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early20sfailingplenty · 2 years

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Danny Johnson fic ideas! He is super meticulous and follows his victims closely for a long time, he's really into stalking to get to know his victims so! I work at a coffee shop and would love it if he got to know me by being a regular my shop. We laugh and talk and flirt, I only know him by his civillian persona, Jen Olson, but he stalks me outside of work as Danny. Totally becomes obsessed with me and gets off on the dichotomy of being the nice regular customer and the cold hearted killer planning my eventual end. He also loves me being so unaware of his true nature. What seals the deal of hooking his interest in me is my Final Girl tattoo on my right forearm that is underlined with a bloody hunting knife. He wants me to be HIS final girl and sees the potential in me. Just something about his thought process and being so into me. Also maybe some breaking and entering and him being a creep going through my undwear drawer and/or watching me sleep (which I tend to do naked 👀) and taking small mementos. I own a lotta chapstick and mugs, he could probably take one without me noticing, or he takes a well loved one because he WANTS me to notice and get confused. General details, I love the color red, like a candy apple red and plaid. I love leggings and skirts and crop tops at home. I wear glasses. I usually have my hair in a bun at work and in a high pontytail at home when I'm cooking or writing, and down the rest if the time, its brown and falls to about midback. He loves to watch me cook and bake which I do often. Can be as NSFW as you want, sexual and violent is encouraged! I like him DARK! He could do something to me while or not, could just watch, (as if he wouldn't jerk off to me, or on me, while I slept.) But use your discretion! I trust you! Thank you again SO much, I love you dude! ❤ ~ @bisexual-horror-fan

Bex!!! My beloved!!!!😭😭😭💖💖💖First of all, a biiiiiig big happy birthday to YOU!!!!😍😍😍😍😍😍You're amazing, I love you so much, and I hope you have a day as wonderful as you!!!😭🫂💖💖💖 Second, I'm more than a little nervous to be posting this because until you sent this in, I had no idea what DBD was, I didn't know who Danny Johnson was, etc. etc. so I went into all the research I did totally blind (I'd be happy to share this with you once you've read this if you wanna know👀, but obviously while this was in the works I had to keep it all quiet), but I hope it all paid off and that you're able to connect with and enjoy this piece! I went in and I'm really excited for you to read it! It was a challenge to go dark but that's what makes it fun! I'll stop talking now and let you read! MWAH ~

Seek and destroy // Danny Johnson x Final Girl!Bex

TW; stalking, swearing, dramatic irony (my beloved💗), predatory behaviour from Danny, Bex is a fly in the web, obsessive behaviour, you're a to-be murder victim and you don't know it until you do, descriptions of physical violence and gore, Danny's a creep, broken boundaries, theft of possessions, NSFW, somnophilia (kind of), non/dub-con (male masturbation; Danny gets off to you while you're sleeping without you knowing and without your consent), panty sniffing, this is the darkest thing I've ever written and that includes the time I wrote about reader trying to kill themselves by sitting in Vincent's chair (yeah I went IN for you with this💕), NOT X READER!!! but you're welcome to read!!! Contains physical descriptions of Bex, personalised with permission (duh, it's your birthday gift), implicit cannibalism references, kind of meta because this references other horror films and other slashers (it fits in with the Scream origins of Danny, okay?), no dialogue, cum eating (Danny). He's a depraved, filthy bastard and you love him for it.

Word count: 3, 353.

Oh, but you are beautiful.

You don't even know it, do you?

You don't know that he's been watching you for weeks already. You don't know that he's watched you working through the window of your workplace, hidden by the darkness within him but also by the shadows afforded to the tall buildings which smother the skyline. You don't know that he knows your work schedule, he knows the particular routine you carry out to settle into a shift, he knows the routine you have to mentally leave the shift as you clock out. You don't know that you're in very grave danger. You don't know any of his plans, you don't know the game he's playing, you don't know that you don't know that he's a vicious, sadistic murderer who has been plotting your violent murder this entire time.

You don't know.

But Danny knows, and he supposes that it's more fun for him if you stay in the dark, where he wants you. Where you have been for the last month while he has stalked you, learned you, studied you, mapped you out, unravelled you for who you are and put you back together in the way he wants you to be... oh, but your potential is divine... the anticipation of what he's going to do to you, of what he is already doing to you, makes the chase, the hunt, the kill, all of it, even sweeter than it already is.

It was Danny Johnson who stepped into the shadows when you began your shift five hours ago, but it is Jed Olson who enters your coffee shop.

It is the beginning of the end, of your end and he is so excited.

Let the shadow games begin.

---

The first part of the game was silly, light-hearted. There was some kind of sick... joy in knowing something that you didn't. His impulsivity came from knowing that he could get away with what he was doing to you, with you; he was leading you down a slowly unwinding path which was of your own making. A joint effort, though only one party was privy to such information. From the very get go, Danny got off on the way he really was and the way you saw him. The way he wanted you to see him. Danny Johnson was sadistic, patient, a man in control who planned murders weeks in advance. The anticipation always made for a greater pay-off when the end was finally delivered. He was careful at crime scenes, a delicious, sick contrast to the way he was light-hearted towards the actual murder. But Jed Olson, oh... he always greeted you with a wide smile and gave modest responses to the flirtations you met him with. There was something about him which drew you towards him; like a moth to a flame. You would be burned, and it would make or break you, though you didn't know that. Yet. The dichotomy between who he really was and who he played for you kept him on his toes, and it only set to lure you further into the trap.

For every drink he ordered (always and deliberately your favourite, for he enjoyed the smile which lit up your gorgeous face like a Christmas tree as you complimented him on his tastes), for every cup you scrawled 'Jed' on, for every smile you gave him as he entered and left your coffee shop, you both turned further and faster down the dark road, tendrils of the achromatic heart he possessed, a withered and shrivelled thing, wrapping tighter and tighter around your own with every exchange.

You didn't suspect it, you couldn't even begin to guess at the severe mortal danger in which you found yourself.

You didn't know.

And so everything was going according to his carefully calculated, carefully arranged ritualistic sadistic game.

It was a game.

One of shadows, of deceit, of violence, of stalking, of his predation and your vulnerability, of broken boundaries... the game had more rounds than Danny had initially planned, but wasn't that what made it the most fun?

When the game surprised him and practically played itself, he knew it was a good one.

There was so much potential in you and he was eager to keep you caught like a fly in his web of lies so that he could reveal to you your truest, darkest self. You were right there, hidden beneath your surface, hidden underneath the underneath. Or so he told himself to begin with. Months to the day he decided to start following you, getting to know you in a very intense, very one-sided relationship, he started to follow you outside of your workplace. He merged your two realities so seamlessly that if he let his control slip for even a moment, he would lose track of whose routine was whose, whose home was whose. You were well and truly in the belly of the beast, swimming in hydrochloric acid waiting to be digested. You were right there, fresh and ready for the taking. For his taking. Wasn't that what you wanted? To go down in a fight? To stand up and take your life for your own, to take it back from the world which sought only to take and take and take; he knew intimately how exhausted you were after your six day work weeks. He knew well what those nine hour shifts did to you, how early you had to be awake to begin your day. You fought every single day and Danny had yet to figure out if you were aware of how strong you truly were. You were destined to be more than what you already were, he just had to get underneath your surface and dig you out of yourself.

You... You were made to be a final girl... no, no, that wasn't right, hang on... You were made to be his final girl. The tattoo on your right forearm told him everything he needed to know, and a part of him longed to launch over the counter top, seize your arm in his and carve his initials into the tattoo, on the bottom right hand side of the bloody hunting knife which underlined the bold 'final girl'. You wore your potential with pride, he had noted that very first day of visiting you in your coffee shop. Much fun was to be had in breaking you down and making you into who you really were... that dark light inside of you was to be his. You were made to be his, with just a bit more time, a lot more patience and persistence, and you would be dragged to your real self, kicking and screaming and soaked in blood – whether your own or someone else's was entirely up to you. Danny wasn't entirely heartless; you got to have a say in the end result, too. You just didn't get a say in how or when or why you got there.

That honour was Danny's.

One afternoon after another, he followed you home. Always at a safe distance, always three people behind you. It didn't matter if you saw his build way off in the crowd or not; Jed was fresh-faced, no mask, no costume, but Danny was masked as Ghost Face and stuck to the shadows; you had no way of knowing that the two were one and the same. Hell, nine times out of ten, you didn't even register the way the door to your living space took a little bit longer to close than it used to, as Danny darted in just before it could slam shut on you.

Danny stuck to the shadows so well that he became your shadow.

He was the slasher to your final girl.

Despite his patient approach to the way he stalked you and lived your life alongside you, with you totally oblivious all the while, unaware of his true nature, unaware that Danny and Jed were the same person (or even that Danny existed; he covered his tracks so well that you never thought to look for them. Why would you, when they were never visible?), Danny grew bored of just sneaking into your home and watching you cook or write, your hair in a ponytail. It was a different style to how you wore it when you were at work – it was interesting to Danny, because he and Jed were different, too, though his work was wholly different and entirely more sinister than your own. It was a bit of a stretch, the comparison, but he made it all the same as he began to think of ways to allude to you that there was something going on.

The solo round of his sadistic game was over and now... oh, now, it was your turn to play.

Every final girl deserved a chance. The fight wasn't fair, the play was rough and dirty, but he liked it like that, and he knew after all this time that you did, too. So much potential, so much raw energy just waiting to be cultivated, so much fun to be had.

It started with going through your underwear drawer while you were busy cooking in the kitchen. You were only rooms away, totally unaware of the violation of your boundaries... not the first and certainly not the last of many which Danny sought to bestow upon you. Like gifts, if you were. Strange, depraved, unwelcomed gifts. For now. But one day, oh... one day, he would cash in those receipts, and the gift of your life essence would run down his gloved hands, crimson rivulets seeping into the seams of the leather he favoured, staining his skin and leaving a metallic taste on his tongue. He hadn't yet had the pleasure of tasting you, but he would soon.

Some slashers chose to consume their victims in the physical sense. Some chose to eat away at their victims' resolve strand by strand until the victim unravelled at the seams and became a shell of themselves. Some chose to strip away at souls until the spirit broke. Some chose other methods, other means, but they all lead to the same sensation being fulfilled, the same cravings being satiated in a primal, predatory manner: taste. Touch. Possession.

Mine.

Was all Danny was thinking as he watched you get ready for bed. You slept naked, he noticed, and it only made it that much easier for him to get off on what he was putting you through. Whether or not you knew about it now, you would eventually, and that level of trauma would be with you for life. Danny would walk beside you, hidden in your shadows, for the rest of your life, and you had no idea. Yet.

He wanted to introduce himself to you. Slowly, slowly. You were a frog in a pot of water, the temperature turning in small increments from a simmer up to the boil, and it would be too late for you to hop out by the time you realised what was happening to you, what had been happening to you for almost a year by the time he decided to take a few momentos from your bedroom. To get you ready to meet him by planting a seed of suspicion in a mind as sharp, as beautiful, as yours. You were a work of art, but every art piece needs the artists' signature, and he would sign you off with a flick of his wrist, the flash of his blade... with a flourish worthy of the final girl you were.

You owned a lot of chapsticks and a lot of mugs; there was no way you would be able to use them all regularly, but Danny knew that you did. You had your favourites, of course, and you had your favourites, but you did use all your mugs, and all your chapsticks. You had such a big heart, plenty of room in your life, and with your love of horror and fantasy, Danny knew that there was plenty of room in you for him. Not that he would or could ever give you a choice. He had taken that away from you the very first day he had strolled into your coffee shop with a disarming smile as he ordered your favourite hot drink; white hot chocolate with cinnamon steamed in the milk. Very creamy, a little spicy, very sweet... like you.

You are what you consume, isn't that what people say?

The image of you spread out in bed, naked, sleeping and dead to the world, combined with famous quotes completely divorced from their original contexts, had Danny palming himself through his leathers. He got off on what he had been doing to you for all of this time, but never before had he been surrounded by you – your body, your scent, your possessions... the hand not palming himself found the collection of your favourite chapsticks and snagged the one you had used that morning. You would notice it wasn't there, you used it a lot of the time as your default option, and he could tell by the way the label was starting to peel off by the lid that it was a well loved chapstick.

You would notice it missing.

And in time, you would notice him, too.

No final girl ever gets away without first confronting her slasher. It's the ritual, the... the formula of any good horror film.

You stretched in bed, your arms over your head, your duvet crept down from your shoulders to just beneath your breasts, your chest rising and falling with every breath. Their numbers limited. Danny wondered what it would be like to climb atop your slumbering form and wrap his deft fingers around the column of your throat as you slept. Your pulse would thunder against his fingers, your body would jerk and writhe due to the oxygen deprivation, your eyes would be blown wide... or maybe you wouldn't wake. Maybe he would only make sure you never woke up, forever lost in a dream made only for you, dredged up from the oceanic depths of your vivid imagination. He would only get to kill you once, and that scenario wasn't how he wanted to do it.

He swatted the thought away like it was nothing more pesky than a fly as he undid his trousers and pulled himself out. He was rock hard, his head bright red and weeping. For you. For the way your walls would welcome him, for the way your back would arch into him but your hips would pull back into the mattress, the pleasure he would gift to you before his own pleasure somehow too much and yet... not enough.

He needed more.

How would your blood spray as he slashed your throat? Or, perhaps he would mimic your favourite slasher and slash you three times up the back, like claws, like... like a wild animal. He certainly wanted to fuck you like you were animals. He wanted you on all fours, your arse up in the air and your face down in a pillow (so easy would it be to smother you while he pounded into you from behind... you would be too lost in pleasure to notice him pressing you down by the nape of your neck, fingers delved into your brown hair, and you would lose consciousness and simply never wake up again). He wanted you under him, above him, but he mostly wanted you at his side. The final girl, the slasher's undoing. But you two would buck that trend, you would be partners in life and in crime. You had the potential and he wanted to make it his.

He wanted to make you his.

Black underwear in his peripheral vision.

Danny contorted his body and snagged them off the floor. He could just smell you through his mask and your sleepy noises, lost were you to the world, only spurred him on as he pressed the dirty panties to his mask as tightly as he could. He wouldn't take his mask off; it would ruin the ambience, make it only too easy for you to win the game before you had really begun to play if you woke up before he could finish, his hand working to get himself off as he thumbed at the beads of pre-cum gathering at his tip. He was red raw and it reminded him briefly of the candy red colour you favoured. You looked so good in red. One day, Danny would make you wear a crimson cape... again, whether it was your own or someone else's blood would be your own choice. But it would happen.

He had you so close to him and yet, so far, and on his legs did he stagger to your bedside, looking down at you as he continued to masturbate over you. Having you even closer to him only fuelled the speed at which he jerked himself off and as he bent over (somewhat awkwardly, but it was doable) to sniff your hair, one hand wrapped around his cock and the other tightly holding the panties he stole off your floor, you moaned in your sleep. He wondered what, who, you were dreaming about. For all his attempts, he couldn't climb into your head, and it enraged him. Still, in time, he would come to possess your mind, your body, your heart, your soul, he would consume you for all that you were as he took from you all that you could be. Life was full of possibilities and he wanted to take them from you, he would take them from you.

Thoughts of feeling you writhing beneath him as he murdered you tipped him over the edge in his mind from which he clung by his fingertips and he came with barely a sound, thick ropes of cum spilling over his head and dripping onto your abdomen. Your face creased lightly at the impact of wet where there shouldn't be and Danny watched as you settled again. You had no idea of how much danger you were in, of how much danger you had always been in, ever since he had decided that you were to be his next passion project, his next game and victim.

But you were to be the one who didn't get away, the one who met him where he was, the one who became his final girl. His, his, his.

His final girl.

Danny's chest heaved as he removed his mask, broke his own boundary while breaking so many of yours that it would be quicker and easier to list the ones he hadn't broken. By far, it was a shorter list.

He bent down some more and flattened his tongue along your abdomen, scooping up his cum with little fuss. You whimpered, shifted under what he was doing, and the taste of you had his eyes rolling back in his head. Fuck, why hadn't he done this sooner? Life was no fun without risks and Danny had put all of his and some of your own onto the table as he cleaned you up, tucked himself away, put your dirty panties in one of his many pockets, and stole out of your bedroom window as quickly as he had climbed through it.

Saliva glistened on your abdomen, exposed to the cool natural air, but you didn't wake. You slept on, unencumbered by the man who was stealing you from yourself, piece by piece by piece, until you would have nothing left. And then he would take more. And more. And more. Until your life left your eyes, your blood cooled on his blade, your body stilled, and he rejoiced.

But not yet.

Tomorrow, Jed would order coffee, Danny would plan, you would work, and all would go well for one of you.

For the other?

Nothing would ever be the same again.

It remained to be seen who would be who, and wasn't that fun?

Danny thought so.

#danny johnson #danny jed olsen johnson #dbd ghostface #bisexual-horror-fan #bex my beloved

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leclerc-s · 6 months

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the blue - part one

summary: falling in love with your brother's best friend was a cliche and amelia holland promised she'd never fall victim to that cliche. and it had worked for the longest time until suddenly he seemed like the perfect person for her. but he toyed with her, twisted the knife in her like she meant nothing and then he walked in. he came out of the blue and she realized getting her heartbroken by harrison had been the best thing to ever happen to her because it brought her him.

masterlist next

amelia glared at her brother for what felt like the 100th time, he was a liar who she no longer trusted.

tom turned to look at her and laughed at her pout, “i told you he wasn’t a driver for them anymore.”

“i thought you were lying to me,” amelia replied, “i can’t believe i flew out from new jersey to be disappointed like this.”

"wow," tom breathed out, "not even getting to spend time with your favorite brothers could ruin your disappointment."

"you're not my favorite, sam and harry are."

"oh look, there's lando norris, his new teammate shouldn't be far," paddy pointed out, "we should go say hello."

"no," amelia protested, "we shouldn't. danny's not with him. who's the new teammate anyways? i bet he's not as good as danny."

"wow, and here i thought i was a good driver to be in f1," an australian voice said, "massive daniel ricciardo fan, i take it?"

tom and paddy snickered, watching as amelia turned around in horror to face the owner of the voice. she grimaced, "sorry, i'm bitter."

"you don't say?" he teased.

"i also had no clue danny had left mclaren, i've been busy. not that it's an excuse to shit on your skills, i'm sure you're a great driver. i'm just a huge daniel ricciardo fan. in my defense i also didn't know sebastian vettel had retired, sometimes i'm chronically offline other times i'm not," amelia rambled, she stuck her hand out for a handshake, "amelia holland."

the australian smiled, "oscar piastri, pleasure to meet you. even if you did shit on my skills."

"i'm sorry," she apologized and oscar laughed, "no problem, you wouldn't be the first and you won't be the last."

her brothers continued snickering, only this time they were joined by the other mclaren driver. lando raised an eyebrow at both of them, "you two done flirting?"

"tom done talking you ear off about golf and his girlfriend?" amelia snarked back, "and we weren't flirting."

