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alavestineneas · 1 month

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and if you are there, why do i feel alone in this room?

pairing: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x fem!reader summary: The woman—a siren, some kind of sea beast lurking in deep, salted waters—sits near him with the ottoman under her feet that still seemed to deny her the comfort of rest, her eyes glinting with mischief when she notices his stare. Taunts, even, forge obliviousness to the spells she casts. Strange, otherworldly—redundant. Everything about her, down to the light gown and a headdress that showed little of her face, Feyd-Rautha was not used to seeing. warnings: mentions of death, violence, implied/referenced child abuse, religious symbolism, mentions of sa (!), blood and other parts of body, very non-healthy relationships chapter 1 - chapter 2 - chapter 3 !this work is part 2 to the i can feel the soil falling over my head; no people are here, just the void in my chest! word count: 7,3k

author's notes: hi beautiful people! today, I have finally finished this chapter and am thrilled to say that this fic requires part 3! be aware that this piece of literature is explicit and touches on some very heavy themes, including sa and child abuse. Please be mindful of it! As always, your opinions, suggestions, and critiques are welcome in the comments. Love you, and have a tasty read!

There are a lot of books stored in her memory, locked in the neurocytes safely. They are tucked into the cortex with love and tenderness that YN otherwise taught herself to suppress as a sign of her weaker self. But papers were non-living, so she felt like it was less dangerous for her to show warmth towards them; after all, if the objects can not acknowledge your love, does it really count as real? She read everything, mostly in an attempt to prepare herself for something she did not know the face of; she read to build the shield around herself, in desperate hope to be able to help at least her future self. YN read even now, although her foolish childhood desires were long gone, just to get a glimpse of the girl she was before the monsters escaped the pages.

The book she re-read the most was nothing special, nothing suiting the image she moulded herself into—a giant, relatively old encyclopaedia of animals inhabiting the furthest corners of Known Imperium. The letters inside, although faded a little, were left almost untouched by eyes—maybe it was what drew her in in the first place—to cherish something seen as unneeded. YN learned the small paragraphs almost by heart; she liked the idea of someone taking enough time to observe something as small as a roden to know its habits. She liked the idea of it happening to her one day. As it always is, it did not.

She chose her favourite animal without that much thought. Although even the notion of having something beloved was foolish, YN was made to choose; she and her sisters played the game of forest most often. The game was simple: pretend to be a creature you are not, forgetting the countless rules they had to follow. Pretending they have claws and teeth; pretending they can protect themselves not through intrigues and hidden motives but through open, bold force. Irulan was always a Katanga Lioness; she liked it because of the proximity to their house's symbol. YN did not; the grey pages of her beloved book described them as "observed to also scavenge on carrion of animals that were killed by other predators or died from natural causes''. What king of the animals steals the work of others simply to feed themselves? She did not tell Irulan that, of course—why would she?

YN chose a mountain lion for herself. Sure, she may have made a mistake thinking it was just another type of lion, but the game went too far to change anything, so she stuck with that. She even grew to love it—the drawing of the mountain lion on her character sheet, the way it prowled through the forest in her mind's eye. It had many names and many homes. Adaptive. Captivating.

She does not know why it came into her mind suddenly—maybe it was the dim light of the closed arena. The air circulated here freely, cooling through the complex systems of vents, even though it seemed to be deprived of any life—just a mechanical circle of the same molecules moving around her seated figure and returning to the hidden openings again and again. YN looked straight ahead; the two men were still sparring.

From her bench, they looked like one—two bodies moved so swiftly that one was unable to differentiate where the lines of their limbs ended. YN squinted her eyes; she was alone in the seating area, and still, she dared not move closer. The taller, thinner figure possessed skin so white it looked almost translucent underneath the cold light—YN wondered if she would be able to see the structures in his body through his clothed stomach. He moved well, almost too well for her not to press her lower row of teeth to the top one, hiding the tongue in a cave of pearl bones—she had hoped he was worse with his bare hands. YN had counted four hundred and five seconds before he made a mistake in his steps; it was a lot more than her own results, but for a man, he was good.

Feyd-Rautha had style; she had to give him that. He fought like a serpent would: calculated, precise. His fists knew the most effective targets, and his legs knew how to escape the blows of his opponent. If YN was to guess, he relied on muscle memory less than a usual fighter would, preferring to dwell in the moment instead. It made for a good show, sure, but it was not practical. She smiled to herself; of course, the na-Baron could not know what the real battle was like. How unfortunate for him—how delightful for her. YN still can't believe he let her watch his training every morning—was he really that stupid not to realise her motive? Was he too confident to consider having weaknesses?

Regardless, she saw what she needed to do - for three hours every day, she set unmovingly on the third bench in a small fighting ground, imprinting his every move in her mind. There are so many moves you can use and so many tricks you can do before she learns them all. YN did not care for the cold gaze thrown in her direction when Feyd-Rautha collapsed on the ground, taking a moment to rest before lurching onto his opponent again. She can wait.

Mountain lions are stealthy predators.

The days she spent here changed into months, their slow steps morphing into each other until time became a blur, a concept she did not grasp. Feyd-Rautha was a hard one to warm, but before she would mould him into something she wanted, YN needed to heat his DNA to a certain magnitude; otherwise, he would simply break. She would've gladly accepted this turn of fate too, but right now, keeping na-Baron alive is far more convenient for the Bene Gessarit. For her.

A concubine. A slap in the face: it seemed like life was determined to dissolve the small bits of her dignity in its endless pool of secrets. She was not a wife to Harkonnen na-Baron; no, she was to be his whore. If she was not too tired, she would've felt a pang of fear on her rising with oxygen lungs; a concubine's position is even lower here compared to one of a lawful wife's. YN remembers the words of her teacher as she prepared her for the union: Harkonnen concubines are killed after their first night in a position; if one is lucky enough to escape the fate by being with a child, she bears him until it's time for the baby to be born. One of the greatest honours for a Harkonnen is to take the life of his mother as soon as he enters the world.

She was to join na-Baron for breakfast today—a proposal YN waited long to receive, but part of her wishes she never did. It was worded like an invitation; YN knows it was not. Harkonnens rarely spoke when they did not give orders—a creature of habit, she supposed. So, she did what she had to: follow the slave to the chambers designated for the meal. The hem of her dress shone with a colour so foreign to the fort around her; YN needed to make herself stand out. Men are much like children, she learned—the more colourful the toy, the more likely they will want to play with it.

The walls were heavy here. They didn't bend in the shapes she was used to, preferring to stand tall. They didn't have to hide their strength underneath a complicated facade—quite the opposite. They paraded it, wearing it like the honour it is. Staying unremorsefully unbending. Maybe it's the air or a different measure of gravity; maybe it's her habit of soaking up the surroundings and letting them poison her insides, growing rotten in between the folds of her stomach tissue, but her legs are metal, stone-cold, pulling YN deeper and deeper into the floor. She tries so hard to ignore the three creatures in the corner.

They are hairless, much like the man in front of her, and dressed in matching black. YN would've mistaken them for Harkonnen royalty if it were not for the iron collars on their necks and the glowing black eyes that seemed to follow her every move. She would've been happy to have some company and not be forced into solitude with na-Baron if it were not for a still convulsing body on the floor. A body she did not recognise, but it could've easily been her own.

The creatures seemed to enjoy the involuntary moves of the soon-to-be corpse; they closed their eyes in delight and bared the sharp, black-coloured teeth in sheer pleasure as they lurched into the white flesh. They ripped it apart with only their hands, not bothering to use the prepared knives for more than a big incision from head to stomach. The sounds of chewing and gnawing filled the room, echoing off the walls and sending electric impulses down her body. YN was used to the metallic smell and the bright colour of arterial blood, but this was not a simple death. It was a show, and she was the long-awaited watcher.

Feyd-Rautha seemed unbothered by the sight near him. His hands, covered in thick streaks of blood, were deep to his elbows in the body. He dissected the corpse with precision, his eyes focused and his grip steady. He looked calm, even peaceful. Na-Baron was in good humour today. ''I must say, your arrival has graced us with much more than just the dowery; nothing could've made this union more auspicious—such a rare bird you are, daughter of our generous Emperor. A princess, yet treated no better than a common slave.''

Here it was: the thing she was thinking about all the way to this strange, garbage planet in the dress that pokes bleeding holes in her abdomen with each glass she downs. From his lips, it sounds even more bitter; even savages found the way the Emperor sold one of his daughters so easily strange. "Both of our houses have traditions far beyond our understanding," YN shrugs, scaring her thoughts away like annoying flies. Here, in a room so far from the comfort of her home, they moved too fast, bringing nausea to her throat.

She is here to secure the bloodline of House Harkonnen, to ensure the balance needed in the Imperium. YN does not notice how suddenly her gaze darkens or how tightly the hands that rested on the chair are now holding the pleated velvet of her ruby-red gown. Oh, the baby. The tiny creature inside her womb, the future head for the Baron's crown to be placed upon. The yet unconcieved child she could not feel love for. She was given no other choice but to risk its life before even giving it a chance to obtain its gift.

''Then you will find my present to be quite fitting.''

YN watches in silence as na-Baron reaches inside the rib cage of the corpse. He reaps out an organ with one swift motion, almost like plucking a harmful sprout from the garden. The organ is broun and rosewood, a weird mixture of shades that make it harder for her to focus on anything but the thing in his large hand. The gift he meant to give was a human heart.

She feels his walk long before she sees a figure departing from its place at the table; she guesses the end point of his manoeuvres too easily. It's almost funny—a cruel, senseless joke; how obvious the slight tremor in her hands is; how heavy her eyes become at the sight of Harkonnen black. The body positions itself near; if she squints, she can hear the hot breathing somewhere between her shoulder blades. His hand snakes around her neck quickly, positioning the organ right in front of her mouth. YN can detect the smell hitting her nostrils before she closes the receptors in them. She wants to scream, but the notes die in her throat. Who would she scream for? She hears the creatures hiss and whisper—the heart is a good part, from what she can make out. It did not need to be wasted on people like her.

''Will you not accept it?'' Feyd-Rautha's words are mocking, but his dark blue eyes stay virgin to the laughter. They drill small spots on her neck from behind with such force that YN can almost feel the burnt smell of her sweat-covered skin.

She takes a breath. Her own heart shrinks, its vessels beating with intensity twice as much as needed. Still alive, she notes absently. Still breathing. The feeling is natural and easy; the forced calmness in her body tingles the muscles, braiding her nerves into a pattern similar to the netting. Then, she opens her mouth.

"If I shall lick the blood of your hands, Feyd-Rautha, dare to make it your own."

That's it.

Maybe the Emperor was right to spare her none of the Sardaukars and a quarter of her dresses. She did not need more; she was not expected to survive long enough to use half of her clothes. YN chucked under her breath. Dead over diet preferences—how profound.

After a moment, the pale face behind her also twists, allowing the blackened teeth to escape the grip of thin lips. Like this, na-Baron looks less human and more like the evil he was said to be. He throws the heart to the creatures—they catch it greedily—and places a bloodied hand on her shoulder, the droplets of crimson going unnoticed on the brightly coloured cloth. ''Very well, then. Let us eat.''

YN nods. She looks around almost instinctively; nothing could make her eat a thing after the sight she just witnessed, but she refuses the na-Baron once; she is not about to do it again. The food is a lot, but her plate is almost empty: only a small amount of salad is here, sadly staring into the hunger in her eyes and a now featherless creature in an unnatural pose, suggesting its non-poetical death. The bird is small, almost delicate; its wings are pitifully glued to the body. YN does not want to let her mind draw the comparison, and does not allow her brain to admit a direct analogy; she dissects the bird with a dull knife and puts a piece in her dry mouth. The creature tastes good—almost too good to be expected in this brightly lit hall.

Most often deer is the mountain lion’s staple diet. However, they can survive preying on small animals as well.

The night covers Giedi Prime rather quickly; it never lingers, politely waiting for its masters to finish their daily affairs; it hits like a coward, from behind, trapping those not careful enough to hide before its arrival. The harsh, toxic waves of lazy winds hit the walls of the halls coldly lighted with a few sphears; they look like deep forest clearings, forming a system of endless options, ultimately leading to one, inevitable, end. His work chambers aren't big; he does not visit them often for them to be. The solitary metal desk before him is filled with letters, drafts of laws, and official documents, all waiting for his approval. It exhausts Feyd-Rautha to no end, the sheer stupidity of most of the advisers here; almost half of the documents were riddled with errors and inconsistencies. The forever present in his head dull migraine grows stronger when he opens the shortest letter; he almost busts his skull open when the pain heavies.

He ponders too much—the type of thoughts you can feel running on your tongue but never escaping. He is not used to being in the mist; all of his life is so painfully contrasted that no doubt of its nature can survive the sharp edge of his mind. There are things he can escape—forget, even—but some linger in his ribcage too long for them to vanish. Soon, they grow into his lungs with small, unbreakable threads, becoming him. He used to try to get them away from his heart, as if it held some value. Now, he is smarter, older, and more indifferent, he lets them pierce yet another piece of human flesh with no sorrow.

Of course, he remembered her face. The same face that haunted his sleep ever since she dared to appear before his eyes. Feyd-Rautha, naturally, found her little frolic that day. He spent an entire evening studying her work, analysing every move she could've made with her blade to achieve such outcomes. Sure, some things he would've done differently, but the sheer brutality of an animal he would not have guessed the girl possessed charmed him. Feyd-Rautha was a proud man, but he, too, held a love for beautiful things. For that, he hadn't told the Baron of the sight he discovered in the reading room. For that, he is now willing to pretend to believe her eyes when the fear fleshes in them.

Feyd-Rautha curses; she sickens. Like a bone stuck somewhere down his throat, not letting him live without a pang of mocking. She lurks, and whispers—Feyd-Rautha wants to smash her pretty head against the wall just to reveal the secrets she hides from him so he can finally understand the hold she retains. He is no stranger to the desire to own, or devour, but the fear in the back wall of his stomach is an alien in his body. He tries to hide it—to paint over it with anger or violence—but it remains a constant presence, gnawing at him from within. It's no use; the woman is a shark, designed to sense the fright. Maybe that's what brought him in in the first place—the steel eyes so similar to his own in a narrow hall all those years before. Maybe he was so used to the danger that he craved it subconsciously, looking for it to make him feel like himself again. A reoccurring childhood nightmare he can't escape; he doesn't want to escape.

Feyd-Rautha finds the chair to put his weight on and waits until the tingling, spinning sensation spreads from his temples down his neck, finding its way into his bloodstream and passing his organs one by one, until none are left uncorrupted. Of course, he expects it. The woman slipped into his brain and now chews her way into it like a parasite downs the rotten body. He knows he should be terrified, but instead, he feels a strange sense of relief. Feyd-Rautha can hear the whispers of his own mind fighting to remain the only owners of the secrets and desires buried within. He feels his eyelids heavy; a second later, the whites of his eyes are staring at the ceiling, the blue eye lenses dissolving in light.

Water. The first thing he feels is ice-cold water dripping onto his face, filling his lungs, and sending a shock through his arms. This body does not feel like his; it's too small, too narrow. His eyes are trying to adjust as fast as they can, jumping from one blurred spot to another until finally catching a glimpse of the surroundings. His brain does not have time to process the picture; his nose is filled with fluid again, and his open mouth is gasping for air but only taking in more liquid. He tries waving his hands around, but the stronger grip is firm on his nape, pulling him further down into the depths. The hand yanked him out just as he was about to fall into darkness again, the sound of water changing to loud screeching.

''How dare you hit me, devil child? Let the water wash away your dirt. Repent; beg for forgiveness for all of your rotten nature.''

The voice is unknown to him; it is harsh and filled with fury. The woman's face is twisted in anger; splashes of water on it match his. He can't tell if they are from his antics or tears. The woman's grip tightens, her nails digging into his skin. The black clothes on her figure make her status known - a Bene Gessarit witch. Feyd-Rautha tries to lurch forward and hit her back, but her strength is overwhelming. He feels panic coursing through his veins instead of oxygen—a sensation he did not think he could experience anymore. He wants to bark a response to show her that he is not afraid, but his voice catches in his throat.

Feyd-Rautha has no time to wonder what the woman wants; she brings his face to the bathtub again, and he opens his mouth involuntarily, frantically begging not to do it anymore. He says everything she wants to hear; he cries out and promises to wash his sins away. The voice does not sound like his at all. He is desperate to end this nightmare now, but some force holds him here. The woman is not satisfied; her ears are deaf to his pleas.

His face ends up on the water surface a moment later, his nose hitting the wall of the bathtub as the woman holds him down. He feels his body go limp with utter horror; this time, the shouting woman won't stop. Her voice grows quieter, replaced by the sound of small waves hitting the brim and spilling; from right to left, the water turns red, and his tongue tastes the iron he knows from sliding blades into his mouth.

''Echidna, what the fuck are you doing? Let her go; she is going to choke!''

''Get that spawn to me, for I will not let her ruin my life anymore! I must finish what I have started!''

Feyd-Rautha's head is filled with oxygen once again; his lungs take a desperate breath in, sending too much air to his blood system. He falls on his back, the world spinning. He does not care for the weeping woman in black or the chaos unfolding around him. His only thought is that everything is finally done and that the white floors are a magnificent place for drops of liquid to fall from his normally bald head's waterfall of hair.

He wakes up suddenly, the sensation long gone. His steps are heavy again; the body he inhibits no longer feels like a cage. The voices have left him for now, and the only thing on his forehead left is small drops of sweat and a pathetic, frightened, beating heart. The cold breeze from the darkened sands surrounding the city wishes to prove otherwise—it heavies and plants its spikes into his reddened cheeks. The horizon gleams at him, almost taunting; not a single star is to be seen under the imposing clouds. He will kill her; maybe he will even enjoy it. Feyd-Rautha can handle a lot, but not the shame of being seen. Not the guilt of being caught wanting.

There are only three ways to hunt a mountain lion: tracking, waiting in ambush, and with dogs.

The gliding motions of heavy fabrics across the wooden floors created a strange pattern of a song now centuries old. Here, in a room so long that the wind travelled through the hollows, her careful steps seemed to almost fall silent. Nothing was there for the preying eyes to see. YN closes her eyes; with that, even for a moment, the world stays still. She knows where the hollow staircase will lead her; she feels it in her stomach with every step she takes. YN knows nothing about the future, but the past lives deep in her memories, haunting her every move. She knows she shouldn't have done it. Travelling through one's mind is a sin she can't escape; she will pay the price for it in her blood, but the Bene Gesarit did not send her here to survive, so it's of no use to be afraid now. It makes no difference for the dead if you weep at their grave or not.

The burning sphere of light in the hall stops spinning; the doors open without any noise, although if the pounding eardrums had not stunned her hearing, she could've noticed the faint thuds. YN waits; there are no flashes of her happiest memories or the faces of her loved ones in her drained mind. No, in what seems to be her last moments, she thinks of what she could've been if the world had not given her a sword to turn into.

Feyd-Rautha appears in the hall; his steps aren't rushed, and his expression is stone-cold. She eyes him shamelessly: nothing. She sees nothing; she senses it deep in her crying bones. He drags her by the hair like a mother would with her misbehaving child; roughly, he pulls her towards the exit, his grip tightening with each step until the door behind them closes and her knees meet the cold ground with a nasty thud. The bruises will stain them soon, not that it matters now.

''You should've known better than to cross me,'' he hisses, his voice gruff. It's cold, chilling—the way his lips part to reveal a sinister smile. ''Now, you can think yourself vanished, little witch.''

YN does not answer—what fool would beg the deaf? The blade against her chin is sharp; she knows how attentive he is when it comes to inflicting pain. It pokes right into the Omehyoid muscle, a dull pain shooting through her body. If she has got to die, it may as well be from his skilled arms. How beautiful he is in the twisted pleasure he finds in her suffering. Unearthly, almost too perfect to be made of simple flesh and bone. Something was unnerving, unforgettable in the net of veins under his pearly skin; it was as if he were a work of art, meticulously crafted to bring physical pain and optical pleasure in equal measure. A silver glint under the defined cheekbones, a redness of lips filled with blood vessels. For a second, YN wonders what it would be like to bite into it, like an apple that lay too long under the golden sun; would the blood slip as generously as the sweet nectar? Handsome as poison, as a black sun on his forsaken planet, as death.

''Go on. Kill me, then; let me escape you once and for all.''

Under the deep sea of his eyes, something moved; his eyes dipped into her, part by part. Like the slow, deliberate dance of a predator stalking its prey, his gaze lingered on her, calculating and intense. YN lowered her head to push the knife a little deeper into the flesh. A strange thought lingered in her brain; she found herself on her knees in front of him, almost willingly. She has worshipped God all her life; who, if not her, can recognise his creation? The Devil. Lucifer. Satan. The man with horns so big they once touched the skies; a corrupt angel, fallen from grace so long ago he couldn't remember way back if he tried. They have warned her about him, but is it her fault that God has disowned her earlier than she could? Did it really matter to her, before whom to kneel, as long as she felt a sense of power and control in her submission?

All that mattered now was that he wanted to hurt her. He wanted her.

She sees the recognition flicker on his face. Caught. The blade slides quickly across her exposed neck, the blood sprouting out in a weak, painfully quick stream. Feyd-Rautha kissed her, biting her bottom lip till the stream of boldly coloured blood trickled down his chin. He did so like an animal would, baring his teeth and dragging them across the pulsating vein on her neck. YN's laughing cry echoes in the empty room; she is forced to admit that he felt good.

Never approach a mountain lion; most mountain lions prefer to avoid confrontations, so never approach them and make them feel cornered.

