floorpancakes · 6 months ago
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PEAK (my beloved 1980s vintage SAILORS blouson jacket in sunshine yellow and lime rind green) HAS ARRIVED.
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alarawriting · 2 years ago
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52 Project #51: Dex
This story is highly autobiographical in a way that's actually kind of painful and embarrassing, and you'll all know why after you read it. And you'll also know why it has taken me two and a half years to write one year's worth of stories and I'm still not done.
BTW I hope like fuck none of the Reddit handles in here are real, but I didn't have a chance to check them all.
***
Jason had promised his boss he’d have a debugged version of the code checked in by morning.
He’d been tracking down a bug when he’d gotten sidetracked reading Stack Overflow. Dammit. He’d just lost an hour, and he still had no idea why his code wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, and it was 10 pm. Teresa was expecting a new version to be checked in by 9 am and she was expecting that it would run.
This was a job for more Coca-Cola. Jason got up, went downstairs and got himself a slice of pizza and a cold Coke.
His mom, also burning the late night oil at the kitchen table, hunched over her laptop, said, “How is it going? You think you’ll have what your boss is expecting by tomorrow?”
No. “Yes,” Jason said. “I just need a few more hours to track this down.”
“Well, you’re running out of them. You’d be better off getting a good night’s sleep, then waking up fresh in the morning early enough to work on it then.”
Mom was 57 and had apparently forgotten everything she had ever known about how night owls worked, despite having spent her younger years routinely staying up until 2 am. “Is that what you’re doing?” Jason couldn’t help saying.
“I’ve got a house showing tomorrow, I just have to make sure that I have my talking points memorized.”
“Why? Does the house really suck?”
“It doesn’t really suck. It’s a good house, really. Great bones, a nice big yard. But I’m gonna have to redirect the prospective owner’s attention away from how ugly the carpet is and things like that, because the seller? Whoo-ee. There’s people who have no taste, and there’s people who never fix anything, and there’s people who own dogs, and then there’s my seller, who is all three.” She sighed. “I tried to get them to rip the carpet out and install hardwood flooring before putting the house on the market, but the market is hot right now; I don’t blame them for wanting to charge forward. I just think they’d get more if their house didn’t smell like dog and look like water damage had a horrible transporter accident with the 1970’s.”
“That bad, huh?” He leaned up against the fridge, sipping his Coke. “You wanna go over your spiel with me, Mom? Some late night practice before you go to bed?”
“Yeah, actually, that sounds good.”
So Mom talked enthusiastically, if hoarsely, about the four bedrooms and the two and a half bathrooms and the recently modernized kitchen and how great the neighborhood was, and Jason listened, because he wasn’t contributing nearly as much to the mortgage as his mom was and she was also paying most of the utilities, so her career was important, not to mention what stress did to her heart.
When he got back to his computer it was 11:30 and he’d finished his Coke and pizza. He thought about getting ice cream, but best not to do that until Mom went to bed, if he didn’t want to get sucked into another conversation. Not that conversations with Mom were bad; they were much more entertaining than debugging code, which was the problem.
He opened up his coding window, stared at it for thirty seconds while doing nothing, and then convinced himself that maybe Reddit would have an answer to his question.
It didn’t. It did have answers to how to solve a particularly difficult problem in his current favorite game, a number of people who wanted to know if they were the asshole, some great reviews of movies on streaming that he hadn’t had a chance to watch yet, political rants, and some really entertainingly stupid coding mistakes that people had posted.
It was 12:30 am. Teresa was expecting this at 9 and she was expecting it to work.
His eyes glazed. The act of reviewing the code for the tenth time, looking for the bug he hadn’t yet been able to find despite knowing the general area it had to be in, was almost physically painful. He checked his brackets, again. The error didn’t look like a missing close bracket, but that didn’t mean anything. If he had a dollar for every time the error didn’t look like a missing close bracket but turned out to be one, he’d have maybe twenty dollars, which wasn’t a lot in terms of actual money but was a lot of times for the same stupid thing to happen in his code.
The software was supposed to warn him when there was an unclosed bracket, but half the time, if the code was particularly complex, it didn’t. It just re-interpreted the bracket locations and then his code broke.
One more time. Stepping through. Why the fuck was it stopping there? There was nothing there that could account for the error.
Time to go get ice cream. Maybe some sugar would help him stay awake and focused enough to get this done. Another Coke, possibly, too.
When he sat back down, he had Discord messages, so he needed to check them. And messages on Slack, which he could be checking in the morning, and probably should be, but maybe one of his co-workers had found an answer to his problem. They hadn’t, but Priyal had a different question and that one, he thought he could quickly get an answer to, so he fired up Google, dug in, and got her answer for her, which he sent. She’d have it in the morning. Unlike Teresa, who probably would not have what she was expecting.
It was 2 am. Stupid of him to get sidetracked with Priyal’s problem when he was having such difficulty with his own. He flicked over to Reddit again because this was unbearably boring and if he didn’t give himself a break from it, he’d fall asleep.
But he had to go back to debugging the code. Or to sleep. He could handle Teresa being pissed off in the morning a lot better if he got some sleep.
Third page of the subreddit he was on. Four. Man, he needed to keep up with this stuff, there was so much here he hadn’t read yet.
Fifth page of the subreddit. He really, really needed to get back to work. It was 2:30.
A screenshot of something really stupid from Cicada. Damn, someone actually posted something that stupid? Over to Cicada to see if there was context that explained it. There wasn’t, but there was a lengthy thread of people absolutely shredding the OP. Including someone he followed, and he should probably catch up with that.
No, he should get off Cicada and go back to coding. Or bed. His eyes were burning. Bed was probably a better idea. Give up on finishing the debug, tell Teresa he hadn’t found it yet and would need another day.
That was an interesting news article, though. He had to check that out.
No, he didn’t. He needed to go to bed.
Jason’s mouse clicked the link to the article. His eyes read the page, despite burning with exhaustion. Some frantic voice in his head was yelling, screaming, get up, put the computer down, you need to be awake to deal with Teresa in the morning, it’s late, you’re doing nothing useful, get up.
Back to Reddit.
Stop this. Get up. Go to bed. You need to go to bed.
3:30 am. He could barely keep his eyes open, but they were still riveted to the computer, his butt still glued to his chair.
Get up get up get up and go to bed, go to bed, turn the monitor off, you need to go to sleep so you can deal with Teresa tomorrow, get up, go to bed, go to bed
4 am. Look, there was his Firefox home tab, with articles from Pocket. A few of those looked interesting.
Don’t read them, you need to sleep, you need to sleep
Right, right, he didn’t have time to read them right now. He just needed to open them all so they would be there for him tomorrow. If he didn’t do that, Pocket would refresh and he’d lose all of them.
Wow, did they really find carbon deposits on the moon? He had to check that out.
Stop it, stop it, you have to stop it, you need to sleep, stop it
5 am. There was no way he’d be up at 9 to deal with Teresa.
Email. “Hey, I’ve been up all night bashing my head against this thing and I’ve made progress—” This was a lie. “—but it’s still not running. I’m gonna have to look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow. I’ll be logging in around 11 am.” This was also a lie, it would probably be closer to noon. But since he worked from home, all he needed to do was drag ass out of bed around 10:30 to send everyone a status update, tell them he was diving into the code and probably wouldn’t see incoming notifications until he came up for air, and then dive back into his bed instead.
Set an alarm for 9:30 am. Set an alarm for 10 am. He’d blow through them both, of course, but they’d wake him up enough to actually wake up when the 10:30 alarm went off, and then he’d convince himself to get up and send the status message by promising himself he’d return to bed.
Check out that article about a different way to manage your ADHD?
No. Go to sleep. Off the computer. Sleep.
Right, but obviously, he needed to put on his Spotify for music to fall asleep to, and adjust the volume because he couldn’t let it be too loud or it would wake Mom up, calm and peaceful or not.
Pop over to Reddit one last time.
5:30 am. Sleep!
The panic finally overwhelmed the inertia and he managed to drag himself off his chair, turn the monitor off, and stumble to bed. Now to get some sleep.
Oh, except now, he couldn’t sleep because he was overwhelmed by his anxiety and fear about not getting enough sleep to deal with Teresa even if he slept until noon because she was going to be seriously pissed off with him because this was the third time he’d blown the deadline.
It was another hour before exhaustion finally claimed him, and he knew that because the sun had risen.
***
He’d never set the 10:30 alarm.
He’d never set the 10:30 alarm, he’d blown through 9:30 and 10 just like he’d planned, but he’d never turned on the 10:30 alarm, so it was half past noon and he’d never sent that status message, so everyone would know he overslept way past the point Teresa would be okay with after an all nighter, and there was a meeting at 1 pm and he had to shower and shave because it was going to be a meeting with video so he couldn’t look like he’d just dragged himself out of bed.
Or maybe he could. He sent Teresa a message on Slack. I think I’m sick. My throat’s sore, and I’ve got a migraine. And I don’t have the program working anyway, so there’s really nothing to show anyone. Can we postpone until tomorrow?
The response was almost immediate. You need to figure out how to manage your time better. You’re sick because you stayed up all night.
Yeah, but I was trying to solve the bug.
If you can’t get something fixed by 11 pm, it’s not going to get fixed. You should have gone to bed.
I know, but I wanted to try. I was getting close. This was a lie. I thought I could get it done before morning.
Yes, and instead you made yourself sick and the program still doesn’t work. ☹  I’ll postpone the meeting this time, Jason, but we need results before tomorrow. Sorry that you’re sick but you know as well as I do it’s because you didn’t get any sleep.
Yeah, I know. I’ll pull myself together, have some coffee, and get back to work. I’ll try to have it done before 5. This was a lie. He knew perfectly well he wasn’t going to get it done by 5, not when he was this tired.
Do you want me to have Jorge review it? Maybe he can see something you missed?
No, that would be the worst possible thing, because then Jorge would know that he’d made basically no progress last night. I don’t want to add to his workload, but if I’m running into trouble later today I’ll pass it over to him, see if adding some eyeballs might help.
All right, I’ll let him know.
And now Jason was awake, the imminent terror of Jorge finding out that he had done basically nothing last night flooding him with enough adrenaline that he could focus enough to turn on his monitor and get back to work.
***
He had to stop living like this.
Sooner or later he was going to get caught, and he was going to get fired. He couldn’t stay focused on his work when it was boring, which debugging generally was; he enjoyed the act of creating code, making things happen, but when it wouldn’t work, it was an exercise in frustration and soul-crushing despair. He couldn’t keep up with his own documentation, he missed emails and chat messages because he was obsessed with something else when they came through, and he wasn’t even spending his time doing things that were fun; endlessly surfing Reddit and checking the news and articles wasn’t something he did because it was incredibly fun. It was just more bearable than focusing on work, sometimes.
It wasn’t like there would ever be a programming job where you never needed to debug, or never needed to polish off the last few functions that you’d kept skipping because of how tedious they were. He knew that. He’d gone into the profession knowing that. But when he was younger, his meds had worked better. Or maybe he’d just been better at being able to go without sleep. Or not as acclimated to the panic. It was the panic that got him moving, that made it so he could do the boring jobs. He had to be terrified of the consequences of failure before the fear and anxiety could override the whatever-it-was that kept him sitting in his chair, playing video games or surfing the Internet, rather than doing the boring parts of his job.
It had gotten worse since he started working from home. In the past, he’d had the fear that his boss might come by and see him goofing off. So he’d still goofed off, but carefully, always prepared to jump back into his work at a moment’s notice. Sometimes he’d pushed himself, polished off what was normally three or four days’ work in one afternoon, and then goofed off for the next three days. Because he could. Because when he was on, he was magic. The insights were lightning, his speed was legendary, his accuracy was amazing. When he was on.
He was off most of the time. And more and more often, nowadays.
Medication didn’t work anymore. It just made him jittery and irritable, so he’d stopped taking it. Overdosing on caffeine did the same but somehow felt more palatable, and he’d grown to associate the feeling of being competent with the tastes of coffee and Coke, so he used those instead. Then he couldn’t get to sleep. On the nights when he actually managed to get a satisfying amount of work done, he might have a beer or two to unwind and let himself relax and sleep, but that was impossible to do when it was late and he wasn’t done. Which was most nights, nowadays.
He couldn’t keep living like this. He couldn’t depend on a state of fear to enable him to work. Sooner or later he’d slip up, he’d be caught, and he’d get fired. And then he’d have to admit to his mother that he got fired. That terrified him far more than the thought of having to get another job. Jobs weren’t that hard to come by, but his mother’s disappointment and sorrow was utterly horrible.
Jason had spent his childhood alternately disappointing her and making her proud. She thought he was stable now, that the problems that had plagued his childhood – the inability to do homework, the losing it when he had done it, the dishes he didn’t wash, the laundry he didn’t do, the leaves he didn’t rake – were gone. And it was true, nowadays he could get the laundry done, because he’d figured out how. Pile it up in front of his door, and as soon as it got too irritating to open his bedroom door, he could gather up the laundry in his arms and dump it in the wash. It helped that he’d finally figured out that he didn’t need to sort anything if he washed everything in cold water and never bought anything that was white.
He didn’t know any way to pile up a debugging project in front of a web browser. He’d tried using software that blocked him from doing anything that wasn’t work related, but the trouble was, Reddit was a legitimate source of information on how to fix issues he’d never encountered before, and Stack Overflow and other sites and forums dedicated to development problem solving were enticing time sinks of entertaining information. There was no way to solve this programmatically, because no AI was capable of telling the difference between “this is useful stuff you need to solve this problem right now” and “you’re just reading about all these other problems other people have had so you don’t have to work on your own problem.”
And even if there was…
Jason was one of the best programmers at the company. He was only 29, but he’d been doing this since he was 12. So people came to him with their problems, and he was usually able to solve those. Most problems people had were something he’d encountered so often he could fix them when asleep, which had actually sort of happened a couple of times – he had once or twice found that he’d sent an email at 3 am that he had no memory of sending, when he’d been pulling an all-nighter, that elegantly and correctly solved a co-worker’s problem.
Their problems were easy, and the feedback was immediate and gratifying. People thanked him profusely, told him he was a genius, sometimes gave him homemade cookies or delicious ethnic lunches (this was the thing he missed most about working in the office, but too many of his coworkers were also working from home; he’d gone in once or twice after lockdown was over, but it had never been the same again.) Everyone had nothing but great things to say about Jason’s willingness to help a coworker out and ability to solve their issues. His own problems, not so much. But he got a lot of leeway for being the genius who could fix everyone else’s issue.
When he was stuck, it was rare that anyone else could help him with it. And it was rarer that he was willing to let them. The humiliation of needing help, of what if it was a simple, stupid thing and it destroyed his wunderkind reputation that he’d missed it, made it so he never wanted help, not with the big problems he couldn’t solve himself. If your whole life was based on your skill at swimming, how close did you have to be to drowning before you were willing to call for help?
Jason managed to get the code working a little before 3 pm, after ignoring three messages from Teresa that maybe now it was time to bring Jorge in, and one from Jorge asking if there was anything he could do to help out. He then gratefully handed it over to Jorge. It’s working, but I could use some more thorough testing than I’ve been able to do. (I have done minimal testing because testing is so boring it makes me want to spork my eyeballs out, but I’ve made sure that it runs start to finish in the most basic scenarios and that the more complex functions kick in when given at least one example of data that should make them kick in.) The QA department would beat the crap out of it later, but the programmers didn’t hand over code to them until it at least ran, most of the time. Well, some of the time. Well, at least the one time they tried it.
He needed a nap, badly, but he was too wired to get one, and it wasn’t a good idea. If Jorge did find something in testing, he needed to at least look responsive. So he started reading the article tabs he’d opened last night, when he’d promised himself he’d just open them so they’d be available for him today.
Oh, and there was the article about a new treatment for ADHD. That was timely.
***
“The newest ADHD treatment on the market isn’t a pill, and it isn’t an app. Dex™ is an implant, that promises to revolutionize treatments for the long-forgotten invisible victims of ADHD… the ones who grew up.”
Oh, that was definitely promising. It had long been a source of deep irritation to Jason, and pretty much everyone else he knew with similar issues, that ADHD was treated as a disorder of childhood. Once you were grown up and out of the educational system, you were an adult and you could adult like an adult, because you were an adult! Right? It was a blind spot in the entire system. The go-to medications for kids could have long-term effects that got more and more unpleasant as you got older… such as developing high blood pressure. Or desensitizing to it, as Jason had. (His doctor had claimed that was not possible, but tolerance was a thing for pretty much every other drug, including allergy pills, so Jason thought that was bullshit. He was planning on changing doctors. As soon as he got around to picking a new one.)
But… implant?
“By utilizing dopamine, the natural chemical made by the body that promotes motivation, Dex™ enables adults with ADHD to stay focused on the important things in life. Their work. Their family. Their loved ones.”
Aaand it was off and running into marketing bullshit. Jason scrolled through the article, but it was pretty obviously pay-for-play.
Another article was more promising. “The idea behind Dex sounds frankly somewhat terrifying. A brain implant that uses AI learning algorithms to dose you with chemicals that make you want to do things? It sounds straight out of a science fiction dystopia. But in fact, the science behind Dex is rigorous.
“One of the biggest problems people with ADHD face is that they can’t motivate themselves to do what they know they need to do. This has long led to sufferers of the disorder being told they are ‘lazy’ and ‘unmotivated’, or worse things. But it turns out that this is a genuine medical condition. Science has identified the neurotransmitter in the brain that gives us motivation. It’s called dopamine, and people with ADHD don’t produce enough of it.
“By jolting the brain with a dose of dopamine every time the Dex user is doing something they need to do, it helps them stay focused and on task, even with the boring tasks that most ADHDers are famous for being unable to do. Wash the dishes. Remember to take out the trash. Finish that essay.
“Some have concerns because Dex is manufactured by Ulysses… the newest medical/pharmaceutical company to place its wares on the market. Ulysses’ focus has been on combining artificial intelligence with low-dose, just-in-time medication, such as the anti-anaphylactic implant Destiel or the—”
Wait. Wait. Did this company seriously name a medication Destiel? Who was that for, people who had never been in their teens on the Internet while a certain TV show had been airing?
“—or the virus-fighting Ajaxon, but—”
Too late, Jason couldn’t take a company seriously that named their product something like that. He flipped away to read about a nonprofit who would paint your roof with super-reflective white paint for free, to help fight climate change.
***
Jorge didn’t find any critical bugs, and Jason managed to take a nap after hours, which was good, because anxiety about the meeting that had been postponed started to creep in around 10 pm, and despite the fact that he knew he needed to be well-rested for the meeting, which had been moved to 1 tomorrow, he had to get online and play a video game to relax.
It was 3 am before the need to go to the bathroom forced him to get off the computer. He gratefully accepted the out his bladder had given him, and as soon as he was out, he went straight to bed. The light from the monitor was irritating, but if he got up and went over to the computer to turn off the monitor, he might succumb to the temptation of just checking one thing, and then who knew when he’d get to bed? It would go to sleep eventually, and in the meantime, he could use a sleep mask.
He hadn’t forgotten the alarms, this time. 9:30 am was probably too early to wake up when he’d hit bed at 3 am, but after yesterday, he knew he had to be online and responsive from early on to make up for his fuckup. Didn’t mean he had to actually work. As three cups of coffee made their way down his throat, he browsed online comics, read email, skimmed articles, answered Slack messages, pretended to be contributing to the discussion about the strategy for the meeting, and finally ended up at r/AMA, because when he googled Dex, he found that one of the people who’d developed it had done an AMA on it.
“I’m one of the lead scientists on the development of the new ADHD treatment, Dex. AMA”
He read over her initial post. Her name was Suzanne Burke and she worked for Ulysses, which was a subsidiary of the online retail-and-cloud-computing giant Jupiter.com. This was troubling. Jupiter was known for its forays into AI, having gotten its start with neural networks that recommended books to people, and was now well known for its near-ubiquitous AI household assistant, Ray-Ray. Mom had gotten one of those for Christmas last year, but Jason hadn’t let her hook it up. His specialty wasn’t cloud security, but he’d been working in IT long enough that he had no trust whatsoever in an appliance made by a giant corporation that could turn your furnace off and on and was probably sending all your data back to the mothership. On the other hand, he was guessing that Ulysses had been bought out by Jupiter, because naming a medical device after a fan fantasy of a gay relationship between a monster hunter and an angel from a TV show that had ended a few years ago did not seem like the kind of stupid mistake Jupiter would make.
[u/ineedcheese: How does it work?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Diving in the deep end I see! OK, for any of this to make sense, I have to give you guys a simplified run-down of how ADHD itself works, because it isn’t “ooh! Shiny!” It’s a serious medical condition.
[Firstly, ADHD is described as Attention Deficit Disorder because from the outside looking in, that’s what it looks like. A person with ADHD can’t pay attention. Unless they’re really interested, and then they can’t stop paying attention. But that’s really more of a symptom. What it should be called is Executive Function Deficit Disorder or maybe Executive Dysfunction Disorder.
[You can think of a brain as having multiple multi-threaded tasks, like a computer. One of those tasks is consciousness, of course, but the rest of them run in the background and you are rarely aware of them. Until they break. Executive function is the manager, the dispatcher that takes commands from consciousness – or other parts of the brain, I’ll get to that – and, generally, informs consciousness of what it should be doing. It handles the passage of time, so you have some idea how long an hour is. It remembers where you put your keys. It allocates your attention to speech, to reading, to tasks.
[A lot of this is performed by stimulating the brain to release dopamine. Now, if you’ve ever sought out help for depression, you’ve probably heard of neurotransmitters. There’s tons of them, but the ones you hear about most are serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Very very roughly, and with the caveat that some recent evidence calls some of this into question, we can describe serotonin as the happiness chemical, dopamine as the motivation chemical, and norepinephrine as the excitement, fight-or-flight chemical. Very roughly.
[Basically everything a person does, is done because it feels good to do it – in some way – or, being smart animals, we know that not doing it has a bad result. If we don’t wash the dishes we get roaches – brr! If we don’t do our homework, we get a bad grade and Mom and Dad yell at us. In a normal brain, small amounts of motivational dopamine are released when we set ourselves to a task that will prevent a bad thing, but that we don’t inherently like. Or, sometimes, to a task that we enjoy, but maybe it’s hard and we’re not always feeling it. Wash the dishes, get a tiny amount of dopamine because yay, you have successfully fought off the roach apocalypse for another day.
[People with ADHD don’t get that. The small amounts of encouragement dopamine aren’t there. We don’t wash the dishes because we enjoy it, and it turns out, we don’t do it because we are afraid of the roaches. We do it because our executive function has decided that roaches are bad, and it will reward us with some dopamine for doing things to keep the roaches away. Everything we voluntarily do, we do because it gives us at least a little dopamine.
[I want you to think about the mythical Sisyphus, endlessly pushing a rock up a hill, because he’s been told he can be free of Hades if he gets it to the top – a thing he wants, a lot. What if someone tells him, the deal’s off? You’re never getting out of Hades, no matter what you do? Well, he probably wouldn’t keep pushing the rock, because what’s his motivation?
[That’s what washing the dishes is like if you have ADHD. It takes time, it’s not pleasant, and it doesn’t reward you with that little bitty bit of dopamine. So what’s your motivation to push the rock up the hill? You can intellectually know that washing the dishes is a good idea and that not doing it exposes you to disease, yucky tastes, and maybe roaches, but you don’t do the smart thing because it’s the smart thing. Or at least, most of us do not. We do the smart thing because executive function rewards us for doing it. And people with ADHD do not get that reward.”]
[u/beepityboopbop: “It handles the passage of time, so you have some idea how long an hour is.” Unless your name is Karen and you’ve called for technical support, in which case five minutes is an hour]
[u/paleshadowofawoman: Suzanne Burke you seem to have a serious fixation with roaches]
[u/semicolonbang: Yeah did the roaches eat your baby?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: They ate my last relationship. My girlfriend and I broke up because of roaches.]
[u/semicolonbang: that sounds like an interesting story]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: it is but it’s got nothing to do with Dex so maybe I’ll answer it in a few days if I feel like it]
[u/ineedcheese: that’s a lot of stuff about how ADHD works but how does Dex work?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Getting to that. People with ADHD gravitate toward things that overstimulate the dopamine reward system, because it’s the only way they get any. Playing video games generally gives you lots and lots of small rewards along the way. Endlessly bingeing Netflix feels good while you’re doing it because television is created to entertain and reward you.
[Now, being smart animals like the rest of humanity, ADHDers really do not want to spend their entire lives playing video games and bingeing Netflix. They want the same things anyone does – to do work that’s rewarding, to have satisfying relationships, to get along with family and make friends. But to accomplish those broad tasks, usually you have to do a lot of small tasks that aren’t inherently rewarding themselves. It’s hard to have a satisfying relationship if your girlfriend blames you for having roaches because you didn’t wash the dishes.
[So stimulants enter the picture. Adderal, Ritalin, and the most powerful and oldest stimulant of all: norepinephrine. Excitement, fear, anger, sexual desire, they all release norepinephrine, which tells the body to rev up. Charge up with energy. It’s time to run away from that tiger! Or beat the crap out of the guy macking on your girl! Or ride your horse, which is terrifying and exciting because you’re moving faster than a human can, on top of an animal who is perfectly capable of doing whatever it wants instead of what you want.
[People with ADHD procrastinate, because the fear of the consequences of not doing the task eventually becomes high enough that that provides the motivation. If you can’t have dopamine, you can at least have some norepi. I don’t want to write that paper, so I pretend it’s not happening… and my executive function is so bad at keeping track of time, it’s easy for me to pretend, until the night before I have to turn it in, and my professor has reminded all of us to do it. Now I’m terrified. I’ve done exactly nothing on this paper, I’m gonna fail my class, my mom and dad will be disappointed, my asshole ex will laugh at me, I’ll suffer shame and disgrace for generations to come. Now I’m scared enough, flooded with enough norepinephrine, that I can do the thing. And maybe I will even get a dopamine reward when I’m done, because “congrats on getting us away from that tiger, buddy!” is a thing that even most ADHDers get.]
[u/semicolonbang: “It’s hard to have a satisfying relationship if your girlfriend blames you for having roaches because you didn’t wash the dishes.” Personal experience much?]
[u/estesrocketsarenottoys: “Or beat the crap out of the guy macking on your girl!” not exactly feminist]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: “not exactly feminist” maybe not, but try being a lesbian with a beautiful girlfriend who all the guys are hitting on and she is really weirded out and upset by it and she just wants to be left alone, are you going to tell me you would not want to punch them in their sexist faces?]
[u/semicolonbang: your life story seems very interesting Suzanne Burke]
[u/ineedcheese: I still don’t know how Dex works]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Dex works by releasing small amounts of dopamine when you do a task you know you have to do, even if you don’t want to.
[We’ve used sophisticated AI to analyze the brain states of thousands of volunteers who recorded a moment by moment diary of what they were doing for a week and how they felt about it, and from that we’ve figured out how to distinguish the brain state of “I really, really hate doing this and there is no good reason to” – Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill after Hades has told him, the deal’s off buddy – and “I hate doing this, but it’s a step toward getting what I want.” When you make yourself do the thing you don’t want to do, but you know it will be good for you to do it, Dex rewards you with a little dopamine. Just like your own executive function would have, if you had one that worked.
[Dex can also tell when you’re caught in that paralysis loop – “I really should be working on my paper, but instead I am reading Reddit” – how many of you are in that place right now?]
Jason blinked. Wow, that was a little on the nose. This was posted a week ago, though, so she wasn’t talking about him. Specifically.
[If you’re doing a thing, but you feel guilty about doing the thing because there’s something you should be doing instead… Dex can uptake your existing dopamine. Basically, Reddit bores you! So you go looking for some other source of entertainment. Well, if you take that moment and use it to write your paper, or wash the dishes, Dex will make you feel good about doing it.]
[u/thisuserdoesnotexist: How good?]
[u/peterporkerthesuperbspiderham: Yeah, doesn’t like heroin or morphine also give you dopamine?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Not that good, and not exactly, but we’re not going to get into that. Dex isn’t addictive. Video games are a lot more addictive than Dex. Not that I ever blew a few hundred dollars on DLC, or anything.]
[u/thisuserdoesnotexist: How do you know?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Because we’ve tested it. There have been years of clinical trials at this point. There are a lot of people who were very, very upset at the thought of ever losing Dex… but we drilled down on that, and they were more like, wheelchair users upset at the thought of losing their wheelchair than addicts upset at losing their fix. They described how Dex made it possible for them to focus, to get things done that they’d always wanted to be able to do. Not that it made them feel good. Because it doesn’t. Tiny jolts of dopamine for washing the dishes doesn’t feel good. It just feels like it makes washing the dishes tolerable.]
[u/chaosisawonderfulthing: Should we be concerned about Jupiter’s involvement in this project?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Jupiter didn’t buy Ulysses until we were already in clinical trials, so no. They’ve been very hands off, actually.]
[u/ineedcheese: how does this fix me forgetting my appointments?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: it doesn’t. But if you’re like most ADHDers you’ve been told, “Oh, just program a reminder on your phone!” And then the reminder to take out the garbage comes through, but you don’t feel like taking out the garbage, so you ignore it. Or you forget to add the reminder about the doctor’s appointment because that just seemed like a lot of work and you didn’t feel like it. What Dex will do is allow you to use those tools to manage the parts of ADHD that it doesn’t directly fix. You won’t remember the doctor’s appointment, but you will feel like putting a reminder into your phone about it was a worthwhile thing to do, when you made the appointment, and you will feel like getting up and going to that appointment is more worthwhile than checking Facebook, again.]
[u/stephaniestick: no one uses Facebook anymore]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Or Cicada, or Instagram, or Tumblr, or whatever.]
[u/ineedcheese: so it’s not as good as medication.]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: In what way?]
[u/ineedcheese: medication helped me remember things I was supposed to do.]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: If medication works best for you, that’s a fine thing, and we’d advise you to stick with it. But a lot of adults can’t take the medication, or it doesn’t work for them.]
[u/mushroommushroom: Or they won’t prescribe it for you. I was diagnosed as an adult and my doctor told me, basically, no one will prescribe amphetamines for someone my age.]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: also true.]
[u/paleshadowofawoman: you said it makes things unrewarding to do if you feel guilty about doing them. What if you feel guilty about everything?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: you absolutely should not use Dex if you have a scrupulosity complex, or in any other regard feel a lot of guilt over things you really shouldn’t feel guilty about.]
[u/beepityboopbop: so no Catholics, got it]
[u/mushroommushroom: A lot of people feel guilt over having sex, even if it’s healthy consensual sex.]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Yeah, so it turns out that the human sex drive is so powerful, Dex can’t do anything with it. We tried. We recruited a few volunteers who wanted Dex to reduce their interest in sex, because they were trying to not cheat on their spouses, or they wanted to get more done… or whatever. We didn’t probe very deeply. It didn’t work for any of them. It can help with more traditional addictions, alcohol or smoking, but it does not actually seem to reduce sex drive even in people who feel guilty about having sex and want to have less of it.]
[u/supermansshorts: But you can use it to stop smoking?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: If you feel bad about smoking, yes. If you know you shouldn’t smoke, and you would like to quit, but you are compelled to smoke anyway, having Dex will make smoking feel a lot less fun, which will help you quit. But you still have to do the hard work.
[Dex doesn’t magically solve all your problems. I’m pretty sure there is no implant that could do that. What it does is it gives you the tools you need to solve your own. When you have work to do, and you don’t want to do it, but you want to want to do it because you need to do it… Dex isn’t smart enough to know to reward you for that the first time you make yourself do it. It has to read your brain state while you’re doing it to know that this is a thing you should be doing that you don’t want to. You have to summon the willpower to do it the first time, yourself.]
[u/chaosisawonderfulthing: Because willpower and ADHD are so well known to be found together.]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: I actually think people with ADHD have enormous willpower, because they don’t get rewards for doing the useful things they have to do to stay alive and healthy. Other people aren’t really using willpower alone, they’re using the fact that it feels good to do a thing you need to do. People with ADHD have literally no emotional motivation at all, no brain chemical telling them to do the thing, but often they manage to force themselves to do it occasionally anyway. I think that takes a lot more willpower than doing a thing that rewards you with a little dopamine.]
[u/mushroommushroom: How do you get it?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Currently, only a psychiatrist can prescribe Dex.]
[u/mushroommushroom: Not a regular doctor?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: No, and actually, we recommend that you be in therapy while working with Dex. Among other things, there’s a phenomenon called spin doctoring that you might need a therapist to help you recognize and work through.]
[u/chaosisawonderfulthing: You obviously want us to ask what spin doctoring is.]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Haha, yes! OK, so you’re all familiar, I hope, with the fact that the brain has two lobes. They have a lot of overlap in function, though in a lot of people only the left side controls speech. But you are not two people, because there’s an entire wall of connecting neurons, the corpus callosum, between the two.
[Well, back in the old days, one treatment for really severe, life-threatening epilepsy was to sever the corpus callosum. So in a sense, patients became two people, but only one of them could talk. They did an experiment with those people. Sat them in front of a viewer where each eye could be shown a different image, and while they were doing tests, they sent a message to the right eye, go get a Coke. The right eye connects to the right lobe, which doesn’t usually have the ability to talk.]
[u/thisuserdoesnotexist: Doesn’t the right brain control the left side and so on?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Yep, but the crossover happens below the head. So the eyes, being in the head, are still connected to the lobe on the same side. Anyway, so they’d tell the right brain, go get a Coke. So the right brain would get the body up and head for the Coke machine. Now, keep in mind, the left brain has not seen this message, and without the corpus callosum, and given that the right brain can’t talk, the left brain has no way of knowing why the body is heading for the Coke machine.
[You would think this would be terrifying. Your body is doing something and you never told it to! Aaahh! Horror movie! But when they asked people, what are you doing? They got answers like, “I was thirsty”, or “I wanted to stretch my legs a bit.” None of them expressed any fear or uncertainty about why they were doing this, and also, none of them knew they’d been told to go get a Coke.
[So the theory goes, consciousness is not actually where all of your decisions come from! Maybe not even most of them! A lot of stuff is being done by deep processes in the brain that are black boxes, that consciousness has no insight into. But when those processes decide that the entire collection of stuff that is you needs to do something, consciousness often smoothly and easily rationalizes why you are doing the thing, without any recognition that that’s what you’re doing. It feels to you like you got up to stretch your legs, and while you’re at it, why not get a Coke? When the real reason is, the right side of your brain, which your left side can no longer hear, was told to do it.]
[u/supermansshorts: Is the right side of the brain, like, vulnerable to mind control?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Oh, no, no. These were volunteers who’d agreed to do the experiment and follow the instructions. It’s not like the right side of your brain is a completely different person from the left side. Even if you sever the corpus callosum, both sides are still you, near-identical copies who think and feel much the same way about everything. So if the left side signed the papers and spoke the agreement, it’s likely that the right side also agreed, for the same reasons. The right side wouldn’t have done something like “jump out a window”, it’s just as capable of making rational decisions as the left side is. But it agreed to follow instructions the same as the left side did, because if the left side was the kind of person who’d volunteer to follow the experimenters’ instructions, then so was the right side.
[Anyway, so spin doctoring. Consciousness is so good at coming up with rationalizations for why you are doing a thing that some deeper process said to do, it doesn’t even know it’s doing it. So a lot of the time, we make decisions based not on anything rational, or even an emotion we understand and recognize, but something deep down that we’re not even aware of.]
[u/mushroommushroom: Like Freud’s ego and id.]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Similar, yeah, but it’s more like, there’s all these different processes happening, and consciousness isn’t actually aware of any of them, just their outputs. And when the body as a whole acts on one of those outputs without going through consciousness first, consciousness comes up with a reason why they wanted to do that.]
[u/ineedcheese: But I do things all the time that I literally have no idea why I did it, like one time I poked a cake my mom had just iced and when she asked me why I did that, I didn’t even know.]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Yeah, spin doctoring doesn’t always work, particularly since the ADHD brain is particularly vulnerable to processes just totally bypassing consciousness and doing a thing. That’s called “poor impulse control.”
[But the point is, we do things for reasons we don’t even know, and then our consciousness comes up with a reason why we did that thing, and then it enters our database of “reasons to do or not do things.” Like… if I found it very hard to do a thing, I might, for the sake of my pride, come up with “I really hate doing that thing” or “I think it’s stupid” or “That thing is completely unnecessary.” But maybe the only reason it was hard was I wasn’t getting any dopamine from it, and maybe Dex could fix that for me… if I was willing to try to do it, but the spin doctor might have already convinced me, doing that thing is dumb and why should I?
[One of the roles a therapist or psychiatrist can play with a patient trying Dex is to work through the spin doctor’s bullshit. Help you try out things you have already written off, or break patterns you think are just the best way to do things when maybe they’re not.]
[u/ineedcheese: Like what kind of thing?]
[u/snowflakespecialaisle10: Writing documentation if you’re a programmer.]
Ouch. That one especially hit home.
[u/semicolonbang: How is the implant done? Like do they drill through your skull?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: It’s a laparoscopic surgery done up through the nose. Outpatient surgery, you go home the same day.]
[u/supermansshorts: And that doesn’t fuck up your nose?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: Oh, your nose hurts like a bitch for about a week. When I did it, it drove me a little nuts because I have allergies, but blowing my nose would cause giant nosebleeds. Now, we give people a cocktail of antihistamine, numbing solution, and decongestant in a nasal spray, and apparently that works a lot better.]
[u/semicolonbang: You did it yourself?]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: I told you that I lost my girlfriend because I never washed dishes and then we got a roach infestation and she blamed me, and you think I wouldn’t be signing up for the clinical trial the moment we opened it to human trials?]
[u/mushroommushroom: To be fair, the roaches probably came in on your groceries or from the next door neighbor or something. Not washing the dishes just gave them a source of food and water to breed from.]
[u/ohsuzannaburke: I mentioned that. Turned out that was not a helpful argument.]
At this point, a Slack message popped up, and Jason had to turn his attention to that. It was from Teresa.
Jason, I haven’t heard from you in a couple of hours. Are you going to be ready for this meeting?
Ready, eager and waiting, he typed back. Shit, the meeting was in ten minutes. And look, there was the Outlook reminder he had reflexively shut off the moment it popped up, popping up again. Good thing Teresa had decided to poke him.
***
The meeting went well. Great, in fact. Jason was able to demo his code, and nothing went wrong. There were a couple of features he hadn’t implemented that the upper-level managers were concerned about, but Teresa backed him up, because he’d told her a month ago that those features would have to come in a later version. She politely reminded the upper-level managers that she’d informed them in email a month ago that those features wouldn’t be in this version. “Controlling scope is a very important part of controlling costs,” she said, and they couldn’t disagree.
Afterward there was a second, internal meeting of the team, which didn’t go quite as well because Teresa was banging the documentation drum. “If you got hit by a bus tomorrow, no one here would know how to support your code,” she said.
“Good thing I never go anywhere. No bus injuries in my future,” he said, and everyone laughed.
“But you know, they say that most accidents happen close to home,” Adrian said. “Seriously, Jason, I know doc’ing sucks, but you gotta get it done.”
Adrian extensively documented his own code, and got it done approximately 20% as quickly as Jason when he was on. And probably only 75% as quickly when you factored in how much time Jason wasted. “I know,” Jason said.
Stacy, the business analyst charged with writing user manuals, said, “It makes my job a lot easier when there are docs.”
