#so. why not use it even if it's this weird not empty ghost town weird evil land of bizarreness

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

Can- can I start one of those homoerotic love-hate one sided vendetta type relationships with Instagram

#it's the only other social media I use and I've never found it quite as bad as what other people say #but also. there is something so fundamental wrong about it at the same time #it feels so. lifeless. and people don't use tags right. #and no one makes content for old things. and you can't like more than three of someone's posts in a row without them yelling at you for it. #and the algorithm refuses to let me see just fandom stuff. and there's no good way to look for stuff that actually interests me #but despite all that I do still use it and idk I'm probably not gonna stop using it #cus like. I do still see cool stuff there and other people seem to enjoy seeing my studd there #so. why not use it even if it's this weird not empty ghost town weird evil land of bizarreness #just me rambling

[toruro]

— ✧ crazy stupid love

pairing. kwon soonyoung x reader

description. your best friend, turned fuck buddy, seems a little too upset about your latest instagram post ...

tags. smut (18+), fwb to lovers, some angst, fluff, confessions, mean dom → switch hoshi, jealousy, arguments (dw there is resolution), angry sex, biting, dacryphilia, degrading (+ discussion of degradation), use of safeword, slightly inspired by crazy stupid love

w/c. 3.6k

a/n. happy birthday hoshi! ngl this has been sitting in my drafts for like 2 months but i figured i should wrap it up and post it today :3

"who's this?" soonyoung asks, holding his phone up to your face. on the screen is a picture that you posted on your story last night, your friend with an arm around your shoulder.

"huh, that's dongwoo," you say, looking up at him with furrowed eyebrows. the back of your head is leaning against his shoulder as your legs are propped up on the other end of the sofa. soonyoung came over to watch the harry potter marathon with you a few hours ago, but with the showing break going on right now, you're both taking some time to catch up on your phones.

"who's that?" soonyoung says flatly, not looking at your face as he pulls his phone back, squinting at the photo. his gaze feels oddly scrutinizing, but you don't say anything about it just yet.

sitting up from your position, soonyoung frowns as you lift yourself off of him to sit across from him on the couch. "you don't remember dongwoo? he went to high school with us?" soonyoung gives you a blank stare. "jeong dongwoo? doesn't the name ring a bell?"

the name does ring a bell, but soonyoung only shrugs and replies, "uh, no i can't say it does."

"no way! we had chem with him! he was really nice and good at labs too," you go on, reminiscing about your memories from your teen years.

"that's weird, i don't remember him." that's a lie—soonyoung definitely remembers dongwoo, but he doesn't remember him ever being as smitten with you as he looks on your post.

"well whatever," you brush off, leaning back onto soonyoung's arm. "he was in town and dmed me asking if i wanted to catch up over dinner."

"a date?" soonyoung asks shamelessly.

you scoff. "no. not a date. just two friends meeting up for dinner."

"a guy and a girl don't meet up for dinner and not call it a date," your friend argues, and then you lift yourself off of him again. soonyoung is slightly annoyed you aren't curled up by his side anymore, but he's even more annoyed by dongwoo's stupid smile on his stupid face with his stupid arm around you.

"what are you talking about? we go out for dinner all the time! those aren't dates," you tell him as a matter of factly, frowning slightly as you do.

"yeah," soonyoung murmurs with a humorless laugh. "and we usually fuck afterwards, so our case is obviously different."

heat courses through your body as the words leave his lips. it's not like he's wrong, but the shamelessness of it all is a little more than you're used to. you're used to the deafening silence and the unspoken words that fill the gaps every time soonyoung leaves you breathless, every time he leaves your brain empty, every time he fucks you.

after he says that, there's that thick, ugly silence wedging itself between you and soonyoung again. you don't like it, not one bit.

"whatever," you finally huff out, not sure if you should lay back down on him or continue sitting up, sensing that soonyoung might want to make a bigger deal out of this than is good for him. "it wasn't a date, i don't know what else to tell you."

neither of you know why you're trying to convince him of this. it shouldn't matter if it was a date or if it wasn't, if dongwoo had an arm around your shoulder, if his touch lingered more, fingers ghosting down your body, up your thigh—

that's what soonyoung tries to tell himself—that it doesn't matter, that none of it matters, that you don't matter to him—at least not like that. too bad he can't control himself. soonyoung can never control himself when it comes to you, and he's starting to wonder if that's a blessing or a curse.

he scoffs, "you're being a real brat right now."

your eyes narrow at him and while this would usually put you in one of those moods—the mood where you want to yank your pants off, have soonyoung's hand in your panties—you're slightly annoyed right now. "what's that supposed to mean?" you ask accusingly, crossing your arms tightly over your chest.

it's a thoughtless gesture but your tits bunch up together and the curve peeks over the collar of your loose shirt. soonyoung stares for a moment and then thinks about if dongwoo looked at you like this. like he wanted to grab your tits, tweak your pretty nipples between his fingers, drink in your moans while he licks into your mouth.

the thought has red flashing through his vision and before you can even think, there's a pair of hot, wet lips on yours and soonyoung is kissing you like he'll die if he doesn't. teeth gnashing against each other as one of his hands wraps around your torso, the other goes up to grab one of your tits, massaging the flesh with his palm.

yeah, you said you were annoyed, but yeah soonyoung is a great kisser and your mind is throttling, going back and forth as you try to decide if you should give in or attempt to hold your own. "soonyoung," you pant as you break away to take a breath, but his lips are on yours again too quickly for you to form a reply.

you find your resolve running thin as you thread your finger into his hair, bringing his face closer as he shifts on the couch above you, knees on either side of you, caging you in. his mouth his pressing kisses to the side of your lips now, peppering your cheeks, and then he's on your neck.

your lips aren't occupied but any words of protest have effectively died in your throat as you squirm under soonyoung when he sinks his teeth into your skin, whining out his name. your hips buck into his for some much needed tension and you can feel soonyoung chuckled against your skin as he licks over the reddening mark.

you feel dizzy when he pulls away and admires the way he's quite literally marked his territory on you. scoffing out loud, soonyoung gives you mean look. "wonder what dongwoo will think about this ..." your mind races at the words—what soonyoung means by that is still a bit of a mystery to you, but the fact that he's so hell bent on keeping you to himself is ... it's turning you on like crazy.

and soonyoung doesn't stop there as he pulls off his shirt and you try to shimmy out of your pants. "what'll he think, huh? his cute little crush ..." he murmurs, looking down at you after your pants are off and thrown to the side, leaving you in just your soiled panties. "his dream high school sweetheart with her legs open, pussy dripping, for a guy who isn't even her fuckin' boyfriend ... like a fuckin' slut."

you gasp when he brings up a thumb to toy with your clit through the fabric, hips jerking up at the contact. "w-what are you—" you're cut off by your own moan when soonyoung pushes the cloth to the side, slipping one finger into your aching cunt without warning. you really want to ask soonyoung what he means by all this, but it just feels so good—too good, and you can't help it at all—your body seems to always give into him.

his finger is already hitting that one spot that he knows has you seeing stars, and your jaw goes slack at how quickly the pleasure is all hitting you. usually, soonyoung likes to work you up to it; starts by playing with your clit for a few hot minutes 'til you're begging for just some fingers inside and then he toys with you for another good while before he finally gives you his cock and fucks you dumb. something tells you today is a bit different.

today is very different, but you have a strong feeling that you won't mind. because all it takes is a few more quick flicks of his wrist and you're crying out his name, saying, "'m gonna cum—soon-soonyoung, 'm cumming!"

you thrash around on the cushions as your orgasm hits you, and soonyoung buries his head into your neck and biting down even harder than before. the slight sting has your senses heightening and your cunt throbs around his fat fingers as he fucks you through the high, not relenting until your neck is littered with hot red marks and you're quivering beneath him.

a content sigh escapes your lips when he slips out of you, allowing yourself a moment to breathe as you start to sit up when soonyoung narrows his eyes at you, unbuckling his jeans in the process.

"don't move," he warns and although you furrow your brows, you comply nonetheless, letting your head fall back against the couch as you watch him shove down his pants and boxers in one go. soonyoung's fat length springs out, hitting against his abdomen as he shuffles his way in between your legs.

pressing his lips together, he asks, "color?" and when the word green is slipping softly from his mouth, he finds it hard to hold back. "fuck, how are you this needy already," he groans when he catches the look on your face—your bottom lip jutted out as you look up at him with shining eyes.

soonyoung grabs your cheek with one hand roughly, shoving a thumb into your mouth as he positions his cock between your folds. you're quick to wrap your lips around his thumb, sucking hard and swirling your tongue in hopes that it'll egg him on to just stick it in already, but instead he just slides his length up and down your folds.

you pout around his thumb but don't stop sucking, letting the drool run down your chin as tears well up in your waterline, and soonyoung chuckles at the look. "go on baby, go on. know you want it," he coos mockingly, continuing to cover his length in your slick but not actually giving you what you want.

"soonyoungie," you whimper when you can't take it anymore, trying to lift your hips yourself so he'll get the message but then he's pressing down on your stomach and holding you in your place.

"be patient slut," he demands, and your eyes press closed when he does, walls clenching around nothing as the word slips from his mouth. "you just came—are you really that insatiable?"

you nod dumbly as he slips his thumb out of your mouth, using the same, wet hand to tightly squish your cheeks together. soonyoung thinks you look so cute like this—puffy lips and lashes thick with tears—and he doesn't give you even a moment's warning when he snaps his cock inside of you in one go.

his balls are pressed against your ass, and soonyoung holds himself there for just a moment before he's pulling back and thrusting back into you. "god fuck—perfect pussy," he groans, thrust after thrust as you throttle against the couch with the increasing force.

you can feel your ass and thighs burn from the way his skin slaps against yours every single time, the sensation only adding fuel to the fire as you cry out his name.

"bet dongwoo thought about this," soonyoung moans as he starts jamming his cock into you less methodically and more sloppy, more hard, more fierce. "thought 'bout having you moaning his name like the pretty whore you are."

you try to mewl something along the lines of, "we're just friends," but it comes out as nothing but a high pitched moan as your second orgasm creeps up on you.

and it's fucking mind-numbing, and you don't think you've ever cum so hard and so fast but soonyoung is grinning down at you as you arch your back and squeeze around his cock so tight it almost pushes him off the edge but no—he's determined to keep going until you can't take it anymore.

"keep goin' baby, i know you can take it." he hardly gives you a second to rest, thrusts slowing only for a few moments as he watches you cream his cock before letting his hands roam all over you.

in your overstimulated haze, you hardly realize when soonyoung flips you over, cock still buried deep inside your hot cunt as you try to stabilize yourself on your knees. his hand is on the back of your neck, pressing your face into the cushions so hard it muffles your moans as his cock batters your buzzing pussy.

he's ramming into you so hard now and all you can feel is white hot pleasure ripping through your body, soonyoung whispering about how you're his filthy little slut, taking everything he's giving you. gripping onto the side of the couch, you try to hold yourself together, you really, really do, but it's too much all at the same time and the word slips from your lips before you even have to think about using it.

"r-red." it's so quiet and hoarse the first time that you aren't even sure if he can hear you so you cry out again, "red, s-soonyoung, red."

it's all a haze when soonyoung slips out of you slowly, giving you both a few moment to adjust as you finally catch your breath over the hiccups of your soft whimpers.

now soonyoung likes seeing you cry, but not when it's like this. he likes seeing you whine and tear up when you're under him and writhing from pleasure, but what he doesn't like is the way your eyebrows are furrowed like this. 'cause when he looks at you now, he sobers up and the anger that fogged his mind just moments ago is clearing up.

"s-shit, i'm sorry," he says quickly as you curl up against the cushions, limbs still quivering from all the pleasure and stimulation. soonyoung wants to reach out, wants to touch you—hold you—and ask you what wen wrong, promise you that he didn't meant to go too far, promise you that he didn't even realize it, but he's not sure if he should.

because right now you won't meet his gaze and he's wondering if he's somehow royally fucked up what's likely the best thing he's got going on his life.

soonyoung's lost for a few moments before senses are snapping into him and he thinks he should get you some water, a towel—do anything except sit here dumbly like he is right now. but when he shuffles away from you and is about to step of the couch he feels a familiar touch around his wrist and he gapes down at you.

"wait," you mumble, finally looked up at him once the tears have stopped flowing. soonyoung stills for a moment, and he's not sure if he should take that as in invitation to move closer or just stay put, but then you're tugging him softly and he can't help but cave. "can y-you lay on top of me?" you ask timidly, and soonyoung gives you a weird look as if to ask, are you sure? "i, uh, i think it'd help me. please?"

that's all takes for him to drape his whole body over you, arms pressed against your side and hands stroke your shoulders. your bare chests are pressed against you and soonyoung swears your rapid heartbeats sync up on the spot as you breaths start to relax.

when all finally feels calm, soonyoung takes a moment to finally ask you the question that's been bothering him this whole time. lifting his head, he finds you looking right back at him. "are you okay? what went wrong?"

"i—yes, i'm okay."

"a-are you sure? you can tell me anything you know—i won't judge, i won't care—i mean obviously i'll care but you know what i mean and—" he starts to ramble, and your lips almost twitch up into a smile, "—and i'm sorry this isn't about me but i'm worried i did something and might have majorly fucked things up and—"

"soonyoung," you say, voice all breathy and light. "slow down, i'm okay."

"are you?" he asks, and his voice is so shaky you frown.

"yes, i promise. i'm, well, i think i just got overwhelmed. it was a lot and happened really quickly and it was a bit more intense than i'm used to," you admit. "not that i didn't like it ... i just wasn't expecting it."

soonyoung watches you carefully as you speak, sitting up and pulling you up in the process too. "i'm sorry—i didn't realize," he confesses. "i was—" he inhales sharply wondering if he should admit his jealousy, "— a bit lost in my own head. i shouldn't have taken it out on you like that. do you want me to get you water?"

you nod and he stands up, heading to the kitchen to grab you a glass. when he sits back down, next to you, soonyoung is relieved when you curl up by his side, gulping down the drink before questioning him. "um, can i ask what you mean by, uh, lost in your head? wait actually—before you answer that—" you pause, "—do you really think i'm a slut?"

soonyoung's eyes widen. "no—fuck, god no. i just—you know, we usually—you know—degrade. if you don't like it i'll stop and—"

"no no, soonyoung, like, i meant outside of sex. do you think i was—i dunno—messing around with dongwoo?"

dongwoo? "no—i don't think you're a slut for that. shit, i'm sorry—i don't even know what the fuck got into me. i just—i don't even know. okay fuck. fuck. okay. i was jealous."

"of dongwoo? we didn't even fu—"

"i know. i know—it shouldn't even matter because we're not exclusively fucking or whatever but i got jealous okay? i don't know—i fucking love you so i saw him with his stupid hand around you and i wanted to punch him in the fuckin' face."

your eyes snap wide at that. "what? you—fuck—what?"

soonyoung hardly even realizes he's confessed until you're looking up at him with those wide eyes and he wonders how he's managed to dig himself deeper into this hole. shit, there's really no getting out of this now. he might as well crawl down further and sit there for the rest of his life and—

"i, uh—i didn't know you felt the same way."

"what? what do you mean the same way—"

"are you stupid, soonyoung?"

"um, kind of."

you laugh and kiss him hard for a second. suddenly you're pressing his shoulders and swinging a leg over his thighs so you can straddle his laps.

"wait hold on," he murmurs, but continues to wrap his arms around your waist as you lift your hips to align yourself over his still hard cock. "a-are you sure? are you okay?"

"yeah," you mutter, kissing him again as you wrap your arms around his neck. "can we take it a little easier from here though?"

soonyoung doesn't hesitate to say, "yes, of course—" but the last word gets cut off by a hitch of his breath when you sink down on him, the two of you moaning in unison at the feeling. his hands are gripping your waist and holding you down as he relaxes, leaning back into the seat as he casually says, "i am never calling you a slut again. or anything degrading for that matter." it's half a joke, half not, and you can tell he's still on edge.

"i like it," you admit as you adjust yourself on his lap, not really moving yet though. "just—i was a bit worried today. i thought you— i dunno. didn't know you liked me too and i didn't know what to think."

soonyoung furrows his brows but can't find the right words to say, so he kisses you instead, pulling you up so his cock drags out of halfway before gently letting you fall back down, tip hitting your walls slowly but deep.

"fuck," you moan into his mouth, holding his head closer to yours. absentmindedly, you lift your hips up again and then grind down methodically, causing both of you to break away from the kiss and look down at the sloppy wet mess where you connect.

and as you both get lost in the moment, fingers grappling at each other's burning skin, letting your bodies melt together, it dawns on you that you and soonyoung have fucked a countless amount of times but this is the first (of many) that you two have made love.

it's an entirely new experience, dreamy eyes and wet, passionate kisses with whispers of love confessions under your breaths and the smooth and damn good thrusts that slowly but surely bring you to the edge.

"feels so good," soonyoung moans, thrusting up into you gently to meet your bounces as you steady him with your arms around his shoulders.

"g'na cum, soonyoungie?" you try to coo, but it comes out as a whimper of your own as you feel that knot in your belly threaten to snap. and when he's nodding into your neck and sucking on the skin, you both fall apart in each other's arms.

cries and grunts mix together in a beautiful song and when you and soonyoung look at each other, sweating, flushed, teary eyed, and so fucking in love, you know that whatever happens with the two of you after this, it will work.

a/n. hope u enjoyed it!

tags. @synthetickitsune @leejihoonownsmyheart @dahliatopia @gyuswhore @hoeforcheol @5xiang @hajimelvr @miriamxsworld @lixiel0ver @josefines-things @mimisxs @kawennote09 @bbyjjunie @rubyreduji (strikethrough could not be tagged)

#hoshi scenarios #hoshi #hoshi imagines #hoshi x reader #hoshi smut #soonyoung scenarios #soonyoung imagines #soonyoung smut #soonyoung x reader #kwon soonyoung #svt smut #svt reactions #svt fanfic #svt scenarios #seventeen x reader #seventeen fanfic #seventeen scenarios #seventeen imagines #seventeen smut #📝 writing

[fairyhaos]

ᥫ᭡ // dude, i can see (through) you

vernon x gn!reader fluff, crack(?), supernatural au, non-idol au, ghosts, ft. ghost!jeonghan

3.5k+ words

warnings for: mentions of insomnia, pills

summary: when you move into your new house that seems almost too good to be true, you find yourself (not quite) face-to-face with the prettiest boy you've ever seen.

“Hey, hey, Hansol, did you hear that the family are finally leaving the house?”

“What? Already? Hyung, come on, why do you keep doing this?”

“It’s fun! I bet it was the floating pots and pans that did it. You know how much effort I put in to get those to lift up.”

“I liked these people. They had a dog!”

“Yeah, and the dog could see us. That’s a no-no.”

“Still, hyung, don’t you think we should just… try to live peacefully?”

“Ha! That’s funny. Anyways, I bet I can make the next tenant move out in just a month.”

“No. You shouldn’t do that.”

“So you don’t think I can?”

“I don’t think you should—”

“Oh, it’s on, Hansol! I'm gonna prove it to you!”

“Please don’t.”

───────────── 👻

There is something seriously, seriously wrong with your new house.

It’s nothing obviously wrong, however: on paper, it’s a perfect place. Situated in a nice town, not in an hugely overpopulated area, with various convenience stores and a park close by. Even the house is perfect: not too big, not too small, and, above all, startlingly cheap.

Everything about it is perfect. But from the first day that you move in, you realise that things are a bit… strange.

“Where the hell has my laptop gone?”

You thread your hand through your hair, exasperated. In the middle of your desk, where your laptop ought to be, there was an empty space.

You’ve always been a forgetful person, accidentally leaving your shoes in the wrong place or leaving doors open or forgetting where you put your keys, but this is getting ridiculous. Losing an entire laptop? That’s odd, even for you.

Frustrated, you open your various boxes that still contain half of your worldly possessions, wondering if you’d gone mad and somehow put it away in them instead.

When it becomes clear that your laptop has not been accidentally packed away, you straighten up, shaking your head and resigning yourself to the fact that your laptop is simply lost to the void that is your new house. Hopefully, you manage to find it again before you have to go to work in a couple of weeks.

