Hey Mr. Stargazer

It was surreal.  Rowan thought she’d learned the definition of the word when she’d first come to the island and discovered all of the stories were real.  Even now it was something she wrestled with, likely the fueling drive behind her side project.  But it turned out that discovering the supernatural existed had nothing on this moment.

Each little sound that snuck out of her best friend’s mouth felt wrong; the fact that she was the one pulling them out of him even more so.  She had to have faith in the reassurance she’d given him, that somehow they would make it to the other side of this mess.  The hand that wasn’t feeding him into her mouth snuck up his calf to rest on his upper thigh, an offer if he would take it.  An attempt to ground them both - especially when renewed demands were made.

As soon as the magic kicked in, her actions continued with more vigor.  Pace moving a bit quicker, soft hums of ‘satisfaction’ vibrated around his shaft.  She didn’t feel the enthusiasm her actions belayed, but there was no fighting the potion.  Have faith were the words she told herself, certain of at least one thing in the moment.  Given her knowledge of Jonah’s experience, likely this experience wouldn’t last long.

Jonah could feel the tears prickling behind his eyes but they didn’t fall, no, instead his breath caught and he found himself moaning as Rowan’s movements picked up. Forcing himself to close his eyes, Jonah found his mind wandering, the mouth moving over him bringing him back to the night with Matty where he’d finally let himself go enough to admit something he’d never wanted to. 

“Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap.” Jonah’s fingers remained curled in Rowan’s hair as her tongue was making quick work of him, and his words come out in little more than whispers. He hated himself for thinking about Matty right now, especially since he’d barely let himself think about the other boy since he’d left. 

He couldn’t help the way his body shuddered and went rigid as she hummed against him, his orgasm sneaking up on him so suddenly his voice cracked as he moaned and cursed. 

“Hush,” Noah said immediately, shaking his head as Jonah fumbled his way through an anxious apology. He let him get it out, didn’t try to cut him off or quiet him further, just busied himself with pushing Jonah’s wet hair out of his face again, using a clean corner of his shirt to wipe away the last bit of blood from a corner of Jonah’s temple he hadn’t been able to see before. 

The offer to replace his shirt had Noah raising an eyebrow, pursed lips curling into an amused smile as he looked down at the balled up fabric in his hand. It was a worn, old thing, a shirt he’d surely stolen from somewhere once upon a time, with seams that he’d patched himself more than once and a variety of stains from years of art supplies. Strictly speaking, he didn’t even need it–Jude had bought him a whole new wardrobe full of much nicer things–but Noah had learned long ago to use his belongings until they completely fell apart, and then to find new uses for them, and that was a hard habit to unlearn.

“Jonah,” he said, lifting his eyes from the shirt to Jonah once more, one hand shifting to the human’s chin and gently tipping his head up to guide him to look at him once more. “I mean this in the nicest way possible–don’t be ridiculous.” He smiled, a soft little thing, hoping to soften the words. “It’s a t-shirt, sugar, and an old one, it don’t matter–and anyway, I don’t know if you know this, but they got a whole room full of washing machines downstairs, and if you think I’ve got this far in life without learning to get blood out of my clothes, you should think again. It’s fine. Really. You’re more important than a t-shirt. And you ain’t stupid, okay?”

Releasing Jonah’s chin, he smoothed the boy’s wet hair one more time, before reaching over to turn off the water. Big hands squeezed the water from his t-shirt as best he could before tossing it over his shoulder and putting a gentle hand on Jonah’s arm. “Come on, kiddo, you feelin’ up to moving? Lets get you in dry clothes and get you some water to drink, okay?”

Jonah wasn’t sure how to accept such gentle kindness from Noah. Sure, while he’d been on the island he’d met a surprising amount of kind people that had helped him, but this was Noah. Noah, who was actually apart of his actual family, and here he was, treating Jonah like, well, actual family. Realizing this, Jonah fell quiet while Noah spoke. Nodding quietly, Jonah doesn’t quite meet Noah’s gaze, but he lets the older man help him, no longer apologizing. His body shook slightly as the residual adrenaline works its way through his system and he starts to come down from his panic. 

