#sorry for lack of activity the college is murdering me so hard

[strigital]

girlie had herself a slight makeover before heading into Dogtown 🔥

[quarantinevibes2020]

LoveDrug

Summary:  That trope where someone's eyes dilate when they see someone they love. That's it. That's the whole fic. OR Virgil and his accomplice play matchmakers for some literal star-crossed lovers.

Word count: 2198

Pairing: Romantic Roman/ Logan (college AU)

Warnings: drinking (not underage), other drugs mentioned but no one uses any

Yes this happened to me. Hush and let me project

AO3 Link

Roman was going to murder his roommate. Or at least shave an eyebrow off in his sleep.

He had been trying to navigate a small apartment decorated in polaroids and newspaper paintings, crowded with people he didn’t know. He had done his best flitting around from group to group: parties weren’t exactly a foreign entity to him and usually he would relish in the chance to make new friends. However, he had been looking for a particularly stormy visage among the sea of people.

He locked eyes with his target: Virgil Kross, aforementioned roommate who had dragged him here in the beginning of the night and told him to stay close before uncharacteristically darting off.

The get together was for everyone in Virgil’s physics class and when Roman found him, Virgil was propped up against a wall and sitting on some steps, swirling around a cider and talking to someone in square glasses and an almost comically over-formal button down.

Virgil caught his eye and lifted an eyebrow. Roman shook his head in a restrained don’t you dare Virgil I swear sort of way. Virgil either didn’t see it or outright ignored him. He waved Roman over, made some sort of excuse that Roman didn’t hear, and left the two alone.

Roman was going to fill Virgil’s pillowcase with popcorn kernels. He was going to tape his toothbrush to the ceiling. He was going to hide his socks in the freezer. He was going to-

“Roman?”

Roman sucked in a breath, litany of threats against his horrible, no good roommate suddenly coming to a halt.

In front of him sat Logan Nova, Virgil’s study partner from when he had taken astronomy a semester ago and also, less important, the person Roman had been pining for ever since Virgil had dragged them on their fieldtrip in September. The class was supposed to map out the stars they saw, identify them, and measure their distances or something. Roman didn’t really keep track of the details. He wasn’t even too interested in looking at the stars, coming from a city where they were mostly blocked out by the light pollution.

And sure, they were pretty in the open sky, but not prettier than the wide eyes that drank them in, than the elated expression that same face had when Roman asked him a question about the class since Virgil was off probably shotgunning a beer with their professor and Roman was bored out of his mind. Logan had shown Roman his star maps and pulled out a worn out textbook with tenderly placed bookmarks of his favorite constellations. Roman had been fascinated by the stories behind them and the two spent the night going through the book, cover to cover.

By the end, Roman was sure he never thought the stars were beautiful until he saw them reflected in Logan’s eyes.

Virgil continued to bring Logan over, even after their astronomy classes had ended, sometimes completely unannounced, before flouncing off to run some errands with his art major friends (how Virgil managed to double major never ceased to amaze Roman, especially given that both those majors were so hard). And for the past six months, Roman had gone from crushing to something close to besotted. It wasn’t something very easy to hide so the next time Roman caught that spider he was going to put ice down his back and-

“Um, there aren’t anymore seats. I can move if you’d like?”

Logan’s voice brought Roman back to the present. He took an extra swig of his drink, hoping that Logan wouldn’t notice how he almost downed it for the courage, and shook his head.

“Scooch on over, Specs, we can share,” Roman said, the burn behind his sternum fueling his words.

Logan laughed, a little bubbly and Roman guessed that his cup was full of something with a similar texture, and moved for Roman to balance on half the seat.

Roman took another sip, looking out over the room of people.

“So this is what you physics people do on a Friday night, huh?” Roman asked, a little teasingly, “not bad.”

Logan bumped him and Roman barely kept his heart from fluttering out of his chest like a frantic dove.

“Did you see how drunk half the class got at the Meteor Fields?”

Roman snorted, “Fair. We almost had to carry Virgil back to the room.”

“You almost had to carry him. I did carry him.”

Roman made a noise of offense, “Excuse me! I am a knight in shining armor! Not a carriage!”

Logan laughed and Roman finally turned to look at him, startling when his face was much closer than he had anticipated.

“I don’t appreciate that I am the carriage in this metaphor,” Logan said with a faux-pout. Roman wanted to quip something back, but he had something of an elephant-sized lump in his throat. Logan tilted his head before leaning in. Roman just barely managed not to squeak.

“Goodness,” Logan said, “your eyes are so dilated!”

Roman blinked, taking another sip of his drink and trying to will a blush down.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah!” Logan exclaimed back, leaning in even more and woo-boy was he close.

Roman looked to his drink slightly, not able to hold Logan’s wide eyes for a second without turning cherry-red.

“It’s pretty bright in here, they shouldn’t be,” Roman said, trying to ‘science it out’ like Logan loved to do. Logan, mercifully to Roman’s thundering pulse, sat back a bit: considering.

“Well. Quite a few things can cause one’s pupils to dilate. Lack of light. Opiate withdrawal. Looking at someone you’re attracted to. Love. Parasympathetic activat-”

“Coke,” Roman nearly choked out. Logan paused in the list he was rattling off and blinked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Coke. I did coke. Just- whole line of cocaine all in one gulp.”

Logan furrowed his eyebrows. “You don’t drink cocaine, Roman. Furthermore-”

Roman didn’t hear the rest of Logan’s sentence. He pushed off the wire seating, sputtering out something about refilling his drink, and made a beeline for the back exit.

When he got to the balcony, he nearly slammed his head into the corner of the railing.

Well Roman thought miserably better for him to think you’re on drugs than hopelessly in love with him. Really dodged a bullet there.

The thought didn’t help. Roman let out a groan and let himself slump. He poked his legs between the columns of the balcony and swung his feet. Above him, the sky was hazy. The moon was barely visible as it peeked through a curtain of clouds. Not a star in the sky. A part of Roman thought that was rather fitting given how royally he had just messed up.

A door opened and closed behind him. For a moment, Roman thought it was Virgil from how quiet the footsteps were and was about to get up and tell him he was heading out when he turned around.

Logan Nova, adorable wavy black hair and now slightly-crumpled but still endearing button down, was staring back at him. Clutching his drink a little as he moved to sit next to Roman. He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then-

“Whoever your dealer is, I don’t think they gave you cocaine,” he finally said.

Roman swiveled around to meet his eyes. Logan’s eyebrows furrowed even further.

“Your eyes are dilated again. And while that is a symptom of its ingestion, your behavior otherwise does not indicate its use.”

Something bubbled out of Roman’s throat. For a horrifying moment, Roman thought it was his drink trying to take revenge, but no- it was laughter. Croaky at first, but rapidly devolving into full-bellied howling.

“Perhaps I misjudged?” Logan said after Roman’s guffaws continued, Roman shook his head, trying to stop the shake in his shoulders as Logan, obviously more than a little concerned at Roman’s ‘illicit drug use’, got more and more worried by the minute.

“I didn’t do any drugs, Logan,” Roman finally got out between heaving breaths. Logan stuck out his bottom lip a little.

“But you said..?”

Roman waved at him, he must have misjudged the distance because his hand caught Logan’s shoulder but Roman didn’t feel like moving it.

“I know what I said,” Roman said, laughter trickling, “I know, it was stupid, I promise though. I haven’t had anything besides this crappy beer and,” Roman took in a breath, now or never he guessed, “maybe a little love,” he finished quietly, not sure whether he should thank the alcohol or curse it for letting him say it.

Logan’s eyebrows shot up, “Lovedrug? Like ecstacy?!”

“What?!” Roman shot back, looking incredulous before rubbing his face, “NO, not- not lovedrug you-UGH- how are you smart but so dense??”

Logan only blinked in return. Roman supposed he deserved that.

“Lo,” Roman said, taking his legs out of the balcony and setting them in a lazy kneel, “what were the things you listed off for making someone’s eyes dilate?”

Logan’s nose scrunched, “Em. Parasympathetic activation?”

“Keep going,” Roman said, exasperated but woefully fond.

“Ecstasy would certainly be on the list.”

“Logan.”

Logan huffed, “Ah. I believe I also said looking at someone you’re attract-”

Logan stopped. His expression almost sent Roman into hysterics again but he didn’t give in because if he did he might have ended up crying.

“Oh,” Logan said in a small voice.

“Yeah, oh” Roman echoed softly, “sorry I lied, I kind of just. Panicked. A little.”

“So you led me to believe you had taken a bad strain of cocaine?” Logan replied, voice strained but still shocked out of emotion.

Roman squirmed. “Yee. My bad, you don’t- you know. Have to say anything though. I know you don’t- I just wanted you to know since you seemed a little freaked that I was having a bad drug reaction.”

“You know I don’t what?” Logan asked suddenly as he spun to face Roman. Roman looked down and scratched his nose.

“You don’t-ugh. Don’t make me say it dude, you know what I mean.”

“Roman, look at me.”

Boy, Logan was not making it easy. But he supposed if he was going to get rejected, he should look at him straight in the eyes. At least he’d retain some of his dignity then. Roman lifted his chin.

“What color are my eyes?”

Roman blinked, a little caught off-guard from the question. Was it that obvious that Roman had been waxing poetic about Logan’s eyes in his own mind from the moment he had met him? How they caught the light and sucked it in, like two galaxies swirling in his irises. How his lashes curled naturally, almost touching his brow bone when they were alight with wonder. How it didn’t even matter now that he couldn’t see a star in the sky because they were all caught in Logan’s eyes. They were a force of gravity pulling him in and everything else with them.

“…black?” Roman said, tamping down on his raging thoughts. Logan cocked his head.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked.

Roman almost would have been offended if Logan hadn’t chosen that moment to tug Roman’s chin towards him.

“Look closer,” Logan said.

Breathe, dumbass Roman’s brain said. He listened to both as he squinted.

There were still the swirling galaxies in the middle. The soft gaze did nothing to curb that, but there- Roman tilted his head as he saw something else. Like the sun brimming over the earth, a honey brown at the very edges. Logan must have seen Roman’s expression as he realized it.

“My eyes are amber, Roman.”

There was something in Logan’s voice, it was the same one he used when he was helping Roman with his GenEd calc class. Like he was trying to lead him somewhere. If Logan’s eyes were amber, then his pupils must have been massive because they took up the majority of the…oh.

“But-I-I don’t,” Roman stuttered.

“What were the reasons for someone’s eyes to dilate?” Logan pushed.

“Didn’t take you for a coke guy,” Roman said, trying for cool but bordering on watery. Logan huffed, his face was so close that Roman could feel the breath.

Then, Logan’s lips were on his own and suddenly Roman could care less about eyes.

“Logan,” Roman breathed, smiling when he pulled him forward into another kiss. He turned to pepper more along his jaw bone. Logan giggled. Roman tried to stamp the sound into his brain.

“You’re amazing, you know. Amazing, smart, beautiful, so beautiful,” Roman whispered, half out of his mind as he tugged on the hair at the nape of Logan’s neck.

“Are you sure that’s not the alcohol talking?” Logan managed, though it came out a bit garbled.

“Nothing can addle my brain more than your beauty already has,” Roman replied instantly, pulling Logan in again.

-

Behind the window of the balcony, a blue sweater clad boy adjusted his round glasses and gleefully took a five dollar bill from a pouting spider.

“I told you all they needed was a little push,” whispered the glasses boy.

“Fucking finally,” replied the spider, not missing his five dollars all that much.

[britishassistant]

The Villainous Paranoiac Goes To Jail and Ninja Afterlife

Two innocent children get sent to Night Raven College

A set of scenarios about three of my ocs unwittingly trading places for two days, non-canon to any of my AUs

Swap 1:

Yuu—> Konohagakure

Yuu wakes up with a tantō to the throat.

Chie: Tell me where my daughter is and I’ll make your death quick

Yuu promptly freaks the fuck out

Through a combination of panicked yelling and tears the Prefect manages to convey to the Ketsugi that if there was a kidnapping, Yuu is both uninvolved and as much as of a victim as their precious daughter

Gai confirms that the strange teenager not only has no chakra, but clearly has little to no combat training despite his(?) athleticism, meaning Mayu-chan could easily overpower an assailant of this size, especially one this undernourished!

Yuu tries not to be offended and to avoid staring at Gai and Lee’s eyebrows they’re so big

Promptly shrieks when Kami!Sanji materializes to confirm that the Paranoiac had nothing to do with Mayu’s disappearance as far as the other gods can tell

Yuu becomes convinced that this place is the afterlife

The sad part is that Chie and Jirou can’t actually say much to the contrary, because??? Their daughter remembers dying before she came here?? Also there are active deities just floating around so.

Actually tears up at the homemade meals the Ketsugi provide

Before being sick as a dog later because food infused with chakra? Does not agree with a person without a chakra regulatory system

Surprisingly patient with Lee and any questions he has the purity of Jack and Deuce is strong in this one

Bit more long-suffering towards Naruto and his rendition of Wonderwall. Sunshine child too bright, introvert Yuu can’t handle it

Keeps writing down everything everyone says

This makes ANBU and ROOT very twitchy

The Paranoiac is quietly slated for “interview” at T&I the next day

Yuu crashes on the Ketsugi couch none the wiser

Mayu—> Nanba

Mayu wakes up to confused screaming and profanity.

It’s Hani.

It’s very rare for screaming not to be because of Hani

All he knows is one child was in this bed last night, and now’s there’s a different one dressed like it came straight out of Ninja Kamikaze???

Mayu for her part is both very alarmed to be waking up in a prison cell with two strange men and very glad she has her bokken with her

Kiji comes in to find his beautiful inmates being menaced by a twelve year old with a wooden sword

The twelve year old is winning

Once Mayu has ascertained that they aren’t enemy ninja and she’s somehow in her old world (?) she becomes much more cooperative with the guards

She’s very worried about how she’s going to get back to her family in Konoha

Also wondering if she should try to contact her former little brother Harp (who knows if she’ll ever get the chance again?)

These worries are not assuaged when the Warden informs her that there’s no records proving “Tamara Kaur” ever existed

For lack of any relations who they can contact to take the child off their hands, and because they have no idea how she successfully infiltrated the most secure prison in the world and replaced one of the inmates, the Warden decides to keep Mayu in Nanba’s holding cells until further notice

Guess who finds the samurai child while breaking out?

Nico, Uno, and Rock are amazed at the existence of a real live Japanese Samurai! With a katana and everything!!

Jyugo just asks straight out if Mayu’s an actor too

Mayu is very bemused by everything, but they seem friendly! The one with the mohawk likes food too!

Plus the blonde one is British! Just like she used to be!

Uno is very confused about how a twelve year old somehow lost her citizenship

Break Mayu out to get food together

They get caught the moment they set foot in the cafeteria and scolded very harshly

Mayu has trouble sleeping in a cell cot that night

Nana—> Night Raven College

Nana’s first instinct on waking up in a strange bed next to a monster is to assume he’s been kidnapped and attempt to subdue his captors

Which means Grim wakes up to an attempted smothering

The ghosts hear muffled screaming and rush in only to get salt and iron filings to the face. Nana actually has them all on the run when Crowley bursts in

Instantly becomes a confused and lost child in front of the headmaster and dorm heads

Only Grim and the ghosts know the truth, and their complaints are overlooked due to them “scaring the poor boy”

No one has any idea what to do with a thirteen year old magicless kid. It was hard enough with Yuu, and the Prefect was at least sixteen and could attend classes!

Nana adapts quickly to the idea of being in this new world— he’s just sad he couldn’t say goodbye to Kiji, Hani-senpai and Trois-senpai before leaving Nanba

Immediately resolves to leave NRC at the earliest possible convenience when he gets a good look at the Theory Wall— he can’t even read Japanese but that amount of crazy that it signifies always spells trouble

Is confused by all the pictures of Disney villains on the Theory Wall, but decides it’s not worth the trouble to ask about

Actually uses the beauty products Vil left for Yuu correctly

Gets semi-adopted into Pomefiore after asking Vil where the high quality products came from

Grim and the ghosts aren’t sorry to see the little brat go

Vil carts him around to test his potential in the performance arts

Epel tries to be a good senpai for the kid, and tells him he doesn’t have to just go along with Vil

Nana appreciates the effort, but does find this kind of thing more fun than being on his own he’s homesick for his cell

Rook enjoys seeing the child freeze up minutely whenever he asks about the prison attire and the large “7” tattoo on the back of the boy’s head

Nana likes Rook less and less with every pointed question the vice dorm leader makes

Can’t sleep in the big cushy Pomefiore bed and so curls up on the floor with a pillow instead

Swap 2:

Yuu—> Nanba

What why is Yuu in jail now

The prefect was supposed to be back home/in Ramshackle Dorm, why is Yuu in jail now—

Yuu is stressed and overdue for Grim snuggles

Paranoiac is also not thrilled about being stuck in Building Three— it’s like Pomefiore on steroids

At least Epel and Vil don’t steal and obsess over the underwear of their “fans”

Rook...the jury’s still out. But probably not. Probably

Maybe

Hopefully

Much less cooperative than Mayu.

Questions about the Prefect’s family name are met with a stony glare. “It’s Yuu. Just Yuu. How many times do I have to repeat myself?”

Can’t answer any questions about Mayu or her current whereabouts despite admitting to knowing of the girl, but does posit a theory about the three of them transmigrating and swapping places based on the information gained in Konoha

Gets offended and even less cooperative when the interrogating guard calls the hypothesis “crazy”

Not intimidated by Hajime or the other guards in the slightest. Yuu’s classmates are far more likely to inflict lasting bodily harm and it’s hard for even the worst human glare to measure up to Floyd or Leona on a bad day

The Warden scares the Prefect though

Doesn’t stop Yuu from requesting a lawyer or other legal counsel before submitting to further questioning

The Paranoiac is a Japanese citizen and has made a point to know what the applicable legal rights for this situation are

Yuu ends up in the holding cells

Guess who hasn’t learned their lesson while breaking out?

Uno takes one look at Yuu

“Ah Jyugo, this one has your energy”

Nico loudly asks if the Prefect is from an isekai and died and reincarnated in Nanba??! Do they die over and over again and revive to beat bad guys?? Do they have an amazing cheat skill?? Are they a spider?? Can they shoot a beam??

Yuu just thinks. Ah. So this is what would happen if Kalim and Idia somehow had a kid

Don’t break the Prefect out, but Jyugo comes back later and deposits something through the bars

“This is Kuu. He’s a guard, but he’s also really good when you’re lonely. You look like you could use the company”

Yuu blinks and holds out a hand for the black cat with a guard cap to sniff

Crashing in a cell cot is uncomfortable, but hey, at least there’s a cat to pet

Mayu—> Night Raven College

Why is there a tanuki in her bed?

Grim isn’t waking up by being murdered but being poked with a stick by another smol child isn’t much better

Mayu is Concerned by the Theory Wall

“Is— is the person who lives here okay?”

Grim: Hell if I know

Mayu’s even more Concerned when she opens the fridge and sees it’s bare

>:|

Sanji wouldn’t let these people go hungry, so she’s not going to either!

Searches until she finds the Prefect’s grocery money and marches with Grim to Mr. S’s Mystery Shop

Everyone is confused by the presence of a new preteen on campus after the last one vanished from Pomefiore during the night

Mayu’s used to haggling with market people who would rather see her starve than even sell her the worst of their produce, so she’s easily able to barter Sam down to a third of the price for the groceries she wants to buy

Sam’s more amused by the guts of this tiny samurai devil than anything

Mayu and Grim drag all the food back by themselves with a few students following from a distance out of curiosity

They all soon enter Ramshackle once the smells of cooking begin to emerge from the dorm

Silver first followed because the child has a sword and is now helping to knead dough

Epel arrived because he had questions about where Nana had gone, but Mayu is genuinely clueless so now he’s peeling apples for lack of anything better to do

Mayu soon has several “helpers” for making bread and other easy-to-preserve and mix-and-match bulk meals to fill the Ramshackle fridge, though she soon has to send Grim out for more ingredients when her helpers begin getting hungry

The night ends with a feast that can rival the quality of food served at Kalim’s parties

Mayu finds one of Yuu’s blank notebooks and writes down some easy recipes the Prefect can use for all the food now in the fridge and pantry, with emphasis on fish based dishes

The ghosts and Grim enjoy having Mayu much more than Nana

Mayu still has trouble sleeping in the big Ramshackle bed that night

Nana—> Konohagakure

Well this isn’t Nanba or Night Raven College

Welp. Time to go then.

Nana is halfway out of Konoha before anyone notices

Gai does notice because a strange kid in a prison jumpsuit swiftly scurrying to the exit sticks out like a sore thumb in the early morning

ANBU’s search for the vanished Yuu is the only reason Nana isn’t stopped by them

Nana tries to run

Nothing can outrun the Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha

Nana is now more than slightly traumatized

Gets carted off to early morning training with Naruto and Lee

Is initially more interested in plotting yet another escape attempt until Lee mentions Yuu and NRC—then he’s curious about what information he can glean about the two other members of this triad

Especially interested in the concept of reincarnating into another world or being brought there by an outside force rather than moving between worlds freely

Eats an almost alarming amount for his size at breakfast that morning and leaves nothing on his plate

Unfailingly well-mannered to his hosts

Offers more information about Mayu’s past world in payment for eating the Ketsugi’s food and waking up in their home after they refuse to let him pay them back using manual labor

Asks them to tell him what they already know so he can work out what knowledge gaps to fill in

Nana: ...Why are you singing Wonderwall?

Takes it upon himself to teach Lee and Naruto more English so they can at least form basic sentences

It’s an uphill battle because predicates and participles are hard

A supportive and encouraging if slightly inept teacher

Soon realizes Chie somehow knows all the swearwords and glares at him for trying to teach them to the boys

Also falls ill from eating chakra-infested food

Gets twitchier as the day goes on and asks to leave the village several times, insisting he can’t impose on their hospitality any longer

Only agrees to sleep on the couch once Jirou subtly implies that at least people will notice and go looking if he goes missing from their house compared to if he disappeared from a tree miles away from Konoha

Can’t sleep on the couch due to jumping at noises during the night, ends up curling up on the floor next to it

[nevtelenwriting]

Oops, I Fucked a Serial Killer

George Foyet x AFAB!Reader, gender-neutral

Word Count: 6,900~, 5K that is just solid PWP filth

I don’t know why I’m allowed to name things. 

This be filthy yo: one-night stand, risky sex/no condom, mild choking, multi-orgasms/overstimulation, come-swallowing. I have nothing more to say for myself. I’m (not) sorry.

