#i creak up out of the soil gasping and hacking and coughing

[ragnarokhound]

((you don’t have to do both if you don’t want to, you can consider this one a back up / alt))

“If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here.” 💞

From this writing prompt list i reblogged in...november lmao fljdsjfa

anyway this grew legs and sprinted away the second I picked it up yesterday - clearly it just needed some time to proof lmao. Thank you for the ask, tauria!! From *checks watch* almost 5 months ago fjdslafjsa I will be cross-posting it to Ao3 in my new oneshot collection fic :)

Warnings for: Vague allusions that Ra's Al Ghul is a creep (what else is new), threats of gun violence, canon-typical violence

15. “If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here.”

When Tim arrived in Gotham this morning, he had no way of knowing that his day would end in Jason Todd’s bed. 

Frankly, he wasn’t really sure what bed he’d end up in— because his own certainly wasn’t an option right now. But If he had to pick, Jason Todd’s was somewhere near the bottom of whatever list he’d make.

He didn’t exactly plan on this, okay? 

But, uh. Let’s back up a little.

—

Tim knew his day was going to go to shit when he got back from the airport at 7 AM.

He had his driver drop him off two blocks away from his townhouse for the sake of caffeine at the hole in the wall place he likes. Wealthy CEO he may be, but a sixteen hour flight is still a sixteen hour flight and Tim is cursed with an inability to sleep in the air. 

Don’t ask. He’s tried. It doesn’t work.

So he wants coffee, and he wants a shower, and he wants his own bed. In that order.

With the first thing on his list acquired and blessedly burning his tongue, he managed to tug his brain cells together enough to realize that the building they’d passed that had been shrouded in tents and canvas was his building.

"What's going on here?"

The worker outside his building looks up from her clipboard, her face wrinkling into apprehensive confusion.

"Hello, sir. Can I help you?”

He hasn’t slept in roughly seventy two hours. He is not awake or patient enough for this.

“My name is Tim Drake. I own this building. What’s going on here?” He repeats.

The woman raises her eyebrows and looks down at her clipboard again. “Mr. Drake?” She questions, clearly expecting him to look like a grown-ass man and not a sleep-deprived college student coming home from spring break or whatever.

“Yes. Timothy Drake-Wayne. Why are you—” he tries to gesture with the hand still holding his suitcase handle, walking towards the tarps and tents erected around his townhouse with increasing trepidation, “—here?”

“I’m sorry sir, but you can’t go in there. Not for at least forty-eight hours.”

Tim stops in his tracks.

“Forty-eight—?”

“We've been scheduled to fumigate the property today.” She says it like she’s reading it out of a handbook. “It won't be safe to enter the building for at least forty-eight hours. You should have received prior notice. Uh. Sir.”

Tim's jet-lagged brain kicks into overdrive. 

Bruce hasn't made any disappointed noises about Tim’s perfectly normal work ethic lately so it probably wasn't a misguided attempt at benching him. And besides, rendering Tim’s apartment inaccessible is counterproductive on that front. 

Dick wouldn’t. They haven’t been exactly— great, lately but he wouldn’t. Besides, if he wanted to get Tim out of the house more, he’d show up to drag Tim out into the daylight himself. This is a little too roundabout for him.

It’s too much work to be Steph. She would think it’s funny, but there’s no way she’d follow through.

Damian might, but this doesn’t quite fit his preferred methods for making Tim’s life hell. It could be some cloak and dagger maneuver to leave him vulnerable, faking a complaint to the city so he’ll—

And then Tim thinks about the call.

The call he’d brushed off at fuck o’clock in the morning somewhere over Europe, too busy with another project. The call his secretary took for him instead. He thinks about the distracted confirmation he’d given to whatever it was she’d asked him about five minutes later. 

He also thinks about the form he signed about two weeks ago, before this last minute trip to Hong Kong had consumed his entire attention. The one with “Two Weeks Notice” stamped across the top. His stomach sinks.

“Today,” he repeats.

She looks apologetic. “Today,” she confirms. “And we just started about an hour ago. I’m very sorry, Mr. Drake-Wayne but—”

"No it's—" he says through gritted teeth, "fine. I'll just. Make other arrangements."

—

He does not make other arrangements. Though not for lack of trying.

Tim has a handful of safehouses scattered throughout the city. He has options. He gets a taxi to the closest neighborhood, and nearly falls asleep in the backseat. The cabby has to knock on the glass divider to get his attention when they come to a stop. He grumbles and hauls his suitcase out of the backseat, and tips the man excessively.

Shower. Bed. Sleep. He’s so close he could cry.

