Hi, I'm Nyashia. But, you guys can refer to me as Asia, Ny Ny, or Yume(if you wanna go by my username). I'm 20+ years old, part of way too many fandoms, and my fixtation at the moment happens to be Spider-Man😔. Fanfics come out slowly but surely, I guess😭🤚
Ao3 account:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Masterlist:
Hobie Brown/Spider-Punk🕸
I Want It (all come true) --ongoing...
Cater To You
My Love (Adorn You)
The Eye of Her Storm (Sailor! Hobie x Sea Goddess! R)
Hunger Pains (Tokyo Ghoul au)
For Science!
The Demon I Cling To (Demon! Hobie collection)
Accusations! False accusations!
Two Hearts In Mine (Roommates! Hobie & Ekko collection/ Modern AU)
I have finished the daeron ending for the alt ending of the lyonel fic (finally! It'll be out this weekend) and here's a sneak peek for the next bobby fic (which I have also finished but I still have the two endings to write) and a new au for a dad! Hobie fic where Kitt takes center stage!! I also have 5 reqs done but they're all under 1k so no sneak peeks for them they'll just be a surprise! I need to lock in for the backrooms au with hobie and ipob but sigh the mind is focusing on different wips rn lmao
I hope you're all doing well! ❤️
Slowly, you found yourself growing awfully fond of your husband. It's not the kind of love you felt with Lyonel, this one was different, one closer to a friend than a lover. Still, you care for Daeron, you have love for him, but your heart is already occupied by another so far away that your heart still longs for him no matter how soft Daeron kisses you, no matter how much he makes you feel wanted.
You tried to love him like you do with Lyonel, but your mind always went to him, every night in bed as you lay beside your husband, you think of him. You go outside and see rainclouds looming above you and you think of him, everything reminds you of Lyonel Baratheon. His laugh in the whispering breeze, his warmth in the early morning sunshine, and his touch in Daeron's softer hand upon your waist.
You both tried.
Daeron really tried to be a good husband, to be better for you. Sharing a bed with him was light hearted, at first it was for duty, a transaction like your marriage to him. As time went on, it was more than duty. You wanted him, and he wanted you too.
“Cover your nose.” You tell Bobby, the inside of your elbow raised over to your nose.
Bobby doesn't question you as he does what he's instructed. “What now?”
You look around the room. There are two exits out of here, one that goes back to Mr. Kitty's domain where you could still smell the pastries through the wall, and the other sits right beside the corpse, an arch that opens to another part of yellow hell. Tilting your head, you squint, seeing that the only thing inside are more doors and a singular shoe standing upright in the middle of it.
“There.” Your voice is muffled by your arm, trying not to take deep inhales of the mildew hanging around the air.
“What about that?” Bobby points above, right at the ceiling where there is a triangular door right on it with four doorknobs.
“We can't reach it.”
“We could if I hoist you up.”
Looking over your shoulder, you see that James has collided with another shopper as he profusely apologizes to them before continuing the chase. Clutched in his big hand is Kitt’s crocodile toy, you can feel your baby panic at the sight of it in the stranger's hold.
You don't let up, your quick strides have turned into a sprint, dodging carts and people as you make it to the exit and quickly cross the parking lot over to your beat up Corolla.
“He looks mad, mummy.” Kitt utters above your shoulder, a front row seat to the big man almost getting hit by a car as he continues to give chase.
You fumble with your keys, the carabiner falling from your frantic hands as it drops with a loud clang that rings in your ears. Cursing under your breath, James hits the side of the car with an even louder and harsher clang as he nurses his side with a wince. The sound makes Kitt cry, pointing at the bad man who stole his crocodile and dented the car.
Gonna... pull his mask up and make out with him on a broken AC unit.... gonna... close my eyes and pull on the lapels of his rad ass leather vest and swap spit with him like the rest of the world doesn't exist...
You're high on the adrenaline of whatever the fuck it is you both just went through. It's hard to remember what it was over the blush spreading head to toe. Doesn't really matter, either. Everything's okay now. As okay as it's going to be.
The emergency being over doesn't let you relax. Damn your hyper-sensitive crisis prepared brain. Even when everyone is safe, your motor keeps running, watching for the final shoe to drop. You could run in circles until you run out of fuel. Or find somewhere quiet to scream all the air out of your lungs. In a pinch, you'd find some other asshole somewhere in the city who needed their head busted in. If all else fails you could try to shove it down. Bottle up an unreal amount of potential energy and hope you don't explode.
Safer and more enjoyable than any of those options, though, stands right beside you through the chaos. When the storm passes, the momentum that pushes you through it leaves you colliding with him. Pulling him down the street by his jacket, searching for any semblance of privacy. In the aftermath of the disaster, every alley is occupied. You'll have to settle for just enough of him to soothe the burning. He flinches when you yank up the bottom portion of his mask. The argument he's about to throw at you ends up replaced by your tongue in his mouth. Whatever it is that has you on fire suddenly lights him up too. His knees give a little as he kisses back. You release one of his lapels, slipping your hand behind his head just before it makes contact with the wall you've backed him into.
In retrospect, there isn't anything about this that will wind either of you down. Hobie confirms that thought by letting a hand drift down your leg. Just like any good disaster, though, once it starts it's near impossible to stop. Surely you'll manage to stop this one before it gets too out of control. Probably. Right?
hi!! can i get vampire!hobie w/ a newly turned gn!reader and just like hobie taking care of them post turning/transformation ??
Vamp! Hobie my love 🥰 thank you for requesting ❤️
Pairing: Hobie Brown x Reader/ Spider-Punk x Reader
Tags: No use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader, R can be read as any gender, cw blood mention, established relationship, cw suggestive, Vampire! Hobie, fluff.
Navigation
3rd anniversary celebration 🎉
Everything feels so bright, everything around you is blurred at the edges, overwhelming you. Every quiet squeak from the mice in the walls sounds so awfully close to you, every thump upstairs, every clang of cups and pans downstairs you could hear so clearly, almost ringing in your ears. To the feel of the velvet lined coffin under you, and the cotton pajamas you have on feels surreal, too soft and too rough at the same time.
Your breathing is staggered, like a fish out of water desperately trying to gulp in air. But you can breathe properly, you can inhale and exhale normally but you can feel the air in your lungs flutter inside of you, like you swallowed butterflies. Hobie said what you’re feeling right now is the slow demise of your body, killing itself to make way for the vampire blood that is now fighting inside your veins, killing what’s left of humanity rushing in you.
Your heart keeps skipping a beat, stopping once, twice, only for it to beat again, as if your own body is fighting the transformation desperately. You lay inside his red velvet lined coffin, inhaling Hobie’s scent of burgundy and lilac, a good distraction from the way your body fights to stay alive.
The coffin lid cracks open an inch, but the sliver of light was enough to blind you as you hiss, fangs bared, still too sharp for you when it scratches the surface of your bottom lip.
“Shit, sorry, lovie.” Hobie climbs inside, shutting the lid immediately. He settles beside you, trying not to spill the goblet of blood in his grasp. “How d’you feel?”
“Like—” you swallow, but your mouth is so dry that there is nothing left to swallow. “Like death.”
“Sorry, that’s normal.” Inhaling, Hobie’s palm cups your cheek gingerly and you open your eyes to see his wine red eyes gaze at you lovingly. “Can you tolerate this?” His thumb brushes along your cheekbone tenderly yet carefully, almost featherlight but you feel how cold he is above your skin.
“Yeah,” you wheeze out, throat scratchy, stomach grumbling. You’re incredibly hungry, starving as your eyes hone in on the blood inside the goblet. “Is that for me?”
The corner of his lips tug into a smile. “No, it’s mine.”
“I’m literally dying and you’re being a piece of shit.” Your fingers weakly grasp at the hem of his silky black shirt that looks like liquid on him. “You have no…” you heave. “No bedside manners.”
“Nah, love, it’s mine to drink because you can’t drink these yet.” He raises his cup as you chase it with your eyes. “Unless you want to go berserk and devour our beloved trio downstairs. Don’t want that, do we?”
“So you’re here just to rub it on me and gloat?” Your narrowed gaze flicks to him. The heady scent permeating from the goblet makes your mouth water, air taken from your lungs as you can’t help but stare at it. “I die and this is what I get.”
Hobie’s expression sours from the mention of you almost dying in his arms. He turned you as a last resort, not wanting to lose you and live the rest of his immortal life without you in it. He didn’t want to turn you, but he had to when your heart was failing and your blood was flowing out of you and onto his hands.
“I’m sorry.” You notice his expression, you notice everything easier now. From how his jaw tightened, to how his grip on the goblet squeezes that the glass creaks in his grip. “I’m just so fucking hungry.”
His expression changes to a softer look, thumb kneading at your cheek before letting go. “I’ll chug this for you so you can drink from me.”
“How are they, Hobie?” You ask just before he brings the cup to his lips.
“Traumatized but they’re holding on.” Your brows furrow deeply from his words. “I’ve invited Gayatri over to help them. They’ve got fast food and are watching Ponyo with her in the basement.”
“Why the basement—” your eyes flickers with realization. “Oh, the cage.”
“Yeah, jus’ in case you, y’know. It’s for their safety, love.”
“I go wild and reject your blood and eat them.” You finish his words for him.
“Yeah, but that won’t happen, you’re doin’ great. Better than I thought, love.” Hobie brings the cup to his lips, chugging it, crimson coating his lips as you watch him swallow every drop greedily. His Adam’s apple moves, a trickle of cloying blood running down the length of his neck. He smells sweet, utterly saccharine that you could sink your teeth into him hungrily.
You feel your mouth water even more, grip tightening around the velvet of the coffin that you accidentally rip it with your claws. You could hear the blood sloshing inside his veins, your irises blooms, fangs poking in between your lips as you stare at him like a starved lion.
Hobie wipes his lips with his sleeve, looking at you with a smirk. “Where d’you want me, love?”
“Under me, now.”
You snatch him within a half second, moving atop him with your legs around his thighs, and arms cageing him in. The coffin tilts slightly from the abrupt movement before stilling. Licking your lips, Hobie isn’t disturbed by the sight of you, quite the opposite as he looks up at you with a giddy smile and red eyes that are practically shaped like hearts.
“Ready, Hobie?” Fangs bared, eyes wide, you look like you want to devour him whole.
“More than ready, lovie.” He utters with his whole chest, fingers digging into your hips as you sink your teeth in him. How the tables have turned.
I was tagged by the lovely @derailedfiction and @a-certain-slant-of-the-light 💕💕
❀ last song: lullaby by the cure - my favourite song of theirs. Though Japanese whispers is my fav fav album of theirs too.
❀ currently watching/re-watching: I am a serial re-watcher. I am currently rewatching silent witness, the other bennet sister and golden girls - quite the range I know. Also waiting painfully for the new series of Ted Lasso.
❀ currently reading: Again. This could take a while. Hope you’re sitting comfortably….All quiet on the western front by Erich Remarque. I just watched the 2021 film on Netflix and it is so sublime and so moving. A victory in the kitchen by Annie Gray. A recent book but I’m a foodie so I was curious about that era of cooking, from Edwardian gorging excess to the WW2 rationing. Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain. Because again, I am a bit of a WW1 nerd. And also the film slaps. And last but not least, American daughter gone to war by Annie Smith, it’s a very brutal and awakening account of the Vietnam war through an American nurses eyes. All brilliant. I’d recommend them all (skip testament if you don’t like weighty books it’s very heavy going)
❀ current obsession: Lyonel Fucking Baratheon - who is ruining my life. Honestly- I can’t get a thing done.
❀ currently working on: so many WIPs it’s not even funny. I have them lined up. If we’re getting specific though, quiet spite III, some delicious asks about lady d x lyonel being parents, and also their Betrothal/wedding/ wedding night-
❀ currently wearing: it’s basically one step away from pyjamas. Wide baggy pink trousers with orange check and an orang t-shirt with the slogan ‘Nice N Sleazy’ cause it made me think of a stranglers song.
❀ last search: weird one; a company called lights4fun I searched for a pumpkin on their website cause Halloween is getting closer and I can’t waittt-
❀ favourite flower: White peony. Hands down. But I am also not adverse to an orange tulip. Especially when they haven’t flowered yet. They always look so posh and neat all tucked together.
Tags: the lovely babes I know @adumbgirlinloove @multyfangirl @happinessisaloadedgun @celestrys @mags-writes @coff33mug @sallymaywritings @liliac-dreamer
Thank you for the tag, dear💜I see we have similar taste for flowers and dress code🤭 Also, loved ep 1 of the new Ted Lasso, can't wait for more😍
❀ last song: Tove Lo and Stromae - Des Fleurs
currently watching/re-watching: "One hundred years of solitude" on Netflix, "House of the dragon", "Lucky", "Furious", "Ted Lasso " and an occasional movie now and then
currently reading: love me a good thriller/crime book but also a rom-com🤭 finished "Love, theoretically" by Ali Hazelwood this week and now I'm starting "Promise not to tell" by Jane Ann Krentz
current obsession: mm, no surprise there but Lyonel Baratheon and Daniel Ings as well tbh🫣 also dragons, lol, and this new type of scented coffee I've found😋
currently working on: tbh taking it easy after exam session but ig trying to refresh my Spanish and better my cooking
currently wearing: a big t-shirt with a book logo and shorts
last search: a site for the weather forecast, lol, want to know when to go out without getting fried alive 🥹
favourite flower: tulips,no matter the colour but also peonies, sunflowers and roses🥰
Tagging,no pressure @the-kr8tor @sconniebelle @slytherincursebreaker @schniiipsel @ghostlybfgf @sylasthegrim and anyone who wants to share🩵🩵
Awww thank you for the tag bestie!!! Im also watching ted lasso! I haven't finished the new episode yet tho lmaooo and we both have the same search because it's been stormy here 😆
❤️ last song: Harleys in Hawaii by katy perry
❤️ currently watching/rewatching: hotd with the besties! And ted lasso! Does backrooms content count? Lmao
❤️ currently reading: still akotsk lmaooo i need to lock in and finish the novellas
❤️ current obsession: akotsk men 😉 lyonel and Daniel ings plus bobby 😍 and nail gel polish lmao
❤️ currently working on: WIPS so many wips!!!!
❤️ currently wearing: sesame street shirt and pajamas!
❤️ last search: the weather 😆
❤️ favorite flower: tulips too!!! And baby's breath 🥰
Tagging anyone who would like to join! @hyperfix-wip @pinksugarscrub @yumeaoka-chan @marukyubi @strawberrymilkmaiden @rexlroze @hobiesval
Thank you for the tag @hyperfix-wip and @the-kr8tor 💕
Last song: Tap Out by Rich Gang
Currently watching: hotd with pookies! And Abbott bc I didn't watch the last season so😅
Currently reading: Err, does fanfic count...? Cuz, uh, that's what I'm reading💀
Current obsession: Peter fucking Parker and Hobart fucking Brown😒 Get them out of my head, PLEASE. ITS BEEN YEARS, FREE MEEE🥀
Currently working on: A bunch of wips that i will work on once my fingers decide to fucking type🥲💔 it's ridiculous😭
Currently wearing: Yea, absolutely nothing except underwear rn. I just woke up, okay💀🤚🏾
Last search: hair store near me
Favorite flower: IDK they're all so pretty and stuff and I never actually figured out which flower I love but it's prob cherry blossoms... maybe. Idk man
Tagging: @sluggyboiyo @pinksugarscrub @hobiesgeorg @mal3volentr0se @queerm0nger and whoever else would like to join❤️
Synopsis: What was once found could be lost once again.
Tags: No use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader except for clothing, reader has nicknames, CW food mentions, CW dark themes. CW recreational drug use, CW suggestive. Eventual Bobby romance, slow burn, Part 6 of my Bobby series. Set during the movie (spoilers)
Navigation
Bobby Franklin Masterlist
Part 5 <<< Part 6 >>> Part 7
The days go on like usual. You and Bobby both continue like always, like you’re not stuck in limbo where the days are slower and the only bright side is that he has you with him.
Bobby usually wakes up first, fixes some breakfast for you just in time for you to come downstairs. You get your first pick, a raspberry scone, or a chocolate eclair, and Bobby has whatever you choose, citing that he wanted to have a taste too, only for you both to share one plate, eating the same pastry and fighting for the last bite with a fork.
You always greeted Mr. Kitty who watches in the corner of the kitchen. It watches like it’s lonely, not observing to learn but because it wants to be included, to be seen. So one day, you fix it a plate, some crumpets and a cupcake on the side. It looks at it, then it looks at you, head cocked to the side, learning something new.
Bobby watches every interaction with curious eyes, watching how you grew fond of the being slowly, day by day, he notices the entity coming closer to you. You feel the fuzzy static atop its skin, humming just above your own.
Mr. Kitty has been a part of the routine as much as Bobby is a part of it. Sometimes Bobby would humour it by talking to it, asking why it likes Hello Kitty so much, or asking why it likes to watch. Not once has he gotten an answer from it when you once told him that you heard Mr. Kitty huffed out a laugh at you and even closed the bedroom door when you asked it to.
Even then, even when Bobby has gotten used to the added shadowy presence, Bobby doesn’t leave you alone with Mr. Kitty. Maybe he’s paranoid, or maybe there is a chance that his fear could become true when he’s scared that it’ll take you somewhere he can’t follow. He can never fully trust it, especially when it comes to you when it seems to have grown extremely fond of you. Either way, his eyes don’t stray too far from you and the being, not even while you’re both in the living room whilst you make daisy chains from the gathered wild flowers outside for it, talking to it like it could answer you.
“I think he’s in love with you.” Bobby once blurted out before bed, head resting on the silky pillow, eyes staring at the edge of the bed, waiting for you to peek over like always.
“Who is?” Just like he thought, you look over the edge and over to him.
“Mr. Kitty, who else?”
“Oh,” your lips smacks together, eyes glancing at the closed door, expecting for the being to appear out of nowhere from the mere mention of its name you bestowed upon it. “Why would you think that?” You ask softly, a hand falling over the edge, fingers brushing along the top of his chest.
Bobby takes it as an invitation to hold you, an occurrence that has become the norm for you both. His fingers grasp onto your own, and you let out that satisfied hum from the back of your throat that he always pretended not to hear lest you grow conscious of it. “Because he’s always with you, and he’s always watching you.”
“Maybe he just thinks I’m more interesting than you.” Your attention is fully on Bobby’s fingers as he plays with your own, brushing, kneading, just holding onto you for comfort.
“Or he’s in love with you.” Tugging at your hand, he makes you look at him with a roll of your eyes and with him raising a brow at you.
“He is not in love with me, Bobby.” You scoff, chuckling tiredly. “You’re seeing things.”
“How would you know? Did he tell you that?” What started off as a teasing remark has turned into a full conversation. “I mean, I once saw his big fucking hand hover over your head like it wanted to pet you.”
“Why?” You tilt your head to the side of the mattress, cheek pressed against it with a cheeky yet exhausted smile. “Are you jealous, Robert Franklin?”
Bobby scrunches his brows, scoffing out and looking anywhere but at you. “No, I’m just fucking with you.”
“Well, in that case, I can tell you that I have a massive crush on him.”
When he looks at you with a grimace, he sees your growing smile, a playful expression painted in dusty pink, like a Monet painting that was painted with deep longing. “You little shit.”
“Why not?” You utter in between laughs. “He can bake, he’s nice and he listens. Basically the perfect guy.”
“It’s because he doesn’t speak, hero.”
“Whatever, you’re just jealous of our blossoming love.” Pressing your face into the pillow, hiding from him with a not-so-hidden smile, he could hear you laugh against it.
“He’s an alien.”
“Different genres, Bobby.” You poke his forehead, and he rolls his eyes, turning away to stifle his grin.
He fell asleep with a smile on his face then, and would wake up with your hand in his again. He’ll never admit the fact that his arm aches every morning, he’d rather tell Mr. Kitty that its pastries are dry right to its face rather than admit that and have you shrug off his hand.
Bobby fell into step with you, he finds that it’s easier this way, to not fight it anymore when his hope dwindles in finding the exit. He lets it happen, he tries to make the most of the situation without giving you the same feeling of hopelessness that slithers around his throat. That’s the last thing he would want, to make you feel hopeless, to make you feel that there is nothing to be done. So he follows the routine, keeping you comfortable and at the least content.
After every breakfast you and Bobby go outside to go on a fruitless search again. Every stone turned and tree observed, you both come up with nothing again.
You lumber back inside the house, the house that has been properly lived-in now, where the bed smells like you, and where there are dishes in the sink. Where he’s comfortable, content and safe.
With aching bones, Bobby opens the door for you. His muscles are pulled taut with the throbbing pain of fatigue and yet he still finds the time to fix up a fresh plate and cup of tea for you, courtesy of the entity that loves to watch you eat the treats whilst he lets you shower first. He brings it upstairs and sits on the floor beside the bathroom door and talks, waiting for you to finish whilst taking bites of tarts and eclairs. Then you do the same when it’s his turn. Rinse and repeat, always on schedule, a tight routine that is getting tiring with every identical day that passes.
You try to pass the time by filling the empty books on the shelf with various doodles and musings, whatever that comes to mind, you put it into the book. Sometimes it’s the map you remembered drawing on the wall of the sailboat room, the same routes you took, the same landmarks, drawing the ones that are potentially dangerous and the ones that are safe to stay in. Maybe you’ll need it someday. Or maybe someone else would come across the same notebook with your writings and it would help them better than it could for you.
You’re starting to miss the internet and real books that have actual stories in it. The covers on the bookshelves here look like the covers back at home, only with the words garbled, almost alien, like it misremembered what the title was supposed to be. You’re holding onto a copy of what was supposed to be Goldilocks but with its pages blank like the others when you hear a muffled thump upstairs.
Looking up at the pink ceiling, you decide to head upstairs to check on Bobby. He wanted to take a nap last you saw him, so you let him sleep in, giving him some alone time. Sometimes it’s needed here when you two spend almost every waking moment together.
Creeping in slowly, hammer in hand, you crack open the door. Expecting to see Bobby still sleeping on the bed, what you don’t expect is for Mr. Kitty looming over him, watching him craft a beaded bracelet on the floor.
You don’t even know where the beads came from, but you suspect it came from Mr. Kitty. You once asked for some coloring supplies, an offhanded comment, a loud wishful thinking while you were bored out of your mind. The next morning, you see a box of colorful markers right on the bedside table, placed right there just for you. Maybe you were wrong about the entities here.
“Do you think she’ll like this one? Is it too pink?” He asks Mr. Kitty, holding out the half finished bracelet in front of him casually like he’s asking a friend and not a faceless being that is probably older than you and Bobby. The shadow responds with a lopsided head tilt like a curious puppy. “It’s not my fault everything in here is pink.”
Bobby talks to him normally, you find it adorable.
“Y’know some other color would do this place some good.” He mutters, placing each bead after the other meticulously in the string. The being beside him just leans closer, maybe a threat or a tease, Bobby took it as the latter. And your hand around the hammer tightens in case it was the former. “I’m not judging your interior design, calm down. But maybe a bit of green or orange, y’know? Spice things up a bit?”
Mr. Kitty straightens up, moving his head from side to side slowly. You and Bobby have a similar look of surprise on your faces. It doesn’t want to spice things up a bit it seems.
Bobby’s lips stretch into a grin. “Damn, you do respond.” Is all he could say, chuckling to himself.
Before you could make your escape, Mr. Kitty turns its head over to you at the doorway, a parallel to him keeping watch there every night but the positions are switched.
Bobby notices, of course he does as he looks over his shoulder, eyes softening after noticing you.
“You look like a peeping tom.” His smirk is blanketed by the pink light filtering through the curtains.
“I heard a bump and I thought you fell from the bed.” Showing yourself, you enter the threshold. “What are you two doing, hm?” You can’t help but smile, hiding the hammer behind your back, gaze flicking between the shadow and back to Bobby hunched over the mess of beads on the floor.
“Nothing.” He fails to hide his plans by shoving the beads closer to him with his legs, only for it to clink together, revealing his surprise. “Fuck.” Huffing, he looks at the entity like it made fun of his hair. “I told you to be quiet.”
“You’re blaming Mr. Kitty?”
“Yeah,” shrugging, the being just stays there, standing still, observing the interaction. “C’mere, I need help.”
“What for?” You’re already crossing the short distance over to him and sitting beside him on his makeshift bed. You hide the hammer underneath a pillow.
“I don’t know your size.”
“Oh.” You fluster, blinking owlishly at him, cheeks aflame.
“May I?” Bobby’s voice is softer, fingers brushing along your own gently, like water upon your skin.
“Y–yeah, sure.” Smiling, you slide your hand over to his palm whilst he wraps the beaded bracelet around your wrist, tying it together and cutting the excess wire off. You admire it underneath the eternal light shining through the windows. It has star shaped beads, iridescent pink pearls, and beads shaped like hearts that spell out your name. It’s adorable, and your heart soars that your eyes turn glossy, painting him in water coloured lights.
“D’you like it?” Ducking down to meet with your eyes, Bobby smiles, albeit wobbly, a nervous smile. “I can change some things around if you don’t like it.”
“No, no, I—” clearing your throat, you lift your head up and nudge your knee with his own. “I like it, I love it, Bobby, thank you.”
“That’s good.” Sighing in relief, Bobby knocks his knee against yours, smiling bashfully as he stares into your eyes. “I mean, I thought it would be too childish for you.”
“No,” shaking your head, you turn your wrist from side to side, admiring every detail under the light. “I don’t see it like that, it’s adorable, you’re sweet for making one for me.” With your wrist right on your chest, you hug it close to you.
“Yeah, I uh,” Bobby licks his lips, scratching his nape and blinking at the floor, right on a half made bracelet that he has no idea why he started to make. “I remember making a few when I was a kid, I guess it stuck.”
“I bet you made lots for your friends.” Your easy smile eases him as his taut shoulders visibly relax.
“Maybe, I don’t really remember.”
“Can I make you one too?” You blink away the happy tears, grabbing a string and wiggling it in front of him.
“Yeah.” The haze of feeling like he forgot something fades away from your smile alone.
“Do you want to pick your beads?” You’re sorting through the assorted beads on the floor that clinks together.
“No, I trust you.” His hand holds up your hair that was falling over your face, a sweet gesture that comes easy for him, almost out of instinct as you shudder out a breath.
“I’ll make one for Mr. Kitty too after this.” Straightening up, you swallow down your shyness, eyes glancing at the being standing over the two of you patiently, waiting his turn.
“He doesn’t need one.” Bobby blurts out.
“Don’t be jealous.” Your hand pats his cheek briefly before inserting a sun shaped bead into the string.
“I’m not jealous of a faceless bean stalk.” He watches you work, while still keeping a close eye on the being.
“Sounds like you are though.” With a lilt, you chuckle at him, eyes shining from the light, and Bobby, poor Bobby, feels like his heart stopped.
—
Bobby walks ahead of you, stretching his back, wincing at the throbbing ache that rolls under his strained muscles. You can tell that it’s bothering him when he reaches behind, kneading at the small of his back, painted nails scratching into the skin to try to alleviate the pain. Despite that, he seems to be more comfortable here now, his jean shorts hang lower than usual, belted lower. The small of his back is in full show, and so is his midriff with a trail of dirty blond hair below his navel that creeps underneath the waistband of his jeans. It’s very distracting, and you always find yourself looking away with cheeks as warm as Mr. Kitty’s pastries.
“You okay, Bobby?” Your hand pauses from writing, the beaded bracelets he made for you clinking against each other. “Do you have an itch or something?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” Rolling his shoulder, hammer in hand, you could see the fatigue in his muscles as his crop top hitches up with every stretch.
“Maybe you should take the bed tonight.” Sliding beside him, you nudge his bicep.
“I’m fine, hero.” Your companion gives you a tight smile. “It’s all this walking, it’ll ease up when we get some rest.”
“You’re not a very good liar, Bobby.”
He pauses mid step, neck craning slowly over to you. “And you know this, how?” His brow rises, nose scrunched with a barely hidden smirk.
“You look away when you lie.” Now in front of him, you stare him down, matching his barely there smirk.
Bobby steps forward, the tips of his shoes kissing yours, breath fanning your cheek as his hair falls over his eyes. It’s gotten longer.
“And you can’t stomach lying, hero. You’re too good for it.”
“Not true, I lie all the time.” Your breath hitches when his finger loops around the bracelets he made for you, using it to pull you closer to him until he could see himself in your eyes. You should pull away, and yet you don’t. You’re savouring it, languishing in the moment.
“Okay, name one lie.”
“You stink.”
His lips tugs into a slow lopsided grin, a laugh rumbling his chest that reverberates through you. “Like how I smell or in general?”
“Both.”
“You big fucking liar.”
A smile splits on your face, laughing, head tilted down at your feet that meets with his own atop the green grass. “Alright,” you turn to him again, seeing that his gaze never left yours. “Can you tell if this is a lie?”
“I like a challenge.”
“I want you to take the bed for tonight.”
“A half truth.”
“Only a half truth?” You scoff out and his blue eyes follow yours when you turn away for a beat.
“Yeah, because you also want to sleep in the bed tonight.” His thumb plays with a bead in the bracelet, rolling it around in the pads of his fingers.
“I do love the bed too much.” Skin aflame, you bite the inside of your cheek, taking a tentative deep breath for what comes next. “We can share it, it’s big enough for two, hell, Mr. Kitty can fit in there.”
Bobby’s chest heaves, breath stuttering as he blinks owlishly at you. “You sure?”
“I thought you could tell if I’m lying or not.” You tease, looking directly into the pools of light in his eyes. “I can put a pillow between us. A hotdog in between if—”
“Sure.” He says instantaneously, jaw clamping up immediately before clearing his throat. “Yeah, sure. My back hurts, it’ll help.”
“Okay.” Looking at him through your lashes, you back away slowly, leaves crunching underfoot whilst the smile remains on your face. “C’mon, My gut tells me that we’re close to a door.”
He hopes not, not yet anyway.
—
You lay on the bed pin straight, hands atop your stomach, staring up at the ceiling whilst you feel the familiar warmth beside you.
Suddenly, Bobby’s fingers come up to your forehead, flicking you. “Ow.” You move to grimace at him. “What was that for?”
“You’re doing it again.” Bobby gazes at you softly, cheek atop the pillow you two placed in between your bodies, the yellow light softens his features as a strand of dark blonde hair falls over his eye.
It’s good to be looked at without pity, without shame.
“Doing what?”
“Getting lost in your thoughts.”
“I wasn’t, I was just zoning out.”
“Sure.” Rolling his eyes, he turns his attention away towards the door. “Did you know that he keeps watching us at night?”
“Yeah, from the start.”
“What a creep.”
“Maybe that’s why you two get along so well.” Chuckling, he looks at you with mock offense.
“Oh, fuck you.” Turning his back to you, he hides his wobbly grin and curls around a pillow. “Go sleep, hero.”
“Bobby?” You lean closer, looking at his dirty blond hair that curls over his nape as your fingers hover above it, restraining yourself from touching him. “You need a haircut.”
That sounded familiar to him, those exact string of words once echoed in the back of his mind like a residual memory that he had forgotten, said by someone else. Not you, a different voice, someone he knew, probably knew. But he can’t recall as he finds himself twisting towards you, the tension thickening as he hears your breath hitch. You’re much closer than he thought.
“What’d you say?”
“You need a haircut?” Brows knitted, you blink at him, lips slightly agape with his sweetened scent wafting over you. “Are you okay? I could move to the floor—”
“No, no, it’s okay.” He immediately shakes his head, dismissing how he looked at you so intensely like he was trying to see a different face on you. “I just didn’t hear you. Do you know how to cut hair?”
“Just my own, I never liked salons.”
“Maybe you can try to cut mine.” He tries to wave away the fleeting tension that permeates between you two like a third person, a ghost that lingers.
“I might make you bald.” Biting your lip with a wince, the vision of him that flickered in your mind made you chuckle. “But you’ll probably look good without hair.”
“Thanks, babe, now go to sleep.” He doesn’t notice the slip of the tongue as he turns away again with a smile. Or maybe he really meant to call you that, that his subconscious was already calling you by that before he spoke it loudly. Fatigue catches up to him as he leaves you staring at his back befuddledly with your heart racing.
Bobby wakes up to Mr. Kitty looming over the bed. Dread and unease filling him. Its faceless head cranes over to you and he follows the turn of its head, seeing you sleep soundly, face slack, peaceful as your hand rests atop his chest and over the pillow in between.
After all this time, something in him tells him that the being standing over him couldn’t be trusted, that he should take you and run even when he knows that this entity shouldn’t be feared. He can’t help it when it’s inherently built into his very being to be afraid of the uncanny valley and the things that creep in the dark.
“W–why are you watching us?” Bobby asks, hands slightly trembling as it moves above your own, grasping onto the back of your hand.
Mr. Kitty flickers out and over to the foot of the bed, in an instant it was beside him, feeling the static on its skin then it wasn’t. It turns its head again, this time over to the opened door.
“Do you want me to follow?”
Blinking, the shadow is gone and is now standing in the hallway within a half second.
Bobby checks on you, still sleeping, still peaceful. A peace that he’d rather not disturb.
The being hums in a low crooning sound, calling for him, taking his attention away from your sleeping form.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming.” Slowly and carefully, he takes your hand off of him with some reluctance before placing it atop the pillow. He then gets out of bed, fixing the blanket over your chin and taking one last look at you before he follows the shadow downstairs.
The whole house is completely lit like always, blinding him as his eyes adjust to the light. All the windows are open, he specifically remembers you always closing them before bed out of instinct, paranoid that something outside will crawl inside the house. No matter how many changes you do to the house, it goes back to its original state. Like how the bed would be made immediately every time you leave the bedroom to wash your face, you always thought it was Bobby who does it, but he never really told you that it wasn’t him so as to not make you feel uneasy. That’s the last thing he wanted to make you feel inside the only room you’re comfortable in to rest your eyes and let your guard down completely.
Mr. Kitty flickers in and out of existence, telling him to follow him outside into the garden and out into the clearing with the grass that aren’t grass, and where the fake sun shines with its same temperature and artificial warmth.
Bobby stands there in the doorway of the front door, gazing at this tall shadow as it settles in the middle of the clearing. Its skin flickers in and out, like television looking for a signal with its static fizzing in and out. Then it settles, returning to normal, as if it was fighting something invisible just to stay outside its domain. The orb of light shines on its skin, absorbing the light, not even reflecting the shine.
“What do you want, man?” Bobby blearily looks at him, a hand braced on the doorway. All he wants right now is to settle back beside you, feel your warmth, and fall asleep to the sound of your soft snores.
Mr. Kitty lifts his arm straight, pointing at the left side of the woods, where the fallen tree trunk you both rested at is placed. He stills eerily, statuesque, waiting for Bobby to move.
He swallows down his nerves, walking over to it, grass crunching underneath him as the light casts down his own shadow before him. Inching his way over to the trunk, it’s the same as before, hardened oak, rough around the edges, moss growing on the sides, nothing out of the ordinary. Lifting his head, he sees the entity stand beside the wall with the painted valley, a fake hill with a blue sky as its backdrop.
“We checked that already.” His voice is low, laced with trepidation, as if he’s afraid of waking you up with the noise even when you’re so far away.
Mr. Kitty cocks its head once again, looking as if he’s pointing at the wall with its craned head. The edges of its shadow turns into static, humming, a fizzle of red and blue before returning back to the void.
Bobby doesn’t know if it’s angry at him or frustrated by his disobedience, either way, the entity doesn’t seem like it’s having the grandest of time with him.
Sucking in his teeth, fingers flexing on his side, Bobby crosses the distance over to the painted valley, a palm reaching over to it, hand trembling slightly. Mr. Kitty watches on by his side as he could feel its skin fizzle atop his own, like a forcefield pushing away from him.
He expects to hit a solid wall, until the tips of his fingers touch nothing, going through the fake hill, phasing through it like putting your hand in water. Turning to the entity beside him, he could hear the hum from its skin, a low dissonance, a droning tone like the harsh fluorescent lights.
From where he stands, he could smell the familiar damp carpets, that mildew scent that settles in the back of his throat. The simple whiff of it sends his flight or fight response into haywire. Panting, his heart races, eyes blown wide.
He found the exit. Where the air is still and stale, and where the walls enclose around him, where something lurks in every corner. And the entity guided him to it, like it wanted him to leave. Specifically, to leave you here all alone with only this shadow as your only company.
“I’m not going to leave her here.” He says with his whole chest, taking his hand back to his side abruptly.
It looks at the house, head raised up, staring at the bedroom window, almost longingly, wistfully. It doesn’t have a face, but it says everything in that small movement.
“I am not going to leave her here. Do you understand?” Despite his trepidation, Bobby stands up to the faceless being that is probably as old as this place, primordial, something so ancient that has found you interesting, that latched onto you like a ghost that haunts your waking moment. It has grown fond of you. He says your name through gritted teeth, fighting for you. “She doesn’t belong here with you.”
But does he belong with you?
Bobby feels the same thrumming underneath his skin from when you accidentally cut your palm. Mr. Kitty is furious, or is it sorrow when it hums a song deep beneath from its heartless chest.
Bobby thinks he’s done for, that it ran out of patience for him, that it’s going to kick him out of his dominion or worse, rip him apart.
With a pop in his ears, Mr. Kitty disappears before him.
Bobby shudders at the encounter, staring right at the wall with his jaw clenched and tearful eyes. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Looking at the unassuming wall beside him, his brows furrow, jaw tightening as he turns his back against it.
He returns to the house with its obnoxious pink walls, and loud decor.
He goes up the steps for what seems to be the hundredth time and opens the door quietly.
He returns to you.
Bobby looks at the sleeping you curled around the pillows you placed in the middle of the bed, chest rising and falling, sleeping soundly, and at peace. He doesn’t want to ruin that peace, not yet, he’s not ready to go out just yet. He knows he’s being selfish, cowardly, but no one else in the world deserves to have the peace of mind more than you do. This place grants you that peace, as much as he wants to get out of here together with you and watch all the theater that you want and eat all the savory junk food that you crave— you need your rest, to smile for once, to let your guard down when it’s slowly being chipped away with every touch and smile you grant him.
Even if it means staying here and sharing your attention with an entity that seems to have latched onto you.
Bobby carefully gets into the covers beside you, sitting up, gazing at your sleeping face with a far away look. When you’re ready, he’ll tell you, when he’s ready, he’ll go through the doorway with you hand in hand like always.
Bobby doesn’t sleep that night.
—
Bobby hasn’t smoked in days, or has it been weeks? But now he smokes by the doorstep the morning after, back haunched, a Hello Kitty pillow on his lap and ashes slowly drifting down onto the ground before him.
You find him sitting by the front door, staring at the fallen tree as wisps of the earthy smoke wafted in the air. You woke up earlier than usual, only to find his side of the bed empty and cold.
He felt you before he heard your footsteps, peering up at you, you tilt your head down, whilst the fake sun shines right behind you.
“Didn’t sleep well?” Your gaze falls on the bags under his eyes. “Did I snore?”
“No,” shaking his head, he lifts up the joint over to you, offering it as you smile and take it gingerly. Your warm fingers brushes along on his own. “And no, you didn’t snore. I just couldn’t find sleep.”
“Well, did you count sheep?” You sit beside him, breathing it in before exhaling smoke out in soft wisps. He watched you the whole time, observing how your shoulders ease, expression softening underneath the light. “Thanks.” You hand it back to him, and his touch lingers a second longer than he realized.
“Y’know what I miss?” He mutters above the joint, eyes flicking towards the light, squinting at it like you have. You wish you didn’t leave his shades in the bedroom so you could place it over his eyes this time around.
“What?”
“Potato chips, steak, pizza—” he takes a deep inhale, letting the smoke settle inside his mouth before exhaling. “fucking anything that isn’t sweet or has custard in it.”
