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ajortga · 18 days

Text

just too late

pairing: tara carpenter x fem!reader

summary: where tara can't help but regret the outcome of her consequences, she was just too late. how can a heart love if it is no longer beating?

warnings: massive angst, death, stabbing, blood

word count: 3.5k+

a/n: based of a request i got on wp! honestly, i wrote this months ago and got to the end, but their request was so similar that i redid it. posting a small second part soon<3 also omg, thank you for 500 followers!

You had just visited Tara, a bouquet of roses in one hand as you knocked on the door. You had seen them when walking to her apartment and you knew that they were just perfect for her. You had to get them. As you heard the lock of the door click, Tara opened the door. She peeked out and saw you, smiling shyly. You thought she'd smile back, but instead her smile dropped.

That had never happened before.

"Y/N, we need to talk.

You knew something was wrong, something bad was going to happen. Your breath got stuck in your throat as she stepped aside to let you in. You knew the next thing that would happen would not be good.

fast forward 20 minutes

You stood there in Tara's apartment, Sam eyeing you with a penetrating death glare. You felt like sinking into the floor right there and then. You hated this kind of silence.

Sam broke the quietness, her gaze stern, "Y/N, this isn't going to work out between you and Tara." She states, crossing her legs as she sighs, "All of it just adds up."

You shake your head, but before you can retaliate, Sam speaks again.

"You know it too. You started dating my sister two weeks prior before the first ghostface attack. The police found your necklace right next to the victim, covered in blood. I can't trust you and have you near my sister. All of us," she states, twirling her finger in a circle, "Are in danger and I can't let my baby sister get hurt again. None of us trust you, not Mindy, not Chad, and definitely not me. You are going to stay away from her, no more coming over or seeing each other at school. Do I make myself clear?"

"You believe a piece of evidence that barely proves anything? They didn't even find my DNA anywhere!"

"Gloves."

You felt rage crawling its way out, you couldn't believe your girlfriend's sister would think you're the killer. Sam knows all too well how much Tara loves you. "You know I wouldn't hurt you! Least of all Tara! I love her with my whole heart and I would never even think of that! I-I don't know how my necklace got there, someone framed me!" You turned to Tara, blinking away tears that stung your eyes, "Tar.. You believe me right? Please tell her. I didn't do anything! Please don't leave me."

"Please.." you begged. You saw the way her gaze slightly cracked, you knew she didn't believe you. You could feel it, you wouldn't care for fucks sake if Mindy, Chad, or Sam didn't believe you. But Tara was different. It felt like a swing to the heart, it hurt so much. It felt heavy.

Tara didn't do anything but give you a hurt look, staring down at her fingers. You expect her to throw her arms around you, tell you that they all got it wrong and you can both live happily ever after in the end. Yet she doesn't.

"I'm sorry Y/N," she forces her shattered voice in her normal tone, swallowing a cry clawing to come out, "I don't trust you anymore, I don't love you. I-I never did. I just.. Don't think you should visit anymore. We're done."

You felt like your whole heart shattered at that moment as you heard her last two words. You looked at her as you sobbed in your hands. Hurt, mournful, betrayed.

All that Tara said was, "You need to get out please," her eyes pink and glossy.

"You don't understand Tara, please I'm begging you-"

"Y/N, I'm not going to say it twi- It's n-not me Tara!" you say, this point a small cry escaping you. The way Tara looks at you is wild.

Your girlfriend's voice raised, with a fury, she wasn't going to say it again, "Get the hell out! Do you need me to say i-it twice? I don't fucking love you! I don't want to see your face again!"

You flinched, you never felt more heartbroken in your life. Your heart hurt, it felt like someone had smashed it with a hammer. Tears that threatened to fall down were now dropping on the floor. All the moments you've spent together were now thrown away, stomped on. You felt your body shaking as you toss the flowers, leaving them to fall on the floor with a thud.

You simply nod, slowly.

"Fine." You say, more flat than ever, turning to leave as you feel the petals get stepped on by your shoe.

All you wanted was to brighten your girlfriend's day, entering with flowers in your hand and just wanting to cuddle her all day long. Yet, here you are, your girlfriend now turning into you ex, flowers dead, no cuddles, no more trust.

Tara felt horrible, the guilt eating her alive. All of her words were lies, she just knew that if you were to separate from her, she would keep you safe. You wouldn't be the target for ghostface if he thought you were just a normal person in Woodsboro. You would be safe. She tried to assure herself that as you slammed the door.

Her eyes met the squished flower that escaped from the bouquet on the floor and she wondered if she'd ever get flowers from you again after everything.

You stared at the picture frame placed on the counter of you and Tara together hugging with matching clothes, you choked on your sobs. Tara nor your friend group had chatted with you since then. Sam had blocked you on social media. At least your other friends had came along and checked up on you to make sure you were okay. Tara had sent a few messages, saying she was sorry that things had ended up like this, but to realize you blocked her.

You couldn't function properly, your eyes were dry with the amount of tears you released in the past week.

It's not your fault, you tried to assure yourself. You weren't ghostface. You can't believe the person you trusted most didn't even put her trust in you.

Maybe it all is your fault. Maybe if you were different, in personality, how much the core 4 really liked you, you wouldn't be here, crying like those teens in the movies that just feast on a gallon of ice cream. It makes you cry a little harder while you hug your teddy bear.

Especially the taunting memory of Tara screaming at you, tears blurring your vision as you stumbled back out of her apartment. Sam's eyes softening just a little bit, not meaning for this to happen. Yet you didn't even try looking into her eyes, too caught up with your own feelings to feel her sorrow.

The past few days, you've locked yourself up, abandoned school. Ignored the core 4, blocked Tara and the other three.

Your mind wandered, you were clouded in your own thoughts as you sobbed angry and hurtful tears. You cried to the point where tears stopped falling, and you were left with feeling nothing and your body feeling sore. Your breathing was still heavy, you let out heavy shaky breaths, but they started to cool down.

You closed your eyes, focusing on your breathing, until you heard your phone buzz from the ground. You picked it up, there was a message.

A part of you expected your friends to check up on you, since that's what they've been doing every since you've stopped going to school. Instead, you were met with a picture from unknown of the abandoned movie theater not too far from here. There, you saw the camera facing a knife pointing towards Tara and Sam, threatening, daring.

Your eyes widened, as you immediately take your keys and bust out the door, grabbing a small knife, maybe you'll need it, unblocking Tara and calling her and all of those you knew must be in there. They're in danger.

Each call leads to voicemail, from both Tara and Sam, you search up their location. The only one shared for you is Tara's. You almost smash it to the front of your phone holder, locating where they are at.

As much as you hurt, you knew that you would never heal knowing that someone you loved was at risk. The car engine roars to life as you head for the theater.

With each texts and call ignored, you get paranoid, worried sick. Stepping on the accelerator of the car, your car turns a corner and is out of sight.

"She fell for it, she's coming your way," a taunting voice rasps into their phone, Ghostface.

"Our plan is just setting into action."

Carefully, you slip into the door of the run down theater. You hear clatters, and immediately you freeze, hiding a corner and peeking out. Tara's scream echoes through the theater, your eyes widen and you look around, for something sharp.

This is a stupid shrine committed to ghostface, you realize. It makes it a little better, at least you're guaranteed a knife to defend and fight with?

You sweep a corner, the room your in is silent, and you creek down the floor board, being greeted with glass display cases.

You're not good with blood, yet there's evidence from ghostface's mark years ago. TV's, a knife laced in the red crimson color. A gag almost leaves your lips, yet you open the display case and your hands grasp around a cool metal. It's a knife alright, not too sharp if you were to drop it you wouldn't cut your whole toe off. Yet it's do-able.

"Tara?" your voice echoes, walking around and exploring, you're frantic. You keep hearing her voice mail ring through your ears and your worry increases.

You thought the room you were in was obsessive with ghostface, yet when you go into the middle of this shrine, it's filled with obsessive things. Masks, robes, knives, even the TV that Stu Macher was killed by. A shiver escapes you.

You look up, and you see the chaos going, glass shattered on the floor, action buzzing around. You see Tara.

"Tara!" You shout, trying to keep your voice low, your eyes meeting the ladder that goes up, you climb on it, grunting in effort. You climb, climb, climb, climb, until you reach the top.

Tara is with Sam, they're talking about their plan, they're a couple hundred feet away from you. The sister's clothes are smothered in blood, Sam's arm has a wound, and you feel sick seeing the blood seeping from your girlfriend's clothes.

Your about to say her name, until you see a shadow emerge. It's not any that you know, this one is dark, tall, more man-like.

It's not until you see the tilt of their head the sliver of light reflecting off their mask. Ghost face.

You don't know what gotten into you from the adrenaline from the moment, but your legs begin to run, move, nothing sounds more fitting than slow motion. His knife lifts from his chest, the sharp metal edge glistening.

You try to scream, the words bubble up in your throat, comes out in a dry cough.

Your legs feel like jelly, run faster, damnit.

They can't see him, he's behind them, tucked just 2 feet away in a corner, yet you see him. You can save Tara and her older sister, you can save the both of them, you have time.

You can save the both of them, your love outplays your brain. It's telling you to stop, you're going to get killed. But your heart overwhelms it, beating quicker, with each beat all you can hear is

Tara

Save

Her!

Tara

You

Have

Time.

The knife ghostface is holding gets brought down.

"Tara!" You finally scream, it comes out as a desperate cry as you lunge towards her. Her eyes turn from the setting below her to you, confusion, then shock as your hands shove her shoulders. The strength you built up finally goes to use, pushing her out of harms way, she shoves into Sam, as they both stumble back.

You hear them both say your name, confusion at first, before the second time they holler it out. It's a scream, yet it dies down in your ears, feeling the cool metal of the blade slam into your shoulder. The ring from Tara's screams fade, replaced with the blood pulsing in your ears. The pain, the sharp knife sinking into the flesh of your shoulder. All you can do is let out a soft cry, too tired to scream.

Your eyes water, looking up at ghostface, the ugly mask boring into your eyes. He tilts his head, shocked for a moment. Until he tilts his head back again, like the target he hit is even better than what he wanted. They didn't expect you so soon.

The knife tears out from your flesh, a sob leaves your throat, kicking and flaring your arms.

"Y/N!" Tara screams your name, this one you can hear. She's crying, sobbing, wailing. Begging for her older sister to let her go and save you.

Sam shushes her, all they can do is watch. All Tara can do is watch you suffer.

His knife slams into you again, your abdomen. You hear a disgusting squelch as it goes in. The pain is unbearable, this stab hurts even more than anything you can think about. You thought the 4 foot thorn going through your foot was bad. You cry, grabbing the knife that's tucked into your pocket and slam it against the black coat, right where the neck meets the shoulder.

A raspy whisper escapes your lips, "F-fuck you." You snarl.

You barely hear him grunt. Yet he doesn't back down, in fact, you hear the disgusting squelch again.

And again.

The pain lessens. You know why. You're dying.

You can't hear it anymore, but there are now several stabs on your abdomen. You collapse, blood seeping through your clothes, your hands, your face. It's warm, dark red, spreading. It oozes out of your wounds, and the squelching sounds are gone. Your eyes flutter, seeing the flurry of the white masked figure leaving you to rot. Your body collapses to the floor with a loud crash.

You saved Tara, you would die before he could ever kill her. Before she could ever die. If Tara died, you'd kill yourself, or you'd die quicker from a broken heart.

Sam's yelling, kicking ghostface as he lets go of you, you can barely see her bringing him down to the bottom floor, both of them collapsing off the second story.

Your eyes begin to close, your breath comes in short heaves and wheezes.

And then, you see her, barely, through your weak vision.

It's blurry at first, but you know it's Tara, who else would look so good with blood all over her face?

