#AND THEN WE GET TO THIS SECTION AND IN THE ALCOVE WITH THIS PAINTING THEY HAD A THING | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spiltscribbles · 3 years

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Prompt: remus and lily as siblings or half siblings or biological family in any capacity pls 🥺

Oh God!!! Baby!!!🥺🥺😭 This is such a favorite AU of mine!! I’m literally— sorta— writing a To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before AU right now and they are the bestest siblings in that!!! They share a little sister and they are just so cute!! And Petunia is conveniently off in university oaiwefjoiaswejfiogreghoij And I just love Remus and Lily both so much it hurts!!! And so I wanna spit out a bullet point Ficlet at you! And I’m not even sorry just because I love you so endlessly for tossing this into my inbox foiwaeifmkaeoirfgjieoarujoidkioweajgh

So like in my head, becs that Voldy bitch doesn’t know how to actually world build, the Muggle born children who get their Hogwarts letters, are also invited to join this like support group for ordinary folks with magical children. It’s like a thing that’s held in the Ministry of magic over in London once a month, and the parents are taught about the Wizarding world while their children kind of go to this separate room to intermingle and read Hogwarts; A History with one another, and just vibe, because pure bloods and those close to that have always sorta known one another and such, so this is a nice way for the Muggle borns not to feel so excluded.

So the thing is, obviously Lyall was a wizard, but also we all know I don’t fuck with him lmfao. So I picture that after he leaves for the final time when Remus is around nine, and finalizes the divorce with Hope, she— being the bad bitch that she is, just marches to the ministry with her half-blood, werewolf son, and demands to learn everything about the world he’s part of, because she refuses to let him be deprived of anything.

Eventually she becomes one of the tutors for the adult section because she’s such a quick study— being a professor herself back in Cardiff and just being an all around bombshell tbh. So one day, in February of 1970, there’s this ginger haired, northerner who stumbles in with his daughter who looks so much like him that it’s crazy— dimples and smile and upturned nose. Though she has her mother’s eyes, who had past away when she was only seven from a freak car accident.

And when he first shake’s Hope’s hand, he’s like kind of mind boggled over how beautiful she is, and thinks that maybe all wizards just put on some sort of charm to look unearthly, till he finds out that she’s as Muggle as he is towards the end of his visit. And he is just entirely love struck tbh.

And for the next couple months or so, he kind of just yearns from afar, and then spends the ride home to Cokeworth listening to Lily’s excited chortling about her friend Remus who’s apparently a half blood and who likes the same treats as her and knows how to draw things so amazingly, and it isn’t until like May, when he ambles to the other room and realizes that Remus is actually Hope’s fucking son, and he already knows that she said she began this group after separating from her husband who was a wizard himself. So Lily’s father— Nate— quite literally just shoots his shot and asks if Lily would like to get ice cream with her new friend since Petunia won’t be coming back from there Grams’s house till late, and Hope sorta smirks from over the kids’ heads because she sees exactly what he’s doing and is impressed that he’s finally done something for fuck’s sake.

And like obviously they fall hard for one another, and they probs get married like Lily’s second year at Hogwarts.

Wait, just Lily’s you ask??

Yes my beautiful duckling, because plot twist!! (We lovee plot twists!!!)

In this AU i picture that McGonagall kind of visits during the summer months leading up to the children’s first year at Hogwarts, just to give them some supplementary readings and answer the questions for their future schooling, and when Dumbledore tells her about Remus’s full situation with his lycanthropy and all, she does some research, and figures out how Beauxbatons is much, MUCH more accommodating to “dark” creatures, and she’s already pretty chummy with Hope and knows that she’s actually a French citizen herself, the daughter of Algerian immigrants. So Remus technically has the possibility to attend Hogwarts or Beauxbatons, and so Hope and Remus talk on it long and hard, and she knows he’s already become fast friends with Lily and their thick as thieves with one another, but it’s also just so much safer for him.

So the week before Lily is set to go off to King’s Cross, they fly over to France and they get Remus settled in his dorm abroad.

I think while they’re away, Lily and Remus actually somehow become closer, because their parents are still dutifully dating and neither of them are all that familiar with their surroundings, so they send one another so many fucking letters through that first term, that the owls of their schools always give them the dirtiest looks lmfao. And they really catch on like a house on fire, like it’s one of those relationships that is just innate? Like you know when you have a best friend you guys kind of just slip into one another lives? Like even when you don’t talk for a while or whatever, it’s just natural<3 <3

So neither of them ever spend the hols of winter or spring in Hogwarts/Beauxbatons, becs that’s when they really get to vibe.

They tell one another the different cool charms they’ve learned, and hate that they can’t show them with their actual wands yet. And they watch all their favorite films and almost adopt this secret language that’s only the quirk of their brows and twitch of the lips, and Petunia hates how freakily attuned they are with one another and sneers at them for being such freaks in all aspects. Also in this AU Lily fucks off from Snape wayyyy sooner, because instead of having to deal with that nasty, bigoted, slime ball she has the cutest and funniest and most amazing bestie in Remus!

And before Hope and Nate exchange vows in the winter of their second year, the little family of five go to this tiny park that’s all lush grassland and a shiny jungle gym and a pair of swings tucked away by trees, and they sit at this picnic table, and Hope— with her steady, ever buoyant voice, explains to them why she and Remus decided to send him to Beauxbatons instead of Hogwarts, and Petunia is like gawking in fright, and Nate looks sort of distressed, but Lily just cocks her head and shrugs her shoulders, because it’s still Remus— her closest companion Rem— and nothing could change that. So she takes his hand from where it’s fiddling with a splintered piece of wood on the tabletop and she squeezes it tightly, watches him glance up at her with the late summer wind billowing in his tawny curls and the fear in his honey eyes, and she simply tells him that it doesn’t matter. And Lily will never forget the way his features spasm at that, going suddenly loose and bright and thankful, and then Nate probably tousles his hair and kisses Hope’s temple and shyly asks how they should accommodate once they move in with one another.

And that park becomes sorta special tbh.

It’s in that alcove with the swings and trees where Lily and Remus go when things are becoming too much, or they would just like to escape the world by one another’s side.

It’s where they tried their first cigarettes that Remus had gotten from an older bloke in Beauxbaton’s when they were thirteen and feeling adventurous. And where they go to listen to the releases of their favorite albums, and when Remus told Lily that he’s gay for the first time before leaving to both their fourth years and it’s like one of those spots they both think of and feel golden.

Oh God! Imagine how cute of a celebration that Nate and Hope hold for them both becoming prefects!!! Hope and Nate definitely insist on some sort of summer todo! And they invite their friends and all that jazz and OMFG what if Lily’s wearing some sorta powder blue sundress that matches Remus’s oxford shirt and they both are grimacing in all the photos and are just not thriving foieajfoierjgiearfoijsdkgxh But like they would be doted on rotten that whole day! This is so cute! OMFG! And this probs means James became Prefect as well and so Remus gets to tease her when he sends her some sort of congratulations letter and she’s totally blushing and trying to hide her grin, and Lily retaliates by kicking his ankle tbh bahaha

Okay also now I’m thinking of like Lily’s like fifth year, and her Muggle studies class is doing some sort of seminar to see if these idiots can actually survive in a totally Muggle area without a lick of magic, so like it’s spring hols, and guess who she’s partnered up with???

Cookies for you because we all know she had to work with James and Sirius lmfao!!!

And she’s totally still trying to hide her crush on James— who’s nearly always leering and winking her way— and she might actually punch Sirius’s face simply because he’s such a smug bastard, and being from a working class family like herself, she’s like always ready to fight preppy rich boys tbh

So James and Sirius decide to plan out the simulation in her house that’s right outside Cardiff and Remus is cackling the entire morning before they’re set to arrive because she’s so pissy about it lmfao

Okay so like obviously the boys end up taking the port key and land in front of her place and it’s Remus who answers the door, still painted with humor because Lily was just screaming about “if Potter brings that insufferable snitch here I’ll bloody shove it up his arse” and James is immediately on the defense because Lily’s only ever talked about her sister and brother who live with her at home, and this dude is golden where she’s pale and has curls over her straight hair and just, obviously they’re not related by blood at all. And for his part, Sirius is like *Oh! Oh! Oh! Pretty!!! Pretty boy!! Muggle boy? Pretty Muggle boy!*

But Remus obviously knows who they are straight away, so he like waves them inside before rounding to the stairs and calling for her to stop clogging the toilet or something else mortifyingly embarrassing, and Lily promises to put like pickles in the next set of face masks that they do because she knows how fucking allergic he is to them, and she wants her chuckles damn it!!

“Potter— Black,” is how she greets them with a derisive sort of glower that Remus can completely see through, so he has to excuse himself while laughing over to the kitchen. “You’ve met my delightful brother I see.”

And James’s entire posture relaxes and he’s back to grinning like a dope, and the only weird part is that Sirius has got on the very same face, *Pretty Muggle boy is Evan’s brother* So like they are both scary levels of elated, rip.

But sucks to be Sirius because Remus leaves after that to meet up with a friend from town who’s also the best dealer tbh, and so he has to deal with James’s awful levels of flirting with Lily while they scrounge up their itinerary to send their professor for the seminar type thing, and he doesn’t even have a pretty distraction XS

But Lily does force Remus to come along with her on the trip to London because “On God, if I spend a day alone with those bellends by myself I will punch a wall”

And it is literally the worst, but best double date/first date that’s full of Sirius and James fucking up with everything— including asking some poor Tesco employee where are their fudgeflies and giving a homeless man a hand full of galleons and James’s snitch somehow ending up in the meaty hands of some kid at the tube. But also tbh it’s hella cute when Lily lets James give her his jacket when they’re walking along the Thames and it’s getting chilly, and when Remus lets Sirius share his stick of cotton candy and they both sorta stare at the sugar on each of their lips.

But then they go to some tiny museum, and while they’re looking at a impressionist piece, Sirius is totally trying to show off to Remus and is explaining how he could turn the bench their sitting on into a really nice bouquet of Lupins, and in the middle of his stupid showboating, Remus lightly corrects him on some facet of Gamp’s law, and Sirius freezes— shocked still— and he’ sort of gaping like an idiot, before Lily stops his blustering with a scoff “He’s a damn wizard also you arse.”

And Sirius is floundering for the rest of the evening, and he has so many questions, but they all die on his lips every time he glances over at Remus and he’s just smirking at him with this electric glint in his golden eyes

So obviously when they’re back at Hogwarts he pesters Lily every second of every day about Remus, and why he’s not at Hogwarts. “None of your fucking business.” And asking where Remus goes instead. “Beauxbatons, thankfully far away from you.” and he asks her about a thousand other questions that Lily either scoffs at or simply cuffs him around the head for daring to even try getting his address.

And she pokes fun about the situation to Remus and tells him how much more of an idiot he’s acting like, and how hilarious it all is. And she’s shocked when he responds to her letter merely by saying, “Hah- he’s cute.”

And so obviously she shoots back a reply that’s a letter of all his worst traits, mainly that he’s an arrogant toerag, and that he’s a posh idiot who could probably live off his inheritance for three lifetimes without blinking, and about how he doesn’t date anyone for longer than a couple months, and how he’s practically brothers with James bloody Potter, and yet again, Remus just tells her, Hah- he’s cute, before mildly moving to talking about his latest charms paper and how he’s been asked to be their DADA’s professors TA next year, and how Andrew keeps trying to try again with him but Remus would rather poke his eyes out with a spork.

So Lily is totally fuming when she recognizes that she’s lost and begrudgingly gives Sirius Remus’s info, after telling him lowly and with her most menacing glower, “IF you fuck around with my brother I will murder you without a flinch.” And she’s quite literally five feet nothing to Sirius’s broad, six-foot frame, but he knows that she could do it with a snap of the finger, and he promises that it’s not just a gag on his end. And Lily actually believes him.

So Remus and Sirius begin writing to one another a sickening amount, like so steadfastly that it gives Lily a complex whenever she finds Sirius waiting at the Owlry every Wednesday morning for the bird that arrives with two letters tied to it’s leg, one for each of them.

And God, one time, right before they let out for summer hols, Lily accidentally takes the one marked for Sirius— and holy christ!!!, She did not need to know just what exactly her brother has been getting up to in the sex department of things— like she legit contemplated using a memory charm on herself JFC

And Sirius probably ends up on their doorstep again in late July, with James at toe, and somehow their is a small harmony painted between the four of them, and it’s by Christmas of sixth year when James and Sirius begin talking about how amazing it’ll be when they’re actually in-law brothers, and Lily blames Remus for everything when she’s pretending to be cross over it, but then James puts his arm around her shoulders, and she sees how gentle Sirius is when he twines his fingers into Remus’s own, and it feels good, feels right.

It feels like something that can be forever.

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#WOLFSTAR #JILY #REMUS LUPIN #SIRIUS BLACK #JAMES POTTER #LILY EVANS POTTER #LILY EVANS #MARAUDERS #WOLFSTAR FLUF #THE HARRY POTTER SERIES #HARRY POTTER SERIES #HEADCANONS #HEADCANONS BY LEN #spilt ink

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unholyhelbig · 3 years

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Artifice | Chapter 10: The Escape

For previous chapters, click here | To Read on A03, Click here

The leather was cool under Beca’s fingertips. It smelled of oil paints, and clove, and the faintest bit of smoke. There was salt and sun all at once. She had carried the bag everywhere with her, strung against her shoulder. There were only ever a few cotton shirts, and pants that were worth well with dirt and blood.

She kept her sketchbook, bound in the equally fine leather, close to her heart. A small section of charcoal was folded into a cloth. It was hard to come by, nearly impossible, but Beca knew the right people. Emily Junk knew the right people. She pulled strings for fine clay and even finer parchment.

They were simple gifts, but intricate. When Beca’s stomach was rolling and the ship rocked steadily against black waves, she would sit and sketch Emily, focused so fully on the maps, the charting, and the stars that they followed. Moonlight would dance across her features in pale magnificence.

She kept the sketchbook, the one that reminded her of the ocean before she met Christian and felt the sting of his open palm against her cheek, at the bottom of the bag, away from Chloe, and Aubrey, and Garrett, and the rest of the prying eyes of the world. It was her solace. It made her sick to her stomach.

Beca peeled the bag open. She didn’t’ care much for folding the clothes that she had strewn across the room in her time at the Beale Estate. They had fit just fine when they were pressed and smelling of fresh linen, they would fit just fine now.

Sadness pricked at the back of her eyes. She thought of betraying her own unspoken rules as an artist and tearing the cleanest page from her sketchbook out. She would scrawl a note in charcoal on the back, dirtying the pads of her fingertips and forgetting herself fully.

Unlike her first night here, she could navigate the hallways that were meant for staff with her eyes closed. Stacie had pressed the lanterns hours before Beca returned from the pub. The wax had hardened and the scent of ash hung stubbornly in the air.

Moonlight flitted through the kitchen. She figured she could slip through the back doors into the warmth of the night without anyone missing her too much. Her throat stung with two mugs of brew she had downed to quell her emotions at the pub. It spurred her on, told her to press forward.

Forget the commission, forget the billionaire that had wronged the seven seas, forget his siren wife with hot copper ringlets, and fair lambskin.

“You’re leaving without saying goodbye.”

The statement had no infliction behind it. Beca felt her heart in her throat and her fingers numb against the strap of her leather bag. She hadn’t moved yet, hadn’t gotten past the threshold of the patio door. She hadn’t estimated how long she stood there, counting the blades of grass, but the voice startled her.

“I have to go,” Beca said.

She turned to face Aubrey Posen. A tin mug with water rested at her side, half consumed. The blonde may have watched her as she watched the world, those cold apple-green eyes. They gave her away as human instead of an animal, focused instead of sure.

A silk robe covered her shoulders, the lavender material rich, and rarely seen by someone of her caliber. The whole estate was like that, fancy vases and sculptures, and iron workings that Beca had seen from the outside, looking in, but never the other way around.

“You’re a coward.”

She scoffed “A coward? No soy un cobarde.”

Even as she said it, she knew she was wrong. Someone who didn’t’ shy away from confrontation would have kneeled in front of the woman in the house by now- they would have told her about the band of looters, and pirates that intended on storming her personal palace.

Her face must have softened and given her away. Aubrey quirked an eyebrow, raising the mug to her lips before humming in satisfaction. It made Beca’s skin burn and her heart prickle.

“Leave, then. Making Chloe suffer by contemplating your own actions is doing more harm than good.”

Beca hated to swallow her words twice in one sitting but found herself taking the remaining three steps towards the kitchens island. Aubrey seemed to tense at the movement, dry-mouthed and thick with contempt.

“It’s for the better.”

“For you, or for her?” Aubrey lowered the mug and let out a sigh “Listen, you being here… has been good for Chloe. I thought you would be like them all, the artists. They waltz into the estate with their oils, and charcoals, and parchment, and think that they have the world at their fingertips. Instead of painting her, they use her. And she lets them.”

“I understand your hand over her, Aubrey,” Beca said.

“Hand over who?”

The two women glanced towards the opening to the kitchen. Chloe stood under the archway, her hair caught the moonlight like the rest of the kitchen, but in a deeper, cherry-colored way. She looked sleep-worn and content. That soon shifted against her features as she took in the leather satchel, the swept way Beca stared, and the fingerprints on the glass sliding door.

“You’re going,” She murmured.

The shatter of her words cut deep against Beca’s skin. She felt as if she might bleed there, bite her tongue until she swallowed mouthfuls of red. Her shoulders slumped, her resolve nearly broke. “I don’t have a choice.”

“A choice… Beca you’re here to paint. Have I scorned you that horribly with my antics that you’ve given up the fight?” She scoffed “I’ll ease on the chase. We can start tomorrow>”

She turned and glanced towards the backyard. The moonlit the path beautifully towards the ocean, and the docks, and the fire-filled lights that reflected off the waves. If she searched hard enough, she could see Emily’s ship, its red sails, and drafting architecture.

Aubrey scooped her mug up and was halfway out of the kitchen by the time Beca mustered up the courage to turn back to the woman. She hated the weight of the two of them this close to one another, standing off with nothing but a few inches between them.

“Garrett has wronged a very dangerous group of people,” Beca meant to sound powerful, strong, and sure of herself, but she wasn’t. There was a meekness to her words. “They’re planning to storm this place, to take back what is rightfully theirs.”

Chloe pursed her lips, frowning as she stared at the terracotta tiling. She had her own silk robe wrapped tersely around her, her blue eyes hard and unreadable. “My husband does not speak about his business and I am kind enough not to ask.”

“He’s robbing people, Chloe. Good innocent people.”

“Pirates.” She snapped back “the last I checked they’re the ones that pillage, and murder, and go entirely feral at the sight of a pint of ale. Garrett is doing this world well.”

“They do what they can to survive. I don’t expect you to understand.”

It came out harsher than intended. Chloe snapped her gaze up to the woman with such ferocity that it chilled her to her bones. She steadied her hand against the island, fingers white as they pressed into the countertop. “Excuse me?”

“Rich, and stubborn enough not to go with me if I asked you to.” Beca whispered, this time sure of herself “I know these people, grew up with them, love them. And they are more merciless than many. Yet you would stay to defend your home, your possessions. Your paintings.”

The words felt bitter against Beca’s tongue. As if her saliva had turned to acid. She would never speak out against the lady of a house, much less one that had offered to pay for her services. But Chloe’s world was sheltered, and it was close to crumbling.

“You never asked.” She snarled, taking another step forward, closing the gap between them. Beca could feel the anger rolling off her in waves. “You packed your things and were going to escape into the night.”

Her breath came out in a shudder, it pressed against Chloe’s collarbone, making goosebumps rise against her skin. Blue eyes flicked to her lips, to her jawline, and to her own chest heaving up and down. It would take nearly nothing to push forward and escape the space left between them.

She swallowed the hot taste in her mouth “Would you have gone?”

Chloe met her question with silence. Maybe the words were stuck in her throat, or maybe they had no place where they were to begin with. Beca frowned, fretted, and took a step back. Chloe could have held her there, tethered her to one spot. She had enough power to convince her to stand against Emily and her intent. But nothing was said. The silence dripped heavily between them.

“Give Garrett my apologies.” She said, “I pray he can find an artist to capture your likeness one day.”

Before the tears that were welling up in Chloe’s eyes could escape, Beca had turned, opened the patio door, and began to walk across the moonlit grass. There were clouds in the sky, prominent against the dark backdrop, covering the ball of light enough for her to slip through the trees that turned to swamp and swamp that stretched into an alcove.

Garrett had spared no expense, the jutting cliffs that dropped straight to the docs and choppy waves had a staircase carved into it. Metal for the same lanterns that lined the Beale estate was set up in sporadic intervals. Beca had trusted only her instinct and anger to get her down to the docks.

Emily’s ship sprouted with blue and amber lights. A man grizzled and half-drunk with the swells of the sea stood as Beca approached. He drew his sword with a slick sound of metal upon metal. The tip of the weapon found its home under her chin, close enough to slice the hair from her head.

“State your business.” He purred, lilting his head at his prize.

“Jasper,” Emily’s voice came from the deck of the ship. She leaned over the railing, having shed her leather coat, and her captain’s hat, simple and beautiful in the moonlight. The man never hesitated. “She’s fine. Come up,”

She adjusted the bag on her shoulder, running her finger over the raw spot against her throat. He could have easily sliced through the skin, could have made a meal of her before the night had even begun.

Beca scaled the rope ladder leading to the main deck of the ship. By the time she had reached the top Emily had a grin on her face, nothing short of pride and warmth. There was a subtle rocking beneath her feet that reminded her so fully of home.

“Do my eyes deceive me delicately?”

“They don’t,”

Emily furrowed her brow and lilted the woman’s head up with the curl of her finger, the opposite of the blade with her softness, and tender stare. “You’re sure about this? I can get you off the island.”

“I’ve already turned my back once tonight. No puedo hacerlo de nuevo. I wish to join you.”

The captain withdrew her touch, worry etched into her features, catching every spare light that the night sea had to offer. Her eyes flitted to the last remaining glow in the kitchen of the Beale Manor, entirely visible from the docks. Past the trees, and the hedges, and the swamps, she could have sworn she saw a woman, backed by a lantern, and forlorn with fear.

#Beca Mitchell #Chloe Beale #Bechloe #Fanfiction #Historical au

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lluvguts · 3 years

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Cool Blue ; Chapter One

⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚۰˚☽˚⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚۰˚☽˚⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚

through sunsets we wander

⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚۰˚☽˚⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚۰˚☽˚⤹⋆⸙͎۪۫｡˚

☽ warnings: none

☽ fic masterlist

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By the time Alberto had rowed out into the furthest stretch of waters toward that quaint little island he'd been eyeing for months, it was already nearing dinnertime. He promised his foster father, Massimo, and younger sister, Giulia, he would return to the Marcovaldo home with a lovely new piece for their kitchen or else Massimo's hearty dish of alfredo wouldn't be served to him.

Alberto had grinned at the promise. He knew that even if he came home with a stick figure drawing of himself, sitting cheekily on a beach someplace, they'd hang it on the icebox and love it regardless.

He'd done a few paintings of the sunset from their home, sure, but it was the beautiful curve of greenery this approaching island offered that Alberto just couldn't refuse. There hung something familiar in it's many trees and overgrown bushes somehow, but Alberto just wasn't able to place it. As he neared he hurried to moor the boat by the section of the island mostly taken up by dark, porous shore rocks. He chanced to teeter at the bow before jumping onto the closest boulder, its surface nicking his heels in a few spots but he didn't mind. He hated to wear shoes ever since he was a child, and Massimo had even claimed when he'd discovered Alberto as a wide-eyed toddler, he was absolutely shoe-free. The ground was damp with the constant ebb and flow of the ocean, and for the heat seeping into Alberto's toes from the sparkling sun-kissed sand, he felt oddly at home.

Alberto glanced at the sun, hardly able to resist reaching out a hand to remark on the beauty of it. He spun back to fetch his bag of paint supplies, clutching the case to his broad chest so as not to let anything plop into the ocean. From where he was standing, precariously but full of glee on the rocky shoreline, there was a small alcove just beyond Alberto's line of sight. There were a few times he'd wished he'd brought at least a pair of sandals--or perhaps he could use his work smock and tie it around his heels--as he walked down the beach, because the ground was steadily rising in temperature as the sun baked the sand, but he tried not to complain much when there was so much to marvel around him.

He set his bag down on the ground by a rocky pool, which Alberto promptly sat beside and rolled his pantlegs up so he could dangle his ankles in the warm water. From where he sat, he was given a perfect view of the sun, creeping closer and closer to the horizon, so Alberto pulled out his pad of paper and a few pencils just to sketch for a while. He shaded the trees around him, drew each jagged rock, and perfected the way the sun kissed the ocean and left sparkling trails down the horizon. He could draw today, just to soak up the scenery and get his concepts down, then bring out the paints tomorrow. Massimo would probably joke and ruffle his already messed up head of curls once he got back, with smudged fingers and no canvas, but say all was fine. As he worked he hummed to himself, a song from some old record Giulia played on their gramophone (or, as a younger Alberto favored calling it, the magic-singing-lady-machine) after dinner and the kids were cleaning up. Still focused on the page, steadily filling, Alberto reached out a hand and groped around in his bag for an eraser without looking. When he didn't find one, he grumbled a bit and pulled his hand back, only to realize he'd shook loose a few sticks of charcoal and a paintbrush that rolled across the ground and fell, soundlessly, into the pool. The brush floated along the surface but the rest slipped below the surface.