The woman—a siren, some kind of sea beast lurking in deep, salted waters—sits near him with the ottoman under her feet that still seemed to deny her the comfort of rest, her eyes glinting with mischief when she notices his stare. Taunts, even, forge obliviousness to the spells she casts. Strange, otherworldly—redundant. Everything about her, down to the light gown and a headdress that showed little of her face, Feyd-Rautha was not used to seeing. The beautiful substance of her hair caught the light from the sun like a mirage in the desert, reflecting in his eyes with painful hits. The jewels, too, have found their way onto her clothes, but they were hidden beneath the layers of fabric. They shined brightly, impertinently, framing her figure in a glow that seemed to come from within.

To his surprise, the skills woman possessed spread out to politics as well, with her witch training proving useful in court. Feyd-Rautha did not miss how his advisors grew more uneasy when she entered the room, her careful eyes scanning their faces for even a hint of betrayal or deceit. Like a proud discoverer, he ached to share his new-found wonder with the blind audience, but something in him protested in a mare thought of showing the precious jewel of his eye to the cluster of unworthy. So, Feyd-Rautha did the only thing he knew how— all of his secret observations were done from afar, masterfully hidden behind the facade of casual indifference.

As he drags yet another blade across the surface of the whetstone, he thinks about her delicate hands on his neck, her ringed fingers tracing the lines of his jaw. Harkonnen men rarely wed; they just take what they capture—men and women—and turn them into slaves. Some, if particularly sweet, are reserved for fucking. There are no special songs for that; there isn't a specific word in their native tongue for wife, either. It doesn't matter; YN is nothing of the sort. A concubine, a possession, a tool for pleasure and procreation—the Harkonnen way was simple.

''Are you done eye-fucking me now, or do you need more time with your blade?'' she sneers, her voice mocking. Only she could get away with such bold defiance in his presence, but she does not seem to care for the unusualness of it.

YN motions for him to come closer, her eyes studying the way his legs move. Feyd-Rautha has no control over them; the steps make themselves. She plays the game very well; the chase fuels something primal within him. Thirst. Hunger. It was the Harkonnen training talking to him—the wild, ancient sensation taking over his insides and imprisoning his mind in a cage of helpless desire. It spread its tentacles down to his fingertips, nesting in his abdomen. He positions himself in front of her, his body betraying him as he leans in closer, drawn to her like a moth to a flame. Feyd-Rautha's hands repeat the ritual almost instinctively, rolling the hem of her deep purple dress up to her waist.

''Stop for a second,'' she whispers against his ear, her breath warm and inviting. ''Can I give you a piece of advice?''

Feyd-Rautha can feel the anger creeping into his body; he does not like to be refused. ''No,'' he grumbles, turning her around forcefully. "I don't need your advice," he snaps, his grip tightening on her arm.

YN does not seem to care for it. ''Don't do it. It will only lead to trouble.''

''What?'' He stops, his eyes narrowing as he absorbs the woman's words. The doubts that had lingered in the back of his mind suddenly grew louder, echoing through his mind. He releases her arm, his expression stoic. ''You are insane, woman. What are you talking about?''

''You know what I mean.''

The unease boils in his stomach. How could she know? He was careful not to slip anything; she wasn't able to cast her spells anymore either. But her knowing gaze tells him otherwise. ''You can not know the future,'' he pronounces.

''I don't need to know the future to see the truth, Feyd-Rautha. Your judgement is clouded by rage, and your mind is not as sharp as it usually is. You are not as invincible as you think you are.''

She is bluffing, he thinks. He hopes she is. Feyd-Rautha almost wished there was no cloth covering her face, nothing to hide her expressions as she lay beneath him. He catches her flamed eyes and the way they circle his face in one swift motion before settling on the ceiling above. It unnerves him, but he refuses to show it. She is no master here; she is simply a servant. That is not what power looks like, if he ever recognised one, and Feyd-Rautha knew power.

''Get out, now.''

Nothing was portrayed on her face as she curtseyed; nothing was there when she turned and walked to her rooms, leaving nothing but the ghost of the human body's warmth.

Mountain lions are more at home in brushy areas than in open prairies.

And then, he disappeared. Like the sound of the morning birds falling silent in the cacophony of voices of the city on her home planet, there was no trace of na-Baron in the entire Harkonnen fortress. YN thought she was slowly but surely going mad; no one but her noticed the usual place by the window empty, and no one but her seemed to care enough to know where he went. She caught strange looks from a few, and frankly, she thought they were right. She looked like a mad woman, her hair quickly plated and her dress hurriedly laced, her eyes darting around the room in search of any sign of Feyd-Rautha's massive figure. Noon was dragged into the evening, and then night, for three, long days until she heard the long-awaited news: na-Baron Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen had tried to usurp his uncle and had failed.

She has told him so. A fucking brainless ram, with stubbornness bigger than his cock—why did he think he could outsmart the Baron? He will pay for his dumbness with his blood, perhaps even his limb—the thought brought nausea to YN's throat. She was lucky the Baron did not consider her important enough to be knowledgeable of such schemes; she lowered her head in the desert, hiding from the sand storms of Harkonnen politics; she waited for two long weeks until the announcement was made; Feyd-Rautha was forgiven. The celebration in honour of this news is to be today; she is to attend it. Not like his concubine, YN supposed, but more like the princess she still was.

Now, she took her time. YN chose a gown she wanted long enough to make even a tireless slave yawn, savouring each moment before their meeting. She was a victor now, in their small game of cat and mouse. He was a cat, but the mouse could still outwit him with grace and style. YN smiled at the wondering attendants; she looked good, and she was going to meet him.

The walk from her chambers to the Grand Hall wasn't too long; she would've walked a thousand more stairs if it was needed. The doors opened without a sound, revealing nothing but a mere celebration of yet another year under the reign of Harkonnens. The lines of slaves changed one another, the uneven circles of people dancing appearing and fleeing to the cheerful tone of strings. She was set somewhere between two Harkonnen lords she had no chance of knowing; she felt a sense of unease creeping up her spine as she tried to maintain a polite smile. Their gazes didn't look right; something sinister lurked inside them—hiding a secret she had no chance of knowing.

One of them turned to her, a chilling smile spreading across his face. "How are you finding the evening, lady YN? Or, what should I call you?,'' he mastered a fake confusion. ''Perhaps, darling? Concubine has a cheap wing to it; quite unworthy of a face so lovely as yours, don't you think?"

Dirt. The thing that crawled under her skin at his words was like dirt, making her feel unclean and exposed. She forced a laugh, trying to brush off his comments, the crown of her hair moving with muscles underneath her skin. "I am a princess, my Lord. Address me as such."

It would be enough every other noon, but today. The man's face twists, as if he just remembered something; he turns, the wine in his goblet splashing on the tablecloth. ''I think na-Baron wouldn't be too angry if I stole a princess for the night," he sneered, his eyes darkening with malice.

''Does it matter to you either way?''

YN watches as the smirk, so similar to Feyd-Rautha's, appears on the men's lips, although it doesn't feel the same. She fights back disgust as the man nods, biting into a hefty chunk of prey. His eyes, once focused on her, drifted away. YN chose to follow them; the string of fat streaming down the man's mouth onto the silver tablecloth made her nauseous. She looked from one unfamiliar face to another, until the cold feeling in her abdomen crept its way onto her chest.

There he was. His figure is unusually crouching as he sits on the podium reserved for members of the dynasty. The dark blue eyes are red now; the thin blood vessels in them are torn and emptied. His body seemed to suck the light out of the hall inside, casting a shadow over the room. There are no scars on his smooth face, but the sunken cheeks and hollow eyes spoke of a suffering that went beyond physical wounds. YN almost wished she saw him dead; whatever this was, it was surely much worse. He raised his eyes slowly to meet hers; something flickered in them before turning back to their empty state. Feyd-Rautha parts his dry lips to say something to her—she can't understand a word he draws with his breath.

From the place nearby, the Baron's voice booms, his low, almost whisper-like vowels mending into one. His face, covered with layers of skin and dead cells, twists into what was meant to be a welcoming smile—the corners of his paper-thin lips dance, lowering themselves only to jump higher, and his eyes travel from one corner to another, unable to be still even for a moment. He speaks of things YN knows nothing about court intrigue, power struggles, and alliances that shape the fate of their world, heavy with hidden meanings and unspoken threats. She does not listen until he gestures towards her, a scent of spice and decomposing flesh lingering.

''Sergeant Voss has served me well, and his loyalty at the right time is not to be forgotten. Here, I bestow upon him the highest honour of all; what was once mine, is now his. Do not let go of her if she screams, Sergeant; the girl is a fine one.''

No. YN almost does not recognise the hand as her own as the man drags her to the bed that appeared out of nowhere, freezing with horror as the people around her continue to watch in silence, their eyes devoid of any emotion or empathy. The tradition, she notes, is the one she learned so much about bedding in front of the entire court as a symbol of unity. She choked on her own tears as the man smiled at her pleas for help; they seemed to make him even more pleased.

YN looks, frantically, to the place she saw Feyd-Rautha sitting just a moment before. He would help; surely, he would not let them do it to her—his servant, his concubine, his. But the seat is empty. The scream echoing through the hall does not register as hers right away; he has sold her. For his own freedom, for a chance to be free from the consequences of his own stupid actions. Surely, the Harkonnens could not get rid of her openly—it would mean war—but she was not immune to the man who now owned her. His hands travelled her body with such audacity that YN wanted to cut them off—to cut her chest just so she could not feel the fingers digging into her skin. A sole reminder she was a woman first and a human second.

Mountain lions are solitary hunters.

The man undressed himself quickly; all of the soldiers were trained to do so. She should run; she should fight back, but the pair of unmoving hands pinning her wrists down was a stark reminder of her helplessness. The man lowers himself closer, his hot breath against her neck making her shudder in fear. She can feel him against her skirts; she can feel the weight of his body pressing down on her. The adrenaline is pumping through her veins; she will survive. Whatever it fucking takes, even if her body is bruised and broken, she will survive.

They prefer to ambush their prey from behind by swiftly and cleanly breaking the neck.

She bites—her teeth launch towards his cheek, feeling the warm flesh give way beneath her. She sinks them deeper, making holes big enough to draw blood. It's hot, and sickening on her tongue, but she does not have time for these thoughts; her next blow is in his stomach, with his knee jammed into his gut. She can feel his body convulse in pain, giving her a chance to throw him on the bed, his broad back facing her.

If they haven’t broken the neck, they will suffocate the animal.

There is nothing around that could serve as a knife; her captors made sure of that, and the sheets are too thin to wrap around his neck. She looks around the room, desperate for something to use, but the space around her is empty. YN curses as the man regains his composure and begins to struggle against her hold. Her elbow meets his nose with a sickening crunch, causing blood to spurt out. She takes a breath in; her hand wraps around his neck, forming a tight hold as she goes into the headlock. She chokes him, so desperately trying to live. And the man trashes against her grip, his white face turning a deep shade of purple before finally going limp in her arms.

Shame.

A thing that followed her after every life she took is now absent. Maybe the Giedi Prime's cruelty did have its effect on her; YN feels nothing but a sense of emptiness as she stands over the lifeless body.

''Do you have any more men to gift me to, Baron Vladimir? The night is still young.''

Her voice has changed. It holds a certain hiss now, a rasp that wasn't present before; it has matured and bloomed into half an octave deeper tone. It bites through the noise easily, cutting sharply.

The Baron laughs. His eyes gleam with amusement as he gestures towards the door. "Plenty more where that came from, my dear, but it's enough for today. Here,'' he throws something in her, a smirk ghosting on his lips. ''You've earned it.''

YN catches it and inspects the object in her hand. A small, golden broche catches the light, glinting in the dimly lit room. A head of the Bighorn ram stares back at her, the symbol of House Harkonnen. The taste of victory mingled with the metallic tang, leaving a bittersweet sensation in her mouth. Joy courses her veins—she isn't afraid. Finally, she is not afraid. Finally, she can look at her blood-stained hands without humiliation. Is it her fault she was born a better knife than a person?

Bighorn sheep are not a primary food source in most areas. However, when a lion does kill a sheep, they typically will continue to do so over and over again, until the herd is depleted.

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ckret2 · 5 months

Text

Chapter 32 of human Bill is convinced he's the best prisoner ever and does not deserve this abuse from the Pines:

Bill gets his fingernails painted! 💅🌈✨ Look at his fingernails, I drew this week's picture just to show them off. They're fun.

Bill also gets bound to a magic poppet that can control his every move.

It's hilarious for Dipper and Mabel, but not for Bill.

The early morning still was broken by Stan's wails of despair.

At some point during the night, the egg-and-toilet-papering kids had come back to Stan's car.

And they'd brought rocks.

####

Bill woke up with a sheet tossed over him and a cupcake sitting on the window seat. The cupcake was pink with green frosting and decorated like a happy jack-o'-melon. It was sitting on top of a note:

"Sorry I didn't mention I had plans tonight! Robbie's mom made cupcakes for everyone so I grabbed you one. The music video's gonna be AMAZING! I'll show you when Robbie posts it!" Mabel had signed with a shooting star.

Bill decided he hadn't been mad at Mabel last night at all.

He battled gravity to heave himself vertical, trudged downstairs to the bathroom, stuck his face under the faucet until his mouth tasted less like sour sandpaper, agonizingly dragged himself back upstairs to his makeshift bed, and collapsed under the sheet to wait until his head stopped hammering.

####

Sprawled on the living room floor, Mabel said, "What should I draw?"

"Draw me." Bill was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, watching the news and nursing a glass of Mabel juice. In an effort to counteract the lingering queasiness from overdosing on sugar and chocolate, he'd spiked the juice with two ground-up Elderly 60+ Vitaman™ brand Man Vitamins (khaki flavor) stolen from a bottle that Ford had bought for Stan and that Stan forgot to take.

"Okay!" Mabel turned around and squinted up at Bill. "Strike a pose!"

"Not like this!" Bill shoved a hand in Mabel's face to force her to stop looking. "Draw me how I really look."

"Bill, that's illegal. Remember?" Mabel pointed at the TV. Bodacious T was reporting on a child who'd dressed up for Summerween as "that weird out-of-towner who bothered us last year, you know the one," and who, under the Never Mind All That Act, had been fined fifty pieces of candy. The child's mugshot showed his crying face, but blurred out his yellow costume.

"He'd be the coolest kid in town," Bill said, "if he wasn't such a crybaby in front of the cops. Draw me anyway."

"I don't wanna get arrested!"

"Do you see any cops?" Bill grinned. "Just don't sign your name, nobody will know it was you."

Mabel considered that. "I can sign it someone else's name." She pulled out a few crayons.

"That's what I'm talking about! Do anything you want forever and frame the innocent!"

"What do you want me to draw you doing?"

"The coolest thing you can think of."

Mabel considered that, and got to work.

The news was boring now. They were talking about the weather, and it wasn't even interesting weather. "So hey, you were gonna tell me about filming last night?"

"Oh yeah!" Mabel said. "Did I mention the part where the dead rose from their graves?"

Bill muted the TV. "And I missed it?"

Robbie had decided the cemetery at his place would be more atmospheric than the trick-or-treater-filled streets (and less likely to have their shots ruined by passersby that didn't appreciate the depth of Robbie's lyrics). It went great, until the vibrations of angsty rock-and-roll stirred the slumbering corpses and they clawed their way from their graves. It turned out Gravity Falls had been having off-and-on invasions of the undead for the past year, ever since somebody decided to reanimate every corpse in town for fun, Bill.

"You can't prove it was me, I'm not the only one who knows how to raise the dead!" Bill laughed. "Hey—you're not drawing this body, are you? You said you wouldn't."

"I'm not, I promise!"

"Then why do you keep staring at me?"

"Um."

"Let me see!"

"No! Don't ruin the surprise!" Mabel picked up a glitter pen with feathers glued to the end and waved them in Bill's face. "And no cheating with your eye-bleeding psychic magic!"

Bill smacked the pen away. "Fine! So what did you do with the zombies? Feed one of the teens to them?"

"No! I chewed like four packs of gum me and Dipper got from the weird homeless dentist and made a fake baby brain. We used it as bait to lead them into an open grave," Mabel said. "And then we realized we could use the brain to train them to do tricks! So now we have dancing zombies in the music video. They actually learned the choreography pretty easily."

"Makes sense," Bill said. "I did fill the space where their souls should be with an insatiable hunger to party."

Mabel grinned. "I thought you said they weren't your fault."

"If they're good at dancing, I'm taking credit!"

"They were pretty good—especially considering how many limbs they were missing," Mabel said. "I'll show you when Robbie's finished editing the video."

"And I'll get to see you playing a creepy ghost kid, right?"

"Yeah! We were the greatest ghosts ever! Check it out, we were like—" Mabel fixed Bill with a dead-eyed slack-jawed stare and whisper-sang, "'We're the things that you have lost. Childhood joy, dead as a ghost.'"

"Chills."

"Dipper tried so hard to get in character as a ghost that he completely zoned out for a minute! When we shook him out of it, he said he felt like he had an out-of-body experience!"

####

At his computer, Robbie clicked play on a clip of the twins standing side-by-side in front of the cemetery gate. As they sang the chorus, Dipper's face went still; and then a spectral gray form rose out of his head, still singing in sync with Mabel.

"Whoa," Robbie said. "Sick. I'm keeping that in."

####

"So, it turns out my bro is an expert method actor," Mabel boasted.

Bill thought back to Dipper drifting up and down the stairs in the middle of the night. "Yep. Sounds like he's got quite a talent."

Mabel set down her crayons and held out a paper. "Okay—what do you think?"

Bill accepted the drawing. "Am I riding on the back of a rocket ship?"

"Like a bucking bronco! See the rocket flames doing a loop?"

"Sure do. Why am I holding a fish bowl?"

"It's like a cowboy waving his hat, but, you're in space. So that's your astronaut helmet."

"It's beautiful," Bill said intensely. "It's the best thing I've ever seen."

"Aw, really? Thanks!"

"When I take over the universe, I'm rearranging the constellations to look like this."

"Don't do that, though."

"Fine, but I'm hanging it up in my throne room." Bill set down his empty glass so he could hold the picture with both hands, beaming at it as proudly as though he'd made it himself. Big change from his lukewarm reception of her house drawing yesterday. She should draw Bill more often. Being a good artist meant understanding what your audience wanted.

Unfortunately, now that she'd finished her drawing, she didn't have anything to distract her from staring at Bill. And she'd taken about as much of seeing him as she could stand. "Bill. I say this with non-judgmental love. But you look sooo terrible."

"Yeah, I know. I think I'm shaped about as nicely as a human could ask for," he pantomimed drawing a triangle in front of his torso, "but let's be real, there's only so much you can do when you're working with a human bone structure. And there's way too much neck—"

"No! Bill, your body is beautiful just the way it is, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I meant your hair looks awful."

Bill had taken a shower yesterday morning, emerged with his hair all wet and tangled, and done absolutely nothing to detangle it. And then, with it still half damp and totally disheveled, he'd shoved it under a cheap acrylic wig for the rest of the night. And then he'd fallen asleep on the floor still wearing the wig.

And now, with the wig removed, his hair looked like a bird had plucked out half a scarecrow's straw brains and made a nest out of it.

"It sure does," Bill said, with the slightly forlorn air of someone complaining about a war in a far-off country over which one had no power.

"So brush it!"

"No. Never. You can't make me."

"Why not? I thought you wanted to keep your hair all triangly!"

"Not enough to touch it. Either it'll figure out how to straighten out on its own or it won't, I'm not messing with it. I've got enough going on in my life today." By which he meant he had the last lingering traces of a hangover, which was a valid excuse to get out of all social, moral, and aesthetic obligations.

Mabel groaned in frustration. "I can't take looking at it anymore! If you won't brush it, can I?"

Bill gave her a skeptical look; but then he flung his hands out dismissively. "Sure, why not? If it bothers you so much. Have at it."

"I'll be right back!"

She got her brush from upstairs and a spray bottle from the kitchen, and directed Bill to sit on the floor so she could get on the couch behind him. After making such a fuss about brushing his hair, Bill was surprisingly well-behaved with somebody else brushing it for him. He didn't even complain when Mabel accidentally yanked on some nasty snarls a little harder than she meant to.

"I feel like a corpse getting prettied up for my funeral," Bill said. "Grooming each other is how humans bond, isn't it? This is one of your little social rituals? If all you wanted was to make sure we're still friends after you ditched me last night, you could have just asked."

Mabel shoved her foot between Bill's shoulder blades. Wise guy. She joked, "Yeah! We're bonding now! After this we're gonna paint each other's fingernails and talk about what kind of boys we like."

"I want rainbow spiral fingernails."

Mabel really should be used to this—but she still kept getting surprised that Bill was interested in the stuff she liked. And not even in a patronizing sure-I'll-play-along way. He'd turned to look at her. There was a gleam in his eyes. He really wanted rainbow spiral fingernails.

And now she wanted rainbow spiral fingernails, too. "Fine! But look forward until I finish your hair." One way or another, Mabel vowed, she would reform Bill into a proper good guy—even if she had to drag him there kicking and screaming. Fun dress-up partners were hard to find, and she couldn't afford to lose Bill.

####

Soos wandered to the living room to find somewhere to hang up his and Melody's "Best Couple Cosplay" award, but stopped in the doorway.

Bill, Mabel, and Waddles were sitting on the floor, watching some kind of cartoon psychedelic fairy princess lecture a spider on the importance of colors, with a bowl of popcorn between them. Bill and Mabel both had bright multicolor fingernails and were eating the popcorn with chopsticks to avoid touching their nails. There was more popcorn on the floor than in the bowl. Waddles had taken no such cares to avoid dragging his freshly painted hooves through the carpet.

"Truth or dare," Bill said.

"Dare!"

"Dare you to assassinate the..." Bill trailed off. "I can't have the mayor assassinated, he runs Rainbow Club. And the sheriff and deputy invited me... There aren't a lot of public officials in this dumb town, are there?"

"I'm not killing anybody, Bill. Truth."

"Fine, coward. What's your favorite toxic fume fragrance?"

"That's easy! Gasoline!"