@aaronhctch

(Let me know if you wanna be tagged!)

**

You meet your friends at the bar in your best outfit for dancing and can already feel your heart in your throat from nervousness.

It’s not something you normally do, and you feel silly assuring yourself of that. You typically come out to dance, have a good time, and maybe flirt with a few strangers. It’s a nice, quick confidence boost, you have fun, and you can get a little tipsy to take away any doubts you have come morning.

Tonight is different; while you want to have a good night out with friends, this time, you’re actively searching for someone to go home with. It’s been a long time—too long, really, and the thought hurts—since you’ve gotten laid. It’s been longer still since you’ve had a good lay. Nothing against your bed partners, but there was a certain lack of…experience. There’s nothing wrong with wanting some meaningless sex, you know that. It’s more your type you’re struggling to find the courage to pursue.

Your friends know your plan, and they try to help, naturally. After two drinks have you pleasantly buzzed, your jitters numbed down to an afterthought, you go out to the small dancefloor. You sandwich between two of your friends to put on a wonderful show to anyone who may be interested. Your friends even point out guys for you, jock types, nerd types, chill types. You brush them all off with uncommitted maybes, enjoy the dancing more than considering their options. They really aren’t your type, not tonight at least, not for the itch you have that severely needs scratched.

You feel eyes burning on you. Instinct says someone is watching you, and the second instinct wonders if it’s dangerous, how acutely you pick up on the prickling at the back of your neck. You turn to try to find who it could be but can’t spot them. What you find instead is a row of people lining the bar, a few stealing the sparse amount of stools, and one man in particular nursing a drink, paying no mind on the dance floor, that absolutely catches your eye.

He still fits some of the demographic of people crowding into the bar, but the majority are college-age so he stands out to you even across the room. When he looks up a second later, almost reading your mind he meets your eyes immediately, lingering on you for a second before returning to his drink. You decide to take a chance. A small one, at least, which is a closer inspection.

You don’t want to appear too eager, so you wait until the end of the song—one eye on the guy in hopes he doesn’t leave—before you excuse yourself from your friends under the guise of ordering another drink. You don’t want your alcohol-addled brain and club lights to give you blinders, the last thing you want is too much regret come morning.

He’s even lovelier up close. As you call the attention of the bartender you catch smile lines around his cheeks, crinkles at his dark eyes glinting in the low, pulsing lights. He’s most assuredly not college-age, and he’s gorgeous, athletic and tall, t-shirt showing off his forearms. You shiver a little, nervous thoughts pushed aside by the liquid ease of intoxication bleeding into fantasy. He has pretty hands.

He doesn’t bother pretending not to scope you out; while you side-eye him, he rakes his eyes over you, scanning you up and down like a simultaneous prize and puzzle. It makes you shiver again, and you hope he doesn’t say something crude or creepy that will make you have to run for the hills. For this guy though, you’re starting to think there’s a lot you’ll overlook. He maintains the shared silence while you wait for your drink, doesn’t make the first move and your heart starts pounding quicker, eagerness nearly making you drop your drink when you get it.

“This type of bar your scene?” you ask, lamely, and almost smack yourself with said drink.

He turns his head back to you, cocked to the side like he’s seriously contemplating that question. Or rather, contemplating you. There’s a harsh scrutiny he has about him, intense with a confidence and control you’ve rarely seen in any other men. You feel your skin prickle under his gaze, your face a little hot but you blame it on the alcohol.

“Why?” He counters, a brow raising with it, “I don’t look like a frat boy?”

The question makes you laugh, bubbling your drink up. Your reply comes easy with the tease, “Maybe college dean.”

He smiles at that, crooked on his mouth as his head tilts again, all but scrutinizing you, “You have a thing for professors?”

You shrug, trying to play off how accurately he hit the nail on that head. “Depends. Some are sleazy, some are worth the effort.”

It’s a challenge as much as an offer, and you sip slowly at your drink as he snorts at your reply. He turns fully in his seat to face you, elbow on the counter, chin in his hand, apparently amused by what you’ve said.

“You really want to waste time small-talking or can we get out of here?”

It’s forward, brash, completely bull-dozing your retort and it shouldn’t have made you feel so hot. This guy clearly isn’t in the mood to win you over; he thinks he already has, and if it wasn’t so true you might have been offended. Instead you feel your pulse speed up in anticipation, playing back on his quip.

“What makes you think I’m interested in you?”

He snickers again, and this time his widening grin bares teeth, “I know a daddy complex when I see one.”

You gape at him, your face flushing further and you hope the alcohol will hide it. “Hey!”

“It’s true.” He arched both brows at you, “I have more grey than brown hair and you beelined to me.”

“I did not beeline,” you mutter indignantly, trying to save face though the way he’s figured you out has a pleasant, charged heat pooling low in your gut. The banter is fun, and you want to play a little longer. “Maybe I just felt sorry for you, alone over here.”

He didn’t take the bait. “It never takes long for the right one to find me.”

“Oh?” You arch your brows back at him, playfully mocking, “Who’s the right one?”

He chuckles, giving a small, disbelieving shake of his head while his dark eyes never leave yours. His lingering smirk crinkles up the lines on his face and you’re overwhelmed suddenly with the desire to touch. “I see types like your friends going after cocksure little boys, all ego with no idea how to use their dick. You though?”

His eyes scan you again, lingering across your thighs, stomach, chest. You bite your lip to keep yourself from shifting under that intense gaze, that heat in you starting to hum lower. “You want older. You want the one that knows exactly what he’s doing, that’s going to leave you knees shaking and thinking about it for weeks.”

You definitely don’t feel yourself throb at that. Absolutely not. You have to swallow to keep your voice steady when you retort, “You ever get tired of being so cocky?”

“That’s not cocky.” He still smiles so easy, so assured. “That’s awareness. Besides, I know a few choice things.”

You feel a little breathless when you ask. “What are those?”

He runs his tongue quick over his bottom lip—he has to know your eyes will follow—and leans in then, hand settling hot on your lower back to pull you close. He places his lips to your ear and curls warm breath around the short hairs there as he murmurs with a voice dropped low enough to rumble through your chest. “I know you’re gagging for me to take you home. I know you’re already wet thinking about it. And I know I’m going fuck you so hard your legs give out.”

You can’t even form a reply; your breath shudders out of you, and all you can say is, “Oh.”

He chuckles and pulls back, gliding his hand up to curl his fingers around your chin. “So. As I said. Small talk, or a cab?”

“Cab.”

“Good.”

You both pay your tabs and the entire time his hand doesn’t leave you, strong and warm on the small of your back, your arm, your neck while you wait and then leave together. That heat inside you has coiled tight like a spring, coiling more with every second you have to wait to get out of there. You text your friends to let them know you’ll be back tomorrow, where you are. He doesn’t mind when you ask if you can go back to your place, either, which at least means he’s not some sort of murderer.

Though on that train of thought, followed quickly by a series of excited texts and a very specific question, you stop before climbing in alongside the guy in the cab, and he regards you with an amused arch to his brow.

“Backing out?” He asks, a severity in the words that sounds…well, a little of disappointment, but more like he’s daring you to confirm it.

“No, I, uh, I feel stupid,” you laugh unsteadily, “I never asked your name.”

The pause makes you falter. He’s watching you like you posed a difficult question, his face stony with carefulness as he schools his reaction. His comment is just as calculated. “Anonymous sex is usually anonymous.”

You wince at that, feeling both a little dejected and dismayed. “Sorry.”

“But it’s George.”

You blink again, and give your name with a smile. He grins back.

“Nice you meet you. Would you get in already?”

You expect the cab ride to be awkward and silent, that or awkward and filled with questions about each other you don’t really want. George is hot, he’s confident, and you want him, there’s not much else you need to know.

You don’t expect him to lean over one minute into the fifteen-minute drive, whispering low back against your ear. “How good are you at keeping quiet?”

The question is accompanied by that strong hand settling on your thigh, fingers digging into the inseam of your pants just enough to feel the rough scrape of nails on the fabric. The fiction jolts through your nerves and your mouth goes dry, pulse in your throat, as you stutter out a wordless response. He can’t really be thinking…

George’s fingertips drag up further, coaxing your knees apart, and glides seamlessly up to cup against the warmth between your legs. Your breath hitches in sharply before you bite down on your lip, and George, lips still pressed to your ear, laughs. “Guess you suck at it. Good.”

George doesn’t open your pants, not with the short ride you guess, but he’s wicked with his fingers regardless; he’s barely moving at first, just pressing, rhythmic and sure that has you thrumming for more, can feel your sex beginning to ache with arousal and want. Your breathing starts to get heavy, hands in fists to keep still.

“Spread your legs,” he commands, not a request, and you do it, pushing your trembling thighs apart and suddenly you feel just how wet you’ve gotten, seeping heat through your pants as he fits his hand against you fully. George straightens up then, eyes forward looking no worse for wear as he continues to tease you through your steadily soaking pants.

He shifts his hand, palm on your mound, fingers pressing, in, in, fitting them into the space between your lips you have no idea how he finds so easy. He finds your swelling tip like a homing beacon next, caught between two fingers immediately. You almost moan that time, hand flying up to cover your mouth as he glides smooth, slow, languid passes between your legs so the cabbie doesn’t see any quick movements.

You spend the rest of the cab ride biting into your lip, your palm, your sleeve, trembling in your seat and trying not to make sound. Your one knee is drawn up against the door, almost sunk into your seat as he works you to hot, pulsing need. Your shirt sticks at your back, toes curling in your shoes to keep yourself from rocking up as he rubs you detachedly faster, not a care in the world how you shake, how close to orgasm you are just from his touch. You taste iron from how much you’ve chewed your lip raw, your panting quiet and erratic to try not to straight up moan with every breath. He picks up pace almost on minute cues, and by twelve minutes you can’t stop yourself grabbing his wrist, pushing up into his hand to chase your building orgasm, you’re so close you forget you can’t, not here—

George doesn’t let you; he pulls away immediately, flicking you in the thigh that makes you jump at the overstimulation.

“Almost there,” he says, the grin evident in his voice without you looking over to him.

You want to curse him out but you can’t string the words together, not while still riding the edge of your pleasure. You have to bite your hand and force slow breaths for the next two minutes just to calm yourself down. You barely compose yourself before the cabbie stops and George pays. You almost fall out of the car your knees are shaking so much. George is there though, hand out for yours and you resist the urge to climb him, grab his hand, get him back down there already.

“You suck,” you mutter, looking up to see his shoulders shake with silent laughter.

He takes one look at your flushed face before his head tilts with mocking innocence, “Something the matter?”

You just whine then, your faculties shot on continuing the banter; your thighs clench together with a hitching sound, nodding your head because you’re not going to lie.

It flips something in him. His eyes darken, the smile falling, and in a second those strong hands are on your jaw, dragging you into a fierce kiss. It’s almost savage, him sucking your lip between his teeth, nails dragging harsh across your scalp as he tangles his fingers through your hair to deepen the bruising kiss. You moan with it, lost against his lips, your hands flying up to bunch into his shirt and pull him closer. He slides his tongue quick across your swelling lip, pulling another short sound of need from you and you part your lips for him, a wash of delicious heat curling in your belly at the slick press of his tongue teasing its way inside.

The kiss doesn’t last nearly long enough before George pulls away. Want swoops through you again when he looks you dead in the eye, still holding your face and growls, deep and ragged, “Get inside.”

You don’t need to be told twice; you stumble to the main door, fumbling with the keys to open it up and guide the both of you to your apartment. When you flick through your keys at your apartment door for the right one his hands settle on your hips, tugging you back and you almost drop your keys when you feel the tent in his jeans grind against you, hard heat against your backside. It makes your breath hitch again, biting back a whimper that has him chuckling behind you.

“Eager, aren’t you?” He teases coyly, as if he has no responsibility over your current state.

“I could say the same thing,” you counter, though it probably loses some of its weight with how drawn out you sound.

“I’m not denying that,” his voice drops almost an octave with the reply, ragged with same the gravel tone he used outside and in the bar that makes you shiver. Shit, you can barely find the shred of control you still have to get the both of you inside, door closed and locked, before you pull him back down for another desperate kiss.

You lose time then, between the fuzzy remains of your inebriation and his increasingly intoxicating kiss, peppered with a few key moments; the sweet press of his tongue sliding against yours, shirts shed in the hallway, shoes kicked who-the-fuck-cares where, warm hands coasting up your bare back and raking harsh nails up your spine. He kisses you possessively, his big hands almost engulfing your face when he pulls you closer to bruise your lips with his own, like this kiss is the only thing he wants, that your mouth belongs to him and him alone.

You get George to the bedroom and he grabs you by your sides, picks you up with squeak of surprise from you—you had gathered he was strong but not this strong—and bodily tosses you onto your bed. All that tightly coiled heat revives in you, unspirals and spreads into an unbearable want through every limb in your body, the anticipation shaking your hands as you shove your pants off as quick as you can.

George is on you the second they’re off, his own jeans removed so he can knee your legs apart, pinning you with his weight the next second and rocking his hips against you with a wicked grind. The hard line of his arousal fits against you like a puzzle piece, rubbing you hard through your underwear from your hole up to your sensitive tip. It makes you gasp, your back arching at the sweet friction; your hands immediately drop down to grip his hips, pulling him closer and George surprises you when he grabs your hands. He pins your wrists above your head, both fit easily into one hand, and you’re trapped there then, between his hips spreading you wide and him bearing his weight into your hands, all you can do is moan when he drives his hips against you, steady, sharp motions that tease you relentlessly until you feel like you may cum just from the rough grind alone.

George has not stopped looking at you once, you realize, like a predator watching prey and you try not to squirm under that intensity, that fierce knowledge that he knows he has you where he wants you.

“Please, I need—” You start, but he swallows it with another savage kiss, licking into your mouth and rocking faster against you, like he’s fucking you already and the thought makes you tremble, the searing heat growing unbearable between your legs. You were close before in the car and you’re close again now, tipping too close to the edge that you have to break away from the kiss, head thrown back as your breath catches on your half-formed cries.

You sort of gathered George was a rough lover at this point, and he all but confirms it when he buries his mouth against your neck, letting you gasp and whimper aloud as he kisses and nips down the column of your throat, grazing sharp teeth across your racing pulse. The ache between your legs suddenly builds up fast and you buck up, legs locking tight around his hips as your sex pulses against him, soaking through your underwear, the hitching cry of your pleasure loud in your ears. It’s almost a tease, the orgasm too soft, and all it does is ripple prickling heat through every nerve and only makes you want more. He releases your hands, settling both hands on your bed now as he slowly rocks against your still-aching sex.

“You seem a little touch starved, has it been awhile?” He whispered, the taunting grin in his voice evident as the words vibrate through your throat.

“You gonna tease me all night or should I grab a vibrator?” You snap back, shaky and breathless and not at all meaning it. He answers you by turning his mouth back to your neck and sinking his teeth in hard.

“Ow, shit!” You gasp out, jerking away from those teeth by shoving hard at his shoulders. He allowed you to push him, giving you a slow blink and an almost tired raise to his brow.

“Oh, I’m sorry, is that too rough?” George murmurs, dripping with sarcasm and not a shred contrite. It sounds like a challenge as much as anything. You answer by hitching your legs higher up around his hips, grinding into his hard cock you can practically feel twitching against you. You arch your neck back and are rewarded with a low chuckle.

“You shouldn’t be so predictable.” He shakes his head, and then presses warm lips back to your abused throat, “Daddy kink and a masochist.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m—” you cry out on the next harsh bite, nails digging into his back and raking up hard. You’re sure you’ve broken skin, because George groans, long and low into your neck. He arches into your hands, sucks a bruising mark just underneath your jaw and tightens his grip on your wrists and hip.

You practically whined out your comment, “Someone’s pot calling kettle.”

“I’m still not denying anything.” He hums, and you arch again when he laves his tongue over the bruising, tingling bite.

You can’t stand it anymore, now, you need him inside you. “Fuck, get these off.”

George listens, sitting back to hook his thumbs in his boxers and slides them quick, efficient down his thighs and thrown carelessly to the side. Your mouth goes dry as you take him in, thick and already beading up precum at the tip with his arousal. Your sex gives an eager little throb at the sight. You have your own underwear down to your thighs when he takes over, ripping them off of you—you hear the fabric give—and tossing them aside to join his. As soon as you’re both free you grab him and pull him back into a kiss, quickly becoming addicted to the shape of his lips on yours, the way he claims your mouth and pulls you so close so you can feel the tip of his nose pressed hard against your cheek.

He reaches down while you kiss, ghosting his fingers over your slick sex. It makes you gasp, arching up to urge him to press those digits inside. He smirks against your mouth and dips down further, rubbing two fingers against your wet entrance, barely dipping one of them inside to the first knuckle while his thumb circles your swollen tip. He swallows the moan it drags out of you.

“You clean?” He asks against your lips and you nod, are rewarded with another smirk you can feel.

Then he reaches down to himself, and you don’t expect just how thick he is, nor how you gasp when he rubs the blunt, bare head of his dick against your lips.

“Condom! Condom,” You squeak out, and he laughs.

“Was wondering how far you were gonna let me go.”

“Condom,” you reiterate, not in the mood to joke.

“I’m clean.”

You kick him in the thigh as your response and he laughs at you again, “You’re no fun.”

“I’ll just pack this up then,” you gesture at yourself. Of course you want him inside you; you want him so badly it almost hurts, and you are tipsy but not that drunk.

George snorts at your response. He leans in then, mouth hovering over yours, and he doesn’t move away. He pushes forward, just a small roll of his hips. With that bare tip still snug against you it presses, and presses further, it feels so fucking good where it just starts to stretch you that you gasp with it, arching and biting down on your lip to keep quiet because you’re so so close to letting it slip in.

“You sure?” He hums it, close enough to feel his mouth move across yours. It’s almost a tease, like he knows the line you’re walking. Fuck, maybe you are that drunk, you have to be because you moan with his question, the delirious, pleasure-drunk side of you hesitating on your answer.

While you hesitate he reaches down, rubs himself across your swollen tip to your aching hole, making your legs tremble and making you arch for more contact. You can’t catch your breath to tell him no—you really don’t want to, but you know you should—before he reaches up, covers your mouth with his palm so you can’t say anything at all, and then he starts torturing you. He guides himself forward so just the head breaches you; over and over again, he presses it against you, catching your slick rim and you can feel it, you can hear it, how wet you are, how much you’re aching for this.

And then George presses harder, until it pops inside you, so thick you moan loudly even behind his hand, your hole clenching eagerly around it but he never stays in long enough to satisfy. Instead he works himself in and out and you have no idea how he has so much self-control, because you feel like you’re going to lose your mind, you want him so badly. He just keeps doing it, watching you with those intense eyes while he silences all your protests or pleas behind that strong hand. Every press has the heat building back up inside you, making you wetter, making you throb for him, until you’re clenching rhythmically down even when he’s gone, bucking up for more contact and shaking with the pleasure peaking fast toward another climax. He teases you so long you might cum from it, and finally you can’t take it anymore, you start shaking your head, tugging at his fingers and forming wordless sounds.

That smirk comes back, “You want me to stop?”

You shake your head so hard for no you feel your neck twinge.

He smirk grows. “You want me inside you?”

You nod your head just as fast, your breath hitching on a needy whimper.

“That’s what I thought.”

As soon as he has your word he sinks himself inside with one, unrelenting push that makes you cry out behind his hand, so worked up you finally, finally cum for him just from being stretched so wide. His smirk turns into a wicked grin, there’s no way he can’t feel you spasming around his cock as you ride out the waves of your pleasure.

“Again?” He asks, it sounds like it should be a taunt, but this time you hear a strain in his voice, like he’s holding back a groan of his own. “I take it back, you’re gonna be lots of fun.”

You’re past caring about his quips; instead you wrap your legs around him in response, holding on tight as you whisper, “George, please.”

That self-control from before breaks. That feral little growl comes back as he grabs you by your shoulders, using you for leverage to fuck into you at a brutal pace. You cry out from it, head thrown back because none of it hurts, you’re so wet your body accommodates him fast, eagerly taking him in to the hilt every single time he buries himself in deep. It feels so good you can’t do anything but tighten your legs around his driving hips, reaching up blindly to hold on to his arms and gasp out yes’s and please, moaning his name because every time you do his hips snap into you hard, fucking his thick cock in that much deeper that makes an electric bolt of pleasure surge through you.

It feels impossible when the pleasure starts coiling tight in your core again, making you pulse around him as you start reaching your third peak. You feel the tears well up in your eyes at the pleasure and stimulation, sobbing out your next cry when he reaches down and glides his thumb against your tip. You reach down yourself, ready to work yourself to orgasm but he smacks your hand away.

“No, please,” you whimper out, “I’m so close—”

“Beg me for it,” he growls, his voice dropping an octave with it and you can’t help the hitch in your breath, the keen it drags out of you. He slows down his thrusts until he doesn’t move at all, spearing you on his cock with no motion, no relief, and you feel like you might cry if he doesn’t start moving.

“Please,” you plea, and he had you pegged right, of course, as you add, “Please sir, can I cum?”

He grabs your wrist and pins it to the bed, his eyes like fire on yours.

“No touching yourself,” he commands it of you, “Cum on my cock like a good whore.”

That makes you whine, shaking your head and he changes his grip from your wrist to your jaw, shaking you hard once before his fingers dig in to bone. The pain joined by the overwhelming fullness makes you gasp.

“You cum because I let you,” he growls out, rough like rolling coals. “You’re my toy. Mine.”

The shiver of heat that bleeds through you makes you pulse around him, arching up for him without your consent at the fantasy George has put in your head, the control he has over your body right now. That vicious grin returns and it only makes you throb more when he sits back and drags his hand down to your throat, bearing down with his thumb to your rapid pulse, pressing in and in until the first spots start to form. You gasp with it, or at least try, arching up further for him as you scramble to hold onto his hand. You know you should be scared, you don’t know him, but you don’t pull him away. Instead you just grip his flexing wrist, legs still tight around him and revel in George’s whispered, “That’s it.”

He starts fucking you again with his hand around your throat, picking up a steadily increasing pace until he’s pounding into you, using his grip on your throat to hold you down. He’s good at this, he’s done it before you deliriously realize, because every time your eyes start to roll he releases his grip just a little, just enough to gasp before it’s back and your whole body is awash in the dizzying high thrumming through your body, the burn in your pounding heart, making you focus solely on the pressure of his dick filling you up and hammering of your frantic pulse.