"Merda!" Alberto hissed, trying to grapple one of the charcoals with his toes but it only sank further into the murky blue below. He shut his eyes and opened them again, more than willing to dive down there and retrieve those precious charcoal sticks. They cost him quite a few allowances and extra shifts at the Pescheria.

But then something happened that made Alberto leap from his spot and hold his dripping knees closer to his chest.

One stick of charcoal was flung from the pool and landed on the grass a few feet from Alberto's bag, soaking the ground in black. Then came up another, this time closer to Alberto. He flinched at the torrent of gravity-defying art supplies, allowing himself to inch closer to the mouth of the pool, reflecting his green eyes wide, breath held, waiting. Another reflection flashed across the pool's surface, something vibrant that made Alberto look up. But there were no trees or even a bird to cast the reflection.

Alberto let his head fall. And, blinking back at him, with the paintbrush that had been bobbing balanced on its nose, was what looked like a fish. But fish didn't have huge yellow eyes that made Alberto think of his cat at home, Machi, but not in an endearing way. Fish weren't that smart. Alberto had seen sea turtles and dolphins many times before, and they were intelligent, sure, but nothing compared to the humanlike stare this creature had fixed on him now. It stuck it's face out of the water, wincing at the harsh sunlight making its scales shine a deep teal. When its big yellow eyes trained back on Alberto, he saw the creatures features darken from underneath the water line.

"I think you dropped this," It whispered, in such a soft and shy way it made Alberto take in a ragged breath. Okay, fish definitely didn't do that. Was this thing...actually talking to him? The creature stuck its webbed fingers from the pool and took the paintbrush, staring at it for a moment before handing it out to a speechless Alberto.

"Woah! Uh...H-Hello?" Alberto breathed, gingerly taking back the brush.

The not-fish waved, only a slight shake of its hand above the surface of the water, and Alberto noticed the thin claws on the ends of its fingers.

"I'm not supposed to talk to you," It whispered again. Alberto watched the stream of bubbles that floated along the pool's surface as it talked. He still had no idea what he was conversing with, the creature seeming less and less like a fish and more as something from his imagination. It waded in the small pool, he noticed, forearms paddling softly without stirring the water. Its movements so effortless it left Alberto in awe. And if he gazed into the deeper parts of the water, he swore he saw a tail lazily lapping behind the creature.

"I...uh, I could only imagine why," Alberto squeaked. The paintbrush was still in his hands but he was now gripping it so tight his tan skin was turning white at the knuckles.

The creature stifled a giggle by placing one clawed hand to its mouth, but even still Alberto caught a glimpse of its sharp teeth. If he hadn't run away now, that was a pretty good red flag to be packing his things and high-tailing home--but he didn't. He wasn't exactly afraid of this thing staring back at him. Just a bit baffled by it, he was dying to look closer but the more Alberto craned his neck down into the pool to see, the creature shied back into the depths.

"What are you?" Alberto asked aloud, more to himself but still he knew the thing heard him. "Sorry! Was that rude? I'm not trying to be mean, but you aren't exactly the type of seal we'd see in Portorosso."

The creature's cheeks turned a darker blue, and it glared at Alberto. "I am not a seal." It hissed, its tiny lip pulled back to reveal that set of sharp teeth again.

"I get it! I get it! I said I was sorry! I'm just trying to figure this all out," Alberto scratched his head, looking back at his sketchbook for a moment.

"I don't even look anything like a seal!" It was still stuck on the stupid seal comment, with its blue eyebrows furrowed and eyes dark. The more Alberto heard the creature talk he realized, with a flush of embarrassment or something else, that it was a boy. Not a thing. Not an it.

"Okay, so you're not a seal. We've established this." Alberto was gathering his sketchbook and supplies to put back in the bag. The paintbrush was resting at the mouth of the pool. "Are you some type of...seahorse? Or an overgrown fish?"

The boy spit out a stream of water into Alberto's face.

"I'm a monster," He said promptly, his voice on the edge of staying shy or holding a grudge for the seal comment. "So...you should be afraid of me."

Alberto let out a laugh. This cute little thing? "Sure, sure. That makes much more sense." He stuck out his hand at the boy. "Well, nice to meet you, sea monster...Or, uh, whatever you are. I'm Alberto Marcovaldo."

"Alberto..." The boy repeated in a hushed voice, looking down at the water now as he said it. He flinched backward at Alberto's hand, looking up at his fingers with burning yellow eyes. Without knowing much of what to do, the boy kicked his legs until he was treading the water, letting the top of his head graze Alberto's open palm. The small fins around the crown of his head brushed Alberto's hand, smooth and slippery like seaweed. Alberto decided he was quite pleased with the weird texture of it.

The boy closed his eyes and let out a small noise, the side of his face now pressed to Alberto's hand. He had a fin on his cheek that neared his fingertips, and when Alberto touched it the boy trilled, almost in greeting.

"Oh, uh, are you ok? I think you're supposed to shake my hand." Alberto stated. He found his face felt uncomfortably hot watching the weird gesture the boy had just made, and even more so at the soft noises rumbling in his throat.

For a moment the creature considered extending his hand and taking Alberto's outstretched fingers, but stopped with a low growl, blushing blue.

"I'm--ugh! I'm not even supposed to be out here!" He wailed. "If they find me out here with, with a land monster? My mom's gonna kill me! I've uh, I've got to go, so um..." The boy looked at Alberto's paintbrush sitting within his reach and took it.

"Goodbye."

He ducked back under the water. In a second his head of blue fins dashed back up.

"Forever."

Land monster? Alberto could laugh. He'd never heard that one before. But he scanned the mess before him, the slimy puddle of water next to his leg that the boy had left when he took (stole) his paintbrush, the droplets scattered along his sketchbook, all blazing in angry red as the sun finished its journey along the sky.

Alberto scrambled up from his spot, mentally slapping himself. He had a hard time rowing the boat this far out while it was daytime, it was sure going to be hell finding his way home in the near darkness. As he stumbled along the shore and dropped his things into the boat, he wondered if he had the right paint colors for the boy's eyes.

Wait, he hadn't even gotten his name! Do sea monster-things have names? Like humans do? Oh, what did it matter? The boy said he could never come back to the island again. Their awkward five minute interaction was all they had. But Alberto was still stewing it all over as he made his way back to Portorosso, now relying on the oil lamp beside him and the glowing stars above.

/ / /

"Figlio, you're late."

Alberto rushed to hang up his bag and wash his hands. Giulia seemed to have been stuck with doing Alberto's dinner chores in his absence, setting the table and pouring waters. When he passed her she stuck her tongue out at him and smashed his offending pinky toe with her sandal.

"Ouch!" Alberto steeled his eyes at her from across the table, but she only grinned devilishly. Massimo was still expecting some sort of apology for almost missing dinner so he cleared his throat and pulled back the chair for his father to sit. "Sorry, Papa. The place where I set up my paints was pretty far, and I got carried away and lost track of time."

"Blech, Alberto, you stupido, at least change your clothes...you reek like fish..." Giulia sneered as Massimo handed them their plates.

"Hush, Giulia." Signor Marcovaldo gave her a small pat on her shoulder then turned to Alberto. All concern lost, he asked. "Where did you go to paint?"

"The island...?" Alberto chanced a look across his water glass to see their equal expression of shock and horror.

"The island?" Giulia shrieked. She let her fork fall and alfredo sauce splattered on the table cloth. "Fratello, that place is swarming with monstro marino!"

"Sea monsters, really Giulia?" Alberto tried to sound calm, but his heart rate picked up. "There's no such thing."

"Actually, Alberto, there is." Massimo pointed to the newspaper clippings decorating one kitchen wall, still frames of what appeared to be creatures with glistening teeth and bloodied scales.

"But Papa, those papers are fake! You said so yourself! Ercole's father only made those to scare people." Alberto argued.

"They are a menace to this town." Massimo stared into his plate of pasta. "My only hope is that you never get to see so yourself. They are killers."

Well, the one I met today didn't seem like a bloodthirsty monster, Alberto wanted to spit back, but held his tongue.

"Did you at least get to draw anything?" Giulia asked. Alberto sighed, glad they let the subject on sea monsters drop for the time being.

"Y-Yeah! I actually did," He boasted, rising from the table to fetch his bag. He undid the latch and took out his sketchbook, walking while flipping the latest page open for Giulia and Massimo to see.

Giulia's eyes widened and she barked out a laugh. Massimo smiled faintly, giving Alberto a solitary thumbs up.

"What? What are you laughing about?" Alberto turned the paper around and gasped. The entire page was warped and still damp, the lovely pencil drawings now only faint grey smears along the paper.

"That's-That's not funny!" Alberto growled at Giulia, who was wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "It was the boat! A wave must have hit the side, or something!"

"Oh, yeah, Alberto. Blame the boat," Giulia giggled.

Alberto huffed and slumped back into his seat. That sea monster.

Machiavelli sashayed into the kitchen, smelling the dinner on the table or perhaps the laughter lightening the air. He curled up next to Alberto's leg on the ground, rubbing his cheek and whiskers along his bare ankle, purring for a taste of the alfredo sauce.

"No, Machi. You can't eat human food." Alberto chastened him, nudging his face away from the table leg. Giulia laughed harder.

"Hah! He smells the fish on you, 'Berto! Were you taking a swim with Papa's catch today, hmm?"

"Giulia, I said that was enough!"

He smells the sea monster on me, Alberto thought. He glanced down at Machi again and stiffened when he realized his purrs had really been growls.

/ / /

"Oh, Giuseppe, I'm so stupid!" Luca dropped his head into his hands and a flurry of bubbles chased his fins. "I can't believe I actually talked to him!"

The school of fish floated beside Luca, unblinking. Giuseppe, the goatfish in interrogation, only blew a tired bubble from his mouth and huddled closer to Luca.

"I saw these weird sticks floating into the water, and they stained the water black like those oil spills Momma had warned be about, but still I went to see what it was!" Luca took Giuseppe by the hand and cradled him to his chest. "I wasn't expecting to see a land monster up there. I just didn't want those things in the water."

"But," Luca continued to himself, as his herd of fish were clearly unable to do much of anything, least of all lend him advice. "That weird stick with the soft thing at the end was really pretty, Giuseppe. It was purple! The wood was purple! How did he do that?"

"It was Alberto that did that, I think. He painted it purple." Luca jumped up in glee, then floated gracefully back onto the rock he'd been sitting on, giggling at the dark sea above.

"Ugh!" Luca was a ball of emotions. "How could I be such an idiota? I took something from The Surface! I had to hide it, of course, but still!" He pet Giuseppe's scales and the goatfish blew some bubbles in Luca's face to calm him down. "He looked so much different than the way Momma talks about the land monsters. Alberto wasn't scary...he didn't have a harpoon, so that's a good sign, right?"

Luca looked to Giuseppe, and sighed. "I don't know what's happening to me..." Luca murmured to himself, gingerly touching his face and remarking how warm it was in the cool ocean water. It had been like that when Alberto was watching him too, with those bright green eyes. Green like the sea glass Luca had collecting on the rocky ledge of his bedroom cave. When he stared at Alberto, something tingled in his belly, burning low and delightful. He knew what that meant, though he tried to press it down into his abdomen until the feeling eventually drifted away.

"Oh, sharks, I'm just a dumb little crab, aren't I? I even tried to scent him! But I couldn't help it! That land monster smelled so...different. Like the sun, you know? All warm and fuzzy...it was so sweet. Oh, if Momma finds out about this...It's not good, Giuseppe. Not good at all."

"Luca, tesoro it's time for dinner!" Signore Paguro called from a few yard away in the Paguro home. Luca gasped and a trail of frightened bubbles drifted pass his eyes. He grabbed his moss-covered staff and herded the school into a more manageable spot for the night, and swam toward home.

#luca #luca movie #luberto #luberto fanfiction #luca paguro #luca fanfiction #alberto scorfano #luca x alberto #luca and alberto #luca 2021 #gay fish boys #luca pixar #disney luca

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teshamerkel · 3 years

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Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Seekers of Soul

[Chapter 8] (17 Pages)

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Nia and Tobias officially form their Seekers team and run into a Pokemon familiar to the both of them. Nia is thrilled about this development. Tobias? Not so much.

Nia can hardly believe this is happening. She’s part of a Seekers team now, and one with Tobias at that! The charmander leads her back out of the tunnels, stopping only briefly at a shallow pool of water emerging from the cave wall at a bend.

“You need to wash off your mouth,” he explains, pointing at her bloodied nose. “If we go back with you looking like you mauled someone, Maggie’s definitely going to have questions.”

Nia uses the cool, clear water to gently scrub the dried blood off her face, biting back a whimper at how sore her nose feels. When she’s done, she sniffs and turns to Tobias. He tilts his head and scrunches up his nose.

“I think you’re good, but clean up your fur a bit. You’re all ruffled.”

Nia almost laughs. What is he all of a sudden, her mom?

Mom.

A lance of pain shoots through her chest. She gasps, pausing in the middle of smoothing her fur as tears spring to her eyes. Mom. When she thinks the word, her heart definitely reacts to someone, almost drowning her in a wave of sorrow and longing. But she can’t place a face, can’t remember anything about her mother other than the fact that she must love her dearly.

“Uh.” Tobias is giving her a weirded-out look.

Nia opens her mouth to explain, but doesn’t want to risk the charmander just scoffing something cruel at her. Not when she’s suddenly feeling this off-balance.

“I-It’s nothing,” she mumbles, hurriedly wiping her eyes and going back to cleaning herself up. Tobias doesn’t push, rubbing at the scuffs on his own skin. Within a few minutes, they look at each other, deeming themselves satisfactory. At least they don’t look like they just…well, fought through a mystery dungeon.

The two exit the cave and climb the staircase, up and up to the medical floor. Nia’s exhausted. Why does it have to be so close to the top? From the openings in the guild walls and the few Pokémon they pass who look like they just returned from their own missions, Nia realizes that the sun has already set, dusk painting the forest in shades of gray and purple. With how tired she feels, aches in her muscles and feet tripping over themselves more than usual, she feels like it should be midnight.

“If Maggie asks, I was showing you around the forest and that’s how we got all scratched up,” Tobias says.

“Do we have to lie to her?” Nia asks, already feeling guilty about it.

Tobias doesn’t answer for a moment. “Well, we can’t tell her the truth. She’ll freak out and probably have to tell August. No use in making her upset or getting us suspended before our first day.”

Nia supposes he’s right, but she still doesn’t like it.

When they reach their quarters, the older Pokémon is nowhere to be seen. Tobias walks over to the tiny alcove where Nia’s spotted a few berries stashed before, and pulls out an apple, taking it with him as he walks back to his nest.

Nia’s stomach rumbles. She eyes the cabinet, debating. Could...could she grab one too? This isn’t really her quarters, but Maggie did tell her to make herself at home. Nia hesitantly opens the cabinet and grabs an apple of her own, glancing at Tobias and relaxing when he doesn’t even look her way. She feels like a friend at a sleepover too afraid to ask for a snack!

Nia shuffles past the charmander to grab a book from her stack and sets her new scarf beside her bed. Then, she returns to the main area where there’s more light to curl up and read.

That’s how Maggie finds them a bit later, a smile touching her face as she catches sight of them co-existing peacefully in one room. “There you are! I’ve been wondering where you two went today.”

Nia snaps out of her reading and feels her ears pin back. “S-sorry, we, uh—“

“I was showing her around the forest,” Tobias cuts in.

“Well, next time tell an old woman if you’re heading out, all right? I was starting to get worried.”

Nia nods and Tobias grumbles, “Fine.”

Maggie opens her mouth to say something else, but pauses, leaning closer to squint at the two younger Pokémon. “How in Virizion’s name did you get all scratched up?”

Nia freezes and prays that Tobias will answer. After a moment he does, rolling his eyes and jabbing a thumb at Nia. “Genius here got stuck in a huge bramble patch. Only found one oran berry to patch us up.”

For a heartbeat, Maggie doesn’t look entirely convinced. But then she smiles, leaning back. “Well, I’m glad to see you’re being civil with each other, at least.” She turns to arrange a few items on her desk, casually asking, “So did you two talk about anything interesting?”

Subtle, Maggie. Nia fights back a smile. “Y-Yeah. He said yes.”

“Oh! Good, good!”

Tobias shoots Nia a confused look, so she answers, “I-I wasn’t sure I was cut out to be a Seeker, or if you’d accept. So I asked Maggie’s opinion before talking to you about it.”

Maggie turns back to the two of them with a wide, pleased smile. “I’m happy it all worked out. Have you chosen a team name yet?”

“I don’t really care as long as it isn’t stupid,” Tobias grumbles, shooting Nia a pointed look. She ducks into herself, embarrassed all over again.

“No, we haven’t.”

“That’s fine! You have some time. You look like you’re about to fall asleep on your feet, though, and I suppose you have a big day tomorrow. Why don’t you both get some rest?”

Right on cue, Nia yawns, taking her advice and turning to go to the nests. She pauses to look back when she hears Maggie murmur, “Just a moment, Tobias.”

The meganium reaches out her vines to gently grab the charmander’s shoulders, an unbearably loving look on her face. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispers, craning her head down to touch her snout to the top of the charmander’s head. Nia expects him to wrench away, yelling. Instead he leans forward to hug her leg, just for a moment.

Nia suddenly feels like she’s intruding on something special, and hurriedly makes her way back to her nest. She settles down into it as quietly as she can, already feeling sleep drawing heavy at her eyes. A nest of soft straw and leaves isn’t the comfiest bed in the world, but right now it feels like heaven. Shortly after, Tobias follows and curls up in his own nest for the night.

“So any name ideas that aren’t awful?” He asks, yawning. Nia takes a second to admire his sharp teeth and blue-gray tongue. Is that from breathing fire? Or because he’s sort of like a lizard?

“N-No, not really.”

“Well, get thinking. We need a cool one by tomorrow morning when we go to register.”

Nia doesn’t answer, looking up at the ceiling as silence descends on the two of them. Within a few minutes, Maggie covers up the window and the brightest crystals in the room with leaf shades, leaving the space almost entirely dark aside from Tobias’ flickering tail.

Names, huh? Didn’t Nia used to have something that would help her with that? Something that she could look up information on, a small device or something? Oh! A phone. Yeah. Man, what she wouldn’t give to have a phone and some service right now. Maybe then she could do some Googling on the Pokémon world, see if any human has a clue about these amazing creatures.

Heck, maybe she could even call her family.

Nia feels a lump in her throat, tears springing hot and wet to her eyes. God, she doesn’t remember them, not really, but her heart sure does. It aches. Feels heavy and painful in her chest, like it might physically be tearing in half. In all of the excitement today, she’d almost forgotten the end goal of her agreement to partner up with Tobias. She needs to get home. As amazing as this world is, she knows she has people waiting for her. A life to return to.

Nia forcibly calms her breathing and tries to think of something else before she starts crying. Team names. What could their team name be? It needs to be something good. Something that Tobias won’t argue with. She’s exhausted, but she rolls over onto her belly, grabbing her stack of books and dragging them closer. She eyes Tobias, making sure he’s asleep before scooching closer to his tail flame for light. Let’s see here...ah! There!

Nia pulls out the book of important historical figures that she adopted her own name from. There has to be a section for Seeker teams, right? Maybe she just needs some inspiration. Or at least to see what a “normal” team name would be. She flips through until she reaches a section detailing Seeker teams and members who apparently made a huge impact on the Pokémon world.

Team Bloom was a group of grass types who were the first mono-type team to reach platinum rank. Hm. Okay. Team Poppy started with a...simisear and an electrode? Were they red Pokémon, maybe? Or maybe they just really liked flowers. Team Adventure was the first team to discover a place called the Crystal Cavern in the Arabalis Mountain Range...Team Ellis was created by two Pokémon named Elliana and Kris, so personal names aren’t out of the running either. Team Ignite, Team Blue Sky, Team PokePals, Team Hawthorne, Team Maximum, Team Flying Fury...

Okay, Nia thinks she sees the pattern here. So something that sounds good with Team and is fairly succinct. Something that describes the two of them in some way, or maybe their goals. Nia quietly closes the book and pushes the stack against the wall. She checks to make sure she didn’t wake Tobias (not that he’d be quiet about it if she did) before curling back up in her own nest.

Names, names, names...

She’s asleep before she can think of a single one.

__________________________________________________

“Hey, wake up!”

Someone shakes her, and she buries her head further into bed, huffing. She’s warm and sleepy and getting up sounds like the last thing she wants to do.

“C’mon, we have to go get registered!”

Now recognizing Tobias’ voice, hushed but impatient, she finally opens her eyes as he shakes her harder.

“‘M awake,” she mumbles, trying to sit up. Tobias is crouched at her side, looking entirely too alert for how early it feels.

“We’ve got a lot to do today, and I’m not gonna let you laze around and sleep all morning.” He rushes out of their little alcove, and as Nia yawns and stumbles to hurry after him, she realizes the crystals of their dim room are still covered. The few patches of the walls and ceiling open to the sky are black as night. No wonder she’s so tired! How early is it?

“What time is it?” Nia asks, rubbing at her eyes and following Tobias’ tail flame to the doorway of the room.

“Shh. Maggie’s still sleeping,” he whispers back.

Nia blinks and nods, following him as they walk into the hall. Even with the dim lighting of the luminescent leaves and crystals, she’s grateful for Tobias’ flame, easily giving them a halo of light to see where they’re going. Plus, it’s slightly warmer near him. The night air is a bit chilly even through her fur.

The charmander leads them out of the medical ward and down the staircase without any other preamble, and Nia doesn’t question it. She just appreciates that the walk gives her time to wake up and smooth the worst ruffles out of her pelt. They spiral down further and further until they must be near the bottom of the guild, and they still haven’t passed another Pokémon on the way.

“How early is it?” Nia asks again, whisper sounding loud in the stillness.

“A little before dawn. We need to get an early start today.”

Soon enough they reach what must be one of the last floors before going underground. They follow it inward just as the sky outside appears to be lightening to a pale blue-gray. The floor is mostly dark aside from a few crystals, but Tobias quickly leads them past a few smaller rooms where Pokémon are beginning to stir and move about.

“What floor is this?”

Tobias glances back at her with disgruntled expression, like he wishes she'd shut up. “Administration area.”

Nia doesn’t ask any more questions, looking around as Tobias leads them to a particular room. Once or twice he looks like he’s not sure where he’s going, but Nia certainly isn’t going to question him aloud. Finally, they reach a doorway lit up brighter than most they’d passed. Tobias knocks on the door frame before entering.

A cutesy plant Pokemon sits at the desk inside, using slender white hands to write information down onto a stack of papers. She looks oddly human, but with large pink eyes and “hair” made of two long leaves and a stem. She glances up with a bright smile as Nia and Tobias enter, but it falters as she sees the charmander.

“Oh! Hello, Tobias,” the Pokemon chirps, clearly surprised despite her impressive Customer Service Voice. “What’re you doing here?”

“We need to register as a Seeker team,” The charmander answers, stopping in front of the Pokémon’s desk and sounding maybe the smallest bit proud.

The plant girl blinks first at Tobias, and then at Nia. The riolu takes her focus off of the luminescent vines and leaves lighting up the room to smile at her.

“Hi,” she says, offering an awkward wave. “I’m Nia.”

“O-Oh! Yes, the human staying with Maggie. Pleasure to meet you. I’m Riley. So…you two are creating a Seeker team together?” Riley asks, dainty hands folding over her desk, not moving to grab a form or anything. Instead, she gives Nia a worried look. “You realize you will be partners in almost every sense of the word, right? It won’t be easy.”

Nia gets the feeling that Riley isn’t talking about the job itself and more the difficulties associated with her partner.

Before she can respond, the charmander growls, “I didn’t force her to make a team with me.”

He looks like he’s barely holding himself back from lunging over the desk to claw at the flowery Pokemon, and for once Nia can’t really blame him. The implications make Nia bristle a bit too. Sure, she’s a bit of a pushover sometimes, but it’s not like anyone could force her into this big of a decision!

“It was my idea, actually,” she says, trying to sound confident. She’s just glad she doesn’t stutter.

Riley looks away, face tinging a soft pink. Good, she should be embarrassed after that rude comment. “Y-Yes. Apologies. Hold on a moment.”

As Riley searches through the forms, gathering the correct ones, Tobias turns to Nia, clearly still miffed but trying to move things along. “Did you think of a team name?”

Nia winces. Oops. She’d forgotten to think about it on the way down this morning. “W-Well, I looked up some famous teams last night, but…do you have any ideas?”

Tobias rolls his eyes. “I told you I don’t care as long as it’s not dumb like the name you gave that teddiursa. You don’t have anything?”

Nia glances around, skimming past the glowing vines lining the room and landing on Tobias’ tail flame. “Uh...something with fire, maybe? Like team Spark, or Team Ember?”

“Original,” Tobias scoffs. “Besides, you’re not a fire type.”

Nia wrings her hands, thinking. They’re both pretty new at this, and they do live in a giant tree. “T-Team Sprout? Team Sapling?”

“Even less original. We aren’t sudowoodo.”

Nia doesn’t know what that means, but she can sense an insult when she hears one.

“Team Sunset?”

Tobias tilts his head at her, frowning.

“Well, you’re orange and I’m blue, so kinda like the sky?”

Tobias shakes his head.

Nia huffs out a breath. “Uh...” what’s something that they have in common? She tries to come up with something (surely there’s something!), but other than fighting in a dungeon illegally? Not much comes to mind.

