#ao3 being down is the single worst thing to have happened to humanity

[jadewestwriter]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN AO3 IS DOWN???! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!!

#ao3 #ao3 being down is the single worst thing to have happened to humanity #alright people roll out the dystopian ya novels its time #rebuild society or something #im literally dying #as in about to read ff in Tumblr

[bumpkinspice0]

Recovery Time: Chapter 1

Joel Miller x Fem!Reader

No use of y/n

Rating: Mature

Word Count: 4.5k

Summary: Ten years into the outbreak and you'd seen a lot. Through it all you'd managed to make a comfortable life for yourself in the end. A lonely life, but a comfortable one... then a bleeding man comes stumbling into it.

Warnings: dude in distress, serious injury, descriptions of wound care, blood, stitches, shock, I think that's it???

A/N: Let's see if I can write slow burn, kids! (please hold my hand) Got tired of just contemplating stuff in this story and just decided to post it to light a fire under my ass. This fic is inspired 25% by my love for The Last of Us (Games and series) 25% for my love for Pedro Pascal and 50% for my deep desire to abandon everything I know and live in the woods.

Series Masterlist

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AO3

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Chapter 1: Mystery Man

Your ass has already gone numb from sitting in your barebones tree stand. It was little more than a seat strapped to a ladder strapped to a tree, but it got the job done— Less conspicuous than a proper deer stand, anyway. Even with numb ass cheeks and a runny nose brewing, the early fall breeze was still nice, not too bone-chilling. The sunrise was exceptionally beautiful today. You don’t recall the last time you watched the sunrise. You don’t really recall the last time you sat this still for this long.

It was too early in the season to start hunting, but you were feeling lucky. And, if you were being honest, just needed to get away from the cabin. From the monotony of daily life you’d created. This was as outside of the box you could think of— coming out to stare out a field while slowly freezing your ass off.

But it was nice… peaceful. A break from routine. Routine was all you had lately. Routine was safe. Routine kept you alive.

It started out as a little hike. Something to get your blood pumping. You had to justify it, of course, so you turned it into a hunting trip. Nothing can be done without purpose. Not in this world. What’s the worst thing that could happen— you actually bring some meat home?

Four hours without a single animal passing through your vantage point and you start to have your doubts. You would have been better off walking through trails and looking for rabbits, but something about just sitting sounded so fucking nice. Just sitting. Not doing a goddamn thing.

You both cherish and hate it at the same time.

Finally, you see movement just over the hill of the clearing. About damn time. Your grasp tightens around your bow in anticipation. You click your cheek to get Gus’s attention just below you. He’d more than likely fallen asleep by now. You look down the trunk to see your loyal companion's ears perk up. The black and white border collie rises and shakes off the leaves from his coat, ready to pounce and give chase as soon as your arrow flies. Both your eyes fixed on the movement in the clearing. It was big. You’re praying for a deer or, god willing, an elk. God, you’d be set through most of winter if you got an elk.

The animal stalks closer, a little over a hundred yards away. The tall golden grass obscures most of its body but once it takes a few more steps you can finally make it out— it’s definitely not any deer.

It’s a man. A very, very injured man. He’s limping, blood staining nearly every inch of him.

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

You’re instantly tense, a rush of adrenaline pumping you to full alert. This was the first person you’d seen in— you can’t recall how long— and look at him. Any inkling of him being a possible threat is instantly dismissed. He’s barely walking, if you could even call it that. The possibility of him being infected crosses your mind, but there’s too much purpose to his movements. Too much humanity still left in his face.

Then why was he out here?

The likelihood of this being a trap crosses your mind next, but you quickly abandon the thought when you see him drop his rifle and pack and take a good ten steps past them. If he was acting, he deserves an Academy Award. He looked absolutely exhausted. If his pitiful walking wasn’t convincing enough, his dirty, tattered body was.

You let out a gasp when he finally collapses with a nasty thud. Gus lets out a small ruff below— just as engrossed with the stranger as you. Now what?

What do you do with this? What the hell do you do?

You could help him— of course you could. That’s who you are, what you used to be at least. Someone who helped people. You have all the skills and necessities to do so. You want to help him. Everything in you is screaming to just go up to him— but you have to be smart. You don’t have the luxury of acting on kind will anymore.

The mystery man lies there motionless as you quickly weigh your options. 

This could still be a trap. Even if he wasn’t the one setting it, he could be the bait. You hadn’t encountered it before but you’d heard stories of the raider's tactics. To lure people out with sympathy. Even if he was, Gus would have surely alerted you if there were more nearby by now.

You test this theory as you slowly crawl down from the tree stand and lurk low to the ground, Gus prowling beside you. You take a few steps into the grass and he doesn’t stop you. The coast must be clear. You always trust that dog's instincts above all. He hasn’t led you astray yet. 

Still, there’s more to debate while you let a man bleed out in front of you.

He could have been followed, but something tells you that wasn’t likely either. Or at least if he had been, they would have easily caught up to him in his condition.

Or you’re just hoping that was true.

And the worst option… He could still be infected. You’d never seen an infected come out this far. Hell, regular people never came out this far. They just didn’t. Nothing about his movements or mannerisms suggested he could be infected. And again, Gus would have let you know. He knows their scent. Maybe he’s bitten but it hasn’t taken hold yet? There’s no way to tell.

And there’s really only one way to find out.

You take a deep breath, sliding your bow across your back. You run swiftly through the grass with your dog close at your side, doing your best to remain low and somewhat hidden by the foliage. This was insane. This was stupid. This is risking so much and yet you can’t stop yourself. Even after all these years, that need is still embedded in you. The need to help.

You kneel next to the mystery man and Gus circles the two of you, the ever-vigilant guard dog. 

“Hey…Um, sir?” you say awkwardly as you tap the side of his face. There’s some small movement in his rugged features but nothing resembling consciousness. He’s out cold. 

You quickly assess the obvious damage to him. Your hands lightly glide over his body, checking for broken bones, any bloodied wet spots…or bite marks. He’s bandaged something across his stomach with some ripped fabric and duct tape. You carefully peel back the soaked-through fabric to see two nasty lacerations stretch over his stomach, one on each side. You’re not sure how deep they are and you don’t want to dig your unsanitized hands in it to find out. That was the worst of it. He was covered in small scrapes and bruises. His knuckles were bloodied and bruised. He’d fought his way out of something. A twinge of fear pricks in the back of your mind that he may have been followed after all. You end your examination on his left ankle— definitely badly sprained if not broken entirely. The flesh around his boot was swollen and red. 

But nothing that remotely resembled a bite. Gus gives him a good sniff over and you get the final approval. This man isn’t infected. Just mortality wounded— great.

You sling his gun and backpack across your back and lean over the stranger, giving yourself one final chance to debate all of this.

You could take his stuff and run. Leave him for the birds. Had the world really made you so bitter? No, you know it hadn’t. If you left him here, this man’s death would be on your conscience every day. A death you could have prevented. It’s just not in your nature to be so selfish, even after everything. Even if you couldn’t save him, you’d at least know you tried.

You had the means to get him back home. You’d wheeled out one of the small wagons with you in hopes you’d be bringing some fresh meat back. Well, you guess you still are— It’ll just be live meat. Hopefully live, at least.

If you help him, it’s another mouth to feed. Someone to take care of and bandage on top of your daily work. Are you willing to do it? You’d done it for others before, but that felt like a lifetime ago. Is it still worth it?

Yes, you decide.

“I’m gonna get you out of here.” You assure him as you hook your arms under his shoulders and start to drag him back into the tree line. Even if he can’t hear you, talking at least comforted you. You always talked to your patients anyway. 

“Christ, you’re heavier than you look.” You wheeze, shuffling as quickly as you can back to the tree line. 

Gus walks with you, still on edge. He sniffs at the curious stranger cautiously. You’re sure he’s not going to like any of this. Gus was never a fan of any of the men you brought home— not that you brought that many.

You awkwardly lift Mystery Man into your two-wheeled wagon and toss in all of your combined supplies. Time was of the essence if he’d lost as much blood as you thought he had— and your home was over a mile away. You take a moment to gather yourself before picking up the wagon handles and marching as quickly as possible through the wooded terrain back to the cabin. 

At least the September air was still pleasant. Not too hot, not too cold. The humidity of summer dissipates as fall creeps into the woods. You wish you had time to admire the changing of the leaves, but not today. At least you got to watch the sunrise.

You’re absolutely drenched in sweat by the time the cabin’s finally in sight. You don’t recall ever being so happy to see it. No one’s followed you and Gus hasn’t alerted you to anyone else's presence. Well, that at least makes you feel a little better. You likely still won’t light a fire for the next few nights, just in case.

The journey isn't over yet, though. You drop the wagon with an angry thud against the porch.  

“Here we are!” You say to the practical corpse of a man as you hoist his upper body back into your arms, “God, imagine how much you’d weigh with all your blood.”

You drag him to the living room floor, deciding to roll him into a proper bed once you clean his wounds and take care of whatever needs taking care of— a lot. A lot needed taking care of with him. First, you get his filthy flannel out of the way, unbuttoning it to reveal the full map of bruises across his toned torso. It just further confirms your suspicions of him being in a fight. A bad one.

“Don’t move!” You instruct the still man. You’re probably talking too much given the situation,  but it’s helping you process it all. Gus waits silently at the door as you panickedly rush through your home. You start to boil two large pots of water over the wood stove. One empty and one with gauze and towels. Your water was decently filtered but you’re not taking any chances on possibly making this gravely injured man even sicker with an infection because you don’t have fucking chlorine in your water.

While the water boils you ready your other supplies. You grab your untouched medical supplies from the closet and drop them next to Mystery Man. You quickly dig through the old bag, praying you have any kind of antibiotics left. Luck seems to be on your side for once today, finding a still half-full bottle of amoxicillin in the bottom of the medical bag. You organize the chaos, lining up all your necessary supplies on a towel. It wasn’t an OR but it was…something. This wasn’t necessarily a sterile environment but it was the best you could do.

The water should be sanitized by now. You take the pots off the stove and gingerly place them next to your other supplies. Another few minutes to thoroughly wash your hands and you’re good to go. While this man had lost a lot of blood, his biggest risk factor at this point was infection— the slow painful death kind, not the walking fungus kind. Both are terrible options, really. 

You kneel next to him amongst your scattered supplies, taking a deep breath to gather yourself once more before you begin your work. When was the last time you did this? Who was your last patient? It’d been years , what if you’d forgotten everything? Your isolation out in the woods could have slowly rotted your brain. Still, going through the process in your head, you can recall every step. Sure, it’d been a while but you knew what to do. Just because it’d been so long doesn’t mean your skills dried up like a well—right? You’re still a medic. You’ve got this.

“You can still do this,” You assure yourself with another steady breath. You’d done this thousands of times before. He’s no different than the rest.

Your clean hands ghost over him, deciding where to start. The massive cuts on his sides seem like a good place. You need to clean them, both to get any filth out of them, but also just to see how serious it is. If this wound was deep enough to puncture any organs there’s a good possibility there’s nothing you could do for him. 

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

The wound on his right stretches from his stomach to just below his ribs. The left one is smaller, stretching down vertically about 6 inches, stopping just above his hip. They look maybe 2 days old, based on the bruising and ridiculous amounts of dried blood. He may have saved his life with those shotty duct tape bandages in the field, but there was still a lot that needed to be done. You take a cup of clean water and pour it over the first wound. Blood and dirt trickle out of it. His muscles react to the sensation but he still doesn’t wake up. You pour more water over it and start dabbing it with a towel. You had to take this part slowly. You had to be gentle and observant just to see how bad it was.

You breathe a sigh of relief when there’s eventually only blood rinsing out. No pus or mystery liquid that should definitely be somewhere else. After a thorough cleaning, you feel confident enough to stitch him up. Fishing line is the best you have, but it’ll have to do.

You repeat the same process for the wound on his other side— also a clean cut.

Once he’s all cleaned up and closed, you tape a few layers of gauze over each one and a layer of compression bandages over that. You even top it off with a shot of amoxicillin. Better care than you were able to give some of your other patients, that’s for sure. 

“God, I hope you’re not allergic to this,” You say as you inject the potential life-saving liquid. If that does its job, this guy might just have a chance.

His other wounds were trivial in comparison. Smaller cuts or bruises you couldn’t do anything about. Less life-threatening than the giant new holes around his stomach.

“Well, that’s the worst ones taken care of,” You sigh with little relief, wiping some sweat from your brow, “Unless you’re bleeding from somewhere else I can’t see.”

You looked down at his remaining blood-soaked clothes. If you had to guess you’d say he lost nearly a liter, but maybe not all of it was his— again, you try not to think about it right now. 

You turn your attention to his other grave injury— his ankle. The skin around the joint is tender and red, swollen to nearly double the size of his other leg. You have to get his boot off. If you were treating this like a proper emergency situation you’d have just cut the boot off. Instead, you take the time to carefully unlace them completely and they slide off with no problem. Good boots are hard to come by and this guy's clothes are almost all trashed as it is. The stiffness of the leather boot may have just saved this man’s foot in the long run.

His ankle was badly sprained, if not broken.  None of the tendons seem completely severed so he’ll walk again— thank god. Lord knows you don’t know how to perform actual surgery. The best option for it regardless is to stabilize it. You wrap his foot in compression bandages and immobilize it on each side with a ruler and a wooden spoon. It’s not pretty but it gets the job done just the same. You wished you had ice to help with the swelling. You’ll have to check and see if you have any anti-inflammatories left to help with that.

With his two main injuries stabilized you continue to look over and patch up any of his smaller wounds over the next hour. None as nasty as the cuts on his stomach, but plenty were just more risk for infection. Some are just scrapes… some look fairly similar to shallow stab wounds you’d seen before. You repeat the same process for all of them— Your two bowls of water slowly become crimson red as you work.

His breath remains steady the whole time. Whoever this guy is, he’s a fighter. The scars that already littered his skin were proof enough of that. 

Once satisfied with your work you drag him over to your bedroom and wrap him in a few blankets. With no shirt and tremendous blood loss, he’s going to wake up cold. You do your best to hopefully make him comfortable. 

That’s it. You’ve done everything you can do. All that was left was to wait. 

More premature relief blankets over you as you wash your bloodied hands off in the bathroom sink, fingers trembling from the adrenaline coming down. Your mind drifts back to your brief time as a nurse— back when the world was whole. Within your first week in the ER, you’d seen dozens of injuries worse than his. After the breakout, you’d seen hundreds more. Still, your proper education was nearly ten years ago now. 

The rest of your medical history was stuff like this. Injured folk at the end of the world who needed an actual doctor, but you were the best they had— and that’d been a long time ago too. You still can’t quite recall when your last patient was. 

And of course, the first person you see in years just happens to end up a patient as well. A long-term patient.

With him tucked away and bandaged up, you turn your attention to his supplies. You unload his gun. Only four rounds left. You place the bullets in your junk drawer in the kitchen and drag all his gear into the room, placing it at the foot of the bed. Despite having hovered over him for the last few hours you finally take a moment to just… Look at him. He’s rather handsome, you suppose. For a guy living through the apocalypse. A strong chin and nose framed with a slowly peppering beard. Dusty curls with rich tan skin. If you had to guess you’d say his eyes were brown. The lines on his face are deep with character.  Okay, he was very handsome.

Upon just observing him, more of your foolish decision-making hits you. You didn’t know this man, and you brought him into your home. You put him in your bed! You don’t know his past or what he’s capable of. In his condition, he wasn’t currently capable of much at all. You’re sure you could overpower him if it came to violence when he woke up. If that’s how it had to be, then that’s how it had to be. You pray it wouldn’t come to that, though.

If Art were still here, he’d be absolutely livid right now. Then again, there was very little that didn’t set him off. He’d be so disappointed in you if he’d seen what an idiot you’d been here. Probably both for bringing a stranger into his home and your shotty patch job. 

“You don’t owe anyone anything, and neither do I. Not anymore,” Your old mentor’s voice rings in your head. Stubborn, brutish old man— you missed him so much. 

You suddenly remember who your last actual patient was. You’d learned your lesson once. Helping people had a price. A physical one sometimes. Suddenly you can feel every ridge of the scars on your lower abdomen. A constant reminder of the risks something like this came with. Someone you tried to help took something away from you. 

You hoped this man was different.

And really, what kind of asshole would wake up and murder the person that saved their life? A lot of assholes probably. This new world is full of them. 

You decide to keep your hunting knife on your belt, just in case.

It’s hours later until anything happens.

You’re sitting in the living room when you hear a crash from the bedroom— followed by a pained grunt. Gus is there before you are, his hair raised and a defensive growl in his throat. You rush to the door and there he is, your mystery patient up and walking. Well, sort of. 

He’s rolled out of the bed, knocking over a lamp that hasn’t been turned on in months in the process. He’s trashing in the tangled sheets, trying to get himself up. 

“Easy!” You say first to him, “Easy!” You say again to Gus. The dog backs down, still standing defensively between your legs. 

“Who are you?” The man wheezes out, “Where am I?” His voice is deep and raspy but there’s barely any power behind it. You can tell he’s trying to be threatening but he’s too weak to do much of anything. He’s shivering. His eyes are darting around the room, likely looking for anything he could use as a weapon.

He can’t manage to stand on his own two feet so you think you're probably safe.

You raise your hands and crouch down to his level. He’s tense— A panicked animal backed into a corner. You have to be calm, show him you’re not a threat. You slowly offer a hello and your name. “I saved your life. You’re beat up pretty—”

“Where am I?” He repeats with more force this time.

“Safe. My house.” You say calmly but with force, not letting him have control of this conversation, “I assume not far from wherever you got the shit beaten out of you.”

He flinches with a hiss of pain, grasping at his side. He’s going to open his stitches if he keeps thrashing around like this. You need to get him back into bed. He needs to rest. You need to calm him down.

You take a careful crouched step towards him. 

“Don’t.” He snarls. 

“Look, mister,” You sigh, sitting back on your heels, “Why would I have brought you here? Why wouldn’t I have just left you out there to die, hmm?”

“You might want somethin’. I don’t know what side you're on. Who you work for. ”

“Yes, because you have so much to offer right now,” You can’t help but roll your eyes, “I’m on the side that gets you in the bed and to stop writhing on the ground. You’re gonna—”

“You a raider?”

You raise your eyebrows and almost scoff at the accusation. Did you look like a raider? Is this what raiders looked like? You?

“I’m your fucking doctor and I’m ordering you to get back in that bed.” 

You should be more patient with him. You really should. You have no idea what he’d seen or what really happened to him. You thought you had given him ample reason to trust you but you’re still a stranger to him. And he’s woken up in a strange place after god knows what. 

Give him more reason to trust you. Kindness can still go a long way in this world. You believe that. 

You reach over to the foot of the bed and drag his backpack and boots into view, “Here’s your stuff. I’m washing your shirt, though I’m not sure it’s salvageable at this point. Your rifle is there in the corner. I have the bullets for safekeeping.” You push the bag closer to him, “I saw you go down in a field about a mile north from here, I brought you here, I fixed you up. I’m nobody. I just want to help.” 

You hold each other’s gaze for a moment, searching for answers in the other’s eyes. You were right, his were brown. He looks down, snagging the pack from your grasp. He riffles through it, taking a quick inventory of everything. Trust established— however minuscule it was. 

Or that’s what you thought.

In the split second your guard is lowered he springs forward, pushing you out of the way and tumbling into the hallway. Luckily, he doesn’t get far. Gus bites at his pant leg almost needlessly. The stranger didn’t even have the strength left to make it to the kitchen.

“Have to get back. Have to—” he mumbles incoherently as you approach his curled-up form.

A sane person would cut their losses here, toss him out in the cold, and wash their hands of such a burden. Lucky for him, you hadn’t been completely sane in years. With another heavy sigh, you lean over to help him to his feet. He doesn’t fight you.

“Tess?” Mystery Man deliriously mumbles, limping back to the bedroom on your arm. Well, it seems like your entire interaction was a faded memory. It was common with this kind of trauma. He’s still in survival mode. 

“No,” you grumble, laying him back down on the bed. “Not Tess.”

“I have to– Tommy—” his delirium continues, eyes fluttering open and closed just trying to grasp consciousness. Calling out to the people he knows, not you.

“Hey,” you lightly grab his shoulder. His attention focuses on you again, “You’ll see them again, I promise. Right now you have to rest.”

He studies you again and you start to wonder if he’s going to make another break for it. Thankfully, his only response is a single nod.

“I’ll be right back,” You quickly step out of the room and grab him a glass of water. You offer the glass and he studies it for a moment before chugging it down like a feverish child. He slowly rolls back into the bed with a heavy sigh. You take the empty glass back. “Rest for now. Call me when you're up again and you can have something to eat.”

He’s already passed out again before you finish your sentence. 

#joel miller #joel tlou #tlou #the last of us #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller fanfiction #Recovery Time Fic

[yetanothergreyjedi]

Ghosts of Our Pasts: pt 12

DP x DC crossover

Damian Wayne and Danny Fenton Sibling AU

Ao3

Masterpost Previous

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Mistakes a Mother Shouldn't Make

-

Oh Dears, you didn't think I was going to immediately tell you what's happening with Danny and Dami, did you? Sorry not sorry

---

Talia was looking for her children. They hadn't appeared yet this morning, which meant they were likely finding mischief. Fine as long as they weren't late for lessons, fine as long as it did not intrude on anything of importance.

It was too early for training, yet they were not in their beds and the halls were quiet. She had been searching for several minutes and still no trace of them. Not that that was particularly alarming, children trained for stealth tended to be skilled at it. They had the advantage of their size and the fact that most did not look down when anticipating threats. Add to the fact that they knew the methods for changing the guard and they could disappear as effectively as any assassin.

Her guards had not seen them. They had not come when she called. She hoped they hadn't fallen asleep in a crawl space again, it might be hours before they woke and realized they needed to return, and Father had been keeping a close eye lately. Dany was already in a dangerous position, if he believed her eldest was stunting Damian's potential...

She was worried about Danyal. He was growing... unsettled. His progress had stagnated for seemingly no reason, and it wasn't out of limitation. She knew what Dany looked like when he'd reached his limits, when he'd reached past them. This felt deliberate. Of course she had no way to prove he'd been aiming off center, or that he'd misstepped on purpose, or that he failed to see an opening he'd see without fail every single time they'd tested it last year.

Ras was not close enough to see the choice. This was a good thing. She did not know what punishment would exist for her son if her Father knew.

Then there were the pranks.

If this was truly the height of Danyal's progress, Ras would find it disappointing, but the League would still have gained from it. But Disloyalty? That would not stand.

Perhaps it was time, she had always considered sending her sons to her Beloved. Part of her loathed the choice. Bruce would not encourage loyalty to the league and his presence held the very real threat of defection. But if Danyal had already made that decision...

Then her beloved was the only one who could save him.

This was the last thought before the wall clicked. She had her weapon drawn before she processed the opening, the passage. She hadn’t known this one existed. Seams she had never recognized opened into a door, and out stepped her youngest.

She registered the blood and dust and tear tracks down his face before any true thoughts could form.

1.) Check behind him. No threats made themselves immediately known. Nothing in the secret hall, no footsteps giving chase.

2.) She knelt, quickly scanning Damian for injuries. Nothing immediately visible.

"Are you hurt?" She demanded.

Damian hiccuped another sob, but shook his head. What he did say, however, was, "D-dany,"

If her blood was cold before, now it was liquid nitrogen. "Damian, where is your akhi?"

---

Maddie couldn't remember the last time her cooking had made herself this sick.

Between Jazz recognizing when something was too far gone, the food coming to life then escaping, and her own iron stomach, the last actual case of food poisoning hadn't been since the portal. This being the thing that caused it... it didn't make sense.

The meal had been prepared with fresh foods, smelled delicious, and had not a hint of undead twitching. There was only one thing that could've caused it, one that didn't by any accounts make sense.

