#then there’s stuff like i’d get phrases stuck in my head + would repeat them over and over to the point i couldn’t sleep sometimes

[medicatedonwater]

Dies ist nur ein music review

So sometime last year i met this rad girl who also listened to warped tour bands. As she described it it’s like she started in the 2010s or something and just never stopped. And for me, I started around 2009 like rly seriously playing the 04-06 albums on repeat playing halo and suddenly clicking with “The Phrase that Pays” by The Academy Is…

That song totally kicked off a series of me getting hella invested in punk rock / emo / etc but i never had like an actual scene phase and i’m living it now haha. I so wish i’d listened to the albums these songs had come from. I wonder how it could have influenced my life back then, but whatever, i’m still here now and finally getting to it!!

I at first wanted to listen to all the Warped Tour Compilations and i was sad to see FUCKING TWTTR killed warped tour. fkn garbage fire site. (well, warped tour SHOULD be coming back next year and i am so hella hyped i can’t wait to get the most exquisite sunburn as i claw and scrape my way to the oasis that is a hose of fresh? water.)

I quickly got through all the warped tour albums from 1996 through 2018? 2019? lotsa music i missed out on. stuff i really wish i *had* been around for but most of the 2010s is voided out for me, between floundering around in college and part time jobs and rediscovering alternative music around 2015. This project intends to listen to the full discography of *every* artist with a song on a warped tour compilation. I’m skipping the DVDs but also including the punk-o-rama albums which did a crossover with warped tour in 1997, and including the european and australian tours cuz why the hell not. Throwing in the local stations top songs list starting at 1997 cuz of how much they’ve influenced my modern taste in music. I’m mostly using spotify - for artists not on spotify i’m just listening to the album (or single/EP) that particular listing came from. youtube is clunky as hell with no background play and i need some form of organization and spotify i have hella mix CDs on…

Anyway, the first album is Punk-o-rama from 1994, with FUCKING, BAD RELIGION. OH MY GOSH IVE WANTED TO listen to these guyses discography for AGES.

I honestly, like, right out the gate they’ve very politically on fire, like, they’re saying the kinds of things people need to fucking hear. they’re so real for it, and as they grow older some of the stuff is kinda tamer, the sound softens a bit, but hot damn if “the kids are alt-right” doesn’t point out the ongoing problems that still need solvation.

and of course they’ve got the classic crazy taxi songs too :D (omg can’t wait to hear the offspring tooooooo)

I recall the warped tour i attended back in 05 that bad religion had performed there the previous day. I don’t believe they were there for that particular warped tour date tho. I would absolutely love to see them live or at the very least get some merch :3 they’re just so, raw. so real. “Punk Rock Song” is still stuck in my head, and i’ve already moved on to NoFX (which, holy fuck they start out crass but mb it’s the bias speaking… they get good FAST)

Bad religion was a great time through and through, ramping up to No Control with some real bangers. Against the Grain had the song “21st Century (Digital Boy)” which I’d all but forgotten about since my first exposure to it nearly four years ago. Stranger than Fiction and The Grey Race had some of my old favorites like “Infected” and “Ten in 2010” with “Gods Love” coming along in 2003. New Maps of Hell for whatever reason lives in my head as a rly good album.

A lot of that early energy was really important for setting the stage for an awesome presence.

Apparently liked 98 Songs… this may go down over time but hey, they’re good. heck.

The particular showing for Punk-O-Rama was “Do What You Want” from Suffer in 1998. Can’t say I entirely remember the track, oh wait hang on, guess i’ll break all the fucking rules and go to hell with superman!! yeah no this song is lit af. love this scene. i gotttttta see these guys at some point.

Next on the docket is NoFX… I’m to “Usa-Holes” off Wolves in wolves clothing.

See, I knew I was amongst cool folx when i went to a party and this dude had a bad religion shirt.

Looking forward to more from this project!

OH, I TOTALLY FOUND TOUR WATER THE OTHER DAY AND IT FKN AWAKENED SOMETHING IN ME.

[vigilantejustice]

sometimes i think there’s definitely something like. diagnosably wrong with my personality + the more i examine my childhood the more i’m convinced there’s an explanation.

got gifted a guidebook for the sims that had a SUPER detailed multi-generational tutorial playthrough which was just a cool way to highlight all the fun new mechanics of the game but kid me followed this tutorial with complete unwavering rigidity every time and felt like i was somehow playing the sims (a game with literally no rules) wrong or that it didn’t count if i didn’t follow the guide letter for letter what kind of...

[buckyownsmylife]

Oh, well, imagine - Andy Barber smut

The one where Andy gets tired of living a double life 

Word count: 2K<

Warnings: smut, sugar relationship, infidelity (reader is the other woman), daddy kink, breeding kink, dubcon because Andy does stuff without getting reader’s consent beforehand, unprotected sex.

A/N: this was written for @donutloverxo​‘s #sugary4kchallenge! I took the opportunity to write something in the same universe as my first Andy fic, I write sins not tragedies, but this could be read by itself. Congrats on 4k, sweetheart!

Y/N’s P.O.V.

The sound of the door being slammed startled me, almost making me drop the dishes I’d been washing. My eyebrows furrowed, confused and worried about what was going on. Only Andy had the key to the apartment, so I wasn’t curious as to who it was, just what had him behaving that way. In all the time we’d known each other, I’d never once seen him angry.

Still, when he appeared by the kitchen, it was clear that was the case. His chest heaved with the simple task of breathing, and when his eyes fell on me, they seemed darker. I almost felt scared - I probably would, if I didn’t trust him so much.

“Andy?” I asked, but he immediately shook his head.

“Not what you call me, princess.” Automatically, I stood up straighter, body electrified by the meaning behind his words. I knew what he wanted, even if it was clearly that more than desire. He needed this.

“Daddy.” He nodded once, clearly pleased at my acknowledgment. But there was still so much I needed to understand. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Instead of answering, he just kept staring at me long and hard, making me feel small and naked under his attention.

“Come here.”

My legs obeyed instantly, having been trained long enough to do exactly what he said without having to think about it. “Good girl.” The compliment was like some pavlovian buzzer to my poor cunt. I could feel the fabric of my underwear begin to uncomfortably stick to my lower lips, and I shifted from one leg to the other as I waited for further instructions.

“Daddy needs you tonight,” he finally began explaining, a single finger running under my jaw to make sure I’d keep our eyes connected. “Will you let me do whatever I want to you and this body?”

The perspective excited me, and I didn’t know if I was stupid for it, but I found myself nodding anyway. At the end of the day, I trusted Andy with my life. I knew he wouldn’t push me further than I could take it, and if he ever came close to it, I always had my safeword.

“Yes, Daddy.” He rewarded me with a kiss, but it wasn’t a soft one. His tongue invaded my mouth and before I could even realize what I was doing, I had to find a hold on his shirt, standing on my tippy toes just so I wouldn’t completely tip over.

“Are you excited to help daddy?” He asked, fingers already making quick work of my clothes as I trembled with excitement in his hold. He looked feverish, like he couldn’t hold back anymore, his mouth nipping and sucking and biting every inch of skin he could find.

“Yes, Daddy,” I repeated, forever his subservient servant, knowing that aiding him would bring me to pleasures I’d never known before we’d met. I watched as he licked his lips, taking in my naked body before his, the kitchen a mess of my discarded clothes and abandoned dinner, but instead of taking off his clothes, his hands went directly to his belt.

“Lay back on the floor.” It took me a full second to understand what he was saying, but thankfully he didn’t read it as hesitation. Instead, despite his eager state, he watched as I slowly lowered myself to the cold marble, stopping once I was on my knees to make sure of what he really wanted.

“Lay back,” he repeated, nodding towards me, and despite my confusion, I did as he said, gasping once my naked back met the icy stone. My nipples hardened against the air of the silent apartment and under his gaze, and I gasped when he knelt before me, hands reaching out for my thighs as he pulled me even closer.

“So, so beautiful,” he moaned, and I watched stunned as he lowered himself until he was eye-level with my navel, and I felt more than saw as his tongue stuck out and collected the wetness that was already threatening to drip from me. “And mine, all mine.”

The first time he’d said that, there was a conversation to be held right after we both came back from our highs. I needed to make sure that he remembered what this was, and he laughed when I tried to phrase it as sweetly as possible.

“I know this isn’t conventional,” he’d said, “but as long as it lasts, you’re mine. In and out of this apartment, but especially in this bed.” It didn’t take too long to realize that he was right.

I truly was his. My body responded to him in a way it’d never reacted to anyone else before. And I knew that whenever this little affair of ours came to an end, he would still forever own parts of me I’d never even realized I had before we met.

Andy’s P.O.V.

My mind was becoming hazier by the second. I needed to make sure she understood what was going to happen before I completely lost it. But first, I knew I’d hate myself if I didn’t take advantage of the delicious meal laid bare before me.

“Daddy!” She screamed, fingers curling around my strands as I lapped her up, rubbing my bearded jaw on the apex of her thighs. She was everything. I had never wanted anyone the way that I wanted her. And I knew that I never would again.

It was why I couldn’t lose her.

Connecting our eyes, I pushed two fingers inside of her and immediately curled them as I searched for that sweet spot I’d memorized so many months before, knowing I’d struck gold when she cried out for me again.

“Yeah, baby… I know you like that, sweet girl. So sweet for me, aren’t you?” I knew she wouldn’t be able to answer, and I didn’t mind. I could barely speak myself. The need to have her was just too strong, and so I kept licking her pussy and fucking it with my fingers until I felt her clench around my digits, not even waiting for her to calm down as I immediately raised to my knees and worked on releasing my member from its confines.

“Better get ready, princess… I won’t be able to stop until I’m done with you.” The lust in her hazy eyes was unmistakable, but just as I was about to plunge into her, warm hands found their way inside my shirt, holding my chest to stop me. 

“Andy… the condom…” but I wasn’t having it.

“No,” I announced it, the finality in my voice clear as day as I pushed her arms down against the floor and penetrated her slowly, making sure to watch her jaw going slack as it always did at my first thrust.

When I saw that the initial shock had started to subdue and she was about to argue, I took her lips with mine, devouring her mouth the way I’d done with her pussy just seconds before. “I’m fucking you just like this, and you’re gonna take it.”

She wiggled underneath me, but it seemed more like she was going through the motions of showing that she didn’t want that than actually trying to make me stop.

It didn’t stop me. She would never be able to stop me. Not when I was in this mindset, not when I needed her so much. “I’m tired of wanting you,” I admitted. “I’m tired of wanting you, having you and then going back to wanting you again. I will never have my fill of you, I know that now. I need you.”

Her pussy clenched around me sporadically, her moans escaping her lips as she failed to speak when my hips grew quicker, my thrusts more forceful. “I need you more than sexually. I’m desperate for you, baby.”

And finally, she stopped squirming, her eyes suddenly widening in realization as my voice betrayed all of the emotions I was feeling. “I want to come home to you, Y/N. Only you.”

My confession earned her surrender. I felt her muscles relax underneath me, a sign of her acceptance of my new quest for ownership of her body, and so I could finally release her hands to run mine all over her skin.

“Don’t worry, sweet girl,” I whispered once the tempo became softer, but no less passionate. “I haven’t fucked her since we met.” I could see the shock in her expression, and I knew what she would argue.

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” I shook my head at her silliness, stroking her cheek after I kissed her one more time. I could see my future in her eyes, even if she didn’t allow herself to see hers in mine.

“I want to get you pregnant, Y/N.” And there it was. The truth and my heart, stripped of all pretense, exposed for her to see. And if I feared the rejection, the way her eyes softened before she pulled me to another kiss sealed our fate.

“I love you so fucking much.” And so we made passionate, desperate sex on the kitchen floor. I fucked her so hard, it didn’t take much to have her drooling for me. I drowned all of my worries and sorrows in her sweet pussy, making sure to worship every single inch of her body with my lips and tongue.

“I’m gonna keep you forever, princess,” I promised, heart aching just at the thought of ever losing her. “She won’t ever take you from me. Ever.” At the reminder of the reality of our situation, the fact that she was “the other one”, her body writhed underneath me, her struggle to fight back once again rising, but I wasn’t having any of it.

“Ever, baby,” I promised against her lips, silencing her cries with a deep, sloppy kiss that only ended when I needed to gather some air. “I can’t even think of having to live without you.” 

The rhythm of our hips finding one another kept up, the sounds growing exponentially wetter with each second, with each drop of her arousal that collected on her lower lips, lubricating my member and aiding my goal to fill her up until it lathered the floor beneath us.

“You won my heart,” I confessed, making sure that she’d see the honesty deep in my eyes. “You left me no choice but to fall for you. Now I won’t live without you.” A desperate cry tore from deep within her, rekindling the passion with which I fucked her. Normally I was so sweet to her, so patient. But I knew she liked this as well. She liked to be fucked like a whore, even if she was as far removed from one as possible.

“Call my name, sweet girl.” It was a plea, a desperate need to blur the lines between what our relationship was and what I wanted it to become until they disappeared altogether. “Say you are mine. Say it.”

She was drooling now, and I knew how hard it was for her to find the words I needed her to say as she succumbed to bliss right there, on the kitchen floor, with me. Still, her scream penetrated my hazy mind, adding to the overwhelming tightness that squeezed me, begging for my cum, “I’m yours! I’m yours, Andy.”

The aftermath found us breathless, with flushed chest and flushed cheeks. I don’t think I’d ever seen anything quite as beautiful as the nervous but hopeful look with which she gazed at me. I knew what she needed to hear, and with a kiss on her forehead, I reassured her, “Let’s go to bed, princess. You won’t be sleeping alone tonight.”

And as we cuddled the night away, the unspoken became clear and clear. Not tonight, nor ever again.

[engie-ivy]

If searching for non-existent signs that Sirius might fancy him, is all Remus has to do to get Lily to drop her crazy theory, then so be it.

Read Part One here!

Read Part Three here!

Read The Final Part here!

Get What He's Saying: Part Two

Remus drops down on the couch next to Lily holding a cup of tea.

“Potter just left for Quidditch practice in quite a state,” Lily says. “Was he still mad about me going to Hogsmeade with Chase Danes?”

“Hmm? Oh, no. I think he’s over it. He’s actually going with Hestia Jones.”

“Oh.” Lily presses her lips in a tight line. “Well, good for him. What was he getting himself worked up for now, then?”

“I guess that’s my fault,” Remus sighs. “We had this weird conversation, and I think he got upset because I didn’t believe the stuff he was telling me.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, he was all like ‘Moony, someone told me he fancies you, and it’s serious and you should-’”

Lily lets out a shriek and bolts upright, staring at Remus with a hand covering her mouth. “Merlin’s beard, Remus! Why didn’t you say so immediately? This is huge! Potter confided in you that Black fancies you? I knew it! I just knew it! How can you be so calm about this?”

Remus blinks at her for a moment. “What? Oh. Oh! No, Lily, no. Merlin, no. Why would you even think- Serious, Lily! As in not joking.”

“Oooh.” Lily sags back on the couch. For a moment, she looks disappointed, but then she starts laughing. “I’m sorry! I totally thought you meant it was Sirius! Really, that boy’s name!”

Remus shakes his head at her, while Lily, still laughing, wipes some tears from her eyes. “Remus, Remus, Remus,” she says. “Getting my hopes up for nothing.”

“Its not my fault you’d jump to such a ridiculous conclusion!” Remus says defensively. “How can that be- Wait. Hopes up? How so hopes up? And what the hell did you mean with ‘I knew it’?”

Lily shrugs. “‘I knew it’ is probably too strong a phrase. More like, I suspected it? Or at least I thought about the possibility before.”

Remus, who has never considered it as a possibility, gapes at her. “Why?” Is all he manages to say.

“I’m not sure,” Lily replies, looking at him thoughtfully. “He’s just... different when he’s around you. More grounded, somehow.”

“Well,” Remus mutters. “We’re best friends. Would be strange if he didn’t feel comfortable around me.”

“No,” Lily says in the same contemplating tone. “It’s different. Different than when he’s with Potter. When you two are together, it’s like... puzzle pieces falling into place.”

Remus can only stare at her. If only. If only he could be Sirius’ missing puzzle piece. But if Sirius’ puzzle is some bright, sunny landscape, Remus is a dreary raincloud that has no business being there.

Lily smiles sheepishly at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know how else to phrase it.”

“Phrase it however you like,” Remus says. “I’m not going to let myself believe such fancies. It’ll only lead to disappointment.”

“Oh?” Lily smirks. “So you’d be disappointed if Black would turn out to not fancy you?”

Remus clenches his jaw. “It. Doesn’t. Matter.”

“Anyways,” Lily chuckles. “Good thing you didn’t misunderstand when Potter told you! That would’ve made for an awkward conversation.”

“The thought didn’t even cross my mind,” Remus responds. “I’d never get such an idea in my head. He’s clearly way out of my league.”

Lily opens her mouth to protest, but Remus beats her to it. “No, Lily. Don’t try to boost my confidence. ‘Remus, you’re not in a different league, you could date someone like Sirius’. James already gave me that speech. He even said I could ‘date someone exactly like Sirius’.” Remus rolls his eyes. “Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“Remus...”

“And the conversation was awkward enough without misunderstandings. He kept repeating ‘it’s serious’, while giving me these weird, intense looks. Like, what can I even do with that information if he won’t tell me who it was? But when I asked, instead of answering, he just repeated ‘it’s serious’ again.”

“Remus.”

“And even if James meant it, the person who told him could’ve very well been messing with him. James can tell me this person was serious all he wants, but how can he be sure? I mean-”

“Remus!”

“What?”

“Remus! Bloody hell, Remus!”

“Yes, Lily what?”

“Remus, for Godric’s sake, Remus. You bloody idiot!”

“What, Lily? What am I missing?”

“I’ll tell you what you’re missing, you bloody oaf!” Lily crosses her arms over her chest, giving Remus a firm stare. “You’re missing the whole bloody fact that Potter looked you right in the eyes and told you Black totally fancies you!”

“He... What?” Remus chokes. “What in Merlin’s name are you talking about?”

Lily sniffs. “From what I gather, he wasn’t even very subtle about it.”

“No, Lily. No.” Remus shakes his head. “I really think I would’ve noticed!”

Lily raises an eyebrow. “Do you, Remus? Do you really?”

“You weren’t even there,” Remus mutters.

“Alright, alright.” Lily throws up her hands. “So he didn’t consequently phrase it as ‘it’s serious’ and ‘this person was serious’, and never anything like ‘I’m serious’ or ‘it’s for real’?”

“Well, yeah, he did, but-”

“And wasn’t he throwing you meaningful, emphatic looks every time he said that?”

“He was, but that doesn’t necessarily mean-”

“Come on, Remus! He was sending you a message, you must acknowledge that!”

“Lily, please,” Remus says pleading. “I can’t afford to hope. Hope... is dangerous.”

Lily’s face softens. “Remus, I don’t expect you to run up to him right now and declare your undying love. Although I do think that would be the right course of action,” she adds with a stern look. “But nevertheless, you shouldn’t let fear stop you! Just... try to at least open up to the possibility. Keep your eyes open the upcoming time, for any signs he might actually like you. That’s all I ask.”

Remus sighs. “Fine. I will.”

Lily stares at him for a moment. “Nope,” she then says. “No. Nope. No, you’re not getting away with it that easily. Knowing you, Black could be wearing an ‘I love Remus Lupin’ shirt tomorrow and sit down on you lap at breakfast, and you’d go ‘ah, such an affectionate friend’.”

Remus rolls his eyes, but Lily ignores him and picks up a quill and a piece of parchment. “I’m going to make you a list of specific signs you need to keep an eye out for! Number One,” she says. “Looking at you often.”

“We are best friends,” Remus says dryly. “We do tend to look at each other occasionally.”

“You know what I mean!” Lily says, but still she adds “Looking at you often, while you aren’t talking, or doing anything interesting, so when he has no reason to be looking at you. Let’s see, what else?” She taps the quill against her chin, before bending over the parchment again. “Number Two. Blushing/biting his lip/doing that thing were he tilts his head downwards and looks up at you through his lashes while interacting with you.”

Ah, yes. That thing. Remus definitely knows that thing. Not that he has ever thought Sirius does that around him in particular.

“Number Three,” Lily continues. “Giving you loads of compliments.”

Remus crosses his arms over his chest. “He only says he likes my sweaters to have an excuse to feel how soft they are!”

“Number Four,” Lily says pointedly, while looking at Remus unwaveringly. “Making up excuses to touch you.”

Remus huffs, and looks away.

Lily taps her quill in thought again. “Oh, right! Number Five. Acting extremely jealous when other people flirt with you.”

“How the hell am I supposed to check that?” Remus asks. “It’s not like people flirt with me every day! Or any day for that matter.”

“Well, I could-”

“Oh no, Lily! Don’t you dare! James’ sad deer-eyes are heart-breaking enough without knowing I caused them.”

“I’m sure he won’t mind that much,” Lily mutters.

Remus looks at Lily, then down at the list, and then back up at Lily. “Well, hello kettle. Nice to meet you. My name is pot.”

“I’ll think of something else,” Lily says irritably. “Let’s stick to these five signs for now, starting tomorrow at breakfast. If by the end of the week you haven’t seen any of them, I’ll drop it, but if you do manage to catch a few, you have to start seeing it as a serious option. Or as Potter would say, a Sirius option.”

“Fine,” Remus says, taking the list from Lily. “If that’s what it takes to get you to drop it.”

The next morning, Remus sits down at the breakfast table in his usual seat next to Sirius, across from James and Peter. James is rambling on about some new Quidditch strategy he wants to try out, and Peter is pretending to understand and trying to ask questions that don’t sound too dumb.

As Remus reaches for the porridge, he notices Mary McDonald batting her eyes at him. At first, he frowns at her. Does she have something in her eye, or is she trying to get his attention? Is she sending him a message in Morse code or something? Her finger is twirling in her dark hair so fast, that Remus is worried it might get stuck in there. Then Lily leans over and whispers something in Mary’s ear, and Remus understands. So this is Lily’s ‘thinking of something else’ for the last point om her list.

Remus groans under his breath, but decides that he might as well get started keeping his end of the deal. He turns to Sirius, and startles when he finds Sirius, head resting on his hand, staring right at him.

Sirius, also startled, jerks his head up when he suddenly meets Remus’ gaze. Remus wouldn’t consider blushing as something Sirius Black does, but the colour on his cheeks having been caught staring is definitely red. Sirius bites his lip, and tilts his head downwards, before looking up at Remus through his lashes. “I... Erm, I was just wondering if that’s a new jumper you’re wearing?”

“Eh, no. No, it’s not.”

“Well, in any case, I like it.” Sirius gives him a small smile. “I like how it looks on you. The colour really brings out your eyes.” Sirius chuckles as he reaches out and gently brushes Remus’ hair from his eyes. “If you don’t let that floppy hair of yours cover them completely, as adorable as those curls are.”

While Remus is struggling to form a reply that makes more sense than his first urge to promise Sirius he’ll never wear anything else ever again, another voice demands his attention.

“Rrrrrremus!” Mary makes the R sound like a purr. She has walked up to him and is now standing right behind the bench where he’s sitting, leaning in close over his shoulder so she can directly speak into his ear. Really, if she’s going to lean over like that, she should button up her blouse a bit more. Poor Peter nearly chokes on his toast.

“You’re so good at DADA. I was wondering if you have time after classes for some tutoring? I could really use some practice with my wand work.”

“Eh...” Remus once again struggles to form a reply. If she really needs help it’ll be rude refuse, right? Or is it part of Lily’s scheme? And if it is, would Lily want him to refuse or agree?

Before he can say anything though, Sirius speaks up, his cold gaze intently focused on Mary. “He can’t,” he says in an icy voice. “Remus is already working on his Potions Paper after class, with me.”

Remus doesn’t recall making such plans, but they do have a Potions Paper due, and Remus does desperately need Sirius’ help when it comes to Potions, so he just nods.

“Oh, booo,” Mary pouts prettily. “Better luck next time, I suppose.”

She turns around and walks out of the Great Hall, swaying in such a manner Remus worries she might dislocate a hip. Boys all over the Great Hall hang out of their seats to watch her go, but Remus is pretty sure that Sirius is the only one who’s glaring daggers.

Even though he only started keeping an eye out five minutes ago, Remus goes over the signs on the list in his head.

Well, fuck.

Part One

Part Three

The Final Part

[sageinacage]

Hellooo I saw you were taking requests again!! :D Would you be alright doing a bit of a hurt/comfort ish playful fic like Tommy asking techno to help train him. Techno notices that tommy starts to completely overwork himself and comforts him about like not feeling good enough to be techno's brother and techno playfully tickling him to force him to take a break? I'm sorry if this was a long prompt, it's 4am lol... Thank you so much!! :D

summary: tommy wants to be as strong as his brother techno, but doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to a/n: sorry i haven’t been active this weekend :[ im on the last 3 weeks of school and they’re piling so much stuff WAAAH warnings: swearing, self consciousness, self doubt (this is a hurt/comfort fic!) w/c: 1.6k

DSMP

~

“Techno, how did you get to be so… strong?”

“Hard work, Tommy. A lotta’ hard work.”

Tommy huffed, crossing his arms. That was definitely not the answer he wanted, because the boy wanted to be a force to be reckoned with now. “Well… what kind of hard work?” He egged on, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

“Well, experience is a big one- I’ve done a lot of fighting and gained a lot of perspective from that… uhhhh… I study books with ancient techniques? I uhhh, let me put some thought into this, kid,”

Techno continued to think, putting a hand to his chin in thought. None of these Tommy liked, as they both took much time, perseverance, and he was just too young to have had as much experience as his brother. “Oh, I’ve trained a lot-”

“Aha! Training! How do I train?” Tommy cheered, almost leaping with how excited he got. The boy assumed he would be able to be unstoppable after one training session, but his older brother didn’t know how to convey that it wasn’t possible- but also didn’t want to crush his spirits at the same time.

“Tommy,” Techno started, then let out a long sigh, “..it’s not that easy. I’d be willing to help but-”

“Let’s go now then, big man!” The blonde exclaimed triumphantly, marching towards the entrance to their house’s backyard. Techno watched him stomp out the room towards the back exit, shaking his head and following the boy.

When he arrived outside, Tommy was already in a set of armor with his sword out, grinning madly at Techno. With an amused huff, the piglin picked up his sword and stood a good distance from in front of him.

“Alright, the first thing is stance. Make sure you’re standing so you’ll be able to block on any side of you.” Techno placed his sword down, heading to Tommy. He gently moved his arms and shoulders to be in a preferred position. The boy stood there, completely stiff like a statue.

“Y’know you gotta loosen up, you need to be able to block and dodge attacks and can’t do that when you’re stone.”

“I gotta be like stone, so I can’t be knocked down!”

Techno shook his head, pushing his hand into Tommy’s side, making him fall on the grass. “That wasn’t fair!” Tommy whined, getting up and brushing the dirt off of his light armor. “All is fair in fights, kid. You never know what your opponent will do.” The piglin explained, pushing up his glasses.

Tommy muttered something under his breath, getting into the fighting stance his brother showed him. “I’m ready!” He announced, Tech sighing. “Tommy, you need to know the basics before going into battle.” He frowned, crossing his arms. “There are no basics in war!” Tommy rebuttals, using the phrase Techno used earlier against him.

“Actually there is-”

“I didn’t ask!” Tommy ran at Techno, falling onto the dirt as the man stepped to the side. “You don’t just run at someone and expect to get a hit on them, smartass.” He playfully flicked his brother’s head, who grumbled and got up, trying to get more hits on Techno.

The piglin continued to step out of the way, eventually sighing and easily disarming him from his blunt training sword.

“Tommy-”

“I can’t do it! How can I even be your brother?! I can barely even hold the sword, it's so heavy! I’m done with this, I’ll never be as strong as you!” Tommy fumed, throwing his armor off and stomping inside the house to go up to his room. Techno put his training sword away, sighing softly. ‘The kid has potential, he just gets ahead of himself.’ Techno thought, then heading inside to go upstairs to check up on his little brother.

“Can I come in?” He knocked on the door, hearing a small ‘no’ from inside. Techno huffed. “Please? I want to talk to you, Toms.” He asked again, then hearing nothing. “Fine.” Tommy gave him permission to come in, which Techno gladly took.

“Hey,” His brother sat at the foot of his bed, looking at him. “You’re just so cool. You’re Technoblade, everyone knows you as strong and scary. And… and I’m just Tommy. The little brother, the obnoxious one.” He ranted, sniffling softly as he curled his knees in and hiding his face.

