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sleeping-on-cracking-ice · 3 years

Note

pls do part two of “you're everything you once hated” 🥺

Alright! I originally wasn’t going to do a Part 2 of this but a few people have asked so here you go! 😙

You’re Everything You Once Hated | Suguru Niragi

PART 1 | PART 2

{Alice In Borderland Masterlist}

{Main Masterlist}

Character(s): Niragi (ft. OC, Ann, Tatta, Hatter, Kuina)

Summary: You attempt to escape Niragi to replenish your visa by yourself, but he catches you and makes sure you won’t do it again

Warnings: (okay here we go) blood, toxic relationship, abusive relationship, obsessive themes, suggestive themes, graphic violence/torture, needles, being held hostage, deranged behaviour, reader is traumatised, implications of a panic attack, dehumanisation (kind of?), mention of amputation, mention of suicide, guns, knives, reader sees a corpse, minor character death

Word Count: 4.6k

*reader is female

Author’s Note: this is quite heavy and messed up, so I recommend people under 15 don’t read this

The young man leant against the large building, holding a small rose in his sweaty palms as he waited for you to arrive from your after school class. He winced as the thorns slightly caught on his olive skin. He sighed and craned his neck back to rest on the wall behind him. No matter how much he attempted to distract himself, the rate his heart was beating kept bringing the nausea to his stomach.

The sky was painted a soft mix of orange and pink as the sun began to fall asleep below the horizon. Valentine’s Day couldn’t have created a more romantic atmosphere for Niragi, he couldn’t mess it up now or he would let cupid down himself.

“What the hell am I even doing?” he questioned himself, wiping his brow with the back of his wrist. “She probably doesn’t even see me this way. We’ve been best friends for years, if she felt something she would’ve told me by now, right?”

He was stressing himself out, continuing the doubt whether his idea was good or not. He was considering dropping the rose and just walking away, being too afraid of the reality that he had been in love with you for years and had never been able to voice it. He felt embarrassed about himself, making his head fill with insecurities and doubts.

His phone vibrating in his pocket pulled him from his thoughts. Niragi reached into his blazer and pulled out his device, noticing a text from you.

‘I’m on my way,’ it read.

He heard your footsteps around the corner and straightened himself up, letting out a sigh to relieve tension. He knew there was no going back now, so he had no choice but to go ahead with his confession.

Just as he was about to turn the corner to meet you, he noticed a male voice that echoed yours, making him freeze in his tracks. He kept himself pushed against the wall, trying to listen to what you were saying.

“I mean, movies are cheap at the moment. Do you want to go see one together?” Niragi heard the boy say. His heart sank at the males words and his hand holding the rose fell from his chest to drooping towards the ground.

Your voice, that was all too familiar to Niragi, answered him. “Sure! I’m busy this afternoon, but I’m free this weekend on Saturday.”

Saturday. Niragi frowned. You and him always went to the park together every Saturday to have a picnic together. You wouldn’t forget about that, would you?

His disappointment turned into anger suddenly. The exhilarating emotions filled his mind and heart so quickly, it took him off guard. As his hand twitched slightly, he shook his head to remove the thoughts from his head.

“Okay, I’ll send you a text later to talk about times and stuff,” the boy said. Niragi’s curiosity got the best of him and he peeked his head around the side of the building to catch a glance of who you were with. He wished he didn’t.

It was one of the young kids that picked on him in Science class, which you weren’t in. Niragi felt betrayed, but tried to reassure himself that you just didn’t know what this guy was really like.

“Bye Y/N,” the boy muttered shyly, making Niragi fume at his fake behaviour. ‘He obviously is just trying to get in her pants,’ Niragi thought to himself, jaw clenching in annoyance at your blindness.

The boy leaned close to you and left a soft kiss on your forehead making you smile and wave happily as he walked away. As soon as he disappeared up the stairs a few metres up, Niragi leant back so you couldn’t see him.

He felt tears building in his eyes, so he quickly wiped them away before you found him. He jumped as he saw you turn the corner, hiding the rose he held behind his back.

“Hey Niragi!” you exclaimed, having the same gorgeous smile that you always conveyed around him. Usually the small action would make him melt into the ground. But at that moment, he didn’t think anything you did could make him feel better.

“You okay?” you asked, leaning close to his face with your eyebrows raised. His heart beat picked up, noticing how your lips were only a few inches away from his. He turned his face to the side, hiding his blush. “Yeah, I’m just tired,” he lied through his teeth.

As he kept up his innocent façade, small droplets of blood slowly drizzled down his wrist from the tight fist enveloping the thorned rose. His confined anger flowed through the blood that spilled from the cuts in his palm, but he didn’t feel a pinch of pain through his tensed muscles.

Perhaps one day, the world would give him another chance to show his love for you.

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

You woke with a start as someone busted through the door of the room, looking around in a panic at who would enter so suddenly. Your eyes widened as you caught sight of Niragi, stumbling into the room with his usual sniper rifle slung over his shoulder.

“Sorry love, did I wake you?”

You stayed silent, sitting up properly and watching his movements closely. You didn’t trust a single thing he did or said, so you still remained on high alert whenever he was in this room alone with you, despite the fact you had been sharing the room with him for three days.

“You getting hungry? I brought some food up last night for you while you were asleep,” he said, placing his rifle on a small table. You watched as it collided with the wooden surface, flinching at the loud noise.

You hadn’t been able to leave the room since your injury. You had been shot in the foot by an overly sensitive militant woman who you weren’t even sure was still alive after the beating Niragi gave her in front of you. His behaviour during that time alone was enough to you terrified, especially the fact that it is impossible to run from him now.

But the lack of movement on your foot has proven to help and you have noticed the bullet wound healing quite well. The ointment and bandages you apply regularly on it (no help from Niragi) has been working perfectly, and you were praying for the moment you could move your stuff back to your own room and escape Niragi’s unpredictable and psychotic behaviour around you.

As if he read your mind, Niragi spoke up. “How’s your foot? Is it getting better?”

The sweet tone in his voice was so contradictory to his intentions. You hated the fact that he thought you fell for his fake façade. To be honest, he probably knew you didn’t believe him, but continued with it to keep you on your toes.

You glared at him through the top of your eyelids, keeping your head low in suspicion. As Niragi sighed from your unresponsive behaviour, he strutted over towards the bed that you were laying on. You panicked and used your arms to push yourself away from him, being terrified of his presence alone. Spending only a few days with him was enough to make you realise how despicable of a human being he actually was.

“Shh, calm down. It’s just me,” he attempted to calm you.

You froze as he sat on the bed nearby your legs. A pained expression grew on your face as he slowly lifted your injured foot to place it gently on his lap, running his hand carefully over the bandage you had applied before going to sleep.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, glancing up at you. You shook your head no, watching as he smirked slightly and turned back to it.

“I’m going to have a look at it,” he demanded, beginning to unravel the bandage on your foot.

You remained still, watching as he was unusually careful. It made your adrenaline run rapid, not knowing when he was going to suddenly snap.

As he pulled the final layer off your foot, relief filled you when you saw that it was still fine. The injury had turned into a small hole in the top of your foot, no blood or redness in sight. Maybe perhaps you could walk again soon, and be able to replenish your visa that was due to end in a few days.

