#I need to go to Mass. I need to get over the anxiety mental block and just go. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

writing-in-a-chipotle · 3 years

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Unbearably Mortal (Part 2)

(Alcina Dimitrescu x gender neutral reader)

Part 1

Words: ~2.5 K

Summary: In which a lot of things happen and none of them are good.

A/N: Hey, y’all! Back at it again with another chapter! Hope you enjoy!

“Nope nope nope nope… no way in hell…” You shook your head violently, unable to process what Mary had said. “This is… this is all some sort of elaborate prank, right? You’re messing with me. Yeah.” You swallowed. Your saliva felt like acid.

Mary grimaced. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t a game. This is very much reality.”

“So… what are they then?” You began pacing the floor, anxiety clinging to the pit of your stomach. “You expect me to believe that they’re some sort of weird, blood-sucking vampires?? You must be out of your mind… they don’t exist! They can’t be real!”

Mary stood up and walked over to you, gently placing her hands on your shoulders. With her blocking your path, you were forced to stop pacing and look at her.

“Listen,” She began, eyes gleaming with fear “I have no need to lie to you. Believe whatever you want to believe, for the only thing on the line right now is your head. Jane and I risked our lives to save you. If we were caught, all of us would have died. So, are you going to freak out and get yourself killed, or are you gonna listen to me?”

You were stunned into silence. Mary was being deathly serious. You nodded shakily.

“Good.” Mary breathed a sigh of relief. “If you had a mental breakdown and they heard…” She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t need to either; the implication was horrifying enough as it was.

“Thank you, by the way,” you sighed, sitting back down on the bed, “you really didn’t have to save me.”

“Honestly, I’m still scared out of my mind,” she admitted breathily, “but I’m glad you’re better now.”

“Thanks.”

She hummed, then pursed her lips. Her frown deepened even more. “Well… now what do we do? The Dimitrescu family is notorious for slaughtering any trespassers they find.”

Your eyes widened and your stomach dropped. “Oh no… oh no, no, no…”

You were stuck. You were stuck in a terrifying castle with horrifying, blood-sucking monsters who would gladly turn you into a mangled corpse on their living room floor. You had no way to call for help, and your parents probably didn’t even know what was happening…

Your phone.

You patted your pockets and fished through them. Let’s see: some dirt, a crumpled flight itinerary, your house keys… aha!

“...what’s in the box?” Mary asked, “I don't think I’ve seen anything like it before.”

You blinked. Box? “Oh, this? It’s my phone.” You rotated it slowly in your fingers so she could easily see all its sides. “It’s a bit larger and blockier than your average iPhone because it’s designed to connect directly to the satellite, making it easy to call anyone from anywhere in the world. It cost me a lot of money, but since I was planning on traveling the world after I graduated, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to have it a few years early.”

Mary gave you a completely confused stare. “What’s an… iPhone? Or a sad-del-light? Did you make those up?”

You frowned, your eyebrow twitching in confusion. “Uh… no? I wouldn’t make anything like this up. You… you truly don’t know what modern technology is like?”

She shook her head. “I’ve… never been outside the village. I have no idea what the rest of the world is like.”

“And you don’t have a phone? Internet? Anything??”

“I’m afraid not,” She fidgeted with the hem of her skirt, “the Lords don’t allow anyone to leave the village or write letters to the outside world.”

A chill shot up your spine. “That’s… terrifying…”

Mary nodded, then tilted her head, thinking. She pursed her lips and motioned with her finger for you to come closer. You lean your ear to her.

“What is it?” You whisper.

“There are rumors of a girl who escaped the Lord’s wrath,” she began, “apparently, she managed to leave the village unharmed. There was an old hag who used to moan about how her daughter left her for a new life. She sounded half mad, so no one bothered listening to her.”

Your grandmother. She was talking about your grandmother.

And your mom.

This meant that… your mom knew about these crazy monsters? That she let you come here, to a place where you would most likely die? Alone??

Nothing made sense anymore.

You realized you had zoned out of Mary’s story. You shook your head, bringing your attention back to the present.

“Is that a good idea?”

“Uh, sorry, what?” You blinked. Mary was staring at you like you were an idiot. (Which you were, but that’s not the point.)

“I said,” she repeated, “you need to blend in until we can figure out how to escape.”

“That’s… that’s a pretty good idea. And wait….” you repeated her words in your mind. “We? You want to come too?”

“Goddess, it’s like you’re dense or something.” Mary muttered under her breath. “Of course I want to leave! Are you out of your mi-“

“I get it, I get it,” you huffed, interrupting her, “What do we do now?”

“Now,” she folded her arms, “we need to get you a disguise.” She walked over to a tiny dresser in the far corner and pulled out a neatly-folded maid’s uniform. “I hope you’re my size.”

————————

Turns out you weren’t Mary’s size.

You couldn’t help it; your new friend was practically a walking stick. Your shoulders were too broad, your legs too long; but with Mary’s excellent sewing skills, you were able to make it work… sort of.

“Damn, this uniform is itchy,” you complained, scratching at the neckline.

“You’ll grow used to it after a while,” Mary replied. “Now we need to get to work or-“

“We’ll be made into wine. Got it.” You straightened out your sleeves.

She nodded. “Just follow my lead.”

The two of you walked quickly and quietly out of the servant’s quarters. Your heart was racing. Every time you turned a corner, you half expected a bloodied monster to jump the both of you and tear out your arteries.

You rounded another bend and nearly walked into Mary. She had stopped suddenly and immediately fled to the side of the hallway, bowing deeply at the corridor. You quickly followed her lead.

The moment you bowed your head, a steady buzzing filled your ears.

Swarms of flies flitted through your vision as they flew down the hall, buzzing excitedly. Maliciously. You don’t know how they managed to convey such emotions, but they seemed…. off.

And then, they changed.

The insects spiraled and spun into a large, buzzing mass, sewing themselves into a completely different form; one with a deep black cloak, ghoulishly pale hands, wild blonde hair…

And blood-stained teeth.

Mary curtsied deeply and you were quick to follow suit. “Good evening, Lady Bela,” she said softly, refusing to look up, “how may we be of service?”

Bela gave a bored wave of her hand. “We’re a bit... short-staffed in the kitchens at the moment,” she drawled, “Mother doesn’t want dinner to be served a second too late. She-” Her eyes fell on you and she stopped dead in her tracks. “You smell familiar, human…” she growled.

Oh no, you were dead, you were dead, you were dead. Cold sweat fell from your neck, and your heart raced. Bela stepped closer to you, brows furrowed and hungry eyes glinting.

“They’re new, Lady Bela,” Maria said quickly.

She raised an immaculate brow. “New, you say?”

“Yes, Miss.”

“... I see.”

It was only a moment before she leaned away, but to you, it felt like hours. The Dimitrescu was a terrifyingly deadly whirlwind, one that seemed to stare directly into your soul… maybe even smell your fear. Bela’s lips twitched, giving you a glimpse of sharp fangs.

“Well then, newcomer,” she hissed, amusement dripping in her voice, “if you’re so eager to serve us, I want you to pour the wine.”

Your heart raced in panic, your hands shaking. Pouring the wine meant seeing these monsters at their most bloodthirsty. It meant you would get caught.

I won’t survive, you thought fearfully.

You quickly dropped into a clumsy curtsy before you forgot yourself. “A-as you wish, Lady Bela,” you choke out.

“Hm… we’ll see, won’t we.” She dissolved into a sea of flies and flew down the hallway and out of sight.

You breathed heavily. Your heart was still going a mile a minute. Before you could say anything, Mary grabbed your arm and tugged you along.

“Wha-“

“Shh,” she hissed. “Not yet.”

You followed her silently to the kitchen. This whole situation was too hard to process… you’d barely been in Romania for a day and you suddenly had to face the reality of your imminent death.

You felt lightheaded. Your vision swam.

“Where are you, draga mea?” A smooth, enchanting voice swirled in your mind. You felt your pulse hammering in your temples. The voice sounded so close, yet so far away. It was familiar and warm… but it was too hard to tell if it meant anything. You were too woozy, too lightheaded…

“It’s time to wake up, darling,” the voice continued dreamily, “Open your eyes for me?”

“...hey… hey!” A familiar voice hissed, “hello? Are you alright?”

Your eyes snapped open.

Mary stood in front of you, her hands on your shoulders. Once she saw you move, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Are you alright? You haven’t blinked for the past few minutes, nor have you responded to anything or anyone around you.”

“Yeah, I just…” you swallowed thickly. What was wrong with you? “... I just spaced out.” Mary frowned, giving you a suspicious glance, but didn’t push.

You were in the kitchen. Cooks and maids bustled around in an organized fashion, whispering instructions to each other while slicing, cooking, and plating bright red slabs of meat. You definitely didn’t want to know what kind the Dimitrescu’s were eating tonight.

Someone grabbed your arm and you flinched, turning around. It was one of the older cooks, a salt and pepper haired woman with soot-stained clothes and greasy calloused hands. She shoved a a bottle of wine into your hands so fast, you nearly dropped it. She glowered at you.

“As soon as the meal is served, you pop open the bottle and pour for everyone.” She hurriedly rattled off instructions. “When they finish their drink, pour them another. You do not look at them, you do not touch them or their glasses, you don’t even breathe around them. And for the love of the Goddess: Do. Not. Spill.”

You gulped and nodded. You just had to do your job, then leave. That’s all. You could do this.

Or so you told yourself.

The old woman gave you a quick look, and for a moment it seemed she gave you a twinge of a sympathetic smile. But just like that it was gone, replaced by her signature scowl.

“Alright, we go in three…” she held up three fingers covered in burn scars. One second passed. Then another.

The kitchen maids smoothly entered the dining room in one sweeping motion; a flurry of skirts and iron serving trays. You followed them close behind. The maids placed the trays in front of each Dimitrescu before fleeing to the kitchen single file.

And then it hit you.

You were the only maid who was supposed to stay throughout the entire meal.

Without you even knowing it, Bela had assigned you one of the most dangerous jobs at the castle; one where you had to stay, alone, in the same room as four hungry, bloodthirsty vampires.

You quickly began pouring the wine.

You walked around the massive mahogany table, trying your best not to spill the blood-red drink. You poured for Bela first, and you tried your absolute best not to look her in the eye. You didn’t know what you would do if you saw her grinning.

You moved on to the next Dimitrescu: a redhead with glistening fangs. As you poured, she suddenly hissed. In your surprise, you fumbled the bottle. But you didn’t spill.

The last sister (you assumed all three of them were sisters based on their similar appearances) was a brunette with mischievous eyes. You didn’t mean to look at her… you really didn’t…

Based on her low, rumbling cackle, you knew you were doomed.

The last Dimitrescu, the Lady Dimitrescu, was much different than the other three. She was incredibly tall, with a flowing white dress that fell to her ankles, a wide-brimmed hat…

And pearly-white satin gloves.

Why did that seem so familiar?

You shook your head. You had to stop thinking and just pour the wine! You only had one more glass to fill, after all.

The brunette stuck out her foot, and you went down.

You landed on top of the bottle, and it shattered under you. Glass and wine flew everywhere, piercing your clothes, slicing your skin, staining the rug…

And completely drenching the front of Lady Dimitrescu’s immaculate dress.

The air cracked with electricity. “You...” she hissed, in a stranglely familiar voice.

Before you could even beg for forgiveness, the towering terror of a woman stood from the table and grasped you by the collar before you could even blink.

She growled, breath smelling of blood. “You will pay for your insole-“ her breath hitched. Her death grip on you loosened and faded, till you dropped to the floor like a rag doll.

Fearfully, you looked up at her.

Her demeanor had completely changed. Where once stood a cold-hearted monster was a shocked, crying… woman. Tears streaked down her face, dripping from her chin as she sunk to the floor. She didn’t look like a monster, she looked… human.

The lady reached out a gloved hand, then flinched as if burned. She looked lost and confused and sad; unable to process what she was looking at… or rather, who she was looking at.

A chill ran up your spine, fearful tendrils snaking through your system as you both stared into each other’s eyes.

And then, Lady Dimitrescu uttered a single word, barely a whisper at all, and your stomach dropped. Your world spun.

“Y/N?”

You couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Everything you had ever known was completely useless, and your life would end at any moment, you were sure. You felt like crying, you felt like throwing up.

She said your name.

Lady Dimitrescu, one of the most powerful supernatural beings in the world, who couldn’t possibly know who you were, had said your name.

It was too much. There were too many strong emotions, too many near-death experiences in one day. Your body was bloody and exhausted, your energy spent.

You collapsed on the dining room floor, and your vision faded to black.

#lady dimitrescu x reader #alcina dimitriscu x reader #my fic #my writing #gender neutral reader #reader insert #re8 #surprise y’all I love cliffhangers :)#suffer :))))

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wkemeup · 3 years

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Sunrise (1)

summary: After an explosion takes his arm and his only sense of belonging, Bucky is content to live out the rest of his days in the hollow comfort of the dark. This is, until Sam drags him down to the local VA and he meets you. (Modern AU) pairings: bucky x reader chapter word count: 3.5k warnings: heavy focus on Bucky’s PTSD/anxiety, the first splinter in the wall around Bucky’s heart 🧡 series masterlist / series playlist

This was a bad idea. A monumentally bad idea.

Bucky closed his apartment door behind him, pausing for a moment at the top of brownstone steps as a chill of autumn air swept by. Brittle to the touch, cool on his skin, it nestled into his spine and ached deep in his bones— in ones that had been long abandoned, too. The sun reflected against the shine of the pavement from last night’s rainfall, forcing Bucky to squint his eyes.

Was it always so bright outside? Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t left his apartment for nearly a week before Sam threatened to turn him over to Steve that he’d forgotten how unpleasant the streets of New York could be. Loud. Cold. Chaotic.

He stepped onto the sidewalk, slipping out of the path of a jogger who nearly ran him over and had the gull to flip him the bird. Bucky groaned, curling his right hand into a fist and digging it deep into his pocket as he tried to calm the sudden racing in his chest. The free arm of his army jacket swung down by his left side, empty.

Not even a few steps outside the sanctuary of closed curtains, warm bedsheets, and the unattended static of a decade old television, and Bucky was already regretting ever knowing Sam Wilson.

Bucky turned towards the busy street ahead, staring up at the hustle of pedestrians and rush of taxis for a moment longer before he dared to take a step. His feet felt remarkably heavy and he had more than half a mind to tell Wilson to shove it and head back up to his apartment. He had better things to do than make a completely unnecessary trip to the VA.

What those things were, he couldn’t say, but they didn’t make his heart feel like it was about to beat straight out of his chest. He could stare at a wall for a few hours, for example – see if he could find the crack in the drywall again and follow it to the ceiling.

“Don't be a coward, Barnes,” Bucky grumbled to himself, earning a strange look from an elderly woman as she passed by. Her eyes held on him longer than she should; clearly a woman who had little shame in her degradation of strangers.

He gritted his teeth and commanded his legs to move. Those worked, at least.

As he made his way to the main street, his palm started to sweat inside his pocket. He could see his breath in every tense exhale, and still, he was boiling hot under his jacket. There wasn’t a chance in hell he’d remove it, because even with a sleeve hanging loose off his shoulder, he could at least keep up the pretense there was something inside. People would have to look twice before they realized. Wasn’t so easy to hide a missing arm in a short sleeve shirt.

Still—he was thankful as he weaved his way upstream through the crowd that he wasn’t as broad as he used to be. A couple months' worth of weight loss, diminished muscle mass, and one less limb will do that do a guy.

He used to be the sort of man that women would glance at as he passed by. Charming smile. Infectious energy. He could make a woman bite shamelessly at the edge of her bottom lip with a single trail of his eyes along her figure. Extend a hand, offer a drink and a dance. He used to hold confidence in every ounce of his body.

Now, he kept his eyes on the pavement. He hid from the sun and the curious looks of strangers under the brim of a baseball cap. No one looked twice in his direction. He was invisible these days and that was just the way he liked it.

By the time he reached the VA, he was surprised to find it a little less than pristine. The windows were dirty with handprints and smudges, the window panes covered in soot. A few of the roofing panels were missing from harsh New York winters. Even some of the outer brick wall had seen some weathering.

Though, if he were honest, it wasn’t usual at all. Made some sense that the VA was left to wash and wear on its own, deteriorating in front of a busy street of onlookers, right out in plain sight. It was how Bucky felt after he’d come home from his last tour— discarded. Placed upon a pedestal, but only as long as you wear the uniform, only as long as you’re staring down the other end of a barrel. Once you’re shipped back home and cast out from desert, you’re made to fend for yourself. Pull up your bootstraps. Adjust.

Bucky wasn’t sure how to do that anymore. Sam insisted this would help. The people at the VA were good, he’d said. They were like him. They’d understand.

While Bucky was suspicious, it was enough to drag him a couple blocks from his apartment. It was more than he’d done in weeks anyway. Sam would put on his makeshift shrink hat and call that a meaningful step. Bucky would call it pathetic.

He stared at the double doors, focusing on dark red rust on the metal hinges. He wondered if he put enough pressure on the latch if it would snap clean off. It looked sharp on the edges, too. Someone could easily cut themselves on it if they weren’t careful—

BEEEEEEP!

A jolt surged through Bucky’s chest enough to nearly knocked him off his feet.

Sudden flashes of a sweltering heat, the unnatural vibration of the desert under his feet. The car horn echoed into the back of his head, longer than it should have, and his ears started to ring. His vision felt tunneled and Bucky quickly stumbled his way through the double doors just to escape the blare of the horn outside.

It took a minute to adjust to the dim lighting. It was darker inside than what he was expecting. He blinked a few times, hand resting on the wall to hold his balance as he looked around, shaking himself from the memories.

Lamps were spread throughout the common room to offset the abrasive overhead lighting left untouched. Bucky started to wonder if he maybe it was on purpose, if he wasn’t the only one who had become sensitive to these things, when Sam walked into the room.

He froze.

“Holy shit!” Sam’s mouth rose up into that goddamn know-it-all smile, wide enough to show teeth and the dimples in his cheeks, and Bucky winced. Sam started to laugh as he crossed the space to where Bucky was standing. “I didn’t think you’d actually come!”

“Yeah, well,” Bucky shrugged, “I’m here. Don’t make this a big thing.”

“Who me?” Sam scoffed, feigning offense. “You know Steve’s the one who’s going to blow this up. He might throw a welcome party if you ever show up to the support group.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “That’s not happening.”

“Yeah, I figured as much.” Sam nodded, though he was still smiling. He looked almost... proud? It didn’t sit well in Bucky’s stomach. “Still, got you out of that cramped apartment, didn’t I? You open those curtains yet or are you still living like a vampire?”

Bucky glared at him. Sure, Sam was right... but he didn’t need to know that.

“Come on, I’ll show you around.” Sam put a hand on Bucky’s back to guide him down the hall.

He was only one of two people Bucky tolerated touching him at all and he was lucky he didn’t flinch anymore. Even an innocent touch from his own mother when she tried to hold his hand after he came back from his final tour had nearly left him in a panic attack. She’d cried as Bucky desperately tried to gather his breath, shoving her away as if she’d burned him.

Sam and Steve didn’t give him much of a choice. They didn’t handle him with kid gloves or treat him like he was about to break. Even if he was splintering at the seams, you’d never be able to tell with how Sam and Steve were around him; like old times, like nothing had changed, like they were still three kids dressed in fresh uniforms with chips on their shoulders and a whole new world ahead of them.

After a while, the small pats on the back and the nudges in his side became a small comfort; not that he’d tell them. It was a strange feeling to both be repulsed by touch and crave it. But the topic didn’t come up much these days outside of his friends anyway. No one tried to touch him and he didn’t seek it out. It was easier that way.

“The kitchen’s over here,” Sam said as he pointed into a room that had likely once been covered in white tiles and appliances, though now resembled more of a pale yellow. Two men were hunched over at the table, nursing coffee out of Styrofoam cups as a woman waited eagerly by a toaster.

“Everything in there is free rein,” Sam added. “Always stocked with food from donations, though I would make sure to check the expirations on the milk before adding it to your coffee.” He shivered at an unpleasant memory and Bucky found the edge of his mouth curl, though he suppressed it rather quickly.

The next room was mostly empty save for the wooden lined floors and chairs folded up against the wall. A sheet covered the small window peering inside that read ‘group in session when closed.’

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sam started, to which Bucky narrowed his eyes, “but I’m not going to force you into the support group, Buck. You go when you’re ready. If you ever are. Talking about this stuff, or even listening to it... it isn't for everybody. Steve will get that, too. We all find our outlets eventually. You’ll find yours, too.”

Bucky nodded, a swell of relief in his chest. He’d been forced into a mental evaluation by the army docs shortly after his discharge; something about routine testing, but he knew what they were looking for – what all those shrinks were looking for – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The nightmares came first, soon after he’d returned to the States. It started in screams that burned deep into his throat, waking up neighbors at two in the morning, finding blood in his bed from injuries he’d caused in his sleep. Lately they’d manifested into sweat drenched in his sheets and a heart rate that couldn’t seem to even out until the sun rose.

Then came the jumpiness – the flinching at every loud noise, thinking it was a bomb or the latch of a safety. He’d broken more glasses than he cared to admit, knocking them straight of his hand at the sound of a gunshot on the television.

Then the paranoia settled in, then the hypervigilance. The anxiety in crowds and tight spaces was new, though. Add it to the list, he supposed.

Through all of it, he never let the shrink catch on. He’d put on a smile and tell them he was proud of his service, that he’d serviced his country with honor and he was thankful to return to the civilian side of things for a change.

It was bullshit.

He was pissed. He lost an arm and half his mind to a war that recruited him young and idealistic right out of high school, when he was looking for a better life than what his neighborhood could offer, to put food on the table for his ma and sister. Pissed was understated.

He wouldn’t find himself in Steve’s group; of that he was certain. You don’t talk about those things after you leave the desert. Hell, you barely acknowledge them while you’re there. It’s just how it works. It’s how you deal with it. Bucky didn’t allow himself to consider whether his method was doing him much better.

Sam walked him through the common areas, the lounge space, even a room with a pretty decent sized television and a shelf filled with DVDs. It was a nice enough place. Quiet. But so was his apartment.

“Now this is the best room in the house.” Sam opened a door on his left, the hinges squeaking under an old wooden frame as he stepped inside.

Bucky followed in closely behind and was surprised when a subtle scent of pine brushed his senses. A small candle was burning at the center of a coffee table, surrounding it were a few couches, all with mismatched fabrics, laid upon a carpet that looked to have been donated from an estate sale. The walls around him were lined with shelves, though they were completely empty. Cob webs hung in the corners and dust lined the wood.

What caught his eye was a single cart at the edge of the room. It was filled with books, all in bright colors on the binding and tags from the Brooklyn Public Library piled high on top of one another, far beyond the confines of the cart itself.

“Y/n? Where you at, kid? We got a newbie!” Sam called, nudging Bucky in the side with a playful wink he did not return.