“I wouldn’t say that, Tommy. I’ve heard people talk about how brave you are, which I’m gonna have to agree with. Also, you’re not obnoxious, I wouldn’t want to hang out with you if you were.” Techno showed him a small smile, opening his arms. Tommy leaped into them, wrapping his arms around his brother and holding his cape with an iron grip.

“Really? People think that?”

“I wouldn’t lie to you about that, kid.”

“I am pretty brave and cool, I gotta say,” Tommy chuckled softly at himself, his giggles slowly growing as Techno sighed at him. “Oh, I’ll give you something to laugh about!” He exclaimed playfully, his dull claws shifting around his waist.

“TEHehehechno!” Tommy made the poor mistake of shifting onto his back, so now he was just sprawled across his brother’s lap, stuck in his tickly grasp. “Tommy!” Techno playfully mocked, snickering at Tommy’s small growl in defiance.

“You’re really brave to try to rebuttal my attack, ain'tcha?” He spoke lowly, slipping one of his hands under Tommy’s loose shirt to lightly scratch at the sensitive skin around his belly. “Yohou suhUHUCK!” He complained, kicking his legs out in front of him. “What did you just say to me? You really are fearless.”

The boy was about to smile triumphantly until a blunt claw gently scritched over the bundle of nerves over his hip bone. “SHIHIHIT- Nohot thahahat!” Tommy complained. “Sohomewhehere else!”

“Y’know Tommy, when I tickle Ranboo right here he’d dip out right away. You must be tough if you can withstand this!” Techno praised, a fond smile washing over his face. Tommy continued to shake his head, the ticklish sensations making him tingle all over.

“Hmmm, let’s see if I could make you break. Highly doubt it for how well you’re taking it though, kid.” He chortled before laying Tommy down and skittering both his fingers up his sides. “IT’S SOHO BAHAHAD!” He arched his back, a wheeze escaping him. The claws continued to explore up his sides, dragging back down before stopping at his upper ribs to scribble over the ticklish skin there.

“WHIHIHIYYY?!” Tommy whined, slamming his arms down. “Because!” Techno smirked, drilling his fingers as they were trapped and he couldn’t wiggle them anymore. “THAHAHAT’S WOHOHORSE!” He screeched, the piglin just laughing. “Then free me, smarty!” His fingers continued to drill and prod as much as they could, shifting up to reach his underarms.

“NOHOHO! IT’LL BEHE EVEN WOHOHORSE!” Tommy grumbled, kicking his legs. “Good observation, Tommy! Never let your enemy get an advantage!” His brother praised again, smiling down at him. The grumpiness in the boy’s tone turned more gleeful, the pinkette grunting in success.

“But what if the enemy planned a surprise attack?!” Techno exclaimed, leaning his head down to blow a raspberry over the upper part of his tummy, repeating the action but on his navel next time. “I WIHILL SUHUHURVIVE!” Tommy retorted, trying to push at his head. “I’d like to see you try.” He challenged, lifting his shirt a small bit before leaning down to place nibbles along his lower belly and around his hips.

“FUHUHUCK! TEHEHECHNOHO!” He threw his head back, still holding onto Techno’s hair but not really pushing him away. Techno was genuinely surprised- usually, his nibbles can kill anyone and make them plead for mercy. “Wow Tommy, you can withstand my nibbles? You must really be a champ, huh kid?” He complimented, smiling at Tommy’s giddy squeal.

Techno knew how much Tommy needed this, he needed to hear how actually brave and tough he was, because the truth was the kid was strong, just needed to hear it to believe it. “You were able to survive that, but can you survive this?” He devilishly smiled, moving his claws over to scritch at his lower tummy as he nibbled up his sides.

“YOHOHOU’RE HOHORRIBLE!” Tommy shrieked, kicking his legs and arching his back, but still wasn’t begging for mercy like Techno thought he would. “Able to survive again? This is like the hardest time I’ve had tiring someone out, Toms.” Techno admitted, Tommy giggling and happily chortling in response. He was genuinely proud of himself, feeling stronger than ever.

“Alright. I give up.” Techno chuckled, pulling his brother in for a hug while he calmed down. “I wohohon!” Tommy announced excitedly, hugging him back. “Yeah yeah, whatever.” The piglin sighed contently, pulling away.

“You know Tommy, being strong is more than just physical strength. You gotta have the right mindset, and you’ve definitely got it. I’ve never met someone as strong-willed, enthusiastic, and brave as you.” Techno explained, rubbing his stomach and side area, trying to help with the after-tickles.

“Reheally?”

“Yeah, really.” Techno chuckled, getting up. “How about I teach you a lesson in some historic techniques in fighting, I think you’ll find it interesting.”

“Books are so boring- ugh, fine.” Tommy crossed his arms, standing up and stretching, before following his brother out of the room. “What were you boys doing?! I thought Tommy was being attacked for a hot minute.” Phil laughed from the kitchen, seeing them walk by. “I beat Techno in a tickle fight, that’s what happened!” Tommy laughed, nudging his brother.

“Yep. He beat me. Strong kid, I tell ‘ya.”

[heshoes]

She was his best friend and they shared everything together already anyway. What difference would it make if it were a hat, shampoo, or the same bed sometimes? So what? That's what the Uni Daze were about, having fun, traditions, getting serious, new relationships, friendships, heart ache, break-ups, make ups, secrets, the occasional/casual bajingo here and there, and possibly, just maybe, finding the love of your life and hoping that it all works out.

Warnings: smut, slow burn, angst, mentions of abortion, mentions of verbal abuse

Harry Styles x OC (Face claim Zendaya)

Uni Daze Masterlist

Chapter 2 ( Word Count 6.7K )

Harry

My school day was absolutely long but it kept me busy and busy to me is a good thing. It keeps me balanced though I know Chelle would disagree since he keeps telling me as such over the phone.

"The only reason you think that trying to fit 72 hours in a 24 hour day is a balance is because of your parents. Just because they're work driven arseholes doesn't mean that you have to follow in their footsteps.”

"That's impossible to do, I don't work that much. My parent's aren't arsehole's they're just successful. Is that so wrong to want success?”

"It is when its your last year of uni and you're being a kill joy.”

"I said I would go out for drinks, Chelle. How is my compliance to something that I don't want to do being a kill joy?”

"Because you're not doing it with a smile. You've become boring. Your sex life and your regular life has turned about as vanilla as a middle aged man. We never had to beg you to come out last year or over the summer, Harrow. Think of it as a week of extended holidays. No one does anything the first week of classes anyway. It's all rules and instructions on how to prepare. We've been in uni for three years. We should know the jist of it by now.”

"But it's not summer anymore, Chelle and you know some professors like to give assignments in the first few days. We have two papers already in seminar for fucks sake.”

Michelle sighed in annoyance.

"Yeah, but, those aren't due for ages, Haz. Fun is due right now.”

"This is the year to pull your shit together. Everyone can't not study and get perfect marks like you. Sorry.”

"The phrase 'can't not' is a double edged sword.”

"What?" I spun around in my desk at work, handing a first year her keys. Its only the first day and she's already lost her keys and has to use her spare for a fifty pound charge. She looks nervous as well and her face is kind of red. She grins at me and says a shy 'thank you' before walking away, staring back at me and kind of tripping over her own feet on her way to the lift. I tried not to laugh, but honestly it was kind of funny.

"You know, a double edged sword? A double negative?You can't say 'can't not' next to each other in a sentence. It's repetitive of itself. You should be embarrassed. This is primary school stuff Harrow. Mr. “I have to take the UKCAT this year.”"

"Whatever Chelle! See? That's what I mean. I need a balance. I need to be able to be involved in school. I should have taken it more serious when we first started out.”

"You do realize balance means a good amount of your job, school work, AND a social life which includes parties and pubs and going out with your mates without a grumble?”

"I'm going out for drinks tonight! You're starting to piss me off."

"If the truth is anything it's annoying, Harry." I nodded my head and began to swivel around in my chair. I'd just gotten to work and had three and a half more hours to go. I'm glad I have a job and all but this one is fucking boring.

Speaking of truth.

"Do the boys know about your um...your new team?”

"No. Actually they don’t."

Oh.

“Oh?"

"Yeah, um, I was hoping that it was something that we could keep between me and you for now. Just until I can figure things out. I'd love to say that I'm for sure just this one thing. I know I said it this morning, but I'm still not sure, okay?”

"Yeah. Sure, of course." I stopped spinning in my seat and dizzying myself when I heard my manager's voice,"Look I've gotta go. I'm not supposed to be on the phone and my boss is coming.”

"Oh so there is some rebellion left in you? You're living on the edge now, Hazland. Why can't you use your phone? All you do is sit in a chair and answer phones and make people keys when they lock themselves out of their dorm.”

"Bye Michelle!" I quickly hung up the phone and stuck it into my pocket smiling awkwardly at Professor Forrester as he approached the front desk with someone else right next to him. She had on a Cambridge work shirt much like myself letting me know that I more than likely wouldn't be alone for the rest of my shift.

"Rion, this is Harry," Professor Forrester spoke to her before addressing me, "today is her first day here at the university and working. I told her that she would be in good hands if I left her here with you. Show her the ropes and maybe show her around campus when you're not at work? I've got to go," Professor Forrester turned to face the new girl before he nodded back at me, "any questions you have, ask him. He'll know all of the answers.”

She nodded her head up and down slowly before giving a shy grin and we were left alone as Forrester left the building.

“Hi."

“Hello."

"I'm Harry.”

She laughed to herself before nodding her head at me.

"So I was told. Nice to meet you.”

Rion, I think her name was, sat down in her seat next to mine after speaking back to me, lowering her rucksack down to the ground before pulling out a book. It was a good idea really. Maybe I should have brought one? I barely get the chance to read, especially living with Michelle. She always finds a way to interrupt, either that or my ADD kicks in, all the more reason for me to put in more effort at school. I took out my phone once I knew that Forrester was gone, but I really had nothing to do with it. I had no new text messages besides Michelle.

Chelle: Drinksssssss 🍻🍺🍺🍺🍻🍻🍻😉

I grinned before shaking my head and replying back to her, something just as stupid as she sent me.

To Chelle: Tortureeeeeeee😣🔫🍺😒

Chelle: Dramatic!

Ignoring her last text, I took out my earphones and turned up the music on my phone as I placed them in my ears. I suppose it was a bit loud because out of the corner of my eye I could see Rion scrunching her nose while she tried to read.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you.”

"No disturbance, I was just trying to figure the tune. Runaway?”

“Wh-what?"

She laughed before she pointed to the phone in my hand and repeated herself.

"Is that Runaway by Ed Sheeran?”

I nodded my head, not able to stop the stupid grin that cut across my face.

"You know Ed Sheeran that’s not on top 40?”

"Who doesn't? The man's a musical genius.”

She smiled at me before she turned back to her book, but I couldn't help but to keep talking to her.

"What school did you used to go to? Um, if you don't mind me asking…"

"Nope, don't mind at all. I used to go to Bristol Uni. How about yourself? Have you been at Cambridge all of your university career?”

I nodded my head and she looked impressed, but I'm sure she wouldn't be if she knew that I was a legacy and that I slacked off for the first three and a half years. Good thing that I'm getting my shit together now.

"Yeah, it’s alright here.”

"Just alright?”

"One of the best alrights I guess. Welcome to Cambridge and congratulations.”

"Thank you.”

I smiled at her and the conversation was on the verge of ending, but before I stuck my other ear bud in I paid closer attention to the book that she had in her hand.

"Scott Fitzgerald."

"Pardon?" Rion raised an eyebrow at me.

"That's F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

She raised her book showing me the spine, shocked that I hadn't seen the cover but still got the author right.

"You know F. Scott Fitzgerald?" She smiled at me while relaying my words back to me.

"Who doesn't? The man was a written genius. Not to mention that the book you're reading happens to be one of my favorites.”

She smiled again.

"Usually people only notice Fitzgerald if The Great Gatsby is involved." She turned her chair towards mine giving me a better view of her.

"Gatsby is a classic, but I think that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has more character.”

We continued to talk and before I knew it the shift was over. No one else needed keys and the phone barely rung. I probably would have stayed beyond the time that I was supposed to get off talking and creating awkward conversation with Rion had it not been for Michelle's reminders:

Chelle: Tonight is gonna be fun 😊

Chelle: You're off work in 1⃣5⃣ min🎉🎊

Chelle: I'm gonna get you so fucked up!😝

Chelle: I'm excited 😬

To Chelle: No 💩. Too excited I reckon 😐

I laughed to myself as I gathered my things to leave the building, not fully believing that I allowed Michelle to talk me into drinking tonight, even though part of me knew that I wouldn't be able to break tradition. Rion put her book away, that she never really got into reading and followed behind me out the door and to the parking lot. She seemed cool from what I got to know about her in the amount of time that I did and since she's new, I figure that it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"Hey, a couple of my friends and I are getting together tonight to The Mill. Its a pub right up the road on Mill lane, if you're not busy, you should, um, you should come.”

"Mill pub? On a Monday?”

"Yeah, it's kind of a tradition that we started when we started here." I rub my shoulder as I wait for her answer. I don't know why I feel nervous about it but I do.

"It sounds like fun, but I shouldn’t, not tonight at least. I wouldn't be able to bear it if I missed class tomorrow because of a hangover, and I kind of also have plans.”

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make it like you didn't have anything else to do or-”

"No it's fine it's just... I have a date.”

"Right. Sorry again.”

"I'll see you around though I hope?”

"Yeah, I'll see you at work.”

Rion nodded her head while giving me a content smile before she got into her car and as she pulled off, she waved to me. I waved back but as soon as her car was out of sight, I slapped myself in the face with the palm of my hand. Maybe six months is too long to go without any type of real interaction with the opposite sex besides Michelle, but honestly she doesn't count...or maybe she counts for both now?

I cleared my head of my thoughts as I got into my car that I feel like I'm too tall for. Even with the seat pushed down as low as it can go, I still can feel the top of my head brush against the roofing of it. By now I'm sure I've saved up enough to get a new one. A new car could be my mini treat to myself for cutting myself off from a social life. The more that I think about the way that my conversation with Rion just ended the more that I start to agree with Michelle and the more excited I get for the night of boozy tradition.

As soon as eleven thirty-five hit, my phone rang. When I answered it Michelle's voice came through clear as if she were sitting here next to me in the car, even though background noise and music blares in the room around her.

"Everyone is here but you. Are you en route?”

"Everyone?" I ask her with skepticism in my tone. I would be shocked if everyone showed up.

"Yes everyone. Niall, Darragh, and Zayn. Everyone but you. Are you on your way?”

I don't know why I even asked her if everyone would be there. I knew that Louis wouldn't show even though it was him and Darragh who started this tradition..

"Yeah, I'm on my way. This should be fun.”

"That's the spirit I've been looking for Harrow. It sounds like you've had a change of heart since earlier.”

"Yeah, I think I've been looking at my textbooks too long and not at real people. One night won't kill me I suppose.”

"If one night is done right, then yes, yes it will. And what do you mean you don't see real people? I see you everyday.”

"You're not a real person, Michelle. I'm not quite sure what you are yet.”

"I think I might have an idea by now." Michelle said while chuckling on the other end of the line.

"And what would that be?”

"Getting lucky tonight. Get here soon and I can be your wing-lady.”

The pub was in the early stages of being crowded when I got there and I couldn't deny how excited I was to see the boys, Michelle included even though I saw her only just this morning. The last time that we were all together was in the middle of June, but after that we really hadn't had time to hang out. Everyone had gotten busy and into their own things. Besides keeping in touch over the phone occasionally, we haven't really talked that much either.

The first person that I saw when I got in was Niall. He sat next to Darragh with a cigarette hanging from his lips, patting down his jeans in search of a lighter no doubt. When we made eye contact, he stuck his arms out to the side with his fingers spread wide and a smile on his face. Darragh looked at him as if he lost his mind until he followed Niall's line of vision and then quickly stood from his seat.

"Harry! How are you lad? Drinks are on Liam so order the most expensive thing possible.”

I received two claps on the back from each of them when I reached the table and then a smack on my ass that made me jump and then turn around find the guilty culprit. I should have known who it was straight away.

"Chelle! That actually hurt.”

She laughed at my discomfort with some kind of frothy drink in her hand as I grabbed my bum cheek and rubbed it over my jeans.

"Probably because there's barely any meat there to cushion the blow.”

I shook my head at her and squinted my eyes before I responded, "It's not about what's back there, its all about what's in the front. Girls don't date me for my bum.”

“Well, according to you, girls don't date you at all, not recently at least.”

Niall and Darragh started to laugh and a stream of smoke came through Niall's nose reminding me of an angry bull from a cartoon before he took another drag from his cigarette, this time intentionally blowing a ring of smoke before sucking it back in through his nostrils. I probably could have strangled Michelle in that moment, but it was true. My mind goes back to Rion and work and I can feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment.

"Mitch told us about your six month drought.”

"Stop calling me Mitch!”

Niall ignored Michelle's outburst before continuing, "She says you haven't gotten laid since your birthday.”

"Do you know what a penis fly catcher even looks like anymore?" Darragh added to Niall's teasing causing my nose to scrunch.

"Penis fly catcher?”

"Yeah, it's better than what you call it. What do you say again? Bajango?”

"No Darragh," Niall cuts in, "Django was a movie. He says bajingo. It makes sense to me.”

Michelle scrunches her nose in disgust and confusion at our conversation but doesn't say anything. Really though, what more could be added to this?

"It's not that big of a deal guys." I bring the conversation back to where it was before it drifted into a dark place so quickly. It can't be that bad. Can it? Perhaps it is? I don't even know at this point anymore.

"Oi leave him alone," Zayn chimed in as he walked up to the table with Liam with two beers in hand, passing me one before he sat down, "its alright Harry sex isn't everything...but six months is a long ass time. But enough about that. What has everyone been up to?”

It was almost like a show and tell as we went around the table talking about what we'd missed out on over the summer since we hadn't seen each other. Niall and Darragh went to Ibiza for the month of July staying in hostels and partying until all hours of the morning. Apparently Niall is in love with a girl he met there, but he doesn't remember her name so I don't know how accurate that is

Zayn spent a good amount of time in France with his girlfriend, sorry, fiancé. The fucker got engaged in France. Everyone thought that he and Daphne were gonna be a short lived thing since they met at a club and all, but people find love and fall in it in mysterious ways I guess. Michelle would be a prime example of that...but love is not involved with her apparently. A player not to be played anymore. I still have questions to ask her about that but I guess I'll have to wait until later since she doesn't want the guys to know that she's traded outies for innies. I could out her like she did me and my drought, but that's way more personal and I've decided that I'm not that much of an asshole, if I'm one at all that is.

Liam was arrested and his parents flipped out. For what I'm kind of scared to ask, but I'm sure it was something accidental. Sometimes I wonder how Liam even got into Cambridge, but I guess that they don't test for common sense, only book smarts.

When it got to Michelle's turn, she just talked about how she flew back home for a few weeks at the very start of summer to visit family and then came back here, but of course that's not anything that I didn't already know. When she came back was when I noticed all of the girlfriends that she had. It was odd to me because Michelle generally hated girls and hanging out with them, but then again, she obviously doesn't hate them that much.

When I told them that the most exciting part of my summer had been joining a book club for some work that I had to get ready to do for senior class, studying for the UKCAT that's not until the end of the school year, and sometimes coming here to Mill pub with Michelle I realized that what she said was true. My life had become vanilla, but I'm honestly kind of alright with it.

We continued to talk, share, laugh and drink until it was at least half three in the morning. I was waiting to see if Michelle was going to change her mind and let the lads know about her newfound liking but she kept it private between me and her the way that she said she would and it kind of made me smile. That along with the ridiculous amount of beer and shots consumed brought a goofy smile to my face by the end of the night.

By exactly three forty-five I was seeing double and couldn't drive home. Niall and Darragh had left to go back to their apartment that happened to be a few blocks down from ours, and Zayn and Liam stayed behind at the bar to drink deciding that they were too far gone now and might as well finish strong. They also decided that class tomorrow isn't important.

Michelle would have stayed behind with them I'm sure, but she has the tendency to be this odd motherly type when I get beyond the legal limit. I think she just likes to laugh at me because I start to say foolish things when my tongue loosens up in my mouth and my words slur. I tried to get up from the table discreetly so that I could walk home while Mitch, Zayn, and Liam continued to chat, but I knocked over a chair.

“Oh shit. I'm sorry bro." I chuckled to myself like an idiot as I picked up the chair earning the lads attention.

"Where are you going?" Michelle's eyes seemed to widen as she took in the state of me.

"Home. I've got class in the morrow-morning.”

"Do you honestly think that you're going to make it to class? Look at you, you can barely stand. My job is complete.” Michelle grins in triumph and I squint my eyes at her trying to figure out when she was going to tell me that she was a triplet.

"You're a horrible people and I don't know why we're friends." I think I was looking at her when I said it, but it could have very well been one of her sisters.

"Alright, and that's my cue. We'll see you later guys." Michelle spoke to Liam and Zayn as stood from the table, a little wobbly at best bus still in a better condition than I was in.

"You don't have to walk me home, Michelle. I'm not no kid.”

Michelle laughed as I stumbled, almost tripping on a crack in the pavement.

"Since I live there too I'm not technically walking you home. I'm walking home with you.”

I checked to see if my car was locked before we began our walk. The crisp early morning air sobered me up a bit, but I was still highly intoxicated and grinning.

"How was your first day of classes?" Michelle asked me breaking the silence of our trek back to our flat.

"Hmm, was okay. Good actually... I met this…met this girl.”

"You did? You were holding out on us at the pub! Who is it? Do I know who she is?”

"No, I don't think you do," I paused to hiccup hoping that was all that I had to do, "She's new here and you don't like girls. I mean, well, you know what I mean. You wouldn't know her.”

Michelle laughed while shaking her head.

“So it's a first year? I'm ashamed of you! I know you haven't dated in a while but that's sweeping the bottom of the barrel, Harrow.”

“No not a first year," hiccup "She's around my age, just new to Cambridge.”

“Oh," Michelle spoke putting her key in the door before she opened it "Where'd you meet her?”

“Work. I kind of asked her to come to the pub with me, but she said she had a date and I kind of sounded like a blubbering idiot when I asked her. I don't know.”

“Harry! You can't just invite people to come to the pub and we haven't met them yet! What if she was awful? Good thing she didn't come. That tradition is sacred for us. Whatever you said to her was probably fine. She just had other plans... Do you know why I've recently started calling you Harrow Harry?”

“Because it's one of the many odd nicknames you've created for me?”

“No. Harrow as in the adjective, it just so happens to fit with you. Har•row when used in verbal tense, means to cause distress to. You're causing unnecessary distress to yourself when you worry about things like the UKCAT and assignments that aren't due until the end of the year, and whatever you've said to this mystery bird that you've met at work. Fun. You used to be much less tense and more fun. You need to chill out and relax. You need to I don't know, get some maybe.”

I rolled my eyes before running my hand through my hair and walking into the kitchen, opening the cabinet in search of my favorite drunken snack, grabbing it when I found it and heading for my room. Quickly stripping off into my boxers, I fell against my bed before I turned on my television and got under the covers. I ate my snack in peace before Michelle knocked on my door twice and then let herself in.

"I could have been naked! you could at least wait for me to say come in.”

“Yeah well, its not like I've never seen a penis before and they're not really my main thing anymore you know?” Michelle climbed into bed with me, intruding while I tried to hide my snacks.

"What are you eating?”

“Nothing.” I slowed my chewing in hopes that she would lose interest.

"Harry I see them! Are those teddy grahams?”

“No!”

“They are! They're a snack for a five year old.”

“Teddy grahams don't have an age limit.”

“You should be embarrassed.” Chelle spoke before grabbing the box and taking a handful for herself, moving around too much for my drunken stomach to handle.

"Oohh these are nice. These are new sheets aren't they?”

"Chelle! Stop moving! Why are you in my room? Get out!”

“My room is too hot, so I've decided that we're going to have a sleepover. You get the better ventilation. You should trade with me.”

“What?”

“I'll sleep on the floor. It really is dreadful in my room.”

I sigh before I grab my pillows and comforter and toss them on the ground leaving Michelle the bed as I make my way to the floor.

“Aww Harry you're the sweetest, but I can really take the floor.”

“No, it's fine. Just don't do anything perverted while you're up there.”

“What like masturbate? I'm not you.”

I chuckled turning to face her from my position on the floor.

“Exactly, but if you do at least that I’m asleep first…Thats just common courtesy. ”

“Sure thing, Harlot. I can do that for you.” Michelle responded without pause causing me to chuckle before my head hit the pillow.

****

“ My head,” I groaned, waking up on the floor with my covers wrapped around me too tight much like a swaddling cloth. After successfully the blanket away from me in an attempt to escape confinement, I sat up slowly only to make the headache worse than it already was and add a new pain to the mix. “My back.”

I had almost forgotten that I slept on the floor to be nice and allowed Michelle to stay in my bed, but when I turned around to look at it I quickly discovered that she wasn't there. I could hear fumbling around in the kitchen and when I stood to follow the noise, the pounding in my head grew. When I reached the small space that we mostly use to microwave shitty food and store alcohol and juice, I saw that Michelle was fully dressed. I mean, well, if you can call an oversized sweater and tights with ladders down the legs in random places dressed then thats what she was.

“Morning, sunshine. How do you feel.”

“Like my head might explode all over the kitchen and I still have to get ready for class. Today is going to be long as shit,” my words slurred proving that there was still traces of alcohol in my bloodstream and when I swayed back and forth feeling as if I might lose my balance, I knew, “I'm still fucked.”

Michelle laughed at me before she flipped her pancake onto a plate and ran it back and forth below my nose. I snatched it from her and took a bite of the buttery breakfast cake without using the fork that she offered.

“Don't be such a savage, Haz. I'm not going to take the food from you after I've clearly been slaving over the oven for five whole minutes so that you could eat. Slow down, chew your food, and sit like a civilized human being. If you eat like that you're going to require the heimlich maneuver and unfortunately I don't know it. You'll turn blue and die in front of me on a Tuesday afternoon and that would put a slight damper on my day.”

“Afternoon?” I asked her while chewing around the pancake, “Afternoon?”

“Yes, Styles. Thats what I said.”

I put the plate that I was holding down on our small kitchen bench before I walked out into living room to squint at the only other clock that we had besides our cell phones, only to confirm what Chelle had just said. I rubbed my hands over my eyes hoping that it was just an illusion and what I'd seen was wrong because if it was the truth, I'd missed all of my morning classes for the day.

“Three eleven? It can't be three eleven! I had classes from nine until two!”

“And you slept through them like a baby.”

“Fuck! Michelle why didn't you wake me up? What's the point of having an Ultimate Alarm if it's not going to be used?”

“Harry, remember that little chat we had yesterday about distress and the use of your nickname? And in order for me to wake you up, I would have had to been up too. Even if I was, I wouldn't be using the Ultimate Alarm to save you with the splitting hangover that I had,” Michelle shakes her head in clear disgust before she continued, “too loud.”

My eyes widened as I looked at my friend, bewildered, annoyed, and somewhere deep down, somewhat amused. I waved my hand between the two of us before I gave up and ran it over my face exasperatedly. This is not how I intended to start the year off. My hand ascended from my face to sliding through my hair in distress, “Thats the point of the alarm, Michelle. It's supposed to be loud. It's supposed to wake you up.”

“Harry, calm down. When we got to sleep it was like seven in the morning anyway. I don't know how you expected to be up, awake, and alert in class. Don't you have like seven others that you can go to tonight? Over achiever.”

“If I shower now I can make it to my organic chemistry class.”

“Gross.”

I looked over to Michelle and frowned before I continued, “ Thanks for throwing me off by the way, making pancakes at three in the afternoon and making me think that it was morning.”

“Whatever time of day that you wake up is morning to me. I was feeling like pancakes, so I made pancakes. You didn't seem to mind them by the way that you were eating them a few minutes ago, arsehole.”

The mention of the food reminded me of how dry my throat was and how alcohol will leave your mouth feeling like you'd guzzled sand if you consume enough of it. I felt like a raisin.

“Do we have anymore orange juice?”

"No. Sorry I finished that all yesterday morning when you almost killed me and Alison with that damn fog horn.”

“Alison?” I smirked at Michelle before I started to tease. "Usually a player doesn't remember a conquests name.”

