#tw badly drawn point shoes

[lildoodlenoodle]

Some style experimentation doodles

[catchyhuh]

RANKED BY HOW SQUEAMISH THEY GET AROUND BLOOD

self explanatory baby let’s get into it. except it’s not totally self explanatory because this accidentally bled (haha get it) into an analysis about how they handle seeing death too. THIS ONE GOT WILD

WARNING!! we’re not going to get like, excessively detailed, but there will be discussions of. you know. death, blood, violence, what happens when human bodies are shot and stabbed and the other grotesque shit that happens to them in this series. stuff like that! we’re going to be getting into it quite a bit so heads up

goemon is easily the LEAST bothered by the sight of blood, or gore in any capacity. not to say he’s fully desensitized to it-- on an objective level, it bothers him, like it would anybody, to see some undeserving living creature torn up like that. but his method of. you know. HANDLING PROBLEMS is a little bit messier than a gunshot from afar, so he got used to grizzly sights pretty quickly, ones that he himself was responsible for or otherwise. you could show goemon some absolutely horrific, mangled shit, and his expression would hardly change. he’s not very proud of that fact but i guess in that sense it’s the one thing in his training that really, REALLY 100% never fails to pay off.

the only reason jigen is SLIGHTLY more bothered by it (just slightly) is because he usually only sees uh. gunshot wounds, like we said, whereas when goemon is done with some monster of the week or whatever THAT guy looks like he fell into a person-sized papershredder. unfortunately he. is a LITTLE desensitized to bullet wounds, not in a malicious way, but it just does not bother him like it should since he sees it so, SO much. goemon can easily place himself in the shoes of a bloody victim, but jigen just sees a dead body as. a body. THIS ONE IS REALLY GRUESOME NOW THAT I’M WRITING IT I’M GONNA GO BACK AND ADJUST THAT TW

and again, fujiko is only SLIGHTLY above jigen here, too. the only difference is that she, like goemon, sees the human behind the meat a bit too much, and certain sights are just a bit too much. jigen shuts down entirely, but fujiko stares with quiet shock. however, she’s never bothered by the result of her OWN carnage, you know? sometimes jigen or goemon take down a particular guy and they go “damn… rest in peace, sorry bastard” BUT NOT FUJIKO LMAOOO fujiko does not misfire. fujiko does not regret a single knife thrown, a single bullet shot. so the visual results of that mean like, nothing to her. idiot had it coming!

you’re probably picking up that these are very faint increments here, AND WE’RE NOT STOPPING BECAUSE LUPIN ALSO IS ONLY SLIGHTLY MORE SENSITIVE THAN FUJIKO HERE like fujiko he does not hesitate killing a motherfucker if he has to, but (you may have noticed this in canon too) he always feels a bit… weird about it. even if the opposition 100% had it coming, and then some, it’s not the act of their rightful death that bothers him, but the fact HE had to be the one to do it, that there is (literally sometimes) blood on his hands. out of the gang he’s always been the most staunchly anti-murder, to the point anyone can tell lupin’s alleged involvement in a crime is a lie if there are any murder victims, where the others… have never tried to say they’d never take a human life IT’S NOT FUNNY BUT. IT’S A BIT FUNNY. THE GUY LEADING THESE VIOLENT CRIMINALS DRAWS THE LINE AT MURDER sorry we’re getting off topic a smidge. the point is, lupin is the type of guy who kills only through necessity but also faints when he gets his blood drawn just because the sight of his OWN blood is so gross ew!

and then the most abnormal normal guy! everybody say hi zenigata! it’s no question that he’s got the lowest murder count, (i feel like, not counting manga stuff, he’s maybe indirectly killed two people max?) and also tends to be the most (reasonably) sensitive about horrible shit like this. it’s not that he’s some weak link who faints when somebody’s arm is broken so badly the bone is sticking out, like no question he could stare down some shit you and i would easily be (AGAIN, REASONABLY) horrified and left in shock by. it’s just that in comparison to the others and the others alone, he would be the only one to be visibly alarmed and pale upon seeing a body left mutilated and twisted to the point it doesn’t look human anymore. but yeah based on rule of funny he’d ALSO faint when you draw his blood. or he would if the needle could get through his impossibly thick skin. what’s this motherfucker made of honestly

[perexcri]

best friends, ex-friends til the end (better off as lovers and not the other way around) - [byler week 2023 - day 2]

aka the byler/goncharov au i needed so badly i had to write it myself

title from: bang the doldrums by fall out boy

dedicated to: my commitment to the bit

special thanks to: @cherryisgone for providing me some much-needed poetic Italian for everyone’s favorite Scorcese film

tw: mentions of falling out of a window and blood, guns

The Naples skyline burns with light in the encroaching fog of the night. His back to the stones of the tower, Mike heaves several ragged breaths, and he tries not to think about how steep of a fall it would be down to the town square below. He imagines it’d be quick: his bones would snap, his blood would spill, and there’d be his body, an example laid out on the streets of Naples for all to know the folly that is trying to outrun who you once were.

The sting of vodka on the tips of tongues, frigid nights spent maneuvering through the streets of Leningrad in search of their next hit. Being smuggled onto a rusted plane down to the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, El nestled beneath his arm, just the clothes on their backs and the jewels on her wrists and neck and ears. Nothing makes sense–it hadn’t for a long time–and for so long, he’d been able to stay just ahead of it.

But now, the entropic forces of this chaotic life are clawing at him, gesturing him down to the street to achieve a silent and still end.

He sighs, and the glowing yellows of the skyline blur in his eyes. He can’t tell if it’s from the mist blowing off of the sea or the tears that threaten to break free from the tight hold he put on them long, long ago.

Behind him, the clock ticks and ticks and ticks–

Until its rhythm breaks: in the breaths between each tick, there’s the clicking of shoes on stones.

The gun digs into Mike’s back, right where it rests against his hip, ready to be drawn by his quick, willowy fingers.

“È questo che sono per te, ora? Soltanto qualcuno che non puoi incontrare alla luce del sole?"

“Quit the front,” Mike growls, just loud enough to be heard over the heartbeats of the clock. It had been years since he’d last spoken Russian, and despite the familiarity that will always be afforded to his native tongue, the consonants sound too harsh and aspirated in his mouth, stretched like taffy under years spent in hiding among the Italian elite.

Will scoffs from where he stands in front of the clock, its second hand ticking menacingly behind him, its gears in an endless whirl behind the clock’s face. The hand moves from behind his legs to crowning his head before he bothers to slip into that shared language of theirs that transcends words and physicality, that which fills the spaces of silence between their every pulse and breath. “And why did you want to meet me here?”

Mind spinning with the centrifuge that always comes from standing on the edge–of one’s life, of destiny, or simply the jut of a clocktower’s window–Mike looks upon Will for what feels like the first time in ages, though it had only been a mere day ago when they’d strolled down the city’s streets under the cloak of night, and he’d held an apple out to his old friend’s paint-stained hands, a silent plea for help in a quest Mike knows he’ll never complete. The pressure of years of hiding from his own desires, being on the run from his own troubled past, and being caught in the twisted web of that sickness which has poisoned all of humanity breaks all at once, and it is all too easy to pull the gun from its holster, click the safety off, and point it at the heart of the only person he’s ever truly loved.

For love is a kind of violence, after all.

“Hm,” Will hums with disinterest. He calmly reaches into his pocket, withdraws a cigarette, and sticks it between his teeth. When he pulls out his lighter, it has just enough time to make the end of the cigarette glow before being snuffed out by the ever-ticking hands of the clock.

Mike’s hand shakes in time with it, always falling into that rhythm of life he’s sought so hard to be free from, caught in an endlessly looping maze he sees no escape from.

Tick. Shake.

A thick puff of smoke falls out of Will’s mouth.

Tick. Shake.

Mike grits his teeth together.

Tick. Shake.

Will cocks an eyebrow at him. Well?

It doesn’t take much for Mike to squeeze the trigger: that indelible pressure which has filled his chest for so long has finally found release, and it presses hard against the metal, letting the gun’s ignition do the work of his anger for him. He can almost feel time stretch thin as the trigger clicks down, as the bullet flies from the gun, as it sails through the tight air between them, aiming straight and true–

Will doesn’t bother to flinch as the bullet lodges straight into the second hand of the clock. Its gears whir on, but its other hands tremble and groan with agony, time itself bleeding from the wound.

Mike swallows against what feels like sharp, jagged pieces of glass in his throat. Despite the clock’s faulty motions now, he can still hear that eternally derisive tick in his mind, a permanent reminder of the life he is chained to.

With a great intake of breath, Will pulls the cigarette away from his lips, lush with warmth from the tobacco and drizzled in moonlight. He shakes out the ashes from its end as he lets another mouthful of smoke dissipate into the night air.

“Time is something you can’t stop, Mike,” he says in a harsh, scraping whisper. He tosses the cigarette onto the ground, stubs it out with his heel, and turns away.

For a single moment, his hand clenches at his side, as if there’s something more he wants to do, reining himself in from saying anything more than the cold, empty phrases they’re now left to exchange and fill with this shared language of theirs.

When he finally leaves, Mike’s eyes drift from the cigarette stub, up to the clock and how its gears grind on, even as its hands remain still.

This time, he lets the tears fall.

- - -

Here’s what Will says in Italian (courtesy of Cherry): Is this what I am to you now? Just someone you can't meet in the sunlight?

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

tw: csa, incest, emotional abuse, self harm, medical issues.

looking for advice.

tl;dr, i think my mother sexually abused me, but im confused and uncertain what to call it, and wondering how i could bring it up to my therapist. also, for anatomical context, im a 20yo nonbinary person who was assigned female at birth & my mother is a cisgender woman.

hi. i don’t really know how to start this so im sorry but im just gonna launch right in. basically, my mother did some things to me as a child that made me extremely uncomfortable, and which have definitely caused some trauma. this all occurred from since i was very young up until i was about 13. she watched me shower naked even when i was expressing discomfort to the point of tears, had me shower with her when i was too old and uncomfortable about it, often touched my genitals and put (non-medical) creams on and in them for "health reasons", would penetrate my vagina with her fingers during those sessions, and was naked around me all the time. when my dad would be away on trips, she would make me sleep in her bed with her while she was naked and make me hug her, and would ask me to sleep naked/with less clothes on too, but i always refused this. again, i told her how uncomfortable it made but it didn’t matter to her.

these experiences affected me pretty negatively - i have nightmares about being raped or a friend being raped, or about trying to escape a rapist. sometimes ive gotten so terrified of being assaulted, i would do illogical stuff like hanging crystals over my bed for "protection" (despite usually not believing in spiritual things - everyone’s beliefs are valid of course, but personally it’s not something i believe in) or block my door with shoes (which ultimately could be pushed out of the way so it wasn’t that effective, but again it was based more on fear than logic). i get really scared and shaky when someone touches me. i get flashback sensations where it feels like im being touched in private areas. i don’t even like to think about sex, though im not sure if that’s because of trauma or if im maybe just asexual.

the issue is, i don’t know if any of that counts as actual sexual abuse because i don’t know if she got any sexual pleasure out of it. yes, it affected me, and yes, shes a bad person in many other ways - but that doesn’t mean that she was intentionally sexually assaulting me.

she has emotionally abused me pretty severely throughout my entire life. most of it is just the usual stuff - calling me names, slurs, and swear words, telling me im worthless or a waste, threatening me, saying no one wants me and no one will ever believe me, etc. but there’s a few things that stand out in relation to her possible csa of me.

1) she definitely uses "health reasons" and medical stuff as an excuse for emotional abuse, so it would make sense for her to use it as an excuse for csa. for example, some of her emotional abuse involved taking me to a doctor and making me get a blood test because i was "behaving badly" and she decided that there must be something medically wrong with me for me to behave this way, so i had to get blood drawn to run tests. the tests came back perfectly fine. 2) she used to seemingly get some sort of pleasure out of watching me self harm. i used to hit and punch myself to the point of bruising, often using a piece of wood to make it worse, and she would just watch and laugh. she’d make comments about how i was crazy and how everyone would eventually find out that i was insane. in a weird way, those comments kind of encouraged me to hurt myself worse… i guess since she was so flippant about it, or because they made me hate myself more. anyway, i don’t know what she got out of all that, but it made her smile and laugh to see me hurt, so maybe she really does get some kind of strange pleasure out of messing with me, im not sure. 3) she often used me as a bit of a personal therapist, even when i was 6 or possibly younger, so it’s possible that she would just use me as a replacement for her husband when he wasn’t home. i’ve always felt like im no more than a belonging to her, an object that serves a purpose but should never have feelings of its own. she’s told me many times that she wanted a child so she would have someone to "talk at", and she’s admitted that she would get mad at me as an outlet for grief when her own mother died. if she used me for sexual/romantic reasons, it wouldn’t totally be out of character.

on the other hand, im sure it could be explained in a more innocent way. maybe she did touch me for health reasons. and she probably just didn’t care about my discomfort/fear/etc related to the showering and nakedness. it’s more likely that she simply didn’t care about my emotions, rather than her getting sexual pleasure from it. maybe it was just another part of her emotional abuse, except with weird physical contact and the violation of sexual boundaries, cause she really messed with me psychologically.

so is it still sexual abuse if the violation of boundaries and non-consensual touching of private areas wasn’t necessarily due to her being some kind of pedophile, but rather just not really caring or whatever? what even counts as sexual abuse/assault when it’s a woman doing it to another afab person? how can i explain it to my therapist when it’s all very complicated and unclear in my own head?

thank you for reading. hope you’re doing well.

Hi anon,

I'm so sorry to hear about everything you've been through.

I don't think that a perpetrator must derive sexual gratification in order for it to be considered sexual abuse, because intent isn't more important than impact. Sometimes genitals need to be touched for medical reasons, but it sounds like it was used as an excuse here. Even if it were "accidental" which by the repeated nature of these situations it seems otherwise, what still transpired was SA. I think also what you mentioned about the additional emotional abuse strengthens the argument that she knew what she was doing. There's no explanation for watching you shower or showering with you at an older age where this wasn't necessary. There's no explanation for being made to sleep naked with her. There's no explanation for her ignoring you expressing your discomfort with all of this. It's ultimately up to you how to name your experiences, but you can call this SA, CSA, or incest if any feel fitting to you.

I'm glad to hear that you have a therapist you can talk to about this. However you feel comfortable explaining this to your therapist is okay. You don't have to have a concise narrative, it's okay to explain it in whatever way makes most sense to you, and your therapist can explore certain parts more in order to get a more comprehensive understanding.

I hope I could help and please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[saturnsorbits]

Congratulations on your milestone ! So exciting ! For the event, could I request Toji ? This will be our first anniversary together and we’re renting a log cabin in the alpines ♡ it’ll be nice and cozy since we’re going for a week in the winter, and he promised he’d teach me how to shoot empty bottles while we’re there ૮⸝⸝> ̫ <⸝⸝ ა thank you so much ! And congrats again ♡

Hey, hey, hey!

Thank you! 💕

Full disclosure, I haven't written Toji before and I have no idea how guns work because I'm a sheltered little British girl, but I've tried! 😅 Hope you like it anyway!

Shot Through the Heart

-> Toji; Bottle Shooting; 0.7k.

TW: Fluff, Badly Written Weapon Usage, Toji is in Love.

'Widen your legs, baby girl.' Toji steps forward and wraps a large palm around your hip. His foot slips between yours, kicking against your shoe until you do as you're told and step further apart, opening your hips. 'That's it.'

It's beautiful up here, on top of a nameless mountain in the wilderness. There's no-one else for miles, just you, Toji, the cold and whatever wildlife calls this place home. Snow covers the ground, at least three inches deep and blanketed, untouched apart from where your footprints sink leading back towards your small cabin nestled in the trees beyond.

You shiver, body heating up under his touch despite the fact that it's so cold out your breath clouds in front of your face. The hand on your hip tightens, while his other drags up your body slowly until it can wrap around your shoulder and pull you close. His breath is hot, burning on the back of your neck when you feel him chuckle and somehow press in even closer.

'Now...' The hand on your shoulder vanishes, slipping down your arm until his palm can cup your hand and gently urge up your arm.

He'd promised to teach you how to shoot, although part of you hadn't really thought he would. You hadn't thought he'd known how, but now, standing here with the cold metal of his revolver in your hand – you're thrilled to have been proven wrong. Already, he's given you the safety speech and warned you off pointing the thing at anything it had no business being pointed at – namely himself, but after that he'd placed a collection of bottles on a near-by log and set about correcting your stance in a way that had your heart picking up in your chest.

'You're gonna focus on the bottle... Don't grip too hard, here.' Readjusting your hold on the gun, he snickers and steps back reaching around you to cock the weapon. His eyes run down your body shamelessly, pupils blown and hungry as he watches the excitement mix with something more on your cheeks. You hadn't even flinched when the gun clicked loudly into place, choosing instead to stare back at him drawn to him like a moth. He grins and takes hold of your hip again. 'Focus, baby girl... Deep breath in.' He breathes with you, groping at your hip and pressing you flush to him. 'Out... And, squeeze.'

The gun kicks back, shocking you with the force, but you keep hold of it even if you are rocked back into Toji's chest some. A crack fills the air, a violent splitting of the atmosphere that culminated in... A miss. A few yards behind the bottles, a tree trunk takes the brunt of the bullet. It's bark splits, opening around the metal.

'Fuck.' You pout.

Toji bites the insides of his cheeks. He shouldn't find you fucking cute when you're sulking, but he does. Honestly, he shouldn't have even brought you here, or taught you to shoot, fuck, he shouldn't have let you get your little claws into him as deep as they are, but he did.

Now, it's been a whole year. A whole year of you, of this... And these days, the words 'I love you' aren't just a ploy he’d use to keep his old hook-ups coming back. These days, those three little words are starting to mean something. Rolling his eyes, he yanks you back to his chest and guides your hand back up to the target. Closing one eye, he aligns the shot himself. 'We'll do this one together, yeah?'

You nod and chew at your lip, glad to have his heat back. You can feel his breath again, his voice low and gravelled as it snakes into your ears.

'Ready?'

'Mmmhmm.'

'Now...' Toji cocks the gun again. 'Squeeze'

The second crack seems louder. It breaks the silence of the wood and then, is followed by the light shattering of glass as the bullet hits home.

You grin and make sure to flick on the safety before turning to face him. 'I hit it!'

'You sure did, baby girl.' Leaning forward, he wraps an arm around your shoulders and presses a kiss to your forehead while gripping your waist. 'Want to try on your own?'

'Hell, yeah.'

You're already taking up your stance again, this time strong and more confident as you cock the gun yourself and line up your next shot.

Toji bites his lip.

Yeah, he thinks, he's fucked.

[rasalies9safe9space9]

Times I got in trouble for having undiagnosed autism TW brutally honest

I don't control my eyebrow movement unless I focus on it hard. I often have them drawn up, scrunched up, or just up. They're not often relaxed unless I'm focusing. Sometimes I seemed therefore angry or stressed or sad or defiant or whatever was being projected onto me. When my step m would scold me and I had my brows Scrunched, she would either begin yelling or telling me to stop trying to make her feel bad.

In daycare when the teacher tried turning off the tv (therefore ending my hyperfocus hangout with Olivia the pig) I had such a meltdown that I threw every book I could at the teacher - and when I ran out of books, I threw my shoes. I was kicked out of daycare and my Tia had to watch me.