A figure suddenly jumped from behind the couch with a book in hand covered in layers of dust and crumbs. The sudden movement forced a flinch deep in Bucky’s chest, his breath held tight in his lungs, though he kept himself firm on the surface, like stone. It took a minute before he realized how tight he’d barreled his fist and he slowly released his grip before Sam could notice.

“Been looking for this one for over a year!” you exclaimed, holding up the book for Sam to see. You brushed off the cover, restoring the original vibrant hue of the artwork. “Can’t even imagine the overdue fees I’ve racked up on this sucker...”

There was a strange lightness in your voice Bucky didn’t expect, a tenderness and a sunshine that didn’t belong amongst the dark overcast of the men and women who occupied these rooms. It certainly sat in dangerous contrast to the gravel and stone in Bucky’s voice and the clouds that usually followed in his wake.

He glanced down at his clothes as you approached; a pair of old ripped jeans from a few years ago, a faded t-shirt, and his army jacket hung over his shoulders. Dull and raggedy, ripping at the seams.

But you? Dressed in the warmest shade of a red knit sweater, a gentle glow on your cheeks, a softness about your movements, you resembled the sort of sunset at the end of a highway one would stop the car to capture on film. Inviting. Tender and ethereal. Lovely.

You stepped closer and he noticed the knees of your jeans were covered in dust, your palms too. Messy in the pursuit of happiness, like a child on a playground. You didn’t seem to mind the dust as you brushed it off your knees, holding the found book close to your chest like an extension of your own heart.

“Blame it on Lang. He's always losing stuff around here,” Sam offered as you set the book on the cart. You started to laugh and swatted Sam in the arm. A pout perched on your lips, though it didn’t seem to last long. Your laugh was infectious.

Bucky swallowed as he watched you; the way your smile wrinkled up into your eyes as if a face like yours was drawn and designed to curve at the lips and push dimples to your cheeks. It shined into the bright hues in your irises and Bucky wondered if you would keep smiling like that forever, if it were possible that he could stare into the sun and not be burned; if instead, he could find warmth in its embrace.

His heart stammered, his breath shallow, but it wasn’t unpleasant like it had been on the busy streets. It was something new, a sensation he hadn’t had since before he signed his name to a cause that took his arm and his dignity.

Y/n, Sam had called you. It was a beautiful name. He didn’t know if he could even find things beautiful again after what he’d seen overseas. You were the first, he supposed.

He must have been staring too long, because your lips were moving to words he didn’t hear, and suddenly two pairs of eyes were on him. His heart skipped, frozen in embarrassment.

“This must be your first day of school,” you teased, extending your right hand to him.

Bucky stared down at it, heart pounding, and before Sam could politely tell you that Bucky didn’t really do that sort of thing, he pulled his hand from his pocket and shook it. You had a firmer grip than he was expecting, but still soft. Your fingers were like ice and it was a nice contrast to the swelter he felt under his jacket.

Sam raised an eyebrow, surprised by Bucky's sudden willingness to take the hand of a stranger, though thankfully he didn’t say anything. A shit eating grin curved up upon his lips and that, Bucky could have done without.

“Thought it was time I checked it out,” Bucky said, his voice a little dry. You let go of his hand and Bucky found he missed the contact almost instantly.

“Dragged him here by the skin of his teeth is more like it,” Sam interjected and Bucky’s ears burned red. He shot Sam a glare, who only shrugged, unbothered by his humiliation of his friend. “Been trying to get his sorry ass through the door for a few months now.”

You nodded, though your smile never wavered. Your eyes remained on Bucky, listening to Sam, but intently studying the lines on Bucky’s face. It left him feeling exposed, but somehow, even as his own gaze trailed to the floor, he didn’t mind you watching him like that, like maybe you found worth in what you saw. He adjusted his stance, suddenly remembering the startling absence on his left.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here now,” you said, brushing Sam off in his teasing. “I’ve been volunteering at this place for a little over a year. We got good people here. I’m sure you’ll fit right in...” you paused, biting on your lip.

“Bucky,” he offered because he could tell you were waiting for it. You smiled at his name and a sense of pride burned bright in his chest. God, if he could just make you smile like that again...

“Bucky’s a cool name,” you grinned, though Sam rolled his eyes. “That short for something?”

“Don’t lie to the new kid, Y/n. We all know it’s corny as hell,” Sam interrupted playfully before Bucky could get a word in. You wacked Sam on the shoulder and Bucky felt the edges of his lips curve. It felt strange, achy, like he hadn’t done that in a while. Maybe he hadn’t.

“Buchanan,” Bucky answered, though he quickly added, “but my first name’s James. James Barnes.”

“Well, James Barnes,” you started, exchanging a knowing look with Sam that made Bucky’s stomach twist in knots, “I run a book club of sorts on Sunday evenings around six. You should swing by. We’re always looking for new members.”

“Y/n works at the Brooklyn library most days,” Sam explained. “We’re lucky to have her. Never thought I’d see so many tattooed men with biceps the size of my head sitting in a circle talking ‘bout books, but Y/n works magic. Everyone loves her. Helps that her book club is pretty unconventional.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “Unconventional?”

Sam started to say more, but you pouted your lips at him and he left the words on the edge of his tongue. He held up his hands in defense and took a step back, returning the smile to your face.

“Don’t listen to him,” you said, laughing so sweetly Bucky was sure his knees might give out at any second. “It’s a good time, I promise. No pressure at all.”

Bucky nodded, considering his options. The idea of seeing you again could make the walk down to the VA worth it, but he wasn’t sold on the concept of sitting in a room full of ex-combat vets probably using a shared book as a proxy for a support group. He wondered if you had them reading something about PTSD or adjusting to civilian life or a memoir of some guy embellishing his time overseas to make a quick buck.

But he wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, so he asked, “what are you reading?”

You shrugged. “Depends on who you ask.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow, confused.

“Just think about it,” you suggested as you unclicked the lock at the bottom of the cart. The front wheel was broken and you struggled to get an angle to move in the direction you pushed it. “I should head back to the library. It was really nice to meet you, Bucky. I’ll see you later, Sam.”

Bucky nodded, finding himself searching for something else to say, some kind of excuse to get you to stay longer, but came up empty. You smiled at him, all bright and starry eyed, and his knees felt weak again. Shit.

“Don’t let Stark talk your ear off on the way out,” Sam warned, a laugh in his voice.

“I think I know my boys around here by now, Samuel,” you teased back. Bucky couldn’t quite tell if it was a pang of jealousy in his stomach or an eagerness to be included. It was a strange rush of feelings he hadn’t tapped into in years; not necessarily unpleasant, but certainly unfamiliar.

You paused by the door, turning back and capturing Bucky’s eye one last time. “Sunday at six, alright? I’ll see you there.”

He didn’t say anything, but you seemed to take his silence as confirmation. You gave him a final wave before you disappeared into the hallway. He could hear the click of the broken front wheel on your cart echoing down the hall.

Bucky and Sam followed you out of the room and hung back by the makeshift library doors.

“What did I tell you!” Sam cheered, nudging Bucky hard enough on the side to knock him off his balance. He was too fixated on watching grumpy old men and stone-faced women pass by in the hallway with smiles on their faces as they saw you.

“It’s, uh, it’s not bad.” Bucky waited until you disappeared out the front doors and onto the busy sidewalks before he turned to Sam. He was watching him with a sort of I-told-you-so look that made Bucky want to slap the dimples straight from his face. “...what?”

“Nothing, man.” Sam shrugged, though there was something lingering in the smirk he wore, like maybe he knew something Bucky didn’t.

He didn’t care for that one bit.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n

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90slevi · 3 years

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Loneliness {Levi Ackerman x Reader}

TW: a bit of gore? a LOT of angst, more of me venting lol

Levi ran his hands through his hair as he flopped down onto the old, crusty sofa.

It'd been a tough day for him and his squad, the group of them only just surviving as they frantically dodged a mass of titans and tried their best to weave through the pounding rain that was so heavy it almost left marks on the scarred bodies of the soldiers. Thank god the group had found a small, secluded cabin, or they might've frozen to death - if they hadn't been eaten first.

The number of people Levi had seen get mutilated in front of him in the past few hours alone was enough for the average person to see in a lifetime. For him, it should be normal. He should be used to it by now, maybe even desensitised, but every time he watched a person get split in half by the gaping jaws of a titan, it felt like a fresh, stinging wound on his skin. It was painful, yet all he could do was watch with his stern expression to hide the way he truly felt. To keep the confidence of his squad high.

Now, he and his crew were safe. Physically, maybe, but certainly not mentally.

Levi missed his wife. His head pounded in pain as the blood-stained bandages began to unravel and his headache increased, but all he wanted to do was think about her. He held her letters close, and he held the small oil-painting of the two of them close to his heart, something that'd been made by one of the higher-ups as a gift for Humanity's Strongest. The letter was one of the first things Y/n had written to him and the pretty yet smudged handwriting along with the cute curls of her Gs and Ys made his heart feel warm.

It'd been about a month since they'd both left Wall Sina to go on this extremely long, drawn-out expedition, and how much he cared about her was beginning to dwell on him. His heart and body ached, and he wished she was there with him to comfort his pains, even if he acted like he wasn't listening.

That was what Levi liked about her; she knew how much he cared about her without him needing to express himself. Something he wasn't... the best at.

Levi didn't realise his eyes were welling up with tears until he felt a small, fresh droplet appear on his upper cheek, and his eyelashes felt sticky. Quickly, he wiped it away with his sleeves, but it was unlikely anyone would see. Everyone was supposedly asleep, while he stayed up due to his unfortunate insomnia. Y/n was always there with him in their bed at home, someone he could hold onto while he tried his best to sleep. Her fingers running through his hair, leaving small little pats on his scalp, and tiny kisses on his forehead were all things he missed dreadfully, and he gulped a little as his heart pounded slightly.

Love was never really a thing Levi had believed in. He just went about his life, trying to survive and find a better life for humanity. But when he met Y/n, everything changed. Of course, he disliked her at first, just as he did with most people. Her bubbly, caring personality with too much sympathy and love for other people were things he, unfortunately, despised, mainly because they were things he seemed to lack. Yet... he couldn't help but be drawn to her, giving her extra chores such as cleaning his office and bringing him tea just so he could see her. Often he'd ask Y/n to help him with his paperwork so he had some sort of company, once even choosing her over Hanji to fetch him food.

He slowly began to realise over the months that it wasn't hatred he felt for Y/n. It was... fear. He was scared of loving someone, especially someone like her. Someone who was part of the Survey Corps, and someone who could die within a week and not have the chance to say goodbye. It hurt him way too much to love someone, yet he couldn't keep his feelings to himself.

When he found out she felt the same way, the two discussed their options. One being totally ridiculous and one being... more reasonable and sensible.

The first? Choosing to leave the Survey Corps and get married, far away from the life they'd been leading.

The second? Staying in the Survey Corps and going separate ways, never to speak of this again and to drop the feelings if they could.

But of course Y/n managed to merge the two together. Staying in the Survey Corps and getting married.

But... they were in different squads. While he led his own, Y/n was under Hanji, and he currently had no idea where her squad was or IF they'd even survived. They'd been seperated for three weeks now, and the questions that filled his mind felt like psychological torture. Levi tried his best to block that thought out of his head, not wanting to be plagued with the thoughts of his wife's death instead of focussing on the mission at hand. At that moment, he needed to prioritise his own Squad's safety, but he couldn't keep those thoughts at bay.

A sniffle escaped his nose as he felt his eyes well up again, and Levi had never felt so lonely. His free arm reached upwards as if he could magically touch fingers with Y/n and know she was okay, but it was pointless. His arm flopped back down as he tried to find a comfortable position on the absolutely awful-excuse of a sofa, but struggled. Crying was not a very-Levi thing to do, but at that moment? He just couldn't help himself.

Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he felt almost like a baby. He was not only upset about not having his wife near, but extremely embarrassed too. He was hyperaware that someone could see him, even though nobody was there, and he knew that as a captain, it was highly irresponsible to be sobbing like this. He'd only cried twice in front of Y/n; the first was when he thought she'd died, and the second was the aftermath of his original squad dying. If only she could see him now, looking pathetic and weak.

But he should've known she didn't think of him like that. Y/n knew him as the strongest person she'd ever met in her life and believed that crying was not a sign of weakness, but a sign of holding it in for too long. Holding in those negative emotions and putting on a strong facade only she could see through. Only a fool would think Levi was brave all the time, because even the strongest get scared.

"Fuck," Levi muttered shakily, noticing that one of his tears had merged two words together on one of the letters, creating an inky black blob. He placed the pieces of parchment onto the table beside him, making sure not to ruin them anymore, and balled his fists into his eyes to stop himself from crying anymore. He didn't want to feel this; he wanted to go home and spend the rest of his days with you, blissfully unaware that the titans even existed. Maybe he'd be a dad.

But no. The world just liked to cruelly torture him and watch him suffer. The world wanted him to watch everyone he ever knew die in front of him in ways he didn't want to experience. The world just wanted the worst for him, and he wondered what he'd ever done to deserve it.

When he heard a knock at the door of the cabin, he completely ignored it, not wanting to get up and answer. His eyes were red and puffy, while teardrops hung in his eyelashes. It was clear as day he'd been crying, and for some reason, it didn't exactly register in his mind that there was someone at the door until he heard footsteps.

"Captain Hanji!" a voice from downstairs exclaimed, one Levi recognised as Armin Arlert's. Levi almost shot up in his seat at that name, and his heart almost dropped to the pit of his stomach. He held his breath, the pain of not knowing whether his wife was alive or not becoming too much to bear. And now, he'd be told what'd happened to her. "It's so late, where have you been?"

"We took a detour," Hanji chuckled, and Levi groaned quietly at her poor taste in jokes. It was somewhere around 2am and everyone was filled with so much anxiety that it really wasn't the right time for her 'comedic expertise'. "No, we got ambushed by a ton of titans and we had to hideout in this abandoned castle until it was safe. We used the night to kill the ones that were resting before coming here."

"But we got lost," a male's voice said, and Levi heard Armin physically face-palm. The captain kicked his legs over the sofa and his ears pricked up, his heart racing against his chest for any sign of his wife. He was completely frozen in place, unable to leave the room and confront the group, never mind help them. Thank goodness Armin was there. "Hanji went way too far East instead of West."

"Hey! I was listening to your directions, Heinrich," Hanji sighed, and he heard the door close behind them as the whole group wandered inside. A few members of his own squad seemed to be leaving their temporary bedroom, greeting Hanji and the others with a fake display of delight. Not that they weren't happy to see Hanji's squad; they were delighted to know the group was alive and well. They were just... tired, and too mentally traumatised from that day alone to give a proper smile.

Footsteps echoed around the house to the point that Levi had no idea if people were coming up or going down the stairs, and he finally stood up when the door to his room opened...

And his heart skipped a beat.

Standing in the doorway was Y/n, her eyes swollen from tears and her wrist in a temporary bandage. Cuts and bruises littered her visible skin, and she dropped her cloak to the floor as she rushed over, flinging herself into her husband's arms. Levi fell backward onto the sofa, his eyes wide with surprise as the woman nuzzled her face into his neck and chest, unable to get enough of him. A strangled breath left her as she pressed a lingering kiss to his lips, and he returned it. His hands roamed her back, gently taking off her brown jacket and examining her broken wrist.

"Y/n," he said quietly, looking up at her as she straddled his legs, hugging him with her free arm. "What happened?"

"I went to rescue Lorena Engel and fractured my wrist in the process," she said softly, sitting up and wiping her eyes as she attempted to look him in the face. "She was grabbed by a titan and I went to slice at the wrong angle... it was purely an accident."

"I'm glad to see that other than that, you're okay," he said, a small, strained smile on his lips. It wasn't that he wasn't happy to see her. In fact, he was completely overjoyed to see his wife again. It was just... really difficult to smile at that point in time, and thankfully, she understood. Then, he wrapped his arms around her waist once more and held her tightly, his face against her chest as he listened to her racing heartbeat. Tears began to escape again, and when she noticed, she planted soft kisses across his head, her hands running through his hair just as he liked. "God, I missed you so fucking much."

"I missed you too," she answered, the goosebumps that'd prickled on her body due to the cold eventually disappearing. The dim candlelight in the room was barely exuding any heat, but the warmth from her husband was enough. Just Levi being there, safe and sound, was enough.

After a while, Levi's voice entered the silent room.

"Did everyone in your squad make it?" he asked, and it took a few moments for Y/n to reply.

"Everyone except Marcus Karsten" she whispered, choking slightly. "He... lost his life a week ago. What about... you?"

"Everyone made it," Levi answered, gently rubbing her back comfortingly. He wasn't best with words, so he made sure to make up for it with actions. She seemed to like that, anyway. "I'm... thankful for that."

"Yeah, that's good," Y/n said, a genuine smile on her lips. She was grateful his squad had no fatalities. They were a good bunch of kids, and she got along with most of them. "Levi, why is there a bandage on your head?

"Little accident," he answered, amused that she was worried about the little things. His injuries didn't matter to him, but to her they were incredibly important. "I misjudged where I was going and banged my head, but it's okay."

"It better be," she chuckled quietly, even the tiniest bit of laughter meaning the world to him. He hadn't heard it in so long that he hadn't realised how desperate he was for it. "Now, I can see those little eyebags creeping onto your face. You've barely slept."

"So?" he muttered, burying his face further into her chest. "What about it?"

"God, your stubborn," she sighed, ruffling his hair. "Now that I'm here, will you try your best to fall asleep?"

"But you've only just arrived-"

"So?" Y/n answered, teasing him and brushing his forehead with her thumb. She then planted another yet smaller kiss onto his lips, one Levi tried to push further into but was denied. "You'll be seeing me all day tomorrow. Just a couple hours rest won't do any harm."

Levi knew there was no winning against his wife. She was incredibly persistent when she wanted to be, so he sighed in annoyance before falling onto his back, lying on the sofa. She lay on top of him, his arms tight around her body as she snuggled into his shoulder. A tiny sigh of relief left his lungs and he took a deep breath in, filling his nose with her scent (and the unfortunate smell of dirt and blood, but he didn't care).

As happy as he could get, Levi eventually fell asleep, holding his dearly beloved in his arms.

#levi ackerman #attack on titan #levi #shingeki no kyojin #snk #aot #anime #levi fanfiction #one-shot #angst #hurt/comfort #fluff and angst

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askstarwarriorkirby · 3 years

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I need to be honest real quick guys. I just...really need to vent about how I’ve been feeling. My art block has turned into a literal brick wall and I have myself to blame.

I’ve been fighting with myself on what I should be doing and all that. A large part of me keeps saying “you’re a college graduate now, which means all your work HAS to be professional and blah blah blah. You don’t have time for all that silly immature stuff! Yada yada yada.” Sadly that has included this blog. Trust me, I’m fully aware of how dumb and wrong it is, but I’ve just been struggling so much to fight it. To add to that, my perfectionism loves to drag things out and stoke that flame a bit more. I always think “perfect isn’t possible, but you can still be close,” which, again, I’m aware is a load of Bull. I’m not the best at trusting myself or what I think is best. I’ve always been a people-pleaser and it’s lead to a bad mentality of “everything needs to satisfy THEIR needs.” I’ve been going to a therapist, talking to people I trust, and asking for advice on various forums and all have said the same thing: “you don’t have to make everything professional,” “you HAVE the time to do what YOU want to do,” and “nothing HAS to be perfect.” And I believe them. It’s just that when I try to repeat that to MYSELF, it’s like it goes unnoticed. I always been like that and I resent that part of myself a lot. I feel like I’M the only one saying these things to myself and making myself believe everyone else is too. But they AREN’T. It ticks me off and I’m just so tired of it, but I can’t fight back that well. I’m building too many expectations on myself and I’ve only realized I trapped myself and can’t get out on my own. But I still love art and the ideas I’ve been exploring. I’ve been steadily trying to fight against it, but I still feel limited to things outside of this blog. But I WANT to come back. I just don’t know how. I know a lot of people probably don’t pay attention to me anymore because I’ve been gone for so long and I’ve probably disappointed some fans that really like my work. Trust me, I’m disappointed with myself too sometimes. I don’t know why I need to make things so elaborate and complex. I wish I could go back in time and tell younger me to stop trying to be perfect. There was a time when I wasn’t so obsessive over being perfect and I wish I could go back to that. I don’t want to always have a purpose in mind for things. If anyone could help me, even if just a little bit, even just offering some support of any kind, I’d be happy. At this moment I just feel kind of...alone. Like I need some kind of “permission” to do Kirby stuff again and can’t get it from anyone. It’s not right. I’M not right...sorry for the deep stuff. I just needed to say all this.

And don’t worry, I still have ZERO plans to abandon this blog. I still have passion for it, it’s just a matter of fighting myself to reach it.

Edit: something I forgot to add is that I have more reason to return due to advice I got from several people on Reddit. They suggested that in addition to working on more projects rather than spending tons of time on one, I should work on things that exist to make ME happy. Heck with “it’s ALWAYS gotta be PROFESSIONAL.” It’s my life and I can take it at my own pace. Kirby always makes me happy and coming back to this blog is something I want more than anything. But I’m overthinking my comeback plan when I should make it simple. I suck at comics so learning to make them is holding me back a bit. I’m thinking of just doing something simple like a diary or some images. I want to progress this blog’s canon more since it’s been so long. That’s what I’ve been struggling on.

In the words of Patrick Star: “The inner workings of my mind are an enigma.” AKA a complex mass of tangled wires, ADHD, and anxiety that just hate organization. Don’t worry too much about me guys. Life just sucks sometimes.

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writingithink · 3 years

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Tangled Timelines Chapter 4 Rated: T Chapter Word Count: 8,468 Chapter Summary: Their tour of Torchwood does not go well. Notes: Okay so it's been awhile, but I'm back! Life is still p busy and chaotic, buuut the muse is kinder to me when there's more sunshine, so ... *shrug* I can only hope the update is worth the wait XP Hopefully the fact that it's the longest chapter yet helps?

MASSIVE thanks to @hey-there-juliet for being an amazing beta, as always.

All mistakes are definitely mine, being as I cannot leave anything alone.

I own nothing.

Read it on AO3!!

<-Ch 3

They left the warehouse through a dingy corridor, which the Doctor suspected was actually a tunnel. The air felt stale and damp despite the ventilation shafts running above them. Plus, Yvonne was currently silent, not giving them an enthusiastic description of where they were or where they were going - likely an attempt to disorient them. Cheeky, really.

“All those times I’ve been to Earth, I’ve never heard of you,” he told her, mostly trying to figure out how that was even possible, and partly because hearing nothing but their echoing footsteps was starting to get on his nerves.

Rose was quiet, both verbally and in his head, as she continuously looked around them. Being escorted by armed guards through a creepy tunnel was putting her on edge. He squeezed her hand, but had a difficult time trying to project reassurance across their bond.

“But of course not. You’re the enemy,” Yvonne said. “You’re actually named in the Torchwood Foundation Charter of 1879 as an enemy of the Crown.”