“You would know," she retorted back while squinting her eyes, “ you used to be one. But don't worry, Harry. I'll get so good at it that you won't ever catch one of them leaving the next morning ever again. I'll be like a black widow or is it a praying mantises that kill all other intimacy as soon as they've finished with them? I'll send them on their way so that I can sleep in my bed alone. It'll be like a switch.”

Michelle grinned as she spoke, silently approving her idea as I thought about how lonely it sounded. It actually saddened me. Michelle isn't the type that can handle being cold hearted and callous enough to kick people out of bed. After being in a monogamous relationship for three years, I could tell that she was the type who craved intimacy. She deserved it. What she just explained to me sounded like eventually it would take its toll on her and she would break down like she did before, substituting my shirt sleeves for tissues.

I keep my opinions to myself, not having enough time before my next class starts to really sit down with her and talk about them. If it's one thing that I cherish about Michelle and I's relationship is that we can literally almost talk about anything, if we had the proper amount of time to do so. I shake my head at her before I head down the hall, calling back to her.

“I never was a player, Mitch. I just wasn't steady in my relationships like you.”

"Whatever you say, Harold. Please go put on trousers…I don't want to see your moose knuckle.”

****

I'd made it to my chemistry lecture on time, and though I tried my hardest, it was extremely difficult to keep my eyes open. Even though I'd slept past all of my morning classes, I still didn't get the best rest from sleeping on the floor. Michelle was irritatingly right again. The only thing that was really mentioned today since it was still the very beginning of the school year, was instruction and what the professor expected from us as a class, so when my eyes closed momentarily as I sat at the back of the room, I didn't feel so bad. Before I knew it the lecture was over and I was rustled awake my the movement of students as they gathered their bags to leave the room.

"You've got a bit of dribble there." A familiar voice laughed as I stepped out of the classroom I wiped my mouth sheepishly before smiling at her.

“Rion, hi how are you?”

“I'm good. Getting around campus well enough, but how are you? You look pretty worn out and its only the second official day of the school year. Did your tradition get the best of you last night? You've got imprint marks from your sweater on your face.”

My hand went to the side of my face that she pointed out, the imprints from my clothing giving away my previous position before I flashed her a quick grin and responded ,Um, uh yeah kind of. I may or may not have missed all of my classes this morning. Mitch didn't wake me up, bad influence I guess.”

“Mitch?”

"Oh, um sh- Mitch is just...Mitch is my roommate." I explained in a panic I didn't want to scare her off with the details. I think I might actually have a chance with Rion, if I don't put my foot in my mouth that is.

“Oh I see.”

Rion smiled at me and I didn't even realize that we've been walking and talking this entire time. Conversation flows easily with her even though I stumble over my words. I feel like I'm just remembering how to talk to the opposite sex besides Michelle and feel kind of pathetic, but Rion doesn't seem to mind as she continues to smile laugh and start on new topics of conversation.

“So how long were you out for?”

“I didn't go to sleep until seven this morning and my head was pounding when I woke up. I really have no one to blame but myself. I told my friends that I would only have one drink and ended the night on my ass. I still have to go back to the pub and get my car, because I had to end up walking home. How I got to the right apartment on the first try is a mystery to me.”

Rion giggled in a cute way before tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear allowing me to see her features more. Her neck was slender and long, connecting to her shoulders delicately. She had a small tattoo that looked to be a ballet flat behind her left ear. Those tattoos placed just there always seemed like they might hurt, like they deserved to be kissed better even though the ache from the needle has been long gone. I could envision my lips on just that spot. I must have glanced at her just a bit longer than I should have causing a rosy hue to make its presence known on her cheeks. It made me smile before I quickly changed the subject this time, not wanting her to think that I was rude or weird for staring.

"How did your date go?"

She took deep breath before deciding if she wanted give a response or not and we ended up in the courtyard right before the student parking lot.

"It came and went, I suppose. Nothing really interesting to report. It sounds like I would have had more fun if I had taken the offer to go out for drinks with you. I'm usually not really big on drinking on the weekdays, but after that date I honestly might have taken a shot or four."

I smiled, selfishly happy that she didn't have a good time. I want to ask her out, but I feel like its too damn soon. I only met her yesterday anyway. Maybe its a good thing that she turned me down. When the time is right to ask her I'm sure I'll know. Hopefully I will.

"I'm sorry it didn't go as planned. Someone should take you out and show you a good time."

"Yeah, hopefully someone will sooner rather than later."

I think the emphasis that she put on the word someone was aimed at me, but I could be wrong. I don't know what else to say so I cap the conversation off with a , "Yeah" and mentally slap myself in the face before I grin awkwardly at her. I look around the parking lot as we come up to a white Toyota and she takes her keys out signaling that the tiny car is hers.

"Oh, well I'll let you go and get on with the rest of your day. Good seeing you."

"Okay, yeah." She responds quietly before she puts the key in the lock to open the door.

This has to be the most awkward I've felt in a while. I radiate awkward and though I don't want to believe it's because of what Michelle and the boys said, I'm kind of starting to think that they might be right myself.

"Wait, Harry?"

"Yes?" I turn my head to look over my shoulder before turning around to face her.

"I can take you to go get your car if you'd like. It looks like it might rain and it would suck if you were to get all wet."

All wet. I blush at her word choice and from that point on I know. Michelle, Niall, and Darragh were right.

"No. No its okay. You don't have to and I mean, don't you have other classes?"

She shakes her head and then opens her other car door, "I'm done for the day. Really I don't have a problem taking you. Get in."

I walk back towards her, thanking her and then giving her directions to the pub from the main campus. When we pull up, sure enough my car is there. Along with a ticket taped to the window for leaving it in the lot overnight. I sigh and rub my hands over my eyes before I get out and thank Rion again. Just as she's about to pull off, I call her name causing her to stop the car and reverse.

"Yes?" She looks at me eagerly with her eyes slightly widened and and traces of a grin on her face. I scratched my head out of embarrassment before I speak while pointing to the passenger side of the car.

"I left my book bag in your car."

"Oh, sorry. Here you go." The grin falls as she unlocks her car door so that I can get my bookbag. This time when she pulls off, I wave an awkward goodbye to her before getting in my car, knocking my head against the steering wheel in defeat causing the horn to honk.

[bellafarallones2]

From the meet uglies prompt list:

84. I’m not entirely sure who you are but we’ve been in a massive prank war ever since your first prank on your friend went awry and I was covered in paint

For JakeHollis, please? Sfw or nsfw! This screams them to me!

JakeHollis, SFW, very light angst, some absolutely weird vibes! QueerElfClub's Hollis cosplay is my headcanon for them always and forever

All told, Jake’s first day at Kepler High hadn’t been too bad. Barclay and Dani had told him roughly what to expect, including a rapid rundown of the Earth history he’d be looked at strangely for not knowing. So far, math was his favorite class, because it was the same as on Silvain. Mama had gotten him into something called AP BC Calculus, which seemed like far too many acronyms for a class about shapes. His next most favorite class was PE.

Now it was almost three, and the final bell had rung. Packing up his backpack had taken so much time that the hallways were mostly empty, and he wandered idly, looking for the exit. Barclay was supposed to be picking him up somewhere called the “kiss and ride,” though Jake had been assured kissing was not mandatory. No signs pointed the way, and Jake knew better than to ask someone for directions. Teenagers were the same everywhere.

He found himself in a wing of the school none of his classes had been in, passing rooms labeled ORCHESTRA and BAND and COLOR GUARD EQUIPMENT STORAGE. The sound of music came through the walls.

Finally, though - miracle of miracles! - he saw the light of day, and hurried towards the door it was coming from. The door was even cracked open, and Jake pushed it open the rest of the way and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Something hit his head.

Something that made a klang noise against his skull, and he thought for a moment his head had cracked - he didn’t know how fragile these disguises were - but no, there was something else dripping through his hair and down his face and down all over his new colorful jacket. He looked down. It was white and foul-smelling, and when he blinked his eyelashes clumped and stuck together.

Jake was fairly certain neither Dani nor Barclay had mentioned this. He could barely see, just the edges of a person saying oh fuck, I’m so sorry, I thought you were Keith, and tugging him back into the school, which was not at all where he wanted to go.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” the voice said, and Jake found himself in a restroom, without even the time to make sure it was the correct one - he needed to be in one called BOYS or MEN, or the one with a little outline of a person without a skirt. or GENTLEMEN. (Barclay knew a long list of things he’d seen printed on bathroom doors.)

But here he was, and he bent to the sink to wash his face and came up dripping. Then he repeated the introduction he’d given so many times already today.

“I’m Jake,” he said. “Dani’s brother.” (People knew Dani; she’d graduated only two years earlier. He told teachers he was Barclay’s brother. Barclay was a little older, but a better student than Dani had been.)

“Oh,” said the person. “I think I had an art class with her. I’m Hollis.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Hollis had curly black hair and brown skin, and the sleeves of their shirt were tattered like they’d been cut off and not hemmed afterwards. When they rubbed at the stuff on Jake’s sleeve with a wet paper towel he could see the fine line of muscle beneath the skin in their arm.

Jake took a deep breath. “Do you think you could point me towards the kiss and ride?”

By the time Jake climbed into Barclay’s truck, he was as clean as one could get with hand soap and paper towels.

“How was your first day?” said Barclay, tactfully not saying anything about the paint.

“Fine. I’m really glad you and Dani told me so much about what to expect. But when I was trying to find my way out at the end of the day a bucket of paint fell on my head.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Someone helped me clean up, though. Their name’s Hollis. I think we’re friends now?”

“Well, that’s nice.”

“One girl in my homeroom brought in brownies to share with everybody because it was her birthday. Are you allowed to do that even if it’s not your birthday?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Can I bring in cupcakes tomorrow? The ones you make are really good and I think people would like me if I gave them some.”

Barclay looked over at him, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Alright,” he said. “I’ll make you some cupcakes.”

--

The cupcakes were gorgeous. Each was as the platonic ideal of what a cupcake should be, the cupcake held before the fire to cast a shadow in Plato’s confectionary cave. The cake part was delicate and moist and yellow, and the frosting was pink, dusted with rainbow sprinkles.

“Oh,” said Jake’s homeroom teacher when she saw him come in carrying the lovingly packed tray. Barclay had put crumpled saran wrap between each cupcake so they wouldn’t knock into each other. “Is it your birthday, Jake?”

“Nope! But I brought cupcakes for everyone.”

“Alright,” said the teacher. “You can start passing them out now, if you’d like.”

Jake held out the tray to each person in the first few rows in turn, receiving varyingly sincere ‘thank you’s in return. But sitting in the back corner by the window was Hollis, and when Jake got to them, he didn’t hold out the tray. No, he selected the most perfect cupcake there was, cupped its soft bottom, and shoved the perfect pink frosting into Hollis’ perfect face.

“Oops,” Jake said sweetly.

“Jake!” said the teacher. “What do you think you’re doing!?”

But Hollis was already laughing, wiping pink frosting off their face and licking it off their fingers. “It’s fine, Ms. B., we’re in a prank war.”

“Well, please refrain from waging it in my classroom!”

“I’m sorry,” said Jake. He’d never heard the phrase prank war before, but the word war he didn’t like at all. War was the slowly narrowing boundaries of habitable land, war was an enemy that was somehow both inuman and implacably angry.

The boy sitting to Hollis’ left was looking up at Jake with something like shock and anger in his face. Looking away, Jake held out the plate of cupcakes to him so he could select his own.

--

Jake still had trouble finding the cafeteria, and so most of the students were seated when he arrived. He was scanning looking for a seat where he wouldn’t be intruding on someone else’s friend group when Hollis’ waving hand caught his attention. “Yo, Jake! Come sit with us?”

Jake hurried over. Before he reached the table Hollis elbowed the boy who was sitting next to them, the same one who’d been next to them in homeroom, and he scooted hurriedly over into the next seat so Jake could sit next to Hollis.

“Hello,” Jake said, nodding at each person at the table.

“This is Jake,” said Hollis. “He got me good in homeroom with a cupcake to the face.”

The others at the table laughed.

“Jake, this is Keith, Madison, and Ty,” Hollis continued, indicating the boy who’d been displaced, a girl with purple streaks in her long brown hair, and a boy with a mullet.

“Nice to meet you,” said Jake. He listened to them talk as he unpacked the lunch Barclay had packed him. A sandwich on part of a baguette, a chocolate-chip cookie, a honeycrisp apple (Jake had just been on earth long enough to have opinions about the different varieties of apples), and a note reminding him that Barclay loved him and wanted him to have a good day.

His tablemates were discussing what they were going to do over the weekend. Ty suggested going to Walmart, which was shot down on the grounds that they’d done that last weekend. No one’s parents were out of town, which eliminated the possibility of a house party.

“There’s nothing to do,” Madison whined.

“Can you drive places?” Jake asked.

Everyone went quiet. “Yep,” said Hollis. “When Madison’s parents let her use the car.”

It was Jake’s first autumn on earth, and from his bedroom window on the second floor of Amnesty Lodge he could see the leaves changing colors, red and orange and yellow between the bristles of the evergreens. “You could drive around and look at leaves. I’d like to come along, if that’s alright.”

Everyone was silent, deciding whether that was the lamest thing they’d ever heard or so lame it went straight through the other side into being kind of a good idea again.

“Fuck it,” said Hollis finally. “Let’s do it. And of course you’re invited, Jake, let me add you to the group chat.”

--

That Saturday, a silver Honda pulled up in front of Amnesty Lodge. Madison was at the wheel, Ty in the front passenger seat, and Keith sulking in the back. Behind it was a sleek motorcycle, and the rider’s helmet reflected the autumn leaves above.

Hollis pulled off their helmet. Their hair was disheveled and gorgeous. “If it was five of us in the car someone would have had to sit in the middle back, and that sucks,” they said. “Hop on, Jake.” They were holding out a second helmet.

“Um,” said Jake, offering them a bottle of sparkling cider with gold foil around the neck. “I brought something for us to drink?” The agreement had been that they would drive to one of the pull-off spots along the highway and have drinks there.

“Sweet,” said Hollis. “Put it in the back of the car?”

When Jake opened the back door of the car he saw a case of white claw on the seat next to Keith. “Was I supposed to bring alcohol?” Jake said. “I could have.” There was wine at the lodge; sometimes on the weekends Mama and Barclay went wine-tasting together, because Dani’s ID said she wasn’t old enough.

“No, Jake, you’re fine,” Hollis said. “Climb on.”

Jake fit the helmet over his head and climbed onto the smooth leather seat of the motorcycle behind Hollis. “Hold on tight,” said Hollis.

The motorcycle roared to life like one of Silvain’s larger beasts. Then it leaped forward, swerving hard to veer around Madison’s parents’ car. Jake swallowed a shriek and held on tighter. He could no longer feel the soft fabric of Hollis’s shirt, only the beast beneath them and the wind tearing at their jackets and the red, orange, and yellow leaves racing by above.

By the time they reached the appointed meeting place the others weren’t even in sight.

“So,” said Hollis when they pulled their helmet off. “What brings you to Kepler?”

Jake knew how to lie, when presented with questions like this. But with Hollis they found they didn’t want to. “I got kicked out of my old school.”

Hollis’s eyebrows went up.

“For… stealing.” Stealing food, because his family’s traditional hunting grounds had been corrupted by the Quell, and everyone else had barely enough for themselves. The huge mounds of apples in the grocery store in Kepler were the first thing to convince him he’d been exiled to paradise.

“Damn, Jake. And here I thought you were so wholesome.”

Jake threw up a hang-ten. “Nah, I’m a real bad boy.”

“Are you… with anyone? From your old school?”

“Nope. Are you?”

“Nah.” Hollis took a deep breath. It was the first time Jake had noticed them breathing. Human beings had to breathe so frequently, he’d found, and he sometimes forgot to until his lungs reminded him. His old body had been able to hold its breath for over an hour, collapsing his lungs so he was sleekness against the water inside and out. Incompressible.

“Wanna make out?” said Hollis.

“Yeah,” said Jake.

Hollis leaned in and kissed him. The best part was how warm their lips were, how warm their face was, right up close to his. No, scratch that. The best part was how they smelled, a smell Jake hadn’t encountered on earth up to that point but knew now he could never get enough of. No, the best part was -

Tires on gravel. Jake startled, but Hollis didn’t stop kissing him, even as Madison honked the horn on her parents’ car.

To Jake, that was the most surprising thing, that Hollis would want to kiss him in front of their friends. Teenagers were the same everywhere.

[here4theheartbreak]

My Tentacle Romance (ksj)

AO3 Link Here!

Relationship: hamster hybrid!Seokjin x Eldritch Horror!Reader

Genre: smut, pwp | Rating: Explicit | Word Count: ~7.2k

Summary: You didn’t mean to scare him. You didn’t to fall in love with him, either.

Tags: agender reader, gender neutral reader, tentacle monster, first kiss, meet weird, and they were roommates, getting together, tentacles, tentacle monster, tentacle dick, come inflation, come swallowing, excessive cum, gagging, choking, dirty talk, oviposition, multiple penetration, multiple orgasms, switch!Jin, switch!reader, mild bondage (but with tentacles)

A/N: This fic was written for @aroseforyoongi​ both filling a request from my 2k followers event (”you need to stop pulling my tail”) and for Eva’s birthday! Happy birthday, ilysm!! 

A/N 2: The banner for this fic was made by the awesome @i-live-so-i-love​ - thank you so much!!!

The first time Seokjin saw you, he was terrified. Reasonably, you assumed; most people would have that reaction if a humanoid tentacle monster oozed from underneath their bed the first week in their new home. He didn’t need to throw that stupid book at you though. Books really hurt when the spine struck a sensitive tentacle tip. He also didn’t need to scream the way he did. Your ears ached for an hour after. You didn’t know a human male could make that sound. Well… Humanoid. 

He had looked human, at first glance. And then you saw his ears. They were large and round and most definitely not human. And his face – with a streak of light tan fur over his nose and a smattering of whiskers on his cheeks – You’d found yourself rooming with a hybrid of some sort. Which was okay, hybrids scared just as easily as humans, in your experience. But you were curious what kind of hybrid he was. Not that he would tell you, what with all the book throwing and screeching he was doing.

A few weeks later, you attempted to meet your reluctant roommate once more. You snuck out from under the bed once more and peeked over the bed, watching the handsome humanoid. He was lying on his bed, reading. At least it looked like he was attempting to read. He was squinting and turning the book this way and that. You spotted his glasses a few feet away and slid a tentacle out, snagging them and bringing them to the bed. You dropped them next to him, and he startled again, head whipping around.

“Don’t scream,” you said, plugging your ears in preparation. He put his glasses on and drew in a gasp of breath, mouth open to scream. “I said don’t,” you pleaded, one tentacle whipping out to cover his mouth. He promptly bit it. You screamed, that time. Who the hell thought biting a slimy black tentacle was a good plan? 

You yanked the tentacle back, holding it in your hand as it throbbed. “Why would you bite me, you fucking lunatic?!”

He spluttered, scrambling back into the far corner of his bed. “What are you?!”

“You don’t go around biting people, Jesus Christ, are you an animal?” You snapped, crawling the rest of the way out from under the bed. 

He squeaked, covering his mouth with both hands. You could see his chest rising and falling rapidly, and hear his heart racing. 

“Dude. Calm down. You’re gonna have a heart attack.” You glanced down at yourself, chuckling a little. “Just calm down,” you repeated. You shuddered a little; this was never an entirely pleasant experience. Bit by bit, you withdrew the multitude of tentacles from various parts of your body back into your skin. Your magic allowed you to appear in somewhat human clothing, simple pants and a shirt, though your left arm remained rather… Tentacle-y no matter how hard you tried to change it. “Is this better?”

His breathing seemed to slow a little. “W—What are you?” He asked again, letting his hands drop from his mouth. 

“I’m ___. I’m the Eldritch God that lives under your bed.” You grimaced, looking around. “What is that horrendous sound?” You asked. You spotted a radio on the dresser nearby, blasting some male voice screeching and snarling about dancing to the tune of someone’s death, loving, or something—A tentacle shot from your back and slapped the pause button on the noise. When the room was silent, you turned back to Jin and stuck your right hand out for him to shake, holding the tentacle arm your back. 

“Eldritch God?” He repeated. “Also, that was a good song.”

“Yep. I’ve lived in this area for hundreds of years. Scaring humans or… Hybrids. Just generally enjoying life. I’m a low-level god. Pretty young, so I just kinda have to find stuff to do until the end of the world. Scaring people is fun. Never had one bite me though… I won’t comment on the… musical taste.”

When he didn’t move, you blinked at him. “Don’t your kind shake hands? What’s your name? What are you?”

“Th—I— Jin. S—Seokjin,” he finally spluttered. “Kim Seokjin.”

You dropped your hand, realizing he wasn’t going to shake it. “Okay, Kim Seokjin. What are you? Those ears – Are you a mouse?”

“Hamster,” Jin murmured. His ear twitched and he pawed at it. 

He seemed to be relaxing a little. You approached slowly, raising your human shaped hand in surrender when he pressed himself against the wall. 

“Look, I live here, I’m not leaving,” you said simply. “This is my apartment!”

“I’ve lived here since this place was built. I think it’s technically my apartment,” you clarified. “Just because I don’t hand the humans money doesn’t mean I don’t live here.” You pouted a little as you spoke, wrapping your arms over your chest. “I don’t want you to leave. Humans need a place to sleep too. I just… Want to work something out.”

“Sure, leave.” Jin snapped, his whiskers twitching madly. “You smell like water and… Storms.”

“It’s the Eldritch in me, sorry.” You smiled a little sheepishly. “I’m not leaving. Normally I’d get my kicks scaring the shit out of the humans in this place, but I’ve never had one that had the gall to bite me. So I wanna work something out with you.”

“I’m a rodent hybrid. You scare us, we get nippy. Especially when we can’t see.” Jin crossed his arms over his own chest, mouth thinning into an annoyed line. 

“How blind are you?”

“Pretty blind.”

“I can’t see in the sunshine,” you said. 

“It hurts my eyes. They don’t dilate so well.” Jin touched his glasses. “It’s why the curtains are always shut.”

“I appreciate it, honestly. I can be in the sun, but it doesn’t feel good to bump into everything. Plus with tentacles… A little more of a hazard.”

“Those were tentacles…” Jin’s face contorted into an awful grimace. He slapped his hand over his mouth. “Oh God – I bit that thing. Was that like biting your dick? In the pornos—”

You truly couldn’t help it. You really tried, but you had never seen a human look so horrified. You doubled over in laughter, holding your stomach as you did. 

When you were able to right yourself, Jin was still staring at you, the horrified expression now blending with a shocked one. 

“Sorry, sorry,” you said between gasps of breath. “No, no you didn’t bite any of my genital tentacles; it’s more like an arm. They look similar though so I get the confusion.”

Jin’s eyes bulged comically. “Y—You have more than one? Are you…” He hesitated, seemingly searching for the right way to phrase it. “Boy?”

“I’m an Eldritch horror.”

“Right, but… Genital tentacles. Plural? You don’t…” He motioned to your crotch area. 

You chuckled. “I existed before the concept of gender and sex was even a flicker in the DNA sequence of the somewhat sentient slimes that would someday become your species. I’m a god, Seokjin.”

“But you look human,” Jin mumbled. You noticed his cheeks and ears had begun to take on a reddish hue. It was kind of cute. 

“Sure I do. I like this shape. But it’s not my true form.”

“What is?”

“Your eyes would burn from your skull and your brain would melt into sludge if you saw my true shape even in your peripherals. Why are you so pink?”

Jin blinked. “What?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to a human, or a hybrid,” you explained. “I seem to have forgotten their ways a bit. And most of the time the color they change around me is a paler hue. Or purple, occasionally, when one has choked on something and been unable to breathe…”

Jin swallowed audibly. “Ch—Choke on something?” 

He touched his mouth, his cheeks brightening more. You could hear his heart thudding rapidly. That was a familiar scent… You moved forward a little, surprised that he didn’t shy away, and sniffed. Oh. Oh. You smirked.

“Hm…”

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing.” You backed up, letting him relax a little. “Well, I’m going back to my space. Perhaps next time I come out, you won’t screech at me.” You sank down and Jin scrambled up.

“Wait!” He reached out, touching your shoulder before you slid under the bed. His hands were firm. And big. You felt your own body begin to warm up. 

“Yes?”

“What is your space? Do you just… Live under my bed?”

“In a way. I live in the depths of the shadows under your bed that allow my form to transcend the plane of this existence and rest in an area of my own design.”

Jin blinked owlishly at you. “Uh…”

“Portal. To another dimension. Under bed.” You spoke in simpler terms, assuming his humanoid mind was unable to compute. He nodded slowly, ears twitching.

“So when you’re in there… Can you… See up here? What I am doing?”

“If I choose.”

“Well, don’t choose.” 

You blinked, scowling a little at the firmness of his tone. What did he mean by that? Was he intending to tell someone about you? That would be a problem. Most humanoids and humans you scared were too terrified to have a conversation about what you were. People would think they were nuts. But this one… Seemed different. He smelled different, that was for sure. Almost like he was interested in you. 

“Well, I’m going to go now. I’ll see you again.”

“Knock on the wall before you come up next time. It’s scary when you just appear like that.”

“Right. Bad eyes.” You smiled at him. “I’ll knock.” 

You sank back down on the floor sliding fluidly under the bed, oozing into the shadows. You heard the bed creak before you fully disappeared and peeked out, a simple black mass with red eyes. You met Jin’s wide gaze and smiled… Not that he knew it was a smile … Before disappearing into the shadows.

You tried to rest. You really did. Floating along in a sea of nothingness, the distant screams of a billion galaxies colliding, dying, and reforming all at once. It was normally a lullaby to you. But tonight, your mind wandered. Not to the murder and bloodshed of a million cruel lesser Gods, or the agonizing scream of terror as someone is riddled with nightmares from your very presence… But rather… Of Jin. Seokjin. The hamster boy Jin. His ears looked so soft, you wished you could pet them. And his big, dark eyes… That soft smattering of fur. The balls it took to bite you.

Heaving a sigh, you unwound yourself from your tentacles and drifted back up to the space where your world connected with his. You slipped out from the shadows, peeking out from under the bed. It was dark in his room – he must be sleeping. You could smell him above you, that musky fur scent, the bitter scent of human-  sweat, the rich scent of sex. A pang shot through you. Sex. Was he mating with someone? 

As if on command, the bed creaked, and Jin whimpered softly. You could smell no one else, only him. In the silence, you could hear a slick squelching noise, and a soft, electronic babble from a device on the bed. Curiosity piqued, you slid further out, peeking up over the edge of the bed. Jin was stretched out on top of the covers, naked. You could see a smattering of the same creamy light fur on his chest and belly. His fist was sliding rapidly up and down his hard cock, glistening with lube and precome. His head was turned, earphones over his round, twitching ears. You peeked a little further, spotting the laptop on his bedside stand. The video on it was some sort of cartoon. A male figure was being suspended in the air by a multitude of tentacles, his ass being spread open as one drove into him in an obscene manner. His mouth was filled as well, tears streaming down his face. 

You couldn’t deny that the video was quite attractive. You glanced back at Jin and smirked. So that smell earlier was arousal. You were right. Hm. Well the feeling was mutual… Why should he have to do this alone?

Slow and careful, not wanting to terrify your skittish roommate, you slid one tentacle up over the bed. Moving slowly, you reached the laptop and poked the pause button. Jin’s hand hesitated and he scowled, eyes widening when he spotted the tentacle on the keyboard. He looked down at the foot of the bed. You grinned and waved another tentacle at him.

“What the fuck?!” Jin howled, yanking his blanket over his lap and jerking the headphones from his head. The fabric was raised ever so slightly where his erection was, doing nothing to really hide it from you. 

“Sorry,” you apologized, “you were masturbating to tentacles…” Jin reached out and snapped the laptop shut, nearly pinching the tip of your tentacle in the process. 

“So what? It’s my room!”

“It’s a room we share,” you corrected, moving out from the bed and coming around. “I was worried you were going to tell someone about me with how determined you were that I didn’t come back through… And I couldn’t stop thinking about you in other ways, so I was going to come back to talk and… I stumbled onto this.”

Jin remained silent, his lips pinched in annoyance. You smirked and moved closer to the bed, noting that he didn’t cringe away this time. 

“So that scent from earlier was arousal.”

“What scent?”

“Oh, I smell you very well. When I talked about choking humans… I smelled what seemed like human arousal. But I figured I was just imagining it. Why would a pretty humanoid like you be aroused by me?” You reached out with a tentacle, brushing the smooth skin of Jin’s chin. His eyes fluttered shut.

