#but mostly hurt

[cabinofimagines]

Better Times p. 1

As I have noticed people on this blog often don't read the longer works I split this one up. Happy birthday to me, y'all are getting hurt >;-) Pairing: Poly!Solangelo x gn!reader, Will Solace x reader x Nico di Angelo Request: halli hallo~ ^^ i wanted to ask if i could request something for solangelo x reader? i'm not sure if your requests are open, i couldn't find anything that said otherwise, maybe i read over it, or forgot a page? if that is the case i apologize! but if they are open, then i was thinking that the reader is just having an off week in general, things are just not going their way, and worst of all, their boyfriends are busy TwT then when the week is over, one of them senses that there's something wrong with the reader, but as soon as they get asked what's wrong, they just start full on sobbing- cuddling ensues? TwT solangelo is my biggest source of comfort right now, and the posts of them from this blog are always so cute and fluffy ^^ Word count: 1.8k Warnings: bad feelings, sad feelings, hurt (not yet comfort). -Asnyox Part 2

You would think that living at camp wouldn’t necessarily be more stressful than going out in the ‘real’ world. However, the distinction between chores and free time was non-existent. Therefore, you weren’t sure whether you were supposed to be working, taking time off and most of all forcing your boyfriends to take a break with you. It was impossible to convince them, because either of them had good reasons that what they were doing wasn’t too exerting of them, or should be put off until after you hung out. For Nico and Will finishing their duties meant free time, and the problem here was that it felt as if they were never finished with their duties, and neither were you. 

In short, you would have loved to spend some time with your boyfriends. Yet, Nico was busy relocating the troglodytes after their old home got destroyed, and Will was busy restocking the infirmary before summer. You were busy, being alone. You didn’t blame your boyfriends, of course they were allowed their own lives and tasks, and you respected that they were capable of doing their own tasks. You would just have liked to be able to relax with them for a bit, just a hug perhaps. 

It came to the point where Nico even paused your morning sword training sessions (did those count as a free time activity?), and Sherman stepped up to the game. You tried to kindly decline, but he didn’t take no for an answer. After your initial problems when training with Sherman, he seemed to have calmed down and gotten to a more ‘teaching’ approach. However, this did not mean that he would be pulling punches, or slashes in the case of sword fighting. 

That was how you ended up in the infirmary, under the worried gaze of your lover. Will carefully stitched the slash on your arm as you tried to stay silent. This was the most one-on-one attention you had gotten from Will in what felt like weeks, and you wanted it to not be a worrying experience for Will. Who were you kidding though, you were hurt so of course Will was worried. 

“Here, eat this,” Will softly held some ambrosia to your mouth. You carefully put your lips around it, grazing Will’s fingers in a soft kiss. Will used his other hand to grab your jaw, his thumb slowly moving over your cheek. You wished Will would kiss your wounds better, but he didn’t seem to get the hint. 

“Thanks,” you breathed and Will’s worried eyes softened. “Maybe you should wait with training until Nico gets back,” Will looked at you intensely, “You know, he might get jealous if you keep training with Sherman?” you laughed, although you wished Nico was there to get jealous, and take you away, and spend time with you. You hoped it didn’t show on your face. “Well I need to keep up,” you tried to push away the flutter in your chest, “You never know when a Sherman shaped monster tries to get me,” then you sighed, “I wish Nico was here more, but I know he’s busy.” Will hummed, as he turned to put away some of the supplies he used. 

“We can maybe plan a date soon.” Will suggested, “We all have been busy for a while now, it would be nice to just have some time with the three of us.” You nodded in agreement, starting to stand up. “Do you have anything planned outside of your infirmary shifts?” Will asked as he looked at you. “Training with Sherman, mostly. Everything else I can probably move.” you said and Will nodded. “Cool, me too. Whoever sees Nico first plans the date then?” he asked and you nodded again. But as you left the infirmary you already missed the shine of Will’s smile, and you sighed as you felt an unexplainable sadness in your chest. You considered turning back for a moment, before you noticed hurt campers coming your way. Right, Will was working and did not need a distraction. You moved out of the way, not sure where you were going. 

Just suck it up, you thought. You did not need to add to their list of chores. You were going to be fine. 

But, as you were laying on your bed, staring at the ceiling of your cabin, you realized something. You were tired, wanted to cry, and still had tasks to do. So, you decided to make a deal with yourself. If you finished your tasks, you could skip the campfire and indulge in some healthy letting-your-emotions-out time, on your own. Sighing you sat up, took a breath, and went to face the world. 

Maybe you wanted to share some parts, but that would once again make it about you. If you could simply make today a good day then it will start getting better right, slowly? Just one good day, filled with love, spent with your boyfriends. 

Will was the one to catch Nico, and informed you that all three of you had time for a date a few days later. You hadn’t looked forward to the wait, but a few days was at least a set time instead of wallowing in the impossibility of seeing your lovers ever. Yet, as you met up with them, Nico didn’t seem too happy to see you. He wasn’t smiling, instead he stared at you intently. 

“(Y/n), love, are you okay?” he asked when you were within earshot. Will was next to Nico, already holding his hand. Nico wasn’t sure how to breach the topic, but Will and him had talked for a moment already and Will had voiced his worry about you not sharing your troubles. Nico saw what he meant, you looked restless and tired at the same time and there must have been something going on. 

“I’ve been,” you hesitated, “... tired.” Was this really the moment to admit it? You had been so strong for the week, and you just wanted some chill, fun time with your boyfriends. So, even if you felt like if you closed your eyes you might either sleep or cry, perhaps both, you didn’t want to talk about your emotions. Talking about them meant feeling them, and feeling was an activity you weren’t affording yourself right now. You want to feel fine, perhaps get a kiss, and move on so you could get these emotions out in a way that wouldn’t upset your boyfriends. 

Not that they would ever be upset about you having feelings, no, you didn’t want them to spend the day meant for fun times feeling bad about the fact that you perhaps had missed them, had felt a bit neglected in the past week. You knew they would feel guilty about not noticing your mental state deteriorate in the past week, or that you hadn’t told them about your breakdowns at night, or that you had not considered asking for as much as a hug in the past week because if you were to be safely in the arms of one of your lovers, you knew you would not be able to hold in the tears and hold up the walls that barely contained your emotions. These walls would need to keep standing until after you forcefully had fun with your boyfriends on a cute date with no emotional baggage shared. You wanted to be happy today. But-

“Are you sure that’s all?” Nico’s voice broke your thoughts. “Yes!” you answered a little too quickly, “Let’s get going, okay? We can talk more when we’ve put out everything for the picnic. Would hate to have our date cut short by the dinner bell, right?” Your boyfriends exchanged a look. “Are you sure, love?” Will grabbed your hand, “we can always hold the picnic in Nico’s cabin, have a bit more comfort.” You sighed, before softly grabbing Will’s face, and pressing a kiss on his lips. “All I am sure of is that I just want the comfort of my boyfriends during a picnic,” you smiled softly, feeling slightly undone by the kiss you just instigated. Oh, how you had longed for that, “Okay?” 

So, you went out together. The sun shined on you and you could feel how it was energizing you. The blanket was laid down, the food spread out, and most importantly, you were sitting between your boyfriends for the first time in a long while. 

Between the strawberries, hand holding and cuddles you finally felt at ease. You were glad that neither of your boyfriends pressed the matter of your well-being, even if you found them staring at you a little more than usual. But it was nice, conversation flowed freely. 

“How have the troglodytes been?” you asked, and Nico perked up. “They’re adjusting really well!” Nico probably was unaware that he was smiling. He tended to look younger when he got excited, and he truly did love the troglodytes, “They had been sad about losing some of the hats but have found ways that even I don’t know yet to get new hats.” “That’s cute.” Will said, although you knew he had had some reservations considering the troglodyte business- mostly because he didn’t like how Nico somehow always seemed paler whenever he came back from visiting them, as if Nico didn’t take good care of himself when he went to them. “It truly is,” Nico hummed, “maybe we could visit them someday.” you could see that he was excited for the prospect. “Maybe,” Will said and you hit him lightly on his arm. “I would love to, Nico.” you told him, and Nico nodded, a little less excited at Will’s answer. 

Eventually the sun started shining a little less, and you knew the day was coming to an end, feeling dread form as you were packing up. You kissed your boyfriends, before each of you went to your respective tables at the dining hall. Nico had said he still had to fix something with the troglodytes, one of the last things he promised. Will had offered to sit together at the campfire with you today, but you truly did feel tired. You couldn’t pinpoint why, so you excused yourself quickly, brushing off Will’s worried inquiries, before going to your cabin, laying in your bed. Today was fun, and good, yet you still felt like sobbing. Tears were already forming as you simply thought about the fun times you had during the day, the soft kisses and how your boyfriends looked at you. Gods, you loved them so much, but why were you crying? If today was good, why wouldn’t it fix whatever made you feel like this? Why, why, why?

#request #requests #poly!solangelo x reader #gn!reader #gender neutral #Will solace x reader x Nico di angelo #Will solace x reader #Nico di angelo x reader #polyamarous #polyam #fanfiction #hurt/comfort #but mostly hurt #x you #x y/n #heroes of olympus #nico di angelo #cabinofimagines #will solace #admin asnyox

[fe-fictions]

Any more Felix to share!!!

(How about Felix getting possessed!!!!!)

After the war had ended, you were finally safe. Dimitri had come back into himself, and was a fine king. Peace and unification was spreading all throughout Fodlan, but one problem remained.

Those Who Slither were still active. Underground, but very much alive. 

Dimitri had assigned you and Felix to this task; a very humble king had bowed before the Archbishop, requesting the Church’s aide in his mission.

You accepted without a second thought. Felix wasn’t thrilled with the idea of helping Dimitri, but a fight was a fight. He’d been itching for some battle (even if he wouldn’t admit to it).

So you were on the way to the first location, a secret bunker that was deep underground, filled with confusing tunnels and venues that you weren’t sure led to anything good.

No, it was very clear TWSITD weren’t done.

At most, they were regrouping. Planning their next attack, and who to work through in order to do it. The Adrestian Empire was long gone- now it was just a matter of who to choose, next.

You and Felix subdued them quickly, your militia of Blue Lions following without hesitation. 

The scouts were removed first, Ashe and Annette quick to locate and purify any curses or traps they detected, and it was a stealthy, swift method of thinning their numbers quickly.

When you were finally discovered, though; that’s when the real battle began.

Felix fought like Hell beside you, and it’d be a lie to say you weren’t impressed. The man had insurmountable skill, and it pleased you beyond measure to see him so elegantly destroying the enemies in his path. 

It was going flawlessly, with minimal injuries. 

But things never went this well. You exchanged a glance with Felix as you took down the last mage in sight. Something was off.

You pushed forward with great caution. The tunnels were best described as catacombs, dark and difficult to navigate through for fear of getting lost.

There was no telling what was lurking around the corner. 

Felix noticed the light first.

There was a flicker on your left side, targeting you from behind a pillar meters away. He gasped, grabbed your arm and pulled you out of the way. 

Magic erupted from the catacomb, slamming into his chest. Felix flew backwards, nearly taking you with him.

“Felix!!” 

Your voice echoed after him, his body crashing into the wall with an unholy crack before he crumpled to the ground. Your heart dropped like a stone. You moved to chase after him, but the cries of panic from your comrades stopped you.

There were dozens more of them. They were closing in around you.

“Defensive positions!” You shouted back to them, gripping your sword tight. You rushed down the corridor, reaching Felix’s body. He had managed to push himself onto his hands and feet, but he was shaking violently.

What did that mage hit him with?

“Are you okay, Felix? C-can you stand-”

“No,” His voice was mangled. He sounded violently strained, the convulsing getting worse. You touched his back, but he struck your hand away.

It stung with the sudden violence, shocking you. 

“Felix…?”

“Get back-” He curled in on himself, blood oozing from his lips. A curse mark glowed red on his back, bright and dangerous. “I c-can’t control-”

“Professor!!” Annette’s cry forced your attention away from him, “Get away! It’s a curse!!” 

When you turned back, there was a sword swinging towards your face.

With a gasp you stumbled back, barely keeping your nose. He didn’t skip a beat; he struck at you again and again, each attack more violent than the last.

You could hear the Lions scrambling to reach you, but none could give aid. You were outnumbered, and they needed to defend themselves before they could get to you.

Those Who Slither had created the perfect trap.

“Maintain!!” You shouted back to them, unsheathing your sword to block Felix. A violent clang resounded in the darkness, the sparks illuminating his face.

His eyes were flooded with black magic; Felix himself was nowhere to be seen.

You steeled yourself with a sharp breath. His strength was multiplied, the curse fueling him to complete his mission. You needed to take him down before he reached the rest of the group. 

You clashed blades back and forth, refusing to give even an inch of room. The space was small, doing all you could to keep distance between him and the rest of the Lions.

They were preoccupied with those mages; if he was to enter the fray with them, it was only a matter of time before his strength overwhelmed them.

He nearly had you beaten. 

The way he was hitting at you, it was as though he were trying to cut through the blade, itself. You could feel the handle biting into your skin with every assault.

Each time you could see his face, the deeper your heart sank. He was so far gone, lost deep in the magic. 

But he wasn’t lost.

“Felix-” You hissed his name, teeth grit as you bore the brunt of his strength over and over. “I know you’re in there. Y-you have to fight this!”

“......”

“If you don’t, everybody dies-”

His breath stuttered, a millisecond’s hesitation before he lunged at you again. Your eyes widened at the sight. 

He was fighting.

“We have to find the mage that cursed him- if we defeat them, we can stop the curse!” Annette rushed to tell you, breaking away from her duel to come to your aid.

“Can you find them?” You grunted as you absorbed another blow. A distorted growl fell from Felix’s lips. 

“Yes.” 

“Go,” You charged Felix, forcing him off balance, “I’ll keep stalling!!”

The battle was dragging on too long. Every time you started to get an upper hand, Felix’s possession gave him an inhuman strength that you didn’t know how to handle. It was far too much for you to handle. He was going to overwhelm you if it kept going. 

Every parry, every counterattack you launched, he was beating you back. 

The critical strike fell when he struck his blade close to your hilt. The crack of bone reverberated in your body. He broke your wrist.

You cried out, your hand numb as pain rocketed up your arm. Felix smashed the sword from your hands, disarming you. He swept your legs out from under you, sending you to the ground.

“Professor!!” Mercedes’ panic alerted the Lions. The Archbishop was in dire straits.

“Quick, someone- gah!” Sylvain took a blast of magic to the shoulder in his panic to get you help. They were still struggling. 