Their start beginning had been rocky, to say the least, but even though Noah had appeared to come a long way since they’d met, there was still a part of Jonah that was waiting for the other shoe to drop. The part of him that had been worried his brother had only been playing nice because of Rowan. But Rowan was gone, and Noah didn’t have to be here helping him, and it was then that Jonah realized there was no other shoe to drop. The realization almost had him choking up again, and he swallows against the thick lump of emotion stuck in his throat. 

“Okay,” was what he could manage to get out with a quick nod, Jonah closes his eyes and quietly saviours the hand that runs over his hair, soaking in the kindness like a starving child, just for a moment. Taking a couple of long, slow breaths, Jonah felt the world start to come back into focus. “Yeah, yeah I’m okay,” he said quietly after a few moments. His cheeks still burned with some embarrassment, though this time he didn’t apologize for it. 

Elliot just made a face at the other talking about his siblings.  “They sound boring,” he said, then a slight blush crept across his face.  “Sorry, that was mean.”  But in comparison to Noah, those guys seemed as dull as could be.  And Jonah was nice and sweet, he couldn’t imagine him being in some stuffy office or whatever like his siblings.  “I didn’t think I’d ever go to college if it makes you feel better,” he said.  “Not even cause of Gio.  But my family’s farm needed someone to run.  I’m the only boy, so…”  He trailed off as he grew more tired, but as he went into something of a twilight stage, more scary images flashed in his mind, causing him to inhale sharply and sitting up, huffing through his nose in frustration.  “Can you sleep with me?” he blurted suddenly, then shrunk a little.  “Sorry, not like that, but… can you just… be here?”  He almost didn’t want to ask, with how entranced Jonah was in his book, but his eyes were pleading harder than he realized.  “I don’t want to sleep alone tonight.”

Sasha smiled, “Oh good, I figured you knew him. It seems like nice people kinda find each other here, and he seems like one of the nice masters.” she mused. “Oh um, I don’t remember exactly, but he said that we were helping Elliot? Do you know him too? I guess we stopped him from leaving with another master.” she explained. There was more to the story than that from what Noah had told her, but she was kind of glad she didn’t remember what happened on the boat. She shook her head, “It’s not your fault, you don’t need to apologize for anything. I just want to remember so I can stop…disappointing people, you know?”

She was grateful that he seemed understanding though, no wonder she had found him as a friend. “Really? You’d be willing to do that? You don’t have to, please don’t feel like you have to. You didn’t sign up to answer a bunch of questions of mine.” she added quickly. “I guess um, we could walk somewhere and you could point out some people or places I might know as we go?”

Jonah nodded with a small smile. “Yeah, he’s good.” Jonah frowned a little, wondering what Sasha could have been doing with Elliot and Noah, and he wondered if he’d be able to try to ask either of them. Then again, he really didn’t want to be nosy, or bother either of them. “Oh, really?” Jonah looked at her a little confused before shaking his head. Obviously Sasha didn’t know what had happened, so he smiled at her instead. “Well I’m glad you’re alright, or mostly anyways. I sure hope it goes away quick, that sounds like it would be brutal to deal with for classes and stuff.”

He was clearly remorseful for what he had done but Milo didn’t want his time wasted. He smirked a little bit and ran his hand over the other man’s hair. “Tell me,” he said. “Would you like it better if you couldn’t see me?” He smirked and used his abilities to make everything go dark. He chuckled a little bit. “Are you still scared?”

If Sunny had one complaint about her new situation at The Institute, it was being locked into her cell. She didn’t like feeling so contained. The only comfort was that she’d arrived during winter break–the extended curfew was a relief, meant she could stay out from nine to eleven, only locked in during the night. She still didn’t like it, but at least it gave her a chance to settle into it before classes started up and the curfew tightened once more.