───────────── 👻

“So, what’s it like, living by yourself?”

You huff, adjusting the phone against your ear as you crawl around on the floor, bending down to look under the sofa. “Really, really weird.”

Your friend laughs over the phone. “Weird? How?”

“Well, for starters,” you say, fishing out yet another fork that had somehow made it under your upholstery, “I think I’m being haunted.”

There’s a pause. “What?”

You don’t believe in the supernatural, or the paranormal, or anything mythical or to do with ghosts and vampires and the otherworldly. They’re all just tales, made up by idiotic people and spun into a capitalist plot by the media, creating franchise after franchise surrounding possessed dolls and muscled Hollywood men playing traumatised werewolves. It’s irritating, and most of all, it’s all fake.

Science and supernatural cannot coexist, after all.

But now, you’re beginning to question whether that’s really the case.

“—turned all my clocks forward by four hours. Four! I thought I was going insane,” you say, standing up and returning to your kitchen with the fork in your hands, after finding your cutlery drawer empty an hour earlier, despite the fact that you’d put away all your cutlery only yesterday.

You put the fork away, and then open up a cupboard to grab a glass, only to flinch and scream at what you see.

“Oh my god, Y/N? Y/N, are you okay?”

“This is ridiculous,” you breathe, staring up at your cupboard.

Every single row is squashed full of your soft toys.

“Hey, Y/N, are you listening to me? Hello? Can you hear me?”

You blink up in extreme despair at the cupboard before shutting the door. You don’t have the energy to deal with it right now. “Yeah, I’m here,” you say, holding the phone more securely against your ear. “Listen, I might have to call you back. I still haven’t fully unpacked yet.”

“Are you okay? You screamed and then suddenly went silent.”

Heaving a sigh, you close your eyes for a moment and then open them again. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll call you later, alright?”

You hang up, and walk out of the kitchen and into the hallway, before pausing in your tracks, staring wide-eyed at the front door.

The front door that was wide open.

You blink.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the door begins to swing shut, before suddenly closing with a sudden bang.

You stand there for a moment longer, before shaking your head and walking up the stairs.

Whichever ghost was haunting you, they sure were weird.

───────────── 👻

“Hey, Hansol, why is this tenant not leaving?”

“I told you. You shouldn’t do this.”

“Hmm, nah. It’s okay. It’s only been a week. I can do this.”

“Should you, though?”

───────────── 👻

Hansol is, unfortunately, so dead.

Very much in the literal sense as well, because he's a ghost. Don't ask him about the logistics of that, or how it came to be, because he doesn't know. All he knows is that one day he died and the next, he opened his eyes and no one could see him. 

But he's also so dead in the figurative sense, too. Because he and his Jeonghan hyung (who was technically a year or so younger than him when he died but still insists on being called ‘hyung’ because he died around a century earlier than him, and “you ought to respect people’s deathdays, Hansol”) have been inhabiting this house for several years, now, but he’s never had a desire to be human again in all that time.

That is, until he meets you.

You’re the latest owner of this house, and you’re… well, you're interesting.

Never before has he seen someone so tolerant of Jeonghan’s schemes. In his attempt to win at a bet that he’d created by himself, Jeonghan was pulling out all the big guns on you: starting off by being a nuisance, then an irritant, then infuriating before escalating into downright chaotic, in a climax where he made all the doors open and slam repeatedly in the middle of the night.

It’s enough to make anyone want to move out. Hansol half-expected you to leave within the first five days, but instead, you clench your jaw and plaster a smile on your face and keep on going.

He thinks it’s a little curious that you’re putting on a smile, even though there’s no one to see it. Like you’re constantly always alert of people watching you, and feeling the need to put on a mask. It makes him want to be human, just for a second, to put a hand on your shoulder and ask if you’re really okay.

During the second week, however, he realises that you really aren’t okay.

“The tenant still hasn’t gone to sleep,” Jeonghan sulks, floating through your bedroom door to sit (well, hover) beside Hansol on the floor just outside. 

“You can just say Y/N,” Hansol reminds him. “What do you mean, though? All humans are meant to be asleep by now.”

“Yeah, well, ours isn’t,” Jeonghan huffs. He crosses his arms petulantly, and his translucent ghost self flickers and wobbles at the dramatic movement. “Why not?”

Hansol shrugs. “How am I meant to know?”

Before Jeonghan can say something snarky in reply, the door to your bedroom door swings open, and the two ghosts flinch and freeze up, momentarily forgetting that they're ghosts. 

They watch as you slowly trudge down the stairs, muttering annoyedly to yourself. You had a dressing gown drawn over you, and you hug it against yourself while you shuffle through your house, before walking into the kitchen.

Hansol looks at Jeonghan, and the other just shrugs, and they both decide to follow you and see what you’re up to.

Hansol peeks his head through the wall just as you pop a few pills into your mouth.

“What’s going on?” Jeonghan asks, pushing Hansol through the wall so that he’s standing in the kitchen properly. “Are those drugs?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Hansol says, and then floats closer so he can see the writing in the bottle you’re holding. It doesn’t help, though, because the writing is all faded, like this is a bottle you’ve had for a while. “Medicine? But what for?”

Jeonghan folds his arms, sitting on the table. “Great. Our new tenant is dying.”

“Does this mean you’ll stop being mean now?” Hansol asks, coming to sit next to Jeonghan.

“I’m not mean.”

“Yes you are.”

“No I’m not! When have I ever been mean, hm? Tell me, Hansol!”

Suddenly, there’s a clatter, and a mess of white pills spread out across the floor, under the table and throughout the entire kitchen. Both of the ghosts, pause, and when Hansol looks up, his eyes widen.

You’re looking directly at him.

No one says anything, and for a long, long moment, you continue to stare directly at Hansol, and he swallows uneasily, glancing over at Jeonghan. The other ghost is just sitting there, too, but he’s looking at you with interest, eyes flicking between you and Hansol.

“It’s… it’s not me, right?” Hansol says hesitantly. “Surely our tenant isn’t seeing me.”

“Try moving,” Jeonghan says, and directs his gaze back to you. There’s not a trace of wariness in his eyes, and Hansol feels more confused than ever. Jeonghan was the one who said that the last family ought to be kicked out because their dog could see them.

Nevertheless, arguing with Jeonghan wastes fifteen years of Hansol’s (undead) lifetime every time, so he does as he’s told, hopping off from the table and almost falls on his face when your eyes track his movements as he does so.

“Holy shit,” you whisper. Hansol’s beginning to feel a bit panicky now. “Dude, I can see through you.”

And then your eyes glaze over and you crumple into a heap on the floor.

───────────── 👻

“Y/N can see us,” Hansol says, pacing frantically. “Hyung, we’re doomed! We’re—we’re gonna get exorcised and go to Hell and have to meet the Devil!”

Jeonghan just hums, looking down at your sleeping form. “I don’t think so.”

After you had fainted, the two ghosts had (very painstakingly) carried you back up the stairs and back into bed. It takes a huge amount of effort for ghosts to be able to make themselves felt in the living plane, and Hansol had been gasping from the effort for a solid hour afterwards.

Now, though, the exhaustion has worn off, and he’s currently making Jeonghan mildly dizzy with all his pacing.

“Hyung.” Hansol whirls around again to face Jeonghan, making the elder ghost raise his eyebrows. “You know what this means, right? This tenant is unwell. You’re not allowed to play your tricks anymore.”

That makes Jeonghan pause. He bites his thumb, then, thinking, before nodding his head. “Fine. I don’t like tormenting the sick, anyways. It hurts to think about.”

Hansol sighs at that, mouth twisting in sympathy. He pats Jeonghan’s shoulder. “Don’t think about it. You’ve been dead for ages, hyung. I’m surprised your memory is still intact.”

Jeonghan scowls, pinching Hansol’s side, making the younger ghost yelp and then laugh. “Hey! We’re basically the same age.”

“Give or take around a hundred years.”

“Yeah, barely anything!”

The two ghosts continue bickering, their voices absorbed into the nothingness that was the plane of the dead. 

In your bed, you turn your head towards the direction of warped voices, squinting at the faint outlines that you can see near the window.

───────────── 👻

“—really handsome dude, oh my god,” you’re saying while you sort through your papers. Your laptop still hasn’t turned up. “Is there any side effect of taking sleeping pills again after a long time of not using them that, like, causes hallucinations of hot guys?”

Over the phone, your friend laughs. “I guess living by yourself really is making you go insane, huh?”

“I’m not insane,” you insist, chuckling. “It sounds insane, but I swear, he was so…” You hide your face behind your hand, despite the fact that no one can see you. 

“That gorgeous, huh?” comes the response from the other end of the line, and you get the distinct feeling that your friend doesn’t really believe you. You take your hand away from your face, trying to rub away the blush on your cheeks.

“Yeah, actually, he was! Anyway, I gotta go. I still haven’t found my laptop, and doing all my work by hand isn’t going well.”

“Go to the library and use a computer there.”

You pause. “Oh. Good idea. I’ll do that tomorrow. Goodnight, I gotta go now.”

There’s a laugh on the other end. “Okay. Goodnight, Y/N.”

The two ghosts sit on your bed, watching you as you hang up the phone and go back to your work.

“So,” Jeonghan says, and his tone is light and teasing, “Y/N thinks you’re pretty gorgeous, huh? I guess you really were seen, after all.” He nods his head in your direction. “Our new tenant is definitely really interesting.”

Silence falls again, and Hansol watches you agonise over your sheets, one hand permanently buried in your hair.

“Hyung,” he says after a moment, “You should give Y/N the laptop back.”

───────────── 👻

“Stupid goddamn insomnia,” you mutter to yourself, trudging down the stairs yet again. “Why can’t I go to sleep?”

You’ve been in your new house for just over two weeks, now, and things are… normal. After the initial weird things happening during the first several days, everything seems to have settled down, almost like the house had gotten used to its new owner. It makes you laugh, every time you think of it in that way, but there’s no other way to explain how the sudden door slammings have stopped, and all your things seem to be exactly where you left them.

And even the other day, you’d found your laptop again.

Everything was going well.

A flash of big, translucent brown eyes flash across your vision, and you shake your head, trying to dispel the memory.

You despise taking your pills, hate them for how drowsy they make you throughout the rest of the day, but just over a week into moving in, you’d caved and succumbed to their awful numbness. Your insomnia had flared up, almost, as if panicked by the new environment, leaving you unable to sleep for several days.

Strangely, though, after you’d had that… vision, you’d been able to sleep easier for a while. 

Large, surprised eyes flood your memory again, and you frown, scrunching your eyes and attempting to get rid of it.

That boy hadn’t appeared in your vision again after that night, and you’ve reluctantly convinced yourself that it had just been a side effect of the sleeping pills and your own lack of sleep. Hallucinations weren’t uncommon with strong sleeping pills, after all.

You finish downing your pills, drinking the entire mug of water for good measure, before wiping your mouth and setting the mug down on the counter. 

Groggily, you rub your eyes and attempt to head out of the kitchen, stumbling a little as you go. Just because you can’t sleep doesn’t mean you aren’t tired, after all. It’s just your stupid body not allowing you to fall asleep.

Abruptly, your foot catches against your other ankle, and you slam into the doorframe with a cry of pain. Eyes still bleary, you move jerkily only to feel yourself keeling over backwards, falling faster and faster towards the floor, and then—

A pair of arms catch you, and you fall back against a sturdy chest that stumbles, just slightly, under your weight, before gaining control and slowly lowering you to the floor, still in their embrace, head in their lap.

Your head is spinning, vision blurry, but as you look up, the sight that stares back at you is as clear as day.

Big, brown, translucent eyes.

Your own eyes widen in shock, and the pair of eyes staring into yours widen too.

“Oh my god,” you say. “How did you get into my house?”

The boy above you opens and closes his mouth wordlessly. “Um… I live here?”

“Like hell you do,” you return. Before you can say anything else, however, the feeling of his arms disappears and you drop the last few inches onto the floor, back making contact with the hard wood. You yelp in pain, and he cringes apologetically.

“Sorry! Sorry. Uh, it’s hard to make myself tangible for long. I didn’t meant to do that. Sorry.”

You sit up, rubbing your back. “Wait, what do you mean? Are you not…”

Another boy steps into your vision. No—he floats, feet constantly millimeters from the ground. He bends down over the boy sitting on the floor next to you, looking down at you with interest. “I’m surprised that you’ve managed to make yourself visible to our tenant for so long, Hansol.”

You blink, lost. “Hey, I can see you too, you know.”

The new boy looks bewildered at that. “You can?” Then his eyes widen. “And you can hear me?”

“You’re talking, aren’t you?” You narrow your eyes. “Is this some prank? Halloween is right around the corner, after all. Are you playing with me?”

“No, no!” The boy who caught you shakes his head frantically. “No, we’d never. Well, Jeonghan hyung might, but I wouldn’t.” He pauses, and then smiles hesitantly, standing up. “Um… we’re ghosts?”

You don’t say anything for a long moment. And then you tap your chin thoughtfully. “Prove it.”

“Please don't pani—what?”

“Prove it,” you say, and then shrug. “I gotta make sure that you’re really ghosts, you know? How do I know that you’re what you say you are?”

The other ghost, Jeonghan, raises an eyebrow. “Why would we lie to you?”

“I dunno. You’re bored?”

Jeonghan thinks about it for a moment, before nodding. “Fair point.” And then, abruptly, he walks up to you, and you expect him to stop right before you, but to your surprise, he carries on going and walks right through you instead.

“Jesus!” you shiver, a horrible coldness running down your spine. “Don’t do that!”

Jeonghan just beams. “Do you believe us now?”

You look back at Hansol, thinking. If you tilt your head just slightly, he flickers out of focus, like a mirage. But when you look at him in just the right angle, he looks as present as any human, only a little less so. Like he’s almost here, but not quite.

After a second, you nod your head. “I suppose you really are ghosts,” you say, and there’s just enough awe in your voice to make Hansol’s eyes widen in confusion.

“You’re… not going to run away?”

“Are you kidding? This is so cool,” you say, clasping your hands together. You grin. “It was getting lonely here anyway. And besides, you’re also really pretty.” Your eyes widen at your own words, and you backtrack. “Uh, pretty cool. That’s what I meant. Ghosts are cool, you know?”

Jeonghan laughs. “Hansol already knows that you think he’s gorgeous. We heard you.”

Instantly, a flush surges up into your cheeks, and Hansol rubs at his nose, embarrassed, before punching Jeonghan in the shoulder. He doesn’t deny it, though, which makes you feel kind of really flustered, but there’s a shy smile on his face as he looks at you.

“I think you’re also really pretty, too,” he says, and goddamnit, a ghost shouldn’t have the power to make you blush like this.

Jeonghan is about to say something, but then gets interrupted when, abruptly, a yawn wracks your frame and you cover your mouth, face scrunching up.

“Well, I think I need to head to bed,” you say, rubbing at your eyes. “Think I’m finally getting tired.”

That makes Hansol almost wilt in disappointment, and it’s such a cute sight that you almost reach over to ruffle his hair. Which is weird. Because he’s a ghost, and also because you hardly know him, but there’s something just so endearing about Hansol that makes you feel like you want to know him forever and ever.

Slowly, you make your way back upstairs, the ghosts trailing after you.

“I’m going to pester you both with questions tomorrow,” you inform them as you get into bed. “Like, about how I’m able to see ghosts and why I can hear you and how long you’ve both been here. I really will.”

Jeonghan laughs. “We look forward to it. It’s been a while since we’ve had someone other than each other to talk to. I think we’ll both like your company.” He nudges Hansol in the side, smile turning devious. “Hansol even more so than me.”

Hansol groans, covering his face, and you just smile, too drowsy to think of what that means at the moment.

“Leave my room before I go to sleep,” you say, as your eyelids close. “I heard you talking in my room a few nights ago, you know. You should know it’s not good to spy on people in their sleep.”

Jeonghan might reply with something, but you’re not entirely sure. Sleep is already pulling you under, pulling you far away from the state of being awake.

The last thing you recall is a cool pressure against your forehead, and a warm voice whispering your name.

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

fics tags: @jeonginssa @weird-bookworm @minhui896 @bunnyiix @slytherinshua @haowrld @belladaises @moonlitskiiies @mirxzii @zozojella @kawennote09 @thedensworld @a-wandering-stay @abibliolife @doublasting @wonranghaeee @icyminghao @sweet-like-caramel @your-yxnnie @evasaysstuff @odxrilove @kyeomyun @crackedpumpkin @jeonride @kellesvt @butiluvu @sakufilms @eightlightstar @aaniag @amxlia-stars

#fairyhaos.works #k-labels #svt #seventeen #vernon #hansol #seventeen fic #vernon fic #svt fic #svt vernon #svt x reader #vernon x reader #hansol x reader #vernon chwe #chwe hansol #vernon x you #hansol x you #seventeen x you #vernon x y/n #seventeen x y/n #seventeen x reader #seventeen vernon #seventeen hansol #svt hansol #svt fluff #seventeen fluff #vernon fluff #hansol fluff #vernon imagines #seventeen imagines

[ladykailitha]

Find My Shade By the Moonlight Part 1

Hello, hello! I bit off more than I could chew trying to get this done by today. But! Here is the first part. They'll be shorter than my usual because it fits the story better.

The title comes from Voodoo by Godsmack, of which was used as the credit song in the first season of the series.

Hazing clouds rain on my head

Empty thoughts fill my ears

Find my shade by the moonlight

Why my thoughts aren't so clear?

The story takes place in a universe where the show continued past the two seasons it was given and is set in 2006. It is also set where the events of the first four seasons happened to other people, but their lives mirror the lives of the people in 1986.

Summary: In the fifth season of the landmark MTV series Fear, they take five college age adults and drop them into the ghost town that is now Hawkins, IN. After the earthquake in 1986 the town was evacuated due to a leak at the now defunct Hawkins Lab.

Steve, Eddie, Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan must now complete tasks or dares over the next two nights, tapping out before completing the task forfeits your chance at $5000. All five will be tested to their limits, but will any of them come out of the experience unchanged?

****

Steve heard rustling around him as he was sat down on a very dusty sofa. He coughed a bit, but it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be.

They had been told that they had to wait until the grandfather clock chimed the hour before they were allowed to remove their blindfolds.

The rustling continued, but in a restless way instead of a simple being moved around way.

The grandfather clock chimed four o’clock in the hallway and Steve pulled off his blindfold.

He was in a large front room that had faded blue carpeting and matching sofas and arm chairs. In front of him was table that had a bunch of equipment and a velvet covered board that had five colored bands. Behind the table was a weird tower that had a screen on it.

Around him were two boys and two girls. The first of the girls had choppy blonde hair and bright blue eyes that sparkled with a mischief that had Steve fighting back a smile. Her style was what his mother called Bohemian. Which he always thought was the polite way of saying eclectic. She had rings and necklaces and bangles everywhere to match her clothes.

The second of the girls also had blue eyes, but short dark curly hair instead of blonde. She wore black slacks and a plain white button down, the sleeves went to her elbow and it was buttoned all the way to her neck. Peaking out of the collar was a simple heart pendant that fell right below the second button.

Steve could feel his cheeks flush when she noticed him looking at her. He turned his attention to the boys. The first one was a quiet boy with light hair and dark brown eyes. He wore jeans and t-shirt with a simple chain around his neck.

He contrasted hard with the remaining boy. He had big brown eyes and long, dark, curly hair. The leather jacket and ripped jeans only completed the look of the many chains and necklaces he was wearing. His hands fiddled nervously with the many rings on his fingers. His Cupid bow lips were set in a firm line, framed by dimples that where there even when he wasn’t smiling.

Steve forced himself to look away.

“Welcome, everyone,” came the robotic male voice that sounded vaguely British. The screen in front of them lit up and the words appeared on the screen as they were being spoken.

“You will each be assigned a random color,” the voice continued. “That color will be randomly chosen to do dares. You will be outfitted with personal cameras that will record you when you are out doing dares. You will be given a dare and time to do it in. If you fail to do the dare in the time limit or you become too frightened and wish to tap out, you will out of the game.”

They all looked at each other nervously.