Wait, 1879?! Torchwood, 1879.

“1879,” the Doctor repeated aloud this time. “That was called Torchwood, that house in Scotland.”

Just you?!, Rose exclaimed, outrage flitting through their connection. They don’t even mention me? Oh, that is just- just typical Victorian. I bet it’s because you said you bought me or whatever. I was just- just a thing. Good enough to be knighted and banished, but don’t get even a teeny tiny mention on this Charter of theirs?

I’m sorry, do you want to be declared an enemy of the crown?, he asked her. While he was able to keep his amusement off of his face, it was very apparent over the bond.

“That’s right,” Yvonne was saying, “where you encountered Queen Victoria and the werewolf.”

“I guess she really was NOT amused,” Rose quipped.

“Her Majesty created the Torchwood Institute with the express intention of keeping Britain great, and fighting the alien horde,” Yvonne informed them.

Suppose it’s best that I wasn’t mentioned, his wife admitted over the bond. Imagine what would’ve happened if Torchwood did know about me and snatched me up, took me prisoner or something before we even met?

She actually made a very good point.

“But if I’m the enemy, does that mean that I’m a prisoner?” the Doctor asked, more than a little worried.

Earth during this time, from his perspective? Mostly harmless. Torchwood, however, had an awful lot of very not-harmless extraterrestrial technology. And while they couldn’t get into the TARDIS and couldn’t actually stop him from sensing where she was, they did seem to have a sporting chance of keeping them from reaching her.

“Oh yes,” Yvonne answered as they made a sharp turn and exited the tunnel to stop abruptly in front of a heavily enforced door. “But we’ll make you perfectly comfortable. And there is so much you can teach us. Starting with this.”

The door slid open and she led them into what appeared to be some sort of laboratory.

“Now, what do you make of that?” she asked, not needing to be any more specific. There was no way that he couldn’t know what she was referring to, the way the sphere was hovering at the end of the narrow space, every single piece of equipment in the room trained on it. And it was decidedly wrong. More wrong than the ghosts, than Torchwood’s existence, than … anything on the planet , really.

The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off it.

All of his senses were going haywire, forcing him to block out most of the bond in order to shield Rose from just how- how awful this thing was.

“You must be the Doctor,” he was dimly aware that someone was speaking to him. “Rajesh Singh. It’s an honor, sir.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, still unable to look away from the sphere.

The timelines were tangling up around it, some passing over it as if the sphere didn’t exist, others indicating direct consequences of its future actions, or inaction - who knows. But those timelines were the only real sign, aside from the fact that he could see it, that his senses were giving him to prove that it did, in fact, exist at all.

“What is that?” his bondmate asked, dropping his hand. “It’s- it’s-”

“We got no idea,” Yvonne had no qualms to admit.

The Doctor shut down even more of the bond (a difficult feat), activating senses that he rarely used and was sure would only serve to give Rose a headache (or worse) if they leeched over to her. He had some ideas, none of them good, but still needed to narrow it down.

“It’s wrong,” his wife proclaimed.

“What makes you think there’s something wrong with it?” he vaguely heard the bloke - Rajesh - ask her.

“I … I can’t … I think I might be sick.”

His attention snapped back to his bondmate and the Doctor opened the bond a little bit more, as much he safely felt he could, attempting to comfort her while also determining exactly what she was sensing from the sphere. Rose was still new to telepathy, really, and there was a possibility that other senses were activating as well. Unfortunately, he also needed to figure out what the sphere really was, and couldn’t focus the majority of his attention on his wife as he walked up to the platform. All he could safely ascertain, without going too deep into her mind to focus on the task at hand, was that she wasn’t truly ill and that her mind wasn’t in any danger.

“Well, the sphere has that effect on everyone,” Yvonne said. “Makes you want to run and hide, like it’s forbidden.”

“We tried analyzing it using every device imaginable,” Rajesh explained as the Doctor re-blocked the bond and put on his 3D specs, hoping for once that he was wrong. “But according to our instruments, the sphere doesn’t exist.”

Oh, why couldn’t he have been wrong? The sphere was so steeped in Void particles that it almost looked as though it was made of the stuff.

Yvonne had said that the ghosts were a side effect. He was starting to get an idea of what may have happened.

“It weighs nothing,” Rajesh continued, “it doesn’t age. No heat, no radiation, and has no atomic mass.”

“But everyone can see it,” Rose pointed out in disbelief. “Touch it, I’m assuming. It’s there.”

“Fascinating, isn’t it? It upsets people because it gives off nothing. It is absent.”

The Doctor couldn’t stop looking at it. It was … well, obviously it wasn’t impossible, but it should be.

“Well, Doctor?” Yvonne asked, snapping him out of it.

“This is a Void Ship,” he admitted, refocusing on the weakening barriers he’d erected around their bond, trying to reinforce them in order to keep his anxiety and fear from crossing over. The blocks wouldn’t last much longer, the mental energy to keep them in place would be too great, but he just needed a little more time to get a handle on himself. They would figure this all out. They had to.

“And what is that?”

He could feel his wife attempting to reach him and hated that he was keeping her out. But really, they needed to avoid the inevitable negative feedback loop, especially since he had to do his best to appear calm and collected in front of these people. The Doctor took off his glasses, but still couldn’t stop looking at the ship.

“Well, it’s impossible for starters,” he told them, unable to think of a better word. “I always thought it was just a theory, but it’s a vessel designed to exist outside of time and space, traveling through the Void.”

Finally able to rip his gaze away from the sphere, he turned away, sitting down on the stairs leading up to the platform. Yvonne and Rajesh were quick to flank him, forcing Rose to squeeze past them in order to sit next to him. The Doctor put his arm around her automatically, and his barriers crumbled away. It was easier to keep himself calm (well, more calm) now that he wasn’t looking at the thing.

“And what’s the Void?” Rajesh asked.

It’s the space between parallel worlds, yeah?, his bondmate confirmed, attempting to send soothing waves of reassurance across their connection and dutifully not complaining about being cut off.

“The space between dimensions,” he explained to the others after mentally agreeing with his wife. “There’s all sorts of realities around us, different dimensions, billions of parallel universes all stacked up against each other. The Void is the space in between, containing absolutely nothing. Imagine that - nothing. No light, no dark, no up, no down, no life, no time.” The Doctor actually found himself feeling better, giving them a heavily edited lecture, separating himself from all of the potential ramifications for a moment. But only for a moment, before dread began to claw back up his spine. “My people called it the Void. The Eternals call it the Howling. But some people call it Hell.”

“But someone built the sphere,” Rajesh pointed out. “What for? Why go there?”

Oh, he did love it when people asked the important questions.

“To explore?” he hazarded. “To escape? You could sit inside that thing and eternity would pass you by. The Big Bang, end of the Universe, start of the next, wouldn’t even touch the sides. You’d exist outside the whole of creation.”

In a rare moment of complete synchronicity, he and Rose both thought of the Beast in the pit.

The Doctor hadn’t thought it possible, but the Void Ship suddenly seemed even more sinister.

Before time.

Perhaps a being could exist before time … if they crawled out of the Void. But how would that even work? He wanted to convince himself that it was impossible - had to be. But …

It doesn’t matter, Rose chimed in, easily getting his attention. We stopped him. Whatever’s in that thing, it isn’t that.

She seemed so certain of this that the Doctor couldn’t help but believe her.

“You see, we were right,” Yvonne said, smugly. “There is something inside there.”

“Oh, yes,” he agreed, frowning deeply as she smiled on.

His bondmate was now thinking of a different memory from Krop Tor. What the Beast had predicted for her.

The valiant child, who will die in battle so very soon.

He could feel the beginnings of the negative feedback loop that he’d been trying so hard to prevent.

I told you, it was wrong, the Doctor insisted, trying to project his complete certainty of this fact. Their timelines were entwined - it was all or nothing. And he still didn’t trust what he’d glimpsed at the Olympics, couldn’t allow that kind of hope to blind him of the danger of their current situation, but he played the memory for her anyway. He needed her to believe it. They just needed to get through this.

“So, how do we get in there?” Rajesh asked.

Oh, how he hated it when people asked the wrong questions.

“We don’t!” he ordered, launching himself up off the platform. “We send that thing back into Hell. How did it get here in the first place?”

There would have to be a tear in the fabric of reality for it to come through now that his people were gone. And he was going to have to figure out how to close it before it got bigger.

A tear in the fabric of reality?!, Rose shouted in his mind as she got up to follow him.

“Well, that’s how it all started,” Yvonne unknowingly saved him from having to respond to his seething wife. “The sphere came through into this world and the ghosts followed in its wake.”

“Show me,” the Doctor demanded, voice clipped as he took Rose’s hand and marched out of the room.

You’ve known about this Void stuff the whole bloody time, she continued complaining over the bond. Why the HELL didn’t you say something sooner?

I didn’t want to worry you unless I had to, he admitted. When it was just those ghosts, I thought that maybe it would be a simple fix. But that ship is corporeal. It made it properly through. The ghosts haven’t, so I thought I might just be dealing with a potential crack in the Universe. An almost crack. Like when you drop a mug and it gets a tiny hairline fracture. It hasn’t actually broken, just damaged enough that bacteria can get caught in it. You shouldn’t really drink out of it anymore if you can help it, but if you wanted to you could still use it to store pencils.

They took a left and barely made it past the door before he heard Yvonne shout, “No, Doctor.”

He quickly pivoted, accidentally dragging his bondmate in a circle, and then purposefully held his head high as they walked past the door again.

So the ship broke the mug, then, Rose continued as Yvonne and one of the soldiers caught up to them.

Yup. The metaphor kind of falls apart a bit after that, though. I’ll think of something better, just give us a tick. And … I’m sorry. It’s not like I thought you couldn’t handle it or anything.

They were directed to a lift, and as soon as they got inside his bondmate let go of his hand and crossed her arms.

Honestly, the Doctor pleaded across their bond, I was hoping that I was wrong. That it just appeared like they’d crossed the Void.

She glanced his way before eyeing the screen that was tracking their progress up the floors at a rate that was much faster than he could recall lifts being in this time period. The further up they went, the more his senses were screaming at him that things were not right. Timelines were twisting into strange shapes, and what was an occasional flicker everywhere else was more like a strobe as they shifted in and out of existence. The Doctor felt increasingly grateful that the barriers around his senses were much stronger than the rest.

You really weren’t trying to keep me out of some plan you’re cookin’?

Absolutely not, he hastily agreed. Me? A plan? Bold of you to think I have one.

His bondmate covered her mouth with a hand as her laughter rang out over their connection. Much better. Well, relatively. They were still in the middle of a gigantic potentially-Universe-ending catastrophe, but who said he couldn’t still appreciate the little things?

Yvonne led them out at the 45th floor - the very top of the building. Or maybe skyscraper was a better word.

“Right this way, then,” she said, and while Yvonne had started off leading them, they soon matched her pace - the breach was so large that there was no way the Doctor could have missed it even without the escort.

Within moments they turned a corner and there it was. Dormant, but there.

“The sphere came through here,” Yvonne stated. “A hole in the world.”

The Doctor dropped Rose’s hand as he approached the tear. Even in its current state, he could tell how large it was - that it had been growing. He reached up a hand, tracing its edge. Tingly. Tingly, but the bad kind. His hairs stood on end.

Is that safe? His wife’s worry coated their bond.

It’s fine, he assured her. It’s closed … for now.

“Not active at the moment,” Yvonne continued, “but when we fire particle engines at that exact spot, the breach opens up.”

So they made the hole, then? Why?!

He could tell that his bondmate was wondering the exact same thing.

“How did you even find it?” the Doctor asked, deciding to start at the beginning (so to speak), as he backed away to look at the rip in reality in its entirety.

“We were getting warning signs for years. A radar black spot. So we built this place, Torchwood Tower. The breach was six hundred feet above sea level. It was the only way to reach it,” Yvonne answered as he put on his 3D glasses.

Oh. Oh. The edges were steeped in just as much Void particles as the ship - which was just about what he’d been thinking, but still. Anticipating and then seeing were two very different things. He didn’t want to see what it was like when active. It should have never been active.

Do they just have an unlimited budget, then? Country spending all it’s money on this?

The Doctor could tell that his wife wasn’t actually talking to him, but the thought was quite loud and quite irritated. He glanced back to see Rose standing a few feet behind him with her arms crossed, frowning as she glared at the back of Yvonne Hartman’s head.

“You built a skyscraper just to reach a spatial disturbance?” he couldn’t help but ask. “How much money have you got?”

“Enough,” Yvonne blithely answered before walking away.

Well, that was … fair? He never had figured out all of the rules for money, especially for talking about money. Humans were just so … so weird. The Doctor took off his glasses and tried not to roll his eyes.

“Look who’s talking,” Rose whispered in his ear.

“Oh, speaking aloud now, are we?” he muttered back.

“Mmhmm,” she responded with a cheeky grin. “Gonna let me try out your 3D glasses? Aren’t these from when we saw It Came from Outer Space after the last time we failed to see Elvis?” Turns out third time isn’t the charm.

This time the Doctor really did roll his eyes as he passed his bondmate the glasses. It really shouldn’t be this difficult to see Elvis Presley, really it-

He stopped himself from going down that train of thought. Much more important things to think about. Rose tilted her head as she stared at the breach, then turned toward him. Her jaw dropped.

“Doc-”

“Come on now, Doctor,” Yvonne called before Rose could finish her sentence.

“Yup! Coming!”

They both turned and followed their ‘tour guide’ away from the rip in the multiverse, his wife passing back the glasses as they went.

Why are those black things all over you, too? The, er, Void stuff, Rose asked over the bond.

They’re also on you. We’ve been through, remember? But we’ve just got a light dusting. Everything else, you can barely see the thing for the Void, he explained as they caught up with Yvonne only to be led into an office.

Rose paused by a window, pressing her face up against the glass as she looked down at the streets below them, while the Doctor … for lack of a better way to phrase it … wandered off. It was different, though! The rule was for Rose not to wander away from him. That didn’t mean he couldn’t wander away from … uptight know-it-all heads of shadow organizations. Whom his wife was- was guarding. While he investigated!

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of interest going on at the moment. And everyone was ignoring him. He was able to get a good look at their equipment, though, so at least there was that. It was simple enough, but he doubted he’d have enough time to dismantle it before a bunch of soldiers with guns came and stopped him.

“Oh!” he heard Rose exclaim from around the corner. “Look, we’re in Canary Wharf!”

The Doctor quickly placed them in his mental map of London. Good to know. He wasn’t yet sure why it would be good to know, but it couldn’t hurt. The ‘ghosts’ were everywhere, so it wouldn’t help with that, but if he needed to contact UNIT at any point, they would need to know his position.

“Well, that is the public name for it,” Yvonne was saying as he headed back toward them. “But to those in the know, it’s Torchwood.”

Right then. And now they were in the know, so it was time they listened.

“So,” he began as soon as he entered the room, “you find the breach, probe it, the sphere comes through six hundred feet above London, bam! It leaves a hole in the fabric of reality. And that hole, you think, oh, shall we leave it alone? Shall we back off? Shall we play it safe? Nah, you think let’s make it bigger!”

“It’s a massive source of energy,” Yvonne justified. “If we can harness that power, we need never depend on the Middle East again. Britain will become truly independent. Look, you can see for yourself. Next Ghost Shift’s in two minutes.”

She began leading them away, yet again, and he was tired of the tour.

“Cancel it,” he ordered as Yvonne walked past.

She’s not gonna listen to ya, his bondmate oh-so-helpfully pointed out.

“I don’t think so.”

The timelines were stretching taught all around him, blinking in and out even faster. He’d experienced temporal tipping points, he’d experienced fixed points, but he’d never experienced something like this. It was fraying his every nerve and it was taking most of his mental energy just to keep the effects of the anomaly from leaching across the bond.

“I’m warning you, cancel it,” he snarled. Why couldn’t she just listen? Why couldn’t she see that her actions right here, right now, could stop the Universe from being ripped apart?!

Rose, unaware of his mental turmoil, recoiled slightly, eyes widening. He could feel her prodding around the bond, trying to get further into his mind, asking what was wrong and baffled at his lack of response.

No no no no no. Not right now, not when he was constantly erecting and re-erecting barriers. It would be too much, if she got in his head fully. Too much, too much, too much.

Yvonne Hartman spun around, showing some real emotion for the first time since they landed at her precious headquarters that she had no idea may as well be a tomb.

“Oh, exactly as the legends would have it,” she said, voice dripping with condescension. “The Doctor, lording it over us, assuming alien authority over the Rights of Man.”

“Let me show you,” the Doctor panted, racing back behind a glass wall just as he succeeded in forcibly pushing Rose out of his head. Their bond went silent. A sinking feeling permeated his being, but … later. He’d deal with it later, explain later. One problem at a bloody time. “Sphere comes through,” he announced, pulling out his sonic and pointing it at the glass, making sure Hartman watched as it splintered around the initial impact site. “But when it made the hole, it cracked the world around it. The entire surface of this dimension splintered. And that’s how the ghosts get through. That’s how they get everywhere. They’re bleeding through the fault lines. Walking from their world, across the Void, and into yours, with the human race hoping and wishing and helping them along. But too many ghosts, and-” he gently poked the glass wall and the whole thing shattered onto the floor.

For a moment, everyone was silent. Maybe he’d gotten through to her.

“Well,” she finally said, “in that case, we’ll have to be more careful.”

He glanced at Rose, meeting her eyes for only a moment before she swallowed and looked away.

“Positions! Ghost Shift in one minute!”

In a few long strides, the Doctor avoided most of the glass, fully ready to beg.

“Miss Hartman, I am asking you, please don’t do it.”

“You’re putting everyone in danger,” his bondmate chimed in, and he didn’t like the panic and desperation in her voice, so he didn’t dare turn and try to look at her again. Seeing Rose upset wasn’t going to help. “Not just London or Britain, but the whole world! Maybe the whole Universe!”

“We have done this a thousand times!” Yvonne shot back, as if that somehow made it better.

“Then stop at a thousand!” he shouted, timelines strobing in and out so quickly that he could barely think straight, barriers beginning to crumble and he didn’t have the energy left to build more, not if he wanted to figure out how to stop whatever Miss Hartman seemed determined to start.

“We’re in control of the ghosts,” she tried to convince him. “The levers can open the breach, but equally they can close it.”

The Doctor stared at her, and came to a decision, though not the most ethical one. Still, desperate times called for desperate measures, and since he was no longer using all of his telepathic energy to keep his wife from stumbling into the minefield that was his mind, he could do something else. He could project towards Miss Yvonne Hartman. She worked right next to the breach, which means her brain was likely primed for this sort of thing. Universe ending? Fine. Fine. Let her end it, then. But could she make that call? Would she be able to live with herself … whether she lived at all?

“Okay,” he said brightly, breaking eye contact once the suggestion was made and practically skipping back toward the office.

“Sorry?” Yvonne asked, just as confused as he figured she’d be.

“Never mind. As you were,” the Doctor smiled, grabbing the nearest chair and rolling it over towards where Rose was standing, still preternaturally silent in his head despite the fact that his barriers were now almost non-existent.

“What, is that it?”

“No, fair enough. Said my bit, don’t mind me,” he replied, taking a seat and turning toward the nearest worker. “Any chance for a cup of tea?”

The woman at the desk ignored him, but she did turn toward Miss Hartman and announce, “Ghost Shift in twenty seconds.”

“Mmm, can’t wait to see it,” the Doctor said, over exaggerating his excitement, his clenched fists the only thing giving him away.

“You can’t stop us, Doctor,” Yvonne declared, though it didn’t seem like her heart was in it. Good.

“No, absolutely not,” he agreed, crossing his arms. “Come here, Rose. Come and watch the fireworks.”

His bondmate finally walked over to him, and he was quick to weave their fingers together. And just like that, every barrier he had, even the ones that were normally easy to maintain, fell away as if they’d never existed in the first place. Her eyes widened, a barely audible gasp escaping before she moved even closer, stumbling before taking a seat on his lap.

I thought-

She didn’t give him time to finish the thought.

Sod it! If this is as long as our forever might be, I’m not gonna spend it pretending that we’re not together, her mental voice a disconcerting mix of defiance, anger, sorrow, and fear.

“Ghost shift in ten seconds,” the woman at the computer announced.

Rose’s grip on his hand tightened.

“Nine.”

The Doctor locked eyes with Miss. Hartman.

“Eight.”

He could see the fear there, just under the surface.

“Seven.”

He raised his eyebrows, daring her.

“Six.”

I love you, Rose’s mental voice whispered across the bond, tentative, afraid to mess up the game of chicken he’d started, but also desperate with the need to tell him.

“Five.”

I love you too, the Doctor replied, squeezing her hand, eyes still never leaving Yvonne’s, grin still plastered on his face.

“Four.”

It was a staring contest, with the entire Universe at stake, and he could tell that the fact that he didn’t actually have to blink was beginning to unnerve her.

“Three.”

C’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon !

“Two.”

His respiratory bypass kicked in, though his smile didn’t falter.

The word ‘one’ was about to pass through the worker’s lips.

“Stop the shift,” Yvonne ordered. “I said stop.”

“Thank you,” he said, managing to not let on just how worried he’d been there for a second.

“Yeah,” Rose seconded, “thank you.”

“I suppose it makes sense to get as much intelligence as possible,” Yvonne said, visibly shaken though doing a pretty good job of trying to hide it from her employees. “But the program will recommence, as soon as you’ve explained everything.”

“We’re glad to be of help,” the Doctor replied, not wanting to push her any farther. It wasn’t safe to use telepathy around humans at the best of times, and his mind was all over the place.

What?!, his wife screeched in his head.

Not you, he quickly backpedalled. We’ve been over this, remember? You’ve got the activated genes for it.

Not that, you plum! You went in her head?!

“And someone clear up this glass,” Miss. Hartman was saying, interrupting the silent row that was starting up between them. “They did warn me, Doctor. They said you like to make a mess.”

“They’re not wrong there,” Rose agreed, standing up awfully primly and crossing her arms.

The Doctor pouted up at her.

I wasn’t in her head, it was just a projected suggestion. Just- just like really loudly thinking in her direction, he tried to explain. I’m a touch telepath, I can’t properly enter another mind without direct contact. Well, aside from you, obviously.

And that works? Thinking loudly at someone?, his bondmate scoffed over their connection, disbelief apparent.

When you’re a telepath? Yes. Sometimes.

And in his case, with great difficulty. Really, he’d just gotten lucky.

It was just luck?

The Doctor sighed before finally standing, forced to move out of the way by the workers who had arrived surprisingly quickly to clean up the glass. Right, no barriers at all now, and no mental energy to make more. Rose obviously still had her own, since he wasn’t getting a stream of endless random thoughts and feelings. Well, this was going to be embarrassing. Actually-

Do you have a headache right now?, he asked her, briefly glancing at the workers around them before taking her hand. The ones that were obviously part of the Ghost Shift program had started typing on their computers again.

