#that rat toe in the corner is by newt

[squashfolded]

Detlatale underrune doodles from the past two drawpiles

[ineffably-good]

I Will Follow You Into the Dark (3/10) (Good Omens Fic)

Summary: in which Aziraphale wakes up in a strange, dark place. Crowley calls for reinforcements.

Read the whole thing on AO3 - it’s done!

Aziraphale awoke with a start. The first thing he noticed was that he was on a hard, stone floor. His head hurt abominably, and one entire side of his body was sore, as if he had been asleep for quite a while. He shoved himself up to a sitting position and looked around.

He was in something that looked like a tube station, although clearly defunct and long abandoned. A few spot lights had been clipped to the walls and were burning with a buzzy, stuttering sound, and he could see water pooled up in various areas, and, if he wasn’t mistaken, a rat or two in a far corner. Otherwise it was dark, and as far as he could tell, deserted.

Feeling his head clearing a bit, Aziraphale stood and took a good look at the predicament he was in.

The ground around him had been painted with a series of glyphs and symbols in what appeared to be either red paint or blood. Candles were burning at the top of each sigil, and a quick sensory sweep told him that someone here knew what they were doing – they were not only beeswax, but they had been blessed.

He could see no one beyond the circle’s perimeter, at the moment, although he did note a camera set up on a tripod a little distance away. The blinking red light on top told him that it was on and working. He determinedly ignored it.

Aziraphale dug in his pockets, disturbed to find his phone gone. His sigil ring was also missing. Bloody thorough, he realized. He found what he was looking for – a wrapped mint he’d picked up at one of the bakeries this morning, something with a little heft to it. He tossed it carefully at a spot about three feet off the ground where the edges of the circle appeared to be and watched grimly as it bounced off an invisible wall and rebounded back to the ground at his feet.

Could he touch it? Aziraphale wanted to be sure he wasn’t going to be burned or knocked unconscious by the barrier, but he felt he had to try. He moved towards it slowly and edged a toe out to bring the tip of his shoe in contact with it.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice said, booming out of a crackling speaker behind him that he’d failed to notice.

The angel froze, then calmly took a step backwards. “Oh?” he said coldly. “And why not? You’ve got my attention – come out here and show yourself.”

The voice laughed. “You don’t command me, angel. Not at all. In fact I think you’ll find the opposite to be true.”

Aziraphale did not like the sound of this at all.

++

“SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!”

Crowley lunged for the angel as the light flashed in his eyes but he knew even before his hands closed around empty air that he was too late.  How could he not have realized? He’d been summoned before, centuries ago, and he knew some of the warning signs. In retrospect he could see that a few of the strange feelings Aziraphale had been having over the last few weeks – sudden chills, sleep disturbances, losses of balance on the street – were probably either early experiments at making contact or failed attempts at the summoning.

He was a bloody, fucking idiot and he was going to find his angel before one more second went by.

Crowley ruthlessly wiped the memory of the proprietor when she came back with a glass of water, then used his demonic influence to encourage her to close up shop for the day and go, leaving him alone to examine the site of the crime more closely on his own.

He knelt cautiously on the floor and laid his hands flat on the surface where Aziraphale’s feet had been touching,  closing his eyes and extending his senses to try to get a trace on where the summoning had taken him. When that produced nothing, he sat up and tried to extend his senses to get a bead on where the angel himself was. He concentrated grimly, casting his energies out in a wide net, trying to locate him.

Where. Was. He.

He finally got a weak sense of Aziraphale, enough to tell him that the angel was alive, but it was muted and dispersed somehow, as if whoever had taken him had him shielded.

Unable to get any more information from his current location, Crowley miracled himself to the Bentley and raced for home.

++

Aziraphale looked around a bit more, trying to figure out exactly where he was. Something about the room he was in looked familiar; he was in a long, empty end of a tube station, and an old one at that. The end where he was imprisoned was wider than the other, and the track below him was oddly flat, without the usual pits and rails he was used to seeing. Where was he? He knew he knew it. There was no signage in sight to tell him.

Footsteps echoed ominously from down the hall, and Aziraphale squared himself up into a ready stance, relaxed but prepared for combat, as a figure stepped out of the doorway at the far end of the track, too far to make out details.

Looked human, was his first thought. That was something of a relief. He schooled his face into impassivity and waited until the figure got closer.

Another, darker figure slipped out of the doorway behind the man, but he or she stayed back in the shadows. Aziraphale tried to cast out and got a vague sense of demonic energy, but he couldn’t tell anything more.

++

Crowley slammed into the bookstore, checking the wards as he did so and finding them un-tampered with. He snapped his fingers to lock all the doors and window frames and lower the blinds, then pulled out his phone and dialed Anathema.

“It’s me. I know you were planning to come this weekend,” he said grimly in lieu of greeting, “but come now. Right now.”

Anathema sounded concerned. “Crowley? Is that you?” she said. “What’s happened?”

“Someone’s taken Aziraphale, and I need your help. Get down here, please, as soon as you can. Bring Newt if you must. Bring all your tools. Just get here.”

“I’m on my way,” she said.

While he waited, he pulled a series of books from Aziraphale’s private shelves and set to flipping through them feverishly looking for information about summonings. Most of what he learned he already knew. Summonings relied on sigils, which were, in essence, a drawing of a thought designed to connect one practitioner with one specific entity, be it demon, angel, or something far more obscure. Like a phone number. Summoning was a difficult art to practice, requiring strong intent, precise control, and a high degree of preparation. When done incorrectly, it was easily broken, but when done well it could be very effective.

Crowley hoped to Heav—to Hell—to someone that whoever summoned Aziraphale fell on the less experienced side of the spectrum.

++

The figure stepped closer; he was a man, Aziraphale was sure of it, tall and perhaps in his forties, wearing a dark suit cut in an older style, perhaps from the 1950s. His eyes were gray and difficult to see behind a pair of round-rimmed glasses he wore. He walked up to just outside the edge of the circle, and stood with his arms folded over his chest while examining the angel closely.

The man had an aura of ethereal power around him, licking at the edges like flame. It shouldn’t have been there. Aziraphale looked between him and the dark, shadowy figure at the other end of the station, considering the source of this power.

“Principality Aziraphale,” the man said, his voice steady and clear. “You’ve been a hard angel to track down. I’ve been attempting to summon you for weeks.”

Aziraphale fixed him with an impassive gaze. “Return me at once, and I will ensure that no harm comes to you,” he said calmly. “Otherwise I can make no such promises.”

The man laughed. “I believe you’re in no position to make threats at the moment, Principality. You see, I’ve made some adjustments to you, while you were sleeping.”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. “You did no such thing.”

“Just a small injection,” the man said. “A potion of my own devising, helps to make you more, shall we say, pliable to my will? You’re already bound to me, I know you’re aware of it, from the sigils. This inoculation just lowers your resistance. You’re infamous for your stubbornness.”

Aziraphale balled his hands into fists. “What do you want from me, you pathetic wretch?”

The man snapped his fingers and Aziraphale suddenly found his body gone rigid. “Politeness, for a start,” the man purred.

The angel tried to struggle but found he couldn’t move at all. The man snapped again and he shot backwards like a ragdoll, crashing into the far edge of the circle and painfully rebounding forward, landing hard on his hands and knees on the cement.