TW**** not realizing the intentions is s*xual predators until it's too late. Ending up in multiple dangerous situations due to "nativity"

Getting into arguments with my partner and going nonverbal, or going into a meltdown where if they try to help me at all I'll only be filled with more shame and anguish. Leaving them with feelings I know they didn't get to feel while they help me regulate my own

My partner wanting so badly to show me off to their friends and have me be a part of their friend group, but masking so hard I go nonverbal and my face makes me appear mean maybe? They always end up assuming I'm stuck up or I think im too good to talk to them. In reality, my throat is frozen and it burns to talk. Forcing myself to go to parties because my partner felt like I wasn't trying hard enough. Forcing myself to drink so I could feel comfortable, not understanding why I couldn't be my "real self" around other people. The alcohol taking off my mask and putting me in multiple embarrassing situations as people around me reject my "weirdness."

Teachers. Teachers could have its whole own category. Firstly I do not know you, I've never met you before now, if your rules don't make sense then I will not understand them much less follow them?? Furthermore, teachers deeply need more education on handling child /autistic /adhd meltdowns. I once in kindergarten had a teacher instruct all her students to point and laugh at me in an attempt to make me stop my meltdown. In the end I crawled under her chair and cried in a fetal position until they stopped.

When constantly masking put me in burnout senior year of high school, I stopped going to class for two months and instead sat at the park or sat in the bathroom stalls. I just sat there. ACS was eventually called, and I graduated late. I went into burnout almost every end of a school year and as a result did not have a single summer without summer school in high school. Later my stepm spread the rumor that I was doing drugs because of this. Most of my family believed her.

The psych ward, misdiagnosis and using incorrect meds

Finding out as an adult and having the ground under me crumble as I realize none of these instances where ever actually my fault.

[fairyoftbz]

il y aura des jours meilleurs | c. chanhee

🖤 pairing: bf!chanhee x fem!reader 🖤 word count: 2k 🖤 genre: angst, comfort, fluff 🖤 tw: negative thoughts, hints of depressive thoughts and struggling  🖤 synopsis: you’re exhausted to the point of giving up but Chanhee is your source of hope and here for you. 🖤 a/n: happy birthday to our pretty boi chanhee!! 💌 i’m currently watching him decorate his cake and talk, he’s so cute :(( i know it’s a bit of a sad story for his birthday but i really wanted to write something for him and my french project! i hope it’ll be enough!

╰☆☆☆☆╮

You sighed as you walked through your front door, carelessly tossing your belongings on the floor. Not even bothering about hanging your jacket and light scarf, you walked in the bathroom and sat on the closed toilet seat. Closing your eyes, it was hard to be positive at this point. It was the third bad day in a row, and it started to really look like the world was planning a mischievous plan to ruin your life. Out of the last week, you couldn’t even point out a positive thing that had happened. Well, Chanhee’s presence and his love always managed to make you smile and feel comforted, but today, it looked like it wouldn’t be sufficient to see the idea of a smile on your face. The permanent frown that you kept on wearing left you with a pounding headache, your surroundings becoming slightly dizzy.

You were impressed when you couldn’t even bring yourself to cry no matter how hard you tried. This lump in your throat and the weight you felt in your chest didn’t seem to subside when you got out of the boiling shower you’ve just had, so you gave up in trying to feel better for tonight.

“Just not this week,” you mumbled to yourself as you lazily dried your hair with a towel before applying some face cream. It was such an exhausting task for you to execute, but you would hate yourself even more in the morning if you saw breakouts appearing because of the dryness of your skin. It was already hard enough for you to control your emotions, your current goal was to not pile up things that could actually ruin your day or make you insecure even more.

You sighed again, deeper this time when you noticed yourself into the foggy mirror. You rolled your eyes and shook your head as you tried to tame down the negative thoughts that were starting to cloud your mind, finally feeling the tears filling your eyes, but you didn’t feel any better. You wiped them away with the back of your hand, quickly applying your serum before switching the lights off and walk out of the bathroom.

With clenched jaws, you stared at the kitchen as you stood in the middle of the corridor, not feeling like eating anything right now. You just weren’t hungry, and even your favourite meal wouldn’t be able to change that. Chanhee would usually scold you when skipped meals out of pure stress or just because you didn’t have time, but today, it was different. Yeah, you weren’t hungry, but you also didn’t feel like cooking at all. It would require too many efforts for you to even get a pan out of the drawer, your stomach twisting uncomfortably at the mere idea of food.

Falling head first into your pillow, you stifled a dry sob as you held the comforter tight against your chest, taking deep breaths as you were trying to calm down. Many thoughts were running inside your mind and you felt like drowning and suffocating in your own sorrow, not knowing what to do or how to act to get better. With your hands covering your face, you allowed yourself to let the tears of despair roll down your cheeks in the quietest way possible. 

The pressure in your chest didn’t magically fade away as you had hoped to, it simply worsened. Having a hard time breathing, you opened your mouth wide and took deep breaths as you tried your hardest to get better, but nothing didn’t really work.

So you gave up. You let the tears flood your entire face and neck and cry in the loudest way possible, not feeling any better. The sorrows living in your body intensified, tightening your throat in the most painful way as you tried to subside your own cries.

You froze when you saw the lights of the corridor flicker open, pressing a hand on your mouth to muffle any sound that could come out of it, the tears filling up your eyes making everything around you blurry and messy. Pursing your lips and closing your eyes, you recognised your boyfriend’s steps walking around the apartment as big tears kept rolling down your face.

Chanhee opened the front door, the darkness and the silence of the apartment welcoming him in. He frowned as the atmosphere felt weird, unusual. He knew something was wrong when he noticed that your coat was messily lying around the floor, the light of the bathroom wall cabinet not properly turned off, like you always made sure to do it. Chanhee looked around the apartment, and you were nowhere to be seen. It’s when he took off his shoes and partially pushed the bedroom door open that he noticed your figure, lying in bed.

You turned to your side, back facing the door as you heard your boyfriend getting closer, hand still on your mouth as you tried to look and sound asleep. Focusing on your heartbeat, you managed to calm down a bit and get a grip on your emotions for a quick second, slowly feeling numb. You closed your eyes and tried to follow a regular breathing pattern to make your boyfriend believe that you were already sleeping, and waited.

The latter entered the bedroom on his tiptoes, a knee on the mattress as it dipped under his weight, the young man stretching his neck over your shoulders to see you asleep. He delicately removed a strand of hair from your face and kissed your cheek, frowning and retracted his mouth as he felt a wet sensation lingering on his lips. He gently caressed your head as he felt the saltiness when his tongue met his lips, the dots connecting in his head.

You waited for him to close the door and leave to sigh and wince, realising that you’ll have to talk to him about your damp cheeks. The tears welled back up when you didn’t want to talk to anyone about what was happening inside your head. You hated when your boyfriend saw you like that, because you knew that Chanhee cared for you and wanted to help you. You also knew it was coming from a good intention, but you didn’t feel like getting anyone’s help right now.

Chanhee came to bed a few minutes later, blindly wandering to the bed to not wake you up by turning on the lights. He stayed silent for a moment as your back was still facing him, hearing him sigh as he pulled the covers on his body. He took your stillness as a sign that you didn’t want to talk to him, because he knew that you weren’t asleep yet. He knew you too well to know that you were pretending, but he also knew that it was your toxic way of coping with your feelings.

Later that night, as the clock struck 3 am, you were still wide awake, resting on your back with your hands joined on your stomach, blankly staring at the ceiling as loud and intrusive thoughts invaded your brain. Chanhee was innocently sleeping next to you, a hand extended towards you as if it were a subconscious offer from him to hold his hand. As stubborn as you were and for the third time this week, you refused to get his help, even if you knew deep down that you needed it very badly. 

You knew that he could actually help you, but it was easier for you to stay in your sorrow and lament yourself until you felt numb, rather than getting help and get back on the path or happiness. You always acted like this, and you never bothered to change any of your unhealthy coping mechanisms.

However, a tiny voice in your head almost begged you to reach out to hold his hand. Your chest tightened as you stared at his slender digits, whose touch never failed to give you reassurance and comfort. Him caressing your arms or cheeks was a sensation that you discovered when you started dating, and it became just as addictive as a drug. You needed it to feel better and worth it. It was as if the remedy was within easy reach, but you didn’t dare touching it because it was sacred. Though luckily this time, you decided to gather your strength and change things.

Chanhee got drawn away from his slumber as he felt a familiar hand touching him, your digits closing around his hand. He opened his eyes and turned to look at you, the shallow lights of the city illuminating the bedroom. Noticing your pearly eyes, he scooted closer to you and wrapped his arms around you, feeling you burst into tears against his shoulder.

“Shh baby. Breathe Y/N, breathe,” he said as his hand touched the back of your head, gently rubbing it to soothe you. “I- I can’t… I can’t do it anymore,” you managed to stutter as you gasped for air, your sobs being so intense that you could barely focus on anything else. “Don’t say things like that, I know you can,” he mumbled in your ear, but you shook your head. “I’m so tired… I’m so exhausted,” his hand gently massaged your head as he repositioned himself under you, your head now on his chest.

His calm heartbeat resonated in your ear, trying to shoo away the negative thoughts in your head. Chanhee didn’t say anything, he understood that he wouldn’t be able to convince you tonight. His chances will probably be higher by tomorrow when you’ll have calmed down from all your tormenting emotions.

“I know it won’t change anything about how you feel, but I love you and I care for you. There are harder times than others and you are going through one right now. it’s okay to feel bad, it’s okay to feel down, but the most important thing is to not give up. It’s completely normal to feel discouraged, but you have to keep going, for your own sake. And I’m here for you, no matter how lonely you felt, I’ll be by your side,” you nodded at his words, head still pressing against his chest as you tried to get his heartbeat to calm you down.

Chanhee softly rubbed your back and kissed the side of your head, knowing that you weren’t convinced at all. He cleared his throat and held you tighter, pulling the comforter higher to cover your shivering figure.

“Trust me, love, there will be better days, I promise. Those are not just words into the void, I mean them. You are going through a tough time right now, but I guarantee you that you will get better. It will take time and efforts and I know how tried you are but keep fighting. Look how far you’ve come, you always did a great job to stand back up and keep going, don’t let it ruin all the efforts you’ve gathered until now. Do it for yourself, and also for me, for us,” you looked up at him with shiny eyes and he nodded, assuring you that he meant every single word he said. 

Your boyfriend wiped the salty pearls away from your eyes and gently smiled at you, hand cradling your cheek.

“Rest now, Y/N. I’ll be here when you wake,” he whispered, pressing a soft kiss on your forehead. “I love you,” you tiredly mumbled, feeling tired after all your crying. “I love you too, please never forget that,” his thumb gently rubbed the skin under your eye, instantly wiping the last few tears that you shed before falling asleep out of exhaustion, in your lover’s arms.

Chanhee sighed, tongue poking his inner cheek in frustration. He hated seeing you this down and broken, but he had faith in you. He knew that it was just temporary, that you wouldn’t give up even if you said you would. He was confident that you would jump back up on your feet and keep going, just like you’ve been doing until now. You were strong even if you never admitted it.

“I promise, there will be better days,” he whispered in your ear as he slowly slid down in the bed until his head rested on his pillow, keeping you close to his chest as he fell back asleep, just like you did a few seconds ago.

╰ It’s gonna be okay. You are going to be okay. ╮

[jemej3m]

a comprehensive set of rules (p.2)

i have no control over my writing schedule. it has been completely consumed by this au. this is all of y’all’s fault. 

heavy tw: blood and gore and bodies. also, bad people talking about raping allison and using homophobic slurs.

*

July:

“Andrew,” Renee called out, rapping her knuckles on the guest bedroom gently. 

Andrew was currently living out of one, black suitcase: he’d spent half his time at different hotels and half his time at colleagues’ homes, though calling Allison a colleague was a bit of a stretch. Wymack had let him camp out in his girlfriend’s spare room, seeing as his place was apparently too small for the both of them. Dan and Matt had even let him crash on the couch between motel rooms. 

Andrew was really fucking excited to get his place back. According to Neil, his father was pulling out all stops to get rid of him, or whoever was aiding him. As far as Andrew was concerned, Neil was in more danger, but the man refused to exonerate himself from the situation. The next best thing was ensuring that Andrew was untouchable. 

“Andrew, can I come in?” 

Andrew grunted, still bent over his files in the middle of the room. He’d pushed the bed to one side to make room and was suddenly shirtless, fan pulsating in the corner. He never did great in the heat. 

“Oh,” Neil’s voice squeaked like an elementary schooler’s clarinet. “Uh - I can come back?”

Andrew squinted up at him. “The fuck are you doing here?” he got to his feet and made his way over, reaching up to tug on Neil’s hair. Definitely real. “Huh.” 

Behind Neil, Renee snorted. Andrew glared at her: she put up her hands in surrender and paced off to do something else. 

Andrew shuffled Neil into his room and shut the door, treading carefully around his work. 

“This...” Neil looked over it, carefully avoiding the many photos and files and labelled evidence bags as he walked. He was silent as he moved, unnoticeable if he wasn’t always on Andrew’s radar. 

He also looked much more presentable than the last time Andrew had seen him, which had been before Dimaccio was arrested. A button-down, much like he wore when they first went to dinner. The collar was irritatingly popped, and his trousers were properly pressed, the shoes delicately shined. He looked like a rich man’s son. 

Andrew hated it. He also hated how good it looked.

“Sit on the bed,” Andrew instructed. “I don’t need you scuffing anything up.”

“This seems like a lot more than what’s necessary,” Neil said, avoiding looking at Andrew as he tugged on a shirt. “Also a lot more than we originally discussed.”

Andrew pointed at the profile of a smiling woman, and various other men. “Williams. Reacher. Jenkins. The three of them worked tirelessly on gang violence. They completely eradicated the Terrapin family from the game. Countless Bearcats and Catamounts have been locked up by them. But as soon as they turned to the Wesninski family, they were never found again. Three different detectives. Almost three consecutive years. They deserve justice too.” 

Neil was, clearly, not expecting to have to put names and families to the bodies his father had diced and scattered. His expression had become shuttered as Andrew talked, fingers curling into tight fists, the fabric of his trousers ensnared between his whitened knuckles. 

"You’re afraid.” 

Neil looked at him, eyes blazing. “He is all I’m afraid of. I can’t just - turn that off.”

Andrew crouched down on the floor in front of him. “You’re allowed to be afraid. You have to promise me that you won’t run away because of it.”

Neil’s shoulders were curled inwards. “I don’t want to become him. I don’t -” he looked at the photos of the officers and the remnants of their bodies and the ruination caused by his father’s work. “I don’t want that. I don’t.”

“So leave it behind.”

Neil grit his teeth. “I can’t! Look at me. Look at me. You think this is my father? Parading me around at events, trying to find me a wife who can bear my child, tracking my every move? Of course it’s not. My father is someone else’s weapon, a well-enamoured thug at best. He’s a Baltimorean gangster. He’s not the one in control here.”

Andrew put his hand over Neil’s wrist and let him breathe for a moment. 

“They know that he’s fucked,” Neil continued, eyes squeezed shut. “They know they’re going to lose him. So I’m being conditioned. I’m being shaped up to replace him. You know I’ve been in New York for the past two weeks?” He shoved his hair out of his eyes. Andrew opened his palm upwards, and Neil let himself tangle their fingers. “I want to escape my fate so badly, but my family has been indentured to them for - I don’t even know. Forever, it seems like.”

“Who, Neil?” 

He let out an aggravated sigh. “Who else controls enough of the east coast to keep the fucking Butcher in check? It’s the bloody Moriyamas.” Andrew stiffened. “If you breathe that name outside this room, I’m dead. You’re dead. Everyone you ever loved will die. They’re so well protected that the crazy second son can go off and do whatever he likes, including training to be a police officer and almost killing the partner he’s given, but it doesn’t even matter. It’s hushed up within the week.” 

He held tight onto Andrew’s hand. “The best I can hope for is a negotiation. A price that I can pay off in - a decade, maybe. Possibly two. Maybe securing a new family to pass the relationship to. I don’t know.” 

“Then that’s what you do,” Andrew vowed. “We deal with the monster under the bed first. Then the basement that lets them out. Don’t run,” Andrew insisted, his hand having worked its way up Neil’s arm to grip the back of his neck. “Don’t hide. You can’t afford to, not now.”

Neil rested their foreheads together. “I’ll try.”

Andrew’s thumb brushed circles under Neil’s jaw. “That’s all I ask.”

*

Breaking news: Nathan Wesninski being brought to court for multiple homicides, including Baltimore police officers and Mary Hatford, his wife...initially being assessed for money laundering and tax evasion, Wesninski is now being persecuted for multiple acts of violence, mutilation and extortion. Police officers under Captain David Wymack have collated resources and new-found evidence and will attempt to put Wesninski behind bars permanently.

*

August: 

Andrew’s heart was pounding. They’d tapped into comms just over an hour ago, received the corresponding telephone data and locations, and now they were paging the block. 

It was eerily quiet, and too dark for a suburban area. The cul-de-sac had no streetlights and all the houses were either empty, with for sale! signs posted on their laws, or all the blinds were drawn closed. It was only nine in the evening. 

Andrew took out his gun as they approached the house. Renee was at his shoulder. 

The house in question was two-storey, seemingly empty, the garage locked shut. The gardens were immaculately kept, the painted finish on the house brand new. God knows what was happening within: Andrew hoped that whatever mess had been made within wasn’t irreparable. 

Andrew’s radio cackled. “How do you want to go about this, Minyard?” 

Andrew cracked his knuckles and fished out his lock picks from his back pocket as he radioed back. “Silent entry. I’m going to unlock the door, and only our squad heads in. Everyone else surround the premises if they notice and escape.”

“Alright, sarge,” Matt said, jokingly, a few feet behind Renee. Dan must have pinched him because he immediate said “Ow!” 

Andrew and Renee crept up onto the front balcony: Andrew crouched down and worked for about two minutes till the lock had opened. Kevin had already phoned the security firm to let down the alarms, so Andrew and Renee stepped inside, unnoticed. Dan, Matt and Kevin dispersed, but Andrew always headed to the basement. 

The light was on. 

“...We should get back to Junior,” one voice said. “God knows he’s probably slipped free by now.”

“You kidding? We had him practically halfway into a coffin. Let’s just clean this up first.”

“Maybe pretty Alli’s woken up. If Junior wasn’t so fervently protective of her I’d’ve had her bent over by now.” 

“Christ, Romero." But the man was laughing. “Maybe now’s your chance.”

Disgust crawled down his spine. He glanced at Renee, just as they approached the doorway: she had her eyes closed momentarily, lips moving with a prayer. The door was left ajar. 

One, he mouthed. 

“Didn’t think boss had the guts to get rid of little Junior.”

Two, she returned. 

“Maybe he liked that bitch of a wife, after all. He could’ve had a kid with Lola and gotten rid of the pathetic faggot, but he stuck by Nathaniel anyway.”

Three, they both nodded, kicking the door wide open with his foot and grasping his gun in both hands. 

“Hands up,” he growled. “Drop whatever you’re holding.”

“Kneel,” Renee said, softly. “We will shoot you if you don’t comply.”

Neither of the men had guns. They dropped their knives to the ground and knelt down, furious. By them was a body, heavily dismembered. The hair was neither auburn nor blonde.

“Basement,” Andrew barked into his radio, training his gun on the one he recognised as Romero. His hands were limp, twitching by his sides. Andrew wanted to cut them from his body and watch him bleed. 