She presses her body down to you, her warmth barely seeping through, your body is colder. Those warm, soft eyes are wide, looking so scared, hands pressing down deeper to your stomach, trying to stop the bleeding.

"Fuck, no. Nononono.. Why the hell would you do that?" She yells at you, shaking your body, you whimper.

You barely respond, croak her name out, cough out blood.

She's crying, you realize, she's choking on sobs as she cradles you, lifting your body up to her chest. She smells like your favorite scent, sweet.. light.. vanilla.. So lovely.

You just want to be in her arms forever. Let her sweetness soothe the pain.

"Y/N," she sobs, seeing the way you're struggling to stay conscious, you're only holding on because she's there. She can tell the way your eyes are slowly glassing over, your vision is twitching, blurring, un-focusing.

Don't cry, you want to tell her, even though you know you're here, dying in your girlfriend's arms. But you're too weak to speak, instead, let a slurred murmur leave you. Her hand is clinging to yours, like if she were to let go you would immediately fall away.

"It's okay baby," Tara sniffs, clinging to you. Like if she lets go you'll shatter, "I'm here, help will come soon. Stay with me. Eyes on me baby."

You look at her, your girlfriend, being in her arms. She has a small wound, around her arm to her shoulder, yet it's barely bleeding. Being here, in her arms. It's your favorite thing ever, you've done it so many times to feel her warmth. You never thought you would not be in Tara's arms at night with you buried against her.

Yet you know it's your last time you'll be in them. You can barely feel the warmth she's trying to transfer to you, you're freezing. She senses it too, the way she's hugging you tighter. Pleading you to stay here, with her. The brunette squeezes your hand, distracts you from the pain that's already leaving. Along with your pulse.

"I'm so fucking sorry," she sobs, "I love you so much, you don't fucking understand," she wails. Pulls you closer to her, "I should have never left you, you mean the world to me, I never meant what I said. I t-thought I could protect you if ghostface knew that you were no longer in our circle."

You wheeze, your eyes never looking away from hers. She notices, how you're studying her, like the moment you don't, you'll forget how she looks like in heaven.

Freckles, doe-shaped crying eyes. You lift her hand to your chest, let her feel your heart, to let her know that your giving her your heart, your love. You don't want her to forget about you.

You don't want to die.

Yet if you don't want her to die, you'll die before she could ever.

Tara's still sobbing, ripping her shirt and tying it against your stomach, the blood seeps through, she tightens it. Looks worriedly down at you.

Ugly shapes of swiggles and dots cloud, you see random shapes flying. Try to focus on Tara.

Sirens ring in the distance, Tara looks back, yet immediately looks back at you. A tear falls from her stained mascara cheeks, down your shirt. Weakly, you bring it up and wipe her cheeks. Assure her it'll be okay. Yet she knows it's not. They're just too fucking late.

You saved her. That's all that matters now.

"It's all my fault, I'm so sorry my love. I never meant to hurt you. I never thought it would end so soon. I don't want you to die."

You swallow, blood slightly gurgles through your throat, use your dying strength to speak, "I'm h-here." You croak, "T-tara."

"I love you so much," you slur, hiccupping on a cry. Trace the matching necklace she gifted the two of you years past on her neck. You're wearing it too. Hers was silver, yours was gold. A silver and golden dove.

The blood loss is too much, you can barely speak. But she's here with you, in your last moments. You're able to have a goodbye you might not have had. She might not be ready, but you almost are.

Time wasn't in your favor. It really wasn't.

This isn't goodbye this is a simply see you later.

She's okay, knowing that makes you feel a little more okay. A little more okay and soothe the worries.

Tara plays with your necklace. A proper goodbye. Her eyes glisten with tears, and she leans down, presses her lips to yours. You kiss her, knowing it'll be the one you'll live to feel. Then you slump back down on the concrete. You don't care about anyone but her anymore. Sirens holler, people bust into the theater, and you look up at her, taking off her necklace and putting it into the palm of her hand.

"I w-want you to promise me one thing."

She sniffles, tears wont stop anytime soon, keeps tying cloth around your deep wounds. It's no use. She nods, "Y-yeah?"

"Promise me y-you won't forget me. E-even when you find someone you love, maybe even more than me. You won't t-throw.." You pause, coughing, "T-throw our memories away. Promise me that. That when your h-hands hold theirs, you realize that mine was once warmer. When you're by yourself on F-Friday nights, you'll remember that you used to come to mine and cuddle m-me." You hiccup, losing your train of thought, blinking, your words are barely audible, yet Tara can still make them out.

"...When you look at the stars on the grassy meadow, you'll remember that that's the spot we always w-went to to get our thoughts out of things," you barely giggle, it hurts your stomach. "A-and, when you look at all my pictures, or maybe one day I won't pass your mind for once, you'll be ready to let me go. The thought of me still being here. Y-you'll be able to love, even though I might still scar your heart."

She sniffles, seeing the way you begin to struggle on your words, they grow quieter.

"But I won't let that happen, I don't want your h-heart t-to scar," You place her hand on your chest again, "You can have mine."

Tara swallows her tears, still, they drop.

"I love you, Y/N," she sniffles, it's the same word from every other time you both said you loved each other. Yet this time, it's so fucking different. It's the last time you'll ever hear her say it to you while you're still hear. "I'll never love anyone more than I loved you."

"I love you too, Tara," you whisper. It's the last time she'll ever hear it from you. A small, weak smile cracks on your face as she leans down one more time, kisses you softly, taking the last breath from your lips.

And it's time to go. Your chest stills.

And for the last time, she hears your heart beat one more time.

A heart that once beat for her was gone.

#jenna ortega x fem!reader #jenna ortega x you #jenna ortega imagine #tara carpenter x reader #tara carpenter x you #jenna marie ortega #jenna ortega x reader #vada cavell x reader #jenna ortega x y/n #vada cavell x y/n #tara carpenter x y/n #tara carpenter x female reader

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fuckmyskywalker · 11 months

Note

anakin corruption kink

Please understand — Anakin Skywalker.

— cw: smut! 18+, minors DNI. Mildly dubious content, minor violence towards Reader. Anakin is a bit harsh, definitely desperate and absolutely in love. PiV, this is MY take on corruption kink so I'm sorry if it's not what you expected lol.

— a/n: Ok! I did what I could with the idea I had in mind. I redid this like three times, so sorry in advance. I hope you like it anyways. I really liked it, not that anyone cares.

His lips taste like darkness and lust.

His voice sounds like a cruel lullaby, that rocks you into that very same darkness he is drowning in.

"I thought I lost you" Anakin shakily whispers against your lips.

His hands grip your hips harshly, pushing you against the walls of the room you hid in. You gasp at his brusque manner, so uncharacteristic of him.

"Anakin" You speak, but he quickly hushes you smashing his lips against you desperately.

He smells like ashes, leather and…

And blood.

Panic blossoms inside your chest, something happened. Something was wrong.

You push him gently away from you, gripping his shoulders firmly. You call him again, your eyes locking onto his.

Your heart drops.

Golden rivers of lava stare at you, and you realize Anakin is no longer himself.

"What… what have you done?" You ask, one hand leaving his shoulder to cup his cheek. "Anakin, your eyes…"

"I did it for you" He states, grabbing your hand and holding it with such force your fingers crack. "I did it for us"

Before you can even muster a reply, his lips crash against yours. His force cages you against the wall, and it's easy for him to gain control over you. Your limbs suddenly are made of jelly, and your knees buckle. You can hear the faint sound of what appears to be screams, blasters, chaos.

His hands travel up and down your sides, eager to feel any sort of contact. His tongue invades your mouth exploring it at his will. Anakin sighs against your mouth when his hands find the hem of your shirt, sliding inside and caressing your soft skin.

"I did it for us" He repeats when he pulls away.

"No" You cry, shaking your head. "No, Anakin. This wasn't supposed to happen"

Something snaps inside of him, something that seemed to mirror the chaos happening outside the room. His leather hand grabs a fistful of your hair, yanking it.

"Why can't you see I did it for us?!" He yells.

He wants you to understand, he needs you to understand.

Instead of waiting for a reply he pulls again, forcing you to the floor. Your body collides with the harsh carpets of the room, and in a blink of an eye Anakin is on top of you, kissing you again.

His large frame cuts every movement, leaving you motionless under him. His lips trace your jaw, as the darkness he is surrounded by begins to creep into your body.

"This was the only way" He whispers, his tongue tracing your cheek slowly. "Please understand my angel, please"

Doubt clouds your mind. He did it. He really did it for you.

"Anakin" You moan when his teeth sink in your skin.

But was it worth it?

"You are so beautiful" He says in a sweet tone that melts your heart. "You are mine"

"I would kill for you" Anakin whispers, but to your ears it sounds like a promise.

Although he already did, for you.

Your mind begins to wonder; You love Anakin more than anything. You belong to him, mind, body and soul. But if this isn't the Anakin you learned to love, cherish and hold… then what can you do?

Anakin reads the doubt in your eyes, and he thrives on it. "I love you" He continues, pushing further to that hole he wants you to fall into. "I am who I am because of you. My beautiful angel… you are every reason, every hope"

His hands undo your belt, sneaking slowly into your pants. You pant to push him away, to scream, cry and sob. Beg for him to gain some clarity of mind.

It's too late for that, you both know it.

"You're every dream I've ever had" Anakin's golden orbs swell with tears, he has no idea why he is crying, when he usually rejects his own tears with disgust.

"No matter what happens to us in the future— I will always belong to you" His fingers hook on the edge of your pants, dragging them down.

His voice calms you, while the end of the world you grew up in, crumbles into pieces just outside the room. Every single thing you believed in, begins to cloud into a dense smoke.

Your mind feels… empty.

Oddly empty.

Anakin's tears fall on your face, bringing you back to reality. He looks absolutely beautiful, like one of those statues you saw in an art museum.

"Please" His expression is broken, and the vulnerability he shows you allures you. You want to fix him.

When in reality Anakin is breaking you.

His touch over your body feels warm and familiar, as he eases your mind into a deep state of numbness. He is right. How could you be so blind?

He did this for you.

Anakin's gentle hands solidify the intention surrounding him, there's love, there has always been love between you two. Every inch he touches feels on fire, as if the sun was dancing in across your skin.

"I do" You reply breathlessly, as he pushes his hard length inside of you. "I do" You gasp with every kiss, every caress.

The embrace was maddening, beguiling, unreal. Every sway of his hips against you sends you into a spiral of new emotions. Anakin has never felt more alive. He felt complete, for once in his miserable life.

He can read it in your eyes, as they mirror the same darkness he is swimming in. No longer drowning, because you are his lifeboat. You are everything.

Anakin has been haunted since the day he met you, trapped in a love that was forbidden and caged in a prison of his own insecurities and impediments.

Not now.

Not ever again.

"Together— Together, my love" He pants over your face, his dirty blonde curls framing his face, almost giving him a bright halo. "Together we will rule and take what's ours. No one will tell us we can't be together"

Sweet like honey, soft as silk, there's a beauty in destruction. Anakin's hand wraps around your throat, pushing your head against the cold carpets. He groans loudly, the sounds of your moans and cries edging him further. The skin to skin contact and noises are too much. Anakin knows you are close, he knows you like the back of his hand.

"Come on angel" He haunts you, squeezing your throat harder. "Come on, be mine" He says through gritted teeth, holding back by pure seconds. "Please, please my love"

You throw your head back, a strained sob of ecstasy ripping from your throat. Anakin watches amazed how you unwrap under him, opening your soul and mind in a form of an orgasm, and that's when he realizes he did it.

He follows you seconds after, filling you up not only with his hot and sticky release, but with sweet promises.

He can hear hurried steps outside the room, and he knows everything is going according to plan. Once Order 66 is completed, he will be able to spend the rest of this new opportunity of a fresh beginning with you.