Unfortunately, Niragi wasn’t as happy about this knowledge, and he intended to do something about it.

“Hmm,” he hummed in thought, leaning over to the night stand and picking up a small unwashed needle that he had kept there. It was left there by Ann a few days ago, as she had to come to the room to stitch up a cut that Niragi had obtained during a game.

Your eyes widened at the sight of him holding the needle close to your bullet wound. “W-Wait, Niragi,” you stuttered, nervous about his intentions. “What are you doing?”

Niragi glanced up at you, a devilish smirk painted across his face. His expression made your stomach churn and you attempted to pull your leg from his grip. Your heart rate picked up and you began to panic when he refused to let go.

“Don’t worry, this won’t hurt much. Just... try not to scream.”

Just as you were about to protest, Niragi pinned your foot onto his lap and pushed the tip of the needle as hard as he could into your bullet wound, making you let out a silent scream and thrash in his hold.

You screamed and screamed and screamed, a horrific pain continuously shot through your foot to your leg. You swore at some point it felt like he was cutting your foot off.

“NIRAGI!” you wailed. “STOP! PLEASE!”

You begged and begged through your cries of pain. After what felt like a century, Niragi pulled the needle out of your foot slowly and placed his hand over the wound to attempt to stop the bleeding. You were now lying on your back, sobbing lightly into the sheets and given up.

You felt Niragi caress your face with the back on his hand lightly. “My little princess needs to stay here, where I can keep her safe. You can’t leave. There’s horrible monsters at The Beach and I would hate for you to fall prey to one of them.”

You felt like screaming at him. How could he be so blind, so ignorant. He was the monster, and he failed to realise it.

He placed your leg off his lap, making you let out a small cry. Niragi crawled further up the bed next to you and sat on the sheets. You were facing away from him, not even daring to turn to look at him. You could hear him unbuttoning his checkered shirt, seeing it fly over your frame and land on the floor. A shiver made its way up your spine as Niragi’s hot breath hit the nape of your neck and his warm limbs snaked around your torso. He placed his hands underneath your shirt and softly caressed the skin of your stomach whilst nipping at the skin on your neck.

“You’re so pretty. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you over these years.”

His words sounded so loving, so sweet. But your reaction was the opposite of what he wanted. A slow, sorrowful tear traveled down your face and you began shaking in his embrace in fear of having him so close. You wanted to close your eyes and wake up back home, back in your own bed with your family’s hushed conversations spread throughout the house. This wasn’t home, this was absolute hell.

“Why are you shaking? Are you cold?” your tormentor asked. He removed his hands from underneath your shirt and pulled on your shoulders to make you turn over to face him. You kept your eyes shut tight, refusing to submit to his demands.

He pulled you close once again and placed his hand on the back of your head to push your face into his bare chest. Niragi’s usual smell of blood and metal filled your nostrils, making you grimace against him.

You continued to shake, not being able to control your movements. Niragi sighed, tucking his chin on the top of your head and nuzzling into your hair, taking a breath of the all too familiar scent of the shampoo you’ve always used for your hair. How you managed to find the exact one in the Borderland was beyond his understanding.

The smell made him feel at home. The comfort he found in you was too strong for him to handle, making him become deranged at the thought of you being back in his arms. It scared him, how much he actually depended on you to keep him happy.

And while he continued to hold you close and smile happily at the feeling of your soft breath against his chest, he failed to notice the continuous flow of tears that cascaded down your face and the shaking of your hands that gripped the top of your own thighs violently, trying to realise the tension of the adrenaline in your veins.

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

You had had enough.

Niragi did nothing but put you through absolute torture and trauma no matter how much you attempted to reason with his psychotic self. Bruises littered your body from his usual violence, committing to the awful promise that he was going to make sure you couldn’t leave the room.

You were imprisoned. It felt as if you were trapped in a cage that had the easiest lock in the world to pick, only you didn’t have hands to unlock it.

So two days after the needle incident, you decided you were going to escape, even if it killed you.

You had to replenish your visa, considering it ended the next night. You feared that Niragi would just leave you to die, not caring about your visa, so you had to take it upon yourself.

You may have had an infected bullet wound and a nearly crushed spirit, but you weren’t going to let this be your end. You had to at least try.

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

“Oi, I’m leaving now,”

You shifted your eyes from your hands resting in your lap to the tall, deranged man who stood at the door of your room. He had his usual black and white buttoned shirt on, charcoal hair tied up at the top to keep it out of his face and his relaxed hand tucked into the pockets of his dark jeans. You almost felt disappointed. How could such a handsome man be wasted by such a horrific mentality.

He carried his loaded sniper rifle in his arm, fiddling with the trigger as he awaited an answer from you.

You nodded your head and turned back to your hands, twiddling your thumbs nervously. You stayed frozen as you heard his footsteps make their way over to you.

Niragi lifted your chin with a harsh grip to your jaw and smashed his lips onto yours. You closed your eyes tightly in discomfort, feeling his desperate lips bite over yours hungrily. It made you feel sick to your stomach.

He pulled away, your lips connected by a string of saliva, making him chuckle. “I’ll be back kitten. Maybe I’ll bring you back a present,” he suggested, raising his eyebrows.

You nodded once again. You knew what he meant. Perhaps an amputated hand of one of your friends? Or the eye of a seeker/hunter to remind you of the “monsters” he’s hiding you from? At this point, you were desensitised to it.

The feeling on his lips on your head brought you from your thoughts. He softly stroked his hand through your hair, tucking slightly on the ends, making you wince.

“Stay here, and don’t answer the door if someone knocks.”

And with that, he left. You stayed completely still for a few minutes, waiting in case he decided to come back just to torment you further.

After you were sure he was completely gone, you shifted to the edge of the bed and swung your legs over the edge to stand up. You had practised walking around the room on your injured foot for the past few days when Niragi wasn’t there, so you had grown used to the random aches that shot up your leg from your bullet wound while walking.

You waddled to the door, slowly swinging it open and grabbing the small knife that sat on the table nearby. You had to have some kind of weapon in case something was to happen.

As you stepped outside, a few people were still making their way down the halls towards the lobby. You noticed a young man that you had somewhat befriended when you first arrived at The Beach named Tatta. He stopped in his tracks when he saw you, a smile growing on his face.

“Y/N! Where have you been?!” he exclaimed excitedly, running to you and throwing his arms around you in a playful embrace. You grimaced at his loud voice, being afraid of a certain someone potentially hearing him say your name.

“Hey Tatta,” you said back, giving him a right hug. You swore you felt like you could’ve cried in his arms from how deprived you were from normal human interaction without the fear of being assaulted.

“Are you coming to the games tonight?” he asked, pulling back from the hug and keeping a hand on your shoulder. You nodded. “Can I stick with you?” you asked with hope in your eyes. Tatta smiled and hit your arm lightly. “Of course! I’d feel better going with someone I knew.”

You agreed and began walking down the hall towards the lobby together in a comfortable. Tatta failed to notice you being more cautious, checking around corners before you turned and whipping your head around to glance behind you every now and then.

