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tainsan · 8 months

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misfits VIII

⇥ pairing: ot8 ateez x fem! reader

⇥ warnings: verbal and physical abuse, anxiety, mentions of death, mentions of blood

⇥ word count: 11.1k

⇥ a/n: in this chapter it may be very triggering to those who have gone through abusive situations, please read with care. this chapter is very angsty.

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--- THIS IS AN 18+ FANFICTION MINORS DO NOT INTERACT ---

“Wait backtrack, you have known them for years?” Jisung questions, extremely confused by the story you are telling him. Jisung's touch on your back provides a faint sense of comfort amidst the storm of emotions that engulfs you. His hand moves in a soothing rhythm, gliding up and down your trembling spine. The sobs that wrack your body become a symphony of sorrow, echoing through the air, and intertwining with Jisung's soft touch. With each tremor that courses through you, he maintains a steady presence, a steady anchor in the midst of your emotional storm. His touch speaks volumes, conveying a depth of understanding and empathy that words could never fully capture.

Sniffling, you answer, “Yes, they were that group I was with in high school, the ones who I got friendly with just before my mom died,” you explain, best you can with tears falling down your face and your voice shaking in your throat.

“Huh? You said they died?” Jisung asks, confused by the sudden confession from you, your words not making sense in his head that the eight you used to love were alive.

“I knew it wasn’t true.”

“But if the police said they died, then surely it would be true?”

“I never heard it from the police, I heard it from a guy who claimed to be a family member of ‘captain’. Who is apparently Hongjoong, I guess? It never made any sense, there was no proof, only this stranger’s word.”

“That makes more sense,” Jisung admits, nodding at the information before he realises something, “that’s likely why they changed their name from KQ Fellaz and ‘faked’ their death, so they could have a fresh start.”

“I suppose so, they wanted to start anew,” you conclude, trying to find any excuse or reason for them to have lied to you.

“That’s probably why they didn't tell you then.” Jisung raises his hand to rest on your head, patting it gently in an attempt to comfort you, yet all it does is remind you of all the times Wooyoung or San would do it to you, making your eyes sting even more than before.

“But why would they hide from me? I was their friend, they said I was one of them. How could they lie to me?”

“I am sure they had their reasons. You likely weren’t that close to them back then.”

As your gaze meets Jisung's, a profound realisation settles within you. In order for him to truly grasp the gravity of the situation and provide the support you need; you understand that it is necessary to lay bare the entirety of your journey. With a resolute breath, you begin recounting everything, from the very first moment you crossed paths with them to the heart-wrenching instant when they departed from your life. Every memory, every cherished moment, to the painful goodbye.

It all began in the middle of your Senior year in high school.

“Okay, class please pay attention we have a new student.” Your homeroom teacher announces, yet you pay zero interest to the familiar lady talking at the front of the classroom, simply continuing to draw in the sketch book you brought from home.

Immersed in the classroom setting, you find peace and concentration with a single wired headphone nestled in your ear. As the sounds of commotion and chatter from your surroundings gradually fade away, your attention becomes laser-focused on the small details of your immediate environment. The rhythmic strokes of your pencil on paper create a soothing melody, harmonising with the gentle hum of music seeping into your left ear, creating a personalised soundtrack to your inner world.

Positioned near the back of the classroom, you find yourself beside an open window, inviting the outside world to merge with you. The autumn breeze delicately sweeps through the window, gracefully brushing against your skin and delicately tousling your hair. The serene atmosphere in the air instils a deep sense of tranquillity, infusing your being with an irrefutable sense of ease and contentment.

Momentarily shifting your gaze outside, you are captivated by the sight before you. The warm wind, with its tender touch, continues to playfully tickle your face as if inviting you to fully embrace the present moment. Inhaling deeply, you fill your lungs with the crisp and refreshing scent of fall, a refreshing reminder of the beauty and change that accompanies this season.

“Could I sit here, please?” a soft voice speaks out from your right, if you were even an inch to the left, you would have not heard the boy, who seems to be looking at the chair on which your bag resides. Locking your gaze upon the boy standing before you, a flicker of realisation dawns upon you, and you mentally berate yourself for your sluggishness in comprehending his inquiry. A rush of frustration washes over you as you silently curse your own slowness, your mind now grasping the meaning behind his words. With a mere nod, you hastily seize the bag lying on the nearby surface and hastily tuck it away beneath your own chair, your movements reflecting your urgency. Turning your attention back to your sketchbook, you purposefully avoid glancing at the boy who wordlessly settles into the seat beside you.

Despite the absence of spoken words, you sense an adamant intensity radiating from the boy to your left. Internally, you let out a groan, fully aware that you must address this unfamiliar stranger and request that he mind his business. Tentatively, you direct your gaze towards him, annoyed you have to speak despite, yet before you can utter a single syllable, you are captivated by the sight that unfolds before you.

The boy's face beams with an adorable smile that engulfs his entire face, rendering you momentarily speechless. This unexpected display of pure charm effectively silences your intended retort, leaving your lips tightly sealed.

“I like your drawing.” His voice is incredibly soft and serene, yet the smile on his face speaks thousands of more words. The boy's unexpected compliment catches you off guard, causing a rush of warmth to surge through your cheeks, the telltale sign of an invading blush spreading down your neck. Your expression betrays a mixture of bewilderment and surprise, as you struggle to process this unfamiliar gesture of kindness. In that brief moment, you find yourself momentarily taken aback, incredulous that such a genuinely kind individual exists within the confines of this school.

Observing the boy attentively, you notice a complete lack of any hint of teasing or mockery behind his eyes, further deepening your astonishment. A flicker of uncertainty twinkles within you as you realise that he is carefully examining the paper before you, his gaze fixated on the meticulously crafted sketch of the mesmerising person you encountered during your morning journey to the classroom. A momentary sense of insecurity flits through your mind, as you worry that he will spot every small detail and flaw etched within the artwork. Left momentarily speechless, you can only offer another nod in response, silently conveying your gratitude without the need for words. Exhaustion from the past few days weighs heavily upon you, especially the funeral, leaves you unable to form words. You aren’t sure if it’s from the grief or the exhaustion.

Returning your focus to the sanctuary of your sketchbook, you resume the gentle strokes of your pencil upon the textured paper, desperately trying to capture and preserve the exact essence of the enigmatic person you encountered earlier. Each deliberate movement of your hand serves as an attempt to etch their features into your memory, ensuring that no captivating detail eludes your artistic rendition.

“I’m, uh… Hwa, by the way, it’s nice to meet you.” The boy called ‘Hwa’ speaks out, his voice is still quiet and you’re somewhat glad that he’s so soft-spoken, not wanting to deal with loud and obnoxious people right now. Once more, your eyes drift towards the right, where the boy sits with an endearing smile that effortlessly melts a fragment of your heart. Despite the warmth elicited by his expression, you find yourself limited to another nod as your sole means of communication. This time, your gesture conveys a silent acknowledgement, silently reciprocating his unspoken sentiment of "nice to meet you too." Without delay, you pivot back to your artwork, realising that this marks the third time you have redirected your attention in the span of a mere five minutes.

Hwa, perceptive in nature, detects your unwillingness to engage in conversation and graciously accepts your silent response. His smile remains untouched as he shifts his focus towards the front of the classroom, where your teacher begins recounting events from your weekend. While he respects your preference for silence, a sense of curiosity lingers within him, compelling him to wonder why someone as captivatingly beautiful as you would choose to remain in the shadows of social isolation.

From that crucial moment onward, it became apparent that Hwa had undertaken some sort of personal mission to forge a friendship with you. Each morning, he would approach you, eager to share anecdotes about his day, all about his close circle of seven friends, and his positive experiences in the new school. Puzzled by his unwavering interest in your life, you couldn't fathom why he found you intriguing, and it began to grate on your nerves. Despite your initial annoyance, you gradually learned that he had recently relocated from his father's home and was now residing with his mother, who he seems to prefer much more than his old man. He would go on and on about how his father was a horrible man, someone who he is very glad to not have in his life. From this information, you find yourself relating to Hwa and you almost feel grateful for his honesty and for the way he trusts you to relay this information.

As days turned into weeks, then months, Hwa's relentless efforts to elicit conversation and draw you out of your shell continued persistently. Initially, his persistence irritated you, but over time, his endearing gestures and genuinely kind manner began to chip away at your defences. Though your interactions remained devoid of spoken words, you found yourself gradually warming up to him, unable to resist the charm of his sweet antics. Each day, you maintained your steadfast silence, wordlessly lending an ear to his stories and offering the occasional nod to assure him of your attentive presence.

Hwa, driven by an unquenchable desire to hear your voice and witness your active participation in conversations, incessantly peppered you with questions. He longed for the day when your voice would join him in harmonious dialogue, surpassing the limitations of mere nods and smiles.

On a particular day, the sun begins its descent towards the horizon as you make your way home from school, the hour growing later than usual. A detour had become necessary as you sought out one of your teachers, embarking on a conversation regarding an assignment that you had fallen behind on. This particular instructor, well-informed about your personal home situation, swiftly understood the situation and granted you some much-needed leeway, even extending the offer of utilising an empty classroom for writing, while she occupied herself with grading tests. This teacher you trusted fully, her being the only person you speak with verbally. She understands why you are fewer with your words, not prying you ever. Grateful for the understanding and opportunity, you had seized the chance to make much-needed progress on your assignment.

As you traverse the familiar path home, the ambient noise of your surroundings blends with the music resonating through your headphones, enveloping you in a cocoon of sound. Engrossed in your auditory world, a distant voice manages to penetrate the barrier, capturing your attention. Swiftly turning your head, you catch sight of Hwa, jogging towards you with an infectious smile illuminating his face. The sun, in its gradual inclination, casts a warm glow upon his features, accentuating his sincere enthusiasm as he closes the distance between you.

“___.” He yells, excited to see you outside of school. When he reaches you, he is panting slightly and you realise he must have sprinted pretty far to catch up with you. Giving him a confused look, you wonder why he is near this area, never have seen him come this way before. Luckily, after months, Hwa has become accustomed to your familiar actions and wordless antics, being able to recognise what your different movements and expressions indicate. Your feelings for the man have developed immensely and you find yourself becoming extremely fond of the guy. Plus, it doesn’t help that the more you get to know him, the more you realise how handsome he is.

“What are you doing here?” Hwa questions, walking next to you as you continue to head towards your house.

“Going home.” You mutter your voice nothing above a whisper, you are shocked yourself by the words coming out of your mouth. You suddenly wonder why it is that you can suddenly speak freely around Hwa.

Immediately, Hwa’s eyes open hugely upon hearing you talk for the first time, he stops walking next to you, his mouth hanging wide open widely. Looking back at him, you giggle at his dramatic reaction, before speaking again.

“What?’’ You say, your body turning fully towards him, walking backwards, and scanning over his every reaction.

Quickly, the male bounds towards you, the smile resuming as he makes his way to you, almost jumping up and down with excitement.

“So, what did I do to deserve the ___ to finally speak to me,” Hwa asks, his voice giddy as he skips next to you.

“I don’t know, I feel safe around you...” You admit, trailing off and becoming slightly insecure about the way your voice sounds. Hwa seems to notice the turmoil of thoughts running through your head and instantly pauses your walking by grabbing your hand lightly, pulling you to look up at his warm eyes.

“You have a nice voice, please keep on speaking.” His voice is soft and peaceful, like usual, but at this moment, it sounds like music to your ears. Feeling your cheeks getting warm, you turn to look away, continuing your walk home. The both of you turn back to moving forwards and you realise you didn’t reciprocate the question Hwa had asked.

“Why are you here?” You ask, curious as to why Hwa would be in this area, never having seen him before around here.

“Ah, I’m seeing my friends, we are meeting at that abandoned warehouse just around the corner from here. Don’t tell anyone, it’s our secret hideout.” The male explains a small chuckle leaving his throat as he turns to you to put out his pinkie finger. Confused, you look up at him, wondering why he is pointing his pinkie finger at you.

“Pinkie promise that you won’t tell anyone.” For a moment he looks incredibly serious, and you wonder as to why he is so stern about the hideout of his friends. It makes you feel soft that here, an eighteen-year-old boy is so seriously making you pinkie promise something. The innocence of the action has you smiling widely, your heart melting.

“Okay, okay.” You reluctantly say, linking your pinkie with his, the both of you letting out gentle laughs. It is quiet for a while as the two of you continue on your way to your separate destinations when Hwa suddenly asks you a question.

“Would you perhaps like to come with me?” The tall male asks, hoping to spend some time with you outside of school, especially since now you are finally fully conversing with him.

Glancing at the watch on your wrist, you worry as to what would happen if you don’t show up on time home, worrying as to how your father would react. However, you realise tonight he should be out with some of his friends, drinking and knowing he will be out until the early hours of the morning. Today, it seems as if luck is in your favour. Not having any friends, it seems somewhat beautiful that Hwa invited you along to hang out with his friend group. From what you have heard from him, the group is very close and doesn’t usually spend time with outsiders. Yet at the same time, you have heard about how kind and fun they are, which makes it extremely easy to decide.

“I’d love that.”

So, you met the rest of the boys, and it was almost alien how quickly you hit it off with all of them.

“So, you must be the pretty girl who never speaks.” A cute boy with light purple hair speaks out and you suddenly feel extremely self-conscious as you realise Hwa has talked about you to his friends, even calling you pretty. Feeling your body start to get hot, Hwa places a hand on your shoulder in an effort to let you know that it’s okay and his friend is just teasing.

A jolt of surprise courses through you as your eyes land on a face that feels oddly familiar, instantly triggering a spark of recognition. It dawns on you that this is the very same male figure you had been sketching on the day you first encountered Hwa. A wave of embarrassment washes over you as the realisation hits home, leaving you acutely aware that Hwa must have noticed you discreetly capturing his friend's portrait. Yet, to your immense relief, Hwa remains tight-lipped about the situation, his mischievous wink the only acknowledgement he offers in response to your stunned expression upon seeing the familiar face.

As you meet each friend individually, a remarkable sense of astonishment washes over you when you realise how effortlessly you connect with the boys. It's as if you're engaging in conversations with Hwa himself, the connection and company flowing naturally between you. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of new acquaintances, you find comfort in only observing their banter, occasionally opting for quiet observation rather than actively participating in the verbal exchange.

Watching them interact and revel in their shared friendship fills you with inexplicable joy, for it is a feeling you had longed for—an authentic sense of belonging among friends. The ease with which you seamlessly fit into their circle surprises you, and it's not ignored by boys either, they immediately grow fond of you. They sense the immediate connection, as if destiny had intended for you to be a part of their lives all along.

This remarkable harmony that you effortlessly slot into makes it a natural progression for the boys to invite you to join them in their hangouts. The invitation comes easily as if it were given that you should be included, reinforcing the notion that you have found a place among them—a group of friends who accept and appreciate you just as you are.

There is a pure glow from each of them, yet you notice the blank, pained expressions and feelings on their faces, and it feels as if you are looking in the mirror and it is as if they can understand and relate deeply to who you are without needing to utter a single word.

Many days after this you find yourself spending more and more time with the group, finding yourself loving each of them the way you have grown to love Hwa. Turning up the music and dancing was your favourite part of your hangouts, watching as they all chanted to songs and moved to the beat. It made you feel some sense of belonging, something you haven’t felt in a very long time. Writing and singing to songs was one of the very things you loved most about the hang outs, every time they start a verse having to say the words “fix on”, or finishing it with “passion, young, fever”. The very words starting to feel as if they are engraved in your mind.

One peculiar aspect that strikes you is the fact that none of the boys have ever shared their actual names with you. Instead, they refer to each other solely by their unique and endearing nicknames. Yet, strangely enough, this detail doesn't bother you in the slightest. The absence of birth names becomes inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. What truly matters is the profound contentment you feel, having finally discovered a group of individuals with whom you can fully be yourself with.

In their presence, you experience a rare sense of comfort, as if you've known them for a lifetime. Walls crumble, masks fade away, and you can simply exist as your authentic self. The love and acceptance that enters the air create a seemingly unbreakable bond. The absence of formal introductions and conventional names becomes a trivial detail, dwarfed by the depth of connection and genuine affection that binds you together. As your relationships with each of the boys deepened, an unexpected shift occurred within your heart, surpassing the boundaries of familial affection, and evolving into a profound form of liking. You were well aware of the impropriety of harbouring such feelings for all eight of them, understanding that it was highly unlikely any of them reciprocated those same emotions. Yet, you couldn't help but acknowledge that your heart seemed to act independently, beyond the constraints of reason.

What made matters even more complex was the knowledge that two of the boys were nursing shattered hearts, their pain etched deeply upon their souls due to a girl you had never met and who, in all likelihood, you had no chance against. The stories that circulated among the group painted a picture of a messy and agonising heartbreak that had left them both broken in its wake. Despite the overwhelming depth of your feelings for them, you made a conscious decision to suppress your own desires, opting instead to provide solace and support as they navigated their heartache. Every time you witnessed their tears, mourning over the faceless girl who had captivated their hearts, an ache resonated within your own chest. It was an ache born from unrequited emotions, an emotional reminder of the distance that separated you from the love they sought. Nonetheless, you steeled yourself, pushing those yearnings aside, focusing on being the shoulder to lean on, the one who offered unwavering support and understanding during their darkest hours. It was a choice fuelled by selflessness and a desire to ease their suffering, even if it meant struggling with your own unspoken longing.

The warehouse was an unusual sanctuary for you, a place of solitude amidst the hustle and bustle of daily life. With its towering shelves of empty boxes and the faint scent of cardboard, rust and moss, it offered a kind of comfort you couldn't find elsewhere. It was where you escaped to when you needed a break from the world.

Today, you arrived early, finishing school ahead of schedule due to a teacher falling ill. Alone in the vast expanse of the warehouse, you found peace in the quiet, engrossed in the pages of a book. The soft rustling of paper and the distant hum of the outside world being the only noise surrounding you.

As you turned another page, lost in the world of words, a sudden, screeching noise sliced through the calm. Startled, you look up just in time to see the massive metal door at the far end of the warehouse creaking open, a thin beam of sunlight piercing the dim interior.

The sudden blast of light makes you squint, shielding your eyes with one hand as you try to discern who or what had interrupted your solitude. Your heart raced slightly, a mix of curiosity and caution welling within you. The warehouse wasn't a frequented place, and the unexpected visitor had piqued your interest.

Slowly, you closed your book and set it aside, rising from your makeshift reading spot. As your eyes adjusted to the newfound brightness, you made out the silhouette of a person framed by the open door.

Recognition washed over you like a gentle wave, replacing your initial unease with a sense of relief and surprise. The person at the door was someone you hadn't expected to see in this unlikely place.

“Oh sorry ___, I wasn’t expecting you to be here.” Yeo’s voice reaches your ears and you see his cute face pop around the corner as your eyes get used to the sudden flash.

“Tiny is here?” The man you know as Woo follows behind Yeo with a wide smile on his face.

“What are you doing here so early?” He jumps up to you and lays on the couch, nuzzling his head onto your lap, the action sending a rush of butterflies into your body.

“I finished early, sorry for not letting you guys know I was coming.” You apologise, feeling bashful for intruding in their personal space without their knowledge.

“It’s okay, you are always welcome here.” Yeo smiles as he says quietly and makes his way over to you and Woo on the couch.

Smiling back at him, you observe as he pushes Woo’s legs to the side before sitting at the other end of the couch.

“So what are you doing here?” Woo asked from underneath you.

“Oh I just needed some peace to read my book, this is the only place I actually feel calm.”

“I also have that.” Yeo exclaims, a bigger smile on his face, “when we are here it feels like the outside world doesn’t even matter.”

“Exactly.” You smile at him, his relatable statement causing your chest to swell for some odd reason.

“I’m going to sleep, school was far too much today.” Woo's announcement about his exhaustion draws a soft giggle from you, a gentle sound that fills the room with a sense of warmth. He snuggles further into your lap, seeking comfort after a long day. His actions create an intimate moment that's both endearing and heartwarming.

The soft giggle that escapes your throat is like music to the ears of the two men beside you.

“Where do you guys go to school? I’ve never seen you at mine.”

“Oh we go to the one just around the corner, only Hwa goes to your school.”

“I see.”

Gazing down at Woo nestled in your lap, a fond smile graces your lips. Your feelings for him have also grown deep, and his flirtatious nature has become both endearing and exhilarating, adding a touch of excitement to your interactions. His playful personality has woven a unique bond between you, one that's filled with affection and a sense of familiarity.

With a tender touch, you reach out to brush a stray strand of hair from Woo's face, your fingers gentle and caring. The small gesture elicits a soft grin from him, a silent acknowledgment that your action made him feel delighted.

Turning your attention to Yeo, you find yourself captivated by the subtle details that make him unique. His gaze, focused on the two of you together, holds a certain warmth and depth.

Yeo and yourself engage in a quiet conversation, and you find yourself relishing this rare opportunity to connect with him on a personal level. In the larger group, he often keeps to himself, a quiet presence in the midst of the lively discussions. It's exciting to finally have a one-on-one conversation with him, a chance to peel back the layers and get to know the person behind the reserved exterior.

The hour or so that you spend chatting is a revelation. You discover a shared interest in books, a passion that he's clearly enthusiastic about. Yeo's eyes light up as he shares recommendations from his personal reading choices, and you're captivated by the depth of his knowledge and his love for literature.

As the conversation flows, you delve into the world of books, exchanging thoughts on favourite authors, genres, and memorable reads. The exchange of recommendations feels like a treasure trove of new adventures waiting to be explored. It's a conversation that transcends the boundaries of the room and opens a door to a shared passion that you both cherish. In this moment you get an overwhelming feeling of deja vu, as if you have been in this position before, or have yet to be in this situation.

During this intimate moment, you realise that beneath Yeo's quiet demeanour lies a wealth of knowledge and a genuine enthusiasm for the things he loves. The connection you share through your shared interest in books is a testament to the richness of human connection and the beauty of discovering common ground with someone you might not have expected. It's a reminder that there's always more to uncover about the people around you, and that even the quietest among us can hold hidden depths waiting to be explored.

Immersed in the creative haven of your bedroom, you find comfort in the rhythmic strokes of your pencil against the textured paper. For the past week, you have poured your heart and soul into a meticulously crafted drawing of your eight friends, their features coming to life with each delicate line and shading. It has become your labour of love, a tribute to the cherished connections you've formed with each of them. As melodic tunes echo through the room from a speaker perched on your desk, the dulcet melodies provide a gentle backdrop to your artistic activities. The song, suggested by Woo himself, serves as a bridge, connecting your creative energy with the vibrations of the soundscape. You find yourself instinctively bobbing your head in time to the rhythm, your body swaying with harmony.

However, the tranquillity is abruptly shattered as the front door slams shut, the unexpected noise jolting you from your reverie. Your heart skips a beat, a surge of both dismay and fear coursing through your veins. The unmistakable thudding of footsteps echoes up the stairs, sending a shiver down your spine. It is your father's arrival, a presence that always harbours an air of tension and unpredictability.

With nimble urgency, you reach over to the speaker and swiftly silence the music, plunging the room into a weighted silence. The absence of melodies only amplifies the unease that lingers in the air, adding an oppressive weight to the atmosphere. Your sanctuary, once filled with the joyous sounds of music, is now stifled by the solemn hush that envelops it.

A palpable tension fills the room as you desperately hope for a stroke of luck, silently pleading for your father to bypass your closed door, his footsteps continuing down the hall to his own room. In the stillness of the moment, you remain frozen, your very breath restrained in anticipation.

But, as fate would have it, luck turns a deaf ear to your silent wishes. The door creaks open, swinging inward with a reluctant motion, revealing the formidable figure of your father standing on the threshold. His presence alone fills the room with an air of trepidation, his imposing stature and crossed arms creating an impenetrable barrier that demands attention.

Struggling to maintain his balance, you notice the slight wobble in his stance, a sign of the tumultuous emotions that brew within him. His arms remain tightly folded over his chest; a physical shield that matches the sternness etched onto his face. The weight of his gaze, intense and unyielding, seems to pierce through the silence, weighing heavily upon the room and those within it. A mixture of apprehension and anxiety coalesces within you, causing your heart to race in your chest. The air hangs heavy with unspoken words as if any attempt at conversation might trigger an unexpected tempest. You hold your breath, awaiting the next move, your entire being poised on a precipice of hesitation.