“Say it,” he hisses, your body jarring every time his hips snap against yours, pushing you closer and closer to your next peak. "Say you're mine."

“I’m yours,” you gasp out without hesitation, small and you try again, “I’m yours!”

He lets go of your throat and the rush of oxygen combined by a brutal thrust of his hips, lost in that fantasy of being at his mercy, makes you cum so hard you can’t even get the breath to scream, back arched taught as a bow as your knees squeeze around him tight.  It wracks through your sex and wracks through your body, blacking out your vision and slicking you so wet you can hear it where he keeps fucking you through your orgasm. You all but collapse after, shivering and twitching as he pistons inside you, unrelenting with his pace no closer to his own orgasm. He shifts his hold to gripping your hips, pulling you like a ragdoll to all but splay across his lap, your thighs falling loose around him.

You don’t have to do any work holding yourself up anymore; you’ve all but gone boneless after that last orgasm, ankles hooked numbly around the backs of his thighs but he holds you easily, one strong hand pressed firm to your lower back, the other clamped tight on your hip to keep driving you back into his merciless thrusts. It feels so good you’ve got tears running constant down your cheeks, your hole spasming with little half-pulses to orgasm each time he rolls his hips and presses in that extra little bit deeper. You reach down to try to hold your legs open anyway, wanting him to keep pressing deep, needing him to cum, too.

“That’s it, that’s a good slut.” He purrs, reaching up to run his thumb over your mouth that you readily take between your lips to suck. His breath catches for a moment, a crack in that careful control as his breathing deepens, biting the corner of his lip as he watches you pleasure the digit. Fuck, you want to taste him. You’re mad you didn’t take George’s cock in your mouth before this; maybe, maybe he’ll let you?

You reach up to pull his thumb out so you can ask, the words strangled you’re your overstimulation, “Please cum in my mouth?”

He stares at you like you didn’t speak English at first, but then he pulls up another savage grin, exactly what you expected as a reply, and for a second, you almost think you’ve gotten in too deep.

“One more,” he supplies, and you sob a little at that, shaking your head.

“I can’t.”

“Tapping out?” He croons, taunting.

You nod for him, your voice wet with your reply, “Please, it’s too much.”

“Too bad. Touch yourself.”

You whimper at that, but nod again, dropping a hand down to your overworked sex. You rub your palm lightly against yourself through the motion of his thrusts, the first time you’ve been able to touch and you hitch out another wrecked moan at the sensation. The light touch is more than enough to get you twitching again, clenching tight around him with that shiver of heat that starts growing back inside you.

As much as he clearly enjoys playing with you, he can’t hide his own want, nor how close he is, too. The moment you clench his breath hitches, nails digging in where he holds up your hips. His breathing grows more ragged as he fucks into you just a little less steady control, thrusting in harder and deeper, like he’s trying to drive himself up to your throat. It mesmerizes you in a second, the way he starts losing his composure, watching the space where his cock disappears into your body, his breath catching each time you squeeze down on him.

You have to wonder if you’ve gotten addicted to this in such a short time—short time? You have no idea how long, actually, it could have been twenty minutes, it could be hours—because your body surges back with heat and ache, clamping down around his thick cock, eager and hungry for one more. It makes him groan, loud and sudden like he wasn’t expecting it and he grips your jaw, prying it open to shove his fingers inside. He fucks your mouth with those two fingers, pressing on your tongue before letting you work your mouth around them, whimpering because it’s not enough, and you’ve never craved being filled with such rawness before, the need to have something in your hole and your mouth all at once. Maybe it’s not addiction to this, but addiction to him.

He’s locked on your face, watching you lick and suck the offered digits in your mouth, his eyes blown out wide with his pleasure, his breathing finally ragged, panting opened mouth as he draws closer to his own climax. He suddenly speeds up pace, his head ducking down and gritting his teeth with it, swallowing back another desperate sound. It’s such a sight you almost forget you’re close too, and with the digits in your mouth your moan is loud and jarring when you cum, twitching up to meet his thrusts as you ride out the slow, almost painful waves of your orgasm.

You’re still pulsing when he hisses and pulls out, and in a second he’s straddling your chest, arms pinned beneath you and you don’t care, you eagerly open your mouth for him, waiting with wide, wet eyes on him. He looks gorgeous like this too, towering above you, flushed chest heaving, brow drawn up tense by his pleasure it’s almost not fair. He tangles a hand in your hair and pins you in place, your neck arched back, mouth opening wide for him and he groans at the sight, a sharp, abrupt sound like he didn’t expect to make this one, either.

George pushes the thick length of himself forward in his fist, blunt head coated with your slick and his precum smearing over your lip and before you take that offered tip between your lips, happily accepting him feeding you his cock. Your lips have to stretch wide around him, the fullness of it makes you moan and you close your eyes on his next stilted grunt, scalp burning when he tugs hard. He’s close, groaning now with each soft, erratic pant as he fucks into his fist and your mouth, until his hips jerk forward and he twitches between your lips, spurting ropes of his thick cum against your waiting tongue with a harsh, stifled sound that’s unbearably close to a cry.

It’s an overwhelming taste, not bad or good, but you love it regardless; it’s so much that even though you try to obediently swallow it drips down your neck, though he doesn’t give you chance to be good and clean yourself up. He climbs off of you and kisses you, shoving his tongue in deep to gather up your joined tastes, eagerly seeking it out on your own tongue like it’s the only thing he wants. A painful pulse runs through you, abused body apparently uncaring and ready to go one more time. You kiss for so long the taste fades away, and the fierceness of it fades away to exhausted, lazy glides of each other’s lips, barely having the strength to cup his neck and hold on.

Even with the aftershocks fading you’re still trembling too much to move, but after a few slurred directions George finds the bathroom, returns with a washcloth that he uses to wipe you down. He lingers on your crotch, thumb rubbing your slick against your lips and overstimulated tip until you jerk and whine, “Please, don’t.”

He likes that, apparently, if his cruel little smile and sharp pinch on your thigh that has you yelping was anything to go by.

He sits cross-legged on the bed with you then, more awake than he had any right to be with you so wrecked you can barely keep your eyes open. He runs his fingers through your hair, that smile still there, and murmurs, “Ah, shit. Don’t think I’m gonna be able to let you go, sweetheart.”

You fall asleep, and when you wake the next morning, you’re not surprised to find him gone. You’re disappointed he leaves no number, angry at yourself for not giving yours before.

You can’t use your thighs properly for days. Every time you stand or sit it rockets bone deep ache through you and every wince has your cruel, sadistic friends giving you knowing grins. You regret absolutely none of it.

After a few months George becomes a too-fond memory, fodder for vivid fantasies fueled by memory instead of imagination for the lonely nights. Eventually, you don’t think about ever finding him again, wrapped up in the bittersweet knowledge of the best sex you ever had in your life meant that no one would ever compare again.

You’re at work when you hear the news. The Boston Reaper, aka George Foyet, was taken into custody and escaped. Of course you look up to the TV with the horrifying news that he’s out, the man that made everyone afraid to walk home alone at night, afraid to drive, afraid to be together because he always took in two, until that bus.

Whatever was in your hands, it drops. Your jaw drops, too. With his face filling the screen, the name Reaper split across his profile like a laceration, the only tangible thought that isn’t swarming static or straight up internal screaming is the surprise he gave you his real name.

Once the reality settles in on what would go down in history as the worst walk of shame in your short life, you feel your pulse in your throat. Your heart hammers the rest of the day, hand shaking around your pen, unable to say anything to anyone before turning in to go home.

You have no reason to believe he’d be there. You hadn’t seen him in months, and while he knows where you live, you can’t imagine he would come back. He could have killed you, he didn’t, and he hadn’t reached out since.

You think back on the last thing he said to you, and you keep your keys in your hand, finger hovering on emergency call on your phone in your pocket as you walk through your door.

It still surprises you when you see him standing there. It surprises you worse when seeing him, in borrowed clothes and dark eyes on you, pink staining his lips and that feral grin growing across his smile-lined cheeks, makes heat start to build between your legs.

You’ve made a lot of questionable decisions in your life. Those were suddenly outshined. You toss your keys and your phone to the side.

[chloroformthelittleb4stard]

Family Relations - Part 4

Summary: Your criminology teacher is acting all kinds of weird, which is the norm, except for the part where his eyes glaze over and he tries to kill someone. Stiles, the hero he is, tries to stop your professor with little avail until he gets some unnoticeable help from you. Stiles seems to find himself with you at the location of multiple attacks, just barely making it out alive. Through the bloodshed feelings, family, and friends mix to create a perfect blend of chaos and calm.

T/CW: Blood, gore, like a lot of fucking gore, swearing, body horror?

A/N: Sorry this took so long, I hope it's worth it. This is a long chapter but because the first part is short I put a time skip in the middle of it, that's what the = means. P.S - Happy mother's day!

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You'd convinced him to stay with you for the night because of what you were absolutely sure Allison and Scott's "after-pack-meeting" activities would include. It wasn't hard, as soon as you mentioned the prospect of Stiles' precious sleep being interrupted by their shenanigans he was on board with staying at yours. Your dorm had two beds, you'd been lucky and not gotten a roommate, a blessing and a curse really. You'd laid the sheets out and gotten your extra pillow, all ready for Stiles to get to sleep. The only problem was, Stiles wasn't particularly interested in sleep yet. You'd had a long day, mostly it was just that bout of magical fighting that wore you out but still, you were tired, and Stiles simply didn't want to be in silence.

"So, Y/n..." You'd been listening to the sound of Stiles fidget like mad, and you were wondering when he was going to snap and finally talk to you.

"Yes." Your tone was smooth and song-like. Despite needing sleep desperately you wanted to talk to Stiles, he was fun to talk to. You'd always been kind of a loner, it was easier to stay hidden that way, but you didn't need to hide with Stiles and it felt fucking amazing.

"What's D.C like?" He didn't look at you when he asked, staring straight up at the ceiling, but you were happy to stare at him, studying the moles on his cheek and the way his hair laid against the pillow.

"It's, interesting." He snorted, turning to you as you whipped your head away so you didn't get caught staring.

"Care to elaborate on that?" He had a dopey smile on his face, looking at your side profile like his life depended on it while he waited for you to respond. You felt his gaze burning your skin, it was a burn you could get used to.

"I don't know what you want me to say. Traffic's a bitch if you live in D.C, that's for sure. It took me half a hour to go eight miles from my house to school." He sucked in a breath at the statement, like simply hearing about traffic that bad was physically paining him.

"Good thing is if you live in the city you don't really need a car. My mom didn't have a car, neither did any of my babysitters, so we took the metro and the subway everywhere." He hummed, like the thought of the subway actually pleased him.

"I'm going to be in the city, that's for sure. FBI headquarters is on Pennsylvania ave." His muttering made you giggle, surprised that he knew so much about the landscape.

"You've been there before?" Your smile was wide from laughter and you didn't even care if you looked like an idiot, you were having fun.

"Yeah, once. I looked at going to George Washington so when I toured we stopped by. It's a really ugly building by the way, they should fix that." He was quirking a smile as well, glancing between you and the ceiling to try and look discreet.

"Yeah they should." You were trying to be quiet for the sake of your dorm mates but you were having trouble, Stiles was funny and it felt so good to laugh. You hadn't laughed like this in years, always too stressed to find anything amusing.

"So, what's is like rooming with Scott?" He made a vague hum of mediocrity, shrugging and leaving it at that.

"Care to elaborate on that?" You giggled using his words against him.

"It's good, we've been like brothers since we were little kids so it's really not that big of a difference. We spent a lot of time together at my house because my dad was gone a lot so living with him is kinda familiar." You felt a pang of sympathy when he said his dad was away, you thought back to your dad and how absent he'd been. The memories cut off almost as suddenly as they'd started.

"What about your mom?" He took a deep breath, he had a slight frown on his face and you knew immediately that you'd hit a nerve.

"She died, when I was a kid. She had a type of dementia and it, killed her." He was fully frowning now, and he was no longer fully with you, his eyes had glazed over and he was staring right through you. He shook his head and came back, frown gone and a small smile took its place.

"I'm sorry, both for what happened and that I brought it up."

"It's ok, it's been a long time and it brought me and my dad really close so it wasn't all bad." His silver lining was slim, slimmer than was arguably debatable to even count as a silver lining, but you didn't argue. He'd shared enough of his past with you, and you felt honored by the confession even if you did accidentally cause it to happen by asking. The fact that he shared something with you meant a lot.

"My mom died too, she was hit by a car when I was 13 and she died in surgery." The air was tense, but Stiles' expression and morphed from fake stability to real sympathy as your eyes locked and you tried to comfort each other without words. You fell asleep shortly after that, Stiles had stayed quiet for more than five minutes and that was all it took for sleep to wave its wand and take you under it's control.

==

Screams woke you up, screams from within your dorm. They woke Stiles up too and you both sprung to get re-dressed properly, rushing out the door as soon as you'd slipped your shoes on. The screaming was coming from down the hall and you already had a sinking feeling what had happened.

It wasn't uncommon for your fellow dorm dwellers to leave their doors open, it helped circulate cool air in the desert that was California. Being born and raised in D.C left you significantly more paranoid than most of them however, and so you decided you'd rather just suffer the heat than the possibility of getting robbed blind. You'd told some people in the common room at the beginning of the year about your fear and they'd all but laughed at you, saying that nothing like that happened here. You'd never wanted to have been so wrong in your life.

One door was already wide open, and blood was smeared on several other doors, also open. It seemed that the killer had gone down the hall, checking who decided it was too hot to save their lives. The first body was in the doorway of the room three doors up from yours. It was sprawled out on the floor and you and Stiles nodded, agreeing not to go into the room considering the carpet was currently soaking up the victim's blood. It seemed there were plenty of others anyways.

Room after room, one slaughtered college student after another left you feeling ill beyond belief. You didn't need to be told what had happened, you already knew. You had never actually had the chance to see what happened when the killer was finished with their dirty work, what they did to the people they used as instruments of mass murder. Sadly it seems you didn't have to go searching to find out. At the end of the hall was another body, this time with a knife in its hand, most likely from the kitchen in the common room. Its throat was cut, much like all the other victims.

The screaming had long stopped, you assumed it came from one of the other residents who peeked out into the hallway and saw what looked like a scene from an upcoming Scream 5. Stiles was bent over the body, examining what you assumed was its deadness.

"Whatcha looking at?" He gave you a vague noise of acknowledgment before standing up and looking at you with a face slightly paler than it was before he bent down.

"I think you should see this Y/n." You squatted down next to the corpse, examining its overall lack of life and raising an inquisitive eyebrow up at Stiles.

"Look in her throat, through the cut." You'd really planned not to come this close to a corpse in your life. What's that saying? Make a plan and the universe laughs.

The throat was indeed, mostly just bloody and disgusting, but also intriguing. The windpipe and both carotid arteries were slashed straight through, a feat that was essentially impossible to do for the normal non-possessed human. In the back of the windpipe, which you could just barely see through the cut, there was a small mark. You dug your phone out of your back pocket, almost dropping it with how much your hands were shaking, and turned your flashlight on to it's brightest setting so you could see the mark clearly.

It was a small symbol, lines and swirls within a small circle that struck you as soon as you saw it. With a soft thud your ass met the ground as your precarious balancing act failed and you fell from your squatting position.

"Are you ok?" Stiles' voice was lost as your brain went into panic mode, the new found information stirring up a whirlwind of anxiety.

"We need to get out of here. Like, right now." Scrambling up from the blood soaked floor you made your way back to your dorm room, dragging a confused Stiles behind you asking a million and one questions.

Without answering any of them you grabbed your nearest backpack and started destroying your dorm room in an attempt to gather all of your most important belongings, a mix of underwear, clothes, and books thrown into your worn backpack.

"Are you going to keep ignoring me or do I get an explanation for why we need to leave your dorm room? Y'know other than the murdered college students..."  Stiles had passed the stage of being thoroughly confused by you, that ship sailed when you fought off the vine that attacked you both. Now however, he was fed up with not having answers to the predicament you now found yourselves in.

"Can I explain it to you in the car? We need to leave ASAP."

"The car has a name, it's Roscoe." You rolled your eyes, of course he named his car, and of course now is the best possible moment to tell you.

"Less talking more walking please."

"Sorry." The keys jingled as he grabbed them and yours, tossing your purple keychain to you so you could lock up. You took the stairs two at a time, almost tripping over Stiles in your haste to get out of the building.

The car seats were cold when you got in but you couldn't be more awake than you already were, adrenaline and fear coursing through your blood, the symbol seemingly burned into the back of your eyelids, haunting you whenever you so much as blinked. Stiles booked it out of the parking lot, Roscoe's tires making an awful screeching noise as he turned while reversing, a move that would have scared you had there not been the max amount of fear already happening.

"So, explanation." He raised an expectant eyebrow at you, biting his tongue to let you answer before he spiraled into asking questions without enough time for you to answer them.

"Uh, do werewolves have symbols for different concepts, like danger and stuff?"

"Y-yeah they do, there's one for revenge it's a spiral. Why?" A spiral, of course the supernatural weren't creative when it came to symbol differences.

"Ok well witches do, it's called the witches' alphabet, it's a few symbols they mean stuff, the one we just saw in the corpse was the symbol for revenge. It's used to channel the chosen energy into whatever magic you cast." Your voice was shaking, the lack of oxygen in your system making you feel light headed, or maybe that was the endorphins, who knows.

"Ok, so what does that mean?" Stiles was shaking as well, not liking the sound of any more revenge business. He had to deal with this once before, he didn't want a repeat supernatural problem.

"It means that whoever cast the spell is one, vengeful, two, meeting the victims beforehand to get the symbol on them. This is bad, like, really bad." You had to actively sit on your hands to stop their fidgeting, the nervous energy bubbling inside your body like a volcano.

"Just what we need, a witch who wants vengeance. Was a normal evil witch not enough?!" Stiles' comment made you chuckle, the breathy act brought a twitch of a smile to his face, your happiness spreading to him in the midst of your crisis.

"Apparently not. Where are you going, the dorms are the opposite way."

"I don't know, I didn't want to take you back to Scott until I knew what was going on so I kind of just started driving around." Had you not been stressed beyond belief at the moment you would have been endeared by Stiles' care for his friend and roommate, but at the moment it was just irritating.

"You just drove us in the middle of the night down a street you have no idea where it leads? Really Stiles?! Take us to Scott, now." You were fuming but upon seeing the dejected look in Stiles' eyes at your harsh tone you were reminded as to how hard this entire situation must be for a normal human, werewolf pack member or not.

"Please. Could you please take us to Scott." Your manners had escaped you for a moment but with the regaining of your senses they came back.  A pang of guilt struck you at how mean you'd been to the brunette next to you. Reaching out for his hand which was resting on the stick-shift you hoped silently that he would accept your unspoken apology. He did accept, a blush rising to his cheeks at the skin-to-skin contact that you initiated and a smile creeping on his face.

Moments after your mutual flush and giddiness over the contact Stiles pulled up into the parking lot of his own dorm, the tar lit up just barely by a floodlight near the sidewalk. Unwinding his fingers from yours he was the first to get out of the car, you following shortly after, the cold air hitting your bare shoulders per your tank top which you just now realized was covered in blood.

Rushing to Stiles' side you wrapped your arms around your torso to try and cover the evidence of your dorm's activities, only to realize that your arms were the source of the problem. A mix of various people's blood was coating your arms, the red solution drying crusty on your skin. Thankfully it was the middle of the night, the darkness mostly covering your blood-stained everything.

Looking over at the mole-covered man next to you you took in the sight of him, surprisingly not covered entirely in blood. He had spots of it on his hoodie, only barely visible thanks to the floodlight, but he'd managed to stay clear of the mess, something you were currently jealous of. You wouldn't be able to take a shower until you were back in your own dorm and you were really dreading the idea of having to wash off both of your arms in the small dorm sinks.

Stiles opened the door for you and the heat influx from the building was a welcome change, the goosebumps immediately vacating your skin. You both headed up to his dorm in relative silence, trying not to wake his neighbors up. It was a harder feat than it should have been, given how often Stiles almost tripped on the single flight of stairs up to his shared room.

You could hear snoring coming from one of the beds, presumably Scott's, and the embarrassing situation you'd found your friend in made you momentarily forget your current predicament. In the darkness you could see two bodies in Scott's bed, the smaller one of which you assumed was Allison, tucked under her boyfriend's arm. They were sleeping so peacefully you almost felt bad to wake them, Stiles however, did not. With a loud enough greeting and the swift act of turning on all of the lights in their dorm, he woke his roommate and his roommate's girlfriend up with a startle.

"Stiles! They were sleeping!" You'd wanted to put up a semblance of good will with the woman you'd met less than 24 hours ago but in reality you were stifling a laugh, biting your tongue to keep from bursting out. The couple let out groans of protest at being woken up in the wee hours of the morning but got up eventually anyways, thankfully somewhat dressed after what you were still convinced their nightly activities consisted of.

"What the hell dude?" The were-wolf's voice was groggy from sleep and the rough scratch in his throat reminded you of Stiles' voice less than two hours ago when you were woken up by screaming neighbors.

"Sorry but you really can't be asleep right now, also yes that is blood on Y/n's, well everywhere, I will explain that in a minute. Allison could you help her clean up? Scott I need to talk to you." Nodding Allison took immediate heed to Stiles' request and looked carefully for a space to lead you that wasn't covered in blood before eventually deciding 'fuck it' and grabbing one of your slowly drying arms, washing the blood off of the area in the small sink.

There wasn't a lot of space in the dorm for a private conversation but you and Allison made small talk in an attempt to give the boys some facade of privacy.

"So, rough night I guess?" She let out a small chuckle at her own joke while you allowed a smile to creep onto your face at the problem you had earlier found yourself in.

"You could say that. Someone decided it'd be a good idea to murder a solid percentage of my floor mates so, y'know, the night could have gone better." She gasped at that, the light air of the conversation having gone as soon as you brought up the traumatic events that had occurred.

"Murder? Oh God. By 'a solid percentage' you mean how many people exactly?" Your mind flashed through the bodies you'd seen, counting at least six in the haze of the night.

"Six, maybe more. I don't know for sure, it was a lot. We found who did it though, kind of." You wished that you were dealing with a normal murder where finding who did the killing actually solved your problem. Sadly, that wasn't the case and the situation was getting more and more fraught in your mind the more you stressed about it, the images and circumstances pulling the strings in your mind so tightly they were beginning to fray.