You hadn’t given them enough time.

Felix would attack them from behind, while they were distracted and unable to defend against the mages and their possessed ally. 

You had walked straight into a trap...and you were going to die.

Felix stood over you, the sword quaking in his hands. 

“Felix...p-please…” You choked out, clutching your wounded hand to your chest.

The sword rose over his head, preparing to take yours. His whole body was trembling, but it was no use. It was clear the power had overwhelmed him. 

This was the last you’d see of your husband. 

You closed your eyes, accepting your fate. There was little anyone could have done. If only you’d seen it before him. Maybe something could have changed.

Maybe-

“Raaagh!!” 

Your eyes flew open at the clanging of metal. The sword clattered to the ground from Felix’s hands. The cry had echoed through the catacombs, catching the attention of enemy and ally alike.

Felix remained standing, if only for a moment, when his eyes returned to their natural color. He spared you a weary, frightened look...and then he crumbled to the floor.

“Got him!!” Annette exclaimed from far away, waving frantically to get your attention, “The mage is down!! Is Felix-??”

“He’s…” You trailed off, returning to your husband. He wasn’t moving at all. With a cautious touch, you inched towards him, your fingers barely brushing his back. He didn’t slap you away, not this time.

He was breathing, but unconscious, you realized upon turning him over.

Blood seeped from his lips, staining his skin and clothes. His expression was troubled, as though in a great deal of pain. There were tears that trailed from closed eyes.

But he wasn’t gone.

“He’s alive.” You croaked, bringing some relief to the Lions. It was time to end the battle. With Felix’s curse removed, you could at least try and finish things against the remaining mages. 

Shaken by the loss of what you presumed to be their leader, they started losing the upper hand. 

You returned to the Lions and assisted in bringing about swift justice, refusing to let them escape. There would be no survivors. Not after what they did to your husband.

It took longer than you wanted it to, but the battle was ended, and the enemy was extinguished. Everyone was exhausted, in no shape to be fighting any longer and in desperate need of medical assistance.

The trek back to camp would be longer than the journey to your mission, but as everyone hobbled back, eventually you were able to find relief. 

You followed alongside Sylvain’s horse, Felix carried alongside his oldest friend.

Ingrid helped him bring Felix down, and the pair carried him to the medical tent. You followed to be treated of your own wounds, your wrist pain flaring angrily now that the adrenaline had subsided and you were once again safe.

You sat beside your husband and waited patiently for him to wake. Ashe set your wrist, wrapping it tightly while Mercedes worked to mend the bone.

Your eyes remained on your husband the entire time.

“Don’t...don’t worry, Archbishop. He’ll be all right. Once we get him cleaned up and patch his wounds up, he’ll be back to normal in no time.”

You smiled at Ashe, though it was far too weak to be reassuring.

“I appreciate your comfort. I’m afraid my concern isn’t his recovery; it’s his reaction once he wakes.”

He nodded in understanding, the rest of your healing done in silence. Your gaze remained fixed on your husband, taking his hand in yours. 

You decided to stay with him until he woke up. Once he was with you again, then you could allow yourself to feel relief.

Until then, all you could do was wait.

-------------------------

“...eth…”

“...y...h!!”

“...By...Byleth!!”

“Byleth!!”

You were startled awake by a loud voice in your ear. It was almost a command. A cry. 

You woke suddenly, finding your neck and back stiff. You’d leaned against the bedside and fallen asleep beside Felix.

But now there was a hand tightly squeezing your shoulder, and you were staring into the tearful eyes of your Felix.

He was awake.

And he...was crying…?

“F-Felix…”

“The hells is wrong with you-!” He took your arm and yanked you forward, crashing into his chest. His arms were bound around you, squeezing you tight against him. You could feel the trembling in his fingertips, almost clawing into your skin.

He clung to you for all he was worth. His breathing was ragged, as though desperately trying to keep himself together and he was failing miserably.

You reciprocated his embrace without hesitation. 

“It’s okay, Felix.” You whispered, kissing his neck chastely. “It’s all right. I’m here.”

“I could’ve killed you.” His voice was a mangled growl, cracking and breaking off at the end of his nightmarish realization. “I almost took your head, and I-”

“Shhh, love. Shhh…” You stroked his hair, which had been freed from his ponytail and was a tangled mess like the rest of him. But he shook his head. 

“I couldn’t fight that damn curse. I tried...so hard...I was worthless. I c-couldn’t do anything, a-and I…”

“It’s not your fault.” You murmured, “None of it is your fault.”

“It was like a nightmare.” He sucked in a sharp breath, desperately fighting the whimper that escaped his lips. You hugged him closer. “I was watching you fall by my hand. It wasn’t like a spar. It was a fight to the death- and you almost lost.”

“Annette found the mage in time, and I was able to hold you off.” You reminded him gently, but again he shook his head. He swallowed thickly, but the lump in his throat wouldn’t go away.

“You don’t understand, I-I...Byleth I couldn’t fight it. I had to watch you lose. You could have died by my hand-”

“Darling…” You cooed, gingerly slipping from his arms. He stared up at you with such a hopeless gaze, it nearly broke your heart in two. 

Tears were streaming down his face, the brokenness in his expression haunting. You had never seen such a thing, before. You cupped his cheeks, holding his face in your hands with the sweetest smile you could muster.

“You did what you could. No one blames you for what happened. You protected me from that curse, and we all walked away from that battle victorious. I’m sorry you had to experience all of that. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, and to think you had to suffer through it...I’m so sorry.”

Felix looked away, his hands clenched into the blankets. You stroked his cheeks tenderly, wiping away the droplets that followed. 

“But please...please don’t blame yourself. What you suffered was cruel, and out of your control. You did a wonderful thing, protecting me. I will forever be grateful for that.”

“But I…” He took your forearm, looking down at the bandages around your wrist. “Look what I did to you. Imagine how much worse it could’ve-”

“It wasn’t.” You reminded him, interrupting the spiral. You covered his hand with your own, drawing his gaze back to you. “I was hurt, but I’m healing. I’m grateful you didn’t do worse, and you should be, too. What matters is that I’m here, now, and you’re all right. There’s no need to worry about the hypothetical.”

“Hm…” He was dejected. “I...want to believe that. I just…”

“You suffered greatly.” You understood his pain, squeezing his hand softly. “I know you can’t wipe it away that easily.”

“I just...I need time.” He huffed, lowering his head. Wordlessly you shifted closer, and held his head to your chest, embracing him with the gentle, loving touch that only you could give him. A touch that saw his breath hitch, and his eyes fill with tears once more.

“Take all the time you need, my love.” You whispered, welcoming his trembling embrace once more. 

Felix choked back a sob, clinging to you for dear life.

“I-I’m...so...glad you’re still here.”

Drops of rain fell into Felix’s hair. You held him closer.

“I am, love. I’m here.”

“I’m not losing you, too.” He whispered weakly, but the fire of a solemn vow burned beneath his sorrow. 

“Never, Felix.”

A kiss touched his forehead. 

“I’ll always be here.”

#felix #byleth #fe 16 #fe three houses #fe3h #fire emblem three houses #felileth #felix x byleth #fe fictions #fe-fictions #f!byleth #fem!byleth #f!mu #angst #possession prompt #hurt and comfort #but mostly hurt #because felix is just a WRECK boye

[masterjedilenawrites]

How would you imagine the delta boys to react or what they would do when they get back after a rough mission??

Aww this image of battered, downcast Deltas made me so sad... 😢 I just want to protect and love them, your honor.

Boss: Holds himself together for a bit. There's plenty of debriefings and paperwork to get through once they're back, and it won't do for him to be emotional during any of it. He's also hyper-sensitive to the feelings of his squad and he doesn't want to feed into their misery with his own. He won't be overly positive, but he'll maybe try a small pep talk or some comforting shoulder pats as they separate to cope in their own ways. The first time Boss is alone is when he hits the showers, and that's when he'll finally acknowledge his own feelings. He'll let himself take a longer shower than normal, indulging in the hot water hitting his skin while he stands there, motionless and melancholy. There may even be a few frustrated tears that get swept away with the water.

Fixer: Is such a grumpy boy. He doesn't like missions that don't end well, that don't go according to plan. He will be analyzing every detail from the mission, mulling it over and over in his head to figure out what went wrong, and venting about it to anyone who will listen. He never puts names to his feelings, let alone give himself the time or space to properly deal with them. His anger comes out in his speech, clipped and annoyed. His fear becomes pools of sweat along his hairline. His guilt manifests into tinkering and planning, trying to find improvements in both technology and strategy so the difficulties they faced today don't persist into the future. His name is Fixer for a reason; he will not rest until he finds a way to fix whatever broke on this mission.

Scorch: Is simply tuckered out. He will be uncharacteristically quiet as he shuffles his feet out of the ship and toward home base. The playful glint usually found in his eyes has been dimmed as he fights off his exhaustion. He sits numbly through the debriefs and for once doesn't have any quippy retorts when told what to do. As soon as he is able, he collapses onto any decently comfy surface and sleeps for a good, long while. He really can't process such devastating emotions, not when they're so fresh, so intense. He can't fully sleep them off, but the nap diminishes their sting, and allows him to get some of his spunk back, too. When he wakes, he'll be back to his usual self, but will have random moments of melancholy as he slowly processes the events of the mission.

Sev: On the outside, he doesn't seem much different, simply dark and broody as always. But on the inside, he's hurting. Bad. Nothing gets him down quite like a failed mission. He takes full responsibility, even for the things outside of his control. He can't help it. If fighting is the one thing he was made for, how could he brush off failure? Whether or not these feelings come to the surface depends on who he's around. If Fixer is pacing about and venting, then Sev will likely blow up in anger. If Scorch crashes on the bunk next to him, Sev will sit in contemplative silence for as long as his brother sleeps. And a shoulder pat from Boss? However quick or innocent, that's what impacts Sev the most. He'll disappear and let himself cry over the comforting gesture.

Everything Tag: @damerondala, @dangerousstrawberrypie, @fallingforthem, @harleyevanstan, @imabeautifulbutterfly, @justanothersadperson93, @misogirl828, @itsagrimm, @error6gendernotfound, @theroguesully, @clonesimp, @techie-bear

+Delta Squad Tag: @marvel-starwars-nerd, @hanbetired, @lackofhonor, @theclonesdeservebetter, @salaminus, @katzs-current-obsession, @rebel-finn, @the-mom-friend-dot-com, @pickle-rick-y, @flowered-bicycles, @lucyysthings, @severalseashellsbytheseashore, @moon-wrecked

(Join my tag list here)

#star wars #delta squad #rough missions #delta squad saturday #angst o'clock #hurt/comfort #but mostly hurt #boss #fixer #scorch #sev

[gravitywonagain]

rounding out my depressing little triptych with lwj's pov

[dialog only] [wwx's pov]

[M, 4k, 1/1, Wangxian]

Tags: Major Character Death, suicide, suicide by zhiji (but, like, softly?), time travel, hurt/comfort but mostly hurt, I’m not going to lie this is all angst, not a happy ending (i’ve added a tiny consolation ending but it’s not really enough here)

--

There is a cave. Lan Wangji spotted it as he flew to Yiling once, so long ago. Too long ago. Maybe if he’d returned earlier, maybe if he’d stayed--

There is a cave. 

Lan Wangji knows his core is spinning low; he feels the pulse of it struggling through his meridians, qi sluggish and dwindling. His body droops, too heavy for his bones to carry. Bichen’s tip wavers where he points it. The descent, when he makes it, is fast. 

In his arms, Wei Ying is light as feathers. 

The cave is easy enough to find. Too easy, probably, to be safe for very long. But it’s his only option now. 

They cannot go back to Yiling. They cannot seek refuge among any of the sects, even his own. They cannot hide within a town, among people who could be hurt by the black, curling resentment leaking out of Wei Ying’s skin. And he could not leave Wei Ying where he was to die. 

The cave is deeper than Lan Wangji had anticipated, which is good. He carries Wei Ying inside, steps light and as even as he can make them. 

Darkness swallows them whole. 

He lays Wei Ying gently down upon the rough stone floor. Considers pillowing Wei Ying’s head in his lap -- like the last time they were in a dark cave together, qi and confessions flowing between them. But he doesn’t have the qi to spare this time. Depleted. He’ll have to settle for confessions alone. 

Somewhere deeper in, water drips into a pool. The sound of it bounces off the stone, echoing along the tunnels. 

Lan Wangji folds himself into a meditative pose and times his breath with the rhythm of it. If he can rebuild some of his spent qi, he can pass some to Wei Ying. He can protect Wei Ying if others find them here. He can get Wei Ying out, hide him somewhere--

“Did you see them, Lan Zhan? Did you see?”

He hadn’t noticed Wei Ying waking. Hadn’t heard the change in his breath, or pulse. Both are still so slow. So deathly slow. 

“Wei Ying--”

“United in their hate.”

Wei Ying sounds so tired. So fed up with the world, and who would blame him for it? 

Well… 

Lan Wangji feels anger and remorse thick in his throat. He says, “Let me--” But Wei Ying cuts him off again. 

“But they were united.”

He sighs with something that sounds like… hope. Relief, perhaps. Which makes little sense. 

“Wei Ying?”

Wei Ying shifts, turning to look at Lan Wangji, his smile barely visible through the blood and bruises in the low light of the cave. It is still the most beautiful expression Lan Wangji has ever seen. 

His voice is softer when he says, “It doesn’t work if there’s no villain, Lan Zhan. This world doesn’t work if there’s no one to hate.”

United, he’d said. 

But it still doesn’t make sense. With no other recourse, Lan Wangji says as much, “I don’t understand.”

But Wei Ying doesn’t answer him this time. He doesn’t explain. He rolls his head so his eyes are pointed up at the cave ceiling. 

“You should go,” he says, as if that was something Lan Wangji could do. “Leave me. They’ll only hurt you if they find you here.” As if that was some unexpected outcome, a deterrent to staying by Wei Ying’s side. 

“I won’t leave you.”

A harsh, rasping breath breaks in Wei Ying’s throat -- not unlike a laugh, yet so unlike the laugh that lives in Lan Wangji’s dreams. “So stubborn, Lan Zhan. So good. Always so good.”

Lan Wangji feels his blood beat in the tips of his ears. It is Wei Ying, not Lan Wangji, who is good. But to hear him say it… 

“Wei Ying, I--”

Again, Wei Ying interrupts him. 

“At least Shijie is alive this time.”

It’s an odd turn of phrase that catches Lan Wangji’s attention. 

“This time?”

