``QUACKITY``

# TRIAL PERIOD
          [yoink]
          
          There had been radio silence from the house next door since he moved in. So much so that he'd almost stopped thinking about it entirely. The new family beside them had slipped his mind. They drove in in the middle of summer, a pair of parents and their son, dressed all in black. It was pretty clear he was headed for college. For a bit, he had wondered whether it bothered him having his parents chase him to college. It didnt matter though. They could either stick the heat or they couldnt. 
          
          That heat came their first party. One of his friends had mentioned the parents going out. Was the house empty? It didnt matter to him. Not when the party got going and the house was full. He tried not to get too drunk, just to be mindful. His dad hadn't talked to him for four days when he had got sick on their own lawn back home. His friends had war stories about people calling the police on them for vandalism just for that. He could do without a strike on his record.
          
          That didn't mean he was going to be boring, though. It was a pool party. All the girls were dressed down. He had been talking to a few, but only one ended up with him by the time it was dark and they were traipsing up the stairs and he opened the door and -
          
          His floorboards rung with noise from next door. Some shitty indie music that sounded like a bad quality car commercial played underwater by some teenager really fond of synthwave, what lyrics he could make out of the howling being so utterly embarrassing it nearly put him off. Nevertheless he persisted. The music continued on. His mind wandered. His chest grew spiteful. And as the volume next door ticked up, as did his own, the pillow taken out from under the headboard. It was funny, how coincidental it was. His music happened to stop right when he was at his loudest.
          
          That was the first time. 

HIDDEN  away
          by  ASHTON

# TONIGHT YOU ARE MINE
          [omegaverse au, quacknap, slowburn nsfw]
          
          He'd never meant to get mixed up in any of this. Yes, it had been his decision but... had he really agreed to /this/? They hadn't told him the whole story. Would he have said no if they had've? 
          
          That wouldnt have changed the fact that he was fucked. Work had been fucking him over, his taxes had come back wrong, and he'd been desperately trying to keep up with things. A mystery sickness had eaten up all his sick days for the year, and he'd avoided the hospital like the plague, but he knew he couldnt outrun it forever. And then he got the news. The apartment he'd lived in since he was a child had been bought out. He was either going to be evicted or rent was gonna hike. The price tag on that rent was impossible. Couchsurfing came next. Then that hospital visit caught up with him, and he woke up after passing out at work with one more diagnosis and a lot less cash. Not that he had had much to speak of in the first place. 
          
          He was a happy person. He always had been, even when dinner was a tall glass of water from a cracked glass. He walked out after the minimum amount of days and he put on his music and he danced down the sidewalks and walked into work to find himself replaced already, and so he'd walked to the grocery store to colour his tongue blue and make faces in the glass of the fridge while the store clerk talked about God in the buzzing heat of a melting summer. After a while, he couldnt stand the droning, so he stepped outside to check the notices in the window.