“You each have the opportunity to win $5000,” the voice said. “This isn’t a ‘the less people you have the more money you get’ situation. If all of you tap out, a new team will be brought in to finish the dares.”

They all nodded.

“You will eat or sleep only during the day,” the voice continued. “Because all dares will be done at night.”

There was some murmuring about that, but Steve stayed silent. That’s what he figured it would be like.

“Because you arrived late in the evening, you will get one day to get to know each other and get set up for the dares.”

Steve breathed out a sigh of relief on that one. That would definitely make this easier. He wasn’t the only one that thought so as there were a couple others that nodded at that too.

“I will call you’re name,” the voice said, “and assign your color. Remember this random and no exchanging colors.”

There below the TV with talking voice were five armbands of different colors.

“Nancy your color is red.”

The dark-haired girl stood up and took the red band. She walked back to her seat and sat down, all without a word.

“Jonathan, your color is green.”

Jonathan cocked his head with a half shrug. He grabbed the green band and sat down on the arm of the sofa Steve was sitting on instead of going back to the chair they had put them in.

“Robin, your color is purple.”

“Could be worse,” she muttered as she got up to grab her band. “It could be pink.”

Steve grinned. He liked her already. Even Nancy hid her smile behind her hand.

“Eddie your color is black.”

The last remaining of Steve’s companions jumped up, pumping the air. “Score!” He skipped over to it and smirked at the last color on the table.

He made his way back to his chair, his knee starting to bounce almost instantly.

“Steve your color is yellow.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Like there was any other color left.” But he dutifully grabbed the remaining band.

“Tomorrow at sunset, you will don the gear in front of you and be assigned dares,” the voice said. “Until then rest, relax get to know each other. There are five bedrooms and three bathrooms as well as fully stocked kitchen. This is the only place that will have electricity and will be considered your safe house.”

“When will we find out where we are?” Nancy asked.

“Tomorrow morning. Until then everyone, get some rest. You’ll need it.”

And then computer turned off.

Robin stretched and yawned. “Fuck, I’m tired. I could sleep for days!”

Steve shook his head. “I’m going to stay up and sleep after they tell us where we are, so my body could adjust to the schedule of sleeping during the day and being awake at night.”

The rest of the group stared at him in shock.

“And how would you know that, pretty boy?” Eddie asked with a little sneer.

Steve sighed. He was about to lose the chance getting along with at least half of them with his next words. “My parents would take me with them on business trips and that how you avoid getting jetlag.”

“So are you rich?” Robin asked.

Steve shrugged. “My parents are. Me not so much anymore.”

“They toss you out?” Jonathan asked, kicking the sofa with the heel that was draped over the arm of the sofa.

Steve bit his lip. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Eddie ran his tongue over his teeth and narrowed his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but Nancy spoke first.

“He’s right about the jetlag thing though,” she said. “I travel a lot as a journalist and a new schedule can fuck you up good.”

Robin rubbed her chin. “I think that’s kinda the point though.”

They all stared at her like she was crazy.

“Now hear me out,” she said, her hands in the air. “The more tired we are, the more likely we are to get scared at whatever it is they throw at over the next couple of nights.”

“So you’re telling me,” Eddie said slowly, “that if we follow pretty boy’s plan, we can last longer in the scares?”

Robin nodded.

“I’m down,” Jonathan said.

Everyone agreed.

“So what’s the plan with staying awake, then?” Robin asked, turning to Steve.

He grinned.

****

Permanent Tag List: @spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @artiststarme @swimmingbirdrunningrock @gregre369 @pyrohonk ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @chaoticlovingdreamer @goodolefashionedloverboi @messrs-weasley @maya-custodios-dionach @val-from-lawrence @i-must-potato @danili666 @carlyv @rozzieroos @wonderland-girl143-blog @justforthedead89 @emly03 @bookworm0690 @itsall-taken @bookbinderbitch @redfreckledwolf @littlewildflowerkitten @vecnuthy @scheodingers-muppet @mira-jadeamethyst @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @genderless-spoon @yikes-a-bee @anne-bennett-cosplayer

#my writing #stranger things #steddie #ladykailtiha writes #fear mtv #fusion

[reflectionsofacreator]

mmm loudly rattles the ice in my latte it's like. FF XV doesn't know what it's about half the time, as the main plot changes so much, and because of that the entire ending sequence/culmination of the plot just doesn't work? Not as a Final Fantasy.

It's not even that I want Noctis to live or anything, it's more that ... the game makes it feel as though his sacrifice is demanded out of nowhere and doesn't ultimately matter. Maybe I'm just a sourpuss but it doesn't really feel as though the Scourge has weight to me. I can't help but feel as though XV would've either 1) benefited from a bigger cast to sacrifice to the Scourge, 2) drive home the horror of Scourged humans turning into daemons, or 3) actually use Ravus effectively to drive home what the Scourge is and does.

It also ties back to The Issue With Insomnia as well, wherein we don't actually have a reason to care that some estimated 25 million people were killed and then subsequently kickstarted the daemonification process of Eos. Like! Kingsglaive showed multiple diamond weapons kaiju sized daemons be dropped into the city, which then burst into clouds of miasma that logically had to have infected millions of people with the Scourge. Insomnia was not a small city, and it was the epicenter of massive ecological destruction to the point where it became a daemon infested ghost town after ten years. That's not a small thing! And Gralea was even fucking worse! And yet XV just doesn't feel like it has weight behind the destruction of these two massive cities, and that's largely because we never really visit them before they fall.

The game wants me to care so much about the horrific nature of the Scourge yet actively fights against that by refusing to show me anything but the pretty set pieces that've been put together. Altissia got wrecked after forging the covenant with Leviathan, but we don't get to see the aftermath (save for Ep Ignis).

Add the issues with the Scourge to the fact that Bahamut is 1) barely around and b) extremely suspect even in the base game, and 3) goes against every Final Fantasy preset by being an unquestioning source of Truth and Goodwill. Final Fantasy almost never has gods that are straightforward and trustworthy, and with such a precedent why should I trust Bahamut? Because he's the highest of the Six? The other Astrals might have demanded the same respect but ultimately they were fought and found to be willing to help Noctis by understanding the mission that was at hand. But Bahamut just doesn't feel like that. I don't know if it's my familiarity with the XV Extended Universe showing or not but like, even in the base game, watching The Revelation for the first time when the game came out in 2016 (dear god has it already been that long) I remember thinking that Bahamut was somehow off. Maybe it was the mask, and the fact that he had Noctis' eyes underneath it. I dunno. Weird little man of a war deity. (The man is 435.86 feet tall)

rattles my empty iced latte again anyways XV kinda sucks and I wish it didn't take up so much brainspace

#creator plays xv #final fantasy xv #insomnia is likely based of nyc which is where the 25 million comes from #gralea is likely closer to tokyo so somewhere around 35 million #those numbers are too big to actually comprehend in any meaningful way but you get my point

[morganski-19]

I Don't Know Which Way's Home

Chapter 3: Awkward Fumblings

ao3 link, Part 1, Part 2

September 1985

Julie sits on one of the picnic benches in the community area of the trailer park. She has one of her many notebooks open to a page she’s been working on for weeks. It’s a pencil drawing of the short story she wrote a few weeks ago. An empty field with serene trees and clear skies. The perfect background for the forefront of her story, if she could just figure out how to draw it. 

One of the trailer doors slams and a girl around her age goes around her trailer, heading to the gate with a small food tray. Her name is Max, Julie thinks. She and her mom moved into the trailer down the street from her a month or two ago. 

She shuts her notebook, the ideas of how to depict the scene she was drawing not coming to her anyway. It’s weird how the scenes created in her mind can get twisted when she tries drawing them on paper. 

When Max is walking back to her trailer, now with an empty tray of food, Julie walks up to her. 

“Hey,” she says, interrupting Max’s movement. “I’m Julie, I live two trailers down from you.”

“Cool,” Max replies with a cold glare. “I’m Max.”

“Were you feeding your dog?” Julie was never good at making friends, she doesn’t even know why she’s talking to Max at all. But she knows everyone else in the trailer park and they’re either too old to be friends with or too young. There’s just something about Max that she thinks might click. 

Max rolls her eyes slightly. Julie can’t tell if she’s annoyed with her or something else. “Yeah, he’s out back behind that fence.”

“Oh, I’ve seen him a few times. Wondered when he showed up.” They stand there awkwardly for a moment, Julie slightly swaying with the book held in front of her. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Max says with an attitude that means she probably didn’t mean it. 

Julie gives her a tight-lipped smile before walking back to her trailer. 

She doesn’t talk to Max for a few more weeks. She sees her a lot, just from sitting out on park benches and sometimes at school. But she doesn’t go up to talk to her again, Max clearly didn’t like it the first time. Doesn’t blame her. She caught her at a bad time, probably, and that made her not want to talk to Julie again. It just happens sometimes, most of the time. 

The trailer door slams shut again after a screaming match Julie could hear between Max and her mom. Mainly Max screaming, but about what Julie doesn’t know. After living in a trailer park for so long, she got used to shutting out the noise of the other trailers. They all have the thinnest walls known to man and sound travels fast, but it’s better for everyone if they learn to tune it out. 

It’s bad enough living in a small town where everyone seems to know everything, they don’t need to be hearing what’s going on inside everyone else’s homes. 

Julie expects Max to go behind her trailer to where her dog sits behind the gate. That’s where she normally goes after slamming the door shut. But instead, the table creaks as Max sits across from her on the other bench. 

“What are you doing,” she asks bluntly. 

“Drawing a scene from one of my stories. I can’t seem to get the tone right.” Julie erases the people she had drawn in the foreground, they weren’t right. 

Max nods, looking unsure of why she’s even here. After their last interaction, Julie can’t help but ask the same question. “What is the tone supposed to be?”

“Tense. The story is about a family that seems normal to the reader, but there’s something off that they just can’t place. Until it ends and you find out that the dad was never actually addressed properly because he was a ghost the whole time.”

“Spoilers much,” Max jokes. It’s surprising, but not unwelcome. “That’s a cool concept though.”

“Thanks,” Julie puts her pencil down, deciding to try and figure out how to fix it later. 

“Did you hear anything before, when I was yelling at my mom?” Max blurts out, eyes darting away when asking the question. 

Julie shakes her head. “I try not to listen to what happens in other people’s trailers. You end up hearing things you regret. Like, a lot of sex.”

That makes Max snort. “I get what you mean.” There’s a comfortable silence that falls over them this time, like they bridged a gap that Julie hasn’t ever really before. “Could you show me your drawing, maybe I can help you figure out what to do.”

“Sure,” Julie shrugs. 

. . . 

“What the hell are you doing here, dingus,” Robin scolds him as he walks through the door of Family Video, head throbbing. “You said you had a migraine, get out of here.”

Steve winces when he fully opens his eyes to the bad fluorescents. “I called out last week for an obvious fake sickness, Keith won’t let me do it again, even if it’s real.”

“You look like you can barely stand, Steve. Go home. Actually, no, I’m calling Eddie to come pick you up.”

He waves her off. “No, no. It’s fine. I just need to drink some water and take more painkillers. I’m at the end of my last dose. And I drove over here just fine.”

Robin glares at him, her jaw clenched. “Fine. But if I see you pushing yourself too far across the limit, I am calling Eddie and helping him push you into his car to take you home.”

“I’ll be fine, Rob, promise.” He unscrews the cap of his water bottle and swallows two more pills. 

“And I’m turning off some of the lights, I don’t care.” Robin walks to the light switches by the break room and flips the switch where every other light turns off. Steve hates to admit it, but it did give him a little bit of relief. 

Compared to his other migraines, today’s ranks at about a three. He was able to get out of bed and stand, so that automatically puts it underneath an eighth. And when he takes his pain meds on time and makes sure to stay hydrated, he can make it through one six-hour shift. He probably would have called out if it was any longer, but he can do it today. 

And luckily for him, Thursdays tend to be slow so he’s able to lean on the counter for the majority of his shift while rewinding tapes. A tedious job that Keith would yell at him for not also doing returns while they were rewinding, but he left an hour ago so Steve could do what he wanted. Within reason. 

Halfway through his shift, there is a slight crowd of people as the school day ends always bringing in a few kids on their way home from school. The excess noise from the groups of teens makes Steve’s head throb more, or at least makes him notice it more. He takes a few deep breaths in between customers, trying to keep a less pissed-off face on. It might not work but he tries. 

As the crowd weans down, someone comes up to the counter, dropping a tape on it getting Steve’s attention. 

“Hey, Steve,” a familiar voice he can’t place says. “Don’t take this the wrong way but you look like shit.”

When he lifts his head, he sees Julie, staring at him with more concern than she probably wants to. They haven’t talked since last week when she showed up at his house. Not like he didn’t want to. But he didn’t have a number or an address to go to and waiting to see if he could catch her after school sounded creepy. So, he was waiting for her to come to him, but she didn’t, not yet. Maybe now he could say something, apologize for not trying to get her to stay more. 

“Hey,” he says, perking up a bit. “How are you?”

She shrugs. “As good as I can be. Uh, this might be insanely overdue. I was finally going through some of my old stuff and guess I never returned it.” She slides the tape across the counter. 

Steve picks it up, scans it, and immediately gets rid of the late fees. “You’re good.”

“What,” Julie looks at him confused. “I know I’ve had that tape for at least three weeks, there should be late fees.”

“For most people yeah, but the joys of knowing someone who is willing to cheat the system is no late fees.”

“And risk his job just to let the kids walk over him,” Robin interrupts, coming behind the counter. “Not you, the other kids,” she turns to Steve. “Go take your break, I got it.”

“There still a rush, Rob-.”

“And I can see you struggling from across the store. Go. Take. Your. Break. You absolute dingus.”

Julie looks at them confused. “I know I said you look like shit but are you ok?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he brushes off. 

“No, he’s not. He should be home but he’s an idiot who decided it was a good idea to come to work with a migraine.”

Steve rolls his eyes as he goes to grab his lunch from the break room. “I’m going to eat in my car, be back in fifteen.”

“Hey,” Julie calls out to him when he leaves the building. “I don’t mean to take up your break, but I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I know you didn’t mean for last week to go like that. It wasn’t fair for me to lash out like that.”

“It’s ok. I’m sorry you couldn’t stay longer.” He sits on the hood of his car, motioning for her to sit next to him.

She does. “Me too. I really hate it at that house.”

“You know you’re not like banned from coming over. I mean you don’t if you don’t want to. But as long as you don’t stay the night and don’t break curfew, Hop said it was ok for you to come over.”

She takes a moment to think about it. “I think I would like that.”

“I would too. I always wanted a sibling,” he adds on, trying to show her that he cares. 

“I did too,” Julie smiles. “I’ll let you get back to your break, hope your head feels better.”

“Thanks. See you around.”

Steve eats his sandwich from his car, taking a moment to lie in the back seat, throwing an arm over his eyes to try and give them a break from the light. When he gets back into the store, it’s a bit better, but still there. It’s one of the many life adjustments he’s had to go through after four years of going through the same thing over and over again, but he’s slowly getting used to it. 

“I saw you talking to Julie on your break, you two good?”

“I think so, she said that she might come over sometimes.”

Robin smiles. “That’s good. She seemed like a good kid. We talked a little bit when you were having your absurdly long talk with Eddie and even though she was kind of reserved, I could tell. Like she just gave me that impression, both in the night before and in that morning. What’s wrong you’re giving me that look when you feel stupid asking a question.”

“I haven’t made a friend under normal circumstances in years, Rob. How do I even go about this?” Steve asks, suddenly hit with the realization that he knows so little about her.

“I don’t know, things. I mean I know you said you didn’t get to talk that much when she was there the last time, so maybe just use what you learned last time and go from there. Also, if you think these are normal circumstances then I hate to break it to you, but it is not. Bond over your shitty father. Get the awkward getting-to-know phase out of the way. Something”

Steve shrugs. “Maybe.”

. . . 

Julie knocks on the door of the Harrington house for the second time in her life, but this time she is supposed to. At least she hopes. All her life she’s felt that wherever her father fucked off, she would never be accepted. Especially when she learned the circumstances of how she came to be, there would be no chance. She half expected that when her case workers finally located her father, he would give up the rights so fast and stick her in the system for two more years until she ages out.

Which in the grand scheme of things, wouldn’t be the worst since she can leave in a few years. But she would do anything to get out of that house and can’t imagine that the next one would be any better.

But there was a small glimpse of hope that she couldn’t help but start to believe in. Steve genuinely seemed interested in knowing her, interested in trying to have some sort of relationship. And he wanted to try too.

It wasn’t surprising really, he was the only family she had that actually seemed interested at all. Someone she didn’t even know about until a month ago, and never met until the previous week. But in the short amount of time that they actually talked, she just had a feeling that this might work out.

“Give him some credit,” Chief Hopper said to her before dropping her off at the foster home. “There was nothing he could do to stop me from bringing you back. I’m not going to tell you what to do with your life because God knows that teenagers never listen to me, but just give it some thought.”

As Steve opens the door and invites her back into his house, she can’t help but think that what he told her was right. She wasn’t mad at Steve, and she should give them both a real chance to do something before jumping to conclusions. Both of them deserved that.

“So,” Steve starts, leading her to the living room. “This is going to sound really stupid.”

“Why do I not like the sound of that?”

He snorts. “I don’t really either, but it’s all I got. We don’t know that much about each other, so I figured we could speed run some of those really stupid icebreakers just to get it out there.”

“To get the awkward stuff out of the way and start to find things in common. I get it.”

“Yep, exactly,” he nods. “So, things about me. I just turned twenty back in August. I’m not in college and don’t plan to be. I work at the video store, as you saw. My favorite color is green, I told you some of my hobbies. And that’s all I got right now.”

“Very interesting information,” She says sarcastically. “My turn, I guess. I’m sixteen, my birthday is in January if you didn’t catch that already. Uhm. I don’t have a job, but I wouldn’t mind getting an after-school one soon to start saving up early. I would like to go to college sometime, but I’m not sure if that would be entirely in the cards right now. My favorite color is blue. And like I said, my hobbies are writing and drawing, but I also like to read a good bit too.”

“What do you want to major in, if you did go to college? Do you know yet?”

“Writing, I think. I’ve been doing it for a while now and I really like it, and English is my favorite subject so I definitely want to do something with literature.”

“That’s really cool. I wasn’t the greatest in school, I tried to pay attention but a lot of the subjects just were hard for me. But I always did the best in history for some reason. Or gym if we’re counting that as a real subject.”

Julie laughs. “Wow, you really were a jock.”

“I like sports and for a time, it was the only thing I thought I was good at.”

“And now? What else are you good at?”

Steve sinks back into the couch, taking a second to think. “I like to think I’m a good cook. I’ve been alone really since high school, so I learned how to cook. Probably not the best in the world, but I like doing it, and it’s fun.”

“What do you mean by really alone?” She asks. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. I was just curious.”

He laughs, like what he just said wasn’t incredibly sad. “I forget that not everyone knows. My dad always went on a lot of business trips, but for the first few years since I was born, my mom stayed home. Then she found out about his cheating, and went with him. After that there were nannies, none stayed for more than a few years, my mom always found something about them that pissed her off. When I started high school, she stopped hiring them. Both of them agreed that I was old enough to be home alone.”

Not like she’s too shocked, but to hear that her suspicions were right about Steve’s parents never being home hurts. She can’t imagine what it was like living in a home where the two people who are supposed to take care of you are never there.

“When did your mom find out about the cheating?” She’s hit with the sudden thought that it might have been around the time she was born, and she couldn’t help but ask.

“I was four, maybe five.” It takes him a second, but his eyes widen, and he sits forward, mouth agape. “Holy shit.”

“That’s probably not a coincidence, is it?”

He runs a hand through his hair. “It would be insane if it was. I thought she wouldn’t have known, that he kept it from her too. She must have found out somehow.”

Guilt hits her. He lived an empty life because of her.

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. It’s his fault, always was. He cheated on my mom constantly. On the rare chance that they were home, the screaming matches were intense. She knew of them, of course she knew about you.”

“I’m still sorry. You didn’t deserve to be left alone because your dad is a piece of shit.”

He huffs. “I’m sorry too.”