"sure," paddy joked, "and the sun is green."

amelia noticed a specific blonde coming their way, and she ducked down, "i need to use the bathroom. i'll be back later."

she rushed away before her brothers could protest. it apparently hadn't been quick enough because she heard his voice call out to her but she ignored him. amelia was a coward and she knew it, she wasn't ready to face him, not after he had broken her heart and twisted the knife by introducing a girlfriend to them two weeks later.

ameliaholland cropped paddy out because he pissed me off. WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME DANIEL RICCIARDO WASN'T DRIVING FOR MCLAREN ANYMORE??

tagged: tomholland2013, mclaren, landonorris, oscarpiastri

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username this has got to be the funniest shit i’ve ever seen and i’m a ferrari fan.

username oh lord, someone’s been too busy in the studio to keep up with f1

↳ ameliaholland DON’T REMIND ME!! I FLEW OUT FROM THE STATES FOR THIS??

↳ username totally forgot girlie flew straight from a taylor swift concert to be at the monaco gp

tomholland2013 i literally texted you that danny wasn’t driving for mclaren when it was announced.

username JUSTICE FOR PADDY!!

↳ ameliaholland fuck paddy, he was being a little shit.

ameliaholland posted new stories

took a wrong turn and ended up in the wrong garage

someone get danny ric back in an f1 car!

met some pretty weird guys in monaco

landonorris and oscarpiastri just followed you!

you ditched us for red bull?

no, i actually did take a wrong turn and ended up there. one of their assistants helped get me back to mclaren hospitality.

are you feeling okay? did harrison do something to you?

no, why would you ask that?

okay, i know we joke about me being stupid, but i'm not. i notice things, especially when it comes to my sister.

i'm fine, i just don't like his girlfriend

because she has the one thing that you want?

woah, what?

like i said, i notice things amelia, i know you like him.

i did. i don't think i do anymore, if any of my current songs i've written are anything to go by.

ooh new music? inspired by my dickhead of a best friend? i will be streaming and not because you're my baby sister.

TWO WEEKS LATER

ameliaholland a series of beach trips inspired me. say don’t go, out now.

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username MS.HOLLAND? WHO HURT YOU?

username WE RIDE AT DAWN!!

landonorris okay, but who hurt my new best friend? do i need to throw hands?

↳ ameliaholland i wasn’t aware we were best friends?

↳ landonorris dude. we bonded over missing danny. we’re best friends now.

oscarpiastri now i get why lando’s crying.

↳ landonorris SHUT UP YOU MUPPET!

↳ ameliaholland are you crying too piastri?

↳ oscarpiastri full on sobbing

tomholland2013 oh i get it now.

↳ ameliaholland shut your trap thomas!

↳ username what do you get mr.holland? spill the tea!

hazosterfield great song amelia!

taylorswift it's a beautiful song amelia 🩵

↳ ameliaholland thank you mother 🩵!

tuwaine who hurt you?

↳ ameliaholland life. life hurt me.

↳ tomholland2013 is that what we're calling him now?

↳ ameliaholland do you ever know how to shut up?

danielricciardo so this is the person lando claims he's trauma bonded with? interesting. cool song. who hurt you?

↳ ameliaholland I'M GONNA SCREAM!!

amelia holland DANIEL RICCIARDO KNOWS WHO I AM!! REJOICE!

lando norris YOU'RE WELCOME!! THIS IS MY DOING!

oscar piastri yeah, because you've been playing the song on a loop all day. i think max is close to strangling you.

amelia holland does max verstappen hate me? oscar piastri no, it's lando because he sounds like a dying cow singing. amelia holland oh thank god, i don't think i could stand being hated by an f1 driver

lando norris on a completely different topic, who hurt you so much? will there be more heartbreaking songs coming our way?

amelia holland maybe. maybe not. who knows.

lando norris you do! you know! and i know you're dodging the question! i'll just ask your brother, i know he knows.

oscar piastri you have her brother's number? lando norris of course not, i am followed by him on instagram, i can just dm.

amelia holland i don't want to talk about it. not right now.

lando norris fine, but i will find out the truth amelia. so are you going to be at silverstone?

amelia holland i have a show on the 8th? and then again the next weekend?

lando norris so? are you coming or not? you made it to the monaco gp and you had a show the day before?

oscar piastri she's going to be tired lando.

lando norris okay, will you at least watch the race bestie?

amelia holland of course, i want to watch max verstappen win again.

lando norris wow! okay. i now hate you. friendship over. tom is the superior holland

¡leclerc-s speaks! ignoring the fact that i've already used gracie as a faceclaim in another fic, i present the blue to you! i am charles and oscar girlie and let me tell you, brazil was not my weekend. i was struggling and oscar deserves more love. i have way too many ideas bouncing around in my head which is why i'm constantly putting new fics out. let's quickly ignore the fact that say don't go is a taylor swift song for the sake of the story and any future songs used in this.

¡disclaimer! this is in no way making assumptions about the people involved in this story, this is all fake. it is a fanfiction please don't take any of what is said seriously. this is all for entertainment purposes and as a creative outlet for me. enjoy!

#leclerc-s #the blue series #formula 1 #oscar piastri #oscar piastri x female oc #formula 1 fic #fanfic #fanfiction #f1 #f1 smau #f1 fic #f1 social media au #f1 instagram au

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kitkatwinchester · 1 year

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HOLY F*CK!!

I WAS RIGHT AND I TRIED TO CONVINCE MYSELF I WASN'T!!

WHY WOULD I DO THAT?!

I WAS RIGHT!!

AND WHAT THE F*CK WHAT THE F*CK WHAT THE F*CK WHAT THE F*CK!!

Okay there is soooooo much to unpack about that episode, but I'm gonna try to type fast because I HAVE to know what happens next. I have to.

Sleep be d*mned. I'll deal with the consequences later.

Because WHAT THE F*CK!!

Okay first of all, I CANNOT F*CKING BELIEVE I WAS RIGHT!

I was mostly kidding and then I was RIGHT!!

....oh my god what is this gonna do to Derek??

Oh my god poor Derek (though as an aside, him being next to Cora's hospital bedside was so wholesome and sweet omg anyways).

But HOLY F*CK I CALLED IT FROM THE BEGINNING!!

And I was RIGHT to be suspicious of her idiom examples in class!!

I F*CKING KNEW IT AND I TRIED TO TELL MYSELF I DIDN'T BUT I DID!!

Oh my god the way she orchestrated EVERYTHING. That's INSANE. The amount of planning and manipulation and every little thing she had to do to get this all to work out in her favor OMG.

Because she had to be able to put herself in a position that would allow her to get close to Derek (though honestly, maybe that part wasn't fully intentional), get close to and learn all about our teens, create alibis for herself so she never looked suspicious (do you think she intended to get kidnapped by the twins? Was that all part of the plan??), all while successfully completing all of these ritualistic sacrifices and somehow altering her appearance?

Like, WHAT THE F*CK?!

OH MY GOD THIS SEASON!!

And OH MY GOD the amount of yelling I was doing during this episode.

Jennifer hit Lydia and tried to kill her and Lydia screamed and all the werewolves heard her (also she's a BANSHEE?! BRO I FINALLY HAVE AN ANSWER ON WHAT LYDIA IS! I mean, I don't REALLY know what the context of a banshee is in this show, so I don't fully have answers, but I know what it is in Supernatural, and so far based off of the scream alone, it fits, so I have SOME info. BUT ANYWAYS.) and I was like "yes!" And then Jennifer got ahold of her again and started to choke her because the terrified scream weakened her and I was like "no!". And then SHERIFF F*CKING STILINSKI TO THE RESCUE and I was like "yes!" all over again (especially because you KNOW he believes Stiles now--ESPECIALLY after seeing Scott--or he never would've been there in the first place). And then she threw a knife at him and I thought she hit his heart and I screamed no again. And then Scott came in and I screamed yes again. And then she knocked Scott out and locked Stiles out and I screamed no again. And then Stiles started to make his way in and I got all excited again and then she took Noah and now I wanna cry because the last thing Stiles and his dad did was fight and now he's gone and the way Stiles just called after him and the way Scott and Stiles just stared at the broken window and the way Allison was just staring at the poor teacher's body and the way Lydia is all limp and weak and upset and terrified in that chair and the way we're LOSING and I just....

*SCREAMS*

WE WERE ALL THERE!! THE WHOLE PACK WAS THERE!! HOW DID WE LOSE?!

F*CK!!

I'm supposed to be awake in four hours, but I don't care.

I'm watching another episode. I cannot possibly sleep knowing that Noah is trapped with the Darach.

TELL ME WE'LL SAVE HIM PLEASE!

HE JUST FOUND OUT THE TRUTH OFFICIALLY AND THE LAST THING HE AND STILES DID WAS FIGHT PLEASE DON'T LET HIM DIE!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

...so anyways you guys are right this is definitely the best season, at least thus far.

...I don't even know what gif to put here. I'm so mad that I put a gif of Derek and Jennifer on the last one.

Hey Danny plays trumpet! How 'bout that?

(It's not a gif, but this brass playing music student needs SOMETHING to cheer her up...)

#what the f*ck #no seriously dude #what the F*CK #WHAT #THE ACTUAL #F*CK #AHHHHHHHHHH #I CANNOT WITH THIS SHOW #I CANNOT WITH THIS EPISODE #WE BETTER F*CKING SAVE STILINSKI #WE BETTER F*CKING DEFEAT JENNIFER #WE BETTER F*CKING WIN I SWEAR TO GOD!#i don't need sleep #i need answers #teen wolf #teen wolf season 3 #teen wolf spoilers #3x9

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shirtlessfelix · 3 years

Note

How about ghostie, mikey & ph hcs with a s.o. survivor who both startles and flusters easily? They are easily startled bc theyre usually very focused on their objectives or innocently distracted, in their own little world.

They get tunnel vision & also aren't very suave or smooth when someone advances on them 👀

I just really cjfbvnvj cant handle stealth killers and thought thatd be smth hilarious to have, a very easily spooked and very un-smooth s.o survivor, and ay throw in a ph we love a triangle man 💖

Stealth killers really are a pain in the backside ._. PH tries his best, but his knife and breathing give him away! Hope you like these 💕

Stealthy Killers Startle their S/O

Suggestive?? | <200 words each

Ghostface: Danny is distracted by his partner from the start of the trial, wanting their attention on him instead of the generator they're focused on. They think he's a fellow survivor until they catch sight of his mask, which makes them jump back in a moment of fear. "Stop doing that!" they insist as they laugh it off, and Danny leans against them with that ghastly smile looking into their eyes.

But their eyes are still on the various cogs and wires that they're fumbling with, and they're only halfway paying attention to Danny's proposal to spend some time alone. "I'd like that when I finish with this, hold on." Danny's rather impatient, but he'll wait it out for their sake even if they still don't know what he's on about.

Myers: He's a bit more subtle in communicating with his partner; when he sees them, he first admires them from afar and hopes that they'll notice him watching. When they do notice him, they get all flustered and embarrassed, a little disappointed that the thrill of being watched by him is gone. Their heart is still beating like a jackhammer when he approaches them, and nervous laughter shows just how happy they are to see him.

"Mikey, I didn't know it was you over there!" they'll say, trying to make some kind of conversation with someone who never speaks. "Well, of course I didn't... what are you—oh!" He'll pick them up without warning and take them somewhere more private, away from the generators and the other survivors. They both know what he wants, and his partner wants the same thing.

Pyramid Head: He'll find his S/O wandering around somewhere after he's broken down another generator, completely oblivious to his location despite his standing right behind them. He'll only get their attention by touching a hand to their shoulder, which will make them scream until they realize that it's him. "I forgot you could do that!" they'll tell him for the umpteenth time, but he can't show how amused he really is.

Throughout the trial, he'll pick his partner up and give them some knowing strokes of his hand along their back, or he'll hold his hand around their waist, and they won't know quite what he means other than wanting to be affectionate. "No, I'm not telling you where Jill is, that's your job to find out," they tell him, and his sigh is the only thing they hear before he breaks another generator and wanders off again.

#sffic #anon #req #hc #dbd #dead by daylight #dbd fanfic #dead byd aylight fanfic #dbd headcanons #headcanon #dbd ghostface #danny johnson #jed olsen #dbd michael myers #michael myers #dbd pyramid head #pyramid head #off topic i just had the most insane steve on my team i love u

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bluejayblueskies · 3 years

Text

can i be gentle?

Words: 7.1k

Relationships: Jon & Tim, Tim & Martin

Tags: Canon Divergence, Tim Lives, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Whump, Post-Unknowing, Injury Recovery

Warnings: suicidal thoughts/ideations, blood, injury, hospitals and hospitalization, survivor's guilt, body horror, minor gore, gun and knife violence, mentions of death, mentions of canon-typical worms, implied child abuse, meat, alcohol, swearing, crying, smoking

Ao3 link in source

Tim aches. It’s full-body, radiating through his arms and back and legs, and he wishes more than anything that he could go to sleep, to chase away the pain for at least a little while. It feels like he’s been hit by a bus.

Or been on the receiving end of several kilos of C4 igniting all at once. But that metaphor’s a bit too on-the-nose, in his opinion.

He should be dead. He should be dead.

(Does he wish he were dead? He hadn’t cared, in those few moments of clarity before he pushed the button on the detonator and the colors solidified into black nothingness, whether or not he would wake up when the smoke cleared. It’s hard to tell. He’d attached so much of himself to revenge, before, when it was easier than feeling everything else bubbling up underneath, and now that it’s been ripped away from him, he doesn’t know what emotion should be filling the gap. Probably relief.

He doesn’t feel relieved.)

The nurse is speaking to him. Her lips are moving, but he can’t hear her. His ears ring and ring and ring, and it sounds like spirling, mocking laughter.

They do some tests. Blast-induced hearing loss, the pamphlet they give him proclaims. Prognosis is good. Most patients recover in 6 weeks. Hearing aids can help with high frequencies.

His ears ring and ring and ring, and he’s alive.

He’s alive.

Jon is not.

“It’s because of him, you know.”

Martin startles badly at Tim’s voice. Tim wonders if it had been too loud; the ringing in his ears is incessant, and every word spoken sounds as if it’s coming from a very, very far distance. He moves a bit further into the room that they’ve placed Jon in, his hands shaking where they grip the wheels of the wheelchair they’d given him. Hard to walk when your leg is shattered. And some ribs as well.

Martin says something, Tim thinks, as he’s turning. His eyes are wide and rimmed with red, and he’s looking at Tim expectantly. Tim sighs, then winces as the motion sends tendrils of pain through his ribcage. “I can’t hear you, Martin. Either speak up—way, way up—or just… move your lips more or something. I don’t care.”

“What?” Martin enunciates, and it’s so ridiculous, Tim wants to cry.

He answers anyway.

“Me. Being here. I’m alive because… because of him.”

It was stupid, thinking he could protect Tim from an entire building collapsing on top of them. But his hand had gripped Tim’s wrist and he’d pulled him to the floor and he’d covered Tim’s body with his own, so when the shock wave had hit, Jon had gotten the worst of it.

Tim refuses to feel guilty about it. He does anyway. Because they’d argued, and Jon had stalked him, and Tim had cultivated his anger and fear into a simmering ember deep in his chest, but at the end of the day, Tim wasn’t supposed to survive.

Jon was.

Tim swallows, hating the bitter taste in his mouth, and says, “Do you… do you think he’s going to wake up?”

Martin says something, too softly for Tim to hear. His mouth twists into something small and pained, and he looks at the floor.

It’s answer enough.

Tim doesn’t ask again.

They arrest Elias a few hours later, after Martin’s collected himself enough to bring his plan to completion. Tim’s only regret is that he isn’t able to see the look on Elias’s face as he’s dragged away.

Knowing Tim’s luck, he’d probably have just looked smug.

The name Peter Lukas crosses Martin’s lips, spelled out in exaggerated motions when he visits Tim again. Tim thinks, absurdly, of the hydra. Cut off one head, two grow back.

Lukas probably won’t be better. Knowing their luck, he’ll be much worse. But Tim thinks of the way Melanie had shaken after she’d come out of Elias’s office, of the haunted look in Martin’s eyes when Tim had asked how his plan went, and can’t find it within himself to care.

They release him from the hospital with a hefty prescription of pain meds, small plastic hearing aids tucked in each ear, and a thick folder of discharge papers. Martin’s there when they do; the bags under his eyes are dark and smudged, and he nods mechanically as the nurses talk to him, outlining Tim’s care regime for the next few weeks. His eyes keep flicking to the side, to the corridor that leads to the long-term care section of the hospital. Wordlessly, Tim reaches over and takes Martin’s hand in his, giving it a single squeeze before holding it tightly.

Martin lets out a breath through his nose and squeezes back.

“Do you want me to, er. To take you back to yours?” Martin asks once they’re out, his voice on the softer side of muffled and overlaid with that constant ringing but audible enough now that he doesn’t have to shout.

Tim feels something almost like embarrassment curling in his stomach. “I, uh. I don’t have a place anymore.” Tim drums his fingers on his thighs, looks at the ground, and says, “I canceled my lease. About a week before we left for Great Yarmouth.”

There’s silence between them—or at least, as close to silence as Tim can get right now. Tim thinks Martin says something, a word or two brushing up against the edges of what the hearing aids allow him to hear, but he can’t grasp any of it. So, Tim looks up at Martin, at the pinched, pained expression on his face, and says, “Don’t pretend like you didn’t know.”

“Know what?” Martin says bitterly. “That you never expected to come back? Yeah, I got that part. I even got why, you know? Doesn’t make it better, though. I didn’t want to lose you, Tim.” Martin pauses, then says, so quietly Tim can barely hear it, “I didn’t want to lose anybody.”

“Yeah,” Tim says. But that’s not how this works. We were never going to all survive. Everything is fucked, and it still is, and it always will be.

“I’m sorry,” he says and finds he means it. Then, to clarify: “For hurting you. And… and for Jon.” He doesn’t elaborate on that point. He doesn’t know what he would say even if he tried. “But I’m not sorry for going, and I’m not sorry for pressing that button. If I would have died, I wouldn’t have been sorry for that either.”

“Right,” Martin says slowly. “But you didn’t. And the Circus is gone now, so do you…?”

“Do I still want to kill myself?”

Martin winces.

“Hey, your question, not mine,” Tim says, holding his hands up in a defensive gesture. After a moment, his hands drop back to his lap, and he gives a small shrug. “Don’t know. I knew I would do what I needed to in order to destroy the Circus, and I did. Thought I would die in the process, but I didn’t. I’m still trapped in the world’s shittiest job, and I don’t really…”

Tim shrugs again. “I don’t know,” he repeats. Then, because it feels true: “It was never… it was never the dying bit I was chasing, you know. I didn’t do this because I thought it would be a good way to get killed. I did it for Danny, and that’s it. Plain and simple. So if you’re asking if I want to die, the answer is no. But I can’t guarantee that I won’t make the same decision again if I have to.”

Martin’s quiet for a long moment. Then, calmer than Tim expects, he says, “Okay.”

“Okay,” Tim echoes. Then, with a levity that only feels slightly forced: “I suppose it’s back to your place, then. Just be sure to buy me dinner first.”

Martin doesn’t smile at that like he used to, but his face does soften a bit. His voice is lighter when he says, “Oh, I will. Within your dietary restrictions, that is. Which means no alcohol.”

Tim groans. “You’re no fun.”

“Uh huh.”

They begin the commute back to Martin’s flat, and the atmosphere between them grows more lighthearted than it’s been in months. Tim feels something warm and familiar curl in his chest, and he realizes just how much he’s missed this. It’s not quite easy conversation, not like it used to be, but it’s nice all the same.