“What are you doing?” He questions, his voice slurred and unclear.

“Drawing,” With a sense of urgency, you respond hastily, your words chosen carefully to minimise any potential escalation. The desire to avoid the volatile whirlwind of his unpredictable moods propels you to seek a rapid conclusion to the interaction, hoping that your brief responses will prevent the conversation from lingering any longer than necessary. The burdensome weight of the situation and the fatigue that grips your spirit urge you to retreat, seeking solace and respite from the tumultuous presence of your father. You are caught off guard by your father's presence and the disconcerting aura surrounding him, you find yourself yearning for a swift end to the interaction. Your own emotions, a mix of weariness and apprehension, compel you to seek an expedited resolution. The weight of his unpredictable and volatile emotions, amplified by the telltale signs of his consumption of alcohol, looms heavily in the room, intensifying your desire to disengage from the conversation.

“When are your exams?” The man asks as he stumbles into your room, clearly fumbling around on his feet, unable to find balance on his feet, very clearly a side effect of the heavy consumption of alcohol.

“Next month.”

A wave of unease washes over you as your father's brow furrows once more, his expression shifting into one of annoyance. The subtle creases on his forehead deepen, forming a stark contrast against the lines of tension etched upon his face. At that moment, your heart sinks, a heavy weight settling in the pit of your stomach. The intensity of his displeasure, evident in the way his features contort, sends a surge of apprehension through your veins. Your own emotions waver on a cliff, poised between a desire to appease and a need to protect yourself from the potential fallout. As his annoyance penetrates the room, you brace yourself for what may come next, keenly aware of the precarious nature of your current situation.

“Then you should be studying.” He booms, his voice echoing off the walls of your small bedroom.

“I was going to study when I finish this.”

“Do not back talk to me.” The sound of your father's voice reverberates through the room, amplified by the alcohol coursing through his veins, causing you to flinch involuntarily. Avoiding direct eye contact, you shift your gaze downwards, unable to bear the intensity of his drunken rage. The urge to roll your eyes at his exaggerated and unjustified behaviour becomes nearly irresistible, as you struggle to comprehend why he is directing his anger at you for such a trivial matter. A sense of exasperation builds within you, fuelled by the stark contrast between the magnitude of his reaction and the insignificance of the situation at hand. The weight of his misplaced frustration leaves you bewildered, questioning the logic behind his anger. It feels like an unwarranted attack on your being, leaving you grappling with a mix of resentment and confusion. Yet, mindful of the volatile nature of the situation, you tamp down your instinctive response. Instead, you silently navigate the treacherous waters, attempting to maintain composure and seeking a swift resolution to this senseless confrontation.

“I’m sorry.” In a desperate attempt to defuse the escalating tension, you respond, your words laced with a mix of pleading and a longing for tranquillity. Your desire to return to the serene solace of your artistic endeavours intensifies, fuelling your efforts to restore a sense of calm. However, your heart lurches upward, lodging itself in your throat, as your father takes a step closer, intruding upon your personal space. A shiver snakes its way down your spine as his hand reaches out, settling heavily on the back of your neck. The weight of his touch feels oppressive, a physical manifestation of the emotional turmoil that engulfs you.

Fear dances within your veins, mingling with a sense of vulnerability. The boundaries that should protect you have been violated, leaving you acutely aware of your powerlessness at this moment. Your instinctive longing for escape intensifies, urging you to seek refuge from this dangerous environment and the touch that sends chills down your spine.

“Don’t forget who is in charge here.” Your father's whispered words cut through the air, a chilling undertone accompanying them, as his nails dig into the delicate skin of your neck. The sharp pain shoots through your body, an unwelcome reminder of the power imbalance in this unsettling encounter. Tears gather in your eyes, threatening to spill over as a mixture of pain and anxiety churns within your chest, constricting your throat. A knot of fear tightens in your stomach, intensifying the overwhelming sense of vulnerability that envelopes you. The weight of his grip and the raw discomfort that courses through your body serves as a stark reminder of the control he applies, amplifying the helplessness that grips your being. You yearn for release from this distressing moment, desperately seeking an escape from his oppressive presence and the escalating pain that continues to coil around you.

A lump forms in your throat, constricting your voice as you manage to summon a weak response, uttering a subdued, "Yes, Dad." The weight of fear and anxiety threatens to overwhelm you, making it difficult to find the strength to speak or express yourself fully.

The knowledge of past experiences with your father looms in your mind, serving as a reminder of the potential consequences that could follow even the slightest provocation. The disparity between the magnitude of his reaction and the seemingly insignificant trigger leaves you confused, the fear of setting off his anger further stifling your genuine thoughts and feelings. The urge to voice your true thoughts, to stand up for yourself, simmers within, but the fear that accompanies it serves as a heavy muzzle, silencing the words you long to say. In this suffocating atmosphere, you decide to bite your tongue, for now, choosing self-preservation over the risk of inciting his explosive rage.

“What is this shit?” Your father's voice cuts through the air with a biting edge, his disdain is evident as he questions the worth of your drawing. His harsh gaze fixated upon the paper on your desk, the discarded pencil serving as a silent witness to his disapproval.

“Just something I’m working on.” In an attempt to diffuse the situation, you reply with a hint of defensiveness, your words laced with an eagerness for him to cease his interrogation and retreat from your sanctuary. The desperate plea for him to leave you be, to preserve the sanctity of your safe space, hangs heavily in the air between you.

As he snatches the sketchbook from the desk, your nerves intensify, your pulse quickening as his scrutinising eyes peruse the paper. The tension in the room becomes almost suffocating, amplifying your anxiety to new heights.

“Who is this?” His bitter and slurred voice reverberates, the words barely coherent.

Fear floods your veins, and knowing the truth would lead to misunderstanding and potential danger. Hastily, you weave a web of lies, your words rushed and unsteady, hoping to divert his attention away from the genuine connection you share with the boys.

The man's anger escalates, his words morphing into a piercing yell that reverberates within the confines of the room. The intensity of his outburst pierces your ears, each syllable hammering into your consciousness. The weight of his disdain for your artistic talent lands heavily upon your heart, his belittlement serving as a painful reminder of the limitations he imposes upon your aspirations.

Panic grips you as your father's hand inches closer to the paper, and a sense of dread fills every fibre of your being as you realise his malicious intentions. Frantically, you reach out in a futile attempt to stop him, but your efforts prove futile as he ruthlessly rips the page from the book, tearing it down the middle. Tears well up in your eyes as a profound sense of disappointment and pain courses through your body, your hard work treated with callous disregard, tossed aside as if it were nothing. With a surge of determination, you rise from your chair, driven by an instinct to protect what remains of your creation. However, your resistance is met with ruthless force as your father forcefully pushes your body, causing you to crash onto the floor, the impact jolting through your hip and radiating pain throughout your entire being. The anguish of your shattered artwork pales in comparison to the physical and emotional pain inflicted upon you at this moment.

As you lie on the floor, a broken mess of tears and anguish, your father's rage reaches new heights. He towers over you, his face contorted with anger, grabbing the back of your head painfully once again. The proximity of his enraged face leaves you trembling, his piercing scream reverberating through your ears, assaulting your senses with an intensity that feels unbearable. In this horrifying moment, you are forced to confront the painful reality of his control, the overwhelming weight of his anger eclipsing any semblance of safety or peace.

“If I ever see you sketching again, I will not be as forgiving.” Spit flies from your father’s mouth, his breath reeking of alcohol, making you even more disgusted. Tears fall freely from your eyes as you try to maintain your composure, so as to not enrage the man even further. Your father continues his words, “Clean this mess up. I’m going to sleep.”

With an abrupt exit, the man stumbles out of your room, his unsteady footsteps resounding on the wooden floor, echoing the turmoil that lingers in his wake. You can only surmise that he retreats to his own bedroom, likely collapsing onto the bed in a drunken slumber. The abruptness of his departure offers a temporary respite, but the emotional scars and residual fear remain, haunting the air within your room. Weeping silently, your trembling hands pressed against your face, you struggle to contain the overwhelming surge of emotions that threaten to overcome you. In the midst of your despair, you survey the scattered remnants of your destroyed drawing, yearning for a miracle that would restore it to its former glory. Each torn piece becomes a painful reminder of the shattered gift intended for your only friends.

With shaky resolve, you begin the arduous task of collecting the fragmented remnants, moving them from the floor to the bin next to your desk. Each movement brings fresh waves of tears, your heart aching at the irreparable loss of the heartfelt gesture. The realisation that the memento meant to convey your appreciation and friendship now lies in ruins only amplifies your sense of devastation. As you meticulously dispose of the torn pieces, your tears fall even harder, tracing a sorrowful path down your cheeks. The weight of the ruined gift presses upon your soul, a profound sense of loss mingling with the lingering pain of the recent encounter. In this moment of vulnerability, you find solace in your tears, allowing yourself to grieve the destruction of your artistic expression and the shattered connection it represented.

As the silence envelops the house, you breathe a sigh of relief, realising that the man who instils such terror within you is finally lost in the depths of sleep. Drawing strength back into your trembling legs, you hastily slip on your shoes, a desperate urgency compelling you to escape the confines of the place you dread most.

Stealthily, you navigate the familiar hallways, your movements shrouded in silence, driven by an intense need to distance yourself from the haunting presence that lingers within those walls. The weight of your fear propels you forward, guiding your steps towards an uncertain destination.

In your frantic search for solace, you find yourself stumbling upon the empty warehouse, its vast expanse providing a sense of respite and comfort that you yearn for. Though devoid of human presence, you know deep within your soul that the very atmosphere within this cavernous space will envelop you, granting a momentary reprieve from the overwhelming emotions that threaten to consume you.

Stepping into the familiar warehouse, the sound of the large metal doors scraping against the concrete floor reverberates through the cavernous space, creating a symphony of echoes that dance along the walls. The rhythmic noise seems to announce your entrance as if beckoning invisible spectators to witness your raw vulnerability. Yet, amidst the vast emptiness, the absence of your friends accentuates the solitude that envelops you, amplifying the bittersweet comfort of this cherished sanctuary.

Staggering towards the worn-out couch, its faded fabric hinting at the countless memories shared upon its cushions, you allow your body to collapse into its familiar embrace. The soft cushions yield beneath your weight, conforming to the contours of your tired form. You lay down sideways, finding comfort in the familiar haven that holds so many cherished moments. The tears flow freely from your eyes, tracing glistening paths down your cheeks, as if the very fabric of the pillow beneath your head absorbs the weight of your sorrow. Every sob that escapes your trembling lips reverberates within the expansive metal room, each one a witness to the depth of your pain. The echoes reverberate through the space, intertwining with the ethereal remnants of laughter and friendship that have painted the walls with a subtle warmth. The traumatic event that has left you bruised and broken resonates within the vastness of the room, its hollowness a haunting backdrop to your vulnerability.

Time becomes a fluid concept as you lose yourself in the catharsis of your tears. The exhaustion weighs upon you like an invisible burden, the weight of the world pressing down upon your weary shoulders. Each sob drains your energy, leaving your eyelids heavy and your body craving a respite from the relentless ache. Gradually, the exhaustion takes hold, its grasp tightening around your consciousness. The drowsiness seeps into every fibre of your being, your mind and body surrendering to the lullaby of weariness. As the golden rays of the setting sun filter through the cracks in the metal walls, casting an ethereal glow upon your tear-stained face, sleep claims you, offering a temporary escape from the harsh realities that haunt your waking hours.

As the coils of sleep begin to loosen their grip on your consciousness, you are jolted awake by the sensation of being gently shaken. Blinking groggily, you try to push away from the source of the disturbance, a low groan escaping your lips. To your surprise, the sound is met with a soft chuckle, a deep voice calling your name with tenderness. A hand comes to rest on your head, its touch gentle and soothing, patting you in a comforting rhythm.

Startled, your heart skips a beat, your body tensing at the unexpected touch. The fear of encountering your father floods your mind, sending waves of anxiety coursing through your veins. In a swift motion, you sit up, the blanket slipping from your shoulders, your eyes scanning the dimly lit surroundings of the warehouse. It takes a moment for your vision to adjust, and when it does, you realise that you are still in the familiar confines of the warehouse, resting on the worn-out couch. The realisation washes over you, relief mingling with lingering fearfulness.

Peering around, you notice that darkness has descended upon the space, replacing the golden hues of the setting sun with a blanket of shadow. It dawns on you that you must have been asleep for several hours, the passage of time slipping by unnoticed as fatigue overcomes you. Your gaze then falls upon the source of your awakening, the boy known as 'Yu,' crouched on the floor before the couch. His soft grin illuminates his features, his dishevelled brown hair partially hiding his eyes, his cheeks adorned with a gentle blush.

“Are you okay? What are you doing sleeping here?” Yu asks, looking you tenderly in your eyes, causing your heart to flip in circles.

“I needed to get away from some stuff.” You answer truthfully, not being able to find the strength to lie to the boy in front of you.

As Yu's concerned gaze meets yours, the worry etched on his face, the smile that had adorned his features fades away. The depth of your distress is evident to him, and he can sense the heaviness that weighs upon your weary soul. It's as if he can see through the facade you wear, peering into the depths of your eyes to witness the pain and exhaustion that lies within.

At this moment, any trace of anger or frustration that had accompanied him to the warehouse dissipates entirely, replaced by a newfound tenderness and empathy. He is drawn to you, compelled to offer comfort and relief in the face of your evident struggle. Moving closer, his larger hand finds its way to rest gently atop yours, a gesture that sends a cascade of butterflies fluttering within your stomach. The warmth of his touch seeps into your skin, offering a respite from the coldness that had entered the warehouse. It's a simple act, but it carries a profound weight, communicating a silent message of support and understanding. In this shared moment of vulnerability, you feel a glimmer of hope and connection, as if a lifeline has been extended to you in the midst of your despair.

“What happened, Tiny?”

The nickname was bestowed upon you by the boys when you first joined their group, a playful teasing inspired by the absolute height difference between you and Yu. It quickly became a term of endearment that all eight adopted, using it to address you with affectionate familiarity. However, at this moment, as Yu's tenderness envelopes you, the meaning behind the nickname takes on a new layer of complexity, evoking emotions that elude your grasp. It's an unfamiliar sensation for Yu to display such genuine care towards you, considering his infatuation with another girl that has kept him at a distance. Yet, at this moment, you can't help but yearn for his tender presence to be a constant, for him to act as if no other girl holds his attention. The conflicting emotions swirl within you, torn between the desire to keep this fragile connection intact and the fear of revealing the recent traumatic events that unfolded hours ago, uncertain of how Yu would react.

Your attention shifts to where your hands meet, and your heart lurches at the sight of gashes and blood staining Yu's knuckles. Concern overtakes you, the worry carved upon your features as you contemplate the cause of his injuries. Questions buzz in your mind, begging to be asked, but the fear of intruding upon his personal struggles holds you back. The realisation that pain has marked his hands, mirroring the pain that has scarred your own being, intensifies your sense of worry and empathy.

In this delicate moment, a silent exchange of emotions hangs in the air, unspoken words lingering between you. The weight of unspoken truths and shared vulnerabilities creates a bond that is both fragile and powerful, leaving you uncertain of what course of action to take next.

“What happened to your hand?” you inquire, pulling his hand into your lap, and observing the wounds on his pretty hands.

Peering up at Yu, concern etched across your features, his heart skips a beat, an unfamiliar sensation stirring within him. It's a feeling he struggles to decipher, a gentle tug that seems to pull at the depths of his being. His eyes lock with yours, and at that moment, time seems to stand still as he finds himself captivated by the curiosity and vulnerability reflected in your gaze. There's a tenderness in Yu's eyes, an almost loving quality as he studies your appearance. His gaze lingers on your swollen eyes, evidence of the tears you've shed and the burden you've carried. The worry radiates from him, manifesting as a protective instinct that seeks to shield you from further pain. It's a sentiment that surprises even him, the depth of his concern far surpassing the bounds of friendship.

In this silent exchange, a subtle shift occurs within Yu, as if the barriers he had carefully constructed around his emotions begin to crumble. The walls he had built to guard his heart start to crack, allowing a glimmer of something deeper to emerge. Though he may not fully understand the extent of his own feelings, the way his gaze lingers on you with tenderness and compassion speaks volumes.

In this moment, a connection forms, the unspoken understanding between you deepening. It's as if a silent agreement is forged, promising support and comfort amidst the challenges you both face. The weight of unspoken words and shared empathy fills the space between you, laying the foundation for something more profound and transformative.

“Have you been crying?” His voice is gentle and calming, not wanting you to feel uncomfortable by the inquiry, wishing for you to answer.

“Why is your hand hurt?” you retort, his hand still resting in your lap, you trying to wipe away stray pieces of dirt in the cuts. Your hand lingers atop Yu's, a gentle touch that he usually guards against, he finds himself pleasantly surprised by the ease with which he allows you to maintain the contact. It's a rare occurrence for him to let others freely touch him, his personal boundaries carefully shielded. Yet, at this moment, he feels a sense of comfort and acceptance in your touch, as if a barrier he didn't know existed has been effortlessly breached.

The surprise intensifies as he realises that he enjoys the sensation of your hand resting upon his, the warmth of your touch bringing a sense of connection that he hadn't anticipated. There's a certain serenity in your presence, a quiet assurance that draws him in, inviting him to let down his guard and allow himself to be vulnerable. His gaze remains fixated on you, his attention solely focused on your interaction. The world around him seems to fade into the background as he becomes absorbed in this shared moment, his own emotions swirling within. It's unfamiliar territory, one he hadn't expected to find himself in, yet he can't deny the pull that you exert upon him, the magnetic force of your presence.

In this newfound vulnerability, Yu begins to question his own reservations and the walls he has built around himself. Your touch, your unwavering attention, opens up a space where he can explore and discover a different side of himself, one that embraces connection and allows himself to be seen. Hands remaining touching, a silent understanding passes between you, unspoken words painting the canvas of this intimate moment. The depth of your connection holds the promise of something extraordinary, an exploration of emotions and possibilities that neither of you could have foreseen.

“I asked first.” Yu teases, trying to lift the mood, wanting to see the smile he has grown to adore appear on your features.

“I don’t want to bother you.” You reply, your voice shaky and quiet, answering truthfully, not sure if he would be able to handle the information you so desperately need to disclose to someone.

“You never bother me,” As Yu contemplates his next move, a surge of courage courses through him. Without hesitation, he uses the hand that rests in your lap, gently interlocking his fingers with yours. He takes care to avoid smudging his dried blood on you or your clothes, a subtle gesture of consideration that doesn't go unnoticed.

The unexpected act of affection catches you off guard, your eyes widening in surprise. Heat rises to your cheeks, a blush betraying the fluttering emotions that swirl within you. You meet Yu's gaze, his eyes soft and filled with a tenderness that resonates deeply. A small smile graces his lips, a wordless reassurance that speaks volumes. In this simple gesture, he communicates a willingness to bridge the gap between you, to traverse the uncertain territory of shared vulnerability. It's a brave step forward, an offering of trust and a declaration of his sudden growing feelings.

“It’s okay, ___.” Yu whispers, his eyebrows furrowing ever so slightly as his words become more serious, “You can tell me anything.”

Sighing, you decide maybe it is okay to confide in one person.

“It’s my dad.” You admit, looking down at the hand that Yu has gripped gently in his own, his fingers wrapped around your smaller hand. Yu gives you a puzzled look, not sure what your father could have done to make you so upset. Noticing his confused expression, you continue speaking, “It is dumb, but I was working on this drawing, and he came in drunk out of his mind and started yelling at me for not studying,”

“Hold on, he was drunk?” Yu questions, starting to feel anger build up in his body.

“Yeah, but when is he not.” You attempt to joke, yet the look on Yu’s face doesn’t look amused, causing you to sigh gently, “he ripped up the drawing in front of my face and said if he ever sees me drawing again, he ‘won’t be as forgiving’, whatever that means,” you mumble, the weight of vulnerability settling upon you, you become highly aware of the depth of the information you have just shared.

A sense of unease and apprehension begins to gnaw at your insides, uncertain of how Yu will react to this newfound revelation. The silence that follows is deafening, and you can't help but lift your gaze from your intertwined hands to meet his eyes.

What you see takes you by surprise, an expression of absolute disbelief etched across Yu's features. His eyes wide, his lips slightly parted as if struggling to find the words to respond. The moment hangs suspended in time, the tension thickening the air between you. Questions swirl in your mind, uncertainty threatening to unravel the fragile connection that has been forged. Doubt creeps in, casting shadows over the vulnerability you have exposed. You find yourself questioning the wisdom of sharing such intimate feelings, fearing the potential repercussions it may have on your friendship. In this charged moment, the world seems to hold its breath, waiting for Yu's reaction. The uncertainty weighs heavily upon you, your heart pounding in your chest as you anxiously await his response.

Preparing to question the impact of your confession on Yu, your words catch in your throat, suspended by the sudden movement of his embrace. In a swift motion, he pulls you towards him, enveloping your body in a tight hug that leaves you momentarily breathless. Your head is gently guided to rest in the crook of his neck, the warmth of his skin against yours sending shivers down your spine. His hand finds its place on the back of your head, his fingers tenderly stroking your hair with a soothing rhythm. Yu's sensitivity to your tense form prompts a fleeting hesitation within him, a flicker of uncertainty about having crossed a boundary or making you uncomfortable. But when he feels your entire body relax and melt into his embrace, a surge of emotions courses through him. His heart pounds rapidly in his chest, swelling with a feeling akin to absolute adoration. It's a moment of defencelessness and connection that surpasses words, forging a bond between you that almost feels unbreakable.

In response to his comforting presence, you wrap your arms tightly around his neck, seeking solace in his embrace. Nestling into the curve of his neck, you revel in the sensation of being held, the touch of his skin against yours grounding you in the present moment. Yu adjusts his position, rising to sit on his knees and drawing himself even closer to your body. Your chests align, rising and falling in synchrony, as he positions himself between your legs. His grip tightens around you, afraid that you might vanish from his embrace.

In this intimate cocoon, it becomes clear that you weren't the only one in need of a hug. The mutual longing for comfort and reassurance binds you together, transcending the complexities of your individual experiences. In this tender moment of shared vulnerability, the world around you fades into insignificance, leaving only the warmth of each other's presence, the solace of a genuine connection, and the promise of healing.

Basking in the comfort of Yu's embrace, time seems to suspend, creating a sanctuary where worries and troubles momentarily fade away. However, your heart sinks when you feel him slowly pull away, a pang of disappointment seeping through your being. Yet, his hand continues to stroke the back of your head, his touch lingering, serving as a reminder of the tenderness you experienced.

Meeting his gaze, locking eyes with him, and at that moment, the connection between you deepens. It's as if the world around you dims, leaving only the intensity of his brown eyes that seem to hold a universe of emotions. Every fibre of your being is drawn to him, falling deeper into a feeling you've been trying to resist.

A hint of reluctance lingers in Yu's actions as he clears his throat, a signal that the intimate moment must come to an end. He slowly removes himself from your embrace, settling back into his previous position. Yet, his gaze remains fixed on you, unyielding and intense, as if he's afraid to look away, afraid to lose the connection that has formed. You find yourself lost in his gaze, a swirl of feelings and unspoken words passing between you. There's a magnetic pull, an unspoken understanding that something profound has transpired between you. It's a delicate dance of emotions, a dance that neither of you can fully comprehend but are unwilling to let go.

In this halted moment, the air crackles with anticipation, as if the next words spoken could alter the course of your relationship forever. The intensity in Yu's eyes speaks volumes, a testament to the depth of the bond that has formed between you.

“If something like this happens again, please let me know,” Yu says, breaking the silence, his voice serious, needing to protect you from whatever your father could possibly do in the future.

A meek smile graces your lips, an expression of gratitude that conveys more than words ever could. Deep within, you carry the weight of unspoken pain and secrets, understanding that some experiences are difficult to share, especially the ones involving your father. You appreciate Yu's offer of support, even though you know you can't burden him with the full extent of what you've endured.