The other three skidded into the room, guns ready. 

“Go find them,” Renee murmured, under the cacophony of Dan and Kevin wrangling the perps to the ground, Matt kneeling by the body. “Andrew, go.” 

He nodded stiffly, falling back. Up the stairs and to the left was the door to the garage, which he kicked down. Switching the lights on, he looked to the two persons still on the floor, tied up and beaten down. 

“Andrew,” Neil gasped, covered in blood and cuffed at the wrists and ankles. Allison seemed alright, if a bit groggy, with a gag in her mouth and her hands tied behind her. 

Andrew grabbed the hedge clippers from the wall of gardening tools and broke through the handcuffs, cutting Allison’s rope bindings and tugging off her gag. 

“Perps restrained, fall in through the front,” Dan said through the radio. “Victim dead. Get a stretcher: Forensics team definitely not necessary.” 

“We can’t be found here,” Allison hissed. “We can’t be brought in.”

“Jesus Christ,” Andrew muttered, fishing the keys to his cousin’s place out of his pocket. “Fine. If you can get him on his feet,” he jerked his head to Neil, who muttered I’m fine. “Go to Nicky’s place. I’ll meet you there later. Unless you need a hospital?”

“It’s all superficial,” Neil mumbled, wincing. Andrew felt concern curl and knot in his stomach. He looked to Allison. 

“Maybe you should do a first-aid cert.”

“Maybe that’s not a half bad idea,” she grunted, hauling Neil to his feet. 

“The back should be clear of cops now,” Andrew said, cutting through the padlock on the garage door. “Get out.”

“Good to see you too, Minyard,” Allison drawled, pulling Neil along. With a wink, they were both gone. 

Andrew rubbed at his temples, giving himself only a minute of reprieve, before heading back into the fray. 

*

Nicky’s house was cold and dark. The two of them had been on a spontaneous trip around Europe for the last few months, visiting Erik’s family. Nicky wasn’t stupid: when Andrew offered him this and that, he took it without question and knew there was a reason why.

“When I get back,” he insisted over the phone. “When I get back the three of us are visiting Aaron. Got it?”

“Fine,” Andrew had grunted, hanging up on his cousin without a goodbye. 

Neil had parked himself on the couch, staring at the ceiling with square bandages across his cheeks. Bruises mottled his skin, and his hands and forearms were mummified in a similar fashion. 

“I was going to try and contact you,” Neil said, not needing to see Andrew to know who’d entered the house. “I would’ve called you.”

Andrew sat on the end of the couch as Neil drew his feet up to give him room. “Right.”

The man struggled into a seated position. “I was.” 

“Should’ve let them kill you,” Andrew muttered, glaring at the unused television. Neil snorted, swinging his legs off the couch and settling next to Andrew. 

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” 

“Just - shut up.” 

For a while they sat in silence. Andrew lit up a cigarette and smoked it through to the filter. Neil seemed to lean a little closer, attracted to the scent. 

“Hey,” he murmured, when Andrew threw the stub onto the coffee table. 

Andrew turned and looked at him. His eyes were clear, purposeful. Andrew remembered their first date, their second. Cleavers and thugs and light, candle light and club lights, striping across Neil’s cheekbones like something from a painting. 

Kissing him felt - 

Normal. Right. Like coming home. Like finding - not the last piece of the puzzle, but the last edge, making a solid shape to be filled in, something clear and decisive. Andrew’s fingertips found his jaw and he felt Neil’s fingers curl in the collar of his vest. His police vest. 

It was enough to draw him to a stop, pulling back just enough for him to breathe. 

“You don’t swing,” Andrew accused, poorly hiding how winded he was.

Neil huffed, equally as breathless. “You don’t date.” 

Andrew’s teeth ground together. “You don’t date cops.” 

“And you don’t date mobsters,” Neil retorted. “What’s your point here?” 

“Yes or no?” Andrew demanded, because he needed to know. He needed to know for sure. Without a doubt, with complete surety, with perfect clarity - 

“Yes,” Neil answered. “Obviously.” 

“‘Obviously’,” Andrew parroted with a scoff. “I hate you.” 

When Neil’s lips curved up into a smile, Andrew kissed him quiet. 

*

September: 

“You know I’ve got a week off, after next week,” Andrew said, trailing his fingers over the threadbare t-shirt that Neil wore. He said ‘next week’ and not ‘Nathan’s trial’. They’d both come to an agreement that where they could avoid talking about it, they would. 

It was out of Andrew’s hands, anyway. All the evidence was with the prosecutor, and it was their job to put him behind bars. 

There was no way Nathan Wesninski was getting out, now. Not a single chance. 

Which meant there was no reason to talk about it. Or about Neil’s future inheritance of his father’s position, or Andrew’s award of recognition for his work. Which felt rather cheap, really - he was just lucky that Neil had decided to give him a second chance. 

Then again, policing was mostly luck, and a bit of charisma. Andrew was usually lacking in both, but right now, in the golden afternoon sunlight, with Neil in shorts and unkempt hair, he felt incredibly lucky. 

Neil craned his head back to look at Andrew. His new scars were bright red, but healed over at this point. “Just Chicago?” 

Andrew hummed assent, closing his eyes and pressing his nose to the crown of Neil’s head. Casual intimacy had always been - too much. Too soft, too nice, like it was covering up something sinister. Never had Andrew felt so relaxed, not even after sex, which usually resulted in Andrew grabbing his shirt, shoes, phone and wallet and leaving immediately. 

And they hadn’t had sex yet. Andrew didn’t know if Neil would ever want to have sex. That was - unsurprisingly - not the most important thing on Andrew’s list of wants and needs. 

Instead, here he was, lying on his back in Nicky’s guest bedroom. Neil was lying next to him, on his side, head cushioned on Andrew’s shoulder. And he did want this. He’d been tied up and exhausted for months: now it was all coming to its peak, the finish line right around the corner. And they were - okay. Ish. Maybe. Probably. Andrew wasn’t peeved about it. 

“Don’t die whilst I’m gone,” Andrew muttered, fingers threading through his hair. 

“I have to go to New York, anyway,” Neil said, sullen. “Might as well do it whilst you’re away.” 

“How many times are they going to pull you up there?”

“Till they’re confident I won’t screw everything up in the change-over, I guess. Or maybe it’s about the wife thing.” 

Something in Andrew’s chest twisted. He simply hummed. 

Neil shifted, propping himself up on his elbow to look at Andrew properly. “You know I’m not going to go through with it, right?”

“And if they threaten you?” Andrew reminded him. “Your life isn’t exactly yours.”

“Fuck them,” Neil said as he leaned forward, forever antagonistic. Andrew sighed: Neil paused. “No?”

“Yes,” he muttered, pulling Neil down. One hand brushed along the slither of exposed skin that revealed itself as Neil’s shirt rose up: Andrew relished in the shiver that flitted across Neil’s skin. His scarred fingers - covered in circular burns from a dashboard lighter and various scratch ridges - felt familiar and known when Andrew guided them to the back of his head. Neil was careful, as always.

Andrew had intended on asking when the hell Neil had heard about Andrew’s past, but he wasn’t sure that he wanted to know. He didn’t want to talk about it now, anyway.

Just as Neil let Andrew push his shoulder back, following him over to kiss him into the mattress, Allison’s nails tapped impatiently on the bedroom door. Andrew broke away, startled, just as Neil cursed, sitting up. 

“Yes, Allison?” Neil demanded, clearing his throat. “What is it?”

“You sound odd,” Allison remarked, door handle turning. 

“Uh - !” Neil scrambled off the bed, looking to Andrew with wild eyes. “I’m - naked! Don’t come in.”

“Right,” Allison drawled. “Should I just wait in my room for him to leave, then?”

“I hate you,” Neil complained. “What do you want?” 

“Andrew’s phone was going off in the kitchen,” Allison said, slyly. “Sounds like the prosecuting lawyer wants some of your time, Andrew. Nice of you to glide by without saying hello.”

“I’m busy,” Andrew retorted. 

Allison just laughed, strutting down the corridor with her heels tapping on the wooden floorboards. Neil crossed his arms, red-faced. 

“C’mere,” Andrew said, still sitting on the bed. 

“But Thea,” Neil tried. 

“The law can wait,” Andrew insisted, extending his hand.

The look in Neil’s eyes sent sparks flying across Andrew’s skin. 

*

“Took you long enough,” Thea Muldani said, a master of clipboards and abridged glares. She was a lawyer worth Andrew’s time, he knew that, but he also didn’t feel like putting up with Kevin’s heart-eyes or Renee’s unsubtle glances. 

Jesus Christ, he thought, slamming his bag on the table hard enough to cause everyone to jolt. “I’m here, now.” 

“Congratulations,” Thea remarked. “Don’t care. We have a problem.”

Andrew narrowed his eyes. 

“Nathan Junior’s prints are all over a tonne of this evidence. If we don’t have him accounted for, defence is going to be all over it.”

“Are you serious?” Dan demanded. “Nathaniel would’ve been 15 when Mary was murdered.” 

“Doesn’t matter. If the evidence has been tampered with, it could be rendered useless. It would be extremely helpful,” Thea said pointedly. “If people’s CI’s could come forward and testify. We have almost no witnesses, except for Andrew and Renee, who claimed that Jackson Plank and Romero Malcom were acting on orders from Nathan whilst murdering Janie Smalls, last month. Neither of them will confess to any sort of collaboration with Wesninski, and two unidentified blood sources were found in the garage.”

“That sounds like circumstantial bullshit,” Dan argued. 

“And can we prove them wrong?” Thea shot back. “No. We can’t. For all we know, it’s been Nathaniel behind all of this instead. He’s certainly old enough now.”

Andrew stood out of his chair, grabbed his things and turned to leave. 

The lawyer gave him an appraising look. “I haven’t dismissed this meeting, Minyard.”

“I don’t care,” Andrew said. “If you won’t do your job, then I suppose I’d better go and fucking do it for you.” 

“It’s Thursday,” Thea reminded him. “Case starts on Monday.”

Andrew ignored her, making sure to slam the door on the way out. 

*

Romero Malcom was a sullen man. His skin was papery thin, even only a few weeks into his prison stay. Andrew couldn’t say that he pitied him. He sat down with his cup of coffee, leaning back in his chair with his leg crossed at the ankle. Romero was locked to the interrogation table opposite, shoulders curled in, fingernails scratching against the table top. 

Trying to get a rise. It wouldn’t work. 

“Honestly, between you and your sister, you seemed like the more rational one,” Andrew said, eyebrow arched. He put his coffee down and opened up his file. “Did you think about how your lifestyle had an expiry often? Nathan had Dimaccio as his right-hand man, but kept Lola as his carefully concealed weapon. You and Plank seemed just like...more prized cannon-fodder.”

Romero’s eye twitched. 

“You know, you said something that caught my interest,” Andrew leaned forward. “You said you’d’ve fucked Nathaniel Wesninski’s friend. What was her name?”

“Allison,” he said. 

“Right. You said you’d intended to rape her.”

“No wonder you’re so hung up on it, Doe,” Romero sneered. So they’d all done their research. “Well I didn’t, did I? Not that she’s shown up. She knows Nathan’ll kill her. He’s pretty sure she’s the rat.”

“Do you think she is?” Andrew inquired. “Mind you: I know who the rat is, and you don’t.”

“I think she’s the rat.” Romero sneered. “Princess bitch won’t be loyal to nothing but herself.”

“Which was why he asked you to kill her. She’d betrayed you all.” 

“We didn’t kill her.”

“No, but you were going to. He wanted you to kill all three of them.” 

“It was probably Junior that called the cops on us,” Romero scoffed. Andrew’s jaw ticked. “Fucking brat. It was about time.”

“About time for what?”

“To get rid of him.” Romero rolled his eyes. “Not that Plank could manage that, either. Useless. But Nathan gave us the call. We were waiting for it, honestly. Killing off Junior meant there was more of an incentive to keep Nathan out of jail. Otherwise there’s no other options.”

Moriyamas, Andrew thought, but he had no interest in involving them. ��So Nathan called the two of you, ordered you to get rid of Allison and Nathaniel.”

“He didn’t want them showing their faces and causing trouble.” 

“So why Janie?”

“Wrong place, wrong time,” Romero laughed. It sounded like rusted truck breaks. Andrew was very close to knocking the scalding coffee onto exposed skin. 

“Nathan probably ain’t happy,” Andrew amended. 

Romero barked out another laugh. “He’ll be livid at this point. He sent me an email on exactly what he wanted me to do to your tiny little body, Minyard. An email. Who the fuck sends emails anymore? Anyway, yeah. He’s pissed.”

Andrew stood up from the table, carefully putting his audio recorder into plain sight as he picked up his coffee. “Well, I’d say it was a pleasure, but it wasn’t.” Romero looked at the recorder, slightly sickly. “Have fun in here, Malcom. I’m sure your sister sends her regard from max.”

With that he spun on his heel, the sweet sounds of Romero’s panic putting a hop in his step all the way out of the centre. 

*

“I’ve never...” Neil chewed his lip. “Get a blood sample? That’d put me into the system.”

“And help me identify your pieces as they come floating down the river, if your father’s bosses ever learn about this,” Andrew reminded him. “If I can prove that Romero and Jackson were ordered to kill you, there won’t be any ground to stand on. Neil. Remember what I said.”

The man looked at him from an extended moment of time, evaluating and revelautating. 

“Alright,” he said, voice barely a whisper. “Okay.” 

*

October:

Andrew leant his head from side to side, letting his spine slot itself back into place. He hated everything about flying, so much so that even his cousin’s persistent chatter hadn’t been enough to distract him from his living nightmare. 

“Well!” his cousin said, somehow still animated. He and Erik had spent their time in Chicago getting over jetlagged and playing with Aaron’s new puppy, whilst Andrew spent his time watching their antics and silently drinking coffee with Aaron, save for the occasional question here and there. 

Heard you made a big bust, yeah. How’s the residency. A nightmare. Katelyn and I want a baby when it’s done, though. Interesting. You can be the Godfather. Save that for Neil. Neil? Like, the criminal guy? Don’t mention it. Andrew - I said, don’t mention it. Oh, fuck. You’re serious. Jesus Christ, okay. 

“Shall we get a cab?” Nicky inquired. 

“Neil can drop you home on the way to mine.” 

Nicky narrowed his eyes. “Neil? Like, absolute hottie Neil? Allison’s friend? The one you never called back because you’re an idiot?”

“I hate you,” Andrew insisted. 

“Oh my god!” Nicky squealed, tugging on Erik’s arm. “I didn’t know y’all were together. How long has it been? Andrew, you gotta tell me these things!” 

“On second thoughts, you should take a cab,” Andrew grunted, lugging his luggage to where he knew Neil would already be standing, waiting for them to arrive. 

Nicky’s laugh rang out like bells, just as Neil rose up his hand to wave the three of them over. 

Yeah, Andrew thought, letting Nicky gush whilst Neil looked at him like that. 

This isn’t half bad. 

*

And that’s how they got together! andrew will continually tell himself that neil inherited the syndicate after they got together, even if there was only like a month or so between their first kiss and nathan getting locked up. neil will continually tell himself that andrew was only interested in him for the case. they’re both stupid liars who are in love. 

[thewhumperinwhite]

Lost Dog, No Reward (1)

I made a thing! Dw, i’m still working on everything else too, but i needed to work on something new for a while because i have problems disorder

this owes a lot to @ashintheairlikesnow who is among my fave whump writers. i know she didn’t originate the universe, and i’m not double checking a lot to make sure this is actually bbu compliant, but her stuff definitely inspired me to mess with the bbu at all :3

TW for: violence/gore; amnesiac whumpee; choking; references to institutionalized slavery and accompanying dehumanization; gun violence; cops.

---

Ari’s never had a job go this badly before. Not in the years he still remembers, anyway.

Ari’s vision is always lopsided, and he’s always poor at judging distance, and now the blood squeezing between his fingers and ruining his leather gloves is making him dizzy, too, and all three of those things combine to make him trip over the concrete base of a street lamp and jam his torn-open shoulder against the lamp itself, and the pain takes his knees out from under him and crumples him down to the sidewalk, half-sprawled over forwards and losing time he doesn’t have.

He doesn’t know this street. It’s night and he doesn’t know the street which means it’s nothing but a string of locked doors between him and home; on his own street he knows who forgets to lock their doors, who will let him bleed on their couch for a night in exchange for money or a favor, which alleys lead somewhere and which don’t, but here he doesn’t know anything except that the police men shouted after him at first and now they’re not shouting, they’re only running.

While he sucks air in and tries to get his legs back under him, Ari runs through the options he still has in his head. It isn’t hard, because there aren’t very many.

He can turn and fight. That’s what he wants to do; he’s known how to fight longer than he’s known how to talk and he knows it would feel good. But the police men have guns so he also knows it wouldn’t feel good for very long.

He can stop. He can sit here gasping on the sidewalk, holding a lamp post in one hand and his guts in the other, until the police men come and find him. It’s possible they won’t shoot him again, if he’s already laying on the ground, though of course there’s no way to know; but they would certainly drag him away somewhere, somewhere he thinks vaguely would have white walls and no windows, and he doesn’t want to go there with them.

So really there’s only one thing he can do. That’s good. That makes it easy.

His shoulder isn’t too bad, really, or at least he doesn’t think so. It’s turned his coat hot and sticky with blood—the fur collar is all matted with it, which makes him sad, he’s only ever had the one—and it hurts, more now that he’s hit it against the post, but really they barely clipped him; he doesn’t even think it would make him dizzy on it’s own. It’s the hole in his stomach that’s the problem; that’s deeper and wetter and shifts when he pushes his hand against it, in a way that makes him sick. But Rotty said put pressure on the wound—Rotty wailed when he saw the knife go in, and made time for Ari to get away, and told him to put pressure on the wound—so Ari digs his hand against the wound, and he breathes out, and he pushes himself to his feet.

Up ahead there’s a store with its lights on. And Ari can’t stop, and he can’t turn and fight, but he can still run, so that’s what he does.

----

Pryce has always kind of liked closing up alone, because it means he gets to unplug his headphones and fill the shop with very loud vaporwave, which is genuinely pretty chill music to mop floors to but also, more importantly, an inherently funny thing to play very loudly in an empty grocery store.

He’s in the process of emptying the small trashcan next to his seat behind the checkout counter—which is almost entirely filled with the half-pack of cigarettes he smoked during his shift—into the enormous trash bag from outside the bathroom, when the front door opens. He hears it with a full body wince because it is after midnight which means he’s almost certainly blasting some poor unsuspecting drunk with objectively-not-even-very-good vaporwave, and Mr. Nguyen, the very nice old man who owns the store and puts up with Pryce’s bullshit and is thus the only authority figure Pryce respects, will be disappointed if he loses a customer because of Pryce’s unpleasant taste in music; so Pryce is already halfway through an apology before he actually looks up and sees the very large man standing in a puddle of blood in the doorway.

Pryce drops the trash can.

The man is visually bizarre enough that Pryce almost can’t register the full picture, just disparate, equally-baffling parts—the man’s hair is an enormous red-brown mane, it reaches his elbows in a tangled mass weighed down with blood; he’s wearing a knee-length brown-leather coat with a big (bloody) fur collar; his face is a mess of puckered scars pulling up on his mouth and down through one of his eyelids and in the brief moment he stands there staring at Pryce with his (bloody) mouth hanging open the fluorescents turn his eyes—which must be brown, logically they must be—bright orange.