“I’ll take a few days and go back through and do that.”
Then they talked about next steps, and the QA team revving up to test. Duane tried to get Jason’s help with a different problem he was working on, but Teresa deflected it, unfortunately. “Jason’s focus has to be on fixing his documentation,” she said. “Jorge, maybe you could team with Duane, see if the two of you could get any traction on this?”
“Sure,” Jorge said, dashing what small hopes Jason had of being able to find an acceptable task to work on that was not documentation.
When the meeting was over, he opened up his code, stared at it for three minutes trying to figure out where to even begin documenting. Due to the lack of documentation, he wasn’t even 100% sure he knew what all these functions did.
Fuck it.
He jumped over to Reddit, where he still had the Dex AMA open, which reminded him that he’d wanted to google Suzanne Burke’s claims and generally the whole thing, because the idea of a brain implant that could help you control your own behavior wasn’t real far off from conspiracy theorists’ paranoid fantasies of the CIA putting mind control devices in your brain.
Three hours later he’d learned some things:
All the bad reviews of Dex came from people who had obviously never used it or didn’t even really know what it was, people who were complaining about absurd things (“I wanted it to help me stop eating snack chips so I filled my room with snack chips to test it and it didn’t work, I still ate snack chips”) or things no one had never claimed it could fix (“I still keep losing my keys”), or people who had gotten one of the earlier versions at the start of clinical trials. Most of the most recent reviews either raved about it or said something like, “It’s a lot of hard work to re-engineer your whole life even with Dex, but with Dex I can actually do that work without getting in my own way”, or “It’s an adjustment and you’ll find there are things you are used to wanting to do that you don’t even really want to anymore, and that can be bothersome, but they’re usually things you wanted to stop wanting to do”. Most of the complaints that remained after the positive reviews and factoring out the old and/or stupid ones were about the surgery – “They said my nose would hurt for about three weeks but it’s been six weeks and it still hurts when I blow it”. One person had a bad allergic reaction and they had to take it out.
There were many complaints from friends and family members of someone using Dex. “He never has time to hang out anymore”, “We used to spend hours chatting on Discord and now she blows me off after like half an hour”, “He’s like some kind of zombie drone where it’s all about work, work, work” (this was troubling, but when Jason drilled into that, it turned out to be a boyfriend who was annoyed that his paramour didn’t want to spend hours a day canoodling, because he had work to do.)
There were a lot of conspiracy theories about how Jupiter was using Dex to mind control people on behalf of the government, the New World Order, the Jews, the reptilians, the liberal left, fascism, or corporations. These were all presented with tremendous hysteria and very little actual evidence. One persistent theory was that the founder and CEO of Jupiter, who’d expressed an interest in space colonization, was going to use Dex to mind-control a sizable workforce into going into space to build his space colonies. Another one seemed to think that Dex had been created by the infamous tech billionaire who’d managed to destroy Twitter, as if all tech billionaires were the same guy, or had some kind of hive mind agenda.
One credible theory claimed that the device had a wireless component to receive updates, and that therefore it could be used in the future to send ads to people, somehow. The wireless component turned out to actually exist, and it really was sending brain scans back to Ulysses for analysis, and Ulysses really was sending out software updates. Ulysses claimed this was fully anonymized, that the analysis was necessary in order to improve the software that ran Dex, and that the software itself was so unusual and proprietary that it would be literally impossible to infect it with malware. Jason was suspicious. All of that sounded very plausible and also something a corporation could decide to throw out and do something evil with the moment the board of directors decided they could get away with it. He couldn’t figure out exactly how it could possibly send ads, but he was sure it could be nefariously used for something.
In the end, there were two factors that decided him on not bothering to look any further into Dex. The existence of the wireless connection to Ulysses’ servers, and the fact that he’d have to find a psychiatrist if he wanted to be prescribed it. Finding a psychiatrist sounded easy enough, but given that Jason had had “change doctors” on his to-do list for two and a half years, and hadn’t been to a dentist in longer than that because he just never got around to making an appointment, he had no illusions.
But without researching Dex as an excuse to himself, he had no good reason not to work on his documentation. Just the usual reasons. It was boring, he didn’t want to, and he couldn’t make himself do it without a stunning amount of caffeine in his system.
Well. Time for early evening Coca Cola, then.
Jason had a system. Complex carbs, he thought, slowed him down and made him sleepy. Simple carbs, sugar, were a quick shot in the arm of energy, but there’d be a crash afterward. Greasy protein was even worse than the complex carbs, so pizza was absolutely terrible for focus. (This did not stop him from eating it when it was available.) The secret was lean protein, cold vegetables (because warmth made him sleepy), and sugar. So grilled chicken or salmon on a salad, and Coke. It was a pain in the ass to make this for himself; salad, in particular, was annoying because you had to wash it and then somehow you had to dry it, or wait hours for it to dry on its own, or your croutons would get soggy. He put in an online order at a local place, and then turned to video games.
The good thing about ordering food online was that, when it showed up, it would automatically disrupt whatever he was doing, so it was a great way to break free from something he probably shouldn’t be doing to switch to something he should. The bad thing about ordering food online was that it resulted in multiple interruptions while he was trying to relax with the game, because they called to confirm the order, and then they called to find his house, and then they called to tell him they were on the porch downstairs. And then Mom called up to tell him his food was here, and why hadn’t he asked her if she wanted anything?
But now he had his food, and his Coke, so it was time to focus on this thing.
This boring thing.
This thing he would rather do almost anything than be doing.
He slogged through it, incredibly slowly. He’d add a comment, scroll down, pop over to Reddit or a newsfeed or Youtube or literally anything other than this documentation, do that for several minutes – he had no idea how many – and then abruptly remember he was supposed to be doing his documentation and go back to it. As the night wore on, he became less and less efficient, more time spent not documenting, less time unraveling his own code to figure out what he did and write it down. But he couldn’t just go to bed; he had to make enough progress that he looked like he was making progress. But he couldn’t stay up all night, because then he would oversleep tomorrow and he would look bad.
The two balanced each other at 3 am, and he was finally able to go to bed, the documentation close to sort of done. Not to sleep, though, because he’d had way too much Coke and he was much too worried about what Teresa would think. Was this enough to show due diligence, or would she be angry that it wasn’t complete?
***
It took four days.
Four days of Teresa pestering him about whether the documentation was finished, four days of having nothing required of him that he actually wanted to work on. Four days of dodging the documentation as much as he could by helping everyone else out. Including helping with their documentation, because as annoying as documentation in general was, it was much better when he was getting the warm fuzzies for helping someone else, directly.
There was a weekend in the middle of those four days. Jason promised himself he’d work on the docs over the weekend and then didn’t even open the file. Then he promised himself he’d get up early on Monday to do some work on it, and instead woke up at 10, having missed a 9:30 scrum.
At 2 pm on Tuesday, he was finally able to report being finished with documenting his code. He checked the final version in, breathed a sigh of relief, and got himself a beer. He’d finished the slog. Time to unwind. He didn’t officially clock out, because frankly he’d been working so ridiculously late each night that if he weren’t salaried, they’d owe him a whole extra paycheck, so it was only fair. While he didn’t log off Slack or close his email, he did dive into a video game that occupied the full screen and wouldn’t let him see if messages came through. He told himself he’d pop out periodically and check.
Six hours later, when he finally checked, he had a Slack message from Teresa to come into the office tomorrow. It was much too late by now to ask her why.
***
“You’re letting me go?”
He stared at Teresa, a feeling of cold and heat at once sweeping through his veins. “You know I’m the best programmer in the department, right?”
“No one disputes that,” Teresa said, conciliatory. “But it takes you too long to get your work done, because you’re always in late, or leaving early.”
“I’ve been working until 3 am for a week now! And I only left early yesterday because I’d finished my documentation, and I needed a break.”
“Right. Jason, other programmers do not take four days to finish documenting their code. They document it as they write it. If you’d been hit by a bus over the weekend, we wouldn’t have had any idea how the code works, and I’d have to put someone on tracing it back and figuring it all out.”
He realized, then, that she’d just been waiting for him to finish it before she fired him. “I’m always helping out everyone else in the department, that’s why I’m slow sometimes.”
“You’re a great help, and you’ll be missed, but we need programmers who can work standard hours and hit their deadlines. I’m sorry, Jason, but it’s out of my hands. Upper management looked at your metrics and told me you’ve gotta go.” She shook her head. “I know you have personal effects here at the office, so you can go get those. Charlie here will escort you.”
Charlie wasn’t dressed any differently than anyone else at the company, but he was probably security. Certainly Jason didn’t recognize him, so he wasn’t in IT. “Fine,” he snapped.
“We’ll need the work laptop back,” she reminded him. The one he had never taken out of the box, because the box had the specs on it and he’d realized that it wasn’t nearly powerful enough for his needs, so he’d been doing all his work on his personal desktop.
“I’ll drop it off.”
He knew that by now he’d already been locked out of all the computer systems, so he wouldn’t have a copy of any of his Slack messages, or the code he’d just finished. If he wanted his email he’d have to find a way to convert his Outlook OST to an archive without actually opening it, because if he opened it, it would probably ask for a password and then just endlessly prompt him for a login until he closed it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to keep his email that badly.
What a dick thing, to make him come into the office just to fire him. But then, it would also have been a dick thing to fire him by Slack message or voice call or email, and then he wouldn’t have had a chance to get his very minimal amount of stuff, which included a few cartoons he’d pinned to his cubicle wall and a family picture he’d photoshopped to completely remove Dad, so it just had him and Mom. Not that he couldn’t print out another copy of that, but the frame had come from a college friend he wasn’t in touch with much anymore, and he had sentimental attachment to it.
***
Mom was home, in the kitchen, on her laptop, as he came in, because of course she was. “Honey? You okay?”
For a moment he contemplated saying “Fine,” and stomping off to his room like he was still 17, but Mom would get it out of him sooner or later. Better bite the bullet now. “I got fired.”
“Oh. Oh, Jason, I’m so sorry. Anything I can do to help?”
Not tell me about how it’s my fault, I hope. “Not really, but thanks for the offer.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve got savings and I’ve got health insurance until the end of the month, and more if I take COBRA. I want to see a psychiatrist about these problems I’ve been having.”
Mom nodded. “That might be a good idea. Maybe there’s a new medication you could try.”
“There’s this thing I was looking into, called Dex. It’s like an implant that helps you train your brain to focus? I’m thinking maybe I need to take it more seriously.”
“That might be a good idea. Do you need help with finding a psychiatrist?”
He was about to say no, it’s fine, I’ve got it handled Mom… and then thought better of it, because that kind of thing was the strategy that just got him fired. “Yeah. I need you to keep reminding me I need to do it. Even if I get bitchy about it.”
“Oh, I can do that,” Mom said, amused. “Also, I don’t know how quickly they’ll get your COBRA paperwork to you, but you need to get on that immediately. Check the mail every day—”
“I’d think they’d email it.”
“They might, but probably they’ve turned off your email? Do they have a personal email address for you?”
A good question. “I think they have my Gmail…”
“Check that every day. Including the spam boxes. And check the regular mail every day. There’s some time limit they’re under for how quickly they have to provide you that, but I don’t remember what it is. And it’s to their advantage if they wait a few days so maybe you’ll forget. You need to be on that. You could try to go through the marketplace, since losing your job is a qualifying event, but that’s likely to be much more disruptive, and COBRA is probably cheaper than that.”
Jason nodded. “Keep me honest?”
“I sure will.”
“Gonna hit up Dice and Linkedin, maybe Monster, see how quick I can land a new job.”
“Good luck.”
***
But he had savings, and it seemed like a dumb idea to take a new job and then get brain surgery. Sure, the AMA had said it was outpatient surgery, but what if there were complications and he had to take time off? It might be a better idea to find out if he was getting Dex or not before he got a job.
He found a psychiatrist who didn’t take his, or anyone’s, insurance, which was expensive, but living with your mom for several years and paying only a third of the mortgage and half the utilities, while holding a good job, had enabled him to save up a fairly large nest egg. She was the kind of psychiatrist who never actually told you what she thought, but spent all her time asking you what you thought about things. She presented options and made suggestions and offered to help by writing prescriptions for whatever she had suggested that you had decided to go ahead with.
The company had given him one boon; they hadn’t told the state they’d fired him for cause, even though doing so would have saved on their unemployment insurance. Unemployment was less than a third of what he’d been making, but on the other hand, he didn’t have to order food out nearly so much when he wasn’t breaking his neck for the company that had just fired him. He could actually cook. He could help his mom when she cooked, and learn how to make some shit he didn’t already know.
Jason tried three non-stimulant medications over the course of eight weeks. One of them made him horny as hell, which was unfortunate as he didn’t have a significant other, and he felt like jerking off three times a day was a waste of his time. One did nothing. One made him overwhelmingly sleepy. He tried stimulant medication, again, a slightly different formulation, but still felt like it made him jittery and his heart raced and he got headaches and was irritable. A lower dose of stimulant medication gave him the same symptoms, just a little less of them, and lower than that didn’t actually work at all to help him focus.
This wasn’t the first job he’d been fired from for not being able to keep to a schedule or make deadlines, and if he didn’t do something, it wouldn’t be the last.
In the end, he talked himself into asking his doctor about Dex, just like the commercial said.
***
Outpatient surgery, it turned out, was still surgery… it just didn’t involve a lengthy stay in the hospital. When his mother came to pick him up, because he wasn’t allowed to drive after surgery, his nose was starting to hurt like a motherfucker. They’d given him a nasal spray that would keep the area sterile, promote clotting, and relieve pain, and they’d given him decongestants because it was EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, according to the aftercare nurse and the directions he was given on paper, that he not sneeze or blow his nose. If his nose started to run, they’d given him a second nasal spray that was a direct decongestant and antihistamine, and he was supposed to use that instead. If he had a nosebleed, he was to use his spray and lay down immediately until the bleed went away. Yes, his nose would clog up, because there was a healing wound and the spray was promoting clotting; he would just have to breathe through the other nostril. And this was supposed to go on for up to two weeks.
Joy.
They also gave him regular painkillers, which he quit taking about four days later because seriously, how do people get addicted to the sensation of having a fuzzy head? He had enough issues with being half-brained from exhaustion, he didn’t really want to add opioids to the mix. Tylenol and the nasal spray would do.
It was at that point that he decided to engage in the difficult task of trying to get a new job. He’d already updated his resume, but he hadn’t uploaded it; he’d already done some initial keyword searches for jobs, but hadn’t actually applied to anything.
He opened the job search site, logged into his profile, and began the laborious task of adding his newer skills from the job he was just fired from, and updating the length of experience he had with the other ones. It was nightmarishly boring, just like it had been every other time, so he popped over to Reddit. Just for a little while, just to do something more entertaining for a few minutes.
Except Reddit wasn’t entertaining.
He browsed around for a while, looking for something to catch his attention, but frankly nothing was as compelling as the idea of getting the goddamn resume done and out there, so he could get a job, get health insurance he didn’t have to pay an arm and a leg for, and stop making his mom anxious. So he went back to the job search site, and this time, managed to get the entire task done without interrupting himself. It wasn’t fun, but it was something he wanted out of the way, and he was able to power through it, and then finish doing the same thing with two other job search sites.
It wasn’t until after he was finished that he realized.
Holy shit. This thing works!
***
After that, Jason went a little nuts, self-admittedly, with his new superpowers of actually being able to focus and get shit done.
The AMA had been correct. He wasn’t any better able to remember where he put his keys than he had ever been. But he was able to order a bunch of devices that could be hung on key rings or slipped into wallets, that he would be able to use an app to find, and then get them set up and put them on the devices they needed to be attached to. He got “Find my Droid” configured for all the times he lost his phone, and a bunch of chargers he could plug in all over the house, including QI chargers, that he could leave the phone attached to whenever he didn’t want to deal with carrying it around, so now it wouldn’t die out of his custody.
He wasn’t any better at remembering that he had appointments. But he was able to focus enough to put in sufficient reminders, that would catch him at enough points in time, that he wouldn’t be blindsided… and enough to actually check the reminders when they showed up, rather than just absent-mindedly dismissing them. After he next saw his psychiatrist, he actually put his upcoming appointment on his calendar, so he didn’t have to run around like crazy trying to find the little appointment card when he finally remembered that there was an appointment.
He remembered to wash his clothes three days before a job interview, so he had options. (It was virtual anyway, but it did require his camera, so he wanted to look good.) He showered and shaved that morning, rather than forgetting and then racing to try to get it done before the interview. He actually ate breakfast, not just coffee, because he paid attention when his alarm went off, didn’t just snooze it, and managed to drag himself out of bed early enough that his mom was still home and making herself eggs and bacon, which she shared with him. He used Linkedin and Google to read up on the companies he was being interviewed for before the interview, so he actually knew who some of the people were and had some familiarity with what they did.
And in the meanwhile, he kept the dishes clean, the trash taken out, the kitchen floor swept, the toilet paper on the roll and the empty rolls in the trash can, the soda cans in the recycling bin, and he even got around to fixing the bathroom shelf above the toilet and taking his mom’s car to the mechanic for her, because a 30-year-old guy was a lot less likely to get scammed by a mechanic than a nearly 60-year-old woman.
This was fucking awesome.
He wrote a few of the personal programs he’d always wanted to get around to, like the one that helped him use his phone to take an inventory of his and his mom’s shit, so if there was ever a fire, they could back up their claims of what was lost… and then he actually went around taking the photographs, labeling them, and using the program to push them into the database he’d set up. He remembered, finally, after about twelve increasingly upset emails from Teresa, to bring in that work laptop and drop it off. He returned his library books, paid his fines, and checked some more out, and then returned them on time. He set up a blog and started writing about programming challenges he’d encountered in his career. He put a Pi Hole on his mom’s wifi network to block ads at the router so none of the computers had to work at that. He bought a cheap laptop and set it up with Linux like he’d always planned, and actually did the experimenting he’d always wanted to do.
His time on Reddit plummeted, and was mostly confined to subreddits about the games he was into, where he knew people and had stuff to say that he cared about, rather than endlessly surfing sites like r/AmITheAsshole and r/TodayIFuckedUp. He still gamed, in the evenings, for a reasonable amount of time that didn’t interfere with his sleep schedule, and felt no guilt about it because he was getting his important shit done, so he had every right to relax as hard as he worked. When he wasn’t doing job interviews or searching for jobs, during the day in what would be working hours, he was reading up on new technologies and actively teaching himself new skills.
Jason’s mom cried when she told him how proud she was of him for taking this step and getting his life turned around. He himself wanted to cry, sometimes, when he realized that he’d wasted 30 years of his life without this, and that ordinary people, people without ADHD, just lived like this. Out of the box. Without having to have a foreign object shoved up their nose and into their craniums.
The day he got the new job, he happily updated his LinkedIn, after making connections with old co-workers so they could see he’d landed on his feet and he wasn’t a total fuckup. A couple of them contacted him, asking if he could help out with some problems they were having. He asked them to go back to Teresa and get authorization to pay him as a contractor. They didn’t ask again after that.
He even went and updated his profile on some dating sites. Now that he had a job again, and now that he no longer felt constant guilt over what he wasn’t getting done at his job, it was time to try to get back into that game. He hadn’t had a partner since shortly before the first lockdown… that was a long time to go without.
And then his first paycheck arrived, and he grinned to himself. He’d been good… at least since getting the Dex implant. He hadn’t bought anything unless he needed it or it would help him improve skills and be more marketable. No new games, no new DVDs, no books, no new phone, no new speakers for his PC, no replacement pump and filter for the fish tank that had no fish in it and was at this point just an algae-growing experiment, no cast iron skillet because Mom had sold hers at a yard sale due to her hands being too arthritic to hold something so heavy while cooking, nothing.
It was spending spree time! He’d been promising himself this since he got Dex. Save his money while he didn’t have a job, keep spending as tight as he could, and he’d go on a spree as soon as he got a paycheck.
He went to Jupiter.com first, because that was where he could get most of everything he wanted, maybe even everything he wanted. Two new games he’d been jonesing for. Several graphic novels, a science fiction novel, and a memoir. A box set for a TV show he loved, because relying on streaming had gotten more and more erratic as fights over licensing continued. PC speakers with surround sound that were two generations better than what he had, and an upgraded graphics card. Fish tank supplies – maybe he was finally going to be responsible enough to keep fish alive. A hat, because it looked cool, even though he couldn’t imagine a circumstance where he’d actually wear it.
For clothes, though, and the cast iron frying pan, it was better to shop local, where he didn’t have to pay shipping, and he could immediately return anything that had an unpleasant texture. So he went over to Target’s web site, and was immediately bored out of his mind.
He tried to convince himself that the search tools for clothes were more specialized here, and he was more likely to be able to find one thing that fit and then six other things like it in slightly different cuts or colors. No go. It was like looking at the red color scheme and the font was draining the life out of him.
Which was ridiculous. He forced himself to look for the cast iron frying pan. That should be simple and easy.
But they had multiple options, and it seemed like just such an enormous amount of work to sort through them.
He went back to Jupiter.com. The fonts seemed cleaner, the pictures more inviting. The cost of shipping was challenging, though. But he could fix that. Just click the button for only free shipping, and look at that! He could even get three of different sizes. He added it to his cart without thinking about it much.
Clothes continued to be a challenge. It was kind of fun to go hunting, but his frustration was building, because there were so many items coming up in his searches that weren’t what he searched for at all. And no way to tell the texture of anything just from pictures, whereas with a local store he could go there and check things out.
So he tried going over to Walmart, which was disgusting, and JC Penney’s, which was overwhelming, and some of the sites for fancy mall stores, which just seemed to not have any kind of selection. He was used to buying from Target. They had good search filters for men’s clothes, that rarely pulled back complete bullshit. He should go there.
Except when he went there, everything looked overwhelmingly hard and chaotic and he just didn’t want to. All the fun of clothes shopping drained away.
And then he went cold.
Jason tried going to Barnes and Noble’s web site for a specific book. It was too hard to use the site. He’d used it before, but somehow it seemed really inferior now. He tried going to a PC online retailer to look for the video card he had already bought from Jupiter. The filters were too unresponsive. He went to Swappa to find a used phone to replace the one he had, and almost immediately gave up because none of the products looked good and he was feeling a general sense of unease about the idea of buying a used phone from a shady online store… even though he’d gotten his last three phones there and had been satisfied.
Shit. Shit.
He had to post about this. If this was happening to him… he couldn’t be the only one. He opened up Reddit and found the thread about Dex, clicked the new post button…
…and lost all enthusiasm for the task. Jesus, did he really have to write a post about this bullshit? Who cared? Probably everyone would jump his shit. It wasn’t like he had any scientific proof. And the idea of having to explain, in detail, what was happening? Humiliating.
No. No. That was more of it. He had to write this post. He started typing, grimly, using the same fortitude he’d used when he’d spent four days documenting his code so his boss could fire him.
“I really loved Dex at first, but”
“but some disturb”
“but I found”
“but there’s one thing”
Nothing looked right. The documentation, at least, had been right when he’d written it. Everything he was writing now just looked terrible and whiny and like there was no point to saying anything.
But he had to do this. He had to write this post. The thing in his head had to be making him not want to do this, not want to say this, but he’d gone for 30 years forcing himself to do things he really, really didn’t want to do.
“I really loved Dex at first, but its changing what I want, its bad, you shouldn’t”
No. Fuck. What was that? That was utter shit. Couldn’t he even be bothered to capitalize and use punctuation?
“I really loved Dex at first, but it won’t let me write this post about what it’s doing to me”
Fuck this, go read r/AITA.
Go read his video game subreddits.
Check Microsoft Teams, which his new company used instead of Slack. Maybe someone had a late-night request for help? Or something he was supposed to do tomorrow that he could get started on tonight instead?
No!
“I really loved Dex at first, but it makes me”
An hour of reading the news.
“makes me feel bored with shopping”
Just one round of his video game. Just one.
Six rounds later.
“shopping anywhere but Jupi”
This dog growled at the baby sitter, you’ll be shocked when you find out why!
25 screens later of a story he had predicted the end of when he’d started reading it.
“Jupiter. I go to tar”
Had anyone online ever posted that stupid ditty where they sang “shop at tar-jay” like the word Target was French? Go check.
“target or any other site”
Wow, it was late, shouldn’t he go to bed? Bed sounded really great. He really shouldn’t disrupt his sleep schedule for this now that he’d gotten a new job and finally established a good sleep schedule, right?
Focus.
“site and it makes me feel like it’s boring, or too complicated, or just bad”
How about his favorite TV show? Was there going to be another season of that?
“just bad, until I go to Jupiter, and then shopping feels fun”
Yeah. That was it. That was the message. He didn’t need to keep doing this. He could stop and post it here. Actually he should spell check first, right? And it was late, maybe he wanted to hold off on posting until tomorrow, when he could look at it with fresh eyes.
“feels fun. And it wont let me”
1 am. This was ridiculous. He had work in the morning. He couldn’t lose this job just because of something stupid like this.
Another half hour of reading the news.
“let me write this to warn you.”
Right! Wrap it up, turn off the monitor, go to bed! He’d done his part. The message was out there!
Jason absent-mindedly turned his computer off, and only then, wondered if he had ever actually hit post.
Well. He could check on it in the morning.
After work. And his chores. And he was supposed to game with his friends tomorrow, so after that, too.
Oh, fuck this. He'd spent his life struggling against things his brain didn't want him to do, and it was awful and it had traumatized him and he never wanted to go through that bullshit again. If he'd forgotten to hit post, oh well. Let someone else do it. Jason was done beating his head against the wall of things he really didn't want to do, that he thought he should do, forever.
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rxscss · 2 years ago
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♛ EXTRA! by princess adelaide windsor
following in the footsteps of her father, prince james windsor, who recently released his tell-all book ‘SPARE’, three years after the family stepped down from their royal titles, the youngest princess is now telling her side of the story. although now a new york times best seller, the book is being criticized for it’s elaborate fabrications, out of place stories and general nature of entitlement. under the cut are some quotes from the book.
“gran-gran, who you may know as the queen (r.i.p girlie pop) had a corgi fetish, like, it was actually absurd. and anytime i slept at her house, those little wiener looking freakazoids would climb into my bed chambers and hump mr. giggleman mcgee, the stuffed sloth that i’ve had since i was a baby, gifted to me by my lovely godparents david and victoria...beckham, you’ve heard of them, right? anyway, one night, corgi #5 literally wouldn’t stop so i picked it up, carried it outside buckingham palace and let it go into the streets of london to fend for it’s weird, horny self. i helped make the missing puppy posters that the guards hung all over london, but i knew the truth. and i knew that no one fucked with mr. giggleman mcgee.” -  chapter 4 ‘the corgis from hell vs. me and mr. giggleman mcgee - i always win.’
“i was devastated. i felt like my whole world was crashing down around me. it was like, totally worse than if they were to ever discontinue the shade jungle red at nars - they gave me an audi instead of a bugatti, when my dear cousin, little miss perfect charlotte, had gotten a bugatti for her sweet sixteen the year before. i knew right then and there that they hated me. so that’s why i drove it into the river thames - not because i was drunk, but because the car was super duper ugly." - adelaide windsor, chapter 6 ‘the not so sweet sixteen’
“it was a friday night at cirque le soir and i totally won’t blow up his spot and say names...so let’s just tall him gugh hrant, was quite literally looking at me like a panther looks at it’s prey. and i was just like obsessed much? so after i did some bumps off of the fingernail of a famous british model with fabulous eyebrows that was like bffs with karl lagerfeld, i won’t name names agian, so let’s call her dara celevigne, i followed him outside when he stepped out to smoke and let’s just say, this man had totally seen better days. it was a really pathetic time, he prob forgot to take his viagra, so i like closed my eyes and just pretended he was his character in notting hill. not everyone can say that they lost their v-card to gugh hrant outside of a pub in london, right?’  .  - adelaide windsor, chapter 9 ‘v-card, swiped!’
“they were the most selfish little twits i’ve ever met in my life. who the hell has a twenty second anniversary vow renewal? apparently they do. as if their wedding wasn’t gaudy enough - not that i was there, but aunty cate certainly didn’t look as pretty as my mom did on her wedding day, her frown lines were already out in full force. i was like way too old to be a flower girl, but they insisted on making me one and they put me in this bridgerton looking bullshit that i literally couldn’t breathe in. like you know when you and your friends get held hostage on the coast of morocco on a pirate ship and they like, put a bag over your head and scream at you to give them all your money? that’s totally what this dress felt like. and the worst part? i had just gotten back from my tour of the arctic, so my nips were still completely frostbitten, but aunty cate and uncle willy didn’t care, they wouldn’t even reschedule and forced me to wear that dress that my nips were poking out of the entire time!” - adelaide windsor, chapter 11 ‘as cold as ice’
“after gran died i was like, extra sad-ish i guess. but i got to inherit so much of her fabulous jewelry because i was obviously her favorite. charlotte always thought she was the favorite but charlotte has also always been a dumb twit. after the funeral i was wearing one of the necklaces she gave me and charlotte was just like, totally jealous, so she attacked me and tried to rip the necklace off my neck! of course, she spun it and made it seem like i was fighting with her because she had been spotted on a date with the prince of greece who i literally dated when i was fifteen...like, sloppy seconds much? but that little bitch has always been jealous of me and always made me look like the crazy one. and that was the last day i ever spoke to her. she stuffs her bra, btw. pathetic, right? like, just get a boob job, you loser.” - adelaide windsor, chapter 14 'cousins by blood, enemies by choice’
'when my parents told me and my brothers that we were leaving and relinquishing our royal titles, i was fuming. i mean, nobody in the family pulls off a crown the way i do, so i got a little desperate. if i couldn’t be the princess of the uk, i was totally going to be the princess of something. so i started like, banging a bunch of royal dudes - saudi arabia, denmark, spain,japan, belgium, denmark again because he had a hotter older brother that just got divorced, i mean, you name it. i totally became the united nations of royal men. but then i realized, i don’t need a title to be royal, i’m literally the most perfect human ever. so i made the move, titles left behind, and i’ve made a name for myself here. sure, i’ve only been in a few t.v shows, but world domination is totally on the way. wait, you guys saw euphoria right? how good did my tits look in it? see! there was no lasting damage left behind from the frostbite incident!’   - adelaide windsor, chapter 18 'america and the beautiful....it’s me, i’m the beautiful.’
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alarajrogers · 2 years ago
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upcoming WIP
This is the first part of the next 52 Story and I wanted to share it with you guys because I cannot think of another place where this would be as profoundly relatable.
This isn't autobiographical at all. I don't even use Slack. :-)
The following is a description of ADHD hell (not literally hell, this guy is supposed to be alive) and may be triggering to, well, probably all of us.
***
Jason had promised his boss he’d have a debugged version of the code checked in by morning.
He’d been tracking down a bug when he’d gotten sidetracked reading Stack Overflow. Dammit. He’d just lost an hour, and he still had no idea why his code wasn’t working the way it was supposed to, and it was 10 pm. Teresa was expecting a new version to be checked in by 9 am and she was expecting that it would run.
This was a job for more Coca-Cola. Jason got up, went downstairs and got himself a slice of pizza and a cold Coke.
His mom, also burning the late night oil at the kitchen table, hunched over her laptop, said, “How is it going? You think you’ll have what your boss is expecting by tomorrow?”
No. “Yes,” Jason said. “I just need a few more hours to track this down.”
“Well, you’re running out of them. You’d be better off getting a good night’s sleep, then waking up fresh in the morning early enough to work on it then.”
Mom was 57 and had apparently forgotten everything she had ever known about how night owls worked, despite having spent her younger years routinely staying up until 2 am. “Is that what you’re doing?” Jason couldn’t help saying.
“I’ve got a house showing tomorrow, I just have to make sure that I have my talking points memorized.”
“Why? Does the house really suck?”
“It doesn’t really suck. It’s a good house, really. Great bones, a nice big yard. But I’m gonna have to redirect the prospective owner’s attention away from how ugly the carpet is and things like that, because the seller? Whoo-ee. There’s people who have no taste, and there’s people who never fix anything, and there’s people who own dogs, and then there’s my seller, who is all three.” She sighed. “I tried to get them to rip the carpet out and install hardwood flooring before putting the house on the market, but the market is hot right now; I don’t blame them for wanting to charge forward. I just think they’d get more if their house didn’t smell like dog and look like water damage had a horrible transporter accident with the 1970’s.”
“That bad, huh?” He leaned up against the fridge, sipping his Coke. “You wanna go over your spiel with me, Mom? Some late night practice before you go to bed?”
“Yeah, actually, that sounds good.”
So Mom talked enthusiastically, if hoarsely, about the four bedrooms and the two and a half bathrooms and the recently modernized kitchen and how great the neighborhood was, and Jason listened, because he wasn’t contributing nearly as much to the mortgage as his mom was and she was also paying most of the utilities, so her career was important, not to mention what stress did to her heart.
When he got back to his computer it was 11:30 and he’d finished his Coke and pizza. He thought about getting ice cream, but best not to do that until Mom went to bed, if he didn’t want to get sucked into another conversation. Not that conversations with Mom were bad; they were much more entertaining than debugging code, which was the problem.
He opened up his coding window, stared at it for thirty seconds while doing nothing, and then convinced himself that maybe Reddit would have an answer to his question.
It didn’t. It did have answers to how to solve a particularly difficult problem in his current favorite game, a number of people who wanted to know if they were the asshole, some great reviews of movies on streaming that he hadn’t had a chance to watch yet, political rants, and some really entertainingly stupid coding mistakes that people had posted.
It was 12:30 am. Teresa was expecting this at 9 and she was expecting it to work.
His eyes glazed. The act of reviewing the code for the tenth time, looking for the bug he hadn’t yet been able to find despite knowing the general area it had to be in, was almost physically painful. He checked his brackets, again. The error didn’t look like a missing close bracket, but that didn’t mean anything. If he had a dollar for every time the error didn’t look like a missing close bracket but turned out to be one, he’d have maybe twenty dollars, which wasn’t a lot in terms of actual money but was a lot of times for the same stupid thing to happen in his code.
The software was supposed to warn him when there was an unclosed bracket, but half the time, if the code was particularly complex, it didn’t. It just re-interpreted the bracket locations and then his code broke.
One more time. Stepping through. Why the fuck was it stopping there? There was nothing there that could account for the error.
Time to go get ice cream. Maybe some sugar would help him stay awake and focused enough to get this done. Another Coke, possibly, too.
When he sat back down, he had Discord messages, so he needed to check them. And messages on Slack, which he could be checking in the morning, and probably should be, but maybe one of his co-workers had found an answer to his problem. They hadn’t, but Priyal had a different question and that one, he thought he could quickly get an answer to, so he fired up Google, dug in, and got her answer for her, which he sent. She’d have it in the morning. Unlike Teresa, who probably would not have what she was expecting.
It was 2 am. Stupid of him to get sidetracked with Priyal’s problem when he was having such difficulty with his own. He flicked over to Reddit again because this was unbearably boring and if he didn’t give himself a break from it, he’d fall asleep.
But he had to go back to debugging the code. Or to sleep. He could handle Teresa being pissed off in the morning a lot better if he got some sleep.
Third page of the subreddit he was on. Four. Man, he needed to keep up with this stuff, there was so much here he hadn’t read yet.
Fifth page of the subreddit. He really, really needed to get back to work. It was 2:30.
A screenshot of something really stupid from Cicada. Damn, someone actually posted something that stupid? Over to Cicada to see if there was context that explained it. There wasn’t, but there was a lengthy thread of people absolutely shredding the OP. Including someone he followed, and he should probably catch up with that.
No, he should get off Cicada and go back to coding. Or bed. His eyes were burning. Bed was probably a better idea. Give up on finishing the debug, tell Teresa he hadn’t found it yet and would need another day.
That was an interesting news article, though. He had to check that out.
No, he didn’t. He needed to go to bed.
Jason’s mouse clicked the link to the article. His eyes read the page, despite burning with exhaustion. Some frantic voice in his head was yelling, screaming, get up, put the computer down, you need to be awake to deal with Teresa in the morning, it’s late, you’re doing nothing useful, get up.
Back to Reddit.
Stop this. Get up. Go to bed. You need to go to bed.
3:30 am. He could barely keep his eyes open, but they were still riveted to the computer, his butt still glued to his chair.
Get up get up get up and go to bed, go to bed, turn the monitor off, you need to go to sleep so you can deal with Teresa tomorrow, get up, go to bed, go to bed
4 am. Look, there was his Firefox home tab, with articles from Pocket. A few of those looked interesting.
Don’t read them, you need to sleep, you need to sleep
Right, right, he didn’t have time to read them right now. He just needed to open them all so they would be there for him tomorrow. If he didn’t do that, Pocket would refresh and he’d lose all of them.
Wow, did they really find carbon deposits on the moon? He had to check that out.
Stop it, stop it, you have to stop it, you need to sleep, stop it
5 am. There was no way he’d be up at 9 to deal with Teresa.
Email. “Hey, I’ve been up all night bashing my head against this thing and I’ve made progress—” This was a lie. “—but it’s still not running. I’m gonna have to look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow. I’ll be logging in around 11 am.” This was also a lie, it would probably be closer to noon. But since he worked from home, all he needed to do was drag ass out of bed around 10:30 to send everyone a status update, tell them he was diving into the code and probably wouldn’t see incoming notifications until he came up for air, and then dive back into his bed instead.
Set an alarm for 9:30 am. Set an alarm for 10 am. He’d blow through them both, of course, but they’d wake him up enough to actually wake up when the 10:30 alarm went off, and then he’d convince himself to get up and send the status message by promising himself he’d return to bed.
Check out that article about a different way to manage your ADHD?
No. Go to sleep. Off the computer. Sleep.
Right, but obviously, he needed to put on his Spotify for music to fall asleep to, and adjust the volume because he couldn’t let it be too loud or it would wake Mom up, calm and peaceful or not.
Pop over to Reddit one last time.
5:30 am. Sleep!
The panic finally overwhelmed the inertia and he managed to drag himself off his chair, turn the monitor off, and stumble to bed. Now to get some sleep.
Oh, except now, he couldn’t sleep because he was overwhelmed by his anxiety and fear about not getting enough sleep to deal with Teresa even if he slept until noon because she was going to be seriously pissed off with him because this was the third time he’d blown the deadline.
It was another hour before exhaustion finally claimed him, and he knew that because the sun had risen.
***
He’d never set the 10:30 alarm.
He’d never set the 10:30 alarm, he’d blown through 9:30 and 10 just like he’d planned, but he’d never turned on the 10:30 alarm, so it was half past noon and he’d never sent that status message, so everyone would know he overslept way past the point Teresa would be okay with after an all nighter, and there was a meeting at 1 pm and he had to shower and shave because it was going to be a meeting with video so he couldn’t look like he’d just dragged himself out of bed.
Or maybe he could. He sent Teresa a message on Slack. I think I’m sick. My throat’s sore, and I’ve got a migraine. And I don’t have the program working anyway, so there’s really nothing to show anyone. Can we postpone until tomorrow?
The response was almost immediate. You need to figure out how to manage your time better. You’re sick because you stayed up all night.
Yeah, but I was trying to solve the bug.
If you can’t get something fixed by 11 pm, it’s not going to get fixed. You should have gone to bed.
I know, but I wanted to try. I was getting close. This was a lie. I thought I could get it done before morning.