“I miss those too, plus the internet.” You giggle, actually giggled at him as you shake your head, unknowingly making his heart jump. His brow quirks up at the latter but doesn’t mention it. “I make a really good mac and cheese. Not the ones that came from the box, but from scratch.”
“Yeah?” His reddened eyes sparkle, perking up as he gives you a lopsided smile. “That sounds fucking good. Add some grilled cheese and tomato soup and you have my heart.”
“Mm-hmm.” Nodding, you take the joint from him, eyes crinkling in the corners as you smile at him, an easy smile that he’ll never get used to, a smile that he wants to etch into his mind forever. “You men are simple creatures, huh?”
“Guess so.” Bobby watches you again with a keen eye as you smoke, how your lips pucker around it, how your glazed eyes are softer, and how your fingers hold onto it daintily. “Just feed us and make out with us from time to time then we’re yours forever.”
You laugh, a sound that comes out of you easier, right from the belly, a wholehearted one. “How about I cook for you when we get out of here?” We, not just him, we, something you never thought you’d actually believe in. “And if it’s shit I’ll take you somewhere that has greasy food that makes your cholesterol spike. How about that? Does that sound good?”
“Best thing I’ve ever heard.” He takes the offered joint, breathing it in, tasting you on it, saccharine like the chocolate croissant you had.
Bobby really meant what he said, it sounds like heaven to him. He could see it now, you accidentally burned the pasta on the stove after he distracted you too much with his stories like always and you both had to resort to going to a local diner. He knows the perfect one with the cracking leather seats and old jukebox in the corner, and milkshakes to share. He would slide into the booth beside you, not adjacent, he wants to be near you, to hold your hand underneath the table and argue with you on who can eat the most burgers and fries.
Tilting your head, you second guess, before sighing and finally placing your head on his shoulder, cheek nuzzling, inhaling the strawberry scent upon his skin. His hand hovers above your knee, and you take him gently in your hold, playing with his fingers absentmindedly.
“Do you like the beach, Bobby?” You whisper, thumb running along the length of his life line right on his palm.
“Yeah, I surf sometimes.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” He could feel your smile against his sleeve. “I used to…” you pause with trepidation before exhaling. “I used to sail with my grandpa.”
“That’s cool.” Ducking his head, he faces you, nose grazing along your forehead from how close he is to you. “Were you good at it, sailing, I mean?”
“I— I don’t remember.” Flicking your gaze to him, you could see yourself fully in the reflection of his blue eyes, like you’re drifting in the sea again and feeling the sun on your back as you bask in his warmth, a real warmth. “I think…I think I want to go sailing again…with you.”
Bobby nods, eyes closing as he rests his head against your own. “I’d love that, hero.”
“I want to feel the waves again, and the sand between my toes.” Your lips are dangerously close to his skin, and yet you don’t pull away even when something inside of you tells you to.
You could just see him at the helm, standing under the sun. Or struggling with the sails, dodging flinging rope as you laugh at him before helping him wrangle it. And at night you’d watch the stars with him, not the oddly shaped ones, the real twinkling stars as you both point out constellations together.
“I’ll take you to the beach.” His voice is a mere whisper, leaning impossibly closer to you, basking in your warmth and inhaling you in.
Your heart soars, eyes closing and letting the moment settle around you. You both stay there, holding onto each other, hearing you breathe as it mixes with his own. Hand in hand, heartbeats syncing together.
“Do you know the history of french fries?” You mumble out after a few minutes of sitting in silence. You still don’t pull away.
“No, tell me.” He mutters, voice soft, eyes hazy, breathing slowly as his knee knocks against yours, looking deeply into your eyes that he got lost in them whilst you talk.
The days went on like usual. He finds that your smiles are easier, your laughter is more genuine, more wholehearted that he always seeks it out throughout the day. He’d make shitty jokes, ‘accidentally’ hit his hip against the edge of the table just to see you smile and hear the chime of your laugh that is growing familiar to him like the sound of your footsteps.
You eat breakfast with him like always, his foot nudging you underneath the table like a kid trying to be annoying first thing in the morning just so you’d nudge back with the adorable scrunch of your nose, cheeks puffed and full of pastry. Then you’d hand him his tea, two sugars and a splash of milk, a fact that you learned just from observing him. It’s almost intimate, knowing him on a fundamental level that he didn’t even need to tell you his preferences but you just knew, you noticed it, even if it’s such a small part of him, but that fact makes it more personal. And he would do the same, he makes your tea after every search outside and gently plucks out the pine needles stuck in your hair and sticking out of the fabric of your jacket. Then you would talk, laughing whilst the entity watches on in the corner, as still as the decor around it that it could pass off as one.
Mr. Kitty stopped being around him, he continues to just observe, a third thing between you and him. The being is like air, just fluttering through from room to room, observing your behavior, mostly yours these days. After it gave Bobby the one thing you have been looking for, it doesn’t give him attention like it does for you. You’ve joked that it really did fall in love with you whilst you were chewing your pastry. Bobby wiped the jam in the corner of your smiling lips, and you have forgotten what you were talking about immediately after.
After a meal, you would wash up with him sitting by the bathroom door, talking about some nonsense back home. A teacher he hated in middle school, his mom’s job, his dreams and sometimes, just sometimes, he stops mid sentence, like he lost his train of thought, like he forgot one small detail before changing the subject. It feels weird, like he forgot to lock the door or left the oven on, wanting to go back home to check it but there is nothing to check, home isn’t here. But home could be wherever you are.
You would come out of the shower smelling like a dream, hair damp and sticking to your forehead, framing your smiling face as you looked down at him with a glimmer in your eyes. And you would say, “your turn, stinky.” And he’d laugh, take your helping hand and his touch would linger, your gaze would stay for a second longer before you both would pull away.
Bobby lets the water wash his guilt away whilst you talk about your favorite song that he has never heard of, or a funny commercial you once saw but he has no clue about. You’d talk from the other side of the wall, and it sounds like you’re inside with him, close, a breath away.
The routine soothes you both, no matter how boring and languid the days are, it’s better than being out there in the open yellow rooms with danger lurking in every corner. It’s repetitive, but never tiresome. Bobby never has to worry about food when it appears out of nowhere, always warm, always sweet. He doesn’t have to think about his future here, he doesn’t need to when all he needs is you, to wake up beside you, to hear you laugh at a shitty joke he made. To see you safe.
Bobby would linger by the doorway after a shower, standing there, watching you fix the bed, gazing at you long and hard with a fluttering feeling in his stomach. He doesn’t blame Mr. Kitty anymore or he’s a hypocrite when it also likes watching you flit about the house when you smile so softly, a subtle one as your hands work whilst you hum to yourself.
Slowly, day by day, the wall of pillows in between you two melted away, you two would sleep with your backs against each other and he would wake up with your cheek pressed against his shoulder, your hand atop his chest, and your body unconsciously wrapped around him. And his hand would be under you, a palm grasping onto your jacket, crinkling the fabric, keeping you beside him when you’re not going anywhere. As if your bodies sought each other out in sleep, honing onto each other’s warmth like moths to a flame, instincts making a decision for the both of you to hold onto each other. Then he would wake up before you, savouring the heat and warmth beside him selfishly before you awaken blearily, blinking at him before recognizing him in your sleepy state with a slow growing smile on your scrunched sleep crusted face.
“Morning,” you always said, index twirling around a strand of his hair on his nape, not mentioning how your legs are wrapped around his own underneath the blanket.
“Morning.” Bobby breathes it out, pulling you closer as you settle on his chest and his chin atop the crown of your head. His hand rubs along the inside of your arm, right above the scars and yet you don’t fracture, you don’t break nor flinch away, you let his touch soothe you as if it’ll smooth the raised scars away.
You both would just lay there, chest aching from the tenderness, listening to each other’s heartbeat.
On some days where you would be the one waking up before him, you would do the same, breathing quietly, gazing at his sleeping face and softened features with longing. But it still feels wrong, that you shouldn’t be curled up in bed with him, that he shouldn’t hold onto you so affectionately. On those days, Bobby would wake up to the other side of the bed empty, and the emptiness doesn’t feel quite right for him.
Why does it feel so complicated? You have no idea why that is, why it feels so wrong to be sweet with him, why it feels he shouldn’t be like this with you. It feels like there is something unspoken between you two, like a festering wound that throbs and burns with lingering pain that writhes around its reddened skin. It refuses to heal, but how would you heal something that you don’t even know how to heal? Or where it even is on your body?
Bobby always turns to his side throughout the day, expecting you. And you would do the same, a look over your shoulder, a simple crane of your head and there he is, already looking at you with an expectant smile, brow raised, asking if you’re okay. He seeks you like how you seek him, a need, not a want, a need to feel his presence, a need to see your eyes that smiles at him.
The shattered seeks out the broken. You know it when you find yourself holding onto Bobby more, whether it’s his wrist or the hem of his crop top, you’re clinging to him as he clings to you at night. You both have found solace with each other, and you wanted it all. You wanted his hand around your own, to wake up to him stirring awake, the slow mornings where you both dawdled, not wanting to face the day ahead just yet. But you wanted reality too, to go to the cinema with him, to eat at a restaurant with him, to read a book with actual words printed on it with him, only for you to wait for him to finish reading a page before you could flip to the next one. You’re patient, you would wait for Bobby. You would wait for him to finish showering, you would wait in the queue with him at the bank or at a concert with overpriced water bottles and merch. You have waited for him, and you would wait forever if it’s Bobby, even if it means staying here forever, waiting for the exit that hasn’t appeared in months. It’s probably been months, you both have stopped counting.
It’s selfish, you thought, to want to be with someone so bad that you’re dreaming of a life with him. To do chores together, shop for groceries, wash dishes whilst he dries them, where the mundane could be extraordinary with him.
You think that you need Bobby more than he needs you, but being needed feels good, being there for someone gives you a reason to wake up in the morning and face the fact that you’re both probably stuck here forever. It doesn’t seem so bad if you think about it. Nothing’s after you here, nothing’s coming to kill you. It’s just you and Bobby with his soft touches and lopsided grin. And Mr. Kitty, who just observes in the corner, not bothering, just there. There’s food here, warm water, and no expectations to participate in society.
The whole woods have been combed, no stones were left unturned, you two have checked every crevice, every tree and yet no doorway has shown itself to either you or Bobby. You think that you two kept searching for what’s not there because you got used to it, it was routine. Now that it’s finished, no space left to search, it feels odd, like the day isn’t complete. It has been two days since the search was complete. Leaving you both in a state of Limbo.
But Bobby has other plans. He’s planning on telling you two things today, one he hopes that you’ll reciprocate. One he hopes you’ll forgive him for.
“Careful.” Bobby smiles, guiding you outside the house.
Your eyes are blindfolded, and his hands are on yours, the calloused fingers wrapped around your scarred hand as you see the light seeping through the pink fabric of the blindfold.
“Bobby—”
“There’s a rock there,” he leads you away from an invisible rock just to lengthen the time he has his hand around yours. The simple joy of his hand in yours makes him giddy. “Okay, are you ready?”
“I’ve been ready.” Chortling, you can’t help the smile on your face as he unties the blindfold. It takes a minute for your eyes to adjust to the brightness, blurred as you blink it away.
“What do you think?” His arms are raised to his sides, now standing in front of you, a Bobby shaped blur. Chuckling, he moves closer, thumbs gently kneading your eyelids. “Do you want my shades?”
“Please.” His breath fans your heated cheeks, raising gooseflesh around your arms as you feel the sunglasses placed over your eyes.
“There, you look good, babe.”
Opening your eyes, your vision has adjusted, and you see Bobby before you, standing beside a picnic blanket with a vase and flowers inside. There are pink plates and various pastries around the blanket, the light paints it all in a glorious sight as he waits patiently for you. Your heart soars at the sight of it all.
“Bobby, did you do all of this?”
“Yeah,” he licks his lip bashfully, gesturing around it. “The whole thing, except for the food, I’ve got a catering company to do that for me.”
“I hope Mr. Kitty was properly compensated.” You feel the familiar warmth in the back of your eyes.
“He was paid in full.” Nodding, Bobby gives you a smile that creases the corners of his blue eyes. His face falls at your reaction, tears flowing down your cheeks freely that you haven’t noticed until he was already walking over to you. His hands are on your bicep, touch tender. “Hey, hey, none of that. It’s okay, you’re okay.”
“No, I’m—” sniffling, you reach out to him, pulling him over to you. “I’m sorry, Bobby, I couldn’t— there’s no exit, I got us stuck here. And you made me a picnic…” for the first time in a while, you cry, you weep in front of him without restraint, letting it all go. “I failed you, I’m so sorry.”
Bobby’s knuckles brush along the length of your back, chin resting atop your shoulder and rocking you in his arms from side to side. “That’s—” he stops himself, swallowing down the rock in his throat. “Let’s sit down for a bit, okay? Can you do that for me, hero?” Leaning away, he moves the glasses up to your head gently, palms right on your cheeks where he brushes away the loose tears gingerly, he then dips his chin, leaving a quick peck to your brow. Something that feels so natural to him, something incredibly real that he didn’t spare a second thought to the action.
Your heart stutters as your eyes chase his face, following him as he leans away. You suddenly forget how to talk. You cry some more and he pecks your temple more, with every tear there’s a kiss followed by it until his tender affection bleeds over to you, replacing the sorrow and guilt with his soft warmth.
After a moment when your breathing evens out, Bobby pecks you again for good measure, then again, before finally pulling away, hands still lingering on your damp cheeks.
“C’mon, Mr. Kitty’s going to get mad if we let the food go to waste.” Bobby sits you down, careful, gentlemanly, but filled with apprehension, like a first date.
The utensils clink together as he places a slice of red velvet cake on your plate. It’s bright crimson, almost bloody. You’re wiping your face with your sleeve, desperately trying to look presentable when he looks devastatingly handsome under the light.
He looks out of place in his crisp white crop top and jeans shorts that hangs loose around his hips, more skin shown, a midriff that has the familiar trail of hair that always has you looking away whenever you catch yourself ogling it.
You two eat in awkward silence, letting the bird song flit around you both whilst the fake sun shines on your nape.
The shadow lurks in the front doorway, keeping watch as always. Bobby notices, he has an idea that he might regret later. He then cups his hands around his mouth, and you startle at the sudden loudness.
“Join us!”
“Jesus, Bobby!” A grin creeps its way onto your face whilst he laughs at your reaction. That broke the awkward bubble around the two of you.
“What? Mr. Kitty looked like he wanted to join.” Gesturing towards the house, you see the entity stay where he was, standing still like usual. “Well, I thought he was.” It’s not much of a disappointment for him.
“He probably didn’t want to intrude.” You answer with a sigh. Shrugging, Bobby takes a generous bite of his cake, hair falling over his eyes, loose wavy strands of hay coloured hair obscuring his vision and brushing along the icing. “Hold on— may I?” You scooch closer.
Bobby freezes as he was told by you, he’s mid bite, mouth wide open. You giggle, a sound he has been chasing ever since he told you an awful joke.
“You always know my answer to that.” He has a small smile on his red tinted lips from the frosting. Placing down his plate with a light clatter, his full attention is on you. “Why bother asking?”
“Because,” you reach over the blanket and over to him as he leans closer, helping you. “I don’t want to intrude in your space. So, may I, Bobby?”
“Yeah,” he lets out a longing sigh, your fingertips grazing the top of his cheek. “Go ahead.”
With your fingers taking his strands gently, you put the sandy hair behind his ears. Tucking it carefully with a faint smile, his earring catching the light like the glint in his eyes whilst he watches you wistfully.
“There, handsome.” You bravely comment, a knuckle brushing along his jawline briefly before pushing away. “Sorry, what were you saying?”
“I uh…” shaking his head, chin dipping down to his clavicle, he chuckles. “I don’t remember.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” His attention is immediately on you.
“Do you still want to make movies after this?” Your tone is smaller, tentative as you take small bites of the cake.
“Yeah, I mean…” Taking a flower from the vase, he snaps the stem in half, thumb brushing along the petals. “It’s been my dream, but you don’t just need talent these days, you need money, luck, a shit ton of money. And connections. I don’t have either of those things.”
“It doesn’t have to be, you know? You could make an indy film. Have it play in local film festivals. I mean, I have a feeling you have an eye for it.” You encourage genuinely, planting the seeds of hope for him to reap.
“Who would watch it?” Bobby scoffs a laugh, one without humour and without the crinkle in the corner of his eyes. His fingers glide along the silky petals of the flower that’s too smooth, too brightly coloured to be a real one.
“Me.” Your answer is instantaneous, an immediate response that has him stilling from his movements.
“Yeah?” Beaming, he smiles that crooked smile with his gums peeking out, a boyish kind of smile.
“Yeah. I’ll watch the shit out of it.” Cocking your head to the side, you smile back, cheek pressed on your shoulder as the sun shines on the curve of your neck, illuminating your skin as he finds himself unable to look away. “What kind of movie do you want to make, Mr. Director?”
His head dips down, tongue dragging along his lips, a nervous tick of his. “Something about life. Y’know, what goes around someone’s life, birth, love, death, grief.” He backtracks, lifting his head and looking at you with a weighted gaze, as if he’s afraid to be perceived for who he truly is. “If not then probably something that has killer robots in it. Like Terminator.” His genuine words are covered hastily, an attempt at a joke.
You’re aware of what he’s doing and yet you don’t mention it. “Both are good. I’d watch both.”
Reaching for you, flower in hand, he tentatively asks. “May I?”
Your face breaks into a bashful smile, heart thudding in your chest while you lean closer to him. “Yeah.”
Bobby sweeps your hair away from your ear and tucks the flower right above the shell of your ear. The tip of his tongue poking in between his lips as he concentrates, as if he’s trying to defuse a bomb. Careful and gentle, afraid to poke you with the stem.
“You know this would be easier if you’re sitting beside me, Bobby.” Your gaze hasn’t left him since you swept his hair away from his eyes.
His movements cease, freezing as he vaults from his feet, scrambling closer to you and sits beside you a second after your invitation. You giggle, nudging your knee against his own whilst he fixes the flower on your ear. Making sure it’s secured and perfect.
“You good, Bob?” Teasing, you poke his side.
“Yeah, s–shut up.” His whole neck is red, and so are his ears. “Stop wiggling.”
“I’m not.”
He makes the mistake of looking at your eyes when he feels his heart stutter. “D–do— nothing, sorry.” His hands drop to his lap, eyes completely blown out at the sight of you with the flower on your ear.
“No, what were you about to say?” You ask softly, weirdly enough, a wind flutters your lashes, only to realize it was him exhaling loudly. “Bobby?” Palm placed atop his chest, you grasp his cheek with the other. His heart beats quicker underneath your hand. “Are you okay?” You ignore the nagging feeling of wrongness from how you hold onto him.
“My favorite movie is Star Wars.” Blurting out, Bobby clears his throat and rubs a hand over his reddened neck. “I was trying to remember which one. What’s yours?”
“My Fair Lady.” You could feel his heart calm down underneath your palm with every gentle knead.
“I’ve never seen it.” His hand holds onto the back of yours, keeping you there as his thumb rubs along the back of your hand.
“I don’t think you’ll like it.”
“Maybe I could, you never know.” His nose scrunches, scooching closer as subtly as he could until he feels your warmth bleed over to him. “Favorite horror movie? Mine is, uh, Halloween.”
“What’s your favorite scary movie?” You utter in a crackly tone, trying to copy the one in the movie. “Get it? Scary movie.”
His brows furrow, huffing a laugh. “I don’t get it, babe.” Bobby says the term of endearment with a tender tone, so used to calling you that it already comes naturally to him now.
“You’ve never heard of Scary Movie?” You make a face, chuckling as you notice the closeness. And yet you don’t push away, nor feel the need to despite the persistent ache in the back of your mind. “That’s a huge pop culture thing, Bobby. And you call yourself a movie connoisseur.”
“We can watch it together,” his voice lowers, eyes glancing over to the figure standing by the doorway before gazing into your eyes once more. “when we get out.”
“Yeah?” He’s still hopeful, and you like that about him. It’s contagious.
“Yeah, there’s a Blockbuster near my place, we can get any movie you want.”
“A Blockbuster?” Brows lifting, you give him a wobbly chuckle. “Didn’t they go bankrupt years ago?”
“What?” Bobby raises a brow, scoffing. He still holds onto you, heart synching with yours. “No.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it isn’t.” He playfully mocks your tone. “I definitely remember renting a movie there just days before I fell in this place. There are like…a thousand branches.”
“You live in a town stuck in time, Bobby Franklin.” Voice saccharine, you utter with a lilt in your tone, eyes sparkling underneath the fake sun.
“Calling me by my full name after I made you this spread?” Feigning offense, he rolls his eyes, gesturing around the picnic blanket. “Okay, fuck you too.”
“Technically it was Mr. Kitty that made this.” You say in between laughs.
He thinks that you look alive, happy, unabashedly you. And Bobby is giddy at the thought, that all your walls have finally fallen for him, that he could finally see you as you are— bright, full of life. Maybe there was a time in your life that you were like this. He wishes that you would always be like this for the rest of your life, and he hopes that he’s there by your side to witness it.
His mind turns, cogs moving, and he thinks, sitting beside you in that moment, holding onto your hand that rests atop his heart because you thought he was panicking, that your first thought was to hold him, to calm him, to show him that you’re there by his side and he thinks— he knows that he’s utterly in love with you.
“Okay,” Bobby had to take a deeper breath, as if he finally surfaced from the rolling tides just to gather his courage. “What’s your favorite movie trope?”
You think for a moment. “I know it’s cliché, but, best friends to lovers.”
“Is that even a trope?”
“Yes, it is!” Defending yourself, you pat his chest whilst he grins at you. “Okay what’s yours, film geek?”
Sucking in his teeth, and biting the inside of his cheek, Bobby ignores the strange pang in his chest. “When a character goes, ‘don’t fall in love with me,’ before going on an adventure with the love interest and he…he falls in love with her at the end of the movie.”
“That’s a good one, I admit. I can see why you love Star Wars.”
“You know I—I just remembered one of the rules.”
“What?” His heartbeat quickens against your palm.
“Don’t fall in love with me.” Bobby utters with his whole chest, hiding the fact that his breath staggered and his hand is turning clammy around your own. “Get it? I–I think I failed it though.”
“You fell in love with yourself?” You take it as teasing, the usual Bobby kind of teasing that you have no idea is a genuine flirtation or not. “I don’t blame you, you’re cute—”
“No, I—” he pauses, blinking at you. “you think I’m cute?”
“This conversation isn’t going anywhere, Bobby.” A laugh rumbles in your chest, amused, endeared. “What are you trying to say?”
“Yeah, can–can I try something?” Bobby’s expression softens, eyes gazing at your lips and a hand reaching for your cheek. He needs to show you his affection the only way he knows how when his words have failed him. “May I?”
You know, you immediately knew the moment his eyes flickered down to your smiling lips and how his blue eyes softened at the edges. Your heart flutters, you stop resisting completely. “You may.”
Bobby tilts his head, moving slowly, tentatively leaning closer to you until the tip of his nose brushes along your own. You don’t move, freezing in place as your eyes close and the warmth of his breath fans over your lips.
His lips brushes atop your lips, featherlight, just hovering there, waiting for you to pull away, giving you enough space to lean away. And yet, even when the tug pulls at the back of your mind ceaselessly, you don’t move away from his kiss. So he continues on, inhaling before completely pressing his lips to yours. He’s warm against you, and his hands cradle your cheeks, whilst you grip onto his crop top, bunching up the fabric until it crinkles.
You let go of him, and he thinks that’s it, that’s the only kiss he’ll ever get, that he ruined it. But then your hand finds the back of his head, fingers raking through his tresses, nails scratching softly before giving him a small tug. A shiver rolls through his body that you could feel underneath your palm. Then he lets out a low groan, an unsteady whimper from his throat, rumbling over to you as you feel it through your teeth. So you do it again, tugging, he gasps sharply into the kiss and you grant him the one thing he wants— you kiss him back.
Your lips part for him with a breathy tone, moving with his in tandem as the sounds of the saccharine kiss echoes around the clearing.
His mouth is desperate, needy, starved against yours the moment you kiss back, the second you reciprocate his kiss. He kisses you like he means it, as if he wants this kiss etched into your mind, never to be forgotten.
Right in the middle of the clearing, you’re just two people chasing each other’s lips, two people who have survived everything that was thrown at them, two people who desperately needed this. Needed the contact, the warmth, just two people starved for touch.
You want this, you needed this. You desperately want it as much as he did. It’s bliss, and you want this forever, a kiss, an embrace, his warmth, to lay on his chest and play with his hands while you listen to him talk about his day without the gnawing feeling that what you’re doing is wrong. Like a third faceless person between the two of you that taps your shoulder and tugs at your sleeve whenever you get too close to him.
But this doesn’t feel wrong, the feeling of his lips moving against your mouth doesn’t feel wrong. How could it feel wrong when it feels so right? When it feels so good, freeing, saccharine and genuine. You love him, you’re facing that fact now as you kiss him fervently like you’ve been poisoned and the cure is right on his lips. You tried to hide it before, how you have fallen for him, but Bobby makes it so easy to fall harder for him. Loving him is easy, loving him is anything but wrong.
Breathing through your nose, fingers curling around his hair, your breath hitches, and you feel the familiar warmth of need from the pit of your stomach with every peck. He tastes like the red velvet cake, sweet as it melds with the lingering taste of icing on your tongue. And his hands wander to your sides, gliding along the fabric of your jacket, before his fingers find the hem, lifting it up slightly to feel your skin underneath. Goosebumps rise on your skin from the contact, shuddering from how his calloused fingers pinch your hip tenderly, squeezing, tugging as you tug at his hair.
Bobby feels how your breathing has turned shallow, still kissing even when you’re running out of breath, so he reluctantly gives you reprieve, pulling away. He leaves a sheen over your lips, when he sees how kiss bitten your mouth is, he resists the urge to pull you against him again and kiss you until he suffocates in your scent, until he overdoses on your taste.
A curse slips from your tongue, heaving, completely melted against him. If not for Bobby’s hold on you, you would’ve fallen backwards onto the grass by now, and you know that would’ve started another kiss, and another and another.
The sight of his eyes blown out, almost black from the kiss sends your mind into a tizzy. You desperately want to kiss him again.
“You kissed me.” You mutter the words and yet it’s muffled in your ears, your mind saying his name over and over again. His kisses leave marks into the folds of your brain.
“You kissed back.” Bobby sighs out, almost smug. “Do…do you want to…? Again?”
“What about…?” Looking over your shoulder, you’ve found that the shadow lingering in the house has disappeared. Bobby tucks your chin between his forefinger and thumb, pulling your attention towards him. “Bobby?”
Something’s missing.
“Yeah,” he starts off with your cheek, kissing, pecking, leaving little pockets of warmth right on your skin. Then in the corner of your eyes, over to your forehead, kissing a line down the hinge of your jaw and over to your throat. You’re alight, he sets you aflame as you let out a croaked exhale, fingers gripping onto his hair, and a palm, fingers splayed right on his stomach where his crop top doesn’t cover. “Babe, fuck…” his tone reverberates through your neck, shivering from your touch. “Please,” pulling himself off of your throat, he looks at you desperately. “One more, please.”
“What about, shit, what about…?” There’s a bright spot in your vision.
“What about what?” He pecks you again on your lips, then another and another, each deeper than before. You kiss him back, unsure, filled with apprehension and not at all easy like the last. Pressing his forehead against yours, his breathing stutters, mouth agape, chasing your lips. “Don’t go inside your head, don’t disappear where I can’t follow.”
“I just—” Thinking gives you a headache, the pull in the back of your mind going stronger, trying to recall a third person that haunts you and Bobby.
Something is missing. Someone is missing.
“You okay?” Bobby’s needy expression curdles into worry, a palm pressing against your forehead gently. “Headache? Did my kisses give you a headache?” Joking, he chuckles, still happy, still unaware.
A name appears in your head, sudden, an abrupt stop to your warm thoughts of Bobby. There’s a soft voice, a blurry face that once listened to you, and a severed hand with a beaded bracelet on the floor.
Someone with chopped short hair appears in your mind, slowly, a face builds on the head, brown eyes, nose, a mole under her eye. Her, she used to be here, she was here before you, here in Bobby’s arms, holding onto his chest just like you had.
“Kat.” Realization flickers on your face, pained, ashamed. “Kat, we forgot about Kat.”
“Who’s Kat?”
Sheer horror marrs your face, breath taken right from your lungs as you scramble up to your feet. Bobby’s hands chase your shaking fists, he’s utterly confused, calling your name with a fleeting chuckle in between.
“Kat, your— your girlfriend.” You then remember her fully, how she was kind to you, how she understood you from the moment you appeared behind a corner even when she shouldn’t. And you remember the lie you have been harboring inside you from Bobby— Kat’s dead, she has been dead this whole time while you were playing house with her boyfriend. Kissing her boyfriend like he was yours to begin with. “You don’t remember her?” Your tone is serrated at the edges.
“Wait— wait, babe, hold on—” Bobby tried to capture your trembling hands from below, fingers brushing with yours for a moment. “I don’t have a girlfriend.” He laughs, shaking his head. “Come sit down, you’re making me worry. What’s wrong?”
“I think we need to get out of here, Bobby.” Hands in your hair, you could still taste him on your tongue, and feel the ghost of his touch on your bare skin.
“Baby—”
“Don’t call me that.” His expression falls, hurt, heartbroken. You’re immediately kneeling before him, hands right on his shoulders. “Bobby, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean— you have to remember, you have to remember why you’re here in the first place, remember Kat.” You grasp at his face. “Remember the missing posters? Kathrine Taylor, Robert Franklin. Try to remember, Bobby, please. Remember Clark? Remember how you fell?”
Sheer incomprehension is in his expression. The cogs in his head turning, he looks like trying to remember hurts him, and for a moment you wanted to tell him to stop, to stop trying to remember, to continue the way you both were before you remembered.
Realization swirls in his blue eyes. He closes them, inhaling through his nose, fingers pressing in between his brows, as tears prickle underneath his eyelids.
“Oh, fuck.” His head falls on your shoulder, fingers digging into the fabric of your jacket, rustling it, clinging onto you desperately. “How— how did I forget her?” When his head lifts to face you, there’s tears in his blue eyes.
“I don’t know, Bobby, I’m sorry I don’t know.” You cradle him in your arms, letting him cry as you stifle a sob threatening to spill from your throat that you want to cleave open with your nails. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
—
You feel ashamed.
But it felt so right that you had to ignore the nagging feeling in the back of your head. And Bobby reciprocated your affection with the same intensity, he kissed you first and you kissed back like you were starving and he was the only thing that could stave off that hunger. And he looked at you like you hung the stars, he listened to you like there is nothing more interesting in the world and he was kind, he was safe. He made you feel safe and wanted and loved.
You haven’t been loved in a long time and you have forgotten what it was like. How it was like to he held, to be touched with reverence, to be kissed as if you’re the only person left in the world. You might as well be for him. You’re the only person within his vicinity, is that the reason why he kissed you? Because you were the only one near him this whole time? Because there was no one else that he could hold? Or is it because he forgot about Kat?
“I know where the door is.” Bobby says in the middle of the kitchen, hands holding onto the dirty plates whilst you fold the blanket neatly. You freeze, eyes slowly turning in his direction. “He showed me. And he wanted me to leave you here. I–I should’ve told you days ago. We should’ve left days ago.” He mutters your name in a broken tone, placing the plates on the kitchen island where you two once shared a laugh. The edges of his eyes are still red, and so are yours as you nod. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Nodding, you breathe in the smell of pastries that has always permeated through the air.
“I just— I just wanted to give you the peace you needed.”
Taking a step forward, you instinctively reach for him before reining yourself in. Your shaking hand hovers over his arm, filled with trepidation until he takes your wrist and places your touch on him. Letting you stay.
“Bobby—”
“You just looked so happy here, and I wanted to give you that happiness as long as I could.” Tears prickle in the corner of his eyes again as he squeezes your hand in his. “I wanted you to be happy.”
“I understand.” You’d do the same, you’re doing the same thing, you’re lying to him right now to protect him, just he had done for you. “Bobby, I understand.”
“I fucked up.”
Shaking your head, you give him a tight-lipped smile, heart sinking to your stomach. “I’m sorry too. I should’ve stopped kissing you when I felt that something was off.”
“No, that’s not what I meant—” His eyes flicks over your shoulder.
Turning around, you see Mr. Kitty’s looming form behind you. His sheer presence alone takes the air out of the kitchen, a tension building as he stands there, faceless, as dark as the void.
“We have to leave.” You stand in front of Bobby, unconsciously protecting him. “Mr. Kitty, you have to let us leave.”
The edges of his skin fizzle, twisting and changing into tiny pin pricks of blue and red static, like a TV without a signal. The sheer forcefield around him presses against your skin. It doesn’t want you to leave.
“I can’t stay here.” You stand your ground despite the fear burrowing deep in your marrows. “I don’t belong here, do you understand?”
The entity hums, a sad thrum that strikes right at your chest. Behind you, you feel Bobby shiver, his fingers curled around the hem of your jacket in case he needed to pull you away from it.
“I know you’re lonely.” Instead of stepping back, you’re crossing the distance over to it. You could feel Bobby panic from behind you as his grasp tightened. “Being alone…it gets to you, doesn’t it?”
It tips its head down, shoulders hunched, making itself small for you. It faces you fully as you see its shadow of a face move, a gentle swirl of darkness inside the void that reminds you of the gentle lapping of waves.
“You’re beautiful…” muttering, enthralled, you reach for it— his face, this being that is so close to you that you could feel his primordial age over your skin.
“Don’t touch him.” Bobby mumbles in the shell of your ear.
Your fingers twitch just a hair’s width away from his shadow, catching yourself before your skin meets the static of his flesh. “Thank you for letting us stay.”
He stretches to his full height, the top of his head grazing the ceiling. The entity is calmer, his edges are still as his arm extends for you, palm open, expecting something.
“I think he wants something.” Bobby continues to hold onto you as if you’ll try to touch Mr. Kitty again. “Don’t hold his hand.”
Jaw clenching, you take a deep breath before shrugging off your jacket. The chill hits your skin the moment you shrug it off. Your arms catch the light, shining right on the jagged lines around your forearm.
Bobby breathes out your name quietly.
“You can have this.” Folding the jacket, you gently place it above his palm. “I don’t need it anymore.”
Mr. Kitty accepts it with a curt nod, his arm folding to his chest, placing the flowery bomber jacket right above his heart.
You hear him sing, a croon inside your head, a tone akin to a thank you said in a hum. “You’re welcome.”
—
Bobby showed you the way out, you stand in front of the painted hill, feeling the song of the walls call out for you from behind it.
Holding out your arm, you’re stopped by Bobby when he calls your name. Turning to him, you see him wielding the hammer, and the same backpack slung over his shoulder.
“I need to tell you something.” He looks tired. “I don’t regret it. Kissing you, I don’t regret it. I don’t regret any of this.”
“Bobby…”
“I— I loved Kat,” his words are broken at the edges. “but I have to accept that she’s gone.”
“We need to go.” Your walls are built up again, eyes guarded, jaw clenched and a gaze that doesn’t fully look at him because of your own shame and guilt that is burrowed too deep in your bones to ever understand his confession.
Mr. Kitty stands in the doorway, a hand up in good-bye.
Bobby says your name like an unanswered prayer. Heartbroken, alone.
You don’t turn back to look at the being, but Bobby does before the two of you enter the threshold.
The bird song is replaced by the droning of the fluorescent lights, the scent of pastries fades away and makes way to the smell of damp carpets and mold that settles in the roof of your mouth. The pink and the artificial sun is now all mono yellow wallpaper that has haunted your dreams.
The hum in the walls welcomes you back in its embrace.
Ngl, what if Mr. Kitty really does have the hots for us💀🤚🏾 Bobby, if you fuck up, just know i got options😌
The routine soothes you both, no matter how boring and languid the days are, it’s better than being out there in the open yellow rooms with danger lurking in every corner. It’s repetitive, but never tiresome. Bobby never has to worry about food when it appears out of nowhere, always warm, always sweet. He doesn’t have to think about his future here, he doesn’t need to when all he needs is you, to wake up beside you, to hear you laugh at a shitty joke he made. To see you safe. –Ayooo, this reminding me of the lotus eaters from the odyssey, PLEASE let us leave😭🤚🏾
BOBBY, WHAT THE FUCK??? TELL US ABOUT THE EXIT??? OMFG???
“Yeah,” he starts off with your cheek, kissing, pecking, leaving little pockets of warmth right on your skin. Then in the corner of your eyes, over to your forehead, kissing a line down the hinge of your jaw and over to your throat. You’re alight, he sets you aflame as you let out a croaked exhale, fingers gripping onto his hair, and a palm, fingers splayed right on his stomach where his crop top doesn’t cover. “Babe, fuck…” his tone reverberates through your neck, shivering from your touch. “Please,” pulling himself off of your throat, he looks at you desperately. “One more, please.” –Listen, as much as I like this, we have bigger things to be worrying about my dude💀😭
Oh fuck, they remembered Kat🥲🥀 R, now would be the perfect time to tell him, yk?
“I— I loved Kat,” his words are broken at the edges. “but I have to accept that she’s gone.” –Oh my fuck, does he just already believe she's dead? That's probably gonna make him forgive R, especially since she's the only one who can help him survive this place rn🥲🤚🏾 Brooo, but when they get out??? He's probably going to mourn her so fucking hard, I hope he doesn't blame himself nor R🥀
Noooo, we're back in this fuckass yellow shithole😭😭 KATY, PLZ BE NICE TO THEM ISTG💔
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY KATY!!! is it really your 3rd anniversary already 🥹🥹 it literally feels like ive just seen you make your first anniversary post
anyways, can i please get a something blue with hobie? maybe they have a huge argument about something,, when that day hobie was supposed to propose to reader,,, 👀👀👀
please and thank you!!
Thank you for requesting! I hope you like it! ❤️
Pairing: Hobie Brown x fem! Reader/ Spider-Punk x fem! Reader
Word count: 1.8k
Tags: No use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader, established relationship, a bit of angst, cw blood mention, fluff!
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3rd anniversary celebration 🎉
“I’m not asking what you’ve been up to, Hobie, I’m just worried!” Your voice rises an octave when you don’t mean it to. You’ve never raised your voice at Hobie, the closest to one is a shriek whenever he rubs his cold feet on your back before bed, or when he kisses you at the hinge of your jaw where it always makes you squeal. But now as you stand with your arms crossed at your front, you find yourself hurting enough to yell. “I haven’t seen you in days, and whenever I call you, you dismiss me and tell me you’re okay. And when I ask the band where you are or if you’re even safe, guess what, they do the exact same thing.”
“Lovie, I—” the tiny wooden box sits heavier in his pocket. “I don’t know what to tell you.” Hobie rubs at the back of his neck, eyes straying far from your own.
To you he looks guilty.
To him, he’s hiding the surprise from you lest he ruins weeks of work.
“Baby,” you coo, albeit sadly. “I trust you but I’m fucking worried…Whenever I turn the telly on I half expect to see you on it. I’m fucking terrified.”
“I know, ‘m sorry.” Sighing, Hobie tries to swallow the lump in his throat. “‘m safe, you don’t ‘ave to worry.”
“How would I know when you don’t even answer my texts or when you only come home when it’s almost dawn?” Stepping closer, he could see the hurt that he caused right on your pretty face. “I wake up expecting you to be beside me like always but your side of the bed is cold, Hobie. I–I fucking miss you.”
He almost breaks at your confession. “I—”
“Is it me?” Your lips wobbles, fingers trembling on your sides. “Do you not love me anymore?” Voice faltering, tears threaten to pour from your eyes, every heavy thought and doubt you’ve ever had spills over. “Because that I can understand, that I can— It won’t hurt less if–if it is but it hurts more if you found someone else.”