Then the man barrels towards Pryce and all of Pryce’s muscles lock in place as he prepares to be shot or stabbed or at the very least body-tackled—

The man flings himself over the counter and folds his big (bloody) body into an improbably small space half-under the till, next to Pryce’s feet, approximately ten seconds before the front door opens again, hard, the glass banging against the display next to it hard enough to make Pryce wince.

There are two cops, both panting hard. Their guns aren’t pointing at Pryce but they are very much drawn, and they’re both looking at Pryce, who is still frozen completely solid with his eyes bulging out of his head.

“Where’d he go?” one of the officers barks at Pryce.

Pryce blinks.

Then he points over his shoulder, toward the back door. He half-turns, too, which is more movement than he needs to point but does give him time to nudge the big trash bag a little bit out and to the left.

“The back door’s unlocked,” he says, “I was taking out the trash, he must’ve—”

And they rocket past him, toward the back door and the alley, not sparing him or the big trash bag blocking their line of sight, apparently too excited to shoot somebody to notice that it wasn’t even a very good lie.

----

Ari listens to the police men’s shoe-sounds fade into the distance, waiting for them to come back and haul him out of his poor hiding spot and shoot him or drag him away.

They don’t.

The stranger’s worn red sneakers turn away from Ari, take two steps away from the counter; as more of the boy wearing them comes into view Ari watches him plant his hands on his skinny hips and stare after the police men. The boy lets out a breath, whistling on it a little.

Then the boy starts to turn back to Ari; he has time to say “Well—” before Ari leaps to his feet and gets a hand around the boy’s throat and slams him back against the tiled wall behind the counter.

The boy gasps, a thin hand taking Ari’s wrist in a very weak grip. His eyes are very wide.

“Why,” Ari says, his voice as harsh and scratchy as it always is, and thicker because it’s full of blood, “did you lie for me?”

The boy’s mouth opens and closes without words. He is smaller than Ari, and his sneakers are no longer touching the ground, because Ari is holding him up by his throat. His hair is longish—not as long as Ari’s—and colored bright blue-green. Ari doesn’t know how old—he isn’t good at knowing ages—but he’s grown, and Ari hasn’t ever seen him before, he doesn’t have many memories but those he does have he knows very well, he would remember this boy, whose eyes are a color he hasn’t seen before, almost silver, bright in his light-brown face.

The boy makes a sort of gurgling sounds and Ari realizes he is not answering because Ari is squeezing his throat closed. Ari makes himself loosen his grip and the boy drags in a breath.

“Just—trying—to help,” the boy wheezes.

Ari jerks back, dropping the boy back onto his feet; the boy slides down the wall a little, gasping and covering his throat with his hand.

“Why?” Ari says.

The boy blinks at Ari, wide-eyed. Then he looks away, not like he’s embarrassed but like he’s thinking. Then he meets Ari’s eyes, and he shrugs his shoulders with a wobbly, nervous smile.

“I don’t have very good impulse control,” the boy says.

Ari—doesn’t know what that means. And now he doesn’t know what to do, either. Which means he just stands there, staring at the boy for what he knows is too long because the boy drops his gaze with the same nervous mouth-twitch Rotty got at first, when Ari didn’t know how soon to look away. The boy’s eyes drop to Ari’s stomach, and he raises his dark eyebrows.

“You know you’re bleeding all over the floor?”

Ari looks down. If he thinks about it now, he stood from his crouch below the counter without thinking about the wound, and he hasn’t been putting pressure on it for a few minutes now. His ears are beginning to ring. There is a slow-spreading pool of blood on the tile under him. Ari looks back up at the boy, who is looking at him expectantly, and who did help, Ari thinks, though he isn’t sure why.

“I can—mop it up later,” Ari says. He tries to stand up straight and has to lean back against the counter to keep his balance. His vision is getting blotchy, now, a little. The job went bad before they paid him fully, and he’s already spent the advance on food, or else he would offer to pay to have the floor cleaned. Maybe he hasn’t stained the tile too badly yet. He takes a step sideways, trying to get out of the puddle, and immediately starts making another one. Blood has soaked from his shirt into his jeans—he has two pairs of those, so that will be alright—and is dripping out the bottom now, which means there must be a lot of it.

“Um,” the boy says. “That’s actually not—uh. Can I, like… help you with that? There’s a first aid kit in the office.” He moves, though he’s in range of Ari’s left eye, which doesn’t work well; Ari jerks his head up to see what the boy is doing, to make sure he isn’t moving closer when Ari can’t see him, and then the floor suddenly swings up into the side of Ari’s head.

----

The man crumples sideways and hits the floor hard, and Pryce stands there over him with a hand pressed over his mouth, like a useless idiot who’s never seen blood before.

Which. While it is true he has never seen this much blood in one place before. Thinking about that is not going to help this stranger not die on Mr. Nguyen’s floor.

The first aid kit, which he’s never seen used and which definitely doesn’t have, like, a blood transfusion in it, also might not help with that, but it is what Pryce has on hand at the moment. And as long as he’s already actively lied to the cops tonight. He may as well go all the way and also not call an ambulance, he guesses. He turns and scurries to Mr. Nguyen’s office to grab the kit.

Pryce’s throat is tacky with somebody else’s blood, because the hand the man used to halfway choke Pryce out was covered in blood. That’s not a very helpful thought either but it’s hard to make this one go away.

Whoever this guy is, he’s—quite strong. Pryce’s throat feels—well, like it’s going to bruise, for one thing. And the long moment of kicking his feet against the wall without being able to touch the ground was—well. A headrush, certainly. Presumably in an hour when he’s no longer entirely made out of adrenaline he will realize that it was a bad headrush and will have a panic attack or something.

At the moment it feels—he isn’t sure. Good. Exciting. And panicking would not be productive right now so he’s gonna ride this high as long as he can in the hopes that it will make him in any way useful to anyone.

The first aid kit is smaller than he remembers it being.

Pryce almost slips in the spreading puddle of blood when he gets back to the counter. The bleeding man is trying to sit up, which does not seem like a great idea.

“Uh—don’t try to move around,” Pryce says, trying to sound like he has any fucking idea what he’s talking about. “Is it—okay, yeah, let me—” The man’s big scarred hand is pressed against his stomach, just below and to the right of his navel. Pryce takes his wrist, trying to be both gentle and authoritative. “Let me see what we’re—”

As he’s pushing the man’s hand aside, something catches Pryce’s eye—something on the man’s wrist, underneath the blood, and he stops.

There’s a barcode on the man’s wrist.

Pryce stares at it.

Pryce’s brain is never not moving, faster than other peoples’ seem to; he has the impression it makes him an exhausting conversationalist but it does, in this case, allow him to scroll through many thoughts without losing too much time. They are:

Barcode. Barcode on wrist. Barcode on wrist equals… pet??? This huge dude is a pet??? Why would cops be after a pet? A runaway? No, not with their guns out, they wouldn’t shoot a pet somebody wanted back, that’d be like throwing away—Jesus pets are so expensive, why would anybody bring one here, why would anybody let one get so fucked, why would anybody let something so expensive get so hurt—

And then the man shifts uncomfortably and looks up at Pryce—his eyes are brown, though warm and light enough he isn’t surprised he thought they were orange, and one of them droops halfway closed, the eyelid clearly too damaged to lift properly—with clear uncertainty. Like he knows he needs help but doesn’t know if he can trust Pryce to give it.

It’s a human expression. That a human would make.

That’s a human person, Pryce thinks, and he shakes his head clear of everything else and pushes the bloody fabric of the man’s shirt aside so he can see the damage.

[ravenwingxx]

Hey! I decided to post an old fanfiction work I did, since I'm finally active on tumblr.

TW: FLASHBACKS, CHILD ABUSE, NIGHTMARES, basically Dave's home life aka bro.

Summary:

Dave isn't feeling very well, but he's too cool to admit it.

In which Dave has a a shitty dream and wants to suffer alone, but Karkat won't let him and they end up eating popcorn and watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S together.

Takes place 8 months into the meteor trip, and Dave and Karkat are still on the I hate you but you're really cool to hang out with side.

You could hear footsteps downstairs. They were quiet, very quiet, but the small shuffling of feet or squeak of a smuppet alerted you that he was home. The fact that you knew he was home at all meant he wanted you to, Bro never was this loud for no reason. You knew the reason. He hadn't been home for weeks, out on another one of his random DJ puppet trips or whatever. You relished in that time, letting your sore muscles relax. When he was away it meant no more strifing for at least 5 days, letting fresh wounds heal instead of breaking them open every morning over and over again. It meant you could go downstairs for water without worrying about waking him up or being dragged up onto the roof. It meant you didn't have to starve, you could go out every night for food and not be yelled at or punched for leaving without permission he would have never gave you. During those times were when you had the right mind to wonder, maybe he just wanted to see you dead already. Or maybe, your head would snarl back, he wants you to have a long, drawn out, painful life so that your death will be more enjoyable. 

When he was home, however, after one of his long disappearances, there was a 100% probability he would strife you sooner or later. He was always harder on you when he hadn't hurt you for a while. Maybe beating children into the ground was a hobby, or some sort of sick joke. 

Lost in thought, you hadn't noticed that the sounds had suddenly diminished. That's definitely the only reason why a loud noise against your door suddenly had you still, your breath catching in your throat. You could feel your stomach roll over on itself like it was trying to do a shitty front flip, and your heart was trying to join in. That was the sound that initiated a strife. He was probably already on the roof waiting for you. If you took longer than five minutes he'd surely break a bone or two. Maybe three. No matter what, though, your room was always a safe haven. The rest of the house was fair hunting grounds. 

You shudder, pulling at the neck of your t-shirt and rolling off your bed and onto your shaky feet. You probably shouldn't waste any more time being a baby. It's stupid to be scared, you remind yourself. Bro is cool, swords are cool, strifing is cool. Striders don't do uncool. They also don't do scared. So you straighten your shades, pushing them up your nose and captchaloging your sword from above your bed. Evening light shines through your window. Didn't Bro get back late afternoon? Has it already been that long?

You stop dwelling and open your door, flinching at the tiniest of creaks it makes. As you sneak quietly into the living room, you make a mental note to be more careful next time. You gently move aside some smuppets sitting in a small pile by the doorway to the roof, and step over a trashed numchuck. To your dismay, Cal isn't on his usual place on the kitchen counter. That means he's with Bro, and that also means he'll be joining the strife.

Not that there's anything wrong with Cal, of course. He's just a bit unsettling is all. 

You climb the stairs. Your internal clock says it's been about two minutes, you're really slacking this time. Bro is probably gonna tease you for being too lazy or something. You hope he won't notice the way sweat already drips down your neck, or your shaking hands. 

Your heart climbs into your throat when you reach the last step, sword held tightly with both hands. Opening the door with the tip of it, you step onto the hot pavement. You're lucky you left your shoes on earlier today after school, or your feet would probably burn again.  It's hard to count the amount of times you were dumb and ended up getting hurt by it. 

You finally stop looking at your feet and glance up, seeing what you had anticipated. Your Bro is standing there in all his ironically cool glory, his sword held lazily in one hand and Cal in the other. You copy his emotionless expression, breathing through your nose. It feels like someone filled your lungs with fuzz, making it hard to breathe. That always seems to happen when you strife. 

You tense when he moves, slinging Cal over his shoulders and easily shifting his sword into position. You push one foot back behind the other without willing yourself too, your body trained for this. Autopilot clicks on as you stare at your Bro, waiting to see who will make the first strike. He doesn't move. It looks like it's your turn, it almost always is. No matter how much it makes you wanna puke. He probably knows this, so he's forcing you to go first to make you stronger. You're terrified of what would happen if  you didn't go first when he wanted you too. He'd probably throw you off the roof and abandon your body for the crows. 

This reality is suddenly all too plausible once you've realized that you hesitated for far too long. His lip curls up in what looks like distaste, and you scream at yourself in your head. You gasp as he's suddenly next to you, his shadow unable to keep up. You can't either, it seems, because in the next second he's pushed you to the ground with the blunt of his sword. You can feel skin scrape off of your hands and elbows as you quickly push yourself up, rolling out of the way of a second attack. Your on your feet again and you flashstep behind him and don't hesitate to swing your sword. Hesitation means death. 

To your dismay, your sword hits thin air and you mutter a curse under your breath. You left your back open. You made a bad move, and now your gonna be forced to pay the consequences. You have no time to react when a foot slams into your back, and you land on your hip. You hiss in pain, but at least you fell properly. You raise your sword to block another attack, the impact vibrating up your arm and into your skull. When he moves his sword, it gives you enough time to flashstep again, this time aiming for his side. 

Again, he gives you no openings and is there to parry your attack and push forwards towards you faster than what you can deal with. His sword strikes again, and you just barely dodge a serious hit as the blade grazes your arm and easily slicing the sleeve and skin.  You can feel his accusing gaze bore into you as you stumble a bit, trying to regain yourself. You send a strike at him, but as you do so his face twists up in what seems to be annoyance and he drops his sword, grabbing your wrist roughly with his fingers.

You gasp in surprise, biting down on your tongue as he pulls you forward and kicks you with his foot. You stumble and fall, trying to scramble out of his way. He's really pissed. You probably spaced out one too many times, or did something you shouldn't have. Your performance wasn't at all top notch today, either. 

Your scramble attempt is futile, and his foot connects harshly with your side. Another one lands itself on your back. He kicks you back each time you try to get up or move, and your body is throbbing by the time your back hits the wall and you know your probably going to be skipping school and forging absent notes for the next couple of days. 

Bro leans down and grabs your throat, and you weakly try to push his hand off to no avail. He looks angry. He drags your body up and you gag, trying to force air through your lungs. Your sword had been abandoned quite some time ago after Bro had made it clear trying to block his kicks with it was fruitless. 

"Worthless brat." you go still at the sound of his voice, looking at him desperately. "You're weak, pathetic. I'm ashamed to be even trying to train you at this point, you hit like a fucking toddler." His voice sounds steady and emotionless, like always, despite the look on his face. His hand tightens around your throat. Is this it, is he finally gonna kill you? 

When you're unable to respond, he scoffs at you and drops your throat, letting you crumple to the ground and wheeze. He flickers, his sword suddenly in his hands.  His next words feel like salt is being rubbed into your gaping wounds. 

"Just fucking die already."  He raises his sword, and you squeeze your eyes shut. This is it, the day your Bro finally fucking kills you. You'll never be able to say goodbye to John, or Rose, or even Jade. Oh god, Jade. You wonder what she's gonna think when your dead. Will she miss you? Your mind comes up with a blank as the sword is driven toward your chest, and a blank white noise fills your ears. You think you hear someone hastily scream. This is the day you finally leave this hell hole, this is the day you-

This is the day you wake up.

You gasp, flailing around in your blankets. Your clothes cling to your skin, drenching them in sweat. You can feel your heart pounding in your chest, threatening to break the skin and leave you. You curl in on yourself, holding back shaky sobs and clenching your fists around your blankets, trying and failing not to freak out. It was just a dream, it was just a dream, it was just a dream. You're safe, on the meteor, with your sister and her girlfriend and your friends and Bro is dead and you'll be fine. You'll definitely be fine. No more strifing, no more blood, no more death, and certainty no more pain.

You try to breathe again, your breath shaking as badly as your body. You can feel more tears slip down onto your already wet cheeks, and you grit your teeth. You run through a few mandatory breathing exercises to calm yourself down. Those were something you adapted around eight months ago on LoHaC, out of desperation. They help, sometimes.

You spend jegus knows how long laying there, running through pathetic breathing exercises and wiping an embarrassing amount of tears from your face until you finally get your shaking under control. When you finally  feel like death isn't fast approaching and ready to haul your ass off to who knows where, you reach out and pat your desk down until your hand comes in contact with the cold metal of your phone. You bring it to your face and check the time, squinting. It's 2:09 am in meteor central time.

You gently nudge the phone back onto the desk and swap it out for your shades, slipping them on. You take a moment to enjoy the familiar feeling of the plastic pressing against the bridge of your nose before removing the sheet from your body. You could really use some water right now, your mouth is close to rivaling the fucking Atacama Desert. 

Shaking your head to clear your thoughts, you slip out of bed and sneak to your door. This is reminding you all too much of your dream. The silence feels suffocating. You try not cringe at the way your door creaks as you push it open, or the way your bare feet carelessly shuffle on the ground. Trying to be quiet will only make your fear worse. 

You spend the next 10 minutes or so walking down the halls of the dark, empty meteor searching for the kitchen. No one is awake at this time. It's probably only you. You eventually spot the familiar doorway leading to the kitchen. The art around it is...interesting. In a fit of boredom Rose and Kanaya had spent three hours painting flowers and eldritch tentacle monsters around the kitchen's outer walls, and they did a pretty good job. Kanaya even added a little Rainbow Drinker in the bottom biting someone's neck. It's a tad bit disturbing how those girls' minds work. Even Vriska is tamer than them when it comes to certain things, and that's saying something. 

You reach up into a cabinet and grab a large, teal blue plastic cup. It's one of Terezi's. You turn on the faucet and hold the cup under it, spacing out slightly as the water line slowly rises. The dream you had...you don't want to dwell on it. Mainly because you can actually remember it. You remember the day you were 11, and your Bro had just gotten back home. You went up to the roof for a strife and it was the first time ever that you didn't strike first when it was obvious you should have. He didn't actually kill you after that, you're pretty sure the dream went a bit wild after he choked you, but the wounds he inflicted that day kept you home for two weeks. Your dream was generous in sparing most of the gory details of what went down during that strife. Maybe death would have been an easier way out for little Dave. Not this Dave though. In a way, you're really glad to be here. Things finally look like they're taking a turn for the bright side, and now the meteor is hurtling towards a universe you know very little about. You can only hope everyone makes it out alive.

"Dave?" A scratchy voice coming from behind you snaps you out of your thoughts. You realize you'd been standing there with the water rushing down the side of your cup for quite some time now. You quickly shut the water off and tip your cup, letting some of it rush down the drain. You turn to see an all too familiar troll face staring back at you. "Dave, what in the actual living fuck are you doing awake at *this* hour?"

You take a quick sip of your water so you don't sound like Karkat as you respond, annoyed at your dry throat. "I could ask the same, mister grumpy pants." Karkat doesn't look very good. He has a blanket clutched in one hand to keep himself warm in his early morning trek across a comet, and he's itching at red puffy eyes with his other. He looks like he hasn't slept for days. "You don't look the pinnacle of perfect health either, y'know."

A  familiar scowl etches it's way into Karkat's features. Ah, there it is. The infamous Vantas scowl, rearing it's head once again. It really can't seem to stay away. You think it likes you.

"Answer the fucking question, Strider." Karkat crosses his arms over his small chest, the blanket going along for the ride. He bares his teeth and leans against the door frame, his eyes locked on your shades. "I am not in the mood to deal with your elusive, blubbering human bullshit and I'd rather get this unfortunate tragedy right to the point and move on with my pathetic life." 

You try to hide a snicker, smirking back at him. You love the way Karkat gets 'angry' over the tiniest of things. It's easy to get caught in silly disputes with him and forget your problems. "A man needs his brooding time, Vantas. Can't you tell? Is brooding not a thing trolls do?" 

He huffs at you, rolling his eyes and snapping back right on time. "I'd rather not spend the next two years and four months on this meteor waiting for you to stop being so goddamn ridiculous and cagey. What the withering maggotbeast is up with you? You look worse than me and that's saying something, shit stack." 