Yes, and instead you made yourself sick and the program still doesn’t work. ☹ I’ll postpone the meeting this time, Jason, but we need results before tomorrow. Sorry that you’re sick but you know as well as I do it’s because you didn’t get any sleep.
Yeah, I know. I’ll pull myself together, have some coffee, and get back to work. I’ll try to have it done before 5. This was a lie. He knew perfectly well he wasn’t going to get it done by 5, not when he was this tired.
Do you want me to have Jorge review it? Maybe he can see something you missed?
No, that would be the worst possible thing, because then Jorge would know that he’d made basically no progress last night. I don’t want to add to his workload, but if I’m running into trouble later today I’ll pass it over to him, see if adding some eyeballs might help.
All right, I’ll let him know.
And now Jason was awake, the imminent terror of Jorge finding out that he had done basically nothing last night flooding him with enough adrenaline that he could focus enough to turn on his monitor and get back to work.
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doormeme · 2 years ago
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Project 3.M.0 (creepypasta)
My parents never really went anywhere besides Flea Markets and Goodwill for most non essential items, So a lot of toys I owned as a kid were old and used rather than the new stuff I'd see on TV. I was, what, 7 back then, I'm 15 now and my parents took me to a yard sale last month, one of the things the seller had was one lone CD, I had a device capable of playing CDs, though it was mostly used for radio, the CD album art looked familiar, I could've sworn I saw those goth dudes at my school wearing shirts that looked like it, it said in big white font
my chemical romance
With text below it saying
THREE CHEERS FOR SWEET REVENGE
It was only 4 bucks, my mom agreed to get it for me.
That was the only interesting thing I got there, I would go home to put the music into my player on CD mode, it had 13 tracks, and by god, all of them were amazing, if this is punk rock then I was obsessed, I had to put this on my ipod, so when my dad let me borrow the computer, I inserted the disc into the drive, before I could put the songs on my ipod, a file explorer window opened up, in it was a text document. I decided to read it as I waited for the songs to be copied to my ipos
My Chemical Romance is back! Come to [location redacted for privacy sake] to watch them like they never broke up!
I was confused, yet intrigued. I discussed it in the chatroom made for my school, apparently in 2013, the band had broken up, one of the goth dudes told me that seeing them would be great, hyping up the frontman—Gerard Way—to be this gorgeous hottie I'd be swooning over, even showing photographs of him, and I have to admit he did look cute.
That friday, we went to the location, there were no tickets to buy, or anything, hell, the place was a convention center, only me and a few of the people in the chatroom came, there was a stage that had the band's logo on it. Soon, the lights would go out, and the band would show up onstage, performing some songs on the CD such as "Helena", "You Know What They Do To Guys Like Us In Prison", "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" but also songs from albums I did not own such as "Vampires Will Never Hurt You", "Welcome to the Black Parade", and "Bulletproof Heart"
Me and my peers partied to the songs, but things got a little suspicious when I saw the bassist, who the goth dude let me know was Gerard Way's brother, Mikey, started letting out electrical sparks, I was a bit uneasy, but I was given soda, the rest of the night was a blur, but I do remember hearing screaming, music, people screaming as the music played, and soon fire.
I woke up at home, on the couch, the news played, apparently one of the band members, rhythm guitarist Frank Iero, had somehow caught on fire, and that lead to the whole band combusting, leaving only burnt up endoskeletons like a fucked up Chuck E Cheese, turns out that was NOT the band but rather humanoid animatronics, as it also turns out, the whole building went in flames and I was the only one without injury, everyone else was either injured or killed in the fire.
I went to check my email when I was given access to the computer, I receiced an email that said
You experienced one mishap of project 3.M.0, My Chemical Romance will return soon.
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Demon Alya fic snippit
Feel free to do what you want with this. (If you want to put it on your blog or AO3 or something as a related work, I don’t mind).
—- 
This, Juleka thought as she strained at the ropes which bound her tightly inside the bloody pentagram, is really not my day.
“The hour grows nigh!” shouted the loudest (and smelliest) of the five hooded dorks who were standing around the pentagram, one per point, and intermittently chanting while waving cloying incense around. “Soon a powerful demon shall accept our sacrifice and manifest before us, and in exchange for our undying loyalty and our immortal souls, shall grant us vast power over this world!” He spread his hands. “Rejoice, my coven! Rejoice!”
“Rejoice!” repeated the four idiots, as Juleka termed them, to the lead idiot. “Rejoice!”
Juleka thrashed a little but still couldn’t get out, and she growled to herself. If she somehow got out of this, she told herself, she would learn for her mistakes. For instance, the next time Rose had to cancel their date because something came up, Juleka would not browse around online until she found a meet up for people who ‘believed in the occult’ and ‘wanted to explore the horrors lurking beneath the world’s surface with an open mind,’ and even if she found such a group she certainly wouldn’t go to check it out without telling anyone where she was heading. Or at the very least, if she did go, she’d get better at dodging so that if a bunch of creepy robed guys jumped up from their Dungeons and Dragons spellbooks and  tried to seize her again she’d be able to get away.
But that presupposed she’d be able to escape in the first place, and unfortunately, it seemed like the one things these guys were good at was tying people up. She wondered briefly if she could try to get mad enough that Hawkmoth would akumatize her and give her the power to escape (and throw these idiots into the Seine), but she knew that if Hawkmoth was paying attention he’d likely have already sensed her anger and done that. And besides, even if she did get akumatized, wouldn’t the Miraculous Cure put her right back down here when Ladybug finished beating her up and de-akumatizing her?
“We have already laid the incense and slain the goat!” the first guy went on. “And painted the pentagram in the goat’s blood!” Juleka gagged. “Now-”
“Are you sure your Mom is cool with us killing a goat in her backyard?” another of the robed guys suddenly asked. “I mean, it kind of made a mess.”
The leader shook his head. “When we get our demonic powers, we won’t need to worry about messes or moms. We’ll be able to do whatever we want. We could–we could stay out after curfew! Order two desserts at dinner! Make girls hang out with us!”
Juleka wondered if it was possibly to die of sheer secondhand embarrassment.
“Now, the hour is nigh at last!” the shouty guy yelled. “And as for our sacrificial victim: know that your death is not in vain, for with your blood we shall obtain the power to change the world!” He grabbed a knife from within his robes and Juleka’s eyes widened; despite everything she realized that on some level she hadn’t thought these losers would actually do it. “Have you any last words before your soul is sent to the realm of the demons?”
Juleka debated a dozen different responses, but none seemed right–she wasn’t going to beg and plead with these morons, or even threaten them; there was no point and she wouldn’t satisfy them by looking angry or terrified. So she settled on, “You’re holding that knife wrong.”
“What?” The robed guy seemed to have been knocked out of his spiel. “I–no I’m not! The pointy end–”
“If you’re going to sacrifice someone, you grip it differently,” said Juleka in an annoyed tone. “You’re holding it backwards, like you’re going to stab up at someone. For a sacrifice you aim the knife down at the sacrificial altar. And you use a different knife in the first place, one specifically for rituals.”
The other robed guys stared at the leader as he fumbled with his blade. “This is a ritual blade!” he insisted.
“Ritual blades are made of special materials and don’t have serrated edges like that,” Juleka said. “That's… dude, I think that’s a steak knife.”
Everyone froze. “It is not!” the lead guy yelled at last. “It is magic! Look, this sigil on the hilt we could not decipher–”
“That’s the logo of the cutlery store down the street,” Juleka noted. 
All of the other robed guys looked at each other. “How do you know so much about knives?” one asked Juleka.
Because my Mom has one and every so often she insists on telling me about how she dated a coven leader one time and has her ritual dagger to prove it, Juleka thought. It’s the story that comes after the 'I dated a pirate and here’s the scimitar to prove it’ one and before the 'I dated a magician who I think might have had actual fey lineage and here’s some other sword to prove it’ one. 
Juleka loved her mother dearly, but she had to admit that Anarka was… not entirely moored in reality at times. 
“No! She knows nothing!” the leader raved before Juleka could answer. “And besides, I know the knife is real! I bought it on EBay from a genuine wizard; it said so right in his seller profile!” The leader took a breath. “I mean, come on, do you really think I would have spent eight hundred francs on a ritual dagger that was forged in the fires of Hell itself if there was any chance it was just a steak knife?”
“Based on what I know of you,” said Juleka, “I think you’d spent your life savings on a rock if a guy with a mysterious accent told you it could give you magic powers, but would only work once he took all your money and left town so you couldn’t get a refund.”
“She’s got you there, dude,” said another of the robed guys.
The leader roared something inarticulate. Then he slashed down and cut Juleka’s cheek, just enough to draw a trickle of blood that spilled down and touched the pentagram. And then, to Juleka’s amazement, the circle actually began to glow and hiss. “We’re doing it!” gasped the leader. “See? I was right! This works!”
Juleka felt herself growing warm as the pentagram heated up. The blood suddenly ignited and Juleka cringed away from it, but the only place to hide was the pentagon in its center, and the smoke from the burning goat blood was all drifting there despite the absence of a breeze in the dingy basement. She was forced to roll into the pentagon and hide against one of its edges as the smoke coalesced. “Demon, we summon you!” the leader was yelling. “We bid you speak your name! Have we summoned the mighty Asmodeus? The brilliant Mephistopheles? The great Balphagor? The–”
A crack of thunder sounded and the smoked cleared, revealing the shape of a girl a little shorter than Juleka. The figure had horns, red skin, small wings sticking out of her back, and a tail with a spade on the end, but otherwise looked like a regular girl. In fact, she looked like a very familiar girl to Juleka. She had red hair, a beauty mark on her face, glasses, a red-and-white checkered shirt–
Wait.
“Um, Alya?” Juleka managed. “What’s going on?”
The redhead didn’t seem to notice her as she spread her arms and beamed at the robed guys. “You have summoned the demon Alya Cesaire!” she said. “Are you prepared to trade your immortal souls in exchange for great power?”
“Oh yes!” said the robed leader. “And we even prepared a sacrifice for you, oh mighty demon!” He pointed. “You can rip out her heart whenever you want!”
Alya glanced down, then froze. “Juleka?” she said. “Is that you? What are you doing?”
“Being sacrificed by these idiots, apparently.” Juleka briefly wondered if she was going crazy, but this didn’t seem like the kind of thing she’d hallucinate. Somehow, someway, Alya Cesaire had teleported in and at least appeared to be a demon. Maybe this was some weird akuma, or a new miraculous user with a demon theme for some reason (although Juleka personally felt that if anyone got a 'demon’ miraculous it would be LIla Rossi), but whatever was going on, it was really happening. So she’d just have to find some way to deal with it. “Alya, what’s going on? What are you doing?”
“They summoned me–” Then Alya caught herself. “Wait, no no no, you’re not supposed to know about me! Oh no, Nora is going to slaughter me…”
Everyone stared at Alya as she took a few breaths, suddenly looking less like a demonic tempter and more like an unhappy teenager who was about to get grounded. “How do you know these guys?” Alya asked Juleka at last.
“I don’t! They said they were looking at occult stuff, so I came by and they jumped me when I showed up!” Juleka insisted. “I don’t know them!”
Alya stared at her, and Juleka saw a truly frightening look of anger cross the girl’s face for a brief moment before Alya turned back to the cultists. “Did you seriously just try to sacrifice a random stranger to me?“ 
"…yes?” said the leader. “I mean, we’re not going to sacrifice someone we like–”
“It’s not a sacrifice unless you sacrifice someone you like!” said Alya, sounding both angry and exasperated. “The whole point of this is you’re promising to forswear any earthly attachments in order to devote yourself to demonic causes, you idiot! You can’t just kill some random stranger to do that! If it’s not someone close to you, someone where it’d mean something for you to betray them and give them up, there’s no point!”
“So,” said Juleka, “what you’re saying is, if Luka was going to sacrifice me for some reason, you’d be cool with it.”
Alya looked down at her with a hurt expression. “I mean, not you specifically, but…” She caught herself and quickly coughed before turning back to the cultists.  “I can’t accept this sacrifice,” the demon said more loudly. “I–”
“You have to!” crowed the lead cultist. “We summoned you. It’s a bargain, and you can’t leave until you take the sacrifice and give us the powers we want! And if you don’t do what we want we’ll cast spells on you to hurt you!”
“That isn’t how that works!” Alya rolled her eyes. “The only power you have is the power I give you! You can’t use it against me or I’ll just take it back! Devil below, did you put even five minutes of thought into this?" 
"You have to!” repeated the leader. “Or you can’t leave. Look, we don’t care if you take the girl, but give us our powers already!”
The demon and the cultist leader stared at each other for a long time. Finally, Alya said, “And what powers do you want, exactly?”
“All of them!” said one of the other cultists.
“Yeah, you’re going to need more than one sacrifice for that,” Alya snarked. 
“Then we’ll start with just one.” The cultist leader grinned. “I know. The one we discussed earlier. Make girls like us!”
The other cultists nodded. “Yeah, I need a girlfriend,” said one. “Someone who doesn’t care about dumb illogical stuff like 'showering,’ and who doesn’t mind me playing games with my friends all night.”
“Why just one?” The lead cultist rubbed his hands together. “You, demon. Make us irresistible to girls in general. We’re smart; we deserves harems!” He chuckled. “Oh, and we can have them wrestle to see who gets to spend each night with us!”
Alya exchanged astonished and exasperated glances with Juleka. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “You–”
“I read there was this Chinese emperor who had a harem of a thousand girls,” said another cultist. “So many that when he wanted to go on a date he had a donkey take his carriage around the harem quarters and just dated whichever women was closest when the donkey stopped, so the women put out salt and carrots and stuff to make his donkey stop by them. Give us the power to have that many girls!”
Alya shut her eyes for a long moment. “I might be able to do something,” she said at last. Her tone was a bit off and Juleka noted that this was how Alya sounded when she was lying, but the cultists didn’t seem to realize that. Alya went on to say, “But not with me in here and you out there. Step into the pentagram and I can give you power.”
The leader grinned. One of his subordinates said, “Hey, aren’t we supposed to stay outside that thing?”
“It’s fine. The demon knows who’s boss,” said the leader as he entered. (Juleka managed to roll over so she had a good view of the guy; she figured Alya was about to wreck him and wanted to see it when that happened.) “And maybe she’s charmed by me. After all, I did summon her, and it’s not like I’m a bad catch. I speak fluent Klingon and–”
Alya surged forwards as soon as the guy got into the pentagram, then rammed her hand into the guy’s chest. Juleka gasped but no blood leaked out, and then Juleka realized that Alya had somehow phased her hand into his body without harming his physical self. The guy cried out, and then Alya withdrew her hand holding a greenish-brown ball of light about the size of a billiard ball. “I do need to take a soul before I can leave here,” she said. “Fortunately, yours qualifies." 
"That’s my soul?!” gasped the lead cultist. “Hey, give that back! I–”
“Nope. Mine.” Alya grinned, and Juleka’s eyes widened as she saw that the girl had fangs in this form. She then looked at the captured soul thoughtfully and said, “Of course, one soul is fine, but five are better.”
“Five?” said one of the other cultists while the leader just gaped dumbly at his missing soul. “Well, we’re not going in there, so–”
Alya chuckled. “No problem.” She tapped the captured soul and it seemed to glow a little more brightly. “Break this pentagram,” she ordered–and the leader stiffened before mechanically walking over to the pentagram and scuffing out a section of the bloody lines with his foot.
The cultists yelled and began to run. Alya glanced down at Juleka and said, “Be right back,” before blasting after them. Juleka could only watch as Alya’s wings flared and she leapt, hands curled into claws, on top of the slowest fleeing cultist and ripped out his soul too. Then she threw some kind of fireball–Hellfire?–at the stairs, blasting them out and cutting off the cultists’ escapes from the basements, before she jumped at another. 
The battle was over in less than a minute, at which point Alya–now casually juggling five ball-like souls in one hand–ordered the cultists to 'sit down and shut up’ before hurrying back to Juleka and slashing the ropes with her talon-like fingers. “Are you okay?” Alya asked quickly. “Did they hurt you?”
“Not too bad.” Juleka managed. She stood and stretched before backing up a step and looking at her demonic friend. “So. Um…”
Alya hesitated, and then her head dropped. “Yeah,” she said in a voice that actually sounded sad. “I know. You know about me and now you’re scared and you think I’m awful and–”
“Hold on,” said Juleka quickly. “I’m not afraid of…” The word 'monsters’ seemed rude, so Juleka looked for a better one. “…unusual people,” she said at last. And it was true. She didn’t know exactly what Alya’s deal was, but now that her life wasn’t at stake, she wasn’t feeling nearly as scared anymore. Not scared enough to lose faith in a friend, even one with a demonic appearance, anyways. “I mean, you did save me from these guys–thanks for that–and we’re friends, so–”
“We’re still friends?” Alya asked quickly. “Really?”
“Of course, and–agh!” Juleka flinched as Alya rushed to hug her. The girl smelled like sulfur and brimstone, which Juleka decided really shouldn’t have been that surprising. Despite herself, Juleka felt a small smile coming to her mouth as she hugged Alya back. “Yes. We’re still friends. ”
Alya grinned. “You’re the best, Juleka.”
Juleka nodded, then saw something. “Um, Alya?”
“Yes?”
“I think you just dropped one of your souls.” She pointed at the ball of light–this one a brownish-black–which had just fallen out of Alya’s hands and was rolling away towards what looked like a small hole in the floor. “So-”
“Agh!” Alya immediately sprang for the soul. Juleka wasn’t sure what Alya planned to do with it in the end, but she hoped it was something mean. The guy had tried to murder her, after all. “Bad soul! No running away! I need you to make my quota!" 
Juleka couldn’t help but giggle as Alya gave chase. This might not have started out as her day… but her life had been saved, she’d discovered an amazing secret about her friend, and things were starting to look up.
Chapter 2
Juleka had taken a few minutes to rest on the (gross) couch and munch a pudding pop from the cultists’ fridge while Alya fixed the summoning pentagram. "Just need to drop them off,” she had said cheerily. “Be back in a minute.” And then she’d vanished in a puff of smoke and brimstone along with the souls.
“So,” Juleka had said after a little bit. “Are you guys, uh, okay?”
The cultists gave her blank looks that were… well, 'soulless’ was probably how Juleka would describe it. 
“Meh.” Juleka finished her pudding, then looked in the fridge again and grabbed a soda. “You guys deserve it.”
Alya reappeared with a flourish and another blast of sulfur. “Alright!” she chirped to the guys. “Your souls are now safely stored in my demesne Down Below. I'l be in touch with your orders.” She turned to Juleka and seemed to hesitate for a moment before catching herself. “Want to get out of here?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” Juleka rose. At the same time, Alya shimmered and then her body took on the form Juleka was familiar with–no horns, no wings, no tail, and skin that was brown and definitely not red. “Let’s go.”
As they left the house, Juleka glanced back at Alya. Her mind was bursting with questions and she barely knew where to start. “So, uh–”
“You weren’t just saying that before, right?” Alya asked suddenly. “About still being friends with me despite, you know…?”
“Of course I wasn’t just saying it.” Juleka paused. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone that went around hurting innocent people, but the only people I saw you hurt were the guys that tried to kill me. And I know you. I can’t imagine you ever hurting an innocent. As long as you’re only going after really bad people like those guys, I don’t care.”
Alya let out a breath. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said, and Juleka thought she sounded sincere. “That's… that means a lot.” She managed a smile. “I’m sure you have questions.”
“More than a few.” Juleka considered, then went for one of the simplest ones. “So when you get someone’s soul, you just order them around? Can you control them directly?”
“Not exactly. It’s not like how Max can program Markov to run certain programs or take specific actions. But when I get someone’s soul I can influence their personality: make them more aggressive, or lazy, or hedonistic, or whatever. We do that to push humans on the paths we want for them. One of the things we can influence is loyalty, so I made those guys loyal to me. There’s limits–I won’t be able to get him to rob a bank or jump off a cliff, because his loyalty won’t be able to override his self-preservation or sanity or whatever–but within reason, now they’ll obey what I say.”
“Hmm.” Juleka paused. “And… just to be clear, you’re an actual demon. Like, this isn’t a really weird akuma or something.”
Alya giggled. “No akuma. No miraculous. Just 100% grade-A demon here. If you have a copy of Dante’s Inferno I can show you the exact circle I was born in.”
“Not necessary,” said Juleka, and the two girls exchanged grins. Then Juleka asked her next question. “So if you’re a demon have you… I don’t know… met the Devil?”
Alya laughed louder. “You’re French; that doesn’t mean you hang out with the Prime Minister,” she said. “I saw the big boss a couple times, including when I got assigned to Paris, but no more than that. Of course, if I do a good job here I could get a promotion.”
“Why are you in Paris specifically?”
“Well…” Alya paused. “Honestly, I got assigned here because I’m junior and the more senior demons filled up the other postings. Not a lot of demons want Paris these days. You can probably guess why.”
Juleka could. “The miraculouses?”
“Right. Historically, some miraculous users were known to go full paladin and strike down tons of demons. So all the demons want jobs in London, or Shanghai, or Abuja, or America–places without miraculous users. I got sent here because they needed someone and I was what was left.” Alya frowned. “But I’m going to do a good job. I’ll impress my superiors and show them all.”
“What exactly is your job?” Juleka thought back. “You mentioned a quota.”
“I just have to bring in so many souls a month,” said Alya. “That’s basically it.”
Juleka nodded. “And I’m guessing you can’t just run around yanking them out of people’s chests whenever you want.”
“Right. I can only 'yank’ the souls of people who make a souls-for-power deal with me, or who are like those cultists and do something evil enough that I can take their soul right away instead of having to wait for them to die–that’s in Dante’s Inferno too, actually, the story about Fra Alberigo–or in a few other circumstances.” Alya waved a hand. “There’s a bunch of rules. So my job is to get people to make a deal or otherwise break one of those rules so I can get their soul.” She smiled. “It’s fun work. Challenging too, since everyone’s different and needs a different strategy to tempt them.”
“What kinds of people do you usually focus on?”
“Well…” Alya’s eyes twinkled. “You know how the news is always wondering why Hawkmoth only akumatizes random people and doesn’t go after professional criminals, people who are already really evil and would work with him willingly?”
Juleka hesitated. “He worked with a criminal one time, when we were in New York.”
“Okay, but just looking at Paris. It’s like he can’t pick criminals. Why do you think that is?”
Juleka got it. “You get to the criminals first. When someone does something so evil it shows they’d probably be willing to work with Hawkmoth, you get their soul and then make them loyal to you and order them not to accept his akumas.”
Alya beamed. “Yep. I get the souls, and Hawkmoth loses a fighter–which means Ladybug is less active and there’s less chance of her discovering me. Win-win.” She paused. “There’s a rumor that a demon was assigned to tempt Hawkmoth and Mayura full-time; get their souls and make them use their miraculousness for Hell instead of whatever their real goals are. But if that’s true, I don’t know who the demon is.”
“Huh. Well, on behalf of Paris–thanks for screwing over Hawkmoth. We appreciate it.”
Alya grinned.
They stopped at the Dupain-Cheng bakery for snacks–Alya bought several pastries, murmuring to Juleka that as a demon she didn’t technically need to eat but she loved the taste of the Dupain-Cheng’s food, while Juleka got some lemon bread and a few Japanese sweets called mochi which she knew Luka liked–and then headed for Alya’s house. Juleka was a little nervous about going into a demon’s lair, but she figured that if there was a giant portal to Hell in the living room or something, Marinette would have noticed during one of her sleepovers at her best friend’s house and mentioned it. “Do you have any cool powers besides the soul thing?” she asked.
“I might,” said Alya in a teasing voice. “Let’s get to my room and I’ll show you.”
Alya let them in and then hurried Juleka into her room. “Is the rest of your family, uh, like you?” Juleka asked as Alya pushed her inside.
“Just Nora. Marelan and Otis couldn’t have kids, and so they made a deal with one of my bosses. In exchange for being able to have Etta and Ella, they’d agree to provide covers for two demons who would be based in Paris. The demon said yes, Marlena and Otis had the twins, and a few years later it was time to make good on their promise, so they took in Nora and I.” Alya shrugged. “It works pretty well. They know they aren’t allowed to interfere in our soul-collecting, but other than that they look after us okay.”
“Is Nora your real sister, or is that part of your cover?” Juleka looked around Alya’s room as Alya shut the door behind them. It certainly didn’t look like the room of a powerful demon who could literally rip out the souls of sinners. But of course Alya didn’t look like such a demon either, at least in her human guise. Looks could be deceiving.
“No, she’s my real sister. And she’s kind of protective of me, which is why it’s probably better if she doesn’t know you know about me.” Alya stretched, then snapped her fingers and dispelled her human glamour. “Ah. Much better.” She stretched again, and Juleka watched in amazement as her wings and tail flared. “Those get so cramped under the glamour.”
Juleka moved a little closer. “Do you mind if I, uh, take a closer look?” Alya gave her a curious look and Juleka blushed. “Sorry, but I find this stuff really cool and–”
“Go right ahead!” Alya beamed and Juleka wondered if she was just happy to have a human friend who thought her true appearance was neat and not scary. Juleka leaned in and marveled at her wings and her waggling tail. “What do you think?”
“I think you’ve got a pretty awesome body,” said Juleka before she realized how that sounded. Alya burst into laughter, Juleka couldn’t help giggling too. “I meant the wings and stuff! Seriously, I’d love to have wings. Flying sounds awesome.”
Alya hesitated, and Juleka blinked. “What, can’t demons fly?”
“We can, but…” Alya blushed, her already-red skin darkening. “It’s kind of embarrassing…”
Juleka got it. “Demons in general can fly, but you specifically can’t.”
“I’ll be able to!” Alya insisted. “My wings just aren’t done growing yet!” Juleka grinned. “I’m serious!” Alya went on.
“Of course you are,” said Juleka neutrally. Alya didn’t seem too put out by the teasing, and Juleka guessed that maybe she was just relieved Juleka was still willing to joke with her instead of freaking out and worrying that Alya would damn her over some tiny slight. “I’m sure you’ll be able to fly. Someday. Far in the future.”
“If you keep teasing me I won’t show you any of my cool demon powers,” Alya sniffed. “And some are really awesome.”
Juleka sat down on the bed. “I’ll be good,” she said, though she was unable to hide her smile. “I saw you throw a fireball at one of those guys–”
“Yeah, I can summon Hellfire!” Alya snapped her fingers and a bright ball of flame, about the size of one of the souls she’d taken from the cultists, appeared in her talon-like hands. (And now that Juleka looked closer, she saw that Alya’s feet were cloven). “This stuff is great. Burns hotter than human flame, and it’s perfect for barbecues. Seriously, meat grilled over this stuff is awesome.”
“Can you possess people?” Juleka asked. “Like in the movies?”
“Some demons can but I’m not good at it.” Alya summoned more balls of fire and began to idly toss them around. “I’m okay at Whispers, though.”
Juleka blinked. “Whispers?" 
"Have you ever been talking to a friend or family member and then heard a little voice in the back of your head saying something like, 'they don’t really mean it when they say they like you, they’re just pitying you, and as soon as they can find someone better they’ll abandon you?’ Things like that?”
“Uh…” Juleka couldn’t deny it. That had been worse before Marinette had fixed her photo curse problem, but she did sometimes have to fight off the fear that Rose and the others were only hanging out with her to show her charity. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Sometimes–not always, but sometimes–that’s a demon. Here’s how mine sounds.” Alya focused on Juleka, and her eyes grew a little redder. And then–
Juleka heard a voice in the back of her head. “Juleka,” it hissed in that familiar tone of cynical wisdom, the voice of a grizzled elder cutting through nonsense and delivering the hardest of truths. “You are a bad person. You must redeem yourself by buying more cookies at the Dupain-Cheng bakery for Alya–”
The goth snickered at that and threw a pillow at Alya, who cheerily ducked and impaled it on her left horn. Then Juleka mimed holding her hands straight out as if she were a zombie and meandered in the direction of the door like she was really about to do it. Alya burst into laughter as she removed the pillow from her horn. “Hey, stop, I wasn’t serious! And I’ve already got cookies. I go to her bakery every day.”
Before Juleka could respond, the door slammed open. “I heard noises, sis,” said Nora as she strode in. “What’s going–”
Her eyes flicked to Alya, still in her demon form, and then Juleka. Her face twisted into rage. “Human!” she hissed as she surged forwards, and by the time she’d grabbed Juleka by her collar and slammed her against a wall her body had shifted into a greenish lizard-like thing with four arms, bright yellow eyes, and a forked tongue. Her new form reminded Juleka of a yuan-ti from that Dungeons and Dragons game the cultists had been playing when she’d walked in on them. “Alya, what are you doing?!” Nora demanded. “We can’t show ourselves to humans! What if she calls a paladin or an angel!”
Juleka choked and struggled to escape, but Nora’s demon form was apparently even stronger than her human one and she couldn’t move. Then Alya was rushing towards them. “No, it’s cool! Some idiot cultists summoned me and tried to kill her, but I dealt with them. And hey–I got five souls, I’m ahead of quota–”
“Don’t change the subject!” Nora yelled. “And don’t take her word for things either! Do you really believe she just happened to be there when the cultists summoned you? What if she’s a paladin trying to get in close so she can banish you?”
Nora, Juleka recalled, was sometimes overprotective of her sister. This was apparently one of those times. “I’m not a paladin,” she managed in a deadpan voice. “Seriously.”
“So you say now, but I’ll make you tell the real truth.” Nora’s grip tightened and Juleka winced. Alya opened her mouth to object, but Nora cut her off. “Sis, you know I’m looking out for you. We can’t have humans knowing who we are. So let’s just lock her in the basement until I get the truth out of her and she also agrees to give up her soul in exchange for letting her out. Then you make her super loyal to you so she never talks. Or we just go the other way and have Marlena and Otis move across town and change our identities so she can’t sell us out.”
Juleka thrashed more. “I’m not going to tell anyone!” she insisted instead. “Alya’s a friend, I wouldn’t sell her out!”
Nora gave Juleka an astonished stare and Alya smiled a little. “She means it, sis.”
“We can’t trust that. And even if she’s serious now, these are long-term covers. What happens if in five years you guys have a falling out?” Nora shook her head. “It’s not safe. There’re rules against this for a reason.”
“Those rules have exceptions,” Alya pointed out.
“Yeah–for humans that form cults to worship us and make us stronger. Is she planning on being the high priestess of the Cult of Alya Cesaire or something?”
Alya hesitated. “Uh… yes,” she said. “That’s what she wants to be.”
Juleka swiveled her head to stare at Alya in surprise, but then Nora shoved her into the wall again and Juleka got it–if they could bluff Nora into believing this, the chances of Nora trying to rip out her soul or something would go way down. “Totally,” Juleka lied. “That’s why I was with the cult. I was like, 'I want to find a demonic overlord to pledge my loyalty to,’ and they seemed onboard with that, but then they tied me up and tried to use me to summon Alya. Once she saved me, of course, she earned my undying love and devotion.”
Despite the situation, Juleka saw Alya visibly stifling giggles as she turned away. But Nora was less familiar with Juleka and couldn’t pick up on her sarcasm. “Really,” she said. “That’s your story.”
“Uh huh. I even practiced chanting for hours.”
Juleka wondered if that last line was too much, but Nora gave her a long look before dropping her and stalking over to her sister. “Don’t go anywhere,” she said. “I’ve got a nose like a bloodhound. I could follow you across the English Channel.” Then she grabbed Alya and dragged her out of the room.
Juleka took advantage of Nora’s absence to take a breath and then try to think through her story in more detail. She didn’t know anything about being the high priestess of a demon cult, but she imagined it couldn’t be too hard–some chanting here, some praising the demon there, maybe lighting candles or setting off fireworks on whatever the demonic equivalent of Christmas was. (Although, she somehow doubted Alya actually wanted those things.) And besides, this was just a blufff for Nora. She wouldn’t have to actually go through with it–
The door banged open again as Nora came back in with Alya behind her. “So,” Nora said. “Juleka, right? Why do you want to lead my sister’s cult? What’s in it for you?”
“Uh–”
“Magic?” Nora snapped her fingers and summoned some Hellfire of her own, though her fireball was much larger, about the size of a basketball. “I mean, that’s possible, but I think it’s best we’re all on the same page. Wouldn’t be good if you wanted something she couldn’t give you.”
Juleka opened her mouth, then hesitated. Magic was awesome and she’d love to have the chance to cast spells, but she wasn’t sure if she should say that. Nora still seemed volatile and Juleka figured there were probably 'wrong’ answers to this question which would be very bad for her.
“Or other kinds of power?” Nora went on. “Gold smelted in the fires of Hell? Demons have plenty of that. Or political power? Maybe a boost to your blog? Are you here because you want Alya to get Nadja Chamack’s soul and then induce her to promote you all over Paris?”
Juleka glanced at Alya for just a moment and noticed how nervous the other demon seemed. But then Nora went on. “Or do you want Alya to smite your enemies? Like Hawkmoth, or that Marinette girl who brought you on as a model and then made you so nervous you got re-akumatized into Reflektdoll?” Nora clenched a fist. “Well?”
“Um.” Juleka paused, having no idea what to say. If she got it wrong she was in real trouble, and…
And so why not just tell the truth?
Juleka gulped. “I, uh… I mean, all that stuff sounds cool but it’s not why I’m here. And honestly, I didn’t go to the cult hoping to meet a demon either. I found out about Alya’s whole, uh, demon thing by accident. But she’s a friend, a really good one, and I’m not going to abandon her. And so if being her 'high priestess’ is the only way I can keep my soul and stay her friend without you, I don’t know, changing covers so I never see her again or wiping my mind or something, that’s what I want to do." 
Nora stared at Juleka with a stunned look, and then her tongue darted out. "I don’t taste any deceit,” she murmured. “I…”
“See?” said Alya, looking relieved. “I told you she’s legit. You can relax.”
The bigger demon struggled for a moment before growling and saying, “Fine. Bind her properly, sis. Don’t screw it up. I’ll check on you later–I’ve almost got Roundhouse Ron’s soul, and if I can get him to throw the match tonight it’ll be as good as mine. But when I’m done I’ll be back.” She stalked out.
Alya ran to Juleka’s side and hugged her. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know Nora can be rough–”
“It’s okay. Not your fault.” Juleka returned the hug. “So. Apparently I’m your new high priestess.”
Alya’s skin somehow grew even redder as she blushed again. “We don’t, uh, have to go through with that if you don’t want. I’ll make up some story for Nora.”
But then Alya might get in trouble, Juleka thought. And she’d might never see her friend again if Alya were forced to change covers. “What would it entail?” Juleka asked.
Alya blinked. “Uh… well, there’s a magic spell I’d cast and we’d exchange blood. You’d become bound to me. I’d be able to lend you magic power, and when you 'worshipped’ me I’d get stronger. You’d be responsible for worshipping me on a regular basis, eventually bringing other people into the cult, and helping me to enact my will–that is, capture souls.”
“Any risks?” Juleka asked. “Would I lose my soul?”
“No. I mean, technically I’d be supposed to constantly tempt you into giving it up–that’s the usual reason most demons do things like this, most other demons don’t like humans and only loan them a little power to ensnare people who are too clever to just lose their souls the usual ways–but I wouldn’t do that. Um, if you ran into a paladin or angel they might notice that I’d marked you and want to smite you. It’s not likely unless you’re actively using demonic magic, but it’s a risk, so I get if you don’t want to do it. Like I said, I’ll lie to Nora–”
“I’ll do it,” said Juleka at once.
Alya stared. “Really?”
“Sure. It doesn’t sound too bad, as long as I get to keep my soul. And… and you’re a friend. I don’t want Nora to take you away. And this is sort of my fault anyways for getting captured by those morons. If this is the way to stop you leaving, let’s do it.”
Alya was still for a moment before a genuine grin burst onto her face. “Alright,” she said. “Here we go.”
She got a ritual knife–a real one this time–from her desk and then had Juleka sit cross-legged across from her on her bed while she summoned a ball of Hellfire between them. She murmured several words in what sounded like Latin, then motioned for Juleka to put her hand in the fire. Juleka cautiously did so, but whatever spell Alya had muttered prevented it from burning her. Alya used her knife to cut into her palm, forming a trickle of sizzling blood, before doing the same to Juleka’s hand and then clasping it in the flames.
Juleka gasped. Suddenly she felt as if power were surging into her, power that clutched at her mind and screamed at her to use it to do whatever she wanted, smashing up her enemies and building palaces of molten gold for herself and–
She caught the thoughts and forcibly pushed them away. Then Alya dropped her hand and when Juleka looked at her palm there was a strange sigil instead of a scar. “There!” said Alya. “You’re my high priestess now. It’s official.” She beamed. “I can’t wait to tell Asmodeus. He told me when I started taking soul-catching lessons that I’d never be good enough to start a cult. And here I am, one of the first in my class!”
“Great,” managed Juleka as she uneasily got up. Power was still surging through her and she felt heady. “Woah. That’s a rush. Um, do I need to worry about accidentally setting off fireballs or anything?”
“I haven’t given you any magic yet, just the potential to cast it once I do,” said Alya. “So no.”
“Okay.” Juleka took a breath. “And this worship thing. What does that involve?”
Alya hesitated. “You know, worship,” she said at last. “Spending time being devoted to me. Making me happy. I’ll do the same for you of course–we’re friends–but when you do it to me, I’ll grow stronger and then be able to give you more magic.”
“But specifically,” Juleka pushed. “How do I be 'devoted to you?’ That’s pretty broad.”
 "I don’t know,“ Alya admitted. "I’ve never, uh, actually had a cult before. I didn’t think I’d be strong enough to make one.” She glanced away. “Just… whatever’s traditional, I guess.”
“Ah.” Juleka tilted her head, then smiled wryly. “Well, based on Hollywood movies–which I’m going to assume are totally accurate–I think the tradition here is for me to take you into a drafty catacomb, light some smelly incense, chant in Latin neither of us understand, and talk a lot about how someday the rivers will run red with the blood of your enemies.”
Alya blanched. “Please don’t.”
Juleka’s smile grew. “I could also dress up in stupid clothes and wander around yelling prophecies that the dread lord Alya will slay all who do not bow before her. I could form a 'Satanist’ metal band and yell that everyone who didn’t buy my merchandise with your face on it would burn. I could–”
Alya burst into laughter and threw a pillow at her. “As your new demon queen I hereby order you to not do anything so ridiculous I’d get laughed out of Hell.”
“Or,” said Juleka, still beaming, “Seeing as how you told Nora you’re caught up on your soul quota and don’t have anything to do for awhile, I could rent us a couple movies about exorcists and demons. Then we could watch them together, eat popcorn, do each other’s hair, and laugh about everything the films get wrong. Would that count as being 'devoted to you’ and 'making you happy?’”
“I…” Alya smiled. “I think it would. And seeing as how literally no other cultist I’ve ever heard of would have come up with that–seriously, most of those guys love Latin chants, except they don’t know Latin so they just recite random phrases and usually wind up chanting that their togas got caught in their chariots or something–I think it’s safe to say you are officially a much better high priestess than all those other guys.”
She gave Juleka a hug, which the goth returned. And then she flopped down on her bed while Juleka got the movie set up. And as Juleka did so, she saw a contented look on Alya’s face and grinned.
It was nice to be someone’s friend. Especially a very unusual someone, such as a certain Alya Cesaire.