Hobie’s face falls, heart wretched from his chest. “Fuckin’ hell, lovie—” stepping closer, his hands hover over your trembling form. “No, lovie, that— that’s not it.”
“Then where do you go?” You ask, heart broken. “Ten years together, Hobie, you know you can trust me. Are you in trouble? Please, you can tell me, I can help you.”
Hobie drags his tongue over his lips, mouth feeling dry as he hides his hand inside his pocket, feeling around at the wooden box. “‘m not in trouble.”
He contemplates, is all that planning and hard work worth it if all the sneaking around is hurting you? Making you worry for his safety and breaking your heart when he did all of it just for you? He never thought planning a proposal with his best mates to make it perfect was going to hurt you.
“Is it me then?” Your words crack at the edges, inhaling deeply through your nose as you try and fail to act brave. “Do—do you want to break it off?”
Hobie’s eyes are immediately on you, shock marring his face, mouth agape and slightly offended that he’d want to break up with you, you, who has been by his side for a decade, you, who he loves more than anyone else in the whole world.
“Fuck no!” He spits out without a second thought, hands immediately on your face to cradle you lovingly in an attempt to reassure you. Fuck, he never thought that you felt that awful, that you were having those awful thoughts when all those sleepless nights practicing with the band only to come home with you in bed and sleeping soundly made you feel like he has forsaken you. It was the opposite, he thought you were fine and dandy, that you never gave his sudden absence a second thought when he has spent a decade with you and that maybe you wanted some space to yourself too. “Love, no, ‘m not…” he can’t even get the words out because breaking it off with you is so inconceivable for him. “‘m not goin’ to do that.”
“Then what is it? You’ve been pulling away, and— and it’s horrible,” You wipe a fallen tears with your sleeve, choking on your words. “I feel like you don’t love me as much as before.”
“No, I love you, so fuckin’ much.”
“Then why are you pulling away?” You can’t bring yourself to gaze into his soft brown eyes even when your instincts tell you to lean against his touch, to look into his eyes you love with your whole heart. “I’ve spent weeks eating breakfast and dinner all alone, watching it grow cold while I wait for you when we’ve always eaten together. Even Yuri and the others don’t talk to me anymore, you guys are icing me out, I feel lonely, Hobie.”
Fuck it, he thinks to himself, he can’t keep seeing you break like this just because he was too blind to see that his absence was hurting you. He loves you far too much to keep lying and hiding from you. After all, he was doing all that for you, to tell you that he wants to be with you forever even when he already spent ten years with you and he’s more than ready to spend the rest of his days with you. Ten years isn’t enough, he wants you till death and beyond. If you’d still have him that is after the mess he caused.
“Love…” he kneels down like in the movies, not just because it’s tradition but for forgiveness as he watches your face contort into confusion. His hand gets stuck inside his jean pocket, he knew that wearing jeans with small ass pockets will backfire on him someday. “Shit— hold on.” His ring snags around a loose thread. “Fuck, ‘m stuck.” Chuckling nervously, to add insult to injury, he’s starting to sweat profusely.
“What— what are you doing?” Brows knitted together, you tilt to see what exactly he’s doing. “Hobie, you don’t need to kneel, I'm just…” you’re crouching down, helping him get his hand out with your own hands around his wrist. “Baby, just turn your hand.”
“Aha—!” Hobie manages to get his hand out, but he yanks it out too fast, too hurried and from the sheer momentum, his hand accidentally hits you right on your nose. “Fuck! Lovie!”
You tumble to your back, groaning and clutching at your nose. “Shit.” You’re fully laying on the floor, tears in your eyes from the sting. “Hobie…”
“Shit!” He crawls over to you, frantic and panicked as his hands hover around, not knowing what to do. “‘m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”
“Go get some ice.” Voice muffled by your hands, the throbbing pain slithers from your nose to the space between your brows, giving you a dull headache.
“Fuck, ‘m sorry!” Hobie apologizes over and over again while he’s trying to grab an ice pack from the fridge, too concerned for you, too distracted and guilty to notice that the wooden ring box has fallen down and landed right in front of your face. “I’ve got it!” He comes back triumphantly to you holding onto the box with blown out eyes and blood trickling down slowly from your nose down to your shocked lips. “D’you want to open it?”
Your eyes flick over to him whilst you hold onto the box daintily, as if it’ll break from your gentle hold. “Is it for me?”
Hobie’s immediately on his knees, reaching for your chin, using his sleeve to gingerly wipe the blood off of your face. “Yeah, of course.” His voice softens, gazing into your eyes with a smile. “Everythin’ has been for you.”
Realization flickers on your face, reacting too quickly as you wince from the pain.
“Don’t move.” Hobie grimaces, absolutely guilty and embarrassed from the events that unfolded right in the shared living room when he planned a perfect proposal for you that is now down the drain. “I’ll take you to the emergency room, you might have a concussion.”
Your hand takes his cheek, a thumb brushing along his jaw tenderly. “Is this why you’ve been away?”
“Yeah, ‘m sorry. I wanted it to be perfect. Got the band roped into it and everythin’.”
“Hobie…” you coo, inching close, kneeling in between his legs as he leans against your touch. “You know even if you propose to me with a ring pop in bed I would still say yes.”
A soft smile stretches across his handsome face. “I wanted it to be memorable.”
“Well, you’ve made it memorable alright.” You tease, gesturing around your bleeding nose and tears in your eyes.
Hobie chuckles, pulling you close, arms wrapped around you and face hidden in the crook of your neck. “Will you marry this stupid bloke?” He says against your skin, pressing gentle kisses along your throat and up to the hinge of his jaw.
“Absolutely,” you sigh breathlessly, undoubtedly certain about your answer. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Hobie.”
Leaning away, he takes the box and pops it open for you. Heart swelling at your answer, a big smile that etches right on his face, beaming at you whilst he gazes at you with the utmost love. “I love you.”
The ring is simple, silver with three small rubies in the middle. What makes it special is the engravings around it, symbols that represent your years together. His guitar, seashells from the first date at the beach, the three cats you two share, and many more that makes your heart cinch with affection.
“I love you too.” You breathe out, hands shaking as he helps you put on the ring. You could feel his initials and your own right inside it, engraved along the silver band.
His grin seems to light up the whole room, either from your sheer happiness or blooming headache. Either way, you feel like jumping for joy, worries fading away into the wind.
“Can I still show you the surprise? The band’s goin’ to hate me for puttin’ ‘em to work.” His hands run along your sides, eyes flicking down to your lips that smiles at him.
“I’d love to see what you’ve got planned, Hobie.”
Tilting his head to avoid hitting your probably broken nose, he kisses you gently, sweetly and carefully. He reins himself in, and you feel it by how he bunches the back of your shirt with his closed fist that shakes with need.
Hobie pulls away, and you chase his lips, wanting more. “Later, lovie, we need to get to the hospital.”
“Promise?”
His nose nudges at your cheek before pressing a sweetened peck right on it. “Promise.”
Imagine pouring your heart out about all the sad shit you've been feeling, just to get decked in the nose😭🤣🤚🏾 Def going down as the most memorable proposal ever😂🥰
Synopsis: The house in the middle of the clearing pulls you in. A brief reprieve from the horrors but you find that you and Bobby are not truly alone.
Tags: No use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader except for clothing, reader has nicknames, CW blood and injury, CW food mentions, CW dark themes. Eventual Bobby romance, slow burn, Part 5 of my Bobby series. Set during the movie (spoilers)
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Bobby Franklin Masterlist
Part 4 <<< Part 5 >>> Part 6
It must’ve been a dream. It couldn’t have been you, it couldn’t have been a version of yourself. It was all crooked, a lumbering form that stinks of mold and mildew. It shouldn’t even exist, and yet you felt its arms around you, you heard it cry out for you.
It was a residual memory, the past, a shattered mirror of yourself.
But it was as real as the scars on your arms.
You could still remember how it held onto you, desperate, clinging to you like a child to its mother. You are not its mother, that thing tried to kill you, tried to take you down with it. It shouldn’t be pitied even when it wears your face, it’s a monster, grotesque, a monstrosity and monsters are merely that— monsters.
It doesn’t have cohesive thoughts inside its head, it doesn’t even breathe nor speak, and most of all, it’s not you, not really, just a fucked up version of you that this yellow hell tried to copy right from your memories. Like how it did with Janet, your grandfather, and the stranger in the bathroom, and even pirate Clark. They’re not human, they’re not the real thing, just a cheap imitation that went wrong somewhere in the process.
It shouldn’t bother you, you should stop thinking about what happened and how you almost ended up falling to your death. And yet you find yourself scratching at your neck, nails picking at the healing scabs, opening the wounds again.
Grimacing, you pull your hand away, seeing your blood caked underneath your fingernails has you stifling the bile rising from your throat that coats your mouth in saliva. You take a sip of the sweetened almond water to tamp it away, taking deep breaths through your nose as you listen to the recording of birdsong echoing around the clearing.
The fallen tree trunk behind you feels rough as it scratches your back. You’re resting on it, head held up, not minding the roughness against your nape as you stare at the artificial sky that is painted across the high ceiling. There are fluffy clouds, too symmetrical, too similar from each other for it to be real. The clouds don’t move unlike the real thing, the blue sky remains the exact same even though you have been laying here for hours.
The whole false sky is painted as realistic as possible to fool you, but the clouds hang by clear threads, and it reminds you of a studio where movies were shot in. A mere studio lot made my man, but you highly doubt that human hands painted the sky and placed the still clouds above. Maybe if you unravel the blue paint you’ll see the yellow wallpaper underneath, if you could just scratch the surface, break the mold, maybe just maybe, you’ll see the real sun under all of it.
Your mind has gone wobbly, turned around, body clock telling you to sleep but the light above tells you that it’s not time for it yet. There are no mornings or nights here, time is pliable here, no day and night cycle, just the permanent light from the artificial sun above.
The days you have spent in this hell have blurred together through trudging along different rooms. From the boiler rooms to the pools and dilapidated buildings and mono yellow wallpaper, you have no sense of time anymore. Before it was your phone that helped you see how many hours or days it’s been but after it broke, you’re drifting through the days with only sleep determining if a day has passed. But you know it’s been two hours since you almost fell through the floor and to your death, you counted the minutes, grounding yourself onto the grass that doesn’t really smell like grass but more akin to plastic, but it feels real, awfully real under your open palms. Two hours since you saw a version of you with its broken neck. Two hours since Bobby saved you, two hours since the bruise around your wrist appeared from how hard he held onto you.
How badly he wanted to save you.
Your whole body aches, a slight tremble in the muscles of your limbs, a flinch under your flesh, as if the memory of what transpired shakes your insides, engraved into your bones and in the fibers of your muscle. You could just sleep here and let the world forget you.
The sun above, or what seems to be like the sun shines on you, is eternally warm, it doesn’t fade nor wane, but that’s how you know it isn’t real. The temperature stays the same, not warm nor cold, just right, like a spring afternoon, like someone locked the thermostat to stay the same temperature forever. The light comes from the painted ceiling, a mere orb that blurs at the edges from the light it emanates, a mere imitation of the real thing.
“We have to go in eventually.” Bobby rasps, voice hoarse and deeper, shoulders resting against the tree trunk, chest rising and falling as his eyes stay on the lone pink house at the center of the clearing.
He lays beside you, you thought he was still asleep, you have no idea how someone could sleep after that but perhaps that’s how his body reacted to the horror, to sleep it off and pretend it was just a dream just like you have years ago.
His eyes were closed last you checked on him, sunglasses over his eyes as he slept. The two of you are too afraid to cross the distance over to the pink house with its pink chimney that billows white smoke. It has a little garden with pretty white wooden picket fences all around it. It’s warm and looks cozy, inviting, too welcoming.
“What horrors lie inside for us?” You mutter back, licking at your dry lips as you lay limp beside him.
“Dolls.”
“What?” Your head cranes in his direction, eyes narrowed, vision blurry and adjusting when you’ve been staring at the light for too long.
“Dolls.” Bobby flutters his lips, glasses hitched up to his head casually, sandy hair sticking up all over the place. “It looks like a place where it would have those creepy antique dolls.”
You crack a smile that falters immediately. “I think you’re still a little bit high, Bobby.”
“The shit we went through sobered me up.” The corners of his lips tug into a soft smile, neck turning towards you, cheek pressed against his shoulder. His blue eyes stare right at you, heavy and tired. “I wanna get high after that.”
“Save it when we survive this one.” Heaving yourself up, you stand up on wobbly legs, using his knee for leverage as you feel his searing skin underneath your palm. “Come on, Bobby, it’s now or never.” You give him a helping hand, palm open, ready to receive him.
“Can it be never?” Looking up, his eyes squint at you with the artificial sun lighting you up from behind, cloaking your face in shadows and lining your silhouette in light.
“I wish. But I don’t see any doors here except for the front door.”
“Fuck my life.” Extending his hand, Bobby takes yours, gently clasping his fingers around you as you help lift him up, and he shakes the sleep away from his muddled mind.
Will it be like this forever? Running from room to room and dodging violent entities until some miracle happens? Until your luck runs out?
Guilt coats the inside of your mouth, bitter and acrid like acid on your tongue. This is all your fault.
“Maybe there’s another exit somewhere.” He cuts through the silence as you two trek towards the house, grass crunching underfoot. “I came out of a different room from yours, so there might be other exits out of here.” Despite his hopeful words, he sounds dejected, hopeless as his hand brushes along your own whilst you two walk side by side. “There has to be.” He says your name, laced with trepidation and sorrow. “You good?”
“Trying my best to be, Bobby.” Inhaling, you give him a weak smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “You know, you never really finished telling me your rules. Might help with this encounter.”
“My rules?” He pauses by the fence, a hand grasping at the wood as he tilts his head at you.
“Yeah, you were telling me about some rules before we found the cereal and water in the sail boat room.” Shrugging, you’ve found yourself staring into his eyes more than before. “You’ve only told me one, ‘don’t split up.’”
His eyes turn up, thinking, trying to remember. Realization appears on his face as his mouth curves into an ‘o’, “Let me get back to you on that.”
Huffing a laugh, you shake your head as sweat forms on your nape. “All this time you haven’t thought of more rules?”
“No, more like, I can’t fucking remember it.” His brows are furrowed together, nose scrunched at trying to recall the thoughts. “I blame this place, I’ve always got a good memory but…I don’t know, somehow being here made me stupider.”
“You are not stupid.” With a hand grazing along his own, you reassure him with a gentle smile. You could hold his hand, but you decide not to, it still feels wrong to hold him. “Far from it.”
“Thanks.” Bobby has a tight-lipped smile, collarbone catching the light as the chain around his neck shines, the light bouncing from the metal onto his skin. “Just don’t ask me any chemistry related questions.”
“Don’t worry.” You scoff out a laugh that still weighs heavy for the both of you. “I won’t give you a pop quiz.”
“Thank fuck for that.” Pushing the garden gate open, he steps through, looking over his shoulder to you immediately once he’s on a stone step. Nothing is unusual, not yet anyway. “Do you think this place has a bed?”
You fall in step with him, jaw clenched, hands suddenly clammy. “What? Why?”
“To sleep in? What else?” Bobby flicks your forehead and you glower at him. “Get your mind out of the gutter, it’s just that we haven’t slept in a real bed in days.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that.” You roll your eyes, unclenching your jaw. “I’d rather have a real shower, and not smell like sweat and chlorine. I could sleep anywhere.”
He chuckles lightly. “Yeah, I’ve seen you sleep wherever. If I had my camera it would have a dozen of you sleeping in odd places.” You two make it in front of the door, he holds onto the doorknob and you could feel Bobby’s trepidation snaking under his skin.
“You can make a collage out of it. Sleeping anywhere is a talent.” You stare at his hand grasping the brass doorknob, and you cup his shoulder, taking his attention away from it for a moment. “Before we go in, I have to tell you something.”
“Are you gonna go sappy on me?” He could just tell, he knows you that much already.
“Yes, very sappy.” Chortling, your smile falters as you gaze into the blue depths of his eyes, almost drowning in them. “Thank you, Bobby, for everything, you have saved me more times than I’ve saved you.”
“Who’s keeping count, hm?” He nudges you gently, mirroring your smile. “It’s no problem, you would do the same. Ready?”
“Never, but with you?” Your breath hitches before you speak the simple word. “Yes.”
Bobby’s lips ticks up into that lopsided smile that you find adorable. Gums peeking, eyes crinkling in the corners despite his fatigue and the fear still hanging onto the fibers of his muscle. Chortling, his eyes flick away from you before shaking his head. “Ready that hammer, hero.”
Nodding, you take a steady stance, a palm tightly wound around the hammer as it weighs heavy in your hand.
Bobby’s Adam’s apple moves, swallowing down his nerves as he twists the doorknob open.
The door doesn’t let out a creak nor a squeak. It opens without a sound, a door that is seemingly well tended to unlike the others you’ve encountered.
The first thing you see is pink, different shades of it, from hot pink to a lighter hue, a baby pink, a more tolerable pink than the neon shade of the plush couch inside.
Bobby glances at you with furrowed brows, a mirror of your expression when you both get hit by the smell of freshly baked bread that wafts from the inside over to the cracked open door.
“What the fuck?” He whispers, jaw clenched, chest rising and falling in an uneven rhythm.
“Let me go first.” Muttering back, you nudge him with your shoulder, taking a step into the threshold with one foot inside, the other beside Bobby’s.
“No.” His answer is instantaneous, a hand around your wrist. “We might get Hansel and Greteled.”
“Do you think there’s a fucking witch inside or something?”
“No, I think we’re getting lured into a goddamn trap.” His eyes narrow, laden with nerves.
“All the entities we’ve seen so far don’t lure people, they stalk and run after you but they’re not smart, Bobby.” You stand tall, looking him directly in his blue eyes. “They’re not capable of human thought.”
“What do you think this is then?” He doesn’t back down either.
“Our chance of finding a way out and back into the yellow wallpaper rooms. The door we went through closed behind us, would you rather walk around the woods and try your luck there?”
“Actually, yeah.” Nodding, he scoffs, licking at his dry lips, peeking through the crack, eyes roaming around the decorated walls. “There aren’t any dolls—”
“Bobby.” Inhaling, the scent of baked goods makes your stomach rumble, but the smell is buried under the chlorine still sticking to Bobby’s skin that is glowing underneath the fake sun. “Remember the theater room?”
His attention is on a decorative clock that is shaped like a cat on the wall. It stays on the same numbers, eleven thirty, the seconds hand not moving, nor the hour hand, it just ticks, shuffling up and down on the clock face of a cartoon cat. “Yeah.”
“I have the same feeling that this one is safe.”
“Your gut tells you that?” Those blue eyes hone in on you once again, and your cheeks turn warm.
“Yeah, if we die then you can blame me in the afterlife.”
Shaking his head, stifling a smile, Bobby reluctantly moves aside for you. “Not funny, hero.”
“It’s a little bit funny.” Knocking your knee with his in an attempt to reassure him, you step inside, trying to hide the way your hand shakes around the hammer. In truth, you can’t have him go first, you can’t find it in yourself to let him go inside first. So if there is something inside, you’re the first person to get mutilated, or worse.
“Go slow.” His voice lowers against the shell of your ear, tone rumbling, breath fanning your cheek.
Goosebumps rise on your arms when you feel his tone reverberate through you in waves. “Will do.”
Slowly, one foot after the other, you go through cautiously. The smell is stronger inside, there is no familiar scent of mold or damp carpets, the whole house smells like a café. And it even looks like one of those gimmicky cafés that pulls customers in with the cutesy decor rather than for their coffee and cakes.
“Looks like a little girl decorated this place.” Bobby remarks before you do. He’s close behind you, fingers curled around the hem of your jacket as it rustles faintly, reminding you of the entity that eerily looked like you.
The place has a regular floorplan like any other house, the door opens to a living room, walls painted in light pink, decorated with adorable pictures of woodland creatures that have pretty frames of filigree and flowers. There’s a big painting of kittens in a basket right across the frilly pink couch that reminds you of a grandmother’s couch with the bright pink flowers patterned fabric covering it. Everywhere you look you see cute decorations, from the lamps shaped like tulips and sunflowers, to the pillows that have Hello Kitty prints on them. There are a lot of Hello Kittys, too many Hello Kitty themed stuff that any crazed fan would kill for in the real word.
“Why are there so many Hello Kitty?” Nose scrunched, you continue to look around.
“I thought you’d be into this shit.” You could see the smug look on his face from his tone, whilst you stare at a collection of porcelain Hello Kittys inside a glass cupboard that is of course painted pink.
“I like Hello Kitty, but not this much.” You enter the kitchen, it’s as pink as the living room, the cabinets and even the utensils are all pink and Hello Kitty themed.
“I dig it.”
Looking over your shoulder, you tilt your head at him with a stifled smile. “This is more your scene then?”
“I didn’t mean that,” rolling his eyes, Bobby nudges his shoulder against yours, copying your head tilt playfully. “I just thought that this is better than the yellow hell we went through—” his eyes flicks behind you, confusion right on his face. “Were those there before?”
You follow his line of sight, twisting around. Your mouth waters from the sight. Right on the table are plates upon plates of baked goods. Raspberry tarts, chocolate chip cookies, macaroons, and crumpets to pair up with the steaming cups of tea beside it. The plates, down to the tea cups are all adorable, and are all Hello Kitty trademarked.
“No, I think you’re right, we’re getting Hansel and Greteled.”
“Yeah, we should go, Gretel.” Bobby tugs at your sleeve, hand sliding down your bicep to your wrist, fingers curling around it. “C’mon.”
“Should we at least try it out?” You linger in place, focused right on the cookies that are still hot.
“No fucking way,” he pulls at you again, and yet you stay. “do you know the fae story? That you shouldn’t eat any of the food they offer or you’ll get stuck in their world forever?”
“Of course, I know.” You scoff, turning to face him. “But we’ll soon run out of the stale cereal and almond water. Who do you think got the munchies and ate most of it?”
“Us, hero, the both of us did.” He answers matter of factly. “I’d rather eat the stale cereal first before I grab a suspicious looking eclair.”
You relent, cheeks puffed with air before exhaling out. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“C’mon then.” When you don’t move, Bobby sighs and looks at you again. He finds you staring at his hand wrapped around your wrist and he pauses, glancing at you warily. “May I? Sorry.”
Your eyes gazes into his own, and you see those blue eyes of his falter for a moment, and you have no idea why. “Okay.” With your hand opening, Bobby slides his palm on yours, fingers interlocking without a second thought as your fingers curl above his own. “Are we going upstairs?”
“Yeah,” Bobby unsticks his gaze at the intertwined hands, nodding and turning on his heel to lead you away. “The exit better be up there.”
“Or at least one that leads back to the yellow wallpaper.”
“Why do you want that?” His brow rises to his forehead, slowly making his way up the steps with you following closely behind with your hammer.
“Because it’s where we both entered from. That means we have a bigger chance of finding the door you came from over there than here.”
“Huh, that actually makes sense.” His lips smacks together, boots thumping against the steps. “But I’d rather find the real exit.”
Before he could make it to the top step, you move ahead of him, maneuvering around him, quickly making it to the top, and surveying the second floor and putting yourself out into possible danger before him. He could only huff at your behavior, if it reassures you then he lets you, unless there is actual danger ahead that is.
Bobby peeks over the pink and white bannister of the stairs, scanning the environment and the opened doors of each room whilst you do the same. Hammer in hand, weighing it in your hold, you see three rooms. Two bedrooms, one bigger than the other, and a bathroom, all decorated and in theme as the rest of the house.
“Bobby, there’s a shower.” You look at the bathroom that has pink soaps and shampoos on the racks like you found gold.
“And a bed.” He’s more focused on the opened bedroom door with the plush bed and fluffy comforter.
The two of you turn to the other at the same time, smiles tugging at the corners of your lips, eyes shining. Finally, some reprieve, a sense of normalcy.
—
The warm water against your bare skin feels like heaven. You’re in paradise as you let the water fall on you like raindrops. The air around you smells like strawberries and cream, the only available shampoo and soap in the place. It has a strong and sweet scent that reminds you of the perfume counter at the local dying mall. You don’t mind the strong smell when you smelled like sweat and grime for who knows how long. It’s a welcome reprieve, a sense of normalcy.
You and Bobby checked every crevice of the house, from the cabinets to even the oven, no stone was left unturned. Bobby didn’t want another surprise like last time. And as per his rules, you both didn’t separate the whole time. You both moved like one unit, one organism, every move was in sync, one heartbeat shared. If he was going to look under the bed, you would be standing guard behind him, hammer at the ready. The two of you learned a hard lesson from the incident at the pool rooms, you would rather not have a repeat of it if some lanky entity managed to slip inside the cupboard and jumped to surprise Bobby while he’s on the toilet.
The thought makes you laugh to yourself. You find that you have to laugh despite it all, or else you’ll end up spiraling, thinking heavily about everything that weighs you down. You can’t afford to freeze in this place when you’ve got Bobby to worry about.
The you from before you fell into this place would’ve buckled over what happened. But this present version of you, who has survived horrors after another didn’t. You’ve found yourself recalling it whenever the quiet lulls your mind into itself, remembering how it felt to dangle from a hundred feet in the air, remembering how the hounds snarled, how the being wrapped its arms around you, and how the walls sang. But just one look at Bobby, one huff or call of your name slipping from his lips and you’re back to the present. He grounds you, he helps bring you back from the depths of your mind that you found it once impossible to slip out of.
You should be calling him hero, not the other way around.
Stepping out of the shower, the damp pink shower curtain sticks to your leg, making you shake it to untick the damned thing.
“Little shit—!” Your leg slips on the wet tiles, but you manage to get a hold of the sink beside you before you tumble down harshly.
A loud knock hits the door, and Bobby’s frantic voice echoes from behind it, muffled by the pink girly door. “Fuck, you okay?!”
“Yep,” you instinctively grab the towel on the rack, it’s weirdly warm as you wrap it around yourself, as if someone heated it and anticipated your visit. “I’m okay, I almost slipped but I’m okay.”
“Thank fuck.” His voice falters, sighing in relief.
“I thought you fell asleep already. Were you behind the door the whole time?” Your heart warms at the thought whilst you start getting dressed in the same clothes you came in. Unfortunately there’s no washing machines in this place or fresh clothes in the wardrobes. You can’t have everything you want it seems.
A minute passes before he answers. “...yeah. This place made me paranoid.”
“No, it’s okay.” Your voice bounces off the tiles as you find yourself smiling at the mirror whilst you brush your teeth with a Hello Kitty toothbrush that was still sealed in plastic right inside a plastic cat shaped cup. “I can do the same for you if you want?”
“Yeah?” He sounds ecstatic at your offer, but he’s still trying to act like he’s not embarrassed about it.
“Yeah, of course.” Mouth filled with toothpaste, you hurry up so he could freshen up. You could just tell he wanted to go shower first but gave the first dibs to you.
“So what’s the verdict on the shower? Is there hot water?”
“Yeah!” Spitting out the toothpaste, you smack your lips together, looking at your teeth and finding yourself smiling from how good it made you feel now that you’re clean, leaving all the remnants of blood and grime to swirl down into the drain. You really needed that shower when the last time you washed up was in the pool rooms and the water there smelled like chlorine that stuck to your skin like glue. “There’s toothbrushes and toothpaste too.”
“What?” Bobby scoffs out a chortle. “What if someone used it already?”
“It was sealed, Bobby.” The towel is soft in your hold as you dry your hair with it.
“Really?”
“Yep, the towels are warm too, I saved you one. They’re pink though, like the rest of this place.”
“D’you think I care if it’s pink or blue?”
“Yeah, because you’re a manly man.” You tease, hanging the towel to dry beside the other that’s more hot pink than the baby pink towel you used. You’re going to get sick of all this pink.
Bobby chuckles behind the door, probably rolling his eyes at you. “Yeah, yeah, hurry up, I can feel the oil on my scalp.”
Fully dressed, jacket around you and hair still damp, you go to open the door, twisting the doorknob and pulling at it.
Out comes Bobby, tumbling backwards and landing onto your feet. You look down, biting at your lip to stifle the guffaw bubbling in your throat. “Well, hello there.”
“Hi?” His eyes are blown wide, smiling crookedly, awkwardly as he looks up at you through his lashes, neck craning up where a vein pops up from underneath his skin, right beside his throat. “Come here often?”
“Did you magically turn into a doormat?”
Bobby scrambles away, hopping up to his feet, trying and failing to act nonchalant. “You done?” He keeps his eyes on your face and not at the falling water droplet right on your clavicle.
“Yeah,” you move away, giving him the space as you grin. “Your turn, stinky.”
“I nickname you hero and I get stinky, great.”
“It fits though.”
“Shut up.” The door slams at your face, and your laugh is muffled by the door while Bobby groans into his hands.
—
“Are you sure you don’t want to take the bed?” You ask whilst you help him place the pink and white comforter on the floor beside the bed. “You said you wanted to sleep on a proper bed this time.”
The fabric flutters down, and Bobby smooths it out on the floor, crouched down, hair still damp as it sticks to his forehead. He looks much better under the warm yellow Hello Kitty lamp now that he had a shower and you both ate the last of the cereal. You two smell like each other, both sweet, both drenched in strawberries and cream scented soap.
“Yeah, I told you we can switch next time.” Shrugging, he crawls on the comforter, arms open as you throw a furry pillow at him. “Really, hero?” He glowers at the pillow in his hands as you climb up the bed. “This looks uncomfortable.”
“It’s to put on your side so you don’t bump into the bed.” Stifling a grin, you throw him another pillow, this time it’s bigger and has a silk pillowcase that is of course pink. “D’you want a hotdog too?”
“A what?” He looks up at you and you plop down on your stomach, looking down from the bed. The view from below makes Bobby regret not sleeping in the other room when the sight made his stomach do flips. You look happier, comfortable despite seeing another version of yourself that tried to kill you.
“A hotdog pillow.” Somehow you procure a long pillow with a frilly pillowcase, pulling it to your side. “To hug.”
“That’s what you call it?” The corner of his lips ticks up into an endeared smile. “Right, give me the hotdog.”
“I’ve got another one here.” You let it fall on him as he catches it. “Whoever decorated this room is a girl’s girl.”
“I’m too tired for this shit. I have no idea what that means.” Shaking his head with a hidden smile, Bobby plops down on his makeshift bed, head landing on the silk pillow with a soft thud. His arm is looped around the longer pillow, gazing up at you as you continue to peek over the edge of the bed. Eyes narrowing, the light from the windows glares right in his eyes. “Damn it.”
Bobby starts to move but you beat him to it.
“I’ll get it.” You hop off the bed to close the curtains, snuffing out some of the eternal light outside. There’s no hum here, as if the singing abruptly stopped after it fell. Or perhaps the song in the walls just doesn’t reach this place. You could feel Bobby’s eyes following you while you shut all the curtains inside the room, leaving the only light from the Hello Kitty lamps in the corners to illuminate the place. “There.”
“D’you think this place has a day and night cycle?” He mutters, face pressed against the long pillow as you climb back into bed.
“I don’t think so. Watch out.” You drop the spare blanket over to him as it lands right on his chest. “Sorry.”
“You’re good.” Unfolding the blanket, he settles in, looking comfortable under the covers. Looking out of place in a nest of pink and furs. “I hope we get to see the moon again.” He thinks loudly, jaw tightening, hugging the pillow to his chest.
The yellow light from the lampshade shines right on his face, illuminating his sharp profile, and the single hoop earring and chain around his neck catches the light. The other half of his face is blanketed in shadows, painting him in a more sorrowful look. You admit that he looks beautiful this way, like a painting in a museum.
“I hope so too.” You missed the warmth of the sun so much that you’ve forgotten about the moon and how beautiful it was to look out the laundromat windows and see it shine brightly down on the empty parking lot. You miss your only companion that accompanied you through every night shift, how it changes every night and yet beautiful all the same. “Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in the other room?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. No separating, remember?” You locked the door behind you again, and Bobby wants to open it, to see the unbridled smile and the unguarded laugh with your eyes shining once again.
“Yeah,” you settle in, hugging your own long pillow and sighing at how soft the bed is, its softness enveloping you in a warm comfortable embrace. “No separating.”
You don’t want to separate from him either, even when you deem this place safe. Being alone in this place even for just a moment scares you. This place, this house and this room isn’t so bad, but there are a few reminders that tell you that you are not in a normal place. Like how the towels are warm when no one warmed it beforehand, how there is always food ready at the table, and why you and Bobby need to block the door with a chair right under the doorknob.
This place is off, odd, like it was specifically built to appease wanderers, to let your guard down and strike when you’re fully unaware.
“You asleep?” Bobby cuts through the silence, tugging at your blanket gently when you find yourself staring at the door, as if you’re waiting for something to appear.
“Almost.” You lie.
“I—I’m glad you’re here.” He utters it so quietly that you thought you dreamt it. “Try not to think about it too much, okay?”
You know what it is supposed to be. You decide to dismiss the latter and peek over the edge of the bed again, gazing down at him with softened eyes. “I’m glad you’re here too, Bobby.”
He smiles that same smile that made your heart skip a beat.
“Sleep, we’ll be fine here.” His eyes look into your own with mirrored softness before twisting around with his back turned away from you. “I’ll keep one eye open for the both of us.”
“Don’t let the bed bugs bite, Bobby.” He quietly responds with a chortle.
You lay back down, listening to Bobby’s soft breaths. The ceiling is in light pink, almost white as you stare at a light fixture shaped like a cartoon cloud. This room is a teenage girl’s dream, one that you have probably seen in an early 2000’s TV show back in the day. The ones you would race back home from school to watch with its corny jokes and laugh tracks. Maybe back then you wanted a room like this, but you don’t remember much of yourself before you started drowning in the harsh freezing waves of your own mind.
You wanted to stay up for Bobby, to keep watch in case something phases through the locked door or something kicks it open. But you couldn’t help it when your heavy lids start to close, the bed is so comfortable, so soft under you. Sleep takes you in its warm embrace, enclosing you in darkness.
You don’t dream of the yellow walls, you don’t dream of your grandfather nor the real world. You dream of that crimson city, a city draped in blood red, and how you dangled above it. For a moment you just hang there, looking from above, dangling, staring at every concrete skyscraper and still cars on the street. Then you start to move, floating above like a dove soaring in the fake clouds.
Fluttering from building to building, you weave around and you smile, finally weightless, finally peaceful.
Until you turn your head towards a building with glass windows that has your reflection. But it’s not you, it’s the wrong version of you. The being that has a broken neck, its head dangling over its chest, and arms that are too long with its red ropes slithering around. You try to scream, only to let out a huff, a mere breathless gasp, before you finally fall to your death.
You wake with a start before you hit the ground, sweating under the covers as your hands fly to your neck, trying to gulp in air. “Fuck.” Turning instinctively at the bedside table to look at the clock, it stayed the same, frozen. You forgot where you were for a moment.
Nails digging into your skin, you look down on the floor to check on Bobby. He’s still sleeping, cuddling the long pillow as he drools on it. His hair is a mess, and his cheek is pressed flushed on the pillow, completely out of it. At least one of you is having a good night’s rest. Bobby could sleep anywhere it seems, even after he almost lost you. Maybe this is really how he copes, sleeping it off, leaving it all to his awake self.
Laying against the headboard, you inhale deeply, a hand kneading at your sternum to calm your breathing. When you open your eyes, your heart stops.
The door is wide open.
Right in the opened doorway is a shadow, long, lanky limbs stretched out abnormally, fingers grazing the top of the pink carpet.
It’s just a mere shadow, the dark, a void staring right at you.
It doesn’t move to get you, it doesn’t lunge or enter the room. It just stays at the doorway, watching you, face obscured by the top of the doorway when it’s too tall for it. The chair Bobby used to lock the door is neatly placed beside it, as if it was observing you before you even woke up.
The thing unnerves you, skin prickling as it stands there as still as a rock. Like your grandfather in the sailboat room, eerie, uncanny. Not human.
It tilts its head to take a look at you when it’s too tall for the doorway, vision obscured but it doesn’t need eyes to see when it has no eyes. Its face is chillingly blank, a deep dark void to get lost into.
“What?” Your face scrunches into confusion, breathing hard, heart beating rapidly against your ribcage. Your mind tells you to run but your body refuses to move. Where would you even run when it stands in the only exit? “Bobby.” Calling for your companion, you languidly move to wake him up, body awkwardly folded whilst you don’t turn your gaze away from it as if it’ll start moving once you look away. “Bobby—fuck, Bobby.”
He groans into the pillow, burying himself further into the bed.
‘Sleep with one eye open my ass.’ You think to yourself, chest rising and falling in a panic, fingers digging into the sleeve of his shirt.
Something huffs at your thoughts. A laugh exhaled through the nose, something so familiar and yet in this situation terrifies you as the hair on the back of your neck stands on its ends.
“What the fuck.”
You heard it in your head, and around the room at the same time. It was as clear as day.
You were sure it heard your thoughts and laughed at it.
It heard your thoughts. It laughed at you.
“Bobby, Bobby, wake the fuck up.” Shaking his shoulder, he only stirs for a moment, dismissing you with a slap to your hand before stilling. “Shit, Bobby—”
It tilts its head back again, it hums deeply, a thrumming tone akin to tumbling rocks upon a mountain. You blink and it’s gone from the doorway.
“Fuck me.” Heaving, hand on your chest and tears filling your eyes. You wait for a second before scrambling to the door to close it and lock it again with the chair. Standing back, hands up, you feel your limbs go numb.
Did it laugh from your thoughts? Did it actually hear you think?
He wakes up to you standing there, still frozen, shoulders taut, fingers twisted like tree branches.
“Hey?” Bobby mumbles groggily, voice addled with sleep, timbre lower and gravelly. “You good? You’re standing in the middle of the room like a creep.”
Your feet moved before you could think. A second later, you’re now sitting beside him on the comforter, legs tucked against yourself, staring right at the door like a kid who had a nightmare.
Bobby’s half lidded eyes look at you curiously. “Were you sleep walking?”
You could only shake your head.
Sitting up, Bobby flings the blanket away from him and scooches closer to you. His hand stops halfway from touching you. “Did you have a nightmare?”
“I don’t— I don’t know if it was real, Bobby.” Head craning towards him, you peer up at him with glassy wet eyes.
“I’m here and I’m real.” He nods, swallowing thickly, brows knitted in concern. “Can I sit with you for a bit?” Even though he wants nothing more but to go back to sleep, you need him, and he’d rather sit with you in silence than regret not being there. Like he was with her.
Nodding, you pull your legs impossibly closer, forehead resting atop your knees. He’s here and he’s real.
Instead of drowning in your thoughts, you listen to him breathe, you feel his warmth bleed through his clothes and how it ebbs over to your side. You count in your head, counting all the things around you, at the forefront is Bobby, how his hair is mussed, how his shirt is wrinkled. Then you count the things you could smell, the strawberry shampoo and soap that lingers on his skin and right on the pillow, how this place smells eternally saccharine. You count your breaths, syncing it with Bobby’s inhales and exhales.
One, two, three.
And another, three, two, one. Inhale and exhale, like how you were taught.
Your fingers grip onto your trousers until you could feel your nails digging into your skin underneath.
Bobby has no idea how to comfort you, so he stays, the only way he knows how, and he fights to keep his eyes open, fixing the blanket over his legs to drape it over you instead. But when he tugs at it, you move and rest your head on his shoulder, cheek pressed softly against his deltoid without trepidation, without uncertainty. Your skin is clammy, sticking to his sleeve but he doesn’t care when you’re the one leaning on him this time. Bobby hasn’t noticed until now that you run incredibly warm.
You trust him enough to lay on him, to rest your eyes and break down your walls that you’ve carefully built around you. His breath is shallow, the simple movement from you knocked the wind out of him, surprised, glad, and proud of you when he knows that took a lot out of you to do. What seems so simple, a small act of affection doesn’t come so easily for you. He knows that, he knows you.
