#windows black screen with cursor

[poppyseed799]

Bro how am I supposed to figure out how to fix my computer issue when all the stuff online seems to be slightly different than what I have going on 😭

[dollerinna]

WOULD YOU LIKE AN ALMOND JOY .ᐣ

( black noir x gn!crime analyst reader )

summary: after a long day of work, you try to unwind by watching your comfort show, but your solitude is interrupted by yet another visit from noir, who seems to be finding more and more excuses to spend time with you… (includes a C.AI bot as part 2 below!)

wordcount: 2k

tags: brief mention of NSFW pop-up ads, nerdy n’ socially awkward reader, noir’s disdain for almond joys but he makes up for it at the end <3

It had been a long day at the crime analytics office in Vought. As the sun began to set, exhaustion crept over you after reviewing incident report after report. Your eyes strained from the blue glare of your computer screen. You knew you had promised your boss you would organize the ever-growing database, but the tiny voice of procrastination was pleading for rest before your overworked brain turned into a pile of mush.

Rather than more paperwork—you, being the slacker of all slackers in this department, decided a well-deserved break was in order. And what better way to recharge than turning off the noggin and filling it with good ol’ fashioned mindless entertainment?

With a few tired clicks of your mouse, you booted up your go-to streaming site, which was none other than 123movies. Scrolling through the options, your cursor hovered over the play button of your favorite trashy drama. The kind of cheesy, perfectly predictable melodrama spun from the worst of amateur YA plots. It was practically comfort food for your fatigued mind, just what you needed to loosen up after the mental marathon that was this long day.

As the opening credits began to roll, your computer began to whir and hiss like an overtaxed engine, emitting gusts of unusually hot air from the vents. Suddenly, its screen slowed to a sluggish crawl, cluttered with a barrage of not-so-savory pop-up ads. Barely a minute in, the pixels already scrambled to form images better to left unseen—half naked women in risqué yet tacky mermaid-like attire, claiming they were ‘just around the corner and ready for a good aquatic fuck.’

First of all, what the absolute living hell is an “aquatic fuck”??

Did you even want to know? And most importantly, what happened to the ad blocker you installed just the other day? Judging by the contents, you had a sneaking suspicion that slimy, sea-dwelling degenerate, The Deep, had tampered with your computer… yet again.

“For the love of-… what’s with all these pop-up ads?” you muttered under your breath as excessively explicit ads crowded out the episode. Your eyes darted furtively around the room to check for wandering glances, hoping against hope that none of your coworkers had noticed the unwanted filth invading your screen. Heart pounding, you squeezed your chair closer to your monitor into a makeshift barricade, shielding the display as best you could while hastily clicking away at the intrusive ads.

As you hurriedly closed the remaining windows, an ominous shadow fell across the screen. Dreading what—or who—might be behind you, you slowly swiveled your chair around to find Black Noir's stoic stare boring into your own.

You stifled a yelp as you instinctively clutched the armrests, catching yourself on the edge of your seat before an ungainly spill to the floor. Noir had a way of materializing without warning, and it never failed to unnerve.

“N-Noir!” you managed, inwardly cringing as your voice broke on his name. “Fancy seeing you in these parts. I was just taking a quick break and y’know- stretching ‘em brain cells.” You tried for a lighthearted chuckle, but it emerged as more of a strained squeak that faded into an anxious hum.

With a jerky flurry of clicks and the browser minimized from view, whatever dignity you still retained disappearing along with it. All that did remain was you praying to the heavens above that he hadn't noticed its questionable contents (even if he most definitely had and simply chose not to comment)

When Noir offered no response, you of course charmingly barreled ahead in your frazzled daze. “But anyways, s-sorry about that… how uh, can I help you today?” your words tumbled out in a breathless rush, punctuated by a shrill laugh you hoped disguised the mortification simmering beneath.

Noir cocked his head, observing you with that same silent intensity. You fidgeted, hands twisting in knotted discomfort, the heat in your ears now engulfing your entire face. Was it the invasive pop-ups that had you squirming in your seat? Or the fact he could snuff out your existence faster than you can say “workers’ comp”?

Either way, beneath the weight of his stare, you already felt as if you were some peculiar, freakish creature pinned for study, rather than some bumbling employee just trying to unwind and watch their comfort show.

And to him, you indeed were a fascinating, bizarre little human.

Mercifully, Noir chose to extend a folder toward you, putting an end to your somewhat pathetic withering. You accepted it with a wordless nod, nearly sagging in your chair as tension drained from your shoulders.

Whirling towards the familiar clutter of your desk once more, you pretended absorption in the folder’s material, hoping this signaled Noir’s leave. After all, has anyone seen the state of you? It certainly wasn’t a flattering one. Yet from the corner of your eye, you detected no movement, no receding footsteps—his shadowy form remained statuesquely in place.

Believe it or not, this has been becoming a thing, a growing habit of late—and a suspicious one at that. Lately his breaks had grown longer, minutes lengthening to quarters of an hour, all spent hovering at your desk as you worked. However, his focus was solely on watching and observing you. He never exhibited a hint of thought or motive for his reason there, only leaving you with questions that seemed to multiply by each and every visit.

Noir, on the other hand, was somehow utterly convinced that you and him were two peas in a tightly-knit pod. He swore you two were best of buds for life—even if "life" so far had only amounted to the past two weeks' worth of half-hour stretches where he silently observed your work from the corner.

Ironically, you didn’t have the slightest inkling of how he really felt. Instead, you always assumed that he, like most supes, regarded you as little more than a puny mortal—a fragile, near-useless sack of flesh and bones whose skull he was one misstep away from caving in with bare hands.

But nope, Noir was simply here to bless you, the nerdy but cute crime analyst, with his presence—his rather… unsettling presence.

The familiar hush settled as you reluctantly returned focus to the task at hand. Hocus-pocus-focus, you chanted mentally, peeling away the last shreds of stray thoughts to tap into the zone of productivity. Unfurling the dossier Noir provided, you began sifting through documents for insight on his purpose in approaching you. Meanwhile, a flick of movement in the edge of your vision revealed Noir's attention veer off course, the almond joy perched beside your keyboard capturing his notice.

You tensed, hocus-pocus-focus breaking, all too aware of past disappearances of snacks in these briefings. Sure enough, his hand drifted noiselessly toward the candy bar, no doubt spurred by ingrained impulse to dispose of it per his usual custom. But you'd grown wise to his methods by now.

Not again, you sighed inwardly, snatching the almond joy and cradling it protectively as if it were your dear, beloved child.

Noir made no move to withdraw, palm outstretched expectantly. You frowned, struggling to keep frustration at bay. "Please, come on- not this time!.. It's my last one for the day." Brows pinching, your tone threatened to rise before steadying with a slow and calm inhale. No use losing composure over candy, no matter the principle. So all you could do was peer beseechingly at Noir in silent appeal, legs jittering restlessly under your desk in building apprehension.

Unfortunately, you found no signs of leniency in his obscured face—only his hand beckoning relentlessly for the almond joy. You plea was once again met with stony resolve, as if he was internally distressed by the mere presence of it. What was he? Deathly allergic to almond joys or something?

With a resigned breath, you delivered the almond joy towards Noir's waiting glove, unable to hide the disappointment dimming your features. Your lips curled into a slight pout, gaze sinking heavy into your lap at being parted from the treat. Though Noir was never one for words, it really didn’t take a rocket scientist to see you felt bullied into submission by his demands. At the end of the day, what power did a measly analyst like yourself hold against one of the Seven? As your fingers uncurled, releasing the candy into Noir's grasp, you couldn't help but feel a bit put upon, even if that wasn’t his intention at all.

Noir was well aware of the upset feelings his request had caused, so in an attempt to remedy the situation, his arm was sent in a backwards reach for the notepad he often used to communicate. However, he found himself at a loss as words eluded him, his thoughts swirling in frustrating circles of “What should I even say?”—muddled and incoherent. For a moment he stared at you, mask betraying no emotion as he grappled to find the right words, despite the prick of guilt nibbling at his conscience. Then, lacking any better option, he simply tossed the offending candy into the trash, perhaps with more force than intended.

Clearly, socializing was not Noir’s strong suit.

With no further acknowledgment, Noir spun on his heel and marched away. You watched his retreating, rigid form with discomfort clenching your insides, eyes falling onto the lonely candy discarded in the trash, its colorful wrapper mocking your current disheartened state.

Wearily, you turned away from the almond joy, redirecting your attention toward the computer as a means to divert your now soured mood. Maximizing the browser, you hoped that your planned show may have had time to load during the interaction. But upon inspecting the screen, you found the video remained stubbornly stalled, stuck on buffering dots and refusing to roll despite the minutes passed.

Just. Peachy.

One (super)human encounter had sucked the very life source out of your dog-tired body, and now this. It was really shaping up to be one of those days.

Thoroughly worn out, you gently laid your head down onto the desk, pillowing it against the crook of your folded arms as eyelids slid shut. All you craved was to simply sleep away the remaining time until you could finally escape this wretched shift and retreat to the sanctuary of your home sweet home.

─────────────────

As your shift wound down to its end, you were finally stirring from your slumber. Rubbing the sleep from your bleary eyes, your blurred vision sharpened to show your colleagues had long since departed while you were snoozing away.

Rising and squaring your shoulders, you began to gather your belongings in preparation to leave as well. Once you had collected everything and lifted to your feet, something in the far corner of your desk caught your eye. Approaching for a closer look in the dim lighting, the fuzzy outline gradually came into focus—a cluttered collection of Hershey's Kisses, their jumbled placement grouped to form the shape of a heart.

You blinked in bewilderment, rubbing your eyes once more to ensure you weren't imagining things. Stepping closer, you spotted a sticky note nestled within the heart of chocolates, scrawled upon in a crude, blocky hand. At first, you assumed it was some silly prank from one of your coworkers, but you knew you recognized the handwriting anywhere—it was Noir's.

Gingerly, you plucked the sticky note from the desk, lifting it to your line of sight to read the message. “Kisses taste better than almond joys…Sorry.” you read softly, your voice trailing off as confusion crept in.

Designed as a very apparent flirty gesture, the intent behind the note and chocolates still managed to whoosh straight over your head. As always seemed the case, even the most painfully obvious social cues could so easily evade your understanding—this proving no exception.

You slipped the sticky note into your pocket, then selected a foil-wrapped Kiss from the pile. Gently rolling the chocolate between your fingers, you unwrapped it and popped one into your mouth. You took time to savor its light cream filling beneath a smooth outer shell, face crinkling in thought and head tilting as you considered your verdict. “Eh… I’d beg to differ.” you mused with a shrug, slinging your bag over your shoulder as you took your leave from the office.

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Pssst- likes, comments, and reblogs are greatly appreciated in this household and keep me motivated! <3

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a C.AI bot as your very own part 2 where you thank Noir the following day:

a/n: saw somewhere that kisses don’t contain nuts but then I also saw someone else say they actually do??? So let’s just pretend the kisses Noir chose are completely nut-free for the sake of the plot 😭

also, the reader is very much based off Anika if it wasn’t obvious enough haha! She’s so y/n coded 😤💗

♡ divider credits: @/ianrkives

[et7432]

Not Without Permission

(Klaus Mikaelson)

(Klaus Mikaelson x Reader)

Summary: Elena and Damon leave (Y/N) behind at the last untouched safehouse in Mystic Falls, the one place where the Originals can't just waltz in. It's a temporary peace, and they need her to stay put while they go after an ancient artifact that could change everything. Before they go, they make it crystal clear—no one gets inside, no matter what. The stakes are too high. But when a familiar, dangerous face shows up at the door—Klaus Mikaelson himself—(Y/N)’s calm is about to be tested. Charming, persuasive, and never without a few tricks up his sleeve, Klaus doesn’t take no for an answer. Will she keep the door locked, or will the deadly allure of the Original hybrid be enough to crack her resolve?

I pouted quietly, as I watched Damon and Elena leaving without me. It was my way of masking the yearning for adventure that I couldn't join in on.

"Listen carefully. Your house is the only place in town that the Originals cannot enter. No one can enter without an invitation, no exceptions - not even if someone is bleeding on your doorstep," Damon warns.

"I understand, Damon. Safe haven, magical barrier, invite-only."

Elena struggled with another duffel bag and hauled it to Damon's car trunk.

"It's true, (y/n). We can't risk it."

"Then let me come with you." I walked down the porch steps. "I've been researching those artifacts for weeks. I could be of assistance-"

"No." Elena slammed the trunk. "You need to stay here where it's safe. Plus, don't you have that history report about the 1920s due?"

"Seriously? You're using homework as an excuse while you're out hunting for ancient magical objects?"

"I'd rather do homework than hunt for ancient magical objects that could get you killed," Damon called out as he climbed into the driver's seat.

Elena gave me a quick hug. "We'll be back before you know it."

I watched them get inside the car, frustration boiling within me. The engine roared to life, and Damon rolled down his window.

"Remember - don't open the door for anyone!" His voice carried across the lawn.

"Of course, dad!" I replied sarcastically, putting all my teenage angst into those three words.

The car disappeared down the street, leaving me alone on my supposedly safe front lawn, feeling like a useless researcher stuck in some supernatural time-out.

The desk lamp cast a harsh glow across my laptop screen. The cursor blinked against the white document - mocking me with its steady rhythm. Only my name and the date stared back: "(y/n) Matthews, October 15th."

The cicadas droned outside my window, their endless chirping a symphony of late-night procrastination. I drummed my fingers against the desk, scrolling through my research notes for the thousandth time. Prohibition. Speakeasies. The Jazz Age. My brain refused to string two coherent sentences together about any of it.

I glanced at my phone. 9:47 PM. No messages from Elena or Damon.

"The 1920s represented a period of..." I typed, then deleted it. Too generic.

"In the wake of World War I..." Backspace, backspace, backspace.

The cicadas grew louder, their sound bleeding through my closed window. I pushed back from my desk and paced the room, my sock-covered feet silent against the hardwood floor. My history textbook lay open on the bed, its pages filled with black and white photos of flappers and Model T's.

"This would be so much easier if I could just interview an actual person who lived through it," I muttered, throwing myself back into my desk chair. The leather creaked under my weight. "But no - stay home, (y/n). Do your homework, (y/n). Do the responsible thing, (y/n). Don't get killed by thousand-year-old vampires, (y/n)."

The flashing line on my screen taunted me. I couldn't help imagining what adventures Elena and Damon were having - undoubtedly more exciting than watching an empty screen mock my progress.

I slumped forward, letting my brow make contact with the smooth desktop surface. Overhead, my study light buzzed softly, a constant electrical hum that matched my brain's static.

The peaceful stillness of the night shattered as three sharp knocks echoed through the house. My heart pounded in my chest.

More knocks followed, each one deliberate and measured. I knew it wasn't Damon's impatient pounding or someone in need of help.

I descended the stairs cautiously, avoiding the creaky spots I had memorized long ago. The atrium light cast eerie shadows across the hardwood floor.

"Who is it?" I called out, trying to mask the uncertainty in my voice.

"Good evening," came a refined voice from beyond the door. "Forgive the late hour, but I'm searching for Elena Gilbert. I was told she might be here."

As soon as I heard his words, the hair on my neck stood on end and a shiver ran down my spine. I immediately recognized that voice.

“Well, she’s not here,” I said firmly, glad my voice didn’t waver. "And even if she was, she wouldn't want to talk to a vampire like you."

The man's chuckle turned into a low growl. "You have no idea what you're talking about," he hissed through clenched teeth.

"I know who you are." I stepped back from the door, though the barrier spell made the distance unnecessary. "And I know you can't come in."

A low chuckle drifted through the wood. "Clever girl. Elena mentioned you. Haven't I seen you before a few times? - the studious one, always with her nose in a book. Tell me, what are you reading these days?"

"Nothing that would interest you." My fingers gripped the banister behind me, steadying my shaking legs.

"On the contrary, I find human persistence fascinating. The way you dig through dusty tomes and piece together fragments of the past..." His voice moved along the porch, closer to the window. "Speaking of the past, I hear you're writing about the 1920s. I could tell you stories that would make your paper absolutely..." A tap against the wooden door. "Riveting."