Except when he finally rolls around the block, coffee half gone and trying to remember if this safehouse is the one with in-unit laundry or if he’ll have to haul his shit down to the laundry room, his building is a blackened husk with police tape all around it.

He stops on the sidewalk. He peers up at the window of his unit, squinting at the peeling black wood and shattered glass. He ponders whether two is enough data points to be considered a pattern. And whether he could get away with napping in the alley on this street or if that’ll end with him stabbed and robbed.

As he’s pondering, he catches sight of a passerby and stops him.

“‘Scuse me,” he says apologetically. “What the hell happened here?”

The guy looks up from his phone and takes in his rumpled clothes, his suitcase, and the scorched remains of his apartment.

“Oh, uh. Yeah, there was a big fire about a week back? Bad fire. Took out, like, half the block. Cops are saying it’s arson.”

“A week ago,” Tim repeats. The guy’s eyes widen.

“Oh shit, bro, did you live here?”

“I’ve been out of town,” he explains numbly.

“Dude, that sucks. And right in the middle of con’ season. Good luck finding a hotel!”

“Yeah,” Tim sighs as the guy walks away. “Thanks.”

—

The next safehouse he tries isn’t in much better shape. 

He remembers hearing about Freeze going on a rampage a few days into his trip, but he hadn’t realized another one of his places had been caught in the cross-fire. The cold burst the pipes, and now the whole place is undergoing renovation.

He hears all this from the crotchety old lady who lives in the next building over (her building needs renovation too, but will the city pay for it? Of course not, they weren’t ‘directly impacted by disaster’ so they won’t see a penny of relief funds even though their pipes are on the same line. Typical) and when he finally extricates himself from the conversation, it’s almost noon, his second cup of coffee is long-since empty and he’s at the end of his goddamn rope.

By the time he sees his next safehouse, he isn’t even surprised anymore.

“Does God hate me?” He asks the boarded up building. “Is this a punishment? What did I do? What the fuck did I do?”

He is 99% sure at this point that someone is burning his bolt holes. There’s a short list of people with the resources and the intel to do it, and while he’s not above ruling out the likes of Damian just yet, he seriously doubts anyone wearing a bat is behind this. 

Besides, Dick would have noticed by now if Damian were sinking this many resources into convoluted covert ops designed to make Tim suffer. Definitely. Probably.

Fuck it.

He goes around the back and hops on top of his suitcase to reach the clunky camera watching the back entrance. This building is on the shittier side, closer to Crime Alley than his other haunts; cameras break all the time around here. He’ll have it replaced after he’s a functional human again.

Reportedly, this building was tagged for ‘high toxicity levels’—  which is pretty typical for any building where fear toxin or Joker gas are found in any amount. They must have found a lot to condemn the whole building, but Tim is confident he’ll be fine. The airborne shit dissipates to safe levels within hours depending on the ventilation. If it was in the air, it’s long gone. Anything else needs to be injected to be effective.

Once the camera’s busted, he kicks out the boards and heads inside.

He drags his suitcase in after him, and mourns the shower he probably won’t be getting. The hall lights are out, and chances are the water’s been shut off along with the electricity. But at this point, he simply does not give a shit. All he wants are four walls and a mattress.

Leaning on the door to his floor to make it open, he stumbles out into the hallway—

And catches sight of the glistening curved dagger stabbed into the wall next to his door, the hilt gleaming green in the sinking sun.

“Nope,” Tim says, spinning on his heel and going back down the stairwell double time. “Nope, nope, nope.”

He is now 100% certain that the League of Assassins has been burning his bolt holes. Ra’s al fucking Ghul can eat his whole ass.

—

Seven blocks away, Tim sits on the sidewalk in front of a bodega and contemplates a third cup of coffee. The shittiest one yet.

See, here’s the thing.

The thing is, he has options.

He could go to the Manor. Or the penthouse. Or to Steph’s place. He’d have to answer some unnecessary questions like ‘Master Timothy, you know you can’t sleep on aircraft, why didn’t you sleep before your flight’ or ‘Tim, why didn’t you come here first, you know you can still come to me if you’re in trouble, right’ or ‘why did you agree to fumigate your fucking house, you loser, lmao’. (Stephanie is not going to let him live this down). 

He is absolutely certain that he would be welcomed in any of these places and after a completely undeserved amount of fussing, he could take a fucking nap and someone else would deal with the League bullshit for him.

And that’s the thing. There’s the rub.

No one should have to deal with the League bullshit for him. This is his problem. He’s not in a hurry to bring them down on anyone. Not even Damian.

With grim resignation, he reaches for his phone to try and find a hotel room (during a con’ weekend apparently, RIP) and maybe get a fucking handle on this whole stupid thing, when he hears:

“Hand over your wallet!”

