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bcdrawsandwrites · 3 years ago

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[ID: A Bad Things Happen Bingo card. Various prompts are marked with a half-brain (prompt requested but not filled) or full-brain (prompt requested and finished) symbol, while the “Communication Suddenly Cut Off” prompt specifically is marked with a full brain symbol. /end ID]

OKAY! So here’s my second fic for my second @badthingshappenbingo challenge!

I am currently NO LONGER OPEN FOR REQUESTS. I have enough to work on to get a bingo! I MAY decide to reopen prompts later if I want to keep going after finishing these fics, but for now, I am closing requests!

This fic is for @pinkygrocket! Thanks to her and @jaywings for beta-reading!

[ID: A Psychonauts fanfic banner on a black-to-gray gradient background. On the left in white text it says “Prompt #2: Communication Suddenly Cut Off.” On the right is an animated purple figment a glittering psitanium crystal cluster. /end ID]

Prompt: Communication Suddenly Cut Off Characters: Razputin Aquato and Sasha Nein Warnings: Mild claustrophobia, (SPOILERS: blood, minor injury)

---~~~---

Mission Notes:

Meet Ford for new mission debriefing!

Pack gear for ULTRA COOL NEW MISSION!

Double-check AWESOME MISSION GEAR THAT IS TOTALLY NOT GOING TO BE BORING!

Board COOL MISSION HELICOPTER FOR INCREDIBLE DEATH-DEFYING MISSION!

Travel into the DEEP WILDERNESS for DANGEROUS, IMPORTANT MISSION!

count rocks

Raz glared down at his notebook, tapping his pen against it.

Nope, there really was no way to glamorize this.

With a dramatic sigh, he TK'd his pen and notebook into the open backpack that sat at his feet, one strap hooked around his foot to keep it stable. It wasn't his old backpack, but a much larger one equipped with camping gear, as well as various tools Otto had supplied him with for the mission. He considered triple-checking his gear to make sure he had the counting device thingy, the experimental psychic tent shield, all the food, his sleeping bag, and everything else. But there wasn't much of a point when they were already on their way there. Frowning, he zipped the bag shut.

Is everything all right, Razputin? asked a voice in his head.

Looking up, Raz caught Sasha's gaze from the seat across from him. He was still getting used to the sight of him in exploration gear rather than a lab coat. "This isn't some secret mission," Raz said, raising his voice to try to be heard above the helicopter's blades. "We can just talk!"

Yes, but this is easier than competing against the noise of our transport, or bothering our pilot by speaking over the headset.

Well, he wasn't wrong. Raz shrugged. I dunno. I was all excited to go out on a new mission—(especially with Agent Nein! he added to himself)—but we're just... counting rocks.

We're surveying the levels of psitanium and its effects in a small area of Canadian wilderness near the Coast Mountains.

Yeah. Raz leaned back in his seat, fixing Sasha with a deadpan look. Counting rocks.

Sasha tipped his head. Do you believe our mission is unimportant?

I dunno. I just thought we were supposed to be... saving the world? Helping people? Fighting inner demons and all that?

Certainly. And this is helping people, in a way. TKing a cigarette out of his pocket, Sasha stared at it for a moment before thinking better of lighting it within a helicopter, and pocketed it again. Psitanium is a volatile substance that can have strange effects on nonpsychic humans and wildlife.

I know, I know. Agent Cruller already went over this with us.

Then you understand how dangerous psychic wildlife is to an unprepared person.

Yeah, but... Raz gave a vague, useless gesture with his hands. We're not saving people's lives or anything. A thought struck him, and he sat upright. What if we encounter a lost explorer who's in the clutches of a telekinetic grizzly bear?

Sasha raised an eyebrow. You wish to discover an innocent person in danger to make the mission more exciting?

Wincing, Raz slumped back in his seat. ...No, not really.

Hmm. Think of it this way: The only information we have about this area is a rough idea of where it is, as well as some vague reports of unusual phenomena—glowing rocks and strange animals, likely psitanium and the animals it has affected. It's our job to expand on that information so that it is available for others to reference. In that way, we are saving people before they are put into danger. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does, but... He looked up, spreading out his hands in exasperation. It's counting rocks.

Sasha chuckled, shaking his head. Measuring the area and levels of the psitanium deposit, but yes. And don't worry, you'll learn to appreciate tamer missions like this. Nature can be quite beautiful, and we’ll be far away from any of the noise of civilization. As you remember, sometimes isolation can be a good thing. He let Raz dwell on that for a moment before continuing, Not to mention, you need some more experience filling out mission paperwork.

Raz groaned, holding his head in his hands. That paperwork for getting a passport was bad enough...

You'll get used to it. It's not so bad. I did plenty of survey work when I first joined the Psychonauts, after all.

Raz perked up. Really?! What kind of—

The helicopter swerved.

Grabbing at nearby poles, Raz and Sasha managed to stabilize themselves as the helicopter did the same. Raz gave Sasha a bewildered look. What the heck was—?

"Sorry about that, Agent Nein." The voice of the helicopter pilot speaking over their headsets broke through their thoughts and they looked up. After a brief uncomfortable pause, he continued, “I’m… a bit behind on maintenance, but I wasn’t expecting her to do that.”

That’s encouraging, Raz thought with a frown.

“Regardless, we're approaching the marked area. There's nowhere to land, so once we're low enough I'll put down the ladder—"

"No need," Sasha replied through the headset. He stood up, TKing his own backpack behind him. "Just open the door and let us know when we're at a safe area to land."

“Crazy psychics…” the pilot muttered, not caring that Sasha or Raz could hear him. He then raised his voice again: "Roger that."

Raz hopped down from his seat, slipping the backpack over his shoulders. Feeling the helicopter shift beneath him, he grabbed a nearby pole to stabilize himself. Are we there?

Just about, Sasha replied, facing the door. Prepare yourself.

Nodding, Raz pulled his goggles over his eyes, and Sasha did the same with his own pair.

The next few minutes passed like a few dozen as they waited for the helicopter to get closer to the ground. Finally, the pilot called to them again. "All right, get ready. I'm opening the door in three, two—"

The door opened, and the sound of the helicopter's blades blasted into them like an explosion. It briefly reminded Raz of the airplane he'd been on in Basic Braining, but this was... well, real.

Before he could dwell on that for much longer, Sasha removed his headset and gestured for him to approach the door. Raz removed his headset, shoved his helmet back onto his head, and looked out. As far as the eye could see was a green sea of trees, rolling under a silver sky and over jagged snowcapped mountains. Raz’s jaw dropped. He'd seen plenty of forests and mountains before, but not from this height. This was high, even for an acrobat. It was like the high-dive in Nona’s mind… except this wasn’t a mind.

"Uh—"

Sasha put a hand on his shoulder, and Raz tipped his head up to meet his gaze. When Sasha nodded at him, he nodded back, and they turned down at the ground again. Finally, Sasha leaped from the helicopter, Raz following half a second later.

Cold wind streaked past Raz and whipped against his jacket as he zipped past his senior agent. Gritting his teeth, he held his right hand upward and snagged a thought bubble, which caught him in the air, slowing his descent. He leaned to the left to maneuver past a tree that was a bit too close for his liking, and gave a start when something else drifted into his field of vision: Sasha, "standing" perfectly straight and moving at a leisurely pace toward the ground as though taking an invisible elevator. A moment later, Raz's thought bubble popped, and he dropped the last few feet to the ground below, Sasha landing a few seconds later.

Overhead, the sound of the helicopter faded as it began its journey back to its base.

"Are you all right, Razputin?" Sasha asked, lifting his goggles.

Raz stood stock still as what he'd just done sank in. "Th-that..." With a shaking hand he pulled his goggles back onto his helmet. "...was so cool!" Grinning, he looked back up at Sasha. "Wait until I tell Lili I got to jump out of a helicopter!"

"Not so boring now, hm?" With a smile, Sasha TK'd a map and a compass out of his backpack and unfolded it before the two of them, Raz standing on his toes to get a better look. Marked on the map was a red X—the coordinates the helicopter pilot had been instructed to drop them off at—as well as an area a short distance north of it that was circled in red, a few question marks surrounding it. Sasha glanced between the map and compass a few times before turning in the correct direction and TKing one more item out of his backpack: a handheld blue-and-gray piece of equipment that featured an antenna with some psitanium-infused bulb at the end, a couple handles, several buttons, a keypad, and a screen.

Recognizing the device, Raz brightened, TKing his own out of his backpack and looking it over. "Right, the Psitanium Surveyor Mk. 4!" he exclaimed, turning it in his hands. "We're supposed to input our current coordinates into it, right?"

"I see you remembered Otto's instructions," Sasha said with a nod. He flipped the device on, eyeing the map one more time before he keyed in a few numbers. "That's correct. Be sure to get the numbers exact." With that, he moved the map closer to Raz.

"Got it." Raz hit a switch on the side of the device, whose screen lit up with purple text prompting him to input the coordinates. Looking between the map and the number pad a few times, Raz punched in the digits, double checking them before hitting the enter key.

The numbers were replaced by a large purple check mark and a cheerful chime, before the screen then displayed a message that read, "Beginning survey!"

"So... now we walk?" he asked, looking back up at Sasha.

With a hum of confirmation, Sasha moved the map back to his side before marching north through the forest.

Following Sasha, Raz surveyed his surroundings. Now that he was on the ground, the sights were a lot more familiar. Not that he'd ever been to this particular forest, but his family had traveled far and wide, and he'd seen his fair share of them. The sky was overcast and cold, the trees and grass spread before them were a dull green, and the mountains looming in the distance sported a cold blue-gray. Frowning, he snatched the map from Sasha's telekinetic grip, looking over the circled area—miles away from those mountains. "Man, too bad the psitanium deposit's not in the mountains."

"Thank goodness. That would make our work a lot harder."

"I guess." It might've been cooler, though. Sighing, Raz moved the map closer to Sasha, who accepted it back into his telekinetic grip without looking. The forest was quiet, other than the occasional distant caw of a bird and pine needles shuffling in the breeze. Raz fidgeted with the device in his hands, rubbing his thumb over the buttons without pressing them.

"So uh... you were saying you did survey work before?"

"Yes, many times," Sasha answered. A fallen log loomed in front of him, and he lifted his feet off the ground, levitating over the obstacle before landing on the other side. "It's typical work for new agents."

"But you're not a new agent now."

"No, but you are, and you need a senior agent with you."

Raz tipped his head in interest. "So who was your senior agent you got paired with?"

"Otto Mentallis, of course."

Eyes widening, Raz hurried up to Sasha's side. "Wow!" he exclaimed, and Sasha glanced down at him. "What was it like working with him back when—"

Sasha's foot caught against a stray tree root, and he let out a startled cry as he stumbled.

Raz was quick to catch him before he fell, his TK hand grabbing Sasha's backpack before it dropped on top of him. "Sorry!" he cried, helping him back upright. "I'm sorry, Sasha, I didn't mean—"

"It's all right, Razputin," he said tensely, brushing himself off. "But perhaps now is not the best time to engage in idle conversation."

Wincing, Raz nodded before hanging his head. "Understood."

They continued in silence for some time. Sasha checked the map every so often while Raz glanced down at his device a few times, waiting for any sort of change, and then looked back up at Sasha. He couldn't help but notice how out here in the wilderness, Sasha’s shoulders were tense and he constantly checked his feet to make sure he was hovering over any obstacles. He'd always looked a lot cooler in the comics, but here in real life, he was out of his element. Granted, an untamed forest was a far cry from a sleek enemy base, the Motherlobe, or even the Whispering Rock campgrounds. He needed to be a bit more careful out here.

Man, even the fact that he was on a mission with Sasha Nein didn't help make things any more exciting—not when he couldn't even talk to him, anyway.

After half an hour of silence and still nothing from either of their devices, Raz stopped in his tracks. "This is taking forever! Do we really have to keep walking until these surveyors find anything?"

Sasha stopped as well, looking back at him. "Yes. They'll alert us to the presence of psitanium nearby, and we can start mapping out the perimeter of the deposit."

"Yeah, but we don't even know where it is, other than maybe somewhere north of where we landed." Raz swung his hand out to gesture at the forest. "We could be wandering for hours!"

There was a tinge of exasperation to Sasha's voice as he turned around. "What else do you propose we do, then?"

"...Good question." Putting a hand to his chin, Raz scrutinized the forest around them. There were a lot of normal-looking trees, some hills to the west, some fallen logs scattered around... and a familiar chattering nearby. Raz perked up. "I got it!"

After setting his equipment down, Raz sorted through his backpack and pulled out an oatmeal-raisin granola bar. He peeled the wrapper away and shoved it back into the backpack, then transferred the bar over to a TK hand and peered around the forest. All right, where are you...

Another chittering noise answered his thought, this time closer than before. Raz strained to hear it—to actually hear it, the way Oleander or Dogen could, or the way he could understand Harold. Squirrels were close enough to rats, right? And he could understand that one squirrel on the jet when he used clairvoyance on it, so this should work, shouldn't it?

It took a lot more concentration than he was expecting, but eventually he was able to make out a few of the words: Smell? Smell good? Food?

"That's right, my fluffy little friend!" Raz called out. "This is good food!" He paused, rubbing his chin. "If you like raisins, anyway."

Give it! The squirrel—one with gray fur rather than the reddish-brown ones Raz saw around Whispering Rock and the Motherlobe—finally reared its head, skittering out from behind a tree, but balked at the sight of Raz and Sasha. Uh-oh!

"Wait, it's okay!" Raz held up his hands while moving the granola bar closer, but still out of the squirrel's reach. "We're not gonna hurt you. We just want to ask you something—then you can have this!" He waggled the granola bar. "Can you help us?"

The squirrel stood still for a few agonizing moments, its gaze fixed on the granola bar. Its nose wiggled. Food smells good.

"Taking that as a yes. Okay, so, can you tell us where we can find funny glowing rocks?"

After a few seconds of silence, the squirrel fluffed up. Bad rocks! Very bad! Not good for eating. Many-color-rocks bad. One-color rocks worse!

Raz raised an eyebrow. "Many-color-rocks? No, we’re just looking for purple ones.”

What’s purple?

Raz tipped his head back and rolled his eyes. “Nevermind—can you just tell me where the glowy rocks are?”

Flicking its tail, the squirrel chattered something Raz couldn't catch, though he got the distinct impression it was doing the squirrel equivalent of muttering under its breath and calling him "stupid" in several different ways. But finally it sat down on all fours.Toward sunset. Yes. Bad rocks!

"Toward sunset?" Raz repeated.

"To the west, then," Sasha replied, and Raz looked back at him. "We'll have to keep an eye on our map as to not get lost, but it's as good a lead as any."

"Great!" Grinning, Raz turned back toward the squirrel. "Okay, you can have your—"

The squirrel sprang forward, snatching the granola bar in its mouth and bolting out of sight.

"...food." Sighing, Raz dismissed his TK hand and pulled his backpack over his shoulders. He picked up the survey device and approached Sasha again. "Let's go?"

"Yes."

They resumed their trek through the forest, this time heading west to the hillier region. The terrain was rougher here, and Sasha took to constantly levitating in order to avoid tripping on the uneven ground. He checked the map repeatedly, along with the compass and his own survey device, and Raz got the feeling he wasn't happy about being out in this area.

Just as Raz opened his mouth to suggest they turn back, a two-note tone beeped from their equipment, and the bulb attached to them lit up a bright purple. Eyebrows raised, Raz looked down at the screen, finding it now displayed their current coordinates, as well as a new reading: "Psitanium power count: 7 ottos.”

"Impressive!" Sasha said with a small smile. TKing a pen out of his backpack, he marked their position on the map. "Excellent work, Razputin. It seems your informant was good on his word."

Raz pumped his fist.

"Now that we've reached part of the border of this territory, we can begin the survey proper."

Oh, right, this part. Sighing, Raz held out his device. "So we're marking the perimeter, right?"

"Yes. Then once the perimeter for the deposit has been marked out, we can move inward."

"All right, I can take care of that pretty quick!" With the thought of rapidly knocking out this mission lifting his spirits, Raz summoned his levitation ball, prepared to charge forward.

"Wait!"

Raz paused, balancing on one leg. "Don't worry, Sasha! If you can't keep up, you can just stay put and I'll meet you again when—"

"No, Razputin. The survey device can't detect the psitanium levels that quickly. This must be done at a walking pace if it's to be done accurately, and an accurate assessment in the area could mean the difference between life and death for travelers. Not to mention, we need to keep an eye out for any potential anomalies."

Groaning inwardly, Raz dismissed the lev ball, dropping to the ground with a thump. "Walking pace, got it."

As they used their devices to help them determine where the perimeter was, Raz kept an eye out for anything unusual. About ten minutes into their journey, he spotted just that: a lumpy, faded brown object that stood against the green foliage. "Hey!" Nearly dropping his survey tool in his excitement, Raz crouched down to inspect the object, noting the straps on it. "I think this is someone's old backpack!"

"It seems to be." Sasha hovered closer. "It's certainly seen better days."

Lifting it off the ground, Raz winced; he had to agree. From a large hole chewed in the bottom of the backpack tumbled out a few granola bar wrappers and animal droppings. "Yeah, some animals got to this. There's still something inside, though!" He set it down and unzipped a smaller pocket, and his eyes lit up. "Woah! Check this out!" Using TK he pulled out a clunky square object that reminded him of his Otto-Shot camera. "It looks like some agents were sent here before us! Were they Psychonauts? Or—wait, no, probably the Gastronauts! What kinda spy gear is this?" He looked back at Sasha, only to blink at the slight smile on his face. "What's so funny?"

"I'm not sure I would consider a polaroid camera 'spy gear,'" Sasha remarked.

Face flushing, Raz shoved the camera back into the backpack. "Right..."

"Nevertheless, you may have found something noteworthy. Does the backpack contain any developed photos?"

Raz's face brightened again as he dug through the bag. After a moment he TK'd out a handful of black-and-white photos, but frowned at their state. Many of them were chewed up, some to the point where they were completely unsalvageable. "Yeah, but it looks like the animals got to these before we did." Flipping through them, he saw a few photos of people (unrecognizable thanks to the damage), a photo of some deer a distance away from the camera, and a dark photo in which only some large crystals were visible, embedded into rock. "Huh! Looks like they found psitanium," he said, holding up the last one.

"That seems the case, though that doesn't appear to have been taken in the forest." Sasha's glasses narrowed. "Perhaps a cave?"

"Oooh! Are we going to explore a cave?" Raz asked, finally standing up. He TK'd the last photo into his own backpack.

"We might encounter one later, after inspecting this perimeter. Though hopefully it's not too rough of a terrain... I wasn't planning on doing any spelunking."

"It's not too bad. The caves in the quarry were pretty cool!"

"Hmm."

Now in much higher spirits, Raz resumed his trek. Maybe this mission would be exciting after all.

---~~~---

Three and a half hours later, it was not more exciting.

They'd found nothing notable past the backpack—not even a cave.

Not that it was terrible, but this was definitely the most boring mission he'd ever been on. Even when he was just collecting cards, scavenger hunt items, and mission-critical assets around the camp and the quarry, he was still running and jumping and making use of his acrobatic skills. Here, though, it was a lot of walking. A lot of walking back and forth, too, to make sure they were marking the perimeter of the psitanium deposit correctly, with one of them staying outside the perimeter and one within. Sasha did the tedious part of marking the map, at least. But in the past few hours, the most exciting thing had just been occasionally switching places to shake things up a bit. As much as Raz itched for something to happen, there were no anomalies so far. There were the occasional animals, but none they encountered were psychic. In fact, most seemed to stay far from the perimeter.

There hadn't been much talking, either, aside from Raz letting Sasha know his current readings, or Sasha occasionally announcing that they would stop for a brief rest. As it was, Raz gave a start when his senior agent spoke up: "And that should do it."

"Huh?" Raz moved closer to Sasha, standing up on his toes to look at the map. "Do what? Are we done?"

"See for yourself."

The map was TK'd down to Raz, who immediately brightened at the sight of a complete (but very wonky) circle on the map. "Oh, finally! Now we can explore this area, right?"

"Yes, though remember that we'll need to maintain our walking pace in order to keep our readings accurate. Make note of any anomalies, as well."

"No sign of those yet," Raz muttered. "But... didn't the reports we got say something about psychic animals?"

Sasha lit a cigarette with pyrokinesis, smoking it as he mused. "They did. There were reports of people encountering strange, terrifying creatures that they could not identify. However, keep in mind that most of the reports come from explorers, many of whom often exaggerate their claims. As well, so far our psitanium readings have been fairly low. It may not be affecting the wildlife as much as the psitanium levels at, say, Whispering Rock affect the animals there." When Raz heaved another sigh, Sasha looked down at him again. "Nevertheless, there's a chance of something turning up. On one of my own surveys I encountered psitanium-enhanced cockroaches."

"Wait, really? What were they like?"

"They glowed purple, and were annoyingly resistant to psi-blasts."

"Oh." Raz blinked. "Cool! Cockroaches that are even more invincible than normal."

"I suppose, though not enjoyable to encounter in one's backpack."

"Blegh." Raz stuck out his tongue, then shook his head. "Well, I don't want that, but it'd be cool to see literally anything."

"We certainly won't see much by standing around." Sasha nodded to the north and began levitating out in that direction, Raz following suit. "We still have several hours before we run out of daylight. It will be good to cover as much ground as we can before then."

"And then we can whip out the tents and tent shields!" Raz exclaimed, TKing the latter device out of his backpack to look it over. It was bundled up into a ball right now, but it was supposed to create a psychic force field comparable to a psi-shield around the tent. Otto claimed it did, anyway. "Do you think these things work?"

"Hopefully, but if not, I believe we have enough power between the two of us to protect against any aggressive wildlife."

Okay, he didn't want that either, but hopefully surveying this new area would provide some amount of excitement.

Unfortunately, this part of the mission was nearly as dull as the last part, walking (what felt like) near-aimlessly through the woods as their survey tool continued to pick up readings around them. What made it slightly different was the fact that occasionally, purple shards dotted the ground, and thin lines of purple gas bubbled out of cracks in the soil here and there. The sights weren't as common as the ones at Whispering Rock, but it was something, at least.

However, it was not enough to stave off Raz's boredom. The sensations he'd experienced had started off subtle, but now he felt like his skin was crawling, like his muscles were about to explode, like his mind wanted to start setting things on fire if he couldn't move soon. He swore he hadn't gone this long without running since he'd passed out for nearly twenty-four hours a month or so ago. He almost wanted to ask Sasha if they could stop for another bathroom break, if only for an excuse to run somewhere—

The snap of a twig rang out through the woods.

Raz froze, his mind full of blind, paralyzing terror, as though he were looking into the maw of a monster and unable to move away from it. His breathing picked up, his heart pounding, only for a thought to strike him—the emotion wasn't his. It was like when he could sense the hunger pangs when he CV'd into a hungry fish guard, or when he felt the crackling anxiety of the squirrel in the jet. On top of that, there was something speaking in his mind, but the words were jumbled and confused and heightened in panic.

"Um, S-Sasha?" he stammered, and Sasha stopped, turning back to him. "I-I don't think we're alone!"

The senior agent lowered himself to the ground, stepping closer. "What is it? Can you sense something?"

"I-I think something's sensing me! And... trying to talk to me?" He placed a hand on his forehead, trying to reach out, but he couldn't CV into something he couldn't see. He looked in the direction where he'd heard the twig snap, but if something was there, it wasn't visible to him. "I-I dunno where it is!"

Sasha was looking around too. "Can you try talking to it?"

Why hadn't he thought of that? Shutting his eyes, Raz spoke up within his mind: Who are you? I can't understand you!

The presence in his mind seemed just as confused, but no less afraid. Even so, it seemed to compel him to look in a specific direction.

Opening his eyes, he turned toward the east, but could still see nothing out in that direction. What is it? Can you show me—? And before he could ask anything further, he let out a startled cry, for the foreign voice shouted into his mind before abruptly fleeing. Meanwhile, in the direction he'd heard the twig snap, there was the unmistakable sound of something darting through the woods in the direction opposite of where Raz was looking.

"Interesting," Sasha remarked, staring after the noise.

"What is it?" Raz looked up at Sasha, then back where the noise had come from. "Did you see it?"

"A deer of some sort fled from here. Is the presence still in your mind?"

Looking down, Raz rubbed his head. "No... it went away at the same time the deer must've left."

"Fascinating!" Sasha smiled down at him. "Razputin, I believe you've encountered a clairvoyant deer."

"Ohhhh!" Raz brightened. "That's probably why I couldn't understand it. But..." Frowning, he looked back toward the east. "It was scared. Really, really scared."