Bobby stills, like how a cat finally sat on his lap after months of gentle coaxing and he refuses to move lest it scampers away from him.
He sits there, watching your fingers twitch before it relaxes, until your breathing calms, and the tension in your muscles eases. Until you fall asleep against him, your breath fanning against his neck as you snore softly.
—
You and Bobby decided to stay for a little while to recuperate, as if you two had any choice in the matter when there are no other doors inside the house that leads back to the yellow wallpaper hell or at least any of the places you’ve been in.
You both know this place is better than any of the other rooms you’ve been through. At least the house is cozy despite its gaudy decor, and it has running water and comfy beds to sleep in. You hate to admit it but you’d rather be stuck here than in the pool rooms or the boiler rooms. At least here it’s safe, so far that is.
You’re waiting for the shoe to drop, waiting to see the creature from your nightmares to saunter inside and break every bone in your body. Especially after what you saw last night. You’re both on high alert despite the feel of the welcoming house, rightfully so when time and time again you’ve been surprised by the entities that live in this hellscape. The hammer is always on your hip, if not on you then around Bobby’s hold. You’d find a weapon for him in the house but there aren’t any, not even kitchen knives or even a plunger. Bobby’s thinking of making his own makeshift weapon using the Hello Kitty merchandise around the house.
After talking it out on the floor of the bedroom surrounded by pink and canned chicken soup that you two shared, you both come up with a plan. The two of you would set up perimeters around the woods, drawing up zones to make the searching easier. If the exit isn’t in the house then it must be around the woods surrounding it. So with Bobby armed with a Hello Kitty fountain pen, he uses it to carve numbers on the trees, marking each zone to be explored. Whilst you draw a map on a blank notebook you found on the shelf, the cover reminds you of the early 2000’s Lisa Frank aesthetic with the rainbows and sparkly dolphins. It took you both about three hours to map the surface just to make it easier for you two to explore the next day.
You quickly fell into routine with Bobby.
You would shower first with him sitting by the doorway, standing guard and chatting with you as you lather the soap onto your skin that smelt like pine needles. He would talk about his life back on the surface, his cameras that littered the small apartment, the numerous tapes filled with various footage. Some were of his friends, most of them are stuff he randomly came across on his commute— a large dog being walked by a small old woman, a school bus filled with glum children, or a cloud that was shaped like a pair of sunglasses. He told you that he would lug his camera around like he was filming some sort of documentary that never went anywhere. He just liked filming things, how the light would shine on a park bench, the dappled light through the trees, the rain drenched sidewalk, or a bird flying by. He called it practice for the real deal, and you listened with a soft smile on your face, imagining all of it in your head.
“I’d film you.” He blurted out on day three after talking to you about the day he followed a squirrel for an hour at the park because it was lugging around a whole bag of peanuts.
“What?” You almost choked on the toothpaste.
“Not like that—shit, I mean—!” He backtracks, realizing that saying those exact words while you’re in the bathroom as naked as the day you were born doesn’t sound right. “I mean like in a nice artsy way!”
You could just tell that his face is pressed against the door from how loud his voice has become. “Ah.” Biting the inside of your cheek, you tamp a laugh. “Yeah, no, I–I get it, Bobby. That would be nice.”
There’s a soft thump from his side of the door.
“You okay?” You pause from your silent giggling.
“Yep.” He groans into his hands. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Can you hurry up?” Good thing that there is a door in between the two of you.
“That depends, can you tell me more about how you’ll film me?” Teasing, it earns a loud groan from the other side.
“Oh, fuck off, hero.” You could just hear the stifled laugh behind the door.
After a shower, you would climb into bed, and with him on the comforter right on the floor. Bobby seems to have forgotten the fact that you would do alternating days with him, that he would be on the bed tonight and with you on the comforter. But every time you remind him he would dismiss you with a wave of his hand and say, “tomorrow.” You would press him of course, but he’d distract you with another story until you felt your eyes grow heavy and fall asleep to the sound of his voice.
Bobby never complained through the search for the exit. The woods are vast but not thick enough that you would get lost in it if you take a wrong turn. The trees are properly spaced out, like it was planted like that on purpose. And they’re all identical, copy pasted onto the ground meticulously.
On day four you found ribbons inside a cabinet when you were looking for some sort of detergent to wash the clothes with. The ribbon is bright red with pink glitters, and you used it to tie it around the trees, marking the territories that you already searched. Bobby would be at the front, wielding the hammer this time around as you follow close with your notebook, jotting down the route. You would take turns on who leads and who follows, either way you two would watch each other’s backs.
You searched high and above, from the grass covered ground to the top of the trees that Bobby climbs to take a look at. You protested at first, but he claimed that he’s a better climber than you. Stubborn as he is he still tried to climb, until the halfway point when his hands started to get clammy and he felt vertigo. He beat himself up for it, but you reassured him with a gentle pat on his bicep. It seems that your touch is some sort of miracle cure for him when he smiles and continues to trek along the zone for that day.
It wasn’t so bad getting stuck at this level especially when you have Bobby around. He makes surviving more tolerable, without him you would’ve gone mad days ago. But despite the deep conversations and the shared smiles and occasional laugh, you feel it stare. You feel its presence, the shadow in the doorway, the tall figure that seems to only appear for you. It’s making you feel insane whenever you see it lurking in the corner of a room while Bobby’s in the bathroom and he hasn’t noticed how you went silent. It just watches, mostly you, you’ve tried to ignore it, to let it linger there like an itch you can’t scratch.
But it’s not always there, the entity is mostly in the kitchen, right in the corner of the dining room, as if it waits for you to take one of the warm pastries right on the table. Anticipating the moment you bite right into it like it baked the treats itself, as if it baked it just for its guests. Maybe Bobby is right to not let you eat a raspberry tart or a cookie when it could possibly keep you in here forever if you do. But as the days go on, it becomes more tempting, the old cereal and repetitive canned goods are getting tiring as the supplies dwindles. You want something sweet, something new to taste. As long as you two still have supplies left, eating the suspicious pastries is a last resort.
The entity doesn’t seem malignant, it doesn’t seem to want to hurt you or Bobby. As long as it doesn’t come near you or over to him, you let it stay in its corner like some creep. But it doesn’t intrude on your space, it lets you be, like a benevolent steward of the pink house, making sure that you or Bobby aren’t making a mess of this place. You always make sure that you clean up after yourselves, which Bobby just naturally followed suit because you once swept some crumbs off the floor.
Once on one of the silent nights, where Bobby’s soft snores echo around the room, and you lay awake in bed, it appears again in the doorway. It just stands there, the chair neatly placed on one side with it looking right at you. Its head is tilted, peeking under the doorway again, like a parent checking on their kid during a sleepover.
You sit up, looking right at it directly, showing no fear but the way you hold the blanket tightly atop you says otherwise. “Are you going to hurt us?” Your words are calm, soft but frayed at the edges with fear. Maybe talking to it won’t do anything, but it’s worth a try. You did it with the version of your grandfather, he didn’t reply either. But this one seems different from the others, like it could think, comprehend, maybe even speak when it wants to. “We’re just trying to find our way out of here.”
You’re met with silence. It stays there, a shadow listening to every word.
You tell it your name, jaw clenched as you introduce yourself. “And this is Bobby,” gesturing over to him, he still sleeps soundly. “We won’t make a mess, I promise. Thank you for letting us stay.”
The edges of its skin fizzle into red and blue dots like static, before disappearing and returning to normal. You don’t know what that means, but you do know that it understands you to an extent.
“Can you close the door on your way out?”
Its head straightens up, and the door closes gently with a soft click. The sheer shock on your face stays until you can’t keep your eyes open.
This one understood you unlike the others you’ve encountered. Somehow, beings in this place are capable of thought, capable of understanding language. It intrigues you. Maybe this place is truly the odd one out, a safe space like a save room in a game where you can catch your breath and rest. Bobby needs to know about it.
—
You’ve never told Bobby about the shadow. Not yet anyway. You’re too afraid of him not believing you when you’re the only person who has seen this lurking shadow. There’s still a part of you that thinks the shadow was just a figment of your imagination.
The fear is unfounded when it’s Bobby, he’ll believe you if you told him that the sky is suddenly green and the grass outside has turned blue. It’s just Bobby, the Bobby who still talks even while he’s washing his hair and got shampoo inside his mouth more times than you can count. After everything you two have been through, telling him about some lanky friendly entity shouldn’t be a problem when he would be the only person in the world that would understand you. You’re going to tell him when it’s unfair for him to be left in the dark. You just need to find the right moment.
You stare at the glowing orb between the branches in the trees, watching the dappled light filter through the leaves. You half expect for wind to brush along your cheek, a warm yet refreshing air that flutters your lashes, and yet there is none, the air is as still back in the yellow walls, at least here it’s open, giving you an illusion of freedom.
The rustling from the canvas backpack takes your attention as Bobby hisses in between his teeth. He’s rummaging through the contents, taking out empty bottles and empty biscuit packaging onto the grass beside him.
“What is it?” You ask, feeling the rough blades of grass between your fingers whilst you two rest after hours of searching the perimeter. Sweat trickles your back, but you refuse to take off the jacket.
Bobby exhales loudly, groaning and tipping his head back in frustration. “We ran out of almond water.”
Your eyes narrow at him, still adjusting, vision blurred in the corners. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” Bobby runs a hand through his messy hair, the scent of heavy strawberries and cream wafting in the air. “I—” he mirrors your squint, head tilted when he turns to you. “What did I tell you about looking directly at the light?”
“That I might go blind?” Blinking owlishly at him, you wince, vision returning slowly as you see him look at you disappointedly. “Sorry.”
Clicking his tongue, he takes the sunglasses hanging from the collar of his crop top before opening it and reaching for you. “May I?”
You chortle. “What for?”
“So you don’t go fucking blind.” He’s already putting the glasses over your eyes, gentle and mindful as he places the glasses over your ears and onto the bridge of your nose. “There.” Leaning back, he smiles. “Looks better on you actually.”
You gaze at him through the dark tinted glasses, smiling at him bashfully. “Thanks, Bobby.” You contemplate telling him about the being, but it doesn’t feel like the right time for it.
“No problem.” Sighing and resting his arm on his knee, he leans against the tree trunk and stares into the thicket, over to the house that peeks in between the trees. “We’re going to starve too. We only have a can of pudding and peaches left. I’ll take the peaches.”
“No, it’s okay, I can stomach it.”
“You hate peaches, hero.” Craning his neck to you, Bobby balloons his cheeks and lets go a huff of air. “You take the pudding for tonight.”
“Or we can eat the pastries on the dinner table.” You suggest, nudging his arm with your elbow. “It doesn’t look too bad.”
“Really?” His expression flattens. “Or it’s poisoned or locks us in here forever once we take a bite.”
“This place is the farthest thing from being magical. Wrong genres, Bobby, you of all people should know.” He cracks a smile from that. “It’s like comparing Lord of the Rings to fucking…” you try to find the right thing to compare it to. “Silent Hill.”
“What the fuck is the other one?”
“I highly doubt that you don’t know about Lord of the Rings.”
“I know what that is, nerd, but I have no idea what the fuck a Silent Hill is.” His confusion is evident on his handsome face. “Is that a book or something? Sounds like a town in bumfuck nowhere.”
“It’s a famous horror game, Bobby.” You scoff out a laugh, brows furrowed. “You seriously don’t know what Silent Hill is?”
Bobby shrugs, cleaning up the bottles and putting them inside the backpack. “I’m not that kind of nerd, I guess.”
Shaking your head, you wonder if he’s just not in that kind of scene. “Well it’s close to our situation, a psychological horror.”
“Is that why you’re so good at surviving this shit? Because you’re a big fucking geek?” A slow smile tugs at his lips from his teasing, nudging your foot with his own whilst wiggling his brows.
“A geek, really?” You can’t help but smile back. “I haven’t heard of that term in years.”
“Whatever, geek.”
After a beat of listening to the repetitive bird song, you hear Bobby’s stomach grumble. He groans, thumping his head against the tree trunk. He doesn’t need to look at you to know that you’re grinning at him.
“So the food in the kitchen then?”
—
Bobby dawdled, but the sounds that his stomach is making is getting harder to ignore. He took his sweet time showering and now he has a headache. Feeling faint when he hasn’t eaten anything the whole day other than the last of the stale cereal and a drop of almond water last night, or what he thinks is nighttime when he uses sleep to determine if a day has passed.
Empty plastic bottles lay on the pink kitchen island, right beside the two plates and cups of tea you prepared. You’re starving too, Bobby knows this when your gait turned slower and how your hands shook whilst you two were out looking for a door that probably doesn’t exist.
You’ve placed a buttered croissant on each plate, which looked to be the safest bet between the other warm pastries on the dining table. You’re pouring him a cup of tea, the liquid is light brown, and smells like any other tea you’ve had before. It doesn’t look odd in the slightest. Bobby is standing adjacent to you, right on the other side of the island, gazing at his plate and cup with increasing trepidation, but the tremble in his arms and legs makes him want to devour the whole thing.
“Okay.” Taking a deep breath, you take your croissant from its plate. Bobby stops you with his hand around your wrist. “We’re starving, Bobby.”
“I know, it’s just that— we do it at the same time, okay?”
If it was truly poisoned, you two would perish at the same time. How romantic, you thought, a tragedy worthy of a Shakespearean play.
“Okay, cheers?” You tap the flakey pastry with his before you two take a bite at the same time.
The pastry is crunchy on the outside, warm and soft on the inside, just like how you remember it. It doesn’t taste weird, it’s good, buttery, until the after taste emerges just like in the other food you had from this place. The taste of stale bread lingers on your tongue, leaving a thin sheet of the staleness. It’s good to have something warm at least. Swallowing, you look at Bobby as he chews slowly.
“I feel fine.” You mutter, taking a swig of the sweetened tea to help the bread go down easier. “You?”
Bobby swallows and makes a face. “That…that was actually good, it’s like the cereal and the other shit we had though. Like it was left outside for too long. How’s the tea?” He has a crumb clinging to his lower lip.
“It’s good, I’m not thirsty anymore at least. May I?” You reach over to him, gently wiping away the crumb from his lip with your knuckle. “Sorry it was bothering me.”
Bobby looks at you with his wide blue eyes, still holding onto the half eaten croissant as his Adam’s apple bops up and down.
“So what’s the verdict?” Taking another bite, you dismiss his expression as shock when you nonchalantly took a drink of the suspicious tea. “Bobby?”
“Yeah, uh…” clearing his throat, he stuffs the rest of the pastries into his mouth. “Eight point five out of ten.” He tries to speak with his mouth full.
“Bobby, you’ll choke.” You’re stifling a laugh.
“You know what would go well with it though?” He’s chewing quickly, fidgeting with the can of pudding that has an easy open pull tab. “Shit, hold on.” His shorter nail can’t get a hold of the tab so you take it from his frantic hands.
“Let me try.” Shaking your head and biting your lip to quiet down your laugh, you manage to take the tab and pull. But you pull too hard and too fast that the corner of the metal can snags at your palm, cutting the still healing skin from when you burned it. “Fuck!”
“Hero, shit!” Bobby grabs a table napkin on his way over to you and quickly takes your hand in his whilst the white napkin embroidered with kittens slowly turns red. “You’re clumsy, did you know that?”
You’re wincing and laughing at the same time, the ache throbbing from your thumb to your pinky. The sight alone would’ve made you freeze, hyperventilating and panic setting in. But with Bobby holding onto you, grasping and tending to the cut, you feel fine, there’s no numbness running through your limbs, and no fear.
“Yeah, it’s hard to accept it as fact though.” Smiling, you flick your gaze to Bobby, who has a far away look in his eyes, staring right behind you with horror. “Bobby?”
He’s moving closer to you, an arm over your back as you turn around, finding the tall shadow looming over the other side of the dinner table. Its edges are frayed, static running all over it. It hums inside your head, an angry dissonance that rings in your ears. Bobby can feel the hum as it shakes the floor he’s standing on.
Its head tilts down, seemingly looking at your bleeding hand despite never needing eyes to see. You just know it was looking at it, like how Bobby is standing before you, acting like your shield. It was mad that you got hurt, and it thinks Bobby was the cause.
The being is furious. Furious at Bobby.
It cocks its head to the side, moving in front of him without you two ever seeing it move.
“What the fuck.” Bobby heaves, fear in his eyes and yet he still stands in front of you protectively.
“Wait!” You hold out your injured hand in between them as the hum turns ear piercing. “I’m fine! It was an accident!” You talk to it like it would understand, gambling Bobby’s life and perhaps yours on something that doesn’t have any basis. It probably doesn’t like you as much as you thought. You wipe the blood away from your hand, showing it to the being, showing how it’s just a nick that doesn't run too deep. “It wasn’t his fault! I’ll heal! Okay, I’ll heal.”
Its dark edges still, calming down with every reassurance from you.
“I’m okay.” Uttering softly, its skin is an inch away from your opened palm, you feel it, like holding out your hand above an old TV after you turned it off, feeling the fizzy buzz of static brushing along your skin despite the space in between. “See? I’m okay.”
Bobby looks at you then at the entity like he’s high and sees some deep-seated hallucination brought out by the horrors of real life. He mouths a confused, ‘what the fuck?’ underneath his breath, a hand grasping onto your jacket, dimpling the fabric.
It backs off, leaning away, completely calmed when the strange hum fades away, leaving only a faint ringing in your ears.
It stands tall, the top of its head grazing the pink ceiling as it flickers out of existence like it was never there to begin with.
Bobby flicks his eyes over to you with sheer horror and confusion on his face.
Now is the best time to tell him you guess.
—
Your gaze stays on the nail polishes lined neatly on the vanity whilst you zone out, completely lost in your own mind when Bobby enters the room with his shoulders haunched, eyes half lidded.
“Hey,” his hand brushes along the small of your back briefly before plopping himself onto the bed. “I’m going to take a nap. I have a headache.”
Bobby took the news pretty well considering that the entity almost ripped him apart. He understood why you hid it from him when you told him that you weren’t sure that it was even real and not a combined figment of your imagination and your declining sanity. He took a minute to just breathe after what happened, and you gave him time to just take it all in before you explained everything to him, from the theory that it’s the steward of this house, to how it watched you like a parent looking after a toddler. You expected for him to hurl a plate at the wall and call bullshit, but all he did was grab another pastry and eat it all in two bites before turning to you, patting your arm and laying his forehead atop your shoulder whilst you rub a hand over his back reassuringly. It scared the soul out of him that he had to lie down for the rest of the day. You did too as he let you lay your head upon his shoulder whilst you two rested on the makeshift bed on the floor.
It’s been a few days since then, the entity started to appear for Bobby too, giving him a heart attack every time. It doesn’t move to hurt him, it just stands there, watching him like it watches you. Like it’s making sure you won’t accidentally get hurt again. Every time you or Bobby would reach for a pastry or a cup of tea, it appears, waiting for your reaction. Maybe it was the one who truly made the treats. Bobby’s getting used to it, like the entity is a pet he didn’t want to get at first but still lets onto the couch to sit beside him.
Bobby huffs against the pillow, sighing for the umpteenth time today.
You could just tell that Bobby is increasingly getting annoyed at how pink everything is, not because it’s pink but because it’s everywhere around him. Bobby wants something new, something nice to look at. Maybe that’s why he always looks forward to going outside and searching for the door because there are trees and greenery instead of Hello Kitty and fluffy pink decor. Something more relaxing than the ‘in your face’ decorations. And where the entity can’t go as far as the front door, either giving you space or it can’t leave. But even then, even when you’re outside, you could see the shadow look out from the kitchen window and watch you trek along with Bobby.
“All this pink is giving you a headache, huh?” Turning to him, you see him press his cheek against a Hello Kitty pillow you embrace every night, the heel of his palm digging into the crease between his brows.
“No, I think I’m crashing from the sugar rush.” His blue eyes are dull as he embraces the pillow against his cheek tighter. “I ate too many cookies.”
You chortle, “I think Mr. Kitty would be ecstatic that you like his baking.”
“Mr. Kitty?” Bobby scrunches his nose.
“Yeah, I named it. Took a page from your book. It’s better than what you came up with, what was it again? The shuffler?”
“Yeah,” Bobby hugs your pillow closer, eyes fluttering close. He probably doesn’t want to think about that mirrored version of you right now. The one that tried to take you away from him.
Bobby sounds defeated. You could attribute it to his headache but he sounds utterly hopeless. You know it has something to do with the grim situation when you still haven’t found a doorway back. It’s been a week and a half since you entered this place together, hand in hand. Or maybe it’s been more than that.
You thought he fell asleep and that was the end of the conversation until he huffs out a breath.
“I’ve got an idea.” His eyes open, gaze flickering to the polishes on display in front of you. The light through the pink curtains illuminates him in dusty pink. “D’you want me to paint your nails? I’m pretty good at it.” He blinks like he’s trying to recall something, the tip of his tongue poking in between his lips. “I think I am?”
Smiling tenderly, you glance at the nail polishes that are all in different shades of pink. “Only if you let me paint yours.” You answer with a teasing smirk.
He thinks for a few seconds, cheek flushed against the Hello Kitty pillow that he’s still hugging that smells like you. “Sure, but only the darkest pink, the lighter one would wash me out.”
The thought eases you slightly, maybe you two just needed to do something different for once after doing the exact routine for eleven days straight, or what you think is eleven days.
“Okay.” Grabbing the darkest hue out of the bunch just like he asked, you choose a lighter pink that reminds you of ballet shoes that have a slight shimmer. “What about this?” Crossing the distance, you show him the clinking bottles.
Bobby gestures in a come hither motion, telling you to sit beside him on the bed. “Let me see.” Propping himself up by his elbows, Bobby places the pillow behind him as he lounges. “Yeah, this’ll do.”
“I was only joking, y’know.” Sitting by his hips, the bed dips as you join him.
“Nah, it’s not like we both have anything better to do.” His palm opens, taking the lighter shade. “Let me do yours first.”
“Okay,” you hardly have enough energy to protest when you’re as spent as him, as bored as him. “Bobby?”
“Yeah?” Shaking the bottle, Bobby opens the polish. It doesn’t smell like how it usually is, the chemical scent doesn’t waft around the room. It doesn’t smell like anything, it’s almost unnerving.
“Why do you think Mr. Kitty likes us?”
“I don’t think he likes us, hero. He just tolerates us.” His fingers flex, telling you to place your hands in his to paint your nails. “He lets us stay because he has no choice. Like he makes sure we don’t ruin his house.” The polish feels cold atop your nail whilst he spreads a thin coat on it.
“You think he’s capable of being inherently kind?”
“I don’t know, maybe.” Bobby replies, concentrating on painting your nails. The tip of his tongue pokes in between his lips, trying to do both as best as he can. “Try not to think about it too much, okay?” He flicks at your forehead, giving you that lopsided smile you like. “It’ll hurt your pretty brain.”
“You think I have a pretty brain?” Your tone lowers, gazing at him through your lashes.
Bobby’s blue eyes peers up at you with a sly smirk. “Yeah, you’re smart and pretty, therefore you have a pretty brain.” He moves to take your other hand, touch featherlight as he paints.
“Are you high again, Bobby?” You ask with a bashful lilt.
“Nope, stone cold sober.” He sends you a wink that makes your breath hitch in your throat. You’re suddenly very aware at how close he is, and that you’re both on the bed together, knees knocking against his, breaths mixing in between. A voice in your head tells you to lean away, and you move away an inch from him. “Stop fidgeting, you’re going to ruin my handiwork.”
—
You wake again in the middle of sleep, this time, Mr. Kitty wasn’t around, he’s not standing in the doorway keeping watch. What woke you up wasn’t the nightmare you had, it was the pressure around your hand. It was a familiar warmth around your palm as it dangles over the edge of the bed.
Peeking over the edge of the frilly bedsheets, you squint at the sleeping form below, the warm lamps have been dimmed after you complained about it being too bright. It was either Bobby or the being that lives with you two that did it, either way, neither of them took the credit for it.
As your sleep heavy eyes hone in on the Bobby shape below, you see that his hand is extended up, following it, you see him holding onto you in his sleep.
His fingers are intertwined with yours, keeping them in place whilst you both slept. Whilst his painted nails match yours only in a darker hue. You should let go, to shake him off and roll back into bed. Your insides tell you to pull away, a tug at the back of your mind, like a forgotten memory that you’re trying to recall but couldn’t. It should feel wrong, the intimacy of it, that you shouldn’t be the recipient of it. Still, you don’t move your hand away, instead, you scooch closer to the edge of the mattress, closing the distance to make the position more comfortable.
Bobby woke up first that day, his hand still in yours, he didn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day.
You don’t mention it to him, but he knows that you woke up to see his hand around your own when you kept staring at his palm the whole time. He doesn’t mention it either, it was both a blessing and a curse.
But something is nagging inside your head, like you have forgotten something that you can’t recall. Whatever it is, it eats at you from the inside out.
All this sweet fluff is gonna bite me in the ass later when you make them suffer, isn't it😭🤚🏾
You both know this place is better than any of the other rooms you’ve been through. At least the house is cozy despite its gaudy decor, and it has running water and comfy beds to sleep in. You hate to admit it but you’d rather be stuck here than in the pool rooms or the boiler rooms. At least here it’s safe, so far that is. –Nooo, that's how they get you, stay away!
Ayo??? Wtf, where did this guy come from😭🤚🏾 Plz don't hurt us, sir, we'll leave🥲
You searched high and above, from the grass covered ground to the top of the trees that Bobby climbs to take a look at. You protested at first, but he claimed that he’s a better climber than you. Stubborn as he is he still tried to climb, until the halfway point when his hands started to get clammy and he felt vertigo. He beat himself up for it, but you reassured him with a gentle pat on his bicep. It seems that your touch is some sort of miracle cure for him when he smiles and continues to trek along the zone for that day. –It's starting, everyone🤭💕 The feelings have begun to show❤️
Its head straightens up, and the door closes gently with a soft click. The sheer shock on your face stays until you can’t keep your eyes open. –OH HELL NAH, IT UNDERSTANDS US😰
It’s been a few days since then, the entity started to appear for Bobby too, giving him a heart attack every time. It doesn’t move to hurt him, it just stands there, watching him like it watches you. Like it’s making sure you won’t accidentally get hurt again. Every time you or Bobby would reach for a pastry or a cup of tea, it appears, waiting for your reaction. Maybe it was the one who truly made the treats. Bobby’s getting used to it, like the entity is a pet he didn’t want to get at first but still lets onto the couch to sit beside him. –A few days is insane, wtf, are we trapped here fr??? Like, how has no exit or door appeared this whole time??? Unless the shadow is making it harder for us to find a way out. Like, it wants us to stay forever to keep it company🤔
Bobby’s blue eyes peers up at you with a sly smirk. “Yeah, you’re smart and pretty, therefore you have a pretty brain.” He moves to take your other hand, touch featherlight as he paints. –Bobby, ur only saying that cuz we're the only girl within a five mile radius of you rn🥀 I thank you tho😔💕
His fingers are intertwined with yours, keeping them in place whilst you both slept. Whilst his painted nails match yours only in a darker hue. You should let go, to shake him off and roll back into bed. Your insides tell you to pull away, a tug at the back of your mind, like a forgotten memory that you’re trying to recall but couldn’t. It should feel wrong, the intimacy of it, that you shouldn’t be the recipient of it. Still, you don’t move your hand away, instead, you scooch closer to the edge of the mattress, closing the distance to make the position more comfortable. –It's because of Kat that you feel so guilty, man. And watch it be a copy of Kat, not actually her🥲 She comes in and starts spilling all the tea about how R knew she died and hid the fact from Bobby😭🥀
You're gonna make them suffer next chap, I just know it🥲🤚🏾
if you receive this, you make somebody happy! go on anon and send this to ten of your followers who make you happy or somebody you think needs cheering up. if you get one back, even better!!! (❀❛ ֊ ❛„)♡
Pairing: Aerion Targaryen x wife! Reader/ Lyonel Baratheon x fem! Reader
Word count: 7.8k
Synopsis: When your husband, Aerion, sees you dancing with a former suitor he sees red and goes above and beyond to get his love reciprocated.
Tags: No use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader except for clothing, established relationship, Arryn! Reader, an alternate ending to this oneshot, based around my Where's my Husband series, love triangle, Obsessed! Aerion, Obsession AU, CW dark themes, CW gore and body horror, CW violence and blood. Angst. Reader discretion is advised.
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3rd anniversary celebration 🎉
Aerion is infatuated with you, his Lady wife that he adores. You may not be of Valyrian descent just like him, but you have proved yourself worthy of the prince time and time again. You’ve tamed the dragon, and the dragon granted you his warmth, his undying love for forever and a day. And he thought that you shared the same sentiment, that you love and adore him just like he does for you. That every morning you wake up to him, he’s the first thing on your mind. With a smile on your face, and a thudding heart in your chest like it’s the first time you’ve woken up beside him. Like how he does for you.
Every morning his thoughts are immediately on you, purple eyes flicking to the back of your head as you lay beside him, cheek pressed flush against the goosefeather pillow, mouth slightly agape and chest slowly rising and falling with every breath. Aerion would pull you beside him, turning you around so you would face him. You would groan and find his warmth with your face tucked right on his bare chest. He would always seek you out, his great Arryn love that has managed to cleave his chest open and dig yourself into his heart.
Aerion thought you loved him, that you would die for him just like he would for you. But as he stares at you and the Lord of Storm’s End dancing in the middle of the feast with your hand in his, holding so tightly onto the man’s hand like he is your Lord husband not the prince— Aerion’s fury is palpable across the great hall. His fits shake, jaw tightly wound and nose flaring as his anger turns his blood hotter.
Your face is too close to Lyonel’s lips, his breath mingling with yours, his words rumbling in his chest that you could feel reverberate through your body when you’re chest to chest with him. Aerion watches you fall into step with him, a synergy that he thought you and him only ever have.
“Aerion…” his uncle Rhaegel calls for him from the feast table, right beside him is your Arryn aunt as she fails to hide the fear flickering in her eyes. She knows. “The falcon and the stag found each other again, didn’t they?” Rhaegal, sweet simple uncle Rhaegel has even noticed you and Lyonel, looking as if you two belong in each other’s arms. As if it was supposed to be from the start. “The falcon should soar…” he mumbles, picking at the frayed stitches of his doublet. “Dragon blood does not mix well with birds…the falcon’s talons are too long, too sharp, even for themselves.”
“Rhaegel, my love.” The chair under your aunt scrapes loudly as she vaults from her seat, tugging at her husband’s arm. “Let us not frighten our nephew.”
“I am not frightened, dear aunt.” Aerion spits the words out, fists trembling at his side. His wine goblet long abandoned on the table as he stares daggers at his aunt and uncle.
Words hurled at him don’t usually hit him, he has heard worse in his life being a second son of a fourth son. Nothing to inherit, styled to be a spare, a brother to a drunkard, a son to a dead mother, and a father who only looks at him when he has done him a dishonour despite everything he tries to do to bring honour to their branch of the family. He married you for that reason, you’re from a house that is as ancient as his own, an honourable house that has their own great keep and has borne dozens of great warriors. It was for duty, marrying you, he meant to tolerate you, to share your bed whenever he pleases and leave right after. To visit your chambers when duty calls to try for an heir. But you intrigued him, you talked back, you bit back and drew blood. You tamed a dragon, you who is merely a falcon, but you used your talons on him, you learned how to scratch and bite where he wanted, where he needed. His duty became a want, a want to be with you, to share your warmth. And then it became a need, he needed to be beside you, to be inside you, to hold you, to caress you, to hear your breathless gasps underneath him and to see you smile, and for you to seek him out in every crowded room.
He needs you like how a man needs air.
And yet, your eyes gazes into those dark stormy pools of the stormlord like you need him. Like he is the one you married not the man who stands beside his grandsire’s table like a lovelorn fool. He is a prince of the blood, he is the blood of the dragon, a descendant of great warriors and dragon riders. And his heart breaks for a falcon amidst the feast.
Your tender eyes shine underneath the candle lights, palm brushing along Lyonel’s cheek with longing. Aerion’s feet moves before he could think. His strides are long and quick, a man honed in on the pair in the middle of the dancing crowd as he pushes people out of the way. Some part for him when they see the intense look on his face, most scramble with their heads down the moment they hear his loud footfalls, already familiar with the sound that reverberates through the Red Keep.
“My, you two are awfully close.” Aerion keeps his wits beside him, he is furious, and he wants to unsheathe his dagger and plunge the blade right into Lyonel’s neck. But that would start a war, and he is surrounded by the stag’s bannermen, he would be ripped to shreds by the stormlanders before he could have the pleasure of seeing Lyonel’s blood trickle out of his opened flesh. His hand rests upon the handle of his dagger, brow raised, trying to act casual despite his hot red rage thumping inside his ribcage. His eyes are still locked on the contact between Lyonel’s fingers and your skin and you are awfully aware of that fact. “There are other people around, Baratheon. Comport yourself.”
“Aerion.” You startle, fingers unfurling around Lyonel’s hand that he refuses to completely let go as he still holds onto your fingers. “We’re…” you clear your throat, trying to coax a smile out of you as you feel the heavy tension between the two men that are staring at each other like two hunters between the only doe in the whole godswood. “We’re just dancing. This is—”
“I know who he is, my love. He’s in my keep.” His purple eyes keep glancing at Lyonel’s hand that still grasps onto you. He hasn’t raised his voice, and it’s much more terrifying than a yell from his throat. “And he is holding onto my wife.”
Lyonel has the audacity to smile, a smile that annoys the prince to no end. He has only seen glimpses of the Laughing Storm during the Ashford tourney, but his loud boisterous laugh can always be heard throughout the meadow. Aerion wants to cut out that laugh right from his throat.
“All in good fun, my prince.” Lyonel utters his title with hidden disdain, as his hands let go of you, now put up beside his head in mock surrender. “We were talking about the tourney where we met, did we not, my sweet?”
‘My sweet,’ Aerion would cut a lowly man for that if they had spoken to you in that very same manner, in that same tender tone and sweetened gaze. But Lyonel isn’t some stable boy or a hedge knight, he is a Lord paramount, a warrior just like himself.
You gulp down the lump in your throat, eyes flicking between the two men. “That we did.” Lyonel stands a foot taller than Aerion, but if looks could kill, Lyonel would’ve keeled over by now. Their egos clash like lightning against flames. “We were reconnecting, husband, you need not worry.”
Aerion’s steely gaze doesn’t leave the older man’s face. “Come, my love, you look tired.” His eyes turn to you, snatching your hand, fingers immediately weaving around your own possessively. “You must rest, remember what the maester said, hm?”
The prince could see Lyonel’s head tilt curiously from his words right in his peripheral.
Your brows furrow. “And what exactly did he say?” Chortling, you laugh easily, you are no stranger to Aerion’s teasing, nor his manipulation through his words. You just know that his next words would be vengeful but it would just bounce off of you like a pebble against armour like always.
“That the babe, our babe in your belly,” his palm holds onto your stomach, his warmth ebbing from him, searing hot, trying to burn through your gown. “requires you to sit and lay. Not to galavant around like an unmarried maiden.”
Blinking at him, your brows rise to your hairline, shock marring your face with a chuckle in your throat. “The what—” You expected him to spit venom at you and Lyonel, not this. Not an awful lie that gives you an answer to your indecision. Your husband just made it easier to decide.
“My sincere…congratulations.” Lyonel utters through his clenched teeth, monotone, reined in. His eyes turns to you, immediately softening. Aerion knows that look— pity. “I shall leave you be, princess, you must rest. And…” he steps closer, a thumb right on your wrist as you two share a look that Aerion isn’t privy to but wishes he was. “Remember what I told you, hm?” Taking your hand in his, he presses a kiss on your knuckles as his gaze never leaves yours. “My Lady Arryn.”
“My Lord Baratheon…” you answer breathlessly. Watching him leave and disappear into the crowd, taking the remaining air along with him.
My, the simple word shouldn’t get to the prince, it shouldn’t bash right at his chest and break his ribcage into pieces. But it has, you’ve taken his heart in your fist and threw it on the ground, stomping right on it even when it still sings your name. He should be yours and you should be his. But that word, ‘my Lord Baratheon,’ Aerion thinks you were never his to begin with. That you are a stag’s doe, not a dragon’s wife.
Aerion’s heart is shattered by his feet, he wants to take the sharp shards and cut you and himself so you would know the exact pain of seeing you look at someone else with love. He should be the only recipient of that, not some storm Lord that you happen to chance upon before you met him. He will take you to the grave with him if that’s what it takes.
“Come.” Tugging you away, taking your attention away from Lyonel, he leads you outside and into the dim gardens. Your heels clack against the stone, trying to catch up to his longer strides.
The weirwood tree stands tall before him, the wood is stark white, leaves as red as blood as the carved face bleeds crimson onto its bark. Crickets sing, fireflies light the way and the flowers are in full bloom just the way you like it. He knows you love the godswood for its flowers, and sometimes he would join you in your strolls or he would lay upon your lap as you read beside flower bushes, tucked in between the flowers, looking like the maiden of his dreams. But you seem to have come out of his nightmare as you let go of his hand like he burned you with his touch.
“What is wrong with you, Aerion?” You stand underneath the moonlight in his Targaryen colours, looking at him with disgust, not with love. “You embarrassed me, you embarrassed yourself! I have told you, I am not with child—!”
His blade is suddenly in his hand, the sound of it unsheathing stops you in your tracks as he stares at the dagger.
“Are you going to fucking kill me?” You say it calmly, too calmly, as if you have anticipated it long ago. “Try me, Aerion, you know I could hold out my own.” Dress hitched up to your thigh, you show him your own blade tucked into your garter. “I might get that sparring match I’ve always wanted.”
“Do you think of me so cruel that I would hurt you?” His purple eyes are darker here, not even the moonlight could illuminate it. The lingering adrenaline from a fight he didn’t get to have swirls in his belly like wildfire. “That I could kill you? My own wife?”
“You are capable of it.” You spit out with venom on your tongue. “I’ve seen it, Aerion, the cruelty you hide behind those eyes. The cruelty you hide from your father, from your uncles and grandsire. I saw it,” you nod, teeth bared at him. “I saw it when you dismissed Juniper and Andros, I saw it when you broke that poor stable boy’s arm for looking at me too long. I saw it when you plunged a blade into a merchant’s hand when his palm brushed along my own innocently.” Your tone shakes, but you don’t waver. “I saw it during our coupling, the first one on our wedding night. I do not doubt that you are capable of killing your own wife.”
“I could not,” his voice is awfully tender. “This is for him.” Dagger raised, he points at the great hall through the closed doors. “I will cut him, I shall cut him for how he touched you—”
“Gods be good! We were dancing!” Heaving, you step closer, dress still hitched up in case he strikes. “You would know where the hands would be if you actually danced with me!”
“Would you prefer if I danced with you?” There’s a child-like wonder in his tone, as if he discovered something new. As if dancing with you will fix everything.
“Gods!” Groaning against your hand, you stomp towards the weirwood, hand braced on its trunk as you slouch beside it, eyes tightly closed, repressing the want to stab him in the abdomen. “You are far too late for that, Aerion.”
“No, I’m not.” The dagger dangles in between his fingers by his side, his intense gaze burns a hole through the skirt of your gown. “We’ve been married a year, we could still—”
“What brought this on?” You whirl in his direction, exasperated. “Is this about our conversation before? That I might be barren?” You stop him from answering with a hand up as you continue. “Aerion, if you want a child so badly then annul our marriage. It is obvious that it will not bear fruit, nor will it ever be. Marry someone else, someone who could give you children.”
“But I do not want someone else!” Blade raised, he closes the distance over to you as you take a step back, your back hitting the rough bark of the weirwood. He notices, and he immediately puts his dagger down. “I want you, is that so hard to believe?”
“You do not love like everyone else, Aerion. So yes, it is hard to believe so.”