“T-Team Cherry?” Nia suggests with an edge of desperation, thinking of that first day in the cafeteria and the soup miscommunication.

Tobias snorts. “More like Team Disaster.”

Nia isn’t sure whether she should laugh or be mad. “You could help, you know.”

“I am!”

Nia sighs, rubbing at her temples. This is a good start for their team. Okay, what’s something that’s important to both of them? Maggie? Team Magnolia? God, no, that makes it sound like she’s dead.

Nia looks up again, and pauses as she catches sight of Tobias’ red scarf. It’s definitely worn, a little dingy, but the charmander never takes it off. Not to sleep, not to fight or eat. She’s seen him tug at the scarf or scratch under it when he seems nervous or irritated, too.

“Is your scarf important to you?” She asks.

Tobias reaches up to grab it, leaning back as if Nia’s about to snatch it from him. “Why?”

Protective. Definitely significant to him. “I thought maybe we could make a team name with the color red. If it’s that important to you.”

For the first time since she has started listing off name ideas, Tobias looks interested. He rubs the scarf between his fingers.

“I could get a scarf or something to match, too,” Nia offers. She’d seen a few teams pass by with matching or coordinated team items, like scarves and bands dyed the same color. It looked nice.

Tobias doesn’t respond for a moment. “So...what? Team Red?”

“I-I was thinking more like Team Crimson? Or Vermillion?”

Tobias hums, apparently not absolutely hating her proposition for once. “Team Ruby?”

“I kind of like that one!”

They pause in thought for a few more moments, before Nia remembers one more catchy shade of red. “Team Scarlet?”

“Scarlet,” Tobias echoes, rolling the name around in his mouth. “Team Scarlet.”

“You like it?”

To Nia’s surprise, he nods, a hint of a smile on his lips. He looks ready to go again, determined once more. It’s nice, having the critical Pokemon look so approving of her for once. “Team Scarlet. Yeah, that doesn’t sound too bad. You got that, Riley?”

They turn back to the plant Pokemon and she jumps, having clearly checked out somewhere in the middle of their discussion. “Yes!”

Riley fills in the form, scratching an inky twig against the paper’s surface. Occasionally she asks one or both of them a question, but in the end they don’t have to do much aside from sign their names. Nia’s signature is incredibly messy, seeing as she’s still not used to writing with paws instead of human hands, but she also realizes she’s not used to writing at all in the rune-like language. She’s only read it in books. She still wonders how that all works, how she can read and roughly write in a language not at all her own.

“Well, you two are good to go!” Riley says, stamping the bottom of the sheet. She motions for them to put their arms up on the desk, stamping their hands as well. “Just go down a floor to the item dispensary and look for Rainer. You know him, right? Politoed?”

“Yeah,” Tobias says, already turning to leave. Nia hurries after him, debating on thanking Riley before she goes. She was kind of a jerk, though, so Nia just gives her a halfhearted wave on their way out.

Nia follows Tobias down the corridors to the staircase, looking at the top of her hand in the morning light. It’s a simple, inky emblem stamped onto her fur, just a bit smudged. It looks like...a little egg, maybe? Or a capsule? With wings on the sides of it. A badge, maybe?

Before she can ask, they’re heading downstairs and immediately turning into a hallway, then to a gathering area. This space is more open, with different “booths” lining the walls and a stall in the middle of the room. There are a few Pokémon at each station, chatting or moving goods about; Nia’s pretty sure they’re Seeker teams, maybe packing up for missions. They approach particular booths in groups of two to four, a bag looped around one of their shoulders as they order and exchange goods. Or buy them, maybe? She hasn’t exactly asked how this works.

Tobias pauses, looking around before setting off for a booth. An adorable, bright green frog with rosy cheeks sits behind the counter, shuffling through some slips of cloth.

“Hey, Rainer,” Tobias greets as they reach the counter, peering over the edge. “We’re a new Seeker team. This is where we go, right?”

Rainer, presumably, looks down at the two of them, breaking into a wide smile. “Sure is! Need the basic package?”

“I guess,” Tobias says, shrugging.

“Stamps?”

Nia and Tobias push their hands forward, and Rainer nods. “Good! Give me just a second.”

The frog turns and shuffles through his chests and shelves of goods, humming cheerily all the while. “So what name did you two go with?”

“Team Scarlet,” Tobias replies, sounding more sure of the name as he repeats it. Nia feels a bit proud.

“Mm. I like it! Tobias, I’m guessing you’ll want to keep your scarf, right?”

Tobias’ hands drift up towards his neck again. “Yeah.”

“Will you be needing one, Riolu?”

Nia opens her mouth to say yes, before suddenly remembering the attack scarf they’d found yesterday in the mystery dungeon. She’d put it right by her bed so she wouldn’t forget to wear it, but she’d managed to do so anyways. She remembers Maggie mentioning someone in the guild who could dye accessories, so she thinks she could just have that changed to a matching scarlet red later.

“N-No thank you,” she says. “I have something back in Maggie’s room to use.”

Rainer just nods, entire body bouncing as he pushes a small satchel over the counter. “Good, good! In that case, I have you all packed up for your first mission tomorrow. Your badges are inside with a manual explaining how they work, so be sure to read up on that. You two go talk to Azami next, and be safe out there!”

Tobias grabs the bag and turns to go, Nia giving Rainer a word of thanks before rushing to follow. The charmander leads them towards the stairway, and Nia hurries to catch up to his brisk stride. At least his legs are shorter than hers.

“S-So what did he mean by ‘tomorrow?’ Are we not going on a mission today?”

Tobias sighs. “No, we have to wait. It’s mandatory for new Seeker teams to have a day of assessment first, to test their skills and knowledge, assign a trainer, and point out what the team members need to work on.”

Nia feels nerves flutter in her stomach. That sounds like quite the test. “C-Can you, uh...fail?”

The charmander snorts, voice lowering. “We won’t fail if we managed to beat a D-rank dungeon right off the bat. We’ll be fine.”

Nia feels less sure of herself, anxiety already bearing down on her. But she perks up when she sees a familiar face near the staircase. “Oh, hey! It’s Xander!” She waves at the blue and black lion Pokémon. When he notices her, he smiles, walking their way.

“Ugh. You know him?” Tobias growls, curling up his lip like the luxio’s presence alone is enough to make him sick. Nia doesn’t know why she’s so shocked by the reaction at this point.

“What? He seems really nice!”

Tobias rolls his eyes. “He’s an annoying goody-goody is what he is. Thinks he’s better than everyone.”

Nia frowns. That wasn’t the vibe she’d gotten from him at all.

“Nia! I’m surprised to see you down here.” Xander’s all warm smiles as he greets her, but when he turns to Tobias, his expression hardens. “Tobias.”

“Xander.”

The tension in the air is thick, but before any of them can speak, a graceful, bipedal Pokémon steps up next to Xander, looking curiously at Nia and Tobias with a gentle smile. They’re all delicacy and long legs, like a ballerina, green and white with startling red eyes. They remind Nia of a smaller Alistair, the gardevoir in the archives.

“Hello. I don’t believe we’ve met,” the new Pokémon says, voice incredibly soft. It’s almost hard to hear them in the open room. “I’m Avery, one of Xander’s partners.”

“I-I’m Nia,” the riolu says, torn between bowing and jutting out a hand to offer a handshake. She’s still not entirely sure which is expected in the Pokemon world. Avery has hands, so probably a handshake?

Avery laughs at Nia’s fumbling, a quiet but charming sound, and Nia feels herself blush under her fur. “It’s a pleasure meeting you. My father had some very kind things to say about you after your visit to the archives, and Xander mentioned running into you the other day.”

“Literally,” Xander adds with a small smile, looking visibly relaxed by Avery’s presence. “So what are you two doing here so early? Maggie roll you out of bed?”

“We’re forming a Seeker team,” Tobias says, crossing his arms and glaring at the luxio defiantly.

Xander’s ears perk up, star-tipped tail ceasing its casual flicking. “A Seeker team?” He sounds almost worried, gaze flicking over to Nia, and she hurries to speak up before Tobias can light the lion on fire.

“I-It was my idea! We both have reasons for wanting to join one, and, well, we already kind of know each other, so...”

That’s not 100% the true reasoning, and she suspects that Xander knows that, but the luxio doesn’t say anything else. Before anyone can respond, a blue-gray turtle appears on Xander’s other side, slinging an arm around his neck. “Yo! We’ve got the supplies, cap. Ready to go? Kry is itching to leave.”

The turtle notices Nia and Tobias, fluffy ears twitching as he offers a casual grin. “Hey. Sorry for interrupting. You Nia, I’m guessing?”

“Oh! Y-Yes, that’s me.” By this point she really shouldn’t be surprised every time a stranger knows her by name.

“I’m Felix. Been with this guy—“ here he takes a moment to jostle Xander. “Since the good old days.”

“The ‘good old days’?” Xander asks, amused. “We aren’t that old.”

“Eh, old enough. I know I sure could use a nap. Just wanted to let you know we’re ready when you are. See ya ‘round, Nia.”

Nia’s caught off-guard by the wink the turtle leaves with, once again feeling hot under her fur. What—did he just?

“Don’t worry about him. Felix is harmless,” Xander huffs. “A lazy flirt, but harmless.“

Nia nods, unsure of how to respond.

“I’d better go calm Kry down,” Avery says, fondly. They turn with a gentle touch to Xander’s shoulder and a wave to Tobias and Nia. “Good luck, you two.”

Xander watches the graceful Pokémon leave, and Nia fights back a smile at the warmth in the luxio’s expression. She doesn’t want to assume anything, but wow does he look the definition of lovestruck.

“I’d better go too,” Xander says, shaking himself out of his spell. He looks back to Nia. “You let me know if you need help with anything, okay?”

Nia nods, grateful. “Thank you.”

Xander’s piercing eyes turns to Tobias, and when he speaks, it sounds less like advice and more like a threat. “Be careful. Watch each other’s backs.”

Tobias scowls in return, not breaking eye contact as Xander turns and heads back to the staircase, where Avery and Felix wait beside a stocky gray dinosaur (dragon?) Pokémon with a green helmet and two tusks jutting from the sides of its mouth. They’re all wearing gold-colored cloths or bands on some part of their bodies, and Felix hefts a satchel larger than Nia herself up onto his shoulder before the group leaves.

“I hate that guy,” Tobias grumbles, white smoke puffing from his nostrils. Nia shifts uncomfortably. She doesn’t want to argue with her new, explosive partner before they even begin their first day, but she really likes Xander. He’s nice and he reminds her of someone that makes her feel calm and safe. Maybe from her human life?

“S-So where do we go next?” Nia asks, hoping to change the topic.

Tobias smirks, and Nia knows she’s going to hate whatever he says next. “The training floor for our combat assessment.”

Nia bites back a groan, already imagining how many ways she’s going to embarrass herself.

This won’t be good.

#pmd #pokemon mystery dungeon #pokemon #luxio #charmander #riolu #pmd seekers of soul #tesha writes #tesha draws

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ollie-ollie-oxenfreee · 3 years

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goodnight, goodnight

Awkward Attempts at Parenting... 2! Featuring a scene from a River bubble, the Reverend Daughter’s truly abysmal self-care skills and the Fifth House’s foremost endearing busybody!

“Reverend Daughter, I must once again ask you to reconsider.”

“Lady Pent, I must once again ask you to mind your business.” Harrow shuts her book with a decisive thud and turns to look the woman who’s apparently taken it upon herself to become her nursemaid full in the face. “I understand that I am younger than many of the other postulants, but I am more than capable of taking care of myself.”

“Why, then, do you insist on not doing it? You’re shivering. You’re pale. You haven’t left this room in days, and I know for a fact you haven’t been sleeping - the bags under your eyes could carry water. I wouldn’t let one of my students walk around like this, and I’m certainly not about to let you.”

A tiny, petulant voice at the back of Harrow’s mind whimpers why not?, but it’s quickly stifled by the indignance brewing in the hollow of her chest.

“Your students may have appreciated your fussing, but I can assure you that I do not. Now if you’d please let me get back to -”

“No. Not until you’ve slept.”

“Why is it any of your concern? ” Harrow snaps, that bubbling hum of anger reaching a fever pitch and warping her voice into a frigid shrill. “I am not of your House. I am not your responsibility. My well-being has no bearing on the success of your research, or your efforts to combat the Sleeper, or - “

“It’s my concern because you’re a ready mind, and you need to be kept sharp. It’s my concern because your contributions to our group effort are worthwhile, and we would be set back a great deal without you. It’s my concern, truthfully, because you’re young, dear, and you’re hurting, and by virtue of being a person you’re worth caring for. Is that really such an outlandish idea? That someone might care about you and want to see you well?”

Harrow, who in all her life has never been anyone’s dear, freezes. The anger leaves her all at once. She distantly feels her folded hands begin to shake - hears the gentle clack of rattling bone as her bracelets knock together. Her voice is weak and thready when she says at last, “I have only just met you.”

“No matter.”

“The things I’ve done - I’m not some innocent child - "

“No matter.” Pent smiles - a profoundly weary thing, but warm and gentle, crinkling up her deep brown eyes. “Leave it to the past, Reverend Daughter. Rare advice from the Fifth, I know, but it’s for the best for now. There’ll be time enough for dwelling and making things right once you’ve rested. Now, on that topic - “

She swishes about the cramped alcove of Harrow’s makeshift study in a flurry of brown skirts, gathering up the blankets and dusty sheets that puddled sadly on the floor after Harrow’s last fruitless attempt at “sleeping like a functional human being.” The lady of the Fifth presents them in a neatly folded bundle of patchy black fabric and presses the bundle into Harrow’s arms when she falters.

“Go get yourself set up. Somewhere warm, please. I know daughters of Drearburh are well used to the cold, but being used to something doesn’t make it any more pleasant, and you deserve a moment’s comfort at the very least.”

Ushered along by the mothering hurricane that is Abigail Pent, feeling younger than she has in years, Harrow does as she’s bid. In her sudden tiredness she can only manage to spread her blankets out over a clear section of floor and twist them into a sloppy nest before giving in. As she curls up on her side in the center of the heap, a sense of - not comfort exactly, but distant familiarity settles over her, warm and hazy. She presses her painted cheek into her pillow, eyes fluttering slowly shut, and in her last moments of wakefulness she just barely hears Abigail murmur, “Rest well, darling. We’ll get this all sorted out soon."

***

It takes a while for you to get your bearings when you wake. You stare up at the interwoven iron struts of the ceiling for a long, long moment, blinking blearily, trying to figure out where you are. The chill of lavender satin sheets against your skin clues you in at last, but the sense of warmth that must have come over you in your dreams doesn't leave you. Strange. If only you could remember what you were dreaming about.

#the locked tomb #tlt #harrow the ninth #my favorite comment on this on ao3 described harrow as a 'hissy feral kitten' and i think about that a lot #a hissy feral kitten parented by a very persistent motherly hurricane #my writing

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strangerays · 3 years

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Nothing in Particular Update #2

It’s the Nothing and Particular and Everything update part two: the electric booglaloo. This one is long, so strap in.

It’s been a while since I wrote an update for this story. To be honest, this one gave me a lot of stress, but here I am! Writing this story feels like it is going very slow. I keep telling myself I’ve made a lot of progress (which is true, I have) but for some reason it doesn’t feel like I have? This is likely just my own insecurity. To be frank, I can’t believe I’m still writing this story. If you had told me in February that I’d still be writing this when the weather got warm, I would have laughed.

I am SO excited that I will finally be able to focus on writing now that I’m out of school. I’m afraid to speak the rough deadline that I’ve given myself for this story (the end of August-early September) but now that I’ve spoken it into existence, I hope I can finish! (I hope I can stop watching dumb videogame playthroughs and listening to The Magnus Archives and get something done)

Here is a link to the story introduction and previous update!

TAGLIST (ask to be +/-); @wannabeauthorzofija @a-completely-normal-writer @baguettethebooklover @corkytheguar @writeherewaiting

STORY CHANGES/THOUGHTS/IDEAS:

Here is a big one: I’ve been trying to write this story for myself. I started writing Ray’s story from a place that was personal to me, but I feel like, as that part of myself has begun to heal, I’ve started to think about what a reader would want out of the story. I’m realizing that this is my story so it has to be what I want. Drafts are drafts for a reason, so I’m going to try to get better at letting myself explore what is fun to me.

I always thought I was a discovery writer (I still sort of think I am) but as I’ve finished small sections of the story, I am finding that it’s very helpful to do a rough outline of scenes in upcoming chapters. (I also recommend turning to this if something doesn’t work and you need to retrace your steps!) Just helps me feel more organized!

Jude’s character has got to be one of the most difficult personalities I’ve ever written. Putting her beside Ray just makes it harder. Where Ray is secretive and keeps to herself, Jude is ready to unpack her entire life’s story to anyone. I find that I really have to slow down when writing their interactions. I know this is going to be nowhere near perfect in the first draft, but I think it is a main contributor to my slow writing.

I really like this little narrative I’ve created in the background of the main plot with Ray and Lonan. I love writing these scenes because it’s a way for me to use Lonan when he’s not actively with Ray and to show why Ray is predetermined about things at certain points. Also I love their friendship so much <3

CONGRATULATIONS TO ME on starting to read again because I forgot how much of a help reading other people’s stories can be when you’re struggling with your own oml

I now have a set timeline for the story! Takes place ~4-5 months.

I did that thing where you write a letter from the characters’ perspectives and that was kind of fun

Also just for fun I thought I’d add in that I spent an hour and a half last week filling up a page in my sketchbook with diagrams of the plot. It feels good to be a mad scientist

EXCERPTS UNDER THE CUT!

*At this point, I’m only sharing writing that I am really proud of in order not to spoil the story! This is because I am unsure whether I want to publish this story someday. With that said, that does NOT give you permission to steal my ideas!

CHAPTER: NIGHT CRIES

In the last week of summer, I did everything I could to avoid post-vacation blues. I rode my bike along the gravel roads with no destination, wore my dark sunglasses to people-watch, and fed salami to the minnows that floated on the cusps of boulders. Usually, I sat still for so long that my elbows turned a deep shade of red and the blood in my toes buzzed.

New pockets seemed to open up in Point Blink every day. And with them, came new people. Most of them were older – a middle aged woman who caked her lipstick on, an uncle estranged from his brother, a couple who had miscarried. I hadn’t forgotten about the kids at Mothouse. It was impossible not to think about them. It wasn’t just that I’d never seen them before.

The girl’s limp cigarette bled a trail of smoke that seeped into my Vans. My shirt folded like skin over my bed post. Haunted the room – foiled my mauve sheets and teased my locks. Swept the curtains apart and heated the oak floor. Beams of moonlight leapt to my bookcases; highlighted the posters from various podcasts and bands that I listened to. Wind whistled when I was too still. She forced me to look outside, onto the dark cul-de-sac lit by the reflections of forming rain puddles. No matter whether I sat at my desk or burrowed under my sheets, I felt out of place. She made my bedroom louder. She made my bedroom quieter.

I decided it would probably be best if I never saw her again.

To be honest, I don’t remember much about writing this chapter because it was over a month ago (sorry) but I’m still quite happy with the prose! This comes in after Ray sees Jude for the first time at Mothouse. Based on a first impression, decides that she might want be friends with Jude.

CHAPTER: SORRY

If you spend any long amount of time with someone, you’ll become a thief to their behaviors. If I stared long enough, trees began to replace all of the people we’d ever seen. Oaks had roots that serpentined the ground like children splashing in the bay, pines with needles like spindly old hands, maples with hollows like watchful eyes – all things Lonan had taught me to observe.

CHAPTER: GHOSTS

Then there was the sea – violent and knowing as it romped within bays and alcoves. She had eaten me many times before, both my father and Lonan too. Gulped them as if they were shining plastic wrappings left behind after a meal. I spited her for inviting me once again. I reached up again to grapple with the next rung. It twisted and offered a low whistle.

In these two chapters, Ray is on a photography trip with her class. This is the first time she’s been on this annual trip without Lonan. She left that morning with a goal of being independent and learning to get on with one of the only people she has felt close to. I realize now that the Ghost excerpt sort of sounds like her dad and Lonan have drowned?? Which was not my intention??

CHAPTER: A DIVINE INTERVENTION

“Do you believe in ghosts?” A raspy voice teased from behind me. Cigarette smoke tickled the words, like they were stuck together with jelly inside of her. The question wasn’t particularly calming, but it strengthened my grip on reality. As if the foiled leaves, bark, and dandelions had sprung from the ground and begun to float, they came crashing back down.

I was made of stone.

“I’m not a ghost,” Jude said. “If I was, a ladder would be a pretty counteractive way to outrun me. I could just float up there and haunt you.”

“Maybe you’re a ghost,” she asked, her voice distant.

I shifted my grasp up and down the sides of the ladder. “What?”

“Don’t you believe in ghosts?”

I was reading back some of Ray and Jude’s conversation and there are so many snippets of dialogue that make me laugh because I totally forgot I wrote them... but UGhhH I don’t know if I want to share them because I don’t know whether or not I want to try and publish the story someday. Speaking of that, it’s sort of because it’s so personal to me? I don’t know (this is for future me to pursue) Honestly though, reading these back has made me really happy :)

I wanted to shake her by the shoulders. She acted as though Point Blink could breathe – as though corpses in the cemetery might pull the grass away like dead skin, neighbors would draw blades, and blood-salt would stain her clothes rather than that from the sea. “Trust me, they’ll forgive you. But, I’m just saying, most people around here don’t care nearly as much as you think so. Most of them are way older anyways, so they’re tired of us.”

“Is that you complimenting yourself?” Jude asked.

“Not intentionally,” I said, “but I will take it.”

She laughed. “You shouldn’t be so nice to strangers.”

I wasn’t trying to be. I just didn’t think I wanted her to dislike me.

“I don’t think it’s a bad thing or a good thing,” Jude said. “Being good gets you tucked into a thousand different memories. Being good makes you live a lifetime.”

I almost laughed, but then I wondered what I was to her now. “I don’t talk to lots of people.”

“Sometimes there aren’t many people to talk to. But I thought you would have loads of friends.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I thought you would too.”

Alarm like grief lit her eyes, but she laughed. I did too.

“You hardly know me,” she said quietly.

Then the girls explore some old newspapers and letters in a fire tower! Spooky fun!

CHAPTER: YOU LET THIS HAPPEN

This isn’t a major spoiler as it’s literally in the blurb I wrote, but Ray and Jude are caught (targeted..??) in a fire. Ray is brought back to a field where she is questioned.

CHAPTER: NOTHING HAPPENS

He was quiet for several moments while he painted a picture with what little details I had given him, then said, “It’s unfair. I think that’s why it hurts.”

“Because we almost got hurt?”

“No. Because it came true.”

His gentle, ragged voice made me think I could tell him anything. Sometimes, I think that, even then, he knew I left something out.

Ray talks to Lonan after the fire... She’s being a bit dishonest about what actually happened.

CHAPTER: WHY NOT

I remember how the barest amount of red light glared across Lonan’s entire scalp and washed his boyish curls magenta from the roots out. When Jude leaned back on the counter, she melded into the darkness.

This chapter is just part of the narrative that I created with Ray and Lonan’s friendship. There isn’t much I want to spoil from it, but I liked this paragraph!

CHAPTER: INEVITABLE

“We didn’t do anything,” I said.

“Someone did. Why won’t you believe me?”

“I think I would remember whether or not someone was there with us,” I said, “even if we didn’t have the picture.”

This was untrue. I hung lots of photos in my room. A long time would pass before I went to a restaurant again, or a specific coven on one of the beaches, or an outfit that I wore, and I would look into one of my pictures and remember it, and then I would be quite angry with myself that I had almost forgotten that thing forever.

“I don’t think you understand what I mean,” Jude said. I didn’t like the way she’d lowered her voice. She sounded different every time I saw her. She reached out her arm so our photos were side by side and our fingers were almost touching. “I don’t think you want to.”

Ray finds herself alone in the school’s dark room with Jude. Based on the contents of one of her photos, she tries to convince Ray that there is more to the fire than what meets the eye.

CHAPTER: (this one is untitled)

I didn’t mind that he followed me everywhere. Even when he was quiet, I didn’t find it strange to be around him. We sat silently through films and went on walks. Once, he had fallen asleep while watching The Iron Giant in my bed. I didn’t know if I should wake him up once it ended. I tried not to stare at him. He’d rolled onto his side and bundled himself in one of my blankets covered in stars up to his shoulders so only his small face poked out like a baby owl’s. His soft breath messed his dirty gold coils. They were at their longest. Except for the ebbing light from a candle on my desk, my house was asleep – Lonan needed to go home.

For the first time, I wondered if anyone cared where he was.

Another small part of the little friendship narrative! (This really is the part of the story where I get nostalgic for my childhood, isn’t it) Ray starts to discover more about Lonan’s home life in this part of the story, but there’s not much that I think I want to reveal about that for now.

CHAPTER: THE CRUX OF IT

Why did I feel so paranoid? I found myself staring out the window, into the film of blue that the late sun shown onto the grass and trying to remember what summer felt like.

My main problem was that I didn’t know how to talk to Jude unless it was about Sugarfell. I ran from the hush of cigarette smoke behind closing doors and heard her loud voice in conversations. Even though there might have still been a part of me that wanted to be friends with her, I didn’t have much to base that feeling off of. I could have spent hours clicking the little pieces of her that I had together, but the crux of it was that I would never know Jude unless I forced myself to.

For some reason, that really scared me.