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

Just your luck, a ten of spades. You swore the world just wanted you dead. At that point, you had become used to the never-ending bullshit that was thrown your way.

You clawed your way to the table that held the card. Holding the single piece of cardboard between your fingers had never felt more satisfying. You slid down against the wall near the registration area, limbs shaking from the muscle strain you faced during the game. Tatta knelt in front of you, rubbing your knee in an attempt to comfort you, but nothing he could do would make you feel better.

Back at The Beach, you sat in the lobby on one of the leather couches, rubbing your foot to try and ease the aching pain coming from your wound. You had heard when you arrived back that the executives had called a meeting, so you weren’t too worried about running into Niragi.

You closed your eyes and crossed your arms over your chest, rolling your head back to rest against the couch. Moments like that were complete bliss. For a moment, you were able to forget your current situation.

A sudden hand on your shoulder ripped you from your meditation, and you turned your head to see none other than Kuina with a red face and heavily breathing from running. “Hey Y/N,” she started. You sat up and turned around fully to face you.

“The executives want you in the meeting. They heard you collected a high number card and they need you to deliver it.”

Your heart dropped at her words, realising what was coming for you. You had to walk into that meeting room, where Niragi stood. He was going to find out about your little adventure you had without him knowing. Adrenaline filled your senses from the thought of what he was going to do to you.

You slowly stood up, wiping your sweaty hands on your shorts and checking your card was still in the front pocket. You gulped heavily and nodded to Kuina. “Okay, I’ll head there now.”

Every step towards the meeting room was another towards hell. The more stairs you climbed, the more nausea filled your stomach, the more thoughts filled your head. You were seriously just considering throwing yourself off the roof of the hotel, as that seemed like a better option than facing Niragi.

You arrived in front of the double doors, freezing in your path. You don’t know how long you stood there, sighing shakily and attempting to crack your knuckles to relieve tension. But still, as you lifted your hand to push on the large wooden door, your arm shook like a leaf.

You trudged in, hearing the room fall silent at your entry. You refused to look up from the ground, keeping your widened eyes locked to the carpeted ground until you reached the end of the table.

“Ah, Y/N. Finally! Care to show your card?” you heard Hatter ask. You glanced up and caught sight of all the executives gathered around the table on chairs. One of which was of course Niragi.

You locked eyes with the psychotic man, and your stomach dropped when you saw the scowl on his face. He was staring directly into your soul, eyes hardened with anger and unforgiveness. If looks could kill, you would’ve been on the floor dead before you even made it to the table.

You focused on the task at hand and pulled the card from your pocket, placing the somewhat damaged ten of spades on the table. Hatter reached over and held it close to his face to examine it as everyone watched. Well, everyone except Niragi, who held his piercing gaze on you. You swore you could feel him burning holes through your skin.

“Hmm,” Hatter hummed in approval. “Thank you very much Y/N, that will be all,” he said, making a shooing movement towards you.

You nodded and thanked him before quickly walking out of the room. As soon as you stepped out, you broke into a sprint towards you and Niragi’s shared room.

You had to leave the room before the meeting finished. You feared the absolute worse.

When you arrived at the room, you ripped open the door and scrambled inside, groaning at the pain your foot was in. You didn’t have a choice, you had to hurry.

You made your way to the large closet, immediately reaching for the top shelf to pull down the miniature machine gun that Niragi stored up there as a spare. You weren’t sure if you were supposed to know about it, but you managed to spot him tucking it underneath the clothes at some point.

As you were shuffling around the cupboard trying to find some bullets desperately, annoyed and stressed sighs and gasps leaving your mouth, you froze when the sound of the door opening hit your ears. Immediately assuming the worst, you grabbed the door of the cupboard and closed yourself inside, attempting to enveloped yourself in the piles of clothes and resources.

The keyhole in the door of the cupboard allowed you to have a small space to look through. You closed one eye and glanced through the hole, spotting Niragi placing his sniper rifle on the bed and untying his hair, running his hands through it in stress.

You didn’t dare even breath, keeping all your limbs tucked close so you didn’t knock over anything. You were so afraid that Niragi would even hear the sound of your heart beating, as it was as loud as a drum in your own ears.

You grimaced as a sudden putrid smell filled your nose. The smell of fresh flesh that you were all too familiar with from living in the Borderland. You turned around in the cupboard and moved to the side so the light of the keyhole would at least somewhat illuminate the small space. The sight in front of you was enough to make you throw up.

There sat Tatta (or at least, Tatta’s remains), empty eyed and leaning against the back of the cupboard. Bullet holes littered his once kind face, probably counting eight at least. You covered your mouth in horror, letting out a loud cry at the sight, pushing your legs against the ground to scramble away from your dead friend.

Once again, just like the other day during the needle incident, you screamed and screamed and screamed. You fell backwards out of the closet, curling into a small ball and screeching into your palm in horror at the now clearer sight of your friend’s corpse.

Everything was crumbling around you. Your voice was being ripped to shreds at the back of your throat. Your mind was falling apart, not being able to handle the traumatising events that you’ve faced, breaking and tearing itself apart. Your body was broken. Bruises and scars scattered your frame like an artwork, each one holding a connected traumatic event.

Niragi sat on the bed, watching as you screamed on the ground over by the corner of the room, tears sliding down his tanned cheeks.

What had happened to you? Why did you change so much in these few years?

Niragi slowly stood and made his way over to your shaking frame, hooking his arms underneath your shoulders and knees to lift you bridle style. He smiled sadly down at your shivering frame, not being able to control your rapid movements.

“Aw baby, you’re a mess,” he cried, a sob escaping his mouth halfway through his sentence.

He brought you back over to the bed, crawling on his knees to the centre of the mattress and crossing his legs to lay you in his lap with your head tucked into the crook of his elbow.

He brushed your hair with his fingers, trying to ease your breathing as you kept your eyes tightly shut in fear. “I tried to warn you. Look what happened,” he chuckled through his tears, motioning his head over towards the cupboard. “Do you like your present? I saw you walking with him on your way back to the hotel and thought it would be perfect. Why don’t you like it?”

You opened your eyes and looked up at him with fear all written all over your face. You didn’t dare move from his embrace, being too afraid.

Niragi smiled as he caught sight of your glistening eyes, reaching a hand up and stroking his thumb along your cheek. “You’re so pretty,” he breathed out, leaning down and placing a gentle kiss on your lips.

You brought your shaking hands up and rubbed your face before finally speaking up. “I want to go home,” you desperately whispered, turning your head and pressing your face against Niragi’s clothed chest. He watched as you brought your hand up and gripped the material of his shirt in your fist tightly, conveying anger and stress through your grip.

“You are home kitten,” he states, rubbing his cheek against your head. “I’m your home. I always have been.”

He wasn’t lying to you, and that was the pill that was hard to swallow. Niragi had been your source of comfort for so long, and for once in your life, it felt foreign to lay in his arms and to look into his night eyes.

Oh how weird it felt to look at something that conveyed such sweetness, such delicacy and such empathy, only for it to be utterly ruined by its environment.

You’d like to think that it wasn’t either of your faults. But in the end, it doesn’t depend on the environment, it depends on how you react to it.