“How did you meet Robin? I never got to ask the other day.” She changes the subject to something different, hoping that it will bring them out of the weird mood that they landed in. 

“We worked at the same summer job. Scoops Ahoy, the ice cream place that was in the mall before it burned down. The one with the really terrible sailor outfits.”

Julie winces. “I remember those. They were pretty bad. And Eddie, when did you become friends.”

“Spring break, during all of the craziness that happened.”

She nods her head, letting him ask a question about her before they just start talking. It’s weird but nice at the same time. They strangely get along well and the conversations, while slowing at some points, keep picking back up. It’s feels natural, like it’s not forced. 

But then five o’clock hits and she has to head back to the foster home. He offers to drive her, and she accepts, loading her bike into the back of the car. The car ride isn’t awkward, even if they don’t talk the whole time. It’s comfortable, it’s safe. 

In the short amount of time that she’s known Steve, she can tell that he’s safe to be around. It’s just the feeling she gets from him. She’d be lying if she said it wasn’t surprising, but it’s not unwelcome. 

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Steve says, rustling in his trunk when he helps get out her bike. “I wanted to give you this,”

She takes the box. “A walkie-talkie?”

“Yeah. I use them to talk to the kids I look after and their range is like unbelievably far. So I figured you could use it to talk to me, if you wanted. Or to shoot a warning that you’re coming over. Just something.”

It’s weird, but she accepts it. “Ok, thanks.”

“Yeah no problem,” he shrugs. “I’ll see you around.”

. . . 

When Steve doesn't know how to feel about something, he tends to just not feel anything about it. Like this whole situation about his father, he doesn’t know how to feel about it. 

His father is a cheater and has been for pretty much Steve’s entire existence. There was no secret about that. He’s made his own opinions about that a long time ago, and just shuffled it all to the part of his mind that he doesn’t like to think about too much. Because it hurts too much to think about it all, so he’d rather not. 

But the truth about it was that Steve was used to how his dad was. He was used to the way he treated Steve. How there were barely any phone calls unless he did something that would affect his dad’s image. No birthday or holiday calls, barely even making an appearance during Christmas or Thanksgiving anymore. Just an empty house that was never really lived in enough to even have memories created, let alone any semblance of a life. 

It was just Steve, and he was fine with that. As long as he was the only person that got hurt. 

Even that logic was flawed as his mom has been hurt for years. But that was different, she was an adult. And even though Steve knows that there would be no way that his mom could leave without her reputation being ruined, she still has some responsibility for how he was treated. He never blamed her, but she wasn’t without blame. 

So Steve didn’t care that he was hurt, as long as he was the only child of Richard Harrington that was. And for the majority of his life, that was true. Except it wasn’t. 

And Steve had no idea how to feel about that. 

When Steve wakes up the day after Julie came over again, it’s like all of the hurt that he has tried so hard not to feel has come back to the surface. All of the hurt that he’s become numb to has festered enough to make his skin crawl again. The hurt that would make him want to act out and seek attention from people who never really cared about him, but he wanted them to. 

He stares at his ceiling, thinking about all of the times that he’s woken up just like this. Empty house, bare walls, not a soul other than himself to talk to. More mornings than anyone should have been able to experience. Where it happens enough that the numbers get so large there’s no point in counting them anymore. 

Steve knows that there are people out there that care about him. Knows that there are people that love him. His friends and the family he’s made through the past experiences of his life loved him and he loved them. But the fact that he had to make a family outside of his own just to be loved the way he wanted hurt. 

Parents are supposed to love their kids. At least that’s what it feels like. From what Steve’s observed through his friends and even in his job, families are supposed to love each other. Fathers are supposed to be there to play catch in the yard, moms are supposed to be there to provide a hug that cures all tears. They are supposed to be home, not shove their kids off on someone else. 

It took a long time for Steve to realize that his family was broken and he couldn’t fix it. That one more party wouldn’t get his dad to notice him, for his mom to come home. Making the team got him a phone call because it looked good on them, not because they were proud of him. Getting rejected from college hurt their image, so they cared. Their son refusing to get a job other than part-time at a video store hurt their image, so they cared. There was a scar on his neck that looked suspicious enough that it made people talk, even if it wasn’t true, but it hurt their image, so they cared. 

Not one time did they ever come to visit him during his many hospital stays. Not once did they even send a card. The birthday gifts stopped after the Beemer, and even then it was rare. They didn’t care about him, just what he could do for them. 

Steve was just so tired of acting how people who didn’t even really care about him wanted him to. So he wasn’t going to anymore. 

He gets up and ready, heading straight to his car without a second thought. Driving with a half-baked plan that is made out of a sense of rebellion and just generally wanting something. Steve wants something with someone for the first time in a long time, and he’s tired of holding himself back from it. Even if his dad would hate it, he’s stopped caring that he would. 

“Steve,” Eddie asks confused when he opens the door. “Everything ok?”

Steve nods, letting himself in. “Yep, everything’s fine. Great even.”

“You sure?” Eddie looks at him with a concerned face. “You seem really jittery.”

He is feeling a bit shaky but that’s not going to stop him. “I’m done doing things just because I think it will get my dad’s approval.”

“I thought you already were, but continue. This is good.”

“So I’m going to things that I want, even if I know my dad will hate it. I’m not going to hold myself back anymore.”

“Good, you shouldn’t.”

Steve walks up to him. “I’m going to do what I want, because I want it without thinking of what could happen if he finds out. He acts without thinking of me, why should I act with him in mind.”

“I really like where this is going, Steve, but you are still scaring me a little.”

He lightly grabs the sides of Eddie’s face, a shocked noise slipping out when he does so. “I’m going to do what I want to.”

Before Eddie gets the chance to say anything else, Steve kisses him. Harder than he should of but he doesn’t care. He’s wanted this for far longer than he’s realized and isn’t going to let that voice in the back of his head tell him that it’s wrong anymore. He already canceled their previous plans because of that, he isn’t going to do that again. 

After the shock, Eddie kisses him back, leaning into Steve’s touch and wrapping his arms around him, pulling Steve in closer. 

. . . 

Julie’s least favorite class is probably gym class. A bunch of kids wearing the same clothes, all of which have shorts that are way too short, playing some dumb sport that her teacher deemed important for them to learn. The only good part about the class is that it’s not co-ed, she can’t imagine the comments that would be made about her if the guys were in the class. 

But she has to do it, so she goes out to the gym, the cold air hitting her as she exits the locker room, clutching her middle and just begging it’s something easy today. She notices a girl in a wheelchair by the bleachers, another girl with short hair sitting next to her animately talking about something. It’s Max, Julie realizes. She hasn’t seen her in school since last year, or at all really. 

Not that they were ever really friends. They talked a few times, but never enough to form something real. And after a while, Max came outside in general less and less, always looking like something else was taking over her mind. Julie wanted to reach out and ask if she was ok, but never felt like it was her place to do so. 

And then something big over spring break happened that no one had a good explanation for, and Julie didn’t see Max again for a long time. 

“Do they really make you come to gym class if you can’t participate?” Julie asks, walking over to Max and her friend. 

Max’s eyes are slightly clouded over and she looks at Julie like she can tell that she’s there, but can’t see it. “Yeah, it’s pretty stupid.” Her friend leans over to tell Max who it is, a face of recognition forming. “Julie this is my friend Jane, she just moved back to Hawkins from California.”

“Nice to meet you. Odd to hear someone moving here instead of away.”

“We are happier here,” Jane supplies, speaking with certainty in her voice. 

“I thought you moved too. I haven’t heard anyone drive to your trailer in a few weeks. Thought you might have gotten out of that shit-hole.”

Julie clams up, debating whether or not to tell her. But she’d rather not get emotional in the middle of gym class. “I moved to a place on Cherry Street, that’s probably why.” 

Their conversation is cut short when the teacher calls everyone to the center of the gym to go over the rules. Her mind is everywhere but the gym. Racing thoughts of what could have happened to Max to cause her to be in a wheelchair and possibly blinded, from what she could tell. Only landing at the same spot all of her thoughts seem to end up for the last few weeks. 

She thought that maybe there would be a time when she could think of her mom without almost breaking down, but she couldn’t. It seems that every time someone mentions anything about her, all she can think about is the fact that she’s dead. That Julie is left alone without her mom, forever. 

All she wants is to remember her mom without crying for once. Think of the happy memories with that sadness old people seem to get when talking about their friends. A form of silent sadness that doesn’t cause her to want to rip her heart out. She seems to continuously wake up with sore, red eyes and a pain she has no way of stopping. 

. . . 

July 1986

A few different cars pull up in front of the Mayfield’s trailer, a bunch of kids around her age pouring out and going up the door. All of them cheering when it opens. She recognizes a few of them from her classes. They must have been Max’s friends. 

She hasn’t seen Max since spring break. The only answer that her mom could ever get from asking neighbors was that she was severely injured from the earthquakes and was hospitalized. For months, apparently. 

Max came home last week in a wheelchair. Some people had come over to help build a ramp to the trailer a few days before and showed up again when Max came home. She wanted to go over and say that she was happy to see her back, but it felt wrong for some reason. 

Julie doesn’t know a lot about earthquakes, but she knows that they don’t happen in the middle of America, let alone Indiana. And they don’t happen in the way that it happened here. The cracks in the ground weren’t on any fault lines, or near them at all. And for all of them to start from one location and hit city hall, wasn’t normal. 

Nothing that happened over spring break was normal. She had seen the same bunch of kids running around the trailer park a few days before the quake. And the string of murders that Eddie Munson was wrongfully accused of happened days before the quake. 

None of it made any sense, and Julie had no way of knowing what really happened. Some said this town was possessed by the devil, but that was evangelical Christian panic shit that claimed a board game was demonic. There was something wrong with Hawkins, and Julie wanted to know. But sometimes questions never get answered, and she had to accept that. 

Part 4

Tag list(let me know if you want to be added or removed): @homoerotictangerine, @mugloversonly, @thesuninyaface, @imyelenasexual, @anaibis, @ilovecupcakesandtea, @brainsteddielyrotted, @jackiemonroe5512, @eddie-munsons-missing-nipple, @goodolefashionedloverboi, @cinnamon-mushroomabomination, @lolawonsstuff, @writingandmushroomdragons, @stevesbipanic, @sierra-violet, @steddie-as-they-go, @dauntlessdiva, @mousedetective, @the-daydreamer-in-the-corner, @zombiethingy, @connected-dots-st-reblogger, @that-agender-from-pluto, @allyricas, @cheddartreets, @devondespresso, @crypticcorvidinacottage, @queenie-ofthe-void @chronicpainstevetruther, @cheddartreets, @theupsidedownrealestateagent, @acidbubblegummie, @sirsnacksalot, @l0st-strawberry, @helpimstuckposting, @strawberry-starss, @freddykicksasses, @italianwhore1, @i-threw-my-name-out-the-window, @rageagainsttheapathy, @nuggies4life, @ape31, @whimsicalwitchm, @chrissycunninghamfanblog, @michellegilligan, @hippielittlemetalhead, @bridget-malfoy-stilinski-hale, @jaytriesstuff, @confused-stripes, @faeb1tch42069, @marklee-blackmore, @hel-spawn, @genderless-spoon, @mamafaithful, @estrellami-1, @starryeyedpoet17 @i-amthepizzaman

#stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #robin buckley #eddie munson #max mayfield #original female character #julie lawson #secret sibling au #stranger things fic #fanfic #steddie fic

[carry-on-my-wayward-gays]

Jimmy Solidarity should get a doll skin JUST for Halloween and ONLY to use it to play a Other Mother type character. Like do a whole "don't you want to be a toy too?" plotline. Like. Imagine him just creeping around Tumble Town as a full on doll.

Like limbs that are held together by stitching, skin that's polyester stuffed with cotton, button eyes, yarn hair. It's creepy. Especially considering he can't blink, his eyes are unmoving black buttons after all. His sewn smile never moves either, no one knows how he talks.

Everyone thought it was funny at first. "Oh he finally accepted he's a toy! It's canon!" But then Jimmy gets weird. He moves oddly, like a baby deer just getting the bearings on its legs. His movements are jerky and he stumbles around like he's about to fall over any minute.

Anyone that brings up the fact that Jimmy is actually a toy now is always stared at for a minute or two. It's a long awkward pause after comments like "awe man you forgot the pull string!".

Black button eyes stare empty at you, through your soul and at the rock behind you. Jimmy barks a laugh. It's punched out and loud, just one syllable.

"oh yeah, it's a great time. Would you like to be a toy?"

"Uh-"

"Cause I know a guy! He did all this to me, after all. It's so wonderful." There's always nervous laughter followed up by that. You raise your hands in mock surrender and for some reason you feel the need to back up. But you stay put.

"your hair would make a lovely color of yarn." Jimmy reaches for you and you flinch back. His hands don't even have fingers, they're just mitten shaped pockets of stuffing and polyester.

"Right, yeah. Very scary Jimmy. Happy Halloween or whatever." You say, trying to hide your nerves behind dismissal.

"Halloween? Oh no you misunderstand. This is not a gimmick or a costume, this is permanent. You did know that, didn't you? When you cursed me to this form?" Jimmy tilts his head, but it flops to the side like a bag of rice. His face is unchanging. It sends a chill down your spine.

"No no I mean. Y-You can stop with this act now, stop trying to scare me, Jimmy." You dig your heel into the sand beneath your feet so you can turn and run at the drop of a hat.

"But this isn't an act! Being a toy is so wonderful! Which is why you made me one, right? Don't you wanna be a toy too?" His tone gets sharp and aggressive but his voice never raises. You flinch back with every word.

"No, I don't!" You wave your hands frantically in front of you. Jimmy takes a step forward.

"Oh but you can choose the color of your buttons." You swear his smile twitches, growing wider and wider. You do not hear the sound of tearing fabric though.

You never noticed you're hyperventilating now. You're scared, fully terrified. Your heart is in your throat and tears are building behind your eyes. You notice just in time that Jimmy is slowly reaching for you.

You don't want to stay to find out what will happen if he does touch you so you spin on the heel you've planted in the ground and run. You run and you don't look back at that town or its Sheriff even though you swear you hear the jingling of boot spurs behind you.

Joel doesn't get a chance to talk to the Sheriff who is suddenly a polyester doll. But he sees him. He sees Jimmy walking around with his jerky movements trying desperately to stay upright. It gives him goosebumps, especially when Jimmy will stop and jerk around to look at Joel, which is when the god stops looking.

And he's heard the stories the other rulers have spread. It's bone chilling but Joel pretends his paranoia doesn't spike when he sees Jimmy online. He pretends to not want to scream in horror every time he sees Jimmy and Jimmy sees him.

He was truly haunted by the ghost of a monster of his own creation.

After Halloween Jimmy goes back to normal. He's bubbly and bright and fiesty as he ever was. But now there's a subtle hint of mischief behind his eyes.

People have tried bringing up his Halloween bit and how it wasn't cool (you and others had nightmares for days) but Jimmy just asks "what are you talking about?" It unsettles everyone. No one talks about it after that. But they think of it. Every second of every day they think about the doll with Jimmy's voice, telling them to replace their eyes with shiny buttons.

#discord liked this one #figured Tumblr might get a kick out of it too #jimmy solidarity #solidaritygaming #empires jimmy #empires smp #empires s2 #joel smallishbeans #he's only mentioned but i'll put his name here too #horror writing #empires smp fanfic #kinda? idk #shadow's scribing again

[presidentlokis-hornyhelmet]

idk if your requests are open but your laufey pavitr fic literally made me shed tears -- can i please request a pavitr fic based off of "My Love Mine All Mine" by Mitski? thank u ❤

My Love, All Mine

🕷MASTERLIST💔

Pairing: Pavitr Prabhakar x reader

Tags: One-Sided Attraction, Grief/Mourning, Unrequited Love

Summary: How many times can a heart be broken? As long as it trusts, or as long as it loves?

A/N: I am so sorry for the delay pls forgive me y'all 🙏 ;_;

Also read on AO3

The bustling city around you is lost to the souls who enjoy it. The morning is cold, the breeze chilling your bones but you don't care. You let the bright rays hit your skin, the tears falling down your cheek as you watch the graveyard in grim silence.

Nothing cuts deep like a love untold. And each time, somehow, it hurts more. 

The wind blows brown leaves away, twisting and turning as they land on the dull tombstone. You brush off the dust with your hand, sitting down, unable to stop the tears flowing. The dent of engraved letters feel rough and icy against your fingertips. It feels wrong.

He shouldn't be here!

It wasn't supposed to happen, not to him!

One year ago today, he.. he died. And took with him your very life.

You want to cry so hard, you want to scream and shout but you're worn out. Throat gone sore, eyes tired and dried up but the sorrow never left. Heavy bags have formed under your eyes tainting any happiness left.

To the world he may be Spider-Man: a hero demised, to his family he may be Pavitr Prabhakar -a son lost- but to you, he was a friend, a savior and much, much more.

You loved him more than words could say, more than feelings could express; you loved him with all your heart, alone.

After his death, you used to come here with Gayatri, Pav's girlfriend, and grieve together. But as months passed she had moved out of town for the sake of her mental health, wanting to move on. Perhaps she got her closure; maybe you didn't, and that's why you could never forget. Or maybe, because this was all you ever had and you wouldn't let go.

Even if it was gone.

My baby here on earth Showed me what my heart was worth

The little touches that meant nothing to him, the inside jokes, the longing eye contacts that always meant something more to you.. the ghosts of memories past haunts in shattered pieces. How many times can a heart be broken? As long as it trusts, or as long as it loves?

So, when it comes to be my turn Could you shine it down here for him?

He was the first one to like you for being Yourself. Pavitr brought a new perspective to your life. He showed you love when no one would, he gave you a hand when no one else did, he let you know you were valid, he showed what you were worth, he pulled you up from the dumps.

Pavitr gave hope to a withered, trampled rose; he made you come alive.

Except he had Gayatri to reciprocate it. You had to reserve yourself to just enjoying the unfortunate fate of being his friend, swallowing your feelings, however intense they were. What he doesn't know, won't hurt him -even if it hurt you.

You used to sit there, third-wheeling them and just being a spectator of everything you've ever wanted: Him. So near yet so, so far away.

Why you hurt yourself that way and still got addicted to it, you never knew. Maybe you loved the pain, maybe it was the kind of  drug that keeps you alive. It had you going, looking forward to enjoying the littlest things in life, the most insubstantial interactions and most trivial of feelings. It made life brighter in general, it gave a weird rush in your veins. The possibility of it growing into something more toying cruelly with your gullible heart.

The pain, it was indescribable; like a crown of thorns squeezing your bleeding heart to the last drop. It hurt, and it felt so good.

But this was a different kind of pain. It's permanent and it's... forever. This wasn't the drug type of pain, this just came in and ripped the life from your hands, leaving you soulless; empty.

This is kind of pain that tears you apart limb from limb; a pain that leaves you broken forever.

The moonlight shines bright upon the edge of the cliff, illuminating the red and blue colored mask in your hand. you run your fingers over it again and again, feeling the material. The eye-lens are so wide and bright, expressive just like him. You let the stray tear slip down, tasting the salt on your lips.

The moon is full, but you feel empty.

He's here, he's here with me. He's gone nowhere. He's here, he's here!

You won't move on; you can't move on. You're stuck and you can't help it. You embrace yourself around the knees and shudder, crying.

Moon, tell me if I could Send up my heart to you?

You lean back and lie down on the grass, never taking your eyes off the moon, the beauty radiant. Perhaps one day you would go there too? Become a star in the sky and shine down on people like you, yearning for the tiniest bit of love. Is love that expensive?

Perhaps that had been too much to ask. Or maybe some simply must not ask.

Clutching his torn mask to your chest, your eyes droop as you slowly drift off to sleep, the radiant face and shining hair of Pavitr Prabhakar bleeding into your thoughts. He's here, he's here.

So, when I die, which I must do Could it shine down here with you

There is a price we all must pay and yours cost yourself. But you're not left with nothing.

Your love you own; only your love, all yours. And thus it remains forever.

