#and then he fucking dies with a broken heart like like o said sort of Hanahaki

[sunnymainecoonx]

I'm so I can't

This this is my depression scribbles this is what happens when motivations at a minimum but I have to draw

#actually oddly enough there's more context bc bc #I had this killer au idea where roses grew on him(some sort of hanahaki inspired sh but not rlly) #and like he'd cut them off(worsening it) to give them to his ''loves'' knowing damn well they'd trash it #and then he fucking dies with a broken heart like like o said sort of Hanahaki #utmv #sans au #undertale au #killer sans #UwU #btw it's not shown here bc it's more inspired by some made up mha story in my head

[sunmoonandeddie]

and he kissed me right here

pairing: modern!bucky barnes x reader

word count: 6,100

summary: I've always been sure that all I ever wanted was a glamorous life.

warnings: Cuss words, mentions of the Afghanistan war (Bucky is a veteran), angst, happy ending, cheesy romantic confessions, age gap

a/n:  This is based on the song 'Stars and the Moon' from Songs for a New World! It's the first one shot in my musical series! This is written in first perspective, but there is no physical description or use of a name in this!

Twenty-Two

I sighed as I tossed a few more dirty plates into the dish window, wiping my brow. After a shitty dinner rush and an even shittier rush around two in the morning consisting only of drunk ass college kids looking for some sort of carb to suck up all the alcohol in their systems, I was ready to go the fuck home.

“Sweetheart, you head on home now,” the head chef insisted as he watched my head nod slightly as I tried my best to fight off sleep. “Ain’t nobody comin’ in before Melissa gets here. No point in you staying on your feet any longer.”

Louis was a godsend. At sixty-seven years old, you’d think he would rather be anywhere but a diner at almost four in the morning.

“Nah,” he had said when I’d asked him a few months after I’d first started. “My Ginny died a few years back, and since she’s been gone, I don’t really have the stomach to sit around that house all alone.” He had laughed, but there’d been a deep sorrow that had come over his deep brown eyes. “Kids are worried, but… Sleeping the day away is better than laying up at night staring at her side of the bed…”

“You sure, Lou?” I asked even as I headed for the back room where all the employees clocked in and kept their possessions in their own little cubbies. I did my checkout in view of the security camera, just like always. I didn’t want anyone to be able to say I stole anything.

Everyone who knew me knew that I wouldn’t, but I’d worked at two many places where the girls tried backstabbing each other and sabotaging everyone else to get them fired.

Though people were a lot nicer in Louisiana than any of the other places I’d lived.

Louis chuckled as he set a to-go box in the window, nodding towards it. “Mmhm. Long as Buck is getting you home safe.”

I gave him a joking eye roll as I took the to-go box gratefully, grinning at my name written in all caps with green Sharpie on top. “You know you don’t have to make me dinner every night.”

“Yes, I do,” he said, shooting me a look. “How else do I know you’re getting enough food in you, huh?” He pointed his rag at me. “Now you go ask him to get you home. Tell him I said he can clock out, and that he’s supposed to text me when he sees you safe inside. You better not say you’re gonna ask him again just to walk yourself home.” The old man shook his head as I headed for the back door, muttering to himself, “Damn girl thinks I’m gonna believe she’s feeding herself good enough when she’s risking her damn ass walking home alone.”

Despite the fact that I’d put off asking for Bucky Barnes’s service, I really did appreciate how fiercely Louis cared about me.

It had been a real long time since anyone had cared so much.

I hesitated at the back door of the diner, my hand resting against the cool metal.

What if he said no?

Granted, he most likely wouldn’t. But what if he said yes, and he secretly thought me some dumb little girl that couldn’t take care of herself?

What did I care if he thought that?

“I don’t care what he thinks of me,” I huffed as I straightened my shoulders, holding my chin a little higher.

“Stop talking to yourself and get going!”

I jumped in surprise, before shooting a glare in the direction of the kitchen. “Stop listening in on my private conversations!” I demanded before storming outside with new found vigor.

Only to freeze when Bucky looked up from where he was sitting on the curb, smoking a cigarette.

God, he was handsome.

“You okay, doll face?” He asked, his New York accent a sharp contrast to the southern drawls you were used to.

“Um… Y-Yeah,” I said faintly, glancing back at the door that I’d come in from. “Um… L-Louis wants me to ask you… Can you walk me home? Or give me a ride? I don’t… I don’t know if you drive…”

“I do drive.”

“O-Oh. Okay. Great.”

“But I don’t have my car on me.”

I peered at him curiously. “Oh. Um… I can just walk by myself. I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna be a nuisance…”

He stood up, tossing his cigarette to the ground and stomping it out. “Don’t be ridiculous, darlin.’ Come on. I’ll walk you.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as he began to head for the street. “Besides… It’s a real nice night.”

“Oh…,” I said in surprise at how ready he was to be of service. “Okay. But only if you’re sure.”

A faint smile graced his lips as he glanced at the ground, letting out a faint chuckle that rumbled deep in his chest. “I’m sure, darlin.’ But you gotta lead the way.”

I was surprised by the rapid pitter patter of my heart beat as we walked side by side down the street, the chorus of ‘Yellow Brick Road’ getting stuck in my head on a loop.

Bucky was an enigma that I found myself wondering about more often than not, but I always ended up talking myself out of going there. After all, he was an older man. A much older man. At least fifteen years older than my own twenty-two years, or something along those lines, not that he looked it. The man looked like some kind of rugged Greek god. Like Hades if Hades was born in the eighties. His dog tags clinked together under his shirt as we walked, his metal prosthetic glinting in the moon.

“So how did you end up in NOLA?”

It took me a moment to even realize that he was talking to me, my heart skipping a beat and my face going hot in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, what did you say?” I asked.

His bright blue eyes flickered over to look me over. “How’d you end up in New Orleans?”

“I actually don’t know,” I snorted, avoiding his eyes as I kicked at a few broken up pieces of asphalt. “I just… Picked a bus ticket and ended up in one of the Carolinas. Then I picked another bus ticket and ended up in Minnesota. And then I picked another, and another, and another, and then I actually just… ended up here.” The months I’d spent alone on those Greyhounds felt both so long ago and also like it was just yesterday. “The diner was the first place someone recommended for food that’s good but cheap, and as I was eating my mountain of cheese fries, I saw the flyer that said they were hiring. So here I am now…”

“Huh,” he said, his brows furrowed. “I didn’t take you for the type of person to run off on your own… riding buses all over the country…”

Head tilting to the side, I gave him a long look. “You didn’t? What kind of type did you peg me for?”

Bucky gave me a long look, a single brow raised as though silently telling me that I jumped to conclusions. “Just that jumping from place to place can take a lot outta someone,” he said slowly, his voice low and soothing. “Hell, if you were my girl—” He broke off as his cheeks flushed a pretty shade of pink, his long hair falling in his face.

I swore my heart had stopped inside of my chest, and I swallowed thickly around the lump in my throat. “Oh?”

He rushed to try to correct his wording. “I-I just mean, a lady should be comfortable. And if I had a g-girl like you, well… You’d never want for anything,” he stammered, stumbling over his words like a flustered school boy. “Hell, I… I’d give you the stars and the moon…”

I was shocked into silence, staring up at him like he was the sun itself. “Bucky…”

“No, no, don’t say anything. I… I know that was a lot,” he insisted quietly, unable to meet your eyes as he stared up at the shitty apartment building you called home. “Hell, you probably don’t want a gross old man hitting on you.” His metal hand, glinting in the low light of the street lamp, reached up to brush against my cheek for just a moment before it quickly dropped. “Just let me walk you home each night so I can make sure you’re safe, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I breathed out, unable to take my eyes off of him as he took a few steps back.

There’s a somewhat playful smirk on his lips as he watched me stumble up the steps, continuously glancing back at him. “Goodnight, baby doll.”

“Goodnight,” I said, barely audible before I finally headed inside.

Bucky kept his word. He walked me home every night, and honestly, there wasn’t a moment that I wasn’t thinking about what he had said, about if I was his girl.

What if I was his girl?

But… with that meant I’d have to give up the life I’d dreamed for myself. I wanted luxury, to never worry about bills or where I was gonna get my next meal or if I could afford to buy the nice work shoes or if I could only get the cheap ones that would fall apart in three months and then I’d just be right back where I started.

I wanted the life that celebrities lived. Hell, I wanted to go to parties on the same yachts the Kardashian-Jenners did, even if I couldn’t fucking stand them.

And with Bucky… I wouldn’t have that.

“So why’d you go on the run anyway?” Bucky asked one night as we sat on the curb, eating ice cream in the Louisiana heat. “I know you told me how you got here, but you’ve never told me why.”

“You’ve never told me how you ended up here or why either,” I shot back, nudging his shoulder with my own.

Somehow the age difference seemed non-existent as we sat there. Honestly, I felt like we were just a bunch of dumb teenagers, shooting the shit and enjoying each other’s company.

Bucky took in a deep breath, his shoulders sinking in a way that made it look like he had all the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I was over in Afghanistan for a long time,” he admitted quietly. “When the war first started, I was 19. I had no idea where my life was going and I had no options except my dad’s mechanic shop. So I enlisted with my best friend, Steve. The one I told you about.”

It’s completely silent except for the sound of an occasional car horn off in the distance.

“Neither one of us knew what we were doing. We realized very quickly that we had no reason being over there, but… but there was nothing else,” he said, swallowing around the lump in his throat. The ice cream he was holding was melting in his trembling hands. “I didn’t know how to do anything else, so I stayed. Steve moved up in the ranks, but I stayed pretty low… I didn’t mind. Kinda liked being the older guy all those young kids could talk to, could rely on… Because they were just like me, getting into a fight that wasn’t theirs because they had nothing else.”

My heart was shattering inside my chest as I scooted a little closer, my knee knocking against his as I tried to give him some sort of silent comfort. He’d been through Hell and made it through.

Bucky let his head rest against mine, his eyes closing as he breathed in the scent of my perfume. “They eventually moved me to some kind of specialized team… Called us the Howling Commandos. I found out that Steve was heading it and he picked me to be part of it. That’s how I met Sam, because he was on some sort of similar team with the Air Force, except it was just him and his friend, Riley,” he continued, taking a bite of his chocolate fudge brownie ice cream. “I am proud to say that I didn’t kill a single person while I was over there. I just couldn’t. Hell, they’re people just like me, terrified and unsure of what’s going to happen.” His lips pressed against my forehead, letting it linger. “But then about five years ago, I was on a mission with the Commandos, Sam, and Riley, and… this bomb went off while we were playing a game of soccer. I wasn’t even in a fight. That thing took my arm and it took Riley.”

Tentatively, I let my fingers find his, holding his hand and squeezing reassuringly.

“Sam decided to come home with me.” There was a forlorn look in his eyes, as though he was right back at that game of pick-up soccer. “After losing Riley… he couldn’t find a reason to be over there. And then Steve decided to stay, and hell, he’s still over there, leading that fucking team…” Glassy baby blue eyes finally found mine, the both of us doing our best to not cry. “I couldn’t face my family for a long time, so Sam asked me to come stay in Louisiana with him and his family, and I haven’t left since.”

“Have you gone to see your family?” I asked slowly, almost like I was scared I’d frighten him if I spoke too loudly, like a wild animal. “Let them know where you are? That you’re safe?”

He turned to look at me, his baby blues shining. “You worried about me, baby doll?”

“I can’t help it,” I said honestly, unable to tear my eyes away. I hadn’t opened up to someone like that in so damn long. “I can’t help but worry about you.”

The way that I felt about Bucky absolutely terrified me, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. It snuck up on me, like a train coming around a bend.

I hated it.

“What do you want out of this life?” Bucky asked on one walk home, his arm linked in mine. He’d become so much more… tactile. If anyone took a moment to look at us, they’d think we were a couple on a romantic stroll.

Perhaps we were.

But I couldn’t help but grin as I looked up at the sky, taking in the warm air. “I wanna live like how the movie stars do… I want a big house on the beach and twenty cars and a yacht and… and…”

He looked at me long and hard. “And you never wanna have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, if you’re gonna have a place to sleep at night…”

For some reason, I’d felt a bolt of panic over whether or not he’d understand. Whether or not he’d think differently of me, but I should’ve known that he wouldn’t. Hell, he knew me better than anyone else.

“You understand,” I said quietly, my hand squeezing his bicep gratefully. “I want to live how the other half lives for once. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

A small smile graced his features as we shuffled along. “There isn’t. But… What about love?” He asked.

“Love?”

“Love.”

Love.

Could I even have love? Did I want it?

“I don’t know if there’s a lot of room for love in my plans,” I admitted after a long moment. “In my experience, love has always just been a lie. A word used to manipulate and eventually abuse.”

Letting out a snort, he let his fingers tickle down my tricep until his fingers intertwined with mine. “I’d show you it’s not… I’d show you what real love is,” he said. “I’d give you every part of me, give you all my strength to help you grow into who you wanna be, even if I don’t particularly care about being famous or rich…” He brought my hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles. “I’ll give you a love story, a life, that’s a million times better than any recycled Hollywood plot… I’ll give you the stars and the moon, if you would just let me.”

I hated the way that he made my heart beat faster, the way my breath hitched. “Jamie,” I breathed out quietly, the two of us having stopped in our tracks to just… take each other in. Live in each other’s presence for a moment. “I…”

“You want a big life… one a lot bigger than little old me,” he said simply, shrugging. His blue eyes were so honest, so loving. So warm. A warmth I hadn’t ever experienced before. “I know. But that doesn’t change that I’m in love with you. And if you ever change your mind…” Bucky reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card, pressing it into my free hand. “This is where you can find me. I figure it’s time for me to go home.”

We’d come to a stop in front of my building, and I was shocked at how tight my chest felt. My eyes watered as I stared at him long and hard. “Jamie, please… I⏤”

“Don’t say it. It’s okay,” he insisted as he cupped my cheek, letting his thumb run over my skin as though he was memorizing it. “I just want you to be happy, darling. You got that?” His lips pressed to my forehead, letting it linger. “Go get that life you’ve been dreaming of.”

Twenty-Three

I left New Orleans the next day, grabbing a bus ticket after throwing all of my belongings into my old duffel bag. It was time to move on.

But God, did it hurt.

I didn’t stop crying for weeks, fighting the urge to go right back to Louisiana and tell Bucky to take it back, to get him to beg me to stay with him.

But what kind of life would that leave me with? Working in the diner day after day? Never getting anywhere?

But you’d have James, a voice inside my head reminded me snarkily.

Then again, he most likely wasn’t even in New Orleans anymore, if what he said was true when he gave me the business card of his father’s mechanic shop. Was he really planning on going home to New York City?

A few months later, and I’d worked my way all through the southwest to Santa Fe, where I met Pietro.

My heart was pounding as I pressed in the familiar numbers, having memorized them from the business card now soft and faded from how often I held it in my hands like a lifeline. “Come on… Pick up… Pick up…”

“Barnes Tires and Motors, this is George,” a man said in a gruff voice when he finally picked up. “How can I help you?”

“H-Hi, is James there? James Barnes? Bucky?” I stammered out, hands trembling so bad that the old payphone was almost rattling.

There was a pause, and then muffled talking away from the phone.

And then I heard it being picked up. “This is Bucky,” he said.

It felt like the wind had been knocked right out of my lungs. How had I gone so long without hearing his voice?

Breathing in sharply, I tried to figure out the words to say. But my throat was dry and it was like I’d suddenly forgotten the entire English language.

That was all that it took for Bucky to realize it was me. “Baby doll? Baby doll, is that you?” He asked quietly. “I…” He took in a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. “You don’t gotta say a thing, sweetheart… But just know that if you’re in trouble or you need help or… or anything at all, you better call me…” His voice wavered, as though he was fighting tears just like I was. “God, I miss you so much, baby doll. I love you.”

I love you, too.

I hung up before I could actually say the words. “God, I’m so fucking stupid,” I whispered as I leaned back against the wall of the gas station I’d found myself at, rubbing the heels of my hands into my eyes.

My dumb ass had decided to wander from the bus station, and I’d walked over a mile away. Unless I was staying in Santa Fe for a bit, I’d need to start making my way back.

“You okay?”

In my distress, I hadn’t even heard the rumbling of the motorcycle or noticed the handsome man making his way to me. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” I said even as I wiped my nose with a pathetic sniffle.

He eyed me for a long moment, his eyes roaming over my figure. “You hungry? I know a great little place nearby. My treat.”

And well, I was never one to turn down free food.

Even if that ‘little place’ ended up being a food truck.

“You know, when you said it was a little place, I didn’t picture it having wheels,” I said teasingly, licking salsa off of my lower lip. “Though, it is the best food I’ve ever gotten from a food truck before.”

“Oh, come on. This is the best food of all time!” He laughed, shaking his head.

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” I snorted, finishing off my flautas.

Pietro looked at me long and hard. “So, are you gonna tell me what the hell was going on to have a pretty girl like you all teary eyed?” He asked, his head tilting to the side.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Was this your plan all along?” I asked. Wiping my hands off on a napkin, I did everything I could to avoid his eyes. “Get me all fed and then question me?” But at the same time, the thought of being able to finally talk to someone about it was so appealing… After a long moment of hesitation, I finally gave in. “I fell in love with a man, and he let me go because he knew that I want a life he can’t give me,” I said. “And I was a bitch who didn’t even tell him I love him back when he said it to me.”

Pietro took in a deep breath, slowly letting it out. “Damn. You really are a stone cold bitch, aren’t you?”

“Hey!” I indignantly threw a chunk of tomato at him, glaring. “I just opened up my heart, you dickwad.”

“Dickwad?!” He said, blinking at me in shock. “No one’s ever called me a dickwad before.”

I raised a single eyebrow at him. “Maybe not to your face, but they definitely have.” He gave off the vibe of a fuckboy, of a really, really bad fuckboy.

“Well, since you’re running away from your feelings, how about you spend a week or two with me on the road?” He asked with a grin.

I couldn’t help but blink at him in shock. “What?” I let out a laugh, pulling one of my legs up to my chest. “Do you throw that line out to every girl you meet? Or am I just special?”

Pietro threw a chip at me, and I barely managed to dodge it. “No, I don’t. But… You remind me of me. Needing adventure. A life bigger than four walls and a fence.”

Instinctively, I wanted to snap back that sometimes, four walls and a fence could be an adventure, could be the biggest life there was, as Bucky’s face flashed across my mind.

But I couldn’t do that. Not when I wasn’t ready to face the truth myself.

“Come on, sweet cheeks,” he teased as his foot hooked around mine. “Just think of it. The open highway, a rhythm beneath your feet… Nights full of passion and days of adventure…” Pietro’s voice was deep and husky, as though he was trying to lure me in. “No strings… just warm summer rain soaking us to the bone before we find some cheap motel to huddle down in…”

Plastering on a smile, I stood up and brushed myself on. “Thanks, but… I’d rather be drinking champagne, and the quicker I get to LA, the sooner I will be.”

He let me go with a kiss on the cheek and his cell number pressed into my hand, with a promise to come and pick me up the second I rang.

And despite how sweet he was, how wild and funny and charismatic, there was only one man I wanted to call.

Twenty-Four

I sipped at my martini as I sat at the rooftop bar, absentmindedly watching the television that was mounted on the wall as people droned around me. I’d been in Los Angeles for a year, and I’d spent my time finding the best places to find a husband who could give me the life I dreamed of.

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, it took connections to build a career, and the best way to get a foot in the door when nepotism was so rampant was by marrying someone in the industry.

My silk dress was the most expensive thing I owned, something I’d saved up for months for, had skipped meals for. And fuck, was it worth it. I could feel the stares, the lingering gazes on the little bit of thigh that was exposed by the slit in the dress.

I’d already turned away several men, able to tell just from their expensive watches and cheap suits and shoes.

It was amazing how all the up and coming finance bros thought they fit in with the truly big dogs.

“Well, hello, gorgeous.”

I turned to see who was speaking, my heart skipping a beat when I realized who I was speaking to.

The world famous (or infamous) director, Tony Stark.

“Hello, handsome,” I said smoothly, my lashes fluttering innocently as I took a sip of my horrible drink.

I fucking hated martinis. Always had.

But ordering a martini was more sophisticated than ordering a frozen strawberry margarita.

“Is this seat taken?” He asked as he motioned to the empty bar stool right next to me, even as he was already sitting down. “Let me buy your next round.”

“I can’t think of anything better,” I said, feeling as though my dream life was already in reach.

Twenty-Eight

“Tony, where are you taking me?” I laughed as I let my boyfriend lead me to the private dock at our Malibu mansion.

Well, his mansion. I just happened to also live there.

It had been a whirlwind of a year since I had met Tony, and he’d bought me that second round. He’d taken me all over the globe, anywhere my heart desired.

But I made sure to avoid New York City, though he never understood why. I would never tell him.

Not when I was so close to my dream. I could practically taste it.

“Come on, come on. I have a surprise for you,” he said, keeping his hands over my eyes. He was sure to keep me from tripping and busting my ass, thank god.

The ocean waves were so comforting as they hit the shore, a sound I’d gotten used to over the past year.

He finally brought me to a stop, quietly telling me to keep my eyes closed. “Okay,” he said finally. “Open them.”

My eyes slowly opened, adjusting to the bright light of the California sun. But I was more shocked by the sight of Tony on one knee in front of me, holding out a box with a sparkling diamond ring in it. “Tony?”

The ring was the size of a fucking meteor. It was easily the biggest ring I’d ever seen.

“You know, I never thought I’d meet someone like you,” he said quietly, his dark eyes shining. But his voice was steady. “Someone who understands me, who doesn’t expect me to change into someone I’m not. You accept me as I am, and that’s why I want to give you the world.” He couldn’t help but grin as he nodded to the right. “Starting with that yacht you’ve always dreamed of.”

I hadn’t even noticed that there were two yachts at his private docks instead of just the one. The new one had SS Princess emblazoned on the side, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh… Tony…”

“So, what do you say?” He asked, bringing my attention back to him. “Will you be my wife?”

“Yes.”

Thirty-Two

Swallowing nervously, I looked down at the business card in my hand for the millionth time, the stock paper soft from how often I’d looked at it in the past ten years.

Hell, just how often I’d looked at it in the past six should’ve made it fall apart by now. Not that I didn’t have it memorized.

I’d finally ended my marriage after being miserable for so long. I’d gotten my yacht, my fancy houses, my career, all the jewelry that I could dream of, and none of it made me happy. Tony and I… never grew. And I never dreamed. Every day was the same, and every day was torture as I realized that I didn’t have the one thing that actually mattered.

The garage in front of me was busy, music blasting and the sound of men shouting to each other as they worked.

Suddenly I felt absolutely ridiculous wearing a Chanel dress and Gucci heels, an Hermés bag on my arm.

BARNES TIRES AND MOTORS was lit up along the top of the shop in bright red letters, though the lights in the ‘r’ of ‘motors’ were out.

I felt like a fool. I had wanted the life I had so desperately that I gave up everything for it. I got the movie star life, my name on billboards and my face on magazines.

But it wasn’t ever enough.

My heels clicked against the blacktop as I slowly made my way towards the front area of the shop, bells clinging above my head to let them know someone was there.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” A man asked as he came around the corner.

He looked so much like Bucky, it punched the air straight from my lungs.

“H-Hi. I’m looking for James Barnes. Is he here?” I asked after a long moment of hesitation. There was no way that the man was Bucky, but I didn’t doubt he was related.

The man raised his brows, wiping his hands on a rag. “My son’s in the shop. I’ll take you to him.” His full head of hair was white, his thick facial hair matching. Even with all the wrinkles on his face, he was a handsome man. Holding open the door for me, he led me into the loud shop, some eighties rock song blasting over the speakers.

I couldn’t help but smile as ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane’ by Scorpions came on. It was one of Bucky’s favorites back when we worked in the diner together.

“BUCK! YOU GOT A VISITOR!” The man shouted, causing several people to look our way.

My cheeks felt hot as I avoided their gaze, hoping they wouldn’t recognize me. I didn’t want to be a famous movie star anymore, a celebrity that had to beg for scraps of privacy.

My mind went numb, my heart stopping inside my chest as he stepped around a gray Ford Escape another man was working on.

He was even more handsome than he was the last time I saw him.

“Can I help y—” He broke off, his blue eyes going wide when he realized that it was me. “Hi.”

All of a sudden, everything I’d planned to say flew out of my head. All of the eloquent words I’d strung together were gone. And I just proceeded to word vomit.

“Did you know that, uh, when you marry someone you’re not in love with, you won’t… you won’t grow into it?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Um… I married a man who could give me a life I thought I always wanted, and he just… sucked.” Eyes stinging, I fought back against tears. “And I thought that all I ever wanted was the life I have now, was the life movie stars and the Kardashians lived. But… But I hate it. I hated every second I was away from you.” I let out a weak laugh, unable to stop the tears. “I wanted to turn around the second I got on the bus in New Orleans, but my stupid stubborn ass didn’t. I should have. I should’ve gotten off and just run right back to you because I… I love you, James. I always have.”

The garage had gone almost deadly quiet, and my heart sank when I realized Bucky looked almost frozen in shock.

“I know that I shouldn’t have showed up like this,” I scrambled to say. “But I… I’ve been trying to get my divorce finalized for two years and I finally did, and I kept telling myself that once it was done, I’d never hold myself back from what I really want ever again. From who I want. If… If you want me.” My face felt like it was on fire, my hands shaking. I shook my head as I took a step backwards. “What am I thinking? There’s no way you’re not married. I… I’m so so—”

Before I could finish the word ‘sorry,’ Bucky had closed the distance between us, his hands cradling my face so gently. He held me like I was made of fine crystal as he kissed me. He kissed me like his life depended on it, like I was the one source of oxygen.

And I kissed him back just as fiercely. “I love you. I love you so much,” I breathed out in between kisses, unwilling to let him go as my Hermés bag fell into the dust and oil on the concrete below.

Bucky smiled into the kiss, his arm wrapping around my waist to keep me pressed to his chest. “I love you so much, darlin.’ God, I’ve missed you…” His nose nudged against mine as we finally broke for air, both of us breathing heavily.

My knees felt like Jell-O as I held onto him. His grip was the only reason I hadn’t fallen to the ground already.

“I’m sorry I was a dumb twenty-two year old,” I said, snorting as he stole another kiss.

“No… Don’t be sorry,” he insisted, his fingers massaging my scalp as our foreheads pressed together. It was like he was scared to stop touching me, like I would disappear at any second. “You were young… You had to go out and make your own mistakes… I’ve just been waiting for the day you were ready.”