No, not really.

How’s that?

It didn’t make sense. He felt awful, the Void and the shifting, snarled up timelines constantly grating at his senses.

I mean, for a second there I thought I might pass out, but then I just kind of … I dunno, turned off the weird stuff?

And oh, how he wished he could figure out exactly what she meant by that, but now - unfortunately - wasn’t the time. Glass taken care of, Yvonne was now entering her office, nodding at them to follow. They both glanced back at the wall where the Void sat, waiting.

“C’mon,” his wife whispered, finally giving him a smile as she grabbed the chair and pushed it in front of her.

His gratitude, the Doctor was sure, must have been abundantly apparent. He took a deep breath before they both followed Yvonne into her office. Rose took a seat in what had been his chair, so the Doctor took the other.

“No,” Miss. Hartman was quick to correct, hands on her hips, “that’s my seat. We’ll get another.”

He turned to his wife just in time to see her rolling her eyes while failing to suppress a grin. Yvonne made the request, and by the time he walked around the desk again, a worker was rolling another chair in. They were quite efficient, he’d give them that. Then again, they had still not managed to get him his tea, so …

They’re not getting paid to listen to you, Rose commented. They’d be paid to bring Yvonne Hartman tea.

The Doctor smiled at her sarcasm as he got comfortable in his new chair, putting his feet up on the desk and leaning back. Blimey, he was tired.

“So these ghosts, whatever they are,” Yvonne asked, getting straight back into it, “did they build the sphere?”

“Must have,” he replied, not that he really knew. “Aimed it at this dimension like a cannonball.”

Though if the ‘ghosts’ were following in the void ship’s wake, he was partly curious and mostly terrified to find out what was actually inside the craft. Hopefully just more of whatever the ghosts really were, but possibly some sort of weapon. Who knew? Hopefully they would never have to find out.

Rose began chewing at a fingernail, looking out the window.

“And the energy?”

He raised both eyebrows, though wasn’t completely surprised that these humans would gladly siphon power even while not understanding how it was being generated. Problem was, they shouldn’t be able to do any of it and wouldn’t be able to do any of it without the alien technology they had stolen. Timelines strobed in and out, faster and faster and faster.

“I could use some energy,” the Doctor replied. “Quite the day I’ve been having. Where is that tea?”

His wife took his hand, weaving their fingers together as Miss. Hartman gazed skyward for a moment before (finally) ordering the tea.

Is there anything I can do to help?, Rose asked.

I doubt it. Since you can’t sense all of this, and I would not want to show you, it’s not as if I can even-

Before he could finish the thought, his mind was suddenly full of Rose and light and love and over half of his senses cut off. There were no more tangling timelines blinking in and out of existence - there were no more timelines at all .

The Doctor blinked, trying not to panic.

Yvonne said something, but he wasn’t sure what. Wasn’t paying attention, as he realized that his wife wasn’t in his head.

No.

She had pulled him into hers.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” he asked, wiggling his fingers in front of his face. It was so strange. His mind was still in his body, but yet … not? There was a slight lag between thought and action - about 5 picoseconds.

You are amazing, he exclaimed over the bond.

Rose grinned, mind radiating smugness.

How did you even figure out how to do this?

They certainly hadn’t gone over it during any of their telepathy lessons. And he hadn’t yet had the chance to look for more specific information, being as he’d only just found out how it all worked.

I don’t know, Rose’s mental voice admitted, uncertainty coating the words. I just kinda imagined what I wanted to do and then … I don’t know.

Blimey, she was going to be a much stronger telepath than he was.

“I asked what you would have us do if you had your way. You said send it back, but how exactly do you propose we do that?”

Ah. Good question. And where things got downright complicated (not that they weren’t already). The Doctor gave Rose’s hand a squeeze and then let go, wanting to determine if touch was a factor in this newfound ability of hers? Theirs? He wasn’t sure, had only ever done anything remotely similar when invasively telepathically connected with someone, touching their psi-points. This was much, much different.

The connection held.

And most importantly, for the moment - overall it was completely unsustainable, not having access to most of his senses - he could think clearly.

“I’ll need access to your equipment, and a comprehensive list of exactly what alien technologies you have at your disposal, because there’s a chance you may have what I need to properly seal and contain excess void particles. And I’ll need the TARDIS.”

“A comprehensive list? Hah! Nice try, Doctor. The relevant equipment, I may be able to allow.”

“May?”

“Torchwood serves Queen and Country, and there are calls I would have to make.” Now she didn’t look amused.

“Make them,” he urged.

“And when they ask about the energy?” she requested, eyebrows raised.

Calculations raced through his head.

“Well, there’d have to be energy sending them back. So you’d have that, right?” Rose piped in before he could compare the results with historical precedence - took longer without his time senses.

Point was, his wife was right, pretty much. And now wasn’t really the time to get picky. They were going to have to compromise.

“A lot of energy in the transfer,” he agreed, nodding enthusiastically. “Run the maths yourself, but reversing all of the particles will take up the energy of key commands, power usage normal, and the energy created by all of the particles reversing at once would be massive. Long term may not be what you wanted, but I also doubt you wanted to annihilate the planet and potentially destroy all of reality, so …”

The Doctor shrugged.

Got a little rude, there, Rose oh so helpfully pointed out.

“We’ll just have to see what they say,” Yvonne said, though she didn’t look convinced, even as she began typing quickly on her computer.

You’ve got to admit, at least it’s progress, he had to point out.

Yvonne looked away from her computer, immediately turning toward the ghost shift control area right outside.

“Excuse me?” she called, getting up from her desk, “Everyone? I thought I said ‘stop the ghost shift’.”

Both he and Rose turned toward where she was now shouting out of the doorway.

“Who started the program?”

Not a single person was reacting. The Doctor stood up, taking his wife’s hand as they slowly followed Miss. Hartman out of her office. This was not good not good not good, and he could really use access to a few more senses right about now.

“But I ordered you to stop? Who’s doing this? Right, step away from the monitors, everyone.”

I’ve not exactly trapped you here, y’know, Rose pointed out, thoughts laced with anxiety as she looked from person to person, blankly typing at their monitors.

“Gareth, Addy, stop what you’re doing right now,” Yvonne ordered, the words having no effect. “Matt, step away from your desk.”

The Doctor stretched his awareness, finding that he had more energy than he thought he’d had as he tentatively shifted across their bond, the action feeling like simply walking through a door in his own mind for all of the effort it took. With great care, he was able to selectively access more of his senses without too much discomfort from all of his time senses.

“Matt, step away from your desk! That’s an order!” Yvonne shouted, and he now sensed her building panic. “Stop the levers! Andrew!”

Workers ran in, trying to manually stop the levers without much success.

He could sense nothing from the employees controlling the program.

“Look at their ears,” Rose breathed, memories from their own trip across the void engulfing the part of his awareness still resting deeply within her mind.

Their ears.

He listened for another moment before pinpointing the one typing the fastest.

“What’s she doing?” the Doctor wondered aloud as he marched over to the one who Rose identified as Addy, making note of how deeply connected they still were but unable to properly address it. Didn’t have the time.

“Addy, step away from the desk,” Yvonne urged as both she and Rose followed him.

He snapped his fingers in front of Addy’s eyes, not getting a single reaction.

No one home.

“Listen to me,” Yvonne continued as Rose stifled a gasp before turning and waving her hand in front of the man across the aisle, “Step away from the desk - oh! The call’s connected!”

“She can’t hear you anyway,” he told her, dread forming in the pit of his stomach as he turned toward the monitor. “They’re overriding the system. We’re going into ghost shift.”

With great reluctance, well aware that the results would be exceedingly unpleasant, the Doctor reactivated his time senses. Because he needed to know what exactly was happening in order to fully monitor the situation.

“Hello, this is Torchwood One, calling mayday, threat level alpha, activation code eight- four- delta- whisky- zero- seven- foxtrot,” Yvonne recited over her comm.

Sensations slammed into him all at once, timelines knotted together and breaking off, the spin of the planet speeding up and slowing down at a rate unnoticeable to the humans. He zeroed in on the devices attached to Addy’s ears.

“It’s the ear piece,” he bit out, swiftly becoming overwhelmed by the activating void but unable to retreat. He couldn’t afford the luxury. “It’s controlling them. I’ve seen this before.”

Of all the parallel worlds, really.

“Situation is dire,” Hartman continued into the phone. “We are requesting backup immediately. The Ghost Shift has been compromised, the Doctor is assisting.”

Hey, that’s where Mickey is, his wife pointed out even as she placed a hand between his shoulder blades, offering him comfort for what would have to come next. With great reluctance, the Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver.

“Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He sonicked Addy’s ear pod, and within moments she and all of the other partially converted Torchwood employees screamed before collapsing at their desks.

“What happened?” Yvonne demanded, eyes wide in terror as she likely realized she’d lost complete control over the situation - welcome to his world, really. Typical Tuesday, that. “What did you just do?”

“They’re dead,” he informed her, not having time to sugar coat it.

Despite their connected minds, Rose reached down and felt around for Addy’s pulse point.

“Is it really …” his wife paused, finding herself unable to say it all out loud. “Again, but here? Or …”

The Doctor could feel her mind racing as he attempted to gain control of the ghost shift program. Yvonne’s attention returned to her call, though he stopped paying attention.

“I think I know exactly where they’re coming from,” he admitted, loathe to be the one to confirm her fears, but unwilling (not to mention completely unable) to lie to her.

“But … Mickey was- and Jake, and-”

An image of her parallel father flashed through both their minds as Rose clenched her jaw.

Every sense the Doctor had was positively screaming as the seconds ticked on by and the tear widened.

“We’ll figure it out,” he near shouted as it all became too much.

Just as he managed to apologize mentally, Rose seemed to breach his mind even as a large portion of his consciousness remained in hers. The pain seemed to dull, sensations cushioned by the added presence.

Please, please tell me you can’t feel this, he found himself pleading, both grateful for the respite and horrified that the pain might simply be being transferred.

M’fine, his bondmate assured him. I’m just trying to help you make barriers.

Oh.

Well.

Huh.

While he had helped her construct some in their initial training, the Doctor had to admit that the sensation of someone doing it for him was novel.

“They’re patching into our systems. What are those ear pieces?” Yvonne asked.

“Don’t,” he ordered as he continued entering commands into the system. It wasn’t overly complex, but the time crunch was a bit of an ask. As much as he wanted to spare her the horror, he couldn’t afford to make time for sentiment.

“But they’re standard comms devices,” Miss. Hartman insisted as Rose stepped away from the desk, getting a better look at the levers.

“Trust me, leave them alone,” the Doctor insisted as he raced over to another terminal.

“But what are they?” he heard her ask, but ignored the question.

There were multiple universes on the line, after all. And nothing he tried was working.

“Ugh!” Yvonne’s exclaimed. “Oh, God!” He had warned her. “It goes inside their brain!”

“What about the Ghost Shift?” he asked, needing their host-slash-captor back on track. The Doctor looked up from the monitor at the bright, terrifying tear in spacetime opening up mere feet away from them all.

“Ninety percent there and still running,” she replied, quickly joining him at the desk. “Can’t you stop it?”

“They’re still controlling it, they’ve hijacked the system,” the Doctor quickly explained, standing up and pulling out his sonic screwdriver.

“Who’s they?” Yvonne asked, and nope! No time to get into that.

“It might be a remote transmitter,” he continued as he scanned the area, “but it’s got to be close by. I can trace it.”

With that, he ran, following the signal, dimly aware that Yvonne Hartman was tagging along.

“Keep those levers down,” she ordered as they raced out of the room. “Keep them offline! Help is coming.”

Rose broke away from where she’d been helping the others holding the levers back, quickly overtaking Miss. Hartman but still hanging back slightly.

You weren’t tryin’ ta leave without me, were you?, his wife asked, her mental landscape pulsing with agitation.

Wouldn’t dream of it, the Doctor assured her. After all, she had complete access to every single thought in his head now. He was fine to leave it entirely up to Rose, whether or not to follow him into near certain death. Not like he could stop her any other time.

“You two, you come with us,” Yvonne ordered a pair of soldiers walking past, not that it would do them any good.

They all slowed down, following his lead as they neared the source of the signal.

“What’s down here?” he asked as they reached a section of hall blocked off by plastic.

“I don’t- I don’t know,” Yvonne admitted. “I think it’s building work. It’s just renovations.”

“You should go back,” the Doctor told her, taking his wife’s hand before carefully passing into the cordoned off area.

“Think again,” Miss. Hartman scoffed, once again ignoring his advice. It’s as if she truly didn’t understand that he was trying to help her.

We’ll figure this out, Rose assured him this time, despite knowing that he was completely aware of the terror and doubt pulsing through her headspace.

I love you, the Doctor told her, hoping that it wouldn’t be his last chance to say it.

I love you, too.

It wasn’t long before they reached the source … though he couldn’t see anything. At least, nothing obvious.

“What is it?” Yvonne asked. “What’s down here?”

“Ear pieces, ear pods,” he finally began to explain. “This world’s colliding with another, and I think I know which one.”

“We’ve met them before,” Rose continued, just as metal footsteps began clanging from every direction, shadows appearing to circle them behind the flimsy curtains.

“Fell through a crack on accident. Should have been impossible. Now we know why,” the Doctor elaborated, shifting so that his wife was directly behind him - connected lifespans or not, he was the one who could regenerate (hopefully).

“What are they?”

“They came through first. The advanced guard,” he told her, trying to keep the fear out of his voice and doing a rather poor job of it as the creatures surrounding them ripped through the plastic. “Cybermen.”

Rose and Yvonne both ducked as the soldiers began to open fire, and he grabbed both their hands in an attempt to get away that was thwarted before they’d even managed to move more than a few feet.

“We surrender!” the Doctor quickly announced, raising his hands above his head to show he was unarmed as the sounds of gunfire faded. He swallowed, blinking a few times and not allowing himself to turn around.

“Yeah, we surrender!” Rose quickly followed suit, gaze straight forward.

He turned to Yvonne, raising his eyebrows and giving her a slight wave.

“I surrender,” she - finally - agreed through gritted teeth, throwing up her hands.

They were quickly marched back to the Ghost Shift area, escorted into the room with guns to their backs.

“Get away from the machines,” the Doctor shouted. “Do what they say. Don’t fight them!”

Before the scientists at the levers had time to move, they were shot down.

“We are the Cyberman,” one of their captors announced - likely the Cyberleader. “The Ghost Shift will be increased to one hundred percent.”

The timelines around them had become utter chaos within the past fifteen minutes - the Doctor wasn’t sure how he would possibly be able to see straight, never mind think properly once the breach was fully opened.

If it’s not helping, just let go, his wife insisted, tugging him back toward her mind. Despite the fight or flight responses bombarding her systems, it was still much simpler in there, cut off from the nauseating sensations of slowly crumbling dimensions.

Glad my primitive human brain can help, Rose’s (slightly sarcastic) mental voice echoed around him as the levers raised.

“Here come the ghosts,” he warned, bracing himself.

Even cut off from his time senses, the full activation was brutal. The Doctor could sense the barriers Rose had made earlier shatter, despite his primary consciousness being nowhere near them. He grimaced, doing his best to keep the pain of it from touching his wife’s mind. No wonder it was so easy for her to move him telepathically - he no longer had any defenses.

They shielded their eyes, watching as a growing number of spectral figures approached through the rift.

“What are we going to do?” Rose asked, clinging to his side as the strain of protecting them both inside her head began to wear on her.

His precious girl. So, so strong. The last thing he wanted to tell her was that he didn’t know, but the most he could do was not say the words. The last thing he wanted her to feel was his own fear, but all he could do was put on a brave face. Everything else was transparent, an open book.

“Achieving full transfer,” the Cyberleader declared.

The Doctor watched as the forms solidified. “They’re Cybermen. All of the ghosts are Cybermen. Millions of them, right across the world.”

“They’re invading the whole planet,” Yvonne stated, and he noticed the blinking light on her ear piece indicating that she was still in a call.

“It’s not an invasion,” he corrected. “It’s too late for that. It’s a victory.”

“You’re the ones who gave it to them,” Rose couldn’t help but point out.

Yvonne opened her mouth only to clamp it shut again as the nearest computer began to repeat ‘Sphere Activated’ on a loop, claiming each of their attentions as data flashed on the screen. The Doctor frowned, eyes widening as he tried to make sense of it all.

How did a Cyber Invasion lead to a Void ship?

How did a Void ship lead to a Cyber Invasion?

Calculation after calculation, and none of them added up.

“But I don’t understand,” the Doctor stepped forward, commanding notice, needing to know. “The Cybermen don’t have the technology to build a void ship. That’s way beyond you. How did you create the sphere?”

“The sphere is not ours,” the nearest Cyberman replied.

“What?”

But … it was active.

It had activated precisely when the Cybermen fully manifested out of the void.

Sure, it didn’t make much sense for it to be theirs, but if not …

“The sphere broke down the barriers between worlds. We only followed. Its origin is unknown,” the Cyberman continued.

“Then what’s inside it?” the Doctor asked, despite knowing that the answer wasn’t coming.

#ten x rose #tenrose #time petals #ficandchips #dw fanfiction #fandom: doctor who #pairing: rose x doctor #fic: tangled timelines #my fic

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halfway-happyyy · 4 years

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An Invisible String

AN: This is something I’ve been working on for quite a while now, and it is a little different than my usual pieces. It will probably be about three or four installments. If you enjoy it (or even if you don’t) (I don’t do too many chaptered pieces... like, ever) please feel free to send feedback. Warnings include: mentions of suicidal tendencies, depression, anxiety, past mentions of domestic physical and mental abuse. Loosely inspired by the music video for ‘High Hopes’ by Kodaline.

Synopsis: Depressed, suicidal and recently single Alexander Skarsgård is at the end of his rope. But he is about to find out that no matter where you come from, what your pain looks like, or what your truth is... The universe will always fight for souls to be together.

part 2, part 3

“I mean… Maybe, somehow, something good will come of all this change.”

Those words had chimed through the confines of his brain like a clear bell, multiple times since he had last laid eyes on her. He sighed heavily and drew an arm back to cast his fishing line out into the great blue abyss before him. Though he had loved his wife with every fiber of his being, he had grown to detest her incessant need to find the positives in every single situation, towards the dissolution of their ten-year marriage.

“Oh, Alexander.” She caressed a warm palm against the curve of his stubbled cheek. “I just think it wasn’t in the cards for us, my love.”

A single day had not passed that he did not wish his relationship with her had ended differently. Past arguments, miniscule or gargantuan in scale often played on a loop in his mind like a scratched record. Was there anything within his power that he could have done to make her stay? He had concluded a while ago that that question would likely torment him for the rest of his life if he let it. And as the burnt orange sun sank low over the Baltic Sea, he took solace in the fact that he would not have to wonder long at all.

Three hundred and sixty-five days had elapsed since his wife had left him, and daily routines had been mostly kept the same. He still managed to get up every morning, still went for walks around the park. Every now and then he would strap on his hip-waders and fish for hours, and when he was finished, he would go home and shower and then head to the pub for the evening. He found early on that there was not enough alcohol in the world that he could consume to drown out the dreams of her. Frustratingly, days took longer to get through. And it was not that he minded the sudden aloneness… As the eldest brother of seven siblings he had come to enjoy solitude. Quiet mornings out on the water, even quieter evenings at home with a warm fire and a book. It was the fact that this loneliness had been thrust upon him like an extremely unwanted gift. He had no idea what to do with it. So, after careful consideration he made up his mind one morning over a cup of scalding, black coffee that just simply disappearing would probably be the easiest solution to his problems. She had clearly moved on, and it was only fitting that he try and do the same as well… just on a more permanent level. So, he allowed himself a week to set his affairs in order, left a letter for each of his siblings, and on a Friday morning in mid-May took the car to a field a few blocks away from his house. He fixed one end of the hose to the exhaust pipe with an old sock, and the other he fed back into the car from the front window. He could not begin to guess how long this whole ordeal would take, and he wondered briefly if it would be as insignificant as simply falling asleep. Just as he was about to turn the ignition over, he heard in the distance the sound of muffled yelling. He glanced towards the rearview mirror but could make out nothing of consequence, so he sat back a moment and listened. The yelling grew louder, and another glance to the rearview mirror offered something he could not quite make sense of. A woman was running full tilt towards his car, the edges of her white wedding dress clutched tightly in both fists. As she approached the car faster, he noticed a mob of angry men crest the hilltop behind her and she stopped at his door, her chest heaving under the duress of the journey she had just completed. Mascara cascaded down her face like raindrops down a windowsill and she cocked her head to the side in unabashed astonishment. “Alexander?” She inquired, breathlessly.

In a state of shock, he opened his door to get out and stocked around to the back of the car, yanking the hose and sock from the exhaust pipe. He then wandered to the passenger side and held the door open for her which she had obliged gratefully. He paid no more attention to the fast-approaching group of men as he tossed the hose and sock into the backseat and shoved the car into drive. An eerie silence befell the vehicle while his passenger tried to catch her breath. Alexander found the questions he wanted to ask her were suddenly boundless; What on earth could Thea McHugh be doing in this field, in a wedding dress of all things? Where was she going? And most importantly, what had happened to her? He scratched a hand uncomfortably along the strip of stubble beneath his chin, formulating how best to broach the first subject. “Thea… my god. What- where can I bring you?”

She took a steadying breath and turned to him, gaze downcast. “I have nowhere to go.”

He allowed himself a second to take his focus from the road to glance at her. “You don’t reside around here?”

She shook her head. “I lived with my fiancé.”

Alexander was not entirely sure when he had made the decision to bring her back to his home, but if he had to guess, it was probably around the time she had pulled the discarded sock over her fist and used it as a macabre hand puppet. Halfway through the drive he noticed the tip of his silver flask peeking out from beneath the leather interior of his side door and he offered her some of its contents, which she accepted graciously. Neither of them said much as he drove up the lane to the house in which he had bid goodbye not less than two hours earlier. He shifted the car into park and sat unmoving, sparing himself a few moments to try and figure out what the fuck he was going to do now. “Is there anyone I can call for you?” He asked after a while.

She shook her head wordlessly.

Alexander elicited a small sigh and glanced toward the stone structure a few yards away, hardly believing the words that had begun to take shape in his mind. “Listen… I’ve got plenty of space here, if you need a few days to get your feet back on solid ground.”

Her eyes widened and she shook her head no, her pink lips parting in protest. “I couldn’t intrude on you like that… we’re strangers now.”

“Yeah, well… we weren’t always.” He shrugged slowly and took a steadying breath. “Look- there is a motel a few miles down the road that I would be happy to take you to… but I wouldn’t suggest it to my worst enemy. And by the sounds of it, you don’t have any close kin around anymore,” Again, he scratched a hand through the stubble on the underside of his chin. “And your business is entirely your own Thea, but if you need a place to stay, and if you’re not too weary of strangers,” He was not sure how much he liked the sound of that word. “Then I think I could be of some assistance to you.”