'Cause my love is mine, all mine I love, my, my, mine Nothing in the world belongs to me But my love, mine, all mine, all mine 

_________

Hope you liked it! Thank you for reading ♡

A/N: I am working on all the others, thank you so much for requesting and waiting! (hopefully i'll post them soon too!🤞)

#pavitr prabhakar #pavitr prabhakar x reader #pavitr #atsv pavitr #spiderverse pavitr #pavitr prabhakar x you #pavitr x reader #pavitr x you #pavitr Prabhakar x male reader #pavitr prabhakar x female reader #pavitr x fem!reader #pavitr x gn reader #pavitr x male reader #pavitr prabhakar x fem reader #pavitr x y/n #pavitr prabhakar x y/n #astv #spiderman india

[callsign-bunnie]

For the horror prompt 141 watching a Scary horror movie

This is for horror night!

--

Ghost had picked it out. Which wasn't shocking. He got a night to choose a movie, and he'd of course chosen It. Ghost was a horror junkie, as was his boyfriend, Soap.

Gaz sighed as he passed out popcorn. "Why couldn't we have skipped him?"

"Equality." Ghost snorted, half assedly swiping at Gaz's legs with his foot. Gaz jumped out of the way just in time and half glared at him before dropping a popcorn bag in Soap's lap.

Soap laughed, softly. "You like horror movies."

"Some." Gaz nodded. "Not horror movies about terrifying clowns which kill kids."

"It's not that bad." Alejandro spoke up when Gaz held out his bag, taking it. "Besides, I'm sure Alex will gladly comfort you." Rodolfo was already half hiding in Alejandro, the blanket over his head. He was playing on his phone.

"He'll have to comfort me!" Alex laughed. "I don't watch these fucking things for a reason."

Gaz chuckled and shrugged. He gave Roach and Valeria their bags and then Graves, Price, and Laswell.

Graves grinned. "You don't like clowns, Garrick?"

"Not one fucking bit." Gaz sighed and finally went back to his seat by Farah and Alex.

Alejandro peeked under the blanket, checking on Rodolfo. "You okay?"

Rodolfo looked up at him and smiled. "Yeah, I'm fine." Alejandro nodded and let the blanket drop again.

Soap yawned as he snuggled into Ghost. "You picked this on purpose to be an arse, didn't you?" He knew his boyfriend, well.

"I'm hurt. I picked it because I like it." Ghost chuckled and pulled him closer, finally hitting play on the remote.

Half of the room didn't even pay attention to it, quietly chatting to each other.

Gaz was smart enough not to, just asking about what Alex and Farah had been doing lately. He did jump at one of the particular big jumpscares, as did Alex. Gaz held his chest, panting a little.

Alex laughed, softly, and hugged him. "I am not built for these movies."

Gaz snorted, softly. He panted and slowly relaxed, planning to fully ignore the movie now.

Roach slid down by Ghost and Soap, offering what was left of his popcorn. Soap immediately accepted it, going to town on eating it since he'd eaten all of Ghost's and his own.

A third of the way through, Ghost left the room and Soap frowned, suspicious, immediately. Ghost claimed he had to use the bathroom but Soap wasn't sure he believed that.

When the movie was fully over, Gaz all but rushed to turn the lights on. "Thank fuck!" He muttered and panted a little.

Rodolfo finally pulled the blanket down, relaxing. "Finally."

"You didn't even watch it." Soap snorted, stretching. He frowned when he noticed Ghost still hadn't returned. Odd. But, he shook it off.

Everyone started to gather everything up. Alejandro came over to help Gaz pick up all the empty popcorn bags. "I'm so glad Soap is next. I am so grateful for some weird obscure action film." Gaz laughed, softly.

Alejandro laughed as well and pat his shoulder. His blood ran cold, though, at the blood curdling scream which came from his husband. He immediately whipped around, getting his knife out, and he noticed everyone else do the same.

Valeria was on the floor, laughing so hard her face had turned red, and Rodolfo had his face covered. "You asshole!" He yelled at Valeria.

Alejandro relaxed, relief flooding his bloodstream. "Valeria!" He scolded, shaking his head. He went over and hugged Rodolfo, gently. "Did she scare you?"

"Yes!" Rodolfo cried.

Ghost was frozen in the doorway, clearly confused what he had just walked into. Soap raised an eyebrow and went to him. "Why were you gone so long?"

Ghost shrugged. "Like I said, I went to the bathroom."

Soap still wasn't buying it but he sighed and shrugged. "Valeria scared Rodolfo."

Ghost laughed. "Figures."

#bunnie's horror night #purple #Johnny Soap Mactavish #Simon Ghost Riley #Rodolfo Parra #Alejandro Vargas #John Price #Kyle Gaz Garrick #Phillip Graves #Valeria Garza #Farah Karim #Alex Keller #Kate Laswell #Call Of Duty Modern Warfare II #Call of Duty #Gary Roach Sanderson

[abhainnwhump]

IMYM: Chapter 4 Nightmares Don't Mean Anything: Ink

<- Previous Chapter || Masterlist || Next Chapter ->

As the Protector of the Doodlesphere and the Guardian of Creativity, Ink has seen some very, very weird things. So it was no surprise that said things would give him weird dreams. But this one? It was at least in the top ten.

It started with Ink floating in the middle of the Doodlesphere. It was in the same condition as he remembered it being earlier that day with him and Fresh. But something was still . . . off. The yellow void looked more purple than usual, or at least darker. He looked around the place and his AU-senses tingled. A lot of them were missing. A lot of positive AUs. They were either destroyed or corrupted by a Code Purple, the latter was the majority.

Ink wasn’t sure what else drew him to the Omega Timeline, but he had the urge to go there. It might’ve had something to do with the cold come tingling feeling the light gave him. Something told him the people needed him there the most. He opened the portal with his hand, like tearing open a paper bag, and leaped in.

The first thing that jumped out to him was the air. Sure, the Omega Timeline was a void with decorations and there wasn’t a natural sun/moon cycle. But that didn’t explain why it was so dark and cloudy; it was never like this without a reason. Ink could tell it was daytime, but there was almost no light. Even the buildings, which were usually somewhat bright and friendly were all dark. Gray banners dangled from the streetlamps with a teal apple in the middle of them. And then there was the biggest question on his mind. Where was everyone? The streets were empty with almost no lit lights. It looked like a ghost town. Ink shuddered. He never liked being alone, he always preferred the big busy AUs.

Ink looked around the town in confusion until a massive statue in the town square caught his eye. He knew the Omega Timeline pretty well since he lived there for centuries, but he’d never seen this before. He also never saw vandalism, at least not in this part of the Omega. And it didn’t even look good. It was a giant rock with two people on it, two skeletons. They were both in fighting positions. The one in the front held a bow the one on the right held a giant hammer. It was hard to tell their expressions because of all the spray paint and dirt covering them. Ink walked around the statue. He didn’t understand why there were three clear spaces, but only two statues.

Why was he missing?

And why did Dream and Blue look like they were in pain?

Ink walked up to the sculpture’s memorial plate and squinted. He read the words out loud. They were easier to read than usual, probably because this was a dream. There was no way he could read the little handwriting with vandalism on it. “‘A long time ago, there were three skeleton monsters named the Star Sanses. The leader of the group was Dream Joku, the former Guardian of Positivity. The other member was a boy named Blue Pop-Prince. Nobody knows the name of’- huh?” Ink’s mouth hung open, unable to believe what he was reading. “Oh come on, you remember Blue but forget me? Why am I the forgotten one?”

“It’s tragic, isn’t it?” Ink turned around to the voice on his left. He was familiar, but he couldn’t place his finger on him. He was a skeleton covering almost his entire body in a fancy silver cloak with a fur hood. Underneath that, he wore a circlet of black thorns and had an eyepatch. It wasn’t one of the kinds with a strap, but it fit on his eye socket. His yellow eye light was dull and tired, like sleep was a foreign concept. He had a weird crescent moon mark on his cheek too.

“Why would you do- wait a minute.” The accent finally registered in Ink’s head. “Dream? Geez, you look like you’re going through your emo phase. What’s with all the darkness?”

Dream scowled, which was not an expression Ink was used to seeing on him. He dropped the frown and sighed. “You already know, Living Dollface. This was all your fault anyway.”

Ink was less offended and more weirded out and confused. He didn’t know what he was talking about. “Living Dollface? That wasn’t even clever. So, now you’re emo and a jerk-”

Dream grabbed his shoulder, digging his nails deep into his bones. He forced him to look at his reflection in the water trench surrounding the statue. Ink didn’t notice until now, but he wore a pink and white lacey dress, ballet slippers, and a pink bow stuck to his skull. His face also felt strange, like he had something on it. Makeup, not much, but enough to make him look cutesy.

“What the . . .” Ink touched his cheekbone with a white lace glove. “What the heck? Did you do this? Did you do something to Blue too?”

“I didn’t do anything, you did.” Dream rolled his eye lights and scowled. “And if you want to know where Blue is, he’s gone. Not dead, but somewhere else. I don’t care and I don’t want anything to do with him anymore.”

Ink gave Dream a concerned look, more baffled than ever. “But . . . you two are best friends! You like each other even more than you two like me. Why do you hate us so much?”

“Because if it wasn’t for you and your stupidity, none of this would’ve happened!” There was a bite of sadness behind his angry words. You should have talked to me. You should have tried harder to escape. You should have cared about your friends for once in your soulless life. Everyone would still be okay, I would be okay if you did. Stars damn it, why did you have to be so selfish? You’re not even the real Ink! You’re a cheap, broken, helpless copy of him.”

Before Ink could ask for clarity, Dream grabbed his shoulders and shoved him to the ground. Ink couldn’t move. His nightmare finally decided he use up his moving privileges. Dream stared him down and Ink thought he spotted blue swirls in his eye lights. but he blinked and they were gone. Dream held one of their hands out and summoned one of their arrows, but it was steel blue instead of cyan.

Ink gasped and found his voice. “Okay, okay, put the arrow down and I can explain. I don’t know what you’re on about, but I am Ink. Come on, you out of all people know me-”

Dream covered his mouth with his glove. “I used to know you, but I don’t anymore. I don’t care what Nightmare does to me, you deserve this. I want you to know how it felt when you turned your back and took away everything good in our lives!”

Dream gritted his teeth and Ink’s eye sockets widened. He couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. Ink couldn’t speak through the glove as Dream raised an arrow above his head. “And just so you know, it’s your own fault no one remembers your name!” He stabbed the arrow through his skull and everything went dark.

Ink’s eye sockets shot open, for real this time. He was still in his rainbow polka-dot pajamas, thank the stars. He felt pretty well rested despite his weird nightmares. He should’ve felt afraid since a guardian’s dreams can be visions of the future, but Ink doubted that was the case. He’s had plenty of strange dreams and only four have been future visions. The morning sunlight and brisk air burned through the window and onto his face. He forgot to close the window and curtains again. Fun. The only reason he had them in the first place was because Blue insisted.

Ink yawned and stretched, reaching for his nightstand for his water glass. But instead of the drink he expected, he touched something sharp, leaving a tiny scratch on his finger. That was enough to wake him up. He blinked at a black rose and an envelope on his nightstand. Was he still dreaming? He rubbed his eye sockets to check if they were some messed-up hallucination. Nope, still there.

The artist picked up the letter first. Someone scrawled his name in cursive, semi-reflective teal letters. It looked like Dream’s handwriting, but even . . . older. Without caring about the actual seal, he tore the middle open and read:

Dear Ink,

Apologies for breaking in, I’m afraid I had no other way to deliver this without Dream’s interference. I’ve been watching you for a very, very long time now, and I’m done hiding in the shadows. Take it as a compliment, few monsters interest me as you do. So I want us to spend some time alone. I made reservations at that little restaurant on the outskirts of Outertale for 7:00 p.m. I know you know the one. I’ll be expecting you.

Oh, as a favor for both of us, don’t say a word about this to the others, especially not Dream. It’d be a shame if something were to happen to them. But of course, that would never happen . . .

Sincerely yours, Nightmare A. Joku.

Ink read the letter two times, three times, and an attempted fourth. Half because the letters kept swimming on the page and half because he couldn’t believe what he was reading. Stupid dyslexia and stupid curvy handwriting! But when he thought about it, it could have been trying to protect him this time. Ink vomited a puddle of paint on the floor. He didn’t know where to start unpacking the letter. What did Nightmare want from him? Wouldn’t he be after Dream? How did he break in? Was he asking him for a date? The artist snorted at the last one. Okay, that was a stupid idea.

Two knocks hit his door and got his attention. “Ink, are you awake?”

Ink panicked and dropped the gifts. The rose’s thorns slit his hands in several places and he had to bite his tongue so he didn’t curse. He quickly shoved the gifts under his bed, not caring that the rose glowed. As he pulled his blankets over the paint puddle and popped back up, his door clicked open.

Dream peeked inside with concerned eye lights. He saw him and his tension left his bones with a sigh. “Phew, you are. Sorry for worrying, you slept in longer than usual and it feels very negative in here.” The guardian nodded towards the right corner of his room. “Especially right there. Do you feel okay? Sick? Did you have a nightmare?” He touched Ink’s forehead, searching for a fever.

Ink chuckled as Dream patted his face. “Dream, Dream, Dreamboat, I’m fine. All it was a weird nightmare where you were acting like your brother.” He prayed to the Creators Dream wouldn’t sense his nervousness and forced smile. He kept glancing between him and the rose under his bed. He hid his bleeding hands behind his back.

“That’s . . . a very interesting dream, it could explain the negativity. I’m sorry if dream-me hurt you.” Dream removed their hand from Ink’s face and smiled at him. “Well, you don’t have a fever, that’s good. Do you still want to come with us to the ice rink? I hope you and Cross will get along well.”Dream blushed and smiled at the thought of his boyfriend. Now that Ink thought about it, they haven’t been able to see each other for a while. Dream with the Code Purples and Cross with his guard training. He was trying to apply for the Omega Guard.

Ink snorted. “Well, duh! It’s all I’ve been thinking about since yesterday and a weird night isn’t going to stop that. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be ready.”

Dream smiled. “Okay! If Blue is on track, we can leave in an hour. See you then!” He turned around and shut the door.

Ink sighed in relief and didn’t waste any time getting dressed. He put on a white turtleneck and black sweatpants. Then a brown jacket with his trademark brown scarf. He also wore black gloves in case anyone asked about his hands. He didn’t have bandages in his room and he had way too much pride to ask for any or risk getting caught. Dream might’ve not interrogated him now, but if he saw blood and sudden bandages he would have questions. Ink didn’t want him to worry, get the wrong impression, or find out about everything going on with Nightmare. He didn’t want him to get hurt.

When he went to put his sash on, he couldn’t find it. It wasn’t on the hook where he left it. Ink looked all over his room, checking his closets and the other hooks. He never misplaced his sash, at least not more than four times a month, so where was it? Maybe it wouldn’t be a big deal if he didn’t take them for one day. He drank a lot of paint yesterday, and it would last for about a week, so he would be fine.

Ink shrugged and took a deep breath, laughing to himself. He’d worry about it later. It wouldn’t affect him later. “Alright, ice rink here I come!”

================================================

Ink drew a note-sketch on his scarf to paint the frozen lake later. It would’ve made a great painting.

The lake glittered a beautiful shade of blue with white steaks jagged through it. Snow-covered pine trees surrounded the arena. Some snow still fell from the trees in white clumps. In the back was a wood cabin with smoke coming from a red brick chimney. Ink could smell the hot chocolate from here, although that was all in his head.

Cross, Epic, and Fresh raced around the edge of the frozen water. Fresh’s lime green scarf blew in the wind and contrasted with his purple pom-pom hat and colorful jacket. He was in the lead. That is, until Epic decided to play dirty and shoved him into one of the bordering snow piles. Fresh spun out and fell on his back.

Fresh coughed the icy powder out of his mouth. “Unrad yo! Ya breaking da rules! And we only had one!”

“Nope! Every man for himself, bruh!” Epic taunted, skating backward. His purple jacket was half-covered in snow.

Dream covered his mouth with his hands to suppress his laughter. Ink didn’t hold back at all.

Cross skated over to the Star Sanses. He wore a cropped white jacket, a black turtleneck, and a black scarf. His red lightning bolt scar stood out against all the white and cool colors. He held Dream’s hand and smiled at him, caressing his blushing cheekbone with the other. “Hey, Dream! Glad you could bring Blue! . . . and Ink.”

The royal guard’s expression hardened when he said his name. Ink shrugged. He was shocked Cross was still mad at him, even two years later. Sure, he only befriended him to watch him for X-Gaster then ditched him when he needed him most. But that was a long time ago! He wondered why he was still bitter.

“Glad to see you too . . .” Ink said, matching Cross’s glare. He wasn’t going to let Cross feel better than him.

Dream looked between the two and cleared their throat, adjusting their yellow mittens. “Well . . . let’s have a good time, okay? Blue, are you ready?”

The three of them turned to Blue sitting on the bench, tying the laces on his skates. He snapped the last one on and stood up, his blue scarf flowing behind him. He gave them a thumbs-up and winked. Cross half-smiled at Blue and he offered his hand to Dream. “Yeah, let’s have a good time. Come on, flower.”

The Star Sanses slid onto the rink with the others. Blue slipped his skates on and almost immediately fell, but he bounced up as quickly. After that incident, he got the hang of it and matched Fresh’s level. Dream and Cross skated together, holding each other’s hand and talking as they did. Ink would be lying to say he wasn’t tempted to skid his blades and splatter them with snow, but he held back from doing it. It was cuter to watch one of them lose their balance and get steadied by the other.

Meanwhile, Ink wanted to show off and did the most complicated tricks he could think of. The Quadruple Jump, The Third Axel, and other spinning and jumping stunts. He even came up with some of his own. As the Guardian of Creativity, was a pro in anything imagination. Except for writing since he had problems with spelling and reading. Everyone rolled their eyelids at him at least once, but Ink didn’t care. He was having a blast.

He almost forgot about the letter and the monster expecting him tonight.

#IMYM #whump #whumpblr #creepy whumper #undertale #undertale au #ink x nightmare #inkmare #nightink #cream ship #cross x dream #nightmare whump #nightmare sans #ink sans #dream sans #fresh sans #swap sans #epic sans #cross sans #star sanses #whump writing #whump fanfiction #whump story #whumper x whumpee #underverse #caretaker turned whumper #caretaker turned whumpee #so caretaker turned whumpee turned whumper . . . I'm confusing myself

[phantoms-lair]

Phantom Detective Meets the Dead Boy Detectives (And Death)

Visiting London has been a lifelong dream of Shinichi's, and now he'd done it. And even better it was with Ran, and he'd gone to see the Sherlock Holmes Museum, and solved a case, and best of all no one in this country knew he was dead on sight. (Well besides Ran and her father, but still). 

It was nice to just be a tourist without being the 'Phantom Detective'. He much preferred being 'Holmes’s Apprentice'. 

"Doyle would have eaten you up. His love of spiritualism and deductive reasoning all in one person?" 

Shinichi jumped. 

He hadn't noticed anyone approach, not since Ran left to check in with her father, but now there was an extremely pale young woman, dressed head to toe in black. Not his favorite color, but thankfully she had more of a Goth vibe that the more threatening one the organization used. "Spiritualism?" 

The young woman smiled at him. She seemed so familiar, but at the same time he was certain he'd never seen her before. 

"Authors aren't their characters. Holmes believed in nothing but what could be seen and observed. Doyle, on the other hand, strongly believed in ghosts and spirits. It was a bit of contention between him and Houdini." There was an excitement in her voice, like his when discussing his favorite mystery novels.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" Shinichi had a feeling. Not a bad one, more a feeling of being overwhelmed. She didn't set off his ghost sense, there were no tears running down his face, but this whole situation reeked of Danny's side of things. 

"You know who I am." She said with a pleasant, but knowing smile. 

Except he didn't. But he did. It was like the answer was clawing at his brain, trying to tear it's way out. "You're not human." 

"No, I'm not." She agreed. 

"And you never were human. Or a ghost." 

"Partial credit. I do have to be human one day a century, so I have been human."

 She was old. Shinichi, knew it in his gut. Older than just a few centuries, older than humanity. Okay, this was obviously a supernatural thing, maybe if he tried leaning into his ghostly instincts more he could-

 And just like that he knew her. "Death."

