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hottpinkpenguin · 1 year

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Kaz brekker with the Nightmares end eventually prompt? Male/gender neutral reader if possible and romantic! If you do it then thank you!

A/n: I always love my first fic for a new character, so thank you anon for putting Kaz Brekker on my list!! this is a tad cheesier than my normal fare but i think our brooding boy Kaz needs a little romance in his life, so here it is. Hope you love it<3

Nightmares Kaz Brekker X GN!Reader WC: 2,031 Content Warnings for: depictions of violence, dead bodies, gore; probably some non-canon details

Kaz’s legs grew heavy and stopped kicking, his back end sinking into the cold waters of Ketterdam’s harbor. Behind him, the rank stench of rotting corpses from the Reaper’s Barge hung like a cloud in the air. The lights of Ketterdam bobbed on the horizon ahead like a beacon, but it seemed with each moment Kaz was drifting further away from the shore. His fingers fumbling to grab hold of his dead brother’s jacket for flotation. He gulped at the night air in the rare moments where his head broke the surface of the waves. The salt water stung the open sores on his face and hands, his body weak from sickness and hunger. The only thought in his mind: swim.

Trying to stifle a wave of nausea, Kaz grabbed ahold of Jordie’s bobbing corpse and hauled himself as far upward above the waves as he could manage. Kaz let out a strangled sob as his brother’s dead-pale face sank an inch below the water, his lifeless eyes gaping up at the starless sky above.

“Jordie.”

Kaz choked on his brother’s name, grief and horror twining together in his chest like strangling vines. He tried to push away thoughts of giving up, of letting go of Jordie’s corpse and allowing the sea to take him.

But something deep within him burned hotter than the firepox that riddled his body. A drive to live, to fight, to survive. Kaz had always had it - he got it from Jordie, he knew. Jordie had taught him how to fight back when the world threatened to crush you. Kaz heard his older brother’s voice echo in his mind: swim, Kaz.

His vision swam with white dots, but he forced himself to kick his legs, though they felt heavy like anchors.

Swim, Kaz. Swim. The feel of his brother’s unnaturally stiff, cold skin beneath the thin, water-logged linen shirt seared itself into Kaz’s memory.

Swim. Kick. Breath. Swim. Kick. Breath.

The lights of Ketterdam drew closer.

Kick. Kick. Swim.

The faint sounds of the docks tickled his ears. Kaz’s lungs were burning, the firepox that had weakened him and taken his brother’s life making one last, desperate attempt at his strength.

Breath. Kick. Breath. Kick.

Kaz felt his leg bounce off the ragged surface of a rock. The sounds of waves lapping on a rocky coast announced his arrival at the shores of Ketterdam.

Kick. Kick. Kick.

As soon as Kaz felt the pebbles scrape his stomach, he threw himself off his brother’s dead body and emptied his stomach in the sea foam. His head spun with exhaustion, fever, and terror. Next to him, he felt his brother’s body bob against him in the waves. Kaz scrambled away from the feeling, the terror reaching a fever pitch in his mind as he began to understand what he’d done.

He turned to look back at Jordie, now face-down in the ankle deep waters along Ketterdam’s warehouse district seawall. Jordie’s stiff body was so pale it seemed to shimmer with an unnatural, sickly glow. Kaz shivered violently as panic ripped through every inch of him. Mustering all his strength, he tipped his chin towards the sky and shrieked. He screamed for everything in his life he’d once thought would keep him safe: for Jordie, for his parents, for the world he thought he knew. The shriek felt like it would tear him in half, and Kaz let himself empty the pain he felt inside into the raw dark night. When the scream finally died on his lips with a strangled sob, what was left of the boy that had been Kaz Rietveld knew he would never be the same again…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Kaz felt himself rear up out of bed, his heart racing and that shriek from so many years before fading like an echo in his ears. He was panting, his body soaked with sweat. He swiped back the stray strands of hair plastered to his flushed forehead with a gloved hand.

“Kaz?”

A familiar voice drifted through the barely open door to his private quarters above the Crow Club. Kaz felt the knot of panic in his chest loosen slightly at the sound.

“Kaz, are you alright?”

Ever respectful, you didn’t barge through the door to check on him, although Kaz could hear the tense itch of concern in your voice. Kaz let his eyes close as he tried to clamp down the lid on his memories.

“I’m fine,” he called back, although his voice wavered pathetically. There was a split second of quiet before you replied.

“Nightmares, boss?”

The question was so quiet Kaz almost didn’t hear you. He let out a shaky exhale through lips that quivered ever so slightly. A gentle tap on the door: a question.

“Come in, y/n.”

Kaz wasn’t used to letting people into his quarters. Even Inej and Jesper, his closest friends - if Kaz Brekker could be said to have such relationships - were rare guests. Kaz didn’t like that he let you in, but you felt like a tonic. It wasn’t a coincidence that Kaz had asked you to take night watches for him. Your presence seemed to ease a pain Kaz had felt for so long he’d forgotten he had it. And on nights like this one - nights where Kaz’s dreams swallowed him whole and spat him back out - he needed you close. He’d never admit it aloud, although he didn’t need to. There was an understanding between you two, a tacit agreement. You’d stay close to him, he’d look after you.

You opened the door and slipped in, a momentary brightening from the hallway lights followed by the return of darkness to Kaz’s quarters.

“They were bad tonight.” Not a question, but an observation. Kaz looked over in your direction as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He could barely make out your silhouette, although he could see the moonlight from his open window dancing in your large, thoughtful eyes. Damn those eyes, Kaz cursed to himself silently. They would be his undoing.

“Yes.”

Kaz never talked much about his dreams, even to you. He was grateful that you were content with what little information he did give. He had a feeling that you recognized just how difficult it was for him to tolerate the miniscule amounts of vulnerability he allowed you to see.

From the doorway, you nodded. You didn’t move to come closer to Kaz, and he didn’t motion for you to. You were close enough for Kaz to hear your even, steady breathing. He focused on that sound and tried to slow his own inhales and exhales to match. Even though it violated every instinct he had, Kaz let his eyelids flutter close. You hung back next to the door. The sounds of the sleeping city outside filled the quiet. Minutes passed, and Kaz let his mind loosen its grip on the fear that his nightmare had awoken.

When he opened his eyes, he found you exactly where he’d left you. Leaned against the wall, your kind eyes still trained on him. Kaz scooted up to lean back against the headboard, his bare chest now rising and falling in time with your own breathing.

“You have nightmares too, if I remember?”

Kaz caught the flicker of surprise in your gaze. Kaz usually never talked on nights like this, not unless you asked him something. Not only was he speaking, he was asking about you. Surprise gave way to a tender smirk, and you nodded.

“I did. Still do, but they’re less now.” Flickers of moments from your past that plagued your dreams danced in your head. A field of charred bodies… your sister in her favorite day dress lying face down in the blood-soaked mud next to the smoking remnants of your house… the way the smoke from your burned-out village blotted out of the sun…

You shook the images away like gnats, bringing yourself back to the moment, back to Kaz.

He was watching you intently. His dark hair was deliciously disheveled, and you could see the smooth planes of his stomach peeking out above the bedsheets.

“How did you do it?” he asked quietly. You forced yourself away from his body and tried to focus on his words, realizing you’d lost track of the conversation. You cocked an eyebrow at him, unsure of his meaning.

“How did you cope with them, I mean,” Kaz clarified. “How did you get them to go away?” A gentle night breeze fluttered the gauzy curtains by the window next to his bedside.

You turned Kaz’s question over in your head, wondering where to start.

“They never really went away,” you confessed, chewing on your lip. You’d resigned yourself long ago that you’d live the rest of your life with memories of the day your family was taken from you carved into your soul. It wasn’t something you would escape or ever come to terms with. It simply was.

You tried to say as much, but the words that dangled on the edge of your tongue felt all wrong. Your mouth opened and closed with a heavy sigh.

Kaz’s lips quirked up at the sound. He turned to look out into Ketterdam’s streets, the moonlight casting his handsome face in a gentle glow.

“That’s not a fair question,” he mused with a hint of embarrassment. “I’m sorry to bother you, y/n. I’m fine. You can go back to your post.”

You felt a twinge of disappointment at Kaz’s words, although they were less of a dismissal and more of a question. You turned to leave, but hesitated as your hand touched the doorknob.

When you turned back to him, he was staring at you with something that looked like hope in his eyes. It made your heart leap in your chest.

“One thing I learned about nightmares, boss. Even nightmares end eventually.”

Kaz considered your words thoughtfully. You held his gaze as you kept talking.

“The things that gave us our nightmares ended, too. It doesn’t mean we forget them, it doesn’t mean we move on. But it does mean that we aren’t prisoners forever. The dreams, the memories… they’re with us, but they don’t control us. They teach us things, but they don’t command us.”

Kaz drank in your every word, watching the way your expression glazed over as whatever memories haunted you swam just beneath the surface of your eyes. He knew that look: he’d seen it in himself many times before. The way you wore it though was different. He marveled at the realization that he’d never really seen you before. He’d felt you, felt the calming effect that your presence had on him. But now he could see why: you understood him. As much as anyone could. Kaz had always liked to think that others only knew him as much as he let them know him. You were proof that that wasn’t true. It both frightened him and delighted him.

“Sorry… that didn’t make much sense.” You let your eyes drop to the ground, suddenly embarrassed by your outburst. You turned to the door, eager to make your escape from the awkward moment.

“It makes perfect sense, actually,” he interjected quickly. You hesitated, halfway out the door into the dimly lit hallway. With the aid of the lamps from the hall, Kaz could see you more clearly. He thought he detected a faint flush on your cheeks, and he had to bite down a smirk at the sight. He was glad the light didn’t reach him, because you’d see a similar heat on his face. He’d taken a big step with you tonight, but he wasn’t ready to show you how he felt. Not yet.

“Thank you, y/n,” he called after you.

You turned halfway back to him, not meeting his eyes. From your profile, Kaz could see the faint hints of a smile.

“You’re welcome, Kaz.”

You left him alone with a quiet click of his door. Kaz hated how much he loved the way his name sounded in your voice.

This time when Kaz fell asleep, it wasn’t his past that swirled in his dreams, but hopes for the future.

#kaz rietveld #kaz brekker #kaz x reader #kaz x y/n #kaz imagine #kaz shadow and bone #bastard of the barrel #kaz dirtyhands brekker #six of crows imagine #six of crows #shadow and bone #shadow and bone imagine #freddy carter #freddy carter x reader #freddy carter x y/n #freddy carter imagine #kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker x y/n #kaz brekker imagine

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youryanderedaddy · 3 years

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War prize

Summary: You get taken as a war prize once the barbarians take over your homeland.

Tw: nsfw, non - con, mentions of blood, slight corruption kink, size difference, slavery, deregatory language, degradation, possessive behavior, minor character death, spanking, mention of war

There is now part 2

Yoo guys, don’t worry if you voted for the other two options, I will write for them too soon enough. Anyways, enjoy.

You weren’t supposed to be here right now with your legs covered in heavy metal chains and a dirty cloth shoved up in your mouth. Your friends weren’t supposed to be either captured or dead. Your side wasn’t supposed to lose against the barbaric tribe. So many things weren’t supposed to happen tonight and you were slowly getting used to the fact that your supreme leaders had failed, the army had raised the white flag high and you were currently in the enemy territory with slim chances of escape, with absolutely no memories of how you got there in the first place.

You could hear his heavy prolonged footsteps, the way the sharp heel of his boot dug into the rich soil and stomped all over the daisies and weeds just like he had done with your own people hours ago. He was getting closer to the tent by the minute and his shadow was growing bigger and bigger until the soldier finally pulled back the curtain-like fabric to the side and entered the tiny space you were forced into.

He was very tall, unnaturally so, nothing like the men in your tribe who, despite being strong and capable, were born on the shorter side. His face was rough and raw, his features symmetrical and fierce in their cold perfection, deep charcoal eyes, dark lips and a straight nose. The knight fancied his long black hair free and wild, letting it fall against his muscular shoulders softly, shiny, silky and healthy. In these territories the warriors wore very little clothing, finding anything covering their chest or ankles to be too distracting and suffocating during a battle. You tried to look away from his half – naked form but his upper body was sweaty and smooth, caramel in color, making it hard to look at anything else. In return the male simply stared at you for a few moments, grinning in amusement or maybe even satisfaction, and kneeled down next to the mat you laid on.

“Hello, my little captive.” His voice was throaty and deep when he finally called out to you, a cunning smirk adorning his lips, giving him a sly foxy expression. The man reached out to cup your cheek and wipe away a tear slowly falling down, causing you to squirm away from his touch as if he held a hot iron against your face.

“Don’t touch me, you brute!” You shouted out before you had the chance to reconsider your poor choice of wording. The knight simply chuckled in respond and grabbed your hips roughly, making sure to dig his nails deep into the clothed skin before pulling you closer to his naked chest. You couldn’t help but turn red when forced to take in the warmth and firmness of his body – you had never been so close with a man before, much less your commune’s arch enemy.

“I will do so much more than that, sweet girl.” Raven whispered against your ear and kissed your neck softly, pulling your hair down so you would arch your back and whine miserably. “I won you fair and square, little slave.” He growled against your collarbone and bit down hard on the soft part of your throat. You couldn’t stand the hot wet sensations and you desperately wanted to get away from the warrior’s cruel grip, but you were helpless in your struggles, and even if you weren’t thoroughly tied up, you were still too scared to put up a fight against the barbaric male twice your size.

“You are so small and fragile, so vulnerable underneath me. I’ve always wanted something soft and pretty to warm my bed at night.” Raven admitted huskily as he tore apart your white satin robe, revealing your chest to the lingering glittering light coming from the gaslight above. Your pitiful whimpers were muffled by his lips slamming on yours and his wet slippery tongue forcing his way deep down your throat. The warrior was caressing your bosom, squeezing and fondling at it shamelessly, pinching and licking your nipples until they stood at attention red and swollen like cherries. “Such a pretty little slut, tied down at my mercy.” The knight moaned and slapped your breast lightly, enjoying the sheer look of horror on your beautiful face, twisted in panic. “I’m gonna make your tits bounce while I take you like a bitch in heat.” The man mumbled sadistically and slapped your other breast, this time using more force. “ I’m gonna make you my whore.” He cursed under his breath and lowered his head to suck on your neck once again.

Soon Raven got bored of playing with your tits and moved on to spread your legs wide open, pulling your panties down to your ankles. The sight of your sweet tight pussy exposed and displayed so wantonly was mouth-watering to the barbarian, and he could already feel his member harden painfully against your slit. You pleaded silently with your eyes to be spared, muttering quiet pleas, “no’s”, sobbing and clutching to the last bit of hope for mercy. Unfortunately, the warrior couldn’t hear a word, too fascinated by your luscious body and his own wild hunger.

“My beautiful little prize, all mine.” The man whispered almost affectionately, kissing you nice and slow this time, with his throbbing erection pressed on your entrance, inches away from your untouched virgin hole. “I saw you earlier today while you were tending to your parents’ wounds, pet.” He spoke suddenly, his length teasing your folds by slowly sliding in between your soft thighs. “You looked so precious in your desperate attempt to save them during the final fight.” The warrior continued, one hand coming up to stroke your hair in a sick yet comforting manner. “A sweet little thing like you shouldn’t be on the battlefield.” Raven kept going while rubbing slow circles on the palm he had forced you to open when you were clenching your fist tight. “You look so much better by my side, pretty girl.” The soldier placed a small peck on your temple, the lingering gentleness of his actions and the cruelty of his words making you sick to your core. You felt tired and overwhelmed yet the worst was still in store.

“I will tell you a little secret, slave.” The dark-haired male snarled at you and raised your chin up so you had no choice but to meet his cold black eyes. “I killed your father and took you all for myself.” He confessed in a low vicious voice, his scarred fingers tightening around your throat. The wet fury in your heart tangled together with the pain and grief of your loss, but the deadly grip around your neck forced you in place, still and lifeless like a doll. You wished you were dead just like your family so you wouldn’t have to suffer the humiliation of entertaining the enemy and his twisted desired any longer. “Now I am going to steal your innocence and make you mine, little bird.” Your face froze in terror and agony, having realized that, by the end of his words, the man had already pushed his manhood into your tight heat, piercing through your body, unprepared for the shock and the pain. “Sing for me, slave.” The barbarian hissed under his breath and moved roughly in and out of you, each new thrust sharper and deeper than the last one. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing you broken down so easily, but you needed a way to cope with the harsh reality, so you cried out for him. You chocked on your pitiful sobs, screamed in pain and whimpered miserably just to survive another second of this meaningless torture.

Raven looked ecstatic, enticed by your lovely moans and whines, your sweet despair delicious on his tongue while he claimed your lips and explored your throat. Your tight pussy squeezed hard on his length, milking every bit of pleasure out of it. His eyes were blacker than the night sky, filled with lust and thirst for blood, unquenched even after hours of slaying the innocent souls determined to protect their land. Laying down on the cold ground, sweaty, violated and stripped of your pride, you wondered whether you were just another conquest to the warrior, perhaps ruining your purity was his way of proving that he and his people were the new rulers of the territory.

“What a sweet little virgin you were, and now you are bleeding on my cock while I take you, pet.” The barbarian cooed at you cruelly, choking you lightly, not tight enough to put your life in danger, but enough to keep you motionless and complacent, just a hole for him to fuck into. “I am going to cum in your cunt now, slave, and you are going to stay there and take it.” The man announced sternly and kept shoving his manhood down your channel roughly, pounding into you relentlessly until he came with a growl and released his seed deep inside you, painting your walls white. Your pussy felt raw and puffy, pulsating in pain around the cock still buried in. He wasn’t pulling out of you.

“Oh, little bird, did you really think that I would be satisfied with having you just once?” Raven taunted you gleefully, a sadistic gleam in his dark eyes as he took in the panic on your face, drinking it like a glass of honey mead. “I fought for you after all, precious.” The warrior muttered slowly, mere inches away from your swollen lips, bruised and red from all the biting and rough kisses. “I am going to savor you little by little.” He paused to catch your gaze and held it for a moment too long before focusing on your mouth again.

“You’re mine now, don’t you ever forget it.”

#yandere #male yandere x reader #yandere oneshot #yandere smut #male yandere #yancore #yandere oc #yandere male x reader #yandere oc x reader #yandere x you #yandere prompt

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yoonia · 2 years

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❥ 2021 overview to insight on 2022 ❥

2021 has been a huge rollercoaster ride, honestly.

Started the year with facing work problems, followed with getting on and off the job due to lockdown and almost depending solely on fic commissions to survive (seriously, I can’t thank you guys enough for this), to dealing with my cat who got terribly sick, and things just continued on with a bunch of family drama, challenges in work life and private life (in my relationship–yes, I almost broke up with my boyfriend of 5 years–and family problems), facing health problems, and basically just facing my life in general *sobs* it’s amazing how I survived at all.

Aside from everything though, I managed to focus on the small things that made me happy and went through a major breakthrough in my writing journey. Let me tell you, 2021 was wild!

❥ A quick recap of my year in 2021: Words that I have written all year ⇢ 579,241 words What I have released/worked on all year ⇢ 14 one-shot fics, 4 ongoing series, 3 finished series, 3 NaNoWriMo projects, 2 writing collabs, 1 network project, 1 podcast, 4 unfinished fics currently waiting on my WIP list.

So, now that 2021 has ended, let’s look at 2022. Do I have hopes for the next year? Absolutely. Have I made plans? Yes, I do. I have a bunch of plans made, and I’m about to share them with you.

❥ What do I have in plans for 2022? For starters, I will still be writing. But I have also realised that it would be necessary for me to get more organised this year to make sure that I will be able to branch out a little and move forward to something more serious while making sure that I won’t be leaving any unfinished business with my readers.

❥ What am I going to do to make this happen? First, my blog will be going through a few changes. Giving my blog a new look is something that I’ve been wanting to do, and since I’m also planning to start organising everything–from my old works and new, and my upcoming WIPs–I figured that this period of time will be the perfect time to do so.

Second, a few unfinished series will return, either being continued or getting revamped. As always, my posting schedule will be available once I’ve gotten my schedules settled. In the meantime, my writing journal and WIP trackers are now available on my Patreon.

Third, I might be limiting my projects each month to focus on since I will be working on my novel as well. The pre-release versions of my original work will be available on Patreon, together with a few teasers for my other future works, both fanfiction and non-fanfiction wise. As I have mentioned, I already feel like it is finally time for me to branch out and to get more serious in terms of writing, and I guess it’s time to start now.

That’s all I can share with you for now. I don’t want to get ahead of myself since the year is just beginning, but I do hope that the upcoming year would bring better things for us all and I hope that I can show you guys a better version of myself as well.

Thank you, again, for staying with me for the past year and for bearing it with me through my inconsistencies in running my blog. Let’s think of only the good things to look forward to in 2022.

Love you all!!!

Xoxo, Dia ♥

#happy new year 2022 #love letter from Dia

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nessinborderland · 3 years

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Innocence

Pairing: Chota x Reader

Genre: Smut

Word Count: 4.5k

Summary: There’s just something about an innocent and kind person that this world still hasn't able to ruin. It’s like there’s this aura around them. The kind of aura that someone like you needs to surround themselves with.

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mildly Dubious Consent, Hand Jobs, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Overstimulation, Vaginal Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Loss of Virginity, Dom/sub, Innocence Kink, dark!Reader, Light Angst

Notes: Anonymous asked: Chota x reader? 👉👈 (gonna pretend they didn’t die) then they saw the beach and the reader who is an executive on the beach got interested in him?

Okay so, this was a trip. Please be careful of the warnings, do not read if any of it upsets you. It’s not that bad tho, but still. Hope you enjoy! <3

You observe the newly arrived residents of the Beach with curious eyes.

They’re an odd group of friends, these ones. There are five of them, and they all look so different that you wonder how they even came to be. They’re obviously close if the few dynamics you’ve noticed between them are anything to go by, but still, a pretty intriguing group made of intriguing individuals.

You’re not even listening to Hatter as he gives his usual speech; you’re much more interested in them. Or him, to be exact.

He’s shy, cute, and scared, like a stray kitten. You noticed that as soon as they were brought into the room and the bags over their heads were off, exposing his wide-eyed expression. He was the only one that couldn’t look anyone in the eye, preferring to look down, almost trembling in his chair. His leg was also hurt, you noticed as he limped to his seat.

Very different from his friends.

One of them had gotten in kicking and screaming obscenities; when his bag was off he was more than ready to stare everyone down with fire in his eyes, handsome face contorted into a snarl like he was preparing himself to attack at the smallest of threats. He had caught your attention for a moment until you quickly realized that men like him could be more trouble than fun; there’s no enjoyment in fucking a man that won’t let you dominate him.

Then there’s the couple. They have to be a couple; if they’re not one already, they’re definitely close to becoming one. They had walked in a way more calmly manner than their volatile blonde friend and, even though they were obviously scared, they were still calm and willing to listen to Hatter’s words.

Then there’s this other woman. Shibuki, you had heard your object of interest call in a frightened tone. She’s beautiful, you had thought immediately upon seeing her face. The second thing that went through your mind was if she and the awkward man had anything going on between them. Not that there was anything specific in the way she interacted with him, but more on how he checked on her through the corner of his eye.

Speaking of him, he’s... interesting. Not in a way that most people would find him interesting, though. For everyone else, you’re sure that he just looks like a pathetic and scared little man. For you, however… you see way more in him. You see innocence, you see shyness, you see goodness.

All rare traits that you happen to find extremely attractive and, more importantly, exactly what you want in a pet.

Men in the Beach are the exact opposite of everything you see in him. They’re rude, prone to violence, and just so… infuriating to be around. All they want is to fuck, kill, and party, and – even though you appreciate all those things from time to time – there’s just something about an innocent and kind person that this world still hasn't able to ruin. It’s like there’s this aura around them.

The kind of aura that someone like you needs to surround themselves with.

A movement to your right makes you glance at Last Boss, leaning against the wall not far from you. Your eyes lock for a split of a second before his gaze moves somewhere else. You smirk to yourself, enjoying the man’s clear infatuation with you as he blushes under his tattoos. You remember how prettily he had whined as you fucked him, loud moans and tears streaming down his face as you made him come time and time again. He was the closest thing to an innocent and shy man you could find at the Beach.