She offered up a small smile. “If it really wouldn’t be too much of an imposition- I would be very appreciative, thank you.”

Clambering out of the vehicle, he made his way over to her side of the door and opened it so that she could exit. She followed him up the narrow, cobbled path to the front door and stood a few feet behind him while he fumbled around in his pocket for the keys. He took a deep breath, fit the key into the lock and pushed the door open. He leant against the frame for support as she quietly stepped past him into the darkened entrance. “It's not much…” He found himself murmuring as he watched her take in her current surroundings.

She turned to him, eyes glimmering vibrantly in the waning dusk light. “It's more than enough. Thank you, Alexander.”

He cleared his throat and offered her a curt nod in response, pushing himself back from the wooden doorframe. “I'll be right back with some clothing… for you.” He fished around at the back of his wardrobe for a pair of tattered sweatpants, a t shirt and sweater. When he returned moments later, she had found herself a seat at the kitchen table, her gaze fixed out the garden window at something unseen. She smiled graciously and accepted the clothing with a quiet thank you. “The washroom is down the hall on the left.” He watched her disappear and turned to brace himself against the kitchen sink. Five minutes had elapsed before he heard the familiar creak of the opening bathroom door. He waited for any other indication that she was coming back but when he missed it, he followed the sound of the silence. He found her perched inside the threshold of another room in which he made a conscious habit of completely forgetting was there. He cleared his throat to make his presence known and she turned to him, eyes wide.

“May I go in?”

Alexander shifted uneasily on the spot. Finally, he shrugged his shoulders and conceded. “Sure.”

He had accidentally picked up painting a year and half after he had gotten married. His studio had never really meant to be one for art, but rather a nursery for the baby girl who never quite made the journey into the world. He had returned home after a fishing weekend away with his brothers to find that his wife had done away with everything in the room except that she had left behind an easel, a tin of brushes, and numerous tubes of oil paint.

Thea wandered slowly around the room, absorbing the canvases adorning almost every square inch of space. He marveled at how bizarre it was to feel so naked in front of someone he never thought he would see again. He watched her trace a feather-light touch over an angry mass of scarlet paint on one of the last canvases he had ever worked on. She let her hand drop to her side and turned to him, eyebrow cocked in question. “When did you get into painting?”

He scratched absentmindedly at a spot on the back of his neck. “About twelve years ago, now.”

“These are gorgeous.”

Alexander chewed anxiously at the hollow of his cheek. “They used to help pass the time.” He allowed himself a moment to regard her in the dim evening light of the room. His clothing fit loose on her, and he tried in vain to ignore the questions creeping back into his mind. There still existed something entirely alluring about her; perhaps it was the way that she still seemed so much like the eighteen-year old girl he had fallen for so many years before- time had been kind to her. Or maybe it was the simple fact that she had known him long before his life cracked open and fell apart. Not caring much for where this train of thought was taking him, he cleared his throat and gestured to the kitchen. “I'm going to get something together for dinner.”

Eating together had been a quiet affair. He had found that the questions he had been burning to ask earlier felt inappropriate at this point, so he simply kept to himself. It also did not help that he was entirely unaccustomed to having another living, breathing person in the house with him. When she was finished eating, Thea excused herself from the table to rinse her dishes and gestured with her chin to his empty plate. “Are you finished?”

“All done,” Alexander confirmed and rose from his chair to join her at the sink. “You don’t need to do that…” He murmured as he watched her turn the tap to full hot and pump three gobs of green dish soap into the water beneath her.

Thea shrugged indifferently. “It’s the least I can do. Dinner was delicious, by the way.”

He glanced over at the fried cod in the cast-iron pan, and at the garden-picked green beans in the yellow flowered dish next to it on the stove. He had never been much of a cook, so he suspected that she had merely said that to be polite, but he accepted the compliment with another curt nod regardless. When the dishes were done, he cleared his throat and swayed from side to side, hands buried deep in his denim pockets. “I can give you a quick tour of the place if you’d like.” Thea smiled softly and nodded her head in agreeance. He stocked down the hardwood floored hallway, intending to show her to her room first. The door had been closed and he hesitated a second before opening it to reveal a quaint guest room. He flicked on the light and stood back as she wandered into the room, taking every inch of it in. The walls had been washed in a robin’s-egg blue, and a wicker chair stood in the corner of the room next to a white pain-chipped wardrobe. White floor-length linen curtains hung from the windowsill beneath a cream-coloured wire bedframe. “If there’s anything you need…” He offered awkwardly. “Extra blankets, or anything of the like… please let me know.”

Thea turned to him; her arms wrapped protectively around her frame and offered up a small smile. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

He turned on his heel and left without saying anything, assuming she would follow which she did. “The bathroom is here, the handle on the toilet can be a bit dodgy so just watch out for that when you can.” He wracked his brain for any other useful information that he could offer up. “Uh and the bathtub…” He gestured with his chin to the white claw-foot tub beneath the cracked window. “The water tends to get extremely hot incredibly fast so you may need to run the cold water a little bit beforehand.” He nodded his head in finality, took one last look around the washroom and left her be.

Sleep had continued to evade him that night as it had almost every night for the past two years. The questions had been ceaseless; each time he had just nearly drifted off, another one swam into his mind’s eye and he found himself obsessing over it. What was he thinking bringing her into his house? Why had he even entertained the idea in the first place? What was it about her? He lay awake until the clock next to his bed read ‘3:47 A’, and the birdsong floating in on the half-open window helped to lull his body into a fitful slumber. He jolted awake a few hours later to the sound of a crash in the direction of the kitchen. A cold sweat had broken out over the expanse of his naked upper body, and he fought to keep his breathing slow and steady while he came to the realization that he was not alone anymore. He fumbled around in the dawn light for the beige cable-knit sweater next to his bed, which he threw over himself with a shiver. The scent of sizzling butter in a hot pan greeted him first, followed by freshly brewed coffee. It made his mouth water and it struck him that he could not remember the last time he had been genuinely hungry for food. He was not entirely sure what he would find when he rounded the corner to the kitchen, so when he saw Thea’s form bent over the stove he was taken aback. He stood staring longer than he cared to admit, while she scrambled what looked like eggs, a furrowed expression heavy on her face. She pulled back from the stove to glance around the area, searching for something unknown. “Are you looking for the salt?” He had startled her because she pulled back from the stove as if she had been burned, her eyes wide and alarmed.

She shook her head slowly. “The pepper…”

Alexander jutted his chin towards the hanging shelf above her head. It was adorned with bottles of olive oil, a dish of salt and sugar, and a pepper grinder. She smiled gratefully at him and reached for it. “I think I woke you up…” She murmured as she twisted the black grinder above the eggs cooking in the pan. “I’m sorry.”

Alexander shook his head wordlessly and pulled out the chair at the kitchen table. “I’m not uh… exactly used to having someone else around so there isn’t really much I don’t miss.”

“I took the liberty of cooking some breakfast. I couldn’t remember how you took your eggs, so I decided to play it safe and scramble them.” She turned to face him; her expression unreadable. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.” He watched her fumble around for the cupboard with the plates and almost gave in when she elicited a triumphant ‘a-ha!’ And pulled two ceramic yellow plates from the cupboard in the far corner. “Mugs are in the cupboard next to it,” He offered easily. She threw him back a thumbs up in response.

“Do you still take your coffee black?” She asked.

Alexander scrubbed a palm down the side of his stubbled cheek. “Yes please.”

She joined him at the table a moment later, setting down his plate of steaming eggs, fresh buttered toast and a sliced apple. She poured him a cup of coffee which he thanked her for and watched her spoon two heaping spoonsful of sugar into her own mug. They were silent as they went to work on their breakfasts, both basking in the warm sunny glow from the open kitchen window. “How did you end up out here, if I may ask?” She asked once she had taken her last bite of egg.

Alexander swallowed back a mouthful of the deliciously warm liquid and shook his head. “I moved out here when I met my wife.”

The only indication that Thea had been surprised at this revelation was by the way her expressive gaze widened the slightest bit. She too stole herself a sip of coffee before she asked her next question. “And you live here… alone now?”

“I do.” He tipped the last of the liquid into his mouth and removed himself from the chair, taking her empty plate as he did so. “Thank you for the breakfast.”

“It was my pleasure.”

After the morning wash-up, Alexander excused himself to tend to some things that needed done around the house. They were menial tasks; a broken hinge to a door in the basement, a couple of the chairs in the kitchen were loose and falling apart and were in dire need of some good, old fashioned hammer and nails. They were simple undertakings that he had never intended to make good on- Because as far as he was concerned, and it was all written down in his will, his house would go to his brother Bill and their growing family. None of this would have been any of his problem if he had just followed through with his original plan yesterday. But as usual, and he was beginning to think that this was simply his lot in life, there was always something else just around the corner for him.

Dinner had been less of a quiet affair that evening. Alexander had come up earlier in the day to thaw a chicken he had found in the freezer that morning and had left it to roast in its own seasonings. Thea prepared roasted potatoes to go with it, and instead of making any semblance of a salad, (he very badly needed to grocery shop) he threw together a bowl of chopped cherry tomatoes, a few handfuls of garden-grown basil, fresh sliced red onions and balsamic vinegar. “You like cooking now?” Thea asked as she stood leant against the stove watching Alexander chop the cherry tomatoes.

Alexander offered up a gruff laugh in response. “Does anyone enjoy cooking, Thea?”

“Mhm, as a matter of fact lots of people do.”

He tossed the rest of the tomatoes into the glass bowl and reached for the onion. “I suppose you’re right… but I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite thing in the world.” He glanced over at her. “I think it’s one of those things that if you’re only doing it for yourself, it becomes more of a chore than a hobby.” Which was true for him at the very least. He had enjoyed cooking when he and his wife lived together but after she left, the passion for it had dissipated almost as suddenly as she had.

“Alexander, the chicken…” Thea’s voice, or rather the sound of his name from her mouth caught him off guard and shook him from his reverie. The timer on the oven had begun to elicit a high pitch whistling sound which he turned off and reached for a ripped dish towel on the counter below him. “Smells delicious,” She simpered as he pulled the scalding dish from the oven and set it on a hot plate at the set table.

“Yes well… hopefully it’s edible.”

Alexander had a hard time remembering a dinner in recent memory that was as satisfying as the one he had just consumed. He sat back in his chair; one arm slung around the top of the wooden frame. “What do you do for a living now, Thea?”

She swallowed the sip of wine she had just taken and set the glass against the wooden tabletop with a soft thud. “I owned a bakery and café downtown.” There was something familiar in the way her eyes twinkled in whatever light she happened to be in that made Alexander want to spend the next fifty years staring at her. He watched her trace a fingertip around the rim of her almost empty glass. “The business... went under two and half months before my wedding.” A silence had befallen them that was not necessarily uncomfortable. “How about you?” She asked after a while, meeting his gaze across the table.

Alexander shook his head. “I don’t work at the moment.”

If she was surprised by this, she never let it show. “I’m sorry to hear that,” She offered softly. Alexander could hear the earnestness in her tone and believed her. “What did you do?”

He cleared his throat and deposited the rest of the white wine into his open mouth. “I owned an art gallery in town,” He glanced at the empty wine bottle and suddenly wished that there had been more. “I sold the business about a year and a half ago now. Just after my divorce was finalized.”

As the silence took shape around them, Alexander knew there existed something unspoken between the pair of them; some sort of invisible barrier which hindered either of them from asking what they so desperately wanted to know, which was: What on earth were you doing in that field yesterday afternoon?

#alexander skarsgard #alexander skarsgard au #alexander skarsgard x reader #alexander skarsgard drabble #drabble #fluff #alex sstuff #writing #an invisible string

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leggomylino · 4 years

Text

S&M Act I, Scene I | Windstorm ༄

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

Genre: Adventure, Drama, Comedy, Fluff, Angst

Pairing(s): Lee Minho x fem!reader x Kim Seungmin

Au: Wizard of Oz au

Word Count: ~2.6k

Warning(s): Minorly to moderately dark themes of suppression, depression, panic, and insanity. Mentioning of blood, dark magic, violence, and (censored) language.

A/n: I’m so happy this story is finally coming to light! <3 Thank you to everyone behind the scenes who has supported me on the creation of this series, and to anyone who has ever supported my writing ever. ^^ I hope you enjoy!!! | Inspired by the events of Dorothy Must Die, by Danielle Paige.

Tag List: @hanniiesuckle17 @distrikt9 @hanstagrams @hyunsunq @smolboiseavey @jisungsjheekies @iluvlix @moonlit-han @stay-nctzen @yangomangos @stayndays @cotccotc @skzctnightnight @multi-stan-present @dreamy-dreamies @yunhoesss (Please let me know if you’d like to be added! Comment, ask, or DM me!!!)

ღ S&M M.List | Stray Kids M.List | M.List ღ

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

The dreams had been plaguing you for a while now.

“Y/n,” a boy’s voice spoke. “Y/n, always remember, and never forget. You must forgive, and never forget.”

“Remember what?” You’d cry out into the empty space. “Always remember what? What is it I’ve forgotten? Who is it I’m supposed to forgive?”

Alas, the empty space never told you anything. It was just a soft chuckle, the feeling of eyes lovingly watching you from somewhere far away, cloying and envious, and then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

~ ♕ ~

The rain pelting against your bedroom window that night had been harsh. You listened to the uproarious melody, now awake, lying in a pool of your own sweat, heart racing, wondering where you had come to and where you’d just been. It was always this way, taking time to cool down from such a feverishly swift and spiraling dream; although you were theoretically standing still in a vacant space, you felt the effects of falling as you arose.

The rain calmed you. Despite its intensity it was the one thing that gave you peace, something mentally stabilizing to cling onto and give full focus to as the echoes of a dream deferred vanished into the far recesses of your mind, where they’d be all but forgotten until the next evening. You didn’t know what you’d do when the stormy season was over-- it had already been unusual to have such a large mass of wacky weather one after the other this time of year-- and sure a ferrying rain shower or two was normal-- but you’d grown accustomed to running to the storm’s ferocity for guidance, a child’s blanket, a figurative teddy bear that you could squeeze against your thoughts when escaping the dream realm. The heavy downpour washed all of your fears and anxiety away. What would you do when it was all over, and Fall returned?

It had been so odd; with all the rain and fluctuating humidity, the flowers and Spring-Summer crops were in full bloom. You’d never experienced seasonal allergies in the Fall until now. Neither had your best friend, Hyunjin, and...speaking of…

You hadn’t realized it was morning until Hyunjin came bursting into your room with one of your uncle’s chickens in his arm. It was still raining, hard, the droplets sounding like tiny fists pounding to come inside. Doubtful to let up anytime soon. “Y/n! Are you still auditioning for the role of Sleeping Beauty up here? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure Mia Harper’s got it covered, and Aunt Em’s gonna slide me your stack of pancakes in the next ten minutes if you don’t get your share of the chores done.”

A yawn escaped you. Hyunjin and his sidekick Kkami had been coming over to assist in your busy-hermit lifestyle ever since you could remember. He was your neighbor, after all, but...more on that later. The moment Hyunjin’s words soared beneath the backlash of bad weather, you’d completely forgotten what it was you’d just been thinking about, before the rain, what it was you’d dreamed. (Ever ironic how the dream had instructed you to remember, and yet, here you were, doomed to forget.) “Yeah, okay…” You yawned, stretching and easing yourself into the usual morning (sometimes afternoon) routine. You glanced at the chicken in his arms, and his subtle goofy smile in the doorway. “Is this your way of saying you’d rather have Pluckers as your lab partner instead of me?”

He shifted his eyes thoughtfully to Pluckers, watching him twitch and litter feathers like drops of rain before giving you his answer. “...I mean, that’s not a bad idea, actually. Have you even started your half of the worksheet yet?”

Ugh. Always about school. You wanted to tell him yes, but in all honesty you’d been spending your free time and late nights with your nose lodged between Harry Potter pages or your eyes plugged and gasping over YouTube storytimes. So you clamped your mouth shut.

And now, the backstory: Hyunjin had been your best friend for years. The two of you grew up next door to each other, which for country living was pretty dang far; having someone as your neighbor here was the same thing as having them live down the block. You’d never known your parents; you were adopted at a young age by your Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, who weren’t biologically related to you in any sense and just as good as any biological pair of adults. The details surrounding your DNA relatives-- and the year you’d come to live here-- were all unknown to you. The only story you’d ever gotten out of Aunt Em was that they’d had you from “knee-high” and that you couldn’t remember because of a nasty fall from one of Uncle Henry’s apple trees; Uncle Henry himself refused to speak of the subject at all, either pretending he needed hearing aids or choosing to run into the next room.

Hyunjin was your only friend in school. You’d never been very good in the communication department; growing up in a small town made your comfort zone the same. But not Hyunjin. He was popular and kind and got along with everyone. He had a gift for catching people’s eyes: every boy envied him, every girl drooled over him, and all your teachers and professors fawned and smiled and patted him on the back, even when he’d blurted out the “dog ate my homework” excuse in eighth grade and you proudly stood up and announced that he didn’t have a dog, disregarding Kkami, just for the amusement of finally seeing him choke and get scolded for once in his life. Instead you found yourself pouting with the Cone of Shame in silence while Hyunjin outrageously was given a star on the Good Noodle chart. It’d been the one moment to ruin your friendship for the remainder of class...until he gave you his Free Ice Cream ticket for PeachyKeen’s ice cream parlor downtown. Then, you were okay.

Even now, in your town’s small local college, he was applauded by all. The only person you’d ever seen frown his way was Uncle Henry, who often argued that a boy of his age shouldn’t be barging into a young lady’s room anymore. But Aunt Em always shrugged him off, quoting her famous “times change” saying and shoved a slice of pie before him, and he was back to watching TV.

A flash of lighting lit up the dim clouded sky, followed by the roar of thunder, and with a panicked squawk Pluckers shot out of Hyunjin’s arms, leaving a trail of feathers to follow down the hall. With a nervous look the two of you exchanged a nod before Hyun gave chase, closing the door behind him, and you got right to work getting ready for the day. It was Saturday, meaning no school, however there was still plenty of farmwork to do and the crops in the field weren’t going to protect themselves. Not from yesterday’s shower, and not from today’s.

You hustled downstairs with toothbrush hanging from your lips, dawned in your favorite plaid skirt and lime-green raincoat, the one with the little frog face over the left breast. Ruffling Kkami awake, Hyunjin’s “beloved baby,” you tossed her a treat from the clay jar you and Hyunjin had made together for her in sixth grade art, spinning and spitting in the kitchen sink.

Aunt Em gave you a nervous look as you tossed the brush in the dishwasher and started aggressively inhaling cinnamon apple pancakes like a beloved Nintendo character. “...And how is my favorite girl this afternoon?” She asked. Her whimsical tone made your neck blush.

“Sorry, I stayed up late studying again.”

“Studying the wizarding world of Hogwarts, you mean?”

“...Perhaps?”

You smiled apple bits and maple syrup, and she laughed, waving a dish towel at you and squinting the other way. “Keep your mouth closed until you're done. Didn’t I teach you better manners than that?”

“I dunno, did you?”

Her eyes bore into yours in warning and you laughed harder, nearly choking on the last bite of spiced apple goodness. Aunt Em sighed, shaking her head while wiping her hands clean. “I suppose I walked right into that one.” She nodded toward the side door, leading to the barn. “Hurry before the storm picks up. It’s gonna be another bad one, they say, so if the wind picks up anymore or it starts hailing or God forbid you see a giant funnel in the sky, I want the two of you right back inside, you hear?”

“Funnel cake?!” Uncle Henry called. He was glued to his usual pleather chair when he wasn’t out tending to the garden or the farm animals or fixing a leaky faucet. He was also in need of a hearing aid; working eight hours a day around screeching metals and brazen farm animals had left his eardrums in shambles. Aunt Em rolled her eyes, cupping her hands around her mouth.

“Not cake, I’m talking about the weather!”

“It’s raining cake?!?”

She groaned, earning a chuckle from the two of you. It was cut short when Hyunjin came stumbling past, spitting out feathers and just in arms reach of a couple hens, Pluckers in the lead, signaling that brunch was over. “Thanks for the meal!” you said, shoving the plate forward.

“Be careful!” Em’s voice bridged across the living room. “You two look out for one another! And hurry!”

“We will!” You shouted back. The sound of the door clicking shut was barely audible beneath the heavy thunks of raindrops slamming against the tin roof as the two (five?) of you ventured out into the stormy play.

You wished then you would have taken just the sliver of a moment to look back.

~ ♕ ~

You’d never seen a flourishing of colors much like the one taking place outside. Turnips turning upwards, tulips banging heads, carrots and corn stalks exchanging blows before ending up on opposite sides of the field. Sunflowers having the sun beat out of them. It was something out of the rising action of a thriller movie. You’d seen similar scenes in nearly half the Harry Potter movies; the only thing missing were wizards and wands and perhaps a giant dragon.

“You round up Maribelle!” Hyunjin yelled over the storm. His arms were spread wide as he squinted and squatted through the blinding rain, ushering the rest of the chickens and hens inside the barn. “I’ll get the horses next!”

Nodding you ran through sloshing mud puddles and drowning fields of grain towards the feeding pasture, where dear old Maribelle the could be found, often grazing on weeds or spreading out for an afternoon sunbath. The lone cow of SunnySkies pastures for fifteen years, and the first to join the farm. Instead you found her darting bug eyes around wildly, her knobby limbs quivering beneath a willow tree that provided little protection, the willows only adding to the streams of precipitation pouring over her stiff brown fur. She gave you a frantic moo and bobbed her head in relief to see you.

“There, there,” you soothed, whipping the grass and water from her eyes. “Quickly now, let’s get you into the barn before this picks up anymore.”

She moo-ed again, lower this time, giving you an argueless agreement.

You sledged hard against the rising winds, the blades of greenery that cut surprisingly sharp like razor blades, leaving a small mark upon your cheek. You winced, annoyed at the slight sting, the small drops of crimson that came up against your fingertips only to be washed away just as quickly. It began to rain harder, faster, the wind practically howling in your ears. The faint sounds of a freight train or some sort of heavy machinery filled the distance.

“Let’s hurry, now,” you encouraged your steed, pulling her along beside you. She was reluctant to move, frightened by the spiraling commotion around her. It didn’t help when something snapped beneath your feet, a twig, maybe, or some glass. As if on cue the willow tree came crashing down with a thud.

You braced yourself, sucking in a sharp breath; you needed to get inside; but Maribelle had other plans. Startled, she ran a wayward direction, disappearing in the fog that was beginning to settle over the pasture. “Mari--!” you began to call, taking two steps forward-- ‘til the cries of another all but took your breath away, making you forget about Maribelle, making you forget about everything.

You stood, jaw slacked, slit-eyed, watching Hyunjin blow away. He wiggled in the fierce storm breeze like a flag pitched on the roof. “Y/N!!!” He screamed, clinging to the roof’s edge for dear life. “Y/N, GET INSIDE!!! CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT!!!”