"Not surprising. Deer tend to be fearful of humans in general."

"But then why would it try to talk to me at all? It felt like it was trying to tell me something."

"Hmm, you might want to speak to Agent Boole or Morry about expanding your zoolingualism skills," Sasha said, turning toward the east as well. "Could you gather anything from what you sensed?"

"Well, it wanted me to look this way," Raz said, pointing out into the forest. "But when I asked if it could tell me or show me what was out there, it kinda yelled at me, I think, and that's when it ran away."

"Perhaps it's frightened of something out in that direction." Pulling up his map, Sasha scrutinized the marked area. "There doesn't appear to be anything remarkable out that way, but it may be data that wasn't fully recorded." Moving it away, he let out a thoughtful hum and took a drag from his cigarette. "Clairvoyant deer... that would certainly explain the reports from the terrified explorers."

"Do you think they're protecting this place?" Raz asked. "Maybe there's something there they don't want us to find."

"Unfortunately for them, exploring this area is part of our mission." Stepping back up into a hover, Sasha began moving toward the east. "If there's something out there, it's our duty to make note of it."

Raz nodded, only for something to click in his head, and a smile crossed his face. "A psychic mystery!" Grinning, he broke into a run ahead of Sasha. "We're investigating a psychic mystery!"

"And also conducting survey work!" Sasha called after him, and Raz skidded to a halt with a groan.

The two continued in this new direction, occasionally looking at their survey devices. Though forced to move at a walking pace, excitement surged through Raz’s bones. This is the kind of stuff that gets into True Psychic Tales! If they don't publish the Whispering Rock thing, they'll have to publish this one!

"I suppose you're happy you got your wish, hm?"

"Uh!" Raz jumped, straightening his back and holding a hand over his head. He looked up at Sasha in alarm. "I-I didn't think you could read my mind?"

"No, but I can read that smile on your face quite easily," Sasha remarked with an amused smile of his own. "I'm glad you get to have a bit of excitement on your first survey mission."

Raz gave an embarrassed laugh. "Well, you know, all work is important work for a—" Sasha's words sank in, and his jaw dropped. "First?! You mean I'm gonna have to do more of these?!"

"Weren't you just saying that all work is important work for a Psychonaut?"

"Well, yeah... but is there at least any survey work where I can run around?"

Sasha shrugged. "I suppose you could take that up with Agents Zanotto or Forsythe later."

"Yeah, maybe." Sighing, Raz continued onward. "Well, at least we still have this psychic mystery to solve!"

"Indeed." Sasha resumed hovering alongside him. "I wouldn't get your hopes up too much, as it's possible it could merely be a predator the deer feared, or perhaps a larger concentration of psitanium that's too much for them to handle."

"Yeah, but what if it's not?" Raz pointed his finger upward. "It could be an anomaly, like you said before!"

"The clairvoyant deer you encountered was an anomaly in and of itself. But yes, it could be."

Grinning again, Raz looked down at the surveyor. "I don't think it's a larger concentration of psitanium, anyway. It looks like these things are detecting even lower levels of psitanium in this—"

The device's screen flickered and the bulb on its antennae flashed.

"Uhh..." Raz blinked. "Is it supposed to do that?"

Sasha's glasses narrowed as he stared down at his own survey device. "Strange..."

Curious, Raz crept forward, keeping an eye on the device as it continued to flicker. A few more steps forward, and it began to emit a quiet, garbled noise that sounded like a mix between static and beeping. "Sasha, I think something's—"

The device emitted a few loud, frantic beeps before the screen went dark and the bulb turned off. Raz flipped the switch on and off a few times, but nothing happened. Glancing over at Sasha, he found his device to be doing the same, flickering and beeping before shutting off.

"That should not have happened," Sasha murmured, staring at the now-dead device before him.

Raz turned the device around, skimming it for some form of instructions, but found nothing. "Well that's not good." Wincing, he TK'd the device back into his backpack and looked back at Sasha. "Did we fail the mission?" he asked in a small voice.

"Well..." Sasha TK'd his survey device into his backpack as well. "Otto may be able to save the data we gathered from one of our devices—though it will be an incomplete survey—and we did manage to mark the perimeter of this place."

"What do we do now?"

"Locate the cause of the disturbance." With that, Sasha continued forward. "It may have been something environmental."

Nodding, Raz started to follow Sasha, but paused. "...Hey, Sasha, since we're not surveying anymore..."

Sasha glanced back at him, then sighed. "Very well, Raz. You may run."

Raz brightened, bolting ahead of Sasha on a lev ball. "FINALLY!" he exclaimed, grateful for the rush of air that whipped past him as he barreled through the forest, moving into what appeared to be a much hillier area. "Now let's see what's—"

He'd barely gotten a few yards forward when he skidded to a stop, faced with something he hadn't expected. "Uhh... Sasha?"

A moment later, Sasha was at his side, and the two of them looked up at the massive cave entrance that yawned before them. Small psitanium crystals dotted the walls of it, but not enough to light the inside.

"I'll bet that disturbance came from somewhere in here!" Raz exclaimed, pointing a finger upward. "There isn't much psitanium out this way, but maybe there's a big psitanium rock in there that messed up the devices." Remembering the photo, he TK’d it out of his bag and compared it to the cave entrance. “The photo showed some pretty big crystals! The ones out here are small, but I bet they’re bigger deeper in the cave.”

Frowning, Sasha TK'd a flashlight out of his backpack, indicating for Raz to do the same. "Possibly, but let us be cautious nonetheless."

Raz pulled out his flashlight and followed Sasha into the cave, swinging his light this way and that and marveling at how the shadows moved. Most of the caves back at camp or at the quarry had some sort of lighting to keep them from being impossibly dark to navigate, so this was a new experience. Though aside from that, there wasn't much of interest here other than the tiny psitanium fragments that were scattered across the walls and seemed to thin out the further they went. Otherwise it was wide, chilly, and damp, with water dripping from the ceiling somewhere deeper within.

And what sounded like a distant rumble.

Raz stopped. "Did you hear that?"

"I did." Stopping as well, Sasha shone his flashlight further in, but the beam failed to illuminate anything out of the ordinary. "It could merely be things shifting within the cave... or an animal. Or perhaps a person."

"I hope it's not that last one." Raz shuddered.

"It's not likely," Sasha said, moving on. "We've received no reports of missing persons in this area."

It wasn't long until they reached a fork in the cave, one cavern being significantly smaller than the other. Raz examined the two paths before looking back up at Sasha. "Do you think we should split up here?"

"Splitting up is not an ideal strategy in this circumstance," Sasha remarked.

"Yeah, but do you really want to duck through this?" Raz stepped into the smaller fork. The ceiling was only half a foot over his head, and Sasha frowned.

"...No." Breathing out a sigh, Sasha shook his head. "Very well, but please keep in constant contact with me via telepathy. Let me know immediately if there is a problem, and I will do the same." He paused, then turned around, TKing a handful of psitanium fragments out of the wall and into a small pile on the ground between the two tunnels. "In case one of us has to turn around, this will mark the fork in the cave. It may be easy to miss otherwise when backtracking."

"Sounds good to me!" Grinning, Raz darted into the smaller tunnel, while Sasha took the larger. "I bet there's something cool down here!"

The tunnel led him downward, growing narrower and darker the further he went. No more psitanium crystals marked this place, and he placed a hand on his temple to make a note of that to Sasha.

Here as well, Sasha replied. The amount of psitanium has dwindled to nothing, at least on a surface level. There could be more, but we have no way of knowing without our surveyor devices.

Or a dowsing rod!

Ach, those things are a pain to use.

It's not too bad, unless you're doing it at night. I'm not a fan of getting set on fire. He paused. …Isn’t it kinda weird though?

No, not enjoying the sensation of being set ablaze is quite normal.

No, I mean, the photo showed really big crystals, but we’re not getting any more here.

Oh. Yes, that is strange. But it could be as you said, and that there are larger crystals deeper within the cavern.

That makes sense. They kept moving, Raz finding he had to duck as he explored further. This tunnel's just getting narrower. What's it like on your end?

Only slightly narrower in width, but no change otherwise.

That's too bad. It'd be neat to find money here. Raz grinned as he sensed the slight annoyance on Sasha's end. Okay, okay, sorry, couldn't resist. But we could find treasure down here!

Possibly, but I doubt it would be the cause of the interference.

Yeah, you're probably right. Feeling a twinge in his neck, Raz winced as he continued to duck in the narrow tunnel. Fortunately, it opened up a bit more a few feet later, and he let out a relieved sigh. Okay, got enough space here to stand again. How about you? He waited a moment, and when Sasha didn't reply, he sent out another message: Sasha?

Oh, sorry. I was focusing on... something.

That was weird. What did you find?

I'm not sure just yet. I can feel something up ahead, but...

Raz's eyebrows raised in interest. Really? I wonder if there's something further up on my end, too! For a moment he closed his eyes, trying to sense anything up ahead, but there was nothing he could hear or smell, or even sense telepathically. Man, I'm not getting anything. Can you give me any details on what you're getting on your end?

Silence.

Frowning, Raz sent a stronger signal. Sasha! Are you listening?

When Sasha answered, his mental voice was distant. I... yes, I am... …but... something... …is...

Something about the reply made Raz shudder. Is everything okay, Sasha? He waited for a few moments before sending out another urgent message: Sasha?!

Still no reply came, and Raz swung his flashlight around the enclosed space, whose walls seemed a lot closer than they had before. Unseen moisture dripped around him, and he swore he could hear a low groan in the depths of the cavern. Or was that just his mind playing tricks on him?

And then Sasha's reply came, somehow both deafening and eerily quiet at the same time, like a distant scream: Razputin, get out of here now!

What?! Raz's breathing picked up, quick and shallow. Sasha, what's going on?! What's wrong?

Though the reply was immediate this time, it was even more distant, only a handful of words making it out to him: —danger—leave—help...

The last word echoed in the silence.

No, Raz thought frantically, holding his head in his free hand. No, no. Sasha?! Sasha, answer me!

The thought never left his head. Their psychic connection had been severed, and Raz was alone in the cave.

His heart hammered in his chest, and without a second thought he spun around, running back the way he'd come. He moved so quickly that he nearly forgot to duck in the narrow portion of the tunnel, which would've put an end to their mission in an instant. Sasha, can you answer me? he called out again. The mental message went nowhere.

Heart now pounding in his throat, Raz kept running as fast as he could with the heavy backpack on his shoulders, only to skid to a stop at something that caught the corner of his eye: the small pile of psitanium that Sasha had placed on the ground to mark the fork in the cave. He turned around, now facing the tunnel Sasha had entered. "I'm coming, Sasha!" he called out, summoning a levitation ball and charging in. "I won't leave without you!"

Once again Raz swore he heard a groan somewhere in the depths of the cave. Swallowing down his anxiety, he willed himself to move faster.

As Sasha had stated, there wasn't much of interest here. The cave didn't immediately grow narrow in width—though the ceiling of the cave grew taller further in—and instances of psitanium grew fewer and farther between until they disappeared entirely. Yet the further he traveled, the harder it was to stay steady on his lev ball... but that was powered by positive thought, which he didn't have a whole lot of right now. Gritting his teeth, he dismissed the lev ball and charged on foot.

To his surprise, he spotted something farther down the tunnel—something... glowing? But what could be glowing in this—

Raz gasped. Sasha's flashlight!

"Sasha!" he called, willing himself to run faster. Yet the further he got, the more dazed and lightheaded he felt. It's... it's just anxiety, Raz told himself, smacking the side of his face. Keep it together! Sasha's in danger!

The light up ahead was growing larger, and brighter, and his vision swam just trying to look at it. A heavy stone formed in the pit of his stomach. Was this how Compton felt before he started to manage his anxiety better? "H-hang on, Sasha...!"

The light grew brighter, and it felt like an age before Raz realized he was no longer running. It was getting harder to walk, almost like he was trudging through a swamp. Though he still felt lightheaded, his thoughts were clear. What's going on...? This... can't be right. Our flashlights aren't that bright.

Remembering he was holding his own, he looked down at it, then at where it shone, only to give a jolt when he realized that while it was on, its beam was not lighting the cave. Instead it was the brightness ahead, bathing the walls of the cave in an unearthly yellow glow.

Wait—yellow?

Recognition shot through Raz's mind like a psi-blast, and the sheer horror of it allowed him to regain control of his senses. He picked up the pace again, charging headlong through the cavern.

It wasn't a flashlight. It was psilirium.

Some of the crystals were jutting out of the walls up ahead, as the psitanium had, but these were larger, and growing moreso deeper into the cave.

"Sasha! Sasha!" he called, only for another low rumble to answer him, and the wicked yellow light grew ever brighter.

Raz willed his legs to move faster, but his foot caught on something and sent him crashing forward, his flashlight clattering on the ground. "Agh!" he cried out, sprawling on the cave floor. Shooting an angry glance over his shoulder, he was about to vent his frustration on the rock he'd tripped over, only for the words to die on his tongue.

His foot was resting against a large camping backpack. Slowly, he turned his gaze, and found a tall, thin figure crumpled on the ground a few feet away. He might have looked sickly, but it was hard to tell in the harsh yellow light. What was apparent though was the blood dripping from a wound on his forehead, corresponding with a smear of blood on the floor—he'd hit his head when he'd fallen.

"...Sasha?" he gasped. Shakily he crawled on all fours up to the figure, grabbing him by the shoulder and shaking him. "Sasha, answer me!"

A weak groan escaped his throat, and nothing more.

"Please, please!" Raz cried, shaking him harder. When his senior agent failed to answer, he tried to summon a TK hand, only for his vision to swim and his nausea to spike. He shut his eyes, willing the nausea to stop. "I-I can't carry you, Sasha, you have to wake up!"

The cave rumbled around them, and Raz looked up, noticing that the psilirium crystals felt a lot closer than before.

"I-I think this place is caving in!" In desperation, he put his hands under Sasha's shoulders and stood up. "I've gotta get you—"

The cave groaned, and Raz raised his head.

A deer skull, one of its antlers broken off, grinned at him in the over-brightness of the psilirium in the distance. All at once Raz realized this part of the cave was scattered with bones.

And the crystals moved.

The hairs stood on the back of Raz's neck, and he looked slightly to the side.

Due to the bright, burning glow of the psilirium around him, he’d failed to notice until now the four large pillars of something—white stone of some kind, he thought, rather than the dark black and brown of the cave, shining golden in the light, psitanium crystals jutting out of them. Yet parts of them were covered in soft brown patches as well? One of the pillars shifted closer, and at the base of it were two large black stones—no, not stones, two halves of a hoof—with yellow crystals growing between them. Following the pillar upward, Raz found it connected to something else also covered in... brown... patches...

Two bright yellow somethings stared down at him. For a fleeting moment he hoped they were more crystals, and that his eyes were playing tricks on him.

A mouth below the lights opened, and an earth-shaking bellow erupted from its throat, which glowed a hellish shade of gold.

With a scream, Raz staggered backward, somehow managing to keep a grip on Sasha's limp body. He dragged him backward, his gaze still trained on whatever was looming over them. Its barrel-shaped chest heaved around the psilirium crystals that jutted from it, and slowly its long head tilted, resulting in a hideous scraping noise across the walls of the cavern. Off to either side of its head were enormous antlers, also merged with psilirium crystals.

A... deer? No—a moose. A giant moose, somehow bigger than the elephants Raz would see in other traveling circuses, somehow fused with psilirium crystals. Some parts of its flesh had fallen away, leaving exposed muscle and bone, particularly close to the crystals.

Once again the moose opened its mouth wide, wide, straining at the flesh holding its jaws together and letting out a bellow that pitched upward into an echoing scream. It took a step forward, its crystal-encrusted hoofs shaking the ground and its antlers scraping against the walls.

"G-go away!" Raz cried, still fighting to drag Sasha backward. Out of habit he put his hand to is temple and tried to fire a psi-blast at the monstrosity, only to stagger as another wave of nausea hit him full-force, his vision swimming. "Rrrrghhh...!"

The moose tilted its head further, angling its antlers so they were less impeded by the cavern walls. Its jaw hung at an unnatural angle with the tilt of its head. With a deep bellow, it took another step forward. Then another.

Raz strained to move faster, but it was already getting hard to carry Sasha without being able to use TK. His entire body shuddered when he realized he wouldn't be able to use TK at all so long as he was anywhere near this thing. "Oh gosh...!" he gasped, voice hitching. "Sasha, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked for a more exciting mission, or dangerous animals or—"

The moose let out another ear-splitting shriek.

Raz's vision blurred, and he grit his teeth, heaving Sasha's unconscious body backward a few more feet. It was surreal to think that mere minutes ago, they'd been on a harmless survey mission, and now he was facing down his own death. "I wish we were just back out in the forest, counting rocks and setting up a tent and—"

Gasping, he dropped his bag from his shoulders and rifled through it, his hands fumbling with the broken survey device and other obstacles before he found it: a ball-shaped object. "This better work, Otto!"

Raz clumsily turned the sphere in his hands before he spotted a button, which he jabbed with his thumb. The device sprang from his hands, spreading out in a semi-circle shape in front of him and Sasha and emitting a faint purple light over itself.

One of the moose's hooves jabbed at it. The forcefield flashed, and the moose let out an enraged roar.

Grabbing Sasha again, Raz continued moving backwards, faster without the camping bag weighing him down. Before him, the moose grunted and frothed and roared as it kicked and butted against the forcefield, which flickered more and more with every blow. "Come on, come on...!" Raz grunted, glancing down at the unconscious form in his arms. "Please, Sasha, you have to wake up, I-I can't keep carrying you...!"

The moose reared up on its hind legs, its front hooves slamming into the shield.

CRACK.

The shield shattered, and the moose charged.

"No!" Raz screamed, turning around and gripping the shoulders of Sasha's coat behind him as he broke into a run. "No, no, no!" His vision was too blurred from tears and psilirium sickness to tell him just where in the cave he was, but he prayed he was close to the entrance. But just how was he going to outrun this thing in the open forest…?

The stomping of the monster's hooves against dirt and stone grew closer, the glow from the crystal infection dancing off the cave walls.

Suddenly, the entire cave seemed to lurch as a tremendous crash filled the air, and Raz screamed, barely managing to keep on his feet as he charged full-tilt away from the noise. Hearing a terrible groaning somewhere behind him but no further noises of being chased, Raz turned to see the moose staring at him, its head lowered and its antlers jammed against the walls of the cave, now too narrow and low for it to proceed. A laugh bubbled out of his throat, high-pitched and terrified, and it continued as he charged onward, dragging the still-unconscious Sasha behind.

It took a moment before he realized the purple lights dotting the walls and ceiling had given way to stars lighting the sky overhead.

Raz gasped in the cool night air, finally releasing Sasha and sinking to his knees. Crickets chirped around him, and a bird called in the distance. Wind rustled the hair that stuck out from his helmet and stung at his cheeks.

"Sasha?" he whispered, turning around and grasping Sasha's shoulder again. The senior agent's clothing was covered in dirt, and beyond the cut Raz had already seen, what little exposed skin he had bore scratches and bruises. "Sasha, please wake up, I'm s-sorry, I..."

Tears dripped down Raz's cheeks, and he covered his face in his hands.

Something stirred at his side.

Gasping, Raz looked up to find Sasha easing himself into an upright position with a groan. "Sasha!" he cried. Somewhere in the back of his head he knew this was not professional Psychonaut behavior, but he couldn't help himself, and he threw himself into Sasha, wrapping his arms around him. The older agent groaned, but did not protest otherwise. "I-I'm glad you're okay...! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have wished everything would get more exciting, I should've just been happy about the boring mission, I—"

Sasha wordlessly wrapped an arm around him, and he went silent. With his other free hand, Sasha massaged his forehead for a moment, then drew his hand away, only to give a start at seeing his glove covered with his own blood. Breathing out a sharp sigh, he unhooked a radio attached to his belt and turned it on with a crackle. "It's all right, Razputin," he murmured, turning the radio to its proper signal. "We're getting out of here."

Once the helicopter pilot had been sent for, the two of them sat in silence, only broken by a quiet hiss from Sasha as he felt the cut on his forehead again. Raz winced. "I-I should use some first aid on that cut, but our backpacks are in the cave with... that thing."

Sasha leaned back, but did not release Raz. "You got us out of there with our lives. A few wounds is a small price to pay for that."

Feeling the senior agent's gaze upon him, Raz looked up.

"...I would be dead, if not for you and your psilirium resistance."

The words crashed through Raz, dragging him back down to the ground with them. This wasn't like exploring a mental world, where the worst that could happen was getting kicked out of someone's mind—this was the real world, where the worst that could happen was...

"Thank you, Razputin."

The concept of one of his heroes praising him would have normally left him over the moon. But now Raz could only nod silently before staring out into the vast wilderness, numbly awaiting their rescue.

#razputin aquato #sasha nein #psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #bad things happen bingo #my art #my writing #fanfic

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arialebenthal · 3 years ago

Text

a broken heart is an open heart is a broken heart

keep, mother mother / rain, ben platt / eight, sleeping at last / "heartbreak" by @micahulrichdraws / wide open, the accidentals / howl's moving castle (2004) / four, sleeping at last

image IDs in alt text and below the cut

Seven Images, all described separately as follows.

Image One: Black Text on a purple background that reads, "Cause I'll keep breaking, I'll keep breaking my heart until it opens again. Yeah I'll keep falling, I'll keep falling apart until I'm whole again." End Image One ID.

Image Two: Black text on a white background that reads, "My heart's been broken and broken and broken and broken, but I keep keep on hoping and hoping and hoping and hoping, that if it keeps on breaking and breaking and breaking and breaking, then one day it'll open and open and open and open and open for you." The words "that one day it'll open" are highlighted in pink. End Image Two ID.

Image Three: Handwritten white text on a grey background that reads, "I want to break these bones til they're better. I want to break them right and feel alive." End Image Three ID.

Image Four: Digital art on a white background. There are black and white sketched hearts in rows of 4 and 3. There are crisscrossing red swords puncturing all the hearts at different points. End Image Four ID.

Image Five: Black text on a white background that reads, "It's easier to stay asleep. But I know I have to keep my heart wide open, even when it's broken." End Image Five ID.

Image Six: A screencap from the animated Studio Ghibli Film 'Howl's Moving Castle.' The picture is of Sophie, a fair skinned woman with cropped grey hair and brown eyes, smiling down at someone. She is wearing a blue dress, and behind her is a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. The white text of dialogue reads, "Oh, yes. A heart's a heavy burden." End Image Six ID.

Image Seven: Black text on a white background, that is highlighted in grey. It reads, "Maybe I'm hiding behind metaphor. Maybe my heart needs to break to be sure. One day I'll wear it all on my sleeve."

End ID for all images.

#poetry compilation #howls moving castle #mother mother #sleeping at last #ben platt #the accidentals #art #heartbreak #my post

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krakenartificer · 4 years ago

Text

When I got my ADHD diagnosis, I looked at the questions on the screening form and thought, "If this result comes back positive, then I'm definitely not the only person in my family who has it." Questions like

"Have difficulty finishing one activity before starting another one" and

"I finish others' sentences before they can finish it themselves" and

"have trouble staying on one topic when talking"

...I thought were just weird quirks of my family, but no. When I got my results, I contacted my cousin, and she contacted her sisters and mother, and .. .. yeah. Basically everyone in my dad's side of the family is ADHD.

Now there are some problems with that, obviously, (getting family reunions to stick to a schedule is lol no) but there are some really fantastic perks. For one thing, no one in that family minds if I interrupt them while they're talking ... everyone's happy to keep 3 conversations going at the same time .... and no one minds if you fidget constantly.

But the best perk -- at least that I've found so far -- is that all of our parents have coping mechanisms, and passed them on to us. When I found myself unable to handle tasks with more than one step, my father didn't say "WTF are you talking about? It's easy! Just do the thing! Stop being lazy!" No, he could relate completely, and he sat down and taught me how to handle that.

So today, I'm going to pass on to you the coping mechanism my dad taught me for handling the "cannot put tasks in order / cannot get started / forget what I'm doing" problem. You'll need to adjust it for your own needs and your own struggles, but hopefully it'll be helpful in setting up your own process.

I'm going to walk through it with a big project I'm doing at work, just to have a concrete example. That will make some of the discussion specific to computer programming and technical writing, but I do the same thing for all my projects, so hopefully it'll be generalizable.

So to set the stage:

I was supposed to modify this piece of code -- we'll call it "Rosetta" -- to make it handle call data as well as what it was already doing. I did that.... but we now need the code to be able to handle calls (if that's wanted) but also to be able to handle NOT having calls (if THAT'S wanted).