“And you know how it’s supposed to be? Like how you think the storm bastard loves you, hm?” He steps closer, making you back away further against the tree. “Does he love you, Lady Arryn?” The title is said with disdain. “Do you love him? Is that it? How you know what love looks like. How it should be?”
“We were dancing!”
“So you say! Do not play me for a fool.” His sword calloused palm pushes your shoulder into the wood, nails digging in. “I’ve seen your face while you were with him, and you do not look at me like that, your husband, someone who is supposed to be the object of your love.”
“Does this look like love to you?” The words tumble out of your mouth, filled with cotton that suffocates your throat.
Aerion notices the position, his hand grasping onto your shoulder as if you’re going to fade, nails digging into the silk of your gown, pushing you harshly into the rough wood that will surely leave indents on the skin of your back.
He lets go, guilt marring his sharp features. “I… is it so awful to be with me?” Stepping back, he sheathes the dagger that drips with the red sap of the weirwood tree. He just now noticed that he sliced a part of it open out of his own anger. He’s just glad it wasn’t your flesh as the sap drips onto your fingers, staining your skin crimson.
“I do not love you as you love me, if that is the answer you are looking for.”
You don’t wield a dagger in your hand and yet your words have the same effect of a blade striking him down, cutting his throat.
“I married you because I had no choice in the matter.” Voice softening, the sticky sap coats your hand, crimson dripping from your fingers. You are sure that Aerion has done some transgression against the old gods for what he did. “Just like you had. This is duty, Aerion, I have a duty to you, to my house, to my father. We tried, many times, and it still hasn’t borne fruit. It may never happen.”
“It will. Someday, it will. You will give me a dragon. And you will love me as I love you.” He says determinedly, taking a step forward as you don’t back down this time around, continuing to stare him down. “I could wait, I can wait.”
“You can’t,” you walk closer, a hand reaching for his cheek. “I know you, Aerion, you are impatient.” He leans against your warmth, heat seeking, breathing you in. You smell more like the weirwood than yourself, like the earth he will soon return to if you leave him. “This love of yours will wane, and you will discard me once I am old and withered, once no one else will take me.”
“It won’t.” Shaking his head, he holds onto your waist, trying to keep you from walking away. “It won’t wane.”
Your eyes soften, a small smile appearing on your moonlit face. “If you truly love me annul our marriage. Let me go.”
“So you could marry him?” His once soft purple eyes turn heavy and narrowed.
“Yes.” You answer without delay.
Aerion flinches and pulls away from you. “Then I should kill him.”
“You’ll lose.” You’re so sure of yourself as your hands tucks in front of you, the sap sticking to your reddened palms. “You’re a great fighter, but Lyonel is better. He will kill you.”
“Then I shall kill you instead.”
“You’ll only be proving me right, husband.” You don’t move to retrieve your dagger, staring him down over your nose as you stand there rooted like the weirwood. “I am right here.” Arms raised to your sides, you taunt him underneath the moonlight. “But I’ll maim you before I draw my last breath. I will kick and scream and draw my blade against you and cut off your manhood so you will never have your precious dragon.”
Heaving, teeth grating, Aerion’s whole body trembles with rolling fury. He stares at you with disbelief and hurt, before twisting around and going further into the gardens and out of the walled keep lest he takes his dagger and plunges it right into your heart.
—
Aerion doesn’t know how long he has been walking around the woods, but the grass around him has turned thick and tall, brushing along his hips as he trudges around aimlessly. The dappled moonlight through the tree branches lights his way, and the incessant chirping of crickets irks him. But he’d rather not be back in the castle, moreso in the shared chambers where you would be, where your scent lingers in every crevice of the room.
He is afraid of losing you, of accidentally taking his dagger to your neck and slicing you open. He cannot risk the possibility of harming you, the thought alone turns his insides sour. He is afraid that you are right, that he is capable of killing you. His love for you may not be as pure and saccharine as Lyonel’s love for you, but it is love. His love, so why isn’t that enough for you?
The scent of incense wafts in his nose, akin to the heady scent from the Sept, an earthy smoke that billows a few ways ahead from his right as it wisps into the chilly night air. Aerion’s chest flares with the buried fury, he wants to hurt, to cut something, to cut someone just to let it all out and come back home to you calmly, ready to settle beside your warmth in the shared bed.
His footfalls crunches underneath dry leaves as he crosses the distance, dagger in hand, cutting down the vines in his way. Then he spots it, a tiny cottage no bigger than a carriage, old and dilapidated, lopsided and tilting on its side, threatening to keel over right on the moss covered ground.
The scent is stronger now that he is closer, there is a ring of mushrooms growing around the area, small brown caps all lined in a circle, as if shielding the cottage.
Aerion’s eyes narrows at the door, violence calls for him, whoever is through that door will be the recipient of his fury rather than you or the stormlord.
He steps over the mushrooms and continues to stalk towards the door quietly like a hunter. The door swings open before he could touch it, welcoming him gladly into the threshold.
Aerion enters, dagger clutched near his chest, letting his anger lead him inside.
The walls are covered in dried bundled herbs and animal furs, its scent is potent and lingers in the back of his throat. It’s all old wood, damp and bloated that is barely holding the whole structure. There’s a bubbling iron cauldron in the middle of the room, its contents is bright green, akin to wildfire as it warms the whole cottage. Except for a chair and a shelf littered with various vials, it’s sparsely decorated. Aerion’s nose scrunches with disgust.
“We’ve been expecting you, my prince.” A voice echoes from behind as the door closes with a creak.
Aerion whirls around, chest heaving as he points the sharp end of the dagger at a woman draped in darkness. “You are far too close to the castle, you trespass in our woods, witch.”
She smiles crookedly, the moonlight shining on half of her face. “Or is it you who trespass onto our land, Targaryen?”
Scoffing, the prince smiles, not unlike the smile he gives you, but a wicked one, a dangerous one. “It’s unfortunate that I ran into you, wretch.”
He raises his dagger, striking right at her but he hits nothing but air.
Aerion looks at the clean blade curiously when it's supposed to be coated with thick warm crimson. “What—?”
“You do not want that, Aerion.” For a moment she sounded like you, he expected to see you when he turns around on his heel but he sees the woods witch instead, still cloaked in darkness. “Tell me, you wish for something. I know you do, men always want.”
“I do not want anything.” He utters through clenched teeth.
“Yes, you do. Why do you lie to yourself?”
“If I do, no one in the realm can grant it, except for this.” He throws the dagger right at her, hitting her dead in her chest, right in the heart. Aerion smirks victoriously, but she doesn’t bleed nor keel over, she stands there, as still as a rock. “What in the seven hells—”
“The seven aren’t here.” She mutters, taking the blade from her heart with a squelch of flesh. She twists it around her palm, handing it back to him casually. “Tell me what you want.”
He swallows thickly, staring right at her, never letting his eyes wander away from the witch. “Why aren’t you dead?”
“Why aren’t you in Lys when you should be? Why isn’t the falcon with the stag when they should be together? Why does the hammer still stand tall and breathe when he isn’t supposed to be?”
“Stop speaking in riddles, witch.”
“Take the dagger.” Her words are spoken through different voices, simultaneously uttering it.
His eyes glances at the blade with hidden trepidation. Aerion reaches for his dagger as it dangles from her fingertips above the bubbling cauldron. He takes it, the blade slicing her palm open as blood drips onto the pot, mixing with the emerald waters. She bleeds, Aerion knows that she is human, or at least when she wants to be.
“Who are you?” He asks, dagger in hand, looking at the clean blade when it’s supposed to be bloodied.
“I am no one, but you are someone.” She mumbles, swiping a thumb over her opened palm. “I shall grant you your wish if you grant me mine.”
Aerion scoffs loudly, a laugh from the deepest depths of his chest. “I? I grant you your wish? A prince does not give out charity.”
“It’s an equivalent exchange.” Her tone lilts playfully. “Especially if it means that your wife would love you as you love her.”
Her words give him pause, the crooked smile faltering. “What do you mean?”
“If you give me a drop of your own blood, your king’s blood, I shall grant you the love you deserve.” She steps forward into the light, she looks old and young at the same time, her face shifting with every bubble popping from the cauldron. Her long raven hair drapes around her, the ends brushing along the ground as she moves.
“You are mad.”
“Not as mad as you, Brightflame.” Her hand extends forward, it’s wrinkled and old above the pot. “Just a drop of blood for the love you want. She will be yours, and you will be hers. Most of all, she will give you a dragon. Its wings will be mighty, soaring above the seven kingdoms, conquering the whole realm under your banner.”
He could just picture it, a trueborn prince, a mix of his Targaryen features and yours, a result of his love for you, a great warrior that he can mold into a vision of himself. His son will be as mighty as Aegon the conqueror himself. And then there’s you, your eyes will never wander ever again, your hands will forever hold him tenderly, and you would love him, your husband for forever and a day. Just like how it is supposed to be.
Aerion holds his head up high, chest puffed as he looks at the strange woman over his nose. “What do I need to do?”
“Blood for the old gods.” She smiles wickedly, her fingers stretching, reaching out for his own. “Just a drop will do, a drop and all your wishes will come true.” Aerion places his palm above the woman’s hand. “Won’t that be nice, Aerion?” Your voice can be heard from her lips again, he’s taken aback when he hears it as clear as day. Before he could take his hand away, the witch seizes his wrist, pricks his finger with her nail and lets his blood drip onto the cauldron. It turns blood red immediately. “We thank you for the equivalent exchange.”
Aerion snatches his hand away, staring at the small bead of blood right on his forefinger. “What now? Is it done?”
“No, not yet.” Her tone returns, and she procures a small twig from her pockets. “Say your wish and snap the weirwood in two.”
“What?” He scoffs out a laugh. “I am not an idiot.”
Huffing, she sucks in her teeth. “Take it or don’t. It doesn’t matter to me when you have already given me your blood.”
Aerion licks his lips and takes the twig. “This better work or I will come back here and turn your home into a pile of ashes.”
“It will work.” She sounds certain. “Go to your Lady love before it’s too late.”
“What do you mean?” The wood feels rough against his palm.
Her eyes crinkled in the corners, grinning at him crookedly. “The stag has his sights on your falcon.”
That raging fury finds its way into Aerion’s heart again. “That fucking bastard!” He kicks the door open as he stomps away, the cottage and the scent fading from behind.
When he looks over his shoulder to see it, it’s gone, vanished, as if it was never there. The twig sits heavier in his pocket with every footstep.
—
Aerion could just tell it was you whispering in the corridors. He could always tell with you, from the sound of your footsteps to the smell of your perfume, he knows it’s you.
He lurks behind the corner, listening to you whisper to your handmaiden. He hears a few sparse words, ‘hour’, ‘cannot tarry,’ ‘cloak,’ and that bastard’s name, said in your sweetened tone that he thought was only reserved just for him.
Aerion was thinking of you the whole trek back to the keep. He thought of not breaking the wood in half when he is certain that you still love him, when he’s still the only one in your heart. That maybe, just maybe, he’s just seeing things, that his jealousy was just that, jealousy. That you really were just dancing with him, that you still love your husband with your whole heart. But now as he listens to you plot your escape with the Lord of Storm’s End, he takes the wood from his pocket and holds it with two hands.
“I wish that my wife loves me more than anyone else in the whole realm.” Aerion mutters in the dark, snapping the twig in half.
You’re suddenly silent, the whispering ceases.
“M’lady?” The handmaiden calls you in a hushed tone, asking if you are well.
Aerion could hear you tell her that you are quite alright despite the maid’s protests. The conversation ends when the chamber doors shut with a click.
Footfalls echo from the handmaiden as she leaves with more thoughts than before, and Aerion slips from the darkness, glaring at the girl’s back before heading inside.
He shuts the door closed behind him quietly, and he sees you standing there cloaked in the darkness of the shared chambers, as still as a fallen tree, as quiet as a mouse. The hearth is dead, cold with the entire room freezing.
Aerion says your name as your eyes glimmer. “Are you feeling well?”
He sees the outline of your smile. “Why wouldn’t I be, my love?”
“Aren’t you cold?” His breath hitches in his throat, eyes never leaving your form.
“No, now that you’re here I’m warm.” Your arms open for him. “Come, I need you, husband.”
“Don’t you love Lyonel?” He tests you, jaw tight as his hands flexes at his sides.
A beat passes, a breath, a mere eerie second as you stand there idly.
Aerion watches you closely, like a bug he found underneath a stone.
You step forward, or more like slide your foot on the carpet, sliding one foot next to the other, shuffling closer to him as the sound of scraping feet against fabric echoes in the chamber.
Your bare feet kisses the tip of his boots, and he could finally see your face draped in the dark, your silhouette unmistakable even in the dim light, eyes shining like two diamonds in your eye sockets.
“Why would I love a mere stag when I’ve got a dragon all to myself?”
It worked, or he is truly mad to think that it worked. Mayhaps you snapped back to reality, back to your old self as you cradle his cheek in your palm that still smells like the acrid weirwood sap. The tips of your fingers are still stained red as your thumb traces along his jawline tenderly. Aerion rests against your hold, heart beating rapidly.
“You smell good.” You utter, closing the distance, pressing your nose against the hinge of his jaw and just breathe. You breathe him in, inhaling his scent as your nose grazes his skin. “Gods, you feel good.”
“I need to see you in the light.” He whispers against the shell of your ear, hands cupping your hips in an almost bruising hold. “Do you love me?”
“More than anyone in the whole realm.”
His heart quickens at your confession.
You take his earlobe in between your teeth and nibble, the sensation running through him as he gasps and takes the back of your knees, holding you up as you wrap your legs around him. He carries you over to the plush bed, and drops you off onto the mattress. Your legs are immediately hooked around him, pulling him in between your thighs. The moonlight shines on you, and Aerion sees the love in your eyes, love that is aimed at him, and only him.
Aerion falls atop you, hands braced on the side of your head. “Gods…” it worked.
“Let me give you a dragon, my love. Please let me carry our own prince.” You plead, pawing at his doublet, trying to untie the laces in your trembling fingers.
He seizes your fumbling wrist as he pants over you, eyes blown, lips agape. “Promise me you won’t leave me.”
Your brows furrows, head tilted like you just saw a kitten wandering around the keep, cooing at him as you take his face in your hands. “I will never leave you. You are my great love, Aerion.”
A relieved smile appears on his face. “That is all I needed to hear.”
—
The sun basks around the chamber, illuminating your sleeping face as Aerion draws Valyrian runes on your arm, over the silk of your chemise. You’re wrapped around him, legs over his own, arms embracing him like you’re trying to meld together with your husband. You sleep soundly, eyes moving underneath your eyelids as he watches you with love in his tender eyes.
This is all he wanted.
The birds chirp outside amidst the sound of hooves in the courtyard and of men and women waking up throughout the Red Keep.
His index draws the Valyrian rune for love upon your skin, then a rune for protection and a rune for fertility. You awaken at the last rune, eyes fluttering open, immediately smiling at him.
“Good morrow, husband.” Your knuckles dance along his bare chest, caressing lovingly.
“Wife, you fell asleep whilst I was undressing.” He mirrors your smile.
“My apologies, the night caught up to me I suppose.” Lifting yourself up by your elbows, you move to straddle him, hands braced atop his chest. “But I’m well rested now—” Your face goes completely still. Eyes flicking from his face, to the bed, then over to the rising sun outside the window. “What the fuck!” Flinching, you fall from the bed, frantically getting up, crawling away from him with fear in your eyes. “How— what?!” You scream in horror. Heaving, eyes watering, lips wobbling as you stare at him with confusion. “What did you do to me?!”
“What happened?!” Aerion has his hands up, trying to calm you down. “My love, are you alright?”
“You fucking—” you were about to lunge at him before you went still again, comporting yourself as the smile returns. The look of sheer terror gone in a blink. “Oh, do you want to break fast?”
“What in the seven hells was that?!” Aerion marches over to you, gripping onto your shoulders. “What happened?”
“I’m sorry,” you’re doing that face again, that pitying look, that sorry, frowning look that makes you look less like you. “I thought I was still dreaming. I had a nightmare.” Hand on his cheek, you hold him. “Did I scare you? I’m sorry, oh, I’m so sorry, my love.” Cheek pressed against the crook of his neck, you embrace him tightly.
Aerion’s hands hover over you before returning the embrace. “It’s alright, you were confused, it was just confusion.”
“Forgive me.” You mutter against his skin, right on the hinge of his jaw. “Will you ever forgive me, my prince?”
“Of course, always.” Pecking your temple, he lets his kiss linger.
—
Aerion watches you reject Lyonel right in the courtyard. He’s leaning against the balcony, smirking to himself.
The Baratheon sigil flutters against the wind, the caravan is about to depart for Storm’s End, and their liege Lord is trying to coax you into coming with him. Aerion could only laugh at himself when you slap Lyonel’s hand away with a disgusted grimace. He sees the exact moment you break his heart.
He could only hear snippets of the conversation, Lyonel is confused, asking what happened to you, why all of a sudden you did not want him, why you are suddenly so fixated on the prince rather than on him. Aerion was right, you were trying to leave with the laughing storm, to become his Lady wife instead of a princess. He made the wish just in time, he made the right call.
“I can’t.” You’re shaking your head at Lyonel, turning your back on him. “Goodbye, Lord Baratheon.”
Aerion knows that look on his face, it was the same look he had when he saw you dance with Lyonel, and now he is feeling the same heartbreak he caused himself.
Hitching your dress up, you walk up the steps to the balcony whilst Lyonel turns his attention away from you over to Aerion. His ire, his fury is aimed right at him. He knows, the man knows he has done something to you. Did his love for you run that thick for him to question why you suddenly had a change of heart?
“My love,” you call for him, a hand upon his bicep. “Shall we go?”
“I thought you needed to do something important?” He teases, testing the waters.
“Nothing is important here anymore.” You give him a smile and a peck to his shoulder. “Come, our bed awaits us.”
—
A moon has passed and your love hasn’t waned, not even a little as he always wakes up to you peppering his face with kisses. The wish or what Aerion thinks is a spell is working well in his favour. You have never left his side, even during training at the yard where you’d be sitting atop a crate, watching him train with a sword whilst you smile at him the whole time. And in the shared chambers you never protested when he would lie on your lap with your fingers raking through his hair. It was those slow languid mornings he savoured every minute of.
You are completely spellbound.
Aerion would think that your increased presence would become vexing but it hasn’t, he’s enjoying every minute of your unbridled attention. He relished in it, your kisses, your touch, every saccharine words whispered in his ear as you gasped breathlessly atop him whilst during marital duties that isn’t a duty any longer, it has become a need for you as much as he wanted it too.
He should grant the witch a plot of land for what she has done for him. Especially when it did not take time for the seed to sprout, the maester announced your quickening on a warm sunny day, a day he will never forget. He could still feel the elation he felt from the news, and he could picture in his mind how a smile split your face open, jumping to hold him.
The news brought on great tidings from his family and from the nobles of the court. All except for a certain Lord in the Stormlands, whom he has heard isn’t doing quite well with the news. When he told you of the whispers about Lyonel, your face stilled in that eerie way he hates. A tear slid down your face before returning back to your smiling self, as if nothing happened, the only indication was the tears trapped inside your eyes as you told him that you did not care for him at all.
Gifts were brought to the shared chambers every day, from blankets embroidered with both Arryn and Targaryen sigils, to silver rattles and carved wooden dragons, the babe was already spoiled before he could come out of your womb. Aerion even gifted you a golden necklace with two dragons dancing together on a heart shaped pendant. You hugged him so tightly that you took the air right from his lungs, refusing to let him go that he had to push you away. You did that deep frown right after, walking backwards into the corner of the room unnervingly, heaving angrily at him until he had to placate you sweetly.
You’re always holding onto your stomach, if not there then around Aerion’s arm or hand. The maester examines you every night per the prince’s instructions, and he had said time and time again that you and the babe were fine. But despite that, Aerion has gone increasingly paranoid, that someone is going to take you, that something will happen to the babe. That Lyonel would take you in your sleep and proclaim you his.
You would always calm him down, holding him beside you as you grasp at his hand that rests atop your blossoming stomach. You have told him that you cannot wait to see him, to hold your son in your arms and to find out if he resembles a dragon or more of a falcon. Aerion is the same, he wants to meet the conqueror reborn. But the excitement for you is much more intense, on some days he would see you standing in front of the looking glass, caressing your stomach, eyes unmoving on the reflection.
You were never left alone for too long, there was once that Aerion had to leave for the whole day to attend to some river Lord he did not care for. You pleaded to join him, but in the end he had to placate you with a kiss and a promise to return as quick as possible. When he returned to the chambers, he saw you standing in the same place, still in your nightgown, and smelt like Flea Bottom. You were standing atop your own excrement, and Aerion felt like the wind got knocked out of him when he saw the state you were in. He had to call for the servants and berate them for leaving you like that whilst he scrubbed you in the tub. All they had to say was that you did not want to leave because he had asked you to stay where you were. And that you had screamed at them like you were being cleaved in half.
More moons go by and you grow increasingly odd, especially after your fourth moon of carrying his son. You grew antsy and impatient as your belly ballooned, always citing that you want to meet your son, you are far too eager to meet him. Too intense that it's frightening to see you with a knife. Aerion would calm you, telling you softly that the babe needs time to grow strong. The maester called it a woman’s sickness that most expecting mothers went through, and that it is normal and would soon wane when the child is born. But Aerion knows better, he knows that you sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, screaming and crying at your belly, yelling at him, asking him what he has done to you before your face stills again, smiling, acting like nothing happened.
You never left the room, you always stared at the fire like your insides were freezing. You had your moments, the sudden stillness, the sudden weeping and crying out to be let go when you are free to roam around the keep. As quick as it came, that oddness faded, and you’re back to kissing him and sharing his bed. Those moments outweighed the oddities, especially when you would always go back to loving him, to being his beloved wife.
Aerion is happy, this is all he ever wanted. Or so he keeps telling himself every time you wake with a scream and cursing his name.
On the night of your sixth moon carrying his son, he wakes up to a squelch of tearing flesh and blood. Your side of the bed is empty, your perfume lingering on the pillow.
The room is warm, too warm, scorching hot as he sweats through the blankets. Your name falls from his lips, calling for you in increasing volume and panic.
Then he hears it amidst the roar of the fireplace and cracking wood— a hum, a song that he taught you to sing to the babe in your belly, an old Valyrian lullaby.
“My love?” Flinging the blankets away, he walks closer to you as you sit in front of the fireplace, your silhouette is unmistakable whilst you sway to the song you’re humming. Your thin chemise sticks to your sweaty skin, hair mused. “What—?” He smells it, it wafts in the air like your perfume— blood. Dread gnaws at his insides. Going around the settee, he steps onto a puddle, crimson sticks at the bottom of his bare feet, your own blood flowing from underneath you, pooled around you.
Aerion has never felt fear like this before.
The crooning stops abruptly, body stilling completely. “I couldn’t wait to meet him.”
“What have you done?” His voice trembles around the edges.
Your head turns slowly to him, face illuminated by the flames, arms cradling a bundle of bloody blankets with dragons and falcons soaring together.
“Oh, he’s beautiful, Aerion. Do you want to see him?” You smile weakly, trembling, colour drained. Twisting around on the carpet, tracking blood on the Targaryen fabric, you face him fully.
Aerion flinches away, back hitting the end of your vanity as he sees your belly cleaved open, insides pouring out and your own bloodied dagger laying beside your feet.
His vision blurs, eyes turning to the bundle as your trembling hand moves the blankets away to show him his son. His babe, his boy has scales instead of skin. Eyes completely shut, undeveloped on his face, wings half grown from his back, and a tail protruding from the small of his back, curved around his torso, melted across his scaly chest.
This is not his son.
“Look, he’s got your hair.” Your finger brushes along its head of silver. You laugh, a weak and awful laugh more akin to a death knell.
“What— why did you do that?” Aerion lunges, hands grasping onto your cold shoulders in a bruising hold.
Your tearful eyes look into his purple terrified eyes. “I bore you a dragon.”
The "reblog if your account is safe for LGBTQIA+ people, black people, immigrants, etc" posts are good but I think we need a bit more hate in the world, I'll start
Reblog this if your account is NOT safe for racists, homophobes, misogynists, transphobes, biphobes, anti-immigration people, pro-capitalists, TERFs, lesbophobes, aphobes, Trump supporters, bigots, or J.K. Rowling
Synopsis: After days of wandering around, you and Bobby are much closer to the exit than you thought. But something doesn’t want you getting out.
Tags: No use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader except for clothing, reader has nicknames, CW blood and injury, CW food mentions, CW unsolicited touching (not from Bobby), CW dark themes. CW recreational drug use. Eventual Bobby romance, slow burn, Part 4 of my Bobby series. Set during the movie (spoilers)
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Bobby Franklin Masterlist
Part 3 <<< Part 4 >>> Part 5
The walls don’t hum here. It doesn’t let out that strange warm frequency that eases you. The walls here are dark with peeling paint. There are faded murals on the walls, some depict child-like story book fantasies, the big bad wolf, little red riding hood, Jack and the beanstalk, and painted woodland creatures all decorate the peeling colourful walls. It’s like you two walked out of the pool rooms and into a foreclosed building that used to be a daycare that now has black mold growing on the walls.
You and Bobby waded through knee deep water for days that drenched your shoes and socks and made you two smell like chlorine like after a day out at the public pool, limbs still wobbly from the waves. The area was almost never ending. You two have lost count of the days spent here, it could just be two or maybe three days, or it could be more than that. You slept on lounge chairs whilst he watched over the perimeter with sunken tired eyes. He always lets you sleep a couple more hours than intended like you do for him, a wordless decision that you both adhere to. The food isn’t as scarce, sometimes they appear out of nowhere, placed by the doorway where you’re about to go through, or bottles of almond water resting beside a sunken beach umbrella. You and Bobby don’t starve nor get thirsty. It’s a mystery that you both stopped questioning.
There were twirly colourful slides that led to somewhere and nowhere that are placed here and there, it’s the one place you and Bobby would never dare go into even if you two are being chased by an entity.
The places you walked through had weird architecture like the yellow offices, stairs leading to nowhere or going down into a void, random platforms, half walls in the middle of a pool, pools with wooden decks, and some had waters as green as algae right next to purple waters. It gave you a headache, but Bobby was enthralled by it, admiring the tiled arches and trippy pools that he muttered to himself about wanting to take pictures of it. You wish your phone still worked so he could take snapshots, you wanted to see how he views the place from his perspective.
Compared to the pool rooms, this place is more akin to reality that it’s incredibly odd. Every step has to be careful so that you don’t accidentally step on shattered glass. And the place is awfully cramped and dirty with scattered broken down furniture and trash. It’s a maze here, you’ve been wandering around with Bobby for an hour or two as the flame on his lighter illuminates the way. Your jeans are still damp from the pools, and he still smells like chlorine, your socks feel disgusting as it squishes with every step.
You’ve stumbled a few times, apparently more than enough times that Bobby has resorted to tugging you to his side and holds onto the hem of your jacket to keep you from face planting on the dirty ground. His warmth beside you is a welcome reprieve from the awful place you two are exploring. Bobby is a good alternative to the warm song of the walls, helping keep your mind quiet.
“Where is that fucking yellow wallpaper. I can’t believe I want to see it again.” He mutters to himself, quiet and yet echoing around the hallway. “This place is fucked, it’s like an old pre-school.”
“Every place here is fucked.” You answer, sniffing the still air that smells perpetually like drying paint. “D’you want to retrace our steps and go back to the pool room?”
Tugging you away from the edge of a random desk in the middle of the corridor, Bobby shakes his head. “No, we’ll get there eventually. I’d rather not go through the demonic doggy door. I swear I heard something move in there.”
“Demonic doggy door?” You stifle a chuckle, swallowing your laughter. The tension between you two still weighs heavy, lingering in the middle like a third person.
“Yeah, that’s what it looked like.” Bobby shines his light into a room, scanning the emptiness before moving forward. He does this unconsciously now, already so used to looking over his shoulder with his head on a swivel and eyes alert. This place has that effect on the ones that wander through its halls. “Have you been anywhere else than the yellow wallpaper rooms?”
“There was one time I fell into a really long hallway with flashing red lights.”
You answer him because you want to mend the heaviness between the two of you. Because you want to do better, just like he said, for the team. Kat’s supposed rescue team, what else is there to rescue when her remains could be scattered around? Maybe her other hand could be laying beside the rubble of this place. It’s horrid to think about her like that, but you can’t help but wonder where the rest of her are. Is it with Clark? Did the pirate eat her? Or worse, there must be a worse fate in this place, you saw it when the wall started absorbing you.
What happened to you in that bathroom doesn’t linger in the pit of your stomach, in fact it opens more questions for you rather than horror when it should be horrifying for you. The arms that held you weren’t human, it was from this world that shouldn’t even exist in the first place. Even though the real person based on him is real and unaware of his copy here. You wonder why the backrooms even made a version of him when he was merely a blip in your life, a brief encounter on a random night. Does everyone who has been in the laundromat have a copy down here? If so, do you have a version of you here? But why would there be a mirror of your grandfather here when he has only existed in your memory?
“A long hallway like this?” Bobby gestures around him using the flame. The fuel is bound to run out, you just hope that you get somewhere lit when it does.
“No, it’s much longer like a never ending hospital hallway, I ran for what seemed to be for hours and there were… things running after me.” Your voice echoes as glass crunches underfoot.
“That sounds fucking great.” Sarcasm rolls off his tongue. “Like paradise, how’d you get out?”
“I just ran.”
Bobby flutters his lips, he seems to be far calmer than usual. Maybe because this place feels much more like reality than the other places you’ve been to. Although a dilapidated reality, it feels real, like if you two could just find the exit sign you’ll get out into the chilly night air and hear cars honking outside. Like a couple of urban explorers, not two people trying to survive the pits of mono yellow hell.
Bobby stops abruptly, and you almost stumble into a fallen shelf. “Like that?” He lifts the light into a room, he probably doesn’t need to when the red light emanating from the singular window on the far wall was enough to illuminate.
Through the glass are trees and even buildings, but instead of sunshine or moonlight, there is only blood red. Crimson skies, red clouds and a reddened sun. Bobby’s face is harsher under the red light, taut, pulled at the edges. Terrified.
Goosebumps rise on your arms. “No, not like that, but it was as red as that.”
“Yeah, fuck that.” His hand curls and uncurls into an unsure fist, a subtle tremble in his finger. Tugging you away, he guides you towards a corner, and you two almost fall into a deep chasm if not for you both holding onto each other. “Holy fuck!” The tips of Bobby’s shoes are on the edge of the void.
“Fuck…” holding onto the side, you peek around, only to see thousands of rooms missing a wall that are all stacked on top of each other, like an apartment building was cleaved into two, leaving a giant hole in the middle. “What now?”
“This place is fucked.” Bobby shudders a breath, shaking his head at the chasm.
You really want to feel the hum rumble through your bones again.
Bobby looks to the left, the chasm is as dim as the rest of the place you walked through, and he had to squint just to see a random set of stairs on his left that is rising up to the ceiling and leading up to a door, looking as if it’s held up by nothing.
“There.” He squeezes your jacket sleeve, taking your attention away from the deep end. “There’s a door up on the ceiling.”
“How do we get up there?” If you could just tilt a little bit forward you’ll fall. But with Bobby holding onto you, you’ll take him down with you. You don’t want that, nor desire that.
“There’s some space to walk on,” he points the light on the wall to his left where a sliver of the floor is there to be walked on. “we just need to hug the wall to get to the stairs.” He gulps down, hands suddenly clammy.
“Please don’t tell me that you’re afraid of heights.”
“I never liked skyscrapers.” Craning his neck, he gives you an apologetic look. “One team, right?”
You nod, moving your hand so you could bracelet around his wrist. Holding his hand feels like a betrayal. “I’m right here. I won’t let you fall. Tit for tat, teammate.” The casualness in your tone eases the tightness around his shoulders, albeit not enough.
“Okay.” Taking a sharp breath, Bobby slowly shimmies on the ledge and with his back sliding against the wall. “I shouldn’t have taken Clark’s money.”
“Keep talking, Bobby. And don’t look down.” You follow closely, squeezing his wrist gently to remind him that you’re still with him. “What did Clark say that was so convincing?” The height gives you vertigo, stomach doing flips.
Bobby breathes hard, heaving and keeping his head held high and his lighter lit. “He said it was for research, that he’ll pay us double.” His foot slips, and you drag him back, an arm over his chest, feeling his heart beat rapidly. “Fuck me!” Bobby instinctively took hold of you, fisting the collar of your jacket. “Shit, I almost—”
“Keep going, you’re doing great.” Patting his heart, Bobby trembles and blindly takes hold of your hand, weaving his fingers around your own out of his own fear.
“I’m sorry, is this okay?” His blue eyes are blown out, panicked, panting and grasping for air.
“Yeah, just keep going.” You reassure him with a small smile and a squeeze. “Tell me something else, nothing that’s related to Clark or this place.”
“Okay, uh…” Bobby slowly starts to move after your gentle coaxing. “Back in high school, I got in trouble for smoking behind the bleachers.”
“You were a real rebel, huh?”
“Not really, I just fucking hate algebra.” He chuckles bitterly, swallowing down the bile rising in his throat when he gets to the foot of the stairs. “I want to go home—fuck!” Yelling, he lets out his frustration out into the void, a hand rubbing at his contorted face. Head turning to you, his sad eyes bring a heart wrenching ache to your chest. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can, Bobby.” Your hand squeezes his once more despite the burn on your palm painfully aching under the bandages. “Come on, you made it this far. Just take one step at a time.”
“When we get out of here…” his eyes scan your face, maybe trying to find an ounce of fear in your expression, but he finds none. You’re acting braver than you are in front of him, but he doesn’t need to know that or need to see it. “I owe you dinner, or maybe a fucking blunt or two from my own stash.”
You can’t help but chortle, the sound dragged down by the void below. “I’ll take both actually.”
“You’re not scared of heights?” His trembling legs betray him as he stands frozen on the spot.
“No, I’m scared of falling. May I?” With a gentle hand, you grasp at his cheek, palm feeling at his sharp edges as you caress his skin gingerly like how one would calm a puppy. Your fingers run over the shell of his ear, jaw loosening, fingers grasping your own, Bobby’s breath staggers in his throat, maybe from your touch or the height, you may never know. “I won’t let you fall, Bobby.”
“That’s j–just another way of saying you’re scared of heights.” And yet the gentle coaxing works as he finds it in himself to lift his foot up on the first step. “Don’t fucking let me fall, hero.”
“I won’t.” If he does, if he missteps or staggers and free falls below, then you’d jump after him, isn’t that what heroes do? You take the lighter from him and light his way so his other hand is free to grasp onto a step. “Go, I’m right behind you.”
“Okay.” Slowly, he turns back to the hanging steps, taking it one second at a time. “Can you t–talk about something?” His legs shake underneath him but he continues, hand still holding onto yours.
“Like what?” You wait behind him patiently, shining the light as close as you could beside him without burning him.
“Anything, you in high school? Were–fuck my life—” he takes a pause to breathe, looking over his shoulder as you nod at him. “Were you in a club?” Bobby continues bravely, almost on all fours as he climbs up.
You’re forced to crouch behind him when he refuses to let go of your hand. “I was in a sewing club.”
“You fucking nerd.” He chuckles breathlessly, a bead of sweat dribbling on his temple that you could see clearly under the flame.
“Well it was the only club that was available when I took too long to choose.” Smiling despite the situation you’ve found yourself into, his nervous laugh got to you. “And my grandfather always said that it’s good to learn how to sew, to make and mend your own clothes.”
“He sounds like a practical man.” Bobby’s hand is clammy around your own, but you don’t mind when you still hold onto him. He doesn’t mention how willing you are to hold him now when you were averting his touch as much as you could before.
“He is.” Was, is, it doesn’t matter now when you’re stuck in this place. “He was one of those guys who thinks the world will end during their time.”
“Shit, like making a bunker type of doomsday prepper?” You two make it halfway there. And if you could just peek over, the vertigo alone will make you fall down.
“Kind of.” Your smile wavers at the conversation. “He liked to get away and not be cooped up underground.” His sailboat was his bunker, the words get stuck in your throat. “Anyway, we’re almost there, Bobby, keep going.”
Taking a breather, his forehead rests atop his arm and over a step. “Fuck me.” His unsteady palm meets the steady stair and bravely continues on. “W—were you in a clique back then? I could see you with the band nerds.”
You chortle under your breath, arm aching from the prolonged position. “No, I was mostly bouncing around different friend groups. Do I seem like the type to be in a band?”
“Yeah, l–like a xylophone player or a trumpet.” Voice croaking, Bobby inhales and exhales through his mouth.
“Just a few more steps.” Your thumb over the back of his hand kneads tenderly. “I’m flattered but I don’t even know how to play an instrument, any kind for that matter. I always wanted to learn though.”
“I can play the guitar!” He didn’t mean to exclaim but he was so surprised by finally making it to the top step, he had to let it out. His hand presses against the wood of the door, smiling up at it like a madman. “Holy fuck, we made it.”
You grin, for the first time in a long time, you smile widely, a genuine one, a wholehearted smile that when Bobby turns around to face you, he catches it too and a mirrored grin spreads across his handsome face. It’s a lopsided smile, deeply endearing that makes you smile even more, eyes crinkling in the corners, proud of him.
“You did it, Bobby.”
“Yeah, when we get out of here I’m teaching you how to play the guitar.”
“You have to push open the door first, Jimi Hendrix.”
“Now that’s a great fucking compliment.” With a wobbly smile, he pushes the door open, it falls from its hinges and clatters to the ground next to it as the yellow tinted lights shine down upon the two of you. “Fucking lucky.” Bobby’s face is illuminated, giving you a full view of his relieved expression.
He never thought smelling damp carpet and hearing the annoying droning of the lights would bring a smile to his face.
The song in the walls greets you in that familiar dissonance. It slithers up your spine and around your chest, holding you in its warmth like a man dying of thirst who finally found an oasis. It welcomes you back.
He lets go of your hand briefly to climb up, not missing a beat to immediately help you up the ledge with the same hand. His arms take hold of you, a half embrace, patting your back with bone crushing relief.
“You good, Bobby?” You’re in slight shock from the sudden embrace.
Nodding, his body still trembles from the aftershocks of his fear. “We’re never doing that again.”
“No arguments here.” You’re helped up by your feet, and he’s so close to you that you could smell the chlorine on his skin, that you could see your own reflection in his blue eyes like you’re drifting aimlessly on the surface of the water. You give him a faltering smile before moving away from his warmth.
As Bobby shuts the door so you don’t fall in, you freeze in place. It’s not the familiar yellow wallpaper or the hum that makes your limbs still, it’s what’s in front of you.
“Bobby?” His name twists around your tongue.
“Yeah?” You could still hear the smile on his face from his tone. “You hungry? I’m kind of hungry after that—” his shuddered breath rattles your ribcage. “— what the fuck.”
There, right in the middle of the room are telephone poles lined in a sequence, each sinking into the carpet. But it’s not the poles that strike right at your companion’s heart, it’s the posters nailed right on the wood. It’s all placed on each telephone pole, printed in black and white, a xerox copy of the original— his own missing poster.
Bobby takes a tentative step forward, eyes never leaving the poster. The pads of his fingers glide along the paper, tracing the words on it, tracing his own face then Kat’s printed face.
Grief cripples, it’s apparent on his face. But hope keeps you upright, helps you see and feel so much when that hope pops like a balloon and decays like a rotten fruit in your mouth when the bitter end comes, it kills. That’s what you’re giving him, false hope. It’s a noose that is slowly tightening around your neck. Hope could kill, it just delays the inevitable. You’re delaying the inevitable in hopes of Bobby getting out of here before the truth comes out. You don’t even need to get out with him, you could stay trapped here or die trying. You just want him to survive, for you to actually make all that fighting worth something. An equivalent exchange.