“Are you going to be civil?” the man asked, “or do I need to have you bash your face into the ground a few times?”

Aziraphale gritted his teeth and rose to his feet again, taking care to keep his temper under control for the moment. “Why am I here?”

“To put it quite simply, I need some of your materials for my work,” the man said.

Aziraphale held his stance and watched as the man stepped through the circle – clearly neither angel nor demon, then, as the circle was warded to prevent entry or exit of either – and then waved a hand almost casually at the angel.

“Freeze, Principality,” he said.

Aziraphale was intensely frustrated to find himself instantly frozen in place, arms straight at his sides, unable to do anything except watch as the man came close to him and produced a bowl and a small knife. He pulled one of the angel’s arms out to a 45 degree angel and made a shallow cut in the palm of his hand, collecting the golden ichor as it flowed out in a stream.

When the bowl was full and the blood had slowed to a trickle, he pressed a handkerchief against the angel’s palm until the bleeding appeared to stop.

“That’s all for now,” he said. “You’ve been most cooperative. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve verified this batch.”

And he backed out of the circle, releasing his control as he did.

The angel frowned, ignoring the sharp pain in his hand. What was the man going to do with his blood? What could this mean? He was certain of one thing and one thing only – it meant nothing good, for either him or the world.

++

Anathema showed up after the longest two hours in the world. She was alone, and had brought several volumes and a large carpet bag of materials. Crowley tolerated her hug, then ushered her in to the office area, where he’d surrounded himself with books. He was clearly in no mood for chit chat.

“Tell me what happened,” she said, sitting down on the couch.

Crowley brought her up to speed as quickly as possible.

“Summoning is a difficult act, even for witches, and requires quite a lot of power,” Anathema said. “The fact that Aziraphale didn’t immediately vanquish whoever it was and reappear probably means that whoever did this has some skill.”

Crowley already knew this. Likely not some college kids playing around with a séance. The thought had been tormenting him for the last two hours.

“Also, it’s quite dangerous, even if you’re skilled,” she said. “Do you know the Law of Equivalent Exchange?”

“No,” Crowley said. “What does it mean?”

“Summoning an entity invokes a law of exchange,” Anathema explained. “It’s the cardinal principle of the entire process. You can summon a demon or an angel or some other kind of being, but you can’t control the process completely. In order to get what you want from them, you have to give up something of equal value.”

“Right, right,” Crowley said impatiently. “I’ve been summoned by enough idiots over the centuries offering me their soul or their pathetic bag of gold for whatever they wanted me to –”

“Yes, but, that’s the whole problem,” Anathema interrupted, leaning forward excitedly with her dark eyes intent. “That’s what people THINK happens, but the way it actually works is that the summoner has no choice in what is taken in return. You can’t control the process; you can’t decide to offer your soul or your firstborn or your material possessions.”

“Then what?”

“It’s up to the being who’s been summoned! Or, if they fail to make the exchange, the cardinal principle itself will take care of it.”

Crowley felt a brief tingle of hope. “So, in this case, Aziraphale would actually have the power to take his revenge on the person who’s pulled him in?”

Anathema sighed and pulled her glasses off, rubbing her eyes. “Not exactly, no, not revenge. Just an equivalence. It depends what they want from him and how they’ve bound him.” She looked around for a drink and found a decanter on the table in front of her; Crowley nodded her assent as she poured herself a small glass of scotch. “Equivalent. If they take something from him, he can, if he’s aware, take something of equal value in return.”

“So if they do something bad to him, he can take something bad from them…”

Anathema nodded. “Yes. It’s inevitable. Maybe not right away, if he’s bound and controlled, but you can only delay it, not deny it completely.”

Crowley nodded grimly. “Good. That’s helpful. Enough about summoning, though, let’s talk about spells for locating things.”

“That’s what I assumed you were going to want,” Anathema said, with a tight smile. She looked, he thought, like a cross between a librarian and an assassin. It was a good look. “Let’s get down to work.”

[boymeetsweevil]

Dead Man Sells no Toes

Grouping: Witch!Reader x ??Namjoon

Word Count: ~5.2k 

Summary: Your thoughts have a mind of their own when it comes to the cute delivery human with the mysterious tattoos

Warnings/Themes: SMUT like basically PWP but also where is that plot, sis?, 69, fingering, blowjobs, cunnilingus, mind reading, species-ism? Too many Halloween Town references, Joon with tattoos (lol is that a warning) , its unedited rn

A/N: This is my late af submission for the BTS Smut Club Halloween Smut Fest. Prompt #18 “Please don’t touch the human remains”

You’re grinding up the last of your final case of artificial dried newt when the sound of the crows cawing alerts you to a customer entering your shop. It’s still early, and though you do get customers throughout the day, they’re usually fairly consistent in the times that they come to pick up their orders now that you’ve been open for business for almost 8 months.

“Hello, dear,” a creaky voice greets you.

There’s no visual sign of the body the voice comes from, but that’s not at all unusual and you know exactly who the customer is. It’s the old ghoul who comes in regularly to get a fix for her wrinkles. She’s a couple hundred years old and it’s starting to show on her face, so she comes in without an appearance every time she’s out of product. The unusual part is that you just gave her a fresh batch yesterday; one that’s supposed to last her two weeks. If she’s back and without a form, something is wrong.

Your familiar, Augustus, and his best friend flap down from their resting post on one of the high shelves to sit next to you on their respective perches on the counter. You set the half-ground newt aside and reach out to pet at Gus’ inky black feathers.

“Eudora,” you nod at the air in front of you out of habit, “How can I help you today?”

“I’m sure you can guess, child. It’s your youth elixir,” Eudora says matter-of-factly.

“I figured as much. Did it not work this time? Because I promise you, I used pure Italian imported moonbeams, like I always do.”

“No, no. I dropped it, so I have no idea if your moonbeams are the issue. It’s all over the floor of my kitchen and its reverting the wood back to shoots!”

“Oh,” you breathe. It’s a relief that your recipe is still working, though you know your gifts wouldn’t fail you in such an elementary area. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yes, so I’d like to purchase another batch now.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because I can only ever make so much with the shipments of dead man’s toes I order each time and you clear me out every time you’re in here.”

“Are you telling me you don’t have any toes? Because I can see a carton right behind you! I may be invisible right now, but I still have my eyesight about me.”

“You’re right, I have some left,” you put emphasis on some, “But that’s reserved for other customers’ orders. I can’t use all the toes on just your orders, that’s not fair to the others.”

“I have an anniversary dinner tonight. Isn’t this more important than anyone else’s order?”

You suppress the urge to sigh and roll your eyes. Eudora may be difficult at times, but your youth elixir is ingredient heavy and time intensive and you charge a hefty price for even smaller samples. But thanks to her vanity, she pays for a rather large amount each time. You’re almost certain that you could pay the whole shop’s monthly ley line bill with just the profits from her orders alone. This time, though, your hands really are tied.

“I can’t violate my customers’ privacy by revealing to you what products they’re purchasing, but I can assure you that some of the orders that require the dead man’s toes are quite important.”

Eudora’s quiet for a moment as she contemplates her options.