All the years apart melted away and all that remained was the two of us, two souls so intertwined that there was no way to truly separate us.

Our lips were half molded together as I said, “I’m never leaving you again. I promise I swear on everything…”

My heart almost stopped inside my chest as I heard someone clearing their throat, looking to see Bucky’s father staring at us with his arms crossed over his chest. “M-Mr. Barnes, sir…”

He gave a crooked smile that was so reminiscent of Bucky that I couldn’t help but grin back. “The Mrs. will wanna know if you’re staying for dinner.”

“Yeah,” I said as I looked up at Bucky, toying with a strand of his hair. “That sounds perfect.”

Later that night, Bucky and I laid in his bed, a mess of bare limbs as his fingers ran up and down my back soothingly. “What do you want from this life, baby girl?” He asked absentmindedly.

Humming, I traced shapes on his bare chest, sometimes pressing a kiss to where his prosthetic met his shoulder, on the tender scar tissue. “You.”

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, despite the already mischievous look on his face. “Really? Not even the stars and the moon?” He asked teasingly.

I knew he’d give it to me anyway, give me all that he could. But I was sure now that the only thing I wanted from this life was his love. “Not even the stars and the moon.”

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes reader insert

[gaysimpsstuff]

I was wondering, maybe some fluff of hawks just making a bunch of bird sounds to his s/o

Awww that sounds so cute!!!

I’m assuming this is just an ordinary request and not a suggestion for Flightless Birds so I’ll write it as such!!

We just love Tumblr deleting my progress and forcing me to start over again.

Requests are very much open! Just check out my intro (pinned message, also in linktree) for rules!

Sorry this isn’t all fluffy, also sorry it’s a little shitty.

Genre: fluff, minor angst, hurt/comfort

Warnings: cursing, guns (in one section), mentions of death

Other: most of the warnings happen in one section and there will be a note next to it so you can skip that one if you need. Also, I’m sorry that some sections are way longer than others, but some of the scenes need more context than others.

There are a few different noises your boyfriend makes. Most of them are human, human speaking, human laughter, human crying, etc etc.

But some of his sounds were less than human, more bird-like. You weren’t complaining, it was drop-dead adorable when he would make bird noises.

Purring (Contentedness)-

The first time you heard him purr was when you invited him to your house the first time. You’d made chicken strips for him. You could never forget the way his eyes widened when he bit into the piece and then he sort of… vibrated?

You could hear a deep rumbling coming from him, and he just looked so at peace. It was then you realized he was purring. Your little heart leaped into your throat and you wished you could purr just like him.

“That’s really cute, Kei~” you murmured and he looked up at you, face reddening.

“Uhhh- was I-“

“Purring? Yeah, it’s really cute. I like it.” You smiled, cocking your head to the side. His face split into a goofy grin and he giggled a little.

Humming (Happiness)-

You beleived this was more human, but it just happened so much that it had to just be instict. The constant sound of him humming the last song he heard on the radio or whatever tune was stuck in his head.

You noticed it the first time when you were watching movies together, then suddenly you heard him humming a couple notes, stringing some more along before he was humming a song.

Not just any, you’re favorite. Did you sing that song that much? Did he know? Either way, you didn’t comment. Instead, you hummed the harmony and leaned against him.

Chirping (Excitement)-

This one happened when you first said ‘I love you.’ He had flown you home after a date, and you’d been together for three or four months now.

He landed on the balcony outside your apartment, and you climbed out of his arms. He let out a disappointed sigh.

“Do I have to go?” He asked.

“Sorry, Kei.” You told him. “But I have to wake up early and if you’re here I know you’ll keep me from sleeping.” He frowned, nodding sadly. “Hey look at me, babe?” His golden eyes flicked up, meeting yours.

“I love you.”

There were no words from him in that moment. He just wrapped his arms around you, chirping loudly right in your ear. You could feel his smile against your neck. If you ever smiled that wide, you’d probably break your jaw.

⚠️Screeching⚠️ (Fear)-

This one wasn’t scary just for him. It was something you didn’t usually think about before it happened, and didn’t talk about after.

Your dates with Keigo usually went uninterrupted, but on occasion something happened. You went to a cafe with him this time, and he left to use the bathroom. Not a second later, a large black van drove up onto the sidewalk. People were barely able to get out of the way.

You stood up, turning to head to the bathroom and call Keigo out to help. Then you heard someone shout.

“Grab some people and fucking run! We need hostages!”

Great.

There were arms grabbing you, yanking you backwards. You kicked and punched at the guy, but another man pointed a gun at your head. You froze instantly, you weren’t in the mood to die today.

They dragged you around to the back of the van, a couple other villains were dragging other civilians to the van.

Then you heard it.

It was the loudest thing you’d ever heard, and the most frightening. The scream was loud as a fire siren, but worse because it was so animal. You turned and saw him.

Keigo was staring at you with wide eyes, pupils blown out until you could barely see his golden irises.

The sound of the villains cursing about Hawks’ arrival barely reached your ears before feathers shot out on either side of you and the other civilians, grabbing the villains and trapping them all against the walls.

You stumbled forward, and he raced to you, grabbing you and holding you close.

Hissing/Squawking (Anger)-

This one happened before you started dating, and it was the first animal noise he made around you. The two of you were just hanging out in his office when his (now fired) secretary walked in, rolling her eyes at you.

“Hello, Hawks!” She smiled cheerfully, handing him some papers. “What’s this person doing here?” She asked.

“Oh, this is my friend Y/n! Fuka, say hi!” Fuka, the secretary, pursed her lips and gave a little wave to you before turning back to Hawks.

“You know, someone like you really ought to pick your friends carefully.” She spoke lightly, glancing at you.

“What are you saying?” Hawks narrowed his eyes at her.

“I don’t know… just that they don’t seem… like they fit you? You know, you’re friends should be more like you.”

Hawks’ upper lip curled up, and you heard what you thought was a snake, you glanced at him, he looked angry.

“Fuka, are you saying that Y/n doesn’t deserve to be my friend?”

“I mean… basically.” Fuka shrugged. “You’re the number two hero, you deserve more than Uh… this.” She waved at you, disgust evident on her face.

Hawks was on his feet a moment later, letting out a loud squawk and flapping his wings. For the next few minutes, he just yelled at her for the next two minutes to get out.

Singing (Love)-

This one happened late at night, when you were half asleep. You were cuddled against his body, warm beneath the blankets. You heard his soft voice, harmonizing with the sound of the fan, branching off and making up random lyrics.

You melted, it sounding so sweet, you never would have guessed he was a singer, or that he was any good at it. But here he was, lulling you to sleep with his silky smooth voice, tugging you closer into his body as your eyes drooped closed.

⚠️Cooing⚠️ (comfort)-

You had never meant to cry. But Keigo hadn’t come back home in three days. He hadn’t answered your texts, or your calls. You’d been pacing the apartment, restless. Was he okay?

“Keigo!” You practically screamed when he finally walked in. Through the front door. The front door. You ran into his arms and just grasped at him, trying to double check if he was actually there.

“What happened to you? Where were you? I was so scared, baby I thought you died!” You felt your eyes overflow with tears, and he softened, wiping them away. It was then that you noticed he was covered in bandages, and his wings were tiny.

“I’m so sorry, babe.” He murmured. “I never meant to scare you. A fight went on longer than I expected, my phone got broken. I needed to stay at the hospital for a few days.”

“Why didn’t you get the hospital to call me?”

“Probabalg because I wasn’t conscious.” He responded. You welled you again.

“Keigo!”

“I’m sorry baby, I’m so sorry!” He pulled you into his arms, and swayed back and forth with you. You heard a soft curling noise coming from him, similar to his purring but different.

Cooing.

“I’m sorry, Y/n. I love you so much and I promise I won’t do it again, okay? I’ll call for backup next time, I’ll always return to your side.” He cooed. “Always, always, always, always.”

#bnha #mha #keigo takami #mha hawks #bnha hawks #bnha x reader #hawks x reader #hawks x y/n #mha x reader #takami keigo #hawks fluff #hawks angst #hurt/comfort #hurt #hawks comfort

[testudoaubrei-blog]

Content note for discussions of eternal damnation, and all sorts of other shit that will trigger a lot of folks with religious trauma.

Before I get started I might as well explain where I’m coming from - unlike a lot of She-Ra fans, and a lot of queer people, I don’t have much religious trauma, or any, maybe (okay there were a number of years I was convinced I was going to hell, but that happens to everyone, right?). I was raised a liberal Christian by liberal Christian parents in the Episcopal Church, where most of my memories are overwhelmingly positive. Fuck, growing up in the 90’s, Chuch was probably the only place outside my home I didn’t have homophobia spewed at me. Because it was the 90’s and it was a fucking hellscape of bigotry where 5 year olds knew enough to taunt each other with homophobic slurs and the adults didn’t know enough to realize how fucked up that was. Anyway. This is my experience, but it is an atypical one, and I know it. Quite frankly I know that my experience of Christianity has very little at all to do with what most people experienced, or what people generally mean when they talk about Christianity as a cultural force in America today. So if you were raised Christian and you don’t recognize your theology here, congrats, neither do I, but these ideas and cultural forces are huge and powerful and dominant. And it’s this dominant Christian narrative that I’m referring to in this post. As well as, you know, a children’s cartoon about lesbian rainbow princesses. So here it goes. This is going to get batshit.

"All events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God." - John Calvin

“We’re all just a bunch of wooly guys” - Noelle Stevenson

This is a post triggered by a single scene, and a single line. It’s one of the most fucked-up scenes in She-Ra, toward the end of Save the Cat. Catra, turned into a puppet by Prime, struggles with her chip, desperately trying to gain control of herself, so lost and scared and vulnerable that she flings aside her own death wish and her pride and tearfully begs Adora to rescue her. Adora reaches out , about to grab her, and then Prime takes control back, pronounces ‘disappointing’ and activates the kill switch that pitches Catra off the platform and to her death (and seriously, she dies here, guys - also Adora breaks both her legs in the fall). But before he does, he dismisses Catra with one of his most chilling lines. “Some creatures are meant only for destruction.”

And that’s when everyone watching probably had their heart broken a little bit, but some of the viewers raised in or around Christianity watching the same scene probably whispered ‘holy shit’ to themselves. Because Prime’s line - which works as a chilling and callous dismissal of Catra - is also an allusion to a passage from the Bible. In fact, it’s from one of the most fucked up passages in a book with more than its share of fucked up passages. It’s from Romans 9:22, and I’m going to quote several previous verses to give the context of the passage (if not the entire Epistle, which is more about who needs to abide by Jewish dietary restrictions but was used to construct a systematic theology in the centuries afterwards because people decided it was Eternal Truth).

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

The context of the allusion supports the context in the show. Prime is dismissing Catra - serial betrayer, liar, failed conqueror, former bloody-handed warlord - as worthless, as having always been worthless and fit only to be destroyed. He is speaking from a divine and authoritative perspective (because he really does think he’s God, more of this in my TL/DR Horde Prime thing). Prime is echoing not only his own haughty dismissal of Catra, and Shadow Weaver’s view of her, but also perhaps the viewer’s harshest assessment of her, and her own worst fears about herself. Catra was bad from the start, doomed to destroy and to be destroyed. A malformed pot, cracked in firing, destined to be shattered against a wall and have her shards classified by some future archaeologist 2,000 years later. And all that’s bad enough.

But the full historical and theological context of this passage shows the real depth of Noelle Stevenson’s passion and thought and care when writing this show. Noelle was raised in Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christianity. To my knowledge, he has never specified what sect or denomination, but in interviews and her memoir Noelle has shown a particular concern for questions that this passage raises, and a particular loathing for the strains of Protestant theology that take this passage and run with it - that is to say, Calvinism. So while I’m not sure if Noelle was raised as a conservative, Calvinist Presbyterian, his preoccupation with these questions mean that it’s time to talk about Calvinism.

It would be unfair, perhaps, to say that Calvinism is a systematic theology built entirely upon the Epistles of Romans and Galatians, but only -just- (and here my Catholic readers in particular will chuckle to themselves and lovingly stroke their favorite passage of the Epistle of James). The core of Calvinist Doctrine is often expressed by the very Dutch acronym TULIP:

Total Depravity - people are wholly evil, and incapable of good action or even willing good thoughts or deeds

Unconditional Election - God chooses some people to save because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, not because they did anything to deserve, trigger or accept it

Limited Atonement - Jesus died only to save the people God chose to save, not the rest of us bastards

Irresistible Grace - God chooses some people to be saved - if you didn’t want to be saved, too bad, God said so.

Perseverance of the Saints - People often forget this one and assume it’s ‘predestination’ but it’s actually this - basically, once saved by God, always saved, and if it looks like someone falls out of grace, they were never saved to begin with. Well that’s all sealed up tight I guess.

Reading through these, predestination isn’t a single doctrine in Calvinism but the entire theological underpinnings of it together with humanity’s utter powerlessness before sin. Basically God has all agency, humanity has none. Calvinism (and a lot of early modern Protestantism) is obsessed with questions of how God saves people (grace alone, AKA Sola Fides) and who God saves (the people god elects and only the people God elects, and fuck everyone else).

It’s apparent that Noelle was really taken by these questions, and repelled by the answers he heard. He’s alluded to having a tattoo refuting the Gospel passage about Sheep and Goats being sorted at the end times, affirming instead that ‘we’re all just a bunch of wooly guys’ (you can see this goat tattoo in some of his self-portraits in comics, etc). He’s also mentioned that rejecting and subverting destiny is a huge part of everything he writes as a particular rejection of the idea that some individual people are 'chosen' by God or that God has a plan for any of us. You can see that -so clearly- in Adora’s arc, where Adora embraces and then rejects destiny time and again and finally learns to live life for herself.

But for Catra, we’re much more concerned about the most negative aspect of this - the idea that some people are vessels meant for destruction. And that’s something else that Noelle is preoccupied with. In her memoir in the section about leaving the church and becoming a humanistic atheist, there is a drawing of a pot and the question ‘Am I a vessel prepared for destruction?’ Obviously this was on Noelle’s mind (And this is before he came out to himself as queer!).

To look at how this question plays out in Catra’s entire arc, let’s first talk about how ideas of damnation and salvation actually play out in society. And for that I’m going to plug one of my favorite books, Gin Lun’s Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction (if you can tell by now, I am a fucking blast at parties). Lun tells the long and very interesting story about, how ideas of hell and who went there changed during the Early American Republic. One of the interesting developments that she talks about is how while at first people who were repelled by Calvinism started moving toward a doctrine of universal salvation (no on goes to hell, at least not forever*), eventually they decided that hell was fine as long as only the right kind of people went there. Mostly The Other - non-Christian foreigners, Catholics, Atheists, people who were sinners in ways that were not just bad but weird and violated Victorian ideas of respectability. Really, Hell became a way of othering people, and arguably that’s how it survives today, especially as a way to other queer people (but expanding this is slated for my Montero rant). Now while a lot of people were consciously rejecting Calvinist predestination, they were still drawing the distinction between the Elect (good, saved, worthwhile) and the everyone else (bad, damned, worthless). I would argue that secularized ideas of this survive to this day even among non-Christian spaces in our society - we like to draw lines between those who Elect, and those who aren’t.

And that’s what brings us back to Catra. Because Catra’s entire arc is a refutation of the idea that some people are worthless and irredeemable, either by nature, nurture or their own actions. Catra’s actions strain the conventions of who is sympathetic in a Kid’s cartoon - I’ve half joked that she’s Walter White as a cat girl, and it’s only half a joke. She’s cruel, self-deluded, she spends 4 seasons refusing to take responsibility for anything she does and until Season 5 she just about always chooses the thing that does the most damage to herself and others. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, the show goes out of its way to demonstrate that Catra is morally culpable in every step of her descent into evil (except maybe her break with reality just before she pulls the lever). The way that Catra personally betrays everyone around her, the way she strips herself of all of her better qualities and most of what makes her human, hell even her costume changes would signal in any other show that she’s irredeemable.

It’s tempting to see this as Noelle’s version of being edgy - pushing the boundaries of what a sympathetic character is, throwing out antiheroics in favor of just making the villain a protagonist. Noelle isn’t quite Alex ‘I am in the business of traumatizing children’ Hirsch, who seems to have viewed his job as pushing the bounds of what you could show on the Disney Channel (I saw Gravity Falls as an adult and a bunch of that shit lives rent free in my nightmares forever), but Noelle has his own dark side, mostly thematically. The show’s willingness to deal with abuse, and messed up religious themes, and volatile, passionate, not particularly healthy relationships feels pretty daring. I’m not joking when I gleefully recommend this show to friends as ‘a couple from a Mountain Goats Song fights for four seasons in a cartoon intended for 9 year olds’. Noelle is in his own way pushing the boundaries of what a kids show can do. If you read Noelle’s other works like Nimona, you see an argument for Noelle being at least a bit edgy. Nimona is also angry, gleefully destructive, violent and spiteful - not unlike Catra. Given that it was a 2010s webcomic and not a kids show, Nimona is a good deal worse than Catra in some ways - Catra doesn’t kill people on screen, while Nimona laughs about it (that was just like, a webcomic thing - one of the fan favorite characters in my personal favorite, Narbonic, was a fucking sociopath, and the heroes were all amoral mad scientists, except for the superintelligent gerbil**). But unlike Nimona, whose fate is left open ended, Catra is redeemed.

And that is weird. We’ve had redemption arcs, but generally not of characters with -so- much vile stuff in their history. Going back to the comparison between her and Azula, many other shows, like Avatar, would have made Catra a semi-sympathetic villain who has a sob-story in their origin but who is beyond redemption, and in so doing would articulate a kind of psychologized Calvinism where some people are too traumatized to ever be fully and truly human. I’d argue this is the problem with Azula as a character - she’s a fun villain, but she doesn’t have moral agency, and the ultimate message of her arc - that she’s a broken person destined only to hurt people - is actually pretty fucked up. And that’s the origin story of so many serial killers and psycopaths that populate so many TV shows and movies. Beyond ‘hurt people hurt people’ they have nothing to teach us except perhaps that trauma makes you a monster and that the only possible response to people doing bad things is to cut them out of your life and out of our society (and that’s why we have prisons, right?)

And so Catra’s redemption and the depths from which she claws herself back goes back to Noelle’s desire to prove that no person is a vessel ‘fitted for destruction.’ Catra goes about as far down the path of evil as we’ve ever seen a protagonist in a kids show go, and she still has the capacity for good. Importantly, she is not subject to total depravity - she is capable of a good act, if only one at first. Catra is the one who begins her own redemption (unlike in Calvinism, where grace is unearned and even unwelcomed) - because she wants something better than what she has, even if its too late, because she realizes that she never wanted any of this anyway, because she wants to do one good thing once in her life even if it kills her.

The very extremity of Catra’s descent into villainy serves to underline the point that Noelle is trying to make - that no one can be written off completely, that everyone is capable of change, and that no human being is garbage, no matter how twisted they’ve become. Meanwhile her ability to set her own redemption in motion is a powerful statement of human agency, and healing, and a refutation of Calvinism’s idea that we are powerless before sin or pop cultural tropes about us being powerful before the traumas of our upbringing. Catra’s arc, then, is a kind of anti-Calvinist theological statement - about the nature of people and the nature of goodness.

Now, there is a darker side to this that Noelle has only hinted at, but which is suggested by other characters on the show. Because while Catra’s redemption shows that people are capable of change, even when they’ve done horrible things, been fucked up and fucked themselves up, it also illustrates the things people do to themselves that make change hard. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, two of the most sinister parts of her descent into villainy are her self-dehumanization (crushing her own compassion and desire to do good) and her rewriting of her own history in her speech and memory to make her own actions seem justified (which we see with her insistence that Adora left her, eliding Adora’s offers to have Catra join her, or her even more clearly false insistence that Entrapta had betrayed them). In Catra, these processes keep her going down the path of evil, and allow her to nearly destroy herself and everyone else. But we can see the same processes at work in two much darker figures - Shadow Weaver and Horde Prime. These are both rants for another day, but the completeness of Shadow Weaver’s narcissistic self-justification and cultivated callousness and the even more complete narcissism of Prime’s god complex cut both characters off from everyone around them. Perhaps, in a theoretical sense, they are still redeemable, but for narrative purposes they might as well be damned.

This willingness to show a case where someone -isn’t- redeemed actually serves to make Catra’s redemption more believable, especially since Noelle and the writers draw the distinction between how Catra and SW/Prime can relate to reality and other people, not how broken they are by their trauma (unlike Zuko and Azula, who are differentiated by How Fucked Uolp They Are). Redemption is there, it’s an option, we can always do what is right, but someone people will choose not to, in part because doing the right thing involves opening ourselves to the world and others, and thus being vulnerable. Noelle mentions this offhandedly in an interview after Season 1 with the She-Ra Progressive of Power podcast - “I sometimes think that shades of grey, sympathetic villains are part of the escapist fantasy of shows like this.” Because in the real world, some people are just bastards, a point that was particularly clear in 2017. Prime and Shadow Weaver admit this reality, while Catra makes a philosophical point that even the bastards can change their ways (at least in theory).

*An idea first proposed in the second century by Origen, who’s a trip and a fucking half by himself, and an idea that becomes the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which protestants vehemently denied!

**Speaking of favorite Noelle tropes

#she ra horde prime #she ra #she ra catra #she ra spoilers #redemption arcs #toxic religion

[fallen-gravity]

Soft Hearts and After-Midnight Talks

Ford can’t let go of the past. Mabel can’t stop worrying about the future.

Put together, they’re a melting pot of insomnia and overwhelming emotions.

AO3 Link

Love had never come easy to Ford. 

As a kid, his father always said it wasn’t manly to show affection. It made a man weak to wear his heart on his sleeve, and he was merely doing him a favor by showing him tough love, because out in the real world the men who put their emotions first would get torn to shreds. 

His mother tried her hardest, but she too had times where she was too busy running her psychic hotline or helping Pa run the pawn shop to pay him much attention.

Ford supposes the closest he ever had to unconditional love as a kid came from Stan. Whenever Ma or Pa were too busy, or the kids at school were screaming and running from his deformity, he knew he could always rely on Stan to be there for him. He’d always been the one to throw a punch for him, to talk him through a panic attack, patch up the scrapes and black eyes he’d received from Crampelter, or even assure him that getting a B minus on an exam wasn’t the end of the world, even if his eyes were rolling into the back of his skull the entire time he said it.

 But even that sort of love felt fickle. The night of the science fair, it felt as though something inside of Ford shriveled up and died, and he knew that the rejection from West Coast Tech was only the half the cause of it.

When Stan drove off into the night, it’s as if he took that shriveled up little piece of Ford with him as his grand final fuck you. 

After that, Ford tried everything he could. In college he buried himself into the research he was most passionate for, but that could only get him so far when Fiddleford would drag him to bed and force him to be alone with his thoughts. He’d tried going out drinking to forget said thoughts, but he learned the hard way that he was an emotional drunk and alcohol only made those thoughts worse. 

If there’s anything he did know, it’s that this lack of love in his life could probably explain how he was able to fall for Bill’s cunning tricks so easy.

“Unlovable?” Bill’s words still rang in the back of his head. “By the time this portal’s finished, you’ll have the whole world at your feet! You’ll be a household name! There’ll be thousands cheering the name Stanford Pines, the man who changed the world!” 

What a fool he’d been, blissfully ignoring all of the warning signs for even the slightest chance that a gateway between worlds could earn him love.

What an even bigger fool he’d been to turn away his brother’s love even after ten years of nothing but fear and resentment standing between them.

Ford sighs. He knows, logically, that dwelling on the past will only make things worse. He knows things are okay between him and Stan now. They’re setting off on their first journey on the Stan-O War II next week; things couldn’t get any better between them.

But he also knows that insomnia and intrusive thoughts are a package deal. He’d tried sitting out on the front porch to gaze at the stars and feel the late-summer air on his face to relax, but his inner demons always find their way. 

There’s a tiny knock on the doorframe behind him. He jumps at the noise, and turns to see who else could possibly be awake at nearly three in the morning. He’s half expecting Stan, but to his surprise it’s Mabel, sleepily rubbing at her eyes with one hand and holding a half-empty cup of ice water in the other. 

“Grunkle Ford?” her voice is groggy and strained. “Is that you?” 

“Mabel?” is the only comprehensive response that comes out. “What are you doing up so late?” 

“Dipper cursed me with his insomnia and now I can’t sleep” she pouts, and takes a sip from her cup like it’s a shot glass as he joins him on the couch. “Why are you still up, Grunkle Ford?” she squints. “I feel like I should ask you the same question” 

He chuckles. “Nothing you need to worry about, dear. I’m just doing some thinking”

“Hmmm…” she squints long and hard at him, like she’s trying to read his mind. “Okay, but I’m watching you. I’m the expert at annoying people until they tell me what’s bothering them” 

Ford can’t help but smile. “Noted,” he replies, and shifts his position so he’s facing more towards her. “What about you? I’m the expert in insomnia, so I can’t imagine it’s the only thing keeping you awake"

For the briefest of moments, Mabel’s playful smile drops. She hides the sudden shift by taking another sip of water.

“What? Psshhh…” she dismisses the thought with a wave of her hand. “That’s silly! Everyone knows insomnia means you can’t sleep for no reason. Some expert you are, Grunkle Ford” 

She smiles, but it’s strained, and fake, and nothing like the usual smile she flashes when she’s joking around. 

“Mabel.” Ford says once, in a firm yet soft tone, and she winces. 

“Okay, fine” she mumbles, and drinks the rest of the water from her cup before she continues. “I’ve been having some dumb thoughts too”. 

Ford shakes his head. “There’s no such thing as a dumb thought, Mabel. Even if it’s bothering you, it’s indicative of how you’re really feeling” he pats gently at his lap, inviting her to scoot closer. “Maybe I can help” he smiles, ever so slightly, ever so softly. “Even us experts mess up in our own fields sometimes” 

She moves too quickly into his arms for a hug for him to read her expression properly. 

“Then I feel like a big dumb hypocrite” Mabel murmurs into Ford’s sweater, her voice on the edge of breaking. 

Ford frowns, and places an arm around her to reciprocate the hug. “What for?”