He lifts his head slowly and finds himself looking down the barrel of a gun. A gun held by some guy wearing a ski mask in broad fucking daylight. There’s another guy next to him who’s watching the street. There’s a third guy somewhere behind him who he can’t see, but he can hear the scuff of his boots.

Sure. Why not. With the day he’s had, this might as well happen. He holds up his hands placatingly.

Tim contemplates his muggers. The guy with the gun is jittery, probably new to this, or hopped up on something. He keeps glancing between Tim and the bodega behind him, so they were probably planning a run on the till. Might have chickened out, or thought Tim was an easier target, an unexpected meal ticket plopped right in their path. Or they were already inside when Tim sat down, which wouldn’t bode well for his situational awareness seeing as he just came out of there himself.

The grinding gears of his tired brain keep getting caught on the fact that this is happening in the middle of the fucking day. Tim glances at the street corner and bites his cheek in frustration. Yeah, he’s smack dab in the middle of the Alley. Figures.

“Are you deaf or somethin’ man?” The guy with the gun is saying. “Hand over your fucking wallet!”

The other guy doesn’t seem as crazy-eyed. He’s nervous, though. He keeps looking around like he’s expecting Batman to materialize, to come whistling down the street like a beat cop.

“Dude, come on, it’s not fucking worth it,” he says, grabbing at the gunman’s shoulder. “We got the money, let’s fucking go.”

The third guy kicks over Tim’s suitcase. “Yeah, come on, Don, let’s just grab this shit and bounce.”

Tim can’t do anything. He’s not Red Robin right now. He’s Timothy Drake-Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and he’s getting mugged in front of a bodega at two in the afternoon in a rumpled suit and tie and still toting his suitcase from his early morning flight. 

His hands are trembling from unspent adrenaline, too much caffeine, and not enough sleep. His eyelids are the heaviest they’ve ever been in his godforsaken life. His ears are ringing. He could knock all three of them down in less time than it takes to tie his shoelaces. But he can’t.

“Shut up, Johnny, look at him shaking! What’s he gonna do? If he doesn’t wanna get shot, rich boy’s gonna hand over all his fucking shit!”

“Hey, let’s just—” Tim tries to say.

Stars explode across his vision as Tim takes a punch he genuinely wasn’t expecting. He stares up at the blue sky for about half a second, more confused than anything else, before the gunman grabs him by the front of his shirt and hauls him up to shout in his face.

“What’s it gonna be, pretty boy?!”

Caught on the exhausted edge between vigilante training and the preservation of his identity, Tim is frozen. He doesn’t know what to do. He kind of wants to cry.

“Gee, Donny, what is it gonna be?” A fourth voice says, full of false cheer.

Tim blinks. So do the muggers. 

He knows that voice.

“Who the fuck—?” The gunman drops Tim, spinning around and into a fist. He tumbles down to the ground, out cold.

Everything happens pretty quickly after that.

Jason Todd is in civvies. He’s sporting a worn out looking hoodie and a pair of jeans that have seen better days. But his heavy boots are the same ones he wears for his uniform, and the kick he delivers to Johnny’s face is all Red Hood.

Almost in a daze, Tim watches him fight with the usual mix of seething envy and raw desire that rears its ugly head any time he gets to see Jason in action. He’s fast, decisive. Efficient. Beautiful. Tim wishes he had Jason’s skill. And he wishes— 

Well. He wishes a lot of things about Jason Todd.

Tim is pretty sure he and Jason are friends. Maybe. Probably. They’ve pretty much moved past the whole “replacement”, “zombie-dickhead” part of their relationship and have graduated to occasionally providing backup on ops that overlap in each other’s sectors, ganging up on Dick when they’re all in the same room, and maintaining a surprisingly steady stream of vigilante gossip to keep each other in the loop. 

So, ok, yes, due to the aforementioned, he’s pretty sure they’re friends. And also because Jason wouldn’t have stuck his neck out for him otherwise. He would have just let him get mugged.

Watching Jason fight is one of Tim’s favorite pastimes. But right now, Tim’s usual appreciation is soured by the gut-roiling embarrassment of being caught in this position by Jason of all people. His eyes itch. His cheek throbs. He’s so fucking tired.

“Hey, little stalker,” Jason says suddenly, holding out an expectant hand in Tim’s face. The muggers are groaning on the ground around them. Tim isn’t sure when that happened. He might have zoned out. “Did you know that you had a stalker for a change?”

Tim flushes. “I resent that. I haven’t stalked anyone in years.” He takes the hand. It’s warm, and calloused, and big around his.