Not anymore though. You have a new target in mind.

Your attention goes back to the group as Hatter asks for their names. Everyone looks much more calm and relaxed now, even though he is still looking down in apprehension, and the blonde one still looks at everyone like he’s just waiting to be attacked.

“Hm, Chota…” you whisper his name right after he says it aloud, trying it on your tongue. It suits him, you decide.

Your attention goes back to focusing only on him, and you attentively watch him as he starts getting more confident to slowly look around the room – that or he’s just feeling observed. Your eyes suddenly lock, and you can almost hear him gasp as he stares at you with mouth agape and a light pink dusting his cheeks. It’s only when you smile at him that he lowers his head, ears getting red from embarrassment. You giggle to yourself at that.

“Gosh, you’re adorable,” you whisper under your breath.

You squeeze your thighs together as you start to imagine all the things you can do to and with him. Make him beg to come as you suck him dry; fuck him with your strap-on until he’s an overstimulated sobbing mess; ride him to completion as his hands are tied and he can’t do anything but moan your name. The possibilities are endless and make a fire run through your body.

Hatter saying your name pulls you back from your lewd fantasies.

“Y/N here will show you around the place. New clothes, drugs, food, sex toys, she knows where to get you all whatever you want,” he makes a dismissive gesture and turns his back to them with a last, “Enjoy the Beach, guys.”

You gesture for the group to follow you and they do, cautiously at first but then more than ready to leave the room. You lock eyes with Chota once again. He visibly gulps before getting behind the group, limping as the others help him stand, the blonde man named Karube gesturing for you to lead the way.

“So, how much of what that guy said is actually true?” he asks as he walks beside you. You raise a brow at his tone, not enjoying neither the proximity nor what he’s implying.

“The Beach is your best chance at survival in this country,” you say in a cold tone, walking a little faster to get ahead of him. The man barely has to try, however, as his long legs quickly put him beside you again, “All you have to do is follow the rules. Is that simple,” you look him up and down through the corner of your eye, “Unless you don’t know how to follow rules. In that case, I don’t see how I can be of any assistance to who I can consider a dead man walking.”

Karube huffs and shakes his head.

“My problem isn’t rules,” he says, “My problem is “utopias” that give me cult vibes.”

His words strike a nerve within you, making you close your eyes and take a deep breath before replying.

“Then you’re more than free to leave and condemn your friends to certain and miserable deaths,” you say as calmly as you can, looking him straight in the eyes. His gaze doesn’t leave yours as you stand there, waiting for the other to break eye contact first.

“Hm… Miss?” that voice makes you look back at the group, your attention focusing on the man with shaggy hair.

“Yes… Arisu, is it?”

“Yes, hmm,” he gives you a small bow and averts his eyes before focusing his attention on his friend, eyes clearly starting a conversation that you’re not part of, “What my friend Karube means is that we’re not sure if we can trust this place. We just want to be safe, you know?”

“I do understand that,” you nod, “But if you can’t respect the work that is put into this place, I really have nothing to tell you but good luck in surviving outside,” you choose to omit the part where they wouldn’t be able to leave even if they wanted to. More than once you have felt the stench of the rotten corpses of those who tried. They aren’t wrong about their worries, but it doesn’t benefit you – or them – to talk about it in any way. So you decide to change the subject, “What happened to your leg?” you ask Chota, looking him straight in the eyes. His eyes go wide as he seems to panic for a moment under your stare.

“I uh- there was this game with fire and-” he shrugs, eyes avoiding yours as he stumbles over his words, “I guess I wasn’t fast enough.”

“But you’re alive, though,” you say, “That’s good. I can get you something for your burns if you wish.” he nods with a small thanks, and you smile at him before turning back to Karube, who’s watching you with eyes full of distrust, “Now, if you would be so kind as to keep following me…”

You answer most of their questions involving the Beach, from the bracelet system Hatter imposes, to how you get food, water, and electricity. You show them the storage rooms full of clothes that they’re supposed to wear, as well as where they’re allowed to go to have fun and relax when they’re not going to games or helping around the place.

Then you try to take them to their bedrooms.

You’re not surprised when they all ask for rooms close to each other, going as far as to want to be cramped in the same room when you tell them that they’ll either have to share with strangers or be separated through the various hotel floors.

“Hmm, you’re a couple, yes?” you ask Arisu and Usagi as you check the list of rooms available on the lobby’s reception.

“Uh- uh no, no we’re not,” is the rushed answer that the young woman gives you. You look at her with a raised brow before looking at a blushing Arisu, smiling to yourself as you decide on what to do.

“Okay then, if you want I can put you two,” you point at Usagi and Shibuki, “together on the third floor,” you then point your pencil to Arisu and Karube, “And you two can share a room on the fourth.”

“What- what about me?” ah yes. You’re almost inclined to answer “you can stay with me”, but obviously choose not to. He’s going to be yours in due time anyway, you’re sure of it.

“There’s a room on the second floor that would be best for you,” you tell him, “It’s close to the infirmary and no one will bother you there.” you also don’t need to tell him that he’s going to be way easier for you to approach that way.

It takes a little more convincing, but they end up accepting their new bedrooms. You also give them the bracelets with their respective numbers and send them on their merry way.

You have something you need to plan for.

You keep your eye on Chota as the days go by. An easy task, as he barely leaves his bedroom. When he does, he’s usually in the company of Karube or Arisu, making it harder for you to approach him. In the evenings and mornings though, that’s when you can get him alone.

“Chota, it’s me, Y/N,” you call as you knock on his door. You hear a faint “come in” and get in, one hand balancing a tray full of medical supplies and a book on the other. He’s laying on his bed, reading the last book you had brought him. His burns look much better now, but he still mostly keeps to his room, except for when he has to play, “How’re you feeling today?”

“Hey,” he greets you with a smile, “I’m feeling okay. Finally got some sleep last night.”

"I'm happy for you," you sit beside him on the bed, looking at the fresh cut on his forehead – curtesy of the game from the night before, "Hm, that cut is not looking too good…" you grab some gauze and healing balm and start cleaning his wound.

"Ouch," Chota hisses at the stinging sensation, "It would be way worse than a cut if you weren't there to help me, though."

"I'm glad I was there for you," he blushes when you smile at him, and you realize this is a good time as ever to ask what you want to ask, "Do you like me, Chota?"

You notice him gulp before nodding, looking adorable as he looks up at you. You want to kiss him right there.

"I do… you're nice to me."

"I like you too, you know?" you say as you finish caring for his cut. You cradle his face, forcing him to look you straight in the eyes, "What would you do if I kissed you right now?"

"K- Kiss me?" his eyes go comically wide at your words, but he doesn't make a move to get away from you.

You consider that a win.

You press your lips against his in a chaste kiss, just enough to test his reaction. He freezes for a moment before surprising you by deepening the kiss, going as far as to put his hand on your waist. You test him even further by moving his hand up, pressing it against your breast as you moan into his mouth.

"Soft, isn't it?" you ask, "Want to see them?" you don't even wait for his answer, taking off your tank top to reveal your naked torso. He just looks at your chest like he has never seen boobs before, mouth agape as you put his hands back to your breasts, gasping when his cold hands palm your hard nipples.

He doesn't shy away from your touch, gasping against your lips as he squeezes and presses himself even more against your body. He only stops when you palm his erection over his shorts, panting as you move your lips down his jaw to his neck. He moans your name as you keep touching him over his clothes, but makes no move to push you away.

So you keep touching him, now set on getting your way with him as far as he'll let you.

His first sign of apprehension is when you take his dick out of his shorts, hard and leaking even though you've barely touched him.

"Has anyone ever used their mouth to pleasure you?" you ask as you start jerking him off in long, lazy strokes. His hips jerk against your fist as he moans, shaking his head, "Would you like me to be your first?"

"Y- Yes."

You think he's going to come as soon as you put him in his mouth, yelping in surprise as you start sucking him off. You lick and kiss all over his length, hand massaging his balls as you taste him in your tongue. He tastes salty and tangy, but is exactly what you've been wanting to do since you met him; have him moan under your touch.

One of the hands groping your breasts goes to your head, pushing you down as you swallow around him. You stop at that, popping him out of your mouth as you force him to lay down on the bed, arms over his head

"No touching," you say against his lips, "If you touch me, I'll stop. Do you want me to stop?" he shakes his head and you smile, going down his body to focus again on his dick, "Good boy."

You notice how much he struggles to keep his hands to himself, hips thrusting into your mouth as you suck him dry. He's moaning your name and coming in your mouth not long after, body shaking from overstimulation as you lick him clean.

You straddle him as you kiss him, wanting more but knowing that demanding so right now won't help you in the long run. So you teach him how to touch you, using his fingers to get yourself off.

"Yes, right there," you praise him as he looks down at his fingers getting inside your cunt, mesmerized by the sight as you play with your clit. He's sloppy and awkward about it, but his expression alone is enough to get you off. You can't wait for the moment you'll actually get to fuck his brains out.

You stand up after you're done, putting your clothes back on before sitting back on the bed.

"Was I good?" he hesitantly asks with a light pink to his cheeks, eyes cast down as he waits for your answer.

"Very good," is the only thing you say before going back to taking care of his wounded leg like nothing happened.

Your head is filled with fantasies of what more can happen between you two. You have to control yourself to not fuck him right now, doesn't matter if he's ready or not. You clench your legs together as he moans from pain when you press a little harder on his burns. You want to hear him moan like that more often, preferably with him inside you. Or you inside him.

You leave his bedroom sometime later, promising him to come back the next morning. He doesn't say anything about what happened and neither do you. You want him to go over his memories over and over again. You want him to desperately want your touch and your attention.

Gosh, you need a good fuck.

You let out a scream as you sit up straight, skin wet and hot with sweat as you try to regain your breathing. Your room is warm, the fresh night hair that gets in through your open window not enough to cool you down. The body sleeping next to you stirs and you notice the glint of his eyes in the dark room as Last Boss sits up, a hand immediately going to catch the tears that you don’t even realize you’re crying.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” he asks in a worried tone. You shake your head and swat his hand away; you don’t need his concern and you don’t need his touch.

“I’m fine,” you say as you stand up, a shiver going through your naked body as you make your way to the bathroom. You sigh in relief as you splash cold water on your face, ignoring Last Boss’ eyes on your back as well as the memories that keep flashing in your mind.

The face of the same man keeps appearing, obscured by shadows as he touches you and strips you off all of your clothes as well as your innocence. You didn’t mind it back then; why should you? He did to you what he had done to countless others before you. It was an honor to have him possess you; it was the closest you could be to the divine.

Thinking like that didn’t stop the nightmares though.

“I have nightmares too, you know,” Last Boss again, “If you want to talk–”

“I said that I’m fine,” you cut him off in an ice-cold tone. You think you notice him flinch in the darkness, but ignore it as you turn your attention back to the cold water flowing against your wrists, “What’re you doing here, anyway?” you ask, “I never said you could spend the night.” you were so exhausted the night before after fucking him for hours that you didn’t even notice him falling asleep beside you. You hate it when other people sleep in your bed.

“I just thought–”

“Takatora,” you say his name almost as a warning, approaching the bed with determination. His eyes go wide as you straddle him, your hand going around his throat as you lean over to whisper in his ear, “Whatever you think we have, it’s not a relationship. I fuck you and you let yourself be fucked by me. Nothing else. I come and you go back to your room. I can’t and I won’t give you the romantic relationship that you’re after, so don’t think that you can just sleep in my bed or that you know anything about me besides what I order you to do with your tongue,” you look him in the eyes, ignoring the pain you see in his gaze as you let him go.

You stand up again and walk to your balcony, taking a deep breath of the fresh night air.

“Y/N, please I–”

“You should leave,” is all you say without turning to face him.

You hear him as he gets dressed, hesitating at your door for a moment before leaving the room. You control the tears that threaten to fall again, too tired to even try to understand the cause of all this emotional breakdown you’re so close to having. You decide that you’re way beyond the ability to go back to sleep, so you put on a pair of leggings and a hoodie and leave the room.

The halls are mostly empty at this hour, everyone either asleep or still partying. You pass by some people as you make your way outside, but no one pays you any attention. You like that; those hours of the night where you feel like you’re invisible. You’re surprised when you notice that you’ve walked all the way to the back of the hotel, an empty path that gives you a view of the windows and balconies of the building, eventually ending near Aguni’s greenhouse.

Your mind goes to Chota when you remember that his room is somewhere along your path, so you almost absently start looking at the windows, trying to maybe catch a glimpse of him or a light on.

“Never took you for a peeping tom,” a man’s voice from behind you makes you jump, and you turn to face Chishiya, one of the other executives.

Your relationship has always been pretty amicable; friendly even. The kind of man that, at first sight, you swore would never get too close to only for him to prove you wrong; he ended up being quite submissive in the bedroom. It had been a fun one-time thing.

Not exactly your kind of man, but he’s someone that you’re willing to tolerate.

“Who says that I’m peeping?” you shrug as you keep looking up, considering the conversation to be over.

“Is Last Boss not enough for you anymore?” his tone makes you arch a brow and look him up and down.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I noticed how you look at that new guy,” Chishiya answers, now walking beside you, “He does seem like your type. I’m just not sure how his friends are going to react to your… ‘relationship’.”

“Oh please,” you huff out a laugh, now attention focused on him, “Like it matters what his friends think of me. Chota is not a child and I’m not forcing him to do anything he doesn’t want.”

“Oh, so you've fucked him already?"

"Close to it…" you shrug as you keep looking up. You notice a light coming from what you think is Chota's bedroom, so you turn around and away from Chishiya, already deciding on where to go and what to do, "Very close."

"Y/N," the man calls, making you turn around and look at him with a raised brow, "If you feel like having some fun…" he shrugged, "Feel free to come to my room. Got a new toy I would like you to try."

You chuckle at his words, seriously considering his offer.

"Who knows, maybe I will," you wave goodbye and go back to walking away.

He's not the one you want to fuck right now.

You're about to knock on Chota's door when you hear it. Moaning. You press your ear to the door, now sure of what you’re hearing. It's Chota, moaning your name. You don't bother to knock then, opening the door and getting in as quietly as you can. He doesn't even notice your presence in the dimly lit room, too focused on jerking himself off.

He's naked, hand fisting his dick at a fast pace as he tilts his head back, moaning freely as he pleasures himself. You feel yourself get wet at the sight, licking your lips before talking.

"Couldn't wait till morning?" you ask as you get closer. He gasps in surprise, stopping his movements as he locks his eyes on you. You just smile at him as you slowly undress, enjoying his eyes on your body as you get naked before him.

"Y- Y/N I–"

"Shh, it's okay," you whisper as you get on the bed, legs on each side of his hips as you press your cores together. You both moan at the contact, his dick sliding in between your drenched folds. You want him inside you so bad, "I really want to fuck you right now."

You position him right at your entrance, sinking on his length with a moan at the same time he thrusts up into him. You don't stop as you lose yourself in the feeling of him inside you, stretching and filling you up the longer you bounce on him.

His whines reach your ears as his hands grip your hips, you don't know if to stop you or to control you. Not that it makes a difference; he's not the one in charge right now. You keep riding him as you feel your orgasm coming closer, ignoring his moaning cries as he tells you he can't hold it anymore.

"Come for me, baby," you say against his lips as you kiss him, clenching around him, "Do it."

He comes inside you with a cry, hips jerking up into you as he rides out his orgasm, mouth agape, and eyes close as you keep fucking him at a fast pace. His moans of pleasure soon turn into whines as you show no signs of stopping, bouncing on his dick like you haven't fucked Last Boss just hours before.

"Y/N, please–" he looks so pretty like that, begging you to stop even though you can feel him still hard inside you, his hands still gripping your hips like his life depends on it.

"You feel so good inside me, Chota," you say as you force his wrists over his head, moving your hips in circles as you feel yourself getting closer to climax, "So pretty like this, letting me fuck you until your cum is sliding down my thighs."

You kiss him as you come, riding out your climax on him as you come down from your high. You lay down on top of him as you both regain your breath, sweaty bodies pressed against each other, him still inside you.

He whines when you pull him out, moaning from overstimulation as you suck him clean of your combined juices. Then you're kissing him passionately, wanting him to taste you on your tongue, wanting him to remember this moment forever.

This is definitely not the last time you fuck him, though.

"Was I good?" he asks you after some time, still panting as you kiss his neck. You look up at him with a smirk, noticing his tear-stained cheeks but satisfied smile.

It makes you want to fuck him again.

"Yes you were, baby," you say as your hand goes down his chest to touch him again. He hisses but doesn't push you away, "Such a good boy."

#alice in borderland #alice in borderland fanfic #ima wa no kuni no alice #segawa chota #chota x reader #chota fanfic #aib fanfic

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devildomimagines · 3 years

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Request: HC for MC Who Can’t Eat “Healthy” Foods and Survives on Comfort Foods

Hi Anon who requested this! I hope you don’t mind that I made a new post for this instead of replying to your ask directly. I didn’t want to disclose all of the details from your ask publicly since some of it seemed pretty personal.

Prompt: HC for MC who can't properly eat healthy things, and they survive mainly for comfort foods or snacks. Due to that, they have a vitamin deficiency, and they cannot fulfill it properly because their doctors think that if they gave them vitamin supplements, they'll never start eating properly.

TW: Mentions of eating disorder and complications related.

Belphegor

Kind of gets it, eating can be a chore when he’s too tired to function.

He reaches for foods of convenience to eat quickly and get back to sleep. Probably only gets his nutrients filled because Beel is looking out for him and leaving nutritious snacks nearby in their room.

Belphie might tease you for being picky before you’ve divulged your situation.

Your hurt reactions to his teasing make him second guess what he thought was playful ribbing.

When you do tell him, he immediately apologizes since you’ve explained that you can’t do anything to change how your body reacts to certain foods.

He’d share what snacks he eats and you two try to find ones you both can eat and offers comfort when you’re not feeling good.

Beelzebub

He likes when everyone eats together and he definitely noticed when you didn’t touch much from the table.

Also given his sin, he’d probably have to be the first one you have to communicate how this has affected your eating habits.

Beel offers to get together a varied assortment of foods for you to try. Anything you don’t want he can eat but so you can try to find something from the Devildom that you might like.

Just the idea of that much food made you queasy and quickly shut the idea down, letting him know you have tried a lot of things already.

He asked for a list of foods that you do like so he knows to both keep them around but also not eat them himself so you have them when you do feel up to eating.

Using the list of foods, if you’re ok with it, he will try to find things that are similar to them for you to try just to help try to give you some kind of variety in your diet.

Asmodeus

He’s probably an advocate for vitamins once you tell him about your experiences with doctors refusing to offer them.

Not only does it make things more convenient but getting the proper nutrients is vital for the care of your body.

Asmo wouldn’t care what you were eating as long as you were eating something.

He’d worry about you getting sick or not eating at all and passing out so he’d defend you if anyone questioned why you were eating the same food that you ate earlier.

Asmo gets you vitamins from the human realm to help you out. May or may not have involved Solomon to smuggle them into the Devildom haha

He really just wants you healthy and happy to live a long life.

Satan

With his own research and connections to restaurant owners he knows his way around a kitchen.

As a problem solver, he would probably offer different tactics to help at first thinking it was similar to being a picky eater. With a sad smile you would agree to try with him but gave him a warning that you’ve tried a lot before even meeting him.

He quickly learned this was much deeper than he had assumed.

He apologizes for making light of the situation and offers to help in any way he can, whether it’s looking for explanations in the medical field or trying to find resources for you that you didn’t have in the human realm.

He’s considerate of your needs of keeping the lights at a lower level to mitigate your light sensitivity and consults Asmo to help take care of your skin. Would not out you to Asmo if you wanted to keep it between the two of you.

Satan would come to your defense and cover for you if any of his brothers asked why you didn’t eat or if you didn’t join them for a meal.

Leviathan

He would first notice that part of his snack stash was missing. After Mammon’s denial of stealing from him, you felt guilty and came clean with a confession and explanation.

He nods along, he would be understanding of the situation and starts to stock extras for you.

Beel worries about you both getting the necessary vitamins and minerals and at Beel’s behest you look into supplements.

Levi’s pretty good at research when he puts his mind to it and has a list of top 5 options for humans and demons for you two to review with Beel to find what you’ll be able to stomach and will fill your daily needs.

Unfortunately you can’t stand to watch Levi gaming or recommended anime for long without getting a migraine from the flashing lights of the screen.

He’d understand and enjoys just being in the same room together. Eventually he tires himself out and he’ll join in whatever has your attention at the time.

Mammon

He tries to play the part of the responsible older brother asking why you weren’t at dinner or commenting on only eating snacks.

When you initially blow him off by giving non answers he gets offended. He knows excuses when he hears them. Though usually it’s him giving the excuses to get out of trouble.

He’s basically got you cornered when you finally reveal why you don’t want to and can’t eat with the others.

Mammon completely shifts from accusatory to worrying about you. He asks a lot of questions to get familiar with what you do like to eat, things that you have tried, your experiences with doctors, family and friends.

By the end of his questions, he’d consider himself an expert on you.

He’ll stop on his way home to get you some of the snacks you like and he’ll distract his brothers if they start catching on and you don’t want them to know.

Lucifer

Out of all of them he may know about your health issues. Then again, if your doctors refuse to acknowledge it then it might not have been included in your dossier.

Once you’ve yielded the information, he would take it on himself to see to it that you’re getting the required daily nourishment in a “I know best” kind of fashion that’s very typical Lucifer.

As a good sport, you’d go along with his attempts but he pushes your boundaries of what you can handle and it causes you to break down.

He happens to pass your bathroom where he hears your retching and sobs.

Basically breaks down the door and seeing you in such a state breaks his heart, even more so since he quickly deduces he was the one that caused it. He’d crumple to the floor beside you, wrap you in his arms and swears to do better.

In his eyes, eating anything, whether it’s “healthy” or not, is better than this.

#obey me #tw eating disorder #obey me headcanons #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #my writing #anon squad #I didn't want to get too graphic with it #I hope this was ok anon!

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babymetaldoll · 3 years

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As long as you are safe (Spencer Reid/ Reader)

Requested: Yes: could i request a spencer x reader where she’s on the team and she ends up sacrificing herself for him and she gets hurt because of it. and can it end fluffy cause i don’t think i can take a non happy ending!

Summary: People say “I would die for you” a lot, but never actually mean it. She never said it, but she was willing to take a bullet for Spencer Reid if she had to.

Warnings: Angst, fluff

Pairing: Spencer Reid / Reader

Word count: 2K

A/N: This is my first angst request, so bear with me, ok?

Masterlist

Nothing had ever hurt so much. But it didn’t matter to (Y/N). Spencer was safe, that was all she cared about.

- “Pressure dropping”- one paramedic warned and kept checking (Y/N)’s vitals- Stay with me- he looked at her right into the eyes- I need you to stay awake, ok?

- “She’s hypoventilating”- someone else warned

- “Come on (Y/L/N)”- Morgan held her hand as he rode with her to the hospital- “Come on pretty girl, hold on”.

- “She has to be taken to the ER now!”

Derek was sent with her in that ambulance, Reid wanted to go instead, but he was a nervous wreck, he was no help at all. No one had ever seen him lose it before, not the way he had when he saw (Y/N) bleeding next to him.

It all happened too quickly. And it felt it was all his fault.

He could see the moment she got shot, repeating in his mind, over and over again, the whole drive to the hospital: The unsub was right in front of him, he was sure their job was done. Derek was already handcuffing him when Reid felt (Y/N) jump on him and push him to the ground at the sound of a gunshot.

Spencer shook his head and tried to wipe off the tears from his cheeks, as the image of that specific fragment of his life kept coming back. But the tears kept falling, and he couldn’t stop sobbing.

He should have seen it. He should have foresighted the idea of a second unsub, an accomplice… it was now too clear, but also, it was now too late.

Reid quickly grabbed his gun and shot the killer right in the middle of the forehead. But he didn’t care about him that second, he did it out of instinct, all he could think about was (Y/N). He quickly crawled by her side and started yelling for a doctor.

