the pain in your body from not moving almost the whole day, you’ve made your way to the door, not bothering to check who it was.

It wasn’t going to be the right person either way.

”JJ? What are you doing here?”, you asked, rubbing your eyes from the intensity change of the light coming from the hallway.

”We just finished a case and I thought of bringing you something to eat”, she cautiously responded, looking with a worried expression at you - you were clearly not taking care of yourself.

She didn’t want to ask when was the last time you ate. She felt awful, failing at the one promise she told Emily before she left - that she would take care of you in her absence.

”Thanks”, you weakly told her, not looking inside the bag - the mere thought of food made you sick, “I appreciate it, but you know you don’t have to take care of me”.

”I know, y/n, but I know how hard it-“

”You can’t possibly know how hard it is for me, JJ”, you muttered, your temper running short, “whatever you might think, it’s at least one hundred times worse. Look, I appreciate the gesture, but please leave. I don’t want you here”.

You watched the pained look on her face as she defeatedly nodded, “I’m sorry”.

”Sorry won’t bring her back”, your tears quickly resurfaced.

You couldn’t control yourself, letting them flow as you heard the apartment’s door opening and then closing, self-hatred coursing through your veins.

You’ve pushed away the one person who was constantly there for you, who actually cared.

—

“I rewind the tape but all it does is pause

On the very moment all was lost”

“Emily, no! Stay awake baby, open those beautiful eyes for me”, you panicked, trying to keep her awake as long as possible.

The sound of the sirens could easily be heard in the background, but why weren’t they getting closer?

Why aren’t they getting closer !?

“Emily, come on”, you sobbed, trying anything in your power to make her look at you for a little while longer, “you can’t die on me. You promised we’d be together forever”.

You could see the defeated look in her eyes, already accepting her fate.

No no no no no! Emily never gives up.

“Please don’t leave me”, you held her close, your own clothes soaking in her blood, “I love you”.

Suddenly, dozens of paramedics started to show up, but instead of saving Emily, they just stared at you, not moving an inch from the ambulances.

“What…what are you doing?! Help her! Please, I’m begging you!”, you weakly screamed, watching them as they stared at you.

“I love you”, you suddenly heard coming from Emily, then you felt her whole body going limp in your arms.

“No no no no, Emily! Wake up baby, please wake up!”, you desperately cried for her, but you got nothing in response.

Only then, a pair of paramedics approached you, taking her away and leaving you in the pool of her blood. You couldn’t move, you couldn’t talk, you couldn’t fight, you just watched as the love of your life slowly disappeared from your vision.

“Emily!”, you screamed, waking up in your sweat instead of the blood, but you could swear that you were still able to smell it.

You brought your hands to your chest, trying to take deep breaths - this was not your usual nightmare with her, it was much worse. It was a sick, twisted way of your brain giving you what you haven’t actually experienced - being next to her in her last moments.

Every single night you had this constant nightmare of her death, your mind trying to imagine how it would’ve been like to be in Derek’s place that day, and you couldn’t make it stop.

You stared at the empty side of the bed, wishing nothing more than to be able to be held in your girlfriend’s arms again, telling you that everything is okay and that it was just a nightmare. And that she was right there and you had nothing to be afraid of.

But she wasn’t there. She will never be there again.

Oh, what you would give for it to have been a simple nightmare.

Suddenly, you started to panic.

“She will never be there again”, your mind couldn’t wrap around that thought.

“You will be all alone, forever”

“Maybe that’s for the better, you never deserved her”

“You’re so pathetic, being so dependent on a person. She’s finally free from dealing with you. It’s for the better”

“Stop”, you gritted your teeth, trying to make your mind go quiet, “please stop”.

But you already knew you were going to lose. The only times you didn’t, Emily was by your side. Dread filled your body, knowing well what you were capable of.

“I bet she would’ve left either way if she saw you right now. So weak. So worthless”.

“Just give up already”, you already knew where this was going, but it didn’t make it any easier.

You didn’t know why a part of you still fought that thought. Maybe it was the years of progress in which you managed not to relapse, even though you had a few close calls. Maybe it was for your own sanity, knowing that once you restart that path, there’s no going back up to the surface.

Before, Emily was with you during the bad days, turning off those awful voices simply with her presence, holding you close and letting you dry your tears on her shirt while telling you that everything was going to be okay.

Now all that was left were the shirts.

“Come on, you know you want to do it. Just one cut, it hardly counts”.

Without noticing, you were already on your way to the bathroom, even though there was a part of you screaming to go back, to not give in. But you were so exhausted, physically and mentally, that it was your only escape from your thoughts - even if temporarily.

You looked at yourself in the mirror, barely recognising yourself - you had extreme dark circles under your eyes, your hair hadn’t been brushed in days and it wasn’t hard to guess that your teeth had a more intense shade of yellow.

You were disgusted with yourself.

“You look like a monster. You’re lucky Emily won’t be able to see you like this. She would feel repulsed by your appearance”, your mind continued, and your silhouette started to become blurry as tears formed in your eyes for the millionth time.

“I can’t believe she ever loved you”

“Stop!”, you screamed, frantically searching through the cabinets for the razor blade, knowing it was your only option.

Your heart was racing in your chest as you laid your eyes on it, picking it up with your shaky hand.

“One cut, it hardly counts”, you told yourself as you lifted your sleeves, revealing your old, long healed scars.

Pressing it hard against your skin, you slided it on your forearm, taking in the pain that came through. You carefully looked at the droplets of blood that were appearing, watching as they went down on your arm, feeling like you were in a trance.

Suddenly, the slight pain that you were feeling gave you the urge to do more - this wasn’t enough.

The worst part? The too familiar relief that crept through your body made you realize that you were playing a losing game. It was only a matter of time until you would utterly and irreversibly destroy yourself. And you had no desire to change the ending at this point.

You put the razor blade against your skin again, repeating the same process. Again and again, spiraling out of control, until your vision became blurry from tears, and the pain was becoming ineffective to your mind.

Blinking for a few times, only now you’ve realized how much you fucked up. Panic immediately settled in.

“Fuck. Oh my god. Shit. What…what did I do?”

Turning on the water, you started to clean the blood off your arm, your heart rate rising again as you watched it going down the drain. Just like your six years of sobriety.

Turning it off, you quickly found the first aid kit, your hands trembling as they opened it. Clearing the cuts was definitely the worst part - you certainly didn’t miss the sting. Not that it even mattered right now.

You hissed at the burning sensation that only increased as you continued to sanitize them, then you rapidly put a bandage on, covering your whole upper forearm.

You sighed - the effect was already gone, but that was when exhaustion hit. Never looking once behind at the mess you left, you made your way to the bedroom, climbing under the blanket.

Only then you acknowledged the occasional twinges of pain that came from your arm. The lump in your throat intensified with the immense shame and guilt that you soon felt, your soul shattering into pieces that could be put together only by one person.

“What have I done?”

“I’m so sorry, my love. I failed you”, you spoke to the still empty side of the bed, wishing that you would be strong enough to pull through this.

—

Your days started to achieve a comfortable pattern as they went on - you could actually function during the day now that you had a solid distraction - and when the sun would settle down, you would find your stability in self-destruction, in the prolonged sadness that you continued to seek, not knowing any different.

You gradually started to do the simple tasks that any normal person wouldn’t think twice about - getting out of bed, brushing your teeth, your hair - and you started doing the groceries on your own, still being the only times you went outside. But it was progress nonetheless, even though you knew deep down that it was a well-built façade for the people around you, the truth being covered underneath your sleeves.

It was going so well - or so you thought.

But everything changed one day when JJ asked you to look after Henry - you didn’t hesitate to say yes, figuring it would be a good distraction from your own mind - and that kid was so full of love, it almost made you think that maybe…maybe life wasn’t that bad.

So, you quickly asked Penelope to pass by and feed Sergio later that day, managing a small smile at her excitement - she loves that cat as much as you do. You dressed with the first decent outfit that came into your mind and drove in a hurry.

You did everything right - made his favorite meal, played together with his little car toys, brought him to the park, letting him guide you through his world with the biggest smile across his face.

And for the first time in almost three months, you actually, genuinely smiled.

When it was his bedtime, you read his favorite story, tucking him in and telling him how much auntie y/n and his parents love him.

He smiled again, but then a frown sprawled across his little face.

”What’s the matter, buddy?”, you asked, your voice filled with concern.

”Don’t wan’ you huwt”, he pouted, looking down at your covered arms.

Oh. Oh no. Did he see your bandages?

“I’m not hurt…I’m okay”, you sigh, trying to find a good enough explanation, “You know how your mommy fights bad guys?”.

He nods, silently watching you with his big eyes.

”Well, I’m fighting my bad guys too”, you smile at him, but it doesn’t reach your eyes, “But it’s nothing for you to be worried about, okay?”.

”Are they bad bad?”, he worriedly asked.

”Nothing I can’t handle, buddy”, you kiss his forehead, brushing his hair with your fingers, “Now go to sleep, my little superhero”.

He grinned, giving you one last hug after you closed the lights and exited his bedroom.

You exhaled sharply as you laid on the couch, dozens of thoughts already running through your head. It was only a matter of time until JJ would come to you asking questions and you couldn’t find one lie that would sound good enough.

You called her at some point, telling her that everything was okay and that Henry was already sleeping, and she thanked you probably for the millionth time that day.

There was that feeling in your chest back - the guilt. But you kept your voice steady throughout the whole conversation, only letting the tears out once you threw your phone somewhere on the couch.

You couldn’t even point out the exact reason why you were crying, but over the past few months you lost your control over it, not being able to shut down and stop the tears anymore. You were surprised that you even had tears left to cry.

You were so tired, but sleeping was not a possibility today, not when you weren’t alone in your apartment so that you could easily fall apart. You had to keep yourself together until the next day.

You had to stay awake so you wouldn’t have to see Emily in your dreams, only to lose her all over again the moment you would wake up.

So you went to the kitchen and poured some coffee in a mug, making yourself comfortable on the couch again as you tried searching for a decent channel on the TV.

“It’s going to be a long night”, you muttered to yourself.

You lost the battle with your eyelids around 7am, but it didn’t take more than two hours until Henry woke you up, demanding pancakes for breakfast.

It also wasn’t long until both JJ and Will arrived home, thanking you again for watching over their son, and you tiredly smiled at them.

You knew the dark circles under your eyes were obvious, so you sighed in relief when no-one commented on them. Though JJ did offer to drive you back to your apartment, you quickly said that she should enjoy her time home with her family and that you’ll be okay.

And you left before she could fight you on this.

—

“Writing letters

Addressed to the fire”

Home - you still couldn’t call it that way, but there wasn’t a better word out there for it.

As soon as you arrived, you could feel the exhaustion hit, mixed with the relief of not having to hide yourself from anyone here. You were alone again, but you’ve started to accept that this is how the rest of your life’s going to be.

Alone.

Going back into the room you’ve spent most of your time in, you crawled into bed and scrunched your face at the light that was coming through the window. You tried pulling the blanket over your head, but it wasn’t enough to shut out the light. So, in one final attempt, you buried your head under the darkness of the pillow, pretending that it was night.

Smiling to yourself, you could feel yourself falling asleep - and you were ready to see Emily again.

—

Same nightmare, same way of waking up in your sweat, your cheeks wet from tears that you didn’t acknowledge at first. You could recall it perfectly at this point, your whole body aching from suffering - you wanted nothing more than to be able to make it stop, but at the same time, you knew if you had the choice - you wouldn’t get rid of them.

Because if you stop seeing the love of your life, even in your nightmares, then it would make it too real. It would mean that you really were alone.

And you couldn’t walk through your life without Emily by your side - it was just wrong. Foolishly, a part of you was still waiting for her to come back, a part of you was still searching for her in the first seconds of your body waking up, unable to grasp the fact that she would never be there.

Would this torment be all you were going to feel for the rest of your life?

No, it was becoming too much again.

Shaking your head, you reached for your phone, being met with a few missed calls and messages…all from JJ.

“y/n, i’m coming over to check if you’re okay”, was the last message she sent you, which was over twenty minutes ago.

Great, just great.

You had no energy to get up, to try to look less messy after sleeping for who knows how long, or to pretend that you’re okay.

It was so exhausting putting on a brave face every time you talked to someone, pretending that your smile is genuine or that your arms weren’t intensively itching underneath those long sleeves.

You were pulled out of your thoughts by the doorbell, suddenly starting to work on autopilot as you got up from the bed and went to the door, letting JJ in.

—

“I’m worried about you, y/n”, she sighed, looking across the room to where you were standing, “and I really think you should talk to someone about everything”.

It felt like a punch in the gut - Emily used to be that person. The one who you would tell all your fears, your struggles, your pain and she would listen to you, hold you, her soft touch dissipating every negative feeling that came in your way.

No, you couldn’t replace her.

“I don’t want to!”, you said defensively, “and I don’t need to. I’m okay”.

“Liar”, you could hear a voice inside your head.

She continued looking at you, her words full of concern.

“Henry told me about the bad guys…and he pointed out that your arms looked weird?”, she sighed, almost being scared of not phrasing her words correctly, “y/n, I’m here for you, okay? I don’t want to lose you too”, she felt like such a hypocrite to say that.

But it seemed to get to you.

Your stomach dropped.

“I just…”, you felt your eyes filling with tears, “I don’t want a therapist, JJ. I want my Emily back. Nobody else can fix what’s inside of me right now”

Her heart broke at your words, wishing that she could tell you the truth, that she could make your pain stop.

Suddenly, an idea came through her mind.

“What if…what if you could talk to her. Not in the way you would actually want, but…”, she saw the despair in your eyes as she kept going, “you could write her letters”.

“Letters?”, you looked at her confused.

“Yes. You know…putting your thoughts and feelings on a piece of paper might help you get through this”, she spoke as she got closer to you with a sad smile across her face, “and you could read them to her when you’re done. I used to talk to my sister this way”.

Now it was your turn to return the sad smile. You knew what she was talking about, and you also knew that it’s still hard for her to recall those memories. So, instead of fighting any kind of help, like you would usually do, you let her words sink in.

Letters…maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea. Maybe…maybe it will help. At least you hoped so.

You didn’t want to think about the other option.

“And if you don’t want to watch the pile of letters growing, you can give them to me”, she noticed your puzzled look, “I promise I won’t read anything”, she immediately clarified, “I just think that…since letters are made to be sent, you can give them to me. I’ll store them for you”.

You had no energy to question her words or to try thinking of any other options, and you knew that she would leave faster if you just agreed to everything she was saying.

“Okay”, you let out, “I’ll do it”.

“You will?”, she happily said, hugging you, “Thank you for trying this. I hope it will help you as much as it helped me”.

“I hope so too”, you smiled at her, even though you still felt hopeless on the inside.

JJ left not too long after that, and you sighed in relief.

“Letters…”, you let your mind wander around the idea.

You knew that this was her giving you a chance before she would be insisting on therapy again, but that was a worry for later. Maybe this could help.

You hoped it would, since you were soon starting to work again, all your days off being already used.

You shook your head, the thought of Emily not being in the chair next to yours breaking your heart again.

You couldn’t do this.

Without realizing, your mind led you to the bathroom again, maintaining you on the pattern you created.

—

On your last day before going back to work, your mind was plagued with thoughts from the moment you woke up, your chest feeling heavier than before - if it was even possible.

You reflected on the possible options to quiet your mind, miserably trying to prevent your body from any more scars. But it was like you couldn’t even stand a chance against yourself as you let your tears flow on your way to the bathroom.

You steadied yourself against the sink, gripping it tightly with your hands. You fixated your eyes on the person in the mirror, every ounce of hatred roaming through your body.

“Do it”.

“No”.

“Do it”.

“No”, you say louder than the previous time.

“Just one-“

“NO!”, you screamed, punching the mirror, “No more…no more scars. You can’t hurt me anymore, I’m not afraid of you”.

Your bruised hand started trembling as you watched droplets of blood going down your fingers, and panic filled your body.

No no no no no what did I do?

You desperately ran the water and started cleaning the mess you made, bandaging it almost instinctively, which subconsciously made you hate yourself all over again.

You let yourself sink on the floor as you kept on crying, the crippling loneliness feeling like a dagger to your heart. This was not who you wished to become.

“I’m not…I’m not afraid to…to keep on living”, you tried convincing yourself, “I’m not afraid to walk this world alone”.

But it only intensified your pain, feeling like you were losing control over yourself again.

That’s when it came to you - the letters, notes, writing down everything. You didn’t even think twice about it, forcing your body to get up, frantically searching for your notebook.

Relief washed over your body as you laid your eyes on it, and soon all the darkness that crept through your mind was transferred to the words that you were writing without even thinking. Easily losing track of time, you grabbed a few papers and started creating the letter from the spilled words in your notebook, telling Emily exactly how you feel.

By the end of it, a little part of you was actually glad that she couldn’t read this - you could still imagine the pained look on her face, her beautiful eyes full of sadness. It only made the ache in your heart grow.

Glancing your eyes outside, you noticed the gorgeous mixed shades of orange and pink on the sky, and your mind immediately went to her. You couldn’t explain it, but it was like she was here, with you, and you cried from the little comfort that you felt in that moment.

Grabbing the written pages, you opened the bedroom window, for the first time sitting on her side of the bed. And you read to her everything that you’ve written with tears in your eyes, a few of them falling on the paper itself.

“I love you”, you whispered at the end, hugging the letter as if it was your connection to her. As if the gesture was somehow paving her the way back home to you.

You felt foolish, waiting for a love that would never come back.

But at least this way…you could feel a bit closer to her.

You soon made your way to JJ’s house, dropping off the letter and then going back to the apartment.

—

The last thing Emily expected was one of her neighbors handing her an envelope, fearing for the worst as she thought that her cover had been blown up.

Taking it in her hand, she thanked the lady, trying not to show the anxiety and fear through her mimics as she went back into her apartment.

Sitting at her desk, she held her breath as she carefully opened it, her fingers trembling while she unfolded the paper.

Right then her heart stopped - this was…this was your writing. She knows it too well. It was from you. It really was.

“Oh my god”, she murmured, a thousand questions roaming through her mind.

Her eyes darted on the letter, the desperation of hearing from you beating any other rational thought. She could feel each beating of her heart as she started reading.

“Dear Emily,

Is there even a proper way to start this? I don’t know. But hi, it’s me - you would’ve probably recognised my writing by now if you could read this”.

She couldn’t help the wave of tears that were welling in her eyes already, a bittersweet smile curling at her lips from how well you knew her - and how well she knew you.

“JJ suggested writing my feelings down on a piece of paper, so prepare yourself, because it’s a lot. I don’t even know how to describe what I’m feeling. I just know that this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, we weren’t supposed to be torn apart like this. And then I feel like the world is laughing at me, because this is how it is, and I get no saying in this matter, just having to accept the reality that I’m living in, but I can’t”.

Guilt rushed through her body in an instant with every beating of her heart, her lip quivering from the pain that echoed from this letter — from your pain. The pain that she caused you.

“It’s weird, because on some days I am completely detached from the reality that you’re actually gone, doubting if I can bring myself to remain present in a present that has no element of you in it. I’d rather remain present in a past that has you, your smile, your voice, hoping that if I focus hard enough, it will replace this actual nightmare of a present. And there are the days when it hits me that you’re not coming back home, and I have to hold onto the pain because it’s all I have left of you. I knew that it was cruel to be so foolishly optimistic, but, in my solitude, I couldn’t resist the urge and spent entire days basking in idiotic fantasies, sometimes verging on a prayer. A prayer that I could hear the twist of your keys again, and recognise it’s you by the way you open the door, and that I would get to jump in your arms and never let you go again”.

Emily was fully crying by this point, her heart crumbling with every word that she was reading. She wished nothing more than to be able to walk through that door and right into your arms, to tell you how incredibly sorry she is, hoping you would forgive her. Hoping that you would forgive all the suffering she put you through.

”But of course, you never come. How could you? You’re not even alive. It’s not fair, you don’t know how awful it is without you. There is this hole in the world where you used to be, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime and falling at night. It’s when I realize, oh God, I am so alone. It’s happening again. I find myself wondering if it will ever stop, if this feeling will ever go away, if the loneliness will ever cease. My mind answers for me instantly, with the harshest no I’ve ever heard. And then I cry, because I don’t want to feel like this my whole life. I’m so afraid, not having a place to call home anymore. It lost its meaning the day you left, and I don’t think I’ll ever find it again”.

Tears turned into sobs, feeling like a bullet striking right through her soul as she read this paragraph, her hands trembling on the paper, struggling to not fall apart.

What has she done?