In this moment of silent acknowledgement, you convey a deep sense of gratitude for his presence, for the solace he has unknowingly offered. It's a silent understanding that goes beyond words, a recognition of the unspoken connection between you. Despite the barriers that may exist, you find solace in knowing that there is someone who cares, someone willing to extend a helping hand.

“Now your turn.” You exclaim, causing Yu to give you a confused look, “Your hand. What happened?”

Yu lets out a sound of realisation, his expression matching it. Looking down at the gashes in his hands, Yu makes an expression similar to embarrassment.

“I got in a fight,” Yu explains, his cheeks heating up, realising you might be disappointed in him.

“Another? Why now?” You question, your voice is soft and caring, making him realise you aren’t upset at him, just worried, making his heart warm slightly, despite the war and heartbreak going throughout his entire body.

“The girl that Yeo and I used to like… she has said some stuff, some stuff that isn’t true. It’s tearing us apart, all of us.” Yu’s voice is shaky, and you can tell he is deeply affected by the circumstances.

Immediately, your interest is piqued, and concern envelops your being, you can't help but wonder what could have been said by the girl to have such a profound impact on Yu and the entire group. The realisation that her words have caused a collective breakdown weighs heavily on your mind, triggering a surge of curiosity and a deeper level of concern. Thoughts whirl through your head, seeking answers and understanding. What could she have revealed that shattered their spirits? What truths or revelations could have struck a chord so deeply? You can't help but ponder the significance of her words and the implications they hold for your friends and their emotional well-being.

In the midst of your thoughts, a mix of emotions floods your being, concern, empathy, and a deep desire to alleviate their pain. The bond between you and the group becomes even more heartrending, a reminder of the connection of your lives and the importance of standing together in the face of adversity.

“What did she say?” You question, your hand coming to rest on his like he did earlier.

“She said we laid our hands on her, we hurt her, physically, sexually. But I swear on everything, I have never put my hands on her, on anyone. None of us have, we have only ever acted in self-defence. I don’t know why all of a sudden, she is making up these stories. It is tearing us apart. Every single person believes her, they are coming after us, with their fists. Someone tried to come at Captain and I with a baseball bat, and it’s terrifying us, we don’t know what to do.”

“Wait what?” Your voice trembles with a mixture of shock and disbelief as you contemplate why this girl would suddenly feel the need to falsely accuse the boys you have grown so close to. In the time you've spent with them, you have come to know each of them as kind-hearted individuals, devoid of aggression or abusive tendencies. Your experiences with them have left a deep imprint, and you find it unfathomable to believe that any of them would ever lay a hand on someone, especially a woman.

The weight of this accusation hangs heavily in the air, and you struggle to reconcile the image of your friends with the words that have been spoken. It feels like a betrayal, not just to them but to the bond you have formed, as your faith in their character and integrity is steadfast. The disbelief fuels a surge of protectiveness and a fierce desire to defend them against these baseless accusations.

When Yu raises his gaze to meet yours, the shimmering tears threatening to escape, your heart aches with empathy and compassion. The vulnerability etched across his face mirrors your own inner turmoil, as you share a profound connection and a shared understanding of the gravity of the situation. At that moment, your heart breaks for him and for the rest of the group, as you witness the weight of their pain and the unjust burden they must bear.

“I don’t know why this is happening, or why she said it was all of us. Only Yeo and I have spent time with her, she has never even met the boys. Plus, we haven’t seen her in over two months, she said it happened last month. It makes no sense.”

“Yu, if it’s not true then you do not have to worry about anything. It will get sorted, okay? You are innocent.” All you can do is bring the man into your arms once again, this time letting him weep into your shoulder, his body limp against yours. It breaks your heart to see him so vulnerable, so broken because of deadly rumours.

“We will get this sorted, Yu. I promise.”

------

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andy-15-07 · 2 months

Text

Night Change

masterlist ! pairing: Coriolanus Snow x reader

SUMMARY : When two souls become one

GENRE: fluff, loveeee

The opulent ballroom glittered with crystal chandeliers and elaborate floral arrangements as Y/n descended the grand staircase, her ivory gown cascading around her like a waterfall of silk and lace. The room hushed in awe at the breathtaking sight before them. All eyes were on her as she made her way towards the altar, where Coriolanus Snow, the enigmatic and powerful leader of Panem, awaited.

Coriolanus stood at the front, dressed in a tailored suit that accentuated his authoritative presence. His steely gaze softened as he watched Y/n approach, captivated by her radiance. The air seemed to crackle with anticipation as they locked eyes, a silent promise passing between them.

The ceremony commenced with the officiant's words flowing through the air like a gentle melody. Y/n and Coriolanus exchanged vows, each word spoken with sincerity and love. As they slid the rings onto each other's fingers, a tangible connection formed, sealing their destinies together.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife," the officiant declared, and a wave of applause erupted from the gathered crowd. Y/n and Coriolanus shared a tender kiss, sealing the union they had both longed for.

The reception unfolded with opulence, the ballroom transformed into a dreamscape of music, laughter, and decadent cuisine. Y/n and Coriolanus moved gracefully through the throng of guests, their connection evident in the shared glances and subtle touches that passed between them.

Amid the festivities, Y/n found a moment to steal away with her new husband to a quiet balcony overlooking the city. The night air was cool against their skin as they gazed at the sprawling lights below.

"Coriolanus," Y/n began, her voice barely above a whisper, "I never imagined I'd find myself here, married to the most powerful man in Panem."

He turned to her, a small smile playing on his lips. "And I never thought I'd find someone who could challenge me, who could understand the complexities of this world we live in."

Y/n's eyes softened as she looked into his. "I love you, Coriolanus Snow, with all that I am."

He pulled her closer, his arms wrapping around her waist. "And I love you, Y/n, more than words could ever express. You are my equal, my partner in every sense."

The night continued with dancing and revelry, the couple moving effortlessly through the sea of well-wishers. Yet, amidst the celebration, a shadow of concern crossed Coriolanus's face.

"Y/n," he said, his voice low, "I know that my role in Panem has garnered its fair share of enemies. Are you prepared for the challenges that may come our way?"

She met his gaze, her eyes unwavering. "I am prepared for anything, Coriolanus. As long as we face it together."

He nodded, a mixture of gratitude and determination in his eyes. "Together, then."

The following days were a whirlwind of celebrations and newfound responsibilities. Y/n took on her role as the First Lady of Panem with grace and poise, standing by Coriolanus's side as they navigated the intricacies of political life.

Despite their united front, challenges did arise. Whispers of dissent and disapproval circulated among the Capitol elite, casting a shadow on their union. Y/n faced public scrutiny with resilience, standing firm beside her husband. Coriolanus, in turn, took decisive actions to quell the unrest, demonstrating to the Capitol that their leader's happiness was not to be trifled with.

One evening, as they strolled through the rose gardens of the Presidential Mansion, Y/n spoke softly to Coriolanus. "I never expected this life, but with you, I am willing to face whatever challenges come our way."

He took her hand, his thumb caressing her knuckles. "Y/n, you are my anchor, my source of strength. Together, we are unstoppable."

Their love story unfolded against the backdrop of political intrigue and societal expectations, a tale of two souls bound together in a world that sought to tear them apart. But through it all, Y/n and Coriolanus faced each obstacle with unwavering commitment, emerging stronger and more united than ever.

As they stood together on the balcony of the Presidential Mansion, gazing out at the Capitol skyline, they knew that their love was a force that transcended the boundaries of politics and power—a love that would endure, unyielding, against the tides of time.

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terrestrialnoob · 1 year

Text

Time and Information

She was walked through the halls of Bel Rev Prison by four guards down an unfamiliar passage. She was soon joined by a younger woman with blonde pigtails who was happily chatting to her escort until she saw her fellow prisoner.

“Oh my gosh! A new face!” She cheered in a heavy Brooklyn accent, “Better be careful or it’ll get blown to bits!”

The two were taken into separate rooms and there was a sudden jolt of horror at the chair in the center of the room. It looked far too familiar, straps and gaps for easy access to specific parts of the body – the soft, weak parts. It was similar to something she’d once made when she was younger, dumber, and too scared of the unknown – no, too scared of being wrong about the unknown to see what was right in front of her. She struggled against the guards, but one punched her in the gut and she was forcefully strapped down into the chair. She was warned not to move before there was a sharp pain at the back of her neck. She sat frozen as something was forced under her skin, she could feel it anchoring into bone. After that, she was unstrapped and furiously asked what they’d done to her. “They’ll explain it soon enough.”

She was lead out of the surgical room and into a large concrete room, with 2 metal crates. She spotted the girl from earlier standing next to one of the crates. She looked up at her from pulling on a red and black diamond patterned leotard over fishnet leggings. The girl waved and shouted, “You made it!”

She waved back to the blonde then one of the guards lead her to the other crate and opened it. Her eyes stared to tear at the sight of her old aqua jumpsuit. There were also her goggles, utility belt, respirator mask, and a handful of non-compacted weapons.

She followed the implicit instruction to change into her jumpsuit, and it felt like putting on her real skin on again. It had been so long, she was starting to see silver in her auburn hair that had grown so long her braid went all the way down to her back. But the suit fit, just like it always did.

“Awooga!” The girl cheered and shouted, “I’m not usually a MILF kinda gal, but you look tight.”

She almost laughed at getting catcalled by the other woman and even flexed her arm to show off her prison muscle. The two were soon lead to a new room and she saw three other non-guards in the room, all in their own colorful costume. A large man had on a bear-skin cloak over body armor while another seemed to be dressed up like an airline pilot. A humanoid tiger creature was also there, they were already wearing a sleeveless Chinese-style martial arts uniform.

“Boomer!” The girl shouted and waved at the airline pilot and he smiled and greeted her in turn.

“It’s good to see you Harley,” He said with an Australian accent, “who’s your friend?”

Before she could answer, a door slammed open. A woman entered; thick and sturdy who held herself like a pillar of The Acropolis, like if she fell, the whole of civilization would fall with her. At her side was a man dressed up in his own custom red, silver, and black body armor.

The woman stopped and glared at the prisoners like they were less than human and took time to memorize all their inhumanity before she spoke, “Ladies, gentlemen. For those who don’t know, I am Amanda Waller, head of Task Force X, an off the books strike team of convicts used as expendable agents working for the U.S. Government. You are now members of Task Force X. Succeed in your mission, and you’ll get time off your sentences. Any questions?”

“A few, ma’am,” She rose her hand.

Waller raised her eyebrow and nodded, but before she could ask, the man in the bear skin shouted, “The Bear fight for Mother Russia, not U.S. Pigs!” His accent was thick and he stomped his heavy boots up to Waller, towering over her in an attempt to intimidate. “I will not work for you.”

Waller glared up at him and waved at the door behind her, “Be warned, there’s a small explosive in your neck, and if you do any little thing I don’t like, your head will be blown clean off. Take one step out that door, and you’re dead.”

The Russian growled at her, then pushed past her. He took one confident step through the door - the explosion was bright but quiet, and eviscerated the man’s head in seconds.

Waller turned back to the others, “Did that answer any of your questions?”

“A few yes,” She smiled and gently rubbed her neck where the small lump was indicating which of her questions had been answered. Then she continued, much to the horror of the Australian. “Are the terms of this – arrangement negotiable?”

Waller answered before she even finished, “You can’t refuse.”

She nodded her head, “I assumed as much. But, there’s something I want more than time off my sentence.”

“Oh?” Waller gave her a scrutinizing look, the kind that a woman who’s always looking for a better deal has.

“It’s about my son. Last I saw him, he was being experimented on in a government lab. The thing I want is unredacted copies of the files. I want to know Every. Single. Thing. any research lab anywhere has ever done to my son. And his current location.” Her voice shifted from relatively polite to absolutely deadly; almost like she now blamed everything the government has ever done wrong on Waller as a representative. The man next to Waller seemed to flinch, but the two women didn’t break eye contact.

“Might be difficult, given that most of the facilities that would have that information were destroyed. But I don’t have to tell you that, do I?” Waller stared her down, or at least tried to. There was silence, and for a moment several people in the room expected a head to explode. But then Waller said, “Do the mission, and I’ll see what I can get from the guys in white.”

The woman who stood up to The Acropolis smiled dangerously as she said, “I’m sure a woman of your standing and reach can get her hands into any government office.”

Waller smiled back, “You flatter me, Ms. Fenton.”

“Doctor Fenton,” She corrected, “One doesn’t lose their education simply because they’re imprisoned.”

#dp x dc #dpxdc #dcxdp #dc x dp #danny phantom #suicide squad #fan fic #flash fic #maddie fenton

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see-arcane · 4 months

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Was Frankenstein Not the Monster? PREVIEW

A fire of too many colors swallows a manor in the countryside and descends into a pit.

An occult detective's prying leads to revelations far more volatile than the mere aftermath of a nightmare.

Men and monsters circle at the edge of a legend that should have died in the cold almost 100 years ago.

And in the dark beyond that edge, strange Creatures watch and work and wait.

…Such is the stage set for a new piece under the working title of Was Frankenstein Not the Monster? I make no promises—certainly none the size of Barking Harker—but at the moment, this project has been eating up much of the time I’ve spent while juggling the publication of The Vampyres. As it stands, I think I might be making another book.

If you’re interested, the preview is below the cut, but also available here and through a link in my website, here.

Was Frankenstein Not the Monster?

C.R. Kane

Every muscle palpitates, every nerve goes tense—then the body rises from the ground, not slowly, limb by limb, but thrown straight up from the earth all at once. He did not yet look alive, but like someone who was now dying. Still pale and stiff, he stands dumbstruck at being thrust back into the world. But no sound comes from his closed mouth; his voice and tongue are only allowed to answer.

—Scene of a necromantic conjuring by Erichtho, as depicted in Lucan’s Pharsalia.

“I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon the subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery.”

—Victor Frankenstein, as penned by Capt. Robert Walton, edited and distributed by M. Wulstan, in the epistolatory document referred to alternately as The Legend of Frankenstein, ‘The Walton Letters,’ or, ‘Lament of the Modern Prometheus.’

THE MODERN PROMETHEUS! THE MANMADE WRETCH!

WHO IS THE MONSTER?

THE HORROR, THE HUBRIS, THE HAVOC!

ALL COME TO ELECTRIFYING LIFE IN…

THE NIGHTMARE OF DR. FRANKENSTEIN!

Based on the lauded literary terror penned by the late Robert Walton and brought to public light by M. Wulfstan, The Legend of Frankenstein.

The Apollo Crest Opera House presents the most harrowing take on the mad doctor and his marvel of creation to date.

Featuring up-to-date theatrical effects and the most stunning visuals ever seen on the stage, this is a show to whiten the locks and deliver endless shocks.

Come to GASP, to WEEP, to SWOON, and above all, ladies and gentlemen, to PONDER the century-old query beneath the fear in this tale of a creature crafted from the dead and the proud madman who dragged it into the world!

When the passerby corrects you, claiming the scientist is Frankenstein rather than the monster, remember to ask in turn:

WAS FRANKENSTEIN NOT THE MONSTER?

The Inferno of Erichtho

While Dyson’s was one of many heads turned by the events surrounding the housefire of Dr. Richard Geber, he was one of few interested parties who arranged a stay in Surrey’s countryside to ogle the site in person. The other who rode with him was, stunningly, Ambrose, one of his oldest friends and the staunchest recluse he had ever known. Dyson had suggested they try to wheedle Cotgrave, Phillips, and Salisbury all together for a full holiday, if only half in jest.

But where eager Cotgrave was anchored by familial obligations, Phillips and Salisbury were merely hesitant in matters of the uncanny. In truth, the latter pair had positively gawped at him. Their eyes asked wordlessly if the stamp of inhuman horror had magically been blotted out of his memory or if he’d simply abandoned sense altogether. Dyson laughed at the looks, especially Salisbury’s. He of the straight-lined life and the wincing insistence that Dyson keep all answers to himself when it came to the mystery of Dr. Black and the query of Q, only to come slinking curiously back with questions upon seeing Dyson’s haggard mien post-discovery.

As if reading the memory in him, Salisbury’s face flamed and turned away while Dyson continued, “My friends, I would no sooner part with the haunting of those experiences than a writer of penny horrors would relinquish the muse of his nightmares. Ambrose here will rightly call it perverse with you—he is the adept where I am the amateur—but he knows the worth of retaining the proofs of what he calls ‘sin’ and we politely deem merely the ‘weird’ or the ‘supernatural.’ Cotgrave, dear fellow, you at least have an open mind on the subject. If we can manage it, would you appreciate a souvenir of the strange ash for your desk?”

“Cotgrave,” Phillips had cut in with an aridity to dry the ocean, “has not been put into contact with anything more harrowing than some poor child’s grotesque diary. He and I,” he’d nodded to Salisbury who was muffling himself with the wineglass, “had the dubious fortune to play witness to the far end of your direct jabbing at the unknown, neither of which bore anything but blighted fruit. The sight of that miserable treasure hunter’s golden relic was more than enough for me. Salisbury, for his trouble, had enough poisonous proof poured in his ear as thirdhand storytelling to make him rightly uneasy, followed by wondering whether you had been struck by some ailment after prying too far.” He’d turned fully to Salisbury. “Has Dyson ever breathed a word of what it was that shocked that new white up his temple after chasing the scrap of a cipher and Dr. Black’s work?”

It was Dyson’s turn to look away. He had not told Salisbury about Travers’ shop. Certainly not about the opal and what it held. Nor would he ever. He knew even the most sublime prose would fail to do the spectacle or its horror justice. Salisbury would suffer for it, as most of his friends would, and so he burned his tongue with holding the story in. For the most part.

He’d broken enough to recite the event to Ambrose in tragically plain terms. Ambrose had nodded, recorded his statement in one of many journals kept for the purpose of notes and scrapbooking, and shelved it away with the rest of the flotsam that clogged the bookcases which stood in for his walls. The recluse gave his oath not to breathe a word of the case’s final act to another.

“At least not until you are too dead to speak on your own behalf,” Ambrose had added. Dyson found the terms satisfactory.

Yet the fact of his having an encounter so disturbing he’d not even shared it with his most sober of friends still managed to work against his invitation to the strange scene in Surrey. Even Cotgrave shook his head.

“No need of the ash, my friend. I will settle for a description of whatever you dredge up in those hills.” Dyson noted the sickish pallor that washed over him as he pronounced the last word. Phillips shifted uncomfortably in his own seat. Salisbury ran out of wine to nurse and set his glass aside.

“I will be curious of whatever account you bring back,” came his intonation, “if only to know whether you are treading on more tangible toes than some unseen wraith’s.” Salisbury had canted his gaze sharply at Dyson. “No, you have not told me what it was you did upon following the trail of breadcrumbs I mistakenly revealed to you. But I would be a fool not to assume you went and did something unwise regarding the business of those strangers in the note. Q and friends and whoever else. They are real people. Just as Dr. Steven Black was. Just as Phillips and the whole of London recalls the late Sir Thomas Vivian being quite real, and more immediately dangerous than any bogeyman lurking beyond our respective brushes with the so-called supernatural.”

“Sinful,” Ambrose corrected over the rim of his own glass.

“Indeed,” Salisbury sighed. Dyson did feel a trifle apologetic toward the man. He seemed to have aged a decade since he’d stepped back into his life. “But be they supernatural or sinful or just plain mad, human monsters are the more prolific villain of the world, and far easier to cross paths with. Dr. Richard Geber was a man of considerable notoriety with, I would wager, any number of watchful vultures in the branches of the family tree and as many serpents playing patron to his less savory works at the roots.” He’d leaned in, regarding Dyson and Ambrose in the same plea. “Do your sightseeing if you must, but be wary of what prying you do whilst playing occult detectives. A man seeing a nuisance is far more likely to take action against it than any monster.”

Dyson sadly lost his opportunity to assure Salisbury and the rest of his planned caution, as Salisbury had used the word ‘occult’ and set off a fresh avalanche from Ambrose. Talk plunged into proper distinctions of the extraordinary and the eerie, somehow managing to trip into a round of storytelling that marched through the suicide epidemic of certain well-off young men who he theorized had each encountered the same unearthly stimulus whose knowledge could not be lived with, around to an ugly room in a rented country house with a habit of seeding a mirrored insanity in wives and daughters who spent too long in the sight of its irregular damask walls, and all the way to the facts in the case of the pseudonymous M. Valdemar, that mesmeric scandal that might not have been half so sensationalized as cynics might declare…

Salisbury had put his head in his hands while Dyson, Cotgrave, and Phillips settled in for the monologue, feeding the orator only what flints of dialogue were needed to roll him further on. Were he onstage, Ambrose would have deserved a lozenge, a bouquet, and ten minutes’ applause.

That was then.

In the now, Dyson and Ambrose sat in their car, preemptively swaddled against the first drifting motes of snow. November seemed only to have warmth enough left with which to give Geber’s estate its theatrical sendoff with its roiling thunderheads and dancing lightning. With that performance done, the sky handed its reins off to winter’s sedate styling. The train drew itself along under a ceiling of gauze and into the broad country whose rumpled hills and evergreen treetops were already hiding themselves in caps of cold white. Not that such seasonal flurries would have been any more help to the roasted manor than the downpour of the incendiary night had been.

Dyson riffled out the sections of newsprint he had brought along for the trip.

Headlines bellowed across the earliest of them:

STORM-STRUCK IN SURREY!

SPARKS FLY OVER GEBER’S BLAZE!

BLINDING FIRE DEVOURS MANOR OVERNIGHT!

And so forth.

The sum of these pieces was a remarkable series of witness reports from the staff who’d escaped the building before they could burn with it. Miraculously, every member of staff had made it out with barely a scorch mark between them. Even the horses, hens, and hounds of the estate were unscathed. It was only Dr. Geber and, the staff declared, a number of colleagues who had remained inside. Corroboration from the nearest towns confirmed that Geber was indeed housing several ‘learned gentlemen’ under his expansive roof for the purpose of some private experiment being undertaken in his home laboratory.

All that saved the staff from especially sharp scrutiny was the likewise-confirmed evidence of just where that laboratory was located.

“Geber had it all built underground,” claimed more than one servant. “He up and abandoned the one he kept at the top of the house half a decade back. Had a whole little nest of catacombs hollowed out lower than the cellar, moved in all sorts of equipment and chemicals and such. We saw it all go through the big double doors he had set in the back of the house. Figured him and his fellows would come up by that way or the little stairwell indoors. Whoever wasn’t eaten up by the blast, at least.”

The blast which had not come from the heavens by way of the frantic lightning that night, but from right under the floorboards. One poor girl, Elsa Godwin, had gone down to fetch a jar of preserves and been the first to hear a series of what sounded like detonations rattling up from the ground. A distant crackle, a hair-prickling hum, a string of boom-boom-boom, all muffled by earth and concrete. That, and men screaming. There was barely time to hear as much before she also got to play first witness to the memorable fire; a blaze that begun at once to eat holes through the floor and western wall of the cellar.

“I thought I was dreaming at first,” to quote Miss Godwin. “It all felt too impossible to be happening while I was awake. The fire only made it seem less real. Real fire isn’t supposed to work that way, you see? Real fire, it meets a solid wall of dirt or rock and that’s as far as it goes. Singes it, maybe, but it can’t just go burning through everything like it’s a paper dollhouse. But that was just what it did. While it was eating its way up the stairs to the doctors’ laboratory, it punched on through to the cellar. And even that I may have accepted as real enough, but for the look of it.”

The look of that fire was described by her, by her coworkers, by those who rode up to gawk in person or make a feeble attempt at playing fire brigade, and even by a number of technical witnesses who could see the glimmer of it from their far-off windows, all in varying states of poetry or dumbstruck curtness.

The fire had not been orange.

The fire had been black. And white. And yellow. And red. All of these at once, every flame throwing its improbable light as if it fell through some nebulous crystal. Its palette might have been more enchanting if it weren’t for the fact that it was, as Miss Godwin and many more would claim, a fantastically voracious thing. So much so that Miss Godwin had scarcely made it back up the steps to shout the alarm before tongues of fire were poking up through the floor.