- “I’m ok silly”- she whispered and tried to calm him down. She was lying, and he knew it. It was frustrating how even bleeding on the floor, she would always try to make him feel better.

- “Shhh, come on, stay with me, stay with me, (Y/N)”- Spencer was trying to keep her awake, but it wasn’t working, (Y/N) was bleeding out too fast, even when Reid kept pushing his hands against the wound on her chest.

- “You are ok, that’s what matters”- she whispered and made her best to smile, but she couldn’t, her eyes shut, and Spencer lost it.

- “No! no! no! no! (Y/N)!! (Y/N)!!”

Medics took her from the ground and onto the ambulance, as Derek held Spencer back. He was sobbing and yelling, no one had ever seen him like that. He blamed himself and if anything happened to (Y/N), he was never going to forgive himself. He couldn’t pull himself together for a second.

That’s why Hotch took him to the SUV and asked Morgan to go with (Y/N). Reid yelled and argued, he didn’t want to leave her side, but he was forced to. It felt it was a movie, it was… wrong, everything was wrong. An hour ago they were laughing in the same car he was now sitting in. And now… now he might never see her again. Now the last thing he had said to her was “Stay with me”, and if she didn’t, Spencer didn’t know how he was going to survive.

Reid loved (Y/N) more than he actually loved himself. But never said a word about his feelings. He was sure she knew and didn’t reciprocate them, so he settled for best friends, and that was ok, he was happy that way. But now, suddenly it hit him: she might die, and he might have never told her how he really felt. If he did, he might even get a chance to be happy, and he had been wasting his time, all because he was afraid. (Y/N) wasn’t afraid when she jumped to save him, even if that meant getting shot. Why should he be scared? why was he allowing himself to be so afraid?

- “Spence, listen to me”- JJ tried to talk to him, but he was lost in thoughts, standing in the hall of the hospital, waiting for any news from (Y/N). His friend stood in front of him and rubbed her hands on his arms, trying to comfort him, but all she managed was to make him flinch. He wasn’t good with physical contact, everybody knew that, but after all those years, you could think he was going to be able to be comfortable with his friends. Apparently, he wasn’t. Or maybe, it just wasn’t the right time.

- “You should get some rest”- he shook his head and kept looking at the door, waiting for a doctor, anyone that might tell him (Y/N) was ok, that it was nothing, just a scratch, that she was going to be ok in a day or two.

- “Reid, you have to rest, there's nothing you can do standing here”- JJ insisted, but the look in Spencer’s eyes was a dagger. She knew he could be cruel when hurt, and maybe it was better to let him alone for a moment. Penelope walked over and gave him a cup of coffee. She didn’t say a word, just smiled and saw him thank her with his eyes. JJ nodded and walked back to the waiting room with the rest of the team.

(Y/N) didn’t see her whole life pass flash before her eyes. She just remembered a loop of her favorite moments with Reid ‘cos that was what she wanted to hold onto. She knew what she had done, and she knew she could die. But she didn’t care. She honestly didn’t care, as long as he was ok. That was how much she loved him, and she was hoping if she died, he could understand it.

People say “I would die for you” a lot, but never actually mean it. She never said it, but she was willing to take a bullet for him if she had to.

Rossi looked at Hotch sitting next to him, and he could read it on his friend’s face there was something he was hiding, maybe not to worry the team even more. If possible.

- “What aren’t you saying?”- he asked and watched the team leader close his eyes. In that job, you get used to pain, but nothing prepares you for these kinds of situations.

- “I spoke with one of the paramedics that brought her in, it doesn’t look good”

Waiting was agony. Emily kept walking around the room, trying to keep herself busy just moving. Morgan, JJ, and Penelope sat together, in silence. They were repeating in their heads over and over again everything was going to be ok, that (Y/N) was tough. She was, but… they all knew it was a hard thing to recover.

After four hours in surgery, a doctor walked out. Spencer nearly jumped and looked at him, hoping he was there to give him some good news.

- “(Y/N) (Y/L/N)?”

- “Yes!”- the whole team walked over quickly. All of them looking weary after a whole night awake.

- “The bullet went in her chest and ricocheted into her abdomen… it was hard, she lost a lot of blood, and we almost lost her, but we were able to repair the injuries”.

- “Is she going to be ok or not?”- Spencer snapped at the doctor, and Derek quickly put a hand on his shoulder, to calm him down.

- “One centimeter over and it would have torn right through her heart”- Spencer wasn’t breathing- “But happily, she is going to be ok, and she will be able to leave in a couple of days”

The way Spencer sighed relieved could never be described. He felt the weight of all the books in the world had been taken off his chest.

- “When can I see, I mean, when can we see her?”- Reid asked and reformulated his question not to look as desperate as everybody knew he was.

- “She needs to rest, you can see her in the morning…”

- “Is there any chance I can stay with her tonight?”- he asked and the doctor looked at him confused- “I think someone must be here when she wakes up”

- “Are you family?”- she felt like family, but technically, he wasn’t. The doctor sighed and nodded- There’s nothing comfortable to sleep on in the ICU

- “I don’t care, I’m not gonna sleep”.

The team hugged Spencer on their way out and promised to come back early morning. Then, he walked into (Y/N)’s room, and tears blurred his vision. She was pale, asleep, looking dead. His jaw tightened as he stood next to her. He was afraid to touch her, afraid he could hurt her, so he just ran his thumb on her hand and bit his lips, trying not to make a sound.

- “I’m so sorry”- he whispered and just stood there, looking at her for a few minutes. He knew it was a miracle that she was still there with him, and he wasn’t going to waste any more time. He wanted to share his life with her.

When (Y/N) woke up, in the most excruciating pain she had ever felt, the first thing she saw was Spencer’s messy hair resting by her side on the bed. He was sitting on a tiny chair - that looked incredibly uncomfortable- and he had fallen asleep with his head on the bed. She smiled - even that hurt a little- and made his best to move slowly her hand to him and run her fingers through his hair. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes, confused, and looked at her.

- “(Y/N)”- he whispered and she nodded

- “Still me, yes”- talking hurt too, so she just whispered and made her best to hide the pain.

Spencer couldn’t talk. He had no idea what to say. He had thought all night of all the things he wanted to tell her, but at that minute, it was too much, everything was too much. His eyes filled with happy tears and he leaned in to kiss her forehead.

- “I thought I had lost you”- he managed to murmur, even when his chin quivered and his voice cracked- “I thought I was never going to see you again”

- “You are not getting rid of me so easily”- she whispered and sighed

- “Are you ok?”

- “Yeah… don’t worry... “- Reid stayed close to her and tucked a flick of hair behind her ear. They just stared. No one had ever been so glad to see each other ever before.

- “When I was in the ambulance”- (Y/N) broke the silence and held Spencer’s hand tight, feeling him caressing carefully her fingers- “I kept flashing in and out of consciousness, everything was so bright around me… and I remember thinking it didn’t matter what happened to me, as long as you were ok”

Spencer shook his head, crying, and leaned in to kiss her forehead again. He had never done it until that day, and he couldn’t stop now. He just wanted to kiss her, forever.

- “You shouldn’t have done it”

- “I wanted to do it…”- she made a pause and closed her eyes. When you defeat death, you start taking chances, I guess- “I wanted to do it because I love you, Spencer, and I couldn’t stand the idea of you being hurt”

Reid had no idea what to do. He just looked at her in adoration and sighed. She loved him. Of course, she loved him, she had taken a bullet for him. He could be happy with her, he had a chance to make it right. He had a second chance to make her happy.

- “You shouldn’t have done that, because I love you too much to live without you”- Spencer said and moved a little closer, resting his forehead on her, closing his eyes. She sighed and did the same, holding tight onto his hand

- “I love you, Spencer”

- “I love you too”- he smiled and whispered- “I love you so much, and I am going to say it to you every day until we die... if you have me”

He looked at her and kissed her lips sweetly, slowly... carefully, still afraid to hurt her.

- “Then, you will have to hear me saying “I love you too every day””- (Y/N) smiled and kissed him again. She never imagined it took a bullet to finally make her confess her feelings. But it had been worthy.

#Spencer Reid #Matthew Gray Gubler #Angst #Criminal minds #Spencer Reid fanfic #mgg #i almos cried writing this #criminal minds fanfic #babymetaldoll writes

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fangirlings-things · 3 years

Text

Goodbye [2/2]

➤ PART. 1

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x reader

Word count: 4.9K

Warnings: heavy angst, mentions of death

A/N: just a lot of angst (again)!!! thank you guys so much for all the positive feedback and the notes, the messages, everything was amazing so thank you so much, you guys have no idea how much it means to me to see you enjoy my writing!! I hope you guys like this final piece, as usual, let me know your thoughts 💖

GIF IS NOT MINE || TAG LIST CRIMINAL MINDS: @imaginesofyourfandom ; @locke-writes ; @regalbanshee || GOODBYE TAG LIST: @amordesiempre01 ; @hiiwouldlikesomesleepplease ; @clairedragonessbaker ; @crazyshannonigans ; @ohhersheybars ; @messyhairday-me ; @joyofbebbanburg ; @horriblyquirkyasthmatic ; @basssalvatore2 ; @mac99martin ; @auds24 ; @captainhyenafan ; @uwu-sebastianstan ; @xoprincessmel ; @detective-time-lady ; @haylaansmi ; @tclaerh ; @spencie-reid1864 ; @dreamy-moments

In. Out. In. Out.

Hotch had been trying to control his breathing by thinking about those words. Over and over again, non-stopping. The air seemed tinier, yet heavier. Too dense. Sitting at the passenger seat of an SUV, he looked out through the window to the fields that seemed to be passing by. Rossi was driving too fast, but Hotch wanted him to slow down. He did not want to get to their destiny. Had no intention of doing so.

The countryside of Oklahoma City was illuminated by the sunlight of the middle of the afternoon. Farm houses could be seen here and there, with people walking around, doing their jobs. Animals ate and walked around their owners lands. The world was in place, still spinning, and that felt wrong to Hotch. Extremely wrong. You were gone, the world was supposed to be a horrible place. Things couldn’t just go on like nothing had happened. It couldn’t.

He had accepted that when the line went silent before. You had said your goodbye. You were gone. He had lost you. After the rest of the team had left that room, to probably continue to work to take their minds elsewhere, he stayed there, unable to move. He stared to that phone, and a voice in his head said nothing would ever be the same again. He had survived through Hailey. Could he survive through this? Losing you? He doubted it. He really did.

He just wanted silence and to be alone. To mourn you unstoppably like he new you would not approve, but still, he had to. But then David had entered the room again and said that Garcia had something. And even though Hotch had said he wasn’t interested in knowing whatever it was, David told him anyway. He said that when she left the room, she tried to triangulate the source of the call and was able to narrow down the location to a certain region. From there, Emily helped her with the profile that had been built and Reid added it to his geographical profile. Turns out, they could find the origin of the call. The place where you were. Where you had been, at least.

Hotch had told them that he did not want to go. He did not want to go and see your dead body laying around, disposed like he had seen so many other victims before. To see it… he couldn’t. He told the others to go, to arrest the unsub, he did not care. Because even though he did promise you that he would catch the man, he couldn't do it then. He wanted nothing but you back, but that he couldn’t have. And that thought destroyed him.

He had been dragged to the car anyway, Morgan literally pulled him by the arm all the way out of the station. ‘(Y/N) made you promise to catch this guy and you did. Now you go and keep that promise' he had said firmly, and that phrase made Hotch’s chest ache even more than it already did.

As the fields continued to pass, he thought about all you had done together on the past few weeks. You had taken Jack to a park and made a picnic. He had found you asleep in his office and covered you with a blanket he had laid around from one of his to-go bags. You had shared a rushed meal on your way to the airport, just a couple of burgers and soda. You had placed fries in his mouth while he was driving and you both had laughed hard on that day.

“Aaron” his name was spoken just by his side. It brought him back to the hateful reality. He sighted heavily. Live in memories had never felt so good. Turning to his side, he saw that David was looking at him with a careful expression on his face. “We are here”

Those words took a few seconds to make sense. At first he just frowned, but then realization came and his eyes snapped through the window and he saw it. A barn, right next to a small farm house. Both looked old and abandoned, the field around had clearly not been taken care of for a long time now. It was there. You were there. Your body, that being.

He got out of the car before David could say anything else. Before he himself even realized what he was doing. His hand just opened the door of the SUV and his legs were set into motion, taking him out of the vehicle and advancing several steps in the direction of those two constructions. He felt like something was pulling him in that direction, even though he felt the urge to actually run in the opposite direction. Would he be able to ever forget the sight of your body if he found it?

“Hotch! Wait” one of the car’s doors was slammed behind him and then Morgan came running towards him and stopped at his front, putting a hand on his FBI vest to make him stop from going forward. “The unsub is probably armed. You can’t go in there like this”

“Right” he mumbled to himself, lowering his eyes to his waist where he always carried his gun. He took it in his hands, feeling the weight of it like he always did. His voice sounded strange, even to himself. It carried nothing. It was the sound a ghost would make if he could be heard. He did feel like a ghost, just not feeling the pass of time and seeming unaware of everything going around.

Morgan watched him carefully until Rossi, Prentiss and Reid joined them. All of them had their guns in hand and seemed more than ready to bring an end to that nightmare. Rossi was the one who took command of the situation. “Spencer and I will take the farm house. Hotch, Morgan and Prentiss, you take the barn. Be careful, okay?” Prentiss and Morgan nodded in agreement. Hotch did not do anything.

When Morgan and Prentiss moved, he moved. He followed them with calculated steps and an erratic breathing, that came from the sense of panic he was feeling growing little by little inside of him. He saw Morgan pushing the doors of the barn open. From holes in the roof, light illuminated the place that once might have been dark even during the day. He saw Prentiss pointing her gun around as she looked for anything suspicious or a movement of any nature. He walked along with them, pointing the gun randomly, mind fogged and confused. Morgan took the front. Prentiss the right. He went left, to the corners, and that’s when he saw. You.

The first thing he noticed was that you were wearing your dark blue jeans. He hadn’t noticed that before, when you had gone out to follow a lead, but now he did. You were laying on the cold ground, hair spreaded around in a mess that used to be in his pillows by the morning. Your white tank top was a complete mess, teared apart in the belly, where you had been stabbed at least three times. Blood. Blood everywhere. Your face was turned away from him.

He fell to his knees, just realizing such thing when the impact seemed to crawl all the way up to his brain. The tears he thought had ended, came back as if to prove a point to him and instantly started to fall down. Always falling down. He wanted to look away. He need to look away. But how could he do so? You were just laying there. Left behind like some broken object. You had without a doubt been treated as such by the unsub. He wanted to scream. He wanted to sob. But quickly he realized he couldn’t emit any sound. Wasn’t able to.

“Prentiss! Here!” Hotch heard Morgan scream suddenly and he watched as the agent ran towards your body and threw himself to his knees to grab your dead body and bring it towards him. “Dammit, (Y/N)” he said, in the verge of tears.

Hotch finally fell completely down and placed his arms on his knees, then leaned his head down on it. He stared at the could ground and cried. And cried. And cried some more.

“Oh my God” Prentiss said from a few feet away, then she ran towards Morgan and also leaned down, from the sounds Hotch heard. Silence filled the barn as the three of them tried to accept reality. Emily was crying hard when suddenly, she spoke again. “What?”

“(Y/N) has a pulse” Morgan said, his voice seeming to come from far, far away. It was unsure, did not have any confidence. But then after a few more seconds of silence, his voice grew louder. “Emily, it’s a pulse! Get Rossi and Reid here!”

Hotch heard with a confused mind as Prentiss ran away towards the entrance of the barn and shouted for the other two agents. Her voice echoed through the fields. As it did, Hotch raised his head slowly and looked back to where you were. Morgan held your body loosely against his chest, an exasperated expression on his features. His eyes were fixed on the leader of the unit. “Hotch, (Y/N) has a pulse!” as the words seemed to have no effect on the other, he became more desperate. “Hotch, (Y/N)'s alive! Alive, Hotch!”

Hotch got up to his feet and walked towards your body and Morgan, stopping himself from believing that. From having hope. Once close he went down on his knees again and from up close, he saw your face. Eyes closed, blood in the corners of your mouth. The mouth he had kissed so many times. The face he caressed with his fingertips whenever he could.

“Here, Hotch, give me your hand” Morgan demanded and before the other could even do so, he grabbed Hotch’s hand and pressed it to your neck. Your skin was cold. It frightened him. He was about to move his hand away when he felt it. Just a little pumping under his finger. A pulse.

“Alive” he mumbled to himself, trying to set his mind straight. Trying to come to terms with the fact that you weren’t gone. You could still be saved.

“Yes, Hotch, alive!” Morgan smiled out of pure joy as he passed your body into Hotch’s arms and quickly took off his vest and then shirt. With a lot of skill he wrapped the clothing around your bleeding stomach, doing the best he could to prevent the bleeding from keep happening. “We have to get to an hospital”

It was as if Hotch had just been struck by a lightning. He felt filled with an odd energy, that set him into motion in an instant and made him get up with you wrapped in his arms carefully. He ran out of the barn as fast as he could without wanting to hurt you more, passing by Rossi and Reid on the way. “To the car. Now! We have to go!” the firmness in his voice, going back to how it usually was, made the others move as well.

He got in the back of the SUV with you still in his arms. Reid got to the passenger’s seat and Morgan got the wheel and set the car in movement as fast as he could. Rossi and Prentiss took the other vehicle. “Garcia!” Reid’s voice was loud and filled with urgency. “I need you to give me directions to the closest hospital to where we are. Now!” a few silent seconds. “(Y/N) has a pulse”

Hotch had his eyes sat on your face as all of that happened, fingertips running through your face and hair as he fought back more tears. Hope. He had to grab himself to hope right now that it was possible. Your breathing was barely there, chest almost not moving at all. But it was still there.

Still there.

━━━━━━━━━━ × ━━━━━━━━━━

“What about the unsub?” J.J asked the others, with her arms crossed over her chest and a heavy look on her face. Just the mention of that man disgusted her.

Hotch sat at one of the hospital's reception chairs, elbows on his knees and eyes on the too clean floor. So different from the barn's. Hours had passed since he had stormed into the E.R with you in his arms. Hours had passed since you had been taken to surgery and disappeared through many doors with doctors all around you. He hadn’t had news since. Any. At all. So all he did was sit there and wait, hoping, praying, wishing and listening to the others talking, without saying anything.

“I found him” Morgan, who now wore a shirt Garcia had brought to him on her way there, said, and Hotch could feel his stare upon himself from the corner of his eye. Even though he was not looking at them, he did pay some attention to that part of the conversation. Honestly, the unsub had not even crossed his mind until J.J mentioned him. All his focus was on you. “He was dead. Shot in the stomach. Bled out. For the way there was a gun left a few feet away from his body, my guess is that (Y/N) managed to shot him before or after being stabbed. He tried to leave by the back exit of the barn, but didn’t make it”

“Good” Reid said with conviction, getting nods of agreement from both David and J.J. He had his hands on the front pockets of his pants and his eyes kept on going to the door through where doctors had been coming to notify other people about their loved ones. He was impatient. Everyone was.

“(Y/N)'s a fighter” Prentiss said in a proud tone. She had been unable to keep a smile away from her lips from the very moment Morgan had said you had a pulse. Even though she was still worried if you would pull through, she was hopeful. Maybe too hopeful, but no one could blame her right then.

“Hey” the proximity of the voice made Hotch raise his eyes, only to be met by J.J's sight standing by his side, lips squeezed in a thin line and hair tugged behind her ears. She sat at the empty chair beside his and joined her hands over her lap. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m not” Hotch pressed his palms together, sighting heavily. They were sweaty, shaking quite a bit. He squeezed them, trying to stop that from happening. “J.J, what if…”

“Stop” the blonde cut him short, so firmly that he fixed his eyes on her in surprise. She was determined, like she usually was when she decided the case they would be working on nextly. “Don’t go there. Don’t torture yourself like that. (Y/N) is going to pull through”

“Are you sure about it?” the question was made weakly, tone just above a whisper. Maybe not even to her. It was more like a unstoppable thought that he desperately wanted to shake away.

J.J opened her mouth to try to formulate an answer but before she could the doors Reid kept on watching were opened and a doctor in scrubs passed through them. He looked around the reception and then fixed his eyes on the FBI team. He started walking towards them.

Hotch got to his feet and started to walk forward, to meet the doctor halfway. The doctor sat his eyes on his face. Even though Hotch was a profiler, in that moment he had no clue what that man was going to say to him.

It scared the hell out of him.

━━━━━━━━━━ × ━━━━━━━━━━

You opened your eyes slowly, to then quickly shut them again. The light. It hurt. It was too bright. You tried to take a deep breath. It also hurt. You set your breathing into shallow ones, those you could handle for now. After several moments, you tried to open your eyes again, right eye before the left one. ‘Baby steps', you thought to yourself, mind a bit fogged and confused.

It took some time, but then the place you were in started to get into focus. The walls were extremely white. You were laying in something soft. Soft. So different from the barn. The barn… suddenly the pain you were feeling made sense. You had been stabbed. Did you die? Had that been it? Falling into unconsciousness and everything just stopped? Just like that?

“(Y/N)?” the voice was so sudden it scared you. Made your eyes snap to your left side and then you saw him. Sitting at a chair, elbows resting on the bed you were on. His face was close, eyes incredibly red making it clear that he had been crying. Short hair a bit messy, so unlike the usual organization he always valued. “(Y/N)?”

“A-Aaron?” your voice sounded shaky, deep. Your throat was very dry, and you could feel it burning a bit, as if you had just taken a shot of whiskey. Oh, you could really use one of those.

He smiled, chuckling a bit as his eyes got filled with tears. He fought with them for a second, trying to hold them back. “I’m here, babe. I’m right here” one of his hands travelled to the top of your head and he kept it softly there, stroking the strands of your hair gently.

“How…?” the question died in your dry throat, as you frowned, looking for a possible answer. A thought occurred to you and it made you stare at him in fear. “Hotch, if you died too, I’m going to be really pissed”

He chuckled a bit. God, that did sound exactly like something you would say. Even haven just gotten out of a major risk surgery. “I’m not dead. Neither are you” he saw the relief in your features and smiled. He thought about the fact that he probably had never given someone a smile as pure as that one. How he was feeling… he couldn’t even begin to describe it.

“B-but the call… the barn…” you began, because that did not make sense at all. You remembered perfectly making that call, saying your goodbyes to him and the team. How could you have survived that, when you had already admitted to have been beaten?

“Garcia triangulated the call. She narrowed the location. Reid used his geographical profile and the others crossed references with men with criminal records in the area” the words just slipped across his lips, one after the other. Now that he knew you were okay, he stopped to think about how great had been the other’s work. If they hadn’t done that… well, he tried to push away that terrible thought. “They found your location. They found you”

“They?” you echoed his saying, confused by the choice of words. Usually, there wasn’t a 'we' in that team. It was a 'we'. And 'we' only.

Hotch swallowed dry at the questioning. He averted his eyes from yours and being a profiler, you recognized that body language. He was embarrassed. Feeling guilty. “After your call, I… I lost my ground. I froze” he squeezed his lips on a thin line. “They did everything on their own, I helped with nothing. In the barn, when we found your b-body” he struggled with the word for a bit. “Derek was the one who approached you and noticed you had a pulse. I had given up hope. All I did was sit down and cry” he sighted heavily, obviously trying not to cry right then and there. “I’m so sorry, (Y/N). I should have reacted. I shouldn’t have sent you out there in the first place, it was my fault”

“Aaron” you slowly managed to move your hand enough to grab his, that still stood in the bed. Your touch on his skin finally made his gaze travel back to your face. You felt that usual spark of excitement when your eyes met. “Nothing is your fault. You were in shock. If this happened to you, I would have reacted in the exact same way. So, please, don’t go there” he nodded in agreement, but you could see that he would struggle with the matter still. For how much you knew him, you guessed that for quite a long time. However, you would be there for him. As you thought everything that had happened, you suddenly got agitated. “What about the unsub? Did you get him?”