You shrug, taking another large sip of your water. Your dry throat is feeling a little less dry now, thankfully. No point in trying to fuck with him, your still a little shaken up from all that happened a bit earlier. "Couldn't sleep. Gotta problem, Kitkat?"

His scowl doesn't disappear, but it visibly lessens. "Oh." He bites his lip, looking away as if almost embarrassed. "Yeah, uh, me neither." His body seems to tense and untense, like he's afraid of you judging. Oh shit.

"How long have you been awake?" You tilt your head at him, genuinely curious. 

"Three days." He grumbles back, his voice seeming to drop in volume each time he speaks. You try not to be surprised. You've been hit with bouts of insomnia before, but you've never had it that bad. Sure, you would get an hour of sleep one night and only a few more the next, but you don't think you could handle staying up for three days straight. You feel a small ping of pity, but obviously don't let it show. 

"Well," you start out, chugging the rest of your water quickly and tossing the cup in the sink. "What were you planning on doing?

He narrows his eyes at you, suspicious. "Why in the name of Gog would you give a single flipping fuck about where I'm sticking my nasty ass bulge? Don't humans know how to mind their own business?" 

You huff at him, feigning an offending look and putting your hand on your chest. You stick your bottom lip out for extra measure. "I'm hurt, Karkles. You won't even let a fellow bro know what's crackin? What your getting up to in the empty halls of a meteor at the ass crack of hypothetical morning?"

He curls his lip at you, glaring. "It's not like it's any of your business, Strider, but if your so desperate to know what an obviously far superior person to you in every way is doing, I'm going to watch a goddamn movie or maybe binge a season or two of some show." he hesitates, before going a light shade of red and mumbling. "I suppose you wouldn't wanna join? I came to the kitchen to get popcorn."

You blink in surprise. You didn't at all expect him to offer you to join him, but now that you think of it...why not? It's likely you won't be going back to sleep any time soon, and scrolling through your phone for the entire morning is all kinds of boring. So you shrug, letting a small smirk slip onto your lips. "Sure, why not?"

He tries to feign his surprise as fake and scowls at you, his nose wrinkling up. "As expected, Strider. Can you grab the popcorn?" 

You oblige, searching the disorganized shelf for the alchemized popcorn and pulling out two bags. You turn and toss them to Karkat, who is now standing by the microwave. You hold back a good intended snicker when he fails to catch one of the packets and bends down to pick it up, glaring at you as he does so. "Fuck off Strider, not everyone has perfect fucking balance like you."

"Are you calling me perfect?"

"NO you ass for brains retard!" He curls his lip in anger and throws a packet into the microwave, hitting the two minute button. "Just TRY not to make anymore stupid noises come out of your food flap until AFTER the movie, hear me?"

"Gotcha."

You both make minimal chat while the popcorn pops, and once both bags are done you argue for 3 minutes over if you should combine the bags or let each of you have one. You both eventually come to a begrudging agreement of pouring both bags into one large bowl. While walking down the hallway you both get into another argument over who carries the popcorn bowl, and you almost die laughing over the silliness of it all. By the time you've reached his room, where you both will be watching shit together, you're almost certain that you've left a trail of popcorn from the kitchen to his bed from pulling the bowl back and forth. Despite all the half-hearted bickering, the two of you are smiling and playfully pushing each other by the time you sit down.

Karkat pulls his husktop onto his lap and scrolls through a large list of downloaded movies and shows. "How about 10 Things I Hate About You? I've already watched it and it seems like the flaming pile of trash that is that movie has an endless pile of things I can make fun of it for." He seems genuinely serious and focused. This makes you smirk. 

"A rom-com dude? Really? How about we watch that sitcom? Uh, friends or some shit. John forced me to watch it once and I got weirdly attached so maybe we can..." you trail off as you see the look he's giving you. It's like 'holy shit' 'are you kidding me' and 'what the fuck' all had a deformed baby together. "Uh..."

He interrupts you, a small excited clicking coming from the back of his throat. "Strider why the hell did you not tell me your taste in shows was spot fucking on? That show is the only true master piece of humanity. The only thing that could make it better were if it was a troll show, Dave. That's saying shit, too, you'd have to search far and wide for a compliment to your lame ass society you call humanity." 

You roll your eyes, nudging his shoulder with yours. "Just play the thing already, Karkles."

He hisses at you and finds it in his overwhelmingly large collection of human and troll movies. "Here. Found it."

"Good now you click on it like that and you see the button that says play? Click on that."

"I know how to operate my own husktop!" he nudges you back with his shoulder harder than you did, and you complain as the episode loads. You try to talk when it starts, but he shushes you and mutters. "Just watch the fucking episode, Strider."

So you do. The two of watch episodes of F.R.I.E.N.D.S, your popcorn bowl slowly diminishing. Halfway through episode 7, you feel your eyes start to droop. You rest your head on Karkat's shoulder, tuning the movie out and dozing off. 

When you first got on this meteor trip, you hated it. You hated the thought of being cooped up with your crazy annoying sister who, despite her good intents, always seemed to annoy you. You hated being stuck with two annoying, snarky trolls, a now ex, and a murderer.  Not to mention Rose's girlfriend. You felt alone and scared and you still weren't over what happened to you, both in Sburb and within the walls of your own fucked up 'home.' Hell, you're sure you'll never be over it, but still...Sitting here, watching a stupid show with someone you were bound determined was trying to piss you off and make you snap every single time you saw him for the first few months makes a guy think.

And you've thought. You're certain now, that maybe this won't be the hell it's made out to be. You're not strong, you're a pathetic weak mess who doesn't want to accept the pity you know others will give. You're still only 14 but you feel so, so much older. Maybe, though, just maybe, you can become stronger by accepting this, and fighting back for once in your stupidly short life. Hell, you've already died a billion times over. You've seen friends die a billion times over, too. 

So, as you doze off on the shoulder of a certain shouty and surprisingly cute troll, a small smile slips onto your lips and the world spins madly on. 

[tessacxstello]

hello im (F, 24) an idiot and forgot to post tessa’s (F, 22, fictional) intro!

pls bare in mind most of this was written 5+ years ago n i haven’t written tessa since 2015...... but lets get this show (LOCKWOODRP) on the road (DASHBOARD). 

tw school shooting, tw bipolar disorder

art hoe. always covered in paint. why?? she bad at painting

the mark rothko jackson pollock kind of bad tho wher people are like.... omg.... revolutionary..... its a badly drawn vagina

fuckin loves astrology, but cant take it that seriously bcos one of her bfs was a gemini so there’s some lenience there. but she WILL blame her hormones and mood swings on the positon of mars

embodies pure sunshine. 

one of those really annoying people that can go through the most traumatic shit and still find a positive spin. 

cares so much for others but does not really care for herself n it’s meant she just bottles up all this shit n when someone asks her how her day has gone she just falls on the ground like tht bit in midsommar when florence does that loud wheezy noise and sits down 

has never really had much money at all. learns to make-do with what she has. loves upcycling!! her bookshelf is made from cardboard which she’s reinforced by pappering it over with pages ripped out of thrifted books. her sofa is an old car boot which she’s repainted, put on wheels and stuffed w cushions so that it’s actually bearable to sit on.

her knitted cardigan? its made out of wife material.

knits all the time. will crochet you a christmas scarf. if ur lucky you might get a knitted jumper with a penis in a santa hat

still sleeps with cuddly toys n then wonders why ppl dont think she’s mature enough for a serious relationship

very passionate about Sister Doing It For THemselves!! raised by a single mom who worked her ass off so that tessa could do fun activities after school, have lelli kelly shoes, and go to college (not necessarily in tht order of importance)

tessa was born out of wedlock as the result of an affair between her mom (a journalism intern in her early 20s) and a new york times editor. 

the editor offered to pay tessa’s mom off to have an abortion, but she was like fuck u and told the papers he’d done that and used the money to cover the cost of her internship which they refused to pay her for

and because of the scandal, he ended up going through a pretty messy divorce with his wife, and losing custody of his kids. so as a child  tessa was seen as the cause of a divorce and received mutliple letters from the editors wife (to tessa personally!) and his kids saying how she had ruined everything, but her mom moved them to another town so tessa didn’t have to deal with that crap. 

her mom worked 3 jobs to put her through school, so in return tessa pushes herself incredibly hard to succeed. needs a break and a hug and to get laid to be honest. 

an old soul. likes old films, old music, old people. only recently got an iphone 5s so not really with this century yet

very sweet and soft and kind but also a fucking mess and won’t listen to anyone else’s opinion. she’ll take comfort, but not advice. 

feminist buddhist bisexual vegetarian for human rights and animal welfare. standing on a soapbox shouting about the climate in the quad, shoving flyers into your hands. flyers everwhere. she turns up at your grandmas funeral and shoves one into her mouth. she’s stolen the mic from the vicar to talk about pandas.

says “mother of pearl” and “heavens to betsy”.

had an affair with her married piano teacher and he’s now facing a custody battle and his wife is leaving him and tessa has completely internalised that guilt despite her being the victim in the scenario

aesthetics: paint splattered jeans, loose curls spilling from a scrunchie, thrifted blouses in bright yellow, guzzling coffee in the library at three am when a term paper’s due, shoddily illustrated campaign posters to save endangered species, polaroids plastered to your bedroom walls with scribbled dates on the frames, jumping into a stack of autumn leaves, jumping off piers in the summer months and stripping off your wet clothes on the beach, digging your thumbs into peaches to leave a bruise, smoking with the extractor fan on to hide the smell, bath bombs, letting the girls at lush rub samples all over your skin, cacti with knitted bobble hats, decorative pillows and sun and moon blanket throws, basic bitch fairy lights hanging from every single window, painting the name of the boys you’ve loved inside your wardrobe door.

studies fine art and philosophy, and wants to become either a lecturer or the first woman president. vibe wise, very similar to leslie knope, missy from big mouth, and basically the naive everygirl with a high opinion of themselves trope

gets drunk off like one double vodka lemonade because she’s small and she’s a pretty messy wild drunk. it’s when slutty tessa comes out, and the next day she’ll thoroughly regret every choice made and decide she’s never drinking again and cutting out all men and starting daily sudoko

on the cheerleading team and is a flyer, which she sees as a HUGE responsibility and she works really hard to make sure she’s on it for her team. one of those get up at 7am and go to the gym before school types its sickening

she had a really traumatic time at high school because there was a shooting in her school. she was in the next classroom when it happened, and she lost one of her friends in the shooting. she had to take two months off school, was diagnosed with depression and put on anti-depressants because of it. in her 2nd year of uni she was rediagnosed with bipolar disorder and anxiety, which she’s now on medication for. she can be really good for several months at a time and feel super creative and determined (she actually finds manic periods helpful for her creativity n art, n sadly sometimes doesn’t take her meds in these periods to push herself more which is obvs super bad.....). but when the bad periods come they can also last months n she had to take a semester out of school last year because of her mood, so she should be a senior by now but she’s retaking junior year

she attends weekly stress-management sessions prescribed by her doctor which she finds pointless.

very childish in the sense that she can only see her own point of view and kind of views herself as the “protagonist” and thinks her ideas are super important and life changing and she IS Destined for Greatness! despite being pretty much average af

pinterest board.

STATS

age: 22

height: 5'2"

positive traits: kind-hearted, gregarious, selfless, philosophical, open minded, idealistic, courageous, feisty, charismatic, loyal, adventurous.

negative traits: stubborn, hot-headed, reticent, escapist, self-destructive, easily led, naive, troubled, complicated, stepford smiler, envious, overdramatic, explosive.

distinguishing Marks: heart-shaped birthmark on the right of her chest, splattering of freckles across the cheeks during summer months, full lips, large eyes, porcelain features, long wavy hair, tattoo of a bird and a cage on her ankles and a basic bitch arrow tat on her wrist (srry to anyone with an arrow tat).

skills: jack-of-all-trades, talented pianist, perceptive, knows the correct way to throw a punch, good survival instinct, is able to remain calm in stressful situations, endures, artistic, excels in academic studies, hard-working and self-motivated, expert liar and talented actress.

likes: wolves, vintage thrift store fashion, old leather-bound books, left-wing democratic politics, cigarettes, poetry, John Hughes movies, cold coffee, hot tea, the sound of laughter, staying up til 4am having deep conversations, Tchaikovsky, having deep conversations about life, stationary, DC Comics, horoscopes, winged eyeliner, cats, knee-high socks, house music, abandoned buildings, studio ghibli, the smell of the earth after rain, Wes Anderson films, herbal tea, old people, solitude, esoteric things, the smell of freshly baked bread, Charles Bukowski, the moon.

fears: death, oblivion, global warming, losing those she loves, isolation, clowns, guns, enclosed spaces.

nicknames: Tess, T-Dog, Tessie, Socrates, Princess, Sunshine Girl, Florence Nightingale.

alignment: Neutral Good

MBTI type: INFP

BIOGRAPHY

tw school shooting

Her story begins with Cordelia Costello, a twenty-three year old college drop-out, turned beautician, turned columnist, turned intern at a local publishing company. She was a youthful, beautiful, siren of a women, always surrounded by an aura of enigma and an entourage of men. It was no surprise to the gossips in the office that within six months working at the company, Cordelia had added to her list another title – mistress to Franklin Hozier, the Editor of the New York Times. After two blissful months and three hundred and twenty seven orgasms, Cordelia decided she wanted a baby. Franklin laughed in her face. Feeling isolated and used, Cordelia continued her affair with her boss’ boss for another month, before deciding to take matters into her own hands.

It started with a turkey baster.

Soon the infant cries of a baby girl graced the world, her wrinkled skin puckered and pink as her mother held her in her arms, glancing upon the most beautiful thing in her life. Once Tessa, named after Cordelia’s favourite literary heroine, entered the world, Franklin left her life and things took a turn for the better. Despite living in a rented one-bedroom apartment in Staten Island, on what little money Cordelia had saved, Tessa’s childhood years were filled with nothing but the happiest of memories. Times were tough, but what they lacked in money, the Costello’s made up in love. While Tessa was at school, Cordelia did odd jobs cleaning, child-minding, working in local nurseries, in order to save up enough money to give her daughter the best start in life.

Despite what she had been led to believe by television shows and teen movies, the first few years of High School were some of the best years of her life. Tessa threw herself into a multitude of activities that High School offered her, including the drama club, the orchestra, choir, badminton and the school newspaper. While she certainly wasn’t considered ‘popular’ at school, Tess had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. In fact, High School was a place where she made some of the greatest memories of her life, but come her final year, it was also a place where she was haunted by some of her worst.

On the January 17th of Tessa’s senior year of high school, a shooting took place in Westville High School. For two hours Tessa locked herself in a supply cupboard, her head between her knees as she tried to stay silent despite the screams of horror from the corridor. Eighteen students were caught in the crossfire, two of which were Tessa’s best friends. Bouquets of flowers, laminated photographs, Teddy Bears in cling-film bags attached to balloons littered the streets as families and friends came to pay tribute to the eighteen students withered before they had a chance to bloom.

It took two months of therapy before Tessa could return to school. Some of the survivors could never return due to the horrors that their eyes had laid witness to. Sometimes Tessa felt like a part of her had died with the friends that were stolen from her too soon, but one thought kept her going through: she had survived, she was alive and breathing, and she could not afford to loose a second of the precious time she had been granted on this earth. Despite the nightmares that continued to haunt her each night, Tessa found in the aftermath of the disaster a new sense of motivation. She began applying for scholarships for colleges without her mother’s knowledge, in the hope that her academic success would be enough to carry her through further education. Thankfully, it was, and after three torturous months of waiting Tess was offered an arts scholarship to her dream school, Lockwood University, where she hoped she could finally start to rebuild her life.

THE PRESENT:

Life at university was like a separate world. Students came and went like moths among the whisperings and the tequila and the stars. In this new world, Tessa was exposed for the first time in her life to alcohol, drugs, and the sexual appetites of other students her age – though she politely declined all three. Instead, Tessa threw herself into the vast array of activities in the hope that by distracting herself she could escape the terrible flashbacks that continued to haunt her. Tessa joined the lacrosse team, despite never having played before, and took up cheerleading discovering a new talent; she joined the musical theatre group, and the film club, and even set up her own acapella singing society. But despite how much she tried to throw herself into student life, her past hung around her like a bad smell, and with the added pressure of the Sinking Ships zine, Tess began to feel the weight of her secret tying her down like a pair of shackles around her wrists.

PERSONALITY:

If someone was to describe Tessa in a single word, it would most likely be ‘bubbly’, ‘open-minded’ or ‘sweet’. But they would be wrong – Tessa is not bubbly, or sweet, or stubborn, or hotheaded, or fiesty, or infectious, or any of the things the world see her as, but merely a numb and lonely echo of the gregarious, halcyon girl she once was. Tessa Costello was one of life’s enigmas. No one knew who she was, for to each person she met she wore a different mask – she dripped confidence, or was painfully shy; she was an exhibitionist, or a brooding wallflower; she took things too seriously, or not seriously at all. She was an actress and the world was her stage, each person she met a different member of the audience in the performance of her life. In truth, Tessa no longer even recognised herself. Insecure, and self-destructive, she tried to hang on to the extroverted, mischievous pieces of herself that everyone had once loved, but day by day it got harder to know what lay in the vacant holes blown through her mind. While she was stubborn and hot-headed, Tessa always saw the best in people, which meant that she was easily led astray. While she had grown up learning to be street smart and astute, she was idealistic and allowed silly fantasies to cloud her mind. By nature, she was passionate, which lead her to misimagine and romanticise those she met. Despite the hell she had witnessed, and the anxiety that feasted upon her, she believed that people were innately good and that to have courage and be kind could cure anyone of their sadness – yet she was unable to cure herself.

TWITTER:

@500daysoftessa: i blame disney films and musicals for my high expectations of men

@500daysoftessa: i am in love with the boy who works at starbucks. today i asked for a double latte and he gave me a tripple, which i think is proof that my love is requited. our children will be smart and talented and beautiful.

@500daysoftessa: little known historical fact: pharaohs were burried with their hands crossed over their chests because it was a popular belief there would be countless water slides in the after life.

[you-get-to-exhale-now-cyrus]

Jonah Beck & The Doors

Word Count: 1,870 TW: implied abuse, bruising A/N: i think i read a fic like this a while back somewhere, but i can’t remember?? anyways i’ve been thinking about jonah’s home life for a while, and i wanted to write a fic dedicated to it!! i hope you enjoy!

also this isn’t ship oriented, just good friends!

Monday mornings were never days that anyone looked forward to. Staying up late on a Sunday proved to be a bad choice, when you walked in looking like a twice-dead zombie.

Monday mornings were worse if you were Jonah Beck and you were walking in with a black eye and bruises down your right arm (his frisbee-throwing arm!). But nobody needed to know why he wasn’t looking like a ray of sunshine.

Just smile, he thought to himself, grinning as he entered the school, his head hung low, smile, and everything is going to be all right.

Before the bell for first period rang, Jonah shuffled to his locker and grabbed his books for Geometry, his least favorite class.

“Jonah, hey!” a familiar voice that could only be Andi called. She bounced over to him, pushing her bangs to the side.

Jonah grimaced; there was no way that he was getting out of this conversation without making eye contact.

Now or never, he thought to himself, picking up his head.

“Hey Andiman,” he greeted, tugging on his backpack straps with nervous energy as Andi sucked in the air that surrounded them.

“Jonah! Your eye...what happened?” she fretted, her soft brows eyes flooding with worry as she scanned his injuries.