"Are you ok?" Allison's eyes were kind and you noted in the back of your brain to thank Scott that he had such good taste in girlfriends.

"Yeah, I think so. I'm not hurt or anything, just a little shaken up." She nodded silently before going into nurse-mode and scanning your now-clean left arm.

"No scratches, all of this blood seems to be someone else's. I think most of the blood is other people's but I need to wash off the other arm to be sure."

"Be my guest, I wasn't feeling the whole blood-sleeve look anyways." You shrugged and let out a small giggle at your own joke, Allison following suit as she lathered up the ruined washcloth for another round of scrubbing.

You were in the process of cleaning the blood from underneath your fingernails when Stiles and Scott crept up behind you, interrupting the light bonding that you had started with Allison.

"Ok, we need to get out of here and go back home, right now." Scott took on more of a dominant personality when in charge and it made you glad that someone knew what to do, even if you didn't. You'd already grabbed spare clothes from your dorm room so you and Allison waited by the door nervously while Stiles and Scott scrambled to gather their most important belongings.

"Where is home?" You knew where you were from and where your home was, but you doubted that everyone would be game for catching a flight at almost 4 a.m.

"Beacon Hills, it's where we all met. Stiles and Scott are from there, so is most of the pack, I moved there sophomore year. The pack started in Beacon Hills, the town is like a beacon for the supernatural, it's probably the safest place to be because it's home territory, Scott's pack has been protecting it for years now."

"So Scott's the alpha?" It made sense given his natural leadership abilities and his friendliness, but it was still a little odd to see your friend as the strongest were-wolf out of the entire group you saw the other night.

"He's a true alpha too." You'd heard of true alphas, mostly by myth however, they were rare but the more you thought back on Scott's character the more it made sense. He was easily one of the most loyal people you'd met, and he was brave as well, fighting for people he didn't even know, or people he didn't know well. He was willing to risk his life to save the barista on the day of that attack, even willing to let her see him shift, it was only logical that he was a true alpha.

Your conversation was interrupted as it took all of five minutes for the two best friends to pack their things, swing the backpacks stuffed full of items over their shoulders before they led the way back down to the Jeep that was parked out front.

The ride was quiet and tense, Stiles in the front with you and Scott in the back with Allison, explaining the specifics of the situation that you had purposely left out because you didn't know how to explain it without making a joke out of it. Dark humor was quickly becoming your most solid coping mechanism for morbidity.

Scott went to protect Allison as she ran up to her dorm to grab her things as well, insisting that she tell her roommate she was going home so no one would file a missing person's report and make the entire situation more complicated.

She came back downstairs quickly, Scott in tow looking noticeably dazed as he held on to his girlfriend's hand when she plopped in the back of Stiles' Jeep. You let out a snort at what had most likely been a 'our lives are in danger' make out and let them have their secrecy as Stiles started up for what was the drive to Beacon Hills.

[starrybethany]

Matthew Tkachuk . 1 . Outrunning Karma

Word count: 3K

Song: Outrunning Karma by Alec Benjamin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4vD2S5vQMM

Today marks one month since I began working at this school. One month of teaching at a public school for the first time- one month of dealing with some of the best and worst kids I have ever met or taught.

“... but let me tell you guys, no matter what your previous English teachers might have told you, colors don’t always have to have symbolism. It could just be the author wanting you to visualize the object or situation more,” I explain, leaning back on my desk.

Despite this being a required sophomore English class, all of the kids look engaged and interested in the material. I’m not one to brag, but some of my previous students have told me that I’m the best teacher they’ve ever had because I talk and create activities that peak the students interest so that they want to learn the lesson.

I never tell them it’s because I spend hours scrolling through Pinterest, considering if each student would like each activity.

The bell rings signaling the end of the day and I glance over at the clock in surprise. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in whatever I’m teaching I don’t even notice the time passing me by. “Okay, well have a good night, everyone! There’s no homework tonight.”

I watch them leave the classroom, getting up to sit behind my desk and grade some homework and exercises I made the students do. I’m reading one of the essays about the book they read over the summer when the sound of heels clicking on the floor make me look up.

Anna Turner and I met in college. We had the same major, secondary education, but different minors because she teaches math and I teach English. When she found out that I was quitting my job at the all-girls Catholic school I used to teach at- for reasons I’d rather forget about- she begged me to apply at the public high school that she teaches at. As you can see, I got the job and decided to take it.

“How’s it going?” She asks, leaning over my desk.

“Good. I don’t have any students that have a grade lower than a C.” I do a fist pump in the air and she laughs at my antics.

“That’s good. So, Mr. Wright wants you in his office right now,” she tells me.

My eyes widen in surprise. At my last school, whenever you got called to the office you knew something bad was going to happen. I was only there once and for the reason that I was called in there for, I quit.

“Did I do something wrong?” I question.

“No, no you didn’t,” she reassures me. “Just go.”

So I follow her orders, making my way through the hallways with “hellos” to my students on my way to the small office at the back of the school. I knock on the door before opening it, immediately thrown off by the dim lighting in the usually well-lit office.

I’m startled by the sight of someone who is not Principal Wright behind his desk. Instead, it’s an attractive man who appears to be my age or maybe even younger. It’s obvious that his borderline-blonde-borderline-brown hair is naturally curly but he has it cut into a way that he can control it.

His eyes are a gentle mix of blue and green- it’s hard to tell what it actually is. His mouth parts, revealing a gap in between his top two front teeth which makes me swoon at the boyish vibe that he gives off.

When a smirk covers his face I snap out of my daydream about our seven kids, realizing that I’m probably drooling all over the floor at how hot this guy is.

“Oh, sorry, um, I’m supposed to be meeting with Principal Wright,” I stutter through, cursing myself for the lack of confidence.

“No, you’re not.”

My eyebrows furrow in confusion and nervousness rushes through me, both because of the confusion this situation is bringing and the fact that such a good-looking guy is staring at me right now. “I’m sorry?”

“Come sit down, Y/N.”

I’m immediately thrown off by the fact that this guy knows my name. How does he know me yet I don’t know him?

“Um, I’d rather not,” I deny as politely as I can, taking a step back. My back touches something and I freeze, my blood running cold. I turn around slowly to find a tall, looming man behind me. He smiles at me but it’s obvious by the gesture that I need to do whatever this stranger is telling me.

So I turn around, ignoring the fact that the smirk on this stranger’s face has grown, and reluctantly sit in one of the arm chairs in front of Mr. Wright’s desk. Or this guy’s desk, who knows anymore?

“How was class today?” He inquires.

I give him an odd expression, unsure of his intentions. I don’t know him and the fact that I’m pressured to talk to him in such a weird setting makes me unsettled. It’s also weird that he would pressure me into talking to him just to ask me about the students. That can’t be the only thing that he wants to know from this conversation, but I don’t know what else he wants to know.

“Good,” I answer simply, not positive of what to say or how much to give away.

“So, let me introduce myself. My name is Matthew, this school and I have a deal and since you’re going to stick around for a while, it’s time to inform you of, uh, what’s going on,” he begins. I grow more and more anxious with every word. “We provide protection to this school, since you know it’s not in the safest area of the city, and in return the school allows us to use the facilities and resources for our, um, how do I say this, activities.”

I raise my eyebrows in question to the ‘activities’ part but quickly shove them back down. By the way that he phrases it, the situation isn’t anything good, none the less legal, so it’s best to know as little as possible.

But really, the school allows this to occur on campus? With kids around? What if the kids see someone getting murdered or using cocaine, will the school pay for their therapy bills or can it afford court bills if they get taken to court?

“Now that you’re a part of the crew-”But I’m not-”You might have to do some things in order to keep your protection.”

From the way he says it, I know it’s not just protection from muggers or rapists on the outside. Now, it includes him and whatever gang or mafia or mob he’s a part of.

“Like what?” I find myself asking.

He grins at me, showing me that gap again. This time, it doesn’t make me swoon. Instead it makes my heart beat ten times faster. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, sweetheart.”

He stares at me and I stare back at him. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what he wants me to say. I’m afraid to say anything in fear of saying the wrong thing- one wrong thing and I could get my head blown off. And I know if I open my mouth I just might start crying.

“Any questions?”

I shake my head silently.

“Okay. We’ll call you when you’re needed then. Or maybe stop by your apartment, depending on the time,” he responds, playing with one of Principal Wright’s pens. “Milan, show her out.”

The big man from earlier guides me back into the hallway all the while I can feel Matthew’s eyes on me. I take deep breaths to steady my breathing and it’s like I’m just going through the motions, packing up my stuff and driving back to my apartment.

My apartment. They know where I live. And I bet if I packed up and moved, they would figure out my address then, too. The mafia never lets you go once it gets its hold on you.

Troy: FaceTime?

I’ve never rejected a FaceTime call from my boyfriend. These days, those calls are too far and few between and I miss him more than I can put into words. It’s only been a year since he was transferred to Toronto but comparing that one year that he’s been away to the two and a half years that he’s been by my side, I can easily pick which one I prefer more.

Y/N: Not feeling well tonight, sorry.

I make my dinner, ignoring my phone vibrating beside me with an incoming text. I check it as I begin to eat.

Troy: What’s wrong?

I don’t respond to his text. It’s not like I can tell him the truth, that the mafia owns my work and threatened me. He would tell me to go to the police but it’s not that easy, Matthew probably has tons of people in his pocket, including the ones whose job it is to enforce the law.

I clean up my dinner, sitting down at the kitchen counter to grade an exercise I made the students write about an interesting thing they found out about their home city of Calgary.

The city of Calgary is run by a mafia called the ‘Calgary Flames.’ They’ve been around since 1972 and have had several leaders over the years, previously Mark Giordano and currently Matthew Tkachuk. You can recognize a mafia member by a tattoo all of the members have to get, which is a C with flames shooting out from it on the inside of their left ankle. They are famous for crimes like drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption of public officials, murder, and kidnapping just to name a few.

It feels like all of the air has been sucked out of me. This can’t be about the same person I met earlier, right? Sure, they share the same name and that Matthew does seem to be a part of something sketchy, but that’s just a coincidence. The Matthew that I’ve met and that I’ll have to be interacting with for who knows how long can’t be a part of something so- so vile.

I can’t imagine anyone doing any of those things listed. Those are all horrendous crimes and to do those around kids would make those people awful human beings. Well, there’s only one way I can tell if this is the same Matthew or not.

I need to see his ankle.

~

It’s a while before I see him again. The next time I see him I’m scanning through the pile of copies in my hands, frustrated by the fact that the copy machine didn’t staple the papers automatically once again.

“Hey Ms. Y/LN, was there any homework for the weekend?” The familiar voice of one of my students asks.

I lift my head to make eye contact, my blood running cold and I freeze in my place as my eyes meet Matthew’s. He’s standing next to Tanner, a student in my eighth hour, who asked the question, and it’s clear that he interrupted a conversation he was having with the older man to ask the question.

I know Matthew does business here but I didn’t expect him to actually communicate with the students. That seems like a boundary that he would know better than to cross, but I guess if he’s in the mafia he doesn’t know any boundaries.

“Um, I just wanted you guys to read chapters eight and nine of your novels for Monday,” I answer, crossing my arms protectively over my chest.

I watch the blonde’s eyes flicker down to watch the movement.

“Okay. See you Monday.” The sophomore shuts the locker, giving a lazy wave to the mafia leader before heading down the hall.

It’s like I’m stuck in place. I know I should move, I know I should avoid as much contact with Matthew as possible, but for some reason my feet won’t listen to my brain’s screaming.

He nods at me in greeting. “How are you doing today, Y/N?”

“Good,” I shift on my feet. I know I have to confirm whether he’s actually a mafia leader or not. If he’s not, he’s just some shady guy doing shady business at my place of work. If he is- well, I don’t even want to think about that.

The plan formulates in my head and I go to move forward, purposefully tripping over my feet and landing on the floor with a ‘thud’, all of the papers in my arms scattering throughout the hallway.

Just as I expected, as any person with an inch of compassion in their heart would do, he bends down on the ground to help me pick up the papers. I watch carefully as I pick up the sheets, eyes connected to his left ankle.

And there it is.

The student described it well in the writing, but it’s much more intricate and detailed up close. It’s a nice design, I’ll give him that, but knowing the terrifying meaning behind the symbol sends shivers up my spine.

All of my fears and worries are confirmed. The city’s mafia leader is standing in front of me, reaching out and expecting me to take his hand so he can lift me off of the ground. He wants me to touch his hands- hands he’s probably used to kill people with before.

He’s talking to me but it feels like I’m underwater. I can’t hear what he’s saying, all I can listen to is the thud of my heart and the static that my brain is creating with trying to think of a logical thought or reaction to this situation.

“Y/N?”

My body turns on it’s fight-or-flight instinct, and as I usually do, I decide to listen to the flight part. I take the papers out of his hand, being careful to not touch him, and mumble a, “Gotta go.”

I take off down the hall before he can react, reaching my classroom and practically slamming the door shut behind me.

Breathe, think.

“What happened to you?” Someone inquires.

My eyes snap up from the tile floor to see Anna sitting at a student desk. I know it’s not fair, but I can’t help but blame her. She’s probably known about the mafia’s involvement here all along and yet, she told me to get a job here. And she’s the one who sent me down to the office to meet Matthew.

I’ve been avoiding her for the past week, always making sure that I’m talking to a student or too busy to chat with her whenever I see her. I feel disrespected and hurt that she would put me in a situation like this.

I thought we were better friends than that.

I narrow my eyes at her, knowing that if I say anything it won’t be that nice.

She sighs. It takes everything in me to not sock her in the mouth because of that sigh.

“Listen, Y/N, I know you’ve met Matt now and-””How could you ever do this to me?” I snap, interrupting her.

“It’s deeper than you think-””Of course it is, he’s in the fucking mafia, Anna!” I can’t help but yell. “I want you out. I want you out of my classroom and out of my life.”

I can see the hurt burn in her eyes at my words but I no longer care. If she doesn’t care about me enough that she’s willing to risk my safety and well-being, I don’t want to continue a relationship with her.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” I yank the door open for effect. “Get out. Now.”

She drags her feet as she leaves, like she thinks that I’ll end up changing my mind and suddenly decide that what she did was okay. I won’t.

~

“Hey,” Troy greets me as I answer his FaceTime call.

“Hi. I miss you,” I grin sadly, wanting nothing more than to be in my loving boyfriend’s arms right now. Having a long distance relationship is one of the hardest things that I’ve ever done.

“I miss you too. I wish we could’ve FaceTimed the other day,” he states, bringing up the fact that I left him on read when all he wanted to do was talk to me.

I sigh. “I wasn’t in the mood, Troy. And I’m not in the mood to talk about it today, either.”

He nods. “I can respect that. So… day…?”

My eyebrows furrow in confusion. Even though we are separated by three thousand miles and are in two completely different provinces, our calls usually have great connection with problems only if it’s raining outside. And judging from the clear skies in both of our backgrounds, that’s not a problem.

“What? Sorry the connection cut out,” I respond, deciding that it must be the wifi or something.

“I said… your…”

“Ask it again,” I request.

“How… today?”

I bite my lip out of frustration. After the rough day that I’ve had today and the unknown that’s coming tomorrow, poor connection when I’m just trying to rant and catch up with my boyfriend is the last thing that I want.

“The connection is just not working, Troy, I can’t hear you,” I admit.

“... not… fault!” His voice raises and the screen freezes, one frame replacing the other every couple of seconds.

“I don’t know why you’re yelling now.”

“Because…” The sound completely cuts out. Exhaustion hits me, from finding out that Matthew is in the mafia, to yelling at Anna, to getting into this argument with Troy. All I want to do is sleep and become refreshed for tomorrow.

“Troy, I’m getting tired, I’m going to head off to bed. Hopefully this connection will be better tomorrow.” I hang up the phone before he can say anything, knowing that I won’t be able to hear it anyways.

I know one thing. And that’s that I’m not ready for what’s coming tomorrow.

[moody-bloosh]

only (Pannacotta Fugo)

Ahhh, midterms have just been the worst. I’m sorry I’ve been so inactive,,, I’ll be back to working on some requests soon. So in the meantime, I hope you guys enjoy some yandere fugo. ^^

word count: 2594  

content warning: yandere, homicide, kidnapping, violence

He is all they ever talk about, always, on and on, for as long as you can remember.

Why can’t you be more like Fugo? 

You know of him and his triumphs better than anyone else, which is an achievement in itself as you had never even properly met the boy. Aside from passing glances you send in his direction at the posh private school the both of you once attended, the teachers fawned over the brilliant boy and cast only chagrined, faux cheerful smiles in your direction. The message was clear. He was the golden boy and you were nothing compared to him.

When you are finally able to properly meet him, it is at your school's library. Rows of books were painted a pastel orange as the sound of children playing could be heard faintly. He was never out playing with the others, so you had tailed him to this place. And now that you see him properly, you understand of how unfair life is when he looks up and his eyes meet yours. Because he is beautiful, and he makes your hands tremble when they touch and just a glance from him is enough to make your heart skip a beat. He looks disinterested when you introduce yourself and he shakes your hand, and that is enough to break your little heart. Your crush is over as soon as it began.

That day you declared that you would beat him. He was your rival, whether he liked it or not. He had only returned your passionate declaration with a blank look and you were too far gone in your anger at his lack of a reaction that you failed to notice the light blush dusting his cheeks. That afternoon, you trailed after him in the library silently marveling at how he could read all those hard books. You sat close to him, trying to wrap your mind around the difficult concepts. This would prompt him to lean over to explain them to you. Your cheeks burn from embarrassment and you haughtily told him you didn't need his help. But he would only snort at your display. You felt the gulf between you widening. But you could care less about that.

When you return home from school, you promptly throw yourself into your studies and activities even harder. You would catch up to him, no, you would surpass him. And then, maybe then, you would be the one your parents beamed with pride about, you would be the one they bragged about.

Maybe then, you would be enough for them.

But no matter how hard, how diligent you are. It is never enough. He is always better, always smarter. His name is always above yours during exams. And one day when you run over to the library for your study session he is gone. You wait until your chauffeur comes to pick you up. It is only when you are back home that you learn that he is headed off to college while you struggled, futile, under his shadow. You study until your head hurts, until the words blur, until the surface beneath you is wet with tears.

He never said anything.

Always out of reach, he is the sun to your Icarus, until he isn't anymore. His scandal rocks all of society. You can't help it, your lips twitch as a smile twists on your face. The news of his misfortune spreads like wildfire. So he had been cast out, so they couldn't even show their face in high society. Finally, you are the miracle child in everyone's eyes. Finally, you are enough. Right?

Your smile fades, replaced by cold realization. Tears you don't know you are shedding fall to the floor.

It feels empty.

You are older now. And you realize how heavy your parents' expectations really are. Before you had not noticed, simply because you were too preoccupied with trying to one up Pannacotta Fugo. You attend the same university as he did. And for the first time you understand why he did it, you understand how difficult he must have had it too.

You are sitting in the library, stifling your sobs as your anxiety gets the better of you. You cover your mouth with both hands so that you don't make anymore sounds. Perfection was a weight around your heart, creeping hands around your neck that choked and prodded with each and every action. In your mind's eye, you can see the look of disappointment in your parents' eyes. Your memories play back the sound of exasperation they make as they realize that you will never match up to the disgraced but brilliant Fugo.

Not enough. Not enough.

It takes a few bills, a few whispers in someone's ear, and you have the book he used to assault that man. Your heart thumps wildly in your chest as your fingers brush over the spine of the book. It is still bloodied; you note with a morbid satisfaction. You hide the book in a loose floorboard under your bed. You don't know what it is that compels you to do it. It was an insanely risky move on your part. If word of this got out…

But you couldn't care less. Rather, you take perverse satisfaction in it.

It is your dirty little secret.

You look at yourself in the mirror and you understand the blank look on his face. It is lonely at the top and even more lonely to fight for your place on it. So you don't hesitate. Your eyes met, for just the briefest moment, and you promptly tell your chauffeur to stop the car. You stumble out of the car, heart pounding, dashing after him desperately. The only one who could truly understand you.

Your hand reaches out to touch him.

Do you remember me? I remember you.

Something or someone pushes you down to the floor and you are hitting the pavement with a sickening force. You hear a gun cocking and cold metal presses against your forehead. Your stomach turns. This couldn't be happening. Not when he was so close. Blood rushes in your ears as you expect your world to comprise of pain but it never comes. Instead you hear shouting and then you are pulled to your feet. Fugo is in your face, his eyes twisted with concern and worry.

"_____?" He says and your heart twists, you've never known your name could sound so beautiful until this moment. "_____, are you alright?"

"Fugo…" You blinked, "i-it's you, it's really you."

"Well, duh, you idiot. What are you doing in this part of town?" At that, his eyes turn to whoever your mysterious assailant must be, his gaze is downright murderous. You turn hesitantly to see a man, he dons a cap, a cashmere sweater that barely covers him, and a pair of leather pants. There's an almost apologetic smile on the man's lips as other colorfully dressed people surround you. You can't help it, you cling on to the only person you know, twisting instincively behind Fugo.

"Who's this?" The man in white asks.

"Just an old friend," Fugo explains in an even tone, a sudden shift from his panicked tone from earlier. "I'll catch up later; do you mind?"

The man considers you before he nods and the colorful group follows him into a restaurant. Fugo takes this as his cue to lead you to a nearby cafe. You plop down awkwardly in a seat in front of him as he orders some tea and you ask for some cake. The waiter leaves and the two of you are plunged into an awkward silence. Not silence, he is observing you. Two can play at that game.

He chuckles as you pointedly glare at him. A fond look in his eyes as he leans back in his chair. Such a far cry from the stiff little boy you'd known in your childhood. In contrast, your back is tensed straight, your hands folded neatly on the table.

"You haven't changed," he notes, a nostalgic glimmer in his eyes, "you look better than before."

"O-of course naturally, I see you're looking, erm, healthy as well."

You avert your gaze awkwardly as you take a bite of your cake. You have a million questions you want to ask him. Why didn't you say goodbye? What did you do when they threw you out? Are you seeing anyone? But you force yourself to settle on one question. Because you need to take your time. You would see him again; you'd make sure of it.

You turn back to him, a small smile on your lips, "are you happy?"

He smiles back at you, a smile that sends you back to that afternoon in the library. .

"I am."

"That's great!"

At least one of us is.

Your secrets grow deeper and deeper. Before you leave, you hand him a scrap of paper. Your contact details are scrawled elegantly on it.

"Don't lose that, I hear my contact information goes for quite a large sum around here," you joke. "Shall we meet here again? It's not often I run into an old friend."