“Well, what about leftovers? Can’t you do something with that? Make a smaller batch?”

“I could,” Augustus pecks at your long bell sleeve until you stick a hand out so he can hop up your arm and perch on your shoulder. “But it wouldn’t even take a half-century off. I don’t think you’d be happy with that after getting used to the original strength.”

“When’s the next shipment coming in?”

You pick up the parchment that has your list of scheduled delivery dates. Turn it over so that Eudora can see it, though you’re not sure where she’s standing exactly.

“Perfect,” the scroll dents as she sticks her finger on the most recent scheduled delivery. “It’s scheduled for today.”

Your eyebrows shoot up and you realize you don’t have the schedule memorized correctly. A wave of giddiness washes over you and suddenly you need Eudora out of your shop so you can clean up and get things looking presentable.

“I’ll just stop by later today to pick it up. You can do a rush order, can’t you, dear?”

“Eudora, you know I can’t. Potion making really is a delicate process, you can’t rush it even if you buy those new high-tech speed catalysts everyone keeps talking about. If I were to rush your order, you might experience reverse effects.”

“Oh,” she gasps. “Alright, fine. I suppose I can wait. Alan won’t mind seeing my haggard face this one time.”

“Allan loves you face, regardless of whether or not you’ve used the elixir. Besides, you’ve been paired ghouls for centuries longer than you’ve been using my little old mix.”

Eudora scoffs. “Your little old mix is what makes Allan cough up the extra urks to take us to Cauldron Bleu tonight.”

“Then, I suppose you had better go pick a dining robe.”

“Yes, I really should. But I expect a batch double the size next time around, child.”

“As long as you know that’ll cost you twice the amount, Eudora.”

“I don’t care how much it costs as long as I look how I should. I’ll see myself off, now.”

You wave goodbye, knowing she’s not looking, and tell her to have a good day. You receive no response, but you’re expecting as much.

“Is she gone,” you whisper after a while.

Augustus and his friend squawk an affirmative, so you turn around and immediately put the newt you were grinding in the store room. The large sundial on the north wall tells you that you have a little less than an hour to clean up the shop and perhaps put an enchantment on your skin and hair to make you look a little more put together. For professional purposes, you remind yourself. Not to make yourself more pleasing to the delivery man’s eye, of course.

While you’re in the middle of trying to get your broom to sweep the snippets of rat’s hair from the last hair growth cream you’d been experimenting with, the bell rings again. You curse under your breath and wipe your hands on your apron.

“Welcome to Circadian Apothecary, how may I help—oh, its just you. What are you doing here, Jolluck?”

“That’s a great way to greet your friend.” When you stare blankly at her, she rolls her eyes. “You said we’d have lunch today, remember?”

The wet sound of her webbed feet smacking across the floor remind you that you’ll have to mop after you kick her out. She rests her forearms against the countertop, smudging the surface with the thin, clear mucus that coats her scales when she leaves water for longer than a few minutes. You’ll have to clean that too.

“Can we please take a rain check? Or maybe we could get dinner. I just…I have a delivery coming.”

“Oh! With the human! I’m sticking around. I wanna see him.” “Jolluck!”

“What? Is that not what he is?”

“You don’t know his background.”

“You’ve smelled him right? If it smells like a human and it looks like a human and it walks like a human, it’s a human.”

“If he’s human, how did he cross the veil, huh?”

“Humans cross all the time.”

“Only when they’re screwing vampires, though!”

“Or werewolves,” she points a webbed finger at you.

“True,” you purse your lips. “Either way, you can’t be here. It’ll be weird if you stare at him.”

“You just wanna keep him for yourself. I heard he’s not bad-looking for a flesh puppet.” She grins and swipes her tongue across her fangs playfully.

“Jolluck, seriously, you can’t think about him like that if you want to be here. That’s so offensive.”

She raises her hands in surrender. “Sorry, when did you become such a fan of humans?”

“I’m not a fan, I just…think they’ve changed a lot since the pitchfork days.”

“You’re just saying that because you went to their realm for schooling. Why did you do that again?”

“I swear I’ve told you this, like, 20 times. I think they have a really interesting way of understanding the elements.”

“I heard they’re kind of wrong, though.”

“No, they are. But they raise some interesting issues. And they have some really nice stories and their view of history is so funny. They don’t realize half of their royalty were just warring Goblin tribes that got a little land hungry.”

Jolluck’s eyes widen and she lets out a laugh. “How could anyone not know that? That’s so sad, they’re such simple creatures.”

“Yeah, well, they’re still not as bad as anyone here makes them out to be. And I think you and the rest of town hall needs to stop crowding Namjoon.”

“Fine. But don’t let him know you’re so smitten with him. He’ll try and burn you at the stake or something.”

“I told you, they don’t do that anymore. Oh shit!” You spy him out the corner of your eye, wheeling the cart full of your new inventory towards the front door. “Don’t say anything stupid, okay?”

You say a few words, an unnecessarily powerful hex, and the air crackles around your heads. A sudden gust of what seems like wind runs through the shop before circling back and passing through you roughly. When it clears everything is glistening likes it’s just been freshly scrubbed, but you’re instantly weak and visibly paler.

“Are you crazy?” Jolluck runs to your side, her wet footsteps evaporating off the wooden floors like she never stepped there. “All this for a human male?”

“Look, you can see your reflection in the countertops,” you smile dizzily at her.

Namjoon stands politely in front of the glass, waiting for the shop’s magic to acknowledge you of his presence. Seconds later the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, though you know he’s there because you can see him. With a feeble flick of your wrist, the door opens. He rests his open palm on the doorjamb as is customary and pulls the dolly laden with goods behind him.

“Morning,” he greets, with his back turned to you so he can set the boxes on the ground. His bare arms flex as they work to keep the glass jars inside from jostling. The tattoos running from wrist to shoulder are a web of black lines of varying weights. They suit him.

“Hi there.”

He turns quickly at the sound of Jolluck’s voice and notices that she’s holding you up like she’s carrying your dead weight because she is.

“Hi, I’m Namjoon,” he takes a few hesitant steps forward until he can make out the swirling pattern of Jolluck’s scales. He gestures towards you. “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. She was just biting off more than she can chew and now she’s half dead. Isn’t that right?”

“Shut up,” you mutter.

You manage to prop yourself up on the counter so you can look up at Namjoon. A large, sleepy smile parts your lips as you take in his adorable dimple and plush lips. He really is very nice-looking, regardless of what the townspeople say. You don’t even mind his smell that much.

His cheeks flush and he bites down on his lip, grinning at his shoes.

“Are you okay to check the inventory and sign off?”

“Hmm, yeah. I just need a drink. Jolly, can you get me a drink?”

She huffs, but brushes past the heavy velvet curtain to find a bottled energizer somewhere in the back of the store room. She returns moments later with a little glass flask that’s stopped with a cork. Which would be fine if you had some strength in your arms, but you’re still very much 80% noodle.

“Namjoon, you can open this, right?”

“Sure,” he smiles and takes the jar from you. His hands are oddly soft for someone whose job consists of heavy lifting and sorting through tons of perilous ingredients to sell to people like you.