“You were the one who got him, babe” Hotch said, and his words made more memories come into place. The stabbing. The fact that when that man was about to pull away from your bloodied body, you grabbed his gun and managed to shoot him. Just a single press to the trigger, that took all the strength you still had. You could still hear that awful sound ringing inside your head.

“I shot him” you said, and he nodded in confirmation.

“He tried to run, but I suppose you got one of his main organs. He died right there, a few feet away from where you were” he told, Morgan’s speech from earlier becoming quite useful. In that moment, he was grateful for having paid attention at all.

You had killed him. You did that. You won. “Good” was the only thing you said, and he chuckled. You smiled softly at him. “What?”

“Reid said the exact same thing” he said, still stroking your hair.

“Reid” you echoed the Doctor’s name, thinking about him and the others. About how much you would like to see them. In that barn, you had realized just how much you loved all of those people. People who used to be only your co-workers in the beginning of that job, but now were your family. “I-is the team here? Can I see them?”

“I’ll tell them to come in right now” Hotch kissed your forehead for a long moment, got up from his chair and disappeared through an open door in the corner of the room. Looking around the white walls and being able to hear only your own shallow breathing, you instantly wished to not have sent him out. You feared that being alone, would send you right back at that barn with nobody but that man. The unsub.

Before you could start to really panic though, Hotch got back, passing by the door. But this time, he was accompanied by the others.

“There you are” Emily was the first one to approach your bed, smiling like you had never seen her smile before. She seemed radiant, utterly happy. The fact that it was because of you, warmed your heart. “I knew you would pull through. You’re a badass” she got your hand in hers and squeezed it tightly, making you smile.

“Hey, sibling. I’m glad you’re okay” Spencer was the next one to approach you, as Emily got a spot close to one of the white walls. His saying was clearly a reference to the fact that you had said to consider him the 'brother' you never had, and that made you realize something.

“Y-you all heard that call?” you asked, looking around the room, to all of those familiar faces.

“Every single word” David confirmed your theory, a sympathetic smile on his lips. “We’re sorry for invading your privacy like that, but… honestly we couldn’t leave. And Aaron… it was better not to leave him alone in there” he looked at his side at Hotch, who had crossed his arms over his chest and was looking a the floor for a few seconds.

“I’m glad you didn’t” you said to David and your words made Hotch’s eyes raise to meet your face again. As you smiled reassuringly, he was able to smile too.

“And as for me marrying again, I’m not going to promise anything. What if I met a person who would be an wonderful ex?” Rossi said, making everyone roll their eyes and laugh. You tried to laugh, but your chest hurt too much, so you turned out to just cough a bit.

Hotch reassumed his position at the chair by your bed on that exact moment. “Don’t push too hard” his hand went back to your hair, as you agreed. ‘Baby steps', you reminded yourself.

J.J then came close, eyes filled with tears. She touched your arm gently, smiling. “I’m so glad you’re fine” she leaned down, kissed your forehead and then stepped back as you were only able to smile at her.

“I already made you three playlists” Penelope said as she was the one who now approached you, her eyes were red. She had clearly been crying very recently. You wished you could hug her. “One for your time here in the hospital, one for your recovery time at home and one for when you get back to work. I tried to include versions of Hotch singing 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' or 'Every breath you take', but he didn’t think my idea was too great, so” she shrugged, in that good humored way of hers. You fought back the urge to laugh. The others did.

“Now that, would be stuff I wish to hear” you looked over at Hotch, smiling. He mumbled 'not going to happen' in a serious, smiling way that made you bite back a laugh. You looked back at Penelope, reaching your hand out to hers. She grabbed it. “Thank you, Penelope. Thank you so much”

As she stepped back, you saw Derek standing behind her. His expression was serious, a bit sad even. As he got close, you saw that he was squeezing his lips tightly. “You do know you scared the hell out of me out there, right?” After you mumbled out a ‘sorry’, he grabbed your hand. “Now, you focus on getting better so we can have those pizza nights you talked about”

“Now that’s a plan” you said, and he nodded in agreement, face cracking up in a smile. You felt good from seeing him smile. After a few more seconds Derek stepped back too, and you looked at all of them, standing there, watching over you. “Thank you, guys. For finding me. For caring. For… for everything” you took a breath as deep as you could take, trying not to let tears fall down. “Now please, go to the hotel, rest. I know you’re all probably extremely tired”

“Actually, due to your physical work preparation, we could have more eight sleepless hours before…” Spencer said, and hearing him rambling like that again felt as music to your ears. Seeing the look in your voice though, very serious about them going to get some rest, he stopped talking.

“We will be back first thing in the morning” J.J assured, with that defining tone of hers that let you no doubt she would keep that promise.

“At the very first light” David agreed.

“Don't go out killing bad guys without us in the meantime” Emily winked at you, still smiling.

“We love you” Derek said, seriously.

“And I love you all” you said, running your eyes through all of them. Then, you watched as one by one, they left the room and then it was like it had been in the beginning, just you and Hotch. You closed your eyes for a long moment, just enjoying the feeling of his touch in your hair. When you opened them again, you met his gaze. “It’s selfish, but c-can you stay?”

Hotch stared at you as if you had just told him the most absurd thing in the world. “(Y/N), did you really think I would leave? I’m not getting out of here until you do” the sight of satisfaction you emitted could not have been held back.

“We can share the bed” you suggested, smiling.

“I’m completely fine with this chair” he kissed one of your hands, bringing it close to his lips before placing it down again, with his over yours. You saw a thought run through his features and before you could ask, he spoke his mind. “Will you marry me, (Y/N)?” you were speechless, incapable of saying anything. You thought how much your admittance on the call to having found the ring would have hurt him. “I had the ring in that drawer for months now. With the job, and everything… I was waiting for the perfect moment to ask but almost losing you like this made me realize that there is no such thing. My perfect is whenever I’m with you. And that’s what I want. I want to marry you”

Hearing that, you could no longer stop the tears. “Yes, of course I’ll marry you”

Hotch smiled, chuckling too. His eyes were filled with tears. “Good, because I was beginning to think that you had only accepted because you were in the verge of dying”

You rolled your eyes, but smiled back. “How did you guess?”

He chuckled a bit more and then kissed your forehead again, like he had done before. “I love you”

Looking at him, the man you loved, you thought about how lucky you were. To have him. To be alive. To have that team. Being so close to dying like that, made you see just how important what you did was. You put away bad people, like the man who had kidnapped you. You saved others. And to be honest, you couldn’t wait to get back on the job.

“I love you too”

#imagine #x reader #fanfic #imagines #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #aaron x reader #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner imagine #hotch imagine #hotch x reader #hotch fanfic #gender neutral imagine #gender neutral

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blonde-in-charge · 3 years

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Wildcard, Chapter One

** Hello everyone! My name is Kat, and this is the first imagine I have ever posted! I am still really new to the posting process so please stick with me. Anyways, I hope you enjoy **

Summary: Steve Rogers found you on the side of the road after a mission involving Hydra and convinced the Avengers to take you in. You have no name, no memories, and no idea of what you are capable of. All you know is that you are a super soldier with more hidden abilities than you care to admit. The first step to finding answers was to train you. Nobody, including you, knows what is up your sleeve.

Characters: No Pairings(yet) Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, Tony Stark, Sam Wilson

Warnings: Tiny bit of cursing, Loss of memory, Mentions of blood/violence, Scars

Words: 3.3k

Waking with a start, you groaned at the action of shifting your legs between the scratchy sheets. Your legs tightened and strained from the previous day, making you unable to move comfortably. Sitting up, you hiss as you strained to throw your legs ofthe side of the bed. It was quiet, for once, in the tower. On any other normal day, you would hear the group you lived with from down the hallway, chatting loudly over breakfast and laughing. You glared over at the angry red numbers projecting themselves into the air.

4:45am

Shit.

Pulling your arms up over your head, you stretched your aching muscles until you heard the satisfying popping noise come from one of your elbows. You pushed yourself off of the bed and sighed as your legs took on the weight of your body. You ached like never before even just standing still. You felt up your nightstand in the dark, knocking over random half drunk water bottles in the attempt to find your glasses. Satisfied when your fingertips took hold of the lenses, uncaring of the fingerprints you knew would bother you later. The door automatically slid open as you walked towards it, slowly and not picking up your feet. One of the perks of living with Tony Stark was that you never had to open a door on your own, the downside was you had the misfortune of walking into non automatic doors on the rare occasion you left the tower.

The halls were silent in the tower, making the shuffling of your feet seem louder than they should have been. As you walked past the doors of your colleagues you could hear soft snoring from one of the rooms and louder snoring from further down the hallway. You smiled to yourself, knowing your friends were getting what you couldn't, sleep. It wasn't like you tried to get less hours of sleep than everyone else, your mind and body have not let you rest since you have joined the team.

-Eight Months Ago-

You sobbed, curling yourself as tightly into a ball as you could, holding your hands to your chest as your hair whipped through the air. You had secluded yourself into the corner of an abandoned gas station in god knows where. You had no idea where you were, how you got there, what was happening, or even who you were. You had woken up on a cold metal table in a concrete room wearing nothing but a sports bra and tight training pants that stopped at your ankles. You don’t remember how but you broke the cuffs holding down your wrists and ankles, leaving bloody gashes in their wake.

Your attention was drawn to the sound of heavy footsteps nearing you as you pushed yourself into the wall, begging to just disappear through it, “Please don’t take me back” you sobbed, hot tears rolling down your face, “I don’t know anything just let me go!”

Uncovering your face you looked up into a man's face. He looked relatively young with his blonde hair but the worry lines he was sporting upon looking at you aged him.

He knelt down in front of you keeping his distance, “Shhh, I’m not here to hurt you, I’m here to help you. What's your name, kid?” He studied your face with kind blue eyes, his gaze felt instantly calming.

“I- I don’t- I don’t know,” you stared at him in disbelief, how could you not know your own name? The man looked at you and nodded before looking behind him and speaking so someone you could not see

“Guys, I found a girl about 10 miles out from the compound, she is in pretty rough shape. Have the quinjet meet at my coordinates ASAP,” He spoke softly around you but in a commanding tone until he nodded, apparently getting answers from the voices you could not hear. His eyes trailed back to your eyes, searching you. His eyes then trailed down to your hands clutched at your chest and they filled with worry.

You looked down at your own hands stretching them in front of you, there were deep cuts on either one of your wrist running all the way around until they met in a circle, and they were bleeding profusely onto your exposed stomach. You looked back up at the man, suddenly extremely light headed and you watched his figure fade away into darkness as you passed out.

The coffee maker trickled the dark liquid slowly into the pot, a sound that soothes your nerves every early morning. You wished you could go back to sleep but everyone would be getting up soon anyways, and coffee was calling your name. Whatever that was. The minutes ticked by as the coffee pot filled up and you realized you had stood there unmoving, staring at a whisk while trapped in your own mind. You reached up into the cabinet for your favorite mug and hissed as your muscles protested the sudden movement. You felt the presence of someone behind you as you poured the fragrant liquid into the mug.

“Didn't we have that talk with you about announcing your presence in rooms when you entered, Buck?” You held the mug in both hands and turned around to lean against the countertop.

The brooding soldier stood before you with his resident scowl on his face and long brunette hair sticking up in every direction. Your eyes scanned over the man sporting black tee shirt and sweatpants, the circles under his eyes matching his outfit. He looked as if he slept as well as you did. He studied you for a second, his eyes questioning why you were awake.

You watched him carefully, “Bad dream,” was all you offered to him before he gave a knowing nod before looking away from you, his actions told you he was up for the same reason. He took a seat at the island in the middle of the vast kitchen and rubbed his hands up over his face as you made him a mug of coffee. Bucky took his coffee black, with one sugar, while your coffee had to be the color of your sheets with at least four sugars. Like the bad ass you were. He gripped the mug with his flesh hand, allowing himself to feel the heat of it before he sipped it. You two sat together in a comfortable silence that was familiar with the both of you. Your relationship with Bucky was the strongest of any relationships in the group (besides yours with Steve) despite your lack of communication. Both of you had seen the same hell and understood each other on the deepest level. Bucky never looked at you longer than necessary, even when speaking he kept his head down, he only ever looked at you when you weren't looking, to study you. Everyone in the tower treated him as a time bomb, except for you because you understood the trauma he has experienced. You had been in the tower long before Bucky had joined. The reason you were found was because they were looking for Bucky.

A new set of footsteps caught your attention and pulled you out of your thoughts of the dark soldier. The familiar and heavy footsteps rounded the corner and met your face with a refreshed smile. You gave him a half smile, “Morning Capt.”

Steve smiled at you over his shoulder as he opened the fridge, “Good morning, kid. Good morning, Buck,” He started pulling out different ingredients for the breakfast he was planning on making, but every morning you take over that process because Steve hasn't cooked ever in his life. As he pulled foods out, you pulled out pans and made your way over to the stove

You busied yourself with making scrambled eggs and bacon while letting your mind wander. Your relationship with Steve was strong, you had been inseparable since he brought you to the tower because of the sense of comfort he gave you. Steve had been extremely protective of you when it came to the other team members, he was always worried you would get over-stimulated or someone would cross a line with you. He was the best friend who let you sleep in his bed when you had nightmares but also would hold you down when your line of sanity breaks. That was another thing you and Bucky had in common, everyone was waiting for you to snap. If the power went out in the tower, your room and Bucky’s room would be the only two doors that lock and stay locked. You were also suspicious that Tony’s interface, Friday, sends Steve notifications of when you leave your room at night or if your heart rate elevates unexpectedly, because Steve always was there out of pure chance.

“She's doing that thing again,” The voice snapped you out of your deep thought and you looked up into the face of Sam, “Mornin, Hot Stuff,” He grinned at you, the stupid grin that he did when he referred to you as one of your ever changing nicknames, “How did you sleep?”

You finished plating the mountain of bacon you had made while distracted and ignored the question, “Would you like a cup of coffee, Sammy?” you asked as you turned around to face him and place the food on the island as the rest of the Avengers seemed to file in.

You weren't surprised to see Bucky had already escaped the kitchen quietly, he never sat in one place for too long. Steve had watched you with concerned eyes, which made you realize he caught the part where you ignored Sam’s question. You shrugged to yourself, I can survive on two hours, I’ll be fine. Natasha came and touched your shoulder, “Gym in an hour, resuming our session from yesterday.”

You sighed, you were still so sore from yesterday's training. You could barely sit in a chair without your muscles locking up so how did she expect you to train again? Yesterday consisted of 100 weighted squats, but your weight was Steve Rogers. Nat really liked to make you work on the thing you struggle with the most, your strength. When you first came to the tower, you had broken the bathroom door, actually you didn't break it, when you tried opening it, you basically threw it across the room and broke a lamp. Your current favorite mug is the 12th favorite mug since you have been here and Sam refuses to give you a fist bump because you broke his hand the last time, you cringed at the memory. You made your way to your bedroom and pulled out a sports bra and leggings. Most of the clothes you owned were either Natasha's or free Avengers merchandise. You made your way to the bathroom and removed your glasses to put your contacts in, you wondered if you had always had trouble seeing distances, not that you could remember. You looked at yourself in the mirror, the (y/e/c) eyes staring back at you looked so tired and unfamiliar. You brushed down the wild mane that was your hair and pulled it into a tight braid. You opted to wear a long sleeve tee shirt to cover the nasty scars that littered your body from your rescue, you knew no one cared but you did not need a reminder.

Natasha was ready before the hour was up and you knew it. You always met her early in hopes of ending the session early, but that never happened. The training room was located three floors down from you and it took up the entire floor. Nat was standing in the sparring ring in the center of the room with Tony and Steve.

“Do I have to squat both of you?” the whine was evident in your voice and Steve chuckled

“No, we are going to help you learn to control your powers,” He gave you a slight smile and you could sense the anxiety in his voice

“Which ones?” You raised an eyebrow at him and he looked at Tony

Tony cracked his neck, “The ones we know of, hopefully those are the only ones but you have been known to surprise us,” Tony sounded slightly annoyed, you knew he was not your biggest fan, “but I came prepared.” He slapped the fire extinguisher at his side like a new car

Natasha looked at you sensing your discomfort at the situation, “where do you want to start?”

-Eight Months Ago-

You woke up with a start, one second you were in front of this man and the next in a bright room. You blinked rapidly to adjust your eyes to the light as you sat up to take in your surroundings. You were in a small room of glass that separated you from a larger room that looked like a medical office from the future. You felt your arms and looked down to see deep white set scars that circled both of your wrists. You looked up and made eye contact with the man that saved you before as he made his way to your room and stepped in. He had a soft smile on his face as he glanced at you, “Mind if I sit?” he asked, gesturing to the chair at your left you didn't even realize was there. You nodded at him silently and he took his seat while watching you examine your scars, “I hope you got some rest, you have been through a lot the last couple of hours.”

Your head shot up as you looked at him, you opened your mouth to speak and let out a barely audible, “Hours?” You remember the slices in your wrist, they were so deep, how could this heal in hours? You looked at the man for some sort of explanation but he offered none

“My name is Steve, I was the one that found you last night. Do you remember that?” You nodded your head once again, “That's good, do you remember how you got where you were when I found you?”

You were a million miles away trying to remember anything. You remember the room you woke up in, the way you tore yourself off of the table, the blood, and then all you could remember was fire and the howling of the wind in your ears as you ran. As if he read your mind, Steve nodded at you and combed his fingers through his hair. He stood up and left the glass cubicle for a second to speak to a woman outside. The woman then followed him in and started to unhook you from the various monitors around you before she stepped out of the room. Steve looked at you questionably before offering his hand and asking, “Do you think you can walk?” You nodded and slid your legs over the side of the bed and pushed yourself up onto your feet, holding Steve's hand for balance. He watched you take a couple of steps before he was confident you would be okay, “Follow me.”

You huffed out a breath that made the hair hanging in front of your face jump. Your body was screaming at you to let it rest but Natasha’s training was resilient. Tony had resorted to putting on one of his iron suits to protect himself from you. You looked at Nat and she simply nodded, “Again.” You sighed loudly and used all of your might to focus on the suit in front of you. Fire suddenly engulfed your hands and reached up to your elbows as well as your feet up until your knees. Your eyes had turned into flames that flickered out of the socket as you made a fist and punched Tony’s suit in the center of the chest, where his power source was. The lights in the suit flickered out as well as the flames engulfing your body. You looked over at Nat expectantly and she nodded in approval. You huffed out a sigh of exhaustion and doubled over with your hands on your knees. Your vision was spotty from the amount of power you put into the set but Natasha and Tony were relentless. “Stand up, we are moving onto the next set.”

“I’m fucking tired,” You hissed as you stood up straight, “Give me a second.”

Natashas stone look reamined, “You won't have a second if Hydra comes after you again.”

You flinched at the name, Hydra. No one has spoken that word around you since you joined the tower and rightfully so, the name burned through you and you felt your body start to heat with anxiety before Tony cleared his throat, “Look power puff, lets just get the next set finished and you can go back to hating the world after, yeah?” He clapped his hands together and faced you while ignoring Nat’s glare from the corner.

You pushed the hair back from your sweaty forehead, “Fine, which set?” You took your stance across from the suit with your hands out in front of you, ready to wield whatever he asked for.

You could hear the smirk in his voice, “Surprise me.” You shut your eyes to concentrate, then you felt the power creep up your skin from a dark place within you, causing goosebumps to rise. Your eyes opened and locked with the target in front of you. You swirled your hands around watching as frost covered the floor, creeping its way towards Tony before it encapsulated the feet of the suit with thick blocks of ice. The suit itself did not completely freeze over on the outside, you were forcing your abilities inside the suit, trying to force the millionaire out. The suit cracked in some spots and opened as a safety precaution to a worried Tony Stark, who was shivering enough to shake the ring. You barely hear Natashas voice as you watch the ice creep slowly up Tony’s body, his wide eyes staring at you with fear.

“y/n!”

Your name snapped you out of the trance you had been in and you focused on the situation. Tony was almost completely trapped in a frozen block and Natasha’s feet were frozen to the floor of the ring, both of them staring at you with wide eyes. You turned around to face Steve as he stared at you with concern written all over his face. Your words caught in your throat, “I didn't mean- I’m- “ You turned back towards Natasha and Tony and forced the ice to creep back from them. Tony fell out of the suit onto his knees with a gasp, holding his arms and shivering violently.

“Tony, I am so sorry, I don't know what-” Tony held a shaking hand up to you and you looked down at your feet.

“S-save it, k-kid.” He looked at you and leaned back to sit on the ground, “This is what I get for helping train th-the new kid.” He sighed and closed his eyes before laying back against the ground, “No hard feelings, Frozone. Just give me a minute and take the day off.”

You watched him with worried eyes and turned back to Steve, who was mirroring your expression but not for Tony. You shrugged your shoulders and walked over to him, hanging your head low. He reached out to touch your shoulder but you flinched at the sudden movement. Steve stopped his hand and then dropped it, letting it hang limply at his side while studying you. You gave him an apologetic look before walking away towards the elevator.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x avenger!reader #steve x reader #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers x reader #bucky barns imagine #steve rogers imagine #marvel imagine #Wildcard Series

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vex-bittys · 3 years

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In Your Dreams: A Horrortale Story

Raffle prize for @purplesangel. When your life is a living nightmare, is it any surprise that your dreams are just as bad? Thankfully a dream-walking human has arrived to help, but will she still want to help Axe when she finds out what he’s done to stay alive?

WARNING: character death mention, language, blood mention, some disturbing imagery including cannibalism (no details)

READ ON AO3

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Life in the Underground was an endless nightmare for Axe. During his waking hours, he checked his traps and hunted in the forest, often returning home empty-handed only to see the disappointment and desperation in his brother’s sockets. Supply trains became frantic riots as too many monsters competed for their share of too little food, and the sharp pain of hunger lingered even after the skeleton brothers’ meager meals.

Madness seeped in through the hole in his skull, distorting reality. He clawed at his skull, trying to release the pressure of the frenetic energy that consumed him. He could feel the darkness lurking, waiting for him to make a misstep, some seemingly trivial mistake; that’s when it would strike, shredding his thoughts and shattering his focus. There was no escaping it, and Axe knew that one day it would swallow him up.

Sleep provided no reprieve. In his dreams, Axe continued to suffer. He watched his brother fade away to nothing from starvation. He felt the gnawing emptiness of his own unsatisfied hunger. Feasts appeared before his single working eyelight only to transform into grains of sand that slipped through his fingers when he reached for it. He ran through the shadowed forest outside of Snowdin, fleeing an unknown terror in the night while thorny tendrils of a deeper darkness caught him, slowing his progress, dragging him down, and allowing his madness to suffocate him.

Days dragged on into months, and months melted together into years. Waking life remained bleak with monsters still struggling (and at times failing) to survive. Food sources dwindled, and the gathering of other resources fell by the wayside as every creature in the Underground focused on filling their stomachs as best they could. Everything stagnated in its state of destitution and decay… everything except Axe’s dreams.

Axe’s nightmares repeated themselves night after night until slowly, they began to change. It started with the appearance of a new character- a human that Axe didn’t recognize, though he thought it might be a female. At first the human only observed the horrors that lurked in the sleeping world of Axe’s mind. Gradually, though, she began to interact.

It all started during one of Axe’s nightmares about his brother. Crooks would turn a pleading gaze to his brother, mouthing a soundless plea for food. Axe would fall to his knees, sobbing and pounding his fists into the ground. Crooks slowly collapsed, and the gradual dissolution of his body sent his dust drifting towards his brother, filling Axe’s mouth and nasal cavity until he choked himself awake… usually. This time things turned out differently.

“I’M SO HUNGRY, BROTHER,” Crooks’ voice came from the air around them and not his mouth, the teeth there long since broken or knocked askew from gnawing away at non-edible items simply to assuage the need to chew.

The human appeared, but instead of observing the unfolding scene, this time she glanced around until her eyes fell upon Axe.

Since the very first time you’d stumbled across this heart-breaking nightmare scenario, you’d worked hard to return to it. Dream-walking involved focus, practice, and a bit of luck, and in this venture, the fates were on your side. You’d walked this collection of now-familiar nightmare images many times, slowly working out which participant it belonged to and why the skeleton with the broken skull kept replaying these torturous situations in his sleep.