You stare at the posters, lips quivering when your eyes glances at her picture, then over to his photo, they’re both smiling, despite where their picture is printed on. You almost crumble, for Bobby and his loss, and for Kat, a young life lost.
Someone reported them missing, someone remembered them and cared enough to put those posters up. Maybe on the surface, in real life, there are telephone poles with the exact missing posters containing the same faces and same information right on the blanched paper. Or maybe this is the backrooms playing you for a fool when you have no one out there that would do this for you. No one to report you missing, no one to notice your absence or to look at their side and think that something is missing.
“At least they got my information right.” Bobby’s voice cuts through the silence. He breathes her name, quiet, guilty, grieving. He said it quietly, and yet loud in your ears. Sighing, he clears his throat, clammy hands shoved in his pockets. “I look good for a missing person…”
“Now who’s emotionally constipated?” You attempt at a joke, smile wavering, unsure how to talk to him about what lies ahead. This must feel like seeing your own gravestone right in front of you. “Are you okay, Bobby?”
“Yeah, I uh,” he sucks in his teeth, shaking his head and shuffling his feet with unease. “I think my mom did this. She would–she would remember.” She would notice him gone. Someone is waiting for him on the other side, a loved one that would be devastated if Bobby never gets back home.
“I’ll get you back home to her.” You utter determinedly, even though you could hardly believe it yourself.
“Fuck, what do I tell her?” There’s a sullen edge to his tone that you’re awfully familiar with. You’ve heard this in group therapies where you never spoke a word even after gentle coaxing, even after all the eyes land on you. “What do I tell Kat’s parents?” There were people waiting for her as well, and they’ll never see her again, they’ll never hear her voice again. It cuts you more than the razor ever did. “They never liked me but—that’s fucking understandable.”
“Bobby, I—”
He turns on his heel and looks at you with an undistinguishable expression, his hand twitches like he’s about to reach for you, but decides not to.
“D’you want to smoke with me?”
—
You and Bobby walk around the yellow wallpaper corridors, it still reeks of the same damp carpets that lingers in the back of your throat but it’s a more familiar scent that shouldn’t make you feel like it should be comforting but it does. And so does the hum, that soft timbre rolling around in the walls, calling for you to press your ear against it like before. But after you felt the walls curl around your skin, trying to absorb you into the sea of yellow, you resist the call.
The lights above hum in that same dissonance, that flat fluorescent drone, a prickly sound akin to crickets singing in the summer heat at night. It turns into mere background noise the longer you hear it. Bobby seems to feel the same way when he walks around the weird hallways with you side by side. He keeps his hands inside his pockets, back slightly hunched, an invisible heaviness lingering between his shoulder blades. His midriff is showing between the fabric of his white crop top and the jean shorts, hip bones catching the light, lighting him in that sickly yellow.
Bobby doesn’t look the same when you first met him, he’s missing his camera that you know he misses the heaviness of it in his hand. The gaze through the lenses, a shield between him and reality is no longer there, and he is forced to face what’s in front of him, to truly see reality with his own eyes.
His blue eyes are duller, you’ve noticed it ever since you both fell into the pool, it still has that spark but it doesn’t shine the same when you saw him in that corridor. His sharp edges are sharper, more intense, even though he eats enough, maybe it’s the stress wearing him thin.
“When you asked to smoke with me, what do you mean exactly?” You ask tentatively, too afraid to breach through the silence. “What are we even looking for?”
“Here.” He stops in front of a pair of double doors with a low slope leading to it. It descends downwards, and the similar sight doesn’t escape him. “This could be it. Somewhere we can relax.”
“Bobby, we’re supposed to be looking for the outpost.” You tell him calmly, brows knitted in worry.
“We are.” He’s already sliding down, keeping himself steady with his hands on each side of the wall. The previous slope he encountered was deep and descends into darkness, this one doesn’t look like that as he could see light filter through the crack under the doors. “I just— just need a fucking break.”
“Hold on, Bobby, we should be careful—”
He throws caution into the wind as he shoulders the door open. Nothing attacks him or yanks him into the room, instead, he opens the door wider, and what greets you inside makes you raise your brows.
Rows upon rows of velvet lined seats are inside, all perfectly lined up as the warm yellow light shines up front. Bobby opens the door even wider, and you both see a lit theater stage complete with an orchestra pit and those familiar red velvet curtains.
Bobby whistles lowly, the sound carries into the expansive room. “C’mon.” He simply coaxes you in, a hand reaching for you whilst the other holds the door open. “It looks like it’s safe.” Fingers flexing, head tilting, he huffs out a breath. “Please, hero, I know you need the rest too.”
“Fine,” your hand slides over to his palm, warm, smooth, with the pads of his fingertips calloused from years of playing the guitar. Now you know the reason. “But only because you asked nicely.”
“See how far being nice gets you?” His gentle hold helps you slide down the slope whilst he keeps an eye on your back, watching out for any malignant entities. That has become a recent habit of his.
“I could be nice.” Letting out a strained breath, you make it inside and Bobby follows behind, shutting the door closed with a click.
“Only sometimes,” he walks ahead, eyes roaming around the large room, from the wooden rafters above to the fine filigree decorated around the stage. His voice echoes around the empty space, it’s like you two snuck into the theater at the dead of night just to make out. “Come on, let’s find our seat.”
“Remember when you said you’re going insane?” You watch at the edge of the seats as he shimmies into a row like how one would at a packed movie theater. “I’m starting to think that you are.”
“Don’t be a party pooper.” Scoffing a laugh, he pulls the seat down and plops himself onto the plush cushion before doing the same to the one beside him and patting the seat for you. “Saved you a seat.”
“How did you even know about this place?”
“I didn’t.” Shrugging, he huffs, head turning around the silent theater. “I just had a feeling. This place…fucks you up. Nothing makes sense, up isn’t up and down isn’t down, it’s instinct and trusting your gut that makes more sense to follow. So, I don’t know, hero, I just felt that this place is safe.”
Maybe that’s how you thought the sailboat room was safe, a gut instinct, something inherently natural to humans to feel if a place is a safe haven or not. Or maybe this place just heard his wants and gave him a room to rest in, like how you wanted water and you fell into one. You’re probably truly insane if you think that the backrooms are granting your wishes.
Sighing, you relent and follow him. After dredging knee deep pool waters to walking through hazards and osha violations, the theater room is a nice reprieve. It’s beautiful in a way, like staring at an empty backyard at night where the moonlight shines on the bushes and you could only hear the scampering of little critters hidden behind it. It’s creepy, yet it gives off the same feeling as walking around a school at night where you’re used to seeing a lot of people and instead you just see empty classrooms and dark corridors. You expect some noise, like someone practicing on stage where their footfalls clatter on the hardwood floors, or a violinist tuning their instrument’s strings. But it’s as quiet as the rest of the places you’ve been through.
Yet the hum is much stronger here. More persistent. You would press your head against the velvet walls but you use the sight of Bobby as your guide, keeping your eyes on him and giving him your full attention, it helps in ignoring the song of the walls.
He pats the seat again when you reach his side, feeling your apprehensiveness. “It’s not going to eat you.”
“What if there’s something lurking in here too?” You look down at him worriedly, seeing the warm golden light illuminate the side of his face, exacerbating the dark circles underneath his eyes. “Like last time?” Your voice drops a timbre, the pads of your fingers grasping at your neck that is slowly scabbing over after your nails broke skin.
“Then we run or I beat the shit out of it like the one before it.” Bobby swallows thickly, patting the seat again. His eyes pleads, he needs this.
“Okay, just a few minutes.” Nodding, you sit down beside him, the chair creaks under you, and it gives off that unmistakable squeak at the hinges as you sit back and the seat tilts back from the movement. “What now— what the fuck?”
“What?” He chortles, looking at you through his lashes when he has procured a rolled up joint from his pockets, there’s a ziplock on his lap containing a couple more inside. “Are you a goody two shoes like I thought?”
You roll your eyes, lift a leg up over the other as you shake your head. “I’m just confused, you had that the whole time?”
“Yeah,” shrugging, he places it in between his lips. The lighter clicks as sparks fly against his face, lighting him up in warmer light. “It got wet when we took a swim, but…” he manages to light it when the flames finally billow out from the lighter. “Thankfully it’s in a ziplock bag.” Taking a long drag, wispy smoke dancing in the air, and filling it with the unmistakable earthy smell, his shoulders relax and he reclines back, keeping it in for a moment before exhaling. Bobby moves his hand over to you casually with the joint tucked in between his index and thumb. “Do you want one? No peer pressure trust me, I’d like it more if I have it all to myself.”
“How generous.” A laugh escapes from your huff, rolling your eyes as you flutter your lips. Weighing your options, you suck in a breath. “You know what, fuck it.” Biting your lip, you look around you, watching for the tell tale signs of an entity keeping watch, you find none. So you take it, your fingers brushing along his warm hand.
“Atta girl.” His legs perches up on the seats in front of him, one foot over the other comfortably, completely relaxed.
You place it between your lips, tasting him accidentally, the taste of the sweetened almond water hits your tongue first before the smoke does. You let both linger, the earthy smoke that is slightly sweet hitting the back of your throat. Taking a long drag, you feel his eyes on the side of your face.
Bobby whistles lowly, chuckling and smiling at you. “Not a goody two shoes like I thought. Don’t fucking hog it all.”
Your eyes flick at him, glimmering under the light as you exhale. You feel the fuzzy feeling wrap around your skull, tugging at the back of your head, but it doesn’t hit as well as the ones back home.
“I didn’t know you smoke.” Bobby licks his lips, mouth already turning dry.
You hand the joint back to him and he hums in thanks before taking a puff, exhaling out spheres of smoke into the air. “It helps.” You don’t need to elaborate when he knows perfectly well what it means. “You?”
“High school, junior year was hard for me.” He gives it back to you lazily as he rolls his shoulders and completely sinks in his seat.
“Yeah, high school is either a shit time for someone or the best time of their life.” You take a quick puff as the burn settles on the roof of your mouth, nose filling with the earthy scent. “There’s no in between.”
He scoffs out a laugh as you pass the joint over to him. “I think I fit in the ‘in between’ category. It was good until it wasn’t. D’you think we would be friends back then?”
“Probably not.” Shaking your head, you see him stare at you in your peripheral. When you turn to look back, he’s already looking away.
His tongue flicks over his lips, eyes staring at the empty stage. “Have you ever seen a play? Like a real one, with a big production, not the ones made by theater kids at school.”
“Like Broadway type?” He hums in reply, taking a long drag before passing it to you. And you could see it in his eyes how much it’s melting all his worries away, for now at least. He lets the smoke settle on his tongue, letting it singe his insides before exhaling out. “No, I wish I had.”
His neck cranes to you, eyes half lidded, giving you a strange look. “I’ve got a confession to make.”
“Okay…” you chortle atop the joint, inhaling and exhaling. You feel the slight tug at the back of your head, that warm lazy feeling encompassing you enough to dull your instincts and send tingles through your body. “I’m not a priest but okay.”
“Obviously you’re not.” Bobby snorts, chuckling deeply, a rumble in his throat as he rubs his clammy palms on his jean shorts. Your brow rises to your forehead. “I mean it as a compliment. You’re too pretty to be one.”
“Fuck,” you scoff out a laugh. “so you’re flirty when you get high.”
Bobby snatches it from your hands, his touch searing hot, hotter than before. “Shut up, I’ve got a fucking confession and who knows if we’ll get out of here.” His head tilts back against the plush seat like it’s heavier than usual. He smiles lopsidedly, the same smile you briefly saw before he saw the missing poster. He takes a long drag, smoke coming out in puffs between his lips.
“We’ll get out of here but go on.” He’ll get out of here. Your eyes drag along his jaw as it flexes with an inhale and exhale.
“Your optimism fucking scares me, hero, but, confession.” Looking at you through his lashes, he uses the joint between his fingers to point at you for emphasis whilst he leans on the armrest to get closer to you. “I’ve always wanted to be a director, like for films and shit. And I thought the theater plays were just a cheap shit copy of cinema until my mom got me and…” he blinks, licking his lips before continuing on. “...she got me tickets for my birthday to see fucking Phantom of the Opera and it was…” he takes another drag, head lolling back to exhale the smoke away from your face, neck flexing, the light catching it. “...it was fucking great. I missed out on good shit because I thought theater was for nerds.” The buzz has completely melted him. Turning back to you, he has a lazy, comfortable smile. “So, when we get out of here we’ll watch a show, whatever you want, Cats or fucking Rocky Horror Show, your pick, hero. My thanks for saving my ass.”
“You’ve got a lot of promises for me, Bobby.” You say warmly, leaning close, head tilted with a gentle smile. And mouth filled with cotton. “First it was the guitar lessons, now a show.”
He shrugs, finally giving you the rest of the joint, his touch lingering a second more. “I just want to show you what you would’ve missed if you…” he pauses, a weighted gaze on you as he smiles tenderly. “...it’s my way of being nice, okay? Don’t read too much into it, dude.” Leaning back into his seat, his cheeks are flushed warm, inflated before letting out the air. “It would be great if a show suddenly played here right now!”
His sudden scream makes you jump in your seat, heart thudding, a hand instinctively holding onto his arm. “Fucking hell, Bobby.” You look around you, scanning the area for threats, you find the place as empty as before.
“What?” He laughs, a true guffaw that echoes as he grins. “It was worth a shot.”
You shake your head at him with a subtle smile. “I’ve got a question.” Leaning back, you finish the rest of it as the aftertaste lingers in the back of your throat, the buzz giving you a hazy feeling, like you’re in between dreaming and wakefulness. Bobby makes a finger gun gesture at you, eyes still looking forward at the stage as if actors in costumes would suddenly appear. “Bobby, were you getting high this whole time? Is that why you’re so relaxed?”
He slowly faces you, nose scrunched, puffing out a laugh. “Fuck you, no.” Turning his head away, he sniffs, a hand squeezing his nose before his palm hits his lap with a soft thud. “Twice, when you woke up in the boat and we talked about the fake stars. Then at the pool before…when I was swimming and you got all…” his fingers wiggle around in front of him, “y’know. Sobered up real quick when you screamed my name though.”
You just stare at the side of his face, features softer under the warm yellow light, softer when his guilt marrs his expression. “Fuck, Bobby…”
“I know, I shouldn’t, but…” his fingers play at the plastic on his lap, dragging his thumb and index right at the seam. “it’s fucked. I know it is.”
“Yeah, I don’t blame you.” The ash falls from the paper and right onto your jeans, leaking warmth onto the skin underneath. You flick the rest of the ash away and stamp out the flames right on the arm rest and toss it into the cup holder. “Just don’t do it again until you know that we’re in a place that’s completely safe. And yes I’m being hypocritical right now for saying it but— fucking whatever.” Fingers kneading at the space between your brows, you feel the buzz right there.
A moment passes and he stays silent, his blue eyes that seem to glow even bluer against the red velvet seats glances at you every so often, gauging out your emotions without the comfort of a camera lens in his hand.
When you hear the familiar slosh of water against a plastic bottle, you turn to him as he passes you the rest of the almond water. “You hungry?”
“A little.” Taking the bottle, you watch him rummage through the backpack, cans and plastic bags clinking against each other. “Your weed is weak as shit, Bobby.”
“Oh fuck off.” A laugh escapes him. “If this is weak to you then what do you smoke, fucking meth?”
You laugh, a sound lingering in the room that has good acoustics for something that shouldn’t exist in the first place. Bobby gives you a look that you’re not privy to before taking out a small bag of potato chips you two found atop a solid beach ball. “No, fucking hell, no, that’s horrible. What do you take me for?”
He opens the bag and the scent of sour cream and onions fill the room amidst the lingering earth scent. “A survivalist whom I thought was a goody two shoes. Turns out you’re as bad as me, hero.” Shaking the bag, he offers it to you first as you dig your hand in, getting a couple of chips.
“Okay, Robert Franklin.”
“Fuck, you saw that?” His reddened eyes widen, taken aback.
“Yeah, Robert Franklin,” you say his name with a giggle, chin atop your palm as you pop the chips in your mouth. It tastes exactly the same, except for the old aftertaste. “sounds like a politician’s name.”
“Yeah, that’s why I go by Bobby.”
“It’s better honestly.” The chips crunches in your mouth, chewing and letting the taste settle beside the lingering burning taste. “Like a jolly baby boy’s name.”
Bobby almost chokes on a chip, chuckling and patting his chest. “Fuck you.”
“What do you want to be when you grow up, little Bobby?” Teasing, you nudge his elbow and he makes a face, nose scrunched, shoveling more chips in his mouth when the retort he has in mind short circuits. “Were you a newspaper boy, Bobby? Just doing rounds on your little bike with a bell all over the neighborhood?”
Snatching the almond water from you, Bobby chews loudly to annoy you. But it only makes your grin wider, a laugh in your throat. “Shut up, no I wasn’t.” He chugs the water before facing you with what he probably thinks is an intimidating look. You only smile at him wholeheartedly, endeared. “What do you want to be when you grow up, huh? ‘Ms. Sewing club president.’”
“I wasn’t the club president, I was actually shit at sewing.” Your eyes turn at your lap, downcast as the smile faints, and yet the softness stays. “I don’t know actually. I never thought I’d live this long to be honest.”
Bobby’s breath hitches in his throat, wiping the trickling water from his chin with his shirt, he looks at you solemnly. You expect him to say sorry, for him to pity you or say the same words you’ve heard from people who don’t know how but tries to anyway just to say something or to try to make it all better. Instead, he takes your hand on your lap, a hand so gentle you didn’t register the touch right away as he envelopes his fingers around your palm.
“When we get out of here,” His voice lowers, a mere whisper just for your ears as he ducks down to meet with your eyes. Your vision is filled with blue, his blue eyes, Bobby blue. “we’ll figure out what you want to do. I promise you.”
“What if I never figure it out?”
He shrugs, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Then we’re stuck together until you do, sorry.” It’s a halfhearted apology, and yet it’s better than a whole one. “Together, we’ll figure it out together, hero.”
Your brows fold together, lips wobbling. “Why?” Why help, why me, why do this for me?
“Because you deserve to live too.”
Your eyes search those brilliant blue eyes for a lie, a tease, an untruthful thing tucked in his irises that intends to hurt. Something that says, ‘I’m only saying this to you because I don’t want you to leave and fend for myself.’ or, ‘because I can, not because I want to.’ And yet you only find truthfulness in his eyes, he truly believes that you deserve it, to live for yourself not just for others, not just for him.
It’s one thing to die for someone, it’s heroic. But living, staying alive for someone is for yourself too. And it’s just as heroic. Staying alive despite everything is heroic.
“So three things now,” his hand squeezes you once, clearing his throat as his breath trembles. “three things I promise to do with you.” Bobby laughs nervously.
“Les Misérables.”
“What?”
You squeeze him back, it sends shockwaves through his arm. “That’s the show I want to watch with you when we get out of here.”
The grin spreading across his face lights up your vision like how the sun would.
—
“You good?” He asks, a hand clasped around your own unabashedly. You don’t know why he’s holding onto you, maybe he’s still wobbly from the joint you two shared, or he fears that you’ll get taken right from his side. Either way, you let him.
“Yep.” You pop the letter ‘p’ in your mouth as the sound bounces off the yellow wallpaper. You’re nervous as you feel his warmth right on your palm, like clasping onto a lit light bulb, warm and light at the same time. “Bobby?”
“Yeah?” His eyes wander around the corridor before taking a turn to the right, randomly choosing the path for the two of you for a while now.
“Why are you holding my hand right now?”
“Sorry.” Flinching, Bobby’s fingers release you. “Sorry, it’s just when we stopped by that weird room with the square pitfalls, I— nothing, I forgot to unhand you.”
“It’s okay.” You smile at him, the lights above flicker in and out before steadying. “I understand.” Holding out your hand to his side, pinky brushing along his palm, you invite him. “May I? If it helps you calm down.”
Bobby lets out a sigh he didn’t know he was holding before taking your hand again on his own. His hold has more thought put into it, tender yet filled with trepidation. “Yeah, sorry I’m being such a little bitch right now.”
“Maybe we should hold off from smoking before exploring.”
“I took a nap and I thought that was enough.” He shakes his head rapidly, trying to shake off the haze over his eyes. “Why aren’t you all antsy?”
“I told you, your weed is weak as shit, Bobby—” something catches your attention. A scent, something so familiar, that old laundry smell that sticks in the back of your nose. You know it too well when you spent days in that room just listening to the hum in the walls.
Bobby stops abruptly when you freeze on the spot and the intertwined hands hang in between the two of you. “What? You’re doing that thousand yard stare again.”
“Can you smell that?” Your eyes flick to his blue ones.
Bobby takes a whiff of the air around him, head tilted up, nose up. “Like cat piss?”
“I think that’s just the carpet…” mumbling, you use your nose to find the room. You turn a corner, leading Bobby this time around, hand in hand.
“Hero, what are you doing?” He chuckles nervously, letting you guide him through different corridors.
“I think I know this place.” Your hand brushes along the wall, and right beside it is a washing machine dial embedded into the wallpaper. The hum entices you, but Bobby’s hand on yours ground you to reality.
“What?”
“Follow me.” With quicker strides, you walk past rooms that are quite familiar to you, like you saw it in a dream once, too foggy and blurry at the edges, but you know you saw it even when the adrenaline inside your veins were helping you run.
Bobby follows behind, head on a swivel, keeping watch for the both of you. His thumb brushes along the back of your hand, making your mind stutter as you pause in the middle of a junction.
Taking a deep breath, a hand running along the wall, you see it, a ship’s wheel stuck into a wall.
“We’re close.” Muttering, you concentrate on finding your way.
Peter was right, it’s a directionless place. There are doors leading to another wall, windows with no glass, just a wooden frame sinking into the wall. You got lost once and had to turn back, somehow, the hum quiets down for you, refusing to help you unlike before when it warned you or helped you find a way to get away.
It refuses to help you leave this place.
“Holy fuck.” Your breath hitches in your throat when the smell grows stronger when you find a crevice in between two walls where the lights are brighter on the other side. If you squint you could just see it— the radio.
Bobby tilts his head, narrowing his eyes. “What is it?”
“I think you need glasses, Bobby.” You laugh victoriously, tugging him into the sliver of space tucked in between. “Come on.”
“Don’t be a cryptic motherfucker.” He chuckles back, albeit wobbly. “Seriously, are you gonna kill me here? Are you trying to find a torture chamber?”
“Bobby,” you turn to him, body already shimmying into the niche. Your smile makes him more confused. “Lay off the weed for a bit, yeah? It makes you anxious.”
“No, this place makes me anxious. Weed makes me flirty and horn— fuck, is that what I think it is?” The hand around your own trembles as he laughs. “You did it. I can’t— you really are a hero, hero.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Bobby.”
The two of you move in tandem, carefully shimmying, clothes rustling, backs dragging along the wall from the tight squeeze.
You bolt from the walls immediately after getting out, already reaching for the radio. Bobby stands beside you, marveling at the technology and equipment left by the researchers.
“Async.” Bobby reads out loud, he finds a clipboard filled with documents on it whilst you calibrate the radio frequency. “Almost everything on here has been redacted. Not the government my ass.”
“Hello?” There’s an electric buzz on the other side, the radio in your hand is heavy, all metal as you wet your dry lips. “We need help.” Bobby has his full attention on you now, breathing heavily, unease mar his features whilst his head is on a swivel. “Please, if someone’s listening we need help.” Your voice catches at the edges, eyes glancing at Bobby. “There’s two of us, I— Peter Tench sent us. He’s alive, he told us to find a radio, an outpost. Please respond, tell us how to leave, or fucking get us out of here.” There’s only static. “Hello?”
You let go of the button, more electric buzz, more hum, nothing.
Bobby snatches the radio from you, pressing the button as he curses them out. “We’ve been stuck here for fucking days, I know you’re listening, you fucking cu—”
You tug at Bobby’s sleeve, looking directly at the wooden wall that you broke once upon a time. The wood is all patched up, replaced with another slab of plywood. The radio is worthless when just beyond that door is the ceiling you came from. You’ve been too hyperfixated on the radio that you forgot that the exit is nearby.
This place is directionless, this place makes your memory foggy, blurred, like a dream you have forgotten once you wake up. But your sense of smell is a powerful reminder of a memory. Like your mother’s perfume, the smell of freshly baked cookies from your childhood, the scent of salty air, and Bobby’s cologne.
“What, hero?” He clicks his tongue, pausing from hurling all the curses he knows at the radio.
You’re taking the hammer from your belt, weighing it in your hand when you lift it above your head and smash the plywood.
“Fuck!” Bobby shrieks in shock.
Just like last time, you let everything out with every hit of your hammer. Shards of splintered wood rain down upon you, some landing on your hair, a few caught in the fabric of your jacket. Yet you continue on despite a shard coming too close to your eye.
Heaving, you make a big enough hole to go through. You slowly turn to Bobby, panting with a wide grin. “Leave the radio, I found the exit.”
Bobby blinks at you like you grew two heads.
“That’s the same radio I found, Bobby.” You step through the hole and gesture around you. “And this is the same place I walked through to get here.”
Realization flickers on his face. “You mean—?”
“You wanna get out of here and watch Les Misérables with me?” Holding out your hand through the broken down wall, you smile at him, a genuine warm smile that you haven’t seen on yourself in years.
“Yeah.” Is all he could say when his mind rushes a thousand miles per hour. Bobby takes your hand, fingers slightly trembling as you pull him through. “We’re going home?” There’s a childlike disbelief in his tone and expression.
“Yeah, Bobby, we’re getting out of here.” With his hand in yours, you guide him through the room.
The black sludge is still on the floor, this time it has numerous shoe footprints on the muck, as if a group of people passed by here. Judging from the repaired wall, it seems that’s the case. The camera is still on the wall, pointed right at a lifesized caveman cardboard cutout, or what’s left of it on the floor when it has been ripped to shreds with its speakers broken and shattered by your feet.
Bobby carefully jumps over the sludge when you just walk through it, leaving your own footprints on the carpet.
“What’s that?” He points at a space in the wall with a piece of it propped up beside the entrance. “Are those hangers?”
“Yeah, that’s the long way, let’s not go there.” You continue to lead him and the relief that washes over you is palpable when you see the dangling climbing rope you dropped through the ceiling. “I can’t believe it.”
“Is that where you came from?” Bobby’s voice trumps over the incessant drone of the fluorescent lights. Head tilted up, he grimaces at the scent of the laundry pile.
“Yeah, come on.” You’re practically bouncing on your feet, tugging him towards the rope. You could already feel the cold chilly air through the ceiling. You’re one climb away from home. The dangling rope doesn’t make you scratch at your neck until it bleeds, nor turn your limbs numb. The sight of it, especially with Bobby beside you brings you hope. You made it, you saved a life. “You go first.”
“No, you first.” Bobby squeezes your hand, taking your attention away from the ceiling. “I’ll help you climb up.”
“I thought you’d be eager to go first.”
“What can I say, I’m a changed man.” Sending you a wink, you both climb up the hill of clothes, helping each other as you two go up. You could feel him tremble with tamped down excitement as you put your hands on the rope, foot in the footholds and start to climb up. “Careful.” His palm is on the small of your back, warmth felt through your jacket, then hovering under you when you’re nearly up the rope. “You got it?” Bobby readies to climb up.
“Yeah.” Smiling widely, your hand is mere inches away from the ceiling when you hear it— the rustling, that fabric shifting against the other. The familiar shuffling that turns your head from calm to flight. You pause, watching the hallway you two came from.
There’s a shadow, a lumbering form. And it shuffles closer to you.
Bobby is saying your name, tugging at the rope for you to wake up from your stupor. “Hero— fuck!” He’s climbing up with you and you jolt awake, fingers tingling, chest heaving. “Go! Fucking go!” He’s halfway up, head turning back and forth from the shadow and over to you.
“Fuck!” You reach up to leave, and you hit a solid ceiling.
Dread washes over you like the tides on the beach.
“What are you doing? Go!” Bobby holds onto your ankle, he turns frantic, panicked when the sound grows closer. The shuffling, the rustle sends your whole body into an unsteady shudder.
Your palm meets the smooth ceiling tile. Over and over again, you feel how solid it is against your hand.
Panic sets behind your ribcage. Slithering up your heart as it pinches and squeezes, trying to burst open your hammering heart.
Patting it wildly, your hand doesn’t go through, no phasing through.
You scream in despair, accidentally punching a hole right through the ceiling where the ventilation is supposed to be when there is only darkness behind it. A sliver of space for the lights that goes on for miles, the plenum where there are no wires connecting each light, no source of electricity. And most importantly, no laundry shop, no familiar smell of detergent, and no chilly air. No threshold. No reality.
It’s closed.
Your way out is closed. You’re locked out of reality.
“Fuck!” You cry, forehead pressed against the rough rope.
“Why—” Bobby croaks out, still clinging to the rope, still clinging to hope. He calls your name, body trembling as a stuttered breath leaves his lips.
You look at him and it’s enough to shatter his hope.
“We need to go.” He completely lets go of the hope of reaching home. Scrambling down the rope, Bobby panics, movements too frantic as his foot gets stuck on the footholds just like you had.
“Bobby!” The rustling grows nearer, you’re afraid to look.
Bobby falls backwards, flailing and trying to stay upright as he dangles above the pile of clothes. His shirt is hitched to his chest from gravity pulling at it, muscles straining and taut. He turns to the sound, he didn’t mean to, he’s just as afraid to look, or maybe his morbid curiosity made him look.
The rope dangles from side to side, it turns towards the rustling, and upside down he sees— you.
Not the you he knows, with those guarded smiles and uneasy hands. Eyes looking at his forehead whilst you pretended to look into his own, he always noticed it, but he never said anything because saying it opens something that he’s afraid he can never close. Bobby pries, but he doesn’t force it out when he knows it would be harder to close, breaking what is already built between you. You’re alive and that’s what matters to him because you fought against yourself, you fought to stay in this world and he’s glad that you did because he met you. You’ve become an invaluable friend, a companion in this hell, he found himself caring for you, a fondness. But as he stares at this version of you, he’s terrified beyond belief, not the calm and ease he feels when he is around you.
This you is mangled, damp, dead.
And you just entered its home.
“Wh–what the fuck!” Bobby shrieks, trying to fold himself to pull his foot out of the footholds. “Hero!”
He calls for you, asking for an ounce of hope that once slithered in his chest. But the look on your face dashes whatever is left, you freeze, completely still on the spot, like a vine curled around a rope, dangling there, moving as the rope moves, getting carried by the wind. You look at the entity like you’re looking at your own tomb.
Emptiness, dread, grief, you stare at yourself, a ghost of what could’ve been, of what you might’ve ended up as. It’s not like pirate Clark with its large form and gangly arms, this you is much more akin to real life. Whereas the pirate came from your nightmares, this came from the past.
The entity’s head is hanging from its broken neck, looking at you upside down as the head hits its chest with every movement. The neck is twisted and marred, skin folded atop the other. And it wears your face, not a memory of your face that’s all wrong, or a photograph of you whilst you moved mid shutter. No, this is undoubtedly you, a face that is contorted into sheer agony, a hurt that you are familiar with.
Lines of red rope are tied around its arms, sporting the same flowery bomber jacket that rustles and shuffles, and underneath is a pair of swim shorts and a rash guard, the same one you wore that day, a blue one, the same shade as his eyes. Its hair is damp, perpetually wet as it clings to its dangling face and chest with its slouched shoulders.
It doesn’t speak, it doesn’t make a sound other than the rustling, even the footsteps are silent, almost afraid of being perceived.
One thing breaks through your mind, a thought— you bore this being, you made it exist, and you believe that you did, that you made it so, and it has been hunting you ever since you fell in this place. It waited for the right time, watched you with its reddened eyes, always around a corner that you didn’t take, behind a wall that you didn’t press your ear to, always there, like a ghost that haunts every room you are in.
It’s a distorted mirror of you.
Your name echoes around you as the lights flicker in and out. Bobby grasps at your ankle, his warm clammy hand clawing at your skin. The hum is stronger, a tug at your sternum as it sings at a higher dissonance akin to an alarm. It wakes you, it screams, it tells you to run.
The entity’s hand reaches for Bobby’s face, its body half climbing up the mountain of fabric like a spider on wet tiles, trying to find steady ground as its fingers curl in and out around itself, trying to grasp at your companion, your friend.
If this is the end, Bobby will forgive you.
So you jump from the rope, arms wide, landing right on its back, and taking it down with you.
Your body sinks down onto the pile of clothes, dragging you down along with it like quicksand. The more you struggle the further you sink.
Bobby screams for you on the surface, and you feel its arms wrap around you.
It embraces you like the one before it, trying to take your warmth as the smell of mold encompasses you, scampering into your nose as the acrid smell suffocates you. Its palm grasps at your face, long nails digging in, its fingers are unnaturally long, oddly long as it holds your entire face, and you see in between its fingers as Bobby falls from the rope harshly, landing on his shoulder. He groans, the sound barely heard from the fabric in your ears.
He screams your name with a desperation that curdles the words on his tongue. clawing his way to you, digging desperately.
His frantic blue eyes are what’s left of the surface as you see it in between cottons and polyester.
You don’t thrash around when any movement makes you sink even deeper, eyes wide, begging for Bobby to leave you behind and run. You granted him time, and he’s wasting it all to save you.
Light breaks through, and his hand reaches for you to take.
Bobby looks at you like you’re worth saving.
So you reach up, the pads of your fingers grazing his own, a mere brush against his calloused fingertips. Still, you sink further and further, the mountain of clothes burying you alive, the stench of sweat and grime suffocating you like the hand atop your face. The entity drags you down, enveloping your whole form as you feel its arms and legs wrap around you, if it wasn’t sinister, it would’ve been comforting, a shield against the world, a hug from yourself.
You scream Bobby’s name, trying to extend your hand as far as you could but he’s getting farther away from you, like looking up from inside a deep dark well that has the lingering stench of rot.
Bobby, your hero Bobby, jumps after you. Why would he? He could just leave you there to die in your own rotting arms, and yet he digs himself down, straining, heaving and desperate to get to you.
Until finally, he gets a hold of your hand, locking his fingers around your own as the entity’s back hits solid ground with a hard wooden thump. There’s a knock, barely heard from your muffled screams. But Bobby heard it, and something flashes in those ocean blue eyes of his— hope.
Bobby groans, his other hand reaching for something behind you, and his mouth opens, saying something, too quiet for you to hear above your own fear.
“Hold on!” He screams and the door opens behind you with a resounding click.
Suddenly, the ground falls behind you, the clothes go first, then the legs around you, then the arms as you go down along with it.
You’re dangling from the ceiling once again, fifty, a hundred feet off the ground as red encompasses around you. Your mirrored self hangs on around your waist, nails digging into your flesh, whilst clothes flutter out of the doorway.
Gasping, you hold onto Bobby’s hand, looking down you see a city, concrete skyscrapers with glass windows all around, and streets spanning around it complete with street lights and idle cars like any other city. All except for the red light illuminating around it, the crimson sun, the scarlet sky, like a dark room you’ve seen in old movies.
“Bobby!” With a shriek, vertigo takes over you, vision swirling, stomach churning from the height. You could feel Bobby’s hand turn clammy around your own. Looking up, you see him struggle to lift you up with one arm, whilst the other keeps him in place so you both don’t fall off.
“Just—!” His skin is aflame, red as he strains himself. “Fuck! Hold on!”
There’s a groan under you, a simple huff of breath, like a dying man trying to say his last words on his deathbed. When you look down, look at yourself clinging to you, it lets out a breath again, trying to say something, trying to communicate. It shocks your core, the others never let out a breath nor a single word, but this entity, this horrifying copy of yours tries to when it doesn’t even need to breathe.
“Wha—?”
“Fucking kick it!” Bobby yells gutterally, sweat dribbling off his brows.
Mouth clamping shut, you raise your leg and kick. And kick, and kick at its mangled neck with a resounding squelch of flesh that is too soft, too pliant to be one. And yet blood trickles out of its nose and mouth, its flesh and blood. Just like you.
Bobby has managed to lift you by your elbow, and with one last kick against its nose, it lets go. You watch as it falls, your own self falling down, down, down into the pavement with a sickening thud. For a moment it flew, just like you have.
You’re lifted up, and you suddenly find yourself tucked into Bobby’s arms. His whole body trembles, the aftershock that rattles his bones.
“You’re okay, fuck, you’re okay.” Bobby utters like an answered prayer against your skin, as if he’s trying to comfort himself rather than for you. His face hides against the crook of your neck, breathing you in, his sweat sticking to your skin, but you don’t mind as you tentatively wrap your arms around him. Just like how the entity wrapped itself around you. His fingers bunches up your jacket with a rustle of fabric.
It has always been you that was watching you. The one that made you run further into the mono yellow and into the arms of the warm hum. It was you who was watching you from the corner, the shuffling and the rustling has always been you.
You drove yourself into this place, you ran from yourself, you hid from yourself, you almost died because of you.
“I’m o–okay, Bobby.” You exhale a breath you didn’t know you were holding.
Bobby wants to be somewhere safe with you, anywhere, even if it’s a room in this place like the theater or the sailboat room where you tended to him and let him drink the last of your water even when your lips were dry and you were starving. Anywhere but here, as long as it doesn’t smell like old laundry that leads to a doorway that plunges you from the sky.
And all you want is for him to hold you.
Bobby leans away, moving the stray hair that sticks on your skin as he swallows the lingering adrenaline away. His blue eyes wander around your features, and he lingers, his gaze lingers before he brings himself against you again, holding you in place, a hand cupped on the back of your head whilst you can feel his chest rise and fall.
Your knuckles drag along his back, eyes closing for a moment before opening it.
There’s a door on the wall that wasn’t there before. An anomaly. You know it wasn’t there when it’s the same wall that you rested against it to feel the hum, to hear this place sing, where there’s a patch of dry carpet that is warm, where the tone lingers right in your sternum. The door is green with patches of blue, the same color as his eyes.
“Bobby.” You say after a minute of holding each other and staring at the door that has appeared out of nowhere.
“Yeah?” His chin moves atop your shoulder as he sniffs. Leaning away, his lashes clump together from the unshed tears.
“There’s a door.” Is all you could say, mind still frazzled from everything that transpired, from how he held you— still holds you on the damp carpet that has less clothes now.
There’s nowhere else to go.
Bobby follows your gaze, looking over your shoulder as he exhales a breath. “What do y–you think?” His tone is still wobbly, still shaking with unease.
“Together?” You look into his eyes.
“Yeah,” his hand cradles your cheek, warm, clammy, gentle. “Together.”
The two of you walk in together through the door, hand in hand, stride matching the other. The sun greets you, the green grass crunches underneath your feet, and birdsong filters in your ears.
You’re back home.
But the warmth is wrong, artificial. There is birdsong but there are no birds in the sky nor on the trees.
The smell is odd, the grass doesn’t smell like grass, nor the air feels like air. A mere copy of it, a distorted mirror of the woods.
There’s a pink house in the middle of the clearing, and it beckons you and Bobby over.
Bobby’s hold tightens around you, fingers laced together, hands trembling together. One look at him and you both know— You’re not out yet.
BRO LET US GO HOME, LET BOBBY KEEP HIS PROMISES, LET US GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER BETTER WITHOUT BEING TRAPPED, LET US SMOKE SOME BETTER WEED😭😭 Dude wtaf, we were almost free🥀
You drove yourself into this place, you ran from yourself, you hid from yourself, you almost died because of you. –Quite literally bars, I'm afraid🥀
Also, something I found kind of funny bc, honestly, I was just thinking about it earlier today, was the fact that R said she didn't think she'd live this long so she didn't really know what she wanted to do in life–
IDK GUYS, IT WAS A LITTLE FUNNY BECAUSE, LIKE, SAME DUDE🤣🤣
But why tf was that mangled version of us trying to talk😰 I'm scared, the government knows we're here and they're PLAYING WITH US, THE BASTARDS🤬🤬
Pairing: Lyonel Baratheon x fem! Reader/ The Laughing Storm x fem! Reader
Word count: 3.7k
Synopsis: Faced with war brought by your own doing, you are forced to be hidden in the Tower of Joy whilst awaiting the birth of your son. Little did you know you carry a dragon, not a stag.