Your head lolls to rest on your shoulder and you wonder briefly what his hands would feel like against the skin of your waist or your arms or your inner thighs. He chokes a little and nearly drops the vial but manages to snap it out of the air before it can shatter.

He gives it back to you wordlessly and wipes his now sweaty palms on the fabric of his pants.

“So, what do you have for me?”

“Just the usual shipment.”

“I know, but maybe you can, uh, read it out loud for me. Jog my memory?” You’re being over the top, you know it. But you really like his voice, too. Everything about him is just so…nice.

“Alright. The first thing on the list is standard toadstools, a grade and rehydrated.”

“Hand-picked?” You take a shot of the energizer.

“By yours truly.”

“Nice,” is all you say as you eye his hands once more.

Jolluck leans over to hiss into your ear. “This is disgusting and I’m starving. When are we doing lunch?” “When he stops telling me everything I ordered,” you hiss right back out of the corner of your mouth. “What else is there?”

“There’s more lilac, sage, thyme, and wolf’s bane. Those are all local except for the sage. But I got you a good deal at the market.”

“How nice of you.”

As he lists the other supplies he brought with him, you take the time to nurse your bright green energizer and look Namjoon over some more.

Perhaps you spent too much time in the human realm, but you really do think he’s loads better than that daemon boy Yoongi, who breezes through the shop every so often to show off his solid gold watch collection. Namjoon is tall and nice, and always has a pretty blush around you. You don’t even mind the way he smells, it’s actually not as bad as you remembered during your time at human college.

“Sorry about not bringing the dead man’s toes. I guess the graveyards were a little empty this week. But that’s everything, I think,” he says with finality, folding his list and shoving it in his back pocket. He begins deconstructing the rolling cart he took with him, now that it’s no longer in use with the boxes having been unloaded onto the ground.

“Oh.”

You can’t help but be disappointed that your time with him is ending so soon. And right when you got your strength back, if the tickling hum running through your veins is any indication of the energizer’s effect. So much energy is coursing through you that some magic starts to spark out of your fingers. You quickly hide your hands behind you back, not wanting him to see the sparks and think you’re some young witch with no control over her magic. Although, wiping yourself of nearly all your energy moments before he arrived just to clean the shop sounds like something you might have also done when you were a mere teen.

Jolluck emerges from the stairs in the back that lead to your apartment on the second floor. “Your cabinets are all empty. And your fridge. I’m going shopping.” She waves something that looks suspiciously like your wallet, the urks in it jingle mockingly.

A thought pops into your head, so you decide to just run with it.

“N-namjoon, do you think you could stick around? I’m still feeling kind of shaky and Jolluck is heading to the southern market.”

“The southern market? Why would I go there when I could just go to the one by the Elder woods?”

“Just go,” you give her a smile of mostly bared teeth. You turn to Namjoon again, once Jolluck is out the door. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t mind. Where should I put them?”

“In the back. I’ll show you.”

You wait for him to pick up the first box, relishing in the way the muscles in his back bunch and coil as he hefts it up into his arms with a soft grunt. He follows behind you quietly while you lead the way.

“Wow.” He takes in the rows and rows of shelves behind the curtain. Each one packed full with various ingredients or preserved things for rituals that are shelf-stable. “You’re no joke.”

“Guess you could say that,” you lean against a wall and watch him open the box. “I was the top of my classes.”

“In witching school?”

“And at a human college?”

“Really,” he stops to peer down at you. “So, you don’t mind humans, then?”

“Not anymore than I mind the folks here. They both have their ups and downs.”

“And I suppose you’ve heard what everyone’s had to say about me?”

He holds up two jars of pickles hooves, unsure of where to put them. You push yourself off the wall and take them from him. He follows behind once again to move the box, and hand you each jar as you stack them on the appropriate shelf.

“I mean, people definitely like to talk to me about you.”

“About my being a human?”

“Yeah, sort of. But probably more because you’re human. People think I love all things human just because I went to school with them.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“About humans?”

“About me.”

Before you can stop yourself, your tongue sticks out playfully between your teeth. “You really wanna know?”

“I do,” he smiles down at you, another jar in hand.

With a crooked finger, you beckon him closer and he moves in with head cocked to the side. You lean in close enough that your lips just barely graze the shell of his ear. He shivers.

“I don’t think you’re really human,” you whisper before grasping the jar and tugging, but it doesn’t budge.

Namjoon stares down at you, wide eyed, before snapping out of his surprise and tugging the jar back, bringing you stumbling with it.

“How’d you know,” he says back in an equally hushed voice.

“What’s that saying you guys have? The nose knows?”

“It was because of my smell? Seriously?”

“What can I say? I spent a lot of time with humans while I was at school with them. I know that smell anywhere. And you do smell like them, but…you also don’t.”

“How do you know it’s not just because I spend a lot of time fae people?”

“Is that why?”

“No,” he grins. You swear it must be a trick of the light, but his eyes flash unnaturally for a second. “My dad was human, but his dad was a seer and my mom was a quarter elf.”

“I knew it. You smell too much like silver to be a human. Not enough copper in you.”

“Congrats on guessing right.”

“Can you do any magic? I know it tends to be weaker when it’s not matrilineal, but genes are funny things.”

“I can’t do much outward production. Mostly just life-force projection, see?”

He pushes up the sleeve of his T-shirt and flexes his bicep, bringing the tattoos into focus. You realize upon closer inspection that they’re moving now. The lines weave together in a periodic fashion, an organic rhythm. Like the tides or another being’s pulse. He pulls up the hem of his shirt to reveal that the tattoos continue down his flanks and spread onto the ridges of his otherwise flat abdomen. Your hand itches to reach out and traces the lines. Would you feel his life-forces thrumming under your finger? Would yours expel to meet his? Were they even compatible enough to do that? You hoped so.

“Wow.”

“I can also um,” he trails off.

“You can also what? You can tell me. Is it embarrassing?”

“Not for me,” he smirks. When you squint out of confusion, his cheeks color and he looks down at the ground. “I have level 2 telepathy.”

“Oh. That’s cool. Why is that embarrassing?”

“I mean, it’s not embarrassing for me. But it sometimes is for other people. Since it’s combination mirrored and tactile telepathy.”

You choke on an inhale and get sent into a coughing fit when you realize that Namjoon can feel your thoughts about him on his skin. It’s probably a side effect of the tattoos he has, so it’s probably not super strong, but it still means that every time you made eye contact with him and thought about how broad his shoulders looked, he felt it in his shoulders. All those times you’d lusted after him while he brought in your orders, he’d felt them.

“I am so sorry,” you gasp with tears of embarrassment pricking at the corners of your eyes. “Had I known, I would have never, ever asked you to stick around so much. I hope I didn’t make you too uncomfortable. For what its worth, I am truly sorry.”

“It’s really fine. It’s a lot better than what everyone else was thinking when they thought a human had managed to infiltrate town to burn everything to the ground.”

“But still! You shouldn’t have to endure either of those. You could have sent your friend drop things off, I wouldn’t have gotten offended. I just… I don’t know what else to say.”

“It’s really fine.”

“How could it be fine?”

“Because I wasn’t bothered by it,” he admits with a soft smile.