Tim’s ears ring, and his entire body aches, and he still feels a numbness in his core in the shape of suspicious glances and calliope music and a face he can’t remember, but for the first time in a long, long time, he allows himself to smile.

Tim doesn’t visit Jon often. At first, it’s the guilt, acute and cloying and weighing him down. Then, it’s old hurt and stale anger, resurfacing and driving away any passing thought of Jon that isn’t tinged with bad memories and broken trust. After that, it’s just habit.

It also hurts, if he lets himself admit it. To see Jon lying there, motionless and clad entirely in white, the heart monitor attached to him reading out a constant horizontal line even as his eyes move in small, jerky motions behind his eyelids.

See? a part of him whispers. He’s not human. Maybe he never was. Maybe he was always a monster, and you just never noticed. It wouldn’t be the first time.

A newer part of him, one that gets more prominent by the day, recognizes that even if Jon isn’t human anymore, he never would have chosen this. This stasis, this half-death. Not what came before, either. That part of him remembers the way Jon’s hand had gripped his tightly as they’d opened that trapdoor, and how it had continued to do so even as the worms had begun to bite into their skin. He’d tried to protect Tim then, too, putting himself between Tim and Jane Prentiss. For all the good it did, when the worms began to come from all directions. But Tim remembers the way the terror and pain in Jon’s eyes had been tinged with sadness, with a silent apology as he gripped Tim’s hand hard enough to bruise and they both accepted that this was it.

It hadn’t been, in the end. And now it is, with Jon all-but-dead and Tim still here, wheeling his way into Jon’s hospital room for the first time in weeks.

He’s halfway in before he realizes he’s not alone.

“Oh,” he says. “I… I didn’t know you’d be here.”

Martin lets out a sharp, jagged laugh. “Where else would I be?” he says, and it’s tinged with something bitter and broken that takes Tim a bit off-guard. It’s become almost routine now, for Martin to visit Jon, and usually, he comes back looking drained but otherwise fine. Sometimes, when Tim asks him for status updates on our resident medical mystery, Martin even manages a small smile and responds, still dreaming.

Martin scrubs a hand across his face, and Tim realizes belatedly that he’s crying.

“Martin?” Tim says carefully, moving a bit closer to where Martin’s sitting. “Are you… did something happen?”

“No,” Martin says, his voice catching in a way that indicates that something very much did happen. “It’s fine.”

“Is it…?” Tim pauses, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “Is it about Jon?”

Martin’s laugh this time is more like a whimper. “Nope, he’s- he’s the same as always. Still asleep.”

Tim moves closer but doesn’t say anything. The clock ticks rhythmically in the background, and he waits. Patience has never been his strong suit, but it’s been something that’s been required of him as of late, and he’s getting better at it.

He likes to think he’s getting better at a lot of things.

Martin doesn’t speak again for a few minutes. He stares at his hands where they rest just shy of one of Jon’s, his fingers restless against the sheets, coming up occasionally to fiddle with the thin black ring that rests on the middle finger of his right hand. Then, so quiet Tim almost can’t hear it, he says, “My mother died today.”

Oh.

“I’m sorry,” Tim says. They’re empty words, but they’re better than the good riddance and about time and you’re better off without her sitting on the back of his tongue, begging to be released. He doesn’t think they would be appreciated right now, no matter how true they might be.

“Yeah,” Martin says. He’s still staring at his hands. “They called me a few hours ago. She… she passed away in her sleep. Natural causes. From- from her illness.” He falls silent for a few moments, his fingers twisting in the sheets. Then: “I… I think I should be sad?”

Tim studies Martin’s face—the tear tracks down his cheeks, the unhappy set to his mouth, the way he’s shaking ever so slightly where he sits. His face is one of grief, but Tim doesn’t ask. He waits for Martin to continue, and after a moment, Martin says, “She was the only family I had left. She- she was my mother. I took care of her, I- I did my best to be a- a good son.” He takes in a shaky breath, curls his hands into fists, and says, “I haven’t seen her in months, you know. I- I visited at first, but she… she never wanted to see me. So I just stopped going. I’d call, every Saturday, but it was the same every time. She’s resting. She doesn’t feel up to talking right now. Call later, and we’ll see what we can do.”

Finally, Martin looks at Tim, and the guilt in his eyes is so acute Tim can feel it cut through him to his core. “I should be sad that she’s dead, but… but all I can feel is relief. And that hurts. I- I don’t know… why am I relieved? God, she was right, I- I’m horrible, no wonder she- she never wanted to see me, I- why can’t I- I can’t—”

Martin cuts off with a wet sob, and all at once, Tim understands.

“It’s okay,” he says, and he collects Martin’s hands from the sheets, holds them tightly in his own. “You can feel however you like, it’s- it’s okay.”

He squeezes Martin’s hands, just once, and repeats, “It’s okay.”

He knows Martin won’t believe him. But still, he sits, and Martin cries, and he says, It’s okay.

It’s okay.

The hearing aids are a permanent fixture in his ears now, as most people have full hearing restoration after six weeks apparently doesn’t include him. The tinnitus is still particularly bad some days, but they help with everything else. It’s not perfect, but it’s a small price to pay for living, he supposes.

He’s not sure when, exactly, he decides that he’s glad he’s alive. But he does.

He wishes he hadn’t been able to hear at all, when the Flesh attacks. He wishes he hadn’t been able to hear the wet, sticky sounds of things that shouldn’t be able to move without bones slipping through the vents, shattering the relative peace they’d begun to cultivate. He wishes he hadn’t been able to hear the pops of Basira’s gun, bullets burying themselves in things that barely flinched at the contact. He wishes he hadn’t been able to hear Melanie’s screams of anger, the responding screams of pain from things with too many eyes and teeth and limbs as her knife carved a violent path through them.

There are yellow doors and hands slick with blood and a sudden quiet as the last of the twisted, mangled creatures falls, sliced neatly in two in a way that’s just a bit too clean.

Melanie is breathing heavily, but her hands are steady and her eyes are hard with something raging and violent. When Basira reaches tentatively for her knife, saying, “It’s over now, Melanie. We’re- we’re safe,” Melanie stiffens but doesn’t resist.

“This isn’t right,” Tim says after Melanie comes back to herself in bits and pieces, enough to shudder at the blood coating her arms up to the elbows and mutter something he can’t quite catch before disappearing into the toilet. “None of this is. God, can we ever catch a fucking break?”

“We can deal with it later,” Basira says. She’s calm, but she can’t quite hide the tremor in her voice. Her Al-Amira is splattered with viscera. “Right now, we need to make a call. Get this cleaned up.”

“What,” Tim says bitterly, “so we can continue hiding away in the Archives? You’re the one who said we should start sleeping here. Should have known it wouldn’t be safe. It’s not like it was before.”

He rubs at one of the small circular scars on the back of his left hand, his skin crawling with a phantom itch that makes him vaguely nauseous.

“We stay here,” Basira says, leaving no room for debate. “We make the call, and we stay here.”

Tim makes a low, frustrated noise, and bites out, “Fine. Because Basira always knows best. Whatever.” He unlocks his wheelchair and says shortly, “I’m going outside for some fresh air. The smell of rotting meat is making me sick.”

Basira doesn’t follow him.

Martin does.

They situate themselves just outside the glass doors, and they don’t say anything for a long time. Martin still looks vaguely ill. His face is pale, and his hands are fidgeting at his sides. His fingers are resting on his ring, twisting it back and forth, agitated. His shoes are stained a glistening red.

Finally, Martin tilts his head back so it hits the wall behind him and says to the air above him, “Is it horrible that I wish Jon were here?”

Tim snorts, anger still bubbling under the surface of his skin. “Because we’d have done so much better with our own flavor of spooky bullshit?” He bites out a bitter laugh. “Maybe he could have compelled them to explain exactly why every single monster out there has a personal vendetta against us. Working for an eldritch horror of voyeurism doesn’t give you much in terms of an offense.”

“Stop,” Martin says sharply. “You know what I mean.”

Tim does. He’s just not particularly inclined to wax nostalgic about the power of friendship and comradery when he’s got bits of meat stuck in his hair.

Still, he finds that he means it when he says, “I wish he was too. For what it’s worth. Which isn’t a fucking lot, but it’s what we’ve got.”

“Yeah,” Martin says. His hand brushes against Tim’s, and they fall back into silence.

The police arrive, followed closely by the ECDC. It’s a messy affair, even messier than the last time Tim had been in this situation, and Tim wants nothing more than to get away. Forever.

He doesn’t make any jokes this time. He just nods in the right places, and when they’re finally released and he and Martin return to a flat they haven’t seen in weeks, he can feel weariness cutting through him to the bone.

When he wakes the next day, Martin’s gone. His note, stuck to the door of the fridge, says, At the hospital. Be back around noon.

It’s ten in the morning, and the sunlight is bright as it streams in through the kitchen window.

Tim digs out the bottle of rum that Martin keeps tucked in the back of his cabinet and pours himself a drink.

“Peter Lukas wants me to be his assistant.”

Tim looks up from what’s turning out to be quite an impressive doodle of the little figurine of a frog in a top hat he’d purchased back in research from a charity shop and says, “Absolutely not.”

Martin sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, holds it there for a moment, and then says, “I don’t know if I have a choice in the matter, really. It’s… it’s not safe here anymore.” Quieter: “He said he can help. Off- offer protection.”

Tim audibly scoffs at that. He sets down his pencil and notepad and crosses his arms across his chest. He can already feel a headache coming on. (More than the usual, that is. He’s almost able to tune out the constant ringing in his ears now.

Almost.)

“What’s he going to do, isolate them to death? It’s not like the Lonely’s any better of an offensive force than the Eye. We’re doing just fine without involving him.”

“Are we?” Martin’s voice is hard and a bit choked when he continues, “We’re living down here because it’s not safe to stay outside for too long. We’re still finding bits of- of flesh in- eugh.” Martin shudders and folds inward on himself. Quieter, enough so that Tim has to watch the motion of his lips to make out the words, he says, “Jon’s not waking up.”

Tim feels something inside of him twist. “We don’t know that. We don’t know what’s happening with him.” A touch bitterly—old habits die hard, he supposes—he says, “Maybe he’s just not done going through his monster metamorphosis yet.”

“Tim.”

Tim sighs. It’s a profoundly weary sound. “Yeah, yeah. I… I miss him too, you know.”

He’s surprised to find that it’s not a lie.

“Right.” A small, shaky smile crosses Martin’s face, and he says, “I- I suppose they’re right, then. Distance does make the heart grow fonder.”

“Somehow,” Tim says, “I don’t think whoever coined that phrase had this situation in mind.”

Martin’s smile fades as quickly as it had come, and Tim feels a pang of guilt. “Sorry,” he says, pushing away from the desk and wheeling across the room to where Martin sits. He hesitates, just a moment, before placing his hand on Martin’s where it rests on his knee. “I… I suppose I’ve forgotten how to be lighthearted about all of this.”

Martin nods. It’s a small motion. He’s silent for a long moment; Tim squeezes his hand and says nothing. Finally, Martin looks down at his hands and says, “It’s been four months, Tim. Nothing’s changed.” He pauses again, his mouth pinching around the edges. “I… I visited him today. I begged him to wake up, to- to do anything to indicate that he’s even still there. I don’t know why I expected him to answer. It’s not like anything’s different now. He- he’s never going to wake up, Tim.”

Martin’s voice cracks, and he repeats, wetly, “He’s never going to wake up.”

Then, Martin’s crying, heaving sobs that overtake him completely and have him hunched over, dripping salty tears onto the back of Tim’s hand. “Hey, hey, hey,” Tim says, leaning forward as far as he’s comfortably able to and wrapping Martin in as hard of a hug as he can manage. He rubs his hands in circles across Martin’s shoulderblades, feeling Martin’s shaky breaths against the side of his neck, and says, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

He repeats it, again and again, as Martin cries into his shoulder and says, over and over, words thick with grief, “He’s dead, Tim. He’s dead.”

“It’s okay,” Tim says. Maybe if he says it enough times, he’ll start to believe it.

Eventually, Martin’s body stops shaking and he pulls back, the tear tracks on his cheeks already beginning to dry. His eyes are red-rimmed and glistening, and he looks tired, grief apparent in every line of him.

“I said I’d think about it,” Martin says, in a voice rubbed raw and hoarse. “When Peter called me. I- I said I’d think about it. I- I don’t know why…” He cuts off, makes a small, distressed noise, and says, “What do I even have left? If- if this can help, what- what do I have to lose?”

Tim feels a pang of hurt flash through him, but he suppresses it. He squeezes Martin’s hands, gives him as wide a smile as he can without breaking, and says, “You have me. And I’m not leaving—you’re stuck with me. So don’t think for a second that if you take Peter’s deal, I won’t be there still. I’m like a bad penny, or, I don’t know, a- a fungus or whatever. The point is, you’re not going to get rid of me. Whether or not you decide to work for Lukas—which you shouldn’t, by the way, in case I haven’t made that abundantly clear—you’re not going to be lonely, okay? Not on my watch. I can be very persistent when I put my mind to it.”

Martin looks at Tim, eyes wide, and another small, hiccuping sob escapes him. “You really mean that?”

“Yes, Martin,” Tim says, exasperation and fondness filling him in equal measure. “Christ, just because things got… rough for a bit, it doesn’t mean I stopped caring about you. Honestly, don’t know if I could. You’re a very lovable person, you know. It’s not like being your friend is a hardship.”

Martin laughs a little at that, his voice still thick with tears. “Well, when you put it like that…”

Tim gives him another smile, and this one feels easier. Like it would be harder not to smile. Still, he’s careful with his words when he says, “So, then. What are you going to do? I’ve made my opinion more than known, but…” Tim swallows around the lump in his throat and continues, “It’s your decision.”

“Yeah,” Martin says, barely more than a whisper. “Yeah.”

Peter calls again. And when Martin hesitates for a long moment before giving a quiet yet firm no, the relief that sweeps over Tim is enough to make him feel weightless.

Two months later, as a man who smells of death shuts the door behind him, Jon takes a rattling breath and finally opens his eyes.

“Tim?”

Tim raises the hand that’s not holding a rather large bouquet of white daisies and baby’s breath in a half-wave. “Hi, boss. Been a while.”

The look Jon gives him is half-shocked, half-nervous. “I… I suppose it has. Six months, apparently.”

Tim makes a sound of affirmation before wheeling himself fully into Jon’s hospital room and letting the door swing shut behind him. “You know,” he says, allowing a blanket of levity to fall over him, “when we said you should get more sleep, this isn’t exactly what we meant.”

Jon just stares at him for a moment, face blank and eyes wide. Then, a laugh escapes him, a small hiccup of amusement. “Yes, well. I can’t say that I feel particularly well-rested.”

Tim imagines what it must have been like, to be locked in a dreamscape stasis for six months. He can’t say that the idea sounds particularly relaxing. “Yep, sounds about right. Guess we can cross ‘spooky coma’ off our list of possible cures for sleep deprivation.”

Jon folds inward on himself a bit, hugging one arm to his chest and gripping the other tightly. “Right,” he says, his voice small. He looks away from Tim, focusing on the small window in the corner of the room, and says, “I… I’m sorry, Tim.”

Right. Jon still thinks Tim hates him.

Tim lets out a long, weary sigh and makes his way to Jon’s bed. He practically shoves the flowers into Jon’s hands; Jon takes them, more out of surprise than anything, white petals tickling the bottom of his chin. “It’s been six months, Jon. You’ve been… honestly, a bit dead? No offense. And I’ve been alive. And we both know it was meant to be the other way around.”

Jon opens his mouth, and Tim holds up a hand. “Don’t. I know. I already hear enough about it from my therapist, I don’t need to hear about it from you too. The point is that I’ve… I’ve had time to think. And some of the things you did, I can’t forgive you for. But some of it…”

Tim shrugs. “Martin would always go on about how it wasn’t your fault. About how you were suffering just as much as us. And maybe I didn’t believe it because I was already angry, or maybe I didn’t believe it because all I could think about was finally getting a chance at the revenge I’d chased after for years. But then you were gone, and the Circus was gone, and I just… didn’t have anything left for the anger to hold on to.”

Jon clutches the flowers tightly in his hands, looks down at the petals. “But you were right,” he says quietly. “A- about me.”

Tim casts himself back six months and sifts through a metric ton of bitter remarks and angry assumptions. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

Jon lets out a slow, shaky breath. “About me not being human.”

Oh.

“Jon—”

“Do you know what I was dreaming about?” Jon cuts in before Tim can say anything else. “I- I don’t remember, not really, but… but I can guess. I… I Know, somehow, that- that they were the same dreams, over and over and over again.” Jon takes one of the flower petals between his fingers and rubs it back and forth, a nervous gesture. “I started having them soon after I took this job, you know. Naomi Herne was the first one, and I- I didn’t understand why. Every night, she was trapped in the fog, forced into her own grave, and I would try to move, because it- it felt like I should have been able to, but it- it never worked. So I… I stopped trying after a while. I would stand and watch as she relived one of the worst experiences of her life, every night, and I- I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

Jon crushes the petal between his fingers. “She was the first one, but- but there are so many more now. Lionel Elliott and Jordan Kennedy and- and, Christ, Georgie—”

Jon makes a small, unhappy noise. “I don’t know when I realized that they could see me in their dreams too. That in trying to help, I- I’d just made myself another source of terror.”

Jon falls silent for a few moments; the quiet is filled by the familiar tick tick tick of the clock in the corner. Then, so quietly Tim has to focus on his lips to catch the words, he says, “I… I think I made a choice. Before I woke up. I don’t… I don’t know what it means for me, not really, but I know it means that I’m worse than I was before.” He lets out a bitter laugh, devoid of any humor. “So, you were right. I’m just- just even less human now.”

Jon falls silent again, and for a few moments, there’s just tick, tick, tick. Tim rolls the words over in his mind, looks at Jon’s pinched, unhappy expression, and says, “Okay.”

Jon looks at him then, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Okay?”

Tim shrugs and repeats, “Okay. You’re not human. I’m not going to pretend like that thrills me or whatever, but it’s… honestly, it’s a lot less of an issue for me now than it was back then.”

“I- I don’t…” Jon trails off with a frustrated noise. “What?”

Tim sighs. “A lot’s changed, Jon. Things have… well, things have kind of gone to hell. Honestly, we could use a few monsters who are on our side for a change.”

Jon blinks at him in stunned silence for a few moments more before saying, bewildered, “... Right. Uh, I- I suppose I shouldn’t ask how you’ve been, then.”

A wry smile cracks across Tim’s face. “I’ve been just peachy, thanks for asking. Blow up one Circus and suddenly every spooky monster out there wants to kill you. It’s been one big, long, horrible sleepover in the Archives. But hey, at least Elias isn’t there! Now we’ve just got Lukas, and if one or two staff members disappear every once and a while, well—that’s just how it is at the Magnus Institute. Nothing to be concerned about. Sometimes, we still go out for drinks.”

“Tim,” Jon says flatly. The exasperated expression on his face is so familiar—so Jon—that Tim feels a tension he hadn’t known he’d been holding slip away.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tim says, waving a hand absently in Jon’s direction. “Point is, I’m not disappointed or angry or whatever that you’re back in the land of the living.” He pauses, and then, more sincerely: “Martin’s not the only one who’s missed you, okay?”