My throat went dry as I realized the truth - he had been alive during those times. He probably danced in speakeasies and roamed the gas-lit streets. But how did he know about my writing? Was he watching me earlier, lurking and listening to my conversation with Elena and Damon?

"I have no interest in your stories," I said, trying to keep him talking. I knew Elena would want to know that he was back in town, but my phone was upstairs on my desk, out of reach.

"No? Shame. I particularly enjoyed Chicago during Prohibition. The music, the fashion... the absolute lawlessness of it all. Your textbooks couldn't possibly capture the true spirit of the era."

Each word dripped with casual menace, reminding me of every story I'd heard about his victims. The countless lives he'd ended with that same conversational tone.

"Why are you really here?" I forced steel into my voice, channeling Elena's courage.

"Direct. I like that." Another tap, this time back at the door. "Very well. Since Elena's not answering her phone, perhaps you could pass along a message?"

My hand trembled over the doorknob. Every survival instinct screamed to run upstairs, but a deeper part of me knew - if Klaus wanted to deliver a message, he'd find a way. At least the barrier spell would protect me.

I twisted the knob and pulled the door open.

Klaus stood on my porch, hands clasped behind his back. The porch light caught the angles of his face, casting shadows that made him look more a statue than man. His lips curved into a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Brave little thing, aren't you?" He cocked his head. "Most humans who know what I am wouldn't dare."

I rested on the door frame. "The barrier spell works both ways. You can't get in, and I can't accidentally step out."

"Clever too." He took a single step closer, stopping just short of the invisible line. "Though I must say, opening doors to monsters - even with magical protection - shows questionable judgment."

"You said you had a message." I lifted my chin, fighting to keep my voice steady.

"Indeed." His eyes locked onto mine, and I fought the urge to look away. "But now I'm far more intrigued by you. Standing here, trembling yet defiant. Tell me, what makes someone choose to face their fears instead of hiding from them?"

"Maybe I'm tired of hiding." The words spilled out before I could stop them. "Maybe I'm tired of being the one left behind to stay safe while my friends risk their lives."

Klaus's smile widened, showing teeth. "Now that's honesty I can appreciate."

I swallowed hard, regretting my outburst. Every story I'd heard about Klaus started with someone letting their guard down, sharing too much.

"The message." I squared my shoulders. "What do you want me to tell Elena?"

"Straight to business?" He traced a finger along the door frame, stopping at the barrier's edge. "And here I thought we were having such a lovely chat about your academic pursuits."

"It's late, and I have homework to finish."

"Ah yes, your paper." His hand dropped to his side. "Though I suspect your mind's no longer on dance halls and bootleggers."

"Klaus." I forced myself to sound more direct. "The message?"

His expression shifted, playfulness vanishing like smoke. "Tell her I found what we discussed in Chicago. The item she's searching for? It's not what she thinks. And if she continues down this path..." He leaned forward, close enough that I could see flecks of gold in his eyes. "Well, let's just say some treasures are better left buried."

"That's cryptic, even for you."

"Consider it a courtesy warning. I do so hate to see wasted potential." He stepped back, adjusting his jacket cuffs. "Whether that potential belongs to Elena or yourself remains to be seen."

Goosebumps appeared on my skin from his words. "I'll tell her."

"My thanks for being such a reliable messenger bird." He gave a slight bow and turned his back to me walking away.

Klaus's silhouette started blending into the dimness of nightfall along the asphalt street, an impulsive need shot up my spine making my heart hammer against its cage; an acknowledgement of shared knowledge perhaps? Against all better judgement and advice whispering urgently for silence in my ear, I called out to him,

"Klaus!"

"Wait." As I called out his name, Klaus froze in place, his body still and tense as if carved from a block of cold, white marble. His face revealed a struggle, with furrowed brows and clenched jaw as he wrestled with conflicting emotions.

Finally, he took a deep breath and turned on his heel, his determined steps leading him back to my home.

The sound of his shoes crunching against the gravel path echoed through the quiet evening air as he strode purposefully towards me. Klaus was back on my porch as close to me as he could get this time without touching the invisible barrier.

"Yes?" His tone was casual, but his expression remained unreadable as he took in my call. Curiosity laced his low baritone voice. Despite the tension in his posture, he exuded a sense of grace and anticipation with a slight turn of his head and a raised eyebrow.

"I was wondering... if you could tell me about the 1920s?" I gesture helplessly. "But you'd have to stay on the porch, obviously."

His lips curved into an amused smile. "Curiosity wins over caution? How delightfully human."

"You can sit." I backed away from the door. "Let me just-"

I darted to the living room, dragging one of the heavy wooden chairs from our dining set. Its legs scraped across the floor as I pushed it through the doorway, over the threshold.

Klaus caught the chair with one hand, positioning it with casual grace. "Such hospitality."

"Can I get you something to drink?" My heart hammered against my ribs. "Not... I mean, obviously not blood, but..."

"Scotch, if you have it." He settled into the chair. "Your father keeps a decent collection, as I can tell."

I froze. "How did you-"

"The cabinet right at the end of the hallway," He looked straight ahead. "I make it my business to know these things."

I found myself walking to our alcohol cabinet, hands shaking as I reached for the crystal decanter. The amber liquid caught the lamplight as I poured a generous measure into a glass.

When I returned, Klaus looked almost relaxed and at ease—something I had never seen in him before. I felt ridiculous, but I couldn’t take any chances with the unpredictable original. I quickly put the glass down on the ground and grabbed an umbrella from near the front door, using it to push the glass past the barrier.

“Really, love? A bit overly cautious?” he remarked, accepting the scotch as he leaned down to pick up the glass.

“I don’t think it’s possible for someone to be too cautious around you, Klaus,” I replied, rolling my eyes.

I paused in disbelief as the reality sank in: an old vampire, let alone an original, was willing to help me with my school paper. "Hold on, I need to grab a few things," I mumbled under my breath before quickly climbing the stairs to retrieve my laptop and phone.

I also snatched a thick blanket, anticipating the cool air outside at this time of night.

Making my way back down the stairs, I bundled myself in the warm blanket and settled in the doorway, tucking my legs under for added coziness. With my laptop balanced on my lap, I turned to face him.

He sat across from me with a playful smile on his face, his words laced with flirtatiousness. "You are a most intriguing creature," he declared, his dark eyes sparkling mischievously.

My gaze traveled over his handsome features, admiring every detail - from the sharp angle of his jaw to the way his hair fell across his forehead.

Feeling a blush spread across my cheeks, I cleared my throat nervously. "Sh-should we get started?" I stammered.

"By all means," Klaus responded, raising his glass in a small toast before taking a sip of the scotch. "But where would you like to start? The Roaring Twenties were quite an eventful decade, after all."

I chewed at my bottom lip momentarily, scanning the information I had already collected on my screen. "Gangsters and speakeasies," I finally said. "Prohibition and the rise of organized crime."

His mouth quivered upwards slightly into a smile. "A fascinating period indeed." He leaned back in his chair, looking every inch the relaxed gentleman. Yet, there was an ominous stillness about him that contradicted his comfortable appearance.

He began to speak, describing the decadence and vibrancy of the 1920s with a vividness that only someone who lived through it could possess. His stories were filled with tales of moonshine and jazz, of raucous parties and hushed backroom deals.

As he spun his colorful narratives, I found myself increasingly drawn in by his storytelling, my homework temporarily forgotten. His voice wove a tapestry of the past so tangible that I felt as though I could almost touch it.

"There was this feeling in the air," he tried to explain with a far-off look in his eyes. "A desperation...a recklessness. It was as if everyone knew they were dancing on the edge of a cliff - but they were too caught up in their own enjoyment to care."

Then he shifted gears and tales of extravagance turned grimmer as he began narrating about the violent underbelly of the age - amoral gangsters with Tommy guns ruling cityscapes through fear and intimidation, corruption permeating every layer of society.

His violent accounts of the past made my blood run cold reminding me exactly who – or rather 'what' – Klaus really was - an ancient supernatural creature capable of unspeakable horrors, who had lived through centuries of human history, who had seen - no, done - the very worst humanity had to offer.

Yet, for all that he was and all that I knew him to be, in that moment, as he sat back in that old wooden chair recounting a bygone era with an almost nostalgic air about him – Klaus seemed startlingly human.

Hours passed and the moon climbed higher in the sky. The cold crept into my bones, stiffening my fingers against the keyboard. But I had too many questions and Klaus seemed more than willing to answer them.

A sense of camaraderie began to settle between us, one that made me forget for a few minutes about the inconceivable dangers associated with his kind. The night felt less threatening with Klaus’ presence - his tales from the past bridging the divide as we sat together under the chilling autumn wind sharing stories – his so supernaturally old and mine so humanly young.

As the night began to fade, a tinge of sadness crept into my heart, knowing that this evening was coming to an end. The weight of reality pressed down on me as I faced Klaus. His striking eyes, glowing like liquid gold in the dim light, were fixated on me once again. His eyes held a vast depth of knowledge, and for a moment, I was entranced by their mysteries.

"Is there anything else you'd like to know?" he asked, finishing the last sip of his scotch.

My eyes still locked onto his and I shook my head slowly, a soft smile playing on my lips. More than anything, I wanted to indulge in this moment just a bit longer.

"No," I replied, fingers absentmindedly tracing the edges of my laptop. "That...that's enough for now."

He chuckled softly, draining the last remnants of the amber liquid from his glass and placing it softly on the porch floor. Rising up from the chair, he stretched subtly, the muscles rippling under his attire creating a muscular silhouette against the glow of the approaching dawn.

"Very well then," he said, stepping towards me. He extended his hand to help me up from the cold wooden floor. As I reached out to accept it, a spark seemed to dart between us, potent and electrifying. I recoiled my hand before grabbing his realizing that he could pull me out from the protective barrier. I saw him frown for a moment but he recovered quickly as if it didn’t bother him.

“I should leave now, little creature,” he says almost endearingly.

"Wait." I scrambled to get him to stay in some way a little longer. "What about the message for Elena?"

"Ah yes." He paused at the edge of the porch steps. "Don’t worry your pretty mind about Elena’s business.”

"You're not going to explain what you meant about the item she's searching for?"

"Some discoveries are best made firsthand." He turned back, shadows playing across his features. "Besides, I've given you plenty to work with - both for your paper and for Elena."

My fingers clutched the laptop tighter. "Why help me at all?"

"Perhaps I enjoy nurturing young minds." His voice carried back through the darkness. "Or perhaps I simply appreciate anyone willing to look beyond the surface of history's official narrative."

My lips parted, ready to speak, but before I could even form a word, Klaus had vanished into thin air without uttering a simple 'goodbye'. The absurdity of the situation made me laugh, despite everything that had just transpired. I chuckled softly under my breath as I stood alone staring out at the vacant street from my front door. 

I remained motionless for a while, hearing the cicadas pick up their song again, questioning whether the strange meeting had been real.

His empty scotch glass remained on the porch, catching moonlight like a diamond in the rough. I stared at it, mind racing through every detail of our conversation. Klaus's words about speakeasies, the hidden rooms, the secrets, crimes - they painted a vivid picture of the 1920s . But something nagged at me.

I pulled my phone out and opened my messages to Elena.

"Klaus was here. Said he found 'the item' you were looking for claims it's not what you think. Warning you about buried treasures?" My thumb hit over the send button.

The response came seconds later: "WHAT? Are you okay? Stay inside!"

"I'm fine. He couldn't cross the threshold." I glanced at the empty chair. "Elena, what's this item he mentioned?"

"Don't worry about that. We're turning around and heading back home now."

"It's late, I'm safe. He's gone." I looked at my laptop proud of the notes I'd taken. I set it aside on a table by the front door.

Elena's response buzzed through. "Be safe. We'll talk in a little bit. Lock everything."

"I will. Don't worry so much." I picked up the blanket ready to close the door. 

But the empty scotch glass still sat on the porch I couldn't resist the urge to clean up.

"I really should bring that inside," I thought to myself, stepping over the threshold to grab it.

My fingers had barely closed around the glass when the air shifted. A rush of movement slammed me back against the house wall, knocking the breath from my lungs. Klaus's hands pressed on either side of my head, caging me in.

"Careful, love." His breath ghosted across my cheek. "Crossing thresholds can be dangerous business."

My heart thundered against my ribs. "You were waiting."

"Watching." His eyes traced my face with an intensity that made my skin prickle. "To see if temptation would overpower your better judgment once more."

"I just wanted the glass-" My voice sounded weak even to my own ears.

"Fascinating." His thumb traced along my jawline, the touch feather-light yet electric. "Your heart's racing, but you're not trying to run."

I pressed my palms flat against the wall behind me, desperate for something solid to ground me. "Maybe I know it wouldn't make a difference."

"Oh, it would make all the difference." Klaus's other hand slid down to rest at the curve of my neck, his fingers cool against my pulse point. "The chase always adds such... excitement."

"Is that what this is to you? A game?"

"Life's a game, love. The trick is knowing which pieces to move." His thumb brushed across my bottom lip, and my breath caught. "And when to take risks."

The wind rustled through the trees, carrying the sharp scent of autumn leaves. Klaus's body blocked most of the porch light now, casting us both in shadow.

He spoke softly, his accent flowing over the words like smooth silk.

"What fascinates you more - the monster or the man?"

"I-" The word stuck in my throat as his fingers traced patterns on my skin. "Both. Neither. I don't know."

"Now that's honesty." He shifted closer, until barely a breath separated us. "Most humans choose one or the other. They either crave the darkness or desperately seek the light." His nose skimmed along my cheek. "But you... you see both, don't you? The artist and the killer. The teacher and the terror."

One of my hands found their way to his chest, but I couldn't tell if I meant to push him away or pull him closer. The fabric of his jacket was soft under my fingertips, hiding the immortal strength beneath.

My head was spinning, my thoughts scattered as Klaus's proximity overwhelmed me. I wanted to push him away, to run inside and lock the door behind me. But at the same time, I couldn't deny that a part of me was drawn to him, intrigued by his words and his touch.

"You shouldn't be here," I managed to say, my voice trembling.

Klaus's lips curved into a predatory smile. "But I am."

I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. "Why? Why do you keep coming back?"

He leaned in even closer, his lips brushing against my ear. "Because you intrigue me."

I shivered at the feeling of his warm breath on my skin. "What do you want from me?"

"What do I want?" He pulled back slightly, studying my face with those piercing blue eyes. "I want to show you what real passion is, love. To open your eyes to a world beyond your mundane existence."

I couldn't deny the spark of curiosity that flickered within me at his words. But I refused to give in so easily.

"I know what passion is," I said stubbornly.

"Do you? Has anyone ever made your heart race like this?" Klaus's hand trailed down my neck and over my chest before resting on my waist.

I swallowed hard as he leaned in again, our faces so close that our noses were almost touching.

"I can make you feel things you've never felt before," he whispered against my lips.

His words sent a shiver down my spine, but I couldn't let myself succumb to him just yet.

"Who says I want that?" I challenged, trying not to let his nearness cloud my judgment.

"You do." His voice was low and confident. "You crave excitement and danger just as much as you fear it."

I wanted to deny it, but deep down I knew he was right. There was a part of me that longed for something more, something beyond the endless cycle of work, eat, and sleep.

"I'm not like you," I insisted, searching his eyes for some grain of understanding. Yet all I saw were galaxies of blue teasing me with unparalleled enigma.

His laughter echoed through the night, as soft and alluring as forbidden velvet. "Oh darling, nobody said you had to be." The fingers at my waist tightened slightly, pulling me inescapably closer. "All you need to be is... open."

"Open to what?" I whispered, my voice quivering, my heart hammered wildly against my chest.

His lips crashed into mine, fierce and demanding, with a passion that spoke of centuries of longing. The glass slipped from my trembling fingers, shattering on the wooden planks beneath us. My hands found his jacket lapels, pulling him closer as the kiss deepened, my fingers curling into the expensive fabric. His fingers tangled in my hair, tilting my head back as his mouth moved against mine with desperate intensity, every touch igniting fire beneath my skin.

My heart thundered against my ribs, matching the fierce rhythm of his immortal strength pressing against me. I could feel centuries of loneliness and desire in the way he held me, his touch alternating between gentle reverence and possessive need. The wooden porch railing pressed into my back, grounding me in this moment that felt suspended between reality and dream.