I spent all week trying to think of what to say to her. By Friday afternoon, I still had nothing.

I left off writing with Ray actively avoiding Jude’s little investigation into the arsonist. Ray doesn’t want to be involved in this because she feels that it will throw her sense of normalcy off course. She really just wants to learn how to adapt to a life without her best friend. (It doesn’t help that she’s got fresh trauma)

What will Ray decide? I don’t know. We shall see. (just kidding I know)

Sorry this update was longer! I think I would like to start updating more often than once a month just because they would be shorter and those of you reading this won’t forget what happened in the last update. There are thousands and thousands of words that didn’t show up in this update because - like I said - I don’t know whether I want to publish this story ever?? I’ll probably talk more about this in a separate update.

Thank you so much to those of you who read about my story! I hope you enjoy it!

p.s. btw I now have a myWriteClub account! You can check it out here and stalk me as I tragically fail my writing goals!

#ffs writing this update was like throwing a boulder into a lake #there was so much I wanted to share #it's really difficult to decide what to share as sometimes a paragraph that I'm really proud of will be really spoilery #I can only imagine this will be more and more difficult as I get further into the story #ANYWAYS #I feel like I'm really beginning to see who my characters are <3 #I feel like a proud mother #To be honest #I kind of hated Jude in the beginning #but now I feel like Ray hates her too so that makes me like her #haha im so mean #tune in next time for a Sapphic spy date

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mickeymouse-moshpit · 3 years

Text

street lights, people

A/N: Hello, kind readers of this fic that I have taken entirely too long to update. I’m so sorry for the wait! And I also have to apologize because there is a whole first part of this that is stored on my computer, which is currently in the mail for repairs. I will post that part as well once it’s back, just please hold on and know that 1) there’s definitely context to being on Fennec’s bike in it and 2) there will be spicy things in the next part. Anyway, uh, if there’s typos I’m very sorry, and enjoy!

Description: Fennec and peds!Reader go on a date

Warnings: Some brief verbal harassment, brief description of dissociating, a little angst if you squint hard enough, Fennec and peds!Reader doing their thing

Rating: T

Word count: 2.7K

January 24th

Read part one here

You followed her out and down the lined path, hands sitting in the pockets of your jacket to keep warm. She threaded her arm through yours, and led you down the street to a book shop of all places.

“I remembered you telling me about that new series you wanted to read, something about gay witches? And you’re always talking about how much you want to go to the bookstore but you never do. So, go browse. I want to see what your process looks like.”

“Th—that’s really thoughtful. I don’t know that I really have a true process, but yeah let’s go look!” You opened the door for her, a light going on inside you as you got your first waft of bookstore smell: the paper, the ink. You got the first wave of the noise: the low music playing in the background, the people there talking in hushed tones. You couldn’t make out any conversations happening, could barely hear that there were lyrics in the music. You stopped for a moment, scanning the layout of the room. Your eyes landed first on the display of bookmarks and postcards, making a mental note to get one or two of each to remember this little town so you could find it one day. But then your train of thought halted: could you come here alone?

Best not to dwell.

Your eyes resumed their scanning, noting the different sections. You wandered to the right, letting your gaze drift over the painting beside the door. It was line art of two bodies intertwined, splashed with color to resemble a galaxy where they met. The notecard below it gave the title and artist’s name. And a price. You were struck by how nice it would look on your art wall. But that was for another day.

You started your first pass through the stacks, letting your eyes skate over the spines of the books, pausing to read the note cards when they gave a recommendation from one of the workers. Your fingers started to take on a mind of their own, catching on books here and there, bringing them out for you to investigate. Every couple of them, you would open to the first page, let the author’s words try to entice you. You put most of them back, but a green paperback one with a bent cover stayed behind. You held it close as you continued on, pacing with no purpose at all. If someone didn’t know you, they would think you had a system, but really you were just letting yourself be on autopilot. That is, until you got to the section that housed the series you had read about and wanted.

“This is it!” You hoped your whisper would convey your excitement to Fennec. You had been watching book recommendation videos and this series had come up, promising both a love story and adventure. “I hope th—they do! They’ve got both!”

You plucked both the paperback and hardcover from the shelves, adding them to your little stash. Your small smile would not leave your face.

Fennec watched as you dragged yourself away from the section, mentally patting herself on the back for this idea. You looked so happy, at peace. If she was a part of that? She would consider herself both clever and immensely lucky. As she followed you back to one of the sections you had drifted through, she watched your perusing turn into a hunt. You furrowed your brow as you sank down to kneel and scan for what she wasn’t quite sure. She pulled two more books from the shelf.

“Have you read this one?” She held up a copy of a book called Circe.

“No, but someone at work was talking about it the other day.” She hoped you wouldn’t be disappointed, and wasn’t disappointed when you slid the book back into its place with a mischievous look. Fennec’s mind went straight into the gutter for a moment, imagining you in a very different situation but with the same look.

“Good, you’ll borrow my copy.” There was no arguing, it was a fact. She would.

You stood up again, still holding onto the other book. You were off again, and while she thought you clutching four books to your chest was possibly the cutest thing she had ever seen, you were going to drop one if you kept getting distracted. When you stopped again, she held her hands out.

“Here, let me carry them. You use your hands to browse.”

You nodded once and sank down again, grabbing one of the recommended titles and popping up again. You paused, before setting it on the pile Fennec was holding, warmth building in your face as she gave you one of her smiles.

You set off with one more stop in mind. The waiting room library at your office was lacking in chapter books as of late. You let your feet carry you to the children’s section.

“What are we doing here? I didn’t take you for the Warrior Cats type. “

“The selection of chapter books in my waiting room is looking a little sparse here lately. I want to see what the kids are into so I can update the wishlist.”

Fennec looked at you like you had suddenly turned purple with polka dots and sprouted antennae.

“I have a bookshelf in the waiting room, and I always make it clear to kids and parents that the books on it are meant to be read, cherished, read again, both while waiting and when they go home, with no expectation of return. The Little Golden Books usually do come back, just like most of the other books meant for the teeny-tinies. The chapter books get sparse and don’t tend to come back, but I like it that way. It means I’ve got another reader who gets to learn about the magic of words.”

“But where do the books come from?”

“Well, at first it was just me. There were some parents who made it very clear when I mentioned the shelf that they were perfectly capable of providing their kids with books and how dare I assume otherwise. There were others that you could tell were extremely grateful. There were also a few that had a problem with it but not for any good reason but I’m sure you know what kind of parents I’m getting at.”

She did.

“Then one day I was in the little shop in town and one of the little ones who had started on chapter books saw me and ran up, telling me all about how she had saved her allowance and she was able to get the sequel to the book she had gotten from me. The owner of the shop heard it, and when I went to buy the book I had picked out along with some chapter books for the waiting room, he told me he would let me start a wishlist and he would put it by the register for people to see and maybe buy one or two.”

“Do you usually get what you ask for?”

“It depends on the time of year. During the holidays people get more generous so it’s time to update the list. Hence the reading castle.” You gestured to the structure before you, an alcove that had a castle facade and was filled with still more books. “And the wall of chapter books.”

Before she could formulate a response, you had pulled out your phone and started making a list. Fennec watched you with an emotion she wasn’t sure how to name. The earnest way you took on your task had her pulling out her own phone while you weren’t watching to send a message to the garage group chat. When you had finished, you brushed a hand over her shoulder as you walked by.

You wandered to your last stop: the display at the front. You picked out a pack of bookmarks that were little magnetic trees before turning your attention to the display of postcards. You chose one that was a picture of the gazebo in the middle of town at night, surrounded by twinkle lights with “wish you were here” in small text at the bottom.

You walked up to the register and Fennec plopped your pile of finds on the counter.

“Did you find everything you were looking for?” The older salesperson behind the register had half a smirk on his face as he queried you. “I haven’t seen someone quite as methodical as you, even covered the section for children.”

You weren’t sure if the sarcastic tone was real or meant as a lighthearted joke, but either way you felt your cheeks warm again, and not in a good way. You wondered for a moment if the ground would open up and swallow you whole. You felt Fennec’s arm wrap its way around your torso again as the salesperson started ringing up the books.

“Being thorough is one of the best things about her. And this is just me, but I think it would be kind of nice if my kid’s pediatrician knew enough about what their media looked like to be able to talk to them at their level about things other than their health.”

“Oh so she’s a big kid is what you’re saying? What, does she play with dolls, or are toys more for the bedroom?” That definitely wasn’t meant in a kind way.

Fennec’s arm tightened around you before you got the chance to just slip away and out the door, as if she knew that was something you might do.

“I would stop talking about them if I were you.” Her voice was low, had taken on a dangerous edge that matched what others saw in her leather jacket.

He got the hint, hurrying up with the transaction. When the final total came up, you reached into your pocket, not really feeling anything for that moment or registering the number that flashed in your general direction. Before you could get your card liberated, Fennec was already sliding hers into the chip reader. You wanted to protest, wanted to tell her it was too much, but the interaction was a sea witch that had stolen your voice and you could only look on as the books and other small items were wrapped and put into a bag and Fennec was turning you in a circle to get you out of the shop.

You weren’t even aware that your feet had moved until you were in front of her bike and she had distributed the books into the two saddle bags. She faced you and put her hands on your shoulders.

“Are you okay?”

You looked at her, answering her question with the question mark that had seemingly etched itself on your face.

“Hello? Earth to Doc? Are you in there?” She gave your shoulders a little shake, before she wrapped you in her arms. You finally felt like you could take a deep breath again as you rested your head in the crook of her neck, letting the pressure she was providing ground you again.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered into the collar of her sweater.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. He should be sorry. If he hadn’t stopped talking, I would have made him sorry.”

“I wanted to stop you from paying, it was too much.”

“No. I wanted to do that, it was the plan from the beginning.”

“Really?” You pulled back slightly, peeking at her, searching her face but not having much luck in the low light.

“Yes really. Now, I had something else planned, do you want to know what it is so you can decide if you still want to do it?”

You considered it, but the phantom hollow in your chest and the way your arms and legs still didn’t feel like they belonged to you gave you your answer.

“I want to know, but not yet. Keep it secret, show me next time. I’ve got my own idea though. Will you take me home? I want to show you the Books.”

***

You didn’t want to let go of her, but you needed to if you were going to go inside where it was warm. So you did. When she had taken the books out and put them back in their bag, you headed for the three steps that led up to the door of your half of the duplex. You unlocked the door, nearly dropping the keys because your hands were so cold. You caught them before Fennec could tease you about it.

You clicked on the light in the entryway, lighting the way as she took a few steps inside again. You took the bag from her, and nodded to your left. Behind the stairs to the loft, there was a doorway. You walked through it and to the right, knowing the room in the darkness. You stepped on the clicker for the floor lamp, bathing the room in a soft glow. You walked over to the electric fireplace that added some extra heat to the room, switching it on.

You went back to where she was standing in the doorway, like she wasn’t quite sure what to do with her hands. You took them in yours and brought her in.

Her eyes widened as she took in the space.

The room screamed comfort. All four walls were covered by bookshelves that reached the ceiling, with two interruptions. The first was around the fireplace, if you could even call it that. There was a painting in front of it, but her eyes were too busy wandering to take it in just yet. Her gaze drifted to the window, where either you or the previous owners had built a seat large and plush enough to recline in. While that should have been the star of the room, it wasn’t.

In front of the fireplace was a massive sectional sofa. She was sure it had to have a pull out option you were taking advantage of because it looked more like a bed-sofa hybrid with the way the middle was seemingly filled to the brim with throw pillows and faux-fur blankets.

You stood watching her take it in, as she eventually started looking at the books lining the shelves, punctuated by the odd piece of memorabilia. There was such a variety, all alphabetized, with the only delineation by genre she could see being poetry and prose. As she browsed, you placed your books on the window seat, and from under it produced two stamps: one to mark the books as yours, and one to put a place for people who borrowed them to sign. Others always asked if it was to make sure they came back, but you always replied with no, it was to make sure people could see if they had borrowed them before. You put the books onto the rolling cart that already had a small pile to be put away. Some of them were new, some you had reread and needed to return.

Task complete, you perched on the back of the couch to watch her.

“I should start referring to you as a dragon. You’ve got quite the hoard, baby.” Her words were quiet, wrapped with kindness. “It’s impressive. Thank you for showing me this part of you.”

“I just really like them.” Your smile was growing as she got closer to you. You stood and wrapped yourself around her again. “Does that make you the maiden in need of rescue?”

“Oh, no, you can keep me here as long as you want. Besides, don’t you know the dragon needs saving too sometimes?”

“In that case…” You paused, stealing yourself. “Would you stay a while? I can make tea, we can read, if you’re okay with you could do that pressure thing again?”

“You mean will I hold you close, let you hide your face in my neck for a minute again? Let you whisper things you don’t think I’ll hear but I will anyway?”

You nodded once.

“In that case, I’ll do ‘that pressure thing’ for as long as you need me to. But you have to let me try out this couch nest thing because it looks amazing.”

“Of course, but the first rule of the dragon’s lair is this: no jackets.”

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

More author’s notes: if you’re curious about what series peds!Reader was looking for, it’s These Witches Don’t Burn and its sequel by Isabel Sterling. She wants Fennec to read Circe by Madeline Miller, and she bought The Song of Achilles, also by Madeline Miller

Tagging: @phoenixhalliwell @promiscuoussatan @maybege @jangofctts

#street lights people #Fennec Shand x reader #fennec shand #biker!Fennec #biker au #the mandalorian fanfic #star wars fanfic #wlw #the mandalorian fanfiction #Star Wars au

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mappinglasirena · 3 years

Text

Bothersome Beams in Sirena’s Sickbay

You know how I’ve drawn a clean layout of the Captain’s Quarters to make it reflect the room as seen on screen by e.g. erasing the false door, adding in furniture and marks for the windows, etc? I've been doing that for a bunch of other places as well (toooootally not because I’m procrastinating the two Deep Dives I should be working on....), and a few days ago I started on sickbay. And now I'm stuck.

I've been staring at this so long my brain is turning to mush, so now you all get to suffer with me!

(Fair warning: there be loads of extremely pedantic observations ahead. I hope you like staring at deck plans :D)

This is the outline of sickbay on the deck plans from the blu-ray Set Me Up featurette:

(For orientation and because it will become important later: The front of the ship is on the right-hand side, the back is on the left.)

A quick reminder of the relevant main features: the round part of sickbay has walls that slope outward towards the top, a counter running along the wall around 2/5 of the way up, and three support beams cutting through the wall and the counter.

(Note that in reality, the beams are all straight across the top; they just appear curved here due to lense distortion.)

Looking at the concentric circles in the outline above, let’s try to figure out what’s what. Easiest: the broken grey lines, i.e. the largest two circles, surely must be where the wall meets the ceiling at its widest extension. (Here marked in blue.)

Next, when we look at the transition between the rectangular alcove at the back of the room (marked “med bay” in the plan) and the round “lab area”, we see that it’s smooth and there is no step in between.

(Again: the walls are straight, not curved, it looks that way because of lense effects.)

Given that and the thickness of the line, I think it’s safe to assume this is the outline of the wall, most likely at floor level:

These, as far as I can tell, are the windows at the front of the room, next to the door.

As you can see, they extend almost to the top of the wall and stop short of the unidentified outer circle. Looking at a screenshot...

...the windows sit right above the counter, so it makes sense that the remaining lines would be the outline of said counter (here in green):

So far so good.

Here’s the rub. I was trying to figure out what the vertical lines dividing the counter next to the support beams might be, when I noticed these four bits:

Those look like the places where the support beams cut through the counter.

That makes sense, right?

As you’ve probably noticed before, these beams run throughout the entire ship. We see them everywhere on the upper and lower deck, they are clearly the skeleton that holds Sirena together. You can tell how important they are to the structural integrity because all the deck plans have these vertical, broken grey lines to indicate where the beams are located.

Now, take another look at the markings where the beam towards the back of the room cuts through the counter (I magnified the one on the bottom left):

As you can see pretty clearly, the marking in the counter doesn’t line up with the normal position of the beams, indicated by the broken grey lines. It isn’t off by much. My rough estimate so far is that the beams are about a foot wide with seven feet between them, so this is a difference of maybe 15cm (~6″, apparently). But something is clearly strange here.

You can tell there’s something different at the back of the room, because where the beams in the middle and front are marked by long rectangles, the one in the back is only a small square. It looks almost as if there was only a single column on either side. If that was the case, it would probably mean that the beam at the back of the room was a fake, not technically connected to the beams at the rest of the ship like the middle and front ones.

But does that mean it was also moved a few centimetres further to the front? This has been driving me nuts.

There are a few possible explanations for what might be happening here.

1. I am wrong about those being the markers for where the beams cut through the counter. That is entirely possible.

2. Some changes were made to the set that aren’t yet reflected in this version of the layout. As I said elsewhere, these plans aren’t quite accurate to the final set in all details (e.g. the two steps between the mess hall and sickbay aren’t marked), so it’s possible that this is some intermediate version where the counter design varies a little from its final configuration.

3. The support beams at the back of sickbay do not line up with the beams in the rest of the ship. The production designers decided that they wanted sickbay to be the exact size we see in the plans, but for some logistical or aesthetic reason, having the beams at the back of the room in the logical position (i.e. parallel to the ones on the upper deck) didn’t work, so they moved them forward a little bit.

I cannot tell you how long I spent over the weekend trying to make heads or tails of this.

At first I thought: Well, obviously the beams must have been moved to the front. The grey line marking where they should be goes right across the front of the rectangular bit of the room. They’d block the way if they were in the “correct” place, right?

Except I realized my spatial reasoning is woefully inadequate when trying to visualize a round room with sloped walls, so I did the only reasonable thing: I taught myself how to use SketchUp (again) to make a very, very crude 3D sketch of the relevant sections of this room.

Turns out: when you put the beam exactly where it’s supposed to go, it does actually work out okay. I know it’s a little too small here compared to what it should be...

...but that’s probably more due to my estimates for the thickness of the beams and especially the height of the room being off.

I did another version where I moved the beam forward so it sits where the counter is marked on the deck plan, and the difference is pretty negligible:

It looks a little closer to what we see on screen, but again, that’s probably more a miscalculation issue than an honest-to-god result.

As a last-ditch effort I had another look through my screenshot collection. My thinking was that if the beam was moved forward slightly from where it was “supposed” to be, that would mean we’d see more of it.

(On the left, the beam lines up with the grey lines. The area where it intersects with the counter (solid red) is smaller than in the right-hand example, where the beam was moved to align with the marking in the counter.)

Likewise, the distance the beams extend under the counter would be different, if not by much.

(The beam on the right is moved slightly towards the middle of the room. You can see that it dips lower than the beam on the left, which is in the “correct” position.)

If this was the case we should be able to see it in the screenshots, right? Except...

This is the view towards the front of the room. It’s difficult to tell with the perspective, but I don’t think there is much of a difference in how far the beam towards the front of the room (far right) and the one at the back of the room (far left) extend below the counter?

Maaayyybe there’s a difference there? But then again, if you compare how far they dip below the tops of the chests of drawers, that seems pretty similar...

And this is the point where I decided this insanity had gone on long enough and I should probably stop before my brain got entirely scrambled (since, sadly, I don’t have an EMH to unscramble it for me).

So, what’s the takeaway here?

1.: Short of somebody from the production team giving confirmation either way, we won’t know what happened here. I might have misread the set plan, the plan might have changed, or the beams might have been moved. It will have to remain a mystery until we get more shots with incontrovertible evidence, or somebody takes a measuring tape to the set and reports back ;9

2.: For the purposes of drawing a layout of sickbay, I’m going to assume the beams are in the correct position, since that makes more sense in-universe. I’ll move the counter markings accordingly. If I have to make a correction to that at some point, at least I have done the legwork and can refer back to this post instead of having to explain the whole issue again.

3.: Yes, I did just spend half the weekend obsessing over 15 centimetres, to the point where I taught myself SketchUp (again) and wrote a way too long blog post (I did warn you ;9 ), only to come to the conclusion that, as we say over here: “Nichts Genaues weiß man nicht.” - I guess we’ll never know. I have absolutely no regrets!

And finally 4.: staring at images of sickbay for hours on end really makes you appreciate just how beautiful that space is. Scroll up again and have a look at the screenshots. The way the circle repeats in the lights and the table and the concentric markings on the floor. The intricate holograms projected by the ceiling lights. The plants and tools all along the counters that give the room so much texture and make it seem like a real, lived-in place. The way the crisp black and white paint on the beams and the gleaming floor contrast with the cared-for but scuffed up plating and worn-off red paint all over the rest of Sirena... I just really love this ship, okay?

Anyway. If you have any thoughts on this, or you’ve noticed something I missed, I’d love to hear about it!

I was about to say “I promise the next post will be shorter”, but who are we kidding? My brain doesn’t do brief. And what is this blog for if not extremely rambly analyses that give us all an excuse to ogle screenshots of La Sirena for a few minutes?

#star trek picard #la sirena #lower deck #sickbay #deck plans #layout #inconsistencies #long post #progress blogging #does it still count as 'progress blogging' if there was no actual progress? 😅#let's maybe emend that to #minimapping #i really hope this was understandable and i didn't butcher too many technical terms #who gave the non-native-speaker with the very shaky grasp of interior design and architectural terms the keys to the mapping blog?#at this point the word 'beam' has lost all meaning to me...#but any weekend that involves staring at pictures of Sirena for hours and yelling observations at my friends is a good weekend!

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gloriainalbis · 4 years

Text

Strangers

Part 2 - Anti-Social Behavior (S1E1)

Nathan Young x Reader Words: 6.2k Warnings: Swearing, mentions of sex, drugs, gore, death Songs: Beat on the Brat - Ramones Shoplifters of the World Unite - The Smiths (And also, for shits and giggles…) Somebody Got Murdered - The Clash

“So we will share this road we walk And mind our mouths and beware our talk”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Masterlist | Ao3

The walk to the community center for your second day is brisk but significantly more enjoyable than being forced to listen to your father’s chastising. As you approach the group gathered by a new swath of graffiti on the side of the building, a window opens to your left and out climbs Nathan, who jumps to the ground and winces as the roll-up metal covering slams back down after him. “Nathan?” you ask, stopping in your tracks. “Ah!” He whips around to greet you with a guilty smile, clearly surprised. “Y/n! Good morning, I hope?” He starts walking with you to join the rest of the group. “Yeah, but what are you doin’ here?” “I have my reasons,” he explains vaguely, stretching his arms up and groaning as if he’s just gotten out of bed. He then pulls out a cigarette and sticks it between his teeth, completely failing to notice the giant red letters spelling out ‘I’M GOING TO KILL YOU’ as you walk past them.