She completely destroyed the love of her life, and she couldn’t do anything but watch the aftermath of her actions.

“I wish we had more time together. I wish I knew what to do with all the love I have for you, where to put it in your absence. I miss you. I miss you so much. And I wish I knew what to do with my life, what to do with my heart…I let the tears fall on my face as I find myself wishing to be able to be beside you just one more time, knowing it would tear me apart even more. But I would still do it, if it meant being able to see you again. I would give anything for that. I don’t know who I am anymore, without you here. It’s like you took a part of my soul with you that day and left me wandering around, trying to find the piece that will always be missing. Please come back Emily, please. I don’t want to walk this life alone”.

She clutched the letter to her chest, the desperation in your words almost taking her breath away - the torment and agony of feeling so helpless causing every part of her being to ache.

”I’m so sorry”, she whispered through her sobs, endlessly repeating it as if you could hear her.

She wished she could do more, oh how much she wished it. To book the first plane ticket back to the States and rush to you like her life depended on it, and it killed her that she couldn’t do that. To hold you and wipe your tears away, to scatter the pain inside your heart with her presence, to tell you that everything is okay and that you didn’t lose one another.

It wasn’t fair.

Almost fearful, she placed the letter back on her desk, continuing to read it.

“Is it selfish to want you to come back, despite the suffering that you went through? Maybe it is, I don’t know. I just want you here. But I know you’re in a better place, at least I’d like to think that. I was never much of a religious person, but here I find myself hoping that Heaven exists and that it’s treating your soul with nothing but kindness. I hope it’s full of peace and happiness, that you are free from the pain that you’ve endured for so long, that you can be carefree and laugh and smile, that you’re feeling everything I haven’t since I lost you. And if somehow you can hear me, I need you to know that I forgive you for breaking our promise - the promise that we’ll be together forever. I know you wanted to protect us, I know. It still hurts, I don’t think it will ever stop, but I know. And I’ll keep holding on my part, because I’ll never stop loving you. Forever and always, isn’t that what we told each other? You were my person, my everything, and I’ll never let you go, at least not from my heart. It’s always been yours. I'm going to miss you until my very last breath. But that’s why I hope that at least you are okay up there, because I never will be. I just hope that, in my freefall, the bottom won’t destroy me completely”.

“Oh, my love”, she brushed her fingers on the spots where your tears were long dried, trying not to ruin it with her own.

It has become a constant battle with her own tears, hopelessly trying to wipe them before they made their way on the tragedy-filled letter, whilst every fiber of her being wanted to scream from the top of her lungs until you could hear her, that she’s still here, living in a nightmare of her own.

The words written on this letter, she feels each and every one of them, hitting her harder as they went on, slowly destroying another little part of her. She couldn’t even feel an ounce of relief at the thought of you forgiving her, when she has hurt you irremediably so.

And even in this suffering, you wished her every wonderful thing that you could - and of course you would, she didn’t expect it to be any other way. She didn’t even know if she preferred you to be angry at her, but one thing was clear - she would have deserved it.

But you would never do that.

”Anyway, I’m going back to work tomorrow, first time without you being there, and God, I have no idea how I’m going to pull through. Without you next to me at the table, or in the car, or on the plane, or anywhere at all. I wish I could hear you say one more time that it’s going be okay and that I’m strong enough to do it, because I really don’t feel like I am. My only hope is that it will get easier over time, even if it feels like wishful thinking at the moment. Because otherwise, I don’t see things ending well for me. And I know you’d be incredibly worried if you could hear me, so part of me hopes that you’re in your little bubble of paradise and cannot hear my rambling. But if you somehow heard me, I hope you can accept my love and pain without the guilt that comes with them. And I want to finish this by saying that I love you and always will, and I’ll carry you in my heart everywhere you cannot be, through all of my days, for the rest of my life”.

Goddamnit...

#emily prentiss #emily prentiss x reader #emily prentiss x female reader #emily prentiss x y/n #emily prentiss x fem!reader #jennifer jareau x platonic!reader #emily prentiss x you #angst #criminal minds #criminal minds x fem!reader #heavy angst #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds x reader

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dira333 · 8 months

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Lap Cat - Aone x Reader

Just a lil something I couldn't get out of my brain - 1,4k

Aone is a lap cat.

You know the moment you meet him, even though you can’t point out what had given it away.

It surely isn’t the way he keeps his voice to himself and uses his glares as a way of talking. Or the way he overestimated the weight of the door or underestimated his own strength and ripped your office door out of its handles on his first day.

He’d been the talk of the town for a whole month.

“Aone-san,” you called out at the end of the morning briefing. “Do you have a minute?”

He nods and follows you out and up the stairs into your office on the first level.

You wonder what he thinks of you, in your nice business suit with the air-conditioned office. If he looks down on you like some of the other workers do because you’re one if not the youngest building designers in the company. You don’t think he does, but he’s hard to read.

“I’ve noticed you are very diligent in your work.” You explain to him. “And this part is very difficult to master. I’d love it if you could double-check the work, especially if you end up working on a different part. I don’t want to call anyone lazy, but I’ve been told that we’ve consistently had trouble keeping up with the plan for these structures and I want everything to be okay. I-”

“It’s okay.” As always, the deep timbre of his voice surprises you. You wish he’d talk more often.

“Great. I’ll be here all day. And tomorrow too and the day after that as well. So you can come in whenever to let me know, okay?”

He nods, having used up all his words already. He leaves you shortly after, but not after an awkward pause where you try not to babble and he stares intently at the little pink bows adorning your stilettos.

You’re in the middle of unpacking your lunch Bento when there’s a knock on the door.

“Come in!”

Aone’s face is smeared with dirt. His clothes are stained too, but his hands are clean as they offer you a piece of paper.

You take it and inspect it. He’s made a checklist for the area you mentioned. Your heart lurches at this careful work.

“Thank you!” You doubt your smile can express even half of your gratitude.

His ears are red. He’s probably gotten a sunburn from working outside all morning.

“Do you…” You hesitate. “Do you want to share lunch? It’s cooler in here and I wouldn’t mind.”

He looks at the pretty but uncomfortable chairs in front of your desk and back to his dirty, stained clothes.

“Don’t mind it.” You rush to say. “Please, sit. I will go and get something to drink from the machine outside.”

“Let me.” He says and you freeze, spellbound by his voice - again.

Soon you find yourself spilling your thoughts over eggrolls, rice and two cans of sparkling water.

You babble when you get nervous and he sure as hell makes you nervous.

“It’s so nice to have someone with me when I eat.” You tell him when he gets up, no doubt to leave for his work again. “I mean, I can eat alone, no problem, I do that at home too. I mean I have a kitten there, but he’s the quiet type. It just gets a little lonely around lunch when I have to work by myself all the time anyway. You probably don’t have that problem, because you’re so many workers all working together all day and then you have lunch break together too, but if you want to cool down for a bit, feel free to come up here for Lunch Break.”

“Thank you.” He interrupts your babbling, bowing so abruptly you’re left speechless - a rare occurence.

“Oh no, I have to thank you.” Now you’re bowing too and it’s only your colleague passing by that saves the two of you from bowing in turn until one gives up.

Kenji curls up on your lap that night as you tell him of your day.

He’d been a stray, a tiny ball of fur and teeth, only slowly learning that you did not mean any harm. He’s not the best listener, occasionally digging his claws into your thighs as he either disagrees with you or does not care about your opinion. But he’s yours and you’d be even lonelier without him.

You don’t see Aone for another week. Well, you spot him during morning briefings, a quiet presence at the back of the room, but you don’t come across him other than that until it’s Monday and you only find out that you’ve left your Lunch at home when it’s time to unpack it.

It’s pouring outside and you’re dressed for sunshine to the point that not even a borrowed umbrella will keep you warm or dry during the trek down to the Konbini and back again.

But going hungry is even worse.

You run into Aone right at the entrance, raindrops creating little patterns in the dirt on his face.

He holds a can of sparkling water in one hand and a Bento Box in his other.

“Oh, Aone. Hello!” You smile up at him. “Are you taking your Lunch inside? Do you want to come up to my Office? I’ve turned my heater on, actually, because I run cold easily.”

He looks down at the Umbrella in your hand.

“Oh, I forgot my Lunch at home. I’ll just run down to the Konbini and get some, but feel free to go up and get warm.”

His eyes travel down to your feet, where your painted nails peek out of a new pair of high-heeled sandals.

“What do you need?” He asks. “I am already wet.”

“Oh, I can’t.” He hands you the sparkling water. You take it, too surprised to refuse it. He takes your umbrella and hands you his Lunch.

“What do you need?” He repeats again. There’s something in his voice, at least that’s what it must be, that makes you open your mouth and answer.

He nods and turns to leave, leaving you behind with his Lunch and his drink.

There’s a blanket resting on one of the chairs. Aone is the only one who uses it, and drapes it over the chair to make sure he doesn’t get it dirty.

Aone is a lap cat. He wants to be asked, he wants to be offered. He does not ask himself.

You get his phone number so you can text him every day, letting him know what you’ll be taking for Lunch. He never stands up an invitation.

So you invite him to walk to the train station with you. He holds your umbrella, nodding along as you talk about your day.

“Where do you live, Aone-san?” You ask, nibbling on the inside of your cheek as you debate if that question is too forward. You don’t even know his first name yet, even though you long to.

You almost miss his answer, too absorbed in the sound of his voice. He does not live far from you.

“Are you taking the train as well? We could sit together.” His face changes into something that looks like disappointment.

“But we don’t have to!” You try to mend whatever mess you’ve just created.

“I have practice.”

“Practice?”

“Volleyball.”

“Ooooh! Can I come watch?”

The faintest blush covers his cheeks at your question. You’ve never seen it before, but you could get addicted to that sight.

“They would think you are my girlfriend.”

“I wouldn’t mind that.” Your face burns as you realize what you’ve just divulged.

“I don’t mean- I wouldn’t ever pressure- You don’t have to feel-”

Aone interrupts your blabbering, but not with words. He stretches out his incredibly long arm, offers his hand to you in a wordless answer.

You take it, your heart beating so loud you fear he can hear it.

Aone is a lap cat.

Just like Kenji he craves your touch, your presence, being near you whenever he can.

But quite unlike Kenji, he does not mind when you roll over in your sleep and kick your leg into his shins. He does not dig his fingernails into your skin - and if he does, he does it lovingly.

He’s as much a quiet presence in your home as your cat, making lazy Sunday Mornings so much sweeter.

My Kofi if you want to tip me

#my writing #Dira writes #Haikyuu x reader #Haikyuu fluff #Aone x reader #Aone Takanobu #Aone fluff #Haikyuu Timeskip

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bucketslutz · 1 month

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Don't Be Late (Logan Howlett/Fem mutant reader)

Chapter 1

(A/N): btw this takes place in an alternate universe where the x men as a team don't really exist, but the members and mutants obviously still do. readers powers are similar to atom eve from invincible, if you haven't seen that show i highly recommend it, but if not, you don't really need to know any of that to understand readers powers, they'll be explained in more detail later on.

Summary: You've spent your entire academic career trying to hide who you really are, your goal to end up working in a small museum or archive and live the rest of your life going unnoticed. The first day of grad school you meet someone that sparks something deep inside you that you never thought existed. Your history professor, Logan, makes you feel things you've never felt from someone before. Will you keep hiding your feelings, or will you get too close and risk him knowing who you really are?

Warnings: 18+!! explicit sexual content, minors DNI!! pls!!! oral (fem recieving), logan being a munch lowk, oral on the couch, teasing, dirty talking, cursing, logan being an asshole professor, no use of Y/N.

Word Count: 3,208

You anxiously rub your forehead as you struggle to find parking on campus, circling and circling the lot. Finally, someone pulls out and you turn in aggressively, someone in front of you flips you off, probably eyeing the same spot. You’re late. Very late. You have an American Civil War class, it’s an advanced level, with a professor whose name you cannot remember for the life of you. You’ve been preoccupied this summer, and time escaped you before you got the chance to research his credentials. It’s your first day of grad school and you’re late. A long commute, a new college, and shitty parking. You hope to god the professor doesn’t care or notice when you slip in late, as you carry a specific kind of disdain for drawing attention to yourself.

You were 13 when you first noticed something was wrong, walking home alone from school when a stranger tried to pin you down and do god knows what to you, until your eyes glowed a deep fuchsia and you threw him across the alley with a strength you didn’t even know you had. Your veins began glowing the same pink color and pulsating, scaring you shitless. You ran to the woods behind your house, avoiding your family for fear of harming them. With enough practice over the years, you’ve learned to control your abilities. Your eyes only glowing occasionally when you’re especially frustrated or angry. Sometimes even when you’re…taking care of some sexual urges. While you don’t know what causes these powers, you do know the general population’s feelings about mutants enough to understand that no one can know what you are. You don’t keep boyfriends for longer than 3 months, you don’t let friends become closer than you need them to be, and you don’t tell anyone what you are. You just want a normal life.

Your forehead is slick with sweat by the time you arrive at the history building, your breath heavy and labored, not from how fast you were walking to the building, but from anxiety, which is also the source of the excessive sweat on your brow. You cannot recall this courses class size, and you damn yourself for forgetting to check; not knowing if you can slip into the large class quietly or if everyone will be able to see you come in. This isn’t undergrad where people stumble in hungover with 10 minutes left of class, this is a graduate program where people go on to become masters in their fields of study. And you’re going to look like a fool in front of everyone. You approach the door to the classroom and can see through the window that it is, in fact, a small class. Fuck. There are maybe 15 people in there total. You hold your breath as you attempt to quietly push the door open, but it fails you with a loud, obnoxious creak. Every head snaps towards you, including the teacher, and you offer a meek smile to your classmates and turn your head towards the professor to issue a brief apology. You swallow hard when your eyes land on him. his tall frame is leaning against the white board, a little scary looking with muscles that bulge against his crossed arms, peaking out from under his rolled up sleeves. You’re surprised they’re visible even through his plaid button-up. His hair is fluffy, dark, as well as his beard…or actually, you should say mutton-chops, as that would be a more accurate descriptor. He glares at you, and you swear you’ve held his gaze for hours, but realistically it’s only been no more than a few seconds.

“Sorry,” you offer timidly.

The professor nods lightly, his jaw tense, and waves you off as he continues addressing the class. You attempt to quietly maneuver to an empty seat in the back, trying your hardest to not trip over your classmate’s bags and chairs. You feel like it takes forever to get to your seat, hoping no one pays too much attention to how clumsily you scoot past the chairs and over obstacles. You try and settle as quietly as possible, unzipping your shoulder bag and retrieving a pen to take notes. He’s still going over the syllabus, thank god.

“The only homework you’ll have is an essay, every week—every Friday—you have an essay due. Then every 3 weeks you’ll have an exam,” he instructs, rather nonchalantly. “And while I don’t give a shit if you waste your money and don’t come to class,” his eyes suddenly are fixed onto you, you swallow a lump of anxiety lodged in your throat as he continues, “The school cares a helluva lot more so, if you don’t mark your name down on the attendance sheet, you forget, you’re late, or whatever the hell, you’ll be absent. I’m not going back in and fixing shit.”

Noted. He turns his gaze back to the rest of the class and continues talking about the curriculum for the rest of the semester. you try to keep your head down as you scribble notes into your notebook, trying to look busy, when in reality you want to kick yourself in the face. You left your apartment too late, you didn’t anticipate the amount of traffic on the interstate, and you conveniently forgot how terrible parking is on college campuses. You look up to see the professor checking his wristwatch with a furrowed brow, like he’s considering something.

“Alright, that’s all i’ve got today, get out,” he commands, his gravelly voice showing slight indignation.

There’s a general look of confusion around the room at his abrupt dismissal with 45 minutes left of class. As people begin to shove their belongings in bags, you quickly get the memo as you collect your notebook and pen in your hands and stand up, ready to depart from this nightmare as soon as possible. But you’re the last in your row, shoved into a corner. the line of people in front of you have their chairs pushed back to the wall as they slowly collect themselves. It takes an obnoxiously long time for you to get out from behind the the long row of desks, even longer to leave the class as everyone shoves their way past you and out the door. Finally, you find an opening, but before your foot can even reach the threshold, there’s a strong grip on your arm. You turn your head to meet the gaze of your professor. Your heart skips a beat as he maintains eye contact briefly, before he hands you a piece of paper and lets go of your arm.

“Find your name, mark it,” he directs, causing you to scramble for the pen in your hands as you scan the paper for your name.

You try and offer a polite smile to the professor, but he remains stoic and unamused, making you feel even more uncomfortable. Once you find your name, you ungracefully set the paper against your flimsy notebook for structure, and scrawl a shaky check mark next to your name. You offer the paper back to him.

“Here, thank you, um, professor…” you trail off awkwardly, forgetting that you never actually checked what his name was. He takes the attendance sheet from you.

“Logan,” he answers.

“Ah, thank you professor Logan—”

“No,” he cuts you off with a wave of his hand, “just Logan.”

“Logan, right. thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says, his tone far from indicating the typical politeness of the statement, and rather literally cautioning you to never bring up this act of kindness again. And with that you turn to leave the class, unsure of why this gruff, sturdy, serious professor bended his own personal rules just for you. But no matter with that, you at least know you’ll never be late to his damn class again.

***

You pull into the driveway of your house with a sigh. It's late, the time you prefer to get home, so you can fully relax and use your powers in peace. Despite living in the middle of nowhere, you still fear someone will mistakenly pull into your driveway and catch you flying into your second story window or creating an apple from nothing. The lack of sound, except that of the chirping crickets and cicadas, puts you at ease. You release the tension in your shoulders and float off of the ground, propelling yourself to the patio on the second story of your house. You unlock the door with a flick of your wrist, the fuchsia energy encasing the doorknob and letting you into your bedroom, you then toss your things down onto the floor. An exhausted groan escapes your lips as you face plant onto your cool, soft bed. Not even coming up for air when you fling your arm up and slam the door shut with a pink, crystalline whoosh. You turn over to face the ceiling, your eyes fluttering shut within the comfort of your bed. Longing to get out of your stuffy jeans and bra, you trail your hands over your body and watch as your clothes dissipate into a pink flash while you manifest some boxer shorts and a loose t-shirt. Finally comfortable, you slide under the covers, wanting to sleep off one of the most stressful days you've had in a while. A morning full of classes, then 5 hours interning at the museum, before finally finishing off your day at the convenience store down the road working a 6 hour shift. While you can create most anything you want with your powers, you cannot create the full nights sleep that you most desperately need right now.

As you drift, you think about how embarrassing of a morning you had. Stumbling into class like a fawn learning how to walk, Logan directly looking at you when speaking about attendance, Logan shoving the attendance sheet in your face so you mark yourself as present, Logan's strong arms and the way they looked with his sleeves rolled up. Logan's fluffy, dark hair and--No. Shut up. Don't think about that, he's your professor for god's sake. And, more importantly, an asshole. No amount of muscle or sheer sexiness will distract from that fact. You repeat this fact to yourself as you doze off, not wanting to give in to immature thoughts of attraction. Despite falling asleep to the negation of that attraction, your subconscious drifts somewhere you know you shouldn't physically go.

You're in Logan's office, your ass perched on the edge of his desk. Logan's back is to you, locking his door and drawing the blinds. He turns to you, his stance almost primal and animal-like, like he can't wait for the chance to devour you. The thought of that causes your arousal to swirl deep in your stomach. Logan saunters towards you, bearing his lower teeth like a predator ready to take their prey. Your breath hitches in anticipation as he gets closer, causing you to spread your legs, hoping the clear view of what lies beneath your skirt will draw him in closer. It seemingly works as he closes the distance between you two, his waist now flush against your lower stomach. Tingles shoot down your spine at the sudden contact, blood rushing down to your pussy. He pants as he brings his hands to your waist and strokes up and down the sides of your body, then achingly slow up your neck, then finally stopping at your chin. One hand creeps to the nape of your neck where he lays his palm flat while the other pinches your chin between his thumb and forefinger. Your eyes flutter shut, anticipating that he's close to having his way with you. He holds you there for a beat, his face so tantalizingly close to yours that you can feel his breath against your skin. You whine gently when his lips teasingly graze your own. The fingers pinching your chin adjust slightly to grip your jaw instead, allowing him better control to tilt your head up towards him. His other hand, at the nape of your neck, travels upward allowing his fingers to gently rake through your hair until he roughly takes a fistful and tugs. A soft moan escapes your throat and you try to satiate the throbbing pressure between your legs by rubbing your thighs together. An amused huff leaves Logan's lips as he looks down at your squirming figure beneath him.