Neither of you were perfect, but you were both incredibly different. It never would’ve worked between the two of you, and being in the Borderland did nothing but strengthen that fact. In the end, your differences would either tear you apart from each other emotionally, or you would tear each other apart limb from limb.

Author’s Note: Hi everyone! I’m back to finishing off the fanfic requests that have been sent to me because I finished all the prompt scenarios. I won’t be doing another part to this because I honestly struggled for so long trying to figure out a plot for this one 😭 But anyway thanks so much for your patience. I’ll be uploading these fanfics as quick as I can! ❤❤

Small addition to this fanfic talking about Niragi’s motives and intentions

#alice in borderland #alice in borderland imagines #alice in borderland imagine #alice in borderland one shots #alice in borderland scenarios #alice in borderland x reader #aib #aib imagines #aib imagine #aib one shots #aib scenarios #aib x reader #niragi #suguru niragi #niragi imagines #niragi imagine #niragi one shots #niragi scenarios #niragi x reader

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star-going-supernova · 2 years

Note

Vanessa has to work the day shift and sees a child that looks like one Vanny killed. She just makes it to an isolated area of the pizzaplex before she falls apart. The animatronics find her and give her some much needed comfort.

This has no connection to any preexisting AUs of mine, though I can’t deny the similarities to the strings ’verse. Um. I’d like to apologize in advance for what I’m about to do to y’all. The opportunity was there and I couldn’t not take it. Angst ahead, my dudes! Referenced child death, too, obviously. Nothing graphic, tho.

What They Deserve

It was thankfully rare for Vanessa to be asked to cover any part of the day shifts. But every now and then, she’d be asked to come in a few hours early to help with covering closing, and the overtime made it just worth it enough for her to agree.

This would be her first day shift since finding out that her mysterious blackouts were actually the result of mind control making her kill children. That was a fun night, finding that out. It had been the closest thing to a living hell she could possibly imagine, really.

It felt like a worthy punishment, that all the memories belonging to her alter ego of sorts, Vanny, came roaring into her head after Vanny was, effectively, terminated. However it worked, Vanny’s death broke the wall separating them, leaving her host to deal with the consequences.

It was nothing less than Vanessa deserved, she figured, for failing to realize sooner and put a stop to it. It might not have been her mind, her decisions, but the blood was still on her hands.

And the memories were hers too.

The night shift that had once felt dreadfully lonely now offered solace in its peace and quiet. But the prospect of facing children again was necessary, in the way amputations were sometimes necessary.

She couldn’t tell if clocking in that day, the distant screaming laughter ringing in her ears, felt more like she was losing a limb or gaining an extra, one she didn’t want. Like a parasite.

But she had to do this. Hiding in her apartment wasn’t going to possible forever, and letting her fear and paranoia and depression get the best of her seemed too much like letting the plague that had been Vanny win.

It was just… sometimes she didn’t think all of Vanny was gone. Vanessa hadn’t blacked out since her tag-along’s demise, but a voice that was too much like her own sometimes giggled in the back of her head.

It mocked her victory, which never felt like much of a victory at all. The cost wasn’t worth it.

(Freddy never looked her in the eyes anymore.)

• • •

It’d been going so well. Vanessa mostly hung out around the golf course, where the employee she was replacing was primarily stationed. She’d scared some teenagers away from trying to stick their golf clubs in the mechanical gators’ mouths, she reunited a trembling child with their parents, and she put the extra golf balls in her pockets to good use. Kids were always delighted when they putted one into a pond, only for her to whip a new one out and present it to them.

And she didn’t have a single breakdown. Progress.

An hour out from closing, most of the families left were making their way to the atrium for the final show of the evening. Vanessa would get to clock out soon and take a nap on a sofa until her real shift started, and the prospect of sleep was just about the only thing keeping her going.

The night shift had spoiled her. No people, no interactions, no solving problems. No screaming kids. No kids at all, in fact.

She’d just finished giving directions to a pair of preteens and was waving them off when she happened to look off to the side a bit. Before her eyes were able to fully focus, she registered a kid running by in her peripheries. Brown hair, blue t-shirt. No details. Just brown hair and a blue t-shirt.

The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the ground with Monty crouched in front of her. His mouth was moving, and she could see that he was holding her wrists between them, but she couldn’t feel his hands. Her whole body felt cold and numb, and the ringing in her ears sounded like laughter.

They were in one of the back hallways, and she nearly threw up when she realized she had no memory of how she got there. No, no. Vanny was dead, she was gone, Vanessa couldn’t be blacking out again.

Her chest heaved, which was how she figured out she was crying. The world felt vague and distant, and she felt disconnected. Floating. A wall was hard and solid against her back, no matter how much she tried to sink into it.

“Vanessa?” Monty said. He sounded patient, like he hadn’t probably been repeating her name for the past however many minutes.

“I—I saw,” she hiccuped, on the verge of hysteria.

“I know,” Monty said, gently holding her in place when panic sent her thrashing. Bright pink scratches covered her forearms—made by human nails. By her own. He kept her from making them worse. “I know.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” She squeezed her eyes shut and slid further down the wall. She could remember it. Remember the look in his eyes as he died, and it was all she could see. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean—I didn’t want to! Gregory—!”

Monty hushed her, pulling her into a hug when she couldn’t find coherence again. He had a show to get to, surely, but he didn’t let her go as she fell to pieces. It was a kindness she didn’t deserve, but it was one almost all of them offered her.

(Freddy never looked her in the eyes anymore. Because they weren’t just Freddy’s eyes these days. Not since… well. Vanny wasn’t the only one to die that night.

And no one deserved to have to look into their murderer’s eyes.)

#i answered a thing #wandererintheocean #anonymous #fnaf fic #fnaf security breach #star's stories #life and times of star

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ceridwyn2 · 3 years

Text

This may seem like a stupid (and unpopular with some) question, with AO3, is there a way to filter out some writers in search results? I’m doing a search through a particular fandom (no, not stating which one, as I’ve seen it across more than just one fandom) at the moment, and there is a lot of crap there amongst the good gems. I’m picky when I read fanfic 😅 , and a lot of times I don’t have time to wade through hundreds/thousands of stories to look for the good ones.

By the way, this ended up being a lot longer than I originally intended 😂 as I was thinking it through. What I like in the stories I read as follows:

A) Be grammatically correct

B) Spelling correct

C) Sentence & paragraph structure correct. Dialogue for each character in separate paragraphs.

D) Point of View: maintain one person’s point of view either for the whole scene or whole story. Especially important if stories are written in first person (I/My/Me) or second person (You/Them/They). These stories are often harder to write and maintain throughout well. If it’s first person, you’re only writing from one character’s point of view: on how *I* see/hear/experience the things around *me*. *I* don’t/can’t know what the other characters are thinking/feeling other than what *I* see/observe in their behaviour, unless they tell *me* what they think/feel. Writing in second person is equally difficult to maintain unless you’re very skilled at it. You’re writing as though your addressing the reader/person directly, as if you know them personally, intimately (does not need to be sexually) by using *you*. / Example: You love to write; you should do it more often. / If you’re of a certain age and remember the ‘choose your own adventure’ child/young adult books of the 70s-90s, they were in a person point of view.