“This is a joke,” Curtis exclaims as you approach. “Did one of you do this?” He turns to look at you especially, and you suspect he overheard you yesterday telling Nathan and Kelly how you got your ASBO. “Hey, I’m all for street art and everything, but death threats aren’t really my scene.” “Death threat?” Nathan spins around until he sees the words. “Oh, well would you look at that!” He turns back to the group, glancing at each of you as if looking for an explanation. “Don’t look at me, ‘cuz I didn’t do it,” Kelly snaps at him. “I’ll tell you who did it, it’s that Banksy prick,” he offers. Alisha rolls her eyes, as do a few of the others. “There’s a hidden meaning. It’s like that monkey policeman with the banana and the Tesco’s bag.” “Maybe someone wants to kill us,” Simon speaks softly, looking uncomfortable at Nathan, who’s put an arm around him for some unknown reason. “Why would anyone want to kill us?” Kelly points out. You assume the threat was directed at the community center, not at you six specifically, but don’t really care to speak up. You’d probably be spending the day cleaning it off, so what does it matter who it’s meant for? “Come on, you lot, let’s get changed,” Tony directs, walking up suddenly. “Have you seen this?” Curtis points to the graffiti. Again. “Someone’s takin’ the piss.” “Yeah, it’s terrible, isn’t it? All this anti-social behavior.” Tony turns to look at you all suggestively. “Oh, is he having a dig at us?” Nathan smirks, mumbling through his cigarette. Alisha’s phone begins to ring and Tony jumps, instantly bursting with anger. “Right! That’s it, all of you, just give me your phones! No one’s making any more calls today. Now, come on!” He turns to Alisha first. “Uh-huh,” she scoffs. “Are you allowed to take out phones?” He grabs it out of her hands regardless as she giggles and snaps a picture of him. Kelly and Alisha lock eyes and snicker. Curtis gives his phone up willingly, Kelly tries to ignore him, but Tony grabs it out of her pocket, and Simon gives his up as well. He turns to Nathan. “I’m expecting a call from my mum,” he tries to reason, but Tony rips it from his hand. Nathan gapes at him, affronted. “Okay, take a message.” Then Tony turns to you. You make a point to look him in the eyes and raise your eyebrows to distract him as you press your phone into Nathan’s hand. You see him glance at you in confusion before catching on and pocketing it. “Haven’t got one,” you explain casually, holding up your empty hands. You can swear Tony growls as he reaches out to feel your pockets. “Damn, is that even legal?” you half-whisper. To your right, Nathan bites his lip to keep from smiling and giving you away. It works. Tony huffs and lumbers back to the community center. Curtis flips up his hood and follows suit. “Wanker,” Kelly sneers as she strolls past Tony. Nathan watches to make sure they leave. “That was brilliant!” He gushes as soon as Tony’s out of earshot, handing you your phone. “It was nothing,” you brush off, starting to follow behind the others. “You can use it to phone your mum if you’d like.” “Oh, no, that’s alright.” He looks away, staring at his feet as he walks. “Are you sure?” you ask. You hadn’t snuck the phone past Tony only for him, but it was, you know, a good upside. And you aren’t sure what other opportunities he would have to use it, now that Tony thought he’d taken all the phones. “Yeah, she won’t call.” You can tell that he’s trying to sound like he doesn’t care. But, you’re learning this quickly, Nathan isn’t exactly the best liar. “I won’t ask.” You wonder what the situation is, but don’t want to pry. Nathan smiles. Back at the locker rooms, everyone begins changing into their jumpsuits. Alisha situates herself in front of the mirror and begins to fiddle. She pops up her collar, undoes the top few buttons of her jumpsuit, and combes at her hair, fluffing it up. Kelly, having already changed, is lighting what looks to be either a hand-rolled cigarette or a blunt. “Is he allowed to take our phones?” Nathan muses. “He’s probably using them to call one of those sex lines.” Alisha giggles. “Those sex lines will eat your credit,” Curtis comments. “Call them a lot, do you?” Alisha raises an eyebrow. Kelly passes her the cigarette and she watches herself take a few draws from it in the mirror. Nathan continues with his disturbing ruminations, “He’s out there feeling himself on our phones, naked, masturbating.” “Now why would he do that?” Curtis questions, quite sensibly. “Because he can,” Nathan responds. “That’s quite the image,” you groan, trying desperately not to imagine it. “Oh, I’ll give you an image.” Nathan winks, pulling off his shirt. You roll your eyes and look away, leaning against the door of your locker. Glancing to the back of the room, you wonder where Simon’s run off to. You thought you’d seen him standing by the buckets a few moments ago. “Do you want some of this?” Alisha holds out the cigarette, tucked between her blue manicured fingers, to Curtis, who refuses. “Give it here, come on,” Nathan says as he walks past her and she hands it to him. As you grab a bucket and follow him out, you notice that he has crossed the ‘pay’ from ‘community payback’ on the back of his jumpsuit to make it say ‘community blowback’ instead. You smile and chuckle to yourself. Curtis appears to be the only one actually trying to remove those giant red letters from the wall, scrubbing determinedly while the rest of you just sort of brush at them and hope they disappear. Alisha isn’t even working. She’s unzipped and removed the entire upper half of her jumpsuit to reveal a bikini top and is sunning herself on a nearby table. “Yeah, you just relax, innit? Take it easy,” Curtis grumbles. “Someone’s just going to write something else on there tonight,” she retorts. “They make us do these bullshit jobs, wearing these bullshit orange jumpsuits. They can suck my dick.” You have to admit, she has a point. “Nice,” he looks her up and down and smirks coquettishly. “Feel free to check out my tits, yeah,” she encourages, blowing a kiss and looking down at him smokily from behind her lowered sunglasses. You look back at your designated section of furiously bright red paint. Wishing it would just go away, you lean down to get more soap on your brush, and when you stand back up, your section of the wall is spotless. You stumble backward, bewildered. “Guys?” you gape, trying to catch their attention, pointing to the bare wall. But when everyone turns to look, it’s gone back to normal, the bold lettering mocking you. “What?” Kelly asks, scrunching up her face in what looks like confusion and concern. You rush back to the wall, running your fingers across the paint, and they come back dusted with red. It’s real. “I-” everyone looks at you like you’re crazy, and they’re probably right. “It’s nothing.” A few moments later, Kelly stops scrubbing. “You know after the storm, did any of you feel like dead weird?” She sounds serious. “Yeah. I had a strange tingling sensation in my anus,” Nathan quips. You roll your eyes and turn to her, “I think I’ve been seein’ things,” you admit. “Yeah, I’ve been hearin’ shit,” she agrees before spinning around to address Simon, seemingly out of the blue. “What, did you feel weird?” “You don’t want to hear about my anus?” Nathan calls, clutching his hands to his butt. “Do you really need to ask the question?” you hear Curtis say from behind you. You shove Nathan and turn back around to pay attention to Simon and Kelly, ignoring his cry of indignation. “Something happened,” Simon begins quietly. “What’s that? Squeak up!” Nathan chides. “Something happened to me,” he repeats louder. “Are you a virgin? Hi-hoooooy!” Nathan jokes, and you contemplate punching him again. Kelly does it for you, turning to yell, “Shut up!” which effectively shuts him down, before returning to Simon. “What was it?” He gulps and you can see the nervousness churning behind his eyes. “It’s nothing.” Kelly scrunches her face up and scowls, running past you to shove Nathan. “What was that for?” he calls after her. She turns to you as she goes, “Didn’t you hear that? It was disgustin’.” You hadn’t, and you have no idea what she’s referring to. So you shrug at Nathan, who looks suitably chastened, and return to your scrubbing. Later, you’re all starting to congregate around the couches in the main entrance hall. Kelly still hasn’t returned, but the letters are mostly gone and you’re all angling for a break. Alisha is taking up an entire couch section to herself, sitting sideways with her feet up, and Simon is sequestered in the alcove of a doorway. You’re sitting on a larger couch across from them, watching Nathan beat up a vending machine to try and get a free soda. He holds one up, triumphant, as you slow clap and he takes a bow. Curtis walks up with a stack of empty buckets under his arm. “When I was in sixth form, you came to my school. You gave this big talk about athletics and all your medals and that.” Alisha says to Curtis with a tone that entreats him to elaborate on his story. Nathan rolls out behind him in a wheelchair, soda in hand, “So I’m guessin’ you’re not going to the Olympics.” “Funny,” Curtis snaps sarcastically at the obvious jab. “I heard he was dealing crack,” Alisha chimes with a quirk of her eyebrow. Curtis scowls. “What? I wasn’t dealing crack.” “No, no, the papers said it was steroids,” Nathan adds, opening his soda with a hiss. “That stuff with shrivel your dick,” Alisha lies down on her seat. Curtis takes a few steps forward, looking at them insistently. “It wasn’t steroids. I’m not a cheat. That stuff in the papers was bullshit.” “Yeah? So what was it, then?” Alisha presses. Nathan raises his eyebrows. Curtis takes a few hesitant seconds to reply. “I got caught with a little bit of coke. Alright? I messed up one time.” “No one gets community service for possession,” Alisha holds her arms up, asking him to explain. He scoffs. “If it was anyone else, they’d have got a caution. I get two hundred hours community service and a two year back from athletics. They said, ‘cuz of my profile, they needed to send a message.” You feel bad for Curtis for being treated differently because of his success. It doesn't seem fair, bringing someone so far down when they’d come so far and were so close to reaching their goals. “You let yourself down,” Nathan taunts, grinning deviously. Your eyes widen, wishing he had kept his mouth shut. “You let the kids down. You let your parents down-” Curtis fumes and stews in silence before suddenly bursting, launching forward at Nathan “Shut the fuck up! All I ever did was train! You know nothing! I shouldn’t even fuckin’ be here!” If only Nathan could just shut up for one second. “You can’t hit someone in a wheelch-” Nathan’s eyes flash wide open as a piece of duct tape appears over his mouth. Alisha and Simon sit up straighter, pulled to attention. You sit there horrified, realizing that for the first time that you definitely aren’t the only one seeing this. Nathan points to Curtis in accusation. “It wasn’t me, mate.” He holds his arms up, taking a few fearful steps back. You feel sick to your stomach, too frozen in place to say anything. Nathan lets out a muffled scream and tries to pull off the duct tape, scrambling at it with his fingers. It crumbles into his hands like dust before disappearing completely. You let out a huge sigh of relief, but your heart continues to thump away in your chest. “Who was that?” Nathan yells, jumping out of the wheelchair, which rolls backward until it hits the wall. You gulp. “I- I think I did it?” “Well, what the fuck for?! And how?” He rears on you, anger and confusion written plainly on his face. “I have no idea,” you admit honestly. Alisha scoffs and giggles, somehow finding the situation funny. “Do you wanna know what I got done for?” “Not really,” Nathan remarks, turning his head to glare at you before plopping himself back down in the wheelchair. That sends a pang of guilt through your chest. You don’t really know what you did, or how you did it. Alisha motions for you to come closer and you all gather to sit in audience before her, “Me and my mate Chloe, we’re having cocktails in this bar, yeah? An’ she’s hassling me, ‘cuz she wants to go to this party. Chloe is on one because she thinks Jack is doing Lucy. A total slut fuck. So we get in my car. I drive us to the party.” “Nathan?” you whisper, poking his arm to get his attention. “We go into one of the rooms, yeah? Jack’s not doing Lucy, he’s doing Ellie. She is a proper slut.” “What?” He still looks pissed. “I’m sorry. Something really weird’s going on.” You hope he believes you, he seems pretty fun, if a bit vulgar, and you aren’t even sure of how you’d screwed it up. “Chloe freaks. I’m driving us back into town. Chloe’s all like ‘Oh, I feel sick.’ I’m like ‘Don’t puke in my car. Do not puke in my car.’” “Alright.” He gives you a small smile. “Really?” You didn’t think it would be that easy, but maybe he remembered what Kelly said earlier. “That’s when the police pull us over. I’m already banned from driving, so I am like ‘Fuuuck.’” “Yeah, no hard feelings.” He reaches down to ruffle the top of your hair, weirdly enough, but it fits pretty well with what you know of Nathan so far. “This cop, yeah? He hands me the breathalyzer and I’m like ‘Do I suck, or blow?’” Alisha runs her tongue along the bottom edge of her water bottle before licking the cap and putting her lips around it, slowly working up and down. “It’s insane, I’m totally workin’ it, yeah?” She licks up the bottle’s side before sticking the entire top in her mouth again and bobbing her head back and forth, in and out, pursing her lips as she picks up speed before slowly and carefully pulling it back out. “Now, I don’t know if this cop is gay or what, but he tells me I’m four times over the limit. It’s bullshit. I didn’t even want to go to the party.” You’re a little grossed out, but all the boys are gaping at this point. Just then, the front doors fly open with a bang and Kelly tumbles into the room, scrambling to her feet to lock it, screaming, “He’s gonna kill us!” You scramble backward before jumping up from your seat on the floor. Nathan spins around in his chair, clapping. “Nice entrance. Very dramatic.” But Kelly looks distraught and shaken, and you don’t think she’s exaggerating anything. “The probation worker’s gone mental. He just attacked me! Something really weird is happening. I’m hearin’ these voices. It’s like I can hear what people are thinking!” she explains hastily. “Have you been sniffing glue?” Alisha scolds, tilting her head to the side in mock sympathy. Kelly raises her voice, practically yelling in desperation, “The storm, the lightning! It’s done something to us!” “Okay,” Nathan speaks up. “If you can hear our thoughts, what am I thinking now?” “You think it’s bullshit?!” Kelly exclaims. “‘Course I think it’s bullshit!” he snaps back. “You don’t need to be a mind reader to know that.” “Why are you in a wheelchair?” she asks tentatively, just now noticing it. “It was the storm!” You roll your eyes as he messes with her. “The strange tingling sensation in my anus has spread to my body and now I can’t feel my legs.” She realizes he’s joking and kicks him “I’m serious!” “Ow! Jesus!” You decide to take a gamble at something. Kelly, you think, the storm did something to me too. “What, you, too?” She asks, turning to face you. “Yeah,” you nod. “It happened just a few minutes ago. I wanted Nathan to shut up and then duct tape just appeared over his mouth. And it happened with the graffiti earlier, I wanted it to disappear, and then it did, for a second.” Her eyes light up and she turns to the rest of the group. “See? I ain’t lyin’!” “Well then, what do you mean the probation worker attacked you?” Curtis takes a few steps towards her. Alisha doesn’t believe either of you, “This does sound like complete shit.” “He’s out there and he chased me!” She insists, frantically pointing to the door. “Something’s happened to me, too,” Simon speaks up. “Did you pop your cherry?” Nathan teases, still not taking any of this seriously. “Oh, we’re all very happy for you!” Simon ignores him and addresses everyone else. “Earlier on, when we were in the locker room… I was invisible. I turned invisible.” “So she’s psychic, you can make hallucinations or whatever, and you can turn invisible?” Curtis speaks, trying to make sense of everything. He chuckles. “Yeah, that seems likely.” “Did anyone witness this miraculous disappearance?” Nathan questions, leaning forward in his chair. “Yes!” you exclaim, turning to Simon. “You were standing by the buckets and then you weren’t! I wondered where you’d run off to.” Simon nods, spurred on by your admission, “You were all there.” Alisha scoffs, still not convinced, “I think we might have noticed you vanishing into thin air.” “I was standing right there and you couldn’t see me,” he insists, a sad, almost betrayed look crossing his face. “Alright.” Nathan puts on a determined look and wheels over to Simon. “Go on, then. Do it. Turn invisible.” Simon tenses and grunts, trying to force it. You glare at Nathan for putting him on the spot like this, and you feel a pang of guilt for generally encouraging his antics. “Oh, my god!” Nathan exclaims. “He’s disappeared!” You roll your eyes and groan, feeling worse by the second. Simon, however, seems to believe him, holding out a hand in front of Nathan’s eyes. “Can’t you see me?” “No,” Nathan gasps before throwing his empty soda can at Simon’s head and proclaiming, “you’re invisible!” “You prick! What’d you do that for?” you ask, miffed, but he ignores you. “You all are hilarious, really. Keep taking that medication.” He starts wheeling towards the door, but Kelly jumps in front of him and grabs his armrests. “Don’t go out there, he will kill you!” she yells. “Of course he will, ‘cuz he’s such a badass,” Nathan retorts sarcastically. “Don’t!” She screams, with angry and fearful tears in her eyes. Curtis just walks past her to the door, scoffing in disbelief, “Come on, this is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.” “No!!” Kelly shrieks, throwing Curtis out of the way as the door swings open. You hear a bellowing roar as a metal tube flies through the open door and into Kelly’s head, spraying streams of blood up and down the wall beside her. “Kelly!” you cry in shock. Her expression slackens and her eyes go blank as she slumps against the wall and tumbles to the floor, dead. Tony bursts into the room with a sharp, red-stained tube in his hands. Another scream tears at your throat as you feel a hand on your arm, Nathan’s, pulling you away and setting you running down the hall. . . . . . “Can’t you see me?” Simon gasps, holding out a hand in front of Nathan’s eyes and appearing to believe him. “No,” Nathan gaspes before throwing his empty soda can at Simon’s head and proclaiming, “you’re invisible!” “You prick! What’d you do that for?” you ask, miffed, but he ignores you. “You all are hilarious, really. Keep taking that medication.” He starts wheeling towards the door, but Kelly jumps in front of him and grabs onto his armrests. “Don’t go out there, he will kill you!” she yells. “Of course he will, ‘cuz he’s such a badass,” Nathan retorts sarcastically. “Don’t!” She screams, with angry and fearful tears in her eyes. Curtis jolts forward, fear gripping his expression “She’s telling the truth.” Nathan looks absolutely delighted. “And you know this how? I suppose you’re psychic now, too?” Curtis’ entire demeanor has completely shifted. He’s breathing heavily now out of shock or fear, or because of something you can’t quite understand. He speaks urgently and uneasily, “All this. It’s already happened once. I opened the door, the probation worker, he killed you.” He points to Kelly. “You were right there. You were dead. Everything froze. You were all just standing there. Time went backwards.” “What are you saying?” Alisha pipes up. “What, you turned back time?” Nathan rises from his seat, eyeing Curtis curiously, “This just gets better by the second.” He strides to the door. “Everything happened again, exactly the same. I’m telling you, don’t open that door!” Curtis insists, following after him. You run. “Nathan, no!” you scream, reaching the door just as he puts a hand on it. A giant lock and chain appears around the handles. He gives you an odd glance before yanking the door open regardless, and the chains turn into dust and disappear. You couldn’t see what he was looking at, but an expression of terror sweeps across Nathan’s face and he closes and locks the door in a flurry of jittery movements. “He’s right, the probation worker’s gone mental!” he gasps. Tony slams into the other side of the door and your heart leaps out of your chest. You only catch a glimpse of his hulking, dark frame silhouetted against the frosted glass before Nathan shrieks and pulls you away to join the rest of the group, who are all standing together. “Maybe he’s on crystal meth,” Alisha tries to reason, but the waver in her voice gives away her fear. “I mean, that stuff makes you crazy. My friend Chloe did it, she nearly shagged her brother. And he’s really ugly” “Enough about Chloe!” you exclaim. “It sounds like she’s made some really poor life choices and I’d rather not follow in her footsteps!” Simon gasps, realizing something, “The graffiti. ‘I’m going to kill you,” he wrote it.” “What did I say? I said there was a hidden meaning! Or not.” Nathan retorts. Realizing his hand is still clasped around your arm, he drops it awkwardly and looks away. “Did anything happen to you?” Kelly asks, turning to face Alisha. “No, we should call the police!” she suggests adamantly. Simon shakes his head. “He took our phones, he’s got all our phones.” Nathan turns to look at you and you smile, pulling your phone out of your pocket. “Well, not all of them.” You hold it up for the rest of the group to see, turning it on to find- “Fuck! I don’t have reception in this shithole.” “Let’s get out of here, then,” Curtis offers. “Out the back way, come on!” Nathan calls, moving down the hall and motioning for everyone to follow him. But as he turns the corner, he slips, crying out and falling to the floor with a loud squelch and a squeak. Nathan is sprawled on the floor in a pool of thick, stagnant blood. Your stomach churns as you try to keep yourself from retching. “Is that blood?!” Kelly screams. Realization washes over Nathan and he scrambles to his feet, “Oh, fuck! Jesus Christ!” He gapes at the dark red smears coating his hands and gags, wiping them desperately on his jumpsuit. “Get it off me, Jesus!” It’s then that you notice the locker. Blood oozes from each vent and out onto the tile below, trickling down the front of the door like a morbid waterfall. Curtis approaches carefully before gingerly opening the door. Gary’s smashed in head lurches forward and you all jump, screaming as it lolles back and forth. His jumpsuit is stained red in various gruesome places and his body is sitting at odd, gut-wrenching angles in the tiny locker. Blood has dripped down from his ears, nose, and mouth, and predominantly from a gaping, disgusting wound on the left side of his neck. “It’s Gary,” Simon murmurs. “I did wonder what had happened to him,” Nathan mumbles, inching closer and peering at the contorted, lifeless form before you. It is undoubtedly the worst thing you have ever seen, but you can’t take your eyes off of it, the horror is all-encompassing. “He’s gonna kill us,” Alisha whispers, on the verge of tears. “Turn back time,” Nathan says to Curtis. “Stop this happening.” “I don’t know how it works!” He exclaims frantically. “Oh, that’s great, that’s really useful!” Nathan chides. Curtis ignores him, instead turning to comfort Alisha “Come on, don’t look at him.” You wish the body would disappear, and some dark sheets appear to cover everything. You know it’s temporary, but you just want to be able to look away. Curtis puts his hand on Alisha’s arm and gasps. “I’ve got to have sex with you right now! You’re so beautiful.” He grabs her shoulder and pulls her closer to him. “What’s up with him?” Nathan calls in confusion. Alisha is screaming and trying to pull her arm out of Curtis’s grip. “Let’s go, let’s do it now!” He reaches his hand into his pants and you turn away, disgusted. Your mind screams at you to do something, to pull him off of her, but you have no idea what’s happening and you freeze. “Get off me, you freak!” Alisha finally yanks her arm out of his grasp and stumbles back. “What?” Curtis asks, completely unaware of what just occurred, of what he said and tried to do. Alisha reels back an arm, preparing to slap him. He grabs it out of the air and his skin touches hers again, suddenly groaning in a way that makes your skin crawl. “You’re so hot! I’m gonna bone you, I’m gonna shag you senseless!” “Let go!” she yells, stumbling backward out of his grip. The look on her face is confused and horrified, and a thousand other emotions you had hoped never to see on anyone you knew. “What did I do?” Curtis asks. Kelly speaks up, “Uh, you said you were gonna shag her?” “And you were gettin’ your chap out,” Nathan points. “Shut up!” Curtis gasps, messing with the waistline of his pants. “It’s when you were touching her,” Simon realizes. Alisha looks down at her shaky hands before reaching to touch the side of Simon’s neck. He jerks up, gasping. “I’m so hard for you. I want to rip your clothes off and piss on your tits,” Simon growls. Alisha rips her hand from him and jumps back. “What is happening to me?!” She cries. Nathan turns to Simon, looking amused and mildly disgusted, “You sick bastard!” Suddenly, the door behind you caves in, sending shards of glass flying in every direction. Tony falls through, bringing parts of the broken door frame with him as he tumbles to the floor. You hear Nathan yell in surprise as he backs away, getting as far from Tony as possible. You go the other direction, stupidly pinning yourself against one of the remaining glass doors. Tony snarls and reared on you, raising himself onto his knees before climbing to his feet. Your shriek is lost in everyone else’s screams, but then Kelly jumps in front of you from seemingly nowhere, brandishing a paint can in one hand. She swings it at Tony and it slams into his head with a sickening thunk. He collapses back to the floor, motionless. “What did you do?” Nathan gasped after a few shockingly silent seconds, genuinely horrified. The side of the paint can was caved in and smeared in red. There was a hole in Tony’s head that blood had begun to spill from. You whimpered and stumbled away from him, keeping as close to the wall as possible before leaving it to shuffle past the locker that held Gary. “Is he dead?” Alisha asked in a high pitched whisper. Nathan speaks up, “Well, I’m no doctor, but… You see the way the back of his head’s caved in like that?” Suddenly, Tony roars and grasps at Kelly’s leg, which is only a few feet from him. You jump back and feel an arm wrap around you and turn your head away from the quickly escalating scene of horror. Kelly reacts immediately, tearing her leg from his grip and bringing it down on his head, over and over again in a chorus of appalling splinters and squelches. “That should do it,” Nathan speaks as he lets his arms fall from your shoulders, his voice creaky with distress. “You killed our probation worker,” Alisha gasps, turning to Kelly. Kelly shakes her head slightly in shock. “This is very, very bad.” Nathan runs his hands through his hair. Alisha gags, looking away from Tony’s corpse. “Oh, I feel sick.” “He would have killed us!” Kelly reasons, insecurity and fear worming its way into the warble of her voice. “We should call the police. It was self-defense,” Curtis suggests, echoing Alisha’s words from only a few minutes ago. But while that was your original plan, it was now entirely out of the question. “Yeah,” Alisha agrees, “yeah, he’s right. We show ‘em the dead boy in the locker. They’ll do some CSI shit and figure it all out.” “They won’t believe us!” Kelly cries, and you suspect she’s right. “We just tell them the truth. We stick to our story,” Curtis persists. “What’s our story?” she asks, exasperated. “That he can turn invisible and she can conjure illusions and you can turn back time?! It doesn’t matter what we tell them, they’ll say we’re lying. They’ll say that we killed ‘em both! No one’s gonna believe you, not anymore.” She’s right. You know she’s right, deep in your being, in your bones, and you hate it. You hate how true it is, how messed up and unfair it is. “If there’s no body, there’s no crime,” Simon mutters anxiously. Everyone turns to look at him. “We should bury them under the flyover.” “Yeah? How do we do that? Someone’s gonna see us,” Alisha points out. You’re grateful for that, honestly. You’re all so distraught right now, you might have actually just walked outside with two dead bodies without thinking there would be consequences. Nathan shakes his head and you can practically see him thinking. “No, no, no. We give them a quick little,” he whistles to represent cleaning or something. “We put them in those wheelchairs, we wheel them up there, and if anyone sees us, we’re just a bunch of young offenders taking a couple of specials for a walk in the sunshine!” He tries to smile, but he looks far too tense to do so. After cleaning up and redressing the bodies, wheeling them under the flyover, and digging the hole, Nathan and Kelly tip over the wheelchairs, now soaked in blood, and dump the bodies into the ground. Nathan looks up at you somberly, a queasy expression on his face. Everyone is silent for a few seconds, partially relieved, but also knowing that the real danger begins now, with keeping this covered up. Nathan shakes his head and puts on his usual playful airs, “I’m pretty sure this breaches the terms of my ASBO.” It isn’t even that funny, but you’re so weary, so exhausted from the past two days of crazy events and literal murder, that you start laughing. Nathan does too, first small giggles, then snickers, and then all-out laughter. The mood hasn’t lightened much by the time you quiet down, and you only feel marginally better, but it’s the best you’ve felt in the past few hours, so that’s a start. “We don’t tell anyone about this, yeah?” Kelly instructs. Everyone nods. “About the storm or what it did to us or anything.” “We’re about to bury our probation worker, we don’t need to be drawing any attention to ourselves,” Nathan agrees. “I don’t want anyone to know.” Alisha grabs a shovel and stands by the open grave. “I cannot be a freak.” “It’s too late for me on that front,” you joke, “but being convicted for murder wouldn’t help anything.” “What about you?” Kelly points to Curtis, who remains bitterly silent. Nathan shakes his head, “There’s no goin’ back now, man. You’re just as screwed as the rest of us. You are black and famous, you’re probably more screwed.” “I shouldn’t even be here,” Curtis spits. “You don’t really have a choice,” you point out. Curtis meets your gaze for a second before bending down and digging his shovel into the newly upturned soil. You follow suit. Kelly turns to Alisha, “Just then, when he was touchin’ ya… How were you doin’ that?” “I don’t know!” Alisha responds, trying to brush her off. “Didn’t you say you wanted to piss on her tits?” Nathan teases, unfortunately reminding everyone of the particulars of that scene. “Probably best to keep that kind of thing between you and your internet service provider.” Simon is clearly trying not to look mortified, and he just continued shoveling. “Are you alright?” Curtis stops for a moment to address Alisha, remembering the involuntary part he played in the discovery of her power. She doesn’t say anything. Kelly stands up suddenly to repeatedly glance between you and Nathan. “What?” you ask. Nathan glares insistently at her, realizing what’s happening even as you don’t. “It’s nothin’,” Kelly shrugged and returned to shoveling. After a few more minutes, Nathan stands up and leans on his shovel, “Hold on, all of you have some kind of ‘special power.’ “Everyone can do something except me. He can do something,” he points to Simon, “he can do something and I can’t. That’s ridiculous, look at him! How does that make any sense.” Simon stops for a moment to wipe some sweat from his brow. “Well he sure is working harder than you,” you point out. “I work harder in other areas,” Nathan explains suggestively. “Maybe you can do something, you just haven’t found out what it is yet,” Simon reasons. “Yeah, right.” Nathan smiles, emboldened by the possibilities. “What if… What if I can’t feel pain?” Kelly punches him. “Ow!” “Did you feel that?” She grins. You laugh, completely understanding the impulse. “Stop hitting me!” Nathan protests. “Both of you!” The sky has darkened significantly by the time you finish the burial, and it isn't helped by the fact that you have to stop every few minutes when it suddenly looks like everything is done because you really want to just be finished. It’s actually a pretty good exercise in controlling your power. It’s even later by the time you finish cleaning off the wheelchairs, locker, and the surrounding area. Nathan catches up with you as you leave, asking if you want to walk home with him again. His voice sounds chipper and you half expect him to be joking, but when you look up, his eyes plead with you to say yes. So you do. And you don’t walk in silence. There is much to say about the past two days and it feels good to say it, to divulge your fear and your worries, and to hear them reciprocated. He turns down the same street he did the previous day and you walk the rest of the way alone, trying not to let your overwhelming fear of the future overtake you. You finally return home and collapse onto your bed for the second day in a row, once again hoping that the next day would be better, and doubting that it could be much worse.