Which is just .... ugh. So much. SOOOOOOOO much.

So. Break it down.

Step one is to get some recording mechanism - pen and paper, whiteboard, blank computer document, whatever

(Technically, this is a different coping strategy, so we'll just take a quick detour: WRITE THINGS DOWN. Your brain is shit at remembering things, and anyway you've already got limits on your working memory; why would you choose to tie up some of that limited resource in something that could be accomplished with literal stone-age technology? Don't even try to remember things. WRITE THEM DOWN.)

I like sticky notes: they're readily available in all offices, they're pretty cheap, and (most importantly) they can be rearranged if it turns out that I forgot a step or put the steps in the wrong order (which, like, let's be honest, I am definitely going to do). But they kill trees and create unnecessary methane emissions, so I've recently switched over to using virtual sticky notes. That's the format I'm going to use for this example, but you can use anything that meets your purposes.

So, you've got something to write with, you're ready to start.

The first question is: what are you trying to accomplish here? What would "done" look like? What is our goal?

I need to end up with a version of Rosetta that will make the correct results if you don't want calls, and will also make the correct results if you do.

The goal here is that you end up with a statement that you can definitively say (a) Yes this is what I wanted or (b)No this is not right because _______

In this case, in order to do that, I'll need to define "correct results" for both call- and non-call versions. But if I have that nailed down, then this statement meets that criterion: I'll be able to say "Yes, this is what I wanted: see, it makes the correct result for calls, and it makes the correct result for not-calls". Or else I'll be able to say, "No, this is wrong: see, it makes the correct result for calls, but on not-calls it does X and we wanted Y."

I have a clear, definitive standard about what I need to do and whether or not I've done it.

But there was a prerequisite there: I need to define "correct results".

So that goes on a sticky note: Create test that will compare my results to existing call!Rosetta-results and to existing not-call!Rosetta-results.

[ID: Two blue boxes, one on top of the other. The top one says in white text "Create test to compare my results to call!results" The bottom one says "Create test to compare my results to not-call!results"] OK. So now we know what we want. The second question is: what do we need to do in order to get that? Here's where the sticky-note recording system really shines, because you don't have to answer this question sequentially. You just start writing down every single thing that is not the way you want it to end up.

I need it to remove commas in the python script, not the bash script

I need to delete the first part of the get_runs() function, which doesn't do anything

I need to delete the rest of the parameters passed to build_query_script() function, because runs encompasses all the others

while we're on that subject, runs doesn't even need the group_variable, so let's pull that out of the parameter document

we also have a dmf defined, which the bash script demands but doesn't use; let's change that demand

since we're changing the structure of the parameter document, we don't need to pull new metrics for each run, so let's move that outside of the runs() loop and only run once

right now the parameter document is ALMOST but not quite "one row per template". Make it so it's actually one row per template.

among other things, that's going to require making it possible for a template to be followed by nothing at all, since it's the assumption that a template will have a metrics block after it that makes it not quite one row per template. So make it possible to publish a template with a null block

the other thing that's weirdly hard-coded is the definition of what a block looks like. Would it make more sense to separate that out into an input file, like the parameters document? On the one hand, that would make it much more flexible; on the other hand, that's another piece that can break. Don't know. Put a question mark on it.

etc

Here's what it looks like at the end of this step:

[ID: A black and white background showing many boxes in two different shades of blue, all with white text. Some of the boxes are overlapping each other.]

As you can see, at this phase you don't need to worry about any of the following:

ordering the tasks. Just stick 'em right on top of each other for now

how you're going to do any of this. Right now we just need to know what, not how

sticking to only one project. As I was working on this, it occurred to me that this whole process would have been a heck of a lot easier if someone had just made a user manual for this, and since I have to go through all the code line-by-line anyway, I might as well write up the documentation while I'm at it. (To help out future-me, if nothing else.) So I put those tasks on another color of sticky note.

making notes that make any ***ing sense to anyone else. This process is for you, and only you need to understand what you're talking about it. Phrase it in ways that make sense to your brain, and to hell with anyone else.

on that topic, also don't worry about making steps that are "too small" or "too dumb" to write down. This is for you. If "save document" feels like a step to you, then write it down.

You also don't need to get every single step involved in the project right now. Get as many as you can, to be sure, but the process is designed on the assumption that you ARE going to forget important steps, and is designed to handle that.

When you can't think of any more steps, then the third question is: what order does it make sense to do these in? Are there any steps that would be easier if you did another step first? Are there any that literally cannot be done unless another step is complete?

This is also a good place to group steps if they fit together nicely. When I used physical sticky notes, I used two different sizes; digitally I can of course make them whatever size I want.

So I have several documentation steps that (a) do need to be written to make sense to other people and (b) I really need to know what's going on before I can do that. I could write them now, but if I did, I'd just end up re-writing them based on things that change as I'm coding. So we'll move those to the end:

[ID: Three dark blue boxes with white text. They read "Create step-by-step instructions for creating your own metric agg", "Create step-by-step instructions for modifying a metric", "Create step-by-step instructions for modifying a query."]

These parts, though -- if I had all the variable structures written down, I could look at them while I'm coding. Then I won't have to keep scrolling back and forth in the code, trying to remember if it's an array or a dictionary while also trying to remember what part of the code I was working on. Brilliant. Move that to the front.

[ID: Seven dark blue boxes with white text, three large, four small. The first one is large and says "Write up explanation of how Rosetta works." The second one is large and says "Document structure of all variables." Attached to that one are four smaller boxes that say "All_blocks", "Runs", "metric", "New_block". The third large one says "Document what qb_parameters.csv contains"]

Also, while I'm at it, I should get the list of variables I need to document -- then I won't have to keep scrolling to find them. Make those sub-steps.

I definitely keep needing to look up what's in the parameters document, so I should write that down, too. For the user manual I also should write down what's in the metric document, but I don't need that for myself, so I can send that to the end.

[ID: The same three dark blue boxes from two screenshots ago (create step-by-step instructions for metric agg, modifying a metric, and modifying a query), now with another dark blue box in front of them with white text that says "Document what granular_metrics.tsv contains."]

These five are all small steps, and are all related in that they don't actually (hopefully) change the functionality of the code; they're just stuff left over from prior versions of this code. So we can lump them all together.

[ID: Five light blue boxes with white text that say "Delete first part of get_runs()", "Have build_query_script only receive the "run" parameter" "Delete dmf" "Move metrics=get_metrics() outside build_all_blocks (all the way up to the top level?" "Delete group_variable from qp_parameters"]

My brain likes this better, so that I can keep track of fewer "main steps", but that's just a peculiarity of me -- you should lump and split however you prefer to make this process easier for you.

[ID: The same five boxes from the prior screenshot, now all made smaller and attached to a larger box that says "Remove Legacy Code"]

Keep going, step by step, sticky by sticky, until you've got them in order. If -- while you're doing this -- you remember another thing you need to do, write it on a sticky and slap it on the pile; you don't have to stop what you're doing to deal with it, because it's written down and it's on the pile and it will get processed; you can just keep working on the thing you're on right now.

[ID: All the same boxes from the first screenshot, now in a neat row. Some of the original boxes have been grouped together. The ones that were said to be at the beginning of the process are on the left and the ones that were said to be at the end are on the right.]

Step four: for the love of all that's holy, SAVE THIS LIST.

Write it on your cubicle whiteboard where it won't be erased

write it on a piece of paper and tape it to the office wall

send an email to yourself

take a picture with your phone

I don't care but save it.

When I used physical sticky notes, I kept them all on the hood of my cubicle's shelf. Now, as you can see, I use Powerpoint, which is irritating af but does allow me to keep everything in a single document, which I can write down the path of.

[ID: White text on a black background says "open ~/Documents/Rosetta\ Modifications\ and \Documentation.pptx" The next line says "Notes in Rocketbook pg 10-12, 16" The next line says "Turn that into documentation that can be used for making modifications."]

And now (finally) you can answer the question "How would I even get started on that?" You look at the first thing on the list, and you treat it as its own project. You can hyperfocus on this step and completely forget about everything else this project requires, because everything you need to remember for the rest of it is written down.

If, as you're working a step, you think of something else you need to do for the big project, write it on a sticky and slap it on the pile. Don't even worry about trying to order it or identify sub-steps; as long as it's not blocking the thing you need to work on right now, you don't have to care. Just stick that bugger anywhere at all on the list, and go back to what you were doing. When you un-hyperfocus and come back to look at your list, there'll be a big sticky note stuck sideways across all the rest of the steps, and you'll remember to file and order it then.

Other benefits of this system

1) The first question really helps with unclear directions from your boss. You can take whatever they told you to do, and translate it into a requirement that is clearly either met or not-met, and then run it back by the boss.

If they say, "No, no, we want ______" then phew! You just saved a huge miscommunication and weeks of wasted work! What a good employee you are! What an excellent team player with strong communication skills!

If they say "Yes, that's what I want," then you know -- for sure -- what it is you're trying to accomplish. Your anxiety is reduced, and your boss thinks you're super-conscientious.

(And if your boss is a jerk who likes to move the goalposts and blame it on their subordinates, then have this conversation over email, so you can show it to their boss or to HR should it become necessary.)

2) Having this project map means that when you spend an hour staring at the requirements and trying to figure out how to get started (which, let's be honest, you were definitely going to do anyway) ... When your boss/coworker comes by and says, "How's it going?" Instead of having to say "I haven't even started 😞" You can say, "Pretty well! I've got all the steps mapped out and am getting ready to start on implementation!" and show them your list, and they think you're very organized and meticulous. 3) Sometimes, especially in corporate jobs, you and your coworkers will run into a problem that's too big for even Neurotypicals to hold all in their heads. At that point, the NTs will be completely lost -- they've never had to develop a way to handle projects they can't just look at and know how to get started. So then you pipe up in the meeting and say, "OK, well, what exactly are we trying to accomplish?" and everybody at the conference table looks at you like you're a goddamned genius and you don't have to tell them that you use this exact same process to remember how to make a sandwich 😅

4) Having this project map makes it so much easier to stop work and then start it up again later, but this post is already really really really long, so I'm going to address that in a separate (really really long) post.

#adhd #adhd life #tips #semi-solicited advice #gpoy #your mileage may vary #long post #very long post #sorry I wish I wrote more concisely too

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kindahoping4forever · 3 years ago

Note

Hi! I know you just posted the new fic! But tumblr is being weird and making the text all black! Im not really sure how to fix this but its been happening to everyone!

Yes, I just noticed that! I'm working on fixing it, it's just a long fic so it's taking time 😂 In the meantime it should look normal on browser (where I should have a white background that makes it easier to read) or if you change your app skin to something lighter 🤓

#thanks tumblr ofc I can't have a simple drop lmao #ask #anon #kh4f writing

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css1992 · 4 years ago

Text

Guilty Pleasure

[Porn AU]

Summary: Peter and Beck used to be a power couple in the porn industry, but after Beck dumps him, Peter is forced to start over. With no money, no family and nowhere to go, he doesn’t have much choice other than to keep doing porn, so he joins Just4Fans to get back on his feet and then one day he gets a very generous tip from someone under the username of YKWIM.

All the warnings listed on Part I apply.

Read on AO3

Part I / Part II / Part III / Part IV / Part V / Part VI / Part VII / Part VIII / Part IX / Part X / Part XI / Epilogue

-x-

Almost three months into his new life, Peter was finally able to establish a routine that worked for him. He woke up around nine in the morning, tried to get some sort of exercise done, usually yoga or a jog around the block, then he had breakfast by himself, because both Ned and MJ had class or work before he was even up. After that, he made sure to post something on Just4fans, so people could see it throughout the day, and answered private messages and comments from the night before. Lastly, he headed to his newly created Twitter account to promote the new content and to interact with people there as well – it was a great way to get new subscribers.

That usually took up most of his morning, then he went downstairs to Ned and MJ’s apartment for lunch. He usually ate with at least one of them, except for Mondays and Wednesdays, when neither was home, but even then he ate at their place since he didn’t own any kitchen appliances yet – it was on the priority list, but not that high up, he liked having an excuse to visit his friends every day.

Later, he headed back upstairs and, depending on the day, he would take new pictures and videos or edit the ones he took the day before. Finally, at night, he posted more content on his Just4fans and chatted with his subscribers until it was time for bed.

In the last week of April, on one of his morning jogs, he noticed that just a few blocks away from his building there was a charity called the Bright Future Foundation. He thought the name sounded familiar, but try as he may, he couldn’t remember where he had heard of them. It was only after running past it a few times that it clicked – Mr. Harrington, his science teacher, told Peter to look it up.

The Bright Future Foundation helped kids who aged out of foster care get their lives together. They offered support in the form of scholarships and grants, academic and personal mentoring, and help with internships and employment readiness skills. That was what their website said, as Peter vaguely remembered from his high school years, when he still planned on going to college.

He went inside one day, not really sure why, and when the front desk lady asked how she could help him he just stood there for a few minutes, silent and nervous. She asked if he wanted to learn about their programs, but he shook his head, sticking his hands in his pockets. The woman waited patiently, a motherly smile on her face, until Peter asked if they needed any help.

And that was how volunteering at BFF became a part of his new routine – every Thursday from nine to five, starting in the first week of May. Since it was just a few blocks away from his place, he could walk there instead of taking the subway.

He liked his new routine, it was tiring but it didn’t leave a lot of time for overthinking or ruminating on the past. He never felt lonely because Ned and MJ were always around and he actually made a few friends among his subscribers, which was nice.

For the first time in a while, Peter was feeling happy. And it wasn’t an elaborate, fragile sort of happiness, where things needed to be in perfect place for the feeling to be felt, no. It was the simplest kind of happiness: he had friends, a job, a place to crash and everything was fine. Nothing was perfect, but it was fine.

A few days after he sent Tony the lingerie pictures, he decided to send him the video. He was a little insecure about it, it was 13 minutes long after editing and Peter had really lost it for a minute there, one could clearly tell. He was gone for most of the video, a moaning mess, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, begging for something – someone – that wasn’t even there. It either looked ridiculous or fucking hot depending on the person watching, and even though he was pretty sure Tony would not think it was ridiculous, he still worried just a little, but he sent it anyway. It was still early in the day when he did, some time around noon, and he didn’t expect him to answer any time soon, so went on with his day.

Tony messaged him around 2AM, as usual, but there was no text, just three videos in the chat. In the first one, it looked like he was wearing a suit, he could see the dress pants pulled down and the white shirt pulled up as Tony jacked off for thirty seconds before he came all over his hand. It looked like he was in a bathroom stall, sitting on a toilet, and Peter bit his lower lip, wondering if he was at work when the video was taken.

The second video was similar to the first, but it looked like he was in a garage or something like that – probably the workshop he always talked about –, Peter could see a black shirt bunched up around his waist and sweatpants around his thighs.

Last but not least there was a video of him completely naked, lying in bed, and the video was shot from Tony’s point of view, like he was holding his cell phone close to his face, looking down, instead of propping it up in front of him like he usually did.

They were all incredible and delicious and got Peter rock hard in a second. The boy got comfortable on the bed, lay on his back, took off his pajama bottoms and sighed when his cock sprung free, shivering a little when the chilly night air touched his heated skin. He planted his feet on the mattress and spread his legs, but didn’t do more than that yet.

“That good?” He messaged Tony, cheekily, and the older man started typing right away.

“This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me in my whole entire life and I’m 48, so yeah. That good.”

Hm, forty-eight. So Peter wasn’t wrong in his assumption. He bit his lower lip, a rush of excitement running through his veins. Tony was so much older, almost thirty years his senior. Peter supposed he must be really experienced. He wondered if he usually hooked up with younger men or if in real life he only dated women – it wouldn’t be a shock – but most of all, he wondered what he looked like. Maybe he dyed his hair, but if he didn’t, it was probably mostly gray and fuck Peter if he didn’t have a thing for that.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it. You broke me. I was in the middle of a meeting when you sent that video, I had to excuse myself to go to the bathroom to watch it. What have you done to me, witch?” Peter wanted to laugh, but it got stuck in the back of his throat with a moan when he slid a hand to his lower abdomen and his cock stood to attention.

“I don’t know about that, but your videos sure got me horny as fuck.” He rolled his hips a little, humping the air, and finally gave in to himself, holding his cock in one hand and the cellphone in the other.

“Is that so?” He could almost hear his voice through the phone – soft, but powerful. He always imagined Tony would sound like that if they ever talked face to face.

“Yes, daddy” And that would always be his default answer to anything he might ask with that voice. He closed his eyes for a second, quickening the pace of his strokes just a little, when his phone beeped again.

“Are you touching yourself right now?”

“Yes, daddy” Peter shivered, imagining Tony’s reaction to that revelation.

“Can I hear you, baby boy?”

He didn’t even hesitate, he started recording a voice message and moaned into the phone, thrusting his hips against his fist as he quietly begged for Tony’s cock, his fingers, his mouth, anything, he just wanted the man to be there taking care of him, making him cum, that was all he wanted, and he wanted it so badly.

He came in just a few seconds and hit send on the voice message before he could overthink it. As he lay there, breathless, staring at the ceiling and trying to gather his strength, he fantasized about Tony listening to it. He smiled to himself, like an idiot, then his cellphone beeped, bringing him back to reality.

“You’re gonna drive me mad, you know that? I’m actually going insane and it’s all your fault. Also, my dick is gonna fall off and that’s on you, too.” Peter had the presence of mind to laugh at the message, but it took him a few seconds to gather enough energy to write back to him.

“That’s a serious accusation, Tony, I’m gonna need all the evidence I can get, so every time you touch yourself thinking of me, make sure to send me proof, ok?”

“Oh, you don’t know what you just got yourself into.” Again, Peter could only laugh, because judging by the amount of videos Tony sent him that day, he really was in for a treat.

Days later, on Friday, Peter got up early to go for his usual jog around the block. He was a little tired from the day before, still adjusting to his new routine at BFF – it was his third week there and they were starting to realize that Peter was a quick learner and very eager to help, so they took advantage of that, which was fine with him, he was thrilled to be able to help somehow.

So after a quick, half-assed jog around the block, he went back home, showered and decided to take the rest of the pictures Tony asked for. The man was still going nuts over the video, he wouldn’t stop talking about it and every day there was a video of him finishing himself off in their chat and Peter could hear his own voice in the background, screaming Tony’s name.

It was both embarrassing as fuck and hot as hell, so the younger man also spent a lot of those last few days in the shower trying to cool down, but Tony was not making it easier.

As much fun as that was, he was curious to see how Tony would react to the new pictures. He realized that would be the first time the older man would see him with clothes on, which sounded ridiculous, but it was true. He didn’t have many pictures on Instagram, but most of them were selfies and there were just a few where it was possible to see maybe a hint of a shirt, but that was it.

So he took the outfit he and MJ picked out and winced, remembering how much it cost, but at least he picked out clothes he might wear some day – if he had a meeting with the queen of England, for example. He put on the light gray suit by Hugo Boss, with a pink shirt with big, white dots by Levi’s Vintage underneath, black dress shoes by Brunello Cucinelli and a Gucci watch he was able to find on sale for half the original price. The whole outfit was worth around five thousand dollars, and was definitely the most money he had ever spent on – well, anything.

He checked himself in the mirror and snorted a little, he sure looked like a spoiled brat, which was probably what Tony meant by “expensive and beautiful”, so that was fine. He styled his hair so it looked effortlessly tousled, but not too much, and set his camera to take the pictures by the living room window.

He took a few pictures on the windowsill, some other leaning against the glass with his hands in his pockets, a few others looking out the window. He posed on his armchair, too, which was the only piece of furniture he had in his living room at the moment and he wished he had a decent dining table so he could pose like he was on a date with the camera, but he supposed those would do.

Once he was satisfied with what he got, he took off the clothes, put them away and went downstairs to have lunch with Ned and MJ. For the first time since he moved in with them, they both had Friday afternoon off, so they spent it together, eating junk food, watching bad TV series and playing really old tabletop games Ned had brought with him when he moved from his parents’ house.

In between a game of Monopoly and Scrabble, Peter pulled his phone out to check his messages, and was surprised to find one from Tony, sent just a few minutes earlier. He checked the time and noticed he must still be at work, so he opened it, assuming it couldn’t be anything too sexual.

“Hey, are you feeling better today? Just checking in.”

Peter frowned for a second, but a quick look at their earlier messages reminded him that he was feeling a little under the weather the day before and he’d told Tony that before he went to bed.

“Hi, Tony! I’m all better now, thanks for asking. I guess it was just allergies or something.”

He didn’t expect Tony to answer right away, but as soon as his message was sent, he started typing.

“That’s good to hear, but you need to be a little more careful with your health, kitten. Just yesterday you said you had an apple for lunch. At 4PM.”

“You’re one to talk.” Peter snorted. They always berated each other for poor eating habits. Peter was a 20 year-old bachelor living by himself and sharing meals with his equally young and dumb friends, so pizza was on the menu more often than not; Tony was a forty-eight year-old businessman with too little time to care. “Did you even eat today?”

“Don’t try to turn this around, this isn’t about me.” Peter rolled his eyes and smiled to himself. “Did you do anything fun today?”

“I took some pictures for you, it was quite fun.” He knew the mention of new pictures would get him interested in a minute.

“Don’t play with my heart, kid. When can I see them?”

“I don’t know...” He teased just a little, because he knew Tony wasn’t above begging and it was fun to watch.

“Don’t be mean to daddy, come on. He’s always so good to you.” Peter smiled, because, yeah. He was.

“I’ll send them tonight, I promise.” He decided, since they would have more time to talk then, if he sent the pictures earlier, Tony would still be at work and Peter would still be at his friends’.

“Good boy.”

“You know I am.”

“What are you smiling about? Who are you talking to?” Ned looked suspiciously at him, so he quickly put the phone down and shook his head with a nervous smile.

“Just a subscriber with a bad one-liner.”

MJ looked at him like she knew a secret, but Ned just shrugged and finished setting up the game. They ended up calling it a draw and ordering pizza afterwards, but Peter went back home early because both Ned and MJ had work the next morning.

Once he got upstairs, he went to edit Tony’s pictures and since it was still a little early to send them, he decided to check his twitter DMs. He didn’t read them very often, he already had his plate full with JustForFans, but every once in a while he checked them and answered as many as he could. Most of the messages were dick pics anyway, he just ignored those. Some others were people being nosy and asking way too personal questions, or worse, asking about Beck. He learned how to talk his way around those, but one message in particular stood out and really got to him.

“I’m so glad you’re doing okay, honey! The way Beck is with his new boy now makes me wonder if he ever even loved you. He sure moved on quickly. You’re better off without him anyway, I always liked you better.”

That sort of comment wasn’t exactly unusual, but that second part caught him a little off guard. Makes me wonder if he ever even loved you. It just – why would she say that? The way Beck is with his new boy. What way, exactly? What could he possibly be doing that made that person assume Beck never even loved him? People thought they were perfect together, they said it all the time, so much so that Peter himself was almost convinced of it for most of their relationship, so why in the hell would anyone think he loved this other guy more? To the point of assuming he didn’t even love Peter in the first place?

He was a masochist, he decided, as he opened Instagram. And not even the good kind of masochist, because there wasn’t any pleasure involved in what he was about to do, just pain. He unblocked Beck’s profiled and fucking looked. He didn’t know what he expected to find, but just looking at the first picture was enough to make him realize it was a terrible fucking idea. It was a black and white picture of him and the new guy cuddling in bed, kissing with soft smiles on their faces, captioned: “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Peter closed the app quickly, he didn’t need to see that. It meant nothing.

That picture meant nothing. That caption meant nothing. Because Beck was a fucking liar, a fucking actor, a fucking illusionist, a fucking – artist. He painted beautiful pictures, he weaved beautiful words, but none of that meant anything. Because it never meant anything when it was Peter in his arms, so why would–

Fuck, he should be over him, so fucking over him. But he really wasn’t, he would go back to that toxic environment if Beck snapped his fingers and that was scary to know. It was fucking terrifying to realize he was one text away from crawling back to him, even after all the humiliation, even after Beck just fucking up and left him with nothing – nothing – he would still go right back to his arms. He still wanted to go right back to his arms.

It made him feel pathetic and weak because he knew that what they had was toxic and abusive. And he had known that for a while, way before they split up. Deep in his soul, he knew he was living a nightmare, day after day, over and over again, but he couldn’t fucking leave. He thought Beck was all he had. He promised him forever. He promised he would always be there for him. He was all Peter had in life, and he had lost so fucking much over the years, he couldn’t afford to lose anybody else.