Chapter 3
Life as the high priestess of the Cult of Alya Cesaire, thought Juleka, was pretty similar to her life before taking on that role. She still went to school, did her homework, played music with Kitty Section, dated Rose, and helped Marinette’s various doomed attempts to win the heart of one Adrien Agreste. But now she was hanging out more with Alya too, and those hang-outs could be… interesting.
This was the case when, a few weeks after becoming high priestess, Juleka noticed that Alya was looking sluggish in school. She caught up with the girl at recess and asked, “What’s wrong? Can you, uh, get sick?”
“Not with human diseases, but there’s some demon ones that are a real bitch.” Alya wrinkled her nose, then sneezed into a tissue with an annoyed grunt. “Ugh.”
“Why don’t you go home?” Juleka asked. “I mean, your 'parents’ are just supposed to be looking after you for your bosses, right? They can’t actually ground you?" 
"They actually can. To 'maintain the cover,’” Alya smiled ruefully. “Wouldn’t look very realistic if I was just going around doing anything I wanted and they ignored it. I mean, I know Chloe’s dad does, but that’s because he’s a total idiot–it still doesn’t look right. But that’s not why I’m staying here.” She gestured at her bookbag, which Juleka saw had a thick notebook sticking out of it. “Today’s the study review session in Mendeleiev’s class, remember? And the test is next week. I can’t miss that.”
Juleka raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“Yeah!” Alya sneezed again. “I mean, this is a long-term cover. I won’t be able to tempt people if I fail out of school and wind up living in an alley behind Marinette’s family’s bakery!”
Juleka gave Alya a long look.
“…and I like this stuff,” Alya admitted. “We don’t really have 'schools’ like this in Hell, just lessons on specific things like tempting people. It's… interesting being in this kind of place.” She gestured at the school around them. “I don’t want to screw it up.”
“Hmm.” Juleka tilted her head, then came to her decision. “Okay. As your high priestess, I’m making an executive decision and sending you home.”
Alya blinked. “I… I don’t think that’s how–”
“I’m supposed to look after you,” said Juleka. “So I’m ordering you to go home. I’ll take detailed notes at the study session and run them over to you once school’s out.”
Now Alya looked stunned. “You’d do that for me?”
“Of course–ack!” Juleka winced as Alya wrapped her in a tight hug. She was confused for a moment–taking notes for others was pretty common, after all–before remembering that Alya was new up here. She wondered if maybe demons didn’t have 'friends’ in Hell, and that was why Alya kept being surprised and overwhelmed whenever Juleka behaved decently towards her. (And now that Juleka thought about it, she could recall Marinette having said similar things about how happy Alya seemed to get over the slightest kindnesses.) “No problem.”
“Thanks.” Alya broke the hug and began to run off. “I’ll be at home then. See you later!”
###
Juleka took copious notes, paying even more attention than she would have if she were only focusing on her own learning, and after school she headed out for Alya’s house. Before she got there, though, she was stopped by Rose. “Juleka!” chirped the short blonde, giving her girlfriend a kiss on the cheek. “Are you doing anything?I got tickets to the new fashion show down on the Champs Elysses and I was wondering if you wanted to go?”
“Wish I could,” said Juleka, taking a moment to hug her girlfriend and lose herself in the girl’s sweet perfume and sweeter personality. “But I’ve got a thing with Alya; she’s sick and I’m bringing her notes to study for next week’s test. Maybe tomorrow?”
“She is?” Rose gasped. “That’s awful. But it’s really nice of you to go help her study. You’re amazing, Juleka.” She gave Juleka another hug. “Tomorrow is fine. See you then!”
Rose ran off and Juleka headed over to the Cesaire house to see her friend. When she knocked on the door, though, it was Nora who opened it. “You,” she grunted. “Right, Alya told me. Come in.”
Juleka let the older demon usher her inside and then tried to go to Alya’s room, but Nora blocked her. “Wait,” Nora said. “My little sis is sick. You’re her high priestess. So here.” She thrust an ancient-looking book into Juleka’s arms, and when Juleka opened it to see tiny, spidery writing, the book let out what sounded like a pained moan. “Use this.”
“…how?” Juleka asked.
Nora glared at her, then flipped the book to a certain chapter. “A spell for healing sick demons,” she said. “Now that you’re her high priestess, only you can cast it on her. So do it. Or else I’ll eat your soul.” She stuck out her tongue, and it briefly flashed back to being forked and scaly before Nora restored her own glamour. “Got it?”
Juleka glanced down at the ingredients for the spell and almost gagged. The first three were goat’s blood, the heart of a lamb whose wool was pure-white, and the frayed end of a hangman’s noose; the rest were similarly baroque. “Got it,” she managed. “Make Alya feel better, check.”
“Good.” Nora finally let Juleka go. “And remember, Juleka: her welfare is your responsibility. If you screw up and my sister gets hurt, or banished, or something worse, I’m taking it out on you.” She clenched a fist and a ball of fire appeared above it. “Just so we understand each other. Now: get out of my way.” She stormed off, presumably–Juleka guessed–to go capture another soul from someone she knew as a boxer. Juleka watched her go and took a breath, then headed into Alya’s room.
“Hey!” Alya was lying on her bed in her demonic form, which now looked a bit blotchy and mottled. The base of Alya’s wings in particular were covered with some kind of splotchy growth, and as Juleka watched Alya tried to scratch them but couldn’t quite reach. “You okay? I mentioned you were coming over and Nora freaked out.”
“I’m fine,” said Juleka as she set down her bag. “Nora just told me to make you feel better. Apparently I’m supposed to… let me see…” She looked at the book. “Sprinkle you with goat’s blood, then puree the prepared heart of a lamb and have you drink it…” She flashed a wry smile. “Do you like your lamb heart prepared any particular way, o mighty demon?”
Alya groaned theatrically. “Agh! Nora’s cures for things are worse than the diseases. Please don’t do any of the goat’s blood or lamb’s heart stuff.” The two laughed. Then Alya reached at her back again but still couldn’t reach the splotches at the bases of her wings. “Stupid demon-rot…”
Juleka paused, then went over to the bed. “Here. Let me get that.” She sat down and began to gently scratch the splotches.
“You don’t need to… oh. Oh, yeah, right there.” Alya let out a sigh of contentment as Juleka massaged the inflamed and splotchy patches of skin on her back. “Oh, you’re awesome.”
Juleka smiled slightly as she continued to work on Alya’s back, as well as a couple of blotchy spots near the base of her horns too. The demon made contented noises, almost purrs, and her tail began to thump on the bed and against Juleka’s legs. “That better?” Juleka asked.
“Like you wouldn’t believe. You’re the best high priestess ever,” sighed Alya. “Way better than that stupid toady Asmodeus got that he never shuts up about.”
Juleka massaged Alya for about fifteen minutes until Alya declared she was feeling a lot better and needed to get to studying. Then they got the books out and began going over Juleka’s notes, with Juleka still giving Alya an occasional scratch or massage on one of her sore spots. 
“Best high priestess ever,” Alya repeated quietly, and Juleka couldn’t help but grin.
###
The next day, Juleka got a text from Alya that she was feeling much better. “I’m practicing with Kitty Section before the fashion show,” Juleka wrote back. “You can come by if you want.”
But by the time Alya had gotten there, practice had been canceled and Juleka was consoling a sobbing Rose. “It’s awful!” Rose was saying. “I can’t believe it happened again!”
“What’s wrong?” said Alya, now wrapped in her human guise, as she climbed onto the Liberty.
“That XY jerk stole our music again.” Juleka growled something inarticulate and hugged Rose more tightly. “And Bob Roth threatened to sue us for slander if we protest.”
“You should tell people anyways,” said Alya at once. “We’ll show him.”
Juleka shook her head. “The last time this happened, Luka got akumatized when he found out. We can’t risk that happening again.” She looked down. “We’ll figure something out, Rose. We can write another song.”
“Maybe…”
Alya hesitated, and then a faint smile crossed her face while Rose’s head was buried in Juleka’s arms. Juleka saw the smile and gave Alya a querying look, but Alya just waved it off. “Well, let me know if you want to go public; I’ll talk about it on the Ladyblog if you do,” she said. “Anyways, I just came by to say I couldn’t hang around for practice after all. Maybe next time. Later!” And she hurried off.
Juleka didn’t think too much about it until an hour later when, as she sat in her cabin with Rose on her lap while they ate ice cream and tried to think of a new song, Luka came in. “Hey, you guys hear? Something’s going down at Bob Roth’s studios.”
The two girls looked at each other and then Juleka opened up her laptop to see a news report. “Fire at a major studio!” Nadja Chamack was saying while Roth’s building burned behind her. “Preliminary reports are that a fire somehow ignited in the server room and destroyed most of the master recordings, including a new piece of music scheduled to debut later today. The fire then spread through the building–oh, Mr. Roth!” Bob Roth and XY had just burst out of the building as firemen ran into it. “Do you have any–”
“GET ME OUT OF HERE!” XY was screaming. “THIS PLACE IS HAUNTED!”
“Monsters!” Roth gasped. “A monster set everything on fire! Aaah!” And the two ran away.
Chamack blinked, then shrugged. “So to recap: a fire at a record studio appears to have driven famous pop musician XY and his manager Bob Roth into temporary states of insanity, as well as destroyed their new release. We’ll keep you informed. Now back to the station.”
“Hey,” said Rose as Nadja’s feed cut off. “If their recording was destroyed–that means they don’t have our music anymore! We can still release it and Roth can’t claim it was his first!”
Juleka smiled to herself. She had a pretty good idea of which 'monster’ had started that fire. “Yeah,” she said. “We can.”
Later, when Juleka was biking home, she happened to come across Alya and braked to stop near her. “Thanks,” she said.
Alya put on an innocent expression. “Who, me?” she said sweetly. “But I would never burn down a record studio! I’m very innocent and gentle.”
Juleka laughed at that, and after a moment Alya followed suit. “Hey, just like you look after me, I’m supposed to look after you,” Alya said. “I’d lose all my cred if I let someone mess with my high priestess. You guys practicing tomorrow?”
“Yep.”
“Well, I’ll be there. Unless Roth tries again.” Alya winked, and Juleka grinned at her once more before biking off.
###
Two days later, Juleka helped Alya capture a soul for the first time.
“Our target is Aurore Beaureal, the wannabe weather girl,” Alya said. Juleka was with her in her bedroom, and Alya was in her natural demon form. Juleka smiled as she Alya’s tail lashing around eagerly while Alya spread out a map over her bed. “She’s a prime target for soul-capturing.”
“She is?” Juleka asked. “Why?”
“Because she wanted to be the weather girl but Mireille bribed the guy running the contest to pick her instead,” Alya said. “All I have to do is tell her and she’ll be so angry she’ll make a deal with me to get revenge–and then I’ll get her soul.”
Juleka shook her head. “Wait, back up. Mireille bribed Cataldi?”
“Of course she did. What, did you think a half million people really voted in a competition for a local news show to pick a weather reporter?” Alya shook her head. “One of my demon powers is… I guess you could call it a 'sin’ sense. I can tell when people are doing corrupt or evil things, and when I saw Mireille that day she was practically glowing red to my eyes. So I knew she’d done something really bad, and after that I made a few guesses as to what it might be, then snuck into Alec Cataldi’s room and recorded him telling one of his goons how he was going on a shopping spree because Mireille had bribed him with so much money.”
It took a moment for Juleka to consider that fully. She didn’t know much about Mireille, although she had indeed found it odd that the weather girl had won the competition by so many votes. “Shouldn’t we be going after Mireille then?”
“I tried.” Alya frowned. “But her soul is… guarded, somehow. I can’t touch it. That usually means she’s pledged herself to another demon. Well, either that or an angel, but if she were with the angels she would have had to admit to what she did to Aurore and she hasn’t done that. So she has a different demon patron, probably the demon that’s preparing to go after Hawkmoth, and I don’t want to mess with that. We’ll take Aurore instead.”
“Why now?” Juleka asked.
“Because Mireille’s contract with the studio is almost up. If she wants to renew it she’ll need to win the next competition, which means she’ll be cheating Aurore out of it again.” Alya rubbed her hands together. “I just need to tell Aurore what’s going on and she’ll be putty in my hands.”
“Oh.” Juleka hesitated. “I’m, um, not really comfortable taking someone’s soul just because they’re mad about being cheated in a competition. I mean, those cultists were one thing because they tried to kill me, but…”
Alya waved a hand. “I’ll get her to agree to some really awful revenge on Mireille. Something damnation-worthy. I’ll make it work.”
Juleka wasn’t fully convinced, and she thought she heard something catching in Alya’s voice. The demon didn’t seem entirely comfortable with this either, and Juleka wondered if Alya was doing this more because she her superiors demanded damnation for even 'minor’ sins like Aurore’s anger, as opposed to Alya being truly convinced Aurore deserved it. “Are you sure?” Juleka asked gently.
“Sure I’m sure! Now come on!” Alya snapped her fingers to summon her glamour. “Aurore posted on her blog that she’ll be visiting the studio today to submit paperwork, and there’s all kinds of back hallways in that place. We’ll just catch her in one of them and get it done.”
She hurried out, and Juleka followed, though with clear unease on her face.
###
Juleka raised an eyebrow as Alya put on a hooded robe after sneaking them into the back hallways of the television studio. “In case she says no, I need to keep my cover,” Alya explained. “Besides, this makes me look more credible.”
“It really doesn’t,” Juleka said.
Alya stuck out her tongue. “Well, maybe not to you, but trust me–when you try to get someone to sell your soul, you can’t do it in jeans and a T-shirt. You need to look the part. Here.” She shoved a robe at Juleka. “I brought you one too.”
Juleka glanced at it, then pointedly dropped it. “What am I supposed to be doing here, anyways?”
“Right now, watch and learn. Eventually I might have you help me with temptations, but for the moment, I just want you to see how awesome I am.” Alya chuckled from beneath her hooded robe. “And–wait, those are her footsteps. Hide!” She pushed Juleka behind a stack of crates and then moved into a shadowy part of the hallway.
Soon enough a disgruntled-looking Aurore came up. “Why won’t they take my papers?” she growled as she glanced over an office map. “Last time was bad enough, but this time it’s like they don’t want me here!”
“They don’t,” intoned Alya in a low voice.
Aurore jumped and then swiveled to point her parasol in the general direction of Alya’s shadows. “Who was that?” she demanded. “I’m–I have an umbrella and I know how to use it!”
Juleka had to work to stifle her giggle.
Alya slipped out of the shadows, and as Juleka watched, Alya’s robe shuddered in an almost inhuman way. Juleka made a note to ask her how she did that. Then Alya spoke again, “I think you know they don’t want you here. Mireille bribed the host last year, and she did it again this year. Your application to compete won’t even be accepted. They’ll have Mireille run against a fake candidate who already agreed to take a dive, and thus she’ll win for sure.” Alya shook her head. “Such a shame.”
Aurore flushed. “Why should I believe you? You’re just a creepy person in a scary robe!”
“Am I?” Alya held up a phone, her hand briefly shifting into its natural state–red, with talon-like fingers–before blinking back to its human form again. Aurore boggled but didn’t flee–Juleka figured Aurore was trying to tell herself she was just seeing things–and then Alya hit a playback button on the phone. 
“…going to be eating steaks and sushi for a month!” Alec’s voice said. “That Caquet girl paid me so much I can really take it easy for a while!” He laughed. “Maybe I’ll finally get that sports jacket… nah, I’ll wait until Caquet wants to win something else and comes knocking again. Say what you like about her, she’s loaded!”
Aurore flushed a bright crimson. “I knew it. I knew that jerk cheated!” Her fist clenched, and she dropped the papers she’d been carrying. “I worked harder, I was better, I deserved to win! Just because she has money–agh!” She slammed her fist into the wall.
“It’s so unfair,” Alya agreed. “But I could help you get revenge.” She lowered her hood just enough to reveal her horns and red skin. Aurore gasped, but Alya said, “What? In a world with miraculouses and akumas, are you so surprised there are other powers out there?” She waited for Aurore to jerkily shake her head. “So, Aurore. Would you like my help?”
“And what do you want in exchange?” managed Aurore. 
“I think you know.” Alya moved closer to Aurore. “Your soul. But in exchange… revenge on Mireille, perhaps Alec too, the job as weather girl, and so much more.” She spread her hands. “Well?”
Aurore hesitated, and Juleka could tell she was really tempted. But then she shook her head. “No,” she said twice, first hesitantly, then more strongly. “I don’t–just forget it. No way. I’m not the kind of person who would do something like that.”
She turned, but Alya quickly moved around her to face her again. “Not so fast,” she said in a charming tone. “You don’t want to give up your soul; I get it. We can work something else out. In fact… I might be able to lend you a little magic help to get your revenge, just so you can see what I"m offering. No other charge.”
Juleka frowned, but then remembered that Alya had told her there were at least two ways for her to take a soul: either to get someone to explicitly make a deal with her in which they gave it to her, or to convince someone to do something evil enough that Alya could just take the soul without a deal. The first tactic had failed, so now Alya would be trying to get Aurore to agree to some really bad sin and thus allow Alya to get the soul that way.
“Magic?” repeated Aurore.
“Sure.” Alya leaned close. “For instance, if I gave you a certain power you could…” and her speech trailed off as she whispered something, presumably advice on how to use magic to do something really evil, into Aurore’s ear.
But rather than agree, Aurore stiffened and then shoved Alya back. “What? No way. I’d never do that, not even for revenge. I told you, I’m not that kind of person.” She scowled. “You’re terrible, you know that?”
“But–” Alya began.
“Why am I even talking to you? Get out of here before I call Ladybug.” Aurore backed away. “And–”
Then Alya’s phone went off.
Aurore and Alya both stared down at Alya’s pocket, and Juleka winced–Alya had a distinctive ringtone, a theme song from one of those shows following investigative reporters, and everyone knew it because her phone sometimes went off when she was filming Ladyblog stuff. “Uh,” said Alya. “Hang on–”
“Alya?” asked Aurore. “Is that you?”
“No!” Alya insisted as she reached for her phone, but Aurore was faster and swept out her umbrella to fully knock down the demon’s hood. That revealed her head, which–though red and with horns–was still noticeably that of Alya Cesaire. “Alya?” breathed Aurore. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m not Alya!” yelped the reporter. “You can’t prove–”
Aurore turned, said, “Stay away from me!” and began to run for the exit.
As soon as she had turned a corner Alya slammed her head against a wall. “Stupid stupid stupid!” she hissed. “I completely botched that!”
“Yeah,” Juleka noted. “You did.”
Alya shot her a mock glare, but it quickly dissolved into fear. “If she tells people I’ll have to move and change identities, assuming I don’t get recalled to Hell and punished, and without her soul I can’t influence her to–”
“Wait.” Juleka thought quickly. “I might be able to set her up so you can take her soul. But then you have to do me a favor.”
Alya blinked. “Sure, anything, but how can you–”
“No time.” Juleka grabbed the office map Aurore had dropped. “Just follow me at a distance. And 'watch and learn.’” She shot a faint smile at Alya, then took off at a run.
Aurore had a head start but no longer had a map, which meant Juleka was able to catch up to the lost girl before Aurore could find her way back into the inhabited parts of the station. She reached the blond’s position just before Aurore would have passed through an exit door, then grabbed a random object–a little ball that someone, probably Manon Chamack, had left lying around–and gently tossed it at Aurore’s head before ducking into an open office.
“Huh?” gasped Aurore as the ball bounced off her. She spun around. “What was that?”
“You are Rain Delay,” called Juleka in her lowest, most imposing voice, “And this is Hawkmoth. I–”
“Oh, come on!” complained Aurore. “What, are all the bad guys trying to tempt me today?”
Juleka smiled. Aurore had been akumatized, but seeing as how it was hard to remember what happened once Hawkmoth touched someone, that didn’t mean she knew what it was supposed to feel like. For all Aurore knew it was a simple 'butterfly bumps into you and turns you evil’ thing. Meaning she’d have no way of knowing Juleka was faking. “Tempt you?” she said. “Oh, no no no. I’m helping you get revenge. No need to thank me, just get me the jewelry, yadda yadda.”
“I’m not–”
“Yes you are,” said Juleka. “You already want to. Your anger is growing. Nobody can resist me.”
Aurore hesitated, and Juleka smiled; she’d figured Aurore correctly. Aurore hadn’t refused Alya’s offers because she was opposed to taking revenge; rather, she just didn’t want to feel like she was the kind of bad person who would agree to a demonic bargain in order to get said revenge. But everyone knew that nobody could resist Hawkmoth, which meant that it wasn’t anyone’s fault for getting akumatized. So all she had to do was convince Aurore that Hawkmoth was making her do something bad, and Aurore–now believing that anything evil she did wasn’t really her fault but just was Hawkmoth’s influence–would go along with it. 
And Aurore finally said, “…yes,” in a tight, angry voice as a cruel smile crawled across her face. “Give me power and I’ll destroy Mireille. I’ll bury her in a storm, I’ll drown her, and Alec, and–”
And then Alya slipped out of the shadows behind Aurore and easily pulled her soul out of her chest.
Aurore flinched and shuddered, then turned–and gaped at Alya holding a ball of blueish-gold light about the size of a billiard ball. “What–”
“Your soul,” said Alya by way of explanation. “Mine now.” She glanced in Juleka’s direction. “Well done, high priestess. Your help was useful.”
“Help?” said Juleka in a joking tone. She came out of the shadows–Alya had Aurore’s soul, so she could ensure Aurore didn’t tell anyone about her identity–and frowned. “Is that what we’re calling 'doing the whole thing?’”
Aurore reached for her soul, but her hand passed through it without making contact. “Give that back!” she insisted.
“Nope. Mine now.” Alya beamed. “I’ll be taking this Down Below and–”
“You can’t!” insisted Aurore. “That wasn’t fair! I’m sorry!”
Alya hesitated and Juleka saw real conflict on her face. The goth coughed. “Hey, Alya, remember that favor you said you’d owe me if I got you her soul?”
“Yeah?”
Aurore turned. “Wait, Juleka Couffaine, right?” she asked. “Why are you helping her do this?!”
“She’s my high priestess,” said Alya.
“She what?!” Aurore sputtered. “You can’t have a high priestess! You’re a demon! You–”
“Aurore,” said Juleka at once. “Hold on a minute. I need to say something to Alya.”
The blond scowled at her but stopped talking, and Juleka turned back to Alya. “My favor is: don’t take her soul down to Hell.”
Alya blinked. “But that’s the only reason I got it. To make my quota.”
“We can look for someone else to fill your quota, a real bad guy. I’ll help you. But don’t take hers down there.” Juleka paused. “She doesn’t deserve it, Alya. You know that.”
“Well… I mean, my bosses–”
“Your bosses want you to take every soul that just barely steps over the line,” Juleka guessed. “Because they’re jerks. But I don’t think you want to do that. Getting rid of really bad people so they can’t hurt others, or work with Hawkmoth, or do things like that is one thing. Aurore’s not like that." 
The two locked gazes for a moment before Alya said, "…maybe… I mean…”
“No maybe about it,” said Juleka. “You know damning her isn’t the right thing to do. Besdies, I’m your high priestess and we made a deal: I’d get you her soul so she couldn’t tell the world that Alya Cesaire is actually a demon temptress running around Paris, and in exchange you’d do something for me. Well, what I want you to do is not damn her.”
Aurore blinked. “Um–”
“But–but then what do I do with her soul?” Alya asked. “I can’t give it back or she’ll be able to talk to people about me!”
“Can’t you just keep it around?” Juleka asked. “In, I don’t know, a desk drawer or something?”
“Hey!” Aurore said. “I–”
“–were going to willingly ally with Hawkmoth,” said Juleka in a deadpan tone. “If you’d been successful you would have stolen the miraculouses and possibly helped Hawkmoth conquer the world. You’re getting off easy, Aurore.”
Aurore blushed a bright red, but then bowed her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just–I worked so hard on the weather competition, and learning that Mireille cheated… but alright, I know I should have tried harder to resist 'Hawkmoth.’ Still, I don’t want Alya to mess with my soul!”
Juleka turned back to Alya. “As long as you don’t try to rewrite her personality, will you having her soul effect her?”
“No. I mean, there might be a few odd issues now and then, but nothing big. I do need to make her loyal so she doesn’t tell–”
Juleka swiveled again. “Aurore, if you tell anyone about Alya or me, she’ll have to move and change identities, and then you won’t be able to get your soul back from her because you won’t be able to find her. So you won’t tell anyone, will you?”
The blond quickly shook her head. 
“Great.” Juleka smiled at both of them. “Then there’s no need for Alya to 'mess with’ Aurore’s soul, about loyalty or anything else. Alya can just hang on to it until… I don’t know… Aurore demonstrates she’s not the type of person to work with Hawkmoth anymore, no matter how mad she gets.” She nodded. I’m glad we worked this out.“
Alya and Aurore both seemed like they wanted to argue, but neither could come up with anything. And that was that.
###
"This is weird,” Aurore said.
They had returned to Alya’s house and Alya had put Aurore’s soul on her dresser, where it lit up the immediate area with a gentle blue and yellow light. Aurore had tried to take it back, or at least poke it, but her hand just passed through it; Alya had explained that only those whom she allowed to touch it could do so now that it was hers. “This is so weird,” Aurore said. “I mean, I’m happy I’m not getting damned, but…”
“Alya will take good care of your soul,” Juleka promised. “I’ll make sure of it. We’ll polish it every week, maybe take it for walks on Fridays.” Alya playfully stuck out her tongue. “And hey, if you want to check in on it maybe you can come over now and then.” When Nora is away, Juleka thought. “We could have you over for girl’s night. Ooh, you could even join my cult.”
Alya brightened. “Yeah! We need more members.”
“…cult?” asked Aurore. “What, like chanting?”
“It’s mostly watching anime, eating ice cream, and telling dumb jokes,” said Juleka. Alya tossed a pillow at her, and she easily dodged it. “But if you really want to chant I can pencil that in somewhere.”
Aurore actually laughed a little at that. “No, that’s okay.” She paused. “Um, does the whole stealing-my-soul thing being… allowed to happen, I guess… mean I’m a really bad person?”
“It means you did a really bad thing,” said Alya. “I wouldn’t be able to take your soul otherwise.”
“But,” Juleka went on, “It doesn’t mean you’re irrevocably bad. That’s just for people who actually do get sent Down Below. You can get better. We’ll help.” She smiled gently. “And also have some fun. For instance: the meeting of the Cult of Alya Cesaire is this Saturday at noon. We’re going to be 'worshipping’ Alya by watching Lord of the Rings–which she somehow hasn’t seen–”
“They don’t have human movies in Hell!” protested Alya. “At least none of the good ones!”
Aurore and Juleka both laughed at that, and then Juleka went on. “We will also be snacking on stuff from the Dupain-Cheng bakery and talking about what to get Principal Damocles for his birthday. And maybe we can fit in some, I don’t know, moral instruction or something. Sound good?”
“Yeah.” Aurore nodded. “I… I guess I’ll see you two then.” And she left.
Alya left out a breath and sagged down on her bed. “Ugh. That was a trainwreck,” she muttered. “I need to get better at tempting.”
“Fortunately, you have your expert high priestess to help,” joked Juleka.
Alya smiled at that. Then she said, “And… thanks. For coming up with the idea of what to do with Aurore. I think–I think you were right. Damning her would have been the wrong move.”
“Of course I"m right.” Juleka sat next to Alya, who leaned on her shoulder. “Happy to help.”
“Yeah… but I still need to get another soul by the end of the week.” Alya pursed her lips. “I–”
Juleka’s phone beeped with an alert. She looked down at it. “Hey, some nutjobs are trying to rob a bank,” she said. “And they’ve taken hostages that they’re threatening to shoot. If you hurry I’ll bet you can get their before Ladybug, steal a few souls from the robbers, and make your quota that way.”
Alya brightened. “Yeah, that’s perfect!” She jumped to her cloven feet. “Thanks again, Juleka! You’re great.”
“I know,” said Juleka as Alya ran out. Then she chuckled and lay back in the bed. Becoming a counselor and spiritual advisor to a demon–and, apparently, at least one newly-soulless girl who needed a little anger management–wasn’t really where she’d seen herself going when the year had begun.
But that didn’t make it not fun.
Chapter 4
It was about one month after Juleka had learned Alya’s secret when things began getting hectic again.
“You know what I think?” Rose asked as she lay on Juleka’s lap, staring at the sky while they finished their lunches. “I think we should do something special tomorrow. We should go to Andre’s ice cream cart, get our favorite flavors, and then ride in one of those boats that goes up and down the Seine.”
“Sounds fun,” said Juleka. She gently stroked Rose’s hair, and the girl grinned and wriggled deeper into Juleka’s lap. “Is tomorrow a special occasion?”
“The most special of all!” said Rose. “Tomorrow is our six-and-a-half month anniversary!" 
Juleka chuckled. "Ah. How could I forget. The most important day in any loving relationship–”
“Don’t make fun of love,” said Rose. “It’s amazing. Like, I love you, so when I look at you my heart starts racing and I feel like the most fortunate girl in the world.” Juleka blushed at that. “And I’m sure you feel the same way, 'cause you’re also in love!”
“Sounds about right,” said Juleka. “Although, at the moment, I’d kind of love to get back to class before Mendeleiev gives us detention…”
Rose checked her watch and made a soft 'eep’ sound. “You’re right!” she said as she scrambled upright. “But let’s cuddle more later. It’s fun.” She grinned at Juleka before rushing back to the school, with Juleka following at a slightly more sedate pace.
Juleka had gotten inside and was heading towards the classroom when she saw Alya approaching. “I think Marinette’s in that room there,” Nino was calling to her from around a corner. “I heard her say Lila wanted to talk to her about something.”
“Thanks!” Alya called back. Then she looked at Juleka. “Hey. Got any plans for this afternoon?”
“Cuddling with Rose,” said Juleka. “And after that… I dunno. We can do something or–”
A yelping noise sounded from the closed room. Jueka and Alya glanced at each other, then quickly looked through a crack in the door. Juleka’s eyes widened as she saw Lila pulling her hand away from Marinette; the hand looked bruised and Marinette was giving LIla an astonished look. “That’s all you’ve got? Poking me in the chest? Whatever. I’m done with you." 
Marinette stalked towards the other door. As soon as she left, Lila’s scowl deepened, and then–
Then her body flashed and took on an appearance similar to that of Alya’s.
They weren’t exactly the same. Lila’s horns, wings, and tail were all larger than Alya’s, and her skin was a deeper red. She also had some tattoos which writhed a little on her body. But they were clearly the same species, and Juleka couldn’t stop herself from gasping. 
"No!” hissed Alya as she covered Juleka’s mouth.
But it was too late. Lila glanced at the door, then waved one claw-like hand at it and whispered something in Latin, and then Juleka felt herself being dragged through the door by an unseen force. Alya was dragged in besides her, and the two were thrown to the ground in front of LIla.
“So,” said Lila. “I guess you two will be my next acquisitions.” She waved a hand and the door shut behind them. “Don’t worry, though. I’m not too hard of a taskmaster. Your souls will be safe and–”
“Hang on!” said Alya as she forced herself to her feet. Her body shimmered and then she was in her natural demonic form too. Juleka scrambled up afterwards. “Our souls aren’t up for grabs. I’m gathering souls for the bosses, same as you. And, uh, Juleka’s the high priestess of my cult.”
Lila blinked and then stared at Juleka. “You. The high priestess. That’s insane. She can’t possibly do the job.”
“I get that a lot,” Juleka drawled. “But it turns out I’m really good at chanting.”
Lila rolled her eyes. “Har har. If your demon shows up at midnight half-dead from fighting a paladin, can you rush out and sacrifice a vestal virgin to restore her strength?”
“No,” said Juleka, “but I can watch anime with her on the weekends. It makes her happy, and it comes up a lot more than the vestal virgin thing.”
Lila boggled, and then Alya stepped between them. “But seriously, I had no idea,” she told Lila. “I mean, you’re always doing charity work with these famous celebrities from all over the world and…” She trailed off for a moment. “…and now that I know who you are, I can see those stories are totally ridiculous and you’ve probably been using demonic magic to make everyone believe them.”
“Exactly. And even if Dupain-Cheng is still too 'pure’ right now for it to work on her, everyone else believes me. It’s the perfect cover.” Lila beamed. “And I’ll get Marinette eventually.”
“Hang on,” said Alya quickly. “That’s–that’s not a good idea. I mean, you just tried to get Marinette’s soul and you failed, right? That girl is damn-near incorruptible. No way would she ever do anything bad enough to be vulnerable to one of us. You’re better off looking elsewhere.”
Juleka gave Alya a querying look. The girl sounded nervous. Evidently Lila picked up at it too, because she leaned back on her cloven hooves, then grinned. “Oh, I get it! You’re actually friends with that little pink rodent!”
Alya scowled. “Marinette is… nice,” she said at last. “We’re allowed to have friends.”
“No, we’re allowed to fake being friends so we can get their souls.” Lila snorted. “As if humans were worthy of friendship. Bunch of self-righteous morons who’ve never really been tested and think they’re better than us. Put any of them with a decent tempter for thirty seconds and they’d sell their souls, their lovers, and their children to satisfy some sick desire. I might be here for Hawkmoth and Mayura, but along the way I’ll get Marinette, Alya. I’ll get anyone I want.”
“Marinette,” said Alya in a slow voice, “Is off limits. So are all my friends in class. Come on, Lila, Paris has millions of people. You can go after any of them.”
“Sure. I could. But I think I’ll go after Marinette and her friends instead.” Lila grinned. “Marinette annoys me. She acts like she’s virtuous, and she’s so… smugly casual about it. Like she doesn’t even have to try at it. Like anyone could be that nice if they wanted.” She shuddered. “Filthy human. And I don’t think she’ll be hard to get at all, Alya. See, first I’ll get the souls of her friends and make them act incredibly cruel to her. Then, when she’s hurt and broken, I’ll corrupt her and take her soul too. Hmm, maybe when I finish here and get back down to Hell I can have her as a personal thrall to trim my hooves and everything.”
Alya opened her mouth, but then Lila began talking again. “Besides, I have my own career to look out for, don’t I? Right now I know of two demons in Paris: you and me. If anything big happens, we’ll share credit, and half-credit’s just not enough for me. But if one of those demons should, say, lose her cover–because all of her friends start telling people she’s a demon, working to expose her, maybe even going crazy and drawing attention to her–she’ll have to leave. Then I’ll be alone, and when I capture Hawkmoth’s and Mayura’s souls–not to mention Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s, of course–I’ll be promoted for sure. I might even become an archfiend and have a whole legion of lesser demons under my command." 
Juleka stared at Lila as the demon grinned. "Sorry, Alya,” Lila went on. “But that’s how the game is played. If you don’t like the thought of me stealing all your 'friends” souls in front of you and using them to force you out in disgrace, you can leave now, quietly, with your dignity and reputation intact. I’ll be sure to keep you apprised on how my work in corrupting Marinette is going.“ She chuckled, then walked past Alya towards the door. "See you around, partner,” she called, then summoned her human guise around herself and left.
When the other demon was gone, Juleka shut the door and turned to Alya, who was starting to panic. “No no no!” Alya hissed. “This can’t be happening! This isn’t fair! I don’t want Lila to touch them!”
“Can you call your bosses?” Juleka asked.
Alya snorted. “They’ll tell me if I"m not strong enough to fight off Lila I deserve to lose everything to her. Damn it! We have to do something, but her magic felt really strong. I don’t know if I can fight it.”
“I could worship you more,” offered Juleka. 
“One or two worshippers won’t be enough, and even if you post an ad on Craigslist or something and get more recruits we don’t’ have time. Lila will already started corrupting the class more aggressively.” Alya clutched her head. “This is awful.”
Juleka thought for a few moments. “But we do have time, at least a little. Lila just tried to get Marinette’s soul and couldn’t, and in fact, her hand looked pretty messed up from the attempt. Do you know what that means?”
“That something’s blocking her, I’d guess.” Alya shrugged. “Marinette might have angelic backing; she’s pure enough it wouldn’t surprise me… although if she did they would probably have warned her about me by now. Or maybe some other semi-divine force is protecting her, though I have no idea what.”
“Still,” said Juleka. “We just saw she can’t get Marinette’s soul.”
Alya shook her head. “She can’t directly, not yet, but her plan’s a good one. Marinette loves her friends. If Lila gets their souls and warps them so the class is horrible to Marinette, then Marinette could break and become vulnerable.”
“Hmm.” Juleka thought back, and then an idea hit her. “You said you couldn’t get Mireille’s soul because someone already had it.”
“Right.”
“So why don’t we try to get the class’s souls before Lila does? If you have them locked up then Lila can’t loot them.” Juleka tensed as she spoke. She had no idea how she’d go about getting Rose’s soul in particular without it seeming like a betrayal. But if that was the only way to keep her girlfriend safe from Lila, Juleka would do it. 
Alya blinked. “That… that just might work!” she beamed. “Juleka, you’re brilliant!” And she hugged the goth.
“Thanks,” managed Juleka. “I–”
“There’s no time to lose,” said Alya. “We’ll start today. Operation: protect the class from Lila by stealing all their souls first is a go!”
Chapter 5
“Let’s deal with Alix first.”
Juleka leaned against the wall and looked at Alya, who was putting together a corkboard with photos of their classmates. Alya drew a red circle around Alix and then put a ’#1’ next to it. “She’ll be one of the easiest,” Alya went on. “She’s so hot-headed. All we have to do is challenge her to a dare and get her to bet her soul on it, then win!”
“Winning might be tough,” Juleka noted. “Alix is pretty competitive.”
“Fortunately, being a demon, I’m allowed to cheat.” Alya winked. “And that’s what you’re for. You’ll help me rig things so that I can’t help but win. Then her soul will be mine!” She grinned and summoned a small ball of Hellfire, which she began to toss up and down in one hand. “And then I–”
The Hellfire slammed into the ceiling light and blew it out, shrouding both of them in darkness–except for the light emanating from Aurore’s soul, which was quietly glowing on a shelf. Alya shrugged, then picked up the soul and began using it as a flashlight to see the corkboard. Juleka snorted. “I don’t think you’re supposed to use souls like that.”
Alya waved this off. “Now let’s see… ah. I’ve got the perfect way we can trap Alix in a bet she can’t win.”
###
“A race around the city?” Alix’s eyes gleamed. “That sounds awesome! The news station really asked you to help them plan it?”
“They know I go around the city to film Ladybug, so I guess I was the natural choice.” Juleka smiled slightly as Alya tossed her hair back, then gestured at the map she had set down on the cafe table where she had asked Alix to meet her. “I just need to get from checkpoint to checkpoint and then report back if there were any problems with the route–you know, road under construction, 'no pedestrian’ signs, zombie outbreak, things like that. I won’t even need to tell them how long it took, since the checkpoints are set up so that they’ll register when peoples’ phones get near them; that’s how they’ll make sure nobody tries to cheat by skipping a checkpoint, and that’s how they’ll record my time. So it seems really easy, right? But I was thinking, it’d be really boring to do it by myself, so… why not make it a race?” She gestured to her bike. “Me  versus you? You can use your skates, of course.”
Alix cracked her knuckles. “Sounds like a blast. But if we’re racing, we should have stakes. Winner gets the losers’ wheels?”
“Can’t do that.” Alya shook her head. “Mom will kill me if I lose my bike.”
“Hmph,” said Alix. “Well, we have to bet something, and it should be high stakes. None of this 'winner gets a cookie from Marinette’s bakery’ stuff. Something worth racing around the city for.”