"That would be nice, I'll see you next week, same time, same place."

You stand up, a triumphant grin on your face, "don't miss me too much."

Whenever you meet up, you always make it a point to grab the check. He must have fallen on hard times; look at the holes in his clothes! So you dote on Fugo, you cherish the time you spend with him, and you hoard the memories of his smile to yourself. Because at least he is happy, at least he is smiling. It gives you hope that you can achieve this level of happiness as well, or perhaps, just being with him… Perhaps this was your happiness.

Maybe you had gotten complacent. Maybe you had been too greedy. You are on the ground again, your cheek stinging. Your father throws the stack of photos at you and you don’t even flinch. How could you think that they wouldn’t notice, that they wouldn’t come to know of your meetings with Fugo? How could you embarrass them like this? How foolish were you to think you could be anything like him?

Did you think you could be happy with him?

Yes. Your parents’ words hang heavy in your heart and you find yourself thinking back to that day in the library where he returned your feelings with an empty stare. You can’t find it in yourself to think about other pleasant things, like how he spent the rest of his afternoons with you, how he patiently taught you the more difficult concepts he had already grasped. You fixate on the thought that no matter how many afternoons he spent by your side, he still couldn’t find it in him to at least tell you that he was leaving.  

“You are never to meet with him ever again, is that clear?”

When you take too long to respond, your father snatches you up by your collar. His hand hovering dangerously close to your face. Even with the threat of violence, you find it in yourself to try at the very least. No matter what, if you could at least say goodbye to him. You’d willingly resign yourself to whatever fate they had in store for you.

You are the only thing. The only thing in that terrible world that made me happy.  

The café is as silent and idyllic as ever. But today, you ask him if he wants to do something different. Today, you walk with him, hand in hand as he tells you a little bit more about his friends, his life. He tells you that he looks forward to your little rendezvous every other week. And your heart twists, you want to commit every little detail with him to memory. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. To know what you want but be told you can’t have it. To love someone so deeply, so wholly. You can’t do this anymore. You can’t spend anymore time with him. Because it will shake your resolve, because it will make you want more and more and more.

“I- I have to tell you something, Fugo.”

I love you.

“I can’t see you anymore. It-it’s not right for me to be with you.”

“Fuck what’s right or wrong,” he hisses, his hold on your hands tightening. “What do you want to do?”

“I-I…” I want to be with you. “I want to say goodbye.”

Goodbye, to the only one who could ever understand you. Goodbye to your happiness.

Goodbye, my only friend.

The words are barely out of your mouth when he takes it upon himself to silence you. You can’t say it; he won’t let you say it. He pushes you against the alley, his fingers tangled in your hair as he pushes his kisses on you.

“I won’t let them take you away,” he says in between kisses and then even softer. “You’re mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.”

“Please,” you whimper tears in your eyes, because your heart is so full it’s about to burst. “Don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be.”

“No,” he snaps, “you’re the one who’s making this difficult.”

“F-Fugo, stop. It hurts…”

“You love me too, don’t you?”

It is in this moment that Fugo frightens you. There was something in his tone that just didn’t sit right with you, the way he had you caged in his arms, pressed against the alley. You remember the bloody book tucked under your bed and you wonder if perhaps, you had chosen to blind yourself to certain things about him. There had always been little things in the way he phrased his words with you that unsettled you but you never spoke up about it. You feared that speaking up would drive a wedge between the two of you, and you had been so lonely for companionship. Besides, Fugo would never hurt you. You were his dearest friend, the only one from his childhood who he didn’t actively dislike, right? Right?

“Choose me,” he says and when he leans forward for another kiss you push him away.

It’s an instinctive thing, not meant to hurt his feelings. You are about to explain when he grabs you by your shoulders and slams you against the alley. Hard enough for it to hurt, hard enough for inky darkness to sweep past your vision.

It wasn’t your fault, he thinks. If you couldn’t choose, then he would pick for you. He understands how difficult it is to go against family. He understands that well. After all, you are his dearest childhood friend. You were a bright spot in his childhood. You were a breath of fresh air in his suffocating home. You are the only one he considers his intellectual equal. Always, you were always chasing after him, looking up to him. You were the only one who spoke to him. You were the closest thing he had to a friend.

He apologizes, over and over again. He didn’t mean to hit you that hard. He just wanted you to understand and you just weren’t getting it. Perhaps if he showed you an example, you would understand. Yes, that was right. He’d teach you the right answer.

Perhaps, his first example would be that hateful family of yours that tried to keep the two of you apart.

[nerianasims]

Billboard #1s 1979

Under the cut.

I discuss Michael Jackson’s life and actions a little bit underneath here. So be warned if that’s something that will upset you.

The Bee Gees -- "Too Much Heaven" -- January 6, 1979

Uugh. When The Bee Gees weren't releasing bad, bloodless, falsetto disco, they were releasing bad, bloodless, falsetto lite "rock." Also the lyrics are about how love is soooo hard to get, so they're special since they have love, and yuck. Nonsense and glop.

Rod Stewart -- "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" -- February 10, 1979

I laughed out loud when I saw this next on the list. People can't have taken it seriously in 1979, right? It was seen like "I'm Too Sexy", yes? Even though Rod Stewart was a "serious" singer -- come on, this is a ridiculous song. It isn't about the narrator; it's about two people meeting on a dance floor and then going to have what's probably a one-night stand. But when Rod Stewart sings the chorus, it sounds like it's about him. It's a highly unsexy and very silly song.

Gloria Gaynor -- "I Will Survive" -- March 10, 1979

The joy I feel listening to this song. It's the best disco song. The bright piano flourish opens to Gaynor's amazing voice and phenomenal singing ability. She sells her anger at the guy who's "back to bother" her, along with the assertion that she's now totally confident and is gonna do great without him, will all her life to live and all her love to give. The lyrics are great, which is incredibly rare for any dance song. The music is great. And Gaynor is perfect. You can belt it in the car and it drives people to the dance floor. Just an amazing, incredible song.

The Bee Gees -- "Tragedy" -- March 24, 1979

The real tragedy is that The Bee Gees shat up disco. What could it have been if not for their influence? There were disco singers and groups who escaped it, but Barry Gibb and Friends' clogging of the charts kept out so many worthy acts. Lots of synth on this song, and synth can be really cool (I'm a diehard fan of The Alan Parsons Project), but the Bee Gees made it boring and turgid. Then that damned falsetto. I don't care about the lyrics, I just want to not hear the Bee Gees again ever.

The Doobie Brothers -- "What A Fool Believes" -- April 14, 1979

The guy the song is about thinks he's going to get an ex back because she was nice when he met her again. He's a fool, and "no wise man has the power to reason away." The music's good, too, a sort of mild rock. "Yacht rock" I suppose. The sentiment is kinda country music though. Good song, anyway.

Amii Stewart -- "Knock on Wood" -- April 21, 1979

What is that in the background? A synth sound, obviously, but it sounds like -- a washboard? I have no idea, but it's annoying. This is a cover of an older soul song by Eddie Floyd that's pretty good, but they wreck it here. The amount of gunk clogging it up is painful. Also Amii Stewart doesn't modulate at all, her voice is a constant blare. Headache-inducing.

Blondie -- "Heart of Glass" -- April 28, 1979

The 80s are coming. Blondie does interesting things with synth here, the beat's irresistible, Debbie Harry's voice is unique, and the lyrics are about an ended relationship that was "a pain in the ass." Not some huge broken-hearted thing, despite the "heart of glass" lyric. Just... done, that didn't work, moving on. Not that the lyrics particularly matter here. It's all about the interesting, different-sounding music.

Peaches & Herb -- "Reunited" -- May 5, 1979

If synth can sound more synthetic than usual, that's how this song begins. It's about a couple getting back together, but it doesn't sound like they were ever in a lot of pain or that they're really excited now. There's some neat guitar stuff. It could be worse. But mostly it's bland.

Donna Summer -- "Hot Stuff" -- June 2, 1979

It's a disco song, but with a lot more rock in it than disco usually has. Maybe that's why it's survived so much better than most disco. The narrator wants one of her lovers (of whom she obviously has many) to answer the phone so that she can get laid. It's the ballad of Romance Sims. It's fun.

Bee Gees -- "Love You Inside Out" -- June 9, 1979

Well, ew. This guy's whining that the woman he loves has too many lovers but he's the one who will "love you inside out," whatever the hell that means. It sounds like a serial killer. She needs to dump him, and also probably move and change her name. And, of course, there's Barry Gibb's horrible orchestration and falsetto.

Anita Ward -- "Ring My Bell" -- June 30, 1979

Disco, of course. He's been gone for a while and she's singing to him "you can ring my bell." So, they're gonna celebrate his homecoming with lots of sex. The lines "You can ring my bell, ring my bell/ (Ring my bell/ ding-dong-ding)" repeat a couple hundred times. The background synth sounds are painfully repetitive. Like something on The Prisoner used to brainwash people. And Anita Ward sings in a Betty Boop-ish sort of childish voice that I also find annoying. It's not Bee Gees bad, but it's bad.

Donna Summer -- "Bad Girls" -- July 14, 1979

"Bad girls" are not the same as "sad girls." Sorry, this song might be fine or even good, but that one line has always bugged me way too much. So does the police whistle.

Chic -- "Good Times" -- August 18, 1979

Disco about how "happy days are here again" for now. The lyrics are obviously pretty shallow, but at least there is a line about how it won't last forever. That's not my problem anyway. My problem is that the chorus bores me, musically. Like, it hurts. There are two notes I think? And the beat is the same throughout. I always sort of ignored this song before, but on actively trying to listen to it, I have started to hate it. It doesn't interact well with my brain chemistry.

The Knack -- "My Sharona" -- August 25, 1979

This became a hit again when Reality Bites came out. So I danced in a convenience store to it my freshman year of college. We were "of the younger kind" then, considering I was 17. That made me like the song better -- it was about me! Rock isn't supposed to be clean, and you're really not supposed to take it as advice. The riff is amazing, and I love this song.

Robert John -- "Sad Eyes" -- October 6, 1979

I've never heard this song before. The music box sounding intro lasts a while and lulls you into complacency before the horrible falsetto kicks in. Not only extremely 70s white man falsetto, but an entitled brat of a man breaking up with a woman and being put out that she's looking at him with "sad eyes." Incredibly bad in an incredibly 70s way. I can see why I've never heard this song before. It's absolutely terrible.

Michael Jackson -- "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" -- October 13, 1979

Sigh. All right, now that he's an adult, gotta tackle Michael Jackson. He was a rampant and, as far as we know, unrepentant child molester. He destroyed people in the most personal way possible short of actual murder. (Phil Spector is still worse.) He was murdered through at least extreme malpractice by his doctor. He was forced into stardom as a child himself. And he was a huge, massive, incredibly gigantic star, even after he became a punchline. I was never a big fan, but like most children of the 80s, I loved some of his songs and spent a lot of time doing the moonwalk, or as close as I could get. I feel an immense amount of pity for him, along with utterly despising him, along with admiring his talent, along with being sickened by the fact that Hollywood and the music industry knew and no one did anything about what he was doing. All in all, I end up at this place: Child stardom must end.

Okay, now for the music. This song takes forever to actually start. Also I have actually never heard it before today. Probably because it's falsetto. Jackson's falsetto is obviously far superior to Barry Gibb's, but it's still falsetto the whole song. The riff is great once it starts, and everything about the music should be good -- but, falsetto. The whole time, as far as I can tell. I can't listen to all of it. Whose idea was it that falsetto should ever be anything other than an occasional few bars? Was it Frankie Valli? I'm gonna blame Frankie Valli.

Herb Alpert -- "Rise" -- October 20, 1979

It's a jazz-funk instrumental and it's pretty good. Piano, guitar, trumpet, some kind of glittering thing -- xylophone? Bells? The people laughing like it's a laid-back party are annoying, but not enough to wreck the song. If this doesn't play on every cruise ship ever, they're missing a trick.

M -- "Pop Music" -- November 3, 1979

I saw the title, and thought I didn't know the song. Then I heard the first bars of the song and went, "OH this one." It's New Wave. I love a lot of New Wave, but this one's on the purposefully shallow end, rather than the Eurythmics end. The lyrics are nonsense, but the beat is pretty irresistable. Which makes it a dance song, whatever its intent. One of the lines is, "Dance in the supermarket," so it probably was intended to be danced to. In any case, I find it pretty forgettable, but fine.

The Eagles -- "Heartache Tonight" -- November 10, 1979

I've heard this song before, but not often. I'm not sure if it's about sex before a breakup or about cheating. Don Henley does not have Elvis' voice, though he seems to be trying to reach that level. Real power is required for the chorus, and Henley lacks it. If this were sung by Freddie Mercury, we'd have something. Queen also would have brought more musical interest generally. But as-is, it doesn't work for me.

The Commodores' -- "Still" -- November 17, 1979

Lionel Richie was still the frontman/ writer for The Commodores here. Should I explore why I can't stand Lionel Richie's music? I'd have to listen to it more to fully understand. It always sounds totally insincere to me. The songs themselves are too slow. This one doesn't have a bassline. It's so polished and gloopy. And in this song, that pause between "I love you" and "still" is both highly predictable and entirely phony. I managed to listen to the entire song, and I rolled my eyes throughout, but especially at that last whispered "still." Oh he's just so sad puh-leaze. Crying his way to the bank.

Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer -- "No More Tears" -- November 24, 1979

I hate Barbra Streisand's singing and like Donna Summer's. I wish this were just Donna Summer. If it were, I'd probably like the song. It's slow for almost 2 minutes, then becomes disco. Streisand isn't able to do as much self-loving in a fast dance song, but it's still there. I tried to find a version with just Donna Summer and failed. So, I dunno, the fact that I can actually listen to the whole thing makes me think it's the most tolerable song with Barbra Streisand in existence. But it would have been so much better without her.

Styx -- "Babe" -- December 8, 1979

Styx was prog rock, but watered-down, simplified prog-rock. Lite prog rock, as weird as that is. But they still had that massive theatricality of prog rock, which I like, and they were great for places like Pine Knob. Outside of those massive arenas, they don't work for me. Dennis DeYoung, the writer and singer of this song, belts the whole way through. Yeah, he hits the notes, but he doesn't seem to realize you're supposed to sometimes modulate, even on a power ballad. Meh.

Rupert Holmes -- "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" -- December 22, 1979

If you take this song seriously, you're likely to hate it. It ain't that deep. It's a goofy song about a goofy thing -- both he and his wife are bored and want to cheat, so they write personal ads, and lo, they answer each other's personals! Though how that happens when they're the blandest Reaganite yuppies ever, I'm not sure. Maybe it's because they're both full of themselves ("if you have half a brain.") I enjoy this song because it is catchy, silly, and totally non-serious. I do not like pina coladas, btw.

BEST OF 1979: "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. WORST OF 1979: "Love You Inside Out" by the Bee Gees

[prismpom-moved]

We are really NOT all in this together. It's the same amount of "effort" being praised across the board as an undergrad group project! We got the fuckers who literally talk the entire time and just exchange phone numbers to never contribute until they have to ask "what day is it due again?" Then on the day that the group goes to present, they whine and whine and whine about how busy they are. They literally show up the DAY OF THE PRESENTATION with some bullshit research when literally the research portion was due LAST WEEK and the rest of the group was in the Google Docs that they were invited to- joined- and never contributed to even after asking NICELY TEN TIMES. They lament about How nobody seems to understand that they are taking "five classes and have a job" which "idk if you know this but is a lot". And the rest of us tired ass broke ass classmates who if you're using financial aid are sometimes REQUIRED to take four or five plus classes to get that $$$ are just like uh okay but this is a class- and 1/5 of your classes- and is the only thing we've been asked to do for like the past month so??

And then at the end of the presentation they get the same grade as the rest of the group who did research, listened to deadlines and instructions, put the time and effort into getting a project done collaboratively, and all while suffering the same crunches, plus this person has three kids, and this person has to check in with a parole officer, and this person literally stays until the college officially closes for the night just to get their other projects done- are not complaining every second they can, cursing out everyone in the group chat, crying that they arent being treated fairly, and work too hard to be treated like this.

We also missed fun activities we'd rather be doing because we knew we had an obligation and responsibility as a teammate to work with the team for the common good (I.e. a good grade or uhhhhhhh SAVING LITERAL LIVES) . We ALSO struggled with adjusting to this new thing but eventually found that while we have other assignments due- they were due at a later date and were a lesser impact on our overall grade (COUGHHEALTHCOUGH) so they could fucking wait. Most of us also balance jobs on top of everything, and while it's utter bullshit that we do we dont go poor me- we go POOR US and we work to beat down the people who FORCE US to be in that situation not the SAME PEOPLE IN THE SAME SITUATION.

So no- fuck that. We are NOT all in this together. We are not acting united at all and I have seen selfishness before but this is the biggest amount of cynicism ive felt for the greed and self-centeredness of humanity in a long time.

We owe our grade- our health- to the people who are at the frontlines seeing death and decay and terror for hours and hours and hours on end. FUCK the news for trying to make it seem like "oh well that's a small amount of dead" THAT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER!!! THAT IS SOMEONE'S CHILD OR PARENT OR FRIEND OR LOVER YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!!! THAT IS THE PERMANENT SCAR THAT REMAINS ON EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE HEALTHCARE WORKERS WHO TRIED DESPERATELY TO SAVE THEIR LIVES! THERE IS NO NUMBER FOR THE AMOUNT OF HUMAN SUFFERING THAT PEOPLE ARE ENDURING.

And all that they asked of us was to wash your hands, wear a mask, keep six feet apart from each other and just stay patient. But nope. We couldn't do that. Our govt. Couldn't do that because "our heroes" have it covered.

Fuck the hero mentality. It's bullshit. It's fucking murder. These are human beings- these essential workers dont need your praise and adulation- just give the fucking thing they are here for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"

I'm sorry that they got stuck with a bunch of classmates who all felt their suffering (or lack thereof) is more important than the ones who are actually working to make a difference.

[hozukitofu]

the kids are doing espionage

He would like to preface everything by a singly stated -

It was Qing's idea.

He is only a simple tech boy, a robotic engineering undergrad, someone who just wants to corrupt enough of the capitalistic system and its funds to fund his recycling robot, to delete the littering problems around campus.

The facts that he happens to know like one bad form of martial arts and by virtue of being a robotics student, great with tools and improvised weapon creation, are irrelevant. Besides the point.

But Qing is deep down, within that core of his questionably existing heart, an opportunist - an investor of assets. She sees potential, she invests in it. That's always how it goes.

Zizhen is eating, simply existing, thinking about robots and redeeming himself at a round of chess with uncle Shao when Qing barges into his absolutely mundane life, waving a USB stick in front of his nose, crowing about how she cracked the capitalism code.

Normally he would care.

"That's great, cool, jie, but -" he doesn't even have time to bat the excited blonde away before a proposition is coerced into his food.

"You! Wanna be an anti-government agent?"

Zizhen almost drops his fork.

"I'm sorry," he blinks, not even bothering with his food any longer because his appetite had taken a nose dive out the processing plants by the back of the college. "What. Did you just say?"

Qing was going to elaborate, but he doesn't let her.

"No, it was rhetorical - jie! I'm not becoming your agent for hire! I'm too soft for killing people!" He denies, vehemently, because look at him! He wears clothes that have to oblige by fluffy and big standard, and his hair cannot be let loose outside of the house if it isn’t wavy and bouncy. 

Doctor Wei calls him marshmallow unironically, on top of Romantic Guy, with debatable nuances under the friendly moniker because that’s his life goal, to be as soft and sweet as humanly possible. He is only someone who strives to dismantle the system in the ways he clumsily knows how to, but he always goes back to helping people at the end of the day. 

Becoming a hitman for hire is never something he would consider, or ever would. 

Qing badgered and wheedled, bombarded him with the benefits, the sheer overwhelming scale of everything good and pure tipping and burying onto his side of the balancing plates, to which he avoids, like one would, if a pack of mosquitoes with malaria starts heading your way. He had blended into the crowd. Worn disguises to avoid this woman's hawkish eyesight. Climbed out a window to avoid persecution and inevitable screeching. Legitimately broke into a dead sprint across the canteen as soon as he spotted Song-Xiao Qing looking for him.

One of these days she will catch up to him, and she will skin him alive, but not today. He weaves around busy college students arriving and leaving their lecture halls, his long arms tucked closely to his chest so that nobody snags them off him. It is a laborious chase that she incurred onto his person, and he dreads the reality where she finally hacks into a computer somewhere and puts a tracker onto him so that she can be two steps ahead of him and then she can beat him into the ground on the basis of him avoiding her like she will personally break all of his robots inside and out.

"Ouyang Zizhen!" He hears a death roar, and runs faster.

Gotta put that threefold authentication code into all of his login devices so that the two steps pre-planning stage doesn't happen. Yes. But run first.

-

He’s fallen asleep across a horizontal surface - he’s pretty sure that this is the first horizontal surface his eyes park on and his brain immediately decreed that We’re napping. Now. ASAP pronto LOL.

He comes back to the world of living when he is toed awake by a person, voice vaguely threatening and familiar to his ears -

“Ouyang. Ouyang.”

“Noo,” he whines, thinking it to be his father. “Dad I have the day off.”

“Zizhen. You will wake up or I will walk all over your face. Your choice, sweet guy.”

He sits up, immediately awake.

Look, he’s a coward. He has high sensors in-built to detect approaching danger to his person. It’s how he made it beyond high school to go where he does now. It’s nothing to be proud of - surviving, just barely, in this cutthroat world is a goddamn miracle, if he has to say so himself. So what if he’s a coward. He’s still alive. That’s what matters.

Also he has a feeling that if he had keep on sleeping, he will open his eyes in the next life, as a bug. Because he had been horrifically murdered in this life and that death was so bad that a bug’s body is the only viable and painless reincarnation the gods deem fitting for little poor him.

“I’m up,” he wheezes, vertigo slamming onto his head. “I’m physically with you but my brain had just taken a holiday. Please allow it some time to return.”

“I don’t need your brain for this,” Qing beams at him, mouth spreading in a Joker-ish feral look. “I’ve got a favour to ask.”

I’ve got a favour to ask sounds exactly like those questions that ask you for something but if you deny, you will die on sight. 

The way his upperclassman is smiling at him gives him all the answers he has. 