His hand slid down my spine, leaving trails of fire in its wake, each touch a dangerous promise that made me shiver. I arched into him, gasping as his teeth grazed my lower lip, the gesture both tender and predatory. The rough wood siding pressed against my back, splinters catching at my sweater, a stark reminder of reality that did nothing to break the spell of his presence.

"Such sweet surrender," Klaus breathed against my mouth, his accent thicker with desire. His stubble scraped my skin as he traced kisses along my jaw, each one deliberate and claiming. "And here I thought you were the cautious one, love."

My fingers clutched his shoulders, seeking anchor in a storm of sensation, feeling the immortal strength beneath his expensive jacket. "I am cautious."

"Evidently not." His laugh vibrated against my throat, dark and rich like aged whiskey. "Though I must admit, your recklessness is... intoxicating."

The word snapped something in my brain, cutting through the haze of desire like a knife. Intoxicating. Dangerous. Deadly. Every warning Elena had ever given me about Klaus crashed back like a tidal wave - stories of his cruelty, his manipulation, the trail of broken bodies he'd left across centuries.

"Wait." I pressed my palms against his chest, feeling his heart beat slow and steady beneath my hands. "Stop."

To my surprise, he did. Klaus pulled back just enough to meet my gaze, his eyes dark with hunger that wasn't entirely vampiric, predatory desire written in every line of his immortal face. "Having second thoughts?"

"I'm having all the thoughts." My voice shook, betraying the chaos in my mind. "Every single one I should have had before I stepped outside this threshold. Every warning bell that should have rung hours ago."

"And yet here you are." His thumb traced circles on my hip, each movement sending shivers down my spine. "Making choices that would terrify your friends. Defying every careful warning they've whispered behind closed doors."

"They'd be right to be terrified." I swallowed hard, feeling the weight of my own recklessness. "You're..."

"A monster?" His smile held no warmth, just centuries of dark promises. "We've established that love. Multiple times tonight. Or have you forgotten our earlier conversations?"

"No, you're..." I struggled to form coherent thoughts with him still pressed against me, his presence overwhelming every sense. The scent of aged whiskey and leather clouded my mind, making it impossible to think straight.

"You're Klaus. You don't do this - whatever this is. You have schemes and plans and..." I drew in a shaky breath, acutely aware of how his touch seemed to burn through the thin fabric of my shirt. "You don't get distracted like this. You're always ten steps ahead of everyone else."

"Perhaps this is part of a scheme." His fingers skimmed up my side, leaving trails of fire in their wake. The predatory gleam in his eyes made my heart stutter. "Or perhaps you've simply caught my interest. A thousand years on this earth, and still you manage to surprise me."

"That might be worse." My voice came out barely above a whisper, heavy with the weight of what those words could mean. The thought of being truly interesting to Klaus Mikaelson was more terrifying than any calculated plot.

His laugh was genuine this time. "Smart girl." He stepped back, leaving me cold in the autumn air. "Though not quite smart enough to stay inside, it seems."

I wrapped my arms around myself, looking down at the shattered glass as I shifted uncomfortably on the porch. "You orchestrated this whole thing." The realization settled like lead in my stomach.

"The history lesson? Yes. The kiss?" His eyes glinted dangerously in the porch light pleased. "That was all you, love. Crossing thresholds, chasing after crystal glasses... Such impulsive decisions."

"You could have just taken the glass with you when you left." Even to my own ears, the argument sounded weak, defensive.

"And miss this delightful demonstration of poor judgment?" Klaus brushed a strand of hair from my face, his fingers lingering a moment too long against my cheek. "Where would be the fun in that?"

My phone buzzed insistently in my pocket - probably Elena again, wondering why I wasn't responding. Klaus's eyes flickered down to the sound, a calculating expression crossing his features.

"You should answer that. Your friends are quite protective." He took another step back. "Though I doubt they'd approve of tonight's... extracurricular activities."

"Don't." Heat flooded my cheeks as my hand instinctively touched my still-tingling lips. "This was a mistake."

"Was it?" He crouched down, picking up a large shard of broken crystal, his movements deliberately slow and graceful. "Seems more like an education to me. History, chemistry..." The glass caught moonlight as he turned it between his fingers, creating dancing patterns on the porch walls. "A practical lesson in crossing lines."

My phone buzzed again, the vibration seeming to echo in the tense silence between us. Klaus straightened back up to his full height.

"Your friends are getting impatient." Klaus stepped closer, his boots crunching over broken glass. "Though I must say, their timing leaves much to be desired."

I backed up against the door, heart pounding. "I should go inside."

"Should you?" His fingers traced the invisible barrier at the threshold. "We both know that's not what you want."

"What I want isn't always what's best for me."

"Now that's where you're wrong, love." Klaus's eyes locked with mine, intense and magnetic. His gaze held centuries of dark promises, sending shivers down my spine. "Sometimes the most dangerous choices yield the sweetest rewards. Why deny yourself?"

"Because I actually want to stay alive?" My wavering voice revealed my hesitation.

"No." His smile turned predatory, revealing just a hint of fang. "You're curious. Drawn to the darkness, even as you pretend to fear it." He gestured at the door behind me, his rings catching the porch light. "A couple of words, (y/n). That's all it would take. Invite me in."

Heat flooded my cheeks, and I gripped the door knob. "So you can what? Add me to your list of conquests?"

"So we can explore this... chemistry between us." His accent wrapped around the words like silk, each syllable a caress. "Don't pretend you haven't felt it building all evening. The way your heart races when I'm near, how your breath catches at my touch." His words hit too close to home, making my pulse stutter traitorously.

"Klaus..." The name came out as barely more than a whisper.

"Say yes." His hand hovered near my face, not quite touching, but I could feel the heat radiating from his skin. "Give in to what we both want."

My phone buzzed a third time, insistent and grounding. The familiar vibration cut through the spell he was weaving around me. I closed my eyes, fighting against the pull of his presence. "I can't."

"Can't?" His voice carried an edge of danger. "Or won't?"

"Both." I gripped the door frame harder, using the rough wood to anchor myself. "My friends trust me. I won't betray that."

"Loyalty." Klaus spat the word like poison. "Such a human weakness." His fingers traced the invisible barrier again, testing its limits. "And yet, it's precisely that quality which makes you..." He paused, searching for the right word. "Fascinating."

"I'm not fascinating." The words came out sharper than intended. "I'm just trying to survive in a world that keeps getting more complicated by the day."

"You underestimate yourself." His hand dropped to his side. "Most humans would have slammed the door in my face hours ago. But you..." His eyes raked over me, intense and calculating. "You stayed. Listened. Learned."

"Maybe I just needed help with my history paper."

"We both know that's not true." Klaus stepped back, his boots crunching over broken glass. "You're drawn to power, to knowledge. To danger." He smiled, all predator. "To me."

My phone buzzed again, the sound almost angry now. Klaus's eyes flickered to my pocket.

"Answer it." He gestured dismissively. "Before they send a search party."

"They might anyway." I pulled the phone out with trembling fingers. "Elena's not exactly the trusting type these days."

"Can you blame her?" Klaus's eyes glinted with dark amusement. "After everything that's happened in this town, trust becomes quite the precious commodity."

The screen lit up my face as I checked the messages. Four texts from Elena, each more worried than the last.

"Tell me something." I looked up from the phone. "Was any of this real? The history lessons, the stories?"

"Every word." Klaus picked up another shard of glass, turning it in the moonlight. "Though I admit, my motivations weren't entirely... academic."

"You could have just asked me out like a normal person."

His laugh echoed across the porch. "Normal? Love, I haven't been normal for a thousand years." He kicked the glass shards. "Besides, where's the intrigue in that?"

My phone buzzed again. Elena's name flashed across the screen, this time with a call.

"You should answer that." Klaus nodded toward the phone. "Your friend's persistence is admirable, if somewhat inconvenient."

I swiped to accept the call, keeping my eyes on Klaus. "Elena?"

"(y/n)! Thank god. Are you okay? Why weren't you answering?"

Klaus's smirk widened at Elena's panicked tone. He mouthed 'tell her' with a challenging raise of his eyebrow.

"I'm fine." I turned away from his taunting expression. "Just got caught up in my history paper. Lost track of time."

"You're sure everything's alright?"

"Perfectly fine." The lie tasted bitter on my still-tingling lips. "I'll see you tomorrow at school."

Klaus's low chuckle carried across the porch as I ended the call. "Such a convincing liar. I'm almost impressed."

"Don't." I slipped the phone back into my pocket. "This doesn't change anything."

"No?" He crossed the distance between us in two fluid steps. "Then why lie to your dear friend Elena? Why not tell her I'm still here?"

My back pressed against the door frame as he leaned in, his breath ghosting across my cheek. The scent of whiskey and leather overwhelmed my senses.

"Because she'd try to save me." The words came out before I could stop them.

"And you don't want to be saved." His fingers traced the curve of my jaw. "Say it, love. Invite me in."His words hung in the air between us, heavy with promise and danger.

His touch left fire in its wake, each caress stoking the flames higher. My skin felt too tight, too sensitive, every brush of his fingers sending sparks through my nervous system. The rough wood of the house wall dug into my back, the only anchor keeping me from drowning in sensation.

"Please..." The word escaped before I could stop it, breathy and desperate.

"Please what?" His tone is dangerous and seductive. His thumb traced my bottom lip, pressing lightly. "Be specific, love."

Each feather light touch from his hand felt like a jolt of electricity, sending shivers down my spine and causing my muscles to tense in anticipation.

Each circle he traced made me arch closer, seeking more contact.

"I..." The words tangled in my throat as his lips found that spot behind my ear that made my knees weak. "God, Klaus..."

"Not quite the invitation I'm looking for." His teeth grazed my skin, drawing a gasp from my lips. "Try again."

The rational part of my brain screamed warnings, but it was drowning in a sea of want. His hands, his mouth, his voice - everything about him demanded surrender. And I wanted to give in, wanted it with an intensity that frightened me.

"Come..." My voice shook as his fingers tangled in my hair.

He chuckled deeply, his hot breath rolling down my neck. "Come what, love?" His voice was a soft purr, dangerously coercive. He was playing with me and we both knew it.

"Come...in." I finally managed, the words barely making their way past the lump in my throat. His lips drew into a triumphant smirk as he pulled back, meeting my gaze with an intense hunger in his eyes.

"That wasn't so hard, now was it?" He asked, his voice dripping with satisfaction.

Before I could gather my thoughts, he swept me into his arms, effortlessly crossing the threshold of my front door. A thrilling rush surged through me, igniting my senses and replacing any trace of fear with a tantalizing excitement that I couldn't resist

“You are mine now,” he growled, slamming the door with a loud thud that reverberated through the house. The heavy weight of finality hung in the air, a declaration that left no room for argument or negotiation. Everything had changed with those words, and the once familiar surroundings now felt foreign and dangerous.

As his words settled in, I couldn't help but feel a sense of foreboding wash over me. This was my new reality, and there was no going back to how things used to be.

[dismalflo]

coffee to go!

barista!sirius black x reader ✩ 2k words

summary: being awestruck by a certain barista leads to you building up some courage and then making some mistakes.

Dinner to stay! (part 2)

cw: fluff, meet-cute, very nervous reader

an: this is very much inspired by a tiktok

The café hums with energy. A long line snakes through the space, the morning rush of to-go orders filling the air with quiet chatter and the clink of coffee cups. Some patrons, seeking refuge from the drizzle outside, nestle into plush chairs so soft you could easily drift off to sleep in them. This quiet buzz of activity is exactly the kind of background noise you need to push through the endless mountain of work you’ve been avoiding.

The flat had been too silent, your thoughts too loud. The idea of working alone again was enough to make you throw on a jacket and step out into the rain, hoping the warmth of the café would bring some focus.

When the person in front of you in the queue has finished ordering, you look up to see a smiling face. Looking at the barista - Sirius, his name tag says - you suddenly feel a bit self conscious. He's all sharp features and onyx hair that's tied back into a lazy bun with tattoos running up his arms and disappearing into his sleeves. He's pretty. Very pretty. 

“Hi,” He greets, tucking some hair that's fallen free behind his ear, “Horrible weather, isn't it?”

You nod eagerly, too eager perhaps. There’s a fleeting thought that you’d probably agree to anything he said if it came with that smile, the one that creases the corners of his eyes.

“What can I get for you?” 

“Uh, can I just get a latte please–” he nods, tapping away at the screen in front of him, “oh! And a croissant if you have any.” 

“Sure thing, doll.” looking up with another smile. “I’ll make it extra good for you.” He winks as he turns away to prepare your order.

Taking your latte and croissant from the counter, your fingers brush against his as you grab the cup. You feel a faint warmth spread across your skin. A flutter. You tuck the thought away and make your way to an empty table near the window, settling down with your laptop and notebook, determined to get some work done.

But, of course, your mind refuses to cooperate. Instead of focusing on the task at hand, you find yourself glancing over at Sirius every few minutes, your eyes stealing brief moments to watch him. He moves with ease, effortlessly coordinating between steaming milk and pulling shots of espresso, his fingers tracing the familiar motions with casual grace.

He catches your eye once. Just once. You blink, startled, and quickly avert your gaze, a rush of heat flooding your cheeks.

You try to focus on the screen, typing half-heartedly, then pausing to stare down at your laptop. The coffee shop feels smaller now, as if all the sounds—the clink of cups, the quiet conversations, the faint hum of the espresso machine—are just background noise to the nervous rhythm of your pulse. You chance another glance. This time, he’s looking back at you. 

He smiles again, a flash of white teeth, and there's that crease at the corners of his eyes again. Your breath catches, quickly turning your gaze back to your work, your heart racing as you fight to calm your thoughts.

You stare at your laptop screen again, the cursor blinking, mocking you for your lack of productivity. Every word you try to type seems to float away, lost in the haze of your thoughts. The low hum of the café and the occasional clink of cups is more soothing than it should be, making the whole place feel like a sanctuary—but also a trap. A trap that keeps pulling your attention back to Sirius, whose easy movements behind the counter are like a strange magnet drawing your focus over and over again.

There’s no way he’s single, you think, squinting at him again. With a smile like that, the tattoos, the confidence in his every move—he must have someone, right? Probably a line of people, and that’s a fact you can’t ignore. Even so, you can’t help the way your pulse quickens every time your eyes meet his.

It’s now or never. You’ve been telling yourself this for the last fifteen minutes, and each minute that passes only makes your nerves worse. What could go wrong? You’re leaving soon anyway. You’ll never have to see him again. And honestly, even if he says no, you won’t be crushed.

As the minutes stretch on, the decision weighs heavier. Your fingers tremble as you close your laptop, the screen now filled with nothing but an unsaved document. You gather your things and stand, taking a moment to breathe in the air of the café, to ground yourself before making your way to the door. But then, as if on instinct, you find your feet leading you toward the counter.

You’re not sure if it’s the last sip of your latte that gave you the courage or the sudden rush of resolve, but before you can second-guess yourself, you're standing in front of him.

Sirius looks up from behind the counter, his smile as effortless as ever. "Hey, you heading out?" he asks, and his voice is like warm honey.

You nod, your heart thumping in your chest. You can feel your palms sweating. You’re almost there. Almost.

"Yeah, I was, uh, actually wondering..." You pause, looking anywhere but at him, trying to muster the courage to push through the words tumbling around your mind. "Honestly, no hard feelings if not, but I was wondering if I could give you my number?"

The words hang in the air for a moment, almost as though you’ve spoken them too loudly, or too nervously, or perhaps just too hopefully. You glance up, just in time to see his eyes widen slightly, followed by a slow, delighted grin that makes everything in your chest tighten.

"Yeah," he says, his voice warm, and his smile spreads wider. "Yeah, of course. I’d love that."

Shocked by his agreement, you choke out a laugh and he slides over a scrap of paper and a pen. Quickly scribbling down your number, you pass them back and give him a smile. 

“Thanks for asking,” he says softly, “made my day.” 

You walk out of the café, feeling a rush of euphoria and embarrassment battling inside you. Your heart is still racing, your fingers buzzing from the contact with Sirius's hand, the warmth of his smile lingering on your skin. But as you step outside into the drizzle, your stomach drops. It’s a small thing at first—just a twinge of uncertainty. But then, as you walk farther away, the feeling intensifies. You frown, running through the events of the past few minutes in your mind.