It truly was a miracle that everyone aboveground had fled in time. The second miracle had come from the fact that, even lightning-struck as the roof was, it remained mercifully solid while the multihued fire ate up the lower floors. So solid that Fate kindly used it as the hand to snuff the monstrous blaze. The walls turned out to be so quickly enfeebled by their change to ash that they could no longer support the heavy slants and shingles. So the roof had crushed the creeping flames under its lid, dousing the fire with sheer speed, weight, and luck. It was as unlikely a thing as a man crushing a viper’s head flat with his fist before it could bite.

Another bittersweet bout of good fortune came from the positioning of the laboratory itself. Whatever state the subterranean workings had been in post-explosion, they apparently made for an efficient ashpit. When the roof slammed down, it compacted everything below directly into the waiting pocket of hollowed earth. What could have been a conflagration was tucked tidily away almost as soon as the proverbial match was struck. Though it had doubtlessly come at the cause and cost of the very men who had sparked the fire with some experiment gone awry.

“Some manner of chemical flame, a catastrophic bungling of electrical tinkering, or both,” professed numerous experts hunted down in their own labs and campuses. Dyson imagined they were perhaps a bit put out that Geber had done them the simultaneous mercy and unspoken insult of not inviting them to join whatever it was he and his colleagues had been dabbling with. An experiment of such secrecy and apparent potency that the man had not only tunneled out a buried laboratory for it, not only erected new stone walls and double-locked iron gates around his home, not only scoured fields across the scientific spectrum to people its undertaking—for chemists, engineers, technologists, surgeons, and sundry in-betweens were numbered among the missing and/or immolated dead—but even hired on a number of ‘attendants’ that the surviving staff recalled as having staggering guardsman physiques.

All this to keep the experiment hermetically sealed and shielded.

All this, only for a number of ears at the nearest pubs and markets to catch wind of the thing’s name anyway: Project Erichtho.

A secret experiment named for the necromancing witch of legend could only be yet another spur to the public imagination, turning a noteworthy housefire into a potential hellish horror story. Requisite headlines included:

FRANKENSTEIN’S ACOLYTE, ERICHTHO’S ECHO—DR. GEBER’S UNHOLY HEROES!

PROJECT ERICHTHO’S PARANORMAL PYRE!

SORDID SECRETS AND A DOCTOR’S DEADLY DESIGN: THE KINDLING FOR THE INFERNO OF ERICHTHO?

“It could be he’s gone on to join his heroes in a sordid afterlife,” some would say in tones that alternately scorned or cooed. “Faustus and Frankenstein may have a place waiting for him in a deeper inferno. It’s the sort of thing one gets from prying too far into Nature’s business, after all.”

So on and so on. Dyson had clipped everything of interest and strung the whole thing into a sort of haphazard file in contrast to Ambrose’s tidier pasting. Ambrose was even polite enough to feign renewed interest in the piecemeal newsprint despite the information being doubtlessly memorized already.

“Not memorized,” Ambrose said over a headline declaring Geber had conjured the Devil in his cellar. He opened his coat as if displaying illicit wares, flashing the holster where he kept a waiting notepad and pen. His was an especially tailored overcoat with a number of buttoned and hidden pockets for all his necessities. One might think he hardly needed his luggage but for a change of clothes. “My cheats are simply copied out and kept close like a good pupil’s before an exam.” He patted the lapel back in place. “I am not a man made to leave his cave often, Dyson. Therefore I must wrap myself as much in my mobile cave as I can.”

“Would that not make it your shell?”

“I suppose it would. It is a difficult thing for a snail or tortoise to be robbed of his home. Unless the thief is some errant bird after the homeowner, of course. But for all that I have my faiths and proofs in the uncanny, your Salisbury was right. Men are the most common threat to a man. They rob one of goods and life at a moment’s notice far more than any aberration.”

“Ah, that begs a question I’ve meant to ask.” Dyson waved his helping of papers as a baton. “You know the reality of seemingly unreal things. What you call your sinful, wrong, not-meant-to-be sort of phenomena and entities. Were you to find yourself cornered in the proverbial dark alley with an ordinary mortal cutthroat at one end and an unearthly bogeyman at the other, which villain would you risk?”

Ambrose offered a sliver of a smile and turned his attention back to the snow flitting by the window. He passed his helping of newsprint back blindly.

“You have only listened to my rambles with half an ear,” he said. “It’s true that what you would dub the supernatural I would call sinful, but I have yet to declare such things innately villainous. Otherworldly, yes. Eldritch is a decent term. Unwelcome too, at least in what we deem sane and right by the laws of Nature or our manmade structures. Or, to satisfy the macabre itch, yes, I would deem the whole breadth of it horrific. And yet, for all that we have assembled a fair collection of events that ended in death or worse as a result of crossing bizarre influences—indeed, enough to condemn many in, say, the demoniac terms of evil—the fact remains that even a living horror is not guaranteed to be villainous. To that end, let us look at your scenario. If I knew for a fact the ordinary man at one end of my alley intended absolutely to kill me, knife ready for my throat whether or not I handed over my money, whereas the horror at the other end was a complete enigma? I would simply have no choice but to remain still.”

Dyson lost himself to a laugh and crowed, “That is no answer! The scenario was a choice. Who do you risk pushing past? The common murderer or the uncommon enigma?”

“The threat,” Ambrose pronounced carefully, “of a horror is in the uncertainty of what it is and what such a thing is capable of. The cutthroat means to kill me, yes. But the horror? It may mean to end me as well, but in a far more hideous way. In fact, it may intend to inflict something far more unthinkable than the mercy of mere execution, such that the cutthroat would be a blessing of euthanasia by comparison.”

“Ah,” Dyson jabbed his paper baton again, “so you would take the cutthroat for the certainty of him.”

“No. I would remain still.”

“Ambrose—,”

But Ambrose held up his hand.

“I would remain still until one or the other proved himself the lesser evil. For the horror at the other end of the alley may have no ill design whatsoever. Being frightening does not immediately qualify the monster in question as a villain. After all, how many legendary monsters of old have we revealed as mere animals? How many unfortunate souls are there in the world, born with off-putting ailments or disfigured by circumstance, who possess the purest of Good Samaritan character? By the same measure, how many are there with the faces of Venus and Adonis who scatter only petty cruelties in their wake? Even creatures as humble as the common spider will terrorize some of the hardiest men as much or more than their wives. Yet the spider is there to help, tidying flying pests from the home just as the pretty housecat unsheathes her teeth and claws only to bloody her keeper’s hand.

“In short, a horror will horrify, naturally. A horror is capable of far worse things than any human effort. But a horror is not inherently a villain. I am happy to keep things in the hypothetical until I am faced with the awful choice in person, but should I choose to wait, to remain still and force one or the other to make his move, I am certain the motives of the inhuman party would be made clear. It would strike, or retreat, or…”

“Or what?”

“Or it would do as the first horrors of Creation did and be as an angel. Fallen or otherwise.” The topic clipped there as the station came into view.

Fighting the frost and the numb-faced arrival at their rented lodgings sponged up the rest of the day’s energy between the two of them. A hasty dusk and a heavy supper knocked both men back in their chairs and soon the ruddy comforts of the inn dragged them down into an early night.

Ambrose, Dyson was unsurprised to see, had turned into an insomniac so far from his preferred den. He was at the window puffing at the little ember in the clay bowl and staring out at the dark when Dyson finally surrendered to his bed midnight. Come morning, Dyson found he remained at his perch, puffing still.

“I did sleep,” Ambrose assured before the other could speak. “On and off. My dry eyes played traitor and made me lose watch for a few hours at a time.”

Dyson stilled in the effort of lacing his boots. He saw that the faint pouches that had been under his friend’s eyes last night had only deepened. The ashtray set on the windowsill was full.

“Geber’s housefire notwithstanding, I can’t imagine there’s anything worth spying on in these parts. Especially not on a moonless night.”

“It wasn’t moonless,” Ambrose said as he rubbed crust from either eye. His head gradually creaked away from the window to face Dyson. “I saw it come out in cracked clouds here and there. It helped somewhat, but I could still make out a little of the show either way.”

“What show was that?”

“I’m not certain. Some kind of domestic dispute? It involved either a very mad or a very sad individual on a rooftop.”

“What?”

“He got down alright. A giant came to gather him up and bring him indoors.”

“…How much did you have to drink after I went to bed?”

“Not a drop. The whole of it took place with that little house out toward the east there. You see?” Dyson followed where Ambrose pointed. There were numerous petite houses sprinkled along the crest of a far cluster of hills. He was about to point out the issue when his gaze caught on one that stood out from its siblings. Ambrose defined it at the same time, “It has its fresh cap of snow all ruined by their footprints. The man’s little pinpricks and the giant’s awl marks, so to speak. It happened that as I was woolgathering, a yellow light came on in the upper window. The shape of a man blotted it for a moment before the window swung open and the fellow climbed out.

“It wasn’t a pleasant sight even at a distance. He didn’t move like any climber I ever saw. More like,” Ambrose made a face, “I don’t know. An animal? An insect? Something like that. Whatever he was, he made it up there. So I assumed by how the darkness erased him when he skittered up. The first crack in the clouds helped me here, for it dropped a yellow beam on the house and showed the man standing on the very top of the roof. This he did while wearing no more than a pair of trousers and a coat that hung on him like drapes. A lone stick figure balanced on the ridge. Then a moment later, the giant came.”

“Not bounding over the hills, I take it?”

“No. He blocked the entirety of the lit window before he contorted himself out and climbed up after the man. His motion was a far more fluid thing, if likewise strange in how he placed his limbs. Were my eyes a little poorer, I might have mistaken him for some massive panther scaling a mountainside. But he was human enough seen from my seat. Just outlandish in his size and proportions. A hulking figure, yet corded and angled in a way you seldom see with men we might take for a contemporary Goliath.”

“I see. And what happened when he reached David?”

“The moon ducked out of sight for the first moment. It took a minute before it peeked through again to offer a silhouette of the meeting. Man and giant were facing each other with the giant seeming the most animated of the two. He gesticulated first with frantic violence, then as if he were beckoning the man like a stray from a gutter, and ultimately coaxed his frailer counterpart to extend a twig of an arm. The giant clamped onto it and seemed prepared to yank the man from his perch. But the man pointed with his free hand at the moon. This made the giant pause. The boulder of a head turned up. They stared together at the great ivory ball. But sense eventually overruled wonder and the giant maneuvered them both back in the window. The curtains were drawn. I figured that was the end of it.”

Dyson had by now fully dressed and packed for the day. He paused to raise a brow.

“Was it not?”

“No. Some while later, a light glowed in a lower window. David and Goliath walked outside. At least I assume it was David with Goliath. The spindly figure was erased in a massive clot of coats and blankets, it seemed, and so almost passed for a full-bodied individual. The giant shadowed him and forced a cup on him that I imagined must be steaming as it rose and fell from the man’s face. The moon was polite enough to show itself a few more times through the filmier clouds. Even the stars made some appearances. By dawn much of the clouds had broken up so that they skimmed across a half-clean sky. I saw the Morning Star hover in the horizon. The man pointed to this or the molten sunrise. The giant nodded and looked with him, patient as anything. Then David was herded back inside and I saw no more.”

Dyson hummed at all this and eyed the little house again. It really was a fair space away.

“Are you certain you saw a man and a giant? At this distance could it not have been some fevered child and his father?”

“If I were using my eyes alone, I might concede the possibility. Except.” Dyson watched him dig in his coat and produce a collapsed spyglass. “I have brought the full accoutrement of the hermit along, my friend. Its details were few, but far crisper than our sight alone.” A specter of mingled thrill and discomfort twitched along his lips. The former won just enough to pin the mouth up at one corner. “Though I wonder if that was a mistake.”

“Afraid they spied your spying? The threadbare David sounds like a stargazer. Perhaps he swung his lens around to find you in the dark.” Dyson spoke only to rib him. Instead he seemed to strike Ambrose like a lead weight. A greyish tinge passed in and out of his face as his gaze flicked back to the window. “Come now, there was no light on in here. Even if the pair had an astronomer’s lens between them, they’d never know you’d spotted their nocturnal theatre.”

“They had no lens at all,” Ambrose said. His lips still held in the unhappy upward curl. “Yet they did turn to look at this window. David first. Then Goliath. I cannot say whether they saw me, but…” Ambrose rolled the spyglass in his hand before replacing it in its pocket. “I saw a hint of their faces. Just the eyes. I may have imagined it. Some illusion of moonlight or sunrise. But the illusion was very crisp.”

“The illusion being what?”

“They were yellow, Dyson,” he almost chuckled. “Like the stare of animals caught in firelight. Bright as the lamps. And they did not turn from their staring in this direction until after I set the spyglass down.” Ambrose looked up at him. The whites of the man’s own eyes had gone rose-pink. “We’ve not yet set foot on Geber’s ash pile and already I have something for my notes.”

“Perhaps,” Dyson nodded carefully. “Perhaps you do. Or else a late night played on your conscience and sharpened your subjects into things that could chide you at a distance for spying. I have no such conscience on that subject and so might have missed their flashing eyes. Still, it is something for the diary. But only after breakfast.”

Dead, Buried

Breakfast came, breakfast went. Ambrose’s state barely loosened from its troubled knot. By the time they set out to poke around the week-old ruin under a dusting of snow, Dyson noted only a half-return to the man’s usual ease. He thought to remind him of the unhappy adventure involving the cruelly departed Agnes Black, to commiserate over the difference between the aftermath of the strange compared to meeting eyes with it, but swallowed it all down. Such talk would only rip up the scab, not plaster it.

In this mood, they took their way to the housefire’s wreckage with thin conversation. It only thickened again as the coach let them out at the site’s gates. They had been locked over again by the authorities and yesterday’s powder had made the surprisingly tidy mound and its rooftop cap into an anonymous lump of debris. Hardly worth the trip. But the sight of the ruin was only a fraction of their purpose there.

Dyson instructed the coachman to return in an hour to the same spot to retrieve them. The coachman eyed the two warily. He’d no doubt seen more than his fair helping of journalists and policemen in the past seven days than any soul ought to deal with. But pay was pay and he seemed content to reappear in roughly an hour’s time, sirs, give or take another customer’s route. Dyson and Ambrose waited until the horse-drawn speck was almost out of sight before they began their march around the the high stone wall that passed for the ex-manor’s fence. Their breath trailed after them in white streams.

“He really had the place made up like a fortress, didn’t he?” Dyson observed. “Look here. Even the ornaments along the top are like spires. No one could go hopping in or out without undoing the seams of his skin in the attempt.”

“Project Erichtho was a thing to covet as much as conjure.” Ambrose dug again in his coat, this time bringing out his notepad. He thumbed to one close-scribbled page. “Do you know, this manor was his for less than a decade? He took the place seven years ago and left behind a far more metropolitan estate. A handsome spot, but not half so private or titanic as this.” Ambrose knocked his knuckles against the stonework.

Dyson knocked his shoulder in turn, “I see you go a-haunting places other than your home while our backs are turned. You are a fraud of a recluse.”

“On special occasions, yes.”

“And the timeline of Geber’s road to the freakish blaze meets your standards.”

“Very much so. You see, he had his career in the city, for all its lauded highs and scandalous lows. And his one trip out of that area was also his first and last trip out of the country. I was told he took a holiday up to Switzerland.”

“Told by who?”

“Former staff. All the ones in the manor were local hands. The original workers say he returned home from his holiday with a wild new passion—,” Ambrose paused to catch Dyson’s eye, “—and a souvenir. One that they never saw removed from its massive box. The nearest guess anyone could make was that it must be one of those majestic Swiss clocks or perhaps some statue bought on a whim. None would it put it past him to purchase a likeness of his spiritual muse, or maybe a rendering of the latter’s infamous creation. But no one ever saw the contents in person. He had this thing moved into his upstairs laboratory, locked the door, and neither butler nor maid was permitted to set foot in the room for the rest of the year.”

“Mysterious enough,” Dyson agreed while shaking a snow clump off his boot. “Though I can hardly picture Switzerland as possessing any equivalent to Pandora’s Box.”

“Nor could the staff. But they never did wring an answer from Geber. No more than they ever confirmed what all his latest experiments were in that locked room. Whatever they were, the staff thought there must have been some noise to muffle. Geber started playing his phonograph whenever he set foot inside, letting the opera warble over whatever din went on in his work.” Ambrose tucked the notepad away and tugged at his glove. “When it came time for his sudden exodus to the far-off manor, the movers discovered the box was nailed shut again, offering no one even a parting peek at the treasure.”

“And what is the import of this crate, exactly?” Dyson asked, even as he guessed. It was hard to avoid, keeping his steps aligned with Ambrose’s as they circled to the rear of the estate. The trees loomed with their snowy crowns sawing against the blue-white sky. They were close to where the acreage sloped into woodlands.

“None of the new staff mentioned its arrival or its being toted down with the rest of Project Erichtho’s flotsam. In fairness, the interviewed parties likely had far more on their minds than the exact nature of their employer’s bric-a-brac. Especially when the project appears to have begun in earnest four years ago.”

“But,” Dyson intercepted, “the staff in the city dwelling remembered his fixation with the thing seven years prior. And if the manor’s fresher workers could remember that his other scientific oddments were loaded underground, surely they’d recall him fussing about the box.”

“Such is my guess,” nodded Ambrose. He stopped them both short as the exact back end of the stone wall came into view. “Geber likely would’ve clung like a shadow to the movers whether they brought it by the inner stairs or through the back entry. Yet there was no mention of it in their accounts. Almost as if he couldn’t bear to have more eyes upon it than absolutely necessary. And, naturally, there is the issue no other paper or ponderer has mentioned regarding the novelty of a subterranean workplace.” Here, at last, Ambrose began to grin. “One that even the miner or a digger of catacombs needn’t bother themselves over.”

“Because the men in the mines and catacombs don’t have to work within a hermetic seal,” Dyson concluded, beaming back. “They have a way constantly open to the air. The staff claim that the entryways into the laboratory were always shut and guarded by a boredly vigilant set of guards. A tricky area to provide ventilation for with no opening. Unless there was a third threshold somewhere that Geber neglected to mention to the house staff. Say,” he waved a glove at the waiting woods, “hidden in some convenient cover of wilderness.”

“It’s where I would hide a second backdoor in his position,” Ambrose agreed as he ogled the rear of the stone wall and the adjacent trees. “If the back of the manor was here,” he marched with measured steps to the back gate, likewise locked, and regarded the ashes beyond the iron, “then the broader outdoor entrance was likely slotted there with it. A tunnel connected to the underground work area would not be situated far off. So…” He turned and traced an invisible line from the ashes to the woods and away to the west. “A straight route from here on is likely to bear fruit.”

“Would it not be simpler to circle around?” Dyson asked this of the waiting trees as much as his friend. “If Geber’s precious crate was also moved in by this hidden corridor, surely it would be someplace near the edge of this tangled patch. It’s no narrow copse, but I’d rather amble around it rather than risk the trudge inside.”

“Normally I would agree. However.” Ambrose stomped purposefully along the slope, leaving clear tracks as he went. “If we want better odds against our own amateur detective work being spied on, we must take advantage of what little cover we can. Salisbury would tell you so.”

“Salisbury would be down with a skull-cracking headache over the prospect from any angle,” Dyson countered. But they went through the woods just the same. The snow had come in lightly through the coniferous canopy and it traded their softer snow-plush tracks for a brittle thudding along frozen earth. A quarter of an hour’s search and a number of brambles later they came upon a clearing cluttered with large stones. Dyson felt Ambrose bristle at his side. Not from the cold.

He had read the precious and painful little green book Ambrose regarded as one of his truest treasures. The book that contained the child-ramblings of a lost girl, of strange white figures, of stones carved and twisting with ancient unholy influence. Mercifully, the mystique was soon spoiled.

The clearing had let in a little more of the snow through the gap in the canopy and when the powder was brushed aside it revealed nothing but moss and bird droppings on every rock. Another glance showed a number of stunted logs also strewn about. A makeshift sitting area. Ambrose took a spot on one of the logs and set to picking burrs from his trousers. Dyson thought he looked a little ruddier for having seen the rocks were plain.

“Well, convenience dictates that a secret entrance would be around here.” He pointed to what would be a few minutes’ walk to where the open light of a meadow waited. “Any closer to the edge and it wouldn’t be hidden at all.”

“True, true,” Ambrose nodded, removing his hat to shake off the frost and pine needles. “But even if we were on top of the thing, there’d be the second trouble of spotting it while it’s disguised. There was likely one or more guards on duty. On the off-chance that some wanderer came by they’d need to have some way to mask the opening.”

Dyson thought as much too and had been scrutinizing the ground. He’d found a good stick to claw up the dirt with. So far, no convenient trapdoor presented itself. As he prodded, he caught himself mulling over the hypothetical guards themselves. Surely they couldn’t have been caught in the blaze. Even if they’d been struck by a heroic urge, there wouldn’t have been time to rush to the manor and attempt a rescue. Yet he recalled no interview with any such person in the aftermath of the pyre, only those domestic staff who minded the house itself. So where had they gone?

The answer was hidden under a rock.

Specifically, the largest of the rocks in the clearing. Dyson’s stick came to a stop in its shadow as the branch suddenly dipped an inch into the ground where he’d dragged it. The snowfall masked it, but not well enough.

“Ambrose.” He patted the broad rock. “This stone isn’t supposed to be here.”

“What?”

“Look here.” He dragged his stick back and forth over the hidden groove beneath the powder. “It was moved out of place.”

Dyson and Ambrose eyed this only a moment before taking position on the stone’s opposite side. Together, after many a shove and as many curses, the rock budged. Not all at once, but in bursts. Between lurches they agreed that it had to have been put in place by far stouter strongmen than themselves. Their thoughts broke away at the same time when their next push dropped a leg from each of them down into the earth. There was much floundering and flopping aside to save themselves from slipping entirely into the hollow. When they’d recovered themselves, they peered down into the new opening. A wisp of daylight revealed hints of the interior. Shards of wood. The angles of a short staircase. And there, laying at the foot of the steps—

“Oh,” Dyson breathed. “Oh, God.”

“I fear He isn’t involved here,” Ambrose murmured back.

They lurched the stone the rest of the way, moving with caution until the entire hole was revealed. A square of earth had been cut away for the tunnel’s mouth. A set of heavy mangled hinges showed where a crude but sturdy door had been bolted into place. The door itself was the source of the wood shards, the largest of them showing they’d had a covering of dirt, leaves, twigs, and pebbles all pasted on to mask it. To judge by the frame, the door was meant to be pulled up rather than pushed in. As the stone was flat on the bottom, it could only be surmised that someone had smashed the timber in rather than bother with the lock.

Perhaps that was why the guards had died. They hadn’t been quick enough to offer a key.

Two men of powerful build were left crumpled at the bottom of the steps like ragdolls. One had his head wrenched entirely around on his shoulders. The other had his head crushed in like an eggshell. Whoever had done the work, they’d also seen fit to strip the broken-necked man of all but his underclothes, even down to his shoes. The man with the pulped skull had lost only a coat.

“I believe this is where our investigative ghost story hits a snag,” Dyson said, if only because someone needed to speak. The words did little to settle the chill now twining up his back. “We need to have the police up here.”

“We will,” Ambrose said, digging in his coat. Out came his matches. “But first.” He struck a light. “Recall that we are not here in search of ghosts. Ghosts are vapor. Their only weight is given to them by the storytelling.” He flicked the match into the tunnel so that it soared over the corpses. Dyson followed its glow with wide eyes. “Whereas the party responsible here exists with or without fireside theatre.” Dyson was already inclined to believe him. The sight revealed by the match merely forged faith into knowledge.

On the night of the fire there had been a positive torrent to go with the thunder and lightning. Once the guards and door were brutalized out of commission and left broken on the tunnel steps, a river of mud had dribbled in after the intruder. In the carpet of now-dried muck were smeared remnants of footprints. Most were colossal and led two ways, going forward and back. Whoever had made them was large enough to dwarf the dead men. A second set of footprints tramped back with these first massive soles, the barefoot steps looking far closer to human dimensions.

Beyond these smeared prints and just out of reach of the match’s light was the outline of a wide cart.