"Hey, mine too! At least on this planet. It smells like—you know that smell that heralds the coming of rain? Gasoline is the smell that heralds a really fun time."

"Yeah! Like going on a road trip!"

Bill paused. "Right! I was... I was definitely thinking about road trips. That's exactly what I meant."

Mabel added, "And it looks so cool when there's a little bit spilled in a parking spot—"

"The rainbow puddles! Yes! Big fan of the rainbow puddles—"

"I love parking lot rainbow puddles! It's like surprise happiness in the most boring place on the planet!"

Soos mumbled, "Girl talk," decided to hang his award up later, and left.

####

Dipper heard the bedroom door open and Mabel call, "Hey Dipper!"

"Hey." He didn't look up from his journal, where he was documenting last night's zombie adventures. "Oh, hey, bad news—Wendy said she got a text from Robbie, it sounds like all the footage from the cemetery last night is ruined?"

"Aww! What? But we worked so hard to train those zombies!"

"Yeah, it's just static. But everything we shot outside the gates is fine. I wonder if it's something supernatural that interferes with electronics?"

"Something supernatural? In the cemetery? Full of zombies? What are the odds of that!" Mabel laughed. "But heyyy, I've got some good news!"

"What?"

Mabel stuck a hairbrush full of gold hair between Dipper's face and his journal. "I got a replacement for the Bill hair sample we gave Pacifica!" She grinned and whispered, "Wanna make a poppet?"

####

It would have been really cool if the first full moon of summer vacation had come on Summerween. But the calendar gods were unkind that year, and instead, it came the next day, on June 23.

Which worked out, in the end, since it meant they didn't have any scheduling conflicts on the one night they could make a poppet.

They had the ritual space set up in their bedroom—a chalk star drawn on the floor with a black candle at each point—and the doll representing Bill—which Mabel had upgraded with button eyes and a miniature version of his favorite knit hoodie. They collected all the shed blonde strands off Mabel's hairbrush, wrapped them around the doll's neck, and tied them on. They set the doll in the center of the star; Bartholomew talked them through the ritual; the flames on the candles leaped a foot in the air, turned a pale blue, and then went out; and the binding ritual was complete. The doll was now connected to Bill Cipher.

"Weird," Bartholomew said. "Usually the flames turn black. I've never seen them turn blue before."

Dipper said, "That's not a problem, is it?"

"No, no. I've just never used the binding ritual on an alien before! I guess it works a little different!"

Dipper picked up the doll and eyed it skeptically. "Mabel, I know we said we're saving this for emergencies only, but—maybe we should test it out just to make sure it actually works?"

"I guess we should," Mabel said, grimacing. "Just—don't do anything that'd hurt him. Okay?"

Yeah, Dipper should've expected that. Whether he liked it or not, Mabel didn't just see Bill as her weird experiment in criminal rehabilitation—she saw him as her friend. He sighed. "Okay. But is it fine if we do something that would embarrass him?"

Mabel shrugged. "I don't see why not!"

####

As they crept from their room, Mabel whispered, "What if we stick him in a box and shake it up? And then tell him there was an earthquake!"

"I thought you were the one who didn't want to hurt him."

"Oh right."

Bill wasn't on his cushions under the window, so they crept downstairs. Halfway down, Dipper stopped, putting a hand on Mabel's arm. Bill was sitting at the kitchen table, chin in his hand, staring out the window.

"This is perfect," he whispered. "He's completely vulnerable. He's got his back to us, he's looking at the moonlight—even if he turns around, he won't see us because his eyes will have to readjust to the dark."

"I don't know if his eyes need to adjust," Mabel said. "Have you ever noticed he never turns the lights on when he goes into a room?"

Dipper considered that. He hadn't noticed—but now that Mabel mentioned it, Bill did have a tendency to lurk in the dark. "Well—okay, but he's still not looking at us. Let's see how this works..." He studied the doll; then turned it around and gently brushed a finger through its yarn hair.

For a moment, nothing happened; and then Bill swatted at the back of his head and looked around, as if he was trying to find what had touched him.

"I think it's working," Dipper hissed.

"Are you sure? What if there's actually a fly in the kitchen?"

Could be. "Let me see if it can control him."

"Careful—"

Dipper grabbed one of the doll's arms and tentatively lifted it.

Bill's arm shot up. He stared at it in bafflement. "Wh...?"

Mabel bit her lip. Dipper waved the doll's arm.

Bill's arm waved. After a pause, he tentatively asked, "Hello?" As if he thought maybe his arm was waving at someone and he should play along with it.

Mabel and Dipper clapped their hands over their mouths, fighting to keep their giggles quiet. Mabel elbowed Dipper, "Hey Dipper Dipper Dipper, get him to stand up, let me control his legs, I have the best idea—"

Bill knocked over his chair and had to flail his arms for balance as he abruptly jerked to his feet. He looked around, eyes wide and wild, an edge of panic to his voice as he hollered, "WHAT'S GOING ON!"

Dipper held the doll out to Mabel. "Okay hurry!" Mabel took it by the legs—

—and Bill started doing the cancan. He shrieked. "WHAT?!"

Dipper shoved his shirt over his mouth to muffle his hysterics. Mabel was letting little wheezy squeaks out through her nose. Bill's voice was almost an octave higher as he screamed, "WHEN I FIND OUT WHO'S BEHIND THIS, I'M GONNA SHRED YOU—" and they both got so close to bursting laughing out loud that they had to pause to punch each other's shoulders for self control.

Still holding one of the doll's legs up, Mabel hissed, "Dipper do you remember the bottle dance. Where they crouch down with bottles on their heads. Can we—can we get a tiny bottle for the doll—"

Bill was failing both arms to avoid falling with one foot held in the air. He grabbed the counter for balance. And then, with a grunt of effort, he wrenched his foot down and stomped it to the ground.

The doll's leg yanked out of Mabel's hand.

Dipper and Mabel fell silent, staring at the doll. They looked at each other. Mabel whispered, "It shouldn't be able to do that, right?"

They looked at Bill.

Bill's face was burning red, and he was so far past fury that his expression was perfectly blank. His eyes were huge, and round, and pointed straight at them.

They bolted up the stairs.

Bill charged after them.

They screamed in terror. They weren't loud enough to drown out Bill: "WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU BRATS—"

Mabel grabbed Dipper's arm. "Dipper, do something!"

"Uhh—!" He tossed the doll in the air and caught it.

They heard an alarmed yelp as Bill was launched in the air and then a crash as he landed on the stairs again.

They scrambled into their room and slammed the door. "Safe!" Mabel said.

"Yeah," Dipper said, panting for breath. "Can't get us here."

The doll's head twisted 180 degrees to stare up at them.

They yelped. Dipper tossed the doll to Mabel. Mabel held it out at arm's length, threw it in her nightstand's drawer, and slammed it. It tried to open again and she leaned against it with her full body weight. "Dipper, the duct tape! In my craft supplies!"

"Which craft supplies?!"

The tiny knocking inside the drawer was echoed by the pounding at the door, accompanied by a string of creative death threats: "—and when I'm finished the coroner won't know which corpse was which! I'll make a belt out of your spinal columns—!"

"We didn't do anything," Mabel shouted, "it wasn't our fault!" She took the duct tape from Dipper and frantically wrapped it around the night stand. Dipper added, "It was someone else! And we'll never do it again—"

Sleepy and muffled, Soos's voice drifted through the door, "Dudes? What's all the hubbub?"

Dipper and Mabel gasped, "Soos!" "Save us!"

His voice the perfect tone of righteous indignation, Bill declared, "I'm being assaulted, that's what!"

Stan's voice joined in from downstairs: "BILL! If you don't leave those kids alone I'll cave your nose in!"

"THEY'RE THE AGGRESSORS," Bill screamed, half hysterical. "They are! I'm the victim here! I'm being victimized!"

Stan shouted, "Kids, good work! Bill, you can go to—" He grumbled as he self-censored, "—sleep! Shut up and go to sleep!"

"You can go jump in the bottomless pit, Stanley Pines! I'll tear you all apart with my teeth if I have to! NOBODY in this stupid junk heap of a shack is getting any sleep until I get my—"

From just outside the attic door, Stan roared, "BILL!"

There was a dull thud as Bill leaned against their door; a lot less shouty, he quickly said, "I'm going to bed, I'm going to bed, I'm going to bed."

"That's what I thought," Stan snapped. The kids heard his footsteps retreating downstairs. Soos said, "Um... night," and his door shut. After a moment, there was the creak of footsteps retreating from the attic door.

Dipper and Mabel slowly, softly snuck across the room to the door, and pressed their ears to the crack. No sound.

They stayed there for several minutes, barely breathing, listening to the silence.

Finally, Mabel pulled away and looked at Dipper. They both nodded, and Dipper opened the door a crack to check if the coast was clear.

Bill's eye stared in. "Hey, kids!"

They yelled. Dipper tried to slam the door; but Bill had already shoved his hand through. Fingernails painted with neon colors and black spirals clawed at the doorframe. He shouldered through the gap in the door, and then he was in the room, smiling much too wide and eyes fixed on them like helicopter spotlights on two wanted criminals. There was blood on his teeth. "Wow! Playing with poppets?"

Dipper upturned his suitcase and held it up like a shield. Mabel pointed a can of spray paint at Bill's face. Bill took a step closer and they took a step back.

"Pretty advanced trick for a couple of children your age," Bill said conversationally. "Not bad, not bad at all. Heck, I'm impressed you pulled it off! Although you didn't make a very smart choice of test subject." He stomped a foot twice.

Something in the nightstand thudded twice. The twins jumped. Bill laughed at them.

Mentally cursing himself for having flinched, Dipper straightened his back and glared at Bill. "You're just mad you got jerked around like a puppet! What's the matter, Bill—you can dish it but you can't take it?" Mabel looked at Dipper like he was crazy.

Bill's indulgent smile cracked, dropping into a snarl of rage. He shifted his weight toward them. Mabel dropped into a judo stance and Dipper sucked in a breath to shout for Stan.

Before anyone could launch a full attack, Mabel took a shaky breath in, forced a nervous smile, and said, "Bill, hey..." (His eyes snapped to her face like a predator that just heard a twig snap.) "This was—just a funny prank, and we're all cool? Right?"

"Mabel," Dipper muttered. "Shhh!"

But Mabel kept looking at Bill. "Right? Buddies?" She held up her arm, showing Bill her friendship bracelet.

Bill stopped and rocked back on his heels. He gave Mabel a long, hard look—like he was seriously considering whether to accept the reality she was inventing. "Yeah. Real funny." Smiling through grit teeth, he said, "You know—it's been a while since I've had my energy strung between two vessels. I didn't even know what that experience felt like for a human! Very interesting. Educational. And it was nice to feel weightless again for a second. Even if the landing was a little rough." He licked the blood off his teeth. One of the teeth shifted. "So—thanks so much for spicing up a boring night. It's been a real blast. Hasn't it." He stared at them like he expected an answer—and possibly like he planned to strangle whoever answered first.

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a look. Dipper shook his head slightly. Mabel looked Bill in the eyes again. "Yeah! Big blast. So, you're not... mad. Right? Nobody's mad!"

Bill stared her down for a moment longer; and then said, "Sure, kid! It's all fun and games!" He forced a laugh—and then another, longer one, hahhh, like he was exhaling all his rage. And just like that, he was back to normal. "I'll admit it—for a second there, you almost got me good! Not bad at all." He held out his hand insistently. "And now the game's over, so you're gonna give me that toy so I can neutralize it. Aren't you?"

Dipper bit his lip, looking past Bill toward the stairs. He could yell for Stan; there was no way Bill could kill them before reinforcements got here—

Mabel elbowed Dipper's side and whispered, "We can't keep it."

And she was right. Now that Bill knew about the doll, he'd be spending all his time plotting how to get past them to take it, and they wouldn't have a second's peace. Either he got it now, or he got it later. Bill wouldn't rest until the doll was out of their hands.

Because he was terrified of it. Why wouldn't he be?

"Yeah," Dipper sighed. "Game over."

"I'll get it." Mabel peeled just enough duct tape off the night stand to wiggle it open a crack and try to squeeze her fingers in. Bill stretched his hand toward Mabel, and the doll stretched an arm out of the drawer. Mabel flinched in surprise, but grabbed the arm and yanked the doll free.

"Ow." Bill grabbed his shoulder and rolled it gingerly. "Careful, kid, are you trying to dislocate my arm? I don't mind popping it back in, but eventually that socket's gonna wear out."

"Sorry! It was a tight squeeze." She held the doll over Dipper's suitcase shield. "Here."

Bill snatched it from her hand. "Thanks a million, star girl." He favored them both with his most nearly-charming, far-too-wide smile. "Good night, kiddos. Have sweet dreams."

"You too," Mabel said weakly.

Bill left. Dipper shut the door. He and Mabel both heaved a sigh of relief.

From the loft over the attic, Bartholomew called, "Is he gone?"

"What are you doing up there?" Mabel asked. "Barty-mew-mew the scaredy-cat."

"I'm not fighting that guy, I'm porcelain and he's crazy."

Dipper flopped on his bed and stared at the ceiling. "Welp. I'm gonna have nightmares about Bill chasing me up the stairs."

Mabel sat on her own bed. "He just wanted to terrify us. And to keep us from seeing we'd terrified him." She fingered the star beads on her friendship bracelet. "He wouldn't have hurt us, I'm sure of it."

"Wh—seriously? You don't think Bill—"

"I know! But he's changed a tiny bit! He'd hurt anyone else, but he won't hurt us," Mabel said. "Or—well, me, at least. But I think he'll leave you alone too if I'm with you!"

Dipper pushed himself up on his elbows to look at her. "If he'd caught us on the stairs, do you really think he wouldn't have tried to tear us apart?"

Mabel considered that; and then reluctantly admitted, "He wouldn't hurt me as long as he remembers he doesn't want to hurt me."

"Yeah, well. I wouldn't count on him remembering when he's mad." Dipper slid under his covers and rolled over. "Barty, can you get the lights?"

"Sure, one second." All the lights and lamps in the room flickered ominously; and then, with a sinister pop, snapped off without being touched.

"Thanks, man."

Mabel didn't climb into bed. She was staring at her fingernails. She'd painted them the same colors as Bill's; but she'd used a black marker to draw spirals on his, and he'd drawn stars and sloppy tiger stripes on hers. In the dark, the colors were all faded.

This time, just once, maybe she and Dipper were the bad guys. He might disagree—he'd actually been puppeted, maybe he saw this differently from Mabel—but that probably didn't make it okay to do it back to Bill just for fun. They should've saved the poppet for an emergency. And the cancan, she decided, was definitely too much.

She smoothed out her covers; then she pulled up her knees to her chest, hugged them, and stared thoughtfully down at Bill's face in the middle of her zodiac blanket.

####

In the dark and quiet of the downstairs bathroom, Bill sat cross-legged on the toilet lid. He held the doll in his cupped hands. Soon, he'd disassemble it—but not yet. Tonight, it was his tool. He shut his eyes and focused on it.

There was the thinnest thread of energy, channeled through his shed hair, connecting this doll to him. He studied the thread, feeling it in his mind, exploring it, strengthening it—until he could almost feel it tugging on him.

And then he started psychically groping for similar connections.

He set the doll on the floor, on top of the drawing Mabel had given him.

His other eyes—the billions of depictions of his face scattered across this planet—weren't meant to be used in this dimension. They were designed like windows he could peer through from the Nightmare Realm; here on Earth, he was on the wrong side of the windows to see through them. And he wouldn't be surprised if the Axolotl had somehow found a way to blindfold them on top of that—after all, he seemed to have done the same to most of Bill's other abilities.

But Bill was resourceful, he was stubborn, and he didn't have anything better to do.

He focused all his energy on trying to feel the drawing the same way he felt the doll, searching for a connection between this body and that face—and he searched, and searched, and searched.

He wasn't sure how long he tried. At least a couple of hours. Straining, straining—for nothing. His head hurt.

What was the difference? The doll was shaped like him, the drawing was shaped like him. What did the doll have that the drawing didn't?

The hair. A bit of his flesh.

Bill knelt over the picture, studying it in the dark. He opened an eye wide, wiped a fingertip across the surface of his eyeball to collect his tears, and pressed it to the drawing's eye.

He could feel a thread of energy stringing from his eye to the paper.

He climbed back on the toilet lid, shut his eyes, and focused on that thread. With an effort that threatened to split his head in two, he pried open his inner eye. And then he was staring up at his own human form from the drawing on the floor.

His body was shaking. His head was throbbing. He wobbled dizzily on the toilet; and as he saw himself topple off, his trance broke, the vision disappeared, and he blacked out. White spots burst behind his eyes.

When he next opened an eye, the room was spinning. He shut his eye. It was several minutes before he could sit up without being sick. He leaned against the wall and let the sweat on his forehead and cheek soak the old wallpaper.

The white spots he'd seen as he passed out were his distant all-seeing eyes.

He'd done something tonight. That was good. But there was no way he was seeing through any other pictures like that. He needed something he could focus his power through, like an antenna.

He needed gold.

####

(Last chapter of the year!! If you enjoyed, I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts & comments! Thanks!)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #gravity falls #gravity falls fanart #gravity falls fic #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

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navybrat817 · 1 year

Text

Muse

Pairing: Artist!Bucky Barnes x Female Reader Summary: Bucky is thankful to have you as his muse. Word Count: Over 1.1k Warnings: Fluff, kissing, light insecurities if you squint, slight feels (it's me), Bucky Barnes and he's in love (and he’s a warning, okay?). A/N: Nix was kind enough to send me an old edit she made and I ran with it for @the-slumberparty 's Across the Universe challenge. ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, but any and all mistakes are my own. Banner by the lovely @sgt-seabass and divider by the amazing @firefly-graphics. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

Bucky Barnes hadn't expected to find solace in art when he was younger. It seemed more like a path that his best friend Steve would take, though both of them appreciated expressing themselves creatively. Life also taught him that his road came with unexpected bumps and turns. Trading guns for brushes and pencils after he left the army, art helped him process some of his emotions he long kept at bay. It showed him how to look at life from a different perspective. In some ways, it saved him.

Like you did.

"Mmm."

The moan you let out drew Bucky's gaze up from his sketchpad, smiling softly as you stretched your legs out under the sheets. As tempted as he was to rouse you with his tongue, he decided to let you sleep since he already woke you once in the middle of the night. It wouldn't be the first time he sketched you while you slept.

The pad in his hand was already filled with drawings of you, but one more wouldn't hurt. Over the hours and days spent with you, he studied and learned your body well. He had other sketches and paintings of you in various angles and lightning. Those would never be sold.

Some art that existed was for the artist alone.

The pencil began to move across the paper once more when you didn't stir. If you woke up and caught him drawing you again, you'd shake your head and tell him he had more than enough. He disagreed.

There was beauty in his surroundings, but they paled in comparison to you.

"Bucky," you whispered, sending a shiver of excitement down his spine. Like the color red, you speaking his name invoked deep, intense passion within him. He saw hues in brighter shades thanks to you. "Come back to bed."

"I'm almost finished," he promised.

"You drawing me again?" you mumbled, bringing your hand up to cover your yawn as he kept sketching. "You have enough and I'm a mess."

"Maybe. Maybe not," he teased with a tender smile when your eyes opened halfway. "And you're not a mess. You're beautiful."

And it’ll never be enough.

"Careful, James," you teased back, arching your back as you stretched. "Keep smiling and sweet talking and they'll take away your brooder card."

"We can't have that," he winked.

When Bucky decided to pursue art outside of a hobby, he hadn't meant to become a brooding recluse on purpose. He simply preferred solitude while he worked and he valued his privacy. While he was encouraged to promote his work on social media to help build more clientele, he never showed his face. He let his art speak for itself. It worked.

It was how he came to meet you.

Before he met you in person, you were his favorite customer. You bought multiple pieces and left the kindest comments on his page. He often went back to reread them when he got lost in his own head.

"While there are many beautiful pieces of art in the world, Bucky Barnes gives us work that defines, and defies, beauty. His art can move you to tears or give you hope of brighter days ahead. We're privileged that he chooses to share his vision with us and one can only hope to see the world as he sees it."

He may have moved you with his visuals, but you moved him with your words.

"I have to meet her," he told Steve when you commissioned a custom piece.

Steve couldn't believe it since Bucky hardly ever let anyone into his studio. He said it was the least he could do for someone who consistently showed him support. He wouldn't admit at the time how nervous he was to meet you. Or why he felt so compelled to see the person behind the name since he refused to look for you on social media.

He realized that day it was destiny to meet you.

The artist and the muse.

"Back to bed," you ordered, moving the sheets back as he set his pencil and pad down. He used the opportunity to gaze along your naked frame bathed in the soft light, lingering between your thighs. "Please, Bucky?

"Who am I to deny my muse?" he smirked, slowly standing from his stool to stretch. His sweatpants hung low on his hips and he had thrown his dark hair up in a bun to keep it out of his eyes. "Especially when you look at me like that."

I'm littered with scars and you gaze at me like I have no imperfections.

"Have you seen you? You're gorgeous," you said, patting the mattress for him to sit.

“Not as gorgeous as you.”

“Take the compliment, brooder,” you said with a sleepy grin.

When he took a seat with a chuckle, you stopped him before he could lay over you. Instead, you took his right hand and had him stay in place as began to gently massage it. You commented more than once about how long and thick his fingers were and how warm to the touch they were against your skin. Working at his hand in tiny circles, you carefully rubbed out any tension you sensed. While you focused on the task at hand, he took another minute to gaze at you in wonder.

My beautiful muse.

"There," you said, kissing his palm once you finished.

"Thank you," he said, resting the same hand over your heart.

He watched and felt your chest rise as you inhaled. The steady beat grounded him. He was lucky enough for you to let him paint you with his love.

Inside and out.

"Do you ever regret it?" he asked as he traced a small heart on your chest.