Mabel scrunches up his sweater in her fists. “I...I made this whole big ordeal about Dipper wanting to stay here with you after the summer’s over for the apprenticeship, and I still don’t want us to be apart, but…”  she buries her face into his sweater, like she’s ashamed of herself for even daring to speak them. “...now that summer’s actually over, and Dipper and I are supposed to be leaving in the morning, I’m not sure I even want to leave” 

Her voice finally breaks, and she sniffles into his sweater. “Everyone’s always saying that the real world is so scary, and high school is the worst, and all these things about not knowing what you had until it’s gone, and...I don’t want it to be gone, Grunkle Ford, I love Gravity Falls. But I can’t just tell Dipper that, because then he’ll get all worried, and think that he did something wrong, because he’s already apologized for what he said when we were fighting a thousand times, and-”

Ford gently grips Mabel’s shoulders to cut her off, and pulls her away to make her look him in the eyes. “Mabel, are you going through all of this trouble because you’re worried you’re going to...miss Gravity Falls when you get home?”

“Not just the town!” Mabel exclaims, and rubs at her eyes with her wrist. “I’m gonna miss everything! I’m gonna miss the Shack, I’m gonna miss my friends, I’m gonna miss you and Stan,” she counts off on her fingers and sighs. “I miss everyone at home. I do. But now that I have so many friends here, I don’t want to feel like I’m leaving them behind”

There’s a brief pause, but before Ford can open his mouth to respond, Mabel goes on, murmuring so quietly it’s as if she doesn’t mean to speak out loud at all. 

“Or...I don’t want to feel like they’re leaving me behind.”

...Oh.

The fear of being left behind.

Forgotten.

The fear of becoming….unlovable. 

That….Ford knows better than anybody. 

“Mabel, listen to me,” Ford gently tugs on her chin to force her to make eye contact with him. “Nobody in this town is ever going to forget you. It doesn’t matter if you’re gone for a year, or three, or ten, I can guarantee that the next time you step foot in this town everyone’s going to remember the name Mabel Pines”

“You...really think so?” she blushes. 

“I know so,” he nods. “And it’s got nothing to do with Weirdmageddon, or saving the world, or any of that. It’s because you’re magnetic, Mabel. You’ve got a personality that everyone loves. I bet that pizza delivery man you became pen pals with is just sitting at home eagerly awaiting his first letter from you” 

She giggles. “I don’t know about that…” 

“Still,” Ford continues, “You’ve shown kindness to everyone, Mabel. People don’t forget kindness easily.” he gestures out towards the forest. “Gravity Falls may not be your home, but the people who lived here sure don’t seem to see it that way. You’re not just a tourist, or just some kid visiting her great uncle, you’re one of them.” he beams. “They’re lucky to have had you, Mabel, even just for the one summer” 

Her eyes have pools of tears in them, but the beaming smile on her face outshines them. She hurls herself at him in a tight hug, burying her face deep into his sweater. 

“I’m lucky to have you too, Grunkle Ford” she murmurs. “I love you”

I love you.

Ford hasn’t had those words spoken to him since he was a kid. 

I love you.

It feels like he’s floating on air, and the most grounded he’s felt in decades. It’s freeing, and exhilarating, yet it’s comfortable, and warm. It’s unfamiliar, yet everything he ever lost. 

The words ring in his ears and bounce around in his chest before they settle comfortably into the piece of his heart that had been broken for decades.

I love you. 

Mabel Pines, after everything he’s put her through, loves him. 

A sound escapes him that’s halfway between choking and sobbing. He pulls her even closer into his arms, and silently vows to never let the cruel world dig its pessimistic claws into her for as long as she lives.

“I love you too,” he manages to whisper, and gives her a smooch on the top of her head.

#my writing #gravity falls #ford and mabel bonding #sweater twins #ford pines #mabel pines

[sserpente]

HERE WE GO ONE LAST TIME LET’S TALK ABOUT EPISODE 6

I AM SO CONFUSED!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!! This episode messed with my feelings and I AM NOT OKAY BUT DAMN WAS IT G O O D!

FIRST OF ALL THEY KISSED OMG THEY KISSED I FUCKING KNEW IT OMG YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES I SCREAMED. WHAT DID I TELL YOU?! If Loki ever gets a love interest, it’s gonna be full of angst and hurt and I WAS RIGHT. Sylvie, I love you but you hurt my husband, you are ON MY LIST.

My GOD when they fought!!! So Sylvie can do magic too now?! I mean they’re the same, like she said, if Loki can do enchantment, Sylvie can do magic. Those moves, JESUS CHRIST those MOVES! That was literally the most impressive (and also hottest) fight scene in the entire show. I forgot to talk about this last week but when Loki got the sword from Kid!Loki and that music was playing I was like “Well talk about an upgrade right there!” I feel like this has so much more meaning than just a fresh way to show off Loki’s fighting skills, you know what I mean? In my opinion, his upgrade to a sword really reflects his character development!

SPEAKING OF WHICH, Loki’s character development that “came together”, if you will, in this episode, I am speechless! I am BEYOND speechless. Tom did it. He took my heart, guess I didn’t need it anyway. OMG. “I’ve been where you are” THERE IS SO MUCH MEANING BEHIND THIS. Did you see his face when he realised that Sylvie probably never trusted him to begin with?! HE WAS SO HEART-BROKEN BACK AT THE TVA.

So, “He Who Remains”, yeah? Guess it was a completely different character, after all! I saw it coming but I also didn’t, if that makes any sense at all. It probably shouldn’t be “He Who Remains” but “The Questions That Remain”. What was Sylvie’s Nexus Event? Why does Mobius not remember Loki anymore? How the fuck did the TVA get turned around so fast? What will happen now that Sylvie literally broke reality?! And what about those clips from the trailer (Loki on the throne of Asgard and him back at Stark Tower with his sceptre)?! I really thought they were gonna be some sort of visions or something! That means they were either fake scenes or my brother was right when he said that we’d be getting them in Season 2.

BUT AT LEAST NEITHER OF THEM DIED THIS TIME, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN?!

I already had a feeling they’d end the series in a cliffhanger but HOW DARE THEY.

AND WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT SEASON 2, WHAT DID I TELL YOU?! THEY’RE ALREADY COOKING IT UP, I FREAKING TOLD YOU GUYS!

I am slightly hysterical. SLIGHTLY. The fact that Tom will be ON TUMBLR later today doesn’t exactly make it any easier. I’m gonna make some food now and then WATCH IT AGAIN.

JESUS CHRIST, I loved this series so much! It’s a little sad that this was the last time for now I get to freak out online about the latest episode but it’s gonna be worth the wait, I know it! You could feel Tom’s passion for Loki in every single scene, I can’t even put into words how much I appreciate all the hard work that went into making this! ♥

#loki #loki spoilers #loki show #loki show spoilers #loki series #loki series spoilers

[watermelonlipstick]

Dreams, Chapter 11

If you haven’t read this series before, you might want to start on Chapter 1, or check out the Dreams Masterlist! Here’s the series description:

When Dean dies for good leaving Sam and his girlfriend (the reader) behind, they must figure out how to carry on without him. Alone, reeling, and unsure what to do next, trying to honor Dean’s memory and follow their hearts gets even more complicated when their nightmares become dreams that feel a little too real.

Title: Dreams, Chapter 11

Pairing: (past) Dean Winchester x Reader, (eventual) Sam Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 2616

Summary: Another dream makes things more clear for the reader and less clear for Sam.

Warnings: angst, fluff, swearing, s l o w  b u r n

           The booths are those plastic-coated pressboard swoops that are so easy to clean, one row down either side of the long room once you walk past the counter to order. Like other pizza places, there are red pepper flakes and grated parmesan on the table, but they also keep ranch dressing in a minifridge behind the counter as a concession to Midwestern sensibilities. You know you’re just outside Dayton just like you know the pizza shop is run by a family, father and two older teenage daughters deftly throwing dough and scattering cheese evenly over it in a way that shows their years of practice. Dean sits across the table with his elbows on it, one forefinger and thumb picking through a plate of nachos between you. His black t-shirt, amulet, and lack of flannel make you notice the hum of the air conditioner in the background, straining over the 90’s alternative radio and reminding you that you’d been here in a heat stroke the summer after you and Dean had gotten together, his golden freckles and lightened tips of his slightly messy hair underlining the memory.

           “They don’t serve nachos here.” It’s half statement and half question.

           “Babe, it’s your dream. They’ll serve whatever you want. Does the pizza suck in Wisconsin or something?”

           The two sisters are whispering to each other as they look over at your table, an almost-argument that ends with who you suspect is the older sister poofing a pinch of flour into the other’s face. They’re both cute girls but she’s adorable, soft cherubic cheeks and messy bun piling impossibly glossy hair on her head as she walks over to the table with a gigantic pizza. “Can I get you anything else?” she asks in a perfect welcoming cheerleader pitch.

           “I think we’re good for now, sweetheart,” Dean purrs with a wink. That you remember; you’d playfully chastised Dean for dazzling the teens, laughing in his face when he’d said it wasn’t on purpose, that he couldn’t help it if chicks dug him. The wink had proved your point then and now it makes the girl’s cheeks flush red.

           She catches herself remarkably well, the stammer almost slipping under the radar as she assures you that you can “holler if you need anything!”

           Dean brushes his fingers free of nacho debris and loosens a piece of pizza from the melting cheese of the ones next to it. “Last time you had all kinds of sweet nothings and questions for me and now you’re Silent Cal?”

           “I don’t think this is real, but I’m pretty sure if I push it you’ll either die in this dream or I’ll wake up, so my plan is to stay here as long as we can.”

           He drops the pizza back into the box and wipes off his fingers on a napkin before slouching into the booth, arm stretched across its length. “So test me then. Gimme a question only I would know or something.”

           “Well if I ask you something that I know the answer to, my brain will just project you knowing it. See the problem?”

           Dean squints and pouts in consideration, touch of a smile dancing across his face and if it isn’t the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen may you be struck dead right now. “Then ask me something you don’t know the answer to.”

           You think about explaining how that too could just be some part of your subconscious recreation of Dean but you don’t want to keep pulling at loose strings in the event that it wakes you up. It’s too hard to keep from smiling, seeing Dean charming and relaxed like this, and when you grin it makes Dean bite his lip. “What’s something I don’t know the answer to?”

           “Ah, ah—I thought I’m just a hologram, how would I know?”

           “Projection, but okay,” you stall. “Wait, here’s one. Sam said when I first started going on jobs with you guys that you had to have a conversation about staying focused. What was that all about?”

           He runs his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. “Man, why would he tell you that?” he says under his breath, smirking mostly to himself before leaning forward to meet your eyes. “Fine. I’m not even sure that you’re going to remember this. There was a vengeful spirit in Indiana, some like homesteader guy, ring a bell?”

           You have only the vaguest sense of recollection and sort of waggle your head to show it.

           “It was way at the beginning of when you started coming on jobs with us. You and Bobby got into it because he wanted you to bring your own car so you could ditch us if we were ‘acting like cretins’ or some shit like that?”

           That fits the last puzzle piece in for you and makes you chuckle. “He ended up giving me like $250 of mad money in case I needed a new room or a bus ticket, yeah. I remember.”

           “I didn’t know that part but that’s gotta be the same trip. The whole thing was really stupid. Basically we were supposed to have your six but both me and Sammy wanted to carry a shotgun instead of doing that protection spell because it looked cooler. We were arguing about it when the spirit whipped a chunk of the barn’s scaffolding at you and we didn’t catch it in time. You heard it coming and ducked so nothing ended up happening, but it fucking demolished the wall behind you. It was a huge fuckup—thing could’ve taken your head clean off, you know? Sam was so broken up about it he was wasted for like a week solid after we dropped you back off at Bobby’s.”

           “Really? That doesn’t sound like him at all.”

           “I know, usually he does some kind of pouty baby bullshit. But I mean both of us felt really guilty that bitching at each other could’ve taken you out.”

           Dean’s eyes rake over your face, seeming to linger over every inch like he’s going to draw a topographical map of it later by memory. You can tell he’s waiting for you to say something but you can’t think of anything other than tracing each of his freckles where they dust across his nose.

           A hand reaches over the table to run his fingertips along the back of yours, and that certainly feels real enough to send an ache into your gut. “What if you ask Sam? If he says that’s not what happened then you can keep saying I’m not real and you don’t have to listen to me.”

           “But he already basically told me that. The only thing I probably wouldn’t have guessed about that is Sam getting drunk about it—these could’ve been just well-informed guesses about when it probably was or the kinds of things it seemed like he was implying.”

           His lips press into a firm line and the barest touch of pink rises in his cheeks. “We, um, we pinky swore on it.”

           The adorableness of his embarrassment makes you grin teasingly as much as the divulgence does. “A pinky promise? You guys must’ve been pretty serious to take such a sacred oath.”

           He rolls his eyes at your ribbing and throws his hands back in his lap with a defeated smirk. “Laugh it up. Would that be good enough proof for you?”

           It seems like Dean has figured out a loophole in the system, but you’re sure the light of day and Sam’s scrutiny will figure out why it isn’t actual evidence of communication with Dean beyond death, and you tell him that.

           A curtain of suspicious confusion falls over Dean’s face. “Sam being weird about it is what’s keeping you from trusting this? Kid, I’ve been talking to Sa—”

           And you woke up.

           The bed was empty next to you but you could smell something sweet in the air and hear the light clinking of pots or pans Sam was trying his best to keep quiet. You blinked back a few tears of frustration—who even cared if it was real or not? Reliving a great memory with Dean was more than enough and instead of enjoying it you’d wasted a chance at some small respite from your constant ache of grief. And even then, you hadn’t used any of your time to figure out how the whole thing worked, how you could see him again.

           But the most pressing issue was what you thought Dean had been trying to say before disappearing; that he had gotten through to Sam. Sam, of course, deserved to have secrets, but if he had been sitting on the resolution to all the angst you’d been struggling through in the last weeks (months?), you couldn’t imagine a reason why that wouldn’t hurt. Nothing would be solved by laying in your bed to sulk about it, though, so you threw on some clothes and went to brush your teeth.

           When you came out, Sam was hunched slightly, the standard stove highlighting his decidedly non-standard height as he shuffled a pan’s handle. He had a dishtowel over his t-shirt clad shoulder, a habit from the bar that sometimes held over when he was in the kitchen at home, and bare feet under old jeans. They were wearing through at the knees, and you knew they were absolutely pajama-soft from having periodically thrown them in with your own laundry. Through the kitchen window, enough snow-brightened sunlight came into the room to cast him in a halo glow that gleamed off of his hair. As long as it had gotten, chunks still swept into his face as he looked down at the stove, and he tucked one behind his ear as he looked up, half-singing a Buddy Guy song that was playing softly. It was stunning—he was stunning, statuesque and strong and right there in front of you. Cooking you breakfast while you slept in, of all things, chocolate chip pancakes he had to have remembered were your favorite from ages ago. You couldn’t even remember the last time you’d had them and right now, nothing in the world sounded better. He beamed and tilted the pan toward you. “Morning! I made pancakes, you want some?”

           And you should’ve just let the moment rest, sat in the rare bright winter morning and eaten chocolate chip pancakes and relished how well the boiler was working, maybe later in the day read a predictable murder mystery or taped off the living room to be painted and listened to REM until your shoulders were sore from running rollers up the walls all afternoon. Instead, about as stupid and weird a flop as if a toad had come out of your mouth, you said, “Have you been talking to Dean too?”

           Sam’s face fell but not in the right way. There was too much angle in his brow and that confirmed it. “What?” he asked, but it didn’t land.

           “How long have you been talking to Dean?”

           He kept that curious smile for a second, like maybe he could push through by playing dumb and you would forget, but finally his lips flattened and his jaw clenched as he stacked a finished pancake on top of its predecessors. “Just because I’m having dreams about him doesn’t mean it’s really him,” he finally answered, softly and as though he was telling the bubbling pancake batter in front of him, unable to meet your eyes.

           You felt the lump forming in your throat and tried to get the words out ahead of its solidifying. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

           “For what?” He let go of the pan and turned toward you, supporting his weight on the countertop. “So we can both—”

           “Both what? Be delusional? Is that what you were going to say?”

           Sam didn’t answer, but the set of his jaw was firm and he kept his eyes locked on yours.

           “He told me you were drunk for a week after the hunt you were talking about.” You watched as Sam’s pupils widened a touch. “And that you didn’t just promise each other to buckle down, you pinky swore.” Sam’s Adam’s apple jumped in his throat. “It’s true, isn’t it? I can see in your face that it is. Did you already know it’s really him?”

           He looked down at the floor and clenched his jaw. “I was pretty sure. Or at least I really hoped I was pretty sure.”

           You felt more than consciously allowed your mouth’s falling open. “How? How long?”

           “It just—I don’t know, it just felt different. I—uh, the first time was after we made those cupcakes; he asked about the cupcakes.”

           You slumped against the countertop opposite him, speechless. He shoved the pan off the hot burner a little too hard, put a palm on either side of the stove to brace himself. The two of you stood like that for a long minute, the smell of chocolate not matching the stiff heaviness in the air at all.

           “I don’t—what if it’s not real?” His throat sounded bound even though you couldn’t see his face, hulking mass of him spread across the tiny kitchen.

           He seemed so defeated, so young, and then you couldn’t believe how selfish you’d been, not putting two and two together that something challenging Sam’s grip on or understanding of reality must shove him back to the brain melting torture he’d endured in the cage and the months—years, maybe, he was always so tight-lipped about it—afterward. What the fuck were you thinking, not seeing it before, how this could seem like a perfectly laid trap for Sam, the most poetic way to whip his mind into stiff peaks of meringue. It made so much sense why he would need time to really suss it out, see the situation from all angles and investigate, check and re-check. Tears pricked the corners of your eyes but you blinked them away. This was not about you or your complicated need for him, it was about Sam, what he’d been through, what he was likely putting himself through even now.

           “The, um, the pancakes smell really good.”

           “Yeah?” There was half a laugh behind his words, humorless as it was. “I hope they’re okay, I know they’re your, uh, your favorite.”

           “I’m surprised you remembered.”

           Sam leaned on one arm to rub his face with his other hand. “Yeah, well.”

           “Can I help?”

           After a beat, he stood up and offered some space next to him on the stove. You worked hip to hip, sprinkling the chocolate chips while Sam flipped. He was scraping the last of the batter into a last little runt pancake with a spatula when you couldn’t help yourself and wrapped your arms around his waist. He seemed surprised, if sad, before setting down the bowl and covering as much of you as he could, folding over you like a protective shell. It reminded you of that dirty motel room, months and months ago, when Sam held you together as you cracked in his arms. All he could do then was be steadfast in reminding you he was still there, if nothing else was, and you hoped you were able to give him the same now.

           You silently laid two place settings on the kitchen counter while Sam set the food out. He sat next to you and had picked up his fork when you touched his wrist to still him. “If it’s not real for you then I’m losing it too.”

           Sam thought for a second, then raised his forearm and kissed the back of your hand where you held onto him before cutting into his pancakes.

-

Continue to Dreams, Chapter 12

Thanks again for reading! If you liked it, check out my Masterlist or send me a request!

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[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Alt Ending, Part 5

Hot take but finals kinda suck

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Tag: @solangelo252

You’d think her body would be grateful that she was finally giving it food, but no. She put it in her mouth and instantly felt nauseous. It didn’t even want to go down her throat, and keeping it there felt basically impossible.

But Tim had looked so happy when she had tried, so she forced it down.

(Well, she forced some of it down. If he noticed that a good amount of the food she brought to her mouth actually disappeared into the sleeves and folds of her dress he didn’t say anything.)

Tim started coming by three times a day with food after that. She didn’t complain despite her discomfort, she had really missed him.

Also, he looked stressed out and/or exhausted whenever she saw him. She worried about him. They both had a tendency to overwork themselves when they hit blocks, hell she’d sometimes joined him in his week-long deep dives into cases, but now that she was an outsider looking in… she was kind of shocked she’d ever let it get that far for either of them. When was the last time he’d slept through the night? Taken proper time to clean himself, even? A while, she guessed from the deep bags under his eyes and the way his hair was frayed from running his fingers through it.

“Timmy,” she chirped.

He flashed her a tiny smile. “Hey,” he said, coming over and taking a seat beside her on the bed.

She took the bag from him and set it aside, much to his dismay, but then she reached over and dragged him into some cuddles and he suddenly had new concerns. He groaned into her shoulder.

“Bean, come on, I don’t want to sleep.”

She didn’t let go. “You need to.”

“Don’t have time.”

She rolled her eyes, bringing a hand up to start attempting to smooth out his hair. “You have to sleep eventually.”

“And I do!”

She didn’t answer, which he took to mean she didn’t believe him (a good assumption, she didn’t).

“I do! I get at least a few hours a week.”

“Wow, amazing. I take it back. You totally have a healthy sleep schedule.”

“Worry about yourself, first. You don’t sleep either,” he huffed, but he was starting to relax into her hold nonetheless.

“I’m also literally dead.”

“You used to say you’d sleep when you were dead.”

Marinette scoffed. “Well, to be fair, I thought I’d actually die when I died.”

He gave a short laugh, and she opted not to acknowledge that it was a little forced.

She yawned and laid back with his face in her shoulder. “I’m surprised none of the others have drugged you to get you to sleep yet.”

“They’re too busy drugging B --.” He winced just slightly. “They’ve just got a lot on their plates is all, I’m the least of their worries.”

She didn’t say anything about his tiny slip up, just gave a light hum to say she understood.

She didn’t dare to move until she was completely sure he had nodded off. Even then, she only did so to pick up the food he’d brought for her.

Her nose scrunched a little at the prospect of eating, but when she opened it and saw it was fried rice she perked up a little. She nibbled at her food.

Honestly, she didn’t know if it was working. It seemed to be, but then again most of the things that got better could be attributed to other causes. Her skin was gaining color again, but the bleach may have just started to wear out. She was feeling more energized, but then again she was now getting a total of four cups of coffee a day thanks to Tim and Jason fueling her addiction. Exercise was getting easier and she was packing on muscle again, but she was also working out enough with Dick for it to be explainable that way…

She didn’t know if it was working. She didn’t even know if she WANTED it to work. The plan had been ‘kill Bruce and then quickly off yourself before the others can react’ and not having an instant out was kinda problematic when it came to finishing that plan.

Not that the first part of that plan was working out for her, either. Bruce still hadn’t come to see her. She doubted he ever would at this point.

She didn’t even have a way out, as the door was automated and presumably opened by someone outside.

No. The only way she would ever leave was if she managed to ‘fix’ herself, and that wasn’t happening because there was nothing to fix! She would know. Her entire thing as Ladybug was fixing things.

She looked down at Tim. When he slept all the little wrinkles in his forehead smoothed to make him look much younger. She smiled a little at the sight, pressing a kiss to where she knew the creases usually were.

At least, even if her situation couldn’t be helped, she could still help others.

~

She’d come to expect a routine of sorts, so the moment it was broken even slightly her brain short-circuited.

Duke stood in the doorway as usual, but when she glanced past him…

“Where’s Cass?”

His grin disappeared a little, but he pulled his back to his face with ease. “Wow, I’m really feeling the love here, Mari.”

She rolled her eyes. “Please, we both know Cass is the best person to ever exist.”

Duke nodded his agreement and came over to take a seat next to her. She cozied up to him as usual, curled under his arm as he pulled up their newest show on his laptop…

She had a lot of thoughts about Cass being missing.

On the one hand, she just missed her friend’s too-warm body pressed up against her and quiet complaints about how the actors were doing it all wrong.

On the other hand… Marinette was completely aware that they had Cass stopping by as much as she did to check on Marinette, to see if they were making any real progress with her. Cass was a human lie detector, able to detect when someone was going to be dishonest before they’d even realized it themselves, and they’d be stupid not to take advantage that. So, the fact that they were no longer making Cass drop in as often… either they thought she was doing better, or that she never would do better.

Marinette hoped it was the first. She knew it was the second.

She found it harder than usual to enjoy Duke’s snide comments about how dumb and cliche some of the characters were. She turned and pressed her face into his side. The glasses on the bridge of her nose dug into her skin.

Fuck. She was never getting out of there, was she?

She felt his free hand come up to run through her hair and she sighed.

“Duke…”

He pressed pause on the show.

“Tim told me you’re a meta, that you can control light. Can you do it for me?”

There was a beat.

“Why do you ask?”

She laughed a little. “Does it matter? Can’t I just be curious about why my favorite brother didn’t even bother to tell me that he has powers?”

“I thought you already knew. It’s common knowledge.”

She huffed. “Maybe I just prefer to be told things than meticulously look through every piece of information to figure it out.”

“What kind of bat are you?” He joked.

She winced and the hand in his shirt balled it just a fraction tighter. She didn’t respond.

There was a few seconds before he sighed and moved his hand from his hair to her chin, gently pulling her face out of where it was hidden in his side. She refused to meet his eyes.

It was silent again, neither of them sure what to say.

“Here,” he said after a moment, putting his free hand out and making light dance across his palm.

Her face lit up, literally and figuratively, at the sight of the tiny ball of light. She leaned a little closer.

“Aw, it looks like a tiny sun!”

He laughed a little. “Yeah. I can also…”

There was a moment of silence as he concentrated and the tiny ball of light split into the colors of the rainbow. She giggled, reaching out to cup his hand in hers. It was the first non-artificial light she’d seen in months, the first rainbow she’d seen since… Paris, actually.

Well, even if she wouldn’t ever see the outside world again, at least she could still have this little fake sun. It was basically the same, just as good, she told herself. She ignored the tears rolling down her cheeks that were telling her otherwise.

~

She tossed the plastic spoon she’d stolen from one of her meals in the air idly.

The plan had been to turn it into Baby’s First Shank but that probably wasn’t going to work out. Pen to the throat was at about a .01% chance of working, attacking him with a spoon-knife needed a few more zeroes added to that already insanely small number. She gave it a .000000001% chance at best.

Then again, the other option was trying to strangle someone who had an insane height and weight advantage to death before someone else could interfere...

She sighed to herself and put the spoon in her teeth, starting to pull.

She didn’t get very far before she heard the metallic whoosh of the door opening and she barely glanced up to see Dick.

He stared at her from the doorway, his eyebrows slowly raising as he watched her attempt to bite an edge into a spoon of all things.

She pulled it from her mouth with a ‘pop’.

“I think your eyebrows are trying to escape,” she told him.

He blinked at her before rolling his eyes and walking inside fully. “Thanks for the assist. Would have lost them otherwise,” he said sarcastically.