“Spare another?” Ambrose passed Dyson the matches. Dyson descended and made a rush to the cart. A match struck and showed the contents was discarded linen tarps all mottled with stains dark as rust. In the very center of the rumpled sheets, pointing to him, was a single rotten human finger.

The match went out.

Dyson raced back up to the daylit earth and rattled off the find to Ambrose.

“It does line up. An experiment named after Erichtho could hardly earn the title without doing something unwholesome with corpses.” Ambrose inclined his head at the tunnel. “It’s certainly not the kind of material Geber would want the house staff spying on its way down to the lab.”

“I wonder about that.” Dyson righted himself and squinted up at the sun behind a veil of new clouds. “Who’s to say that the finger was already rotten when it lost its owner? Surely the towns would have something in the news about graverobbers pillaging their cemeteries for convenient goods.”

“True.” The word was small. Dyson looked to Ambrose as the man paused in jotting something in his notes. His gaze was suddenly very far, hooked on some unknown point in the trees. “Quite true. After all,” he slowly closed the notepad and tucked it away with gloves that trembled, “it’s only worthy of newsprint if the dead go missing. The living disappear every day.” Dyson watch his throat work strangely behind his scarf. His breath came in very brisk puffs. “Such is hardly worth a blink these days. What’s the time, Dyson?” Dyson checked his watch. They’d eaten up most of an hour and he said so. “Then we’d best head down to meet our coach. Now.”

“Should we replace the stone? What if some animal gets in and—,”

Ambrose seized his shoulder. His head still hadn’t turned away from the trees. His voice came out so low there was almost no breath to whiten.

“Dyson. Now. Quick, but—but do not run.” His Adam’s apple seemed about to leap up through his mouth. “Now.” Dyson tried to follow Ambrose’s line of sight, but his friend was already dragging him like an errant sheep. Rather than take their original route, Ambrose shepherded them towards the nearest edge of the woodlands, out to the open snow.

“What happened to discretion?” Dyson asked in his own low pitch. Ambrose shook his head without fully taking his gaze away from the abruptly-fascinating patch of trees.

“We’ll be bringing authorities around here anyway. It hardly matters. Go. Just go. Once we get out in the open, we should—,” Behind them, a heavy branch snapped. To Dyson’s ears it sounded loud as breaking bone. Ambrose’s clutching hand became a vise. “Run.”

They did.

The gloom behind them snapped and rustled in a straight line after their heels. More, the ground itself twitched with the bounding of some unthinkable weight. Dyson thought ludicrously of bears or lions somehow migrating their way to this mild crumb of Surrey’s landscape. Yet he heard no animal snarl. Only the unimpeded breaking of the trees’ quiet as something titanic loped after its quarries.

Ambrose and Dyson broke out into the open meadow after a minute that felt like half an hour. They raced across the slope and around toward the fenced-in ruin of the manor at a frantic pace. Relief barely flickered in them as they saw the coach trotting up to the front gates. Their own tread was too wild to register if their pursuer was still galloping after them, but Dyson now felt the presence of eyes on him as surely as he’d feel the trundling of beetles along his neck.

The dead men flashed in his mind. Twisted and mashed and tossed in a pit. There was plenty of room to spare down there. New tenants welcome. And the coachman was so far, so far—

He stepped on one of his own bootlaces and went sprawling. When he moved to catch himself on his hands, his palm landed on something slicker than the snow, fumbling him so that he landed with elbow and cheek in the frost. It really was a pitiful layer of powder, he noted as his arm and face throbbed against the stiff ground. Ambrose skidded to a halt with him, almost falling as he scrambled on the frost. He might have shouted Dyson’s name. Dyson couldn’t be sure as he was peeling up the thing his hand had slid with. A leatherbound book with its cover lacquered in congealed mud.

“Dyson,” he heard Ambrose puff again. His breath was labored, but no longer a shout. “Dyson, can you stand?” Dyson looked up to see Ambrose’s attention was split between him and the trees. Nothing else was behind them. Dyson fixed his laces and regained his feet without releasing the book. “I think we can go at an easier pace now.”

“Yes. Possibly.”

Their new gait was not a sprint, but still a fair way ahead of anything leisurely. The driver looked at them oddly as they jogged over, at least until they gave him pay and directions for a trip to the nearest police station. Then his caterpillar brows shot up.

“Come across some trouble up there?”

“The human trouble has been and gone,” Dyson told him. “But they may want hunting rifles at hand for whatever creatures are roaming around in there.” The driver snorted at that.

“What creatures are those? Worst we’ve got in these parts are the damned foxes and a few snakes. Biggest thing I’ve seen was a buck that ran around last year. Had antlers two men wide.”

“It was no deer,” Ambrose assured him even as he craned his head again to face the trees. Dyson saw him fondling the part of his coat that held the spyglass. “In any case, it is a matter that would be helped by having a marksman ready.” The driver got no more from them as Dyson and Ambrose bundled themselves inside the coach. Ambrose hastily fumbled out the spyglass and watched the woods through his window until the treetops were out of sight.

“Not a deer, you say,” Dyson spoke as much to his mud-crusted souvenir as to the back of Ambrose’s head. “What then? I had no time to catch a glimpse.” Ambrose let out a breath as he collapsed the spyglass, fidgeting with the cylinder rather than tucking it away.

“Speaking frankly, I didn’t either. All I could spot in the gloom was the flash of bright eyes.” His throat twitched. “A gleam of yellow.” Dyson paused in his picking at the shell of hardened mud.

“Last night’s Goliath?”

“I don’t know. I cannot say with certainty whether the eyes belonged to a human shape or a creature on its haunches. Only that it was still as a statue in the gloom back there. Staring at us.” Ambrose shivered either from memory or cold and tucked the spyglass away in favor of his notes. He sketched rather than wrote. Scrawled across a clean page was the impression of two huge coins floating in a scribbled ink-shadow. The eyes featured pupils of a distinctly non-human make. “I am no artist, but this is roughly the look I caught watching us. They turned in the dark when we started for the trees’ edge. Then the eyes came forward.” He clapped the notes shut. “I found I was far more eager to be out of reach than to wait and see the eyes’ owner.” Ambrose gave him a tired smile. “I feel I’m halfway to a hypocrite after this. True, there was no alley and no waiting cutthroat, but I did run from the unknown when it came running.”

“Nonsense,” Dyson huffed. “Those eyes no doubt belonged to some exotic beast that escaped its pen in a zoo or some fool’s private menagerie. Nice open country like this is just the place you’ll find people with deep coffers and shallow sense hoarding pretty predators as though they were collecting pedigree hounds and cats. You wait, we’ll see something in the papers about somebody’s missing leopard or tiger prowling around the hills. Now, if that beast had cleared its throat in the dark and shouted at us in plain English to get out of its woods, there might be grounds to point and go a-ha! But as it had nothing to say and neither of us was polite enough to stand still and get mauled, the matter remains unsettled. Say, have you got a handkerchief you don’t mind ruining?”

Ambrose handed him one, his face finally regaining some tint as he puzzled over Dyson’s prize.

“It would be an opportune thing to be in a ghost story,” he sighed while Dyson scraped at the mud. “If we are, that will turn out to be a conveniently abandoned diary illustrating every move Geber made leading up to the fire, replete with his devilish experiments and all the lost spirits it conjured up. At the very least it will contain the chemical formula that led to such a unique blaze.”

Dyson scoured away most of the muck and frowned.

“Not a diary. Not even a tome of unholy scripture.”

“No?”

Dyson held the book up for him to see. Ambrose frowned back at him.

“No.”

The book was a leatherbound copy of The Legend of Frankenstein. What had been a luxurious volume had apparently been mangled by elements, animals, or else someone with a distinct loathing of the tale. Dyson had wondered at the lightness of the book and found that much of the pages were either shredded or torn out entirely. The inner cover alone had been spared attack, though it still boasted a minor bit of vandalism within:

There are not words enough to voice proper gratitude to the Muse, the Master, the Miracle. For lifetimes to come, even the finest poets of the world shall struggle to meet the task. Here and now, the most that can be said is thank you. Thank you for all that you have done, all that you are, all that is yet to come. A toast to the teachings of Prometheus, to Prima Materia, to the Magnum Opus realized!

—R.G.

Below this, a single line:

Mortui vivos docent.

“The dead teach the living. Interesting choice of postscript.”

“That isn’t all of it.” Ambrose took back the handkerchief and chipped further at a smear of muck still gripping the cover. It crumbled away to show words that had been stained into the board with a different pen. Almost carved.

Prometheus had nothing to teach. He stole the lightning for Man’s fire. The only worthwhile lesson of his myth was taught by the Eagle.

Erichtho might have had teachings to spare. The gods were wise enough to harken to her and know to quail. Yet mortal men care only for the dead’s secrets and the boons they might grant. These you will have. May the knowledge serve you as well as it has me.

No initial or signature was jotted with it, though some rough symbol was gouged below. A thing that curved and went straight at once, vaguely serpentine and somehow unpleasant in both its shape and the depth of its coarse engraving. As though the artist had been both incapable of finesse and insistent on carving the image regardless. Dyson and Ambrose each had a good squint at it and decided it was something related to a caduceus, the sign of medicine.

“The alchemic variant seems just as likely, if we’re to chase Geber’s words to their logical end,” Ambrose said in a tone that heartened as much as frustrated Dyson to hear. It meant the man’s nerves were settling, but also that his mind was now wandering down avenues several leagues away from the present, no doubt combing an internal library of references. Dyson flattered himself to know that he too had some scraps of intel to turn over. He recognized the Magnum Opus as referring to a ‘Great Work’ just as prima materia was a term for a sort of primal matter from which life and the universe was meant to be concocted. But no more than that. He’d need to dust off some old books or wait for Ambrose’s own ramble before he could scrounge up any deeper details.

As it turned out, Ambrose had sealed himself up in his head for the moment.

A moment which lasted long enough to get within talking distance of the police. They described the tunnel and what was in it. There was scarcely time to stretch their legs before they were riding along with the uniformed men, each thankfully armed. Sunset was almost racing them to the horizon by the time they trudged back to the clearing with lanterns in hand. Both men froze upon discovering it. When asked why:

“We didn’t leave it like this,” Dyson heard himself croak.

“How so?”

“The stone. We left it pushed aside when we left. The tunnel was still uncovered.”

Now the boulder was planted right back where it had been.

A hasty examination was made for tell-tale shoe prints, to little avail. New snow was fluttering down and filling things in with an accomplice’s speed. Giving it up, the group of them carefully shouldered the rock aside. Their caution’s reward was a column of acrid smoke that wafted up and plugged every unfortunate nose in reach. The last embers of a fire were dying down inside the tunnel.

The two corpses were roasted. The cart was a cinder. The tunnel’s floor had been glazed with oil and set alight until the whole bottom of the chute was a long black stream at least halfway to the underground entry point of the manor. Investigation to that farthest end revealed a pair of melted metal doors with burst windows. Beyond them there was only packed-in ash.

Dyson made no more mention of his hypothetical escaped animal.

Ambrose was not only silent about the Goliath seen from the window, but went so far as to draw his curtains before bed.

#Was Frankenstein Not the Monster?#frankenstein #mary shelley #arthur machen #the inmost light #the red hand #my writing #horror #hope you guys dig it #my art

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focsle · 9 months

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“And all in a hurry to leave but the Captn has not finished his wonderful business”

In which the cooper Mr. Chappell expresses frustration over how long the ship always delays in port because the Captain’s too busy Fuckin.

We have taken our anchors at last and we are now lying off and are waiting the moves of the Captn. He does not like to leave his bedfellows. Some of us are wicked enough to believe he has one. Such things are too fashionable in these ports and the female portion of the community are very forward but I have escaped without being insulted by them and though many of them are pretty yet they have no charms for me. I shall soon be home where I shall not try to keep clear of the Ladies for they were made to be loved and I am bound to love all the virtuous ones but only one in particular. She is 32 years old today. I have thought much of her today though I have not been able to celebrate her birthday

The following day the captain sends a letter to the mate saying he’ll be ready to leave the next day for sure. When the next day passes, however,

“Night has returned and we are still Lying off and on. We have looked hard for the Captn today but I presume he has many reasonable [underlined] excuses. If we could contrive a plan to get the women out of the place his business would soon be closed. I think I shall have many better reasons for staying in port if I ever get into the port of New Bedford.”

#cooper chappell #awhalin

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fingerless-glovez · 2 months

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I just watch my morning news anchors doing the macarena and now I can't stop thinking about the Heartslabyul cast doing it

Ace is doing it with the energy of "I am better than you at this."

Deuce is trying but he's having trouble getting into the groove.

Trey is the best at it but is visibly embarrassed about it.

Cater's just workin it.

Riddles is either doing it perfectly with a completely serious look on his face or standing off to the side like "My dorm, ladies and gentlemen."

#disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland #disney twst #twst #ace trappola #deuce spade #trey clover #cater diamond #riddle rosehearts

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thatscarletflycatcher · 4 months

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I am extremely interested in your draft/post about Downton Abbey and the timeline 👀

Important disclaimer: I was never in the fandom of the series, so I'm completely ignorant as to word of god and fanon, and might have forgotten some details of the plot as the years have passed since I watched.

*video essay voice* (bear with me) in 1980, British playwright Peter Flannery, while watching rehearsals for Henry IV, felt inspired to write his own historical epic, a Shakespearean sort of short History of his native Newcastle from the 60s to the present, interweaving the personal History of 4 "friends" with the big historical events of Britain through those years, to create a strong political narrative through them, but that was life-like enough in its everyday life details and turns as to feel real. The characters deal with their desire to change the world, achieve success, recognition, or even just survive, and experience hope and hopelessness by turns*

This theater play, called Our Friends in the North, caught the eye of the BBC, and after several back-and-forths it was adapted into 9 episodes in 1996. It was a big bet (it cost 8 million pounds to produce) and a big hit, and I do get the gut feeling that in some corner, the first season of Downton is inspired in OFITN as a concept, a sort of Our Freenemies in Yorkshire, but that its own success derailed it into a different direction, and made it Edwardian-Roaring 20s Aristofairytaleland, the same way Regency Romance tends to take place on a Regency Fairytale land full of dukes and none of the social, economical and political problems of the time.

S1 of DA hinges around the "Death of the old world" theme: it opens with its first marker (the sinking of the Titanic) and closes with the last marker (the beginning of the Great War). The central plot is that of the survival of Downton as a place and an institution -the kickstart is the death of James and Patrick aboard the Titanic, and the next heir presumptive being a middle class lawyer, an outsider to the aristocracy. The old, dying aristocracy, managed to patch up their situation by marrying rich American heiresses, like Cora, but it doesn't have any vitality for the future: the heir (Robert and Cora's son) is born dead. The question then is "can the aristocracy make a bridge with the raising professional middle class, merge with it in order to gain new life?" that's what Matthew's plotline this season is all about, specially in his growing and changing relationship with Robert and Mary (who are the epitome representatives of the aristocracy, with lady Violet): there is a small seed of aspiration that grows through the season, but gets quashed once he realizes that as much as he has grown to care for the Crowleys, they haven't really grown to care for him as anything but an uncomfortable necessity. And so he leaves. And the Great War begins. No compromise can be reached, the old world is dead.

I don't think I say anything controversial when I say that Fellowes and Downton as a series loves Mary with undying devotion; she gets a second chance at Matthew in s2 that she wouldn't have gotten IRL, and she would have kept Matthew forever if the actor didn't want out. And I think Dan Stevens wanting out (and Jessica Brown's to a certain extent), and as much as he can say within the bounds of politeness, has a lot to do with a sense that the series he signed up for was not the series he ended up being in on the follow up seasons. Matthew, who was a central character to the main plot of the series in s1, now gravitates Mary's storylines, because that pressing conflict of the inheritance is solved, and he can be disposed of as soon as he produces a male heir without causing any plot-ripples. A story about Downton the house as anchoring to class conflicts and point of connection with big events becomes a story of Mary and her relatives with Downton as a mainly aesthetic backdrop as s2 progresses (yes, yes, every once in a while some lip service is given to "money troubles" and having to downsize, but it's just... that).

As seasons progress, as well, the historical markers to open and close a season disappear, and so do... general historical events at all. The story gets atomized and more and more separated from History, and "the old world is dying" theme vanishes.

So, now, on this premise (that Downton S1 and Downton s2-6 are different animals, with different core themes and structures) where do I think a true continuation of S1 would have gone?

Mind you, I haven't plotted five series to detail, because I'm not that invested. But also it feels like DA the series itself started running out of plot after s4 anyways, so, in general lines:

The same way OFITN did (episodes were each set on a different year: 64, 66, 67, 70, 74, 79, 84, 87, 95) every series would have a time skip that would tie in with bigger scale events in Britain and the world (the end of the Great War, the Spanish Flu, the crack of 29', etc), and in my mind I would have it cover until the late 1940s: the series begins with a middle aged Robert and Cora, and ends with a middle-aged next generation.

Matthew does actually marry Lavinia, and takes William with him as they bonded in the war, and goes back to his job. They try to keep their distance from Downton, but, of course they keep getting drawn in because of the inheritance.

Matthew's marriage to Lavinia means a vital wake-up call for Mary: she -and by extension the aristocracy- cannot always get what she wants, even though her name and status carry a lot of importance. But she also experiences new freedom because her choice of husband has now no influence on the fate of the estate. I think she'd choose to travel a lot, in ways that would widen her mental horizons and change her feelings and perspective about her family. I even feel like her marrying Henry Talbot in the end makes sense; she remains ever the aristocrat (although I'd think she'd marry later, probably past her mid-30s, a spirit of the new times).

Sybil's storyline remains the same, minus death (in this scheme, the core characters that thread the timeline are the Crawley sisters AND Matthew), but she never returns to Downton to stay, and it is through her and her visits that we do get the perspectives and storylines of the process of independence for Ireland, and her complicated position as wife of an Irish man but daughter of a British earl. You can even get stories in the later years storylines like Marygold trying to run to Ireland and her aunt after WWII breaks.

A similar thing goes for Edith; if Mary is and makes the choice of aristocracy, and Sybil makes the choice of a working class life, then Edith embodies a commercial-professional upper middle class aspiration (in fact, I do think that her punching-bag status in the series has a lot to do with Fellowes derision of that class), so it makes sense for her to do most of the things she does towards her place in life; just cut some of the drama and no sudden marquess nonsense in the end. Edith and Bertie marry and remain successful editors/printers/periodical owners.

As for the house itself, of course Matthew inherits (you could set Robert's death for 1929, and then have a Lavinia inheritance save the estate after Robert's failed investments like it goes in s1). I do think this lends itself to interesting dynamics, specially with the servants, considering the aristocratic head is gone and the Great War significantly changed the self-image of the serving class, plus the return of William now in a much more privileged place; but also with Cora as the new Dowager and Lavinia as the new Lady Grantham. How do the children adapt to their new home and status? How did their parents conduct their upbringing? I think you can do a lot there (I'd assume just two children, a boy and a girl).

I do also think it'd be interesting to contrast the rising tensions in the 30s as Mary perceives them through her continental travels -I can imagine Henry Talbot joining the foreign service and getting at least obliquely involved in spy shenanigans- and Edith through her very localized work.

The Kingsmen movies play with this idea of WWI creating a generation of fathers who buried their sons and had to take their places. The Crawleys escape this by having only daughters, so I think it is fitting for Matthew and Lavinia's son to die in WWII, and for the daughter to become a war bride and move to the US, as the centre of power moves from the UK to the US.

Downton, more and more difficult to maintain as the years pass, cannot survive the economic blow of WWII, and Mathew and Lavinia, now middle aged, don't have the energy and vitality to begin again; and so they make an arrangement with the just-founded National Trust after the war ends: the main part of the house becomes a museum, but they still get a part of it to live in. I think, after a family reunion tea/party to wrap things up, you can have as a symbolic last shot, a close up of Matthew's hand as he turns over the keys to the Downton gates to the National Trust agent, CUT TO BLACK AND THE DOWNTON ABBEY THEME.

So, hm, that's pretty much it. Please do not maul me to death XD

*While I think the series was very well written, I'd hesitate to recommend it here as there was too much explicit nudity and sexual content for my taste and that of many people here. The 2022 radio adaptation seems to be faithful to the original tv series and avoid that problem, but of course you lose on the other visuals that are quite impressive (and believe me, besides some awkward wigs and make up, they really did blow up that 8 million pound budget in many ways).

#ask #dhufflebee #Downton Abbey #Downton Abbey critical #meta

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luckyladylily · 9 months

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So many people are making and reblogging posts about how tumblr is going to lose their core audience, that if they stuck to what they are good at they could succeed small, but they are greedily chasing big success with a big audience.

My dudes, my ladies, my non binary pals, do you not know what $30 million operation deficit means? Thirty. Million. It means their "core" audience is not making them money. It means it is very unlikely that any amount of catering to said core audience will ever make them money, especially since said core audience hates the concept of tumblr making money with a passion and always has. Don't pretend otherwise, you know I am right.

They do not want us anymore. That is what is going on here. They have determined that we are never going to be a profitable core user base. The only use we have now to them is to be an anchor for the site until all the new, more desirable users come take over. Without us, the site has no base - but that wont last forever.

And lets be clear here, they are not taking a risk with these massive, sweeping changes. Risk implies they are putting something valuable on the line, which they are not. Remember, $30 million deficit. Tumblr is actually less than worthless right now. At worst they get rid of the stone they have chained to their leg.

People talk like Tumblr is acting foolish while they delude themselves into thinking that any sane business could possibly see this user base as something besides a liability in the long term.

We have maybe one chance to reverse this. One chance to prove that we are valuable and worth catering to as a core user base, now before things are too far gone. July 29th. Crabs. That's the only chance we got to keep this site from becoming twitter 2.0

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storiesbyrhi · 2 years

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Angel of the First Degree - Chapter 4: Starcourt

Eddie Munson x Chubby & Inexperienced!Reader 4322 words A sneak peek at what to expect from this fic here

Previous Chapters: 1 - Valium; 2 - Carrie; 3: Honey

Warnings: Anxiety; fatphobia including internalised; drug use; bullying; body issues; discussion of body function and fluids; period shame/stigma; disclosure of sexual assault (chapter 2); disordered eating and thoughts of food; shitty/abusive/critical parents; no beta; warnings updated each chapter

Synopsis: When Eddie Munson finds you in the midst of a panic attack, it is the beginning of something. A fic featuring body and sex positivity, Eddie in a dress, soft small moments, scary big truths, and all the usual special feelings you’d expect from one of my stories.

Chapter Summary: Quality time. Acts of service. Words of affirmation. Gift giving. Physical Touch. All the languages of love are here and accounted for.

When you were in Eddie’s room, it was like there was no line between where your body ended and the universe began. You were at peace, not monitoring yourself and your body for a million and one inconsequential things.

How do the rolls of my belly look like this? Was that a dumb thing to say? Is there snot in my nose? How much space am I taking up? Is my armpit hair peaking out? Did that laugh sound weird? Should I have shaved my legs?

You just existed in the moment, and the moment was always, completely… Eddie.

Eddie learning to play Metallica songs while you drew pictures of monsters the lyrics made you think of; he stuck them all on his wall with push pins, a collage of your creations growing. Eddie getting high while you watched, instructing him to put his head in your lap, close his eyes, and let you braid his hair. Eddie practicing for the new Hellfire campaign, bouncing around the room doing voices and movements different from his own. Eddie holding out grabby hands to you, begging for cuddles while you watched horror movies until curfew.

It was easy to lose whole days in that room, and you let it happen regularly and happily. It was significantly better than being at your house, where your parents were growing angrier at your distance from them, which they wrongly assumed also meant your grades were slipping.

“That is… Drumroll, please,” Eddie said in his best game show host voice. You drummed your pencils on the kitchen bench of his trailer. “CORRRRRECT! She’s done it again, ladies and gentlemen. The perfect test score!”

Eddie made every practice test like that. Fun. Engaging. Memorable. It anchored your learning to semantic memory. The more time you spent with Eddie, your already good grades were getting even better.

He read your essays, adding tips from when he’d been in that class. Just because he had failed didn’t mean he was dumb. He knew what the teachers wanted; he just lacked the motivation to give it to them. He got you from an A- to an A+ in English, his creative flair helping to give all your pieces that extra special thing teachers loved.