Your forehead scrunched as you looked at him. "Regret what?"

"Choosing me," he whispered.

You had a chance to live a life of luxury and you walked away from it for me. Do you regret following your heart when you could've had so much more with him?

You exhaled as you pushed yourself up to face him and placed your hands on both cheeks, making sure he was looking into your eyes. "I will never regret choosing you or being yours," you whispered back.

Bucky's eyes softened as he smoothed his left hand down your back and dropped a kiss to your mouth. He lost himself in the feel of your lips and tongue, an exchange of desire he only got to experience with you. He didn't live a life of glamor, but he would forever give you a life of love.

"Now use me as your canvas," you said as the kiss ended.

Like Bucky said, who was he to deny his muse?

I love Bucky in love. Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

#navybrat writes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes #artist!bucky barnes #artist!bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes au #navy and roo's sleepover #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan x female reader #sebastian stan x you #nix #nix edit #nixakimbo edit #nix akimbo edit

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cheshirecatuniverse · 4 months

Text

If Yamato's and Hyuga's little sisters snuck into Oya

Featuring: Yamato, Cobra, Hyuga, Fujio, Todoroki, Tsukasa, Jamuo, Yasushi

Notes: Post-Murayama Graduation. NOT EDITED.

Yamato's Baby Sister ->

Yamato's little sister is the toughest kid in daycare. You need someone to stomp a spider? She's on it. You need someone to pick up two chairs instead of one? She's the first one there.

So when she was having a play date with her friends from daycare, they were told that sneaking into the delinquent high school was the scariest and coolest thing other kids from daycare have been dared to do.

When Yamato's little sister learned that kids that had bragged going into Oya had only stepped foot in high school for only a couple of minutes, it was a call for a challenge.

"Excuse me," A small voice came out of thin air. Yasushi looked back and forth but saw absolutely no one. He swore he saw everyone leave the gymnasium after the fight with Kiyoshi and some other guy from the Chun-Chun faction.

Oh no. Was Jamuo actually telling the truth, that their high school was haunted-?

"Hello?" Something tugged the fabric of his pants. Yasushi was never so relieved when he looked down before reacting, he would have felt so bad for kicking the little girl in front of him.

He squatted down and looked at her for a long moment.

Yasushi scratched his head, "Um. Where did you come from?"

She blinked, "My mommy."

"That's not- Okay, never mind."

The little girl looked down at her shoes, tapping them together. "Uh.. I don' think 'm supposed to be here."

"Makes two of us." He jabbed a hand at her, "I think I should take you to someone that can help."

Yasushi took her down the hallways, and to her benefit, they didn't seem so scary anymore now that she wasn't alone!

Except she kinda got scared when a couple of guys came barreling down, not stopping for anything, and Yasushi had swiped the small child into his grasp before she got stomped on.

Finally, he found someone some-what responsible, Todoroki... as well as Fujio.

"Yasushi. Why do you have a baby on you?" Todoroki said trying not to sound startled.

"Nuh-uh not a baby, I'm turning five!" She pouted.

"Duh, Todoroki." Fujio crossed his arms and shook his head, "She's turning five."

She nodded very happily.

"She just popped out of nowhere. Y'know what? Maybe she's the ghost Jamuo saw here last month," Yasushi nudged the top of her head with the end of his finger. She looked up at him, almost like an exhuasted adult, as he treated her head like a bobble head.

Todoroki kicked him away, while Fujio crouched down to approach her.

Fujio smiled and patted her head, "Your mom must be worried sick. Do you know her phone number?"

She shook her head to all the guys' dismay, "No... and Mommy can't pick me up!"

"Why not?" Todoroki sighs.

"Mommy works. Yamato picks me up."

"Who's Yamato?" Fujio asks.

"My big brother!" She beams and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket. The two stick figures were her and her brother, she explained and babbled. Fujio and Yasushi both try to examine the drawing, trying to see if they can recognize anything familiar from the drawing.

While the two idiots looked closely at the child drawing, she sat with Todoroki, trying to get answers that would help.

"Do you know your address?"

"No!" She said while scribbling on a new sheet of paper Todoroki found for her.

"Okay, maybe you remember signs you've seen? Stores or restaurants you go to?"

"Oh!" She nodded and started to babble again, "Itokan! Naomi makes me yummy food and and and Cobra shares shakes with me. Strawberry shakes! Cause Yamato is a meanie... He don't like to share."

Todorki put his hands in face and cursed loud enough for Yasushi and Fujio to hear. The girl just giggled in her hands, kicking her legs back and forth.

She didn't really notice the panicked whispers and possible strangling noises as she drew her little drawings on the papers on the barely standing desk.

If this was high school, then high school is weird.

Todoroki managed to get a response from Murayama via text. Cobra's number as per requested, and reluctantly, he dialed it.

While that was happening, the little girl gave Yasushi a cat drawing with really pointy teeth and Fujio a dog with a big smile on it.

"Yamato!" She ran across the classroom and jumped right into his arms.

Yamato sighed, saying her name in clear exasperation, but held onto his sister tightly.

"Cobra!" She waved over Yamato's shoulders.

Cobra was busy taking in the situation, looking at the worn-down classroom for any suspicious activity. But it seemed that Todoroki was honest on the phone. She really did wander here on her own.

"Are you okay? Do you know what I've been doing all day? Looking for you, everyone was looking-" Yamato glared and held her up to get better look at her. She was covered head to toe in dust, her shoes turned grey and even her jeans torn a little on the bottom.

"Why are you dirty- why is she dirty?" Yamato stared down at his sister's (assumed) captors. "What the hell did you do to her?"

Cobra put a hand at his shoulder, trying to prevent him from doing anything serious.

"WHAT? She was like that wh-" Todoroki jammed a fist into Yasushi stomach to make him shut up. Meanwhile, Fujio put on his best customer service smile as his brain was racking for a suitable answer.

"Yamato, Yamato," She tugged on the collar of his shirt. "I was super sneaky. I went under the fence. I'm a spy! But, But, then they found me."

In a much gentler tone, he asked, "Pipsqueak, Did they hurt you?"

"Nuh-uh." She pointed at Yasushi, "He helped me! I was a little scared. But I like it here, they like my drawings! Can we come back Yamato??"

Still lurched over, recovering from Todoroki's punch, he rasped out, "...It's true."

Exhausted, Yamato rubbed his eyes and muttered under his breath, "I swear to god, this is the third time."

Fujio tried to offer the rest of paper they found for her to take with her but Yamato crumbled it up and threw it away. Before they left Todoroki got an angry looking cat drawing from Yamato's little sister and a subtle nod of acknowledgement from Yamato.

Cobra was the only who said "Thank you" and to "Not cause too much trouble."

Cobra turned around to look at Fujio, "Murayama said you were the best choice for Oya High. You better hope he's right."

Hyuga's Little Sister ->

• Hyuga's little sister is a problem solver. Her teacher says she applies logic well but her antics were a bit much.

• She currently was going through a bit a of a stubborn phase. When Hyuga said they were having miso soup for dinner but she wanted pasta. When Hyuga said not to stay up too late, she wanted to watch a movie right before bed. When Hyuga said she wasn't allowed to have spray paint because "You have crayons like a normal child."

• But to Hyuga's little sister crayons were so last season and she wanted her poster for her school project to look cool. When they drove by Oya High one time the spray paint looked so much better than markers and crayons.

The fifth time Hyuga said 'No' made her get on a train and end up at Oya High. She snuck into an open window (it was actually just broken).

She wandered around until she found spray paint bottles hanging around. She found the jackpot in an empty room, and this room actually had a door! She took all the spray paints and went further into the school to find more.

"What are you doing?"

She didn't flinch or jump when she got caught. She was busy standing on a desk, reaching for a can of spray paint on the shelf and successfully stuffing it in her backpack.

This room didn't have a door like the previous one. She was just about to move out of the room before this blonde guy came around.

"I'm busy. Shoo Shoo," She gestured, shooing him away.

"Are you stealing?" Tsukasa said, tilting his head at the stuffed backpack.

"No..." She pouted and crossed her arms, avoiding his eyes.

Tsukasa sighed and looked at the ceiling, thinking. "Okay, how about this? You tell me what you're doing here, and I can try to help."

"Big brother didn't wanna buy me spray paint..." She huffed again. "I don't wanna use crayons for my project."

"Does your brother go to Oya?"

"No," She shook her head and sat down, "He's older."

Then she realized she didn't know how to exactly get home.

Tsukasa asks, sitting on top of the desk across from her, "Do you know where you live? Your Mom and Dad must be really worried."

She seemed to get even smaller at his words. ".. I don't have a Mommy and Daddy. Only big brother."

"Oh," Tsukasa looked a little lost. He almost apologized but cleared his throat and smiled, "That's okay. So your big brother takes care of you, right? He must want to know where you are."

"But he might get mad," She frowns, hugging her backpack. She snuck out of school early to do this. Her brother must have been going crazy when Sakyo and Ukyo came home to tell him she was gone.

"He won't get mad," Tsukasa shakes his head, "I think he'll be happy to know you're okay."

He successfully managed to get her to agree to come with her on the rooftop. Tsukasa gave her a rubix cube he found on one of the couches for her to fiddle on while he went to get Jamuo and Fujio.

Fujio greeted her warmly, but still she scooted into the corner of the couch and fidgeted with the rubix cube.

Jamuo and Tsukasa looked through her backpack for anything that could help them find her guardian, but no luck there.

Tsukasa called her name, and she lifted her head up. "What's your brother name?"

"I'm not allowed to say," She said.

"How come?" Fujio asked.

"Big brother said not to tell people his name."

"Fujio, Tsukasa," Jamuo called out, pulling out a pink folder out of her backpack. His hands were shaking.

Alaramed, they went over while she pulled stickers out of her sweater. Graffiti was everywhere, so she thought it would be fine to stick things on the beaten up desks and chairs.

Jamuo pulled out a piece of paper out of the folder. Fujio was confused at the site of elementary school math homework. But then Tsukasa's eyes widened with a small 'Fuck.'

It had the little girl's first name and last name. Hyuga.

Tsukasa ran his hands through his hair, "We're so fucked."

Thankfully, Hyuga's casinos had phone lines. Unfortunately, they were notified that Hyuga would be arriving soon.

Tsukasa pulled all the spray paint out of her backpack to her dismay.

"But.. you said you would help me," She frowned.

"Spray paint can be dangerous to inhale," Tsukasa

replied, clearly distracted, cause he was barely paying attention to her as he put the cans of spray paint away.

There was no point in arguing, so she sulked and looked at Jamuo, who was on his knees on the floor. He was mumbling to himself, clearly not doing so great.

She tugged at Fujio's shirt, "Does he always do that?"

Fujio smiled, friendly, collected, even though his mind was in a very different place. "No, he doesn't. He'll be fine, don't worry."

Fujio let her put her stickers on the door to the roof. Letting her talk his ear off about the Hello Kitty ones and the Lightning McQueen ones her big brother bought for her.

Hyuga's presence had all of them with the same expression, like a deer in front of headlights. You could hear a pin drop before she scuffled over to Hyuga, Sakyo, and Ukyo.

She had her hands behind her back, pouting with her big puppy eyes.

"Are you mad at me?"

"Check her," Hyuga glanced at her for a moment before looking at Fujio.

Jamuo had his back bent all the way down in a deep bow while Tsukasa couldn't make eye contact or he would start sweating.

Sakyo leaned down, hands on his knees, "You okay Lil' demon? Are you hurt anywhere?"

She nodded frantically and stuck her pointer finger out, "Paper cut."

Hyuga's face became colder, and Fujio thought they were all going to die because of a paper cut.

Sakyo whistled and shook his head, "Well that's no good." His twin handed him a band-aid and Sakyo put it on her.

"Hello Kitty," She smiled at her wrapped finger.

"Are those hers?" Hyuga looked at Fujio's face and shirt. Stickers were scattered across his shirt and his cheek and chin.

"Oh, yeah," Fujio wanted to laugh, but he just smiled stiffly, "She's a good kid."

Hyuga grunted and grabbed the pastel pink backpack Ukyo handed to him. He looked down at his sister, "Did they try to steal you?"

"No, I got lost," She was using her best puppy dog eyes so he wouldn't get mad, "They gave me toys!" She stuck out her hand with the rubix cube.

Hyuga looked at the Oya students for a long time, then at the twins, and then at his sister. He gave her his hand before telling her, "We're leaving."

Just as he reached the rooftop entrance, he looked at Fujio, "Just because I made the sword alliance with Murayama, doesn't mean I made it with you. Remember that."

#high&low #high & low #high and low #high&low imagine #high&low the worst x #hyuga norihisa #yamato asahina #fujio hanaoka #high&low yasushi #tsukasa takajo

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kiddbegins · 4 months

Text

Closed Off - Will Halstead

requested: yes

word count: 2,231

warnings: nothing really, just cute, closed off reader i guess?

a/n: i apologize if this isn't written well?? i cant tell-

Masterlist

“You’re a lot different under the sheets, aren’t you?” “How so?” “…You’re way softer, I like this side of you.”

When you started working at Chicago Med, you swore that you would just live your life there as a doctor and that was that. No romances, no mingling of any sort. As minimal talk of your personal life as possible.

You wanted to leave that part of you back in New York and let Chicago be completely detached. As well as not letting your coworkers into your inner circle. And so far it had been working. Most of the people you worked with knew you were self reserved, respected that.

Including one Will Halstead but he really couldn’t get past the fact it drew him in even more than any sort of mystery usually would. Seriously, how could he just ignore that the new beautiful doctor at the hospital had so much hidden behind a brick wall.

He of course respected your want to privacy, but that didn’t stop him from conveniently going to the vending machine at the same time as you, offering up any sort of light conversation he could. Simply wanting to offer out his attention and want to at least be friends.

And in all honesty, you found it cute. That he cared, if that was even the right word to use, to try and let you hunker down in this city. To know that you had each and every person in this hospital to lean on regardless of what you tried to shut out.

Usually you would just brush him off, but today was… decently hard. You had no real way to save this mother and you had to tell her family that. So you decided on grabbing something to try and calm yourself down. Some chips.

As always, Will followed you, leaning against the side of the machine with a slight grin. “Hey, what kind you getting?” He waited, knowing if you were going to reply it wouldn’t be right away. And he was right.

With a sigh, you looked up at him, “Salt and vinegar.” Short and bluntly, leaning down to grab the bag out of the bottom, sucking in a breath before going to go around him. As if he could tell, Will turned with you.

“Hey, wait. You alright?” His hand went to your arm, something that usually wouldn’t have made you stop but for some reason you did, gripping the small bag of chips in your hands. Genuinely you didn’t know if it was the bad day getting to you or what but you shook your head.

Will frowned slightly, pushing past the surprise that you actually spoke to him, “Do you wanna talk about it? Maybe I could help?” He offered, you nodding faintly. If it meant even possibly coming up with something to help your patient you’d do it.

“Yeah, my patient, she’s sick and I can’t save her. She’s past the point of chemo and everything so,” You paused faintly. “I don’t really know what to do.” Something you didn’t admit lightly.

You were good at your job, cold shoulder or not. And honestly, one of the highest success rates of doctors in the ED, only topped by Dr. Choi. “Let me take a look at her and her papers and I’ll see if I can find anything. New eyes and all.” He once more offered.

Part of you was ashamed of the help but you brushed it off. Will managed to find something and by the end of the day, she was on a new treatment plan that was hopefully going to get her home before the holidays.

Later that night, when shift was about to end, you went into the break room, not looking for Will, but bumping into him was actually alright. “Hey, Halstead.” He lifted his head towards you with a hum of acknowledgement. “I just wanted to say an actual thank you for today.” You paused, actually feeling a bit nervous speaking up.

“I’m glad I could help. Always nice to see a parent make it home to their family.” Will shrugged his jacket on, watching as you still stood there, hands clasped together, “Was there something else?””

With how quickly you usually split from any sort of conversation it was odd that you didn’t with him, at least not now. “Well, I was uh, gonna see if you’d let me get you a drink.” Will’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Because honestly, I don’t think I could have handled losing that mother today.” You rolled your tongue against your cheek nervously.

He nodded faintly, doing his best (and failing) to hide the smile that was actively growing on his face. “Well, I think I’d like that.”

“Just the one though.” You faintly laughed, “Don’t get your hopes up.” You managed to joke faintly, Will holding his hands up in defense. He’d take anything he could, conversation was conversation and that was how the two of you ended up next to one another at Molly’s that evening, a beer in both of your hands.

Will leaned on the counter, “You know, you’re pretty hard to read.” He spoke, looking over at you. “And I like to think I’m pretty good at reading people.” He sipped from his drink with a thoughtful look behind his eyes. That much was true, Will was good at knowing what kind of person he was getting entangled with.

Not that he ever had the best judgment on what that meant or would lead to but at least he had a baseline. With you though it was like there was nothing. You didn’t give off anything. He had nothing to base his thoughts off.

“Well, that’s kind of the point.” You shrugged, taking a swig from your bottle, “That’s exactly how I want it to be.” Will shifted at the statement, facing you more, his eyebrows pulling together as he looked over at you.

“Why?” He chuckled faintly. “I mean, you’ve been in Chicago a few months now and all I got from you is that you’re from New York and that you like cats.” The only reason he even knew that was the pin you had attached to your jacket that you sometimes wore.

A small black cat pin. “Well if I answered that I’d be giving away all my secrets, wouldn’t I?” You cocked an eyebrow up, crossing a leg over the other. Will chuckled faintly, nodding with a shrug. He sighed faintly, tilting his bottle towards you.

“I guess you’re right.” Once more he took a decently big swig from his beer, taking a moment to think over his next words, “You know I’m gonna keep trying to get to know you right?” Will spoke, glancing to you. If he was one thing it was stubborn and one thing he wanted more than anything was to sneak through one of the tiniest cracks you had to have.

Because everybody has one in the walls they put up. “I know.” You leaned your elbow on your knee, glancing up at him. “Doesn’t mean I’ll give in though.” The two of you shared a look, and you were unable to say you weren’t attempting to flirt at least a little bit. And it wasn’t like you were fully against talking to him in general. He wasn’t the worst company.

Will hummed faintly, he wasn’t sure what he was exactly allowed to do or say. Sure you had asked him to get the drink but that only put you at acquaintance level. If that. And as much as he wanted to reach out, put a hand on yours, he couldn’t let himself. That would be too far.

At least to him. But truthfully, you couldn’t keep the facade up that much longer. Because he was persistent and you were only so strong. “Well, I figured as much. But hey, maybe I’ll crack you down.” Will smiled warmly, and for some reason that was it. That was the smile that made you just want to confess everything you’ve ever held back to him.

You sucked in a deep breath, looking away from him in a vain attempt at keeping your composure. “Yeah, maybe.” There was a brief silence, you finishing your beer before standing, grabbing your jacket off the back of your chair. “Well, thanks again. Enjoy the rest of your beer.”

Will stood quickly, reaching his hand out just as fast, stopping before it touched your arm, “Wait, you’re leaving already?” He said, a tinge of disappointment in his voice. Slightly you nodded, lifting your gaze to him with pursed lips, his eyes locking with yours.

“Uh, yeah, I should,” You gave him a light smile, frozen in place as much as you wanted to walk away it was like you couldn’t. Something about looking at Will just made you want to stay. Whether it was the warmth of his eyes, how he pressed you for conversation while still respecting when you snipped it in the bud.

Something held you there, and it wasn’t the hand he lightly put on your arm, stepping slightly closer, “Or, you could stay. Let me buy you another drink.” His voice was hopeful and so alluring that before you knew it you were agreeing, sitting back down with another drink in your hand.

It was like somehow he just knew that you didn’t actually want to leave. That you wanted to keep talking. And he managed to keep you wrapped up in conversation along with a few more drinks that led to you walking out together and you laying in his bed that night.

Not minding when his hands traced over your skin or how your head rested against his chest, his hands twisting through your hair, luring you to sleep.

You were the first to wake up the next morning, shifting onto your side to face Will. He was still asleep, his arms tucked under his head and hair sticking up all over the place. It was admittedly extremely cute and you couldn’t help but gently reach over, raking your hand through his hair and pushing it off of his forehead.

He just looked so peaceful, content, that it almost made you feel bad for always brushing him off. Made you second guess the fact that you were so closed off. Maybe this was your way of finally opening up. Will shifted slightly under your touch, making you retract it quickly, eyes widening.

“Mmm, what time ’s it?” He mumbled, eyes still shut. Just slightly you leaned up, looking over his shoulder at the clock on the bedside table, having to push hair out of the way as it fell over your eyes.

“Only 7,” You spoke softly, laying back down, this time meeting his gaze as he finally opened his eyes. Will grinned widely, shifting closer, his arm going around your waist, nuzzling up against your side. “You’re clingy when you just wake up huh?”

The man nodded as best he could, tucking his head away in the crevice of your neck. “Only when I’m this comfortable.” His statement was muffled but you understood it nonetheless, unable to keep yourself from bringing a hand up to rake through his hair. “Now you just don’t want me to get up,” He chuckled lightly.

You hummed softly, twirling some of his hair around your fingers. “You are admittedly kind of cozy, I won’t lie.” The man lifted his head, looking across your face quickly. A deep blush covered your cheeks as he looked at you.

He was practically studying you, taking note of your face, how you looked back at him. All of it. “I… what?” You asked quickly, eyebrows tightly pulling together.

Will shook his head slightly, “Nothing, you’re just a lot different under the sheets, aren’t you.” He leaned up on his elbows, planting them on either side of you as he spoke. It made his heart flutter, the way you only seemed to be comfortable letting him in.

“How so?”

“You’re softer. Not as closed off.” He spoke, a breath catching in your throat. The man reached out, hesitantly putting a hand on the side of your face. “I like this side of you.” Will swiped his thumb over your cheek, “A lot.” He admitted, giving you a tight smile.