“I’ve seen you lose your phone three minutes after putting it down, Dickie, I wouldn’t put it past you.”

He gasped and rested a hand over her heart. “You think that low of me?”

“Lower. I was being nice.”

Dick pouted and walked over to the bed. She didn’t think much of it until he was diving onto her stomach. She put her hands out in an attempt to soften the blow, but it wasn’t enough to save her. She groaned in pain as his extremely hard head made contact with her not-so-hard stomach.

“FUCK. This is why your parents called you Dick, y’know!”

He only laughed at her.

Despite herself, she gave him a smile.

She rested her head back in the pillows for a moment (mostly just to catch all the breath she’d lost) before pushing him off. “Ready?”

He groaned into her comforter before rolling onto the floor. “‘Kay.”

Marinette grinned as she took a seat beside him, starting her usual stretches. He pushed himself up to sit with minimal groaning and started working on his shoulders.

It was quiet for a while as they stretched.

Marinette bit the inside of her cheek and kept her eyes on her foot when she spoke next: “Dick?”

She could feel his gaze on her.

“I… can I have some more stuff? Everything here is so boring. I just… I want new things to do. Or, at least, new things to look at.”

There was a long silence between them. Anxiety bubbled under her skin. She switched legs so she could gauge his expression through her bangs. His expression was carefully neutral.

She cringed.

“Obviously I’m not ungrateful! You guys have all been really nice and accommodating! I get food and a phone and, honestly, that’s fine --!”

“Mari!”

Her mouth snapped closed.

“It’s fine. You don’t have to apologize. Anyone would be bored here. I can talk to them. It’ll probably depend on what you want.”

She finally looked at him properly, eyes wide. She really hadn’t been expecting that to work.

He slowly pulled his legs to him to sit criss-cross applesauce, head resting on his hand. “I can probably get some baking things, a sketchbook, just blunt objects in general. Deadly, but not before someone could get there.”

Marinette nodded her understanding, a smile making its way across her face.

“You’re the best.”

“You constantly say Duke and Cass are the best.”

She was torn between agreeing with herself and flattering him. Since she wanted something, she decided on flattery: “That was, like, a few hours ago. I’ve grown since then. You’re my favorite now, Dickie.”

“Can I get that as my ringtone?”

“Only if you only use it to mess with Jay.”

“Deal.”

They shook on it.

~

The door whoosed open and she barely moved her head to look at it.

She froze.

Bruce?

No. No way. There was no way in hell.

But was there? Cass HAD stopped coming. Maybe she had somehow convinced them that everything was working out and everything was fine.

Marinette hadn’t done anything differently, though, so that probably wasn’t it…

Oh. Oh shit.

Maybe she was actually going insane. Because there was no way the bats would have made that kind of mistake by letting Bruce in when she was still intent on murdering him. He had to be a hallucination, because nothing else really made sense. Kwami, Tim was going to be SO smug about this one.

Actually, no, he didn’t have to know.

Her gaze slipped away from Fake Bruce and back to the dots on her ceiling. Because, as everyone knows, that if you don’t acknowledge hallucinations they go away…

“Marinette,” Fake Bruce said, trying to trick her into outing herself as losing it.

“Marinette,” he tried again, starting his way over.

She did her best to ignore the footsteps and the way the bed shifted when he sat down. No wonder schizophrenics fell for this shit, this was all so real…

Except... weren’t schizophrenics not supposed to be able to tell what was real and what wasn’t? Wouldn’t her knowing (thinking?) he was fake be an indication that he was actually real? Or was that just her mind trying to justify believing it?

Marinette bit inside of her cheek and let herself look at Fake Bruce again.

He cracked a smile for her. A hand reached over and pushed some hair away from her face. “Hey,” he said.

She hesitated.

It would suck if this all was fake, the others would get confirmation and she really wouldn’t have a way out. But if it was real then this was her only shot. If it was real Cass would be watching the cameras to see what she was thinking and she would know for sure that Marinette was still intent on killing Bruce…

Fuck.

Marinette pushed herself into a sitting position and looked Maybe-Bruce up and down before grabbing him by the front of his suit and pulling him into a hug. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes when he hugged her back.

“Fake.”

The man tensed underneath her and then sighed as he pulled back.

He gave her an awkward smile. “I’m sorry, Marinette.”

She shook her head slightly and fell back. With a flick of her wrists the knife she’d created out of her plastic spoon was in her hands and she absently tossed it at the hallucination. Either it would make him disappear or it would look like it stabbed him and she could pretend that it actually happened.

But then it didn’t do either of those things.

Her eyebrows knit together when the spife shattered upon impact.

He looked unconcerned as he gently swept all the pieces into his hand and then put them in his pockets.

“The fuck?”

“Language,” he chided lightly.

She grinned. “You really need to work on your ‘Bruce’. Accepting a hug that quickly is one thing but chiding someone for language? In OUR family? I’m pretty sure he gave that up by Jason.”

The man chuckled and shook his head. “I’m Superman.”

“Oh.” She blinked a few times before shrugging to herself. “Okay. You look just like Bruce. It’s kinda creepy.”

“Yeah, trust me, we know. It’s pretty helpful, though. One time a person tried to assassinate Bruce and ended up fighting me. It wasn’t their day.”

She smiled a little, but it didn’t last very long. She fell back in her pillows and glared at the ceiling. “This sucks.”

“I’m sorry this all happened to you. You’re just a kid.”

She rolled her eyes. She’d long-since given up on denying that something had happened to her. Not because she no longer believed it, but because it wasn’t worth the effort. No one ever believed her when she said it.

(Could she blame them? No. She almost believed it herself just a few moments before. Still annoying, though.)

Instead of saying any of that, though, she brought a grin to her face.

“You and B should switch houses for April Fools. See if anyone notices anything.”

~

She really should have noticed something was up when her coffee didn’t energize her at all.

It had all been going fine. She was making Jason dispose of all the pieces of food she’d used sleight of hand to get away with not eating (she was still a little bitter about him stealing her pen and this was the most she could really do to get back at him, compromised as she was). They made idle conversation, mostly just about how Damian had got himself a new pet cat that he had named BatCat (though, apparently, they had heard him slip up and call him Charles a few times). They debated over how good that name was and the merit of Jason’s suggestion -- BatPussy, of course -- as she drank her third cup of coffee of the day.

It was about halfway through her drink that she began to notice that something was off. She squinted at Jason suspiciously.

“Decaf?” She asked, her voice worryingly sweet.

He raised his eyebrows and tried to look unimpressed despite stepping back a good half-step. “Please, if it was decaf classical conditioning still would’ve made it work at least a little.”

She opened her mouth to retort, then realized he was right. Or, at least, she was pretty sure. She couldn't seem to think of anything against it.

She frowned, looking down at her drink again and swirling the contents around. She drank the rest of it, trying to figure out why exactly it wasn’t working.

Was she already at the point where caffeine had little effect on her again? She didn’t think she was that bad yet… hell, she probably couldn’t be because she was depending on others to give her her fix…

She shook her head slightly and then quickly realized that was a bad idea. Pain stabbed through her skull and she stumbled into Jason. The plastic thermos slipped from her fingertips and went rolling across the floor. Her head crashed into his chest and arms were quick to wrap around her.

“You got shitty coffee, try a different place next time,” she murmured, closing her eyes.

He laughed a little. “Yeah, okay, kid. I’ll be sure to do that.”

She nodded as much as her headache would allow and felt the arms around her slip down to pick her up. She blinked her eyes open blearily and regretted it when the light attempted to murder her via knife to the head.

Heh. Little light particles with little knives.

Wait.

Did she get a concussion? Somehow? Without getting hit?

She buried her face in his shoulder and it was then, as he set her in bed and tucked her in, that she realized what had happened.

“Bitch,” she murmured above whatever drug they had put in her drink.

He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and she could do little more than scrunch up her nose and vaguely wave him off. Her eyes fell closed again.

~

Marinette woke up a while later.

The first thing she noticed was that the lights were dimmer, something she didn’t have to open her eyes to see because her head wasn’t pounding as much.

Then she realized a person was with her. They had entwined themselves around her, tangled their limbs with hers. They needn’t have bothered, everything felt like lead. She wouldn’t be moving for quite some time.

… why was she being held down? Oh no. That was probably bad, huh?

Marinette made a sound in the back of her throat and started trying to shift away from the person pressed against her back. She needed to see who they were. They didn’t bother to tighten their hold on her, she wasn’t really getting anywhere.

In fact, a hand stopped holding her down. Instead, it came up to pet her hair.

Oh? This was nice.

A voice by her head told her it was all okay. After a moment she realized she recognized that voice. She smiled sleepily. Cass. She liked Cass. She pressed closer to her and was rewarded with a hand rubbing up and down one of her arms.

She nearly fell asleep again. Cass was safe, Marinette was safe… the warmth against her and the soothing touch… of course, it certainly helped that the drug was still in her system and she was exhausted...

But then her mind wandered back to her first question. Why WAS Cass holding her down? Why did they drug her in the first place?

She moved so her hair could block some of the light and then cautiously cracked her eyes open.

The batboys were all moving things inside almost silently. Jason was carrying an entire fridge on his own. Dick and Damian were arguing over the positioning of the table they had just brought in through angry hand motions. Tim and Duke were working together on… was that a gaming set?

And she was being held down because the door was wide open.

Marinette looked at the doorway for just a moment longer. She allowed herself to imagine getting out and swinging through the city with her lasso, allowed herself to pretend she could lay in the grass, allowed herself to believe that she could see the sun and the stars and just breathe fresh air again…

And then she closed her eyes and sunk into Cass’s grip.

What was the point in trying? Even if she could somehow beat out all six of the people in the room with her and get past whatever security Bruce had to have outside of the room all while drugged… then what? No money or idea where she was… and she’d be running from the bats of all people…

Yeah. Useless. She curled up and allowed sleep to take her again.

~

Quite a while later she woke up and blinked a few times when she realized she wasn’t the only person in bed. At first she thought it was just Cass or Tim, they were the most likely culprits, but then she realized everyone had managed to cram themselves onto the bed with her. Her and Cass had gotten brushed to the side of the bed to make space for Tim, Dick, and Damian. Jason had collapsed across the end of the bed -- presumably for space, but Duke was laying half on top of him so that obviously hadn’t worked out.

Marinette smiled faintly and buried her face back into the crook of Tim’s neck.

~

When she woke up again, most of the drug flushed from her system (somehow…?), she thought she was alone.

This was fine. She was able to stretch out and sit up.

She blinked when she saw Damian, who was sitting on her floor and playing a video game.

Huh? Video game?

She looked around her room confusedly. The bats had basically made her a one-room apartment, complete with kitchenette and a tiny study area. Of course, it was much higher quality than the apartment she’d had, with a high tech gaming system and a little dining area and holy shit that was a MINI LIBRARY?

Wild.

“You’re finally up.”

She hummed lightly as an agreement. She crawled over to the end of the bed and smiled when he handed her a twizzler. It was objectively one of the worst candies, but she liked having something to do. She twirled it in her hand idly.

“Do you think… do you think it’s working?”

She frowned confusedly and dropped off the bed to sit beside him on the second beanbag chair. She chanced a quick glance in his direction to gauge how he was feeling... his expression didn’t let anything on other than that he was thinking hard, though she was pretty sure that was about the game.

“Gonna elaborate on that?”

He clicked his tongue. “Are you going to join the Undead Robins Club?”

She grinned at him. “I wasn’t a Robin.”

“You know what I mean.”

Her smile disappeared a little and she trained her eyes on the game. “I don’t know.”

“You know we never will know for sure, right?”

She blinked. She hadn’t expected anyone to acknowledge it. They were the bats, they were never going to chance taking off her glasses because if they were wrong and she WASN’T better… well, it wasn’t the kind of mistake they could easily come back from.

“Yeah, I know,” she said after a few moments.

“Do you care?”

“Doesn't really matter if I do. It won’t change anything.”

He frowned. “That’s not answering my question.”

She bit her cheek. “I… yes. I care. It still doesn’t matter.”

He looked like he was going to argue, but instead he just went back to playing the game.

“Damiiiiiiiii…” she whined and, when he gave a vague grunt to show he was paying attention, she continued with “... shouldn’t I get to play first? It’s mine.”

“You slept in too long,” he said without looking up.

She huffed. “Only ‘cause I was drugged!”

“Unfortunate.”

She got off the beanbag chair and whacked him over the head with it. He barely acknowledged it outside of an annoyed click of his tongue.

She huffed and pulled the chair back to herself to sit again. “Is it two player?”

“Nope.”

“You’re a bitch.”

He clicked his tongue again.

She pouted for a little while longer before looking back at the screen with a smile. “... heard you got a cat named Charles. Wanna talk about him?”

Damian’s face lit up. “Can I?”

“Only if you let me play.”

He looked pained. If he gave it to her then he’d be giving her something she’d want, which was a sibling no-no, but if he didn’t then she probably wouldn’t listen to him gush about his cat. A few moments went by before he reluctantly handed over the controller.

She beamed and scooted her chair over to rest her head on his shoulder. She could feel him stiffen underneath her but, when she didn’t move again outside of what was necessary to play the game, he relaxed again.

“I thought you were going to listen,” he chided lightly when she didn’t take a break between levels.

“I can listen and play.”

Damian sighed a little and shook his head.

“You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want --.”

“I’m getting to it! So, he’s a black cat that apparently hadn’t been adopted because everyone thought he was evil so the pet store was going --.”

~

Marinette noticed something was up the minute the door opened.

First of all, it was Duke and Damian. That’s all that really needs to be said. Those two together… it’s never a good thing.

Secondly, they were there as Signal and Robin. Most of the time the others avoided even talking about their lives as vigilantes for fear of setting her off in one way or another, but here they were showing up in their suits? No, something weird was going on.

“Hey, Mari, can we skip a fight and you just put a bag over your head and let us pick you up?” Tried Duke.

Her eyebrows furrowed. “You want to…? Huh?”

“We don’t really have much time to explain. I’ll tell you on the way.”

Damian held up a potato sack and some twine, which really wasn’t all that encouraging.

She hesitated. “... what’s something only you two would know?”

“Really?” Said Damian with more than a little exasperation.

“Hey, we’re all bats here. I’m not moving until you prove you’re who you say you are.”

(Technically, if they were really Duke and Damian, they could fight her and do it anyways. She probably couldn't beat both of them at once. Still, that kind of fight would hurt all of them and she really didn’t want to have to do it at the moment.)

Duke hesitated before shrugging. “Your favorite ice cream flavor is mint. Which I don’t understand. Just brush your teeth if you like that taste so much.”

Marinette rolled her eyes. “Alright, you’re who you say you are. Robin?”

“… early on I lied and said that Nightwing’s real hero name was actually BatNightwing to mess with you both.”

She frowned. “I forgot about that. You’re a dick.”

“No, Nightwing’s a Dick. He’s a Damian.”

Marinette was THIS CLOSE to fighting them anyways.

But she didn’t. She was kinda curious about where all this was going. So, she allowed them to bind her hands and slip a bag over her head. Arms wrapped around her -- she didn’t really care who it was -- and she was lifted off the ground. Then, they were walking.

Part of her wondered if this was some kind of test. They were checking to see how compliant she was or how likely she would be to run once outside. Maybe they had Superman on call in case she tried to escape.

She really couldn’t tell.

She didn’t think that they had any reason to take her out of the perfectly safe and well-stocked place they had put her in.

Maybe her location had been compromised and they were moving her to a backup? No, that didn’t make sense. Duke made sense for transport, Damian didn’t. Damian was one of the worst fighters in the family (he was in no way BAD at fighting, of course, it was just a byproduct of being in the game the shortest amount of time and not being a meta) and he was the second most likely person to end up fighting her after Jason. What the fuck?

Wait, Duke said he’d explain on the way.

“What’s going on?”

“New idea on how to bring you back,” said Duke simply.

Well, she guessed that was more information than she’d previously had. She’d take it for now.

She heard a quiet whooshing noise and frowned confusedly, only to feel herself get set down… somewhere. She felt carpeting underneath her, which meant she was in… a house? No. A car, she thought as she noticed the quiet hum of an engine. She’d been put in the fucking trunk. She kicked out as much as she could without knowing exactly where they were and gave a cry of protest, but then the lid was clicked over her head and she was thrown into uncomfortably complete silence.

She scowled to herself. She shouldn’t have thrown her spife at Superman, it would have been really useful right then. She tested the bindings against her hands and winced at how tight they were. Did they really use zip ties? Those were notoriously bad for circulation.

… oh. Yeah. She was dead. That actually wasn’t that bad, then.

Still annoying. Hard to get out of. Assholes. She wondered if it was worth dislocating her arms…

Yeah. Probably. If she could get out then she would be OUT.

She flipped herself onto her stomach. She pulled her feet up to her arms and then started pushing back. Her body strained in protest and she bit down on the front of the bag over her head to stop herself from making any sounds.

And then she felt a pop in her left shoulder and a flare of pain and the makeshift gag wasn’t enough to hold back her sobs. Her arm throbbed and it was only made worse when they reached the city proper and the roads started getting choppy. Every little bump in the road sent a new wave of pain rolling through her and all she could do was ride it out.

They started hitting smoother roads what felt like hours later... it was kind of concerning because she had no clue where they could be, those were uncommon in Gotham, but at least she no longer felt like she was going to die every few seconds.

She took a few seconds to bring her breathing back to normal before she started slowly wiggling her arms out under her butt and legs and then they were in front of her. Great. She picked herself up as much as she could in the tiny space, checked her angle mentally, relaxed her muscles, and then dropped down on her shoulder to get it back in place.

She breathed out a sigh of relief. It felt weird and still kind of hurt but at least it was mostly better.

She pulled the bag off of her head and relished in the slightly fresher air.

She looked down at the zip ties on her wrists and she sighed a little. Time to do that hack that looked stupid but actually worked if the kidnappers were stupid enough to leave you alone.

She brought her feet up, untied the laces of her shoes, and tied them back around the ties. Then she set to work trying to saw at the zip tie.

She paused when she heard the low rumbling of a plane. Were they near an airport? Oh. That was going to be a problem. She went faster.

Unfortunately, Marinette didn’t get very far before there was a click and the trunk opened.

She cried out in pain at the sudden light and squeezed her eyes shut, turning to press her face into the carpeted interior.

Hands grabbed her and pulled her out of the trunk. Before she could do much to look around so she could get her bearings and make herself a portal, the bag was forced over her head again and a strong grip on her arm (the good one, thankfully) kept her from pulling it off again. Then someone knelt in front of her and fixed her shoelaces.

“Really, NightMare?” Duke said, unimpressed.

“In my defense, I was left unsupervised.”

Damian scoffed.

Someone picked her up again and she sighed as they carried her along. They were definitely at an airport. She could hear people milling about. She was sure it was Gotham, too; she could feel a few stares, but most people seemed comfortable with the vigilantes among them.

Then came the normal airport stuff. Walking. Some arguing over whether she counted as luggage or if she could go through the metal detector with them. Sitting. A little chatting with civilians. More walking. More sitting. Very light chatter, just formalities and asking for drinks (Duke, who she figured out was the person carrying her, slipped a box of orange juice up her bag so she could have something). And then they were in the air.

After some time in the air the bag and zip ties were removed. She kept her eyes closed to let them adjust to light naturally and instead focused on rubbing feeling back into her hands.

One English alphabet later, she opened her eyes.

They were in a private plane (or was it a jet?), which explained why it was as quiet as it was. Damian was drinking a glass of water and reading something on his phone. Duke was nibbling at some complimentary pretzels and working a Rubix Cube. They both glanced in her direction from time to time, but they seemed pretty confident that she couldn’t do anything while they were in the air (which was true, but annoying).

She looked around a little more and found that there were no other bats.

“Um… where’re…?” She trailed off, unsure.

They stopped glancing in her direction, ignoring her and her question. The frown that had been on her face since pretty much when they’d first taken her from the room deepened.

“Do they… do they know what’s going on?”

The silence spoke volumes.

She rested her head in her hand. “I’m going to need something stronger than a juice box for this.”

Duke sighed but called a friendly looking woman inside to get her some wine. Marinette and Duke sipped at a glass each (Damian wasn’t allowed any, something Marinette took a little too much joy in). She scrutinized the two over the rim of her glass.

“Are you going to explain or let me guess? Because letting me guess is going to end up with me assuming you’re doing something way worse than you actually are.”

Damian sighed a little. “It’s hard to explain.”

“We’re in a plane. I’m going to guess we have time. Start talking.”

“We drugged them all -- except Orphan, she’s just out doing patrols and won’t know what’s going on for a good few hours -- and grabbed you.”

Duke gave Damian a pleading look to make him continue for them.

Damian, reluctantly, put down his phone to talk. “Signal and I have an idea on how to bring you back from the dead. The others won’t like it, especially not Red Hood, so we’re making the executive decision to not ask.”

Marinette didn’t know a lot about when Jason had been resurrected, it was a sensitive subject so it was avoided pretty much at all costs. All she’d gathered was that it was a rather messy experience for everyone involved.

She rested her head on her hand and then looked back down at her drink. She snatched the bottle from the table and, when Duke protested, set him a glare and started drinking directly from it. They were actually going to bring her back through probably shady means. She was NOT drunk enough for this shit.

~

She got stuffed in a suitcase when they left, which was extremely insulting (and a little embarrassing, if she were honest).

She rested her head against the side of the suitcase and listened to the dull thrum of people talking on the other side. She vaguely recognized the language, both Nino and Damian both spoke it when frustrated, but the words were all Greek to her.

Well, they were all Arabic, but you get the point.

~

She didn’t even realize she had been asleep until she was awoken. Rather abruptly. The zipper for the suitcase was opened and she tumbled out. Marinette cursed in French as she hit the ground and laid there, her entire body aching from not moving for so long. She hadn’t known her face could get pins and needles, she wished she could go back to her blissful ignorance.

“Are you sure about this? You want to save her?” A woman’s voice said above her, sounding a little skeptical.

Marinette forced herself to roll over so she could glare at whoever it was, she knew when she was being insulted, and then she blinked up at the new person.

A tall woman with dark skin and hair and a body to die for stood above her, hands on her hips.

“Holy shit, Dami. You got terrible genes. She’s gorgeous and you’re… you? What?”

Duke hid laughter behind his hand and Damian scoffed.

Amusement flickered behind Talia’s ‘I could kill you before you could even scream’ expression. “I’ve changed my mind. I like her.”

“Cool,” said Marinette as she quickly pushed herself to her feet. Her body wasn’t ready for that, but that was the least of her concerns. The pretty lady was ushering her along and Marinette wasn’t going to hold her up if she could help it.

“How did you die?” Talia said, which was an interesting choice for conversation.

Marinette shrugged, though, unconcerned. “I don’t know, really, there wasn’t this ‘oh, wow, I’m dead’ moment. My guess is I either drowned in acid or died of dehydration at some point. Does it change anything or…?”

“No. Just curious.”

“Oh. Good.”

“... do you not know why you’re here?” Asked Talia carefully after a moment’s contemplation.

Marinette shook her head. “Nah, they’ve been avoiding telling me. I assume it’s painful.”

“... yes. Very.”

The four lapsed into silence after that.

Marinette felt weirdly on edge as they walked through the facility, her hands rubbing the goosebumps that were prickling along her arms. The further they walked, the more on edge she felt. They were approaching something unnatural, something so undeniably WRONG, and she needed to GO.

But Damian and Duke were behind her, probably sensing her unease, and running ahead would only get her there faster… so she walked.

She bit the inside of her cheek in an attempt to ground herself.

But, the moment they stepped into the room, she froze.

Green water. That apparently hurts.

Acid.

“FUCK.”

Duke was ready for her to run, apparently, stood in front of the only exit and ready for a fight before she could even get a full step away from the hell that awaited her.

“No no no no no no wait it’s fine I actually don’t mind being dead it’s fine guys please --.”

Damian grabbed her arms and she choked out a sob,

“Damian god damn it I was kidding about the mom thing you’re perfectly attractive or whatever I promise I really didn’t think it would hurt you that much we don’t need to do this let’s tALK IT OUT --!”

“It’s not about that --!”

Duke managed to get a hold on one of her legs and lifted and all she had to struggle against either of them was a foot and she was SO fucked --.

“PLEASE DUKE PLEASE I DON’T KNOW WHAT I DID BUT I PROMISE I CAN BE BETTER YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS PLEASE PLEASE LET ME GO I’LL BE FINE WE CAN FIGURE SOMETHING OUT PLEASE --.”

Talia grabbed her last leg and she sobbed as she thrashed around uselessly. They started dragging her towards the acid. Nothing to do no way to run no help in sight no --.

“PLEASE! I PROMISE I’LL BE BETTER PLEASE JUST LET ME GO!”

And they did. They let her go and she fell into the acid.

#did i forget what the name of this was at some point #maybe #its whatever #alternate ending #alternative ending #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #harley quinzel #harley quinn #joker #maribat

[sleepyrights]

Yes, I've heard of Her

art by @/luckybunii on twitter! half the time i write fic its in acids dms,,, but this one turned out like ridiculously good so-

based off the idea of wilbur never knowing his mum, kristen, since she died in child birth. she since then became an angel of death- and this is her sort of visiting her kids? i dont know, its sad but i hope yall enjoy! :D

Familiar. Another train speeding past and leaving another gust of wind to blow at Wilbur’s cloak. He stood at the edge of the platform, on the yellow bit they told you never to stand on. He didn’t fear the wisp of metal so close to his skin. It let him feel something. He stared off, curly hair rustling as the train sped off. Only something was different.

He blinked, his eyes going from the tunnel to the figure next to him. It took him a moment to register that there was even someone there, letting out a short yell as he jumped, slipping to his butt.

The figure turned towards him, a large brimmed hat that had translucent black fabric hanging down. A black dress that seemed like a night sky, covered by a purple robe, tied by a golden rope at her waist and hung off her shoulders. She looked beautiful, long brown curly hair that seemed to resemble his own.

“Oh, sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to scare you.” She spoke, her voice strangely delicate. Once she turned, Wilbur could see the all too familiar heart motif on her chest, golden and shimmering. She was like a small bit of light in the ever darkness he’d been in.

“Who.. are you?” Wilbur questioned, his voice shaking. “I’m already dead. Damned to these fucking trains. I-” His voice faded a bit. “Why are you here?”

The woman had a sorrowful look on her face, one only a mother could have for her child. True distress.

And it clicked.

“..Mum?”