Now, you were ready to interact and hopefully restore some peace to the sleeping world of the monster in front of you. You extended a tentative hand towards him, unsure if he would welcome your touch as a form of physical comfort. He just stared at your outstretched hand as if it would bring some new and unfathomable horror to his disturbingly familiar nightmare. You let your hand drop. Words would have to suffice then.

“It’s not real,” you told the stocky skeleton firmly.

His sockets narrowed suspiciously. “what do ya mean, ‘not real’?”

“This-” you gestured to the vague, nondescript surroundings and very crisp, well-defined figure of the tall, starving skeleton behind you, never breaking eye contact “- is not real.”

The skeleton with the broken skull laughed, a harsh and humorless sound that grated against your ear drums. You sighed, frustrated but determined. It rarely improved a situation to reveal yourself while dream-walking; most dreamers forgot their nightly travels when they returned to the waking world anyway. Those who didn’t merely discarded your presence, along with any advice you might give, as part of a nonexistent scenario that could not influence their waking lives and should thus be ignored.

Normally, you resigned yourself to this and walked through dreams as a silent observer, but this skeleton’s torment tore at your heart and brought forth a tenacity within you to help him in the only way you could: by walking through his nightmares and defeating them, one by one, until nothing remained but peaceful slumber.

The skeleton with the broken skull scoffed. “you don’t know nothin’,” he growled obstinately.

“I know that your most frequent nightmares involve food, madness, and losing this other skeleton-”

“my bro,” the skeptical skeleton clarified.

“Losing your brother,” you amended with an edge to your voice, “to starvation.”

“it’s not like you’re some expert investigator piecin’ together the clues, pal. we’re all starvin’ and dustin’ down here,” he said, dismissing your observations. You frowned. Was there some truth to these nightmares? Often dreams represented thoughts and fears in a metaphoric manner, but maybe this skeleton didn’t have room in his troubled mind for subtlety.

Regardless, you would do what you could for him in the only place that you could reach him.

“I don’t know what your life is like in the waking world,” you conceded softly, “but this? Everything around us now? It isn’t real.” You continued in a rush before the skeleton could interrupt you again. “You’re asleep, and your mind is processing your fears… and your reality… into nightmares.”

The skeleton inhaled, obviously ready to argue again, but you stopped him by making a sweeping gesture towards his brother. Had this nightmare been reality, the taller skeleton would be dust by now. Instead, the image was frozen in place thanks to the stocky skeleton’s change of focus. “Look,” you ordered boldly.

Axe begrudgingly allowed his single eyelight to stray from you to his brother. While it was true that nothing had changed in the scene since he had turned his attention to his unexpected visitor, the moment he looked back, the scenario resumed. Flakes of dust drifted loose from his brother’s body, floating away on an unfelt breeze to disappear as they dispersed until nothing remained except the unbearable weight of guilt and his brother’s ghost of a voice whispering “Why?” over and over again in his head.

Why didn’t you save me?

“It’s not real,” you whispered solemnly behind him, but honestly, that didn’t matter. Watching his brother die of starvation that he should have prevented sent jagged pains through his SOUL whether it existed solely inside of his mind or not. Your next words, however, carried a much greater impact: “I can teach you how to change it.”

The most frustrating part of dream-walking was the inability to change the contents of people’s dreams or nightmares yourself. While you could view the unfolding events, you possessed no real power over them. Only the dreamer could affect their dreams. Thankfully, unlike dream-walking, lucid dreaming is a skill that can be taught.

As with every teaching experience, some students learn more quickly than others. Axe, as he eventually introduced himself to you, was not one of those students. The most difficult aspect of lucid dreaming for him happened to be the very first step to lucid dreaming at all: accepting that what he experienced while he slept was a dream instead of a warped reality that lived inside of his cracked skull and broken mind.

“These images all come from your thoughts,” you explained again. “You can control them, but first you have to accept that you can control them.”

You knew that the dreams involving his brother were far too emotionally charged to make good fodder for lucid dreaming practice, and you preferred to steer clear of the choking darkness since you had no idea what effects such a powerful and overwhelming negative force could potentially have on you, even as an observer within someone else’s troubled subconscious. This only left the dreams of an untouchable feast to practice on… and practice was not going well.

As with your many previous attempts to gently guide the stocky skeleton towards seizing control of his nightmares, the lesson had quickly devolved into a squabble. You insisted that Axe could learn to control his subconscious surroundings; Axe stubbornly insisted that he could not. You would point out that this was his dream, and his mind; he would attempt to discredit your existence as just another piece of the complicated web of nightmares that plagued him: a human offering him false hope in a bleak and hopeless world.

It did bother you a little bit that Axe considered you- a (mostly) patient and helpful human- to be nightmare fuel. Only monsters lived in the Underground since the long-forgotten war, so why would Axe’s guilt-riddled dreamscapes include humans?

You decided to save the questions for another time.

“Try again,” you told Axe, who only answered with a weary, frustrated sigh.

Irritation swirled through Axe’s excessive magic, though it was aimed more at himself than at you. Every night you tried to help him take control of his dreaming mind, and every night, despite your calm instructions, he failed. You made it sound so easy, so why couldn’t he just grab a stupid spider donut off of the stupid table and shove the stupid thing into his big, stupid mouth?

“Try again,” you told him patiently as he brushed the gritty sand from his finger joints. He uttered a weary, frustrated sigh.

“i am trying,” he grumbled, biting back a deluge of unhelpful comments and curses. He touched another piece of food, a french fry, still steaming though it had been sitting on a pile of its doppelgangers since the nightmare began. The entire fry stack crumbled to sand before he’d even lifted one free; Axe’s patience dissolved along with it.

“if this was as easy as you claim,” he shouted, letting his anger overflow into sharp words, “then i’d be able to pick up these plates and smash them on the floor like i want to!” Without any conscious thought, Axe lifted one of the plates in question and hurled it at the ground. It shattered, leaving silence in its wake as Axe and the dream-walking human stared down at the shards on the ground in awe.

Axe gave an entire stack of plates an experimental shove, sending them cascading over the edge of the table and onto the ground where they created an inharmonious symphony of destruction. You applauded the spontaneous mess and squealed with glee, and Axe swept you up into a quick celebratory hug, spinning you around once before setting you back on your feet. As soon as he set you down, he grabbed a donut and crammed it into his mouth. Chewing, his sockets narrowed in utter bliss, he picked up a second donut and offered it to you.

Nothing tasted as sweet as victory… except for maybe a spider donut.

You didn’t want to dampen the skeleton’s joy by telling him that you wouldn’t be able to taste a donut in his dreams, so you took a bite, your head still spinning from his sudden show of physical affection. With a promise to see him the following night, you stepped out of his nightmares. You felt content that you’d taken the first big step on a journey to giving Axe the power to sleep peacefully without constant, horrific nightmares plaguing him.

The next lesson would be more difficult; you intended to guide Axe through banishing nightmares of his brother’s death. Out of consideration for Axe’s privacy, you had never asked him why he had such specific nightmares about his brother, but nightmares involving a sibling death as vivid as Axe’s hinted at some very dark and complex situations existing in the skeletons’ waking world. Those hints aside, Axe had outright stated that things were terrible in the Underground where he lived. Maybe working through his dream would give him some insight into fixing his real-life situation, at least the one he faced with his brother.

You hoped so. During the nights you’d spent helping Axe learn how to lucid dream, you had come to consider him a friend. You hated the thought of him suffering. You especially hated that you could only reach him during his nightmares. You wished you could do more, but how? Those were thoughts for your own waking world.

Tonight you wanted to focus on Axe’s progress, and once he’d gotten some practice at lucid dreaming, you’d work on changing the heart-breaking nightmare of his brother.

Sweat beaded on Axe’s skull as he waited for you to appear. He could feel himself slipping towards darker dreamscapes, and he fought to stay in the safe in-between place like you’d shown him. He told himself that the tremors in his bones were caused by his unstable magic and not by fear. What if his previous successes were a fluke? What if he failed when it mattered the most?

Thoughts of failure sent him spiraling into the guilty nightmare of his starving brother. After all, his failures in reality led to this, and the dire consequences that he saw unfolding in his subconscious lurked only a step behind him in the waking world. Soon his real life would become this very same nightmare, and he would be left as powerless to stop it there as he felt to stop it here.

Thankfully, you appeared within seconds to chase away the grim meanderings of his mind and help him focus on the task at hand- Crooks.

Axe’s brother loomed in front of him, eyes pleading, begging for something that Axe could not give him. He watched the image of his brother twist and reshape itself, growing alarmingly large, the bones stretching from an influx of magic that still somehow managed to provide almost no nutrition. He whispered his brother’s name, frozen in place and unable to remember what he was supposed to do to stop the scene unfolding in front of him.

A small hand slipped into his; he had forgotten about you as his familiar fears swamped him. You looked up at him with a calm expression and nodded, encouraging him.

“You can do this.” Your words bolstered his courage. He dragged his panic back under control and turned to face Papyrus… or what had become of Papyrus under his inadequate care: the monster now known as Crooks.

“You know what you need to do,” you whispered.

Axe stepped towards his brother, focusing on Crooks as he had seen him last: tucked into his bed, the blanket no longer quite long enough to cover his lanky frame, wishing Axe a good night and sweet dreams and promising to see him in the morning. Keeping that image locked in his mind, Axe let his lone eyelight travel over his brother’s altered frame. Sure enough, not a single mote of dust rose from the other skeleton. Crooks simply stood there, watching him through sunken sockets.

Though he’d brought his brother’s recurring death to a halt, the words that swirled and echoed around him continued, too faint at first to make out individual words or phrases. His brother’s voice whispered accusations like poisoned arrows that pierced his SOUL. A chorus of questions, all beginning with “Why…?” slowed, sharpened, and gained clarity. Crooks spoke, though his mouth never moved and the words seemed to thrum within his very bones, tangible beyond mere sound.

Normally Crooks’ omnipresent voice asked him why he would allow his brother to starve, but this time the question differed, though it still sent chills to the very marrow of Axe’s bones.

“WHY DID YOU MAKE ME EAT-”

Axe quickly hushed his brother, stealing a glance at you to gauge your reaction. You simply made an encouraging gesture as if to say “Go on, you’re doing great.” He wondered if you’d feel the same way if you knew what Crooks’ next words would have been.

“i couldn’t let ya starve,” Axe spoke softly, tilting his head to maintain eye contact with his much taller brother. “i’d do anything to keep you alive.”

“EVEN-”

Axe nodded, nearly choking on guilt. “yeah. even that.”

“BUT I TOLD YOU I DIDN’T EVER WANT-”

Remorse softened Axe’s expression, and his gravelly voice hitched. “i couldn’t let ya dust. i had no choice. i’m so sorry.”

Without warning, Crooks slumped, but he wasn’t collapsing into dust. Instead, he crushed his brother against his ribcage in a tight hug. You sensed a loosening of the guilt and remorse that gripped this particular nightmare so tightly. Things weren’t resolved yet. Nightmares could rarely be banished in a single lucid dreaming session, but you’d given Axe the tools he needed to seize control of his sleeping world.

Only one challenge awaited you now: fighting the suffocating darkness of the final nightmare. You made plans to tackle that monumental task once Axe felt satisfied that he could manage this current nightmare on his own. Working through the tangle of emotions that his brother’s death awakened would take quite a bit longer than satisfying himself that he could eat his fill of dream donuts, but you were willing to go the distance to help Axe.

You actually wanted to do this, no matter how much the slithering darkness terrified you. Axe just meant that much to you.

“I think we’re ready for the final nightmare,” you declared after a dream session in which Axe showed off by summoning various items for his brother to eat.

In the lucid dreams about Crooks, his dream-brother mostly stood or sat nearby providing companionship and support as Axe practiced controlling his consciousness. Axe enjoyed the time with his brother, despite the knowledge that this version of Crooks existed only inside of his mind. It gave him a tentative sensation of hope that perhaps someday he could experience this type of peace with his brother in the waking world, free of the constant mad scramble for survival.

Your words shattered fragile, fleeting calm. Sweat beaded on Axe’s skull. The final nightmare contained his deep, dark fears, his madness, his guilt. Tendrils that reeked of his unspeakable crimes dragged him down into the cesspool that used to be his SOUL. He didn’t want you to see that part of him. He didn’t want you to know what he was truly capable of.

You’d never come back, and he’d be left alone with the echoing, blossoming psychosis that suffocated him. It would be worse now though. You’d shined a light into his life, and now he risked that glimmer of goodness being torn away… torn away because of what he’d done.

The punishment would fit the crime of his continuing survival.

You stepped into Axe’s dream world, excited and nervous at the prospect of facing the unknown horrors of this last nightmare that plagued him. The endless grey limbo that surrounded you came as quite a surprise when you expected inky vines of darkness encased in the thorns of Axe’s painful emotions and memories. Axe refused to meet your eyes when you approached him. Something was off about the whole situation.

“Is everything ok?” Maybe Axe wasn’t ready to face the darkness of the upcoming nightmare. You didn’t mind; you weren’t going to push him towards something that he didn’t want to do. You weren’t exactly eager to face it either, and besides, you thought you might enjoy just spending some time with Axe.

When he raised his head to meet your eyes, you couldn’t suppress a gasp of fright. Goosebumps erupted along your arms, and you shivered.

Axe’s single red eyelight… it glowed with an eerie flickering light, seeming to swell until the socket could barely contain the vortex of its power. Axe tilted his head at an unnatural angle and laughed at your reaction. You forced yourself to stand your ground despite your fear. This was not the monster you knew. Axe now embodied the darkness of his own inner turmoil, and it froze the blood in your veins.

“nothing is ok!” Axe’s snarl dissolved into sinister chuckles that made his broad shoulders shake. He lifted a hand, phalanges curved like claws to scrape at the hole in his skull. You lunged forward to pull his hand away before he caused more damage to himself, and he shoved you roughly away.

The hurt and confusion in your eyes filled Axe with dark satisfaction. You needed to know just what kind of monster he was. You needed to fear him, to run away and never come back. Instead, you offered him your compassion yet again.

“Let me help you.” Tears filled your eyes. His madness must be breaking your sweet, loving heart, but he drove home his depravity because if he let himself care, you’d find out the truth eventually anyway. Losing you would hurt more if he actually had you first.

This time when you reached out for him, he dodged, letting your momentum carry you to your hands and knees on the floor. He loomed over you, oozing menace like a thick fog.

“help me?” Axe’s scornful laughter echoed around the empty landscape. “and why,” he asked cruelly, “would you help a murderer?”

“Murderer?” You repeated the word as a question, as if you weren’t completely sure you knew what it meant. Your eyes widened in shock as tendrils of darkness climbed Axe’s arm, sliding over his bones like living tattoos until they pooled in his hand, taking on the shape of a huge meat cleaver.

“how do you think i’ve survived so long, little human? i hunt, and i kill.” He grinned, his mouth stretching into a disturbing parody of joy. “humans mostly. honestly, did you think the blood on my hoodie was mine?”

You admittedly hadn’t thought much about the blood stains on the hoodie. Maybe they were his. Maybe they were ketchup. Maybe in his dreams he wore the stains of his brother’s imagined death. Dreams and nightmares created their own reality with its own details pulled more from a dreamer’s mindset than accurate memories. It shocked you to think that Axe truly wore a hoodie that had once been soaked with fresh blood.

Human blood.

You trembled. Axe began to circle you like a hungry wolf, casually swinging his gigantic cleaver.

“Do you regret it?” you finally asked in a tiny voice.

Those four words penetrated the armor of madness that Axe was using to push you away, and they struck him like a well-timed attack. He reeled, reaching for some lie to keep you from seeing the truth and pitying him.

He found nothing.

The meat cleaver fell from his shaking hand. Axe sank to his haunches, covering his face with his hands, trying to hide from you and your perceptiveness. He wanted to scare you away before you could judge him and abandon him, but you shot your question straight to his SOUL, refusing to believe the worst of him.

“every fucking minute of my life.”

This time, when you tentatively reached for him, undaunted by his previous rejection, he leaned into your touch. He hated himself for his weakness, but every second that you stayed, even if you left eventually, was a second he would cherish until time wore away even the memory of his dust.

With his first admission, however poorly he’d delivered it, out of the way, Axe couldn’t stop himself from confessing even more of his transgressions and regrets. “i lied and told my brother it was meat from an animal in the forest. he didn’t want to eat humans, but i tricked him. i couldn’t let him starve” The words poured out of him; he feared that as soon as things went quiet, you would realize what an irredeemable abomination he was and flee. “i shouldn’t have done it, but i didn’t know what else to do. we were so hungry… and it messed up our magic. there’s no way to hide what we did. no way to undo it.”

Axe’s words stumbled to a halt, and you sat for a moment in the heavy silence of the grey dreamscape, contemplating them. You hated what he had done, but you also understood that his only other option would be watching his brother starve to death. The circumstances didn’t allow for any winners, and Axe suffered with the knowledge of the things he’d done.

“You were trying to survive.” Your voice nearly cracked on the final word. You could not fathom the desperation that drove Axe to his decision.

You remembered all of the heart-breaking stories that Axe told you about the Underground: the human who’d stolen the SOULs that the monsters had gathered and fled, taking the monsters’ hope with them, the death of their monarchs at the human’s hands, the Royal Guard Captain’s ascension to a throne that she didn’t possess the skills to manage, and the unbearable suffering of monsters starving to death or falling down because of an unshakable despair.

You raised your eyes to meet Axe’s eyelight, expecting to see softness there once more, but instead his horrified expression stared back at you. You didn’t need to puzzle out the cause because a moment later, barbed shadow vines lashed you, wrapping around your legs and dragging you towards a puddle of oozing darkness near your feet. You struggled against the thorny tendrils, and they tightened, driving each wickedly sharp thorn-tip into your flesh.

Pain seared your legs, real physical pain… in someone else’s dream. Panic washed over you, and you fought harder to escape, causing the barbs to rip deeper into you.

You screamed.

Shaking off his shock at the sound of your scream, Axe lunged forward. He wrapped both of his arms tightly around you and wrenched you away from the grasping vines. A writhing mass of them rose up behind him, swarming over him like living things. Staggering a few steps forward, Axe set you on an empty bit of space, but the vines quickly pulled him off of his feet and into a kneeling position. More tendrils rose to wrap around him, and the inky darkness of the puddle rose up to meet them, slithering up his body and swallowing him up in the darkness.

“i can’t protect you here… i can’t keep you safe from me, from my mind.” Axe choked out the words through the darkness consuming him. He couldn’t let you come back. He wouldn’t allow you to be in danger because of him.

This had to be good-bye.

He focused his mind.

“don’t come back.”

You jolted awake, that one last glimpse of Axe’s red eyelight, brimming with pain and regret burning in your mind. He had kicked you out of his dreams and told you not to come back. You couldn’t dream-walk in a mind that wasn’t open to your presence. Your throat constricted, and you felt tears sting your eyes. What if you never saw Axe again?

When you tossed back your blankets, you half expected to see scratches on your legs where Axe’s negative thoughts and emotions had touched you, but your skin was unbroken. You’d never experienced a nightmare so vivid and intense, but you breathed a sigh of relief that it couldn’t reach you in the waking world. If only Axe would let you come back, you could tell him that despite your panicked reactions, his dreams had no power to harm you.

Instead, he would continue to face the torment of his past mistakes all alone… for now.

Because while you had been helping Axe deal with his nightmares, you hadn’t neglected the appalling circumstances of his reality. If you could make your waking project work, you would be able to truly save the skeleton that you cared for so deeply.

I won’t let you push me away, you vowed.

Axe settled himself on the bench of his sentry station, taking a break from prowling the forest for potential meals. The barren snowscape left him all alone with his thoughts, and he hated it. In one bout of unhinged boredom, he’d created a sign for the outpost: “Head dogs, 5G.” It made as much sense as anything else in the Underground. Besides, there was no such thing as a hot dog in this frigid wasteland.

The narrow lines of dead tree trunks shifted if he stared at them too long, and the wind that howled through them carried voices whose words he could not quite arrange into coherency. The windblown whispers rose in volume until the roaring of innumerable voices filled his skull. The blazing white of the snow surrounding him only added to the sensory overload. He couldn’t hear, couldn’t see.

“shut up, shut up!” Axe chanted, clawing at the hole in his skull. Reality warped, the passage of time quickened and slowed, and nothing made sense anymore…

… and you were standing in front of him.

Axe recoiled in disbelief. How could this be happening? He hadn’t fallen asleep… or had he? Maybe you were a cruel hallucination conjured by his loneliness. He refused to accept the vision of you even when you reached out in that oh-so-familiar way to calm the scrabbling of his phalanges against the jagged edges of the hole in his skull.

Axe’s hand shot out as quickly as a striking snake and grabbed your wrist. He yanked you forward until you were partially bent over the sill of the sentry station. He raised his massive knife high above his head; his eyes held no recognition, no clarity, no sanity.

You held completely still, unflinching. The meat cleaver hovered threateningly above you, but it did not fall. You and Axe were frozen in the moment, but despite the madness that absolutely radiated from him, you trusted him not to hurt you.

“you’re not real,” Axe accused you in a gravelly whisper. You weren’t even sure if he meant to speak aloud at all.

“Are you going to kill me?” Your voice didn’t waver, and you kept your eyes locked with his single eyelight, calm yet firm.

Axe lowered the knife. Real or imagined, starving or not, he would never hurt you. You knew him too well. He released your wrist, hoping he hadn’t hurt you by grabbing you like that. He wanted to ask how you’d gotten here, but other matters demanded a higher priority.

“you aren’t safe here,” the skeleton scolded gruffly. “didn’t you listen? monsters here kill and eat humans!”

“Good thing I found you first then.” You tried to diffuse the tension with bravado, but you had to admit that your choice to come to the Underground was a risky one. Axe’s eyelight travelled over your body, searching for injuries while surreptitiously taking in the sight of you. His obvious concern for your safety filled you with warmth and determination.

“there’s nothing good about this,” Axe growled though he had to admit that seeing you again definitely felt like a good thing to him. That little bit of goodness could be snuffed out in a hurry though if another monster saw you and attacked. “i’ve got to get you out of here.”

Axe lumbered out of his sentry station, glancing furtively around the barren landscape, though it wasn’t entirely clear whether he expected to spot an enemy or an escape route. The skeleton stopped right next to you, attempting to block you from prying eyes. You found his protective stance rather charming, but you weren’t here to be charmed. You were on a mission.

You slipped your backpack from your shoulders, swinging it around into Axe’s line of sight and opening it. Seven clear canisters sat inside, each with a brightly-colored heart shape inside of it. Axe’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“are those…?” Axe sounded almost reverent, and with good reason.

“Human SOULs? Yes. I gathered these from willing donors who wanted to help set the monsters free.” It had taken dedication and time, but you’d meticulously interviewed potential donors until you tracked down all seven SOUL types that you needed. Now, only the path to the Barrier stood in your way.

Without warning, Axe swept you into a crushing hug, then proceeded to spin you around. Your feet actually left the ground, and you laughed softly at the thrill of it.

“you’ve got to meet my brother, then we’ll smuggle you into the Capitol.” For once you heard excitement and hope in Axe’s voice. His eyelight gleamed with resolution as he reached for your hand. You placed your hand in his without hesitation. Axe’s declaration that he knew a shortcut still rang in your ears as the world spun beneath you and everything went dark.

Disoriented, you tried to take in the scene around you. You’d been outside, standing in a forest choked with dead trees and carpeted in snow, but suddenly you found yourself in a house. The loud colors of the bowling alley style carpeting had long since faded, and the couch had obviously seen better days. Everything in the house was touched with the same look of elegant decay: faded colors, worn fabrics, the yellowing of book pages, and the subtle musk of disuse.

A fine film of the dust of time spoke volumes about the life of two monsters who devoted so much of their lives to simply surviving that they were forced to neglect the basic upkeep of their home. The house looked so long abandoned that the presence of life within it seemed almost surreal. You couldn’t find words to break the silence that permeated the house, soundless echoes of what it had once been.