The exchange was perfect, you think. He smiled, said he’d love to have your number... But something’s nagging at you. You can’t put your finger on it, but the feeling settles deep in your gut, like a weight pulling at your chest.

And then it hits you, sudden and sharp: What if I gave him the wrong number?

You freeze in the middle of the sidewalk, panic flooding your veins. The number. Did you give him the right one? The one you’d written down last week when you swapped it with a friend? Or did you, in a nervous blur, scrawl down the number you’ve always used for emergencies—your mum's number?

Your breath quickens, and you feel the world tilt on its axis. There's no way you could have done that. Could you?

No, you reason with yourself, I’m just overthinking this. It’ll be fine.

There’s no other choice now. You’re already turning back toward the café, your heart pounding as you retrace your steps through the drizzle. You push open the door of the café again, the warm air hitting you like a wave. The café hums with its usual bustle, but you feel like you’re standing in the eye of a storm.

Sirius is standing behind the counter, wiping down the coffee machine, his dark eyes scanning the café. He looks up when you walk back toward him, his expression a mix of curiosity and mild confusion.

“You’re… back.” he states tilting his head slightly, not unlike a cat.

“Hey,” you say, feeling like your voice has lost all its natural tone, replaced by a strange pitch of panic. “Uh, I’m so sorry to bother you, but...”

He raises an eyebrow, a little smile tugging at his lips. “What’s up?”

You take a deep breath, steeling yourself. "Could I, uh... could I see the paper I gave you?" You wince at how awkward it sounds, your hands already reaching toward the counter.

His brows furrow slightly, clearly unsure what you’re getting at. "You want to see what you wrote?" he asks, voice a touch more hesitant now.

"Yeah," you say, your cheeks flaming. "I think I might have... made a mistake."

He shrugs, offering a lopsided smile. "Sure, no problem." He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out the crumpled piece of paper, sliding it toward you across the counter.

You take it with trembling hands, your heart hammering in your chest. As soon as you unfold it, your stomach drops. There, in messy, hurried handwriting, is your mum’s phone number—not the one you meant to give him.

A deep flush crawls up your neck as you look at him, unable to hide your embarrassment. You feel your face burning hot, the familiar feeling of mortification sweeping over you. You did not just do that.

Sirius blinks, his eyes flickering between you and the paper. “Uh...” he starts, but his voice trails off as a grin spreads across his face. “Okay, so... this isn’t your number?”

You shake your head quickly, cringing. “No, no! It’s, uh, it’s my mum’s. I’m so sorry, I... I wasn’t really expecting you to say yes and I panicked. I swear I wasn’t trying to give you my mum’s number!”

He chuckles softly, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "Well, it’s definitely a first. Never had someone accidentally give me their mum's number before."

You drop your face into your hands, unable to stop the embarrassed laugh that escapes you. “This is mortifying,” you mutter, your face so hot it might as well be on fire. “I’m so sorry. I swear I didn’t mean to—”

It’s cute,” he interrupts, still chuckling. “Don’t worry about it. I mean, if you really want, I can give your mum a call. See if she’s up for a coffee?”

You look up at him, eyes wide in disbelief, and for a moment, you can’t tell whether he’s joking or not. But then the corners of his mouth twitch, and you realize he's just teasing.

“You’re not serious,” you say, and it’s hard not to smile.

“Of course not,” he says, grinning. "But I’ll tell you what—why don’t you just give me the right number this time, and I promise I’ll use it?"

You laugh, feeling the tension melt away, and quickly pull out a pen, writing the correct number and passing it over to him with a sheepish grin. "Here, I swear this one's mine," you say, offering him a smile that feels a little more confident now.

He takes it with a wink. "I’ll hold you to that," he says, his eyes warm with amusement and something else that makes your stomach flutter again.

“Thanks for being patient,” you murmur, feeling your heart settle as the embarrassment fades into something lighter, easier.

"No problem at all," he replies, tucking your number carefully into his pocket. "It made my day, really." He looks at you one last time, his grin softening into something a little more sincere. “I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

[joesttar]

JJK Boys as cats!♡

small scenarios of Megumi, Yuji and Gojo as cats

warnings: none!

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

Megumi Fushiguro | 伏黒 恵

I like to imagine that Megumi is like a typical quiet cat, always napping somewhere and peacefully sunning himself by the window.

You come home after shopping at the supermarket, and go straight to the kitchen. While putting the groceries away, you feel a light touch on your leg. You look down and see a black ball of fur, staring at you as if it was waiting for something.

A smile appears on your face: “I didn’t forget about you, mister — I bought you snacks!”

You take a fish-shaped cookie out of the package and offer it to him, but nothing happens. He continues to stare at you.

“Aren't you hungry?”

You go back to organizing until you feel another light nudge. There he is — Megumi, watching you, waiting for some reward.

You discover what reward he was waiting for after stroking his head, pleasure evident when he closes his eyes and rubs against the palm of your hand, asking for more affection.

Not all quiet cats are grumpy!

—

Yuji Itadori | 虎杖 悠仁

Unlike Megumi, Yuji is a silly cat, but he’s also very curious.

You were working from home. Your fingers flew across the keyboard as you typed emails and worked on other tasks.

If Itadori wasnt on the windowsill watching the city, he was playing with an old plushie you gave him (that he destroyed in two days)

But that day was different — not out of the ordinary, but he was in curious mode.

While you were paying attention to the screen, you felt a weight on your lap, and saw a snowshoe with a red collar.

You couldn’t stop to pet him, but he didn’t mind. He was curious about what you were doing.

His eyes followed the cursor, and he moved his head as you did, as if he were imitating you.

After a few minutes, you heard a purr and saw the cat sleeping peacefully in your lap.

He loved your company — he was always waiting for your arrive at windowsill.

—

Gojo Satoru | 五条悟

I guess most people know what it's like. A mischievous cat, always getting into trouble, always with his ears perked up, but he melts your heart.

After a long morning exploring, probably with another cat, Geto, your cats neighbor, he sneaks through the door and lies down in the middle of the living room rug while you're watching your favorite show.

As the day goes on, wherever you go, he's nearby. In the kitchen? He'll be on the counter. In the bedroom? On the bed. In the living room? Lying on the rug. In the bathroom? Waiting outside the door.

When you go to sleep, you feel a presence right next to you-

A white cat settling down right next to you. When you don't pay attention to him, he tries to play with you by climbing on top of you or licking your face.

A very social and loving cat. Clingy, but a clinginess you wouldn't trade for anything!

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

notes: cat=life

sorry for the bad english!

[cloudyluun]

Rose & Torn | Patreon Blurb

Wondered what I post on Patreon? Curious? Nosy? Need a little push before you subscribe? Okay babe, I got you. This one time… you get the full blurb. For free. Like the spoiled princess you are 💅

Rose & Thorn Summary: You’re just trying to write your silly little stories in peace when Harry Styles—yes, that Harry Styles, with the long hair, soft sweater, and rings for days—walks into your favorite café and steals the seat across from you.

What follows?

Flirty banter

Warm chai (that he hates, rude)

Painfully soft glances

And him saying, “I was gonna write lyrics, but now I kinda just wanna write about you.”

Yes, it’s fluffy. Yes, you might blush. Yes, I wrote it at 1AM while thinking, What if Harry fell in love with me while I was just trying to mind my business???

And you can read the entire thing right now 🫶 Just this once, it’s not behind a paywall.

But next week? We’re back to secret club energy 💌

🔗 [Click here] or read below!

The bell over the café door jingled, but you didn’t look up.

Your fingers hovered over your keyboard, pausing as you squinted at the blinking cursor on your screen. You were halfway through a sentence, one you’d rewritten three times already, and it still didn’t sound right. You sighed softly, thumbed the edge of your coffee cup, and took another sip of your now-lukewarm latte. Background hums of milk steamers and indie music blended with the occasional murmur of conversation.

This place—Rose & Thorn—had become your usual over the last few months. It wasn’t big, but it had high ceilings, vintage tile floors, plants dangling from copper rods, and deep wooden booths along the back wall. Enough character to feel lived-in, but quiet enough to focus. You loved it here. Not for any grand reason. Just... the peace of it.

You didn’t notice him at first.

Not until the barista stuttered a bit while asking for a name to write on the cup.

Then you glanced up. Casual, curious.

And saw him.

Tall. Slim. Hair long, dark golden brown, pulled half-up but some pieces falling around his face. A soft, oversized green sweater. Black trousers. Rings. A slow smile that looked both unsure and entirely too charming as he gave his name—Harry.

Harry.

Your brain didn’t immediately click. Not until he turned, waiting for his drink, and you caught the sharp line of his jaw. The eyes. The way he looked around the room like he wasn’t trying to be noticed but always would be.

Harry Styles.

You blinked.

You knew it was him. Of course you did. You weren’t living under a rock. But your mind scrambled to catch up with the realness of him. He looked... softer than you expected. A little sleepy, like maybe he hadn’t meant to stay out this late or wake up this early. And he was definitely looking for a place to sit.

There were two open booths. One next to the window, and one—yours.

He glanced toward the front, then toward you.

And started walking over.

You looked back at your laptop fast, pretending to type.

“Sorry,” a voice said, low and warm and just slightly hesitant. “This seat taken?”

You looked up. And there he was, closer now. Tall enough that the light from the window hit his cheekbone just right. Kind enough eyes that it made you forget how unfairly good-looking he was.

“Oh—no,” you said, heart skipping weirdly in your chest. “Go ahead.”

“Thanks.”

He sat, adjusting the chair with a quiet scrape. You tried to act normal. Just some girl in a café. Writing. Not freaking out. Not staring.

He took out a small notebook, leather-bound and worn at the edges, and a pen. No phone. No entourage. Just him, like this was his usual spot too.

A minute passed. Then five.

You tried to focus on your sentence again, but your thoughts were a mess. You could feel him. Not in a weird way, just... there. He had that kind of presence. Big but easy. Confident but not loud. And he was humming under his breath.

You snuck a glance.

He was scribbling something in his notebook. Brow furrowed a little. Lips parted. His tea sat untouched.

Your stomach did a small flip.

And then he looked up at you.

Caught.

You froze.

He smiled, slow and crooked, like he knew.

“Whatcha working on?” he asked, voice still soft. Like he didn’t want to break the quiet of the place too much.

You hesitated. “Just writing.”

“Mm,” he nodded. “Fiction?”

“Sort of.”

He tilted his head. “Sort of?”

“I write articles,” you explained. “But sometimes I write other things. Like... bits of stories. Stuff that’ll never see the light of day.”

Harry smiled wider. “I like that. Secret stories.”

You laughed under your breath. “Not on purpose. Just... never finished anything I felt was good enough.”

He leaned forward a little, interest plain in his eyes. “Can I ask what this one’s about?”

Your fingers hovered over the keyboard again. “A girl. She works in a little café. She’s just... trying to keep her life from falling apart.”

Harry looked around. “She work here?”

You shook your head. “Different place. Messier. Bad coffee.”

“Sounds real,” he said, nodding seriously.

You grinned.

He stuck out a hand. “I’m Harry.”

“I know.”

He laughed, and it was a real one—quiet but warm, like it came from his chest. You liked that laugh.

You gave your name.

He repeated it softly. Then again. Like he was trying it out.

“I like that,” he said. “Suits you.”

You looked away, heat crawling up your neck.

This didn’t feel like some celebrity moment. It didn’t feel like you were talking to him, the Harry you’d seen in music videos or awards shows or late-night interviews. It just felt like... a moment. A strangely quiet, perfectly normal moment with a man who was making you smile too easily.

He nodded at your screen. “Can I read it?”

Your heart leapt. “God, no. It’s—just fragments.”

He leaned back, hands up. “Alright. Maybe next time.”

Next time?

You raised an eyebrow. “You planning on stealing my booth?”

He shrugged. “I think I just did.”

You bit your lip to keep from smiling too much. “Okay, but I get the plug socket. It’s war if you touch my charger.”

“I’d never,” he said solemnly.

He took a sip of his tea, finally. Grimaced.

“Too hot?”

“No, just… chai.”

You laughed.

“You don’t like chai?”

“It tastes like someone dropped a candle in milk.”

You choked on your latte. “That’s oddly specific.”

He wiped his mouth with a napkin, still grinning. “It’s accurate, though.”

You shook your head. “Blasphemy.”

For the next twenty minutes, neither of you wrote. Or pretended to. The conversation was easy, weirdly so. You talked about little things—books, music, your mutual distaste for small talk. He asked you if you believed in ghosts. You asked him if he always talked to strangers in cafés.

“Not always,” he said. “Just the pretty ones.”

You stared at him.

He held your gaze, no smirk this time. Just honesty. That kind that didn’t feel rehearsed or smooth.

“I mean it,” he said. “You walked in and I... I couldn’t stop looking.”

“I was already here,” you said, trying to make your voice steady.

He blinked. “Wasn’t I here first?”

You laughed, a little breathless. “No.”

“Shit.”

“What?”

“Means I really didn’t see anything else. Just you.”

Silence stretched. Not awkward. Just... tight. Charged.

You looked down at your cup.

He tapped a ringed finger on the table. “Can I be honest?”

You glanced back up.

“I was trying to think of something to write when I came in,” he said. “Lyrics or whatever. Been stuck for a while. But now I’m thinking I just want to write about this.”

You blinked. “This?”

He nodded once. “You. Today. The way you looked when I sat down—like you were about to vanish if I stared too hard.”

You swallowed. “That’s... intense.”

“I know,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

He smiled, softer this time.

You looked at your screen. Then back at him. “Can I be honest too?”

“Please.”

“This is the weirdest day of my life.”

He laughed. “Fair.”

You hesitated, then added, “But also kinda the best?”

Harry tilted his head, curls shifting. “Yeah?”

You nodded. “Yeah.”

He looked down, then back up again, eyes a little shy now. “Would it be okay if I asked for your number?”

Your heart thudded. You didn’t answer right away, but only because your brain had short-circuited.

He waited.

You reached for his phone. Typed it in.

Handed it over.

He took it gently. Smiled as he saved it.

Then he looked at you again, really looked.

“I’ll text you,” he said. “Soon. Like... tonight.”

You smiled. “Looking forward to it.”

He paused like he wanted to say something else. Then stood, tea in one hand, notebook in the other.

“I should go. Leave you to your writing.”

You nodded, though a part of you wanted to ask him to stay.

As he turned, he paused at the doorway. Looked back. Gave you a smile that made your stomach twist in the best way.

And then he was gone.

You stared at the empty chair for a moment, stunned.

Then turned back to your laptop.

And started writing again.

But this time, the words came easy.

Because now, your story had a beginning.

If you liked this and wanna see more blurbs like it every week (plus some ✨spicy✨ ones), you can subscribe here 💌

[little-yandere-ish-blog]

Oh! Isekai!: Yanderekun x fem! reader

Yandere-kun x fem! Reader

Art: @kirnx-art

might be a shitty fic but I'm slowly getting back into writing so i'm rusty~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You sighed sitting at your desk bored out of your mind, There wasn't much to do on a Saturday night especially at 1:17 in the morning. The clock ticks away the minutes, each second stretching longer than the last. The room feels smaller, quieter, as if the night is closing in on them. A glass of water sits on the nightstand, forgotten, next to a half-open book/manga you haven’t touched in weeks.

You roll over onto your side, blinking at the soft glow of your computer screen across the room. It's been sitting there, idle, waiting. The promise of something more engaging, something to break the monotony, pulls you in. You push yourself upright, the comfort of the bed reluctantly releasing you, and swing your legs off the side. The touch of the carpeted floor beneath your feet is grounding, almost too real, and for a moment, you hesitate.

The chair creaks as you sit down, the cool glow of the monitor illuminating your face, casting shadows across your features. The computer hums to life as you move the mouse, the familiar sound of the cursor clicking. You absent mindedly decided to boot up "Yandere Simulator". As you decided to set a new game for yourself you realized you couldn't customize not only the Yandere but the Senpai either. It was a male yandere and a female senpai.