“I agree, but what?” Alya glanced at Juleka. “Any ideas?”
The goth chuckled to herself, then said her lines. “I’m sure you guys’ll probably just bet ten bucks or something,” she said in a dry, slightly smug voice that she’d rehearsed with Alya. “I mean, I’ve seen weirder bets, but mostly just from some pagans I met online.”
“What kinds of bets do they make?” Alix asked.
“Well, I saw one group where they gambled blood,” lied Juleka. “Winner got a pint of blood from the loser.”
Alix wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”
“What? It’s high stakes betting, right?” Juleka smiled slightly. “And that wasn’t even the weirdest one. I saw one bet where the winner got the loser’s soul.”
Alix actually laughed. “Goth much, Juleka? Souls don’t exist.”
“Then you shouldn’t have any problem betting it,” said Alya. “That sounds fun! Winner gets the loser’s soul… and two hundred bucks.”
Alix snorted. “Soul shmoul, but I could use the money. Deal. Count of three?”
“Sure!” Alya beamed. “One, two… three!”
Alix took off at a blast, immediately turning a corner and rushing towards the first checkpoint on Alya’s map–the Eiffel Tower. Alya waited until she was out of sight, then darted into the alley behind the cafe with Juleka. “Perfect!” said Alya as she sketched out a pentagram in chalk on the ground. “Let’s go!”
“And this will still count?” Juleka asked. 
“Of course it will. Alix made the deal: whoever gets to all the checkpoints first and then returns here wins the loser’s soul. Sure, it might not be fair for me to use my demon powers to teleport, but I didn’t explicitly say I was going to use my bike to get around–I just implied it–and besides, like I said, demons get to cheat.” Alya grinned. “It’s part of our style. Now come on; Alix is fast and we’ve got to get going.”
Juleka followed her into the pentagram. “Why am I being teleported too, again?”
“Because if anything goes wrong I’ll need your help to fix things,” Alya said. “And besides, part of being my high priestess is accompanying me on my adventures and giving me support.”
Juleka blinked. “Okay. Rah rah rah, Alya is great, rah rah.”
Alya giggled. “I meant magical support, in case I need it.” She took Juleka’s hand. “Let’s go!”
And then they vanished in a flash of brimstone and sulfur.
###
For a moment, Juleka thought she had the impressions of fire–massive flames higher and hotter than had ever existed on Earth–but they didn’t seem to touch her. And a moment later she was back on the ground, having arrived with Alya in the pentagram they had secretly sketched beforehand in a small janitor’s closet next to the Eiffel Tower.
They then disappeared and reappeared several times in quick succession, all over the city, hitting each checkpoint in succession. Finally they reached the last one, landing in a dingy basement under Montparnasse Tower, and Alya grinned. “Now just to get back to the cafe and wait for her!”
But when she tried to teleport, nothing happened, and Alya frowned. “What’s wrong?” she demanded. “This always worked when I practiced it!”
“Maybe somebody disturbed the pentagram in the alley,” Juleka offered. “So we can’t use it to get back.”
“Agh!” Alya groaned. “Then–then we’ll have to get back the old-fashioned way. But we should still be way ahead of Alix, so–OW!”
Juleka blinked as Alya held up a small ball of Hellfire to illuminate the area, and they both winced as they saw that Alya had stepped into what looked like an animal trap. “Guess they have rats or something down here,” said Juleka as she helped Alya to pry it off.
“Stupid rats,” grunted Alya. “Ow, that really hurts…”
They got the trap off, but when Alya put her foot down she yelped and had to lift it again. “Will you be okay?” Juleka said at once. “Are you–”
“I’m fine. Demons heal fast… but not fast enough to win the race on foot.” Alya grit her teeth and leaned on Juleka. “We have to get as close to the cafe as we can before Alix catches us.’
"Then what?” Juleka asked. “You need to beat Alix, so is there any way I can slow her down while you go ahead?”
Alya nodded. “Yeah. I can… I can lend you some powers. Technically I’m supposed to demand you give me blood and swear more loyalty and so on, but whatever. I’m desperate. Here.”
She grabbed Juleka’s hand, the one that she’d cut to get Juleka into her cult, and chanted a few words in Latin. Juleka gasped as another surge of power flowed into her, this one deeper and more powerful than the first. Her hair stood on end for just a moment and she stumbled away from Alya as the surge faded. “What was that?”
“Just a couple basic powers,” Alya said. “Standard high priestess starter pack: Hellfire summoning, and a few passive spells related to magical strength, toughness, and so on. It should be pretty instinctive.”
Juleka blinked, then focused on her hand–and to her amazement, a surge of energy ran through her and a little flame appeared at her fingertips. “Woah!” she gasped. “That is so cool!”
“Yeah, yeah, demons are awesome, I get it,” said Alya. “Can we focus on the race right now?”
“Right, right. Here.” Juleka got Alya’s arm around her shoulder and began helping her limp back towards the cafe.
###
They almost made it back by the time Alya said, “Okay, Alix just hit Montparnasse. She’ll catch up to us in a couple minutes.”
“How can you–”
“I can sense when people I know go near my pentagrams.” Alya winced. “The cafe’s not that far. You just need to stall her for a couple minutes. But nothing too flashy in public, okay? If someone videotapes you summoning balls of Hellfire–”
Juleka nodded. “I know, I know. You’ll be very upset that they’ll have scooped you before you could get it on the Ladyblog.”
Alya snorted. “And, you know, you could be seen and then hunted down by angels and paladins. But other than that, yes, the blog is the most important thing.”
They got to a corner and Juleka let Alya limp on ahead towards the cafe. Then Juleka ducked into another alley and kept watch, soon seeing Alix furiously skating down the sidewalk. She thought for a moment about what she could do with her powers. Something very subtle, she thought, would probably be best. Something subtle and sneaky and…
Then she shrugged. She had Hellfire now. What was the point of that if she couldn’t have a little fun with it? 
So she focused, summoned up a big ball of Hellfire, and then–from the safety of the alley, where nobody was watching–lobbed it at a fire hydrant in Alix’s path.
The fireball blasted the hydrant to pieces, and jets of water began shooting in all directions. Alix yelped as a water blast hit her and destabilized her. She almost fell, but Juleka darted out from the alley and caught her. Before she wouldn’t have been able to do so, but Alya had given her just a taste of demonic strength and she was easily able to arrest Alix’s fall. “Careful!” she said as she helped Alix slow and then stop. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!” said Alix. “Stupid hydrant just exploded!” She quickly shook herself off. “But no worries. I’ll still beat Alya back.”
Juleka stepped out of Alix’s way, but just as the skater began to take off again Juleka fired a very tiny bit of Hellfire down at her skates and melted one of the wheels. Alix tried to roll and almost tripped. “Oh, come on, what now?” she growled as she looked down.
“Looks like a piece of the hydrant may have smashed the wheel,” Juleka offered.
Alix kicked off her skates and shoved then into Juleka’s arms. “Hold these,” she said. “Don’t lose them.” And then she took off at a run.
Juleka frowned, not knowing how to further slow Alix, and began running after her. The girl was fast and even Juleka’s demonic-enhanced energy wasn’t enough to enable the goth to overtake her friend. But she was able to keep pace, just barely, and she chased after Alix as they rounded the final corner–
Just in time to see Alya stagger into the cafe and then turn. “I win!” Alya called as Alix groaned. “Hah!”
“Hmph.” Alix slowly approached Alya. “Only because a fire hydrant blew up.”
Alya glanced at Juleka, who smiled slightly. Alya returned the look with a grin of her own. “Guess you owe me.”
“Yeah, I’ll grab the money from my room and drop it off at your place. Oh yeah, and my 'soul.’” Alix chuckled. “Love to see you collect that, Cesaire.”
###
“You JERKS!”
Alya, now back in her room and in her demonic form, beamed triumphantly as she held Alix’s soul up in the air. Alix jumped for it, but she was so short she couldn’t even reach Alya’s hand. “I thought you said you wanted to see me collect it.”
“I wasn’t being literal!” Alix jumped again. If Alya’s demonic form phased her, she didn’t show it. “Juleka! Make her give it back! It's… it’s my soul!”
“Sorry.” Juleka shrugged. “I"m her high priestess. I’m on her side.” She paused. “Wow, Alix, your soul is really pink and red.”
Alya nodded. “Yeah, it’s kind of cute." 
"My soul is not cute!” Alix wailed. “It’s rough and tough! Like me!”
“No, it’s cute.” Alya poked it, and Alix suddenly stepped back and giggled. Alya blinked. “Wait, are you ticklish?”
“Uh–no! No way!” Alix insisted.
Alya and Juleka exchanged knowing glances, and then Alya began to tickle Alix’s soul, causing the redhead to collapse in hysterical laughter. “Stop!” Alix begged as she laughed wildly. “Stop please!”
“Only if you promise to stop yelling,” Alya said primly. And after a little more tickling, Alix had to give in.
Alya set Alix’s soul next to Aurore’s, and Alix tried to grab it but found she couldn’t touch it. “Seriously, what the Hell?” she demanded. “Look, Alya being a demon from Hell, fine, whatever, but taking my soul–”
“Another demon’s in town,” said Juleka. “Lila Rossi. She’s really good at collecting souls, and she’s coming after the class. We’re trying to get everyone’s souls first so she can’t actually send your souls to Hell.”
Alix hesitated. “Couldn’t you just warn us so we wouldn’t fall for her tricks?”
“Lila could get your soul even if you knew she was coming–I looked up her record after we learned about her, and she’s a validictorian-level tempter,” Alya said. “But don’t worry. As long as your soul’s safe with me, she can’t grab it!” She beamed. “You’re welcome.”
“I… agh.” Alix threw her head back. “What am I supposed to do now?”
Juleka smiled. “You could join the cult. Hang out with other people who’s soul got yeeted out of their bodies by Paris’s best demon.” Alya grinned. “See some really cool powers.” And she summoned a bit of Hellfire, causing Alix’s eyes to widen. “And watch some really, really ridiculous anime.”
“That's… that doesn’t sound like much of a cult,” Alix noted.
“Maybe for a lame demon who just wants to hear people talk about how great she is,” said Alya, “but my cult is very big on having everyone eat snacks and watch fun tv shows.” She paused. “Look, I–I get this is a big deal for you. I wasn’t planning on going after the souls of anyone at Francois Dupont, honest. But there was no other way to keep you safe from Lila. And if you’re in the cult, you can check in on your soul whenever we meet… we can watch out for each other, make sure Lila doesn’t attack…”
Alix slowly nodded. “Okay. I’m in. But I want your word that once Lila is gone you’re giving my soul back.”
“Sure,” said Alya. “I don’t need it for my quota anyways.”
They all looked at each other in silence for a moment before Alix said, “And can my soul at least get a blanket or something? It’s chilly in here.”
“It doesn’t need a blanket. It’s a soul; it can’t catch cold,” protested Alya.
“So? It’s still nippy!”
Juleka grinned and settled back as the two continued to argue. She’d helped protect someone today, she thought. She’d made it so Lila could not damn Alix. She’d done good. Nothing could ruin her mood.
###
Ten minutes after leaving Alya’s, she took a shortcut through an alley to get back to the Liberty, and then she almost bumped right into Lila Rossi.
“I know what you’re doing,” said Lila without preamble. “And it annoys me. I’ll give you one chance. Forswear Alya and take my side. I’ll give you more power and wealth, and–”
Juleka snorted. “Not a chance.”
“Fine.” Lila whistled, and something growled at Juleka from within the shadows. “Then you’ll get eaten by my pet Hellhound. See you never, Juleka.” She vanished in a puff of smoke as a gigantic wolf-like dog, drooling saliva that burned into the alley floor and breathing smoke and flame from its nostrils, approached.
Juleka gulped. Then she threw a blast of Hellfire at it, but it had no effect. Then it leapt at her and she cringed back–
Only for a blur to swoop in and knock it aside. 
Juleka stared as a short girl with blond hair, wings full of white feathers, and an actual halo raised a sword. “Begone, beast!” she roared in a very familiar voice. “And bother not the innocent, lest you taste divine wrath!”
“Uh,” said Juleka. “Um.”
Then the angel–whom Juleka knew very well as Rose Lavillant–turned back. “Juleka!” she said in a slightly nervous voice. “I, um… I have some things to tell you!”
Chapter 6
“Uh,” said Juleka. “Um.”
Her heart was beating very fast, and she quickly clenched her hand–the one that Alya had marked–into a tight fist so Rose couldn’t see her palm. “You’re an, um.”
“Angel,” said Rose. “And–hey! I said stop!” She pointed her sword at the Hellhound, which was still slavering. “The power of–”
The Hellhound leapt at Rose, who sighed, then quickly swung her sword up and decapitated the beast.
Juleka boggled as Rose wiped her sword clean on the alley wall. The Hellhound’s body shuddered, then both its head and the rest of it burst into flames and crumbled to ash. “As I was saying,” Rose said. “I’m an angel. I’ve been sent here to look out for the souls of Paris.”
“…a guardian angel is dating me?” Juleka asked.
And then Rose blushed. “Well, angels are allowed to love!” she said a little too quickly. “We’re not like the other guys. And–and you’re very lovable! I can see souls, and your soul is as bright and lovely as the sun!”
Despite everything, Juleka blushed. “Um.”
“You are! You’re kind, and loyal, and… oh!” Rose swiveled on her foot. “More Hellhounds!” Juleka turned to see four more darting in from the shadows deeper in the alley. “Stay back!”
Juleka cringed against the wall as Rose rushed forwards and dueled the Hellhounds, slashing and thrusting to keep them away. However, the sheer weight of numbers began forcing her back. “Begone!” Rose yelled again, but the Hellhounds didn’t listen. “Uh… begone, I said!”
“I don’t think they’re listening,” said Juleka.
Rose gave her a tiny frowned, then blinked. “Oh, I know! I can make you my paladin. Then I can give you powers to help!”
————
I LOVE IT YES ITS AWESOME
I’d love to see more but no stress, this was just so enjoyable
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luci-in-trenchcoats · 4 years ago
Text
A Place To Call Home: Dark Roads
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Summary: The reader and Jensen are up in Vancouver doing some work for the brewery and Jensen has an audition to attend to. After the work day is over though, Jensen decides to surprise the reader with a mini-vacation with plenty of fun before they head home. But not all surprises are good and not all nights end well...
Masterlist
Pairing: Jensen x foster daughter!reader
Square: Domestic!AU
Word Count: 10,100ish
Warnings: language, angst (so much angst), fluff
A/N: This part takes place after the Christmas Vacation timestamp. Enjoy! Don’t hate me!
A/N #2: Also written for @spndeanbingo​
________
“So, what do you think?” asked the man in the suit on the other side of the conference table. You looked to your left, your dad looking over at you.
“It is a good offer, Mr. Hamilton, but unfortunately we can’t accept,” you said. He balked at you before looking over to your dad.
“She’s the boss, not me,” he said. “It doesn’t sound like we have a deal.”
“Mr. Ackles-”
“Are you disrespecting her because she’s a woman or my child? I’m not quite sure which one it is,” said your dad with a smile. The man’s face went blank and you kept a smirk off your own. “I am here as an owner. If this is how your grocery store deals with heads of distribution for breweries then I’ll tell you right now, never call us again,” said your dad. You gathered up your papers and slid them back in your portfolio, the man taking a deep breath.
“What if we did 5% better than the number on that page?” he asked.
“No,” you said, your dad echoing the sentiment. 
“That’s an amazing deal,” he said as he stood up. You clenched your jaw and shoved your portfolio in your bag as your dad leaned back in his seat.
“Actually, Mr. Hamilton, it’s not. You offered the least desirable shelf space, a very small amount of shelf space at that, placement in your outer region stores, not in the city or suburbs surrounding Vancouver, and you wanted an absurd percent of profits. People in this area want our products and we are more than happy to find a seller that suits our needs,” you said. You nodded and your dad stood up. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Hamilton.”
Mr. Hamilton grumbled as you walked out of the conference room, your dad smiling wide as you walked through the hall.
“Alright. I’m impressed. You more than earned that promotion,” he said. 
“Negotiating distribution deals is strangely a lot like college,” you said. “But easier.”
“These guys weren’t even your first choice,” he said once you were in the elevator alone.
“Nope but they didn’t need to know that,” you said. “I wanted the other deal as soon as I saw it.”
“Well let’s send it out to the lawyer to review and then we can sign the paperwork,” he said.
“I already did,” you said with a smile. 
“You did huh. What if I wanted to go with this guy?” he asked.
“You may be the head owner but I’m head of distribution. I want your input but if you’re going to second guess me, I don’t want that job. I told you that when you gave it to me,” you said. He nodded and leaned back against the wall. “What?”
“S’nice to see you confident is all,” he said. “You know what you’re doing.”
“I really don’t. I just kinda try my best and hope it works out,” you said.
“Pretty much the definition of being an adult,” he chuckled.
“Does that feeling ever go away?” you asked.
“Well, I’m fifty one and I don’t feel much different than a twenty year old kid if I’m being honest. You learn not to sweat the small stuff as much I suppose but not really,” he said. 
“Like you getting gray hair,” you smirked. You earned a headlock for that comment, your dad only releasing you from your noogie when you got to the lobby. “Hey, at least you have hair still!”
“You are being such a little shit,” he laughed.
“I won’t tell anyone you dye it,” you said, humming as you headed for the exit.
“I do not! It’s a few specks and that’s it. Plus mom thinks it’s hot so I see no problems with it,” he said, pulling you into another noogie once you were outside. You fixed your hair, getting a peck on the temple. “Alright, alright. I got my audition I have to run to. You want to head back to the hotel and change and I can meet you back there later before I take you out for dinner?”
“Actually, could I go with you? I’ve never seen one of those,” you said. He winced and cocked his head. “I can go somewhere else, that’s-”
“It’s not a problem, munchkin. It’s just...it’s kind of an intense audition. It’s a drama. It’s a pretty dark scene,” he said.
“I’ve seen all of Supernatural though and the movie. I even read the other movie I wasn’t supposed to know about yet and that one goes way dark,” you said. He bit his bottom lip and you smiled. “It’s cool dad. You need to do your audition thing anyways.”
“You sure?” he asked. “If you want to-”
“Probably a better idea for me to wait until the movie,” you said. “I’ll meet you back at the hotel then?”
“Sounds like a plan, kiddo.”
“So how’d it go?” you asked when your dad walked in the hotel room three hours later. He sighed and you frowned. “You didn’t get it?”
“Oh, I got it,” he said, plopping down in the chair. You raised an eyebrow and he smiled. “I turned it down though, took a different part in the movie.”
“But why would you turn down the lead?” you asked. 
“You know how I said it’s supposed to be dark? But there’s that bit of love story?” he asked.
“Yeah. That’s what was cool to you about it you said.”
“Yeah. I met the lead actress who would be my romantic interest,” he said. 
“She not so great?”
“She was very lovely,” he said. “She’s also nineteen years old.”
“So...thirty two years age difference?” you said with a wince as he nodded. “Who thought that was a good idea?”
“Hollywood is...I am very happy you never wanted to be an actress, let’s put it that way,” he said. “Now I’m playing her dad in the movie. I would have walked completely but my manager is gonna kill me as is for walking from a lead roll,” he said.
“Do you really need it though?” you asked.
“No. I wanted to try out something new and interesting though,” he said. “That story was different.”
“Yeah but I see red flags all over it. Who’s even the target audience besides pervy old guys?” you asked. He laughed and nodded, getting to his feet.
“You have a very good point,” he said. “Besides, I got another album I want to work on in the meantime and there’s plenty of other stories out there.”
“Told you so,” you said. “Now where are we going for dinner cause last time it was that really fancy steakhouse downtown and-”
“Pack up your bag and we’ll head up,” he said with a smirk. You narrowed your eyes and he padded into the bathroom. “Oh, we’re staying somewhere else tonight. Maybe we can go visit the canyon-”
“I love the canyon park!” you said, hopping up from the bed. “Are the winter lights still up?”
“Yes,” he said with a big smile. “We got a three hour drive up there and then we’re gonna have a nice dinner and then we can go check it out before we fly home tomorrow. How’s that sound?”
“It sounds like, really nice. What’s the occasion?” you asked. 
“No occasion other than to see you get all excited,” he said. “You know mom and your brother are off having a fun little weekend together while your sisters drive TJ insane. I figured we could have one night of fun.”
“Are you kidding me? They love him. He texted me that they ordered a pizza each for themselves for dinner,” you said. “They were gonna stay up late and watch rom coms apparently.”
“You found a pretty good guy,” he chuckled, as he walked back out of the bathroom and stuck his small bag in his backpack. You gave him a quick smile and nod, your dad returning it. “You two doing good?”
“Yeah. I just…” you said, starting to pack up. “I don’t know.”
“Something going on?” he asked. You shrugged and put your heels in your suitcase. “Y/N.”
“You know how his parents were in town last week?” you asked. He nodded and you took a deep breath. “Well, Allie was doing something she wasn’t supposed to and his dad was watching her and so we said timeout time was what we do and everything was going fine and then she comes running in from the playroom crying cause he’d tried spanking her.”
“TJ doesn’t strike me as the kind of parent that would be okay with spanking. It doesn’t do any good,” he said.
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t just spanking. It was you know...old school spanking,” you said.
“With…” he said, pointing at his belt. You nodded and he rolled his eyes. “No offense but his father is a fucking idiot. I’ve always thought so.”
“Well, if you thought I was pissed, you should have seen TJ. I’ve never seen him that angry before. He got in a huge shouting match with his dad. I took the kids outside to the park and then his parents were gone by the time we got back. They’re not speaking at the moment,” you said. “I was just...why doesn’t his dad just talk to him? Talk to his grandkids? I know you guys would never do something like that and...I just don’t understand some men and their need to be the tough guy and the asshole all the time.”
“You grew up with a couple of those yourself,” he said. You finished with your clothes and gave him a glance before he grabbed some more relaxing clothes to change into. “If I knew why, I would tell you. Strength doesn’t belong to men and emotions don’t belong to women. I pity anyone who thinks experiencing their life fully is weakness.”
“Mom told me once, when I first came to the house that you were a bit closed off when you were younger,” you said.
“I was. In a way I still am. I always will be. I’m like you in that way. I always felt things but it’s scarier to show it. You feel like you have to be strong, you don’t want to bother other people, you think it goes away on it’s own,” he said. “Then you fall in love and then you have children and you realize there is nothing more badass than playing princesses with your daughter and knowing that you are part of the reason why she has pure happiness at that moment. I only ever wanted my family to felt the love that I did. It’s a pretty decent way to live. If somebody out there doesn’t think I’m man enough, that’s their problem, not mine.”
“TJ thinks of you as his real dad, you know. He says you’ve never put him down or belittled him. He’s never questioned what you think of him.”
“Why would I hurt some innocent kid, especially one that’s one of mine?” he asked. “You know better than anyone, kiddo, blood doesn’t make you family.”
“No, it doesn’t. Go change so we can get on the road. I’m starving already.”
“Did you get lost?” you asked two and a half hours later as your dad drove the SUV he’d rented for the weekend.
“No, I’m not lost. The hotel is just a few miles up the road I think,” he said. You stared out the dark window, rain coming down hard on the January night.
“If you tell me the name I can-” you said, a hand reaching out in front of you before you crashed head on into something. You suspected the SUV had flipped but it was too hard to tell, especially once you hit your head on something and went out cold.
You woke up a few seconds later, gaining your bearings, turning to your right and finding your dad upside down and covered in blood.
“Dad,” you said, undoing your seatbelt. You shoved on him but he was still, his jacket turning a crimson color. “No, no, no.”
You dropped down and undid his seatbelt too, catching him as he slipped. You kicked away the glass in the broken windshield and dragged him outside into the rain. You felt pain in your back but ignored it and got him out where you could see in the headlights. You glanced past the truck and saw what looked like a dead moose in the middle of the road.
“Dad,” you said, laying him down. He had a cut on his head in his hair, his chest was soaked  and his left leg looked funny. You tugged up his shirt and got a face full of blood for it, falling backwards and wiping it away.
You stared at him before you put a shaky hand against his neck. There wasn’t anything there and you moved your fingers again, over and over and over.
“Dad, no,” you said, shaking him, unable to find a pulse. “You promised me. You don’t…”
He didn’t move and you sat back on your heels, looking around for help but there were no other cars, nothing around but trees and a wet road. You reached a hand into your pocket for your phone but it was shattered, pieces of metal and glass falling out. You found his in his back pocket but it was broken and wouldn’t turn on.
“No, no, no!” you shouted, throwing the phone against the truck. “No! You don’t get to die! You don’t die...you promised. Dad, you promised. You said 102. I can’t...I can’t, please I can’t. Please wake up. Please, please, please, dad. Please. I love you. You can’t go yet. Please, daddy, please, wake up.”
You tried for a pulse again but there was nothing and the rain was beginning to stain the ground pink. You stared at it long enough for your stomach to swirl. You ran over to the side of the road and threw up, slowly coming back before you fell down to your knees. You looked at him, a heaving sob leaving you as you clenched your fists.
“What did I ever do to you?” you shouted at the dark sky. “What did I do to you! Stop killing my parents! I never did anything wrong! Why do you keep hurting them! Why!”
You turned to your dad and you could barely see you were crying so hard. 
“Wake up,” you said. He was motionless and you took your fist, beating on his chest hard. “I said wake up!”
You slammed it down again, over and over until your hand was throbbing but you didn’t care. All you wanted was for him to be okay.
“WAKE UP!” you screamed, bringing your fist down hard.
“Y/N!” he said as he shot up, gasping for air before he plopped back down. You scurried next to him, your dad taking a few deep breaths as he looked up at you. “You okay, tall munchkin?”
“I’m fine,” you said, putting a hand on his head. “Dad, don’t move. You’re really hurt.”
“I feel really hurt so can do,” he said, shutting his eyes.
“Stay awake!” you shouted, his eyes flying open. 
“No closing eyes, understood,” he said. You squeezed yours shut and took off your jacket, shaking the phone piece away before you balled the thing up and pressed it against his stomach. You threw his hands over top of it, and took off your flannel, folding it up and tying it around his leg. You sat back at his head again, taking over for putting pressure on his stomach. “Y/N, look at me.”
You glanced down, finding a look on his face you’d not seen since he found you on the highway, walking in the rain the night of your seventeenth birthday.
He was afraid.
“Did you think I died?” he asked. You couldn’t speak but nodded, trying to stop the tears that were mixing in with the rain. “Oh, honey. Honey, I’m okay. Dad’s okay.”
“You didn’t have a pulse,” you choked out. “And our phones are broken and there’s no one out here and you can’t move and now I have to watch you die.”
You cried hard, sobbing as you tried to get a hold on the bleeding. 
“You’re hurt,” he said, a stray finger tracing over a cut on your arm.
“I don’t care!” you shouted. “I can’t fix this. I don’t want to watch my dad die again. Don’t make me do that again, please, dad, please.”
“Y/N, breathe, kiddo,” he said when you felt yourself gasping for air. You shook your head and felt him reach a shaky hand up and wipe off your face. “Honey, it’s gonna be okay. No matter what happens.”
“I don’t want to be alone again. Don’t leave me here by myself,” you said.
“I’m gonna do my best,” he said but he was looking even paler and you winced. “But you’re a smart girl. You’re an amazing young woman and I know you don’t want to hear this right now but I don’t...I don’t feel right inside and I don’t think...I don’t want to die, munchkin. I’m not done with you yet either. But odds are, I’m not making it off this road and if that happens, you’re gonna promise me you’re gonna go be happy and have a really great life and I’m gonna be upstairs watching your back okay?”
You nodded, not even bothering trying to not cry anymore.
“I love you so much and I’m so proud of you and I’m really happy we got to a place where I know you love me back just as much. Oh, and there’s boxes in the storage container for all you guys. Letters. There’s one for this too. Just read it. It’s gonna sound a hell of a lot better than whatever this blubbering mess is.”
“Stop crying,” you said to him.
“Can’t really help it at the moment,” he said, pursing his lips. 
“Can I make you feel better?” you asked quietly.
“Just stay...maybe don’t tell mom about the crying,” he said with a laugh and a wince.
“Okay,” you said. You took a deep breath, spotting your purse nearby. You stared at him and back at the bag.
“What?” 
“How much do you trust me?” you asked.
“With my life,” he said. 
“Hold this,” you said. You put his hands on your jacket again, feeling him put less pressure than before. You reached over and grabbed your purse, dumping it on the ground and picking up your hand sanitizer. You squeezed it all over your hands and rubbed them together, taking a deep breath. You moved his hands away and took a deep breath. You grabbed your hat from your bag on the ground nearby and rolled it up, shoving it in his mouth. “Whatever I do, don’t yank my hand away, okay?”
He nodded and saw you peel the jacket back quick to get a look.
“I really hope you pass out from this,” you said. He gave you a thumbs up and squeezed his eyes shut before you moved the jacket away and shoved your fingers into the tear in his torso. He shouted into the hat, your fingers trying to find the spot inside that was gushing the blood out. You shuddered when the sound escaping him turned into some kind of scream you were positive he shouldn’t have been capable of making. The hat fell out of his mouth and he threw his head back, squirming as he grabbed your arm.
“Stop, stop, stop,” he said, gritting his teeth. 
“I’m sorry,” you said. “You’re gonna die right here if we don’t stop the bleeding right now.”
“Stop!” he shouted, body tensing up, his voice quiet. “Please, stop. Please, Y/N.”
“Almost,” you said, his hand tightening around your wrist but never pulling away. You felt something different inside and pinched with your fingertips, your dad trying to get away from it. You peeled up the jacket from around your hand and saw the blood was much slower, stopping to a trickle eventually. “Hey! I think I stopped it!”
“Great,” he winced, slamming his hand against the pavement. “Everything in me wants to just rip your hand out of my insides. God, you have no idea how badly I want to do that right now.”
“S’kinda how period cramps feel,” you said. “This is a little more extreme though.”
“I would hope so,” he said. You leaned over and looked at his leg but it looked decent for the moment. “So, we’re just gonna sit here then until a car comes.”
“I think that’s the plan considering either of us moves and you’re dead,” you said. 
“Okay. Good plan,” he said. He rested his hand on your arm and pushed up your short sleeve. “Is you shoulder dislocated?”
“Yeah,” you said. He frowned and you laughed. “Dad, I’ll live.”
“You’re hurt.”
“Yeah but you’re way worse so I’m in charge. It’s pain. I’ve dealt with it before. I can deal with it now,” you said. He leaned his head back against the pavement, looking up at the sky. “Don’t go and die on me now.”
“I’m okay. The searing pain is keeping me awake,” he said. You looked around for a car but saw no headlights in either direction. “If a car doesn’t come, it’s okay, munchkin. You’re giving me a shot I shouldn’t have right now.”
“I’m not letting go until I pass out or you’re...a car will come,” you said. 
“Honey, be realistic. I’ve lost a lot of blood,” he said. “Odds-”
“I get it. You’re very likely going to die. Now stop talking like that and tell me you’re gonna be fine,” you said. 
“I’m gonna be alright,” he said with a smile. “So. Anything on your mind you want to talk about?”
“I wish I went to med school but no, not really,” you said. He chuckled, shivering a bit when he stopped. You leaned over top of him, the rain hitting your back and giving him some relief from it.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said.
“Are you always this grumpy when someone tries to take care of you?” you asked. 
“Quite possibly,” he said. “Well, while I have you as a captive audience, I might as well tell you now.”
“Tell me what?” you asked.
“I had no idea what I was doing most of the time when it came to you. We made it up as we went,” he said.
“You knew exactly what to do,” you said. 
“I slept outside your room once. I was afraid you’d try running away again,” he said. 
“Dad.”
“I didn’t even want this many kids and then we had the three and it was all good. You were never in the picture,” he said.
“Why did you want to adopt?” you asked. You were freezing and hiding the shake in your body, your dad not looking so hot himself. 
“There was this young guy at the brewery at the time. He went on and became a lawyer I think. He um, we were talking one day and he told me he grew up in foster care during his teenage years. I got the jist that it really sucked. It wasn’t really even that big of a deal and I thought it over at home that night and I looked around the house and thought, we got the space. We have the means. We could do something good,” he said. “It was just an idea for a while and then one day I said to De, let’s do this and that’s how we started.”
“I’m glad you did,” you said. 
“Me too,” he said. He pushed up the back of your shirt and you knew he saw the blood you felt there. “Let me see.”
“No, I’m fine,” you said, twisting your body farther away. 
“You need to get help for yourself,” he said. You shook your head and he scoffed. “I wasn’t asking.”
“Make me. Oh wait, you can’t.”
“I know I can’t,” he grit out. “If something happens to you because you were trying to save me, I can’t live with that.”
“It’s a cut! I have lots of cuts and my shoulder is killing me and I know I have a concussion and my whole body hurts and I’m freezing but it doesn’t matter. Why do you not-”
“If you were where I am right now and Allie or Colin was hurt, more hurt than they’re letting on, barely keeping you alive, you think you’d tell them to save you over themselves?”
“No,” you said quietly.
“Then you know exactly why.”
“But I’m not a parent right now. I’m the kid in this situation and I am terrified. I feel like that ten year old girl that watched her parents die slow and in pain and she couldn’t help them. All I did was get bigger. I didn’t learn a damn thing in case it happened again,” you said.
“Y/N. I’m alive right now because you are saving my life. You pulled me out, you got me breathing again, you wrapped up my leg and you quite literally have your hand inside of me piecing me together. You’re doing all of this in the middle of winter, trying to keep me warm and getting hypothermia yourself, pushing through wanting to fall apart all while you are very, very hurt. You want to know what you learned?”
“What?” you breathed out.
“Even if it’s hard and it hurts, you don’t give up. What have I always said? Just try for me. It’s all I wanted. I am more than okay if this is it for me because right now, when it’s probably the hardest it’s ever been for us, you’re trying. You’re trying harder than I’ve ever seen you and that’s all you gotta do the rest of your life. Just try and it’ll work out how it’s supposed to.”
“You’re not supposed to die,” you said. Your head got dizzy and your stomach churned, your dad staring up at you. “I’m gonna throw up.”
You turned your head away quickly, avoiding him and getting the pavement beside you. Thankfully most of it was clear after you’d emptied your stomach before.
“Concussion,” he said as you got your bearings back and took the brunt of the rain again. “Y/N.”
“I’m okay,” you said, taking a deep breath. “I’m okay.”
“I think you’re in shock.”
“Probably but you’re in it too,” you said. You were shivering harder now and you saw your arm start to shake. You grabbed it with your free hand, steadying it as best you could.
“Get in the car.”
“No.”
“You’re going to freeze and go into shock if you don’t get out of the rain. Get in the car.”
“No.”
“Get in the damn car!”
“You’re a fucking idiot,” you said, his face in a scowl. “I’m not leaving, you goddamn idiot. I never was. Get that through your thick fucking skull!”
“Why won’t you get in the fucking car!” he shouted. “You fucking little shit, just get in the car. Don’t make me beg you. Get in the car. Please get in the car!”
“No. I’m not giving up on you. I’m not saving myself. I’m not and you can barely lift a finger. You don’t get to choose. I do.”
“You’re going into shock. You’re gonna die if you don’t get warm right now. Get in the car,” he said, closing his eyes. “Please, tall munchkin. Please. I can’t watch you die either. It’s not how it works. Don’t make me watch that.”
“Yet it’s perfectly fine for me to have to?”
“Because kids are stronger than their parents you dumbass,” he said. “Go. Please. You did your best. You still saved me. Why won’t you listen to me?”
“Because I was the person screaming and shouting on the side of the road on a cold rainy night once. I was the person that pushed and pushed and tried so hard to get you to go away. But you wouldn’t give up on me. You were never going to give up on me. It’s a decade later and now it’s your turn to learn that I was never walking away from you either. I don’t care what you want. I don’t care if this is scary for you. I was terrified of you and I believed you. For a split second I let myself believe you and that was the start for me. So you can be as scared as you need to be because I’m not giving up on you. Trust me. Please.”
“Okay,” he said quietly, nodding his head. He was silent for a beat, nothing but sniffles in the air. “I’m gonna wait as long as I can but the next time I ask you to get in the car, will you get in there?”
“Yes.”
“Are you lying?”
“I don’t know,” you said. 
“S’okay.”
He gave you a smile and you tried to return it, focusing on keeping your fingers clamped tight around the artery. 
“I wrote you a song,” he said. “It was gonna be on the album.”
“You want to sing it?” you asked, another round of tears hitting you.
“I’m getting kinda of tired, kiddo,” he said, closing his eyes again. 
“Dad,” you said, a light flickering off the pavement. You looked behind you and saw headlights headed your direction. “Dad! There’s a car!”
“Love you,” he mumbled. 
“No, you don’t,” you said, pinching his insides tighter, getting a small wince from him. “Awake.”
“Trying to,” he mumbled again. You heard the vehicle slow down and drive around the moose, stopping when it saw you. Someone got out of the pickup, another door opening up.
“Shit,” said the one guy, running over to you. He looked at you and your dad, staring at your hand. “Okay, there’s a hospital like five minutes from here. Tony! Get my snowboard!”
The other guy grabbed a board from the back of the pickup, rushing over with it. You got what he had in mind and moved aside as best you could, the two men rolling your dad on top of it to use as a makeshift stretcher.
“Up on 3. 1, 2, 3,” said the first guy. You groaned as you stood up, your back killing you but they were walking to the back of the truck bed, having you carefully climb up as they pushed him in. Tony climbed in the back with you before the other guy got behind the wheel and took off.
“You okay?” he asked you.
“Not really,” you said, Tony holding the board from moving as best he could.
“I’m Tony. That’s Ray. That your dad?” he asked.
“Yeah,” you said. “I’m Y/N. Please tell your friend to hurry.”
“Ray! Floor it!” he said through the back window. The truck went far faster than it should have been going but soon you saw lights and civilization again, the truck fishtailing around into a parking lot. Your dad grunted which you took as a good sign.
“We need help right now!” said Ray as he ran out of the truck and over to an entrance. A few people in scrubs came rushing out with a stretcher, Tony jumping out of the way as they got a backboard under your dad. 
“You need to move, sweetie,” said a doctor but his eyes quickly went down to your hand and back up. “Get on.”
“What?” you asked.
“Straddle and get on the board,” he said. You climbed over top of your dad, someone holding your shoulders and making you yelp as you were moved backwards onto a stretcher.
“What happened?” asked a nurse as you were pushed inside. 
“We hit a moose,” you said, nearly throwing up again when you saw him in the light of the building. He was covered in blood and you caught your reflection in the glass, sporting a similar look. “He was out cold for a while. I couldn’t find a pulse so I hit his chest real hard and he popped up. I think his leg is broken and he had a cut on the side of his head and his torso was gushing and he lost a lot of blood, like a lot, and I couldn’t stop it so I shoved my hand inside and that was kind of working but he’s not talking anymore.”
“Okay, people let’s focus on that torso and get some blood in our friend here. What’s his name, sweetie?” asked the doctor in charge.
“Is that Jensen Ackles?” asked one of the nurses. You nodded and she dropped her jaw. “Oh my God. You’re Y/N. That’s his daughter.”
“Okay, Y/N,” said the doctor as someone wrapped you up in the world’s warmest blanket. You sighed and smiled for a brief moment, the doctor snapping his fingers. “Y/N, I need you to pay very special attention to me.”