When he kisses you again, his lips no longer taste like darkness, they taste like an apocalypse.

"I love you" Anakin breathes, smiling fondly.

"I love you" You stare back at him, your precious golden eyes glowing with tears and love.

Finally, you understood it.

He did it for us.

#𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 anya writes!#anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker x reader #star wars #anakin x reader #anakin skywalker smut #anakin skywalker x you #anakin #anakin smut #anakin skywalker fanfiction #anakin skywalker x reader smut #sith anakin #anakin x you #star wars anakin #anakin x y/n #anakin skywalker one shot #anakin skywalker imagine #anakin skywalker x female reader

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myveryownfanfiction · 7 months

Text

18+ MINORS AND THOSE WITHOUT AGE IN BIO DNI

tags: @illiana-mystery, @fangsandroses

warnings: injuries, blood, self inflicted injuries, swearing

“what the hell happened to you?” Rachel asked as she sat on the table. I frowned at Nelson as he glanced at her then at me.

“I was playing hockey.” He said vaguely. He finished prepping the needles and glanced around the room. “Where’s Dave?” Joe and steckle shrugged. I walked over to him and grabbed his chin.

“Nelson. You weren’t playing hockey. What happened?” I asked him as Joe talked to Rachel about the potential whereabouts of Dave. He went to turn his head but I held his head in place. “Those aren’t hockey injuries Nel. Come on.” Nelson swallowed and we turned as Rachel laid back.

“I’m ready.” She said, voice wavering slightly. “Dave or no Dave.” I let my hand fall and we went into it. When she came back after five minutes, I helped her into the bathroom and gave her the space she needed. “I’m fine really.” She said before closing the door on me.

“why don’t you ask doctor death?” Dave said as everyone gathered around Nelson. He rolled his eyes and started to walk away. I grabbed his arm.

“what’s going on Nelson?” I asked. Looking between everyone, Nelson sighed.

“we’ve been getting visits from those we’ve wronged in the past. Mines name billy Mahoney. And he’s a rambunctious little shit.” Nelson scoffed.

“wait a minute. You’re telling me a ghost is doing this?” I asked, grabbing his head and turning it to look at his wounds. Dave stepped closer and looked at the wounds too. “Nelson…” he pulled away from me and crossed his arms.

“it’s no big deal.” He tried to brush it off. “Look I’m fine. Joes fine. Rachel will be fine. Your problems are your own Dave.” Nelson walked away and I followed him. When we got back to his apartment, I sat Nelson down and cleaned up his wounds.

“next time don’t do this yourself.” I said softly. “You might accidentally infect yourself.” Nelson nodded as I redid his stitches. “Want to tell me what’s really going on Nelson?”

“billy Mahoney is this kid I picked on. It’s the one regret I have.” He said, staring at his hands. “I shouldn’t have done it but I mean…” he waved a hand around. “We had money. Have money. Billy was poor. It…wasn’t right. Didn’t make it right. But it happened.” I finished up and set down the needle. Nelson looked up at me, eyes hollow.

“Nelson…”I sighed. I hugged him and he seemed to be clinging to me as I rested my head on top of his. “We’re going to put an end to this. Somehow.” Nelson shook his head and I tightened my grip on him. We went to bed soon after and I didn’t hear him get up. When I did wake up, I found the note he’d left. The phone rang and I answered it. “Hello?”

“something is wrong with Nelson. You need to come down here.” Dave said. “Joe and steckle are with him and we’re at Rachel’s apartment. You need to hurry. We can’t keep him here forever.”

“on my way.” I said, hanging up. I grabbed my coat and ran out the door. Within ten minutes I was at the apartment and waiting to get buzzed in. Flying up the stairs, Dave had already had the door open and I ran in. Nelson was sitting tied to the bed frame. “Why…” I turned to look at Dave.

“he took an ice pick to his ear. Was aiming for his face.” I spun around to look at Nelson in shock.

“billy mahoney.” Nelson mumbled. Dave put his hand on my arm and drew me into Rachel’s kitchen.

“he did it himself. There was no one there.” Dave whispered. “He’s going to kill himself if we don’t stop this soon.” I nodded and looked over at Nelson.

“but how?” I asked. “He genuinely believes that a ghost is doing this.” Dave nodded.

“atonement.” He said. “I went and atone for what I did. My visions ended. If Nelson can atone for whatever he did to billy Mahoney…”

“the visions and self mutilation will end.” I finished. “Ok. Let’s do it. I’ll take Nelson to see billy.” Nelson looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “We might need your car.” Dave handed me the keys and patted my hand. Heading over to nelson, I grabbed his arm and pulled him back out. “Alright Nelson. Where’s billy Mahoney?” Nelson rubbed his neck and winced.

“it’s uh…” Nelson sighed and looked anywhere but me. “It’s easier to show you.” We got into Dave’s car and Nelson gave me the directions.

“where are we headed Nelson?” I asked as the town got darker and darker. “What’s going on?”

“we’re going to see billy Mahoney.” Nelson muttered. “Stop here.” I pulled over and got out with Nelson.

“that’s…that’s a cemetery.” I said with a frown. Nelson nodded.

“yeah.” He whispered. “That’s where billy Mahoney is. I killed him.” I looked over at Nelson as we started walking through. “It was an accident. He fell. I was taken from my family at nine and put in a reform school.” Nelson leaned down in front of a headstone and sneered. “I thought I paid my dues.” Pulling Nelson back, I wrapped an arm around his.

“we’ll figure it out.” I promised. “Somehow. We’ll figure it out.”

#kiefer sutherland #kiefer sutherland imagine #kiefer sutherland fanfiction #kiefer sutherland fanfic #kiefer sutherland x reader #nelson wright #nelson wright x reader #Nelson wright fanfic #Nelson wright fanfiction #Nelson wright imagine

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brightgnosis · 1 month

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Went upstairs and stole all of my Mother in Law's incense supplies out of the spare bedroom she called her "Sanctuary"*. In the process I managed to also find a little bud vase, a small amount of fake flowers that'd fallen off something, a tiny little New Testament Bible, and a little Lace Doily.

*She loved her incense so much, it felt wrong not to have an Ancestor Altar up for her without her incense supplies.

I redid the Ancestor Shrine when I came back down, since I had a bunch of stuff for it finally.

Put the Doily down as a "cloth". Added a little incense burner to it and stuck one of her Incense sticks in it. Put the Bible in the middle. Filled the Bud Vase with some of the Rock Salt I had from an old Wax Melter, then stuck the Fake Flowers in it. And since her Obituary is now in the paper, I cut it out and put it in the other side of the 2 photo frame we bought as well; the other side will have a proper photo of her once we pick one out.

I think she'd be happy with it. I hope she would be, at least.

#Personal #2024 #She Called Me 'Her Ruth'#Ancestral Connections #Religion & Magic

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quad-weave · 10 months

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(I took this picture almost a year ago!)

1-year Gposing Anniversary!

Today is the day I consider my gposing anniversary--the first time I did a 'photo shoot' specifically for the point of sharing with others :) So, I wanted to take some of my earlier pictures and remake them, to see how far I've come! :)

(Why not the first photo shoot though, you may ask? I already redid the pictures to revamp the Eorzea Collection post that first shoot was for.)

------

I can't do this without revisiting my first custom Anamnesis pose. It was mainly the result of me poking around the tool and figuring out how it works, but I was still happy with the result.

But it's anniversary time, so it time for a remake!

To be honest, though, there wasn't too much wrong with the pose in and of itself, besides the fingers. It is just a tweak of an in-game idle pose, after all. So what I did was use the same shader and put a bit more thought into the framing and background!

And I fixed the fingers. You can't see it but I fixed them, trust me 😌

08/22/23:

08/06/23:

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Next, I wanted to remake my first couples pose. I remember learning so much from trying this one out, but I also had a lot of trouble with a lot of things... and I think it took about six hours total. This set was definitely a trial. I saved and loaded these poses a few months ago too, and hoo boy. There was a lot happening, lol, and most of it was not good.

The reshoot is more of a reimagining, though. Unlike the other shoots where I replicated most of the image, I've changed the outfits, some of the background, and tweaked the poses a fair bit.

Let's face it, when I first tried this pose I was out of my depth, and now, with a deeper understanding not only of Anamnesis but how to frame pictures and choosing shaders, I have a couples pose set that looks far more natural and soft.

10/17/22:

08/06/23:

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Next is this picture. At the time I was still getting the hang of post editing, and also was dealing with some... oddities with the dress. Which had me crop the shot at an unusual resolution.

But now, I know how to be more subtle with my post-editing and shaders, and I've gotten better with lighting, too. In general result looks more natural :)

10/23/22:

08/05/23:

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Finally, I have this photo shoot with Laurent. This one was special to me because it's the first time I used some really dramatic lighting, and I still really liked how it turned out.

However, there were issues with other parts of the composition (the giant knife, everything being shot from the same angle, etc) and I always wanted to give this another try :)

It's a bit brighter this time around due to the changed location, but the lighting still feels pretty dramatic. This time I did some different, more dynamic angles, and I took a bonus picture :)

Oh, and I learned how to scale weapons down. Why are weapons so huge in this game...?

11/20/22:

08/05/23:

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I really enjoyed remaking some of these shoots--while I knew I've improved over the year I started, being able to see the differences side by side really lets me see my growth.

Here's to another year of having fun gposing :D

#ffxiv gpose #ffxiv viera #final fantasy xiv #final fantasy 14 #ff14 #ffxiv #ffxiv screenshots #quad posing #gpose anniversary

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bosskie · 1 year

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Molluck sculpt stuff and rambling

I have been working on my Molluck sculpt recently and it looks quite different than the previous WIP I shared, so I felt like sharing you some progress again. I still gotta refine and fix some stuff but now, Molluck looks more like himself. But here's some 'old vs new' stuff:

I basically redid all his details and fixed his anatomy and shapes.

This was the first WIP I shared about him, and you can see how different he was even earlier:

He was much more bulky back then... This sculpt has changed a lot during the progress and it's not done in a correct way, meaning that this has an awful topology. So, I have to redo the sculpt at some point. But I have decided to finish this sculpt since it will help me a lot with the proper model too. Doing stuff in a wrong way is also a way to learn! I know what to do next time since I got some good materials to help me with 3D stuff now. So, this will be 'Molluck model version 1.0'. I still have so much to learn about 3D stuff and this is a totally amateur sculpt. So, this sculpt won't have the clothing but the proper one.

Molluck ain't still the easiest thing to draw/sculpt/create but doing this sculpt has also helped me to understand more how his anatomy and all those shapes work. I have been studying his Soulstorm model so many times, using those cutscenes, all their frames, using a video editing software for such, but that art book of Soulstorm has helped me a lot too.

All this time I have drawn him, I have wanted to try to capture him as much as I can like he is in Soulstorm. But when it comes to his naked body, New 'n' Tasty model has been the way to go and Molluck's Soulstorm model is based on that and it can be seen on the art book since he has exactly same shoulders than in NnT for example. Yes, when I'm into something, I do really am into it... But even I love Molluck in such a way, I barely wanna change him. I wanna keep his body as close to the NnT model as I can but his hands are from the original concept art since I love those hands... So, basically the only thing I have changed about him is his 'ding-dong situation', like you all thirsty for him, I assume (I have seen stuff)... Don't ask me why I even wanted to do this model in the first place... I just want him, so much, okay...

I think that I understand his whole character more and more over time. Recently, I learned more about cigars and got more ideas for Molluck stuff, thanks to that. And I, um, even own a big cigar now! It's totally Molluck's fault... It's gonna dry but it doesn't matter; I just wanna retain one cigar, even if I starter such a 'hobby'. I laugh at myself when I look at it... I just truly love this Gluk and wanna understand his character as much as I can. And don't get me wrong, I have had this interest before, Molluck just 'boosted' it.