Suddenly with the loud buzzing of your computer everything went to black. There was a bright light as you woke up to some students around you all wearing white sailor uniforms with a red ribbon and a navy blue pleated skirt the socks came in variations of colors and lengths. The male uniforms consisted of Black blazers with golden buttons and white collared dress shirt underneath. Including black dress pants. Not much to say compared to the female uniforms.

" Hey (last name) are you okay? Do we need to take you to the infirmary?" A girl with purple twin drills bent down to help you up.

You were stunned there's no way you were here. In the game. In...Yandere simulator. You sweated out of your mind. " Yeah, I'm fine I need to get up and walk" You got up with the help of Kokona.

You didn't mean to cause a ruckus, seems you might of existed in this world but you were here now, you were smart enough to know the mechanics of the game was to stay out of Ayano Aishi's way and breathe the same air as Taro Yamada and stay in populated areas because being at the wrong place at the wrong time will get you killed and you'd rather not be killed in the worst ways possible.

You noticed there wasn't Osana Naijimi. There was a male with orange hair and orange eyes and a small potion of hair held with a pink hair tie. His blouse and dress shirt was open his undershirt was pink with white polka dots. Seems to be the gender bent version of the rivals meaning there was a female senpai named Taeko Yamada and male ayano or Ayato Aishi.

" (name)! Are you okay? I heard what happened on your way out of the locker rooms" Osono approached you.

" oh yeah... I'm okay. Aren't you supposed to be with Taeko Yamada?" You asked trying to move the dynamic of the game where it supposed to be.

"Taeko Yamada? Did you hit your head stupid? I don't know who she is. I always hang out with you! Did your brain fall out on the concrete too? Geez I'll talk to your mom or something youre acting weird" Osono asked annoyed with your question.

You felt sick to your stomach and felt a bit cold.

"Hey! (name) don't fucking throw up on me. H-hey! (name)!" Osono looked grossed out.

Everything went black.

.....

..........

................

You woke up in the infirmary. You saw Osono asleep in the chair beside your bed. The infirmary had windows that let in the evening sunlight in. The nurse seemed to have stepped out and leaving you and Osano alone together, the Infirmary had 6 bed with curtains as separation. The room was surprisingly pink with the whiteness of the walls and floor.

"What the fuck?" You groaned sitting up, queuing Osano to wake up.

" You passed out on me stupid" He huffed softly, he was more worried than annoyed " The nurse said you have a fever, you need to stay home for a few days" He leaned over resting his elbows on his knees. He sighed " Lets get you home (name)"

The next few days it was you staying at home and resting attempting to battle this fever. Maybe something between your old world and this one made you get something. But surely you must be dreaming in your world and dreaming of this one but it feels too real you can feel everything. The grass, the wind, the sun on your skin, and even the warmth of another persons touch.

Osano has been visiting you everyday, but one day you got a knock on the door upon opening it you saw a man with black hair and grey eyes. Instead of wearing the black blazer he had his white dress shirt that's unbuttoned with the first two buttons. You recognized him immediately, he held a folder full of homework you missed.

" Sorry to barge in like this (lastname), I wanted to give you the homework you missed Osano was sick and I was told by the instructor to give this to you" He handed you the black folder that had your missing assignments.

" Its okay Aishi, I understand things happen i really appreciate you taking your time out of your day to bring these to me" You smiled softly, taking the folder he gave you. He held up a white plastic bag.

"I brought some things because I know you're sick" He offered the plastic bag to you.

"Aishi, there is no need I really appreciate everything" You tried to be polite.

" Its only fair because you helped me several times in the infirmary, so I basically owe you at this point" He said shyly.

" Its no problem! I want to make sure you're okay. Please try to give some rest" He handed the bag over to you not allowing you to decline him.

" Uhm I appreciate everything bu-" You were cut off you weren't able to say anything until Ayato came into your house and closed the door pinning you to the door.

"I know what your secret is the fact you are not apart of this timeline, but let me tell you (name). You cannot mess up this timeline I've seen you in hundreds of timelines everytime you've played this game again again. When you played mission mode, when you failed again and again every variation of this game you've played I've been there. You are not escaping me this time." Ayato's glare darkened

"Are you...the reason I'm here?" You said quietly.

" Exactly, you thought this was going to be something where you could wedge your way into another timeline? No. That's not how this is going to work. You and I are the same...More than you think we are" He chuckled.

" But, Im not isekai'd I can still go back home." You defended yourself

" Are you? You are dead in your old universe, electrocution at your computer after spilling strawberry ramune on your PC" Ayato chuckled.

" I can have you in every timeline, I could kill you and you will respawn in this universe either remembering or forgetting its going to be a bargain but you can NOT escape me." Ayato smiled softly.

" Run all you might. I'm not letting you escape me in this timeline or any other timeline" He chuckled.

......run all you might remember you are trapped here.

[notiddygothgf]

3. Obsessed

★ pairings: aki hayakawa x fem reader

★ ❝ Aki, you smooth bastard. ❞

★ c.w.: nothing :) (more content warnings and tags)

★ a/n: accidentally posted chap 4 before chap 3 oopsies!! omg so like this one lowkey seems like filler but I PROMISE ITS NECESSARY. im building the tension. i hope you all like obsessive aki as much as i love him. teehee. like comment and talk to me! id love to hear ur thoughts x

★ w.c.;3.2k

shameless ; chapter index

YOU HELD YOUR PHONE TO YOUR EAR later in the evening, listening to your husband talk about his day. His voice was a comforting, familiar anchor, but tonight, it struggled to pull you from the storm raging in your mind the way it usually did.

"And then I told them they couldn't just ignore the data. They finally agreed to reassess the project," he was saying, his tone tinged with satisfaction. "That's how my day was."

"That's great," you replied absentmindedly, your fingers hovering over your phone's keyboard.

As he continued speaking, you opened a new message thread. The name "Aki Hayakawa" stared back at you, the cursor blinking in anticipation. You started typing slowly, uncertainly:

Aki, I'm sorry for running out on you like that. It wasn't |

You paused, backspaced, and tried again:

Captain Hayakawa, I apologize for how I acted tonight. It was unprofessional. |

No, that was too formal. You sighed, deleting the message once more.

"Are you still there?" your husband asked, snapping you out of your reverie.

"Yeah, I'm here," you said quickly. "Just... distracted. Sorry."

"What are you up to?" he asked, his tone lightening. "You sound busy."

"I'm just sending a text to my friend, Himeno," you lied smoothly, hoping the guilt didn't seep into your voice.

"You're so sweet," he said warmly. "Always thinking of others."

Always thinking of other men, apparently, you mean? 

You forced a smile, even though he couldn't see it. "Yeah, I guess so."

Your thumb hovered over the screen again. This time, you typed:

Can we talk?

You hesitated for a moment, then pressed delete before you could change your mind. You had done enough damage tonight. The best thing you could do was just ignore him for the remainder of your stay in Tokyo. It would be over before you knew it.

"Anyway," your husband continued, oblivious to your internal struggle (as he typically was), "So my coworker came up to me and asked if I would go out for drinks with him tonight."

"Sounds great," you said automatically, your mind still on the message you had just deleted. You glanced out the window at the city rushing by – the midnight was blue, almost as blue as his eyes.

You hoped that, somehow, everything would make sense in the morning.

.

Your first informal mission took place at the art museum. There had been complaints of Devil-sightings there. It wasn't anything particularly alarming or dangerous, but you had been sent to check it out (and kill it).

With nothing but the quiet sound of your shoes clicking against the old wooden floorboards to accompany you, you made your rounds through the second floor. Your Public Safety uniform pulled very few strange looks here where everybody else was also done up in black-tie attire. There was an art showing tonight.

You put an 'x' over the words "Second floor". No Art-devil spotted there. Two more to go.

Stopping in front of a small painting, you took a moment to admire the artistry. You didn't mind doing the scut work while Makima was understaffed – more gruesome positions existed, surely. This was most certainly not the worst way you could think to spend your first day back on the job.

The painting was a masterful symphony of oil paints – shades of pink and green and blue forming the prettiest little petals. It depicted a serene field of wildflowers and nothing else. A singular tree near the right side of the painting, a clear blue sky on the top of it.

One day I'll buy a painting like that, you thought to yourself. Not that it had much of a place in your stale, modern-style home in the Japanese countryside. You always wanted a house with color – one with wooden seats and tables and wallpaper and a happy family – even if it aged poorly. There was something homely about flowers and colors. Something that the black-white-and-grey color scheme of your contemporary home lacked.

It was such a shame, too. You told your husband about these wishes long before you married him and, yet, he insisted upon having a home that would look "sleek" and "modern". Had it not been for his vision of what your home should look like, you would have taken the painting home with you.

Briefly, the image of a small, gold-framed painting of a flower field hung up in your cold, cool-toned dining room crossed your mind. It wouldn't work.

Then again, perhaps the painting could serve as a metaphor for your feelings?

You looked away from it, and went back to scanning the room for any sight of a Devil. You didn't find one.

What you did find, however, was the one person you didn't want to see today. A certain young captain stood with his arms crossed behind his back, inspecting a larger painting only a few yards away from you.

Then, as if the situation couldn't get any worse, he turned to look at you.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

You ducked over, shielding your face from his gaze. It was too late, though – you heard his telltale footsteps coming your way and you knew he'd sniffed you out.

His voice was a sickening croon behind you, "Enjoying the show?"

Okay. It would appear that neither of you wanted to address the elephant in the room (being last night, that is).

You couldn't stop the little flutter your heart did when it heard his voice.

"Yes, thank you," You snapped back a little quicker than you anticipated. "The paintings are beautiful."

"They are, aren't they?" He reiterated. Something told you he wasn't only speaking about the paintings. "You like that one?"

"I do," You answered. This whole conversation was just a whole lot more awkward than you could bear today. "It's peaceful, I think. Pretty."

You shouldn't be talking to him. You really shouldn't be talking to him – not after whatever the fuck had happened between the two of you at the party.

To your surprise, Aki didn't toy with you any longer than that. He walked away – you had only heard him leave, after all, as you hadn't made any effort to look him in the eye. How could you? You had seen that face of his far too many times in your dreams.

"Keep up the good work," He said over his shoulder.

You turned to look only when you were certain he was a respectable distance away from you. Then, looking at the back of his Public Safety suit jacket, you thought, How bizarre.

.

You were making your rounds at the grocery store two days later, grabbing some last minute food and snacks because you truly hadn't anticipated your stay to be so long. A small slip of paper clutched in one hand and a pen in the other, you crossed "bread" off the list.

"Okay," You muttered to yourself, glancing around for your next stop. "Pads, produce, chips," Deciding that you couldn't live off of the tiny little hotel sample containers in your shower, you quickly scribbled down 'Shampoo/Conditioner'.

Then you continued on your merry little way, pushing the cart forward and exploring the rest of the grocery store. Aisle 14's sign was done in a shade of lilac, and read 'Feminine Hygiene, Baby, Sexual Wellness'. Oddly enough, you had to pass through the baby section before you could get to the feminine hygiene products. You tried not to make eye contact with any diaper boxes, as they only served to remind you of the fact that – despite being married – you were the only one out of all of your friends who hadn't settled down and started a family by now.

Soon, you thought. But, then, a vision of a screaming baby throwing up in your arms flashed through your mind, an image of your husband asking you what was for dinner after the both of you had come home from work, and it didn't feel so right.

"Let's see," you hummed, tracing your finger over a box of day pads. You figured that it wouldn't hurt to be prepared, even if you weren't supposed to get your period for at least another two weeks.

So you grabbed a multipack – day pads, liners, and night pads – and you tossed them into the cart. Then, you checked "pads" off of your list.

At the end of the aisle, there were walls and walls full of condom boxes – some were even flavored – and lubricants.

Won't be needing those any time soon, you mused. You and your husband hadn't exactly been very... active recently. With work and cleaning and everything else to be done around the house, neither of you had the energy.

Well, okay. You didn't have the energy. He had made a great many fruitless attempts. It was difficult to want to have sex with a man who acted like an insolent child when you told him that, yes, it was his house too, and he could do some dishes once in a while.

You were happy, though. You were just... going through a rough patch was all.

"I'm married!" 

The words echoed in the back of your mind. You saw a vision of him there, too – not your husband – taking a tentative step towards you while you backed away from him.

"You weren't acting like it," The words replayed, clear as day, "I can't forget about tonight. I know you felt it, too."

You gazed blankly at the condom boxes on the shelves. He had been right. You weren't acting like a married woman, even now. Because when you thought of someone pressing kisses to your neck and slipping the clothes off of you, it wasn't your husband you envisioned. It was him.

You were fucked. Truly, royally fucked.

That being said, you walked right on past the wall of condoms. You were many things – a liar, Devil Hunter – but you would not break your marriage vows. It was your fault that you had been sucked into a wedding so early in your life. You had to see it through.

You had to do right by your husband.

The next aisle you hit up was the produce section in search of soup vegetables.

Some carrots would be nice, you thought. Oh, and some potatoes. Maybe even some angus beef? 

You rolled up to the vegetables. They looked so tasty, all bundled together, being misted gently with water. You pulled a few carrots off the display and popped them into a plastic produce bag.

Leeks, you thought, pursing your lips and glancing around. They were two shelves over to your right.

And you'll never guess what else was only two shelves over, so tall he had to bend over to reach the legumes, sporting a loose black tee shirt and some black sweatpants.

Captain Hayakawa. Your stomach did a backflip and a death drop and your heart seemed to beat a little faster. What the fuck.

You could tell yourself whatever you wanted, but the way your body reacted to his presence gave your true feelings away. He had you wrapped around his finger.

Still, you hadn't seen him in casual clothes before. He looked much cuter that way, you thought. You could see his arms much more clearly now, the ridges and hills of his chiseled biceps, his strong forearms.

And he was buying groceries. Could he get any better?

You couldn't recall the last time your husband had even cooked some food, let alone go buy produce.

Maybe he was grocery shopping for someone else? Maybe he had a woman at home, to whom he was only bringing these groceries. It seemed far more likely that he had just come here to cook for himself.

What am I thinking? He was bad for you. Real bad. You had no business thinking these things about another man.

So, you did what any other respectable, married woman would have done and left the produce section before he could notice you. Before you could even begin to question whether or not this meeting was really pure coincidence.

You could always pick your veggies up somewhere else.

.

"Hello, front desk, how can I assist you?"

You sighed a breath of relief, "Hey. Do you think you could have room service send up an extra towel?" You glanced down at the shattered bottle of wine you had picked up from the grocery store. You had used one of the hotel towels to mop it up. It was only after the fact, of course, that you realized you only had one towel left.

"Of course," The friendly woman on the phone answered, "Can I have a room number?"

"1409," You answered.

A few keyboard clacks later, and she said, "You have a package at the front desk. Would you like us to send that up, too?"

A package? You thought. You didn't recall ordering anything. Still, you figured it was most likely something Public Safety had sent you (and, least likely, a bouquet of flowers from your husband).

"Okay, yeah, sure," You hummed. "Send that up, too, thanks."

The phone call ended a moment later, after the two of you had exchanged goodbye. Within five minutes, there was a knock at your door.

"Room service," A feminine voice grunted.

"Coming!" You answered. Tip-toeing around the mess of broken glass you'd left bundled up inside of a red-stained white towel, you jogged to the door to answer it.

A short, brown-haired old lady in a maid's uniform was holding a freshly folded towel in one hand, and a rectangular brown box in the other. You took both from her gratefully, ducking your head and muttering a quick 'Thank you' before closing the door.

You set the towel down on the bed. Then you flopped down next to it, eyeing the brown box up precariously. It had "FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CARE" printed all over it.

I wonder what it is.

Of course, you had left your letter openers and box-cutters at home, so you made do with a butter knife that the hotel had so graciously provided to you. You took out a few layers of packing foam and tissue paper before the item was finally revealed to you.

It was a small, gold framed painting. One with pink and blue wildflowers in a green, open field. One with a clear sky and a tree. The one from the gallery.

"How the fuck...?" You asked, turning the thing over in your hands, as if to make sure that your eyes hadn't deceived you. (They hadn't.)

It was something so strange, so oddly specific, that you could only attribute it to one individual.

"The paintings are beautiful."

"They are, aren't they?" Captain Hayakawa reiterated. Something told you he wasn't only speaking about the paintings. "You like that one?"