“Okay,” you said, the blanket peeled away as someone started cutting off your shirt. “Excuse me. Buy me dinner first.”
“I’ll take that as a good sign,” said the doctor, your eyes going to a bag of blood flowing into your dad. “Whatever you do, do not unclamp your fingers inside of him, understand? I bet it’s getting painful and you might start cramping. You gotta hold on a little while longer for us, okay?”
“Not a problem,” you said. You felt a table be moved behind you and you were guided to kneel back on it. They started cutting off your dad’s clothes and you shut your eyes. “A little warning would be nice.”
“Keep ‘em closed,” he said. You were too worried to notice much when you felt your own clothes go, a gown tugged and buttoned on you. “Alright.”
You opened your eyes, a blanket over your dad’s lap. The main doctor examined the wound your hand was in, some other ones looking at his leg and head. You saw your dad flutter open his eyeballs, jerking his whole body when he looked around.
“Jensen. I’m Dr. Bradwick. You were in an accident. Your daughter, Y/N, is right here with us and she’s helping us help you right now so let’s keep the moving to a minimum and he’s out again,” said the doctor, your dad’s eyes closing once more. “Y/N, climb back on if you’re able to. I want a scan and then send these two up to the OR. Y/N, you’re going to have to go into the operating room like this and when the surgeon tells you to remove your hand, that’s when you do it, not a second before, understand?”
“Yes,” you said.
“You have some extensive injuries yourself. You’re in shock right now which is why you’re not feeling them. Your shoulder is dislocated, you’ve suffered blood loss yourself and have signs of a high grade concussion. When you let go, you’re going to get put back on a stretcher and then we’re going to take you for a few scans yourself, alright?”
“Is he gonna die?” you asked, wrapped up in the warm blanket once again, one tossed over the bottom half of your dad. 
“We’ll do our best,” he said. You nodded and after a few bandages were slapped on the two of you, you went down a few hallways, someone on either side of you keeping you steady. The shakes in your body were dying down as you warmed up some and you took your hand away from your wrist and gave one of your dad’s a squeeze.
It was small but you felt a finger move slightly.
You smiled to yourself as the blankets were taken away and someone put a big lead vest on you, covering most of your body and neck. You heard a buzzing and they took a picture of his torso, taking a few more of his leg and head too before you felt one of your shoulder be done.
“Alright, let’s send these two up,” said a nurse that stepped out. Five minutes later you were sat in the middle of an OR, people hooking up leads and things to your dad as he got more fresh blood in him. He was pale still and you squeezed his hand, not feeling any response. You scrunched up your face but a nurse directed you to look at a monitor. His heart rate and breathing were slow but they were still there.
“Good evening, everybody,” said a woman in a pair of dark blue scrubs. A pair of gloves were snapped on her and she smiled as she walked over. “Nice, cold, gloomy night out. So you must be the smart cookie, Y/N. I’m Dr. Bradwick.”
“I thought he was downstairs,” you said as she went over to a set of scans on the wall and started looking them over.
“That’s my husband,” she said with a hum. “Freddie, how’s the leg look?”
“Clean break,” said a younger man in light blue scrubs. “Needs to be set, a think a few pins and a stitch will do.”
“I agree. Bleeding?” she asked.
“Under control,” he said.
“Good. Once we have Jensen’s torso available, you can take lead on fixing the leg,” she said. “Head wound is superficial. We have a severed artery, right side of body. Let’s open, clamp what we can and then give Y/N’s hand a break,” she said. She wandered back over to the operating table, examining the wound. “Did you have any hand injuries?”
“Scratches was all. I put hand sanitizer on first if that helps,” you said.
“It actually does some. Y/N, you’re gonna sit right there until I tell you otherwise, alright? It’s probably gonna be a little bit longer but hopefully we can get your dad feeling better,” she said. “Let’s put him under.”
“What are his odds?” you asked. “Honestly.”
“The amount of time you’ve been holding him together, the previous blood loss, the lack of blood flow...real talk, it really depends on how much of a mess he is in there and how much he fights for it. He’s in the beginning stages of hypothermia which may hurt him or may help him. The human body is tricky. We will do what we can but I can’t guarantee he gets up from this table. He’s still awake. If you want to say anything before he goes under, say it now,” she said.
“Remember when I said I didn’t want a dad? But I’d take a Jensen? I wanted one. I was afraid. But then I wasn’t, because I tried, for you and for me. If you can’t do this dad, it’s okay. If I don’t, if I don’t talk to you for a really, really long time again or ever again, it’s okay. All you have to do right now is try. Just try to stick around as hard as you can. I love you,” you said. The room was quiet and you sniffled, giving the doctor a nod.
“Alright. Let’s get to work.”
Twenty minutes later your hand was shaking, cramps rippling through it, the doctor giving you a sideways glance.
“Y/N. In a moment I’m going to have you release your hand,” she said. “When that happens, I want you to remove your hand as quickly but gently as you can. Don’t touch any of the other clamps. Owen and Derren here are then going to move you onto the table right by my right side. They’re going to move you away quickly and then you’ll be taken to the OR across the hall to repair your injuries. Understand?”
“Yeah,” you said, squeezing your eyes shut. “I’m dizzy.”
“I know. One more minute,” she said. “Everyone in your positions.”
She looked around for a moment before looking up at you.
“On three, let go. One, two, three.”
You unsqueezed your fingers and pulled your hand out, wincing at the sudden pain. You felt yourself get moved and collapsed onto the table, your head swimming. The last thing you caught sight of was the floor before you were passing out completely.
When you woke up, you were in a room, a doctor writing something down on the chart at the end of the bed. You were alone aside from the other empty bed, your arm in a sling and it felt like you were laying on a wad of bandages.
“I wasn’t expecting you awake so soon,” he said. He took out a flashlight from his pocket and held up a finger. You followed it and he smiled. “Good. Your concussion appears to be doing better.”
“I passed out,” you said.
“From exhaustion, not a head injury. Your shoulder was put back in place and we discovered a few deep lacerations along your back that required stitches. You were treated for hypothermia, shock and a concussion as well. You got close to the hairy edge, Y/N,” he said. “You need extensive rest.”
“Where’s my dad,” you said.
“He’s recovering from surgery in the ICU. He’s quite weak,” he said. You sat up and closed your eyes. “You can see him later.”
“Buddy, I’m seeing him right now,” you said, swinging your legs off the edge of the bed. 
“No, you’re not. He’s not even conscious at the moment.”
“Where’s Dr. Bradwick?”
“In the ER.”
“The other one. The surgeon,” you said. You tried to stand but he put his hand on your shoulder. “Buddy. Back off.”
“Dr. Kappers. A word,” said Dr. Bradwick as she popped in the door. She left with him and returned after a moment, giving you a smile. “Sorry about that. He’s not known for his bedside manner.”
“Can I see my dad?”
“I’ll do you one better. We’ll get you set up in his room,” she said.
“Thanks,” you said. You sat back on the bed and she undid a few things, soon pushing you out of the room and over to some elevators. “Is he okay?”
“He’s not great but surgery was a success. He’s going to need to take things slow for the next while,” she said. “You saved his life you know.”
“A physician’s assistant came to my school once to talk about careers. He told us a story about clamping an artery shut with his fingers. I guess I kind of remembered,” you said.
“I think Jensen owes you one for that,” she said, pushing you inside. She hit a button to go up and smiled. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay,” you said. “Tired.”
“Those men that brought you in showed the police where your vehicle was. I believe your belongings are at the local sheriff’s office,” she said. “Oh and we were able to get your father’s contact information. Your mom was called and she let your husband know. They’re both on their way up from the states,” she said.
“Oh God, TJ,” you said, running your hands over your face. “He’s gotta be a nervous wreck right now.”
“Nothing wrong with having a husband that cares,” she said, the door dinging open. “Alright, I know you’re gonna jump out of bed and go over to your dad the second I leave the room but I don’t want you sleeping in a chair tonight. Got it? I will send my husband to come check on his lunch break if I have to.”
“I maybe promise?” you said.
“I like you,” she said, pushing you down the hall, pausing outside a door. “He should look a lot better than last time you saw him.”
She moved the bed inside a room, your dad asleep in the bed by the window. He had a cast on his right leg and a bandage around his head, a lot of leads and tubes running from him to machines close by but the blood was gone and he did look a lot more alive now.
“Thanks, Dr. Bradwick,” you said.
“I was in a car accident with my dad when I was a kid. I get it,” she said. She plugged in a few things for you and said a nurse would be in soon to get an IV in you. You hummed when she left, getting out of bed and grabbing a chair by the window, pulling it over to him. 
“Hey, dad,” you said, grabbing his hand. “Mom’s on her way and TJ too. They’re gonna smother us. That’s okay. I’m gonna stay right here until they get here though.”
For a moment you felt extremely tired and rested your head down on his unharmed leg. You used your good arm as a cushion as well, closing your eyes. Something tickled your head and your turned, seeing his hand trying to move on top of it. He didn’t open his eyes but you moved it for him, a brief smile crossing his lips.
“S’okay. Go back to sleep, dad.”
He half hummed and you felt yourself drifting off, a small gasp of air above you occurring.
“Not dead?” he murmured.
“No, not dead,” you said.
“Good.”
He was out like a light again and you smiled, a nurse walking in. She shook her head and got you up to your feet, helping you back in bed. 
“Can he have an extra blanket?” you asked as she stuck the needle in. She went to a closet in the room and took one out, spread it out over him lightly, finding another one and putting it over you. She pressed a button on the little machine for the IV and you felt the pain meds kick in, sending you to sleep quickly.
When you woke up, it was morning and your leg felt very hot. You blinked a few times, spotting a black tuft of hair curled up by it. You blinked again, recognizing the navy henley and the way the hair stuck up in the back. You smiled as you ran your hand over his head, TJ slowly waking up before jolting upright and giving you the biggest hug he dared.
“Hey, babe,” you said with a quiet laugh. “Miss me?”
“Never do that again,” he said. You cupped his cheek and smiled, a wave of relief crashing over him. 
“I’ll try,” you said. You looked to your right, your mom sitting by your dad’s side, watching him sleep. She got up when she saw you awake, walking over and hugging you. “Hi, mom.”
“TJ’s right. Never do that again,” she said. 
“We’re fine,” you said. “It looks worse than it is.”
“The doctors told us what happened,” she said. You turned away, smiling at TJ.
“Where are the kids?” you asked.
“JJ watched them last night and the Pads were taking them today,” he said. “Zepp flew home. Jared picked him up at the airport.”
“Sorry for ruining your guys trip,” you said, your mom shaking her head. 
“It’s fine. We’ll go on another one. I’m just glad you two are still here,” she said.
“We’re fine.”
“He should be dead. Maybe even you,” she said. “Please do not say you’re fine.”
“Mom. Last night was quite possibly the most traumatic thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t even know how to describe...I’m not gonna tell you everything that went down or was said. Dad is alive and so am I. We’ll get better. I’ll be better really soon even. It’s all there is to it.”
“They said you had your hand in him,” said TJ. 
“Yes, I did. Not as exciting as it sounds,” you said.
“Hurt like a bitch though,” you heard chuckled from the bed nearby. All three of you turned towards him, getting a sleepy smile in response. “I’m starving. We never got dinner.”
“I will go find you guys some food, pronto,” said TJ. He gave you a kiss before he left, your mom returning to her seat and staring at your dad.
“I’m fine,” he said, getting a hug and kiss from her.
“Don’t go yet,” she said quietly.
“Not going anywhere, honey,” he said. He looked over at you and smiled. “Not if I can help it.”
Two Months Later
“I’m going to grab another beer,” said TJ. He got up from his seat around the fire pit in the backyard and you waved a finger, your dad giving one as well.
“De, mind grabbing some stuff to make hotdogs?” he asked.
“Not at all,” she said. They both head inside the house, your dad quiet as you both watched the fire. He scratched his stomach and you saw him lift up his shirt, glancing at the red line across his abdomen.
“You could get a tattoo,” you said. “To cover it up.”
“It doesn’t bother me,” he said. “What does bother me is the fact you risked your life for mine. You have children.”
“So do you.”
“Y/N. You’re young. You have your entire life ahead of you.”
“Adults have feelings, dad. You don’t get to love me more than I love you. You don’t get to put a cap on that for me. I am a parent. I do understand where you’re coming from. I do. But abandoning and giving up on you was not going to happen.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because you didn’t give up on me.”
He looked down to his lap, pursing his lips.
“I hope we’re never in that kind of situation again but dad, I can’t promise you how I’m going to act. I know it’s your job to protect me. Don’t be mad at me for doing it back every once in a while is all.”
“I’m not mad, kiddo. I just want you safe.”
“Me too,” you said. He gave a quick smile, slumping down in his chair. “You busy tomorrow night?”
“No. Why?”
“I’m gonna take you out for our dinner we never had,” you said.
“Just us?”
“Just us,” you said. “That okay?”
“Yeah. I’m looking forward to it,” he said. You tucked your feet up under you, closing your eyes briefly. “Thanks for saving me.”
“You did it first,” you said.
“There’s my sap,” he chuckled.
“Shut up, dork,” you said, rolling your eyes.
“You’re still smiling,” he said, hearing the backdoor open. “You good, kiddo?”
“Yeah. I’m good, dad.”
You smiled and looked down, spotting a big looking bug by your feet. You jumped out of your chair and he laughed, getting to his feet and stepping on it with his shoe. You looked around for any more, a grin spreading across his cheeks.
“What?” you said, brushing yourself off.
“I still got it,” he said, taking a seat and pulling you down into the chair with him. “No creepy crawlies over here.”
“There better not be,” you said as TJ and your mom returned.
You weren’t too hungry for a hotdog but you took a bite of TJ’s after he’d cooked one over the fire. After a little while the four of you grew quiet and a few crackles of the fire filled the night air.
“I’m exhausted. I’m going to head up to bed,” said your mom with a yawn.
“Night,” you said.
“We won’t keep Jensen up too long,” said TJ.
“Rascals,” he said. “I’ll be in soon, honey.”
Your mom hummed as she headed up into the house and TJ slumped down in his chair, watching the fire. He wiped at his face after a moment and started rubbing his eyes. You shifted a bit to get a better view but he kept rubbing.
“Get some ash in there?” asked your dad. He just shook his head and you sat up.
“Babe,” you said as it hit you. “He’s crying.”
“Am not,” said TJ, his voice giving him away.
“Hey,” said your dad. “Come here.”
TJ shook his head and your dad got up, dragging TJ over to the other side of the oversized chair. You turned to your side, TJ looking out to the yard.
“Hey,” said your dad again. “If you won’t look at me, at least look at your wife.”
TJ sniffled and turned his head over to you with a swallow. He looked at your dad quickly before settling back on you.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” asked your dad, putting his arm around his shoulders.
“It just hit me right then that if that truck hadn’t shown up, neither one of you would have been in that chair and I’d...you guys can’t leave De and me alone like that. We’d be wrecks and there’s no way my parents would ever...my dad would be yelling at me for crying right now,” said TJ, wiping off his face again.
“It’s alright,” said your dad, giving him a hug. TJ started to calm down and you cleaned off your face, finding TJ’s hand and giving it a squeeze. “Boys...guys...there ain’t nothing manly or tough about not crying. It’s healthy. Don’t be embarrassed, TJ. You never have to be afraid to do that in front of me, okay? I love you kid. We like to rag on one another but we love each other too. You have an amazing girl. She’s stronger than she looks. You’re stronger than you think you are too. So if it ever went bad, you’re gonna be okay. I promise.”
TJ nodded and your dad moved his other arm back around you, pulling you both into his sides.
“You feel any better?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said TJ. “Y/N’s been telling me it’s okay to get upset over the accident. I should have listened.”
“Normally it’s a wise move to listen to your wife,” he chuckled. “Thomas.”
He looked up at that, your dad’s face a little more hard.
“Are you still not speaking to your dad?” he asked.
“Not really. He asked if you guys were okay about a month ago but that was it.”
“TJ...I think it’s time you, me and your dad sat down and had a talk.”
“Why?”
“Because somehow he helped make you and a part of me has to believe that if he’s half as good as you are, it’s worth having a hard conversation.”
“He’s not like you,” said TJ, shaking his head. “He won’t be happy.”
“It doesn’t matter if he’s happy or not. I will make that very clear to him. You want to disagree with your child, that is okay. But Y/N, she’s not afraid to talk to me. A long time ago, before you were around, she was. She was afraid of me and I was afraid of her. There was a lot of crying and a lot of hard conversations, TJ. But that is why we got to the place where we are. You and I had one of those once and after that, things started to change between us, didn’t it. We’ve had conversations since about the big stuff and the little stuff. I am happy to be your dad, TJ. I am and I’m proud to be that to you. But as a dad, we’re going to have that talk with your dad, the three of us, and we’re going to give him an opportunity that he might not understand that he needs with you right now. Understand?”
“Yes,” he said with a nod. 
“Good boy,” he said, kissing his temple and giving you one as well.
“I can’t imagine what he was saying when you guys were like, dying,” said TJ. You looked at your dad and smiled, getting one in return.
“Oh, we were totally cool,” he said. You rolled your eyes and rested your head on his shoulder. “Weren’t we?”
“Oh, totally,” you said. 
“Liars,” said TJ. You laughed and heard him let out a quiet chuckle. 
“Okay?” asked your dad. TJ nodded and you heard him shift, your dad leaning back in the seat. “TJ.”
“Hm?”
“Go take your girl to bed. She’s worried and wants to cuddle you,” he said.
“Dad,” you said.
“It’s true.”
“In a minute,” you said, giving him a hug. TJ reached over and gave him one as well, you dad ruffling both your heads. 
“I love you guys too. Now shoo,” he said. “It’s pretty late.”
TJ hopped up and took care of the fire with your dad. He helped him slowly make his way up to the house while you held the door open.
“How’s your leg today?” you asked.
“Glad to be out of the cast,” he said. “I gotta start a running plan next week or something to work the muscles back up. I’m so not looking forward to it.”
“I bet you are,” you said. “Night dad.”
“Night kiddos,” he said. “Y/N.”
You held back as TJ headed for your old bedroom, your dad grabbing a book off the coffee table. 
“Have TJ read this. It’s for a spouse when their partner goes through a traumatic event. Spouses can get a form of PTSD without realizing it,” he said. 
“You think…” you said, nodding back.
“I’m not sure. I got it for mom and it made her feel a little better. It might help him too,” he said.
“Thanks,” you said. “Dad.”
“Mhm?”
“Go let mom take care of you, hm? Maybe not be a grump about it?” you said.
“Back at ya,” he said. “Night, tall munchkin.”
“Night, dad. Love you.”
“Love you too, kiddo.”
_________
A/N: Read the TJ’s Talk timestamp here!
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purplerose244 · 4 years ago
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Sweet Aftermath
Hi @forthegloryofdragons! I’m your Secret Santa for the @toa-secret-santa event! 😊 At this point it probably looks more like a New Year present, but Merry Christmas anyway and I hope you spent nice festivities!
Here we go with some Jlaire and our favorite punk wizard! ❤❤
Summary: Peace is momentary in their lives but when they get it, they enjoy it as much as they can. Dessert is always welcomed.
Also on the AO3
“Ouch!”
“Jim!” In the blink of an eye Claire was at his side, holding his hand before he could even process the idea of having a look himself. “You dummy, cut the strawberries, not your finger!” Granted that there wasn’t even any traces onto the actual cutting board – it was one drop at max, his girlfriend could be such a mama sometimes –, maybe it would had reached him some kind of prideful chef wound at being scolded for something this basilar.
It didn’t. All Jim could feel at the moment was the slightest pinch at the top of his finger, where the littlest red bubble was forming. It hurt. In a completely ignorable, absolutely meaningless way. But it hurt. It hadn’t hurt this little in a while now.
He couldn’t help smiling a little, even while Claire was already opening the cupboard to get the med kit. He had forgotten this type of common, after being the Trollhunter had become his everyday.
It was nice. And destabilizing. And a little freaky.
Then again, what wasn’t in his life?
While the little med kit was brought onto the counter of the kitchen and the cutting noises interrupted, the cheerful chatters coming from the living room brought his mind back. The party had been completely random, it had started with his mom wanting to know everything about what happened since they had last seen each other – well, she said that after the both of them managed to talk, with the messes of tears they had become with the both of them human again –, and it was continuing with plenty of people and food around.
Food gently cooked by the best chef of the Lakes’ house… not much of a competition really. But hearing his mom from the other room, chatting and gasping and laughing again, was enough to forget the bowl of popcorn on the table that she still somehow managed to mess up.
Jim breathed in, and then breathed out. Everything felt so new, yet exactly the same.
“Skin’s fragile. I forgot.”
“Well put it on a memo, it’s pretty important if you ask me. A mental memo…” The witch stopped midway, as she was pulling the plastic off the band aid. “I wonder if there’s a way to make that? A magical note stuck into your brain so you don’t forget it? I should ask Teach.” At last, the little medication was applied, At least none of the little red fruits got dirty. Yet Claire still wasn’t letting go of his hand, and when Jim looked up, there were those big brown eyes in front of which he could do absolutely nothing. “I’m serious, okay? Don’t get hurt, or at least try not to get hurt. I really think you had enough for a while.” She probably wanted to sound ironic.
It came out sad. Of course it did. And a lie as an assurance would had been pointless, the former Trollhunter would had made every single choice of his life all over again, to ensure the safety of those he loved. But maybe out of egoism, he would had not dragged them all in like this, knowing how much they were going to suffer for his sake. He wanted his friends near, yet not nearby. Did it make sense? Who knew? Maybe it didn’t have to.
Claire held onto both of his hands, looking up at him, lips curved in a little hopeful smile. And that put an end on any thought. It didn’t matter after all. As a human, as a half-troll, as a full troll, the sight right before his eyes had not changed. And he didn’t want it to change.
Jim sighed softly, nodding with a smile.
“I’ll do my best.” Claire sighed softly.
“Please do.” She leaned and kissed his cheek, and oh, magically there was absolutely no more pain into his entire body. A witch indeed, eheh. “What do you need the strawberries for?”
“Decoration mostly, but there’s so much chocolate in this that you need something fruity to make it less strong.” Right on cue the timer went off. He quickly stopped the noise and hurried to the fridge, taking out the cream that seemed perfectly chilled and ready to use. “Also should I say, strawberries and chocolate? Mucho romantico.” He shot a wink towards his girlfriend, who made that fond eyeroll from whenever he attempted to speak Spanish.
“Whatever, charmer. Get it over with, I’ve been smelling amazing stuff all evening and I’m really tempted to paralyze you with a spell and have it all myself.” Well if that wasn’t one of the sweetest compliments for his cuisine he had ever received. “How can I help?”
“Get me the sponge cake, it’s near the window.” Jim gave the cream a further whip to make sure it was airy and homogenous, before pulling out a spoon from the drawer – reminding himself last minute that he couldn’t and probably shouldn’t munch it anymore. “Alright, now for the tester…” He could had taken it himself of course, his sense of taste was back to human-like. Yet it was still hard to accept it, like his mind wasn’t fully into the all magical transformation that brought him back. He just needed a bit more of time, maybe. “Mrs. Nunez? If you could be so kind?”
“Oh well, if I really have to…” Claire smirked, putting the baking tray in front of her boyfriend with the sponge cake all rested and ready for the use. Then she leaned forward, taking the spoon into her mouth. She licked her lip. “Mm, oh yeah.”
“So it’s good?” She arched an eyebrow at him. “What? Let me brag a little, I’m good!”
“What if I still prefer guacamole over this?”
“Claire, you make amazing guacamole, but you also make a major bowl of it with, like, three tortillas. That kind of love is a little hard to match, even for my chef skills.” He got an elbow, because clearly some people couldn’t handle the harsh truth. “Just tell me if I should add something or mix it some more.” If it wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t going into the cake.
She knew that. She knew it, and she grinned widely, putting a hand over his cheek with a very evident intention into her eyes. With the sudden realization Jim had to claw onto the bowl with both hands to prevent any catastrophes like letting it drop accidentally, because kissing Claire was that mind-blowing – and it took him quite a bit to make this cream, thank you very much. A chocolate kiss that got him such jelly knees he was considering just letting himself go with the unconsciousness, it would had been the sweetest knockout of all of his Trollhunter life. This girl had gotten so much more confident since they first started to hang out. She was as gentle as a lady, and as vigorous as a warrior.
His Claire. His amazing, beautiful Claire.
She pulled away first, perfectly in control of the situation, smiling softly at him. The aftermath was possibly even better, knowing that this was real and it happened and it was going to happen again. Somehow he still could hardly believe his luck.
Claire bit her lip, staring with those big impossible eyes.
“Too sweet, maybe?” Jim shook his head with a grin.
“Nope, absolutely perfect.” Did that come out corny? Smoothness wasn’t exactly a skill of his, hopefully he didn’t ruin- and Claire was kissing him again, never mind, he loved life.
“Okay mates, quick update, we’re out of snacks in the other room and since I lost rock paper scissors I got sent here also to sneak on the dessert, and if you’re wondering how I lost let me remind you that Binky got four aaaaaarrrrm…” He loved life a little less with their good old – apparently very old – master wizard coming into the kitchen uninvited. That sheepish little grin was kinda funny though. “So, you mess with the timeline once, and you acquire the magical ability of having a terrible timing. Noted.”
Jim pouted. Claire laughed. Jim laughed. That was just how it was, also his girlfriend suddenly had that malicious look into her eyes that told him he wasn’t going to dislike the next following minutes – and he knew she had that look before she became a shadowmancer so… destiny?
“You’re actually right on cue, these dirty dishes are dying to meet you.”
“Uh… how badly are they dying?” And now the witch was glaring, the wizard immediately raised his hands for surrender. “Can’t blame one for trying.”
“Try and ruin another moment between me and my boyfriend, you’d wish I was only blaming you. You got out with little.” That was probably true and that was probably a given, hence why a second later Douxie was over the sink, pouring down the water and reaching for the soap. Claire gave him a firm nod. “Alright, what do we got?” She turned to the counter, gathering a few snacks onto another tray. “Okay, all kinds of chips, cold popcorn from the microwave Barbara made oww, socks, so many socks, a few burritos Krel’s friend brought…” Given the discovery that aliens were real, having an extraterrestrial as a taco seller so responsible for the burrito that had gotten Gatto that nasty stomachache somehow even made sense. “This should do for a while. Be right back.” She gave him a peck on the cheek and went to the living room.
Again, human’s skin was sensible. Jim hadn’t realized it made a difference before, he had been sturdy, strong as a half-troll. And so hardly soft and easy to please. It was still a little complicated listing off what was good and what was bad of his current situation. But one thing for sure, he loved how Claire’s kisses were sweeter than ever.
A snort. Apparently he had been staring at the door for a while, and Douxie was holding back his laughter with little success. So the former Trollhunter grinned back, giving him a shoulder while putting down the cream onto the squared sponge cake.
“Shut up and do the dishes.”
“Roger that.” The wizard stopped the water as the sink was full, getting to work. A minute of silence was filled solely by the tinkling of dishes and the dripping of water. A nice moment of normality. It had been a while after all. “You know, I gotta say.” Douxie wasn’t looking, yet there was definitely fondness into his eyes. “Spending 900 years adventuring and protecting the world, I’ve seen a lot of things. But a witch learning how to control dark magic in order to save her human-half-full-troll-hunter boyfriend? That one I’ve been missing.” He was fast at cleaning, swift and careful. He must had done it quite a lot at the restaurant he used to work in.
Jim sighed, nodding softly, his eyes lingering on how nicely the chocolate smelled and look. He carefully pushed the remaining onto one side, smoothing the surface.
“I’m so lucky to have her.”
“She’s also lucky to have you. You’re pretty great, and brave. To the point where it gets scary. And worrying. A lot.” Douxie laughed a little awkwardly, clearing his voice. “Not that I can talk, really.” Right, the two of them got so close to their demises for the sake of others.
They were similar. Very similar. Jim couldn’t help smiling.
“We really need to stop trying to die.” The wizard cracked a real laugh.
“Got that right.” Another moment of peace followed, and to this mindless noise Jim was starting to get used to again. “What are you making anyway?”
“Bouche de Noel.” Wow, exactly the same frown as Claire, was it a wizard thing? The confused judging eyebrow? “Yes, you don’t have to tell me, it’s a Christmas dessert. Yes, you don’t have to tell me, it’s disgustingly anachronistic. And no, you really don’t have to tell me, because I’m not trying to pull a Christmas on July thing. You got a British accent, not an Australian one, I wouldn’t even have a stretch to work on here.” Another little laugh. “I’ve been postponed it since forever not knowing if I had the bakery skills, but now that I got functioning tastebuds back I’m all in for it.”
With the cream down, he finally went over the cake, rolling it carefully to form the base of his dessert. It had chilled perfectly and had maintained the form, it looked just like the one in the picture where he got the recipe from. The thrill of making something with his own hands. Another absolutely pointless fun of just a human. It felt great.
Douxie gave it a peak, whistling.
“That looks and smells possibly even better than the mince pies from Camelot. For what’s worth I’m very glad we’re getting Christmas today!”
“Right, because you never know what might… uhm…” Jim swallowed, his throat suddenly very dry. From the wizard’s widened eyes, it looked like he couldn’t take that back even if he wanted to. “… today feels so nice. My friends are all here, my mom is here, my girlfriend is here. It hasn’t happened in a while, and I guess I realized how rare this is. We’re not even at the end of summer and we got three different apocalypses, so I thought of… not having too many regrets?” Now that it was coming out it felt very stupid. And insecure. Which wasn’t exactly weird coming from him, but at this point? A fight more a fight less? What was the difference?
He didn’t want to know what it was. He got too close already.
The master wizard breathed in and out, extremely deeply, the washing work momentarily forgotten. He picked a towel from the counter, slowly passed it through his fingers, then let it down. Only to bring one hand onto the former Trollhunter’s shoulder.
“You’ll make a fruitcake, at the real Christmas. A Panettone, or a strawberry cake maybe?” He was smiling, with that renovated determination that had gotten him ever since he came back from beyond the grave. “So you better invite me, and all the others. We’ll have another party just like this one, all together. Every single one of us.” That sounded like a promise. And this guy, this wizard was always ready to give everything for his promises.
So Jim nodded. It was barely a confirmation that everything was going to be okay. But the effort, that alone, was worth at least hoping for. They were all in this together.
Luckily for the guitarist there wasn’t much to clean up besides the bowl and various plates – for now at least, he was half sure Claire was taking this long just to pile up other stuff –, but he stayed to watch the trunk taking form. Two cuts for the shape. Ganache all over. Without worries.
Without problems. He was here. Right here, safe and alive… oh.
“I didn’t thank you, huh.”
Douxie blinked, taken back.
“… there were, like, five dishes. Doesn’t really compare with my shift at Benoi-”
“For saving my life.” Another sequence of batted eyelashes, and it was almost too easy imagining what were going to be his next words. Today Jim felt completely in charge of the situation, finally. “And I’m not talking about the whole turning back into a human thing, neither about the Arcane Order, even though that’s also worth mentioning.” Having Nari around was mildly unusual for that, but she was adorable enough to forget about it. “Claire told me about you guys at Camelot. About trying to find a way back to our time, saving everyone, saving me… the dungeon break was your idea. I wouldn’t have escaped if it wasn’t for that.”
Douxie seemed to have problems grasping this, or simply accept it. He turned his eyes back to the sink, almost as he wished there was still something to make himself busy with.
“It was nothing.” This time it was Jim who snorted.
“You messed up a timeline for one single half-troll, that’s a bit of something. I mean… I doubt Merlin would’ve done it.” That was probably uncalled for. But despite knowing how much those two wizards were close, it didn’t erase what that old man had done to him in the past.
There was no hatred into those amber eyes though. Just thoughtfulness.
“… I knew it was risky. But I also knew that too much depended on you.” The wizard managed a sad smile. “If that wasn’t a mistake, because Merlin didn’t believe in them, then I guess I really wanted to believe in the unexpected possibility that you were going to create… I didn’t want to leave a single friend behind.” He scratched the back of his head, shrugging a little. “Also my wallet couldn’t bare losing a tipper like you.” Sarcasm had to be some kind of special power of those who had been playing with life for too long.
Maybe that was also what made them so similar. Maybe that was also why, in some way or another, they had managed to survive. Jim smiled, bringing an arm onto his shoulders.
“Thank you, Douxie.” The wizard looked at him in bewilderment. And then, slowly, he lightened up, clenching his hold onto his shoulder. Giving him the feeling that maybe, just maybe, there hadn’t been many satisfactions for him lately. And this one came right on time.
“I did fix something after all.” He smiled too. “You’re very welcome, my friend.”
“So NotEnrique bet and won all the socks at Monopoli and I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming, that brother of mine will be the death of- aww, look at you.” Claire smiled at them, putting down the empty tray. “Having a little moment?” When he had taken that little detour for school at the beginning of this adventure, he definitely didn’t expect that one day he was going to be found by his girlfriend preparing a dessert for a bunch of mythical creatures and humans, while sharing a bro gesture with Merlin’s apprentice.
Did he ever say that his life was weird? Because boy oh boy it was.
Douxie took all his time to gave him one last pat and then turned to the girl, this time him being the one to showcase the little menacing grin – he never did dark magic before right… right?
“Indeed we were, guess who ruined it and will join me at cleaning dishes?”
“… well played Casperan. And that’s the only reason why I’m agreeing.” Claire huffed humorously, getting the dishes she just brought in onto the sink. “How’s the cake?”
“Almost done, just need to cover it and decorate it.”
“Good, because Toby got to his praising of your culinary skills, with plenty of more details now that he got all confident about making that one movie. So I’m pretty sure there will be a riot unless they get cake.” She breathed out, picking up a sponge only to look intensely at how her boyfriend was putting down the chocolate bark of the Bouche. It used to bring him such crazy butterflies in his stomach he could had passed out just by the knowledge alone. Now he couldn’t think of a life without those eyes on him. “We really need to do this more often. Just… this.” No silence felt more eloquent than the one that followed. It barely needed a nod from the two of them, while the dessert was finally put altogether with the covering and a smoothing for the surface.
Jim picked up a fork and started passing it over the covering, creating traces that made the trunk look somehow real. He moved the tool steadily, enjoying this, enjoying every moment of this peaceful time of them. Then he turned to the strawberries, all arranged nicely onto the cutting board, and he smiled a little.
He picked up a knife and one of the fruits.
“Let’s see…” He engraved it, creating little petals getting smaller towards the center, and placed it onto the cake. “Roses for my love.” Claire giggled, lancing her arms around his neck from behind. Then Jim picked up another strawberry, cutting it in thin pieces, then placing them onto the surface to form a note with a long tail, the only notion he had about music – at least not including that one piano kinda-serenate to Senor Uhl for not repeating the year. “And a note for my friend.” He completed with a few leaves of mint all over. “I think we’re ready now.”
Today Douxie looked so easy to please. Or maybe he really did spend a long time without being recognized for much. Because his amber eyes were shining, and it looked like he was holding back a much wider smile.
“Were you always this mushy, or was it Claire that has changed you?”
“Don’t know, don’t care, don’t ever want to find out.” Jim picked up the dish with the Bouche on it. “This is all I want.” The witch tightened her grasp – never mind, butterflies still lived.
She showed her tongue to the wizard.
“Jealous that I got the sweetest guy ever?”
“Nah, I have a punk rock soul, I’m immune to pure cheesy lovey-dovey situations.” Douxie grinned, looking fondly at them. “But if I can say it…” He lingered onto them, perhaps a little troubled. And somehow it was clear, he was pondering about the future, it was a thing that he couldn’t help doing apparently. Despite that, his eyes were sincere, and this determination still as solid as before. “Yeah, the both of you have great taste in people.”
They were going to have more parties like this. For sure.
With Claire right next to him, Douxie opening the door, and the number of smiling familiar faces waiting for him, Jim managed to push away the thought of tomorrow, with everything that was most likely still going to come for them. Here, now, they were happy and alive. It was enough.
So he snickered, showing up the cake to his cheering family.
“Merry Christmas, everyone!”
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lilyshadowwriter · 4 years ago
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Gen 5 Recap: Joanne Winters
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As the title states, this is a recap of Generation 5, which is so well underway and nearing its close that it is actually a summary of the entirety of Joanne’s story. As such, it is riddled with spoilers, so if you’re planning on reading Generation 5 and don’t want to be spoiled, AVOID READING THIS.
If you simply want a refresher or want to jump into this generation without having to read the rest though, THIS IS FOR YOU. I hope it helps!
So, without further ado....Generation 5 Recap beneath the cut....
Generation 5 Heiress: Joanne “Jo” Madeline Winters
Joanne is the fifth-generation heiress of Different Winters. She was born to James Winters and Madeline “Maddie” Cinders when they were only 16 years old. Having already struggled with depression on and off throughout her life, Maddie getting pregnant at 16 and being kicked out of her house by her father sent her spiraling into her deepest episode of depression yet, eventually leading to her taking her own life before Joanne was even two years old.
After losing Madeline, James spiraled into a depression of his own, taking Joanne and moving away to Starlight Shores, where he lived in isolation for years and turned to drinking to numb his pain. Some of Joanne’s earliest memories involve witnessing her father collapsing drunk, and she might have lost him too if it hadn’t been for the fact that a close friend (and crush) of James’ from high school, Candice Price, finally found him after one of the books he wrote became a Best Seller.
She got him the help he needed and stood by him through all of it, even when most would have understandably given up. Candice was such a permanent presence in their home that Joanne grew up thinking she was her biological mom and didn’t realize otherwise until she was told in elementary school. Even then, James and Candice concealed the truth from her about Maddie’s fate, concerned that she was simply too young to hear it.
During this time, Joanne drew comfort and reassurance not only from Candice, who fiercely protected her from what James was going through, but also from singing. Whenever her dad was experiencing his worst days, she would turn to singing as her escape, even staying late after school so she could sing on the auditorium stage and dream of better days—of fame and fortune and a glamorous life in which all was wonderful and no one hurt.
After a long and emotional struggle, her father recovered, and James and Candice married, having four children of their own who Joanne loved and took care of, never missing an opportunity to help with them. She also learned the truth about what happened to her biological mother and unfairly blamed her for “everything shitty that has ever happened to this family.” James tried his best to explain and convince her otherwise, but she was still left with a bitterness toward her that remained for several years. 
Again, Joanne’s primary means of coping was singing and her dreams of obtaining fame at any cost only grew.
Just how high a cost became apparent in college when she received a contract offer from a prominent recording group after upstaging her best friend, Hannah, during a concert performance where a scouting agent was present. It was after receiving this contract offer that she also broke up with her long-term boyfriend at the time, Oliver, as she realized that his dreams of marrying her and having children, did not line up with her dreams of being a star. Her father warned that the contract deal she was offered wasn’t at all ideal as they’d have total control over her image, but Joanne didn’t care, eventually cutting ties with her family as well in pursuit of this dream.
Joanne succeeded in making her dream come true, becoming an internationally acclaimed pop star, but the cost proved to be too high, as along the way she lost not only her friends and family, but also herself. She became someone awful she no longer recognized. 
After such a lightning fast rise came a thunderous crash, and Joanne turned to drinking and abusing prescription medications to cope with her increasingly suffocating feelings of loneliness and depression. This led her to the brink of taking her own life, as her mother had done, but her father quite literally pulled her from the edge of a balcony after receiving a tip from one of Joanne’s coworkers (a sound specialist named Gabriel), that she wasn’t doing well.