“What,” he grouses, mouth twisting, pulling his hoodie even more over his forehead and eyes, covering the majority of his freckles. They’re still here despite the lack of hours he spends in active avoidance of the sun and the majority of this goddamn school hates the sight of freckles like they’re something contagious so his instincts mostly had been ‘cover up’.

“Someone took something from me and I need a boy to get it back for Yours Truly,” she smiles, still feral and not the least friendly.

He squints suspiciously at her. “Why a boy. Is this hard even for you, lawbreaker extraordinaire?”

“I need a boy, you stupid robot builder,” she rolls her eyes, throwing a hairband onto the table in front of him. “Because someone from Gusu took my things and on virtue of me being a woman, I can’t enter without the security shooting me on sight.”

He groans out loud and slumps even further onto the table, hoping to become one with the recycled plastic. 

“I don’t even go there. They’ll shoot me on sight too. They have stun guns -”

She cuts him up, retying her space buns. He lets out a huff of hysterical air and rethinks back to every wrong decision he had ever taken in this life. 

“Which they’re not allowed to use on trespassers, chill. Listen, how you get it isn’t my problem. Get me the thing and I’ll squander all the favours you owe me.”

This sparks his interest. A-Qing is stingy. The stingiest person he has the misfortune of ever running across. She studies economics. She lives on cash alone. Just. Cash. She hoards money and favours and then harvests them like produce of her questionable farm.

Ouyang Zizhen owes Qing a lot of money for the completion of his robotics projects and the launch of his career as a junior lab assistant to the research team of the mechanical engineering department. She did all that, knowing that her investments were wise, and she constantly lords the favour over his head.

It sounds great, to get rid of one Song-Xiao Qing infinitely, but he can’t help but wonder if the catch, beyond You’ll die if you trespass Gusu like the absolute moron that you are. This sounds like it’s much more than just a suicide run. It sounds more like...a test? Of sorts? 

“All the favours?” He looks up, hood slipping, his freckles all in glorious sight and judging his upperclassman. “Are you sure?”

Qing-jie grins at him, looking every bit like the crook she is. “Are you?” 

“Heck, yes, why do you even ask. But I feel like you’re betting too much on this. How do you know if I’ll come back for you to squander all your favours for me? Seems fishy.”

“You’ll come back,” she waves him away. “I wouldn’t swear on it if I’m not sure. So, what of it, marshmallow? You want in?”

He can’t say no anyways. “You know I can’t say no,” he scowls, and refuses to shake her hand. “If I don’t come back, tell my father to take all my robots. And burn me paper money.”

Qing cackles right at his face. “You’re exaggerating, kid. It’ll be fine. I swear on it.”

“Your words are all lies anyways! Shut up!”

-

Research on how to get into Gusu? Actually kinda fun.

Actually sneaking into Gusu unscathed? Less fun. Bordering on traumatic.

Technically he knows the blueprints. Technically he knows that the scanning gates at the southern entry can fit an entire person if they just, like, lie down and limbo through the gaps of the plastic closing gates. Technically eight twenty-seven in the night is the time gap that he can safely limbo through without getting zapped by a stun gun. Technically from here he can just jog to the international student’s dorm and scale to the second floor, open the window fourth from the right, slide in, get the thing from under the desk, get out the way he did before, go home, change his name, get plastic surgery, genetically rewrite his fingerprints and DNA makeup, move back to Baling, call it quits.

Technically he knows all of this, but he had just slid through a scanning gate and his heart is trying to punch out of his own ribs. He’s wheezing as if he climbed up a mountain twice for no reason at all. None of this makes sense. Why is he here. He should go home. There’s still time. Father will be tired and disappointed but when is he not. 

No, his brain, traitorous, but also wanting to get rid of the human leech Song-Xiao Qing, mutters. No we will get back that bundle for Her Highness and then leave her presence indefinitely. That’s what we’ll do. 

He swings his feet, nothing short of Spiderman, into the intended room, huffing as it wastes him no effort. 

Too easy. Smells exactly like a trap.

It’s nearly curfew, except that people haven’t been rushing back through the easy way in, because he saw people coming out and they pretended to not see him as he came in. Are they stupid. Are they not going to come back for roll call and suffer the wrath of Lan Qiren? Or worse, He Who Must Not Be Named.

He reaches for the bundle, stuffs it under his hoodie, and prepares for take off, when a door swing open and someone walks in, without turning the lights on. 

His danger alarms not only went off, but into overtime and exhaustive underpaid labour. 

“Ouyang?” He hears, hissed in the dark. 

He should have covered his face, because wow he didn’t think he was that popular outside of his own robotics class for setting off that fire alarm back in first year. But. He is digressing from this imminent danger! This voice. That sounds distinctly similar.

“Do we know each other?” He hisses, crouching back in a Spongebob stance, eyes narrowed at the boy in the cats-covered face mask. He can’t make a run for it here but he can try for the knee caps. 

“Yes. Oh my god, yes,” the person pulls his face mask down and lo and behold, it’s -

“Lan? Lan Jingyi?” He gapes, while sidestepping a stray tennis ball lobbing at his head. “Why are you here?” 

Jingyi shoots back at him - “I go here. Why are you here?”

He throws up one hand, the other preoccupied with the bundle - “Qing-jie!”

“Bad answer, but expected,” Jingyi tuts his tongue, and shoves him out of the way. “You don’t seem the type to engage in trespass and theft.”

“Ha ha, pot calling the kettle black,” he sneers back, tracing back his steps. “Why are you here here. I know you go here, but this isn’t your room. Or anyone else’s room that you are affiliated with. It’s the international student wing. You never answered my question.”

He would not receive any answers because there are footsteps, grave and reverent footsteps, that bring pandemonium outside the corridor and Jingyi, not even thinking twice, shoves him into a wardrobe, finger on his lips.

“Quiet,” the boy hisses. “And when he’s gone, you can scram.”

Zizhen thinks that is the end of it, but somehow his bundle! Had gone missing from under his hoodie! When! And how!

“Lan, give that back!” He hisses, almost lunging and falling out of the closet. Jingyi shushes him even louder, forcing the doors to close in on his nose and shoes.

He grabs onto a wrist, clinging onto the arm stubbornly. Jingyi jostles his shoulder violently like he’s got himself a human-sized limpet that won’t let go and he elects to kicking it back to the depth of the closet, telling him to ‘stay put, come on, don’t make this harder for us’.

Zizhen is shoved back into the darkness of a small enclosed space with hangers falling onto his head and clothes dropping onto his shoulders. The tracking sticker he placed on his fingertip had migrated from him to the inside of Lan Jingyi’s hoodie. Now he waits.

There is a polite knock - because that’s Lans for you, polite even in walking and knocking. 

Jingyi answers the door with a soft - “Hello, uncle.”

For a moment Zizhen thought he actually screwed up and somehow stumbled head first into Lan Qiren of all people on the night he attempted trespass and theft, but he listens some more, waiting for the dulcet tones of disapproval that the Lan Headmaster is so famed for dishing out at his relatives slash pupils.

“Jingyi,” he hears, and. Well.

This is worse than Lan Qiren. Somehow he had messed up even worse than Lan Qiren.

Lan Wangji, the Hanguang-Jun, is in the same room as him. The professor reliable for dishing out punishments at Gusu. The resting disappointed man. Doctor Wei’s long-term crush and object of pursuit. He’s caught. He’s gone. They’re going to string his corpse like a disappointing sight from here so that all across the country, people can see what happens when idiot college boys who sneak into prestigious Gusu get as a punishment. 

He is suddenly religious. He asks for protection from the Buddha to the corner ghost to the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. 

“I suggest you return to your own dorm,” Lan Wangji gravely - and flatly - informs Lan Jingyi. “Unless you want to introduce me to your friend?”

Lan Jingyi, for someone doing a theatre degree, is woefully awful at lying. He starts laughing hysterically and like a bloody hyena under noise suppression and the target of at least twenty stun guns and he’s lost all sense of control so now his fight or flight response is to laugh. 

Ouyang Zizhen regrets not leaving his father with a dying letter. It’ll be awful and humiliating to find him as a human flag on the top of Gusu’s flagpole. 

“What friend, Uncle Wangji? It’s only me here!” Jingyi hacks out hysterically, as footsteps start heading his way, purposeful and brisk.

There goes living through tonight then. 

“Hmn, what’s in the closet, Jingyi?” Hanguang-Jun asks, as the doors of the wardrobe rattle and -

promptly stop. 

Jingyi, because he’s panicking and somehow is still the greatest and most shocking improvised line under possibly murderous circumstances, blurts out, completely and utterly from nowhere.

“That closet is fine. It has no one in it! Well, not me anymore!”

Zizhen can barely swallow down the wheeze that tries to climb its way out of his nose because what. 

To his credit though, Lan Wangji stops his advance onto his hiding place, and promptly takes Lan Jingyi out of the room, so he hopes that he’s not being thrashed thoroughly for well, being gay, but in keeping it and using it as a distraction tactic on their Hanguang-Jun.

Zizhen quickly kicks the doors open and tumbles out, sliding the window up and climbing out, his watch telling him dimly that he has two more minutes before curfew comes and security tightens. He would check on Lan, but he’ll be fine. Hanguang-Jun isn’t a blind rule follower as the people make him out to be - by people, he meant just Doctor Wei, who went through a period of time in his life actively cursing and mooning over Lan Wangji, and it’s entertaining and just embarrassing to bear witness to. No. Bad memories. Let’s forget that and go back and report to Qing-jie.

He’s going to start breaking ankles the next time Lan Yuan asks for a big hang out.

-

“He took the bundle from you? Without touching you?”

“I snuck in the death place for that stupid bundle and that’s all you cared about?”

“Damn Lan. Anyways, good job, it’s fine, I’m seeing the golden trio in, like, ten hours. We can haggle the bundle back.”

He hears this, but he also has the tracker sticker. Does it work? Does it not work? Unclear. He’s not too sure. He hasn’t been doing this illegal theft and tracking gig for long. He lets Qing-jie and her favours reinstate themselves as constant reminders in his life as he stumbles back to his laptop and kick starts it to see how he’s going to not set a hoodie and a person on fire. 

-

The good news is Lan Jingyi and his Lan Approved Hoodie will not be catching on fire.

The even better news is that he can get rid of Song-Xiao Qing for life now, because he knows where the package is.

The bad news is that the package is in Jin Rulan’s home. His room, to be specific.

Okay, so maybe he met Jin Rulan a few times when he went to archery tournaments to cheer on Lan Yuan, a friend but also practicing archer to become as great as Wen Ning, Olympic-level archer. Maybe he and Jin Rulan had gotten into a few arguments over pointless things in the past, like all stupid middle schoolers do. The point is that since his friend is a friend of Rulan, he has the honour of being flung at, in the face, with the address of his sizable family manor, because Jin Rulan can and will, with no preamble or social niceties, and so now Zizhen knows where he lives.

Not that a simple Google search wouldn’t tell him which place this is, but being reminded with Jin Rulan, a runt then, probably a runt now, he hasn’t seen the kid in like, two years. A-Yuan doesn’t want him to start testing his robots on real life people and everyone who had ever interacted with Zizhen knows who’s first on his list to be humanly pitted (sorry, tested) against his robots. 

He bikes to the manor, easily buzzes his way in with a screwdriver and some tinkling with the system, and strolls right through the front door.

He did do research before this. Everyone’s out. Jin Rulan is out. He’ll just take the bundle and leave, and they don’t have to talk about it anymo -

Lan Jingyi tackles him to the floor from behind the door to Jin Rulan’s room, with a distant bark of a guard dog and Jin Rulan’s dulcet tones shrieking the heavens, hard, so that his dead ancestors can rise as zombies in the night and slap Zizhen back to Baling.

“How is he here?” He can hear Rulan yelling distinctly, as he grapples with Jingyi and rips the sticker cleanly from under his sleeve. 

Jingyi and him get along okay. When A-Yuan wants people to wait for him after guqin recitals, he has Zizhen and Jingyi wait for him, and they play jianzi as they quiz each other on class things they should know, bickering back and forth. They played soccer together a few times, and Jingyi’s good - Jingyi’s training to be in the under 20′s representative Asian Games in a few months. They get along fine. They love literature and art. Zizhen doesn’t want to set a short-circuiting robot onto him. 

Literally there is no reason for Jingyi to wrestle him to the ground like this outside of the context of a soccer match.

“You found us, how,” Jingyi demands, frowning. “Did you put a tracker on me?”

He huffs, bunching up his knees and kicking up, before rolling away with the bundle. “I will neither confirm or deny your accusations. Goodbye.”

Rulan is at the window, slamming it shut, and holding out a hand, snarling rabidly at him. The scuffle he was tackled into had knocked over metal plates and car parts all over the floor, everything looks like it’s a disaster zone, if he was at home then Father would have lost it. The shining mistress of the Jin family snarls at him, forcing him to step away from the window with the sight of his sharp canines alone, eyes narrowing at him and his bundle.

“Give that over,” he frowns. “And then you can scram.”

“I broke into your house to get it back,” he stresses, with hysterical stress. “No.”

“No can’t do, Ouyang,” Jingyi’s voice drifts to him, as his wrist is seized. “We need it.”

“And Qing-jie needs it, but none of y’all are telling me what you need it for -”

The door eases open with a loud creak, like a bow on an erhu string gone wrong, and both boys might as well have screamed in his face because the expressions on their faces are thunderous. 

“Uncle!” Jingyi squeaks. 

“Uncle!” Rulan also yips, stepping away from the window, and coming over to -

Oh my god he needs to scream.

Doctor Wei and Hanguang-Jun are at the door, brows raised in vague interest at the war zone spilling out all over their socked feet, Doctor Wei humming interestedly at their thunderstruck and mutually devastated faces. 

Jin Rulan is almost the same height as his uncle but he’s looking as if somebody ran over his finessed bow. He and Jingyi, who unhands Zizhen quickly, are both standing and arms splaying, kicking and shifting so that the mess of robot parts are somewhat not so obviously sprawling all over the floor.

“A-Zhen!” Doctor Wei beams, and proceeds to squeeze him in a hug until he dies, stuffing his face into a shirtfront with too much Versace sprayed all over it. “You didn’t say you were friends with the kids!”

“We don’t know each other,” he squeezes out, gasping as he’s released.

“Not a friend,” Rulan vehemently denies.

Lan Wangji lifts two unimpressed eyebrows. Rulan swallows back whatever else he was meant to say.

“Occasionally a friend?” Jingyi amends.

He turns and gripes at the Lan boy - “How can someone be occasionally a friend, you lump of spineless potato?”

“His insults are creative,” Doctor Wei notes, half way between an explanation and a praise. “Listen, kids -”

He then gets cut off by Jingyi and Rulan, talking not only over each other, but in synching fragmented sentences. 

Jingyi  “Uncles, we’re going to pack this up, we know you need the house for guests to come over -”

“ - and we will introduce you and acquaint everyone, but this guy needs to hand over his things first and then everyone can go,” Rulan finishes, hand still reaching out to Zizhen and his bundle.

He tries to step away, but two much taller men - Lan Wangji and Doctor Wei, are in his way, benevolently smiling and stoically staring down at him, and he feels his resolve crumbling. In fear, but also they are educators and they’ve perfectly polished the I’m not angry at you, I’m just disappointed and very very sad. 

“Sounds like a party in here,” he hears the dreaded singsong, the sound of the dead coming to collect his soul and putting him through all the levels of hell.

Song-Xiao Qing pokes her head around Lan Wangji’s elbow and beams at him. “Oh you’re here! I thought I had to call for you! You made my job so easy, marshmallow boy.”

“Uh,” he’s still being held captive by Doctor Wei. “Please. Explain.”

Lan Yuan finally emerges, serene, beautiful, refreshing and soft-spoken. 

“Many apologies for my family’s treatment of you, Zizhen-xiong. Would you like some tea?”

-

The gist of it is this -

It was a test. And his gut feelings were correct.

And the test was Would Ouyang Zizhen Make Good Agent. Apparently he passed, because nobody expected him to pursue the bundle all the way to the Jin Manor, along with wrestling with Jingyi so fiercely. 

“You -” he looks at Qing-jie, who is sipping chrysanthemum tea so calmly, as if she hadn’t led him on some wild goose chase. “I actually have no words. That was very clever.”

“I have words,” Jin Rulan, apparently part of whatever the hell this is too, whinges from his post at the arm of Lan Wangji’s chair. “Why him?” 

“What, besides the obvious?” Jingyi looks at his friend. “He held me off, and snuck into Gusu. Like, impressive?”

“The sticker was a nice touch,” Qing-jie notes. “Although we did make it easy on ya.”

“He’s calm,” A-Yuan smiles at him. “You’re very calm, even though you opposed to this vehemently.”

He gestures broadly, to Everyone Present. “I can’t exactly freak out before this peanut gallery. I want to live past 5 pm today. I have an aunt’s dinner I have to go to. I can’t die before that.”

A-Yuan shrugs like that’s a good answer. It is. He knows. He has a few fire-breathing aunts himself.

“So,” someone prompts. “About this -”

“The answer is still no,” he looks over specifically at Qing-jie, who he knows no doubt will be sending him on more of these trips.

“You did good though,” Jingyi notes. “Considering that you improv like, 9 out of 10 things.”

“Well excuse me for being new at this stuff, how am I supposed to -” he stops his snapping tone as a familiar face walks by, blinking widely as the entourage of idiots who may or may not are influencing a youth in joining the forces to lawbreaking. How is Hanguang-Jun in the middle of this, he just wants to talk. He swallows his caustic words, and cautions a wave to the boy. “Hey, A-Song.”

A-Song bows back to everyone. “Zizhen-xiong -”

“Calling me gege is fine, sheesh, this kid -”

“I’ll see you at tutoring, gege,” A-Song, Jin Rusong, literally the sweetest kid ever, smiles back politely, before he retreats back to where he has to go back to, leaving their Idiot Entourage to their own.

“You know my cousin?” Rulan quirks a judgemental eyebrow. 

“Yes,” he replies, tersely. “Can you not pay attention? He said tutoring. I tutor him. Shut up, I’m only mean to you because you’ve an awful personality.”

Nobody is sure who laughed but there is a ripple of a muffled laugh as Rulan screeches that I’ll have your head, Ouyang! 

“Our deal is off,” Qing-jie snaps her fingers before his face. “You can go now.”

“Just like that?” He squints, suspicious. “No forcing?”

“No forcing,” Doctor Wei smiles, the same Jiang-Wei smile that put the cardiac arrest in people’s hearts. People being undergraduates. “We’ll win you over one of these days,” Doctor Wei slaps a fist to a palm. “Our doors are always open for you to join, A-Zhen.”

Lan Wangji levels a stare at him. “Hmn.”

He’s not quite sure how Doctor Wei isn’t freaking out in the presence of his beloved Lan-er gege but he’s not going to ask or go there. He has a dinner to go to.

“Well,” he stands, and bows, because he still has manners. “I’ll be taking my leave?”

“I’ll see you off,” Doctor Wei also stands, turning to the four idiot monkeys first. “Here ya go, kids. Don’t be playing hot potato with that now.”

It’s then that he realises that his bundle is gone, yet again, and Doctor Wei had only hugged him once.

“Shall we go?” The Doctor’s eye glints, and he wants to bolt out the door.

-

“How are you a part of this too?” He hisses to the Good Doctor, the top medical examiner of the goddamn country and youngest biology professor in his college, as he is shown out. 

“I’ll tell you when you join,” is the cryptic answer he gets, as the doors close behind him. 

Tell me, his Kermit brain says. But then you’ll have to join, his rational robotics brain whispers back.

Zizhen elects to just scream at the door and turns on his heels marching out.

The nerve of some people! 

[elizabethrobertajones]

@teamfreewillbettertogether replied to your post “Thinking about my bunker kitchen obsession and reading some old posts…...”

I don't think Amelia would be in Sam's heaven. He doesn't look back at that time fondly. I think it would be 10.04 "we time" as well as the time he discovered the Men of Letters library. I swear Jared once said recently that Sam's heaven would be the Men of Letters library, although I can't find it now.

Yeah, I think it depends on how you interpret it, but going off of 5x16 and the pattern of things that made the grade for Sam's heaven, it was exactly the sort of thing where I'd pile in a bunch of unseen stuff with Jess, and because the terrible Thanksgiving made it, I think what Sam felt about Amelia (and at least in season 8 he seriously thought that he loved her and used that word about her) and in that moment I'm talking about he chose to stay with her, and it was all peaceful and they're playing with Riot etc, to me it feels like the happiest of all the stuff we've seen ON SCREEN of things that might fit the pattern of Sam's heaven memories so definitely my favourite non-canonical one. The fact it got brought up again in 11x10 makes me even more certain it's important to Sam in some intrinsic way. And it was a choice for him to get out of hunting and a chance for him to make a house and dream of having a future where he was Sam The Guy Who Fixes Stuff To Pay For College or something. The guy with the dog. Something very super boring and safe but the sort of thing all his other heaven memories suggested were the life he was running away towards, right down to that there has to be a dog :P

I don't really think it matters in an endgame sort of way whether what makes Sam's heaven memories (right now, as we are in canon, if Sam was murdered tomorrow, would he open his eyes to see Riot running towards him?) - like, obviously he's had a lot of happy moments in canon but very few of them fit the pattern of what we saw seems to be the core of what Sam wants as a baseline emotional satisfaction thing, and his heavens betrayed that in a sort of patchy, badly put together by a kid's lack of understanding of himself kind of way. Being with Amelia is actually the least tainted or bad thing in that collection and no matter how you take the rest of the argument about why and how he ended up with her and not looking for Dean, he had normality and the potential for MORE normality.

Dean's heavens are way less complicated - he wants his immediate, non-complicated family around him and that's Sam and Mary and I think later Cas and Charlie and I guess if 13x06 makes the grade, Jack along for the ride in a very happy moment.

Sam doesn't actually have Dean in any of his heaven memories in 5x16 and is actively running away from The Life, which Dean represents, and forms a core part of their initial conflict, and I think they're honestly so messed up about it... The moment you mention in 10x04 actually felt hollow and uncomfortable to me, that they were trying too hard to be happy, and they both jumped to work a case and escape the awkwardness of the sort of vacation you get a "sorry i became a demon and tried to kill you with a hammer" badly iced cake for...

In 9x10 Gadreel does make Sam a super happy place in his head which is the Bunker library and I think Sam in particular has a huge emotional connection to it which makes it an important, happy place for him, but he was resisting calling it home up to and including 11x04, and it might not be until 12x18 when they carved their names in the table, that despite all of Sam's vandalism and disrespect of the furniture since they moved in (he was the one who installed a mini fridge in the library and a TV in his room since season 8 already established through Amelia that Sam was good at that sort of thing with electronics and wiring), I don't know if Sam has a defining moment when he considers the Bunker "home" PROPERLY and can overcome his emotional issues between seeing it as where they work, and defining "home" as the white picket fence, wife and a dog sort of life.