#misfits #misfits tv #nathan #nathan young #nathan young misfits #nathan misfits #nathan young x reader #nathan young imagine

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monstersandmaw · 5 years

Text

Male lizardfolk x female reader (nsfw) *Commission*

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

A commission for @ivymemnoch, featuring a nerdy lizardfolk boy (colouring/design based on a European green lizard) and a tall reader. This is the first of my five commissions to be completed and posted on here, and since it’s a paid commission, it doesn’t get early release on Patreon. Enjoy!

8144 words, no warnings, only fluff, some geekery, and some nsfw at the end. I will add though that I discovered that snakes aren’t the only reptiles to have two penises... lizards do too.

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After a draining, all-day session in the recording studio, the last thing you wanted was to step out of the soundproofed booth and hear the relentless thrumming of raindrops on the windows.

The producer called over to you, briefly drawing your attention away from the foul weather, and grinned. “That was great! You really nailed her character. I think we can press on with the next section on Monday.” The sphinx smiled at you and stretched slightly before adding, “You have a good weekend now. Rest that voice of yours!”

You smiled and turned to look out of the nearest window with a grimace sliding onto your face. “Ugh. What a day to leave my umbrella behind,” you muttered. “Anyway, see you.”

Lingering just a moment more in the doorway of the recording studio, you eyed the rain and then - resigned to smelling like a wet werewolf - made a dash for it. Three seconds after you’d left the building, it doubled in strength and began to thrash down. Up ahead, still illuminated despite the fact that it was after five o’clock, was a shop you’d often thought about going in, but had never made time to venture inside. With an indignant squawk as the universe nudged you not-so-gently towards the comic book store by dripping water down your collar, you hurtled across the empty street, splashing through rapidly-forming puddles, and shot inside, soaked.

Standing on the mat for a moment, you shivered and gazed around at the room beyond. The walls were lined with bookshelves containing relatively ordinary looking books, and in the centre of the room was a lower stand displaying comics. On the top of this shelf, however, was a small army of figurines from a plethora of games and movies, and as you spotted a favourite of yours, you grinned. This place was nerd nirvana.

At the back of the room, surrounded as if in a shrine by a small alcove dedicated to arts and crafts and prop-making supplies for tabletop games, was the counter and cash register. The figure sitting behind it had looked up as you burst into his slice of peaceful heaven and the movement of his colourful head drew your eye over to him. Tall, slim but clearly muscular, with lime green skin speckled with gold and a wash of vibrant blue across his throat and up his cheeks towards friendly, golden eyes, the lizardfolk looking at you in mild surprise was frankly gorgeous.

You blinked stupidly for a second and then blurted, “I promise not to drip on any of the books.”

He grinned, a wide, warm smile that showed a row of pointed white teeth. “Appreciate it,” he said. His amber, unblinking gaze shifted to the rain and he said, “Gods, it’s really throwing it down out there.”

“Yup. I didn’t make it more than a hundred yards from work before bolting for cover. Nice place to duck into though,” you added, eyeing the figurines and graphic novels around you.

“You work near here?” he asked, setting down the tiny model he’d been painting. His clawed fingers were surprisingly slender and delicate.

You nodded. “Currently, at least. I’m a voice actor. The recording studio is just round the corner.”

“Sweet!” he exclaimed. “You voiced any characters I might know?”

You shrugged. “Maybe? I mean, Eliana from Ice Dragon Chronicles is probably the one I’m most known for? Mostly it’s just small parts for all sorts of things though. She was a rare break…”

“No way!” he breathed, “That’s awesome! Oh wow…” and he practically giggled with delight. His blue throat flushed a darker, more vibrant colour too. “That’s so cool. I’m sorry - you probably just wanted to browse in peace, or even just stay out of the rain. I’m sorry.”

Laughing softly, you said, “You know what? I’ve always wanted to check this place out, but I don’t really know where I’d start… I’ve read a few Manga, but I’d like to try a graphic novel…”

He stood, revealing just how tall he was. You were pretty tall yourself, for a human, but he stood easily a head higher than you. He blinked slowly and grinned, twitching his head towards the shelves along the walls. “Here’s one I always recommend to get people started. I warn you though, it’s a slippery slope… If you like this one, you’ll be obsessed in no time. I’m Bik, by the way.”

“I think I can handle it,” you smiled and he chuckled, handing you a slim but beautifully designed book with a dragon on the front and a female knight on a chestnut charger.

The art style was gorgeous and the writing seemed pretty good quality too, and as you leafed through the first few pages, you found yourself drawn in to the story about the female knight and the dragon. Finally you glanced up at him and said, “I’m assuming you don’t want me to read it all here right now…”

“It’d be nice if you bought it,” he grinned playfully.

He’d just reached out to take it from you when the door opened and a hunch-shouldered werewolf pushed inside, having just shaken the worst of the weather off on the doorstep all over their companion. The person behind her was a tiny, slender, and extraordinarily pretty young woman with pastel lilac hair that for some reason looked natural rather than dyed. Despite her almost innocent, childlike looks, she seemed decidedly furious about the soggy insult from the werewolf. In turn behind them came a figure who would have blotted out the daylight in the doorway had there been any to speak of outside.

You’d never met a hobgoblin before, and you tried not to stare as he lumbered in after the other two who had come to an abrupt halt at the sight of Bik and you standing together with your new graphic novel between you. The grin on the werewolf’s face made you think of feeding time at the zoo, and Bik clearly noticed it because his lithe tail swished a few times behind him in annoyance.

“Shall I take that for you?” Bik asked, offering his elegant hand again for the book and leading you over to the till so that you could pay for it.

You smiled and nodded, aware that the small group behind you were muttering between themselves. Bik was obviously aware of it as well, and seemed irritated by it, though you weren’t sure why. As you fished out the right money from your wallet, he muttered, “My D&D group… We meet every Friday. I’m sorry about them.”

“They seem nice,” you smiled, trying to reassure him. “You know, I’ve never played.”

“Really?” he asked, his golden eyes flashing brightly for an instant.

You shook your head and took the book from him, sliding it into your bag to keep it dry. “One thing at a time, eh?” you grinned before he could invite you to join in and he laughed.

“Hope to see you back again,” he added sheepishly. “There are some others I can recommend to you, whether you like that one or not.”

You nodded. He seemed so cute with the way he tilted his head and blinked his big eyes every now and again. His colouring was also astonishingly pretty, looking like a mosaic of gold and green all along his back, with that vibrant zing of blue around his throat. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” you said as you turned to go, and you really meant it.

While you were walking down the row of books towards the door, grateful that the rain seemed to have lessened considerably, you heard the werewolf dig her friend in the ribs and mutter, “Talk about your type!”

“Shut up,” Bik hissed. “Or she won’t come back.”

Of course, you did find yourself returning to his shop, though not on a Friday evening. You were sure his friends were nice, but you weren’t really there to meet them; at least, not just yet.

Bik’s face lit up when you stepped inside and he hopped down off the counter where he’d been sitting like a naughty schoolboy, swinging his legs and reading a comic which sat in his lap. “You came back!” he chirruped as he set it aside and came over. He wore tight-fitting jeans with a big hole tailored in the back for the thick root of his tail, and a blue t-shirt with a faded print on.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” you asked, aiming for playful but still coming across as a little shy, perhaps even coy. “You said you had more recommendations for me…”

“You liked it then?”

“Loved it! The twist at the end was amazing.”

His toothy grin made your stomach flip over and you glanced away as a blush rose up your cheeks.

You spent the next half an hour dissecting every detail about the first book he’d recommended, and from there, he chose three others that might suit.

Over the next few weeks, you returned to the shop regularly, and on one blustery August afternoon, you found him preparing some props for his next D&D session. Instead of talking books, you asked him about them, and he tilted his head in that adorable way he had, glancing over the half-finished figurines and what looked like a maquette of an old castle ruin or something.

“Did you make that too?” you asked, and he nodded.

“Yeah. It helps with the game, but honestly I just enjoy making stuff…”

“They’re beautiful! You could work in the props department at a film company or something.”

His blue throat became so vibrant in contrast with his lime green skin that it almost hurt to look at him, and he half turned away. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I get a lot of free time in the shop; fellow nerds aren’t too thick on the ground here, if you know what I mean. Hey, listen,” he added, scratching the back of his head with a clawed finger. “I’ve… uh… I’ve been wondering if maybe you’d like to come along to a session one day? You don’t have to take part or anything if you don’t want to, and we are, like, halfway through this campaign, but if you wanted to you could fill in for one of the NPCs or something… But… uh…” He trailed off, embarrassed and picked up one of the half-finished mimic chests on the counter top.

You watched as he turned it over in his delicate fingers and then chuckled. “You know what? I’d love to.”

At that, he dropped it and spun back around. “You’re serious?”

“Sure! Why not?” you asked, stooping to pick it up and handing it back to him. “Should I bring snacks?”

“Oh my god, could you get any more perfect!” he blurted and then laughed, staring down at the miniature mimic in his hands as if hoping that it might just eat him up on the spot. “Snacks would be amazing, but you don’t have to. Usually we take it in turns to bring something. It’s Oleander’s turn this Friday.”

“Oleander?”

“I don’t know if you remember her, but she’s the tiny one with the purple hair. She’s half fae and all sass. She bakes the most amazing sugar cookies though…”

“Got a sweet tooth then?” you asked and he nodded.

“Duly noted. Tell me about the others? Was the big one a hobgoblin?”

Bik nodded. “Yeah, that’s Jos. He’s kind of shy, but he’s great once you get to know him. He’s playing this tiny elven bard, and she’s -” he broke off, realising he was about to go off on a long and potentially quite boring waffle about their characters. Clearing his throat, he said instead, “Anyway, so yeah, that’s Jos. The werewolf is Emma. She’s… a bit brash and loud at times, but she means well.”

“How do you guys all know each other?” you asked, moving over to examine the figurines on the counter while he talked.

“From school, actually,” he laughed, setting the mimic back down. “It’s the typical - stereotypical I guess - thing of a bunch of rejects forming a bit of a ragtag band, and we’ve just been best mates ever since.”

With a fond smile, you firmly agreed to come to their next session.

You showed up with a bag of cookies, not wanting to seem tight but equally not wanting to try and one-up the resident baker in the group. You were also running a tad late after the recording session had run over, and the door was locked when you arrived at quarter past seven, and you had to bang on the glass repeatedly until Bik scuttled out to rescue you.

“I’m so sorry!” he said as he stepped to one side and let you in. “I thought I left it off the latch for you! I should also have given you my number. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine!” you laughed as he cringed. “But I wouldn’t say no to having your number…”

He went still and then smiled.

You followed him into a storage room at the back of the shop which had been decked out with flickering LED candles, and in the centre of the room was a round table set up for their game. They hadn’t really started yet, and Oleander was, to your surprise, sitting in Jos’ lap. He pecked her affectionately on the top of the head and picked her up, setting her back down on the ground. The werewolf, Emma, snuffed at the air and turned around, tail wagging from between the slats of her chair.

“Hey!” she grinned, leaping up and stepping over to hug you. “I’m sorry. I’m a hugger. You made it though! And…” and she sniffed ostentatiously, “And you brought goodies!”

“I couldn’t not bring goodies,” you chuckled, handing the modest bag of cookies to Bik.

“Tibikthio,” Emma said in a mock-formal tone to Bik, “You picked a good one.”

You turned slowly to the lizardfolk who had closed his eyes in semi-horror. “I hate it when you use my full name,” he groaned.

“Tibikthio…” you repeated. “I like it…”

You caught the tiniest flicker of something cross his face but it was gone a second later.

“Well he hates it!” Emma barked. “Come on, pull up a chair.” She adopted a silly accent, like some old crone, and added, “There’s plenty of room, m’dear!”

Smiling, you glanced at Bik, who still looked a bit embarrassed about the whole name thing, and then you settled in between him and Emma as the game began.

To start with, you stayed on the periphery, letting them tell their story and act it out. Some of them would have made good voice actors, though Oleander tried a bit too hard in places. But they were having an absolute blast. Bik was the dungeon master, weaving elements of improv and story-crafting seamlessly into one narrative, though there were some gaffes and hilarious moments when it all fell apart. By the end of the session, you had cried tears of laughter until your stomach hurt, and had had your heart in your mouth for the entirety of one fight in a long-lost temple.

It was past ten when they wrapped up, and Bik insisted that they just leave everything there for next time. “It’s late,” he said, “And who wants to tidy up now anyway…?” He was met with a chorus of nods and yawns.

Your stomach growled though as you stood and you felt a bit light-headed.

“You ok?” Bik asked, head tilting quizzically. “You look a bit squiffy… Didn’t make you queasy with all the guts and goop at the end of the fight, did I?”

Reassuring him, you told him you had just missed supper that night because of work, and he looked horrified. “There’s a place round the corner that’s open til midnight. You want to grab something?”

Your initial reaction was to refuse politely and say you’d rustle something up when you got home, but you happened to catch Oleander’s violet eyes as she looked from Bik to you with what could only have been described as a look of hope on her face, so you took a gamble and nodded. “Sure, I’d like that.”

Bik shut up the shop and bid his friends goodnight. Oleander winked at him but offered no comment before demanding that Jos carry her home, which he dutifully did. Bik caught you looking at them and smiled. “They’ve been together since they were sixteen. Real high school sweethearts.”

“They’re adorable,” you offered. “I mean, they’re kind of polar opposites, but… it’s nice.”

“There’s hope for those of us who tend to prefer other species…” Bik muttered playfully. “Come on, it’s not far.” As you walked along the empty street, he asked, “Did you have fun?”

“I did,” you replied honestly. “I had no idea it was so…” you waved your hand while you searched for exactly the right word.

“Nerdy?”

You snorted a laugh and corrected him. “Complicated… involved… complex…”

He shrugged casually and shivered. “It’s what you make of it, I guess. We’ve been plotting this particular campaign for months. It’s nice to be able to play it finally!” He shivered again and hugged his bare arms around himself, claws scratching slightly on his rough skin.

“Are you cold?”

He nodded. “I forgot my jacket. I’m not very good with the cold. It’s a lizardy thing.”

The evening wasn’t particularly chilly, but you supposed he was cold-blooded.

“You want my jacket?” you asked. “I think your shoulders are slim enough that it’d probably fit you.”

He shot you an odd look. “Isn't the guy supposed to be the one to offer that to the girl?”

“Only if you stick to stuffy old gender roles,” you grinned. “You want it or not?”

“Yes please,” he mumbled and took it off you with a grateful smile. He looked odd wearing it, but he burrowed into it for the remainder of the short walk to the late-night restaurant.

The two of you sat down and chatted, and you remarked on just how relaxed it felt.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s… It’s nice. I’m glad you got rained on all those weeks ago…”

“Me too,” you laughed. He was a dork, but you liked that he felt genuine, and that his sense of humour was a bit off the wall.

The restaurant wasn’t fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but the food they served looked amazing. Run by a big Highland minotaur with a massive belly and a hearty laugh, it offered exactly the kind of meal you needed after not having had much all day, and the two of you took a seat in a quiet corner on some comfortable, diner-style benches.

The lizardfolk who took your order reminded you of a gecko, and had pinkish colouring and large, blue eyes. While you had always been drawn to lizardfolk, somehow no one seemed to compare to Bik lately.

While you waited for your food, Bik interrupted your musing and asked, “What made you get into voice acting? Maybe next time you can voice some of the other characters they meet…?”

“I think I’d like that,” you admitted. “Normally everyone just asks me to do impressions of famous people, you know, because I have an ear for accents and all that.”

He smiled and rested his chin in his hands, staring at you unblinkingly. It might have made anyone else seem a bit intense, but with him it just seemed endearing. As much as he loved to tell a story, he seemed just as happy to listen to one too.

“Honestly, I kind of fell into it. I did music and drama at college and was all set to go down the ‘traditional’ acting line, but I found I was more comfortable bringing characters to life with my voice than my entire body. It’s still really hard work though. Most people reckon that if you can do a few accents or a funny voice, that’s it, but it’s so much more than that.”

He nodded in agreement. “Oh absolutely! I mean, I think I gathered as much just from what we do in our little amateur group. We all sit round a table and we say our ‘lines’, and we all bring our characters to life as convincingly as we can. We’ve been doing it for years, but we’re still not very good!” Bik grinned at you, showing all his teeth, and you smiled back. A moment later he added, a bit dreamily, “I still can’t believe you voiced Eliana. She’s one of my favourite characters ever! I love that game. I wish she’d been a playable character…”

You laughed, honestly a bit bashful.

Before it could become awkward, your food arrived and the two of you chatted some more around mouthfuls of delicious, humble, homely food until you thought you were going to burst.

“Oh man,” you groaned, sitting back in your seat. “I won’t need to eat for a week!”

Bik smiled and said, “I actually probably won’t eat for a week.”

“Wow, that’s…”

“Economically beneficial?” he snickered. “True. I’d rather be like that than like Jos. He has to eat six meals a day just to fuel his body.” He leaned on the table and added in a conspiratorial stage whisper, “And you know what? Oleander eats just as much as he does.”

“No way!” you gasped. “But she’s tiny! How does she do it?”

“She’s half Fae,” he said. “There’s probably magic involved.”

“Lucky her,” you muttered. “Though on second thoughts, grubbing up six meals a day sounds like a lot of effort. But seriously though, I am so full.”

The minotaur who owned the place came out at that moment and said in a heavily accented rumble, “Ach, too bad! I was gonna offer you’s some dessert!” He waggled a pair of menus at you hopefully.

“We’ll just have to come back next week,” you said and the minotaur laughed heartily.

Bik seemed sleepy after the heavy meal, but he walked you back to your place and you exchanged an awkward hug on the threshold. You got the sense that it wasn’t just you who wished it had been more, but neither of you was ready to make that leap just yet.

That first Friday was the first of many trips to the shop to watch them play D&D together, and after only a few weeks, you began to join in more activelyn. And so you found yourself lending your vocal cords to street merchants and beggars, high nobles and sea captains as the unlikely group made their way across their fictional land. The tables had turned a bit, and now it was you who made them helpless with laughter, even mimicking Oleander’s very particular speech patterns when the group ran into a mimic.

“That’s amazing!” she said. “Are you sure you’re not Fae?”

“No,” you said, “I mean, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’m very ordinary…”

“You’re not ordinary at all!” Bik blurted and everyone burst out laughing.

“We all know that Bik’s got the hots for you!” Emma grinned.

Oleander chimed in with, “Well, as much as a cold-blooder can have the ‘hots’ for anyone…”

“Oi,” Bik grunted. “I’m sitting right here you know!”

“Better speak up more often,” Oleander teased playfully, chucking him affectionately under the chin like he was a favourite hunting hound or something, “Or she won’t notice you…”

“I’m going to write you all into a jail cell next week,” the dungeon master grumped. “Then you’ll be sorry.”

After that session, he claimed he was tired and begged off going to supper with you. Of course you said it was fine, but you had grown used to your private suppers together and fought off the lump of disappointment that lodged itself unexpectedly in your throat. He waved and slouched off down the street, leaving the rest of you outside the dark and empty shop.

“I think you went a little far this time,” Jos commented in his deep, gravelly voice to the two girls and they sighed. “He’s always been very sensitive about… you know, ‘matters of the heart’…”

“Yeah. Poor thing,” Oleander said and she looked at you with her large purple eyes. “The more he likes someone, the more awkward he can get. I’m sorry we butchered it tonight for you though. I’ll make it up to you. Fae’s honour.” After a pause, she added, “You do like him, right?”

“Very much,” you admitted quietly. “He’s very gentle. It’s nice.”

“He used to play lacrosse back in high school,” Jos grinned. “He wasn’t gentle then! But he’s sweet when it comes to people he cares about. He looked out for me at school.”

You shot him a surprised look and he laughed. “I’m sorry,” you said quietly. “You just don’t look much like the type who needs anyone to look out for them…”

Oleander patted his colossal forearm and cooed, “Ol’ Jos here wouldn’t say boo to a housefly, would you darling?” He smiled affectionately at her and said nothing. “We’ve always been the outcasts and misfits I guess. Bik’s the most normal one of the lot of us, all things considered.”

Emma announced with a sudden curse that she was running late to meet her girlfriend, and loped off into the night on all fours with an accompanying farewell howl, her backpack bouncing around on her shoulders, and Oleander and Jos bid you goodnight and headed off towards the bus stop, leaving you to make your own way back. It was strange not to have Bik by your side that night, and it made you realise how close you’d become to him over the last few weeks.

Back home, you curled up on the sofa, not ready to start thinking about bed just yet, and had just got your phone out to drop him a text when your message tone chimed at you. The way your heart clenched with excitement at the sight of Bik’s name on the notification made you pause a moment and wonder just what this affection for him was turning into. Images of his bright green skin and golden eyes darted across your mind; the sound of his laugh, the way his tail coiled itself off the ground when he walked, the way his clawed hands held the little props he liked to make… You’d been telling the truth when you’d admitted to Oleander just how much you liked him.

‘Hey’, his text began. ‘Sorry I bailed like that. Did you get home ok?’

‘:) yeah,’ you replied. ‘And it’s fine. I get it, but they meant well. And I’m looking forward to the next session already!”

Jos was the one who finally insisted that you had to become a permanent member of their fictional gang. Casting a look at Bik as you all loitered in the main shop after the session, you saw the way he bit his thin lips and coiled his tail around one ankle. “Should I?” you asked.

You’d grown in confidence around them, glad to have been welcomed into their group, and he nodded mutely.

“That doesn’t seem very enthusiastic…” you shot with tongue-in-cheek humour dancing in your eyes.

“Obviously he’d love that,” Emma said. That day she wasn’t in her wolf form, and it was one of the few times you’d ever seen her as such. She had ash blonde hair with a harsh side-shave above her left ear while the rest was long, tied back in a ponytail. Her body was strong and muscular, and honestly she was utterly gorgeous.

You cocked an eyebrow at him and adopted the tone of one of the temple guardians you’d voiced for them earlier that evening. “Come now,” you said with mock sternness, “Speak the truth, young dragonling…”

Bik immediately caught on and followed the joke as he spoke in the voice of his dragonborn bard, quavering and simpering. “Please… oh Great One, don’t make me speak more on the subject… I’m only a worthless wyrm…”

You closed the short distance between the two of you and leaned in close. His jaw slackened slightly, his throat bobbing, and his beady, amber eye locked onto your face. “You are no such thing,” you smiled. Biko’s throat worked nervously. Drawing back, you added, “And I’d love to join the group. You’ll have to help me think of a character.”

Bik still looked like he’d suffered a minor heart attack, but Jos whooped and Oleander giggled. “Great!” they said as one.

You turned to Bik and said, “Maybe you and I can chat it over after dinner, if you’re still up for our usual post-session snack?”

“Definitely,” he croaked, voice sounding thick and slightly awestruck. He looked a bit stunned, but you decided it was in a good way.

He held the door open for you and you stepped close to him as you headed out into the late evening, pressing a hand flat against his chest as you passed, and murmured, “Thanks.”

He recovered quickly, though he did seem to be concentrating very hard on the task of locking up the shop, and as the two of you walked away from the others, he kept glancing down at you.

“What?” you finally asked with a giggle.

“Nothing.”

“It’s clearly something…” you pressed, turning and walking backwards so you could look at his face. “Regretting your decision to let me join the gang?”

“Not at all!” he replied, apparently horrified that your thoughts had gone there. “No… The opposite actually…”

“Oh,” you sighed.