“Oh, uh, I was at frisbee practice and I missed it completely!” he lied smoothly, smiling so hard his face was starting to hurt, “yeah, Gus threw it and I guess the sun was in my eyes because the next thing I know BAM!” he exclaimed, “frisbee to the face. I’ll be fine though,”

Andi seemed relieved with this answer, nodding her head. “Well, be careful out there. Put some ice on it to help the swelling,” she informed him, wincing at the shrill bell that signaled first period.

“I will, thanks. See you at lunch.” Jonah pivoted on his heel and hurried away, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. That went...surprisingly smoothly.

“And since these angles are equal, we can deduct that the shape is-”

“Pst!” Buffy whispered, tapping Jonah’s desk lightly, “do you have an extra pencil?”

Jonah nodded, digging through his bag and pulling out a few crumpled papers before handing Buffy a pencil.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, focusing her attention on the problem on the board. Why was geometry so boring? This class was definitely the one that seemed to drag on and on. After several more proofs, the bell rang and the students were never as happy as they were now.

“Remember to do the last few problems in the packet!” The teacher reminded his students, grabbing his eraser and clearing the board of any stray marks.

“Ugh, I don’t want tooo,” Jonah groaned, tilting his head up to face the light from the ceiling. Curse gravity for allowing his hood from his sweatshirt to fall. Curse the university for having Buffy standing right in front of him.

“Dude, your eye!” she gawked, taking a step closer and examining it like she was his doctor, “did you get in a fight?”

Something like that, he thought to himself, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. “No, I, uh, I actually got hurt playing frisbee. I ran to catch one and then tripped over a tree root, and fell,” he lied, curling his toes inside his sneakers. Was that what he had told Andi? He knew it had something to do with frisbee, but he wasn’t sure. Close enough.

“Yikes,” she commented, her brows furrowing, “well, make sure to put ice on that, or use some sort of concealer to make it look less...bad.” She then handed Jonah his now dull pencil and promptly turned to walk to class.

The athlete exhaled shakily, shuffling out of the classroom and back to his locker.

It seemed to get easier and easier to lie to people. Throughout the day, people had come up to him, asking him why he looked like he was beaten in a fight. And he would calmly explain that he hurt himself in frisbee practice, even throwing in a few jokes about him being clumsy in there. It seemed to please people, and by the end of the day, he even made a few ‘friends’, or rather close acquaintances, who had shared their stories about sports injuries.

Safe to say, Jonah was feeling a lot better by the time it was time to walk home. Until he realized what home meant, and his happy demeanor disappeared.

“Ready to go?” Cyrus chirped from his locker, holding his history book under one arm and having his bag slung over his opposing shoulder.

“Yeah,” he replied shakily, feeling his Adams apple wobble in his throat. He and Cyrus always walked home together, but today was different. He was terrified that Cyrus would give him one look and all his carefully constructed walls would come crumbling down. And he totally would have made it home without any issue were it not for Cyrus pointing out the fall foliage.

“Look, Jonah! Aren’t the maple leaves just gorgeous in the fall?” he gushed, a huge grin splitting his face.

Jonah peered up at the leaves, being basked by the golden sunlight. Squinting, he tried to make out the colors. “Yeah, they’re pretty nice,” he mumbled, his eyes trailing down the trunk of the tree until something obstructed his view; Cyrus was standing directly in front of him. Staring at him in the eyes. At the one that was bruised.

“Jonah,” he started softly, his eyebrows drawn up in concern, “what happened to your eye?”

Jonah tried to follow his routine that he had perfected at school. First step was to smile, but it was weaker, and faker, than before. Cyrus definitely noticed that. Bless his inner therapist.

“Dude, I totally fumbled at frisbee practice yesterday. Collided with one kid going for the frisbee and we just...clashed,” he lied, grinning so hard that it was starting to physically hurt.

Meeting Cyrus’ eyes, he knew it was over; Cyrus had that ‘look’ that meant he knew something was up, but he was going to wait until Jonah spilled. The Jewish boy wasn’t one to intrude.

“We didn’t have practice yesterday, Jonah,” Cyrus reminded him, “or else I would have been there to hand out snacks and things like that.”

It was definitely over at this point. No way Jonah was going to squeeze out of this situation.

“It-it’s nothing major really,” he lied again, his voice low along with his head. Trying to focus on all the fallen leaves on the ground was not helping; they just made him think of Cyrus and that damned face.

The two walked in uncomfortable silence for a bit, kicking at the brittle leaves under the soles of their shoes. Cyrus finally broke the silence as they pulled up to his driveway.

“I’d really like it if you came inside,” he offered kindly, “my parents definitely won’t mind, and I can text your mom and tell her you’re here,”

Jonah stared at him at first, blinking owlishly, until he softly nodded his head, ducking into Cyrus’ house.

“Mom! I’m home!” Cyrus called, but to no response, “she’s probably in a therapy session, but we can go to my room.” He led the other boy up the stairs, texting Mrs. Beck that he and Jonah were working on a school project, to which she replied ‘thank you for telling me’.

“So,” Cyrus began, ushering Jonah inside and motioning for him to take a seat on his beanbag, “I’m not going to force you to talk. We can just sit here until you’re ready,”

“Your inner therapist is jumping out,” Jonah joked weakly, his lips twitching into a gentle smile, “...I just-I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he admitted after a beat.

“In what sense?” Cyrus pried, crossing his legs, “hold on. Turn towards me, I wanna see your eye,”

Jonah chewed on his lip, biting down so hard that he threatened to draw blood. “Lately I’ve...I don’t even really know why but,” he paused, holding his breath for a few seconds. Now was not when he wanted to cry. He didn’t want to cry at all, but he hadn’t even said what happened.

“Take your time,” Cyrus assured him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He could feel Jonah tense at the touch, and immediately removed his hand. “Sorry,”

“It’s not your fault, I’m just...clumsy.” He picked the word with caution, his hand trailing up towards his bruised eye, tentatively gracing his skin.

“You’re one of the most athletically gifted people I know, Jonah. You’re not clumsy,” Cyrus promised him, tracing circles into his own palm.

“I...I walked into a door,” he managed to spit out, sucking in all the oxygen that surrounded him and Cyrus. How badly he wished he could have taken back his words. He really didn’t want Cyrus to worry about him.

Cyrus felt like he’d just been punched in the gut, all the air knocked out of him. Jonah, sweet and happy Jonah, was going through one of the worst situations imaginable. “How long have you been...walking into doors?”

Jonah sighed, leaning his head against Cyrus and taking in the comforting scent of his lemon shampoo. “I-I think...for a few months. The first one I walked into wasn’t bad; there wasn’t even bruising. But after that...I became more and more clumsy.” His voice cracked in the middle of his words, tears pushing against his lashes.

Another sickening feeling overtook Cyrus, who gingerly put an arm around Jonah. “Is this okay?” he asked, not wanting to overstep again. He could feel Jonah nod against his shoulder, and slowly rubbed his arm. Jonah winced, and Cyrus immediately stopped.

“I-ran into a really bad door the other day,” he admitted, rolling up his sleeves to reveal a few fading bruises, a few blue, the others yellow in color.

Cyrus swallowed thickly, examining Jonah’s bruises carefully, his dainty fingers brushing against his arm. “If-if you ever find yourself running into any more doors, you know you can always call me and sleepover,” he murmured, a sympathetic smile playing on his lips.

Jonah tried to smile back, but collapsed into Cyrus’ chest, his tears staining the other boy’s light blue shirt. And he wanted to stop so badly but that was beyond his control; he’d slipped into a world where he no longer held the reins.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Cyrus reassured him over and over, “It’s terrible what’s happening, and I’m so sorry, but things will be alright,”

Jonah didn’t know how long he stayed there, tangled in Cyrus arms and bawling his eyes out. It was relieving in a way; it definitely helped to be able to tell someone.

“Thanks,” he mumbled after a while, prying himself off of Cyrus, “for...helping me with these pesky doors,” he sighed, running his hands through his matted hair.

“Of course,” Cyrus replied immediately, a weak smile dancing on his lips, “and Jonah?”

“Yeah?“

“If you ever think you’re going to walk into a door again, your room is a place where you can’t do that. Try and find solidarity,”

Jonah beck smiled genuinely for the first time that day. Things were going to be okay.

tag list: @shortstackofpeaches || @seanna313 || @geekingbeautytx || @heavenlybyers || @ghostswasp || @wlwandimack || @giocondasstuff || @lemonboytyrus || @adorejrizzle || @swingsetboys || @ifellintotyrushell || @idk-dude-17 || @rbf-lesbian ||​ @marianara-sauce || @kaptainjinxz || @alex-poster-pizz

[thedogsled]

Coda 13x05: A Nurse, Stripper Barbie & A Bottle of Jack

This place was nicer than the usual kind of dive they stayed in. Sammy pulling out all the stops, no doubt; a hotel with twin beds and regular manual doors dressed up as something flashier, as though to show just how pointless a facade was when it was all a goddamn lie. It was a joke, really, his brother trying his best to make him feel good, stretching the limits of Dean’s ability to cope with any of it.

This wasn’t how he usually dealt with grief. He needed space. He needed to be alone. Maybe right now it didn’t feel like he’d ever be better, but when did it ever?

But this was different. Dean knew it. Nothing he did seemed to work. No amount of beer or junk food or time was getting Dean any closer to a feeling that soon the grief might come to an end. It felt neverending.

(tw for mention of suicide, also vague mention of strippers and body parts thus PG-13, unrequited Destiel and a BONUS CHRISTMAS SCENE)

Read on AO3 here and read my other codas here

Maybe it was his fault. He hadn’t even named it. He’d avoiding speaking it out loud for fear of making the feelings true. Every time he mentioned Cas it came on the back of something else, but it was what went unspoken which was tearing him up the most.

And Sam should know. Of anyone Sam should know. Dean kept expecting Sam to ask him, kept expecting Sam to make him confront it, because if Sam told him he loved Cas then Dean wouldn’t have to be the one to admit it; wouldn’t have to admit out loud that maybe he was into guys as well as girls.

God, he was so ashamed. But what was the point now? Cas was gone, and with him went any hope of Dean exploring that side of himself. Would he tell Castiel that he loved him if he saw him now? Would he be too ashamed, still, even in the face of death and parting?

It didn’t matter. Cas was never coming back. And part of Dean, the part he’d always hidden away, the part of him that was really the all of him…it went away too.

Dean could never be himself, and now Cas was gone why would he ever want to be? The world was empty and pointless without him.

In the bed opposite Sam snored loudly. Dean turned his attention away from the boring ass ceiling to look at his brother. Sam was trying so hard, damn him. He always tried so hard, and Dean knew he was only bringing him down. Maybe if Dean wasn’t in the picture Sam would have saved Mom already. That was what he and that shapeshifter Mia thought, wasn’t it? Dean was poison. He’d always been poison…

Poison that wasn’t getting a damn lick of sleep.

Dean sighed, sitting up, leaning across to dig in his bag. No extra bottle of Jack Daniels. Nothing in his flask – he’d already emptied it. Short of stabbing himself with the shot in his hunting bag, he had nothing on him that could possibly put him to sleep, quieten the thoughts in his head, or the last image he’d had of Castiel’s blue eyes before his grace burned the life out of them.

Sometimes when people experienced trauma they couldn’t put it out of their minds. Dean was like that, and he’d seen a lot of traumatic things. God only knew how many times he’d drawn Mary on fire as a child. John had been so traumatized by them in turn that making sure Dean didn’t have access to crayons was one of the few priorities he had in life.

He’d never really bothered learning to draw after that.

Sam snored and rolled over, exposing a slither of his spine as his t-shirt rolled up. Dean frowned at it. What was it Sam had suggested earlier? A strip club? Not perfect, but at least they sold alcohol. Better than lying here staring into oblivion stone cold sober.

He rolled out of bed, still fully dressed, and crept out.

-----

This was the worst Christmas ever.

Sam scowled, staring at the back of his brother’s shoes as they made their way into the strip joint. He kicked at the step as they went in, but almost ended up tripping over his own feet instead. It was anything but smooth.

“What’s wrong, Sam? How old are you, exactly? C’mon. Live a little.”

Sam glowered. To think he’d let Dean drag him away from face time with Eileen for this. He was – he thought – doing pretty decently at getting to know her, a real woman, but Dean wasn’t thinking about any of that. He cared, Sam knew, even ribbed him about it sometimes, but… Well, Dean was Dean. This was how he liked to have fun.

Not just the naked chicks part, oh no, but certainly the part where he got to watch Sam squirm as well. Sam expected it. Christmas or not, he knew his brother, and he could already tell that this was going to be some fresh kind of hell.

He wasn’t disappointed.

Her name was Yasmine--until it wasn’t. At about the one minute mark she admitted that in fact her name was Annabella-Louise. When Sam asked her why she’d chosen stripping, Dean admonished him, but Annabella-Louise smiled and said that she got that question all the time, before telling the sad story of how she’d dropped out of nursing school because it was too expensive to rent near the university.

Sam, bleeding heart that he was, spent the rest of the dance giving her ideas about where she could find a roommate, and not to give up on her dream when she was only a few credits away.

Well, it wasn’t like she was the only one who’d given up on her academic dream, was it?

Sam was barely even flustered by the time the dance was over, and Dean rolled his eyes.

“You really ruined that for me, man, you know that?”

“Ruined it for you?”

“Yeah. What a waste of thirty bucks. You suck, Sammy.”

-----

It was already late when Dean got to the club. Fortunately he made it just in time for happy hour, and arranged half a dozen half price drinks in front of him like a chorus line.

Half an hour later, the chorus line was a duet, and Dean was finally starting to feel numb enough to deal. He folded his arms on the bar and dropped his chin on top of them, staring at his empties, barely noticing as a woman swayed up to the bar to join him.

“Just a water, sugah.”

A hand fell on his shoulder, slight and feminine.

“You okay, darlin’? Hey…”

Dean lifted his head slowly, blinking up into the glittery blue eyeshadow of the woman who’d joined him. She was one of the dancers, no doubt, dressed in star spangled pink, white and red like Stripper Barbie. Her blonde hair was chalked with pink as well, and thrown back in tousled curls away from her face.

She was gorgeous. Dean just wished he was even vaguely interested. Right now the hurt in his chest, though dulled, was almost all he could comprehend.

“You hurtin’?”

“How can you tell?”

“Oh sugar, I can tell. You don’t do this job for long before you figure out how to tell if a guy’s hurtin’.”

Dean rubbed his mouth on his arm. “Sounds like psychic mojo to me.”

“Last thing anyone wants to be around here is psychic. But hey—“ she stroked his shoulder firmly. “Point is I can help with that.”

“You think.”

Stripper Barbie sighed. “Your hurt goes pretty deep, don’t it?”

“You don’t even know the half of it,” Dean answered, dryly.

“Doesn’t matter. I can take the edge off. C’mon. I’m on next. You can sit up front.”

Dean sighed, waving his hand, but the woman caught it, smiling, and tugged him to his feet. Dean cooperated miserably, following as she led him across the room.

When he dropped into the seat beside the stage, his two remaining beers miraculously reappeared in front of him.

“It’s Toni, by the way.”

“Tony’s a boy’s name.”

“Yeah, but it’s better than ‘Stripper Barbie’.”

Jesus, had he said that out loud? He didn’t remember speaking.

Toni-not-a-boy’s-name reappeared on stage to “American Woman” and the other patrons screeched and yelled as she strutted her stuff. Dean sat quiet, sedate, watching, and smiled when her attention unerringly came back in his direction.

She was gorgeous, but his heart was still broken. There was no getting away how empty he felt inside, and at this point Dean knew better that sex wasn't the answer. Sex wasn't going to fill this hole--maybe ever again.

Even death had to be better than this emptiness. If it came, he wouldn’t fight, but damn it, he wasn’t suicidal. He wasn’t. That implied he wanted to end himself, and Dean still strongly believed that wasn’t an option.

In the line of duty, though?

In the line of duty. That was the noble sacrifice. The only thing he knew.

Toni crouched down in front of him, wrapping her bra around his neck like a collar. She was right in his face for a moment, her breasts inches from his nose, but Dean watched only her blue eyes and felt sadder still, emptier still.

This had been a mistake. He’d always known it was a mistake, but now it just felt even more like one. It was too late to get away from it now, though. A group of four men at the nearest table who’d been hooting at Toni gravitated toward him when the dance ended. They had their work ties bound around their heads like they were all badly cosplaying the Karate Kid, but Dean discovered swiftly enough that they were guys who had ditched their high school reunion because it was too boring. After claiming to recognize him from their school days, they threw their arms around his shoulders and celebrated him as their hero.

Dean snapped his guard up, felt the façade of boisterous masculinity slot into place in order to survive in the wild. At some point he managed to pretend that he was having fun, even as Toni – in her new dominatrix outfit – writhed all over him in a dance paid for him by his new ‘friends’.

God knew when he drove home he was far from in his right mind, and the underground parking at the hotel almost put Dean and Baby out of their misery once and for all.

Thank God for valet parking. Thank God for Sam sleeping like the dead once in a while. Thank God for the bottle of Jack that Sam had hidden in his bag, presumably intending it as some kind of well-meaning gift to indulge his alcoholic brother.

And all along Dean knew - he knew - that he couldn't carry on like this. Their Dad had, and look what it had done to them--look what it had done to him. Just like it had taken dying for John to tell him that he was proud, Dean couldn't speak about his feelings either.

Not while it still mattered.

Not to the person who needed to hear it.

What a fucking joke.

[tedrithornetunes]

A song inspired by this short story I wrote for class (tw suffocation, claustrophobia, body horror, starvation, drugs, just a whole bunch of bad shit including literal shit ok): Sullatulla

THEY entered the dead city. Bones of unburied corpses were tucked under eaves and dense pines, safe from the rain that had ground the others to nothing. The air was thick with ghosts: fragile things like strands of egg in soup, fraying at the edges, forgetting. The ghosts drifted towards them, drawn like bees to rotten fruit.

THEY picked THEIR way between the peeling skins of houses, over sidewalks broken apart by patient winters; concrete glaciers in a muddy sea. Color had long ago washed from the ruined buildings, but here and there some garish remnant caught THEIR eye: a doll, with wide glass eyes and plastic hair more enduring than the hand of the child still clutching it; a crock pot that must have simmered and simmered til the power lines went cold; a dog collar, sans dog.

More and more of the misty wraiths clung in a swirling sphere around THEM, crushing close, tasting THEIR warmth. Craving it.

Ignoring the fog of almost-touches, THEY shuffled forward, feet numb in shoes full of water, driven more by momentum than any desire to move. Clumps of red hair drooped in front of THEIR eyes, dripping rain. If THEY didn’t find shelter soon, hypothermia would finish THEM off; then THEY’d be as cold as everyone else here.

Then the ground beneath THEM was just gone. A hole. THEIR heart forgot to follow THEM as THEY dropped, pitch-black hole, dirt and water pouring in. Crumbled bits of concrete. The rain seemed still, and each droplet reflected one face, open-mouth shut-throat, too shocked to scream. After a terrible moment of hanging in air THEY struck the earth below.

Breath. Sight. Thought. All took a moment to return to THEM, and in that moment THEY were steadily buried in mud. With the kind of strength and fury that only comes from fear of death, THEY dug and struggled, hands sinking into the soft dirt, crawling from beneath the suffocating weight inch by inch. THEY heaved a rusty breath and choked on mud.