“You got it!” She said, grinning like, well, like the opposite of everything his human side ever considered the spectre of death to be like. “I don’t usually talk with mortals, but you guys aren’t exactly mortals. People with one foot in my realm, but who I haven’t taken? It’s so cool!”

“Thanks,” Shinichi said, rubbing the back of his neck in slight embarrassment. 

“Anyway, I was wondering if, since you’re in town, I was wondering if you could help me with a couple of ghosts I’m having trouble with.” “I’ll try, but I’m not Danny. Ran’s always been the better fighter between the two of us.”

“It’s not fighting,” Death assured him, “You see one of the died at a really weird time-”

~

Shinichi stood in front of the treehouse and sighed. They were in there, just like she said. The emotionless tears that fell from his eyes proved it. "Can we talk? Ghost to Ghosts?"

Two heads cautiously peered cautiously out the window. They apparently could mimic the living well enough to pass, but right now their eyes were just an empty white. Well, they were listening, at least. "I'm Shinichi Kudo, visiting from Japan, and I've been asked by a third party to discuss afterlife options with Charles Rowland." 

"He's working with her." The blond boy hissed.

The brown haired one leaned out the treehouse window. "I told her, I'm not leaving without Edwin."

 I couldn't take Edwin where Charles was supposed to go. And Charles didn't belong where Edwin was 

"Did you ever wonder why she didn't press the issue at the time?"

"She was busy." Charles sounded defensive. "Someone kicked all the damned out of hell and they were mucking things up for the living. I'm sure I'm not the only person they killed." 

That was...okay look Shinichi had gotten a lot better about ghosts existing, but he was not ready to deal with the fact that there was a couple of days where the worst of the dead walked among the living and it wasn't a global mass hallucination like he'd always thought. 

"Death doesn't decide where people go. She's simply the end, not the destination after. She has no control over where the people she takes end up." 

Did Edwin belong where Edwin was? 

He thought he did 

"You're detectives. Think. Don't you find it odd that the rest of Hell's residents were rounded up and returned, but not Edwin?"

 "What does that have to do with any-"

 "She didn't want to take me back." Edwin whispered, cutting Charles off, his eyes wide with realization. 

"Well, we can all agree you never going back there." Charles said in a huff.

"She didn't want to take me back." Edwin was firmer now. "But she could have. So if she wanted to get us, why didn't she?" 

"From what she told me, souls need to be taken when they die. Edwin was taken. Charles wasn't. And that's causing problems. Well, maybe not causing, making it easier for problems to happen?" He was human, even if a ghostly one, and his brain flat out wasn't wired to understand some of what she'd apologetically tried to explain. "The point is, Charles needs to go to an afterlife. But that afterlife can be right here."

"If my afterlife can be right here, why do I need to be taken at all?" Charles challenged. 

"I don't know." Shinichi huffed. "I'm a ghost, not a god. I don't know how the underpinnings of it all work. But I do know she doesn't hunt down ghosts. There are entire communities of us, and I don't know if you get the news, but you would not believe what they get up to in America." 

"It's America." Edwin said in deadpan. 

"Point." Shinichi smiled at the joke. "Look, she doesn't want to forcibly press the issue because your own perceptions affect it. So if you believe she's dragging you somewhere you don't want to be, that's where you'll end up. But it's been years and the hiccup of you not being taken is gaining size like a snowball going down the mountain. It's getting close to the point where she'll have to do something like it or not. 

"And what's your role in all this?" Edwin questioned. 

"Convenient Messenger." Shinichi shrugged. "You wouldn't stay still around her long enough to explain it, and might not have believed her if she did. And I can provide empirical proof that she doesn't mindlessly chase down ghosts to whisk them away to the afterlife." He paused considering. "Though as I said, she has no skin in the afterlife realms game. So if you see an entity trying to cajole you to their side of things? Not working for her, feel free to ignore."

The two heads disappeared into the treehouse and Shinichi waited for them to talk it over. Finally they poked back out. “You said you can prove there are other ghosts out there?”

“Sure.” Shinichi pulled out his phone and called a familiar number. “Dani-tan, it’s Shinichi. I’ve got a couple of ghosts here I need to convince other ghosts exist. No they are not in worse denial than I was, I’m trying to convince them that Shinigami doesn’t force ghosts to an other planar afterlife. I’ll pass you along.”

Shinichi levitated the phone up to the treehouse. Charles took it warily. A young girl with black hair waved at them from the screen. “First things first. Can you prove you’re a ghost?” Edwin asked. “Of course.” The girl reached into the neck of her hoodie and pulled out a necklace. She lifted it above her mouth and made a show of dropping it in. She swallowed it, then phased her hand through her torso and pulled it out. “Tada!” “Okay, that’s some proper ghosting. How many other ghosts do you know, especially ones that are older than Kudo?” Dani snorted. “Please. Shinichi is the babyest of baby ghosts. I’ve known more ghosts than living people, though that’s in the process of changing, and some of them are centuries old. I think Pandora is the oldest, she’s from Ancient Greece.”

“And none of them are worried about Death coming after them?” Charles asked. “Why, they’re already dead? Been there, done that. There are actual things to worry about, like Hunters with ectoplasmic weapons or other ghosts that have been around forever and have let their power outweigh their common sense. Have you really had no contact with other ghosts? We need to get you some friends! Anything else?”

“I think we’re good.” Edwin turned his attention to Charles as Dani hung up. “What do you think?”

“It seems  like they’re telling the truth but…what if they’re not? What if it’s a trap to take me away?” “I don’t think it is. Kudo was right, if she managed to get all the souls back to hell just like that, there’s now way she couldn’t have just sent me back as well. And if she isn’t going to force me back to Hell, then she’s probably not going to force you somewhere else. And worse comes to worse, these past few decades? They were the best of my life.”  

“Mine too.” Charles admitted. “And if I really am causing problems…I don’t want to be responsible for something like what happened to me to happen to anyone else.” He looked out the window. “I’m ready.”

“That’s great!” Shinichi jumped a few inches in the air, startled as Death appeared beside him as if she’s always been there. He hovered nervously for a second  before setting his feet back on the ground.

Charles gulped and floated down, Edwin close on his heels. “So I just take your hand?” “Simple as that.” Death extended her hand as she'd done in the attic of St. Hilarion's and hesitantly Charles took it. The sound of wings filled the area around the treehouse and Charles was gone. 

“No,” Edwin whispered, falling to his knees.

“He’ll be back,” Death promised. “He just needs a minute to sort himself out properly. But in the meantime there’s something you should know. Lucifer quit.”

Shinichi pinched the bridge of his nose and Edwin’s jaw dropped. “He can do that?”

“Apparently so.” Death smiled warmly. “And in his abdication he gave up everything. His lands, his followers. Everything that was his, everything that was ever given to him.”

“Including souls.” Edwin whispered.

“Being a ghost is a half step into the afterlife. You can certainly stay here, but you don’t have to. And if you and Charles ever decide to go further down the road? You never have to go back.”

“Edwin!!” And Charles was there, running up to his best friend. “I’m back! You were right and…I feel better. Like I was being weighed down a lot and I didn’t realized it until the weight was gone, you know?”

“I do,” Edwin agreed. “Thank you, both of you.”

“I’m glad we got this worked out, but I’ve got plenty to do. See you at the your next murder investigation.” Death waved and she was gone.

“This day has been so weird.” Shinichi grumbled. “Okay, do either of you have a cell phone?”

They looked blankly at him.

“Okay, we’re going to go into town and buy you guys a phone and figure out how we’ll get it charged. I’ll give you a few numbers, including my own, for people who can help you get used to things and get connected to other ghosts. Then I am going to curl up with my girlfriend and watch relaxing shows on Netflix.”

“You have  a girlfriend!?”

Shinichi sighed. Japan was looking better and better.

#Ghost Writing #Phantom Detective #Detective Conan #Danny Phantom #Sandman #Dead Boy Detectives #I Blame the new Sandman series for reigniting my interest in Gaiman's work #I've always had a fondness for Charles Rowland and Edwin Paine and was so thrilled they got their own spinoff in Dead Boy Detectives #And I do think Edwin only ended up in Hell because he expected to after being sacrificed #Also that Death would find Halfas fascinating

[sixpossumsinatrenchcoat]

The things we leave behind: FURY

A postgame Headspace AU set in the ruins of a discarded dream. In part 3 of 6, Aubrey faces her demons. This AU is easily the most indulgent thing I’ll ever write for this fandom, but I just rly needed to see more interaction between Omori and Sunny & sometimes u gotta make ur own food.

Sunny opens his eyes in an empty void. No ceiling. No walls. Just empty white as far as he can see in every direction. The silence is deafening. How did he survive for years on only this? How and why?

(Stupid question. Of course he knows why. This is the only place he could escape himself. The only place where he could still see Mari.)

He sits up. On the other side of the void, Omori is hunched over his old laptop.

“Finally,” Omori huffs, unfolding to his feet. “Can we go?”

Sunny opens his mouth to say something agreeable. His mouth says, “Where’s Mari?”

…Oh. He didn’t mean to say that. But now that he has, he doesn’t want to take it back. He wondered about it the whole night, the last time he was here. Mari wasn’t at any of her picnics. Omori said she was okay, but—what does that even mean? How can she be okay if she isn’t here?

Omori glares. “None of your business.”

“But—”

“Do you love your friends or not?”

Sunny’s questioned a lot of things over the years, but that was never one of them. “Yes.” Obviously.

“Then let’s go.”

###

Pyrefly Forest is a bloodbath.

It was always a ghost town. A horror story still unfolding. Melancholy scales in minor keys, plinking up and down a phantom piano. The silhouettes of dead and dying trees, choked by cobwebs and shrouded in fog. When you looked at them too closely, they almost seemed to move.

But this is different. This isn’t a graveyard. It’s a massacre.

The ground is littered with corpses. Not human corpses, thankfully—it’s crushed bulbs and shredded leaves, not cooling viscera—but vaguely appalling nonetheless. Strangely, the forest has never looked healthier. The leaves on the trees grow thick and glossy. The bark on their trunks shines steely gray.

Sunny squints toward the nearest picnic blanket. Empty. Like all the rest.

“So,” he says, testing the waters. “Mari’s not at the picnics.”

Omori doesn’t answer.

“But you said she’s okay.”

A curt nod.

“Can I see her?”

“No,” Omori says coldly. “Any more stupid questions?”

Yes. Definitely. A lot. But he doesn’t want to push his luck. “...No?”

“Good.”

###

They find Aubrey by the Weeping Willow’s spring, playing whack-a-mole with half the population of Sprout Mole Village. In lieu of her bat, she’s swinging a ludicrously oversized crowbar, a flashy cartoon weapon in a distinctly different artstyle. Maybe she brought it with her?

When she spots Sunny, she throws an arm up in greeting. “Yo, what’s up! You wanna help me smash these weird rats?”

Sunny darts a glance at his alter ego. Omori’s eyes have gone round with wonder. He obviously didn’t expect Aubrey to be so buff. Or so heavily tattooed. Or so… pink.

“She’s pretty cool, huh.”

“Die,” Omori says immediately.

Sunny gives him a knowing look.

Omori counters with a withering glare. “We might need back-up… Wait here. I’ll call Kel.”

“That’s not a good idea.” Whatever’s going on with Headspace-Aubrey, Kel is bound to make it worse. When Omori just stares, Sunny grimaces. “Aubrey’s… easily embarrassed.”

“What? No she isn’t.”

Sunny can’t help laughing. “You might not know her as well as you think.”

“You might not know what you’re talking about.”

“Two Sunny’s, huh?” Aubrey asks cheerfully. Both of them jump. In the time they were arguing, she must’ve closed in. “Cool, cool. So, were you guys gonna help me fight these weird bugs or not?”

Sunny looks to Omori, who rolls his eyes. “Just make her come with us.”

###

As Omori leads them through the fog, Aubrey elbows Sunny. “So… what’s with the sidekick?”

That gets Omori’s attention. He whips around with both hands curled to fists. “I am not his sidekick.”

“Hah! Oh, man. I forgot how much of a brat you were at that age. You remember that time Kel spilled juice on your sketchbook and you made him sit in the corner?”

“...No,” Sunny lies.

“You made him a dunce cap! Oh my god, he wore it for hours. And when he asked if he could take it off you said— You said, Do you think you’ve learned your lesson? And he said—”

Sunny can’t hold back a snort of laughter. “He said no.”

“He totally said no!!! Oh my god, what a fucking moron. Whoops. Sorry, I probably shouldn’t cuss in front of your inner child.”

“I am not—” Omori sputters.

“Aw, c’mon, Sunshine,” she tells him, one-handing her crowbar so she can mess up his hair. If Sunny tried something like that, he’d lose that hand. But apparently Aubrey gets special treatment. “You know I’m just playing. Can you blame me? You were fuckin’ adorable. Like an angry little kitty cat.”

Omori’s face turns red, then white. He glares at Sunny. “Make her stop.”

Sunny shrugs. “I’m not her supervisor.”

“And thank god for that,” Aubrey agrees. “Hey, so where are we going, anyway? Between you and me, I’m pretty sure this isn’t real.”

Sunny’s gone back and forth on that himself. “I don’t know. Omori?”

Omori doesn’t answer.

“Pfff,” Aubrey snorts. “Silent treatment, huh? Now I’m getting all nostalgic.”

Sunny can practically see the steam rising from Omori’s ears. “You should probably stop messing with him,” he tells Aubrey. “He does have a knife.”

“Aw, Sunny. It’s so cute that you think you could get near me with that thing.”

“I’ve done it before,” Sunny sniffs.

“Only ‘cause you took me by surprise. And it was two against one. Totally doesn’t count.”

“Will you two shut up?” Omori hisses over his shoulder. “Or do you want to get eaten?”

Sunny’s eye narrows. As far as he knows, there isn’t anything in Headspace that eats people. Or at least, there didn’t used to be.

Aubrey opens her mouth to argue. But before she can get a word out, a deep, rattling snarl rumbles through the trees. Even with its source far out of sight, Sunny can feel it buzzing in his chest.

Aubrey’s eyebrows go up, and her mouth clacks shut.

###

The further they walk, the louder the growling gets. Sunny walks a little closer to Aubrey. He’s increasingly convinced that he knows who’s making all that noise.

At the Pyrefly Pluto stop, just south of what used to be Sweetheart’s Castle, Omori finally stops. That rattling snarl isn’t in the background anymore. It’s loud enough to shake the ground under their feet. The grass is littered with dead leaves, shaken from their branches by sheer sonic force. The air is thick with the scent of decay, musty and sickly-sweet. The forest is barren. All the trees here are dead.

“Wait here,” Omori mutters, and darts ahead. In an instant, he’s swallowed by the fog.

Aubrey elbows Sunny. “Dude. What’s the deal.”

Oh. “Sorry. We’re—um. You’re… dreaming.”

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. There’s not usually two of you.”

…Right. “And we have to go—do something. Talk to someone, or… something like that. Like a quest.” As cover stories go, it’s not very inspired. But it is more-or-less true.

“Uh huh,” she says. “But like. Why?”

Ugh. Of course Aubrey wouldn’t just go along with it. She was always going to be harder than Kel. “We just have to.” No, that’s not going to work either. Aubrey doesn't take orders from anyone. “I need you to?” he tries. “As a favor. …Please.”

“Well,” she drawls, smirking a little. “I guess if you need me.”

He rolls his eye at her. “Really it’s Omori. The other one. Oh. And you should probably stop calling him—”

“Shh,” she hisses, stiffening. “Did you see that?”

“What?”

“In the trees. It was— I thought I saw something.”

Something. But does that mean— Could she be talking about—

Sunny’s heart leaps. He knows he shouldn’t get his hopes up but he can’t help it. He misses her so much. He whips around, scanning the treeline for a familiar silhouette. Long and dark, with one glaring white eye.

A blur of motion flits between the trees. Lightless, eyeless. Almost formless. Just a shadow among shadows. He only sees it for a moment before it vanishes, lost to the surrounding dark.

When he turns around, it’s looming over Aubrey.

(In Sunny’s memories, the Stranger is just a black-and-gray version of Basil. He wasn’t even scary, really. Just lonely, and sad, and strangely magnetic. Wherever he appeared, Omori couldn’t help but follow.

But Sunny isn’t running Headspace anymore.)

The Stranger’s limbs have lengthened, stretched sapling-long and pencil-thin. When he stands half-hunched, his knuckles scrape the grass. His fingers, hooked like talons, are tipped with jagged claws. His legs don't end in feet, but cloven, pointed hooves. And there’s something hanging from his neck. A loop of slick black rope. It drags behind him like a rat’s tail, heavy and unnervingly greasy.

“You,” the Stranger hisses, close against Aubrey’s ear. His voice is like spider's legs. Like dead leaves over dry bone. “You remind me of sss-s-someone.”

Omori materializes out of the fog with his knife already drawn. “Easy, Stranger,” he says warningly.

Aubrey doesn’t flinch. She might as well be carved from stone.

“You aren’t afraid,” the Stranger cackles. “Eh-hehe-heh-he. You were always-s-sss braver than the ressst of us.”

“Wait.” Aubrey’s eyes widen. “Basil???”

The shadow lets loose a wild laugh. “Ohhh, you are interesting, aren’t you? Mmh… Such an a-a-angrrrry little bunny.” When he stutters, his neck clicks and jerks like bad claymation. “A r-rrrRRRHhrr-rabbit hunting wolves. And now you’ve found them.” He twitches closer, breathing down her neck. “You want me to hurt you, don’t you? I can s-sss-smell it on your ssskin. All the things you think you deserve.”

“Stranger,” Omori says again.

“Eh heh heh. Ohh-h-h, calm down, Omori. I'm not here to break your toys. I was only sssaying hello.”

“We’re looking for Aubrey,” Omori says calmly. In the background, the real Aubrey looks confounded. “She isn’t in her fortress. Do you know where she went?”

“I know where ev~eryone is. The princess-s-ss is out hunting. Rabbitsss,” with a savage grin for Aubrey. “Glutting on blood and sinew and s-s-ssssucking the marrow from their little bones.”

Omori doesn’t back off. “Where?”

“I could take you,” the Stranger whispers. His smile is a knife-wound. It slits his face from ear to tufted ear. “But she won’t s-s-ssee you. She hatesssss us.”

Omori gestures impatiently, like that goes without saying. “Just tell me where to go.”

###

“What the fuck,” Aubrey says succinctly, after the Stranger sends them on their way.

Sunny isn’t listening. He’s too busy trying to catch up to Omori. “The Stranger. He’s not not all messed up. Or—not as much. Not like Kel.”

Omori doesn’t slow down. If anything, he walks even faster.

Sunny lets out a frustrated breath. “Omori.”

“What.”

“Why isn’t he all messed up?”

Omori huffs irritably. “He’s another exception. Obviously. Like Longlegs. And me.”

“And Mari.”

Omori doesn’t answer.

“He didn’t sound different,” Sunny mumbles. He didn’t even act different, really. “But he looked—”

Omori whips around with his teeth bared. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want everyone to stay exactly how you left them? This place isn’t yours anymore, Dreamer. You left. You don’t get a vote.”

Sunny frowns. Does that mean that Mari’s different, too? Is she even still his sister anymore? Or is she just another monster? “Is that what happened to—”

“You don’t get to ask me about Mari.”

“Um,” Aubrey cuts in. When both of them turn to glare, she laughs nervously. “Heh. Uh… Sorry to interrupt, I guess? I just had a question.”

“What,” Sunny says impatiently.

“Uh. I guess basically… What the fuck?”

“Shh,” Omori hisses, grabbing them both and yanking them back into the bushes. “She’s close.”

###

A flurry of rabbits streams past, a river of white fur and terrified eyes. Crow scatter and screech. The trees tremble.

And then they see her.

Captain Kel was swollen to Looney Toons proportions, but at least he was recognizably human. This creature is decidedly not. Sunny can tell, because humans don’t typically grow as tall as a fucking house. And they’re definitely not supposed to be covered with plush, feathery pink fur.