Silently, he takes your hand and places it just millimeters above his forearm. Your life-force, a pale yellow liquid fire, crackles up on the edges of your skin and tangles with his own syrupy black one. A phenomenon that occurs when life force resonance frequencies are compatible.

“Shit.” “Yeah,” he parrots back quietly. “Shit.”

You take a chance and hurl yourself at him. The force takes him by surprise and you manage to knock him onto the floor, barely missing the box containing precious jars of dead man’s toes. But you don’t care because his instantly come to skate up your arms, down your back, to cup your butt. He squeezes appreciatively and lets out a low groan when you reward him with wet, open-mouthed kisses down the column of his neck.

His hands find their way underneath your uniform tunic and press brands into your skin. You keep kissing the parts of his face in a disorganized fashion. First his chin, then his clavicle, then the deep dimple in his cheek, and finally the corner of his mouth. He turns and captures your lips with his own, startling you into submission. At first, he explores the landscape of your mouth with fervent presses and caresses, but eventually he grows curious enough to probe. His tongue sneaks out to lick at the seam of your lips and you open up for him immediately, air from your pants puffing out in between you.

The feeling of his tongue sliding lazily against the tip of yours, dancing along the tender inside of your lip, has you clenching in vain. You move unconsciously so his thigh slots in between yours and begin to rock your hips against him, hoping for a bit of friction.

He chuckles against your mouth before pulling away from a soft, slick sound. “In a hurry?”

“Yeah. I want you to fuck me. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

He curses when his hands finally meet the globes of your breasts. They’re free in the loose material of your tunic and they make for a pleasant weight in his large hands. His thumbs come out to swipe a finely mirrored pattern over your nipples. When you respond with a high whine, he twists them roughly. Almost as if he has control over them, your hips snap against him. Your writhing over him eggs on the growing erection in his trousers, which you can feel nudging your pelvis with every inward thrust.

Your life force is excited enough from the amorous activity that its flowing steadily around your limbs like a ribbon satellite. You ignoring the way thick globules of Namjoon’s life force start to raise from the tattoos to trade spots with some of your own fiery energy. You read about what that means once, but now you couldn’t give two shits about whatever class notes you internalized from school.

“Namjoon, touch me,” you whine when the beginnings of your arousal start to soak your underwear.

“I thought I was touching you.”

You roll your eyes and redirect one of the hands that been rolling your breasts down into your pants. He hisses at the sticky coating that drenches his fingers the moment you pulled your underwear to the side for him. He crooks two fingers and traces your hole as best he can with his wrist turned awkwardly. You shift until your heat sucks him in and begin to grind your clit against him. His other hand snakes around to grab at your ass semi-roughly.

“That’s right. Get yourself off on my hand.”

“I don’t want to cum like this,” you pant against his neck.

“How do you want to cum?”

“On your tongue,” you admit. You’re glad he can’t see how hot your face got, but you let out a yelp when he shifts his palm even closer to your heat.

“I like that idea. Get up here.”

You scrabble onto your knees above him and slip out of your clothes as best you can without kneeing him anywhere important. As soon as you’re bare, his hands land on your hips and tug you until you get the hint and shuffle forward until you’re almost seated over his chin.

“You smell good,” he says with a deep inhale. He stretches his neck out and presses an open kiss to your clit, making sure to suck as he pulls away, bringing moisture with him. He licks his lips clean before doing it again and again until you’re shaking and have to brace yourself by leaning forward on your hands.

Finally, he pushes down on your hips, motioning you to sit on his face properly. The moment that you do, the flat of his tongue comes out to collect the dew and undulate against you in broad strokes. When he reaches your entrance he dips in shallowly, collecting more of your arousal, and then repeating. During the first few swipes of his tongue, you try to be courteous of his neck and face, try not to overwhelm him. But once he starts slurping obscenely, your hips move on their own accord. You grind yourself sinuously on his tongue, moaning without any restriction.

When he adds a thumb into the mix, rubbing at your clit, so he can attempt to fuck into you with his tongue. Your head drops forward and you notice that Namjoon is still wearing all of his clothes. You decide this won’t do and put your weight on one hand so you can undo his trousers with the other. It’s a little fumbly and it takes a few tries, but you manage to not only loosen his pants but also push them and his underwear down far enough that his erection can swing forward. You swipe away at clouds of his life force that are happily bumbling around your hand and stroke the length of his shaft. He’s not expecting the sudden touch and jumps, bumping you a little bit.

You spit into your palm before going back into to stroke him in earnest. Its doesn’t take long for your arm to get tired trying to jerk him off from your far away position. You try to inch forward without moving out reach of his mouth.

“Why are you moving away,” he mumbles against your inner thigh.

You don’t answer at first, so he sucks a teasing hickey on the sensitive skin there, causing you to nearly topple over face-first onto his lower stomach.

“You’ll see why. Just be patient.”

Soon you’re hovering over his pelvis and readjust your lower body so that you’re still positioned over Namjoon’s mouth. He tries to peer up curiously but the feeling of your mouth engulfing him instantly clues him in to what you’re doing.

“Fuck,” he groans at the feeling of you bobbing the warm, wetness of your mouth over his length.

The tip of your tongue nudges at his slit and his eyes roll into the back of his head. Before he gets too caught up in the feeling of you caressing the bottom part of his slick shaft, he returns to your center. He starts licking back into you with a vengeance, almost like he’s competing with you. His head moves up and down with the added force his lips parting your petal-soft folds. Your clit is still trapped in the loop of constant figure eights that he skates over the nub. You whine around him and the vibrations wring a moan out of him.

He senses that you’re losing the battle with your orgasm. The way your thigh’s tremble on either side of his head clues him in as well. He pulls back briefly and you hum around him from above.

“Ride my face,” is all he says before gripping your thighs and pressing you tightly against him. He flexes the body of his tongue before shaking his head back and forth against your clit.

The direct stimulation short circuits your brain and you nearly forget to keep jerking him off while the quakes of your high take over your body. Short, choked breaths leave you as you climax, dripping onto his tongue and the lower half of his face. Part of you bemoans the fact that you won’t see his face when he cums, so you soldier on as best you can and redouble your efforts to make him feel good as well.

Almost like a feedback mechanism, your indecent thoughts coupled with the actual onslaught of your mouth have him giving you all he still can until you sneak up on him with a well-timed deep swallow as he thrusts up into your throat and just the right amount of pressure near his perineum. His body goes rigid as he spills into your mouth, and you bob your head to milk him of every last drop. Even after muscles in his thighs stop rippling, you suckle lightly at the tip to clean him up, and he squirms under you out of sensitivity. “Please don’t touch the human remains,” he drones with closed eyes, feigning death by blowjob.

“Oh, stop it,” you drum your fingers against his abdomen. “You’re not even human.”

“Not completely.”

“At least you’re not dead.”

“No, I think I am. I think you swallowed my soul.”

“Well, if you’re really dead, can I borrow your toes?”

[hippopotatomus]

It’s party time! Square dancing is introduced for the intrepid, the inexperienced, and the deranged, and nobody gets hurt. Sylvia’s kids discover the kitchen and the joys of Jello. Finally, they load into Newt and take the refurbished amphibious vehicle for a test run.