Jason laughs at him and yanks him to his feet. “Liar.”

Tim’s mouth twists into a scowl. He tries to glare at Jason, but he can feel himself swaying and Jason still hasn’t let go of him, and it’s ruining everything.

Also, lowkey, Jason is right. But in his defense, it is literally their job to stalk people, so.

“I haven’t stalked you in years then. Just other guys. Bad guys. Not non-bad guys. Fuck. You know what I mean. Whatever.” He pauses; recalibrates. “Had?” He asks.

Jason’s eyebrows inched higher and higher the longer Tim talked. Tim doesn’t blame him.

“Yeah. Had.” 

So much for the League, Tim muses.

Jason gives him a once over before tugging decisively on Tim’s wrist, easily grabbing the handle of his suitcase and starting to walk with both in tow, to Tim’s rising horror. 

“You’re coming with me, shortstack. What’s wrong with you? Are you drunk? You look like shit.”

Tim tries to yank his wrist out of Jason’s grip, but the asshole doesn’t budge. “I’m not drunk,” Tim snaps. “I’m fine. I’m just. I’m just… really tired.”

Jason stops abruptly, and Tim stumbles into his shoulder.

“I can see that,” he says, steadying Tim with an amused but ultimately sympathetic look. He loads Tim’s suitcase onto the back of a motorcycle that Tim literally just now noticed. 

God, he’s fucked. And not even in a fun way. 

“C’mon,” Jason says. “Don’t fall asleep on the way over— road rash sucks ass.”

—

They don’t talk on the way to— wherever Jason is taking them, but once they’re parked in a random garage and walking towards the elevators, the game of twenty questions begins.

“So why’ve you got League assassins after you, anyway? Piss in a lazarus pit? Push over the baby brat on the playground?”

“Ra’s al Ghul wants my body,” Tim says, dejected but resigned to this bizarre fact of his life. “Since I was seventeen, I’m pretty sure.”

Jason wrinkles his nose. “Ew.”

“I don’t think it’s a sex thing? But it could also be a sex thing.”

“Again. Fucking ew.”

“Yeah. Also I blew up a bunch of his shit and I think he’s still salty I got away with it.”

“Is that why you weren’t at the Manor?” Jason asks, herding Tim out of the elevator and down a long hallway. “Or anywhere but a random street in Crime Alley?”

Tim nods. “Yeah. They found all my safehouses, but— my mess. My problem.”

Jason thwacks him upside the head.

“Ow! What the fuck?”

“You’re the dumbest person on the planet.”

“Am not. B is on-planet right now.”

“Then you’re pretty fucking close,” Jason snarks, fishing out some keys and opening one of the apartment doors.

Tim scoffs at him as he’s pushed inside. “Oh, please. Don’t try to tell me you would let Dick swoop in and solve all your problems for you.”

Jason rolls his eyes, stepping into the side kitchen and popping open the freezer door of the fridge.

“Dickiebird can’t even solve his own problems,” he says as he rummages. “But maybe when I’m fucked up enough to let three nobodies robbing a fucking bodega get the jump on me, that’s a sign that, maybe, it might be time to call in the cavalry. Dick isn’t the only person who’s got your back.” He presses an ice pack to Tim’s face until he takes it himself, and keeps steering him through the apartment. “Just saying.”

Tim would protest with all of his very good reasons why Jason is definitely wrong here, but he’s too busy processing the fact that Jason has led him into a bedroom. With a bed. There’s a bed, with a mattress and pillows and blankets. Right there. Tim stares at it with lustful eyes.

Jason catches him staring. He rolls his eyes, but he’s sporting a small smile that Tim has the presence of mind to memorize. He walks over to a dresser and pulls out a big shirt and a pair of shorts that he hands to Tim.

“Look. If you don’t know where to go, you can always come here. No guarantees I’ll be always around, but, yeah. Mi casa es su casa, or whatever.”

Tim eyes him up, clutching the bundle of Jason-smelling fabric in his hands. “And you’d do that for me because…why, exactly?”

Jason flicks his forehead, a stinging reprimand. Tim hisses.

“Because, dumbass, you need help and I feel like it. And you don’t actually suck to be around, so shut up and be grateful.”

“Oh, yes,” Tim deadpans, rubbing at his forehead. “So grateful to be allowed the privilege of squatting with you.”

The thing of it is, Tim is grateful. But Jason doesn’t need to know that.

Jason squawks, and before Tim can duck, he’s snatched Tim around the neck in a headlock. His arm is thick and doesn’t budge no matter how Tim shoves and kicks. The ice pack and the clothes go flying, and Tim just about dies. Jason is warm.

“Jason—!”