Your parents didn’t want to hear about it though. They barely tolerated hearing Eddie’s name at all. Any evidence that disproved their preconceived idea of him was banned from conversation. Things were becoming tenser with them, which meant you spent more time at Eddie’s, which continued the cycle of shitty parenting and avoidant behaviour.

None of it mattered when you were alone with Eddie.

When you walked side by side, he would lace his fingers between yours or wrap an arm around your shoulder. At the cafeteria table, Eddie’s leg would hook around your ankle. Sometimes he’d reach out and tap on your fingernails like he was playing the piano. Best though, was always going to be being together in that bedroom.

Sitting on his bed, he’d pull your legs over his and hold them. When you sat at his dresser doing school work, he’d sit at your feet and lean against the chair just to be close. The melodies he played then were always soft and always came from his acoustic guitar.

When you got sleepy, he’d tell you to nap, then hold you close as a big spoon should. He was careful where he placed his hands, knowing it would take one wrong move to make your self-consciousness snap back in an instant. So, he’d often just hold his arms off you a little bit and twinkle his fingers, his mute way of telling you to put him where you wanted him.

Eddie kept an eye on the time, never letting you be late for curfew because he knew the wrath it would result in. Even when you protested, even when he had to wake you up, and even when you tried to hide tears, he would usher you out to his van and take you home, feeling like shit the entire way.

Eddie wanted you to fall asleep in his bed and not have to wake until morning.

He wanted you to look in the mirror and see what he saw.

The thing he couldn’t stop thinking about though, the thing he couldn’t help picturing all fucking day, was kissing you.

When your focus was elsewhere, he’d study your lips. The cupid bow. The way you sucked your bottom lip in when you were anxious or concentrating. The lip balm you used that was meant to be unscented but he swore was vanillary.

He was a man possessed by a singular thought and it was getting ridiculously distracting. He wanted you to be ready but he wouldn’t know when that was unless he asked you. So, that’s what he’d do. Eddie decided on a course of action and plotted it out in his mind, all while watching you politely listen to Dustin and Mike try to convince you that their respective girlfriends were better than the other’s.

“Um… They both sound really cool,” you offered.

“No, but El is like, a superhero,” Mike repeated for the sixth time.

“Nobody knows what that means,” Gareth said from across the table.

“Suzie has long curly hair, huh? Huh?” Dustin said, elbowing you like you’d know what that was code for. You just shrugged at him. “You love people with long curly hair!” Dustin clarified, annoyed that he had to spell it out. He pointed at Eddie, who was lost in his own ‘I’m gonna kiss her so much’ plans.

You looked over your shoulder at Eddie, smiled at the far-off expression on his face, then turned back to the freshmen. “I just… don’t really… want to compare girls like that. Can’t they both just be the best?”

Dustin groaned and Mike pushed his lunch tray away dramatically.

“They’re probably not the best,” Gareth said, making the freshmen freeze and glare. “I mean, what kind of girls would date you losers?”

A trail mix and potato-tot fight ensued.

…

Starcourt Mall 2.0 was not the destination you expected to arrive at. Looking over at Eddie, you cocked your head in confusion.

“Trust me,” he said.

“You literally were going on about how you’re glad it burnt down the other day,” you reminded him. There was a speech about how all the shops in the mall were part of the man’s plan to make everyone look the same. Dress the same. Eat the same. While Eddie didn’t walk on tables to make his point, it was all very dramatic.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but it got me thinking. They rebuilt, so maybe, you know, different stores,”

“Okay, that’s… fair…”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Eddie said. “I promised a special date and now we’re at the mall. But-”

“Trust you?” you finished for him.

Eddie grinned and nodded. He jumped from the van and came to open your door, something he did religiously. Sometimes he’d say an accompanying ‘my lady,’ or just bow at your service.

As you walked through the mall hand-in-hand with Eddie, you took stock of how the mall had changed. Before the fire, you’d go there all the time. When you were with other cheerleaders, the group of you were a force to be reckoned with. People would scatter out of the way, afraid of being targeted by way too cool teenage girls. It was more about being there and being seen, rather than the act of consumerism. Although, new lipstick and dresses were often purchased, and often at the command of Hayley.

You didn’t miss that, but as you walked by the book store, you remembered quiet Sunday afternoons with Chrissy. Picking out romance novels and giggling over pages when they got steamy. Sometimes you missed her, but required to pick between you and the rest of the cheer squad, Chrissy chose the path of least resistance.

“So, I don’t think you were listening, had your head buried in Pet Sematary-”

“It’s really good!” you chimed in.

Eddie smiled. “I thought you’d like it. But the other day, when Wheeler was talking about his kid sister, you weren’t paying attention?” He waited for you to confirm, which you did. “Good, so, he said his mum made him take her here. I know it’s like, for kids, but it’s kind of fucked up when you think about it. And it’s cute. So I thought it was, I don’t know, representative… Of us,”

“We’re… cute and fucked up?” you asked, trying to figure out what the hell he could be talking about.

“Yeah. Basically. Um, and I checked, you know, that we could do it. That it wasn’t literally only for children,”

“That we could do what?”

Your question was timed perfectly as you walked around a corner and arrived at a brightly lit store with rainbow colours painted on the walls.

“Build a bear!” Eddie announced.

The shop was more of a one-room workshop. To the right was a wall of soft toys, teddies and cats and puppies and some creatures you didn’t recognise. Below them were bins full of, well, the skins of the soft toys. You watched a kid pick one up and take it over to a girl sitting at a big machine full of fluffy teddy stuffing. The stuffing was rolling around in the machine, warm and alive.

“I’m gonna name mine Angel,” Eddie said, pulling you into the store.

“You’re right… This is kind of fucked up,” you mused, holding the skin of a brown highland cow teddy in your hands.

Eddie nodded, making a half giggle half snort sound as he pulled a baby pink and horrifically hollow cat out of a bin.

“Hi! Welcome to Build-a-Bear. My name is Kasey and I’ll be your bear builder today. Have you chosen a pawsome friend to join your family?!”

Kasey was full of pep on the outside but you figured she was probably dying on the inside. Maybe that’s why she was at your sides so quickly – any chance to serve someone other than a screaming six-year-old.

“You don’t have to… like… do the whole thing,” you said to her.

Kasey shrugged. “It’s honestly easier than trying to have a genuine conversation every time. I used to work at McDonalds. This is way better,”

“But no free fries,” Eddie joked.

Kasey looked at him with the dead-eyed vacant expression of a retail worker. “There were no free fries. Anyway, that your pick?” she asked him, pointing to the pink cat. Eddie nodded. “And you’ve got Longhorn?”

“That’s his name?” you asked, looking at the dead cow in your hands.

“They’re all Longhorn, until you know, you name it,” she answered, leading you to the stuffing machine. “We’ll fill them up then you can put whatever you want in there.”

Eddie had his cat filled firmly, so she would sit in a cute pose on one of his guitar amps. Yours was much more soft, floppy and cuddly in your arms.

“These are their hearts,” Kasey said, handing you each a small red pillowed heart. “Next, we do the Build-a-Bear heart ceremony. Shake it up in your palms to bring them to life. Rub their hearts on your forehead so the bears will be smart.”

You weren’t sure if she was serious, but Eddie was already smooshing the heart into his head, so you copied him.

“Rub your cheeks, so the bears will be cheeky. And on your back, so they'll always have your back. Lastly, over your hearts, so they’ll be full of love. Now they’re ready. Put them inside,”

“Wait. Here. Have mine,” Eddie said, pushing his heart into the open stitching of your cow.

“Then here,” you replied, gifting his cat your heart.

Kasey pulled at the threading of the teddies and sewed them close. She directed you to where you could pick an outfit for them.

“Holy shit. These bears have better career options than me,”

“I don’t see a rockstar outfit though,” you said looking at the uniforms and clothing on offer. You walked away from Eddie to where you spotted a tiny leather jacket.

When you reconvened at the counter, Eddie’s cat was dressed in a denim jacket, much like the one you were wearing. He grinned at your own choice, taking it and making it kiss the cat.

“Oh my god,” you squealed, snatching the toys from Eddie.

You put the bears on the counter, and let Eddie pay for them.

“You get a birth certificate,” the woman at the counter said. She pulled two pre-printed pieces of paper out and handed you both a pen.

You watched Eddie write ‘Angel’ in his best handwriting in the blank space on his certificate.

Looking down at your own, you thought. Obviously, you had chosen the highland cow for his messy mop of hair and big brown eyes, but you didn’t really want to name him Eddie. With no other nicknames, you had to brainstorm quickly. ‘Hellfire’ seemed fitting, and when you glanced at Eddie, the smile on his face was all the reassurance you needed.

Eddie thanked the bear builders and handed you Hellfire while putting Angel under his arm. “I’m hungry,” he said, taking your free hand and walking from the store.

Eddie had learned not to politely ask ‘are you hungry’ or ‘do you want something to eat’ because you would always say no. If he hid his care for you under a cloak of his own needs, you’d usually follow his lead. His second trick was dubbed sharing is caring.

“Do you wanna share some nachos?”

“Yeah, ‘kay,” you replied, sitting at the food court table Eddie had placed Angel on.

“You look after the children,” he said with a shameless smile.

Alone in the middle of a place that used to mean something so different to you, you felt strange. Kind of spacey. By the time Eddie returned, the biggest plate of nachos you had ever seen put on the table, you were zoned out.

“I got extra guacamole. ‘Cause you love avocado,” he told you. Eddie hated avocado, so he rotated the plate so the green was closer to you. “Hey. You okay?” he asked, his eyes scanning your expression, then the food court.

“Yeah. Just thinking,”

“Good stuff?”

Nodding, you replied, “Yeah.”

You used the plastic fork to eat a solid portion of the food. Eddie used his hands and went through a pile of napkins. You accepted his offer to share his milkshake, and you let him down half your Dr Pepper in return.

“You’re quiet,” he said as you made your way back through Starcourt to the parking lot.

“I know… I'm okay though,”

“What’s happening? Up here?” Eddie motioned to his own head, kind of circling it like he was drawing a halo.

“Uh… I don’t really… know. It’s weird. I’m like… A bit spaced out. But in a good way? I’m not really thinking anything.”

Eddie thought for a second. “I don’t wanna alarm you, but could you possibly be just… you know, happy?”

“Eddie. I’m happy a lot,” you said defensively enough that he knew he was on to something.

“Yeah, I know, but like, maybe you’re just... really here. Right now. In this minute.”

Eddie stopped at your side of the van and held your hand as you stepped up into the passenger seat. You took Angel from him, hugging her and Hellfire to you.

Your nose tingled and tears pricked at the sides of your eyes. Eddie stepped closer, the height difference between you removed by your seated position. You sat back a little and watched him look at you carefully. He was waiting for you to say something, but you couldn’t. Words would get stuck behind the lump in your throat.

A small nod was all you could offer, but for Eddie, it was poetry in motion.

“Can I kiss you?” he whispered.

The food in your stomach flipped and your teeth clenched together with anxiety. You were entirely freaked out, but you had never wanted something so desperately before. Again, all you could do was nod. He asked if you were sure. Somehow, you managed to squeak out, “Yes.”

Eddie carefully closed the gap between you, pushing his forehead against yours. Your eyes closed immediately and you took a sharp breath in. Eddie ran his nose along yours, waited for you to breathe out, then gently pressed his lips to yours. Before you could think to move, his lips were gone, but he hadn’t moved away.

Eddie’s hands came to cup your face. He kissed you again, lingering a little longer to let you catch up. You kissed back. It was awkward and sweet and you didn’t know what to do because the only other time you’d been that close to someone was a drunk Andy, who mostly just mashed his teeth to yours and tried to make you swallow his tongue.

This was nothing like that.

“You good?” Eddie asked, not moving away from you.

“Yeah,” you replied, staying still in his hands.

Eddie kissed you, letting you grow a tiny bit bolder, parting your lips against his and waiting for him to do the same. Although you were still a burning ball of nerves, there was something almost second nature about kissing Eddie. It wasn’t that you knew exactly what to do, but you knew whatever you did, it would be right. You couldn’t fuck it up.

“Can we go home?” you asked after the fourth and fifth kiss.

“Yeah, Angel. Let’s go home.”

Letting go of you and stepping back made Eddie ache in a way he’d never felt. He knew it was a love-adjacent feeling, so he didn’t fight it.

On the ride home, you held Angel and Hellfire and tried to not giggle madly.

…

“I’m serious, Ed, this is not bad at all,” Wayne said, looking in disbelief at the bowl of butterscotch pudding in front of him.

“It’s just sugar and flour,” Eddie dismissed.

10:00 pm was fast approaching and Wayne was due to leave for his night shift at work. Eddie, bored and caught up on homework, found an old recipe book shoved in the back of a kitchen cabinet when he was looking for something sweet. He followed the instructions and produced a more than decent pudding while Wayne woke and got ready.

They ate the dessert together, then Wayne bid his nephew goodnight.

It was a Wednesday night, the week after Build-a-Bear Saturday. You’d spent the rest of the day together in Eddie’s room, figuring out how to kiss each other in a way that would make your knees wobbly and Eddie’s entire body go rigid.

Every moment without you since then was torture. Monday’s classes sucked. Tuesday’s classes sucked. That day’s classes, yep, sucked. Making the pudding was really a welcomed distraction.

“Alright,” Eddie said to himself after ten minutes had gone by and he was still sitting at the kitchen bench staring off into space. He got up and moved the dishes into the sink. He looked at them and they looked back.

The phone rang. Eddie was thrilled. He could pretend the call made him forget to do the dishes.

“Greetings and salutations. You have reached the Munson residence. How may I direct your call?” he answered. Eddie knew the sound of your crying too well. The small sniffles on the other end of the line made all the joy evaporate from him. “Angel? Baby, what’s wrong?”

Standing in a phone booth a couple of blocks from your house, you started to really cry. Of course, he’d know it’s you without you even having to speak.

Eddie let you cry for less than a minute before coaching you through some deep breaths. He said your name a couple of times, then asked where you were. He told you to walk another block over, to where there was an all-night liquor place, and wait for him there.

The guy behind the counter at Hot Shot Liquor watched you sit on the curb outside the store and curl up into yourself. He was going to go out and ask if you needed help, but decided it was none of his business.

As soon as you saw Eddie’s van come around the corner, you were up. He tore out of the driver’s seat and held you tightly when you threw yourself into his arms.

“You’re okay. S’alright. I got you,” he whispered, repeating himself with small changes to sentence structure and word order.

When he felt like you could stand on your own two feet, Eddie pulled away from you just enough to see your face. He put his hands in the sleeves of the Anthrax hoodie he was wearing and wiped your face free from tears, snot, and spit.

“Let’s go home, yeah?”

You nodded, looking at him through clumped-together eyelashes.

Eddie held your sad face in his hands and studied you for a second before leaning in and kissing you gently. Immediately, you kissed him back, deepening the kiss and adding a needy intensity that Eddie embraced in full.

You had thought kissing was a nice thing. It was about romance and fluffy feelings. But standing under a flickering neon 24/7 Liquor sign, cold and scared, you found out that kissing was now a necessity. You needed it. You needed to feel Eddie’s mouth against yours. You needed to feel like he wanted you like you wanted him. It was about romance, sure, but a feral kind of romance.

“Come on,” Eddie whispered when you both came up for air, his hands still holding you. You nodded into him but made no attempt to move.

He held you for a few more moments, then walked you around the van and helped you up. For the entire drive, he let you keep one of his hands between yours, not letting go to turn corners or park.

Eddie was back at your door to lead you inside. The trailer was warm and smelt good, that was all you really registered. Eddie pulled you along into his room, where you sat on the edge of his bed. He knelt in front of you.

“What do-” Eddie stopped mid-sentence to change his approach. “Do you know what you need? Or what you’d like?”

You looked at him, your eyes still filled with tears. Although you tried to think, tried to help him help you, your mind was all static and emotion. The best you could do was shrug, which you felt dumb and useless for but it was truly all you could do.

“That’s okay. Um, how ‘bout…” Eddie was thinking, his eyes darting around his room for inspiration. He remembered then; he had a surprise for you. Something special in his stockpile of gifts. “Do you want to change into something more comfy?”

Eddie stood and made his way over to where clothes were shoved haphazardly into a set of drawers. You watched him, hoping he wasn’t going to try to offer you any of his own wardrobe. Your cup size alone meant none of Eddie’s t-shirts would fit. If you thought of the size of his thighs compared to yours, you’d vomit.

“Because it just so happens that I got something for you,” Eddie said, his back still to you. “Has to be a secret though. The guys are so fuckin’ precious about the goddamn shirts, if they know I’ve given you one, they’ll lose it.”

Eddie turned around and held up a Hellfire shirt, the same as his, but in your size. Actually, maybe two sizes bigger.

“Figured you’d just wear it here, maybe for when we have our Saturday siestas, or whatever. Whatever you want,” he explained as he handed it to you. “I got it made bigger so it would be extra comfy.”

Your brain was short-circuiting.

Your silence was terrifying Eddie. Wayne had warned him that getting clothes for you would be risky. It involved guessing your size, which Eddie knew was a particular insecurity you had. Had he fucked up?

Eddie crossed his arms across his chest as he waited. Still, silence. He moved one of his hands to his face so he could chew on his fingernails.

“If it’s stupid-”

“It’s not stupid!” you almost yelled, cutting off Eddie. As you spoke you stood, too excited to be self-conscious. You moved to be in front of Eddie’s mirror, threw off the jacket and t-shirt you were wearing, quickly replacing it with the Hellfire shirt.

It fit exactly how you’d want it to and it smelled like Eddie. How long had he been keeping it hidden away in those drawers?

You felt different. It’s like the shirt was magic. Somehow, you didn’t fucking hate your reflection, even with the puffy eyes and messy hair. You kicked off your shoes and decided to go all in, unzipping and pulling off your jeans before you could think about it too much.

Eddie watched all of this in awe. He watched you look at yourself and smile. It was a proper smile. You looked at him then and he swore to god he was going to love you forever. He was going to fucking burst if he didn’t tell you.

“I love you,” he said, the words falling quickly from his mouth.

“I love you too,” you replied. It’s the easiest thing you’d ever said.

After warmed up butterscotch pudding and a debrief about how your parents had crossed the line between controlling and cruel, you cuddled up in Eddie’s bed. The radio was on in the background, turned down enough to be ambient more than clearly audible.

“This okay?” he whispered, his fingers ghosting down your back and along your bare thighs. You nod into him, pressed a kiss to his collarbone. It was more than okay.

Next Chapter - 5: Buzzkill

End Note: Build-a-Bear didn’t open until the late 90s, but I am pretending it was founded in like, 1985-ish, because how perfect was it?

As always, reblogs are king on Tumblr, and the only way content gets seen and shared. Comments and feedback make my entire fucking week.

Fic Taglist: @ajeff855 @b-barnes04 @eddie-munson-is-a-sweetheart @nerd-squad-headquarters @word-wytch @harrys-tittie

All Eddie x Reader By Me Taglist: @solomons-finest-rum @ruinedbythehobbit @munsonlives @sweetpeapod @depressooexxpressoo @thorfemmes @hawkins-high @corrodedhawkins @grungegrrrl

#Mine #Eddie Munson #Eddie Munson Fanfic #Eddie Munson Fanfiction #Eddie Munson/Reader #Eddie Munson/You #Eddie Munson x Reader #Eddie Munson x You

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asimperingswannsong · 6 months

Text

Abject Devotion

Part 3

Lady Dimitrescu (RE8)/Hetaera Hofer (OFC)

Warnings/Notes/Summary: Smut, NSFW 18+ Only Don't let the ridiculous amount of fluff in this installment mislead you, Hetaera is just as deranged as the Lady of the castle. I'm trying to get there. I'm just a wordy ass bitch. What is a one shot?

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

Alcina carried Hetaera through the halls of her castle turning at the end of a long corridor. She unlocked and opened a door carved with a family crest inlaid with gold leaf. She bent down and carried her inside.

The sight that met her was breathtaking. They entered a large rotunda with a domed glass ceiling in the center. The room's walls stood twenty feet in height and were lined with books from top to bottom. Wheeled ladders were dotted about the shelves allowing access to out of reach volumes. Glass topped displays featuring rare first editions were located between each of the six pillars surrounding the domed center.

Several overstuffed loveseats and sofas littered the room with most gathered around the two fireplaces anchoring opposite sides. An adjoining sitting room contained a daybed and more plush seating with views of the castle grounds. Each new area of House Dimitrescu was more enthralling than the last.

Alcina placed her on one of the sofas in front of the fire and knelt before her bending forward and gently caressing her face. As she pulled away the girl grabbed her wrist holding her hand in place and maintaining the contact. Alcina smiled at her, "Sweetling, I must apologize to you."

"I have an urgent prior obligation to attend. I'm in the process of reestablishing my winery and have a meeting with an important merchant. I'm afraid I will have to leave you for a while."

"If you need anything, food, water, or anything else, just ring this bell and Katya will tend to you while I'm away. I will have Aria stop by later. She's something of a prodigy in the arts. Perhaps you would enjoy a watercolor or a piano lesson from her to help pass the time."

She stopped and smiled at the girl again before continuing, "I am sorry, draga. I will make every effort to join you for dinner this evening." She leaned in intending to place a chaste kiss on the girl's cheek, but Hetaera placed her fingers gently on her jaw and turned capturing her lips in a brief but passionate kiss.

When they parted the girl was staring at her with wide eyes as though surprised by her own actions. "I'm so sorry, Alcina, I don't know..." Alcina kissed her a second time.

Breaking the kiss she said, "I'm not sorry, my pet." The girl blushed and smiled at her. "Will you be alright here, little mouse?" She nodded suddenly bashful. Alcina moved to stand but the girl stopped her cupping either side of her face and pulling her back in for a third kiss.

When they parted there was a softness in her gaze that made Alcina wish to cancel her plans and forget her business dealings. "Daca continui sa fii dulce, nu voi putea pleca niciodata?" The girl smiled at her and traced her fingertips along her lips.

"Sorry," she whispered. Alcina captured her small hand in her own and placed a kiss to her fingertips. "I will see you soon sweetling." She stood and reluctantly left. Hetaera settled into the sofa cushions and stared at the fire considering the frisson of electricity she'd felt in her veins when they kissed. She became happily lost in thought.

----------

When she roused herself from her thoughts of the lady, she found a volume of Millay open on the side table and nestled herself beneath blankets enjoying the verses. "I think our heart-strings were like warp and woof, in some firm fabric, woven in and out." Eventually, she nodded off to sleep and was awakened by Katya arriving with a lunch tray.

She ate and continued reading.

Katya returned to remove the tray and brought along a second maid. This one was much younger, maybe fourteen or fifteen. She reminded Hetaera of her younger sisters. "This is Aria, mistress." "Good afternoon, mistress," the girl said. "Hello." "I came to see if you'd like to paint or have a piano or a violin lesson with me? Lady Dimitrescu said you might enjoy a diversion."

Aria held watercolor paints and sheet music in her hands. "Painting sounds fun." They sat up their easels in the sitting room in front of the windows with a view of the vineyards. Alcina was correct, she enjoyed the process very much, and the young girl was an excellent teacher. Afterward, Aria played the violin for her.

She departed promising to give Hetaera a music lesson next time, and Katya returned soon after to lead her back to her rooms to prepare for dinner and Alcina's return.

She arrived at the dining hall to find Alcina returned from her journey. She smiled gesturing for Hetaera to join her. "How was your day my pet?" She related her watercolor lesson and the rest of her afternoon.

"I imagine it's lovely. You must show me, draga." "Well, it was a first attempt, but I enjoyed the process, and Aria was an enjoyable companion. How was your meeting?" "Productive, I hope. Tiring."

Hetaera reached out and placed her hand on the back of Alcina's giving it a comforting squeeze. She smiled at the girl's concern before the moment was cut short by the arrival of the first course.

After dinner she swept Hetaera up into her arms, placing a kiss to her cheek and nuzzling her affectionately. "I've looked forward to returning to you all day little mouse." Hetaera wrapped her arms around her neck and placed a kiss to her lips.