“I’m interested in you too, you know. I’ve never had a human so brave face me down. I admire that.” You hesitated and looked at his lap, the blanket still lifted. “Shall I help with that?”

“Wh—” Jin’s eyes snapped open. “What? No, please, I’m so ashamed,” he lamented, setting a pillow over the spot.

“Why are you ashamed? You are decently endowed for a humanoid of your height and weight ratio. The phallus seemed healthy and firm, and I sense no chemical influences so it can be safely assumed that you can get and maintain an erection capable of breeding, with no help.”

Jin’s cheeks reddened more and more as you spoke. 

“Please!” He cried, waving his hands in front of him. “Stop talking about it like that.”

“Oh.” You frowned a little. “I suppose that wouldn’t be arousing for you… If you were wanting me to speak in a way that aroused you… I suppose I should rather say that your cock is beautiful… It looks so hard and I’d love to make you come…”

You heard Jin’s heartrate pick up and couldn’t help but smirk. “Would you like that, Jin? For me to make you come?”

Jin swallowed hard and nodded, meeting your dark eyes. 

A tentacle shot out, knocking the pillow out of the way. It yanked the blanket down, revealing Jin’s cock, still mostly hard despite the conversation. 

You moved down to the foot of the bed, relaxing and allowing more tentacles to emerge. Jin’s eyes grew wide as you did, darting from side to side as he seemed to try to process.

“You enjoy this,” you said. It was a question you already knew the answer to.

“Yes.”

God, that felt good to hear. You slid a group of tentacles up over Jin’s chest, feeling the smooth skin and delicate hairs. Your touch left goosebumps in its wake, and Jin shuddered softly. 

You used another set of tentacles to push open his thick, muscular thighs. You made a soft noise of surprise. At the base of his spine, visible when he spread his legs, was a tiny tuft of fur, and a fuzzy tail. Only about two inches, thin and blunted, it was potentially the most adorable thing you had seen on a humanoid being in all your time living with them.

More tentacles to lift Jin’s hips off the bed. 

“Oh my—Your tail,” you commented helplessly. You reached out with your human-ish hand and grabbed it, petting the soft fur above it. Jin’s entire body went tense, and you watched his cock twitch. You cocked a brow. “Oh…” 

Curious, you tugged the tail, ever so lightly, and Jin grunted. You pulled again, with the same response. A third time, and he moaned softly. 

“Please—Stop pulling my tail,” he pleaded.

“Why? Does it hurt?” 

“N—No.”

You smirked. “So then, it’s good…” You tugged once more and Jin’s back arched off the tentacles suspending it. 

“Please—” He whined.

“Would you like my help, Seokjin? I could make you feel quite good.”

Jin huffed, swallowing hard. “Th—This is so strange.”

“Mhm. I’ve never, if I may be blunt, seen such a willing person.” You let one thin tentacle circle around the tight rim of Jin’s hole, leaving a trail of slick fluid behind. “I’d love to see just how much you want.”

“Everything,” Jin confessed, his body relaxing against your tentacles.

“What was that?”

“I want everything…” Jin opened his eyes, blinking a few times before focusing on you. “If you want it, I—” He nodded. He let his thighs fall open further, smirking. “I want it.”

Excitement coursed through your body. He was so willing, so aroused. It was the most intriguing and exciting thing you’d done in a millennia. 

You pushed the leaking, swollen tip of the tentacle into Jin’s tight heat, barely able to resist moaning. His rim clamped down around your tentacle like a vise, coaxing a little of your warm slick to squirt from the tip. You were gonna wreck this pretty rodent.

You drove the tentacle deeper into him, smirking when you reached a resistance. Jin whimpered, biting his bottom lip. 

“Deep—“ he whined.

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Yes—” Jin groaned. You pushed your second tentacle in; this one a little thinner and slicker. Jin shouted, his back arching. The movement tightened the skin of his stomach. You gasped, spotting the barely there swell. You worked the thinner tentacle up to where the first was and relaxed, letting it balloon and expand. The swell in his belly grew, and you groaned, reaching forward and touching it. You could feel yourself in his body. 

Jin tried to lay back on the bed, hiding the beautiful swell. You reached out with two of your tentacles, catching him and arching his back once more.

“I like this,” you growled.

Jin sobbed brokenly, and you worried for a moment you’d hurt him. But his cock was hard and leaking, and his face was twisted up in a grin.

“___— Please...” 

“I’ll take care of you,” you promised him. You wrapped a tentacle around his neck, letting your suckers rub over the smooth skin there. So easily torn. Jin’s cock twitched on his belly and he moaned. You began to squeeze his throat, ever so gently. You relaxed your grip and prodded his plush, swollen lips with the flattened tip of another tentacle. the movement left behind a glossy, oil slick sheen. 

“No biting this one, Jin,” you warned. He huffed and rolled his eyes, opening his mouth. You slid the tentacle in, sighing as Jin eagerly lapped at it sucking softly. You stroked the smooth flesh of his tongue with your tip before sliding deeper. You bumped his uvula, smirking when he coughed. 

“Open wide.”

Jin did his best to obey, and you pushed in, nudging past his tonsils and down his throat. His eyes bulged and he swallowed, squeezing your tentacle delightfully. Cool air whistled past it as he struggled to breathe.

“You liked being choked, didn’t you?” You cooed, squeezing his throat once more.

Jin’s cock throbbed on his stomach and began to shoot come onto his belly. His eyes rolled back and he gagged hard, moan muffled. His ass clenched rhythmically around your tentacles, milking fluid from them.

You couldn’t help but laugh even as you moaned from the stimulation. Two suckered tentacles slid up, rubbing through the hot come on his belly and up to tease his hard nipples. Jin sobbed what sounded like your name, but you couldn’t be sure. You allowed the rest of your tentacles to surround Jin, touching and rubbing and leaving little streaks of oily slick on his smooth, clean skin. The one that started this all, wrapped firmly around his dainty tail, yanked once more. 

You’d been saving the best for last. A tentacle no thicker than his pinkie wound up his leg. You could feel his muscles quivering from the overstimulation, his breath whistling around your tentacle firmly lodged down his throat, his eyes already rolling back. Up, through the mat of curly dark pubic hair, around his still hard shaft, stroking and squeezing. It was so warm and smooth. Your mouth watered. You’d have to taste it one of these days. And finally his tip. 

The tentacle released and touched the tip of his cock. Jin’s eyes widened, still somewhat unfocused. Slow and steady, you let the tip your tentacle open, sliding down, down, swallowing Jin’s cock.

You moaned, quivering as you were filled with his thick girth. It had been a century since you let something penetrate you in this way. His cock was perfect, solid and warm and hit every single spot inside your channel just right.

Jin reached out with the hand not being held by a tentacle and grabbed his cock, rubbing his fingers lightly over the smooth outside of your tentacle. He began to stroke, up and down, firmly, jerking off with your body.

You moaned brokenly, head falling back. Your tentacles caught you as you sagged, legs spread. A pressure built deep in your guts as he used your channel to jerk off, sucking the tentacle in his mouth and clenching his ass around the ones inside him. He knew exactly how to drive you wild. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair— He was just a human—

You screamed his name as you came around his cock, squirting thick and wet. Jin moaned, gagging hard when the tentacle in his throat swelled a bit.

He continued to jerk off with your tentacle, his eyes losing their focus once more. He was going to come again, you could feel it. The wet squelch of your released as he used your hole filled the room. It was music to your ears. 

A tentacle whipped forward and grabbed his wrist, yanking it off his cock and pinning it to the bed. You wrapped another tentacle around his cock, squeezing yourself against him as you began to jerk it. 

“You’re gonna come in me, Jin,” you cooed. 

He tried to nod.

“I’m going to come in you.” His eyes rolled back, a full body shudder making you moan as well. Enough foreplay.

The tentacles holding Jin’s arms and legs went taut, pulling his arms above his head and forcing his legs open wide. You jammed a third, slender tentacle up his gaping asshole for good measure, shuddering at the impossible tightness of it. 

At once, every tentacle buried inside your new humanoid plaything began to thrust, the room filled with the obscene glugging noises of his throat and the wet squelch of his ass as you added more natural lubricant. You were still pumping his cock with your other tentacle, squeezing that and his throat playfully.

Jin came first again - not that you were surprised. You moaned as he spilled ropes of come into your channel, swelling it a bit. You continued to milk him with the slender tentacle and the one wrapped around it. Another tentacle slipped up to play with his balls, urging every drop of come out of them and into you. You moaned softly at that, smiling down at him. Time to return the favor. 

You began to fuck his throat hard and fast, mouth hanging open in pleasure as he choked on you. Jin’s eyes screwed shut and you growled. “Look at me, pretty.”

He struggled to do so, drool and your own slick bubbling up around the tentacle in his throat. His throat was painfully tight. 

“You wanted me to choke you. Is this how you wanted it, Jin?” You purred. 

Jin nodded, gagging and coughing hard. His eyes rolled back in his head, cock dribbling once more into the slick channel of your tentacle.

“That’s it… Give it all to me, baby. I’ll give you what you want too. Swallow it.”

Your body tensed, a knot of pleasure squeezing tight and drawing all of your nerves to a near painful edge. The tentacle began to spurt down Jin’s throat. He coughed hard, some of the dark fluid escaping around his mouth and nose. A tentacle caught the back of his head, holding it as you pumped your release down his throat. 

You threw your head back, moaning loudly. At the same time, you continued to fuck his ass, your secondary climax nearing. 

Some of your smaller tentacles that you’d been using to tease his tail and skin began to spurt as well, streaking thick, hot ropes of dark, oily release over his heaving chest and tearstained face. And over his tense stomach, now swelling with amount of fluid you were pumping down his throat.

Your second climax ripped a scream from your throat, surprising you. The tentacles buried in Jin’s ass began to spurt, shudders wracking your body as you filled his with release.

A pressure grew in the base of your groin and you whimpered. With fuzzy eyes, you watched the base of the tentacle swell just a little larger than a chicken egg, before moving down the length of the tentacle. And another… Another… Seven total eggs made their way down your length. The first caught on Jin’s clenched rim, making him sob wet and broken around your tentacle.

“Shh… Let me in,” you whispered. 

Jin seemed to try to relax. You shuddered and strained, helping work the thick egg into Jin’s body. It slipped past the rim and down the inserted part of your tentacle. You moaned and shuddered when it released. Time to repeat. Again, and again, you worked the eggs into Jin, tiny aftershocks of orgasm washing over you each time your tentacle ejected one. 

Jin’s stomach was swollen with come and eggs, and his body was lax, eyes half closed and glassy with exhaustion. 

You pulled out slowly, smirking a little at the little rivers of come that followed both from his ruined ass and his mouth. Carefully, you laid him back onto the bed, still cocooning him with your tentacles as you crawled onto the bed and kissed his sweaty cheek.

“Still with me?”

“Mhm…” Jin touched his stomach. “Eggs?” He croaked, as if speaking through a mouth full of caramel.

“Yes. They will dissolve harmlessly within you in a few hours, don’t be alarmed. I should have warned you.”

“No, not at all… It’s good. I liked it… I feel so full…”

“You look absolutely ruined.”

Jin blinked tiredly at you, looking mildly concerned. You smirked and kissed his come stained lips. “It’s a beautiful look. We should get you cleaned up, shouldn’t we?” You sat up, your tentacles slinking back into your body. Jin reached out, grabbing one and holding onto it. 

“Do you like being this way better?”

“I have no preference, but it’s more comfortable with some of them out,” you admitted. “I’m not used to using these.” You held up your human-ish hands. 

“Leave them out then. I like them.”

“They don’t frighten you?”

Jin’s ear twitched. “No. Not now.” 

A smile crossed your face before you could stop it. “I’ve never really let a human look at me so long.” 

Jin ran his hand up your tentacle, his soft skin tickling and warming you. “I’m so different from you. Why did this happen?”

You hesitated at his question, unsure how to answer. Jin smiled when you did. 

“I’m not saying I’m mad or… I dislike it. But the problem is… I’m human. At least human adjacent. And the way I feel emotions… It’s strong but I don’t know how your kind does. I just…” Jin frowned at a spot in the corner, clearly deep in thought. “I guess I just want to know what this is going to be before I let myself get too attached.”

You chuckled a little. “This is absurd.”

“What is?” Jin’s face drooped.

“We’re having this deep conversation... While you’re lying on the bed naked and messy. Come on, let me clean you up. We’ll continue when we’re both a bit more put together.” 

You scooped him up with your tentacles, laughing a little at his surprised shout. With minimal effort, you carried him out of the room and down the hall to where you knew the bathroom was located. Jin laughed, wiggling in the firm grip of your tentacles as you did.

“Aren’t I heavy?”

“Not really. Rather light, actually. Do you obtain ample caloric sustenance to maintain humanoid organ function?”

“Do… Do I what?”

“Eat. Enough food,” you supplied. You turned on the water of the bath with another tentacle, turning to face Jin, who was still firmly wrapped in your grip.

“Yes, I eat enough,” Jin huffed. “I’m a good weight.”

“You are certainly well built,” you agreed, letting your eyes roam Jin’s body. Even covered in the oil slick iridescence of your come… He really truly was stunning. Broad shoulders, firm chest, thigh, muscular thighs… Even with the tiny swell in his stomach where your eggs were slowly disintegrating… He likely drew the attention of anyone on the street. 

“___...” Jin drifted off. “You’re staring.”

“I’m admiring,” you argued. “Do you have a human partner?”

“No. I’m single.”

“Why?”

Jin blinked, seeming surprised at the question. “I—I don’t know. I guess… Nobody’s ever really struck my fancy.”

“Why not?” You turned, reaching a tentacle out to test the water. Deeming it warm enough, you shifted, settling Jin into it. 

“I have no idea. I guess I just know what I’m looking for.”

“And what’s that?”

“Join me?” Jin asked, shifting to sit in the tub and make space. 

You let your tentacles disappear back into your body save for a dozen smaller ones, and stripped out of the clothing you’d donned. You crawled into the tub, sighing a little as the warm water lapped over your skin. 

“I want someone who is there for me,” Jin continued after a moment. Someone who knows what I need both physically and emotionally, and someone who is willing to let me provide for them too. A give and take.”

“Do you desire offspring?” You reached out and snagged a washcloth, wetting it and adding soap. You began to wash Jin’s skin clean. 

“Someday, maybe. Not now. I am young, I wanna use that youth.” Jin shifted, sighing. “I like you, ___.” 

“I know you do. And for some bizarre reason… I rather like you too.” You sighed a little, frowning at the confession. It was the truth. That much you knew. But why did it feel so scary?

“Bizarre? Have you never liked a human before? Or a… Hybrid?”

“No.” You continued to wash his shoulders and back. “I tend to just scare the pants off them and call it good.”

Jin laughed a little. “Well you got my pants off in some way, it just wasn’t by scaring me.”

“Oh, I scared you,” you argued, laughing as well. “You threw a book at my head.”

“A giant tentacle monster appeared in my room, of course I threw something at you.”

“You also bit me.”

“I’m starting to think you liked it.”

You paused, brows raising. “I guess… I sort of did.”

Jin’s smile faded a little, the laughter dying. “I asked you a question in the room, ___.”

“You did.”

“And you didn’t answer.” 

“Because I didn’t know how to. I still don’t.”

“Do you have feelings? Like… Happiness or sadness or affection?”

You nodded. You sank down a little more in the tub, and Jin reached out, gently sliding his hands over your legs and tentacles where he could reach. “I do. I’m sure it’s slightly different but the result is the same. I do find you interesting, both physically and otherwise. I want to get to know you more, and spend time with you. Being on this plane of existence is… Different. I don’t normally do it, but I feel content to be in this form, because it means a chance to learn more about you. I’d watched you for a while before but… Face to face.”

“I understand.” Jin took the cloth and washed his face and ears. “So, you do like me then.”

You nodded once.

“And I like you,” Jin continued. He set the cloth in the water, using the tip of one finger to gently slide it back and forth. 

“It would seem that way. For some strange reason.”

Jin smiled softly. He scooped up the cloth and ran it gently over one of your tentacles. The slightly rough texture sent shivers through your body, and you couldn’t stop the smile that formed. 

“That feels nice.”

Jin shifted, the sound of the water sloshing in the small tub the only answer he gave you for the moment. The tub was truly too small for the both of you, but he was able to make it work, shifting over to settle closer. He used the cloth to wash over the exposed tentacles and the humanoid form of your body, meeting your gaze every few seconds. His ears were perked forward, nose and whiskers twitching. 

You reached out with a free tentacle, stroking his back and running down to his ass. You touched his tail. The fur was soft and silky where it seemed to blend into his skin, and his tail was covered in the same soft down. It wiggled a little under the water and Jin made a small noise between a squeak and a sigh. 

“Just don’t pull it,” he whispered.

“We know what that does. Is it difficult?” You asked. You let go of his tail in favor of stroking along his smooth back.

“Is what difficult?”

“You’re a hybrid. I know your kind is not common still. I’ve never seen one of your species specifically.”

“It can be. I’m a pretty timid animal by nature. So I used to get bullied. But I enjoy being different. In the long run. It’s what makes me who I am and I wouldn’t change that.”

“That’s admirable. You are a beautiful specimen.” When Jin frowned, you paused. 

“Being. I don’t mean specimen as an insult.”

“I know,” Jin sighed, sitting back. He pulled his knees up to his chest. The air in the bathroom seemed to thicken a little, and you frowned. Though human emotions weren’t your forte, you could still sense enough of the shift in Jin to get it. 

“I’ve upset you.”

“You haven’t. Not on purpose.” Jin rose and grabbed a towel, beginning to dry himself off. His stomach was back to normal, and it felt like all sense of afterglow had worn off. You followed suit, rising and opening the tub drain. As you stepped out of the tub, you allowed your powers to work, drying your body and re-clothing it instantly. As you did, Jin turned around, about to offer you a towel. His face drooped when he saw you clothed. 

“Oh.” He pulled it back and looked at it for a moment before dropping it into the hamper and heading back toward the bedroom. You followed from a safe distance, unsure how to help the humanoid you’d found yourself so attached to.

When you reached the bedroom, you hesitated at the foot of the bed while Jin stripped the mattress, messy from your activities. 

“Jin…”

He glanced at you, but said nothing. Instead he tossed the sheet into a hamper and went the closet, digging around to get a clean one. He hesitated, rubbing at the back of his ear. 

“Jin.” You repeated yourself more firmly. He turned, his whiskers twitching. 

“You’re not human.”

“No, of course I’m not.”

“Even with the… The tentacles. It’s easy to forget. You look humanoid.”

You nodded. 

“But then you do something like… Like what you did in the bathroom or you call me a specimen like I’m so different and I just—I like you, ___. But can you like me? Do you want to get to know me and maybe be… Something more?”

“Of course I do, Jin,” you answered. And the reality of it was – you were being honest. You stepped forward, reaching out with your tentacles to pull him closer. When he was near enough, you wrapped your arms around him, nuzzling his neck. “I want to know you. You’re the first human I’ve ever wanted to be around like this. I know we’re different… I’m sorry I’ve upset you. I don’t mean to.”

“I’m not upset, ___. I just know things are… Difficult.”

“They don’t need to be.” 

You stepped back and shifted a little, the tentacles sliding into your body. You changed your clothing with a simple thought into something a little baggier, pulling your left arm more out of view in the fabric. “I can look human. I can be anything you need to make you comfortable.”

Jin pouted a little, his plush bottom lip sliding out. “But this isn’t you. I don’t want you to change. I like you.” He pushed the sleeve up and grabbed your tentacled arm. “I like all of you. If you meet my friends, of course… This works, but… When it’s me. I just want you to be yourself. As much as you can be.”

“I don’t frighten you? Make you feel different?”

“You do.” Jin shrugged. “But that can be okay.” He sighed softly and reached up, stroking your cheek. The motion was unfamiliar to you, but not unwelcomed. You could feel the calluses on the pads of his thumbs from use, hear his pulse throbbing softly against his wrist, feel the brush of his fingers against the baby hairs on your current form’s face. It was soothing. Your eyes fluttered shut and you smiled a little. 

“Do that again…” You whispered when Jin pulled his hand away. He repeated the motion, and then on the other side, cupping your face in his hands. 

“___.”

You opened your eyes, surprised to see him so close to you, his dark gaze trained on yours. “Have you ever been kissed?”

“No.”

“Never? Wh—”

“It’s never really come up,” you admitted. 

“Well… I’m going to kiss you, okay?”

“O—Okay.” 

Jin closed the gap between your faces, tilting his head a little as his eyes closed. His lips pressed against yours, soft and silky. You could feel his breath tickling your cheek, and you giggled a little. 

Jin pulled back, a smile of confusion brightening his face. “What are you laughing at?”

“Humans do this a lot?” You asked. “I’m sorry, it feels funny,” you laughed a little.

Jin laughed too, nodding. “They do. It’s an affection thing… But now that I think about it, you are right, it’s kinda weird.”

“It’s cute,” you said, reaching up and touching his cheek. “I don’t hate it. I’ll do it if you like it. But know I might laugh every time you do.” 

Jin nodded, kissing you again quickly. “It’s okay. You have a delightful laugh. I want to hear it more…” He sighed softly, seeming to search your face for something unknown.

You remained quiet, letting him look. Being honest, it gave you a chance to really look at him. Humans – even humanoid hybrids like Seokjin… Were so simple. Their genetic makeup was easily replicated, reproduced, altered. You could reach out with your true self and shatter his genome sequence. You could change him completely – turn him into a hideous monster, or a beautiful human, devoid of any rodent features. You could kill him, or make him live a thousand years longer. Simple creatures. Yet there was one thing that even you – with all your age and knowledge… Couldn’t master. 

Their minds. 

Sure, you could scare or arouse one, you could tweak simple emotions, but not for long. They always compensated. And each one compensated differently. Some coped, some panicked, some lost their minds. The answer to the human equation had long eluded you. Not that you’d bothered to care much before now. Before this humanoid being had blazed into your existence. And now… You found yourself caring, but not to overpower or control humans. But to make the one that was offering himself to you… Happy. The feeling was foreign. You didn’t want to scare or change or fiddle with this one. You just wanted to be with him.

Cautiously, you reached your hand up, letting your fingers brush over his whiskers, then up, over his large ears, covered in soft, fur. They twitched, as did Jin’s nose, and you smiled. 

“Do you eat?” Jin asked suddenly.

“Eat?”

“Yeah, like food. Burgers or rice or a steak…”

“I am capable of it, yes. I can almost perfectly mimic a humanoid existence in this form.”

“Wanna get a midnight snack?”

“Shouldn’t you sleep? Humanoids need an ample number of hours of sleep per night in order to maintain proper f—”

“You’re worth a night of no sleep,” Jin cut you off. 

“I—I am?”

Jin grinned broadly. “Of course you are. I want to learn more about you. I want to spend more time with you. Do you have to… Go back? To your… Space, I guess?”

“Not with any pressing need. It simply exists because I’ve created it.”

“I want to know more about it. More about what you can create.” Jin took your hand, and your tentacle. “Everything.”

“There is far too much to tell.”

“Then we’ll just have to spend more time together. Is that alright?”

“It is.” You felt the smile spreading across your face before you could stop it. 

What a human response. Could spending time around this human make you more of one? The thought would have been horrifying to you a month ago. Now… Looking at Jin’s bright gaze, and broad smile… Maybe a little humanity was exactly what you needed. 

One tentacle drifted out and over to the radio on Jin’s dresser, poking the play button. The same male voice from your meeting earlier in the day filled the air, though it was an entirely different song now.

“You’ll never make me leave, I wear this on my sleeve…”

Jin’s eyes darted to the radio before landing back on your face. “I thought this was horrible noise?” He asked, a grin causing his cheeks to fill out adorably. 

“Give me a better cause to lead…”

“I can learn to like it. I want to. For you.” You closed the space between your faces this time, kissing Jin’s soft mouth gently. 

“Give me a reason to believe…”

[thewatermelloncat]

Butterfly Effect

Summary: Allison is devastated about the new timeline the briefcase sent them to. After blaming Five for the loss of something most important to her, they both have a heart-to-heart and explain each of their mistakes.

Author’s Note: I don’t know anything about time travel!

Warnings: Character deletion

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

As Five had explained it when they travel through time their consciousness is projected into their body from that timeline. When the briefcase had jumped them, they landed at the correct point in time but the timeline was wrong. They should have expected that after all that had gone wrong for them already, but it was too wrong. So wrong Allison couldn’t comprehend it. Her daughter didn’t exist. Claire was never born.

Klaus referred to it as the butterfly effect, something that he had remembered from a movie he had seen. Allison couldn’t understand why they would give such a pretty name to such a disastrous thing.

As Five had explained it, although they had made an abysmal impression on their father back in the 60s, he had still chosen to adopt them. Them and six others. Meaning that with more members of the team, Ben had never died and the team had never fallen apart. They had stayed at the academy, Allison had never left to pursue acting, never met Patrick, Claire had never been born.

She can’t remember what happened when she first realised but she remembers the feeling of falling to the floor, collapsing sideways into a ball as she cried. Luther’s arms had wrapped around her, Vanya had sat down next to her, Klaus had crouched beside her and run his hand through her hair, while Diego and Five had hung around close by.

Eventually she had found the strength to stand and had made her way over to Five. She never saw the looks of shock displayed on her siblings’ faces as she yelled at him, though Five didn’t look surprised. She yelled and yelled at him, asking him why everything was messed up. It was his fault that she had met and had to leave Ray, it was his fault that they hadn’t made it to the timeline where Claire exists, it was his fault everything was fucked up.

She was in hysterics, her voice cracking as she bet her hands against his chest and shoulders. Her arms too weak to move him even in his small stature. Behind her she had felt someone move towards them but Five had fixed them with a look to back off and they had. Allison still has no idea who that was. She can’t remember half the things she said, her questions and accusations overlapping so that he couldn’t get a word in until her voice ran out.

Never once did a look of hurt cross his face, and when he was finally allowed the chance to speak to her, she couldn’t comprehend his words. But she could tell he spoke gently, so unlike his usual character. Everything about his demeanour was strange, he seemed calm and yet strong as he held his ground.

Part of Allison had wanted Five to cower below her, to be afraid of her, to back away from her. Though he had remained standing there, even as Luther and Vanya took Allison away up to her room.

That was where she had stayed for days, unmoving. When she awoke the next morning, Luther was sitting by her bed, he’d popped in and out every day. Vanya would come in and bring her food and sit by her while she ate. She would make sure she got dressed into new clothes and then would help her back into bed. Klaus would appear at random times, he would sit on the bed with her, brushing her hair and talking about lots of things although he never expected her to reply. Diego even popped in a couple of times to tell someone who was with her something or ask her if she wanted a window or the curtains pulled open.

The only person who never came in was Five. And over time as Allison’s thoughts began to piece themselves back together, she didn’t blame him.

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

On the morning of her fifth day in self-isolation, she made her own way out of bed as the sun rose. It was quiet about with everyone still asleep, apart from that she knew the person she wanted to talk to would be up.

She was glad she didn’t see anyone on her way to Five’s room since she really didn’t want to talk to anyone else. When she pushes on his door, he doesn’t even seem startled to see her.

“Good to see you’re up” he barely turns around from his desk. There is no bitterness in his voice.

It’s along while before Allison speaks. “I wanted to say I’m sorry… for the things I said the other night” her voice sounds rough and foreign to her ears, not having used it for days.

“There’s nothing to apologise for” Five dismisses turning around to face her in his chair.

“I said some pretty vulgar things” she reminds him.

“And they were all things I expected you to say” he tells her.

Allison says nothing as she leans against the doorframe, crossing her arms and curling in on herself. Five can’t miss the expression of guilt written across her face.

“There’s nothing to apologise for” he repeats his expression almost looking worried.

“I said that I hated you.”

Five makes a dismissal noise and shrugs his shoulders. “Siblings say stuff like that all the time but I’ve found that they scarcely mean it.”

“In the moment, I did mean it” she bites her lip to stop it from wavering.

“Ah, that’s the thing. In the moment, see?” Five taps his fingers against the back of his chair. “I’ve threatened to kill Diego multiple times in the moment, but we both know in the end I’d never do it.”

“But after all you’ve done for us” Allison ignores his comment.

“Monumentally screw everything up?” Five sighs, rubbing his hands across his face.

“No” Allison shakes her head. “It’s not your fault. I should never have blamed you for it.”

“Allison, you lost your daughter. You could have said anything and it would have been acceptable.”