"You gonna be good for me, princess?" he asks in a low, gruff tone as the hand on your chin trails down the side of your neck before landing on your breast. He massages the flesh fervently, finding it harder to hide his own desperate arousal and need from you. You moan into his touch and arch your back into him, your pussy searching for more friction that Logan is expertly avoiding giving you by not allowing his pelvis to meet yours.

"Logan," you gasp.

"C'mon, baby," his voice soothes, like smooth velvet, "tell me you want it."

"I want it," you whisper, desperately seeking any sort of release.

"Good girl."

And with that, Logan removes the hand on your breast so he can aggressively hook an arm under your ass and easily hoist you up with one fell swoop. Your legs wrap around his waist and your arms around his neck, reveling the feel of his palm that covers your asscheek. With a growl Logan spins you around and throws you onto the couch in the corner of his office, barely allowing you a second to recover when he crawls on top of you and captures your lips with his own desperately. The kiss is aggressive and needy, tongues dancing together ungracefully, teeth clashing, hasty lip bites between kisses. His hips grind against yours roughly, causing you to hook both your feet around his ass to keep him there for as long as you can, desperately seeking more friction. His hands alternate with each other between grasping your breasts to gripping your face passionately. Without breaking the kiss, he hooks his arms under you and drives you further up the couch so your upper back lays against the armrest. You whine when his lips leave yours, but it's quickly replaced with a moan as his lips travel down your neck, chest, the stomach he exposes by lifting the hem of your shirt, biting the fabric at the waistband of your skirt. You squirm underneath him, anticipating what's gonna happen next as his face nestles between your legs. He licks, bites, sucks, and kisses the skin of your inner thighs, causing you to gasp with each harsh move of his mouth, before promptly melting into a moan when he alleviates his biting or sucking with a kiss or flick of his tongue. Your clit is throbbing, your pussy aching for him to get closer to your center. So he does. His tongue dances along the edge of your panties, not dipping much further into the fabric, his head alternating between each of your lips. You whine desperately as Logan's mouth hovers above your core, his hot breath teasing you further. He looks up at you and into your eyes as his mouth latches onto your thinly clothed pussy, causing you to squirm and moan underneath him, the already damp fabric from your arousal, getting further soaked from Logan's saliva.

"Logan," you whine fervently. "Please."

His mouth leaves your pussy, just barely hovering above it now.

"I gotta make you want it, princess, it's no fun unless you're begging for me to taste you," he breathed against your pussy, his voice low and syrupy. He quickly resumes the hold his mouth had on your pussy, making your back arch off the couch with a moan.

"Okay, I'm officially begging, please, Logan, please," you whimper, not sure how much longer you're able to take his teasing.

"Atta girl," he rasps against your pussy. Like nothing, his fingers hook around the fabric of your panties and he rips it off of you with an experienced strength, leaving your pussy now exposed to Logan, and your torn lace panties on the floor.

"So wet for me, huh?" Logan teases through a cocky smile. You squirm more underneath him, causing his hands to move to your hips to hold them down. Logan stares hungrily at your cunt, removing one hand from your hip and bringing it to your pussy lips to rub it tantalizingly slow with his fingers. Flicking his eyes up to meet yours, he finally brings his tongue to your folds and licks up to your clit. You moan throatily and bring your hands to his hair to give it a tug of appreciation. He groans enthusiastically into your pussy, eating at it like your core is the forbidden fruit dripping in molten pleasure. He's animalistic in his movements and noises, lapping at your clit with groans and grunts in pleasure, almost growling even. He brings his fingers to your core, tracing the hole before shoving two digits inside of you. He pumps his fingers in and out of you, curling them with each push inside. The noises are lewd and wet with each drive of his fingers. Your moans grow more desperate and needy as you climb towards your climax, the death grip you have on his hair growing stronger and stronger. The hand holding your hip down crawls up to your breast, grasping desperately at your flesh, hastily circling your nipples with his thumb. Your breaths quicken, your eyes flutter shut as he continues the steady onslaught of your pussy with his mouth and fingers.

"Logan, I'm so close, don't stop...please..." you trail off, beginning to lose yourself in your pleasure. Logan responds with needy moans against your clit and the continuous pumping of his fingers in and out of you. His grip on your breast loosens to grasp your side, slinking down to your waist, definitely leaving a mark with how rough he grabs at you. As his lips and tongue continue lapping you up, you can feel your arousal swirling in your stomach more and more. Your moans grow louder, your hips begin bucking. Logan groans into you, desperate to feel your release around his fingers. White hot pressure forms around your clit as you teeter on the edge of your orgasm, you look down at Logan and lock eyes with him just as you feel yourself dropping off.

The feeling of hot pink fire pricking your eyeballs jerks you awake, mid-orgasm, your eyes glow a pulsating fuchsia. You pant heavily, your orgasm ending unceremoniously against your fingertips. Leaving you disappointed. You huff in annoyance, wishing you could plunge yourself back into the wet dream that ended in a rather mediocre way. No, wait, that was your professor. You shouldn't be feeling, or thinking, this way at all. You feel disappointed in yourself for having such lewd thoughts about another person, especially a person of authority. You catch your breath, turn your head to face the clock on your nightstand and gasp when you see the time.

"Shit, shit, shit," you curse, hastily throwing yourself out of bed. "Please don't be late today."

(A/N): and that's that!! i hope people enjoy! this concept popped into my head earlier today so i've spent my sunday working on this, if people are interested to see where this goes, please leave a kudos or comment!!! TYYY🫶🏻🙈 i also posted this onto my ao3 here if you would like to view it there and keep up with it there as well!

#x men #wolverine smut #wolverine fanfiction #logan howlett #logan howlett fanfiction #logan howlett smut #hugh jackman #deadpool x wolverine #deadpool and wolverine

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brujamala-aka-gigi · 3 months

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random messages from the tarot

pick a pile, who knows, maybe there's something of use here...

pile 1. pile 2. pile 3. images are from pinterest dividers by @tsunami-of-tears

Pile Number One

Solitude will help you comprehend some kind of harm made (by yourself or my others). This is a point where a more solid understanding of feelings is needed, in order to process extreme emotions which might be understandable, yet their chaotic manifestation is doing nothing good for them. Don't feel weirded out or overwhelmed about feelings of nothingness, it is a common occurrence after periods of emotional stress, and nothingness itself it's and opportunity to create and grow from it. You might feel as if something did not bring the prosperity or the success you expected, but it wouldn't be wise to let your emotions block your ability to analyse how to channel your potential properly.

Running away from problems is not as useful as looking at them from a distance. Challenging your defense mechanisms will bring you closer to abundance, both material and spiritual. Loosing control is never ideal, but usually when that happens it's because you are not being realistic with what you are actually responsible for in your life. Things might not go our way, but they go the way the go for a reason.

Pile Number Two...

Remain cautious with impulsive actions, specially when you can't explain how a thought or a feeling got in your head in the first place. There's plenty to learn and plenty to teach, but this won't be fruitful unless it's in the company of others. Open your mind to new opinions and new ways of nurturing your thoughts. Although there might be a sense of balance in your life, take into consideration anything that could ruin it, and be prepared to act accordingly. It's a good moment to establish boundaries, not only for others but also for yourself.

Whenever faced with conflictive people or situations, be aware of how valuable someone's words by seeing how the act. Trust your gut if you feel like there are missing pieces of information, yet don't allow yourself to become paranoid. There's trust worthy people near you, but you have to be willing to let them grow alongside you. You are about to approach a new journey of self development once you become less cynic when it comes to people, which is fine sometimes, but don't let that be a defence mechanism to remain in your comfort zone.

Pile Number Three...

There's a lot of potential for you to become a higher version of yourself, but a lack of opportunities might got you thinking that it's not an option. Even when the opportunities are not there, and injustice is present, don't loose focus of what constitutes your true essence. Frustration will make you isolated, as this is not true to who you are. But during this periods of justified anger, new ideas will be born and will guide you towards new perceptions of success.

Protect what's pure to yourself and be ready to fight for the spaces you know you deserve. Many misunderstandings will come from your energy being blocked and people taking advantage of it. You can have the certainty that this moment of your life will end well. Learning experiences like this are meant for us to show ourselves our own strength, and to test how much we've learnt. As long as you remain conscious of your true nature and your personal power

Don't fear your own potential, and don't fear new responsibilities when it comes to others and yourself.

pssst... check my blog for more p.a.c. readings and stay tuned for an ask game <3

｡ﾟ ꒰ঌ ✦ MASTERPOST & PAID SERVICES໒꒱ ༘*.ﾟ

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igotanidea · 1 year

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Walk down memory lane : AK!Jason Todd x fem!reader

Warnings: mention of self harm and suicidal thoughts.

You can find other AK!stories on point 4 here: Jason Todd masterlist

***

She was just so tired.

Tired of fighting, of keeping up that fucking hope, of carrying the excessive weight on her shoulders.

She just couldn’t anymore .

Maybe it was time to finally accept that Jason didn’t care about her. That he would never care again. Not in the same way he used to before all this shit hit them. Before Joker, Harley, Arkham…

But she still needed, wanted, craved his love.

But how long can a girl be strong and live in a delusion?

And for the first time in a year she started crying.

What Harley could not achieve, happened because of a boy. No amount of torture and mind games and tricks she was subject to in Arkham, not once broke her. But the indifference and cold treatment from her former boyfriend, the one who she still loved got her on her knees, sobbing and shaking on the bed in her little, cold Asylum cell.

He was right. She was completely alone, no one was coming to help her, safe her from that void that finally found a way straight to her heart. Nothing more than a playtoy, unlovable, weak, pathetic, developing a heavy case of Stockholm syndrome.

Poor girl hugged herself in a foul attempt to calm down, but it was for nothing. Tears were falling freely down her cheeks, turning her into a puddle of emotions she couldn’t hold back. It was like the old wound and the feeling of being used opened and uncovered all the layers she cut off before.

Some people call it trauma, but she couldn’t care less about the terminology.

Maybe it would be better to just end her own life right now just so she wouldn’t have to suffer through another day of such lousy existence. It was Arkham, she was pretty sure she would find something to help her execute her plan.

On shaking legs she stood up from the bed, moving towards the bathroom. The mirror that Jason broke violently after their last encounter was still not fixed and the sharp pieces of glass poked on every side.

Perfect.

Gathering all the strength she had left, she reached towards the splinter and pointed it towards her wrist, assessing the “best” place to cut……

***

She woke up feeling sore and in tremendous amount of pain like never before. Both of her wrists were patched up with the clean bandages and she wasn’t even in her own sweatbox. Honestly, she couldn’t for the love of God recognise the place where she was, until the familiar, slightly muffled voice threw her off her confused state and brought back to reality.

“WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?!” Jason hissed with unconcealed anger and she shivered. “WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO DO!?” in a blink of an eye he was right next to her, grabbing her chin and forcing her eyes up.

She was just completely silent, the tight grip of his fingers on her puffy, hurting cheeks causing a few more tears to flow down her eyes.

“I’m sorry…..” she whispered, slightly panicking. He was never supposed to find her, let alone to save her. And why did he? Was it only because he needed her for release in the future? “I’m sorry…..” her whole body shook violently.

“Y/N…….” her name in his mouth sounded almost sweet and the touch got far more gentle, sudden change in behaviour making her freeze. What was going on?

“I……” her mouth fell agape and it was impossible to say a word.

“Did you forget what I told you last time? You’re mine. You can’t just go and decide to hurt yourself this way. I cannot allow it.”

“Why?” she sobbed “it’s not like you care. I am just a reminder of the past, of all those lies you were fed by Batman and your family. Of someone you once were and could never be again.”

“Stop it!”

“Please, please, just let me go. Just let me finish it, please.” Her desperation and panic attack coming out in waves in the form of the aggressive tugging on the dressing, trying to reopen the stitched wounds and cuts. “I’ll do it myself. You won’t even have to lift a finger.”

“Stop it!’

“You can even watch it, I know you’ll enjoy the show. You wanted a show, didn’t you?”

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE STOP IT!” finally he managed to get a hold of her hands, pinning them down to her sides, precluding her from moving, even though she still struggled against his hold. “Is that what you think of me? That I will enjoy that?” she nodded shakily “fuck!”

“I’m sorry…..” she whimpered again. She was still here and he was now mad which could only equal to another punishment. And this time it was not going to be intimate. He could really hurt her at any time.

“Baby…..” he whispered, almost without thinking, closing his eyes “princess.”

“Wha….. what did you say?” her eyes grew wide. Did he really use those words or was it just an imagination?

Jason was completely inside his head now, memories flooding his brain like a fucking Niagara. He remembered the past. The moment, when while still being Robin, someone came after her, attacking her and almost eliminating her from the equation. He recalled the hours spend in the medical bay, watching her pale face and the heart rate monitor, praying to whatever entity was up there to bring her back to him. All those little heart attacks caused each time she took a sharp exhale. Falling asleep next to her bed, holding and caressing her cold hand, whispering pleas and promises to keep her safe in the future if she just woke up. Brushing up on how he felt when she finally opened her e/c eyes, looking at him with so much love and concern, asking if he was all right.

He remembered how she cared about him….. And how he cared about her.

“Ja…. Jace?” she swallowed the lump in her throat, taking the risk to use his nickname, ready for another anger fit, but instead she met his honest gaze, so different from the one she was used to in his Arkham Knight version.

“Don’t ever do this again.” He gasped, brushing her cheek, putting a strand of hair behind her ear “you hear me? Ever.”

“Jason?” he bottom lip trembled because of that sudden display of emotion from his part.

“Ever.” He emphasised. “I don’t want to see you in pain.”

“Ok……”

“Anyone who hurt you deserve a punishment and that applies to you hurting yourself. Is that clear?”

“Anyone, but you?” she blurt without thinking and immediately covered her mouth in fear of the words that came out her mouth.

Jason tensed a bit, his muscles flexing but he didn’t move.

“Get some rest. Need you recovered soon. Big plans for you.” He just said and with one final look into her eyes left the room, leaving her completely speechless.

…..

#jason todd x reader #arkham knight x reader #jason todd x you #jason todd x y/n #jason todd x oc #jason todd angst #jason todd smut #arkham knight #arkham knight angst #arkham knight jason todd #arkham knight x y/n #arkham knight imagine #arkhamverse

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vanilleandclove · 3 months

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the meadow in which you lay | 6

ser erryk cargyll x arryn!reader | chapter six: a raven disguised as a crow

Upon reaching Dragonstone, the ideals of allowing your love to pursue his oath unabashedly and correctly ring through your head, only problem is, he is unabashedly and correctly understanding the means of loving you whilst being sworn into an oath.

word count: 1.5k | warnings: me when the reader is avoidantly attached like every man i have once encountered, LUCERYS, tooth-rotting love confessions. | a/n: currently listening to thoroughfare by ethel cain, this part is going to be angsty i fear.

previous - next

taglist: @wolvestitches @holb32 @callsignwidow @fwaeriys @hummusxx @erysione @snixx2088 @opheliax98

Erryk and yourself had reached Dragonstone come the set of the next sun, seeing flames in the distant, you felt a lump in your throat as you both approached the scene. As three, now Queensguard, drew their swords at the sight of Ser Erryk as another announced your name and title. You found yourself holding Erryk, lacing your arm within his.

"I mean no harm brothers" Erryk told the guards, Daemon signaling them to rest their position as Erryk took the Crown of Jaehaerys I and Viserys I. Erryk kneeled, swearing fealty and his life to your dear cousin, her eyes filled with shock before they caught yours, the look of love it was.

"I swear to ward the Queen with all my strength and give my blood for hers. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall guard her secrets, obey her commands, ride at her side, and defend her name and honor" Erryk swore as Daemon took the crown from his hands, crowning your cousin before kneeling. Soon after, you all kneeled, besides Rhaenys who just gave your cousin a nod of both pride and honor.

After which, Erryk found himself walking to you, resting his forehead on yours "I am sworn to a Queen now" he whispered, you nodded as there were no words to say, his hand found itself on your waist. You bit your lip lightly, forbidding yourself from letting your emotions be on display.

"You- We must go" you whispered back, choosing to bite your tongue rather than tell him how much you love him, you too, would give your blood for his. You removed yourself from the hold of his, finding your now Queen of a cousin to hug her, she had a stillbirth and was crowned within the next turn of the night.

"Any secret would you like to share?" Rhaenyra joked to ease the mood, you looked at her somberly, "There are men in the Kingsguard whom are oathbreakers and heathens. He is not one of them, no matter the vow of chastity".

"There is a war to be fought over the succession, I fear his blood being in me more than it is defending you may cause some feats we can prevent" you told your cousin before giving her a warm hug.

Towards the end of the sunset, you had not spoken a word to Erryk, simply walking side to side with your cousin, even in the war room. You chose to remain distant, it was the easiest way for you, but you knew it was cruel to Erryk. Near the end of planning and Daemon's outburst, your cousin dismissed all of you. You quickly made your way to your set chambers in Dragonstone.

Your peace interrupted by a knock on your door, opening the door to be met with Erryk, hair completely down and armor retired into sleeping attire. You opened the door wider to invite him in, not speaking a singular word.

"I was raised in the Crownlands" Erryk started, fidgeting with his fingers lightly, "I was knighted into the Kingsguard alongside my brother when we were just eight and ten. By then, I was privileged to be infatuated with this Lady of the Vale. At times, I regretted the decision of my oath seeing that I would potentially have to see her marry a higher lord, siring his children, and live a life that I was not in. Extremely selfish, I loved this Lady to the extremes that it did not matter what oaths I took or swore" Erryk confessed, your lips parted from the confession. "Tell me you do not love me and I will forget everything we shar-".

"I love you Erryk" you shook your head, "You are the only man I have ever loved and found myself waiting for; I cannot let you go, ever". You walked away from the knight, going to your vanity, "There is a war to be fought, blood to be spilled, I cannot fully love you the way I am able to under these conditions".

"Come the end of the war then," Erryk told you optimistically, "I will marry you". You smiled at the promise of certainty, you looked into the knight's eyes once more, eyes reminiscent of the ocean. "I should go to my quarters; we both have long duties to be served".

You nodded in agreement before Erryk left your quarters. There was an exaggerated feeling of anxiety in the air, the unsettling pit in your stomach led that feeling to increase by tenfold. Taking a breather to look outside your chamber's windows, wondering if there was a reason. You seemingly shut out all the worries that clouded your mind in order get rest, must the gods punish you like this? Without reason?

Come morning, the anxiety diminished, as you entered the war room, you took place next to Erryk. His hand found a place on the small of your back before his fingers brushed through your hair, he admired the color and how it flowed, he loved the feeling, even with his gloved hand.

"Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, first of her name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm" Erryk shouted as your cousin made her way into her war room before her people.

As the lords planned out the war, spitting out ideas that quickly faltered, your cousin being the only one whom held restraint, Daemon's temper led him to be excused on his own terms. You positioned yourself opposite of Erryk, next to your nephews.

"The Lord of the Tides! Lord Corlys Velaryon and his wife the Princess Rhaenys Targaryen" Erryk announced out of nowhere as the lords ceased their dispute. Your back straightened from the announcement, fearing the words that were yet to be declared by Corlys, your hand found itself resting on your blade.

Though you did not have to worry as much, as Corlys swore anew his oath to your cousin, giving his land for her cause. One of the happiest of memories it was in the war room. As Jacaerys advocated for his mother's cause simply putting that he and his brother should be the ones delivering the messages to Baratheon, Arryn, and Stark. Though you swore allegiance to your cousin, it was Jeyne who had a say on whether House Arryn would ride for your cousin's cause and claim, you trusted Jace in the care of your Jeyne, though she was kind, she always had been fierce for the sake of your house.

It took upon hours, the sun had since set, yet you and the lords strategized the war, surprised the lords took your words into consideration despite the sexism you faced to that of the Lannisters and Hightowers. The Lady Arryn must close her mouth as well as her legs, Alicent once teased as she figured out your affections were set to Erryk, you were near ladies of nine and ten, as she married Viserys and sired him children- boys to be exact including sweet Haelena, Rhaenyra married Laenor, you remained unmarried.

It was only until Daemon came back into the war room, that feeling of anxiety came back once again, your back straightened, only Erryk took notice as his hand reached for the small of your back. You shrugged him off, giving him a look of worry, as the room went silent, you reached for the raven's words that nearly left your cousin's hands in defeat.

Your heart dropping, a gasp leaving your mouth that quickly turned to sobs, the raven delivering the message of crows.

Prince Lucerys Velaryon, heir to Driftmark, has been slain in a harmless dispute with Prince Aemond Targaryen.