But he did, didn’t he? He lost Beck. He was in someone else’s arms right that second, professing his undying, fake love.

Peter took a deep breath and held it a few seconds, then exhaled slowly.

He didn’t lose anything, he was set free. He was free and he had a record to break – it had been three days since he last cried about that asshole and he didn’t plan to ruin it.

He closed Instagram and went to his Just4Fans. He posted a few pictures from a phoshoot he did earlier that week that made him feel sexy and confident, which was the opposite of how he felt at that moment, but he was going to fake it until he made it.

In a few minutes, he got lots of comments and private messages with compliments, but somehow none of them was enough to fill the empty spot Beck left when he dumped him.

Well, none except for one.

“Were you planning on giving an old man a heart attack today? ‘Cause that’s how you give an old man a heart attack.” The silly message got a smile out of him, and that was a lot considering how broken he felt.

“Lol. It wasn’t in my plans, no, but now I’m worried. Is the old man okay?” He joked, and immediately got an answer in his inbox.

“He’s waiting for you to keep your promise. Says he refuses to die before he sees some pictures of you? Do you happen to know anything about that?” Peter chuckled.

“Oh, yeah, I think I know what he’s talking about. Hold on a sec.”

He selected his ten favorite pictures with the date outfit and sent them to Tony, feeling butterflies in his stomach for reasons he couldn’t explain. He lay in bed for several minutes, staring at his phone, waiting for an answer, but the older man didn’t say anything, even though Peter could see he was still online. He started to get a little anxious, worried that he had messed up somehow, so he messaged him again.

“Well? Have I finally rendered the old man speechless?”

Almost at the same time as he sent his message, Tony replied:

“I need to see you.”

Peter’s heart almost jumped out of his mouth when he read those words, eyes widening in shock. I need to see you. He read it a few more times to make sure it meant what he thought it meant. It couldn’t possibly – Tony wouldn’t want to meet him. That would be absurd. He was – well, Peter wasn’t sure, but he sounded important most of the time, he was definitely very rich, very hardworking and he seemed like a really nice guy. So really, why would he want to meet Peter. That made absolutely no sense, obviously he meant something different than that, he just didn’t quite know what–

“Please,” said the next message, just a few seconds later.

Peter bit his lower lip, feeling his face grow warmer. Just for the hell of it, he thought – what if Tony did mean he wanted to meet him? What then? Peter couldn’t say yes, that would be insane. He didn’t even know the man, all he knew were little things about his daily life, he didn’t know his last name, if he had a family, if he was married, if he was a psychopath – he didn’t even know what he looked like!

Still, he fantasized about saying yes. But that was just a fantasy. He couldn’t do it, that would be crazy.

Right?

“You won’t regret it, I’ll treat you right.”

Well, fuck. He had to go straight for his Achilles’s heel, huh.

Peter kept staring at the bright screen of his phone, breathing slowly to try to contain his wild heart that seemed adamant to burst out of his chest cavity in the next few minutes. He didn’t know what to say. No, his brain supplied, like it was obvious, because it was, right? He couldn’t say yes, yes was not a viable answer. He had to say no, it was only a matter of how he would say it without hurting the older man’s ego.

But.

Why exactly did he have to say no? He knew there were ate least 99 good answers to that question, but he couldn’t think of one, so–

“How do I know you’re not a serial killer?” Peter asked, even though he wasn’t really worried about that, it was the last thing on his mind, to be honest.

“You’ll know.” He said, plain and simple, and not helpful at all. And still, no flight response whatsoever from Peter’s brain. His stupid mind couldn’t seem to understand that that was clearly a terrible idea.“We’ll meet in a restaurant, the best in New York, and nothing else has to happen, I promise. We’ll have a nice dinner and that’s it. I just need to see you in person.”

That sounded reasonable, didn’t it? A public place, lots of eyes on them. If Tony turned out to be a creep, he could just leave. At the very worst, he’d be disappointed and lose a very generous subscriber; at the very best, he’d get a good meal out of it and who knew what else. It sounded reasonable. So it was probably reasonable.

Right?

“Can I wear this outfit?” He asked, because, well, that was all he had to wear to New York City’s best restaurant – whatever that was.

“You must, baby.” He answered quickly, and Peter smiled to himself. “So I’ll take that as a yes, then?”

He typed a quick yes, but didn’t send it right away. He gave his brain a few seconds to come up with reasons to say no, because he knew there were good reasons for that, but he really, honestly, just wanted to say–

“Yes.”

“Perfect.” He replied right away, as if he had been staring at the phone, waiting for his answer. “I’ll set a time and place and let you know. You won’t regret it, Peter.”

Peter loved all the pet names Tony gave him, they were all sweet and funny, but when he called him by his actual name, it just hit different. It felt good. Like he wasn’t just a pretty picture in a porn app, an expensive hobby, but a person. It was hard for him to remember that, sometimes.

Some other times, it felt good to forget.

#starker #peter parker x tony stark

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alyss01 · 4 years ago

Text

|[It's a family business]|

Comfy cartel x F!reader

Part 1

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

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4]

Genre: Mafia AU/ action

Word count: 1.7K

Requested: no

To request: it is possible to request a comfy cartel fanfic, requests are open!

Synopsis: Corpse joins the cartel, and soon you accompany him, together with Rae, Lily, Sykunno and Toast to a new opening casino to deal with some unpaid debt.

Warnings: talk about murder, crimes, blood

A/n: I really wanted to make this and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! It started as a one shot and then quickly progressed to what will most likely be 4 parts. I could've posted them as one but this was easier with writing it and managing to space out things. It will update weekly most likely, and it's possible to request one shots for the comfy cartel!

Masterlist

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

You sat across from Toast on the table, his dark glasses covering his eyes as he patiently waited, a map in front of him. He pulled an identical map from underneath the wooden table you sat at and replaced the one that had previously laid on the table.

His face was neutral, he didn't fight the silence that hung in the air. He looked at you as you leant back in your chair, fingers impatiently tapping the table in front of you.

"You don't have to be here you know." He spoke up, his voice carrying practiced authority that could silence an entire meeting full of arguing. Yet as he spoke to you, it had a tone of kindness to it. After all the time you spent together and the situations you had been in with one another he saw you more as his younger sister than anything else. It was a position you had acquired for most of the cartel.

As the sister of Scarra you had a lot of authority in the cartel, although it wasn't as if you needed it. Everyone, no matter how recently the cartel had taken them under it's wing, viewed you as their little sister in the hierarchy of the family.

"Don't worry about it. I want to see the new blood." Toast nodded his head a few times as if to ponder.

Today the new person Toast had scouted out would be arriving at the cartel for his first job, he'd be monitored by Sykunno.

"Are you sure Sykunno would be the best fit?" You had seen his information, they seemed far from compatible.

Toast offered you a small smile, brushing his hair back as he repositioned his glasses. His voice was confident as he spoke, a small hint of his smile could be heard in his voice, "I'm sure."

The male in front of you had always had a scarily good intuition about people, which was how he had recruited most in the cartel.

You nodded in return, but before you had the chance to even consider getting bored again, a stern knock on the door pulled your attention to it.

Toast gave a signal for the person on the other side to come in. You locked eyes with him, he was largely build, carefully dressed in a white blouse with a black vest, tie and dress pants, with white gloves covering his hands. A purple mask covered most of his face, but black curly hair framed the small piece of exposed skin he showed.

His eyes were sharp as he locked them with yours. Your eyebrow raised curiously as he returned his attention back to the male in front of him, "Corpse."

"Disguised Toast." He spoke back, his voice deep and serious as you looked him over. If you hadn't known better you probably wouldn't have been aware of the true nature of the man, despite the intimidating aura that hung around him.

"It's a bad habit to be late." You spoke up as you calmly leant back in your chair, usually when you accompanied Toast to these kinds of things you stayed silent in the background as you observed.

Toast gave you a curious look for that, it was largely hidden by the glasses on his face but it was obvious for you after all the years.

Corpse stayed silent to your remark as you narrowed your eyes, "you'd do good to change the habit before doing something you'll regret." The message in your words was clear, don't pull this again if you want to keep your spot in the cartel.

He gave you a silent nod as Toast returned to the topic, "to start off, you'll be disposing of someone. Sykunno will accompany you as your guardian." He pushed the document to the end of the table where Corpse grabbed it and opened it briefly.

"You'll be reporting back to me, in three days. I want it done before then." Once more Corpse nodded his head as Toast dismissed him.

He walked out of the room, being met by a calm face with a gentle smile displayed. He offered his hand to Corpse, "I'm Sykunno, happy to meet you."

"That was unlike you." Toast remarked as he turned to you, you simple leant back in your chair as you met his eyes, "he needs to know his place."

Toast nodded as he grabbed the document from underneath the table that displayed Corpse's information. He stood up as he walked to the door, closing it behind him as he left you alone in the room.

•••••••••

Sykunno was crouching in front of the body, turning to his companion with a small smile on his face, "jesus, you actually killed him." His voice was calm as he grabbed the dead man's cheek with his gloved hand.

Corpse still held the gun in his hand, he had considered pointing it at the male in front of him but something about it made him unable to actually commit to the deed.

Sykunno tilted the corpse's head around, before releasing and sliding his gloves fingers through the blood that had formed a puddle on the ground and spreading it between his finger tips.

His clean hand grabbed his phone as Corpse stood silently against the wall watching the scene in front of him. Not a single drop of blood had reached him.

"Yvonne? Yes, I'll text you the address." He stayed silent as Corpse could hear a female voice on the other side of the call, "hmh, yes that should be fine. Take it to my garden, it'll make for fine fertilizer."

Corpse curiously listened along, he had known there was more to Sykunno than the sly, calm, gentle and happy mask he wore.

Sykunno stepped away, turning back to Corpse with a gentle smile on his face as he clicked the call away and returned his phone to the pocket it originated from.

"Let's go, Toast will be happy to hear the results."

They calmly walked out of the building as a small van stopped in front of it. Corpse's hand automatically moved to the gun in it's holster at his side.

The movement from Sykunno's hand made him stop as the back doors of the van opened, he started walking past it as a female with blonde hair and pink ends carried out a small trolley with cleaning supplies displayed.

Sykunno offered her a small nod of his head which she returned. Corpse could distantly hear her speak to the front door man, "I'm the cleaning service that was ordered for today."

"There was no such thing."

"I've been send here by Y/n, ask the front desk, they'll know." The man left his position for a second as he leant inside, his voice muffled, before turning back "please, come in."

He followed Sykunno as they fled the scene.

•••••••••••

Lily granted you a smile as you entered the room, beside her sat Toast and at the head of the table sat your brother, Don Scarra.

"Brother." You greeted him first as you moved to the table. A fond smile formed on his face, "sister, how have you been?"

You returned the genuine smile as you sat down, "The days have been interesting with our newest member." Scarra nodded his head thoughtfully.

It had been a few weeks since Corpse had accomplished his first task. Sykunno still watched over him but they were more akin to companions than a guardian. They had gone of a few other tasks, and for now Corpse had the trust of the cartel.

The other two greeted you as well as Toast slid a file over the table towards you. "What do you think?"

You had started in the cartel innocently enough, despite your older brothers desperate attempts to keep you out. Your contacts were simply unparalleled.

Besides that you were an important person, both in and out of the cartel, and eventually Scarra had decided it was safest for you to become part of the cartel, seeing as there was no safer place for you to be.

Your eyes scanned the pages, nodding your head as you read. A large celebration party for the opening of a new casino, the owner however refused to repay the cartel according to Ludwig who was in charge of the cartels money flow. He was divine in covering up the hardest of situations to the government and cheating the system.

The price had apparently build up to the amount where only his life would suffice, although as you looked at the mans information you doubted if even that was enough.

"I'll be able to get some people in, but for that I will have to attend myself as well." You shot a glance at Scarra, who had always been seriously opposed to you working in the field.

"Then we'll find another moment." Scarra spoke up as you had expected him to do, this wasn't the first time and you had a hunch it wouldn't be the last either.

Toast spoke up, "with all due respect, Don Scarra, but the target has been in hiding for months. This may be the only shot we have until he disappears again."

Lily repositioned her hat, the white flower on it changing position with the movement as she turned to the Don, "this would be a low risk mission, the guest list has been screened by Micheal, so the only obstacle will be the security. I've made him download the building plans and he'll be on comms to guide us through."

Scarra however still didn't seem convinced as Toast continued on Lily's reasoning, "beside that, we can send enough people to accompany her. We'll need her reputations to get into the VIP areas where he'll most likely stay hidden. Y/n will be kept out of danger at all costs."

Scarra seemed convinced as you turned to him, knowing you wouldn't have a say in the matter, "so who will accompany me?"

#comfy cartel #mafia au #offlinetv #sykunno #corpse fic #mafiatale #female reader #x reader #corpse imagines #lilypichu #micheal reeves #scarra #corpse x reader #action #mafia #disguised toast #valkyrae #bodyguard #protection

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wayward-dreamer · 5 years ago

Text

Life’s Lessons - Part 10

Title: Life’s Lessons - A Lesson in Love and Hope

Pairing: Mechanic!Dean x Female!Teacher!Reader

Other Characters: OFCs: Jill (Y/N’s sister), Evie and Mia (Y/N’s nieces), OMC: Brian (Y/N’s brother-in-law)

Word Count: 6,385 (notes in bold, thoughts, texts, song lyrics in italics).

Part Summary: As Christmas time approaches, Y/N and Dean are sad they can’t spend this time together as she goes home to New York for the holidays. However, their Christmas presents to each other prove that they have a future together.

Warnings: Slight angst, brief mention of reader’s exes, Dean’s self-deprecation rears its ugly head (slightly), Dean being sweet (yes, that’s a warning), Fluff (yes, it’s true, you read that correctly lol)

Music: It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas by Jason Manns (Y/N at the airport scene), Let It Snow by Bing Crosby (playing in the background of Y/N and her sister girl talk scene), Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas by Jensen Ackles and Jason Manns (Christmas Eve scenes)

Life’s Lessons Spotify Playlist

A/N: It’s a Christmas chapter! Yay! Great timing as it’s the first day of the holiday season! Thank you to everyone who has been reading and loving this series. I never thought it would get as much love as it has, and I’m so grateful to every single one of you! There’s only 5 parts and an epilogue left after this, I can’t believe we’re almost at the end, but there’s still quite a bit of story to tell. I’m so excited for you guys to see what happens! Happy reading and enjoy! :)

Life’s Lessons Masterlist

Dividers by the wonderful @firefly-graphics! Check her out for all your AU needs, and for festive themes!!!

Y/N smiled as she watched the kids rushing out the front doors of the school. It was officially the end of the day and the start of the holidays. She pulled her coat a little tighter around herself, as she called out to some students to be careful on the sidewalk, as it had snowed overnight. It was December 22nd, and school had let out early. In a few short hours, she was flying out to New York to spend the holidays with her family. She was nervous about the weather and was praying that her flight wouldn’t be grounded. She was also nervous to be headed home but considering Ethan had made the permanent move to L.A. she doubted he would be there.

She went back into the school and quickly packed up her things. She said goodbye to all the teachers and to Chuck and walked out with Cas and Charlie.

“Alright, here” Charlie said, as she handed her a small present in the parking lot.

“Oh Charlie, thank you” Y/N smiled, as she took it and handed one over to her as well. Y/N opened the gift, smiling as she saw the earrings she wanted during a time when she and Charlie had gone shopping, but didn’t buy.

Charlie hugged her after opening hers, a beautiful scarf that had her favorite colors.

Cas and Y/N exchanged gifts too, a new tie, white with little books on it for him because “blue may be your color, but you can branch out” and a leather-bound journal for her.

“Merry Christmas” all three of them hugged and called out to each other before they drove home.

Y/N hurried to get home as she still had a few more things to pack before she left in the evening. She had messaged Mark a few days after the incident with him, telling him that it was really over and to never call her, ever again. So far, it seemed like he had gotten the message, having not tried to contact her at all in the last few weeks. She was incredibly thankful for that. She was also thankful that in that time, she and Dean had been hanging out a lot, too. It was all very innocent and simple, just watching movies and making dinner together, or ordering take-out if they didn’t feel like cooking, after they both finished work. After that first night when they slept in her bed, they hadn’t done more than that. She was beginning to wonder when Dean would ask her out, and whether she should just ask him. Though she knew that maybe they just needed a little more time.

When she got home, she unzipped her boots and walked around in socked feet. She picked her suitcase which was half packed already and put it on the bed. She started putting some clothes and shoes and other items that she would need, including a few last-minute presents for her nieces.

Once she was finally finished packing, Y/N got changed into the clothes she’d be wearing to travel. A loose, grey, high-neck sweater and dark grey scarf, black pants and her grey coat, and white sneakers to make it easier on her feet in the airport. She had her carry-on and check-in bags ready by the door, needing both for this trip as she had to carry so many presents with her. She couldn’t wait to see her family after so many months away from them.

Dean shrugged on a thicker plaid shirt, wrapped a scarf around his neck and then his brown leather jacket. He picked up the rectangle shaped present he had wrapped horribly (he had never been good at that) and opened the front door, leaving the house and closing it.

He walked down the porch steps and across the path in his front yard, where he had cleared the snow off to the sides. He walked across the street and down the path of Y/N’s yard, which he had cleared for her, walking up her porch steps. He stood in front of the door and let out a big breath, pushing the doorbell. He had her present in his hand and he wanted to give it to her at that very moment. He had enlisted Dorothy’s help in finding it for Y/N, after an idea popped into his head and he couldn’t get rid of it. Considering Dorothy had connections, she had managed to get him a decent price on it; it was expensive but at least it didn’t cost him an absolute fortune once she haggled the price down.

The door opened, and Y/N was shocked to see Dean standing there. She stood at the threshold and admired how adorable he looked all rugged up to protect himself from the cold.

“Hi” she smiled, softly.

“Hi” he smirked, walking in when she stepped aside. “You leaving soon?”

“Yeah, my cab should be here any minute” she said, shutting the door.

Dean nodded, as he handed the present over to her. “Here.”

“Oh, Dean” she smiled at him, as she took it from him. “I was going to leave yours at your door, but-” she stopped herself as she tucked the present under her arm, gesturing for him to wait and walked into her office.

Dean watched as she came back, carrying a large, thin, rectangular shape wrapped up in silver wrapping and a giant red ribbon, tied into a bow.

“This is for you” she smiled, handing it over to him. “But you can’t open it until midnight, after Christmas Eve is over.”

“Okay. Wow. Thanks” he said, looking over it and wondering what the hell it was. “You can’t open yours till then, either.”

“New York’s an hour ahead” she laughed.

“Doesn’t matter. We both open them on our midnight. Deal?” he asked, smirking.

“Deal” she nodded, with a smile.

“So… New York. I’m glad you’ll get to see your folks for the holidays” he said, his smirk fading away knowing that she’d be so far away. He was happy for her, though. She deserved to see her family after so many months away.

“I can’t wait” she beamed. “Just to see them all, hug and cuddle my little nieces, soak up the holiday spirit.”

“That’s great.” He smirked. Seeing her love for her family made him positive that his own would love her, and she would love them.

He looked down at the present in her hand and smirked. He really hoped that it would let her know what he felt for her. Y/N looked at the present she got him and hoped that he’d like it. It was something for his new building where he was going to have the restoration garage. It would look amazing in his office, there.

A car horn honking pulled them out of their thoughts, and Y/N glanced down at her watch. She looked up at him smiling brightly.

“Merry Christmas, Dean” she said.

“Merry Christmas, Y/N” he smirked.

She moved in and wrapped her arms around his neck. His automatically came around her waist, pulling her into the hug. They held each other for a moment, basking in each other’s touch, their eyes closed. They jumped apart as the car horn sounded again.

Y/N laughed as she gathered her things. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“Yeah” he agreed. “Here, let me help.”

Dean placed his huge present outside on the porch as Y/N walked out and closed the door to her house, locking it securely. Dean walked down the porch steps, with her check-in suitcase, putting it in the trunk of the cab. Y/N walked down and opened the door to the backseat, as Dean took her carry-on and put that in the trunk as well. She waited for a moment, as Dean walked over to her after closing the trunk. She really wished she could stay back and spend time with him, but she had to see her family. She was really looking forward to it, but she couldn’t help but feel sad that she wouldn’t be with Dean.

He looked down at her, looking as beautiful as the day he first saw her. He hated that he wouldn’t get to see her over Christmas and New Years’, wishing that she could stay back, and they could spend the holidays together. He wished he could see the look on her face when she opened the present from him, but he would have to settle for hearing whether she liked it or not. He was really going to miss her. Kiss her! He thought to himself as he continued to look at her. Before he could think twice, he leaned in, pressing his lips against hers, softly.

It didn’t take long for it to deepen, as Y/N wrapped her arms around his neck. She smiled into the kiss, as he pulled her closer, their lips moving against each other’s. They were finally in each other’s arms again. There was so much behind the kiss; a promise of more to come, a promise of their future together, a promise of things being better for both of them. Y/N was the one to pull away, regretfully, but she had a plane to catch. “I really have to go” she said, frowning as she looked up at him. “But um… it’s about time you did that” she said, biting her lip.

Dean groaned when he saw her do that. “Don’t, sweetheart, or I won’t let you get on that plane.”

She laughed as she stopped. “Bye.” She leaned in and pecked his lips.

“Bye” he said, returning her smile.

With one last glance at him, she got into the cab. Dean watched it drive away with a smile on his face. He suddenly couldn’t wait to see her again.

Y/N eyes scanned over the crowds at the airport, trying to spot her dad. She had shoved her way through baggage claim and picked up her check-in and was now trying to find her father through the throngs of people embracing each other, excited to get their holiday celebrations underway. By the time they had a quick lay-over in Atlanta and flew into New York, it was 8.30pm, which was the scheduled time, and she was incredibly thankful to whatever higher power there was that got her there. It was still a 2-hour drive to Rhinebeck, and her family would most likely be sleeping by the time she got home, but at least she’d see them properly in the morning.

As the crowd around her cleared, she spotted her father and beamed as he saw her too, waving frantically. She rushed over to him and launched herself into his arms, hugging him tightly. She felt tears prick her eyes as she laughed, happy to finally see him again.

“Oh sweetie, let me look at you” he said, pulling away from the hug and holding her at arms’ length. “You look different.” He eyed her, his brows knitted together.

“I’m still the same me, dad” she shrugged, laughing slightly.

“It’s so good to see you” he smiled, his eyes glistening. “Come on, let’s go.”

As they walked out of the airport, a bearded man with glasses was jamming “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” on his guitar. His case was open in front of him, and Y/N quickly walked over, dropping a 20-dollar bill in.

“Thanks” he smiled. “Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas!” she called back and then hurried over to her dad, who was wheeling her bags to the parking lot. She smiled as she walked beside him; Christmas was her favorite holiday, and it was already off to a great start.

The drive back home was filled with Y/N catching up on everything she had missed. Her dad told her that her mom was going crazy with excitement of her being there soon and was making sure everything was perfect. Y/N laughed; her mom didn’t need to do anything extra to make things special considering it always would be no matter what, but she wouldn’t be her mom if she didn’t.

When they arrived home, Y/N gasped as she saw the house decorated so beautifully. The lights and decorations on the house were as stunning as always, and she was glad she got to see them again. As they went in, Y/N laughed quietly to herself as saw her mother, fast asleep on one couch, and her brother-in-law asleep on the other. Her sister and the kids were most likely asleep upstairs.

“I’ll get them up, you go upstairs” her dad whispered. “Brian can carry that up.” He gestured to her large suitcase.

“Thanks, dad” she whispered, as she quietly walked up the stairs with her carry-on.

She walked to her old bedroom and flicked on the light. She laughed slightly as she saw it still hadn’t changed at all since before she left for college. All her Backstreet Boys and NSYNC posters were still up on one wall, her Led Zeppelin ones still up on the other. She really had an eclectic taste in music. She heard a soft knock on the door and turned, seeing her brother-in-law, Brian, walk in with her suitcase. She smiled as she walked over, hugging him tightly.

“Jill’s gonna freak in the morning. I tried waking her up but Evie’s practically sleeping on top of her” Brian said, laughing slightly.

“I’ll catch them in the morning” she said, folding her arms across her chest.

Brian nodded, smiling at her. “It’s good to have you home. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight” she said, watching him leave and shut the door behind him.

Y/N quickly got changed for bed and slipped under the covers. As she drifted off, she couldn’t wait to see everyone else in the morning.

It was great to be home.

“Auntie Y/N!” a little voice yelled as it barrelled through Y/N’s room and bounced up on the bed.

Y/N gasped and flinched as a little body flung itself over her. She relaxed when she realized where she was, and held her 5-year-old niece, Evie tighter.