Finding a metal bar with their fingers, THEY pulled. The soil gave a little, then with a wet pop like suction releasing, THEY lurched forward into the darkness.

Even ghosts were afraid to enter this place.

Coiling back--no. Cautiously turning the parts that could turn, one vertebra at a ow fuck not that one, pretending not to hear that grinding sound, looked back. The shaft, up and up and oh god that’s too high. If THEY’d landed on solid ground. If THEY’d twisted their body the wrong way. If, but somehow, not. The light seemed to sprinkle down with the rain, a childish beam that feigned innocence badly. The edge, tracing a broken shard of grey sky, crumbled slowly--a threat of more to come.

No way up. Too dangerous to stay.

THEY shook, less from cold than from the absoluteness. Half a worm wiggled helplessly on THEIR leg, curling around itself as if searching for its missing half. Me too, friend. The shaking turned to rising, half-sobbing laughter as THEY flicked the worm off with one finger.

 They moved carefully to avoid the jolts of pain. It took so long just to get a few feet of progress. A many-legged something skittered over THEIR hand as THEY traced the wall. Old sewage oozed by from somewhere; the smell brought up bile at first, but was eventually memorized, relegated to things known and ignored. At least it’s giving off some heat. No exits.

Hours yawned into days of feeling THEIR way through moldering funk, days that ran together like a slow river of ink. As THEIR injuries healed, further exploration became both easier and more frustrating. The network of tunnels was far more extensive than THEY had initially thought. Iron rungs leading upward were more rust than metal, and crumbled or snapped in THEIR hands.

THEY grew accustomed, familiar. There were three different systems here, comingling in a slapdash arrangement that spat in the eye of every code in the book. Cleaner water was carried in round arteries, lined with bricks and narrow pipe ends where runoff trickled in from above. Other tunnels, especially the deep ones, were of rough-hewn rock with rotting wood supports. The air of the mines tasted older, quieter, disturbed by every breath. By contrast, the sewers, woven around and through them, held the damp aromas of growth and decay.

Though warm enough now, and not lacking water, as time went on THEIR stomach twisted itself in empty, empty knots. THEY slipped into a haze, forgetting everything but the pain of hunger.

Senses sharpened to pinpoint every flutter of movement, and the category of “edible” quickly expanded. Beetles and spiders snatched up like popcorn, legs prickling THEIR lips. Strands of algae scraped from the walls. With rats THEY had little luck; the squeaks and paw-patterings were a constant, but the red-eyed rodents were quick and clever. Once, THEY snatched one up as it scurried over THEIR foot, and bit into it, heedless of hair or bone, with a hunger so urgent the creature was gone almost before it stopped twitching. Its blood left a trail through the layer of dirt on THEIR chin. THEY smiled for the first time since the fall, sank to the ground with a gasping sigh as if THEY’d been holding their breath, briefly content.

Time passed, and though THEY got better at catching rats, THEY were always, always hungry.

Time passed, and was meaningless in the dark. With no one to speak to, and a voice too burnt and hard to speak much anyway, THEY began to listen; THEY heard the quiet, lethargic rhythm of water, of strong, slow roots, of tiny creatures whose eyes, if they had eyes, had never seen daylight. As THEIR body grew thin, THEY felt that rhythm seep into THEIR marrow. THEY began to move like a wisp of fog, like something that had always been in this forgotten hole.

Searching for food at some point became more important than searching for a way out. Memories faded and became distant, irrelevant. Every so often THEY would spot THEIR reflection in the dim: cadaverous with thinning hair. Like a bog mummy. Every so often THEY would lose a tooth, and stare perplexed at its long, bloody root. THEY kept these teeth, afraid to lose any part of THEMSELF.

THEIR clothes rotted off THEIR body. THEY didn’t notice at first. Mud and shit look the same whether cloth or skin lies beneath it. But when THEIR shirt finally fell off, and disappeared into the water with a splash that cut through the silence, THEY were shocked for a moment…then gave a hoarse giggle as THEY realized what had happened. THEY waded into the stygian channel, and fished around blindly to retrieve the filthy rag, though without knowing what, if anything, it could be used for now. Knee-deep in waste, THEY refused to waste anything THEMSELF.

 Slowly, THEY became aware of a change, too vague to discern at first, but as THEY moved down one of the tunnels, THEY realized it was light. Filtered down through a weathered grate, perhaps? An…exit?

THEIR heart pumped painfully, weak and unaccustomed to excitement. THEY clutched the shirt-rag tied over their shoulders with bony fingers, tilting THEIR head hugely, THEIR whole body following the motion in almost a caricature of curiosity. THEY continued twisting until THEY were lying on THEIR back staring at the light upside-down, just staring, sunken eyes not comprehending. Minutes passed, and the light was still there. THEY flipped THEMSELF over and crawled toward it, cautiously.

It was not an exit. The tunnel opened onto a deep reservoir of fresh water, with many sources trickling in from above. A bridge crossed the center of the cylindrical room, and the outer rim had a narrow walkway as well. This walkway was lined with strange growths, like termite mounds or lumps of white coral. The growths in turn supported hundreds upon hundreds of tiny green mushrooms--delicate parasols that glowed faintly. If THEY hadn’t been living in total darkness for so long, THEY would never have seen the whisper of light the mushrooms cradled.

Hunger, having laid a long siege against THEIR dignity and common sense and conquered both, easily overtook all other thoughts. THEY approached without hesitation and grabbed mushrooms by the fistful, stuffing them into THEIR mouth so fast THEY barely had time to swallow. THEIR stomach, unused to such a large and sudden meal, revolted and sent it back up again. THEY ate the vomit, which was mostly just water and mushroom anyway, and slowed down enough to keep it down. Barely.

This continued until, by chance, they sliced their hand on the ridges of the coral mounds. The cut felt strange, as if heat or cold spread from it but THEY couldn’t tell which--then time began to dilate. THEY collapsed on the walkway, spasming, eyes darting over the ceiling which seemed to fragment into sharp geometry, like broken shards of stained glass. After an unknowable stretch of time, the hallucinations faded, and THEY returned to themselves to find that THEIR stomach was empty again. THEY returned to the mushrooms, carefully this time so as not to touch the coral mounds. Static danced in THEIR peripheral vision still. And something more…

THEY froze, as for the first time since the fall, THEY were suddenly not alone.

[doctor-sweet-blog]

Rock Bottom () [Stronglioness]

In which Nala goes searching for the truth.

@nala-calame

Further Reading: The Investigation Begins – Copper and Taka Liars and Loopholes – Taka and Rodmilla A Helpful Interrogation – Copper and Nala Truth is in the Eye of the Beholder -- Simba and Taka

[Dated July 15th]

[tw for talk of death/murder/detailed description of injuries/thoughts of suicide]

NALA: Nala needed to get a private audience with one Dr. Joshua Sweet. This posed a real big problem for Nala because of the following reasons:

1. She had finished her PT a couple of weeks ago and so she was not in the hospital nearly as much-- really,, she wasn’t at the hospital at all. She didn’t have any outstanding bills or reasons to come back, besides a few nurses who had become her friends.

2. Despite literally living three floors down from her apartment, Sweet kept odd hours and was never at home from what she could tell. In fact, he was always at the hospital, the very same hospital Nala didn’t have much of a reason to go to anymore.

3. She did have his number, but she didn’t think he was going to take her calls because--

4. Sweet hated her.

Ah, that last one really was the biggest complication of them all. The last time she’d seen the doctor had been a … mess. Before that, an even bigger mess, as she and Sweet rowed in the halls like two kids arguing on a playground. She’d felt awful just minutes after she’d walked away from that fight, had wanted to go apologize, but her stupid pride wasn’t going to let her. So no doubt, since Mr. Crowley’s death and everything that followed it, Sweet did not like Nala Calame and probably wasn’t going to help her break the law.

Oh yeah. Breaking the law. Should that go under number five?

Nala had to figure out a way around all these stupid complications, including her own pride, because there was no other way that she was going to get access to Simba’s medical records and get to the bottom of all the… strange, suspicious clues emerging surrounding Taka Lyons. Even going to Simba himself wouldn’t work; she knew Simba too well, and he would defend Taka to the death until he saw hard evidence that said otherwise. Not to mention speaking a word of the accident would turn him cold and hard before she got that far. So Sweet was the key, the only key that Nala had short of hiring a secret agent or donning a ski mask herself. She wasn’t there--yet.

So instead, Nala opted to… stalk Sweet. Lesser of two evils?

She contacted one of her better nurse friends, arranging a coffee date to “catch up.” Then, she slipped into conversation how much she wanted to apologize to Sweet. Make it up to him-- if only she knew when he was off his next shift. Then, when she had the hours in hand, Nala did what any normal, totally sane, not-desperate person did: she waited outside his apartment.

And when he came plodding up the stairs and saw her down the hall, Nala pushed off the wall and smiled at him.

“Er-- hullo! Do you, uh, have a second?”

SWEET: Sweet had been at the hospital for thirteen hours. He was exhausted, which was so normal for him he barely felt the tired, even though it lay heavy in his feet and in the center of his shoulder blades. That was where exhaustion was carried, but he felt it there so consistently, it was practically natural at this point. The shift had been decent. He’d been in surgery for five of the hours, an appendectomy, easy but at least it let him cut. And, besides, these days he wasn’t feeling as eager anyway, what with what had happened to Mr. Crowley.

Yeah, he was trying not to think about that. Though, apparently fate had other ideas.

As he climbed the stairs to his apartment floor and opened the door from the stairway, he felt like he’d run straight into a wall. That’s what determination felt like—what stubbornness felt like. It physically ground him to a halt. It was that, more than the surprise at seeing Nala camped outside his doorway, that had him pausing with his handle on the door, as if he was considering turning around and just walking away.

He wasn’t considering that, he was trying to tear down that blockade mentally so he could step across the threshold. It took him a few moments, maybe a handful of them, before he was able to break through and cross the hall towards her. He was too tired, and more tired still from that mental exercise, to greet her with a smile.

“Nala,” he said as he got close enough to speak to her without raising his voice and disturbing the neighbors. He went about putting his key in the lock without pause, knowing that resistance was futile. She was going to say her piece whether he liked it or not. He didn’t mind, for the record, he’d never begrudge hearing someone out.

He was just tired. He needed a tea and he needed to take off his shoes, in which his feet pounded.

“Come in, I was going to put the kettle on, and you can tell me what you need to tell me.” He was too tired to bother with covering up the fact that he knew she wanted something, and that she’d stop at nothing to get it. Worse case scenario he just had to lie (it was not much of a lie) and tell her it was written all over her face.

Turning the handle, he opened the door, walking in first but holding it for her, toeing off his shoes right there in the hallway as she scurried in. He closed it and motioned for her to take a seat at the island as he went about preparing the kettle for tea.

NALA: Sweet didn’t smile at her. Nala hadn’t expected him to. Still, he approached her with his drawn expression, his eyes heavy from a long day, she was sure, in the operating room or flitting through the hallways checking on his patients. She second-guessed her own strategy for a second. Maybe the hospital would have been the better place after all, maybe he would feel more open to talking, more willing to listen….

But even before the whole...Crowley debacle, she’d remembered the looks that he’d give her, spotting her in a patient’s room. They were half-amused, half-disapproving; Nala hadn’t taken them all that seriously at first. She didn’t see how her little visits could be such a problem. Wouldn’t it lift a patient’s spirits, make them stronger, more optimistic for surgery, to know they had people cheering them on?

But that was before Mr. Crowley. Now she knew. She had felt her own heart split, even though she’d not known the man for that long. Even now, thinking about Crowley in passing brought back a little of the pain, and the guilt, and everything else Nala had learned in her brief stays in the hospital.

Which was why she’d thought, hey, go to his home, don’t disturb him at work, show that she was keeping her nosy nose where it belonged-- uh, to an extent (ince of course, Nala wanted very badly to nose around the files that only Sweet could get access to). But was that the right choice? Was this mission doomed from the start?

Nala often felt hopeless tasks like that though-- she always tried anyway. So Nala took a deep breath and scurried into his apartment, glimpsing at the flag when she passed it. She already felt like an intruder, though maybe that was still her own guilt following on heel.

“Er, thanks. Promise it won’t take too long,” she said as she wandered toward his counter. She didn’t know if she should sit down, so she lingered there instead. She also didn’t know if she should apologize first or just leave it unsaid (what if he thought the apology wasn’t genuine considering she was about to ask a favour of him?)

Sweet bustled into the kitchen, Nala still standing there awkwardly. She bit down on the inside of her cheek. “Did you, er, have a good-- shift?”

Was small talk worse? Probably.

SWEET: Contrary to what Nala thought, Sweet was not mad at her. Not in so many words. Annoyed? Yes. But, the whole issue of Crowley was a sensitive one for him. He hadn’t lost many patients in his time at Swynlake General, so of course, they always hit him hard. There was this—magic—surrounding Swynlake, where, for all the mayhem that was caused, hardly any life was lost, not really. People here died of old age, they died of disease, or their own stupidity, or random accidents, but the magic? Freak storms and lucid dreams and time travel? They didn’t. Not really.

Which meant, that when people died of disease—or surgeries they didn’t necessarily need…yeah, Sweet was going to take it hard. Of course, he knew that if he rewound time, he wouldn’t do anything differently. He hated sitting around and watching people die, withering away and letting their bodies eat at them until there was nothing left. Crowley had a fight in him, he was brave, up until the very end and Sweet—he believed that Crowley wouldn’t have regretted it either. Maybe he wouldn’t have done it, if he had a chance to do it again, but Sweet didn’t think his, hopefully at rest, spirit regretted the decision.

Maybe Sweet just thought that to comfort himself.

And, hey, Nala had enough loathing and sadness about the whole situation for the both of them. She looked at him like he was the Grim Reaper, and it wasn’t that far off from the truth. For handful of lives he saved, one slipped through the cracks.

That was just the way of it.

Now, he went about the motions of making tea, those blisters, now a month or so old, scabbing off little by little as Nala’s frazzled nerves picked away at them.

Glancing over his shoulder at her question, he sighed before turning back to pulling the stash of tea bags from the cabinet. “Sit down,” he told her, not harshly, “I’m not going to bite.”

When the water had been placed on the stove, Sweet brought the bowl of tea bags over to the island and slid it over to her. “Work was fine, tiring. Didn’t kill anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.” He raised his eyebrows at her a little, quirking his mouth in what could almost be a smile. Gallows humor. A specialty of doctors.

NALA: If it was a joke, it was not funny. It was the opposite of funny.

She didn’t flinch, but she wanted to. Her heart pulsed in her chest, like it was an animal under the headlights. Is that what Sweet thought Nala thought of him? That he was a murderer?

She knew that their last meeting had been-- confusing and high-stress and her emotions had been frayed and she’d not been entirely herself. She’d said things she didn’t mean to say, things that she regretted even as they flew out of her mouth. There had been no taking them back. Now felt like the wrong time to take them back as well, so here they were, Sweet thinking that Nala thought he was a monster, and Nala thinking (no, now she was convinced) that Sweet hated her.

It was so uncomfortable, Nala wanted to wiggle out of her own skin. She hated people hating her. She also hated that Sweet thought she-- that she was capable of thinking--

“Of course not,” she said after that tense second. She dropped into the seat, her eyes darting away from Sweet’s toward the tea bags. She plucked one from the small bowl but didn’t put it in the hot water right away. No, she fiddled, feeling too many things at once right now. It was unusual for Nala not to know where she stood, not to know the right way to say something. She listened to her gut, but her gut was twisted.

Nala bit at her own lip then dropped the tea bag in the water, another second having floated by. She took a deeper breath and looked up at Sweet. And then she pushed away the rest, all that sordid history, all the things she wish she could say but couldn’t, not right now. She pushed away her guilt and her shame and her apology. She didn’t want it to be soiled by the rest of what she had to do here, tonight.

Nala was able to do all this because it was for Simba. That’s what she told herself. It was for Simba, Sarabi, InterPride-- it was for Mufasa, perhaps most of all. And she felt that now he was with her, and it helped her stay focused.

“I have a very big favour to ask,” she started. “And it’s a long story too. But I trust you and I think you can help me and my-- my family.” That’s what they were to her. Simba, Sarabi, Mufasa. Family. She’d do anything for them. “InterPride is trying to keep it quiet but you might have heard rumours by now that there’s an investigation. It’s on Taka Lyons, our CEO. Apparently there are funds missing, and the police has a reason to suspect criminal activity and all this has made me realize that--” she stopped, bit down on her own lip. It sounded insane even to Nala’s ears, but her heart was beating soundly.

“Three years ago, Mufasa was in an accident with his son. With everything going on, I have reason to believe that it wasn’t an accident. And the only way I’m going to know, for sure, is if you help me look at his and Simba’s hospital files.”

SWEET: Oops.

Sweet’s joke had obviously missed its mark. He really had just been teasing. It was one of the only ways to deal with the kinds of things that he had to deal with on a day to day basis. His grandfather had raised him to believe that death was a natural part of life—which was hard to remember when it was you who ripped the pancreas out of a man and let him bleed to death on your table. It didn’t feel very natural then. Sweet counteracted the guilt the only way people like him knew how—to laugh about it.

But, he should’ve realized that it would upset Nala. He’d forgotten for a moment that she wasn’t as hardened as the nurses and doctors at work. He had only seen her, really, in the framework of the hospital. All of his memories of her were from there—except the one where she’d sat across from him on that very stool. His wires had gotten a little crossed, and he felt bad, but he just took deep breaths as Nala’s emotions scatted apart like dropped marbles across a hardwood floor. She gathered them up, one by one until it was solid again, just one emotion in her chest.

Determination. And—a warmth, brighter than Sweet had ever felt coming from her, but it was the unmistakable warmth of love.

He smiled at her and his head tilted. “Of course not,” he agreed softly. And, he didn’t think that, not really. Of course she’d been shocked and angry. She didn’t understand. To her, he’d seemed reckless, and in the moment, it had hurt, the mistake too raw still. But, well, Sweet was a man who learned from his mistakes, and Mr. Crowley would unfortunately be added to that list.

Pushing thoughts of Crowley aside, he watched Nala intently ready to listen intently to what she had to say.

And, boy, was it something.

He had heard the rumors. There was no better place in town to get rumors than the hospital. And InterPride was huge, the biggest business in town, employing near two hundred people, if not more. There were nurses and doctors with family and friends who worked there. Rumors had been plentiful. And many had surrounded Taka Lyons. He’d never met the CEO himself, but he had heard things. Things that were hard to reconcile with Simba, who he’d always been fond of, who always was so genuine.

And, he’d heard about Mufasa’s accident. When he’d come to Swynlake, it was just a month after, and he’d been greeted by a hospital of mourning. Everything had felt muted and quiet, as if Mufasa had been a personal friend to every worker. Sweet felt his spirit sometimes still, when people spoke of him. There were not many with a presence that could evoke something like that in people.

To hear that he had possibly been murdered, well, though it was not Sweet’s place to feel it, the grief yawned wide anyways.

“Alright,” he said as soon as she had finished. He didn’t need to be told twice. He trusted Nala. And Sweet was, obviously, not above twisting the rules for the greater good. He was a doctor and a Magick, wasn’t he? Illegal on all accounts. What was one more illegal thing? And, if it proved a murder, well, it would only do good. And, if it proved that the car accident was just that—an accident, at least it would put Nala’s mind at rest. To him, there was no other option.