In the darkness, Lan Wangji watches Wei Ying’s eyes fall closed. It’s not unlike the way Brother shuts out the world when it is too much, too harsh, too fast. 

The silence between them stretches, broken only by the steady dripping of water that continues to echo, like a clock that counts down the dwindling moments they have left. Like this, time flows too fast, trickling away between breaths and heart beats. Still, Lan Wangji waits. He does not push Wei Ying to answer him. He’s not even really sure what his question is. 

“Yes,” Wei Ying says, at last. 

Another rasping rattle of a laugh. 

That weary exhaustion hangs heavy in his voice as he turns his head to regard Lan Wangji once more. “Oh, Lan Zhan, I’ve done this so many times. I’m so tired.”

The first… Lan Wangji has no idea how to decipher. It sounds confused, mad, nonsensical. Yet Wei Ying says it with perfect lucidity. Whatever it means, he seems to believe it enough to be weary of it in a way that pierces bone. 

But the second: This, at least, Lan Wangji can help assuage. 

“Rest. I will be here.”

Wei Ying squirms against the stone where he lays. Contrary, as ever. 

Lan Wangji aches to take him into his arms, to hold him close and keep him safe. His old desire, his avarice, gnaws at the base of his breastbone. But he knows now that Wei Ying will not come to him willingly, and Lan Wangji will never cage him, even for his own safety. 

“They’re coming,” Wei Ying’s throat sounds full of gravel. But his words are timely -- a reminder that any cage Lan Wangji might offer is no longer an option anyway. They both know who they are. And Wei Ying is right. Still right as he continues, “They’ll be here soon. They’ll take you.” But then, “You should let them take you.”

Something like fury rises in Lan Wangji’s blood. Growling and thrashing in his gut. “I will not le--”

“A'Yuan needs you, Lan Zhan.” Lan Wangji’s blood freezes. “Let them take you.”

Wei Ying doesn’t plead with him, and Lan Wangji doesn’t know whether he should feel grateful for that or not. He would not be capable of refusing him if he pleaded. 

He may not be capable of refusing him anyway. 

“Wei Ying?”

“It’s okay. I– Like I said,” Wei Ying smiles, small but sincere, “it doesn’t work if there’s no villain.”

Lan Wangji thinks he’s beginning to understand. But, “Why you?”

“If not me, then who?”

Tears burn behind Lan Wangji’s eyes. Because of course Wei Ying would offer himself up for this. For this, for the Wen remnants, for any cause deemed worthy and right. He is still that beautiful boy who painted a rabbit on a lantern and pledged his life to protecting the weak and standing with justice. 

Lan Wangji holds the tears at bay with clenched fists. “Not you.”

It works, if only just. If only simply delaying the inevitable. But then, all of this is simply delaying the inevitable, isn’t it. A brief respite. The world will not change while Wei Ying and Lan Wangji are hiding away in this cave. 

Wei Ying inhales -- a ghastly sound, wet and ragged and rattling. 

“It’s okay, Lan Zhan. I know.” Lan Wangji’s heart leaps into his throat, and Wei Ying says, again, gently, soothing, “I know. You’ve stayed with me before.”

“Before?”

It’s that strange tense again. Does he mean the cave with the false xuanwu? 

“Yes. You’re always so good. Too good. They hurt you when you fight. Don’t-- Don’t let them hurt you. A'Yuan needs you.”

“A'Yuan?”

It’s the second time Wei Ying has mentioned him. The boy who brought a smile to Wei Ying’s eyes. Who wrapped himself around Lan Wangji’s leg, full-bodied with trust and wide-eyed with wonder. 

“He needs you to raise him,” Wei Ying says, latching on to whatever it is he hears in Lan Wangji’s voice. “I know you’ll take such good care of him, Lan Zhan. You always do.”

This time. Before. Always.

“Wei Ying, I don’t understand.”

“I know. It’s okay.”

It’s nothing, meaningless, but it soothes him all the same. 

This man. This beautiful, brave, brilliant man. The light is low, but Lan Wangji can still see the radiance shining out of this man he loves. 

The time continues to drip away from him, from them both. He made a confession once, in a cave like this. But whether Wei Ying heard it, grasped it, understood it… Remembers it. Lan Wangji doesn’t believe he’ll have many more chances after this. 

“Please,” he says, “Wei Ying, I--”

“Don’t say it.” It’s almost a sob. As much of a sob as Wei Ying’s broken body can manage, Lan Wangji would guess. “Don’t say it, Lan Zhan. It only hurts more if you say it. If I-- Don’t say it.”

Of course. He already said he knows, after all. 

The ache is less than he imagined it would be. He swallows it down. 

“Okay. Okay, Wei Ying.”

“Let them take you. When they come, just go with them. Don’t fight.”

Obstinance returns, a welcome distraction. 

“They will kill you.”

“Yes.”

“I won’t--”

“You must.” Lan Wangji wants to throttle him, just so he stops interrupting. 

“They need a villain,” Wei Ying repeats. “They don’t need two. But if you stay with me, if you fight them for me, that is what you become. A'Yuan needs you.”

His voice breaks over A’Yuan’s name, and Lan Wangji breaks for him again. 

“Okay. Okay, Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying moves slowly. His sleeve drags against the stone, a strangely soft sound for the roughness of the materials making it. 

He reaches toward Lan Wangji and asks, “Hold my hand?”

“But--”

“I only said not to say it. Not that it’s unwelcome.”

His touch is surprisingly warm. Lan Wangji laces their fingers together and traces the lines of Wei Ying’s veins with his other hand.

“Wei Ying--” he tries again, but Wei Ying shushes him. 

“Hush now, Lan Zhan. Just hold me. They’ll be here soon.”

It’s cold, in the cave. With his core depleted, Lan Wangji feels it seeping in through the many layers of his robes. He hurts -- everywhere. His heart, certainly, but there’s the ache of overtaxed muscles as well, and the nettle-bite of a hundred tiny cuts, partially healed and stinging for it. 

He thinks he will hurt much more before the night is through. 

Wei Ying’s breath is shallow and murky, but it’s even. His pulse is weak beneath his pale, thin skin. Resentment bleeds from somewhere under his robes, spilling sluggishly and sapping whatever remains of Wei Ying’s warmth. 

He’s dying, Lan Wangji knows. He’s dying, and there’s nothing Lan Wangji can do to save him. 

So Lan Wangji turns his mind to other problems. The other thing, the tenses that seem out of place, but possibly are not. 

Wei Ying is ingenious. He has created things -- terrible, powerful things -- that no one had imagined, that now everyone clamors for. If anyone could… what? Reverse the flow of time? Step in and out of the stream, perhaps? It would be him. 

“If you’ve done this before,” Lan Wangji asks, “why not fix it? Why not live?”

Wei Ying does not seem surprised by the question. But, if he’s done this before, perhaps he answered it before. Perhaps none of this is new to him. 

“It doesn’t work,” Wei Ying sighs. “It all falls apart. The clans fall to each other if not to Wen Ruohan. They need--”

“A villain. So you’ve said.” Lan Wangji can’t stand to hear the easy acceptance in Wei Ying’s voice as he repeats the brand again. 

“Ah, Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying’s lungs fail to contain his excitement, and he coughs wetly around what might have been a laugh. He says, “Interrupting me, so bold!”

Which is truly--

“I am trying to understand.”

“I know. I know. There’s no time. Which will be very funny to you later. Nothing but time. Maybe I will see you again, Lan Zhan.”

And maybe he will, but will Lan Wangji see Wei Ying again? If they’ve done this all before, what happens to Lan Wangji when Wei Ying starts over? He certainly has no memory of this. Where does Wei Ying begin again? Is it even the same stream in time, or simply another branch in the watershed? 

These questions and more pile up in Lan Wangji’s throat, too thick to speak through. 

In the end, they don’t matter because, “They will kill you.”

“Yes. Yes, and you should let them. So you can save A'Yuan.” A’Yuan, again. 

Wei Ying turns away from him, then. He doesn’t pull his hand back, and Lan Wangji finds he is pathetically grateful for this small comfort allowed to him. 

“Maybe,” Wei Ying says, “maybe you can make them all see. Make them open their eyes in the Burial Mounds. Make them see who it is they’re running through.”

The Burial Mounds. The Wens. The tiny village of broken men and women who have drawn life from a mountain made of death. 

Lan Wangji cannot fathom why the sects would besiege such a place, yet he knows that they must. That they’ve been threatening it for months. And now that Wei Ying is injured, now that his general has burned, now that his power source has shattered to pieces and the Burial Mounds are left defenseless… Now, he supposes, they must. Or else allow themselves to be called cowards by those who desire power more than justice. 

And Wei Ying has done this before. 

He brings their entwined hands to his mouth, but stops before he can touch his lips to Wei Ying’s skin. Not unwelcome, but not welcome, either. 

“Why can’t we show them together, Wei Ying? Why?”

“It doesn’t work. It’s too late for me. You saw what I did to them. You saw the monster I’ve become.”

The monster they made him into. It was their own hunger for the Yin Tiger Seal that drove Wei Ying to destroy it. The chaos that rained down, a disaster brought about by their greed, their prejudice, their failure to see Wei Ying and all that he was and cherish him as he deserved. 

Lan Wangji’s own failure. 

“Wei Ying--”

“I asked you to kill me once. If I was too far gone. Do you remember that?”

Lan Wangji freezes, his blood thickens and slows like ice in his veins. 

Of course he remembers. That night haunts him, will forever haunt him, now. The night he should have pulled himself up onto a horse and rode with them. The night he should have trusted Wei Ying. Should have protected him. 

His jaw barely moves, “I do.”

“Would you do it now?”

“Wei Ying?!” Lan Wangji jumps to his feet, dropping Wei Ying’s hand and immediately missing the touch. But he cannot-- He cannot. 

“I know,” Wei Ying says, a rueful edge to his tone. “You’re too good, Lan Zhan. You never agree to that.”

This time. Before. Always. Never. 

“Wei Ying, please.” Lan Wangji cannot hold the whine in his throat. 

“I could make you.”

There’s something in Wei Ying’s voice when he says it. Something malicious. 

No. Venomous. 

It is not evil. Wei Ying is not evil. He is good, sunlight, righteousness. 

Even the black and white banded snake strikes only in defense, or in hunger. Which is this, Lan Wangji wonders. Defense, or hunger?

“Wei Ying?”

“I could make you kill me,” he says, the venom thick on his tongue. “I haven’t tried that before. You would be the hero, then maybe you could stop the slaughter.”

“You are not a villain, Wei Ying!” His voice sounds harsh to his own ears. It ricochets off the stone walls like a rock slide in a canyon. Loud, crashing, and trembling. 

“I am,” Wei Ying presses. “I’m a monster, haven’t you heard? A demon. You would be venerated for putting me down.”

Wei Ying’s eyes -- clever and cruel -- begin to take on that eerie red hue, and Lan Wangji can’t stand it. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what else he can do. He has tried listening, he has tried confessing, he has tried arguing. None of it makes a difference. 

The tears he’s held back begin to burn once more. Insistent. Desperate. 

His body moves for him, seeking comfort in penance as it has over and over again. He spreads his skirts and kneels on the uneven stone. 

The stone is colder now, like the cold of snow over gentian blooms. It is rough and rugged like gravel. 

But he remembers that kneeling alone has never worked before. Kneeling alone has brought him nothing but absolution -- a release from the punishment, but not release from longing, not release from his own ruthless hunger. 

His mouth moves for him, “Please…”

He watches his tears fall, the curve of them catching whatever light is left in this cave. They shine like diamonds. 

“Please, Wei Ying…” 

They are as useless to him as diamonds. 

“It would crush you to do it, I know.” 

The ice in Wei Ying’s voice thaws a little. But Lan Wangji can see determination still flickering in his eyes. The red has faded, at least. The silver seems dulled with exhaustion. 

“We could do it together,” Wei Ying offers, “you and I. Draw your sword, Lan Zhan.”

“No.”

Lan Wangji tucks his fingers into fists and squeezes tight. It’s all he can do not to scream. Not to rage. Not to flee. 

“Lan Zhan, they’ll kill me either way. Let me die like this: in your arms, with you by my side.”

“I can’t--”

“A quick slide, right through my ribs. It will be almost peaceful this way.”

Almost peaceful --

“No!”

“You can hold me.” 

Lan Wangji feels the offer like a slap. He closes his eyes against it, against the want that curls in him even now. Even like this. 

“They’ll praise you for it.” Wei Ying knows him well enough to sound sorry about it. “You’ll hate that, but then the spoils will be yours. You can claim them. It could work, Lan Zhan.”

The spoils. The Wens. A’Yuan. As if anyone would allow him this. As if he wouldn’t have to wrench it from their greedy, grasping hands. 

“Wei Ying, please do not ask this of me.”

“It’s too much. I know. I know, Zhiji.”

Zhiji. I still am. 

Lan Wangji knows he’s being placated, but he doesn’t care. He grasps at the word -- the acknowledgment -- with both hands. He clutches them into Wei Ying’s bloody robes. 

“Zhiji. Zhiyin. Wei Ying.”

It still feels exhilarating to say. To speak into existence. Into memory. 

“You would do it if I asked you to. I know you would.” 

He would. It’s true. 

What does that make him? A monster? A fool? 

Tears stream down Lan Wangji’s face. He can feel their tracks on his cheeks. A deluge, unstoppable. Unimportant. 

Wei Ying bites his lip, turning it even paler around the dull edges of his teeth. 

“But is that something I can let myself ask of you? Is it too cruel? To make you bear this with me? To make you take some of the weight.”

He isn’t asking Lan Wangji. Not really. He’s thinking through a problem. Lan Wangji’s input is neither required nor requested. His opinion, his desire, is known. 

Lan Wangji begs anyway. 

“Please, don’t… Please, Wei Ying.”

Even as he does, he knows. He knows how this will end and he hates himself for it. He wishes, just for a moment, that he could be like his father. That he could say, No. You’re coming with me. I will keep you safe, whether you like it or not. 

But he can’t. 

Wei Ying is right. There are only so many ways forward. This one… This one could save lives. Possibly. Potentially. 

It’s excruciating. Like tilling soil on a mountain of bones. 

“Draw your sword, Lan Zhan.”

Bichen comes easy to his hands, once he’s untwisted them from Wei Ying’s robes. The white of the scabbard is too clean, too bright, for this place. The blade, too pure. 

“Wei Ying.”

“Good. Good. It’ll be quick. So quick.”

Lan Wangji knows well the speed at which life can drain from a body. 