Now that there is kind of a plot, you might need to backtrack a bit. Here’s a link if you decide to start reading at the beginning. There’s a helpful chart below to give you a chance to sort out the rodents. Recommended snack: Jello, especially those fancy molded kinds with random foodstuffs trapped inside. Soundtrack: Old Time Square Dance Music. Switch to Truckin‘ (Grateful Dead) once they start driving around.

~~~~~~~~~~

Everybody piles into the amphibious vehicle, otherwise known as “Newt,” and take him for an offroad test drive around the principality and into the River Dobby.

He ran into Bond first and dispatched the little budgie to fetch the hens and have them herd Sylvia’s kids over to the makeshift ballroom in time for the first dance. Then he wandered toward the glow in the workshop windows where the sulky millwright and his crew of naked mole rats worked away on the zeppelin.

“We have plenty of time to finish this. You guys ate, right? And then came back down to work again? Take the night off, listen to some music, have some dessert. I won’t even bug you about dancing. Newt’s ready to drive, and that’s good enough for tomorrow. Come on and take a break.”

Rodney scowled at Dobby but nodded toward his workers and they put down their tools and scampered toward the rowdy ballroom. Dobby stood on tiptoes and tried to peer into the windows of the amphibious vehicle and frowned. He opened the door and looked up at the driver’s seat. Rodney cleared his throat, stepped forward and pulled out a little step from the undercarriage. Dobby smiled and stepped up into Newt, and sat in the driver’s seat. Rodney shut the door and Dobby looked behind him into the Salon. The carpets, couches, curtains, and chandeliers were exactly like his sketches. He turned back to Rodney, who now seemed to be standing way down below him, and clutched the steering wheel to stave off a little dizzy spell.

“I saw that,” said Rodney. “If you’re woozy about this height, well, what are you going to do when the airship lifts off the ground?”

“I’m fine. It just surprised me for a minute. Annabelle is going to be driving, or piloting, or whatever. I plan to ride in the back. I’m going to lay on a couch and let Conchita feed me grapes.”

“What do you think Sylvia will say about that?”

“Oh, Conchita can feed her grapes, too!”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Okay, come on down from there. Let’s go to the dance. Are the desserts served yet?”

“Of course not, but there’s still some fruit and a couple willow branches left.”

They trudged back up the hill to the ballroom. Three small squirrels screamed past them, a trio of hens huffing and puffing not far behind. The goose was approaching the microphone as they entered the fray.

“That tune was Who Hit Nelly with a Stovepipe. Now, who’s ready to dance? We’re going to need four couples to a square. Looks like we can easily come up with four squares tonight. Can you please give it a bit of thought and choose couples who aren’t ten times as big as you are? That’s okay for some of the circle dances, but it’s kinda dangerous for this one, okay? I’m talking to you, down there. Yes, you. Can you please switch out with that couple in the square next to you? Yeah, that’s going to be better. Okay, how are we doing, now? Need one more couple in this square up front. Prince D! What are you doing? Where’s your partner, get up here!”

Dobby looked around for Sylvia and spotted her in a square near the back, partnered up with Kipling. She shrugged and smiled at him from across the room. Dobby looked around for a partner, grabbed the surprised millwright and pulled him forward into the front square.

“All right,” said the goose. “Rodney’s gonna dance tonight! I’m Silly Goose, and I’m gonna be calling the dances tonight, so pay attention! Couple one is closest to me, couple two is on their right, and on around to four. Make a note of it. Each couple has a raven and a lark: raven on the right, lark on the left.”

There was a lot of talking in the squares, each group determining the couple numbers. Then the raven lark controversy, with a lot of switching around due to some bird preferences, and even some couples changing when someone refused to be a raven. These shenanigans persisted until the caller tapped the mic.

“Quiet up, y’all! We’re going to start with an allemande left with your corner. Ignore your partner for the moment, reach out with your left paw toward the nearest fool, shake paws and turn right around, return to face your partner. Okay, so far so good. Now we’re going to learn a right and left grand, and I sure darned hope at least a few of you know it already.”

She reached down for a sip of water before she continued. The crowd was attentive but unruly, polite but pushy, and they finally made it through the last instruction before they forgot the first one.

“Okay, the band’s gonna play Dogs in the Dishes for us. Everybody ready?

With your corner left allemande, Back to your partner for a right left grand, Hand over hand around that ring, Meet your own for a big fat swing, Swing your partner round and round, Any old way but upside down, Couple one, rip and snort, Down the center and cut em off short, Raven go gee and the lark go haw, Now all back home where you belong!”

Silly Goose called half a dozen dances and after each dance, everybody chose new partners. After the first dance ended, Dobby made a beeline for Sylvia, nearly knocking over the millwright. He was happy to be abandoned until Bianca cornered him and he ended up being ensnared for every dance because the ladies were so excited to see him joining the fun. Sylvia seemed to be enjoying herself, and Dobby only stepped on her toes twice, a new personal best for a night of dancing. Dessert was served, the band kept playing until the final tune, The Snouts and Ears of America.

“Did they get dessert?”

Sylvia snorted and shifted Tix back up onto her shoulder. Dobby had Cu and Sali in a backpack his decorator had made up from leftover curtain fabric.

“I guess you didn’t hear. I don’t know if I want to tell you but the rabbits are going to tell you anyway. The hens were supposed to bring them up to the ballroom, but they were so tuckered out that these little monsters got ahead of them, took a wrong turn and ended up in the kitchen. Fortunately, they had never seen petits fours before and didn’t know they were food. They went straight for the Jello molds. They’d never seen those, either, and decided they were perfect for jumping. Mind you, it’s all rumors, I wasn’t there, and you shouldn’t be mad at your hens, either. Mission impossible, right?”

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Dobby laughed. “I heard. I’m glad we were able to give you a break. Jello is easy to fix, magic, you know. It would have been trickier to create new cakes, but Jello? That was easy. The rabbits weren’t angry, just a bit excited.”

“But my kids shouldn’t be getting away with being naughty like that. It doesn’t help when we get home, you know.”

“I guess you didn’t hear all of it. The hens got there right away, wouldn’t let your kids have any dessert until everybody else had eaten. I hear it nearly killed them. They thought there would be nothing left.”

Sylvia laughed. “Well let’s cram them into bed and call it a day!”

~~~~~~~~~~

After a disaster free brunch, Dobby led Sylvia and her three musketeers (complete with hats) down to the workshop. Rodney was attaching nautical bumpers to Newt’s sides as the Peahen in charge of decorating selected the colors.

“Are you kids ready for a ride? Hop on and check it out. I need to load on the snacks and then we can go.”

“Snacks?” said Sylvia. “We just finished brunch!”

“You never know how long you’ll be away. Best to be prepared.”

Sylvia narrowed her eyes, but perked up when she climbed up into the shiny amphibious vehicle. The little squirrels bounded past her, each one claiming a sumptuous sofa. A rabbit followed with trays, boxes, and bags of snacks to be stowed in the small kitchenette. Dobby walked around to the passenger entrance where Rodney stood ready to load him in.

“I want Sylvia to drive Newt, but I’m coming along to take notes or make adjustments,” said Rodney, as he placed his shoulder in position to nudge our Prince up into the vehicle. “I’ll add a small step on this side, too.”