“I’m so sorry.. you poor thing.” She whispered, coming closer. She crouched down, taking off her hat to set on the ground. “I’m.. so sorry. It must have been so hard for you-”

Wilbur didn’t realise there were tears streaming down his face, not that it wasn’t familiar here. It’d been a while, though. He pulled his lips tight, nodding. He opened his mouth to respond, only to choke out a sob.

“C’mere, sweetie. Let me love you.” She opened her arms, and without a moment of hesitation, Wilbur crashed himself into them. His hold was tight and desperate, and hers was careful and loving. A hand rubbing along his back, more sobs that wet her shoulder.

Just as quickly as she came, she was gone, his arms closing into himself, his sobs even harder as he cradled forward, curling into a ball.

The train was loud, but it never drowned out his cries for help. His cries for his mother.

All that was left was a hat. Long brimmed, with translucent decoration.

A breath left her mouth, fixing the way her robe sat at the bend in her arms. She stood just a distance away from a crater in which life seemed to find a way to thrive. Buildings steadily above the rising waters that filled a tragedy, and a man in a green robe and broken feathers making his way back to his home.

It was peculiar though, seeing a ghost travel not far behind, holding the lead of a blue sheep. He seemed to pause, then look directly at her. Their eyes connected, wide and jarred. They both seemed surprised, and he seemed so familiar to her.

It was different. His sweater such a bright yellow yet his skin such a pale grey. Yet he was happy. A smile spreading across his face as it lit up. He made the short trip her way, waving.

“Hello! Do you live here? In L’Manburg with everyone? I haven’t seen you around before.” The ghost seemed so polite, enthusiastic even. He stuck out his hand. “I’m Ghostbur! I’m dead.”

A giggle left the woman, almost pained. She reached out, taking his hand, and it surprised him that she was able to grasp onto it properly. “Ghostbur.. An interesting name.”

“The people here say I’m interesting.” He nods. “They also say I’m quite forgetful. Um.. what was your name again?”

“Kristen. Though.. I suppose you can call me Mumza.” She smiled softly, nodding at her decision. “If you see Phil around, tell him he’s raised such lovely boys.” She placed her other hand on his, grasping his hand tightly.

Ghostbur blinked, eyes a bit wide. His grip on Friend’s lead tightened a bit, though he nodded, his chipper smile back once more. “I will! Thank you, Mumza. Oh! And- do you.. mind?” He seemed to inch closer, gesturing for something.

Like an unspoken language between them, she nodded. Opening her arms, they hugged. Firm and tight, yet comforting. Ghostbur felt his breath caught in his throat, it’d been so long since he could remember being able to hug someone. It lingered for a moment, before he let go, hearing Phil call his name from a distance.

“Coming! I’m sorry, I have to go- It was nice meeting you, Mumza! Thank you again!” Ghostbur waved enthusiastically, turning and quickly running off.

“Yeah, meeting you. I love you-!” She spoke up a bit, waving as she saw the ghost off. She let her shoulders fall a bit. “L’manburg.. What a ridiculous name for a country.” She chuckled weakly, turning in the other direction to wander off.

“Phil! Phiiil!” Ghostbur called out, making his way down to see the other. He smiled, letting Friend in the house and securing his lead to a nearby fence post. “Phil, you’ll never guess who I saw.”

“Oh? Was it Tubbo again? Mate, you see him all the time.”

“No, no. I saw someone new. Actually new this time. She was beautiful- and she had hair like mine when I was alive! Though she looked quite sad when she saw me-” Ghostbur rambled a bit, toying with his sleeves.

Phil paused what he was doing, slowly closing the chest he was looking in. He looked towards Ghostbur, gulping a bit. “O-oh? What um.. what was this woman’s name?”

“She asked me to call her Mumza! But she said her name was Kristen. Why, do you know her?”

Phil felt an ache in his heart. Such an ache that he hadn’t felt since that day. He placed a hand on his chest, making his way to sit on the chest for something to catch him. He nodded, closing his eyes.

“Yeah.. I remember a Kristen.”

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

“The most beautiful I’ve ever seen.” Phil paused once more, looking down to the ground. His broken wings fluttered the smallest bit. “Come.. why don’t you help me out in the basement? We have some things to talk about.”

#dream smp #dream smp fanfiction #wilbur soot #wilbur soot fanfiction #philza #philza fanfiction #mumza #mumza fanfiction #how come nobody has posted under a mumza fanfiction tag omg #the potential yall are missing out on #mcyt fanfiction

[crashdevlin]

Jump The Shark

Author’s Note: This is part nineteen of The Best Laid Plans series

Summary: When John gets a call from the youngest son he never got to meet, Y/n goes with him to find out what happened to the one-night stand John had back in 1990.

Pairing: Alpha!John x Omega!Reader

Word count: 3597

Story Warnings: angst...A/B/O dynamics, canon divergence, angst, mentions of physical violence, mentions of mindfuckery, mentions of ferality, pining, did I mention angst?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You hadn't said anything. Not from the moment you and John found the truck. You climbed up into the cab and changed into jeans, a black and green plaid flannel and a pair of hiking boots. You dropped your suit skirt and blouse out the window going 80 down the interstate, and then you closed your eyes and listened to the Rolling Stones.

You had to open your eyes when your memories started attacking you.

Dean had been so sure that you were the one he wanted, the one he was looking for...but that was Dean Smith and Y/n Colt. That was a Stanford MBA and a former Miss Teen USA runner-up. The idea that he wanted to mark you was particularly hurtful and you were kinda glad you made him wait because you weren't sure if it would have reset like the first mark Sam gave you and the last thing you wanted was for Dean to be tethered to you when he could barely stand to be around you.

He only wanted you because he was someone else. He was someone else, but his soul was still stuck on you. You both felt that pull because you were connected but he didn't want you. Smith liked Colt, but Winchester would never love Y/l/n.

John just drove. It was obvious he had no destination in mind, he just pointed the truck West and drove. Part of you wished that he would go back to Mississippi but you knew that your semi-normal was gone...and it was better. You were a hunter and so were your alphas. No normal for you.

"It hit her hard, Sammy," you heard John whispering as he drove when you woke up a few hours into Missouri. "She hasn’t been that close with your brother in years and the fact that it was all fake is killing her."

A pang of sadness hit you as your brain called forth what John was talking about. The haze of sleep had taken the memory, but now it was clear why your heart felt like so many broken pieces shoved into a box in your chest.

"Yeah, we know that but he won't say it and she probably wouldn't be able to hear it now anyway." John sighed as Sam spoke through the phone. "Son, I don't know what we can do other than what we always do. If you need help, just call, but she definitely doesn't need to be around your brother for a while. All right. Keep me updated," John said before setting his phone on the dashboard. "I know you’re awake, 'mega. Can't fool me."

"Wasn't trying to fool you. Just letting you finish your conversation," you responded, sitting up and stretching as best as you could in the truck cab. "What'd Sam want?"

"Tell me that the whole deal in Cincinnati was the Angels fucking with us. Specifically fucking with Dean. They wanted to prove to him that he was always supposed to be a Hunter or something."

"And we just got pulled along for the ride? That was nice of them." You rolled your eyes and reached down for your purse, pulling out a travel mouthwash. "So, what, everything's dandy now?" you asked as you took a drink of the mint liquid, swished it around in your mouth and swallowed.

"You know, you're supposed to spit that out, right?"

"Only quitters spit," you said automatically. You ran your hand across your face as you dropped the bottle to the floorboard. Dirty jokes Dean told you as a teen were not what you needed to get out of your funk. “I’ve put worse things in my body.”

“Girl, we...we’ll get through this.”

“Not like we have a lot of options, right?” You licked your lips and shook your head. “I’m fine, John. I slept. I’m better. I’m fine.”

“When are you gonna learn that it’s useless to lie to me?” John asked.

“I’m sure it’ll sink in eventually,” you responded, chuckling. “I promise...I’m going to be fine.”

“I know you will,” John said, reaching over to pat your knee.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few weeks passed and you were getting better at putting it behind you. The might’ve-beens dragged up by the Angels in Cincinnati were slowly being pushed back into the recesses of your mind and you were feeling better. Sam emailed John to tell him about some jerk in Ohio writing books about the boys’ lives, someone Castiel revealed to be a Prophet of the Lord who was writing The Winchester Gospels. There were books about the boys’ lives, their actions, their innermost thoughts, just hanging out on bookshelves around the world. You wondered if you were in any of the stories, the gospels.

John’s secondary cell phone went off as you pulled the truck into the parking lot of a coffee shop and he frowned as he looked down at the screen before he answered, “Hello?” A beat of time as you parked the truck and turned to him. “He’s not available. Can I help you?” He had a severe look on his face and you shook your head at him, confused by his reaction to the call. “What’d you say your name was? Milligan...and, uh, what are you callin’ John for?”

He made a fist and hammered it into his forehead. “Right, well, uh, I hate to have to tell you this over the phone but John is dead. He died in 2001.” Your eyes went wide and John put a finger up to quiet you before you could even start to question. “If you need help, then I can meet with you, kid. I’m, uh, John Winchester’s son, Dean. Windom, Minnesota. Cousin Oliver Café. We’ll be there tomorrow at 8am. See ya then, kid.”

“What the fuck, John?!” you exclaimed when he ended the call.

“Fuck.” He scratches his fingernails across his forehead and sighs as he sets the phone on the dash. “I recognized the area code, knew it was Missouri, thought it might have something to do with...with this case I had around January 1990. Anybody I interacted with back then, they would’ve known me before I got hit with that hex. So, that’s why I answered the phone like that and I’m glad I did because...because the kid on the other end of the phone is…” He trailed off and you gave him a pointed look.

“The kid on the other end of the phone is what?”

“My youngest son, Adam.”

Your eyes went wide, confusion and anger filling your body. “Your what?”

“I told you...I told you that I had one dalliance before you after Mary died, remember? When I was on that ghoul hunt and I went into rut and I-I was almost feral and I had one night where I couldn’t fuckin’ control myself and-”

“You knocked her up with pups?” you whispered. For some reason, it hurt a lot more than it should, especially considering you were only seven years old at the time.

“Only one. Adam.” He shook his head at himself. “She never told me. I didn’t know anything about it until 2001...and by then…by the time Adam called the first time, I was a young man again. I couldn’t show up looking like a twenty-five year old and start a relationship with the boy. So I just never called him back, kinda put him on the back burner. I figured I’d go see him when we found the witch and fixed me but I never found the witch and-”

“So, why’s he calling again now?” you asked, trying to be understanding. It wasn’t John’s fault. He should have told you. He should have told his other sons, but he couldn’t do anything about it now.

“His mom, Kate, is missing.”

“And he called you because?” you asked.

“Because the cops aren’t worried and his mom told him to try to get a hold of me if anything weird ever happened. She knew about the hunting.”

“So, your plan is to...pretend to be your oldest son and go meet your youngest son for the first time and try to find his missing mother...who most probably is just normal-missing, not supernatural-missing?” you asked, cautious of your tone.

“I can drop you somewhere if you don’t wanna participate in this, girl,” he said, biting his bottom lip.

“No,” you responded vehemently. “You don’t get to leave me behind, Winchester. Not ever again, remember?”

“Okay, then I’m gonna need you to back me on this and you’re going to have to call me ‘Dean’.”

You nodded. “I can do that.” You weren’t sure you wanted to, but you’d do it for him.

“Thank you, darlin’.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

John was nervous. You could smell it in his scent. You leaned into his shoulder as you sat in the booth, trying to calm him with your own scent. You kept your head on his shoulder as he switched a glass of water out with a glass of holy water and set a trio of silverware on the opposite side of the table. “Just in case.”

“You really think-”

“I looked into him, ya know? Kid did real good without me in his life,” John said suddenly. “He’s real and he’s smart and he never had anything to do with this life. I’m scared it bled onto him anyway.”

You sighed and leaned up to press a kiss to his temple as the door opened and a tall, thin young man walked into the diner. He looked like a mix of Sam and Dean. “That’s him,” you whispered, recognizing him from the Facebook profile.

John, or rather ‘Dean’, stood and waved at the boy.

“Dean?” Adam asked, walking over. John nodded. The boy laughed. “Wow, you look just like the picture my mom had of-of John. You’re almost the spitting image of him.” He let out a scoff as he sat down, his eyes moving to you. “Who’s this?”

“My omega,” John said, a bit defensively.

“Y/n,” you said, offering your hand to him.

Adam took it with a smile. “Wow.”

You felt a cringe move through your body and you looked down. “What?”

“I just…” Adam cleared his throat. “There’s not a lot of omegas in Windom and none are as pretty as you.”

Another Winchester flirting with you was sending all sorts of bad signals through your body. You softly tugged your hand back and sat back down as Adam settled into the opposite side of the booth and picked up the water. You held your breath when he took a drink but the water went down easy so you relaxed a bit.

But not much.

He smelled wrong. John was lavender and orange and ylang ylang, Dean was lavender and honeysuckle and anise, Sam was vanilla and coffee and undercurrents of honeysuckle when he was in rut. Adam smelled like dirt.

Not grass and forest and mossy logs, dirt. Just dirt. He didn’t even have a secondary scent to him, no undercurrent or complementary smell. Just dirt.

There should have been some part of him that smelled like a Winchester, even if he wasn’t the same makeup of a Winchester as the ones you knew. He shouldn’t smell like that.

Adam didn’t seem to notice your musing or your deep breaths to try and find something else in his scent. He went off on a tangent as he ate his breakfast about how John and Kate met in the emergency room at the hospital room where she works and he went into rut after he got hurt and Adam tried to get a hold of John when he was a kid and John just never picked up the phone and he’s glad that ‘Dean’ answered the phone this time.

“At least I know why he didn’t answer when I was calling before. So, uh, what happened to John?”

“Heart attack,” John responded. “It was sudden.”

“Right, guess that makes sense. Heart disease is the number one killer of men his age in the US,” Adam said.

Your eyes focused on the silverware in the man’s fists. Not a shifter either then. But this was something. This was not a Winchester.

“Well, after we get done eating, why don’t you take us to the house and we’ll see if we can’t find something to tell us where your mom got to,” John offered.

“Thanks, Dean,” Adam said with a smile.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"He didn't react to silver or holy water," John argued as he followed Adam's car down the road.

"So? There's plenty of things that can alter people's perception of them that don't react to silver or holy water! Rakshasas, sirens, djinns, ghouls, do I need to go on?" you argued back. "He smells like dirt, John. That is not-"

"Maybe that's just-"

"What'd his mother smell like?" you interrupted.

"Passion fruit...and something else I can't remember."

"Not dirt. He shouldn't smell like that. He's not your son."

John sighed and scratched at his chin. "You might be right. He should smell more like one of us. He doesn't even smell like an alpha, honestly, but...if he's not Adam, then where the hell is Adam? And where's Kate? And why the fuck would whatever he is try to get me out here?"

"I don't know."

"Me either. For now, let's focus on finding Kate and we'll go from there." You held in a groan and focused out the windshield. "I know, 'mega. I'm just...I got this feeling...I lost my opportunity to be a part of this boy's life because of that witch."

"And that’s terrible, John...but you wouldn't have me if it wasn't for that witch so…"

“I’m not sayin’ I regret it, sweetheart, I just...wish I could have...met him once before I went after that bitch.”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, biting your thumbnail. “Sometimes I wish things were different, too.”

“You wish I never came over when you were going into that first heat,” he guessed.

You swallowed, but you didn’t answer. The truth was, you had thought through a lot of different wishes and butterfly-effect ripples of how it would change everything. If John didn’t show up, you wouldn’t be a hunter. If Dean hadn’t pushed you to let Sam take you when those apple-pie assholes put you in heat, you would have just been Dean’s. If you never sold your soul for Dean, you might have been able to move on, find another alpha...a non-Winchester.

“I don't think I'd be myself if you hadn't shown up,” you answered eventually. “I'd have stayed stuck at Bobby's, never ended up with an alpha let alone two, and I would be dying from never getting a knot in a few years' time...it’s better you did.”

"I'm...glad I did, Y/n. I like the woman you are, the strong and beautiful omega you are.”

You smiled and your cheeks heated up at the praise. “Let’s just get this done, huh?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You weren’t exactly happy that you were the one who had to crawl through the vents but Adam said, and John fucking agreed, that you were smallest and therefor the best choice. When you found the blood and pieces of skull and blond hair, you were happy to be small enough to pull your phone out of your pocket and text the news to John so he could break the news before you crawled back out.

“Call the cops. We gotta get out of here, though,” John said as he offered you a hand to help you up out of the vent.

“Wait, but-” Adam started to argue.

“We don’t mix with cops,” you responded, before stomping away from them, roughly brushing dust off of your jeans and shirt. “Come on, J-Dean. Let’s get out of here.”

“You don’t mix with-” Adam started to argue, but you pushed past him and stomped out to John’s truck.

“There was no surprise in his scent. There was no anger or sadness. I’ve lost both parents, John, there should have been-”

“Maybe he’s numb or-”

“Maybe he’s made of dirt or something!” you snapped. “That is not-”

“He hasn’t done anything wrong yet, ‘mega.”

You shook your head. “Yeah. Yet. You know what, John? I’m gonna go ahead and look into things that could be pretending to be your illegitimate pup.”

You barely looked at him as you got out of the truck and headed inside to start researching. When Adam showed up to find out what was going on with his missing mother and you and ‘Dean’ leaving before the cops showed up and “what the hell?!” John decided to explain about hunting as simply as he could. He didn’t explain who he really was, though. And then John decided to take Adam to explore other options of finding Kate.

It was a couple hours later that you came across a mention in an online lore forum that said ghouls, while normally scavengers who feast on dead flesh, could actually eat living specimens and have been shown to greatly enjoy fresh human meat and blood...and just like feasting on the dead, the ghoul can take the visage of their victim and their memories.

“Didn’t John say that’s what he was after when he was here before?” you whispered to yourself as you picked up your cell phone and dialed John’s number. It rang through until it went to voicemail. You called again. It went to voicemail again.

Panic fell over you. Your alpha was in trouble. Your alpha was in trouble and you had no idea where he was.

“Fuck!” You were almost shaking as you stood up and looked around aimlessly. What could you do? Another string of expletives fell from your mouth before you forced yourself to focus. You took a deep breath and closed your eyes. Your soul was connected to him. You needed to find him.

It only took a flash. A flash of the dining room at Kate’s house, John tied to the table had you grabbing the keys to John’s truck and rushing for your alpha. You pushed that truck as fast as it would go to get it to the house on the outskirts of Windom. The truck tires screeched as you slid to a stop in the front yard. You grabbed your shotgun from the rack in the truck bed and ran into the house.

John was tied to the table, ‘Adam’ and ‘Kate’ standing over him as he bled from his wrists. “Y/n,” he groaned. “They’re ghouls!”

“I know!” you snapped, aiming at Adam’s head and shooting. Parts of his head exploded onto the wall behind him and Kate shrieked before running at you. You moved to pump the shotgun for a second shot, but Kate grabbed you and tossed you into the wall like you were nothing.

“Y/n!”

“I’m fine, John!” you shouted, rolling onto your hands and knees.

“John?” Kate spat out, her tone dripping with poison.

“Forgot to mention before you started draining me,” John groaned. “I’m the one who killed your daddy, sweetheart.”

“Witches are better than plastic surgery, bitch,” you said, sweeping the woman’s leg with your foot. She fell to the floor and you jumped up, grabbing the shotgun and shooting her in the head, too. You licked your lips and panted as you limped over to the table and pulled out a knife, getting him loose from his binds. “You okay?” you asked, grabbing a rag and ripping it in half, wrapping each half around his wounds.

“Yeah. You...you got here in time.” He sat up, his legs hanging off the table as you secured the wraps around his wrists. “How’d you know?”

“I figured out ghouls could eat fresh and then I couldn’t get you on the phone and...I…” You licked your lips. “I knew where to find you.”

“How?” he pressed.

“How’d you know what motel room I was cutting Sam’s mark off of me?” you asked in answer.

“You felt it?” he asked and you nodded. He reached out, barely wincing at the pull on his wrist, and pulled you in for a soft, sad kiss. “They were siblings, kids of the ghoul I took down last time I was in Windom. They called to get revenge for me killing their dad.” He looked away. “Killed Kate and Adam to get revenge first. I was hoping I wasn’t right about my life bleeding on his.”

“It’s not your fault, John,” you whispered.

He shook his head. “I know. Shoulda stuck around to see if the thing left behind little monsters for me to kill, but...I went into rut...and then I had to get back to the boys.”

“John...it’s really not on you.”

“He’s dead because of me.”

“He was alive because of you,” you insisted. “He had nineteen years before these things...he had nineteen years because of you. Please, don’t let this get to you.” You chuckled, ruefully. “I’m the one that’s supposed to be barely floating in an ocean of shit. You’re supposed to be my life raft.”

He smiled and nodded. “I am. I am your life raft, darlin’. Just...a little blood-deprived right now. I’ll perk up after a glass of O.J. and some protein. Come on. Let’s get outta here.”

You nodded and wrapped his arm around your shoulders, helping him off of the table and walking him out to the truck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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#cassie writes stuff #spn fanfic #reader-insert #a/b/o dynamics #alpha!john #omega!reader #john x reader

[tendertenebrosity]

Newest instalment of TJ and Danny’s story, my OCs from @wildfaewhump’s Pathverse! 

Part three in a series: One, two. Masterpost for all their stories here. Enjoy! 

When the noise and the violent motion stopped, TJ stayed where he was for a long, breathless second, his breathing loud in his ears.

The tiny enclosed space of the car was hot, smelled harsh and strong, like burning. TJ was on his side, hanging awkwardly with the straps of the seatbelt cutting into his side. He slowly, carefully uncurled his arms from around his head and listened.

He didn’t hear anything.

“Danny?” he asked.  

There was silence for a long, horrible moment. Then TJ heard the sound of someone shifting amongst bits of debris and fabric. A swearword, drawn out and slurred.

TJ shifted in place, trying to find a position that wasn’t as uncomfortable, plucked awkwardly at the seatbelt strap. It hurt. He wanted it off. He wanted to get out of the car.

What had happened? Danny had been driving, and arguing with his friend from the other Agency, and then – and then – had the car crashed? Was that what had happened, that brief couple of seconds of being thrown about violently?

The phone voice was silent now. The car creaked, plinked, tiny noises in the quiet. Danny’s breathing was loud and harsh panting, from somewhere in front, that TJ could hear even over his own breaths.

“Danny?” TJ asked again.

Danny grunted, moved, and made an odd noise. High-pitched, wordless. Was he hurt?

“Kid,” Danny’s voice said, hoarse and faint. “Oh, fuck. Ah, shit – damn it – damn it – I can’t…” He puffed for breath, the movement subsiding. “TJ, are you – are you – hurt?”

“No,” TJ said, frightened. He wasn’t, was he? He patted his arms, shifted his legs to make sure he was telling the truth. He ached, the seatbelt hurt, but he had had worse.  Nothing was injured. “No, I’m not – are – are you?”

“Fuck. Yeah. Yeah, I – TJ, I can’t come and – come and let you out, s’rry, fucking… fucking legs’re… you should, y’should….”

Danny’s words trailed away, became unintelligible. TJ felt cold fear starting to creep around his chest and stomach. Danny was not supposed to sound like that. Danny was supposed to tell TJ what to do.

“Danny?”

No answer, only breathing.

TJ gripped tight to the seatbelt, the fabric smooth and shiny-feeling under the pads of his fingers, tiny threads catching under his nails. He gulped for breath, panic rising.

“Danny, I should what?” he wailed. “What am I supposed to do? Danny? Danny, you need to tell me what to do next!”

TJ’s voice bounced back at him from the small enclosed space, too loud, too much, and Danny still didn’t answer. Something clinked; TJ’s faded secondhand memories filled in possibilities. Broken glass, stone, metal? The broken glass in his mind’s eye was painted with blood.

No, he thought, shoving that back forcefully. No. There isn’t. You’d smell it, wouldn’t you?

The car was so hot. TJ thought he could still feel sunlight on his upper arm and his face.

What had Danny been about to say? He’d said that he couldn’t get TJ out of the car. Then that TJ should do something. Maybe he’d meant… TJ should get himself out?

TJ’s fingers found the fastening of the seatbelt. How did you… He fumbled, found the right place to push, click.

He found himself sliding across the tilted carseat, grabbing at the door to hold himself still, as the belt slithered back to wherever it went with a whirring noise. Okay. Okay, now open the door. He tried, twice, fumbling at the handle. People did this all the time, right, they were supposed to open from the inside, it shouldn’t be – that – difficult -

He got it open a crack, but it closed again immediately, the weight of metal pushing it shut. TJ chewed his lip, took a deep breath… then reached up, and pushed his blindfold up over his forehead before he could change his mind.

The sun was bright, pouring in through the car window, little motes of dust twirling and catching golden in the air in front of his face. TJ squinted, blinking down at his clenched fist in his lap until he could see well enough through half-closed eyes to work the door handle.

Eventually he clambered out of the car, thin-soled shoes slipping over the rubber and plastic, and stood beside it.

It was… too much, out here. Too bright. TJ shaded his eyes, holding his hands up like a child pretending to use binoculars, blinking aside tears.

The sky was… the sky was… too big. He whimpered involuntarily, stumbling away from the car. A vast bowl of blueness that might suck him up and into it if he wasn’t careful, if he looked at too much at once. He carefully directed his gaze downwards, focusing on one thing at a time.

The ground was yellow-green grass, knee-high in places and mixed with weeds. It was torn up in great gouges leading up to the car, ridges of mud with grass blades pressed into them.

The ground sloped away from the car, upwards to – TJ chanced a quick glance up, to see a metal barrier hidden behind more weeds, and then more hill and trees further along. The road was that way. He was dimly surprised at how far away it was.

The car was a dull blue, boxy and shiny like a beetle, lying all askew with its right wheels half-buried in dirty water and weeds and the left wheels not even touching the ground.

The car crashed, he found himself thinking, numbly. It hit the barrier and went over it. Now it’s lying on its side, on the slope. There’s broken glass and plastic on the ground. His arm hurt, and his head. He couldn’t see Danny at all…

TJ realised that his lips had been moving, half muttering. He shook his head, frustrated with himself. He pulled the blindfold off his forehead, scrunching it up in hands that shook. Stop it! This isn’t a memory. Nobody needs you to say it out loud. This is real. This is happening now.

And there’s no ‘he’. There’s just you.

All there is here is you. Danny can’t tell you what to do now.