The monster’s eyes are huge and dark, but the light that glitters in its pupils glows an unnerving blood-red. As far as Sunny can tell, it’s not any one animal, just a chaotic jangle of monster parts: rabbit’s haunches and ram’s horns and a colossal crocodile maw of shark’s teeth, all smushed together into the world’s ugliest chimera. It looks like what would happen if you put eight tertiary predators in a blender and set it to puree.

Filmy threads from Aubrey’s old nightdress still cling to the monster’s paws, and the entire front half of its body is spattered red. Its round, lizardlike muzzle is drenched in it. But the ribbon Mari gave her is still pristine, tied in a neat bow around her neck. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

Sunny looks at Omori. Omori nods.

Sunny just stares. Because—what? What is he supposed to do about this? Aubrey might be tough enough to come out on top of nine out of ten bar fights, but even she can’t take down a monster the size of a school bus. It doesn’t even look like her. Except for the bow, maybe. And the eyes.

But when he turns to see how the real Aubrey is doing, her face is gone cold. Her fists are clenched, her jaw set.

“So,” she says darkly, once the monster’s lumbered out of range. “That’s the quest.”

It isn’t a question, but Sunny answers anyway. “Yes.”

“It’s me.”

“...Yes.”

The breath hisses through her teeth. “Right. Sure. Of course it is.”

Omori looks taken aback, but Sunny is barely surprised. Aubrey was always more self-aware than the rest of them. She isn’t like Kel, who’ll only take a good hard look at himself if you take his head in your hands and make him. Aubrey sees to the heart of things. It’s why she was so quick to recognize Stranger, even though it took Sunny years and years.

Besides. Aubrey might be all grown up, but that doesn't mean that she can always see it. It’s all too easy for her to see herself in a monster.

Sunny frowns and tugs on her elbow. “It isn’t really.”

“Hahh?” she demands, twisting around to glare. “Which one is it?”

He doesn’t know how to answer that. “It’s just a piece,” he tries. “Not even a big piece.”

Aubrey softens. “Y-Yeah. I know. Sorry.”

“Me too.”

“Okay,” she mutters, and shakes herself off. “Okay. So this is, what? Some kinda vision quest? Hunting my inner demons, or some shit?”

“...Something like that.”

“So why are you here? Fucking, twice, I might add?”

Sunny shrugs.

“‘Cause it seems like it’d be a guilt thing, but—if I’m honest, I feel way worse about Basil. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Hrmm.” Aubrey holds her frown for a moment longer and then rolls up her sleeves. “Well. Whatever, I guess. Fuck it. Let’s go kick my ass.”

For once in his life, Omori looks genuinely moved.

###

They stalk Kaiju Aubrey—(Monster-brey? Monbrey? …He’ll keep working on it)—back to King Crawler’s clearing before regrouping at the picnic.

“So I pretty much just hit her on the head until she dies, right?” Aubrey asks cheerfully.

Omori chokes.

“Not exactly,” Sunny snickers. Ideally, she’d stop before Beastbrey died. (Beastbrey, he thinks. That’s not bad.) “Um. Try not to kill her.”

“You sure? ‘Cause that sounds a lot easier.”

“Pretty sure. Yeah.”

“Suit yourself,” she yawns. “Pretty sure you’re supposed to kill monsters, though.”

“She’s not a monster,” Sunny mumbles.

“Pfft. Right. Good one.”

He frowns at her. “You’re not—”

“Aaaand I think that’s enough with the heart-to-heart, thanks! Can we please just fight?”

###

So, they fight.

Headspace-Aubrey made her lair in King Crawler’s old grotto. The grass is littered with sprout mole husks and rabbit’s bones. But the surrounding forest has never looked healthier. The trees here are violently lush, with glossy leaves and thick strong trunks. The grass grows long and perfectly key lime-green.

At the farthest end of the clearing, Beastbrey is splayed languid, gnawing the bones of her last meal.

The bulk of her body is blunt and barrel-shaped, like a boar’s. But those powerful, tightly coiled haunches would look more at home on a jackrabbit, or a frog. Two colossal silver ram’s horns curl from either side of her head, and her thick coat of fur is run through with slender, translucent spines—like a hedgehog’s, if hedgehogs had spines all over their bodies.

To Sunny’s surprise, there aren’t any claws on her front paws. Instead, each leg ends in a blunt, chitinous protrusion of bone, like the head of a mallet. Or like the monster is wearing very uncomfortable white mittens.

While Omori sifts through his inventory, Sunny sidles up to him. “Omori. I really think I should have a knife.”

“Cool. I guess you should go find one.”

But they both know that Omori has artillery to spare. Sunny frowns. “Are you mad at me?”

“Not everything is always about you,” Omori says coldly.

Since Aubrey showed up already armed, she doesn’t need to borrow a weapon. But Omori does thrust a CHARM at her. It’s one that Sunny doesn’t recognize, a pastel-pink headband adorned with a huge silk gladiolus.

“Aw,” Aubrey snickers, amused but clearly also touched. “For luck?”

“Something like that.”

She slides it on, pinning her bangs back from her face. “So? Is it cute?”

“I don’t know,” Omori mutters.

“Sunshine?”

“Totally,” Sunny says promptly. It suits her, actually. It’s flashier than the pins that Basil wears, but then again, so is Aubrey. “Gets a little lost in your hair. Maybe a different color?”

“It’s not for fashion,” Omori hisses. “Never mind. Let’s just get this over with.”

READ THE REST OF CH 3 HERE: archiveofourown.org/works/45213322/chapters/126779419

OR START FROM THE BEGINNING: archiveofourown.org/works/45213322/chapters/113743957

#omori spoilers #omori sunburn #the sunburn is platonic for me but can def be read either way #omori fanfic #headspace au

[theleslistuff]

Stay

In Casper High strange things can happen...

The hallways are always filled with different kind of rumors going from the caffeteria food being contaminated with ectoplasm to Wes talking about the Fenton boy being a ghost, even though it´s obvious he´s just contaminated with ectoplasm from his parents lab as well as his twin brother and his sister.

But alongside these rumors, one of them is growing strong...

A scrawny girl with long and dirty brown hair like her eyes wearing a purple shirt, black pants and blue shoes carrying a black backpack appears in the school´s football fields everyday at 9 a.m. looking at the nothingness..., even teacher´s are concerned about this..., Mr Lancer has tried to ask her about her parents, she won´t answer... but if you give her food she´ll be gone in a second.

Rumors say she´s just a homeless person from another town, other she´s a ghost for those pecular eyes... this one being investigated by Phantom himself, trying to make her talk or even capture her with the thermos he always carries around..., she stole the thermos, maybe thinking there was soup in it...

The last rumor and the most believed... 

She scaped from a mental hospital, even so... no one has ever called the police since she´s not hurting anyone..., even so..., everyone is kinda scared to get close to her, even bullies...

But that doesn´t stop them from using her to bully others...

Specially the boy that sometimes... spaces out like her...

-Look!, Andy´s girlfriend is here!-

Shouted out Paulina as she was looking through the glass at the scrawny girl...

-She´s not my girlfriend...- 

He murmured, tired of it being the nickname they put on the girl..., he never goes to the window to see her, neither Danny or Sam, except for Tucker... he was curious about this too.

-Come on!, she´s just a homeless girl!, why are they making a circus out of this?!-

Sam said but no one paid attention to her as they were too busy looking at Mr Lancer bringing food for the girl. -Can we just stop talking about this...- Danny said as he felt kinda unconfortable for his encounter with the girl, he got up from his seat, Andy followed suit, in a second both twins were walking away from the scene, Sam tried to follow them until...

-Andy´s girlfriend is getting into the school!-

Dash shouted making everyone panic as they closed the door

-Wait, no!, Danny and Andy are still out!-

She tried to tell everyone but no one cared... except for Tucker

-What do you mean They´re outside?!, that girl had a knive!- 

Meanwhile both boys were walking down the hallway

-So..., where are you going?-

Danny´s twin asked, the kid turned around with a little jump and a scream

-Oh..., it´s you..., you´re kinda sneaky sometimes bro...-

Andy just sighed

-What really happened when you encoutered that girl?..., I can tell something about it is bugging you...-

Danny just looked away

-I just..., I´m kinda... scared..., It´s not the eye color, is that... I saw she carries around weapons in that backpack... and she has a weird smell... like iron..., something in her is really wrong..., I know she noticed... because...-

He looked directly at his brother

-She said she would hunt me down because..., she had never tasted something like me before...-

Andy looked kinda grossed out

-Maybe... she´s just joking around Danny, I..., I don´t think it was true or maybe she´s from the guys in white, I don´t know... or just capture you with the thermos..., like... come on..., how would someone... eat another... human?...-

He tried to calm his brother in the middle of the empty hallway..., even so... they did not pay attention to the footsteps getting closer

#Danny Phantom #danny fenton #danny phantom au #sam manson #Tucker Foley #Dash Baxter #paulina sanchez #cannibalism #blood #5 minutes of horror au #OC #andy fenton #andy #Lesli Adeluran

[jmrothwell]

For the fic asks! ❤️ 14, 23, 49

Thanks for the ask Ash!! ^_^

14. Are there any tropes you would only read if written by a trusted friend or writer?

I tend to read a lot of stuff that I would normally be squicked out by if it's written by friends or a writer I trust. I actually find it a great way to gauge how I still feel about a trope or ship etc.

But so far I don't have specific tropes that I outright refuse to read......but that could also be because I don't stray too far from my lil comfort zone XD.

23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

Oooooh interesting.

I eventually want to write a nightmare fic.....a couple of them actually

I really want to play around in the "ghost powers meets caleb / parental death ptsd nightmare hurt comfort fic." Like one of those where the others feel the panic or get pulled/called to the one having the nightmare.

Then the OTHER nightmare fic would be like a trying to escape the night mare thing....maybe also messing around with potential ghost power/magic weirdness. . .Like a weird dream sharing situation, where either Julie or one of the guys is stuck in their nightmare and the others try to follow in order to wake them up. Only they get pulled into THEIR OWN nightmares, and so now they all have to deal with their own issues.

Really I only have one mental visual associated with it: Julie's nightmares keep looping and every time they do i's because she hears her name echoing all around her. (like someone trying to wake her up). Eventually this does build up to her literally running into the others in her dream where they try to tell her she's dreaming.

Keeping on the angst train I did have an idea for a song fic that would for Kelly Clarksons "My Life Would Suck Without You" which would be like a band break up / make up fic. THe thing I could never decide on though was if it would be a JatP break up or Sunset Curve break up.

49. What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!

I am slowly chipping away at my unnamed rulie fake marriage fic. And I am desperatley trying to not start posting before I have it fully written and snippet sharing has helped with that, so have this small moment from the first chapter:

Before Julie can ask what she was not getting mad about, Carrie pushes onward, “I may have invited my cousin, who’s in town on business, and his friends to join us tonight.”

“Oh, which cousin?” Julie smiles at her friend. She wasn’t entirely sure why Carrie would think she’d get mad about it. Julie actually liked most of Carrie’s cousins and in all honesty she didn’t mind the idea of more people joining them.

The more the merrier as they say right?

Carrie huffs as she exchanges a look with Flynn, the three of them now walking towards an empty booth with a larger table than they’d usually get for themselves. “It’s Bobby.”

“Bobby?” Julie freezes in an awkward sort of squat position, caught between sitting and standing. Carrie rolls her eyes as Flynn shoots a sympathetic smile towards Julie, she knows her answer before she even asks her questions. “As in Bobby Shaw? Sunset Curve Bobby?”

Ask me things!?!?

#ask games! #seriously ask me things

[alien-hybreed]

OVERTIME - Part 3: Promotion

Read Part One Here!

Previous Chapter Here

Something is wrong in Woodshurst.

Neither Mike or Luke were ever seen again after their late shifts with Laura and Rhiannon is growing increasingly suspicious. With nobody in town paying any heed to her, she is forced to go to the police.

Will Senior Sergeant Daisy Sofen be able to help her? And what is Laura's next move?

"Lady, do I look like I give a crap?" Sighed the clerk at the front desk of the local gym "You don't understand, Luke is here every morning. Even if I skip out, he never misses a beat" Pleaded Rhiannon despite the man at the desk rolling his eyes at her. "Look, your man's clearly ghosting you. Take it on the chin and move on" he replied dismissively as he turned his back on her. "We're not... he's not... look that's not the point. Two people went missing from my work last week. Including Luke. And if he's missed a week's worth of gym..." Continued Rhiannon, hiding out a stack of missing persons flyers. "Please..?" She implored in her sweetest voice. "Ugh, fine" pouted the clerk as he turned around and took the flyers from her. "We'll keep these around for whatever good it does"

"Thank you so much, I just... I just need to know they're alright, y'know?" Said Rhiannon with a tremble as she stifled a painful sob. The clerk gave her a solemn nod and she turned to leave. As Rhiannon began to open the door, the clerk spoke up. "And uh, you're sure you're the last person to see them?" He asked with the first hint of sincere concern Rhiannon had heard all day. "Yeah... just me and that bitch Laura" Rhiannon replied with a derisive snort "Oh Lauara? From the Snack Arnold's downtown?" Asked the clerk "Huh. That's odd. Now you mention it, she stopped coming in last week too. Used to be here in the evenings all the time" That is weird, thought Rhiannon. But what would that rude bitch even care to know?

* * *

Laura feigned a hearty chuckle at the terrible joke her date had just made. To further sell the performance, she playfully bit at her index finger while looking Warren in the eye. "When did you get so funny, Warren?" She chuckled "I don't remember you having such a wicked sense of humour in High school" She purred with a sultry smile. "Oh I'm plenty of wicked things" Replied Warren, completely oblivious to how out of character this behaviour was for Laura. "I'll bet you are..." She whispered, deliberately exaggerating as she leaned down to take a long, hard suck on the straw in her drink. "Maybe I'd like to find out just how wicked" She continued, staring intently at the heavyset jock as he began to blush. Warren had never been good at much besides football and that hadn't really changed at since he dropped out of senior year nearly ten years ago. Laura giggled as she brushed her foot against his leg under the table. "Tell you what, I've gotta close tonight, but how about you swing by Snack Arnold's tonight after we shut and we can share a free meal in my office" purred Laura as she stood up and gathered her things. "Oh I can't do take-out, it's training season so I'm like, on a real strict diet" Sputtered Warren "That's not the eating out I had in mind" chuckled Laura. "11pm stud, see you there" She whispered before turning to leave the empty Cafe. Warren had wondered why on earth Laura had asked to see him today after all this time. And in a dive like Jimmy's of all places. Nobody came here for the food, matter of fact, nobody came to Jimmy's at all if they knew what was food for them. But it was worth it. Warren had crushed on Laura all through high school and she'd always shot him down. But tonight? Tonight was gonna be different.

* * *

The drone hissed as its body ached. It had been almost a week since Laura implanted it with her eggs. Since then, its balls had continued to swell until its sack was almost three times its original size, heavy with the lifeforms incubating within. It had made it difficult to work on the nest with the same level of dexterity as the other drones. It didn't understand where they had come from or who they had been. It just knew every night, Laura returned in her car with a new one. There were six of them now, all identical in appearance and behaviour. Who they'd been before didn't matter, Laura was all that mattered now.

Two other drones had been implanted with Laura's eggs. Lke this one, they had curled up in the webs of their hive to hibernate while they nurtured the tremendous responsibility their queen had bestowed on them. Meanwhile, the other drones worked diligently to extend the webbing throughout the house. Laura's room was almost completely smothered in the stuff, as was the hallway outside and most of the top floor. They'd be webbing up the ground floor and basement soon enough...

The drone's muscles ached again as it grew increasingly restless. It begn to idly stroked its cock until a dribble of precum came out. Thick and purple, more than it had been the dozens of times it had done so over the last day or so. Yes... it was nearly time to pull free from the webbing and begin the next step of creating Laura's new world...

* * *

"And I'm telling you, they are missing" Shouted Rhiannon, stamping her feet as she glared at the police officer, a wiry young man by the name of Daniel Kocheck "Ma'am, we can't just declare someone-" Replied the exasperated officer Kocheck. "People! Plural! There's two of them and they've both been missing since last week!" Interrupted Rhiannon with a shrill cry. "Well, yep" said kocheck, raising his hand in a 'stop' motion. "That there's two of them is all the more reason we can't be too hasty, so far you're the first person to come forward about this. Try to understand how that looks?" Offered Kocheck, calmly trying to diffuse the situation. "Looks like what!?" Cried Rhiannon with an angry sob. "Well, you said you're all good friends? Maybe they've gone out of town for a bit? Trip to the city? Boys being boys?" Suggested officer Kocheck but Rhiannon just shook her head. "No, no, I saw them both before they disappeared. Luke would have bragged about it that night and Mike... Mike shares everything with me. No way they would have went out of town, not when Laura kept them back" "Sorry, who kept them how?" Came the sweet voice of the senior constable, Daisy Sofen. Daisy was average height but with a lean, stocky physique. Rhiannon relaxed a little at the sound of Daisy's voice. Daisy Sofen had been on the same baseball and volleyball teams as Rhiannon's older sister, they'd been good friends until she'd joined the force. "Laura. Our boss at Snack Arnold's. She kept Mike back last week. No idea how long they were there that night, it was... it wasn't much better when we got in the next day" sobbed Rhiannon as she shifted her focus to Senior Constable Sofen. "And Luke was there that night also?" Enquired the senior constable with a sincere, compassionate tone. "N-no. No. Luke worked late the next day... with Laura" continued Rhiannon. "Laura says they told her that had some kind of bug and couldn't come in, but she's the only one who's heard from them since I last saw them." Senior Constable Sofen frowned, she didn't like the sound of that. "Look, tell you what Rhi, we'll start looking into it. Get the ball rolling. That way, when and -if- they are missing, we can put those next steps into play quickly and legally. Yeah?" Offered the Senior Constable. Rhiannon nodded, wiping away the snot and tears from her blubbering with a tissue officer Kocheck offered. "In the meantime, go home. Rest. Maybe call in sick if you're working tonight, yeah?" Suggested the Senior Constable. Rhiannon nodded and left the police station in a solemn mood, leaving the two officers at the desk. "Laura... ain't that Carter's daughter?" Said Officer Kocheck "Yeah, your sister used to babysit her right?" Replied Senior Constable Sofen. "Yeah, yeah... she was a monster" chuckled Kocheck "you don't... you don't think she's done 'em in do ya?" "No, Kocheck. But something ain't right in that Snack Arnold's. I say we pay her a visit tomorrow, see shat her side of all this is" stated the Senior Constable. "You don't think them boys are just avoiding that pretty young thing?" Replied Kocheck, nodding towards the door Rhiannon had left from. "Dunno, but ghosting or not, those boys are gonna break that girl's heart" Replied Senior Constable Sofen.

* * *

The drone bounded through the underbrush on all fours. While it's emotional range was quite limited, there was a simple pleasure to being free of the webbing and exercising its muscles like this. The sun was low on the horizon as night began to fall, the drone understood that would make it safer to travel, though it didn't understand why it felt compelled to.

The drone knew it was in the woods outside the nest, albeit now closer to the human town than it was to the nest. The drone liked the forest. Easy to hide in, easy to move through. Plenty of places perfect for... perfect for what? The drone came to a halt as a terrible cramp began twisting in its guts. It could feel its swollen ball sack wriggle and squirm as something began shifting through its insides.

Instinctively, it moved towards the nearest tree. Hunching over, it let out a single cough and with a wet slurp, spat a large glob of purple slime on the tree. It felt a terrible shiver down its spine and instinctively darted towards another tree nearby and retched again. Another glob of purple slime spattered across the base of the tall pine and the drone shuddered again. This process repeated until the drone had hacked up slime onto at least a couple of dozen trees in the area before the shuddering finally abated. Looking closely at the glob, the drone could see a large pink-purple orb throbbing amidst the slime. What looked like dozens of spidery veins were spreading out from the orb and plunging into the tree. The areas around these veins were already looking less like wood and more like flesh. Gently pulsing and spreading with surprising speed.

That felt right to the drone. Everything would become them eventually, that was their purpose as a species. To convert everything to be like them. By infecting the trees, the drone was fulfilling a vital step in the process of making the immediate surroundings more suitable for their kind. The drone was relieved to feel its balls were lighter now, but something still writhed and squirmed inside. There was one final step before this reproductive cycle was completed. The drone could feel its arousal steadily building as the familiar need for sex began returning.