In any case, she’d taken full of advantage of that curfew, staying out from the moment they unlocked the cell in the morning to the moment she was expected back, and the last few days there’d been so much to see and do that by the time she returned, she was too tired to do anything more than sleep. Which meant she hadn’t seen much of her roommates–particularly the one in the bunk below hers, who seemed to dislike being in the cell as much as her, and when he was there, his nose was usually in his books, or his computer.

This particular evening, though, Sunny was not tired, and though it was a little past eleven, the nervous boy in the bunk below hers wasn’t back yet. She assumed someone must have taken him home for the night–though she had hardly spoken to him outside of a few hasty good mornings, he didn’t seem the type to break rules. She was just considering climbing down to snoop through some of his papers to see what was so interesting about them when heavy footsteps came down the hall, stopped at their cell. Sunny watched with interest from her bunk as a very large man with a head full of curls returned her cellmate. There was a funny little one-armed hug, goodbyes exchanged that she could not hear, and then her roommate was back, and settling into his bunk again.

Sunny waited until the master’s footsteps had retreated down the corridor and her roommate had settled a little, and then she moved, twisting to dangle upside down off the bed to look at him. Long hair hanging in a curtain around her head, she said, “Hi! Who’s the tall drink of water with the hair, cutie?” and then, eyes lighting up a little and one arm coming over the edge to point at his bag, “Is that a Star Trek pin? I love Star Trek!”

@jonah-wright​

Jonah was fairly used to other slaves coming and going from the cells at a random and quick pace. Whether it be those who get rented or claimed, or those who leave after learning what price the grant program actually came with, the young human had learned to keep his head down in the cells. They were a miserable place, really, cold and damp, and there was always someone sniffling and crying somewhere, though Jonah really couldn’t blame them. Jonah was good at staying out of the cells, between studying in the library, classes, and working, there wasn’t much time left, and even then he was able to seek refuge at Noah’s sometimes.

Jonah had spent the day studying at Noah’s and he’d offered to walk Jonah back so he didn’t have to go back too early. Flushing from the awkward goodbye, Jonah shuffled into his cell quickly pulling out his laptop and a notebook, already to set in on his studying for the night. He could probably get in a few hours before he needed to sleep.

He’d just opened his laptop and was starting to look up a worksheet from one of his classes when a flash of red hair swung down from the bunk above him causing him to jump. Eyes wide and startled, Jonah blinked at the upside down woman. “I—“ He started, his eyes darting towards the cell door where Noah had disappear. “Um, my brother—Noah,” He flushed with the sudden attention and compliment. “Oh,” His attention immediately shifted to the pin she was pointing to, and the flush spread over his neck. “Yeah it is, you do?” He asked, his eyes lighting up a little as he looked back up at the woman, realizing now that even while upside down she was very, very pretty. “The Next Generation is my favourite, I mean, who doesn’t love the Next Generation, but I loved Deep Space Nine too. What about you? Did you see the Deep Space Nine documentary they put out in 2018?” He rambled quickly before he could catch himself, and his blush deepened further. “Sorry uh, I didn’t even introduce myself, I’m Jonah.” He stuck out his hand awkwardly for a shake before realizing she was still upside down, causing him to let out an awkward laugh.

If he was being honest, Jonah had been nervous for the holiday party. Even outside of the islands tricks, Jonah wasn’t much of a partygoer, and found himself growing more and more nervous as the date drew near. But, much to the young human’s surprise, he found himself having the time of his life at the party. He’d even had a few shots, even though he wasn’t much of a drinker. He really should have expected things wouldn’t be able to stay so good, and it seemed like just as soon as it had started, the party shifted into something much more sinister.

Like many others, Jonah had tried to find a way out and his heart sank when he realized they were going to be stuck in there to be subjected to whatever tricks the island had in store. Jonah wasn’t exactly sure what was happening as he watched other slaves be tormented, seeing things he couldn’t. Now he found himself looking up at an intimidating looking man, and Jonah’s fingers curled nervously into his palms. “Can I um, help you with anything, sir?” He asked, hating the way his voice shook as he attempted to be polite, hoping it would help him.