Everything he said was thought over, worried that the wrong move or wrong saying would send you running. That he’d overstep in some way or another. But in reality, you missed being around others.

A lonely life in Chicago was just that. Lonely. And as much as you were content with how you were living there was always a bit of something that had you wanting to change your own mind.

Heavily you sighed, giving up on keeping yourself from leaning into his palm. Will grinned wider, shifting closer to you. “Does this mean you’re done with that? At least with me?” He muttered, eyes meeting yours as you slightly nodded.

“At least with you,” One of your hands went over his, pulling him closer. Will’s arm went to the spot on the bed behind you, leaning forward. “Which makes you, very lucky.” You mumbled, in turn putting your hand on his cheek instead,

Will laughed quietly with a hum, “Is that so?” His voice low as you got closer to him, nodding once more before pressing your lips to his firmly, putting your arm over his shoulder tightly.

“It is.”

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tags: @winchesterszvonecek, @everything-fandom, @thebejeweledwatercat, @mrspeacem1nusone, @wnbweasley, @alexxavicry, @halsteadbrasil, @firetruckstuckley, @lilithblade, @angelicbxtchthea

#will halstead #will halstead x reader #will halstead writing?#chicago med #chicagomed #chicago med fanfic #fanfiction #one chicago fanfiction #will halstead imagine #will halstead oneshot #one chicago x reader #teddy writes #teddy writes will halstead #teddy writes chicago med #teddy writes one chicago

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thecaffeinebookwarrior · 19 days

Text

Foxglove

(Written by me. Originally published by Literary Times Magazine.)

I didn’t mean to summon the ghost. Okay, I meant to, but I regretted it.

My friend Cyprus knew it was a bad idea from the start. “You talk this way about every girl for two weeks, then you move on to someone else. Just put a curtain over the portrait and forget about it.”

“I can’t. Thinking about her hurts, and just the prospect of not thinking about her hurts more. I dream about her pretty much every night.”

Cyprus closed his eyes. His gold-rimmed glasses made him look like he was from another century.

I leaned across the table, making my eyes big. “You can do it, right?”

“I’ve only recreated the ritual in a classroom setting, and only for animal spirits.”

“You’re a straight-A student.”

“That doesn’t mean I can do it.”

But he could.

Ever since I moved here, the portrait of the actress had smirked down at me like a vixen. She’d died young, in the early 1920s – this house is split into condos now, but it used to all be hers.

After my last breakup, I looked up photos of her. She was most active during the 1910s, when stage actresses had a kind of dreamlike beauty: long tresses of dark hair, and huge, dewy, downturned eyes in the middle of a misty face.

I put the laptop down and went to bed thinking about her. I dreamed about her pressed against me, warm and alive. Since then, I couldn’t stop.

Cyprus showed up with a briefcase and his cat.

“Before I start, you should know I’m not doing this for you.” He put his cat carrier in the center of the room. He drew the sigils around it in chalk. He set up the candles. “I’m doing this because my professor said I could use it as an extra credit assignment.”

“It won’t hurt your cat, right?”

“I would never endanger General Pawshington.”

He had me sit cross-legged on the floor, then drew sigils around me too.

Then he opened his briefcase and took out a yellowed sheet of paper. “I can only say the words and perform the gestures,” he said. “Your yearning has to be strong enough to call her here. And then if she doesn’t want to stay, she can leave.”

“Got it.”

He started to chant, making swift finger motions, and I snickered.

He paused. “You have to think about her, or it won’t work.”

“Sorry.”

This time when he started to chant, I kept my eyes fixed on her portrait. Even when she began to materialize over the cat carrier – out of the corner of my eye, I could make out the shape of a tiny hurricane, twisting into the shape of a woman. I felt like if I looked at her, she’d vanish.

I imagined a relationship with a ghost. A ghost would never change – if they wanted change, they wouldn’t be here. They usually stayed tethered to one place. I imagined coming home to her day after day, her tether to the outside world.

“No,” she screamed. “No!”

I looked over at her. She was as beautiful as her pictures, her black dress fading into gray mist at the skirt. But she didn’t look sad or bemused, like she did in her photos. She looked furious, the whites showing around her pupils, her dainty mouth twisted in rage.

She looked between me and Cyprus. “Why would you do this?”

“I love you,” I blurted, at the exact same time Cyprus said, “Extra credit.”

She screamed so loud the cat hissed and the windows seemed to shake.

“Um,” I said, looking to Cyprus for guidance.

He didn’t look back. Just stared up at her with fascination and regret.

She dematerialized, dissipating into mist that seemed to scatter against the ceiling, maybe through it.

“Was that…supposed to happen?” I asked.

“Some ghosts react badly to being summoned. But if she’s unhappy here, she can return to the afterlife.”

She did not, for whatever reason, return to the afterlife.

It turned out that being haunted was not a fun experience. I thought if I could just tell her about myself, she’d like me as much as I thought I’d like her, but she wasn’t interested in that.

She slammed doors. Chilled rooms. Flung objects. Sobbed in the night.

“Can you please just talk to me?” I pleaded, after being woken up at 3 AM for the third time that week. “I’m sorry! I just wanted to meet you, that’s all!”

You know how when you’re in bed, you sometimes look up at the ceiling fan and picture it falling? Well, that’s what happened next. Fortunately, no bones were broken.

Cyprus’s extra credit assignment became his thesis project. He came back as my neighbor was complaining to me about the new “poltergeist problem,” unaware I was responsible for it.

“And who are you?” the neighbor asked Cyprus. “An exorcist?”

“Close. I’m a student from the Providence College of Necromancy.”

“Great. A student. They always send kids to solve adult problems these days.”

Inside, Cyprus called, “Foxglove!” For some reason, I don’t think I ever thought to address the actress by name. “Foxglove, you have to stop, or they’re going to send an exorcist to get rid of you.”

She materialized out of the air like mist – the first time I’d seen her since we’d initially summoned her. She really was so beautiful, her dark hair floating around her like a dream. “It’s not fair,” she said. “It’s my house.”

“I know,” he said, sadly. Well, sadly for him. He had a catlike way of emoting.

“I remember Heaven in flashes. I don’t think you’re supposed to remember it while you’re on Earth,” she said, sounding frustrated but relieved at having someone to talk to. “I want to go back so badly, but I don’t want to leave my life again. All I can do is yearn for what I had before.”

“Maybe you can tell me about your life,” said Cyprus, not disguising the interest in his voice. “I could write it down, and publish it. And people could read about you.”

Her eyes looked sad, dewy, and hopeful, like they did in the portrait. “I’d like that.”

I felt sidelined, like a third wheel. It bothered me that she forgave his selfishness just because he was open about it – I wanted someone I could love, he wanted an extra credit assignment.

My goal was selfish too, in the context that I’d pulled her away from her life – or afterlife – in the hopes that she’d be a part of mine. But wanting something to love wasn’t supposed to be selfish. And if it was, that was supposed to be forgivable, if only because it was so human.

I’d apologized. He hadn’t. He was open about his self-interest, his fascination with the predicament he’d created. But I could tell that if she forgave one of us, it would be him. If she fell in love with one of us, it would be him.

That night, he stayed over to listen to her talk about her childhood, her poverty, her discovery. About dancing and singing and playing Lady Macbeth, before performances were immortalized on film, when acting was still ephemeral. About the day after she did too much laudanum and drifted under the surface of the tub.

She wanted to pull herself back past the surface, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t will her limbs to move. “They say that those who take their own lives can’t get to Heaven,” she mused. “I did. But maybe that’s because I really wanted to live.”

Cyprus was listening, his recorder on the table next to him, taking notes. He was interested in every word, wanting to capture as much as possible. His intense curiosity, the Victor Frankenstein in him, was what made him a great student.

“I have some more questions I want to ask, about certain aspects of your life,” he said, switching off his recorder. “Can I come back Thursday night?”

“I’ll be here,” she said. Her dress had turned from black to white, and the mist she emanated had paled.

I could have tried talking to her.

Instead, I called my ex, and told her what happened.

“It’s just like with me, James,” she sighed. “You wanted her till she was a real person.”

It was true. I’d never met a girl I could love more than an idea.

“It’s lonely for me too,” I said.

“I know.”

“Why do you think it’s so hard to love someone right?”

“Because when you do, it becomes something you want to give to them, not something you want to take.” She said it like she’d been thinking about it for a long time, waiting for someone to ask. “I think that’s why we spend most of our lives learning how to do it.”

#short fiction #original short story #ghost story #romance story #my writing #writing #fiction

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flowerandblood · 7 months

Text

Don't make me laugh (Oneshot)

Brother, Lover, Son Alternative Universe

[ Aemond • Targaryen x Baratheon! • fem!reader ]

[ description: Aemond doesn't consider Borros Baratheon's eldest son or youngest daughter to be his friends, much less his adoptive siblings, yet somehow, whenever something happens, they torment him first. As if they couldn't leave him alone. Comedy and short scenes from Aemond's quiet life in Storm's End with Royce and Lady Baratheon. ]

[ warnings: none, maybe some angst + just cringe and giggling + Aemond being horny for his girl, I put reaction gifs with captions for each of the characters between the scenes just for your fun ]

This oneshot is an alternate reality from The Impossible Choice Series where, according to Aemond’s words in Chapter 49, he is sent to Storm’s End by his father when he is still just a child. It shows what would happen and how it would affect Aemond and Lady Baratheon, what his relationship with Borros, Royce and her other sisters would be like. This chapter stands apart from the main story and is a big, long “what if”.

Brother, Lover, Son AU Masterlist

My other works: Main Masterlist

____

"Let's see how well you know me, little sister." Royce muttered, his younger sister shifting next to him in her chair, curious. Royce loved card games. Usually when Aemond was bored and just didn't feel like reading he would join them.

They would meet in Royce's commons, because it was the safest space where no one disturbed them.

Usually he didn't have to take part in the games themselves, he could just be an observer and commentator. This suited him because he didn't risk humiliation and didn't feel he was socialising with them.

Royce split the cards half between himself and his youngest sister and explained that they would be answering each other's questions written on the pieces of paper which were to test their knowledge of each other.

Aemond was nominated as the person to write down the results on the sheet and he accepted this role without much objection.

Royce pulled out the first card and grunted, leaning comfortably against the back of his chair, his sister plucked one grape and put it quickly in her mouth, their figures illuminated by the warm light of the fire burning beside them in the fireplace.

They agreed that whoever answered correctly first six questions would win.

"What's my favourite colour?" He asked, and she made big eyes and swallowed loudly what she had just eaten.

"…do you have a favourite colour? You don't even know it yourself!" She said frustrated seeing his confusion, he scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"You don't have a favourite colour." She said with confidence, taking another grape into her mouth with a loud crunch.

Royce nodded at him that, in fact, that was probably the real answer, so he drew a single line next to her name.

This time it was she who took the card in her hand and swallowed loudly before beginning to read.

"What do I like to do most in my free time?" She read raising an eyebrow, looking at him with amusement.

"To annoy me. Next. You can write down a point for me." Said Royce pointing with his chin to his card. He smirked and drew a line next to his name.

"What, no, stop it, it's not fair!" She squealed heartbroken, lowering her hands in disapproval, he and Royce tried not to laugh.

"Be quiet. What time do I get up?" He asked lowly, and she snarled.

"Much too late. Next." She said with a smile of satisfaction, reaching for another card, Aemond nodded his head acknowledging that she was right and drew a line next to her name.

"Cross it out, it's not true! You two are hopeless. Well, never mind." He waved his hand acknowledging that he didn't have the strength to argue seeing their faces full of mockery.

"My favourite word or phrase." She read out loud and he mused, scratching his chin.

"Don't tell my father." He said and they both burst into laughter, looking at each other with amusement, she pressed her lips together and furrowed her brow, sighing heavily.

"You two are awful." She mumbled, offended.

"Yes, yes, very awful. Next. Are you writing this down or not?" He scolded him, and he reminded himself that he was supposed to be writing down the results, too involved in their exchange of words.

Royce sighed heavily, looking at the next card.

"What do I dislike most?"

His sister looked at him uncertainly and pressed her lips together, clearly having no idea herself what the answer to that question might be.

"Difficult words." She finally said with a mischievous grin on her face and giggled. Royce looked at him, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Did you hear that? She's insolent. Have you ever met such an ill-mannered young lady?" He asked with a sneer, Aemond shook his head, sighing, expressing his disapproval.

"No. I'm shocked to discover it myself."

______

Royce:

Lady Baratheon:

Aemond:

_____

Knock knock.

He opened his eyes wondering what was going on and if he had misheard, night all around him. He figured it was just a dream, but flinched when someone knocked on his chamber door again.

"Brother. It's me. Please open." He heard her whisper and sighed heavily, thinking about what she wanted from him at this hour. He stood up and put his trousers on quickly, tucking his chemise into them and opened the door, looking at her with displeasure.

"Couldn't it have waited until morning?" He said lowly, impatiently, pretending he felt nothing at the sight of her in just her nightgown.

"It's about Royce. Quickly!"

They both stood in front of her brother, lying on the floor in the middle of the circular throne-like hall, babbling to himself, completely drunk, Aemond had never seen him like this before.

"What happened to him?" He asked quietly, crouching beside him, grabbing his arm, but he pulled away, mumbling something, curling up, apparently wanting to fall asleep in this place and position.

"He babbled something to the effect that he had just left for a while to go into town and someone must have added something to his wine. He woke up in the middle of a forest road with no money and so it's a miracle he somehow made it back." She whispered terrified and heartbroken. He sighed heavily, running his hand over his face.

"We have to get him out of here, father can't find out. I can't carry him alone!"

So they both made an attempt to drag his numb body up the stone stairs, putting his arms around their necks and embracing him, but his body seemed terribly heavy, his sudden, loud mumbling echoing throughout the fortress.

"Shut the fuck up! Imbecile." He growled low and she pressed her lips together, terrified, looking around and apparently praying in spirit that no one would hear them.

Somehow they managed to drag him into his chamber and throw him onto his bed, both of them panting loudly, all hot and sweaty.

Royce flopped onto his stomach and mumbled "I'm about to throw up" before flooding the entirety of his bedding with the contents of his stomach.

____

Royce:

Lady Baratheon:

Aemond:

_____

"I am organising another hunt in two days' time. It's supposed to be beautiful weather, but it won't last long, a maximum of three days, beautiful stags have been seen near our forests recently, I'm told." Said Lord Borros between one bite of roast and the other, he, his youngest daughter and Royce only nodded, accepting his words with calmness, knowing that, as always, he would want to take them with him.

"I want to go too, Father!" Floris called out, he and Royce exchanging knowing, apprehensive glances between them.

"Then so do I." Said Cassandra, and he sighed heavily, taking a sip of wine from his cup, already knowing that he would be dying on this trip.

Since Cassandra and Floris were going to travel, Maris and Ellyn couldn't be worse, so they rode in the large carriages behind their horses, not yet knowing what awaited them.

"I feel sorry for you. You're not likely to get any rest." Said Royce, and he only threw him a cold, discouraged look that said it all.

"My prince, I think my necklace has unfastened. Would you please take a look at it?" Floris asked walking up to him as he sat with Royce under one of the trees, drinking wine from the clusters. She crouched with her back to him, exposing her neck.

He looked away from her, staring ahead and took a deep sip again, weary.

"No."

Floris threw him a hurt, discouraged look and stood up, walking away with a quick step, offended.

"You don't have the soul of a romantic, brother." Royce sighed disapprovingly, taking another sip of wine.

"You don't say." He growled, glancing at the entire group of women standing by the carriages, waiting for the tents to be set up. "This is a fucking nightmare."

Their youngest sister ran up to them, already changed into her hunting attire, crouching beside them.

"What are you talking about?" She asked lightly, and Royce patted him on the shoulder looking into her eyes.

"Our brother is going to die today. Or he's going to kill someone. He hasn't decided yet."

_____

Royce:

Lady Baratheon:

Aemond:

_____

"I said already, no."

"Please, I beg you, just this once!" She mumbled, looking up at him with those big eyes, and he looked down at her impassively.

"No."

"Please, I'll pay you, I'll be your servant, please!" She whimpered running after him as he moved ahead down the corridor again, unwilling to let him alone, insisting he say something in Old Valryia's language.

He stopped, hearing her suggestion.

"You will bring me breakfast for a week, bowing and titling me properly." He said with a glint in his eye, and she pressed her lips together and swallowed loudly at her humiliation.

"Very well." She said softly and he furrowed his brow.

"Very well, what?" He asked impatiently, and she squirmed under her breath, unhappy, not liking to address him like that, driving him mad, calling him her brother all the time.

"Very well, my prince." She mumbled, and he smirked, looking at her with superiority.

"Ossēninna ao mēre tubis lo gaomā keligon jenigon nyke daor. (I will kill you one day if you don't stop annoying me)." He said lowly, and she blinked, tightening her lips, a blush of embarrassment on her cheeks.

"You just insulted me, didn't you?"

____

Lady Baratheon:

Aemond:

_____

"Where did you learn to shoot a bow so well, my lady?" Asked Erryk Selmy, the younger son of Lord Selmy, a vassal of the Baratheon family, who had travel with him to Storm's End so that his father and Lord Borros could come to an agreement over some woodland to which another lord was also claiming.

Royce and Aemond noticed that Erric had found a great liking for their younger sister and was constantly following her, and by the fact that she followed them everywhere, they were condemned to his presence.

"My father taught me." She replied lightly, not seeing his solicitations and efforts as an attempt at flirtation, thinking he was just curious. "And you, do you only practice hand-to-hand combat or do you also shoot with a bow?"

She asked, looking back at him, the young Lord Selmy straightened up, clearly wanting to grow in her eyes, and grunted quietly.

"I shoot a bow, but not as well as you, my lady." He said warmly, and she blushed in embarrassment, not expecting such words, lowering her gaze.

Aemond rolled his eyes, turning back, unable to look at it.

"I'm gonna throw up." He grunted to Royce, and he chuckled low, scratching his chin.

"The boy's in love. What can you do. It must be those big eyes of hers." He said amused. He pressed his lips together impatiently and snorted.

"Lord Erric, wouldn't you like to face me? It's a shame to waste such an opportunity." He said with a smile that did not reach his eye as he walked over to the table on which all sorts of weapons were lined.

He reached for his favourite sword, light and handy, and turned it easily several times in his hand, glancing at the boy's terrified face.

He was shorter and certainly more inexperienced, looking at him with big eyes.

The youngest daughter of Lord Borros looked at him, frowning her eyebrows, her lips uttered silently the words he understood perfectly.

'Don't you dare.'

He grinned even wider, stepping closer to them.

"Come, do not be afraid. I won't hurt you." He said with amusement, a wide grin on his lips.

Lord Selmy approached the table with an uncertain step, swallowing loudly, not knowing what to do, Lady Baratheon looked at him furiously, gestured with her finger to the ground, her lips conveyed another message to him.

'Stop it.'

He smiled sweetly at her, leaning on the hilt of his sword as if it was the happiest day of his life.

He watched her lips form words again, her hands clenched into fists.

'I will kill you.'

_____

Royce:

Lady Baratheon:

Aemond:

_____

"I understand that since I'm here, we're going to walk into town at night to have some good beer." Said Royce, patting him on the shoulder, on the exact same evening he, his betrothed and their family arrived in King's Landing to be with them at their upcoming nuptials.

"What?" He asked in disbelief, his betrothed hopping up in her chair, grabbing his arm with her hand.

"Yes, please! Do you remember the time we slipped out of Storm's End and got lost in the woods?" She asked amused, Royce laughed out loud at her memory, and he pressed his lips together.

"Unfortunately yes." He muttered lowly, turning his head away impatiently. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

Royce sighed heavily and rolled his eyes.

"Gods, why do you always have to whine so much? After all, if the three of us go out, at night, disguised, what's going to happen to us? I mean, surely we're not going out to do anything wrong? Yes or no?" He asked reaching out his hand in front of him, he felt his future wife's hand tighten on his.

"Please. Please, let's go as a threesome, there's no telling if we'll ever have this opportunity again." She said pleadingly, lifting his hand and placing a warm kiss on it.

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and swallowed hard, struggling with himself not to throw himself at her not caring anymore that Royce was with them, he hadn't seen her in a week and was dying of desire.

He sighed heavily, tightening his lips.

"So be it."

He instructed them where to wait for him and they met at night in one of the underground passages he had found as a child, all three of them wearing long cloaks with hoods on their heads. He grasped his betrothed's hand and instructed her not to let him go for a moment, which she did eagerly, entwining their fingers.

He felt butterflies in his stomach and wondered if they left Royce for a while so he could fuck her in some dark side street would anything bad happen.

However, he decided that he couldn't be so irresponsible, after all, someone might see them.

They circled around the town simply looking around, with crowds of people all around them and lit bonfires, theatrical performances as well as food and drink stalls. Royce drank his longed-for beer, but said it wasn't as tasty as he had hoped and preferred wine.

At this point, Aemond was already starting to become slowly concerned that someone would notice their disappearance after all, and insisted that they had already returned to the keep, feeling that he was now responsible for them.

On their way back, Royce almost fell over some man lying on the ground who, at his kick, flopped to the side, his hood falling off his head, revealing his white hair.

"Oh fuck. Isn't that your brother?" Royce asked simultaneously horrified and amused, his betrothed looking at him concerned.

"Shall we help him?" She asked quietly, stroking the skin of his hand with her thumb.

"No." He muttered, turning away, dragging her behind him. "Let him lie there."