He helps Wei Ying sit up as he slides himself down. Wei Ying is still far too thin, but the weight of him as he settles back against Lan Wangji’s chest is grounding. Lan Wangji tries to focus on that. On the places he and Wei Ying are pressed together. An embrace. A last comfort for Lan Wangji to hold onto. 

“Don’t worry,”Wei Ying says, “they’ll be here soon. They’ll see. They’ll help you. Your brother will help you.” 

Bichen’s tip settles easily -- too easily -- between the ladder-rungs of Wei Ying’s ribs. The blue light lends a sickly hue to Wei Ying’s pallor, but catches in his eyes like cold, crisp winter mornings. 

“Yes, right there.” 

The angle -- the angle that will kill Wei Ying with the least pain, the least suffering, the-- the fastest… It strains at Lan Wangji’s shoulder and elbow. He doesn’t have the qi to spend to hold Bichen with only his core. He has to use his hand. 

He has to use his hand. For this. 

“It’s okay, Lan Zhan. It’s okay. It’s okay if it’s you.”

“This is not--”

“I know. I know. Just hold me.”

This is not what they meant when they said this in the rain. Either of them. This is not what they wanted when they came to this cave. Either of them. 

But Wei Ying believes it will work, and Lan Wangji trusts Wei Ying. 

He wishes--

No. The time for wishes has passed. But there is, perhaps, time left one thing. 

“Wei Ying?”

“Yes, Lan Zhan?”

“May I say it.”

“Ha. Yes, Lan Zhan. I think. I think I’d like to hear it.”

“I love you, Wei Ying.”

“I know. I love you, too, Lan Zhan.”

“I know.”

And he finds he does know. Because as much as he trusts Wei Ying, Wei Ying is trusting him, too. He is here. In Lan Wangji’s arms. Ready to die. Ready for Lan Wangji to kill him. Because it is right. This time. 

Lan Wangji’s tears spill onto Wei Ying’s shoulder. 

“It’s okay, Lan Zhan. Deep breath. That’s it. It’s okay. It will be okay.”

“What’s that?”

But he knows. 

“Footsteps. They’re almost here.”

Lan Wangji nods. 

Wei Ying starts to beg. 

“Lan Zhan, please. You can do it. Please. Lan Zh--”

A short slide. 

“Wei Ying.”

The only light in the world goes out. 

--

“Wei Ying.”

.

“I love you.”

.

“I’m here.”

.

.

.

When his family enters the cavern, they bring with them talismans of light. Dozens of elders follow behind Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren, but Lan Wangji only really sees his brother. 

“Wangji?”

A sob cracks its way out of Lan Wangji’s chest. 

“Xiongzhang. He’s gone.”

Lan Xichen is gracious. His eyes don’t stray from Lan Wangji’s. Not to Wei Ying’s body, or the way Lan Wangji is clutching at it. Not to Bichen, dropped numbly to the ground, blood, red and glistening, wetting several inches at the tip. 

Not even to Lan Wangji’s bare forehead. Or to the ribbon wrapped -- too hastily, too late -- around Wei Ying’s wrist. 

He lets their uncle, their elders, witness those things. 

Lan Xichen simply kneels down before his brother and whispers, “Oh, Wangji.”

--

(Lan Wangji's love is kept secret. His vanquishing of the evil Yiling Laozu turned legend. He retreats from the world and builds a home for the Wens, this time on a mountain that is already green with life and rich with promise.)

(He wanders in the forgotten places, the places that do not know him. And he teaches his son that rumor is not to be trusted.)

(Lan Wangji will never be more grateful that Wei Ying didn't ask him to sing again as he is when he hears their song played on a poorly cut flute and thinks only of life, survival, and love.)

#lan wangji #wei wuxian #wangxian #fanfiction #mdzs #major character death #suicide #suicide by zhiji (but like softly) #time travel au #hurt/comfort #but mostly hurt #on both sides #angst #not a happy ending #except for that tiny bit at the end #not a fix it but not not a fix it #canon-divergent au #yeah this is mostly just pain that needed to be rounded out with lwj's pov #i have no excuses #enjoy #my writing #a necessary evil (begging) #first draft as always #i think i'm gonna get bold and post all three of these on ao3 for the thing! #but maybe some edits first......

[bugcatcherwill]

Grasping the Past on a Rito's Gale

As Link regains more and more memories, he realizes a certain Rito Champion was more present in his life than he originally thought. Now he must confront Revali's spirit. Both to fill in the gaps he's still missing, and find out why he kept the truth hidden all this time.

AO3 Link here (CW for canonical character death)

Wrote this Revalink one-shot from over a year ago. Figured I'd post it here :3

#revali #link #revalink #botw link #botw #loz #legend of zelda #hurt/comfort #but mostly hurt #revali is still dead and a ghost I'm sorry #link gets ghost cuddles

[inkskinned]

they want to talk about mental illness and acceptance and how everyone is a little ocd it's cute and quirky and their "intrusive thoughts" are about cutting their hair off and you say yours are about taking a razorblade to your eye and they say ew can you not and everyone is a little adhd sometimes! except if you're late it's a personality flaw and it's because you are careless and cruel (and someone else with adhd mentions they can be on time, so why can't you?) and it's not an eating disorder if it's girl dinner! it's not mania if it's girl math! what do you mean you blew all of your savings on nonrefundable plane tickets for a plane you didn't even end up taking. what do you mean that you are afraid of eating. get over it. they roll their little lips up into a sneer. can you not, like, trauma dump?

they love it on them they like to wear pieces of your suffering like jewels so that it hangs off their tongue in rapiers. they are allowed to arm-chair diagnose and cherrypick their poisons but you can't ever miss too many showers because that's, like, "fuckken gross?" so anyone mean is a narcissist. so anyone with visual tics is clearly faking it and is so cringe. but they get to scream and hit customer service employees because well, i got overwhelmed.

you keep seeing these posts about how people pleasers are "inherently manipulative" and how it's totally unfair behavior. but you are a people pleaser, you have an ingrained fawn response. in the comments, you have typed and deleted the words just because it is technically true does not make it an empathetic or kind reading of the reaction about one million times. it is technically accurate, after all. you think of catholic guilt, how sometimes you feel bad when doing a good deed because the sense of pride you get from acting kind - that pride is a sin. the word "manipulation" is not without bias or stigma attached to it. many people with the fawn response are direct victims of someone who was malignantly manipulative. calling the victims manipulative too is an unfair and unkind reading of the situation. it would be better and more empathetic to say it is safety-seeking or connection-seeking behavior. yes, it can be toxic. no, in general it is not intended to be toxic. there is no reason to make mentally ill people feel worse for what we undergo.

you type why is everyone so quick to turn on someone showing clear signs of trauma but you already know the fucking answer, so what's the point of bothering. you kind of hate those this is what anxiety looks like! infographics because at this point you're so good at white-knuckling through a severe panic attack that people just think you're stoic. even people who know the situation sometimes comment you just don't seem depressed. and you're not a 9 year old white kid so there's no way you're on the spectrum, you're not obsessed with trains and you were never a good mathematician. okay then.

mental illness is trending. in 2012 tumblr said don't romanticize our symptoms but to be fair tiktok didn't exist yet. there's these series of videos where someone pretends to be "the most boring person on earth" and is just being a normal fucking person, which makes your skin crawl, because that probably means you are boring. your friend reads aloud a profile from tinder - no depressed bitches i fucking hate that mental illness crap. your father says that medication never actually works.

you still haven't told your grandmother that you're in therapy. despite everything (and the fact it's helping): you just don't want her to see you differently.

#writeblr #warm up #to be clear let me state again: i think you should id however you fucking want if it helps you seek peace #but there is a HUGE difference between being like '.... im undiagnosed but i think i might be X' #and a person who is like ''omg my intrusive thoughts made me buy a birkin!!!'' #babe mine made me throw up bc they disgusted me so much <3 #mine made me hurt myself evenly. even when i wanted to stop. i have had to put my hand on the stove MULTIPLE TIMES #and again i'd rather have 10000 people get help for something they don't need help for #than have 1 kid NOT get help #but there has GOTTTTT to be a middle ground here #bc at this point it isn't ''raising awareness'' #it's . fucking misinformation. and ''what this picture says about you!!!!!'' #& yes! im mostly talkin about ppl who are actually disgusted and offended by signs of mental illness #but use it to defend THEIR actions #like babe you hate when kids start yelling in the walmart? but you YOuRSELF can yell? #you are depressed so it's fine you were cruel to your spouse? #but if your spouse spends too much time in bed she's a lazy fuck? #your partner needs to do everything for you bc of your history in trauma? but when SHE has needs she's being clingy and gross? #HUGE difference here between whom i think most of my followers are btw. like #all it takes is fucking anyyyy empathy or kindness . like. #anyway it's hard to explain im hoping we all know the person im talking about lol

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Baby just wanted to be friends with Abby..

#myart #chloesimagination #comic #michael afton #abby schmidt #circus baby #elizabeth afton #fnaf #fnaf movie #sister location #fnaf fanart #five nights at freddy's #baby just wanted to give Abby an ice cream that’s all :-) #Michael is overreacting what is he so scared of- #fr though I like to think Baby is this devious #she’s mostly messing with Michael and had no real intentions of hurting Abby #she’s just doing a lil trolling #a lil mischief

[sp0o0kylights]

Bullshit.

The word rings obnoxiously in Steve’s ears as he pushes his way out back, not wanting to be anymore of a talking piece at this party than he already was.

He’d just wanted Nancy to stop drinking, take a second, pace herself…

Steve swipes furiously at his eyes, and then curses when it nearly causes him to run into Chrissy Cunnginham, who’s perched in a chair tucked away from the patio door.

“Sorry, sorry.” He apologizes, trying not to sound like he’s upset, trying to keep his cool--only for her to look up and away, brushing off her own tears.

“Oh.” Steve says, a little laugh bubbling out of him. “You too huh?”

Thankfully she correctly interprets that he's not laughing at her, and adds her own giggle to the mix, the sound gentle even if pitched in upset.

"Boy problems?" Steve asks her, sinking down to the vacant chair on Chrissy's right.

She nods, clasping her hands together in her lap.

"Girl problems?" She asks back, and he grimaces a smile.

They sit for a minute, Steve pulling out a cigarette and offering it to her before lighting up. Chrissy shakes her head, and though her nose curls a little at the smoke she doesn’t say anything.

Neither of them do, staring at the few people bringing the party outside in the way only drunk teenagers can.

"Can I tell you something?" Chrissy says finally, as Steve continues to struggle to keep himself breathing evenly (and not spiraling. He still has to go back and try and escort Nancy home, and he needs to keep his temper when he does it.)

She licks her lips. "I keep trying to break up with Jason, but he won't let me."

It takes a second for the words to register, but when they do he leans himself towards chrissy in concern. “What do you mean, he won’t let you?”

“He’s not--it’s not…”She trails off, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “He talks me out of it is all.”

She’s downplaying it, and Steve’s concern grows tenfold. “Does he argue with you or just…tells you no or something?”

"It's complicated." Chrissy says, refusing to look at him. "He has this vision for me, for us."

Steve watches as she worries at a hangnail.

Feels the need to reach out and take her hand, but keeps his own hands to himself.

If Steve has learned anything, it's that not everyone wants to be touched as much as he does.

"He keeps telling me I'm just being anxious. That I should trust him, and I do, he just expects me to always do what he says? And more and more lately I--"

She huddles down into the little cat costume she's wearing, pulling the thin black sweater around her. "I want different things than he does."

Steve wonders vaguely if Nancy wants different things.

Or a different person entirely.

"That's not fair to you." Steve says, leaning forward and lowering his own voice. "He can't keep you in a relationship you don't want to be in."

A hard thing for him to say, after the bathroom conversation but this is different.

‘Please, let this be different.’ He thinks, before pushing the thought aside.

"He can't force you to do what he wants just because he wants it, or thinks its best. He should be listening to you and what you want too. Relationships are about…compromise right?” It’s what he’s heard anyway, though most of the time “compromise” means “letting the other person get what they want.”

Which is what he thought he’d been doing for Nancy all this time.

“I can help you if you want. Be your," Steve poorly mimes waving a pom pom. "cheer support."

Chrissy looks at him, eyes still wet. "You would?"

"Of course.” He says, before scooting just a smidgen closer. “Might have to ask you to return the favor though. Nancy said some things tonight and I could really use a second--”

A loud curse makes them both startle, interrupting Steve.

Together, they look around before another noise, like bark being scraped, draws both their attention to the large oak that stands in the backyard.”

"Is…is that Eddie Munson?" Chrissy asks.

"I think so."

Chrissy squints a little, as if not quite believing what she's seeing. "Is…he stuck in a tree?"

Steve finds himself staring in his own disbelief, hands moving to his hips as he watches Munsons wriggling, cursing form.

"I think so." He repeats with a shake of his head.

Eddie's foot slips off a branch, once, twice.

"Hey--" Steve calls out in warning, but unfortunately it comes too late.

The branch under his foot gives away with a startling crack! as another branch shreds Munson's jacket as his full weight caches on it.

"Oh!" Chrissy gasps, hand flying to her mouth as Eddie falls right onto his ass with a yelp.

"You good man?" Steve asks, rising from his chair, hesitant to go over but needing to make sure the idiot hasn't cracked his skull open.

Chrissy has no such qualms, popping up to run over to Munson.

"You're bleeding." She tells him worriedly, dropping to her knees to get a better look.

"Well shit." Munson says with a wonky grin. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?” Chrissy asks, as Steve’s newly honed babysitting instincts kick in and drive him to get up and look at Munson’s injury himself.

Chrissy carefully strokes the older teen’s hair out of his face, as Steve bends down to check his head and neck.

"You hurt anywhere?" He asks, spotting the scratch that had Chrissy worried.

It’s on his forehead--the guy must have knocked his face against the tree when he fell. Head injuries always bleed a ton but this one's well contained to a small scrape.

Probably not a concern, though Steve looks at his pupils anyways.

"Nah, I’m pine. I didn't mean to drop in on you guys.” He waves a hand behind him before dropping his voice to a dramatic whisper. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that tree, it was pretty shady.”

Steve, long trained by Dustin, narrows his eyes. "Are you making puns right now?"

"Maybe?" Munson hedges, looking delighted to have been called out.

“Uh huh.” Steve puts his hands back on his hips, straightening up from where he’d crouched down. “Your head okay? You remember your name and shit?”

“Edward Edwardian Munson, present and ready for duty!” He gives a mock salute, before dropping Chrissy a wink. “If the duty is drinking and playing games that is.”