Ectouranium, despite its frightening name, was perfectly safe for human consumption. Should've been perfectly safe for them. Yet here she was, standing over the toilet just like Jack had done an hour ago.

Hoping the worst had passed, she rinsed her mouth from the sink. The water had the ever so slight taste of electrified old pennies, and Maddie knew why her attempts to decontaminate the kitchen had failed; because even the tap water tasted like ectoplasm, and she suddenly craved it. She flushed the toilet with a sigh, she should've known. Of course they were too contaminated for a simple fix, Danny had been registering as a ghost on every scanner—Danny.

Danny had eaten dinner with them.

She practically flew down the stairs to a star dappled bedroom, empty. And that wasn't surprising, she could only hope that he hadn't decided to disappear again tonight.

She checked the bathroom next. Its door was still ajar. The relief she felt that he had stayed home was squashed by the way Danny huddled on the floor. He was gasping for air in short pained starts, pressed into the corner where the wall met the tub as if trying to melt into it.

"Danny!" She ran to him, and her heart broke as he tried to shuffle away from her despite the fact that there was nowhere to go. Instincts from his past or something else, she didn't know. It didn't matter, the movement turned ragged breathing into deep chest coughs that had Maddie reaching to call an ambulance before she saw the blood.

But her phone wasn't here, it was still plugged in on the bedside table where she'd left it. And Jack would be asleep with his earmuffs and—

"Mom?" A bleary-eyed Jazz said, "what are you..."

"Jazz, call an ambulance!"

---

Talia stalked through passages she only half knew. She was equal parts proud and dismayed that the trail the boys had left was so subtle. She was equal parts relieved and terrified that the unused halls were too dusty to leave no trace. She moved as quickly as she dared, unwilling to misread the subtle signs.

Until the signs were less subtle. Her eldest's struggle was painted clear crimson for a hallway, and then it stopped. And it was clear what had happened, even if the illuminating green had faded like a dull cracked glowstick.

Dany was no longer in danger of that death, but the deaths that would no doubt follow behind her were still as real as before. There were six drying bootprints before her son had realized and taken measures to prevent them. Thus Danyal's mind was clear. Good, even if the trail became harder to follow. Not perfect, the hard stone became dirt and hiding footprints was nearly impossible. He'd doubled back at least twice, intentionally or because he'd taken a wrong turn?

Pride and betrayal and fear and hope all swirled in her heart but now was not the time to dwell on them.

The end of the tunnels came and went, the wilderness stretched in front of her until it gave way to civilization and the trail went cold. Perhaps she did not check all the places a child could hide that an adult could. Perhaps she overlooked a camera's blindspot.

She had no way of knowing if the assassins her father sent would know to not to do the same.

She did not find her son.

No one told her if anyone else had either.

---

Maddie cradled her son in her arms, encouraging him to keep fighting for breath. Jazz had disappeared a moment, an eternity, exactly fifty three stuttering wet gasps and 5 lung tearing coughs ago.

Then she returned, not talking urgently with an operator, but holding a beaker full of electric green-white.

"Jazz, no."

"It is not poison for the dying, or the dead." Her daughter quotes her son.

"It's still—"

Jazz silences her with a glare, her eyes reflect the eerie light. She doesn't need to say it, Maddie knows that it's Jazz who's memorized Danny's contingency plans, who knows his rules for when the hospital is and isn't an acceptable risk.

"Okay," Maddie shifts to let Jazz take her place by Danny's side. She tips the glass and he drinks what should be poison.

He improves but does not heal and Maddie tells Jazz why. That this amount of ectoplasm can only counter ectouranium so far, that she had forgotten that the 'contamination' was what kept her youngest alive.

Jazz did not lecture her this time, it felt worse than when she did.

They brought Danny down to the lab and Jazz sat them down next to the open portal. It was a chill down her spine and an ache in her bones but neither of her children seemed to fear it, and she would not leave them now.

Danny's breathing had gone quieter after the ectoplasm, so she hadn’t exactly noticed when it stopped. He turned and looked at her with eyes that were not reflecting the portal. How many times had she tricked herself into believing they were?

"Danny?"

"Mom," He breathed in after saying the word, but did not exhale. She wasn't sure he needed too.

"I'm sorry," She whispered.

He huffed a laugh, "Not the first time I've been poisoned,"

Jazz facepalmed behind him.

"For more than that," Maddie said, because Danny had never seemed less human than this moment, and she couldn't apologize and ask at the same time.

He dropped his head on her shoulder, he was cold as ice, but Jazz was at his other side and would've said something if it was a problem.

"Just don't do it again," he requests, meaning more than just adding things to her cooking.

"I won't," Maddie promised, and felt the weight of something binding in her own words. It wouldn’t matter. She intended to keep her word.

So perhaps the FentonWorks ghost security was dismantled and destroyed by the end of the week. Perhaps symbols drawn by teenagers proved more effective. Perhaps their son would sometimes pass through the front door instead of opening it.

Some questions don't need to be asked.

Some questions shouldn't be.

---

Talia was often grateful that her son was a public figure. It meant that instead of wasting manpower on a subtle check up, (and that would be made more complicated of course, her beloved would not allow it), all she had to do was a quick search of his name to find out anything the public might know.

It wasn’t always enough to feel comfortable, particularly when Robin was reported to be injured, but it was far better than if the Wayne's had been just another face in the crowd.

Drama was the usual, but she was surprised to see some of it focusing on Damian instead of the other family members... Apparently someone had run from him, he had given chase and the details devolved into theories from there. It didn't sound like something Damian would do in her opinion, but with every passing year the Damian she remembered existed less and less.

She scrolled through the comments wondering if they had simply misattributed the action of one of the others. Damian running through the streets shouting after them? Her son would know better ways than that. But then her eyes fell onto another comment.

"I saw him," The person with a pink cat for a profile picture said. "He was yelling 'Daniel'."

The world seemed to stop. Not Daniel, Damian had been yelling after Danyal.

-

-

-

Notes:

There are a lot of reasons you shouldn't train small children as assassins, most of those reasons are ethical. But I'm stuck on the idea of giving stealth training to small children… bring them into one(1) department store and POOF they gone!

Tag list pt1

@spectralstardustandphantomnights @avelnfear @idfk-man10 @blackroserelina @candeartist422 @mur-ururu @luer-mirin @insufferablecatenthusiast @skulld3mort-1fan @alonedustspeck @voidbornposts @meira-3919 @marshmello @aethernorwood @mimilikey @undead-essence @cloudminder @markus209 @everything163 @latheevening226 @roman4517 @moobloomrights @battybatbat @lumosfeather18581 @werv @ahyesanerd @pyramaniac @lexdamo @princessbelix @bun-fish @deeannthepan @edgyboi10000 @thatrandomsarahchick @busterkeel @aconitewolfsbane @spoopyspoony @bright-shade @spidey29phangirl @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit @keimiwolf @u-a-wizard-jamie @gay-puff @bicerise @itshype @blackfoxsposts @icanneverdecide @lolottes @chubbypotato @jovialherringtacoghost @saltyladynightmare

[palmofafreezinghand]

For your Day Needing Distraction requests, wanna do a scene that's just Carlisle and Esme but set during the saga somewhere?

thank you so much for the prompt @jessicanjpa, sorry this took a lil bit!

Esme tries to appease Carlisle's worries about Edward's new relationship with a story about their own. on ao3 here.

Carlisle fed another log to the crackling fire. Edward had banished his ‘parents’ to Carlisle’s study while Isabella Swan was getting a tour of the family home for the first time, something about not terrifying her too much on the first encounter. 

“It never turns off does it?” Esme asked from her place on the loveseat behind him. 

He furrowed his brow, gaze still focused on the flames. “Do I dare ask for more context?” 

“That little brain of yours,” she sighed. His brain being referred to as little made him look over his shoulder at her. “Whatever in there that makes you constantly picture our gory firey deaths and has convinced you God will never let you be happy.” 

He chuckled lightly, standing and walking slightly slower than a human to the couch. “My father deserves some credit for that.” 

“You’re deflecting,” she rolled her eyes as he lifted her feet off the cushion and took a seat, letting her legs rest across his lap. 

“I was not blessed with your optimism, my love.” 

“Faith is a choice,” she parroted words he had told her decades earlier. 

“Alice saw it. She saw him ki —” 

“Alice wears fishnet tights and paints her eyes like a raccoon. Truly I have no idea why any of us trust her judgement.” 

He gasped theatrically, lightly squeezing her calf. “Did I not hear you just yesterday tell her you admired her makeup?” 

“I said I admired her bravery to experiment. There is a difference.” 

“I see,” he nodded absentmindedly, eyes fixed on the fire. Our gory firey deaths. 

She leaned forward and poked at the crease between his eyebrows. “You’re still worrying. Do you not trust Edward.” 

“I love Edward,” he said instinctively. 

“I don’t believe that’s what I asked.” 

“I…” he took a deep breath, weighing the words in his mind. Thousands of thoughts and yet unable to find the way to begin to voice them. She placed her thumb and index on his chin and softly turned his head to look at her. “I believe he can manage it. But you know how he is. He gets over-confident and stubborn, and people get hurt, and he gets hurt.” 

She smiled. “Who does that remind me of?” 

“I’m not stub— ” he stopped himself before he could deny her claim and in turn prove it. 

She blew air out of her nose. “Did you ever worry about us, when we first started courting?” 

“Always” 

“Me too.” 

“You did?” He frowned, again. 

“Till the moment Edward dragged me down the aisle.” 

“Dragged?” 

“He never told you the story?” 

“There’s a story?”  

“Do you remember our wedding day?” 

He laughed. He remembered every single moment they had spent together in perfect detail, but even without the eidetic memory, he would remember their wedding day. “Vaguely.” 

“You remember how I was late?” 

“For the first and last time in your life, yes.” It had been a source of many quips over the years. 

“That may have been because I completely panicked. I believe I ran as far as Colorado when Edward caught up.” 

“Pardon?” 

“Shush,” she grinned, amused by what had to of been horror on his face, slinging her arms loosely around his neck. “My mind had been racing for hours, imagining every horrible scenario that could happen once we were married. Poor Edward had been listening to this for hours. When Edward finally stopped me he said... 

—— 

“You’re right,” Edward yelled, from the other side of the river, still gauging how he was going to cross. 

Esme dug her heels into the ground, coming to an abrupt halt. “Pardon?” 

“Carlisle could become a monster. You’re right. Marriage may be the worst choice you ever make. You are absolutely correct.” 

“This is not helpful, Edward,” she huffed. 

“I can not promise things won’t go horribly wrong, they could. But… I can promise that if things go right you two will be incredibly happy.” 

“I do not gamble.” 

“Esme, you two deserve happiness more than anyone I know.” 

“We’re the only people you know,” she attempted a smile that failed to reach her eyes. 

“If you truly want to leave, I will personally ensure you never have to worry about a cent, I can make sure Carlisle never contacts you again. But I need to know with absolute certainty you are not throwing away something that could be wonderful simply because you’re frightened.” 

Esme sighed as she sat down clumsily on the river bank. She chewed at the corner of her lip. The rushing water was the only sound made for minutes. 

“What time does your pocket watch say?” Esme finally asked. 

“Ten after eleven.” 

She stood, brushing dirt off her ratty house dress. “I’ll have to get ready quickly, but we can still make it.” 

“Are you positive?” 

“More than I ever have been.” 

—— 

“You left?” Carlisle exclaimed, eyebrows nearly in his hairline. 

“I came back!” 

“Mere hours before our wedding you were halfway across the country,” he muttered. He was no longer looking at her, back to the fire, gory firey death in the form of a lonely groom at the altar. The spiral began. 

“Look at that, you’ve stopped worrying about Edward,” she laughed. 

“No, no, now I’m only worried about our entire marriage.” 

“Carlisle,” she placed her hands on either side of his face, “I love you more than life itself. I am not asking you to be an optimist. I am not asking you to even be positive. I’m asking you to let him have a chance at something wonderful.”  

He closed his eyes in resignation, or at least she thought it was resignation. “Colorado, that’s over a thousand miles.” 

“You’re impossible,” she laughed. 

#sorry this took a lil bit i started something in breaking dawn timeline got 2k deep and changed course #carlisle cullen #esme cullen #edward cullen #my stories

[undreaming-fanfiction]

The Least We Could Do

Read on Ao3

Wayne Munson rarely visited graveyards.

It wasn't just that he didn't have any family he cared for nearby - his parents were long gone and even before then, they were way too preoccupied with keeping their other son in line than to spare a single glance for the one who actually lived a decent life - but he also didn't really get the whole graveyards as a place of comfort thing. His personal philosophy was that what happens after you die is that you're dead, plain and simple. Sitting at graves, bringing flowers or whatever didn't make much sense - the dead don't answer even if they wanted to and Wayne was way too busy to keep the worms nibbling on his relatives company. If that sounded too harsh, well, sorry, but not really. Wayne had always been a pragmatic man, no time for mushy or spiritual stuff.

At least that's what he'd believed before he buried is only nephew.

Eddie had always been a troublemaker, but Wayne loved him more than anything, anyone. Ever since he knocked on his door, barely a teen, a horrendous buzz cut on his head and hitting that unsightly growth spurt when he looked more like an antelope than a human being, Wayne saw what so many in Hawkins chose to ignore - that Eddie, Eddie who'd always had so little, wanted nothing more than to give to the world. Give his music, even if Wayne's eye corner twitched whenever Eddie sat down to tune his guitar, a safe space for kids like himself, stories, hope...no matter how long Eddie would take to graduate, Wayne knew he'd go far, that his future was bright, even if Eddie himself didn't believe it.

And then he was gone. Only that guitar pick, the very thing that Wayne gave him after his first concert at the Hideout, remained. That and an empty grave in Hawkins. And Wayne Munson found himself rethinking his stance on graveyards.

See, talking to worms might have been stupid, but at least you were absolutely sure where your loved ones were. Because in 1986, after the whole world went to shit, Wayne lost his home, Hawkins was torn to shreds, religious mobs were running left and right and Eddie was suddenly a murder suspect, a satanic cult leader and...gone. Just gone. And the worst part was - Wayne couldn't even blame anyone. There was no justice to be served, no culprit. The kid who pointed his finger at Eddie and persuaded the whole town that his dorky nephew was the devil's incarnate? He was found in two pieces after the earthquake and it didn't matter who Wayne talked to, the whole town was persuaded that Eddie was the sole reason for all their plight. And if there was someone who doubted this whole shit show...well, they had to learn to keep their head low. Lynching seemed like the next logical step for the town. 

Maybe it would have been different if he could actually talk to someone about missing Eddie, about his loss, but that was the thing - the accusations made it impossible for him to grieve. Hell, some people would have liked to call it illegal. "How dare you grieve for the person who caused this all? How dare you shed tears for someone who worshipped Satan and plunged this whole town into doom?" And of course... "How didn't you see this coming? How did you allow him to do all of this under your own roof?" It didn't matter how many times he repeated himself. The dead can't speak for themselves and Wayne's voice didn't carry any weight in Hawkins.

And so Wayne found himself going to the graveyard way more often than he'd ever imagined. He'd sit down with Eddie, well, with his headstone, he felt stupid even paying for the empty grave but not having one felt wrong, and he'd tell his boy about what was happening in the town, how many more they'd lost. How one day, the ground stopped burning and emitting smoke, just like that. How life slowly started returning to Hawkins. But most of all, he just said "sorry" a lot. Sorry for not being there, sorry for failing you, son. Sorry for being so weak that I can't even get your name cleared.

At least there was a small blessing in all of this - with all the tension and name "Munson" being spat out as a curse, Wayne thought that his new trailer would get egged, vandalized or even destroyed, and so would Eddie's headstone. But apart from the one instance when he had to scrub permanent markers off the cool stone, there wasn't anything. Of course there were dirty looks and uttered curses, but no hate letters, no more scribbled occult symbols next to Eddie's name and dates of birth and death.

Wayne Munson learned this was no coincidence in late September 1986.

He made his way to the grave at sunset, before he had to start his shift at the plant. He rarely had any appetite these days, could stomach almost no food, but an energy drink had some calories and maybe a vitamin here and there, so that had to do. Grasping the can, he walked towards the edge of the graveyard where Eddie's headstone sat alone, separated from the others. But before he could greet Eddie, sit down with him and tell him about his day, he noticed rustling behind him. Wayne had heard his share of menacing sounds back in Vietnam and he knew right away - this one wasn't supposed to be an ambush. It was intentionally loud.

"I thought you were smart enough not to come back, but I guess stupidity is the standard for this town, huh?"

Wayne's fingers gripped the can so tightly his knuckles turned white. Not today, next to his nephew's empty grave for fuck's sake. He spun around and for the first time in what felt like forever, he straightened his spine. He might have been old, but his height was enough to scare most people off. "The fuck did you say to me, boy?"

He expected many things. A group of bullies from Eddie's old school, even some self-appointed vigilantes coming at him. What he didn't expect was to see the rich kid fallen from grace, Steve Harrington, grasping a bat full of nails and glaring at him with pure hatred. For a second, at least. Then his eyes grew wide and he blinked in confusion. "Oh. Mr. Munson. Shit, I'm so...so sorry, sir. I didn't...I didn't see you properly against the sun and I just thought..."

"You thought?" Wayne relaxed his posture but still eyed the Harrington kid warily. He knew he kept the good kid, Henderson, company, but that didn't mean anything in Wayne's book. People could be assholes and still have good people as friends.

Steve pointed the monstrous bat towards Wayne. Ah, not Wayne, but more specifically his hand. "Um. I saw you carrying that can and I...you see, we've had some...attempts here. At vandalizing Eddie's...yeah. So when I saw someone walking towards the grave with a can, I kind of...I'm so, so sorry sir. I didn't mean to intrude on your time with Eddie, I'll just..." He started walking backwards, moving towards the large tree close to Eddie's supposed resting place.

Wayne watched him as he sank down onto a blanket in the shadow of the tree, pulling the bat closer. At least that explained why Wayne hadn't seen him before, if it wasn't for the occasional glint of the nails or of Steve's eyes in the light of the setting sun, he would have been nearly invisible to the naked eye. No matter how disturbing the sight was, Wayne had to admire the strategic positioning. As if the kid saw some real fights. Or worse.

Curiosity overtook him and instead of doing what he came here for, he found himself walking towards Harrington's hiding spot. "You've been...uh. Keepin' an eye on things?" You've been keeping an eye on my boy?

Steve nodded and as Wayne entered the shadow, he could make out more details. The deep circles under Harrington's eyes, the sluggishness of his moves. The half-eaten sandwich, thermos flask that still smelled like black coffee. The cleaning kit tucked next to the trunk of the tree. "Yes, sir," he answered and shook his head, as if he were trying to keep himself awake. "Not always successfully, but...I'm here."

"Well, shit." Crouching down, he got down to Steve's level, kneeling awkwardly on the crumpled blanket. "I guess I have you to thank for Eddie's grave stayin' in such a good shape? I expected way more...anger from the lovely townsfolk towards it," he admitted, bitterness creeping into his voice. "But after seeing you and that," he pointed towards the terrifying weapon, "can't say I'm surprised anymore. Grateful, sure, but not surprised."

The boy gave Wayne a small smile and moved to the side to let him lean against the tree as well. Wayne cracked open the energy drink and took a sip. Disgusting, but probably energizing.

"It's not just me," Steve admitted, chewing on his lip. "But I'm here the most often, I guess. Hop - the police chief, he's been helping a lot, but he can only do so much. Protecting the kids from Eddie's club, mostly. Keeping an eye on this whole mess. Watching over a grave isn't his highest priority and I guess I can't blame him, but...it seemed wrong, you know?" He turned towards Wayne, his eyes begging for understanding. "It didn't seem fair for Eddie to lose a single more thing. I can't make them understand, but I sure can make them leave this place alone."

Sitting in the shadow allowed Wayne to notice even more and he almost choked out a sob when he saw a small travel pillow next to the boy. "You...you sleep here?" he whispered. To think someone would go this far for his boy...

Steve chuckled. "Well, sleep...most nights I don't sleep anyway, so. And my parents are never home, so I'm the best guy for this. No one comes looking for me. And I have the most flexibility since I'm out of school and not on my way to college. I usually have help, they take over when I have a shift at work. There aren't many of us, but...we do what we think is right."

It took Wayne a while to respond, to get his breathing under control. He'd felt so alone in this cruel town, he'd never even entertained the possibility of someone missing Eddie so much, protecting him in death where they couldn't do so in life. "I...I appreciate it," he muttered, his voice cracking on the last syllable. "A lot. Just please...don't overdo it. Stay safe." The images of the town's mob were still too fresh in Wayne's mind and no matter how intimidating Steve was with his bat, there was only so much he could do. Reaching out, he grasped Steve's shoulder. "I mean it, son. If there are too many of them, if you're tired, if...if life gets in the way. You've done enough. They can't hurt Eddie anymore, but they sure can hurt you."

It was difficult to read Steve's face as it was becoming more dark, but the smile on his face didn't seem right. Maybe some other day Wayne would have pushed and prodded, made sure at least some young people in Hawkins would live their lives as they should, but the ground was cold, Eddie's grave was almost magically illuminated by the sunset and Wayne was hit, not for the first and not for the last time, by the realization that he didn't know what had happened to Eddie and that he never might.

"I hope..." Steve started, then shook his head again. Keeping himself sharp, alert. "I hope to believe that one day, sir. That I've done enough. Because it sure doesn't feel like it." Wayne had a feeling he wasn't talking to him, not fully anyway. "But...thank you. I will think about what you said, if that day ever happens."

"Not sir. Wayne." The confusion on Steve's face seemed almost comical, if the moment wasn't so somber. But he didn't hesitate before accepting the offered hand, shaking it. "Pretty sure with the watch you've been keepin' over Eddie's grave, you've earned the first name basis."

And look, maybe he was just growing old and sentimental, but the way Steve's face relaxed made that strained smile seem more genuine, even if that handsome face seemed much older than it should have been. "Wayne," Steve repeated and let go of his hand after a firm, solid handshake. "That will take some getting used to, but I appreciate it, si-Wayne. I'm Steve, Steve Harrington. Which...you probably already knew, but. To complete the introduction and all."

Wayne found himself slightly chuckling too, the feeling strange and foreign in his chest. It was still too early for any sort of healing, but maybe acceptance was a way to go. At least for now. "Pleasure meetin' you, Steve. Now," he grunted as he pushed himself off the ground, "I need to tell my boy a few things before I head to work. Stay safe, Steve. The nights are gettin' chilly."

He felt Steve's gaze on his back as he sat with Eddie, drank the rest of his energy drink and told the cold headstone that it was a testament to what a wonderful person Eddie was, the lengths his friends were willing to go to. He still said sorry, he didn't think he'd ever stop. But it was just once this time, so maybe he was getting better. He waved at Steve as his watch announced it was time to leave for his shift, taking careful, measured steps to his car.

The morning after work, he stopped at the graveyard again. He grabbed two not so completely disgusting and on top of that, still hot coffees on his way, thinking that maybe he was expecting too much. But no, as he made his way up the grassy slope, he saw Steve's familiar frame slumped against the tree trunk. Even with his quiet steps, Steve stirred from his sleep and instinctively grasped the bat tighter, squinting as he searched for an intruder.

Wayne wiggled the coffee cups at him. "Mornin'. Coffee?"

He worried for a second that Steve would refuse, out of perceived obligation or politeness, but the cool night and lack of sleep must have been stronger. "God, yes please," he groaned and moved to the side so Wayne could join him again. He wrapped his fingers around the warm cup as if it was a priceless treasure. "Thank you, Wayne."

"That's the least I could do, Steve."