______

Royce:

Lady Baratheon:

Aemond:

_____

Okay, I had a blast writing this and I love that I was able to curate all the gifs for them from Michael Scott from The Office!! It was hilarious!!! I hope it will make you smile at least a little bit, we need it in the fandom, and I encourage you to read this series, because I love it and it's probably one of my favorites that I've written. 💐💐💐

____

Aemond Taglist:

(bold means I couldn't tag you)

@its-actually-minicika @notnormalthings-blog @nikstrange @zenka69 @bellaisasleep @k-y-r-a-1 @g-cf2020 @melsunshine @opheliaas-stuff @chainsawsangel @iiamthehybrid @tinykryptonitewerewolf @namoreno @malfoytargaryen @qyburnsghost @aemondsdelight @persephonerinyes @fan-goddess @sweethoneyblossom1 @watercolorskyy

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fictionalmenxyn · 1 year

Text

Remember when…

Chats like these weren’t brought up often in the break room. Most people forgot their childhood especially those who had a bad one. But every so often you and the boys would have a chat about your past. The good things.

You and the boys were sat at the usual table. Either a coffee or water in hand, you all se how brought up the genre of school.

Gaz asked “wait you all knew each other?” Price nodded and said “the first proper job I had was teaching. I was only 20, that on my list of jobs helped me join the army”. So you started telling the story of the lessons you had.

Flashback…

Grabbing your bag from under the desk you headed towards your next lesson. Lucky for you, it was your favourite. Mr. Price was one of your favourite teachers considering he was actually good at teaching the subject. Also he was nice enough to let you sit wherever. Meaning you sat with Simon, your secondary school sweetheart.

Walking towards the class, you noticed Mr. Price standing outside handing sheets out to those who were in your class. He turned his head and saw you, smiling he spoke “once you’ve sat down answer these questions, if you need ask your partner.” You nodded and walking into class with a paper in hand.

Scanning the class you spotted Simon, already sat there staring at the entry most likely waiting for you. As he saw you, you watched as his bored facial expression turned to a smirk. He pulled out the chair for you and you sling your bag on the floor under your desk.

Sitting down he said “how was Health studies?” You said “good, how was construction?” He nodded and replied “alright” you asked “can you do me a favour after school?” He asked “what’s the favour?” You replied “for Health studies I got to do physical activity and my teacher asked if we could test a friend or family. So could you help me?” He looked into your eyes and spoke “of course, anything for you” you smiled and hugged him quickly.

As you started to do the starter task, you heard Mr. Price close the door and started to do the register.

Once he had finished that, he started to carry on with the lesson.

As he let you carry on with your work, you and Simon helped each other and managed to finish it earlier than others. So you fidgeted with his hand, that also ended up with you drawing on it. You ended up drawing multiple things. But one stuck out most to Simon. He commented “I like that one” he points with his free hand at the small cute Grim Reaper you draw. Little did you both know is that would be your code name and one of many tattoos Simon would get.

Small things like this Simon cherished and still does. This is one of many reasons he loved you. No matter where he was, with you he felt confident and didn’t care what others thought. You were one of many reasons he stayed strong and you are the only person he comes to for help. He knows you won’t go telling people about his personal problems and you support him no matter what.

Once lesson was over Mr. Price collected the books in and let you out of class. Simon said “come on, we need to find Johnny” you nodded and held his hand as you both searched the other classrooms he may be in.

Later you found him waiting outside of a classroom. You waved and so did he, he spoke “come on, my mum wants to have a barbecue and she said you two could come over.” You both smiled as you three headed towards the busses and went home for a nice barbecue at Johnny’s house.

End of flashback…

Gaz’s facial expression was amazed, Price chuckled at his expression and said “small world isn’t it?” Gaz replied sarcastically “small world?”. You said “you should be grateful Price is your mentor, he got me to pass Science. That’s one of the main reasons I’m able to be sat here now” Price smiled proudly. Gaz turned to you and Ghost then asked “so you two have been together for how many years?” Ghost answered “15 years” Gaz’s jaw couldn’t drop anymore. You replied “he even got the grim reaper tattooed on him, the one I drew in that class.” Gaz asked “did you really?” Ghost didn’t reply but rather pulled the collar of his T-shirt down to show the small cute grim reaper on his chests close to his heart.

Sitting there you smiled at the memories of being in school. Gosh, if only you two were fourteen again. But sometimes it’s nice to have ‘remember when’ chats. Although your relationship with Ghost haven’t changed, everything else did. Most things were good but the bad… you two pushed past and made yourselves better.

You leaned against Simon as he placed an arm around your waist. You looked up and admired him, you kissed his arm and whispered “I love you” he said “I love you two. Then you two were interrupted by Gaz “if your still good at drawing would you draw me a tattoo?” You giggled at the boy’s enthusiasm, acting like an excited child. But this is what you enjoyed. Moments like these…

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shinobuscanonwife · 2 years

Note

Hi! Is it okay if I request for the hashira as well as tanjiro and genya ( or whoever you want) reacting to finding some paper in their crush's room who they don't know is good at art full with drawing and paintings of them who they thought they didn't like?

Muichiro isn't included in this! And Gyomei isn't as well.

Tanjiro

You and Tanjiro had gotten injured during a recent battle and you both were in the hospital ward. He hadn't seen you during the fight with the demon that had injured you both the only way he knew you were alive is because Shinobu kept him updated on how you were doing. So when he was feeling up to it he went to your room in the hospital ward. You weren't there so he figured you went to go train or something. He was about to leave to go look for you somewhere else but before he left he noticed a little notebook beside your bed. He had seen you with the notebook before he knew you were good at drawing because you had shown him drawings you drew of Nezuko and some of the other slayers so he decided to open it and see what you had been working on recently. Tanjiro opened the notebook and the first couple of papers were just drawings and paintings of him. He had a slight blush on his face when he saw the drawings. He didn't think you were that interested in him. Just as he was about to put the notebook away he heard you walking into the room. "Oh, y/n hi! I like your drawings :)"

Genya

He really thought you hated him :( he tried everything he could think of to impress you but you didn't seem to pay any attention to him at all. However one day you two were assigned to go on a mission together after the mission you didn't have a good feeling about letting Genya walk home by himself so late at night so you invited him to stay at your house for the night. When you showed Genya to the guest room he noticed there was a thing of papers on the floor that you had probably forgotten he didn't mean to look at them he just wanted to pick them up and return them to you but he accidentally dropped one of them and it flipped over and he saw on the sheet of paper a painting of him. It had your signature on the bottom of the painting so you had definitely painted it. He was impressed by how good the painting looked but shocked because why would you be painting him? Did you not actually hate him? He still returned the papers to you but after that he didn't feel as nervous talking to you anymore.

Mitsuri

Mitsuri had liked you for a while and she didn't think you liked her back. You didn't really do anything to make her think you didn't like her it was just Mitsuri overthinking. One day when you and Mitsuri were hanging out in your room Mitsuri eyed a stack of papers beside your bed. She got up and asked what they were and picked them up. Before you could say anything she picked the stack of papers up and saw a bunch of drawings of her. She blushed and said "aww y/n why didn't you tell me before you were good at art!!"

Shinobu

You had gotten injured and you were staying in the hospital ward. Shinobu was going to check on you and when she walked through the door she saw you drawing something. She frowned and said "y/n you really should be resting" You assured her that you were fine and didn't need to rest. Shinobu didn't like you neglecting your rest so she walked up to your bed and grabbed the papers from your hand "I'm going to set these down you can have them back when you've rested some" She glanced at the paper. What she saw was an unfinished drawing of her. "My y/n what's this?" she said looking back at you.

Giyuu

Poor thing he just kind of assumed you didn't like him I mean most of the hashira's didn't so why would you be any different? It was only till one day he saw you sitting down under a tree at headquarters drawing something. He was feeling a bit confident that day so he decided to go up to you and ask what you were drawing. You quickly responded with "nothing I'm not drawing anything." He just responded with "oh ok sorry." he got up and glanced back at you as he left he was able to see what you were drawing and he saw that you were drawing him. He blushed and turned around thinking about how you took the time out of your day to draw you.

Tengen

He was normally very upfront about his feelings but with you, he seemed to lose all of his sense. He got so unbelievably nervous around you. So he hasn't been able to confess to you or hell even have a proper conversation with you. One time after he received some advice from Shinobu he decided to go and try and talk to you. When he was coming up to you he saw you drawing and when he looked closer and he saw you drawing him. His mind immediately went blank he got too nervous to approach you after seeing that.

Kyojuro

You and Kyojuro were hanging out in your room after a training session and he saw a folder with papers in it on your desk. He opened the folder out of curiosity and found a bunch of drawings of him. He smiled and picked up the drawings. "Y/N!! YOU SHOULD'VE TOLD ME YOU WERE SO GOOD AT DRAWINGS!!!!" He grinned at you not thinking anything of it.

Obanai

You and Obanai were eating together. Obanai had never been one to talk when he ate and he's a slow eater so you just took out your notebook and started to sketch him. He didn't even notice you drawing until you dropped your pen on the ground. You didn't think he had noticed you so you set your drawing on the table and it flipped over so he couldn't see the drawing so you could get your pen. He flipped over the drawing as he was curious about what you were drawing. When he saw an unfinished drawing of him his face went red. He quickly turned the page over and continued to eat pretending he didn't see anything once you got back up.

Sanemi

He had gone to your house trying to find you. He went to your room and instead of finding you, he found a stack of papers on your bed that was all drawings of him. He blushed as he took a moment to look at all of the drawings. had you really taken the time out of your day to draw him? Once he was done looking at them he put them down and continued his search for you. About a week later he brings it up. "So y/n what were those drawings about in your room?" Thank you for your request! Have a nice day/night

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nerdthatsiriuslylovesteaxx · 5 months

Text

Time for Helpless part 11 peeps

"You feeling okay?"

"I'm fine." Nico responded more trying to convince himself over Will, he just hoped that Will would leave quickly. He managed to eat half a sandwich but he knew that it would only be minutes before he couldn't control it anymore and would throw up.

"Shit sorry Nico, Kayla wanted to talk to me, I'll be back after lunch. Something about scheduling I don't even know at this point."

"Okay." Will walked out of the infirmary and Nico silently thanked the Gods before running into the bathroom and throwing up, he washed the bitter taste out of his mouth before quickly cleaning up, it would be fine, Solace didn't need to know. Nico wandered around the room spotting a stack of blank paper, he took a sheet and started to draw with a ballpoint pen. He drew Will, with his so bright it's almost glowing hair, deep eyes that glittered with a kind of brightness only possible for a child of Apollo. The smile he always had, even when the world seemed to be at it's worst, the freckles that covered his face after spending so much time in the sun. Nico knew there was a very high chance Will would walk in soon and see the drawing, he folded it up and placed it in his pocket only a minute before Will walked back in.

***

"Hey Neeks."

"Do you not have anyone else to annoy?"

"No actually, Kayla and Austin are taking everyone else."

"Great."

"You're stuck with me, probably forever since we have a new system now. Unless it's an emergency everyone takes the same cabins, you can't escape me di Angelo."

"Please kill me now."

"My job is to prevent that."

"Dio mi salvi."

"I do actually need to check some things, can you take off your shirt?"

"No, why!?" Nico blushed,

"I need to check on the stitches."

"Oh, right. Fine." The Apollo boy traced along the cuts with his fingers, checking it hadn't gotten infected and none of the stitches had come out.

"Nico, are you okay? You're ice cold."

"Huh, what? Yeah I'm always cold, not everyone's a heater Sunshine."

"No, like you're colder than normal. You've never been this cold, are you sure you feel fine?"

"Yeah I'm fi-" Nico passes out, Will tries to sing the hymn but it wouldn't work. Of all times for it to not work this might be one of the most inconvenient. He checks the small boys heart rate, it was faster than normal. After about thirty seconds, Nico woke up.

"Don't try to get up quickly; Gods Nico you scared me." Will grabbed a glass of water and a square of ambrosia, handing them both to Nico, except they went right through his right hand. Will was shocked but he tried to keep calm, "Open your mouth." Nico obliged and Will placed the square of ambrosia on his tongue, as he chewed his hand began to turn solid. "Has this ever happened before? Being cold then passing out?" Nico shook his head,

"I didn't feel cold, I just felt normal then yeah."

"How do you feel now?"

"Fine, I just have a headache."

"Drink the water, it'll help." Will sat down next to him, placing a hand over his. "Okay, you're warmer now. Just tell me if you feel sick in any way, alright?" Nico nodded in response,"By the way, we have Jason and Reyna down as your legal guardians, were-"

"Wait what? How and why would Grace and Reyna be my legal guardians exactly?"

"Well we don't count godly parents since they're always hard to contact and they may or may not have threatened me into putting them down as yours."

"And you agreed because?"

"Jason threatened to electrocute me then get Percy to drown me, that didn't sound like much fun. I was going to ask were you aware of that but from that response I'm guessing no?"

"No shit, so what you have to tell them when shit happens to me?"

"Well I need to tell at least one of them and they need to approve on certain things." Nico scowled,

"It's not like they're actually my legal guardians Solace."

"Neeks at this point they are, Jason is probably planning to legally adopt you on his eighteenth birthday."

"Please kill me."

"No can do Death boy."

"What is with you and your obsession with nicknames?"

"You know you love the nicknames, Neeks."

"Perché questo." Nico muttered, Will glanced at the clipboard he was holding.

"Okay so there's so things I need to fill in, I probably should have done that earlier. Anything you've been diagnosed with that I'm not aware of?"

"Don't think so, dyslexia, ADHD, depression, anxiety and PTSD."

"Who do you want as your emergency contacts? Jason and Reyna are already on there."

"Hazel I guess."

"Okay great Hazel and Percy."

"What?"

"Take a guess."

"Oh my Gods they either think I'm their child or hate me, can someone please be fucking normal?" Will smiled and and patted Nico on the head receiving dagger eyes,

"Nope di Angelo. Okay height and weight, take off your shoes." Will was nervous for the results, looking at Nico now he could see all of his rib. "Neeks you're tiny; stand up straight. 5'6" Will patted him on the head.

"Oh shut up Solace, you're a giraffe."

"No, you're just really short."

"Oh fuck you." Nico said stepping on the scale, it read 84 pounds.

"Nico, that's dangerously underweight. Three full meals a day, no exceptions."

"Solace I'm fine, I've survived four and a half years barely eating, I don't need to start now."

"Nico di Angelo, it's an actual miracle you've survived this long. You need to eat, you're alive but just barely. Please...don't die on me, I just want you to be healthy." Will pulled him into a hug, but Nico pushed him away.

"Leave me alone, I've been just fine living like this. If I die so what? No one would care anyways."

"I would care, Reyna would care, Jas-"

"No he wouldn't, I heard him talking about me with Leo and Piper on the Argo II. He voted to leave me to die in that jar. As for you, you barely know me. You'll care for a day and then forget I existed, just leave me alone."

"Nico..." Will went to place his hand on his shoulder but he grabbed it and pushed it away.

"Leave. Me. Alone." Nico with tears in his eyes, "I don't care about any protocol either leave or let me leave."

"Okay Nico." Will said before walking out of the infirmary. Nico fell on the bed, slipped on his T-shirt and cried into his pillow. He wanted to cut, or drink, or smoke but he knew he couldn't do anything stuck in the infirmary. He wanted to shadow travel out but it was the middle of the day, someone would see him. He didn't want to be in the infirmary any longer than he had to, he wanted to get as far away as he could from Will Solace. Him and his blonde hair and blue eyes, that bright smile. Well, I'm doing a good job on pushing him away. Nico thought to himself, the sound of his crying being muffled by the pillow.

***

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starpirateee · 2 months

Text

Strange magic

@holloweaneweek day 4 - Worship

Warnings: none / read on AO3 here

Over time, Miss Holloway got used to the varied stream of regulars that came through the doors of Miss Retro’s. She made sure to keep an eye on everyone who came in on a near regular basis, whether that be the group of students that came in separately but always left together, the parents that appeared sporadically after the school run…

Or that one writer.

He was a relatively quiet bloke, hardly ever spoke, and he almost always took a lonely corner in one of the booths. No matter what he chose to do, whether he brought his beat up pair of headphones or not, he was always trying to write something. His equipment included a notebook that changed every month or so, and a pen that maybe changed twice as often. Neither were very expensive, in fact his pens were always black or blue ballpoints that looked like they’d come from a five dollar multipack.

Holloway knew very little about this mysterious patron of her diner, but he intrigued her more than anyone. Mainly because he kept losing track of time and staying until long after everyone else had left.

Tonight was no exception.

She returned from washing the remainder of the dishes and emerged from the kitchen, ready to lock up. Much to her surprise, she returned to the sound of a pen scratching against paper, and glanced across the diner floor to be met by the writer. He was leaning over the notebook, headphones over his ears, and not even close to paying attention to the world.

The late evening glow was illuminating him in such a way that really complimented him, she thought. His dark hair was slick back, and her neon lights really made it sparkle. His expression was set and focused, and was perfectly reflected in the window he was leaning against.

“Hey, uh… Excuse me, sir?”

He looked up, registering her presence at the counter, and was immediately struck with the general lack of atmosphere around him. He removed a headphone, and stood up immediately. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, Miss-” He muttered hurriedly, gathering his things as he rose from his seat.

“Oh no, I don’t mind! Just how lost in your own world were you?” She chuckled.

“I’ve been sitting here for- holy… Three hours, and I’ve pretty much been going strong since then… Again, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to keep ya…” He started to walk out, but her voice drew him back before he could reach the door.

“Wait! You’re gonna stay this long, and you won’t even give me your name?”

He stopped in his tracks and turned, shooting her an amused glance. “My name, huh? Do I get the same pleasure?”

“You could, if that’s what you wanted… You’re a pretty interesting guy, and the least I can hope for is a bit of conversation outta you next time you come in, huh?”

The smile playing at her lips made him smile too, and he nodded. “Alright, consider it a deal. Name’s Douglas, but most people call me Duke.” He walked back over to the counter and reached out a hand, something she took him up on immediately.

“Holloway. It’s a real pleasure.”

He returned at the end of the week, and elected to sit counterside on one of the brightly coloured barstools. Holloway got a good look at his notebook this time, and noticed that it was thick with loose sheets that he’d clearly scribbled various notes and passages across. They were spread across all of the pages, separating them into various sized clumps of what were presumably works of their own.

When she wasn’t seeing to the other customers and dealing with a kitchen that she was managing to keep from setting on fire, she was talking to Duke. Her first port of call was making a point about how much he wrote; hopefully she’d be able to take that in some kind of direction where he’d tell her more about what was going on inside those pages.

“Yeah, basically every opportunity I have, I’m out here tryna make something work… It’s the first big project I’ve had going in a while, and I might’ve gotten myself a little over-hyped for it, but I dunno, it’s pretty cool to me..” he shrugged.

“What’s the project?” She leaned forwards against the counter, close enough to notice that some of the loose sheets had been stapled, taped and sometimes glued to the main body of the notebook. Now, it looked less like loose notes and more like a case file, with evidence gathered from a whole collection of sources all over the place. It really looked like he was trying to build something here.

He blinked, as if he wasn’t expecting anyone to take any genuine interest in what he was doing. Absently tapping the pen against the page he was currently working on, he tried to figure out what exactly to tell her that would make her just as intrigued as when she’d asked. “So far, it’s a mess,” he played off with a chuckle, reminding himself that none of those notes were in order and hadn’t yet formed anything of a coherent story. “But, I’m looking to make it some kinda fantasy, where a woman with a crazy secret comes into the world’s most ordinary town, and has to try and keep the residents from finding her out? Something like that, anyway. I’ve not written a single thing in order yet, and it's been spread over three notebooks…”

That sounded an awful lot like…

Holloway briefly faltered, reminding herself that she didn’t come into Hatchetfield because it was the world’s most normal town. Far from, in fact. She’d come into Hatchetfield because she’d never seen a town where more weird things happened on a daily basis, and she’d managed to convince herself that she’d fit right in. So far, she’d been absolutely right. So far, nobody had even noticed.

Though, she couldn’t recall telling Duke her life story, and even if she had, then he wouldn’t be privy to remembering it at all…

A curious smile crossed her face; she was desperate to keep up the act that she hadn’t been surprised at his synopsis. “My, Duke, where do you get your inspiration from?”

“Funnily enough, I got that one from coming in here… There’s something about this place, and as soon as I sat down a couple months ago, I just knew that was what I had to do… It’s strange, I’d been struggling with inspiration for such a long time, it’s such a coincidence that I found it here…”

“Or magic,” she suggested with a raised eyebrow.

He laughed. Her shoulders sank a little, flooded with relief. “Or magic,” he echoed, and then laughed again. “Y’know what, yeah… Maybe it is magic.”

“You really got a full idea just from coming in here? My coffee’s not that good, and I promise, I’ve never laced it with anything magical-” well… Not entirely. She had tried her luck by charming the place in a certain way, but that didn’t work for her, completely disregarding what anyone else would think of it. Though, the coffee machine had never broken, and did always seem to make the coffee in just the right way…

“I swear it, the whole thing comes to me in pieces every time I sit down in here…” Duke’s tone was bewildered, he’d never really understood it for himself, but it was one of the many things that kept him coming back as often as he did. It wasn’t easy for him to write everywhere, but when it wasn’t the desk in his office, white he was trying to avoid the slowly growing pile of reports sitting at his side, then it was in her diner. And one of those places didn’t have people on the other side of the line telling him to pick up the pace on the files.

She offered him a smile. “Looks like you’ve really found your muse.”

Muse.

He thought about that even as he headed home and actually cracked on with work from his actual job. So far, he’d gotten as far as understanding what a muse was, and even then he wasn’t quite sure. Nine sisters from the old myths, that helped inspire artists and scientists alike by giving them inspiration.

In a way, that was exactly what happened. He didn’t know whether it was the energy in the diner, or it’s lovely, charming, beautiful hostess…

Who was he kidding? From the moment he’d laid eyes on her, he’d become infatuated. People around town always said that about Miss Retro, but he’d never thought it could be quite so true. It was always something along the lines of “She makes it hard not to be in love with her…” and “I’d envy the lucky guy that finally gets to Miss Retro’s heart,” and Duke was finally starting to see why. The charm she laid on in every conversation, the genuine interest she showed in the world itself and the lives of everyone else, it was admirable. He did understand what everyone was talking about.