Jon’s lips part into an O. Then, his mouth twitches up into a smirk, and he says, “Mm, you’re right. Basira did stop by earlier, and then of course Georgie, and I bet even Melanie—”

“Unbelievable. And here I was nice enough to come all the way over here, to bring you flowers.”

“Mm, they are very nice flowers.”

“Damn right they are.”

Jon smiles then, a fragile thing, and says, “Thank you, Tim. I… I’ve missed you too.”

Tim could point out that Jon had been asleep for the majority of the time in question. But he knows that’s not what Jon means. So instead, he offers Jon a smile in return and says, “Be honest: more or less than the Admiral?”

Jon shoots Tim a flat, unimpressed look. “Tim, don’t be ridiculous. Of course less than the Admiral.”

Tim’s been out of the wheelchair for a week when he finally manages to make his way to the roof of the Institute, still learning how to maneuver the crutches he’s moved on to. He swears he can feel every motion of the pins and the rods in his leg—skin covered with even more scars for the collection—as he finally heaves himself through the door and into the cool night air.

The view is just as good as he remembers.

There’s the faint smell of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, and Tim’s entirely unsurprised to see Jon silhouetted against the glow of London, leaning against the wall that rings the roof with his back facing Tim. The cigarette glows a dull red as he raises it to his lips and breathes in.

Jon doesn’t say anything, even as Tim painstakingly makes his way over to where he’s stood. Tim props his crutches against the wall before leaning his weight heavily against it, arms crossed atop the wall in a mirror image of Jon as they both look out onto the city below, humming with life and light.

Finally, after a particularly long drag of his cigarette, Jon says, “I’m going to get Daisy.”

There’s no room for argument in his voice. But that’s never stopped Tim from trying anyways.

“I thought you were done doing stupid shit that’ll get you killed,” Tim says, turning his head to look at Jon. Jon’s staring forward, but Tim gets the distinct impression that Jon isn’t looking out at the city at all.

“It won’t kill me,” Jon says quietly. He moves his hands as he talks, surprisingly competent sign language that he’s begun using tentatively in his conversations with Tim. When Tim had asked him where he’d learned it, Jon had been quiet for a long moment before telling him that he hadn’t.

Well. At least the Eye was being useful for once.

“Yeah, whatever,” Tim says. “Dead or not, you’ll still be gone. You know people who crawl into that coffin don’t come back.”

“I don’t—” Jon cuts off with a frustrated noise. After a moment, he continues, “I have a plan. I- I read a statement, and it said that I would need an anchor. A- a piece of myself to keep here. I can find it when I’m down there, and- and use it to guide me back.”

“Right,” Tim says dryly. “Because our plans have always gone so well.”

“What would you have me do, Tim? I- I can’t just do nothing.”

“Why not?”

Jon affixes him with an expression that’s half-affronted, half-stunned. “Tim.”

“What? Jon, we barely know Daisy. She tried to kill you. No, don’t give me that look.” Tim jabs a finger in Jon’s direction. “You know I’m right.”

“I…” Jon trails off. After a moment, he hugs his arms to himself, his snubbed-out cigarette still smoldering slightly on top of the wall. “I know. But I… I still have to go. I… I’m still going to go.”

Tim exhales slowly and says, “Right. Suppose I should have expected that.”

There’s silence between them for a moment. Then, Jon removes his hands from his arms and signs as he says, quietly, “Why don’t you hate me?”

Tim stares at Jon for a long moment before saying, “What?”

Jon sighs and repeats, the motions of his hands larger and more emphatic, “Why don’t you hate me? Basira and Melanie, they- they keep looking at me like I’m some… thing, and- and maybe I am. No, not… not maybe. I’m not… I’m not human anymore, and I- I know what you said, but what happens when I—?”

Jon cuts off with a small, choked noise, like the air’s been sucked out of him all at once. Weakly, he signs, “I’m so hungry, all the time. What happens when I… when I can’t take it anymore? When I- I become dangerous, a- a monster, will you—?”

Jon’s fingers curl into fists, and he drops his hands to his sides, angling himself away from Tim and staring at an arbitrary point in the distance. “It’s better this way,” he says, loudly enough that Tim can make out the words above the hum of London at night and the ever-present ringing in his ears. “I… I don’t want to go. I don’t want to lose this, to- to lose you and- and Martin. But maybe it’s better than becoming something that will hurt you.”

Jon won’t meet Tim’s eyes. Carefully, Tim reaches across the space between them and takes Jon’s hand in his, uncurling Jon’s fingers gently in an attempt to release some of the tension. Slowly, he says, “You know, I… I shouldn’t be alive right now. Back after the Unknowing, when I woke up in the hospital, I… I didn’t want to be. It was supposed to be whatever it takes, and to me, that was always going to mean my death. Revenge and poetic justice and all of that. I should have died, but I didn’t. And… and you did. And it’s not something I feel guilty about, because we both made the same choice in the end, but that… that doesn’t stop me from feeling, sometimes, like it was my fault somehow.” He lets out a sharp laugh and says, “Well, I was the one to actually blow the place up in the end, but, you know.”

Tim holds Jon’s hand carefully in his like it might break otherwise, the mottled texture of the scar tissue firm against his fingertips. His eyes find the thin white line slashed across Jon’s throat, the stark white bandage poking out from the collar of Jon’s shirt where it covers a fresh scalpel wound in his shoulder, the pale pink spots that pepper Jon’s skin in a mirror image of his own. He can’t see the splash of jagged scars across Jon’s back, a memory of shrapnel and white-hot explosions, but he knows they’re there. “You asked why I don’t hate you?”

When Jon nods mutely, Tim says, “I just… ran out of reasons why I should. I still wanted to, but…” He shrugs and gives Jon a wry, humorless smile. “We’re all just stuck in the same shitty situation. And I guess at some point, I just decided that you hadn’t chosen to be here any more than I did.”

“Oh,” Jon says, barely audible.

Tim takes Jon’s other hand in his, squeezes them firmly, and says, “And I’m sorry. Not for- for how we used to be, because I think the blame for that falls pretty evenly onto both of our shoulders, but… but for everything else. For what’s happened to you. Figured I’ve spent enough time feeling sorry for myself, I might as well extend you the same courtesy.”

Jon’s fingers tighten around Tim’s, and he mumbles something Tim can’t quite catch. Then, he extracts his hands from Tim’s and signs, shakily, “I’m sorry too. For everything. But for what it’s worth, I… I’m glad you’re here. That you’re not dead. I- I know it’s been bad and- and I wish I could fix that, but I… I don’t know if I can.” Jon’s eyes when they meet Tim’s are sad but determined. “But I can fix this. I- I can get Daisy back. I can find my way out.”

Tim looks at the firm set to Jon’s mouth, the furrow of his brow, and says, “Okay. But I’m going to hold you to that. Otherwise, I might have to go in after you.”

Jon looks horrified. “Tim.”

Tim holds his hands up in a placating gesture. “Hey, come back in one piece and we won’t have to worry about it.”

Jon opens his mouth, then closes it again. There’s a long pause before he finally says, decidedly, “I will. I- I promise.”

Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Tim wants to say. Instead, he shuffles closer to Jon and leans against the wall again, crossing his arms on top of it and looking out over the city. “Good,” he says softly.

After a moment, Jon shifts to face the city as well. His arm brushes against Tim’s, and Tim lets that point of contact ground him as he looks up and up and up at the stars above, pinpricks of light on a satin black sky.

“Thank you,” Jon says, just loud enough for Tim to hear.

Tim moves his hand to cover Jon’s where it sits on the wall and squeezes once. “Yeah.”

They stand there until sunlight begins to tickle the edges of the horizon. And when Jon gives Tim’s hand one last squeeze, the other holding the lid of the coffin open, and says, “Be back soon,” Tim believes him.

Three days later, Jon climbs out of the coffin with dirt caked underneath his fingernails and a thin, sharp hand clutched in his. “Tim,” he says, and Tim ignores the pain in his leg as he lets his crutches drop to the floor and hugs Jon tightly.

“Looks like I’m staying above ground after all,” Tim jokes, his voice light even as his words come out wet and choked.

Jon’s laugh vibrates against Tim’s chest. “Yeah,” he says, burying his face in the fabric of Tim’s shoulder to hide his smile. “Yeah.”

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #tim stoker #martin blackwood #creators are revealed now so i can post this!#very exciting #blood cw #body horror cw #injury cw #hospitals cw #suicidal ideations cw #more cw in the body of the post as well #my writing #my fic

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fandom-puff · 3 years

Text

Nurse (Ch2)

Warnings: typical peaky stuff (violence, ptsd, drug and alcohol use), injury (inc blood etc)

Totally didn’t just... leave this for nearly a year 🤪🤪

Gif creds to owner

“Y’know... I haven’t seen my brother smile like that in a long time,” Ada smirked at you, biting into a thick wedge of jam and bread as you flicked through the newspaper.

“Like what?” You asked, frowning slightly. Ada had gone round to her childhood home for dinner the night before, and had insisted on bringing you. “He’d gone through a bottle or more with his brothers. And he’s caught up with that barmaid. The blonde one,” you couldn’t help but say the last bit with a little edge to your voice.

Ada raised her eyebrows. “Like he didn’t have a care in the world. He’s been frowning ever since he got back from France... and as soon as you show up, he’s grinning like a teenager,” she set down her bread and lay a hand across her bulging belly. “It almost makes me think you two knew each other... very well,”

Your eyes widened and you fumbled with the newspaper. “I- no- he was my patient, and his brothers!” You said, cheeks heating up.

“I’m just messin’ with you, YN,” Ada grinned, heaving herself up. “Well, I am about the bit with you two knowing each other,”

“That’s enough of that,” you said, shaking your head fondly as you left to get yourself dressed.

***

Sighing, you weaved your way through the betting shop, quick stepping around the maze of desks and chairs and tall men shouting out numbers and names of racehorses. You pushed into the back room of the shop, which doubled as the Shelby sitting room.

“Right, which one of you needs stitching up. If it’s Arthur, you owe me a pint after last time,” you said, setting your bag of equipment onto the table.

“No, not Arthur. S’me,” you looked over your shoulder to Tommy, who was sat on the couch, smoking.

Hands on hips, you turned, arching your eyebrows. “Put that cigarette out and come over here then,” you said sternly. Tommy laughed, approaching you. “Sit,” you pointed at the chair. As he sat down you plucked the cigarette from his hands, stubbing it out. “What’ve you done now, eh, Thomas?” You said, a little softer this time.

“Cut my leg,” he said.

“Fighting?” You asked, pulling over a pouffe for you to sit on while you propped up his leg. Tommy nodded. “Did you win?”

“Still here, aren’t I, nurse?” He said with a boyish grin. You rolled your eyes.

“I’m not a nurse anymore, Thomas. Haven’t been for a long while, since France. Haven’t nursed properly in ages,” you said, rolling up his trouser leg. He hissed in pain. “You’re not particularly attached to these, are you?” You asked, reaching for your scissors. Tommy’s eyes widened. “Fine. Trousers off then,”

“Not going to give me a blanket to cover myself up with, eh?” He asked and you shook your head, smiling slightly as he stood, dropping his trousers and returning to his seat.

“Oh, believe me, I’ve seen it all,” you said, inspecting the cut. “This isn’t actually that bad. Has Mrs Gray been taking care of this?” Tommy shook his head. “Good lad, then. You won’t be needing stitches. Just a quick clean, fresh bandage... you’ll be right as rain in no time,” you said. A comfortable silence fell between you as you concentrating on cleaning and covering the wound. “There,” you said. “Now, same applies to you as it does to Arthur: if I have to patch you up again this week, you owe me a pint,” you said, standing up and setting about putting away your things as tommy redressed.

“Rosie said Danny’s been a lot calmer since you came back,” he said out of the blue.

“Good. I’m glad,” you said, fastening your handbag up. “I see you Small Heath Rifles are still taking care of one another,” you said.

“Always,” he said with a smile and you nodded, making to leave. “Nurse YN? Thanks. For my leg,”

You nodded. “I’ll see you later. Best not be too soon though, alright? Rest that leg. Nurse’s orders, you hear?”

***

There was a loud thud at the door just after midnight which had both you and ada out of bed. You guided her into the kitchen, grabbing onto a small sharp knife, still covered in potato starch. “Stay here,” you whispered, and the young woman nodded, terrified. “Who’s there?” You called out once you made it to the hallway, grasping the knife hard to stop your hands from shaking.

“Let me in...” a voice rasped at the door and you frowned.

“Thomas Shelby?” You called out.

“Please,” he murmured, his weight against the door.

Setting the blade aside, you unlatched the door, causing tommy to tumble through the threshold, soaked from the rain and reeking of hard alcohol and smoke. Something told you it wasn’t just tobacco smoke. Instantly, you kicked into action, half carrying, half dragging him into the flat. “Ada, you can come out. It’s Tommy,” you called. “And get a glass of water. He’s off his tits,” you kicked the door shut, latching it back up before dragging Tommy to the kitchen, sitting him down at the table. Ada set the glass down, nibbling her lip anxiously.

“Bloody hell, Thomas, what are you playing at?” You said, helping him drink some of the water.

“H-had to shoot the horse,” he said. “Lee brothers cursed it. Couldnt- couldn’t save it, YN. Had to shoot it and put it out of its misery,” tears rolled down his cheeks. “Went the Garrison. A-and she sang to me... said she’d break my heart... it was already broken, and she shattered it even more,”

You were glad he was completely out of it, because he did not notice your eye roll. “You’re drunk. And high. And soaked, and cold. Come on. Bed for you,” you had him drink the rest of his water, before helping him up, putting his arm over your shoulder as you walked him to the room you were renting. “Ada, are any of your husband’s clothes left? I need something dry and warm,” Ada nodded and soon returned with one of Freddie’s night shirts and pyjama bottoms, and a towel. “Go to bed,” you told her gently. When she opened her mouth to protest, you cut her off. “Bed. You’ve got dark circles under your eyes. You need the rest as much as baby,” she nodded and waddled off to bed as you set about drying and redressing Tommy.

Dry, warm and tucked up in your bed, tommy frowned up at you. “Where’re you gonna sleep?” He mumbled, eyelids droopy.

“Right here in this chair. Can’t leave my patient unattended, can I?” You said brightly, although you felt your heart shatter as you witnessed the strong, powerful tommy Shelby lay broken in bed. “Go to sleep, yeah? I’ll sleep in the morning when I know you’re... better than you are now,”

Almost childlike, tommy nodded, agreeing to sleep. “Nurse YN?” He mumbled just before he slipped off.

“Hmm?”

“I’ve been resting me leg, just like you told me,”

#tommy shelby x y/n #tommy shelby oneshot #tommy Shelby x reader #tommy shelby x you #peaky blinders #peaky blinders x reader #peaky blinders fic #2021

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jonspurpleskirt · 3 years

Text

An Unlikely Befriending

Summary: Jon gets kidnapped. Jon gets bored. And Jon makes very unlikely friends because of it. Aka: Pen and Paper saves the day (world) and Jon finally gets to have a band. A/N: This is pure fluff, no warnings apply I think. ___

The worst thing about being kidnapped by a crazy mannequin murder clown monstrousity and sitting in a cold, room with creepy wax works, tied to a chair was not the ever present terror. True the fear of Nikola finally deeming his skin good enough and skinning him alive was quite potent, but it wasn't as bad as boredom.

Jon had never taken well to waiting. His mind needed to be occupied 24/7, needed something to latch onto, to obsess about. It's why he became a researcher in the first place. Having most of his freedom taken from him made occupying himself very hard.

At least they still let him eat and drink here and there. Nikola always visited personally, her overly cheery voice bubbling forth as she chattered away while slathering him with lotion or shoving bits of take out food in his mouth. His diet those last two weeks had been very varied and healthy and he had never drank so much water before.

He still probably looked a mess, what with no access to a shower and barely being able to sleep at all. And the constant terror. Oh yeah and the boredom.

Oh the boredom.

Jon was currently sitting in his chair as he was wont to do. Thankfully not nailed down despite all the nagging from Sarah Baldwin. The coffin was singing or moaning with a slight melody behind it, depending on who you asked. And somehow Jon found himself humming along, trying to find a good melody to go with the haunting tune. It wasn't like he had anything better to do and if he didn't start doing something creative his mind would start eating itself soon.

So he hummed, experimenting with the notes, twisting them into something that was reminiscent of circus music and airships. And then he kept humming the melody over and over, forming words in his mind to go with the tune. Once the spark was lit a fire started to burn, the story branching out and out into a twirling mass of chaos and fire.

He had gotten lost in his imagination, hadn't noticed how loud he had become, hadn't heard Nikola approach. Jon screeched when she leant down over him and grinned at him upside down, nose nearly touching his.

Nikola had the gall to laugh at him, no breath fanning over his face as she did so.

"Awww Archivist! I didn't know you had such a nice voice!"

"Hrmph."

"Yes your singing was also quite good!" She straightened herself, back cracking in several places. Striding around his chair she towered over him, tattered, bloody ringmaster uniform filling his field of vision.

"I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to sing, of course! And the broken repeat is lovely."

"Hm."

"Anyway water time!"

With gleeful cackling she ripped the tape from his mouth, amused enough to not immediately shove the bottle between his teeth.

"There are words to it, too." Jon rushed to say, not exactly sure why. What was he offering her here? A solo performance?

"Oh?" she at least didn't tape his mouth shut again. For now.

After waiting several beats where both stared at each other and nothing else happened Jon dared to speak up again.

"I ah... well I wrote it myself? Not wrote, of course. My hands are tied at the moment-" He was rambling. Nikola had given him the freedom of speech and he was off like a shot, telling her everything about what he had been thinking about before she had interrupted his impromptu jamming session, terror completely terminating his brain to mouth filter.

Nikola, for her part, took it all in stride. She even settled on the floor in front of him, blinking every now and then to indicate that she was still present.

"It's such a shame." she finally spoke, holding the water bottle to his mouth, letting him drink of his own volution for once. "You would have made a perfect piece for the choir. Hm maybe what will be left of you will do."

"I could sing for you now." Jon offered as soon as his mouth was free again.

Nikola startled at the offer and Jon just shrugged as much as he was able to. He'd rather sing to a creepy murder doll than spend one minute longer alone and bored out of his mind. And if he could delay the Unknowing (and the violent removal of his skin) by keeping Nikola entertained than even better.

That sounded like he almost had a plan. Which was untrue. He only had a very strong desire for entertainment.

"No sneaky questions." Nikola warned.

"Promise. I can't guarantee good quality rhymes, though. I'm still workshopping."

Singing out loud what had been in his head was always an awkward affair. He had wanted to start a band with Georgie in uni. But it was exactly because of this that he had never bothered.

"That was fun!" Nikola screamed after he was finished nontheless. Clapping her hands in delight, which created a horrible cracking noise.

"I'm glad? I also DM."

She tilted her head at him. "What's that?"

Jon explained the concept of pen and paper games to her while she rubbed lotion into his skin and had her hooked immediately.

Later that day (or maybe the next day, really Jon had no concept of time anymore) Jon was for the first time allowed out of his chair, carefully rubbing circulation back into his hands. Nikola had only briefly left him alone after watering and lotioning him. They had hashed out what kind of world and system they wanted to use (a horror setting, of course) and then Nikola was off and dragging Breekon and Hope back into the room so they had enough people to play.