They sipped their coffees together and talked. The conversation flowed easily, Steve recalled how in early summer, when his night watches started, a very curious squirrel landed on his head during the night and he almost hit himself with the bat to get rid of it. They gradually moved to discussing Eddie, what he was like, how much joy he'd brought into Wayne's life. Steve was  craving any and all pieces of information, no matter how tiny, and Wayne would have liked to know why, why a dead boy mattered to this living one so much, but perhaps it wasn't important. Or perhaps he had a hunch, one that wasn't his to voice.

Wayne was chuckling at the end, telling Steve how Eddie had tried to hide that he started smoking and when Wayne walked in on him, he stuffed the still burning cigarette into his pillow case. They managed to stop the fire before it spread and from then on, the Munson household rule number one was: "smoking is allowed, arson is not." Talking to Steve was easy, natural, and Wayne was almost annoyed when a curly haired girl interrupted them. She too had a bunch of gear slung over her shoulder - he could see a water bottle, a bunch of textbooks and a blanket of her own.

"Mr. Munson?" she said, but it wasn't really a question, she seemed like the kind of person who didn't ask, she had known before and only sought to verify the correctness of her answers. "I'm Nancy Wheeler, sir. I assume you've already talked to Steve about what we do here, so...I am here to take over."

Wayne nodded and offered his hand to shake. "I appreciate what you've been doing for my Eddie, Ms. Wheeler. All of you."

The bitterness in the curve of her lips was impossible to miss, so similar to Steve's, but she still kept her pleasant demeanor. "It's the least we could do, sir." And of course, the not-sir-but-Wayne lecture followed, Steve smirking quietly at Nancy's confusion.

When that had been settled, Nancy turned to Steve and exchanged a few words with him - "any attempts during the night?" and an update on the other teams, whatever that meant. Wayne only caught "everything under control," "still discussing with Hopper" and more disconcertingly, "all clear with the Munson mail." They arranged their shift schedule, someone named Robin would take over in the afternoon - Wayne thought he might have seen her in the relief center and she seemed equally clumsy and manic, but if she had Steve and Nancy's trust, she also had Wayne's. Probably. He was still trying to get used to this there are people guarding Eddie's grave with weapons and sleeping in the graveyard concept.

Eventually, Steve packed his duffel bag and headed to his car, saying goodbye to Nancy. He also tried to say so to Wayne, but he decided to join him and finally catch some sleep before he'd have to head to work again. "Leavin' the lady defenseless?" he joked, pointing at the spiked bat Steve still had in his hand.

For the first time, he saw Steve actually laugh out loud, not in a measured or nostalgic way, but an uncontrolled snorting sound. "Nancy? Defenseless?" he wheezed out and wiped at his eyes. "Wayne, please turn around and look at what she's doing now."

Wayne did. Up on the hill, next to the tree where his boy's spirit was laid to rest, was a preppy young girl wearing a floral dress and a pastel sweater, removing a set of textbooks from her bag. Just as those had hit the blanket under her, she picked up a gun and checked its safety. Then she reached into a side pocket and started counting ammo magazines. "Oh," Wayne said.

"Oh," repeated Steve and, hesitating only for a split second, patted Wayne on the shoulder. "Don't worry about her. She's more than capable of taking care of troublemakers. And," he added, smiling with a tinge of sadness, "she said she actually enjoys being here. It's calm enough to help her study. She even said Eddie's the best study partner she's ever had. Sometimes she explains things to him, you know. Concepts she struggles with. It might not be exactly Eddie's cup of tea, but...he's not alone."

Wayne Munson might not have been a hugger, he might have not been big on all the stuff with emotions, but what was he supposed to do, not hug the boy and not thank him again and again until they really had to leave before Nancy got suspicious? Not a chance.

September rolls into October, then November, and Wayne has found a new routine for himself.

He gets ready for work and stops at the graveyard. It's way too cold now, but Steve still keeps the nightly watch, staying in his car and glaring at anyone who dares approach the graveyard. Wayne always brings a thermos flask with coffee, welcomed with so much gratitude it makes him embarrassed ("it's just coffee, son, and a shitty one on top of that," he says, but it doesn't matter, it never matters to Steve), chats with the boy for a bit and the heads to his shift. On his way back, he stops by the graveyard to check on Steve and Eddie both. Sometimes he wakes Steve up by gentle tapping on his window. They wait together before someone takes over his watch, sometimes Nancy, sometimes Robin, there's even the Byers kid, Jonathan, and a definitely stoned young man whose hair could rival Eddie's.

Wayne learns that there haven't been any recent attempts, only a single one on Halloween ("let's decorate the freak's grave" they'd said, but Jonathan's friend Argyle managed to hit one of them right in the nose with a golf ball and that was the end of it, the blood was easy to clean, or so he's told and maybe he doesn't even want to know). Jonathan just nods and wipes the suspiciously rusty end of the golf club with a dirty rag. He mentions that he knew Eddie in high school, they listened to similar music and sometimes traded tapes. Only a few words each day, but they keep Eddie alive in his mind.

But there are younger kids too, kids that Wayne has seen all over Hawkins. They might not be keeping watch at Eddie's grave ("and you should be thankful for that, Wayne, these small gremlins have no sense of self-preservation or any reservations about violence, if they'd been here during that last attempt, we'd be hiding torn body parts, trust me!"), but they're all contributing in their own ways.

There's Erica, a child only in age, who made sure to set booby traps around Eddie's grave. "Just until the snow melts," she shrugs as she hands Wayne a map of how to safely approach the headstone. "I can't ask Steve to sit in snow, mind you, he'd do it, but he deserves a break. None of these are lethal, but if someone even tries to do something ugly, we'll know. And they'll remember."

There is Lucas who often camps at the empty trailer close to Wayne's new one. Lucas is always incredibly polite and friendly, but sometimes Wayne's neighbors talk about how someone tried to vandalize his trailer and how Lucas came out of the former Mayfields' home, axe in hand, and scared off the person with a single whispered sentence. They also say that he'd sneak to his door and check the letters waiting for him, sometimes tearing one or two to shreds. When he caught one of the people delivering these questionable letters, he broke his nose with a single punch.

There are Mike and Will who take frequent walks through the town and tear down any and all pamphlets, posters and lies that the local religious fanatics decide to spread. They wash off weird religious symbols and curses aimed at Eddie, at the Hellfire club. They defend him against anyone who dares to question their actions. They both might have previously run from fights, but not from this one. Just like Eddie, they decide not to run away this time.

There is Jane, chief Hopper's adopted daughter. She doesn't say much but there's something about her that makes Wayne both uneasy and grateful. When two jocks muttered insults at him as he entered a local shop, she stared at them and suddenly they both tripped over nothing, smacking head first into a street lamp. Twice. She then nodded at Wayne, wiped something like blood from her face and walked down the street as if nothing happened.

And there's Dustin. Dustin, who made sure to bring back the only piece of Eddie he could. Dustin, who visits the grave as often as he can, staying for hours next to Steve. Dustin, who took over Eddie's beloved club and continues in his footsteps, herding the lost sheep and giving them a sense of safety. Dustin, who makes sure to stop by the trailer with Steve and help Wayne with its maintenance.

As December approaches and chief Hopper visits Wayne's trailer, talking about precautions they're taking to preserve Eddie's grave and Wayne's home, Wayne feels something in him shifting, evolving. There's still a gaping hole in his chest, a hole that screams for his boy to come back home, and maybe it will never heal, it will never stop swallowing any and all happiness in his life. But for the first time since he grasped the pick pendant in the relief center, he feels that maybe he isn't alone. Maybe the burden doesn't get lighter as years pass, but there are people who are willing to share it with him. And for now, it has to be enough.

(also, this is a prequel to Alone on Christmas. If you want to cry a bit more)

#steddie angst #one-sided steddie #wayne munson #steve harrington #eddie munson #nancy wheeler #angst #the angstflayer strikes again #steddie fic #stranger things #strangerthings #stranger things fanfiction #this took me way too long to write but I needed to get it done

[suffersinfandom]

A Summary of The OFMD Meta (Part IV)

This is part four of an incomplete summary of A Meta-Discussion Of The Subtext by meratrishoslee (Mera) on AO3 (linked to, as the author requests). I’m trying to stay impartial and present the content fairly and with context. Like, I started reading this 140K beast after I saw a wild screencap and thought, "Surely there's context that makes this make sense," so I do want to provide at least that much.

This part includes interviews and a response to one of the “concern trolls that couldn't quite manage to wipe the foamy froth from their mouths long enough to keep it from dripping on their keyboards.”

No more chapter numbers because they keep being reordered.

Other posts Part I Part II Part III

Chapter The Vanity Fair Article - A Wondrous Fuckery

Here’s the article that chapter is about.

Mera suspects that the interview happened via text, giving David Jenkins time to sort out what he was going to say. They note that they’re “going on vibes and subtext, which is really more [their] wheelhouse.” You’re welcome to disagree with them.

“First off, I was trained in the House of Moftiss/BBC Sherlock fandom, where we just assumed that every word the showrunners spoke in an interview or on social media was a shameless distortion at best, and an outright lie at worst -- so that's where my mind goes first. [...] Having said that... so much of the Vanity Fair interview is an actual gift.  You do have to cherrypick somewhat... but again, DJenks just released an episode with a major character death.  He can't go back and reverse himself and suggest on any textual level that the death was less than permanent.”

VF mentions the happy endings in the finale, and Jenkins says, same-sex relationships end on a dour, downbeat note, where one of them dies and it’s unrequited or it’s unrealized; something horrible happens and they’re punished in a way.

“That's not a happy ending -- and that's exactly what you apparently fucking did with a central character.  Gosh, how weird of you to bring it up here.  So why?  Is it... is it something you left open for a third season?  That the horrible death of an unrequited love isn't what it appears?”

Jenkins says that Izzy is kind of a mentor to Blackbeard and that he is kind of a father figure. Mera says that “this is the closest he gets to queerbaiting us” because Izzy is definitely not Ed’s father figure.

“Notice we are still given the subtext here: mostly dead is slightly alive, and "kind of a father figure" feels like a limp gesture in the direction of explanation.  The rest of it... if you feel insulted on Con's behalf, that Izzy Hands was reduced to an old dog being put down at the vet's office here ("beautiful arc", "does a lot of things", "it's time", "full meal" -- god, a day at the dog park and a last fucking supper with cheeseburgers and pie and all the human food he never got to have otherwise she says sarcastically) -- YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO.”

Jenkins keeps mentioning “magic, love, turning, losing, changing, rebirth, resurrection, present tense about Izzy Hands, ghosts/life after death, or anything of those flavors.” He is “legitimizing repetition” in order “to prime your mind to see the subtext.  You can only look for something if you know what it looks like: he is giving you the key to the season.”

Jenkins reminds us that “he was not a straight white guy alone in that writers room, and he's telling you the story worked for everyone in that room of all queerness/genders.” 

“And then he brings our head back around and goes ‘hey, look at Izzy again. It's almost like he's the key to everything.  Hey, look at me using present tense on a character that's supposed to be dead and gone which would be past tense. God I love Con O'Neill, and I need you to hear that in every single interview I ever give EVER. His character IS a joy to write.’”

Mera mentions all of the “subtextual queer references and coding” put into Izzy. “You don't create a Queer Avatar by fucking accident. And these professionals certainly did not.”

Mera encourages their readers to read the Q&A that wraps the article “with the mindset that we will have an S3 where a queer self-sacrificing man rises from the dead in a damn near explicit Christ metaphor and our Izzy Hands is safe and whole and loved.”

“The Vanity Fair interview, as far as I'm concerned, is not some painful/cruel gloat. It is a subtextual love letter back to the fans, published just in time to be ready to soothe our hurting hearts -- if we know how to parse it.”

Chapter "Who Do Ya Trust If You Can't Trust God?"

“I'm finding myself tired at being the point of the spear. No one prepared me for how exhausting it is to be among the first to realize a massive truth.”

This chapter is about coping with fandom and contains some solid advice: “The block button is our friend. The unfollow button is our friend. The mute option is our friend. If someone's relentless negativity hurts your feelings or drags you down, mute/unfollow/block them as needed.”

But then:

“I choose to believe my daily-growing mountain of evidence that Izzy Hands is alive and that the writers intend that he be hollered home from the gravy basket. 

“Furthermore? If I can be painfully real for a minute? I am amazed at the trust the writers have given us. 

“Because we the Unseen Crew have been put into the position of Izzy's future lover -- to be to Izzy what Stede was to Ed.  We are called on for our audience participation now, to hold his hand and beg his return -- not for a minute, an hour, or a day... but potentially for the next several months, over a year or more, until we get Season 3. 

“I do tend to have this fatal flaw of wanting to uphold others' trust in me, and to be loyal to those who show loyalty in return.”

Mera reminds us that her word is not canon. She isn’t affiliated with the show and is just trying to provide hope and positivity.

“Even though I often will get tired... I am determined to stay positive. When I can't say something nice, I close the window or the app and say nothing at all. You will find me on my social media being as unrelentingly kind as I know how to be.”

Next: interviews and what we can take from them. “Interviews have exactly two purposes: pocket money for the subject of said interview, and promotion for the show. I was trained to never fully trust what is said in interviews.” Engagement and getting people clicking is more important than imparting useful and truthful information, and nothing engages people like anger.

That’s how we get the early “interviews that are half touching and half enraging, with seriously tone-deaf seeming self-conflicting statements from the writers/showrunners [...]. We can trust that if the interviews are live/verbal, they'll be more irritating rather than less. The showrunners would much rather say too little or say something wrong than give away something too big or too true accidentally, and in the pressure of the moment they will fall back on phrases they've memorized as safe to use.”

Don’t trust that interviews are telling you the truth (but they might be saying something truth-adjacent).

Mera has doubts about Jenkins telling O’Neill about Izzy’s death mid-season. She doesn’t think that Jenkins is that stupid. “It's not too far a stretch to think that this "mid-season" conversation occurred in the middle of filming the first season, and all DJenks is prevaricating about is the timing thereof.” 

Jenkins realized mid season one that Con is an amazing actor, so he takes him out for dinner and says, “Next season I want to kill Izzy 3 times. The first time will be Stede's dream sequence, and the next two will be actual Passion Plays, because we're setting Izzy up to be Jesus and Westley from The Princess Bride and Han Solo from Star Wars.”

“And Con takes up the challenge of being coded as an OVERT Queer Messiah (with an additional layer of subtextual HIV/AIDS)... because of course he does. Of course he fucking does. If he can pull it off -- and if anyone can, it's him -- it's the role of a fucking lifetime. It's a role for history books and media studies for the next fifty or one hundred years. 

“Doesn't that sound a bit more likely? Doesn't that sound a bit more real?”

Mera predicts that interviews and articles will start publishing ideas about Izzy still being alive, and talking about how weird and off the end of season two was. Everyone involved with the show, after all, will “know we inspect every frame and every pixel of every BTS and teaser they release,” so they’ll feed us enough to keep us guessing at the truth.

“Here is my promise to you: if/when I'm wrong about any of this, I will edit this chapter only to admit I was wrong and when and how. I will not remove my evidence.  I am comfortable being wrong.  If I was never wrong, I would never have tried and failed and learned from my failures!”

Chapter Until You Come Full Circle

This chapter is about interviews. “We’ve had, just in the last week, two very sweet and classy interviews with Con (which I did predict, although that was about as safe as saying the sun would rise in the east this morning) – and one that seemed… less so, with Taika.”

First interview with Con.

Con says to trust David Jenkins, which immediately makes Mera think of Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths. “Now. Am I delulu, as the kids are calling it these days, suggesting that Con might intentionally be throwing some religious vibes at us?”

Con is also “earnest and intense” in his praise of OFMD’s writing. This is a good sign; that means he thinks the show is written well, and that’s further evidence that Izzy will be back.

Second interview with Con.

Con “seems to me to be very reluctant to outright lie, which is awesome for a meta writer and squares with my experience of him. Lying is easy in the moment and difficult in the future – a person has to remember what lies they’ve told in order to remain sufficiently consistent in their stories. It takes more skill to tell just enough of the truth that it's both vague in the moment but pays off later.” This makes interviews with him extra valuable.

A short analysis of one of his quotes: “Everything Izzy is in Season 2 was there in Season 1, only understated and repressed. According to the actor who played him: he didn’t change who he was. Izzy just got safe enough to let what was inside him out to where others could see it too.”

One of Con’s quotes backs up Mera’s Sacred Heart meta, namely the part about Izzy trying to serve the crew that loves him. 

Now a Taika interview.

This interview bolsters Mera’s idea of Ed as Judas. 

From the article: When Consequence asks writer/director/actor Taika Waititi if he’s feeling optimistic about a third season of Our Flag Means Death, his initial response is this: “Have you seen the end?”

“I think we can safely assume that Taika’s not asking the interviewer if he’s literally seen the last episode of Season 2. This feels to me like the blunt, sardonic, dry humor Taika’s evinced (and occasionally gotten into trouble over) during other interviews, aimed at the word ‘optimistic.’ ‘Have you seen the end? How optimistic did you think it was?’”

It’s not an optimistic ending. The interview mentions the inn’s renovations, but we don’t see anyone doing any renovating. Ed and Stede don’t even have food as the Revenge sails away. 

From the article: For Waititi, though, the Season 2 finale “feels like a natural end to their story. Just because I feel like, you know, they’ve been through so much and then wind up in that nice place at a happy ending.”

What nice place? What happy ending? 

From the article: Waititi says, though, that “I don’t want it to feel like Rambo III suddenly, you know, when you’re like, ‘Oh man, they have to leave their idyllic life again.'”

“Okay, everything else was fucky as fuck… but that feels wrong enough to be a lighthouse.” So Mera went and watched Rambo III, which is more relevant than she expected. 

Rambo’s “idyllic” life isn’t that great. “We don’t see an emotional, human connection. We see a white guy who’s on tolerance in a place he doesn’t really belong, separated by a language he doesn’t fluently speak. We see a man tormenting himself with boredom and isolation.”

“When you look at John Rambo through most of this movie, you see a pretty good correlation to Edward at the start of the last episode of OFMD S2: on tolerance in a place that’s not truly his home, trying to fit a life and do a job he’s not suited to… and he gives it up without another thought because a man he cares about is in danger.” A hint to season three?

Chapter My Ridiculous Obsession With Love

In this chapter, Mera addresses one of her “haters.” 

For anyone who forgot the thesis of this meta: “The overarching hypothesis I'm building in this meta-discussion is that Izzy's death was more serious because HIV/AIDS and queer grief is serious.  He had to go into the grave and take the full journey of the passion play to be able to leave it behind him, and to re-emerge as someone that can touch, kiss, and love again.”

--

Commenter: “None of that makes this a definitive interpretation, or one that the creative team can reasonably be held responsible for.” 

Mera: “... yes?  Okay, sure? (Dear non-haters: just picture that John Travolta confusion gif again, because if I threw it in here every time I rammed up against an example of begging the question in this comment, there'd be like 30 of them and we'd all get tired of them.)”

--

Commenter: “The crew hold back because Ed is the person Izzy dedicated his life to and has not yet fully reconciled with- they're giving him space to sort things with Ed so he can go in peace. Etc etc.”

Mera: “I see a rapid parade of images and sounds. "He's a dick, but he's our dick." Jim snarling "He was your friend" up into their captain's face, even though they know for a fact that could get them killed. The crew make the unicorn's leg for him together but they leave it at his door because they know he can't (yet) let himself accept it if anyone's watching: what an incredibly emotionally intelligent maneuver. The easy way that we see Jim and Lucius and Frenchie and Fang interact with Izzy in later eps-- all touching him or letting him lean on him, just never skin to skin. The way that we see Izzy go into Wee John's arms and stay held there for a while as he commits the incredibly vulnerable act of singing for them. The way that Izzy lays his hand on Stede's knee while they're talking at Jackie's bar, and there's no real animosity from them on either side then.

“So I'll give you this one, 100%.  I can't say that you're wrong or prove it in any way.  Your reading is absolutely as valid as mine, no more and no less.”

--

Commenter: “Isn't it heavily implied that people touch him with bare hands while dealing with his leg? And if he is coded as having AIDS and being untouchable, why would the crew be so willing to dive in and get covered in his blood when they treat his leg, especially when they're also scraped up at the time?”

Mera: “I haven't had a chance to write up this meta yet, but in a nutshell: we see Jim and Archie amputate his leg (with their hands pressed together in visual union atop it).  They're covered in blood and this is one of the least realistic depictions of a survivable amputation attempt in media ever, frankly... and yet Izzy lives through it!  [...]

“Notably we do NOT see Fang cleaning up.  I need to go back and verify, but I'm like 99% sure. 

“Why? Is Fang lazy or unhelpful? No, I'd say two reasons. One, he's paralyzed with grief (and the men in this show are so emotional, as Auntie rightfully notes).  But two, certain classifications of men were more susceptible to Izzy's subtextual disease. [...]

“I think it's a direct subtextual sign post to the part that lesbians/wlw/AFAB people had to play in the care of queer men dying of AIDS. [...] Jim won't catch Izzy's subtextual HIV/AIDS, ever.  Jim's hands heal and comfort, with both Izzy and Auntie -- repetition (usually) legitimizes, as I've said elsewhere.”

--

Commenter: “...while I know I have no control over this... it's alarming to see other commenters accepting this elaborate interpretation as if it's definitive.”

Mera: “Ooooh, I'd pay a dollar to find out how many comments you leave on fix-it fics. Are they also dwelling in their delusions of a world where a fictional character in a show overcomes a fictional death in the same show? Is it a sign of mental illness to indulge in word count or WORSE -- for them to irresponsibly leave those insane words just out there online where other people can also continue their madness by READING THEM?!?! The absolute horror. We writers should be ashamed, etc etc. 

“There's every possibility all the words I'm spilling over this are worth just as much as you paid for them: exactly nothing. 

“So thank goodness we have you and others like you, willing to do the purely altruistic and entirely virtuous work of... leaving comments to tell us you didn't agree? I guess?  Honestly I don't have a full lock on what your goal was here, if something other than trying to make people feel bad but fortunately not being very skilled at it.”

--

Commenter: “I wish you and every other fan nothing but the best, and for that reason, I find this hard to watch.”

Mera: “My sibling in Shiva: the 'back' button and the 'x' to close the window are available in every single web browser I have ever used in the history of the internet, ever. But I appreciate your martyrdom in staying here and nobly suffering so hard in an attempt to save me and my readers from ourselves!”

--

Commenter: “It seems like you are setting yourself and others up for even more rage and heartbreak than there would otherwise need to be.”

Mera: “I want to point out that I've tried to be very careful in not speculating about Season 3; I think it's reasonable for any fan to assume all characters living at the end of S2x08 will return in S3 unless real life status of the actors, scheduling, or budgetary considerations prevent that. 

“I want to point out that all I have are the first two seasons, and I am telling you that Izzy Hands, inside the last second of S2x08, is "mostly dead but slightly alive" -- and he's in the house, being the cause of the smell that Edward doesn't want to recognize (as he is at least twice before shown refusing to recognize what he's done as Blackbeard after the fact) but does actually recognize all the same.”

Mera admits that there are two options: “Either I'm correctly parsing the absolute bounty of subtext available in every aspect of the show, or I'm not.”

“On the day that we get that confirmation, I will feel one of two things: either the delicious vindication that I was right -- or amazement that they could build such a wondrous sky castle of subtext, whether consciously or subconsciously, and fail to complete it satisfactorily.”

“I've been wrong before and will freely and cheerfully admit it [...]. That's also why I put in my first meta post that I had been a TJLC'er -- and why I've left it in there, actually. It's correct and it's honest. Straight off I admitted I was wrong about Something Big. 

“See, it's [...] ‘hater bait,’ and it's already caught several. Lots of concern trolls that couldn't quite manage to wipe the foamy froth from their mouths long enough to keep it from dripping on their keyboards, because all of them had mentioned it... until you.”

--

“I've cackled my way through all of the writing of this post, even as I've tried to be very kind in reply -- you should have seen some of the shots I chose not to take due to their cruelty (even though they were fucking hilarious) -- so thank you for a most diverting morning.  I even got more meta and more word count out of this, so it wasn't actually a waste of productive time!”