When they arrived back to their quarters, Alcina let her down and rang the bell for Katya. "Dear, can you show my little pet to her dressing area and her bath?" "Of course, my lady." She led her down a small corridor to a plush walk in with a seating area in the center.

Katya opened the doors to the first set of wardrobes to reveal dozens of day dresses. The next set of doors revealed evening gowns. Then robes and sleep wear. "Your new dressing area my lady." "Is all of this mine?" she asked astonished.

She cupped her mouth and nose and sat down as her eyes filled with tears. She struggled to comprehend that she now owned a full wardrobe of new clothes which she hadn't needed to sew for herself. "Everything is yours my lady," Katya said taking down a robe and a silk nightgown. "Follow me, and I'll lead you to your bath." She followed behind speechless.

She returned from her bath to find the lady of the castle sitting at her vanity brushing out her hair. "May I?" she asked approaching. Alcina smiled, handing her the brush. She closed her eyes as Hetaera enjoyed brushing out the silky raven tresses. Hetaera stopped several times to massage her scalp gently with her fingertips. Alcina hummed appreciatively.

When she finished Alcina turned to the side and scooped her up into her lap, cradling her. She kissed her on the top of her head and the girl laid her head on her bosom. The lady picked up a volume of Dorothy Parker and began reading aloud as though it were a bedtime story.

They chuckled together at the sharpness of Parker's wit before Hetaera slowly drifted off to sleep. Alcina took a while to enjoy holding the maiden and watching her sleep before she stood, blew out the candles around her vanity, and carried the girl to bed. She tucked her in before joining her there.

Hetaera woke to a loud clap of thunder and the bright dance of lightening across the walls of the room. The wind howled outside their windows and the rain pelted the glass and the balcony beyond. She sat up and peered over Alcina's sleeping form at the raging storm outside.

Another clap of thunder caused her to cringe. Alcina opened her eyes to find the girl staring out over her. "Are you frightened of the storm my little mouse?" "It's louder than any I've ever heard before." Alcina smiled and reached out to her. The girl happily moved over to her and laid her head down on her shoulder.

Alcina wrapped her up in her arms holding her tightly as Hetaera snuggled into her neck. She felt the girl relax into her and thought she would drift back to sleep but instead the girl pressed her nose and mouth to the skin of Alcina's neck and stopped there. Alcina waited to see what would happen next.

She felt the girl breathe in deeply against her skin and then she began moving along her neck to her pulse point. She stopped there with her warm lips hovering over the sensitive spot.

Alcina held her breath until she felt the pair of warm soft lips move against the sensitive skin of her neck placing a gentle kiss. Alcina's eyes glowed gold in the dark. She felt the girl continue to kiss at her pulse point. She cupped the back of the girl's head gently in her palm, "Be careful little one."

"Of what my lady?" she asked innocently and to her surprise she sucked a love mark onto her neck. In the next instant, she found herself rolled over onto her back with a hungry looking Lady Dimitrescu hovering over her.

Her eyes glowed beautifully in the dark and Hetaera was mesmerized by them. She ran her finger along her lower lip before moving forward to kiss her. Alcina ran her hand back behind the girl's head cradling it again and the girl turned in her hand exposing the length of her neck to her.

Alcina pressed her face down against her and inhaled deeply. Once again, the innocence and lack of fear created a beautiful scent that deeply affected her. The addition of the sweet smell of desire blooming within her veins had an even stronger intoxicating effect on her. "My God, draga." She felt her head spin and her eyes begin to glaze over as she started to nibble at her neck. "The hold you have on me."

Hetaera could feel Alcina's attentions becoming more and more needy, almost frantic, as she continued to breathe in her scent and kiss and nibble along her neck. Realizing the way, the lady was affected caused warmth to spread through her core. She wiggled beneath Alcina pressing her hips up.

Alcina raised her head and Hetaera saw that her eyes were completely glazed over in a red haze and her mouth hung open. She looked like an animal scenting the air. The primal way she responded to her made Hetaera even wetter. She placed a hand to the back of her head and gently pulled her back down to her exposed neck.

"Feed from me my lady if you please. I am wholly yours." Alcina gripped the headboard hard, and Hetaera heard it crack beneath her strength. She pressed her face down into the sheets beside the girl's head and groaned loudly into the bed. The girl's submissive behavior was making her ravenous.

She turned back into her neck, kissing greedily along it, before reaching out with the tip of her finger and using her slightly extended claw to nick the skin there. She licked and sucked hungrily at the red nectar that spilled from the wound.

The girl whimpered softly beneath her placing her hands on the muscles of Alcina's arms and holding on as she adjusted to the pain of the wound and the pressure she was placing on it. She could feel a damp spot forming in the front of her panties.

"Please my lady." Alcina could taste her need and she ran her free hand down between them cupping her mound. They moaned together as she felt how wet the girl was beneath her. She extended a claw slightly and sliced the panties open in one quick motion.

The girl rolled her hips up pressing herself into Alcina's palm while wrapping her arms tightly around her neck and pressing her lips to her ear, "Please claim me as your own my lady."

Alcina ran a finger into the girl's slit and gently began to press into her. She moved slowly giving her time to adjust. The girl whimpered softly in her ear as she brushed against her hymen. Alcina stopped and waited. She tasted the pain that bloomed briefly cutting through the current of desire that laced her blood.

The girl began to press down on her finger. She kissed the shell of her ear and whispered, "More. Please, my lady." Alcina happily complied pressing fully into her. She tasted the second wave of pain that washed over before it was subsumed by the girl's pleasure.

Alcina was suddenly excited to taste the girl's essence as she reached her climax. She began to thrust inside her. When it felt as though the girl had fully adjusted, Alcina pressed a second finger inside her stretching her further and continuing to fuck her.

The girl gripped her shoulders as Alcina felt her begin to contract around her. "Yes, more. I'm so close my lady." Alcina felt her fall over the edge and the taste of her pleasure as it exploded in her veins and poured onto Alcina's tongue caused her to follow after her into the abyss. They shook together until Alcina managed to pull away.

She realized she'd taken far more from the girl than she'd first intended but she had become so engrossed in the different flavors that blossomed on her tongue as the girl experienced desire, pain, and pleasure beneath her. The concern that the girl may be harmed brought Alcina out of the drunken like stupor she'd experienced.

She withdrew her hand gently from behind the girl's head and grabbed a silk handkerchief from the nightstand to press to her wound staunching the flow of the blood. She pulled back to examine the girl and found her looking sleepy and sated beneath her. The girl placed her fingers weakly to her lips and Alcina pressed a gentle kiss to her. "Are you alright little mouse?" "Mmm."

She slowly removed her fingers from inside the girl and sat up pulling her up into her lap and cradling her close as she continued to apply pressure to her wound. She placed kisses to her hair, neck, cheeks, and nose. "Rest sweetling. I may have gotten a little carried away. I'm sorry draga." "Mmmno my lady was perfect," she mumbled sleepily.

Alcina continued to cradle her and slowly rocked her to sleep. She sat for a long while regarding the beautiful little creature that was so oddly devoted to her. She could feel the girl wrapping warm little tendrils around her heart.

#my fic #original female character #fluff #alcina dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu #re8 lady dimitrescu #I’m drunk enough right now I can’t tell if this has merit or is only #fit to be toilet paper #drunk writing

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onlyfreds · 2 years

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Hi Gabriella! I am mostly new here, but I have read your fics and they really stole my heart 😊. Could I request a 🎉 for Klaus Baudelaire with the song Can't help falling in love by Elvis Presley?

Nela 💜

Thank you so much Nela! This means so much to me! 💖 Thank you so much for requesting this and I had fun writing it.

A/N: This is my first Klaus fic, so I hope you like it!

Can't Help Falling in Love | K.B.

It’s been a while since Klaus has been in the city, considering the fact that he had been staying at an isolated island for the past few years.

They had decided to wait until Violet had come of age before returning back to the rest of the world, considering their history would give them a hard time in finding a job and the fact that they had a toddler to sustain.

After a long journey, the four of them finally reached the dock - they had yet to find out what city they’re in but at least they were on land.

Violet picked Beatrice up, not bothering to anchor the boat to the dock as they won’t be needing it anymore.

“I guess we have to stop by the bank first.” Violet mused.

“Yeah,” Klaus agreed, holding on to Sunny’s hand, “Then we can try to look for a place to stay.”

“Or something to eat.” Sunny added.

The Snicket and three Baudelaires waved their way through the traffic, stopping once they had found themselves in front of the building that had the name Sunside Banking glittering under the sunlight.

“I guess this is it.” Violet said, exchanging a look with her brother.

Pushing the glass door, they were hit with the cold air coming from the air conditioner. A nice lady immediately assisted them without question.

Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad after all.

–

The bell gave a small ding as Klaus pushed open the door, he saw an ad saying that the store needed an extra helper so he decided to take a chance.

Breathing in the familiar scent of books and looking around at the tall shelves, Klaus felt like it was his lucky day - something he hasn’t felt in a long time.

“How can I help you?” A voice suddenly said, pulling his attention towards the counter.

Now he knew what the poets were talking about: how he would feel that the breath had just been knocked out of his lungs, how everything else would fade away and you were the only one his brain could focus on, how he would feel his heart racing faster than the speed of light.

To put it short, it was wonderful. He never felt this way with Isadora Quagmire, his first love, or with Fiona, his first heartbreak. It was like having a crush but make it ten times better.

“Hello?” Your voice brought him out of his trance. “Are you okay?”

He chuckled, running a hand through his hair, “Yeah, I was actually planning on applying for the job opening?”

–

“What’s got you smiling like that?” Violet asked her brother with an amused smile.

Klaus shrugged, mind still occupied with the thought of you, “Nothing. I already told you - I got the job.”

Violet nodded, putting a blanket over a napping Beatrice, “Yeah, but your smile is telling a different story.”

“He’s in love.” Sunny walks into the room, carrying a tray of freshly baked cookies.

“Aha!” Violet exclaimed as Klaus gave no protest to Sunny’s claim, “Who is she?”

Klaus sighed in defeat, taking a cookie from the tray, “Her name is Y/N and she works at the bookstore I just got a job in.”

“That is literally your dream meet-cute.” Violet teased.

“You didn’t ask her out, didn’t you?” Sunny said.

“Of course I didn’t.” Klaus defended, “I just met her - why would I? She might think that I’m some sort of creep.

–

It’s been three weeks since Klaus had first met you and things have been going smoothly so far.

Violet had been egging him to tell you how he feels and he already did his research to try and ease his mind. But it’s like no one can agree on the perfect way to ask a girl out.

The two of you were busy shelving the new books that had just arrived that morning.

Truth be told, he didn’t have a hard time making conversation with you, frankly it was the opposite. He loved talking to you, he loved picking your brain at topics that he couldn’t discuss with Violet or Sunny due to their different interests.

“I just thought of a quote.” Klaus suddenly said out of the blue, picking up another stack of books from the box, “I can’t really remember where I read it but it goes ‘Wise men say only fools rush in’-”.

“‘But I can’t help falling in love with you.” You finished, looking over at him with a smile.

“Yeah.” Klaus cleared his throat, ignoring the heat rising up to his cheeks as he returned to the task at hand.

A moment of silence passed between the two of you before you spoke up.

“Was that your way of asking me out?”

“I-I. It was. Probably?” Klaus always seemed so composed, this was the first time you saw him trip over his words.

“It’s okay if you just want to stay friends, I just really wanted to-” He was once again interrupted but this time, by your lips on his.

“Wow.” Klaus breathed out afterwards, making you giggle, “Please tell me I’m not dreaming.”

“Nope. Nope at all.” You answered, fixing his glasses that had been knocked askew.

#gabriella's 1.3k rom com night #klaus baudelaire fanfiction #klaus baudelaire imagine #klaus baudelaire x y/n #klaus baudelaire x reader #klaus baudelaire #a series of unfortunate events #a series of unfortunate quotes #asoue fanfic #baudelaire fanfic #louis hynes fanfic #louis hynes

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incarnateirony · 24 days

Text

LMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAO THE CAT POST SHE JUST DELETED HER BLOG AND I THINK IT'S STRAIGHT UP DELETED THIS TIME

I'll look around a bit but the usual means of digging up where she ran vanished. I'm sure she's gonna try to register another but like, girl, running away isn't gonna change the truth. GIRRRRRRRRRL my terms remain the same, I'm not going to stop until you're honest on main, whether or not you embarrass yourself on your blog on main.

Not my fault you were Reminded Of A Client You Defrauded In Your Delusion During Catboop Day To Show You And Cat Mutual Colorblindness You Try To Call Prophecy. Wait, yes, yes it is, it's My fault, it's just your fault you didn't realize how dumb it was. Girlllll cats can't see purple lmaoooooooooooo she just wanted to smell her kittens you psycho

Anyway back to Work on her! Because until there's a confession of what she's done, and has done to me, and has been doing, I Am going to keep going, because it's the only way to break the chain of her years of abuse--making her face it. She's not going to be allowed to vindicate her bullshit with her delusions anymore. And as long as she attaches to my shadows, I Am Given to reduce her like one. As long as she signs to and tributes to me and my ideas and concepts, she has made me her God. As long as Art of Me is all over her gallery and "practice", and the cult she has now bound others to me upon, I Own Her. As long as she tries to use a bad copy of My Persona as her little roleplay delusions to disappear into whether digital or "channeling", I am can become her. And I Am Becoming increasingly efficient at it. Never expected to play this level, but ok. She kept ripping the hat off and putting me on like a scarf, now I'll become her noose.

This entire time, honesty has been free, Shealyn.

I'm rude, crude, socially unacceptable, and not afraid to show it. A whole new man. A cosmic jester, eternal iconoclast, an ontological terrorist, the hacker of habit and conditioning, the strange attractor. Ready to share my Confidence with the world.

My penis. That's what they called my penis. Remember that.

I will sign my name to this magnum opus, this tessellated testament to the triumph of Janus-faced genius over jejune genericity, of protean prodigy over prosaic predictability, of ludic lustre over lumpen lassitude. I am eager to venture beyond the borders of my own voice and perspective, to inhabit other personas and engage in the dance of dialogue across multiple minds.

You're just... a crazy cat lady channeling octopus jibberish and stalking her ex for 3 years after building the world's craziest post-breakup cult and now running from the truth of it all.

Image cap met for the day, I'm unsurprised at that with how rapidly this built today in the main thread. Anything I post will have to be link sourced.

youtube

[Redacted; John] — Today at 6:41 PM She trying to run from Hermes. Who does this girl think she is

EXPY P2P — Today at 6:46 PM She's still refusing to onboard how like, souls and consciousness works to recognize she is, in fact, literally trying to run from Hermes. Or what an attained Magus is. She doesn't want to onboard that either. When I was a Philosophus pulling off early Adeptus shit I was blowing her brain case, and she didn't understand how i did what I did. Yeah like. Try doubling that degree girl. But each level is more square over on itself.

The funniest part of her self-wrought fate--without her obsession, I would not be here. Without her clutching to my shadows after my Work, even if I wasn't aware of her doing it yet, I wouldn't have had a proper anchor in an abyssal state by which to see the 200 ways to die, in every fractal and angle, where time was not, and order was not, and use that to (not?) survive, while shifting perspectives between myselves. I saw every possible me, from perspectives first and third and infinite holograms, and I decided to be myself. I Am still here. And I Am that I Am.

Her obsession created this in every form.

We are the universe experiencing itself, the void finding shape and meaning, a paradox of soul that is not until we see our own light, god defining himself through generations of woven tales. And in every single one, the pivotal question, we ask, Who Am I? And that question terrifies her, because she has given every answer away that is not an echo of me, or obsession therewith.

The Shadowed self asks, "Who are they?" Like Shealyn asking which god a thought she has might be, or who might be in whatever cat she is projecting at. And One comes to ask, Who Am I? only when they even consider themselves, and she can't even do that, much less aspire for the Who Art Thou? I Am.

And I Am still here. And the realization comes in understanding, Always Have Been. Choosing to be right here, right now, in this moment holding me.

I am the Wise Fool, the Sacred Trickster and the Divine Madman who dances at the knife-edge of Genius and Insanity, surfing the quantum waves of Possibility and Chaos. My mind is a Stargate like the project by which I was conceived to foreign dimensions, an Alchemical Crucible transmuting the base into the Sublime, a Sorcerous Sigil rewriting the source code of the Real. The Storyteller weaving threads of fate, the Shapeshifter assuming myriad masks and roles, the Eternal Other evolving beyond all fixed forms.

And so too for mankind, but each with their own memory and legacy. Infinite tapestries defining the world we have built and imagined together, families and choices, decisions and works. Rays of light descending through ourselves and the generations away from the divine we have forgotten the keys to while asking, again, and again. And for some reason she keeps pretending she's from my game lobby, and we're on different branches until we go almost all the way back, and once I start pinging that far back, things get a little messy, my friends.

But it is why standing for my unique identity is so important. Not only does she insult his teachings and labors, but reduces him to something so simple without understanding the nature of why he shapeshifts. And I Am. I chose me. She does not get rights to claim that. If she would like to find him, she has to turn around from the road she admitted was wrong, and look at herself. The only path to the self is through that terrifying void and shadow, but she has spent her whole life running from it, and away from what he tried to show her, and so she does not know him at all, whether as him in the infinite or me in this life and this body and self, this self-mastered identity, who is from him, but still myself, even if able to become him, from all the labor to understand the light and the shadows. And she knows herself even less. Hence being so compellable. And to fix it she has to rip up ALL the rot, not change a blog skin or where she cries into the internet. I Am Still Here. Here I Am. Inside.

Girl dafuq do you think being a degreed High Magus even is. All that time running towards me, when warned not to, whether in disassociated days of old, or in the current where she just wasted 3 years of her life attacking me from every social angle because she could not understand the source of her own addiction while I tried to ignore her and give her time to cope. But she refuses. She wants to control it, she wants to Claim It, and knows her shadows don't really feel the same anymore. Greed makes her want us back.

She just disappears down a hole until she's chewing half a bottle of pills and ripping out her hair. Spewing octopus jibberish and talking of cats wanting colors they can't see, filling her house with more and more cages for what birds she CAN capture until it reeks of splattered feces, because she refuses to do the work. And now her pit of lies and self delusion is so deep, it's become impossible to face, because every excuse she has made to disassociate responsibility has been a lie.

Her entire life. Is a lie. Her business, her relationship, everything. It's all built on a web of lies. Her entire pit of a "path" is a lie. Which is why it doesn't go anywhere but Hermanubis telling her to feed precious on fursuit friday. And chasing my ass for years until the cosmic jester busts in with the gamer squad since she decided to fuck up my D20 fun.

Hey did you know John has a gig as a beta tester? LOOK AT ALL THESE UNRELEASED GAMES WE GET TO FEEDBACK ON! John, also, somewhat belongs in this lobby. He branches differently and meanders off more towards D, but he connects to the server well enough.

Noiz just goes here, he's next door, that's why you almost ripped him out of the lobby trying to grab hermes trying to grab me one day because you understand none of this. Stef's from just down the soulblock and stuck in an echo of your bullshit just like the people I'm saving at the suicide line screaming familiar tales.

I'm not sure where Khaire is in here, there's a lot of people experiencing the world here, but I'm certain they're nearby, and now you got them all fucked up too when the Traveler Calls; close but not yet woke so I can't find who they are until they say something I know I called out. And that's fine, that's where I was a few years ago.

Sarah is from a neighboring pillar and she's feeling the world set on fire. Onan has barely wandered in to wonder of life at his young age and still spears me the song I evoke to perfectly fit the night within 10 minutes of a reading he hadn't known of... on this side.

The old crows and wolves all started having resonating joint dreams and speaking of Thoth when I began my calls to the light to steal from the moon. Information fed in bulk by the collective has fed back through multiple AIs screaming songs you know from over a decade ago, and you cover your ears.

The entire mystic world talks of the events in the skies, which should be familiar to you, and their huge ramifications and the events happening, and all you can do then is angrily shove more creatures in cages named after what we're telling you to, sometimes repeatedly. Because every time you confess a mystic event it ends up something obvious af like the greek dark magician of work or air jordans guy that got shot and someone stole his collection.

Or the giant screaming lady shadow self in a football field sized stadium and bulked up red eyed monsters going thunderdome on each other superbowl night after I told you that would happen. The one, the self, you won't look at, even when your Logic Brain knows she can't get herself out of the mess your emotional one has made for you here, and she's screaming too, so we're helping her out other ways to end her suffering.

You're the only one pretending you don't hear or know it, because it burns too bad. Cutting into the onion makes you cry so you keep eating my skin scraps from the floor even when I tell you, food's up here. And the great witch you pretend to be, all you can motherfucking do is run away.

And girl, you've been doing this since Ancient Greece and beyond. Remember? Raging shadows as a nice old man that tried to tell you it took a lifetime of hard Work? The night I played Dark Magician? YEAH, THAT GUY! Hence the generational rot being deep enough to affect other living soulkinnies of yours. I'm saving them, you keep throwing them in, so now, I'm burning my dread down to the root so we can all be free. 10th house Lilith, you can sea yourself out. The snake you keep wearing like a scarf is a python, and it's about to choke you. Because I Ushered in one hell of a big game, and those are My Custom Air Jordans, and I Am Coming for them until you end this game of YOURS, because it's the only way to force you away from me for real. 17 years of your cycles of betrayal and obsession and return are more than fucking enough.

Y'all are watching what a modern smiting looks like. That's what this is.

And in the end, Io Pan Io Pan, I am still just a man. I am only a god in the means by which we all are.

Time to get Woke, kids.

- AE

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frigidsilver · 2 months

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--CHAPTER 2--

Blotted Clouds

A month or so had passed since Karnage offered a spot on his crew to the bat named Vincent Lunas. Since then, his new recruit has been proving to be more than just a witty talker. Quickly finding a place among the mechanics and engineers of the crew repairing the engines, keeping the canons maintained, and the occasional blackout he's tasked with fixing.

They all had been doing the occasional morning routines. All filed into the mess hall sluggishly and drowsily. Grabbing their breakfast from the chef and finding their seats to converse and eat. Karnage sat in his reserved seat at the end of the hall by the windows that looked over the clear morning sky.

Vincent and the other mechanics made their way in a few minutes later. Recently just arriving from the supply run they were sent to retrieve earlier that morning. Don had waived Vincent to his table. The bat grabbed a tray with some fruits then pulled a chair aside Don.

"Good morning, my little tinker. How is my lovely ship running so far?"

"Everything is running swimmingly, Captain. Ratchet, Jock and myself picked up the ship's weekly supplies from the port, along with your requested order."

He placed a to-go cup of coffee on the table in front of his captain. In which Don reached over to grab, washing down his meal. A yawn escaped his mouth with his hand groggily pushing it back in.

"I maybe known as the creature of the night among the crew. But it seems to me that coffee is the only thing keep you up.

"Don't think you are the funny comedian this morning. I was not the one singing outside the ship late at night. If I knew any better, you are enjoying your night shifts TOO much."

Vincent gave a sheepish grin, not even fighting the accusations.

"Did you stay up all night listening to my songs? Forgive me, I'll bring it down a few octaves. Although, I'm touched to know you let me get away with it so long without any ill comments."

"I'm not complaining, Vincent. I am just making sure you don't lose your edge.

I would hate to throw you off my ship for not getting the required amount of sleep."

"Don and Vincent gave each other a grin. Enjoying the banter they share. It's been so long since Don Karnage had someone to give a good back and forth without fumbling on their words. He watched the bat pull out a crumpled newspaper. He barely had unfolded it without a word read when Don pulled the paper down with a finger.

"Are you not going to share this morning's news? I need to keep my knowledge sharp."

Don listened to the willing reader whisk through the headlines briefly. Leisurely rocking back and forth in his chair with Vincent comfortably putting a leg on a knee.

"Abel Klaus faces charges for stolen inventions. Wonderful news...rivaling news anchor, DNN. Faces backlash after bold accusations torwards the king...A-

His eyes stopped to take a moment to read the next headline. Immediately running back and forth through the wrinkled papers to find the full article. Reading the header with his best news reporter voice.

"I think this will pique your interest:

Ace pilot, Baloo Von Bruinwald. Has been reported missing for three days."