It was inevitable that Allison was going to cry anyway, even someone as out of touch with emotions as Five could pick up on that. Still, he probably should have rethought his phrasing.

As a tear spills down her cheek, Five sighs and does one of the last things Allison would expect him to do. He stands up to take her both her hands and leads her over to the bed. She knows not to expect him to hug her but he doesn’t let go of her hands once they’ve sat down.

“Don’t think for a second that I don’t blame myself for it” he tells her.

She begins to shake her head but he cuts her off.

“There is nothing that anyone can say to change my mind about that” she knows he’s looking her in the eyes but she can’t see through a haze of tears.

“I know now lots of things I could have done in the moment, but I had to mess them up to realise that.”

Allison can’t find anything to say so she says nothing.

“Like Klaus’ butterfly effect” Five mentions. “If I had never left, Ben most likely wouldn’t have died and the team would have stayed together.”

“You didn’t mean to get stuck” Allison begins, taking one of her hands from Five and wiping tears from her eyes.

“You’re right I didn’t” Five acknowledges. “But even after I did get stuck, there were things that others could have done to prevent the first apocalypse.”

Allison nods in understanding, lowering her hand and Five takes it again.

“It’s all of our fault. But what I want you to know, is that if I ever figure out a way to fix it” he looks at her sincerely and finishes with a finite nod, “I will.”

[corinnesamuels]

Guarding the Gates, Chapter 8: A Fine Gentleman with Questionable Taste in Friends

James has been dreading this moment since he was discharged from St. Mungo’s.

But if he’s honest with himself, he knows that he’s been dreading this for a lot longer—months, maybe even a year before. It’s why he’s never gone through with it. It had been easier to let things continue than deal with the awkwardness and potential drama of a breakup.

That reluctance and hesitation had come at a cost, though, hadn’t it? There was nothing to be done about it now.

James lets this sentiment steel him as he knocks on the door of Miranda’s flat. Their last conversation had been less than pleasant, and he’s prepared for a similar response when she opens the door. But he’s thrown for a loop when she answers with a broad smile, as if seeing him had made her entire day.

“James! Why didn’t you tell me you were getting out of the hospital today? I would have come and picked you up.” Miranda hugs him and kisses him softly on the lips before stepping back to let him inside.

James is stunned. While he hadn’t expected her to be happy to see him, he definitely hadn’t been prepared for her to greet him as if their last conversation didn’t happen. Surely, she hadn’t forgotten—

Oh. He thinks to himself as he registers what’s going on.

It isn’t that Miranda has forgotten their tiff in St. Mungo’s. She’s employing their usual method of working through problems: avoidance.

“Aren’t you going to come in?” Miranda asks. He sighs to himself at her overly casual tone.

That’s exactly what this is.

“Right, sorry.” James says as he walks in. His eyes travel across her flat, immaculately decorated and tidy, as always. A picture of the two of them sat on the mantle. He supposes that they were at some Puddlemere or Ministry-do because of the dress robes they wore. As James watches the two of them pose and smile in the frame, he sees the photographic version of himself pull her in but notices that he doesn’t hold her there. Their doppelgangers don’t laugh or share an inside joke, they don’t gaze deeply into each other’s eyes adoringly, but they do smile at each other, looking happy enough.

That thought, “happy enough,” unsettles him.

“I don’t have much by way of dinner, but it’s a bit early for that anyway. I suppose we could pop into that place near King’s Cross that we’ve been meaning to try.” Miranda says as she walks over to the loveseat and sits, waiting for him to join her.

James takes a deep breath. “I didn’t come for dinner, Miranda.” he says. “We can’t pretend like our last conversation didn’t happen.”

Miranda freezes for a moment before shaking her head with a small laugh. “Oh, that? I’m not worried about that. I know you were probably still in shock from your injuries and the mayhem that had happened that night.” She waves her hand dismissively, but James sees her demeanor falter.

“Miranda, we can’t keep doing this.” He says softly.

“Doing what, James?” she says through gritted teeth.

“We can’t keep pretending like things are okay or that things are working.” He says, sitting down in one of the armchairs across from her. She looks bothered that he doesn’t join her on the sofa, but he knows they need some distance for this conversation. “I know that you see it, Miranda.”

“See what? That you’re throwing away everything that we’ve built?” she asks angrily, crossing her arms and looking away from him.

“What have we built?” He asks. It isn’t forceful or unkind. Just a simple question to which he knows—they know—there is little response.

Miranda sighs heavily but only shakes her head. She still won’t look at him. They sit in silence for a while, and James alternates between watching her and the photograph on the mantle. He almost laughs as he realizes that even in photograph form, the two can only go through the motions. How had he not realized that this wouldn’t have worked?

“Is it her?” Miranda asks finally.

“Miranda—”

“Is. It. Her.” She repeats, forcefully punctuating each word.

“No. This is wholly and totally you and I.” He says, relieved that it’s the truth. This could be so much more complicated if it weren’t. “Things weren’t working before Lily even came back into town. You know this.”

“Yes, well, I thought things were getting better. It seems I was mistaken.” She says crossly.

“Did you think they were getting better, or did you think we had just gotten better at going through the motions?”

Miranda doesn’t respond to this question either.

“Somehow, we’ve been together almost two years, but we barely know each other.” He says. “We’ve learned more about each other in our arguments in these last few months than we ever knew before. Did you know that I had no idea that you and the boys never really got on?”

“Do I need to be chummy with your mates in order to be with you?”

“Yes.” James doesn’t hesitate. “With other blokes, maybe not. But with me, I’d follow them into war. And you aren’t the type to be okay with that.”

“Oh, so you do know me now?” Miranda says, looking away from him again.

James lets out a dry laugh and smirks despite the situation. “That’s one of the things I learned recently.” He pauses and studies her for a moment. James knows that this conversation will be difficult enough without it going south. But he also knows that he owes it to her to consider her feelings in this space. Just because they aren’t compatible doesn’t mean that they need to be harsh with each other in the conversation.

“The reality is that you deserve to be with someone who wants the things you want, Miranda.” James says. “Someone who you have a real connection with, whose priorities are in line with your own. And it’s been abundantly clear for a while now that I’m not that person. We just aren’t that person for each other.”

Miranda runs a hand over her mouth and shakes her head before clasping her hands together tightly in her lap. “We were happy once, weren’t we?” She asks softly, almost imploringly.

“Happy enough, I think.” The phrase has left his lips before he remembers the discomfort it had given him earlier.

Miranda laughs this time, though there’s no mirth in it. “‘Happy enough’ isn’t the same as ‘happy’ though, is it?”

James realizes that this is the crux of the issue. “No, I don’t suppose that it is.” He says. “Do you disagree?”

“Do I disagree with what ‘happy enough’ means, or do I disagree with the idea that ‘happy enough’ is all we were?” she asks.

“Both.” James shrugs.

“No. I don’t disagree.” The façade Miranda maintained during the early part of their conversation has all but fallen away. James notes that this is probably the most honest that they’ve ever been with each other. She begins to grow restless now and stands up to pace the room as an outlet for her nervous energy.

“My parents aren’t discrete about their concerns with me being unmarried at my age.” She says. “They’d assumed that I’d leave Hogwarts engaged and would be a happy housewife by now. When you and I began dating, it got them off of my back. I went through the motions because it was easier than feeling like an old maid.”

“Miranda, you’re not old.” James says disbelievingly. “None of this stuff matters. It’s just old-fashioned nonsense.”

“To you.” She corrects him. “It’s nonsense to you, James. It feels quite real to me.”

James doesn’t know how to respond to that.

“I thought that if we stuck it out, things would be fine. My parents weren’t madly in love when they got together. It was a good match that grew over time.” She shrugs. “And then recently, I thought that if I convinced you not to be so outspoken about whatever is going on with You-Know-Who, that you’d make the time for us to finally settle down and be happy.” She looks at the photograph that had caught his attention earlier, brushing her fingers across it lightly.

“Happy enough.” James says, echoing their earlier conversation.

Miranda gives another mirthless laugh. “Happy enough.”

“We don’t even look at love the same way.” James says, mostly to himself. “This situation being what it is . . . This is on me. I can be honest and say that I didn’t give our relationship full effort until recently, and by then, it was too late. I never cheated on you, not with Lily or anyone else, but I wasn’t quite what you deserved either.”

“And I wasn’t quite what you needed.” She looks at him now, and he sees something in her eyes that he hadn’t seen in some time: understanding. “So, what now?” she asks. “Am I supposed to do the cliché thing and cry and beg you to stay? Say that I can’t breathe without you? Tell you that I’ll pretend to like your mates more than I do?”

“Merlin, no.” James laughs outright this time. “No. I think what we do now is acknowledge that this is the right thing to do, and then I’ll leave. And you’ll find some bloke who will really make you happy. Someone who will go to the fancy events, live a quiet life with you, and be a better partner to you than I could ever be.”

“Let’s hope so.” She replies with a weak smile.

James notes that she looks disappointed, but she doesn’t look at all sad. He takes this as confirmation as he stands and pulls her into one last hug, kissing her lightly on the forehead when she finally returns it. “Goodbye, Miranda.” He says as he grabs his cloak and walks toward the door.

“James.” She calls to him when his hand reaches the doorknob. He turns to look at her, hoping she doesn’t try to talk him into staying. “You may not be leaving me for her, but I know you’re still in love with her. I knew the moment you added her name to your Puddlemere ticket list.”

James doesn’t know what to do with that statement, so he gives her one last nod and half a smile before walking out the door. She was wrong, of course. But correcting her wouldn’t have made the conversation any better. Not when the truth was that he had never taken Lily off of his ticket list in the first place.

Subconsciously, he always hoped Lily would come back, even when he stopped believing that she actually would. Peter had teased him lightly for it, but he wasn’t bothered. If that meant that he was in love with Lily, James didn’t know.

He is pondering over what this might mean when he makes it back to the manor. He waves hello to his father, who is half asleep in his armchair, and walks up the stairs to his room. The exhaustion of the day hits him all at once as he closes the door, causing him to lean his back against it and close his eyes to catch his breath. A flash of fire catches his attention when he opens them.

A red phoenix feather is suspended in the air in the middle of his bedroom, half enflamed, with a note hanging from the bottom.

Read the rest at ao3!

Start from the beginning.

[district2001]

Homesick

Seventeen AU: 14th member

ERA: Henggarae/ Left & Right

Jangmi x SVT 

Recap: Jangmi starts missing home, so Dino & Josh try to cheer her up

Words: 2.3k (I clearly didn’t want to work on my assignment)

AN: Requests are OPEN: Please please please send me what you want to see from Jangmi. I’m also open to feedback :)

CHECK OUT MY MASTERLIST FOR MORE JANGMI CONTENT XX

Jangmi’s Masterlist

“Love you too. Look after yourself.” Jangmi waved into the camera, as her parents faces were replaced with the ‘Call Ended’ screen.

She placed her phone on her bedside table, and sighed, before walking over to the wall next to her bed. They had only moved dorms a few day ago, yet Jangmi had managed to find time in redoing her entire collage of pictures.

The photos were evenly scattered, covering the entire wall. There were photos of her family, her friends, her members and random scenery shots she’d taken during all their trips. 

She pulled the one of the pictures of her family off the wall, and sat back down on her bed.

It was taken during Seventeens first, and only, visit to Australia. Her parents had taken all the members out to lunch, and Mingyu had insisted on taking a picture of just her and her parents.  

She was standing in the middle, right behind her parents seats. She was wearing a frilly strap dress, and her hair was nicely plaited into 2 pigtails, courtesy of her mum. Both her arms were wrapped around their shoulders, and she was grinning from ear to ear.

“What are you looking at?” Jangmi jumped at the sudden noise, and looked up to find her roommate leaning against the door.

She turned the picture around to face him. Dino squinted, before walking into their room, and grabbing the picture out of her hands.

“We need to go back soon. I heard your grandma tell Joshua that he was her favourite member.” Dino chuckled. “Since I’ve improved by English, I’ll definitely steal his place.”

Jangmi grabbed the picture back before sticking it back up on the wall. “Hate to break it to you, but her favourites Seokmin.”

He groaned before lying down on his bed. “How can I compete with that?”

“You can’t.” Jangmi said in a matter-of-fact tone, whilst reaching over to hold another picture; this time the photo iss with all her cousins back in 2015- the last birthday of hers she’d spent back home.

The conversation ended there, with Chan going back on his phone, probably texting his younger siblings.

Jangmi continued staring at the picture, holding the corners tightly in her hand.

“Jangmi-ah!” Why are you crying?”

She looked up in confusion, furrowing her eyebrows. She wasn’t crying.

Only when she touched her cheeks, did she feel the wet tears.

“I- I -don’t know” She stuttered, furiously wiping away her tears. “I’m fine. I’m okay.” Her voice betraying her by cracking at the end of her sentence.

She dropped the picture into her lap and started sobbing into her hands. She didn’t even know why she was crying. She was doing absolutely fine 10 seconds ago.

But the tears were coming out like a waterfall, and she could feel her breathing slowly becoming irregular, making her take deeper breaths to grasp onto some air.

“Hey hey hey.” The bed sunk next to her, as Dino pushed her into his chest. “It’s ok. Everything’s ok.” He’d heard his hyungs use that phrase often, when reassuring the other members- except he had never got a chance to use it. Until now.

His smooth demeaner didn’t help, as Jangmi’s breathing before more ragged and irregular, her body shaking through her muffled sobs.

“I need you to breathe for me” Dino pleaded, his voice raising after seeing the state of mind she was in.

He didn’t know what to do. Usually when she showed signs of panic, the hyung’s took care of her. He just left the room to bring her tea.

“Keep breathing. Take a deep breath.” He instructed, as he quickly ran to get his phone, which he had left on his bed.

He sat back down next to her, and called the group chat, hoping someone would answer.

Immediately when it started ringing, he switched over to the chat function. “Anyone at the dorms?” he texted. Not wanting to scare them. He could handle it.

He looked back up at his twin maknae, who was still struggling to breathe, and forcibly placed her hand on his chest. “Breathe with my heart. Slowly. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out…”

He kept repeating those words, when he got a notification that someone had replied to his text. He quickly unlocked his phone, and let out a small sigh in relief to see Joshua’s message.

“I’m here. What’s up?”

Dino called Joshua and was overjoyed to hear his voice after 2 rings.

“Can you come into my room? Jangmi just started sobbing for absolutely no reason” The words tumbling out of his mouth at an incomprehensible speed.

“On my way.”

Dino was grateful for Josh being the one who was coming over. Josh and Jangmi had a close bond- being the English foreigners of the group.

He turned back to face Jangmi; whose breathing had thankfully gotten a bit more stable.

“You’re doing good. You’re doing good.” He encouraged, rubbing her back.

He heard footsteps from the corridor and gave a weak smile once Shua barged into the room.

“Go make some tea or get her some ice-cream.”

Dino stood up and left the room, to obey his hyungs’ orders, whilst Joshua took her place on the bed.

He cupped Jangmi’s face, forcing her to look into his eyes.

“Are you ok?” Josh asked in English, frantically searching her eyes for some sort of answer.

Jangmi slowly nodded, taking in a deep breath.

“Good good. Breathe with me.” Josh grabbed her warm hands and placed them on his heart. “Follow the beat of my heart.”

Jangmi nodded, her breathing slowly easing during the next few minutes.

Once he was satisfied that her breathing was normal, he opened up the middle draw of her bedside table and pulled out her asthma puffer.

He handed it over to her, and whilst she used it, he pushed the stray hairs stuck to her face.

“What happened?” He whispered gently, when she placed her asthma puffer down on the bed.

Jangmi started playing with her hands on her lap. “I miss home.”

Josh leaned in closer. “What? I couldn’t hear you.”

“I miss home” A small sob left her lips, as she curled back in on herself.

He shifted down on the bed, until his back touched the wall. He grabbed Jangmi’s right hand and placed it on his lap, playing with her fingers.

“We all do.”

“No you don’t. No one does” Jangmi sighed, raising her voice a little. “They all can go home whenever they please, and their schedule lets them. Or their family can come up here to visit. They just need half a day free to visit. I need a freaking week. Do you know how rarely we get a week off?”

“Jun hyung and Minghao hyung are used to flying back and forth between China and here so often before COVID. Do you remember Minghao flying out every weekend? Between promotions. Plus they always talk to each other in Mandarin.”

“I speak to you in English, plus Vernon.” Josh's tone resembled one he would use on a 6-year-old who just fell off their bike, but he thought it was appropriate as their maknae looked so broken and fragile.

Jangmi gave a weak chuckle. “It’s different. It’s not just the English. It kinda comes hand in hand with the other stuff. But you still have family here. You can visit your aunts, your second cousins. Plus we always go back to LA for promotions.”

Josh nodded his head, “true true.”

Jangmi continued. “Everytime we talk about tour; I keep asking them to visit Australia. Even if it’s not our own concert, I’d be happy with KCON.”

“I’m just so sick of not being able to go back when everyone else can.” Her voice cracking. “I haven’t gone home in 4 years.”

Her hyung held her tightly, as she broke into sobs once again. Josh rocked Jangmi back and forth until she had no more tears left to cry. He’d learnt from his experiences it was often best to let her release her emotions, and then figure out ways to solve it.

Jangmi looked up once hearing front door being slammed, and quickly shifted her position, using her hands to dry her tears.

“It’s pointless hiding it, isn’t it?” Her voice sounding hoarse and cracking at the ends.

Josh chuckled, using his fingers to tuck her hair neatly behind her ears. “Doesn’t matter. I’m pretty sure Chan’s giving an over the top version of what happened.”

Jangmi groaned. “Can you tell Seungcheol hyung I’m fine.”

“I can’t lie to your dad like that.” Josh gasped dramatically, causing Jangmi to smack the back of his head. “No more bracelets for you.”

“Who said I want your childish bracelets anyway?” Jangmi joked, causing him to tackle her on the bed.

“Take that back.” Josh instructed, whilst tickling Jangmi.

“Never” Jangmi yelled, trying to squirm after his grasp.

Their fight continued for a little bit, only stopping when Jangmi announced that if she was tickled again, she’d wet the bed.

They sat in silence for a second, Jangmi using that time effectively to catch her breath.

“Thank you though.” Jangmi smiled at her hyung.

Josh squeezed his way between the way and Jangmi, before pulling her closer to his chest.

“You still haven’t told me what caused it.”

Jangmi stayed silent for a second, before little out a small sigh. “I got a reminder this morning, on my Calendar saying my flight was tomorrow. And that’s when I realised that I would have been seeing my grandma and family in a few days. And then when they called me, I felt so bad because they kept talking about all the fun we would be having if I was there. But I’m here, cos of fucking Covid, and not there. I’m on my last packet of tam-tams, and I’m pretty sure my vegemite is expired.” Her string of words ending with a small sniffle.

Josh opened his mouth, but closed it again. He didn’t know how to make Jangmi feel better. It’s true that the foreigners all missed home, but there were instances where Jangmi felt alone. He always complained about missing home, but he usually went there a few times a year. Jangmi, on the other hand, hadn’t been attacked by venomous animals for quite a while.

“I promise when this whole pandemic is over, we’ll go visit.” Josh held out his pinky.

Jangmi raised her eyebrows. “That’s a pretty big promise you got there.”

“I never said when.” Josh wiggled his pinky.

“Fineeee.” Jangmi looped her pinky with his, and they shook on it

Three knocks on the door, made them turn around to see Chan walking in with cup of presumably tea.

“Chan! Don’t spill any, I don’t want my socks to get sticky everytime I walk into your room.” Seungcheol huffed from behind him.

“Doesn’t that happen anyway.” Mingyu said in passing as he walked down the corridor.

Jangmi gladly accepted the warm milk tea, and took a sip. It was her favourite Dilmah tea, but because of her stupid diet, Chan had only put in one sugar.

“I wanted to put sugar, but I didn’t know if you wanted some.” Chan stood opposite her, watching her carefully.

Josh stood up, grabbing the tea from Jangmi and placing it on her bedside table, pushing some random rings which eventually fell on the floor.

“Actually.” Josh announced. “I think Jangmi and I are going to go on a Maccas Run.”

“We are?” Jangmi questioned, wondering when she even signed up for this.

“Yes we are.” Josh confirmed. “And we are going to get some shrimp on the barbie from a kbbq place. And then we’re gonna drink some ‘Fosters’ until 3am.”

Seungcheols eyes widened. “You are?”

“She barely drinks.” Chan objected quickly. Not wanting his drinking habits to pass down to his twin-maknae.

“Please never use Australian slang ever again. I will stop complaining about ‘Sunday Morning’ if you stop.” Jangmi begged, internally dying at him butchering Australian English. She’d text Felix about this nightmare later.

“Ok ok. But are you still down for a Maccas run?” He switched back to English

“I’m on a diet.” Jangmi sulked.

“We just finished promotions a few days ago.” Josh tried to reason with her.

“We’re shooting the music video to ‘24H’ soon though.” She pointed out.

“I don’t know what you both are saying in English, but I’m not going to object getting some fast food. I’m not going to endorse it either. As the lead-”

“Cut the crap Seungcheol.” Josh interrupted. “No one’s here to tell you off.”

Seungcheol waved his arms frantically. “Just do whatever you want. Be safe obviously. No one listens to me anyway.”

“You got that right.” Jangmi jumped out of her bed, before grabbing one of the jackets hanging in her closet.

“Isn’t that my-”

Jangmi grabbed her phone, before stuffing into her trackie pocket. “Can’t talk Chan. Gonna get food.”

Jangmi walked out the door first and as Josh was about to follow, Seungcheol grabbed his arm. “Tell me after, yeah?”

Josh nodded in confirmation. “I think you’ll need to speak to management about this.”

Their leader furrowed his eyebrows in concern. “Is it serious? Is she ok? Chan said she had a meltdown after looking at a picture.”

Josh gave a supportive smile. “She’s alright… I think… for now. She’s just homesick.”

Seungcheol mentally relaxed. “We’ll talk about it later. Thanks for looking after her.”

Josh opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by Jangmi’s scream coming from the front door. “Hurry up! I want an Apple Pie.”

He chuckled, whilst shaking his head. “Talk soon,” he said as he left the room.

“Bring me back some fries!” Seungcheol shouted.

“And some nuggets!” Chan added.

Jangmi rolled her eyes, as Joshua grabbed his shoes.

They had just left their apartment and were waiting for the lift when their phones started vibrating like crazy.

Jangmi quickly opened hers up to find the groupchat being lit up with different McDonalds orders. Even from Wonwoo, who had gone back to his parents’ place for the night.

She shut off her phone without replying, and shoved it into her pocket.

“How mad would they be if I just seened them, without bringing back food?”

Previous: Privacy

[0ffgun]

Alright so!! I got some requests from people for me to make a post with tips on how I self-study my languages, so here we are! It’s not perfect and everyone studies differently, but I hope some of these tips can help you out.

Personally I study Korean & Thai so this list is aimed at those but a lot of the study tips are pretty general and can be applied to whatever language you’re learning. 

I’m an energetic puppy in human form - I simply CANNOT sit still and study for longer than 20 minutes before getting insanely restless and distracted, so I tend to only actually sit down and actively study once a week. If you’re expecting something clever and insightful this is absolutely the opposite of that... I basically trick myself into learning! So here is my silly little guide, let’s go!

General Tips:

★ Get ridiculous with sticky notes. Seriously, do it. If you’re just starting out and don’t know the words for all of those household objects then go ahead and scribble them down on those post its and stick them EVERYWHERE. It might drive your family members/roommates crazy but hey... you’re doing it for a good cause, right?

★ Don’t rely on romanization too much - if your language has its own writing system, focus on that using as much as you can. Romanization seems helpful but in the long run you’ll rely on it too much. It’s better to get familiar with the native writing system asap!

★ Pick out a word/phrase of the day and write it somewhere you’ll see it often. I have a whiteboard in my room that I’ll scribble a few phrases onto and then every time I walk past it, I’ll say them. Or if I’m not gonna be home all day then I write something on my wrist and glance at it throughout the day! This one is the most fun because when people see it they’re like “ooh that looks pretty!” or “ooh does it mean something deep and profound?” when in reality you have the phrase I like cheese written on your arm and it never stops being entertaining. Bonus points if someone native to that language reads it and looks at you like you’re crazy.

★ Say the words in silly voices. It sounds weird but if you’re sitting there repeating words (like the word banana, for example) from an app in a monotone voice you’re definitely less likely to remember it than if you’re yelling out “BANANA!!” in an opera voice or squeaking out “b an a n a” dramatically as you let go of Jack’s hand and let him sink into the ocean. 

★ Don’t isolate vocabulary. Learning new words is great, but it’s useless and you’re more likely to forget it if you don’t learn to use it in a sentence. 

★ Keep a diary! One of the absolute best ways to practice your writing and improve your skills is to just jot down a few things every now and then. It’ll be rusty and you won’t have much to say at first and will definitely keep needing that dictionary every 2 seconds, but after a few weeks you’ll really notice the difference. Buy pretty pens and stickers to motivate yourself to write in it! It’s also fun to do this around people who can’t speak it as they’ll look at it in awe and you can show off when in actual fact your writing is usually a clumsy scribbled “today I snacks eat and go sleep” but hey what they don’t know can’t hurt and it’s always fun to look like a genius.

★ Talk to your pets in that language. They’re not going to judge you, they actually don’t even care what you say as long as you say it in that entertaining pet voice. I don’t have any friends that speak Korean or Thai so the majority of my speaking practice is hurled at my dog. If you don’t have a pet, then plants or stuffed animals work perfectly too!

★ Listen to language podcasts while you do household chores, heck if you’ve gotta do something boring, might as well yell foreign words while you do it!

★ Change your phone settings to your target language. That way you’re literally forcing yourself to use it, and it becomes second nature and you pick up key words so quickly. Only do it if you know how to get back into your settings and change it back if you have to... or else you’re stuck and lost. 

★ Listen to music and sing a lot. Just scream those lyrics! A little off-key screeching never hurt anybody!

★ Get comfortable with numbers. They’re something that is dominant in ALL languages and you’re going to use them on a daily basis. Start with learning how to count to ten and get comfortable with it, and then go higher. Once you’re used to numbers individually, make it harder. I used to get my mum to write out 10 random numbers between 1 to 10,000 in the morning and I would translate them, and then I would do the same for myself in the evening. After a while you get quicker at them and before you know it you don’t have to awkwardly translate them in your head anymore, the numbers are just there ready in your brain.

★ Don’t only watch dramas! Watch more natural stuff too - variety shows, vlogs, instagram lives... anything where people are just chatting like they normally would do. That way you’re subconsciously learning more casual speech patterns and casual language too!

★ Don’t just study at home! Always make sure you have a dictionary handy (like on your phone, for example!) and keep your brain busy while you’re out and about. Buying some groceries? Try to name everything in the fruit and vegetable aisles and if you don’t know the name of something, look it up! You’re more likely to remember vocab this way as your brain has a situation to associate it to.

★ Be mean and make yourself work for things you normally do - check your horoscope on a regular basis? Read it in your new language instead! Want to check out the weather forecast? Do it the hard way.

★ Don’t feel like studying? Not in the mood? Then don’t do it! Instead put on your favourite show in your study language of choice. Not every study session has to be a hard one. Just relax and watch a foreign movie! You have no idea how much your brain picks up without you even noticing, chilling out and watching a drama absolutely counts as studying. Don’t force yourself to study if you’re not feeling it, you’re more likely to learn if you’re having a good time.

Advanced Tips:

★ Get keyboard stickers - if your new language has a different alphabet and you use your laptop to study it a lot then you’re definitely gonna need these! You can buy them SUPER cheap on ebay!

★ Change the language on your Netflix account and get ready to binge watch your faves! If you change your profile language to the one that you’re studying, you’ll notice that a lot of the shows available will now show subtitles in that language too. If you’re pretty advanced then now is probably the time to drop your native subs and start watching with the original subtitles in the original language.. good luck! 

★ Play Pokemon. When the latest Pokemon games started coming out with Korean language options I JUMPED at the chance - what better way to study than to just laze around playing video games? This is great for any other kinds of games you can snatch up in your target language too.

★ Read a favourite book in your new language. A common one is Harry Potter! It’s pretty much available in every language at this point and it’s a story you probably already know, which means you never get too lost because you know the plot already.

Resources:

Here are a bunch of apps and things that I use for studying that I find super helpful (and all of these are free!)