"I do," You answered. "It's peaceful, I think. Pretty."

You admired the beautiful painting beneath the warm hotel light. Then, with a giddy sigh, you flopped onto your back, clutching it to your chest.

Aki, you smooth bastard. You thought. Fair play.

.

The conference room buzzed with anticipation as agents filed in, each clad in the standard uniform of crisp suits and ties.

You sat in the front row, your hands folded neatly in your lap, trying to maintain a professional demeanor.

The atmosphere was thick with tension and a sense of gravity, appropriate for a meeting about the Gun Devil—a formidable enemy everyone in the room was acutely aware of.

Miss Makima stood at the front, her posture perfect, her pink hair immaculately styled. She exuded an aura of authority and control that was almost frightening, which was normal for her. A large board behind her displayed a complex array of photographs, maps, and written leads, all connected by a web of strings and arrows. It was a visual representation of the intelligence gathered on the Gun Devil, a chilling reminder of the stakes at play.

As Makima began to speak, detailing the latest developments and potential leads, you tried to focus on her words. She spoke with a calm, measured cadence, explaining the connections and evidence they had so far. But as the minutes passed, you felt a warmth spreading across the back of your neck, an unsettling sensation that made you shift in your seat.

Curious, you turned your head slightly, just enough to glance over your shoulder. There he was—Captain Hayakawa—propped up against the wall at the back of the room, his gaze locked onto you with a disconcerting intensity. His blue eyes were sharp, unwavering, and you felt a jolt of electricity shoot down your spine. The way he looked at you, it was as if he could see right through the layers of professional decorum you had carefully constructed.

A rush of heat flooded your face, and you quickly turned back around, your pulse quickening.

Behave, you reminded yourself sternly. But it was hard to focus, hard to even think straight, with his gaze burning into you so desperately like that – like you were the only person in the room, like he would freeze time if he could just to ravage you right then and there.

You pressed your legs together, a subconscious reaction to the sheer force of his attention.

He was going to be the death of you if you didn't get the hell out of Tokyo soon.

Makima continued her presentation, moving to a new section of the board, but her words became a distant murmur in your ears. All you could think about was the weight of Aki's stare, the way it made you feel exposed and vulnerable. You couldn't help but wonder what was going through his mind. He wasn't shy, not in the slightest—his gaze was bold, almost challenging, as if daring you to meet his eyes again.

You swallowed hard, forcing yourself to look back at the board. The images and notes blurred together as you struggled to refocus. You knew you should be paying attention—this information was critical, after all—but Aki's presence was an insistent distraction. You could feel his eyes on you, a constant, burning sensation that refused to let up.

When the meeting finally concluded, you realized with a sinking feeling that you had retained almost nothing from the entire seminar. You gathered your things, avoiding eye contact with everyone as you hurried out of the room. 

ITS SO SHORT ik ik. to make up for it, read chapter 4 and pretend i didnt accidentally post that one first LMFAOAOOA... see yall soon!! x

credits: UNKOWN ATM. I found the cover pic on pinterest unfortch. If you know the artist, please let me know, so I can credit them properly for their work!!! This is NOT MY BEAUTIFUL DRAWINGGG. I obviously do not own csm or anything related to it. please do not reproduce, copy, or translate my works anywhere. dont fk w me im a bruja.

also: come find me on my wattpad if u wanna interact more!

taglist: @mitsuyeahhh , @sleepysnk , @enneadec , @noaabean , @em1e , @drakensdarling , @bertholdts--butt , @satanlovesusall666 , @mitsuwuyaa , @noctifule , @scaraphobia , @ask-the-insect-hashira , @lovingranchturkeyweasel , @bontensbabygirl , @slvdsjjk , @novacrystalli , @hanmastattoos , @kodzuksn , @hqtiny , @ohmaiscool15 , @redlittlequeen , @leivane , @goldeneagles-posts , @yeahblahlame , @no-oneelsebutnsu , @cookiesandcreammy , @cawwn , @the-haitani-baton , @littlelovebug98 , @armani78 , @mindurownbussines , @kokos-property , @violetmatcha , @hp-simp505 , @acethebrave , @mitsuyeahhh , @sleepysnk , @enneadec , @noaabean , @em1e , @drakensdarling , @bertholdts--butt , @satanlovesusall666 , @mitsuwuyaa , @noctifule , @scaraphobia , @ask-the-insect-hashira , @lovingranchturkeyweasel , @bontensbabygirl , @slvdsjjk , @novacrystalli , @hanmastattoos , @kodzuksn , @hqtiny , @ohmaiscool15 , @redlittlequeen , @leivane , @goldeneagles-posts , @yeahblahlame , @no-oneelsebutnsu , @cookiesandcreammy , @cawwn , @the-haitani-baton , @littlelovebug98 , @armani78 , @mindurownbussines , @kokos-property , @violetmatcha , @hp-simp505

wanna join the taglist? | shameless ; chapter index

[b1nniecat]

🎶 counterpoint 🎶

chapter II: staccato.

pairing: college!au park wonbin x fem!reader

content warnings: swearing

wc: 1.2k

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♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ. ♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ. ♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ. ♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ. ♫⋆｡

Y/N collapsed onto her bed the moment she returned to her dorm, her tote bag slipping from her shoulder and landing on the floor with a dull thud. The muffled sound of her groan was swallowed by her pillow, and for a moment, she stayed like that—face down, arms sprawled, utterly defeated.

Her phone buzzed insistently from where it sat on her nightstand. With a sigh, she reached for it blindly, the glow of the screen casting faint light across her tired expression.

The group chat quieted down after that, the last message from Giselle still glowing softly on the screen. Y/N tossed her phone onto her bed with a sigh, rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling.

The meeting replayed in sharp flashes—Wonbin’s clipped words, the edge in his voice, the way he barely looked at her except to deliver another curt remark.

It stung.

And what made it worse was how much it stung.

She’d spent weeks building up this harmless little crush on him, letting herself daydream during class about what kind of person he might be—what he might sound like when he laughed, whether his voice softened when he spoke to people he cared about.

But today had stripped all that away.

Y/N sighed, rolling onto her back and staring up at the ceiling. She was so not looking forward to their next meeting tomorrow.

Her gaze flickered toward her tote bag, where her laptop was still half-zipped inside. She debated just shutting her eyes and letting sleep take over, but the anxious itch in her chest wouldn’t let her.

With another sigh, she sat up, pulled her laptop out, and flipped it open.

”Work,” she told herself. “Just focus on the work.”

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

The screen dimmed after Wonbin sent his final message, his thumb hovering briefly over the keyboard before he locked his phone and set it face-down on the edge of his desk. The faint glow from his desk lamp painted golden edges onto the clutter of sheet music and tangled earphone wires scattered across the surface. His guitar sat propped up against the wall, its polished wood reflecting the soft light.

He leaned back in his chair, his head tipping upward as he let out a slow exhale. The quiet hum of the campus night filtered through the cracked-open window—a distant car passing by, faint laughter from somewhere below, the rustle of leaves in the wind.

His jaw tightened slightly as fragments of the morning replayed in his head: Y/N’s furrowed brows, the sharp edge in her voice, the way she had stood tall even when he had pushed too far.

Wonbin’s fingers twitched against his knee, and for a brief second, he reached out toward his guitar before stopping midway. His hand hovered there, uncertain, before dropping back to his lap.

He wasn’t proud of himself—not of the clipped words, the dismissive tone, the way he had let his frustration seep into every reply.

But then, there was that melody—the one she had hummed while packing her things.

It lingered in his head like the faint remnants of perfume on fabric, fragile yet persistent.

With a quiet sigh, Wonbin pushed his chair back and stood, moving toward his guitar. He picked it up carefully, settling the strap over his shoulder before plucking a few aimless notes. His brow furrowed as he tried to replicate the melody from memory, the sound soft and uneven under his fingers.

But it wasn’t quite right.

ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

Y/N sat cross-legged on her bed, her laptop perched precariously on her thighs. The dim glow from her desk lamp cast soft shadows on the walls of her dorm room. Her notes, scribbled haphazardly in blue and black ink, were scattered across the duvet. A half-empty cup of coffee rested dangerously close to the edge of her nightstand.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, the cursor blinking back at her from the nearly blank document. She had tried everything—scrolling through her playlists, rereading the notes from earlier, even stepping outside for a smoke—but nothing seemed to clear the frustrating block in her mind.

Every time she tried to focus, flashes of the group meeting from earlier crept back in: Wonbin’s snappy tone, his dismissive remarks, the subtle twitch of his jaw when she pushed back.

Her jaw tightened at the memory. She had walked into the project hoping for a clean slate, maybe even camaraderie, but the sharp edges of Wonbin’s attitude had left her feeling deflated. And now? Now she was stuck here, late at night, picking up the pieces while everyone else was probably fast asleep.

Y/N sighed, running a hand through her hair as she tried to refocus. Her eyes flickered to her phone, which sat face-up beside her laptop. She had considered messaging the group chat earlier to update them on her progress—or lack thereof—but hesitated. The last thing she wanted was to open the door to another round of tension with Wonbin.

But it was nearly 2 AM, and the silence in her room was becoming suffocating.

She grabbed her phone and opened the group chat, typing out a quick message before she could second-guess herself.

She stared at the message for a moment, debating whether or not to delete it. But before she could, the little "delivered" notification popped up, and she had no choice but to let it sit there.

Minutes passed. No response.

"Obviously, what were you thinking..." She mumbled to herself.

Y/N exhaled sharply, leaning her head back against the wall. The quiet buzz of the fluorescent light in the hallway hummed faintly through the door. She glanced at her laptop again, her vision blurring slightly from staring at the screen for too long.

And then her phone buzzed.

Her eyebrows lifted slightly at the notification, surprise flickering across her face. Of all the people in the group, Wonbin had been the last one she expected to reply - especially in the middle of the night.

She hesitated for a moment before typing back.

Wonbin leaned back in his chair, his phone still in hand. The faint glow of the screen illuminated his face as he reread the short exchange. The extra question marks in her first reply lingered in his mind.

He couldn't blame her.

With a sigh, he set his phone down and rubbed his eyes. The weight of the day hung heavy in his chest, but for the first time since the meeting, the knot in his stomach felt just a little looser.

♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ. ♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ. ♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ. ♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ. ♫⋆｡

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🏷️ @sftsohee

[xarrixii]

//deadrail_atlas1

CW: cops, guns (inform me if more are required) word count: 2.5k

He pressed his hands into the damp steel, feeling around the small cold inlet until he found better grip and could dig his gloved fingers into the emergency grooves construction workers left behind in case equipment failed. Rain hit him from above as he heaved himself up enough to give his leg purchase over the side of the next rail.

The grunt escaped in a silent breath as he again dug his fingers in and climbed up a floor, small breaths in place of sound, fingers ghosting over the surface and leaving without squeaks. He repeated the process for several more floors before stopping to breathe and flicking up his element’s screen on the police activity tab, captions popping up as people were speaking. No one had reported him yet, which meant he had time.

He flashed the chatter away and looked up at the remaining space before the sixtieth floor of Manchester Front, room 60-3, only a few floors. He dangled his legs off the side of the steel for another few moments before swinging himself up.

Adjusting the mask on his face one last time, he stopped at the adjacent floor and popped up his element screen again. He minimized the police feed and opened the black screen and blinking text cursor, tapping the bar at the bottom and typed in several command codes all at once on the blue-outlined keyboard that appeared—scanner, localhack, radar, antihack manual—each pulling up their own smaller tabs in preset order and size.

He swallowed and booted the scanner, throwing another keystroke into the command bar at the bottom to watch as additional dots slated over the holographic scanner screen all at once. Another keystroke, and many of them dulled.

Atlas, as many of his commands aptly included, was left with one dot to push further into and connect to via localhack.

He waited for the throbber and percentage confirmation before sizing the screen down and putting a hand in the wind, rain tapping onto the waterproof surface of the gloves and sliding off. Safe.

Atlas whisked himself over the relatively small gap between the building in-construction and the one next to it that had been waiting for a luxurious enough buyer for their neighbor, the Manchester Front. He let himself get pressed against the wall before slowly gliding himself across the ledge and the windows, soundless and mildly frustrated by the rain.

The screen blinked a green check at him in his peripheral by the time he’d gotten to room 60-3, letting him down the screen and grip the pistol he’d concealed near his waist. Raised it to the window and fired, the crack of the gun going off practically deafened over the glass shattering, pieces clattering down to the sidewalk and a light turning on behind him when he moved forward again.

Well, Atlas thought, got it done.

He fit himself into the room, relishing in the lack of an alarm and rifling through any form of storage he could find until his fingers latched onto a ring case, snapping it open and taking a picture of the ring inside for the client.

They responded fast with an affirmative, and Atlas again checked the police chatter lines to a sudden bundle dealing with a gunshot in his area. That’s when he finally got out his earpiece and fit it in, connecting it to the element and raising the volume on the focused line created to follow him.

“Reports from a block neighbor claim a figure dressed like Code Atlas sifting through an apartment on 53rd.”

“He’s leaving now,” someone chimed in appropriately.

Atlas frowned and got moving back across the ledge, ring in bag, to the building under construction, not thankful for the rain drumming against him and sliding off his waterproof clothing again.

He opened the localhack keyboard and started hitting the holograph-sensitive fingertips of the gloves along the keyboard, preparing a shutter function before getting on the move again. He wished he could run and type like some of the people trained to run after platform criminals like him, though usually that ended up with typing errors that took more time to assess, and as such he’d stopped putting effort into the skill.

By the time the sirens reached him, he had climbed down to the floor adjacent to a nearby roof and started moving across, hefting himself up to another building ledge’s secured planter, dancing around the green patches until he reached a balcony and gave himself a breather.

Atlas opened the secured chatline with his client and started typing again, Where am I meeting you? Cops on tail.

All of this work, for a ring. A diamond ring, yet still. Atlas was not a free service, it would have been cheaper to just get another ring. There needed to be a good reason someone rich went through the work to track him down for it. Family heirloom, secret code to a vault engrained in the diamond, something.

He had to duck under the balcony’s concrete railing as a few shots pecked off below him. For his own sanity he felt at the bulletproof vest over his shirt to make sure it was still there.

You’re compromised, his client texted back.

I can shake them off whenever I please, Atlas sent. Tell me where I’m going.

He shot through the locked glass door and stepped inside the apartment, moving silently across the mess to the door with shoes next to it and into the hallway, to the elevator that he preemptively sent down.

Atlas heard it crash a few seconds later.

“Is he inside?” the police line rang in his ear.

“No.”

He overlaid the radar function onto his three-dimensional scanner map and waved out his shutter.

The shutter hack, for the record, increased the element screen size to max, locked it in front of the police eye module, lowered the holograph transparency to opaque, broke the screen into a constant state of blinding white, and made the element impossible to turn off or move the screen away until the antihack made it through the encrypted and junk-spammed code and descrambled the contents. Atlas liked to junk-cram a copy of the code’s save file before a mission so that human element descramblers couldn’t properly prepare antihack functions in preparation.

He entered his antihack manual panel, in the same place it always was despite the white, and flicked his decryption key in. Atlas blinked a few times and hacked open the elevator doors for just long enough to grab the suspension and hang there, patter of footsteps outside.

Cursing in his earpiece. Demands to get the screens fixed.

“Take the minute to get the element equipment around your heads off,” someone on the descrambling team said. “He won’t go far.”

Atlas began to slowly climb down the elevator shaft, confident enough in lowered distance precision and his abilities to hide his own element’s signal to take the time to be careful about it.

Finally he tapped soundlessly on the top of the crashed elevator and sent out another shutter to the sounds of officers putting headpieces back on, backing it up with a basic scrambler, favorite of most keyboard-fluent criminals. The antihack would be focused on the first rather than the second, especially with severity detection in place.

The scrambler, for the record, was designed to look normal on the surface but change the actual screen underneath. More of a temporary distraction than permanent.

Atlas opened the elevator doors to more cursing and bolted out through the lobby front door, making a break for cover as a few blind bullets flew past to civilian noise clutter. He checked his messages. One from Iris and one from his client. He let the client’s take priority, Camelo Grand Train. I will be eating a sandwich in the third booth of the Refresh.