He walked, dreamlike, around the car, the mud soaking through his thin shoes and getting his feet wet. The front of it was crumpled – cars weren’t supposed to do that – shards of orange plastic mixed garishly with the grass.

And Danny was in the front seat. At the first glimpse of him, a brief flash of dark fuzzy hair and a bulky shoulder in a uniform visible through the broken window, TJ gasped and squeezed his eyes shut. That was wrong! TJ wasn’t supposed to see Danny!

He was still in the car, he couldn’t get out. Did he look hurt? It was wrong that TJ had seen him!

TJ stood there, eyelids scrunched closed, in the hot dark dizziness of the sunshine. The world was spinning slowly around him.

I can’t look at Danny. What if I take his soul?

TJ didn’t have the faintest idea… how exactly a Path would take a soul. People, both handlers and his caretakers back when he was a child, had always acted like it was something he would just sort of instinctively be able to do. But he didn’t know how, so that meant he also didn’t know how to not do it, right?

But Danny was hurt. TJ didn’t know how badly. What if he needed TJ to do something?  

“Danny?” TJ quavered. “Danny, I’m out of the car.”

There was no answer, again. Was Danny unconscious? Or awake and not able to talk for some reason? TJ caught his breath in a panicked sob.

Think, okay, think. He needed someone to tell him what to do, but there was no-one.

So… if someone told him to do something… what would that be? Could he guess? Figure out what the right thing to do was even if there was nobody to tell him?

Simplest, safest answer was almost always to sit still and wait. If you hadn’t been ordered to do anything, that was the same as being ordered to do nothing. Right? So TJ should just sit down here, in this ditch, and wait for somebody from the Agency to come and get him.

He did so, wobbling a little bit, sinking down onto his rump on the uneven slope. He folded his hands in his lap, trying to calm his racing heart. It was going to be okay. Even if TJ and Danny were alone now, it wouldn’t be for long. The Agency would send people to get them. It might take time, but they would.

Only.

Only Danny was hurt.

What if by the time the Agency got here he was…. Worse? What if he died? What if, while TJ was just sitting here in the dirt, Danny was bleeding or suffocating or dying? What if the Agency never came – TJ remembered with sudden painful clarity that Danny had never told Julie where he was.

He whimpered, his hands twisting in his shirt. He didn’t know what to do!

What do I think Danny would say if he could?  

Well if I knew what he’d tell me to do I would just do that, wouldn’t I!

This was so hard. What did Danny say when things were hard? He would swear and be annoyed but he’d tell TJ to push through the pain and do the job in front of him. He’d tell TJ he was tough and he could do this.

Come on, TJ, he thought at himself, firmly, trying to infuse his inner voice with Danny-ness. Think it through, step by step. Easy does it. TJ was okay at following other people’s trains of thought, but this was so much harder.

If sitting still and waiting wasn’t the best answer, what else could TJ do? He could… find somebody else, another handler. Could he use the phone Danny had been using to call Julie again? Or the Agency?

TJ carefully, slowly cracked his eyelids open, and peered at the car. Sunlight dazzled off glass and metal. Somewhere in there was Danny’s phone… right? Could TJ use it? Oh, that felt wrong, that felt like a bad Path thing to do, but it was the only way TJ could imagine of finding another handler.

Of course, it might be broken. And TJ didn’t know how if he could even find it, let alone use it to call someone specific...  

He could get up and go walk for help.  

TJ slid his eyes closed, to better contemplate this thought. It also felt… kind of bad. Danny’s voice echoed in his head. I’m not going to go off and leave a Path unsupervised. An unsupervised TJ was a bad thing that needed to be kept away from people, right?

But the Agency didn’t know where TJ and Danny were, and they wouldn’t know unless they happened to find them. Right? So TJ needed to go somewhere he’d be more likely to get found. Then the Agency would know where Danny was and they could save him!

TJ took a deep breath, set his shoulders firmly. All right.

He got to his feet.

“Hey Danny,” he said, voice wobbling only slightly. He looked deliberately away from the car, as if he was talking to the stand of weeds a few feet away, and pitched his voice loud enough to carry. “I’m going to walk up to the road, and find some people. Okay? Everything – everything is going to be all right. Don’t worry, I’ll put my blindfold back on as soon as anybody’s around, and I won’t touch anyone, and, and, and I’ll be careful.”

He waited for long enough to know Danny wasn’t going to say anything.

Then he shaded his watering eyes, set them on the metal barrier, and started to trudge up the slope alone.

#TJ and Danny #whump drabble #emotional whump #Path Verse #gruff caretaker #caretaker to whumpee #tw: car accident #foul language #blindfolded #institutionalised dehumanisation #my stuff #TJ can have a little agency #as a treat

[blouisparadise]

Here are some great bottom Louis fics that were posted or completed during the month of June. We really hope you enjoy this list. Happy reading!

1) Until You’re Home | Explicit | 1039 words

Louis lives in London, Harry lives in Tokyo. They make it work.

2) He Holds My Paradise | Mature | 1332 words 

“What is it that you want, baby?”

“Your dick” Louis breaths out, choking on his own words, neck still covered by his boyfriend’s hand.

“And where do you want it, baby?” the Devil asks him, a satisfied smirk painting his lips. “in my pussy, please.”

3) Morning | Explicit | 1428 words 

Harry and Louis wake up and have a 'productive' morning in the shower ;)

4) Let's Go To The Beach | General Audiences | 1489 words 

Note: This fic contains no explicit smut, but since it’s omega Louis, we’ve included it. This is a sequel. Part one of this fic is #6 on this list. 

"Louis," Harry repeated.

"Right," Louis sighed. "He tried to scent me."

or the one where Louis has a meeting with an aggressive alpha and Harry calms Louis down.

5) Sweet Relief, Pretty Please | Not Rated | 1840 words 

Louis is drunk, sad and alone, and Harry is a wanker.

6) Hey Moon, Don't You Fall Down | Mature | 2574 words 

Note: The sequel to this fic is #4 on this list. 

"Make me yours," Louis opened his eyes and put his hands on Harry's shoulders. "I'm ready, alpha, always been ready for you. Since the first day we met, I was yours. Please," Louis gasped as Harry slid his fingers out of him.

or the one where Harry and Louis finally bond.

7) Nothing Like Anything | Explicit | 2614 words 

Harry is bored of his frat parties. No one interesting comes anyway.It's always drunk people, grinding in the living room, strangers trying to catch his eye. He's about to leave, just to ease his pounding head when he sees him, sinful on the dance floor and suddenly the party isn't so bad.

8) Over Exposed - Part Two| Explicit | 2840 words

Note: This fic is a sequel to this fic.

Harry and Louis take a quick break from Harry's tour to attend the VMAs, then have a night out at a club.

9) Sweet Vanilla Cream | Explicit | 2896 words 

Harry fights to resist his roommate's new omega boyfriend, Louis. Louis maybe doesn't want him to resist.

10) Take Off Your Glasses | Mature | 3742 words

Louis was enjoying his time, as he decided to spend his weekend clubbing, Louis knows no one in there, yet someone wanted to mess with him to know who's Louis the attractive boy in the black skirt.

"It’s Louie.. Sir."

11) Rose’s Fortune | Mature | 5055 words 

Note: This fic contains no explicit smut but since it’s a/b/o we’ve decided to include it in this monthly roundup.

Omega Louis takes one of his siblings to the doctors (check up, possible broken bone or possibly injections?) and the new Dr is Alpha Harry. Harry is great with kids and Louis is smitten. Harry is smitten too but attempts to act professionally and keep his distance whenever Louis visits the Drs with his siblings or to pick up his prescriptions. But Harry realises there is no reason for him not to make a move as Louis isn't under his care.

12) Dare You To Move | Not Rated | 6060 words 

The one where Harry falls in love with the omega who is the brain behind the omega march he joined.

13) Savage Garden’s Song Rules Sometimes (While Yours Always Reign Supreme) | Explicit | 6261 words 

Note: This fic is a sequel to this fic.

The morning after one too many nights of isolation for Louis Tomlinson and his hot & dangerous boy.

Aka how insanely adorkable Harry Styles could be after a sulking episode. [wordplay edition]

14) I Can Feel Your Blood Pressure Rise | Explicit | 9292 words 

"Hello, your Highness," Harry heard a familiar voice coming from behind him. Chills ran down his body as he felt the coldness of something sharp poke the back of his neck, "Turn around slowly or I'll hurt you,” the voice said in a teasing tone.

Where Louis is some sort of Robin Hood and sneaks into the King's castle, only to be fucked hard.

15) You Know What They Say | Explicit | 10323 words 

Nice guys always finish last.

16) Teenage Dream | Explicit | 10333 words

Harry and Louis get reintroduced to each other by their friends. It’s an instant connection. Now they’ve just gotta get to know each other.

17) Move So Petty (You're All I See) | Explicit | 10548 words 

Harry’s pretty content with his life. He loves his job- a veterinarian at a local clinic who’s already built up a name for himself despite his young age. He loves his gorgeous flat with its wide, open space and minimalistic, yet still homey feel. He loves his family who he talks to and visits as much as possible, not bothered by the long hours of driving to Holmes Chapel from London he endures multiple times a month. He loves his friends and his coworkers and his neighbors- especially Allison, the little old lady next door who brings him and Louis cookies on holidays and who always comments on how “strong and handsome you are, Mr. Styles,” everytime he sees her.

And most importantly, he loves Louis, just- maybe in a slightly different way.

18) When Tomorrow Comes | Explicit | 11111 words 

The one where Louis is an Omega who has been keeping himself pure for his Alpha, Harry is a traditional Alpha focusing on his studies while he waits to find his bondmate, and Niall is a sneaky bastard who keeps borrowing Louis’ clothes and never returning them.

19) Smells Like Omega Spirit | Not Rated | 11769 words 

Note: This fic contains no explicit smut, but since it’s omega Louis, we’ve included it.

Louis is an omega doing a test run on neutralizers for a class project. Every time he talks to Harry he smells completely different.

Harry is an alpha who can't figure out if he's going crazy or his sense of smell is broken, but all he wants to figure out what Louis' real scent is.

Somehow they figure it out.

20) You Kill My Mind | Explicit | 13181 words 

Harry has always been ashamed to reveal his kinks to friends and partners alike. One day he meets a man who seems perfectly designed for him and they embark on a wonderful, sex-filled exploration journey.

21) In The Heat Of The Moment | Mature | 15743 words 

When Louis unexpectedly goes into heat in maths class it takes him way too long to figure out why (it might have something to do with a certain curly haired boy sitting next to him).

22) Was In No Hurry, Had No Worries | Explicit | 21485 words 

The year is 1999 and Harry can’t stop dedicating songs to Louis on the radio. Or the one where Harry hits Louis with his car.

23) You're The Smell Before Rain, You're The Blood In My Veins | Explicit | 21945 words 

“It was him you talked about, when you used to call me late at night, saying you were missing your ex? Was it him, your important five-year long story? Was it him the person you had thought about proposing, one day?” Nick asks with a low voice, almost inaudible, almost like he’s talking to himself “He’s my boyfriend…” he whispers again, without looking up.

“I know! And you shouldn’t worry, because you don’t have a single reason to do so. He’s yours now, he’s with you. I really don’t understand why you came here, honestly” Harry says defending himself out of instinct, even if he has no reason to react like that. He just- just wishes for Nick to leave his room and go back home to Louis. Because at this point Nick has Louis and fuck, why can’t he just go fuck off for once? Doesn’t he have enough shit do deal with already? Does he really need to get into this as well? Right now?

24) Like The Earth Around The Sun | Explicit | 23600 words 

The one where Harry bursts in on Louis in heat and things only get more complicated from there.

25) The Blood of Love | Explicit | 25273 words 

Harry is a nurse and Louis is a painting worth more than a thousand words. As desire and darkness encompasses him, Harry has to learn the secrets of Thorne Hills manor before he succumbs to the mystery that surrounds him.

26) Habit | Teen & Up | 27095 words 

In which Louis is a Donna who has a soft spot for alpha Harry.

27) Let Me Carry Your Weight | Explicit | 28633 words 

Louis is fresh out of a bad relationship with someone who made him feel awful about how he looked. on his journey to better himself, he meets harry - the ridiculously attractive and fit personal trainer.

28) Robbers And Cowards | Explicit | 33237 words 

A modern day Robin Hood AU where Louis and Harry (don’t really) hate each other but they hate greedy billionaires more.

29) Caves End | Explicit | 39711 words 

The one where Harry has lost his future, Louis has lost his past, but maybe together, they can find a way through the dark.

30) Soaked In The Blood Of Angels | Explicit | 40867 words 

The boy looks drugged, caught between a man who’s almost twice his size and a girl who looks like she wouldn’t even break a sweat snapping him in half despite her small stature, eyes closed and mouth open as he pants, arching up between them almost as if he’s trying to escape.

Normally, Harry would ignore it and continue on his search for someone to drink from, someone who wouldn’t mind his sharp teeth and rough hands. He’s seen plenty of boys like this one, ones who picked the wrong playmates, and if he stopped to rescue every single one of them he would have died from thirst a long time ago.

This one, though. There’s something about this one, the sheen of his bright blue eyes as he blinks slowly, looks around as though he doesn’t know where he is, the weakness of his hands as he tries to push the girl off of him and make his escape.

31) With Stars Of Brightest Gold | Explicit | 41109 words 

Louis Tomlinson is the premier courtesan at the Moulin Rouge. In his dreams, he has always wanted to be a famous stage actor. Locked into his contract, he has little means of escape until a handsome duke promises him freedom with a romantic alliance. Due to a case of mistaken identity playwright Harry Styles is thrown into the mix, compelling Louis to choose between his head or his heart.

32) We Both Got Nothing To Hide | Explicit | 43811 words 

Omega Louis has a secret nest. Alpha Harry keeps losing his clothes.

33) In A World Alone | Explicit | 50787 words 

Harry’s breath catches as the glow grows bigger and bigger until he’s squinting his eyes and blinking at the sudden intense brightness. He closes his eyes, rubbing at them helplessly. When his eyes open again- he gasps, grip loosening on his bow as he gawks at the sight before him.

Because the swan is gone.

And in its place is the prettiest omega Harry has ever seen.

A Swan Lake AU.

34) Hunting Ground | Not Rated | 583658 words 

Note: This fic is the third part of a series. Part two is #38 in this list.

Louis Tomlinson didn’t know how complicated life could be until he became a werewolf. And until he was mated to Harry Styles, the son — and enforcer — of Liam, the leader of the North American werewolves, he didn’t know how dangerous it could be either...

Louis and Harry have just been enlisted to attend a summit to present Liam's controversial proposition: that the wolves should finally reveal themselves to humans. But the most feared Alpha in Europe is dead set against the plan — and it seems like someone else might be too. When Louis is attacked by vampires using pack magic, the kind of power only werewolves should be able to draw on, Harry and Louis must combine their talents to hunt down whoever is behind it all — or risk losing everything.

35) The Wrath of the Emerald Eyes | Mature | 85205 words 

His chin is grabbed harshly, facing the two deep green eyes that have been getting on his nerves for the past ten minutes. The smirk on the man's face does not vanish. The grip of his hand on Louis' chin does not soften, his thumb at the side of his lower lip.

His smile widens as he answers Louis' question, ''My name is Styles, but you will call me Captain."

Pirate AU.

36) Cry Wolf | Not Rated | 85205 words 

Note: This fic is the second part of a series. Part three is #36 in this list.

Louis never knew werewolves existed, until the night he survived a violent attack... and became one himself. After three years at the bottom of the pack, he'd learned to keep his head down and never, ever trust dominant wolves. Then Harry Styles, the enforcer—and son—of the leader of the North American werewolves, came into his life.

Harry insists that not only is Louis his mate, but he is also a rare and valued Omega wolf. And it is Louis' inner strength and calming presence that will prove invaluable as he and Harry go on the hunt in search of a rogue werewolf—a creature bound in magic so dark that it could threaten all of the pack.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.

You can find other monthly roundup fic rec lists here.

#bottom louis #top harry #blp fic recs #monthly fic recs #fic recs #blp #larry

[phantomphangphucker]

Ectober Day 7: Hero - But It’s Not Funny

*a sequel to Realities Little Joke For Infinity* Highly recommend reading that first but it’s not exactly necessary.

Tony has a bad habit of adopting strays. Particularly the stupidly heroic kind that were too reckless and too selfless for their own good. So of course he wasn’t going to just ignore the random teen that literally saved the universe only to disappear into the future. Even if said teen was somewhat dead and the only hero left in a world and time that seriously needed more.

Tony grins as he finally gets the connection to work, making his face appear on the strange future teens laptop; or whatever tech people used in whatever time this kid’s in. Going a bit wide-eyed and wheezing when the first thing he sees is Phantom -in alien PJ’s, because of course the first thing he sees on the kid who showed up in a t-shirt and jeans to an active warzone is pjs- shrieking and jumping a foot off the ground while holding a full pot off coffee; which predictably sends the contents of said coffee pot flying into the air and splattering all over the teens face and floor.

Phantom looks to the screen slowly, with steaming coffee dripping off his chin, hair and eyelashes, “seriously?”.

At that Tony can’t help but bend over laughing. Straightening up and looking at the coffee pot, “what were you even doing walking around with a full coffee pot?”.

“Well I was going to drink it. But now it’s as empty as my wallet”, Phantom looks down at the pot and grumbles, “ya know what? Fuck it. I’m still gonna drink it”, then pointing his finger around and telekinetically making all the droplets of coffee on him and the floor float back into the pot.

Tony watches, a little disgusted, as the kid practically takes a full swing of the previously spilled coffee, shrugs, and sits down by his own screen; feet clearly pulled up onto the chair seat as well and coffee pot cradled between his knees and chest. Tony eyeballs the coffee pot, “you’re really going to drink that huh?”.

Phantom shrugs, “I know what’s on my floor”, looks down at the carpet and shrugs again while muttering, “a Zone damned biohazard of blood n’ ‘plasm that’s what. Oh!”, eyes widening a little, “and a sock with a questionable stain”, looking back to the screen, “‘s not like I can get sick anyway. I could drink this shit outta a radioactive waste barrel and be fine. Prob’ taste like shit tho”.

Tony wheezes both amused and pained, “please don’t kid”, that... that would definitely make him gag.

Phantom chuckles, “don’t intend to”.

The two sit in silence for a bit. Tony taking in the teens appearance. There’s hand-shaped bruising coating his neck, one of his fingers is clearly broken, and there’s a pencil-sized hole going clean through the other hands palm. Phantom doesn’t even seem to care about the state of his body, considering how relaxed he seems and the PJ’s. Plus, no way would Tony be carrying anything, including a full pot of coffee, with his hands in the state Phantom’s are.

Phantom yawns, Tony noticing that he’s missing more than a handful of teeth, before Phantom asks, “so...why’s the past tin can face-timing my laptop?”.

Tony puts on a smile, so it was a laptop. Neat. “future or not, I’ve adopted you as one of my brats. I remember you saying there wasn’t superheroes in your age”, waving his hand around, “no older generation to guide the newer. Well you're getting the older generation now”, shrugging and smiling more genuinely, “plus underroos won’t stop talking about you”. Understatement of the century, Peter was thrilled to meet another teen hero, and wouldn’t stop going on about what powers he might have or if he even has anyone to support him. The latter Tony cares about more.

Phantom wheezes, “whom the fuck is ‘underroos’?”, shaking his head, “so ya wanna be my mentor of sorts and help me blast my foes from the past?”.

Tony smirks and nods, this kid’s humour sure was something else, “exactly. And you met before, the kid? Peter?”. Sure it had been a few months but he couldn’t have seriously just forgotten?

Phantom tilts his head, “the red and blue teenager?”.

Tony grins, “you got it, kid”, eyeing the teen's hands again, “your hands gonna be fine?”.

Phantom waves one hand around, chugging more coffee, “eh don’t worry your metal ass about it. I heal like crazy”, stretching his feet out and resting them on the desk, “I’m just putting it off a while on my hands ‘cause the broken ribs and missing bits of spine are kinda more important ya know?”.

Tony rubs his temples, “Jesus Christ”, just how much damage can this teen sustain? That kind of injury should kill a person.

Phantom laughs, probably at Tony’s pained expression, “don’t worry about that either! Not like I can die twice! Haha!”.

Tony looks back to the screen at that, feeling a bit more serious, “yeah, Thanos said something like that. That you were dead but alive. And you confirmed it. What did he even mean?”.

Phantom purses his lips, “well I could explain but that also could mess with the time stream and could result in some weird immoral science crap”. Tony doesn’t get a chance to comment on that as Phantom turns his head to the side and whines exaggeratedly at the thin air, opening his mouth as wide as looks physically possible, maybe even past that, “tiiiiiiime dadddddddyyyyyyy, will this break the time stream? Your problem child has a proooooobleeeeeeem”.

Tony wheezes into his hands, “Christ”, and stares dumbfounded as a giant hourglass with purple sand comes out of nowhere and smacks the teen in the face, making Phantom fall out of the chair with a thud.

Phantom groans and begins laughing, righting himself and spinning the hourglass around, pointing the bottom of it at the screen, it reading ‘you’re fine’. Tony is so not reading into that, kid had someone like Strange in his corner. Phantom sits back down, lifting up the hourglass like it’s a weight, “Kay Kay Kay, so I’m a halfa right? Unique creature, that’s what I am. A fucked up little science project gone wrong, or right. Your choice. My folks screwed up in the lab and boom!”, he sticks his limbs out comically before righting himself and catching the coffee pot he effectively tossed in the air, “a whack-a-mole of electricity and a wormhole decided to stop my tiny little heart. Also restarted it too though! So it’s cool”, tilting his head, “wait... didn’t I already explain this?”.

Tony sighs, “sort of. We were in the middle of a war”.

Phantom quirks an eyebrow, “your point? That was, like, the bloody third one I’ve been in”, rolling his hand around, “first there was the High Ghost King, his fifty-thousand odd skeletons, and objects of near-unlimited power. The alternate future where an evil me single-handedly annihilated humanity, talk about traumatising having to fight yourself literally”, tilting his head, “and no clue if the plant guy with his army of mind-controlled people and plants or the sleep guy with his army of Walkers, counted as ‘wars’. And eh!”, snapping his fingers, “there was that guy I stole the Reality Gauntlet from! He took over the planet and turned people into clowns and shit. So that might be big enough to count as a war, even if it was just him versus me. But then the tornado guy caused storms all over the planet too so would that count then too?”, shrugging, “eh whatever. I’m sticking with three. Pariah would have eventually destroyed the Zone, which woulda ended the universe. Dan was actively on his way to ending all life in the universe, probably all death too. And grape guy, Thanos, was about to annihilate half the life in the universe which honestly would just end all life eventually... maybe”.

Tony stares at the kid before wheezing some more and falling backwards, “Christ”, righting himself and his chair, “there is something seriously wrong with your life. Like, seriously wrong”. Apparently the future was a freaking mess and fixing its crap was all on one random teen's shoulders. All because the kid died, which somehow gave him superpowers, and decided to make something good out of that death. Talk about unfair. And messed up. Really messed up. At least Tony had his team and they had each other, “please tell me you have some kind of support?”.

Phantom grins and nods eagerly, “got my guy in the chair techy, he destroyed a sataliget once! My rich activist goth, she sued one of my enemies into oblivion. And a ghost hunter who only sometimes tries to murder me and got a nanobot supersuit running through her veins; she can lowkey kick my ass if I hold back enough to avoid accidentally killing the living”, wagging his finger at the screen and getting really close, “us dead fucks are borderline indestructible immortals, halfas even more so”, leaning back and shrugging, “can still die, or fade it’s called for the spookies, though. Well, most can anyway. Timedaddy’s straight-up immortal. But if they died then, well, then the universe would literally implode from the time-stream collapsing”, and makes a little explosion sound and motion with his hands. Oh fuck, the kid was really just a damn kid. And from the sounds of it, his entire support was three teenagers. Ah Hell. Oh and some time being, ghost?, that just left him to his own devices.

Tony shakes his head, “you know what? That doesn’t actually make me feel any better”.

Phantom shrugs, drinks, swishes the coffee around, “don’t know what to tell you, man, my entire existence is pretty fucked up. My archenemy is my uncle, wants to adopt me, and gave me his inheritance. My girlfriend has a solid murder boner for me. My parents get giddy at the idea of dissecting me and are actually worse about that the odd time they’ve been successful. The kids’ at school think I’m their personal punching bag. The government would love to shoot me full of missiles and bombs. Pretty sure my sis is just using me for her research paper on ghost psychology or whatever. And my friendships are pretty much based on the three of us just being really weird”.

Tony groans, this kid probably needed more help and support that literally any other teen or hero. “ClockPops is great though. We play chess”,

Tony blinks, mentally pausing, “you... play chess? Seriously?”, this kid seemed to have more issues sitting still than Peter did. Tony finds it hard to believe he can sit through even half a game of chess.

Phantom nods and grins, “yup. Switched the pieces out for shot-glasses once, it was great. One of my teachers is cool too. He crossdressed and pretended to be his own sister to get me to try harder on a test; it worked better than it had any right to”.

Tony blinks and breathes, “your life”, shaking his head because it sounded like the future was just pure insanity, “well now I’m here and while I’m a bit reckless and a recovering alcoholic, I’m not insane”.

Phantom chuckles, “I’ll probably prove to be a bit much for you then. I’d have to be stupid to not think I’m not at least marginally nuts. Nowhere near frootloopy but eh”.

Tony sighs, being self-aware enough -or just not giving enough of a damn- to recognise that was both impressive and depressing. Impressively depressing. “A few of us Avengers are trained doctors and psychologists outside of being experienced heroes. So kid? You’ve got all of us. At least for verbal advice. Strange already went and basically confirmed that paying you a visit wasn’t a smart idea”.

Phantom snorts and rolls his eyes, sipping a bit more before staring down the pot at the small amount left. Speaking into the pot, “oh yeah, I can just imagine all the time problems that could cause. I’m surprised this is okay”.