I'll write more Molluck stuff after the poll has ended. I do understand his flaws and negative sides but when it comes to imagination/fiction/fantasy, I care less about the moral stuff. Maybe it was better that his farm got destroyed but my heart still wishes all the best for him... I didn't choose this love, he just feels so much like made for me... He just makes me feel so good and has helped me in life... I have heard from a professional that I'm 'left behind in the development' when I have never had any realistic partner candidate but I haven't chosen it. I love to be like this and am barely into relationships, so this is ideal for me. So yes, I 'ship' myself with Molluck every day but I don't wanna share such stuff since it's private stuff for me but I can talk about what I feel toward him, like I have been doing now.

I think that I love him too much to be objective enough about him... But I'm trying my best to see him like he truly is but somehow, I just see that he has a heart and can be a lovely Gluk but only if he truly likes/loves you. I just got such a feeling from those Soulstorm cutscenes... But I think that this was enough for now.

~ I just love this Gluk!

#art like a bosskie

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incarnateirony · 2 years

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I just saw the episode description for 1x7, and it says John Showalter is the director? I thought this was the ep that Richard directed? Are the credits wrong?

Remember when I said... not to let antis and trolls double down on like... when exactly things were filmed... because episode seven had a suspiciously large number of days it was considered filming? And that Episode 8 was Low Key Tricky to get much on? So my 1x8 tag is nearly a void right now, but 7 is way overbloated???

1x7 boards had plenty of Dick Speight and Paul Olinde credits on it the whole run through, but Showalter films a different angle of The Winchesters, one could say. :) Like being brought back for episode one reshoots.

Winter handled a good deal of what they could while they were there. But they knew it would be easier to do some when everyone came back for episode 2, which Showalter also directed.

Separate from that, uh. chart. Robbie drew Jensen a chart. And over time people are gonna realize what that chart is, albeit much was shared verbally rather than in text. But on how they had to tell this story, beyond the grim sense of "chuck won" that came out of post-18 before the inevitable. There was another way for this to have meaning, and it was in the omitted, in the absence of it.

So anyway. Jensen redid his narrative as structure tweaked down the way per Bobo's elbowing of his buddy Robbie for Better Call Saul framing ideas... and, you could say. Others. Garden. Locust. Birth. Bugs that hide in your deepest thought box of trauma. And could end Everything.

Cough. So now Showalter comes by for midseason basically. Cough.

Enjoy figuring out the shuffle work from here on ep 1x7-1x8 filming, but don't forget to check out my corresponding tags, or my winchesters codex tag.

#winchesters codex #1x7 #1x8 #speight #olinde #showalter

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kreeger · 1 year

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Did a lil project this evening after accumulating some supplies… I can cut mats now! Given that I’ve got a stack of artwork in unusual and nonstandard sizes that I want in store-bought frames, I figured it was worth like a $120 kit and some YouTube videos to figure out how to mat things myself.

The first cut was disastrous: I was dragging the bevel-cutting blade in the wrong direction (can’t cut with the non-sharp side of the blade, duh), but once I expanded my mat window and redid the cut, you can’t tell the difference.

I’m definitely better-armed for my next foray into matting, which is good because I have so much stuff to get into frames. Here’s my handiwork!

#framing #picture framing

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ethos0706 · 9 months

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Animating my Spidr character

Today we started creating a walk cycle animation for our characters using Adobe Photoshop, my animation isn't too big (only 4 frames) but I worked decently hard to pack as much charm and functionality into these 4 frames.

To start off with I found a guide online that laid out the basics of a good walk cycle, that being the bob of the character, slightly exaggerated arms and legs, flow of movement and body positioning.

After studying it I got to work in Photoshop, which didn't start very well. unfortunately I kinda had the walk cycle the wrong way round (bobbed up first and had the legs constantly alternating sides between frames) so I scrapped my first lot of animation and completely redid it. Only after redoing that process twice (and having a mental breakdown in the meantime) did I finally settle on an animation I was proud of.

As you can see I added a bit of what's known as smear frames to the arms to A: make the character look more silly and cute, and B: to emphasize the movement of the arms.

Next I had to create an Idle animation which is considerably easier than trying to animate stubby legs.

I wanted him to have a little fidget animation, similar to what sonic does in the original genesis games, where after a while the spidr clenches his pincers. To do this I made it so the up and down animation would play 3 times, then he would clench his pincers twice, then loop.

I now had to make a death animation, which I made by editing in the image adjustments tab found here:

I set the saturation of the image quite low and slightly increased the brightness by just a tad to create a lifeless monochrome effect (I also made the spidr eyes X's because he's dead :P)

My final task today was to create a 1 frame jumping animation (I would've added multiple frames but they wanted 1 so ig i'm doing that) To do this I essentially copied the death pose but made them colourful and happy this time.

(aw look at them they're so happy)

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sleepymarmot · 10 months

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I haven’t giffed for a while, so making the previous post was a bit of an adventure.

I started this gifset in February 2021. Back then I ripped every frame and the gifs were too big for tumblr, so I had to delete every other frame by hand. It looked so choppy that I put the post on ice, and it got buried under other drafts. Evidently I found the post again months later but didn’t fix it and left it to rot again.

I found the post again this week and almost published in that state, but thought it’d be too embarrassing to post a gifset with every second frame in 2023. I then tried to remake it in proper quality. I discovered that I had one of the gifs ripped with every second frame, and had to re-rip it again (and remember how to crop them). For some reason, the new screenshots were brighter, so I had to use a different coloring for them. I also had to split that gif into two, but that’s easy.

The gifs were still way past the Tumblr limit, and I was on the brink of losing hope and shelving the post again when I realized that I can just reduce the number of colors. This is b/w! There are 64 and even 32 colors per gif in that post and it all looks perfectly fine. So my big problem from two years ago was finally solved. (Too bad this solution would not work with normal color gifs.)

The original version was also awfully slow. For the new one I started experimenting with frame delays since I’m unfamiliar with giffing every frame. At first I tried to abandon frame animation altogether and set the FPS on the timeline the same as original video, but that didn’t work (in two different ways). Then I realized that gif exporting ruins frame delays anyway, rounding them up/down to either 0.03 or 0.07. 0.03 looked perfect in my desktop image viewer but too fast on Tumblr in the browser. 0.05 looked too slow. Then it finally occurred to me to do the math, and 1 second / 23.976 fps indeed equals 0.04 (rounded). So I adjusted the gifs to have 0.04 as frame delay and it still looks wrong somehow, even though objectively it should be the best option.

By the way, I had to carefully replace gifs one by one in the original post buried like fifty pages deep within my drafts, and not just because I didn’t want to make a new one: that draft is in the legacy photo post format, and I don’t have access to it for new posts anymore.

After finishing and uploading all that, I realized that I never cropped out the black border, and it’s quite visible at the edges of the gifs. But I already wasted way too much time to go through every gif again.

In the end, the only thing I had to redo from scratch was the final gif (now split in two). For all the others, I used the same psd, adjusted the export settings, then redid the frame delay of the exported gifs. The real time-consuming part was not the editing process itself, but figuring out what I needed to do.

All this was for an extremely simple gifset, by the way. The kind that requires no actual creativity or hard work, only a bit of technical know-how. If you know what you’re doing, and not blindly poking at the settings you’re not used to, it should take no time to make. I just want to share how much I’m overthinking everything. (And also to journal for my own sake, because this has been An Experience.)

#photoshop woes #blah blah blah

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pvarker · 2 years

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build you up, then i take.

masterlist • about me • general guidelines

summary: peter parker is especially frustrated after a very hard set of physics problems, and who better to calm him down than you.

warnings: just some making out, spidey sense overload that could be described as a panic attack but not really?

tags: gn!reader, college!peter x college!reader, established relationship, peter parker is a nerd <3, fluff, universal!peter (esp since he goes to empire state uni here), some making out, hurt/comfort kinda??

word count: 2.3k

a/n: honestly a long time no see! college has been pretty busy for me but i've been thinking about this idea for a while, after i did a physics problem set this week and got extremely frustrated. ofc peter our resident engineer will go through the same pain so why not write something for it? this also kinda ended weird but im too tired to really care lolz. i'm still working on one way or another and another one shot (which is at like 2k words rn, and climbing). please enjoy!

As Spider-man, there were a lot of frustrating things in Peter's life. Spandex that was tight in the wrong places, criminals who don't respect the quality of his quips, the little piece of metal that sticks out on his window frame that snags his suit all the time. Oh and of course, the regular things, like not catching a criminal on time or having the culprit run away before the cops could arrive.

But, Peter was a pretty gentle boy, especially after his aunt May sent him to take yoga classes from childhood to take care of his restless energy. It was just a deep breath in and a breath out, to calm himself down, and remind himself to take it one step at a time.

So why was he getting so worked up on a regular thursday evening at his campus Starbucks?

"Okay, let's try 260.16 N this time," Peter muttered to himself, his eyebrows scrunched in concentration. Peter was nestled in the corner, scratch paper scattered all around his laptop. His head was leaning in one of his hands, his hand repeatedly combing through his hair as he worked out the problem. His eyes flickered down from his scratch sheet of paper, to the laptop, and then back to his calculator as his nimble hands redid the calculations to double and triple check, before entering in the answer.

This was his fifth and final attempt at the same problem he's been pouring over for the past half hour. Usually, he liked to study with you, his partner of 2 years, in your apartment. Mostly because it was an excuse to distract and eventually, make out and cuddle with you. But it was also just an excuse to have your calming presence, to watch you work. Your presence was oddly soothing to Peter’s spider senses, in a way he couldn’t understand.

Back in high school, when he was just your best friend and not your boyfriend, it went haywire at your presence. Especially when you did something particularly cute, or something that sent butterflies in his stomach, his vision would blur, only being able to focus on you and nothing else. It was especially bad at your touch, your soft skin against his made him sweat and pant like he just ran a marathon.

Yet, as soon as you were his, his senses settled down, and became unnaturally quiet. A quietness that Peter hadn’t experienced since the spider bite. It was almost like his senses were rewired overnight, like it knew you were safe for him to be around so it was okay for it to turn off for a while.

Today though, he couldn't be afforded to distracted by you. He had already missed two lectures after doing a midday patrol, and unless he caught up with the problems, he was screwed for his midterms.

"God, this better be correct," he mumbled out, his eyes scanning the screen one last time before submitting the problem. He shut his eyes, not wanting to see the results on the screen. He gave himself a small pep talk, trying to alleviate the small anxiety building in his chest before peaking at the screen.

On the screen was a big red outline around the answer box, accompanied by a banner screaming at him that "The answer is incorrect."

He squinted at the problem, confusion taking over his features as he ran a hand through his hair, scrunching it in slight frustration. Rather harshly, he clicked on the prompt box to reveal the correct answer, his fingers pressing into the keyboard harder than needed. Berating himself for being so harsh with his only laptop, he shut his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing.

"A fucking negative sign?" he exclaimed a little too loudly, getting weird looks from the near by customers. He looked up, muttering a quick apologies before going back to his screen.

Apparently the answer was negative 260.15 N not positive, according to the taunting banner that was yelling at him that he was wrong for the millionth time.

"How could I have missed a negative sign?" He rifled through his papers, shuffling around the scraps of paper to reread over his work. As his fingers followed his calculation, he paused between two steps, noticing how he dropped a negative sign between the two equations.

Fuck. Peter gritted his teeth, his jaw clenching as he berated himself. His mind always worked faster than his hands, and it often got him in trouble in math, but not this frequently. This was the 6th problem in a row that he had to redo over 4 times, and suddenly a deep breath in and out just wasn't good enough.