“I’m so happy you’re here” she smiled down at Y/N.

“So am I, sweetie” Y/N smiled, rocking her side to side as she didn’t let go.

Y/N looked up at the door when she saw her sister standing against the doorframe, holding her 8-month-old niece, Mia on her hip.

“This one wants to say hi, too” Jill said, smiling.

Y/N got up from bed, Evie stuck to her leg as she walked over to her sister. She hugged her tight, feeling a few tears escape down her face.

“I missed you, so much” Y/N said, holding Jill tighter.

“I missed you too” Jill said, pulling away and smiling at her.

Y/N smiled as she saw the baby. She was so big now, having only been 4 months when she left for Lawrence. She reached for her, but little Mia scrunched her face up, squirming into her mother.

“This one needs to be fed, so you get cleaned up and come downstairs. Mom’s making breakfast” Jill said, kissing Y/N’s cheek and taking the girls out of the room.

Y/N quickly brushed her teeth and threw her robe on over her pyjamas. She raced down the stairs and into the kitchen, smiling when she saw her mom’s back as she stood at the stove.

“Mom” Y/N said, as she walked over.

Her mom turned around and nearly started crying on the spot. She rushed over and took Y/N in her arms, hugging her tight.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here” her mom said to her as she pulled away, wiping her eyes.

“Me too” Y/N smiled.

“Alright, the pancakes are almost done. So, sit down and help yourself, and everyone else will down soon” her mom said, gesturing to the table that was already set.

“Can’t I help with something?” Y/N asked, frowning.

“No, you just got here, honey. Relax, we’ll put you to work tomorrow” her mom laughed, as she playfully shoved her towards the dining table.

Y/N laughed and shook her head as she walked over, licking her lips at the sight of the delicious breakfast.

After a great breakfast with her family, Y/N helped Evie decorate another gingerbread house, because the two she did with grandma yesterday weren’t enough. Jill sat with Mia on her lap, across from Y/N at the dining table, as Let It Snow played in the background through the house. Brian had gone back to their house to get some more bottles for the baby, and her parents had rushed out to deliver some homemade Christmas cake to their friends. So, Y/N was glad she and her sister were alone for a while, to have some proper girl talk.

“So…” Jill trailed off, as she distracted the baby with her toy, and tried to ice a piece of the gingerbread house with one hand. “How are things with Mark?”

Y/N smiled, sheepishly, feeling guilty she hadn’t told her sister yet. “Things are… over.”

“What?” Jill asked, wide eyes looking up at her.

Y/N shrugged, as she iced one part of the roof for the gingerbread house. “Things got a little… complicated.”

“Well, considering I only know whatever you told me up to the third date, I need the specifics” Jill said, shifting Mia when she started to fuss.

“I know, I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you in a while” Y/N frowned, looking up at her sister.

“It’s okay, Y/N. Don’t apologize. I mean, we’ve both been busy” Jill laughed slightly, gesturing her head between her two daughters.

Y/N looked at Evie sitting next to her and smiled, seeing her niece in full concentration as she decorated, her tongue sticking out.

“This one has to leave, though” Y/N said, looking at Evie and then Jill.

Jill nodded in understanding. “Evie, honey. Can you stop what you’re doing for a second?”

“What is it, mommy?” Evie asked, her big eyes looking at her mom.

“Can you make sure all the presents are kept neatly under the tree?” Jill asked her in return.

“Okay” she replied, simply, not understanding why she had to go but doing it anyway.

Once she was out of earshot, Jill turned to Y/N. “Okay. Spill.”

Y/N took the next few moments to tell Jill everything that had happened with Mark.

“Fuck” Jill remarked, not knowing what to say.

“Yeah” Y/N nodded.

A short pause fell between them as Jill thought about everything her sister just told her.

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” Jill asked, her eyes teary.

“I didn’t want you guys to worry about me” Y/N replied, shaking her head. “And don’t tell mom and dad, they’d freak out. I’ll tell them myself at a later stage.”

Jill sighed, but nodded. “Okay.”

“Thank you” Y/N smiled, softly. She bit her lip, wondering if she should tell her sister about Dean too. Maybe it was too soon?

Jill tapped her fingers on the table as she watched her sister, her face looking like her brain was overloaded with thoughts.

“There’s something else” Jill said, knowingly. “Isn’t there?”

Y/N looked at her sister, tentatively. She wasn’t sure if she should say it or not.

Jill cocked her head to the side, a smile gracing her face as she understood. “Who is he?”

Y/N scoffed, impressed with her sister’s intuition.

She spent another couple of minutes telling Jill everything about Dean. She felt a smile tug at her lips as she talked about him. After everything she had been through in the past, and then with Mark, she thought for minute back there she’d never be able to think of dating someone again, but things were different with Dean.

“So… when you get back, what’s going to happen?” Jill asked, curious about what she was thinking of doing.

“I… don’t know, but… I know that he’s it now” Y/N replied, her smile growing.

Jill smiled. “I gotta say, I’ve never seen you like this. Yeah sure, you’ve been with a few guys, but this is different.”

“It feels different this time” Y/N nodded. “I don’t want to get my hopes up, but… it feels like this is it. And I know he’s some years older than me, but that doesn’t matter to me.”

Truth be told, men who were slightly older than her were a turn on for her. Plus, she had only ever been with guys her own age. Maybe it was time for a change.

In that moment, Y/N’s baby niece started to fuss in Jill’s lap.

“Oh, honey. You can’t be hungry, I just fed you” Jill said, frowning as she didn’t know what was wrong.

Y/N got up and walked over to their side of the table. She slowly picked up the baby and held her close, lightly bouncing her. Little Mia smiled and Jill smiled, too.

“She just needs a little lovin’ from her aunt” Y/N smiled, kissing her niece’s chubby cheek.

Jill admired her sister with the baby. “You look good like that.”

“Stop” Y/N laughed, shaking her head. She didn’t need those thoughts in her head at that moment. She had always loved children, and couldn’t wait to have her own, but she wondered if Dean was the one who she would have them with. Did he even want any?

The doorbell rang and interrupted them. Y/N gave little Mia back to Jill and walked to the front door. She screamed when she opened it and saw Katie smiling at her. The friends hugged tightly, laughing.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” Katie said, swaying them side to side.

“Me too” Y/N tearfully told her, letting go of her and letting her into the house. “You just missed girl talk, though.”

“Well, catch me up. I’m all ears” Katie said, walking into the house, taking off her coat.

Y/N laughed as she followed behind her, ready to divulge everything she told Jill to her best friend as well.

The next day brought a whirlwind of familial chaos, as Y/N’s family got everything ready for Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas carols were playing in the background, as her mom worked on the ham, her dad helped with all the sides and her sister was in charge of decorating the rest of the house, the table and setting it. Brian was keeping the kids entertained and Y/N was making pudding and few other treats for dessert.

It took all day, but they finally got everything ready and in time for dinner. As everyone got dressed and ready, Y/N took some time to admire the house. The lights were dimmed, the candles were lit, and everything was bathed in a beautiful glow. The lights on the tree were shining, and the fireplace crackled, adding to the ambience of the room. She was so glad to be here with her family and to spend this time with them.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

Let your heart be light

From now on,

Our troubles will be out of sight

She quickly had a shower, and then got ready for dinner in a red, A-line dress, with sleeves that came to her mid-forearm. She pinned her Y/H/C hair into a bun, a few strands framing her face. She put on her nude heels and then went downstairs to join her family.

Dinner was absolutely divine, and her mom had outdone herself, yet again. Everything from the ham to the pudding for dessert was perfect, and everyone was absolutely stuffed by the end. They all relaxed on the couch and sang some carols, drank eggnog and enjoyed the fact that they were all together again. For the first time in a long time, Y/N had no fear about Ethan or Mark, or any of the other troubles she had had in the past. All she needed was her family and hoped that the man who she had fallen in love from the minute she saw him, would also be a permanent figure in her life.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

Make the Yule-tide gay,

From now on,

Our troubles will be miles away

It was pretty much the same vibe over at the Winchesters.

Mary had assigned jobs for everyone, stating to the boys that they weren’t getting out of it just because they didn’t live at home anymore. She made Eileen and Sam come early as well as Dean, so that they could all do their assigned jobs.

Once everything was ready before dinner, everyone put on their ugly Christmas sweaters, a Winchester tradition that was something silly but fun. Bobby, Ellen and Jo arrived, and they all greeted each other. They sat around talking and laughing as they ate, and afterwards sat around on the couches, listening to carols while drinking eggnog. No one trusted Sam with it anymore, so it was Eileen’s job to mix it since she joined their family. Dean smiled as he looked around at his family, content for the first time in years.

Here we are as in olden days,

Happy golden days of yore

Loving friends who are dear to us,

Gather near to us once more

However, Dean was the first one to notice when Eileen wasn’t drinking any. He gestured to her and then signed “are you okay?”, which was just one of the things of what little he knew, but he was trying to get better at it. She nodded and then smiled at Sam. They had a small conversation between themselves, before Sam turned to everyone with a huge smile on his face.

“Well, now’s as good a time as any to tell you… we’re having a baby” he said, beaming. “Eileen’s 16 weeks in.”

Dean’s eyes widened but his smile grew as he got up, and hugged his brother first, Mary and Eileen hugging as Mary cried. Everyone hugged the expecting parents, before they all sat back down.

“Congratulations, guys” Dean said, as he returned to one side of the couch. “That’s awesome, seriously.”

Sam smiled as he kissed Eileen’s cheek. “Thanks, Dean.”

“Oh, I can’t wait for my first grandchild!” Mary exclaimed, as John kissed her head.

Dean’s mind wandered off as Eileen and Sam were talking about moving into a bigger place. Mary was listening intently, but Dean couldn’t focus on the conversation. He couldn’t have been happier for his little brother and sister-in-law. They were going to make great parents; he knew that to be the absolute truth. However, he couldn’t help but feel an unexpected sadness wash over him. He never thought of himself as the “having kids” type of guy, hell, he never pictured himself in a serious relationship. That was when he was younger though. As he got older, he realized he wanted those things, and even though he was happy for Sam, he felt a little jealous sometimes that his little brother would have all of that before he did.

The last year of his life had been a waste, as he tried to salvage a relationship with Lisa. He couldn’t help but think where he would be if he had broken up with her a year ago. Mostly likely with Y/N as soon as she got to Lawrence he thought as he tried to concentrate on the conversation his family was having. It was no use though, as his mind continued torment him with the possibilities that could’ve been, if he had just claimed his freedom sooner.

Dean silently excused himself and walked out to the back porch of his childhood home. He let out a long breath, seeing it cloud up in the cold. He sipped the eggnog, feeling the kick of the alcohol warm him up. He smiled sadly as he thought about Y/N, so far away from him, in New York with her own family. He wondered what she wanted from life and whether their wants would align, whether having a family was something she wanted or not. He really hoped so.

“Merry freakin’ Christmas” he mumbled to himself. He never had a problem with being alone, but as he got older it had started to become a fear for him. Maybe that was why it took so long to see the whole truth with Lisa.

“Sure is” he heard someone say behind him. He turned and saw his mom standing behind him.

“I’ll be back in soon, mom” he said, turning away from her.

“Actually” she started as she stood next to him and faced him. “I was thinking we could talk.”

“About?” he asked, staring down at his eggnog.

Mary was quiet for a moment before she spoke. “Who is she?”

Dean scoffed as he closed his eyes. Of course his mom had figured it out.

He opened his eyes and looked at her, his jaw clenched. “She’s… she’s the best person I’ve ever known and… I have no idea if I should do anything about this because honestly, she deserves more than me.”

“Isn’t that up to her?” Mary asked, knowingly. “If you’re spending so much time with her, and I know you have because I’ve hardly seen you over the last few weeks, then doesn’t that mean that she wants to give you a chance?”

Dean blinked a few times as he took in what Mary just said. “I guess.”

“Then all you have to is take the leap” Mary smiled.

Dean nodded slowly, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Yeah.”

Mary nodded. “Just know, you have to bring her here because we need to meet her.”

Dean groaned and laughed, shaking his head. “Great.”

Mary smiled, leaning over to kiss his cold cheek. “Come inside soon, it’s way too cold.”

“I will” he promised as he watched her go back in.

Dean smirked as he thought about how Y/N would actually fit in with his family. He knew he needed to muster up the courage and just ask her out. Let go of the fear that had developed because of everything that had happened with Lisa. Maybe it was too soon after, but the truth was, he didn’t want more time. He was ready to be happy.

Through the years

We all be together,

If the Fates allow

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.

At midnight, Y/N and her family all wished each other a Merry Christmas, before they cleared everything up and each of them headed to bed. They would be up in several hours again, to open the presents anyway. As she went upstairs, there was one thing she needed to do before she headed to bed. Walking into her room, she shut the door and walked over to her carry-on bag. She opened it and found the present from Dean. She moved the bag back to the floor and then sat down on her bed, the present in her hand.

She laughed a little as she saw the envelope on it had her name but also “READ AFTER OPENING” in Dean’s all caps writing. She opened the wrapping, frowning when the thing was wrapped in brown paper as well. She unwrapped the brown paper, noticing that it was a very old but beautiful, hardcover book. She frowned again, but as she turned the book around and saw the spine, she gasped loudly.

In her hand, was an early edition of her favorite novel of all time, Jane Eyre. Y/N’s eyes widened as they started to well up with tears. She remembered telling him it was her favorite at dinner with him. It was yet another thing he remembered about her, the Led Zeppelin album being the first. She felt the tears rolling down her face as she opened the book, slowly flicking through it. She closed it and hugged it to her chest. She couldn’t believe he had done this for her.

She put the book in her lap and picked up the envelope, opening it and sliding the card out. Opening the card, she smiled through tears as she read his words.

Merry Christmas, sweetheart.

I hate that you’re not here with me, but I can’t wait until you’re back. There’s a lot that I wanna say, but I’ve never been good with words. So, I’m just gonna do my best.

I’ve never been surer of anything, than I am that you’re the greatest person that I’ll ever know. You’re beautiful, smart, strong as all hell, and have the kindest heart of anyone I know. I know how freaking lucky I am that you’re in my life.

I hope this present lets you know how much you mean to me. How much you’ll always mean to me.

Y/N, this is it for me. You’re it for me. I need you to know that.

Have an amazing time with your family and I’ll see you as soon as you get back.

Dean

She laughed through her tears, shaking her head. She had never been surer of anything either; that he was the greatest man she had ever known. That she was so madly in love with him, and she couldn’t wait to tell him that someday.

And have yourself a merry little Christmas

When it reached midnight in Kansas, Dean said a quick “Merry Christmas” to everyone, but everyone kept wondering why he was heading off so quickly.

“You know, you can just stay the night to open presents in the morning” Mary told him as she handed out warm cider to everybody.

“No, there’s uh… something I gotta do” Dean said, putting his jacket on.

“Something or… someone?” Jo asked, smiling suspiciously.

“Shut up, Jo” he groaned, glaring at her.

Jo laughed as she and Sam looked at each other.

“Seriously, what’s the rush, kid?” Bobby asked, curiously.

“Can a man not have a little time to himself anymore? Jeez” Dean grumbled, shaking his head.

“Alright, everyone leave him alone” Mary said, calming everyone down. “He’ll be back soon anyway.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek, patting his shoulder.

He would be back in several hours anyway to open presents with everyone, but at that moment he had to see what was awaiting him.

When he got home, he walked over to the big present from Y/N, resting against a wall in his living room. He chuckled as he looked over the size of it, wondering what the hell she had gotten him. He opened the large bow, letting it fall away. He dug his finger into the edge of the wrapping and ripped it open, at every side to see the present more clearly.

“Holy shit” he gasped as his mouth open in awe.

The present was a large black frame, with a black and white photo of his beloved Baby, shining away in the sun. It looked like his backyard in the background of it, and he had to wonder how she took this photo. On the corner of the frame was an envelope with his name written on it. He took it and opened it, smirking as he saw her handwriting.

Merry Christmas, Dean!

I took this photo for you to hang in your new office at the restoration site. There’s nothing better to convince the customers to bring their cars to you than a picture of Baby.

I’m so proud of you for everything you’re working towards. It’s going to bring so many amazing things your way; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

I hope that the new year brings you everything you wish for, because if there’s anyone who deserves it, it’s you. You’ve been an amazing support to me, and I’ll never forget everything you’ve done for me. Ever.

I can’t wait to see you when I get back and just be near you again.

Y/N xx

He smirked as he read over the note a few times. She really was something else. He couldn’t believe that someone like her would want someone like him, but he knew how lucky he was that she was in his life.

And have yourself a merry little Christmas

He looked at the clock and saw that it was ten past midnight, which meant it was ten past 1am in New York. Y/N was probably asleep, but he really wanted to speak to her. He sent her a quick text, asking if she was awake. When he got a reply instantly that she was, he dialled her number. In New York, Y/N sat up instantly when her phone rang and picked it up.

“Hi” she said, smiling. “Dean, I… I don’t even know what to say.”

“Did I make the English teacher speechless?” he teased with a smirk on his face.

“Yes” she admitted. “Dean, it’s… thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”

Dean smiled. “Well, it’s like I’ve said before, sweetheart. You don’t ever have to thank me.”

“Did you… did you mean it? What you said?” she asked. She already knew it was the truth, but she just needed to hear it. She just needed to know for certain.

“Yes” he replied. There was no pause. No hesitation.

Y/N felt tears welling up in her eyes all over again. “You’re… you’re it for me, too.”

Dean smiled, feeling like his heart would burst from her confession that she felt the same.

“Thanks for the photo. It’s so freaking awesome, Y/N” he smirked as he looked over at it.

“You’re welcome” she said, smiling. “But Dean, now our presents are totally uneven. This would’ve been so expensive-” she said as she picked the book, but Dean cut her off.

“Hey, no. It’s not about that, okay? I knew… I knew that I wanted you to have it. Plus, with Dorothy’s help it wasn’t too expensive, so we’re good” he reassured her.

“Okay” she said, nodding.

Dean looked up at the time and knew he should end the call. “I should let you go. Merry Christmas, Y/N.”

“Merry Christmas, Dean” she smiled as they both hung up the phone.

That morning, as they fell asleep for a few more hours before they had to wake up again, even with miles and miles between them, they fell asleep with dreams of each other. They fell into a peaceful slumber, knowing this was the start of something magical for both of them.

And have yourself a merry little Christmas now

-x-

Tags: @flamencodiva @deanwanddamons @winchest09 @katehuntington @akshi8278 @hobby27 @michellethetvaddict @spngirl05 @kyjey @halesandy @440mxs-wife @stoneyggirl @deanswaywardgirl @wonder-cole @that-one-gay-girl @redbarn1995 @marianita195 @babypink224221 @deans-baby-momma @parinarain @thoughts-and-funnies @mandalou29 @castiels-a-winchester @ellewritesfix05 @jerkbitchidjitassbutt @supraveng @roonyxx @supernatural-love14 @vicmc624 @prettyboyswow @lunarmoon8

#Life's Lessons #Dean x Female!Reader #Dean x Female!Reader Series #Dean x Female!Reader Fanfiction #Female!Reader Insert #Mechanic!Dean #Teacher!Reader #Dean x Reader Fanfiction #Dean Winchester Series #Dean Winchester Fanfiction #Dean Winchester Fanfic #Supernatural Fanfiction

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pickalilywrites · 4 years ago

Text

i'm still alive ^^

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How to Be a Good Coworker

Erejean. Zombie Detective AU.

Chapter 4.

11442 words.

Read on Ao3!

For the past week, Eren has been bumming it out at Jean’s house. Every other day, he visits the basement in the bookstore Annie works at so that he and his friends can compare notes, but not much progress has been made in terms of finding his killer. While everyone else’s suspect lists remain empty at every meeting, Annie’s list manages to grow every time they see each other.

(“Are you just writing down the name of everyone in town that you can remember?” Armin asks her at one point after taking a closer look at her list.

“Yes,” Annie replies without blinking.)

Eren’s beginning to think that they’ll never find his murderer, but maybe that’s okay. Maybe his murder was a one-time thing and whoever killed him regretted their actions so much that they vowed never to kill again. Maybe they’re repenting for their sins right now. Maybe there isn’t a killer lurking in the town and turning people into zombies and they’re just doing all this extra work for nothing. Eren knows that the possibility of this is highly unlikely, but he honestly wants to shove all this business about his murderer in the back of his mind now that he has more pressing things to worry about.

After visiting his mother the other day, Eren’s phone has been blowing up every morning and night with texts from his mom. She’s always asking him how he’s doing, if he wants to visit soon, and what he had for breakfast or dinner. His answers are nearly always the same: fine, maybe when he finds the time, and just whatever Jean had gotten from his mom or a nearby restaurant. He always has to take pictures of Jean’s meals to send to his mom and assure her that he’s eating properly, although all the oil and spices make him want to gag. Even being near them makes him feel nauseous. Jean likes to point out that Eren’s choice in food isn’t any much better, but Eren begs to differ. The fact that the meat he eats isn’t loaded with any seasonings or extraneous flavors makes his food superior already, but Jean always rolls his eyes whenever Eren begins his rant on the greatness of raw meat.

Eren shreds into a piece of pork shoulder. It’s not his favorite cut of pork. Although the cut of pork might be more forgiving on Jean’s wallet, it’s tougher than Eren prefers. Maybe Jean doesn’t see a difference because he’s never thought about how different it is once the meat is cooked. Pork shoulder is similar to other cuts when they’re cooked. You could substitute it with pork butt or a pork leg and still get the same tenderness, but only if you braise it. When it’s uncooked, it’s tough as shit, Eren thinks as he gnaws on the meat in dissatisfaction. He’d rather be eating some pork belly right now with meat so fatty that it’s practically melting on his tongue. The thought of it makes Eren drool and the piece of meat in his mouth nearly falls out.

Someone knocks at the door and Eren freezes. Jean is already out for work. He’s too organized to leave anything at home, so there isn’t any reason for him to come back. Jean’s mother is even more organized and knows Jean’s schedule even better than Jean probably does, so it wouldn’t make sense for her to come here either.

Cautiously, Eren gets up from his seat and makes his way to the front door as quietly as possible. He doesn’t even breathe as he peers into the peephole, his cheek pressed against the door. He’s more than surprised when he sees Annie Leonhardt standing on the other side. Or maybe he shouldn’t be.

“Did you forget that I was supposed to pick you up today?” Annie grumbles as soon as Eren opens the door. She doesn’t even bother to say hello. Then again, Annie has never been one to waste time with meaningless greetings. She breezes past Eren and plops down on Jean’s couch, quite comfortable even though this isn’t even her apartment. When she sees Eren staring at her, she raises her eyebrows and gestures towards his half-eaten breakfast. “Don’t just stand there gawking. Finish your disgusting food. We have places to be.”

Eren sniffs and swings the door shut. It’s strong enough to shake the tiny apartment, but Annie doesn’t even flinch. “It’s not disgusting,” Eren mumbles as he shuffles over to the dining table. Hastily, he wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand and grimaces when he sees traces of blood smeared across his skin. He really does need to listen to Jean about eating properly. It’s fine if it’s just Jean, but if it's Annie or any of their other friends, it’s embarrassing even if they also know about Eren’s condition.

The TV buzzes in the background as Annie flips through Jean’s Netflix account. Every once in a while she’ll smirk or snort at Jean’s choice in TV shows.

“Aren’t you invading his privacy?” Eren asks through a mouthful of pork shoulder. He nearly chokes trying to swallow it down. It’s as tough as shoe leather.

Annie points at Eren with the remote and gives him an icy stare. “Eren, we all know everything about each other. It’s the curse of being friends with you guys. I know every single anxious thought running through Armin’s mind at any given moment, I know you’re a zombie and all your weird zombie cravings, and I know just how much Reiner loves Bertholdt,” Annie says. “I’m pretty sure Jean doesn’t care that I’m browsing through his Netflix profile right now.”

Eren makes a face. Everything Annie has said is true, but it still feels wrong. It’s not like he can argue against Annie, though, so he shuts up, finishes the rest of his breakfast, and quickly washes his plate and utensils in the sink. Jean has said that he doesn’t mind if Eren just leaves his dirty plates in the sink, but it feels weird to have Jean wash plates smeared with blood that aren’t even his. Once he’s done, he slips into Jean’s room to change while Annie watches The Walking Dead, which feels kind of inconsiderate considering the circumstances.