Tony can’t help chuckling at the slightly silly image, though he’s not sure why the kid doesn’t just drink what’s left, savouring it maybe? “Same. Strange looked at me like he was questioning my sanity. He’s probably going to pester you about the Clock guy you keep mentioning”, grumbling to the side, “I just hope Loki will keep his trickster mitts off you”. Because fuck, they’d probably get on like fire and more fire. Which yeah, slightly horrifying mental image. Probably inevitable though. Loki was already impressed, amused, and interested by Phantom and literally everything the teen did after showing up. Seriously though, who’s first thought when fighting giant spaceships with mouths and other horrifying shit, is to turn it into bouncy balls and worms??? And a smoothie for a reward? For effectively saving the universe? Kid was a trickster, dabbled in death kind of literally, and ‘gave precisely zero fucks’. Loki would have a field day and probably be a horrid influence. Though thinking of it, Phantom might be a bad influence on Loki. Loki generally had reasons for anything beyond mild messing with people. Phantom seemed more likely to just go buck wild purely because he could. Even if he seemingly had a heart of gold and more self-sacrificial bones in his body than actual bones. Seemed like his entire world/time belittled and beat the shit out of him, and yet he gladly got dissected and lost chunks of his freaking spine for them. At least he had the power to back it up.

Tony quirks an eyebrow at mist, or something, leaving the kid’s mouth before Phantom goes wide-eyed and Tony jerks as an actual literal swear-on-every-ironsuit-and-the-entire-tower cartoonish rocket smashes apart what he’s assuming is-was a window; sending glass flying everywhere... and Phantom flying off-screen, the coffee pot going up in the air and sounding like it smashed apart on the ground.

Tony can practically hear the glare in Phantom’s voice, “hey! You spilled my damn coffee!”, while a robot blasts into the room, breaking more glass and bits of wood from the looks of it.

The robot pauses, seems to frown apologetically before shrugging, “apologies whelp, but it is no matter! You won’t need such things after I skin you!“. Tony chokes and gags a little at that. “Also-”, pointing to where Phantom probably is, “-that was practically empty”. Tony then stares as Phantom comes back in screen -looking all black and white- only for the robot to shoot a missile at him immediately, Phantom just sort of shrugs and lets the missile hit him in the face. This kid seriously really didn’t give a damn about his own well being.

And not even seconds later Peter walks in out of the blue, face lighting up as he notices the screen and probably Phantom’s very noticeable self on it, and dashes over. Obviously noticing Phantom’s current situation, “oh Phantom! Kick his butt!”.

Phantom does a silly thumbs up at the screen and immediately gets stabbed in the shoulder. Tony watches in slight disbelief at the kid looking at the knife, saying, “oh! You got a new knife! Shit is the handle engraved?!?”. And the robot actually stops and replies with a wide grin, “it was a valentines gift from Ember! Impressive right?”.

Tony and Peter both blink at the fight effectively stopping as Phantom pulls out the knife and looks it over, seeming impressed, “actually yeah”, pointing almost aggressively at the robot, “you got her something too right? You’re fucking horrible for that man”.

The robot rolls Its eyes, how metal is moving that organically Tony has no clue. “Of course whelp, those drum sticks you can sing into”. Phantom facepalms and Peter actually shakes his head in disappointment. Though Tony agrees, that was awful. But who talks with their enemy -who wants to skin them for peat's sake!- about presents?

Phantom makes a tsk tsk sound, “you dumbass, she got you a sick-ass knife and you got her a knick-knack? Seriously?”, Phantom walks off-screen, the two watching as what they’re assuming is cash flys over to the robot and Phantom returns on screen, “go by some flowers to make up for that crappy present. And for the love of everything, don’t get roses”, waving his hand around, “that’s so cliche. Go with tulips and forget-me-nots”.

The robot inspects the cash before flying off-screen, presumably back out through the window It destroyed, “I will have your pelt next time, whelp!”.

Phantom chuckles, shouting back, “sure you will, Skulkie! Ghost Zones greatest hunter”. Tony and Peter can feel the sarcasm in that. “Also! No you don’t have to ask! An engraved knife would be a wicked Christmas Truce present!”. Tony sighs when a ball or something slams into Phantom’s stomach and sends him flying off-screen.

Peter leaning towards the camera, “woah! You okay?”.

Phantom’s laughter echoes horribly, “right as rain! Mind you, it’s not actually raining”, righting himself and pulling himself up into the previously knocked over chair, “don't mind Skulker, he’s a poacher and I’m rare. Practically one of a kind actually. A poachers dream prize. His girlfriend has a mind-controlling guitar and occasionally attempts at world domination”. A ghost-shaped guitar floats on-screen, Phantom grabbing it, “she gives awesome presents though”, and gives the guitar a good couple strums.

Peter’s eyes go wide, “you can play the guitar?!?”, tilting his head and asking what is in Tony’s opinion a more important question, “wait, your enemies buy you presents?”, tilting his head back, “oh man that’s awesome”. Tony just shakes his head with a smile, teenagers.

Phantom grins and strums some more before the guitar floats off-screen, “all my enemies do”, shrugging, “for the Christmas Truce and my death-day anyway. But that’s normal. A ghost culture thing. Even the prison warden guy, whose got special torture weapons set aside just for little ol’ me, buys me some kind of present. Heck! Even the eyeballs do! And they’ve repeatedly tried to assassinate me”.

Tony blinks, “kid, that makes no sense. But I’m glad they’re at least occasionally nice to you”. Hell knows Phantom needs someone to be nice to him.

Peter tilts his head, “what even is a ‘death-day’? Sounds dark”.

“Oh nothing special, just the day I died. Like a birthday! But for death! A real dead-ringer of a holiday!”, and laughs loudly before rolling his eyes at Tony, waving his hand around, “eh, I’m kinda their king so be kinda a dick move to not give me gifts on literally the two biggest holidays”.

Peter practically shrieks, “WHAT! You’re a king! Oh that is so cool”. Tony blinks, “you did mention something about being the guardian of death and Earth”.

Phantom laughs some more and finger-guns while winking at Peter, “yup! Very important, much power”, and grins stupidly before pointing to the air above his head; a green floating crown bursting to ‘life’ with green mist or something wafting off, followed by a black cape with a flaming white collar and large flaming green skulls pinning it closed with a shadowy chain.

Peter cheers immediately, then adding, “Loki would love this!”. Tony points at him, “no. I want to keep that one as far away as possible for as long as possible”.

Phantom snickers, “I have chronic bad luck, so don’t count on that working out for you. Spidey probably has better tastes than you though, Ironass”.

Tony shakes his head with a smile, “you like making up names for people huh?”.

Phantom grins meanly, “it pisses people off. Which makes them easier to hit”, and holds up a fist, smacking a hand on his bicep.

Tony can’t help but laugh at that, “you got a point kid!”, though that was stupid reckless, and effectively confirmed him being tricky. One of Tony’s tech toys starts beeping so she moves to check it out. Peter taking his place in the chair. Glancing back at Tony before looking back to the screen, “hey I’ve got a question, teen to teen. What’s being a hero to you? Why do you do it? It just... it seems like your only suffering for it. Waaaaay more than normal. And not making stuff much better for it”.

Phantom hums, spinning around in the chair, “a hero's not afraid to give their life, and anything worth doing is worth getting hurt for. I do it so others will not suffer. That is all. It doesn’t matter if things change or not. If there’s still unnecessary violence and pain, then it is still a hero's place to grab their fists around it and pulverise it to Hell and back. So long as cruelty exists I will be there to stand against it. With a smile on my face and a laugh in my heart and Core. Because there is no greater joy, no greater choice, no greater path, than self-sacrifice for the sake of another. Regardless who they are, what they are. Good or bad. Young or old. And whether they support you, or not”, Phantom nods, puts his hands behind his head, cape bunching up, and looks to the side, “and maybe someday things will change. I doubt it, but who knows. But if things do, if that kind of future is on the horizon, then I think I’ll rest. Until then, I’ll be here. Doing what I do and suffering immeasurably for it. Until the world doesn’t need ‘heroes’ anymore. Till it doesn’t need me anymore”, looking back at the screen, Tony having walked back over slowly though the kid doesn’t pay him any mind, “so I guess, being a hero to me is being the embodiment of a brighter future. To absorb the suffering of the world”, sticking a finger up, “like a paper towel!”. Tony chokes at that a little; though the kids' sudden seriousness and introspection was just as startling as last time.

Tony shakes his head, “you make it sound like you’re immortal, kid. Also, that’s what a team’s for, to help share the load. The burden. Sure your ideals are noble and probably needed, but you can’t help anyone if you destroy yourself”.

Phantom smiles but something about it seems almost... sad. “In a way, I am. A ghost can not die and a human can not fade. A ghost ceases to exist when they fade and a human when they die. Yet I can do neither. So that raises the question, what is ‘death’ for a halfa? An idea? An ideal? A reality? Or just pointless conjecture. And besides, for a ghost to fade they must satiate their Obsession. Be satisfied with the fulfilment of their existence”, pointing to his chest, “and my Obsession? Protection. To protect is a physical and mental need for me. And it will never be satisfied till there’s nothing left needing protection. And it is thus that I will always be here”, shrugging and chuckling, “likely anyway”.

Tony blinks, that... that changed a lot actually. It also explained a lot. This wasn’t some kid playing hero, or even an experienced hero just doing what’s right and their job. This wasn’t someone stuck in a bad way and doing what needed to be done purely because no one else could. This wasn’t someone trying to do good to make up for their sorted past. This was someone wise beyond their years, with little to no regard for themselves, and a living -half-living- embodiment of the word ‘hero’. Watching the teen turn his head at someone -likely his mom- shouting that supper was ready. There was a rocket-powered fistfight minutes ago and his parents’ didn’t even check on him. Christ that was depressing. But it also made him want to help this kid out all the more.

Phantom turns back to the screen, “whelp that’s my queue then I guess. And let me guess? This-” gesturing at the screen, “-is gonna become a thing? Which totally cool, little warning next time. And keep this mind, walking the straight and narrow takes more time than I got. I will steal, mildly harm, trick, and lie, as I see fit”.

Tony rolls his eyes, he’d expect no different from a kid basically left up to their own devices, “we’re all guilty of that, kid”. Phantom just laughs as the screen goes dark.

Tony leans back, well fuck, he wasn’t prepared for the kid to have shit that bad. And the King situation definitely threw him through a loop. He’ll have to talk to Thor -not Loki, dear God not Loki- about that. Being a hero and a king.

Regardless, they’re gonna help the weird spooky future kid out. And Peter absolutely liked Phantom, which hopefully wouldn’t be a bad thing. Hopefully. (And it wasn’t, if you ignored Peter carrying out more than a few pranks on Phantom’s behalf).

End.

#ectober #ectober2020 #ectober 2020 #danny phantom #phandom #the avengers #crossover #danny fenton #tony stark #peter parker #skulker #comedy #sequel #mild angst #but not really #danny's seen some shit #tony's tired #ghost king danny #fan fic #phan phic #have a fic suck my dick #phantomphangphucker #my writing

[xiu21chen99]

hxh headcanon!!

/imagine ofc!! everyone expected another, i hope shhdjdkf

umm... my art?? I'll be transferring it to digi-art tomorrow or sth but uh be nice pls, im new to dis

the art is related to the hc,,, anYWAYS DARK CONTINENT ARC TIMELINE and... TW! blood, violence and death. this is what i envision the "battle for hisokas head" arc story thingey would go

ON THE BLACK WHALE!

Hisoka has killed most of the spiders already, all that was left were Illumi, Kalluto, Chrollo, Shizuku and Bonolenov (bc the latter three formed a group truce rmmbr)

he decides to save the Zoldycks for last so he hunts for the mf who mangled his face and literally killed him

Hisoka makes quick work of killing Bono and Shizuku (nooo my bby ;-;)

Chrollo and he have a sort of stalemate stance bc they're in a discrete room in the Black Whale, they're meters apart and they're literally just walking in a circle to see who'd make the first move

Bono and Shizuku's bodies are in the same room

Illumi comes in with Kalluto in tow and the two siblings stop dead in their tracks to watch

that's when Hisoka moves in for the kill

but Chrollo counters w a spell he pulled from his book- an explosion erupts, tho it's a small, kind of controlled one but still, everyone in the room are forced back

Hisoka's thrown to a wall while the other three skid back on the feet

the emergency alarms ring in the room, the automated doors move to close

Illumi and Kalluto make eye contact before Kalluto runs for it, Illumi goes to block the door when he left, making sure Chrollo doesn't follow suit before walking towards Hisoka

"what are you doing?" Chrollo asks when Illumi helps the clown to his feet.

"oh, did i not tell you?" Illumi pulls out a few needles from his outfit "Hisoka has also commissioned for your head, but only under the circumstance where he could see."

"no, you forgot to mention that." Chrollo humors, book in hand and a forced smile on his lips

"oh this should be fun," Hisoka adds beside him, cracking his neck with a sinister grin

"i take it you were serious about the... engagement ring you mentioned earlier?" Chrollo asks as he flips to a page in his book

"quite, yes. i have already told my brother to not contact our parents about it, hence why he was with me up until now." Illumi explains, pins glowing with violet nen

"how boring, i had hoped you'd at least introduce me to my in-laws before we get on with it." Hisoka teases, cards in hand

"disgusting." Chrollo sneers, and the tension in the room snaps.

There's another explosion, quite bigger and definitely stronger. Illumi blocks the stray debris from his eyes with a hand, squinted eyes taking in everything that was to see.

Hisoka was still beside him though his head was snapping from left to right trying to navigate their common target

There's whispering, then Chrollo's puppets appear behind them, seeming to have grown from the concrete ground

they were mindless pawns, Hisoka gladly kicked them all til they returned to dust

what came next were Bono and Shizuku, though Illumi could have sworn they were dead earlier

"it's a stolen power, they might still be able to use their nen." Hisoka warns, and as if to prove his point Shizuku attacks Illumi with Blinky

"cut off their heads!" Hisoka yells, disappearing into the still present dust cloud of the post-explosion

Shizuku was the easier target, death made her think that vacuum of hers was a sword. Illumi pins her to the wall and snaps her head off

Bono was more clever, he hid in the dust and used his whistle like body to distract Illumi from where he actually was

Then he attacks when he had his back turned to him

But Illumi soon gets the hang of it, whips back to his right to catch Bono mid jump, and crushes his neck like paper

He drops the twice killed body and wipes his hands on his pants

There's strong aura somewhere in the room, so he follows his instincts through the smog

Another explosion, but this time actual smoke builds up in the room, triggering the fire alarms and the sprinklers

"you fucking bitch!"

"you should have stayed dead, Hisoka!"

Illumi follows the voices and now obvious sounds of fighting

as the smoke clears, he sees multiple figures go after who he assumes was Hisoka. Logically speaking, he was the only target of those useless puppets

Illumi jumps to his feet to help him, throwing pins at the three running to Hisoka at stumbling speed

He lands behind Hisoka with grace, feet as silent as ever.

the smoke is nearly gone now, so when Illumi turns to see if Hisoka was alright he's shocked to find a rock figurine, roughly formed to Hisoka's shape and build

"Hisoka-"

"i can't believe you fell for that" Chrollo says behind him, but Illumi has already sent needles flying his way

"what did you do?"

unprepared, Chrollo's sent to the wall, hands pinned and spread. there were matching pins buried deep into the palms of his hands making him unable to move

"I just killed the bastard who shouldn't have come for my friends."

his hands needed to touch something to detonate. with two more pins each added to his hands (and two more to each of his feet), Chrollo's made to float with Illumi's Manipulation

(hc power here bc i think he could do this, but he only saves it for special occasions or enemies lol)

Illumi pulls forth a mind control needle amd jams it into Chrollo’s forehead, “answer my questions, and answer me truthfully"

"what did you do to Hisoka, you could not have killed him in that short amount of time. I should have been able to sense something if you did. he is not in this room, so where is he?"

Chrollo groans, "he's trapped in the room i laid out for him"

"explain."

"i stole some random passenger's teleportation ability. its' condition is to only be able to open a portal if the room's closed and only has one door. i opened the portal and left him in the in between."

"you have been planning this, correct?"

"i only came up with it when Shizuku encountered the man with this power. he's still alive of course, but if i kill him then his nen portals would cease, and Hisoka will be trapped in that limbo forever."

"and nen after death..?"

"he adores the spiders, he surely won't hold a grudge if i killed him for this."

"this is a well executed plan." Illumi complements despite the situation

"thanks."

"open the portal, bring him back."

"why should i?"

Illumi grabs another pin from his shirt, this time giving it a lick before jamming it into Chrollo's arm

"i am already annoyed at how everything has turned out, just pull Hisoka out of the portal."

life slowly drains from Chrollo's eyes, as he goes limp against Illumi's pins that kept him afloat and away from any possible detonation medium

Chrollo-puppet, now on his own two feet, pulls out his book and flips to a page. The wall behind him opens, the metal folding out as if crumpled then Hisoka walks out, in shock. The wall closes silently, as if it never opened to begin with

Hisoka snaps out of it quickly, lips curving into a pleased smile, "nice work, Illu!"

Illumi waves a hand dismissively. "would you like to do the honors?"

"ooh~ don't mind if i do," Hisoka pulls out a card from somewhere and approaches the still Chrollo.

Illumi walks to a wall to lean against it, knowing Hisoka would take his time.

"you've married an idiot, Illumi Zoldyck." a voice said beside him, and he snaps his head up to see Hisoka's killing slash

"wait-"

But it was too late

another explosion, this time strong enough to blow the doors open and the walls broken

Illumi's once again pushed to the wall, back through the metal it poked him with blisters

As the dust settled for a third time, Chrollo stood in the middle of the room, unharmed and unpinned.

Under his foot, Hisoka. Dead?

"no-" Illumi coughs, dust filling his lungs

Illumi stumbles to the pair as Chrollo backs away, to the door now open

"Hisoka-" he falls to his knees beside the man, cradles the head to his lap. This was real, this was really Hisoka. he felt it- he felt the last ebbs of his presence fade along with the explosion.

He was really dead...

Was his Bungee Gum/after death nen a one time thing?

He was so stupid, he should have noticed that Chrollo was a fake. It had been too easy. Fuck.

Hisoka coughs, and Illumi zeroes in on it, on the way his once steady chest heaves with labored breaths. "Hiso- Hisoka?"

"Illu..." he drawls, unable to say it clearly

"what do i do?"

"ta... take m-" he coughs again, "take my heart, Illu."

"what do you mean?" Illumi presses a hand to the side of Hisoka's neck, trying to find a pulse

"this is my nen condition-" heave- "Bungee gum will help me get the engagement ring to you. it's in my heart, literally-"

"Hisoka, you are not making any sense-"

"just kill me already, illu-" cough- "and carve out my heart. you'll find the ring there."

"o-oh" Illumi's eyes widen

"do it, illu. before my-" heave again "nen runs out."

Hisoka's smiling. his glamour of texture surprise has worn off already, so his nose-less, peeling face stared back at Illumi

"go on, love."

with no other choice, Illumi elongates his nails and digs into the crevice between Hisoka's rib cage. his blood felt hot and sticky between his fingers, but Illumi dug deeper.

his heart was still beating though weakly, as if it still had a chance to live on

"bye, love." were Hisoka's last breathy words as Illumi pulls the organ out. It was shrouded in pink nen, Bungee Gum he thought, its distinct tint a permanent brand in Illumi's mind

gore slid down his hand, as illumi held it closer to his face for inspection

for a few fleeting moments it continued throbbing, but now it's stilled to a mere heart.

Illumi has done this method of killing before, but this is the first heart he thought held value

blood dripped from his hand down to Hisoka's smiling face, eyes open and gaze somewhere to Illumi's direction

as the Bungee Gum lifted, a ring popped out from an outward ventricle.

a bloody ring

how did he manage to do this?

despite the crimson, Illumi slips it to his ring finger with a grim smile

even after death, Hisoka still amazed him

He gently puts Hisoka's head to the ground, off his lap, and closes his golden eyes

Illumi's en grows with unbridled rage that it covered the whole ship. Chrollo is just a few hallways down

Bloodlust up in new heights, Illumi lets his presence explode, making sure nen and non nen users alike felt his hunger to kill

Finding Chrollo was too easy, but this time he's sure it was the real one. he was at the balcony, looking out into the sunset.

"i take it, you loved him?"

Illumi doesn't answer, instead walks closer with eery silence

"if you loved him then why didn't you tell him?"

one step forward, two, three. just a few more left.

"he wouldn't have reciprocated? blah, he was of peculiar taste, I'm sure he would've accepted you."

pins, needles, hell even a card he got from Hisoka. he threw all of it to Chrollo, aiming for where he was and the surrounding spots he could have gone to, to avoid them

pinned down and bleeding, Chrollo continues "or were you not aware you loved him until you saw him die right before your eyes?"

Illumi, more than once, said that assassins don't need friends. didn't have a need for anyone else but family.

but

"he was my friend. that's all there was to it."

Chrollo's head rolls to the balcony, falls off and to the sea. a king of hearts was placed where the head should be, engraved into the floor.

later that day, Illumi went back to the room where Hisoka was, to find Kalluto there. His kimono was bunched up by his hands to make sure blood didn't touch the ends.

"aniki, what happened here? where's danchou?"

"kallu, i want you to help me with something." Illumi said instead, "can you help me clean him up?"

"should we throw him overboard?" Kalluto gestured to Hisoka.

"no, i want to fix him up and find a coffin in this ship. i will bury him when we get back to the mainland."

"why?"

"because..." Illumi fiddled with the bloodied ring, "he was my husband."

for those of u confused don't worry, i am too. basically chrollo used a bomb dummy of himself and that’s the one hisoka killed but uh got him killed instead. shjsjfkf sorry if this was shitty it's 2:30am nd i just wanted to write this before i forgot. I'll fix it tomorrow hopefully

also the hc is the ring in hisokas heart thingey and maybe the room trap plan bc togashi wouldnt have introduced that bitch if he didnt plan on using him for the plot shjsjdkfkgl good night!

#hxh #hunter x hunter #anime #manga #spoilers #kind of #hxh 2011 #headcanon #imagine #hxh hc #hisoka #hisoka morrow #hisoka x illumi #hisoillu #illumi #illumi zoldyck #manga spoilers #i think #dark continent arc #genei ryodan #the phantom troupe #chrollo lucilfer #adultrio #fighting #engagement rings #prenups #engaged hisoillu #bc i said so #anime headcanons #what i think will happen in the black whale

[awesamblr]

PART TWO OF GHOSTBUR!!! Since you seemed to like the first one! :D

They all pause for a moment to take in what they just heard.

Wilbur...? Doesn't remember them...?

Tommy is the first one to speak up, sounding more hurt and confused with just an edge of anger to the words. "We...We're your family, Wilbur!! Wil- ...Wil are you-" Tommy doesn't want to believe that Wilbur doesn't remember them, he doesn't want that... "Wil, you better not be fucking with us-" he starts again, sounding more angry, fresh tears beginning to fall. "Cause if you are, I swear to god-"

And he stops as he finds a hand on his shoulder. Tommy turns and finds Techno.

"Tommy...he doesn't remember us Tommy..."

Wilbur shifts around, floating around slightly and awkwardly. "Y-you all seem to care a whole lot..." his hand moves to his chest. "I can't remember how I died...I can hardly remember anything...I'm so sorry if you knew me well..."

Tommy gets angry again- calling it anger is a disservice to the emotional turmoil, he was upset and scared and happy and so so sad- and Techno gets ready to hold him back again when another voice interrupts them.

"Knew you...?" It was Phil... "Knew you??" He pulled up his hanging head and tears ran freely. "Hell, Wilbur- I RAISED YOU!! I know you better than I know myself!! Wilbur, don't you recognize me? Recognize us?" He takes a step toward Wil and so much pain and hurt reflects in Phil's eyes- it hurt to look at them. "Wilbur we're your family! Those are your brothers...!! And I'm-" he remembers the explosion, the pleading of his son- kill me, kill me, please kill me- and takes a shattered breath. "And I'm your father."

Wilbur looks around at the broken family.

A boy who looks as if he once held his entire world in his hands, only to have it melt through his fingers and spill to the floor.

A man who looks like chaos incarnate, now heavy with guilt and shame, a horrible tiredness running through him endlessly.

A boy who looks as though he'd been through hell and back with a smile on his face, still trying to be happy for others around him.

A man who looks as though he had the world. As though he had absolutely everything. And now his everything was gone.

And Wilbur speaks. "Was..." he gulps in a breath at the teary eyes, almost not wanting to know the answer to the question on his tongue. "Was I a good brother?"

Memories flood the minds of the family.

Tommy recalls times of when him and Wilbur would make huge pillow forts when they were younger and of how whenever Tommy was upset, Wil would come up behind him and lay himself over his shoulders in a lazy gesture- not quite a hug, but something that felt the same.

Tommy also remembered Wilbur, eyes alive with insanity and agressive cruelty. The Wilbur that would scream at Tommy and pound his fist against the wall and tell Tommy that he was hopeless.

Techno remembers times in his life where him and Wilbur would sneak out of the house together to go hunt mobs- Wilbur never really wanted to be there, but Techno would never have gone without him. He remembered how when Techno would lock himself in his room and quietly panic, only to hear the calm strummings of a guitar from the other side of the door until Techno calmed down.

Techno also remembered the Wilbur that wanted to blow up Manburg, that wanted Techno's help in it's destruction. The Wilbur that craved chaos and hurt and pain. The Wilbur he had helped to destroy good.

Tubbo recalls times after he was adopted into the family, times where he would struggle with reading and writing and Wilbur would silently walk over and help him. He remembers times when he feels lost and Wilbur would pass by him humming a tune Tubbo would recognize, and soon the two of them would be singing loudly in the livingroom and laugh when Phil came down and yelled at them.

Tubbo also remembered Wilbur, actions shaky and plagued as he spouted on and on about Manburg and L'manburg and would sing stuttering and manic lyrics to a half-finished song and scribling them to a wall of his insanity.

Phil remembered Wilbur, the moment he came into Phil's life, the moments that he would have to wrangle the pure-hearted chaos of the boy with eyes that sparkled with neverending wonder and curiosity and passion. He remembered moments when Wilbur would begin to cry or leave the house telling the others he was "going for a walk" when they all knew he would break down the moment the house left his sight- he remembered the way he once cried for an injured bird when Phil told him the animal wouldn't make it, and remembered the way that Phil wasted a health potion on the little bird that night, just to see him smile again.

And Phil remembered the Wilbur in the control room. His eyes, his voice, his actions- a shattered and twisted version of what Phil had known him to be. The way his voice cracked and the way his eyes were alive with pain and madness and the way he fell to his knees as the home he had built was blown to bits. Phil remembered the way that on his knees still, Wilbur grappled onto Phil's coat and begged him over and over to end him, so much pain and hurt and trapped craze in his voice it shattered Phil.