Drops (for Thai and Korean - available in both the apple store and the google play store)  - I use this app every single day without fail. It’s brilliant for expanding your vocabulary (there are TONS of languages available on there too!) HOWEVER: It only lets you study for 5 minutes and then you have to wait around 9-ish hours before you gain another 5 minutes to work with unless you want to pay for more. But honestly? That’s a good thing. You only need 5 minutes of vocab study before your brain wants to dissolve into mush anyway. I get up, do my morning stuff (usually just involves rolling around and blinking in confusion before grabbing a coffee) and then sit and do 5 minutes of drops, and then by the evening my 5 minutes have replenished and I do it again. Rinse and repeat, and you’ll be learning more words in a week than you even realise!

Duolingo (I use this for Korean, there is currently no Thai option) - This app is fantastic. I don’t recommend it for beginners as it should be used as more of an aid alongside your natural studies, rather than as a study resource itself. This app expects you to already know the basics so I’d dig into this one once you’re starting to get a little comfortable with your language!

Naver Dictionary (for Korean) - I use this every single day! Not only does it help me when I need to find a certain word, it also gives me lists of example sentences which is PERFECT and super helpful when I’m trying to memorize words!  And for Thai I use Thai-English Dictionary (I can only find it in the Apple store sadly) and that’s incredibly handy too, I wouldn’t be able to cope without it! I also use this website as a Thai dictionary when I’m not on my iPad!

Talk To Me In Korean (for Korean) - This has been a core element to my Korean studies. They have tons of lessons available on their website, they do regular YouTube videos (usually only 5-10 mins long, perfect for just a mini casual study session!) and they also sell textbooks and do podcasts too. If you learn best from textbooks then these are by far my favourite ones I’ve found, give them a try! They’re not too pricey.

Lingodeer (for Korean) - It’s cute, it’s friendly and it’s helpful!! I learned a bunch of new phrases using this one and it’s perfect for casual study!

Memrise (for Korean) - Fantastic if you’re a beginner! There are tons of languages available on here too. Although, there are only 3 levels in Korean so I got through this one pretty fast. 

Eggbun (for Korean) - An app that encourages you to learn using a texting format! I haven’t really used it much but I have friends that have said it’s really useful!

Ling (for Thai and Korean) - This one was pretty good, once again though I wouldn’t use it if you’re a beginner, it’s probably a lot more helpful if you know the basics before you attempt this one! I’ve only used it for Thai but there’s a Korean option you could try checking it out!

Mondly (for Thai and Korean) - This app is cheeky and it wants your money. You get a bunch of free lessons to start with which are GREAT but that’s it. Then it reduces you to one free lesson a day but honestly? Still useful so go ahead and use it. They also have speaking practice available too!

Thai2English (for Thai) - This website is an absolute LIFESAVER!! If I’m ever browsing and come across a sentence that just throws me, I simply copy and paste and this legend of a website just breaks it down for me word for word.

Extra Korean links:

Children’s books in Korean

Learning Korean through fairytales - a textbook used in Korea for children who are learning to read, it’s helpful as a Korean language learner too! You get a little story and then it’ll ask you questions about what you just read. 

TOPIK previous exams - these are so good for practice and if you want to get a general idea of what academic level your Korean skills are at. 

Learning to type in Hangul - this one was fun and I now type Korean pretty comfortably on my laptop so if you know you’re gonna be typing a lot, I recommend this program!

[halothenthehorns]

TLTNL- SEEN AND UNFORSEEN

Sirius easily caught the book and began thumbing through pages, muttering this would have been far easier if his twat of a friend would just hand it to him rather than losing his place every time. James ignored this and went to retrieve his son from Remus, quickly stepping out to change his diaper in the slight delay and then nestling back next to his wife with their child between them as Sirius started with residual triumph for Harry's finally able to speak out like he did.

Luna said that Harry might have to wait for the next issue for his article to be published, as her daddy was expecting an expose on the Crumple-Horned Snorkack.

"It's good to know I'm not everybody's top priority," Harry said indulgently. He may have a good feeling about that paper, but he still wasn't sure how much good it would do, so best to put it out of his mind for now.

The whole experience hadn't been easy for Harry, as Rita had demanded every detail Harry could remember.

Lily huffed in agitation that vile woman was pressing her son for those details, hating the irony that Skeeter had finally gotten her exclusive article she'd always wanted, but at least happy enough Harry was on board with this one.

Knowing this was his chance to speak out, he'd given everything he was asked, but still wondered if anyone would believe it. Yet the breakout of Azkaban left Harry with a burning desire to do something!

At dinner, Dean overheard what Harry would be doing and said he couldn't wait to see what Umbridge would do when she found out. Seamus was on his friends other side and apparently ignoring them, but Harry could tell he was listening.

"Guess it's better than calling you a nutter again," James frowned at this continuation, clearly the Death Eater breakout hadn't been good enough to push someone who should know Harry on some level back into reason.

  Neville agreed it was the right thing to do, people should be made aware Voldemort was out there, what his Death Eaters could do. Harry caught Seamus' eyes, but the other quickly looked back down at his plate.

"You think Dean's secretly helping Seamus with all the spells he's learning from the DA?" James asked.

"Well I'm sure Dean hasn't exactly told where he's learned them from," Sirius reminded of Hermione's little spell with a proud smirk, "but I wouldn't be surprised either."

His dorm mates left not much later, but Harry stuck around waiting for Ron's Quidditch practice to be over.

Remus let out a low whistle of surprise for such a long running practice, his two friends looking far more disappointed they hadn't gotten to hear about that instead of two-thirds of that Hogsmeade visit.

Cho was spotted first, coming in with her friend Marietta. Hermione saw this and asked why he'd shown up so early before without her?

"At least Hermione can talk you through it," Lily told him, glad that her son had seemed to follow their commentary well enough, but it would still be even better if someone had explained this to him in his time.

"I'd rather just never speak of it again," Harry grumbled.

Harry stated it was a complete fiasco.

"Well I'm glad you're chatting with her about this," James smirked, "far more than I ever got, you've now experienced Sirius' advice first hand."

"Hey!" Sirius yelped, "it's not my fault the woman's the most stubborn creature at school." Sirius clearly repeated an old statement.

Lily raised a brow at him, before looking at a suddenly uncomfortable James, and asked, "exactly how many of your blasted attempts were of his doing?"

James had the grace to fail to answer that, Remus was laughing too hard to answer, and Sirius kept going loudly so he wouldn't have to.

He explained the whole instance, ending with her storming out, and asked of her what on earth had been going on?

Hermione told Harry he was tactless.

"Hey!" Harry spluttered, now much preferring his mum's words.

Lily was still watching James critically, and he was happily ignoring her look by playing with his son's fingers.

Harry was outraged that was her conclusion. They'd been having a nice chat until she'd brought up Roger Davies, and then it had all gotten out of hand.

Hermione began to patiently explain as if to an over-emotional toddler,

All three boys got a chuckle out of that, though none of this was improving Harry's mood at the lot of them ganging up on him in past and present.

that he shouldn't have mentioned her halfway through his date.

Harry spluttered in protest Hermione had asked him to, how was he supposed to bring Cho along without telling her?

Hermione said he should have phrased it differently, still with that maddeningly patient air.

Lily was smothering her own laughter now, finally distracted from eyeing James. Hermione, with her two male best friends, should know better than anyone what if felt like to explain these things to them.

He should have made it seem like a drag Harry had to do this, he'd much rather spend all his time with Cho, but Hermione really had made him swear so he now had an obligation and to really make her feel as if she was more important by pleading with her to come along. It would have helped if he'd also mentioned how ugly Harry found Hermione.

"That is so unnecessary," Remus stated as he eyed Lily, "I'm sure she'd find it just as insulting his pandering to her need."

Lily just shrugged. She wasn't going to try speaking for Cho. She was privy to knowing what Harry had meant and so understood her son's position better than Cho likely had. Plus she'd never had much insecurity in the man in her life, he'd never been secretive about his intentions. Yet at the same time, it was clear she was the only one in here who understood why Hermione had said it that way, it would have helped soothe Cho more than what Harry actually did.

Harry's only response to that was to say he didn't find Hermione ugly.

"At least I could have told you that wouldn't have been helpful in the face of Cho," Sirius offered.

"Thank you Padfoot, I think I could have worked that one out," Harry rolled his eyes.

Hermione just laughed, saying he was as bad as Ron, or perhaps not she amended with a sigh,

All five of them couldn't help a soft snort of amusement at Hermione suffering her own plight of love.

as Ron himself came stomping into the Hall splattered with mud and looking grumpy.

"I'm guessing practice didn't go well," Remus said conversationally.

"I still can't imagine coming away from a practice in such a bad mood," James stated, his tone enough to state the idea was lost on him. "Quidditch is how you relieve stress."

Hermione continued explaining for Harry that Cho was trying to make him jealous after he'd bought Hermione up, it was her way of seeing who Harry liked more.

Harry protested why couldn't she have just said that? Ron clearly wasn't joining in the conversation just yet as he sat down on the bench and began pulling every plate towards him.

"Dessert for dinner, that's got to be some consolation," Sirius chuckled.

Hermione just said it wasn't common for girls to be asking that.

"I love my wife," James needlessly declared as he grinned at her.

"I've never asked anything like this of you," Lily rolled her eyes at him.

"I know," he smirked as she made his point.

Harry said they should! He could have just told her he fancied her, instead of her bringing up Cedric again!

Hermione agreed it hadn't been sensible, but she was just trying to help Harry understand how Cho had been feeling.

Harry just muttered something about he wasn't looking forward to a repeat, or if he had to, maybe he could sneak Hermione along under the cloak so it wouldn't go as bad again, or maybe Ginny if she'd help him out in trade of getting her out of a Quidditch practice she so clearly hadn't wanted to be in...

Ron told Hermione she should write a book, translating things girls did so boys could understand them.

"That would be a bestseller," Sirius agreed.

"I love Ron just automatically took to the important part of that conversation," Remus snickered.

Harry agreed at once, but as Ginny joined decided to change the subject and asked how practice had gone?

Both said it was a disaster, Ginny stating Angelina was nearly in tears by the end.

"That poor girl," James said with honest sympathy. He'd been lucky to have such a fantastic team his final year, yet every time Angelina turned something happened to hers this year.

The two ate quickly without much more detail and then vanished to clean themselves up, Harry and Hermione finally going back to the common room to start some homework. They were interrupted by the twins showing up, asking if their younger siblings were around yet? When confirmed they weren't, they decided to share more details, having looked in on the practice, and stating what rubbish the team was.

Lily struggled to hold back a new wave of pig headed comments about the new mischief makers of this school, her restraint not helped at all by the sympathetic look growing on James.

George did defend Ginny wasn't bad, an oddity as none of them had ever let her play.

Hermione inserted this was because she'd been stealing their brooms since she was six and practicing on her own.

"Ginny keeps getting better with every mentioning," Remus chuckled.

"Absolutely better than the little fangirl," Harry agreed full heartedly, even if he did look back on that with far more humor than he would have thought.

George now looked impressed as he said that explained things.

"He's so casual about having his stuff being nicked," Sirius grinned as well even if he knew he'd have gone off on Regulus for doing the same.

Hermione tried her hardest not to look up from her work as she asked if Ron had saved one goal?

Fred rolled his eyes as he stated he was quite good when he thought no one was watching. Therefore all they had to do at the next match was have the whole crowd turn their back when the ball was at his end of the pitch.

All four boys groaned and shifted restlessly, James wishing more and more someone would offer Ron some actual helpful advice rather than just complaining about the problem.

Then Fred shifted restlessly as he looked out the window, saying Quidditch had been the only thing this place had been worth staying for.

"That was true several months ago now," Sirius scoffed, "I've no clue why they stuck around after what Umbridge pulled, I haven't heard a lick of revenge from them about it."

"Sirius," Lily said in exasperation. "They've been at it this long, even if they don't care about the grades they may as well finish school by this point they're so close."

"I thought the reason they hadn't bailed was because they didn't want their mum to have more worries," Remus reminded. "That's hardly gone away, if not worse with their fathers recent injury."

Sirius turned back to the book in hopes the twins would give some better answer.

Hermione looked sternly at them as she reminded of their exams.

Harry burst out laughing that the closest thing to have crossed their minds in here was his mother's words, and even she hadn't seemed that concerned about it.

Fred scoffed they were not worried about that one bit. Their Snackboxes were now good to go, Lee had turned them onto this essence of Murtlap and that had cured the boils.

James gave a loud applause at his son yet again helping out the twins, this time even unintentionally! Sirius though cracked up even harder as he realized it was Hermione who'd been the pin in this one, and wondered if anyone ever realized the connection.

"I want to know what possessed them to put that in what they eat," Lily crinkled her nose.

"A bit brilliant though," Remus grinned, "considering the essence is to help ease sore skin, and I can't think of a place they were more sore. If they'd put it on those boils, and realized it made them go away, then the next step would be adding it to their batch."

Lily narrowed her eyes with worry in here that this idea clearly didn't bother a single one of them, there was a reason she cooked in this house.

George kept on point and stated he didn't even want to go to the match this weekend, he'd kill himself if he saw Zacharias won.

"Kill him more like!" James scolded.

Fred corrected kill him instead.

Sirius whooped with laughter and James even joined in that time with glee.

Hermione said this was the whole trouble with Quidditch, it created too much bad blood between houses.

The boys looked properly scandalized at this, but Lily defended Hermione on this one. "I may not like the sport much either, but I think a few things could be altered to make it more bearable for those who aren't obsessed with it."

"Like?" James challenged, clearly already convinced she could offer nothing for this.

"What if, instead of pinning the house teams against each other, any person from any house could be on four separate teams? Captains would still be chosen one from each house, and you'd have to create some structure for how each team got players so that nothing too dirty could be abused during selections, but it would do even more good to support a school unity rather than having another way for them to compete against each other. We already have the House Cup for that."

Her speculation ended there, for now, but she looked around and grinned further when she saw none of the boys were immediately dispelling the idea.

Sirius scrutinized her for an extra minute, but failing to come up with an argument against that, continued for now.

She looked up in the silence to see all those around her looking at her with incredulity.

"Well she did say that to the three players who'd been booted off the team for something entirely not their fault," Sirius defended.

Hermione insisted it did, it was only a game.

James opened and closed his mouth in outrage, and Harry was quite thankful his friend wasn't here now, or she may have gotten her ear chewed off.

Then she snapped at least her happiness wasn't dependent on Ron's goalkeeping ability.

Remus inhaled through his teeth as he watched his friends blanch at that spurn even through the book.

Harry would rather have jumped off the Astronomy Tower than admit it to her, but by the time he had watched the game the following Saturday he would have given any number of Galleons not to care about Quidditch either.

"I blame this on your father," Lily told him.

"It's half Ron's fault," Remus said fairly, "he got Harry into the details of it."

"No," James shook his head to try and distract himself from his own disappointment, "I take full responsibility for this."

The nicest thing to be said, it was short. It was debatable what was worse in the twenty-two minutes, Ron's fourteenth failed saves, Sloper hitting himself with the bat instead of the Bludger, or Kirke actually falling off his broom in surprise after Zacharia had startled him.

"I'm going with that last one," Sirius said critically.

"I'm crying on the inside just hearing about it," James moaned at the display.

Ginny was the only saving grace, managing to make their team only lose by ten points, as she'd caught the Snitch under the other Seekers nose, the final score coming out two hundred and forty to two hundred and thirty, Hufflepuff.

All four boys simultaneously groaned at the idea so many goals had been made, but tried to cheer slightly Ginny had pulled that off! Harry in particular found it a novelty at all to be watching a game from his school and with his disappointment still had far more fun watching Ginny play his usual position than he would have thought.

That evening Harry at least congratulated Ginny on her catch, which went unnoticed in the common room which resembled a particularly dismal funeral.

"I can easily imagine," James hung his head in agreement, he couldn't claim his team had won every game either.

Ginny just said she was lucky, Summerby sneezed at the right moment.

"She shouldn't downplay her own win," Harry rolled his eyes.

"Like you would have done," Sirius snorted, which Harry failed to answer.

Then she changed to saying when Harry was back on the team-

Harry corrected he had a lifelong band.

Ginny corrected right back only so long as Umbridge was here,

"How did you need her to remind you of that," James shivered, "it's the only thing getting me through these."

"Really James? The only thing eh?" Lily demanded of him.

He denied answer, even if he wouldn't take his comment back.

and once Harry was back, she'd go try out for Chaser. Angelina and Alicia were leaving after this year, and she preferred goals to Seeking.

Harry had a very bemused smile in place the others all put down to him trying not to remember something about whether this happened or not.

Harry had nothing to say to that and instead glanced to where Ron was sitting all by himself. Ginny whispered Angelina still wouldn't let him resign, she knew he had it in him.

"Credit to her then," James agreed with enthusiasm, though Remus shook his head in a bit of pity as well, at some point that must feel as much like a punishment as encouragement.

Harry liked Angelina for her faith, but at this point may have found it kinder, especially after the pitch had yet again been filled with another chorus of Weasley is our King.

"I can't wrap my head around the fact that somehow banning the teachers from virtually talking to the students was okay, but not this song!" Lily seethed.

Fred and George wandered over again, Fred saying he didn't even have the heart to take the mickey out of his kid brother yet.

"It's really no fun if they're so despondent they won't react," Sirius agreed, Lily scrunching up her face at him as she thought he was entirely missing the point of not picking on someone when they were down.

Though it was tempting after that last one, then he mimed doing a doggy paddle in mid air as demonstration for Ron's abilities, but when no one looked around, decided to save that for parties.

"I'm sure he appreciates your restraint," Remus said deadpan, while Harry felt a nasty prickling feeling wondering why he couldn't remember Fred doing that again.

Ron took himself up to bed not long later, and Harry waited a few moments so he could pretend to be asleep.

"There's a proper mate," Remus said in understanding, before unbidden the idea of which one of his friends were more like that, and it wasn't the two in the room. He blasted that idea away quickly before it could poison more of his life.

When Harry went up there as well, he was snoring just a little too loudly to be believed, but Harry let him be as he sank into his own bed, still thinking about the game. If only he hadn't been banned, he may have been able to save his team some grace, he'd seen the Snitch fluttering by Kirke's ankle five minutes before Ginny had caught sight of it.

"He really is getting as conceited as you, at least about this sport," Lily snipped at her husband, before properly scolding Harry, "you don't know what you would have done in that moment as well, you've hesitated over the Snitch before so the other Seeker wouldn't come in as well. You might not have even seen it from where you were, you were in a different angle in the stands."

Harry did look a bit abashed at his moment, he'd never want to undermine what Ginny had done.

Umbridge had been sitting a few rows below Harry and Hermione.

"And we snuck down and pitched her head first to the ground below. After setting a teacher on fire, this was nothing!" Sirius kept going with absolute conviction as if reading.

"Technically Hermione did that," Harry pouted, "and you're never going to let that one go, are you?"

"No," all four said at once.

Harry shook his head at all of them before continuing to address Sirius, "and you know perfectly well there was no such thing said in there, even Dumbledore couldn't stop me from getting Cruicio'd by her if we'd tried-" he abruptly stopped, as if his tongue had rolled into his head and he'd had no other choice from the sting of his mind warning him further.

Sirius ignored where Harry had stopped and kept going with a mutter of wishes.

Once or twice she had turned squatly in her seat to look at him, her wide toad's mouth stretched in what he thought had been a gloating smile.

"Oh yes, because that's so much better than what I said," Sirius snarled in outrage, wanting nothing more than to sick a wild dog on her already and make this problem go away.

The memory left him raging with anger, and it took him several extra moment to remember he was supposed to be emptying his mind for his Occlumency practice.

"Have you once managed to do that?" Lily asked, an edge of fear trying to push out her exasperation.

Harry denied answering, which was answer enough.

He tried to do so, but his anger only managed to double and now he couldn't push past his hate for both teachers.

"I know that's what puts me to sleep every night," Sirius agreed with a smirk.

When he did nod off, he started with a dream about Neville dancing with Sprout in the Room of Requirements while McGonagall played the bagpipes.

"There's something really interesting in there," Remus said with a raised brow.

"Yeah, how come you didn't mention her wearing a kilt along with those?" James smirked.

"I thought only blokes wore kilts?" Sirius corrected.

"It was the first Scottish thing that came to mind," he shrugged, "that and potatoes."

"It was a dream!" Harry protested this conversation before it could go further.

They frowned at him for ruining their fun, but since McGonagall wasn't here as their foil, nor would they possibly have even dragged it out this far if she had been, he let it go.

He watched for a while before deciding to find the rest of the DA, but when he exited the room he found himself once again in the long dark corridor with a locked black door.

Harry made a guttural noise of frustration at being reminded of this again! Days weren't even passing in here, he wasn't even having the frequent dream as his memory returned except the two times so far, but as often as it was mentioned he may as well be.

For the first time, there was a crack around one edge, a hint of blue light creeping out. He moved forward, reaching his hand out to push it open no matter how futilely, but then Ron gave a rasping, genuine snore and Harry awoke in his room, with his arm outstretched to something miles away.

Sirius couldn't deny he'd had a rising sense of interest at this new alteration to the dream, but it also made him quiver with unease just as much.

He glanced up at Harry shivering at his side, there was some unreadable look on his face Sirius was more convinced than ever he didn't really want to know.

Remus either didn't notice, or as usual was muttering for himself and didn't seem to realize others could hear. "Well this can't be good, sounded like Voldemort's getting closer to whatever this thing is."

Sirius gave a heavy sigh in agreement before continuing loudly.

Breakfast the next morning started as usual, everyone else receiving their owl mail while Harry poured himself some juice, but then an owl landed in front of him. Considering he'd received all of one letter this year, he was sure this must be a mistake.

Sirius tried his best to hide his anger at this being true. He couldn't believe he was scared away from communicating with Harry! He'd even offered his pup another solution and the little birk had denied that out of some skewed idea he was protecting him! He wasn't even sure himself what it had been, but for Harry to clearly have just forgotten about it and not even bothered to check was maddening! He continued reading with far more hostility than a bit of mail should have offered.

He even checked the address on it, but the recipient was clear as day. Before he had time to react, half a dozen more arrived.

"This isn't like what happened to Hermione last year is it?" Lily asked in concern, remembering the amounts of hate mail the poor dear got.

"Luna said the article wasn't even out yet for him to be getting any," Remus disagreed, though now Sirius felt even more justified in his haste of reading.

The whole hall was watching in confusion at the flock of birds trying to surround Harry, but Hermione reacted first in digging one in particular out with a long, cylindrical partial tied to its leg and said Harry should look at this one first. When he unwrapped it, he found a copy of The Quibbler, with his own picture on front with the title declaring Potter Speaks Out: The Truth about You-Know-Who.

"Luna jumped ahead of schedule," James said with glee.

"Still not sure if I'm a fan of the rest of this showing up," Sirius said grumpily, eyeing the rest of the text with worry. If anyone had sent his godson a cursed letter, that meant Umbridge had let that through her screening of Harry's mail, and that wasn't going to go over well.

Luna appeared, shoving her way onto the bench near him so she could say her dad had got it out yesterday and sent Harry a free copy, she supposed all of these were letters from those who'd read it.

Hermione asked if they could go through them, and Harry bemusedly told them to help themselves.

"That's a better reaction than you usually have to getting attention," Lily chuckled.

Ron found one that was from a guy telling Harry he was off his rocker, while Hermione read out one detailing how Harry should be put in St. Mungo's for shock therapy.

Remus scrunched up his face in agitation for that particular suggestion, Harry was tortured enough thank you.

Harry found one that actually concluded in someone agreeing, and believing Harry.

Fred had one that said he couldn't decide what to think, and declared it a waste of parchment.

"Everybody wants to put their opinion out there, even if it isn't an actual opinion," Sirius said in an attempt at Remus' wise voice.

Remus rolled his eyes for his friend.

Hermione managed to find at least three more of people who Harry had convinced!

Ron found one from a woman who Harry had converted, and she'd sent a picture, he trailed off with a wow.

"Err," James said with concerned curiosity.

"I never got to see the picture," Harry answered with that bemused expression lingering in here, so he had no clue if Ron's reaction was to be a good thing or bad for that.

Inserting her girlish voice into their conversation, Umbridge arrived to demand to know what was going on.

"He sent out a request for toad repellent, he still didn't get enough," Remus said with a straight face.

Fred demanded if getting mail was a crime now?

Umbridge told him to watch his tongue or she'd start issuing detentions.

Lily bite down so hard on her tongue from shouting out in frustration for the grounds of this her eyes began welling up in pain. She could never stand the idea of that woman anywhere near Harry, never mind the casual way she dished out torture and no on in that school had done a thing to stop it!

Harry tossed his issue of The Quibbler at her for explanation, and then quickly looked to the staff table to see Dumbledore. He'd felt for a moment his headmaster was watching him, but for now it looked as if he was talking deeply to Flitwick.

"I've yet seen your instincts fail you," Remus said blandly, "so I wouldn't be surprised if you were right." It made none of them feel better this treatment was being continued as casually as Umbridge's.

Umbridge was gazing flabbergasted at the article, demanding what he meant by this interview?

Harry responded a reporter had asked him questions and he'd answered them.

Sirius let out a triumphant bark of laughter, everyone else getting a giggle out of that as well.

Her voice growing higher with anger, she asked of him when this had taken place?

Harry said his last Hogsmeade trip.

Her response to this was to ban him from further visits.

The three Marauders blanched in further outrage from that pond scum. The detentions were still worse, but if there was one thing she could do to strike them hardest, it was ban them from their home turf. She grew luckier by the page they weren't there in person to teach her a thing or two about how she was treating their boy.

Then began hissing how he dared!

"Yes, how dare he have a voice in saying what happened to him that doesn't conform to you," James said dangerously, that smile still in place turning eerie as he thought of yet more curses he planned on using on her someday soon.

Then she decided her message had not yet received, and took fifty points away from Gryffindor as well as another week of detentions.

Harry let out a low whistle even if his face was bland while he stated, "whoever would have imagined Umbridge would do me a favor in getting me out of an Occlumency lesson."

"This isn't funny Harry," James said flatly, his voice flat and his eyes flashing.

Harry raised his hands in surrender at once, wincing and regretting trying to make it funny even if in his own head he was still weighing the two on levels of awful and couldn't quite decide which was worse.

She stalked away with the magazine still in hand, and by midday had issued a new decree that anyone caught with this would be expelled.

Lily felt her mouth flop open in true resignation of the stupidity of these. How did they manage to keep getting more ridiculous with every one?!

The boys were so sick of these being made up on the spot and being passed as actual laws they'd even run out of insults for them, something they wouldn't have believed possible before.

For some reason, every time Hermione caught sight of one of these signs she beamed with pleasure.

"What do you mean, for some reason?" Remus asked Harry, he found the woman's own idiocy almost brilliant.

"Everyone already thinks I'm a nutter, and just cause I said something in a paper wouldn't really change that," Harry said, his spirits clearly hadn't kept hold of that warmth pushing back at the Ministry this had originally given him. "Now there's no way anyone's going to risk getting expelled just to hear my account of being a madman even more."

"Oh Harry," Sirius chuckled, while James shook his head affectionately. "You have no idea what Umbridge just did."

Harry continued to just look around at them, but Sirius kept going before Lily could explain like she was clearly fixing to.

Harry asked what had her in such a good mood, and Hermione explained that if there was one thing Umbridge could have done to make sure every single person read that, it was banning it.

Harry still didn't seem to get it, and was opening his mouth to interrupt again to say so, so Lily did state, "remember back to your first week, how you suspected everyone was talking about your first detention in hopes you'd start shouting at them as well?"

He didn't have to think long before the realization hit, and he nodded as she finished, "they do want to hear you, it's far easier to form an opinion of a first hand account rather than what Dumbledore said. I'm not promising it will change everyone's minds, but those letters you were sent was the perfect example of how this will put things inside school as well."

Harry suddenly turned eagerly back to Sirius now, hope finally filtering through every bit of him! Umbridge had managed to take away yet one more thing about school he loved, now he had managed to circle back around to being banned from Hogsmeade again. In return, she may have gifted him with his best weapon yet in spreading his story for him.

Hermione's statement turned out to be very true. They could no longer walk down the corridor without hearing people talking about the article, but not a corner of The Quibbler ever came into sight. Hermione even said the girls restroom was filled with telling each other about it.

"There's evidence as if we needed it," Sirius snickered.

Then the occupants had spotted Hermione and knew she knew Harry, and they'd bombarded her with questions, and they all seemed convinced of him now.