“Your middle name cannot be Edwardian.” Chrissy laughs.

"It is!" He defends, at the same time Steve says,

“It's not "

“Oh?” Munson challenges, as if this entire situation isn’t ridiculous. “Then what is my middle name, Sir Steven?”

“No idea, but I know it’s not that.”

Munson blows a raspberry at him. “Well then, maybe you should mind your own beeswax."

"Like you were doing? Up in the tree right above us?" Steve banters back.

The playful look dies a little, Munson beginning the painful process of standing after one falls.

"For the record, I absolutely was not eavesdropping, you guys just happened to be under the tree I climbed and I was there first. " He says it rapidly, like he's used to being accused of such things, and is heading off as many problems as he can.

Steve just ignores it, opting instead to hold his hands out. One to Chrissy and one to Eddie.

Watches surprise cross the older teens face, even as he waits for Chrissy to get up before accepting Steve's hand.

"Why were you up a tree? The family dog run you up there?" Steve grunts as he pulls the metalhead up.

"Funny." Munson quipped sarcastically. "But no. I was up there for reasons."

'Reasons.' Steve mouths, and has to fight himself to keep from grinning.

"Even though I was there first, I did happen to hear some things." He looks at Chrissy, voice turning serious. "If you need any help getting things through Carver's thick skull I'd love to lend a hand."

"You would cheer for me too?"

"Oh absolutely. I'd make a far better cheerleader than Harrington here." He shoots a grin towards Steve to take the edge off the words, before doing a far more enthusiastic mimicry of the cheerleaders pom pom routine.

"But I know how much Carver hates the word no. If you break up with him and he gives you shit after, I'm happy to step in."

Steve hadn't actually thought about that yet, but given what he knew of Jason it makes sense.

He could easily see Chrissy worrying about Jason harassing her after the break up.

"Thank you. Both of you." She sniffs. "Eddie, are you sure you're okay?"

"Right as rain!" Munson gives a rather theatrical thumbs up. "I'll let you in on a family secret, we Munson's have rubber bones."

She gives him another giggle for his efforts, and even Steve can’t fully cover his

Munson, the ass, notices.

“Well call me the court jester, I got both the King and Queen to smile!” He cheers.

Steve rolls his eyes, but doesn't deny it.

"Chrissy!?" Someone barks, loud in the otherwise quiet backyard.

"Speak of the devil." Eddie drops his voice dramatically as Jason strides out of the house.

"I've been looking for you." He chides, two of his friends following close behind.

They're younger members of the basketball team, ones Steve's brain sluggishly attempts to remember.

"Are your knees dirty?" Jason asks Chrissy, disgust tinting his voice as he slowly looks from her to Munson next to her.

His eyes narrow, expression almost offronted.

"You heathen." Jason snarls, stepping forward with a fist clenched.

It was a move right of the sitcoms Steve swore he didn't watch, and it looked just as cheesy in real life as it did on screen.

"Calm down." Steve speaks up, hands going to his hips.

Jason's head jerks as he registers him, so focused on Munson that Steve slipped his notice entirely.

"Harrington?" He asks, as if Steve could be mistaken for anyone else here.

Steve gives him jazz hands in return.

"What are you doing out here?" Jason speaks only to Steve, whole body angling towards him like he's the only person who matters.

It's something Steve's dad does, if there's a businessman he considers to be an equal in the room. Zoning in on them, so he can subtly work in ways to make them feel inferior.

It's narcissism at its core (or so says his mother, when she's blitzed out on too many glasses of wine.)

"Talking to people." Steve deadpans. "If you're looking for beer, you walked past it."

Jason entire face pinches, like he just stepped in dog shit. "No one just talks to Munson."

It's a stupid thing to say, and whatever Hason was trying to imply with it wasn't appreciated.

"Well mark me as the first." Steve's hip cocks, voice frosting over.

Surprise washes across Munson's face, though he remains silent as Steve deals with Jason.

Probably a smart move, given how Jason seems to be eager for a fight.

"Whatever it is you're doing, you can leave Chrissy out of it." He says, and god his voice even sounds like Steve's dad.

"Chrissy," Steve says, with an eyebrow raise he knows looks judgemental, "can speak for herself."

He turns to face her, inviting her to the conversation, in the same way he'd always wished someone would invite his mother to speak against his father.

Watches as the cheerleader bites her lip, trying hard to hide the tears that have sprung to her eyes--but proves that she's stronger than Steve's mother ever was.

She steps forward, taking the opportunity offered to her with a steadying breath. "Jason--"

"You can explain it to me later." Her boyfriend waves her off, like she was a waitress offering water and not his partner.

Uncaring entirely that she's clearly upset.

That she wants to talk.

Munson has come to stand on Chrissy's other side, gone still in a way Steve's never seen him do.

It's downright weird for a guy who's normally always moving, and Steve knows it's defensive.

He's feeling a little defensive himself right now, though he doesn't want to particularly untangle why.

"Jason, listen to me." Chrissy tries again.

In his preffery vision, Steve spots a flash of familiar color. Turns his head automatically, seeking it out--and sees Jonathan hustling Nancy across the room.

The younger man is trying to balance Nancy while opening the front door, and for a second Steve almost beelines for them, except--

Except.

Nancy's whole body moves in what Steve intimately knows is an exhale, leaning her head in the crook of Jonathan's shoulder.

One arm wraps around his waist, as Jonathan finally gets the door open, and Steve watches with a stunned sort of horror as his girlfriend presses a kiss to Jonathan's shoulder.

It's fine.

He's fine.

Nancy was just--drunk. Seeking comfort. She didn't know what she was doing. She didn't mean it like that, she didn't--

"Oh shit Harrington." Jason drawls, a lazy sort of taunt. "I think Byers just stole your girlfriend."

Steve's head snaps back to him, the emotions he was attempting to box up flying to the front of his brain like dogs who slipped their leash.

"Never thought a priss like Nancy would be easy like that, but then, you never were the kind of guy to inspire loyalty." Jason continues, clearly ignoring his own girlfriend and all Steve can see is red.

Munson sucks air between his teeth next to him, nervously eyeing Steve while Chrissy's eyes have gone wide with shock and growing anger.

"Jason!" She admonishes, but he's not even looking towards her.

That too sharp smile is all for Steve.

He thinks of Nancy, the way she'd been so angry with him but so gentle with Jonathan.

He thinks of the monster he faced down in the Byers house, the terror that had shrank down to that same adrenaline soaked focus he had on the basketball court.

He thinks of this asshole Junior in front of him.

Making Chrissy cry just because she'd been kind enough to try to help Eddie, and accept Eddie's kindness in return when the weirdo tried to help her and Steve both.

Steve taps his foot, then switches his stance.

'Plant your feet.' Hargroves voice snarls in his memory and Steve wouldn't be surprised if the asshole abandons the keg long enough to come watch this.

Have his turn at heckling, just because he can.

Steve plants his feet anyway.

"You know what Carver?" He says, hands dropping from his hips.

Jason's face curves into a smile. "What?" He says, tone smarmy.

"You're full of shit."

Hand cocking back of its own accord, Steve puts every bit of himself into his punch.

Feels it reverberate up his arm as his knuckles connect to Jason's cheek.

It's going to hurt later, but right now all he can do is stand over Jason as the asshole's head snaps sideways, legs staggering him backwards until he's falling into his friends.

Chrissy gasps, Jason's boys chanting variations of 'Oh shit!'

Steve just glares him down.

The junior wipes his bloodied mouth, letting his friends push him up before shrugging them off.

"You're going to regret that." Jason snarls, and Steve squares up a second time, expecting to be rushed, when the sharp snickt! of a switchblade freezes them both.

"I think we're done here." Munson says, knife in hand.

The blade he holds is stained a deep, russet red. Crusty flakes fall off it, drifting gently down to the patio floor.

Jason's eyes boggle at it for a moment before he stands up straight.

"Now it makes sense. You're weak, Harrington, letting the Freak get his claws into you." Jason spits bloodstained saliva down at Eddie's feet. "No wonder Coach wants Billy as co-captain!"

Steve just scoffs.

"Chrissy!" Carver barks, making the poor girl jump. "Come here, we're leaving!"

Trembling, but stepping closer to Steve, she shakes her head.

"Chrissy." Jason orders again, and has the audacity to point to his feet, like a man commanding his dog.

"No." Chrissy says it quietly at first, voice a little shaky, before she seems to realize it.

She stands taller, repeats herself in a stronger voice. "No, Jason. We're done."

Jason stares at her, hard. "Chrissy, your mother told me to bring you home. So I'm going to take you home and get you away from this--demon and his lackey!"

It doesn't sound loving.

It sounds like a threat.

He steps forward, hand out to grab her arm and Steve tenses, shifting to step in front of Chrissy.

Eddie beats him there.

The word demon seems to awaken something in him, because his face is now grinning theatrically, voice dipping low in pitch.

"You heard her, Carver. She said no, and even I respect a lady's wish. So run along now," he walks two fingers in the air, from the hand not waving the knife around. "before I decide to make you and her both one of mine, just as I did Harrington!"

Jason actually crosses himself, before making one last attempt for Chrissy.

"That monster is dangerous. if you don't come with me, I'll have to alert your parents." He locks eyes with her. "For the good of your soul."

Steve snorts at that crock of shit, but Eddie lunges forward, slashing the knife in the air.

It's nowhere near Jason, but the guy leaps a foot back anyway.

"Begone!" Eddie booms, and that's all it takes for Jason and his cronies to huff and puff and stride away.

He keeps his arms in the air for a few beats more, before dropping them when it's clear Jason won't be back.

"So I'm yours, huh?" Steve drawls, as Eddie finally puts his hands down and turns to face them.

The guys scary face drops into something almost excited, and Steve can practically see the adrenaline crackling through him.

"Hey it worked. Carver's a religious nut, he goes running anytime you even hint at Satan." Eddie shrugs, grinning wildly. "Put on a little show and poof! Him and his flying monkeys melt away!"

He mimes melting and Steve stares at him for it, until he hears Chrissy laughing next to him.

Eddie grins at her and Steve is hit with the realization that it was for her benefit. To make her feel better about her psycho ex.

Something fond and familiar winds through his chest as the other boy bows.

He refuses to put a name to it.

"Did you paint your knife?" He asks instead, rubbing the hand he hit Jason with.

"What?" Eddie asks, startled out of his court jester act.

Steve nods to his hand holding the switchblade. "That's not blood, it's way too red."

"Ah." Eddie turns the grin back on, and this time it's for Steve. "Yeah, it's uh. Modeling paint. Not like Carver would know the difference."

Unspoken was the fact that he hadn't thought Steve would.

Prior to last year, he'd have been right.

Drunken cheering erupts into wild yells inside, breaking whatever spell the three of them were under.

Hargrove's voice is the loudest among them, and the dude is definitely wasted.

Steve has a feeling Hargrove also knows the difference between paint and blood, rendering Munson's knife trick useless if the dick tried to start something.

"Do you want a ride home, Chrissy?" He asks quietly.

"If it's not a bother." She says, wiping tears shed refused to let fall from her eyes.

Chrissy Cunningham was a lot stronger than people gave her credit for.

"Come on, Munson, I think it's time we all make our exit." Steve says, finding himself weirdly unwilling to leave the older teen behind.

Eddie could hold his own, but given how badly things were playing out Steve figured it was best if they all just called it a day.

"Yeah lemme just…" Munson puts his blade away, fumbling at his pockets for a moment before turning and snatching up a metal lunchbox.

"There! After you, my liege." He says, before opening the lunchbox to make it talk.

"My lady." He makes it say, pitching his voice high.

Chrissy breaks into giggles again and Steve rolls his eyes, but he claps his good hand on Eddie's shoulder as he walks past.

Eddie smiles at him, this one a bit softer than the others, eyes sparkling and Steve chooses not to read into that either.

The three of them walk together, Eddie splitting off to his van after Chrissy thanks him.

Part Two

#borked my computer trying to update the graphics card #have a thing #steven harrington #eddie munson #chrissy cunningham #this is part of an almost finished one shot #eventual #steve/eddie/chrissy #eddie is a dork #100% this oneshot focuses on how dorky his ass is #well that and putting two jocks back together after bad relationships and monster's details both their lives #i called it patchworks because its written to ne weaved through the shows plot and is mostly compliant until vecna #hurt/comfort #breakup

[alpacacare-archive]

the brainworms are kiiling me. have a dad and son 👍︎

#papyrus #gaster #dadster #undertale #theres still not enough papyrus and dadster content where sans isnt present compared to the other way around #what will be enough you ask? well idk the exact amount cus numbers are infinite but yaknow #gaster supports let papyrus say fuck day #i believe he just sucks at parenting so papyrus cussed his whole life #and since gaster found out about the holiday papyrus has been nothing but encouraged by his dad #mostly out of spite towards the people who still believe his son to be 5 years old #im sorry i saw someone refer to papyrus as a prec**s cin***on ro*l and had to do something #my shoulder hurts so bad and drawing and typing worsens it and i have an exam tommorow i need to rest it for and look what im doing. #being silly. #>:[

[imfinereallyy]

Steve Harrington hadn’t talked to his dad in a year.

The last thing the two of them had talked had been after the earthquakes, across the room in the den; his dad barely stepped through the front entryway, and Steve’s back pressed against the back door. The house was messy but still standing, unlike Steve, who was broken and barely keeping himself upright. The only thing Richard Harrington had said to Steve was,

“I think it’s time to move on.” Which was his way of telling Steve they were selling the house and he should figure out his own arrangements. Steve hadn’t cared, though. Didn’t even look at him as he spoke. Instead, he stared at the cracks in the ceiling and wondered if it was some kind of metaphor.

He tried not to think too deeply about it.

It had been a year since then. There had been time to move on, as his dad said. There was no more Upside Down. There was no more worrying about the next move. Max and Eddie were healed. Everyone was back in Hawkins. Robin and Steve lived in a little house on Fifth while Robin took community courses. Eddie practically lived there, too, with the strange friendship bond that had grown between the three of them.

Eddie had argued once it was because their couch was comfier than his bed, but Steve liked to think it was because Eddie wanted to be close to them. To be close to him. Sometimes Steve thought about letting him stay in his bed together.

Time had not moved to that yet.

Everything seemed good. Despite Steve’s resentment towards Richard, and his reluctance to admit the man was right, sometimes it was good to let things go, break apart and move on. Though Steve was sure, this wasn’t exactly what Harrington Sr. meant.