"Was I a good brother?"

They were silent.

And then a small word from a small boy- a boy now president of a ruined land. "You were the best big brother anyone could ask for, Wilbur." They looked to Tubbo, who hadn't spoken a word the entire time. His eyes still dripped tears, but he had the most wonderful smile on his face. "You were the coolest big brother in the world. Why do you think we're so happy to see you again?" He gave a wet laugh. "Hell, you were amazing! Did you know that you used to help me with my english homework cause I couldn't read? A-and you would sing songs with me when I was sad!! You were the kindest brother a man could ask for."

"For real, Big Man!!" It was Tommy's turn to speak as he tried fruitlessly to dry his eyes. "You don't remember, but you and me made the most massive forts and we would hide there for hours and scare Technoblade!" Tommy laughed fondly. "I remember one time Techno was carrying a stick and hit me on the head when i scared him. You sat down with me and told me that I was okay and that we were gonna whack Techno with a billion sticks when I felt better."

"You..." Techno was hesitant for only a fraction of a second. "You used to help me sneak out of the house and we'd do all sorts of crazy things. You always said you were watching after me to make sure i never got hurt." He gave an amused chuckle at the memories. "You would play guitar in the hallway when i was upset, no matter what time it was. You got in trouble a lot for that, but you never stopped."

"Wilbur..." They turned to Phil as he adressed his son. Phil remembered and remembered and couldn't stop remembering and everything he remembered was good and every single memory was filled with thoughts of Wilbur- that's my son!- even in his last moments, and even the moments after when Phil had known he was long gone but held him closely anyway, he remembered the way he felt. Wilbur had never stopped being his son, Phil had never once stopped loving him. "Are you proud of me, Phil?" And the blonde man let more tears roll down his cheeks.

Phil tugged the ghost man into his arms and held on as if he ever let go, Wilbur really would disappear and be gone forever. "I'm so proud of you, Wilbur..." He spoke into the ghostial yellow sweater his son wore. "You were and still are the best son a man could ask for...i know you forgot that. But you know now and that's all that matters. I'm sorry i wasn't a better father, but know that i am so proud of you...so so proud, Wilbur..."

And Wilbur hugs him back.

It's hesitant, but it's there.

And Phil's other sons will know that as Wilbur embraced his father, tears rolled down his face in an unstoppable flow of emotion that Wilbur himself didn't understand completely, but his brothers did.

Wilbur doesn't know why he was crying. He didn't remember these people. But their emotions and connections were so so strong he felt the hints of distant memories flood him.

Someone giggling as they stacked things together.

Someone singing loudly with him as they danced around a room.

Someone chatting and joking with him under the stars.

Someone there, always always there. They never left...and they loved him so much.

"So..." Wilbur tried to keep his voice even, but found he could not. "I was a good brother?"

He was flooded with more arms- the embrace of his siblings, all shouting and telling him he was wonderful.

Tubbo...he remembered the name and he felt emotions attached to the name and the face, but he couldn't remember why.

Tommy...he could recall emotions attached to that name and was flooded with involuntary emotions when he looked at his blue eyes.

Techno...he could recall the name like an old friend and knew immediately that he was a comrade- a friend- a brother? He knew that name but couldn't understand why.

And Phil...he knew Phil. The memories were so blocked and so fuzzy and he could only just make out a smiling face, but it was Phil. He didn't know why and he didn't know how but he loved that name.

He loved all their names, and was overcome with inexplicable emotions when he saw them.

"...Dad...?" Wilbur finally let the word fall from his lips.

Phil held him closer.

"You were the best son I could have ever asked for..."

(I can keep the story going if you want! I really like drabbling this it's so much fun lol! But for now this is a good stopping place cause the ask is hella long.)

MANNNN I AM IN L O V E. THE WAY YOU RIGHT IS SO NICE AND FLOWY AND IT ALL JUST WORKS SO OERFECTLY TOGETHER! AND THE PARALLELS??? MMMMMMM

PLEASE KEEP GOING IF YOU WANT IM BEGGING

#DUDE COME INTO MY INVOX WHENEVER YOUD LIKE #YOUR DESCRIPTIONS AND STUFF SRE AMAZINF

[dont-tempt-me-frodo]

Could I maybe suggest a prompt? It’s fine if not! Just I’ve seen a lot of fics (like 3 honestly) where Geralt and Jaskier are cursed to stay close to each other lest one or both are in unimaginable pain. That but they go visit Yennefer and find out the only way is to spend like an hour apart from on another, just major angst, like they’re both claimed to opposite sides of the room suffering and watching the other in pain :o Thanks!

oh my goodness I LOVE this. 

So this got quite long but I hope it does the prompt justice! I've also posted it on ao3 so you can read it there too!

"Let me check," Jaskier chirped and before Geralt could stop him, the Bard stuck his head up from the over-turned table they were crouched behind.

The Witcher grabbed a fistful of his doublet and yanked him back down.

"Yeah, I have assessed the situation and it's eh, not good," Jaskier rubbed the back of his neck.

"What part of a rampaging Mage did you think would be good?" Geralt growled, brow set in a deep scowl.

Jaskier shrugged, the slight quiver in his jaw muscles betraying his fear at their current predicament.

This wasn't how his day was supposed to go. When they had arrived in the small town, the townsfolk had asked him to deal with a Mage who, quote, "is a little bit intense and kind of creepy." Geralt had rolled his eyes and almost ignored the request but Jaskier had insisted they check it out, even if it came to nothing.

Geralt knew that the Bard was hoping to spend the night in the town rather than sleeping rough under the stars again for the fifth night in a row. Investigating the Mage would waste the time until nightfall and then they would have to stay in the tavern. Geralt had decided to indulge Jaskier. He had to admit, a straw mattress and scratchy sheets did sound like a nice change from roots sticking into your back and the cold that crept in with the dark.

They had found the Mage's tower easily enough. It stood on the outskirts of the town. Five storeys high, slate roof, thin windows, moss covered brickwork. Nestled amongst tall growing brambles and gorse. 

Geralt had intended to have a nice, calm conversation with the Mage, sort out whatever miss understanding had happened between them and the townsfolk then head back to the tavern for ale and a warm dinner.

That's how it was supposed to go.

Unfortunately for Geralt, the Mage seemed a little unhinged and was babbling on about the properties of a certain mushroom he had found by the river. The Witcher recognised it immediately as a Dracus Soria or, in the common tongue, Dragons Breath. 

The mushroom was small, perfectly round and a violent red colour. The gills underneath the cap were orange and the stalk a mustardy yellow. If ingested it burned down the gullet and practically melted the person from the inside out. There was the odd rumour that if treated correctly, the mushroom could cure all manner of aliments, but everyone who had tried had died horribly.

Geralt tried explaining this to the Mage but his warnings fell on deaf ears. When the Mage had wanted to feed his latest batch of findings to Jaskier, Geralt had put himself between him and the Bard with a menacing expression on his face that even a Mage would think twice before challenging him. 

Unfortunately for Geralt, the Mage had blasted him aside with a powerful spell and then when Jaskier ran from him, decided to eat the mushroom himself.

Now the Mage was dancing about his workshop in agonising pain, firing off spells and incantations in all directions, as he was driven mad by the mushroom’s effects. 

Geralt risked a peek around the side of the table they were using as a shield but quickly drew back again as a white jet of sparks narrowly missed his face.

He had two options. The first, wait the Mage out and let the mushroom kill him but at risk of his and Jaskier's probable deaths. The second, go and kill the Mage himself. 

He grunted, gritting his teeth together, amber glare on the Bard as he tried to form the best strategy.

"This isn't my fault," Jaskier huffed indignantly, guessing what the Witcher was thinking, "How was I supposed to know that this guy was batshit crazy."

Geralt ignored him, trying to tune his hearing onto the Mage to work out where he was. The sound of Jaskier's slightly sharp breathing, the pattering of his heart. The screaming of the Mage as he was burned from the inside. The crackle of magic whizzing through the air. The smashing of glass as vials and beakers were thrown about the room. The heavy shuffling of footsteps, directly on the other side of the table.

"Jaskier, when I say, push the table as hard as you can," he blinked at the Bard.

Jaskier nodded, placing his palms against the solid wood, a focus coming over him that was usually reserved for his composing. 

Geralt got in position, listening as the Mage hoped from foot to foot.

"Now!" he growled and slammed his hands into the table as hard as he could.

The table shunted forward with enough force to crash into the Mage and send him sprawling to the floor. Geralt sprang up from his crouching position, blade in hand, ready to strike the convulsing Mage before he did any more damage.

"Geralt!" Jaskier's warning came too late and a hot stream of magic hit Geralt square in the chest and threw him back against the wall.

He brushed off the frantic hands that were trying to roll him over and pushed himself gingerly to all fours.

Jaskier's blue eyes were wide with shock, his hands trembling slightly as they hovered over Geralt, ready to catch him if he collapsed.

Geralt sucked in a long breath. No broken bones as far as he could tell, and there were no obvious effects from the spell that hit him, so he decided that he was probably okay.

As he hauled himself to his feet, the room suddenly went quiet. The Mage spluttered one last breath before his twitching limbs finally stilled.

"Well that was a laugh," Jaskier said shakily, "Do you think the people will still pay us, even though he kind of offed himself?"

"Hm," was the only response he got from the Witcher. 

Geralt sheathed his sword again and cracked his knuckles. He glanced at the Bard with a warmth that had Jaskier smiling.

"Come on Bard," he stepped towards the door, "I need a drink."

As he went to pass through the doorway a sharp pain spiked through him, coming from deep in his core. It burned through his nerves and tensed up his limbs. At the same time, he heard Jaskier gasp. The Bard dropped to his knees, clutching his gut, face contorted in pain.

Geralt stumbled back, light pulsing behind his eyes, and as he grabbed the table for support, the pain ebbed. He snapped his attention to the Bard who seemed to be okay again, breathing hard, beads of sweat forming on his brow.

"What-what was that?" Jaskier panted.

Geralt glanced at the dead Mage then sucked in a breath. He moved towards the door again and the same pain punched though him. Jaskier cried out, bent double so that his forehead was pressed against the flagstone.

The Witcher quickly stepped back again, and again the pain faded. He looked to the Bard who was shaking, then back at the Mage. Panic set in as he realised what was going on.

He made for the door again, wanting to be sure but halted abruptly as Jaskier wailed, "Geralt no, please."

"Fuck," Geralt growled.

***

Travel was difficult. Very difficult.

They couldn't be apart more than a metre without being crippled by excruciating pain. Whatever curse the Mage had hit Geralt with was strong and he knew that they would need a Mage's help to undo it.

The night before when they had made camp and fallen into their usual routines, they kept forgetting that they were restricted by distance and had struggled to remain calm with each other as they tried to avoid hurting each other. They had set up their bedrolls and fallen asleep in each other's arms but when Jaskier had rolled away in his sleep they were both woken by a jolt of agony that forced the breath from their lungs. Geralt had bundled Jaskier to him, wrapping him in his strong arms again to keep him close. After pressing a gentle kiss to Jaskier's temple and tucking the Bard tight to his chest, they had both finally drifted off again.

Geralt was a Witcher. He had a much higher pain threshold than most and even though each stab of pain was unbearable, he was definitely holding up better than Jaskier. He couldn't even imagine what this was like for the Bard. It must be like being ripped apart again and again and again. And Geralt didn't know what was worse. Watching Jaskier suffer or being helpless to stop it.

Jaskier was pale, the stench of fear tainting his usual flowery scent. Each time they accidentally moved too far away from each other, the pain brought the Bard to his knees, and he seemed to get weaker with each bout.

Their usual dynamic of Geralt astride his mare with Jaskier keeping pace beside was absolutely out of the question.

Jaskier was very quiet as he sat behind Geralt on Roach. His uncharacteristic silence unnerved Geralt. Worry fluttered in his gut.

"We are going to see Yennefer," the Witcher rumbled, "if anyone knows how to lift this curse, it's her."

"How long?" Jaskier's voice sounded raw.

"Hm?"

"How long until we reach her?" Jaskier shuffled slightly.

"About four days, as the crow flies," Geralt chewed his lower lip.

Jaskier didn't respond. He just let his head rest on Geralt's back, swaying with the motions of the horse underneath him.

"We're going to be okay," Geralt said after a stretch of quiet, "you hear me?"

Jaskier nodded weakly, keeping his face pressed against Geralt.

The days passed excruciatingly slowly. 

They tried to be very careful with how much distance was between them, sticking as close together as they possibly could. After a day went by without any pain, Jaskier perked up a bit, even humming softly as Roach took them through winding farmland and dense forests.

But then they were attacked by bandits.

Geralt heard them a second before they attacked and barely had time to rip his sword from its sheath as they descended. There were only four of them. Easy game for a Witcher, except-

Except he couldn't leave Jaskier's side and that put them both in very real danger. 

Still astride Roach, Geralt swung at them as best he could but it was awkward, sluggish, and he was pulled from Roach and slammed heavily to the ground.

Jaskier's scream ripped through the air as pain clamped Geralt to the spot. The Bard fell from the horse and was writhing about on the ground, screaming in agony.

This was the furthest apart they had been since being cursed and it felt like someone was pushing hot pokers into every part of Geralt's body. His vision flashed white, his ears rang. He couldn't breath. 

The bandits froze in shock, not quite sure what was happening but quickly realising that the Witcher and the Bard weren't able to defend themselves. They approached with confidence; blades held up ready to take an easy prize.

By some miracle, Geralt was able to lift his hand and cast Aard at the bandits. The telekinetic wave sent them flying. One bounced off a tree, the sound of his spine cracking drowned out by Jaskier. Another tumbled headfirst into a patch of thorns, yelping and clawing to get free. The third and fourth were lucky and were just thrown a ways down the road. They grabbed the one stuck with thorns and beat a hasty retreat.

Geralt crawled towards Jaskier. The pain slowly fading to a dull ache the closer he got until it finally stopped altogether. His skin prickling uncomfortably, he reached out to the Bard.

Jaskier's breath sobbed in his chest, tears streamed down his cheeks, and he was shuddering violently. Curled up on his side with his hands digging into the earth.

"Jaskier," Geralt rasped, placing a gentle hand on the Bard's shoulder.

Jaskier tensed under his touch but eventually slumped into the ground as Geralt stroked his arm soothingly.

The echoes of pain still rippling through his body, Geralt managed to get Jaskier to sit up and he pulled the Bard into his lap. He buried his nose in Jaskier's hair, arms cocooning him in warmth, and listened as Jaskier's breathing slowly evened out and the rabbit-quick thundering of his heart started to return to normal. 

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, "Jask, I'm so sorry."

"What are you sorry for? It's not your fault," Jaskier sounded tired. No, more like exhausted.

Geralt felt the same weariness in his bones and he didn't know if had the strength to stand yet, so he stayed sat on the ground, cradling Jaskier, hating how there was nothing he could do to make this better.

On the evening of the fourth day they came to a bustling city. The streets were still full of vendors trying to sell their wares and the noise of a chattering crowd reached them before they even got to the city gates set into defensive walls.

The guards let them through with a nod and Geralt guided Roach carefully through the mob of people going about their daily lives. 

The smell of baking bread and brewing ale, churned up mud, and horse, incense and salted fish hit them in a heavy wave as they navigated the busy streets. They passed through the wooden houses of the suburbs and then the cobbled stone of the city centre.

Geralt hopped off Roach and helped Jaskier down. He brought her to a sheltered lean-to where several other horses were tethered and paid the horse master to look after her until they came back for her.

"Why is Yennefer here?" Jaskier asked, looking around him at the surroundings, "this isn't the kind of place she is usually attracted to."

Geralt laced his fingers with Jaskier's and brushed his lips against his knuckles.

"She had an opportunity to get information from a councilman or something. She's using his townhouse for her work," he grunted.

Hands still twined together, Geralt spoke quickly to a merchant then pulled Jaskier with him as he searched out the townhouse.

They were buffeted on all sides as they manoeuvred through the packed streets, clinging desperately to each other to avoid being separated.

Geralt halted by a grand looking house with a pillared entrance and slatted shutters over the windows. A plume of leafy plants grew in ceramic pots either side of the front door, a spray of green against the grey marble. Geralt knocked.

The oak door creaked as it swung open and Geralt led Jaskier inside. The door shut deftly behind them and the overpowering smell of sage and lavender chased away the scents of the street. 

They were standing in a small entrance hall with a staircase ahead of them and a door on the left and right. 

Geralt wrinkled his nose as a new scent hit him. Lilac and gooseberries. 

"Well, well, well," a female drawl sounded from the top of the stairs, "and I was beginning to think that this evening would be boring."

"Yennefer," Geralt dipped his head to her.

The Mage descended the staircase with such elegance it looked as if she were floating. She was dressed in a black and white dress and her raven black hair tumbled about her shoulders in soft waves. Her violet eyes sparkled in the light from the torches bracketed to the walls. 

"I would say that it's good to see you but you usually only come to me when you are in trouble," she smirked, gliding past and inviting them to follow her through the door on the left, "So, what's happened this time?"

The drawing room she brought them into was vast and airy, embellished with sculptures and art dotted along the panelled walls. 

"A curse," Geralt let his amber eyes flit about the room before resting on the Mage as she poured herself a glass of dark amber liquid from a decanter.

"Must be serious," she quirked an eyebrow at him, "the Bard hasn't said a word since coming through the door."

If Jaskier wasn't dead on his feet, he would have flushed. Instead, he looked at his boots miserably.

"It's bad Yen," Geralt's voice was tight. He knew what she was going to ask before the words fell from her mouth.

"Let me see," she tilted her head slightly.

Jaskier's head shot up, blue eyes wide.

"Geralt no, please," his voice broke on the last word and Geralt felt his heart shatter.

"To know what I'm working with, I have to see it," Yennefer swirled the contents of her glass absently.

"Just quick Jask, we'll do it quick," Geralt tried as Jaskier shook his head frantically.

Geralt caught the look in the Mage's eyes and gritted his teeth. Guilt flashed through him.

"I'm sorry," he took a few long strides from Jaskier then buckled with pain. the noise that escaped Jaskier was heart-wrenching but before he could crumple to the ground, Geralt was back by his side and pulling him into a hug.

Yennefer was quiet for a long time and the Witcher felt his unease grow with each silent second.

"Is... is there a way to-" he started after he couldn't bare it any longer.

"To break it? Yes. But you're not going to like it," she sighed and put her glass down on a side table.

Jaskier balked at her words, clinging to Geralt desperately, trying to draw comfort from him.

"To break this curse, you have to force yourselves to stay separated in the same room as each other for an hour," Yennefer bit her lower lip.

"What?" Jaskier sounded so broken and scared. Geralt's gut twisted painfully.

"It is the only way. One hour of excruciating pain and then free, of the rest of your lives never being able to leave each other's sides," she blinked slowly.

"There must be something else. Some other way," Geralt growled.

"You could always kill yourself," Yennefer curled her lip.

"Fuck," Geralt grunted.

The Witcher looked at the Bard. Jaskier's eyes were swimming with unshed tears and Geralt's heart panged in his chest. He brushed the pad of his thumb down Jaskier's cheek and the Bard leaned into his touch.

He hated this. He hated this with everything that he had. But he knew what they had to do. He couldn't spend the rest of his life tethered to Jaskier. Not like this. The idea of spending the rest of his life with the Bard was something the thought about a lot and it filled him with warmth and excitement but, what bound them together right now was dangerous and, if he was being selfish, impractical. He wouldn't be able to hunt monsters and Jaskier wouldn't be able to perform for the masses. They would just keep getting in each other's way and besides, separation in a relationship is healthy. But the thought of spending an hour in that amount of pain made him sick to the stomach. Not just that. Having to see Jaskier spending an hour in that amount of pain would probably break him. But he knew what they had to do.

"Jaskier," he said softly.

"I know Geralt. I know," the Bard choked.

Geralt pressed his lips to Jaskier's and Jaskier melted into his mouth. Geralt rested his forehead against the Bards, keeping him close, breathing the same hot air. 

"I love you," he mumbled.

"I love you too," Jaskier's voice was barely a whisper.

Geralt set his face in a determined expression then looked at the Mage.

"So how do we do this?" he growled.

Yennefer looked about her, "in here is fine. You just have to go as far away from each other as possible then stay there. It's uh, up to you if you distance slowly or just... go for it."

Jaskier paled, fear crossing his young face.

Geralt swallowed thickly. 

"Maybe slowly is better?" he glanced at Jaskier, "get used to the pain then push it further, get used to it then further?"

That made sense but Jaskier was still hesitant to agree to anything.

"The hour doesn't start until you are fully separated. So going slower increases the amount of time you're in pain," Yennefer swelled with sympathy.

Seeing the Bard and the Witcher so scared and vulnerable brought a very strange feeling to her chest and she tried to push it away.

"Quick then," Geralt rubbed his face with his hands, "fuck! I don't know."

Jaskier placed a trembling hand on his arm.

"Quick. Get it over with," he sounded sure.

Geralt nodded. His usually slow heart was thumping frantically in his chest.

They spent the next few minutes discussing how they were going to do it. It was agreed that Jaskier wouldn't make it to his side of the room by himself and Geralt was faster anyway. They decided that they were both going to stand at the far wall, then Geralt was going to sprint to the opposite wall. He was fairly sure he could keep it together long enough to reach it.

They stood side by side, breathing heavily, holding hands, building their courage.

Yennefer had assured them she would be on hand if anything went wrong and she perched herself on the side table, taking long drinks of the amber liquid in the glass.

"Okay, after three," Geralt glanced at Jaskier who nodded. He reluctantly let go of Jaskier's hand, a torrent of emotions swirling inside him.

Jaskier pressed himself hard against the wall.

"One," said Geralt, voice tight, settling in a stance to start running, "Two..."

On three he launched himself away from the wall. Jaskier's scream harmonised with his own and pain lanced through him, growing in intensity as he forced his legs to carry him. He threw himself at his destination, crumpling awkwardly on the landing and gritted his teeth together as wave after wave tore through him. 

It was unlike anything he had every felt before. The edges of his vision kept going dark. The dryness of his mouth quickly choking him as he growled. His muscles spasmed and ached. Sharp pain kept spiking through his organs. He willed himself to pass out, but the black wouldn't come.

He forced himself to look at Jaskier.

The Bard was in a heap on the floor, his whole body contorting and convulsing, the scream pulled from him only stopping when he had to take a breath.

Yennefer wasn't looking at either of them. She was very close to covering her ears with her hands to block out the noise. But she didn't. They needed to see her strong. If she wilted, what hope did either of them have?

As the minutes crawled past, Geralt kept waiting for his body to go numb, to get used to the pain and filter it out like background noise. But it just kept coming, finding new ways to hurt him in places he didn't know even existed.

Jaskier had stopped screaming but only because he physically couldn't anymore. 

The half-hour mark was signalled by Yennefer and Jaskier let out a long, distressed noise that broke Geralt's heart.

"I can't," he sobbed, "I can't do this. Please. Please don't make me do this. Please."

"Just hang on Jaskier," Yennefer was crouched over him, brushing his sweat soaked hair out of his eyes.

"Please," he wailed, "make it stop. Please. G-Geralt."

Geralt had to look away from him. He knew that if he caught those blue eyes he would break and abandon his wall to crawl to Jaskier's side. They were so close now. So close.

The Witcher sucked in sharp, shallow breaths as he clenched his jaw so hard, he was pretty sure he heard a tooth crack.

And then finally, finally after what seemed like an eternity, the pain was gone. 

Geralt howled with relief. His body felt strangely light. Slowly testing each limb, he pushed himself up off the floor and leaned against the wall.

Then he saw Jaskier and he wanted to scream even though he knew he couldn't.

The Bard was on his side, eyes glazed over, tears streaming down his face, his whole body shuddering with each shallow breath. Yennefer was by his head, muttering soothing words and light incantations to bring him back round.

Not trusting his legs to support him, Geralt used a chair to pull himself up then cautiously made his way over to Jaskier and Yennefer. He collapsed by her side and reached for his Bard.

"Jaskier," Geralt shook him gently.

"I'm not sure he can hear you," the Mage's voice sounded tight.

"What do you mean?" fear and panic tainted his tone.

"He's retreated so far back into himself I'm struggling to...to find him," she frowned.

Geralt took Jaskier's hands and realised that the Bard's fingertips were bloody from where he had clawed at the floor. Geralt choked back a sob. 

"I'm here Jaskier. Come back to me, please," the Witcher rasped, "it’s over. It's all over."

Jaskier blinked. Then his breathing stuttered. Then he groaned.

"Jaskier?" Geralt's voice was thick with emotion.

"Remind me to never get mixed up with Mages again," Jaskier's voice was reedy and barely audible. His gaze landed on Yennefer, "ah shit. Spoke too soon."

Geralt laughed. It was raspy and almost painful in his raw throat, but it resonated with giddy relief. 

Over the next few days they mostly just slept, tangled in each other's arms, in one of the lush bedrooms of the townhouse. Yennefer checked in on them every now and then but tried not to disturb them too much. They were both exhausted and needed time to recover which she had full faith that they would. She was a little worried about their mental states but that was something she could evaluate once they were stronger. 

On the morning of the fifth day Geralt was woken by the harsh sunlight spilling through the drapes hanging over the windows. He had been having a rather bad dream about a curse and unimaginable pain but then he remembered that it wasn't a dream, it had actually happened, and he was struck with exhaustion anew just thinking about it. It was strange. He usually didn't need to sleep. Quite often, meditation was enough to revive him but all he had done for however long it had been, was sleep. 

He became aware of the warmth in the bed next to him and he let himself smile as he looked at Jaskier sleeping peacefully. The slow rise and fall of his chest. The glow of the morning sun on his skin. He was utterly beautiful. It was hard to believe that not so long ago he had been drowning in terror and pain.

Geralt swallowed hard. The memories would haunt him forever and Gods only knew what lasting effects the trauma would have on Jaskier. 

He tried to force the thought away as he traced the side of Jaskier's face with a gentle finger. He ghosted over the Bard's soft lips and graced the curve of his jaw. 

Jaskier stirred slightly but didn't wake and Geralt hummed softly. 

Let him sleep, he thought to himself, and when he wakes, he won't have time to think about what happened because he'll be too busy being loved by me. Gods Geralt, when did you become such a sap? 

He smiled when Jaskier mumbled in his sleep.

Oh. When I fell in love. That's when.

And Geralt let himself sink back into pleasant black.

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