A restless frustration took over his body, starting with his fidgeting hands turning into fists, his nails digging into the palms of his hands. He shut his eyes tight, trying to ignore the feeling by practicing some breathing exercises but no avail. It climbed up his body, creeping from his arms to his chest, filling his lungs, before climbing up his neck and filling mind.

It was almost searing hot, the feeling crawling up his body and his spidey sense only magnified the emotion. All of a sudden, he was overheating, the uncontrolled emotion running his sense haywire, making him sweat. His heightened vision was blurring out his eyes, and the smells of the coffee that was once soothing was attacking him, suffocating him. The low noise that was supposed to act like white noise were amplified, every conversation, sniffle and whisper sounding like screams and yells.

But rather than it making him want to cover his eyes and shut himself into a dark, quiet room, like it usually did, it only contributed to the rage and frustration building in his chest. Almost like he was losing control of his sense, and over what? A couple of physics problems?

Maybe it was the building pressure of his responsibility to the city and to his studies adding on, but it was impossible for him to stop seeing red as he attempted to close his eyes and channel whatever breathing exercises that was taught to him. His leg shook underneath the table, biting his lip, trying to think clearly enough to remember what to do to get rid of this irritation.

You. He needed to see you. Seeing you always helped quiet down the noise in his head after a long day of patrolling, so maybe you could help here too?

As if his body was working on autopilot, he quickly gathered up his stuff, trying to cram his paper back into a folder and grab his laptop to shove it away in his backpack. Quickly slinging his backpack on his shoulder, he walked out of the starbucks trying to set off to your apartment before he did something he regretted.

It was a normal thursday night for you, maneuvering around your kitchen to prep some pasta for yourself. The sounds of New Girl echoed through your kitchen, as you smelled the lovely aroma of the food you were cooking up. You were just staying by yourself tonight, since your roommates were out and Peter was out working on school work.

Days like these helped you take stock of your life, just slowing down to take in all the good around you. Going to Empire State University, and living in New York had you in a constant race, rushing to complete work that required more than 24 hours within the span of a day. Still, your life was going well, surrounded by your friends and a stellar boyfriend who you're head over heels in love with.

You were especially dressed down tonight, just chilling in a oversized t-shirt and shorts, while you stirred the pasta sauce, your eyes on the antics of winston and cece on the show.

Before the sauce was reduced too much, you mixed in the pasta, the smell making your mouth salivate, and you gave it a quick stir, before plating it in a bowl. Quickly, you took out some fresh parsley to garnish your creation, before leaning back, proud of your work.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang through your apartment, before a muffled voice of your boyfriend, Peter Parker, sounded through your front door.

Wiping your hands off on a dish towel, you ran to get the door. You swung it open to greet your oddly disheveled boyfriend, his hands tugging on the straps of his backpack. He was more fidgety than usual, his hands playing with the fabric of his shirt as he stood in front of you. Seeing him was quite the surprise for you, especially after he mentioned how busy his next couple days were with midterms and projects.

"Peter!" you exclaimed, grinning up at him, meeting his chocolate eyes. His eyes were one of your favorite features, the brown eyes almost wide and eager to take in everything around him, almost soft and adoring. But those eyes that are usually bright and full of mischief were a darker shade, clouded by something that you couldn't put your finger on.

He walked in, almost wordlessly as he shed his backpack and placed in on your couch, only confusing you more as you shut the door behind him. Your face scrunched in confusion at his odd behavior. It was rare that he came in like this. At least, when he got in his moods, he was usually coming through your window, not the front door, dressed in his familiar red and blue suit rather than as a regular college boy.

He was quiet, but his eyes were on you and you could feel your skin heating up at his gaze. All of a sudden, it felt like you were too exposed to him, goosebumps slowly forming along your arms and legs as his eyes traced your figure up and down.

"What are you-" you started to ask him, but you were cut off as your boyfriend strode towards you, his hands cupping around your face to bring your lips to his. His lips were firm against yours, yet soft and familiar as they pressed against yours. It caught you off guard, your hands freezing at your sides as he pressed his lips insistently onto yours.

Then as if your mind started working again, you lips moved against his, and your hands went to his waist to pull him closer to your body. You gasped slightly against his lips he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss. He barely gave you an opportunity to breathe as his movements were insistent. One of his hands traveled from your jaw and into your hair, his fingers threading through it to pull you closer to him. His movements were frantic and almost unforgiving, trying to drink in your presence.

The heat of his body was melding into yours, and every brush against his skin was addicting, your every molecule only aware of the boy kissing you. Your hands traced the edge of his shirt, your finger tracing against the soft skin of his stomach, making him shudder. Your hands moved up under his shirt slowly, your thumbs tracing a soft pattern into his waist.

Peter’s presence was intoxicating, and you couldn’t get enough, your lips moving in tandem as his tongue raced against yours. The kisses grew sloppy as he walked you back until your back was against your wall, his body caging you against it. He pressed his body against yours once again, almost like he was trying to feel every curve of your body against his. You moved your hands from his waist, to his back, the palms of your hands against his back, pressing his body closer to yours.

Your mind was foggy as he drew away from your lips and down to your jaw, his frantic kisses addicting. Peter tilted your head with the hand tangled in your hair, as he left open-mouthed kisses down your throat, ones that left you panting and gasping, his mouth bruising the delicate skin of your neck. The feeling was torturous and delicious, his hand curving around your neck to adjust it as he pleased.

“Peter,” you shuddered out, as he sucked, your breath coming out in soft puffs, a moan growing at the back of your throat.

“Mmm, yes darling?” he murmured into your skin, his voice gravelly and deep, and utterly devastating. His other hand trailed the edge of your shirt, before dipping underneath to grasp at your side, his touch searing your skin.

“What’s wrong?,” you gasped out, trying to clear the fog in your head and think clearly. Or at least, as clear as you can when you have Peter Parker kissing you.

He drew back slightly, just to admire his handiwork. Your pupils were now just as blown out as his, your lips now swollen and red from Peter’s kisses. Both his hands moved to cup your face, his thumb rubbing a small pattern against your cheek as his searched your face, almost like he was memorizing ever part before answering.

“Just frustrated with physics,” he answered, his voice still low. “ ‘was getting overwhelmed with the work.” His breathing was labored, clearly worked up, and it was not just from kissing you.

“Ah,” you answered him, but internally you breathed out a sigh. It was worrying to see Peter so wound up, especially when he’s so in control of his feelings. You know just how much effort he put into balancing his school work and spiderman work, and it was clear how much it weighed on him. His eyes were tired, and he curled into your every touch like he just wanted to bottle up your warmth and keep it forever.

“Come on spider-boy, I made some pasta and you can tell me about your day, hm?” you proposed, and Peter nodded in response. You couldn’t fight his battles for him, but at least you could feed the boy and offer him comfort. And that’s just what you did, today and forever.

tagging: @rednights

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ventura-starlight · 2 years

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sick day >♡<

notes: tee hee hello everyone!! happy late new year! I wanted to wait until I redid some of my blog stuff [theme, tags, etc.] but I'm very indecisive so it's taking far too long! I wrote this while sick this past week and so it's not very well edited but it's something lmao!

warnings: illusions to vomiting but no specific descriptions, being sick

AKAASHI-

♡your stomach turned as soon as you attempted to wake up in the morning. your boyfriend, akaashi, was already at work by the time you woke up. You try everything you can, you took a hot shower, take medicine, ate a little breakfast, and attempt to get to work. However, as soon as you were about to leave your small apartment your stomach decided the restroom would be a much better place to be. as you cleaned your face you called your boss, called in sick for the day, and texted akaashi.

<3: You're sick?

you: yes keji :( I called in sick from work and plan on just staying home today.

<3: I'll be home soon.

♡about 20 minutes later you hear the door open, grocery bags rustling, adding some much-needed noise to the near-silent apartment.

"Y/N? where are you?"

"in the room keji!" you called out. your voice was a little hoarse from the visit to the basin of the toilet this morning. As soon as akaashi came in you can tell he was focused.

"I brought everything you need y/n, medicine, food for when your stomach issues subside, tea, blankets, I also got you a cold towel since you are probably burning up-"

"keji." he turned his head to look at you,

"yes?"

"I love you, thank you." he lightly laughed through his nose, leaning forward to kiss your forehead.

"you have no reason to thank me. I love you as well," a comfortable silence fell over the two of you, "but if you think this is going to get you out of your medicine you are sorely mistaken."

"keji!!"

ATSUMU-

♡everything was fine until you got to work. you brushed the dizzy feeling that set in as you began the workday, 'there is a storm coming in, that's probably why' you concluded with yourself. after about an hour of work, the dizziness didn't subside, and instead your hands began to shake, and the piercing headache set in entirely.

as you got up to get some water you're head began to spin and before you knew it you're eyesight went dark.

it wasn't a busy day at the office and considering the fact you had fainted for a few minutes your boss was going to send you home. your co-worker was going to grab your stuff left at your desk as your phone pinged.

tsum tsum <3: your boss called me, I'm on my way to pick you up. I don't want you driving okay? we can get your car later.

you: atsumu you don't have to skip practice. I know it's important to be there :(

tsum tsum <3: y/n I promise it's okay. I love you and I'll see you soon

♡shortly, atsumu walked into the office and guided you to the car.

"What happened baby?" Atsumu asked once you were in the car. you explained the whole story, atsumu's eyebrows beginning to furrow. "Why didn't ya' call or text me? I would've come to help."

"Because I didn't think it was much to worry about Atsumu. I'm sorry" you frowned and looked out the window. Atsumu sighed softly

"Ya' don't have to apologize Y/N. and you are always someone I worry about. I love ya' too much to not"

OSAMU-

♡samu' had been sick just a few days before. he never gets affected by being sick but that didn't mean you weren't susceptible to any lurking illness. you woke up to osamu rustling around in the kitchen, you could smell the warm coffee as it brewed throughout the calm apartment.

as you ventured out, blanket wrapped around your shivering frame. 'is it colder than usual this morning?' you thought to yourself as you entered the kitchen. osamu was buying himself and you stood to admire him. he chuckled lightly to himself "Good morning Y/N."

you cleared your froggy throat "G-*ahem* Good Morning Samu" this caused his attention to snap towards you. His eyes widened and he shook his head. "what's wrong?" you asked him as he shut off the stove.

he began to push you back towards your room "I told you not to worry about me Y/N and now you're sick too!" He chastised you lightly and began to prep your bed with a warm towel for your head. He gestured at you harshly to lie down. You followed his guidance teasing him for being so particular.

"I'm going to take your temperature Y/N" He said as he held up the small thermometer that went under your tongue. You giggled and he sighed "Y/N please hold still" he smiled lightly as you called down enough to take your temperature.

"Just as I thought!" Osamu huffed as he looked at the thermometer, "You're running a fever. Lie down and I'll be right back" As you lied down he went and brought you breakfast, along with the medicines you recognized from when he was sick. "Thank you for taking care of me." You smiled at him.

He kissed your cheek and sighed, "It's only fair love. You take such good care of me always. This is the least I can do"

property of angelicstrwbrry 2022, reblogs are appreciated, stolen writing is not!!

I also wanted to say I'm so thankful for 500 followers! I passed that milestone right after the new year and just couldn't process it <3 I love you all so much :> I probably won't do an event for it just because I get behind but maybe I can do one at 550 !!

#akaashi x reader #atsumu x reader #osamu x reader #akaashi imagine #atsumu imagine #osamu imagine #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagine #angelicstrwbrry 🍓#angelics.haikyuu.txt #winter dream 🌨

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rosemaidenvixen · 3 years

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A Secret’s Worth

Chapter 19: Toby

Ao3

Toby's chest hurt so bad it actually felt like someone was literally stabbing him in the heart. Still he didn't slow down, if anything he pedaled even harder.

The girls were riding neck and neck with him, in just as much of a hurry to reach their destination.