Harmless? Harmless be the murderous instinct both Aemond and his older, drunken, usurper brother, Aegon exhibited when your nephews were their kin and significantly younger than them yet constantly berated. Your blood ran hot, boiling even, your ears rang to the point where you could not hear the words that came from Erryk's mouth.

#hotd #house of the dragon #game of thrones #ser erryk #ser arryk #ser erryk cargyll #ser arryk cargyll #rhaenyra #rhaenrya targaryen #alicent hightower #house of the dragon fanfiction #ser erryk cargyll x reader #erryk cargyll #erryk cargyll x reader #angst #smut

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itsabouttimex2 · 3 months

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Drifting in Seafoam

(I don’t have enough ‘rare character’ bots, so I made one of Ao Guang!)

Suffering is easier to swallow when it comes with an excuse.

Ao Guang has long learned the worth of these words. It’s hard to break free from the relief they have brought him. If he can pretend that there was meaning to the loss that he’s suffered, to the grief he’s endured, then he can bear it with less tears.

His son, Ao Bing, slaughtered and burned by a Celestial Prince. His son. His little prince. His pride and joy. His darling child. His baby boy.

Gone. Reduced to dust. Left to drift in the wind until those motes of flaky grey had settled to move slowly across the waves of the placid eastern sea.

Sometimes, Ao Guang was sure he could feel precisely which current was carrying the remains of his beloved son, whose ashes would forever be cradled and adored by the sea in which he was raised.

“You mustn’t stray from me,” the dignified king instructs, one wrinkled hand reaching to trace the keratin of your draconic horns. “You must never leave my side, Y/N.”

He slowly takes your hands into his own, holding them tight. He’s been through so much, and lived for so long- and still hasn’t so much as mildly faltered in his strength.

“You are so very much like coral,” he sighs, holding tight to your hands. “So bright and colorful. And so, so very fragile. Drifting slowly through life as the world rages around you… I shall never allow you to come to harm.”

Still are you awkward with the forked tongue so “graciously bestowed” upon you, so the most graceful response to be mustered is a sloppy: “Yeth- yeess. Yes. Yes, and th-thank you, Your Highness.”

“None of that,” Ao Guang sternly instructs, brushing some of your hair behind one of your newly pointed ears. “I have taken you as my own, haven’t I? It is no longer appropriate to refer to me so formally.”

You don’t miss the slight weakness in his voice- this isn’t something the king “wants”. This is something he needs.

It’s feels like a personal insult to yourself, giving in so easily. But there’s no point in fighting, no point in arguing.

Not when His Highness now commands so much of your life, and in so many ways.

“Yes… yes, Bàba.”

In the bend of his knees, there’s the slightest bit of quivering. Slowly does the dignified dragon kneel to your level, cupping your cheeks in both of his old and worn hands.

Ao Guang is cold to the touch, but there’s an incredible amount of warmth in his baggy eyes.

He’s been crying, clearly. Only late at night, when no one but you is around to hear, only when you’re wrapped in his arms.

Not that you were awake for any of it. Guang had made sure of it.

“Very good, my child. Now…”

And there’s the moment you were fearing. That trailing beat. The slightest of pauses, where the king is either planning or plotting maybe even questioning next his actions… before going through with them in the simplest way possible anyhow.

“Allow me to make you another cup of tea.”

“Baba,” is your prompt little whine, draconic tongue flicking around in trembling worry. “My hornth- my horns still huu-urt. N’my ears.”

Compassion glimmers in the seafoam hue of his eyes, his gaze softening slight.

“…I’ll make it special for you,” he promises, using one worn hand to pat your head, “and mix in something to help with the pain.”

As he once did with Bing, so long ago. Boil something hot and sweet to soothe cramps and headaches and fevers.

Guang firmly takes one of your hands into his own, pulling you slowly along to the palace kitchen.

The polished tiles click under his boots, each step sinking a further feeling of helplessness into your heart. You always end up wishing that the journey would take longer- but the click, click, clicking lasts so woefully short a time-

And soon Ao Guang’s hands are around your waist, boosting until he has you settled on a wooden chair with restrictively snug armrests and a padded back.

This… this chair was brand new. And with how perfectly it conformed to the fit of your build, it was very likely that your “adoptive father” had it commissioned and custom-built for you.

At the notion of being treated like a troublesome or helpless child, your face reddens. “Ah, b-baba? The n-normal chair ith- is fine…”

“Hush, Y/N,” he starts, grinding several dubious ingredients with a pestle. They crumble quickly under his powerful hand, and are swept into a ceramic kettle with a winding draconic design.

Once Guang fills the lot and moves it over a stove, he continues to speak.

“You cannot hold yourself through the process of transformation, can you? I saw fit to provide you with some measure of comfort, little conch.”

The little nickname slips off his tongue with practiced ease- you clearly are not the first person he used it for.

Still, he says it so genuinely and warmly that it.. it manages to soothe you in some small measure- that is, right until you hear a tittering whistle- and the tea is done.

In small ways does the bereft man dote on you, even as you squirm and bite back a gasp at the dreaded squeal of the kettle. He mixes inside the teapot a combination of honey and sugar and some nebulous white powder, stirring the mixture together with a little silver spoon.

He plates the little white cup and brings it before you, taking the golden handle between two of his old fingers. As he did twice before, and was bound to do many times again- Guang lifts the rim to your lips.

“Little Conch… I cannot wait to see how you change next.”

#Platonic Yandere #Yandere Lego Monkie Kid #Yandere LMK #Yandere Ao Guang #Yandere Father #TW: Drugging #TW: Forced Transformation

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bettyfrommars · 8 months

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Death Becomes Us

Part 9: Heads Will Roll

vampire!eddie x supernatural!reader

MASTERLIST PLAYLIST

18+ONLY, vampires, werewolves, mention of witches and ghouls, a pet demobat, a car accident, no smut in this, but definitely next chapter (the kind of non-dream vampire sex you've been so patiently waiting for), reader is taken.

summary: There's a new monster in town, and you are their target. An unlikely trio decides to join forces to get you back. The character Jareth in this is meant to be Jamie Campbell Bower.

word count: 3.6k

author's note: I almost put this on hiatus, but I need to find out how it ends, for my sanity, and I would be more than pleased if some of you wanted to ride it out with me, only a bit more to go. This is not as long as I initially intended, but the next part needs to be all one piece, so I had to split it up. Much love, hope you enjoy.

This chapter takes place right where part 8 left off

“Excuse me?” You balked, looking Jareth up and down there in the alleyway behind Main Vein. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Who did he think he was?

A thousand year old vampire, probably. Stronger and faster than Eddie or any vampire you’d met so far.

Jareth smoothed a thick strand of blonde hair behind his ear. “That’s the problem you see. I wasn’t asking.”

A fog settled in among the cold, winter darkness, crowding in like doom. Your eyes darted from side to side, trying to understand what you were up against. Was Jareth alone? Where were those finicky “powers” when you needed them? Even if the superhuman strength you’d been touched with made an appearance, could you take on a vampire?

Did you have a choice?

But then, a wave of fear burned like thorns in your chest and your voice cracked. “Is Eddie okay? Did something happen to—-?”

The smile that spread across Jareth’s face was condescending. “No harm has befallen your trailer park Romeo. Not at my hand, for that matter.”

Not sure how to feel about that answer, you adjusted your bag on your shoulder and took the first step away from him, on the way to your hearse.

“Tsktsk,” he had black gloves on to match his long, leather coat. “Now, I don’t want to take you by force, but I will if you give me no choice.”

You met his eyes with a defiant softness that made him realize, not for the first time, why Munson was clearly so enamored with you. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Truthfully, I haven’t decided what to do with you yet,” he wet his top lip with the tip of his tongue, making eyes at the blood pumping in your throat. “But I wouldn’t mind a taste.”

You shrugged away from him. “Why should I go with you?”

“Because I said so,” he arched his brows, and then leaned forward. “And because I’ve had word that there’s a Ghoul in town looking for you. I’m only interested in your safety.”

You glared at him. “You’re only interested in yourself.”

“Feisty, I like it. Now, come on, this way,” he inclined his head.

You took a few steps and then stopped short. “Wait, a ghoul?”

“Servants to the regional monster government, yes,” he said, like everyone should know that already.

You thought about Steve, waiting for you at the bookstore. You thought about Bela waiting for you to let her out for her nightly fly.

“How long will I be gone?”

“Until my people can figure out what the ghoul wants from you.”

“Why are you protecting me?” You shuffled in front of him.

Jareth sniffed, unable to meet your gaze. “On that note, I am not entirely sure,” he stepped a bit closer then, making you shuffle a step back. “Call it curiosity, perhaps. You fascinate me, and very little keeps my interest these days.”

When his stare finally locked onto yours, you tried not to show fear under the laser focus of his natural intensity.

You slipped into the passenger seat of his Porsche, smelling the leather and expensive cologne, and waited for him to get in beside you. Just as he was about to start the engine, there was a loud bang and crash from above, like something heavy dropped hard and fast onto the roof of his car.

You couldn’t help the scream you let out, peeking up to see that there was, indeed, a dent caving in the metal as if a boulder had crashed into it. A figure leapt to the ground, landing in a crouch between the headlights.

Jareth’s lips peeled away from his teeth with a growl at the sight of Eddie standing there.

Eddie swiped his hair away from his face, expresion softening when he locked eyes with you. He cocked his head and mouthed the question, “are you okay?”

You were just about to click your seatbelt on, but you threw it off with a thwack against the window and stepped out of the vehicle, ignoring Jareth’s protests.

Eddie’s mind raced. He’d been wanting to talk to you about the not so subtle layers of vampire etiquette, but the time was never right. Then he was parking another stolen car in the bay at the chop shop and he’d felt your discomfort, the spike in your adrenaline. Without any vampire claim on you, your blood and your body were fair game to others. If he could make the claim that you were his, the rest of them would have to stay away. Even the older, stronger ones like Jareth.

Eddie went around to your side of the Porsche and met you there, searching your face to see if you’d been hurt.

“Where did you…how did you?” You stammered.

He came to your side, so close that his hand brushed the back of yours. He was breathing heavily, staring at your lips, aching to touch your cheek, to kiss you.

Jareth slammed his car door. “You’re going to pay for the repair, Munson,” he sneered, taking stock of the obvious dent made from his landing.

Eddie licked his lips and moved his jaw as if he were about to say something to you, but then his face tensed when he turned to Jareth.

“You need to know that she is mine,” his throat dried up when he caught the side glance of your head swiveling to get a better look at the words that were coming out of his mouth. Fully expecting to have you cut him off and disagree, he continued. “I claim her as my mate.”

Your first urge was to challenge the sentiment, but Eddie pinched the side of your hand and pulsed there a few times to let you in on his intentions.

“Is this true?” Jareth’s stare bore into you.

You decided to trust your friendly neighbor. “Um, yes, I’m with him,” you were sure that any and all lies would be instantly detected, but the truth was, you didn’t mind saying it.

“Well, that is unfortunate,” Jareth cleared his throat. “Nevertheless, I advise you to come with me.”

“What’s going on?” Eddie took his chance and snatched your hand in his. You liked the feel of it, so you let him. “Where are you taking her?”

Jareth’s eyelids fluttered as if he were bored to death. “If you must know, there is a Ghoul named Brenner in town who's been asking questions about your…mate.” He bit the final word out sarcastically.

At the mention of Brenner’s name, Eddie stiffened. It was familiar to him, more familiar than he wanted to admit. He shifted uneasily to interlace his fingers with yours.

“And a witch, a very powerful one,” Jareth confirmed. “Possibly even a necromancer.”

You weren’t certain what that meant, but realization seemed to dawn on Eddie’s face.

You turned to get a good look at Eddie, to search his eyes as if he had the perfect answer for how you should answer that, but his milk chocolate orbs only mirrored your search for answers.

There was also something else behind his eyes, a type of silent pleading that you couldn’t put your finger on.

The truth was, you had no idea you were special. Not even after that day back in your hometown when you were able to push a man out of the way and stop a moving truck with your bare hands so that it would not crush the both of you. He’d been going way too fast, about to run a stop sign. The driver told people your eyes were all white, void of iris or pupil, and there were two indentations left in the metal grill where your hands had been.

Your father had not explained the weight of your new gifts before he passed. You liked to think that he hadn’t known, how could he?

While you’d stood there talking, the fog had grown more substantial, it had weight and texture, so much so that you had to squint to see Jareth on the other side of the car.

“Wait,” Jareth held his hand up, squinting into the haze around him. “Did you hear that?”

No mistaking, there it was again, a whooshing noise, along with the soft timber of chanting voices.

You watched in horror as Jareth’s body seized, trembling where he stood as if being controlled by puppet strings, eyes rolling back in his head. His jaw went slack and his head bent back.

Someone or something was controlling him, possessing his body.

“What is happening?” You gasped, clinging to Eddie.

“I don’t know,” Eddie was already on the move, pulling you toward him to take you into his arms and run. “But I don’t want to wait to find out.”

But he wasn’t fast enough

You felt his body go rigid, too, hand falling limp in your grasp

You turned to find him in a similar state; eyes quivering back into his head, body stiff and vibrating as if he were caught in the grip of some strange, upright sleep paralysis.

“Eddie, no!” You cried, reaching up to take his face in your hand. Every muscle in his body was tense and his breathing shallow.

“Eddie, you’re scaring me!” You choked on your fear, tugging at his arm.

But then there came another sound, one that made your blood run cold.

“I control the dead,” a soft, feminine voice said. “And it just so happens that your sweetheart and his friend are no longer living, if you hadn’t noticed.”

You spun around in a circle, seeing no one. “Who are you? What do you want?”

She appeared to you then, like a vision. Long, ebony hair and a dark purple velvet cape, her sharp green eyes were familiar to you in a way you didn’t understand.

“I want you, Dove,” she said with a sly grin.

The woman said something else, in language you didn’t recognize, and she blew some type of dust into your face from the palm of her hand.

You were able to let out the first part of a scream for help before your knees buckled and you were falling into an inky abyss.

—----

Since you were late, Steve was on his way over from the bookstore to check on you when he heard your broken, shrill cry.

He called your name and started to jog, peering in through the blanket of fog that was finally beginning to dissipate.

He vaulted over the hood of one of the cars, pouncing into the street just in time to see the SUV with the tinted windows speed away from the curb, tires squealing.

“Hey!” With a growl, and a red glow to his eyes, he ripped his clothes off as he ran, turning into wolf form along the way. He was sleek and dark gray, so fast and agile, wearing the night like a cloak.

He chased the vehicle into the night, eventually keeping pace with it through the forest, no matter how much it picked up speed.

—-----

In the shadows of an abandoned building near the tracks with broken out windows and a crumbling roof, Eddie gave a few tight blinks of his eyes; they felt dry and itchy, like someone had thrown salt in them. There were slabs of broken concrete and a metal beam in front of him from the half-demolished structure. The air smelled like rat feces and urine, and he was seated on the ground with his hands behind his back.

He shifted to test the strength of his restraints and hissed in pain as the silver chain around his neck and wrists burned him, making a sizzling noise like eggs in a frying pan.

“It’s no use,” the deep voice behind him said.

“Jareth?” Eddie turned his head and cringed in pain again.

Both of them were secured to a thick, cement pillar, facing away from each other.

“Are we alone?”

“As far as I can tell,” Jareth said in his typical, monotone voice.

“What the hell was that?”

“The witch I warned you about would be my guess,” Jareth returned flatly. “And if you hadn’t slowed us down, we might have had a chance to escape her.”

Eddie went silent, trying to concentrate on the magic force that connected him to you through the sharing of each other’s blood, but he couldn’t hear you…couldn’t feel you, and that worried him more than anything.

“What is she going to do with her?”

“I am ancient, but I am not a psychic,” Jareth drolled.

Just then, a huge wolf with red eyes leapt through the gaping hole on the side of the building and trotted over to them, panting, huge tongue lolling out of its mouth of jagged teeth. Both Eddie and Jareth bared their fangs as the beast closed in on them, sniffing the air as it went.

Steve morphed back into his human form then, and stood before them completely naked.

Eddie retracted his fangs and tried to look anywhere but at the package on the new arrival. “Jesus christ, put that thing away, man.”

“Where is she?” Steve looked around at the empty expanse, trying to get a glimpse of you. “I can’t smell her anymore.”

“That’s because she’s not here, you mongrel,” Jareth sighed, annoyed.

“Did you see where they went?” Chain link welts formed on Eddie’s neck. “The ones who brought us here?”

Steve worked his jaw, angry with himself. “I kept up for as long as I could, but then I lost them on the freeway and had to find the scent again.”

Eddie threw his head back against the concrete pillar with a curse.

“Well?” Jareth interrupted the moment of silence. “You could help us out of these restraints if you wanted to make yourself useful.”

“I’m thinking about it,” Steve gave him a glare, his breath like smoke in the frozen air. “Or I could just leave you to rot.”

“I will spend the rest of my immortal life making you regret that decision—” Jareth’s voice began to raise.

“Enough,” Eddie grunted. “We will be stronger in numbers,” his eyes met Steve’s with a sincere urgency. “She’s in danger.”

“We’ll need to find shelter before dawn,” Jareth reminded him. He looked up at the opening in the concrete with a view of the stars. In a few hours, the sun would turn them to ashes. “Or we will perish.”

Steve tucked his chin, willing to set aside his loathing of fangers long enough to get you back, and squatted down to get to work unraveling the massive chain that pinned the two vampires together.

—----

You could feel yourself drifting in and out of consciousness, or whatever type of spell they had you under, watching the lights from the freeway cut by through half lidded eyes. Inside, you were screaming at yourself to move, to wake up.

Propped up in the back seat, seatbelt across your lap, your forehead against the window. You couldn’t see the person driving, but in the passenger seat was the woman with long black hair. Every time your eyelids fluttered open on an inhale, she was watching you over her shoulder.

“Dr. Brenner will be pleased,” a man’s voice said, possibly from behind the wheel. “Why he is so desperate to have her, I will never know.”

“He wants her because she is the only one of her kind,” the woman gave a sarcastic cough of a laugh, as if your value should be obvious. “Reanimated tissue fused with gamma radiation and witch magic? If he could bottle her strength and regeneration capabilities, he'd be unstoppable.”

“The vampire boyfriend, is he going to be a problem?” the driver asked.

You drifted awake to see the woman’s profile, stoic in the moonlight.

“They’ll be dead by the time the sun comes up,” she sniffed. “For all the bragging they do about immortality, all it takes is a bit of silver and sunlight to eliminate them.”

Your heart rate picked up, alarms going off inside of you. A scream caught in your throat but wasn’t able to form a complete sound.

Something clicked in your brain, and a shift began to take place.

Electricity buzzed under your skin, licking all of your nerves and cells awake.

A change was happening.

The driver glanced at you in the rearview mirror. “You sure we don’t have to worry about her waking up?”

The woman scoffed. “She’ll be out for at least another hour, and then she’s Brenner’s problem. I didn’t just put any old spell on her, that one could put down a team of elephants.’

There was nothing but the sound of tires on the pavement for a few seconds and then the SUV swerved and the man behind the wheel cursed.

“What the hell was that?” He huffed, struggling to get back into his lane. Something huge had swooped down from the sky in front of them, something with the wings of a bat and legs like an octopus.

Headlights came toward the window and someone honked for them to move out of the way.

“I didn’t think there were any demobats on this side,” the woman mused, wondering if that was what she saw, or if her eyes were playing tricks on hre. “They hate humans.”

There came the sound of scratching on the roof

SCRTCH SCRITCH SCRITCH

And then an animalistic yowl, like the caw of a prehistoric bird.

Bela dove again, but this time, she attached herself to the windshield, obscuring the driver’s view of the road.

He swerved again, tires catching in the loose gravel of the median, and she flew off the glass.

“Don’t you have any magic to get rid of this thing?” The guy whined.

“I can’t control demobats, no one outside of the Upside Down can.”

“When that fucker comes around front again, I’m gunning it. Splatter the thing all over the road.”

Behind them, you moaned, brow furrowed, fingers clawing at nothing. Your muscles throbbed like they were being pulled apart.

Bela flew into the side window opposite you with a thump, making a spiderweb crack and the glass, and then she rammed at it again.

“This fucking thing is gonna get in here,” the man spat.

“Just drive faster you moron! It can’t keep up with us.”

He yanked the wheel, pulling the vehicle to the side to try and hit her, but she was already in the air and off again.

You rolled back in your seat as the speed increased with a jolt, and for a moment, there was peace.

The driver checked the rearview mirror again. “I think we lost it,” his attention snapped to the woman with the inky black locks. “What the fuck was that about?”