Majority of fanfiction, and fiction in general is written in third person. Third person is like you’re the audience watching a tv show/film/play/book. You’re a non-active participant of what is happening and cannot affect the direction or outcome of the story. The primary subject of the scene is referred to by their name or rank and their pronoun(s), and is often the first character mentioned at/near beginning of the scene / Example: DCI Cassie Stewart walked into the incident room of her Historic Cases Unit, with a quick glance at her officers before heading into her office. It wasn’t long before her second in command, DS Sunil Khan, or Sunny, as he preferred, wrapped on the glass window pane of her office door. / That scene is dictated from her point of view, how she directs those around her and how those around her interact with her. Had it been slightly different, but same scenario: /DS Sunil Khan looked up as the door to the Historic Cases Unit opened and saw his boss, DCI Stewart, make her way to her office, glancing at the team as she did. Having got some new leads on their current case overnight, Sunny headed towards her office to notify her ahead of the day’s briefing. / This obviously changes whose point of view is the primary for that scene to Sunil.

Third person It allows the writer to explore different perspectives and viewpoints of different characters to move the story forward. However, that being said, to avoid reader confusion, pick one character - a main character, supporting character, or a villain - as the primary character of that scene and stick with their focus/perspective for the duration of a scene/chapter. If you want to express multiple character’s reactions or points of view to a specific same scene (like say a team of detectives coming onto a murder scene) and if it makes sense to do so, you can write the scenes same but different as each character will have their own take on what they saw/perceived/when they entered/exited the scene - but each character that you’re writing about will have a separate section, separated by punctuation marks, above and below the change of perspective. However, that can easily come across as too repetitive for the reader. Might be best to put that in a notes page each scene of how each sees the same scene - because you as the audience can visualise the characters as being there, when they arrived and what they observed. When you write the scene, write it from one character’s point of view, but as you have the other characters interacting with them, they can comment on what they saw observed, contributing to the overall pieces of information, without repetition, unless it contradicts or adds to a specific point being made.

E) Age correlateable. By which I mean, if someone’s going to write about established characters that are in their 40s, 50s, etc., their life experiences, maturity, have them act/respond to each other as such. I have read stories - or rather attempted to - but the mental maturity of the author was showing through characters in their 40s, 50s, and it was obvious the writer hasn’t grasped that maturity of the characters. Listen to the character’s voices (what they’re saying, how they’re saying, even what they’re not saying but expressing visually) you’re writing about. This really comes out when writing arguments and sex scenes, btw.

F) Physical/mental characteristics: If a character has an illness or physical disability, or like affecting joints or paralysed limbs, amputations, or anything that affects movement, be aware of that, esp if writing a sex scene (a whole other rabbit hole of bad writing exists there, see next item). If in an argument, you’re trying to express the character throwing something in anger, like a mug/glass, etc., for example, and the character has an injured/disabled arm, their strength to throw is going to be limited. Show the character’s frustration that the action they wanted had less effect at releasing that anger/frustration. If the character has a visual (partial or full blindness) or auditory disability (eg. hard of hearing, deafness in one or both ears, over-sensitive to sound/volume), take that into account. Esp in arguments, if one of the people in the scene has a tendency to mumble, they may not be understood as words run together are not easily decipherable either by sound or lip reading. Mental health /illness (eg PTSD /complex PTSD [cPTSD], depression, anxiety affects physical health responses. If the characters have mental health disorders, be aware and maintain that continuity through the story. Don’t need to mention it all the time but be aware it can affect movement/physical responses, behaviour. And unless you’re House, you don’t need to include every odd, weird, very rare symptom he seems to need to diagnose something for the character 😂 .

G) Sex scenes: some are done so well that it’s seamless and flows well with the other parts of the story, where the intimacy blends well. Others, very much no so. Unless it’s a specifically written PWP (plot, what plot) story, and those can work when written well. Trust me, I’ve read otherwise well-written stories ruined by a sex scene that reads like a bad porn with characters that otherwise had physical limitation(s) in the rest of the story but were suddenly able to pull off manoeuvres of someone 20 years younger and fully able-bodied. Like someone just tacked on an explicit sex scene on that didn’t mesh with the story as if they were two completely different people that happened to have the same names as the ones in the rest of the story.

H) Continuity. Whether your story is short or long, be aware of where your characters are/what they’re doing. Having a sense of timing. Helpful to have a notepad (digital or paper) sometimes to keep track of movement. They can’t be in two concurrent scenes at the same time. Passing off information between the characters; don’t assume one character (or group of characters) knows what the other(s) are doing, unless they are in contact with each other (visual/audio/both/text). Cause/effect. Action/reaction. There may be delayed effects or reactions (over scenes/chapters), but reference them back to the original cause or action and why there was a delay. For example, somebody witnesses or experiences a tragedy, war, fire, sexual assault, accident, or other traumatic experience, and it triggers a delayed emotional or physical response hours, days, months, years later. The character may or may not be able to explain to their partner, colleague, friend what it was that caused effect/reaction. Similarly, following onto earlier example of a thrown glass/mug/vase, if it smashes there could be subsequent injury from ceramic/glass/etc. like a cut finger/palm of hand if picking up the pieces/cleaning the mess. So maybe it requires a bandage or wrap. Continuity would include making further grasping of things discomforting or painful, maybe a comment from another person inquiring what happened later on if they’re noticing a bandage that wasn’t there the last time they saw them.

I) Alternate Universe stories. I don’t mind AUs when done right - so that even if the characters are placed in a different setting, their general personality traits are very recognizable. I’ve read quite a few that nail this perfectly. Others, not so much. When it works, it works. Otherwise it’s just slapping familiar names onto original fic just to get more eyes on a story.

#fanfiction #fanfic #writing #preferences #edits #filtering #writing styles #this ended up being longer and more detailed than I thought #AO3 #AO3 filters

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actress4him · 3 years

Text

Bonus Whumptober Content Part 2

Original Whumptober fic here

Bonus Content Part 1 here

Find it all on AO3 here

Thanks for all of the support on the last chapter! I appreciate each and every one of the likes and reblogs and follows I’ve gotten.

Tagging @outtacommission again because Keith would not have been resurrected from the dead without his bribery.

Here is chapter 3 of this fic... see you next week for the conclusion!

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: referenced amputation, blood mention, referenced broken bones, self-esteem issues, suicide ideation, death mention, nightmares, abandonment issues

When he woke again, he was lying back down on the pillow, staring up at the blank white ceiling. For one, blissful moment, he didn’t remember the events leading up to him passing out again. But it all came crashing down on him an instant later, taking his breath away.

My leg.

My leg, my leg.

My arm, my face, my leg.

“Keith?” Shiro’s voice was quiet, tentative. Not like him. “Are you awake?”

He wanted to roll over on his side and ignore him. Close his eyes, maybe go back to sleep, pretend that the world and this nightmare didn’t exist for a little while longer. The only reason he refrained was because he wasn’t sure if his stupid, wrecked body could actually manage it.

“What did you do to me?” It was only a whisper, and as slurred as it was, he wouldn’t have been surprised if it was impossible to understand.