--

Commenter: “I urge you to reconsider this approach that you're taking.”

Mera: “Here's where I'm gonna get all the way real again. Because I'm not talking to [...] that poor dear any more. I'm talking to the ones who are here with me in the stinking dark of the Pit of Despair, holding onto Izzy's naked right hand with no glove between us any more or hopefully ever again, hollering him back home out of the gravy basket.”

“If one sound had been added, everyone would know what the author knows. “We have the house. We have the grave -- with Izzy's collar on it like the dog collars on the dog graves in Pet Sematary -- where whatever comes back often comes back wrong. We've got the concept of a bad smell. We've got Stede reacting to something awful with a scream [the one thing Mera’s adding in this scenario]. 

“DONE. 

“Now the fandom is convinced that Izzy is alive, just as most of us were convinced in the last 18 months that Lucius was still alive.”

“This is part of what convinced me in the first seconds after the episode was over that Izzy wasn't dead. If I could both change the story and prove it to everyone else with just one small addition... then he's not dead.”

After Lucius was pushed overboard in season one, “I just trusted that this soft and sweet little show wouldn't actually permanently kill one of its gays. [...] And I still trust that it didn't actually permanently forever and truly kill the most gay-coded of its gays.”

#ofmd #izzy critical #not really but it's for that crowd tbh #“you don't create a queer avatar by fucking accident” #i want to type unkind things #keep not reading that meta it's way too long #and not even that fun to read #i promise i brought all the fun parts over

[hbyrde36]

Chapter 10!

Steve Harrington: Vampire Hunter

ao3 link

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

Eddie woke in the dark. 

He rose with the knowledge that he was free, no longer feeling the psychic weight of the heavy chains laden with crosses that had been trapping him inside this forsaken box for far too long. 

It could only mean one thing. 

Steve had done it. He had succeeded in defeating Billy, and managed to free Eddie and his people from their torment at his hands. He only hoped their side hadn’t paid too high a price for the victory. 

Eddie had called a handful of different vampires Master over the years. By no means was Billy the worst, but it was as if the older he got, the less patience he had for taking orders from morally reprehensible leaders. 

This was his chance, he could feel it. The longer he was away from France, the more powerful he could feel himself becoming. He had theorized that the vampire who turned him, the one he’d served under for longer than any other, had been somehow dampening his power. It seemed he might  finally have his confirmation. 

He knew he would fare best if he could convince Steve to join him, to take on the last two marks and become his human servant for real, but he would not force him. He wanted Steve to offer himself up willingly. For them to unite because it was what they both wanted.

Eddie had always been pretty, even by vampiric standards. A fact that led to him being passed around as no better than a piece of meat to anyone his master wished to curry favor with. He knew what it was to be forced, to be violated, and he would not do that to others if he had a choice. 

He had already made mistakes with Steve. Though he had his reasons for doing what he had, giving the first mark to save Steve's life, and the second mark to save his own, Eddie knew no matter how good his excuses were, he was on a slippery slope. The road to Hell being paved with good intentions, and all that. He would go no further with their bond without Steve’s consent. He would wait. He could be patient, no matter how long it took to earn the other man’s trust. 

He pushed up to open the lid of his coffin and climbed out, and If he had any say in the matter, it would be the last time he would ever set foot in one of them again. It was such an outdated concept in his opinion. A necessity for some, sure, but they were underground here. Well below street level, deep under the theater with no windows or doors that opened directly to the outside. There was simply no reason for the vampires who lived here to spend their days in a light proof box. 

The first thing Eddie noticed as he surveyed the room was the smell of bleach. That told him, as much as anything else, that whatever had happened here was over, and the cleanup was already well underway. He noted, with a glance, that all of the other caskets were open, and empty, save for one. A modern model that sat just on the other side of Billy's abandoned ancient coffin. 

Dustin. 

Eddie stepped up to the box, hurriedly opened the lid, and let out a sigh of relief. The young boy was just fine. Dead to the world for now, and would be until the sun had set completely, but fine.

He smiled fondly as he looked down at Dustin’s sleeping form, noticing for the first time that the kid had taped photos all over the inside of his coffin. Eddie chuckled, it was a very Dustin thing to do. He didn’t recognize most of the people in the pictures of course, though the one face he did recognize was in nearly every single one. Steve.

He felt silly suddenly for having been so worried. Of course Dustin was okay. The boy might be in Eddie’s care now, but long before that he was Steve’s charge.

From day one the kid had talked about his old babysitter ad nauseam. Only to Eddie, though. Dustin wasn’t stupid, he figured out pretty quickly who to trust, and who to keep his head down around. Truth be told, Eddie didn’t mind being the kid’s sounding board. 

Within 6 months of Dustin's transition, Eddie felt like he knew everything there was to know about the intriguing figure called Steve Harrington. He’d fallen half in love just listening to Dustin's stories. When he did finally set eyes on Steve in the flesh, the first time he’d come calling with the police, Eddie knew he was a goner. 

Normally, he wouldn’t have even considered pursuing a human in such a way. It was far too dangerous in his world to hold a mere mortal so close, but once he got that first taste of Steve’s power, he couldn’t help thinking that maybe, just maybe, this one could handle it. 

Eddie was undeterred by the fact that they were natural enemies. Steve was a vampire hunter and executioner, after all, but it was nothing they couldn't overcome. No relationship was perfect. 

He knew that Steve wanted him too, he’d smelled it, that reluctant desire, at their first meeting. He was stuck somewhere between denial and playing the worst game of hard-to-get ever, but Eddie was sure it was only a matter of time before Steve would stop lying to himself about his true feelings. 

Eddie stepped away, leaving the top to Dustin's coffin open so he would know he was free.  He would need to look at a clock to be sure, but he guessed that it was mid-afternoon. Eddie had been waking earlier and earlier these days, another sign of his growing power, but it would be at least a few hours before the younger vampire woke. 

The sound of voices off in the distance interrupted Eddie’s thoughts. Whoever it was sounded calm, relaxed even, so he wasn’t too concerned, but he still ventured out into the hall cautiously, not taking any chances in case he was wrong. 

He found his guests gathered in the lowest room of the compound, the one Billy had liked to call the dungeon. He was greeted by three overgrown rats, and a small but tough looking woman with dark hair. 

Palms raised, Eddie approached the darkest of the wereanimals, recognizing Gareth in his rat form. They weren’t friends, but Eddie had made it clear from the beginning that he was no big fan of Billy, so he’d earned a little of the rats' respect.

“You’re up early.” The wererat king commented casually. “I didn’t think you had that kind of power.”

Eddie shrugged. “What can I say, I'm full of surprises.” He didn’t sense any hostility from Gareth, so he lowered his hands. “Mind filling me in on what I missed while I was indisposed?”

“I’m afraid I can't give you many details, Munson. I helped your Steve and a woman to get in early this morning through our passageways, but then we had to keep our distance until Billy had been taken care of.” Gareth explained.

“He’s not my Steve, not yet anyway.” The vampire clarified. He didn’t want Steve to hear even a rumor that Eddie was claiming him as his property. “So it’s true then?”

The wererat nodded, or at least gave the closest approximation to a nod as he could in his current form. “Yes. Billy and his servant Heather are dead, as well as his scumbag of a father, and anyone else who was known to support him. Also, it turns out the animator, Martin Brenner, was the one killing vampires. He’s been disposed of as well.”

“Good.” Eddie declared. “Thank you for all your help. How can I repay you?” He asked.

Gareth’s whiskers twitched as he considered how to respond. “I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but we didn’t do this for you, or for Steve. We just wanted out from under the master’s thumb. As long as you don’t have rats as your animal-to-call, we’re square.”

“I think you’re safe from me.” Eddie smiled. “I have never felt a particular affinity with your kind.” 

Then he had a thought. 

“I do wonder though, if your people would be willing to work for me for a time. I’d pay you, of course, and extend any protections I have to give. I’ll need to fill this place out again. We lost a lot of vampires to the murders even before this. There are a few of my followers scattered through the city, those that chose not to live with the master, but our numbers are small. I’m going to have to bring in some outsiders to fill out the ranks. I could use some security in the process.”

Gareth was quiet for a long time, and Eddie was sure he’d gone too far, but then the rat-king gave that funny looking nod again. “I think we could work something out, Eddie, as long as my people are employees and not slaves.”

“Of course.”

Eddie watched as the small group scurried one by one back through the hole, leaving the way they’d come, with Gareth taking up the rear. The rat-king paused before replacing the grate, taking one last look back at the vampire. 

“You should know.” Gareth began. “I don’t think Harrington meant for me to overhear, but you know sometimes with our abilities it’s hard to avoid eavesdropping, and the girl was under your protection, I believe, so..”

“Spit it out, man.” Eddie said. 

“Chrissy is dead.”

Eddie’s stomach dropped. He grit his teeth, willing himself to maintain some decorum, and not show weakness in front of his new ally. He gave a solemn nod in acknowledgement of the information ,and walked away as soon as Gareth had disappeared into the dark.

He held it together until he reached the coffin room, nothing more to do for now except wait for Dustin to wake up so he could find out what the hell had happened. 

Eddie fell to his knees in the center of the room, face twisted in pain as a sob was torn out of his chest. He pounded hard on the concrete floor until his fists were bloody, and he worried he would crack the hard surface. 

He jumped up, grabbing the nearest casket with two hands and hurling it at the wall. It hit with a satisfying crack, hard enough to splinter the wood into dozens of pieces. He repeated the process with every box in the room, saving Billy’s for last.

He knew Billy had killed her. Even without knowing any of the details, that much he was sure of. He broke Billy's coffin apart with his bare hands, snapping it one piece at a time until it was nothing but a pile of kindling. 

As a vampire, Eddie had no need to draw breath except to speak, but he knew if he was human his chest would be heaving, heart pounding with the exertion. He didn’t often miss those things, but in that moment he would have given anything to feel the abuse he was putting his body through, because he deserved it. He deserved the pain. Deserved to be punished. Though others may have been responsible for actually ending Chrissy’s life, he blamed himself most of all.

Eddie sat in the corner of the room, back against the wall, curled in on himself as he cried for his dead friend whom he had loved so much. He was too busy wallowing in his guilt to hear it when Dustin clambered out of his coffin, and too distracted by his own anguish to notice the boy moving closer. 

He startled when a hand latched onto his arm. He reared back, hissing in alarm as he looked up into a set of wide concerned eyes. 

“What’s wrong?” Dustin asked in a panic. “Is it…did something happen to Steve?”

Eddie wiped at his eyes and tried to blink back any remaining tears as he cleared his throat. He must have been sitting there for hours and not realized. He hadn’t meant for the kid to see him like that.

“Not Steve. Chrissy. She’s dead.”  Eddie managed to say, pushing himself to his feet before continuing. “Do you know what happened?” 

He fought to keep his voice even. He was so angry. At Billy, at the world in general, at himself, but he would not put this on Dustin. He just wanted to know the truth.

Dustin’s face fell, eyes shining with sympathy. He may not have known Chrissy that well, but he knew how close she and Eddie had been. “Neil took her from the club. I’m sorry, but that’s all I really know. As soon as I realized what was happening I called Steve for help, but Billy caught me and threw me in my coffin before he got here.”

“It’s okay.” Eddie murmured. It seemed if he wanted real answers, he would have to talk to Steve.

“What happened in here, and why are we free?” Dustin asked. 

“The mess is my fault, I might have taken my anger out on the furniture. As far as the rest, it turns out your old babysitter is apparently just as badass as you always made him out to be. I was told he and some woman came in here and took care of everything. It’s over.”

Dustin grinned. “Oh! That'd be Nancy.”

Eddie rolled his hand, making the universal gesture for, ‘please tell me more about this human woman who the object of my affection trusts enough to fight with him side by side.'

“She’s the sister of a childhood friend.  She’s a vampire hunter too. I think her and Steve used to date or something. They work together sometimes. I hear she’s really good.”

“Good for her.” Eddie seethed. It was true that he had no real claim on Steve, no right to be jealous, but that didn’t change the fact that he was. 

-

Later that night, Eddie sat in his office at Guilty Pleasures, waiting for the hour to grow late enough that Steve would be asleep. He’d considered having Dustin reach out to him instead, to set up a meeting of some kind where he could hear the full story of what had happened, and maybe start to repair things between the two of them, but he didn’t want the kid to feel like he was caught in the middle. 

Eddie felt it when Steve slipped off to sleep. He wasn’t sure he would, but he supposed it was hard to keep your guard up when you’re trying to drift off. It was a subtle thing, a split second where his entire body relaxed, mirroring what Steve was feeling, wherever he might be. 

Eddie locked the office door and laid himself out on the crimson couch, the same one Steve had rested upon not too long ago, if Jeff were to be believed. He closed his eyes and turned his attention inwards towards the bond.

Steve’s mind felt so different once he slipped into slumber, it was like the walls he’d built to keep Eddie from getting too close became softer, more flexible, and if he pushed hard enough and in just the right spot he could get through. 

Things were different now, though. Before, Steve had been aware, at least on some level, that he was dreaming when he was with Eddie, but now he knew that it was real. That Eddie was himself in their dreams and not some figment of Steve’s imagination. Now he knew he could keep Eddie out if he wanted to.

He approached Steve's mental barrier slowly, calmly, trying to project an air of, ‘I come in peace’. He gently caressed the wall with a metaphorical hand, and was pleasantly surprised when it vanished beneath his touch. Steve was going to let him in. 

He materialized in the corner of Steve’s bedroom, the same setting as their last shared dream, foregoing the bed this time in an effort to make Steve more comfortable. It was a good choice, considering Steve himself was pacing a hole in the floor, tense even at rest. 

“Are you alright?” Eddie asked, walking slowly towards the other man.

Steve’s head snapped up, furious eyes boring holes into the vampire’s own as he ignored the question. He rounded on Eddie aggressively. “What do you want?!”

It stopped Eddie in his tracks. He had expected to be greeted with some level of anger. He’d thought he was prepared to take it, and to apologize, but the rage radiating off of Steve was far beyond anything he’d anticipated. It threw him off kilter. He was immediately defensive and felt himself wanting to respond in kind. Had he wronged Steve to an extent? Maybe, but what right did he have to react this intensely when they hadn’t even talked about things yet!  

Eddie smoothed his face out into a blank mask. “I wanted to congratulate you on your victory, of course. I knew you could do it.” He said, beginning to stalk a very slow circle around Steve.

He knew it was the wrong thing to say, and wasn’t what he had planned to open with at all.

“Fuck you.” Steve spat.

“Ooh. Touchy, touchy.” Eddie's face split into a wide grin as he held his hands up.

He hated himself even as he mocked Steve for his fury. He should have had sympathy for the man, and he did, but Eddie found that he was angry too.  

“Yeah you’d be touchy too if someone forced themselves on you like this.”

Eddie didn’t know whether Steve meant the dreams or the marks, but it hardly mattered, the implication was the same. He saw red. This human had no idea what Eddie had been through over the course of his very long life. If he had even the slightest inclination he would never have accused him of such a heinous crime.

He continued to pace his circuit as he sneered. “Don't stand there and act like I've stolen your virtue. I gave you a GIFT!”

“You would see it as a gift to be tied to you for eternity!” Steve spouted.

Eddie halted his movements, facing the other man head on. “That’s not what I mean and you know it.”

Steve didn’t back down, in fact he stepped into Eddie as he taunted him, “Sure it’s not.”

Eddie took a step in as well, his anger propelling him closer. “I saved your life!” He shouted.

Steve moved again. They were practically nose to nose as he said, “Yea, and I'm so grateful, considering you did it just so you could use me to kill your enemies.”

“Do you really think so little of me?” Eddie asked.

Steve's eyes were glued to Eddie’s lips as he spoke. But he quickly looked away when he realized what he was doing. 

“If the shoe fits, princess.” Steve was trying to be snarky but it just came out breathless. 

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, struggling to think when his body was this close to Steve’s. Even as they raged at each other, he had never wanted someone more. 

“Fuck you.” Eddie said through tight lips.

“No thanks.”

Eddie growled in frustration. “Just tell me what happened to Chrissy, and I'll leave.”

He had hoped to hear the whole story of Billy's downfall but it was clear that Steve had very limited patience for him at the moment. Which was fine. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter how it all went down, Billy was dead, and they were alive, but Eddie needed to know what happened to his girl. 

Steve stepped back abruptly, so much so that he almost stumbled. It took everything Eddie had not to spirit to his side to steady him. It’s not as though Steve could be hurt, it was only a dream after all, but the instinct was hard to tamp down. 

Steve stared off, lost for a minute in his own thoughts. 

Eddie tried again. “Dustin said she was taken and that he called you for help. I know she didn’t..make it, but you are the only person left alive who saw what happened.”

“Why do you care?”

The question hit Eddie like a punch in the gut. Why did he care? “She was my friend, Steve, and she was under my protection. I never thought…”

“No you didn’t think.” Steve snapped. “You just had to go and piss your boss off and get yourself thrown in that damn coffin, leaving her with no one to look after her!”

The accusation drained all of the fight out of Eddie. He couldn’t argue with what Steve had said. He wasn’t even angry anymore, just sad. 

“You were there for her.” Eddie said, softly.

“As much as she’d let me.” Steve admitted, deflating a little. “I should have tried harder.”

That’s when Eddie finally saw it, the guilt Steve was carrying for Chrissy’s loss. “It’s not your fault, Steve.” 

Eddie wanted to reach out, to hold him and tell him there was nothing he could have done. Why were they fighting when they could mourn together? But then Steve’s eyes flashed with that rage again.

“No. it’s yours.”

Eddie sighed. “I know.”

There didn’t seem to be anything more to say to each other after that. He couldn’t keep pushing, if Steve didn’t want to talk about it, he'd have to accept that. 

Eddie didn’t know what Steve wanted from him, or how to move on from here. Maybe they just needed some time. He turned away, about to step out of the dream when Steve spoke again. 

“Eddie?”

“Hm?”

“I know there's no way to reverse this thing between us, but I want…” Steve paused and blew out a long breath. “I need you to stay away from me.”

“Okay, Steve. If that’s really what you want. You know where to find me if you ever change your mind.”

“I won’t”

A few months had passed since Steve went toe to toe against Billy and won, with Nancy’s help and the wererats, of course.  He hadn’t seen or heard from Eddie again after that first night, when the vampire had visited his dreams for the last time to ask about Chrissy. 

Steve was still mad, and he still didn’t want anything to do with the guy or his damn marks, but with a little distance he was starting to think that maybe he’d been a little too harsh. It hadn’t been fair to blame Eddie for Chrissy’s death. 

Nancy had left town without a word a few days after the fight. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary and Steve didn’t take it personally. They weren’t the type of friends who kept in touch on a regular basis. He knew she’d come back around the next time she had a job in the city, and until then she was more than capable of taking care of herself.

Going back to work had been rough. He couldn’t exactly tell Bert, his boss and father, why he’d been out of touch. He and Nancy hadn’t had an order of execution for Billy. Technically, it was murder, though it wasn’t likely that anyone would ever find out what they’d done. No one outside of the monster community had really known the master’s identity, and it’s not as if any of the remaining vamps or wereanimals would report him missing. There would never be an investigation.

So, his dad was ON HIS ASS. 

He gave Steve an ultimatum. Start showing up for work consistently again, or you're fired. He was pretty sure it was an empty threat, it’s not like there were other animators lining up to take his job, but Steve needed the money, and so he re-committed himself to his career. Thanks to his new drive, and a slight downturn in supernatural crime, he had managed to not miss a single night that he was scheduled. 

Steve spent what few evenings he had off with Dustin, their rekindled friendship the one good thing to come out of this whole mess. It was nice getting to know him again. They couldn’t just go out and grab dinner casually, with Dustin being what he now was, so they got creative. Late night movies, rounds of pool at a local dive bar, and bowling; which they were both terrible at. It didn't matter in the slightest though, because they would laugh at each other until their sides hurt, and it was so much fun. They never talked about Eddie.

His days were spent with Robin. If Steve wasn’t sleeping, they were together. She had decided that the best thing for all of his woes and problems was to keep busy. She even stopped complaining about their work out sessions, which was terrifying and occasionally made him think he wasn’t doing a good enough job at hiding how much he was struggling. It was the only explanation for her going on a jog with him, willingly. 

Robin had asked about Eddie only once, the morning after his final dream with the vampire. She’d slept over that night and he woke up in her arms. She held him while he cried, and said he didn’t want to talk about it. She never brought it up again.

-

Steve was just getting out of the shower when his phone rang. He hastily wrapped a towel around his waist and ran for his bedroom to grab it. He was late to pick up Robin, they had plans to meet Dustin downtown together, and he had no doubt it was her calling to make sure he was alive. She worried too much. But so did he, hence the running.

“Hey, Sorry Ro…”

“Are you watching this?” She interrupted.

“Watching what?”

She exhaled loudly into the phone. “The news, Steve! Turn your T.V. on, right now.”

He did, switching the channel over to their local CNN affiliate, one of the few networks that didn’t cater to ring-wing crazies. It was a live feed, a crowd of reporters sat in rows like an audience in a large open space. It looked like the ballroom at the Conrad hotel, if Steve had to guess. Apart from the fact that scattered amongst the crowd was a slightly bigger police presence than would seem necessary, it looked like your average press conference. 

“What am I looking at here, Robs?”

She shushed him, muttering, “Just watch.” 

The live feed switched momentarily to a view of the podium, Mayor Kline stood nervously to one side of it, smiling tightly amid the odd camera flash when one was pointed his way. 

A hush fell suddenly over the room, it must have been nearly time for whoever was about to address the crowd to arrive. 

The camera angle changed again, and flashbulbs all around the room began to go off at a quickened pace. The picture finally settled on a set of double doors, just in time to catch Eddie Munson entering the room. The vampire paused in the open doorway, smiling for pictures for a beat or two before making his way up to the microphone. 

Steve dropped his phone, letting it fall to the floor with a loud clatter as he gaped at the television. That’s when he finally noticed the news ticker running along the bottom of the screen.

:Master of the City of Indianapolis comes out of the coffin:

When Eddie reached his place at the podium the heading changed.

:Vampire and local business owner Eddie Munson reveals his identity as Master of the City: 

Steve scrambled to pick up his cell, managing to get it to his ear as Robin asked, 

“Did you know about this?”

He shook his head, answering out loud once he realized she couldn't see him. “No, Rob. I mean, I knew he was powerful but I didn’t realize...”

“You basically put him on the throne.”

“I know.” He said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Do you think… was this his plan all along?” She asked.

Steve didn’t respond. It was exactly what he had accused the vampire of months ago. He just didn’t know, and did it matter? His head was spinning and his heart raced. He couldn’t help the feeling that Eddie had just drawn a giant target on his back. 

Not that he cared what happened to the guy. 

Did he? 

No, he was just in shock. He hadn’t thought about what would happen after he killed Billy, effectively leaving behind a power vacuum in the city. He’d been so intent on ignoring all things vampire, apart from Dustin, that he hadn’t let himself consider the possibilities. 

“Steve?” 

He could hear Robin distantly saying his name but he was too caught up in his thoughts.

Why hadn’t Dustin said anything? How could he let Steve get caught off guard like this? No. That wasn’t fair. The kid was only doing what he had asked by not talking about vampire business, and Eddie in particular. 

Steve sighed. He had no one to blame but himself for not knowing. He wasn’t sure if this was good new or bad news. Either way, it’s not like there was anything he could do about it now even if…

“STEVE?!” Robin shouted.

He shook himself, staring back at the tv where Eddie had finally started addressing the room full of reporters.

“Sorry Rob, I uh, I gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Steve hung up quickly before she could convince him to go through with their plans, or offer to come over. He wanted to be alone. He wasn’t going anywhere that night, and he certainly wasn’t up for facing Dustin in the midst of it all. 