“You’ll have to meet me on my next shift, which isn’t for another two days. Three PM is when I should get off. Have the nurse on duty at the desk page me. Is there anything else that I should know? That you need?”

NALA: Nala really didn’t have any arguments prepared past Please. That was it, just one word. She knew that it was the right thing to do but she didn’t expect Sweet to understand. In fact, she expected Sweet to find her paranoid and crazy and honestly, she could be those things.

And she’d tried so hard to convince herself out of this. Ever since Copper had questioned her, she wrestled with her own instincts, the same ones that always screamed at her about Taka. She went through the same song and dance that she’d been going through for years. Look at everything he’s done for you and Sarabi and Simba. Look at how he stepped up. Look at the memorial he helped create. Look at all the projects he’s given you. Look look look.

And then her heart would snap back: But where was he before Mufasa died?

In the end, that was the kicker. For all of Nala’s life, Taka had been the colloquial thorn in the Lyons’ side, only Mufasa taking pity on him. Nala believed in second chances and she did think people could change, but it all felt too convenient. If she was wrong? The worst that happened was-- well, nothing. She was embarrassed, she wasted Sweet’s time, she apologized, she went back to beating herself up for what would just be her own prejudices.

But if she was right?

It was worth the gamble. It could mean giving Simba his life back and saving InterPride and avenging Mufasa all in one swoop. So yes, if Nala had to, she’d say please, and she’d find a way to put all of that into words.

Good thing she didn’t have to. Because it took one beat, and then Sweet agreed. Nala lit up, the surprise dancing across her face, though it quickly melted into joy.

“Really? I-- I mean-- thank you, thank you so much,” she nearly gushed, barely holding herself back. “I don’t think so, I-- is there anything you need from me?”

SWEET: Sweet didn’t need to feel the joy to see it on her face and know he’d done the right thing--but he felt it anyway, like a firework in his chest, and it made him smile back at her and he knew he wouldn’t hesitate to do this for her. It was for the greater good anyways--this wasn’t selfishly motivated on her part. She was trying to help her friends--her family.

“Discretion,” he told her simply. “As I’m sure you know, I am breaking several rules in order to accomplish this for you. I will text you when I am ready for you, so keep your phone near.”

With that, they finished their tea and Sweet showed Nala out, promising her that as soon as he got the chance, he was going to text her. They parted ways and Sweet showered and fell rather quickly asleep, no anxiety plaguing his thoughts as he drifted off. He’d been caught doing worse things before, after all, hadn’t he?

It was another three weeks before Sweet got the opportunity he’d been looking for. It would’ve been sooner, but Swynlake had other plans in the form of a nasty snow storm that had the Hospital running on backup generators for 72 hours. Not to mention the influx of patients with frostbite, hypothermia, and pneumonia that trickled in throughout the rest of the week. There was also a slew of bone breakage from people slipping on the ice, not in the proper attire for the weather. They had been short-staffed and stretched thin.

But, eventually he texted her: Meet me outside of the morgue. Ask for instructions from the woman at the desk. Tell her you are coming to identify the body of Joseph Order.

Then, he leaned against the wall near the bathrooms at the opposite end of the hallway from the morgue, a pair of intern scrubs tucked under his arm, and waited.

NALA: When Nala got the text from Sweet, a shiver had run up her spine, like another snowfall had hit the air and blasted through her lungs. It was a good kind of shiver though, not one of fear. No, Nala was excited.

She probably shouldn’t be excited.

She realized that, as she quickly rescheduled a meeting and cleared her afternoon for this jaunt into the bowels of the hospital. She was 26 years old and should have long ago outgrown her sneaking-around days. But it felt like primary, secondary-- even uni again. Like no time had passed at all from Simba calling her up on the phone with some kinda plan or another. Sure, usually their escapades were sorta silly, weren’t they? Sneaking into a party or spying on Mufasa. They’d never really done anything as illegal as what Nala was supposed to do.

She wanted to tell Simba so badly.

But she resisted. She knew that if she did that, Simba would be furious at the thought of Nala poking that nose of hers where it didn’t belong, and against his beloved uncle too. No, Nala had to get undeniable proof first so he couldn’t deny it and so he’d see exactly why Nala had to go with her stubborn gut. And it was with that mission in mind that Nala left work early, made a pitstop at her apartment to change clothes (couldn’t go on a covert mission in heels) and showed up at the hospital with her marching orders from Sweet.

“Oh, hey Nala!” chirped one of the nurses who was just coming around the bend. Nala smiled back and waved, but was glad that the nurse scurried on to wherever it was she was doing. She didn’t want any distractions and she didn’t want to be asked why she was here (she’d come briefly a few days ago just for a check-up following the snowstorm, but was cleared within a few hours; besides that, she and the hospital had become strangers again).

She started scurrying too, beelining her way to the counter. When she got there, she found the woman that Sweet had mentioned. It was showtime. Nala’s heart beat fast, but steady and strong. She wasn’t nervous; it was just that--that thrill. Maybe she wasn’t meant to outgrow it after all.

When she approached, she kept her face drawn, serious. “Er-- scuse me? Do you know where I’m supposed to go? I’m.. er, supposed to identify the body of Joseph Order.”

The woman nodded. “I’ll send someone to take you down.”

Nala didn’t have to wait long. Soon she was on her way, winding through the hallways to a part of the hospital she had never seen. She had to keep her eyes from lighting up when she saw Sweet waiting for her.  

SWEET: Sweet felt his heart tick up slightly at the sight of Nala, feeling her excitement in his chest. Typical. He really wasn’t surprised, which was why it was easy for him to keep his expression neutral as he pushed off the wall, keeping his arms crossed (the pair of scrubs tucked under his arm, hidden beneath his lab coat.) He smiled just slightly, a contained kind of smile, a smile of condolences.

“Oh! Hey, Dr. Sweet, what are you doing down here?” chirped Patrick, the nurse who had been guiding Nala.

“The grief counselor is not here yet, so, I’m going to be stay with--” he checked the clipboard in his freehand-- “Mrs. Order.”

“Right, I’ll leave you in good hands, then,” the nurse said, smiling at Nala and touching her elbow gently. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Sweet watched as the nurse walked away, before pulling the scrubs out from beneath his coat. “There’s a supply closet over there--you should change into these.” He tilted his head in the direction of the closet. “I’ll stand guard.”

And then, a little smile did twitch on his lips. When she disappeared, he leaned up casually against the wall again, though, no one came by. The morgue was dead--ha. People only came down here when they needed to. Otherwise, they avoided it.

The door opened and Sweet turned to Nala, smiling again and snorting a little at her in the scrubs. “Suits you,” he teased for a moment before sobering. “Alright, here’s the plan: the man in there is Manuel. Almost everyone calls him Manny. He’s a friendly bugger, so you shouldn’t have a problem getting him talking. These are the papers for Joseph Order. Say you’re just delivering them down from the OR for Dr. Tibbs. It’s a simple job--why we make the interns do it.” He raised his eyebrows. “Strike up a conversation and keep him talking.”

“I’ll come in a minute or so behind you and head for the paper files. They’re in a backroom. I looked up the records on the computer--but there wasn’t anything. Though, I remember back in December when Simba came in for his appendicitis, there had been a report from the accident. It said--there were drugs in his system, but the detailed toxicology report hadn’t been completed. I’m hoping the original paper files have the correct information because it shouldn’t be like that. No nurse leaves that blanket, and our toxicology printouts have exact measurements.”

He shook his head a little, brow furrowing, disturbed at the level of possible deceit and corruption within the hospital.

“You should leave before me, just wait outside. If anyone asks what you’re doing just tell them you’re waiting for me. They’ll believe you. Got it?”

NALA: Nala listened diligently to her instructions, nodding a few times-- almost bouncing on her toes. She knew not to do that, she didn’t want Sweet to think she wasn’t taking this seriously. She definitely was. To Nala, this might be the single most important thing she ever did, even if it was a glorified game of pretend. If it meant she was right, then a pair of these scrubs were going to go a very long way.

So she took those scrubs and ducked into the other room, wiggling out of her clothes and into her new disguise as quickly as she could. It was funny-- once a long, long time ago, when Nala was jsut a little girl, she’d thought about being a doctor. She’d had plenty of big dreams like that, every single one of them involving saving the world (at least, Nala liked to think so). She didn’t remember when those dreams had stopped, at what age, exactly, her daddy sat her down and told her of the great things InterPride could do, and how lucky she was to be a part of it.

Part of it. Nala had never been separate. Which was why this mission was her business, why she had a right to be down here, why she would not fail. So she rolled up her scrubs once (they were a smidge too long on her) and then slipped out of the room again, glancing toward the door. Her gaze snapped back to Sweet, more instructions tumbling out of his lips. She absorbed it all. Manuel-- Manny. Distract, schmooze, keep him talking, while Sweet found Simba and Mufasa’s files. It was a straightforward enough mission, as far as Nala was concerned. And she was good at her part, good at talking to people. Hopefully this Manny wouldn’t suspect a thing.

“Got it,” she said. “Good luck, Sweet-- not that you’ll need it, ‘m sure.” And then with a smile, she snatched the papers from his hand and sauntered her way to the door, shoulders back, chin lifted, confident confident confident.

She opened the door and Manuel looked up right away at her. Nala put on her sunny smile. “Hey Manny,” she said to him. “ ‘M just coming to deliver some papers.”

“Oh yeah-- is this Order?”

“Yeah. Tibbs sent them from the OR,” Nala recited her line perfectly. But she meandered a little, turning her head side to side like she was taking a tour of the place. “Y’know, this is my first time actually down in the morgue. It’s not as-- creepy as I thought it would be.”

Manny snorted at that. “Good to hear. You’ll be down here a lot more ‘fore you know it. A good place to come practice if you have the time-- you are one of the surgical interns, yeah? Tibbs, you said?”

Nala nodded. This reminded her of uni improv class-- she’d not been so shabby, though she was always at her best opposite Simba. “Yeah, he’s brilliant. Already learning a lot.”

Manny chuckled. “Bet you can’t wait to get cutting, eh?”

Nala had no idea what that meant. Cutting what? Into people? That’s probably what he meant if Nala was a surgical intern. “Oh yeah, you bet!” She said anyway, that grin of hers bigger than ever, though now her gears were spinning. She needed to turn the topic away from her. She could only bullshit for so long and she hadn’t even heard Sweet come in yet. Had he come in, and she’d just-- not noticed?  

SWEET: Sweet waited for Nala to bounce off and he did his best not to panic. He could potentially lose his job over this, but he trusted Nala to keep it together. It wouldn’t take him long, the files would be right next to each other--he just had to snatch them.

When the door shut behind her, he paced up and down the hall once before opening the door right as Manny asked Nala about cutting. Jesus. Maybe this was a terrible idea. But, he wasn’t too worried, Manny’s heart was beating a little fast as Nala turned her smile on him and Sweet knew it’d be fine.

“Hey Manny!” Sweet said with a bright smile and a wave. “Dr. Calame.” He nodded at Nala, knowing it’d be more suspicious not to acknowledge her. Manny might not be up on all the gossip, but everyone knew Sweet and Tibbs were connected at the hip.

“Oh! Hullo, Dr. Sweet. What can I do ya for?”

“Not much, just gotta grab a file. One of the nurses put it into the computer wrong when they imputed it a while back.” He shook his head with a playful roll of his eyes.

“Ah, you know where they are.”

“Thanks, Manny.” He nodded to the mortician before slipping away into the storage room.

He heard Manny lean in as he left, asking in a whisper: “What’s it like working with that guy?”

Sweet smirked. He was sure Nala would have an interesting answer to that.

The file cabinets were lined up in a row and Sweet found 2013 quickly and easily, pulling it open quietly. Lyons, Lyons, Lyons.

There they were. Sitting there innocently in their manila folders. Sweet plucked them out quick and easy. It was so easy. It made him incredibly sad. If what Nala said was true. If what Sweet found in these files were true, then the information had been just sitting here, all this time. Collecting dust. So easily accessible. But, he didn’t dwell. After a minute or two, he stood up and exited the back room, making sure the files under his arm had the names facing towards his body. Nala was no longer in front of Manny.

“See ya, Manny!”

“Til next time, doctor!” Manny replied with a wave.

He let out a breath as he went back out into the hall. Nala was waiting against a wall. As he walked passed her, he nodded his head slightly, so that she’d follow him into the supply closet. Soon as they entered and the door closed, Sweet flipped open Simba’s file. Quickly his eyes scanned over the file.

“Jesus,” Sweet whispered to himself with a shake of his head before closing the file and shoving it in Nala’s hands. He opened Mufasa’s next, his stomach sinking the entire time.

Cause of death: blunt force trauma, crushed windpipe.

Medical examiner’s notes: Patient deceased on arrival to the hospital. Windpipe injury in cohesive with other car accident-related injuries. Otherwise injuries were rather mild--concussion, broken leg, several gashes, internal bruising, but no bleeding.

Sweet looked up, his face drawn and serious. “Nala, I think you were right.” He didn’t hand her Mufasa’s file. She didn’t need to know those details. “Simba had a dangerously high dose of rohypnol in his system, along with alcohol. He could’ve died just from the combination if the car accident hadn’t had him rushed to the hospital. Does Simba have a history of drug use?”

NALA: Sweet swooped in just at that moment, turning Nala’s head with the sound of his voice. She flashed him a polite smile, one that she had often given her teachers, which made sense if Nala was playing Dr. Calame (she felt all wiggly and giddy at the sound of it-- man, how she wished she could tell Simba all about this) and Sweet was one of her many teachers. It only lasted a second anyway. He came, he exchanged a few words, and then off into the files he went. Her heart thudded faster and she nearly didn’t turn to look at Manny when he spoke to her again. There was a beat.

But she wrenched her eyes away and smiled again, leaning closer to the man like she was about to impart some grade-A gold gossip on their mutual friend, Dr. Sweet.

“Oh, Sweet’s great, real friendly. Can talk a mile a minute I’m sure you’ve noticed. I’ve had to develop a different shorthand when I go on rounds with him.”

Manny laughed at that and leaned in himself. “I hear him and Tibbs-- that’s your supervisor right? They’re pretty close.”

Ooooo, now that was interesting gossip, especially because Nala knew Tibbs from her PT. Her eyebrows raised. “Well, they are real chummy,” she said, going along with the gossip. “You don’t think they…?”

Manny smirked and gave her a look that read: You know what I mean. He tapped the side of his nose. “Keep a look out.”

Nala nodded. “I-- certainly will. Thanks Manny. I should probably get goin’ or Tibbs will miss me. See you around!” And with a cheerful wave, she scurried out the door, letting out a breath on the other side. She had no idea if she had given Sweet enough time or if she should have stayed any longer but what’s done was done. She crossed her arms over her chest and keep her eyes on the tile. As long as no one came by…

The door swung open behind her.

Nala turned at once and saw Sweet with the files. His eyes were already on one of them, and she could tell, just by looking at him, that whatever was in those files was not good. Her heart plummeted straight into her stomach and she was scared to ask. She’d come this far and now, here it was, the truth at her fingertips. But Nala opened her mouth and no sound came out.

Sweet didn’t make her ask though.

Sweet looked up at her, the answer in his dark, soft eyes, and Nala felt parts of her crumple that she hadn’t felt in-- years. Since that night, when she got the call about the accident and she’d arrived in this very hospital in tears.

She was right.

Nala ripped open the file. She scanned it just the way that Sweet did, though most of it she could not understand. Rohypnol though, she knew. She knew because in her uni days she’d been an ambassador for the feminist group on campus and she’d led many seminars on date rape and similar crimes. And so her blood turned to ice and she couldn’t believe it. Though she could. Though everything was finally perfectly aligned inside of her for the first time in three years-- her head, her heart, her gut.

Her eyes darted back up to Sweet. “Nothing, just-- alcohol and a bit of weed here and there. Rohypnol, that’s-- that’s roofies, yes? Someone put it in his drink? He couldn’t have… been driving, could he? With that in his system?”

SWEET: Sweet could feel Nala’s pain in her own chest. Shock was like a drain, like a plug had been pulled and all the sudden your emotions were swirling down through you. From your brain to your heart to your gut, all the way down to your toes sometimes. Sometimes the water was so hot it burned, but this time, it was cold as ice. It made Sweet shiver. Underneath that water, it took him a second to get his brain back in working order.

He should’ve prepared better. He should’ve delivered this news more gently. But, there was no way to do so. Sweet had told people that their loved ones were dead before. It was always that same feeling--that draining of all emotion until you were empty and cold.

His hand came up and he put it on Nala’s shoulder, squeezed it. Touched her face gently for a moment. He wasn’t supposed to do that. It was too intimate. But Nala had been a patient of his, he knew her better than some stranger in a waiting room. Not to mention, this was murder. Sweet had not dealt with those very often in his career. Such a thing shook even him. The idea of a human taking another human’s life so intentionally. Attempting to take someone else’s life? And no guilt at all, so it seemed.

“No, Nala, he wasn’t driving the car.” Sweet could say that with certainty, because there--right at the top of Mufasa’s file, it said:

Reason for admittance: Automobile accident -- driver.

NALA: Nala had known the answer to the question that she asked, but she needed someone else to say it. She needed to hear her own thoughts said out loud so it wasn’t… crazy anymore. Simba was not driving the car. Simba was not driving the car.

All these years, he’d thought, and she’d thought, and Sarabi had thought. All these years, they’d all been in so much pain-- no one moreso than Simba. She’d watched him nearly kill himself. She felt every drunk word he ever used to lash out at her again, all at once, each one as sharp as a knife. And the worst thing was they’d all been pointless. Her tears had been pointless, the times she had begged him-- the three years he had disappeared without a word-- his family’s anger at him. Her anger at him. Pointless. Misplaced. She and Simba’s relationship had been shattered and crookedly rebuilt for… nothing. Taka had been to blame.

She should have known. How many times did she suspect Taka? How many times had she buried that doubt and beat herself up for it? It had taken her four years and all those days of pain to listen to her instincts.

Her hand shook as it held the file. Nala wanted to be sick all over it. When Sweet touched her shoulder, she flinched like she’d been struck, looking up at him. Sweet was still calm, solid, like a lighthouse shining through the storm. She blinked again at his hand on her cheek. It lasted hardly more than a second, but it moved through her like a wave. She wanted to burst into tears.

Nala sucked in a breath instead, turning her cheek and her face away from Sweet so she would not crumble. She could not now. What did she need to do--  ?

“I-- I have to, to tell Simba,” she said, with her voice shaking. “I-- need these. Can I take these? I can bring them back, I’ll bring them back.”

SWEET: He knew that Nala was going to ask that and he frowned slightly. He didn’t think it was a good idea for her or Simba to read Mufasa’s autopsy report. That was the kind of thing you could never unsee. And when it was someone you loved, those facts, written so plainly, by someone who hadn’t even known the man. It was going to hurt.

But, he knew that she wanted them for evidence. Sweet didn’t know the specifics. If her taking them from the hospital would invalidate them as evidence, which was why he hesitated. At the end of the day, though, if it was what Simba needed--if it was what would make the poor boy see the truth. Sweet couldn’t begrudge that. He knew he couldn’t. All he could do was try to warn against the kind of trauma this could cause.

Reluctantly, he handed the file over to her.

“Don’t read it, if you can avoid it. Don’t let Simba read it, if you can avoid it,” he advised solemnly and took a deep breath. “And be careful, Nala. Make sure someone stays with Simba. Make sure someone stays with you. If you need anything, call me.”