He put that in memory and opened up Iris’ message while running.

I told you to use a silencer.

Atlas brought her up for voice call. She answered pretty much immediately, taking priority soundspace over the police comms. “Where are you?”

“Planning to try and lose these guys in Daniel’s Paper Co.,” was a better answer than the obvious. It was the first noise he’d consciously made in a while, pushing past bodies moving out of the way, bodies that were the only thing keeping Atlas, really, from getting shot.

“Move out of the way!” cops shouted behind Atlas.

“You’re gonna have to snipe their software,” Atlas said. “Must not have jammed enough useless code in today.”

“Or they know what to look for by now,” Iris added.

“Either way.”

His feet hit the tile of Daniel’s Paper Company and flew up the stairwell with controlled, measured breaths. He could barely feel his shoes hitting the ground, black and blue jacket flying out behind him. While running he was adjusting his hood, bag, jacket, anything that needed to be a better spot.

“Alright,” Iris started in his ear again. “I have your sniping algorithm set up. Tell me when to pull the trigger, I’ll be in range in maybe thirty seconds.”

“Where were you?” Atlas asked.

“Nearby.”

Atlas shook his head and laughed, though Iris could only tell one of those things was happening. He climbed up another few floors before firing through one of the office windows.

“Now!” he yelled to Iris, sending off his best wishes in a final copy of his shutter along with the snipe. The police line went wild in Iris’ silence.

He practically vaulted out the window, office workers doing who knows what for their company scrambling in panic. Atlas unlocked the white screen’s location and felt the rain smack him again as he curved it below his feet and began to skid forward by slope downward, every element in the area except for his and Iris’ effectively shuttered and without defense.

“Please tell me you knew that would work,” Iris said incredulously.

“It’s the same holograph-sensitive material as the gloves. I figured why wouldn’t it, really. Not like the element has a physical structure to break.” Atlas had been working on this idea for a while, sliding away down the street before jumping off and swiping away the screen to normal, clicking it off. The first issue was with the element itself—they could move but not directly beneath or particularly angled. It was limited, so he first had to lift that limit. Then he had to figure out how to get holograph-sensitive fiber and how to put it on his shoes without ruining the original functionality of said shoes or it wearing off.

He’d practiced once. At home. Just standing on it.

“Get a job,” Iris pestered him while he dashed behind a thin plastic barrier to the lowest floor of a cheap building. “A real one. Not this bullshit. You would make, a lot of money.”

He did have a real job. It involved making the coding in the antihack software downloaded onto every single element better than it was in the last update.

Atlas was not paid to innovate. He wasn’t even one of the people paid to push out code—he got paid to optimize it. That was it. It wasn’t particularly his problem that his coworkers left errors. One time, he’d even tried to go the extra mile and solve the errors.

HR did not like that. They called it tampering.

Atlas had effectively disappeared, breathing slowly against a wall in the dry expanse that was a dilapidated concrete structure that would likely soon be destroyed and rebuilt to get rid of the potential space for homeless people to relax. He heard the police chatter ring in his ear before finally lowering it out and listening to panic and the thick patter of rain.

Eat a little slower, Atlas sent his client.

It clicked Read but they didn’t respond. Atlas would let them mill over how he’d managed to blank over a block and a half worth of elements trying to record him.

Meant he could use the trick again.

Iris spoke in his ear again, “Corner, small blue car. Police have run past you already.”

Atlas ducked out, taking advantage of the white-screen panic. Many people were still trying to rely on their antihack system to kick in, but those who had taken off their element were otherwise distracted with getting out before they could get caught in some unlucky police blindfire. He got into the passenger seat of Iris’ vehicle of the day and was barely buckled in when she began speeding off.

“Where am I going?”

“Camelo Grand Train Station,” Atlas breathed out, clicking out of comms with Iris and tearing out the earpiece. “I don’t get it. It’s just a diamond ring. Empty apartment, crowded, security-detail tight area.”

“Why’d you take it if you thought it was stupid?”

“They followed my rules. No weapons. They proved to me they had the money. They tracked me. I mean, why not? I had the means.”

Iris shrugged and from then on she drove in silence. Atlas stared out the blacked-out windows, ready for another potential altercation that never came. He dodged the officers patrolling the station and made his way to Refresh, hood down under the main platform and unquestioned in the crowd, even with the blue in his jacket and two mis-matching gloves.

He sat down at the third booth, across from the man already sitting there.

Six faintly glowing green slits for eyes were in their mask. They didn’t blink and had half of a sandwich sitting in front of them when Atlas sat down. They crossed one leg over the other, subsequently folding their arms.

Atlas removed the ring, cracked the case open so they could see.

Something about their body language screamed unsettled, but also far more easy-going. Atlas snapped the case shut when they inched a hand forward.

“Deal’s a deal. $6,000 or I go put it back, right now.”

A verified threat. He’s done it before. Any good person trying to deal with Atlas would understand that.

“Of course,” they said. Accented. Atlas looked at their armband and had the vague feeling they weren’t quite used to being told what to do. Especially surrounded by other people. Their head kept moving, betraying the full mask on their face. The armband also had an eye on it.

Atlas made them wait until he’d counted out the money before finally sliding over the ring. The person behind the counter making peoples’ sandwiches kept glancing up at him as he left with a new duffel bag full of money. He put his hood back up and carted the bag up the steps to the street, then up again to the main platform as the car rail began to rumble the magnetic track.

He looked at his element’s screen. The police comms were going off about him and a witness report, so he dove into the crowd of people and disappeared, cop losing trail behind him.

i don't know what to put at the end here, honestly. uh. METEOR BLAST

if you're from exterior tumblr and enjoyed this i'd like to advertise myself real quick if you do not mind. i've got this original story with over fifty available chapters that you can read here, on tumblr. so if you're a fan of the idea of a half sci-fi, half fantasy/magic "ongoing, semi-dystopian psychological thriller" ( @goodluckclove | review here ) and are okay with heavy themes, you might enjoy

flash/burn takes place on what is essentially theoretical Earth if people had powers known as kinetics. its two protagonists are pyrokinetics, and thus can wield fire at will. more on that link

(the description there as of 3/24/2025 irks me a little so it might change soon)

remember to take care of yourself, internet stranger. that was me, advertising myself.

[runforthehillsbestie]

Broken Lullaby

Part 1 - the perfect getaway

Pairing - Brahms Heelshire x f reader Read the story context here

"Think about it," your roommate says, lingering in the doorway of your bedroom with the newspaper clipping. "It'll be good for you. What writer wouldn't kill to be in a big ass country house with nothing but trees for miles? You've been saying you want to get out of London and here's your chance!"

"I don't know..." You look up from your laptop, rubbing your temples. "Who even puts ads in the newspaper anymore?"

You take the scrap and squint at it. "Babysitter needed for eight-year-old boy, a really good weekly salary, no prior experience necessary... For a month?" You squawk.

"That's not bad. Besides, I grew up in that area and I can guarantee it's nice and quiet."

"Yeah, so no one will hear me scream while I'm being killed," you retort.

Your friend, an avid backpacker and couch surfer just rolls their eyes and turns to leave. "Well, just remember that you miss all the shots you don't take."

Their words echo in your mind long after they've left as you stare at the blank screen--with dark mode on, of course--and the blinking cursor. Your brain is giving you nothing but crackling static. No words, not even a hint of an idea you can put down. And then to make things worse, your editor calls to remind you of your deadlines and the goals you need to hit, and you want to bury your head in a pillow and scream. Your roommate is right. A change of scenery might bring your inspiration back and maybe even help stave off the burnout you feel creeping up on you. You pick up the newspaper clipping and call the number listed there.

*Two weeks later*

You step out of a cab in front of the Heelshire manor. From afar it looks like a dollhouse with its faded maroon turret and sloping roof, but now towers imposingly over you. The house is on a piece of land so big that it makes the neighboring houses look like smudges of paint on a Bob Ross painting, barely visible through the trees surrounding the property. There's a single car parked just inside the large black gates, covered with tarp. On the drive over you'd asked the cab driver about the family you were going to be working for, the Heelshires. He'd given you a long, pitying look and refused to say another word for the rest of the ride. You turn to him now, digging in your purse.

"How much do I pay--" Before you can finish your sentence he's reversing and accelerating in a hurry.

Okay then. You grab your two suitcases and haul them up the loose gravel driveway. When you get to the front door, you notice the door is ajar. You ring the doorbell anyway but when no one answers you let yourself in.

"Hello, it's the woman who called about the babysitting ad?" You receive no answer.

The stillness of the house is only broken by a clock chiming the hour before everything goes quiet again. You look around. The walls are wainscoted and the windows, framed with heavy curtains, are doing little to combat the shadows that shroud the hunting trophies mounted on the walls. The floor is carpeted, so you figure it's best to remove your shoes. The last thing you want to do is make a bad impression by tracking dirt all over.

"Hellooo," you call out again, now in nothing but your socks. "Is anyone home?"

No one leaves their front door open while they're away.

You decide to wait and spend a moment debating between two rooms that look like they could be a living room or the old-school equivalent of one. You settle on the one with the piano and bookshelves. There's a charm to the room with its sooty fireplace and aged-book smell. You run your finger over the cracked spines in the shelves and it comes away clean, like someone takes the time to dust the books.

The air is thick and a bit musty, exuding a sense of tired grandeur. Opera music begins to play and you turn but there's no one there. The record player is placed on a table in the corner and the floorboards are creaky enough that you should've heard if someone entered the room. Nonplussed, you walk over and lift the needle. A British-accented voice cuts through the air.

"That tends happens sometimes."

You gasp a little louder than you mean to, whipping around to see a grey-haired man in a crisp uniform in the doorway. He looks to be in his late sixties or early seventies.

"Hello, I am Thorton, the groundskeeper. We spoke on the phone. I believe you're here for the position of nanny?"

"Oh, yes." You walk over to offer your hand.

He takes it after a moment of consideration and offers you a smile, crow's feet appearing at the corners of his eyes.

"It's wonderful to have you with us," he says.

"Where is everybody?"

"Ah, the Heelshires are away on holiday. However, they have entrusted their son into your care."

"He didn't go with them?"

"Well, you see, he is no great lover of the outside world. He much rather prefers the comfort of home, you see."

"I see," you say, though you don't.

What eight-year-old would stay home instead of going on holiday? Before you can ask more questions Thorton says, "Shall I give you a quick tour of the house before I show you to your room?"

"That would be lovely, thank you," you reply.

As it turns out, the room you were in is a drawing room. Thorton, surprisingly spry for his age, leads you through the rest of the house; pointing out various "water closets", the tea room, the dining room, a storage closet where the umbrellas and "wellies" are kept, a fully stocked pantry, and a homey kitchen.

"Per the Heelshire's request all leftovers are stored in the freezer until they are either consumed or need to be thrown out," Thorton says.

There's a vase of freshly cut roses standing on the kitchen table, infusing the air with their rich scent.

"Are there roses growing on the property?" You ask, delighted because that's your favorite flower.

Thorton frowns, quickly smoothing his expression when you look at him. "No," he says, and clears his throat. "You must be tired from the long drive, Miss."

"Please, you can call me by my name," you tell him and he smiles and does exactly that.

"Now, let me show you to your room so you can get settled down." He takes you up the squeaky stairs to the second floor.

There are half-melted candles on side tables and paintings on the walls instead of photographs. You pause for a moment to look at a large family portrait at the top of the stairs.

"That's the Heelshires with Brahms," Mr Thorton calls over his shoulder.

Something about it bothers you, but before you can put your finger on what, Thorton pushes open a door and beckons with a flourish.

"Here we are."

You bring your suitcases in and park them by the door.

"Is this room to your liking?"

You look around the spacious room. There's a four poster bed and antique dresser with a closet to the side and an alcove that overlooks the overgrown yard. "It's perfect, thank you. So, when can I see Brahms?"

Thorton sucks in a breath at the mention of the boy's name.

"Soon enough," he says a little stiffly. "Why don't you rest for a while? The afternoon tea will be prepared in a few minutes."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" You ask.

"No, it's quite alright." He pulls the bedroom door shut, and you listen to his footsteps pad down the hall.

You flop down on the bed to test it, pleased to find it's as soft as a cloud. You don't mean to fall asleep but that's exactly what happens. You startle awake sometime later to find it has grown dark outside, the sky holding the last remnants of a bruise-purple sunset. Something woke you up. What was it? You sit up and rub your cheek where the pillow has left an itchy wrinkle.

You take your laptop from your suitcase and power it on. The words flow effortlessly as the dream you just had comes back to you in bits and pieces. A few minutes pass before you lean back and read the couple paragraphs of what you've written: eyes peering from the shadows, a howling wind that sounds just like a voice, and a mystery that needs solving... It doesn't make sense, but dreams rarely do. Maybe you can spin it into something interesting in time.

Your stomach growls and you recall the groundskeeper saying he would make tea. Well, you've definitely missed it. You stand and check your reflection in the mirror to make sure you look somewhat presentable. Something thumps in the hall as you step out of your room.

"Mr. Thorton?"

No reply. The hall is empty, dimly lit by old-fashioned sconces shaped like flowers. At the end of the hall a tree branch bumps against the bay window, and you can't help but laugh. It reminds you of how you loved to stay at your grandmother's house as a little girl but hated all the weird sounds the old house would make, especially at night. You take the stairs down and poke your head into the kitchen. The lights are off, so you pat around for the light switch. You jump when you feel something brush against your hip. It's just a fucking chair.

You shake your head and scold yourself. You're no longer a little girl lying awake in her bed and staring at the shadow of her jacket on the door until it morphs into a boogeyman. You find the switch and flick the lights on, feeling a little better once the kitchen is bathed in a soft golden glow. There's a piece of paper tacked on the fridge with a magnet.

Didn't wish to wake you, it reads. There's tea in the thermos and cold sandwiches in the fridge. Please help yourself. If you need anything at all, don't hesitate to call the number below and I'll pop by as soon as I can. You meet be meeting Brahms tomorrow.

It would make sense that Brahms is staying with family elsewhere until a babysitter could be found. But why didn't Thorton just say that when you asked? You pour a big mug of tea and find the plate of sandwiches. There's ham and cheese and a couple spread with butter and jam, far more slices than you can eat in one sitting. Every single one is cut in fourths. Maybe he has grandkids and he's just used to cutting them this way? You eat a couple--they taste fine--and finish your tea, rinsing the cup before you decide to explore what is to be your domain for the next month. It's a beautiful home, maybe a little oppressive with all the knick-knacks and taxidermy animals.

Other than the paintings on the walls there's no indication that a child lives here. You head up the stairs to find Brahms's bedroom. Maybe you're intruding in his space, but you're going to be babysitting him for a month, after all. It would be good to have an idea of what he's like. There's a bedroom that must belong to Mr. and Mrs. Heelshire, a guest bedroom, and one more empty room filled with pieces of white-draped furniture. The remaining room can only belong to Brahms. You step into the room and get jumpscared by a porcelain doll lying on the bed, tucked under the covers.

You press a hand to your chest willing your heart to calm down. The doll is the size of a small boy, dressed in striped pajamas. In the moonlight, it looks almost real. You flick on the light and go over for a closer look. It was badly broken at some point, cracks webbing the porcelain. The broken pieces have been glued back on its face, sharp in some places which you discover only after you prick your finger.

"Ow." You instinctively put your finger in your mouth to soothe the sting and look around the rest of the room.

The toys are well cared for but ancient. No kid still plays with toys like these. There are wooden alphabet blocks scattered on the floor and in the corner, there's a rocking horse that's rocking slightly all on its own. You don't think much of it, because there's probably a draft. You absentmindedly pat the fuzzy mane and then rifle through the drawers of the claw-footed desk. There's a stack of unused papers yellowed with age and a box of unopened crayons that looks old as well. There are no drawings or posters on the walls. You glance at the doll again. Was it always facing you? A prickle goes down your back at the sight of those flat, staring eyes and suddenly the air feels stuffy, the walls closing in. You step out and drag the bedroom door shut behind you, taking in a deep breath.

"Okay, enough snooping around!" You mutter. "I'm going to take a shower. That's a brilliant idea."

It's not even been a day and I'm already talking to myself, you think wryly.