Movement caught your eye; a lanky figure detached itself from the shadows and stepped in the dust-mote-filled light. Your eyes travelled up and up, an impossible height despite the figure’s hunched posture, until you found facial features that you recognized from Axe’s dream. The vivid colors of Axe’s subconscious bore the same washed-out appearance here that characterized their home, but you knew this must be Papyrus, now known as Crooks due to the effects of his recent tragic diet.

Crooks wrung his hands shyly, awaiting your reaction to his somewhat terrifying appearance. His teeth were crooked and broken, caked with something red that you tried not to think about too much. His nervous actions tugged at your heart, and you offered him a gentle smile which he responded to with a smile of his own.

“I’D OFFER YOU SOME OF MY SIGNATURE SPAGHETTI AND EYEBALLS, BUT WE’RE ALL OUT OF PASTA.” His apologetic tone did little to distract you from the fact that the skeleton brothers were short of pasta but not eyeballs.

“That’s alright. Really.” You didn’t hold out much hope that Crooks had misspoken considering Axe’s earlier admission. The sooner you got these monsters out of their Underground prison, the sooner they could return to normal healthy eating habits.

“my friend here wants to help us get to the Surface. they’ve got plenty of pasta up there. we just need to talk to ol’ Queen Undyne first,” Axe interjected, using a light tone to dispel the awkwardness of his brother’s offer.

Crooks perked up at the mention of Undyne. “UNDYNE WILL BE SO RELIEVED. I DON’T THINK SHE LIKES BEING QUEEN VERY MUCH…” You clutched your backpack and its precious cargo of SOULs, unzipping it slightly to show the mingled glow of seven vibrant colors. Crooks peered at them with a mixture of curiosity and delight.

Axe shifted uncomfortably. “yeah, relieved,” he mumbled, refusing to meet your eyes. You didn’t have much time to wonder about the skeletons’ very different reactions to Undyne because Axe extended a hand to you and Crooks. As soon as your fingertips brushed his smooth, warm bones, everything went dark again.

In the few seconds it took your eyes to communicate the view of a once-opulent throne room to your poor confused brain, a glowing blue spear appeared and slammed into the ground so close to you that you felt the force of the impact thrumming up the shaft of the weapon. If Axe hadn’t yanked you backwards, you would’ve been impaled. Where had it even come from?

“UNDYNE WAIT! THIS HUMAN IS A FRIEND!” You followed the direction of Crooks’ voice to see an armor-clad monster with a wild mane of crimson hair. She held another glowing blue spear, and her single yellow eye focused on you with murderous malice. You staggered backwards from the force of her glare.

“No human is a friend to monsters,” Queen Undyne roared, launching a volley of her spears at you. You resigned yourself to your doom, regretting that your rescue attempt had been such a short-lived failure.

A wall of bones erupted from the tiles of the floor, blocking the attack. Crooks and Axe both stood next to you, arms outstretched to summon the defensive maneuver. More spears struck the bones, causing them to shudder, but they remained standing. You turned wide, panicked eyes to Axe, searching for some explanation or reassurance.

“can you hold her off?” Axe asked Crooks, who nodded somberly. The stocky skeleton grabbed your arm and dragged you down a hallway of soaring pillars coated thickly in cobwebs and floor to ceiling windows of cloudy, cracked glass. Away from the immediate danger, you began to tremble. Tears welled up in your eyes.

Axe pulled you close, wrapping you in the safety of his arms and gently rubbing your back. He made soft shushing sounds, and you realized that your tears had turned into terrified sobs. Your body shook, and you hiccuped, trying to catch your breath. Axe held you until the overwhelming wave of emotion subsided.

“i’m so sorry. i thought maybe we could talk some sense into Undyne. she and my brother used to be really close, but the last human who came through here… well, that human killed a lot of monsters and stole the SOULs that we had collected towards breaking the barrier. they left us with nothing but despair and dust, and Undyne blamed herself for not stopping them. it… affected her.” Once again, Axe looked guilty.

“How can we convince her that I’m trying to help?” You gripped your backpack with determined hands. You didn’t gather these SOULs for nothing, and you didn’t plan to leave the starving monsters in the Underground without at least making an effort to save them.

“you aren’t going to convince her of anything.” You opened your mouth to protest, but Axe laid a phalange against your lips to silence you. “i want you to get out of here. it’s not safe, and i would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

“What about breaking the Barrier?”

Loud crashes sounded from the Throne Room. Axe shot a quick glance over his shoulder before pushing you further down the hallway. “i need to go help my brother. if we can convince Undyne to trust you, i’ll meet you at the Barrier to break it and free the monsters.”

“What if you can’t?” More sounds of destruction threatened to drown out your whispered words, but Axe was close enough to hear you over the cacophony. Sorrow filled his single eyelight.

“i won’t put you in danger.”

“That doesn’t answer my question!” Actually, it did answer your question, and the implications left you frantic with worry for him. You wanted to explain how you felt about him, why his plan tore your heart to pieces, that you couldn’t just leave him behind, but the sounds of battle were approaching quickly.

Crooks slid backwards into the pillar-lined hallway, kicking up dirt. He held bone attacks in his gloved hands, and he used them to deflect wave after wave of spear attacks. The barrage of attacks drove him backwards again, closer to you and his brother. Axe stepped between you and the sound of Undyne’s war cries.

Turning, he cupped your cheek in one large, bony hand. His eyelight drank you in as if to memorize every feature of your tear-streaked face. He leaned forward and kissed your forehead. “go,” he murmured, pressing his forehead to yours.

Then he was gone, teleporting to the entrance of the hallway to join Crooks with bone attacks flying.

If you stayed, it would only distract him. He wanted you to go, to be safe. It took every bit of willpower in your body to walk away, to step through the Barrier without him, knowing that he never would’ve fought Undyne if it wasn’t for your meddling.

You waited.

And waited.

The seconds stretched out, each one lasting a thousand excruciating years.

You waited.

Axe curled up on the couch, full to bursting from a delicious dinner prepared by his brother. Yawning, he rested his skull in your lap, and you gently stroked his scapulae, smiling as he began to doze. He no longer feared nightmares. In fact, he rarely dreamed at all anymore. After all, what would be the point in dreaming?

Life on the Surface far surpassed anything that his subconscious could fabricate, and he already lived that dream every single day, with you.

INDEX

#vexy writes #horrortale #horrortale sans #ht!sans #horrortale papyrus #ht!papyrus #horrortale undyne #ht!undyne #horror!sans x reader #fem!reader

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themafia-terrapins · 3 years

Text

Into the night.

A/N: You should read the post before this to get an understanding of this AU. Fair warning, this is pretty long. Enjoy! 💚

Disclaimer: mention of child abuse ahead. Be warned!

Cold. Merciless. Dangerous. Mysterious.

They were the only words that many used to describe the Hamato Clan. No one wanted to mess with them in fear of what they would do, countless stories were told of those who had double crossed them and in result, hadn’t lived to see the next day. The most feared gang caught in a dark and ruthless world of crime, violence, blood and lust. Others wanted their wealth and power but not everything is what it seemed to be.

The cold breeze hit Leonardo’s face, as he gulped down air quickly into his lungs. He was sure those horrid nightmares would have stopped, it had been almost 11 years for God’s sake. Cursing under his breath, he knocked down the tub of medication which rattled on the floor. The view of New York was beautiful from all the way up here and as frantically as he tried to focus on it, those poisonous thoughts blazed through his mind and he had no power to control it.

“Father please don’t leave again” The young teen cried, trailing helplessly after the rat who swore angrily. Being only 13, he wasn’t able to grab those supplies that his brothers needed. They were forced to rely on Splinter but he would hardly help them. They were lucky if he even brought down the bare necessities for them to survive on.

“How many times do I have to tell you leave me alone?! Enough!” Splinter growled, loosening his tie as he made his way to the sewers steps. But Leo had to try for his brothers, he couldn’t look at their pain anymore. He couldn’t go back empty handed, to witness Raphael put up a brave front despite actively bleeding and bruised practically everywhere on his frail body. He couldn’t see Donnie on the verge of another panic attack because he didn’t know how to fix them. He couldn’t bear to see Mikey trying to hold it all together but breaking down in the bathroom , when he thought nobody was listening because he couldn’t live in this nightmare.

“R-Raph is hurt and we don’t have any more bandages” Leo spoke timidly, trying to sound clear and confident but his voice trembled. Splinter stood still and the turtle could already smell the sour whiskey from his clothes. It had been a bad day, he presumed. Whiskey was only drunk whenever a loss was incurred. And that usually meant he wouldn’t be home for days, much o the turtle’s pleasure.

“What have I said about speaking back?!” Splinter bellowed, his arm whacking Leo backwards until his shell hit the tunnel. The side of his shell had already been damaged due to constantly training day and night to perfect the routine Splinter had set them. But an audible crack had been heard and a small gasp left his lips, already seeing a trickle of blood roll down his skin staining the previous bandages. He hadn’t even time to register the pain until Splinter loomed over his body, his eyes black and dangerous.

“Father I’m-” Leo’s breath hitched in his throat, tears prickling his eyes painfully watching his hand raise slowly. ‘Not again, please not again’

“You’re absolutely hopeless, you hear me?!” Again Splinter punched the turtle, laughing each time when the terrapin recoiled in pain. Leonardo held his tongue, scared to further anger the drunken rat. Every slap, punch and kick was taken without a sound because the punishment for wincing was double the amount than the beating now. And he wasn’t so sure his shell could take anymore.

“Look at you! You expect to take on my legacy acting like a pathetic little girl?! Get out of my sight before I finish you” With one swift punch to Leo’s jaw, Splinter left to go topside. He could hear his evil voice cackle on the phone to one of his partners in this mysterious business he refused to utter a word about.

“Why do you hit us so much? What did we ever do to you?” Leo sobbed quietly, curling into a little ball on the floor. The punch on his plastron seared throughout his body, burning in hot white pain. Yet it must be nothing compared to what his brothers were going through. They were awaiting Leo but the eldest could barely move, let alone walk to their home.

Home, usually described at being comforting and loving but he hadn’t felt any of these emotions since they moved in. He used to yearn for a mother to come and take their pain away but as he grew, that dream slowly died as hope in him also began to wither.

Maybe one day things would be different...

---

Blaring traffic shocked the turtle out of his trance and with a shuddering breath, he took several deep breaths. He l

“Why must I be reminded of such memories?” Leonardo sighed, his hand drifting over his temple to soothe the dull ache. No matter how long it had been, the wound from his past was still fresh. They say time healed all pain so why did his still hurt? Some nights it was bearable and some nights it felt like he was being suffocated in his mind, slowly driving insane.

Physical pain definitely was a lot more tolerable than verbal, even now he could still hear the echo of Splinter’s voice reprimanding him whenever he failed. Those stabbing words ringing louder and louder in his ears, berating him for being stupid and weak. Laughing at how his ridiculous attempt of leading a team. Leonardo never wanted anything more than to make Splinter proud but during his years, he realised that it was never going to happen.

Splinter only cared for himself and Leo, along with his brothers, were merely pawns in his cruel game.

But now was not the time to dwell on these matters, things had to be done and completed. His phone rang jarring him out of his thoughts and he picked it up rather reluctantly.

“What is it, Silas?” His assistant/companion spoke quickly, picking up the disinterest in Leo’s voice. He was never one for sugarcoating his feelings or emotions, if the boss wanted something done it was pronto.

“Beast is requesting dinner with capo and the mob. Your presence is required, sir” Holding his urge to groan, the turtle glanced down at the lights that decorated the buildings of New York. They were so beautiful but he couldn’t even take the time to appreciate it, reality had called and with great reluctance he had to answer.

Beast... what was there to say? He was a snob, ignorant, extremely wealthy but lacked any common sense or values. Leo’s patience was practically non existent whenever he communicated with him. While he provided a great reference for other business partners, Beast himself was on thin ice with the brothers.

“Dinner at... 1am?” Leo scowled, looking at his watch. Beast, while had been an average business partner, had constant demands and ideas that were completely absurd. The brothers were tiring of his constant requests and awful timing.

“I did not suggest the convocation at this late sir” The assistant began but Leo interrupted him, wanting to end this conversation.

“Be that as it may, unfortunately I cannot attend. Cancel my plans for tonight, I have a reconciliation to attend to and the conference will take up most my time” He ordered, observing the bonsai trees that stood on the balcony. One thing he grew to adore was his plants, they were simple and with enough care and love, blossomed into something gorgeous.

“I don’t think Beast will be pleased with the rejection. He only wants a few words with the mob and especially you, Capo” Silas tried to reason but the terrapin was adamant.

“Enough. Reschedule this meeting tomorrow at 11pm sharp. Am I understood?” Leo commanded and Silas nodded, already writing it down in his notepad.

“Crystal. Enjoy your night sir” ‘Unlikely’... Hanging up, the blue cladded turtle inhaled a deep breath to collect his thoughts. Cancelling the meeting is a mistake but there were bigger fish to fry tonight. Other duties lay heavy on his mind and with a turn of his heel, he left his safe haven.

As he entered his room, a young woman appeared at his door. Her heels echoed on the polished marble floors, grinding on his last nerve. God he really didn’t want to deal with her right in this moment. Her eyes settled on his and her face lifted into a small smile, one he did not mirror back.

“Katherine, what brings you to my quarters? Surely you’re old enough to understand you cannot barge in whenever you please” Leonardo watched as the young woman quickly stepped back, picking up the heavy discomfort that lay in the air.

“My apologies Leonardo. It’s Raphael, he said that you guys are attending a conference tonight but it’s our 3 month-”

“I fail to understand how this is my problem” He was quick in letting her know, he hadn’t the time to listen to her. Truth be told, he would never understand why Raphael stuck with her. She caused more pain and grief than anything to him.

“Okay... but could you tell me at least why?” She cocked her head and Leo turned, his face set in a hard frown.

“That is between me and my brothers Katherine. I do not appreciate when people interfere in my business. That much should be painfully obvious” His tone was calm but the harsh voice was clearly heard.

Opening his cupboard door, the small picture of Eva caught his eye. A small pang of sadness washed over his body before getting a grip on himself, refusing himself to succumb to the weakness. Eva was the past yet it seemed no matter how long the years had gone by, the yearn was as strong as ever. He wondered if he would ever be free from the shackles around his heart that locked tightly in his chest.

He had to accept that no matter how much he hoped on a wishing star or to the sky, she simply was not coming back. On the side showed a glass mirror, outlining all the features on his face. Sleep hadn’t come to the turtle much recently, he was lucky to get 4 hours and that was on a good day.

“You know you can just call me Kiki like everyone else” She raised her brow as he grabbed his navy blue velvet suit, the unreadable facial expression plastered on his face while his dark sapphire eyes burned into hers. Still standing at the doorway, she felt almost scared of him. Despite being with his brother for around 8 years, she never felt like she knew Leo. No one did, he kept to himself and only showed his true colours to those he cared about.

“Katherine, if that is all you have come to say then I highly suggest you leave me be now. It would not bode well for you to overstep your boundaries” With an almost snarl, he walked forwards and closed his door.

---

“Would you like some champagne, Mr Hamato? It’s the one you specifically requested, Dom Pérignon” The waiter asked and Leo nodded his head, flicking through the newspapers as he awaited the rest of his brothers to join him. This meeting was better suited to the office, he didn’t need any extra ears or eyes to listen in on the information discussed between them.

“God, I need a drink” He could hear the brute’s voice carry through the halls and into the meeting room.

“Right away boss” Greyson, his assistant spoke and vanished to make his preferred alcoholic beverage.

“What is the occasion, dear brother? As much as I like to spend time with you, I’m assuming you haven’t called us for fun” Donnie sat down, his ankle resting on top of his thigh as his attention diverted to his brother. Delicately folding the papers up and placing them to the side, Leo eyed his younger brother with a smirk.

“Always straight to the point Donatello. And you’d be correct, I’ve called this meeting to discuss our next steps” He spoke authoritatively as the turtles settled in their seats, glancing at the board which held ideas and secret plans.

“Did ya cancel tha meetin’ with Beast tonight?” Raph asked, eyes skimming at the tablet. That was very unlikely of the leader, he was the one always nagging to keep up with business meetings and such.

“Yes, I’ll be damned if I have to listen to another lie of his again. He cannot speak clearly and I have no time for beating around the bush. Once we’re done with this proposal, it will be a big relief to have him off our backs” Leo sipped his wine, flicking through his notes. A few names picked up but on the whole, everything seemed relatively calm. But there was no resting, they couldn’t afford not to be on their guard. Trouble was brewing on the horizon, he could feel it in his body.

“Fuck sake, how many times do I have to tell you I hate when you organise my notes like this” Mikey sighed irritably as his brothers smirked, looking at each other with amusement.

It was a running joke that Mikey couldn’t hold an assistant down for more than 2 months. Perhaps it was his picky way of being organised or that he had a short temper and hated his things being out of place, they didn’t know. This new assistant fumbled with the drinks, paling as his boss shouted his displeasure.

“What happened to Donetti Licata?” Donatello asked, chuckling at his younger brother expecting another childish story about organisation as it as had been the story before.

“Fired him. Caught him screwing Mia in my bed. Which reminds me I really need to employ someone who actually has a working braincell” Mikey spoke nonchalantly while his brothers looked at each other wide eyed.

“Oh... shit. M’sorry Mike, that must’ve been hard” Raph murmured, surprised at how well his little brother was taking the whole thing. Almost... too well in his opinion. Amelia had been the light of his life, his love at one point. They both brought out the best in each other but perhaps it was simply a mirage to the toxicity that lay just under the surface.

She wasn’t the Amelia he fell in love with and as he came to grips with that, the idea of losing her forever felt absolutely scary to him. He tried everything to put their relationship on track but it was Amelia who refused to partake in anything.

“Hmm? Oh.. yeah. It was tolerable once I beat the shit out of him. I can’t ever believe I trusted the fucker....” Mikey leaned back on his chair as another glass of wine was placed in front of him. Yet the lump in his throat felt unmovable, rendering him breathless.

“Don’t tell me ya still wit’ her Mike. Yer deserve better than that” Raphael’s hand ached to knock some sense into the terrapin. Even if she would countlessly cheat on him, which she probably had done, all she had to do was flutter her lashes and sweet talk him. And just like that Mikey would forgive her in that second. In his eyes, Mia could do no wrong. She had Mikey on a leash but of course, he was oblivious to it all.

“You still with Kiki?” Mikey retorted, venom in his words while his eyes glared at his brother. Raphael’s frown deepened, holding his gaze. While he knew it was in the heat of the moment, he wished Mikey could see the damage Amelia was doing to him. Kiki was different only because Raph knew her past, knew that she was damaged too. How could he, of all people, leave her hanging alone?

“Children, behave. What do we do about these last few payments? I’ve talked to Xavier and he’s saying Gomez hasn’t responded to anything. It’s high time we pay a special visit, he’s got to know who exactly he’s messing with here” Donnie rolled his eyes at the quarrel and adjusted his glasses, raising them closer to his eyes. Leonardo seemed to be in deep thought for a few seconds before looking at his family again.

“If that’s the case then I want you and Mikey to check it out tomorrow. Me and Raph will deal with Beast, we all know how dramatic he likes to get when he doesn’t get his way” They all knew the last time they messed with Beast, how he threatened to take his money away and leave them bankrupt. Regardless of his filthy money, the turtles were not affected without it.

Years of investing and saving up had allowed them to live luxuriously. They had everything they ever wanted, Beast was just a liability to them. They needed him to increase potential business partners. To be able to stay at the top, they needed to associate with people at the top. If that meant doing business with idiots who couldn’t hold their ground and lacked any sense of morals and values, then so be it.

This was the mafia, after all. Nothing was pretty here.

“He’s clearly trying to inherit the property, why not just kill him altogether” Mikey pointed out, leaning back on his chair but Leo shook his head.

“Too risky. He may be a fool but he’s a smart one. He has plenty of connections with others, much powerful than the ones we have. We’ll keep him on the side but don’t turn your eyes, he will strike when least expected. Once we secure this deal, you can unleash all your anger on him. For now, we stay in his good books. However long that may be” He grimaced at the thought of the meeting they were supposed to have instead of this one. How long the turtle brothers would remain on his good side was unknown but hey, only a few more months of his bullshit and it was home run. The brothers continued to talk about upcoming events and nearing the end of the meeting, they all grabbed their belongings.

“Wait a sec, Amara’s coming here tomorrow?” Mikey read out the small note on the board and Leo nodded, finishing off his wine.

“Yes, well technically she’s visiting but we needed some help around here and she agreed to stick around for a while” She was a close friend to the turtles, meeting them after they newly escaped Splinter’s clutches. She had found them at a time when they were barely breathing and even without knowing who they were, she nursed them back to health. They all were indebted to her. Throughout the years, she went back to Italy since her father was part of their own mafia but her loyalty to the turtles never wavered.

“At least we get ta see a new face ‘round here. But goin’ back ta before, I can’t wait ta finally kill that bastard” Raphael cracked his knuckles, unbuttoning his vest. He never was one to take orders from people, he was incredibly stubborn and arrogant to take commands from someone else. He barely followed Leo’s on a good day, let alone someone who continually threatened him and his family. If it were up-to him, he would have Beast’s head on a silver platter and sent directly to his team

“All in due time brother. For now, let’s focus on getting our money back and dealing with Beast”

#tmnt mafia!turtles #tmnt mafia!leonardo #tmnt mafia!raphael #tmnt mafia!donatello #tmnt mafia!michelangelo

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sarriathmg · 3 years

Note

I know you said that Jason won’t die in your Renegade fic, but if he did, how would Dick react?

Thanks, Anon, I made myself cry writing this 😢

WARNINGS: Canonical major character death, mourning, hurt no comfort, heavy angst, revenge, past underage/non-con/kidnapping/manipulative relationship/stockholm syndrome

The gravesite was new. The gravestone, nothing spectacular, stood low to around the knees. It was limestone, small, and rather standard. It was squarish with a name carved upon it—a name way too familiar for Dick, yet one not nearly uttered enough during the time they spent together.

The sky was overcast, summer clouds spreading like a sheet of blanket, dispersing the sun and foretelling the coming storm. The graveyard was quiet in the late afternoon, completely empty without the presence of visitors.

Dick stood by himself under the tree, eyebrows knitted, corners of lips pulled down. His hand clutched the handle to a sheathed sword, his eyes downcast as he silently read the name—

—Jason Todd.

Dick had known the boy intimately. Known him before he first met Jason in person a little more than a year ago, when the boy was still Robin and flying in Gotham’s night scene with free wings. Dick had researched him, obsessed over him, chased after his whereabouts like a madman. Dick had started to know Jason Todd that first day he learned the boy was wearing his old uniform, two years after he had disappeared with Starfire in his arms to find her killer. That obsession had never ceased since.

It had never ceased, not when Dick had held the young Robin captive, not when he had let him go free. Free to this.

Dick’s eyes moved across the gravestone, his chest tight. His bursts of anger had passed—the bouts of excessive training sessions when he had tried to punch a hole through the punching bag, the numerous missions where he found release for his rage and pain, red staining his katana time and time again. And Dick had researched Joker, looking for a break-in plan to breach Arkham. His eyes had been rimmed with red, his lips pulled back to a scowl.

It was a scene way too familiar. Too much like the memories that Dick had tried to bury.

Dick leaned his sword onto the tree and covered his tired eyes with his hands, rubbing the heels into his sockets. He couldn’t feel the hot tears coming. It seemed they had dried years ago, when Kori had perished in the hands of her sister.

“I should never have let you go, Jason,” Dick whispered. “I thought you’d be happier if I let you leave. I’d never thought-”

Dick choked. That name sounded too foreign. He was too used to calling him Robin, or Little Wing, or boy or kid or sweetheart. But it seemed it was only recently when Dick had called Jason by his real name.

“You should have called me,” Dick said instead. “You could have sent me a signal. You know I would have picked up. If you felt you were out of place, felt like you didn’t belong, that you stopped fitting in, stopped wanting to be Robin-”

He paused and took a deep breath.

“You shouldn’t have run off to find her. She wasn’t worth it. She didn’t deserve you.”

Yet, was Dick?