“HYUNJIN!” You bleated back. “HYUNJIN, HANG ON!!! I’M COMING!!!”

“NO, IT’S TOO DANGEROUS, GO-- AHHH!” He shrieked and ducked his head beneath a flying branch. “...GO INSIDE!!! CALL THE PRESIDENT!!!”

“I’m not calling the President,” you huffed, fighting your way across sideways weather and flyaway hairs to latch yourself onto the barn ladder. Of all the times to crack jokes, only Hyunjin would choose a raging level eight storm. “Hang on I’m coming…!”

...Your voice trailed off as your head listed aside, something bouncing in the corner of your eye. There, rounding the side of the barnhouse, was Kkami, frolicking like a happy-go-lucky lamb to Hyunjin’s side.

“Arf! Rwarf!”

“KKAMI?!?”

Your blood went cold. If Hyunjin caught wind of Kkami, it was all over. “Kkami!” you hissed, or at least tried to over the roaring ninety-miles-per-hour winds. “Go back inside! Go! Shoo!”

“IS THAT MY BABY DOWN THERE?!?!”

Oi. “N-NO, IT ISN’T! JUST A BRANCH!!!”

Ushering Kkami with a branch at least beneath the safety of the barn roof, you hustled back to the side of the building. The rain made it slick and hard to hold onto, but you scaled the side of the barnhouse as fast as possible, avoiding loose vegetation and swatting at leaves and smaller branches and once a lemon wedge that the storm must have torn in two somehow, crawling up loose shingles and various askew obstacles and then...then…

This was the hardest part to remember, a part you wish you didn’t have to remember. Face wet, hair whipping in the tempest breeze, you reached for Hyun’s hand, kneeling, pleading, focusing thoughts on hot cocoa and warm lemon pie inside, an Aunt Em specialty. The reality you were so certain in. A reality that would never come.

“Gotcha...!”

Your hands met, fingers touched, smiles of relief shared. But it only lasted a moment before the rainstorm ripped him away, your cries drowning in the funnel that appeared in the sky...or at least that’s how you wished to remember it: in reality there was a soft, whimpering arf!, followed by your best friend’s gasp as he relinquished your grasp to adhere himself to the skies after Kkami, now paddling against the storm’s current, cries of “My baby!” and anguished “AAAAH”s lost on the wind.

And you could only watch him go, just seeing him manage to latch onto his beloved pet of nine-odd years before disappearing from sight, sucked into the giant magnetizing center of it all you’d completely failed to notice, the last thing from his lips a cry to your name. It’d appeared out of nowhere, substantial and vigorous. Pulling into the station, the train had arrived, uprooting and tearing apart everything in its path. A giant, swirling cloud of gray and gravel and doom.

Oddly enough, in that paralyzing moment, something clicked in the back of your mind: a cursory afterthought at the eye of the storm.

“Always remember, and never forget. You must forgive, and never forget.”

You stared into the eye harder.

“Come home, Y/n. Come home.”

“Y/N!!!” Aunt Em’s frantic voice screeched below. “Y/N, HYUNJIN!!! Y/N?!?”

You couldn’t look. Couldn’t move. Horror froze you to the barn, eyes locked on the exact spot you last saw Hyunjin disappear, the trance calling you deeper and deeper into a strange petrifying submission, until the tornado whorled to your doorstep and swept you away; the pasture, the barn, your home. Everything.

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

ღ S&M M.List | Stray Kids M.List | M.List ღ

Smoke & Mirrors. Copyright © 2020 - 2021 poeticallyspaghetti.tumblr.com. Unauthorized use or reproduction of works is expressly prohibited. Do not repost, plagiarize, claim as your own, or translate my works. Thank you. <3

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capricornus-rex · 3 years

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A Shadow of What You Used to Be (10)

Chapter 10: A Home Away | Cal Kestis x Irele Skywalker

Cal Kestis x Fem! OC

Requested by Anon

Summary: There is another! Years after young Anakin Skywalker departed Tatooine, his mother Shmi delivers a second child—this time, a daughter. Whilst the circumstance of the girl’s birth remains unexplained, Irele Skywalker has yet to choose the true path between those laid out for her.

Tags: Fem! OC, Irele Skywalker, Force-sensitive! OC, Anakin’s Younger Sister, Skywalker! OC, Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice, Long-lost Sibling

Requesting to be tagged: @heavenly1927

Also in AO3

Chapters: Prelude – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 | Previous: Part 9 | Next: Part 11 | Masterlist

11 of ?

The maintenance droids only needed an hour to prepare a dorm for Irele within the command ship. Not that she would need a personal room in every ship she boards, but it would help if she did in the near future. The human guards did not need to wait for Irele to come to, they barged into the cell, pulled the poor girl by the arm to stand her up and then drag her out of the prison block while she could barely use her own two feet.

Irele’s eyes have not adjusted to the changing tones and gradients of lights of each part of the ship she passes through. She thought she said the question “Where are we going?” when the guards only heard an incoherent groaning at the throat.

The way from the prison block to her new chambers was a ten-minute walk, if one marched faster it would have been lesser. Upon reaching their destination, only one escorted her into her room and sat her down on the bed—to which she immediately fell limp and ended up lying down instead. While she was out cold, a nanny droid entered her bedroom to tend to whatever it can in the quarters; it took its time, in fact, until the girl came to. The droid’s sensors picked up the spike from Irele’s heart rate from slow to normal, it briskly turned around.

“It is fortunate that you’ve come to, milady. The serum from the probe has completely worn off. Should you feel slight nausea, do not be alarmed for it is normal as well. I can administer some painkillers to you with your choice of pill or syrup.”

The droid is programmed to speak in Basic and had a rather lulling, female voice—perhaps the most appropriate if you are to manufacture and program a droid for nursing.

“Milady? What are you talking about? Who are you? What are you?”

“You are here as a ward under the strict order of Master Vader. I am HY-L33, Nanny Droid,” it brought its head into a bow, “At your service, Milady Irele.”

“Why call me Milady when I’m kept hostage here?” she sits up and examines the room.

“Oh, you are mistaken, Milady. You are Lord Vader’s ward,” HY-L33 corrects. “And I have been tasked to take care of your basic needs and whims, if need be.”

“What I need is to go home! I don’t like being holed up in anywhere!”

The nurse droid lowered its head slowly, it stayed like so for a moment; with a rather sympathetic voice, HY-L33 responds, “I’m sorry, but I am incapable of fulfilling that whim, milady. I would suggest that you make yourself comfortable in this new one.”

Irele sighed, knowing that she’s talking to a wall here. She gave herself time to calm down and breathe. She passed her hands across her face and sighed.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be lashing out to you…” Irele inhaled. “What are you called again?”

“HY-L33, madam.”

Irele quietly parroted the name, “That’s a mouthful. How about I call you Haylee, is that alright?”

“If it proves to be more convenient for you, milady. Although personally, I do adore the name you’ve given me.”

Irele hummed as she managed a small smile, she hinted the chirp from the droid’s voice, relieved that she found some company out of the droid in this inorganic, cold room, she walked around to get a better feel of it now that the serum from the interrogation droid has worn off.

“Say, Haylee, do you know where we are?”

“We are aboard the command ship Anathema, the ship is within the Ulgoro system, and we are passing by the orbit of the planet Yelen.”

“How far are we from Tatooine?”

Haylee ran a quick scan from her processors, “We are approximately twenty-five parsecs away from the said Outer Rim planet.”

Irele breathed deeply, her heart sank, “That’s so far away…”

The droid’s photoreceptors picked up Irele’s increased heart rate and temperature. The girl was manifesting signs of anxiety: shivering hands, failing voice, and cold sweat.

“You are suffering from homesickness. Unfortunately, I do not have the appropriate medication for that, milady. Neither can I administer any medication for you. This is absolutely natural as you have been extracted from your real home to your current location.”

Irele took the deepest sigh and made a mantra.

Don’t lash out on the droid, you just screamed at it ten minutes ago.

She told this to herself mentally until she’s calmed herself down.

“Yeah, I am homesick. I left my family behind and…” she trailed off, realizing that the last people she was with were her friends. “My friends. They must be all worried sick about me.”

“You will be well taken care of here, Lady Irele.”

“Heh,” the girl huffed. “No need to be so formal. Just call me Irele.”

“As you wish… Mistress Irele.”

“Droids, gotta love ‘em…” she mumbled very quietly, knowing how acute droids’ hearing could be—depending on the model, that is.

–

Fortunately enough, Irele is indeed being taken care of.

Ever since she was moved to her own chambers in the Star Destroyer Anathema, she was thoroughly pampered—more or less—than anyone else in the ship, aside from Darth Vader. Never has she ever been well-fed in sixteen years! The serving portions were generous and they were quite tasty, but she had her moments where the food somewhat reminded her of home.

A uniformed officer enters Vader’s quarters to report of Irele’s adjustment to the new environment. Most of the officers feared that they’re speaking like a broken record, reporting the same thing to Vader every week—they had probably imagined it vexed him to be hearing the same thing over and over; it did them little comfort when adding their own personal observations of her such as asking for seconds with her food and interacting with the nanny droid, since she’s still shy and cautious from everyone else on board.Additionally, she was not yet allowed to wander off alone beyond her room. So, by all means, she is pretty much a hostage still—a rather pampered one, at the very least.

“Has she stopped her erratic behavior?”

“Fortunately so, Lord Vader, she has. Perhaps about a week and a half since her extraction, she had become somewhat… docile.”

Vader paused. He had presumed it was the effects of the interrogator droid’s syringe, but surely during the time the nanny droid was tending to the girl, the substance has flushed out since. Realizing that he truly knows nothing of what kind of person Irele is—compared from his earliest reference of her—he sighs with a quiet frustration under his mask.

“Very well. We are right on schedule. Carry on, captain.”

“Yes sir,” the captain bowed and dismissed himself militarily. His true posture showed when he rejoined his companion who had been waiting for him by the door. He hissed, “I didn’t conscript myself to the Imperial Fleet to be a babysitter!”

“Be more frustrated when Lord Vader does appoint you the official babysitter of the girl.”

“She’s quite a handful, don’t you think so?”

“Temperamental, to say the least,”

Only Vader and the droid, HY-L33, know what’s in store for Irele. Very soon, the plans for her life under the Empire’s wing—unknowingly under her brother’s care, or the walking shell of him perhaps—will be put into play.

For many weeks, HY-L33 patiently watched over Irele—especially in the medical aspect—and a mandate was programmed into her that once a diagnosis of the teenager would show optimum by the end of three weeks since her extraction from Tatooine, Irele would be considered physically eligible and be subjected to training. Eventually, HY-L33 was the only companion she has ever had in this ship since day one; so in exchange for medical knowledge and advice from HY-L33, Irele repays it with stories from her homeworld of Tatooine, but knowing that the droid is under Imperial property, she was cautious of what she ought to say, and rather told her adventures she had done on her own or with a friend instead of her family life.

“It seems as though your rigorous lifestyle has contributed to your increased stamina throughout your developmental stage.” HYL-33 commented once while listening to Irele recall one job she did where she would deliver goods door-to-door across the town of Mos Espa.

“Yeah well, I had to work. Because if I didn’t work, that just meant, I’ll be sleeping hungry—or if I’m lucky, with a half-full stomach.”

HY-L33, being the medical nanny droid that she is, went on to lecture Irele that it was ill-advised to sleep on an empty stomach for it will cause ulcers. The girl politely listened and heeded the advice, until she calmed down the droid that she had been fine for the rest of the time she was growing up.

She had only been staying for a week and a half. HY-L33’s sensors indicate a lesser trace of homesickness and anxiety within Irele, her body mass index has not changed drastically at all since her food intake was increased rather than imposing an eating strike—a few of HY-L33’s references cite that most human teenagers are more rebellious, especially when it comes to being fed after being thrown into a stressful situation. However, this was not the case with Irele, which made the nurse droid’s circuits cooler.

Eventually, the three weeks were over. Irele noticed HY-L33 seeming to be in full preparation. She did not mind this, but kept a close eye, until she could find the right timing to ask. After lunch, Irele went to the bath by rote, and quickly dressed herself in a dark gray shirt, black pants, and low boots.

Irele could truly sense something different in their routine.

“Haylee?”

“Yes, Miss Irele?”

“Is there something new added into the routine?”

“Yes, Miss Irele, we are about to perform a full health assessment on you. Please follow me and I will escort you to the medical ward.”

This was the first time Irele had been outside of her bedroom. For three weeks, she had been holed up in that metal room with no one and nothing else but HY-L33—to which she had grown fond of anyway—and then she finally comes out for a medical check-up.

Along the way, she could not look into the eyes of the crew, although she perfectly blended in with her gray and black clothes. She was nervous and afraid of what they’re thinking of her—because she felt like she knows what they’re saying about her, it’s a feeling that she can’t explain but it still manifests in her. Eager to avoid the stares and attention, Irele walked directly behind HY-L33 until they got to the said medical ward.

When they got there, the interior of the medical ward was a little bit brighter than most of the rooms in the ship. The walls were still metal, of course, but it was a cooler shade of gray which somewhat eased the people who are admitted and confined here—instead of the intimidating dark grays and blacks on other parts of the ship. At the center of operations was a 2-1B surgical droid stationed by a medical bed; it was approached by HY-L33 and Irele, when the droid’s photoreceptors saw the girl’s face, a deep male tone started speaking in a monotonous, continuous fashion.

“Irele Skywalker, human female, age is sixteen standard years, height stands at five feet and three inches…”

“Okay, okay, I think we got enough of my vitals already!” Irele interrupted.

“Were you briefed of your purpose here?”

Irele made a side-eyed glance at HY-L33, who didn’t move at all, “I was only told I was getting a check-up.”

“Correct.”

The surgical droid cleared out what HY-L33 failed to when they were still in the bedroom. It started with the physical examination—taking down her age, height, and weight, until it pored into analyzing the fluid levels and vitals of her organs to see if they were normal. It was all strange for little Irele, but she held up and did as she was told. She wasn’t getting hurt by the droids anyway, save the one pinprick that they had to do in order to conduct a blood test.

From Vader’s chamber, he was receiving real-time transmissions of the medical ward’s database. Whatever diagnosis the droids encode into the database under Irele’s profile, Vader saw it all firsthand—every revision, every new entry, every number.

Midichlorian count: 20,598.

Seeing this number and then recalling his impression on Irele baffled Darth Vader.

This child has lived sixteen years in a backwater planet, with a high midichlorian count… and yet her sensitivity is dormant.

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midnightswaltz · 3 years

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Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 5 blogs you are contractually obligated to know better. @swaps55 said anyone can play so I’m playing. I haven’t quite kept up with who’s done it, but I’m tagging my friend @dieseldaisy and anyone else who wants to.

Name/Nickname: Beth

Gender: Female

Star sign: Aries

Height: Depends on the day apparently. Either 5′6″ or 5′7″. At least twice it was 5′8″. All without shoes on. Most at doctor’s offices.

Birthday: April

Time:~2:45p

Favorite bands: Barenaked Ladies, Of Monsters and Men, Green Day, Barenaked Ladies, Queen. Did I mention Barenaked Ladies? (Seriously, BNL have been my favorite band since middle school)

Favorite solo artist: I really don’t know. I listen to a lot of Dido.

Song stuck in my head: Critical Role C2 opening theme

Last Movie: I rewatched The Martian a couple days ago

Last show: Does Critical Role count? If not, I was watching old Mythbusters episodes last week.

When did I create this blog: March 2012

What do I post: Pretty much anything that makes me go “Wow” or laugh. So it’s a lot of random stuff

Last thing I googled: umm... I’m not going to give a clear answer. Only to say that a certain grayasexual sometimes fanfic writer is currently figuring out 2 PwPs for the first goddamn time in like 30 years of writing.

Other blogs: I can barely keep up with this one...

Why I chose my url: There’s no deep meaning. It was something I picked randomly years before Tumblr and I’ve just stuck with it because I like it.

Following: 340

Followers: 239, I’m pretty determined about blocking bots though there might be a few I missed

Average hours of sleep: the last few months I’ve been getting really good sleep 6-8 hours. There were a couple years there where it was 3-4 hours in the afternoon and 3-4 at night, it was not great. I don’t know why it’s better now.

Lucky number: 7

Instrument: I know a tiny bit of piano. I have a guitar and flute, both of which I keep intending to learn how to play

What am I wearing: Starfleet Academy T-shit, jeans and a Vox Machina hoodie

Dream job: Astronomer. Seriously. Since I was little. I just had a lot of issues with school and my mental health (anxiety and probably ADHD) so I’m about 20 years behind.

Dream trip: I’d need like a year and an insane amount of money to just wander all over the globe. Including visiting every U.S. National Park and my relations in the UK.

Nationality: American

Favorite Song: "Odds Are” by the Barenaked Ladies

Last book read: Finished? I don’t actually remember. I’m currently reading “Wizard of Earthsea” & “Steering the Craft” both by Ursula K. LeGuin and “Night Sky with the Naked Eye” by Bob King

Top three fictional universes I’d like to live in: 1: Star Trek 2: Mass Effect 3: Leverage (a universe where rich people actually get punished for doing bad shit? Hell yeah. Also the creator said he thinks Leverage is in the Stargate universe, so I’m good with that, too)

#meme #swaps55 #I'm an Aries I like talking about myself :-)

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billhaderlovebot · 5 years

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beep beep - richie tozier

hhhhhhhhere we go. mentions of weed and some sex references and a Lot Of Swearing™

----

"will you come? you have to."

mike's voice was solemn and achingly familiar down the crackling phone line.

you hadn't heard said voice in years, but hearing it now was as if you were right back in derry. "they're all coming back. all of them. eddie, beverly, ben, stan, bill, r-"

"richie." you'd gasped aloud, the noise echoing from the walls of the empty bathroom and reverberating back into your ears, magnifying your guilt and making such a horrible sound that you had to suppress a shudder.

fuck.

how could you have forgotten richie?

---

you fell for his sense of humour first.

he made you laugh when your chest burned from floods of tears and all you really wanted was to snap henry bowers' fucking arms off.

he made you laugh when all was hopeless and blood that nobody else could see dripped from the walls.

It lurked around every corner, and in the farthest reaches of your mind, and the only escape you got was the clubhouse, the quarry, the losers, richie.

richie, with his insanely thick glasses and his stupid haircut and hawaiian shirts that he actually pulled off.

you faced what seemed like the end of the world, or the end of derry, at least, and yet he could always make you throw your head back and really, genuinely laugh.

he knew you needed that.

you fell for him, too, though.

hard.

so hard, in fact, that sometimes you felt you'd explode from the sheer weight of loving him.

years later, after IT, you were so in love with him that sometimes you looked at him and felt you'd never know true happiness again if he didn't look back.

richie and yourself were inseparable for years.

trash-mouth tozier. he had made a name for himself, obviously, but it never bothered you, because he made you laugh.

he was so goddamn funny.

and you were irrevocably in love with him.

richie was your first kiss at sixteen. you were the only two in the clubhouse, him sprawled on the hammock, hair sticking up every which way.

he hadn't cut it in a while and it curled almost to his chin.

you liked it.

it had been around then that he had adopted a new style, and you couldn't say you weren't weak for it.

as well as the whole unkempt hair thing that he did on purpose, his collection of smoke-smelling band shirts and dreadfully torn up, low slung jeans actually made you have to sit down sometimes and take a breather.

he kicked off his battered grey chucks and settled properly in the hammock, his eyes landing on you.

richie watched as you pulled up a crumbling chair with a makeshift seat cushion that eddie had fashioned out of a pillowcase and some cotton balls

("to prevent ass splinters, richie, you dick. do you want splinters in your ass? do you want tetanus, fuckface?").

you leaned back on the chair, lighting a cigarette between your teeth and taking a long drag, exhaling loudly as if it were your first breath of oxygen in years,which was ironic given what it actually was.

richie stopped telling his made up story about all the sex he'd definitely had this summer and how he was an actual sex god, like, really, to make some offhand dirty joke from his mental rolodex of filth. it was so long ago now that you couldn't remember exactly what it was, only that it was about you.

you did remember, however, that you'd rolled your eyes and retaliated with a comment about how he'd never get kissed, let alone sleep with someone, if he carried on being so vulgar. it had made you laugh, though.

and then trash-mouth tozier reached up, grabbed the back of your head, and pulled you down to his lips.

it was messy and uncoordinated but still somehow the best thing that had ever happened to you, the way he cupped your face in his hands and kissed you like you were the only person on earth.

"damn, didn't know you'd be that easy." richie remarked, kissing softly along your jawline.

"beep beep, asshole." you laughed, running your hand through the mass of curls on his head.

"well, be still my beating heart."

the cigarette burned, discarded and long forgotten on the ground, and you ended up underneath him on the hammock, swinging about and laughing in between kisses.

your teeth clacked unpleasantly every once and a while, and the hammock was unstable, but you wouldn't have changed a single thing about it.

you fell asleep, the both of you, the smiths playing quietly on your portable radio, and did not move until eddie and stan found you hours later, slinging a blanket over the top of you because eddie was practically livid that the two of you had been stupid enough to fall asleep in this weather. hypothermia and such.

they were both secretly stoked that you guys had finally got it together, though.

the two of you broke that hammock a good few times, to the dismay of the other losers.

and that was it.

you were together from then on.

that was, before you left derry a year later.

breaking his heart, of course, all of their hearts. they loved you.

he loved you.

you'd miss smoking in empty classrooms with beverly, stealing snacks and cigarettes and going on long walks just to chat. she'd always been good at knowing exactly what you were thinking.

you and ben recommending books to each other and poring over cold cases in the library, and going back to his house to drink and listen to new kids on the block because you were both trash for that shit.

long bike rides alone with mike, because he was one of the only people who was able to help you sort through the kabelsalat of anxieties in your head. talking about everything and nothing and whatever inbetween.

watching dumb movies with eddie at your house because eddie's mom wouldn't let you in.

(she thought you were a whore, her words, not yours, and you'd defile her delicate little eddie.

you mentioned on multiple occasions that you didn't think much of her either, and on the common occasion that richie was there, he made sure to tell eddie's mom that he was the only one you'd be defiling.

to which you snorted into eddie's mom's generic diet soda that tasted like piss and smelled like public restroom.)

you'd miss talking everything out with stan on your aunt's phone when he couldn't sleep. he always needed someone to talk to and you were more than willing to be that for him. god knows he'd helped you out of a few scrapes.

billy. stuttering bill.

the first person ever to have showed you kindness when you moved to derry. the first person to make you feel like you were wanted around. you'd miss that boy.

you'd miss kissing richie behind the bike sheds, in the vacant clubhouse, napping together in the hammock

and listening to his dumb jokes because he wanted to be a stand up comic and you'd support him wholeheartedly because he was the love of your fucking life, heaven be damned.

you'd miss your best friends.

but you lived with your grandmother, and while you were legally an adult, there was no way you could support yourself alone on arcade wages, and you had no money for tuition fees, either.

your grandmother wanted to leave, and so you left. the scar on your hand the only thing tying you to the losers, to derry, and to the boy you loved more than anything in the world.