Was she his muse?

The source of his inspiration, the reason he was up and writing again after so long being out of it. Hell, the reason he was feeling better in himself than he had in years. All of it was down to her, come to think about it.

Thinking about her like that got him through the case files he promised he’d write up three days ago, and it took him far less time than he normally would, too. He was half expecting to fall asleep over his coffee table as he so often did, the cat piled comfortably on top of his reports. But, he had the whole workload cleared and back in his bag before midnight even hit.

He decided to put this theory and her little joke to the test. The next day, he was out around town. There were two rather pressing calls that he had to make, and while he was waiting in the time between them, he tried to lean against the steering wheel of his old pickup and draw a little inspiration from something that wasn’t Holloway. He thought about the next place he had to go; the trailer park bordering the Witchwood. That place had always seemed a little creepy to him, even if he’d never actually gone into the forest to try and dispel those feelings. But, Hannah Foster never failed to make the day more interesting, even if the case wasn’t specifically about her in herself.

He hummed to the music crackling from the radio. God, he still needed to replace that thing, it was really getting on… Maybe keep the CD drive, though, the collection in the glove department would suffer otherwise. How much was a replacement radio for a car? Would Tony be able to sort that?

When his mind finally stopped wandering for long enough to focus on the book in front of him, he noticed that he’d absently written. That was a start, maybe he really could write anywhere…

No. Nope. Those sentences had been there before he started losing track of everything.

He sighed, glaring at the notebook as if it was personally responsible for his lack of motivation. Surely, he and Holloway had been joking about the diner being magic? Surely he could get himself to write something that actually made some sense, and do it somewhere where he wasn’t thinking of her…

One sentence followed another, and then slowly but surely became a whole paragraph.

That didn’t count, he was thinking about her!

Becoming aware of that made him stop. He was thinking about her. Surely that was one huge coincidence. Surely, all he was doing here was proving that he could write in his truck if he so wanted to, it didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing!

The idea that he could’ve been so lucky to be blessed with a muse was funny to him. What had he ever done to deserve such a… Pleasure? A privilege? That kind of luck just wasn’t in the cards for him.

But, there she was, in the forefront of his mind, and his single paragraph had become three and a half before he could even think to stop himself.

She really wasn’t joking, was she?

As soon as he’d cleared things up with Hannah, which was a simple case involving going over the release files for her sister and explaining what would happen to her mother after that, he drove all the way down to Miss Retro’s, to see if he could clear the air.

Holloway saw the way Duke had come through the door, a mix of fractured confidence and sheer confusion painted on his face. He took a seat on the barstool in the far corner, and got her attention as soon as he could. “Hey, could I get a moment?” He asked, though she could see he was willing to wait for it.

So, knowing that, she nodded. “Sure, I’ve got an order coming in five, but I’ll get straight to you.”

He inclined his head, and cracked open his notebook just to prove a point to himself. In that five minutes, before she returned to him and could give him her full attention, he’d finished the page, and managed lines on the next one too. Of course the magic was working in full force here. Of course.

“So… What’s wrong?”

When he looked back up at her, she was glancing at him expectantly, seemingly knowing she’d phrased the question in the right way. He stared at her for a moment, and then looked down at the pages. The reason he was here. As if he was worried someone else would listen, his gaze darted behind him in both directions before finally settling on her again. “You weren’t kidding about that muse thing, huh?”

“What d’you mean?”

“You’re working some kinda magic on me or something… I can’t get shit done on this project unless I’m here, or you’re occupying my thoughts. I mean, I tried it in my van earlier today, and I spent more time staring out the window than I think I ever have. Soon as you come to mind, three and a half paragraphs in only a couple minutes. What? Are you actually a muse?”

There was a beat of silence. When she occupied his thoughts… Or when he was there at the diner… That made way too much sense for it to be a coincidence. He’d started this story unknowingly based on a version of the tale of her life. And now he couldn’t get it done without her. She blinked, trying to work out just how she was going to go about answering his question. Eventually, she settled on, “Seriously?”

Duke relaxed a little, thinking she was about prepared to laugh in his face. This wasn’t much of an improvement, but he could work with this. He nodded. “I’m serious. I don’t think I’ve felt stranger about anything before, but I wish I could tell you I was lying.”

“It’s okay. I believe you.”

“You… Do?” He raised an eyebrow.

She hummed, somewhat vacantly. There was a lot she could say about this, but he’d retain none of it, through no fault of his own. The real answer would have to be hidden in some cleverly crafted layer of charm that she’d have to act fast to work, before he started believing that she was magic and she’d have no way to tell him he was wrong. “Sometimes, people just have that effect on someone else. Who’s to say you can’t get inspiration from someone like me?”

He managed a smile, but it was still heavily rooted in the tension he felt at his shoulders. “You’re saying… People can be a source of inspiration, and it’s just one of those things?”

“Isn’t everything just ‘one of those things’?”

“I- I guess?”

“Do you… mind me being your source of inspiration?”

His answer came immediately and without hesitation. There was no need to think of the answer to that question, because he already knew how he felt about it. This was one of the best things that had ever happened to him, and Holloway really didn’t seem to mind how often she was present in his head.

“No. I would honestly find a way to thank you if it wasn’t just a… thought out version of you.”

She chuckled. It sounded like a melody in itself. People used to worship the muses, didn’t they? And wasn’t the fact that she was directly responsible for a good majority of his inspiration worship in itself? He sure as hell didn’t know. It felt like he owed her something like that, but presently he still knew the difference between his head and the reality in front of him. Of course, that reality was that muses weren’t real, he just really liked thinking about her…

“I don’t mind being your muse, Duke.”

#holloweane week #holloweaneweek #duke keane #miss holloway #starkid #void offering #holloweane week 2024 #holloweane week day 4

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chezzywezzy · 2 years

Text

Yandere Miles Fairchild (1/4)

Word count ; 4.3k

*As usual, R and Miles are 18/19. Dedicated to @thedoctorisinlove and @vampbloodbunny.

*Edited:3

I sighed, hitting my head against the desk in my room. Underneath my head, fluttering from my sudden action, was my various calculus assignments. Calculus was hard. And it was even harder when I taught myself… I used to be fine with Mrs. Grose’s definition of ‘home schooling,’ but now that I was in my final year of schooling, everything was so hard.

I finally raised my head, gazing tiredly at the messy piles of textbooks and assignments for other classes. So much to do, and no time to do it; seeing as my mornings and late afternoons were spent doing my job as a maid. I only have have the early afternoons and late nights to catch up on school work. I’ve previously inquired to Mrs. Grose about hiring a tutor to help me out. Yet, apparently because I was a maid who lived here rent free, it would have to come out of my own pockets.

I didn’t have money in my pockets, though. The agreement has always been, in exchange for my services as a maid, I could live here without any needs or worries. I guess Mrs. Grose didn’t consider a tutor a need, though.

I twirled my pen between my fingers, my focus returning to the paper. Suddenly, a lightbulb went off, and I was about to jot down the answer when —

My door was flung open, and Flora, in her adorable childish glory, burst into the room. “Y/n! Y/n! Come quick! Miles is almost home!”

I tuned her out as she came over to me and started grabbing at my arm. Messily, I wrote the answer for the problem and drew a small frowny face beside it. The work was messy, but I finally dropped the pen, allowing Flora to pull me out of my seat.

I furrowed my brows as she dragged me out of the room. I was wearing my usual maid outfit. Once upon a time, I despised it because of how formal it was, but I grew to like it. There wasn’t much of a point for changing out of it for a few hours, anyways. The skirt served as a cushion against the stiff wooden chair I studied in.

The girl was especially energetic. I was hunched and lagging behind her, as a matter of fact, and I had to try hard to keep up. Her tiny hand was tight and painful, but I didn’t point it out.

“What do you mean Miles is back, Flora? I don’t recall Mrs. Grose informing me about a holiday,” I inquired in confusion. A part of me already knew he got himself suspended again, but Flora didn’t need to know about her brother’s bad behavior. Each time, in fact, I found it amusing how creative her answers were.

Flora let out a drawled ‘um’ thoughtfully as she pulled me down the stairs. Her pace slowed as her brain churned. “Well,” she started, "I bet there was a… a zombie infestation at the school! And he barely escaped. And because of that, he gets a whole new holiday for being a survivor of such icky monsters!”

A smile tugged at my lips. “I bet you’re right.”

We arrived at the front door. It was large, and both doors were flung open, allowing the sunlight to flood the foyer. Standing out at the edge of the stone steps was Mrs. Grose in her stiff, stoic stature. Her hands were clasped tightly behind her. She stared at the gravel in the parking lot and fencing of the establishment.

Flora pulled me outside, and I blinked, adjusting to the bright light. Mrs. Grose peered at us expectantly over her shoulder, her expression not changing. I could tell from the look in her eyes that she wanted to say something about Miles recent behavior - recent being ever since his parents died, which was already a few years ago.

“Y/n, I already cleaned his room and changed the sheets. So, I expect that upon his arrival, you’ll prepare dinner and tend to the children. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered obediently. Her wording was a double-edged sword; it always was. On one side, it was flattering that she saw me as a responsible adult. On the other hand, I wished she saw me for what I was. I was barely an adult.

“Y/n, when Miles gets here, can you get us some snacks? I’m so-o-o hungry,” she exclaimed, jumping up and down. “And brother will be, too! He just escaped the zombies after running for his life, after all.”

I slowed, crouching down to her height. I ruffled her hair affectionately. “You’re right, Flora. How thoughtful of you. Let me say hello to your brother first and I’ll get right to it, okay?”

Flora nodded, and just then, my ears picked up the distant sound of a car. The crunching of gravel grew closer and closer until a grey car pulled into the parking lot. It pulled up to the base of the steps before coming to a halt. Mrs. Grose began defending the steps, and the moment she did too, the back door opened.

Miles emerged, messy-haired and jovial. He was grinning ear to ear, not even bothering to close the door behind him. He dashed up the stairs while Flora went down, and they met each other half way.

Miles had clearly grown stronger over the last semester. He lifted the child with ease, twirling her around. I watched the scene expectantly, noticing how Mrs. Grose was accompanying the driver in taking out all of his luggage.

My suspicions peaked. Miles never brought any suitcases back with him.

He carried the girl back up and set her on the ground. Flora giggled gleefully, and Miles turned to me. I was still somewhat disappointed by the situation, but I opened my arms to him. No greetings were exchanged as he dove into my arms. His hands grabbed at my back tightly and he hurried his head into the crook of my neck.

I patted his back warmly as his hair brushed against my cheeks. Flora was already tugging eagerly at my skirt, begging for me to get her some snacks now. However, Miles was unmoving while I was laughing from the small girl’s insistence.

“I missed you too, Miles, but the princess demands food,” I finally spoke.

Miles pulled away, not hesitating to plant a quick kiss on my cheek. Over the years I’d grown comfortable with his open affections, and it made me smile. He had an irreplaceable, handsome grin on his face. “Let me help you,” he offered.

I shook my head, dusting my hands off on my skirt. “It’s my job, Miles. Let me take care of it.”

Miles pouted, grabbing my upper arm. Flora tugged at his shirt. “Miles, I want to go play chess in the living room!”

Mrs. Grose and the driver were in the process of dropping the suitcases in the doorway. Mrs. Grose peered at us. “Miles. Let the girl do her job.”

Miles sent a piercing glare her way, but it was gone as soon as it was present. He dully shrugged. “Okay, Mrs. Grose. Let’s go, Flora!”

Alike to what she had done with me, Flora grabbed his hand and pulled him inside. They were both laughing, and Flora offered for a piggyback ride. I watched as he lifted her up and Flora was cheering ecstatically. They disappeared from view, and that was my cue to go inside as well.

I went to the kitchen and swiftly placed a platter of crackers, meats, and cheeses on a tray. I held it with one hand as I exited and went to the living slash all-purpose room. I walked in on Flora and Miles playing chess, just as they said they’d do. The game just started, but I could already tell Miles was going to win.

He was trying too hard against the little girl. But I knew how strong-willing and prideful Miles was because of his spoiled and pompous upbringing. I set the tray down, finally drawing both of their attention to me.

Flora gasped and thanked me, pawing at the various snacks. Miles grinned at me and patted the spot on the couch next to him. He was hunched over the coffee table while Flora was adjacent to him, sitting on the floor. I obeyed, plopping down and flattening my skirt out.

As Flora munched down on a cracker sandwich, Miles moved his bishop. He sat back, leaving Flora to think hard. He grabbed my hand and intertwined our fingers.

“I know you probably think it’s really stuffy to be stuck here at home, but school is so shitty!” he exclaimed, which peaked Flora’s interest.

“Shitty? What does shitty mean?” she innocently asked.

“It’s another word for poo —"

I stole my hand back only to slap his shoulder. “Miles! Watch your language,” I scolded. “Especially around Flora. When will you learn?”

“Awe, come on, it’s just words, Y/n,” Miles chortled coyly. He grabbed my hand once more. Although I was somewhat fuming from his irresponsible behavior, I allowed him to do so.

I knew I wouldn’t get through to him, so I sighed and leaned toward Flora, who was whispering and repeating the word to herself. “Flora, dearest? Don’t listen to your dumb brother. That’s a bad word to use.”

Flora frowned in confusion. “Oh. Okay.” And with that, she moved a pawn forward, not knowing that it opened up the king to Miles bishop.

Miles was about to reach out and solidify his win, but I leaned into his ear. “Come on, Miles. Give the girl a win, will you?”

He pursed his lips in mock thought. He sent me a small smirk. “How about… no. It’s a learning experience!”

“You say that every time!”

He moved the piece, exclaiming, "Checkmate!”

Flora threw up her tiny fists in frustration. “Oh… shitty! You always beat me. I hate this game. Can we play something else?”

Miles laughed, but I sent him an ‘I told you so’ look. He ignored me, though, letting me go and rising to his feet. “Sure, Flora. We can play again some other time. I just know you’ll beat me next time.”

I smiled at the heartwarming scene, sinking back into the couch. Flora huffed and glared at her brother, crossing her arms. “Well… I know it too!” she eventually agreed. “Can we play hide and seek instead? I want Y/n to be the seeker.”

Miles nodded in agreement, pulling Flora to her feet. He sent me a mischievous glance. “That’s a great idea, sis. Y/n, you should count to fifty —"

“Um, Miles, wait,” I interrupted, standing and grabbing his arm. “Can I talk to you alone for a second?”

Flora stomped her foot. “But I want to play!”

Miles slowly nodded. “Uh, yeah, Y/n, of course! Flora, why don’t you get a head start and look for a hiding spot? We won’t take too long.”

Flora begrudgingly ran off, leaving me and Miles to our lonesome. He turned to face me, blues eyes boring into me expectantly. I tried to find my words, knowing better than to set off his temper by wording my question wrong.

“So… Miles, what happened? Why are you home so soon?” I asked carefully.

Miles tensed and could no longer meet my gaze. “It’s… nothing. Don’t worry about it, Y/n.”

I shook my head in disappointment. “I’ll find out sooner or later. I’d rather you tell me upfront, Miles.”

He frowned, clenching his fists and taking a step back. “I told you, it’s not important, okay? Just be glad I’m already home. I’ve missed you, Y/n.”

I strained a smile, knowing that his fuse would burst if I prodded further. I let it go, deciding to drop the object. I covered my eyes with both hands. “One, two, three…”

“Fuck, that’s unfair!” the boy shouted as he ran out of the room.

I would’ve laughed, but I was more concerned about how reluctant he was to answer. I listened intently to which direction he went, because I knew that anywhere he went, Flora was sure to follow. As I counted, I couldn’t help but be consumed by my concern for Miles.

Ever since his parents’ death, he was different. It was understandable, and I understood him completely. However, even I got over my mother’s death after a while. I moved on. But Miles… it was like he allowed that grief to consume him. He was so much darker than the boy he once was. I knew from the many horror stories he brought home with him; that he was violent and short-tempered with his classmates, and because of that, he was a total recluse.

“Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty! Ready or not, here I come!” I shouted loudly, although I knew quite well it would only echo in one-tenth of the house. I removed my hands from my face and headed out into the hallway. Slowly but surely, I examined the rooms. Upstairs, then downstairs, and then I realized; I was only left with the vast chasms of the basement.

Oh, how I hated the basement. It was mores for personal reasons, but I hated it nonetheless. I couldn’t blame them for choosing that area, though. It was always dark and it was filled with junk and there were so many dark corners.

I hovered at the top of the stairs. It wound deeper and deeper, and I began my descent. When I made it to the bottom, I had to shake my flashlight to turn it on. There wasn’t even an ounce of sunlight down below. The basement was wet and cold and stoney. I shuddered in disgust, using the flashlight to scan over the large room.

To my left was piles of old junk. To my right, nothing but a mossy wall that led deeper into the basement. I gulped down my anxiety to the best of my ability, deciding to scan over the junk piles. I took a few steps deeper. The flashlight grazed over a pile of clothes, and I was about to skim past it, but I suddenly saw something fleshy squirm under the light.

I hummed in amusement, pacing toward the pile. “I know you’re somewhere close, Flora-a-a. I wonder where you are…” I was standing right in front of the dusty clothes pile. “Maybe you’re right…” I prepared to grab her hand and tug her out in attempt to scare her. “Here!”

Flora screamed as I pulled her out. However, her screams quickly morphed into roaring laughter, and she dove in for a hug. I laughed as well as I fretted over picking off dust from her hair.

“Have you caught Miles yet?”

“Nope. But you, dearest, need to go clean up. You should know better than to get all dirty like this. There could be rats in there, for all you know!”

Flora giggled, pulling away. “I’m sorry, Y/n. I just really wanted to have a good hiding spot! Can I be the seeker when I’m done taking a bath?”

I patted her head. “Of course, Flora. Now go get clean. And next time, don’t go getting all dusty, okay?”

Flora detached from my torso and ran past me. I watched as she disappeared up the steps, and I was once again left to my lonesome. Right away, my anxiety returned. The basement was deafly quiet. It was dank and dark and Miles could be anywhere. Especially if he was using the same tactic as his sister. I could only hope he had more common sense than that.

I went down the hallway and entered the next room. There were three doors, but I could only reach the one to the right. This was due to the junk piling so high that the other doors were blocked. I could assume Miles could’ve only gone one way, and I quickly checked over the pile. Luckily, the boy was nowhere to be found.

I licked my lips. My entire body was shaking. As terrifying as the silence was, I knew it would be worse if there was even the faint dripping of water. Or, hell, when Miles inevitably tried to scare me and succeeded. Over the years, that’s what he always tried to do when he chose the basement as his hiding spot.

The room I entered was larger and emptier, much to my glee. I thoughtfully glazed the flashlight over one of the few towering piles. There seemed to be nothing in the room, so I was about to move on, but something caught my eye.

There was a blacked out window with only a spot of sunlight peaking through. However, hanging from a loose nail, was a large flannel shirt. I reluctantly went over and picked it up, a firm frown stretching onto my face. With shaky hands, I lifted the shirt slightly.

It had been at least a year since Peter Quint’s shirt was shoved down here. And yet, it still smelled of him. And there’s nothing I hated than knowing that I could still recognize his smell, even after all this time. Before I could let myself get lost in thought, though, I dropped the shirt to the ground and kicked it away.

I was about to turn, but I suddenly screamed as two arms encircled my waist and lifted me in the air. I hit and kicked whoever had grabbed me. It took a moment to realize it could only be Miles, especially now that he bursted into roaring laughter and dropped me back on my feet. My heart was still racing with adrenaline, though, and I turned to him, punching his chest.

“Jesus, Miles, when will you grow out of such childish jokes?” I reprimanded angrily.

Miles raised his hands in mock defeat. “I’ll grow out of it when it stops being so funny. Shouldn’t you know better than to turn your back by now?”

I scowled, my anger dissipating. “Well, I’d appreciate it if you spared me some empathy,” I muttered. “I’m leaving now. I have to check on Flora.”

I went to move around him, however, his arm shot out, preventing me from doing so. He didn’t seem quite as smug, but he maintained a smirk. “Wait, wait. I’m sorry, okay? I’ll start going easier on you.” Before I could accept his apology, he grabbed my face and tilted my head, planting a kiss on my cheek.