This eventually led to a slow and rocky road to recovery as Joanne worked to accept her past (including her biological mother), find herself again, and break ties from the company who essentially owned her. Her parents helped with this, and so too did Gabriel, who gradually became more than a co-worker, but a trusted friend and eventually, the man she fell in love with.
Gabriel, however, wasn’t without struggles of his own, and their newly budding relationship nearly ended when he found it too difficult to be with Joanne when still mired in grief from losing his first wife, who was murdered five years past. It was only with the help of his best friend, Ryan Fitch, and his grandmother, Camilla, who raised him as her own after his parents died, that he eventually found the courage to move forward, and a new hope and love in the woman who managed to bring light (and music) back into his life again.
Together, Joanne and Gabriel started up a band of their own called Convergence. It was small performances and good fun at first, but soon enough they were signed by a company called Freezer Bunny Music, founded by Gabriel’s old friends and band mates, Sammy Kent and Dante Leighton. Through this, Joanne achieved her own fame with Gabriel, finally writing and performing her own songs, in her own style.
Not long after, Gabriel proposed to Joanne and the two married surrounded by family and friends, no longer alone and at peace with themselves. 
Different Winters last leaves off with the birth of their first and only son, Milo James Winters, who they’d nearly thought they’d never have due to difficulties conceiving. 
Now, they take on their new roles as parents, all while navigating the ups and downs that life is sure to bring....
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zumpietoo · 3 years ago
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Here’s the thing that Milly/Zelda/Kombucha/Dazey/Lisa/etc and all the socks in their drawers combined don’t understand. It is 20fucking21. If Cole Sprouse was some horrible abuser of women, rather than just the victim of his unfortunate taste in headcases (aka Lili and Bree) – he would be CANCELLED. No army of teenage fans, no amount of popularity in Hollywood, nothing could protect him in this day and age. If Bree had the receipts she and her fans claim she does… where are they? Why hasn’t she come forward properly instead of vague posting about Cole on Tumblr/Twitter/Insta/Twitch/wtfever? Why did all of their mutual friends side with Cole during their breakup? Clearly these people don’t remember when the Bree shit hit the fan. People were ready with RECEIPTS of her fuckery… the head games SHE played, all of her jealous stalking (which she also stalked Lili for a while!!), how she shit all over things that made him happy because they didn’t include her, how she told everyone he emotionally abused her when the reality was she thought they were going to get married and be 2GETHER4EVER (at 19 lmao ok), and then when it turned out he just kind of wanted a girlfriend to have sex with and play video games with (lmao like MOST 19 year old guys), she flipped the fuck out and called it emotional abuse. People had all her crazy documented back then, went after her across multiple platforms, and she ended up deleting everything and claiming it was “his stans” that made it impossible for her to come forward which… no… she just didn’t actually HAVE anything, no proof, nothing. Meanwhile, all of their mutual friends unfollowed her, if not immediately then definitely in the years following. The only reason Bree drops his name anymore is because it’s the only way she stays even close to relevant. It’s not because he actually abused her, mentally, emotionally or otherwise… it’s because she’s a tinkerbell who can’t deal with it when she’s not the most important thing in someone’s universe and when that turned out to be the case with Cole, she threw a bunch of accusations at him, stalked his new girlfriend (Lili at the time) etc. But never EVER in all that did she produce an ounce of proof. No friends that sided with her. No texts. No nothing. Because none of what she claimed ever actually happened.
Fast forward to Lili and we have the same issue. If Lili was the victim of Cole’s horrible emotional abuse… she’d put his ass on blast so fast. Lili has ZERO problem speaking her mind. She shit talks like it’s going out of style, and if she was the golden child of Riverdale, and was loved and adored by the producers and writers and RAS and the rest of the cast, and was the welcome wagon and all of the other stuff that her stans claim, if she went to ANY leadership and said “This is what happened, it was horrible, and I cannot be around my abuser like this” the CW would fire him. Or at least work to accomodate Lili if she was that beloved. Look at how fast they got rid of Ruby Rose on Batwoman when it turned out she was a nightmare behind the scenes? And she was the literal STAR of the show. And isn’t their narrative that the show leadership can’t stand Cole anyway (some of that is true, looking at you RAS and Ted especially, but that’s not because Cole is a nightmare to work with and more because KJ isn’t the fan favorite which, whatever)? Also if Lili DID get the network/show to give him the boot, which if he was abusive to her, she absolutely could, what would Cole do? Sue for breach of contract? When she should have mountains of proof after 3 years? When no doubt the show would’ve seen this behavior happening too? Like, what is their REASONING that Lili suffered and continues to suffer all of this grief that he’s supposedly causing her by flaunting Ari, etc? If she had proof, if anyone had seen all of this happening, they could’ve gotten him bounced in a heartbeat. Look at how fast ALL of Hollywood turned on Armie Hammer? Kevin Spacey’s accuser came forward 30 years after the fact, with almost zero proof and Hollywood cancelled him so fast. This isn’t the early 2000’s or even the early 2010’s anymore. It is 2021 and if Cole was really that horrible, people in the industry would know, and no one would work with him. But instead he’s still booking photography work, he’s still booking movies (two of them, Moonshot and Undercover), he’s inking deals with production companies. His past coworkers are excited to see him when they run into him on the street. Practically everyone who works with him says what a hard working professional he is (or they don’t say anything at all). His podcast that he helped produce and starred in won one of THE awards for podcasts, and is most likely getting a second season. And what has Lili done? Her poetry book was on the NYT Best sellers list for a week and then fell off. Chemical Hearts flopped HARD (to the point where she was recently pimping it MONTHS after it released). Covergirl filmed one commercial with her and did one print photoshoot with her, and then basically cut ties, having Lili put together her own photoshoots. Even if she didn’t buy her way onto PlusMinus or whatever it’s called, she still has 1 movie coming up and nothing else. Nothing even in the works that we know about. She’s the only one promoting Riverdale at all anymore because she has nothing else to fall back on. Honestly, the only reason she has pretty much any engagement anymore is because of her dog, who I actually think might be more popular than she is now. AND on top of all that, her recent whatever with Wallis apparently already has drama while Cole and Ari remain unbothered despite Ken and that other pap being dicks and all of the hate they Cari lobbed at them on a daily basis. Like, sorry Lili stans that she’s on the brink of irrelevancy, but if she had been abused and had her head fucked with like you all claim she has, she’d be lighting Cole up on social media because people would believe her, proof or no proof. Instead, she’s hanging with people who “only validate” her, including a toxic drunk bitch who basically trashed not only Cole but also Dylan at like, 3 in the morning all because Lili had to do a scene with her ex, and her mom who is KNOWN for feeding the fandom BS lies that she later gets caught out in. She’s trickling out a self-staged photoshoot because she hasn’t booked a real one in what? A year? She has 1 movie, and relies on her dog or breadcrumbing with another B-list actress to get her likes. I know its a tough pill to swallow for them and that’s why they’ve doubled down on the crazy so hard lately, but honestly it’s just sad now. There’s zero proof that Cole is anything they say, and if there was proof, Bree and especially Lili would be shouting it from the rooftops, but it doesn’t exist. There IS plenty of proof that Lili has zero work lined up, and a new drama filled relationship, and toxic friends (and that she cheated on Sam to be with Cole… something else they have absolutely NO PROOF of Cole doing). Sucks to be them I guess.
Even their concept of “abuse” consists of “Cole moving on and living his best life/OMG Cheater!!!”
And the latter applies to Lili, not Cole....
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wickedmilo · 3 years ago
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SURVIVAL TIPS | MILO & WILLOW
PLACE: A bookstore TIMING: Way, way back when Milo first became a vampire SUMMARY: Milo and Willow accidentally cross paths, and realise they both have the power to distract each other from their problems WRITING PARTNER: @willcwthewisp​ CONTENT WARNINGS: None
Milo couldn’t remember the last time he had unironically set foot in a bookstore. After graduating uni, it all felt a little pointless. He had books, though they were at his parents’ house, far beyond his reach now. And reading felt too trivial considering the latest developments in his life. Why would he ever need books? What could they possibly have to offer him? But this evening, against his better judgement, he had been struck by the overwhelming urge to go to a bookshop. To steal back a semblance of the normalcy belonging to his previous life. With Harsh’s constant, and unexpected support, he was feeling more in control than ever before. Though his grip on his cravings remained tenuous at best, he figured he was capable of a short visit. After impatiently waiting for the sun to set, he had hurried into town, slipping quietly through the familiar door. The bell above him rang out, announcing his arrival, and the sound caused a wave of nostalgia to wash over him. Maybe he missed this more than he thought. Once upon a time, before he had allowed himself to spiral, he would come here. His mom would find new books for him to study. His dad would nudge him away from the children’s section, towards the classics that were technically beyond his reading level. If it’s easy, then what are you learning, Milo? You need to be challenged. He could still hear his tone, the exact way he would make not being able to choose his own stories sound like a privilege rather than a frustration.  
Drifting through the various sections, taking in the new sounds, and scents he had never been able to appreciate before, it wasn’t long until he found himself standing where his parents used to encourage him to stand. They would search through the shelves, talking amongst themselves to determine which novels were best suited for their son. Even now that he had a choice, he was drawn to the books they had selected for him. Maybe it was a warped sense of loyalty, maybe he missed the simplicity of having every decision made for him. Gently running his fingers along the spine of Great Expectations, he wondered whether Charles Dickens had lived in a world of vampires, and ghosts. Certainly Edgar Allan Poe had to have known about the existence of the Supernatural. It made him want to revisit the tales, search for any hint that might indicate the world had always been this confusing. Finally pulling Great Expectations from the shelf, he turned to walk towards the seating area, completely unaware of the person walking in the opposite direction. He stumbled backwards the moment he saw them, very nearly walking into them. A sheepish grin on his face, he did what he could to hold his breath. Harsh had already warned him doing so would draw attention, but he didn’t see any other option when people got so close. “Shit- I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.” 
Willow was to the point of desperation when it came to finding the book she was looking for. For some unfathomable reason it wasn’t available anywhere that she could find online. Maybe it was simply so popular that most sellers had run out of it, but either way she’d ended up braving the trek to the bookstore after hearing they had a copy in stock. Books were one of the few ways she’d managed to stay sane in her self-appointed isolation, filling her head with stories of the outside world that she couldn’t bring herself to experience anymore. But she should have known going out into public once again was a terrible idea, and that became clear the moment she nearly collided with another being. Her eyes widened in alarm at the severity of the close call, already imagining how she could have sent the young man standing in front of her flying through multiple shelves of books.  
“Oh god-” Willow gasped as if she’d been startled at a haunted house, hand clutched to her chest as she took a few, healthy steps backwards to put some space between her and the stranger. “No, no- I didn't see you there either, I’m sorry.” Her nerves had been set on edge by the near run in, and she was doing her best to steady her breaths, trying not to think about the ten million ways this interaction could go poorly if the stranger got too close. “I was just- I wasn’t watching that carefully where I was going, I guess.” A lapse on judgement on her part. She should know better than to walk blindly when she was a walking disaster waiting to happen. 
Milo was already tense, doing his very best to hide it. But it made him feel a little better to hear the stranger’s heart pounding in her chest. Clearly he wasn’t the only person who had been caught so off guard, and clearly he wasn’t the only person so panicked by the close proximity. The relief didn’t last for very long though. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, the sound of her pulse served as an unwelcome reminder of how dry his throat felt, the new reality he was desperately trying to ignore. Before he could take a further step back, the woman had done so for him, and he watched her curiously, wondering whether she might also a reason of her own to keep her distance. “Are you okay?” He asked, genuinely concerned for her. “No- I wasn’t looking either, it was my fault as much as it was yours!” He insisted. If he had been more careful, as careful as he should be given his current situation, this wouldn’t have happened. But he was already tired of being careful. Was one evening too much to ask for? One evening of reading books in a bookstore like a regular human being? “I, uh-” He held up his copy of Great Expectations, still holding his breath between sentences as though such a desperate gesture might be able to fix all of his problems. “I was distracted too…”
“Oh- oh, I’m fine!” Willow tried to assure, not wanting the young man to think he’d startled her too badly— even if he had done just that. “Are you alright?” she asked out of politeness. He didn’t seem very shaken, but it was only in her nature to ask in return. Forcing a chuckle, she clutched the book she’d fetched to her chest, as if it could protect her. “I think we’re gonna have to either agree to disagree, or just let me take the blame.” She wasn’t particularly in the practice of letting the guilt fall on someone else when it came to situations that involved herself. “Oh, are you reading Great Expectations?” she asked as she took in the title and cover of the book. It wasn’t one of her favorites- mostly because she’d been forced to read it in highschool, but it was still a classic and staple. In her opinion, it had ghosts that weren’t really ghosts, and that was something she’d been drawn to. 
Smiling at the woman’s insistence that she really was okay, Milo allowed himself to relax as much as he dared to. It wasn’t easy, trying to find a balance. Trying to stay aware of his surroundings, while also staying aware of himself. He could only hope one day it would become a part of his routine, something he did without even needing to focus. “I am.” He answered quietly. He wasn’t sure how true that was, but he sincerely appreciated the question. “I mean, if you want to take the blame I have a track record of avoiding responsibility.” He teased, laughing quietly at the fact that he was being entirely honest now. “I’m not going to try and stop you.” Glancing down at the book in his hands, he stared at the cover for a moment too long. There were so many childhood memories connected to it that it was difficult to look away from. “I guess so.” He grinned, offering her a shrug. “My parents made me read it as a kid… I’m kind of missing the simplicity of that, you know? My biggest worry being how quickly I could get to the end of a book.” Finally tearing his gaze away and looking back up at the stranger, he realised he had yet to introduce himself. “I’m Milo, by the way… So, are you going to tell me what you’re reading? Hopefully something far less cliché.”
Part of Willow was glad that the young man hadn’t insisted on taking the blame as many people were often wont to do. Generally that just resulted in a tiring back and forth until they found some sort of compromise, or forgot what they were talking about altogether. “Perfect,” she settled the burden of blame with a chuckle, her smile still warm. “Glad we agreed on that as easily as we did.” He seemed nice despite her nearly running headlong into him. Her head tilted curiously to the side, listening closely while he spoke of his parents and books. “Oh- well that’s...sweet in a way. And it makes sense.” She could certainly relate to wishing for a simpler time, often thinking of the days she’d been able to walk free without fear of breaking someone in half via telekinesis. “Books are a good way to forget the world for a bit.” They were her favorite method of escaping behind painting. “Oh- I’m Willow,” she replied quickly, a little embarrassed that she’d forgotten to introduce herself in the first place. “I don’t think Great Expectations is necessarily cliché,” she offered politely with another little laugh before continuing on. “But mine’s called ‘Leave the World’.”
Amused by Willow apparently being grateful he was readily allowing her to take the blame, Milo realised he was genuinely beginning to enjoy her company. His smile only growing as she talked about the ease of the decision, it was refreshing not being seen as somebody argumentative, or petulant, even if the context could barely be considered serious. “It was a pleasure discussing business with you.” He replied, feigning sincerity as he caught her eye. Raising his eyebrows as she called his actions sweet, he wasn’t sure he would use that word but perhaps from an outsider’s perspective his explanation could be seen as sentimental. “Yeah, you could probably call it that.” He admitted, absentmindedly tapping his fingertips against the cover of the book still in his hands. “I don’t know… I hadn’t really thought about it. I don’t even know why I came here really, I think I might be looking for something that’s just... impossible to find, you know?” His old life, his humanity... Realising the stranger was right, his smile softened into an open, and unguarded expression. Books were a good way to escape, however briefly. And though there were no hidden doorways here allowing him to step back into the past, maybe a brief escape would enough for now. If achieving one was even possible. Maybe it needed to be enough. “Leave the World?” He couldn't say he had ever heard of it. “I don’t suppose there are any tips in there? I could use a vacation from this place.”
The younger man’s words brought a laugh to Willow’s lips, and she was grateful for the bell-like sound as she reminded herself how few and far between interactions like this had been. Sure- she’d talked to people in her self-imposed isolation, had even seen a few humans here and there, but there was nothing that could replace the actual company of another living and breathing person. “I hope I don’t have a bill coming in the mail for this business talk,” she teased back. Her shoulders relaxing another inch while she let herself slip a little further into comfort. 
The expression on her face took on a more sincere air as her head tilted curiously to the side, a gentle nod of understanding shaking it in the end. “I think...a lot of people feel that way, if we’re being honest.” And she didn’t see any reason not to be. Even ghosts were looking for something that seemed impossible to find. After all, that was why they’d stuck around in the first place. “But I also haven’t met anyone that hasn’t eventually found what they’re looking for. Sometimes you just need help, you know?” That was the job of the medium or exorcist in her mind— to extend that helping hand when someone needed it. “And sometimes the answer isn’t what we expect, but I think you’ll get there eventually.” Another chuckle shook her gently before she gave her answer. “No tips in there unless you’re looking for ways to survive and deal with the apocalypse. But if you’re looking for some ‘vacation’ books I can take you to some of my favorites?”
Milo laughed too, his eyes shining. “I wasn’t going to but now that I think about it my rent is probably due.” He teased, unable to help himself. He could hardly consider their conversation business talk, but he was enjoying it more than he would ever have expected to. Although he liked his time alone, socialising had always come naturally to him. He had no issue with talking to people, getting to know them when their paths somehow managed to cross with his own. He missed this, he missed making new friends. His smile fading somewhat as Willow became serious again, he appreciated her honesty. It made him sad to know what she was saying was probably true, but it also helped him to feel less alone. Sometimes he just needed to be reminded of that fact. “Yeah, I guess you’re right…” He murmured, knowing the sense of relief would be temporary. How long until he convinced himself otherwise? Until his own mind erased Willow’s wisdom? “It’s easy to forget sometimes, you know? Especially when your problems are so… specific.” He admitted, offering her a hesitant shrug.  
A smile tugging at his lips again, the mention of hope was comforting, regardless of the fact that everything felt pretty hopeless right about now. He was more stable than he had been, though still not used to his new life, still close enough to his old one to actively grieve for it. “You really think so?” He asked, knowing his longing would be obvious in his voice. He made no effort to hide it, too distracted by the mention of finding answers, by the sound of Willow’s heartbeat, by the book in his hands still reminding him of his childhood. “I really hope so…” Maybe she was right. Harsh was helping him now, and things were getting better. The progress was slow, but it still counted as progress. “Thank you.” His smile became more genuine as he felt a strange rush of affection for the woman he barely knew. Apparently she believed in him, apparently she was convinced one day he might actually be okay again. “Hm, I think tips on how to survive might be more useful to me than vacation books.” He was only half teasing. “But if you’d be up for the company, I’d love to see some of your favourites.” 
“Well- you’ll just have to send over the prices so I can get a look at them. My sister’s actually better with stuff like that anyway, so I’ll probably pass them on to her,” Willow chuckled. It was true though. Meg had needed to negotiate quite a few contracts along with her manager when it came to her spot as a blossoming celebrity. She’d missed this as well. Even though she’d always been a little more on the quieter side, Willow had always loved seeing a new smile wherever she could find them. Her warm expression shifted into concern another time as Milo continued to speak of his problems. She might not have the abilities to go along with being a proper medium, but she’d still been raised as one, and along with that came a compassion geared towards helping. “Well if you ever need reminding just message me, alright? I’m easy enough to find on the town forums. My full name’s Willow Finch if you want to search me, though.” Maybe she was coming on too strong when it came to being helpful, but it’d always been hard for her to draw that line. If she wanted to help, why shouldn't she make sure the other person knew it without a doubt?  
“Of course I think so,” Willow repeated with another soft smile, already happy to see the smallest flash of hope enter into Milo’s eyes. “I haven’t met a person yet that couldn’t find what they were looking for. Even if it took time. And even if it wasn’t what they were expecting.” The poor guy. She could practically feel the desperate wanting in his voice, could recognize it because she herself was on a seemingly hopeless quest for answers when it came to her own problems with telekinesis. There had to be an end...right? But a smaller voice in her mind reminded Willow that endings weren’t always happy. Nevertheless she brushed it aside, and turned to start on her way towards her favorite section of the store. “Come on- I think we can find some books that fall into both categories,” she finished with a grin over her shoulder. 
Milo continued to smile in response to the joke, leaning into the way this woman seemed able to distract him from his problems, if only for a brief moment in time. He could see she was being genuine, that she actually wanted to help, and he wasn’t used to that. Not anymore.  “I hope she doesn’t take a cut of the check?” He teased, his smile growing as she insisted she was always going to be there if he needed a reminder that all hope wasn’t lost. It was an odd thing for a stranger to offer, but given his life as of late, he didn’t feel as though his gauge on what was normal even functioned anymore. It had been permanently shattered when he woke up as an official member of the undead. Slipping his phone from his pocket, he held it out to her, encouraging her to plug her name and number into his list of contacts. “I might take you up on that, you know…” Why not? What did he have to lose by making another hesitant friend? “Willow Finch… your name has superhero vibes, has anybody ever told you that?” His eyes were shining as he was reminded of who he used to be, the kid who spent his free time split between the comic book store, and the many questionable establishments White Crest had to offer him. He was still very much that person, but nothing felt quite so simple anymore. He only wanted things to be simple.  
His smile fading when Willow insisted he would eventually find what he was looking for, some sense of peace, some way of being content with what he had become, maybe even some level of control when it came to fighting against the bloodlust continually scratching the back of his throat, he was impatient, but he was also happy just to believe that the answers were out there. He would find them, and maybe, just maybe, he would be okay. Surprised when she started to walk away from him, he faltered before hurrying to fall into step beside her, holding his breath as her movement caused the smell of her blood to permeate the air. He didn’t know what she meant by both categories, surely survival books and vacation books were on two very different ends of a spectrum. But he didn’t care, he wanted to understand, he wanted to follow her. Because, for some reason, she made him feel like there was hope, like he existed as more than some miserable outcome, and that was proving to be incredibly rare. 
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mostly-marvel-musings · 4 years ago
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A Mere Mortal - Chapter Three
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A/N: This story is based on the prompt : Vampires cannot enter a house without your permission, but what if your landlord’s a vampire? It’s his house, he’s just letting you live there. Part of the Landlord Vampire Fic Frenzy hosted by the amazing @just-the-hiddles . I’m super nervous about this one, so feedback’s most welcome!
Series Masterlist
Pairing: Vampire! Bucky Barnes x Vampire! Loki x Human! Reader
Word count: 2570. Yep. This one’s a bit lengthy!
Warnings: 18+ stuff. Some smut!! Foul language. Vampire Diaries reference?
Tags: @buckybarnesplumwhore @ladyacrasia @tcc-gizmachine @alexakeyloveloki
Taglists open! Send me an ask if you wish to be tagged!
...
“What did you say?” your mouth hung open and eyes went wide as Bucky uttered those words.
He chuckled looking at your stunned expression and said, “You heard me. The town’s history is rich with legends and myths of vampires and ghouls. I’m sure you could find tons of books about them in the library.”
“That is fantastic! Oh my God I knew I chose this town for a reason!” you were practically giddy with excitement.
“You keep surprising me (Y/N). A normal reaction to this would either be a person packing up his things and getting the fuck outta here or laughing in my face.” He said as you both walked out of the store.
You rolled your eyes and repeated your previous statement, “And I’ll keep breaking the stereotypes Mr Barnes. I don’t usually fit into the ‘normal’ box. And it’s a good thing.”
It sure is, he thought gazing at your form in the street light. The warm glow of the sodium vapor lamps made your face appear warm and alluring. The cold air made your breath visible, creating wonderful patterns against the night sky. Your scent intoxicated his mind and he couldn’t simply say goodbye to you just yet.
“Let me walk you home doll, wouldn’t want you getting attacked by vampires on your first week here.” he said placing a hand on the small of your back as you both turned towards Chapel Street.
“I could kick his ass, I can kick box pretty well you know. Not outrun him though, if he’s anything like the ones in Vampire Diaries. You know where they go whoosh from one place to another in a second? Have you seen it?” you asked making an attempt to gesture the fast running from the show.
He doesn’t seem like a guy who would watch the teen shows with way too many hot vampire and hybrid guys. Why did you even ask that? You seemed to lose your ability to carry on a decent conversation with this guy. That was a first.
“Never mind. So gimme more information on the legends. I’ll pester Frank tomorrow at the library but nothing like stories heard from local peeps right?” you teased hoping he’d forget you had asked a stupid question initially.
“I’ve grown up listening to these stories from my grandma, my mom, just everybody. Though their versions vary slightly.
The one that’s stuck around for centuries is about Lucas and Morwenna Klyn.” Bucky looked at you, he had lowered his voice slightly and his hand hadn’t left its place from your back.
You were trying to adjust the weight of the shopping bags in your hands, but hearing those names you looked up and couldn’t help snort a laugh.
“They sure sound like names straight out of a horror book. Go on.”
“Morwenna was said to have migrated here from somewhere near Ireland about 200 years ago and had found this town most to her liking. She was this evil vampire who had witchy abilities-
“Like a hybrid? That’s one thing missing from the Vampire Diaries, they’ve got werewolf vampires but not witchy vampires. Oh but there’s that original witch Esther.”
It was like your mouth was out of control. Rambling absolute nonsense when this very hot guy was eager to tell you stories about his hometown.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know why said that. I’m just a little crazy about all of this. I’ll keep my mouth shut now I promise.” You said physically putting a finger on your lips, adjusting the two bags in your left hand.
“I’ll forgive you this time.” He narrowed his impossibly gorgeous eyes seriously but the smile playing on his lips.
“So Morwenna had all sorts of powers, she was said to have the ability to control people’s minds, make them do her bidding. She met Lucas here in Dewsbury and he fell madly in love. Typical. Morwenna was beautiful, anybody would fall in love with her. She had a way with words too.
One day Lucas found her feeding on his younger sister Evelyn in these very woods. Her fangs dug deep in his sister’s neck, sucking the life out of her, Lucas watched in horror as Evelyn turned paler and paler in front of his eyes. He ran to stop her but was too late. Evelyn dropped to the ground like a piece of rock, her lifeless eyes still staring at Lucas even though there wasn’t any life in them anymore. Morwenna wiped the blood off her chin and approached Lucas, hunger still visible in her jet black eyes. She bared her fangs and Lucas made a run for his life.
Little did he know that she loved chasing her prey. Making them run for their lives, like feeble little lambs made her feel like a true hunter. She fed on him but didn’t kill him. Instead she turned him into a vampire. Evelyn’s ghost is said to haunt these woods till date. And here we are.” Bucky came to a stop abruptly.
“Whoa. You can’t leave me on this horrific info. I wanna know the rest.” You didn’t realize you reached your house so soon. You wanted to invite him in but he interrupted your thoughts.
“We’ll continue later. I’ve already taken up a lot of your time. You need rest (Y/N). Meet me for drinks at the pub tomorrow?” Bucky stuffed his hands back in his pockets and looked at you expectantly.
“Done. If you don’t show up at the pub on time, I’ll show up at your house and irritate the fuck out of you until you complete the story.” you threatened jokingly but you were very capable of doing that. Though you didn’t exactly know where he lived, you could figure it out sure.
He laughed out loud and the sound made your stomach do somersaults.
Even his laugh is fucking perfect.
“Relax I’ll be there. Goodnight (Y/N).”
He went for a handshake but you went for a side hug, you met somewhere awkwardly in between.
“Goodnight Bucky. Thanks for walking me home.”
“Even though you can kick box.” Bucky teased, making you chuckle.
He turned and started walking into the woods. You stared at his back for a good two minutes fighting the urge to say something but failed.
“Don’t let Evelyn haunt you in there.”
“Don’t worry I can kick box too.” He turned as he replied and shot you a wink.
You watched him until he disappeared into the night and turned to walk inside your house.
Setting the bags on your beige granite countertop, you looked out the kitchen window that overlooked the woods. They sure looked creepy, you were busy thinking about your extremely charming landlord though.
Smiling like an idiot, you were interrupted by a much too loud growl emitted from your belly.
“Shit! Dinner.”
You peeked open one eye to check the time, it read 6:01 am. You had woken up way too early. Maybe you could sleep in for a few more hours, but then you couldn’t once you were fully awake. Perils of being a light sleeper. Sprucing up the place seemed like a good idea, anyways there were a lot of boxes yet to be unpacked, especially your writing material.
What was the main reason for moving here? Writing!
And you were yet to set up your writer’s desk which you were very particular about. And couldn’t just have one writing spot. Inspiration struck at the most random places and situations and you had gotten pretty good at being prepared for that. It always helped to have a great view outside the window. Something about staring off into the distance made your brain come up with a thousand ideas.
The cabin bedroom was a large space, enough to set up a decent writing space. There was a ledge that ran along the bedroom window which was wide enough for you to sit and the bed was attached to it and it had the most gorgeous view of the woods; that would work too.
So you got to work after taking a shower and whipping up a quick breakfast for yourself.
A progress update meeting about your new book was in two months, which seemed like a long time but really you’d be needing all the time you could get to whip out another best seller. Which meant you needed to start writing as soon as possible.
After setting up the ‘work space’ you opened your computer, grabbed your glasses and stared at the blank word document for a few minutes.
Time to block out all the X rated thoughts about your super hot landlord (Y/N). Let’s get some work done, a draft, a outline structure, something. You can do this.
...
The concept of time soon lost on you once you began. It was going well, the ideas were flowing and you were typing them out at lightening speed.
A ding from your phone that lit up next to your laptop startled you out of your zone. It was a text from Bucky.
I’ll see you at the pub in fifteen? - James B
Had you really been writing for that long? Apparently you completely forgot about lunch. And now there wasn’t enough time.
Hurriedly you texted back a reply and got dressed. Drinks on an empty stomach never ended well in your case, you wished you had set an alarm or something.
...
You walked in the dimly lit pub and instantly the smell of booze and bar snacks filled your nostrils. You heard your name being called out from the far end and turned to see Bucky waving you over to a corner booth.
A warm smile on his face as you walked closer and you noticed he was wearing a leather jacket over a dark shirt, looking handsome as ever. He stood up to greet you in a hug.
“You look beautiful.” He said as you took off your jacket and sat opposite him on the semi circled sofa. This place looked like it belonged in the 80s. It probably did.
“Thanks you too.” your cheeks reddened further at your embarrassing response and the initial compliment, you closed your eyes and looked down. Fucking nerves.
Luckily he saved you by not dwelling on it further and asked what you’d have to drink.
“I’ll have the local beer please.”
Eyebrows raised in surprise as he probably saw you as a wine girl. You just shrugged at this point.
“Breaking stereotypes. Got it.” He replied nodding his head with a wide grin as he placed the order.
The conversation flowed as easily as the drinks and soon you had that much too familiar buzz. You were in the middle of explaining a funny incident that happened with you and Sam, giggling way too much when you were interrupted.
“Well if its not the famous (Y/N).” the smooth accented voice reached your ears as you slowly turned to see Loki standing near your booth grinning down at the pair of you.
“Famous? Am I famous?” you grinned back, the edge clearly off at this point. Loki had creeped you out in your meeting.
You missed the slight disappointment on Bucky’s face as you invited Loki to join you guys. Of course he covered it up and slid over to sit next to you, protectively close as Loki sat opposite you.
“So (Y/N), are you enjoying our little town?” Loki put both his hands on the table and leaned over to speak.
“I really am. People are so nice here, I’m not used to that. And Dewsbury has the most fascinating history!”
“So you know about the vampires?” Loki smirked as he glanced at Bucky who was shooting him a warning look.
“Oh yeah in fact, Bucky never got to finish the story last night because it was too late. I’m here to know the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” you said a bit too dramatically.
Damn this stuff was strong.
The men entertained you with stories of their own for the rest of the night and asked you about your life. You felt quite safe and were enjoying the little flirty banter going on between the three of you. You definitely had one too many pints.
You stood up to leave and instantly the room spun before your eyes. Loki’s hands landed on your shoulders to keep you steady.
“You alright there darling?” he asked, gazing into your eyes. You placed your hands over his as you nodded slowly and giggled.
Suddenly you felt Bucky slide a protective arm around your waist and pull you to his side, earning an eye roll from Loki.
“I got her. Let’s get you home (Y/N).” He said as he walked you both out of the pub, leaving Loki behind.
“I didn’t take you for a light weight doll.” Bucky looked at you as you had your arms around him to keep you steady.
“I’m really not. I just, I skipped lunch today.” you kept your eyes on the road as you approached your cabin much quicker than you realized.
“I just got into writing and lost track of time, not because I skip meals. I love to eat!” you clarified with another small giggle, as you both came to a halt in front of the house.
“Don’t sleep on an empty stomach (Y/N). I hope you have some food at home. If not we can go somewhere-
“No need Sir, I have some leftovers in the fridge. Thank you for walking me home. Again. You’re the best.” you leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek and lingered a bit.
He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind you ears and glanced at your lips. He really wanted to kiss you, know what you tasted like. Know how your body felt against his. Though now wasn’t the time, it would be taking advantage.
He said goodbye and watched you get in before turning back and walking home. At least you were safe.
...
Your body was on fire. Every touch every kiss made your head spin. He was leaving a trail of hot kisses down your jaw and neck before reaching the spot that made you moan loudly as he sucked hard.
You rolled over and straddled his hips placing your hands over his toned chest. You leaned down to kiss him and he sighed opening his mouth to allow your tongue to explore it further. The fight for dominance continued as his hands tugged your hair. You slid your own in his raven black hair.
You rolled your hips against his clothed erection earning another grunt from him. You were placing wet kisses down his torso almost reaching the waistband of his underwear when he grabbed you and spoke in that deep honey dripping voice,
“We have plenty of time for that later darling. Allow me to taste you first.” Your eyes flew open as you stared at Loki’s lust filled face.
Your skin was on fire still as you jolted awake. Your arousal evident between your legs as you sat up. Grabbing a bottle of water from the ledge you took a big swig and walked into the bathroom.
Loki smirked as he noticed your flustered state through your bedroom window, before he turned and vanished into the night.
...
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thepaperpanda · 4 years ago
Text
Dissipated by a Parrot || Sam Drake x Reader
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Summary: What might happen when a parrot takes over control
Warnings: none
Words: 2030
Authors: Cass & Rouge
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Sam stopped the motorcycle and looked around the place full of people, surrounded by colorful stands full of everything. "Here we are, Indian market, just like you wished," He said helping you off the vehicle. "But I honestly don't know why are we in here."
"Don't know what exactly?," You asked him and rushed towards one of the stalls shortly after. "Come here, Drake!"
"I don't know why you've wished to come here," Sam explained quickly and followed you, joining you soon. "What did you find there, huh?," He asked, wrapping his arm around your waist.
You slipped out of his embrace smoothly and started a conversation with the seller, asking the elder man about some local spices you could buy. "Look, smell!," You turned face to Sam. "It's so awesome here, can you smell all these scents of fresh spices and herbs?"
Sam looked at you with cigarette between his lips, he put the lighter back into his pocket puffing out some smoke. "Sure I can, smells like this Indian place you love to visit or order the dinner from there," He said, rubbing his nose.
You ignored his comment which in your opinion was partly offensive and you kept on lurking through stalls, talking with people and having good time.
Unfortunately your mood quickly dropped when with the corner of your eye you have spotted a stall where some men were selling animals.
Sam noticed this and got worried. "Hey? What's wrong sweetheart? If this is about my comment, I was just joking. You know me," He said, touching your shoulder.
"Look," you whispered and clenched palms in fists. "I bet they do this illegally. Look at these animals!"
The men were having a lot of animals in cages, sometimes too small to accommodate three or four animals at once. There were parrots, monkeys, iguanas, and many more.
You rushed toward the stall.
Few steps away from stall Sam grabbed you by the arm and pulled you closer. He took cig out of his mouth and looked at you. "Love, that's the way it is here. It's not America, stuff like this happen here, there is nothing we can do about it."
"Help! Madam!" screechy voice got Sam's attention. It was coming from the stall. "Okay, let's see what's going on there." He said letting go of you.
You were first who approached the stall. "Excuse me, don't you think these cages are too small for the animals, huh?," You raised your voice a little and put hands on the metal table on which a cage with a parrot was placed.
Shady looking man glared at you with a frown. "Ah! Americans! Want get a pet? They good and healthy! I have papers," He said and smiled at you. "For nice lady like you 250$! Go, look, find perfect pet."
Sam frowned at the poor attempt in both English and selling you a pet. He tried to find the source. He walked around looking at all the poor trapped animals. "I wish I could let you all out." Sam walked until he came face to face with a parrot cage.
"Cookie?," Bird asked and Sam recognized the voice.
"Y/N! Sweetheart, come here!" He called you.
Glaring angrily at the seller and didn't move your glance off his shady-looking face, you approached your boyfriend. "Yes?"
"Look at this cutie." He said pointing at the cage.
"Hello! Namaskaar!" Parrot screeched and started to bite the metal bars of a cage.
Sam licked his lips looking around. "How about we take her and I will make sure this stand disappears and animals will be freed?"
Measuring his features with curious glance you gave him a slight nod of your head. "You can rip their little balls as well," you said.
Sam smiled and ruffled your hair. "Don't ya worry your pretty little head, love.”
Parrot looked at both of you. "Love, Love. Help." It screeched.
Sam chuckled and took the cage off the hook. "Go on, use your charm and get us some good price."
--------------
Afternoon came quickly and started covering the world with thick curtain of darkness and quietness.
The hotel room was filled with a dim light coming from a little lamp standing on a wooden nightstand.
Dressed in short shorts and too tight tank top you were sitting on the bed and observing how the parrot you and Sam bought on the market was wandering back and forth along windowsill.
Parrot stopped to clean its feathers, it shook its head and looked at you. "Hello. Cookie? Please!" It screeched.
Sam opened the door and smiled looking at you. "That's my favorite part of working with girlfriend. The sweet sight of you in my room," He joked and walked closer to kiss your head, Sam sat next to you. "So! I have good news, I took care of that man. He is done and animals will be free."
Parrot jumped off the windowsill and happily jumped toward Sam.
"Look!," You almost jumped in spot. "It's jumping! Look at these little jumps! Oh, God!"
"Yea, I think I know why." He said and picked up bird to look at it. "Those kind of people cut the wings, so they can ran away." Sam sighed and set parrot on his laps.
Bird looked at him and soon started to climb his jacket only to try to get to his pocket.
You took one of injured wings and saw a sharp line of where the cut was. You giggled seeing how parrot made it to Sam's shoulder.
"Ah! Yeah, yeah right! I have something for you." Sam said and pulled out few bird cookies, bird took one and started to eat it.
He smiled and started to pet animal's head. "Y/N? You think it can stay with us?"
"Why not. But I'll list up what is forbidden around this little sweetheart. First, no swearing. I don't want him or her to lurk around while squawking fuck, understood?," You smiled. "Second, I'll try to teach him or her talk. Next, no smoking around the parrot."
Sam smiled looking at you. "Look at you! Acting like a real life mom, I feel the maternal instinct kicking in." Sam joked and parrot nuzzled to his neck. "I think it likes my birds."
You reached hand and tried to invite parrot on your shoulder. "C'mere, baby. Come to mama."
Parrot took one more cookie from Sam and jumped on your hand and then traveled on your shoulder. "Cookie?" It said within high tone, offering you the said cookie, almost throwing it on your knees.