Either Breekon or Hope sat down behind Jon, large hands lightly clasping his arms, squeezing every once in a while to remind him that should he try and escape he would only end up in pain.

Jon shifted awkwardly in the grip, unused to gentleness even if it was supposed to be threatening.

"Alright. First, character creation. Who do you guys want to play?"

It became a daily thing. The three beings in his group quickly became addicted to his story telling and to the characters they were allowed to play. Nikola tore through characters, trying on different personalities like pieces of clothing. She had a beautiful eery singing voice, Jon was surprised to find out when she had decided to play a member of a steampunk band.

Breekon and Hope were less manic, too attached to their twins to play anyone else. They changed voices and accents every session, though. Jon deigned to ignore their shenanigans, scared to make them angry. He hadn't had this much fun in ages, he didn't want to loose that.

The two delivery men took turns holding him down while they played, Hope holding onto his arms and Breekon using him like a child would a Teddy bear.

Eventually the three lingered after their sessions had ended, the ropes that tied him to his chair less tight. Jon tried to keep the conversations casual, to not ask all the questions that burned at the tip of his tongue. He found that he didn't need to. Tongue loose from goofing around Nikola was often chatty, Breekon and Hope throwing in their two cents every once in a while.

Eventually the topic about Tims younger brother came up.

"Danny Stoker? Grimauldi skinned him? Hm..." Nikolas head nearly dislodged as she stared at the ceiling in thought. "Noooo." She giggled. "We didn't skin anyone that night, silly! We were scoping out locations for the dance! Danny's little group stumbled into us and got a little confused~"

"But Tim saw Grimauldi rip Dannys skin off of a puppet."

Nikola shrugged. "An illusion. We're good at making you people see things that aren't really there. Yet."

"So Danny is alive?"

"I believe so!~ If he didn't die in a ditch somewhere."

Jon was very careful to keep his voice as soft as possible with the next question. "Could you find him again and bring him to the Institute? To Tim and... I don't know... maybe that's a stupid idea given that he can't be sure it's really him..."

"If I track him down do I get inspiration for my character next session?"

"That's cheating." Breekon complained under his breath behind Jon.

"I... yes?"

Nikola grinned. "Wonderful! I see what I can do!"

Days went by like that, Nikola or Breekon or Hope updating him on Dannys search, which had turned out to be harder than they had thought. Well at least Jon was keeping them busy.

They were in the middle of racing a burning train into the central bank of London when a door creaked behind Jon, bathing the room in technicolour and spiral shapes.

"That is not what I thought I'd find here." A voice that wavered between confused and gleeful mused.

Jon twisted in the grip Breekon had on him. "Hello Michael."

"Hello Archivist. You've found yourself in an interesting situation." The grin Michael shot him was a knife glinting in the light before striking.

"Yes. Why are you here?"

Nikola had let him practice after Jon had explained his lack of training, much more lax with her hostage now that he fed her fascinating stories of blood and gore. So there was no trace of compulsion in his voice when he asked the question.

Michael answered truthfully anyway. "I came to kill you of course!"

"I have dips on that!" Nikola said, voice pleasant and grin feral.

"I'm sorry about that. Would you like to join the game instead?"

Michael stared at him as though he had grown mad. Impressed, curious and lightly terrified. Then it laughed that horrible, headache inducing laugh.

"There's a lot of lies and delusion." Jon coaxed, heart beating out of his chest with nerves.

"He's a good storyteller." Hope added, Nikola and Breekon nodding along.

"Hm alright. I guess I can play for a bit."

It didn't stay just for a bit. Michael stayed through the finale of the story and then demanded to start another, their little ragtag group of definitely not heroes causing more chaos than any other player group Jon had ever DMed before. And that was saying something. Hours upon hours passed, Michael disappearing and reappearing to get Jon coffee and tea to keep his voice from giving out.

In the middle of it all Michael began twitching and twisting, glitching in and out of sight before slumping to the ground with a groan, form for once near comprehensible. Another door opened and out walked Helen looking down at the Distortion in disappointment.

"Oh that didn't destroy you. Shame."

"Helen?"

"Hello Jon! I was coming to rescue you given that Michael got a little distracted. Do you want to come to the archives with me?"

Honestly Jon should have been shocked, probably angry. He was definitely sad. And yet the most he felt was just an overwhelming sense of whelp.

Jon vaguely gestured towards Nikola, as much as Breekons hold allowed him to. "Ask her."

"We're not done yet."

"Later then?"

Nikola considered Jon for a long moment, both staring unblinking at each other. "Give us an hour."

To Jons great surprise Helen just nodded and delicately sat on the chair Jon usually frequented in his "freetime" all prim and proper except for the long sharp fingers curling at the edges like corkscrews.

"Now where were we?"

Michael groaned from the floor for once not smiling. Jon felt a twinge of sympathy for him.

"Are you alright?"

"Been better. Been worse. Let's burn this village down!"

There was no end to the tale they had been playing, not with just one session of playtime. Jon felt a bit bad about that, especially because he had left it at a cliffhanger. No one seemed to be angry at him for it, though. Michael had recovered fast and was again his usual ominous cheery, albeit lightly aggressive self. He poked and prodded at Helen like a curious cat while Nikola massaged lotion into Jons skin for the last time and handed him several expensive looking bottles, rattling down a step by step skin care routine he was to follow to the t or else she would break into his house and do it herself.

Hope patted him on the head. "See you around, Archivist."

"You're really letting me go? Just like that?" Jon still couldn't believe it.

Nikola shrugged. "I found another option. And I'd like to keep doing this after the Unknowing."

"Will that be even possible?"

The grin he got from was not at all reassuring. "I don't know~"

Well that was probably the best he would get from her. Jon gave a hesitant tiny wave and, flanked by both Michael and Helen stepped through their door.

Back at the archive no one had even questioned his disappearance. A fact that made Michael and Helen laugh, even though they both refused to leave as Tim, Melanie and Basira questioned him about his whereabouts.

Martin was the only one who took Jons forced vacation in stride. Maybe he even was a little too happy about a group of mannequins harassing him to take better care of himself.

"You're not compromised now, are you?" Basira asked when Jon had settled back into his office after a long shower.

"No? Because I still don't want the world to end?"

"Good."

Somehow Jon knew that she would still keep an eye on him from now on.

~~~

When the day came to blow up the ritual site Jon hadn't slept a wink in three nights and was overcome by guilt. Despite how aweful his initial time at the circus had been and despite him knowing what horrible things Nikola and her kin did in their freetime, Jon still felt bad about probably killing her.

He tried to rationalize his feelings away, connecting his rising anxiety with the fact that Danny still hadn't been found. It was a flimsy denial.

Tim stayed by his side the whole time, resolute in his burning desire for vengeance. Jon was scared that he would loose him to this, too. Had confessed as much to Michael and Helen, who had taken to keeping at least one door manifested somewhere in the tunnels at all times. The two had started to get along well after some initial disagreement. The Spiral, split as it was between the two of them, was weaker in its influence now, leaving more of Michael Shelley and Helen Richardson to make decisions.

They weren't here now. Daisy, Basira and Tim were, setting up explosives and arguing about rescuing people that were already long dead.

And then Nikola appeared and the dance started and nothing made sense anymore.

Jon woke up six months later, Georgie calling him a monster and Basira giving him a statement to "eat" catching him up on everything he had missed. Tim had miraculously survived, having been dragged through a door by either Helen or Michael. Daisy and Basira had encountered Breekon and Hope, who had argued about what they should do with "Jons feral friends" and in the end had led them savely out of the building before it could go boom, muttering about possible inspiration points.

The only one who hadn't been saved was Jon. He tried not to feel too hurt about that.

Coming back to work was as anti climatic as it had been after the kidnapping. The only one who seemed happy to see him was Martin. He had apologized profusely for the hug and promptly stopped doing so when Jon dashed forward and back into Martins warm embrace, finally breaking down.

He had been too caught up in his crying to make a note of the little kiss Martin pressed into his hair.

They all were a little lost after averting the apocalypse, normal everyday life eluding them. Elias might have been out of the picture for the moment, but Peter Lukas had taken over and fighting against the isolation was taking its toll on everyone.

They were all huddled in the breakroom, faces grim and stewing in silence so as to not break into an arguement when they got their delivery.

Breekon and Hope stepped into the small space with their usual nonchalance dragging a scared young man between them, who had a lot of resemblance to Tim.

"Delivery for Jonathan Sims. Nikola says hi."

Tim was the first one up. "No... No no nononononono that can't be. He's dead. Jon. Jon tell me is that really him?!"

Jon looked at the scared man, who had his gaze locked on Tim, recognition slowly dawning on his face. He Looked and he Knew.

"Yes. No one was killed the night Danny disappeared. His group encountered Nikola and her troupe during a rehearsal, got confused and then lost. And was lost ever since. Nikola told me of this. She promised to find him for me, for you."

That was all Tim needed to rush forward, catching his brother in his arms and hugging him close. "Danny!"

Danny clung back just as tightly, awareness barely back. Still obviously shaken and confused.

Jon smiled at the two delivery men. "Thank you. Will he... will he be alright."

Hope shrugged. "Dunno. Nikola said to make him remember bit by bit. Been not Danny for a long time. Might need to get used to it again."

"We'll take it slow." Tim promised, silent tears streaming down his face.

"Good luck. Hey Archivist, do we get inspiration, too?"

Jon laughed, incredulous. The others in the room watched the exchange with varying degress of exasperation and outrage.

"You know what? Yes. Yes you have. And I'll give you all advantage on your rolls next session. Only that one session, though! Same for Nikola. How is she, by the way?"

Breekon made a so-so sign. "Restless. We've waited over six months to find out what happens after that cliffhanger you gave us."

"Right." He still couldn't believe it. "Tonight 8 o'clock, my flat?"

Twin grins, the most excited he had ever seen them. "See you then, Archivist."

Tim was still gently hushing his brother, rocking back and forth on his feet to try and calm him down a little. And he still had tears streaming down his face, looking like an absolute wreck. But he still managed to join the unimpressed stares that were thrown his way by everyone but Martin, who at this point had just started to roll with the punches.

"You really befriended the clown club and made them rescue literally all of us?" Basira asked in a deadpan voice.

"I kind of feel cheap now." Daisy muttered. "As though those clowns let us win."

"Look, what can I say? Pen and Paper games are fun. I can't blame them. And Nikola did want to start a band."

"Oh my god." Melanie groaned, her head thunking onto the table. "I can't believe it."

"A band?" Basira asked, suddenly much more alert. They really had gotten quite desensitized to the whole monster thing, hadn't they? "What, you can sing?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. But really. Shouldn't we... I mean shouldn't we focus on Danny? There's a cot-"

"I know." Tim interrupted. "We all know there's a cot. I'll take him home, you keep talking about your weird band plans. Monster boss? We talk later, but... thank you."

Silence reigned long enough to follow Tim out of the Institute before Martin piped up, cheeks reddening before he had even opened his mouth. "Could we... Could we have a taste?"

"A taste? Of what? My voice?"

"Hold up, if Sims is going to sing I'll have to record it." Melanie tapped on her phone and held it into the room as one would do a microphone. "Alright go."

Jon sighed, what he didn't do to keep up the group morale.

"Aww shit." Was Basiras conclusion when he was done. "What kind of music were you thinking of playing?"

"Steampunk."

"Count me in."

~~~

Today had been weird, Jon thought, mind reeling from the whiplash of... kindness? That had happened after the delivery of one Danny Stoker. Granted the last month, no

year

had been weird. But this had topped it all. At least it had been a nice weird.

Jon had nearly forgotten about his appointment with a certain group of Strangers when he got back to his flat, overworked, hungry and still processing. So he should be forgiven for the scream he let out when he saw three large figures huddling on his too small couch.

"You haven't been taking care of your skin at all!"

There was no time to duck away from the cold, hard hands that fluttered all over his body. Nikola squished his cheeks like a proper grandmother, clearly unhappy about their elasticity.

"I was in a coma for six months."

"And awake for a few weeks now." A cheerful male voice said from behind him, bringing the smell of pizza with it.

"We were there he didn't take care of himself at all!" Helen added, putting down several cans of soda and what looked to be instant coffee.

"You're horrible!" Nikola wailed, manhandling him until he was squished between Breekon and Hope. "All my beautiful work! Ruined!"

"Uh... sorry?"

"You can make it up to us with weekly sessions." Michael suggested with a grin.

"Both on Saturday and Sunday!" Helen added.

"I actually planned for Sunday to be band day." Jon lied. "Basira wants to join, by the way."

They were all settled around the small coffee table now, food and drink on the floor so they had enough place to roll their dice.

"Wonderful! What did you think we'd name it?"

Jon tilted his head given the illusion of thinking it over even though he had known what to name his band since highschool.

"The Mechanisms."

#tma #jonathan sims #nikola orsinov #breekon and hope #michael the distortion #helen the distortion #kidnapping #fun times #humor #fluff #fanfiction #my writing #everyone lives cause i said so #even danny #enemies to friends

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chayacat · 3 years

Text

Devil’s Sweet Star (16)

Fandom: Dead by Daylight

Ghostface x Female Reader

Rated M for Violence, Language and Smut

***

Yesterday was a day full of revelation. And that night was a long night's work for Danny. You think that being a murderer, especially Ghostface is as easy as stealing a lollipop from a baby? Well, you're wrong. It’s not enough to kill someone in cold blood or just for fun without worrying about the small details to be a murderer. You have to be smart; you have to calculate each of your moves, study every potential victim, neglect no details. That's always how Danny did it, and he never changed.

He had spent the whole night watching McKellan and his guards. 4 guards were watching the house, all as chubby as the gorillas. But the raw strength and muscles are worthless in face of Danny's flexibility and agility. He'll be able to avoid them without any problems. McKellan spends three-fourths of his time in his office, studying statistics and turnover. In case he earns less money. As if he didn't have enough already... What a miser.

But soon he will no longer have to worry about his fortune, earned dirty by lying and cheating. For soon he will become a true masterpiece of bloody art. Which unfortunately will not be appreciated by anyone. What an indignity. But good news came to Danny’s ears during the night: someone finally found Mike's body. The police are on the spot and obviously two officers, surely new ones, have obviously vomited their guts. An image that made Danny smile a lot: that's exactly the reaction he wanted. Wilhelm is going to have a job, and it's deserved. Danny couldn't stand him and it was reciprocal.

“Have a good day, my bastard... I hope you're going to have nightmares about it in addition to the other cases you have to deal with.” He said with a smirk, thinking of Wilhelm’s face.

He looked at your picture and landed on his bed, remembering what you told him yesterday. So that's why you refused to talk about your parents. And in a sense, it's normal: Who would want to remember such a tragic day? You had a good life, you had great parents and suddenly.... everything falls apart. You're alone. That's also why you came to Roseville: To escape all this. Making a clean slate of the past. Move forward without looking back. Start a new life. For Danny, of course, he left Florida for reasons you know, since he told you everything too. Why did he do it? He himself didn't really know. Maybe because he felt obligated because you had done it? Or. Because he needed to empty that weight that weighs so much on his heart? And that you are strangely, the only person who can comfort him and with whom he feels comfortable?

He took out a picture of his bedside table, a little worn out by time and bent but still as beautiful in his eyes. It was just Carla and him, kissing her on the cheek as he takes the picture and she smile. They had been dating for a year at that time, but for him, it meant a lot to him. All these years spent together... that go up in smoke because of a man.

“I’m really sorry Mr Johnson...she passed away. We were not able to resuscitate her in time.” That’s what that bastard said to him.

It took four nurses to master and comfort Danny. And it didn't work. And the worst happened when he learned that that bastard had let her die. What for? To justify his requests for a budget increase. Because inevitably, who says dead, says lack of staff and suitable equipment and therefore a larger budget to "fill" these gaps. But of course, the money he received... it was for his personal well-being.

His blood only done one lap. So, one night, he went to see him in his office. Without being spotted. By the window, a knife in his hand. He remembers the rage with which he had struck him until he fell to the ground, moaning in pain. He was begging him to leave him alive! Seriously?? After what he had just done? Did he dare ask him to let him live? It's a good joke.

“You took the only thing that mattered to me, and now you're going to pay for it.” Danny said before slaughtering him like a pig.

The adrenaline he had, the satisfaction and even the pleasure he experienced, he never wanted to forget. That's how Ghostface was born. And since that day, he has improved a lot in his way of doing things. He is attacking everyone, without mercy. You're the only exception. Danny looked at the photo with a smile, melancholy before kissing her. he folded the photo where a small inscription was: I will never forget you, always in my mind.

He put the picture in the drawer of the bedside table and got up to take a shower. He said he'd come and get you, so he might as well be a presentable minimum. There's something else that perturbated him: your reaction when "Ghostface" came to see you. Certainly, he expected it to happen one day but not so quickly. What game are you playing? Unfortunately for him, you're the only one who knows. But sooner or later he finds out. Like he always does. But McKellan is the priority for now. For real.

The article to bring down Hoggins and Mckellan was making its way, but they were not going to publish it first. Since a journalist from Georgia had tried his move, we will give him the opportunity of exclusivity. And so, if Hoggins go after someone, it will be them and not the Roseville gazette. A clever little change of plan, proposed by the boss Hembrook himself. Having worked in the middle for years, he knew all the tricks. After all, it's not the old monkey you're learning to make grimacing, is it?

And when tensions rise between Hoggins and McKellan... That's when Ghostface will come on stage. All this promises to be wildly fun. The wait is worth it. Danny already imagines this "poor detective" heading for a false trail, who will feel humiliated when he realizes that Ghostface is making fun of him. His face will twist in unimaginable anger. He took his keys and left the apartment before driving to Zanesville Hospital. He received a message from you, telling him that you will be ready to go out soon, time for the doctors to make one last check-up before letting you go. It's better to be careful.

As he was about to start, his phone rang. It was his boss, Mr. Hembrook.

“Ah Jed! I’m glad you're answering! How are you? Ready to go back to work son?” He said on the other line.

“Hello Sir. I’m fine, I needed that break. I’m ready to track any information that Roseville needs to know. Do you need something?”

“... I guess you know... Or maybe not. But the police discovered Mike's body last night. Ghostface struck again. Apparently, he is in such a state... that two young rookies threw up their guts.”

“Goddamn... He was a big jerk, narcissistic and horrible with everyone but... He didn't deserve that. What happened?” replied Jed while Danny's holding back from smiling. Of course, he deserved it, he was just one too many bastards on this earth.

“The autopsy has not yet been performed. But in view of the initial findings, this Ghostface massacred him. and not just a little bit. since you are usually in charge of these cases... I was wondering if you'd like to go to Mike's house to write an article about this new murder. If you don't want to, I'd understand, after all you just...” said Hembrook.

“Don't worry, sir. I’ll take care of that. I just have to pick up my friend from the hospital. She's going out today. I dropped her off at her house and set off for Mike's house right after.” interrupts Danny trying to stay as neutral as possible.

“Say hello to her from me! This little girl is a lucky girl. I hope I can taste her pastries! I would like her to do it from time to time for the newspaper... she will be paid for, of course.”