He sat on the edge of his bed, still dressed in only a towel, and turned the volume on the tv up, bracing himself to listen to Eddie’s speech.

“Good evening. My name is Eddie Munson and I am the master of the city of Indianapolis. You may be surprised that I have come to you like this. It is rare for one of my kind to be so publicly open about their identity and the role in which they play within the vampire community. What I will say to you is this; I think it is far past time for the vampires in this country to step into the light and claim our position alongside our fellow Americans.  Two years ago the United States voted in favor of giving vampires legal status. With that came many things, including the right to live without worry that we would be hunted down like dogs for simply being what we are; without crime and without cause.  Regardless of these strides, most of my people still hide. They live in the shadows, many ashamed of their basic nature. That is why I have chosen to reveal myself, and my position. I can only hope my actions will inspire others to come forward and take their place in full view of society, instead of continuing to be its dirty little secret. Let this be the start of a new age of vampire history and politics. I won’t lie to you and tell you that things will be easy. There are bad vampires in the world, just as there are bad humans, but I can promise that the overwhelming majority of vampires wish nothing more than to live alongside you in peace.”

It was groundbreaking. No vampire had ever addressed the general public quite like this, broadcast right into people's homes. Even Jason Carver, the closest thing to a vampire public figure that had existed till now, had never allowed himself to be filmed. You had to visit the center if you wanted to see him or hear him speak. 

Eddie took questions for over an hour following his speech. Steve knew he should shut it off, or leave the room, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away. He couldn’t help feeling like everything was about to change. For himself, for his city, maybe even for the country at large. He just hoped he was ready for whatever came next.

Chapter 11

#steddie fanfic #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #stranger things #ao3 #steve harrington/eddie munson #steve x eddie #vampire hunter steve harrington #vampire eddie munson #steve harrington: vampire hunter

[larvasmoon]

Portrait of the pale elf (6)- A garden of thorny roses

Chapter summary : Astarion reflects on what happened between him and Selene the night before, and unexpectedly stumbles upon Damian Fallheel at a party.

Word count : 5,7k

Trigger warnings : Blood drinking. Mention of past abuse. Manipulation. Physical violence.

Here's my Ao3 darling

Previous chapter

Astarion grabbed a flute of champagne when the waiter walked by with his tray in hand, and discreetly trod away to stand in a dark corner of the wide reception room. 

A crowd of refined elves and human nobles were dancing at the center of it, long dresses and petticoats unfolding and blooming around the ladies’ waists like flower corollas.

At the other side of the room, a small orchestra was playing tedious violin valses, each one as boring as the previous. 

That evening, however, he was in no mood for useless chatter or dances.

Memories of the last night, of her, kept tormenting him.

He’d carried Selene in the living room after she’d fallen asleep in his arms, laying her to sleep on one of the sofas.  

Looming over unconscious form for long minutes, he’d resisted the all encompassing urge to climb on top of her and finish what he’d started.  

Chest heaving, nails digging into the skin of his hands and jaw tightly clenched, he felt like he would never come down from the singular euphoria she’d propulsed him into. Every fiber of his monstrous body greedily demanded for more, for all of what was running down her veins.  

It was a miracle he’d even managed to stop in the first place. 

The intoxicating perfume of her floated in the air, full of sweet promises of perdition, and he could almost see the particles of it roll and bounce in the darkness.  

Like a red ribbon trailing back to her abused throat, raw and bleeding. 

Where he’d had his teeth buried not so long ago. 

Where he’d almost stayed even when her heartbeat had dramatically slowed in his ears. 

Possessed by the taste of her, too enthralled by the flow of it in his mouth, he’d even bit her on the neck and marked her in a place so exposed that it left no place for secrecy.  

He’d also quickly realised that the entirety of the manor smelt like her. There was not a single wretched corner he could have crawled into to shield himself from her, and to shield her from his violence. 

In a frenzy, he’d run into every single room to throw the windows open before the sun had entirely risen, especially the one in which he’d … had her.  

His old armour had come undone piece by piece, his fingers uncontrollably shaking around each buckle. The leather painfully stuck to his skin, slick with sweat and other things, and it had also taken long minutes to free himself from what she’d made him wear. He’d worn it to countless bloody battles without ever being defeated, it was the first time he took it off while feeling like he did.  

His body was even weaker than it would’ve been if he hadn’t fed for days, and he’d all but dragged himself to the closest bathroom. The delicious taste of her blood had awoken all of his worst appetites instead of satiating them. It clung to the back of his throat, thick and sweet like honey, and each time he swallowed he relived the terrifying elation he’d felt when it had graced his tongue. 

Immersing himself in a scorching hot bath, he’d scrubbed his skin raw with the heady flowery fragrance of his new soap, half-heartedly hoping it’d dissipate the scent of her on his skin.  

But when he’d wiped his body down, she was still there.  

A light trail of indefinable beauty in the palms of his hands. 

Even the most opulent and bubbly combination of jasmine and rose dimmed and withered against it.  

His fingers flexed when he pressed his nose there to take countless lungful breaths, as if he didn’t know whether he wanted to crush such magnificence or cradle it like a precious jewel.  

By the time he was done and came back to check on her, the blood on her neck had gone stale, dark and crusty where it’d dripped on the collar of her white linen shirt. 

Surprisingly, he’d decided to stay in the room, sitting on an armchair  to watch her move and sigh in deep slumber. There was so much confusion in his mind, an endless surge of irreconcilable desires as he thought back to what had happened upstairs.  

It was a mistake, all of it.  

He hadn’t meant to go this far. The sight of the wonderful picture she’d drawn of him, had simply rendered him vulnerable to his darkest instincts.  

Little pieces of his fractured mind clicked into place, and he wasn’t thinking straight when he’d laid his eyes on her again. She’d fallen into his arms when he still felt lightheaded, whispering all the sweet things he’d always longed for someone to say to him. 

“Nothing of you could ever be hideous, Astarion. Not to me.” 

The creature inside of him had looked at her from behind the bars of its enclosure, helplessly lunging forward. Hoping she’d embrace it anyway, all sharp fangs and coarse fur. 

And she had, carefully, softly, even when he’d growled and bared his teeth. 

Each time he’d seen her, whether it was in his shop or in the tavern, he’d kept himself on a tight leash. It had in fact proven to be significantly harder than expected to even stand near her without losing his decorum and wanting to tear her apart.  

As he silently sat, next to her slumbering body, he still felt that way. 

Strange emotions he refused to acknowledge rushed through his heart, each time she rolled on her side or mumbled something unintelligible.  

There was fear, fear of what he could do to her, of what she could do to him, and fear of repeating some of the mistakes he’d made in the past.  

There was shame, lingering somewhere in the pits of his stomach, because he’d yielded to the animal inside, because he’d almost torn the leathers off his skin and slipped his hands under her shirt.  

Disgust, because he’d almost given her his unclean and scarred body, that shell that he had trouble inhabiting and even more trouble sharing with someone else.  

But there was also tenderness, a soft buzzing feeling that had entered his heart at the sight of her talent and beauty. 

A fondness that had protected her from the worst parts of him, even when he’d been too blinded by hunger and thirst to even know what he was doing. 

Astarion was startled out of his reverie by a series of loud and obnoxious laughs.

Rhistel Kiiren, the host of the party, was surrounded by a flock of cackling and giggling contenders who were ridiculously competing for his attention. 

His auburn locks were tied in a ponytail with a large midnight blue bow that Astarion had placed there earlier. It elegantly rested on his nape, right above the water pearls stitched on his collar. He was wearing a velvet jerkin of the same colour, adorned with many constellations of golden embroidered stars and moons. 

That single piece might have been one the most expensive Astarion had in his shop, but the high elf was vain enough to buy things just because they were extremely costly. 

Just because he could, and just because he liked to flaunt. 

Rhistel’s emerald eyes settled on the vampire, gleaming with malice. 

He excused himself, a cortege of sighs and complaints following his departure, and gracefully walked towards him. 

“I thought you’d be the heart of the party, Astarion” he dramatically sighed, leaning on the wall behind them, “I took you for a master of all delightful things, mingling with beautiful strangers and enjoying good champagne being amongst the finest. But here you are, brooding in the shadows. Whatever could be the matter ? ” 

The vampire plastered his brightest smile on his face, retrieving the mask he’d abandoned in some scattered part of his mind when Selene had visited the night before. 

“I was just admiring my work in the lighting of this vast room, darling ! It looks even more stunning on you than when I sewed it” he said, adjusting the puffy sleeves of the shirt the elf was wearing underneath his richly ornamented jacket. 

“Something is weighing on your mind, isn’t it ? ” Rhistel insisted once again, “ We’re friends aren’t we ? You can confide in me, I shall prove to be a sympathetic ear”, but he was ever a fool to believe that his little masquerade could delude the king of deception. 

There was no such thing as privacy in the higher spheres of the baldurian nobility. Under all the pretty rouged faces of Rhistel’s guests were the piercing eyes of scavengers, always in search of carrion and foetid gossips to feast on. 

He might’ve been a monster himself, but he’d quickly understood that monstrosity was an affliction he shared with some of those white-cheeked vultures. 

“Why would there be, dear ? I’m attending a luxurious party in one of the most beautiful manors of the higher city, what more could I ask for ?” he laughed, walking in the light once again, and doing a little twirl when the orchestra started to play a new song. 

A bitter voice in the corner of his mind blamed him, “ I’d ask for her, because you’ve ruined everything again.” 

Selene had left in a hurry earlier in the afternoon, without looking him in the eyes.  

When she’d woken up, he was already standing awkwardly near the hearth, as far from her as he could. He’d promptly blurted out that he was in a hurry and needed to prepare for a party, squirming on his feet with an uncharacteristic lack of grace. 

It was in the way he’d said it, in the icy inflection of the words he’d hastily muttered.  

They wrongly sounded like she had overstayed her welcome in his house.  

Like they were strangers once again. 

But when he’d realised what it all could mean to her, it was already too late.  

His fists were tightly clenched, every muscle of his body tensing, because the sight of her with her hair untamed and her shirt half unbuttoned, had him shivering with the same kind of puzzling needs as a few hours ago. 

Selene’s face fell when she stared at him from across the room, sleepiness slowly clearing from her gaze to turn into dejection. 

She looked exhausted, but beautiful in the halo of the lit fireplace, more than ever before, and his heart sored with dread.  

“I apologise, I didn’t think I’d doze off, I truly must’ve been worn out after all that sketching” she painfully laughed, her dark eyes visibly welling up with tears when she averted her gaze.  

“Come closer, let me hold you”, a frail voice begged in his heart, “Please leave, I can’t be anywhere near you right now” commanded another in his head, and he didn’t have to listen to either as he watched her quickly collect her belongings with shaky hands. 

She’d almost instantly vanished, disappearing into the brightness of the day.  

Where he could not follow.  

What if he’d hurt her so much she would never want to see him ever again ?  

Another part of him, feared that she arborred the same morbid curiosity and desires as the “clients” that sometimes visited him in Carmine Red. Would she get bored of him, now that he had sunk his teeth in her skin and had moaned against the wet hollow of her neck ?  

No no, he knew this was different, she’d given so much to him already, including this unfinished but already breathtaking portrait.  

He’d spent the rest of the day sitting in front of it, touching his face with the tip of his fingers, gliding along his features, while looking at the stranger that she’d etched on the canvas.  

There was a warmth in his chest, something too fragile for him to dare and call it happiness, but strong enough to make the colours of the fabric he was using to make her masquerade ball dress look brighter.  

“May I have this dance ?” said a smarmy voice that had him anxiously remembering where he was and who he was with once again. 

Faceless bodies and colourful silks swarmed back into his line of vision.

Astarion had attracted some undesired attention, and young lords and ladies gathered around him, like bees flying to flowers. 

“ Don’t touch me where she held me. Don’t stain it. Don’t ruin it. ” he helplessly thought, but he made no movement to stop them. 

They grabbed him without restrain, as if he were a mere object that they could pass on to each other. 

The chandeliers spinned above his head, marring his vision with streaks of blazing light.

His dance partner changed a few times, and he barely noticed, because he moved to another tune, one that nobody in this room heard. 

The addictive melody of Selene’s thumping heart, right under his palm when he’d touched her. 

The way it raced when his arms had tightened around her bust.  

The way it slowed when he’d drank deeply from her.

As if she were an instrument and he had mastered the intricacies of her chords and keys.

He hoped that it wouldn’t be weirdly tuned after all of his missteps because, as he danced from arms to arms, he realised that he only wished for one thing. 

To make her sound pretty.

**

It was only the middle of the night when Astarion felt like he was too weary to stay, he longed to leave and find refuge in the darkness of his own home. Music and chatters faded in the distance as he ventured in the empty corridors and silently headed towards the entry. 

His eyes were drawn to the bleak sceneries and portraits hung on the wide walls. Stern and dull faces stared back at him, and they all looked the same unremarkable features copied on repeat according to the century’s latest canon of beauty. Identical poses, and redundant colour patterns, ridiculous frills and puffy skirts : he’d always thought it to be pretentious and uninteresting. 

Now that he was in front of a whole gallery of it, it was as plain as the nose in the middle of their faces, just how much Selene had a different way of approaching her paintings.

“A teacher of mine once said that painting a portrait is like capturing the essence of one’s soul.” 

At times, he’d wondered if he still had one, if there was still something of his own under the soft fabric of his tailored clothes, and the meticulously arranged swirls of his hair.

If there was still more to him.

In Selene’s eyes, at least, there had been. 

She’d drawn him from a much wider angle than usual, capturing the entirety of his body from curls to toes, and in a much more animated way than what was in fashion. 

He looked alive in it, painfully so, with his eyes fixated on the onlooker, his mouth open as if to discuss some unknown topic, and a dagger playfully swirling between his fingers.

At the other end of the hallway, he suddenly heard the echo of raised voices. 

His heightened senses picked up on it without him having to draw closer. 

“Lord Theris’ patience is running thin and he has already been exceedingly forbearing with you… But you shall know that his generosity is not endless” said a deep voice, sinister and ominous. 

“Just a few more weeks, please” pitfully begged another one that seemed a little familiar for his taste, “the girl will paint again, I will have the money by then !”

Astarion’s eyes widened, fury clawing at his insides, and he prayed to all the gods it wasn’t who he thought it was.

Sheltered in the darkness, pressed against the wall, he peered at the two silhouettes standing in the dimly lit drawing room. 

One look was enough to confirm all of his wildest fears. 

Damian Fallheel’s long hair was ruffled, the ribbon he always wore in them laid at his feet, torn and ruined. A tall and bulky man towered over him, grabbing him by the soft silky collar of his shirt to brutally slam him against the wall. 

He let out a ridiculous wail when his tormentor held him so tight that his brogue shoes lifted off the floor, and the lavallière bow of his garment strangled him.

It would’ve been funny, delightful even, to see Fallheel being manhandled in any other setting. If she hadn’t been involved in some way, he would’ve sat back and enjoyed seeing the cretin being beaten to a pulp. 

“How many times have you made promises that could not be kept, lord Fallheel ?” the mountain of a man spat in his face, “This shall be your last.” 

The sun elf groaned and moaned, stabbing the giant’s hand with his perfectly manicured nails. His bronze coloured eyes were growing teary, the protruding veins on his forehead a telltale sign of asphyxia. 

He trashed and floundered against his grip, like a fish caught in a net. For a second, Astarion hesitated to step in and slit the man’s throat, just because he knew about her , just because Fallheel had dared to involve “the girl ” into this ugly mess. 

His fingers searched for the small misericorde dagger hidden in the leather pocket of his doublet he’d especially sewn for that use, gripping the cold squared hilt. 

This small weapon was not beautiful, nor was it made for a spectacular death, it just was sharp enough for a single lethal hit.

However, spending years and years rotting in the damp cells of the city’s prison, was far from being a thrilling perspective, even for an immortal. So, Astarion’s hand lingered there, near it, without daring to take it out yet.

“We will come to forcefully retrieve what is owed to us, from you … or from your protégée. In whatever form Vastos Theris might see fit” he darkly added. 

A chill of horror rattled his bones at the thought of Selene, in place of Fallheel, suffocating under the man’s grip.

He’d crush her delicate windpipe so easily, with those fat sticky fingers. 

And she’d fall at his feet like a rag doll. 

Disarticulated and lifeless.

He silently came out of his hide, stepping out from the darkness and into the halo of the lit sconces, to stand menacingly on the threshold. Fallheel’s eyes found him first, from behind the large shoulders of the brute, widening with fear and incomprehension. 

He saw the long blade in his hands and started to frantically shake his head no. 

The fool had enough troubles on his hands, without adding murder to the list of it. 

When the stocky debt collector turned around, however, it was already too late. 

Astarion had already lunged forward, like a rush of cold air in the hushed atmosphere. Instead of jabbing him in the ribs like he had intended to, he ferociously slammed the back of his neck with the hard end of the weapon’s pommel. 

The light instantly went out in his big dark eyes, and he loudly collapsed on the floor, falling flat on his face. The loud noise it made could have awoken the dead or, even worse, interrupted the party downstairs, but nobody rushed to find the source of it. 

Fallheel was bent forward, clutching his neck and taking deep shallow breaths. 

“Who the hell is Vastos Theris ?” Astarion sharply questioned, straightening his doublet and standing tall once again. 

Damian’s eyes lifted up, sharp and angry behind the golden curtain of his messy hair. “You certainly love to mingle in the affairs of others, don’t you Astarion ?”

“Oh well, a “ thank you for saving me ” would’ve done just fine too, but you are most welcome, dear ” Astarion bitterly mocked, pacing around the tall and wide mass of the lout’s body, to grab him by the ankles and drag him into the dark closet at the other end of the room. 

The latch fell into place with a satisfying click when he locked him inside. He set his mind on  talking to Rhistel later about the “intruder”, to have him warn the flaming fists.

Fallheel was growing restless once again, and he started to nervously pace in front of the window, “I’m no damsel in distress, this is all just a big misunderstanding !”

“A misunderstanding that had you using Selene’s paintings as a warranty ? What is the meaning of this ? What kind of disreputable trouble have you dragged her into ?” he retorted, approaching the master painter once again to tower over him with a terrifying glint in his eyes. 

The elf’s nostrils flared, his pinched face getting flushed with anger and shame. 

“Take her name out of your filthy mouth, you know nothing about her” he barked, all teeth and no bite, “And you don’t know the first thing about the bond I have with this child, I’d sell my soul to the devil to ensure her safety.” 

Astarion’s laugh erupted in the room, loud and vexing, and the longer it lasted the more Fallheel’s features twisted into an ugly grimace. Each of his cackles felt like a slap in his dignified face.

“Please, you’ve always been a poor liar, dear” he finally said after taking his sweet time to humiliate him, “it’s an art you have yet to master. You’ve only ever cared about yourself, and your own interests. I doubt there’s room for another person in that heart of yours, so quit the sensible fatherly act and tell me the truth.” 

Damian got unusually silent, and sauntered over to sit on one of the blue velvet bench sits. He crossed his legs and slowly started braiding his hair back into a long complicated plait.

“Speaking of liars” he finally muttered with a deceiving levelled voice, “ Selene sneaked away to see you yesterday, didn’t she ?”

Astarion’s satisfied grin was wiped off his face all at once.

“How did she taste ? Good I reckon, considering how awful her neck looked” Fallheel continued, and he wondered how someone with eyes that looked so much like the sun could have such a cold stare, “I told her to stay away, but the girl never listens to what I say. She can be somewhat … obstinate. ”

He remembered the dark bruises on Selene’s arms, the dark indent of his fingers in her milky skin, the determined yet slightly frightened look on her face when she said she’d disobeyed her master to see him. 

Being distant and heartless, after coming between her legs, hadn’t been the only way in which he’d let her down after all. 

He had sent her home with a huge and swollen bite mark on her neck, without worrying about the ways she’d hide it.

Standing in front of Fallheel, Astarion painfully realised how he’d been too blinded by his fears to think about her own.

“What did you do to her ?” he breathed, fangs protruding from under his lips, eyes glowing in the gloominess of the deserted room.

Downstairs, violins started to play again and someone opened a bottle of champagne. 

A crude and cruel laugh.“You make it sound like I’m the one hurting her, but I’m not.” 

The sun elf smiled as he tied his torn ribbon back into his hair, seemingly enjoying the small beat of silence before his coup de grâce . “You are.” 

Astarion wished he could find an honest way to deny it, but he kept thinking back to the way Selene’s big black eyes had filled with tears a few hours ago.

“You should’ve seen the pitiful state in which I’ve found her, all feverish and bloodless” Fallheel sighed, digging the knife even deeper into the wound, “poor Selene had fainted on the floor of her apartment, and I had no other choice but to rush her back to my manor and have her healed.”  

His heart sank, painful and heavy behind the cage of his ribs. 

“She wasn’t -I didn’t ”he started, at a loss for words for the first time in centuries. 

His memories were fragmented, they looked red and blurred in his mind as if seen through the prism of the heightened blood thirst he’d experienced. 

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember if her complexion had looked ghastly, or if her legs had seemed too weak to carry her weight when she’d left his home. 

No , he’d been too distracted by the blood on her to notice anything else.

And he’d let her leave like that, without even offering a cup of tea, or his arms to lean on.

“She is too young and gullible, she just doesn’t understand yet that what she wants and what she needs are two very different things” he continued, getting back up to admire Astarion’s aghast expression, “and you are obviously not what she needs.” 

His words were like hammer blows, slamming down the nails of a coffin he’d once laid into, and he could not find a single fault in them. He’d once again underestimated the lord’s distinguished talents for manipulation and cruelty.

He slowly walked past him to retrieve the green velvet garment that had fallen on the floor when he was being strangled. “You’ll make her hope for things you cannot give. And god knows the poor child has already had enough of that in her miserable life.”

Before leaving, Fallheel looked back at Astarion from the threshold of the door he’d almost crossed, much like Selene once had in the tavern, the first night he’d ever talked to her. 

Except this time, it was her master speaking in her place.

The painter’s face twisted into a particularly vicious smile before he spoke again, as if he’d set his mind on truly torturing him this time.

“I’m simply concerned you’ll turn her into your personal blood bag, or worse, a replacement for … What was her name already ?”, he falsely pondered, making a show of squinting his eyes and scratching his head, “that ravishing wood elf with hair of fiery red, that was always with you at every grand reception and balls, before you had a little falling out with her.”

I should’ve left you to die and rot alone in this room, it would’ve saved me the hassle of dirting my hands with your blood, Astarion thought, as the dagger magically found its way back into his hand.

“Stop talking,” he quietly threatened.

“Ah yes, “Tavira” was it ?” 

He was over Damian in a second, his forearm pushing him so violently into the open door that it rattled into its hinges, all razor sharp teeth and wild eyes. “Now, let sleeping dogs lie, lest you get bitten, Fallheel.” 

“See ?” the elf still mocked him, too reckless for his own good, “even after all this time, it’s the only name that can make you snap. You do still love the woman, afterall.”

The cold edge of Astarion’s dagger pressed in his neck, and it would’ve only taken a flick of his wrist to wipe the vermin off the surface of the world. “Will you shut up, gods dammit !” 

But Fallheel kept on laughing, either too unhinged or too confident in the fact that he wouldn’t go as far as killing him.

“Ah here he is, the real Astarion Ancunín ! The dark shadow that lurks behind that pretty mask of white porcelain and scarlet rubies,” he sneered, smiling even wider when he saw a flicker of hurt into his red eyes. 

Astarion lowered his blade and stepped back, still pondering whether he’d do Selene a favour or not by killing the goon. Judging by what he’d heard the man say, if her master died without repaying his debts, they’d come for her instead. 

So he reluctantly decided against it, trembling with barely contained rage.

Just this once. Next time, I won’t be this merciful. 

The elf decidedly walked away in the corridor to join the party once again, talking with his back to him, “A word of advice : stay away from her, from us .”