“I’m ready,” Eren announces, stepping into the living room space. He’s dressed in black slacks and a mossy green turtleneck that covers his neck. Jean had done some quick shopping for Eren after work one day, so these clothes fit much better than the ones Eren had been borrowing from Jean. Eren has a tan peacoat thrown over his ensemble. He looks much nicer than he ever did for any of his internships back in college. Maybe he should let Jean pick his outfits for him more often.

Annie looks him over and frowns. “Aren’t you two awfully domestic?” she asks before clicking the TV off. She leans forward, elbows on her knees with her cheek resting in one hand. “Jean picked out some really nice clothes for you. You actually look better than you ever did when you were alive.”

Eren wrinkles his nose. He doesn’t think he’ll ever appreciate that joke. “How do you know he picked out these clothes?” Eren asks.

“Because you could never pick out clothes that look that good,” Annie replies. She ignores Eren, who’s spluttering and clearly offended, and shrugs on her coat. She wraps a fluffy white scarf (no doubt another one of Armin’s creations) around her neck and looks back at Eren. “Let’s go. I don’t want to have to look after you all day.”

“I told you guys I didn’t need you to walk me to and from work,” Eren mumbles, but he shuffles after Annie as she walks to the door.

“It’s more for the benefit of everyone else in town. You know, so you don’t eat them on accident,” Annie says. She says it casually, but Eren still winces. She gestures for Eren to follow her out the door. “Lock the door, too.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Eren rolls his eyes but does as he’s told. He even gives the handle a little jiggle to make sure he’s locked the door properly. When he slips the keys into the pocket of his slacks, he looks up to see that Annie is already descending the stairs. “Wait for me!” he squawks.

Despite being the smallest out of their group of friends, Annie seems the least afraid of letting her guard down around Eren. Armin, of course, is always anxious and has always been that way since before Eren had become zombified. Reiner, despite his jokes, still visibly tenses around Eren if he gets too close and Jean is always watching Eren with a cautious eye. Annie, however, shows her back freely to Eren. Had it been anyone else, Eren would be touched, but he knows for a fact that Annie is only relaxed because she can easily take Eren down with her eyes closed even in his zombie form. In a way, it makes it a little easier for Eren to be around her than some of their other friends.

The walk to the news building is long and silent. It’s something that should be expected. Annie is not one for conversation even with her friends. Eren knows this quite well considering the fact that they’ve both known each other for nearly their entire lives. Still, it doesn’t stop Eren from trying to make conversation because there’s nothing more than awkward lulls of silence.

“So, do you have any leads?” Eren asks. He shoves his hands into his pockets. He wonders if he should have put on gloves to hide how ugly and boney his fingers are. Maybe he’ll ask Armin to knit him some mittens. “It’s pretty hard for me to investigate myself since we’re trying to limit the amount of time I’m outside, but if you have anything …”

“I have many leads,” Annie replies. She turns her head slightly to face Eren and it makes it a little easier to hear her, although her voice is still muffled by her scarf. Almost the entire lower half of her face is covered by the scarf. Only her icy blue eyes and light blonde hair peeks out. “In fact, it might delight you to know that my list of suspects has only grown longer.”

It takes every ounce of self-restraint that Eren has to not let out a huge sigh. “I thought Armin specifically told you to stop adding names to that list,” Eren says. He reaches up to rub his eyes tiredly. “I think he told you to shorten that list and focus on people that might have actually wanted to kill me. Or turn me into a zombie.” For a brief moment, he wonders if those two things are the same.

Annie shakes her head. “You two are gravely underestimating the number of people in this town that would have wanted to kill you at least once in their lives,” Annie says with a cluck of her tongue. “It would be a disservice to our investigation to shorten that list. Besides, isn’t it better to leave every stone unturned?”

Eren eyes her wearily. He’s far too tired to argue with her. He strongly suspects that Annie isn’t taking this investigation seriously if she’s just writing down anyone’s name that comes to mind. Maybe he should be glad that she’s enjoying this in some sick, twisted way. At least someone’s having fun.

“Annie!” someone calls. It surprises Eren and it seems Annie too by the way she jumps slightly at the voice. When they turn around, they see a young girl with her dark hair in pigtails bundled up in a puffy winter coat that makes her look twice her size. When the girl smiles, she looks just like Reiner. “Are you coming to play?”

“Hi, Gabi!” Annie says. Her tone is much brighter than it usually is. She casually steps in front of Eren so that she’s now between him and the young girl. Crouching down slightly, Annie reaches out to pat Gabi on the head. “Nope. I’m just walking with my friend today. I’ll come visit you and Reiner at school if I have time, though.”

The young girl looks slightly disappointed and sticks her lower lip out in a pout. It’s been a while since Eren has seen Reiner’s niece. She’s grown quite a bit. She’s grown taller since the last time Eren’s seen her and her cheeks are nice and plump. The cold has made them look even rounder and rosier, and Eren thinks about how soft and smooth her skin looks. She reminds him a little bit of a newborn calf with her large eyes and young flesh. If he dug his teeth into her skin, he bet it would be like biting into cream and taste just like …

“Eren …?” the child asks. She’s staring up at him with those large brown eyes of hers.

Even with Annie standing firmly between them, Eren gulps nervously. Before he can open his mouth and say “hello,” a loud voice interrupts from behind.

“Gabi! Come give your Uncle Reiner a hug!” Reiner’s voice booms. It startles Eren, nearly making him fall backward. When the zombie turns to see Reiner, Reiner is holding open his arms for his niece, who gladly jumps into them. Reiner scoops Gabi up easily and spins her around, pressing a kiss against the crown of her head.

“Uncle Reiner!” Gabi squeals, giggling as Reiner gives her more kisses before putting her down behind him. She’s safely behind the wired gate of the kindergarten. She’s too busy smiling and giggling to notice the tense smile on her uncle’s face.

“Go play with the other kids before class starts, Gabi,” Reiner says. He gives her a pat on the head and watches as she runs off. When he turns back to Eren and Annie, he has a stern look on his face. It’s the kind of expression teachers and principals wore whenever Eren had been caught for causing trouble. Seeing it on Reiner’s face is just as bad. “You brought a zombie near my school?”

Unlike Eren, Annie doesn’t seem as ashamed. Maybe it’s because she never frequented the principal’s office as much as Eren had. “It was the closest way to the newspaper company,” Annie says, “and I had it handled. If Eren even started to lunge for Gabi, I was going to kill him.”

Eren squeaks.

“Gee, thanks,” Reiner says with a roll of his eyes. He leans against the gate, his arms crossed firmly across his chest. “I’d appreciate it if you took Eren on a different route on his way to work, though. As much as I know you could kill Eren with a single blow, I don’t want my students to watch you kill him if they happen to be around.”

Annie thinks for a moment, nibbling on her bottom lip, and then nods. “I’ll take him a different way starting tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Reiner sighs. His face relaxes into a bright smile that’s just a little bit apologetic, although Eren is really the one that should be apologizing. Reiner reaches out to clap Eren on the back a little too roughly. “Congrats on the job, Eren. Are you excited for work?”

“Ah, I suppose,” Eren mumbles. He fidgets with the edge of his sleeves. “I mean, I like the idea of earning money so I can stop mooching off Jean.”

“You should mooch off of him,” Reiner says with a grin. “He’s your boyfriend. Shouldn’t you enjoy the fact that he’s spending money on you?”

Eren knows he’s only joking but he can feel his face redden anyway. “It’s not like it’s for real. He only did that so our moms wouldn’t be suspicious about why I’m living with him instead of returning home.”

“Still,” Reiner says with a dreamy sigh, “kind of romantic, don’t you think? It’s like a fake dating trope in real life, and you know how that ends.”

“This is real life, Reiner,” Eren reminds him.

Reiner dismisses Eren with a wave of his hand. “Things that happen in fiction can happen in real life!” Reiner says. “And even if it isn’t real, don’t you think it’s quite touching that Jean would fake date you just to keep people from discovering your secret?” He gestures to all of Eren, which makes the zombie feel dirty somehow.

“It’s just because he’s my friend,” Eren says.

“I would never pretend to date you,” Annie tells Eren, “for any reason.”

“... thanks, Annie.” Eren clears his throat and steers the conversation back to its original topic. “It’s just … impractical to have Jean earn money for both of us, especially since I’ll be living with him for the foreseeable future. It only makes sense that I get a job and this one seems perfect for me, although I don’t know why Jean doesn’t want me to work there.”

“Because he wants to be your sugar daddy,” Reiner says at the same time Annie says, “Because of Mikasa Ackerman.”

Eren shoots Reiner a glare and then turns to Annie, whose frown is deeper than usual. “What’s the deal with Mikasa Ackerman?” he asks. “Did they date or something? I asked Jean the other day, but he was acting funny.” To be honest, the thought of Jean dating Mikasa makes Eren feel weird. On one hand, it makes perfect sense if they dated and that’s why Jean feels awkward about Eren working with her. On the other hand, Eren finds that doesn’t particularly like the idea of Jean dating Mikasa, but he can’t exactly say why.

Both Reiner and Annie shake their heads.

“It’s because she’s the worst,” Annie says, which only gives Eren more questions than answers.

The zombie opens his mouth and then closes it. He points at Annie, waggling his finger around her. “Okay, what’s the deal with you and Mikasa Ackerman?” he asks. Eren raises an eyebrow curiously. “Did you date her?”

“No, God! Don’t be disgusting. It’s nothing!” Annie says, throwing her hands up. “There’s no deal with me and Mikasa. I just don’t like her! Do I need a reason to dislike someone? Can’t I just dislike them for no reason?”

Eren frowns. It’s not that Annie needs a reason to dislike someone. She hates a majority of people she meets for no real reason. Sometimes there are reasons, but they’re often trivial: someone breathing too hard, someone blinking too much, someone smiling too often. Eren would definitely believe in Annie disliking someone for no reason, but the way she vehemently dislikes Mikasa makes it difficult for Eren to believe that it’s for no particular reason.

“It’s because Mikasa called Mina cute once,” Reiner says. He leans with his shoulder against the wired fence and it creaks slightly from his weight. Even as Annie shoots the schoolteacher a glare, Reiner just smiles back with a lopsided grin, clearly amused. “Mina giggled and Annie was furious for the rest of the night. She’s still mad.”

“That’s not it!” Annie splutters, throwing her hands up. It’s comical how she looks when she’s fuming and bundled up so tightly like a fluffy bundle of yarn. Well, it would be funny if Annie were a less terrifying person. “Why do I have to like her just because everyone else does? I just think she’s overrated, she and her stupid sword and bobbed haircut!”

“You know, most people would consider those things very cool,” Reiner says.

“I don’t!” Annie snaps.

“Okay, so I understand why Annie dislikes her, sort of,” Eren says. He’s mostly lying. Like Reiner, he also finds Mikasa’s sword and bobbed hair very cool. In fact, he finds Mikasa similar to Annie because they are both terrifying but very cool, but it’s not something he wants to say out loud. “But what about Jean? As far as I know, Jean doesn’t have an irrational dislike of swords or bobbed hair.” He ignores Annie, who shoots him a death glare that probably would have killed him if he weren’t already dead.

Reiner’s eyes turn skyward as he thinks. “Mmm, I’m not sure if Jean dislikes her. Isn’t it more that he doesn’t want you to get too friendly with Mikasa?” he asks.

“Well, I guess,” Eren says. Now that he thinks of it, there wasn’t any particular malice in Jean’s voice when he spoke about Mikasa. The makeup artist sounded more irritated than angry. “But why wouldn’t he want me to meet Mikasa?”

Reiner thinks some more. He must think of something because his expression brightens and he says, “Maybe it’s because -”

At that moment, Annie coughs loudly. It’s a fake cough, Eren knows, because Annie has never gotten sick in her entire life. When the zombie turns to look at her, she’s shaking her head with a dark expression on her face but she abruptly stops when she sees Eren watching.

“Why did you do that?” Eren asks.

“Do what? I didn’t do anything,” Annie says, feigning innocence. She grabs Eren a little too tightly around the wrist and tugs him towards her. To Reiner, she says, “Okay, we should let you attend to your students now. Let’s go, Eren.”

Reiner looks as if he’s about to say something else but glances down at his watch and notices that he’s about two minutes late. He bids both Eren and Annie goodbye before rushing towards the classroom and ushering his students inside so that they can begin class. Eren and Annie watch until Reiner has rounded every last kindergartner into his room and shuts the door.

“You know, I may not know why you did that, but I will find out,” Eren says, pointing a finger at Annie.

“Well, good luck with that. I’m sure it’ll go well considering how far you’re getting along investigating your own murder,” Annie says, looking down at Eren’s finger amusedly. She turns her back and begins walking down the sidewalk again. She doesn’t wait to see if Eren is following her, but the zombie does pad along after her after a few beats. “I’m sure you will find out about Mikasa eventually, but I will warn you: you won’t like it.”

“Why? Because you don’t like her?” Eren snorts. With his long legs, it’s quite easy to catch up to Annie. “Is it because we’re friends and you expect me to hate everyone you hate? I hope you know how tiring that is considering how many people you hate.”

Annie rolls her eyes. “Please, I can hate everyone just fine without your help,” she tells him. She walks with her hands held behind her back, her pace slow and relaxed like she’s not in a hurry. Eren wonders if she’s purposely taking her time so that she can come to work late. “I’m just telling you now, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

It sounds ominous and makes Mikasa seem more mysterious than Eren’s first impression of the newcomer. He could ask more questions, but he knows that Annie probably won’t give him a satisfying answer or if she’ll even answer at all. He’s not sure what Annie’s warning is or how helpful it is. What could Mikasa possibly have done to make Eren dislike her when he didn’t even know her prior to becoming a zombie? Maybe if Eren discovered Mikasa was the person responsible for turning him into a zombie, Annie’s warning would make perfect sense but the thought of that just makes Eren snort because there’s just no way. In the end, he decides that it’s just Annie’s dislike of Mikasa that’s causing the blonde to make such negative claims about the journalist.

The two of them end up at the gate of the newspaper building. It feels a little embarrassing for Annie to have walked him the entire way there. It’s like she’s dropped him off at kindergarten, but Eren knows he shouldn’t complain.

“Thanks for walking me here,” Eren mumbles, his feet shuffling on the ground.

“No worries,” Annie says. Her hands are folded across her chest and she looks reluctant to leave him, but Eren doesn’t know if it’s because she’s genuinely concerned about him or because she doesn’t want to go to work. He highly suspects it’s the latter reason. Annie tosses her head so that her bangs are no longer in her eyes and she frowns when she sees the figure standing at the front of the building. “Ugh, your coworker is waiting to greet you, I see. Better not keep her waiting but … just try not to be her friend. Just … be her coworker and keep things professional.”

Weird advice, Eren thinks. “Uhh, okay,” he laughs. He gives Annie an awkward salute and begins to walk towards Mikasa. “I’ll do that. Have a good day, Annie!”

He expects her to leave immediately, but he’s surprised that she watches him until he and Mikasa enter the building.

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

Being introduced into his new workplace is … strange, to say the least. It’s strange because Mikasa introduces Eren to people who he’s known his whole life, people who had invited him to work with them after they found out he graduated with a degree in journalism but Eren had turned them down in the hopes that something better would soon come his way. Something better never did, but these people still smile at him and welcome him to the office because it’s easier to do that than hold a grudge against someone in a small town.

Mikasa shows him around the small box of an office, introducing him to everyone and laughing easily with them as if she’s the one that had grown up in this small town her whole life and not Eren. It makes Eren a little jealous and he wonders just how much he had missed while he was gone. Mikasa tells him a little bit about the articles they’ve covered in his absence — nothing interesting, just more missing visitors, some news about the pasta place on the street corner getting an honorable mention in a reputable food blog, and a cat that got repeatedly stuck in a tree for two weeks straight. There are, however, a few newspaper articles about Eren, but Mikasa quickly glosses over them as if to save Eren some embarrassment.

“And here’s your desk,” Mikasa says, gesturing to the cube next to hers. It’s a tiny thing, just four walls and a desk with a standard computer and a few cabinets to hold his things. It looks exactly like Mikasa’s. The only difference is that she has a few papers here and there, but her desk is strangely barren. Even their coworkers have a few knick-knacks or pictures to personalize their desks, but Mikasa’s is void of anything that would give a stranger a peek into her personal life. She’s either incredibly private, neat, or boring.

“Ah, thanks,” Eren says. He should probably be excited, but he feels a little tired looking at how dull his desk is. Maybe he should buy a plant to liven up his workspace.

“No problem. It’s a pleasure to be working with you, Eren,” Mikasa says cheerfully. “Even if you did lie to me right when we met.”

A huge pang of guilt hits Eren in the chest. It makes him wince. “Sorry,” he mumbles, and he really is. There isn’t really any good explanation he can give to Mikasa for lying, but she hadn’t asked him about it when he had come in this morning either. Maybe Annie is completely wrong about Mikasa and Eren’s new coworker is just a really nice person who doesn’t care about strange falsehoods. “I … I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have lied. I just … was kind of nervous about returning here. It’s not like my current situation is exactly glamorous.”

Her brown eyes are warm when she smiles. They’re kind, understanding. “Hey, don’t worry. We all have our problems. Let’s just hope this is another good beginning for you and hope for the best,” Mikasa says to Eren. She gestures for Eren to follow her and they begin walking to the supply closet they had passed by earlier. Mikasa throws open the door and starts searching through its contents. Unfortunately, the whole thing is a mess. “I hope you don’t mind getting right down to business today. I’ve wanted to write this article forever, and it’s kind of perfect that you’re here now because you know the hills better than I do.”

“Ah, that’s fine,” Eren says absentmindedly. He starts searching the closet alongside Mikasa, although he’s not exactly sure what they’re looking for. He shoves aside boxes of paper clips and sets a bunch of mismatched folders on the top shelf so that he can look through the shelves better. “What do you have in your article so far?” Eren asks mostly to make small talk, but he realizes that Mikasa might have information that could prove useful to Eren and his friends.

“Mmm, nothing substantial. Just what I told you the other day when we met — people are disappearing here, zombies appear, and your town seems to have an upsetting amount of occurrences compared to other locations that report zombie sightings,” Mikasa replies. She pauses for a minute, biting her lip as if she’s deciding if she should continue. After a moment, she says in a lowered voice, “It could be that … someone is creating zombies on purpose and their prime area of operation is this town.”

Eren blinks. It’s the very same hypothesis that Armin had proposed. If Mikasa thinks it’s a possibility too, maybe Eren and his friends are headed in the right direction.

“Oh, here it is,” Mikasa says. She plucks a camera out from behind boxes of pens and highlighters and plops it into Eren’s hands. She grins at him. “Are you ready for your first field investigation?”

Eren gulps and then nods. Working with Mikasa might bring him even closer to discovering the identity of his murderer and their motives. This job may have been a blessing in disguise.

“Ready,” Eren says.

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

The trek up the hills is a lot more difficult than Eren remembers. The hills are steeper, the path windier, and the winds chillier. He doesn’t remember it being this tiring walking up the hills even when he had been a child playing in the woods. He thinks it has to do with the fact that he’s lost quite a bit of muscle mass since becoming a zombie, which his many layers of clothing easily disguises. The camera around his neck hangs like a weight that only feels heavier and heavier with every step he takes.

Although Eren seems to be having a difficult time up the mountain, Mikasa seems fine. While Eren drags his feet, Mikasa takes each step as energetically as the last. She’s several steps ahead of him, and Eren’s sure she’ll disappear from view soon if she keeps that same pace. Every once in a while, she’ll turn around and smile at Eren, stopping so that he can catch up a little bit, but then take off again. Clearly, these two-second breaks that she takes are purely for Eren to catch up. Mikasa doesn’t need them to catch her breath at all.

“Have you seen a lot of zombies here since you’ve arrived?” Mikasa asks Eren as they continue up the hill. They’re nearing the top, but Mikasa isn’t the least bit breathless.

I see one every time I look in the mirror, so you could say I see one every day, Eren thinks, but he’s not stupid enough to say it out loud. He watches how Mikasa’s sword dangles from her hip. “I haven’t really … gone out a lot since I’ve come back,” Eren pants. At least he’s not lying. Eren’s been lying to everyone so much lately that he’s always relieved on the few occasions he can tell the truth.

“Mm,” Mikasa hums. For once, she slows her pace and lets Eren catch up to her so that they can walk side-by-side. “Ah, settling in does take time even if you’re returning home. You’ll probably see more zombies soon enough, so it’s probably good you haven’t been out much.”

If she only knew.

Eren wonders if he should put some more distance between himself and Mikasa. It’s always dangerous being around people, and Mikasa is the closest he’s been to a human without his friends around to hold him back. He can’t tell much about her body type — if she’s more lean muscle or if she has a good amount of fat underneath her skin — because he’s only seen her bundled under layers of clothes. He supposes he should be grateful to the chilly fall weather for that. Still, it makes him wonder what he’ll find if he peels back the layers of cotton and wool. Tough muscle like that of a deer? Soft, tender meat like that of a newborn calf? Succulent, juicy flesh like that of a fattened goose? Eren could dream about it all day, but the glimmer of Mikasa’s blade peeking out from its hilt always reminds him that it’s a bad idea.

The top of the hill gives them a decent view of the forest below, but the autumn foliage makes it difficult to see very much. Beyond that lies the town, quiet as it always is. It really is a nice place. If zombies weren’t popping up now and then, Eren would bet people aside from amateur detectives would come here just to experience how charming and quaint it is.

“I think we should go our separate ways here,” Mikasa says to Eren, which surprises him. “You should go and explore one side and take pictures of anything that you find interesting. I’ll let you know if I see anything on the other side. Sound good?”

It doesn’t sound good to Eren. It sounds weird. He thought they would be working on this whole zombie article together, and it makes him nervous that Mikasa would want to work separately. Maybe that’s just how she operates. Maybe she’s an independent collaborator. If so, Eren should just agree and do his best to take pictures. Mikasa doesn’t know him at all, and Eren does not plan on letting her know that he’s a terrible person to have on group projects. He’s going to be a good coworker and do his assigned work even if it means he has to do it alone.

“Sounds good!” Eren says cheerfully.

He had been enthusiastic about getting a job, but the work is a lot less exciting. Yes, Eren wants to find the reason why zombies are somehow drawn to this particular town as much as Mikasa does. Because of his situation, he’s probably even more motivated than Mikasa because finding the reason might also lead him to the person who had killed him and resurrected him as a zombie, but the work is admittedly demoralizing because it’s incredibly difficult to find evidence of zombies.

What is there to capture on camera that hasn’t been seen already? People in this town already know of zombies. They know what zombies do, and they’re hardly threatened. Some people even get dogs to chase zombies off their yard because they can’t be bothered to do it themselves and even a chihuahua does a decent enough job. The things zombies leave behind are even more boring.

Eren doesn’t know what to take pictures of. He takes a few shots of the forest, trying to remember what his professors had said about the rule of thirds and lighting and shutter speed during the few classes he had taken for his photography minor. There’s a picture he takes from a nearby stream that looks rather nice, almost like it can be hung in an office or put on a postcard, but it’s probably not remarkable enough for a local newspaper article about zombies.

Finding photographic evidence of a zombie is pointless though. The few pictures Eren does snap could just be grasping at straws: odd footprints that are dragged out across the dirt path, pieces of fabric caught on the branches of shrubbery, smears of blood against the trunk of a tree. There’s a possible non-zombie explanation for all of this though. The footprints could be from a tired hiker and not from a zombie. Both tend to drag their feet across the ground. The fabric could also be a hiker or maybe even a hunter whose clothes got stuck in a bush. The blood smear is a little more exciting, but it’s possible that it came from an injured animal or someone who fell during a hike. These photographs are so pathetic that Eren would rather lie and say he didn’t capture anything at all than show them to Mikasa.

Eren does entertain the thought of telling Mikasa he had managed to take no photographs. It would just be another small lie piled up on his ever-growing pile. Considering how many lies he’s told so far, adding another one shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but it still makes him feel bad.

What makes things worse is that Mikasa has been nothing but nice to him. He still has no idea why Jean and Annie want him to stay away from Mikasa so much. From what he can tell, Mikasa is a decent person. She gave him his first job, didn’t say very much about him lying to her, and entrusted him to work with her on a project she’s excited about. Telling her that he didn’t get any work done wouldn’t feel bad just because he’d be lying to her again, but Eren would also feel like he let her down by helping her progress her work.

Eren frowns as he flips through the photos on his camera. He wonders if he should delete them. It’s probably what Jean and Annie would do since they’re so opposed to Mikasa, but what would Armin do?