Shiro’s breath hitched audibly. If Keith had been looking at his face, he was sure he wouldn’t like the anguished expression that he would see there. But at that moment, he didn’t have the capacity to care.

“Do you want me to...explain...how it...happened?”

No. Yes. He didn’t know. He needed to know why him losing a leg had been the best option, but at the same time he wasn’t sure if he could handle hearing about it. In the end, he just lifted one shoulder - the one that actually listened and responded right away - in a shrug.

Shiro shifted in his seat, leaning forward so just the tip of his white bangs were in Keith’s periphery. “I already told you that you...died. On that planet. So when we got back to the Castle, you dying again was a distinct possibility. We...it’s like Fallenta said. We had to get you into a pod, even though your...your left arm was broken, and your knees, especially, were a mess from where the console landed on them.”

He paused, rubbing his palms together. “We didn’t know what would happen. I was scared to death that some of those breaks wouldn’t be able to be fixed after the pod. I mean, we were headed to Tellima, but…” His head dropped. “We had no choice. That hole in your stomach...you were dying.”

Keith could almost imagine it - the frantic atmosphere in the infirmary, the blood everywhere, the desperate conversations escalating into shouts as they debated on what to do. He had no doubt that he really had been dying, that they had made the choice they thought was best. He just wasn’t sure if he agreed with that choice.

“When you came out of the pod, once the stomach wound was healed enough for you to be stable, Fallenta started working on re-breaking the bones so that they could be set correctly. It was...awful.” The shudder was obvious in his voice. “I’m glad she was able to do it, of course, but I’m also glad that you were unconscious the whole time. Your arm was relatively easy. Your left knee...it took her hours. It was in so many tiny little pieces. And your right…”

Automatically Keith flinched at the reminder of what was no longer there. Of the scarred, chopped off stump that lay just underneath the blanket, and the way his leg just...ended. He could see the void where the rest of it should have been even now, if he were to look down. He was purposely avoiding it.

Shiro heaved a huge sigh. “Unfortunately, your right knee was shattered in a way that had been blocking the circulation in your lower leg the whole time. The tissue down there was...dead.” He paused again. “Keith, I’ve...trust me, I’ve gone ‘round and ‘round in my head ever since we...trying to figure out if there was something I could have done differently. And...I don’t think there was. We did what we had to do to save your life. I’m just...I’m sorry that we couldn’t save your leg, too.”

His leg was gone.

Would he ever be able to walk again? Could they find a prosthetic for him like Shiro had, that worked as well as the real thing? Even if they did, how long would it take him to get used to walking on it? Just walking, not even counting anything like running, jumping, fighting.

Fighting was what he did. It was the one and only thing besides flying that he was good at. He was crap with a gun, he couldn’t sit up in a sniper’s nest like Lance. He needed to be able to move. If he couldn’t, even just for the time that it took to learn how with a new leg and an arm that only half worked...

They’d replace him. What good was a paladin who was crippled? Who couldn’t pull his weight? As soon as Red woke up and found out what happened to him she would realize that he was useless now. And the Princess, the rest of the team...they already knew it. They were probably already looking for a new Red Paladin. How long would it be until they dropped him off on Earth, or on some Coalition planet? Probably as soon as he was healed enough. They didn’t have time to keep taking care of an invalid, they had a universe to save.

They did. Not him. Not anymore.

“Should’ve left me there.”

There was dead silence for a moment.

“What?”

Keith tipped his head back further into the pillow, eyes roving over the featureless ceiling as if he’d see something new. “I tol’ you not to come. I tol’ you to leave me there. You didn’t listen.”

“And now you’re alive.”

“Yeah, but why?”

“Keith…”

His hands fisted in the blanket, jaw clenched in sudden fury. “Don’t ‘Keith’ me. Why, Shiro? Why am I alive? What is the point? You know what all this means.”

It meant he’d be alone. And he couldn’t...he couldn’t do alone. Not again. Not when he found a group of people that he actually cared about for the first time in so long. Not when he was just finally getting used to always having people around, always having someone to talk to or distract him from the thoughts that tried to consume him. Not when he barely survived it the first time.

He’d rather be dead than alone.

Shiro sucked in a deep breath through his nose. “That life is gonna be hard for a while? That you’re gonna have to work harder than ever to get back to where you were? Yeah, Keith, I do know. I know more than anyone else.”

Oh.

Shiro must think he was so incredibly self-centered.

He was self-centered.

He should have thought about how acting like losing a leg was worse than dying would seem to the man who had lost an arm and kept going. But instead he was all caught up in how he was going to lose everything he had grown to love and rely on. Acting like the self-absorbed brat that everyone at the Garrison except Shiro had accused him of being.

“That means I also know how hard it is to accept,” Shiro was saying. “It’s going to take time to adjust. But you will, I promise, and I’ll be here to help you every step of the way.”

Yeah, right. Keith didn’t know if he was lying to make him feel better, or if he just hadn’t yet realized or accepted that Allura and the rest of the team wouldn’t want to keep him around.

“Just...please, Keith. Please don’t say that we should have let you die. You don’t know…” His voice caught. “I’ve spent these last weeks hoping, praying that you would live. Scared out of my mind every moment of every day that you wouldn’t.”

Keith finally forced himself to turn his head toward his brother and saw him brush the back of his wrist across his eyes. Just that movement was enough to make his heart drop to his stomach. Shiro didn’t cry. At least not where anyone could see him.

Slowly, he slid his hand out across the bed, palm up. A peace offering. It took only a moment for Shiro to take it, squeezing it so hard he thought a few more bones might break.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. And he was. Not for thinking it, but for saying it. He didn’t want to cause any more pain for any of his friends.

That’s why when it was time for him to go, he’d do it quietly. No fuss. Don’t let them see your fear or your pain - he had learned that long, long ago. He was good at it.

Shiro gave him a shaky smile. “It’ll be alright, Keith. I promise.”

Swallowing down the words that sprang to his tongue, he gave a nod. “Okay.”

The next morning Keith woke up to an empty room. In a way, it was a relief. They obviously didn’t see the need to watch over him and baby him twenty-four-seven anymore. But he was, for all intents and purposes, stuck. With no leg, he couldn’t just get up and leave the room whenever he wanted, head to the training room like he normally would in the morning. There’d be no training for him for a long time.

Of course there was breakfast to think about, too, and he wasn’t sure whether to expect someone to bring it to him, or to bring him to it. Either way, he hated it. He had always hated being treated like he was helpless, and now it was even worse because he actually was helpless.

He went ahead and made up his mind, though. No matter what their plan was, he had no desire to be carried through the Castle to the dining room where everyone would give him those looks of pity. Poor Keith. Can’t even walk by himself. It’s just too bad he can’t stay.

He was in the midst of pushing himself up off the pillows, trying to get his right side to cooperate long enough to get in an upright position he could balance in and trying to ignore the strange lightness of his leg, when the door opened and Pidge slipped in.

“Hey,” she said softly. Padding over, she perched carefully on the edge of the chair that first Hunk, then Shiro had occupied.

Tucking his left leg up close to him - the knee creaking in protest at being used for the first time since healing - Keith cleared his throat. “Hi.”