Tags: No use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader except for clothing, established relationship, an alternative ending to my series "where's my husband!" Ending 1 of 2 of the Aerion what if (Lyonel's Rebellion), Arryn! Reader, CW blood and death, canon typical violence, mentions of childbirth, Reader was married to Aerion first, Angst.
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Lyonel Baratheon Masterlist
Lyonel's Rebellion
Ending one >>> Ending two
Lyonel comes back to the Tower of Joy with a bright grin on his face despite the gore on his armour and the blood marring his face.
His beard is covered in flesh and blood, not his, Aerion’s. The Lord of Storm’s End shattered every bone the prince had, broke his breast plate into two, cleaving the Targaryen open. Lyonel could still hear the prince’s last words in his broken throat— your name spilling from his bloodied maw, a plea, a sorrowful apology mayhaps, but Lyonel couldn’t care less as he stared down at him in the middle of the battlefield. He watched as the light left your husband’s eyes with a laugh bubbling in his throat.
The battle was successful, a win to his cause as he now holds the realm in the palm of his hands. When all hope was thought lost, the Vale’s men at arms helped turn the tides at the last minute as they rode through the fields atop their galloping horses, bearing your house’s sigil. With his hammer brought down upon the former prince's chest plate, shattering his ribcage like a helpless bird, the Targaryen dynasty came to an end. Lord Lyonel Baratheon has won the war, he is victorious and he is named King of the Seven Kingdoms amidst the viscera of war as the stag helm was placed upon his bloodied brows by the high septon himself.
It was the seven smiling down upon him, the septon took to his cause like water upon wool, coming to his side when you, the Lord Baratheon’s Arryn Lady to be called to him and asked for an annulment only to come out of the meeting with not just a granted annulment but also a new ally after citing your Andal ancestry that brought the seven to Westeros a millennium ago. The coin you provided the Septon didn’t hurt either. The high septon granted you the annulment swiftly, the man hated the Targaryens after they plunged the realm in numerous civil wars that ended with thousands dead. And with less acolytes means less money for their great halls. So when the news came to him, he was the one that wrote to you, asking if you wished to annul the marriage. On that very same day, you wed Lyonel. And you became Lady Baratheon, forsaking the title of princess.
You’ve always had a way with your words like how you are with a blade, and yet your words don’t cut deep when it comes to Lyonel, and your touch is softer than the rare sunshine on Storm’s End when you are with him. Maybe that is why he went to war for you, so that he could experience all of you in peace, to be with you, to call you his and for him to be yours. He just has to come get you out of the tower and spend the rest of his life with you like how it was supposed to be.
With most of the Targaryen ranks gone or deserted across the narrow seas, with only the youngest who has survived and went aboard a ship sailing East, Lyonel is about to be crowned the King of the Seven Kingdoms when he has garnered support from all corners of the realm. But all will be for naught if his Queen isn’t by his side, together with his son and heir.
The last he saw you was when you were heavy with child. Lyonel couldn’t find it in himself to leave you here so deep in Dornish lands, but he needed to keep you safe, he needed to keep his child safe when he started this war after saving you from the clutches of your former husband. He needed a place where you would be kept safe, and for that he needed peace with the Dornish, an act he had to do with gritted teeth and shaking fists. But it was well worth it for your safety, and the kiss you granted him after was a reward for the hard task he had to do.
You married Lyonel just like you always dreamed of, and annulled your marriage to Aerion on the grounds that no consummation happened. It was a blatant awful lie that still gnawed at your chest guiltily. But whenever you hear Lyonel’s laugh, or hear him call your name so sweetly with his arms around you, all that guilt fades away. The reason may not have been the truth but the love you harbour for the stag is as real as your beating heart.
You and Lyonel wanted to wed from the start, to make it official so that the Targaryens have no claim to you anymore. It was especially needed when you found out you were with child after just a couple of weeks spent with the Laughing Storm and just mere a week after becoming Lady Baratheon. He laughed then, grinned and spun you around in his arms, barking out a laugh and saying, “the seed is strong, I knew it!” For all the keep to hear above the sounds of thunder outside, that mayhaps the announcement would be heard from the Stormlands over to King’s Landing so Aerion could hear it. He definitely heard it, everyone from the North to Dorne heard of the whirlwind love story the falcon and stag have.
Despite the wedded bliss, it had to come to an end.
War was knocking on Lyonel’s doors, and he took the Targaryen’s challenge with his whole chest.
With just one selfish choice, one that you never regretted, the realm was plunged into war.
Every war had to start from something, an inciting incident that plunged the realm into chaos. Some say you were taken from your bed by the Laughing Storm, mostly by the Targaryens and allies of the crown. But most would whisper about the love you and Lyonel have, that you wanted to leave and be with your great love and he provided an escape for you, risking his own head just to be with a princess by marriage. It’s the kind of love story grandmothers would tell the children over the fire, whether it’s a story with a moral lesson to learn, a warning, or just a grand story for the girls to giggle about, it depends on who tells it. History would tell both, the chaos, the love, and only a handful would know the truth years after Lyonel’s rebellion.
The Vale sided with your Lyonel, reluctantly of course after the dishonourable stunt you pulled at the Red Keep. Your father couldn’t even look you in the eyes, but you could still look into his, telling him that what you’ve done was right, that the only crime you’ve committed was saving yourself. After all the words you hurled at him, he still sided with the Baratheons because you are still his blood, and your brothers would’ve left his side and over to yours if he didn’t. In truth he made this happen, he pushed you into a marriage you did not want, and he sowed those seeds, and he is reaping the consequences.
You forced his hand, just like he forced yours to take Aerion as your husband.
This wasn’t an act of revenge that was done on a whim. It was love that made you take Lyonel’s offer. And it was love that would be your undoing.
You would’ve fought alongside Lyonel, but as you grew heavy with child, unable to fight or even walk on your own, confined to bed in fear of losing you and the babe, you couldn’t don your own armour and fight. You wanted to be with him, protect him, to see him everyday just to calm your own nerves. But with every complication, every trembling ache rolling from your stomach to your chest, you had to stay behind. You are carrying the heir to the throne now.
Aerion sent you a letter once. Just one, not a letter filled with soft and tender words, or pleading, it bears no single ill will either. There were no sharp words, nor curses hurled right at you. It contains a single phrase, “come back.” He didn’t sign it and the only indication that it came from the Red Keep was the Targaryen seal on the parchment. But you know it’s from him, it was written by his own hand, you know it too well when you were married to him for a year. From the wafting scent of the pressed black dahlia that tumbled out of the letter, it was unmistakably his perfume. The very same one he would ask you to rub upon his neck every morning.
You burned the letter and the flower that night.
War was started for far less, but it was obvious that you were the one that drew the first blood. You hit the royal family where it hurts, right at their own insecurity. Everyone already knows that madness runs in their family, so when the news hit the realm that the young prince’s wife left him for the Lord of Storm’s End, everyone thought of the same reason as to why you left— madness.
You would do it all over again, but you are remorseful for what you started. It could’ve been prevented, but the what if’s does not matter now as you lay dying in your birthing bed.
Your hearing is muffled in your ears as you hear crying all around you. Juniper’s frantic screams, your sworn shield, Andros, threatening the maester to keep you alive when the old man could only shake his head with fear in his eyes. Then, a cry of a babe, a babe that’s still bloody and plump as it lays atop your chest that’s slowly getting colder, breathing going shallow with every minute that passes.
“She cannot die!” Juniper, arms covered in blood, tears streaming down her cheeks, pleads at the old man, begging to give you life. “Please! She is my lady! My friend!”
“There is nothing else I could do, m’lady!” The poor maester shakes, the chains around his neck rattling with every tremble. “I have taken the afterbirth out and yet the bleeding won’t stop—”
“Try something!” Andros’ voice is as broken as Juniper’s. “You must do something!” The Vale’s sigil flutters from his cloak. It’s windy outside and it smells of flowers. It reminds you of home.
“There is—”
Their words fall in the back of your mind, you’re so tired, sore, aching, every muscle in your body is telling you to rest and close your eyes.
Your eyes close for a moment, taking a deep breath, as your hand trembles above you as you move the bloodied blanket away from your babe’s face. Happiness should wash over you that your boy is alive and well even as you lay there bleeding, but you could only feel dread when you see the tuft of hair upon his head. Coldness sweeps through your body like a lightning strike. You immediately cover him with the soiled bloody swaddle, shushing him weakly, caressing his small back.
The doors slam open, breaking at the hinges as Lyonel together with your older brother, Robert, who is hot on his heels enters the tower.
The stench of blood and decay rots Lyonel from the inside out. It’s the smell that he has gotten used to out in the battlefield, not at a bedchamber, especially yours. His smile falls, dread encompassing him. But when his eyes meet yours, his grin comes back— you’re alive, and he could hear his son cry in your arms. All is well.
Silence prevails the moment he walks in, heavy armour plates glinting under the harsh Dornish sunlight, cheeks reddened from adrenaline, and a smile so bright it could bring you back to life.
“My love…” Lyonel strides quickly over to the bed, boots thumping against the slick stone floors. His smile dies as he sees the pool of blood in between your legs, dripping through the mattress as it covers the cobbled stone in crimson, staining the bottom of his boots. “What—” the stench of battle mingles with the smell of death in the air as his heart drops to his stomach.
“M’lord. You have a son, but…” The maester is the first to speak, trembling, lips wobbling behind his long beard. His eyes darts towards the sword at the Lord’s hip. “There was a complication.”
“Lyonel...” One singular weak call of his name has Lyonel crossing the distance over to you.
Robert, your older brother Robert, who saw your first steps, who read to you when you couldn’t sleep, who stayed with you when the nightmares filled with fire and blood woke you in the dead of night looks at his baby sister with grief in his eyes. He knows, he’s no stranger to death, this war made him well acquainted with the stranger.
He knows what will happen next. He has seen it, his own Lady wife has lived it before she left him in this world with his children. And now he has to witness it all over again.
“I’m here, I’m here.” Lyonel takes your clammy face gently in his hands, armour clanking with every movement as he cradles you lovingly. “Stay strong, you will live through this.” You don’t know if he’s trying to convince himself or you. “You gave me a son, an heir to the throne.” He has a lopsided smile, thumbs wiping away the tears you didn’t notice you let out. “My doe, we won. He is gone, his whole bloodline is no more.”
You manage a small weak smile, head fully leaning against his hands lest it falls down from your neck. “You did…good, my stag.”
Your breath comes seldom, heavy, shuddered and with a struggle. And your hands are above the crying babe, protecting him.
Lyonel’s eyes flick at the babe, he chuckles, smiling and beaming at you albeit his smile is breaking at the edges. He refuses to let go. “We did good.” He then turns to the maester, who shivers where he stands. Fury mar his face. “Do something, give her blood, get her something!”
“M’lord, I—I cannot, there is nothing else I can do.”
Lyonel stands up, unsheathes his sword and points it right at his throat. “If she dies, you die.”
“Lyonel…” you try to call for him, to hold him while you still can.
Robert takes the opportunity to get to your side, his sword placed at the foot of the bed as he looks into your tired eyes. “Sister…”
“Rob, is that you?” Your eyes are glossed over, seeing watercolor lights as the tears meld together in your vision. You could feel the stranger’s hand upon your shoulder.
“Yes, it’s me.” His voice trembles, hiding the pain in his tone. “We’re all safe, Jon is coming here with father so you have to hold on. Mother too, you can see her again. She can see her grandchild.” Hand hovering above the babe in your arms, the blanket falls down from his head and your brother looks at you with dread. “What?”
“Take care of him.” You finally break, the brave façade crumbles beneath your feet. You’re trembling, hot and cold at the same time as you feel your fingers numb. “Lyonel will forsake him. Promise me, Rob, promise me.”
“Robert, move.” Lyonel suddenly looms over your brother, looking down at the babe rather than to you.
Rob looks over his shoulder with tearful eyes. “Lyonel—”
“I said fucking move.” With one push, Rob tumbles down from his crouched position to the floor. “My love, where’s our son?” His stormy fury shakes you to your core.
“I’m so sorry, Lyonel.” Your breath hitches in your throat, a trembling hand reaching up for him that he doesn’t take. “f–forgive me, seven above, forgive me.” One hitched breath, one last look at your great love and the Lady Arryn breathes her last.
The hand falls limply to your side. Your whole body stills, head lolling down upon the pillow, falling limp as your eyes remain open, your light is gone from within, and yet you still hold onto your son.
Lyonel could never forgive himself when your last words to him were spilled apologies.
Your name falls from his lips, crumbling to his knees as he sees you dead right where you lay. He expects you to breathe again, to smile, to call his name back like always, like some awful jest. But as he touches your face, you’re growing cold to the touch. Warmth ebbing away with every second.
He closes your eyes for you, a hand too still, too calm when he saw the light fade in your eyes and heard you draw your last breath just to apologize to him. With a final peck to your cold lips, a prayer, a wish whispered above your lips, he stands up, the clanking armour signaling your death for the whole realm to hear.
The baby in your listless hold cries, a piercing cry that could rival the storms in his home. He could believe that the babe is his, that the babe has his blood running in his veins. That the child you died for is his son, not the son of a bastard he just killed.
“Lyonel, don’t—”
He could hear Robert call him but he ignores his brother by law as he takes the babe from your arms, the arms that are lifeless and cold, no longer bearing the warmth you held him in during the storms in his home.
The babe cries, the blanket falling from his hair, showing off a tuft of platinum strands, almost white atop his head.
“M’lord, please give me the babe.” Juniper looks afraid, why is she afraid?
Lyonel’s hand trembles around the dagger in his grip. When did he unsheathe it? The steel barely kisses the fabric of the Baratheon gold fabric wrapped around the babe.
“She named him Ormund.” Juniper tries to act brave, hands reaching out for the child. “She said you two decided to name him that. Juniper if he would’ve been a girl.” She chuckles, no humour laced in her tone, just unfathomable grief.
“Lyonel, please.” Robert pleads behind him, eyeing his discarded sword at the foot of your bloody bed. Lyonel could cut through him and Andros like cake if they dare bear arms against him. “Don’t harm the child.”
Andros’ steel glimmers underneath the sun as he points it right at the new King of the Seven Kingdoms. “Give us the child.”
The crying rings in his ears, Ormund’s cries mingling with the ghost of your voice echoing in his mind.
The blade is mere inches away from the babe’s chubby tear stained cheek.
The Laughing Storm does not speak nor laugh as he holds your murderer in his arms.
“My sister is already gone!” Robert cannot hide his maddening grief as he holds out his arms so Lyonel could give him the babe. “You cannot take the only thing we have left of her.” He knows that if he tries to strike down at the new Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, he would soon join his departed men at arms in their muddy grave.
A man who lost his world has nothing left to lose.
Lyonel takes a deep inhale, smelling the blood, your blood on the child’s skin. He is Aerion writ small. A Targaryen, a family he swore he will end. A tyranny he ended with his own sword and bloodied hammer. A foe he fought to the death with for you so he could live in peace with you and grow old with you just like he always thought would be the moment he fell for you at Ashford.
And yet you’re dead and the boy in his arms that looks like the man he killed is alive and wailing, calling for his mother.
Lyonel started a war for you, and he ended that war for you only to come back to you at the stranger’s doorstep and another man’s child at your breast. Did you know? Mayhaps you had a feeling, a tug at the back of your head. Or perhaps you were too blinded by love to ever notice that it does not add up.
“Lyonel, please!” Juniper is on her knees, arms wide open to receive the child. “Just give him to me! He’s just a child! It is not his fault! She did not know it either!”
The wailing irks him, he just wants it to stop.
Lyonel’s hands have never shook while wielding a blade, but his hand trembles as he holds it above your son.
The boy suddenly opens his eyes, and Lyonel sees your eyes. Yours, not Aerion’s, yours. Not purple despite his Targaryen coloring. He sees you alive through the child crying in his arms, and the dagger clatters down on the floor. He is half you, half of the woman he would love forever and a day.
Everyone at the tower almost keels over from their own relief.
Ormund may not be his, but he is yours, your child that you once sang to every morning, the child he talked through your belly that you loved so much as you grinned and laughed at the one sided conversation. The very same babe you gave your life to. The very same babe he thought was his.
Lyonel cannot squander your sacrifice. He loves you too much to kill the last thing you left of this world.
“Juniper.” He scarcely recognize his own voice. “Take him, sail to Essos, and never come back.”
Juniper is helped up by Andros, heaving her up by her feet as she takes the babe safely in her arms. “Thank you, I—”
“As for everyone else in this room,” Lyonel unsheathes his sword. “The sword or the boat?”
“The b–boat.” The old maester is the first to answer, trembling as his chains rattle.
“The boat.” Andros replies, stepping in front of Juniper, acting as her shield in case Lyonel changes his mind.
“My nephew.” Robert is the last to speak, saying it with his chin held high despite the tears in his eyes. “I choose my nephew.”
Lyonel nods stiffly, taking one last look at you, sheathing his sword, and covering your body with the bloody blankets before taking you in his arms.
“Then leave my sight.” He doesn’t look at them after the command, he could only stare at your covered face, wishing that it was your smile that he is staring at.
Ser Duncan sees the new King of the Seven Kingdoms leave the Tower of Joy with his dead Queen, and no heir.
At least he let the baby live... but damn it😭😭 Imagine if it had been twins but one was a Targaryan and the other a Baratheon. Rip Lady Arryn, at least you had real love before you left😔🥀
Synopsis: Two encounters. One has you both running away, the other giving you hope.
Tags: No use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader except for clothing, reader has nicknames, CW blood and injury, CW food mentions, CW unsolicited touching (not from Bobby), CW dark themes. Eventual Bobby romance, slow burn, Part 3 of my Bobby series. Set during the movie (spoilers)
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Bobby Franklin Masterlist
Part 2 <<< Part 3 >>> Part 4
The sounds of wood thumping on metal rings through the tight corridors. You’ve named this place the boiler room, the whole place is covered in metal and steel, some are made out of copper that is slowly turning teal around the edges. It’s dank and smells like petrichor, like it’s about to rain inside. There’s a reason why you haven’t explored this place as much as the yellow wallpaper rooms— it’s hot here, not like a comforting warm summer heat that’s slightly muggy, a weather for the beach, or maybe for sailing out in the open seas, no, this place is searing hot, it’s humid, the type of heat that you could see make waves in the air around you.
Beside you, Bobby struggles to breathe through the hot air, just like you are as you’re still in your bomber jacket, refusing to take it off. The two of you wait for the pirate to move on, for the sound of thumping to fade from your ears as you hear its body scrape against the steel pipes. It’s too large for this place as it shambles around awkwardly.
The chase has you and Bobby winded, even more now that the heat isn’t helping you take in air. You’re drenched in sweat, the beads of sweat drips down from your chin down to your pants as it leaves little dark droplets on the fabric. Bobby is faring better than you, still sweaty and breathing heavily but not as bad as you when you feel like you’re being cooked from the inside out.
“Just take off your fucking jacket.” He whispers, too close to you when the curling pipes hinders him from moving away from you as you both hide inside a small crevice in the wall. “I won’t judge you if you have shitty tattoos.”
“Shut up before it hears you.” You shush him, swallowing nothing when the inside of your mouth is drier than a desert.
“You’re going to die of heatstroke.” You turn to him, glaring at Bobby as he glares right back. “I’m not a fucking idiot, I know shit too.” He takes a deep inhale of the hot air, regretting it when he almost chokes from the heat. “Just take off the jacket, you’ll feel better.”
“I’m fine.” Wiping away the sweat dribbling on your forehead, you strain your ears to try to hear the entity walking around. You don’t hear anything other than the leaking pipes and Bobby’s breathing. “I think it’s gone.”
“Thank fuck.” He shimmies out, passing by you as he stretches his legs from the prolonged crouched position. “Come on, let’s get out of the devil’s armpit.” Holding out his hand to you, you reluctantly take it as you feel your shirt cling to your skin from how drenched in sweat it is. “Before you faint again.”
“It happened one time and you’ll never let me live it down.” You start to walk through the hallways lined with pipes, you suddenly miss the yellow wallpaper instead of this creepy boiler room that makes you claustrophobic.
When the previous corridors felt like an abandoned office space, this one is more industrial, more metal and steel than wallpaper and carpet. There is an occasional hiss from the pipes, letting out warm air, and there are manholes on the floor, randomly dotted around, some look like it’s two in one, melted together like it’s in the middle of mitosis. You’d take the sailboat room more than this place.
“This place looks like it’s out of a Nightmare on Elm Street.” Bobby helps you search for the hasty marks you left when you two were being chased by the pirate. “I’m gonna ask now because it’s fucking eating at me but, did that fucking thing look like Clark to you?”
“Yep.” You pop the letter ‘p’ in your mouth as you struggle to look through the waves of heat ahead. “And don’t ask me why because I don’t know either.”
“Do you think it steals faces?” Bobby’s crop top sticks to his torso and you avoid your gaze from staying too long on him.
“I don’t know, Bobby.” You lumber towards a corner, your hand touching the hot wall trying to look for the mark you left with your marker. “Why are you so talkative?”
Bobby shrugs, keeps walking behind you as he uses his shirt to fan himself. “It helps to distract myself.”
You make the mistake of looking behind you as you see him completely drenched in sweat, his white crop top clinging to his torso like second skin, leaving almost nothing to the imagination. His lean stomach is in full show, heat singes your cheek and it’s not from the heat. Averting your eyes, you continue to walk forward, searching for the same door you two came out of. “It’s annoying me and the thing might hear you—”
Fumbling, stumbling on your own two feet when the heat makes your vision foggy, you hold onto a pipe for balance. Your palm is immediately seared as you scream in pain, taking your hand away. “Fuck!” You hold onto your wrist, keeling over, and crouched down onto the hard ground.
“Shit, let me see.” Bobby crouches down in front of you, gently taking your wrist in his hand. When you don’t budge, he clicks his teeth and calls you by your name. You didn’t even know if he remembered your name. “C’mon, hero, let me see.”
“Hero?” You ask through clenched teeth and tears in your eyes as he examines your reddened hand. “Really?”
“Yeah, you saved my ass, so you’re a hero. And you did that hero jump.” His eyes narrows at your palm, wincing for your sake. “Fuck, I don’t know much about burns but this looks gnarly. You’re gonna need ice for this.”
“Ice isn’t actually good for burns.” You let out a shuddered breath as the pain radiates from your palm down to your wrist, a slithering burn inching downwards to your elbows. “Running tepid water is.”
Bobby starts to unzip your bag, taking out one of the bottles of water for you, to which you instantly stop him with a shake of your head.
“I didn’t know that, but we don’t have either of them, so. Can we just use this instead?”
“N–no,” gritting your teeth, you make the mistake of glancing at your hand, seeing your flesh burn, bubbling up in angry reddened skin. “We need to conserve it for drinking. I—” you take a deep yet wobbly breath. “—I can handle this.” You’ve felt a lot of pain in your life but the burning sensation makes your stomach turn and the back of your eyes burn.
“You’re fucking stubborn.” Bobby stands up, knees creaking as he tries to help you up with his hands cupped around your elbows. “I have an idea.”
“You’re getting ideas now?” Brow raised, you try to focus on his face when your vision is starting to wobble like your legs. The combined heat and the throbbing pain in your hand has turned your body into jello.
“Yeah, you’re not the only one who’s allowed to have them.” He rolls his eyes, a hand reaching into his pocket for something before his palm comes up empty. “You said there’s a pool here? We can use the water for your hand.”
“That’s actually not a bad idea. But I don’t know how to get there from here.” You don’t mean to lean against him but you do as the pain takes hold of you. He lets you use him to steady yourself. He smells the same, just more sweat than cologne, and the scent of weed has almost faded away from his crop top. You try to keep your mind off the pain and heat, to try to recreate the comforting hum of the walls that doesn’t reach this searing place.
“You sound condescending.”
“I’m not,” swallowing down the bile in your throat, you take a deep inhale. “That’s just how I sound when I’m in blinding pain.”
“How about taking some of the pain meds—” you’re shaking your head at his idea as your eyes glance narrowedly at him. “It’ll help. You need it.”
“We need to ration—”
“Well, you fucking need it now, hero.” Bobby stops walking abruptly, feeling you tremble against him has him moving to open your backpack, taking out the little orange pills and handing it to you with a bottle of water. “Don’t be a hardass.” He gestures with his eyes, encouraging you to take it. “I took one before so you take one, equality.”
“Didn’t peg you for an activist.” He’s insisting, and you won’t get a move on if he refuses to walk. So you take a pill, pop it in your mouth and gulp down a mouthful of water.
“I get that a lot.” Bobby simply shrugs, putting the supplies back inside the backpack with a resounding zip before gently yanking down the straps from your arms. “Let me take the load off of you.”
You relent, letting him take the backpack as you watch him sling it over his shoulders. “Thanks…” mumbling, you hear something move, something’s hitting the pipes as the sound reverberates through the tight corridors.
You both simultaneously look back with fear in your eyes. “What was that?”
It’s an incessant tip tapping, almost like morse code, you don’t know much about it to know what they’re saying if it is.
Your feet move backwards, away from the sound as you instinctively grab hold of Bobby’s arm. “Were you a boy scout?”
“No,” he keeps his eyes on the empty corridor as the sound grows nearer. “Why?”
“Does that sound like morse code to you?”
“I don’t fucking know.” He hisses, walking backwards with you as a shadow, one with four legs, and a very large head slithers on the walls. “We should run.”
You’re already bolting away, tugging him away as he runs alongside you. The stench of rusted metal hits your nose, as numerous pipes whizz past the two of you.
You’re going deeper and deeper inside the boiler room. You shouldn’t be, you should be going back to the yellow walls, the familiar ones instead of running deeper through the copper scented hallways.
Your rushed footsteps alert the being as the tapping hastens, following right after you through the winding corridors.
The heat makes it hard to find your breath as you struggle to run this time. Your bomber jacket clings to you, drenched from your own sweat as your hand slips from Bobby’s arm from his clammy skin.
“Here!” Bobby grabs you by the scruff of your neck, yanking you away from a dead end and towards a room with rusted pipes lined around the brown walls. There’s a familiar sight right in the middle of the room, half embedded in the walls as the door swings creakily in the stale air. “C’mon!”
Bobby shoves you inside the industrial sized washing machine, before climbing in with you and shutting the door closed with a resounding clack of metal.
Heaving, you feel the stitch blooming on your side as your wide eyes stare at the yellowed glass panel of the washing machine door.
“What the fuck is that?” Bobby whispers, voice laced with fear as you both watch the creature stalk towards you.
This isn’t like the pirate with its eerie face borrowed from Clark, nor a docile one like your old man at the helm. No, this one is different, like it was meant to be a dog, a copy of it if the dog went through the shredder and blasted with radiation. This thing, is just as wrong as everything else in this place.
It snarls with an opened maw, rows of sharp canines combined with human teeth is in full show. It bites at the air, as if that’s the way it smells when you can’t see a nose where it’s supposed to be. The fur is mangled, dark and rusted just like the walls around it. It’s a moving shadow with four pointed ears, six legs with paws the size of your hand. The three tails, two longer, and one shorter, all seemingly from different dog breeds, stand on its end. It barks like a dog that doesn’t know how to. A mere echo of it, like it’s being played through a broken speaker that ends up spitting out a garbled mess of sounds.
As if things couldn’t get any worse, one more show up, this one is leaner, eyes more hungry and yellow than the first. It has three eyes, all wrong, all looking directly at you and Bobby.
You just now noticed that he’s still holding onto the back of your jacket, fingers bunching up the fabric in his tight hold in an attempt to calm himself.
One word glares brightly in your mind, ‘run.’ Run like you always have in your life. Instead of hiding and cowering in place while you wait for the hounds to get you and tear you to pieces. But there’s nowhere to run when you feel for the end of the washing machine, half expecting a door when you only find warm steel.
“Bobby, what—!” You both yell when the angrier one leaps up to smash its head against the glass.
The window doesn’t budge nor crack at the sheer force. The creature shakes its head, staggered by what it did.
“They can’t get in.” Your companion chuckles, a rising laugh that fades away the moment one of the hounds bashes its head against the glass again.
This time it leaves a crack in the glass and a smattering of black ooze.
You feel for your hammer, readying it in your hold. Bobby turns to you, locking eyes with you as his fear is palpable within the small confines of the washing machine.
You two reach an understanding. You and Bobby might die right here.
Another strike at the glass, another crack. Then another and another. Each hitting you right at your chest.
The glass looks like a mess of cracks and blackened blood as you both could barely see the hounds waiting on the other side.
You fix your hold onto the hammer and wait for another strike that doesn’t come.
A minute passes, a long agonizing minute of staring at a dirty window.
Then another minute, two, three, nothing happens.
You both look at each other, and you slowly inch your way closer to the window, crawling over Bobby’s legs as you peek through the side of the glass where it’s clearer. There, sitting right on the floor, hind legs spread out, are the two hounds sitting on both sides, as if guarding you both whilst their yellow eyes never stray too far from the washing machine. They don’t move a muscle or feel the need to breathe, they’re as steady and uncanny like your grandfather as he stared into space at the helm atop the half sunk boat.
“What do you see?” Bobby whispers beside your ear, raising gooseflesh on your skin despite the heat as his breath flutters your lashes.
“They’re not moving, just…just standing guard.”
Bobby tilts his head up, trying to find a spot on the glass that he could see through. His brows knit together, lips pursed tightly. “What the fuck are they doing?”
“Waiting for us to come out.” Your back hits the metal with a groan, and you stretch your aching legs, too long for the machine as the heels of your feet rise up to the other side of the wall. “I guess they got tired.”
It’s getting hard to breathe in this heat, especially when you’re starting to feel claustrophobic inside. You ball your uninjured fist, opening and closing it to attempt to calm your nerves. If only you had the song of the walls to press your ear onto.
“So we’re just fucking stuck here?” Groaning, he kicks at the wall with a resounding metallic thump. “Dying in a washing machine, how fucking funny.” His blue eyes flick over to you as you look like you’re dying from the heat, panting and sweating. “Shit, you need water.” Bobby takes the backpack off, unzipping it and taking a water bottle for you. “Drink, and don’t give me the rationing bullshit.”
“Has anyone told you—” you shut your eyes for a moment as sweat trickles down your face. “That you have a very unique way of showing how you care?” Uncapping the cap, or trying to at least with your injured palm, Bobby clicks his tongue and opens the bottle for you.
“No, shut up we need to conserve our air.” Watching you take gulps of water eases the tension in between his shoulders for a bit.
Your rising laughter bounces off the metal walls as Bobby looks at you with a raised brow. “Sorry,” wiping your sweat with your sleeve, you continue to chuckle to yourself. “This is actually a bit funny because I’ve had a recurring dream of getting locked in a washing machine.” You take a generous swig, letting the sweet after taste of the almond water coat your tongue. It helps a little bit.
“Okay, Nostradamus.” Swallowing his spit, you notice and hand him the water back. “And yes, I know who the dude is.”
“The dude.” You chortle. “You know a lot of things, Bobby.” Patting his knee, your head reclines back, thumping against the wall whilst he drinks. He takes it as sarcasm. “Never judge a book by its cover I guess.”
“Your hand needs to be bandaged.”
“I’ll do it later.” What’s the point when you’re gonna suffocate in here?
“No, it’ll get infected.” He rummages through the supplies and brings out a gauze and medical tape. Bobby still holds out hope. “Can you tell me how to treat it?”
“I don’t have burn cream…” Your chest lines with warmth and around your heart from the gesture. “Just put the gauze on my palm then wrap it as loose as possible with the tape. Keeping it clean is the only thing we can do.”
Bobby nods, moving closer, legs cageing you in as you sit between them. You give him your hand, the reddened flesh peeling whilst he’s slow and clumsy with his movements. Your skin pulsates with warmth and pain, like a bleeding heart.
Your eyes flick over to him, through the haze of heat, you really look at Bobby. At his chiseled jaw, broad shoulders, sandy blonde hair and pretty blue eyes that always seem to really look into your own. If you squint, he really does look like the guy you talked to for two hours straight whilst he waited for his laundry to finish. Maybe that’s why you’re helping Bobby, a redo of your fumbling.
He’s handsome. You just now realize that he’s good looking, the type of face that would have people giving him a second look on the street, or a face you see up on a billboard. He wears the crop top well, like he just shrugged it on in the morning without an afterthought, without sparing an effort on how he presents himself when his whole face and how he carries himself is enough to draw eyes on him. But he’s not like the frat boys you remember back in college, he doesn’t talk like he owns the ground you’re walking on, unlike them in their snooty letterman jackets and tuition paid for by mommy and daddy, Bobby actually talks to you and even listens. He makes conversations, notices things when you think he’s not paying attention. He’s kind enough to remember your name when no one even bothered to try. Even Janet just calls you kid when she forgot it months ago even though she has your resume on file.
He’s far kinder than you thought he would be. All that crisp angles and handsome features made you think he wasn’t when in truth his kindness was wrapped in his sharp angles and intense stares that is always keenly aware of the details around him.
You wonder why he even went with you in the first place when his ankle got better when he seems to be capable enough on his own. Never judge a book by its cover, but the verdict is still out when you’re both stuck here slowly running out of air.
“Why are you still with me, Bobby?” Your words tumble out of your tongue as your lungs struggle to take in air. “You could’ve gone on your own way to find Kat without me. Seriously, why are you helping a stranger?”
“Because you helped a stranger, idiot.” He says matter-of-factly, jaw tightening at the mention of Kat. Finishing dressing your wound, his adam’s apple bops up and down, admiring his handiwork before tossing the supplies back inside the bag. “I’m not a complete fucking asshole to leave you all alone here when you didn’t leave me. I should be the one asking you that question. You already saved me once and you don’t need to again. I’m no one to you and so is Kat.”
You wet your lips, smiling faintly at him, testing your hand as you open and shut it slowly. It still hurts but at least it’s contained. “You look like someone I knew.” Your words hang in between you as he blinks at your words. “And I’m not a total asshole to leave you wandering around here by yourself. There’s strength in numbers you know.”
You two are quite similar in that matter. You both don’t want to be alone in this place.
“I know that’s not all.” Somehow, Bobby could see right through your eyes and into your very soul.
You wince, looking at how his knee knocks against your own. “Because…because it looked like you needed someone and Kat…Kat was nice to me.”
Bobby glances away, looking at the hounds outside briefly before nodding at your words with a tensed jaw. “It’ll be better when we find Kat.” Everything will be better when they reunite.
It’s an arrow to your chest, your own lie striking you where it hurts. You’ve never been really good at lying or hiding it, but for his sake, you have to bite your tongue until you taste copper. “Yeah.”
“Y’know, I wanted to fucking throw shit at you when you left Kat and Clark in the laundry room.” Bobby turns to you and gazes into your eyes as you glance at the space between his brows instead of locking eyes with him. “I thought you could’ve just taken them with us. That you could’ve, I don’t fucking know…save them.” Shaking his head, Bobby wets his lips. “Then you left me and my thoughts all alone, and shit, I think–I think I would’ve done the same. Probably bolted out of there myself if no one was in my reach.”
“Still,” you sniff, struggling to breathe as you wipe the sweat hastily from your eyes when it stings. “I wish I could have saved them both.”
“Yeah,” he holds his breath for a moment before letting it go and handing you the half empty water bottle. “I don’t know what kind of adrenaline you have but I want some of that too, you could lift a fucking fridge when you’re panicking. Hell, you lifted me off my fucking feet like I weighed nothing.”
You smile after taking big gulps of water. “It’s a subconscious thing, people who are…more cautious tend to be better in situations like that.” Or that’s how your doctor put it when you survived drifting in the water for days.
“Like when a walking horror show tries to rip you apart?”
You manage a scoff akin to a weak laugh. “Yeah, I guess.”
Silence hangs in the air between you, his knees knocks against your own, the space too small for two people as he sits, or more like folded himself adjacent to you. In the cramped space and the dappled fluorescent lights filtering through the cracks of the window, his sharp features look softer.
“We’re gonna die here aren’t we?” Bobby says under his breath, too afraid to say it out loud.
“I hope not.” Hope, hope could be blinding that leads you to disappointment. But sometimes, it’s a driving force to keep you moving forward, even when it’s too dark to see, hope will be the guiding light. You hope for his sake when he has people waiting for him on the other side. You don’t care if you die inside this place, but it’ll crush you if he dies, because you failed to bring him home, you failed to save a life again.
You already failed with Kat and Clark, you don’t want Bobby to end up like them. Or like your grandfather still waiting for you at the bottom of the sea.
“Fuck me.” Bobby rubs his face harshly, leaving his cheeks flush with red. When he opens his eyes, concern mar his face. “You don’t look too good, hero.” He scooches closer, taking the bottle from your weak grip to pour some of it out on his palm and splashes it on your face. “Hey, stay with me.” He says your name gently, coaxing you to keep your eyes open with a pat to your cheek. His palm is warm, silken, with the pads of his fingertips calloused, blazing against your clammy skin.
You want to live for him.
Something moves. A warp in the walls, a metallic groaning of metal sliding against steel. Like nails on a chalkboard that grinds your teeth together.
Bobby hears it too, “what was that?” You know it was real this time, not like the humming in the walls.
“I don’t know…” Head craning towards the far wall, at the other end of the machine, you don’t see rusted metal anymore, just darkness, pitch black, a void that stares back.
“Do you have a flashlight?”
“No, it ran out of battery on day six.”
Bobby fishes out a lighter from his pocket. He flicks his thumb, letting sparks fly as a flame blows out from the lighter. “Stay here.”
He crawls over you then towards the darkness.
“Bobby, wait—”
When he’s supposed to hit the wall, he continues to move inside. “It’s a way out.”
“What the fuck.” You follow him, crawling on all fours as your knees hit the metal.
It’s so dark inside that you could only see the small flame in front of you. Your arms wobble from your weight, and when the flame flickers away, Bobby curses under his breath.
“Hold on.” With a hand rummaging in your jean pocket, you take out your phone whilst Bobby tries to light the flame again. You press the on button, waiting for your phone to come alive, wishing that the screen turns on.
“What are you doing?” You could only hear his voice and feel his warmth on your side.
“Turning the light on—” the screen flashes and you immediately swipe to open the flashlight. You two blink at the sudden light.
“What the fuck is that thing?” Wincing, Bobby has one eye open, adjusting to the light, trying to get a look at what’s in your hand.
“My phone, duh, c’mon.” Patting his shoulder, you crawl by him when you’re now the one leading.
“That’s a weird looking phone, man.”
More crawling, more metal squeaking underneath you, and with your palm fully bleeding as it leaves bloody handprints on the floor, you finally get out of the washing machine.
You almost fall down if not for Bobby’s hand on your ankle stopping you from falling from the hole. Hopping off, shutting your phone off again and shoving it in your pocket before helping Bobby out, you feel heavier, woozy from the heat and pain. You slouch, folding against yourself when you feel like crumpling on the floor.
It looks like you two crawled out of a metal pipe. It doesn’t make sense one bit.
“Jesus, your hand.” Bobby puts the backpack on, and gingerly takes your wrist with a wince and a grimace. “Fucking gnarly.”
“I’m fine.”
“It doesn’t look fine.” His eyes rake around the bloodied gauze. “You need fucking…something. A doctor, you need a fucking doctor.”
“Bobby, I’m fine—”
You heard him before you saw him. A shuffling of feet on the metal floors, tentative, wary.
There, standing in the corridor, looking worse for wear, sweaty all over with a relieved look in his eyes is Clark.
“Bobby?”
Your companion turns to the voice, following your shaky gaze, landing right at the man, who dragged you on the damp carpet.