He shouldn’t have flipped out at Jim yesterday. He shouldn’t have thrown back what he knew about the scars on his ankle just because he was pissed. Now this whole thing was ten times worse and it was all his fault.

It had been so hard, watching Jim go home every day for the past month and forcing himself not to say anything, even when Jim started to look more and more anxious every day. But you know who had it even worse? The guy doing the actual suffering.

Toby had heard the phrase victim blaming before, but he never really got it until now. He’d just been so insanely furious hearing Jim yell at them for lying when he hadn’t said an honest thing to them in months, and when they’d been doing everything they could to help him he hadn’t responded right--

The guy’s mom locked him in the basement and slashed up his ankle; what the hell was the ‘right’ way to act after that?

Now Jim was hurt really bad and he’d had to go to the hospital and he wasn’t in school today and he wasn’t answering his phone--

Toby needed to see if Jim was ok.

A throbbing pain that had nothing to do with the strain of pedaling uphill stabbed through his chest.

Or if not ok, alive and kicking.

He skidded to a stop on Jim’s lawn, stumbling off of his bike and running up to pound on the front door “Jim you’ve got about ten seconds to open this door before I’m breaking it down!”

Ok maybe that was the wrong thing to start off with considering he was there to apologize, but Toby would just add it to the list of things to grovel for forgiveness for after he saw that Jim was alright.

And just when he was about to make good on his threat, a hand grabbed his shoulder and started tugging him away. Toby jerked around to see who it was.

“Don’t try to stop me Darci,”

Her expression was soft in a way that made him feel even worse “I’m not, but Toby, I don't think anyone's home. All the lights are off and the car’s gone,”

He snapped back around, heart plummeting when he saw that she was right.

Jim and Dr. Lake weren’t here.

“And your Nana’s watching,”

Toby whirled, spotting Phil, one of Nana’s chess buddies, sitting in his car in their driveway with Nana stepping into the passenger seat. He stood there frozen for a few seconds before darting around Darci and sprinting across the cul de sac.

“Nana, wait! Stop stop stop!”

Phil, clearly startled, stopped the car in the middle of the street, Nana rolling down her window and poking her head out “Toby? What on earth is the matter?”

Besides the fact he didn’t want Nana witnessing him busting into Jim’s house, just because Jim had gone radio silent on them didn’t mean that Nana had stopped talking to Dr. Lake. So there was a chance she knew something they didn’t.

He slowed to a stop, panting “Have-- have you- have you heard what’s going on with Jim?”

Immediately her face shifted from confused to contrite “Oh yes Barbara told me, so sad that he got hurt, but he’s doing much better now,”

Toby heard the girls scurry up behind him.

“Do you know when they’ll be home from the hospital?”

“Didn’t Jim tell you?” Nana glanced at Phil, who took the hint and put the car into park before Nana turned and faced them again “They came home about two hours ago, but left for their spring break trip right away, Barbara and Jim won’t be back for about ten days,”

Toby actually felt his jaw drop open.

“B...But…” Claire stammered “Are they seriously going backpacking in Yosemite with Jim being all busted up?”

“I was surprised to, but Barbara said that Jim really didn’t want to miss their vacation, so they’re going to San Francisco and staying in a hotel instead,” the corners of Nana’s mouth tugged downwards into a frown, eyebrows drawing together “Did Jim not tell you any of this?”

Ok she had clearly picked up on the fact that things weren’t ‘Ok’ between Jim and them, and normally Toby would be trying to reassure Nana that everything really was cool, but right now he was too busy concentrating on not puking.

They were gone. For ten days. Ten whole days Jim and Dr. Lake would be gone.

Plenty of time for another 'animal attack'.

After an uncomfortably long silence Nana leaned back in her seat and redid her belt “I need to get to my cardiologist appointment now, but we can talk more when I get back,”

With that she nodded at Phil, who looked incredibly uncomfortable, but restarted the car and pulled away, leaving the four of them alone in the cul de sac, with nothing to do but slowly pick up their bikes and trudge into Toby’s garage.

They’d screwed up. He’d screwed up. He’d screwed up so freaking bad. Yeah Jim was being a gigantic freaking hypocrite about the lying, but his mom locks him in the basement every other Tuesday. Of course the guy wasn’t acting rationally.

He could still see the terrified look on Jim’s face while they yelled at him yesterday crystal clear.

And just because Jim was being a hypocrite didn’t mean that it wasn’t a dick move to lie to him about calling CPS.

And what they did yesterday….

Toby swallowed back another wave of nausea. Just thinking about what he’d done was enough to make him sick, he wanted to go back in time and smack some sense into himself.

He’d let his anger win out over everything else and started firing back at Jim, and then the girls had followed his lead. Pushing Jim so far over the edge that he went and started a fight with Psycho Steve of all people, who put him in the freaking hospital. Now Dr. Lake had taken him out of town and he wasn’t answering his phone--

His train of thought flew off the rails and crashed to a halt.

Jim and Dr. Lake were gone, and wouldn’t be back for over a week. Which meant that their house was going to be completely empty for that whole time.

Before the idea had even finished forming Toby knew what he had to do.

Immediately after propping his bike up against the wall Toby strode over to the toolbench and grabbed the items he was looking for. A doorstop, an unraveled wire coat hanger, and the biggest pair of bolt cutters Nana had been able to find at Home Depot.

Darci was the first to notice him “What are you doing with all that?”

“Snooping,”

Now Mary and Claire were looking at him to “What do you mean?”

“Jim and Dr. Lake are gone for spring break, and I think we all know that Jim is going to ignore any texts or messages we send. So I’m going straight to the source, I’m going into their house to get some real answers,”

The girls all shared an uncertain look “Toby…” Claire said slowly “You know that if you break in they won’t be able to use anything you find as evidence, right?”

He wilted a little, but tightened his grip on the bolt cutters at the same time “I know, but this might be the only chance to find out what’s really happening to Jim. And if I can figure that out, maybe I can figure out how to get Jim to let us help him,”

Toby turned and then hesitated, dragging the toe of his shoe on the concrete “I won’t ask you guys to come with me, but I need to do this,”

Knowing that if he waited any longer he was going to chicken out, Toby raised his foot and strode out of the garage, making a beeline for the Lake house. After a few seconds he heard footsteps behind him as the girls started to follow.

And even though he knew he’d do this alone if he had to, it felt really really good that he didn’t have to.

Once he got to Jim’s garage, Toby pulled a trash can up to the door and stood on it. Boosting him up high enough to wedge the door stop between the garage door and the frame, reaching in with the coathanger until he snagged the cord and pulled it down within arm’s reach. Cord in hand, Toby yanked until he felt it give, allowing him to slide up the garage door with ease.

Stepping down and picking up the trash can, Toby turned to go put it back when he saw Claire, Darci, and Mary staring at him with big eyes.

“Toby…” Mary said slowly “How did you know how to do that?”

“Oh, uh…” he felt his face heat up “Nana showed me how when Meow Meow PI got locked in our garage, then she made me promise not to tell anyone….so please don’t tell anyone,”

“We won’t but you are going to have to teach us that one,”

Once the trash can was back in place they headed in, Toby pulling the garage door shut behind them “Where should we start?” Darci whispered, even though it was only the four of them in the deserted house.

Toby glanced around, tool bench, picnic coolers, spare fridge, chest freezer-- He froze, eyes locked on the chest freezer pushed back against the far wall. The one that was always kept padlocked for reasons he’d never questioned until now. The only reason he could think of to keep a freezer locked would be--

He shoved the idea away before a picture could form in his head.

But now he needed to see for himself to make sure that the thought he was desperately trying not to think about wasn’t true.

“Here,” he strode over, and with only slightly shaking hands, cut the metal U of the latch off with two snaps of the bolt cutters, the unopened lock clattering to the floor. It was actually easier than he thought it would be, of course the bolt cutters were ginormous compared to the latch.

The girls gathered in close as he popped the now empty latch and slowly lifted the lid.

First off there weren’t any dead bodies staring back at them, so that was good. It looked like the freezer was just stuffed with regular plastic grocery packages. But why put a lock on ordinary food? Maybe they really were worried about racoons, those were a menace in this neighborhood.

Despite that perfectly rational, reasonable explanation, Toby couldn’t shake the feeling that something looked off about the food in front of him, something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

It only took a few more seconds of staring for him to figure it out. He didn’t recognize any of the labels on these packages. And he and Jim had done a lot of grocery shopping together. Jim going on and on about all the subtle differences in flavor between different items and different brands.

That’s how Toby knew with absolute certainty that this stuff wasn’t anything you could buy at any grocery store in Arcadia Oaks. Because in all of their trips shopping together, they’d never bought any of the items in this freezer.

Reaching past him, Claire gingerly picked up something shrink wrapped in blue and yellow plastic “Beef sweetbreads?”

Toby eyed the package suspiciously “Bread doesn’t come from beef,”

“Sweetbreads aren’t bread, they’re organ meat,”

“Ew,”

“Hey they’re actually pretty good when you cook them right,”

Even more curious now, they all started reaching in and rifling through the frozen packages in front of them.

“It looks like this is just a bunch of meat,” Darci said while holding up a bag of beef bones by the corner between her thumb and forefinger.

Mary wrinkled her nose at a package of chicken livers “Yeah, but I’ve never seen Jim cook with any of this stuff,” she peered in Toby’s direction “Have you?”

His mouth went dry, nausea creeping back in “No, I haven’t,”

They kept digging, plastic packs of meat piling up on the floor around them, and the deeper they went the weirder things got. Eventually hitting what looked like whole small animals, cleaned and skinned and sealed in shrink wrap. Toby lifted one of them out, guts squirming in his belly “Guys, what are these?”

Claire leaned over and read off a tiny label on the corner of the package “It says whole rabbit,”

This kept getting freakier and freakier, Jim had never cooked rabbit meat before, let alone roasting them whole.

Darci and Mary cleared off the rest of the rabbits to uncover a massive package at the bottom, one that would have taken all four of them to lift out, bright red of raw muscle showing clearly against the white of the freezer. But unlike everything else in here, this one had clearly been opened and resealed multiple times, with chunks of meat taken off, proving that someone was taking stuff out of this freezer and using it on a regular basis

“This one says whole bison leg,” Darci said quietly.

A chill went through him, and not because he was standing in front of an open freezer.

“Oh my god, I just can’t--” Mary darted away, running to the wall farthest away from the freezer and slumping against it, gasping and shaking. Claire immediately ran over and put an arm around her shoulders, leaving Toby and Darci standing in front of the freezer.

“Toby,” Darci’s voice was a monotone, her eyes locked on the frozen leg in front of them “Are you absolutely sure that Jim never cooked with any of this stuff,”

“Positive,”

“Then...what do they do with all this?”

Toby’s stomach shrank in on itself “I don’t know,”

Were they trying to bait racoons or something? It was the only thing Toby could think of, but if they were, why? And he was pretty sure there was a lot cheaper stuff out there they could use for racoon bait. But if they weren’t using it as bait then what they hell were they doing with all this weird meat? And why the lock?

Pulling in a deep breath through her nose, Darci slowly started putting the packages they’d taken out back in the freezer “Ok, we’re not going to find anything else out here, we need to clean up and keep looking,”

Fighting past the painful tightness in his abdomen, Toby grabbed a rabbit and joined her. Claire eventually came over to help them, but Mary stayed far away until the lid of the freezer was shut.

“Um, Toby…” she said, walking back up to join them “How are we going to put the lock back on when you cut it off?”

“Easy,” he walked over to the toolbench and picked up a small bottle “Instant set Gorilla glue,”

And with two quick dabs of glue and Mary holding the pieces for him, the lock and the latch looked nearly as good as new. The latch did look a little funky from where the cutters had gone through, but Toby was pretty sure Jim and Dr. Lake wouldn’t notice it.