Silence fell, but it had never been awkward between the two. The introverted arms of Voltron. Pidge just gazed at him for a long moment, her eyes saying all the things he knew she would never actually be able to say with words. “It’s good to see you awake. I was really worried about you.”

On the outside, she merely shoved her glasses back up into the bridge of her nose and sniffed. “You better not quiznakin’ ever do that again.”

Keith’s lips turned up at the corners for the first time since waking the day before. “Alright.”

Besides Shiro, he thought he would miss Pidge the most of all. They got each other more than anyone else.

“So.” Straightening up, she whipped a tablet out of her hoodie pocket. “We’ve been working on a leg for you. The Tellimites have crazy good medical technology, so obviously we’re using their notes, but I’ve also been talking back and forth with the Olkari, because they’re, of course, crazy good with biological connections, and we’ve come up with a design that should communicate really well with your body and, essentially, work like the real thing.”

She launched into a detailed scientific explanation of how every inch of it worked, tapping and flicking through various diagrams that just looked like a plain prosthetic leg to him. He didn’t understand but a few words here and there, but he let her talk. This was one of her passions, and it was nice to let her be able to ramble about it for once without having to worry about being rushed. The way her face lit up was worth every second.

“So...what do you think?” Suddenly she sounded uncertain as she blinked up at him. “We definitely want your input on it. I mean, I suggested putting in a rocket booster, but Hunk pointed out that it would be difficult to control with only one. Lance wanted to add lasers that shot out anytime you stomped your foot, but that seemed pretty dangerous for like, running and stuff, so…”

It almost sounded like they expected him to still be fighting with this thing. Well, maybe he would. Eventually. After all, he wouldn’t feel right about just ignoring the existence of the war when the people he cared about were still out there fighting it, so he’d do his best to get back into shape. Maybe he could convince them to find a Coalition planet for him that had soldiers he could fight with someday.

It wouldn’t be the same as fighting with this team, his...his friends. But at least he wouldn’t be completely useless.

He met Pidge’s eyes and realized she was still waiting on an answer from him. Part of him wanted to keep his words to a minimum, not wanting her to hear his new speech impediment, but he swallowed his pride. “It, uh...whatever you guys come up with I’m sure will be great.” He actually hadn’t even been sure whether to expect them to work on it themselves, or put it off on the Tellimites or some other able species. It made sense, though, that Pidge and Hunk would want to jump on this opportunity to design something they had never gotten to do before. He forced a small smile. “But...yeah, let’s hold off on weaponizing it.”

Smirking, Pidge turned off the tablet and stuck it back in her pocket. “Alright, if you insist. Lance is gonna be super disappointed, though.”

“I’m sure.” He could hear the whining and complaining about how boring and unimaginative he was now.

“So, I was supposed to ask you about breakfast…?”

Keith stared down at his hands. “Oh. Yeah. I don’...think I’m really ready to...try to move around yet, so…”

He was such a bad liar. But Pidge either didn’t notice or was being nice and pretending not to, merely nodding and standing.

“Okay. I’ll tell Shiro, he’ll probably bring you a plate down here.”

“Thanks, Pidge.”

She turned back from the doorway and smiled softly at him. “No problem.”

The nightmares came that night.

And the next. And the next.

Snippets of things he didn’t remember during the day, and wouldn’t remember again when he woke. Alarms blaring. Lights flashing. A horrifying crunching sound, then crippling pain and a bitter taste in the back of his throat.

And then...nothing. No one came. No one heard him calling. He stayed there, alone and bleeding in the dark, until the pain became too much and he slipped away.

He woke with tears streaming down his cheeks and a scream on his lips that didn’t quite make it out into the still air of the infirmary, not knowing what he was even crying about other than the nauseating loneliness that weighed him down, pinning him to the bed.

Forcing his right hand to be the one to clumsily scrub away the tears - because it was going to work, dang it - he gritted his teeth and pushed against the weight to flop over onto his side.

Get over it. Get over it, get used to it, stop being such a baby. You’ve always known that this wouldn’t last. It’s a miracle they’ve stuck around for as long as they have. If you try to hang onto them they’ll just end up hating you before they leave.

He got away with hiding in the infirmary for two days before Fallenta declared him well enough to be up and about, and Shiro and Allura showed up with the Altean version of crutches. They escorted him slowly down the halls of the Castle to the dining room, chatting amiably the whole way. Keith assumed it was meant to either distract him from his plight, or to keep themselves from staring and pitying.

“Hey, look who finally decided to join us!” Lance announced loudly as soon as he hobbled into the room. “It’s about time you were out of bed, Mullet-head.”

“What Lance means,” Hunk sighed, “is that it’s good to see you up, Keith.”

“That it is, Number Four!” Coran rushed to pull out his usual seat, and his smile was so bright Keith couldn’t even be mad about the special treatment. “You had us all worried for a while there, for sure!”

Swallowing, Keith fiddled with his spork, unsure whether he was supposed to respond. “Um...yeah. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Keith.” Shiro smiled at him softly, knowingly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He just barely kept another ‘sorry’ from escaping. Instead he nodded, picked up his spork with his left hand, and changed the subject. “So, uh...wha’s been going on lately?”

That was all it took for everyone to launch into tales of short missions in the Lions, repairs on Red, and alliances with Tellima. Keith barely remembered to keep eating his goo as he watched all of the animated faces and gesturing hands with a small smile on his face. It was good to be back among his teammates. They were so unlike him in so many ways, it was no wonder that he had never really fit in with them. But he cared about them anyway. They might not feel the same way about him, but he was so glad that they had become a part of his life.

And now they wouldn’t be anymore. Scowling down into his bowl where no one would notice, he poked at the green goo. How did I let myself get so attached? Before Shiro, it had been many, many years since he had let himself care about anyone this much. He should have known better by then. Letting himself come to consider any person or place home was just setting himself up for heartbreak.

As much as he loved spending this last bit of time with them, he almost wished they would stop acting so natural, as if they weren’t getting ready to kick him out any day now. No one mentioned a search for a new paladin. No one said whether they were headed to Earth, or some other planet.

He wasn’t going to be able to stand the suspense for many more days. They needed to just get it over with.

Later that night, after waking from another nightmare back in his own room, Keith stared at the bare walls, so lifeless compared to the other paladin’s rooms. Maybe I was always prepared for this moment, after all. Or maybe he had just been kicked out and left behind so many times that the ability to settle in was impossible for him no matter where he went.

Struggling to sit up, he groped for the crutches and pulled himself to his feet. He wasn’t going to get back to sleep anytime soon, and no one had expressly forbidden him from venturing out on his own - not that it would have stopped him even if they had.

It took far too long to make it down the four hallways between his room and Red’s hangar. Walking with crutches used a whole new set of muscles that he wasn’t used to accessing, and trying to force his right side to carry that much weight was exhausting. He had to stop and lean against the wall, panting for breath, several times along the way.

But he made it, eventually. He paused once more outside the door, debating whether or not he was actually ready to see the damage done to Red, before he sucked it up and punched the scanner.

He wasn’t ready.