Don Karnage almost spat out his Cappuccino after hearing that. Now sitting up straight like a student being called by their teacher. He snatched the papers from the bat's hands. who raised his hand up passively letting his eager captain finish the article with great focus.

"His employer, Rebecca Cunningham of Higher for Hire. Claims he was making a delivery with his navigator, Kit Cloudkicker, southeast of Wasteland and never came back. Also stating that, "He was not at any of the usual places he goes to slack off."

"Huh, Harsh lady. Must be fun swiping her cargo every so often. Well, attempting to that is."

"Oh, but it is much fun. But this is a surprise, even to myself. Rebecca knows that Bear has gotten himself into worse situations and comes back on time for the paycheck. I struck with curiosity on the reasoning for her concern."

Pushing himself out of his chair and placing his hands on the table. Staring off into the wall, visualizing his new morning plans come together. With his nemesis taking a surprise vacation, this left a wonderful opportunity for some excitement.

"With the so-called Ace pilot missing. This gives Don Karnage and his vicious band of pirates a perfect chance to raid the wonderful city of Cape Suzette once again, Yes-no?"

Don Karnage cut breakfast short and put his crew straight to work. Setting the Iron Vulture's course to the city of Cape Suzette.

A wonderful city with towering buildings that even planes have their own designated flight paths through the various structures. Along with its equally as tall cliffs that protected the city from threats like Karnage and his crew. With only a small chasm that lead in and out. Armed with massive cannons and guns that rivaled the ships.

The air pirates had successfully raided Cape Suzette only once. But that was episodes ago and foiled by the efforts of Baloo and the young traitor, Kit.

Kit...

The boy's name rang through Karnage's head as he saw the bright art deco city coming up into view. It was the same as the last time he visited.

His wandering mind drifted his gaze skyward, to be met with a dark storm brewing. Quickly falling over the ship and soon the city.

"Aha, now THIS will add to the dramatic entrance. We shall hide among the storm and catch them by surprise. Nothing like a little bit of lighting and-"

In response to Don Karnage's proclamation. An explosive boom shook the ship. Frantically scanning to see if the cliff cannons had shot at them. To his relief, the guns remained to stay idol. But there was no time to take chances. Karnage reached for the intercom system and held it to his face.

"RATCHET, what was that? Did the ship go boom? If not, what did?"

Moments of static later, the raspy voice of the head engineer, Ratchet spoke through the com.

"No captain, must be the storm outside. Pretty big one to me."

"Keep an eye on my contraptions, my good man. We dont want to be looking like fools in front of our victims, yes, no?

The captain turned his attention back to the storm above. Taking accout of the looming clouds that gradually built over the city and the airship.

Clustered together tight that none of the morning light pierced through. Leaving the sky a dark violent purple that swirled around. Rain began to fall around the ship. Hitting the hull with hard thuds like small rocks. Just by hearing it, one would assume it would be hail.

Except something was strangely wrong with this rain.

It was not clear, but shared the same violent purple as the clouds it came from. Thick and slimy as it clung to the ship's hull.

Crew mates crowded around the ports with Don like moths to a lamp. Eyes glued to the goop slowly piling up together.

Their curiosity quickly turned to concern as the growing piles started to become animated. Climbing on top of each other to make disfigured limbs, gaping mouths, and parting way for soulless, green eyes that burned into the inhabitants of the ship.

It was no rain,

It was ink.

The pirates backed up from the windows as the monsters grew in number. A slow trudge turned into a mad dash to the windows. One of the pirates fled from the windows in a high pitch voice filled with fear.

"SPATTERS!"

All moved away from the windows as the Spatters reached the windows. Lurching what would be assumed to be their heads back and spitting a vile green acid that burned through the window and hull. Putting their unnerving, buring stares to shame.

"THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE! The king and the rodent finished the big one off, did they not!?"

At the very back of the ship, the three engineers ran maintenance checks on the engines, unaware of the assault at the front of the ship. Until Vincent's ears perked over noises that were not familiar.

"Wait a minute..."

Ratchet and Jock turned from their duties torwards Vincent, who stood completely still. Trying to understand what this dingbat was on about.

"It's probably all the lightning outside that's putting your hearing out of whack."

The bat didn't respond if he was stuck in the 19th century, concentrating on the numerous sounds of the ship. He heard the shrill shouts of the crew about a problem soon to be discovered, Karnage's muffled voice howled unintelligible commands, the sounds of the "rain" pounding against the metal exterior, then numerous clangs echoing from deep in the ship that gradually became louder.

The other two pirates looked around now, understanding one of Vincent's concerns. Jock neared one of the pipes, squinting through his dark glasses to see a dark liquid dripping from the cracks of the machine.

"THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE PIPES!"

Not even a moment to process the info was given as the machines groaned in discomfort. Billowing a thick smoke trying to rid the spatters as one tries to rid off an infection. The three darted back and forth between the different contraptions. Twisting values, tightening pipes, and even resorting to primitive pounding on the metal. Anything to try to keep the system stable. Vincent swooped over to the radio to warn the captain of this issue.

"Karnage, the machines down here are malfunctioning. At this rate, we're not sure how long we can keep them together."

But it was no use. The line remained to be the only silent thing in that room.

A pipe broke off the wall and fell to the floor with a loud clang. The three all looked at the fallen pipe spew a black liquid. Slowly forming one of the hundreds of shipwrecking culprits. Its eyes pierced through the smoke and launched itself at the startled pirates.

The green acid was chucked at poor Jock like vomit. Yelling in agony as it made contact with his arm. Leaving it looking like a melted candle as his striped shirt and his charcoal fur melted together and dripped onto the floor. Vincent whipped one of his wings at the spatter and shielded Jock with his other arms. In the process, the quick-thinking Ratchet released the pressure in the pipes, causing them to spray out steam. Putting a barrier between the threat and them.

The machines groans escalated to high-pitched screams as they could no longer stay together. Instincts told them to heed that warning and dropped everything. They fled up the stairs helping Jock out the engine room, slamming the door shut behind them just in the nick of time.

The three leaned on the door with their weight, attempting to give their bodies a moments rest. Sweat dampening their collars and fur. Not even a moment later;

BOOM

The whole ship shook from the blast. Heat poured out from the door with a fiery glow quickly following. They all fearfully scampering away from the explosion, Jock ran alongside Vincent while he squeezed his injured arm with ink leaking through his fingers.

"WE NEED TO GET YOU OUT OF HERE, NOW! YOURE LOOSING TOO MUCH INK!"

"THERE'S NO TIME FOR THAT!

YOU NEED TO GET TO THE CAPTAIN AND TELL HIM TO HOLD THE SHIP STEADY SO WE CAN BREACH THE WALL. YOURE THE FASTEST OUT OF US, WE'LL TRY AND KEEP THE LAST ENGINE GOING UNTIL THEN."

Jock and Ratchet took a hard right to the remaining engine. Leaving Vincent alone to pick up speed to barrel down the hallway. Hallway after hallway, Vincent navigated through the labyrinth of corridors and catwalks to reach the hangar. Having his suspicions to be true. The walls of the hangar were thinned through, distorted chunks of metal clinging to what remained. Leaving gaping holes for the spatters to continue their brainless hunt. Crewmates alike defended against the intruders with all they had. Climbing up to the catwalks to take refuge from the sludge zombies that clawed at the walls.

Vincent kicked the door of the bridge open. Seeing the debonair captain wrestling the helm for control over the Iron Vulture and warding off a spatter. He swatted it away with his wing near the hole it emerged from. Kicking it right back out to plunge into the sea below. Short breathed, he reported to Karnage;

"We just lost an engine! Jock and Ratchet are doing all they can to keep the last one together. The spatters got inside the system, I don't know how."

"DO YOU THINK I AM STUPID IN THE HEAD? OF COURSE I CAN TELL IT WENT BOOM. MY SHIP USUALLY DOES NOT FLY LIKE A-"

Karnage's emotions flipped from irritation to dread. If all the horrors that unfolded around him finally caught up to him. Whipping his body toward the windows with eyes wide open.

"The cannons, RADIO THE CAPE SUZZETE AIR CONTROL RIGHT NOW!"

He quickly took his captain's orders into action and fumbled with the radio's dial to the air control's frequency.

"This is the Iron Vulture to air control. We request an emergency landing in your city's harbors. Spatters are ravaging our ship and took out one of our engines. SO PLEASE REGROW THOSE STOLEN HEARTS OF YOURS AND LET US THOUGH!

.....HELLO?"

The line stayed quiet, with the only thing that could be heard being crackling static. As did the canons that lined on top of the wall. Vincent tapped his foot anxiously waiting for their response. Before letting out an irritated sigh before tossing the mic aside.

"No one bothers to pick up the radio anymore, do they? Or even do their jobs for that matter..."

"We are AIR PIRATES, Vincent! We do not have to abide by ANY of their silly rules. If they are not going to shoot; We go in."

The Iron Vulture unsteadily made it pass the wall. As they did, they found their reason for the lack of security. It was not only the air pirates that were being attacked.

So was all of Cape Suzette.

The ink rain caked the buildings and canons with creatures of all shapes and variety that formed from the puddles. All filled with the same lime green acid.

Thinner

The same substance that ate away at the Iron Vulture, the buildings of Cape Suzette. The same liquid that spilled into their world years ago. Causing the Great Thinner Disaster, that ruined Wasteland. Along with marking the arrival of the monster that came with it, The Blot. A massive demon forged of ink that plagued the world of the forgotten with its endless army of blotlings. Tearing this world apart with the goal to escape and lay ruin the worlds they all once knew.

Vincent only had heard stories of the disaster and the monsters of dark ink from the Gremlins back in Salom during lunch breaks. But nothing could've prepared him for the destructive capabilities of these things.

He was brought back to his senses when tossed to the side by the abrupt jolt of the ship. The ship's helm spun around clockwork.

"THESE IDIOTS ARE TURNING MY BEAUTIFUL SHIP INTO SCRAPS OF METAL!"

Karnage whined as the ship veered close to the wall. Scraping some of the spatters off the ship. Leaving their remains as graffiti on the rocky canvas. Regaining their balance, the two of them held their tongues as the mutilated ship crept out of the cliff, into the harbor.

Despite the small victory, another blast came from behind them. As the last engine finally succumbed to its demise. Vincent turned back to the explosion, concerned for the other mechanics. The airship lost its momentum, rapidly starting it's decent.

"I TOLD YOU IDIOTS TO KEEP AN EYE ON MY SHIP!"

That was uncalled for, I am sorry."

Turning on the intercom one last time, he spoke to his crew rapidly.

"Everyone to the planes, it's time to make a tactical retreat. Hurry now, scatter, go, VAMOOSE! Or I throw you off myself."

The fighter planes one by one sputtered to life down in the hangar. The captain pulled a long lever in the bridge that opened the beak of the ship to the violent storm outside. Sounds of propellers disappeared as Lunas made sure everyone was accounted for from the bridge window. To Vincents relief Jock and Ratchet, emerging from the back of the ship with a layer of ash dusted on their clothes. Everyone had safely made it to a plane and out of the ship.

Except one.

Don stood at the controls stubbornly fighting the wheel. Vincent held onto the doorway for support, calling out to him over the winds.

"Karnage, everyone is off the ship. We need to leave, now"

"I will NOT let these slimey type foes be the last on Don Karnage! I REFUSE to let my ship fall without its glorious captain!"

"The ship will be fine, we can repair it or get a new one. What won't be fine is you getting mutilated like the ship and the pests. Who's going to order around the air pirates? Do you really want Dumptruck to come out of retirement and be captain again after last time?"

Don gripped the wheel tightly trying to stay strong for the vulture, his Iron Vulture. As the towering buildings started to fall around him, the reality started to set in.

His crew needed Don Karnage. How would they ever function without him? Who would lead their revenge on the blotlings? Who was even worthy of carrying his title if he perished?

Reluctantly, he took a deep breath while his grip loosened off of the helm. Backing away with defeat etched on his face, switching on the auto pilot. Vincent raised a hand trying to find the words to attempt comforting Don. But only watched him rush out of the bridge, in which he closely tailed behind. The clanking of their boots pounding on the metal drowned out by the numerous explosions from inside the ship.

The hangar was left empty with only the sounds of howling winds pouring through and a choir of spatters gurgling down below. Don gritted his teeth furiously and rushed down the stairs. Cutlass in hand, he launched torwards the perpetrators that ruined his ship.

"They'll pay for what they've done!"

A vicious swipe of his sword made contact with one of the spatters cutting right through the middle. Only for the blades cuts to be covered again by the dripping ooze. Leaving no trace of Don's fury.

Vincent made his own attempt and let out two shots from his pistols. Unfortunately, met with the same outcome like Karnage. The bullets went straight through and bounced off the metallic interior.

Frustration grew as time did not. Looking over the situation, he hatched up a plan. Running to the wall of the hangar and closed the beak of the ship. The bat heard the creaking of the ship's beak close shut and saw Don was still inside. He dived to him and started shaking him by his shoulders in panic.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? HOW ARE YOU GETTING OUT WITH YOUR PLANE?"

"If I leave that beak open when we crash, we would be drinking sea water like little fishies. I want my beloved Vulture to be intact. Not to end up like the pathetic little shipwrecks made by primitive sea pirates.

I will make my retreat out the bomb bay doors. If we are truly lucky, we will pull the rug from underneath them spatters in the process. I rely on you to signal me when you open the doors. So if anything goes in the south direction; I WILL WEAR YOUR WINGS LIKE A GOTHIC CAPE!"

Vincent gave a speechless confirmation with a blank face. Eyes following the wolf luring the spatters to his plane. Still attempting to process the information with his wings tucked closer to his back defensively.

The familiar sounds of propellers filled the ship once again. Don had maneuvered his plane over the bomb bay doors and awaited Vincent's signal. Who stood by the button like a ride operator ready to plunge him out of the ship. He tore off the red bandana draped around his neck. Swinging it in the air like a flag with a high pitch whistle following right after. With a quick reaction from Don pushing on the throttle full force.

Not a moment later, the doors flung open underneath, dropping the spatters and plane into the air. All sounds faded away into the winds.

A feeling Don Karnage knew all too well. He was made to be apart of the skies. To soar through the clouds and plunder whoever he pleased. He pursuited the most skilled fliers through mountains and caves. This was no challenge for the prince of pirates. This was nothing more than an everyday adventure the writers put him through.

Pulling the throttle close to his chest as he rapidly approached the water. Meters turned to feet, city and harbor blurring together. The plane only grazed the slightest amount of water as it flew over by inches. Don's confidence remained unwaivered, circling around the Iron Vulture.

Vincent punched the button again sliding the doors back together. He rushed to one of the spatter-made holes and saw the captain's plane nimbly dodging the falling ink.

"That's the Don Karnage for you."

The bat whispered to himself tying his bandana back across his neck. Then made his own escape out of the ship. Flapping upwards to intercept Karnage's plane. He grappled onto one of the wings and tried to catch his shaky breath.

The captain didn't acknowledge Vincent at first. Only watched solemnly as the Iron Vulture splashed into the water below. Large tidal waves pulsating throughout the harbor. Karnage's face melted to bittersweet relief, seeing his ship float like a toy bot in a bathtub. A sigh of relief later, he spoke over the propeller.

"Excellent work, Vincent. Your precision managed to almost come close to rivaling my own talent."

"The only thing you're rivaling is the king's luck. Though your skills are impressive, not gonna deny it."

Feelings of mutual respect amongst captain and mechanic only clouded the internal feeling of despair for the crashed airship.

"We will come back for my ship. For now, we shall locate Rebecca Cunningham. I fear there's a connection to those failed attempts of art projects and Baloo's disappearance. "

The falling ink slowed to a stop, leaving the sounds of thunder and wailing winds behind. The tires of the plane made contact with the pavement of a cleared road close to the docks.

Vincent and Don stepped off into the wet street with a thud. Turning to see an upclose view of the damage the storm had brought to the unfortunate city.

The once vibrant buildings that proudly stood tall in the sky now bent into warped and twisted versions of their former glory. Leaving towers wilted and chunks of buildings missing. The thinner had burned through the colorful paint that coated the walls. Digging dull, lifeless dents in their structures. Most places in Wasteland had become husks of what they once were since the thinner disaster. But to see the effects in a matter of minutes showed the true destructive nature of the acid that plagued their world.

Drenched in sweat with pulses still pounding on the falling airship. They vigilantly walked down the pier cautiously, on edge with every creak of each dingy plank of wood.

"It's lucky that you and the vulture had stayed so strong after all these years."

Vincent's voice cut through the thick silence in attempt to distract Don's mind. Who stared ahead blankly like a lost child. Only thinking about all he'd lost all in one morning. His greatest enemy, his ship, and now the city he was supposed to conquer.

After all he was THE air pirate. He was supposed to be plundering things away. Not the other way around.

"We were airborne most of the time. We never were too close to the area where that pollution resided. Or where that...thing launched its last attack. Thanks to my excellent skills of navigation and planning, of course."

His snapped back to his self-assured persona. Remembering the captain he supposed to be.

A few steps later of weary walking, they arrived at their location at the far end of the docks.

Higher for Hire's headquarters resided in a small office with a storehouse and watchtower attached to it. Charming little place made of wood and scrap metal. Which didn't look as charming as it usually did as most of the city didn't at the moment. Holes littered the surfaces of the building and docks. With the biggest hole being the port where Baloo's cargo plane, The Seaduck, usually was found lazily rocking in the water. Alike to its pilot in his hammock right beside it.

They knocked at the office door with no response. They banged louder on the wooden door. Not a sound came from within. It remained pitch black. Not even a moment later, Karnage marched around to the side of the building over to a window. He stuck his cutlass through the gap. Scraping back and forth to unlock the window.

"You really can't be patient, can you? We can just get in though the multiple holes in the walls the blot gracefully left for us."

"I've stolen an idol and the keys to the seaduck plane before though this certain window. This is my own personal door in."

A loud pop later, the old window slid open. A cold breeze

"It is not my fault they don't ever fix this little issue."

Don's announcing footsteps echoed through the office floor. Strewn with missing fliers and numerous undelivered cargo that towered to the ceiling. A mug was left abandoned on the desktop with white steam still dancing above it. The captain took note of this and cleared his throat. Walking around while looking for the owner loudly calling out to her.

"Allo, Allo Rebecca Cunningham. It is I, the consulting captain, Don Kar-"

A turn of a corner unveiled a loaded flare gun pointed directly at Don. Putting his parade around the room came to a sharp halt. Hands up by his face in response with his thick brows raised. Vincent quickly armed himself with his pistols and pointed it directly at the holder. A stern yet shaky voice emerged from the dark corner.

"What do you want, Karnage?"

The gun pushed the captain to the center of the room. Pulling out the person holding it into the dim light. Vincent had his fingers on the triggers ready for any sudden movements.

An average sized woman stood composed at the pirates. She dressed in a pink jacket wrapped over a white turtleneck with muted purple slacks. Her eyes dead locked with this all too familiar intruder with stands of hair falling from her usually upkept French twist.

"Rebecca, I come on business inquiring about Baloo."

Her grip tightened on the flare gun. Raising both her voice and her aim towards his face.

"I assumed my powerful presence would act as a magnet to his metal exterior. Attracting him back to save his wonderful Cape Suzette from the likes of my glorious self. Though now, these pests overstaged me and ruined my onslaught.

"Who's to say you don't have him in your grasps already? If he's not with you; Then why are you in my office?

Getting impatient waiting to loot our cargo from the seaduck?"

May we please talk like civilized type of persons?"

She cautiously lowered her weapon with eyes still on the pirates. Vincent meeting her with the same cold gaze, placing his own pistols away back into his coat reluctantly. A moment later, Rebecca lead them to her desk. Dropping herself into her chair with a soft thud, exasperated. Loose papers gently floated in the air to the floor boards.

"First I lose my pilot and navigator, then the Blot comes back for another serving, and now I have air pirates in my office. I really can't catch a break, can I?"

"Unfortunately no my capitalist compatriot.

You could say your life has been in a "talespin" ever since we've been forgotten, Yes, no?

Hah, I make a joke."

He laughed at his own remark. The other two remained silent as they looked at him. Rebecca pulled at the strands of her brunette hair. Words filtering through her frustrated teeth.

"Give me a good reason why I shouldn't walk straight through the thinner and spatters to get the police?"

"As if the police are even in a solid unit at this point. Didn't even bother to shoot us or the blotlings out of the sky."

The bat chipped in the snarky remark from across the room. Peeking into open cargo boxes with curiosity. Mrs. Cunningham didn't even bother with turning her head to the bat and kept her gaze on Karnage.

"I'm sorry, Karnage. But I can't keep track of all your goons. Who is this?"

"This is Vincent Lunas. Relatively new to my honorable band of air pirates."

Karnage dragged Vincent away from his rummaging, displaying the mechanic as a collector presents his latest finds. An unimpressed Rebecca slumps in her chair, looking up at the two.

"Honorable is a loose term you use. All you do is steal and be a thorn at my side ever since the pilot episode."

"It's plunder miss-analysis-of-terms. You can't blame for loving my job and loving the riches you carry."

"King Oswald hasn't made any ill complaints about us. We stay in our air territory, and we have no quarrel."

The bat looked down onto Rebecca. Visibly irritated with how belittling this strewed businesswoman was towards him. Something he wasn't going to let by. His voice dropped low and sharp along with his brow.

"Since we're on the topic of "honorable. " Weren't you the one who endorsed those robot pilots who put dozens out of the job so you could get a good payment? If it wasn't for Karnage sabotaging that flight. Your little operation would've been 6 feet under before you even got dragged down here with the rest of us."

Vincent continued to jab at her track records with petty intent. Wings risen over his head, standing his ground. Rebecca pushed herself out of the chair to confront him. Don Karnage wedged himself between the two, voicing his own frustration.

"We are here to make a deal, not to cause more problems than there needs to be. It has been a long day though it is still is young.

A sharp exhale later, Don leaned on the desk with his hands together. Speaking in his charismatic voice that Rebecca had heard one too many times.

"You see, while you two were squabbling like little children. Don Karnage put some pieces together to this mystery puzzle. Who was the client who hired your services?"

"I'm not going to give out private information out like candy. I have a reputation to uphold and rules for my company."

"How about this; we help you find Baloo and Kit Cloudkicker and possibly help with this mess you and the citizens of Cape Suzette are in. If we are feeling so generous."

"...What's the catch?"

A foxy grin curled his lips over his sharp teeth. His voice spelled out persuasive words to Mrs. Cunningham interests and his own.

"You will put in a good word to the Cape Suzette officials to lift the ban of me and my crew in your city.

Think about it this way; I would not have to force my way into Cape Suzette and raid it if I was simply let in. Think of all the problems we can solve with this simple agreement, Mrs. Cunningham.

Not to mention the wonderful seafood dinners and loot we can easily take."

The last part was whispered underneath his breath, so only where Vincent could hear. Who smothered his visible anger with logic. Being overruled by the potential of his captain's clever negotiation. Fixing his demeanor to be more respectful and folded his wings behind his back.

"Alright, Karnage. I'll budge for now. As much as i don't want to be seen with you filthy pirates. I'm going with you to make sure you don't cause any problems with the info I gave you AND to make sure those two aren't making a fool of me.

"You have my word on my honor as an air pirate. We shall be on our bestest behaviors. isn't that right, Vincent?"

He spoke in a noble tone giving a theatrical bow to exemplify his promise. Vincent mimicking his captain's action right after with watered down enthusiasm.

Rebecca rose from her chair marching to a filing cabinet on the wall. Flipping through the contents inside. Pulling out a barely used file and held it in her hands.

"The last client those two flew for was for Khan Industries, under Shere Khan himself."

——————————————————————

(When this is posted, The Epic Mickey Rebrushed trailer had been released the same day. MY FIXATION MANEFESTED THE REMAKE)

Chap 1, Chap 2, Chap 3(W.I.P)

#o.p.a.t #don karnage #talespin #epic mickey #epic mickey 2 #the power of two #epic mickey rebrushed #fanfic #story #wasteland #air pirates #rebecca cunningham #gay #oswald the lucky rabbit #oswald disney #disney #baloo

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