“Jesus, Clark.” Bobby puts his arm instinctively in front of you, taking a step forward, apprehensive, unsure of his decision. “Where did you come from?”
“The pipes, f—fuck, you have no idea how relieved I am to see someone—”
“Stay the fuck back.” Despite your injured hand, you grasp the hammer in your bloody grip, shaking, pointing it right at him. “Bobby, don’t trust him.”
“Where’s Kat?” Bobby stays beside you, yet his attention is on Clark. “Is she with you?” Hope is laced within his wavering tone.
“I–I don’t know, we got separated.” His hands wring in front of him. He looks normal, better than the last you saw him. Clark doesn’t look as starved, he does look exasperated like you and Bobby, but his eyes are just as frantic and panicked as yours, not steady and calm like before. He looked like the Clark you met, the one that tied Bobby’s rope too tightly around his waist. Not the Clark that hauled you around and tried to give you to the being. “I’m sorry, I tried.”
There it is, tried. The same word he uttered to you in the room with Kat’s severed hand, sounding too calm, looking too calm for someone that’s starving.
Something’s amiss.
You’re missing something. He shouldn’t look like this, he shouldn’t sound like this, if the Clark that tried to take you was real, then who the fuck is the one standing before you?
If it’s the heat that’s messing with your mind, then it’s affecting Bobby too when he also sees this Clark, nervous Clark, terrified Clark.
“What the fuck do you mean you tried?” Bobby hisses, fists balled at his side. “What happened to Kat? What did you do to her?”
“What? I–” Clark’s eyes find yours, and you falter, heat clinging to your skin, drying you out even more as you feel woozy. “I wouldn’t hurt her! Why would I do that?”
“I don’t fucking know, man.” Bobby scoffs, shaking his head as his tone rolls out sarcastically. “The same reason you did this to her.” He gestures at your neck, scratches reddened at the edges, pulsing with a dull ache. Clark looks confused. “Did you feed Kat to that–that thing like you tried with her?” Voice cracking, his words breaking in the middle. “Where the fuck is she, Clark?”
“I didn’t fucking do anything!” His hands land on his chest, eyes wild, swallowing thickly. “I didn’t do that to her!” Clark now points to you, hands shaking. “Please, I just need some water, we’ll get out together.”
Bobby snatches the hammer from your hand, staining his own palm with your own ichor. “Where the fuck is Kat?” He repeats, heavier this time, more threatening.
“I don’t know, okay!” Sweat dribbles off his clammy face, hands trembling around him. “I heard her through the walls, I really did try to help her but I couldn’t see her but—but she could see me. I don’t know what happened to her, Bobby, and I didn’t do anything to her.” He sounds desperate, heaving, almost keeling over himself. “Please, let’s just get out together.”
“Bobby, we need to go.” You take him by the arm, walking backwards as Clark starts to walk closer to you both. “Bobby, we can’t stay here. We can’t trust him.”
“Just tell me where she is, man.” Bobby breaks, lips wobbling, hand trembling around the hammer. He suddenly brings it to the wall, smacking a pipe as it leaves a dent on the metal. You and Clark wince at his action.
“I don’t know, Bobby. I’m sorry.” Clark holds out his hands in front of him in surrender. He seems genuine, but he also sounded genuine the last time you saw him.
From behind Clark, you hear the shuffling of fabric. A quiet rustle, too silent to be heard by the two men. Your heart rate immediately picks up.
“Bobby,” you whisper, clutching onto his arm, tugging him away, getting more exhausted by the second as you inhale and exhale out hot air. You feel your brain getting cooked inside your skull. “Bobby, it’s here.”
“Is she even alive?”
His trembling words strike right at you when you have the answer to his heartbreaking question.
“I don’t know…” Clark shakes his head, eyes averting from Bobby’s tensed form. “Why are you so scared of me? I didn’t do anything! I’m just me!”
You catch a glimpse of a pair of reddened eyes just around the corner of a wall, it stares at you, watching, observing. Waiting for you to break. “Bobby, on the wall, left side.” Voice trembling, head falling to his bicep, too hot to hold yourself up, you watch Bobby reluctantly take his eyes off of Clark, expression contorting into pure horror when he sees it.
He takes you by the hand, twisting around and running away with you in tow.
Clark screams, followed by his rushed footsteps, trying to keep pace with you and Bobby.
You don’t have the energy to sprint, more so to even lift your feet up. You’re so tired, too hot, your muscles strain under your clammy skin as you heave.
Bobby leads the escape, shoes scraping against the metal as he hides a wince. A pipe bursts near his face, and he shrieks at the sudden puff of warmth on his cheek. But he continues on, holding you up.
Because you would’ve done the same for him, you already had.
He turns a corner, blindly running in the heat soaked boiler room. Turning his head behind him, he doesn’t see Clark following anymore, but he does hear the rustling, the fabric scraping against itself, running, following.
Saliva covers your mouth, coating it as bile rises from your esophagus. Your legs turn wobbly under you. Bobby throws his arm around your shoulder, helping you run alongside with him when he could’ve just left you in the corridor to fend for yourself. He’s not giving up on you so you don’t give up for his sake. Your feet drags along the metal floors, trying to keep pace with his long strides. Your head dips down to your chin, unable to keep it up as you see the floor rush under you, the rusted floors, teal copper spread across it and the occasional manhole covers.
Vision blurring, you want water, you need water, to dive in it, to swim in its depths and stay underneath the currents.
You’re dying of thirst. Heatstroke, you’re gonna die of heatstroke after everything you went through. It’s comedic.
“Stay awake!” Bobby jostles you in his arms, you’re dead weight. “Fuck, c’mon!” He steps onto a manhole cover, and you both suddenly fall inside.
You gasp, flying mid air, twenty feet, fifteen, twelve, watching the hole you fell in get smaller and smaller, a mere dot in your vision.
Wind rushes around you, stale air that smells like chlorine.
You feel Bobby’s hand try to grasp at you mid air, but you feel so light weight, so light, free, like you’re flying, soaring, and you close your eyes, hearing him scream your name as you both plunge into the cold depths.
—
“Hey, princess.” You look up and see him, your grandfather, smiling down at you. Or you think he’s smiling when the sun behind him blinds you, covering his features. “You’re cooking here, you should get under the shade.”
His voice sounds far, muffled, like it’s playing on an old cassette tape that’s been played a hundred times before. Weathered, the movement of time marring the edges of the tape.
“I put sunscreen on.” You mutter, eyes squinting up at him as the popsicle in your hand melts, staining your hands raspberry red. “I miss you.”
He chuckles, that familiar laugh right from his belly that you’ve always told him was too loud and garners too much attention. You shouldn’t have told him that because he doesn’t let his laugh out like that anymore.
“I’m right here, sweetheart. What’s there to miss?”
There’s a seagull flying above him, the sky is blue, the clouds don’t move. And your eyes follow the bird, attention taken away, watching it fly until it hits a wall made to look like the horizon. It falls, leaving a smattering of blood amongst the blue.
It squawks loudly, an ear piercing cry of pain as it lands harshly on the ocean painted floor.
When you turn to look at him again, his face is mere inches away from your own.
Your breath shudders, gazing into those wrong eyes in the wrong face. He looks like someone who just moved as you press the camera’s button and the lens captures his blurred features that melt together.
“What’s there to miss?” He asks, garbled, the words stuck in his esophagus, choking on his own broken tone.
You wake up with a start, eyes opening to tiled ceilings and walls. It’s startlingly bright inside, a bright blue that encompasses around you, a deep contrast from the rusted boiler room. You take a deep breath, heaving, a palm to your chest as you smell the acrid chemical chlorine permeating the air around you as it tickles your nose.
The first thing you notice is how drenched you are, your clothes cling to your skin uncomfortably, soaked as droplets of water drip from your bare arms. You don’t have your jacket. Your arms are bare, the scars lined around your flesh. Old, but still there.
Gasping, you cross your arms around you, eyes panicked, frantic as you feel the familiar numbness climb from your legs to your chest, suffocating you.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, you’re okay!” Bobby appears from behind, arms hovering around you as his eyes rake around your panicked face. “It’s okay, just breathe, we’re safe here.”
“Where’s—” you struggle to find your words when your lungs don’t work. “Where’s my jacket?”
Blinking, he looks at you like you’re a fish out of water. “I took it off you, I’m sorry, I had to, you were cooking in it.”
“P–please, just— just give it back to me.” Tears sting your eyes as you fold your legs against you, trying to press further into your chest as if you’re absorbing your legs into yourself.
“What? It’s wet—”
“Bobby, please!” Your nails dig into your forearms, leaving crescent shapes on your slick skin.
“Okay, okay!” He rushes away from the pool lounge chair where you have found yourself. There’s some rustling behind you, and your first instinct was to run. “Here, I’m sorry, I was hanging it over a chair to dry it out.”
“Give it to me.” You don’t extend your arms as your hand opens and closes. He passes it to you, turning away when your shirt clings to your front, it’s white and shows him too much of everything. Once you’ve put on your jacket, you hug yourself, collapsing onto the pool lounge chair that squeaks under you. “Thank you.” You wheeze out, a hand around your throat as you take deep inhales and exhales.
“Yeah, you’re welcome.” Bobby walks away, clearing his throat, scratching the back of his flushed neck as his wet hair clings to his nape and temples. His torso is bare, showing off a lean body, probably drying his shirt just like what he was doing to your jacket before you woke up. “You thirsty?” He asks after a beat of awkward silence.
Smacking your dry lips together, you feel your strength return as you sit up. You’re still wobbly, trembling slightly, and your head still has that dull throbbing ache as you rest your forehead against your folded knees. “Please.”
A second later there’s a bottle of almond water nudging your thigh. “This one’s yours. I found a couple more here.”
Where is here exactly?
You lift your head, eyes roaming around the new environment you both fell in. The walls are covered in white symmetrical square tiles, all lined perfectly, the grout in between is black, and it reminds you of a comic with the tiles lined in thick black lines. From the pillars down to the floor, it’s covered in the same tiles. Right in the middle of the expansive room is an Olympic sized pool, rectangular in shape, with various pool toys floating on the blue water. It would look normal if not for the random colourful slides sticking out of the walls and some on the ceiling that has a drop that would have your stomach churning.
As you gaze at the ceiling, you see the manhole cover above, now closed, the other side showing you the underside of the rusted metal.
“It’s not going to drink itself, y’know.” He shakes the bottle, looking down at you with a faint smile as the fluorescent lights shine behind his head, a halo of light lined around him. You blink owlishly at him, and his face contorts into deep worry as he squats beside you. “Shit, did you hit your head?” A hand cups the side of your face gingerly, like he’s afraid you’ll break in front of him from his touch alone. “Was it dilated pupils or pin point that says someone has a concussion?” He says more to himself, mumbling, looking into your eyes.
“Neither, the pupils should be equal in size, not one bigger than the other.” You answer, voice hoarse as you look into the blue depths of his eyes. You could drown in them. “I’m okay, Bobby, just shocked, where are we?”
“Oh, thank fuck.” His hand falls atop the lounge chair, head lolling down to his clavicle with a relieved sigh. “I thought the impact broke your head.”
“Did we fall?”
“Yeah,” he sniffs, a hand raking through his drenched tresses. “From that manhole.” Pointing up, you both look up, twenty feet from below, you squint from the harsh white lights. The manhole cover remains on the ceiling, a brown dot amidst the stark white tiles. “I don’t know how though, I stopped trying to figure out how things work here ever since we got out of the washing machine. But thankfully we fell into the water and we didn’t turn into a pancake.”
You crane your neck down, looking at him as he still gazes at the ceiling. His lean neck is stretched out, a sharp jawline that moves at the hinges when he purses his mouth. “You swam us out of there? On your own?”
Your gaze stretches from both ends of the deep pool, wondering how he managed to get you out and himself without drowning. You’re impressed by his feat. And he knows it from your tone alone.
The water is so clear that you could see the bottom, but it’s deceptive, you know it’s far deeper than it seems. This place is bigger than any of the rooms so far, it’s as big as a football field, probably twice as big when the pool stretches so far. There are three doors in this place, one adjacent to you, painted in deep emerald green with three odd doorknobs on it. Then the other two are on the far right end of the wall, both having signs on it. Then there’s the wrong door right in the middle of the far wall. It’s small, like a doggy door, painted in blood red. Something tells you that you shouldn’t go there. You guess the two doors beside each other are the bathrooms or shower rooms from the looks of it like in public pools, but you can’t tell what the signs says from where you sit.
His eyes crinkles in the corners, smiling gently, a nice reprieve from the fearful look on his face that you’ve gotten used to. “Not to brag but, I was on the varsity swim team during sophomore year.”
“Just sophomore year?” You can’t help it when the corner of your lip tugs up.
“I flunked chemistry.” Bobby winces, chuckling at himself. “And they had to kick me out because my grades weren’t as good.”
“I should be the one calling you hero now. And chemistry sucks anyway.”
His eyes softens from your words. “Please drink, I’m tired from wetting your lips with your own jacket. It was like I was feeding a baby bird.”
“That’s not embarrassing at all.” Shaking your head, you hide your smile as you gulp down the sweetened almond water. You let it coat your insides with that odd saccharine taste.
“Trust me, it was more embarrassing for me than for you.”
“At least you didn’t use your own shirt.” You wipe your mouth with your sleeve.
“Yeah, or you’d be drinking remnants of my sweat.” Bobby gives your shoulder a pat before rising, knees creaking as he stretches. “I’m preparing dinner.” Those are the words you thought you’ll never hear again.
“What?”
“I found a bunch of food in this place, just under the sink in the bathroom. It’s like someone left their stash here. I’m sorting through it, just rest, you were really out of it.”
“You think someone else was here?” You call out over your shoulder, watching the clear undisturbed water.
“Probably, I don’t know which one is scarier, us being alone here or someone else was here, wandering around just like us.” There’s a clang of metal behind you, and you twist around, ignoring the pang of pain radiating from your feet up to your knees. Your palm still aches, but more tolerable rather than the blinding pain. Bobby is trying to break open a can of peaches with your hammer. “Shitty fucking thing.”
“Use the other side of the hammer. Stab at the corners.” You simply say, body folding against yourself as you still feel the heaviness weigh you down. “Fuck…”
“You good?” He pauses from his hammering, looking at you as you wince, a hand grasping your forehead. “I told you to rest, lay back down, hero.”
“Did Clark…did he follow us?” You hug the back of your legs, half lidded eyes staring at him.
Bobby shakes his head, turning the hammer and stabs at the corner of the can just like you instructed. “You were right, something was up with him. He was hiding something, I could tell.”
You’re hiding something from him. “Yeah,” twisting around, you lay back down on the lounge chair when you feel the heaviness in your chest weigh you down. “You okay, Bobby?”
“Yeah, just starving.”
“Back in the sailboat room,” you hear him hum in reply, telling you that he’s listening. “Who do you think left the food and water?” The metal scraping against metal pauses. When he doesn’t reply, you call out to him. “Bobby?”
“I don’t know.” You could hear the confusion in his tone. “Why didn’t we ask that? It was left right there on our doorstep. It was clearly for us.”
“We have a mysterious benefactor.” Your eyes close, embracing yourself as your muscles relax to the sound of Bobby’s ministrations and the scent of chlorine. It should bother you more, but it doesn’t.
Your wet clothes should make you uncomfortable at how it sticks to your skin, but it does the opposite, it comforts you, reminding you of the days where you would swim for hours and let the air dry you as you doze off on the deck.
“I wonder who it is. It can’t be Clark or that thing.” Bobby is only met by silence. Worry slithers up his chest as he leans back until he could see you on the lounge chair, sleeping soundly, curled around yourself and more importantly, still breathing. He lets out a sigh, before trying to open the can quieter this time around.
—
Bobby floats aimlessly in the water as it laps around his face, eyes closed, breathing steady when he has stripped himself bare except for his boxer shorts. He’s unashamed, while you avert your eyes as you dig through the can of peaches.
There’s only silence around the pool room, save for the gentle scraping of your finger against the side of the crinkling metal can and the gentle lapping of water, it’s stifling. You miss the quiet comforting song of the walls, that slight tremble within the wallpaper that is warm to the touch. Bobby helps, his presence is a good alternative to the hum, but how long will that stay when you’re withdrawing important information from him? Something that might break him and ruin his peace.
He looks softer as he floats on the water, his arms are spread around him, legs floating as he lets out a breath. The lights illuminate him, the chain around his neck catching the light, making him look ethereal, almost akin to a renaissance oil painting. One that bears tragedy underneath all the brush strokes and pretty colours.
“I think I’m going insane. The tiles are starting to melt together in my eyes.” His voice cuts through the silence, echoing as his eyes open, head craning to look at you slouched on the lounge chair. “You look like a camel.”
“Thanks?” You slouch some more as he snorts out a chuckle. “Sounds something like an insane person would say.”
“Slouching is not good for your back.” Bobby stops his floating and swims over to the edge of the pool, arms over the tiles as he rests his chin above his arm. His blue eyes sparkles, head tilted as he gazes at you like he’s trying to read your mind. “Do you think someone created this place?”
“I don’t think so.” You lick your lips, grimacing slightly at the taste the peaches left. “No one’s smart enough or this crazy to invent something like this place.”
Bobby sucks in his teeth, legs floating behind him as he watches the water lap at the edge of the pool. “Back in the laundry room where we…fell.” You hum, eyes staring at the floating peaches inside the can. “I saw my own shirt on the pile of laundry. It was fucked up, it was dumped there like some kind of trophy.” He waits for your reply, and yet when he glances at you, you’re just staring at your dinner. “Earth to hero? Am I annoying you?”
You flash him a smile. “No, just thinking.”
“Penny for your thoughts?”
“You don’t have a single penny.”
“Not right now, but I have money in the real world, y’know.” He flutters his lips at you, blowing an annoyed raspberry as he pushes himself away from the edge of the pool and floating again on his back.
“This is the real world, Bobby.” You don’t mean to sound calloused or bitter, it’s just the truth.
“And they both suck.” His wrist flicks at the water, splashing some water upwards as if it’ll reach the manhole cover on the ceiling. “Do you know how to swim?”
“Yeah.” The slice of peach doesn’t go down your throat easily and you have to take a swig of water.
“Oh yeah, you lived near water.”
More silence, a tension brought back by your dry replies.
“There’s more food in the backpack if you’re still hungry.” He says, prodding at you with his gaze. You hum in reply, and he purses his lips.
Bobby sighs, swims over to the edge of the pool again and looks at you over his arms. “You know that I won’t judge you, right?” His words cut through you when his gaze flickers towards your covered arms. “We’ve all got shit we don’t want to talk about. And that’s okay, I understand you, I won’t ask you about it or judge you for what you did. I’m just glad you stuck around, hero.”
You instinctively hug yourself, the taste of the tart peaches makes you gag. You never liked peaches. “Where’s the bathroom?”
Bobby’s face falls, your name falling on his lips quietly, swallowing thickly as he looks away from you, perhaps guilty for bringing it up, or maybe pity. “Far wall, the signs are fucked so choose whatever.”
You vault from your seat, placing the half eaten can of peaches down on the lounge chair with a clang before walking carefully on the damp tiles. You could feel his eyes follow you, and you could finally breathe the moment you reach the bathroom door.
He’s right, the signs are weird. The usual female and male signs are wonky and turned upside down, it looks like it melted under some heat and you could barely tell what it originally was. You don’t pick which one to go into when you shove your way inside.
The bathroom is dimly lit compared to the bright pool room outside. It’s clean, filled with stalls and sinks, some have showers just like you surmised. And it looks normal, like a public bathroom at a dying mall or an airport bathroom during a red eye flight when there’s no line. For a moment there you thought that you got out, that you’re back in reality instead of being stuck here with a stranger that has saved your life twice now. But when the smell of mold hits you, and you catch sight of a painted sun with a face on the mirror, you know you’re still here, where the air is still, and the monsters in your mind have come alive and are out to get you.
You take deep breaths, grounding yourself, counting how many things you can touch in the place, how many things you can hear, what things you can taste, and all the things you can see. You come up with less and less as you grip onto the sink, opening the squeaky faucet as it splutters out cold water.
Yanking off the jacket, the fabric is still damp to the touch when you toss it haphazardly onto the counter as it clangs loudly, bouncing off the walls. You don’t look at yourself for a while, maybe the feeling will go away if you don’t look.
Taking out your phone from your pocket, you try to turn it on, to find comfort through the pictures, but just as you suspected, it doesn’t turn on. You should toss it against the glass and break it into pieces, but it’s the only thing you brought from home that reminds you that there is still something for you when you get back. Even if it’s just a gravestone, or an empty apartment, or a dead end job. So you shove the phone back in your pocket, maybe if you get out of here you can get it repaired and see the old pictures again.
Unwrapping the bandage Bobby wrapped around your palm, you place your injured hand underneath the water, letting it drench your hand with a wince. Biting your lip, you whimper, eyes glazing over with tears let out by the pain in your hand and in your chest. You unstick your gaze from your reddened flesh, reluctantly staring at yourself in the mirror, you look worse for wear, tired even though you’ve slept long enough and ate enough to keep you going. You still refuse to look at your arms.
You must keep going for his sake, you have to bite through the pain and live on, even when it hurts. Even when he has seen why it hurts.
Head tilted down, you listen to the rushing water hit the porcelain, watching the water collect on your palm as it overflows and hits the sink with a splash. You let your breathing even out when you’re starting to feel the bone aching numbness spread through your limbs. You’re antsy, and you feel your throat close up, static poking right at your fingertips.
Your mind rushes a thousand miles per hour, you just can’t help it. From thoughts about Clark to Kat, to Bobby and the exit, you didn’t hear the sound of the cubicle door opening right behind you.
You feel cold arms wrap around your middle, featherlight at first that you thought you were imagining it, that you’re so touch starved that you were day dreaming about a gentle embrace. But when the pair of arms wrap tighter around your torso and arms, you jostle awake.
Your heart stops when you look at the mirror, there, situated right behind you is a man.
He’s awfully familiar, but unfamiliar at the same time. His face peeks behind your head, and it’s wrong, like the ink on a picture that has faded out. Like Janet down here, just like the memory of your grandfather that stays still at the helm. It’s just like them, it’s not alive.
And it’s wearing the exact same shirt as you.
“Fuck!” You stagger away from the sink, trying to wiggle out of its hold. “No, let go!” Your elbow meets its stomach, but it continues to hold onto you for dear life, not even feeling your striking blow.
The sounds of your shoes squeak across the floor, and you feel it grasp onto you tighter, fingers interlocking on your front, digging you further against its chest like it’s trying to absorb you within itself.
You struggle, kicking around, managing to shuffle to the wall as you push it against it harshly, knocking it against the tiles, trying to make it let go. All it does is make it sink its head against the crook of your neck.
It doesn’t breathe, it doesn’t blink, it doesn’t speak, it just presses itself against you, embracing you like it knows you, trying to take your warmth.
“No!” You shriek, tears blurring your vision as its arms hold onto you so tightly that it’s getting harder to breathe. You have no choice as you claw at its arms and face. “Bobby!” Your nails hit something soft, digging into something akin to a foam than flesh.
Your guttural screams echo around the walls.
“Bobby!” You hear something crack, a bone, maybe yours as your breath leaves your lungs with a dry cough. It holds onto you like velcro, and your legs weaken from the lack of air. It turns you around, pressing you against the wall and further into the tiles. Something in the walls shift, you could hear it hum, you could feel it move. The coldness parts against your cheek as it absorbs you, one by one, cell by cell. “Bobby!” Your screams turn dull with every press against your chest. “Bobby—”
There’s a loud thwack from behind, and the arms let you go.
You keel over, taking deep breaths as you push yourself out of the walls. Crawling backwards and away from it, fingers grasping at your neck, desperately dragging air into your lungs. You see Bobby wield your hammer, standing tall, drenched, striking right at the entity.
“Motherfucker!” He brings it down with a force so harsh that it breaks its face, cleaving it open. “Fuck off!” He strikes again and again until it staggers backwards into a stall.
It’s hand tries to reach for you as if asking for your help, pleading for your help.
Bobby stalks over it, anger rolling off of him from his posture alone as the muscles on his back tense with every rise and fall of the hammer.
The cubicle door swings close behind the two similar looking men, and you could only hear the sound of the hammer meeting whatever it’s made of. Not flesh and bone, something else, something you can’t tell.
You flinch with every smash, metal hitting it in decreasing intervals when Bobby’s ragged breathing echoes around the bathroom.
Your eyes glance at the wall, and you see the tiles close in time before it returns to normal. Or what normal is around here.
The door swings open, and Bobby wipes the sweat off his face with his arm, standing over what remains of the thing that took the form of a man you met and talked to once.
Its face is smashed in, leg twitching, fingers opening and closing. There are stuff around it that bears a resemblance to its cut open face. It looks like foam, like what’s inside a mattress instead of blood and bone.
Bobby heaves, crouches down in front of you, the hammer clangs against the tiles as it falls from his grasp before his hands take hold of your face gingerly, making you look away from the carnage. “Are you okay?”
Your lips wobble, but you keep a brave façade. “Yeah, it— it came out of nowhere.” The lack of air made your voice hoarse, cut at the edges, almost broken.
“I swear that I checked this whole place and there was no one else here.” He sounds guilty, face contorted into a mix of guilt and ebbing fury, the edges of his eyes are reddened, crimson amidst blue. “Did it…did it hurt you?”
Shaking your head, you feel an ache between your ribs that you decide to ignore. “No, it just—it was pushing me into the wall.”
“Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
You don’t know why you did it, maybe it was his genuine bone aching worried expression or maybe it was because he saved you again, either way, you break, opening your arms and pulling him against you for an embrace, as if he was the one in need of comfort. Maybe you shouldn’t when you could still feel the entity’s arms around you, so unfamiliar, so cold. But Bobby is so warm, so familiar, and he lets you, you haven’t held onto someone in so long that your body has forgotten how real warmth feels like. Not from the walls, or whatever nonsensical thing you could fill your days with in the real world. This is humanly real that it sends your mind into a state of calm, a quiet that you’ve only felt through the song of the walls.
Bobby holds you gently, taking you in his arms in a softer and kinder way as his palms rest on your back gingerly. His hand shivers slightly from the adrenaline or from the unfamiliar affection from you.
“I’m not going to break.” You mutter near his ear, watching the thing twitch on the bathroom floor. Bobby squeezes you, letting out a relieved sigh. He holds onto you for a moment, his knuckle gliding along the length of your back, the other cupping the back of your head, waiting for you to pull away first. Once you finally gather your breath and your trembling seizes, you pull away. “Thank you.”
“I heard you call for me and I thought—” his lips purses together, a palm patting your cheek. There is an unsteady tremor from his touch that isn’t as well hidden as he hoped. “nothing, I’m glad you’re okay.” Eyes flicking down your torso, his brows knit together.
“What?” You look down at yourself, expecting blood, or for him to be staring at your arms.
“It was wearing the same shirt as you…” Bobby’s blue eyes meet yours, confusion swimming in them. His mouth forms a question, until.
“Hello?” A voice calls from somewhere. Echoed, like speaking through an old speaker.
“What the fuck?” Bobby instinctively shields you, a hand grasping at your bicep as you both frantically look around the source. “Who the fuck?”
“Holy shit, you guys are real.” Relief is palpable in the stranger’s tone.
“This place is fucked, let’s go.” Bobby helps you up, cautiously walking away.
“Wait, no, please! I’m human! I’m stuck here just like you guys!”
“Can you see us?” You ask tentatively, holding onto Bobby’s elbow to stop his frantic movement. Looking around, you see nothing out of the ordinary, except for the being on the floor. “Where are you?”
Bobby side eyes you, asking what you’re doing through his expression. You reassure him with a squeeze of his arm.
“In some fucked up looking house.” He sounds ragged, exhausted. “I could see you but you can’t see me, right?”
“Yeah.” You could see the cogs in his mind turn as you both recall what Clark told you two in the boiler room. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Peter.” He takes a deep breath that you could hear everywhere around you. “Peter Tench. I… I worked here, still work here.” He laughs bitterly. “I’m a researcher.”
“I fucking knew it!” Bobby seethes, still shielding you from the unseen Peter. “The fucking government made this shit.”
“No, no, we’re not the government, we’re far from it.” He sounds increasingly tired with each word he lets out. “Listen, I don’t have much time, it’s out there.”
“What is, Peter? Maybe we can help you.” Bobby turns to you with a befuddled expression.
“We don’t know this fucking guy, don’t be a hero, hero.”
“I didn’t know you either and yet I saved you. And you didn’t know me but you still saved me.” Your words has him clamping his mouth shut. His jaw clenches before he turns away, and yet he doesn’t leave your side.
“No, he’s right.” Peter shudders a breath, “you shouldn’t trust me but I do know a way out of this place.”
“Tell us.” Bobby demands, standing steadfastly, adrenaline still rushing through him. His eyes are narrowed to slits, fury still rising from his skin like steam.
“There are CB radios scattered around this place, there’s one in every outpost. it’s our…” he pauses, trying to gather his breath. “Our way of communicating with the outside world. If you could find it you can contact my people. I only ask for you to tell them that I’m alive and to come get me. It would be impossible for us to meet up so don’t waste your energy in trying to find me yourself. They know this place better than you ever will.”
“That’s not ominous at all.” Mumbling to himself, Bobby licks at his lips. “And who exactly are these people of yours.”
“You’ll find out.”
“Cryptic motherfucker.”
“Peter, I’ve come across one of those radios and I tried it but no one answered.” You add, taking a step forward and away from Bobby as he watches the side of your face.
“Fuck, it was probably the wrong frequency. Things here like technology don’t work as well for some reason.” He laughs, an ugly laugh that sounds half humourless and half pained. He almost sounds insane, hopeless. With a wobbly breath, he tells you the frequency, just three digits, saying it twice for you and Bobby to memorize it. “Did you get it?”
“Yeah,” your eyes rake around the walls, trying to figure out how he could see you but you can’t see him. Clark said the same thing. Nothing makes sense here, and Bobby’s right, you should stop trying to understand it. “Do you know where any of these radios are?”
“They’re mostly in level zero with the yellow wallpaper.” Your breath hitches at the mere mention. “Your best bet is to just wander around and hope for the best, me giving you direction to a directionless place is a waste of breath.”
“Or you could try giving us a landmark, fucking anything, man.” Frustration rolls off Bobby’s shoulders as you feel his adrenaline fading away.
“Chairs, a ton of wheels from a boat, and I remember a banner that says ‘everything must go,’ once you see those you’re near one.”
“Well, that’s fucking helpful.” Bobby scoffs, walking towards the fallen hammer and picking it up together with your discarded jacket on the counter. “Any other helpful tips, mister scientist?”
“Yeah, don’t get lost.” Peter chortles, a sound from the back of his throat that you feel your skin rising from his laugh. “I have to go, I could hear it shuffling outside.”
“Peter, wait!” There’s a sound of rushed footsteps on the other side, retreating away as you and Bobby are now left alone in the bathroom. “What the fuck just happened?” Turning towards Bobby, he looks at you with furrowed brows, frowning right at you. You feel self conscious as you cross your arms over your chest. “Bobby, I—”
“Are you really okay?” It’s not pity in those pretty blue eyes of his, it’s remorse, it’s guilt marring at his face, it’s empathy that cinches at his heart whilst he holds the jacket close to his chest, your scent clinging on the rustling fabric. “Hero…what happened—”
“I’m fine, thank you but I’m fine.” You would break in front of him, to cry in his arms or hold onto him again but you don’t give yourself that when you’ve been lying to him with an excuse of saving him from the hurt. Stepping towards him, his concern grows, he doesn’t seem to be so convinced. Why is he so worried about you? “I’m okay, worrying won’t get us anywhere.”
“Am I not allowed to worry about you?” Bobby’s eyes flicks towards the entity’s feet as it peeks through the stall, still twitching, still trying to get up. “That’s what people do, hero, they worry about other people. That thing could’ve killed you, and I—” shaking his head, he turns his head away and the fluorescent lights shine right on his glimmering eyes. He’s still soaking wet from his swim, he must’ve rushed here when you called him. “You said that we’re a team. I really don’t want to lose my only teammate, or lose you to insanity like that Peter guy.”
You swallow his words and tuck it in your heart, keeping it there, not knowing how to respond. “You don’t believe him?”
He scoffs at your reaction, biting his lower lip as he shakes his head. “Let’s just get out of here. You are the most frustrating woman I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a lot.”
“I’m sorry that I’m emotionally constipated.” You meant it as a joke, but he doesn’t find it as funny as you.
Bobby licks at his teeth, head falling down on his clavicle with a chortle akin to a scoff. “You said it, not me.” Taking a deep breath, he hands you your jacket back. “You didn’t finish your peaches.”
“I hate peaches.” You awkwardly shove the jacket on.
“See? That— you should’ve said so.” He shrugs, frustration right on his movements. “Don’t shut me out, man. You don’t have to tell me everything but at least tell me *some of the shit. Like how you don’t like peaches or that you’re dying from the heat or about the radio thing, you didn’t tell me that.”
“I didn’t even know it still works. Bobby, I’m sorry, but I’m really trying, I…” clutching at the hem of the jacket, you shut your eyes for a moment before looking at him, not between his brows or the wall beside him, but right into those blue eyes that remind you of the ocean you once sailed on. “I’ve just been alone for so long that I have no idea how to… I’m sorry.”
Bobby’s shoulders ease, a hand raking through his wet hair as he bites the inside of his cheek. “No, don’t be sorry.” The heel of his palm kneads at the space between his brows. “I keep prying you with questions when you know as much about this place as I do. Kat tells me that I could be an annoying ass sometimes.” Pausing, he lets out a sigh, looking at the wall behind you for a moment before meeting with your eyes. “I—I just want you to look after yourself for a change.”
Shaking your head, you reach for his hand, you shouldn’t, but something in you told you to, that you should show him that you understand, that you care. “You’ve been nothing but pleasant so far, Bobby.”
The corner of his lips ticks up into a sad smile. His fingers squeeze you weakly. “Kat would be happy to hear that. Just— just don’t forget that you have to survive too, you need to take care of yourself, not just me. I’m not a kid, don’t sacrifice your comfort for me.” He takes a pause, fingers flexing on his side. “I need you to fight for this. Like you already did before.”
“Okay.” You feign a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “Let’s go find that radio.”
Getting a burn while on the verge of a heatstroke sounds absolutely dreadful🥀 Those two are stronger than me bc I would just throw myself to those weird ass dogs and let em eat me atp😮💨
Brooo, where tf is the real Clark😭😭 All these fakerssss. And omfg, Kat isn't really dead, right😰
The pool room! Yooo, who tf is helping us tho??? Like, more food and water??? Also, I looked up the almond water and apparently, some of them have different effects🤔 Could that be why Bobby healed that quick or why he's moving like he's a veteran survivalist, lmao
R was lost at sea??? Oh man, rip grandpa🥀 How did that even happen??? R lore got me hooked, I need to know moreeeee💕
Bobby is actually being really fucking sweet, especially since ik he knows that R is a walking bucket full of trauma🥹❤️
AYOOOO, WTF WAS THAT THING IN THE BATHROOM??? WHY DO YOU HAVE THE SAME SHIRT AS ME, HOE😰🤚🏾
Bobby 🫱🏻🫲🏾 Me Thinking the government is behind it all🤣
Wtf you mean people are stuck here researching this fucked up place😀🥀 Don't tell me they're the ones giving us food and shit. They've been watching usssss😰😭
Last Song : Make Some Noise for the Desi Boys (Hindi song btw)
Last Movie : Where Evil Lurks (Horror movie watched it at midnight)
Last Thing I ate : Chilly Paneer
Last Place I went : A mall in another city I was visting lol
Last Video Game : Rhythm Hive
No pressure Tagging- @holyymoly @imkindasleepdeprived @asexual-lemonade @wolfstarisareligion @ineffablelyqueerwolfstarshipper @iamawolfstarsimp @aiexh @hamzakamehroomkurta @femmour @linnielemon+anyone I forgot + anyone who is seeing this and wants to do it and didn't get tagged. go ahead, act like I did tag you
Last thing I ate- Roti and Ladyfinger ki sabji (bhindi)
Last place I went to - The shell petrol pump
Last video game - Either valo (last year prolly) or pandemic on board game
Moots-
@moonandstarshangoutinbars @moonyisnotonfire @istillwishforyouateleveneleven @adduptosomething @moonyluvrr @fantasyfiend222 + anymore I forgot to add+ open to all
last song - currently listening to like real people do by hozier
last movie - uhhhh. uhhhhhhhh. I don’t actually know tbf, I think last movie was when I pirated fantastic beasts and where to find them because I missed my little crush on newt scamander ngl
last I ate - chive & onion twists. currently munching on them. yummy
last place I went to - corner store bcs I ran out of lipbalm
last video game - stardew valley I think??? or maybe minecraft. forgot which was last
tags !! no pressure ofc !! - @andromaex @merthurtrenches @epic-sorcerer @frederissa @frogmerthur @wingsstilldontwork + open !!!
Sooo, have we ever thought of Ghost Rider! Hobie? Specially cowboy! Ghost Rider! Hobie🤔😩 Oh oh! Better yet, Ghost Rider! R and Spider-Punk! Hobie! Like, like, cuz there's nothing more punk in his eyes than seeing his lovie acting out vengeance against those that even he questions his own non killing rule about. Seeing the penance stare would ultimately frighten him and yet, he's never been more intrigued by you🤭💕 And the fact that you look so absolutely otherworldly while riding your own motorcycle/vehicle that's blazing with your hellish flames. Watching you switch between forms so effortlessly (putting aside that it took such a long time for you to even get to that point because of the deal, yk💀) makes him feel like you're completely out of his league, but to his delight, you like the annoying little spider that sometimes crashes your nightly rides as you seek out victims– I mean, wrongdoers👀
OMG YUME QODMKWNDKEMDKD I LOVE THAT IDEA
Brooo the way i need a fanart of hobie as ghost rider tho 🥰😳 wait WAIT COWBOY HOBIE AS GHOST RIDER?!!! THAT MEANS HIS SKELETON HORSE IS IN FLAMES THAT IS SO BADASS I'M SO DOWN BAD FOR THAT CONCEPT AUGH 🥴
Ghost rider! R is gonna unlock something in him 👀👀😳 y'know that one meme with the tall woman and smaller guy in an alleyway? Yeah that's r in her ghost rider form and spider punk hobie looking up at her like she's a goddess reborn 🤭
Hell, Ghost Rider unlocked something in me when I was younger bc I would. Even when he's in that form, I WOULD😩💕💕
BUT YEAH, LIKE THAT SCENE IN THE MOVIE WHERE THE OLD GHOST RIDER CALLS HIS HORSE AND TURNS IT INTO THE SKELETON HORSE❤️ Him and Buckeye would be feared lmaooo
Ghost Rider! R is just staring him down with a sizzling hot chain wrapped up in her hands. "Do you know who I am, little spider...?"
@yumeaoka-chan who says hobie has a no kill rule? Like that PUNK WEARS blue laces. He also def probably knows about lace code. And most often in lace code that means someone killed a cop or someone in the line of duty
+ go look at his comics… lets just say he does a lot more with that guitar than play it… so so. Hobie would probably love his lovie
However i do fuck with this idea (i fuck with it and love this idea a LOTTT)
Ik all about his comic book counterpart, trust🤭💕 But, this is assuming movie Hobie has roughly the same universe as his comic book👀 (idk, they both feel like 2 slightly different Hobies to me) Besides, maybe he has a no kill rule on minor villains rather than that twat Osborn and the venom police guys🤔 I'm actually really curious about movie Hobie's universe, ngl🤔
Lol, but besides that, ofc he loves his lovie🤭💕
"You do realize that I could melt your face off if I wanted to?"
"Sounds like a lovely Friday night😀"
He his absolutely, HORRENDOUSLY, down bad for the glowering spirit towering over him🙂↕️