“Brat!” Jason crows, not giving an inch. “I paid for this place fair and square— you’re the only squatter here!”

“Blood money doesn’t count as square!”

“Tell that to half of Gotham, kid.”

“I’m trying to, thanks for noticing,” Tim says, finally wrenching himself free of Jason’s grip, stumbling into the bed and giving into its siren song. He sits down heavily on the edge, toppling over sideways and reaching pathetically for the fallen ice pack that’s just out of his reach.

“And don’t call me kid—” he complains, muffled by the pillow. It also smells like Jason. “You’re barely two years older than me.”

The cold ice pack is pressed into his fingers. He cracks an eye open to look, but Jason is just smirking at him, like he’s giving Tim the win. Ass.

“Coulda fooled me, shortstack.”

Tim rolls his eyes, and onto his back, toeing off his shoes and letting them clatter to the floor. He can’t tell if Jason’s bed is the best bed in the world, or if he’s just deliriously inventing things.

Frankly, Jason Todd’s bed is the last place he ever thought he’d end up, this morning or otherwise, so he’s never bothered to speculate. He does not have a contingency plan for this.

“Is there a reason you keep calling me short,” he complains, “Or will I just need to fill in the blanks myself?”

“Can’t help it. You’re just so small,” Jason coos. Tim props himself up on an elbow at that, raising a disgusted eyebrow.

“You don’t hear me constantly talking about how big you are.” 

Jason grins like he just won the lottery; Tim shuts his eyes the second it’s out of his mouth.

“Baby, you don’t know how big I am.”

He does, actually. Not in a creepy stalker way, just— there was this one time. A big rogue breakout at Arkham, all-hands on deck type of situation; Tim, Cass, and Jason were covering Poison Ivy in the park. Acid-spitting pitcher plants were involved.

And look, Jason’s tactical gear is fine in the day to day, but it’s not like any of them had time to prep a neutralizing agent, so when Jason needed his pants off, stat…uh. Well. Tim was right there.

He knows, okay?

“Alright,” he rallies, trying desperately not to replay the memory of Jason adjusting himself through his boxers. All of himself. “I walked right into that one.”

“Oh, trust me. You’ll know if you’ve walked into it.”

Tim scoffs, but he can feel how red his face is.

And the thing is. He says it without really meaning to. 

But he still means it.

“You gonna put your money where your mouth is, big guy?”

The change is immediate. Jason had been halfway out the door, but now he turns to Tim, giving him his full, undivided attention. He looks at Tim, laid out in Jason's bed, giving him a very slow once over. The scrutiny is at once nerve-wracking and thrilling.

“Thought you didn’t want my money,” Jason murmurs.

The temperature in the room spikes. If it weren’t for the slow throb of his bruised cheek, Tim would think that he’s already asleep and dreaming.

But he isn’t. He’s very much aware that he’s wide awake.

Tim swallows. “Well. It’s not your money I want.”

Jason’s grin is electric. 

He stalks over to the bed, and Tim is frozen like a rabbit, waiting to see what he’ll do next. Jason settles a knee on the sheets between Tim’s legs, looming over Tim and boxing him in against the mattress. Tim’s free hand reaches up of its own accord to tangle in the collar of Jason’s hoodie, and the cotton is softer than he expected.

Jason’s eyes rove over his face, dark and heavy. He catches Tim’s face in his hand, swiping his thumb lightly across the bruising hot ache of his cheekbone. He leans in deliberate and slow and—

—and stops about an inch away from Tim’s mouth.

“Get some sleep, babybird,” Jason teases, his breath puffing gently over the skin of Tim’s lips. “You can proposition me again tomorrow.”

“It’s, like, 3:30 in the afternoon,” Tim argues, breathless.

“Yeah, and your body thinks it’s 3:30 in the morning. You’re dead on your feet. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, and go the fuck to sleep.”

Jason moves to rise. But Tim hooks a stubborn arm around his neck and pulls him down that last remaining inch. 

The kiss is— bad. At first. 

Tim basically smashed their mouths together to prove a point, and Jason muffles a surprised sound against Tim’s teeth. He lands heavily on top of Tim at an awkward angle, and he’s kind of crushing him. Tim refuses to let go, but— Jason doesn’t pull away.

Jason gentles the kiss instead, and Tim thrills. He levers himself up onto his elbow, wrapping an anchoring arm around Tim’s back. He finds a home between Tim’s legs, and he lets Tim kiss him until Tim's lips are tingling and his fingers go slack; until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore.

Somewhere between fifteen minutes and a small eternity later, Jason presses one more kiss to the corner of his mouth. He curls around Tim on his side, and Tim turns his face into Jason’s neck with a soft wondering sigh.