Armin is a worrywart, first and foremost. Getting too involved with Mikasa and risking her knowing that Eren is actually a zombie is definitely something to avoid. Mikasa probably won’t hesitate to kill Eren if the sword swinging from her hip is anything to go by. But then again … Mikasa seems quite smart and driven from what Eren has seen of her. If she’s out to find the reason for the zombies cropping up in this town, then he does not doubt that she’ll find something and any information could prove useful in his own investigation into the matter. After careful consideration, Eren is quite certain that Armin would willingly work with Mikasa and only withhold the necessary details, like the fact that Eren is actually a zombie, but anything that helps Mikasa helps the greater good.

Eren turns his head and opens his mouth to call for Mikasa, but he hears her call his name first.

“Eren!” Mikasa’s voice rings loudly through the forest. It’s enough to make the birds take flight from the trees where they had previously rested, their wings fluttering as the trees shake and leaves rustle. “Eren, come here!”

“Coming!” Eren calls back. He follows her voice, which leads him off the path towards the other side of the hill. Eren wonders what she could have seen. He hopes it’s not another zombie. He doesn’t know what he would do if he came face-to-face with another one of his kind in his current state. For a brief moment, he thinks she might have seen the carcass of an unfortunate hiker that had stumbled across a zombie. The thought horrifies Eren, but the fact that his stomach growls from just the idea horrifies him even more.

As he gets closer, Eren’s steps become a little slower, a little more cautious. He really doesn’t want to see what Mikasa had stumbled upon. He closes his eyes. The zombie takes another tentative step, sniffing the air for anything unusual. The stench of rotting flesh doesn’t fill the air. The smell of sweet blood doesn’t waft to his nostrils. It really just smells like … the crisp fall air.

Eyes open now, Eren takes a few more steps and sees Mikasa with her back turned towards him. She’s looking at something, and Eren’s eyes slowly follow her gaze to … a large hole in the ground. It’s a very familiar hole, Eren realizes, because it’s the same one he dug when he had crawled out of the ground.

“It’s quite deep,” Mikasa murmurs. She drops down to inspect it closer, reaching down to touch the dirt. She gathers some in her hand and lets it fall from her fingers. “I would say .. six feet deep. That’s deep enough to bury a body.”

“Ah, do you really think so?” Eren asks. He kicks at the ground, knocking some dirt into the hole as if doing so would undo what he did. “It looks a little bit shallower than that. Maybe like … five feet and … six … inches?” He sounds like an idiot and he knows it, but he can’t help. He’s afraid that Mikasa will somehow figure out the truth: that this hole isn’t just any hole, but an Eren-shaped hole that he had popped out of when he had come back from the dead. Granted, the shape isn’t anything like him. It’s all in his head. In reality, the hole is kind of a blob shape because he hadn’t been very neat when he had dug himself out.

“No, it’s deep deep,” Mikasa says. She stands up and brushes her hands off. The reporter takes a moment to observe the curious hole and then gestures at it. “Take a few pictures of this at different angles. We should probably report this, whatever this is.”

“Er, okay,” Eren says as he fumbles for his camera. It takes him far too long to focus the lens and find the right button to snap the pictures. “What do you think … what do you think this is?” he asks nervously.

Mikasa gives him a smile. “Are you sure you want to hear? Fair warning: I’m going to sound like a conspiracy theorist,” Mikasa says.

“N-no,” Eren stammers. “I want to know.” It’s not really that he wants to know. He’s afraid of just what Mikasa knows, but he also needs to know what thoughts are floating around her head.

“I think this is where zombies come from,” Mikasa says simply. She kicks a little bit towards the hole. “I’ve been doing some research … I believe this is part of the process of turning people into zombies. I know people here don’t really think about it but … the pattern between missing persons and zombies that appear are striking. It’s not just the fact that zombies oftentimes wear the same clothing that was last seen on people who were reported missing, but the time frame between when people go missing to when they’re … zombies, I guess you could call them, is pretty consistent. It’s about a year.”

“A-a year?” Eren gulps. He hopes Mikasa doesn’t put two and two together. He hopes she hadn’t read the papers about him going missing in the local newspaper archives. He hopes she believes his lie about taking off suddenly without letting anybody in town know. He hopes she doesn’t remember the fact that he was gone for approximately a year.

“Mmm, yeah. A year,” Mikasa says with a nod. “I think these holes are … well, this is the first one I’ve seen, but maybe there are more like it.”

“You think there are more?” Eren asks. The thought makes sense. He doesn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to him sooner.

“I think if we dig around we’ll find out, but I doubt the townspeople would be happy about digging up the hills just to find out if zombies pop out of the ground,” Mikasa laughs. She looks thoughtful again, her head slightly tilted as she continues to piece together points Eren can’t quite see yet. “I think maybe … the process of becoming a zombie requires that a person dies, be buried in the ground, and be reanimated. Maybe the reanimation steps are a bit more complicated. Maybe it’s something that happens before the body is buried and takes place while the … body is buried underground.”

It’s sounding awfully familiar. Eren should be thrilled. Some of these things Mikasa is bringing forth are the same things Armin had also said during their meetings. The one-year gap between missing persons reports and their corresponding zombie appearance is new, though. It’s definitely something he should mention at the next meeting or even bring up in the group chat, but Eren can’t help thinking that the more information Mikasa gathers about zombies, the closer she is to figuring out that Eren is a zombie too.

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

Thankfully, Eren and Mikasa don’t run into anything else interesting in the hills. It’s disappointing for Mikasa, but it’s a relief to Eren. It’s difficult to hide just how happy he is about how the day ended up. He was able to take some compelling (at least to Mikasa) pictures without giving himself away, and his zombie grave was interesting enough that he didn’t have to show Mikasa the other pathetic pictures he took earlier. Maybe the standards he has for himself are low, but Eren would say that he’s currently killing it at his new job.

“I honestly expect this piece to be rejected,” Mikasa confesses as they’re walking back to the office. “I think the evidence is compelling, but it does sound like a piece that belongs to one of those fake science newspapers.”

As dangerous as it is to have Mikasa discovering more about zombies and potentially finding out the truth about him, Eren knows discouraging her work only slows his own investigation so he gives her a small smile and says, “It’s zombies. Reanimated corpses that don’t have any business walking the earth. Anything you propose is going to sound ridiculous, but you have a better hypothesis than most people. I think it’s worth a shot to put it out there.”

Mikasa looks surprised for a second and then smiles. “Thanks, Eren. That’s very kind of you.”

The two walk together in silence, crisp autumn leaves crunching beneath the soles of their boots. Mikasa doesn’t say much else as they return to the office. Occasionally, she’ll comment about the town — about a shop she finds particularly charming or a townsperson she bumped into the other day — and Eren will respond with an anecdote of his.

“I hope you had a good first day,” Mikasa says once they return to the office. She’s putting away her things, hiding them in the cabinets in her cubicle. Her desk is just as spotless as it was this morning. “I certainly had a good time working with you, Eren.”

“Ah, thank you,” Eren says. He feels relieved that he’s gone through his first day without anything happening. He can’t wait to come home and rub it in Jean’s face. “It was nice working with you too.” He wonders if he should put the camera away for tonight and think about editing the pictures tomorrow. He could just do it tonight. He probably won’t get overtime, but it might be good to do a little extra work these first few weeks to show Mikasa he’s serious about this job. Then again, he doesn’t want to seem too eager in case his coworkers take advantage of him in the future. With a frown, Eren tucks the camera in the cabinet underneath his desk. When he looks up, he sees Mikasa looking at him.

“Hey,” she says. The reporter is leaning against the walls that separate their cubes. “Do you want to grab dinner together tonight? My treat.”

“Er.” Eren squirms, uncomfortable. He doesn’t want to say no, but saying yes would just be … stupid even for him. It’s not like he can waltz into any restaurant and devour the same foods everyone else can. He’s about to shake his head and politely decline, but Mikasa is flipping through her phone.

“Is Korean barbecue good?” she asks. She raises her head, tilting it slightly as she awaits Eren’s answer. “There’s a place … well, I guess you know. If you’d rather go somewhere else, I’m open to it.”

“N-no,” Eren says, surprised. Korean barbecue sounds good. Perfect, even. “That sounds … I’d like to go. Let me just … I need to tell my friend. Boyfriend. He’s picking me up.” At that moment, his phone buzzes and he winces. He knows without looking that it’s Jean. They did agree to Jean picking him up, but he didn’t think Jean would be so … punctual.

Mikasa grins as Eren pulls out his phone. “Is he here already?” Mikasa asks. “You should invite him. I’ll invite my girlfriend too. She just happens to be in town this week.”

“Ah, it’s okay,” Eren says hurriedly. He knows Jean would never agree to this. Not only is it a dinner with someone unaware of his true condition, but it’s a dinner with Mikasa of all people. Jean, for whatever reason, would absolutely hate this. “I’ll just tell him to, ah, go home without me. He probably wouldn’t want to eat with us -”

The doors to the office burst open and Jean storms in, the tail of his trench coat flapping behind him. The makeup artist pays no attention to the stares of Eren’s coworkers. He pauses for just a moment to scan the room and, upon spotting Eren, marches right up to the zombie’s cubicle.

“Eren, come on,” he says through gritted teeth. He sounds angry, but Eren can tell from Jean’s rigid stance and folded arms that the makeup artist is anxious. “I thought you said you would be out by now.”

“Ah, I invited him out to dinner,” Mikasa says from behind Jean. Jean turns to look at her, surprised, and Mikasa gives him a friendly wave that Jean doesn’t return. Jean might dislike Mikasa, but it seems like the feeling is one-sided. Mikasa taps Jean on the shoulder. “You can come with us if you’d like. It’s really my way of thanking Eren for joining the team and being such a good coworker on his first day. He’s really great. I’m looking forward to working with him long-term.”

“Y-you do?” Eren stammers. He didn’t think he did a very good job. To have Mikasa tell him that he did well makes him feel warm and fuzzy inside. He looks eagerly at Jean. “It’s fine if I have dinner with her just this once, right? Mikasa invited me and I did a good job today so …” His voice trails off. He expects Jean to say no. After all, he had warned Eren to avoid Mikasa as much as possible.

“Fine,” Jean finally says. When Eren looks at him, Jean’s shoulders are slumped in defeat. His eyebrows are still knit together and Eren can tell that Jean doesn’t like the idea one bit, but it doesn’t matter. Jean said he could go, so Eren is going to that dinner. “But I’m coming with you,” Jean says firmly.

Eren begins to whine. “You don’t have to babysit me,” he begins, but Jean isn’t listening.

“Yes, I do,” Jean replies. There’s something authoritative in his voice. It makes Eren’s toes curl and his cheeks flush, but it might be because Jean’s busily rewrapping the zombie’s scarf around his neck.

“Cute,” Mikasa says as she distractedly checks her phone. She taps something on it before tucking it back into the pocket of her coat. “Let’s head over then. My girlfriend said she’d meet us there.”

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

The meat at the barbecue house is much better than Eren remembers. It’s strange, but becoming a zombie has given him a much more refined palate when it comes to eating meat. He can tell if poultry is free-range with just a taste, if cows were fed more than just corn for their diet before they were slaughtered, and if pigs were allowed to roam and scavenge for food instead of just eating feed before they were turned to bacon. He tries to explain this to his friends at times, but they never really get it. To them, meat is just meat. Sometimes, Eren can’t believe he had once lived as ignorantly as them.

Mikasa sits across the table and observes as Jean feeds Eren another piece of barely cooked meat. She looks at him curiously. “You like your meat rare, Eren?” Her tone isn’t judgemental in the least, but it still makes Eren nervous.

“Y-yeah.” Eren forgets to chew the last piece of beef and accidentally swallows it too early. It gets stuck in his throat halfway and he starts to choke. He begins to pound on his chest to free his windpipe but a glass of water appears in front of him. Eren takes it and eagerly drinks it until the beef goes down.

“It’s a taste he acquired when he was traveling,” Jean says. Unlike Eren, he hasn’t eaten much. He’s eaten a few well-cooked pieces here and there, but he’s mostly been feeding Eren and ordering more food from the menu when their plates begin to empty.

“Ah, interesting,” Mikasa says as she nibbles on a piece of Hawaiian pork belly. Even though the meat glistens with fat, Eren can’t stand the sweet marinade that coats it and the pineapples that come with the slices of pork belly. It’s just too … sacrilegious to ruin a piece of meat like that. Eren doesn’t know how Mikasa is able to continuously eat piece after piece of that tainted pork belly.

Eren laughs nervously and puts his hands in his lap. He fiddles with the buttons on his coat. As much as he wants to shove the beef tongue that had just arrived into his mouth, he knows he shouldn’t. He needs to appear normal. He clears his throat. “When is your girlfriend coming?” Eren asks with a slight wince. He shouldn’t have eaten so much when Mikasa’s girlfriend hasn’t even arrived yet.

“Should be any minute,” Mikasa says. She puts a piece of meat on Jean’s plate and gestures for him to eat too. Jean, however, doesn’t even bother to crack a smile. “You guys should just eat up. She really won’t mind.”

Jean pushes the pork belly around his plate with his chopsticks. He doesn’t make any move to pick it up or eat it. “We might head out soon if you don’t mind. I have to be out early tomorrow and Eren likes to prep at night,” Jean says. He doesn’t make any eye contact with Mikasa. “We’ve had more than enough to eat already.”

A whine begins at the back of Eren’s throat but Jean subtly stomps on the zombie’s toes and the sound dies midway.

“Yeah, we should get going,” Eren squeaks as he hunches over in pain.

“Ah, alright then,” Mikasa says with a frown. She doesn’t notice that someone is walking up behind her and doesn’t notice until the person has thrown their arms around her waist. Mikasa looks up in surprise. “Historia!”

The name makes the blood freeze in Eren’s veins. He takes a better look at the woman who has thrown her arms around his new coworker and finds that it is indeed his ex-girlfriend. She still has the same large blue eyes and heart-shaped face, same petite frame and golden blonde hair, same pale pink lips and a cupid’s bow that looks as if it were sculpted by a god. There are things that are different about her since Eren had seen her last: her hair falls down to her shoulder blades instead of at her shoulders, her face is a bit thinner, and she wears an ensemble suited to that of a strict businesswoman when previously her wardrobe was hyper-feminine. It’s so … strange to bump into her like this.

Eren stumbles up from his seat in surprise. “Historia,” he says even as Jean is tugging at his sleeve and hissing at him to sit down. “What are you doing here?” He knows that his friends have mentioned Historia had given up on him after he had disappeared for a year, but he still feels the need to run a hand through his hair. He hopes his makeup hasn’t smudged and that he doesn’t look too unkempt.

Historia’s arms fall away from Mikasa’s waist and she looks at Eren. She doesn’t seem to recognize him at first, eyes narrowing at him as she tries to place exactly where she had seen him, and then her eyes widen in recognition. “Eren?” Her head turns towards Mikasa so quickly that Eren’s surprised that her neck hasn’t snapped. “You didn’t tell me Eren was your new coworker. Or that he came back to town.”

“I thought it would be a nice surprise,” Mikasa says. She pulls out the chair beside her and gestures for Historia to take a seat. Once Historia sits down, Mikasa rubs gentle circles on the blonde’s lower back. “Aren’t you glad he’s alive?”

Eren falls back in his seat in shock, too stunned to pay attention to the conversation Mikasa is having with Historia. He lowers his head and mumbles to Jean, “What the fuck is Historia doing here?”

“I tried to warn you not to hang around Mikasa,” Jean says in a low voice so that only Eren can hear. His teeth are gritted together in a pained smile. “In case you haven’t connected the dots … Historia is the girlfriend Mikasa has been talking about.”

It all makes sense now, Eren thinks, why Jean had wanted Eren to avoid the field reporter so desperately. Whenever Eren had asked if Jean had dated Mikasa or had any romantic interest in her, Jean and his friends had vehemently denied it. Eren had thought they were lying to him but he realizes now that it was because they were telling the truth — and also hiding a more shocking secret about Mikasa from him. Eren would be angry, but he’s too stunned to feel anything but numb.

“Well, it’s good to see you, Eren. I’m relieved to see that you’re alright,” Historia says, but it’s as if she’s talking underwater. Eren can barely register what she’s saying.

“He went on a spontaneous trip, he said,” Mikasa explains as she begins to feed Historia a strip of pork belly that was still sizzling from the grill.

“Oh?” Historia sits closer to the edge of her seat. It looks as if she’s about to ask for details, but Jean is standing up and ushering Eren out of his seat.

“We’ll fill you up on the details another night, Historia. We have to head out right now, but it was nice meeting you.” Jean wraps an arm firmly around Eren’s waist and subtly guides him towards the exit. “Lovely seeing you as always. Let’s do this again sometime.” He doesn’t wait for the couple to respond before he hurries Eren out the door.

The only sound as they walk is the clomp of their boots against the sidewalk. Eren can’t begin to ask the questions running through his head. He knows that even if he did, Jean would be in no mood to answer them. This entire scenario is what Jean had been trying to avoid in the first place. Eren knows that Jean is just waiting for them to return home so the first thing that comes out of his mouth is “I told you so.” It comes as a total surprise when those aren’t the first words Jean says to him.

“Are you okay?” Jean asks as they make their way back.

“I’m … fine,” Eren says even though he isn’t remotely okay. He knows that his tone is far from convincing, but he doesn’t want to dive into this tonight. “Can we stop by the office? I want to grab my camera and edit some of my pictures tonight.”

“You don’t want to rest?” Jean asks. He leans forward and tries to get a better look at Eren’s face, but the zombie pulls his scarf over his face.

“I’m not that tired,” Eren mumbles into his scarf. That isn’t a lie, not really. He could sleep if he wanted, but he’d rather stare at the screen and click mindlessly, making minuscule edits to his photos that people will barely notice. It would help distract him from all the thoughts swirling through his head at least.

It’s been rough returning here. Everyone Eren runs into is a reminder of everything he’s missed since he disappeared. His friends seem perfectly content with living in their small town even though all Eren had ever talked about after college was finding a job in the big city and moving away. His mother looks older and smaller than he remembers even though she had stayed the same all his life. Even Historia had changed, moved on with someone else while Eren was buried in the ground. How had everyone continued to live while he was frozen six feet under?

“It’s not like I expected everyone to wait for me while I was gone. I know it’s not anyone’s fault,” Eren says when they reach the gates of the newspaper building. His hands are balled up in frustration. “But … you don’t know what it’s like to lose everything so suddenly and come back to see that everything has changed.”

Jean stops in his tracks and when Eren looks back he sees the makeup artist with a stunned expression on his face. “Eren,” Jean says. He almost seems … hurt. “We lost you. For an entire year.”

Eren doesn’t have a response to that. He fiddles with the end of his scarf uncomfortably and then ducks his head before hurrying into the office. Thankfully, Jean doesn’t follow him.

The office is empty when Eren flicks the lights on. He mumbles to himself as he walks down the row of cubicles, muttering about what a terrible night this has been. Just when he was feeling normal, Historia showed up and reminded him that he’s not normal and that he can never return to where he once was. He doesn’t even want to think about everything that could have been if he hadn’t gotten murdered that night: if he could have found a job outside of this town, if he could have moved into the city, if he and Historia could have still been together. It’s useless anyway.

Eren finds his empty cube and pulls open one of the drawers, riffling around its contents with one hand. Oddly, there are papers he doesn’t remember placing in his cabinet. He takes another look and realizes that it’s not his cube, but Mikasa’s that he’s wandered into. Their cubicles really look too similar because Eren’s is practically empty and Mikasa has no personal items on her desk to differentiate it from Eren’s.

The zombie is about to shut the drawer and grab his camera at his desk, but something in the back corner of the drawer catches his attention. Curious, Eren reaches for it and pulls out a cell phone. He thinks it’s strange because he distinctly remembers Mikasa using her phone at the restaurant earlier that night. He turns the phone in his hand and the thought that this phone is somehow familiar to him flashes through his mind. He glances at the screen and sees a crack on it that looks exactly like the one on his old phone. The phone he had lost when he had been murdered in the forest.

But how would Mikasa have my phone? Eren thinks. The idea is so bizarre that Eren is about to put the phone back where he had seen it, but then … Mikasa is new in town. She’s only been here for a year at most. Even if everyone else knows her … how well do they really know someone who has only been here a year?

Eren’s hands hover over the power button and, hands shaking, presses it down with his thumb. The screen lights up as it powers on and a few seconds later the lock screen appears. It’s a forest that looks exactly like a picture Eren took hiking once. That has to be a coincidence though. All forests look the same … right?

The phone asks for his fingerprint. Eren’s almost too scared to scan his finger. If it does turn out to be his phone, this only implies that his murderer is … But that’s impossible, Eren thinks. He hadn’t known Mikasa when he died. She would have no reason to kill him. He’s just being paranoid and he can prove that he’s just overthinking all of this strange coincidence with Mikasa and her phone that looks exactly like his old one if he just presses his index finger to the scanner and ...

It unlocks, much to Eren’s surprise. It has all of his old apps on there including Angry Birds which he stopped playing in high school and only kept installed for nostalgia. It’s his phone. And Mikasa had it. And there really isn’t any explanation for it except one.

“Eren?”

Eren drops the phone back into the drawer and slams it shut. When he turns around, he sees Mikasa walking towards him with a confused smile on her face.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

Eren stands up and stumbles out of her cubicle. “Er, n-nothing!” Eren quickly goes to his cube and pretends to rifle through his few belongings before pulling his camera out of his drawer. “I just … changed my mind and wanted to work on some of my photos tonight. Just wanted to … be productive.”

“Oh, you’re so hardworking. I actually left some papers I wanted to look over tonight too,” Mikasa laughs as she goes into her own cubicle and pulls open the cabinet that Eren had gone through only a few minutes before. She frowns when she sees the phone out of place, but she shoves it back into the drawer and pulls out some papers instead. Mikasa shoves the papers into her bag and smiles at Eren. She doesn’t seem to see the perspiration forming on his forehead or his nervous, rigid stance. “Well, we should head home so we can rest. Don’t work too hard.”

“Haha, yeah,” Eren laughs, but it sounds so forced.

The two walk out together and Eren finds Jean chatting politely with Historia. While it might have bothered him earlier, Eren is too preoccupied with his new finding to pay any attention to his ex-girlfriend right now. He’ll worry about it later. Right now, he has to tell Jean something.

He hardly bids the two women goodbye, instead tugging his fake boyfriend by the sleeve and walking hastily towards their apartment.

“Eren, I know you’re upset, but that was really rude,” Jean hisses, but he allows Eren to pull at his sleeve and doesn’t pry the zombie’s hand off. Jean had attempted to wave goodbye, but it wasn’t enough to ward away the amused glances that Historia and Mikasa shot each other as the zombie and makeup artist hurried home.

“This is important!” Eren insists, still pulling Jean. “But I can’t tell you here.”

Jean only sighs and allows Eren to lead him to their apartment. At their quick pace, it only takes them a few minutes to get there and Jean sighs tiredly as soon as they’re inside.

The makeup artist shrugs off his coat and hangs it on the coat rack. He begins to unbutton Eren’s coat too, but Eren doesn’t even move his shoulders back to make it easier for Jean to peel the coat off. “Can you …? Ugh,” Jean huffs as he moves Eren’s arms himself and pulls the coat off. “What is it that you wanted to tell me anyway?”

“I think,” Eren says, tugging at the end of his scarf nervously. He takes a deep breath and tries again. Jean is busy trying to unwind the scarf around Eren’s neck but the zombie puts his hands firmly on Jean’s shoulders so that he has all of the makeup artist’s attention. “I think … I think Mikasa killed me.”

#erejean #zombie detective au #eren jaeger #jean kirstein #snk #htbaz series #how to be a zombie series

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firefly464 · 5 years ago

Text

The Real World - Chapter 11

Ok so this ones a bit more of a slightly slower chapter and kinda does a bit more world building sooooo yeah. BUT ALSO THERES SOME WHOLESOME FRIENDSHIP MOMENTS SO THATS GOOD

Made in collaboration with @i-have-this-now Thank you to @rivys for beta reading and editing!

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~~~

Silence. Complete and total silence fell over the call as both Tubbo and Wilbur tried to process what Tommy was saying. The moment was tense, and loaded with unanswered questions.

“Fuck…” Wilbur muttered. He didn’t know what else to say. He was in a state of shock. What was he supposed to do? He had just learned that two of his friends were trapped in another dimension, and that said dimension was going to be destroyed because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

“Yeah. I feel like that sums it up pretty well.” Tommy had no idea what he was supposed to be doing, or even feeling. There were so many emotions raging through his mind. Anger at Wilbur for talking to Dream. Relief that Tubbo and Wilbur weren’t screaming at him. Fear that his home was going to be destroyed.