Steve hadn’t talked to his father in over a year. And he didn’t really miss him. Sure, there were moments that passed when Steve would yearn for the small happy moments between them. Secret smiles at baseball games, lunch at his office, and him cheering Steve on at the one swim championship he managed to show up to.

But it always got mixed in with bigger, badder moments. Being left alone for months on end. The belittling. The missed graduation. The yelling. The slurs when he grew his hair out too long. The cold way he said to Steve,

“I think it’s time to move on.”

Like he had been breaking up with a high school sweetheart before leaving for college.

So Steve didn’t miss the man, not really. But in moments like these, in the back of the Byers-Hopper’s backyard at the Father’s Day BBQ, where all party members and parents alike gathered, Steve couldn’t help but ache.

Steve ached for something better than Richard Harrington.

It wasn’t because of parents who stuck around that made Steve’s stomach churn in jealousy, but the ones who decided to show up. It was the way Wayne threw his arm around Eddie’s shoulder and the cheers their beers to something probably ridiculous. The way Steve knew that man would crawl to the ends of the earth for someone who wasn’t technically his, but was nothing short of a son.

It was the way El and Hop manned the grill together. Him laughing at something El said, probably something ridiculous, and her smile back that could light up the sun. The way Steve knew that El wasn’t a replacement for the things Hop had lost, but instead an addition to his life he would choose over and over again.

Steve ached to be loved and care for because someone wanted to. Not because of obligation or by accident. Steve wanted to loved deliberately.

Steve sipped his beer instead of bringing down the celebration with his thoughts. Eddie caught Steve’s eye across the yard and gave him a megawatt smile. Steve couldn’t help but smile shyly back.

“Hey, Steve.” A shy voice said beside him, startling him out of his thoughts. Steve turned to find Dustin standing beside him, nearly up to his nose now with his recent growth spurt. Steve couldn’t help but miss when he was small and could throw him over his shoulder.

Steve was a little surprised to find him there. Dustin wasn’t one to speak small or shy. He liked to make his presence known (much like the lovable metal head he was staring down earlier).

“Hey bud, what’s up?”

Dustin looked around the two of them before answering. Everyone else was with their dads, or talking to one of the party members. Even Robin managed to wrangle her dad and Mr. Sinclair into a conversation about WWII. Dustin looked a little relieved everyone was doing their own thing.

“Okay so you know how like, everyone is celebrating their dad today? And mine isn’t here?”

Steve felt his stomach drop. Somehow in the midst of his self-pitying, he had forgotten that Dustin’s dad wasn’t around either. Didn’t even stick around long enough for his first words. “Yea, dude, I’m sorry this must suck for you.”

Dustin looked nervous. He shifted on his feet back and forth, as if he was trying to find a rhythm to calm himself down. “Yea, so that’s what I actually came over to talk to you about.”

“Yea, Dustin. Im here if you need to talk.”

Dustin seemed to finally be at ease and rolled his eyes at Steve. “No, asshole, I don’t need to talk. I haven’t thought about the dick in years, if I’m honest. I just, it’s something else. And you don’t get to be weird about it.”

“I’m confused.”

“That sounds about right.”

“Hey!” Steve laughed despite his protest. A year ago, stuff like that hurt Steve’s feelings. But now Steve knew it was all in good fun, that Dustin was kind of dick to everyone. And he knew that the joke wasn’t about his intelligence. It hadn’t been a long time, since Steve threatened to push him out of a moving vehicle last time. Steve was pretty sure it had to do with a particular conversation involving his feelings for more than women.

Only Dustin and Robin knew. She was overly supportive, and Dustin instantly made a joke. Both made Steve supported and safe.

The dumbasses.

“Not my fault this happens to you often.”

“Is there a point being made or are you here to just be a dick?” Steve questioned, laughing behind the lip of his beer.

Dustin fidgeted again before pulling something out his back pocket. “Just—promise not to laugh.”

Steve crossed his heart with a giggle before he took a folded white piece of paper out of Dustin’s hands.

Suddenly, Steve’s face got serious as he saw what was on the front.

A poorly drawn Steve with a nail baseball bat, with the title “Happy Father’s Day”.

Steve swallowed thickly before placing his beer on the ground and opening the card. There in Dustin’s chicken scratch, was a message.

Dear Steve,

Don’t be weird about this. Okay here it goes.

My dad wasn’t around a lot, big whoop. Big surprise. I honestly don’t care anymore. Don’t give me a look.

I honestly didn’t think I would really care about any of the dad stuff, didn’t feel like I was really missing out. My mom and her annoying love for cats has always been more than enough. But as time went by sometimes I thought maybe I would be better, I would be different if I had a dad. I see it with the rest of the party, how willingly or unwillingly they all reflect their dads. And how I don’t.

Sometimes I don’t feel like my whole self because if it. Thought maybe I would never really be a whole me because of it. That maybe the world was better off anyway because I know I am a lot.

But then I met you asshole.

I didn’t think I would like you, and more importantly I didn’t think you would like me. But suddenly we are battling worlds together, and you’re hanging out with me even outside the end of days, and I have a new best friend.

If I’m being honest I do see you more as a brother. Someone I look up to. But the more I think about it (again don’t be weird), I do see you as a dad some days. Although the hands on hips do scream mother hen, you’ve been a dad to me in the ways the asswipe who made someone as amazing as me hasn’t been.

You are brave, and funny and despite popular belief you are kind. One of the kindest people I know. You make me feel safe and loved, and give me rides despite me never giving you gas money. Some days I look in the mirror and see parts of you in me, and I feel proud.

Some days I look at you and hope that I can see the braveness and kindness in myself too. I don’t yet, but you make it feel possible.

I don’t need a sperm donor (thank you Robin for that one), I have the world’s okayest dad right here.

Love you brother, friend, dad.

Happy Father’s Day, from your fellow nerd,

Dustin <3

Steve was crying. He knew that. He knew he promised not to make it weird, but Steve couldn’t help it. The little shit got him right in the heart.

He couldn’t be blamed for scooping up Dustin in a hug. “I love you too, Dusty Buns.”

Dustin squeezed Steve tight, “You don’t get to call me that.” He grumbled, but Steve could feel his tshirt getting wet.

“As your father it is my right to get to call you embarrassing nick names.” Steve squeezed Dustin even tighter.

Dustin just laughed and pushed him away jokingly. They both wiped their eyes, but the smiles on their faces remained.

Steve thought about Richard at that moment again, about how he ached for someone to care. And maybe Steve would never get it, but he could be that someone for someone else. He could give that care, Dustin.

The little shit.

“Thank you Dustin.”

Dustin shook his head, his crooked smile remained. “Nah man, thank you.”

They both just stared at each other in comfortable silence before they were interrupted by a barking force.

“What are you two saps talking about?” Eddie slung his arms around the both of them, mouth spread wide in a grin. But then he noticed the tear tracks, and suddenly his face dropped.

Eddie took Steve’s face in his hands, “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Steve shook his head fondly, “Nothing—“ He started, preparing to wave it off. But then Steve realized he couldn’t lie to Eddie. “—nothing bad. Happy tears. I promise.”

Eddie looked at Steve for a moment before nodding, giving his face a tight squeeze, and then dropping his hands. “Okay, Stevie, as long as their happy tears.”

“What am I? Chopped liver?” Dusting grumbled.

“Aweee Dusty, I could never forget you!!” Eddie threw himself at Dustin in a horrible attempt at a hug.

Dustin just pushed him off before rolling his eyes. Steve swore they were gonna get stuck one day.

“Whatever, man. Just make sure that you treat my dad right, or I’m going to have to make some tough calls.” Dustin stared down Eddie seriously before laughing evilly and walking away.

Steve wanted to freeze at Dustin’s implication, but Eddie looked adorably confused, so Steve didn’t feel too bad.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Is this new? Him just getting protective about this without explaining?” Eddie asked Steve.

“Don’t worry about it.” Steve looked down at the card again wistfully, before glancing back up at Eddie. Steve took one of Eddie’s hands and started to play with his rings. A blush bloomed across Eddie’s cheeks; Steve wanted to kiss him. Instead, he just said,

“Just think he’s trying to be a little like his dad.”

***

Dad’s are complicated, and family isn’t always blood. I hope you enjoyed my little Father’s Day contribution. I do headcannon Hopper as Steve’s father figure/replacement, and usually write it that way but this seemed like a fun opportunity to show how Steve is his own father figure for others.

He is a good egg.

Now with Father’s Day over, my birthday is in two weeks which is making me feel all sorts of things. So I’m distracting myself with steddie. Either way expect a lot of writing and updates soon.

#Steve Harrington and Dustin Henderson friendship #steddie #just boys and gals and their replacement fathers #they all deserve a little love and a little reminder of it #give Steve Harrington the support from the party he deserves! #Steve Harrington #dustin henderson #eddie munson #bisexual steve harrington #gay eddie munson #happy fathers day #stranger things #my writing #hurt/comfort #but mostly comfort #long fic #ficlet #the party

[p4nishers]

there's something i need to say and yall can boo me for it but deep in my heart i'll always know i'm correct: crowley already forgave aziraphale. like already would take him back at one flutter of his eyelashes. that's all.

#do i wish he wouldn't forgive so easily (tho i don't actually think aziraphale needs forgiveness since he didn't do anything wrong and #actually without his decision their love story would've been stuck as it was for more than 6000 years and also heaven would never change #without someone dismantling it and making it new) #yes i do wish that and i also wish he'd learn self worth but we gotta be realistic here he never once been able to stay mad at aziraphale #all those times they had fights where aziraphale was (mostly) in the wrong and rejected crowley what did crowley do? immediately come #CRAWLING and BEGGING back like pls yall this is why i don't read post s2 fics bc everyone suddenly seems to forget their whole canon #personalities and history w each other and it's annoying me so much like i get that we all are hoping crowley learns from his mistakes and #stops being so easy for aziraphale (not me tho) but realistically speaking it's just not gonna happen and once again aziraphale DIDN'T. DO. #ANYTHING. WRONG. yes he hurt crowley with his decision but CROWLEY HURT HIM WITH HIS TOO so if yall wants an apology dance it's gonna turn #into a waltz cause they'd both need to do it #good omens #good omens s2 #azicrow #crowley #aziraphale #aziracrow #ineffable spouses #good omens season 2 #ineffable husbands #go s2

[rosieofcorona]

A Light To Break All Shadows

Just a fluffy little Halsin x Tav fic to keep the darkness at bay. Also on AO3, if you prefer. Thank you for reading! 💕

“How long has it been since you’ve slept?”

Tav is eyeing Halsin suspiciously from the opposite end of Art’s bedside, where he’s been keeping watch over the sick man for days. At least, Halsin thinks it’s been days– perhaps three (or maybe four?) at the most. It is difficult to keep track in the Shadowlands.

At any rate, he cannot answer her immediately, which means his answer is insufficient.

“If you have to think about it,” Tav continues, “It’s been too long.”

She has a point.

He is exhausted, as they all are, but cannot bring himself to rest. They are so close– he is so close– to finding the child that will save them, to ending the hundred-year darkness, to restoring light and balance to the land. 

And Art Cullagh, ill as he is, is the key that will unlock their victory, so Halsin feels as though he must protect him every moment, must stay by his side in case he should wake, or take a turn. 

For days, he has persisted, spurred on by his stamina and willpower. For days, he has waited and watched. Now the idea of sleep falls on him like a spell. 

“It is my duty.” He protests. “I will see this through.” “You will,” she agrees, “When you wake. These people will need you in the days to come. And they will need you to be rested.”

She is playing to his sense of responsibility, he knows, but he is too tired to argue. Reluctantly, he nods his agreement. 

When he rises from his chair, it seems that all his centuries of existence catch up to him at once, his joints and muscles burning. He feels old and sore and weary as he drags himself toward an empty bed.

“Go on,” Tav commands gently. She feels like a mother nudging a child off to sleep. “Even the greatest leaders need rest.”

“Then you ought to rest yourself.”

She laughs at that, though Halsin means it. He knows so few who are so capable, so resilient, so kind. She has already accomplished so many things that he could not, not in hundreds of years of practice.

“You flatter me,” Tav smiles, but Halsin shakes his head. 

“You are extraordinary.” 

His gaze is on her when he says it, on her eyes and mouth and hands, the way her armor cleaves to her, the way her weapon rests against her hip. In another place, another time, another life, he would have had her already, would have known her inside and out if she asked him to. 

And she had asked him to, once, before they came here. He remembers. At the time he had denied her as gently as he could, in the knowledge that what was growing between them, if cultivated, could later prove a distraction, a weakness. 

But gods, he had wanted her then. He wants her still. 

Yet such urges, much like sleep, must be suppressed. At least for now.

Tav stares back at him with wide eyes until she feels a flush come over her cheeks. She turns her face away, just slightly, so that Halsin will not see. 

“Well.” She clears her throat, and redirects. “I’ll rest before we go scouting tomorrow. And I’ll watch Art while you sleep.” 

“As you say.” 

**********

In his dreams, he is back in the Shadowfell, that sunless, cursed place. 

At his feet are bodies, Harper and druid and shade alike. He knows their faces, their names, their stories. Here is Atlan, a boy from his own grove, no more than eighteen years of age. Halsin had cured him once of pox, had later mentored him in the healing arts. 

And here, Jehan the Harper, who had just received word that his wife was expecting. Twins, he’d announced, over a round of drinks at Last Light. 

And Moranna, the Selunite priestess who had blessed them again and again on their journey, had prayed over them and shielded them to the best of her ability. 

All lost to the shadows, corrupted beyond recognition. All dead, cut down by his hand. 

Halsin does his best to avoid stepping on them as he presses onward, each step a battle of its own. The weight of darkness seems to crush him, seems to drain the very life out of his body. 

His god is nowhere here. 

There comes a voice through the black night, distant, disembodied. Halsin, the shadows whisper, and whisper again, closer. Halsin. 

Wildly he turns and swings his glaive, hitting nothing, the panic rising in his throat, and–

“Halsin!” Tav exclaims, blocking a swing of his fist with her forearm. 

She is sitting at the edge of his bed looking concerned, frightened even. His skin is slicked with sweat, his breathing heavy, his body tangled in the bed linens. 

Immediately, a white-hot shame rushes over him, that he should be the one to cause her fear. 

That he should strike at her, even unconsciously, his savior, his ally. His friend, though that is too weak a word for the feeling that grows within him, wraps around his heart like wild ivy. 

“Forgive me,” he pants, “I was–” 

I was lost in the darkness, he means to say, I was frightened and alone, but the words stick in his throat like flies in honey.

Yet Tav seems to know already, a tenderness softening the furrows of her brow. Not pity, he notes. Understanding. 