“Oof,” and Dobby was in. He worked his way back, noting that each tiny squirrel had commandeered a plush couch, leaving him only a selection of smaller club chairs. Sylvia was already in the driver’s seat, and she looked back to check on her smaller charges.

“What are you guys doing? You’ve taken all the best seats so The Prince is stuck with the little chairs! One of you had better give up your seat, pronto!”

“It’s fine,” said Dobby. “I’m already buckled in back here. We’re just driving around, it’s not a test flight, or anything.”

The rabbit grabbed some empty boxes and hopped out the passenger side. Rodney stepped up into the vehicle’s salon, checked everyone’s seatbelts, strapped himself into the co-pilot’s seat, and they were off.

“It’s a standard gearshift, maybe a bit touchy at the clutch—“ said Rodney.

Sylvia shot him a withering glance, and drove Newt smoothly up the slope to the main driveway.

“How about you navigate. Can you talk me through a test course with a variety of terrain? Some slopes, some bumps, some deep water?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Rodney. “Turn left here, and we’ll go off-road in a jiffy. We can take the scenic route past the final resting place of the walking palace, and go down into the river. Come up at the fields, cut across on a farm road, and head back. There’s a small road just beyond a gazebo on the right. Here it is, turn right here.”

Sylvia expertly turned off the paved road onto a glorified deer trail through the brush. Branches scratched the sides of the vehicle and randomly poked the open windows. Sylvia looked at  Rodney, who was busy peering ahead, oblivious to the forest trying to claw its way into the plush salon.

“The exterior has a fused silicon coating,” he said. “Nothing can scratch, puncture, or gouge this thing. I promise.”

Sylvia alternately bumped and galloped the responsive Newt over the uneven path, slowing to cross over small logs and large boulders. She turned to grin at Rodney.

“This is fun! I’m going to be sad when it’s off the ground, dangling from the airship. I’m glad Annabelle is taking over when the motocross driving becomes boring piloting. Do you know when that test flight is? Any idea?”

“Friday afternoon. We’re going to wait until you get here. You are coming Friday, aren’t you?”

“That’s the plan. The party is Saturday, right? Are you going to that? I don’t quite understand the concept, but I think we are all going by zeppelin.” She glanced back at the prince, who was snoozing in an awkward position in his club chair. “But we haven’t been invited to the actual party. Does he expect us to hang out in the parking lot until the party is over?”

“Nobody wants to go to the party, not even the Prince. He wants to make a dramatic entrance, eat some cake, and leave. He wants us all there, waiting as emergency back-up, and an excuse to leave early. It should be fun, and he’s planned a big bash next Sunday for all of us. The rabbits have already submitted menus three times, and he keeps adding courses. There will be a band and dancing, of course, but he’s also asked for crafts tables and games. Oops! We passed the turn for the river. Can you back up? We need to go back to that clump of macadamia trees. Did you see the path on the right? That goes down to the river past the rusting heap that was the walking palace. Someday I’ll haul it out of there and strip it for parts.”

Newt trundled down the path and as the broken no-longer-walking palace came into view, there was a flurry of furry activity in the back. When Sylvia turned around, all three little squirrels were standing on one couch, leaning out the open window and chattering about the rusted magnificence of the ruined palace.

“All three of you! Sit back down, seat belts on! I don’t want to see you out of your seats again! You understand?”

The wailing started, waking the snoozing prince.

“The windows are too high! We can’t see out,” said Sali. She turned to the Prince. “Can you make us some really really really tall couches?”

The Prince considered this request. “No,” he said. “Sit down, buckle up. Right now. Then I will consider some hanging chairs, maybe those woven bamboo ones. They will have to be on tracks so you can move from one side to the other without unbuckling. I’ll have to think it through, and then, of course I will have to run it past my decorator. Will you need headphone jacks so you can listen to music? Bookshelves? Coat hooks, hat racks, built-in storage, cup holders?”

Cu gave him a sidelong glance. “That’s ridiculous.”

Dobby gave him a wide-eyed look. “What? You don’t want the cup holders?”

“Yes, we do!” said Tix. “But I think magazine racks and a tray table would be better than bookshelves. I don’t think we’ll have time to read a whole book, but I am going to bring my comic books if we have a magazine rack. They’re not going to fly out the window are they?”

Dobby considered this seriously. “I think it will work if it is an enclosed box with a lid. What do you think? You have some good ideas. Is there anything else Newt needs? That’s the purpose of a test drive: to work out the bugs, fine tune the accoutrements, spiff it up a bit. Think about it and let me know.”

Cu stared at him. “We need snacks.”

Dobby stared back. “Not until we are on the river. It’s too bumpy here.”

“Is everything okay back there?” Sylvia took her eyes off the road long enough to catch the stare down.

“Everything is just dandy back here. When we get into the river, it’s kind of boring. Why don’t you hand over the controls to Rodney at that point, join us back here for snacks?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Soon they were driving into the river . . .

Soon, they were driving down the soft bank of the river. The wheels spun a bit, trying to get purchase, a rooster tail of sand following their dubious progress. Rodney took a pencil from behind his ear and made a note on his clipboard.

“I’ll weld on a winch onto the back.”

“Not a sky hook?”

Rodney looked at her to see if she was serious. She was smiling, but right at that moment, her eyes opened wide and her mouth formed an O. Newt slid sideways and there was a gurgling sound as they plunged into the river. Rodney made another note on his clipboard.

“All-weather tires”

Newt bobbed about for a few seconds and then leveled out, spinning slowly to face downstream. They drifted slowly with the current.

To be continued . . .

~~~~~~~~~~

The stunning Cast of Characters:

~~~~~~~~~~

This story needs a lot more illustrations! Select an event from this story (how about jello?), draw a picture of it, and send me an email. I’ll reply so that you can attach a digital copy of your masterpiece to it. I’ll add it to the story!

Or, if you’d rather help with the glossary, send me the list of words you had to look up (or should have looked up, but didn’t!). Someday, I will start putting together the glossary. Do know what an amphibian is?

[contact-form] We've got more square dancing, more dessert, and (finally) a test drive in Newt, the passenger car part of the zeppelin. It's party time! Square dancing is introduced for the intrepid, the inexperienced, and the deranged, and nobody gets hurt.

[inkstainedfanfics]

To You, With Regret

Request: A lot of reblogs with comments like “OW MY HEART" and "I need a part 2 plz"

Word count: 1,811

Pairing: None

Part 1   |   Part 3   |   Part 4   |   Part 5

This is the sequel to To Newt, With Love

Requests are currently open! Feel free to send one in

Newt walks into the small, two story house that he knows like his own home. The familiar smell of pine floor cleaner floats up from the floorboards. He clenches his jaw and breathes it in, wondering where he should hang his coat since the coat tree that usually guards the front door has quit its duty and marched somewhere else.

Bulgaria, perhaps, as that’s the last rumor Newt heard about you. To study a Horntail that set up a nest there. He’d laughed once, humorless, when he heard that. You always did like a rush of adrenaline.

He doesn’t laugh now as he turns into the small living room and finds the couch and armchair must’ve marched along with the coat tree. A film of dust coats the ground, dulls the wood’s normal shine.