“I’ll keep it. Promise. Wait n’ see,” Tim mumbles. Jason snorts, but doesn’t budge, and Tim can hear his smile in his voice, lilted and lulling.

“Sure, babybird. I’ll wait. I got nowhere else to be.”

Tim is already asleep.

#one hundred thousand years have passed #i creak up out of the soil gasping and hacking and coughing #'i lived bitch' #'have some jaytim that grew legs on me' #my writing #asked and answered #jaytim #ladytauria #hurt/comfort #this one is sillier and more light-hearted than the other ones #the hurt is more like 'near tears travel exhaustion' than your typical aftermath of violence lol but it so definitely counts #i held a gun to the head of the muse that said 'this is way too short' and pulled the fucking trigger #i KNOW it's a very fast get together but i did Not want this to become my next 5 digit wordcount fic okay. okay. oka #the bones of a long 'tim and jason vs the league of assassins' fic is hiding here #and if i actually wrote that this would have ended much differently #but i am Not Writing That okay I am Writing Cowboys and also Werewolves Right Now. I Do Not Have Time For This!!!!!! #prompt fill

[levmada]

//blood, graphic death

What was a grove is now raddled with horror and destruction, a battlefield. Trusses crushed and tree trunks split, downturned, snapped like twigs. Blood spatters the gnarled grasses and beds of flowers. Bloodthirsty earth. It came down to the two of you up against all of them.

You must be outside reality, in a world of war—where this happening is possible. That’s your first thought, because Levi is a small, crumpled form on his side in the mud, like a kicked dog.

You scream his name through the biting wind, but you receive no answer. I should’ve gotten there sooner, you’d later think. I saw him go down and I did nothing because of two Abnormals. There must be something else I could’ve done.

But for now horror like a plague, unspeakable fear, opens a pit in your stomach. Your limbs feel cold.

Your knees buckle when you fumble the landing, but you can’t waste time regaining your balance. You scramble to his side on your hands and knees, like an animal.

First aid. First, stabilize him. You scoop up his broken body in your arms, and maneuver him onto his back, movements stiff.

Hiccuping gasps bubble up in your throat. What with the awkward way his lower leg is bent, it may be broken, but whatever happened, he went down fighting.

Calling his name earns you no response, totally slack. You have to cradle the back of his head so his neck doesn’t bend back. It’s eerily wet too, like an oily red night sky.

More than that, it’s as if he’s bathed in blood; you can’t narrow the most major source of the bleeding. None of it is steaming, but even worse, it’s impossible to say if it’s all his—just that most of it is bright, fresh. Wet soil and earth smears his uniform like a pig that’s been rolling in the mud.

“Levi!” you cry. If he has a concussion from hitting his head, you can’t shake him, but even as you babble his name, he doesn't even twitch. Even that constant wrinkle between his brows is missing, and his jaw looks wrong, as if he didn’t just hit the back of his head, but it was dislocated. His silver eyes are rolled back in his skull, skin pallid and sweaty, as if covered by a thin layer of grease.

He looks—

You mash your ear against his chest and find a faint, thready beat.

Alive.

But he’s dying, in your arms.

He’s dying.

Filth lines his fingernails, smothered in scuffs and cuts. You pick up his limp hand—it feels like you’re holding nothing but a doll—from his side and off one of his discarded triggers, and pin it over your heart. You have no reason to believe it, but you can’t help but hope the feeling and the knowledge that your heart might burst out of your chest soon will somehow rouse him.

He looks dead.

But he can’t. He isn’t supposed to. Isn’t supposed to be ripped out of the sky in the blink of an eye, cast down, tossed aside like an insignificant fly.

“Captain Levi! Wake the fuck up right now!” you shriek. More uncanny liquid heat bleeding from his side against your abdomen doesn’t cross your mind.

His head lulls forward from your cradle to cough, once—then in a flurry. It’s weak for the throaty hacking, as if he were choking, and what exactly that is dribbles from the sides of his mouth in rivets.

You stroke his back. “There, yeah! Hey! It’s me, it’s me. There you go.”

He coughs consecutively. They’re wet, and with his jaw, it takes him several tries to say, “Flare.”

You suck in a breath. “My horse didn’t make it. So I—don’t have a flare,” you whimper. Otherwise you would already be out of this. “Can you please sit up?”

Lugging him up into more of a proper sitting position makes him stiffen, and moan your name in protest. He begins to shiver. His jaw makes an audible dull creaking sound when it moves. “Why…”

“Why what?” Talking is evidently painful for him, but him staying awake is worth that.