It was amazing to finally see him smiling in here, practically glowing. The idea of what he'd been put through this year had weighed on him for so long they'd hardly been able to recognize it until it was being lifted away before their eyes. Finally, something had gone right for Harry, and no one, not even Umbridge was taking that away.

Meanwhile, Professor Umbridge was stalking the school, stopping students at random and demanding that they turn out their books and pockets: Harry knew she was looking for copies of The Quibbler, but the students were several steps ahead of her.

All four of them already had that flippant smile set in place, one Harry had grown to associate with their idea they'd never be caught by the teachers of that school. The lot of them weren't long from their own teen years and hiding things from anyone and everyone, and they couldn't wait to see how others were doing the same.

The pages carrying Harry's interview had been bewitched to resemble extracts from textbooks if anyone but themselves read it, or else wiped magically blank until they wanted to pursue it again.

"Passable," Sirius said reasonably.

"Sometimes subtler can be safest," Remus shrugged.

Soon it seemed that every single person in the school had read it. The teachers were of course forbidden from mentioning the interview by Educational Decree Number Twenty- six,

"I never thought the idiocy of that one could be passed, could I please stop being proven wrong," James rolled his eyes.

but they found ways to express their feelings about it all the same. Professor Sprout awarded Gryffindor twenty points when Harry passed her a watering can;

"My favorite thing that teacher's ever done," Sirius chuckled.

a beaming Professor Flitwick pressed a box of squeaking sugar mice on him at the end of Charms before hurrying away;

Lily giggled affectionately for her old favorite teacher.

and Professor Trelawney broke into hysterical sobs during Divination and announced to the startled class, and a very disapproving Umbridge, that Harry was not going to suffer an early death after all, but would live to a ripe old age, become Minister for Magic and have twelve children.

All five of them got a crack out of that one. They seemed to forget a lot how much fun Trelawney could be and enjoyed the reminders.

The best part of all was Cho catching up to Harry, lacing his hand with hers as she whispered in his ear that the interview had been really brave and made her cry.

"Was, that an apology, or...?" James trailed off with a furrowed brow.

"She was holding his hand, I'll take that as a sign of forgiveness for meeting up with other girls," Sirius rolled his eyes at the girls further dramatics.

Harry had a soft smile in place, he was happy he'd found some more even ground with her, and they all wondered if they'd been dead wrong at the end of Harry's first date. Maybe he and Cho did make up and further on from there.

He was sorry to hear she had shed even more tears over it,

Lily couldn't help a further smattering of giggles, all boys considered crying a bad thing, even tears of joy.

but very glad they were on speaking terms again, and even more pleased when she gave him a swift kiss on the cheek and hurried off again.

Harry touched the spot on his cheek, his smile growing more as his face took on another tinge of red, and for once he could easily ignore the snickers of those around him. He could still feel something for Cho, and though it didn't feel nearly as powerful as he thought it would if he'd married her, perhaps his full memories just hadn't been returned yet and he'd have even more happy memories of sharing time with her.

Unbelievably, no sooner had he arrived outside Transfiguration than something just as good happened: Seamus stepped out of the queue to face him.

"Finally!" Remus said in relief. It hadn't exactly been a major drama, but it was still boggling the idea one of Harry's roommates had taken so long to believe Harry. Even not being close friends, Seamus really would have been expected to be one of those who'd know better.

He spoke to Harry's knee as he mumbled his apology, but firmly said he now believed Harry and had sent a copy of that magazine to his mum.

"It's a start," Sirius raised a brow at that.

"I accepted it," Harry said agreeably, that smile was finally so carefree in here, they were all still smiling as well.

Still better, was that whomever would have retaliated such as children from the Death Eaters he had named, could do nothing,

Lily smiled grimly to herself, beyond pleased as she realized they now had names for all of Voldemort's inner circle. There were still more out there, there would always be more Death Eaters, but if she could find one good thing in the throes of these wretched things happening to her son, it was the justice those vermin would get.

because in doing so they'd admit to having read the article themselves.

James pumped his fist in triumph while Sirius cackled, all five of them beyond words at this level of comeuppance.

To cap it all, Luna told him over dinner that no issue of The Quibbler had ever sold out faster.

"Imagine that," Remus said dryly with a friendly chuckle.

Excitedly telling him that her dad was reprinting, people found this more interesting than the Crumple-Horned Snorkack!

"Miracles," Sirius almost managed with a straight face.

Fred and George chose to celebrate this by hanging up a large banner in the Gryffindor dorm, the poster of Harry's face that they'd enchanted to shout 'Ministry are Morons' and 'Eat Dung Umbridge' loudly through the room.

All four boys got yet more laughter out of this, though Lily thought that was pushing it just a touch too far. Umbridge hadn't yet, but she half feared at this point the woman would show up and give the whole house detention.

The charm wore off after a few hours, and by the time night rolled around it was merely squeaking 'Dung,' and 'Umbridge.'

"I'm actually quite confident it would still be amusing," James corrected, thinking of some clever things he could do if he figured out the timing of those words.

Lily didn't argue the point even as she watched his calculating look with exasperation.

To the disappointment of people still chatting to Harry about the article, he excused himself for an early night as his scar began to prickle.

They hated how short lived Harry's happiness was, but before their eyes they saw he was already starting to twitch with unease again, rubbing at his scar, his eyes taking on that glazed look of pain all over again.

The dormitory was empty when he entered, sinking onto his bed and rubbing at his forehead which was paining him worse every moment. Hoping sleep would help, he laid down, and instantly fell asleep.

Lily shivered down to her bone even before Sirius could catch his breath to keep going. Harry hadn't stopped rubbing his scar in here since it was mentioned, and he was looking just as sick as described. She wanted to make Sirius stop, to go get him a cold press for his forehead if that helped him even for a second, but she knew the truth, she was just delaying. They could all feel it was happening again, Harry's fingers trembling and him pulling into himself as some new terrible memory was resurfacing, and the faster they pushed through it the better.

He was standing in a dark, curtained room lit by a single branch of candles. His hands were clenched on the back of a chair in front of him. They were long-fingered and white as though they had not seen sunlight for years and looked like large, pale spiders against the dark velvet of the chair.

Sirius hung his head, shook it for a moment in agitation for having to be right about this, and then took a very long, deep breath before reading the latest travesty of Harry's life in having to see what Voldemort was up to. It was lost on no one this was yet another level of advanced, Harry now seeing directly into Voldemort's mind, the only thing that could be said was at least Harry hadn't been awake as well, he'd fallen asleep, so there was some consistency in this. Even that smallest moment of understanding and knowing one thing about this was of the vaguest comfort.

In the small pool of light was a huddled man. In a high cold voice resonating from Harry's throat, he spoke about how he'd been ill advised.

Sirius looked wildly around, and waited very impatiently for Harry to meet his eyes. He didn't quite manage it, looking more above his left ear, but Sirius said with such determination, that Harry felt he had no choice but to look him full on, "that is not you!"

Harry had no response for that, but clearly Sirius wasn't doing a thing until he got something, so Harry gave a wobbly nod to his head.

The kneeling man craved his pardon, Harry responding that it was not Rookwoods fault.

Sirius twitched harshly again at having to say that, Harry half expected him to chew off his tongue in frustration, but thankfully he didn't call Harry on it again, they all knew it was only in Harry's mind so that would be how he'd describe it.

Then he demanded Rookwood was sure of his facts?

Rookwood seemed to agree, having worked in that Department after all.

Harry responded that Avery had told that Bode would have been able to do it.

Rookwood corrected Bode, the man himself would know it, which is likely why he'd fought so hard against Malfoy's Imperius Curse.

Remus could feel the usefulness of this information relating to a past event they'd heard about, but for now he was far more concerned hearing Harry wake up already and filed it all away. Unless Voldemort was going to be revealing his mortal weakness, seeing Harry in such intense pain from remembering this would never be worth it.

Harry whispered for Rookwood to take to his feet, and the man was in such haste to do so he nearly fell to the floor again. Even having accomplished this, he still stayed stooped, as if terrified to meet Harry's face.

James felt a disgusted taste lingering in his mouth at such an act he could never comprehend. Such proud Death Eater's treating any man like this was beyond him.

Harry praised Rookwood for this, murmuring they would have to begin again on new schemes with this information. Then he asked that Avery be summoned to him.

For the moment he was alone, Rookwood scrambling out of sight to do as told, Harry turned and found an image of himself in a cracked mirror. His eyes were red with slits in a flat white skull.

Harry hollered loudly in pain, screaming no! Ron found him like this, tangled in his bed curtains.

Sirius closed his eyes in blessing that was finally over, his grey eyes looked ready to shatter as he looked back to Harry with more concern than he ever had for anyone in his life.

Harry wasn't looking at any of them, his eyes tight shut and his jaw aching from clenching it so hard to stop his own scream. He hated these visions, hated how they kept inexplicably reminding him of this connection to Voldemort he had no control over, but most of all he couldn't stand to look at his parents while they were happening. The monster that had cut their life short, and Harry kept reminding them of it all happening just by continuing to live.

Inexplicably, they refused to think the same. That was the only explanation for Lily saying in a tone he could have easily found in Molly Weasley, "Harry love, we should take a break."

He opened his eyes slowly, breathing steadily through his nose to find the pair huddled into each other with, well him in their lap. Maybe they just couldn't disconnect the two from the infant who'd done nothing to the life he was cursed to live dragging everyone else around him with.

"No," he whispered, still unable to look at any of them, how his dad and friends were probably trying to stop themselves laughing silly at how he had to fight back tears every time this happened, wondering when Ron would start accusing him of the boy who cried wolf as it seemed he couldn't go any length of time without panicking over something. "No, I just want to," he gestured vaguely back at his stupid biography, trying to grasp hold of anything to take away these poisonous thoughts from himself. He felt like a curse, any managing of happiness seemed destined to be dragged back into the reminder of how quickly he could lose all of it.

Sirius couldn't make himself immediately keep going, sick with worry as everyone else for just what was going through Harry's head. At least no one he'd cared about had been attacked this time, but for a reason his godson could not explain, the more frequent these visions, the more Harry seemed convinced his life was going to end in ruin. He couldn't imagine how these could continue to get worse, but surely if they were to get better he wouldn't be treating these like a death omen.

Remus had to nudge him hard to get his attention before whispering in his ear, "we can only help by continuing, that's proven to work already, don't let him dwell on whatever he's blaming himself for."

Sirius gave a jerky nod of agreement, fighting past blurry vision for the print again rather than focusing on his distraught godson.

Ron had to struggle with his friend for him to roll free, before demanding if his dad was okay, had that snake attacked again?

Not one of them could blame Ron for this assumption, they would have thought the same if they hadn't knowledge of what it had been.

Harry sat up wildly, convinced his forehead was on fire as he explained in gasping breaths what had happened. Ron at first couldn't grasp what had happened, Harry had seen You-Know-Who?

Harry shivered, his seat the only thing keeping him upright. He couldn't understand how Ron had never looked at him with revulsion like he felt for himself during this. Yet he'd found it no more in Ron's face than any of those around him. He wanted to believe that meant something, but he was too stuck in his own pit to grasp anything else except how much worse this was all going to get before these stopped, if they ever did.

Harry corrected he had been You-Know-Who.

Sirius at least looked a little quailed from his earlier outburst. Harry wasn't even referring to Voldemort by name, he was trying to put some distance into what he'd just witnessed. Harry could never really think he had more to do with Voldemort other than the constant...bother he was in Harry's life.

Then Harry went to talking about Rookwood, and Bode's involvement.

Ron realized that Bode was bewitched to remove something, the weapon.

That feeling of significance from before settled on all of them now, Ron and Harry working this out for them feeling like just a little weight had been pushed away so they wouldn't have to immediately speak of it again while in here. Sirius wished he could be closer to done with this already, he wanted to force Harry to take a break from all of this, but he seemed determined now. Any time Sirius stopped for too long or glanced towards the kitchen, Harry actually would meet his eyes. They were too hard, a distance in them he seemed unable to beat away, but he could still look at Sirius with an expression clearly saying he wanted past this and the only way to do that was for him to keep going.

The door opened then, Dean and Seamus entering. Harry straightened himself at once. Seamus had only just stopped thinking him a nutter, and he didn't want him thinking anything else odd was going on.

"Priorities," James managed to say. It came out far too high pitched, but Harry gave him credit for trying when he still couldn't stop rubbing at a scar that wasn't even paining him in here, only in his memories.

Ron kept himself close to Harry in the guise of getting himself some water as he told him he had to tell-

but Harry said he wasn't telling anyone anything. He wasn't supposed to have seen this at all because of his Occlumency, they wanted him to shut this out.

Both Sirius and Remus flinched like Harry had tried to curse them. In this future of trying to convince him he needed to stop these, now Harry had clearly convinced himself more than ever he should be keeping all of this to himself rather than asking for help.

James noticed, and said firmly, "Harry couldn't have told you even if he'd wanted to, there's no way he could get a note like that out." He finished internally he didn't even blame Harry at this point for not wanting to tell anyone else like Dumbledore. If the man couldn't be bothered to explain his actions towards ignoring Harry's existence than his son certainly shouldn't force himself to be in his company.

By they, he'd meant Dumbledore.

Sirius had looked just a bit better at James' reminder, but it was both of some comfort Harry hadn't meant him, and also just a touch more hurtful he hadn't crossed his mind in wanting to say something about this.

He got back into bed and rolled over so Ron couldn't do anymore, yet could not fall back asleep as his scar continued to burn across his forehead. He bit his pillow in his urge not to shout out in pain, as somewhere far away, Avery was being punished.

Lily made a high pitched noise of concern, her infant in her lap making some fussing noises at his mother's distress. She spent several moments just crooning to him it was all going to be alright while watching her elder child, who was watching back with a look she couldn't place.

The next morning, the two told Hermione all of this over morning break.

She quickly put it all together that this was why Bode had been killed. He'd been regaining himself back and could tell what had happened, and they couldn't have that. Malfoy must have done all this, as often as he was in the Ministry and all of his connections.

"This really is all making a disturbing amount of sense," Remus grumbled, this wasn't helping with their whole trying to change the subject thing. Of course it was a good thing Harry was finally getting some answers, it was absolutely fascinating one scrap of information and Hermione was putting all of this together so easily and saving them from false theories that would only hurt Harry in their speculation.

Harry agreed he'd been there the very day of his trial, though Arthur had only said he was trying to sneak down there for that-

Hermione cut him off by gasping out Sturgis. She realized that Sturgis had been another victim of all this, Malfoy must have tried the same ploy on him, shooting the curse in hopes of catching someone guarding the door, but the Imperiused Sturgis had been caught even earlier in his attempts to break in, hence where he was in Azkaban.

"Oh Merlin," Lily sighed as that was crammed down their throats. As if the Order wasn't suffering enough these days. They supposed if they'd thought about this one after the last revelation of where the weapon was being hidden they would have put this together, but considering all the terrible things they'd been trying to keep track of while also trying to keep Harry's mind off of them, it was almost a relief Hermione putting this for them.

Harry finishing now Rookwood seemed to have told how to really get that weapon, and would probably be sent to fetch it next.

Harry had hated his premonitions from the very beginning, almost afraid of this knowledge in his head he couldn't access in knowing these answers, and somehow the worst of all was the feeling he was getting for who it was that would be sent for this.

Hermione went from nodding in agreement, to abruptly telling Harry off for having seen this at all.

"Well he's hardly been given a suitable way not to," Sirius scowled for her sudden change.

Lily frowned deeply, wishing Severus had given something more useful to Harry than the same repetitive advice that clearly wasn't being of much help.

Harry was taken aback at her change, but Hermione sternly insisted he was supposed to be closing his mind to these things and should be practicing harder at his Occlumency.

"It's almost hurtful she thinks I'm not," Harry grumbled, shaking his head and honestly wishing this whole thing would quit being mentioned lately.

Harry was so angry with her he didn't speak to her the rest of the morning, and his day didn't improve from there. The students were still laughing loudly about the last Quidditch game, and Weasley is our King erupted so frequently in the corridors Filch banned it from sheer irritation.

"The first good thing that man's ever done," Remus groused, Harry's mood feeling like an infection. They hadn't kept him smiling for a whole chapter before his high anger was pushing them all back on edge.

The week wasn't going much better, he couldn't shake that dream, but didn't bring it up again as he knew Hermione would only further tell him off for it.

All four of them could be seen rolling their eyes as Hermione continued to act more like a paranoid parent than anything, it wasn't soothing any nerves she couldn't be of any more help than Snape with anything to say other than more practice at something that was just causing Harry pain.

He wished he could talk to Sirius about it, but as that was out of the question, he tried to keep the idea at the back of his head.

Sirius chewed on the inside of his cheek unhappily for a moment, but was all the more agitated he couldn't come up with anything to tell Harry either except more transparent hope.

Unfortunately, the back of his mind was no longer secure these days.

His next Occlumency lesson went the same as always, constantly finding himself on the floor with a swirl of memories, mostly from his primary years and Dudley's old humiliations on him.

"Oh because that's really going to make me feel better," James said bitterly, fighting back the urge more every moment to walk out of the room and find something to curse.

Snape had again cut the connection, and demanded to know what the last one seen was?

They all jumbled together so much for him, Harry thought he was asking about the toilet.

"Err," Remus began, unsure if he wanted an explanation or it would only make things worse.

"I was eight," Harry began prattling off just for the sudden possession of not having to think about magic for a moment, who ever would have thought being bullied by Dudley would be considered a simpler time for him. "Petunia had just got done cleaning the bathrooms, and Dudley was bored so he wanted to see her yell at me. He tried to pick me up and put me in so I'd have to walk around the house with wet feet. That's where the memory ended for Snape," he finished, but continued on even though he didn't really want to, Remus had been right the first time, this probably wasn't going to make them feel better. "I bit Dudley so I wouldn't go in though, and then I ran out of the house till I came back near dinner, which I was denied and locked in my cupboard for because Vernon said the the teeth marks were still there. He told Dudley to bite me back, but he didn't want to because he said it was gross. So I said back I thought I should spend the night in the bathroom, I'd already been throwing up all day from nicking him."

He finished and looked around at them again, expecting to see yet more anger or something, but instead he saw an almost proud smirk from James. "Always love hearing you gave them hell back."

Harry managed an honest grin at him, hoping he'd return the favor by telling him some story from his youth again, and James happily provided. "Reminds me of the time Sirius bit Remus, and we got into this whole argument about what would happen if a werewolf bit a person while he was still human."

Harry busted out laughing more from surprise than anything as he demanded the obvious from his godfather, "why did you bite him?"

"I told him if he took one more of my sugar quills I would," Sirius shrugged, "he clearly didn't take me Siriusly."

Harry doubled up laughing all the harder while Remus rolled his eyes at the lot of them and tried to take the book away from Sirius to keep going. Sirius bared his teeth, Remus rolled his eyes harder, but Sirius kept going.

Snape corrected the one with the kneeling man in the dark room.

Harry denied knowledge of it as Snape tried to bore into Harry's eyes. Remembering eye contact was key in catching a lie in Legilimency, Harry looked away.

"I'm disturbed he's parted wisdom on you," James tisked even as he approved of this.

Snape was not fooled, asking how that particular place wound up inside his head?

"He has a very vivid imagination," Sirius snarked.

Harry tried to play it off as a dream, but Snape cut him off by demanding if Potter remembered why Snape was giving up his evenings for this tedious work.

"As opposed to counting your friends again?" Remus smirked.

"All none of them," Sirius agreed.

Lily frowned lightly at them, and James who wasn't bothering to repress a smile. She may be angry at Snape for treating Harry the way he was, but she still knew she'd never devolve into such petty insults.

Harry responded it was to learn Occlumency.

Snape said that Potter was correct and dim as he was, Harry finally looking back to him with hatred,

"That went without saying," James groused, Lily's eyes flashing in agitation again at once. Even for the one second she'd wanted to defend him it was gone again as he continued insulting her boy who in no way deserved it.

he would have expected after two months some progress. Then he asked how many more of these dreams had occurred?

Harry lied and said no more.

Again, Snape did not believe him, then asked if Potter was even trying? Perhaps he enjoyed these visions, thinking it made himself special, important.

Harry snapped how untrue this was.

Snape coldly responded that was true, he was in no way special or important. It was not of his business what the Death Eaters got up to.

Harry shot back that was Snape's job.

Sirius cocked his head to the side, some amusement for Harry snapping at him in there, but mostly wanting to make the jab Harry could do Snape's job and they wouldn't need the man around at all. It was all lost though before he'd even formed the idea, he still didn't want Harry having to deal with this, let Snape take the risk.

There was a glint in Snape's eyes as he whispered that was true at least.

"You impressed him," Lily said, narrowing her eyes curiously at such a response.

"I think I'm going to faint," James declared, they all looked astounded Snape hadn't just told Harry to shut his mouth again.

Then he at once pushed Harry into going again, hardly waiting past the count of three before Legilimens was used on Harry, and again he was flying through a whirl of memories. He was surrounded by a hundred dementors, he could see their shapeless mouths coming closer, but then he was back in Snape's office, the two overlapping each other and wobbling...Harry collected himself long enough to shout 'Protego.'

"Oh dear," Lily turned flat white in shock, but she hadn't a second to say anything even if she could have hazard a guess what this would do.

It did nothing to stop the flood of memories, but suddenly they weren't Harry's. A little boy sat in the corner crying as an unfamiliar man with a hooked nose shouted at a cowering woman with greasy black hair- a teenager sat alone cursing flies off his ceiling- a girl was laughing as a scrawny boy was thrown from a bucking broomstick-

She wasn't sure if Sirius just didn't care, or didn't know what that would do, but by the time he'd realized it, he'd simply kept going until he ran out before looking around at his friends with a contemplative look on his face.

"Well, err, I recognized that last one," Remus said awkwardly for Harry. "That was Mary Macdonald laughing anyways, our flying practice during first year."

Harry hardly heard him, the same stunned look on his face as the rest of the boys, before they all looked to Lily, who sighed deeply. "I'm not telling you, it's private." She said flatly without looking at any of them.

The fact that she knew what that first memory was about somehow made it even more awkward for them. Still, Sirius turned back with the same look on his face he always did when reading about Snape, he didn't consider how a parent treated you any excuse for what the guy kept doing to Harry.

Snape cut these off, Harry falling back as if shoved in the chest. He again found himself on the floor, looking up at his potions teacher.

Snape spoke in a carefully controlled voice that had actually been of some improvement, brushing his hand against the Pensive that was again in the room, as if checking to make sure the rest of his memories in there were intact.

"And now we see why," James muttered, his eyes still narrowed as he thought back to many insults he'd made in the past, and actually feeling a little bad for a few of them. He knew Snape would never do the same though, Snape knew everything Harry had gone through in his life and continued to treat him the exact same way.

Harry did not speak, feeling in the most danger yet. He was reeling that the same crying child had grown into a man with such loathing gazing down at him.

Lily had a hard time swallowing for a moment, stinging tears in her own eyes as vivid memories from her own childhood resurfaced. Realizing he'd run to her house in the dead of night and throwing rocks at her window until she came sneaking down. The two staying up in their little grove till sunrise wishing there was some escape from those who hated them. At least her own parents had been a bridge between her and her sister, and she'd tried to be that for Sev and his parents, but it had never truly worked, and she'd never even bothered to find out if it got better after she'd stopped speaking to him. She blinked back into the room to find James with his arm tight around her, brushing at the baby's hair and actually holding his tongue against whatever that look meant until she nodded to Sirius to keep going.

Snape instructed Harry to get to his feet, they were going again. Harry did so with dread, knowing he was about to pay for what he'd just seen.

Sirius ground his teeth together hard in frustration for that. Harry was about to be punished again for something from Snape's past.

Harry had not a second to collect himself before it started again, but this time he was revisiting the dark corridor from his memories. As always he ran down, and the blue light was peeking through again. Harry reached for it, and this time, the door opened.

He was in a circular room with floor and ceiling black as night, even more doors on every side of him, the only light coming from blue candles mounted on the walls. He had to keep going, push through into one of the next doors- but then he was back in Snape's office, the man glaring at him with more anger than ever.

Harry gasped wildly, startling so bad he nearly fell out of his seat. Sirius glanced to him in concern, then looked to the others for some sort of explanation. They all looked just as stunned though, unable to understand what was happening here.

"Harry's never been this far before, and Voldemort shouldn't have either!" Lily protested what she was hearing vehemently. "No one should be seeing this!"

"Maybe, maybe Rookwood has though," James ruffled up his brow as he considered the latest Voldemort news. "He worked in this place, right? So he would have shown Voldemort everything he'd seen, and now, now Harry knows as well," he finished sounding just as confused as when he'd started.

"Should it really work like that though?" Harry sounded just as panicky as his mother. "I don't want to know this, see this! I don't want all of his memories and anything he knows in my head!"

He sounded so desperate and panicky by the end, it truly broke the others hearts to see him like this.

"Oh Harry," Lily pleaded, letting the words tumble out on pure instinct. "You can't keep thinking like that-"

"How else am I supposed to think when it keeps being shoved at me!" He snapped back, but Lily wouldn't be deterred.

"You remind yourself why you're doing this! If you want Voldemort out of your head, then you work on every available way to do that! You're worried Voldemort's taking over your life then you remind yourself of all the people who are on your side and fighting to get rid of him!"

Harry kept watching her like he hoped she'd keep going, but she met his eyes and waited as they ebbed back into that calm, that understanding that had pushed him to cope with every terrible thing he'd relearned while here.

She nodded fiercely and waved Sirius on. It seemed to take him a moment, to watch the fifteen year old girl crying over the loss of her childhood friend be flipped into that mother who refused to see her child fall into the same hopeless feeling. He went back to reading with a smile of pride on his face.

He was panting as though he really had experienced all this in person.

Harry couldn't believe how grateful he actually felt towards Snape for stopping this. It was the first time in his life he looked past the hateful potions teacher and knew Snape could actually be of some help to his life if he'd quit insulting him every step along the way.

Snape demanded Harry explain that one, and Harry rubbed at a lump on the back of his head from falling down again while honestly saying he had no clue what that had been, he'd never been that far before-

Snape cut in hatefully he wasn't working hard enough!

Harry rubbed at where the lump used to be, suddenly more ashamed than ever for is poor Occlumency skills. His mother was right, and so was Snape, he'd never really tried to do this. It was of some comfort to him his father and friends rolled their eyes for Snape's jab, that they weren't blaming Harry for this...yet. He pulled away from that at once, there would never be a time they'd blame him because of whatever this connection was, right?!

Potter was lazy, and sloppy, it was no wonder the Dark Lord was-

Harry cut in to ask why Snape called him that, he'd only known Death Eaters to refer to him as such.

Snape opened his mouth, a crude retort clearly awaiting, when a woman screamed.

Sirius startled so bad he nearly dropped the book from surprise. Then he cast his mind out before anyone could get too panicky, and said the first thing that came to mind. "Finally, something entertaining is happening around there!"

Remus gave him a look of great concern as he demanded, "just what could a scream be used for as a good thing?"

"For shame Moony!" Sirius wagged his finger in his face. "Scream of surprise, scream of delight, hell even screaming in laughter! Don't get so dower on me a scream is only a bad thing now."

"I worry about him," Lily told James in an almost conversational tone of voice.

James agreed, but instead he told him, "well get on with it then, or we'll be spending the next hour with you recanting the last time you made a girl scream, and no one wants to hear that again."

Sirius rolled his eyes but complied anyways.

They both looked sharply to the ceiling, Snape asking if Potter had seen anything this would relate to on his way down here?

"Someone standing in the middle of the school screaming? Oh yeah, just slipped my mind," Remus rolled his eyes.

When Harry said no, Snape strode out, and Harry only hesitated a moment before following.

"I'm not even sure why you hesitated," James scoffed.

The scream appeared to have resonated from the large ring in the Entrance Hall, and Harry have to shove his way to get a view. The first face he registered was across the ring, McGonagall looked faintly sick at the proceedings.

Lily felt goosebumps erupt on her at this. If whatever was happening was upsetting McGonagall, but she wasn't stepping in, then what the bloody hell could be happening!?

Then he fully saw Trelawney in the middle, looking more mad than ever. She'd clearly fallen down the last flight of steps, her hair was flyaway and her glasses askew, all of her beads in a pool around her as if she were melting. Even her luggage looked strewn around at her feet. She was gazing up at someone Harry couldn't quite see, who must be standing at the foot of the stairs.

"What in the world..." Remus tried, and failed, but the shock was keeping them all from saying much of anything, Sirius hurrying through words so fast they were mashing together. None of them had a very fond feeling for Trelawney, but it was impossible to believe she was a spectacle without anyone stepping in to whatever mayhem this was!