He breathed your name and then stopped. You drew to a halt as well, watching him with a hammering heart. Starting to talk again seemed tricky, but he managed it. “I… Uh… I’m really glad you’re… you know… around… Ah, shit… I’m so bad at this…”

“I’m glad I’m around too,” you said, and you slid your hand into his. His skin was rough and cool, and your first thought was that you would very much like it against other parts of your body.

Bik tightened his grip on your fingers briefly and let out a breathy, nervous laugh. “I’ve never, uh… courted a human before… Is that even the right term for it?”

“You can call it what you like,” you said. “And you don’t have to do anything special or different. Just… keep hanging out with me. Maybe we could watch a movie or something some time?”

“Ok,” he said, swallowing thickly again. “Let’s go somewhere different for dinner?”

You turned your eyes from his to the restaurant sign just up ahead. “But we always go here,” you said. “And we’re almost there… Where else is going to be open at this time of night?”

“You could… come back to my place?” he asked. “I mean, it’s nothing special, but… I’m a tidy reptile, I promise! No hoards of strange things either. I’m not a dragon…”

You had to laugh at his oddball sense of humour that only got quirkier the more apprehensive he got. He also couldn’t stop his throat from fanning slightly too, the reptilian version of sweating nervously you supposed. “Alight. I’d like that.”

The upper storey of the old house where he lived was open plan, with beautiful bare rafters and sloping ceilings, and hardwood floors. His claws clacked adorably on them when he moved about. He also had the heating on stupendously warm, and you took your coat and jumper off immediately. “Sorry,” he said when he saw what you were doing.

You reassured him, and started to look about a little bit while he busied himself in the kitchen and poured you both a drink.

There were bookshelves on practically every available space, and as well as containing a collection of rare first editions and hard-to-come-by novels, they also sported photos, some in battered frames and others just propped up here and there. Most of them featured lizardfolk who looked a lot like him. “Family?” you asked and he came over to stand beside you.

“Yeah. We were a big clutch,” he said as he held the glass out for you. “Poor mum! There are twelve of us.”

He told you the names of each of his siblings, and what they were up to now, but you were really only half listening to the words. There was something magical about his voice, some unearthly quality it took on when he began to tell a story, regardless whether that was a story about his own life or a fantasy tale made up with his friends.

“What?” he asked softly.

“I… I like the sound of your voice,” you said honestly, and you reached your fingers tentatively up to touch the blue of his throat. He drew in a shaky breath, eyes closing as his reptilian head tilted upwards to allow you better access to him. “You’re very beautiful,” you whispered. “The colour of your skin is incredible… I like this bit too,” you added, running a finger down his cheek where it blended from green speckled with gold to intense blue.

Bik brought his hands to your shoulders and looked down at you, blinking slowly. “Really?” he asked. “It’s not very… I mean… most males of my species have much deeper blue… I mean, just look at my brothers,” he added awkwardly, nodding at a picture behind you.

“I like your blue,” you chuckled without turning around.

Embarrassed, but obviously deeply flattered, he brushed his knuckle against your cheek and said, “Would you like that supper or do you have other things on your mind?”

With a grin, you said, “I suppose I could be distracted by food…” you admitted grudgingly as your stomach rumbled.

You watched him walk away to the kitchen area of the loft apartment, and sighed. This was turning into exactly what you’d hoped it might - a friendship blossoming into something deeper.

Wanting to test that theory, you crossed to join him and, while he still had his back to you, you slid your arms around his slender waist and hugged him. “You need a hand?” you asked, pressing your cheek against his back.

“I… I was going to suggest takeout,” he said bashfully, glancing back over his shoulder at you. “But if you want me to cook, I can?”

You shook your head. “It’s getting late,” you said, releasing him. “Another time. Let’s get takeout.”

While you waited for the food to arrive, you bickered playfully over movie choices, finally settling on some cheesy old film about a dragon who shared his heart with a selfish boy. It was actually pretty good, but it was still horrendously dated in places. It didn’t matter to you though. The food was really good, and the two of you snuggled up on the sofa to eat, with you leaning against his side.

“I couldn’t do this with many people,” you said, nudging him gently with your elbow.

“Do what?”

“Cosy up under someone’s arm. I’m usually too tall.”

He chuckled and swallowed. “Never dated an orc then, I take it.”

You shook your head. “Not dated all that much at all to be honest.”

“What? But your gorgeous,” he blurted and his skin flushed a much darker green. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t,” you said and put your hand reassuringly on his thigh. He jumped and then slid his arm around your shoulders, setting his empty takeout box down on the coffee table beside the sofa.

He gazed at you, a more serious look in his eyes, and said, “You know, I couldn’t help noticing your choices of media…” You flicked him a frown and he went on. “Ok, the first graphic novel with the dragon was on me, but everything else has also had dragons or lizards in…”

“You detecting a preference here?” you sassed gently.

“Am I?”

With an ostentatious roll of your eyes, you said, “I mean, I’ve always thought your kind extremely beautiful, but my interest in you is to do with you. It’s not some empty kink. You know that, right?”

He nodded slowly. “Just checking.”

“And what about you?” you said, also setting your empty food box down and shifting your position so that you came to rest astride his lap, the film almost over, forgotten and playing in the background. “I have to admit that your dragonborn seems to like humans rather a lot… Have you got a thing for us warmbloods?”

His throat worked and he didn’t meet your eye for a moment. “I mean… yes…” he said, and his clawed hands found your wide hips. He ran a circle carefully over them and moaned, his own hips shifting a little beneath you. “But when you walked into my shop, all bedraggled and soaking wet, I’d honestly never seen anyone more beautiful in my whole life.”

You laughed and kissed his cheek. He turned his head slightly as you moved away and drew you back for a proper kiss. His claws raked gently through your hair, messing it up as he gripped you firmly but tenderly, and his tongue slid slowly out to taste you, savouring the kiss. It wasn’t a conventional kiss like those you were used to, but it worked perfectly well. You rolled your hips against him once again and he broke the contact, letting his head fall back against the sofa cushions. His tail coiled and uncoiled beside you on the sofa and you reached for it.

“Can I touch you here?” you asked and he nodded breathlessly.

He gasped as you stroked your fingertips along the slightly rough skin of his tail and he brought the tip of it up to caress the back of your hand.

“Kinky,” you grinned and he snickered.

Bik, somewhat slack-jawed and clearly aroused, brought his blunt muzzle to the curve where your neck met your collarbones, and inhaled the scent of you deeply. His tail coiled tightly around your wrist for a moment before unravelling and falling limply onto the sofa again. “I want you,” he rasped.

You let your hips grind into him again and he gasped and uttered a soft curse under his breath as he stared almost reverently up at you. You nodded, and his claws hooked the hem of your top and lifted it up carefully, revealing your bra and he made short work of the clasp. Taking the weight of each breast in his hands, he caressed you and then, with pupils blown wide and dark so that his irises were a mere halo of gold, he took your nipple delicately between his sharp teeth and very gently sucked, moaning softly as he repeated the gesture on the other one. His rasping tongue curled around them too as they hardened under his attentions and you gave a shaky exhale.

“So beautiful,” he whispered as he let go, leaving you throbbing and tingling. “Gods, you’re so beautiful.”

“Bik…” you groaned when he stopped touching you so that he could simply stare at your half-naked body in his lap.

He smiled and to your immense surprise, simply stood up, hooking his arms under your thighs as you gripped his waist instinctively with your legs. He was a lot stronger than he looked and you nearly yelped in surprise. “I’ve got you,” he said as he carried you towards his open bedroom door, nudging it shut behind him with his tail.

He laid you down on top of the duvet and undressed the rest of you slowly, savouring the sight of you as he gradually revealed your body. You looked up at him dazedly and saw the tent straining against his jeans. “Bik… Not fair,” you said. “You’re still dressed.”

More nervously now that the attention was on him, he took off his own t-shirt to reveal a pale, creamy green stomach and chest. He was still stippled with other hues of green and even a few freckles of black, but his front was mostly pale. His lean waist and narrow hips looked deliciously inviting and you sat up and ran your fingers around the inside of his waistband just to watch him shiver beneath your touch.

His hands hung quietly by his sides as you undid the button of his jeans and he stepped out of them carefully. His taloned feet were as delicate as his hands, and you marvelled at them too before letting your gaze sweep up his slim, strong calves to his thicker and more muscular thighs and to the tight, black boxer-briefs that hugged every single curve of his body.

Bik lay down beside you without taking them off and raked his claws up the length of your legs and, applying a little pressure to your hip, pushed you onto your back. With his tail, he tugged your right ankle close to his body and parted your legs enough for him to run the pad of his thumb in a slow, teasing circle around the soft, sensitive skin above your clit.

Your body lurched joyously at his touch and you sucked in a breath. You began to tingle all over, heat prickling beneath your skin as he woke your whole body up with reverent kisses and touches.

“Can I taste you?” he asked a while later after he’d reduced you to a writhing, whimpering mess, and you nodded.

After you moved further up the bed to give him more room, he reverently placed both palms on your hip bones and nosed gently at your sex. His tongue licked a long, slow stripe and you cried out and arched your back as he laved over your lips and just flicked your clit with the tip of his tongue.

“You taste so beautiful,” he said before returning his attention to your body. He circled and nudged at you, dipping his tongue deep inside you as well, always coming back to your clit until you were almost screaming with want.

“Bik, please… Please make me come,” you panted. “I’m so close…”

“Can humans only come once then?” he asked with over-accentuated ignorance, and you knew from the tone of his voice that he knew the answer to that already. You growled inarticulately at him and he pulled back. “I’d better stop then.”

“No!” you half sobbed. “Please…”

Smiling softly, he stared at you and moved his thumb back to your swollen clit. His claws were too sharp for him to work you inside, but the pattern he made on your skin with his tongue was enough to drive you right to the edge, and then as the white heat built inside you, you felt your orgasm rolling over you like a great ocean breaker and you cried out, grasping at the sheets. As you came, he pressed his tongue hard against you, savouring you as you came against him.

When you eventually slumped back against the pillows, breathing hard and almost dizzy with how good you felt, you half opened one eye to find that he had lain down on his back and was palming his erection through the fabric of his boxers.

“Bik?” you asked in a slightly slurred whisper. Your fingers moved to the waistband and he tensed slightly. “Bik?”

Licking his lips nervously, he nodded and you drew his boxers off. At the top of his legs was a mounded sheath which quite obviously contained not one but two cocks. Neither was necessarily all that large, but they were very beautiful, and fully erect.

“We’re not exactly built like humans,” he said bashfully as you stared openly at him. “I… I was worried that -” he cut off with a deep grunt as you trailed your fingers around the edges of his sheath. His twin cocks - both a bright vibrant green tipped with blue - writhed slightly, coiling around one another and glistening with the same clear fluid that slicked his sheath.

“You’re beautiful, remember?” you reminded him, shakily propping yourself upright on one elbow to get a better look at him. You repeated the gesture, running your fingers tips around his sensitive sheath, and he accepted your words as truth as you started to worship him with the same careful tenderness he’d just shown you.

As you lavished attention on him, he started to unravel.

Soon his spine bowed up off the bed and his hips squirmed as you worked his twin cocks in one hand. The tighter you gripped him, the more noise he made as they twisted together beneath your fingers, and you finally wrung a deep, guttural, low-frequency rumble out of him that reminded you more of an alligator than the more delicate lizards he resembled.

“Gods,” he rasped, “You make it feel like spring…” and you knew he was referring to the traditional lizardfolk mating season. You’d just lowered your mouth to the tip of one of his cocks and given it a tentative suck when he blurted, “Can I come inside you?”

You nodded, and he switched positions with you so that he was on top. The heat of his cocks was a delicious contrast to the constant coolness of the rest of him and you bucked upwards against him just to feel them pressing against your sensitive clit.

“Both?” he asked warily and you nodded again, shifting so that he could line himself up. He kissed down your neck and between your breasts again before he nudged the tips of his cocks to your entrance. As he slid into you, slowly stretching you full, you watched his face carefully. Again, he began to rumble softly and he almost couldn’t speak as he hissed, “So tight… so hot… gods, you’re so hot…”

With a final push of his hips, he slid all the way inside you and paused a moment, clearly fighting the instinct to come almost immediately. Recovered, breathing steadily, he began to slide in and out, his rhythm increasing in tempo as he lost himself in the sensations of your body. The way his cocks felt inside you, twisting together and shifting in a way that no toy could ever hope to replicate, was unlike anything you’d ever experienced and you knew you were going to come again in no time.

“I’m…” he grunted.

“Me too,” you said, grabbing his rough-skinned arms and pulling yourself even further onto his cocks. “Bik, I’m going to come again.”

“Fuck,” he croaked as you clenched tight around him with a cry.

You wrenched his orgasm from him with the force of your own and he arched his spine, hips driving him deep inside you as he released, and he yelled out, voice hoarse, the sound cracked and broken. His jaws parted to reveal his sharp teeth and you kept your grip on his arms as you came a second time.

He shuddered violently, grunting and breathing hard through flared nostrils, and then fell forwards, barely catching himself in time on his forearms. He was spent and exhausted and so beautiful. His blue colouring shone in the dim light of his bedroom and you trailed your fingers lazily along the bridge of his nose towards his lips.

“That was incredible,” he whispered when he’d got his breath back. “I didn’t hurt you did I?”

“No,” you smiled and he hugged you briefly, lapping a little lizardy kiss on your forehead before pushing himself up on shaking arms and sliding free of you. His cocks coiled briefly in the warm air and he rolled onto his back beside you. With your thighs still slick with his release, you tucked yourself up beside him and took your time in exploring his relaxed body. Where before he had been tense, almost nervous, worried that his non-human body would be too strange for you, now he seemed to have fallen peacefully into a haze of bliss, and he let your hands roam all over his torso and down to his hips while wearing a soft smile the whole time.

His cocks lay soft across his skin, occasionally twitching and drooling a little, but eventually they began to shift back into his sheath. He slid his hand down and adjusted them, and shot you a look. “You really do like lizardfolk, huh?”

With a wry grin, you shook your head and said, “I really do just like you.”

—

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#exophilia #lizardfolk #lizard man #lizard monster #reptile monster #male monster #male monster x female reader #female reader #lemon

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moth-and-raven · 3 years

Text

CHAPTER FOUR

The rest of the day passes in a haze. Loud cheers met Nadia’s announcement and Portia slipped into the rush just in time to board the carriage, tear-stained but determined to fight through it.

I must have been imagining things. I don’t want to think poorly of Julian, but I have to face facts: people will do and say anything to keep themselves off the gallows. He’s smart. He’s charismatic. He knows I’m working with the Palace. I can’t help but think he was just trying to endear himself to me, taking advantage of how obviously attracted to him I am. I can’t blame him for that. It’s my own fault for chasing what was a pathetic pipe dream from the start.

I retreat to my room after we return to the palace. It’s not unreasonable, considering I haven’t slept much in the past few days. From my bed, I watch spots of sunlight creep across the ceiling until I fall asleep. At least it’s dreamless this time.

Portia comes to get me for dinner in the late evening, when the sky’s turned purple. She’s itching with curiosity, peeking at me from the corner of her eye the whole way to the dining hall. Before we enter, she clears her throat.

“So, um.”

“It was nothing.” If I keep telling myself that, maybe it’ll hurt less. “Did you—?”

“Safe and sound. At least as much as he can be.”

“How long had it been since—?”

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth just like he does. “Ten years, give or take. The last time I saw him was right after his apprenticeship. He came back to Nevivon for a few months while he was figuring out what else to do. I was only sixteen, so he must’ve been… twenty-five?”

The same age I am now. I didn’t realize he was that much older than me, though I suppose it makes sense. He’s lived quite a life. Yet more reason for him to see nothing of interest in me.

Portia pushes on: “What will you say to—?”

“I’m not telling her anything.” I shake my head and look away. “I don’t have anything to tell her anyway.”

That’s not a lie. I may know more about him now, but nothing pertinent.

“She’ll ask.”

“I know.”

I must not be doing as good of a job hiding my sadness as I thought I was, because Portia rests her hand on my shoulder and squeezes gently. I don’t have it in me to say that whatever she’s imagining isn’t true.

I can’t do this.

“Could you tell Nadia that I—” Humiliated, I choke on my tears. “I'm— I’ll be in the library.”

I’m already around the corner by the time she agrees. I don't know what I’m going to do there, but at least I’ll be alone. Again.

I may not remember beyond the last three years, but I know in my heart that I’ve never been loved like I am in my dreams. I probably never will be. With all the beautiful people out there, who would choose me, the fat twenty-five-year-old virgin so gullible she falls for every man who looks at her twice? What could I possibly offer someone like him?

Nothing.

Painful, empty nothing.

I end up at the library eventually. At least I can navigate the palace better than I could the South End. My tears have almost stopped before I feel the metal arc of the crescent moon still hanging around my neck and break apart again. I manage to reach an armchair, nestled in an alcove near a half-flight of stairs, and curl up in it as best I can to weather the storm.

I’m so ugly when I cry. Thank god no one can see it. No one ever should.

When the waves settle and my breath doesn’t feel so foreign in my lungs, I press my palms to my eyes and sigh heavily. I have a headache now, as I always do after I cry like that. I know I should be hungry, but I’m not. I don’t know what I am.

But I made a promise. To Nadia and to Julian. Even if I never see him again, I’ll help him as much as I can. And with all of his research, all the palace staff who knew both him and Lucio, all the magic echoes swirling around waiting for someone to hear them, I think I can help him a lot.

------

I was always more comfortable at night. I sleep a little bit, curled up in the armchair, but it’s not very comfortable and I wake up sore. I’m glad I came to the library, though: Julian’s desk is a mess of torn papers and marked-up books, underlines and strikethroughs and question marks in the margins, and I have so little time to piece it all together. If I hadn’t slept yesterday away… yesterday. I shouldn’t be thinking about yesterday. It was nothing. It is nothing.

He’ll be nothing if I can’t figure this out.

Portia brings me something to eat in the very early hours, right before dawn. Without saying a word, she draws up another chair and starts sorting through things too. She can read his handwriting much more easily than I can.

And Count Lucio’s name shows up. And again, and again. Lucio’s temperature rising. Lucio says wine tastes metallic. Alchemical fluid in Lucio’s prosthetic turned red, wouldn’t survive replacement. Observations in clipped clinical speech, but scrawled with ever-increasing desperation. Lucio spitting up blood. Lucio not sleeping, complaining of bad dreams. Lucio too weak to eat, still alive.

Notes on the dissection of a beetle, a cross-section of a human brain, a map of the palace with large red Xs over half the rooms in the east wing. Peeking over my shoulder, Portia points at them.

“That’s the Count’s Suite. He had the whole wing, actually. No one goes up there anymore.”

I straighten up, my joints crackling from the hours I've spent hunched over. “Why?”

She shrugs. “Nadia had the whole thing blocked off. It’s really dirty, from the— all the ash and stuff. And people say it’s haunted.”

“By Lucio?”

“I guess. One of the other housekeepers swears they saw the ghost of a weird guy at the top of the stairs once. That it looked right at them with spooky red eyes. I think they’re full of shit, but maybe it’s worth a look?”

There could be a thousand things worth a look. If I had more time… “I don’t know. I have a couple spells that might be able to pin down a ghost, but I’ve never actually tried them.”

“If it is Lucio, though, wouldn’t he be able to say who killed him?”

“Hm. That’s true. Is the wing locked?”

Portia grins and fishes in her pocket. “Not if you have keys.”

The main staircase is close to the library. I feel the air get colder as we approach, and the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck start to stand up even before Portia unlocks the corridor that leads to Lucio’s bedroom. It’s eerily quiet, all gray and black, luxury gone to ruin in the wake of a disaster. I’ve seen reproductions of burned-out buildings that look like this, after heavy battles. It crosses my mind that destruction of that caliber had taken extremely powerful magic to accomplish, not the actions of a single man weakened by pressure and long hours in the midst of a plague. Julian can’t even do magic. He said as much during our long conversation at the Raven. I can’t imagine anything else that would do this much damage without bringing the entire palace down.

Interesting.

Cinders crunch underfoot. Charred paintings watch us pass. A primal fear creeps along just behind us, whispering then asking then screaming at us to flee. I can feel my heart in my throat and adrenaline in my blood, every sense heightened. Tattered curtains move at the corner of my eye: I’m terrified to look and even more terrified not to.

But I can tell without bringing magic to my hand that there’s nothing here. At least nothing that wants to make itself known. There’s just a spark of pure rage somewhere deep inside the wing, but it doesn’t want to be seen. No ghosts, no goats, no ghost goats. No spooky red eyes. Just soot and smoke stains and three years of neglect. The fear lurking in the back of my mind isn’t supernatural, just the normal human mistrust of the dark and abandoned.

We go all the way to the end of the suite to no avail. Part of me thinks I should stay, but I’m getting tired now and the idea of sleeping in these rooms isn’t appealing. Portia takes my sigh as an admission of defeat and pats my arm. It was a distant hope anyway.

Near the end of the corridor as we leave, a small glimmer catches my attention. If I hadn’t been looking that way to start with, I never would’ve noticed it.

“Hey Portia, what’s in there?”

She lifts up the lantern and peers into the room. “Bath chamber, I think.”

We see it at the same time, as the light catches the red gleam again: falling from the sink are drops of blood. More of it trickles across the floor. The walls are stained from it, up to the window.

“What the fuck?”

My sentiments exactly. What is this? It can’t be actual blood, can it? This is the top floor of the palace. Is it bubbling up through the plumbing?

“Nadia’s gonna want to know about this,” Portia says in a small voice.

“Wait. Let me check it out first.”

She turns to look at me, pale in the lantern’s glow. “This is way beyond whatever my brother might have done. It could infect the whole palace!”

“Do you think it’s infectious?”

Portia frowns. “Did you… Were you in Vesuvia back then? During the Plague?”

There’s no point in lying. “No.”

“Neither was I, but I heard about it. Before I left Nevivon, some sailors docked and told everyone what they’d seen. People died so quickly, there wasn’t space to keep their bodies. And they were all red, their eyes and their fingertips, everywhere you could see veins.” She shudders. “I can’t believe Ilya worked with it and… and…”

She must’ve been so scared, knowing that he could die any day.

“You know that big ugly crematorium out in the bay?” she asks.

“The Lazaret.” Everyone knows about that. You can see it from shore, a jagged silhouette reminding everyone of the toll the Plague took on the city. I don’t like looking at it: it makes my heart ache.

“Yeah. Even with that, there were too many bodies. So many people… There was a rumor that the Palace stored the extra ones, until they could be burned.”

“Where would they have been able to keep them?”

“Dunno. But there’s a huge tunnel system under here, all the way down into the cliffs. And the dungeon’s really big.”

I’d wondered how Julian could escape the prison cells, when the only way out was through the palace itself. Tunnels would explain that, I suppose. “So do you think there’s still something tainting the water?”

Her eyes are wide in the dark. “There might be. Kinda like here, no one’s been in the dungeons for ages. Probably since then.”

I frown. It’s unlikely, but I can’t deny the evidence right in front of me. I take another step into the washroom and trace the flow towards the wall. Some of the stones are loose now, after years of water damage. There’s more than enough room for it all to drain away between them.

Weak dawn sunlight floods the horizon as I stand up and glance out the window. I can see most of the city from here, out across the harbor to the Lazaret and down through the South End and directly into the lush gardens below.

And beyond the gardens, flowing from the palace along the channel of an aqueduct, is a stream of blood red.

------

Nadia scowls at the dripping red water, then summons her bodyguard to her side and dispatches them with a whispered order. Both Portia and I follow her out of the wing, but Portia splits off at the base of the stairs to see to her duties while Nadia invites me into the dining hall for breakfast.

A massive, gaudy painting hangs over the table, eyeing us as we pick over the array of egg dishes and sliced fruit. It depicts a celebration scene, I think, presided over by a muscular blond man with his arms spread wide over a crowd of adoring citizens. Nadia notices me looking at it and chuckles.

“Admiring my late husband’s art sense, are you, Reyja?”

I don’t want to offend her, but I think Count Lucio should’ve stuck to partying. “It’s, um, very vibrant.”

“That was typical of him,” she laughs. “Ostentatious to a fault.”

People don’t talk about Lucio much, unless they’re cursing his name for all the damage he did to the city with his warmongering and overspending. I’m trying to solve his murder, but now that I think of it, I don’t know much about the man himself. “What was he like?”

Nadia grimaces. “Much as you’ve heard, I expect. Loud, brash, insolent. Committed to his life of luxury. I would not have married him, had I been sober when he proposed.”

She must catch my surprise, because she fixes me in her dark eyes and raises a brow as if daring me to judge her.

Of course I won’t. “How did you two meet?”

“He was visiting Prakra,” she says. “To present himself to Empress Nasrin, my mother, as the Count of Vesuvia. He had been in power for some time by then, as I recall. I believe he told me that he’d first come to this city nearly twenty years before, on a mercenary contract.”

“He wasn’t from here?”

“No. He was of the Southern tribes.”

That’s confusing. “How did he get to be Count?”

“The former Count grew quite fond of him. Lucio was named his heir shortly after he arrived, and took the throne shortly after that. He spoke often of the battle in which he lost his arm—” She points at the painting. Lucio’s left arm shines, gilded in gold leaf. “—the same in which Spada was killed.”

Lucio may have been bloodthirsty, especially fond of the fights to the death at the coliseum Vesuvia used to be famous for, but everyone knew his roots as a successful mercenary. Even in his forties, when he died, he was strong and virile.