The boom of his dropped bag disrupts the dust’s slumber. It bursts into flight. The clumps of grey twirl in the setting sun’s light, the same way he had twirled you five summers ago. You’d put a record on and dragged to the middle of the room, forcing him to sway until he willingly took your hands and tried to waltz.

He swallows the memory. He’s here for one reason.

Yet he can’t stop himself from peeking into the kitchen and feeling a little relieved when he sees the black scorched wallpaper half hidden behind a cabinet. He’d tried to bake one day but ended up drastically failing. You’d screeched when you walked in that day, grabbed the nearest cloth—which just so happened to be your favorite jacket—and whipped him with it over and over until the flames died out. You’d held a funeral for your jacket and his left eyebrow that night. As soon as the mock memorial service ended, he teased you endlessly for using a jacket instead of just grabbing the pitcher of water from the fridge. You had scrunched up your nose and stuck out your tongue.

That was the first time Newt realized how cute you he found you.

He moves on, eyes trailing over the pastel green walls, noting the rectangular spots that are lighter than their surroundings. Picture frames used to hang there, filled with shot after shot of the two you. Only a few frames remain now. He doesn’t recognize any of the faces that have replaced his.

He reaches the spiral staircase and places his hand on the cool rail. You’d tripped down these steps the very first day you’d moved in. Rolled and thumped your way down into his arms. He’d searched you head to toe for cuts or broken bones, but the tears streaming down your face were from laughter. Miraculously, you only ended up with one small bruise on the back of your arm.

He climbs the steps, listening to his footsteps echo throughout the house without your laugh.

The smell of pine fades as he reaches the top and steps onto the white carpeting. There’s only two rooms up here: Your bedroom and the bathroom.

The door opens without a groan, as though it’s hiding his secret. Really, it is. He isn’t supposed to be here. He isn’t even supposed to have this address anymore.

I want you to pretend I never existed. Three years later and his stomach still knots up at your words.

He hadn’t had the nerve to show up until now. He’s a coward, he knows. Anyone better than him would have done this already.

He shakes his head. No, anyone better than him would never have let you go in the first place.

A stale scent drifts out of the bedroom, the exact opposite of the smell of your floral shampoo. He steps in and looks around. Everything is dull, so different from the lively energy you used to fill every room with, right up to the brim and sometimes, Newt swore, into the very people near you. His gaze travels the white walls from floor to ceiling, searching for anything new, anything he doesn’t remember. There’s an old diploma for something hanging over the dusty dresser and a web of cracks stretching from a corner where the ceiling meets the wall. At least the lightbulb remains. It crackles and flickers when Newt finds the switch and flips it.

The floor creaks when Newt takes another step in. A rat’s nails click against the wood as the creature scurries away into some dark corner.

He crosses to the bed, only adornment the bare mattress, and kneels. The dust in the room clings to his knees, but he doesn’t mind. He lays on his stomach and flicks his wand.

“Lumos.”

The light shines on too many bugs, legs in the air, to count. He just brushes them aside as he reaches for what he needs.

“Accio.”

The black box scrapes the ground and rolls over a few insect bodies, but it lands in front of him.

He shoves himself to his feet and brushes off his clothes before he sits on the mattress and lifts the box onto his knees. It’s not very large, it barely even fills his lap. It had almost gone completely unnoticed by him, despite the fact that he spent almost entire summers sleeping on the ground next to where you hid the box.   He holds his breath and wiggles the top off.

He expects to see postcards from new friends or letters of recommendations from previous bosses. He expects there to be something new in the box, something from the last three years.

He sucks in a breath at what he does see.

The letters—his letters to you—shredded but here. Not thrown. As though you couldn’t bring yourself to erase him completely. He holds in the breath. You told him to forget you, that he would be dead to you. He shouldn’t do it.

Still, he can’t help himself. This wasn’t his plan but now he can’t leave until it’s done.

His hands shake as he pushes himself to the head of the bed and turns over the box. The shreds plunge onto the bed in a blizzard of his writing. Once the final few slivers stuck to the bottom of the box waft out, Newt lifts his wand.

“Reparo.” He’s not even sure it will work, that the letters will reassemble themselves into the same words and sentences and paragraphs they were before he messed up.

Nothing happens and Newt’s heart stops.

At least he tried.

Then they burst into action. Chunks of paper zip around the room, dipping and diving around one another, trying to find the piece they connect with. It isn’t long before a stack of papers taller than Newt’s shin lies in front of him in chronological order.

He lifts the first one and reads.

He reads and reads and reads. Even after the sun sets and the full moon hangs high in the midnight sky, Newt reads.

He reads until all but one letter of the pile sits in the open box.

He stares at it, at his last piece of you, at the final letter he wrote you, covered in sketches and messy notes and smiling faces, and he folds it in two and slips it in his pocket.

The bags under his eyes tug on his eyelids, and he knows now is the time. Before he is tempted to take any more letters, he must do what he came to do and leave.

He unclasps the thick leather strap around his wrist and holds the watch between two fingers. He runs a finger over the inscription and closes his eyes, fighting the emotions begging him to keep it in his possession. Some selfish part of him wants to keep it because it’s the one thing he has that shows what you had existed at one time, that you truly had loved him for who he was and not tried to use him.

No, he reminds himself. He has no right to keep your sweet gesture with him anymore. He lost that right three years ago.

Gently, he lays the gift on top of the restored letters. He slides out the spare key you gave him six years ago, the first day you’d been offered full rein of your family’s abandoned guest house. You’d slid it in his pocket and locked him out of the house, giving him clues on how to get in the house. The final clue you’d given him was about where he’d keep a bowtruckle if he ever found one, something the two of you had discussed at length in the Hufflepuff common room.

He returns the key to you in the same way: hidden. You’ll get no clues, though.

You’re dead to me, and I will be the same to you.

It’d be up to you to find it. If you ever do. He supposes you probably aren’t looking for it after three years of silence. Still, a small part of him hopes you’ll find it and remember that not all of your friendship was a lie. Most of it was made up of good times, of nights spent with candy spilled all over the floor as a saxophone solo lulled the two of you to sleep, smiles still on your faces. And days filled with dancing and cooking and talking about future dreams and your housemates and classes and horrible teachers. And evenings of off-key singing and charades, trying to guess what creature the other was acting out.

Newt’s smile trembles. It’s all over. All because of his choices.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a slip of paper, placing it on top of the key.

To You,

With Regret.

Then he covers the box and slides it into its place under the bed. He retraces his footsteps, trying to avoid returning to take the box with him, to take the memories he’s terrified of forgetting.

He walks down the staircase slowly to absorb everything he can. He memorizes the view from the window in front of the first turn of the staircase, and the feel of the black railing against his sweaty palm, and the smell of pine and dust, and the sound the floorboard makes when he reaches the first floor.

He’s fully intent on just locking the front door and apparating out, but he stops in front of the kitchen again.

The scorch mark mocks him from where it sits. You probably forgot it even exists.

I want you to pretend I never existed.

He waves his wand. The black shrivels up, covered by the striped wallpaper.

Without looking back, he swings his bag onto his shoulder and clicks the front door’s locks into place.

One final moment.

He presses his lips together. “Goodbye.”

It’s a whisper. To you or the house, he’s not sure.

Then he’s gone, and the empty house mourns.