“Is that a threat ?” 

Damian’s finger gilded against one of the paintings’ frames, tracing the letters of the author’s name, “Gods no ! We’re civilised, are we not ? Let’s just not repeat some of the mistakes we’ve made in the past.”

Astarion’s eyes followed the motions of his index until he could make out the letters. 

“D.Fallheel”  

It was a wonderful painting of Baldur’s Gate’s port, a bleeding sunrise on the sea, that he would never see again except in paintings and in dreams.

The only truly captivating one in the sea of paintings on display on the walls of Rhistel’s manor. 

And he wondered how such a petty and disgusting man’s fingers could ever create anything that enchanting, when he’d only ever seen him destroy things and people instead. 

**

Astarion waited for the city guards to come and take the mystery man away, hidden amongst the crowd of appalled lords and ladies, and surrounded by hushed and horrified whispers. 

“ We can’t even be safe in our own homes.” “ How did he even come in ? All the doors and windows were locked, the butler and the servants are the only ones that have spare keys.” “How frightening, Lord Kiiren! You ought to install bigger locks on the estate’s gates.”  

He’d memorised his gruesome features once again, in the brighter lights of the avenue, before treading away.

The pale elf felt ill and guilt-ridden. He’d started the night thinking about Selene, and he would end it the same way. 

Yearning to see her and to make sure that she was alright, his feet unknowingly carried him to the gates of the Fallheel’s estate. He hid behind a pine tree, aimlessly staring at the windows, and wondering in which room she was asleep. 

Maybe he could discreetly climb up the façade and peek inside, just to make sure that her cheeks were pink again, and her big dark eyes alert enough. 

Something in his chest broke at the prospect of seeing her face again, and so his feet remained planted on the street’s pavement.

He wished he could take it all away and start afresh.

He’d be more careful with her, with her pliant and delicate body. He’d be more attentive to the emotions reflected in the dusky pools of her eyes. He’d refuse the “ kiss with teeth ” she’d asked for to press a lingering one on her blushing cheek.

He would be good for her. 

If only he had it in himself to be such a thing. 

A carriage came to a halt in front of the manor, and Fallheel descended to meet his stern butler. 

“How is she ?” he asked as they both disappeared in the estate’s garden. 

“She has drunk the healing potion that you have provided, but she still has a high fever, sir. Much like that time ” the older man cryptically replied and the heavy door of the house closed on them. 

“That time ?” Astarion thought, “ does it mean that she has a weak constitution, or a tendency to get bed-ridden ?” 

This idea did nothing to soothe him. He worried even more, itching to lockpick a back door of the manor and take care of her himself, but he merely stood there for a few more minutes.

Pathetically watching shadows quickly walk past the illuminated windows of the only lit room upstairs.

Her room most likely. 

When he finally turned on his heels, fleeing the rising sun, he felt like he was abandoning her all over again, leaving her at the hands of her “master”. 

“You’ll make her hope for things that you cannot give”, the imbecile had said. 

If he had anything of worth in him, it would be deep in the gloomy cave of his soul, where a small stream of fresh and clear water ran once again. 

A single pearl washed out on the eroded banks. A small shimmering stone abandoned there by the swirling waters. 

Selene would have to dive in, slowly, carefully, and he’d have to find it in himself to light the way. 

His trembling hands made to hold a flickering flame, almost blown out by his own shallow breaths, as he slowly got closer to something he should be running away from. 

After killing Cazador, he’d sworn to himself that he’d never be in the power of anyone again. 

Just to betray his own words by vowing all of himself to Tav.

He had kneeled, offered his hands and feet so she could bind them in lovesick chains.  

He had let her undress him to the core, raw and exposed in her arms.

Her slave, in the name of devotion. 

All but condemned to remain enchained there, long after she had gone and disappeared, cruelly withholding the keys to his freedom. 

Maybe Fallheel was right in the end. Perhaps, Astarion was broken beyond repair, and he’d do well to leave the girl alone. 

Yet, at each street corner, with each of the heavy steps that took him away from her, his thoughts selfishly clang to her. 

Let me try. Let me shed all of those old and rusty shackles. I’ll break and tear at them, to reach out to you.  

When he finally arrived in front of his home, Astarion heard someone howl in fear in his garden and walked faster. 

He’d barely opened the gate when he saw a white ball of fur fly in the air, claws shining in the moonlight. 

The stranger screamed anew when Blanche landed on his head of dark curls, scratching his face like some kind of savage beast.

“Now now no need to get so territorial” pleaded the man, ridiculously trying to push her away, “I’m merely visiting an old friend”. 

What a funny spectacle it was, especially now that Astarion has seen his small cat in action, guarding the home in his absence just as well as some big watchdog. 

It was all delightful until the man turned around, and he saw his face. 

He knew the late night visitor. 

All too well. 

Gale Dekarios was staring back at him, purple robes askew and face bleeding under the paws of his murderous kitty.

#astarion bg3 #astarion fanfic #astarion smut #astarion x female oc #baldur's gate 3 smut #astarion x f!tav #astarion x tav #astarion fanfiction #astarion fic #Portrait of the pale elf #Larva writes

[puregaalee]

PureGaaLee's WIP Your Heart 2023: Event Wrap

Hello, PGL followers and event participants. I am going to start this event wrap on a somber and necessarily serious note.

If you were keeping track of the event dates, then you know this event wrap was originally scheduled to be released mid October when the WIPYHO officially ended. That did not happen due to the increased and on-going assault on Gaza, Palestine by the settler-colony known as Israel. With the genocide still currently unfolding, my attention and priorities have not been on fandom--and I know I am not alone in that.

I wanted to post-pone making this event wrap-up because of what's happening, but now that it's been nearly two months since the end of the event, I did not want to keep participants waiting. So I apologize for the wait, but I hope people are not only understanding, but also paying close attention to the escalation in ethnic cleansing taking place and doing what they can for Palestinians whether that's sharing posts, donating, or going to protests.

Thank you to everyone for bearing with me and thank you so much for your participation in this event. Below the cut is the official event-wrap up. Please make sure to check out all the wonderful pieces by the author/artist duos who made this event possible.

And please keep Palestine in your hearts.

WIPYHO Ao3 Collection

The Ball, the Boxing Match, and the Bedchamber by a_gay_poster/@ghoste-catte with art by @romanticdeity [NSFW]:   When gentleman pugilist Rock Lee makes the acquaintance of a prince in a most unexpected way, he does not anticipate how much his life will change. Nor does he anticipate the dangerous feelings the prince will inspire.

Born Under Punches by urieskooki/@urieskooki with art by @bayheart: Team Gai have been sent on a mission to track down the Akatsuki member who's been whisking away jinchūriki with terrifying efficiency. When a clue left behind at the site of the Ichibi’s capture leads them to Amegakure, Lee must put aside any distractions to do one thing: complete the mission - even if those distractions include rescuing his missing team and the mysterious boy he keeps running into around the city.

The Grapes of Debauchery by solas_oiche with art by @bayheart [NSFW]: Lee gets drunk. Shenanigans ensue. How does it always end up being Gaara’s problem in the end?

Kept Under Lock and Key by bananahwormz/@bananahwormz with art by @arecu21: Gaara discovered his proclivity for the same sex at some point in his teen or young adult life, but it wasn't something he paid much attention to or cared much about compared to all his other priorities. Sometimes he would confuse friendships for crushes, but due to either what he would later discover to be a fear of rejection or a fear of himself, he vowed to never act on these emotions. Believing himself to be alone in the way he loves and who he loves, he lets infatuation come over him and run its course before finally letting go every time and making his peace. As his paramours marry the women of their dreams, proving his theories correct, his need—no, WANT—for romantic companionship becomes easier to tame. But one bachelor seems hard-set to challenge his precepts, whether intentionally or not. How and why is Papa Lee still single? And would he ever consider…

My Home is Your Home by Luna_Lee/@sagemoderocklee with art by Roarsh/@roarshackle Gaara's new apartment isn't much, but in his mind it's perfect. It might be tiny, but it has what he needs: a bedroom, a living room, a bathroom, a teeny tiny kitchen, and a rather attractive neighbor. But it also has something that wasn't mentioned in the lease.

Not a Place of Honor by ghostinthestalls/@ghost-in-the-stalls with art by @pannaflara: Rock Lee is a soldier in the Konoha military, sent down to unearth the greatest - and possibly also the worst - discovery in human history.

Not God, Not Us, But Something Else by ghostinthestalls/@ghost-in-the-stalls with art by @reject-tiefling: The Lovelink Program from Anteros Co. is finally up and running - much to Rock Lee's distaste, and his friends' excitement. Love takes hard work (two things Lee is very passionate about!), but everyone has their moments of self-doubt. Pushing through years and layers of it is hard enough already in the face of a corporation telling him they can make it all easier for a small fee. Complicating things further is the unsettling man from his dreams who Lee has now begun to see in his waking life. What does it mean to properly love a person, specially curated just for you?

Sing a Song of Sleeptide by solas_oiche with art by kairn_orz: Five times that Lee and Gaara share each other’s beds, and one time they share their own.

Triple Time by gidget_goes/@gidget-goes with art by @slap-my-hand: Even a centuries-old war or the bitterest of winter storms won’t dull the lavish gleam of Konoha’s royal court. For Gaara and his siblings, though, the glitz of the aristocracy is just a cover. They’ve been sent North by their father on a deadly mission: to retrieve an ancient artefact, powerful enough to end the war – and the nation of Konoha – for good. But when he begins to fall for a kindhearted serving boy, Gaara finds his loyalties are thrown into disarray. Soon enough, he’s questioning his whole quest for victory. Will he remain true to his father, and fight for crown and glory? Or will new bonds and old dreams push him to strive for peace? And can he manage to convince his family that love is greater than any old treasure? (Probably not. It is a pretty baller artefact.)

#gaalee #leegaa #gaara #rock lee #naruto #shippuden #gaaleewipyourheartout23 #pgl events #glg fanart #glg fanfiction

[gellavonhamster]

genre conventions

One Piece || Smoker/Tashigi || set during the timeskip ao3 link rus || ao3 link eng

“They’re not such idiots if they still haven’t got caught,” Tashigi points out tentatively as she wipes her glasses with a handkerchief. She can feel a drop of sweat roll down between her shoulder blades with agonizing slowness, as if it is making fun of her.

Of all islands she’s had the chance to visit after Loguetown, Anemone, the southernmost islet of the Coral Archipelago, is definitely making the top five of the worst despite not having, say, quicksand or human-sized carnivorous plants. Sweltering heat and the air that feels thick enough to cut through with a knife. On day three, Tashigi gave up, said goodbye to shirts – even the short-sleeved ones were hard to survive in – and since then she’s been wearing only tank tops. Her subordinates approved of her new look with such fervour that she had to threaten the loudest commentators with the katana. It must be for the best that she didn’t bring any shorts and, consequently, is not tempted to put them on.

And so they’ve been marinating in this little tropical hell, because they have an order to help the local Marine branch track down and apprehend a smuggling ring presumed to have picked the island as their base.

“Idiots,” Smoker repeats huffily and takes a drag on another pair of cigars. The smell hangs in the humid air like laundry on a line. “'Cause in their line of work, only idiots would voluntarily slap on identification signs. Pirates are another thing, there’s…” he gestures vaguely. “Nothing but panache, every other one’s a performer. Smugglers, if they’ve got any brains, should keep it low.”

“Well, it’s not like the tattoos are on their faces,” Tashigi puts the glasses back on, having made peace with the fact that soon they’ll fog up again. All she does on Anemone is make peace with something. With most of the clothes she’s brought with her on this voyage not being suited for the unbearable climate of the island. With having to pin her hair up in a way she doesn’t like, so that not a single strand touches her permanently damp neck. With not expecting the local Marines, whose captain greeted them drunk (on duty! on Tuesday afternoon!), to be of much help.

“Face or not, sooner or later someone would see.”

“Some of us wear clothes,” murmurs Tashigi. She has also made peace already with her commander dealing with such hot weather by walking around not even with his jacket open, as usual, but completely shirtless. The fact that it is high time she got used to the way he dresses – or rather, does not dress – but instead she finds it harder and harder not to stare at him with each passing day seems to be another thing she has no choice but to make peace with. 

“Huh? What was that, Captain?”

She knows him well enough to distinguish a shade of a grin on his eternally stern face and know he’s not actually angry.

“Nothing, sir.”

Tashigi doesn’t know when it started. In retrospect, she is aware that generally speaking, she has always found him attractive, because she has eyes and can see, even if not so well. But that did not matter much back when neither of them had yet learned how the other takes their coffee, when neither of them had yet sat by the other’s bedside in the sick bay after the battle, when her hair hadn’t yet absorbed the smell of cigar smoke to the point that no shampoo could wash it off. Back when she didn’t yet find it exciting that his smell lingers on her as if he’s held her in his arms – which, of course, has never happened, and never will.

The smugglers may not be idiots, but she certainly is.

“We’ll cover the northern coast tomorrow,” Smoker says. “Judging by the map, it’s rockier than on the other sides, harder to approach. If there are no traces there either, we’ll return to the port. Perhaps the drugs are shipped right there under the guise of other cargo. Perhaps someone in the administration is involved. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

The little shabby bar across from them is finally open – the bartender and the waitress have brought out the chairs and thrown open the doors and a couple of patrons have already arrived, lured in by the music. Tashigi keeps swinging her leg to the tune until she recognizes it as the Soul King’s latest hit. Smoker puts his cigars on an empty tin can that someone has considerately left on the bench as an ashtray, and opens a bottle of water. Tashigi catches herself watching his Adam’s apple bob with each gulp, and digs her nails into her palm.

She’s going to lose her mind on this island.

“Can I have some? I’ve finished mine,” she hears her own voice say, and he passes her the water without a second thought, because normal people don’t think about the way drinking from the same bottle is kind of a little bit like a kiss.

Like many lonely children, Tashigi used to read a lot as a kid. Fairy tales, myths, legends, later – and still, when she has time on her hands – stories of great blades and the swordsmen who wielded them. Stories were not a passion like swordsmanship, not as integral to her life and soul. But she remembered: they could provide an escape, if only for a while. And an escape was precisely what she was seeking some time ago when she picked up the kind of books she had always looked down upon before. Someone else’s passions to distract her from her own; someone else’s affections being returned while for her it was not in the cards. She was hoping that would help.

It didn’t help one bit. Rather the opposite.

The main problem with romance novels, at least with the most popular ones, the kind sold on every newsstand of every island, was not even their quality, but the way in half of the cases heroines fell in love with pirates. Every time it outraged her like the first time. They are risking their lives in the Marines to protect civilians against these villains, yet the civilians in question keep on romanticizing them! In most other cases, the main male characters, while not pirates, were so clearly modelled after real-life pirates, Warlords, or even Emperors that it was probably even worse. In one book, a poor orphaned shepherdess was rescued by a golden-haired knight on a white horse. In another, a nightgown-clad ingénue with a candlestick in hand wandered the dark hallways of a grim castle belonging to an equally grim lord – haughty and cold, but with such wonderful eyes! In yet another one, a village beauty was protected from the landlord’s advances by a charming red-haired, one-armed bandit. And as recently as a month ago, she literally threw another masterpiece at the wall when she realized that the inspiration for the love interest was none other than Monkey D. Luffy. Obviously, Tashigi can’t boast that she knows him intimately (not if she could help it!), but based on the impression he made on her that was simply ridiculous. That was the last straw, after which she swore she wouldn’t touch such rubbish ever again.

But it was too late. Because another problem with romance novels was that while reading them, you could pick up certain… ideas. Ideas that settle in your head all by themselves, sit there quietly for some time, and then comes a point when they seize you in an iron grip – and you give in to an impulse and obey them.

She’s not planning to seduce him. It won’t work anyway, and thinking of potential consequences of such impertinence gives her the shivers. She just wants him to look at her. Really look at her just for once. The way she looks at him. She will bury this one moment deep in her heart to take it out occasionally, spend some time looking at it, and then replace it. Press the bottle to her lips not tightly enough; let a trickle of water run down her skin into the neckline of her tight tank top, into her cleavage. Her shoulders are too strong, her arms are too muscular, but at least she has breasts – even bigger than she would’ve preferred them to be every time she wears tight-fitting clothes. She doesn’t want everyone and their dog staring at her. Just him.

She puts her lips around the bottle neck, throws her head back a little, and…

…spills it all on herself. Of course. Naturally. She bursts into coughing because water has gone down the wrong way, even got into her nose, and then she glances down and sees that her top is all soaked and even her pants are wet here and there. At least it doesn’t look like she peed herself. Small mercies.

Smoker sighs crossly. That look on his face is also familiar enough to her – he must be doing his best not to snap at her. Like every time she drops one thing or bumps into another.

“Excuse-me-I’ll-be-back,” she blurts out, places the bottle on the bench, springs to her feet, and rushes to the bar.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Hey!” yells the bartender as soon as he sees the new customer dashing right for the door in the corner. “Bathroom’s for patrons only!”

“Okay, okay,” Tashigi replies without looking at him, and pulls on the door handle.

One of the stalls is occupied. Tashigi takes some toilet paper in the second one, pats her neck dry, presses it to her chest too but instantly throws it away – it will just stick to the fabric and won’t help much anyway. The clothes will dry on their own. That’s not what she’s here for. She’s here to try to calm down before the urge to break into disappointed tears takes over.

The dingy mirror above the sink is cracked in two and carelessly duct-taped. Tashigi leans on the sink with both hands and glares at her reflection in the mirror. Her lips are trembling against her will. Good job, well done. Then again, what else should she have expected?

That will teach her a lesson. There is no use trying to jump into a romance novel from a crime story.

Or a situation comedy.

The waitress that was putting out the chairs outside earlier comes out of the second stall, and Tashigi lets go of the sink, steps aside, and starts cleaning her glasses again. The woman – young, shapely, with long lilac hair – washes her hands and bends over the sink, almost pressing her face to the mirror – must be trying to see if something is stuck between her teeth. Tashigi puts the glasses back on, and her eye catches the tattoo on the small of the woman’s back, visible between the low-rise pants and the yanked-up T-shirt. A dagger wreathed in ivy.

The same as that of the two smugglers whose descriptions they were given.

Her face must be betraying her, because as soon as the waitress sees Tashigi’s reflection in the mirror, she turns around at lightning speed and takes a swing, aiming for Tashigi’s jaw.

It all happens swiftly and chaotically. Hand-to-hand combat is not her preferred type of fighting; it lacks the grace and dignity characteristic of a sword fight. But she doesn’t have Shigure with her – because this evening her and Smoker were meant to be not Marines but simple tourists simply strolling about and certainly not watching out for anything suspicious. Her adversary doesn’t seem to be in possession of weapons either, but she’s strong, twice as strong out of desperation. Tashigi dodges her first punch, but when they catch hold of each other, the waitress seizes the initiative, presses her against the sink and tries to smash the mirror with her head. Tashigi manages to wrench herself free, and when the supposed smuggler comes at her again, she grabs her, turns around, and slams both of them into the door. The door comes unhinged, and the two of them fall into the barroom; something’s crashing, someone’s screaming, but she’s not paying attention to anything around her until she finally pins the waitress to the floor.

When handcuffs are dropped on the floor next to her, she doesn’t question where they came from – just grabs them, puts them on the culprit, and only then raises her head. There are drinks spilled and broken bottles scattered all around and a couple of chairs knocked down close by. Two elderly patrons are making their way to the exit, having taken their glasses of beer with them. Smoker is looming over the bartender, whose arms are twisted behind his back and handcuffed and face is pressed to the counter. There is a dagger tattoo above the man’s left elbow.

“You alright?” Smoker asks, unfazed.

Tashigi gets up and clumsily helps the waitress sit up under the counter where they can see her. Another reason she doesn’t like fistfights – in the end she always feels like she acted dishonourably, even if that isn’t true. Her knees are hurting, her shoulder is burning, her glasses have cracked, but strangely she’s much more alright than several minutes ago, when she was trying her hardest not to burst out crying with shame.

“I’m alright. How did you get here?”

“I saw you through the window kick the door down with your body and that wench. Thought that was too extreme for you.”

Tashigi rolls her eyes.

“This guy here, instead of breaking up the fight, tried not to let me in,” Smoker continues.

“Let me guess: you punched him a couple of times and then just stood there watching me?”

“You had it all under control. Or am I wrong?”

Did she? All of it? Hard to tell at once. But she knows that if forces really were unequal, he would’ve come to her aid. More importantly, if he had thought her too weak from the start, she would’ve been mad at him and at herself.

She straightens her back.

“No, you’re right. I’m sorry, I…”

“Stop. Why are you apologizing again? Right now – what for?”

“I don’t know,” Tashigi says honestly.

Smoker opens his mouth to say something, but then the suspiciously cheerful Pike and Bomba barge in – so cheerful that Tashigi could have assumed their local comrades-in-arms are a bad influence on them. That is, if the personnel of G-5 wasn’t managing just fine without any outside influence.

“Helloooo, sir!”

“Hey there, sir!”

“I see you didn’t waste no time!”

“Ooh, Captain, what a scratch you’ve got! Gotta kiss it better…”

“I’ll kiss you worse!” snaps Tashigi. This is when pointedly unsheathing a sword would have been on point, except she doesn’t have a sword at hand. However, her countenance turns out to be enough for the jokers to back away.

“Take them to the base,” Smoker nods towards the bartender and the waitress. “Don’t let them out of your sight. We’re gonna interrogate them.”

Bomba flashes a wicked grin.

“Leave that to us, Vice Admiral, we’ll loosen their tongues in no time…”

“Don’t.” Smoker flicks his lighter, puffs at another pair of cigars, and looks the arrestees up and down with an even more sinister look on his face. “I’ll deal with them myself.”

The waitress, who doesn’t know that the Vice Admiral sticks to much more lawful interrogation methods than his crazy subordinates, blanches slightly.

“Ma’am,” Pike winks at her and places his hand on her shoulder. Bomba, a little disappointed, pushes the bartender to the exit.

Tashigi watches them leave.

“I called them as soon as I dealt with the bartender,” Smoker explains. Tashigi comes closer to him and leans against the bar counter. All of a sudden a terrible weariness descends on her; she doesn’t want to go back to the base, doesn’t want to interrogate anyone, doesn’t want to move at all. She just wants to stay where she is, elbows resting on the sticky counter top. “Guess they must’ve been in that tavern around the block.”

“Dutifully looking for the smugglers, no doubt.”

“In every glass.”

She giggles.

There is a mirror on the wall behind the counter too, cleaner than the one in the bathroom and not cracked, and in that mirror she sees herself – the too-strong shoulders, the too-muscular arms, the damned tight tank top, the fresh scrapes, the disheveled hair, the tired smile.

And on her right – Smoker, standing still, his eyes fixed on her.

She thought she had already learned all the expressions of his face, but she’s never seen a look like this before. Steadfast, heavy – but not with disapproval or displeasure, it’s just that it seems like she can physically feel its weight and heat on her body. Feel it flow down her skin like water before, but thicker, viscous. Like wax. Or honey.

She hasn’t seen the way she looks at him at times, lost in thought, but she suddenly realizes: this is how.

Tashigi’s breath hitches.

A moment later he glances at the mirror and notices that she’s noticed him. She feels caught red-handed – even though he started it first, even though he was the one secretly looking at her. Tashigi turns away hastily.

“Is everything okay, sir?” she asks, hoping that she sounds relaxed enough.

Smoker nods slowly. His face is inscrutable, but it seems to her like a vestige of that look is still smouldering in his eyes.

“Pike was right. Your shoulder’s royally scratched,” he says. “You’d better put something on it when get back to the base.”

Were the poor orphaned shepherdess from the knight novel in her place, she would’ve just cast down her eyes shyly. On the other hand, the heroine of that book she threw at the wall – a ruler of a small island country – might have echoed Pike’s recent joke.