She was mid-shrug in response to his question when Bela charged the windshield, landing with enough force again to splinter the glass.

This time, there was no wiggle room when he swerved as a semi truck was barreling down on them in the opposite direction, blaring its horn.

The SUV jerked right, tires catching at the lip of a dry irrigation ditch, and then they rolled. There was the sound of shattering glass and the sickening crunch of twisted metal while the two in the front seat let out shrill screams.

And then everything was quiet.

—-------

Back at Eddie’s trailer, Jareth paced outside while Eddie found Steve something to wear.

“These good enough? I think they’ll fit,” he tossed a few things on the couch. Eddie changed out of his leather and slipped on a black hoodie, in case he needed to hide his hair and be in disguise for some reason.

Still in his birthday suit, ass on full display, Steve’s expression was bitchy as he pinched the material to lift it up for a better look.

“A ratty jean vest?” Steve raised a brow.

Eddie popped a cigarette between his lips, crinkling up the empty soft pack of Camel’s in his hand. “Sorry the maid hasn’t come to do laundry today, Princess. Those are the only two things I have that are clean. Take it or leave it.”

“Fine,” Steve rolled his eyes. The jeans he was borrowing had ripped holes in the knees and the shoes were white Reebok high tops. “I’m usually able to plan better when I shift,” he mumbled, stepping into the pant legs, gently tucking his cock inside to avoid the teeth of the zipper.

Once they’d been freed from the restraints at the abandoned building, Eddie hotwired a cement mixer from a nearby construction site, and then they swung by downtown to see if any of the clothes Steve had worn earlier were salvageable in the street, but they’d been obliterated like a bomb went off.

“Just do me a favor and take that off before you bust out of it in another transformation, cool?”

Eddie turned away to take a drag from his smoke while Steve inspected the patches on the battle jacket with a frown.

And that was when it happened.

Like the ringing of a phone in his head

A spasm in his chest

He could feel you calling to him

“This is it,” he screwed his eyes shut, trying to zero in on the emotions you were radiating.

“This is what?” Steve stood in front of the mirror under the clock, adjusting the collar of the vest and raking a hand through his hair.

Eddie’s eyes snapped open, tip of his tongue resting between his lips. He sprang behind Steve on his way to the door, clapping him on the shoulder. “It’s showtime.”

-----

thank you so much for reading xoxox

------

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#Eddie Munson #Eddie Munson fic #Eddie Munson series #Death Becomes Us #vampire Eddie #vampire!eddie #Steve Harrington #werewolf steve #Jamie Campbell Bower #true blood au #vampire au #Spotify

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rel124c41 · 6 months

Text

SCHISM. jade leech

You could not grab a full-bodied mushroom, that had already lived a life outdoors, and stick it into a terrarium. "I know the pieces fit because I watch them tumble down" - TOOL, Track 5 on Lateralus

tags: established relationship, relationship issues, soul bond, ghost camera, angst w a happy? ending, character study, parental crewel, mental breakdown(s), crowley finds a way to send the prefect home, grimms fairytales, tattoos

word count: 16,920

“No! NoNONO! Wait, Jade! Cut it out Jade! Jade!”

The words you let out are overflowing with terror. Fear makes itself familiar and known in your vocal cords.

Out of you comes one last fruitless, ignored shriek of his name before you cry like a child on a rollercoaster. With you in his arms, Jade falls back first off the cliffside.

Catlike, you cling onto your boyfriend. Pointed nails dig deeply into his neck, causing little injuries and indents. The fall is short and, before you know it, you are both underwater, weightless.

It is freezing and awful and warm and great all at the same time. You want to resurface immediately. Which you do, kicking yourself out of the constricting arms around your waist. Lake water ripples and billows. Once you surface, you expect to hear that mocking laughter. Rivulets of water cascade down your neck and face as you bring two soaking wet hands up to your temple to wipe away water – rather fruitless. But you clear the skin over your eyes and open them, searching for what you thought you would find in sound.

“My clothes are drenched, Jade,” you whine, knowing he can hear you no matter if he is underwater.

The lake remains a calm surface, no body popping up. Kicking your legs and waiting, you glance up at the cliffside Jade had thrown both of you off of. Sun burns the palm you face up to its golden rays, protecting your eyes. There is, sitting all pretty. The mushroom you had been going to collect lies unplucked. Next to it, your pair of sunglasses that had fallen off your nose when you were lifted as easily as a mischievous cat.

Though, you are not the mischievous one in this. That description belongs to another: the one sly predator swimming underwater and avoiding surfacing for mischievous reasons most likely. Who were kidding, you think watching still waters, definitely for those types of reasons.

And you only get one warning – a hand pinched on your nose and a hand cupping your mouth – before you are dragged right back underwater.

You thrash wildly. A lean body folds and tilts itself over you. You punch at where you think his shoulder or rib-cage is. He spins you once then twice underwater, disorienting you. You clutch at his shirt and pull. He kicks at your right leg and bends your body as if it is a bow. Wrestling against one another, your objective to resurface and his objective to dance clash until finally Jade pulls you up for air.

This time mocking laughter accompanies the cool sting of air. “Ugh, you jerk! You absolute – ugh!! My clothes!” Your punching fist is caught. Jade twists it and wraps it around his neck in an amorous hold like you two were going to start tango-ing. He laughs, subdued chortling at your furious expression.

“Fufufu, you should’ve seen your face.”

“This is Floyd level behavior! I cannot believe you!”

“Come now, (Name). You were just complaining about the heat.”

You gasp, offended. “The heat?! You did this because –”

“Because I wanted to assist my love however I could? Yes, of course. I do need to take care of you after all.”

“Oh, you ass,” you growl and dig your nails in the back of his neck.

Jade is unaffected by your humane strength. Instead, Jade smiles at your attempt to inflict any harm on him. His lips pull up and you are struck breathless by the visage of him. Sunlight falls on his glass-clear skin in an evangelical way. Teal hair is pressed down by water, slick with a rare shine. Even with black eyeliner smudged raccoon-esque, his eyes are piercing and vibrant. A lemon and an olive, rich like plucked from a painting. You punch his latissimus for being so effortlessly handsome at times.

With clipped and vexed words, you say, “I’m cool now. Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure.” His white smile is aggravatingly handsome too. “Don’t I get a reward for my consideration,” Jade asks, not missing a beat, simply floating with you in his arms.

“Take me back to the shore?”

“Of course I will.”

“Okay, here’s your reward,” you say, pecking him on the lips. “Now then.” Your gaze sharpens. “Shore. Now.”

When you two finally reach the lake’s sandy border, you start to wring out your button-up. You will not walk around in wet clothes. The dripping fabric of your tank top suctions itself to your skin in an unrelenting, octopus-like grip. You glare when Jade openly stares. Half-lidded eyes trace up and down the curvatures of you. Taking the shoulder ends of your button-up, you whip the material down hard once then twice then thrice, watching as water droplets splash your boyfriend.

Take that, you think triumphantly as you remove another article of clothing.

Jade gets back at you by taking his own wet button-up and wringing it out over your head rather than over the dirt like you had done. Dropping the shoe you were shaking water out of, you attack him and his self-satisfied, coy smirk.

It takes about five minutes of horseplaying until you two get back on task.

You sit on shore, squeezing water out of socks and mourning when Jade was more cowardly about touching. All two sets of teeth yet no bite. Endearing courting methods involved gifts, and even then, he was earnestly timid about it. Hand like a shield on his heart all the time as if to translate, be gentle with me.

Rolling a still damp sock back on your foot, you think that message was truly worth ignoring. Jade Leech and gentle were antonymous.

Still, there was a certain charm about his slyness. The fake humanitarianism he wore in his finely pressed uniform and neat bow was attractive. The glowing, angular silhouette of those sharp, up-turned eyes could still make you swoon. Something about him being out of reach was magnetizing.

But … you watch as Jade walks up to you, your mushroom and sunglasses in his hand, there is something equally magnetizing in unlocking this part of him.

And you have to admit the dip into the lake did wonders dropping down your temperature. Now you were not losing by such a large margin in the battle against heat stroke.

You let him have this win. And you let him come to you. Accepting your sunglasses, you lay them to perch on the crown of your head. Before he offers a hand out to you, Jade carefully places your mushroom in the bucket you two have been wandering around with. He drapes his wet button-up over the button, electing to stay in his own tank top.

“Not going to dry out your socks?”

“No, I happen to enjoy the feeling of walking around in wet socks. Reminds me of home”

“You’re incorrigible.”

A smile splits across Jade’s face at your harsh words. Stalactites and stalagmites of razor enamel shine in his mouth, menacingly. And yet he offers out a hand to you, nails trimmed down to the plate, safe and warm even if it is calloused a bit.

Your eyes trail over him. Past shoes and compression tights and white cargo shorts. Gliding over the palm of his pallid hand and over the black eel skeleton made of tattoo ink which wraps itself from elbow to shoulder. Up to his collarbone, to his face, and to his eyes.

A fond thought arrives in the mailbox of your mind. It is a letter perfumed in heart, base, and top notes of aquatic and woody scents. The smell of stepping on the beach and breathing it all in so deeply that your ribs ache. As the letter’s wax seal melts off, you read and transcribe the letter into the passionate smile on your lips and the way you trust yourself with holding Jade’s hand. The letter reads: I think I want to spend the rest of my life with him.

That was only yesterday.

That was only yesterday. Now, that mental letter means nothing to you.

How quickly our opinions can change, you reflect, standing in Crowley’s office with a pearl of torment clutched in the bowels of a stomach ready to puke.

When you were summoned to Dire Crowley’s office, you were vexed more than anxious. In your head bounced around the theories on what under-the-table job the Headmaster was kindly electing for you to take care of. Another thirty plus stack of papers he did not want to write his signature on or another school activity that you would be generously put in charge of. You weighed the options of work as Grim (perched on your shoulder) weighed the options of what you would ask for as a reward.

“Tuna croquettes, Henchman, imagine the taste of those! When Crowley gives us our job, ask for those! Ask for tuna –”

“What even is a croquette? When did you learn a French word?” You can already guess the answer to the second question: if it involves food, not even a language barrier can stop Grim from learning about it.

“They’re these breaded balls of tuna that are deep-fried.” You stick your tongue out in disgust. “They look delicious. You can dip them in honey or put them on crackers. Oh, Henchman, you have to ask for them. And we should pick up more honey for home.”

“I’ll remember to pick up honey. I can’t promise any tuna coqu –”

“Croquettes.”

“Croquettes. You know, you need to stop watching food blogs or going on websites like Food & Wine. I found my phone opened up to twelves tabs of just food blog recipes last week.”

“I’m not the one browsing them. Jade is.”

“Well, I’m cutting both you and Jade off. You’re grounded from looking at food blogs together. I can only handle so many different ways to organize a bento box before I go crazy.”

“Henchman,” Grim whines, nuzzling his fur against your cheek. “But they all look so yummy.”

“Grounded,” you had declared just before pushing open the door to Dire Crowley’s office, knowing he was already expecting you. How you wish you could re-spark that easy conversation between you and Grim. How you yearn to have the foresight to ignore his summoning.Now, you stand in front of Crowley, frozen.

“He-Henchman,” Grim whines, trying to get you to speak or at the very least blink.

Blind-sighted is the only accurate description for you. Your eyes sit in your skull like wispy white spider eggs, paralyzed. If breathing were not a necessity, you would dare not even breathe. Vision blurring, you focus on the thin lips of Crowley underneath his raven masquerade mask, replaying all he had said. Salted water twitches on your bottom eyelashes.

After seven volatile overblots, the too close for comfort spell of comatose casted over the entire world, and two years of rapidly draining hope, you had a way to go home through the assistance of the Dark Mirror and Dire Crowley.

You think you really are going to puke.

The only thing that halts your throat from cleaning itself of previous dishes is the bite of Grim’s fangs on your cheek. Like four tiny needles, his fangs sink in with a vengeance. You startle back with a yelp, stepping back, fruitlessly because your attacker is still laying on your shoulder. “Grim, ouch!” Blood holds itself unsteady in the puncture mark before one droplet slides down your cheek. You bat him off your shoulder. “That hurt.”

Grim lands gracefully in the space between you and the Headmaster. He turns around on two legs, neck craning to look up at you. His eyes are wishing wells of cerulean blue. You know what that sorrowful color means without his frowning eyebrows telling you his thoughts indirectly. “You’re not planning on going are you, (Name)?”

You are not a fantastic multitasker but you might just find yourself puking and crying. The wobble in his voice as if his emotions were an earthquake. How were you to explain what it was to yearn for family when Grim’s only family was … his only family was you.

“Gr-Gri,” your bottom lip trembles.

You find yourself unable to do anything but react to physical pain. Speaking meant acknowledging it. Ignoring Grim’s question, you look up at Crowley, past his lips to those glowing eyes. “Headmaster, I –” Your words pitifully stop there. No section of your mind can construct a sentence and you cannot even say Grim’s name fully.

You look at him with child-like vulnerability. Vulnerability seen in the eyes of kindergartens who are squeamish that the world has become big — the world offering more than just their four walled home — and thus look up at their teachers for guidance. Nervous without their parents around. Sevens, you are only nineteen.

You cannot lie; I want to see them again.

Perhaps the desperation in your eyes is prominent because Dire Crowley quickly amends, “Now, this is not without some wiggle-room. I am not an unreasonable person! According to the Magic Mirror, you have exactly a month before the carriage arrives. Plenty of time!

“Now, I have done my part in delivering the news,” Crowley says jovially. Jovially as if he has not turned your entire world on its head.

“Wai –”

You stutter. A hand is already pressed firmly on the small of your back. Your body shudders with a riptide of thoughts. Thinking about the conditions of how you will get home, thinking about asking for an extension, thinking about how unfair it all is. After Tsunotaro’s overblot, you managed to accept your place in Twisted Wonderland and one raindrop day causes all that to shift into a storm.

All the conditions of Crowley’s instruction fight in your head. Five talons on your back fight to move your catatonic body. You feel as elastic as rubber and as stone as granite. Somewhere far away, you think you hear Grim hiss. What are you going to tell Jade? And with that horrible thought, you allow yourself to be pushed out of the office.

You think you feel Grim crawl back up to your shoulder but you feel as if some supernatural force has kicked you into the back of the line, kicked you out of your mind.

“Now (Name), please remember the Dark Mirror says this event only lasts for four hours. Think of it like a solar eclipse; it is a change of elements allowing this method to work. The carriage will ride past the –'' The rest of Crowley’s words waterfall out his mouth like white static. There is a strange ringing in your ears. You think you might pass out.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you wag your tongue, speaking words you will not remember tomorrow.

Crowley says something more but it is a breeze, wordless and untranslatable, before closing his door. You stare at the gradient of wood. There is an urge to knock on it again, worrying your memory is wrong and now is the first time you were called into Crowley’s office. But you know … how you know what reality this is. It feels like you left parts of your brain lobotomized and body amputated, lying beyond that gradient wood; missing parts of yourself.

You rub your cheek, a little blood gathering on your knuckle. Grim’s bite, you remember, bleeding as if you had dug into a pimple. “Huh? I.” Without fully gathering all the parts of yourself back up, you walk off after a breath of hesitation.

Grim hops off your shoulder as you two glide away. The physical burden of this situation is already a heavy weight on your shoulder, you do not need him adding to it. Observing that, Grim stays quiet on his two legs, keeping stride.

He feels his skin bubbling with questions. Your eyes are full of water refusing to fall. Will you two be returning to class or Ramshackle? You were called into Crowley’s office in the middle of Magic Analysis class. Would you really still have the fortitude to write up answers?

Your mind was swimming with something much more tantalizing than the differences of divination magic in users like the Fates to users like Jafar.

Grim watches you stop in the corridor. About two hallways away from Magic Analysis class. You stare ahead, blank and dollike; then, as if a horrid thought has passed into your mind, you move as fast as a scorpion.

For the briefest moment, horror is in your eyes. A tight, clenching hand flies up to your face, slapping itself over your mouth as if you are going to vomit or scream. You squeeze your eyes tightly together, doubling over at the hip. Nails dig (four on the left and one thumb on the right side) into your cheek, forceful enough to leave marks.

The pain is grounding.

Hyperventilating for no more than ten seconds, you suddenly straighten up, taking a deep breath. You put the thought away like a child pushing their shoes into a cubby. When you look down at Grim, your eyes are dry as his big blue eyes implore you to speak. Your body shakes slightly like you have goosebumps running up and down your skin.

“Henchman?”

“Tuna croquettes. What would you say if I made some tonight,” you give Grim an unsteady smile but your voice is magically even. “You’ll have to pull your weight and help me. It’s been a while since we cooked together, right?”

Heartslabyul is the first to know. Thus is the natural law of order.

There is probably an unconventional rule written down: lies can only be told on a Tuesday if the liar has prematurely prepared mealworms for the hedgehogs during noon … or … something eccentrically long like that. A rule only plausible for Heartslabyul standards. But you predicted, walking into Magic Analysis class yesterday, that Ace and Deuce were going to find out the truth first. Even if you were not prepared to tell them it.

The reveal was a far leap from graceful. Unplanned, your woes spilled out of Grim’s mouth, something about you not being there for finals. Sudden cobblestone hits your back. Wincing at the bite of the school wall, you wilt at the rapid fire of Ace and Deuce, not even getting space to speak, Ace starting:

“You only get a month! How long have you known!”

“Grim just told us you aren’t going to be here for finals, and he well – he!”

“He’s gotta be joking, right?”

“After Draconia’s overblot, I thought it was impossible to –”

“Prefect, I can not go through that again. I know I joke about sleeping forever. But those are jokes!”

“Ace! … But really how did Crowley and the Dark Mirror figure it out?”

“They haven’t contacted Briar Valley have they? Not even Crowley can be that suicidal.”

“I mean, I can totally understand if you want to go; we all have families but –”

“But you don’t want to go right, Prefect?”

“Ace, don’t just ask them that!”

“Oh shut it! Why shouldn’t I ask, you coward? No one else is gonna but us!”

“Wait, does anyone else know, (Name), besides Grim.”

“So no one else knows.” You nod. “Wait, when will you tell Jade?”

Never, a part of you thinks. Wanting to save yourself from the hurt, you judge wrongly that you can continue through this month without having to face Jade and tell him. You just want to avoid the pain. Cobblestone-made bruises hum on your shoulders, deep in reminder.

You did not even get to break the news in Ramshackle, away from prying eyes. When you finally got a word in edgewise, you were still pressed against the outdoor wall of Night Raven College. The walking crowd was gratefully small … yet you stayed anxious over the idea anyone else would find out. The college was a hunting ground for weakness and each dorm was not above spreading a rumor.

Your anger at Grim for revealing your predicament lasts only ten minutes. What good was fruitless anger when these might be your last days in Twisted Wonderland?

Eventually, the group of five in Heartslabyul come to know. If Ace and Deuce knew something, the information eventually falls like dominoes to Cater, Trey, and Riddle.

Even with two of the three away on their internship, the information was passed over. Your favorite cake appears glittering with magic residue on the porch of Ramshackle with a letter signed by Trey that leaves you shaking. Quotes on eternalism – specifically time’s finiteness – from books and poetry start to bloom on Cater’s Magicam stories, not enough to change his feed but enough to stir up suspicion, and you feel that pit in your stomach deepen.

Other than the five in Heartslabyul, you keep the predicament from everyone else. Tears welling up in Kalim’s eyes; disbelief writing itself on Ruggie’s face; the volume of Sebek’s concern mounting in your ears. You do not want to deal with any of it.

Jade … you do not want to even think of how that will blow over. Would you get tears? Most likely not. Would you be shouted at? No, you have not heard Jade really shout. Would his expression reveal his inner turmoil and disbelief? No, he is a master at schooling his expressions. So predictable yet not, you mourn, walking down the hallways to your next class.

When we are at the height of our most paranoid, we think that every conversation that we cannot hear is about us.

You reflect upon this philosophy as you walk. Whenever glancing or idle eyes fall upon you, you get this stabbing pain running itself through your spinal cord. Your heart spikes when you see Riddle interact with Silver in class, jumping to the obvious: they are talking about me. Lips move yet sounds are unheard; in response, your heart drums a solo of fortissimo fear.

About three-fourth through the day, you leave Grim who has been gluing himself to your side with Deuce. Citing that you are feeling unwell and need to go to the nurse. No one argues with your firm insistence that you do not need a guide.

Your feet carrying you to the Mostro Lounge is simply muscle memory. If you want to calm down, you go to Jade. Knowing his schedule too is all ingrained in you.