God, he was sick of being afraid. He had felt nothing but fear and terror for a week straight, and thought that he had grown numb to it. He had thought wrong. The raw terror that coursed through his veins in that moment was nothing like he had ever felt before. It was cold and numbing. It made him want to just crawl into his bed and lay there. He felt completely and unbelievably hopeless. At least during the war there had been a small sliver of hope. A tiny beacon of light in all the darkness. It had been what kept him going. Now, there was nothing. He had no way of fighting back. No way of even contacting his friends and seeing if they were safe. He hated it.

“So. What’s the plan?” Tubbo’s voice shook Tommy from his intrusive thoughts. He couldn’t help but feel grateful for Tubbo’s optimism, despite the fact that he knew it was hopeless. “How are we gonna stop him?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice quiet.

“We’re not just going to let him kill all those people, right? There's gotta be something we can do. Some way that we can stop him.”

“Tubbo, I-” “No, he’s right.” Will interjected. “We aren’t just going to sit around and do nothing. Besides, if what you said is true, then our Tommy and Dream are stuck there as well. We’re not just going to let them die.”

“You guys don’t get it, do you…?” Tommy muttered. He knew his friends were trying their best, but the hopelessness of the situation was suffocating. It was like he was standing in a pool of quicksand, slowly being dragged down. Each time he struggled and tried to resist, he was only dragged down farther. He was tired of fighting it. “You can’t stop him. We don’t even know where he is.” Tubbo was silent for a moment. “What if we switched you guys back? We could figure out the command that swapped you in the first place and just run it again.”

“I mean, you can try. But wouldn’t you need Dream’s computer?”

A sly grin spread across Tubbo’s face. “Who says I need access to his computer to access the server? Just give me a few minutes.” The sound of typing echoed through Tommy’s headphones.

He frowned, confused as to what was going on. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to access the server.” He didn’t offer any more information.

“While he’s doing that, maybe you could tell us more about what happened to you. How did you even end up involved with Dream? From the sounds of it, he's fucking terrifying,” Wilbur asked. He figured that the more they knew about what was going on, the easier it would be to try and solve their issue.

“I… He used to disappear for really long periods of time. Eventually I got curious. I saw him leaving and tried to follow. He caught me pretty quickly. He… he said that he would kill everyone in L’Manberg if I didn’t go with him and do what he said.”

Wilbur’s eyes narrowed. That didn’t make any sense. Why on earth would Dream force Tommy to go with him if he hadn’t gone far? Something wasn’t adding up. “What-”

“I’M IN!” Tubbo yelled out, cutting off Will’s question.

“You’re in?” Tommy asked.

“I have access to the server.” Tubbo explained. “Maybe I can try and contact them.”

“Wait, what do you mean you have access to the server?” Wilbur said.

“I have the console open, wait- here.” Tubbo started sharing his screen on Discord.

A black background filled with white text that neither Wilbur nor Tommy could understand appeared on the screen. It was filled with coordinates and commands that were constantly being updated every couple of seconds. A waterfall of white text was filling Tubbo’s screen. He could see a grayed out command that read ‘/msg TommyInnit hello?’.

“Hey, wait a second,” Wilbur said. “Tubbo’s commands aren’t working.”

“Do you think it could be some sort of activation key?” Tommy asked, but it sounded more like a statement.

“...Exactly. How did you know?” Tubbo asked.

“I think I may know where that is.”

~~~

“What the fuck?” Tommy held the wooden bow in his hands, staring at the blinking light. “Have either of you ever seen this kinda thing before?”

“Why the hell would I know anything? I’ve been here as long as you have,” Dream remarked as he took another drink from the glass bottle.

“I dunno, maybe because you’re the server owner?”

“Just because I’m the server owner doesn’t mean I know what's happening.”

“Well, maybe you should.”

Dream only rolled his eyes. Tubbo squirmed a bit. Seeing Dream acting so casual was… unnerving. The lack of a mask only made it ten times worse. Until an hour ago, he had never even seen the man’s face. It was always just the blank mask, cold and emotionless. Seeing the raw emotions on his face was somehow scarier than not seeing them at all. A shudder ran down his spine.

“Tubbo? Any ideas?”

Tubbo jumped slightly, caught off guard by the sudden question. “Huh? O-oh! No, I don’t know. Sorry man, I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

A sigh escaped him as he ran a hand over the leather wrapped grip. The blinking light stared up at him, almost taunting him in a way. That was when he felt it. A small raised section of the grip, right where his finger would sit if he were holding it normally. He frowned. “what the fuck?”

“What? What is it?” Dream asked quickly.

“I dunno. It’s just a weird bump…”

“Oh. That's it? It's probably just from the other Tommy making his bow wrong or something.”

Tubbo shook his head, quick to defend his best friend. “No… Tommy was really good at making weapons. He wouldn’t have done something like that. It’s not like him.”

Tommy’s brow furrowed as he ran his finger over the strange button. On a whim, he pressed down.

A scream was torn from his throat as a robotic voice played in his ears. “Hello?” it said.

“What the fuck?!”

“Tommy?! Tommy are you ok?! What happened?!” Tubbo was instantly on his feet, trying to check on his friend. His instincts kicked in. Everything that had kept him and his friends alive during the war came rushing back to him as he frantically checked Tommy for any wounds or injuries. Nothing. No visible cuts or bruises. Maybe it was mental? Or a type of potion. Or maybe even-

“Tubbo, Tubbo! I’m fine! I promise. Just a bit startled.” Tommy’s voice brought his train of thought to an abrupt halt. Tubbo sat back down, his face burning with shame.

Dream stared at them in concern. “What happened?”

“Did you not hear it?” he furrowed his brow, trying to put the pieces together.

“Hear what?”

“That weird voice thingy. I pressed the little button and the robot lady started talking.”

“You’re hearing voices now? Are you alright?”

“Yes, Dream! I’m fine!” he cried out in exasperation. The blinking light on the grip of the bow had gone dark, leaving nothing but a regular wooden bow.

~~~

“How do you even know that they’re in your world?” Wilbur asked. Tubbo had already set the command in the server, and now the three of them were just waiting for some sort of results. Now, they were all just sitting around, trying to get more answers out of Tommy. “I mean, for all we know they could be floating out in the empty void of nothing.”

“No, I’m sure that your Tommy and Dream are in my world. Dream seemed really confident about it. He said something about it already being tested or whatever.

“Tested? Tested on what?”

“I don’t know. He never told me. All he said was that the test had worked.”

“Alright, I’m just gonna be the one to say it, thats sketchy as fuck.” Tommy couldn’t help but jump. Tubbo had been so quiet while they were talking, he had forgotten that he was even there. “I mean, I get that he’s a sketchy guy, but that's just weird.”

Tommy took a deep breath to try and calm his racing heart. “Yeah… It really is. I learned pretty quickly not to question him though. He was fucking terifying whenever he got asked too many questions.” A shudder ran down his spine as he remembered the blank, emotionless mask. God, he hated that fucking mask. Every night, he was plagued with nightmares about it.

“Tubbo, I think your command went through” Wilbur said, his voice cutting through the fog that was starting to build in Tommy’s mind. He looked at the screen. Sure enough, the grayed out text was now gone, replaced with a blank text box.

“Someone must have found the trigger. Hopefully it was your Tommy and Dream. I’m not sure what would happen if someone else managed to get their hands on it.”

“Either way, it should have only sent the message to Tommy, right?” Tubbo asked.

“I don’t fucking know. I wasn’t allowed anywhere near the console.”

“Probably because you’re a little gremlin child.” Will couldn’t help but make the snide comment. Maybe he just wanted to pretend, if only for a moment that nothing had changed. Maybe he was searching for a way to lighten the mood. He wasn’t sure.

Either way, the comment earned him a cry of protest. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?!”

“It means that you are a little gremlin boy. What else would it mean?” Despite his best attempts, he couldn’t quite keep the smile out of his voice.

“Alright, you son of a bitch, you listen here. I could beat your fucking ass in a fight, no questions asked.” Despite the harsh words, Tommy couldn’t help but grin. The friendly banter was familiar to him, and he couldn’t help but be thankful for it. In a world where everything was strange and foreign, it felt nice to have something that stayed consistent.

“Oh yeah? Prove it”

“Alright. Next time I see you, how about we 1v1? Me versus you.” “Uh, I don’t think that's a really good idea,” Tubbo interjected.

“What? Why not? I’ve beaten him before, I’ll do it again.” Tommy’s voice was dripping with confidence. He may not have been nearly as strong here as he was back in his home world, but he still knew how to fight. Not to mention, he had spent most of the past week trying to get his strength back.

“I don’t doubt it, it’s just that fighting someone is generally considered not good here”

“Are you serious? That's so lame! Back at home we used to spar all the time!”

“Yeah, not here. Unless you’re in a fighting style sport, sparring just isn’t something that you do here”

“Ughhhh, that’s so dumb.” he grumbled.

“So, uh, what’s the plan now?” Tubbo asked. On the screen, another /msg command was pulled up, ready to be sent. The message section itself was blank, but it was clear that Tubbo was itching to try and communicate with his best friend.

“We just input the command, right? We swap you back, you guys could go home, and we get our Tommy and Dream back. Boom, problem solved.” Wilbur couldn’t help but feel slightly confused. Hadn’t that been the plan from the start?

“I uh… I don’t know the command that he used,” Tommy admitted.

“Fuck.” The three sat in silence, trying to figure out what to do. Tommy couldn’t help but feel like hopelessness starting to drag him down again, pulling him down into the pit of quicksand.

“What if we brought them to the console? That way they could actually respond and we might be able to come up with some sort of plan?” Tubbo suggested.

He weighed his options. On one hand, it was the best bet they had. Hell, he was about 99 percent sure that Dream would have left some sort of clue as to what the command was, if only because he enjoyed the thrill of the danger. On the other, who knew what kind of trap Dream had set up. Knowing him, he would have expected them to do exactly this. No. No he couldn’t think like that. This was their one chance. It was his only chance at saving his home, at saving his friends.

Swallowing his fear, he nodded. “Yeah. Alright, that sounds good.”

~~~

“What the fuck?! Why is it blinking again?!” The small red light was back, blinking up at the blonde teenager annoyingly.

“Press the button again?” Dream offered helpfully.

“What? No! I’m not pressing that fucking button again! You press it if you’re so curious!” he tossed the bow onto the table carelessly, the loud noise making Tubbo flinch.

Dream grabbed the weapon and looked over it. “Alright, maybe I will. Where did you say it was?”

“On the grip, right next to the little light. It's really small though, you have to feel it.”

“Got it!” with a soft click, Dream pressed down on the button.

Instantly, the robotic voice echoed through Tommy’s mind once more. The voice was cold and metallic, with no emotion whatsoever. It reminded Tommy of pretty much every computer generated voice he had ever heard, only this time, it echoed through his skull. He could feel his teeth vibrating from the sheer volume of it. His eyes shook, causing the world to vibrate and jitter. It reminded him of when the bell had been rung, only this time he was the only one could hear it.

“Hey Tommy, it's Tubbo. This other Tommy just told me and Wilbur everything that’s been going on. Don’t worry, we’re gonna get you out of there, alright? Apparently the other Dream is going to really fuck everything up if we don’t stop him. And by that I mean he’s going to delete the server and most likely kill all of you and I really don’t want that to happen. So we’re gonna stop it!”

The voice continued for a bit, explaining what the plan was and where he and Dream needed to go, and Tommy did his best to keep track of Tubbo’s directions. “... Anyways, we really miss you man. I swear, we’re gonna figure something out and get you guys home. Yours truly, big T.” The voice stopped, and Tommy blinked. Tears pricked at his eyes.

He didn’t really understand what was going on, but he did understand one thing: there was hope. He might be able to go home. Tubbo and Wilbur were going to bring them home.

~~~

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#if you cant tell i wrote this over two days #and i forgot what i wrote #so theres a bit of repetition #but whatever its fine #its still fun #wilbur soot #wilbursoot #tubbo_#Tubbolive #dreamwastaken #mcyt #mcyt au #The Real World #The Real World AU #my writing #dream team #dream smp #fanfiction #tommyinnit

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angelsswirl · 5 years ago

Text

Petrichor

Two

"Cupid must have wrote a love story in the dark. Oh, sloppy Cupid. Doomed us from the start."

"Walk me through it one more time." Yeri's lip quivered as she tried not to laugh. And she was trying really, really hard.

"No, you're going to laugh." A petulant pout overtook Chaeyoung's lips. It's an odd look on her. She's sitting in a desk chair that anyone else would probably describe as something just shy of a throne. And she's dressed head to toe in an Armani suit that someone else picked out for her.

Yeri, her assistant, shook her head profusely. If she was going to laugh, she would have done it already. She was simply holding it in for Chaeyoung's sake. If it were anyone else she would have cracked up in their face, but her boss seemed quite miffed with the situation.

"I promise I won't." She insisted. Rosé narrowed her eyes, then sighed. She grabbed her heart-shaped stress ball off of her mahogany desk. She threw it into the air once, twice, three times before speaking.

"I saw her walk in and may or may not have dropped a 15 pound weight on my toe. She got on the elliptical and it wouldn't work, so I decided that was my opening. I walked over, kicked it with the same probably broken foot, then I asked her out. There." Rosé glared at her assistant who snickered profusely.

"Now hold on. You're forgetting a part." Yeri looked down at the legal pad that had been sitting in her lap. She perused the page before tapping on a particular spot.

"Ah hah! You pulled a business card out of your fucking gym shorts like an absolute psychopath." This must be the final nail in the coffin as she finally howled in laughter, "I'm surprised any of that actually worked. Are you sure she gave you her actual number and not someone else's? Like a cop's?"

"We'll address the fact that you're taking notes on my love life in your quarterly evaluation, but to answer your question I have no idea. I completely embarrassed myself in front of her, but she was smiling like she found it cute."

Yeri eyed the look on her employer's face, "You know I'm just messing with you, Rosie. I'm sure you completely charmed her. Besides, there's only one way to find out." Yeri nodded her head towards Chaeyoung's personal phone which had been haphazardly placed on top of a stack of meeting notes.

"You're right. I need to redeem myself." Chaeyoung grabbed her phone, and searched for your name in her contacts.

Yeri rolled her eyes. Alphas were so weird. She's about to leave the office and give Rosé some semblance of privacy, when a framed picture, sitting on one of the many counters in the room, catches her eye.

"Hey, Rosie. Hate to burst your bubble, but are we just supposed to act like Joy doesn't exist?"

Rosé gave a heavy pause, she sighed and looked up at Yeri, "We've been broken up for two months, so yes we are supposed to pretend like she doesn't exist."

"Yeah, but I don't know if that's how that works."

Rosé sounded tired when she spoke next, "Just drop it, Yeri." She ran a hand through her blonde hair.

Yeri sighed and shook head, "Fine. Don't forget you have a meeting with Spectrum at 12:30 this afternoon."

"I won't. Thank you." Yeri let the door close behind her.

~•~

"Could you knock for once? What if I was naked?" Jisoo frowned as she padded into her livingroom, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

"Why would you walk around naked? You're roommates with a two year old alpha. She'd most definitely try to punch you in the dick." The intruder exclaimed as she pushed passed Jisoo into the kitchen area.

"Roommate would imply that she pays rent. I keep telling her to get a job, but everytime I do she just stares at me then asks for more cheerios. I'm all cheerio-ed out!" Jisoo gripped her hair dramatically.

"Which is exactly why I bought you some real breakfast." As if on queue the sound of small feet slapping furiously against hardwood is heard.

"How do you keep escaping your jail cell?" Jisoo asked, peering down at her daughter with a confused glare.

"Stop calling her crib a jail cell."

"There's bars. I lock those bars. And she's supposed to not be able to get out of those bars. Sounds plenty like a jail cell to me. One time she even ran her sippy cup along the bars and started playing the harmonica."

"Aunt 'Rene!" Lia shouted. She had a wonderful knack for distracting her aunt so she didn't choke her mother to death.

"Hi, Lia. Are you hungry?"

Lia nodded happily.

"She likes to act like she'll starve here. I feed you, too." Lia just stared blankly at her mother as she chewed on a piece of pancake Irene handed her.

"Anyway. Why am I here?"

Jisoo's brows furrowed, "I don't know. You just showed up."

"No. You texted me last night asking me to come over."

Jisoo raised an eyebrow as she checked her phone. It was very plausible. Sounded like something she would do, but she'd be lying if she said she had any recollection of doing it.

The One With The Kid : v v upset. Told cutteeee omega me lifes storie. Wanna sEx her but Jenn3i look at me mean. Pls cum huggg my. Read at 10:03 pm.

"Wow. Drunk at only ten o'clock? I might have a problem."

"You think?"

"Well, it looks like I already told you why you're here. I told a very cute omega my entire life's story and I was totally going to go home with her if Jennie hadn't have ruined it. And I was like completely sober at that point."

"Do you still want that hug?"

"Will you try to choke me?"

"Probably."

"Then yes."

"Sometimes I wonder if your child is actually parenting you instead of the other way around." Irene rolled her eyes then got to setting up the rest of the food she had brought.

"So, what actually happened last night. I'm sure Jennie threw an absolute rager." Irene chuckled at her own joke.

"Y/N made the same joke."

"Who the fu-heck is Y/N?"

"The cute omega. She walked into the kitchen, where I was hiding. We got to talking and I don't know, I just started telling her things." Jisoo explained as she calmly pulled a piece of pancake her daughter would have most definitely choked on out of her hands. She handed it back to her after ripping it in half.

"Do you think-"

"You know, I hate that question."

Irene sighed and poked at her eggs, "It has to be asked, Chu. When was the last time you voluntarily gave any type of information about yourself to a stranger?"

"Never."

"Exactly. Maybe she's the one." Irene shrugged, she eyed her best friend. Jisoo just sat silently and watched her daughter eat.

"I don't know. She saw my phone background and asked about it. And I only hesitated a little bit. She smelled great." Jisoo's eyes took on a bit of a dreamy look, and Irene just chuckled to herself.

"Did she recognize you?"

"Not at first, but I guess I said something and it jogged her memory. She said she had seen some of my videos in her classes."

Irene's eyes widened dramatically, "Oh my God, Chu. How old is she?!"

"She's friend's with Jennie and Lisa. Met them in college, so I'm assuming she's talking about Grad school." Jisoo laughed as the turmoil slowly drained from Irene's face.

"That was close. So, she knows about the kid, your job, and she still didn't run for the hills? Please, tell me you got this girl's number."

"....But you don't like it when I lie to you."

"Jisoo!" Irene admonished.

Lia, assuming this is just a game of word association yelled as well, "Mama!"

"What?! After Jennie walked in she just abruptly left. She had a class this morning." Jisoo shrugged.

"Chu, it's Saturday."

"Oh yeah."

"Then why did she leave? What did Jennie say exactly?"

"She glared at me a bit when she saw me with her. She said Lisa had been looking for Y/N, but Y/N didn't really seem to care. Then Jennie left. Y/N said that was weird, then she said she had to go. That was it. I think she noticed Jennie being weird to me, and it scared her off somehow."

Irene nodded as she listened, "Why was Jennie glaring at you anyway? I thought you guys were cool with each other again."

"I never try to venture into Jennie's mind. I imagine I'd go insane. I think she was just being an alpha really. She probably thought she had an obligation to protect her." Jisoo shrugged once more, "It's okay. If I really wanted her number I'd just get it from Lisa."

"You should really want her number."

Jisoo didn't say anything. She just chewed the inside of her lip as she continued to monitor her daughter's eating.

~•~

"Should I have dressed up a little more?" You asked, self consciously looking down at your sweater and skinny jeans.

"Oh, no! Sorry, I just came from work." Rosé gestured at her suit with a nonchalant wave of her hand.

"Well you look nice."

"So do you." Rosé smiled at you softly. She held the door opened for you.

"Did you want anything?" Chaeyoung gestured to the menu floating over the baristas heads.

"Um, sure a white chocolate mocha, please."

Chaeyoung nodded, "An excellent choice. I think I discovered the drug of coffee back in college. A white chocolate mocha was my gateway drug into plain black. I'm thinking about enrolling my self into coffee-holics anonymous."

You laughed lightly, "I totally understand. I don't think I'd pass my midterms if I didn't have at least two shots of espresso on study nights."

Chaeyoung placed your orders and patiently waited for it to be filled, "What are you studying?"

"I'm earning my master's in education. Would love to be an administrator some day." A big smile spread across your face and Rosé couldn't help but find it contagious.

"You'd make a wonderful administrator one day, I'm sure." When the order is ready, Rosé retrieved them and lead the two of you toward an alcove in the back of the coffeeshop.

"Thank you. Everyone thinks I'm crazy for staying in school so long."

"Do you think it will be beneficial for you in the long run?" Rosé asked as she took a sip of her black coffee.

"Absolutely."

"Then fuck what they think." Rosé said matter of factly. There's a spark in your eye that sort of snatched her breathe right out of her chest.

"That's a bit easier said than done. But, enough about me. What do you do that's got you so dressed up?"

Chaeyoung's eyes widened a bit. She was hoping that she could avoid that question. People always seem to freak out a bit when they realize she'd could probably buy a private island for them if she wanted to.

"I work at a marketing agency. Royal Collective."

"That large as fuck building like right next to central park?!" You asked excitedly. You walked passed that place all of the time. And it was hard to miss, considering it was one of the taller buildings around instead of normal glass windows, the windows had curated, colorful graffiti all over them.

"That's the one." Chaeyoung prided herself on keeping her financial status private. Not many people knew who ran Royal Collective and it was going to stay that way.

"That must be so cool. Does your office have a nice view?"

"It does ac-" Rosé is cut off by the sound of her phone ringing. She sighed discreetly.

"I'm sorry. I have to take this." She stepped a few feet away, and answered the phone.

"I know you're on your little date but we're going to need you to come back in. The CEO of Spectrum is having a tantrum in your office." Yeri's voice does sound apologetic, but she can also hear the humor as she listened to the grown man in the other room scream and cry.

"I'll be there soon." Rosé hung up the phone, then took a deep breath. She turned back around toward you with a slight grimace.

"I'm so sorry. But there's an emergency at work and I have to handle it. Do you mind if we cut this short?"

You stood up quickly, "Not at all. I understand."

Rosé sighed in relief, "Thank you. I'll call you." She kissed you on the cheek before all but sprinting out of there.

You blushed heavily.

~•~

You hated Sundays. Somehow, they're your busiest day of the week. Which, doesn't make sense because you don't have classes on Sundays.

Though, this Sunday is serving to be a bit better than the rest. You were able to get the rest of your classwork done the previous day, so you were free to do whatever you wanted.

You eventually decided on going to your favorite pizza place. It's only around the corner from your apartment, and you've got cravings.

You walked into the small hole in the wall a bit preoccupied with your phone.

You all but rammed into someone just as you crossed the threshold. You're about to lose your balance, when the person grabbed your waist firmly.

"Where's the fire?"

Your looked up with a gasp. Maybe if you weren't so close you'd have something more articulate to say other than "Oh".

"Sorry, Jisoo." You breathed out. Jisoo just chuckled lightly before letting you go.

"It's okay. You might want to look up from your phone at least once next time, though."

You blushed heavily and looked down in embarrassment. It's then that you realized Jisoo isn't alone.

You smiled softly at the small girl hiding partly behind her mother's legs.

"Hello, I'm sorry I ran into your mom, but she's firm. I'm sure she's fine." Lia looked up to her mother for confirmation. Jisoo gave the child a thumbs up.

Lia waddled out from behind her mom. She seemed interested in you for about two more seconds before the claw machine tucked in the corner catches her eye.

"Hm. Normally she hates meeting new people." Jisoo watched as her daughter toddled over to the machine she couldn't reach.

"Kids can be odd." You shrugged, as if it was as easy as that.

"So...come here often?" Jisoo wondered if there was a set of subway stairs she could throw herself down, because what the fuck was that?

"Yes, actually. I live around the corner, and Sal here has the best pizza in this entire state." You nodded toward the owner of the restaurant.

"Never been here before actually. One of my friend's recommended it."

"Smart friend."

"Irene has her moments." Jisoo shrugged. Speaking of Irene, now was her chance. Irene would murder her in cold blood if she found out Jisoo had the opportunity to get your number and then didn't.

"Uh, did you want to maybe-can I get your number?" Those subway stairs have to be close, right?

"Yeah. If you hadn't have said anything, I probably would have asked for yours." Jisoo handed you her phone and watched deftly as you put your number in.

"I would have said yes." The pair laugh until they're interrupted by your phone ringing.

You pulled it out of your back pocket and took a glimpse at the screen.

'Rosé🥀🌹' flashed across it.

It's then that you realize you have a problem.

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