"you come right back to visit, won't you?" richie mumbled into your hair.

he had had a growth spurt and he was gangly and thin and he never cut his hair anymore but he was beautiful. you were his and he was yours and you loved each other so damn much that it hurt. "not because i want you around or anything," he joked tearfully. "but eddie's gonna miss you like hell, and you know how he gets."

you laughed, hot tears in your eyes threatening to spill.

"you've not seen the last of me, trash-mouth tozier." you gave another watery, mirthless laugh. he saw how your smile didn't reach your eyes and held you tighter against him, watching as the moving man threw suitcases onto the bed of the truck.

you were leaving, ben was going to college, and beverly was going to stay with her aunt again.

"i love you, you know." richie muttered, peeling away from you and staring down at your hands, which were clasped in his.

"i love you too, trash-mouth. more than you know."

you swore then that you'd never forget it. forget them. derry. the oath. richie.

but that all faded.

the further you drove away in your grandmother's pitifully old, beat up chevy, the more you couldn't quite remember things the way they were.

like looking through muddy water for richie's glasses in the quarry.

god, it got to the point where you could only remember vaguely everything that happened in derry.

you knew you were missing something... but you couldn't quite remember what it was.

you remembered a town, and some friends, and a promise, but the harder you tried to clear up the memories the harder it became to think about them.

so you stopped.

it wasn't that you forgot, as such, but more like you refused to remember.

the only photo you had of richie buried amongst various notes and polaroids on your cork board was hardly acknowledged.

it was almost like your brain blocked it out.

stan had taken this particular photo at greta's halloween party that you only agreed to go to because bev was bringing pot.

rich had insisted on going as a zombie but when he turned up to the party you realised the torn "costume" wasn't much different from his regular attire, save for the dollar-store fake blood and white contacts.

in the photo, you clung to richie's back in your dumb vampire costume, whooping and hollering, as he ran down greta's steep garden slope toward the pool her parents had just had installed. you were all stoned to absolute fuck, and in the background you could just about make out eddie running after you, mildly concerned because he didn't like chlorine. you'd all ended up in the pool anyway, to eddie's chagrin.

it had been your favourite photo of richie ever since it was taken because of the look of sheer joy on his face.

the sparkling grin that crinkled his nose and lit up his eyes always evoked a similar one on your own face, because after everything you'd been through, these fleeting moments of happiness were just that. fleeting.

you needed to hold on to them.

they were all gone now.

and for more than 20 years after that, you longed for someone you couldn't put your finger on.

you couldn't remember a face, or a name, as such. only that they were very important, and they meant a great deal to you once upon a time.

you settled down, eventually, not even thinking about the scar on your hand most days, or the unnamed group you unconsciously missed.

your husband was a good man, you'd been married for four years

(a relatively low-budget registry office wedding with an ill-fitting rental dress and a shitty cake and a honeymoon to fucking canada which didn't make up for the fact you'd had to drag his father, cursing and kicking, out of the reception because he absolutely hated you), and you loved him. you did.

you just... didn't think you were in love with him. it was a marriage of convenience.

oftentimes he actually bored you.

it was nowhere near the visceral ache in your chest you felt when you did happen to look at the scar.

the yearning for a past you couldn't remember.

somewhere else.

someone.

there was also the fear.

the raw spike of fear when your eyes drifted to the line across your palm.

like you knew something had happened and you knew it would happen again.

also, he was never able to make you laugh. not really. it had always bothered you.

when mike hanlon called your cell in 2016, you honestly felt as if you'd die right there.

your chest tightened, your throat became no wider than a pinhole, and you dropped the phone into the bath you were running, watching as the call screen flickered and died under the water, mike's muffled voice calling to you.

half the words he had said to you uncovered old memories you hadn't realised you had buried.

you remembered. everything.

it was as if you'd never forgotten.

you didn't even remember forgetting.

"you have to come back. we swore an oath." mike had said before your phone slipped from between your fingers and into the tub.

the distant memory of glass and blood and a single, solemn promise came rip-roaring into your brain. stuttering bill. the oath you made when you were eleven. "its happening again."

you were only vaguely aware of what was happening again, but it was enough to make you vomit the contents of your stomach into the toilet bowl.

----

your husband was at a stag party, so he wouldn't be back for a while. you knew it wouldn't be a party, per se, because he was far too tame to be seen anywhere where there wasn't a 4 drink limit and strictly hall&oates on the jukebox.

he'd play darts and have a cider and share boring anecdotes with the guy at said jukebox.

then he'd come home, crawl into bed, not have sex with you, and sleep until eight before trudging to the office.

you scrawled a note and stuck it to the fridge with blu-tac, the boring fridge with no magnets (your husband thought magnets were tacky) against the boring grey kitchen in the boring grey house in the boring grey neighbourhood.

you had been without richie for 27 pitiful years, and your life reflected it.

boring husband, boring house, boring life, good god.

-----

pulling up in front of the chinese restaurant, heart beating violently in your throat, you willed the bile rising in your throat to stay down.

it did, thank god.

it was bill who greeted you at the door, mike standing close behind him.

bill was a writer, now.

you had read one of his books before, now you thought about it.

the name of the author had been painfully familiar, and you had thought about stuttering bill for an idle, fond moment. but the second you had turned the front cover and begun to read the book, he slipped your mind again.

you hadn't liked the ending so much, but you wouldn't tell him that.

"billy, oh my god." you gasped, and he pulled you into a tight hug. "oh my god, it's you. you... i don't know how i forgot, bill, but i did. im sorry." tears pooled at your waterline, pricking your eyes.

"we all did. its alright." bill had always been the voice of reason in the group, and such a comfort to you.

"is he-"

"in there. yeah. he hasn't changed." said bill, moving aside to let you in. barely acknowledging mike, your feet began to move before your brain knew what was up.

your chest tightened as you came up to a red painted door, you could hear voices from the inside and your hand shook on the door handle.

"go on. he's been asking about you all night." you felt mike's hand on your shoulder and you smiled gently at him, inhaling deeply and squaring your shoulders. as if what lie beyond the door was worse than anything IT could do.

when you clicked the handle to the right, you heard a silence settle over the room.

the only sound being you creaking the door open and taking the first step into the rest of your life.

faces that you didn't remember forgetting stared back at you, like you were coming home. because you were.

he was the same. older, of course. but he had his unruly hair and big glasses and that disheveled look, like he had just rolled out of bed but was still effortlessly attractive.

he was there. your richie.

and you just about vaulted the table to get to him.

you were in his arms within three seconds... and it was like you never left.

"i forgot you." his voice broke, and the sound shattered your heart. "i forgot about you."

-----

later, in the townhouse, everyone had gone to bed.

you were all reeling from the news or stanley's death, and pennywise already beginning to chip away at your sanity.

you lay staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the plaster and hoping for a way out.

the chance of all of you coming out of this unscathed was slim.

fuck.

had you not quit smoking some fifteen years ago, you'd have murdered a joint.

fucking stupid clown. fucking stupid blood oath. fucking stupid responsibility and fucking stupid richie who you were fucking stupidly still in love with because how could you not be? he had kept his eyes on you the whole time in the restaurant, and you pretended not to notice how he held his breath when bill asked you if you were married.

you pretended not to notice his dismay when you told bill that you were.

but you were absolutely in love with richie tozier, still, and you hadn't a clue what to do about it.

"god fucking dammit."

you groaned aloud into the empty room.

"fucking fuck. shit. can't catch a fucking break--"

there was a sound at your door.

knock knock.

knockknockknockknockknockknockknock--

"alright, jeez." you padded across the room, mumbling angrily something about how much you missed the guy who used to sell you pot and if it wasn't him you didn't want to know.

"richie?"

richie leant against your doorframe, his glasses halfway down his nose, in a talking heads shirt and boxers, looking stressed to absolute fuck.

"hey." he breathed, and you noticed he was avoiding your gaze rather pointedly, keeping his eyes on the space next to your head. "hey, uh, i just, im happy you're... you're married, and im happy that you're happy." rich shifted his weight to the other leg and began wringing his hands, as if looking for something to do. "obviously, all i want is for you to be happy, because yknow, i love you."

his eyes widened at what he had said.

"no, i mean, i don't, i mean, fuck, i do, uh, love you, of course, but im not, yknow, i mean, in love with you, like, ok, like i do, uh, i love you.... like, i'm... yeah, still... in love with you, actually. so--"

"rich?"

"im not, like hung up on you or anything, like, im, im not like some creep who couldn't, fuckin, like, move on, yknow?

im, yknow, happy you've moved on, cause yknow, so have i, like, uhh, fuckin--"

"richie."

"fuckin, yknow, i've had, yknow, many girlfriends... many... boyf-- yknow, i've moved on, is all im trying to say here, and--"

"richie! beep beep!"

that seemed to grab his attention.

"im sorry." he smiled sadly, his eyes flicking down to the ring on your left hand. the ring that seemed suddenly to weigh a tonne.

"rich. i don't love him."

"you don't-- you what?"

"there's only ever been you, rich."

there was a beat of silence, and your heart twisted and flipped in your chest as you waited for a response from the man who now actually seemed to need rebooting.

"you... huh."

"i love you." you pressed, thinking that things would be easier if you sat down and waited for things to compute.

and there was another beat, several, actually, of silence.

and then.

"oh, thank fuck."

and then his mouth had rather fallen onto yours.

tongue and teeth and lips and skin and his breath in your mouth and oh. finally caught on, did you, trash-mouth?

your legs ended up wrapped around his waist as he pressed you up against the wall, kissing you hard like he was a dead man walking and this was his last kiss.

oh, how you had missed the love of your life.

you didn't have time to dwell on it much, though, because richie was sucking a hickey into

the junction between your neck and jaw and making a beeline for the bed.

----

waking up tangled with richard tozier had to be one of the best feelings in the world, (along with sex while high and finding a song you only remember two words of) and you

couldn't believe this was your fucking life when he stirred next to you, burying his face into the crook of your neck.

"holy shit." you whispered. i mean, you though you whispered it, but apparently not, because richie was awake.

"i never stopped loving you, yknow." richie suddenly mumbled, tracing along your arm with his fingertips. "i didn't quite remember you, but i remembered i loved you so much that i felt like i'd die."

in that moment you knew that you would give your life for him if it came down to it.

because you were one and the same.

you'd been pining for each other for just short of thirty fucking years, and now you were back and it was like that time when you found the last two puzzle pieces on your grandma's vincent van gogh jigsaw. (you'd had some trouble with it because all the pieces were fucking blue squiggles)

you'd fit back together so easily and it was like you were whole again.

it was at that moment that you also realised soulmates existed, and he was yours.

"good to see that nothing's changed. especially your-"

and there he was. moment over.

"beep beep, richie."

#richie tozier x reader #richie tozier #adult richie #it chapter 2 #it spoilers #it 2019 #bill hader #it

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galahadwilder · 5 years

Text

We Are Miraculous, Ch. 1: Exposed

We Are Miraculous Archive

Ladybug worries her lip with her teeth as she looks over the connecting cables. She knows which ones go where—she’s the one who added the ports to the yo-yo—but this moment isn’t one she’s been looking forward to.

She flips open the compact, positions it so she can see the screen, and mounts the webcam on the railing. She picked this roof because it’s about eight blocks from her house, so there’s no chance of anyone using context clues to guess her identity. The webcam’s USB cable slots into the yo-yo with ease; she wishes, just a little, that she’d had to struggle with it. Getting annoyed always calms her nerves for some reason, and this, right here, is the most nerve-wracking thing she’s ever done.

The webcam set up, she presses record on the yo-yo, then steps back into frame. She crosses her arms in front of herself, clutching her wrist, then thinks better of it and lets go. She raises her chin, takes a breath, and looks straight into the camera.

“My name is Ladybug,” she says. “And I have an anxiety disorder.”

It started with some jackass on TVi. There’d been a new study on PTSD in Akuma victims, and whether it increased the risk of repeated Akumatizations; Nadja Chamack had interviewed a few experts on psychology, and then this one guy—a municipal councilor the 16th Arrondissement, all the way across the city from the 21st where most Akuma attacks were concentrated—decided to open his big mouth.

“Obviously, the problem is the prevalence of untreated mental illness among Parisians,” he’d said. “Hawkmoth takes advantage of emotional instability. These loonies he targets are just as dangerous as he is—we should be devoting police efforts to keeping an eye on the people who are so clearly the most likely to be evilized—”

An actual expert cut him off at that moment—that was most definitely not how Akumatization worked, not even slightly—but the damage was already done.

By the end of the week, violence and discrimination against the neurodivergent had spiked. The Ladyblog was flooded with reports of “thwarted Akuma attacks” that were in fact just unprovoked violence, physical or verbal, against vulnerable people. With one stupid interview, anyone who showed a single sign of “otherness” in public had become a potential victim of an unforgiving public. Many people had become too afraid to go outside; some of them were missing vital treatments for fear of the kangaroo court of public opinion.

If Ladybug didn’t know any better, she’d say that Hawkmoth had paid off the guy. He couldn’t have created a better atmosphere for Akuma if he’d been trying. Given the ones she’d had to fight this week—most of them desperate, scared people who’d been offered an escape from the judgment—Hawkmoth was reveling in this.

That couldn’t fly. Ladybug couldn’t let it.

Now, on the roof, Ladybug looks into the webcam, breathes, and begins. “My name is Ladybug,” she says. “And I have an anxiety disorder.”

She has to take a moment, as her heart clenches and tugs her ribcage inward, before she can speak again. She looks away from the camera, her mouth open, unable to actually say anything.

She decides, in the moment, not to edit this out. It’s important. People need to see her struggling, people need to see that she’s like them.

Finally, she turns back to the camera, rubbing her temples. “If you’re watching this,” she says, “there’s a good chance that you, or someone you love, has a mental illness.” She closes her eyes, clenches her teeth, trying not to growl. “Édouard Caron has claimed that these people are dangerous. That they are targets for Hawkmoth.” Her arms fall to her sides, and she opens her eyes, raises her eyebrows, purses her lips. “Of course, that requires ignoring the fact that the vast majority of Akuma are caused by nothing of the sort.”

She steps forward, clenching a fist. “Chat Noir and I have repeated, again and again, that Akumatization is not the victim’s fault. Monsieur Caron: what you said on Monday was irresponsible, dangerous, and above all, false.” She turns away from the camera again, breathing in. “Most of my friends have been Akumatized, and they are, as far as I know, way more mentally stable than I am.”

The enormity of what she’s doing crashes in on her again, and she whimpers. “God, I wish Chat were here,” she says, clutching at her elbow.

She’d better leave that in the final product too.

She clears her throat, looks back at the camera. “My name is Ladybug,” she says. “And, like I said, I have an anxiety disorder.” She smiles. “Also, probably ADHD, but I haven’t had that checked.” She glances away again. “I have... panic episodes,” she mumbles. “Hyperfixations. I’m always worried about worst-case scenarios, even when they’re completely unreasonable. My friends always tell me I need to get out of my own head, but...” She snorts, looking back at the camera. “Easier said than done, right?”

She points at the camera. “Long story short. I am mentally ill. I take medication. If Monsieur Caron were correct, I should have been Akumatized multiple times already.” She grins. “Instead, I have actually driven off every Akuma that Hawkmoth tried to send after me, simply by willpower.” She raises a fist, clenches it. “Anxiety is my superpower,” she says, moving her hand to point at her temple. “Nothing Hawkmoth sends after me can ever be worse than what’s in my own brain.”

She turns around, hugs herself, and breathes. Almost done, she thinks. Just one more minute. Then you can get off camera and go grab some blankets.

She turns back to the camera. “Neurodivergence is not—not inherently dangerous,” she says. “Despite my anxiety, I’ve been entrusted with one of the greatest powers in the universe, and the responsibility to use it wisely. And as most anyone in Paris can tell you...” She spreads her arms. “I kind of have.” She blinks, slowly, breathes in, then out. “I ask everyone who watches this video to—to spread it, to show it to your friends. Édouard Caron is wrong. And if you’re like me...” She clutches her elbow again. “If your brain doesn’t always do what you want, remember that you aren’t alone. The Hero of Paris is with you.” She lets go, gives a quick wave. “Bug out!”

She sends the video straight to Alya as soon as it’s done editing. Alya’s response is an all-caps keysmash, and a rapid turnaround, posting the video straight to the front page of the Ladyblog. 2 hours and 10,000 hits later, Marinette’s heart finally stops clenching every time she reloads the page and sees another few hundred people have watched her expose her shame in front of the entire city, and she calms down enough to go to sleep.

“I can’t believe that asshole!” Alya screeches the next morning, slamming her phone onto the desk.

“Wha?” Marinette murmurs, lifting her head from the desk where she’s been taking a quick power nap.

Alya’s face is apoplexy-red—Marinette can see the veins popping on her forehead. “I just... I can’t...” Her right eye flutters closed, like she’d eaten something so sour she’d lost control of her face. “You know that asshole from the 16th Arrondissement who was calling for mass surveillance on the mentally ill?”

Marinette’s chest tightens. No. “Yeah,” she says, trying to keep her voice level. “I’ve heard of the guy.”

Alya shakes her head. “I just... Here,” she says, thrusting the phone into Marinette’s face.

Marinette looks down, and her entire body goes cold.

Caron Questions Hero’s Qualifications After Shocking Confession from Ladybug

“What an absolute ass,” Chloé growls from behind them. Alya nods along.

Marinette can’t breathe. It’s all she can do not to cry.

We Are Miraculous Archive

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noxtms · 3 years

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IN CHARACTER DATE : december 24th, 2020. SYNOPSIS : dumbledore’s army arrives at the scene. TRIGGER WARNINGS : mentions of blood & death throughout.

"WE'VE BEEN BETRAYED." nothing about GINNY’S message is grandiose. her voice does not boom from the mouth of the silver owl, strong and assured with an even pace and perfectly enunciated vowels. words run together and voice rises at the end, every word wrought from her, every one injected with glacial dread. "jo has been attacked. you need to come to grimmauld place, and nellie... you need to find cho." the patronus charm dissipates. the words still hang in the air.

SHE KNEW SOMETHING LIKE THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. she knew it. her stomach in knots all evening, ginny had only meant to pop back to grimmauld place for a moment, only wanted to check in and make sure everything was alright - she had stumbled on the scene in the basement and acted immediately, but it still didn't feel quick enough. she was still there, now, on her knees at jo's side, not wanting to move lest they be left alone for even a moment. it's in vain, of course, but she's put them into the recovery position - no matter the fact it's magic, that they need a healer or at the very least someone who knows what they're doing - because if it MIGHT help, ginny can't stop herself from trying. the room is in disarray like it's never seen & the door to the little cupboard that had once been home to kreacher is open -... she doesn't need to look to know it isn't there. the door opens, again, and ginny doesn't hesitate : hand clutching wand with white knuckled grip lifting to point it towards the individual/s stumbling inside, a curse at the tip of her tongue-

when he first hears ginny’s voice, for the tiniest fragment of a second, NEVILLE expects to see the tiny redhead popping up by his side, her signature snark accompanied by the crack of a smile about his tie, or something else silly. but her voice is far too serious, and besides, even before neville has the chance to turn towards the voice he knows where it’s coming from: it’s a patronus, and they are in far more trouble than they have ever been before.

before neville processes what is happening, before he fully understands the consequences or can overthink their next steps, he is apparating, his body contorted into the folds of time and space. for a millisecond, metric space bends, contorting as the distance between neville’s past and present becomes nothing, and only returning when neville’s feet slam onto the top steps of grimmauld place.

his tie had been knocked askew in the process, his hair disheveled and his suit crumpled, but neville bursts into the kitchen, opening the door with his wand. and he is about to rush out to hug ginny, to make sure that she was okay, but he is greeted with a wand in his face. it is only there that neville realizes what has happened: that he internalizes it into an anxiety that feels more physical than mental. he is about to raise his hands in a sign of difference, of surrender, a sign that it was really him - he starts to, his hands halfway in the air -

and then he spots their body, lying upon the ground.* and, hands trembling, he turns his wand towards ginny weasley. “where is the scar i received on the 25th of february, 1997 from the cruciatus curse?”

betrayed. betrayed. betrayed. two syllables, but they pound a ferocious jackhammer in HERMIONE’S ears the minute a patronus trips over them, sounds running together in discordant, agitated panic. ( and it’s not like it hasn’t before ; betrayal is a BITTER TASTE under the tongue, familiar in the way it’ll screw up delicate features. would’ve assumed she’d be deadened to the unique pain of a fresh wound dug into the battleworn flesh by now but it never fails to make her wince. )

somewhere between the mesmeric reverie of the manor’s christmas party and her unsteady arrival, glittering heels are kicked off / diminutive, barefoot, lipstick smudged at the corner of a SOURED mouth. it’s a unique sight : pristine white of a ballgown gathered in a white-knuckled fist, wand gripped in the other, a blur of lace and loose curls so set in motion that she doesn’t see neville until it’s too late, until she’s collided ungainly into his back and teeth ( already SUNK into the worried flesh of a lower lip ) are drawing blood.

“what was the first curse i ever put on neville longbottom, back in our first year at hogwarts?” first question directed at neville, razor-edged and a little wild around the edges. “what-” and her second query is choked off when she catches a glimpse at jo and ginny / and the world spins a little, throws hermione off kilter more than she already was. “oh god, jo.”

he’s running on autpilot after a shimmering, silvery owl comes to him somewhere within the malfoy home. the attempt at apparition is sloppy, imprecise when RON leaves the party with a crack and reappears a block away from grimmauld place, just missing his mark. ( but he runs, and runs, not wholly a strange image in a suit with a golden mask hanging on by his neck. ) betrayed. the word feels like sticking his head underwater, muffling everything. jo, attacked. blood rushes in his ears.

not fast enough, not careful enough, not enough, enough, enough. ron feels as if he’s precariously close to the edge of a cliff, one he’s already tumbled halfway down, and one too-strong breeze could send him stumbling the rest of the way. yet, he keeps his head. despite everything urging him otherwise, he finds a way to keep himself straight.

he’s all heavy breaths and cheeks tinged red from the cold when he comes reeling towards the door. hair is in disarray and the tie at his neck feels confining until erratic hands pull it loose. hermione and neville are the first in his path, and perhaps it was always going to be them -- the now-five of them, at the helm of all things. “who did i get this wand from in spring 2014?”

it isn't lost on GINNY that this is a dangerous position to be in. it was so STUPID to have come alone, even more so to have called the da to arms. the thought occurs to her only after her messenger is gone ( & no time now to unpack the change that robs her of what little breath she has in the aftermath of finding jo ), too late, that she can't trust a single person that walks through the kitchen door now they are evidently exposed. until innocence is proven it is ginny versus the masses, and she has jo to protect - turning her wand on her dearest comrade is a physical pain that makes her hand shake, but her wand never once drops as she struggles to her feet, ballgown making it so much more difficult than it needed to be.