Dick had held onto Jason. He had imprisoned him, taken from him, and degraded him to the point the boy knew of no one but him. Until Jason had learned the true source of comfort came from one person and one person only. Until Dick could hold Jason’s trembling form in his arms as his successor muttered desperate words of love, wanting for it to be returned. And Dick would hold him, using soft words to tell him how the love he sought was his as long as he stuck to Dick’s rules, how Jason belonged to him, and how he belonged to nowhere else. Cage bird. Sang the saddest little songs.

Yet it had been Dick who truly needed Jason. It had been him who held onto his successor in desperation, wanting him, needing him to keep him grounded and full and sane. Jason wasn’t just the boy who took Dick’s place, wasn’t just a target for Dick’s anger or a tool to release his frustrations on. Jason was more than that. He was an anchor, the last connection Dick had to his past and that person he wanted to be.

Dick didn’t deserve Jason. He didn’t treasure his chance at redemption when it was available to him, didn’t value the gift that was Jason Todd, thrust upon him as a medium to help him find peace with his past.

He didn’t treasure the gift until it was way too late. Until the scene had to replay all over again and Dick had to live through the same agony that he had felt from Kori’s death. Except, this time, he had brought it onto himself. This time he had deserved the misery.

Dick rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands until they were red. A sob escaped him, but his eyes stayed dry.

“If only I loved you sooner… if only I didn’t… didn’t let you go when you tried to…”

Jason had looked hurt when Dick didn’t pursue him further when he made his last escape attempt. The bird had been caged for too long, his feather clipped, his habits forever altered. Jason could no longer survive without the cage, and Dick had learned that too late.

“Jason, Jason… Little Wing… ”

Dick’s shoulders shook as he tried to calm his breathing, chanting his successor-lover-captive’s name.

It started to rain, drops creating wet spots over the gravestone, muddying the ground Dick was standing on, spreading the red into the mud and diluting the drops of blood on the grass.

Dick sniffled one last time, opening his red-rimmed eyes to stare at the gravestone. Thinking about the boy buried there, the body lying six feet under in his coffin.

“I couldn’t save you, Jason.”

Dick lifted his foot and kicked. His boot contacted the almost spherical object, sending it toward the grave. It rolled like a soccer ball until it hit the low gravestone, splattering blood over the dead boy’s name, wet green hair plastering over the polished surface.

“But I’ve brought you a gift.”

Dick’s face turned near-emotionless when he looked down and into the clown’s face. Monstrous smile forever plastered onto the pasty face, red lips stretched gruesomely from ear to ear.

Dick looked down, face passive, but hatred still burning in his eyes. He looked straight into Joker’s eyes, forever frozen in their widened state. The corneas were clouded by a layer of a light-bluish mist.

“Find peace, Jason,” Dick said. “Rest knowing you’ve been avenged. Rest knowing you’ve not been forgotten.”

If only he could take his own advice. If only Dick could find peace himself, having lost his love for the second time.

He would never learn. Dick Grayson would forever be stuck in this hellish cycle of hope and despair. Love and loss. It was his punishment. It must have been.

Dick knelt, lowering his head humbly until he could press a kiss to the top of the gravestone, imagining that cold, hard rock was the boy who once brought him so much joy and hope. The texture was scratchy. Raindrops fell, quickly wetting Dick’s clothes and his hair, wet strands falling on his shoulders.

“I’ll see you around, Little Wing,” he said, lips pressed to the stone. “I’ll see you. Until then, rest in peace. Rest without suffering. I love you, Jason. I always have.”

#dickjay #jaydick #jason todd #dick grayson #angst #myfic #renegadeverse

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autisticsupervillain · 3 years

Text

I don't talk about my inFAMOUS hyperfixation enough, so here's some stuff.

Dark Danny and Kessler are basically polar opposites of each other as far as Evil Future Me villains go.

Kessler: I fucked up, destroyed the world, and lost everyone I ever cared about. I need to go back in time and make sure that doesn't happen.

Dark Danny: I fucked up, destroyed the world, and lost everyone I cared about. I better go back in time and make sure that does happen.

It gets me wondering... what if Dark Danny was The Beast that Kessler wanted Cole to destroy?

Let me introduce the inFAMOUS Phantom AU.

The year is 20xx in the not so distance future. Danny Phantom finally dropped his heroic charade and embraced his ghostly nature, going on a rampage from Wisconsin to Amity Park, decimating all he sees. The Guys In White only manage to capture and contain him using their newly aquired Conduit unites. Conduits are humans who have the Conduit gene, a genetic failsafe that, when activated, could give the bearer extraordinary powers. The Conduit gene was only able to be activated recently thanks to the advancements pushed by their head scientist, Cole MacGraph.

Cole is put in charge of containing Phantom. His technology is several years ahead of the rest of the world, after all, and it's jis discoveries that unlocked the secrets of the Conduit gene and allowed Phantom to be captured to begin with.

However, Phantom is incrediblybclever and quickly thinks up a plan to escape. Taking the form of his younger, human self, Danny Fenton, Phantom tells him of his origins. Of the ghost portal that turned him half ghost, of the grand heroic adventures he had.... and of how his parents kept trying to kill him, despite his heroic deeds. Phantom claims that his ghost half and his human half have separate personalities, and that his ghost half came to despise the human race for their hatred of him.

"Please... I just want to go home. I miss my friends... I miss my mom... Wait, my parents... the Fenton Ghost Catcher! You can separate my two halves! That way my ghost half will dissolve when separated from his host!"

This is all an elaborate lie, painstakingly sprinkled with enough truth to be believable. Daniel Fenton is dead. All that happens when the Ghost Catcher is used is that the ghost (Phantom) is expunged from his non-ghost containment chamber. Phantom uses the opportunity to possess Cole with an invisible duplicate while the Conduit team recontain him. He then uses Cole's notes and free access to the facility to carefully plan his escape, whilst assassinating the Conduit team to ensure they don't stand in his way. He also kills Cole's family, both to keep them from questioning his odd behavior and to give his own strange behavior an excuse. Of course he's getting strangely close to the Conduit team, he's grieving and needs companionship.

Fortunately, Phantom didn't plan for Cole having friends outside the GIW. When Zeke Dunbar strangely stops receiving Cole's calls, he goes undercover to investigate. Putting together what happened from Cole's notes on Phantom, Zeke frees Cole with the Fenton Ghost Catcher in front of what remains of the Conduit team. Cole and Zeke escape as Phantom slaughters what remains of the Conduit team, as well as the rest of the GIW.

Zeke urges Cole to help fight off Phantom, but Cole instead becomes obsessed with resurrecting his family. He ignores Zeke's attempts to reason with him, runs away again every time Phantom shows up wherever he's hiding. Until it's to late. To late to fight back. To late to do anything. As far as Cole knows, he's the last man on Earth when Phantom sends Zeke's battered body flying through his door.

Phantom recognizes him and laughs, taunting him over the sob story he had about his family. "The best part is that it's all true, to a degree. I didn't even have to lie to trick you."

But, as soon as Dan tries to blast him, Cole is saved by two words.

"Time Out."

Clockwork appears and gives Cole a Time Medallion, before deciding to strike a deal with him. He offers Cole the chance to go 20 years back in time in order to prevent this future. Cole accepts. Taking the name Kessler upom arriving in the past, Cole gets to work.

Firstly, Kessler rejoins the GIW under his new identity, quickly rising through the ranks with his forehand knowledge and scientific prestige. He pushes development of the Conduit project ahead by several decades, giving himself powers and creating a cult of personality around himself in the process. Anyone who opposes his hostile takeover is quietly disposed of and Cole MacGrath finds himself expelled from college on mysterious grounds, never getting a chance to join the GIW.

Kessler creates a weapon called the Ray Sphere, a device designed to explode and kill any non-Conduit caught in it's blast. The Conduits will have their powers supercharged by the bio-electricity absorbed from all non-Conduits killed in the explosion, artificial advancing their development.

Kessler manipulates Cole into detonating the Ray Sphere in Empire City, before using the GIW resources to launch a hostile take over the city to "control the damage", all whilst having the government create a cover story so that Phantom doesn't get involved. Cole is forced to adabt and become stronger to survive with all the odds stacked against him, exactly as Kessler intended, forging Cole into the hero that he himself was not. After Kessler kills Cole's girlfriend to keep him from getting distracted from his mission, he challenges his past self to a climactic final battle to prove he's become as strong as he needs to be.

Cole emerges victorious and Kessler uses his final breath to show Cole visions of the future. Of the massacre of mankind, of the death of his family, of the sob story that Phantom manipulated him with. Cole is sent reeling from the revelation that Kessler is his future self and it is now up to him to save the world. As a reminder of the task he must now uptake, Cole grabs the Time Medallion off Kessler's body, not knowing it's true significance.

But, of course, that is only one path thay the parade might take. There is an equally valid timeline where Cole takes the opposite lesson from all the hardship he endures. He learns not to be responsible, but to be strong. Not to be compassionate, but to be vengeful. Not to save lives, but to gain power. While in one world Cole becomes a FAMOUS hero, in another, he becomes an inFAMOUS villain.

Both Coles set course to Amity Park, with their best friend Zeke by their side. One hoping to save the world, the other hoping to destroy the competition. Good Cole takes the sneakier approach when challenging Phantom. He has Zeke create a distraction for the Fentons by claiming to be an investor interested in their research, while Cole sneaks downstairs. MacGrath trashes the ghost portal, alongside anything else that might be useful to Phantom in the fight against him, before carving "meet me in Central Park, Phantom" into the wall with lightning.

Evil Cole takes the more direct approach, instead blasting the Fenton building apart with a giant thunder bolt. What Cole wasn't prepared for was for the Fentons to survive and for their ghost weapons to be able to harm him, forcing him back long enough for Danny Fenton to transform into Danny Phantom.

Either way, Cole MacGrath comes face to face with a Danny Phantom who is varying degrees of pissed.

Their fight is suprisingly even and both end up bring good counters to the other. Cole's resistance to mind control is sufficiently enough that he can ward off Danny's possession, his Radar Sense counters invisibility thanks to homing in on Danny's bio-electricity, while his own projectile versatility is strong enough to match most of what Danny can throw at him and then some. Danny, meanwhile, has actual flight to counter Cole's gliding, shapeshifting and Intangibility to dodge attacks, and is a better close range fighter when compared to Cole's over reliance on range. Evil Cole also has in edge in that he's willing to leverage civilian lives to give himself an edge, either by using them as hostages or by outright draining their bio-electricity to heal himself. Either way, it's a long fight that sends the two flying and fighting across all of Amity Park.

It comes to an end when Sam and Tucker and the sidelines realize Cole's weakness to water, spraying him with a hose to incapacitate him long enough for Danny to get close. Zeke rushes in to help, as do Sam and Tucker, but Danny ends up grabbing Cole's time medallion, sending the five flying off to meet Clockwork.

When there, the five witness Danny's evil future firsthand, with even Evil Cole suprised by the raw power on display by Dark Danny. Clockwork appears and explains how he sent Kessler back in time to alter history and prevent this future, but that plan "failed" so now he's going to "kill" them. However, Cole is able to quickly deduce the importance of the medallions and throws one on him and Zeke. Evil Cole only gives more to Danny and Friends upon Zeke's insistence. The five run into the future, coming face to face with Dark Danny himself.

Dan recognizes Cole, Zeke, and Clockwork's medallions, commenting about how "even dead, MacGrath's a pain in my ass". Cole and Danny try to fight him, but neither can get any good hits in, and the five are forced to run away. Cole only manages to save Zeke at the last second by blasting his time medallion, causing him to do the same to the rest of the medallions to keep Dan from following them into the past.

Cole initially thinks that that's the end of it. Danny saw his future self and was just as horrifed as they were. He's scared straight and won't be a problem anymore. Evil Cole, meanwhile, immediately goes back to trying to kill Danny to eliminate the competition. Either way, Sam and Tucker interrupt and point out that Dark Danny could still come back. He has the time medallions and if he puts them back together, he could travel back in time to prevent his past from changing. Indeed, Dark Danny is trying to do just that, as he has enough Vlad in him to try putting the advanced tech back together.

Cole and Danny are forced to train together to defeat Dark Danny, giving Danny the opportunity to learn who Cole is and what his deal is. Especially seeing how destroyed all the Fenton tech, so teaming up is the only real option. This gives Cole the opportunity to test his mettle against Danny's villains, from stomping Technus by draining all his technology to working together to beat Vlad.

Within the span of a few months, Cole and Danny are stronger than ever... and they'll have to be, because Dark Danny has arrived. The Ultimate Enemy is here, and they're the only ones who can stop him.

#danny phantom #infamous #danny fenton #cole macgrath #dark danny #kessler #zeke dunbar #sam manson #tucker foley

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spideyanakin · 3 years

Text

Far From Home - Part 1

Peter Parker x Reader

Synopsis; Coming from another reality yourself, what will happen when you see straight through the lies of the mysterious Quentin Beck.

Part of the dialogue inspired by @thekamiiiworld //idk if you’ve seen the disney hercules movie but there’s a scene where hercules meets meg and meg says “i’m a damsel, i’m in distress, i can handle it. have a nice day!” maybe spiderman finds the reader in a bad situation and she says those lines cuz she’s a badass? do whatever with the rest of the plot. thanks!

Series Masterlist 🍒

Normal Masterlist 🧚🏻‍♀️

Your thoughts lingered to the day you had arrived in Peter's reality as you stared at the clouds from above. The memories slowly coming back up and you felt like the day you had failed your mission was happening all over again.

Your earth had been destroyed to pieces when a monster that thirsted for everything that lived had come from nowhere turning everything into bits.

You didn't even know how you managed to survive. You were holding on tight to your last piece of your lost family wishing that the storm ready to take you would go away and let you live. You used the last bit of strength inside your veins to create a dome of branches and vines, trying your best to protect the last survivors.

The last thing you remembered seeing on your earth was a skyscraper crashing. You watched from the small gaps in your dome of protection as it tumbled to the ground tears falling as you realized it was the end for you.

But suddenly some light sparks of orange came right near your face. The circle opened to reveal Kayland. You watched the familiar face and a smile had forced its way to your lips as hope lightened your chest seeing that a friendly face had survived.

"They've accepted." Was all he said before holding onto the portal, signing for the people who you had protected to jump through it.

You felt the tears about to come down more than they currently were. You sobbed as you felt the weight of dying coming off your shoulders, the few 20 people or so you were protecting slowly fading into a new reality.

"And they couldn't have earlier." You sobbed almost falling as you let go of using your powers, the branches shielding you from the chaos that rained slowly disappearing back into the ground.

"C'mon." Kayland took you in his arms as you limped your way to the portal, your body crashing to the floor in pain as you watched the fumes from the closing portal.

As the portal fully closed, the only thing you could feel from your new home in the universe was the hard wooden floor. You let out a large sob as you realized it meant the end of everything you had ever known.

You stayed on the floor, a voice was talking with the rest of the survivors but you seemed to completely block it out as all you could think of was how you failed to save your reality. The one that was currently crumbling to pieces by the hands of a mad creature.

"Y/n! Hey!" Peter snapped his fingers in front of your face, giving you a light smile as your eyes focused on him.

"Sorry." You shook your head swallowing hard as your eyes slowly reddened. "I got lost in my thoughts again." You rubbed your eyes slowly coming back to Peter, looking at him with your tight smile. Everything about that day seemed like a distant memory that was still fresh in your mind. Even tho it had been a while, and even more than a while for others. The traumas were still here and fully engraved in your memory.

"It's alright." Peter smiled as he placed a strand of hair behind your ear. "This year hasn't been the kindest to us." He chuckled trying to make you feel better as he held on tight to your hand. Placing his head on your shoulder as he heard your heartbeat quicken.

Peter knew how much those events had broken you. Fighting Thanos and losing most of your new friends barely above a year after you had lost your planet had pilled up in your mind, scaring you even more than you had been. The only thing that Peter thanked was the fact that you had blipped together.

"Yeah." You scrunched up your face in order to push away the tears that were fighting to fall. "I really need a break." You sighed flopping your head down onto the plane seat.

"I think you mean we" He chuckled "We finally are..." You opened your eyes and met with Peter's brown orbs smiling at the contact.

"Finally." You smiled before pecking his lips and bringing him into a warmful hug, glad you finally had some time to relax.

You closed your eyes and took in his scent, never thinking you could get tired of Peter's hugs.

"Peter?" You questioned opening your eyes just to look at him. "Could you tell me a story...?" You eyed everywhere but his eyes as you told him your peculiar request. "I want to sleep before we get to Venice... And I don't think I would be able to on my own." You played with the strings of his stolen hoodie that you were wearing a little ashamed of your request. You dodge his eyes as he stayed quiet, Peter thinking of how cute your question was.

A smile crept its way to Peter's lips as he watched your shy body fumbling around the cramped seat.

"Yes," He smiled. "But let's get comfortable so you can sleep first." He made grabby hands towards you as he took you into a new hug all your worries slipping away. You snuggled into his side, Peter placing his arm tight around you.

"Alright." He chuckled as a smile formed on your lips as you lightly pushed your body even more against his, sighing in content when you were settled in.

"A story," Peter clicked his tongue as he tried to think of something to tell you. "A long ago in a Galax-"

"And it better not be Star Wars related or im going to push you in a canal once we get there." You grumbled and felt Peter's body vibrate as he let out a puff of soft laughter.

"Alright. You got me..." He paused for a second wondering what he could possibly say next. "So." He smirked as the perfect story came to his mind. "Once Upon A Time, two soulmates from completely different earths met..." He went on and you let the sound of his voice guide you into peaceful sleep. "Some say it was yesterday, but someday it was years ago. " He lingered the words as he looked down to you, your closed eyes showing no sign of dislike to his story.

"It was a quiet night in the streets of New York," Peter recalled as the words that fell out of his mouth faded into images flashing in both your minds.

The streets of the stretched out city couldn't have been quieter. It was rare for Queens Peter told himself as he swung across the streets for his nightly patrol.

He eyed one cat who made a soft noise as he jumped on the ground, barely audible even for Peter. A soft meow rang through into into his ears as he jumped from a building to another, landing on the edge of an apartment complex.

Suddenly he heard a strong door, the sound making it seem as though it was built in strong bulletproof metal. It made a loud squeak and a large boom as it closed again, followed by the knocking of heels ringing on the pavement floor. He watched closely his sharp eyes scanning the figure that walked out.

A girl had come out, shivering as she made her way towards the bridge leading into Manhattan, pocketing her gloved hands before letting out a sharp breath, the cold air sending a new shiver down her spine.

Peter could have sworn her gloves were shining in four different colors before they disappeared into her empty pockets. Her large boots looked similar to Black Widow's but Peter didn't let that thought linger too much in his mind.

You sighed as you walked a little faster, feeling multiple pairs of eyes on you. The rhythm of your heeled boots made faster sounds as you felt the air around you change, feeling a presence a few meters away. You thought once again about what you had to do before snapping your head around, now facing a tall thin man, his long shoulder-length red hair waving in front of his face as he pushed you inside an empty alley, knocking you against a wall.

He pushed his large gun to your temple, leaving a non-permantent mark as he did. You felt the cold of the gun on you as he stared at you with a wicked smile, grinning as he pushed you even more into the wall.

"You think you can outsmart me? Freak." He spat in your face, pushing his elbow into your side.

"You underestimate me." You said focusing part of your energy on the bullet of the gun, placing a puff of stong air and a coat of unbreakable ice inside making the gun unusable.

"It was your little friend who I underestimated. Your nothing but a pray." He harshly whispered making you smile.

"Well, that's exactly what I mean. You underestima-" You pushed him with a blast of wind, dropping your coat on the floor revealing your jet black suit, bright neon lines of blue, white, red, and green darting through your shoulders down to the tip of your fingers. Your timing being at the same time as a flash of white darted across you sending the man against the wall.

You stayed baffled for a second as you turned your head towards who had knocked your target unconscious. You saw a man awkwardly standing in front of your, your mouth still wide open as though you were trying to catch flies.

"What did you just do?" You pointed to the knocked down guy you were desperate to get information from as you looked at the person all dressed in red.

"Aren't you... A- A damsel in distress?" Peter asked his voice a little wavy as he watched your pretty traits.

"I'm a damsel, I'm in distress, I can handle this. have a nice day!" You waved as you approached the guy glued to the wall, trying to reach for his pocket.

Peter watched you a little dumbfounded as you minded your own business.

You clicked a button near your neck sending a strick of neon colors flashing through your neck just to reach your eyes, a mask melting on around them, leaving the bottom of your face bare.

"Meg do you know anything about this white thing?" You asked your AI as you turned around the guy.

"Yes. These are web fluids used by a Super Hero called Spider-Man." An image of the man who was standing behind you popped into your eyes. "Would you like me to tell you about its chemical properties?"

"No that's alright. Ice or Heat if I want to break this?"

"Ice."

"Alright." You nodded Peter still watching you with a shocked expression on his face as you formed ice on every part of the webs, turning it so cold it snaped into million pieces, making the man fall to the floor.

You turned around and fumbled through his pockets, catching a few pieces of paper with your fingers.

"How did you do that?" Peter asked dumbfounded as he watched you scan the content of the pages, a content smile painted on your face.

"Well, how can you stick to walls and swing around town Spider-Man?" You asked looking up to the bright white eyes of his mask, who opened even more in surprise as he thought of something to say to you.

"Radioactive Spider-" He said barely above a whisper.

"Well, I was born with it." You let out a sarcastic smile; your smile making Peter blush under the bright red spandex that covered his face. "Now move it, Junior, I don't need your help. I got this." You shook your head and waved for him to move away. "Can you believe it? The man is dumb enough to have stolen the wrong pages." You chuckled mainly to your AI not expecting a response from the boy standing behind you.

"Hey, how do you know im not older than you?" Peter defended as you touched the man's hand, slowly making his body freeze.

"Because your not." You chuckled eyeing him before looking back to your target. "You're my age. Everything about you screams my age. Your voice, the way you stand, talk." You rolled your eyes as you slowly watched the men that was on the ground slowly turning blue. Peter looked at the men in panic as your face stayed neutral, a smile even forming on your lips.

"Don't worry." You chuckled. "He's just going to be frozen for a few years. Nothing to worry about." You smiled as you stood back up, Peter being frozen to his feet as he scanned your figure once again. "Now. You've seen me without my mask, and I know you have night vision and your AI probably films everything you see. So hear me out Spider-guy, if you see me in the streets don't talk to me I don't need trouble. Ok?"

Peter nodded hanging on to every word you spoke. You kept eye contact nodding towards Peter as a way to seal the deal. Once you were content with the situation you took a few steps back to grab your coat that was still scattered on the floor.

"Wait. Before you go can I at least get your name?" He wondered, liking the way you made him feel a little too much for him to let you slip away without a name.

"They call me Nymph." You smiled as you tied your coat, hiding your suit from the rest of the world

"Why aren't you with the Avengers Nymph. I mean look at what you can do!?" Peter raised his voice in amazement.

"I don't know..." You realized. "I don't think they know who I am." You frowned as you folded the pages that you held tight between your fingers. You delicately stuffed them in your pocket and clicked the little button on your neck, making the mask that hid your eyes fall back.

As Peter's eyes focused on yours a shiver tumbled down his spine making him blush as he took in every feature of your face, not even caring if he didn't know your real name.

"Well, Nymph. Im sure I could introduce you!" His high-pitched voice rang through your ears and a slight smile formed on your lips.

"You know the Avengers?"

-TagList-

#peter parker #peter #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x reader fluff #tom holland x y/n #spider man #spiderman x reader #spider man x y/n #spider man x you #spider man x reader #series #far from ome #spiderman #spider man far from home

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makeste · 4 years

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BnHA Chapter 283: I'M MARY POPPINS Y’ALL

Previously on BnHA: Everyone was all, “Tomura what do you have?” and Tomura was all,” a quirk bullet!” and they were all, “NO!!” He then threw the bullet at Aizawa, who ironically actually did have a knife, and since no one bothered to say “no!!” this time he proceeded to CHOP OFF HIS OWN LEG. Just, schwoop. Lopped it right off. Didn’t even fucking care. Anyway so then Tomura was all, “you know what who even needs quirk bullets” and somehow broke free from both Deku and Ryuukyuu to go claw off Aizawa’s face. Thankfully Todoroki “I've spent the past eight chapters puttering around waiting for the coolest moment to strike” Shouto finally decided to join the fray by impaling Tomura, and everyone was all, “ahaha, classic Shouto”, and Tomura was all, “don’t worry though I’m fine”, and it seems like he really is now, since he’s finally regenerated and all his wounds have healed again! The chapter ended with Gigantomachia stampeding towards Jakku, which is super terrible, but what else is fucking new.