Which was why his death came as such a shock. Who would’ve thought such a man would die in his bed, ravished by sickness and weak enough to fall to an unskilled assassin?

“What about the Plague?” I ask quietly. People talk about Lucio a little bit, but no one discusses the Plague at all, as if the mere mention of it will cause its return.

Nadia nods. “It appeared nearly overnight, five years ago. No one had seen its like before. To my knowledge, nothing like it has been seen since, either.”

“Do we know where it came from?”

“I’m afraid not. Little is known of it, save that it killed thirty thousand of my people in two years.”

Her people. Nadia may have been Prakran by birth, but this was her city now.

“I had been visiting my sisters when it struck,” Nadia continues, gaze unfocused as she looks back through her memories. “As such, I was forbidden from returning until we were certain it had passed.”

I remember the parade that welcomed her back, but I didn’t realize she’d been gone that long. It’s been less than a year: she must be so busy, trying to pull Vesuvia together again. No wonder the search for her husband’s murderer hadn’t been her top priority until now. “I’m sorry.”

She tilts her head, looking at me. “Understand this, Reyja: if the Plague has not truly left the city, and what you and dear Portia discovered today is proof of that, then the search for Doctor Devorak must be set aside. I am eager to see justice done, but one man’s life, when weighed against the lives of thousands, will not tip the scales. I hope I may rely upon your services regardless of that outcome.”

Her visit to the shop feels very far away. I’m attached to this now, however big it gets. “I’ll be here.”

“Thank you. I have sent Yazakh to fetch an expert on the Plague from their estate. I hope they will return soon, but in the meantime, I urge you to rest. We may have much to consider in the coming days.”

I take a small pastry with me when I leave the table and make my way back to my room. I don’t doubt that she’s right, but even with this additional set of problems, I can’t keep my mind away from Julian. Thoughts of him cloud my head as I lay down for a nap and they’re still there when I wake up. My stomach isn’t happy with me, swirling with guilt and humiliation and anxiety, but I don’t know what to do about it.

The expert still hasn’t arrived when I go up to Lucio’s suite to check. I pass the library on the way back and my fingers fly to the silver moon pendant still around my neck, following the divot Julian’s own nerves wore in the metal. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to look through his notes while I wait, if I can concentrate enough to get anything useful out of them.

I can’t.

When the sun sets again, I give up. Another day gone, and I’ve only discovered more things to do. I need something to focus on, something with a solution, something… something that might distract me from the fact that I’m no closer to clearing Julian’s name.

I can follow that water, if nothing else. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but maybe I can learn where it’s going. And I can get out of the palace, maybe work off some of this nervous energy. And I won’t be surrounded by pieces of him, distracting me from my mission. It’ll be perfect.

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

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#the arcana #the arcana fanfic #reyja north #julian devorak #moth & raven

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dw-writes · 5 years

Text

Dial Tone Devil - Chapter Two

Summary: Lucifer’s reputation of granting favors is the second best thing his known for. So when you ask for one - point blank - and offer him immediate repayment in the form of a coin he thought to be long gone, he immediately agrees. But you come with baggage, and series of suspicious circumstances, and Lucifer finds himself full invested in your story.

All because of a suspiciously familiar coin.

Interesting.

A/N: HELLO AND GOOD EVENING!!! I’m SO excited for this chapter, and for you guys to read it!! I was SO happy with the feedback and the excitement for the series, and I’m looking forward to you guys reading it!! :D So here you are!! Chapter Two!

Chapters: Chapter One || Chapter Two || Chapter Three || Chapter Four || Chapter Five || Chapter Six || Chapter Seven || Chapter Eight || Chapter Nine || Chapter Ten || Chapter Eleven || Chapter Twelve || Chapter Thirteen || Chapter Fourteen || Chapter Fifteen

More Content: Dial Tone Christmas || The Keys to Lux || Quarantine

To Tag: @revinval @spotgaai2000 @measure-in-pain @kittenlittle24 @broadwayandnetflix

“So what do I call you?” you asked as you looked around the office. Maze leaned on the door, peeling an apple with a curved knife, and eating the pieces directly off the blade. You looked over as you pulled the computer around the desk and knelt to plug it in.

“My name is Mazikeen,” she answered. She sat on your desk as you worked beneath the ebony metal contraption, making sure that everything you had ran up to your desk and sat in the right spots. As you crawled out from under the desk, you saw she was right in your face. “You can call me Mazikeen,” she added.

You nodded slowly, and rose to your feet. “Alrighty then.” You connected the phone, and sat in your brightly colored rolling chair to program it.

And she stared all the while, eyes narrowed as she watched you. “What are you doing?”

“Programming numbers?” you suggested. She scooted around your desk. “So, between certain hours, the calls from Lucifer’s number will come to this phone, and I’m programming the numbers in so that I can see who it is,” you explained, “I’m also adding a short cut to this so that when I’m out, the calls all forward to my phone.”

Mazikeen slowly lifted a piece of the apple to her mouth. “Are you a witch?” she finally asked.

You snorted. “No. I just read the instruction manual.” You held out the newspaper thin booklet for her to take. “I figured this would make life a little easier.” You finished with what you were doing, and taped a list of numbers next to the phone for your quick reference. “Actually, you’re in charge of the bar, yeah?”

“Yes…?”

You smiled. “Do you think I could have your order book? I can just order everything that you need at the same time as I order everything else. Make it easier on y—”

She hopped off the desk and stabbed the knife into the wooden side table next to you. You pressed your lips together and watched her leave. “I think I’ll like you,” she said as she reached the door.

You stuttered, lost for words as she left, and leaned back in your seat. “Okay,” you called to empty air. You heaved a sigh, and glanced around the massive office, at the blank walls and dark paint, and wondered what you could do with it all. You left the office, leaving behind a blazer, and rolled up the sleeves of your shirt as you entered the club proper. The phone behind you rang, calling for you, and you groaned and jogged back down the hall, leaving Mazikeen to stare after you and laugh.

You snagged the phone off the cradle on the fourth ring. “Lux,” you said, introducing yourself after, “How may I help you?”

There was a pause of silence. “Uh, is Lucifer…there?” a woman asked.

You wedged the phone between your ear and shoulder, and pulled a notepad over to you. “I’m actually his assistant.”

“Oh!” The woman laughed lightly. “I didn’t know…he…needed an assistant.”

“Apparently he does.” You smiled and clicked the pen. “So, what can I do for you, Ms…”

“Oh,” she said again, “This is Detective Decker. Chloe…D-Decker, I’m sorry, this is weird, is Lucifer around?”

You wrote her name down and pulled the cradle off the desk, peeking down the hall from your door. “I wish I could tell you, but I can’t see a thing from my hall. I’ve been banished to a dark corner to do all this work.”

“He needs to get a phone of his own,” Chloe Decker mused.

“You know, he has one, but I’ve been told to forward his calls to me,” you replied. You sighed and wandered back to your desk. “Detective? I’m assuming you have a case, right? Since he does the consulting thing?”

“Yeah, yeah, I do,” she finally answered. She gave you an address, which you jotted down and circled. “Can you have him meet me there?”

“Of course, Ms. Decker.”

“Oh, just…Chloe. Please,” she insisted. You nodded, and ended your call, setting the phone to forward to you, and heading out of the office.

Mazikeen leaned on the bar, pouring over a book, jotting down notes on its pages. She looked up when you entered. “Already working?” she asked.

“And you’re adding to my work, I see,” you chimed. She shrugged. “Is Lucifer here? Upstairs? Where would I find him?”

She pointed to the elevator above your head. You nodded, headed up the stairs, and entered the elevator. The penthouse button required a key, and you patted your pockets to search for your copy. As you inserted the key, Mazikeen’s head popped up above the alcove floor. “Oh, be careful. He might have company,” she commented.

You started to ask her what kind of company, but the elevator doors shut. You huffed, and picked at your sleeves as the elevator started up the building. You passed your floor, the sixth, where your FAR too big apartment took almost a sizable chunk of the floor. The furniture you had hardly filled the space, and that was from an eight-hundred square foot apartment! You heaved a sigh and watched the elevator continue up, heading to the penthouse that you knew Lucifer occupied at the top.

When it stopped, and the doors slid open, smoke wafted into the compartment. You coughed, surprised, and squinted into the room as you walked in. There were muffled giggles, soft gasps, and quiet moans that you couldn’t find the source of. As you walked in, you found beautiful crystal decanters in the shape of skulls, and a massive glass reservoir on the bar, with spouts on four sides, filled with the green liquid of absinthe.

“Lucifer?” you called into the smoky haze.

A sounds were cut short, and you heard quiet reassurances from your right as you crossed the room to the glass wall of his balcony. You pushed open the door, and coughed as the smoke was suctioned out past you, billowing into the air. Lucifer’s voice sounded behind you, a gentle purr of your name that had you turning around. He was belting a silk robe closed. “Fancy seeing you here!” he exclaimed.

“Not really, I work for you,” you replied. You felt your voice catch in your throat as men and women in various states of nudity left the room, picking up clothes from the floor. A man with full dark hair winked as you met his gaze, and you felt your face flush before you looked away.

Lucifer glanced back, and grinned. “You know, I could introduce you to Henry, he’s a marvelous fellow, very well endowed—”

“Detective Decker called!” you rushed to cut him off. You politely turned away, pressed your lips together and did everything you could stop a grin from worming across your face. You cleared your throat. “She has a case for you?”

“Oh!” You heard Lucifer turn away. “Well, why didn’t you lead with that!” You turned away, and found Lucifer had disappeared into the area sectioned off for his room. The man, Henry, was leading the rest of the party into the elevator. He met your gaze before the door closed, and smiled, waving just enough to keep your attention before the door shut. “I told you I can introduce you, he’s a good man, and very talented,” Lucifer commented. It took you a moment to look up at him, finding him completely dressed.

“Uh, no, I’m….far too preoccupied—”

“A good shag always reorders the mind, you know,” he responded. He straightened his coat, a beautiful import by the looks of it, and smiled. “You ever been to a crime scene?” he asked.

“No?” you offered. “Because it’s generally frowned upon for normal, non law enforcement people to be loitering at a crime scene.”

“We just have to fix that then,” he said. He waved an arm around your back, hovering just above touch, and motioned to the elevator. “After you, dear.”

He brought you to a massive hotel – a ritzy one, where your car had to be at least one-hundred thousand dollars or even the valet wouldn’t look at you – and helped you out from the front seat. You followed him through the hotel, down lush red carpet on sleek onyx floors, and out to an infinity pool that overlooked the cliff the hotel sat on, with a view of the Los Angeles skyline to kill for.

To one side, where the outdoor patio backed up to where the laundry and pumps for the pool would be, stood who you assumed to be Detective Decker. Red and blue lights strobed against the building as you walked closer, following Lucifer’s confident strides. The Detective looked up once, twice, and finally settled a questioning gaze on you. You shook your head, and shrugged.

“Uh, Lucifer,” she started, turning to him.

He, in turn, swept an arm around you with the largest grin he could muster. “Detective, I would like you to meet my personal assistant.” You tried to smile, you really did, but it shrank as he kept talking. “Part of the job is to be with me while I work cases, in case anything else happens to come up, of course.”

You backed up and pointed at the ground. “I’m gonna stay right here, outside of the crime scene, and keep to myself, like a good civilian.”

“What, no, what if I need your eyes, or a second opinion?” Lucifer asked.

“No, that’s a very good idea, thank you,” the Detective said over him. Lucifer scoffed, and followed her beneath the yellow tape, around the corner, and out of sight. You heaved the heaviest of sighs as you looked around the area. It was a beautiful white stone patio, massive, with gorgeous metal tables and chairs with stuffed cushions, plush towels, and an incredible view of the city. You wandered along the edge of the pool, down a strip of stone that outlined the pool, right to its edge. Below you was a small fence, just a short distance away, but far enough that someone could, at least, break an ankle if they fell off the edge. The water of the pool trickled over its hidden glass rim, down into the lip surrounding it and back into the pool.

There was a familiar sound, one that made you squint the longer you heard it. It didn’t belong in a pool area, that was for sure. You turned as you tried to pinpoint its location, listening harder, trying to think of where you had heard it.

It was water on metal, like something you heard in your sink. You inched closer to the edge, your breath caught in your throat, and you shouted, “Detective Decker!” You twisted away, felt your foot slip off the edge, and stumbled forward back to the patio. The Detective’s head popped out around the corner, and she ducked under the tape. “Are you missing a gun?” you asked through a wheeze.

Lucifer peeked around the corner as the Detective made her way towards you. “See, what did I tell you? Useful!”

#lucifer morningstar #dial tone devil series #lucifer on fox #lucifer on netflix #lucifer on fox requests #lucifer on netflix requests #lucifer on fox imagines #lucifer on netflix imagines #lucifer on fox imagine #lucifer on netflix imagine #lucifer morningstar imagines #lucifer morningstar imagine #lucifer morningstar requests #lucifer morningstar x reader #lucifer morningstar/reader

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vwritesaus · 4 years

Text

reflected in prismed moonlight | bokuaka

Three empty bottles of sake sit on the balcony table amongst five, equally empty glasses. Prismed moonlight splays through the glassware, across the laminated surface and the backs of five wicker chairs. The streets below are empty, cars parked in straight lines along the kerb and shop front windows arranged in a blacked-out and spotlighted pattern: an alcove of silence in the busiest, perhaps liveliest city in the world.

The air is stagnant and warm, tinged with a promise of a crisp change in the next hour, and the sky clear and painted with shimmering stars around a high moon. It’s the perfect night to submit to the serenity and contemplate without any qualms or nuisance work things that needed to be done for Monday. Akaashi finds himself doing just that, sinking into one of the wicker chairs instead of tidying up the bottles and glasses, eyes drinking in the high-rises across the road and the sparkling city centre upon the horizon.

It’s been a good night. For the past four hours, the apartment and this balcony, five levels up, had been filled with chatter and laughter, stories of high school, and cheers and promises to catch up again soon. Konoha and Yukie had arrived arm-in-arm around six o’clock, sporting matching menacing grins that Akaashi knew from the get-go would make him and Bokuto targets of their incessant teasing. Komi had come about ten minutes later, laden with bags of promised chef’s specials from the restaurant he worked at and wagashi from the sweet shop two minutes down from it. Bokuto’s key had clicked in the lock not long after that, announcing himself with a crow of I’m home! and the three sake bottles tucked into his elbow.

They had helped Akaashi set the table in the kitchen, even though he had almost been done, but Konoha insisted he set up the chopsticks and glasses and Yukie wanted to hurry up the process by arranging the bowls so she could dig in as soon as possible because Komi-kun’s cooking smells amazing and I’m starving. Bokuto had been too busy unpacking the sake and food with Komi to come to Akaashi’s aid so he had given in rather quickly. It hadn’t taken them long to settle down and start eating; Akaashi smiles at the recollection of Yukie’s delighted expression upon her first bite of katsudon. It was nice to see some things hadn’t changed.

Metal rattling grabs Akaashi’s attention as the door behind him slides open. Next second there are a pair of hands rubbing along his shoulders, firm and soothing, and a soft mouth drops a kiss on the top of his head. Akaashi hums and is about to succumb to the touch when it leaves him, Bokuto choosing to weave between the chairs and reach for the glasses and bottles. He grabs Bokuto’s wrist before he can pick up the glassware, sliding his fingers over the slightly damp skin of his palm and snugly fitting their fingers together. In his mind he’s saying the rest of the washing up can wait and he knows Bokuto understands his wordless plea as a smile crawls onto his face. Bokuto lowers himself into the chair next to his with a tired groan, breaking their handhold in favour of draping his arm over the back of Akaashi’s chair, the tips of his fingers brushing against the point of his shoulder; Akaashi doesn’t hesitate to nudge his chair closer to Bokuto’s, allowing himself to snuggle into Bokuto’s warm body as much as he can. He lets out a content sigh when Bokuto brings him in closer and knocks their feet together.

Akaashi’s voice is a borderline whisper as he asks, ‘You have fun tonight?’

‘Yeah, I did!’ Bokuto replies in a volume that nearly matches Akaashi’s. ‘Had a great time. How about you?’

Humming in affirmation, Akaashi adds, ‘It was nice seeing everyone again.’

‘Yeah… too bad the others couldn’t make it,’ Bokuto mutters sullenly. ‘I know they’re busy with work and stuff but… would’ve been nice to see ‘em.’

‘It would have,’ Akaashi agrees, ‘but at the same time, I don’t think our apartment can accommodate our entire high school volleyball team.’

Bokuto laughs and Akaashi feels a smile tug at the corners of his lips at the sound.

‘That’s true,’ he says, ‘but still, I haven’t seen Tatsu and Yama and Kaori in ages, and Shuu-chan and Wata-chan had to go and do awesome stuff overseas and who knows when they’re gonna come back? I miss ‘em, Keiji.’

Akaashi’s I miss them too comes out as a gentle squeeze at Bokuto’s knee.

After high school—or rather, after Akaashi’s third year senpais had graduated—everyone had gone off in different directions: Washio and Bokuto went off and tried out for local professional volleyball teams; Sarukui, Yukie, Kaori and Konoha started their university degrees; and Komi dove straight into his apprenticeship at a nearby izakaya as a kitchenhand. Despite their diverging paths, all of them (be it all at once or in twos and threes) had visited Fukuroudani at different points during Akaashi’s third year, so much so it was like they never left. They sat during training sessions, watching Akaashi bring out the best of his kouhais as both a setter and captain. Their presence had been comforting, Akaashi can admit that even now.

But that comfortable presence, the pride they had exuded in the stands at the Spring Tournament (because yes, of course we came to watch you and the rest of the team, why wouldn’t we?), the pointers from the sidelines and the cheers of joy at each new point they scored was what made their abrupt loss a few rounds into Nationals unbearably painful.

It had been excruciating to look down at his captain’s jersey, its meaning withering away before his very eyes. Looking at his kouhai’s disappointed, exhausted, saddened expressions as they lined up before their cheer squad in the stands had been knives in his chest with every step he took away from their—and his—last game. He hadn’t been able to meet any of his senpais’ eyes when he thanked their section of the stands for their support, bowing as low as he could. The applause had been deafening, undeserved because they had lost. Akaashi hadn’t been able to see or think clearly as they left the stadium, heading towards the change rooms to switch uniforms and pack up. Along the way, he had heard variations of his name from familiar voices, treasured voices—Akaashi-senpai, Akaashi-san, Akaashi—but nothing had made him stutter in his step and his brain trickle into ringing silence more than a clear and confident shout of Keiji!

When he had managed to focus his gaze on the owner of the voice—and who else could it possibly be other than Bokuto-san?—Akaashi had expected intense eyes that flashed gold, or a sad smile and open arms, or even Bokuto with the whole gang, determined to give him a good talking to about they had played fair and square and well. He had been presented with none of that: Bokuto had been alone and he glowed not with determination or sympathy but with such overwhelming pride that Akaashi had felt the last of his resolve crumble into pieces. It had well and truly shattered when the rest of them filed through the open doors, Konoha yelling out oi, thanks for waiting, dickhead, resulting in Bokuto squawking in offence I’m not a dickhead! Kaori and Washio had calming smiles while Sarukui and Komi decided to join Konoha in berating Bokuto for abandoning them; Yukie had laughed at Bokuto when he cried out for her to help him—Yukippe, please! They’re so mean!—the sound the loudest out of everything, drowning out the whistles and shouting of a new match taking place on the court.

Even though Akaashi had broken down in front of them for the second time (scaring his kouhai in the process because not once had he shown weakness in front of them that past year save for Onaga and Anahori) he had been smiling. Yes, they had lost. Yes, it had been Akaashi’s last game. And yes, it had royally sucked, but if Akaashi had learned anything that day was that the bond that existed between him and both his former and current teammates wasn’t just something that appeared in their best moments. It burned brightly in the darkest spaces: an eternal flame that time would not extinguish. It was a special tie that kept them together even when apart, the kind that existed between Hinata and Kageyama, Kuroo and Kenma, and (perhaps in a roundabout way) the Miya brothers.

And when Komi demanded Akaashi and the team find them in the barbecue place down the road, that lunch is on them, Akaashi had realised something else. He and Bokuto had something more between them, and the way he had cried out Akaashi’s given name like it was second nature had made his heart race. Irrationality had been a big factor, kindled with a desperate kind of hope, in Akaashi claiming his only victory on the outskirts of the hallway, shadowed in a private nook.

(Bokuto’s hands had been gentle in wiping his tears away, expression bright and fond, but Akaashi had been fierce in closing the gap, consecutive expression one of horror and tongue heavy with an apology. It, however, never saw the world beyond his lips, not when Bokuto’s own had stretched in a delighted, tearful grin.)

So Akaashi misses them more than he can admit out loud, because when they’re all as close as this, it’s hard not to miss each other when they’re apart. But there is not much he can do when Sarukui has a night shift he can’t badger his way out of; when Kaori has night classes on the other side of Tokyo; when Washio’s new team favour long and gruelling training sessions on a Friday night; and when Onaga and Anahori are exploring Europe and Australia, blowing up their senpais’ phones with new landmarks and delicious treats at any given opportunity.

What he tells Bokuto is, ‘We’ll see them eventually. We can organise something in the future so that everyone can attend.’

‘That’s a good idea, Keiji,’ Bokuto says pensively. ‘Hey, we can invite Coach Yamaji, too!’

Craning his neck to gaze into Bokuto’s face, Akaashi’s mouth forms into a half grin. It’s enough of a response for Bokuto’s eyes light up and his smile is so big Akaashi cannot resist kissing it with his own. The taste of sake lingers and Bokuto pulls away with a low sound after a moment, massaging the space between his eyebrows.

‘Fuck, remind me never to challenge Yukippe again,’ he grumbles and Akaashi can’t stop the laugh that bursts out of him.

‘Shirofuku-san can drink us all under the table if she wanted to. I just hope she managed to get Konoha-san home,’ Akaashi muses. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he knocked into every person on the street and missed his stop.’

(Konoha was not a great drinker, and three glasses of sake in, he was already red-faced and misty-eyed as he reminisced about high school. Komi had been in tears trying not to laugh, and both Bokuto and Akaashi had simply nodded along, providing fuel for the fire by bringing up completely random and unrelated memories just to see what reactions they could elicit. Yukie had been beside herself, choking on her drink multiple times when Konoha would let out a wail.)

‘Serves ‘im right!’ Bokuto exclaims, but there’s amusement in his tone. ‘Yukippe’s kinda responsible though… she’ll get him home. She kept us in line and all, didn’t she?’

‘She did.’ Akaashi looks out over the balcony railing, just in time to see a pair of birds flying amongst the inky sky. He doesn’t know why it causes him to remember a certain high school moment, but he aims at Bokuto, ‘Remember that summer training camp? The year Karasuno joined us? When she burst into our room to tell us off for waking her up in the middle of the night because we were too busy playing cards?’

‘Oh yeah, I forgot about that!’ Bokuto laughs and smacks a hand against his chest. ‘She scared Kuroo so bad—remember his scream?—and he was in the other room and everything!’

‘And then Hinata-kun and Kageyama-kun wanted to join in, but Sawamura-san told them off too. Their faces, I’ll never forget—’

‘—they were so scared, oh nooo, too funny—oh, and remember when we were playing charades—Tatsu’s impersonation of a puppy? I died—’

‘“I’m a small version of a big cute thing. Wan-wan.”’

They dissolve into loud cackles, clutching onto each other as they go back and forth with remember this? Akaashi’s stomach aches from how hard he’s laughing, but he’s drunk on mirth and nostalgia (and maybe a bit of the sake) to care. Never mind that their laughs echo in the silent streets (he’ll apologise to the neighbours when he sees them, but not right now) and never mind that it’s nearing eleven, Akaashi is happy. It’s the happiest time of his twenty-two years and yes, he can afford to be silly now, because he’s alone with his best friend and love of his life and who needs masks around someone like that?

It takes them a good few moments to calm down, giggling every time they heave in deep breaths because the sound is just too funny.

‘Oh man—we sure had fun, didn’t we?’ Bokuto muses, wiping away a few stray tears from his eyes. ‘What a time.’

‘Indeed.’ Removing himself from Bokuto and standing up slowly, Akaashi turns to face him and holds out his hand for him to take. ‘But I reckon we’re having a great time now, aren’t we?’

His face hurts from all the laughter, but it doesn’t wipe the smile he has when Bokuto grabs his hand and stands up too, immediately wrapping an arm around Akaashi’s waist.

‘Hell yeah we are,’ he says, a ferocious grin gracing his mouth. He leans in to Akaashi’s ear and whispers in it, ‘Last one to the couch has to make breakfast in the morning.’

Gasping when Bokuto moves away, Akaashi pulls his shirt and his eyes catch the glint of silver for a split second on his hand before he squeezes past Bokuto’s body and into the apartment. Bokuto screeches in mock offence and runs after him. They fall into a heap on their couch—fiiiiiine, I’ll make breakfast tomorrow, even though you cheated!—and Akaashi seals their lips together.

(Three empty sake bottles and five empty glasses sit on the balcony table, splaying prismed moonlight through the door and into the apartment, highlighting fingers lined with silver, stark against a broad chest and dark hair.)

also on ao3

#bokuaka #akaboku #akaashi keiji #bokuto koutarou #hq!!#hq #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #fanfiction #fanfic #i love these two so much #tragic that i haven't posted a proper fic for them until now #mainly bc all my wips for them are 10k+ lol oops #i have zero regrets

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