"Keep it to yourself, baby!," As gently as you could, you stroked parrot's head. "It's fluffy! I'm dying! I will never live this little lovely birdy behind!"
"Yes! We will take you home, buy you a big, nice, cozy cage or no you know what fu.... Heck the cage. I will get you a tree, you will be free and have a lots of snack." Sam said with a smile. "But I think it's time to sleep."
"What if baby will fly out through the window?," You asked in worried voice.
"Y/N, the wings? Remember?" Sam asked, looking at you. "It won't heal, love. This poor thing will stay flightless untill its last day," Sam said, picking up the parrot. "For now we will put it in the cage and cover it."
Man did exactly what he said and turned to you. "Baby is asleep so now daddy can take care of mommy," Sam hummed, slowly getting closer to you.
You knelt on the mattress and as soon as he came closer you put hands to his crotch where you massaged him lightly with your glance on his face.
Sam landed down to kiss you gently, pushing you further on the bed. His hand traveled under your top. "Now, let's see wh..."
Sam was interrupted by a loud parrot's sound. It wasn't any specific word, just a loud scream.
You almost let a hum of appreciation when you heard the parrot and its swishing voice. You laid back on the bed and rested head on the pillow and slowly spread you legs looking at Sam. "Go ahead, daddy. Our kid apparently needs attention."
Sam laughed resting his forehead on your shoulder, placing few kisses there. "C'mon. He... Or she is a big bird. It will be fine, now I want to give my attention to you."
He kissed your neck and moved down until he was kissing belly. The parrot screamed again, Sam groaned and put his head on your stomach. "I guess we will have our first sleepless night."
"Maybe it want to get outta cage. Let this happen and then maybe I'll let you to have some of this," you rubbed thighs together and licked your lips briefly, shifting your shirt up enough to reveal a little of your rounded boobs to him.
"I will put it in other room." He got up from the bed and walked to cage.
"You don't like sleeping, huh buddy?" Sam joked and removed the cover. He freed the bird and moved it to other room.
Soon your boyfriend joined you again, he didn't wasted more time and removed your top and shorts. "This will be fu..." Sam was again interrupted by a loud scream from other room.
As naked as you were beneath Samuel Drake, you used all of your strengths to push him aside. Then, you smoothly got off the bed and with a familiar swing in your hips you walked to another room and soon came back with parrot sitting on your shoulder. "Let him stay."
"You will let our baby watch how I F… you?" Sam said not really sure how else avoid the "F" word. "Isn't it depressing, I don't want this to become a disfuctional family."
You went to the wardrobe and let the parrot got off your shoulders to step on the counter of the furniture.
Parrot, squeaking happily walked back and forth along the edge of wardrobe and at the end it sat in the middle, looking down on the room.
With a smile you turned to Sam and slowly got on the old bed, straddling his laps quickly. "He or she doesn't understand anything at all darling," you explained. "Besides, since when are you concerned about someone watching us?," You asked and giggled shortly after. You placed hands to his chest and leant forward, rubbing your naked breasts against his chest covered under grey shirt. You nibbled onto his earlobe. "I thought it's turning you on, actually."
Sam sat up and wrapped his arm around you. "Well it's our baby after all, I don't want it to see those stuff until it's 18th birthday." He joked and kissed you deeply, suddenly Sam hissed. "Fuck." He pulled away to take a look at his hand, it was bitten. The parrot look at him from behind you.
You laughed and got off his lap. "I think no pussy for you tonight then."
"I guess so." Sam said with a heavy sigh, he quickly found his jacket.
"Cookie?" Parrot asked, tilting it's head.
"Yea, here." Sam muttered giving the last cookie to the bird. "I think we will have a lot things to adjust. When it comes to us and parrot."
"Like what?," You asked slipping your naked body under thin quilt.
"Teaching him that we need some private time too and learning that we have... feathery baby." Sam joked and removed his pants and shirt to join you under quilt. He sighed and pulled you closer, soon parrot tried to squeeze between two of you.
"Come here, little one," you let the parrot placed itself between two of you. You pressed your lips to little head which was accompanied with loud, squeaking "hello".
Sam looked at you with a frown. "Shall I be jealous?" He asked.
"Maybe," you replied.
Sam laughed quiely and pulled you a little closer, being careful to not hurt the bird. "You are lucky I love you." He said and kissed your forehead. "And I think I love you too. Even if I am a litte jealous." Sam muttered before kissing parrot's head.
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Pandies🐼: @imidarogerson @grossograsso @thewildgardensstuff @leven-and-ashley @la-verdura @bearded-steve-rogers @atuckyismylife @krispyjellyfishzombie @personality-within @haseki-huricihan @choppedgardenwhispers @vroobelek @lattimelka @chris-beamz  @purepearls @volcanoxxx @kastrup-sofie @mikkal-akasaki @withoutashadowofhope @radbluebirdeagle @smutloversblog @buquete @super-psycho-love69 @tanglesss @peter-sommer @baysidewest @vegemania @philip-stan @chodiusmmm @tykorclint @dagger-dragger @kurant @oxfordkipem @deliciousbouquet90 @tuptuptup @hellenna80 @karina-marina9 @latimeriaaa @bratko @wurld89 @scott-evans @kiss-me-rouge @ovonel-espaniol @dancing-tacco @ratugadhi @white-tiger-shangrila @axn69 @eternal-life-awaits @mrs-laura-harmon @gleeeeees @darkllaama @jatut @agawux @fuzzy-tigrrr @jrjohnsson2 @maaargoshaaa @einexx @nwmtagsb @secretlygrantaire @kyloren-supreme-ben @infinity-stones-seeker @thehappyspider @wings4life @huxyluxy @dontbeafraidchild @misafiryanki @electronicpatrolcollective @thisismysecrethappyplace​ @aulika @a-happy-wolf @creative-seahorse @biologyforliving​ @stareyedplanet​
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ladyreapermc · 5 years ago
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Fic: Sympathy for the Devil (John Wick x Reader) 2/4
Summary: Your best friend is getting married and you’re very excited until you find out that your ex is coming to the wedding. After a night of too much drinking and without a date for the big day, you summon a demon to make a deal.
Part 1
Author’s notes: I was gonna wait until Wednesday to post this, but you know what? F*ck it! Let’s be chaotic! Have some more demon!John my good people! I was pleasantely surprised at how many of you responded to this. Thank you for being as interested as Demon!John as my crazy brain and @toomanystoriessolittletime (but she doesn’t really count because we already established we share the same brain! lol Kidding! I love you). So here’s chapter 2 and a brandnew cover! Thank you @themanthemyth-thelegend for lending me your photoshop skills to add the title. Love you lots!
Wordcount: 3470
Warnings: once again mentions of alcohol and nausea and hangovers (but no one throws up, I promise!)
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It took you a moment to finally open your eyes after the kiss. You didn’t think anything could feel that good and that might have been the best kiss you had in a long time. Maybe in your entire life. You were almost disappointed that John had broken away because it made you feel a strange sort of loss.
When your mind finally stopped racing enough for you to pay attention to your surroundings again, you noticed John was nowhere to be found and there was no trace of him. No sign he had even been there in the first place. Maybe your inebriated and horny brain did conjure him up after all. Shaking your head, you returned home, setting the jewelry box on your bedside table and crawling under the covers. As you closed your eyes, you were convinced the entire thing had been a weird dream.
The next morning your head was pounding, your stomach churned with every movement and your mouth tasted like something had died inside. You stumbled blindingly into your bathroom, fighting off nausea. The shower made you feel a little more human and awake. The fresh pot of coffee, the stack of pancakes and a bottle of aspirin waiting for you when you got to the kitchen finished off the job.
“Didn’t hear you come in last night,” your mother commented while you shoveled pancake goodness into your mouth.
“Went drinking with the girls,” you replied around a mouth full and your mother grimaced in disgust, making you roll your eyes. It wasn’t like you were doing that in public. It was just you and her, but she always made a big deal about your manners. It wasn’t as bad as in your pageant girl days, but it was still annoying.
Back then your mother would control every aspect of your life and behavior, because being a pageant queen herself, she always dreamt of passing on her legacy to her daughter. You lost count of how many times she told you how she and her dad struggled to conceive for years and had pretty much given up hope when she found she was pregnant of you, their little miracle, and her dream had come true at least.
You kind of enjoyed at first, the whole pageant life. All the tiaras and pretty dresses were fun, but as you grew older, your interest shifted and you always felt like she never had forgiven you completely for not going forward with it, choosing college and police academy instead of state and national pageants.
“I ironed your dress for tonight and hung it in the laundry room,” she said conversationally bringing you back to the present and you winced, appetite gone.
“Thanks, mom,” you said pushing the plate away from you.
You had blissfully forgotten the entire wedding/rehearsal dinner and the fact that you’d be running into Ryan on both but here was your mom bringing it all back. It wasn’t really her fault. She didn’t know he was in town, much less the details of your breakup. All you told your parents was that you two were done. They didn’t ask for details too relieved that it was finally over.
After washing your plate and refilling your mug, you went back to your childhood room, planning on doing some work before it was time for dinner, but stopped at the sight of the jewelry box and book of shadows.
Part of you wanted to believe you didn’t go to the middle of the street like a lunatic to play summoning demons, but the cut on your finger was still there, so was the box. That did happen. Could John had been real? He couldn’t be, right? What was more plausible? That you summoned a demon from the pits of hell or that your hallucinated a gorgeous man due to too much alcohol?
You cleaned the box and put your necklace back on with snort before powering your laptop so you could write up some reports, being confronted with the low battery light. You dug through your bag, searching for your charger but apparently, you had left at home. This was so not your day.
“I’m heading into town,” you called out from the front door as you put on your shoes. “Anybody want anything?”
“Could stop by at Callum’s, see if the books I ordered arrived?” your father asked and you called a quick agreement before you stepped out into the sunny spring day.
You considered taking your car but decided that a walk would do you some good so you put your earbuds, blasting one of your playlists and after twenty minutes you were at the heart of town, waving at familiar faces as you made a beeline to the electronic store to buy yourself a new charger, before heading to the antique books dealer a couple of blocks down the road.
Callum’s bookstore was a little place that had been standing for as long as you could remember and it was one of your favorite places in your home town. As you stepped inside a small chime rang out, announcing your arrival. To your surprise, it wasn’t Callum that stepped out to meet you, but a young man who smiled brightly at you.
“Welcome to Callum’s books. How can I help you?”
“My father ordered some books,” you said, offering your last name and watching as the man – Clark according to his nametag – typed on a computer. Apparently, Callum was beginning to modernize his business.
“They’re in the back. I’ll pack them up for you,” Clark replied with another smile, before disappearing behind a door.
You wandered aimlessly, browsing the book spines, picking up random titles that caught your attention to flip through it. There was something magical about reading through words that someone else had read one day or even made notes. It was a unique story inside a story.
As you read through a dedicatory in one of the books you picked up, you felt the familiar prickling on the back of your neck, the strange, uncomfortable feeling of being watched that always made the hairs on the back of your neck to stand on its ends.
You breathed slowly left hand falling to your waist but coming up empty. You didn’t have your holster with you because you weren’t on duty. This wasn’t New York, this was your hometown a city where the worst kind of crime that had ever happened in the last ten years was someone vandalizing the high school principal’s car.
Setting the book back, you turned around, breath catching in your throat when you saw John there, leaning against one of the bookcases and watching you with his intense dark eyes.
“Hello, darling.”
Your mouth moved wordlessly for a couple of seconds as you tried to make your brain work through your shock. He was real? You didn’t hallucinate or dream him?
“No, you didn’t,” he said, lips drawing into a smirk as he took a step towards you. “We did indeed meet at the crossroads and make a deal.”
“Right,” you croaked, the memory of kissing him enough to make your knees weak.
Fortunately, you heard Clark calling your name and had an excuse to look away from John and focus on the friendly seller instead. As you reached for the pile of carefully wrapped books, John swiped in, picking them up for you.
“Why don’t I give you a hand, darling?” he said, not giving you a chance to answer, his gaze shifting to Clark. “Tell Callum I’ll meet him tomorrow to see the other book.”
Before you had a chance to protest, John had already stepped outside his long legs giving him an unfair advantage and you had no other choice but follow. He made his way to a gorgeous Mustang holding your books under his arm, as he opened the passenger door for you.
You stood there still too stunned to know what to do. Were you really about to get into the car of a strange man, possibly a demon? Before your mind could finish processing that thought, your legs had already moved you forward and you got in. John flashed you a smile as he handed your books before closing the door.
“You look like you could use a drink,” he teased, turning on the engine and you snorted. It was ten in the morning and you were still nursing a hangover but he was absolutely right.
“I’ll settle for some coffee,” you said instead and John nodded, driving the short distance to the same diner you had been at with your friends yesterday. The two of you even sat at the same booth nursing the burned coffee as you just stared at each other, the air heavy with tension.
“You have questions,” John said, finally breaking the silence. “Ask them.”
“You’re really a demon?” you blurted out and he chuckled, giving you a quick nod. “Prove it.”
“You want me to grown horns and a tail or something?” he asked with a smirk and you snorted. That would be quite funny and ridiculous. “It would.”
“And you can read my mind.” It was an assertion, but John still nodded. You wondered how that would feel, to listen to everyone’s thoughts.
“A little bit like listening to a radio that’s picking up interference,” he replied, startling you and he even looked surprised himself like he wasn't expecting to tell you. “I can hear yours much clearer. Other people, they’re usually just whispers, and I need to focus a little more.”
“So, I guess I have to be careful about what I think around you, huh?” you said with a smile, which John returned.
“Probably.”
And just because you could, you conjured up a mental picture of him with bright red horns sticking out of his dark hair. John nearly spat out of coffee, laughing and you chuckled too, relaxing.
The silence stretched between the two of you again, but strangely it wasn’t uncomfortable. John set your nerves on edge, but not in a bad way. It was more like eager expectation, the same you used to feel every Christmas morning before coming down the stairs to find your presents. He was a fascinating surprise you were anxious to unravel.
“What exactly happens with this deal?” you asked, drumming your fingers on the table, just to have something to do.
“You get what you want and I get what I want. Simple as that.”
“And what you want?” you met his gaze that seemed to electrify your body and steal your breath with its intensity.
“What you think I want, darling?” he asked, tracing the brim of his cup as he watched you and you swallowed hard, looking away.
“My soul?” You guessed and for the third time, Joh just nodded. It was refreshing to meet someone this honest. “But I didn’t give you that in the deal.”
“True. But there are other ways to get it. Just takes longer.”
“Is there a way to break the deal?” you asked.
“Do you want to?”
You thought about it and you should want it. You were sitting across a literal demon who just told you point-blank that he wanted your soul. You should want to stay as far away as possible end this before it even began but something was stopping you. A sort of morbid curiosity, the same one that pushed you to the crossroads last night. That part of you wanted to see how far John would go to have your soul and how far could you push back, challenge him.
“No,” you said finally and John smiled, it was almost wolfishly, predatorial and made you shudder.
“Then what time should I pick you up tonight?”
 ---
Eight on the dot John pulled up in front of her house, dressed in one of his best dark suits, his hair pushed back and away from his face. He surveyed the two stores Greek revival style construction, the picket white fence and perfectly manicured lawn. The embodiment of the American dream.
With a smile, John walked up the stone pathway to the front door and before he could even reach for the doorbell, it was pulled open and there she stood in a navy-blue dress falling just above her knees and a deep neckline that commanded his eyes to take a peek at her generous cleavage.
The dark color of the dress complimented her porcelain skin, just like the dark shade of red of her lipstick that kept pulling his eyes to her full lips and the way her hair was pulled up exposing her neck almost dared him to kiss it. She looked irresistible and John couldn’t help but want to wreck her, taint the pristine purity he could feel on her.
“You look beautiful, darling,” he said and she actually blushed, lowering her gaze, a shy smile across her lips.
“Thank you.”
She took the hand John offered her, letting him lead her to his car. He could feel her hesitation, doubt filling her mind again, along with concern for her friends at the thought of bringing a demon to the rehearsal dinner.
“You have nothing to worry about, darling,” John reassured. “I’m bound to you until our deal is completed. I will not harm you or anyone you care about. I have no reason to do so. Not unless they threaten me.” John could tell she was inclined to believe him, but there was still a hint of uncertainty. “Rest assured that I will never lie or deceive you. Not when the truth can get me everything I need.”
She met his eyes, holding his gaze for a moment, searching for the truth in them. John knew she was very apt at spotting lies if due to her training or natural talent, he had yet to discover, but John was very happy that he was being completely honest with her. Apparently satisfied with what she saw in his gaze, she nodded and got into the car.
It was a short drive to the Italian restaurant the rehearsal dinner was being held and when John handed his keys to the valet, he also included a healthy tip. It was much easier to assure the safety of his car by being generous than being threatening.
He offered his arm, noticing how small her hand looked tucked by his elbow as he guided the way to the entrance. As they stepped closer to the door, John was flooded with her anxiety, the fear of running into her ex and his new girlfriend and uncertainty about her looks. It was overwhelming and unsettling and John was getting nauseous himself, so he entwined their fingers together and squeezed lightly. She looked over at him almost surprised as John offered his reassurance.
“Everything will be fine,” he said against her ear, making sure his lips grazed her skin just to see her shiver and gasp. Once again he was overtaken by her scent, making him unsteady with want. He pulled away, noticing the way her eyes were a little glazed too. It was good to know that he wasn’t the only one affected.
They quickly located their table, sitting side by side and John ordered her some sparkling wine to settle her nerves and bourbon for himself.
As the night progressed and conversation flowed, John could tell she had relaxed considerably as she talked and laughed with her friends. He piped in every now and then, but his focus was mainly on her, making sure she was enjoying herself, that her glass was always full, but alternating with water so the wouldn’t get sick.
He kept an arm around her shoulders, fingers either playing with the loose strands of hair on her nape or with the delicate chain of her necklace as he sipped his own drink. John didn’t quite understand his need to have a constant point of physical contact with her but didn’t question it and she didn’t seem to mind. As a matter of fact, whenever he pulled his hand away for any reason, she searched for it, leaning against his touch like a cat starved for affection.
When she stood up to make her toast, John tried to ignore the loss, focusing instead on scanning the rest of the guests. He had noticed a blonde man staring at her all night and wondered if that was the ex-boyfriend. Regardless, John made sure she remained oblivious to him and he didn’t dare to come closer.
From the corner of his eye, he saw her hugging the bride after her speech, the two of them exchange quiet words. A rush of pleasure shot through his body as she lied about him to her best friend. It was small, but it was a sin and her guilt tasted like rich coffee in his tongue, bitter but delicious. He grinned into his bourbon, glancing to where he saw her, but finding the spot empty.
As John looked around for her a sudden ache in his chest chased away any enjoyment that came from tainting her soul, confusing him because he never felt bad about corrupting anyone before. Then again, he never really met anyone like her before.
He took a moment to tune into her thoughts, listening to how she chided herself for lying to her friend and for being smitten by John. He almost smiled because she was a very intelligent woman. She could tell John was manipulating her, using his ability to be privy to her thoughts and feelings to give her everything she wanted, but she still couldn’t fight her attraction any more than he could fight his.
There was a moment of silence and then John was overcome by panic. It squeezed his gut and made him stood up in an instant, ignoring the strange looks he was receiving. She was terrified and the need to find her grew impossible to ignore or fight against. John let their bound guide him, finding her cornered by the blonde man just outside the restroom. Apparently, he was indeed the ex.
She looked like a deer caught in headlights and it brought forth a savage urge in John to ripping this man to shreds. He could actually feel the thrum of power barely contained under his skin and knew that if he looked into a mirror right now he would find his eyes were pitch black.
John pushed down at his impulses, a little shocked at his lack of control and protectiveness towards her. He never cared about the ones he made deals before. They were just meat sacks carrying around the prize he wanted. Not her though. She was different to him and he didn’t know why.
“There’s something you need to know about our breakup.” John heard the man said just as he moved closer to them, making the other man shut up.  
“There you are, darling,” John said catching her gaze and her relief was obvious.
He moved towards her with sure steps, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close to his body, giving into the possessiveness he seemed to be feeling for her. He was rewarded by the feel of her tense muscles relaxing in his embrace as she hugged him back, her thumb hooking on the belt loops of his trousers.
Once he felt she was safe and protected, John shifted his attention to the ex-boyfriend. Examining the other man and enjoying way too much the terrified look in his face as he confronted the darkness of John’s eyes.
“Hello. I don’t think we’ve met,” he said offering Ryan a hand. “John.”
“Ryan,” the blonde said, his voice cracking slightly, and John smiled. Spineless asshole, not worthy of his time. He shifted his gaze to her, dismissing Ryan.
“Are you ready to go? It’s getting quite late.” She nodded quickly, letting John guide her away from Ryan, her relief growing at each step they took.
“Thank you. How did you know?”
“We’re bounded, my darling. I will always know when you need me,” he said caressing her arm soothingly and pressing a quick kiss to her temple. The action surprised both of them. John didn’t mean to be this gentle and he realized she wasn’t the only one getting too involved.
He waited while she said her goodbyes to the bride and groom, another lie slipping easily through her lips. The rush of sin wasn’t as big, neither was her guilt. Once she was ready, John led her outside where his car was already waiting. This time, she didn’t hesitate on getting in the car, as a matter of fact, as John took the driver’s seat, all he could feel coming for her was comfort and relief.
tbc
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purplesurveys · 4 years ago
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What would you say is your favorite food? Sushi. < Ahhh, this is a good one. My favorite is down to a tie: it’s either chicken curry or burgers.
What color eyes does the person you like / love have? Are they pretty? Dark brown. I’m not too sure what the second question is referring to but yeah, she and her eyes are both pretty.
What was the first television show you were obsessed with? Hi-5, omg. That show was my life in preschool and I always watched the 12 NN replay as soon as I got back home from school, back when I was still on a half-day sched. I was so hooked I remember having legit tantrums before starting Grade 1 because grade school meant full days in school and thus having to miss out on the show entirely.
Do you like Mexican food or any other foreign foods? For sure. All my favorites are Asian (Indian, Japanese, Indonesian, Chinese, etc.) but I also enjoy Italian, Mexican, Greek etc cuisines. I generally haven’t tried African cuisines but I really, really want to.
What color is the keyboard you are currently using? The keys are black with white lettering.
Do you own any of those ‘chunky’ and cute rings? Nope, not my style.
What are you planning on eating for dinner tonight if you haven’t already? I saw my dad cooking up something deep-fried; it was like his own version of katsu or something, or maybe it’s fish fillet? I’m not too sure what it is yet but I’m excited and will probably eat lots of it as I skipped all my meals and have only been running on coffee and vape all day - not good.
Do you own an iPod or MP3 player? If so, when did you get it? Technically I still do. Haven’t used it since high school. I got it when I was 10 back in ‘08; I was envious of the kids in school who had iPods, so I asked my dad to buy me one even though I wasn’t super into music at the time. Not the best kid in the world.
When was the last time someone took your picture? Last Saturday when my package came. Apparently online deliveries now require your photo to be taken upon receiving your package and I think it’s for the seller to keep track of their transactions. I’m not a big fan of the new procedure, but it’s whatevs.
Would you rather write a report or type it on a computer? Type. 
What color was the last jacket or hoodie you wore? Gray.
Do you receive more compliments or insults on a daily basis? Neither, really. I haven’t been talking to people a lot; and when I do it’s for work, where I receive neither compliments nor insults.
Who is the lead actress / actor from your absolute favorite movie? Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney, or Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
Can you recite the alphabet backward? [continued from last night] Slowly, but I’m sure I can finish it.
Do you eat chili when you get a hotdog, or do you like it plain? We don’t do hotdogs with chili here. I generally don’t see chili much where I live and I wouldn’t call it a common dish.
Would you say it’s easy for people to make you smile or laugh? At first I thought it was, but I’m slowly realizing that it isn’t.
What would you say is your favorite cereal, if you even like it? Cookie Crisp is the only one I like. I don’t have cereal often.
When was the last time you went on vacation? Where was it? It was a quick weekend getaway to Tagaytay and then Cavite, if it counts.
How many states have you been to in your lifetime? Zero.
Do you and your friends normally say you love one another? Yep, especially with Andi and Angela.
Have you ever been an outcast at your school or anywhere else? I was definitely one in early grade school, and again in Grade 6 when both my closest friends migrated in a span of six months, and I spent nearly all my lunch periods alone. Looking back on it, I’m really glad I powered through and made it here because I truly wasn’t happy at the time.
Do you own any dresses? If so, what colors are they? I have lots of sundresses and little black dresses because I was into those for a very long time at one point. Some of them are black, obviously, but I also have dresses in blue, maroon, and olive.
Would you say you drink more pop / soda than you should? I never drink soda as I’ve always felt like I spend more time complaining about how drinking it feels like burning my tongue and throat than actually enjoying it.
Would you rather have orange juice or milk with your breakfast? Water.
How many different colors has your bedroom been painted? Just one. The walls have been white ever since we moved here 12 years ago.
Do you cuss? If so, do you ever cuss in front of your parents? I’ll slip in front of them sometimes but I never get in trouble for it anymore.
Would you ever tell your mom about the things you’ve done sexually? Our humor together can be raunchy sometimes but I don’t think I’d ever do this. I dunno if she wants to hear I’ve had sex with a girl either.
Is there anyone out there who can make you cry very easily? Yes.
What was the worst news you’ve heard this entire week? *In the last week, hearing about the typhoon’s effects in other cities didn’t feel good. This entire country is literally only getting by with donations from the private sector because the government isn’t doing shit for cities and families who got severely affected by the typhoon; it’s almost depressing to hear and read about.
Have you ever been in a car wreck? I’ve been in minor car accidents but it would be too much to call any of them car wrecks. They had all just been tiny bumps or thuds.
Do you have your ears pierced? If not, what do you have pierced? Yes, my mom had my earlobes pierced when I was an infant. I don’t plan on getting any more new ones as I’m not really into piercings.
Has anyone ever told you that they think you have ADHD? Nope.
What is your biggest pet peeve? When people reach out first via text/IM then even if I get back to them in 5–10 seconds, it takes them a long time to get back to me. It’s especially annoying if they classify it as urgent, I drop everything to reply quickly, then they end up disappearing. Like why?
Do a lot of people understand you completely? Who does exactly? No, I like keeping a wall up. 
Would you say you’re really good at cooking and baking things? Haha no. But it’s something I want to be skilled in, definitely. I’d love to be able to make the food I usually just thirst over on the internet. I’m taking baby steps, like figuring out how to make certain sandwiches, but I have a long way to go before I can consider myself any good.
How is the weather outside right this second? It’s been a little cloudy this morning but it might start to get fair seeing how I’m beginning to see the sky turn blue. I’m just hoping there won’t be too much sun, period.
Do you have a lot of trees around your house? What about buildings? No buildings as I live in a gated village. We have a number of trees around, but I wouldn’t call it ‘a lot.’
Would you say either one of your parents are 'pack-rats?’ No. I have that title, and I believe I inherited it from my great-grandmother who was a bit of a pack rat herself, as I’ve been told.
Have you ever disowned anyone in your family? For what reasons? Kinda. I don’t associate with one of my uncles because he has a terrible drinking issue that he never got to permanently fix. Whenever I see him at family gatherings he just smells like stale gin or whatever it is he drinks, and it just ruins the essence of family reunions for me. As recent as Christmas Day last year he drove drunk and crashed into a car with an entire family, but as always his ass got lucky because 1) no one in the family got hurt, and 2) said family let go of the lawsuit they were planning to file against him.
Have you ever seen That 70’s Show? Do you watch it regularly? I tried watching the first episode but genuinely could not find it entertaining for the life of me. Sorry, Mila :(
If you could choose, what decade would you rather live in? I never really think about revisiting decades - they’re already behind, so what’s the point? As bad as the 2020s have been looking, I’m okay with staying here.
How often would you say you get sick? Once a year at most.
Is there anyone out there who has hurt you so much, you wish they’d die? I used to wish they would die, but I don’t feel that way anymore.
Has anyone ever called you a socio-path before? I don’t think so.
When was the last time you watched a movie in theaters? December.
Have you ever moved to a completely different state before? We’ve moved to different regions before.
Do you mind it when surveys ask you really personal questions? No. Isn’t that part of the point of surveys?
When was the last time you told someone you love them? Thursday or Friday I think, when Andi said it to me first and I said it back. I wasn’t having a good day and they were just looking out.
Which one would you like more: kiss on cheek / kiss on neck? Depends on my mood. Right now a kiss on the cheek sounds nice.
Does it bother you when people steal your stuff on MySpace? This never happened to me because I had Myspace for such a short time and I never caught it at its peak. Also, how do people steal your stuff over there? That’s pretty intriguing lmao
Do you have freckles? Do you like / dislike them? I don’t have any.
Who would you say is the best actor / or actress in your opinion? My biased ass would rally for Kate Winslet all the way, but some other great ones for me are Toni Collette, Emma Stone, Jodie Foster, and Natalie Portman.
How many times have you been drunk in your life? Many.
What would you do if the last person you kissed said they hated you? Be confused and ask them to give me a few concrete reasons. I don’t think too highly of myself, but I know I’ve never done anything to make me deserving of hate, especially with regard to us.
Do you ever think you might be pregnant? No, it has never been a worry of mine.
When was the last time you acted really immature? The weekend.
Do you enjoy watching comedies or horror movies more? Horror. I never watch comedies and the only subtype of it that I watch is romcom.
As a child, did you ever have an imaginary friend? Yeah but it lasted all of five minutes until I got bored with the concept.
Does anyone call you baby? Who would that be? No.
Can you rely on one or more people to take up for you? I have no idea what take up means. If this also means ‘stand up for me,’ then yeah I can.
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shirtlesssammy · 5 years ago
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15x04: Atomic Monsters
Then:
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Becky was an obsessed, gross fangirl, and it was not awesome.
Now:
We open to the bunker under attack. Dean is in full beard and kicking ass. Boy, the director of this episode sure knows how to make Dean pretty. He makes it to the bunker’s kitchen to find Benny (!!!!) on the floor dying. 
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I don’t rewatch Taxi Driver for a reason, Show. I loved Benny and Dean’s friendship, so while this was great just to have him back for old time’s sake, it still makes me sad that he’s still gone. (And spoiler, this is Sam’s dream. I just like to think about how Sam still thinks about this friendship he didn’t want Dean to have and it haunts him to this day.)
Dean’s looking for someone. He walks into the war room and finds him: Sam, all powerful on demon blood. Dean tries reasoning with his brother, but he’s past all that. Sam kills another hunter sneaking up on them, and then he kills Dean. 
Sam wakes up from his nightmare, gasping. SAM!
He heads to the kitchen to find Dean looking for cases, drinking coffee, and eating a plate of bacon. Dean says it’s veggie bacon when Sam tries to turn down eat some. Sam also tells Dean that his self-proclaimed nickname “Meat Man” isn’t what he thinks it means. Dean apparently knows exactly what it means and he’s standing by it. Ahem. Dean also calls Sam out on not handling their recent losses. The Just Brothers show is a real bummer.
Anyway, the case Dean found is in Iowa. There’s been a string of cattle mutilations and a young woman’s body found ripped to pieces. 
Also, it was real bacon and Dean’s a dick for trying to trick Sam into eating it. 
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At Beaverdale High School, Sam learns Susie, the vic, was a popular girl and there’s going to be a prayer vigil for her at the school. Two parents show up asking about the game getting canceled --or rescheduled. They’re just can’t have that happen. There was going to be a scout coming to that game for their son, Billy. 
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Sam is appalled (and I’m sad for him, so close to losing family he cared about.) The vice principal shuts down the pushy parents, and after they leave mutters, “I swear, the parents are worse than the kids.” 
Sam meets back up with Dean (eating again). Dean was just at the morgue and found a vamp fang. This one’s a weird one. Vamps don’t usually tear their victims apart. Also, she didn’t even try to fight off her attacker. 
Later that night, a fellow student leaves the school only to be attacked by the camera in the bushes!! 
Sam and Dean check out where Susie was found. No blood means she was killed elsewhere and her body was dumped in the woods. Sam soliloquies about how taking care of the monsters is their job and they carry the weight of everyone. Dean drinks from his flask. They are coping SO WELL, guys!
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Sam gets a call that another girl is missing. 
WHOA. Becky, fangirl and Sam kidnapper extraordinaire, is married with kids and is looking forward to having the house to herself for the day. Just as her husband and kids pull away, she sees her old ex, Chuck, across the street. Run, Becky, Run! Chuck wants to talk. UGH. 
The VP fills the brothers in on the new missing teen. 
Chuck checks out Becky’s maquettes and learns that she’s a successful Etsy seller of Supernatural merchandise. She fesses up to how wrong what she did to Sam was, admitted to counseling. She kept writing. She wrote the good stuff, amirite? Chuck disagrees and thinks that people like the monsters. (Natasha: raises hand.) Becky’s a busy person so Chuck better cut to the chase here. Chuck won’t let the whole monster thing go. 
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Chuck admits to having a falling out with the Winchesters. He also tells Becky that his sister won’t help, because “she sucks.” Becky can’t believe that Chuck thinks he can come crawling back to her. She’s got a good life now. She doesn’t need him. 
Becky’s nice though (can’t believe I just wrote those words), and asks Chuck, what makes him happy. Writing. She tells him he has to write. 
Back at the high school, Dean is interviewing a man in a beaver suit while eating a hot dog. 
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JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER. (I’m conducting an experiment with my GA co-worker about Dean is bi-Dean/Cas. I can’t wait to hear what she says about this. She did call The Breakup a “bro-fight” so I’ll keep you all posted.) 
In the school gymnasium, Billy and Veronica bond over losing Susie. Billy’s mom interrupts and he runs away. 
The third-in-line-to-the-throne cheerleader practices her eulogy alone in a gym. I obsessed over this scene in this post about stories, because it was such a strange beat in the episode. The Winchesters confront her. They ask her to head off with them alone (GURL never do that with anyone you don’t know) when Sam notices that she wears braces. 
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Sam and Dean leave the gym in a huff. Vampires don’t wear braces! Foiled by braces yet again! They go back to the drawing board. 
We finally get a peek in the happy lacrosse family’s home. Everyone’s argumentative and on edge, and when we get a closeup of the dad he’s washing blood off his hands in the sink.
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The camera pans through the house to the garage where the kidnapped cheerleader, Tori, lies bound and gagged. UGH.
Chuck experiences the downside of Becky-in-momland: no booze! Chuck complains that he can no longer see Sam and Dean in his head and subtly touches his hidden bullet wound. Ooooo. Becky lays out some truths for Chuck. “You’re a writer. A writer who’s not writing. And when a writer’s not writing, they feel sad and they get lost. Why do I feel this way? Why am I so sad and lost? And what is all this naval gazing and hair pulling amount to in the end? Procrastination. Distraction. Just one million ways the writer avoids doing the one thing that is guaranteed to make the writer feel better. Which is…”
“Writing,” Chuck finishes the thought. Go Becky! Except…um…now Chuck is inspired to write again. And when Chuck writes? The world ends.
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Chuck takes over Becky’s computer (RUDE) and starts his next opus on supernaturalstory-onebillionparallelworlds.com. 
Sam and Dean check out the security footage from the night Tori was abducted. They nab a suspicious vehicle and a license plate which lands them at...Billy’s house. 
At Billy’s house, strife continues to be the word of the day. The parents argue that they want what’s best for Billy - whatever that is. Sam and Dean head inside, looking as dangerous as panthers.
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Sam heads for the garage while Dean cues the dad into a little fun fact: they’re not FBI. No, they’re considerably scarier than the FBI. Dean pulls out a machete which is probably NOT FIELD ISSUE OKAY. 
Sam discovers that the girl has been hooked up to an IV - she’s become a slow-release food source. The mom interrupts them with a GUN. 
Danger mom escorts Sam and the cheerleader back to the living room where they have a gun vs. machete stand-off. Obviously Dean would win this matchup, okay? He’d probably, idk, stop the bullets in his teeth or something.
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Becky reads over Chuck’s work. She adores it! Chuck pushes for some notes. She asks for higher stakes and while we get distracted by her rambling about the lack of classic rock and Cas, Chuck’s expression grows GRIM and DARK and VERY SCARY. (Good job Rob, you talented cinnamon roll!) 
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“You want jeopardy? You want danger? I’ll give you danger.” Thanks for the trip to CREEPY TOWN, Chuck. 
Billy heads downstairs and witnesses the confrontation between the Winchesters and his parents. Dean does his usual monologue, explaining how the dad got turned into a vamp, tried to eat cows, and started eating teen girls instead. But Sam observes Billy and points out something very different. “It’s not the dad, it’s the son.” Billy confesses: he was kissing his girlfriend when he lost control and ate her instead. Man, I HATE it when that happens. 
Billy told his parents, who covered it up. They kidnapped Tori as a longer term feed option. But now their son lays it all out. He’ll take the fall for everything, including Tori’s kidnapping and assault. And he’ll take a one-way ride with the Winchesters. 
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UGH now everything is terrible. Dean executes the son in a dark wooded area as the rest of the world washes any trace of the supernatural away. 
Back with Chuck, Becky finishes reading his higher-stakes take. She’s disturbed. “You can’t,” she pleads. “This is just an ending.”
“Yeah,” Chuck says, pleased. “I don’t know how I’m getting there, but I know where I’m going.” That destination, to be specific, is just a tombstone with the word WINCHESTER on it. (Can I get a hell yeah for this meta-awareness and roundabout promise that we WON’T get this ending?) 
“You can’t do this to the fans!” Becky insists. But she’s prevented from saying more by her husband’s sudden return. She starts to explain the presence of Chuck, when Chuck just ZAPS her husband out of existence. Her kids call out and BOOM they’re gone too. I start to get worried that we’re gonna have some sort of icky reverse-Misery situation here when Chuck decides to zap Becky away as well. (Can’t wait until Becky kills God at the end of the series, guys!)
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In the car, Sam directly parallels Billy to Jack. Dean admits that he wanted to “cash out” in the crypt, but that Sam’s insistence that they matter pulled him back. (Me: RLY?) Sam’s bitter. Dean’s tense. “We still do the job,” Dean says. “We do it for Jack. For mom. For Rowena. We owe it to anybody who has ever given a damn about us to keep putting one foot in front of the other. No matter what.” 
Dean goes on to say that with Chuck gone, they’re finally free to “move on” and EXCUSE ME while I go throw myself into a Destiel trash bin at that phrasing. Sam’s not in the Destiel trash bin with me, because he tells us he still mourns Jessica and now we’re HURTING for other reasons. SAM BBY! 
Back at Becky’s house Chuck continues to write...INSIDIOUSLY. I can’t wait for Chuck’s next book: Sad Boys in the Impala.
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Read These Quotes Backward for a Demonic Spell:
The end of the world is the end of the world
They have no idea what’s out there
But people LIKE monsters
I need wine
Why am I so sad and lost? And what is all this naval gazing and hair pulling amount to in the end? Procrastination. Distraction. Just one a million ways the writer avoids doing the one thing that is guaranteed to make the writer feel better. 
Nobody even mentions Cas
To see your child in pain rips your heart out
We can bury them out back. Under the peonies. Everything is going to be FINE
Fans are gonna love it
Oh, Becky. I can do anything. I’m a writer
We do the ugly things so that people can live happy
Monsters are cool. What? They’re all teeth!
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