Slowly, you press him back down into the position from before, and then you spot the red soaking his side and you think, this can’t be happening can’t be happening can’t—

You snag the opening of his cape, and with it lay your joined hands over the torrent of blood soaked through his side. He grinds his teeth, which just makes him whimper. No matter what you do, he hurts.

His eyes flutter, trying to center on you. “That’s it,” you encourage. “Focus on me. Don’t close your eyes. I need you to call… for Nibbles…”

Is it worth his diminished energy? you wonder for the first time.

Levi doesn’t appear to process the end of your sentence. He mutters something incomprehensible. Blood bubbles up on his lips, oozing slowly down his chin. Listening to the wet breaths rattle through his throat is torturous.

All steadiness of your voice dissolves. The weeping penetrates. “Why what? Levi, you’re in really bad shape, and I can’t…” You squeeze your eyes shut, and rock him briefly. “Please look at me. You know what, I’ll love you forever if you just look at me! I love you, okay? I love you.”

You expect those words to make him scowl and shoot up straight, full of energy again. He’d shove you off with ease with the normal insistence that he doesn’t need help. This is Levi you’re talking about. This is just a moment of weakness.

This is Levi. This is Levi.

But nothing even close happens. You gently run your fingers through his hair as his silver eyes flutter and crack open. Instead of looking at you, he looks through you, unseeing. “Why you’re here?” he rasps. “Why’re you here?”

“What? ‘Cause—the Titans are all gone.”

He sighs your name brokenly, then cut off by a few more weak coughs. “Leave… me.”

“No.”

“Gonna, get. Get le...ft behind."

You shake your head in disbelief.

"Joi—Join back. I’ll... catch up.”

“What? No, no.” You thought you had a quick reply for that—but he doesn’t know it’s bad. And you forget about that entirely as the full weight of his head sags down on your palm. Glazed silver slits are still visible, but the rattling has ceased to be replaced with silence.

“I can’t catch up because you’re hurt! Wake up! Wake up!” you sob, keeling over him. You can’t stand the sight of him this way. You cradle his upper half, his head tucked in your neck.

There is no life. His eyes are open, but they will never see again. His hand is in yours, but he will never hold you again. He is in your arms, but he is no longer here.

#i did a dif version bc i’m evil #levi x reader #aot angst #snk drabbles #attack on titan angst #levi ackerman fic #levi ackerman drabble #aot levi #levi ackerman imagine #levi attack on titan #captain levi x reader #levi x y/n #shingeki no kyojin

[n-miri]

Spirit-touched!Tommy AU where Tommy sees what should not be seen. And, by being himself, circumvents the natural world order. 

-

Exile is fine. Living alone on an isolated piece of land, occasionally seeing the amnesiac ghost of his dead brother figure, having his items and hardwork blown up every week by his supposed ‘friend’.... Life in Logstedshire has been surprisingly peachy, all things considered. If Tommy closes both eyes, he may even say this is a vacation. Kind of. It could be an unpaid holiday, where he lost his job and cut off all ties with his family. It could be a- a retirement arc! An obituary about an ex-soldier’s cottagecore lifestyle. Except there isn’t a cottage. Plus, with a lot more TNT and ghosts over his shoulders. 

Literally. 

The summer sun beats down his back, filtering through floating particles of dust and ash. Tommy refrains from sighing. Another day, another stack of items destroyed. It’s annoying. He wakes up, goes through the repeated motions of create and destroy, ignores the ringing in his ears, and. Rinse and repeat. That’s all there ever is to it, right? He needs these tools to survive, and Dream wants the entertainment. He fights with his lives on the line, and Dream spits in his face. 

That man hides it well, but he can’t quite mask the glee that rattles through his collar bones, stifled pelts of laughter shaking his core. Dream is a master of deception and Tommy is far too perceptive—they see right through each other. If Dream is stained glass, unseeing eyes becoming windows to a desolate soul, then Tommy is tulle fabric, pulling back the veil between life and incorporeal. 

Dream is his friend, but Tommy doesn’t trust anyone with phantom arms growing out of their face. When they first met, there was a plain-drawn face upon a porcelain mask. A pair of inky hands peeked out from where the cheeks were supposed to be, patting his back when the two passed or brushing ghostly fingers through soft tufts of hair. It was endearing at first. The boy wondered why fucking ghost hands were glued to his friend’s face, but eventually grew used to the sight. They exchanged harmless jabs; Tommy called out Clay and Dream returned with Tomathy and things were good before Wilbur joined. 