Now time to search the rest of the house.

Toby headed through the side door into the main house with the girls just behind him, pausing just inside the hall while he tried to figure out the best place to search first.

“Let’s look in Dr. Lake’s bedroom,”

All three of them slowly turned towards Mary.

“I mean…” her cheeks filled with red “If she’s hiding something chances are it would be in there,”

Claire nodded at that “You’re right, let’s go,”

The girls headed towards the stairs, but Toby hung back. Darci paused at the foot of the stairs, glancing back at him “Everything ok Toby?”

Even knowing what he knew, about the basement and the scars and all the other strange stuff. There was a part of him that still thought of Dr. Lake as….Dr. Lake. His friend’s fun, sometimes goofy mom, the one that took them to theme parks and gave the best presents on birthdays and holidays, who was never too busy to talk and always happy to see him. Going into her room and snooping through all her stuff felt...wrong.

All the girls were looking at him now, seeing what the hold up was.

Toby clenched his jaw and raised his head.

But no matter how bad he felt about it Toby couldn’t let his guilty conscience get in the way. Dr. Lake….Dr. Lake wasn’t who he thought she was, and Jim was in real trouble. This was the only way he could help him. That meant he had to suck it up and follow through.

He’d come this far already.

“Y-- yeah I’m fine, let’s go,” Toby forced his feet to move and followed them up the stairs into the back bedroom. His throat tightening when he saw Mary dive straight into going through her dresser, even as he set aside his tools and got down on his knees to join her.

They spent nearly two hours going through the room from top to bottom. Searching the closet, every drawer in the dresser, under the bed and in the nightstand, every single nook and cranny in the room, even under the mattress. But they didn’t find anything. Just clothes, jewelry, and books.

Toby glumly replaced the socks back in the drawer he pulled them out of. If there was anything hidden in the house it wasn’t in here. So all they’d managed to accomplish was violating Dr. Lake’s privacy. But if there wasn’t anything in her bedroom then where else would--

“Toby,” Claire spoke up, startling him “Do you know if this house has a crawlspace, or an attic?”

He paused with his hand halfway out of the sock drawer. The Lakes had both a crawlspace and an attic. He’d seen the crawlspace, a small cubby in the basement full of their Christmas decorations, but the attic--

Dr. Lake had only mentioned once that they did have an unfinished attic, even shown him where it was.

And then said that he should never ever go up there.

“Their crawlspace is full of Christmas decorations, but I’ve never seen inside the attic. Dr. Lake said it was off limits,”

That got the girls’ attention.

Mary got to her feet “Where is it?”

“Closet, in the ceiling,”

Immediately they all made a beeline towards the closet, Mary pulling open the doors and revealing the square cut out of the plaster in the ceiling.

Claire frowned “How is one of us supposed to get up there?”

“I’ll do it guys,” Darci stepped forward, shoulders square and mouth set in a firm line “I’m the tallest, just give me a boost,”

Positioning themselves directly under the hole, Mary and Claire each grabbed one of Darci’s legs and lifted, allowing Darci to push aside the cut out square of ceiling and poke her head into the darkness of the attic beyond.

“A little higher guys, I need to get a good grip to pull myself up,”

Claire and Mary obliged, raising Darci until she was waist deep in the attic, allowing her to kick off from the palms of their hands and vanish into the dark hole. After a few seconds Toby saw a small light, which had to be from Darci’s cellphone, blink on, illuminating the bare wooden beams of the unfinished space.

“You see anything Darc?” Mary called up at her.

The light bobbed around in the small space above them, ceiling creaking under her as Darci moved around “Nothing so far, there’s a lot of fiberglass insulation so I have to be careful not to…”

All of a sudden the creaks stopped, the light staying frozen in one spot.

“Darci,” Toby forced the strangled word out “What’s going on?”

Things were silent for a few more seconds before they heard her voice again “There’s a box here guys, and it doesn’t look like Christmas decorations,”

With some tricky maneuvering, Darci managed to push the box down the hole, where Toby and Claire caught it. Quickly moving it off to the side so the three of them could catch Darci as she jumped down. Once she managed to untangle herself from them they all turned their attention back to the box.

Toby pushed it out of the closet so there was enough room for all of them to huddle around it. The box was about the size of a microwave, dark metal and surprisingly heavy for its size. It looked like one of those heavy duty water/fire/apocalypse proof boxes, and fortunately it wasn’t locked, meaning they wouldn’t need the bolt cutters. Trembling, terrified of what he might find, Toby popped the latches and lifted the lid.

Part of him was worried that when they opened it they wouldn’t find anything but boring adult papers, bills and insurance stuff like that, but one look and he knew that wasn’t going to be the case.

Inside were two black bags, a large plastic one and a small felt one, and some kind of weird plastic rectangle. Mary reached in and pulled out the small bag first.

They all watched her tug the drawstrings open, not even daring to breathe as she turned the bag over and dumped the contents out.

A bunch of loose teeth and a bundle of black hair in a rubber band tumbled onto her hand.

Just when Toby thought this couldn’t get any more confusing “What the hell is all that?”

Claire poked at one of the teeth sitting in Mary’s palm “This looks like stuff from an animal,”

It certainly did. That hair could easily be fur, and those teeth would have been right at home on a bear’s mouth. Big and sharp and clearly from a meat eater.

A locked freezer full of strange meat, animal parts hidden away in the attic. Toby still couldn’t put the pieces together, but it wasn’t shaping up to be anything good.

They spent a good minute staring at them before Mary poured the teeth and hair back in the bag “We aren’t going to learning anything by staring at teeth, let’s keep going,”

Claire grabbed the large bag just as Mary was replacing the small one, setting it in front of her and untying the straps to peer down inside.

Toby crawled closer “What is it? What’s in there?”

“It looks like...bath bombs,”

“What? No way,” Darci scooted up to Claire’s side and glanced down at the open bag “Huh, it does look like bath bombs,”

It took Toby a few seconds to realize they weren’t talking about actual explosives “Bath bombs,” he said incredulously “You mean like those fizzy scented things you put in the tub, those kind of bath bombs?”

Claire got to her feet “Only one way to be sure, follow me guys,,”

They tailed after Claire down the hall into the bathroom, where she promptly started filling the tub. Once there was about a half a foot of water inside she reached into the bag, pulled out a grainy pink ball, and dropped it in the water.

As they gathered in close and watched, a cloud of pink bubbles fizzed up around the sphere, filling the tub with pink foam and the scent of--

“Huh,” Toby sniffed “Roses,”

Mary reached a hand into the water, swirling it around before emerging slightly pink “It looks like they are just bath bombs,”

Ok this was getting really weird. Bath Bombs and animal parts weren’t exactly criminal, but what were they doing locked up in a secret attic box?

For a long time Toby had thought that the curfew and the locking in the basement was because of what Nana told him. That Dr. Lake was so scared of losing Jim she’d started doing some messed up things in order to keep him.

But after learning about the scars he started wondering if that was actually true. And now after seeing the meat and the animal parts and the bath bombs…

It was starting to look like all of this was just scratching the surface of something a lot bigger.

And there was still one more thing to check out.

After draining and rinsing the tub, they all went back to the bedroom and gathered around the box again, where Toby picked up the final item inside it, the plastic rectangle.

He turned it over a few times, trying to figure out exactly what it was when it clicked, filling him with a jolt of exhilaration.

“Guys I think this is some kind of book,”

Books meant data, information. Maybe even the answers behind the bath bombs, teeth, and weird meat.

Mary kneeled down next to him “Can you get it open?”

“I’m trying, but there’s a combination lock, and the thing’s completely sealed so I can’t just bust it open with the bolt cutters without destroying it, and--”

They all jumped as a deafening chime rang through the house.

The doorbell.

Toby’s heart shot up into his throat like lightning, beating hummingbird fast as the bell kept ringing again and again.

Hearing the sound shattered his focus like a harsh slap, forcing Toby to remember exactly where he was and what he was doing.

He was in someone else’s house.

They’d come in without permission by breaking into the garage.

They were breaking and entering.

They were committing a crime.

If they got caught it wouldn’t be extra homework or detention they had to deal with.

If they got caught they would get in real trouble.

For the first time Toby knew he wasn’t being melodramatic when he imagined getting arrested and sent to juvie.

Toby shot his head up and saw that the girls had the exact same panicked, horror-stricken looks on their faces that he knew he had on his. From down below the doorbell kept ringing again and again.

The locked book slipped from his hands and fell to the carpet with a dull thunk.

Oh fuck.

“Guys we need to get out of here now!”

They all simultaneously jumped to their feet, Claire practically throwing the bag of bath bombs back in the box, and after fumbling with it for a few seconds Toby managed to toss the book in after it, Darci slamming the lid shut while muttering ‘oh god’ over and over again.

Frantically dragging the box back towards the closet, they figured out really fast that getting the box up was going to be a lot harder than getting it down, especially considering they were all freaking out. After running around like idiots for a few seconds, they got it together enough to hoist Darci up to the attic again, and then raise the box to where she could grab it and put it back, before dropping down from the attic herself.

Meanwhile the doorbell continued to ring over and over, each chime practically giving Toby a heart attack, as they raced around the room, replacing items and shutting drawers and removing every trace of their snooping.

“Claire what the hell are you doing!?” Mary hissed.

Toby glanced over to see Claire standing in the doorway staring down the stairs to where the front door was “C’mon Claire we have to hoof it before Jim and Dr. Lake come in!”

“But...why would Jim and Dr. Lake be ringing the doorbell of their own house?”

Toby, Mary, and Darci all stopped dead

Claire was right, if Jim and Dr. Lake were back they’d just come right in without even touching the doorbell. But then who was ringing it? If it was just a salesman or something wouldn’t they leave as soon as they figured out no one was home? Whoever this was had been ringing the doorbell for nearly five minutes with no sign of stopping.

“New plan!” Mary piped up, voice a full octave higher than normal “Sneak out the back, then circle around through the bushes, act like we’re just out walking and see who it is,”

Toby nodded shakily along with Claire and Darci, leave it to Mary to come up with a plan under extreme pressure.

After double checking and making sure they’d gotten rid of all evidence of their break in, Toby grabbed his tools and ran to the stairs “Quick guys, go go go!”

Not wasting a second the girls scampered down the stairs on light feet, Toby following after, the unrelenting doorbell even louder on the first floor.

They made a beeline for the back door, Toby going out last and locking it behind them. Following them, he ran over to the fence and, in a feat only possible to the insane amount of adrenaline shooting through his veins, hopped it in two bounds and dove into the shrubbery, joining the girls.

“Everyone ok?” Darci whispered, crouching low in the undergrowth.

“Yeah,”

“Uh huh,”

“Yep,”

It was all Toby could do not to collapse, gasping for breath and quivering all over from equal parts relief and leftover panic.

They’d gotten away with it. He was pretty sure they’d gotten away with it. No one had seen them and they hadn’t left any evidence behind. Although they hadn’t had time to wipe their fingerprints off of everything, or get rid of their DNA, hopefully Jim and Dr. Lake wouldn’t realize that their house was broken into at all. And even if they did there was no reason for the four of them to be suspects.

They were fine. No one was going to get arrested.

Although now that the adrenaline was starting to fade, Toby was pretty sure he was going to have some wicked bruises from his landing.

Mary sank lower the the ground, perched on her hands and knees “Keep to the plan guys, let’s sneak around to the other side,”

They all followed her lead, Toby forcing his breathing to slow and become quieter, crawling through the bushes until they emerged on the sidewalk around the corner. Standing and shaking off the leaves and branches, Toby tucking the cutters, hanger, and stopper in a bush to retrieve later.