“Promised. And for your proposal, I will talk to her about it, but it seems to me that she would be happy. I have to go. Good day to you Mr. Hembrook.” said Danny before hanging up.

He started his van, and took the road. He turned on the radio to make the journey less boring and less time-consuming. It still takes about 20 minutes to get to Zanesville. It's still a long way off. Count the time he parks, picks you up at the hospital and you both leave and you arrive at a little half an hour.

He was planning to spend some time with you, but unfortunately, he just told his boss that he'll go to Mike's house once he drops you off at your house. If he doesn't, his boss is very likely not to appreciate this. When you promise something to Johann Hembrook, it's better for you to keep your word. How many noses had he broken since the beginning of his long career? A lot too much. He often had problems because of his temperament... Explosive. Too often even. But at least he got what he wanted... In a way.

Danny couldn't help but smile as he thought of his boss in front of his boss explaining why an informant ended up in the hospital. He would have wanted to see it with his own eyes. He finally arrived at the Zanesville hospital and parked, then put his glasses back in place on his nose before descending. He looked at the façade with a lump in his stomach. Until he can turn the page, those bad memories will resurface. But how can you forget, the reason you became a murderer?

He took a deep breath before entering and heading towards the reception. The young woman told him that you were going to be able to leave your room in a dozen minutes and that she was going to inform you of his arrival. All he had to do was sit on the benches in the waiting room and wait for you to arrive.

And he didn't have to wait very long. He saw you coming from afar, talking to the doctor who had taken care of you, and when your eyes crossed, he got up and you trotted towards him, hugging him. He could not help but smile and put a kiss on your forehead, even if the urge burned him to taste your lips again.

“Well...I see that you’re really happy to see me.” He said with his angelic smile.

“And you don't push me away, so I conclude that you're glad to see me too.” you answer, smiling at him too.

“That’s true. Did the wounds heal well?” he replied, looking at the doctor.

“Faster and better than I thought. She still needs a rest but she can go back to work without overworking herself. If you ever feel bad pain, I've prescribed medication and if it doesn't work, come back to me urgently. My professional phone number is on the prescription. I'm counting on you, young man, to watch her and take care of her.” respond the man, clearing his throat.

“Oh, don’t worry about it... I'm not going to take my eyes off her for a second. Ready? We've got a little way to go.”

You nod and you both get out of the hospital. The return journey was livelier between your laughter and the music, the few anecdotes you heard from the nurses making Danny smile. Once in front of your building you both head to your apartment, Danny smirks as he looks at you, lying behind you. And he can say that the view... is superb. You had to do a lot of sports, to have such a firm buttock. That's another part of the body he'd like to touch, plus, the rest.

“Well, this is where we separate. Unfortunately, I have work to do, my boss wants me to deal with the new murder committed by Ghostface. But if you want, we could make a little restaurant one night. I'll pay for it this time.” Said Jed with a little smile.

“Sure! I missed it a lot... a new murder? I pity the poor victim of this sick man. Jed... Take care of yourself. You never know who his next victim might be.” You answer before kissing him, hugging tightly. Then you released him and enter into your appartement, Saying goodbye with a wave of the hand.

Danny smiled and left for his apartment. Once inside his smile disappeared, vexed to see that you like "Jed" more than he does. But it's only a matter of time before the trend reverses. Once you've passed into the expert hands of Danny... I mean Ghostface, Jed Olsen will gradually begin to fade. It's high time for Danny Johnson to take his place. One way or another. He took his work bag and left for Mike's house where he stays the rest of the day. He held back a smile, thinking back to the massacre that had taken place there and imagining these two poor policemen who vomited their guts as his boss told him.

The evening came and it's time for you to have your daily one-on-one with Ghostface. But this time he won't come empty-handed! he has a little gift for you! You were showering when he walked into your apartment through the window. Hearing the sound of the shower, the idea of entering to join you made him smile. But he's not silly he knows you surely lock the bathroom door. So, he waited for you to come out of the bathroom, in a towel, and into your room. The little start he caused in you made him smile even more.

“Goddamnit ! You can't leave me alone even one night!?” You said hiding as much visible skin as you can with your towel.

“No. And I'm especially excited to be here tonight. I have a very nice view. But it would be better if you took that towel off. But let's move on. I've got a little something for you. A small gift for... show you that sometimes I can be nice.” Danny said, handing a packet to you.

“If it's a cut limb or a knife you can keep it. I'm not a fan of the massacre like you.”

“Hahaha...very funny my little angel. But it’s none of that. I made an effort... you could do the same and accept my gift. For once.”

You took the package from Danny's hands and opened it. He smiled slyly when he saw you pulled out a black dress... very, very sexy. Short and quite open at the chest.

“The dress that your little nerd offered you is pretty good I have to admit ... But this one makes your shapes more valuable to me. I hope you like it.” He replied approaching you, taking your face in his hands. “I know he and you kissed... and not just once. I am vexed that you chose him instead of me. He's so annoying... You'll get tired of him very soon believe me.”

“What do you know about that? At least he is not a mentally ill man who kills for simple pleasure.”

“It's been a long time since you've broken my heart. It’s clear that he only thinks about his work. Me on the other hand... I will treat you like a queen, in exchange for keeping silent on my.... Activities. Which, by the way, will fix you when McKellan will be dead. I haven’t forgotten that you’ll owe me a favor when it’s done. And this dress... will be a part of what you owe me. I hope you'll wear it that day.”

“Don't even think about it. Creep...”

“Oh, I gonna think about it every single time my sweet little star. And it’s better for you...” He starts pushing you on your bed, pulling on the towel to get you naked. Then he passed the plate of his knife on your belly rising little by little. “It’s better for you to obey. It would be a pity for you and for me to damage this sublime body. Don't you think so?”

“Get...get off of me...” you said hardly, biting your lips by feeling the cold blade touch your breasts.

Danny chuckled as he gradually raising his blade. He could enjoy it so much now but... He knows that sooner or later he'll have his reward. He took his camera and took a picture of you before backing away and laughing as he saw you hastily looking for something to dress.

“I keep it as a little memory. Until I can touch the real merchandise, I'll just look at your curves in pictures. I still have work to do. McKellan's death must be perfect and spectacular. I have to plan everything in every detail, you understand? Until we meet again... take care of that nice body for me, will you? Have beautiful dreams... hoping I'm in it.”

Danny sends a kiss to you and his smile grows wilder when his saw your disgust and your anger. Then he disappeared. Is there just an emotion that doesn't make you so cute? Danny would have liked to spend more time... intimate with you, explore your body to make you vibrate with pleasure but as he told you …

He still has some preparations to do. And this murder will be the most spectacular Roseville has ever known.

You can count on that.

***

(Well, it’s done! I started the code to get my driver's license and for now I'm doing pretty well! (yes at 22 it might be time for me to have it I know! U.u) But I have an excuse! (or not) I've always been afraid of driving and seeing some of my generation driving like sick didn't reassure me either. But I know I'm going to make it! In the meantime, I hope you will like this chapter as much as the others! See ya!)

#dbd fanfic #dbd #dead by daylight #ghostface #danny johnson #jed olsen

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Text

WIJ Prompt: Choice

(Features @untilthepainstarts‘s Graham, who was due for a win, I think)

CW: Trauma response, dissoci@tion, PTSD/flashback, referenced noncon, noncon touching (in a flashback), dehumanization, conditioning

The @whumpmasinjuly prompt for Day 9 is Choice, and this is for that promp!

Tagging Danny’s people: @slytherynjolras, @whump-it, @bleeding-demon-teeth, @finder-of-rings, @spiffythespook, @burtlederp, @whumpywhumper, @18-toe-beans, @pumpkinthefangirl, @special-spicy-chicken, @swordkallya, @astrobly, @slaintetowhump

Graham was cooking breakfast, humming to himself along with some shit pop song on the radio, wearing just a pair of soft pajama pants he’d hauled on as he rolled out of bed - for once, for once, he was up before Danny Michaelson was and Graham Pierce had decided he was going to make the most of the moment and cook Danny a decent breakfast.

Lev had already come and gone, the swiftest kiss to Graham’s cheek on his way out the door. The love of Graham’s life had had a whole string of good days, while Danny was visiting, and the easy settling of a hand on Graham’s shoulder, brush of lips against his stubbled cheek, the soft I love you on his way out the door... all of it had Graham feeling pretty fucking good.

It was just he and Danny this morning - Lev was going to something-something-museum-something with a friend of his, no calls except for emergencies, although Graham checked the GPS app that connected their phones, just now and then.

Just a reminder that he knew where Lev was, that his Lev-blip was settled firmly on his radar, safe and sound where he belonged.

Graham had cooked up a couple of sausages, getting a bit of animal fat in the pan, and tossed in eggs to fry as he heard the first stirrings from the bedroom. Danny was all long limbs between them last night, between them in every possible way, and Graham grinned to himself. It’d been a good night, although all things considered, he was a bit sad Nate couldn’t make this trip.

Nate was like him, in a lot of ways that Danny and Lev weren’t. It’d been nice, to get on so well with someone else who spent as much time watching as he did.

Graham had just cracked the eggs into the pan when Danny came out into the kitchen, shuffling in his pajama, scarred torso and arms more on display than they normally were. Usually Danny never let himself be seen shirtless with any light on, or with the sun through the blinds like it came in now, giving everything a pretty golden hue.

“Mornin’, Danny,” Graham said cheerfully, picking up a knife to cut up a bit of melon, the chef’s knife slipping through the pale orange flesh and gray-green skin with ease.

Danny mumbled something that sounded like -ed.

“Hm?” Graham turned, and found the point of the chef’s knife pressing lightly, just barely, against Danny’s torso where he stood suddenly too close for comfort. “... Danny?”

He knew before Danny moved again that he wasn’t talking to Danny at all.

“My name is Red,” Danny whispered, and dropped to his knees with a thunk that made Graham wince as they hit the tile floor in the kitchen, tilting his head back to meet Graham’s eyes - and fuck, the sickening emptiness in the warm blue, it was an emptiness that Graham had seen too many times - as he slowly leaned forward until his throat touched the blade. “I belong to you.”

Graham’s breath hitched, caught in his throat.

Fuck.

“I’m sorry,” Danny said, each word falling out in a nervous rush. His hair was mussed up from sleeping still, the red lines cut into his face a little faded in the golden light of morning. Graham pulled the knife back, but with a little less finesse than he’d like and winced when he saw blood well up, just a bit, where he’d pricked the skin by accident. “I shouldn’t... shouldn’t have, um, have slept in. I’m sorry, I can be good-”

“Danny, no-”

“My name is Red,” Danny said again, more insistently. A kid trying to pass a test, Graham thought, his heart pounding as he set the knife carefully down next to the half-cut melon on the cutting board.

Lev had been gone for less than an hour and already the morning had gone to hell without him here. Graham’s eyes drifted to his cell phone... he could call Lev, get him back here to help - but Lev had been looking forward to this museum thing for months. And it wasn’t really an emergency, was it? Not yet. Not if he could pull Danny out of it.

“Right. Sorry-... uh, Red.” The name felt all wrong on his tongue, it made him think of when they’d first traded names, he and Lev, and Graham had stood by while Lev looked Danny up and saw all the news reports, realized that Lev’s online therapy buddy was actually kind of some local celebrity in his part of the States for what he’d survived, and Lev had said, softly, I’m so glad I never made the news.

“When you’re bad,” Danny said, sitting back on his heels, looking up at Graham with eyes that saw someone else entirely, frightened and wanting only to placate whatever he saw in Graham’s face, in his eyes, “You say you’re sorry and you get hurt so you won’t do it again. Pl-please... please h-hurt me. So I won’t, um, won’t sleep in again-”

“Jesus,” Graham muttered, and Danny flinched back. “No, no, you’re okay, it’s okay, uh, Red. You’re not in trouble. I’m... I’m not going to hurt you.”

He’d expected relief, maybe, or some kind of awful gratitude for mercy, or some shit like that. Instead, Danny’s eyes welled up with terrified tears and he slumped forward. “N-no, please, I have to-... I can learn, right here, you don’t, um, you don’t need to put me down there, I don’t want to go in the dark-”

There are worse things than pain. Graham knew that well enough, didn’t he? After what he and Lev and Niels had lived through, he knew that sure as he knew anything on earth. There are worse things than simple pain.

And whatever ‘down there’ meant, whatever the ‘dark’ was, Danny was more scared of that than he was of the idea of being hurt.

He thought of the phone again. He could pick it up, call Lev, and get someone here who probably knew what to do better than he did.

Or... he could make a different choice.

Graham swallowed, took a deep breath, and then said quietly, “Stand up, Red.”

“No, please, no no no,” Danny whimpered, and leaned forwards, nuzzling into the front of Graham’s pajama pants, almost desperately gripping onto the fabric with his fingers. Graham’s stomach lurched a the hint of pleasure he still felt even through the horror of the moment. Fuck, what kind of monster could car more about the pleasure than how fucking awful this is.

He knew what kind of monster, though, did he? He’d known a goddamn monster pretty fucking well before he’d ever known that was what Martin was.

“Please, I can be good, I’ll try harder-”

“No.” Graham kept his voice firm only through sheer willpower. “I said stand up, Red.”

With a shaky exhale, a hiccuped sob, Danny pushed himself slowly to his feet, hunched shoulders. He was smaller than any man his size had any right to be, always working to take up as little space in a room as he could.

Graham leaned over without taking his eyes off Danny’s face to turn off the stove before the eggs burned, then put a hand to either side of Danny’s face. “We’re going to go sit outside in the patio chairs, all right, Red?”

“P-Patio chairs...?” Some kind of foggy confusion made its over Danny’s - Red’s - face. The scarred-up redhead couldn’t bring himself to argue, but Graham knew he was looking at someone who wasn’t in this place and time, who didn’t know why Abraham Denner would be asking him anything, let alone to go out on furniture that didn’t exist in the space Danny currently existed in.

“That’s what I said. Now come.”

Graham felt like shit scraped off a shoe, but when he took Danny’s hand, the tall man gripped on and allowed himself to be led. Graham ignored his own hunger pangs, still strong even despite the horror he was working through, and made his way to the sliding glass door, pushing it open to let a bright ray of sun inside that had both of them blinking and wincing.

Danny’s hand might have tightened in his, just a little, as the warm Australian spring air hit his always-chilled skin. There might have been a bit less fog in his eyes.

Graham was willing to bet his morning on it - and he didn’t look back at the cell phone, at his way out of this, as he settled Danny into a chair and sat himself down next to him.

Danny sat, trembling, staring uncertainly out at the brilliant blue sky.

“Wh-when you’re bad, you say you’re, um, you’re sorry-”

“Which you did, love,” Graham said, gently, and watched Danny shiver and curl into himself.

“I don’t... I don’t want to go in the smokehouse, Abraham-”

Jesus fucking Christ. The what now-

“You don’t have to, Danny-”

Danny closed his eyes and let out a soft, broken sob. “I don’t-... never think about before, there is no life before Abraham, I know-... I know my rules, I’m sorry, I know them, my name is Red and I belong to Abraham Denner, I’m a good dog, I can be-... I can be a good dog for you, just let me try, um, try harder-”

Graham had to get him to stop or he was going to lose his shit right here and now, too, let Lev come home to the both of them absolutely fucked. “Sorry. Red. You said you were sorry. I know you know the rules, I know you’re-... fuck. I know you’re, um, a... fuck, fuck fuck fuck, a good... dog. Just be quiet now.”

Danny’s mouth shut with a snap.

“Listen. You said you were sorry. So now we’re sitting out here, in the light.”

“In...” Danny licked at his lips. “In... in the light,” he repeated, almost plaintively. “Not... the dark?”

“Not the dark,” Graham confirmed, and took Danny’s hand again. “You’re not a bad dog, Red.”

Danny’s whole body shook with a shudder and he nodded, tears slipping down his cheeks. “Thank you for saying I’m not a bad dog, Abraham,” He whispered. “S-Say thank you for every gift you are given and every breath is a gift Abraham is choosing to give you-”

“There you go. Good, um... good boy.”

He was going to be fucking sick all over the patio if he had to say it again.

They sat there for a while - a few minutes, half an hour, who knew - before Danny’s eyes closed, stayed that way. A few minutes more. Graham waited it out, pulled on all the patience he had. He had to hope he’d picked the right option, not calling Lev, hoping light would chase away what had made Danny scared of the dark.

Danny’s eyes flickered back open again, warmly blue, and he turned his head slowly to look at Graham, blinking a little, surprised. “Graham,” He said, as if testing the name, not sure it would fit. “Graham, why are we... did I-...” He looked away, frowning. “Did I lose...”

“A bit of time, yeah,” Graham said, gently. “But that’s all right. Here you are, now, yeah?”

“I’m so sorry,” Danny said, his cheeks bright red, burning with shame.

Graham had had about e-fucking-nough of the men in his life feeling shame like this over things they’d never had a choice but to suffer. He squeezed Danny’s hand, gave him a smile, and when he pulled lightly, Danny stood up and the tall man folded himself onto Graham’s lap like a child, let Graham put his arms around him and hold him.

“Don’t be sorry,” He said, keeping his voice low. Danny’s head leaned slowly against his, the short, wavy red hair mixing with Graham’s longer blond. “But hey, look at that, got you out of it, didn’t I? First time without Lev.”

Danny huffed laughter next to him, soundless and uncertain, but there. “You, um, you’re right.”

“So let’s call it a good day, starting now, yeah, love?”

"Right. A, um. A good day. Starting now.”

A good day as soon as Graham could rinse his own mouth out with mouthwash until saying good boy and bad dog had been cleaned to nothing but mint and emptiness.

But fuck it, he wasn’t going to let himself dwell, not with Danny in his arms, willing to lean into him, to be touched, back to being Danny again.

No, Graham Pierce didn’t get a lot of wins, when it came to the men who loved him. He’d take every victory, no matter how slight, with all the thankfulness he had to give.

#wijday9 #prompt: choice #whump #trauma recovery #trauma recovery whump #conditioned whumpee #dehumanization #pet whump #dissociation tw #flashback tw #ptsd tw #referenced noncon #noncon touching #daniel michaelson's story

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edithmaslow · 3 years

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the strangest thing, in retrospect, is that he had left the mall after the initial bloodbath and come home. edith didn’t have the closing shift at the record store, so the radio was going while she was washing dishes. usually she does have the closing shift, locking the front door and sorting the records and tapes before turning off the lights and rushing out the back. it’s an eerie feeling, closing up a shop like that. she’d never want that in the mall, where people are all around and yet unseen. daniel does it more often than she’d ever like to. she sometimes gets a bit suspicious about it, but there isn’t much thought to give it.

outside, the street is eerily quiet. edith looks up from the plate she’s washing, surveying the darkened street outside the apartment. the streetlamps were fucked, honestly, but at least when they were flickering and spotty they gave off some light. now, it’d be pitch black other than pale yellow squares of other apartments and the occasional headlights of a car. she hated it. at least, back home, there would be crickets and flood lights and maybe even frogs. now it’s the staticky radio and little else. lost in thought, she keeps scrubbing the same plate. the radio loses connection, turning into white noise with snatches of words. kzzzzzt -- mall, sev -- kzzzzt -- an tor -- zzzzzz. groaning, edith shuts off the radio. no noise is better than indecipherable nonsense. “fuck, it’s ten thirty. where is he?”