The host sits you in a booth pressed snuggly against the aquarium’s glass. Upon your request, he neglects to give you a menu or coaster. This one time you will not be dining. You know it will vex Azul, taking up space where a paying customer could be, but you will make him forgive you.

Underneath electric, pulsing blue lights, you sit like an egg in an incubator. Facing the stretching walls of a sixteen foot tall aquarium. Shielded and blanketed by cerulean and black shadows. Entirely still.

What are you going to do? More people will come to know – people you care for and would not like to be torn from. And they will try to gauge or guide your decision, perhaps do both at once. You abhor that idea. All you really want right now is someone to be your rock to latch to when there is a riptide around you, someone who will be calm in the stare of a calamity.

Questioning, your eyes trace the motions of a codfish. It is odd for one of them to be swimming off from the school. He swims on the very belly of the conjoined body the school has made, pressing the limits of harmony.

The yellow-olive codfish starts to break the formation completely. Curious thing. You wonder if it has a disease. Determined, the codfish swims to the bottom of the aquarium, tail dilating back and forth as it heads down. But if a fish has an illness, usually they float? Ah, you are no marine biologist so you can never tell.

Then, you finally spot what it wants. A mollusk resting against a rock formation, just shy of a fake shipwreck punched full of holes. The codfish descends down to it. Cold fingers go up to your lips, concealing a smile, effortlessly. Adopting his mannerisms, you think with a laugh. Ah … you really have been spending far too much time with Jade to the point where you mimic him.

You anticipate it this time. Sediment explodes in a puffing cloud. The codfish retreats almost comically. And, slowly like savoring his success, the moray eel slinks his head back through the cavern of the starboard, mollusk caught in his mouth.

“Chamomile tea. It is known to soothe even the most anxious of souls.”

To be honest, you would have expected that voice to be much closer. His chin hovering over your shoulder and teeth too close to your ear is typical. Turning to drink in the sight of him still in his waiter attire, you concede that you will have to get closer to him later.

You glance down at the ceramic, steam still rising from its watery mouth. “And you just happened to have it on hand?” It looks to be the perfect temperature too. The stream is not excessive or lacking.

“On hand, why of course. I anticipated you coming here today.”

You raise a brow.

“It actually belongs to Table 5.”

Smiling, you pick up the teacup. Warm ceramic nuzzles into your palms and you take a generous sip. Near you like a guiding presence, Jade watches with one hand over his heart and the other holding the tray behind his back. “Well, I say my soul is subsequently soothed now. Thank you.”

He bows, bent at the hip, like a chivalrous knight. “Now,” he says as he tucks the tray under his arm, pulling out his notepad, “I sure hope the scenery alone hasn’t brought you to us today. Would you like to order now or later?”

“Aw, why do I get on the clock Jade and not boyfriend Jade.”

“Because I am paid by the customer.”

“But aren’t I just priceless?”

“The special of the day is also priceless. Monkfish. Though I’m assuming lobster rolls sound more appetizing to you than monkfish piccata.”

You hear your stomach growl at the notion. You gasp when Jade’s pen starts to move across the paper. Leaning off the booth, you push at the side of his stomach, glaring playfully. “Hey, no writing! I’m here to freeload; don’t ruin that for me.”

Chuckling, Jade starts to lean down to you, teeth all on his display. He looks ready to bite at your lips, all mischievous and elevated that you will definitely bite back. Staring each other down, you startle suddenly at Jade’s next move. Quite quickly, Jade shoots back up, wincing with his gloved knuckle pressed under his nose.

“Jade?” You blink up at him as he furiously rubs the bridge of his nose. “Do you need a tissue?”

“No, I'm fine, my love.” He gives one last rub to his nose. “Felt a sneeze coming on.”

Looking at him unconvinced, you hum when Jade pushes your teacup of chamomile closer to you. Then, he grabs your right hand sweetly, squeezing it. Your eyes meet again. Sevens, you could fall into those eyes as easily as a suicidal man falls into a noose.

“Why don’t you drink some more and I’ll be back shortly with food for us?”

“Us? Aren’t you on the clock?”

“You’re stressed,” he states like he is noting that you are wearing a certain article of clothes. As if it is obvious. His thumb runs itself up and down the ladder of your tense knuckles. “It’s a little evident, dear.”

Panic writes itself on your face. “Is it really?”

“Hm, now it is.” Referring to the way your eyebrows clench and your voice whispers in fearful tones. A manipulative, proud smile crawls onto his face. “But I know your soul after all, so it is evident to me.”

Jade lets your hand go, making sure you rest it on the teacup. Urging you one last time to drink, he stalks off to get you both some food for an impromptu lunch together. You watch his back as he disappears into the kitchen, blue light raining down on him.

Sweet and mild dyed water runs down your throat, on a mission to relieve you of stress. When you have about half a cup left, you set it down, contemplating.

You were so grateful for Jade. If you were only friends with him, you would have told him about this first. Advice from a Leech with benevolent intentions is often the best advice. Even Floyd, who is very go with the flow, is so emotionally intelligent. And Jade … Jade would not pressure you to give his details about your misfortune but he would also not allow misfortune to ruin you. Refusing to intervene too early or too late. He is like that sacred rock in the riptide.

However, you and him are dating. That makes certain topics difficult to breach.

Chamomile tea still the ideal temperature, you stare back at your reflection in the liquid. They pull down their lips. Worry has gathered fast and voluminous in their eyes like ants crawling all across a dead mouse on the ground, coating the brown fur to a patchy, thick black. Sizing up a reflection, you reflect on previous conversation.

Chamomile tea. It is known to soothe even the most anxious of souls.

But I know your soul after all.

Souls. Soul.

Perhaps you can tell Jade what is going on, just without directly telling him.

The Ghost Camera is a bulky thing. All heavy brass, that precious metal silver, and nickel. It almost tumbled out of your hands and into water during Camp Vargas; you could only imagine the speed it would have sunk at if Floyd had shorter arms. Eventually, you stop carrying it daily after your first year. Yet, you refuse to part from it entirely, still taking photos when you have it on you.

Perhaps it is an effect of being born in the very early 2000s but you adore having photo albums. Your parents had ten of you alone, separate from your siblings, and half of your childhood on camcorder films. It is in your DNA to keep memories.

Or Memories as the fragments are called.

Though, you sympathize with Grim that a whole room of photo albums might be extensive. But you have a whole house to yourself! And Sam sold you photo album books at a very cheap price because no one at a college wants to have physical reminders of being at college.

And how they could become physical reminders.

There is no system for the room crammed with albums. You do not have not enough time to delegate a day to organize each album by person, dorm, or month. So, letting fate guide you, you pick up three books, cradle them in your arms, and announce to an unimpressed cover, “Okay, let’s do this.”

The Ghost Camera is unique. Takes ordinary, unsuspecting photos then does a full 180 by being enchanted with magic.

When the user photographs a subject, it photographs a part of their soul along with the physical form. Memories are those soul fragments. If a soulbond between user and subject comes to be, it allows Memories to move across the surface like twenty second animated clips. If a soulbond between user and subject deepens, Memories can slip out of the photograph and take on corporal forms.

One night you dreamt of chasing a rabbit and woke to Ace, who had slipped out of the photo, standing over your bed. How you screamed. Until he floated silently back into the photo you had on your nightstand.

Once, a fake Floyd had tried to juggle three glasses of spice in your kitchen before one had fallen through his flickering, tangible then not-tangible hand. Then, the Memory had the nerve to melt away, leaving you with three broken spice jars.

Malleus had once strolled down the hallways of Ramshackle, mumbling over the decorations you hang onto walls of a once abandoned building, before sliding down a hallway, never to be seen from again that day.

The only way you can feel a Memory from the real person is the lack of warmth. It is like stepping out of a toasty car at the peak of winter. Memories carry along with them an icy breeze, unable to be fully human.

Grim is in bed asleep, warm, and you really only have time to do this now. Walking down to the lobby, you slide your hand over the spine of the albums. If you can ask whoever is in here for their advice, you never have to reveal the situation until you are at the ready.

A dodge on your part but who readily jumps into despair?

You collapse on the couch. With the weight of the albums in hand, a horrid thought passes in your mind. Cinderella’s stepsisters and the glass slippers.

Cinderella’s stepsisters, you will always be like them. You will have to slice off your heel and toes — as if you are carving into an apple or slicing down into a row of carrots — to fit into the glass slipper of Twisted Wonderland. Of Sage’s Island. Of the Coral Sea and Queendom of Roses, if you ever visit. You walk magicless in a world of magic, limping while blood soaks the inside of your crystal heels.

The thing about mushrooms is that you cannot just plant one into a terrarium.

Originally, you were under the assumption that it was like moving flowers from bed to bed. Jade cleared up the misinformation for you. You could not grab a full-bodied mushroom, that had already lived a life outdoors, and stick it into a terrarium. Full-bodied mushrooms would come to reject the ecosystem. The key to get them to stay? The key was to get the mycelium into the ecosystem; without the support system underneath the soil, the mushroom would wither and leave in a few days.

As you rummage around in the bucket from your recent Sunday date with Jade, you know there is little you can do. Some would take and others would not. Shifting, latex-covered fingers stir through the rather common mushrooms, passing over maybe only two or three rare ones.

Apparently, the one you tried to pluck off the cliffside six days ago was poisonous to the touch. Not enough to be fatal but you would have gotten a nasty itch coating itself over your hand. Even with the latex on, you avoid touching it. Jade’s hand is still a pinkish-red after all.

Stupid Jade, you think fondly on the protective eel and take a mushroom out of the bucket.

Terrariums are beautiful but mushrooms are rather fleeting. As you start to crumple up the gold-hued chanterelle mushroom in hand, you reflect upon the matter. Take for example the terrarium tank you are working on currently in Jade’s dorm. He has three on his bed-side shelf: one cylinder, one spherical, and one square. The one you laid on his desk is the spherical one.

This one terrarium has housed pholiota adiposa, then albino pleurotus ostreatus, and now gomphus clavatus mushrooms (known as pig ears), and has probably housed more before you even knew Jade.

Mushrooms are decaying plants. It is nearly impossible to curate an enclosure that can house a certain fungi all year round. After a while, Jade simply scraped all that death up in his hand, threw it into the compost bin of the botanical gardens, and departed from it.

A part of you would never understand how Jade could deal with it. All that hard work only for it to naturally wither and go. You suppose he dealt with it because he adored change. Who would have thought? The always-in-control Jade Leech actually enjoys seeing things shift and change. You understood his love of a challenge though. His unfinished magnum opus was a terrarium breaking the laws of nature, trying to get nine species of mushrooms that mimicked a coral reef in one single environment.

“Each species of fungi have different growing conditions that they favor, so it is impossible for me to recreate all of these in the same ecosystem,” he once said.

“So why even try?”

“I think it is most enjoyable and eye-opening to covet after the impossible.”

He then looked at you like you were a meal, speaking double meanings with a honeyed tongue. Scandalous yet not, so you could never accuse him of being scandalous at any moment. Ah … even the memories of Jade could make your face feel warm.

Distracting yourself, you start to add little bites of the gold-hued fungi in hand, tucking them under the moss and placing them on the tree bark.

Jade’s unfinished magnum opus involved this glasshouse– the pig ears, gomphus mushrooms. Gomphus mushrooms could not be successfully cultivated as they are mycorrhizal, meaning they form a special relationship with their host plant. Two of the nine species he was working with for his coral reef terrarium were mycorrhizal, pig ears and indigo milky. And Jade finally got a mycorrhizal species of mushroom to sustain itself in an ecosystem made of glass. Proving the impossible was possible. A smile reaches your features, feeding more of the common mushroom in the terrarium so the pig ears could feast.

Though that one project was going to have a long way to go, you had faith Jade would be able to complete it, despite the ecosystem and biology of fungi fighting against him. Would you be there to share in that victory? You dip your hand back into the bucket, ignoring the squirming of your stomach.

The door clicks open.

You look up to be greeted with the sight of teal hair and spindly limbs reaching up to six feet and one inch. Tongue already forming around the ‘J’, you stop suddenly. One then two Dunhill shoes – costing more than you will ever keep in a month’s pay – are kicked across the pale lilac floor. You watch cap-toe shoes sumersault and tumble.

As he falls into bed with a groan, you greet, “Hi Floyd.”

“Shrimpy!” You blink in surprise as the exhaustion seemingly disappears out of Floyd. He props himself on his elbow, legs shuffling a bit further up the bed, and a predator’s smile pulls on his lips. Energetic at the sight of his twin’s significant other.

“Was wonderin’ why my bed was so neat,'' Floyd hums … and oh, he must still be exhausted, you observe. Lying back down in the bed you cleared of candy wrappers and sheets you straightened, Floyd slightly props his head up with his crossed elbows and a pillow so he can keep talking to you. “What ya doin’ here?”

“Just helping Jade with his terrariums. I wanted to repay him for the chamomile tea.”

“Shrimpy’s so sappy.”

“Hey, I just adopted the Octavinelle values. Can’t be walking around with a debt. Got to keep us on an even playing field.”

“Mmm … which ones?”

“The pig ears. They’re so volatile. I’m worried if they’re going to stay or not.”

“Is that what has Shrimpy so stressed?”

“Hm? I wouldn’t say stressed. Just trying to figure out how I should handle them.”

You pick another mushroom out of the bucket. Gomphus mushrooms were so sensitive. Cousin to chanterelles mushrooms, you could safely add the gold mushroom in – as you had just done. Looking down at the mushroom you now hold, you consider if it would be safe fertilizer for the pig ears. You do not want to jeopardize the delicate balance.

Under Floyd’s watchful eyes, you put the mushroom you picked up back into the bucket. You start to rummage again before the eel’s words interrupt your work. “So what’s got ya so stressed?”

Not catching his drift, you say, “Nothing? I’m not too stressed right now.” It is a true statement. Your body feels entirely at ease, just measuring how you can help here and there with the terrariums. You cap the glass enclosure with the glass cover. If Floyd wants to sleep, you should not impose.

“Ya smell stressed.”

“You’re a real gentleman, you know that, Floyd?”

Ah, that old reliable nose of an eel. Hiding a playful smirk, you sing, “Well, I’ll get out your hair so my musk doesn’t ruin your sleep. I was just about done with everything anyways. I think Jade’s going to use the rest of the mushrooms from our hunt to cook something.”

“I’m serious. Ya stunk ever since Tuesday and ya stunk real bad on Friday,” Floyd says in a low tone, eyes glued to your back. “Kinda still smells now too. Not as bad but still.”

You are glad you get the terrarium down safely on Jade’s bed-side shelf because your hands shake at Floyd’s words. Ah, that vexingly reliable nose of an eel. Trust their olfactory system to even pick up the stench of tension like a dog picking up frequencies unheard. You sit back down on Jade’s bed, spine facing Floyd.

“Just school stuff. Crewel’s been on my ass about a test. I need to get mine and Grim’s shared grade back up in Animal Languages. Things like that.”

You can lie successfully with your body, keeping it from tensing in betrayal. You can lie successfully with your vocal cords, keeping them even and precise. However, you found you can never lie eye-to-eye with Floyd. It did not matter whether the golden eye was on the left or right. Somehow that flaming, glittering sun burns you to the core and figures out the undeniable, obsidian truth.

Already, you are mapping the escape route. Just a quick spin off Jade’s bed, grab your phone from his desk, and exit out the door. Avoid his eyes at all cost as if is a predator, and that he is. Moving off the bed, you say, “Like I said, I’ll leave so my musk doesn’t –”

“(Name).”

Your eyes snap up; a gasp is pinched tight in your mouth. Floyd challenges you back with his luminesce eyes. Bristling a hissy cat, the back of your thighs hit Jade’s mattress and you whine, “I hate when you two do that!”

Floyd laughs. He laughs in his normal, nasally drawl instead of the deep, sinister tone that Jade has. As Floyd takes pleasure in your surprise at his perfect impersonation of his twin, you refuse to look at him. The gloating jerk. In a rush, you grab your phone just as Floyd starts to speak, “Ya always fall for it, Shrimpy. It’s cute.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Ya stressed around Jade?”

“No.”

“Really? Ya reek right now. All stressed out after hearin’ ‘Jade’ speak. Smells like wet dog and cigarette smoke.”

“I’m not stressed,” you argue, flipping on your phone to check the time. Above Jade’s head, white numbers stare back at you, 4:43, and you watch it change to the next minute with a scowl. The screen goes black; angelic numbers and the photo of Jade leaning over Ramshackle’s oven, cooking a meal for your one year anniversary, disappear. “Look, I’ll –”

The words die in your throat when you and Floyd lock eyes. He knows I’m scared but just not of what. You cannot blame Floyd with the way his mismatched eyes narrow, little squinting fireballs of suspicion. He is only looking after his twin.

“I just need a little time before I can tell him, okay?”

“Kay, Shrimpy.”

Glance around the bedroom; check that you got everything in hand. You lock eyes with yourself, heart agonizing in your chest like a clawed talon has made it its footstool. Your happier, lighter face smiles back at your crinkled expression. Frozen in mirth. Stuck in a moment of easy breathing and thoughts. The photograph on the desk of you and Jade taken from the Ghost Camera. Only one of you looks at the lenses and the other stares down at the person pulling them into the surprise photo.

Uneasy thoughts fill your head. This is the photograph Jade wakes up to every morning. He had even cut Azul and Floyd off the edges of the polaroid, chuckling evilly when Floyd gapped and Azul sneered, instead of just folding them off the edges. Always wanting to get a reaction.

Would the facsimile of your soul one day be all that was left for Jade to keep? A photo that might fleetingly speak the words of your heart to him. You imagine it with a wince: Jade talking to a facsimile of you, empty of your warmth, but still there. Staying when you would not.

I don’t want that for him. I don’t want that for me!

I want to see them again.

Gomphus mushrooms. School assignments. The dinner you have to cook. Whatever lingers in your brain, you try to focus on it to distract yourself from the conflicting yearnings of your soul. Eventually, you will come to tell Jade. It might be procrastinated upon already, but better late than never. When you left the Leech twins shared bedroom, you did not realize how right you were. Eventually, you did come to tell Jade. You told him that very night, at 2:13 A.M., on the porch of Ramshackle.

You have not been sleeping well since Crowley broke the news to you. Everyone knows this. The concern is clearly written in Ace and Deuce’s faces when you two have classes and lunch together. Epel gives you the caffeine and Vitamin C eye-roller that he never used his first year. Sebek and Jack take to allowing their large hands to be the barrier between your cheek and a cold desk that might startle you awake.

Crawling out of bed, swollen eyebags aching like a bruise, careful to let Grim sleep, this is normal now.

Stumbling feet successfully walk themselves down spiraling stairs. One foot by one foot. Out of the corner of your lidded eyes, ghosts move like the undulating waves of a storm, pellucid bodies pulsing without a heartbeat. Sweat rolls down your neck, soaking into the nook of your collarbone. You miss the last step, bump hard into the wall, and that is all it takes. You start crying.

Uncertain of why you are down on the first floor instead of the second, you cry and cry, confused. When did you get out of bed? Your only answer is the raspy noise your mouth exhales. The loose t-shirt that is three sizes bigger than yourself is constricting and choking you.

The waterfall on your face continues steady even when the warm breeze of spring-turning-summer fights against it. You would take in a deep breath of fresh air if each breath you did take did not feel like drowning. Engine lungs refuse to start smoothly, instead churning with gasps and coughs of water.

I want my Momma. I want my Jade. I want my Dad.

Your butt falls heavy on the steps of Ramshackle, knowing there is no one coming for you. There will no longer be any hortative, glowing green fireflies coming to save you tonight. You sit there, presuming you will fall asleep from the exhaustion of weeping.

You feel like you are on a boat. A boat in the middle of a snow-globe. Turning and turning is fruitless because the sight is never changing eternalness: blue waves and a lighter blue sky. Color that cuts into sadness. Color that swallows. You can pirouette, jump, do handstands, but the sight remains. Blue on blue. On a boat that you do not even attempt to steer because there is no direction you want to go in.

Your mother once said she was so in love with your father that she knew he was the one because she would put him above her parents. Never getting enough of each other. Time spent with him was just better than time spent without. Better than being with her own parents.

That is love; when you find your person, you put them above everything else.

The iron gate to Ramshackle creaks.

You would like to say you watch Jade Leech climb up the cobblestone path to Ramshackle, thinking about the definition of love, but you cannot see past your tears. All you see is an emulsified blur of black, teal, and dark green water. Furious hands whip at your face. Eyes red and face warm, you look up. He is still a haze of skin, hair, and clothes sliced into little horizontal lines of color.