Hopefully by tomorrow you'll be too busy looking after Brahms. You're pretty good with kids, so this job shouldn't be too difficult.

Once you're in the bathroom you test the water and adjust the temperature. The pressure is poor, but at least it's nice and warm. You've just started pulling your shirt over your head when the bathroom door creaks open. You're sure you locked it. You freeze and stare at the door for several seconds before you can pluck up the courage to go and check, peeking into the hallway. No one. It's quiet. You check the lock and realize it's loose, meaning the door must have opened on its own.

Even though you're alone you don't feel comfortable leaving the door wide open. What if Thorton comes back for some reason? You could give the poor man a heart attack. You drag a chair in from the hall and use it to prop the door closed and finally, you're free to shower in peace. As the suds slick down your body, you realize what's been bothering you about the painting. If the date in the corner is accurate, then that painting is from about twenty-five years ago. Im that case, Brahms would be an adult. You close your eyes and tip your head up to the spray of hot water. You must have read the date wrong, that's all.

Part 2 - you must follow the rules

@runforthehillsbestie

[shinydolphin]

Beware the Evil Afro Guy

Have you ever heard of the Evil Afro Guy? I’m guessing you haven’t, and probably think that name is vaguely racist. But if you ever played Poptropica during the heyday of Flash, you might have seen him. Maybe you disregarded him as nothing but a glitch. For those of you who don’t know, Poptropica was a children’s online adventure game in the 2010s, in which players complete many quests on various “islands.” I loved getting lost in all those worlds, bouncing around every scene like a maniac. Out of curiosity, I looked it up again a few weeks ago, and it turns out most of the islands have been wiped. There’s only a couple on the map now, none of them from when I used to play. They say it’s because Flash died and they couldn’t port everything over, but I know better. I know it’s because of him

I was eight the first time I saw him. It was late, I was supposed to be asleep but I’d snuck onto the desktop computer in my room anyway once I was sure my parents wouldn’t check on me. I was in the Soda Pop Shop on Early Poptropica Island. Usually it was pretty busy, that commonroom with the checkerboard floor and neon signs laggy as hell and filled with dozens of avatars bouncing around playing mini-games. But that night, it was empty. Except for him. He was grinning with pure white skin, wearing a white vest and black pants. And of course, as the name suggests, he had a black afro. As far as the crazy character customisation on the game went, this was incredibly basic. Boring even. But something about it still gave me the creeps. 

Having nothing better to do, I decided to add him as a friend. It was odd, instead of the silly Poptropica character names like Zany Hamburger or Purple Foot, his showed up as UNDEFINED UNDEFINED. I disregarded it as a glitch. Great as the game was, it was famously riddled with them. I decided to challenge him to a game of Skydiving. I had a 5 star battle ranking and expected some easy wins, but he obliterated me. Every single time. Before I could even click to jump, it was over. My childish ego was bruised, and like any sore loser, after the 7th humiliation, I ended the minigame. Instead, I decided to use the in-game chat system to talk to him. 

“Who’s your favourite Poptropica character?” I picked from the canned list, expecting Black Widow or Dr. Hare. His answer appeared instantly.

“You are, [MY NAME].”

I froze. Not my username, not my character’s name. My real name. The one I knew I hadn’t entered anywhere. Poptropican eyes follow the player’s cursor, but his were staring into me, black pupils boring through the screen.

I tried to shut down the browser window, get away from him, but my mouse and keyboard weren’t working. I could hear my heart pound over my sister’s faint snoring and the whir of my computer fan.

My Poptropica character started crying. Her cartoon tears rained as she wailed with a silent mouth and I didn’t know what to do. Then he asked me a question. In the same style as the pre-scripted Poptropica bubbles, but I knew this was definitely not part of the game.

“How do you want to die?”

Above my character, still crying, were actual clickable answers.

Drowning

Suicide

Car crash

My hand wasn’t on the mouse, I swear to God it wasn’t. But the cursor moved, gliding towards the options like some twisted planchette. I didn’t want to find out what it would select. Panicking, I yanked out the power cord straight from the back. The screen went black and I gasped out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding in relief. With trembling fingers, I slapped a random horse sticker from the drawer in my desk onto my webcam. I didn’t sleep that night. 

You’d think I’d never touch Poptropica again after that, but I was a dumb kind and it was a fun game. I figured it was just a hacker and I’d be fine if I avoided the common rooms. I deleted him from my friends list the next time I logged in, but when the page refreshed, he was still there. Only now his name wasn’t UNDEFINED UNDEFINED, it was Gentle Seal. That was my sister’s character. Her Poptropican, the one with the Viking helmet and twin braids, was gone. It had been replaced by him. I asked her about it, maybe she had changed her appearance as a sick joke – though there was no way she could have known – and she had no idea what I was talking about. She hadn’t played the game in months. We tried logging into her account but it just didn’t work. User not found. 

I ended up making a new account. If you’ve read my previous blog post, you’ll know that I switched my original account after a year. This was why. It was a completely different username, and I made sure my new Poptropican looked nothing alike the first. I didn’t go to common rooms anymore. I just stuck to the islands. The islands were safe.

Until he came back.

I was on Mythology Island, trying to costumise the rose crown from Aphrodite. But when I opened the costumiser, she wasn’t there. Evil Afro Guy was. His eyes flickered wildly as he grinned at me, bloody sockets flashing between cartoon frames. Even with my webcam covered, I knew he was watching me. Another time on Spy Island, Director D had been replaced by Evil Afro Guy. When I clicked him, instead of his usual mission, the text bubble overflowed with garbled unicode. I couldn’t make out any of it, but it filled me with a pit of dread. I refreshed the page and it returned to normal. Those things I could have dismissed as mere glitches, but I know there’s more to it. 

Do you remember the Goth Guy NPC on Reality TV Island? With the floppy hair and skull t-shirt? He wasn’t important to the plot or anything. If you played after 2013, you’ve probably never seen him and it’s all my fault. I had a bit of a crush on him as a kid even despite the goofy Poptropica art style and I wanted to take a screenshot of my Poptropican next to him. Just something silly. I clicked on him to initiate dialogue. He flickered. I blinked and he wasn’t himself anymore. It was Evil Afro Guy. I refreshed the page, and he was just…. Gone. No matter how many times I restarted the island, he just wasn’t there. I tried to ignore it, finish the rest of the island, but once I got to the Reality TV show aspect of the Island, instead of the usual variety of characters, all of the contestants were all identical. They were all him. They taunted me during the challenges. Not in the usual canned phrases. Real things. Awful, personal things. He knew things about me he shouldn’t, like what I really kept in the box under the bed, or why I’d burnt those journals. When I tried to vote any of them out, they spoke in unison, chat bubbles overlapping.

“You can’t get rid of me.”

I never finished that island.

I stopped playing for good after that. Years slipped by and I grew older, time hazing over any memory of Poptropica. I’d convinced myself it was just a bad dream I’d had and moved on with my life. Until a few weeks ago. I’d seen a post about Poptropica on one of those nostalgia-bait Instagram accounts, and something about it made me want to log in again, prove to myself how silly my childhood nightmare had been. My account was exactly the same 15 years later, but the game itself had been stripped down. The sprawling multi-page map had been gutted to just 3 and all the islands I remembered were gone. Early Poptropica, Spy, Mythology, Reality TV. They may as well have never existed. At first I believed the official story, the death of Flash and budget cuts. But the more I expired the overly simplistic and polished new islands, the more I was convinced otherwise. The removal of the costumiser feature really solidified it for me. They didn’t lose the islands, they quarantined them. Removed any feature that could have let him slip through. Sealed away childhood joy to stop him spreading. The new islands were sterile, purposefully dull. No more real interaction. Safe. 

Or so I thought. I saw a thread on Reddit (sue me, I know), discussing how to play the old islands. Flashpoint was heralded as a popular option. It’s a sort of digital archive that lets you play dead Flash games offline. Local copies, stored directly on your computer. No central servers, no web devs to monitor or patch any cracks. All the old islands, all the old code. Everything exactly as it was. Including him.

I doubt anyone will listen, but please, DO NOT DOWNLOAD FLASHPOINT. You aren’t just resurrecting the old islands, you’re resurrecting Evil Afro Guy too. And with every computer he has access to, he only grows stronger. They may have removed the common rooms, but he will find a way. And when he does, it will already be too late.

[samflir]

What makes a good boot sequence?

A while ago, I had my first truly viral post on Mastodon. It was this:

You might've seen it. It got almost four hundred boosts and reached beyond Mastodon to reddit and even 4chan. I even saw an edit with a spinning frog on the left screen. I knew the post would go down well with tech.lgbt but I never expected it to blow up the way it did.

I tried my best to express succinctly exactly what it is I miss about BIOS motherboards in the age of UEFI in this picture. I think looking at a logo and spinner/loading bar is boring compared to seeing a bunch of status messages scroll up the screen indicating hardware being activated, services being started up and tasks being run. It takes the soul out of a computer when it hides its computeriness.

I think a lot of people misunderstood my post as expressing a practical preference over an aesthetic one, and there was at least a few thinking this was a Linux fanboy post, which it certainly is not. So here's the long version of a meme I made lol.

Stages

I remember using two family desktop computers before moving over a family laptop. One ran Windows XP and the other ran Windows 7. Both were of the BIOS era, which meant that when booting, they displayed some status information in white on black with a blinking cursor before loading the operating system. On the XP machine, I spent longer in this liminal space because it dual-booted. I needed to select Windows XP from a list of Linux distros when booting it.

I've always liked this. Even as a very little kid I had some sense that what I was seeing was a look back into the history of computing. It felt like a look "behind the scenes" of the main GUI-based operating system into something more primitive. This made computers even more interesting than they already were, to me.

Sequences

The way old computers booted was appealing to my love of all kinds of fixed, repeating sequences. I never skip the intros to TV shows and I get annoyed when my local cinema forgets to show the BBFC ratings card immediately before the film, even though doing so is totally pointless and it's kinda strange that they do that in the first place. Can you tell I'm autistic?

Booting the windows 7 computer would involve this sequence of distinct stages: BIOS white text -> Windows 7 logo with "starting windows" below in the wrong aspect ratio -> switch to correct resolution with loading spinner on the screen -> login screen.

Skipping any would feel wrong to me because it's missing a step in one of those fixed sequences I love so much. And every computer that doesn't start with BIOS diagnostic messages is sadly missing that step to my brain, and feels off.

Low-level magic

I am extremely curious about how things work and always have been, so little reminders when using a computer that it has all sorts of complex inner workings and background processes going on are very interesting to me, so I prefer boot sequences that expose the low-level magic going on and build up to the GUI. Starting in the GUI immediately presents it as fundamental, as if it's not just a pile of abstractions on top of one another. It feels deceptive.

There may actually be some educational and practical value in computers booting in verbose mode by default. Kids using computers for the first time get to see that there's a lot more to their computer than the parts they interact with (sparking curiosity!), and if a boot fails, technicians are better able to diagnose the problem over a phone call with a non-technical person.

Absolute boot sequence perfection

There's still one last thing missing from my family computer's boot sequence, and that's a brief flicker of garbage on screen as VRAM is cleared out. Can't have everything I guess. Slo-mo example from The 8-Bit Guy here:

[aroihkin]

Windows sucks so fucking hard, I can't wait for Linux to get a workable Nvidia driver for the new DA game so I can go back to pretending I don't even have this windows boot drive on hand.

Like, all I'm using it for is playing this game, right?

There shouldn't be much to fuck up, right?

Fuckin wrong, apparently. Boot it up? Asks for a PIN, then shows a blank (just black with a cursor) screen until it gets hard booted. Every time. Hard boot it works, but when I shut it down again I'll have to do this yet again.

Don't turn it off to begin with? I shut the game down, slept, made some very bad food and had a bath. Came back, having done nothing to the computer since closing the game down other than turning the monitor off...

And somehow the saturation got ramped through the roof to the point that I had to do the whole reboot, hard boot, cycle anyway to fix it.

I hate windows so goddamned much. Linux is frequently frustrating but every Windows install I've had since Windows 7 has been a fucking nightmare of bugs and reinstalls and shit just like this. I hate it! Full linux support for everything, when?

[entropy-game-dev]

The cheeky last minute UI rework

A week ago, I had Lucinius play a near-complete version of the demo build and he had a bunch of good suggestions after playing it for a solid few hours.

One part of his feedback centered around how move information was displayed. Previously, in non-battle menus, the move info would follow your cursor, and thus you weren't able to mouse over the various stats or check the description (which would have outputted to a log that isn't visible anyway).

Now I've made it so that clicking on the move icon displays the window in a static pane, letting you mouse over the various icons. Also, the description now appears in-line inside the window, regardless of where you're looking at it!

I made a whole bunch of other changes, and ahead of tomorrow's demo release (I can't believe it's finally happening), you can read about them below the cut!!

v0.18 - Demo Build 1

Features:

Auto-deposit materials is working and on by default

Mouse over now shows curr/max for hp/en/ammo + stat title

Going past the max floors now sends you back to the ship

New trap added that instantly spawns an encounter

Clicking on an attack icon with the mouse now makes the info panel stay open

Clicking the description button/pressing pause with a move selected now displays it within the panel

Archive sprite added to base

Game now tracks enemies encountered and killed

Added target marker to tutorial area

Archive can view logs and tutorials, and enemy names

Balance:

Starting area has slightly more loops

Starting area has slightly higher encounter density,

Removed local relay from starting area

Added spatial constant to starting area

Added Holepunch routine to Punch Press

Slightly increased passive random recruit chance from 1 to 2%

Buffed max damage recruitment rate divisor from /3 to /2.5

Nerfed heal recruitment rate divisor from /3 to /4

Changed starting system escape fuel needed to 20

Gain a small amount of fuel when researching local/relativistic navigation

Added party size to the base matrix research rather than subsequent research

Features now scale around the mid floor of the dungeon instead of around floor 2

Dungeon floors, rooms, and corridors get bigger as you go down

Damage/heal recruit function ceiling'd so you make at least 1% progress when you do the correct action

Slightly revised title screen animation

Revised enemy encounter formula to scale around the center floor of the dungeon + adjusted dungeon encounter mass respectively

Changed Gimbal Lock's status from stun to slow

Made summons recruitable

Buffed all part slots and changed power load formula to compensate

10% buff to large enemy stats for each square above 1

Make killing with an element apply advantage, even if it resists or was neutral to the element

Polish:

"are likely in rooms" -> "are more often found in rooms"

"can be used for fuel" -> "could be used for fuel"

"once a line has formed" -> "once a line has formed in the element grid"

"the astronaut has been destroyed" -> "your suit has been critically damaged"

"the robot core's power load." -> "the robot core's power load (to the left of the equipped parts)."

Power load tutorial only comes up when you exceed it

Changed POWR to HEAL when looking at a healing move in the attack description

Disabled interaction with central 3x3 core area and changed description

Changed first strike/ambush bar colour and text

Added fuel unit value to fuel item descriptions

Added filter menu icon

Deep Diver sprite updated

Burrow sprite updated

Recruit chance icon doesn't show mouseover text when invisible

Swapped weapons 1 and 2 equip location on the assistant to match sprite appearance

Removed extra line on the bottom of the big map

Equip vfx effect now appears under move info panel

Black outline added to all dungeon features

Made recruitment pink text appear over the damange numbers

Made it so that locations can't spawn directly behind the black hole image in the navigation screen

Made the main black hole image slightly transparent in the navigation screen

Reordered research tutorials

Scan description revised to indicate it can reveal more and more information progressively

Updated matrix tutorial to talk about core tiers

Changed equip sprite fx to green

Swapped arm that has the arm computer in a cutscene

Tutorial edited to say cores have innate routines

Edited lowest_5levels to be an accurate tutorial

Bugs:

Disabled the ability to look at the big map during the beginning of an encounter

Floor scanning effect now shows all the time for unexplored tiles

Removed debug value allowing you to interact with lore objects infinite times

Priority of mouseover is only cleared with the text now

Fixed player recruit chance status doing the opposite of what it says it does

Fixed healing-type recruitment not working

Fixed no item tutorial firing incorrectly because research inventory manager was not ready

Conduct animation was not happening when the conducted element was not the last hit on an enemy

Fixed lowest floor tutorials not firing