How about you kiss it better then?

“There must be more of them,” she says instead. Maybe she shouldn’t bother trying to change the genre; nothing good will come out of it anyway. She is as far removed from romance novels as could be. She doesn’t belong there. “The sailors from the Ernestine saw two men, but neither was described to look like that one. And I don’t think that girl can be mistaken for a man even from afar.”

Smoker nods again and breathes out a lacework of white smoke.

“Yeah,” he says. “Well, let’s see what they tell us. They might like to have their sentence reduced. Let’s go.”

She belongs in a procedural about the daily life of law enforcers.

But so does he, so she finds she doesn’t really mind.

#girl that's not a procedural that's a narrative about realizing the system is broken & you can't serve it anymore. when will you understand #one piece #tashigi #white hunter smoker #op smoker #smoshigi #smotash #idk what their ship name is; i've seen both of these used #gella talks one piece #talk talk talk #my fic #y'all said to write self-indulgent fic. well here i am writing

[hardly-an-escape]

would you go along with someone like me? | chapter 1/9

Square: A5 - Black Death Rating: T Word Count: 1536 Ship(s): Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Hob Gadling Warnings: No archive warnings apply Additional Tags: college AU, non-traditional college students, don’t worry they’re actual grownups, poet Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, history student Hob Gadling, referenced character death, rating will go up in later chapters, more tags to be added Summary: Hob is a freshman history major and a first generation college student, while Morpheus is completing a graduate degree poetry. When they're crammed into a small room together due to a shortage of on-campus housing, it seems like an odd couple situation at best and a recipe for disaster at worst. But as the months go by, mutual respect turns into real friendship. And then... something happens that Hob never expected. Read on AO3 | fill for @dreamlingbingo

The man was as pale as the woman was dark, with a shock of black hair and imperious eyes. He set down the box he was carrying on the desk and stood with his arms at his sides. He looked out of place and uncomfortable in the shabby dorm room, like some kind of alien who’d been dragged to a horribly human experience like getting your photo taken at the DMV.

“What a poncy-sounding git.”

Hob immediately looked over his shoulder, as though his future roommate might already be lurking nearby to hear the insult, but the hallway was empty.

Morpheus van de Eindeloos read the sign on the door, just below Robert Gadling. Hob sighed, looking down at the orientation packet clutched in his hand. No, there was no mistake: barring some kind of horrible bust-up, this would be his roommate for the duration of the school year. And maybe even if there was a horrible bust-up; apparently student housing was full to bursting this fall, with no extra beds to speak of. Hob had had to fight tooth and nail to get into a graduate suite at all, patiently convincing the housing office through a series of increasingly tersely-worded emails that, no, a thirty-year-old man did not belong in freshman housing, yes, even if he was a freshman himself.

By rights this room should be a single, not a double, but by this point Hob was sick of fighting. At least Little Lord Fauntleroy would be an adult. Or, if not an actual adult, a graduate student, which he supposed was the next best thing. Hob sighed again, dug a pen from his bag, crossed out Robert and added Robbie in his embarrassingly uneven handwriting, and started to haul his worldly possessions into the fifteen-by-seventeen-foot room that would be home for the next nine months.

An hour or so later, Hob was folding the last of his t-shirts into the chipped dresser when there was a polite and perfunctory knock as the door opened.

“– just saying, it might be good for you to see people on their terms instead of yours,” said a warm and accented voice as two people entered the room, arms full of bags and boxes. “Actually listen to other human beings, or – God forbid – even talk to them. This doesn’t have to be a punishment.”

The speaker was a beautiful woman, perhaps a little older than Hob, with a face that looked very kind, if somewhat tired, and an accent that clearly came from somewhere in the London area. It was a bit of a shock, to hear it here in the American Midwest, and it gave Hob a bittersweet feeling of almost homesickness.

“I am not treating it like a punishment,” said the man accompanying her. “It is simply a choice. Our brother made his choice, and I have made mine.”

The man was as pale as the woman was dark, with a shock of black hair and imperious eyes. He set down the box he was carrying on the desk and stood with his arms at his sides. He looked out of place and uncomfortable in the shabby dorm room, like some kind of alien who’d been dragged to a horribly human experience like getting your photo taken at the DMV.

The woman dropped her load on the bed and turned to Hob with a bright smile.

“Hello!” she said, reaching out to shake his hand. “You must be Robert – you prefer Robbie? It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Teleute, but you can call me Tel. I know it’s a mouthful. And this is my brother. Morpheus, say hello.” She jostled him forward until he, too, shook Hob’s hand and muttered a quiet greeting. “I’m afraid the moping is inescapable, but he’s not that bad once you get used to him.”

The glare Morpheus sent his sister was equal parts ire and fondness, and Hob felt a familiar, blessedly brief pang of grief. He hadn’t grown up with siblings, but Eleanor and her sisters had ribbed each other just like that.

But he wasn’t going to think about her right now. That would be for later, maybe, when the lights were out and he was curled up alone in his narrow bed.

“Robbie’s good, yeah,” he said. “Pleasure to meet you, Tel and Morpheus.”

“And he’s from England too!” exclaimed Tel, delighted. “Now, what are the chances of that!”

“Obviously not zero,” Morpheus said dryly.

“Well, I think it’s lovely. Means you already have something in common, that’s a good sign.”

Morpheus had several more boxes – mostly books, it seemed – which Hob gamely helped schlep from their rented van to the room, chatting idly as they went back and forth. On the last trip, Teleute hung back at the bottom stairs and gestured for Hob to do the same.

“Look, I’ll make this quick,” she said. “I know my brother can be prickly, and he’s kind of an idiot sometimes, but I promise he’s not too bad. I’m not asking you to be responsible for him or anything. You’re both adults, and he doesn’t need a babysitter. But if you wouldn’t mind just… looking out for him? You don’t have to be best friends or anything, just maybe remind him to eat and interact with other humans occasionally?”

“Yeah, sure,” Hob replied. “I think I can do that.”

“Thank you,” Tel said. “I’m sorry to ask. He’s just. Well, you’ll understand once you get to know him, probably.”

“‘S alright. We’re both a long way from home, eh? Maybe he can look out for me a bit, too.”

“Definitely,” Tel said with a smile. “Thank you, Robbie.”

Hob was not necessarily encouraged by the fact that Morpheus’s sister seemed to think it necessary to reassure him several times that her brother was not too bad. But whatever. He’d gotten this far; after everything he’d been through, he figured he could handle a difficult roommate for a few months.

He wasn’t… wrong.

The first few weeks were somewhat tense, as they danced around each other and tried to settle into a routine. Morpheus was abrupt – sometimes to the point of rudeness – but generally not outright unpleasant. He kept odd hours, often sitting up with a tiny reading lamp late into the night, but he was quiet at least; and he kept his person and his clothes fastidiously clean, almost like a cat. His desk was an absolute disaster, covered in notebooks and scraps of paper, and his books overflowed the small shelves that they were provided with – but at least he kept them on his own side of the room.

Hob didn’t forget what Teleute had asked him. Every few days he coaxed Morpheus down to the dining hall, or out for a walk across campus, or got him to talk (or sometimes just complain) about his seminars.

Not that Hob wasn’t busy with his own work. There wasn’t much of a grace period before real, hard assignments were being thrown at them, and for Hob – who hadn’t been in a classroom in over ten years – there was a steep learning curve as he figured out how to balance studying, sleeping, writing papers, and his work-study job.

“Why are you so worried about it?” Morpheus had asked, the first time Hob had gotten back an assignment (a quiz on the spread of the Black Death through Northern Europe) with a less-than-perfect grade and was bemoaning his failure. “It’s just a grade. In my experience they are indicative neither of the true quality of your work, nor of your mastery of the subject.”

“Well, in my experience, my scholarships are dependent on me maintaining a certain GPA,” Hob had retorted. “Look, mate. I’m the first person in my family to actually make it to uni. If I don’t do well, it’s… it’s not just my own pride on the line, you know?”

“I do not know,” Morpheus had said. “But I can appreciate your stress. I can… help you study for your next quiz. If that would be helpful.”

By the end of that first month, Hob thought they were at least tentatively friends, although the one time he’d dared to mention it Morpheus had rolled his eyes, insisted he had no need for companionship, and been stiff and formal toward Hob for several days.

True, he hadn’t learned much about Morpheus’s personal life, or his family, aside from the fact that he had a lot of siblings, who seemed to meddle in his life to varying degrees. He knew the man was about his age – early thirties, though he looked a little younger – and that he was doing an MFA in poetry, though he never allowed even a line of his work to pass under Hob’s eye.

All in all, it was… fine. Morpheus was a bit of a git, from time to time, but he wasn’t an asshole. The room was too small, but there was a big campus to escape to, with libraries and gardens and plenty of quiet corners to read and study. By the end of September the air was getting crisp and the leaves were just starting to turn, peppering the quad with dots of red and gold.

It was really only once or twice a week that Hob caught himself laughing over some incident in one of his lectures, or a ridiculous comment by a professor, and thinking I’ve got to tell Eleanor about that. Once or twice a week wasn’t bad. He could handle once or twice a week.

Her picture was still tucked safely away in one of his dresser drawers.

Read on AO3 >>>

green = complete, orange = WIP

#dreamling #the sandman #dreamling bingo #dream of the endless #hob gadling #my writing #if you've been following along for a while this is the 'omg they were roommates' college AU I've talked about a couple of times #would you go along with someone like me?

[chenziee]

Unsupervised

@lawluevents - Day 9: Reunion/Trust @onepiece-bingo: Sword

Alternate summary: "I trust you with my life but do NOT touch that knife or so help me..."

Insert obligatory "I don't have a single word for tomorrow so if you don't hear from me by 4am my time tomorrow, you know why"

[ Read on AO3 | series ]

—————

The moment he heard Straw Hat had arrived in the Land of Wano, Law knew he had to act fast. They didn’t spend weeks planning, preparing, carefully protecting their covers, and secretly gathering information and allies for it all to be destroyed by one unsupervised idiot.

He knew that if he didn’t grab Straw Hat by the neck the moment he stepped in, it was only a matter of minutes before he went and shouted he was going to kick Kaido’s ass and become the Pirate King from the roof of some building in Bakura Town. Foolishly, Law had thought that with Roronoa there, they wouldn’t straight up pick a fight with the Beast Pirates at the very least. Foolishly… he forgot that an unsupervised Roronoa was just as bad as an unsupervised Straw Hat.

Never mind the two of them being left unsupervised together.

As Law watched the people of the Okobore Town cry and celebrate at the sight of the crashed, stolen in broad daylight Treasure Ship, he sighed deeply. He really should have ignored Hawkins and just gone to drag these two idiots away.

But, what was done was done and now Law had to deal with the consequences—the Beast Pirates knowing they were there, Holdem about to run crying to Jack, and a bunch of Gifters stomping their feet and yelling about robbery just metres away.

And yet, the worst thing to happen to their plan wasn’t even there yet.

Law barely managed to finish the thought when a giant basin crashed to the ground and right on top of the aforementioned Gifters.

“Here we go! Fresh water!!”

And there it was. The greatest disaster to ever befall the Land of Wano and Law’s entire life.

Law wanted to chew him out but seeing how he grinned and told all the people of Okobore Town to blame him… Law couldn’t do anything but sigh deeply. Leave it to Straw Hat to be so selfless in the most selfish way humanly possible. 

How was Law supposed to yell at him now without making himself be the asshole?

“Oh! Torao!!” Straw Hat called when he finally noticed him, his face lighting up and splitting into a grin so wide that it felt like his mouth was going to tear—an expression that made Law’s heart skip a beat at the knowledge that he was the one to put it there simply by being next to him.

Law hated how the corners of his mouth twitched in return. He was trying to be mad here, goddamn it. Not fall in love all over again just because he didn’t see that smile for a few weeks….

“Straw Hat-ya,” Law said, keeping his voice carefully measured. “You do realise this is a rebellion, right?”

“I’m just repaying a favour!” Straw Hat defended himself. “It’s not like I punched Kaido in the face. Yet.”

Law groaned. “You’re impossible.”

When Straw Hat only laughed, Law couldn’t say he was surprised. But then warm arms wrapped around his waist and a whole human body pressed against him and he blinked.

“What are you doing?” Law asked, his eyes dropping to look at Straw Hat’s face which was tilted back further than should be possible, his rubbery neck twisted back into an unnatural angle where he was resting his chin against Law’s chest.

“I missed you,” Straw Hat said happily, the grin plastered on his face widening even more.

The sight was making Law’s heart do weird things, things Law understood but refused to acknowledge. But even so… it was impossible to fight anymore.

Before he could stop himself, one of his hands cupped Luffy’s face and he leaned down, pressing a kiss to Luffy’s lips. It was a simple kiss, one they’ve shared so many times before they had split up in Zou, and yet, it felt like the first time. It hadn’t even been that long since they had last seen each other. Maybe three, four weeks? How stupid.

If it was like this after so little time apart, what the hell were they going to do when the alliance fulfilled its purpose?

Law felt almost embarrassed being worried about something like that. He wasn’t a horny, pining teenager after all—never was one in the first place—so what the hell was his problem?

He should probably think about all that after they actually beat Kaido. Right now, Straw Hat was in his arms and hopefully not going anywhere unsupervised for a while. He had punched a bit too many holes into their carefully laid out plan already for Law to let him go anywhere without someone with an ounce of sense in their head. Not that that had ever stopped Luffy from ruining everything but there was this thing called damage control which Roronoa had spectacularly failed at just earlier.

Idiots, the both of them.

Law hated how that thought made him smile into the kiss, making Luffy giggle. Law huffed to himself before he finally pulled away.

“I trusted you’d come back,” he muttered quietly, his thumb tracing the scar underneath Luffy’s left eye gently.

Luffy snickered. “Of course! Got Sanji back and all!”

“Good job.” Law chuckled quietly, pressing one last peck to Luffy’s mouth.

When he tried to pull away, however, Luffy stopped him; his hand grabbed onto Law’s yukata, pulling him down and refusing to let go. And somehow… Law didn’t have the willpower to fight him.

His lips curling into a smirk, Law let Luffy lead the kiss this time, his clumsy movements making warmth spread in Law’s chest. God, he missed this idiot so much…

“Get a fucking room.”

Law clicked his tongue in annoyance at the same time as Luffy groaned as the two of them finally let go of each other. But even when Law took a step back, their hands still found each other and Law laced their fingers together, squeezing Luffy’s hand gently.

“Sorry, Zoro,” Luffy said, but it wasn’t very convincing with the happy smile that was still plastered on his face.

“Yeah, sorry Black Leg-ya’s not here,” Law added.

“Fuck off, Torao,” Zoro hissed, shooting Law a glare.

“It’s not my fault your precious soulmate ran off to get married, don’t take it out on me,” Law shrugged, a smirk pulling on his lips.

“Now, look here—” Zoro growled but before he could say any more, Luffy interrupted him.

“Zoro, you should see your face!” He laughed loudly as he pointed at his first mate.

At that, Zoro's expression twisted in annoyance even more before he snapped, "You shut up, Luffy! Also let me see that katana already."

“No,” Luffy replied immediately while sticking his tongue out to stress his point.

Law blinked. Did he hear that right? Straw Hat and… a katana?

Turning his gaze down to Luffy’s waist, Law did a double take at the sight of the purple hilt, gold, cross-shaped handguard, and dark and light purple striped scabbard. There really was a fucking katana tucked away into Straw Hat’s obi. And judging by the aura it was giving off… it wasn’t just any random, rusty katana he found lying around somewhere either.

“Are you seriously carrying around a Meito?” Law asked, the dread he felt at the very notion almost tangible in his voice.

“What kind of samurai would I be without one?” Straw Hat asked, sounding almost offended.

“I told you you’re not even using it, Luffy,” Zoro grumbled.

“Give me that thing before something happens,” Law said as he held out his hand expectantly.

At that, Straw Hat jumped away from Law and out of reach, his hands flying to hold the katana protectively. “No way! Why does everyone keep trying to take it?”

“I just want to look at it,” Zoro snapped.

Ignoring Roronoa’s frustration, Law closed his eyes momentarily, praying for patience before he looked back at Luffy. “Because you’re going to fucking trip and stab your eye out. Give it.” Law stressed his final words by gesturing with his hand once more.

Luffy gasped dramatically while his face morphed into the most upset, unhappy expression Law had ever seen. “I thought you trusted me!” he cried, pointing an accusing finger at Law who only met his glare head on, thoroughly unimpressed.

“Not when there’s a sharp object involved,” Law stated matter-of-factly.

Immediately, Zoro burst out laughing. He clutched at his stomach, doubling over in his fit as he watched the way Luffy’s mouth fell open, an almost comedic shock painted on his face, and despite himself, despite trying to be as stern as possible, Law felt laughter trying to force its way out of his own chest as well at the sight.

With a huff, Straw Hat crossed his arms over his chest, shooting another glare at Law, then the still laughing Zoro, and finally Law again. “You’re a jerk. You’re both jerks. I hate you!” he announced before turning around decisively—

—and gasping again when his eyes fell on the Treasure Ship that was now swarmed by the people of Okobore Town, all the food being carefully unloaded and divided between everyone. Immediately forgetting about either Law, Zoro, or the katana, Straw Hat ran forward, shouting at the townspeople, “Hey, the meat’s mine!! Don’t just take it all!!”

Law shook his head in disbelief. Unable to fight it anymore, a chuckle slipped past his lips as he watched Luffy jump around, stuffing his face and laughing with people he didn’t even know. Bringing smiles to everyone’s faces without even trying, just like he always did.  

“And here I got made fun of because Ero-cook ran off,” Zoro muttered pointedly, amusement clear in his voice.

“Shut the fuck up, Roronoa-ya,” Law groaned.

Zoro snorted, his voice light when he replied, “You’re hopeless, Torao.”

“Says the guy who did nothing but stress-train the entire way here.”

“Touche,” Zoro laughed.

They were silent for a moment, simply watching as Luffy talked to Tama about something with a serious, determined look in his eyes. It felt like he was a completely different person now than he was a mere minute ago… but he was still Luffy even so.

And Law loved both versions of him—the bubbly, stupid one and the deadly serious, charismatic one—equally.

Oh god, how embarrassing.

Law took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “Let’s never talk about this again.”

“Agreed.”

#one piece #lawlu #trafalgar law #trafalgar d water law #luffy #monkey d luffy #roronoa zoro #opfanfic #lawlu fanfic #cnaonverse #soulmate au #soulmate identifying marks #established relationship #idiots in love #both of them are idiots equally this time #kissing #reunions #wano arc #wano act 1 #minor zosan #fluff and humor #lawluweek2023 #day 9 #one piece bingo #katie pretends to fic #chains of fate #i don't love the ending but i'm just glad i managed to finish at all i'll fix it... eventually #ahahahaha

[goodfish-bowl]

A Mercy

Ectoberhaunt Day 6: Freeze

AO3 Link

Summary: "You're actually going to tell them this time?" "Yeah, Jazz. No backing out this time. Is everything all laid out? Have Sam and Tucker briefed you on the 'if my parent's decide to dissect me' plan?" "Of course. I even helped improve it." "Okay, are you ready?" "As I'll ever be. Let's get to it, then."Unfortunately, the plan was of no help whatsoever. 

Warnings: Character Death, Euthanasia, Heavy Angst

Words: 1454

Notes: You know... I’ve been really mean to the boy. Now I’m being horrid to both of them. Also not joking about the warnings for this one. It takes a certain type of angst to make my stomach hurt while reading/writing.

@ectoberhaunt

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Out of all the situations Jazz had imagined Danny’s revealing going, this one made the blood in her veins turn to ice and freeze in place on the top of the stairs down to the lab. There was nothing she could do, not at this point. He’d only been left alone with their parents for a few hours, a safe amount of time. If the worst case scenario happened, her parents wouldn’t have enough time to get too far into a vivisection of her brother. Jazz would be able to get him out of that. This, though, there was nothing she could do.

Danny was already gone. 

It was a mercy, her parents told her, finding her at the top of the stairs, staring down at her brother’s corpse. A mercy. He must’ve been suffering, living as a ghost, always hurt and struggling. It was better this way, better for their baby boy to finally get some rest, since it seemed like he hadn’t since he became one. They would mourn him properly, give him a good burial, like he deserved, especially after continuing on for so long, not only as Danny Fenton, but for his deeds as Phantom as well. It couldn’t have been easy. And because they loved him, they had to do this. It was the only thing they could do.  

Danny was dead, lying on a table in the lab, human, not a hair out of place. He looked like he would wake up any minute. He already slept like the dead, barely breathing in human form. But every subtle movement he would normally make was gone, no twitch of the eye-lids or mummer.

Jazz left the house soon after, having said not a word to her parents. She packed her things, sent a message to Sam and Tucker, warning them not to stop by, then left. She made her way to the park, before pulling out her phone, ignoring the messages from her brother’s best friends, and dialed a number she hadn’t bothered with in a long while. He answered after a few rings.

“Hey, darling. Wasn’t expecting to hear from you ever again.”

“Johnny, I need you to come pick me up.”

“Oh? And the brat won’t mind?” Jazz froze up again at the mention of her brother, thinking of him down in the lab.

“No. He won’t.”

“Then I’ll be there in a few.”

The line went silent as Jazz hung up and waited. She skimmed over the texts from Sam and Tucker. They were asking how the reveal went if they needed to be ready to send Danny off somewhere safe. Sam already had the bag and account ready. They wanted to know when and where to meet up. Jazz sent a quick text, that none of those things would be needed, and to get rid of them. She didn’t give any sort of explanation why.

Jazz scrolled through her contacts and rang Mr. Lancer’s personal phone number. He answered after only a single ring.

“Ms. Fenton, how can I help you? Is this about the group study session you have planned for next Thursday?”

“No, Mr. Lancer. I’m calling to talk about Danny.”

“Ah… I honestly expected to have this call with your parents eventually, but I’ve never been able to reach them. So, yes, Danny has been struggling academically and his attendance is nearly record breaking for Casper, but I have a feeling that’s not what you wanted to talk about?”

“No. Danny won’t be attending Casper High anymore. He’s going to need to be unenrolled.”

“Wait… what?”

“I’ll have all the proper paperwork sent to the school by Tuesday morning. I also won’t be in attendance, so I’d like to apply for early graduation if that’s possible.”

“I don’t… something’s happened with Danny, hasn’t it?”

Jazz took a deep breath in. “Yes. I’m sure it will become public knowledge shortly. But… as the teacher who really seemed to care about him, I appreciate everything you’ve done and tried with him. It really made a difference, even if it didn’t seem like it.”

The line on the other side was silent for a minute, and she thought she could hear the familiar English teacher curse in the book title Beloved faintly in the background. “Very well, Ms. Fenton. I’ll… I’ll stay in touch if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lancer. Have a good evening.”

“Stay safe, Jasmine.”

The line went dead.

A portal ripped open not too far from where Jazz stood, and a familiar motorcycle sped out it, circling her before coming to a quick halt. Johnny looked at her curiously, and Shadow prodded at her feet. Without a word, Jazz jumped onto the motorcycle, wrapping her hand around Johnny for security. Her throat tightened at the comfort, and her eyes stung. It was an ongoing fight to keep her face blank.

“Hey, princess, you know I have a girlfriend, right?” Johnny joked.

“Yeah.”

Johnny huffed out a laugh. “So where to?”

“Somewhere in the Zone. A good meeting place would work best.”

Johnny’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Are you sure?”

Shadow stopped swirling under the bike and prodded at her again, a frown on it’s dark face. It made eye contact with Johnny, communicating something in a way she couldn’t understand. Johnny’s smile faded, and he sent her a look of concern.

“Jazz, are you okay?” He asked softly, full of concern.

“No, but we need to go before my parents show up.”