“Let’s go,” Mary took the first steps towards Jim’s house. A few months ago Toby would have thought she was completely relaxed about the whole thing, but now he could see just how on edge she was.

Toby walked after her, along with Claire and Darci, trying to be as casual as humanly possible without completely overdoing it.

Nothing to see here. Just a group of teens out walking around, as teens did. No criminals here.

He had to try especially hard to act normal as they were heading around the corner of the block, breath catching in his chest as Jim’s house, and the mysterious bell ringer came into sight.

It was some scruffy looking guy, messy looking beard and jeans and a jacket that had certainly seen better days. Not a particularly scary looking guy, but it certainly didn’t look like he was there to sell anything.

Feeling bolder now that they were out in broad daylight and not at risk of being caught mid-felony, Toby came right up to where the front steps met the sidewalk, the girls stepping up next to him, with scruffy standing less than ten feet away. Fidgeting and pressing the bell every ten seconds or so, face crimped in frustration.

Of course this close they should have realized it was inevitable that the mysterious scruffy man was going to notice them.

“Oh hey!” he jogged across the porch towards them, causing them all to shuffle backwards involuntarily “You kids know the people who live here?”

“Why do you want to know?” Mary said warily

“Oh-- I heard from my buddy that CPS has been sniffing around, and Barb took Jim out of the hospital without checking him out yesterday, so I’m trying to see if they’re ok,”

Instantly uneasy, Toby glanced over at the girls, the three of them looking just as tense as he felt. The whole leaving the hospital without being checked out was news to him and definitely not good. But even more alarming was the fact that although this guy apparently knew Jim and Dr. Lake, Toby had no idea who he was. And by the looks of it, neither did Darci, Claire, or Mary.

“So do any of you know when they’ll be back?”

Claire took half a step forward “Sorry but...who are you again?”

“Oh! Well I…” scruffy trailed off, letting out a gusty breath and running hand through his hair “You see I’m--” all of a sudden he cut off and looked over at them sharply, Toby flinching as the man locked eyes with him.

“Toby! Come on, you know me, right bud?”

His heart stopped, blood running cold. From the corners of his vision he could see the girls pull around him protectively “Who are you, how do you know my name?”

“Come on,” the man grinned, as if they were all old buddies “You know me, from back when I used to live here,”

Toby just kept staring at him blankly. Used to live here? The only person he could think of that used to live here was--

No. It couldn’t be.

He looked at him again, really looked, comparing the shape of the jaw, the scraggly beard to the ones from his murky, half faded memories.

“Hang on,” Toby slowly raised a finger to point at the stranger who might not be a stranger “You mean that you’re--”

“That’s right,” he flashed them a smile, painfully familiar now that he could see the resemblance “I’m Jim’s dad,”

#tales of arcadia #Trollhunters #A Secret's Worth #rmvwrites #fanfic #toby domzalski #darci scott #mary wang #claire nuñez #nana domzalski #nancy domzalski

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neo-culture-mafia · 4 years

Text

Tape Worm (l.ty)

“No. No. No.” Taeyong ran quickly to his office, his dress shoes squeaking cleanly across the marble floor. Interns and teachers watched helplessly as they saw their usually fearless leader run in...fear.

Taeyong entered his office in a rush and closed the big wooden door, pressing his back against it roughly. The pounding in his chest didn’t stop as his heart continued to skip beats at the thoughts running through his mind.

He clumsily ran to his desk phone and hit the ‘1′ key repeatedly. “Hello?” Taeil’s voice was low as he was probably in the office space working. “Office. Now.” Taeyong’s voice seemed rushed yet fragile. He hung up the phone without another word and started pacing his office, arms folded and guarding his chest tightly.

“Your tie is crooked.” Your voice sounded small yet intriguing. People held their breath as they saw you walk over to Taeyong and lay your hands on his frame. Your hands loosened his tie and redid it completely with no hesitation. The tension could be cut with a spoon as everyone stood shocked...even Taeyong. Yet, he had never noticed you in this light before. You seemed so angelic in ordinary ways. Your work clothes fit like a model’s dress and your features were so soft yet made everyone stare in awe or jealousy.

Once you had finished, your hands smoothed over his blazer and he thought he would crumble. He knew you so well but you didn’t even know anything about him. So how could he feel like this? Was this wrong?

Your smile made his heart swell even more.

“Finished.” You said picking your cup of coffee up off the table and giving him one last smile before exiting the lounge room. He let go of a breath he didn’t even know he was holding and looked to others for reassurance that the last minute or so actually happened.

Taeyong looked to Donghyuck who had half a scone shoved in his mouth in awe while Jaemin couldn’t be bothered by the situation, flicking a lighter and pushing it past both of his hands. Some of the teachers looked down as they didn’t know what the expect of the aftermath. “I-” He couldn’t form words as he set his own coffee down and walked out of the room to start running towards his office

“You called?” Taeil walked in with a sigh, shutting the door behind him.

“I think I have Malaria. Or the Swine Flu.” Taeyong threw his hands up. “Huh?” The eldest asked as he took a seat lazily in front of the empty desk where Taeyong would usually be sitting. “I took in account of the weather and the geography. There is no other explanati- BUBONIC PLAGUE.” Taeyong cried out as his hands raked through his dark hair. “Well let’s try to take in account of the current century and figure out what’s going on, shall we?” Taeil picked at his nails nonchalantly as his younger friend was having a mental breakdown.

“Why do you think you have fallen sick with the Swi-” “TAPE WORM.” Taeyong stopped and had tears form in his eyes. “LOOK TO SEE IF YOU CAN SEE IT.” Taeyong threw himself on his desk in front of Taeil and opened his mouth wide. A deep hum was all that was heard as Taeyong stuck out his tongue. “Get your hot breath out of my face.” Taeil pushed Taeyong so he fell on his desk fully.

“I can feel it. It’s in my stomach.” Taeil got up to leave but Taeyong grabbed his arm with tears in his eyes. “Lead with honor-” “Enough already!” Taeil swatted the younger one’s hands away roughly. “Now what is going on?” Taeyong sat up on his desk like a toddler, legs folding under him as he shook his head in disbelief.

“I was getting coffee and then all of a sudden, my stomach got all fuzzy and I got dizzy. Then my hands got clammy and my heart stopped beating.” Taeyong shook his head as he recalled the terrible feelings.

“Okay. Well did something happen? That like...triggered the feelings?” Taeil took a seat once again as Taeyong raked over his recent memories.

“TAEYONG-HYUNG HAS A CRUSH!” Donghyuck sang as he entered the room with an unbothered Jaemin trailing behind, now playing a game on his phone. Taeil looked back at the childish leader with a deadpanned expression. “You got nervous around your crush and you wanted me to check for a tape worm?” He asked and Taeyong’s mouth hung open with a puppy-like expression.

“I do not have a crush!” Taeyong now fought with his younger colleague. “Uh-huh. I asked Jeno.” He said as Jaemin laid upside down on the leather sofa, completely occupied by his game.

“Yes you do! Jeno said that unless you were doing cocaine you had a crush! Your pupils were as big as soccer balls!” Hyuck said as the door finally shut.

“I’m leaving.” Taeil stood up but Taeyong grabbed his arm again. “No I still need your help.” “I have actual work to do, Taeyong.” Taeil whined and sat back down.

“So. What’s her name?” Hyuck asked as he took a seat next to Taeil.

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t have a crush.” He reasoned, climbing off his desk and taking a seat in his chair meant for kings...but he felt more like a dunce.

“Yes you do! You let her redo your whole tie!” Hyuck whined and Taeil just sat wide-eyed and mouthed at what he was hearing. “Last time I tried to wipe dust off of your shoulder, you bit me!” Hyuck got louder. “I still have scars! Look!” He showed his hand to Taeil. “Okay okay!” Taeyong sighed.

“I do admit. That she is pretty. But I shouldn’t feel like that when she came close.” Taeyong put his hands together as his eyebrows became knitted. Silence fell over the room.

“I still think I have a tape worm.” Groans were heard as Taeyong took notice.

“Hey, where did Jaemin go?”

~~~~~

You sat in your office doing computer work when a knock on the door pulled you from your duties. “Coming!” You called and slipped your heels back on and waltzed over to the door. You opened it to one of the elite soldiers. Yet...he looked like everyone else looked like in his age bracket. Dirty and pale pink hair was mopped onto his head. He held his phone in one hand and a skateboard in the other. He was dressed in a hoodie and joggers with beat up skate shoes. “Are you y/n?” He asked lowly and you nodded. “And you are?” “Jaemin.” He said and checked his phone as if he had nothing else better to do. Yet, it was placed back in his pocket as his eyes dug into your presence. As if YOU impeded on HIS work.

A silence plagued the both of you. “Do you think the boss is cute?” He abruptly asked and your laughter threw him off as his face was stuck in a serious expression.

“Well he’s not ugly. If that’s what you’re getting at.” Your lighthearted nature just made him uneasy as he looked you up and down.

Again...silence.

“He thinks he has a tape worm.” He blurted out. You could only nod. “Well...I’ll pray for him that he gets it taken care of-” “You’re the tape worm.” He continued and you stood stiff as a board. “Huh?” You asked in a loud voice that made the younger boy flinch.

“Oh...sorry.” Your apology was brushed off as ‘ok’. “I’m a tape worm?” You asked Jaemin and he nodded. “He has a crush on you. He just doesn’t know it.” The second-hand confession made you blush. “Oh...uh-” “Come with me.” He grabbed your arm and started pulling. “Wait, my purse!” You called back but he didn’t stop.

He lightly pulled you down the hall and into the elevator where it fell silent again.

The ride felt like forever as you both failed to make eye contact. He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it quickly. “Do you play PubG?” You could only stare at his face expressionless.

~~~~~

Jaemin skated into the room slowly with you behind him. Jae’s eyes were still glued to his phone as he hopped off in front of his boss’s desk. Hyuck and Taeil still sat in the seats in front of Taeyong and looked at the new situation about to unfold.

“I found your tape worm. She said you weren’t ugly.” Jaemin stated as you stood next to him as he chose to simply stand on his board. “I’m going to get some coffee now.” He turned around and pushed off the marble ground and skated out of the room.

A thud and some cursing was heard before the door shut but that was it.

You looked around the room and Taeyong sat with his eyes wide. “We’re gonna...go get some...ostriches.” Hyuck stood up and pulled Taeil behind him. “Ostriches?” “Yeah but I forgot my wallet at home.” You heard as they quickly walked out of the room and the door shut.

You looked to your boss as he was staring at you already. “I can...leave-” “You can’t leave. I mean-” He put his hand to his forehead and sighed. He stood up and came around to your side of the desk, still keeping a distance.

He didn’t look as scary as he usually did. He seemed soft and loving from where you stood at the very moment. “Listen.” He began and you could see that he was trying to make up his statement as he went.

“I’m not good with this kind of stuff. I don't really do this kind of thing.” He motioned in between the both of you. “But, you seem really nice. And I think it would be cool if we went to grab some food together.” He said and you could tell he was freaking out behind this facade.

Your smile cool’ed his heart as you nodded. “I think that would be lovely.” You agreed to the date and his smile lit up the room. “I can pick you up tonight from your office and we can go from there?” He asked and you nodded. “That sounds amazing.”

“Until then.” You smiled and showed yourself out of his office.

Once the door shut you were both celebrating quietly.

Taeyong sat in his chair feeling like he was on top of the world now.

“Tapeworm?” He asked himself. “What kind of ridiculous excuse was that?”

#taeyong #lee taeyong #nct taeyong #taeyong drabbles #nct mafia au #nct mafia #nct mafia drabbles #Kpop mafia #Kpop mafia fluff #Kpop fluff #na jaemin #nct jaemin #lee donghyuck #lee haechan #moon taeil #nct taeil #taeyong fluff #nct blurb #nct mafia blurb

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