Similar to his sister, he ran off before I could reply. I watched him leave, but I hated being in the basement, so I was quick to follow.

~~~

I was entering a circus tent, of which was large and rambunctious and flooded with people. However, instead of a set performance, it seemed that one was able to walk around the center and observe the many sights. I stood in the entrance as people shoved past me. Each was as faceless as the last, so my attention was drawn to the center. Strobe lights circled the displays. There were jesters on the high-hanging tightrope, a car with clowns overflowing from the windows, and an elephant tied up to a very thin metal post.

The crowds went into the stands, and I felt pressured to do the same. I walked forward, but suddenly, an arm shot out. Miles in full clown make-up and attire, only recognizable by his goofy hair, was grinning at me. He offered me a flower, of which I was obliged to take. As I took it, though, water suddenly spurted from the flower, striking me in the face. I shut my eyes and wiped it off with my sleeve.

When I opened my eyes, Miles was gone. I planned on entering the stands. However, Flora, in a elephant onesie, seemingly emerged from nowhere and dashed past me while giggling like a madman. I reached out to her and swerved to catch her, but similar to Miles, she had disappeared into thin air.

The crowd suddenly started roaring in laughter. Confused as to what captivated them so, I turned back. However, the scan had completely changed. One large strobe light was focused on the center. A large, empty cage fit for a lion was in the center, and standing beside with a whip, his back to the crowd, was the lion tamer. He adorned the stereotypical red and black suit.

What was so funny?

I blinked. But that was enough to change the world around me.

When my eyes fluttered open, I was in the center. However, my vision was blocked by iron bars. Terrified, I realized that I was the lion trapped in the cage. And the audience was laughing at me. I gripped at the bars, shaking them and screaming for help. However, the howls of laughter were deafening.

I shrunk back, but the front suddenly dropped open. In terror, I scrambled over to the entrance and emerged. I was panting in fright. I hit my head on the way out, having to duck on the way out. I planned to make a run for it, but I was paralyzed in fear.

The lion tamer turned to me. But instead of another faceless person, it was the one person I never wanted to see again. The lion tamer’s body morphed from a slim, twig-like proportion to that of a somewhat overweight, hairy man with a beer belly. A neck beard was prominent and he grinned at me.

Peter Quint. The man I despised most. Back to haunt me, even in my dreams.

He suddenly snapped the whip menacingly, chortling like he used to do in that deep voice of his. I regained control of my body and made a run for it. I head the snapping of the whip as I ran further and further. However, as I kept heading toward the exit from whence I entered, I realized I wasn’t gaining at all.

Instead, I looked at my feet. They were frozen in place. I wasn’t in control in the slightest.

Suddenly, I let out a shriek of pain, a searing slap sounding against my back. I fell on my knees, ands digging into the dirt. Another slash, and I completely collapsed onto the ground. I was completely exhausted. My mouth was open and I was screaming, but the audience was laughing like their lives depended on it.

My agony fell on deaf ears as I was suddenly whipped onto my back. Tears sprouted to my eyes as Quint loomed over me. He had such a friendly, warm expression. And yet his eyes screamed danger because I knew its what he embodied. He stepped over me, holding the whip high in the air.

He raised it, slowly. He was aiming for my head. I weakly covered my head, waiting for the slash. I closed my eyes.

“Y/n!”

But nothing came.

“Y/n, you’re alright now.”

I opened my eyes. But I realized there was no longer a circus. There was no longer Quint terrorizing me in unfamiliar garb. Instead, there was only the ornate ceiling of my room. And, quickly ducking into my peripherals, Miles. My vision was blurry. Not just from not having my glasses on, but from tears.

Warm hands gripped my cheeks. I was still terrified from what my mind had conjured, and I was struggling to recognize the real world. I instead focused on the sensations. Miles soft thumb's massaging my cheeks. The vague heat of the bedside lamp he must’ve turned on. The squeaking of my bedroom door which was wide open. The ruffling of my blankets as I limply sat up.

I grabbed Miles hands, pushing away. I wiped my tears, my eyes rather itchy. I must’ve looked so ugly with how much I’d cried in my sleep. My cheeks reddened in shame as I pulled my legs to my chest, hugging them. Miles placed his hands on my knees, scooting closer. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, concern etched into his features.

“Do you need to talk about it?” he inquired carefully, massaging my blanketed knee.

I slowly shook my head. “…It’s nothing.”

Miles frowned, scooting closer once more. “I heard you screaming from next door. It doesn’t sound like nothing.”

“Thanks, Miles, but I can take it from here,” I panicked, drawing my trembling hands to my chest.

Miles frown deepened. He didn’t reply, instead crawling onto the bed and sitting beside me to my right. Wordlessly, he pulled me into a side hug. I appreciated that he didn’t push for me to talk about it. I was too embarrassed to do so, anyways. I buried my head into his lightly clothed chest. Miles was wearing but a loose t-shirt that was thin with age.

I was oddly exhausted from my nightmare. It was like the running manifested itself into real life. Beads of sweat rolled down my forehead.

“Let me stay here for the night,” Miles cooed, his finger under my chin as he tilted my head up to meet his earnest gaze.

My heart flooded and I gulped. “…Okay. Thanks, Miles.”

We lowered our bodies underneath the covers. I. Laid on my back, but that didn’t seem to satisfy Miles. He wrapped one arm around my torso and held me close, half of his chest pressing against mine. I would’ve complained about the restriction, but it was oddly comforting. I turned off the lamp beside me and darknesss enveloped the room.

#yandere #x reader #x y/n #self insert #miles fairchild x reader #miles fairchild #yandere miles fairchild #the turning #yandere the turning #finn wolfhard x reader #finn wolfhard #horror films #yandere x reader #yandere slashers #the turn of the screw

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shroomsroom · 3 days

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Hi! I was wondering if you could do the gang(Separate) with a reader who’s like Ocean O’Connell Rosenberg from Ride The cyclone if not then it’s fine🫶🫶

Summary: The Outsiders x Ocean O'Connell Rosenburg!Reader Warnings: none Author's Note: haven't really watched Ride the Cyclone, so if there are mistakes so sorry! You were, arguably, not like the rest of the gang. Top of your grade, probably even top of your school! A stickler for rules and your own sense of righteousness. So people were obvious shocked when you were hanging around with one of the gang.

PONYBOY CURTIS

Pony heavily admired you, sure you were a little rough around the edges and harsh around more people, but your brain and wit drew him towards you. Recently his math grade had been slipping and so he pleaded with you to tutor him. It didnt take much convincing, so you found yourself at the library on a chilly afternoon. He was trying to do a quadratic function and you were getting pissed at him for not knowing this ‘basic’ math. “Come on Pony, what’s 15 squared?” You rubbed a hand over your face in frustration. “Uhmm..” He stared at his paper blankly, fiddling with his pencil. “You know what, I think we’ve done enough math for today.” You said, getting up out of your chair. He looked sort of sad but just nodded his head. “How about we go get some milkshakes?” You asked, swinging your jacket over your shoulder and offering him a kind smile. He brighted instantly and nodded excitedly. JOHNNY CADE Johnny never liked school, never. It was too much work and he found more pleasure in hanging around with Dal. But when he saw the photo of you under ‘most likely to be successful’ in his yearbook that was delivered, he knew he had to talk to you. He started showing up more and more often, hoping to catch a glimpse of your face. You were in 3 of his classes and he was damn near obsessed with you, he watched all your movements and body language just to try and get close to you. He knew that you studied every night at the library, so one day he went there by himself. You were sitting at a table with your textbooks splayed out in front of you. He didn’t know what to do so he just walked past you trying to sneak a peek at what you were doing when you stopped him. “Hey you’re in my math class, right?” You smiled up at him and he nearly fainted. “Uh, yeah.” He nodded awkwardly. “Well, I can see you’re not doing anything. Why don’t you tell me what we did in class last week? I was sick” You asked him, pulling out a chair next to you. He sat down excitedly, happy that he finally got to talk to you. SODAPOP CURTIS Soda was a popular boy, he had looks, girls but not the grades. You were ‘popular’ in the sense that when people talked of a valedictorian, they talked of you. It was quite a shock when Sodapop walked up to you during your lunch. You were on the grass, textbook in one hand and a sheet of paper in another, trying to do your work when you looked up to see Soda standing over you. “Hey,” He said sitting down next to you. “Hi,” You replied curtly, already disassociating from the conversation. “Do you mind if I copy your homework?” He asked, pointing at the sheet of paper in your hand. You shoot him an unimpressed look. “Ballsy, but no.” You return to your work, scribbling notes quickly. He huffed a laugh before patting your head and getting up, walking away to his friends. You glared at him as he walked away, fixing your hair before returning to your studies.

STEVE RANDLE Your car was busted, so you decided to take it into the shop to have it fixed. The man working it was a nice young man named Steve that seemed more interested in what your plans were that day than anything. You pulled out your textbook to work on your homework when Steve shouted at you. “Don’t you get tired of doing schoolwork all day?” You rolled your eyes. “Don’t you get tired of fixing busted cars and shooting blanks 'cuz you’ll never find a girl to fuck all day?” You asked, a devious smile on your lips because of the banter. He laughed, “Damn girl, now I really want to know what your plans are.” He nudged you and you laughed.

TWO BIT MATTHEWS You worked at the drive in, well not really. You did your school work at the drive in and occasionally filled up people’s drinks. Two-Bit was a regular customer that you started seeing after you begun work there, he would always take more drinks than he paid for. One time you watched him fill up his drink cup and then grab another one to fill up. He watched you stare at him, almost challenging you to do something, but you just returned to your homework. He took a sip of his two different drinks before coming up to you. “You not gonna do anything ‘bout the fact that I’m stealing?” He teased you. You gave him a sarcastic smile before putting your pen down. “Don’t get paid enough to care.” He nodded in agreement before looking down at your schoolwork. “They pay you to do all that work?” He countered and you rolled your eyes. “I’ll get paid more in the future,” You huffed, “Besides, not like your getting paid enough to talk,” You bite the end of your pen before doing that same sarcastic smile. He laughed and walked off. DARRY CURTIS You had been one of Darry’s friends in highschool. Friend was used loosely because he was a senior and you were a junior. You were just in the same social circle as him, smart girls who use jock guys for their cars and money and jock guys who use smart girls for their brains and mild-mannerisms. When you saw Darry again, 2 years later, putting up the roof on your house you were in shock. “Darry?” You ask, putting down your school bag on your porch. He looked down at you from the roof and waved lightly. “Y/n? I remember you,” You nodded, almost expecting it to not be Darry. “Never expected to see you…here” You gestured at the roof. “Why’s that?” He knew the answer, but it sometimes felt good to get assurance that he actually had a shot in life. “Thought you would’ve made something of yourself. Gone to college, football and all that shit.” You shrugged. “Yeah well, I’d rather see my brothers go make something of themselves than have them live in poverty. I’d also rather not be doing all the work you’re doing” He pointed at your school back. “Fair enough,” You unlock your door, but before going in you stop, “After you're done, would you like to come in for something to drink?” You asked him. “Would love to” He shouted down at you before returning to his work, “‘S long as you don’t bore me to death with English homework.” DALLAS WINSTON Dallas hated little preparatory girls like you, absolutely despised their stupid attitude and dumb rules. On the days he, rarely, went to school (usually because there’d be some fun thing to do or Johnny asked him) he made it his personal goal to piss girls like you off. So when you were sitting in front of him in class, he took his chance. He started throwing balls of paper in your hair and even one time an eraser. You inhaled, trying to contain your anger but another paper ball hit your head. You slammed your hand against your desk and turned around at him abruptly. He was in the middle of making another paper ball when you turned so he froze. “Cut that out, dickhead” You hissed, eyes narrowing in anger. He laughed. “The teacher’s going to explode if she hears a little prep girl like you say something like that.” He teased, voice low as to not distract attention. You leaned closer to him and he leaned closer to you, almost like a stare-off. “I’ll fucking slit your throat if you talk to me or do any shit like that to me again, you fucking jackass” You spit, knuckles turning white from how hard you were clenching your fists. He raised his hand in surrender but with a small smirk on his face. “Alright, alright,” He paused, “How about, I stop and you come with me after school,” “And get kidnapped by you? Hell no.” You said, turning back. “Suit yourself,” Dallas snickered before ripping out more paper to annoy you with. You let out a frustrated growl before turning back around. “Fine, I’ll go with you for 1 hour.”

#shroomsroom #clara'sroom #the outsiders x reader #johnny cade x reader #dallas winston x reader #dally winston x reader #steve randle x reader #pony curtis x reader #ponyboy curtis x reader #soda curtis x reader #sodapop curtis x reader #two bit mathews x reader #two bit x reader #darrel curtis x reader #darry curtis x reader #two bit matthews x reader

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yxstxrdrxxm · 2 months

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POLL RESULT—! > ALBEDO. Maybe they judged him too early?

Out of all the men, ALBEDO was the only one that didn't struck them as far too opportunistic nor distant. Even when he looked as though he didn't want to be near anyone, they can tell that he was still an okay guy. Maybe they even hoped that he wouldn't be so cruel, just like what they feared him to be.

They doubt that it would happen, but they weren't prepared for such an outcome... If that ever happened, of course.

[ AFFECTION ↑ 8+ ! ]

Speaking of, that order of his... I need to get to it soon, lest I end up forgetting and tell him to come back at another day when I get back home, they mused, their eyes drifting over to the next batch of flowers and their meanings. Though, they stopped at one for Gerbera Daisies.

... Gerbera daisies symbolize innocence, purity, cheerfulness, nd loyal love. Some believed that it can lessen the sorrows and stresses of everyday life...

Lessen the sorrows...

Gerbera daisies aren't a common flower in the district. That was something they told to their previous client, and they knew that is the truth of the matter. However, this didn't mean that they can't grow some and even get the remaining ones they had for them.

... Alright, I've decided.

Tucking a bookmark on the book and closing it shut, they nodded once in determination, standing up from their seat.

"I need to get those daisies and prepare their orders tomorrow."

And no one will stop them from doing such a thing.

In the midst of the chaos the florist was going through, the familiar sounds of papers being moved and a paint brush going across the canvas simply echoed in the empty studio.

Save for the lone painter in the room, who seems content to put his focus on the artwork before him... Even if it looked no less than the ones he had been doing for years.

...

With a huff, ALBEDO simply grabbed his half-finished painting and yanked the canvas from the easel, tossing the thing to the side like it mattered little for him. The thud echoed in the room, but he remained quiet, eerily still for that matter.

How bothersome. What was it that made him so lost in his work? What was stopping him from thinking of something to draw for days?

He huffed, raising his hand to sift through his hair. Truly, such a nuisance to think about. He had hoped that moving with ALICE would've yielded some better results, but that blasted plague seem to follow him.

Looking at the window, he frowned, pondering over his recent interactions. Not many perked his interest nor caught his eye, except for them.

That masked florist, as he penned it, was the one that caught his attention. Not in the way many would think, but because of their mannerisms.

Socially anxious, introverted, and a tad bit awkward... Yes, those are unappealing for many, but ALBEDO can tell that it is far more than those things. It's what made them appear in his mind, especially during the first he's seen them.

His hand wandered over to his pockets, grabbing the sketch he drew of them in a loose sheet of paper. The sketch was rushed, but it wasn't bad— at least, to his standards.

"... What a curious mask they have," he murmured, tracing over the mask— hidden eye and a big, lopsided smile. It was creepy, but he found it intriguing.

Truly, what was it that they hid behind that? He had hoped that he'd be able to ask them, but it may not be possible now.

...

"Time will tell," he murmured. "Time will tell."

For now, he must paint.

He needed to finish a piece today.

Congratulations, you are now able to unlock ALBEDO's route — "The Birth of Imperfections"!

As a reminder: choosing this route locks you out of potential routes with KAEYA and DILUC. If you decide to not pursue this route, the option remains open, but gaining any additional affection points caps out at 15.

And finally, you may still get affection points for the other men, but this may risk gaining points for their obsession (and likewise to ALBEDO). Choose wisely.

This poll will receive answers until TOMORROW (GMT+8). Keep in mind that the majority will win, so vote what you think is right.

Additionally, any poll after this with additional votes WILL be null when the results are out. Choose wisely, focus on the recent poll, and ignore the past.

FLAWED TAGLIST: (send an ask to be added for Flawed!) @beloved-blaiddyd ; @mixed-kester ; @mochinon-yah ; @fffiii ; @leftdestiny-posts ; @ambrosia-divine

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luna-writes-stuff · 2 years

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Perfect, Eddie Munson

Fanfic, gn! writer(-ish)! reader

Fluff

Word count: 1329

Tw: None! And that’s coming from me! Happy fluff everyone! (Not proofread though, oops)

Summary: Writing a D&D campaign can be difficult. Luckily, Eddie has a someone who helps him with the works, and sometimes, the scripts even surprises him. When you let him read your ideas for the upcoming Vecna campaign, he grows amazed, followed by some good old fashioned fluff.

guys come on, where are my eddie x nerd! reader fics? I cannot keep rereading the three same ones.

“They were chanting his name as the players walk in, their cheers growing louder.” Eddie read aloud.

“I was thinking about mentioning more about their appearances,” You threw in, interrupting Eddie’s words, who halted his steps and turned to you in wonder.

“Black cloaks, their hoods covering their faces.” You explained, holding your hands above your head as if to put a hood on. “You know? Typical cult garments.”

An intriguing smile grew on Eddie’s face as he nodded enthusiastically. “Perfect.” He agreed, before turning back to the script.

“Half of them were the cultists you recognize from Makbar,” as he spoke, he turned back to you, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “But there is a new one. One you had not yet encountered.”

Smiling brightly, you waited for him to continue reading. As his eyes scanned the paper, they widened, turning to you in wonder and shock.

“His skin shriveled, desiccated,” You quoted from your memory.

“Not only is he missing his left arm, but also his left eye!” Eddie finished the sentence in amazement. “He lives?”

You shrugged, standing up from your seat on the couch. “Surprise!”

In his excitement, Eddie slams the papers on the little table, before running up to and wrapping his arms around you, leaning back slightly as to lift you off the floor.

You laugh in amusement, holding onto his biceps as he places you back down.

“They are going to love that twist!” He exclaimed, walking back to the small binder you had made for him.

“From there on, it is up to the players to either flee,” You began, trailing off as to let Eddie finish your thoughts.

“Or fight.” He mused, now grabbing the sheet to Vecna’s character.

“All depends on their hit points and that of the cultists.” You spoke, walking over to Eddie and placing your head on his shoulder, reading with him.

“And what if they flee?” He asked, flipping the page to study the character sheets of the party members.

“Then they will have no choice but to return to the streets,” You explained. “But, the cult has already seen them.”

“So the only real option would be fighting.” Eddie hummed, placing his free hand in your back pocket. “But they wouldn’t flee. They’d fight.”

“Good.” You hummed, grabbing the papers from Eddie and closing the binder. “And if they flee halfway, you’d have to decide where they could go. I didn’t have a lot of time to write, so I hope it’s enough for now.”

Noticing your sudden hesitance, the boy frowned, slipping his hand out of your pocket and turning you around.

“Darling, sweetheart,” he interrupted, pushing the papers against your chest. “My dearest, love of my life, babes.”

Gaining your attention, you stopped talking, giving him expecting eyes.

“It’s perfect.” He praised. “I didn’t see this coming, which will make it even better for the party members.”

Letting go of the binder, it fell to the floor with a soft thud. Wrapping your arms around Eddie, you drew yourself into his embrace, merely standing there in the living room with him.

“You should tell it in your own words. I think that’d be better than reading from a page.” You commented, not yet escaping his hold.

Sighing in fake exhaustion, he placed his head on top of yours. “Now why would I ever do that? With your description of Vecna? I don’t think I’d want to do that.”

Snickering at his speech, you took a step back, to which Eddie quickly leaned forward to place a kiss on your nose.

“Are you sure you won’t be there next week?” He wondered, now placing both his hands on your shoulders and squeezing them lightly.

“I already told you, I’m busy next Friday.” You reminded, leaning your head against one of his hands.

“The entire night?” He whined, turning his hand as to hold your cheek.

“The entire night?” You mocked. “Yes, still. Just like the previous eight times you asked.”

“Seven times,” Eddie mumbled, throwing his head back. “But you have written this entire campaign, and now you won’t even see the big revelation.”

“Co-written,” You pointed out. “And it’s not like I haven’t been to the other nights. I’ll just miss a few hours, it’s fine.”

“Co-written.” The boy now mocked in the same voice you had used earlier. “90% of this, is you.” He pointed to the papers on the floor.

“You and your genius little mind.” Now placing both his hands on your cheeks and placing another quick kiss on your lips. “My little genius.” Followed by another.

“My little nerd.” He mumbled against your lips, now finally offering you a proper kiss, his hands traveling to your back.

In return, you placed your hands on his arm and shoulder, relishing underneath his touch. As he pulled away, his hands slowly left you. Turning around as if reminding something, he ran to the kitchen.

“I got you something!”

Standing there in wonder, you bent down to grab the papers from the floor. When you got back up, Eddie stood in front of you, as if he had ran in record time. Grabbing the sheets from your hands rather roughly, he replaced it with a book.

With a hesitant face, you looked down, scanning the object laying in your hands.

“A D&D creature guide?” You read aloud, now studying Eddie’s face, which was gleaming with pride. “Don’t I already have one?”

“Yes,” he nodded, a mischievous grin on his face. “But this one is leather bound. And goes more into details about the creatures. And it includes some new ones.”

Shaking his head at his words, he just gestured to the book. “It’s a new one. Yours was falling apart and this one looked really cool.” He exaggerated.

Smiling at his words, and at the book in your hands, you walked back up to him and placed your head against his shoulder. Happily, Eddie wrapped a hand around your frame, offering you a firm hug.

“Thank you, Eds.” You whispered, your hands subconsciously trailing over the leather cover.

“Anytime sweetheart. Anytime.” He hummed, his voice low in his throat.

A comfortable silence struck between the both of you, simply enjoying each other’s presence. That was, until the boy spoke up, clearing his throat dramatically.

“Are you absolutely positive you won’t be there Friday?”

“Eds,” you groaned, squeezing his sides to make him let go of you. “I can’t.”

“I know.” Eddie copied, mimicking your groan, making a sad face with it. “But now who will make the sound effects?”

Smiling at his words, you shook your head, sitting back down on the couch. “I’m sure Dustin will be more than happy to help you out.”

Still, Eddie was not convinced, and he let himself fall down on the furniture, placing his head in your lap. A pout was visible on his face, but you pretended to ignore it, opening the book on his chest to look at the pages.

You could feel him staring up at you, his eyes nearly drilling holes into your skull. If he’d stare even harder, he might just start speaking to you in your mind.

When he did nothing but stare at you, even after two minutes, you decided to look back at him, sending him a questioning glance. He just formed his lips in a thin line, his eyes running over your face.

Slowly, you reached a hand down, brushing his hair from under his head so the weight would be lifted. Wordlessly, Eddie followed your gestures, before settling his head back down.

“Perfect,” He whispered under his breath, but it caught your ears.

In response, you send him a grateful smile, already feeling the heat rush to your face. Quickly, you turned back to your book, pretending as if his words hadn’t affected you the way they did.

Yet, another whisper flew through the room, now burning your ears as well.

“You’re perfect.”

#stranger things #Netflix #stranger things season 4 #Joseph Quinn #joe Quinn #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #joseph quinn x reader

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