She has seen equivalent horrors, has seen friends fall and foes flourish and still, and still, keeps fighting toward goodness, toward light. He aches with the thought that she might have such nightmares, that she might know firsthand how he feels now. 

But she soothes him, reaches out to wipe the sweat from his brow, her touch as light and cool as an evening breeze. 

“It’s alright,” she promises. “You don’t have to explain. You are safe here.”

Halsin lets out a breath he’s been holding for too long. It has been many years since he was last comforted, truly comforted. He is so accustomed to doing the comforting that he has almost forgotten what it feels like to be on the receiving end. 

Tenderness is no stranger to him– many of his lovers have been gentle, have been sweet– but none have ever known his burdens, none have carried them, taken them on as their own. Here is one who has, who does, who will, if he will let her. 

He takes Tav’s hand in his and guides it, flattens her palm over the rabbit-fast beat of his heart, breathing deeply, willing it to slow. He wants to say, Thank you, then, I love you, but it’s too soon, he thinks, too desperate, no matter how true. 

“Thank you,” Halsin allows, and swallows the rest. 

Tav smiles at him then, a soft, bright thing, like a single star in the night sky. The true last light in the Shadowlands. 

“Shall I stay with you?”

“Art–,” Halsin starts, but she shakes her head calmly, knowingly. “He’s sleeping soundly. Seems his bad dreams have come to visit you.”

“I do not wish to burden you with something so trivial.”

“You could not burden me,” Tav says quietly. “But I will leave, if you prefer.” 

Her thumb strokes over his chest, her hand still pressed against him. His pulse quickens again at so intimate, so innocent a touch. Halsin wonders if she can feel it.

“I prefer your presence, always. But you need your own rest.” 

“Very well.” 

Her palm slips from him as she rises to her feet, and he thinks for a moment that he’s made a mistake, has waved off her kindness, dismissed her.

Rather, she motions for him to move over and climbs slowly, wordlessly into the bed next to him. He finds himself lifting the sheets for her, inviting her in without hesitation. 

She’s changed, he realizes as she comes close, her armor cast aside for the day. Her nightclothes make her look, make her feel smaller, softer. He wants so badly to slip his hands beneath the fabric, to see how soft she is beneath. 

“Is this alright?” Tav whispers, looking earnestly into his eyes. Her fingertips flit over his cheek, brushing a lock of his hair behind his ear. “Are you alright?”

The bed is small and Halsin is not, and she is pressed against him like a flower between the pages of a book. He can only nod. 

“I will rest here then, with you.”

In the gentlest act he can or will ever remember, she leans forward and kisses his eyes as if bestowing a blessing upon them, a ward against the darkness.

**********

Halsin wakes again in near-total silence, save the gentle inhale-exhale of Tav’s breathing beside him. He doesn’t know how much time has passed, and for the first time in a long time, doesn’t mind. 

Instead, he is aware of how peaceful he feels in this moment, sheltered from the dangers beyond the inn, aware that at one point or another he had let go of his worry and settled deep into dreaming. The earlier tension in his muscles has melted into a tired ache, as if he is returning from a very long walk in the Grove. 

And she is here, wrapped in his arms. A light to break all shadows.

He can’t be sure when it happened. The shift had been imperceptible, like the feeling of falling asleep, or falling in love.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #halsin #halsin x tav #my fic #halsin x reader #halsin x fem! tav #fluff #angst with a happy ending #hurt/comfort #but mostly just so soft #like it was a delight to write something so sweet #my writing #bg3 fanfiction #halsin romance #bg3 halsin #halsin fanfic

[gravitywonagain]

so i took this post and made it... worse, probably.

(also now in lwj's pov)

[M, 3.6k, 1/1, Wangxian]

Tags: Major Character Death, suicide, suicide by zhiji (but, like, softly?), time travel, hurt/comfort but mostly hurt, I’m not going to lie this is all angst, not a happy ending (i've added a tiny consolation ending but it's not really enough here)

--

It is dark when Wei Wuxian opens his eyes. Cold. The stone is rough, jagged against the soft, tender bruise that is his body. Something is dripping, pooling, rippling. It echoes in the spaces between breaths and heartbeats. The awful silence of fear and worry. 

He doesn’t know where they are. The same place Lan Zhan always takes him, probably. A cave. Near enough to be possible but secluded enough to hide them. Him. For a little while anyway. 

At least this time he’s lucid. Mostly. And this time-- 

He laughs. A wretched sound that burbles against the blood in his lungs, the death in his veins. 

"Did you see them, Lan Zhan? Did you see?"

His voice ricochets off the stone walls and he winces with the sound of it. Rough, scraping, like the rock he’s lying on. 

"Wei Ying--"

Lan Zhan’s voice is softer. Smoother. Like the pool and the ripples. Wet, too. Not with a mouthful of blood, but with sadness. Regret, maybe. Apology, definitely. Wei Wuxian can’t stand to hear him apologize again. He can’t. He cuts him off. Continues his rambling. 

"United in their hate,” he says. Bitter still. Even after so long, after so many fights. 

"Let me--"

"But they were united." He sighs at that. Allows his relief to color it something other than red. 

He feels Lan Zhan’s confusion even before he asks, "Wei Ying?"

It’s easy to smile with Lan Zhan. 

His eyes are still adjusting to the dim, but Lan Zhan has a light all his own and Wei Wuxian finds him close. He’s always close. Traces the tiny dip in his brow, the wrinkle where his lips press together in the smallest pout. 

Even here, even like this -- bloody and desperate -- he’s beautiful. 

"It doesn't work if there's no villain, Lan Zhan.” He keeps his voice softer now. Almost a whisper. As clear as he can make it. “This world doesn't work if there's no one to hate."

"I don't understand."

"You should go. Leave me. They'll only hurt you if they find you here."

"I won't leave you."

Such conviction in him. In his Lan Zhan. He should probably be used to that by now, but it steals his breath every time. He wants to reach out. He did before. He’s not sure if he should again. He closes his eyes instead. 

"So stubborn, Lan Zhan. So good. Always so good." 

"Wei Ying, I--"

"At least Shijie is alive this time."

It just slips out. He doesn’t mean to say it, any of it. But he can’t take what Lan Zhan might say to him in that voice of his. That serious choosing-words-on-purpose voice. An apology, a negation, a confession. He’s not ready for that yet. He’s never ready for it. 

He really didn’t mean to say--

"This time?"

But he did. He did say it. He’s never said it before, never explained. And now Lan Zhan is looking at him even more confused. He deserves something. An explanation, probably, but Wei Wuxian really doesn’t have the energy for that now. 

Not the whole thing. 

Maybe just a piece.

"Yes,” he says, and anxiety begins to claw a path up his rib cage. It shakes something loose inside him: another laugh, an apathy of sorts, “Aiyou, Lan Zhan, I've done this so many times.” He shakes his head, rolling his skull against stone. “I'm so tired." 

He is. So tired. 

His body is torn, shredded, broken. The seal ripped him apart when he destroyed it. It sucked the resentment from his bones like marrow and left him with nothing to stitch closed his wounds. 

Still, earlier was better. He’d been right about that. 

Jiang Yanli lives. And Jin Guangshan’s face was glorious as the metal shards rained down upon him and his gathered clans. 

It didn’t stop them from attacking. He’d been right about that, too. 

"Rest,” says Lan Zhan. “I will be here."

He sounds unsure. Not of his own words; of course he will still be here. Wei Wuxian has long since learned to not doubt Lan Zhan or his devotion. It’s the getting him to leave that is always the hard part. 

No. He is unsure of Wei Wuxian’s. Not, Wei Wuxian thinks, that he believes them false, so much as mad ravings. Hallucinations or lies told by the demons in his head. 

There are no more demons, he wants to say. They’re gone from me and that’s why I’m dying. 

But he doesn’t say that. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if Lan Zhan believes him, or if he thinks him driven insane by resentment. None of it matters because he’s here. 

He’s here. And Wei Wuxian has lived this night over and over, changing and fixing, trying and trying… But no matter what, as long as he survives Nightless City, Lan Zhan is with him in its aftermath. Lan Zhan is here. By his side. 

In danger. 

"They're coming,” Wei Wuxian says, slurred a little in his weariness. He does not say who. He knows he doesn’t need to. “They'll be here soon. They'll take you. You should let them take you."

"I will not le--"

"A'Yuan needs you, Lan Zhan. Let them take you." 

He doesn’t plead; he doesn’t have enough breath left to plead. But this worked, once. 

"Wei Ying?"

It’s still dark when he opens his eyes, but this time he’s adjusted enough to see Lan Zhan frowning at him. He aches with what he’s asking of this man. The years of quiet mourning, the shock of early fatherhood. It hurts more than his twice-broken bones. But it never-- 

"It's okay. I-- Like I said,” he smiles, small but sincere, “it doesn't work if there's no villain."

"Why you?"

This man. 

"If not me, then who?"

"Not you."

This amazing, stubborn man.

Lan Zhan bites his teeth, clenching his jaw tight like he’s holding a snake inside of it. His knuckles are white with his anger, his frustration. 

He deserves so much more than what Wei Wuxian has twisted his life into, but maybe he can give him something to hold onto. Something to ease the emptiness in his heart, in his soul. 

"It's okay, Lan Zhan. I know.” 

Lan Zhan’s eyes snap wide and frightened, meeting his with urgency and concern, contrition so clearly building on the tip of his tongue. So Wei Wuxian softens his own as much as he can. Holds his smile, a warm curl like a petal in sunlight. 

“I know,” he says again, reassuring, he hopes. “You've stayed with me before."

This time Lan Zhan latches onto it. 

"Before?" 

"Yes. You're always so good. Too good. They hurt you when you fight. Don't-- Don't let them hurt you. A'Yuan needs you."

"A'Yuan?" 

There’s a brightness in the way he says the name. A fondness. Even before he has taken the boy home, brought him into his clan, claimed him as his own. He is always such a good father. Wei Wuxian wishes he could be there to see it. 

"He needs you to raise him. I know you'll take such good care of him, Lan Zhan. You always do."

Lan Zhan flinches at the last sentence, the light of him dulling with it. 

"Wei Ying, I don't understand." 

He’s frustrated. Wei Wuxian is being cryptic and weird, which, honestly, Lan Zhan should probably be used to at this point. But Wei Wuxian has also lost a sense of scale for what anyone should or shouldn’t be used to, so maybe not. He still doesn’t have the energy to explain. 

"I know. It's okay."

It’s nothing, empty, but the honesty of it soothes some of the lines from Lan Zhan’s brow anyway. It’s good. Nice. To see him settle so easily for Wei Wuxian. 

Determination knits itself into the line of his lips and Wei Wuxian recognizes it in an instant. 

"Please, Wei Ying, I--"

"Don't say it. Don't say it, Lan Zhan. It only hurts more if you say it. If I-- Don't say it."

It does hurt. It hurts so fucking much. Even if Wei Wuxian knows -- and he does, he knows -- it is so much worse every time he hears Lan Zhan’s confession of it. Different each time, but heartrending to leave him after. 

He doesn’t know if it’s better or worse for Lan Zhan. Maybe, if he wakes up in Mo Manor this time, he’ll ask. 

This Lan Zhan takes it in stride. It’s a rejection to him, but one he was expecting.

He says, "Okay. Okay, Wei Ying."

He masks the sadness of it well. But Wei Wuxian can still see it, can always see it. It’s no less than what he deserves for putting it there. 

"Let them take you. When they come, just go with them. Don't fight." 

Obstinance returns, a welcome distraction. 

"They will kill you."

"Yes."

"I won't--"

"You must. They need a villain,” he says again. “They don't need two. But if you stay with me, if you fight them for me, that is what you become. A'Yuan needs you."

It’s A’Yuan that makes him back down again. The sadness, the rejection, weighing on his shoulders, in the black hollows of his eyes. 

"Okay. Okay, Wei Ying."

He’s seen it before. He’s seen it over and over again. He should be -- should be. Fuck should be. 

He reaches out. 

"Hold my hand?"

"But--"

"I only said not to say it. Not that it's unwelcome." 

Lan Zhan’s hand is big and warm. It envelopes his own. The calluses scratch against his tender skin and it hurts but only in the best possible way. He thinks he might gasp with it, if his lungs were still capable of something so dramatic. 

"Wei Ying--"

"Shh. Hush now, Lan Zhan. Just hold me. They'll be here soon."

They stay there together, breathing in the quiet, the cold. The dripping sound keeps time for them. 

Lan Zhan laces their fingers together and traces the lines of Wei Wuxian’s veins with his other hand. It is soothing in a way that brings tears to Wei Wuxian’s eyes. So full of love. So perfectly, wonderfully, Lan Zhan. 

Strangely, it is Lan Zhan who breaks the silence. 

"If you've done this before, why not fix it? Why not live?" he asks. 

Wei Wuxian sighs. They’re fair questions, but, "It doesn't work. It all falls apart. The clans fall to each other if not to Wen Ruohan. They need--"

"A villain. So you've said."

"Ah, Lan Zhan!” He laughs and it’s wet enough that he coughs around it. “Interrupting me, so bold!" 

"I am trying to understand."

"I know. I know. There's not enough time. Which will be very funny to you later. Nothing but time. Maybe I will see you again, Lan Zhan."

"They will kill you."

He sounds almost petulant, which is… absurdly endearing. Wei Wuxian can help but smile, despite the topic. 

"Yes. Yes, and you should let them. So you can save A'Yuan.” He turns his gaze to the ceiling, too dark to pick much of anything out. A few sharp lines of stone. “Maybe, maybe you can make them all see. Make them open their eyes in the Burial Mounds. Make them see who it is they're running through."

Lan Zhan brings their joined hands to his lips. Not a kiss. But his questions ghost over skin, warm and gentle. "Why can't we show them together, Wei Ying? Why?" 

"It doesn't work. It's too late for me. You saw what I did to them. You saw the monster I've become."

The seal’s destruction didn’t only hurt him. In its panic, it ripped pain and anger and guilt from the souls of everyone gathered before the Palace of Sun and Flames. Everyone who didn’t have high enough cultivation to protect themselves from it, anyway. Cultivators from all clans dropped to the ground, dead or wounded, as the resentment tore itself from their bodies. 

And when the seal finally shattered, the shockwave of its death throes liquefied flesh and pulverized bones of those nearest to it. 

It was horrific. 

It was necessary. 

"Wei Ying--"

"I asked you to kill me once. If I was too far gone. Do you remember that?"

Rain and mud, horses and a parasol. The kind of honesty that nobody wants. 