If he's moved on from that I think he may have started to warm up to the library as heaven, but it would be very recent. 12x18 might be *the* moment, but it would be the first I would venture to add for Sam because his heaven was so much about home and belonging. His perception of it can evolve but at the start of season 11 it was clear it had barely started to blossom and he made one step forwards with wondering about settling down with someone in the life vs what Jess and Amelia were - safely normal - and a huge step back by showing he still considered Baby home above all else, while Dean has thought of the Bunker as home for a long time, possibly within a few episodes of getting settled in there, as he's extremely desperate for a settled home, and defines it by family, so having a legitimately inherited place to squat that he shares with his brother immediately ticks all the criteria, and the weirdness of it being a retro Batcave is a secondary concern to homeness :P

I think they're still evolving on the subject, but as far as I can tell from 5x16, Sam's heavens are not strictly about happiness OR the people in them, but fulfil a totally different emotional need that Amelia did as well, but not very much at all in canon aside from that ever has.

(... Honestly my moment of realisation on this was that 3x08 was a Scrooge story with Sam in the starring role and his preconceptions about normality being the only way to do things in socially accepted ways, but it only managed to warm him up as far as giving Dean the Christmas he wanted - with his family, making a home where he had it - but obviously since Sam still defaulted to the Awful Thanksgiving on death in 5x16, it didn't finish his Christmas Carol transformation on it :P)

[shasonii]

Sonadow fanfics: A masterpost

Hey there everyone! I’ve often got asked if I could reccomend sonadow fanfics and now that I had more free time to read I’ve decided to make this my mission, because I know very well how hard it is to find safe fics that are in character!

The list will be under the cut, so I don’t clogg your dashboard.

I will Present each fanfic in the following way: FIC NAME (will be a hyperlink to the fic) Author: Platform: Status / length / last update: Summary: Warnings: Shadows thoughts:

List will be updated when i find new things to read and I’ll notify yall if that’s the case. Otherwise feel free to send me stuff you liked/wrote and I’ll add it.

Fics are listed in alphabetical order.

Advent of Equinox (ff.net)/ ao3 mirror Author: Skyblaze and Taranea Platform: ff.net Status / length / last update: unfinished / Chapters: 11 / Aug 2 2016 Summary: The werehog is back after a very mysterious eclipse is seen over the sky. Curiously, Shadow is also affected by the sudden shift in chaos energy. There is a lot happening and these two need to figure out how to manouver Shadows new power, the lack of chaos and a creeping new threat. Warnings: mutations were described in detail but yall should be fine! Shadows thoughts: God I love this one so much, it basically inspired me to go ahead and write myself so kudos !!!

Bandages Author: Toxicspeka Platform: ao3 Status / length / last update: I’m sorry. Summary: A bunch of shadsoni fics all strewn together after Sonic realized Shadow always takes more damage during failed missions.

Don’t Rain On Me Author:  mafiia Platform: ao3 Status / length / last update: Oneshot Summary: Sonic and Shadow are on a date in a café.

Falling Stars AU Author:  @/son1c Platform: tumblr Status / length / last update: Ongoing Chapters (Masterpost linked) / 26.03.2023 Summary: Sonic and Shadow crashland and lose their memories. They get to know themselves and each other, while avoiding GUN.

Flowers Bloom With Love and Hard Work Author:  RosyPumpkin and ShadowoftheLamp Platform: ao3 Status / length / last update: not updating / 18 works / Feb 22 2017 Summary: Flowershop and College AU. Shadow works at a flowershop to earn some money and Sonic is very interested in him and keeps buying flowers everyday. After a while they start getting to know eachother... Warnings: n/a Shadows thoughts: Slightly ooc and obviously dismissing canon backstories for the sake of AU-ness, and even if that is normally not my cup of tea it is executed very well and sweet. I need to confess that I didn’t manage to read all of it yet but I read the first 5 works and those were... the sweetest.

I Don’t Want To Be A Monster Author:  Super Sonic Pizza Delivery on ff.net (they deactivated) THE AUTHOR HAS A NEW PROFILE HERE: greenhillsblueskies Platform: google docs Status / length / last update: Completed / 33 Chapters Summary: When Sonic turns into the Werehog once again due to a mad experiment of Eggman's, he and Shadow must race to unravel his evil scheme. Along the way, they discover hidden truths about themselves... and each other. Warnings: major character death, dead people in general, slight gore and much blood, murder.......  This is a very Mature story. Shadows thoughts: Don’t let yourself be fooled by the warnings. The story is very heavy, but the focus is sonic and shadows internal struggles. You know a fic is good when your kin feelings activate with the fan version of your kin in that story.

Impulsive Author: FangsofLightening Platform: A03 Status / length / last update: complete / 886 words / 10-26-2016 Summary: Impulsiveness was something Sonic had always prided himself on having. It had saved his life countless times as well as the world, and was his plan B whenever something was going wrong. But this...

Moments Author: Porce_and_Coffee Platform: ao3 Status / length / last update: Not updating / Multiple oneshots / June 30  2017 Summary: A collection of Sonadow one shots. Each piece can be read separately, as they all contain just a glimpse into the lives and relationship of Sonic and Shadow. Other characters will be present throughout. Warnings: N/A Shadows thoughts: Super super sweet and very accurate and in character. Had an extremely natural feel and I cried not only once. (becuase of joy)

Requiem of a Poisoned Knight Author: Broadway-Evanescence Platform: ff.net Status / length / last update: Unfinished / Chapters: 15 / Jul 6, 2016 Summary: Events right after SatBK; Sonic hunts Merlina with the help of his new friends to find a way to save his newly won kingdom and find a way to et back home. Warnings: There will be wounds but none that make your stomach twist; nothing is described in detail. UPDATE: THIS FIC IS LOST TO TIME :( here's what i could salvage. first and last chapter. if anyone has more.. PLEASE MSG ME

Singularity Author: annuska Platform: ao3 Status / length / last update: ongoing / 7 chapters / January 21 2021 Summary: How do you grieve for someone you barely knew? How do you reconcile that grief with finding them alive again with no memory of you or their troubled past? How do you explain the magnetic pull to someone you can't remember? How do you find yourself again after death? How do you keep yourself from colliding and being dragged in by someone's gravity? How do you stop yearning for what you can't--what you shouldn't--have? Warnings: Shadows thoughts: COULDNT READ IT YET but i read the oneshot this is based on and have put this on my bookmarks ever since

Something going on here Author: cheru on ff.net Platform: ff.net Status / length / last update: Oneshot Summary:  Sonic texts Rouge an unexpected question in an effort to cheer Shadow up. (Sonadow oneshot from Rouge's perspective!)

Sonic shorts Author: XIIIBlackCatXIII Platform: ao3 Status / length / last update: A bunch of oneshots Summary: A bunch of short stories I write when I feel like it, and when I say short, I mean short. Like, 500 words. Maybe one day I'll write something longer. They may not be all the same universe. Sonic is gay. Very gay.

Well, It Must Be Chemical Author: Maeniac on ao3 / @kamikazedandelion Platform: ao3 Status / length / last update: Ongiong / 4 Chapters as of July 2021 Summary: After saving the world from the Black Arms and clearing his name, Shadow took his well-earned place among the heroes of Mobius. A year on, and Sonic has grown to count on him as a strong and reliable teammate. He's pretty sure he could even call them friends.That is, until a routine infiltration goes wrong. Shadow falls victim to one of Doctor Eggman's sinister creations -- a serum he claims will unleash Shadow's true destructive nature. With their friendship on the line, Sonic needs to find a way to stop Eggman's latest scheme, and confront the uncomfortable truth: that maybe he didn't understand his relationship with Shadow as well as he thought. Warnings: syringes/forced injection

With me Author: Sylvalum Platform: ao3 Status / length / last update: Completed / 7 Chapters with 18′142  Words Summary: The chosen Knight, Sonic, is annoying. This is an opinion that Shadow, a Knight who's been at the court for far longer than Sonic has, is going to cling to with tooth and nail. Unfortunately Sonic is odd, and he talks a lot - but it’s only blathering and joking and humming peasant songs - and he's not a noble, but he's witty and clever and far, far too charming...(or: SATBK meets Zelda)

What Lies Underneath Author: greenhillsblueskies Platform: ao3 Status / length / last update: Ongoing / Chapters: 24/? / June 17th 2022 Summary: A weird parasitic virus has been unleashed and slowly spreads. Our unknowing hero Sonic insists on joining Shadow on his Mission for GUN, despite his broken leg, and finds himself in the most wild rollercoaster of emotions he could ever have imagined. Warnings: There is lots of vomit, mind control, creepy doctors, rape mention, there is one character that makes lowkey homophobic remarks and militarism. Shadows thoughts: Very very very good fic. Very in character. Love the pace and the style. Queer author writing queer characters. I’ve cried multiple times because it was just so good. Please read this if you can handle the above warnings.

Whatever is this Infliction? Author: Jujus_island Platform: ao3 Status / length / last update: Completed / Part 1: 12/12, 20611 words, Part 2: 12/12, 21383 words  / June 6th 2022 Summary: SATBK content Lancelot has seemed to develop some sort of disease. Ever since Arthur has adopted his new pseudonym, Sonic, said disease always flares up in the form of flush cheeks and a rapidly beating heart. So why, all of a sudden, does he feel so helplessly nervous around his king? And why does his king request his presence?

Where I Lived but He Won    Author: GayAndAfraid Platform: ao3 Status / length / last update: ongoing / Chapters: 17/? / December 24th 2018 Summary: A weird corrupted chaos emerald has been found and because of an accident Sonic was forced to use Chaos Control. Finding himself in an alternate dimension he needs to face new challenges; regarding Eggmans Empire, but also his emotions. Warnings: there has only been one minor injury yet and I doubt it’s gonna get super bad Shadows thoughts: This is a really interesting AU, very gay, very in character, very good thought out world building, and also a queer person writing queer characters. I’m happy. [ this has been a message to the author @edgyqueerhog; i like the designs too ]

list of stuff that was sent to me but that i have not had the time to check out yet, therefore there are no warnings and stuff:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31124546

MERMAID AU: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29996157/chapters/73851018

[zalrb]

TVD = The It Doesn’t Make SENSE Diaries {1x13 Review}

Welcome to the 13th review of season 1! As per usual, here are the guidelines: Considering that I haven’t sat down to watch a full episode of the past seasons of TVD in a few years and my memory might not be the greatest I will start with my usual disclaimer:  I write my thoughts in real time so if I make a mistake at the beginning of this post, it will be corrected by the end. There will be anti-Damon and anti-Delena senitments and I feel the need to say there may be some anti-Jenna sentiments too. I will probably bring up other shows and call attention to misogynoir, racism and anti-blackness. OK. Ready? Let’s go.

1. Opening scene of Damon helping Katherine murder two people and yeah Human Damon is a lot meeker but that doesn’t mean that this grown ass 20-something year old man was “done in” by Katherine, he knew exactly what he was doing and doesn’t actually seem to struggle with her killing two people, he just seems mildly uncomfortable and then he kisses her with their blood on her lips, the fact that he has a “Aw gee” meek demeanour doesn’t make him any less of an an accessory to murder, guys.

2. Elena and Stefan cuddling as they wake up! So cute! The way she smiles when she wakes up in his arms and how he kisses her, omg.

3. I also just realized that the door is still open when Elena brings Stefan back into bed so like not only does she not give a shit if Damon hears them fucking, she doesn’t care if he happens to pass by either. But seriously, how can anyone say they didn’t have amazing sex, she’s like um excuse me, half-naked God of a man in my bed, I’m not done.

4. Seriously, Giuseppe doesn’t realize that his two sons are sleeping with the same woman in one house? HOW?

5. Also, legit Damon would’ve been married with kids by now. Stefan wouldn’t be too far off either, it would actually be interesting if they were at least promised to two other women and then Katherine came. Like if Katherine convinced Damon to destroy his life, leave his kids, leave his wife so they can run away for an eternity together and then went oh btw, your brother is coming with us and then set the series of events in motion in which the town was at war with itself and Damon spent over a century waiting for her and feeling the guilt of having abandoned his wife and children for her but holding on to the idea that this woman he did all these things for will finally reunite with him only for her to be gone? Then that would be way more interesting and have way more emotional stakes than what we have now.

6. Yep, let’s just brush over the fact that Emily is enslaved. Pearl also would not be so easily accepted.

7. No seriously, how OLD is Anna? When did she turn?

8. And I never got why Pearl wouldn’t just leave Katherine behind. Like yo if they have vervain in elixirs and they’re trying to find vampires, I’m about to LEAVE.

9. “You were sad, Ben, you lacked purpose, you needed me.” I don’t understand this idea of vampirism = purpose because the show doesn’t expand on that. As a vampire your emotions are heightened so if Ben was sad as a human, would he not just spiral into despair as a vampire? And also his “purpose” is to help Anna for her own agenda, how would Ben not realize that? At least in True Blood when Godric turns Eric, Eric is dying and Godric likes the fire he has because Eric was a viking and he was like do you want to be a companion of death? I will be your father, brother, son and friend. In TVD it’s just ... what?

10. “You know I really think that Damon believes that everything he’s done, every move he’s made, he’s done for love. It’s twisted but kind of sad.” HOW, ELENA? How was turning Vicki and leaving Stefan to clean up the mess done for love? How was abusing and raping Caroline done for love? And how can you speak so dispassionately about something when the people being affected are the people you’ve known since childhood? It doesn’t make SENSE. From the first season, Damon and in relation Delena is the biggest writing weakness.

11. Stefan: “There are other ways to get what you want, you don’t have to kill people” LIKE RIGHT THO? And Elena just tilts her head like, “Oh. True.” WHAT? This reminds me of a plot line in Friday Night Lights, where a man attacks Tyra and tries to rape her but she manages to fight him off but then he comes back again and tries to rape her so Landry kills him. After a while, the attacker’s brother asks to see all of his brother’s victims to apologize on behalf of him and Tyra is uncomfortable doing it so choose Landry to go in her stead and his brother is like, I’m sorry he never used to be like this ... he was the only one who took care of me, my dad ran off and my mom was too drunk to feed us and Landry is like, you know what, pretty much every person in Dillon has the exact same story and they don’t turn out to be rapists! Same THING.

12. Also, I have a question about these journals ... does every Founding Family have their own set of journals? And if they do, since they make up the council, shouldn’t they you know SHARE these journals with each other? Like why is it so singular?

13. OK, schools do get locked you know.

14. Paul commands such presence in his scenes, seriously when Alaric discovers he’s a vampire and Stefan just dashes him to the desks and tells him to sit? I would not want to cross him.

15. The woman who plays Pearl has so much more presence than Nina and she comes across as older -- because she is -- so for her to take point from Katherine is like, why? I don’t get it.

16. “I never asked for your respect.” “Good for you, Damon. Because all I have is disappointment.” Said every sane viewer ever.

17. IT MAKES NO SENSE THAT STEFAN AND DAMON WOULDN’T GROW UP LEARNNG ABOUT AND HATING VAMPIRES.

18. Also, I missed when Damon went over to Elena’s house. And him being in the kitchen cooking is like, that’s cute, Stefan did that 8 episodes before, you’re late.

19. His grin is annoying.

20. “You met Damon.” “Who do you think killed my wife.” Oh yes, ALL for love.

21.Elena feeling guilty about lying to Damon is like, remember that time he nearly killed Bonnie? Remember that time he nearly killed Caroline? Remember that time he killed Tanner? Remember that time he turned Vicki?

22. And so Jenna and Jeremy aren’t a little bit curious why a grown ass man is hanging around Elena and why he’s at their house? When Angel is in Buffy’s house, she has to lie to her mom and tell her he’s in college and that he’s her tutor and Joyce side-eyes the hell out of that so Buffy has to sneak him up to her room. If you’re making sexy eyes at the man, Jenna, then he should not be around your niece the way Damon is.

23. “Elena and I are bonded for life, I can’t imagine it any other way. She’s my sister, I mean, I’d die for her.” WHY. WHY. WHY. WHY BONNIE. Elena hasn’t done anything in these 13 episodes that would warrant such loyalty.

24. Also, Damon just told Elena that he won’t let anyone get in his way when it comes to getting Katherine back, like it was a threat, and when they find out the journal is gone and that Jeremy is the only other person who knows about it and he walks back into the house that determined and Elena is just like “Damon, leave him out of it ...” I would panic especially considering that Damon had already negatively impacted Jeremy’s life by turning Vicki.

25. Yeah, this Giuseppe is stern and a hard-ass but I didn’t get the impression he was this tyrannical, abusive father. In 1x20, Stefan does say even in our death you only feel shame so like I don’t get a sense of closeness with Giuseppe and either brother but I really do feel like they turned him into a monster in season 7 as an attempt to excuse Damon’s behaviour because we all know if you’re forced to eat your pet bunny nearly two hundred years ago you have to act out and kill people.

26. Stefan, why are you giving Elena a shovel too to dig up your father’s grave, you can vamp speed that shit.

27. Seriously. Paul’s sighs when Nina is kissing his stomach and chest, like ...

28. I forgot Bonnie actually kisses Ben.

29. WHY would you open the grimoire there? Vamp speed the dirt back into the grave and then go. HOME.

30. Oh shut UP, Damon, you’ve caused this town so much damage, Elena owes you nothing.

31. It’s also super gross that Damon sniffs Elena’s hair as he hands her back to Stefan after force-feeding her his blood.

32. It really bothers me that the show is substituting vampires for the enslaved without talking about the enslaved, like it takes some kind of privilege and entitlement to have  a show set in the South and flashing back to 1864 and NOT talking about it.

33. To be fair, Stefan didn’t tell Giuseppe that he was sleeping with a vampire, he was just like so maybe we shouldn’t kill all of them. I get that in the heat of the moment, Damon would blame Stefan but like 100 and some odd years later? Fam, let it go. Or if the point is that he can’t let it go and the older he gets the more stuck in time he becomes, that needs to be displayed more.

34. I love that forehead kiss and Stefan and Elena holding hands till the very last minute is their aesthetic.

35. Wow, Jenna being semi-active! “You know you’re not staying the night, right? Keep the door open.”

36. Pearl’s death is probably the most moving part of the episode.Much better than Damon’s man pain.

Thanks for reading!

[dontshootmespence]

Passive-Aggressive Partnership

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 @coveofmemories

Part 5

                                                            -----

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense, my statuesque God of Chocolate Thunder,” Garcia said, “Who did Boy Wonder go out with?”

“Y/N,” Morgan replied with a smile. “So much for her being obnoxious and annoying.”

When Morgan looked around the room, everyone was in varying states of surprise and anything but surprised. Garcia was stunned. Emily wore a knowing smile. Hotch and Rossi, of course, weren’t fazed at all. “It’s about damn time he asked her out,” Rossi exclaimed, raising his eyebrows as Spencer walked back into the room to stunned silence.

“Why is everyone so quiet?” Spencer asked, sitting down at the table with the god-given elixir that was his cup of coffee. “Were you waiting for me to start?” 

“No,” Hotch said, surprising everyone else by being the first one to talk. “It’s just that when you left the room, you left your phone on the table.” It was so rare for Hotch to be smiling at work, no less in the conference room, where such grotesque, demented crimes were discussed, but there he was, teasing Spencer. “You got a text.”

Immediately, the confused look on Spencer’s face turned to a busted one. He still tried to play it off though. “I’ll answer it later. No big deal.”

“No big deal!” Garcia asked, eliciting laughter from the rest of their friends. “No big deal? You’re going out with Y/N!”

Spencer slapped his hands over his face, burying his head to try and contain his embarrassment. Not that she was embarrassing, he just didn’t know how to handle talking about his romantic life (or more often, his lack of one) in front of his friends. “We went on one date,” he said quietly, trying as hard as he could to downplay the situation. 

Of course, that didn’t work.

“You’ve only gone on one date so far,” Morgan replied with a sly smile. “She said, ‘I had a great time last night. Looking forward to the next one.’”

“I thought you said she was obnoxious,” Emily laughed. She couldn’t count the amount of times Spencer had complained about having to work with her. It was hysterical every time because he was the only one that didn’t seem to get that the reason they butted heads so much was because they were all too similar. 

“She is obnoxious!” Spencer exclaimed, remembering the way she called him stubborn. He wasn’t stubborn, she was. “She said I was stubborn.”

“You are stubborn!” everyone said simultaneously, laughing at Spencer’s expression of indignation. “You’re being stubborn about being stubborn.” Morgan couldn’t contain his laughter - this is what he had been saying for years.

Spencer scrunched his mouth shut. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with his friends today. He just had to resign himself to being ragged on for the remainder of the day. “I am not stubborn. Can we just get to the case please?” he asked, desperate to turn the attention away from himself.

“Sure thing, lover boy,” JJ laughed.

                                                           -----

Their case out in California was different to say the least. While their normal victims tended to be children, teenagers or adults, their three victims so far were a minimum of 60 years old.

“So all three of these victims had in-home care after a surgery and died suddenly of the flu, all within a 15 block radius?” Reid asked Garcia over the connection on the jet.

Despite the distance between the BAU and the airborne jet, the furious sound of typing could be heard throughout the jet. “All three of the victims, Geraldine Walters, Harvey Burns, and George Johnson were all relatively healthy, but needed help with daily activities after surgery. Geraldine had a knee replaced, Harvey had a hip replaced and George had a stent put in his heart. Other than that, no one had any issues, except that they all came down with the flu after their surgeries. Geraldine and Harvey have unfortunately already been cremated, so we aren’t going to be able to get anything from them, but after George died, his daughter contacted the police. She knew the other two victims in passing and claimed she found it odd that three relatively healthy people died within such a short time and with no actual cause of death,” she continued. “She claimed that her father had never had the flu in his life; he never got sick.”

“It is odd,” Emily said, looking between the files of all three victims. “The likelihood of having that many healthy individuals come down with the flu during a time when the flu isn’t common and die suddenly in such a concentrated area is unlikely, but it could just be a coincidence, and with two of three already having been cremated, we’re going to have a difficult time proving that anything nefarious happened.”

Everyone agreed, wondering if this trip was going to turn out to be a waste. But better safe than sorry. “Well, working under the assumption that something nefarious is going down, what kind of person are we looking for?” Rossi asked.