Today on BnHA: The Gunga kids spend a few pages standing around letting all that trauma soak in nice and deep as Machia rampages on towards Jakku. Back in the Shigaraki Wastes, the heroes regroup, which mostly consists of the remaining conscious adults tearfully being all “you kids get out of here... save yourselves...” and the kids being all “YOU JUST SIT THERE AND CHILL, DAD” and “[EXPLETIVES]” and “I’M YOUNG AND FILLED WITH RIGHTEOUS SHOUNEN RAGE”, all of which is very entertaining to me and makes me very proud. Anyway so then Tomura’s body sort of explodes a bit, and he’s all, “what”, and then it finally sinks in that he might have popped out of the toaster early, so he tries to end the fight right there and then with another round of Decay. Except that Deku counters it by SPONTANEOUSLY LEARNING HOW TO FLY, which is probably SO CONFUSING for all the non-Gran-and-Kacchan people around, which is just one of the many things I love about it. And the other things I love about it are that it’s (1) THE MOST BADASS THING EVER, and (2) just, really fucking great. So yeah. Rage, Deku, rage.

OH NO MY BABIES

don’t tell me. I’m not sure I want to know what it is they’re looking at. how many of the pros are fucking dead now ffffmg

also that is an extremely intriguing chapter title, though. 75? as in percent?? oh my god is something finally going to go fucking right for our heroes. or at least, you know, less wrong

OOOF

dammit Momo he was supposed to go to sleep! WHAT THE HELL WAS ALL OF THAT MATH FOR, THEN. did he grow bigger, or did she just somehow miscalculate the dosage, or is he finally going to go night-night halfway to Jakku?

btw Momo I’m not actually mad at you, you’re still the only one who fucking did anything at all. if anyone tries to give you shit, just look them in the eye and ask them “okay and how many things did YOU do?”, and they’ll be like, “oh shit, none”, and you’ll be all “yeah that’s what I fucking thought” because YEAH

OH MY GOD SERO ANGST

I have never seen Sero this badly shaken before. it’s somehow so shocking?? holy shit you guys, I know I’ve been saying for ages “lolo all these kids about to be traumatized af” but somehow it’s one thing to know it’s coming, and another to finally actually see it. oh god

anyway let’s just hope all of the grown-ups aren’t actually fucking dead. but based on all of the kids’ expressions, it really feels like a lot of them might be, and that’s just... ...

and they had to see it. right? is that what this is implying?? holy shit. they watched it all happen. that’s it, the rest of this arc is cancelled, please proceed directly to the emergency therapy arc right now

TOKO!!

holy shit look at the size of that rock that fell on the medical tent. and DS pulling people out of the wreckage. it really feels like everywhere you turn this arc, the intrepid young scamps of U.A.’s first year hero class are the ones out here keeping things one step from total disaster

oh shit

excuse the hell out of me young Momo but what the hell is up with this use of the word “dead” with the implied “like everyone else” hanging there at the end?? what is up with that. that’s a very bad sentence I don’t like that at ALL

and what the actual hell is this panel of FATGUM AND TAMAKI IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CARNAGE, TWO PEOPLE WHOSE NAMES I’M QUITE SURE ARE ON THIS CONTRACT OF “PEOPLE WHO AREN’T ALLOWED TO DIE” WHICH HORIKOSHI IMPLICITLY AGREED TO THE MOMENT I STARTED READING THE MANGA. BOY WHAT

JESUS MOTHER F. CHRIST

THAT’S. THAT’S, UH

OH THANK FUCK

I mean, I already knew they survived, though. so WHY AM I STILL SO FUCKING ANXIOUS. good grief

and in before Majestic fucking dies on the next page, having saved the children with his very last act. I fucking hate you Majestic, you blue-balling child-preserving magnificent wizard bastard

HE FRISBEED THEM TO SAFETY GAH

WHY COULDN’T YOU DO THAT TO MACHIA THOUGH. BUT AT LEAST HE SAVED THE BABIES. TOO BAD HE’S FUCKING DEAD hahaha sob sob sob

is anyone still alive?? did the guys who were fighting off Snoopy Sno-Cone and RD back at the mansion at least make it out in one piece??

(ETA: from here on out all of these guys shall be referred to as Schrodinger's Heroes until further notice.)

so now Mineta is questioning whether or not their Smart Momo Plan even fucking did anything, which. same, Mineta, honestly. but it must have!! right?? ????

anyway so here’s some more panels of everyone dying do you want to see them. sure. why not

can we get back to the Tomura fight now. I’ve had just about enough of this, I’d like to see some 75% business now before this turns into the most depressing chapter of all time

BOOOOOOO

goddammit. well for now my money’s on Machia collapsing just as they make it back to Jakku. so Momo’s plan does eventually work, but the League still makes it back to Tomura thus ensuring more shenanigans can take place. goddamn, lol, just when I thought the arc was nearing its climax. feels like it just fucking respawned with a full life bar

also Toga is really looking... not great. I’m so scared for whoever she ends up fighting after this. OCHAKO MY SWEET BABY GIRL PLEASE WATCH OUT

WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE

PLEASE ARREST HIM FASTER. holy fuck if you fucking screw this up and he gets rescued I SWEAR TO GOD

oh wait is he just here to provide more backstory on Gigantomachia

GO BURNIN’, YOU GOT THIS. also, gonna be honest, at this point I really would not mind if Machia did a little less living for Tomura and a bit more dying

FINALLY!!!

FKFKF Aizawa not looking too good oh god. and Deku looks like he’s about to spontaneously develop ALL OF HIS REMAINING QUIRKS JUST LIKE THAT ON THE SPOT, FUCK YOU TOMURA

oh my god DON’T GET DISTRACTED!!

Shouto’s arrival is either about to make Endeavor more useless than ever, or suddenly a whole lot LESS useless, and right now it’s up in the air and I am excited but also scared

EXCUSES EXCUSES

BLAH BLAH BLAH. “SORRY I’M LATE, I WAS SAVING PEOPLE’S LIVES,” Shouto lies through his teeth, clearly not aware that Tomura has a built in GPS and knows full well that Shouto was actually only a few feet behind Bakugou and Deku and so that explanation doesn’t fly at all. the real truth must be something so embarrassing that he’s ashamed to admit it. did you get lost. did you run into an NPC who wouldn’t let you pass until you had completed some sort of quest

THERE YOU ARE KACCHAN, I WAS WONDERING

just as enraged as Deku! it’s almost like he just witnessed his sensei chopping off his own leg and subsequently almost being murdered or something

(ETA: actually lol I think he’s mad at Deku, for taking off earlier and leaving him behind with Gran. though there’s no law that says he can’t be mad about two things at once! anyway so do you guys think that being beaten to the punch by Deku here may perhaps frustrate this young man and contribute to his decision to return the favor at some point later on in this battle, perhaps with dire consequences? hmm.)

anyway so if you all are keeping up with the math, and I think you are, it seems like just about every one of the adult pros is either down for the count (Aizawa, Gran), or recovering (Endeavor, Ryuukyuu??), or Might As Well Not Even Be There (a certain TWO OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE STILL IN A TIME OUT AND HAD BETTER BE THINKING GOOD AND HARD ABOUT WHAT THEY’VE DONE. OR MORE PRECISELY, DID NOT DO OR EVEN ATTEMPT TO DO). anyway so all of that means that the only ones actually ready and raring to go here in Round 2 against the newly regenerated and POSSIBLY HAS HIS DECAY QUIRK BACK Shigaraki Tomura are... drum roll...!

okay but FUCK YOU GUYS though oh my god YOU’RE EVEN RUINING THE DRUM ROLL

DID YOU NOT EVEN NOTICE HIS LEG BEFORE?!?!? holy -- can I -- can I please just slap them, I --

anyway so RockLockRock looks like he has something to say here. probably going to tell Deku to take Aizawa and run, as if Deku isn’t the fucking glue holding this entire operation together at this point now that Aizawa is KOed. can you believe these guys are so incompetent they’ve actually got me arguing in favor of the child soldiers now, what even

...fuck

shit. that face. he’s ready to die to give them all a chance. he knows he wouldn’t last two seconds against Tomura and yet he’s willing to sacrifice it all. damn it RLR... okay fine your time out is done now, but I’m still calling your parents

unfortunately, you’ll never believe it, but Deku doesn’t seem all that inclined to listen to this man telling him to bail and save his own skin sob

ngl though I am living for the Enraged Vengeance Deku we’ve been seeing in these last couple chapters. maybe now everyone will stop dismissing him as just a soft boi who always eats his vegetables and doesn’t swear, and remember that in truth he’s actually a mildly unhinged feral child with an infinite pain tolerance and a god-given talent for never listening to any life-prolonging advice that adults give him ever

oop don’t tell me he’s gonna do the Decay thing again, shit

-- uh

“eh?” lmao what the fuck. my boy's torso just opened up like a fucking door hinge and all he can say is “eh.” this fucking manga

like he’s seriously just calmly standing there trying to assess what the heck has gone wrong

you really don’t feel pain do you. “haha lol what why is my arm falling off I thought I fucking ascended”

OH MY GOD

IT’S OCTOBER THIRD. looool the fuck

Tomura. my sweet little S+ ranked death machine with an A rank in knowledge. who’s spent the past 15-20 minutes battling to the death with the number one fucking hero and all his pals. who all just HAPPENED to be there all ready and waiting to fight him the instant he woke up. Tomura. buddy. did it really only just occur to you that maybe something went wrong somewhere along the line. that maybe things were not, in fact going according to keikaku. that maybe the heroes didn’t just sit around waiting for you to finish cooking in your villain bake oven. like please forgive my impudence but TOMURA ARE YOU STUPID, is what I’m saying, I guess. but gently

(ETA: SHIGARAKI TOMURA, WHOSE ARM IS CURRENTLY DANGLING BY A THREAD: “hold up lol what day is it.”)

I really like how Deku’s just crying nonstop this entire time though. but like, you know. crying with RAGE

lol and he’s figured it out as well, and I fucking love the connection his mind made, look at this

sudden feelings of solidarity. “WE’RE NOT SO DIFFERENT, YOU AND I” lmao

AHH MIRKO

how does she still have two legs?? Horikoshi I can’t believe you forgot how many legs your own favorite character has. but anyways yes this has been your friendly reminder that Mirko saved EVERYONE and should have a battleship named after her

okay NOW he’s doing the thing

good job Tomura you finally got them!! good thing none of them can fly, or Float. RIGHT, DEKU

AHAHAHAHAHA YESSSSS

YOU LOVE TO SEE IT. AND A BLACKWHIP/FLOAT COMBO, TOO! TOMURA, YOU WERE SAYING??

(ETA: he even grabbed Kacchan too. “I can fly by myself!” YOU SHUSH MISTER.)

(ETA 2: and what I also love about this is that we know the SIXQUIRKS are seemingly in tune with Deku’s emotions, so it honestly makes perfect sense that in the heat of the moment with Tomura threatening to kill all these people that he cares about, the quirk just basically acts on his instinct to save and doesn’t stop to ask questions. we’re saving everyone, no buts. and he even activates Float at long last, acting on that same instinct. honestly Kacchan had the exact right idea the whole time, all the way back in chapter 217. “it’ll activate when he’s in trouble, right?” exactly.)

NO GRAN STOP NO ONE ASKED FOR THESE FEELS

OH MY GOD

NEVER HAVE I STANNED THIS BOY SO HARD. HOT DAMN

he’s so fucking mad. omg??! omg

okay so I’m gonna try my best to explain why I love this so much lol. all right. so the thing is, it’s actually so rare for Deku to actually take the reins like this. even though he’s the main character, even though he’s All Might’s heir, his personality is such that he genuinely doesn’t mind being in the backseat and is perfectly content to share the spotlight with others, or even relinquish it completely. BnHA has had... how many arcs so far? hold up let me check

-- okay I just checked and it’s 18. so, 18 arcs. and out of all those arcs, Deku has had a solo fight in approximately... five of them. and two of those fights were against Bakugou and Todoroki, respectively, so he was still sharing the spotlight even then. aside from that, he’s fought Muscular, Gentle, and Overhaul (oh, and Shinsou, I guess). that’s it! and it’s been almost 300 chapters! and again, he’s the main character. in a shounen manga. like seriously though, that is wild

and so seeing him here like this on the last page, ready to throw hands with Tomura, presumably while using Blackwhip as some sort of physical barrier to coat his attacks and prevent Tomura from trying any more Decay shenanigans with him? dude. I FELT THAT HYPE. it’s just a really effective way of keeping me from getting Main Character Fatigue like I might get in most other shounen series. because Deku doesn’t get the spotlight all that often in comparison, it still feels fresh to me, especially now with him actually going up against the Big Bad. just, idk what else to say except “hell yeah” lol

anyway, so I don’t even know how long it’s gonna last, and I expect that Kacchan and Shouto aren’t going to be content to just sit back and let Deku have all the glory either (Kacchan in particular is probably frothing at the mouth already), so in all likelihood it’s probably going to be more of a 3-on-1 than a 1-on-1. and it’s also very likely to end with Tomura gaining the upper hand and trying to take OFA! and so in truth this is a very fleeting moment of triumph, and the most premature of celebrations! but even so... damn. and also I just love seeing shounen kids lose their damn minds and explode with angry determination. and I especially love seeing it with Deku, because I love the reminder that beneath that sweet, unassuming nerdy exterior lies a core of fucking steel. that look in his eyes, though. TOMURA ARE YOU SCARED. you should be a little scared, lmao

anyway. so that’s the chapter! and I’m really glad we ended on this note, not just because Deku is a badass, but also because like I was saying earlier, this was about as bad a situation as the good guys have ever been in, and I felt like the manga was starting to lose that feeling of hope that still needs to be there at its core even when things are at their darkest. idk, I feel like we needed this. Tomura got a chance to catch his breath in the last chapter, and now it’s the heroes’ turn. whew

#bnha 283 #midoriya izuku #shigaraki tomura #class 1-a #bakugou katsuki #todoroki shouto #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #I just wish one of the blackwhips had been kind of dangling above him like an umbrella so my gotg 2 reference would make a bit more sense #eh but you all get it right #because... you know... the flying... and stuff #bah

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theotherace · 3 years

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Fic Recs: Taang

I’ve made two or three rec lists over the past few months, but I thought I’d make a proper, comprehensive one that’s easy to add to in the future. Not all of these are exclusively Taang, but they all feature the ship to some degree. I will only recommend one or two stories per author, but some profiles are definitely worth checking out further. So! Here goes.

Multi-Chapter, Complete

Whisper Into the Sky by damagectrl – Toph has two choices: Go home and get married or have the family fortune and her inheritance given to a stranger. Her problem: She wants to keep her ties to her family, but is quite content traveling with Aang. Her solution: Fight her way through suitors for her freedom. Literally. | General

The Slow Path by Tazmainian Devil – Eight years after the fall of Ozai, Aang returns to the friends he left behind. | T

A Matter of Honor by Adridere – Almost 4 years after the war. Aang is engaged to Katara and is up to Zuko to teach him the facts of life. Yep, the bees and the birds. Crazy kings, bananas and the ultimate contest for the hand of a reluctant maiden. | M

Roommates by breeeliss – An unlikely tale of two unlikely people being forced to live together under unlikely circumstances.| Modern AU | T

Fall of the White Lotus by Boo-82 – Three years after the war Zuko is living a life of duty while Katara reluctantly travels the world with Aang. So, when General Iroh orders them to find Zuko’s mother and save his Order they seize the opportunity with both hands. It’s the beginning of an adventurous journey of discovery, but as time runs out a rising threat puts their bond to the test. | T

Half Asleep by The Crushinator – Five years after the Hundred-Year War, Fire Lord Zuko is hit with an assassin’s dart, and falls into a coma from which he cannot wake. A week passes, and his prognosis is grim. But Katara could swear she hears him in her dreams… | T

Yaaburnee by aviatordame – Avatars aren't meant to belong – that's as much as Aang can fathom. | M

Getting Lucky by roca-dos – Crazy things happen in college every day. | Modern AU | T

All Fall Down by DJNS – Aang copes with a tragic loss and finds renewed hope in an unexpected place. | M | Warning for Major Character Death

The Princess & the Badger-Cat by panaili – In a land never torn apart by the Hundred Year War, the sixteen-year-old Avatar Aang is trying his best to keep the balance between the four nations, including the increasingly antagonistic Fire Nation, which, despite his friendship with the Crown Prince Zuko, refuses to acknowledge him. Elsewhere, Sokka and Katara have been separated on their quest to find their missing father, and Sokka, pursued by the same bandits who kidnapped his sister, finds himself on the balcony of some rich girl’s house in Gaoling. Oh, and a sorcerer has turned him into a badger-cat. It’s just one of those days. | Teen and Up

Reborn by Jakia – Life. Death. Rebirth. This is the cycle that all spirits must abide to, even the Avatar. Aang and Toph face death and the reincarnation cycle. | T

New Girl by tiffaniesblews – After coming home early from a business trip, all Katara wanted to do was surprise her boyfriend, Jet. Imagine her surprise when she got home and Jet was in bed with another woman. Not wanting to live with her ex, and unable to live with her best friend, Suki, Katara takes her brother Sokka's offer to move into his loft with his two roommates. Aang is perky and sweet, the owner of a st. Bernard and a cat, who's often confused about his direction in life. Zuko, on the other hand, is a closed-off bartender, who takes some time opening up to others.The four could not be more different, and yet? They work out perfectly. Even if Katara's feelings for Zuko get a bit more complicated as time goes on. | Modern AU | Mature

The Ties That Bind series by LdyKirin – An exploration of the ties that bind for good and ill. Toph and Zuko are both shaped by the family they were born to and the family they choose. Lots of found family feels. | T

What Happens In Kyoshi by BlackVelvetBand – Prince Zuko, and the GAang take a vacation on Kyoshi Island. Flirting, fighting, and embarrasment ensue as Sokka takes it upon himself to defend Katara's virtue...in a dress? A short,chaptered fic featuring Zutara, Sokki, and Taang. | T

Under the Night Sky by mycomfortblanket – Aang hears the chattering of teeth during a cold night. Was an AU that I found on tumblr that I made fit into this story. Orginal prompt: "We have to go camping together and share a sleeping bag even though we are complete strangers | General

On The Precipice by JoyDragon – They’re just best friends. Or maybe they’re teetering on the edge of being something more. | General

Oneshots, Complete

Air and Stone by Wolvenfire86 – A few Taang stories munched together. My first submissions. I hope everyone likes them. Please review, it makes me feel special. | K+

Taang Week 2020 series by teabagginses | Teen and Up & Mature

Our Little Secret by IrisPlumeria – Toph and Aang, sat next to one another dressed in their finest under paper lanterns and surrounded by copious amounts of food and friends, cringed at the disgusting noises coming out of Sokka’s nostrils as he blew his nose into Suki’s handkerchief. “I can’t believe two of my best friends are finally married!” Sokka sobbed, earning a supportive pat on the back from Suki, who didn’t flinch at the snot coming out of his nose. “I’m so happy for you guys!” Toph and Aang's family are happy for their nuptials, but will they be able to survive their wedding party without letting slip a big secret?Written for Taang Week 2020 - Tradition. | General

All Roads Lead To Ba Sing Se by irisbleufic – "I was thinking," [Mai] said, tucking her last remaining dagger into her belt as she strode to meet him, "that it's about time I let Fire Lord Zuko know that I quit." When Kuei smiled at her, she could see the sunshine at which she once cringed."Notice that's six years overdue is better than none at all." "Indeed," said the Earth Queen, and grinned at him. | Teen And Up

Lady Fu’s Fortune Telling by Lady Cleo – Katara and Toph visit the local fortuneteller to get their fortunes told. Added a part two with Zuko and Aang. | T

The Perfect Companion by Morna – Aang seeks comfort outside of the arms of his wife, Katara. Taang, slightly lemony. | T

Box by JoeMerl – Written for Taang Week, one-shot. Toph ticks off Bumi, but Aang is willing to fight his old friend tooth and nail to get her out of trouble. Humor, light romance. | K+

2 am by shmulia – Whoever set off the fire alarm at 2 in the morning is on Katara's shit list. Even if he is hot and shirtless. | Modern AU | K

And its sequel, 11:45 – House parties aren't Katara's thing. Sokka's drunk, Suki's on a mission to set her up, and Toph is... well, Toph. But for every cloud there's a silver lining, and for Katara it comes in the form of a second chance with her neighbour... | Modern AU | T

Treat by PsychEmpress – She felt the corners of her own lips quirk as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “Consider this my treat,” he said and Toph allowed a smile to break out. OR In which Toph is a stressed architecture student who gets a free cup of coffee from the handsome waiter after she helps his friend. Taang. Mentions of Sukka. | Modern AU | T

Sawaru by metacognitive – This love is simple. Non-Korra compliant. | K+

Newlyweds (and basically everything else) by PandaCookie – Everyone’s a bit hopeless right after they’ve been married. | K+

Rhythms by xcgirl08– For now, though, her child’s heartbeat was hers to contemplate. | K

Tenderness by Adridere – He wanted to keep her, even though he was not supposed to. He promised her freedom, and she promised him sanity in his own household. She kept her part of the bargain, but he found a way not to keep his. | M

Holy Matrimony by Loopy – After their marriage, Zuko and Katara deal with conflicting religious beliefs, and look to the friends for advice. Between the Zutara and the religious satire, every single person who reads this should feel offended. | General

Blind Maiden’s Grace by Adara_Rose – You can learn a lot of things from a flower… | Not Rated (I’d say General)

Etched in the Earth by Dance_Elle_Dance – She knows the feel of Aang’s footprints better than her own, and that reality scares her. | Teen and Up

No One Asks About The Scars by voleuse – Write about how you learned to curse in order not to be cursed. | General

When in Rome by dtmars – She wasn’t stupid. She knew what she was doing and what she was getting herself into. They both did. | Modern AU. | Explicit

Like Real People Do by DerAndere – The moon is full and bright when he falls out of bed, awake, asleep, inside a dream, and starts walking, driven by the feeling he does not understand, tugging on him relentlessly, and he is Aang, and he is not, and the world is cold. | General | Full Disclosure: This is my story.

Meet Me Under The Table by avatarfan16 – A story of how Toph and Aang find love, in the most unusual of places. TAANG | K+

Aftermath by Zaram'delar – In any celebration, there's always one or two people with a habit of disappearing. Taang drabbleish series. | T

I Choose Dare by for_darkness_shows_the_stars – An ode to how Aang, under the power of a mighty temptress, was forced to grow a beard. Oh, and the birth of his first child, too, he supposes. | General Audiences

Multi-Chapter, In Progress

Heartbeat by AngelicBee – Avatar Aang's soulmate probably died 100 years before, but he can't help but feel she's closer than he thinks. | Teen and Up

a mighty ocean (or a gentle kiss) by poweradequeen – no, the title doesn’t make sense but i don’t care. i couldn’t think of one so now you’re stuck with a cheesy line from two by sleeping at last.it’s a taang fine arts university au. because i said so. | Teen and Up

Neither is Love a Cage by cali-chan – Love is the freedom of flying accompanied. It is letting be without possessing. PG-13 (possibly M later on), drama/romance/angst, Zuko/Katara + Aang/Toph, post-finale but diverges before LoK canon.

Operation: Zutara (REVAMPED) by dtmars – Everyone could see that those two were in love with each other. Everyone except for them. So Toph takes the initiative and fills in for Cupid to give them a little push, while Aang just tags along for the ride. | Teen and Up

Taang One Shots by stitch1830 – A collection of short stories about Toph and Aang that I've had saved in my notes for a few months. Stories are in the ATLA/LOK universe (not canon compliant), and typically revolve around their relationship and family. | Teen and Up

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