“Ja-Jade?”

“Pardon me if it sounds odd … but I heard you crying in my dorm. Of course, you weren’t there. But it still made me anxious so I decided to check.”

You sniff, scrubbing your eyes harshly to clear them.

“And here, I do find you crying in the exact same volume and manner.”

“Sorry. I —”

“Nonsense. You need not apologize for your tender disposition.”

“Sorry,” you say again. You drop your head at Jade’s exaggerated look. The exaggerated look on his face is only a squinting of his eyes. However, you can decipher and tell the differences between the twenty eye-squints Jade Leech can make.

You keep wiping away tears as Jade sits down by you on the porch. Vision clear, you smile at the rare sight of Jade in his pajamas. Oh, those are the fleece pants you bought him with a blue flannel pattern. A bit comforted by that, you lean into him as he rests an arm upon your shoulder.

“If my own disposition is not seen as rude, what is troubling you? You are not known for being so out of sorts. Crying is one thing, crying outside Ramshackle at 2 o’clock is another.”

“Do you think I smell?”

The smile grows a bit on your face as Jade quickly tries to submerge a laugh with his hand.

“Sorry, that was ah, a bit unexpected.”

“Heh, I know.”

“But?”

“Floyd made a comment early. I smell like stress.”

“Well, I would be lying if I said I hadn’t noticed too.”

“I think I could tell when you pull back from that kiss all the sudden. The sneeze excuse wasn’t very convincing.”

“Come now, I am an excellent actor.”

“Not around me.” You warm up when Jade trails his hand up and down your arm. Not around me. I can always read what is on your mind, Jade.

“Ah and there goes my dreams of being the first eel-mer movie star. Why are you so cruel, my love? Crushing a poor eel’s dreams?”

“Ah, my apologies,” you say remorselessly. Playful, your hand falls into Jade’s hand. You take to drawing swirls and seashells into the rough, warm center of his palm. Above, a few droplets of water start to sprinkle out of the sky. A slight change in the weather as you start to draw more seriously.

“Thank you.” He plants a kiss on the crown of your head. It settles on you like a flower petal, soft. “Now, would you like to tell me what has made you so incredibly stressed? I can be very patient, forewarning.”

“When you graduate, where do you want to live, land or sea?” You watch three droplets hit Jade’s hand, feeling a few pepper themselves on your shoulders and back. You take one droplet and smooth it out into the image of a starfish. That is not what you wanted to come out of your mouth. However, the chronic worry you have had about graduation slides out of your mind easily.

In the dust of rain, you listen to Jade’s answer. “If I were to choose … between land or sea … why that certain is a weighty question. And to think you have been all alone in your musing about it. How sobering, I cannot even imagine such a barnacle of a thought.”

“You’re stalling.”

“Hah, I can never keep things hidden from you, can I? Let me think.” He cannot draw up an arm to his chin but he definitely has that same contemplative look on his face. As rain kisses his crown, he slowly says, “Both land and sea come with advantages. Though I have only known land for three years, it has gifted me with wonderful consequences that I have never thought I of all merfolk would know.”

“I’m a consequence?”

“Quite. My favorite consequence,” Jade replies tenderly. “The sea can be seen as inhospitable to visitors. I happen to enjoy the cold and dark where others do not. I suppose I would have to measure the decision through memories. Am I fonder of the memories of my childhood or am I fonder of the memories of my education?

“I still have the chance to cultivate and reap the benefits of my education, unlike my childhood which is long gone. But, in the end, I would want both land and sea. And somehow, I would find a way to make that possible, no matter ecosystemic limits.”

You wilt as the rain starts to grow more constant. A few twenty or so dots of water are not gathered on Jade’s palm. Taking the abundance of paint, you draw the face of an eel with the water. “But it would matter: the consequences and the people you could possibly leave behind.”

“Your worry is about whether I would stay with you or my family?” You cannot nod because that is selfish of you, pushing your dilemma onto your boyfriend. Jade can tell what exactly the root of your stress is even as you draw. Leaning to be heard better over the rain, he says, “I would never leave you, (Name).”

“Crowley found a way to send me home.”

Jade tenses up. You wilt when the canvas of his hand suddenly changes , hand gripping your hand in a tight, binding hold.

“Pardon?”

“Crowley, he found a way to send me back to my home. I–” The clouds of your eyes grow heavy. “I don’t know what to do, Jade.”

Holding hands, you look up, hoping the answer can be found on Jade’s face. He is the decision maker in the relationship, picking the food you eat, offering advice on homework; Jade always has this way of knowing how to solve anything. His expression; you need to see so it can guide you.

Oh.

Oh. That is not good.

Profile stone and staring off into the dark beyond Ramshackle, Jade is unreadable to you. You wilt a third time.

“Cater’s been talking about getting Kalim to throw one huge going away party. I told him you would really enjoy it if the Pop Music Club played Supertramp’s Goodbye Stranger during it.”

That sentence gets you to stop cutting the strawberries. Jaw dropping, you turn towards Trey’s villainous smirk as he pretends to innocently pipe frosting on the second cake. Only his profile faces you, acting arrogant to your mortification. “You … absolutely did not.” The response you get is the crinkle of Trey’s cheek as he tries to push down his smile.

You whack him, taking vindictive joy in the icing that runs down the side of the mousse cake, and shout, “You jerk!”

“Hey, I just think the Ramshackle Prefect should go out with something memorable.”

“Isn’t being magicless enough?”

Trey takes to fixing the frosting as he replies, “You know Cater won’t do something so big without permission. He might just livestream all of it.” He picks back up the icing bag to resume and cover up the slight imperfection. “Would a party really be so bad?”

“Goodbye parties defeat the whole purpose of the word party,” you grumble. One by one, you plant the scales of cut strawberries on top of the strawberry tart. They extend out in the space of a lotus. “I’d be covered in tears and snot by the end of it. Ugh.”

“Hm, I suppose I see what you mean.”

Trey and Cater, after being alerted of the news with your permission, manage to return to Night Raven College from their internships for the weekend. The use of magic makes it easy for them to travel in quickly, popping by for an unbirthday party.

Currently, you and Trey prepare the strawberry tarts (as is customary for unbirthday parties) and a chocolate mousse cake (as is customary for you to enjoy). Riddle has meticulously plotted out each faucet of this unbirthday party. Nostalgically, he reminds you a lot like his old tryantical self, barking orders as his stress rockets, meticulous to give you the perfect unbirthday party. When asking where you were wanted, Trey happily scoops you up before anyone else can.

Playing catchup, you and Trey talk about a wide variety: how his internship is going, new recipes or meals you two have been introduced to or learned, the shenanigans of Ace and Deuce that Trey missed, and how your shared friend Jade Leech is doing.

To be frank, you enjoy Trey’s company a lot. Despite being a graduate of NRC, he makes you feel the closest to home. Normalcy. He expels this aura of normalcy that is absent from the rest of the student body. Pearly white, non-serrated teeth smile at you. Regular brown eyes shimmer behind his glasses. Within his presence, it is easy to masquerade around with the facade that NRC is a quotidian college. Protected by the walls of the kitchen, you can forget about the flamingos being used as croquet mallets and the magic pens waving through the air.

You are kicked from this fantasy comfort when Trey asks you for a favor. As Grim happily slurps up the leftover frosting from the plastic bag, a question is posed. “Can you do me a favor and grab the chocolate sprinkles?”

“Ah, of course.” Back on the paper plate goes your knife and quarter sliced strawberry.

You turn to where the shaker of chocolate sprinkles lies. Ah, unfortunately it is on a pretty high up shelf. No matter, you stretch out your body and reach. Fingers only scrap the glass surface. You move to your tiptoes, stomach pinched by the countertop.

“Don’t worry, Henchman! I got it!” On stubby legs, Grim stands up from his spot on the counter. He squints at the cabinet overhead and stands on his tiptoes too. He makes it about halfway less than your reach. Ribs pressing into Grim’s fur, you stretch out like an uncoiling snake.

You watch your finger slide down the glass. So close. You stretch when the sprinkles container suddenly starts to move. Putting your hands in front of your face in the shape of a triangle, you instantly coil back into a tight position and squeeze your eyes close. The impact never comes.

A wary eye opens and watches as the red glow of Trey’s pen and the sprinkled shaker that floats over the mousse cake. No matter how much you pretend, no matter how many times you stumble into your boring Wonderland, hoping all the magic is gone, it always comes back to catch you by surprise. Normalcy … you cannot get that back unless you go home.

Trey notices how eerily silent you are as you go about cutting up strawberries and hanging some of the banged up fruit to Grim. There is only one mousse cake but plenty of tarts waiting to be served in the kitchen. Well, it can’t hurt. “Here. For you.” You blink as two empty plates are put in front of you. “The piece of cake, or tart, typically goes to the Housewarden. However, I doubt Riddle will be too mad at this development.”

“Only been gone from Heartslabyul one semester and you’re already breaking rules,” you gasp with fake terror.

He simply puts a finger to his lips, eyes shining under his glasses. Trained, he empties a slice from each sweet with deadly, applause-worthy accuracy. Two confectioneries are put on the plates in front of you. As calm as an executioner, you stare at the two slices: a tart with scales of strawberries running across it and a cake with layers of mousse and bread laddering across it.

And you suddenly know this is something deeper than just picking which treat you want to eat. Ah, Trey Clover is a Night Raven graduate after all.

Under watchful amber eyes, you pick up your fork.

“Ha greedy, aren’t you?”

You admonish Trey for his teasing comment. Balancing the two sweets on a fumbling fork, you take the biggest bite of the overlap. Chocolate stains your lips. Despite that, it is the strawberry tart that you taste first.

“Aren’t I the unbirthday girl/boy? I get to be greedy!” You grin like Grim does and stab back into the confectioneries. Your fork picks off a bit of the mousse then moves to scoop off a bit of the tart before returning to your mouth. So what if you are greedy for wanting both? You can make a Wonderland for yourself.

Right?

A week and a half left. A week and a half passed. Time falls on a perfectly split down the middle day. Wednesday, the day Mountain Lovers club meetings fall on.

As time marches on, voices become more vocal about wanting you to stay. The Unbirthday party had gone swimmingly with a few rough waves. You sympathize with it. Yet you feel you have to be so careful when conversing about it, any wrong word might cause anyone to jump to a conclusion. So, with the loss of sleep, you are also talking less.

You wonder if everyone takes your silence as a sign you have made the definite answer.

Not everyone though. Jade Leech. Jade is the only one not acting erratically. When no filter Ace had asked him to agree with them he wanted you to stay, the eel-mer had only put a hand on your shoulder, picking you up after the Unbirthday party, and said, “Why that is not in my expertise to answer. I’m afraid that I would have to vote for a no comment statement.”

Calm, level-headed Jade. Calculating Jade. How you adore that detached yet sly nature of his. He is the sight of land after days of aimless traveling blue waters. He is chamomile tea on a sleepless night. He is a neat white pill of xanax.

And today, you are blessed to bask in that tranquil presence after school. Waiting to be received after knocking on his dorm door, you think upon it. No interrogation. No stress. Just you and him, hunting and sketching mushrooms. You even picked up a new set of charcoal pencils at Sam’s Shop for today. You light up when the dorm door opens.

“Ja – oh, hi Floyd.”

Something has set off Floyd. It is evident in the deep scowl cutting itself on his face. His discord eyes are dull. His posture is slouching like a deflating house made of bad wood. When you spoke, you even saw his hand twitch into a fist. Instead of attacking, Floyd blinks down at you and sighs out, “Sorry Shrimpy.”

Your grip on your bag tightens. “Um, why are you apolog –”

“Hello (Name).”

A little of that happy fire comes back to your soul. Smiling, you look behind Floyd to see Jade dressed in his pair of cargo pants and lightweight thermal henley. Foraging bag slung over his shoulder, he is like a breath of fresh air, the normalcy that sweats from him. “Hi honey,” your smile is innocent.

You only notice it for a brief flicker of time: a nasty glare directed from olive and gold eyes to mirroring gold and olive eyes, so hateful that your heart pats in worry that you might witness a fight between them. Then the loathing bleeds out of Floyd. He nudges you out the way, stomping down into Octavinelle’s halls.

“I’ma go. Can’t stomach watchin’ this.” Words that depart with Floyd.

“Jade?”

“What are you doing here, (Name)?”

Your stomach drops. “I - uh,” your neck is growing foolishly warm, you have not heard Jade speak so monotone in a while “, well, today is Wednesday and so I came to – uh.”

“Did my lack of response not clearly indicate that I would not be needing you for this hike?”

Further and further, your stomach sinks. You know what he is referencing, the single text you sent about thirty minutes ago: Did you want me to bring anything for tonight? It was just a quick check-up on your part. It is unlike Jade to take more than ten minutes to respond to you.

“I just thought you were busy.”

“No. I was trying to indicate that I would not need you on this particular night.”

“But … but this is our thing.”

Much like Floyd, Jade nudges you on the way. You stumble, staring at the expanse of his shoulders and back. He refuses to turn around, “Yes, but if I am to be alone in the Mountain Lovers club for the rest of my third year, then I should slowly wane off your company. A rational decision, yes?”

A hairline fracture snakes itself up your heart. Splatting, your stomach lands on the ground. Jade will not turn around to look at you. You look down your own foraging bag where those new, suddenly silly charcoal pencils lie.

“Um, yeah, that does actually make a lot of sense.”

“I will see you tomorrow though. So don’t fret so much.”

“I’m not fretting.”

“I know you won’t. That’s what I admire about you.”

And then, he leaves, back still a wall facing you. Perhaps you do not adore that detached yet sly nature of Jade’s in its entirety.

It is only natural that things decay. Jade knows that. Observed it happen with mushrooms a hundred plus times. Brown rot, soft rot, white rot. The fear of rot gives way to the fear of death. Death: that final departure. He wonders if when you inevitably step through into the carriage, ebon stallions with steely gray eyes as cold as the Grim Reaper’s scythe carting you away forever, if it will be like death or decay.

Jade knows you will not stay. Who would? So he is going to do better by you right now, be kinder and more unaffected, after tonight. He just needs this solitude for a few hours.

Memories of his twin’s face are dancing in Jade’s mind when he really wants to be focusing on you. It cannot be helped. They fought physically before, but never departed from one another still needing to fight. They would have fought. They should have fought. It was only the knowledge that you were arriving in fifteen minutes that kept them shouting at each other.

Floyd thought Jade was doing wrong by you.

Jade told Floyd to stay the fuck out of his relationship.

“Dad always said you were the fuckin’ coward of the family.”

Jade should have thrown a punch there. Walking down the hiking trail, he feels the knot of nails into palms. Easily falling back into the therapy of forming fists, Jade relocates his hands to the strap of his bag. Not yet. He cannot get destructive yet.

“You’re not gonna even fight for them!”

No. Jade was not because he knew your soul. It would only be natural for you to return home. It would only be natural for him to return to the sea. It is only natural for things to decay, Jade reminds himself as he finally makes it deep enough into the thicket of Sage Island’s forest.

Not this though. I wanted this to stay.

“Nothing to be done except support them.”

Jade says this to a peculiar looking tree as he removes the forage bag off his shoulder. He deposits it down by a peculiar looking rock. He is a master of nature but it is better to have landmarks for his belongings. Rolling up the sleeve of his thermal henley, the skeletal eel tail and filigrane ends of the waves tattooed on his left side peek shy from the rolled cotton.

“Nothing to be done.” He finalizes the word with a nod. Then, he breaks off the path into a brisk jog.

Jade has gotten much better with the usage of legs since freshman year. Experience conducts improvement. None of them had quite taken to it fluidly. Jade can still remember when he tried stairs for the first time, shaking like a lamb, yet still finding the ability to laugh smoothly when Floyd fell down them. Though Floyd had laughed even harder at Jade when he experienced his first calf cramp, thinking he had been shot. Thank the Sevens most of their blunders had been in training camp, away from ill-intent eyes.

I hate fighting with my brother, Jade thinks as he moves slightly to the right to avoid a rock too big to jump over. He keeps pumping his arms and jogging.

Fighting is natural for moray eels. You have to fight in the Coral Sea to keep what you covet. It is not like Jade is lacking that urge to change the situation and make you stay. But this situation? It is too close to resembling a scenario where a person quits a job for the sake of their wife’s promotion; or someone changes their dream college to settle with the one their boyfriend is choosing to attend.

This is something I cannot put up a fuss about. Jade passes a blackberry bush and tries to stomp out the memories that come with it.

Your excited face — hand-feeding him some berries — laughing as you gather them up — pouring them into a muffin tin — a sweet and tart memory

You have to do what is right for you, not him, not Grim, not anybody else. He should not infer or try to influence you this upcoming week and half. Jade takes a meaningless right turn, trying to get lost deeper in the woods.

Yet as he falls deeper into the thicket of trees, spores, rocks, and leaves, he finds memories returning to him:

The smell of you, distinctive like red to a bull, swimming in the college hallways or in Mostro Lounge.

The look of pride on your face when you find yourself able to read his true intentions better than all but two of the student body.

The feel of the first time Grim chose his lap over yours, a reluctant purr vibrating against the cotton of his gloves.

The sound of you shuffling morning sheets and the sensation of the kisses you press to his face to arouse him from sleep.

Your smiling voice left like a voicemail —

— That happy world tumbles down upon Jade like a Jenga tower, suddenly unreachable, as he too tumbles. A loose tree root snags his foot; ground flies towards him. Barely expecting it, Jade gasps as cold and wet hits his face.

Mud. Mud from the previous days’ rain presses itself to his face, soaking into his cuts and unraveled hair. Throat undulating, Jade starts to spit back the wet dirt he had taken from the earth. The crust of sediment coats his lips like a cosmetic. He watches brown saliva bubble under him.

Jade’s hands embrace the ground as he positions himself up on all fours. He watches his hand. Cold blue of his veins like the tassels of a jellyfish. Red-pink heat of his knuckles and palm bed. Contrast to the pale calcite-like bloodlessness of his skin. All of his skin ill-fitting. Pale dough splitting apart in gaping ovulate mouths. Himself. Splitting apart down to the last atom.

I – I – I –

He can barely feel his frozen body move as he lifts up one fist. Mud-stained teeth grit. His fist flies in a frenzy. Two, five, seven, eleven, twelve, fifteen. Moving like an electric chisel, Jade punches and punches and punches into the ground until a tiny crater is left into the earth where he fell.

It is not enough and Jade knows it. He pulls his hand back, chocolate-dipped with mud and leaking from the new wounds a rock had given him, as he sits on his haunches.

Both of his hands go up to his face, covering off where open mouth breathes flicker out of him. It is not enough.

As if he was kicked into the back of line; as if he has lost his mind; Jade jumps up with a spark, turns towards the nearest tree, and punches it. Pain splits down his arm like lightning and it feels calming. Now, red is flowing in equal measure with the brown. He wants to do it again. He wants to fight until his fiery soul is extinguished.

People think him so different from his twin. Floyd and Jade are the same; both yearn for a good fight now and then. Jade simply hides just a small percentage better than his brother, under a sheep’s skin like an ill-fitting and tearing apart in oval holes.

There is no need to wear that soft suit when he is alone, in a far off corner of Sage’s Island that no one is going to be at this hour.

Jade goes through the motions of his emotions, all of them rocking him as violently as Charybdis’s whirlpool. His fist falls like a meteor into tree bark. Hair is pulled and yanked, just to give him the satisfaction of pain. The ground stirs at the violence of his long legs. Finds a rock, kicks it. Finds a bigger rock, kicks it harder. Trying to break one of his toes.

His hand flows through wet leaves and mud, grabbing a stray branch. Jade turns towards a different tree. “FUCKING SHIT!” Slices his branch down like a claymore, a hum of satisfaction blooms up as the thick twig breaks into an explosion of wooden chunks with a deafening crack.

“FUUUCKAAAARRRGGG!” He shouts back at the answering wilderness, two inhuman sets of teeth on display. A vein in his neck strains with the pressure of his harrowing, soul-tearing screams.

When Jade returns to his dorm, covered in mud and blood, he finds Floyd asleep. It seems his twin found his own way to relieve himself from the cliffhanger urge to fight. Jade mourns that because he has not. His own energy and need to fight seems as vast as the ocean in his anxiety of losing you.

He wants you to stay.

“He wants me to leave. I can see it in his face. He wants me out of his life, and this is the ideal situation to do it without directly saying it. Agh, he is such a coward at times. And what’s worse! Is that he keeps acting like nothing is wrong. He took the hike alone and came back like nothing was wrong. Same old Jade. Not a word of the situation. Oh God, what if he does want me to leave,” you lament, shaking.