Then Wilbur joined. During the first war for L’manburg’s independence was when the limbs started growing in length and joints. Hands covered the mask whole, spiralling darkness that ensnared nearby shoulders within a ferocious grip. However, most recently, the appendages have taken to growing eyes. Fucking eyes. Like some eldritch horror monster with bloodshot eyes crinkled mid-laugh. It was ugly. It was stupid. Worst of all, it scared the other ghosts away. Not fucking- whatever Ghostbur is, but the actual spectators. Stalkers. Weirdos (affectionate). 

Say what you want, but Tommy enjoys the company. Not that he would willingly admit it. 

“Good morning,” Tommy says into the empty field. There is no response. He sighs, then proceeds to hack up the inhaled soot. His throat is hoarse and his voice cracks at uneven intervals; he is thirsty but there’s no drinkable water left. Dream found his filter -wasn’t that a fun conversation to have-and he isn’t desperate enough to drink sea water. So, dehydration it is. 

Peering up into the cloudless sky, the male squints through the sunlight and bright blue vastness. Looks like there’s no chance of rain. 

Shame. 

A chill spreads across the skin of his elbow, despite it being wrapped in gauze. Tommy looks down and grins. “Hey, River. Nice day, innit?” The child gives him a watery smile, little twisted fingers curling into his tattered shirt. When a gust of wind breezes through Logstedshire, only the teenager’s blonde hair rustles along. “Sorry I can’t play today. I need to find water.” With a tilted head, they point towards the sea behind him. Tommy smiles wryly. “Preferably something less salty.” 

River tilts their head, contemplating. Choppy bangs hide their pupil-less, hollow gaze from roaming around the land. Then with a determined nod, they gesture for the male to follow. “Oh,” he says. “Hold on! Let me grab my things first.” 

Turning towards the bed of water, Tommy takes a deep breath and sinks into the shallow area. There’s some seaweed growing inconspicuously nearby, which acts as a marker for where he buried his chest. Funnily enough, Dream is a pretty easy person to hide valuables from. Or maybe that’s just Tommy being the biggest man ever, outsmarting the traceur in a battle of schemes. 

His fingers slip a few times while prying open the chest, but the inventory menu pops up and Tommy is quick to take the furnace, crafting table, half a stack of glass, an iron bucket and an iron pickaxe and sword. The downgraded version of the barest essentials. It’s safer to keep them here obviously, but it would be nice if Dream stopped destroying his items during every goddamn visit. Destroying them with TNT, of all things. Why not something quieter, like lava? Lava is nice. Lava doesn’t knock you off your feet if you are caught in the blast range. Lava doesn’t shatter your eardrums or destroy the ground underneath you. At least lava destroys objects completely, without any trace left behind. 

Yeah, okay. Maybe he still feels bitter about the diamonds Dream found and shattered, showers of crystalised pieces glinting against the firelight. The shining particles can still be found scattered across soil, if he looks hard enough; instead Tommy digs his hands into the dirt and covers up his blunders. It doesn’t help, not really, but seeing a physical reminder pains him. 

When Tommy breaks the water’s surface gasping for air, River stares at him worriedly. “I’m o-okay,” he coughs. “Let’s… let’s go.”

-

The first time he notices River, it’s a few weeks after being prosecuted and exiled; only a handful of days after WIlbur’s shadow gives him a compass. The compass, with a simple two words engraved into the cover. 

Placing the gift atop his open palm, Tommy walks in the direction a glowing arrow points at, only stopping at the sea line. Water laps frostily at his ankles, bare feet digging into coarse sand. Still, he fixes his stare onto the lonesome horizon. He won’t admit it now, or ever, but he desperately wishes that a wooden boat will creak upon this shore, paddles splashing hardly against the lulling waves; even the warping of the Nether portal would be welcome. Anything at all.

 He yearns for company, for companionship—Your Tubbo, the sea soothes. Your Tubbo, his heart beats for. Yours. 

Standing resolute, the boy imagines a crater and a country and a White House that stands still. The bench would feel firm under his fingertips, Cat humming its gentle tune by his side; his best friend would look around, fixated on the bees mulling about; and a red flower sprouts from the cracks of the Prime Path, dancing daintily with the wind. The boy would close his eyes, taking in the dewy air, and laugh at happiness itself. All would be good. 

Tommy stands until his arms shake and his legs quiver with loss. His eyes water and he wonders what the point of seeing is, if not to witness the conditions of his loved ones. 

In his hands, the compass point is nimrod straight. 

The next day, he finds himself drowning. A ghost’s freezing hands slap his cheeks, brittle arms wrapped around his torso, and frantically pushes him up, up, up. 

They don’t talk, or tell him their name, so Tommy calls them ‘River’. It’s only a little spiteful. 

#mcyt #tommyinnit #dreamwastaken #one day i'll write a coherent story #this is not that story #cw for body horror