“If they were actually sick, it would be considered an angel of mercy style killing,” Spencer started, “but given that they were relatively healthy, we are looking for someone sadistic, and although serial killers of this kind tend to be male, we definitely can’t rule out a female killer either. As a matter of fact, when it comes to this type of killer, a female is even more likely than the typical serial killer.”

JJ rolled her eyes. “Typical serial killer. We have such wonderful jobs, don’t we?”

“Alright,” Hotch started, “When we touch down, Emily, you go interview Geraldine’s son and daughter. JJ, take Harvey’s son. Reid, you and Morgan take George’s daughter and the in-home nurse he had, and Rossi, you and I will go to the funeral home that took care of all three funerals. Morgan and Reid, ask George’s daughter if she objects to her father being exhumed for an autopsy.”

As the plane started to descend, they all hoped that this was a false alarm, because if they did have some kind of angel of mercy, sadistic or otherwise, on their hands, they were going to be extremely difficult to catch - at least without another victim.

                                                          -----

With JJ, Emily, Hotch and Rossi off to pursue other avenues, Morgan and Reid headed off to interview George’s daughter and his at-home nurse. “Hello,” Morgan said as a young woman about 30 years old opened the door. “I’m Agent Morgan, this is Dr. Reid, are you Helena, George’s daughter?”

“Yes, come in,” she said, inviting the two agents inside. “Thank you for coming. Everyone says I’m overreacting, but I really feel like something is wrong.”

“It could be nothing,” Reid said, “But in cases like this where many people die in a short period of time in a concentrated area, we do what’s called an equivocal death investigation to determine the cause of death. Can you tell us about your father? How was his health beforehand?”

As the three sat down in the middle of the living room, alongside George’s at-home nurse, Fiona, Helena did her best to describe her father through the tears. “Besides his heart problems, which were genetic and he was ready for as he got older, he was unbelievably healthy. Heart problems run in our family. He had a 90% blockage in one of his arteries, despite the fact that he was healthier than I was, so he had a stent put in. That’s when I called Fiona to help him with his daily routine while I was at work.”

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Fiona stuttered, “He was such a sweet man.”

“Fiona,” Morgan asked, “How long had you been taking care of Mr. Johnson?”

She took a deep breath, linking her arm into Helena’s. The two had been friends since college. “A little over two weeks,” she said, “depending on how he was feeling, it could’ve been another two to four weeks.”

“And how long had he been sick?” Reid asked. 

“About four days.”

“Last two questions,” Morgan said, “Was there anyone but the two of you with him in the past four days? And is it okay if we exhume your father? There is a chance that something will show up on the autopsy.”

Fiona pulled out a card with the name and number of her in-home care agency on it. “I had a family emergency of my own to deal with earlier in the week, so I couldn’t make it here until the afternoon. I was told that the agency sent two different nurses to cover those mornings.”

“If exhuming my father proves that he was actually murdered, like I think he was, then you do whatever you need to.”

“Ok, thank you. Please let us know if you can think of anything else that might help,” Reid said as the two stood up to leave. 

Morgan and Reid walked outside, immediately contacting the agency to see who else treated Mr. Johnson. Spencer pulled out his phone to see a list of missed texts from the rest of the team. Emily and JJ both said that the first two victims’ children also said that their parents were ridiculously healthy, so coming down with the flu was out of the ordinary, while Hotch and Rossi said that the funeral home claimed there was nothing out of the ordinary. “Rossi purposely asked if anyone had any skin discoloration or if they could detect the scent of bitter almonds, but there was nothing out of the ordinary,” Reid said.

“What would that indicate?” Morgan asked as he pulled out into the street and toward the agency.

“Cyanide poisoning,” he replied. “But there was nothing.” As the two made their way to the agency, Spencer texted Y/N to let her know that he probably wouldn’t be back in time for their next tentative date. Thankfully, being in the same field, she was well aware of the difficulties and just extended her expertise if necessary. 

“You got another date set up?” Morgan asked, trying to talk about anything but the case for a moment.

“We did,” he replied, “But I have a feeling this case is going to have us here for a while.”

“Me too.”

                                                         -----

Before heading back to the station, where the rest of the team had already convened, Reid and Morgan headed to the agency, where the head of the facility referred them to Mr. Johnson’s other nurses, Sam Meyers and Maryann Trotta. 

“I don’t know,” Morgan said, leaving the agency and finally heading toward the station. “The way Maryann was talking about his symptoms, it was almost as if she hadn’t been treating him. She claimed he’d only been coughing slightly, while Fiona insists that he was violently ill.”

Spencer didn’t have a good feeling about her either. “She’s definitely hiding something. We just have to figure out what and why.”

And they needed to find out quickly. Minutes after they returned to the station, the local authorities got a call indicating there was another victim. “Jennifer Valesky died of flu-like symptoms about five blocks from George Johnson’s house. She was apparently healthy,” he said.

If they weren’t already feeling as though there was a killer on the loose, that cemented it. Four victims within a week and a half and in a now-17 block radius. “We have an angel of death in the area,” Hotch said.

[deniscollins]

Harvard Drops Harvey Weinstein Lawyer as a Faculty Dean

Harvard Law Professor Ronald Sullivan, the first African-American dean of an undergraduate student house appointed in 2009, represents Harvey Weinstein, accused of sexual assault. What would you do if you were a Harvard administrator and students protested over several months for his removal because defending someone accused of abusing women disqualified him from serving in a role of support and mentorship to students: (1) refuse to renew his appointment, (2) insist on renewing his appointment because every accused person deserves a vigorous defense? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Harvard said on Saturday that a law professor who is representing Harvey Weinstein would not continue as faculty dean of an undergraduate house after his term ends on June 30, bowing to months of pressure from students.

The professor, Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., and his wife, Stephanie Robinson, who is a lecturer at the law school, have been the faculty deans of Winthrop House, one of Harvard’s residential houses for undergraduate students, since 2009. They were the first African-American faculty deans in Harvard’s history.

But when Mr. Sullivan joined the defense team of Mr. Weinstein, the Hollywood producer, in January, many students expressed dismay, saying that his decision to represent a person accused of abusing women disqualified Mr. Sullivan from serving in a role of support and mentorship to students. Mr. Weinstein is scheduled to go to trial in June in Manhattan on rape and related charges.

As the protests continued, with graffiti aimed at Mr. Sullivanappearing on a university building, Harvard administrators said they would conduct what they called a climate review of Winthrop House. In recent weeks, tensions have escalated, with a student sit-in and a lawsuit sparked by a clash between one of the protest leaders and two Winthrop House staff members who were seen as supporting Mr. Sullivan.

On Saturday, the dean of Harvard College, Rakesh Khurana, sent an email to students and staff members at Winthrop House, informing them that he would not renew the appointments of Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Robinson as faculty deans after their terms end on June 30. Mr. Khurana said in his email that the decision was informed “by a number of considerations.”

“Over the last few weeks, students and staff have continued to communicate concerns about the climate in Winthrop House to the college,” he wrote. “The concerns expressed have been serious and numerous. The actions that have been taken to improve the climate have been ineffective, and the noticeable lack of faculty dean presence during critical moments has further deteriorated the climate in the house. I have concluded that the situation in the house is untenable.”

In a statement, Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Robinson said, “We are surprised and dismayed by the action Harvard announced today. We believed the discussions we were having with high-level university representatives were progressing in a positive manner, but Harvard unilaterally ended those talks.”

“We will now take some time to process Harvard’s actions and consider our options,” their statement continued. “We are sorry that Harvard’s actions and the controversy surrounding us has contributed to the stress on Winthrop students at this already stressful time.”

The decision not to renew the appointments of Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Robinson as faculty deans does not affect their positions at the law school, where Mr. Sullivan is the Jesse Climenko Clinical Professor of Law and the director of the Criminal Justice Institute.

The controversy around Mr. Sullivan’s representation of Mr. Weinstein highlighted a conflict between the legal principle that every accused person deserves a vigorous defense and students’ demands that college officials show support for victims of sexual assault. “Whose side are you on?” demanded one of the spray-painted messages directed at Mr. Sullivan earlier this year.

But a number of Mr. Sullivan’s colleagues came to his defense; 52 professors at the law school signed a letter supporting him, saying that his commitment to representing unpopular clients was fully consistent with his roles as law professor and faculty dean, and that Harvard should not pressure him to resign.

At the same time, the dispute took on a racial element, with some saying that Mr. Sullivan was being treated unfairly. In a statement in late March, the Harvard Black Law Students Association criticized the decision by the university to conduct a climate review and expressed concern about “the racist undertones evidenced by the disproportionate response to this issue by the university.”

Mr. Sullivan himself suggested that race was playing a role in the handling of the controversy.

“It is not lost on me that I’m the first African-American to hold this position,” he told The Times earlier this year. “Never in the history of the faculty dean position has the dean been subjected to a ‘climate review’ in the middle of some controversy.”

Harvard students live, eat and socialize in the college’s 12 undergraduate houses. The job of the faculty deans is to support students academically and personally, and to set the tone for the house’s social activities.

As the review of Winthrop House progressed, other issues surfaced, with some current and former staff members telling The Harvard Crimson that they had experienced “a workplace climate of hostility and suspicion” under Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Robinson.

Danu Mudannayake, a junior who took a leading role in organizing the protests, said on Saturday afternoon that she had not expected the college to act so definitively or so quickly.

“My honest reaction is just completely gobsmacked, but in the best way,” she said. “I’m very proud today of our college and our college’s administration for finally choosing to do the right thing.”

Mr. Sullivan has represented other controversial clients, including Aaron Hernandez, the former New England Patriots player, when he was tried for double murder, and the family of Usaamah Rahim, a man, shot by the Boston police, who had been accused of being a terrorist.

Mr. Sullivan also represented the family of Michael Brown, a man killed by the police in Missouri, in bringing a wrongful-death suit against the City of Ferguson; the family ultimately received a reported $1.5 million settlement.

He has specialized in overturning wrongful convictions. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he led an effort to change the system that provided legal defense for the indigent in New Orleans; the effort resulted in the release of thousands of wrongfully incarcerated inmates. In 2014, the Brooklyn district attorney, Kenneth Thompson, asked Mr. Sullivan to design and implement a conviction review unit to identify and exonerate wrongfully convicted people. It became a national model.

In his email to Winthrop House, Mr. Khurana praised the commitment of Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Robinson to justice and civic engagement. “This is a regrettable situation and a very hard decision to make,” he wrote.

He said that he and two other Harvard deans would visit Winthrop House on Saturday afternoon to answer students’ questions. Ms. Mudannayake said on Saturday that she was in the dining hall with the deans, and the mood was “very happy.”

“They’re all there and addressing concerns, questions, even just people who want to say thank you to them,” she said. “I think that’s added to the kind of celebratory atmosphere.”

[mysteryfanfictheatre3000]

Back to the Frollo, Chapter 11

Warning: everyone has a nervous breakdown.

Chapter Eleven

"I do believe the ball was about this size", Claude Frollo said as he held up a hefty Rome Beauty. "I thought you didn't want to be reminded of that 'unfortunate incident', Claude", I said as I nodded my approval of the apples he had chosen. We ended a full day's activities and Claude was getting tired. I could always tell when he's had enough, for he appeared clearly agitated and became easily irritated at the slightest provocation. Come to think of it, he was in a similar mood on that fateful day.

He’s in a similar mood literally all the time, because he’s crazy!

I reminded myself to tread softly whenever he gets this way, especially when brought on by too much work, or, in this case, too much pleasure. On the way home, Claude looked at me and said, "Danisha, looking back on it, the whole incident was so insignificant. Yet, we nearly lost each other..."

Let me guess, something stupid and insignificant happened and it’s going to be treated like it’s a travesty.

Within minutes we wheeled into my driveway. Once inside, Claude started a cozy fire while I unpacked cider, apples, and gingerbread. I called out to Claude, "Do you still like lots of cinnamon and nutmeg in your cider, baby?" No response. "Claude, did you hear me?" I walked into the living room to find Claude Frollo stretched out in front of the fireplace, sound asleep. Poor thing. All that running around really wore him out, I guess our treat will have to wait.

The constant referral to a middle-aged pervert as a “poor thing” is creeping me the hell out. Even if he weren’t a genocidal murderer it would be weird.

I gently covered him with a blanket, snuggled next to him, and pondered his words, "We nearly lost each other." And all because of the unfortunate combination of a pleasant afternoon, an ill-tempered official, and an errant baseball.

****** What a glorious afternoon! The Parisian summer proved to be quite pleasant, nothing like the oppressive hot, humid days back home.

Wouldn’t it be worse, because of the lack of deodorant, perfume, frequent baths and any other basic hygiene, and also no AC? Everything would be gross and hot and smelly.

Fern had left Paris a few days before because she had promised her son a trip to Texas before he started his second year at college. Fern didn't want to leave me alone in Paris but she had no choice. "Can you manage to keep yourself occupied while I'm gone?", she asked.

“Yeah, bye, just gonna abandon you in the 1400s because my adult son wants a vacation.”

"Sure, Fern. Go on. Have a good time", I said, adding, "I'll stay out of trouble. Promise." Fern hugged me good-bye, "Good! Keep it that way. I don't want to return and find you stuffed in the stocks...or worse." I knew she was referring to Claude Frollo, but I wasn't worried; Claude and I were on friendly terms. What could possibly go wrong?

He could try to burn you to death?

The kids had begged me to teach them some new games, so I brought out all this playground stuff: jump ropes, balls, and baseball equipment. I was hesitant about bringing the baseball stuff, knowing that it would be nearly 400 years before the game's invention, but what the heck: Just throw the ball and hit it, what's so difficult about that?

Why and how did she get the equipment to play these games? And why are all the parents in the city just A-OK with letting their kids hang out with this strange lady from a place that does not yet exist? It seems like they’d be accusing her of witchcraft or something, not making her the village babysitter.

The children were truly fascinated with learning baseball. I'll admit, for 15th century kids, they quickly picked up on the game. I took the kids to the square near the Palace of Justice to practice pitching and hitting. One little boy had a tough time swinging the bat, and I, being the patient teacher I am, offered to show him the proper swinging technique.

Oh, I can see where this is going.

Now I'm not the athletic type; in fact, the last time I held a bat was in high school, and I was lucky I could hit the ball. "Here, honey", taking the bat in my hands, "let me show you. Keep your eye on the ball." A little girl with a potent pitching arm threw a fast ball. I missed it. The kids started laughing, but I was cool about it. "Okay, so I'm a little rusty. That's all right, baby", I told her, "just pitch it again."

If she’s so abysmal at sports, why is she obsessed with teaching them to play?

She pitched it hard and fast this time, and, with a stroke of luck, I hit it! Crack! The sound of the ball against the wooden bat was like heavenly music. Then I heard the shattering of glass, a sound every ballplayer dreads. Sure enough, I had hit the ball with such force, it sailed up and across the square, and straight through Judge Frollo's window.

This is the most cliche meet-cute outside of “oh, no, I just happened to crash into you and spill all my papers and OMG I’m such a klutzy klutz!”

The kids were visibly frightened, for they knew Frollo would surely and severely punish them, but I told them not to worry. It was my ball and I broke the window. . I'll just apologize, offer to pay for damages, and he'll forgive me. End of story. I had no inkling of what was to transpire between us as I ascended the Palace steps. Come on, I swallowed hard as I knocked at the door leading to his study, he'll forgive you. After all, we're friends...right?

He doesn’t really have positive relationships with anyone in the movie/musical this was based on, especially with women. In the show, he was awful to his brother and his only interaction with Floricka involved shoving her onto the ground. In both, he was horrifically abusive to Quasimodo for no reason. He was awful to Esmeralda (in the play, tried to rape her in front of her boyfriend!) and then tried to murder her (and succeeded, in the play.) He just isn’t a friendly guy, period.

"Come in, Danisha," Claude softly said. I briskly entered the room and immediately began atoning for my carelessness. "Oh, Claude, I'm so SORRY about the window. I'll help pay for it, I swear I will. We shouldn't have been playing so close..." Claude Frollo shot me a look that could melt the polar icecaps. "Give me one good reason why I should not arrest you now."

Now this is more in-character.

I was taken aback. Surely he wouldn't punish me even after I apologized. "Claude, I said I was sorry. What else do you want? Look, I'll work it off...help pay for replacing the window. I'll wash all the windows. I'll even scrub the floors with a toothbrush. Just say you accept my apology."

Toothbrushes didn’t exist then, did they?

Claude pondered a bit, still staring icily at me. Finally, he said, "You have admitted your guilt, offered an apology, and I must say I'm touched by your offer to pay for the damages. However, horrible as it is, I must do my duty."

And we’re slipping out of character again…

I trembled with fear and anger. I was afraid of being punished and angry that Claude Frollo, a man who professed to be my 'friend', could once again turn on me just like that. "How can you do this? I thought we we're friends. We were really getting along..." Claude interrupted, "Oh my dear Nisha, we are still friends, but..." He paused in mid-sentence, then snapped his fingers and said, "I have an idea! Working off the debt does seem like a viable alternative. You shall perform so many hours of work, I'll forget this little incident, and all's well." Claude offered a slight smile as I sighed with relief, "Claude, I don't know...thank you."

And that one little moment of actually being in-character is gone. It was fun while it lasted, but alas, all good things must come to an end.

Then I added, "Now that's over, may I please have my ball?" Claude Frollo looked at me with twinkling eyes, then walked over to his desk and deposited the ball in a drawer. "I'll return this offending party when your debt is satisfied, and no sooner."

With twinkling eyes. Like a messed up, genocidal, overly religious Dumbledore.

My eyes were wide with disbelief! "That was a special autographed ball! I caught that last year and waited in line for God-knows how long for...How could you?"

If it was a special autographed ball, why did she let a bunch of kids play with it where it could easily get lost? And why is the loss of an autographed baseball treated like more of a tragedy than all the other screwed up stuff Frollo’s done?!

"Let me repeat. You shall have your ball once you fulfill your punishment." Claude walked over to the broken window and traced the jagged glass remains. "You shall start tomorrow. I'll have ready a list of duties to be performed. Do try to be on time, my dear." He flashed a wide, wicked grin, his voice was cold and distant. I wanted to sock him, really ram my fist into his smug, smiling face.

He’s letting you off easy, dude! Be happy he didn’t murder you or have you beaten to death! He burned down a city because Esmeralda had the heinous crime of being pretty, I don’t even want to know what he would do to someone who broke his property.

"And how long will this punishment last?" "The remainder of your vacation", came his quick response. "You can't do that! What will I tell Fern? What about Quasi? The kids?..." I was too angry to speak any more. Claude walked up behind me, hissing in my ear, "Well, Danisha dear, you should have thought of that before. Now, take your punishment or else..."

Or else he’ll brutally torture you to death. Doing some chores is tame in comparison.

"Or else what?...you know, I really should knock you out!" And with that, I swung around and was ready to deliver a perfect right hook, but Claude quickly grabbed my arm and I found myself locked against him. "You lowdown, mean son-of-a...let me go!", I screamed as I struggled to free myself.

This is like that scene where he gropes Esmeralda and sniffs her hair. Except Danisha deserves it.

Claude Frollo wickedly laughed in my ear, "You really are a WILD one!" The more he laughed, the angrier I became. I kept struggling in his grasp - Damn, but he was strong! - and called him every filthy name I could think of. I kicked, I screamed, and, in a last-ditch move, I locked my foot behind his, knocking us off balance. In a tangle of black velvet and blue calico, we tumbled to the floor, with me still kicking and flailing away. Somehow, C ab8 laude managed to pin me down on my back.

C ab8 laude? How do you make a typo that bad?

"How DARE you! How DARE you!", he said through clenched teeth as he pinned down my arms. I couldn't move an inch; he was that strong. "Claude! All right! I give up! Just let me go!" Visions of me dangling from a rope, stretched out on the rack, or, I shuddered, tied to a stake raced through my mind. "Claude!", I begged, "Didn't you hear me? I said I give..."

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that if you meet a guy and he grabs you and won’t let you go, it probably isn’t going to be a healthy relationship.

Without warning, Claude's mouth came crashing down on mine. I tried to free myself, but his kiss...it was so physical, insistant, intensely passionate. Claude relaxed his grip, I stopped fighting, and soon my arms encircled him. His hands were entangled in my hair, and mine stroked his soft iron gray locks. I could feel myself tremble with enjoyment, but my mind kept fighting what my body was feeling.

This is literally sexual assault.

Suddenly, Claude released me, sat up, and looked at me with pained eyes. "Oh, my darling", he said with panting breath, "I didn't mean...Oh, Danisha, please forgive me." I was too angry, too confused to say anything. All I could do was fight back tears. As I got to my feet, Claude caught my hand, kissed it, but I pulled away. "Please", he begged, tears streaming down his face, "stay with me." He reached out to me again, but I stood my ground. Through tears I said, "I wish I never came to Paris, I wish I never met you."

I wish you never came to Paris too, because then this story wouldn’t exist. But here we are, and here I am. Sigh.

I fumbled through my skirt pocket and pulled out a coin. Just before I turned to leave, I tossed it to him. "What is this?', asked Claude, his voice still quavering. "In the immortal words of Travis Tritt: 'Here's a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares'.

That makes absolutely no sense in the context of this story. Does Frollo even know what a quarter is?

I walked out of the room, only to hear Claude Frollo's booming voice behind me, "Get out! Get out of my sight, out of Paris, and out of my life!"

He sounds like an emo teen yelling at his mom. “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND MY LIFE!”

I then heard the crashing of books and furniture. I paused outside the door and I could hear him say "Damn her!", over and over, punctuated by muffled sobs.

He’s crying over this…? Does he not have the entire Cathedral Guard at his disposal? If he was really so upset, he could just throw a hissy fit in the same vein as what he did with Esmeralda. It would be even easier, because Danisha’s a complete moron. Esmeralda was smart enough to evade him; ‘Nisha is too dumb for that.

I almost re-entered the room; I actually began opening the door, but then I decided, who cares -- Let him have his tantrum. Then I walked out of the Palace of Justice for what I thought would be the very last time. Once home, I started packing my things. Heck, I wouldn't even wait for Fern. I'll hitch a ride on a boat to England, stow away on one of those spice-and-silk trips to the Orient. Whatever. I desperately needed to get out of Paris and out of Claude Frollo's life.

You’re going to abandon your friends and family and be forever trapped in the past because you made Frollo mad? Everyone overreacts so much to mundane things and ignores important stuff (like genocide!) it’s bemusing.