A tissue box is nudged closer to you. You stir, looking up from the hands you had shelled up your crying face into. With a sniff, you grab a tissue, “Thank you.” You blow your nose and settle back into the loveseat.

Kleenex clutched tightly in hand, you continue speaking a voice clogged with tears, “You know, I’ve been wondering why Jade won’t let me in. He obviously has an opinion on the situation yet he isn’t saying it. So then, I start thinking he is being petty because I didn’t come to him about the situation first. Like maybe he thinks I don’t trust him with that information. But it was so hard to talk to him about because he’s my boyfriend. And I just want to talk now but I’m so scared about what he will say.

“I could always read him before. I just somehow knew what he was thinking at times. Now, I feel like he’s a jigsaw puzzle missing a piece yet I don’t even know what the picture is of anymore.”

You hesitate and pass the moment by blowing your nose again. “Honestly, I feel like that too.” With teary eyes, you look towards your confidant. He gives a tiny huff of his snout, chin resting on the loveseat’s armrest between you. His big brown eyes simply stare wistfully at you.

“Are you going to communicate that to him or just to Pongo?”

Eyes drawn away from Pongo, Crewel’s dalmatian, you glance towards the opening of the kitchen connecting to the living room. Your professor is deep enough inside the adjacent room where you cannot see, only hear him. You reply, “I’m trying to keep us on amicable terms. I don’t want him to think that I’ve made the decision to leave.”

“Then, tell him that very sentence, pup: I have not made the decision to leave yet. If you start off with that then you can continue on with explaining the rest. Do you think he has already thought you have made the decision yet,” Crewel says as he walks out of the kitchen.

He carries a platter out in his lavious living room. Crewel is much more of a casual manner of dressing; a devil-red button-up with a silk evening tie, ebon with engravement of flora. He puts the platter down on the table in front of the two chairs, scolding Pongo off his chair.

“That’s just the thing: I can’t tell what he is thinking anymore. I never really understood what Ace, Deuce, and Grim meant when they said they couldn’t really read Jade’s true intentions. Now, I feel the exact same way. Just second-guessing everything that comes out of his mouth,” you vent as Crewel accesses your bad posture.

He must feel generous because he makes no note of it. “Well, mind-reading is a magical skill that not many mages master. So, though it is unfavorable, we have to learn to trust words at face value.”

“You say that if he is not Octavinelle’s vice-housewarden. Words are Jade’s sword. And he knows better than anyone that words can be manipulative, exploitative, and false. Since I didn’t come to him first, he is going to think –”

“Octavinelle students at their best are deeply intune with the world around them. That young pup is Octavinelle’s vice-housewarden because he is deeply observant and intuitive … and deeply sympathetic. I agree that words are his sword. A sword can be used to defend and help too. Do not restrict it.”

You wait until you have finished chewing around the carrot chip in your mouth before you speak, “I know that. To me, those are some of his best qualities … But! Octavinelle students work to solve problems. Jade hasn’t even given me his thoughts on my problem.”

“Perhaps he feels that if he says a certain thing, you will resent him. Or you will suddenly pick your decision because of what he says. I’m certain he wants you to make the decision for yourself.”

“But he’s one of the main reasons this is so hard to decide upon. Him and Grim.” Crewel’s face scrunches at the mention of your troublesome cat. “I love Jade dearly and I think of Grim as family. I know Grim’s thoughts. I cannot read a single thought on Jade’s face.”

Your eyes fall down to the floor, suddenly too damp to maintain proper eye-contact. “It is like he is shutting me out while staying robotically in the same relationship we had.”

In your ribcage, the valves and arteries of your heart give a painful jerk of agony. As if noticing, Pongo empathically rests his head upon your knee. You greet him with a soft whisper, stroking down the crown of his head to his neck. You are still shaking.

“Nothing happens when you do nothing, pup. If you keep shuffling your feet upon the matter, eventually, when it comes for you to decide, you will be making a decision purely from your soul and nothing else. But that won’t give you closure. It won’t be good for you.”

“I don’t want Jade to resent me. I don’t,” you bit back a cry. Harshly, you pick up a tissue and press it over your eyes. After a few deep breaths, you manage to gain yourself before you slip down a watery, steep incline of the mountain of your emotions.

“If neither of you talks to each other, nothing grows. Nothing changes unless one of you manages to talk to the other.”

“It’ll be such a painful conversation.”

“The ones that reap the most rewards are often the most painful of them all.”

You look up, eyes still incredibly wet. Crewel’s eyes resemble something like dark storm clouds. That color would suggest a bit of hardships but his advice flows off him naturally. You cannot look at Crewel like he is a surrogate father if you chose this world over your own. But, you will hold onto this relationship fondly, if this world is the one you stay in.

“I want him to know my soul again. I want to be able to read his soul again.”

Sometimes, Jade seems like a mountain. A bit too poetic comparing a hiker to the very structure they climb but it is suiting. Height aside, he is out of reach frequently. Scaling him – boots slipping on sediment walls, fingers bleeding with each desperate grab of sharp rocks – had been a trail as harsh as Everest. The view from above is breathtakingly beautiful and a sweet reward trumping all others.

Your first kiss felt like being on top of a mountain.

Mountains are rewarding but they are still mountains. A simple slip on slick rock and you bust open the crown of your head like a senile king or an old ram. Incredibly foolish of you to trust a jagged summit to keep you safe.

Right now, he seems quite like a mountain. You worry over each of your premedicated steps in approaching this. Sizing up which indent of rocks you are going to trust putting your weight on. One breaking underneath you will not end it. Two breaks though … Jade might pull away from you.

Studying the eminence of his back, you pick yourself up from Ramshackle’s couch and start the hike.

Jade does not even jump when you wrap yourself around his torso. You trap him in with an embrace, X-ing arms over his chest, underneath his arms. Steadfast, Jade continues with slicing long strips of fat into precise, 12 millimeter squares. Over the side of his arm, you look at the air-tight bag of hog casing and chop onions sizzling on the stove.

“Smells delicious. You look really good when you cook.”

“You say that no matter what I do.”

“Well, I can’t help that my boyfriend’s good-looking and I have to tell him so. It is just natural that I let you know.”

“Ah, then I thank you for the wonderful insight,” Jade says, all coy allurement in his voice. His knife falls and repositions itself to the start of the sausage, again and again like a guillotine at the height of revolution. “Can I ask you to add these in the skillet? I think you happen to look delectable when cooking too.”

“Good enough to eat?”

All you get is a quick flash of teeth, playfully biting air, as you reach over Jade’s body to grab the bowl he gestured to. You smile warmly. In the bowl lies chopped shallots, parsley, scallions, and a dozen more minor ingredients that you can identify. You take them, dumping them into the skillet. A tantalizing smell rises up to you along with a cloud of steam.

Taking a spatula, you start to stir the mixture. What is on the pan bubbles and cooks. As you maneuver the ingredients to burn evenly, you cannot help but think this is exactly what you wanted to avoid.

The environment of normalcy.

The ease of talking to Jade.

What a foolish thing to want to ruin, you sneer as you push at ginger and grounded cloves. But those two things have a masquerade mask slipped over them. Neither of you have brought up the issue once since the time you spent past midnight on Ramshackle’s porch.

“Jade?” Jade hums, letting you know he is listening. Your hundred questions feel like acid in your throat. “What are we making?”

“It is Boudin Noir de Lyon. A French blood sausage. I’ve only attempted it twice before.” With his knife, Jade points at the long glass of goose blood that you have on your counter, next to the bag of hog casing.

“Ah, I see.”

To be honest, you were unaware you had the components in stock to make Boudin Noir de Lyon. Sometimes, Grim and Jade just showed up with bags upon bags of food or food ingredients. You could understand why Azul wanted Ramshackle as a second Mostro Lounge. Shelves are bottomless and the kitchen is so spacious after your remodel.

It is a house wasted on you. You can easily look around and imagine all those industrious chefs roaming around, cooking and serving. Would Jade be content with the tradeoff?

“Jade?” This time you are going to try to go in and not dodge the subject again.

“Yes, my love?”

“You once said eels mate for life. Was that just sweet talking or is that a fact?”

“I thought the biology of merman species didn’t interest you much.”

You remember that, saying that you did not need biology to let you know that Jade liked you very much and you liked him very much. So what if there were hints and nuances to learn about his biology. You just liked him; you felt at ease around him. “Just please … Please answer the question, Jade.”

“Eels and eel-mers usually pick only one to spend their life with.”

“Usually?”

“In the occurrence of a death or loss of a mate before one reaches adulthood fully at twenty, some eel-mers find someone else.” Jade elects to hold your hand instead of his knife, halting your worry-energized stirring and letting the spatula rest. The only thing you notice about his touch is that he is as cold as a December death. “We were only seventeen and eighteen when we met.”

“So you could find someone else if I left,” you say with a mix of relief and sadness. Then, your hand slips through Jade’s hand. You look at it with a gut-wrenching guilt, the collision of flickering skin and your tangible skin.

“No,” he says firmly, just barely managing to keep a growl out of his voice. “No, I couldn’t find anyone else but you.” And as if saying those words restore some of the bond you had, your hand floats back up as fake bones, muscle, and skin reappears. He squeezes your hand tightly.

You take Crewel’s advice. “Jade, I haven't made my decision whether I’m going to stay or not. I want you to know that: I haven’t decided yet.”

“I know.” He says those words. But he looks at you like you are something fleeting, like you are a mushroom collapsing in on itself, mildewed and smoldering, premature decay. His ice cold hand around yours is painful tight.

“If I leave,” you choke on your words. With a gasp, you quickly pull away from him to wipe away the tears you were unprepared to feel fall. Ice rises up to press its thumb to wipe away the water. “I-If I leave, I want to know you’ll be okay. I want to know that you aren’t hiding away all your anguish from me.”

Clipped and short: “I can’t burden you with that. The weight on your shoulders is enough.”

“You ignoring this situation is a burden. I want us to talk. I want to know what’s on your mind, what’s in your soul.”

Jade holds his tongue. You try to pull your cheek away from him but that just worsens the misery in his eyes. You fall still, waiting.

“Jade?”

“I’d never be able to recover.”

“Huh,” you gasp breathless.

Even after such powerful words, Jade still holds his tongue in the cage of his mouth. The influence of words is not lost on a man such as him. If anything it is evident as emotions are on his twin’s face, unhidden. So very unlike Jade who keeps everything hidden to a certain degree.

Lifting a rock off his chest, unburdening himself, Jade confesses, “If you were to leave, I’d never be able to recover. There would be a hole in my heart always ready to receive you again.”

Disconnected, you feel one tear race down the right side of your face and another tear catch on the curve of your left cheek, hanging and warm.

You were not ready to hear that. You thought you could handle hearing Jade’s true emotions but you had expected him to be losing interest. In his first year, he was fascinated with manholes; in his second year, he was fascinated with mushrooms; you expected this romantic interest to be fleeting. He learned to play bass in middle school then never picked it up again. Jade grows bored, he tosses things away, thus is nature.

He still has an interest in mushrooms, you think, he is settling down with his interests.

Were you two fleeting? An insecure part of you expected to be fleeting to him. I’d never recover. That is a far cry from a passing fancy that washes and recedes like the tide.

“I’m sorry for saying my true feelings.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” you say, blinded by tears.

“But I’m making you cry. I’m cruel.”

You take his face in your hands, fingers clumsy due to impaired sight. “I’m glad to know it though. I’m glad you can say that.” Then, shaking, you go in for a kiss. And the fake Jade vanishes back into the photograph, leaving you puckering up for cold air.

With the sweet smell of a French meal you do not know how to cook lingering in the air, you cry and cry.

You only have three days left to make a decision.

I’d never be able to recover.

You have been rotating those words around in your head for thirty-eight hours. Moving the sentence around like it is a puzzle piece in a game. Dissecting it like it is the evidence that a serial killer left in the heat of crime. Even considering the weight of the punctuation mark.

The true feelings of the soul of Jade Leech.

Grief comes without any sort of recovery. Instead, hurt erodes from the turret of time that passes through and splashes about but ultimately without cure.

I’d never be able to recover? Who’s to say that’s true?

But, the same sentiment rings true in your soul. Whichever you choose, the recovery path for the only choice will be fierce and full of regret. You will slice a part of your soul up and crush it no matter whether you go home or you stay in Twisted Wonderland. You pluck yourself out of the memory as you pluck a bottle of nightshade off Professor Crewel’s supply rack in potionology.

Despite everything, you attend classes and unbirthday parties and … well, you would have attended club meetings, to procrastinate on the decision. If you leave, you leave with nothing but the skin on your back. You pour the deadly nightshade in the cauldron as Riddle, your lab partner, keeps stirring. You only have a day left. The phone in your pocket has been buzzing all day with concern but among the ladder of contracts you slide through you never see Jade 💕 among them.

Pulling away to save us both the hurt, you think with a smile. That is so Jade, I should have been able to predict that. You watch the whirlpool of the gray mixture. Yeah, I’d never recover either. Then your lab goggles slowly but surely start to fill with tears.

Riddle stops stirring, tool falling from his hand, when he sees you remove your goggles out of the corner of his eyes. You push them up and reveal bright red eyes brimming with tears. Tears so glutinous and heavy that it almost looks like melted wax.

You cry because you know what you are going to pick. Your soul may fiercely want both options, impossibly greedy. Yet, now in the blimp of time, this pocket of your life, you have chosen the one you will go with. Removing the gloves from your hands, you start to furiously scrub away the ocean draining from you. It is so difficult to see.

“Prefect, do you need to use the eyewash station? (Name)?”

“Ri-Rid,” you wheeze out. The waterfall is cascading down your face, clogging your voice. Gradually, the sound of you crying is starting to pick up a bit in volume.

“Prefect, what’s wrong? Here, I can use a spell to get it out of your eyes if you need. Did something splash up from the mixture?” You feel his smaller hand timidly rest on your quivering bicep. Sevens, your entire body is shaking like a power-drill.

Students are starting to look in your direction. Morbid curiosity draws their eyes to you, listening to the gut-wrenching sobs you expel. Riddle’s face hardens in a glare. Frustration lies pink on his cheeks. With the force of your sobs, your knees start to tremble, tipping over the fence edge of buckling. You are a wreck.

“Professor Crewel –.”

“Every single pup is excused from class. Right now.”

The door is already magic-ed open. It takes a minute for others to pile out, some lingering in curiosity and some leaving steadfast in their recoil to no longer hear your cries. The click of the door breaks you and you finally collapse. Riddle goes down with you, gentle hand glued to your arm.

“I need to make a call,” you manage to get out from your wet throat, crying as if you are grieving. You suppose it is appropriate. You are grieving someone who you will lose tomorrow and never see again. “I need to –”

“Who do you need to call, (Name)? I can call them for you.”

“Pup.” Crewel does not finish his thought.

You are back to being incomprehensible, crying like you have never cried before. Water coats your face and no matter which direction or what material you use, you cannot dry your face against the assault. Jade. You want Jade so badly.

Riddle – top of his class yet failing the grade of life – stares, not knowing who you want or how to solve this. He grew up isolated; comforting others is not his specialty. “I could call Ace and Deuce. I can –” Riddle quickly locates his phone, fingers frantic. The phone slips out of his grip when a hand starts pounding against the classroom door.

Beyond the tears, you hear:

“Class is dismissed –”

“Striped beakfish, move it.”

“Pup, I’ll have you –”

“Professor Crewel, I need to –”

“Shrimpy’s in there move it.”

“I don’t have time for this – move.”

The arm in Riddle’s hand is suddenly wrenched away. You puppet your head up forcefully despite your tears. You should have known. Jade knows your soul after all.

If it was under any other circumstances, it would be either terrifying or oddly hilarious, the open concern on Jade’s face. He collapses right down on the ground in front of you after pushing Professor Crewel out of his way. His face is taut with the emotions on it, a far cry from the always composed look he has. Only you could get such a reaction. His knee bumps your knee but you do not mind, throwing yourself on him and crying yourself dry of grief.

“It’s okay. I got you. I’m not going to let you go, my love. I got you in my arms, okay?”

Jade’s single yellow eye manages to catch the bewildered look on Riddle’s face. There is a question in the housewarden’s expression: what’s wrong? It is obvious to Jade. You picked whether you want to stay or go.

A soul bond is engrained in the two holders. It allows them to read each other easily when they are at their strongest in a relationship. Thus, Jade knows exactly what you cry for. Riddle misjudges it as stress or a laboratory accident. Jade knows exactly why those tears fall down your face. You are staying in Twisted Wonderland. He knows in the beautiful, snotty, and wrinkled mess on your face: you are staying with him.

It is odd; all you wanted before was to talk, discuss, have a heart to heart vocally. You wanted so badly to restore your crippled communication. Now, you do not need a single word to let him know the entire situation, all the nuances are laid bare on your soul.

“I got you. I’ll always be here, my love.”

He wipes flushed, wet cheeks and pulls you back in for a tight hug. You know when you feel tears fall onto your collarbone that they are his own soul thanking you for trusting him.

The hand on Jade’s bicep is like ice.

Jade twitches, nose scrunching up. His bed tries to lure him back and make him ignore the comatose-cold hand on his arm. It is not a hard task; he is exhausted beyond belief and wants to sleep. His head tousles in the lilac pillow, falling back off the cliff into dreams, when the frozen hand starts to shake his arm.

“Mmm.”

“J … Ja … Jade.”

“Mmmmmm.”

Leave him alone. He is tired. Binding his pallid arms around the pillow in an amorous hold, he tries to dream. The room swelters with summer heat and the silk is like a balm to him. His bare stomach lies the inner sheets and the muscular expanse of rhomboids block out whoever is calling his name. Leave him alone.

“Jade, wake up please. Please Jade.”

“Leave me alone,” Jade groans into the pillow, words distorted with fatigue.

Above him, a sniffle and pathetic hissing cry breaks the heat. The sound is familiar. Out of mouth that is stringy with prison bars of salvia, tears, and snot, his name is called again. Around his eel sleeve tattoo, the hand remains shackled to him, gently shaking with each hiccup of tears.

“Jade. Wake up.”

“Love?”

He blinks and there you are. Blue tears fall down your face and ice fingers pinch into ink. Jade is suddenly awake, releasing the pillow he was embracing and turning on his back, motions hazy with sleep. “Love?” His warm fingers reach up to thumb away the steady waterfall on your cheeks. Sevens, you are freezing.

“What’s wrong,” he asks as he sits up in bed. For some odd reason, you are dressed up in your white button-up and slacks like you have somewhere to be going. His other hand reaches up and then he cups your face in his embrace. “What’s wrong, (Name)?”

“I wanna go home. Oh, Jade, I really want to go home,” you blubber breathlessly between your bawling. “I just – oh God – I want to go home.” Then, you fall into his shoulder, squeezing him tightly and sobbing anew. Sobbing inconsolable for your mother.

Jade knows that there are fresh tears wetting his bare collarbone but he feels distinctly out of his mind. Like his skin is not really his own, floating in a stranger’s body. Grasped in the throes of selfish panic, he pushes you tighter into his shirtless torso. Sleepy strands of hair are in his mouth; haunted eyes are unfocused in the dark of his room. Despite his large height, he truly does feel like he cannot come to terms with your words and is kicked out of his body because of it.

Subconsciously, his dominant hand runs over your back in circles. Trying to use it as a rope to come back to his senses more than to comfort you.

Home? But he had thought — had he mistakenly pushed his own soul’s objective onto you — you cannot go home!

“(N-Name). (Name), love,” Jade says into your ear. You do not respond, hysterically loud enough to drown out his voice.

He is surprised that Floyd has not woken up. The pitch and volume that you cry at is like someone screaming in a cave, knowing they are in solitude and can let it all go. Even when your teeth bite into his shoulder, your cries are far from quieting.

It does not matter if Floyd was a deep sleeper — which he isn’t, Jade is the deeper sleeper of the two — no one should be able to sleep through this.

Yet, grateful Floyd is asleep, Jade hugs you tightly to his warmer skin. Shushing, he runs a hand down the crown of your head to your shoulder, hoping his touch will ground both of you from the cloud of agony. His grip is piercing, dug tight into your skin, but you do not bleed. Holding you so you do not escape him and leave for your home world. Selfish Selfish Selfish.

Eventually you fall asleep; no one can cry like that without exhausting themselves.

Eventually he falls asleep, blinking watery at his desk, thinking something is wrong with the image and doubly petrified for the morning.

When he wakes up, there is no one in his bed.

#jade leech #twisted wonderland x reader #jade leech x reader #twisted wonderland

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