Johnny sighed but relented all the same. The motorcycle roared to life and another portal opened up in their path. The transition from the realm of the living to the Ghost Zone was jarring, especially out of the safety of the Specter Speeder. But Jazz couldn’t find it in herself to care about what being exposed in the Zone could do to her. She had more important things to worry about.

Johnny didn’t say a word to her the entire trip, but Shadow kept checking up on her, Jazz appreciated the sentiment, but really wished Shadow would stop. Keeping her cool was already hard enough.

The meeting place Johnny picked was a bar, once that seemed to be closed, or at least unoccupied, at the moment. He parked his bike on the small patch of land in front before helping her get off. She took his hand and followed him inside.

Kitty was sitting in a booth by herself, a sour look on her face. She snapped to Johnny the second he walked in but froze upon spotting her. It looked like she was getting ready to yell, but Shadow sped over and told her something that defused her anger. Kitty backed down immediately and sent her a curious look.

Jazz took a seat at a table in the middle of the room. “How soon can the others get here?”

“Others?” Kitty asked.

“Jazz wanted me to contact all the regulars to Amity Park. Something happened. Probably something bad. I’m going to have Shadow go out and collect them.”

Kitty’s face pinched with concern, before she walked over to the bar top. There was a ghost that looked reminiscent of an ectopuss tending the counter, cleaning multiple glasses at once. She spoke to it and then walked back with a glass of water.

“Here, it’s safe for human consumption,” Kitty offered, and Jazz accepted it gratefully. She wondered if it would be better if they’d actually handed her something alcoholic.

“Do you want to tell us what happened, and we can explain it to the others? Not to sound mean, but you look horrible, Jazz,” Johnny asked.

Jazz took a deep breath. “Yeah… they’re more likely to listen to you than me anyways. I’m also not sure if I could actually handle telling a large group. This wasn’t really part of the plan.”

“What plan?” Kitty inquired.

“For when Danny came out to our parents.”

“Oh… I’m guessing it went south?” Johnny guessed.

Jazz curled into herself and around her glass of water.  

“It was too late when I got back. We’d been so sure of what the worst-case scenario was, that we didn’t even consider this… They called it a mercy, of all things. We were prepared for if they tried to attack him, or even dissect him, but they didn’t even hurt him. Hell, it looked like he was sleeping.”

Jazz’s eyes welled with tears that she could no longer hold back. “He’s gone, Johnny. They put him down, like some sort of injured animal. He didn’t even have a chance to plead his case. He was dead when I got back, and he’s not coming back this time.”

#danny phantom #ectoberhaunt22 #eh order #day 6 #freeze #jazz fenton #Jazz POV #euthanasia cw #character death cw #goodfish writes #i'm so sorry #i only had one major angst prompt planned out then this hit me like a semitruck

[q-gorgeous]

coupe de foudre chapter 10

ao3

ffn

i suck at actually posting my chapters wowee

“I knew this was a bad idea,” Sam said as she followed Jazz down the stairs into the Fenton’s lab. “It’s been an entire day now and nobody has heard from him. The last thing we knew is that he was hanging out with Dash.”

“But Sam, Dash is missing too,” Tucker pointed out. “If they’re both missing they were probably taken.”

She sighed. “I know. I’m just worried. Danny told us about those hunters that were coming from out of town to claim the bounty on his head. If one of those guys took them, how are we ever going to be able to track them down?”

“That’s why we’re not tracking those guys down,” Jazz said. “Hopefully the GIW have them since they’re the ones who put the bounty out on him. Even if that’s the worst case scenario, we’ll at least be able to find them if they’re being held at the compound.” 

“I hope you’re right” Sam said. “How are we getting in anyways?” 

“Tucker’s going to hack into their systems and find blueprints and see if there’s any info about the two of them being held there so we can start making our plan.”

“I’m thinking we turn the power off and bust our way in,” Tucker said as he typed on his laptop. 

“But if the power’s out how are we going to get them out of the rooms or cells they’re being held in?” Jazz asked. “Don’t they use keycards to access almost every single room there?”

Tucker frowned. “You’re right. What if we sneak in through the air ducts?” 

“Will we be able to fit in the air ducts?” Sam asked as she paced back and forth. 

“I don’t know, we’ll find out once we find the blueprints though.” Tucker was typing away at his laptop. 

The three of them go silent as Tucker started hacking into the GIW’s system. Sam paces back and forth and Jazz anxiously tapped her foot on the ground as she chewed on one of her nails. After a few moments Tucker pumped his fist into the air.

“Aha!” he shouted. “I got into their database. Now I just have to find the appropriate files and see if they’re being kept in there.”

Tucker typed in a few more things, clicking through different folders, and when he found the one he was looking for his eyes widened and his face paled. “Oh no.”

“What?” Sam and Jazz said simultaneously, jumping over to look over Tucker’s shoulders at his laptop screen. 

“They’re both being held at the compound. Which is good, now we know where they are. But the GIW are experimenting on both of them.”

“Experimenting?” Sam looked closer at the screen. “Why would they be experimenting on Dash? He’s not a ghost, he’s just a human.”

Tucker took a deep breath. “They found out what Danny is. They’re trying to replicate the process.”

They sat there in silence for a few moments, dread pooling in all of their stomachs. Jazz opened her mouth to reply but was stopped by the sound of her parents' voices coming down the stairs and into the lab. 

“Hey, kiddos! How’s it going?” Jack asked as he came through the doorway. His face sobered up when he saw the expression on the kids’ faces. Maddie followed behind him.

“Have you heard from Danny at all yet?” she asked. 

Jazz, Sam, and Tucker exchanged glances between the three of them and Tucker’s laptop sitting on the table. Jazz held her gaze on it for a few moments before her expression hardened and she turned to her parents. 

“There’s something we have to tell you.”

“Wait, Jazz–”

“We can’t–”

Jazz turned to Sam and Tucker and threw her hands up into the air. “Guys, this is way out of our league. Sure, Tucker can hack his way into anything and get us all the information we need. But all we are is a bunch of teenagers. If we can go through the right channels, maybe this whole operation will get shut down altogether and nothing like this will ever happen again.”

“Jazz, honey,” Maddie said slowly. “What’s going on?”

“I want to preface this by saying this doesn’t change anything about Danny,” Jazz started. “He’s still your son, my brother, and their best friend. He’s still our Danny.”

Both Jack and Maddie’s expressions look puzzled. 

“Danny’s our boy, Jazz. We love him no matter what.”

“I want you to remember that then.” Jazz took a deep breath.

“Danny is Phantom.”

Jack and Maddie’s eyes widened and they looked between each other.

“Jazz, honey, that’s not possible. You can’t be dead and alive at the same time.” Maddie’s statement contradicted what Jazz said, but she could hear the way Maddie’s voice shook just a little bit. Like everything made sense now but she didn’t want to believe it. 

“It is possible.” Jazz took a step towards them. “That’s why he sets off all of your ghost trackers, why he never wants to get too close to any of your inventions. It’s why his grades have been slipping and he’s tired all the time. Because he’s Phantom and he’s out protecting the city from the other ghosts everyday.”

Jack’s eyes were squeezed shut when he spoke. “Okay, this is. Some news. But can we put it aside for now? What does that have to do with where Danny’s been?”

Jazz took another deep breath. “The GIW have kidnapped Danny and his classmate Dash. We need to get them out of there.”

Maddie stumbled into a chair that was sitting beside the counter behind them. “They have Danny? What are they going to do with him?”

“Experiment on him.” Tucker spoke up. “They plan on making more people like him by either replicating the process that made him like this or creating a new one. We can only assume that Dash is one of their first test subjects.”

“You three have known this whole time?” Maddie asked as Jack placed a hand on her shoulder. “Why didn’t he tell us?”

“Mom, that’s not important right now.” Jazz held her hands out in front of her in a pleading motion. “Please, help us get him out.” “You can bet their sorry asses we’ll be getting our son out of there,” Jack said.

Maddie gasped. “Language, Jack!”

“I think you should let this one slide, Mrs. Fenton.” Sam turned around to look at them. “It’s not anything we aren’t all thinking.”

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way.” Tucker turned back towards his computer screen. “How are we going to bust them out? Are we sneaking in, blowing the doors off their hinges, going undercover?”

Maddie just stared at Tucker before shaking her head. “What we’re going to do is call the law enforcement and get them to shut this place down. I don’t care if it’s a government facility, they’re kidnapping children and experimenting on them there.”

“Why don’t we also call in a few favors?” Jack said. “Get Vlad to speak about it on the news, that way it can’t be ignored.”

“Call law enforcement, call Vlad, free Danny.” Jazz wrote out notes in a little notebook as she spoke. She looked back up at everyone.

“It looks like we have a plan.”

#gorgi writes #danny phantom #sam manson #jazz fenton #tucker foley #maddie fenton #jack fenton #fanfiction #phic #invisobang 2022

[solaneceae]

what doesn't kill you makes you stronger (but it might leave emotional damage)

Chapter 9: eighteen

read on Ao3

tw: derealization, self-harm, mention of suicide

-----------

Jackie’s resolve lasts a while. He can’t give a clear answer as to how long exactly, because nothing down here lets him keep track of time: no clocks, no windows to see the sky… and nobody ever answers him the few times he asks. He tries to figure it out based on the rotation of scientists coming in to give him water and food, but it’s not that consistent. And do they come three times a day, twice? Only once? He has no idea.

The first few ‘days’ are the hardest on him, because that’s when he resists the most. Every second he can.

He antagonizes whoever happens to be in hearing range. He makes a ruckus, kicks and screams when they drag him out of his cell for another ‘session’ — that’s what they call it, when they pump him full of that liquid that burns and sears at every fiber of his body, leaving him sore and despondent for hours after it ends.

He tries to escape, twice. Doesn’t make it a few steps down the corridor before he’s sent thrashing on the floor, the electric bracelets shocking him relentlessly.

He demands to know what they’re doing to him, and why. He even, on one humiliating occasion, tries to appeal to their humanity. “Please,” he stares at one of the women strapping him down to the table with practiced ease. “I just want to know why. That’s all I want. At least tell me why you’re doing this.”

“Quiet, Eighteen.”

Nothing comes of it. Everyone here has either turned off their empathy completely, or they’re robots. But either way, this wouldn’t work.

He then tries refusing to feed himself, dumping the bland portions into the toilet instead. But it only ends with him being strapped to a chair and forcefully tube-fed, so he’s not trying that again.

Days and nights start to blur together. He misses the sun.

***

Time passes and nothing changes. Just this white room with the single bed and the ghost of his past. Walk in circles, eat, try to remember a book or a movie to stave off the boredom. Sleep, if he can. Get strapped to a table, pain. Wake up in his cell. Rinse and repeat.

He barely feels like a human being anymore. The scientists all look at him like he’s a mildly interesting critter, one to be taken apart to see how it ticks.

Over time, his will erodes. His energy wanes. His kicks grow weaker, his protests lose their bite. Jackie tires, faster than he expects.

***

The very first time he can’t muster the energy to talk or fight back during a session, it’s because he hasn’t slept in who knows how many days; the leftover aches from the injections keep him up, and his favorite songs and stories keep replaying in his mind over and over again, without rest. He wonders if the isolation and lack of new stimuli are making him go insane.

His body is on the verge of shutting down, and so is his sleep-deprived brain, and he just doesn’t want to bother today. His captors take it as a sign that he’s decided to ‘be good’, and so, Jackie gets his first taste of the sedative. He feels it enter his bloodstream, thick and pleasantly warm. It actually wakes him up a little, startled by the unfamiliar sensation. He feels a tingle along his arm, one that spreads quickly. “Count with me, Eighteen. Look at me. Three, two…”

 One…

O n  e…

And, bliss. Relief, so complete and instantaneous that he can’t suppress a sob. When the real injection begins, he doesn’t feel a thing — he’s gone, far, far away from his tortured body, where it’s warm and quiet and soft and he doesn’t have to feel all the bad things.

 ***

Glad to see you becoming reasonable, Eighteen.

  ***

Jackie knows it’s a basic carrot and stick trick: if he’s good, he gets the high. If he’s bad, he gets the pain. And the worst thing is, it works.

After that first time, it’s like his resolve has been broken. He stops talking back — stops fighting back. When too much time passes between two sessions, he gets jittery and anxious, and his body aches everywhere. He gets this feeling of want, of need for… something. It drives him up the wall, so much so that when he hears the sound of his door unlocking, he catches himself feeling a rush of excitement. He’s eager.

It takes him a while to understand that it’s withdrawal. He's become addicted to that sedative, to the high and the relief and the peace it grants him, for just a moment.

He’s disgusted with himself.

 ***

Come here. Sit. Good.

***

Everything is grey. Time is broken. He can’t remember what his old place looked like.

He thinks of his favorite comic. It’s probably gone now, along with all his stuff. Thrown out when the rent money stopped coming. He wishes it was here, with him.

***

Come here. Sit. Give me your arm.

Very good, Eighteen. See, isn’t it so much easier when you don’t struggle?

***

No-one will come for him. He knows that. He's a drifter, with no close friends or family. and even if someone were to report him missing, IRIS had made sure to never give him anything to take home — contracts, company pens, nothing. Even his pay had been in cash only. Nothing the cops could ever find would link him to this place.

No. He’s trapped here. He’s trapped, and his mind is slowly unraveling, trapped in a cycle of drugged-up sleep, pain hidden beneath honey-tar bliss, and the crash when he hates himself for enjoying it.

***

  “Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…”

***

He has a dream. He doesn’t get many of those, not when his waking moments are a living nightmare.

It’s a nice one, simple. He’s walking on a country road, the sun warming his back as the wheat fields stretching up to the horizon sway gently in the wind. He misses the sun.

  He cries when he wakes up. He cries out for his mom, the one that didn’t want him.

***

“Hold your ground. Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear. That would take the heart of me. A day may come when. The courage of men fails. When we for-forsake our friends… break all bonds of, f-fellowship. It is not this day. An hour of wolves and… shields… when the age of men comes crash, crashing down. But it is not today. Today… we fight. By all you love on this good Earth…”

***

One time, he comes to awareness with his teeth plunged deep into his wrist, and the sharp pain clears his mind a little. It’s red, it’s color in a sea of grey and white. It flows and moves, it’s alive, he’s alive.

It doesn’t last though, because people soon rush in to subdue him. After that, his arms are securely bound to his sides with a special jacket, and they only take it off so he can eat. It’s not like he did that on purpose, he thinks, he doesn’t know what happened. He hears them talk about him ‘attempting on his own life’, but that’s not true. He doesn’t want to die. Does he?

***

“Who’m I, someone that’s afraid to let go. Under all laws of aviation, I won’t fix I’d rather weep. You’re a sunflower, did you know, I bet he works for the government. Nobody wants you here. You know nothing. Somebody once told me the loveliest lies of all. Where did you come from? Where did you go? Nobody wants you here. Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten. Forgotten. Nobody wants you here. When you’ll be dead I will be, still alive. Nobody wants you here. Nobody wants you here.”

***

He forgot his name today. Only briefly. But he couldn’t shake that feeling of abject horror when he kept coming up blank.

It’s honey-tar bliss and cotton candy dreams. “Names are lies, lies we tell ourselves to feel like we matter maybe.” It’s honey and tar, honey and tar, sticky, sickly sweet but bitter also. “I don’t like bitter. Never liked bitter.” Bitter coffee, honey and tar.

***

"Status report?" "The thirty recommended sessions have been completed. No damaging side effects, other than what’s expected for that high a dosage." "Good, very good. Warn the staff, we’re moving on to direct exposure. Tomorrow." "Sir? Are you certain? The subject’s mental state is—" "Page wants results. She’s getting impatient." "I’m aware, but the strain of that thing on a human brain is just…" "He’ll either make it or he won’t, and she’ll have her answer. Get it done."

"…Yes, sir."

#jacksepticeye #antisepticeye #jackieboy man #jbm #jse #fanfic #wdkymys #writersofjack #jse egos

[khalixascorner]

Be My Baby Mama Pt 10

Summary: Peter and SIM Tony accidentally end up pregnant when they spend a heat together. They decide to keep the pup but how are a superhero and a supervillain supposed to do this whole parenting thing? And what's everyone else going to say when they find out?

“Umm, Mr. Stark, can I ask you something kind of personal?” Peter asked, not sure if he was going insane or if it was actually possible. Stark raised an eyebrow but gestured for him to go on. “Are you on birth control?” Stark just looked at him like he had grown a second head, then paled for a moment before his expression totally locked down behind a blank mask.

Read on AO3 Chap 1 Chap 2 Chap 3 Chap 4 Chap 5 Chap 6 Chap 7 Chap 8 Chap 9

Tags: Peter Parker/Tony Stark, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha Peter Parker, Omega Tony Stark, Mafia AU, Mob Boss Tony Stark, Villain Tony Stark, Mafia Typical Violence, no smut guys, It's all fluff, A little angst, Mpreg, Mating, SIM Tony Stark, sorta, Superior Iron Man Vol 1. (2015), Age Difference, Aged-Up Peter Parker, baby Stark, Crack Treated Seriously, Just a crack taken seriously fic where Peter and Tony get pregnant, have a pup, and fall in love, Tony is very bossy and Peter says Yes Omega all the time

All told, it took six months for Peter to move on from the kidnapping. During that time, Tony fully immersed himself in both of his businesses. He had been worried that stepping away would give people the impression that he wasn’t in control, and after a kidnapping like that, it was even more important to make a strong showing. So Iron Man was back, but Spider-Man had yet to make a reappearance. Peter could, if he wanted to. Penny was old enough and loved spending time with Pepper and the others, but Peter didn’t feel the call to throw himself in danger for strangers anymore. Especially now that they knew, and many had decided they didn’t want his help because he wasn’t human enough for them. 

After years of trying to keep his identity secret, all it took was SHIELD deciding to run a smear campaign to destroy it. Of course that worked a lot worse for them when Tony had retaliated by pointing out why Peter had destroyed half their compound. Even the media didn’t approve of what had been done to Penny, so they withheld judgment on Peter’s actions that day. 

Of course, that didn’t stop them judging his other actions, like mating with Iron Man and having the audacity to start a family. Or their judgment when they found out he was clearly enhanced and far stronger than the average superhero, let alone baseline humans. Their comments had not been kind.

Had Tony not been by his side, Peter would have collapsed under the negative attention. As it was, Tony’s crew closed ranks around him, protecting him from the worst of the backlash and throwing their political capital around until Spider-Man was a topic that was left alone. It had felt wrong, hiding behind Tony and the others, but this was a fight Peter had no hope of winning without their resources. Spider-man had been tolerated, but he didn’t have the following that heroes like the Avengers did. 

He still wore the bracers though. 

The thought of something happening and being without a suit, without an up-link to Karen and Jarvis, was intolerable. So he wore the bracers religiously. 

Even in instances like now, there he was buttoning up a suit jacket over them, dressed to the nines to go as Tony’s plus one to one of the Omega’s many functions. 

“Everything will be fine,” Tony said, giving the alpha a once over. “Security is tight, Penny will be home with Platypus, and everything is going to go just fine.”

Peter nodded, taking a deep breath and trying to convince himself that Tony was right. And his senses would warn him if it wasn’t, so all he could do was stick close to Tony in case he needed to react. 

*******************

Sticking close turned out to be quite easy, as Tony seemed intent on showing him off to every single person that was in attendance. The names and faces blurred together as the night wore on and Peter groaned anytime Tony perked up, pointing out yet another person he just had to meet.

“Did I do something to piss you off?” Peter asked in one of their few quiet moments. “Because this is torture and I swear I hadn’t done anything to make you want to torture me.”

“Oh, stop complaining,” Tony said with a huff, though he still gave Peter a gentle smile and ran his fingers through the alpha’s hair soothingly. “It’s all part of the business, that’s all. I’m making sure they realize that you’re mine, and by doing this, no one can claim that they didn’t realize who you were if they try anything.”

“You’re always protecting me,” Peter said softly, leaning into his hand. “I don’t know how I got lucky enough that you decided to keep me, but I’m so glad you did.”

“Wasn’t luck at all,” Tony said firmly. “I saw this amazing, talented, cute alpha, and just had to scoop him up all for myself.”

Tony leaned in and kissed Peter deeply. It was both domineering and sweet, and the emotion Tony was clearly trying to convey took Peter’s breath away. It had been so long since Peter had felt loved unconditionally but he thought he recognized it now. Tony had been trying to tell him for awhile, but he wasn’t ready to hear it.

For once, Peter took control of the kiss back from Tony, trying to tell him without words that he felt the same. Trying to tell him that he was drowning in Tony’s very being but that he’d gladly live without air if it meant being by Tony’s side for even those few minutes, because he was helplessly, hopelessly in love with the Omega. 

There was heat in their love, of course, but there was also a tempered warmth that settled in his bones. And Peter realized that he really would do anything for his beloved. It was selfish, by the old rules he had once lived by, but really perhaps, they’d been too selfless all along. Peter Parker had been left by the wayside, consumed by his devotion to Spider Man. 

“Are you alright?” Tony asked, pulling back and looking at Peter with concern written across his face. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Peter said, putting his forehead to Tony’s. “Just realized something is all.”

“Oh?” 

“I’m not a hero anymore,” Peter said calmly. “Or rather, Spider Man isn’t.”

“And what makes you say that?” Tony asked. 

“I-”

Peter never got to finish the sentence as his Spidey Senses went off. His suit reacted instantly as he yanked Tony with him, away from whatever was triggering it. A rumble shook the building and the wall caved in where they had been standing just moments before. 

Tony suited up and Peter stuck to his side as they hunted for the cause of the explosion. Peter focused on his Spidey sense, honing in on where the threat was as his eyes darted around. 

“Any luck on the scans?” Peter asked, knowing Karen and Jarvis were hard at work.

“Nothing yet but we’ll find something,” Tony said grimly. “And then we’ll be having words with our uninvited guest.”

Another blast went off in front of them and Peter threw himself out of the way.

“Uninvited? Only because you decided to ice me out after my father took you down a few notches,” a voice said from the smoke. “I could have taken us to the next level and instead you bring in strays to carry on their legacy.”

“Zeke.” 

Tony’s voice was sharp as he said the name, and Peter wondered what had caused such hate between them. 

“Oh, so you remember me? I suppose I should be thankful for that,” ‘Zeke’ said, stepping out of the smoke wearing something that looked like a bastardized Iron Man armor. “You know our dads used to think you wouldn’t be able to carry SI into the future, at least not without a strong Alpha by your side.”

“Of course I knew,” Tony spat. “They were hardly subtle. Clearly, they were wrong though.”

“I’m not so sure,” Zeke said, appearing thoughtful. “After all, you mated that spider and even carried its pup. Seems like you forgot your heritage.”

“You’re awfully arrogant for someone wearing scraps and bits of stolen and broken armor,” Tony said, ignoring the jab at Peter. 

While Zeke and Tony continued to trade barbs, Peter snuck around behind the other man. 

Peter silently set his webs to a max charge taser and then fired as soon as he was close enough. Zeke was mid-sentence when his body seized and the armor around him crumbled. 

“Ooops, sorry,” Peter said flatly, not sorry at all. “Didn’t mean to cut you off there.”

Once that was done, he wrapped the other man tightly in his strongest webs, leaving only his face partially exposed by the cocoon. 

“Karen, send one of the drones to sit on him and emit electrical impulses if he starts doing anything odd,” Peter said, turning to Tony. 

“You know, I’m not one for the big bad alpha schtick, but that was kinda hot,” Tony said, eyeing his mate appreciatively. “You gonna zap and web anyone that pisses me off?”

“Do you want me to?” Peter asked. 

“I’ll let you know,” Tony said after a moment, and Peter rolled his eyes. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Peter said, and Tony just nodded. 

But maybe he was just as ridiculous. He would do it, after all, if the omega asked. And he was pretty sure Tony knew it.

#khalixa writes #mads made me do it #starker #tony stark/peter parker #omegaverse #mafia au #alpha peter #omega tony #mafia boss tony