(once a flirt, always a flirt, dipshit.)

shut up. he wouldn’t.

she hears the truck door close. must have not seen his headlights. the radio flickers back to life, some old fifties love song playing. weird, but not unheard of. there’s been numerous times that the radio would switch to some random station, or cut on when no one touched it. it’d never done both, though. she turns to the door as it opens, her boyfriend standing in the entryway. she snickers at first -- he’s in some doofy devil-themed halloween costume, mask and all. she approaches, still laughing. “wow, very scary, daniel -- you’re a little early, aren’t you? c’mon, at least take that stupid mask off --”

damp fingers tug the thin plastic mask off his face, revealing the specks of blood on his blank, unfeeling face. she staggers back, one eyebrow arching. “dan -- danny, you’ve got blood on your face … what happened?”

no response.

she meets his eyes as best she can -- his eyes are dull, more gray than she’s ever seen before. it’s like there’s nothing behind them, just like a sleepwalker or a corpse. he’s ignoring her, just lumbering into the apartment. he pushes past her, which elicits a scoff as she closes the door behind him. “daniel, you’re being a real dick right now. you aren’t gonna say hey or i’m tired, g’night, or nothing? like, s’okay if you had a bad day, you just --”

that’s when daniel pulls a knife from the drawer. edith turns from the door, eyes widening. “okay, sorry, but -- what -- what are you doing?”

he’s advancing on her, knife held down. she continues her nervous requests for him to stop, asking him what the fuck is wrong with him, till he raises the knife halloween-style with clear intent. she ducks to the side just seconds before the blade collides with the wooden door. okay, shit, he’s serious. the radio is coming in clear again, a news report. reports of a mass killing of several shadyside mall employees are coming in, seemingly carried out by a young man by the name of ryan torres … oh. she scrambles away again, managing to put two and two together. daniel had helped. and he got out before the cops showed up, and now he’s trying to kill her. he isn’t even being subtle about it. like it isn’t him. she’s smaller and faster than him, vaulting over the couch and ducking into the bathroom, pulling the door closed behind her. the door opens out. she can hit him.

in the dark, she hangs onto the doorknob to keep it pulled shut. her breath is heavy and quick, bordering on hyperventilation. the tears of fear don’t start till she feels the knob rattle roughly. no, no -- she’s jolted by him slamming himself into the door, knocking a small scream from her mouth. “daniel -- daniel, stop!” no response. he slams himself against the door again. in the anticipation of the third battering ram, she swings the door open. but it doesn’t connect, and instead she is face to face with her knife-wielding boyfriend. she gasps, immediately attempting to swing the door closed again. he stops the door with his hand, edith’s own force knocking her to the floor after her head hits the threshold. her hands fly up to shield her face, instinctively. he holds fast onto her wrist, pulling her kicking and screaming body away from the door.

she isn’t sure where he’s trying to take her, but she sure as hell doesn’t think she wants to go there. edith hooks her foot on a leg of the couch, trying to either bring forth the inevitable or stall it. his grip on her arm tightens, bordering on the strength it would take to break her wrist. she yanks her arm, nearly avoiding his stumbling feet on her face. the only response is an inhuman growl from daniel, who uses his offput balance to pin her underneath him. she lays on the ground, briefly stunned. he actually lifts the knife and stabs her -- on the wrong side. it isn’t her heart, it won’t kill her instantly. this was it, wasn’t it? she’d moved to ohio with daniel, thinking that maybe they could make something of a life here. but instead she was going to be stabbed to death by her boyfriend on this shitty rug in a shitty apartment, and it’s unlikely any of her family will ever know. this isn’t supposed to happen.

why is she letting it happen?

he lifts the knife again, but she shifts and grabs his hand with both of hers, fighting the downward power as best she can. he overpowers her, slicing open her cheek and hitting the floor. she screams, hands still over his. it stings, she can feel the blood pouring from her face. panicked, she pries at his fingers to release them from the knife. if she can get it out of his hand -- she can maybe incapacitate him, maybe long enough to call the cops and get them here -- his other hand clobbers at her shoulder, at her chest, beating her where he’d already stabbed her. “stoppit, stoppit, stoppit -- just … just let go, please!” she frees his hand from the weapon, grabbing it herself. she stabs at him, catching him once, twice, three times in the abdomen. she shoves him off of her, and climbs on top of him, her own wounds bleeding and her breath tasting metallic with her own blood. in a frenzy of fear, adrenaline, and the fury of someone who simply refuses to die like this, she keeps stabbing indiscriminately. his blood is spurting onto the carpet, onto her face, her clothes, her hands. he has to be dead. he is dead. she knows he is. he isn’t moving in the slightest, blood trickling from his mouth and the rest of him as dead as his eyes had been. her chest is screaming. the tears make the gash on her face sting worse than the air already did. still crying, shaking, her vision getting blurry, she lands one final blow. right to the heart. like a vampire. she pushes herself off his body, army crawling to the kitchen. weakly, nearly falling, she pulls herself up onto a counter, hands slick with blood. her shaking hands fumble the landline, her mouth tasting like blood and her vision spinning. she barely manages to punch in the three numbers. it rings.

“911, what’s your emergency?” “o-oh, oh thank god -- my name is … edith, edith maslow -- i-i killed my boyfriend, and -- and i need an ambulance.” “you killed your boyfriend, ma’am?” “listen -- i think my wrist is broken, my face is bleeding, he stabbed me in the chest -- please send an ambulance.” “all right, i’m sorry -- what’s your location?”

edith rattles off the address, leaning her head back against the kitchen wall. in the minutes before the ambulance arrives, she drifts in and out of consciousness, eyes fixed on daniel’s lifeless body. there are flies on his face. his face, which she’s kissed so many times. his face that didn’t move in any way when he attacked her. his face, his eyes -- she’d later tell the police that it wasn’t him, not really. his eyes were dull and dead, there was nothing there. there shouldn’t be flies in here -- are they getting louder, or is that what it sounds like when you die?

the radio was still playing, static littering the song. oh, honey, i know, you belong to somebody new … it continues to play as the paramedics wheel her out, weakly conscious, and bag up daniel’s body.

turns out, shadyside doesn’t just curse its natives. sometimes the fresh meat rots, too.

#» * verse. fs94.#blood /#violence /#murder /#ask to tag /#edith voice: u wanna hear abt how i killed my bf

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stereksecretsanta · 3 years

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Merry Christmas, negativenorth!

For @negativenorth <3

Read On AO3

*****

This is Our Last (First) Christmas

The Hale Pack survived junior year. Miraculously. The troubles that surrounded them sophomore year brought on by their sacrifices to find their parents were increased by the cleansing ritual in the spring Stiles and Deaton did. It cleansed the Hale Territory-including Beacon Hills and the Preserve-The Pack, the air, the ground, even the humans of all the remaining darkness; reawakening the hibernating Ley Lines and brightening the light of Beacon Hills.

The summer was strangely terror-less. Deaton explained the cleansing happened like and earthquake, the energy radiating out and it would take some time until the epicenter was found but once things found it, everyone would tune into it. The Hale Territory was highly desired by many supernaturals for many reasons. Derek (under the advisement of Stiles) began a training regiment for the pack, humans included. Derek focused more on the wolves-Scott, Jackson, Danny, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, and Ethan and Aiden-who deflection helped defeat the Alpha pack and Derek welcomed in with open arms. The humans trained too, but with Melissa on first aid and field trauma medicine and Chris and John with hand to hand and gun and knife combat training. Stiles had added training with Deaton on magic. Eventually, The wolves joined the humans.

"Why do we need medical training?" Isaac asked, diligently paying attention to proper stitching technique.

"If something happens, yeah you may heal but that doesn't solve blood loss. Or if a human is out. Or you needed to be inconspicuous about lycanthropy. Technically you don't exist." Stiles said. "Or a broken bone that heals wrong."

"He's not wrong. I agree." Derek chimed in.

"You're only agreeing because-"Erica was cut off by a hard nudge to the ribs from Allison and a heated glare from Scott. Stiles was confused but let it go, only to silently agree with the Mate-Marks on their right arm-a vine of bright red thorny roses.

"Well, if Mom says and Dad agrees then I guess we have no choice." Jackson sneered. Stiles sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Excuse me for wanting you to stay alive, dipshit. These aren't bad skills to have in general even. My first aid saved your fucking ass more than once." Stiles practically snarled. This pack was made up of his friends but that didn't mean they were easy to get along with. Jackson opened his mouth to retort but was cut off by Lydia's hand on his arm. Stiles always smiled softly when he got a glimpse of their Mate-Mark behind their ears, the chemical formula C43H66N12O12S2 also known as oxytocin.

A week during the fall of junior year, Stiles felt a chill go down his spine. One of the wards he spent several long days putting up with Deaton's teaching had been triggered. He had put up a dozen or so of varying intent, getting stronger and closer together the closer to Derek's loft they got. Stiles had a list in his journal of placements to recharge them if needed but Deaton had told him with his Spark and use of Ley lines, they will stay charged and operational until removal. Stiles texted to Derek to warn him of the visitor and he with Boyd checked it out.

That was the first of almost weekly trespassers of the creatures-that-go-bump-in-the-night variety. The pack had their training, their strength, their determination to survive but they didn't have their teamwork, their trust, their knowledge to win. Stiles and Lydia and occasionally Allison worked to compile as much information as possible from Deaton and Chris and Derek and independent research as possible. The Pack grew smart but they still couldn't click, they used too much brawn not enough brain.

"You would think, with werewolves needing packs, they would innately understand teamwork." Stiles said. He was at the Argent's house looking at few of Chris's books. He had become more helpful since Allison and Scott finally told him the truth about their Mate-Marks. He didn't like it but he know helped as much as he could knowing that was the only way to get his daughter safe.

"You have to remember Stiles, they may be werewolves now but they are teenagers first. High schoolers. Derek isn't that much older than you all. You somehow see the bigger picture but they can't." Chris said.

"I have always had to see the big picture. No one else was looking at it at the beginning. I was trying to keep everyone alive, not just-"Stiles cut himself off. "You are so right. You always have the best ideas." Stiles sagged a little with relief. He was glad he'd been able to convince Chris to help them, join them. "I have to go." Stiles left the kitchen, uncharacteristically leaving the books scattered on the table. He hopped into his jeep and headed straight to Derek's loft.

"Derek, are you home?" Stiles opened the door to the loft with the only spare key Derek ever made.

"Hey, Stiles. Surprise seeing you here, everything okay?" Derek popped out from the kitchen. "I am making dinner, care to join me?"

"Oh, that would be nice. Everything is okay, I just have something to talk to you about." Stiles sat at the island rubbing a thumb against the glass Derek handed him and the other rubbed the spot behind his ear.

"Okay. If you are this serious then it probably has some merit." Derek said. Stiles felt proud of the growth Derek had gone through. He had become a better man and Alpha since the pack had grown and settled and he was able to grieve properly. Stiles, however was confused at his statement. Derek looked up to see Stiles looking back with his head tilted and eyes narrowed. "You have tells just like the rest of us. You may know all of ours but you don't know your own. You have gotten good at lying to us weres but you forget that some of us? We know you. Like me, you rub behind your ear when you are thinking about something and it may upset the balance of things." Derek explained. Stiles didn't know how to answer, wasn't sure what to say, Derek studied him? It made sense in Stiles' head, at the beginning Derek needed to know everyone's angle even his.

"I didn't know that." Stiles said. He decided to ignore the other parts Derek said until later. "I know as a pack we have strengths and weaknesses. We need to work on those weaknesses, our biggest one? Teamwork. This pack is holding the strongest territory in the Northwest right now, and it is made up of young werewolves and several humans and a Banshee who all happen to be teenagers in high school. We had a social hierarchy and it worked until you bit several of them. Now they have to relearn that, everything is discombobulated causing tensions, and second-guessing and we may have survived until now but eventually that won't be enough. We may be a pack but we won't be a family until that happens." Stiles paused realizing how that sounds. "Not that I want to replace yours. I just want-I don't mean to-I get it. I don't want you to be alone anymore." Stiles finally spit out.

"I know what you mean. I would never think that you of all people are trying to somehow push away my family. You have too much resect for others to even think that." Derek said. His face was relaxed and open, the skin around his eyes wasn't even tight. You probably love hearing this from me, even though I say it a lot. You are right. We don't know each other well enough to know what we'd risk for each other. So what is your idea?" Derek turned back to the stove.

"What makes you think I have an idea?" Stiles asked. Derek just threw a look over his shoulder at the young man.

"You wouldn't be here if you didn't have an idea." Derek said.

"I was thinking of having the pack rebuild your house. It would give them a safe common goal and outlet. It would reestablish your territory ad strength pack bonds and the bond with the land. it would give us a den. I know I just said I don't want to replace your family. And that is true. I don't want to because I know I can't. I can however make the pain less, the burden lighter and you happier. We can do this together Derek. Me and you. like always.

"I. I will think about it." Derek said very slowly. Stiles nodded. Derek said nothing else, instead finished up dinner and Stiles took it as a sign to get place settings ready and switch to lighter topics.

The winter of junior year was made up of blood, sweat, tears, anger, resentment, claws, teeth, bullets, arrows. The pack was surviving, but barely. Stiles could see the fault lines forming, the glares more frequent. He never pushed Derek, only waited and hoped. He knew that the Hale Pack had the potential to be amazing once again, but only if they worked for it.

The spring of junior year bloomed with hope, filled with finals college preparation and a wendigo or two. March came and went but April came in like a lion. Derek had made his decision, rebuilding the Hale Manor is needed and would do them some good. The pack had too many issues amongst themselves to work through, if they didn't settle as a whole and members of that whole, then more people would die and the pack would fall apart. Derek's decision came instinctively, The young betas had been arguing over who was to land the first hit, the baddy of the week threw Erica into a tree skewering her on a branch. Derek saw it happen in slow motion, anger thrumming in his veins. That second she impacted the tree Derek knew. He would make a pack out of these teenagers or die trying. They needed the pack as much as he did.

Derek stood over his pack watching them cuddle each other from a distance. They were on the floor of the loft spread out, but unable to ignore the need to touch. Lydia had a leg curled with Allison, tucked under Jackson arm. Isaac bridged the space between Erica and Boyd and Scott and Allison. Stiles was sitting at the island still working. Always working. Derek had actively tried to not look at Stiles, the few glances he allowed had the same results, heart pounding breath catching results. Stiles had showered and was wearing a pair of sweats he'd left here some day and a shirt of Derek's, who's scent of pine and leather mixed deliciously with Stiles' own scent of lemon and honeysuckle. Derek was glad the rest of the pack was sleeping, unable to witness him softening. Stiles was the only one to bring it out. He sat down next to Stiles, pulling his feet into his lap, rubbing lightly.

"I've been thinking...about what you said a while back." Derek couldn't look at Stiles. He instead focused on his feet. "About rebuilding."

"Oh? Did you come to a decision then?" Stiles kept his face turned to the books in front of him, side-eyeing Derek. He knew that staring would only cause Derek to shut down harder. Stiles could feel his heart pounding, knew Derek could hear it but tried to project calmness.

"Yeah. I did. I want to do it. I need to do it. The last step of grieving and the first step of acceptance. This pack needs a fresh start. You are right, like always. I only want to do this if you help me every step of the way. I can't do this by myself. I don't trust anyone else to help." Derek admitted. Stiles beamed. The absolute joy and pride on his face made Derek almost forget that he had just agreed to tear down the last standing reminder of his family.

As if Stiles could read his mind, "They'd want you to be happy. I would be honor to help you.

The decision to rebuild the house triggered something in Stiles. He began working with Deaton, honing his sputtering spark into a full-fledged flame. Deaton was impressed with his strength, commenting the flame was more like an inferno. Stiles did his school work on top of learning magic and keeping a pack of rag-tag teenagers alive. Deaton explained that Sparks were common but without proper training burned out, with proper training Sparks became witches or varied magic users, they often became emissaries to those in need or ran shops. The idea of being a pack emissary resonated with Stiles and that became his goal. He learned moon phases, herbs, spells, enchantments, crystals, sigils, runes, ancient languages. As he learned, he wasn't the only one to grow emotionally. The pack began to pull down the old Hale Manor. Piece by piece, they pulled it down. The beginning was hard-insult were thrown without care for where they landed, more than one fight broke out usually but they worked together and talked and learned about each other. The insults lost their thorns, the glares lost their heat and the smiles lost their fangs.

During the days between the too-hot spring days and the too-cold summer days, the last dumpster full of the remains of the Hale Manor vanished down the road. Derek watched feeling numb. Stiles stood by in quiet solidarity. All that was left was the scorched earth and a smattering of rubble, the grass was stained gray from ash and fire, the foundation crumbling into itself. There would be a specialist coming to demolish and redo the foundation, that was something Derek requested. The two men looked at the now empty clearing, Stiles pretended not to notice the trembling of Derek's fingers. Stiles simply took his hand in his and pulled him down to sit, letting Derek lean against him and grieve.

"No one likes it when strangers speak for those who you have lost. I know I hated it. I also know what it is like to an extent." Stiles paused. "They would be proud of you. You were in a down really low, and you brought yourself back. You did it." Stiles pressed himself into Derek's bulk.

Thanks. It has meaning coming from you. I know you understand. You know loss, not like Scott. You don't pretend to be unaffected like Jackson." Derek sat for a bit, letting the Stiles' strength soak into his bones. He wasn't alone anymore. He could do this. He wasn't 16 again pushing away Laura in a fit of survivor's guilt. He had Stiles. He had his pack. "Now what?" Derek turned to face Stiles, looking like as lost as a child after a nightmare.

"Now we build your house. Together." Stiles said. "And watch YouTube. Lots of it."

The summer between junior and senior year was the best Stiles had in a long time. He and his mother always had adventures and busy days. Then one year it was just him and Scott. It was only the two of them for years, neither popular enough for summer plans. The others in the pack in similar circumstances. Allison didn't stay around long enough to make plans and Lydia and Jackson's families made plans without consent. Stiles and Derek read and watched and googled for hours before getting the materials. The did it step by step from framing to electric to plumbing to hanging drywall to building stairs to putting in windows. Derek bought the supplies, secretly pleased that the insurance, investment, assess money was getting some use, not just growing interest, coming into several millions of dollars was daunting without a purpose especially when part of the blame fell on his shoulders. With every step of the way, Stiles and Derek worked together to make the idea into a house into a home. Stiles layered charms and spells and enchantments and runes and straight ingredients into everything. Protection from water, fire, illness, bad luck, ill-intent, accidents, death, and anything Stiles could think of was woven into every step, from the frame to the paint. The house was built by Stiles and Derek for the pack, for the future, for each other.

"Derek, we need a bigger kitchen. And I think a mudroom will be a good investment with a lever handle door. We have a nice entrance way, where people came come in and hang up their jackets and put away shoes but the back entrance doesn't have anything." Stiles was looking over the blueprints with Derek. He was making notes for when they finalized some decisions.

"Why?" Derek asked.

"You will be housing a pack of teenage/twentysomething werewolves. You need a big enough kitchen and matching pantry to feed a small country." Stiles said, still scribbling notes.

"No." Derek growled. He was running out of patience. He wanted to make this house with Stiles but everyone seemed to have an opinion on something. Which would be fine it he had asked, or if there was some logic but the majority was just annoying.