"I do."

"Would you do it now?"

"Wei Ying?!" Lan Zhan startles, stands, dropping Wei Wuxian’s hand, like his body cannot contain his reaction, like he cannot allow the idea of it to touch his skin. 

Wei Wuxian chuckles. "I know. You're too good, Lan Zhan. You never agree to that." 

"Wei Ying, please."

There’s a whine in his voice, hidden under the admonition. 

It’s cruel, this conversation. No matter how it starts or how it ends, it is always cruel to Lan Zhan. Cruel to let him sit here with hope, crueler to make him believe there never was any. It is this conversation that shows Wei Wuxian his own monstrosity. 

A thought occurs. 

"I could make you."

Lan Zhan freezes. "Wei Ying?"

"I could make you kill me.” He can feel the ice settle into his voice. “I haven't tried that before. You would be the hero, then maybe you could stop the slaughter." 

"You are not a villain, Wei Ying!" Lan Zhan is terrified. He’s masking it with anger, but there’s a tremor in it, like the whine, a note out of alignment, out of tune. It peaks around the corner, clinging to the hope of reason, of insanity. 

It’s interesting… new. Curious. Wei Wuxian wonders where it might lead. 

"I am,” he presses. “I'm a monster, haven't you heard?” That ice, that cold curiosity frosts each syllable. “A demon.” He watches Lan Zhan shiver with it. “You would be venerated for putting me down."

It’s a good idea. It’s, at least, not a terrible one. 

He rises as much as he can, elbows jammed against the uneven stone with the weight of him. 

It would take a lot of energy, more than he has, possibly, to force Lan Zhan to kill him. And Lan Zhan, good and stubborn as he is, would probably allow himself to be killed rather than kill Wei Wuxian himself. He will have to lose himself to madness, first. Invite more resentment in. A lot more. Is there even enough nearby to--

"Please..."

Lan Zhan is on his knees before Wei Wuxian’s seat. His head is bowed, and he’s on his knees like he’s serving a punishment: back straight, hands at his sides, perfect posture. 

Wei Wuxian hadn’t even heard him move, so caught up in his thoughts. 

But he had. He had moved. And now his shoulders are shaking. It’s a fine motion, small. Less even than a shiver, less jarring than a sob, but tears -- bright, even in this lightless cave -- fall to the dirt or to the neat bloom of his silk skirts. 

“Please, Wei Ying…” 

He’s kneeling and crying and begging, and Wei Wuxian feels every bit the monster they say he is. 

Because he doesn’t let it go. 

He relents a little. Warms, lightens. 

"It would crush you to do it, I know.” 

Lan Zhan looks up at him with hope shining in the unshed tears. And Wei Wuxian is a monster because as soon as their eyes meet, that hope flickers out, and it is Wei Wuxian who is doing this to him. It is Wei Wuxian who is crushing him. 

“We could do it together,” he offers, “you and I. Draw your sword, Lan Zhan."

"No."

His fists clench and he stares Wei Wuxian down. 

"Lan Zhan, they'll kill me either way. Let me die like this: in your arms, with you by my side."

"I can't--"

"A quick slide, right through my ribs. It will be almost peaceful this way."

"No!"

The more he talks it through, the better it sounds. It is the best idea he has ever had. The best way he can die. He can choose it. He can make it easy, nice, kind. He can do this, if only Lan Zhan will let him. 

"You can hold me.” 

He watches Lan Zhan flinch, but it’s okay, he knows why. He understands. But he also knows-- He needs to make Lan Zhan understand how good this can be. How this can work for everyone. 

“They'll praise you for it.” He says it like the concession it is. “You'll hate that, but then the spoils will be yours. You can claim them. It could work, Lan Zhan."

And Lan Zhan does understand. He does, because he lowers his eyes again. His posture weakens. And he doesn’t say “no” anymore. Instead, he begs, "Wei Ying, please do not ask this of me,” and Wei Wuxian knows he’s won. 

"It's too much. I know. I know, Zhiji."

It is cold comfort to offer it now, manipulative even. But he does mean it. Lan Zhan is the one person who understands him most in the world. The answer to his very being. And Lan Zhan grasps at the word with both hands. He clutches them into Wei Wuxian’s bloody robes. 

"Zhiji. Zhiyin. Wei Ying." 

Tears are falling in earnest. Another drip-drip-drip in the cave. Syncopated. 

"You would do it if I asked you to. I know you would.” They both do. It is the reason Lan Zhan is begging him now. It is the reason that terror is so violent in his eyes. 

Wei Wuxian bites his lip. He stalls. 

Lan Zhan is kneeling. 

Lan Zhan is shaking. 

Lan Zhan is crying. 

Wei Wuxian has seen it before but not like this. Never like this. 

He speaks his thoughts aloud. “But is this something I can let myself ask of you? Is it too cruel? To make you bear this with me? To make you take some of the weight." 

"Please, don't... Please, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan begs again. But the fire has gone out of it. It is still a broken and wretched thing, but there is no longer any hope. Because he knows. He understands. This is the best way, this time. 

So when Wei Wuxian says, "Draw your sword, Lan Zhan,” Lan Zhan lets go of his robes. 

He sits back on his heels, drops his head, and with a quick motion Bichen appears in his hands. 

With Bichen there, solid and real, Lan Zhan pulls himself straight, a cultivator of proud heritage and discipline, like he cannot be anything less with steel in his grip. He is so beautiful. Hanguang-jun, standing tall, blood and dirt falling away from him as he shines brighter than the moon. 

"Wei Ying." His voice is steady, though the pain in it still rings clear. 

"Good,” says Wei Wuxian. “Good. It'll be quick. So quick.” 

He sits himself up and reaches for Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan catches his hand, helping him sit. He slides behind him, bracing against the cave wall, and pulls Wei Wuxian close against his chest. 

He’s so warm, so solid, yet soft with care and layers of silk. His breath is warm against the side of Wei Wuxian’s face, against his neck and collarbones. One hand spreads wide over Wei Wuxian’s waist. 

It is the most comfortable Wei Wuxian has ever been in this life. 

It is impossible to not lean back into Lan Zhan. To not soak up all the love and tenderness that he can feel washing over him with each shared breath, each synchronized heartbeat. 

He folds one hand over Lan Zhan’s on his waist and wraps the other around Bichen’s sheath. 

“Don't worry,” he says, trying to keep them on task, “they'll be here soon. They'll see. They'll help you. Your brother will help you.” 

When Lan Zhan swallows, Wei Wuxian’s head bobs with it. When he steels himself with a breath, Wei Wuxian’s whole body moves in time. And when he draws Bichen, they gasp in unison. 

The blade glows an icy blue in the blackness of the cave and Wei Wuxian blinks rapidly against the light. He watches, rapt, as Lan Zhan smoothly moves the point, never letting go of Wei Wuxian’s waist, until the bloody, black fabric of Wei Wuxian’s robe is splitting, fiber by fiber, just above the doubled line of their fingers. He angles the hilt down, slowly, achingly slowly, until it’s right. Until the slide will be perfect, easy, deadly. 

“Yes, right there,” says Wei Wuxian, and hears himself stutter with it. He thinks he feels steel when he takes a full breath. “It's okay, Lan Zhan. It's okay. It's okay if it's you."

"This is not--"

"I know. I know. Just hold me."

This is not what they meant when they said this in the rain. Either of them. This is not what they wanted when they came to this cave. Either of them. 

But it is good. It is right. It will work. Wei Wuxian has to believe it will work. 

"Wei Ying?"

"Yes, Lan Zhan?"

"May I say it."

"Ha. Yes, Lan Zhan. I think. I think I'd like to hear it."

"I love you, Wei Ying."

"I know. I love you, too, Lan Zhan."

"I know."

Lan Zhan sounds like he’s crying again. Wei Wuxian might be crying, too. He’s not sure if he can anymore. His cheeks are too numb for him to tell. 

"It's okay, Lan Zhan. Deep breath. That's it. It's okay. It will be okay."

There’s a sound, far away, toward the entrance of the cave, and they both startle with it. 

"What's that?" Lan Zhan asks. 

But he knows. They both know. 

"Footsteps. They're almost here.” 

Wei Wuxian’s heartbeat picks up, a sluggish attempt at anxiety. But he needs Lan Zhan to do it. To do it now before he overthinks it, before his family can stop him. 

And, anyway, it’s his turn to beg. 

“Lan Zhan, please. You can do it. Please. Lan Zh--"

A short slide. 

"Wei Ying."

Then nothing. 

--

"Wei Ying."

.

"I love you."

.

"I'm here." 

.

.

.

"Wangji?"

"Xiongzhang. He's gone."

"Oh, Wangji."

--

(And then the first thing WWX does when he sees LWJ at Mo Manor is kiss him full on the lips in front of all the baby Lan disciples.

And then the first thing he does when he gets to Cloud Recesses is get slapped by Wen Qing who he definitely didn't let run off and die for him this go around.

And maybe it's even his last time loop? Who knows!)

#wei wuxian #lan wangji #wangxian #mdzs #fanfiction #major character death #suicide #suicide by zhiji (but like softly?) #time travel au #(which i swore i'd never write and yet here were the fuck are) #hurt/comfort #but mostly hurt #angst #not a happy ending #until the end ending which isn't as much of a consolation as i want it to be i don't think but is actually happy so at least there's that #not a fix it but also not not a fix it #canon divergent au #fucked up shit happening in a cave: the wx story #(seriously one of these days we need to explore that nie tomb/cave situation again because these boys canNOT catch a break) #i built it out and i didn't realize that was a threat #my writing #for my birthday #which is both over and still ongoing because the international dateline is weird and time is a social construct #i have decided to share some pain

[godnectar]

how would your yans react to a darling who has painful periods?? (i’m trying to cope rn)

kinda quick and simple,, but perfect timing bc 'm agonizing rn– also need y'all to keep sending lil' asks like this bc I gotta write something 🥹🫶 sending u big mwah

the type who actually has some knowledge on periods and understands how bad it can arrive to be, doing his best to be there and make his darling feel better most of the time, whether by giving you small massages, making sure you're warm and comfy, always having little snacks and the period painkillers of your preference, and knowing when to give you space and when to embrace his beloved in the sweetest way.

yandere professor, sugar daddy, husband, assistant, househusband, scientist + upcoming bodyguard, doctor, nurse, soldier, and dilf!

the type who doesn't really know much about how it functions and probably how bad cramps can even be, but still tries to help in the loveliest way possible. he might not understand the difference between day and night pads, but he certainly knows that there are possibilities of bonbons and kisses helping you feel more relaxed and cherished.

yandere pup, florist, crush, himbo + upcoming nerd, shy boy, best friend, model, spirit!

the type who you could say knows the basics... and probably a bit too much, as when it comes to relieving the pain and relax, it usually goes for the not so wholesome methods, hands rubbing up and down your sore thighs, and arms wrapped around your tummy to keep it warm while he presses from behind, hot kisses being left on the skin of your neck to try and see if he can get his angel in the mood and take really nice care of you.

yandere bully, jock, cheater, nsfw writer, vampire, neighbor, pervert, slasher + upcoming ex-boyfriend, pirate, werewolf, biker, pharaoh, tutor, boss!

© godnectar 2023. please do not modify, translate, or repost my works on any platform without my permission.

#really really really quick #and this is mostly from what I personally prefer when on my own period yk #which hurts like a bitch ngl #but ykwim #♡ anon #anon message #godnectar #yandere #yandere x reader #oc x reader #yandere male #male oc #yandere oc #male yandere #yandere teacher #yandere bully #yandere jock #yandere bodyguard #possessive pup #yandere professor #yandere doctor #yandere nurse #yandere nerd #yandere vampire #yandere neighbor #yandere himbo

[ariadne-mouse]

Still thinking about just how deep in it Liliana Temult is. Like in the eyes of the narrative she went from

absent & possibly dead, very sad -> alive just estranged?? mysterious! -> possibly involved in a cult, tragic, can her daughter reach her? -> uncomfortably high up in said cult -> the cult's goddamn General and striking such terror into the local population of the Ruidus that they are afraid of even her appearance or someone who looks like her

Ordinary people who are trying to resist the dictatorial Imperium/Ruby Vanguard alliance and their iron control of the populace are terrified of her. You don't strike terror just by "being there". Terror happens because of actions. And it leaves us to wonder what exactly Liliana Temult has done during her time on the moon to make the citizens fear her so much.

#all of this has happened so fast #but I wonder whether Imogen mourns the version of her (dead/vanished) mother that she held in her mind #the one who was ostensibly good in that way children hope their lost loved ones to be (or at least not full ham evil) #Liliana has at times given off this vague air of regret - mostly regarding Imogen like 'i wish it wasn't like this but it is' #but in general that all this violence and terrorizing Ruidus and killing all the gods - it's unfortunate but part of the Greater Purpose #and that makes her all the more detestable tbh #she sees and understands and maybe even empathizes with those that have been or will be hurt by this campaign for Predathos #and has decided that it's still necessary. unfortunate but necessary. this sort of quiet and awful conviction #the kind of person who will hurt you while telling you it's for your own good and it's better this way #cr spoilers #c3e88 #critical role #liliana temult #op

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Broken Roofs and Fixed Perspectives

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #xue yang #xiao xingchen #Lots of cut content notes on this one. Lets all have a moment of silence for all the cut A-Qing's in each perspective. #particularly ripped and buff 'Daozhang Defender 'A-Qing (her perspective) #funny but poor layout #XY also had a red arrow pointed at him in his own POV that said 'just troubled' but it made the panel too cluttered. #He does see himself as troubled and uses that to justify his actions #but I also think there is room for him to not really know exactly how to feel about himself in this situation #Yi-city is such a fantastic tragedy for so many reasons and you will bear witness to me rambling about it in the tags as this arc continues #Helping a blind man fix a roof? A manipulative act of building trust or genuine display of wanting to collaberate? #XY and A-qing have experience of the cruelty of the world where as xxc has blind (haha) faith that kindness prevails #These three simultaneous know each other more than the other's think and *yet* completely miss the mark. #the stories they tell in the blizzard (and the reactions they have) so perfectly display who these characters are #Both xxc and xy tell stories about unfair cruelty. To xxc it is others who's suffering is highlighted. XY highlight's his own. #A-qing understands xue yang more that she wants to admit. She predicts the twists in xy's story and empathizes with the hurt and anger #A-qing is also taking advantage of xxc! She is also lying to survive! #Though shes mostly benign in her intentions. She really did vibe check the rank stank on XY's soul on the spot #Alas...no one listens to teen girls....