"it's the one along your back." she still remembered his sharp intake of breath as she had applied dittany by the light of a whispered lumos, not the first nor last of injuries they - and luna - had taken turns in receiving & tending to. hogwarts had been a battleground long before may second, after all. "what -" she begins, tremble to her voice, CUT OFF by ron & hermione's arrival and feeling more hopeless by the second. her wand swings between them all like a pendulum ( questions run through her mind : neville, what song did we dance to at the yule ball / hermione, what other terrible nicknames did we consider for fleur before we landed on the one we did, young & stupid / ron, ron, by how many points did we win your first game on the team ) only thought on making sure they stay back, answer their questions & prove their innocence. they can't keep doing this. they can't. every second that ticked by was another that jo was laying victim, and ginny won't care about the betrayal when it comes time to let the healer through. if nellie & cho arrived in the midst of this, she'd let them pass, but she isn't quite so sure how far she'd go in blocking the others.

the story goes like this. there was once a girl, and she had a family — broken in places like many families were in this world anymore ; walls shrouded in protection spells, last names given and taken, dark marks & scars & secrets — and it got smaller, and smaller, and smaller, but the girl stayed. AND THE GIRL, SHE HAD TO LIVE WITH THAT, but no one had ever taught her how. nellie has never hated being the secret keeper more. what an ironic twist of fate. all that power settled into her being, the unsuspecting one because of her very nature. ELEANOR DIGGORY, disarming with a twist of her colored lips. eleanor diggory, the friend of everyone she has ever met. eleanor diggory, who was as indebted into this war, who was never meant to be put between her family and her duty, and yet — “jo!”

her hands are shaking, she thinks, or maybe it is her shoulders, her entire form quaking under the weight of no, not them, it can’t be them, merlin, don’t take them from me, please, i can’t do this again. nothing is real to nellie, not ginny’s wand pointed towards her, not cho’s hand in her own, hastily left, and certainly not anyone else in the room. no one but jo. nellie’s other half, bleeding and broken, and lying on the floor. she moves past them all, uncaring to any threat — let them curse her, let them hurt her, it didn’t matter to nellie, as long as she had made it to jo. her knees hit the ground, pretty dress ripped and mascara running, she wants to touch them, but doesn’t want to make things worse. WAS THIS HOW HARRY HAD FELT IN THE GRAVEYARD? was this how it felt to watch someone you loved so dearly die ? her exhale is broken, a gasping and terrible sound of a sob, she is a girl left crumbling, “you, someone — cho — you need to help them. i can’t — i don’t. who —“ nellie was aware of how little sense she was making, but she couldn’t pull herself together, not now. “— who did this? how could… jo has never done anything! WHO DID THIS?“

it is with shaky arms that NEVILLE runs to embrace ginny; from the memory and from the horrifying, gut wrenching realization that they are not so far off from those times. because if jo dies, what does it matter if they died here or in the room of requirement, as neville very well thought he might ? it will be another loss he will never be able to shake. in that moment, it does not matter that ginny hasn’t verified his identity: neville cannot help himself any longer, even though it is the difference between life and death, even though ginny would be well within her rights to stun him, to suspect he is the traitor, worse ( as she has willingly done to traitors in the past ). he wraps his arms around ginny, hold her tight for what feels like a millisecond and an eternity all at once.

neville moves away as quickly as he came in, all the meanwhile cursing himself for not having dittany on him. for not being trained well enough as a healer. his arms shake and he can feel his scars begin to ache ( it is placebo, he is sure of it. it is placebo, the ghost of pain, the echoes of dark magic still etched onto his body. he finds himself wishing, not for the first time in his life, that he could ask his parents if their scars hurt them too. ) but there is no time for that, for any thoughts at all because jo diggory is bleeding out on the linolium floor and they’re going to die if neville does not do something, and he’s fumbling in the cabinets, looking for potions, for something, for anything. his hands shake more than ever but neville points his wand at them and mutters “vulnera sanentur” over and over again: the blood on their wounds begins to evaporate as wounds close but it does not revive them. they need a real healer, and not a half trained herbologist. but the spell worked well enough: the wounds for the meantime are closed and jo is no longer bleeding out and for the second time that night, neville takes a shaky breath and turns to nellie. “they’re not bleeding out anymore, but we need a medic better than me. who can we trust?” it is a collective ‘we’: that itself, is both a scary thought and a calming one. neville can both trust all these people and only these people.

it’s a familiar and unwelcome feeling that sits in her throat, heart beating loudly in her ears, as CHO lets nellie hold her hand and take her away from the ball. she’s brought to their safehouse and cho is face to face with terrified kids ( they’re older now, but they were still young, too young for this ) and she feels anger and frustration bubble up underneath her calm surface. her attention immediately lands on jo diggory who is bleeding on the floor as neville frantically works over them - for a blink of an eye she sees their brother, laying on the ground, her heart stops - and knows that this is the very reason dumbledore’s army needs to accept help from the order. she answers any questions they throw her with a steady voice, quickly following nellie to the ground next to her sibling. “what’s happened?" it isn’t a question she must know, but knows it would be helpful to know what exactly she's healing. she quickly gets to preforming spells that will help her get a diagnosis, trying to ignore the please of nellie beside her. cho gets to work quickly, moving through the advanced healing spells she knows, hoping to not seem too frantic to those in the room that surround them. after a few minutes most of the large wounds have been healed, enough to have jo handle them while awake.

“everyone stay back,” she tells them, unsure of how any of them will act if her spell is successful or unsuccessful, lifting her wand up again. a bright light leaves her wand and falls into their chest, lifting their chest slightly before they slump back onto the ground. she repeats it again, holding her breath, waiting for their chest to rise on their own. “you’re alright, you're safe. you're just waking up. you're in the safehouse.” she breaths out a sigh of relief, uttering a quick pain relief spell as she gently lays a hand on them, trying to get jo to wake up slowly and not all at once. the room feels more alive around her sadness and relief expelling from everyone - but cho is doing what she can the block it out. she knows that the d.a. have only brought her in out of panic and desperate need to save jo, and she wonders if they’ll decide to make her leave now that they’re conscious as to not reveal anything else - but she knows that there is still healing that will need to be done, they'll need to be monitored, provided more care. cho's eyes search their body again, wand held tightly between her fingers, before trying to make eye contact as they continue to gain consciousness. "you're going to be hurting quite a bit, jo - but is there anything too painful?"

and it is an achingly familiar scene in the diggory family tragedy - whatever her reasons, fate has it out for amos and ariadne's children. you'd be forgiven for thinking you know how this ends ( not today, not this time ). there isn't any light at the end of the tunnel, no warmth or peace. pain, wholly unwelcome, snarls down JO’S body ( body? ), joining the cold that saps the feeling from their fingers as they slowly attune to the presence of others around them. this is no death ( not today, not this time ). consciousness is quickly followed by a desperate, clawing urgency - something happened, something is wrong ! but the fog of nausea is reluctant to lift. jo shudders in a breath before cracking open their eyes, immediately squinting as the light sends a dagger through their head. the scene that greets them does nothing to assuage their confusion.

the d. a. ( and cho ? ), bejeweled and bedazzled in gowns and suits, wands out and at the ready. is this a funeral ? "nellie-" where is she, where is jo, what is happening - jo tries and fails to rise, tries and fails again, because nellie is crying and jo thinks they might have died and does that make it their fault and merlin, what the fuck can't they remember ? they ignore the audience, reaching for their sibling ( the only one left ) "what- i'm sorry, i can't-" they babble weakly, once again scanning the room frantically. a shimmer of recognition cuts through the haze - this is grimmauld place. the headquarters… the headquarters jo was guarding because it was christmas eve. it was christmas eve and everyone was out and jo was left, was trusted with everything and then. and then - "hazel!" and now the words can't escape their mouth fast enough, a torrent of panic. "where - the cloak, im sorry, hazel came and she - i've failed, she came and i, it was off, something was off - i should have known but - where is it? the cloak??"

nell bursts into the room and it is a sledgehammer taken to the dam that GINNY has erected ; it’s true she loves the diggory’s like they’re her own, true her heart would bleed for them even if she didn’t, but there’s something so familiar about that anguish. nellie falls to their knees at jo’s side, frantic and frazzled and undone, and ginny remembers a shock of red hair and a frozen laugh she would never hear again. “i-i-” her sobs come quick, bubbling up past her lips, her voice too full with emotion, her eyes too wide and turning to rest on nellie. shaking hands are slick with blood. life’s blood. jo’s blood. oh, god. “i’m so sorry.”

this is her fault. this is her fault. this is her fault. she can’t escape that she’s done this - she brought dudley here, she brought the cloak, she set up shifts to guard it. it’s her fault that jo was there. it was. she had prioritised percy, she had thought some hint might lay at a pureblood party that she had spent all too long at, she should have been here instead. no thought that she would have succeeded where they did not occurs : she knows jo is fearless and ferocious. someone overpowered them. maybe they would have overpowered her, too. but she could have taken their place.

she stumbles away because she is told to and for no other reason than this, her own arms wrapped tightly around her chest as sobs continue to wrack her body & tears continue to pour. she could crumple. could fall. she remembers the trust that dudley had in them all, the hope they all had that they had finally gotten one step ahead, and instead her arms drop and she grits her teeth, kicking the nearest cabinet with as much force as she could muster, a strangled sort of noise leaving her : the movement is cathartic in its own way, but before she can go for another -

she has missed the way their chest has steadied, missing seeing cho stem what they could not, turned away almost so that she wouldn’t see the alternative if nothing could be done - so caught up in her own pointless display of rage, the fact that the other is alive is missed until jo shouts out and ginny jumps half a foot. there is no time to feel joyous ( red hands and tear streaked cheeks betray that maybe ginny won’t ever manage such a thing again ). they’re caught on the detail that no one else has managed to dedicate time to : the cloak. her gaze flickers to the cupboard. the door is pulled wide.

“it’s gone. it’s gone, jo - she has it.” she wants to say it doesn’t matter, but it’s a lie that she CAN’T muster. she takes a shuddering breath, gives a shake of her head, “it’s gone, but it’s not your fault. i- we should have never left you here alone. but- but it means she has everything.” she wishes that this didn’t matter either but it does and she wishes that they had known but they hadn’t and just the thought of it being hazel causes another surge of red hot anger to run through her - ginny can’t stop herself from kicking out again, directed this time at a chair that crashes across the room. “THAT BITCH-” she’ll kill her, she thinks, and it scares her more than it doesn’t that the thought is not corrected. “she has all of it but the wand.”

jo startles, healed, and he can breathe a bit easier. ( nell and jo, jo and nell, twins and extensions of one another. maybe it’s selfish when RON thinks of fred, more so when a voice wonders why this couldn’t have been done for him, too. but there’s no time, no time, no time to linger there. ) relief that they’re okay is only a momentary salve.

hazel has the cloak. bellatrix has the cloak. fingernails dig crescent moons into his palms and he wants to act, wants to do something, but it’s like ginny has siphoned that energy from him. she kicks, and the sound echoes. kicks again, and the clatter of a chair is a familiar thing. ron’s jaw tightens, and choler is a barely - leashed thing.

ron has been quiet for much of this, but there’s a remarkable calm to his voice when he interjects. “then let’s go get it.” arms unfold from where they had settled against his chest. “if hazel’s going to tell them where it is, then the only thing to do is get there first.” eyes, grey as static, settle on his sister. “let’s get the wand.”

#nox.event009 #nox.important #hp rp #harry potter rp #canon rp #oc rp #fandom rp #magic rp #dark rp #war rp

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imaginesandideas · 5 years

Text

Warren Worthington x non-mutant reader headcannons pt.2

a continuation (where the apocalypse never happened oops 🤭)

you’re staff at the mutant fightclub

it’s not like you support what’s happening there, but you feel like looking after the mutants is least you can do to help them

you get to know Warren because you care for injured fighters overtime

slowly he started to trust you and opened up about his issues

you two became close, kind of bonding over the fact that both of you were forced into such living

one night the club is more packed than usually

there’s more guards and they’re well-armed, which only confirmed your worries that something’s off

owner of the place seems more than delighted, because that means more betting, and more inflows for him

you’re only worried about the amount of wounds you’ll have to treat afterwards

or god forbid the ones who won’t make it out that night

you’re out back, arranging something when you hear that there’s a new, blue mutant in the cage

you haven’t gotten a chance to see him yet, so you didn’t really know what to expect

your biggest concern was the fact that tonight Warren was supposed to fight a lot of rivals

you push your way through the gathered crowd

people yelling, beer being spilled on the floor making it sticky and gross just like the rest of the place

looking up you notice Warren and new mutant

he seems young and not experienced in fighting

no wonder he’s utterly terrified

you try to yell at Warren to don’t go too hard on the boy, but he can’t hear you

once he enters the battle mode, there’s not much you can do

it’s about his to be or not to be after all, and you understand that probably better than anyone else in the room

but something is wrong

the mutant, Nightcrawler as they call him, doesn’t even try to fake it

he’s bouncing erratically around the cage trying to escape, and you quickly spot that his mutation has something to do with relocating

you also notice the growing impatience on Warren’s face

for a short moment your eyes meet

and you know that he’s as worried as you are, because he knows what will happen if they won’t start fighting

his anxiety filled gaze lands back on his opponent

you realize that there’s nothing more that you can do

that now you can only watch and cross your fingers

hoping today is not the night you lose him

“Fight!” Warren shouts agitated. “Or they’ll kill us both!”

the other mutant appears to finally get it as he looks around and notices the guns pointing their way from behind the grid

what you did not expect was him being as incoherent to actually hurt Warren

when his back lands on the live wire, you can almost feel the pain yourself

you try to get to the side of the cage where he landed, but people are blocking your way

the mutant flinches back terrified because it seems like he didn’t mean to harm Angel

tears fill your eyes when you see that his wing is broken and charred

but you regain fair view when you see Warren’s expression, and his eyes were already throwing deadly daggers at his rival

your yells are completely muffled by all the people screaming in morbid ecstasy

Nightcrawler backs away and keeps apologising with thick, german accent but suddenly electrified grid is being shut down

the lights turn off and people around you start to panic

your eyes immediately wander to control panel on the other side of the room and you briefly notice a female figure before she disappears

guns go off and everyone runs at the exits

everything is out of control

you’re afraid that all of these moving masses will trample you to death, but at the same time you can’t help but look up in search of Warren

when you spot him, he’s already trying to fly up

and he’s visibly in pain while doing so

you make a mental note to prepare a lot of bandages and rubbing alcohol for later

the thought itself is so natural you don’t even think if it makes sense in current circumstances

and it obviously doesn’t

because as soon as he flies up high enough, he rips the grid and gets away with guns shooting at him from the ground

it’s now that you realise you’ve been holding your breath because you want to scream after him

but your throat is worn and he’s gone

without a single word or a glance

he’s gone and you’re standing frozen in place

“_____! We need to go!”

the voice from behind you startles you, but it’s not him

your coworker doesn’t wait for your response and drags you out and into some dark alleyway few blocks away

you catch your breath and speak up

“What about the mutants?”

“We opened all the cages before everything completely blew up. It’s over.”

you nod mindlessly

it’s over

no more cage fights, no more working against the law

you exchange few more words and hug each other goodbye one last time before heading your way

you don’t know if you’ll ever meet again

or if you’ll ever see Angel again

he’s on your mind all the way home

but so are the people from fight club, and you pull the jacket tighter around yourself at the thought

you can’t help but feel like someone’s out there, watching you

once you close the door to your apartment you let out a long, deep breath out

you’re safe

at least for now

your apartment is relatively small, it’s least you could afford with the shitty money and opportunities you had

you put on a kettle to make some tea to warm yourself up, and then you hear something knocking at the window

you brush it off at first but check it nevertheless

and you stop mid step before rushing to the window, because it’s him

opening the window you step aside to let him inside

though he still has to bend down to fit his wings

the one that’s broken gets caught on the frame and he hisses

“Sheiße!” he curses before collapsing on the floor and you help him to stand up

it’s only now that you notice how bruised he is

his left wing drags along the floor, some feathers are burnt, some just charred

“Warren, what are you doing here? How did you even find me? You’re free now. You don’t have to...” you ask him, voice full of worry as he sits on your kitchen stool.

He leans back groaning.

“I just wanted t-to see you.” He hisses again as he stretches his back. “M-make sure y-you’re okay.”

you can’t help the slight blush that crept on your face at his words

because he cares about you, he came here because he was concerned about your wellbeing

after all you two have been through he didn’t just leave like everyone else, but stayed behind to check up on you

„You’re hurt. Let me help you.”

you patch him up

and while you do, he can’t seem to focus on anything else but you

you try to avoid looking at him and focus your attention on his wounds

but from the corner of your eye you see how soft the look in his eyes is

how he’s more gentle and careful not to knock over anything in your small apartment

how his cocky self is still present yet gone in a way

so different from what you’ve gotten used to

and it makes your heart flutter

he’s also helping you with everything

from applying ointment and putting dressing on the cut, to cleaning up the floor after

you tell him to stay as long as he needs to heal up, and he’s hesitant because he knows you don’t owe him anything now that the underground fights were over

but you insist that you want him gotten well, for the sake of your own sanity and he obliges

he takes the couch

you give him some old shirts that are oversized for you, but definitely fitted him and his wings

he takes everything without a single complaint

the next day you wake up late

it’s probably the first time in months that you’ve slept so peacefully

you get out of your room, completely forgetting about the events of the previous day

hair is a mess, your shirt ridden up and all wrinkled

you’re still yawning when you come into the kitchen and what you witness is beyond your wildest expectations

he’s cooking

or at least trying to cook and not knock things over

or burn his wings

he’s also topless

and if you ever thought that he doesn’t look hot topless in the cage, you definitely do now

you stand there mouth agape until he clears his throat

“Sorry if I woke you up.”

“No, no it’s fine!”

“Thought you might want to eat something. It’s least I can do y’know.” He says nervously rubbing the back of his neck. “After all you’ve done for me.”

you smile at his words and the remaining protective layers around his heart break

and they do so quickly that his neck immediately turns red

you take note that he looks even hotter like this (and you kinda wish he would never stop blushing)

but back to the morning

you end up eating slightly burnt pancakes

he tells you how this was his favourite breakfast food growing up

how his nanny would always add all his favourite toppings

and how nice it is to finally be able to eat them with someone else, and not by himself like the old days

he shares a lot of his memories with you over over the next meals you two share

in a way it becomes your own, tiny tradition

you know how painful it is for him sometimes, but slowly he overcomes his fears

he let’s you in

and you let him in too

you talk about your family, enormous struggles you’ve faced before finally finding your purpose in life, about your trust issues and how it’s totally different with him

because despite different experiences and overall differences between you, you have so much in common

because he doesn’t just nod

he understands

and when you break down crying he’s there to rub your back and wipe your tears

he’s there when the sink is leaking or when you need help with repainting that spot on the ceiling that constantly chips away

or you just need help with carrying shopping bags home

or when you get frustrated with job hunting

or when you’ve had a nightmare and you need someone to hold you

soon it’s more often than not that you wake in your bed, snuggled up to Warren’s side, his arm protectively draped over your waist

you get used to having him

in your home, in your bed, in your life

your guardian angel

it’s been months and he’s fully recovered

he even points out how bright and healthy his wings look after your generous treatment

safe to say it’s been the best months of his adult life

in fact, yours too

but everything has to come to an end eventually, and you can’t keep him caged like this

so one day after coming back home after work - he was still asleep as you were leaving in the morning - you decide to face him to talk about the inevitable

He’s sprawled on the couch but immediately jumps up upon your arrival “_____! Let me heat up the dinner for you.”

You forget what you meant to say for a second, because after all this time it always felt so unreal to watch that caring side of his unfold in your presence. I mean, who would have thought that the most dangerous mutant you’ve ever encountered will be now living with you. And cooking you dinner.

He’s visibly tense as he’s mixing ingredients in the pan. He doesn’t even look up at you when you approach him. He knows

“Angel- Warren, um, there’s something I want to talk about with you.”

He sighs and drops the wooden spoon on the counter with a thud.

“I know, I’m sorry. I just- you know, I thought that maybe-“

“I don’t want you to feel like you owe me something. You’re free, you should be flying somewhere, living your life and...”

“Wait, what?” he stops you with a raised finger, brows furrowed. You’re even more confused.

“Well, I thought that you’re here because you feel like you’re in debt to me or something, but now you’re fine, right? You don’t need me, I’m only holding you back and you’ve already helped me enough, so I thought, you know, we’re even.”

You let it all out so quickly that you had to take a deep breath right after. And you can’t even look him in the face.

If you could, you’d see how pale his face’s gotten.

“We- we’re even? I thought... I thought you wanted me to go because we’re so... different.” you stare back at him not quite understanding what was it really about. “I know that me being a mutant only complicates everything, but I thought we could make it, you know? I know the wings might be a lot to swallow, but I could try and fold them, you know. For you. I don’t even drink now. And I thought, ugh, that you just want me around and not cause I owe you or anything like that.”

“I- oh Warren.” you stand there unable to form a relevant sentence. He’s clearly stressed with all this too.

“Either way I’ll go away if that’s what you want. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

“No, no! I mean, if you want to stay...” You reach out to his arm and your eyes meet. You gently squeeze his arm in an attempt to regain your composure. You bite your lip before continuing, voice above a whisper. “I’d like you to stay.”

He’s holding a breath for a moment before his entire face lights up and he chuckles.

“Well, zum Glück!” he laughs heartedly.

you’re pretty sure it’s your favourite sound in the world

he makes a move first, bringing you closer with his arms wrapped around your waist

but not before he makes sure you’re fine with it

you nod and close the distance

he inhales sharply, his neck growing red yet again

“Fuck, I’ve been wanting this for so long. Can I-?”

“Thought you’d never ask.” You whisper back, eyeing him from underneath your lashes.

he grins and leans down to capture you in a slow, passionate kiss

and in the end, after everything you’ve faced together, you were really looking forward to a new chapter in your life

together

~~~~~

Comments, ideas and words of notice are always appreciated 💜

(I decided to tag everyone who expressed their interest in part 2 🙈 so sorry for the delay)

@youthbitch @sloppybitchardtozier @not-12-swans-in-a-trenchcoat @asphyxiating-thoughts @softsmileexol @loirabrasileirabr @anita-e-taylor @anaitasunrise @totallynerdstuff

LMK if you want to be on/off the taglist!

Warren taglist: @thesecondlastjedi @fourmisfitz @shae-is-not-ok @simplyvictoria-93 @rockyroadthepastryarchy @hisatumb @samantha-is-fandom-trash @ziamhathrisen @silvver-rose @mcrmarvelloki @whatthefluffrichard

#warren worthington x reader #warren worthington #warren worthington x you #warren worthington hcs #warren worthington fluff #warren worthington angst #warren worthington headcanons #warren worthington iii x reader #angel headcanons #headcannon #i’m such a sap sorry 😩

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