Trelawney shrieked this wasn't true, she couldn't accept it!

A girlish voice responded surely this wasn't a surprise.

Harry finally got around the last person to see Umbridge, brimming with glee as she gazed down, her voice more feminine than ever with her own delight as she explained that though Trelawney was incapable of predicting the weather, she must have seen this coming.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Lily shrieked, the baby in her lap now fussing in his blankets in her lap. "That is, this isn't, how could she-" she forced herself to stop screaming because her child had joined in, but the anger wasn't being cooled one little bit.

"Why can't this stupid curse kick in early already," Remus scowled. "I want her gone well before the end of the year, like the staircase collapsing on her right now!"

Sirius was too shocked to keep going for a moment. Like Harry had said before, this had been forthcoming with how obvious it was Trelawney may not be around the rest of the year, but no one could have foreseen such a brutal showing like this.

Trelawney had tears pouring down her face as she stated this couldn't happen, Hogwarts was her home!

"Does she even have anywhere else to go?" Remus whispered. He really didn't know much about her except for her classes, but suddenly he wondered if she was like Hagrid, if she had no other place to call home like a few of the other teachers did.

He hadn't expected an answer, and it was probably kinder he hadn't gotten one, no one wanted to consider the alternative.

Umbridge stated this was her home,

"This is..." sick didn't begin to cover it, but James was failing to come up with another word. He'd never even seen some of the Death Eaters out there enjoy watching someone else in so much pain, in such a public way!

until an hour ago when the Minister had co-signed the Order of Dismissal. Umbridge requested Trelawney escort herself off the property, she was embarrassing them.

"How she dare!" Lily was still fired up over every detail of this. "Them! She's no right to put herself in line with anything to do with that school, with a decision no respectable person would ever dream of putting together!"

Even as she said it, her own gloating euphoria didn't dim, she was clearly enjoying the show as Trelawney sobbed in place. There were some muffled crying to Harry's side as well, and he glanced over to see Lavender and Parvati clutching each other with tears in their own eyes.

James was shaking his head in honest sympathy for the two. Though he couldn't imagine just standing around crying during this scene, he knew he would have been in Umbridge's face telling her what's what about this even for a teacher he didn't like. The woman may have the audacity to kick a teacher out of his school, but she couldn't force that teacher to leave the premises...yet.

Then his mind offered one last desperate hope, where was Dumbledore? Surely he'd find some way to stop this? The idea was dashed as soon as it had appeared though, as Dumbledore hadn't seemed to be doing much of anything these days.

McGonagall did step in then, marching to Trelawney's side and offering her a handkerchief and a firm arm around her shoulders.

Lily finally felt herself relaxing, just a touch, as she hummed with approval. McGonagall could always be counted on to offer up some comfort to those who needed it, she was still stunned it had taken this long for their old Transfiguration teacher to step in for this injustice.

McGonagall comforted Sybil she wouldn't have to be leaving anywhere, while Umbridge tried to contest whose authority Minerva had to be saying that?

The front doors opened in that exact moment, and Dumbledore made his entrance.

"I feel the need to reiterate the book now," Sirius beamed, "what an entrance."

Remus smacked him lightly and called him an idiot even as he was smiling as well. Finally Dumbledore's timing felt like it was back on their side.

What he'd been doing on the front lawns was anyone's guess, but he swooped right in on the scene and informed Umbridge that was not her position to claim.

Umbridge made a tinkling laugh as she said she was afraid Dumbledore had misunderstood the position she was in.

"I'm afraid you've misplaced your soul, but I won't be the one getting it back from the dementor," Remus groused.

"Actually, I heard that if a dementor kissed her, she'd suck out its soul," James stated.

Sirius laughed, the first time he'd really been able to do so when mention of those things had come up.

She again flashed the Order of Dismissal, and her role as High Inquisitor gave her power to fire Trelawney, whom she'd deemed not up to scratch.

Harry waited for Dumbledore's reaction, but he only continued to smile.

"What's he got up his sleeve?" James demanded with sudden eagerness, his kindling of hope finally being given life again Dumbledore would pull through on making this actually somehow better.

Dumbledore did not argue that she had the right to dismiss his teachers, not not to ban them from the grounds, that was still his ruling.

Trelawney tried to cut in through her sobs she would not be somewhere she was not wanted-

but Dumbledore kindly cut in it was his wish for Sybil to remain here with them.

"Ha!" Sirius barked in triumph, all five of them seconds away from pumping the air in victory. "Dumbledore's not going to let Trelawney just walk away from this!"

Harry was still grinning along with the rest of them even as he distantly wondered if Dumbledore had some ulterior motive for this other than just proving a point to Umbridge. He wondered if he was growing paranoid, surely Dumbledore didn't have to have a second reason for doing everything.

He turned and asked McGonagall to escort Sybill back to her lodgings, and McGonagall kindly did so, Sprout hurrying forward to Trelawney's other side. Flitwick came up behind them and enchanted her luggage as the four went back up the stairs.

"I love this place," Remus said wistfully. His best memories had been collected in those walls, and now he was adding another from a time outside his own. He'd never underestimated how lucky he was to even be going there, to be treated like any other student on a daily basis, and now he was getting the fortune of watching the teachers band together for one of their own again. He didn't even pity Umbridge, but continued waiting impatiently for that toad to be ostracized from such a place already, for daring to tamper with such a home for so many.

Umbridge watched all this with a frosty expression, and demanded of him what was to be done with her when the new Divination teacher was appointed and needed lodgings?

"You'd have to put her in that exact place eh?" Sirius said poisonously. "No other bloody room in that grand castle would be good enough, you also need to invade her room!"

"Dumbledore won't let her," James said with conviction once again, even this small win of Dumbledore's against Umbridge had finally restored his lacking faith in his old headmaster.

Dumbledore pleasantly informed that wouldn't be a problem, his new Divination teacher would prefer a ground floor.

"He works fast," Lily said slowly as they all paused in confusion of this. Apparently this had all taken place in less than an hour, which means someone very close to the Minister must have warned Dumbledore this was fixing to go down and the man acted lightning fast in getting a replacement set even before Umbridge had gotten the paper herself. It couldn't have been Percy, but they couldn't think of anyone else who'd know about this and been able to warn Dumbledore in time for him to go fetch, well whoever was getting the new job.

Umbridge shrilly cut in he'd found a new teacher? By Decree number Twenty-two-

Dumbledore cordially said that the amendment was only there if, and only if, the Headmaster was unable to find his own teacher, and on this happy occasion he had succeeded.

All three Marauders burst out laughing, a near euphoric mood at their headmaster pushing such a loophole into that doughy face!

He waved back to the grounds of the school still visible from the left open doors, and offered to introduce him now. Only the soft sound of hooves was warning before half a man stepped into the light, with pale blond hair matching his palomino body on his horse half.

Dumbledore announced this was Firenze.

Harry gave an awkward smile for this announcement amongst the shocked faces. His only memory of the centaur wasn't a particularly fond one even if his life had been saved by him.

"Well, who would have seen that coming?" Sirius blinked in surprise.

"This certainly is, unprecedented," Remus agreed as Sirius passed Harry the book, very obviously keeping it open for his spot with an obvious look at James who didn't get it.

Lily ignored the lot of them. Though happy Trelawney got some kind of win out of this, couldn't help but say, "well considering he once saved Harry's life, let's at least hope he won't pick up on Trelawney's trend of telling Harry he's going to die."

HPHPHPHP

Glory this was an emotionally messy chapter!

[keep-it-i-resign]

Fic Writer Asks

tagged by the lovely @vampcoffeegyrl23 I am soooo sorry this has taken over a week! I promise I was just busy away from my computer and using mobile is not the way to go about answering these! 😅

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

6 on AO3 and 6 on ffn.net. I haven't used the ffn.net account in years, i.e 2013 (and therefore my user name isn't even the same) so those 6 stories are different from my AO3 ones. I don't post most of what I write and now that I'm in my mid-20s with a few published papers behind me - I'm much more confident in my ability to write a cohesive and interesting story so expect more posted!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

17,425 words which isn't bad for only 6 fics with two of those stories having additional chapters coming soon.

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

On AO3? Just 1, which is The Flash and by extension Stargate SG-1 for the crossover I did for Snowells Week this year. Counting ffn.net that's 3 more with Castle, Doctor Who, and Firefly. Over my lifetime of writing fic for myself? I think only 7 more. Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Sanctuary, Harry Potter, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: TNG, and Left 4 Dead. Left 4 Dead isn't much of a fanfic but I did use the zombie types as place holders in an original story until I developed my own.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

I'll Be Waiting (The Flash - Caitlin/Harry)

Well... This is Awkward (The Flash - Caitlin/Harry, Frost/Nash, Caitlin/Nash, and Frost/Harry)

Rewind Time (The Flash - Caitlin/Harry)

Through the Gate (The Flash/Stargate SG-1 - Caitlin/Eowells)

Harvest Season (The Flash - Caitlin/Harry)

5. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

I don't write angst much and I haven't posted many stories yet but of the ones posted I guess "I'll Be Waiting" is the angstiest.

6. What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

"Well...This is Awkward" has a pretty happy ending with everyone alive and together. Or maybe "Twilight of the Gods" because ReverseSnow/ReverseFrost happens and there is hope of bringing everything lost back and balance the universe again. I guess it depends on your definition of what constitutes as a happy ending. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?

I've only written one - The Flash/Stargate SG-1 crossover. I don't normally think about crossovers just because the shows I watch are so vastly different they can't really work or they are already in the same universe with the canon crossovers. I'm also not always a fan of reading them because they can get chaotic quick and characterization takes a dive in order to fit characters into other universes/situations. I admire anyone who can write it well though!

As a side note: I did have a thought about a Snowells into the Arkham universe fic just because I have been replaying the Batman Arkham video games which I might give a shot at.

8. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

👀I wrote one smutty story years ago and it's terrible because I was young and naïve. I haven't tried recently but I'm not opposed to giving it a shot now. I have a few ideas on a prompt list I have for Snowells already so it's really a matter of when will I get to it!

9. Do you respond to comments. why or why not?

I do when I can! I like to get feedback from my readers and having an open dialogue of what they liked or disliked is important for me! I want to know what my audience enjoyed and what to improve on! Responding to them also shows them I saw that they said and appreciate what they had to say! 🥰

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Surprisingly - no, even on my old and terribly written stuff. I'm perfectly open to criticism but hate? If you don't like it, you don't like it but others might. Why spend the time spreading negativity when the world has enough of it?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

As far as I know - no.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No but given enough time I could probably translate mine. It would be grammatically atrocious because I rarely translate from English into any of the languages I know. It's normally the other way around! I'd definitely need a Beta who is fluent to correct my mistakes.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No but it's definitely something I'd try! I co-wrote an original story with a few friends of mine years ago in high school and enjoyed it. I like the idea of getting to talk and bounce ideas off of someone who enjoys the same fandoms and character as me! I haven't really done that since I grew apart from one of my friends from high school who I did that with.

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

What kind of question is this? Do people actually have an ultimate ship? Is that even possible? I have ships from several fandoms and sometimes multiple ships within a fandom. Most of the time I have a main ship from a fandom but that doesn't mean I discount any of the other ones that I or others enjoy as well. I'll throw out a few that I still got out and read for in order of what I read most often (either new stuff or re-reads) to what I read occasionally, at least according to my AO3 favorite tags.

Snowells (all variations) - The Flash

Jack O'Neill/Sam Carter - Stargate SG-1

Helen Magnus/Nikola Tesla - Sanctuary

Harry/Hermione - Harry Potter

William Murdoch/Julia Ogden - Murdoch Mysteries

Phil/ Melinda - Agents of SHIELD

Kathryn Janeway/Tom Paris - Star Trek: Voyager

Kate Fleming/Steve Arnott - Line of Duty

I will occasionally go check what kind of fics the fandom writes when I start a show just out of curiosity. Sometimes you can tell if there is fandom hate between ships by doing so and I know to steer clear, especially if I ship a lesser ship/non-canon ship. Also - the number of canon-divergence or rewrites will tell you if the shows writers start being ridiculous *cough* The Flash *cough* and whether it's worth getting attached at all.

15. What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

Hoo boy. I have a drive full of them. Most of which aren't even close to being posted. My biggest one right now is a complete re-write of The Flash dealing with a what if scenario of Earth-1 Tess Morgan being pregnant the night that Thawne kills them both and he chooses to birth the kid rather than let it die with her. It's set a few years earlier (so 18/19 years stuck in the past rather than the original 15 that the show has it) so the kid isn't Jesse but it changes how season 1 plays out and definitely how season 2 plays out when Harry finds out about the kid while dealing with the Jesse/Zoom issue. Plus it's Snowells too and I want to deal with Barry's mistakes and the consequences of them better than the show did since the show just kind of brushes them off? For some reason? I wanted things to have a little more consequence because some of the mistakes made are egregious and then they acted like it never happened which bothers me. It's a beast of a project and I'm - unfortunately- a perfectionist and a completionist. I'm thinking an episode per chapter rewrite but right now it's in bits and pieces and a lot of notes on how episodes would play out differently with an added character and dynamic.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and scene positioning. I can write out the dialogue for a story quickly with the bare bones of the scene and movements playing out. After that, it takes me ages to expand the scene and fill in the bits between speaking lines because I can see the piece play out in my head and putting that to paper accurately and engagingly without being overwhelming is a multi-layered process.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Some of this is normal, you know, like grammar and spelling. My brain moves faster than I type so words or bit of phrases end up missing and I later have to fix it. I'm also a Southerner who grew up watching a ton of British shows so a lot of the way I phrase things isn't commonly used anywhere. I have to spend a lot of time double checking things like that. I think my biggest one is not knowing how to end stories satisfactorily. I haven't posted many fics because it's hard to post them when you don't know how to wrap everything up.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

It depends on whether it's an established part of a character or story and whether or not I'm comfortable with the language. Like with Sherloque - it's established he'll say something in French and then repeat it in English. I took 3 years of French so I'm comfortable writing it and it fits the character and situation. But take Cisco, we know he speaks Spanish, but it's never really shown in the show. So fics that I've read where he breaks into Spanish can be distracting as we've never seen him do it - even in dire circumstances. I also never took Spanish in school and I only know rudimentary pieces (I took Mandarin and Latin instead), so I'm unlikely to use it in any fic I write unless the circumstances warrant it (say - Cisco is talking to a grandparent or a meta struggling with English).

But again, it depends on the situation, what we know of the character, and how comfortable I am with the language enough to get it correct and in character. Any fic writer who can get the situation and character down while using a secondary language, and not make it distracting deserves applause!

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Hit me with a hard one why don't you? 🤣 I think it was Stargate SG-1 or maybe it was Stargate Atlantis. You're asking me to think back over a decade and a half ago to when I started reading and writing fic at the tender age of 7 or 8. I'm fairly certain it was one of those two fandoms and it might've been a crossover. I do remember writing part of it on an old Gateway computer running Windows '98 with a glass monitor that was mine and my sisters. The other half was written on an electric type-writer that I owned because this was before laptops were widely available and affordable.

20. What's your favorite fic you've written?

It's a tie between "Twilight of the Gods" and "I'll Be Waiting". "Twilight of the Gods" because I got to show off a few of my degrees (History and Classics, I couldn't shoehorn in my others but they are science related and that doesn't quite fit that story). "I'll Be Waiting" is a favorite because it's a big middle finger to whoever / collective group wrote The Flash season 7. I'm still pissed off at how the Wells plotline was dealt with and let's not get started on the whole Chillblaine/Kramer/Forces as kids of WA plots (ewwwwwww 🤢). I'd need a whole new post to talk about how tired I am of the WA kids showing up (because screw how that'll effect the timeline, right?) and the reliance on the future to drive what decisions are made (because, again, screw how bad that would be for the timeline - it's not like we have seen how much that effects things before right?) 😒

Phew.....That was longer than I expected, honestly, but a lot of fun!

Tagging whoever wants to talk about their works because you are all wonderful people who should get a chance to share!

[belovedstill]

hi!! i have a question... i saw your reblog about freewriting and i wanted to try it myself cause i have a hard time with writing because of my anxiety but i'm not sure i understood 100%. what do you actually write while you freewrite? is it related to what you're working on at the moment, like do you freewrite a scene (kind of like sprinting in a way) or just random words/thoughts in your head?

hi <3 i understand you 100% because sometimes (most of the time) when i sit down with the intention to write, my brain subconsciously goes "okay, the pressure's ON, everything i write must be useful for the fic" (and then i go "wait, @ brain, what fic? i don't even know what fic i would write, i just want to write" and brain says "it must be useful for the fic" (which btw doesn't help, thanks @ brain but no thanks))

i will start by honestly saying that while I've been doing this for many years, I've never had a word for it. If my memory's right, then I've never heard the term "freewriting" before. I'd either call it stream of consciousness or messaging a friend or word vomit or scribbling

(i'm going to share some photos & screenshots as examples because i personally appreciate examples for things i don't know how to even start doing; i'll include content warnings above the photos wherever applicable. These things were not meant to be seen by other people, obviously, so not all of them are neat, not all of them are in English or spelled correctly, and not all of them make sense, some might not even be Socially Acceptable (i'm very anxious as well, you see, so I ask people to be kind if you do take a look at the examples and decipher what's written), but that's the whole point of these: you let your mind go without worrying about where it's going)

I'm sure every person who does freewriting does it differently but here are several ways i do it (under the cut because it got very long as i pretty much (ayyyy) freewrote it):

test a pen/pencil! you know when you get a new pen and write down the most random thing on a piece of paper to see what the ink looks like and how it feels to write using that pen? for me it's usually a single word or a phrase from a song (my go-tos are hello, wait, Beloved (my MC's name, shhh) and other fictional characters' names or Why you gotta be so mean? from Taylor Swift's song "Mean", don't ask me why because i have no answer)

writing down the lyrics to a song that's currently stuck in your mind and living there rent-free, and if you forget the next line or if something else pops into your head - let it take you over

write on random pieces of paper! the less it reminds you of a notebook/blank page, the better! sometimes that means what's left of printer paper or post-it notes. actually, most of the photos of paper pages in this post are from my poor quality notebooks - the paper is too thin or not smooth or the pages are yellowish, so i don't feel bad """wasting""" the notebook for doodles, random scribbles, etc.

a diary entry? a diary entry, except there doesn't have to be depth to it, no journaling type of reflection on your feelings, on your experiences, on the Daily Journaling Prompt necessary--unless you want to. in my case it's mostly complaining about the pen i decided to use or the quality of the paper but!!! because i let myself write anything and everything on one page, at one point it feels natural to write some random story sentences on the other page

CW: implied past physical abuse

brainstorming! here's where, for me, the "messaging a friend" name came from. i have a very vague idea for what i want to write or a very small detail i want to write about, but nothing else. i set up a timer and write everything down (the screenshot is taken from my very own personal discord server, it's just me and a writing bot. at one point i realised that whenever i was brainstorming or writing cheer up ficlets in my friends' discord DMs, writing went super easy because my brain didn't register it as writing, but as chatting. At first, I formatted a new google doc so it looked exactly like discord's dark theme, but ultimately decided that just creating a new server just for my writing process/practice/etc and stuff is easier)

CW: harmful & discouraging stuff asexual people face

"I don't know what to write, I don't even think I want to write an actual story, it's not going to stop me" kind of writing. Anything goes and I mean anything. The sentences aren't connected. There's no actual idea or story behind the sentences. You're just writing a word after a word after a word. Sometimes a question appears in your mind, so you write it down. The question leads to more questions, or maybe an answer, or maybe you realise you like the feel/sound of one word so you write it again and again. After you wrote the word three times, tiny ideas form in your mind, things you relate to that word. Then you lose track of the thought so you write "I lost track", then a piece of dialogue floats in your mind that's probably inspired or part of a song lyric you wrote earlier

CW: unconventional/controversial lovers

if your writing anxiety is caused by fandom wank regarding some topics, tropes, themes, or even genres, know that if you freestyle about the thing you're worried somebody would judge you for, nobody else will read it. you can delete the doc afterwards. you can password protect it. you can tear the page out of your notebook and shred it to pieces. i won't include a photo example of this one (anxious, remember? also, it's nsfw) but i did this with smut-specific words and phrases. i got a blank piece of paper and wrote--first, just words (nouns for genitalia, verbs for action, etc. let me tell you - i was alone in the room and even trying to write the first word was difficult, in my head i kept thinking back to people's conversations on how "problematic these words are" etc etc etc and that fed my anxiety even further because "oh god what if they knew i was about to write this, what would they think of me"), then the words combined into phrases, then common smexy phrases that characters in smut say, and so on and so on. no punctuation because it's not a story. you know what happened after i put that first word on the page? nothing. i felt silly, sure, but i repeated the word several more times and still no People From the Internet barged into my room to ridicule & judge me. during that session, freestyling for that genre got easier and easier with every word.

Two posts that helped me realise that warming up for writing (and anything creative) is a good idea:

Writers need warm up sketches too (my way of warm up is usually either freewriting or using a typing speed website)

The anatomy of a pen/pencil etc

...and I think that's all from me 💕 apologies for how long this is but I hope it helps you in some way *hugs*

[intoxicatingimmediacy]

Visions Of Bodies Being Burned clipping.

clipping.'s second entry in their horror anthology collection follows up 2019's There Existed an Addiction to Blood by conjuring up an atmosphere that rarely allows a moment to catch your breath. Here the Los Angeles-based trio takes Apple Music through the record's many horrors.

Say the Name William Hutson: “I had always wanted to make a track using that phrase from the Geto Boys, and we had talked about doing a Dance Mania Chicago ghetto house track about Candyman. I always liked that idea of a slow, plodding, more dance-oriented track, using that line repeated as a hook.” Daveed Diggs: “We had always talked about how that line is one of the scariest lines in rap music, it's just really good writing. Scarface does that better than anybody. What we had was this very Chicago, these really specific reference points, to me, that I had to connect. That's how I saw the challenge in my head, was like there's this very Texas lyric and this very Chicago concept. Fortunately, Candyman already does that for you. It's already about the legacy of slavery in this country. So I just got to lean into those things.”

’96 Neve Campbell (feat. Cam & China) Jonathan Snipes: “This was actually the second thing we sent them—we made an earlier beat that had a sample that we couldn't clear. We wanted to make something that sounds a little more like jerk music and something that's a little bit more tailored for them.” WH: "We didn't have our Halloween, Friday the 13th slasher song. The idea was to not have Daveed on it at all, except to rap the hooks, and just to have female rappers basically standing in for the final girl in a slasher movie. But then we liked Daveed's lines, we wanted him to keep rapping on it.” DD: “It felt too short with just two verses. We were like, ‘Well, put me on the phone and make me be the killer.’” WH: “There's a Benny the Butcher song called '’97 Hov,' this idea of referring to a song by a date and a person that's the vibe you're going for. So some of the suggestions were like, '’79 Jamie Lee Curtis' or '’82 Heather Langenkamp.' But then with Daveed on the phone and making a Scream reference, '’96 Neve Campbell' made more sense.”

Something Underneath DD: “There's a whole batch of songs we recorded in New York while I was also doing a play, and so we'd work all day and then I'd go do this show at night. For a long time, there was a version of this one that I couldn't stand the vocal performance on. It's obviously a pretty technical song, and I just never nailed it and I sound tired and all of this. So it ended up being the last thing we finished.”

Make Them Dead WH: “We did ‘Body & Blood’ and ‘Wriggle,’ which both take literal samples from power electronic artists and turned them into dance songs. The idea for this was, let's do a song that instead of borrows from power electronics and makes it into a dance song, let's try to just make a heavy, slow, plodding thing that feels like real power electronics.” DD: “When we finally settled on how this song should be lyrically, it was actually hard to write. Just trying to capture that same feel. There's something about power electronics that feels instructional, feels like it's ordering you to do something. The politics around it are varied, depending on who is making the stuff. But in order to sit within that, it had to feel political and instructional, but then that had to agree with us.”

She Bad WH: “That's our witchcraft track.” JS: “Obviously, this ended up having some melodies in it, but it started as those, but it really is just field recordings and modular synths, and there isn't a beat so much and the melody is very obtuse in the hooks. It's mostly just looped and cut field recordings.” DD: “I've been moving away from something that we did in a lot of our previous records, like really super visual, like precise visual storytelling that feels really cinematic, where I'm just actually pointing the camera at things, so that was fun to try that again.”

Invocation (Interlude) (with Greg Stuart) WH: “It's a joke about Alvin Lucier's beat pattern music, his wave songs and things like that, but done as if it was trying to summon the devil.”

Pain Everyday (with Michael Esposito) DD: “I love this song so much. Also, I definitely learned while writing it why people don't write whole rap songs in 7/8. It's not easy. The math, the hidden math in those verses is intense. It kept breaking my brain, but now that it's all down, I can't hear it any other way, it sounds fine. But getting there was such a mindfuck.” WH: “So then the idea was it's in 7/8, it's about a lynched ghost, so the idea we had was a chase scene of the ghost of murdered victims of lynching.”

Check the Lock WH: “This was conceived as a sequel to a song by Seagram and Scarface called ‘Sleepin in My Nikes.’ That was a rap song about extreme paranoia that I always thought was cool and felt like a horror, like an aspect of horror.” JS: “This is the one time on this album that we let ourselves do that like John Carpenter-y, creepy synth thing.”

Looking Like Meat (feat Ho99o9) DD: “I think they reached out wanting to do a song, and this had always felt, we always wanted this to be like a posse track, kind of. This was another one that I wasn't going to write a voice for actually, we were going to try to find a better verse.” JS: “Which is why the hooks are all different—we were going to fill them in specifically with features, but sometimes features don't work out. This is like our attempt at making the more sort of aggressive, like a thing that sounds more like noise rap than we usually do.” WH: “The first thing on this beat was I bought 20 little music boxes that all played different songs, and I stuck them all to a sounding board and put contact microphones on it, and just cranked them each at the same time.”

Eaten Alive (with Jeff Parker & Ted Byrnes) DD: “I had been in this phase of listening to Nipsey [Hussle] all day, every day, and all I wanted to do was figure out how to rap like that. So from his cadence perspective, it's like my best Nipsey impression, which we didn't know was going to turn into a posthumous tribute.” WH: “And the rapping was also partly a tribute, just spiritually a tribute to No Limit Records. That's why it's called 'Eaten Alive,' which is named after a Tobe Hooper horror movie about a swamp.”

Body for the Pile (with Sickness) WH: “It already came out [in 2016]. It ended up being on an Adult Swim compilation called NOISE. We did it with Chris Goudreau, our friend who is just a legendary noise artist called Sickness.” JS: “We always thought that would be a great song to save for a horror record, and then years went by and we weren't going to include it, because we thought, ‘Well, it's out and it's done.’ We looked around and I don't know, that comp isn't really anywhere and that track is hard to find, and we really like it and we thought it fit really nice. When we started putting it in the lineup of tracks and listening to it as an album, we realized it fit really nicely.”

Enlacing WH: “The cosmic pessimism of H.P. Lovecraft is all about the horror of discovering how small you are in the universe and how uncaring the universe is. So this song was about accessing that fear by getting way too high on Molly and ketamine at the same time, then discovering Cthulhu or Azathoth as a result of getting way too fucking high.” JS: “My memory is that this was never intended to be a clipping. song, that you and I made this beat as an example of, ‘Hey, we can make normal beats.’” DD: “That Lovecraftian idea was something that we played in opposition to a lot on Splendor & Misery, so it was good to revisit in a way where we were actually playing into it, and also it definitely feels to me like just being way too high.”

Secret Piece WH: “We wanted to really tie the two albums together, so the idea was to get everyone who played on any of the albums to contribute their one note. So we assembled the recordings of dawn and forests, and then almost everyone who played on either of these two albums contributed one note.” JS: “We have a habit of ending our albums with a piece of processed music or contemporary music. We ended midcity with a take on a Steve Reich phased loop idea, and we ended CLPPNG with a John Cage piece, and then There Existed ends with Annea Lockwood's 'Piano Burning.' So we wanted something that felt like the sun was coming up at the end of the horror movie, a little bit.” WH: “That was the idea was that we were exiting, it's dawn in a forest. So dawn in a forest in a slasher movie or a horror movie usually means you're safe, right? The end of Friday the 13th one, the sun comes up and she's in the little boat, but that doesn't end well for her either. We did not have the jump scare at the end like Friday the 13th.” DD: “I pushed for it a little bit, but some people thought it was too corny.”