"You don't want a big kitchen? I mean it is your house." Stiles looked confused but his voice seemed blank, undermined by his pounding heart and cold brittle scent of sadness.

Derek wanted to growl but held back. Derek didn't want to push him away. Derek liked how close they had been getting, his wolf was pleased as well. His wolf had been unusually attached to the young man since the beginning and was originally satisfied but as time went on both Derek and his wolf wanted more and more, not sure what they were asking for. The concern for Stiles' wellbeing, high sensitivity to Stiles' emotion and heartbeat, The willingness to entertain Stiles' commentary and personality and enjoy it, his gaze lingering on Stile' fingers and throat, reveling in the challenges he offered all resonated with Derek as signs pointing to Stiles being his mate but if that was true they would have Mate-Marks.

"It is our house." Derek said. It was all he could give right now, a house where Stiles could be relaxed and happy, Derek would have to accept what he had for right now.

"So, yes big kitchen?" Stiles looked up, Derek just stared back waiting. "Oh! The lever handle is so you can open it with paws."

That is humiliating. And smart. Make it so."

"You did not just make a Star Trek: The Next Generation reference. Are you a closeted nerd?" Stiles poked Derek in the ribs, peering at him suspiciously. Derek stayed silent, glad Stiles couldn't hear his pounding heart. Stiles laughed, head tilted back, cheeks crinkled and mouth open. Derek could only stare and memorize the moment, proud he got Stiles to laugh that easily. Derek could hear the thoughts in his soul: mine, claim, mate. The possessiveness and softness was happening more and more but only around Stiles, further adding to the mate checklist. Derek just enjoyed the moment.

Come on. Let's finish this. I do eventually want to move in, ya know?" Derek tapped the paper with a single claw, trying to remind Stiles-ineffectually-he could rip his throat out with his teeth.

The weekend before senior year found the pack piled in the living room of the recently finished Hale Manor. The pack was well-protected and well-stablished now with Stiles' magic and the 'den' and the bonds that were solidified over the summer. Deaton said the terrors of the years past will not go away but would drastically slow down. The Hale Territory was claimed and the others would understand innately. The plan worked, the band of high school students thrown together by happenstance became a pack, a family. And it showed, in moment like this. They were tightly woven together on a bed of pillows and blankets with a Disney movie playing softly on TV. Stiles looked on and felt his chest warm and his heart flutter. He pulled out his phone and making sure the shutter and flash were off took a few pictures, trying to shove away the sadness and nostalgia. He had been slightly obsessed with taking photos lately, needing proof that the pack had come together, they now had a home not only physically but in one another too. He had done it, he had somehow kept them alive through all the bullshit. They only had one year left together and he didn't want to look back and regret not capturing the memories or being unable to remember the normal days. One day, a year from now he would look up and realize everyone had scattered like seeds on the wind, he wanted to remember. Stiles got up from the chair he was curled up in, he was feeling melancholy didn't want to ruin the mood. Even Derek was on the edge of the puppy pile. He decided to use his favorite goodbye tactic he borrowed from the Irish.

"I can hear you thinking too hard from over here. Come join us. Get comfy. And we can talk, I know something is on your mind." Derek ungracefully shoved the others to make room. It isn't pack night if one person leaves."

Fine." Stiles was a sucker for the pack card. He knew he was pack but not being a wolf meant he couldn't feel the bonds as strongly as the others so he needed reminded sometimes. Stiles slipped in between Derek and the pack, thoughts like: safe, pack, mate, mine. After a few seconds Derek pinched him lightly. "I just don't know hat I am to do next. I did what I was supposed to do. I kept Scott alive, I helped you, I healed the land, solidified the pack. My job is done. This time next year, the pack might be tossed across the country and then what? We come back for weekend and holidays? For how long? Then we just fall apart and I never have this again? I made this family just like each of them did. I can't lose another one." Stiles felt his stomach drop at the cold, bitter, sharp feeling his own words gave him.

"That isn't how this works. A pack this established only gets stronger. No one gets out. There may be distance but not much and not for long. We are too new of a pack for that. You certainly don't get to leave, you are my emissary. You are connected to me and the pack and the land. Don't force ties to break when you don't know the future. There is time, there are options. Enjoy now, before fretting about the future. Talk to them, You'd be surprised to hear you aren't as alone as you think." Derek pulled Stiles closer, tucking him tightly into his embrace. "That is why you get sad after taking photos. You think old memories are all you will have left."

"I would rather leave then be left. I have grow weary of being left." Stiles tried to shrug.

"Don't look too far ahead, you'll miss the now. Make memories to enjoy the moment not resign yourself to only having memories." Derek said. Stiles nodded and snuggled closer, Derek's body heat and voice rumbling in his chest soothing his anxiety. "Go to sleep, Stiles. I'll be right here."

Fall of senior year was calm, content. Stiles and Lydia and Danny were in a heated competition for valedictorian, a contest that was a secret to everyone in school but no one in the pack. Some filled out college applications like Danny, Jackson, Lydia. Some decided to go the technical route like Erica, Boyd. Isaac and Scott were looking at community college. Stiles adopted a forget about it and it doesn't exist attitude. He often pulled out pamphlets or packets only to sort them into piles and then put them away again. He changed the subject when asked about anything dealing with after senior year. The closest he got to talking about it was with Derek one day, by themselves hanging out on a Friday night. He told Derek, he liked magic and the supernatural and being a witch, he might open a shop, take over for Deaton who wanted to be a vet and only a vet. That was the last time he seriously spoke about it. The pack spent full moons together, running and eating dinner and then a sleepover. Slowly each pack member added their own things to the house, a blanket here, a favorite mug there, A sweatshirt draped over a chair, a forgotten pair of shoes left by the front door. Stiles took pictures and cleaned and tutored. He talked a lot without saying much. Derek knew something was on his mind.

"I want you to come over tonight. I told everyone to stay away. We have some things to talk about." Derek texted him one day in October.

Stiles went over, slouched over like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. Derek felt sympathy for the kid.

"Stiles, I know you have been struggling a bit. Understandably so. A lot has happened these past few years. I want you to sit here with me, all night if we have to, and talk over your options. I want you to do what you want to do. I know your dad wants you to go to college and I know you want to open a shop. I think you can do both, and with the way the world works, I think you could make it work. I would gladly help, we can build you a small shop here or something." Derek said. Stiles sagged, eyes lit with relief.

"You don't think it is a dumb idea? Magic isn't well known, and I won't be successful." Stiles said.

"You are right, But people from all over will come if you are good. You will gain a following. I believe you would be a great successor to Alan, if you so choose. I will gladly help you get to that point." Derek said.

"What? I don't even know what I am doing." Stiles rubbed his face. "I can't let you...support me while I decide what I want to do."

"You are running out of time. You didn't hold me up in a pool for two hours for me for me to not learn what kind of person you are. You already made up your mind. You have helped me over and over and over again. Let me help you!" Derek demanded. Stiles threw up his hands, groaning loudly.

"What do you want me to say? That I want to learn all that I can to help you be the best alpha you can be? of the best pack we can be? And if I help other people with things around town or even farther, that would be perfection? That I have no idea what I want to do, but I can't see myself going to university and getting a typical 9-5 job and having 2.5 kids? That you coming in all dark and broody ruined me for all normalcy." Stiles ranted. He was gesturing wildly, pacing in short burst.

"Yeah. That is all I want. Feel better?" Derek, pulled Stiles close, rubbing his nose into his hair. Stiles leaned against him, this time borrowing strength.

"A little. I am glad I finally got to say it aloud. now I have to convince my dad." Stiles said. Derek squeezed him in a side hug.

"We have to convince your dad. You aren't alone, I'm not going anywhere, ever, We're a team." Stiles smiled softly and nodded, relaxing into Derek's grip.

The days and nights grew colder, the wolves handing full moon runs when the humans got the food, hot chocolate and movies ready for their return. Or rather Stiles did, the others just laid about, studying or figuring out how to move into Derek's house without their families noticing. November was quickly finishing and Stiles' favorite time of year was approaching. He had already pulled out the containers of decorations for his own house, trying to figure out how to bring it up to Derek. He wanted to have a pack Christmas, wanted to go out and pick out a tree together, and hang the garlands and argue over where the lights go on the tree, hang up ornaments and behind everyone's back rearrange them. He wanted to get presents for everyone, wrapping them with paper and ribbons and bows.

"Stiles, is something burning?" Scott said coming into the kitchen, kissing Allison on the temple. The other Mates sharing in similar displays of affection. Jackson and Lydia cuddling on a large chair, Erica and Boyd sharing a chaste kiss. Derek walked up to Stiles simultaneously pulling the pan of bacon off the stove and trailing a hand down his jaw to latch into his hair.

"Shit! The bacon. I was distracted. Sorry. It should be fine, I am mixing it to make perogies for you tomorrow. Its Sunday after all." Stiles said softly. He still looked a million miles away, Derek pulled him around ducking slightly to make eye contact.

"Stiles, is something the matter? Are you okay?" Derek asked. After they talked about Stiles' future Stiles had been coming to Derek more and more for support. Derek was more vocal with his thoughts, trying to verbalize emotions. The pack was close, a family but only because the two of them were a solid unit. They knew each other in and out.

Stiles looked nervous, like he didn't know how to ask. Derek just raised an eyebrow. "I want to decorate for Christmas. Here. I want to go and pick out directions and a tree and argue over lights and rearrange the ornaments when no one is looking. I want to agonize for days over the prefect presents. I want to do that, if you are okay with that." Stiles said, in a round of word vomit.

"Okay. I want that too, I was going to ask soon, you just beat me to the punch. How about we pick a day after Thanksgiving to pick out a tree and maybe you can come with me a few days to pick out Christmas decorations, without the children." Derek huffed a laugh into Stiles' temple. "This is your house too, You'll be here just as much as I will be. I want you to do what makes you happy."

"Okay. I'd like that. We can talk about it more later. Let's eat and then tomorrow we can look at some ideas, I want you to be the end all, end all on decisions." Stiles beamed at Derek. He went back to making dinner, leaving the slightly burnt bacon cool off to the side.

Thanksgiving was spent with their families, Derek did join the Stilinksi and McCalll's and Isaac for the big meal, finalizing plans with Stiles on decorations and tree-hunting. They decided on a red, green, gold scheme and more traditional type decorations, simple and minimalistic. Stiles used his internet skills to get some deals on older decorations on craigslist and facebook. They had a few pick-ups scheduled and the time for tree-hunting at a local christmas tree farm. Derek's only request was it had to be a big tree.

The pack three days later met up and began discussing trees. They were all in agreement, for a tall bushy tree but they couldn't pick a species until an employee showed them the examples and explained the difference. Three hours later and they finally agreed on the perfect tree and were on the way to the house. Stiles made them help him put it up right away so it warms up and the branches drop. The pack then scatters and Stiles and Derek head out and got decorations.

Derek watched Stiles spend the next few days putting the inside decorations in places. Derek helping with a comment here or there, but staying quiet, enjoying having someone to share the holiday with. "Thank you Stiles. I am glad, even though we've been through some shit together, that I have met you. I found myself because of you. I am glad that you are happy here with me." Derek told him.

"Me too. I feel safe here with you. Like I belong here, with you." Stiles said. "I know that wolves have mates obviously when they get introduced to each other, but sometimes when I am with you...you look at me and see me and I feel you..." Stiles shook his head.

"I do too. I am more attuned to you and your scent and heart than anyone in the pack. I can only chalk it up to you doing what would be my mate's job if I had one. I am not sure Stiles but I am not mad about it. Maybe after the holidays we can figure it out." Derek said.

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan." Stiles agreed.

The almost confessions triggered something, Derek became more tactile and protective than ever towards Stiles, Stiles made sure the betas were fed and the house was clean and tutored when needed and gave advice. They had been a unit before but now, Stiles and Derek were barely apart, only for school hours. Stiles' dad at one point asked if he was moving in and Stiles took that as permission and did just that (practically) moved in and also used the opportunity to tell John about his post-school plans. John was hesitant and needed some time to think it over before he could agree and support his son. Stiles did as promised and agonized for days what to get each of his friends. He meticulously wrapped each and every one of them. The one that took the longest to put together was the most important.

Stiles had learned many things over the last two and half years, about the world, himself, his hometown, his local vet. One of those things was his most important secret-he had been in love with Derek Hale for two of those years. It wasn't anything grand or extreme, one day Stiles saw him smile at a joke and decided he needed to do that all the time. Stiles knew that Derek needed somebody in his corner and chose to be that person. He didn't know spending all that time with his dry humor and caring nature and supportive personality would result with him falling in love with the older man but he wouldn't change anything that happened for anything in the world. 'except getting his real family back.'Stiles thought. 'That is it! A photo album. The Hales are a very old and well known family, there should be some photographs floating around.'

Stiles got to work. He went to the library and school paper archives, pulling out back issues of newspapers and yearbooks. He called into several nearby packs, opening the Hale pack up to negotiations in the future and even searched through Beacon Hills residents photos to find any and all of the Hale family memories. He also searched the star registry for a bright one towards the north and named it Talia Hale, so Derek would be able to find a guiding light for the rest of his life.

Stiles spent days putting the album together, finding near 75 photos and newspaper clippings for it. He also framed the star certificate and got a observatory to take very good photos of the star. and framed those as well. He was so focused Stiles forgot that his dad told him family was coming over. He obsessed over ever little detail for his present.

Derek did not fare much better. He had decided on a two part present for Stiles as well. One was a greenhouse/workshop Derek was having built for Stiles and a small business front to turn into a shop. Derek bought the shop and added Sties name to the deed so it was legally his. The greenhouse was going to be built in the spring so it could be used over the summer. Derek knew it might be too much for a friend but Stiles saved his life. Without Stiles, Derek would be alone and devastated and family-less. He fell in love with the whiskey eyes and contagious laughter and selflessness and love and compassion. They may not be Mates but Derek wanted no one else with him in the future, not only as a pack member or an emissary but even more than that. Derek kept his feelings a secret not wanting to push Stiles away.

The 23rd of December was the pack Christmas day. They had a wonderful breakfast and were in their PJ's getting settled and waiting for everyone. Everyone go a seat and the presents were sorted. They went in a circle.

"Derek, can you open my last? I...um..." Stiles said. Derek nodded not commenting on the obvious nerves.

"Only if you open mine last too." Derek said. Stiles nodded smiling gratefully. They went around and opened presents; clothes and make up and a few books for the girls, the boys got video games and comics and clothes. Honestly it was a good first Christmas as friends.

all that was left was Derek's present from Stiles and vice versa. The pack watched in silence. Neither moved.

"Please go first." Stiles pleaded. Derek looked between the presents left on his lap and Stiles. Derek picked up what Stiles knew to be the album. Derek gently pulled the paper off pausing in confusion. He looked up at Stiles again who waved at him to continue. He opened the book, the front page being a family picture of the Hales for the work Talia did to create the preserve.

"Stiles, is this..."Derek couldn't finish.

"Yeah It is. A Hale Pack photo album. Took me a while to make it. Think it was an idea even before I knew it." Stiles explained. Derek thought of the all the photos Stiles had taken recently and flipped to the back pages, glossy photos of his current family lined the pages. The last phot was a picture of him and Stiles cuddling on a pack night, the note below was in Allison hand, You both deserve love and happiness no matter who it comes from..

"Thank you Stiles. Thank you." Derek knew somehow in his soul, that was Stiles showing his love for him, without saying. Words took courage, and that wasn't easily found in front of others. "Open yours. The bottom one. Please."

Stiles did as he asked, opening the bottom one, a square shaped box. He opened it to see a copy of a building deed sitting in tissue paper. "Der-Derek. You didn't...Not the-" Stiles' voice broke. He scent blooming with tears and pleasure.

"That place on Pine you've been dreaming about for two months? Why, yes it is." Derek tried to play it off as funny.

"This isn't funny. I told you I didn't want you help." Stiles tried to sound stern. Derek only shook his head.

"I told you to let me help. I did. Also it is technically half mine. But you have a place now. You can actually do it." Derek said. The pack made noises of confusion.

"I am not going to university. I am doing online classes but I am opening a magic shop and taking over for Deaton and becoming Hale Pack Emissary. Derek just bought my dream location." Stiles announced to cheers from the pack. Stiles knew in that moment that is how it felt knowing someone loved you enough to give you want you needed not just what you wanted. He knew how it felt to know someone loved him enough to stand with him not out of obligation but actual love and desire to do so.

They opened the other presents with similar reactions.

"A greenhouse? Seriously? and a workshop?" Stiles was dumbfounded.

"You named a literal star after my mother. A. Star." Derek was flabbergasted.

The rest of the pack sensed it was time to leave, the two men had a lot to discuss-least of all their emotions. The pack began piling out trying not to overhear the conversation.

"Derek, I can't accept this. I really can't. It may be all I ever wanted but I can't let you give it to me. We talked about this, I am filling in. If I was meant to be this important, we'd be mates." Stiles said.

"You aren't a fill in. Do you think I would give you up for someone I don't know? I would never. No relationship will ever be more important than our to me. You say this is all you ever wanted? You can have it!" Derek said.

"This isn't something I can take, you may change your mind, or find someone better. This is something to dream and hope for. Let me dream and hope, so I don't get hurt." Stiles sounded sad and broken. Derek made a soft wounded noise.

"You are it for me. I built you a goddamn house Stiles. I tore down my last memory of my family for you. We have almost died for each other too many times to count for you to back out now." Derek said. Stile growled and shuffled trying to think of an argument. He was saved by his dad coming down the road in a hurry. The pack was spilled on the porch trying to look like they hadn't been listening.

"Scott, where is Stiles?" John called. Stiles and Derek came out at the sound of his voice. "Mieczyslaw Stilinski! You were supposed to by home an hour ago! We have family coming in today remember!" John yelled, standing against his open car door.

"I'll be right there!" Stiles blanched. "I can't believe I forgot." He turned to Derek. "We aren't done here, mister."

"Your first name is really Mieczyslaw?" Derek asked. He didn't want Stiles leaving while angry, it made it anxious.

"Yep! Mieczyslaw Stilinski. Please to meet you Derek Hale!" Stiles understood what Derek was going for without him saying like most times.

"Please to meet you too." Derek chuckled before a sharp pain brought him and Stiles to their knees.

Several painful minutes later, Stiles was laughing hard enough he had tears streaming down his face. He left hand was clamped over his shirt collar, knuckles white. Derek stared openmouthed. John and the rest of the pack stood confused and worried.

"Did what I think happen just actually happen?" Scott asked.

"We'd never been formally introduced. Definitely not with my first name. Mate-Marks only form when properly introduced." Stiles moved his hand to show the large wolf print marking his upper chest and collarbone.

Derek laughed. and laughed and laughed before swooping down and pressing a slightly desperate kiss onto Stiles' lips. "Guess we won't have to discuss the shopfront or greenhouse later, mate." Derek grinned goofily at Stiles who could help but smile back just as dopey.

"Guess not" Stiles said. "I guess not."

Both of them could feel the calmness and happiness in their souls for finding their mates. Derek's wolf stopped shifting anxiously as it had been for months, finally calming down for Derek to relax. Both of them filled to the brim: safe, mate, mine, forever.

#negativenorth #stereksanta20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

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