Yes, it needed to head towards the human town. One final task to complete for its Queen. The drone began to bound through the trees once more, as the need for sex compelled it to seek a suitable partner. Presumably the Queen, the drone wasn't really aware of any other possibility. Under the cover of darkness the drone began making its way to Laura's workplace...

* * *

Rhiannon glared at the back office as she arrived at work. Against the advice of Senior Constable Sofen, she'd resolved to come in for her closing shift. Something was rotten with Laura's story and grief was making Rhiannon bold. If she couldn't confront Laura about it, she'd at least see what she could glean from her.

To say it made for a strange evening, was an understatement. Laura had been more aloof than usual, spending most of her time hidden away in her office when she would have normally been out amongst the crew barking orders. Rhiannon had caught glimpses of her buried in her phone, scrolling through what looked like a dating app. When she'd tried to strike up a friendly conversation about it, Laura had just glared at her until she dropped it and made a hasty retreat. Curious, but not exactly out of character.

What was curious was when Rhiannon quietly slipped past the bin room and saw Laura hurl several giant garbage bags and a bike into the dumpster like they were nothing. Laura was infamously weak and that had led many to believe this was a major source of her permanently foul mood. Could Laura be on steroids? It could explain a lot and the guy at the gym said she had been coming in late... it couldn't have made her homicidal though, surely? Rhiannon was starting to feel less inclined to have a direct confrontation with Laura.

The next oddity was when passing the office while Laura was on her dinner break. Rhiannon tried to strike up a conversation about wishing her friends well and hoping they'd be back soon. Unsurprisingly, Laura was quick to shut the conversation down. Rhiannon nearly persisted, wanting to probe at how they were behaving when Laura last saw them. But when she caught a glimpse of Laura's dinner, she quickly excused herself and left the office in a hurry. There was no way to know without tipping off Laura, but it looked like the meat in her chicken sandwich was completely raw. There was definitely something strange happening with Laura and Rhiannon had seen enough goofy horror films to know she needed to get out of here as soon as possible.

When closing time rocked around, Rhiannon was rushing to leave with Sammy and Maria who'd been filling in while Luke and Mike were off. The three of them were nearly out the door when Laura called out to Rhiannon, stopping her dead in her tracks. Her blood ran cold as she quickly deduced she was about to be asked to stay behind and end up in a sandwich like Luke and Mike.

"Hey Rhi-Rhi..." said Laura in the insincere, sweet voice that often meant an unreasonable request was coming. Rhiannon was poised to bolt for the car park as Laura walked up to her. "Y-yeah?" Croaked Rhiannon, trying her hardest to mask how frightened she was. "I know this Mike/Luke thing must be really hard for you..." Continued Laura, laying a reassuring hand on Rhiannon's shoulder. Uner any circumstance, it would have been comical to see. Rhiannon was a fair bit taller than Laura and clearly not appreciating the gesture. "Oh it's, it's nothing really..." stuttered Rhiannon, trying to shake off Laura's hand as naturally as possible. "Well it is. We're all pretty worried" said Laura "I want you to take the next few days off, don't worry about us, we'll be fine" She continued in that sickly sweet tone" "Oh... thank you, well ok. Yeah. Thank you" Replied Rhiannon inching out the door, if this was her opportunity to escape, she had to take it. "Oh and Rhi?" Called Laura as Rhiannon was halfway out the door. Rhiannon slowly turned to look back at Laura. "Have a good night." Said Laura with a wry smile. Rhiannon let out a nervous chuckle. "You too, Laura. Don't stay back too late, yeah?" She replied anxiously. "Oh I always do" purred Laura as she strode back to her office.

* * *

The drone panted hungrily as it watched the woman leaving the place where it had been reborn. It thought it had been drawn here because Laura, its Queen was here, trying to keep up the act of being human. But when the drone saw this woman... it was like a switch flipped in its brain and a whole new understanding of what it had to do was just there. The drone's heart pounded as it began to beat faster. Yes. This was what had compelled it to leave the nest. Carefully, the drone crept across rooftops and darted through alleyways as it followed the woman, staying out of sight. It new better than to try and make a move where it could be seen or interrupted so easily. Just as well. There was a large, broad shouldered man on the opposite side of the street heading back towards the building Laura was in. There was a momentary pause as the drone contemplated intercepting the human male, but it knew that wasn't even close to threatening the Queen. If anything the drone would likely return to the nest and find a seventh drone had joined them. No, it had to fulfil the instinctive need that drove it to follow the woman.

Something about the tall brunette and her route was oddly familiar to the drone. As if it knew she always walked this way after working a late shift with the Queen. The drone could almost recall it as if it had walked with this woman on a night like this, but not as itself. It couldn't determine if it was drawn to this human by that familiarity or if it was drawn to her by how 'right' her pheromones smelled for what the drone needed to do next. As she rounded a corner and began walking through the dimly lit park in the town center, the drone knew it was now or never...

* * *

Rhiannon pulled her scarf tighter arou d her neck as the bitter chill of the night air made her nose and fingers feel awfullly numb. She hadn't minded walking home from  work when Luke or Mike would walk with her. But on her own? And with Laura acting so strange? It was profoundly uncomfortable regardless of how cold it was or wasn't. Rhiannon couldn't shake the feeling she was being watched but that was surely just a reasonable paranoia with every thing going on? She couldn't wait to get home to the safety of her apartment.

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted as she rounded the corner in the park and something leapt from he nearby bushes, tackling her to the ground. She let out a terrified squeal before she hit the ground and had the wind knocked out of her. Dazed by the blow, she flailed her arms as giant, blue, scaly claw clamped over her face and dragged her head first into the bushes. Her attempts at screaming were muffled by the monstrous hand, despite how hard she slapped, punched and shoved at it, the hand wouldn't release her. She kicked her legs, scattering dirt and flowers in their wake for whatever good it did. Maybe random passers-by would see the mess and come to her aid, as unlikely as that was a this hour...

Rhiannon's eyes widened with fear as she felt her attacker's other hand snatch at her waist followed by a rush of cold air on her hips. Her mind reeled, the creature was stripping her. And it was definitely a creature. Despite a vaguely humanoid silhouette, she could make out a glassy, translucent exoskeleton shimmering in the moon light. It's eyes glowed an eerie green and red as they leered at her from the darkness. Tears streamed from her eyes as the creature treated at the blouse of her work uniform, exposing her breasts and stomach to the cool night air.

Rhiannon pushed against the creature until her arms hurt. It was dragging her deep nto the plot of trees and bushes in the middle of the park where they couldn't be seen, then it would surely eat her or rip her to pieces. Surely that's what happened to Luke and Mike after all?

Satisfied with where they were, the creature hefted Rhiannon off her feet and pinned her against a large boulder. She tried to keep pushing it away but her arms were going limp. She had already run herself down at work, she had so little stamina left to resist with. Slowly the creature leaned in close, pressing its large, muscular body against her exposed flesh. Rhiannon trembled and continued her muffled shrieking. Being heard was the only thing that could save her now, but with the creature holding her face so tightly, someone would need to be very close to hear anything at all.

Rhiannon's screams turned to whimpers as the creature began to nuzzle at her neck, its lips gently tracing along her collarbone. Tears streamed down her eyes again as she felt its jaws slowly open. This was it, it was going to plunge those horrible fangs into her and rip her throat out like Dracula. Wincing, Rhiannon anticipated a painful bite that never came. Instead she shivered for a different reason as puckered lips kissed at her neck. There was an oddly pleasant prickle as its tongue slid across her neck. Slowly, as the creature continued to kiss her neck, Rhiannon lowered her arms and let her muscles relax.

Satisfied she was no longer fighting it, the creature released its hand from her face and moved to look her in the eye. Rhiannon gasped as its scaly hands gently ran up and down her sides. "You're uh... not so bad huh?" She whispered quietly, trying not to startle the creature. The creature replied simply by kissing her on the lips, it's tongue slowly snaking into her mouth as Rhiannon reciprocated. She'd kissed boys before but nothing had ever quite felt so nice. Despite the rough introduction, the creature seemed to be taking great care to make her feel... comfort? Pleasure? Every man she'd ever kissed had paid no heed to her own enjoyment, while this thing seemed to be prioritising that.

"Wow... wow..." She gasped as their lips finally broke apart, her whole mouth tickled with the after taste of the creature's Sour saliva and the same prickling feeling its tongue had made. Rhiannon felt a little light-headed, almost like being tipsy. "We're a uh, regular beauty and the beast huh?" She sighed. The moment she said it, Rhiannon was keenly aware of a warmth in her loins. She loved beauty and the beast. Especially the beast. It wasn't the furry, cursed prince from her fairy tale fantasy, but as she looked down to see its enormous cock brushing against her inner thigh, she couldn't help but wonder...

"Is that for me?" She whispered, carefully moving her right leg up to rest against the creature's flank. "Yes" Croaked the creature, one voice sounding oddly familiar and human while another echoed it with a beastly growl. Rhiannon felt a surge of warmth in her vagina as it grew increasingly moist. There was no denying the sudden yearning she had for her captor. Rhiannon struggled with getting aroused by men despite her attraction to them, it took a lot for sex to become an option to her. But this, right now? As crazy as it seemed, it felt so natural and right, like she'd never needed anything so badly in her life...

"Please..." She murmured, eyes widening as she slipped deeper into the haze of arousal couding her mind. Almost immediately, the creature pressed it's entire length into her. Rhiannon moaned and kicked as she pressed her hips up to meet it. There was a delicious slurp as the throbbing shaft glided into her, it's bony ridges caressing the inside of her pussy like no human cock ever could. As it began to slide out, Rhiannon kept bucking her hips up to it, her hands moving to clutch at the creature's shoulders. Immediately, the creature thrust back, its cock pressing into her once more. The force of its thrust pressed Rhiannon's curvy ass against the cold, rough surface of the rock beneath them. She let out an elated gasp and held the creature tighter, pressing her body against it. It repeated the motion, causing her to Arch her back and wail with glee. "Ohhh... oh God. Oh God..." again the creature thrust, it's hips grinding against Rhiannon's as she spread her legs wider. "Fuck. Oh fuuuck!" She cried out with an orgasmic moan as the creature's lips began to press against her left nipple while it thrust again. The gaps between its thrusts was getting shorter and Rhiannon's lust had reached a fever pitch in record time.

"Mmm yeah... yeah. You're my beast, you're my fucking beast!" She growled as their hips frantically collided with one another. The clouds were parting to let the light of the full moon shine down on them, allowing Rhiannon to admire the entirety of her inhuman lover. Under any other circumstances it probably would have been a horrifying sight, but right now? This was the kindest most enjoyable interaction she'd had since her friends disappeared. Rhiannon didn't mind admitting to herself she needed this. With a gentle push, she rolled the creature onto it's back.

"Submissive huh?" She moaned as she slowly reared up to straddle the creature "That's fucking hot" She continued. The creature bucked up hard, making her loudly cry out with an ecstatic moan.

"Yass girl, get it!" Shouted a voice from the other end of the park followed by several chuckles. Rhiannon blushed. Of course now someone could hear her. The creature remained unphased and bucked up harder, bouncing Rhiannon on its cock. She shrieked with glee and tried to bite her lip as she was met with more laughter and encouraging cheers as the voice from before moved further away. Rhiannon chuckled ad she rode harder, normally any infringement on her privacy was instant mood killer. But whatever the creature was doing to make her so attracted to it was all-consuming. She just needed more. She shrugged off the tattered remains of her blouse and jacket, casting them aside into the nearby bushes.

Her hands caressed the exposed ribs of its exoskeleton while it reached up to playfully knead her breasts. Rhiannon's eyes fluttered as the bony ridges on its cock nudged at her g-spot. Her mind was almost completely blank, her whole world was this moment and the erotic bliss bestowed upon her by this magnificent thing. She tried to speak but only guttural moans and unintelligible mumbling came out. Her vision was blurring as the creature continued to overwhelm her senses.

"Gonna. Gonna fucking... Ugh... cum. Cum. Want... cum" She managed to gasp between moans. She wanted this moment to last forever but she also wanted to be pushed over the brink into an orgasm the likes of which she'd never felt before. She wanted to suck this creature's cock and taste its cum as it splashes across her face. Again, completely at odds with her regular preferences but for this creature, in this moment, it's all she wanted.

At her insistence, the creature began furiously gyrating in and out of her. While the sudden erotic turn to the encounter had given Rhiannon's energy levels a considerable second wind, she was rapidly hitting her limit. Unable to keep herself up, she flopped around like a ragdoll until the creature rolled her onto her back. Her eyes rolled as her orgasm finally hit and crashed through every nerve in her body. Shuddering as it neared a climax of it's own, the creature cupped her head in its hand kissed her once again. Rhiannon groaned as several large globs spewed forth into her mouth and down her throat. Rhiannon was too exhausted to do anything but happily moan as she swallowed the slimy balls. Meanwhile, a giant bulge was shifting through the creature's cock and writhing into her. She leaned back and let out a final elated howl as what felt like a mass of wriggling snakes moved into her pussy and began spreading through her body. This last rush of sensations was too much, even for how willing Rhiannon's mind had been moments ago. With a shiver and a gasp, her word went dark as Rhiannon blacked out.

* * * As Laura in her human form led the drone formerly known as Warren into her kitchen, she paused to look at a mass of dried skin and bone scattered across the floor. In her gut, she knew this meant her first clutch had finished incubating.  She motioned Warren to wait for her as she gingerly stepped around the corner. Lying on the living room floor was the first drone she had implanted. It writhed as it slid free from layers of skin and extended bone, revealing its original self. Noting its balls had reverted to normal, Laura smiled a wide predatory grin.

"You've had a very big day haven't you my dear" She crooned "Yes... woods..." mewled the drone as it tried to get back on its feet. Laura stroked his cheek, turning his face to look her in the eye. "Well..." She purred with a wicked grin. "I think that needs a reward, don't you?" She continued. "How about you come join your new brother in pleasuring me upstairs hmm? After all, it's almost been a week since you got to have sex isn't it?" She purred, her body already beginning to shift back to its true form. The drone simply smiled and obediently followed her.

* * *

Rhiannon woke to the sound of trucks loudly honking outside. She blinked as she ran her fingers through her hair and rolled over to look a the time on her alarm clock. Eleven AM. How had she slept so late and come to think of it how did she even get home? The last thing she could clearly remember was...

"Beauty and the beast" echoed the memory of her voice. A flash of vivid images of her and monster fucking in the park. Rhiannon blinked again. Surely that was a dream, an odd enjoyable dream... had she completely blanked on coming home, getting changed and flopping into bed? Maybe so. Stress could do that, right?

Flinging the covers aside, she sat up and slipped her robe on so she had a little more to keep her warm than just a tank top and shorts. It was the darnedest thing, she was usually slow to get out of bed. But today? Except for a slight throbbing in the back of her head, she'd never felt so fit or invigorated this early in the morning.

Tutting at herself for leaving a window half open overnight, she closed it back up and moved to her kitchen where she then set her kettle boiling. Maybe today would be a good day after all, she thought. While she stood there flexing her arms and fingers, there was a knock at the door. Normally she would have tried to talk to the visitor through the door, but today Rhiannon felt more confident and sure of herself than ever before. Opening the door wide, she was met with the sight of her neighbour, Josh, standing in the hall outside.

"Josh! Hi!" She said with a big smile. "Uh hey Rhi" he replied, nervously running a hand through his short, coppery hair. "Look I uh, I hate to ask but last night you made a bit of a racket when you got home. I know it's been a rough week, but if you could um... y'know. Not so loud in future?" Rhiannon couldn't help but notice him ogling her cleavage through the folds of her robe. That it was clearly throwing him off made her smile. "Oh my, I am so sorry! It won't be a problem, Josh, I'd hate to keep you up" She replied, shifting her posture so that her right leg poked out from her robe all the way up to her thigh. Josh struggled to not be too obvious that his eyes were now roaming up and down that leg.

"Oh, no..  well I also just wanted to see how you're going y'know. Seems like you could really use a friend right now" he ventured "You know, I really do need that right now" said Rhiannon with an enthusiastic nod "Do you wanna maybe come in for a bit?"

Continued in Chapter 4 - Human Resources

[batmonkfish80]

Stovetop Ghosts by Katy Naylor

1. In which I talk about friendship in general and my relationship with Katy Naylor, the author of Stovetop Ghosts, and how it relates to this review in a way that is peripherally about the book; for more direct commentary see part 2, or for a summary, part 3

A part of what makes up friendship is shared experiences. We were there together and this thing happened, involving us. It’s not the only element and maybe not even absolutely necessary. Still, going through something with someone can make a bond. Online friendships are trickier; still, things happen and the people we met online were there with us. And now we have something in common.

Another thing about maintaining a friendship is to know the limits. When not to push. Not to get caught up on things that don’t matter. So when Katy described Stovetop Ghosts, a secular devotional book of poems about domestic life with small children I thought, doesn’t sound like my kind of thing. Easier all around if I just pass this one by, let our friendship – centred as it is about writing things and reading things – go on elsewhere.

Bear Creek was an online magazine of strange and weird things, masquerading as the newspaper of a strange, weird and fictional town. It was also a small press, and then one day the guy who ran it gave up on it all and it ended.

And Bear Creek was also a scene, made up of those of us living in the penumbra of the fictional town, writers, readers, illustrators, creators of various odd things. It was where Katy and I met. And when Bear Creek went away…

Well that’s no reason to give up on all the things that we built in that fictional town. Stovetop Ghosts doesn’t sound like my kind of thing? I read and watch and listen and experience things that don’t sound like my kind of thing all the time. Katy publishes things that aren’t my thing in her zine of interactive arts and that’s not a great reason to avoid them. So I don't. Learning why they’re not my kind of thing is useful and valuable. And sometimes, maybe there's something there that can be my kind of thing.

To cut a long story short I bought Stovetop Ghosts, even though it didn’t sound like my kind of thing, because the thing that started us being friends went away and that makes it even more important to support each other and strengthen the things that we have in common. The author’s note says “Stovetop Ghosts is Katy’s third published chapbook, and one that contains much of her heart. Be gentle with it,” so if I hate the book I will keep my damn mouth shut. Because that’s what a friend would do.

2. An actual review of Stovetop Ghosts

This is a book of hours, a secular version of meditations on the monastic hours that indicate religious services. In the same way that monks would structure their lives and work around these times, this book mirrors it with the rhythm of domestic life. A domestic life that revolves around a small child

The poems are all addressed to “you,” the child. Lauds is dawn and a memory of another time and how that hour changes when a child is present.  Matins revolves around breakfast with a note that “My better self is clear as glass,” and it turns out as fragile too. And then cooking, it is imperfect and a mother’s disapproval can be felt, and then our child’s delight when it is served. “Maybe, sometimes, this is enough.”

Terce is mid-morning and we go to the sea, and the sea is empty and full, overwhelming and tempting. But we, the child, are there. Something else than the universe-filling sea. Sext is noon still by the sea, a moment’s respite. Looking for the kraken, ready to send up a flare. Nones there is a walk inspecting every plant and oddity.

In Vespers we are told that we, the child are starting to anchor ourselves in time. That we know that this is a stage. Like the hours of the day, the years of our lives turn, the same and changing. Compline at night returns to the theme that’s hidden and revealed. That for all the child is dependent on the parent, it’s the child that saves the parent, that gives them their life.

Some of these I experienced as shattering handfuls of words poured into my churning mind, sharing events that happened months and years ago - or only in our heads. Some of them as just, you know, an interesting thing that was written. Some of it was my thing as it turns out, and that’s good. And the things that weren’t my thing? They’re good too.

Part 3, tl;dr

Read This: An unflinching look at the doubt and strangeness of parenting Don’t Read This: It doesn’t sound like your kind of thing Disclosure: Katy has published me in her interactive arts zine Voidspace, also everything in part 1 You Can Buy It: At this link; if you're in the UK and want to contact Katy (perhaps through Voidspace?) she has copies.

#book review #poetry #secular book of hours