The great mechanical beast was lying on her side, a position that somehow managed to make her look vulnerable despite her hulking size. Her legs were splayed awkwardly as if she had just been dropped there. She probably had.

The worst part, though, was that her face was nearly unrecognizable. What had once been her muzzle was completely smashed in, there were spiderweb cracks across one of her dull grey eyes, and the other was missing altogether.

Actually, he took that back. The worst part was the cold and the silence.

No purr in his head to greet him. No eyes lighting up in recognition of her Paladin. No warmth filling up his chest and spreading out to his fingers and toes. With Red, there was always some kind of heat. Now, though, a shiver shook his body.

Clenching his jaw, Keith forced himself a few steps closer, until he could reach out, balancing precariously, and lay a hand against her warped, dented nose. It was cold, too.

Suddenly tears sprang to his eyes for the first time since his panic attack a couple of days before. “‘m sorry, Red.” He stroked his hand over the metal, feeling all of the bumps that shouldn’t have been there. “I’m sorry this happened to you. You didn’t deserve it. You...you’ve always protected me, and…”

Tipping his head back, he took in the mess of a cockpit again, and this time he saw flashes of his nightmare. Something sharp pinning him to the chair. Blood dripping onto the floor.

One tear escaped, sliding rapidly down to his chin. “I don’t even know how I survived this. But if either of us deserved to survive, it’s you. Please, Red...if you can hear me at all...please don’t give up. I know I...I can’t fly you anymore, but…”

It hit him then, the brutal truth of that statement. He’d never fly her again. He might never fly anything again. He’d known it ever since finding out what had happened to him, but now it stabbed him through the heart, how much he was going to miss this semi-sentient alien ship.

Before he knew it, he was falling none-too-gracefully to the floor, one hand planted in front of him while the other remained on her snout, crutches clattering loudly to the side. The tears came in earnest, then. “Red...Red I lost my leg. I...I can’t fight anymore, I can’t fly…I’m useless.”

He’d told her that before. That time, though, she had reassured him that no, he was her Paladin, he was a defender of the universe, not useless. Never useless.

But now there was no one to reassure him. Even if she had been able, Red would know the truth. He wasn’t her Paladin anymore, he wasn’t a defender of the universe. He was useless.

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sachigram · 3 years

Text

With Teeth Chapter 2

((click here to read on ao3!))

“Shizuo-senpai has been quiet lately.”

Shizuo glances at Vorona as they walk side by side, trailing behind Tom. She isn't looking at him, but Shizuo never gets much out of her expression anyway.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Talking about negative experiences is usually best in moving past them,” Vorona says, and she does look at him this time, her pale eyes studying him.

“It's nothing,” Shizuo says quickly. “Or it's just...a lot. A lot of nothing. Ugh.” He runs his hand through his hair, as bad with words as he ever was. “I don't think it's worth talking about, is all.”

How could he talk about it with anyone? Where would he even begin? Sure, Celty is a good friend of his, and her existence is technically beyond belief, but Shizuo never thought much of other supernatural beings until he became one. Speaking of, he really should talk to Celty soon. He should talk to anyone that isn't the fucking fleabag.

“I see. That is unfortunate.” Vorona looks ahead again. “I will keep the invitation open.”

“Thanks.”

It goes quiet again. Neither of them are very good at conversation. Tom likes to tell Shizuo that Vorona has a thing for him, and he certainly holds a candle for her, but how could there ever be anything more between him when he's...the way he is? He was a monster even before that werewolf took a bite out of him.

“Alright, I'm starving,” Tom announces, stopping in front of them. He turns around and grins, his hands going in his pockets. “How about some barbecue? There's a Korean spot up here.”

“That sounds good,” Shizuo says, grateful to Tom for taking steer of the conversation. Shizuo has tried before to imagine himself on a date with Vorona, but it's hard. He has no idea what they would talk about, or if they would talk at all.

After they order their food and settle into a cozy booth, Vorona excuses herself and heads to the bathroom. Tom watches her go and then turns back to Shizuo, a small frown on his face.

“Alright, man. What gives?” he asks.

“Huh?” Shizuo grunts, his mouth already full. He's been careful to make sure he isn't the least bit hungry. He doesn't need to feel less in control of himself.

“You and Vorona! Aren't you going to ask her out? If you don't hurry up, she's going to think you aren't into her!” Tom says exasperatedly.

“I can't,” Shizuo says simply, and Tom pulls at his own hair, a long-suffering sigh escaping him.

“I don't understand you! The two of you were getting so close, up until a few months ago. Then you just stopped talking to either one of us about anything! Vorona doesn't know you like I do, so she isn't used to you being so hot and cold, but mark my words, someone is going to snatch her away from you if you don't wise up!”

“I know that. She's too good for me anyway. One slip up is all it would take for me to hurt her beyond repair, or possibly even kill her. How am I supposed to know that and pursue her anyway?” Shizuo asks, and Tom's expression softens.

“You don't hurt people you care about. You're being too hard on yourself.”

“I'm not. I've made up my mind about it.”

Tom sighs again. “I'm worried about you. This is different than your usual levels of isolation. Why are you so hellbent on being miserable, huh? If you don't want to date Vorona, that's fine, but you could still talk to her like she's your friend. And I'm your friend, too.”

Shizuo takes another bite of his chicken, guilt gnawing at him. He didn't mean to make anyone worry. He mutters a soft apology between his chewing.

“Don't be sorry. Just know you can talk to me about anything. I've never judged you before, have I?” Tom grins and then starts to dig into his own food. “You shouldn't suffer on your own.”

Shizuo considers this as Vorona returns to sit with them. The flea's face flashes in his mind, and he grips his chopsticks hard enough to break. He'd rather be dealing with this alone than with him.

“You need me.” Izaya had said, and the vindictive little smile on his face was enough to make Shizuo nauseous. It's true, isn't it? It's true, and Shizuo hates it.

After lunch, they head back into the city. There's only a few more targets for the day, and Shizuo is thinking about doing laundry and speaking to Celty for the first time in a while when he catches sight of a familiar fur coat.

Izaya is across the street, perched up on a wall, drinking coffee as he chats animatedly with Kadota, who is listening with an indulgent expression. Immediately, Shizuo stiffens, as do Tom and Vorona, who have obviously spotted Izaya as well.

“Shizuo, come on. It's not worth it,” Tom says, putting a hand on Shizuo's shoulder. Shizuo keeps looking at Izaya, who is laughing at something Kadota said, looking entirely too at ease. Why the fuck does Shizuo have to keep seeing that rotten bloodsucker? Why should Izaya be allowed peace when Shizuo spends every waking moment in fear of what he is and what he could do?

“Fine. You're right.” Shizuo grunts as he allows Tom to lead him away. Izaya's putrid stench stays in his nose, haunting him every step he takes. Turning away from Izaya feels wrong, but killing him doesn't seem right either anymore.

Shizuo doesn't know when everything got so fucking complicated in his life.

***

“I'm sorry.”

Neither of his parents looked up at him. They were engaged in what seemed to be a heated conversation, both of them talking through clenched teeth and gesturing broadly with their hands. Shizuo was sent home from school again after wrecking the classroom. Some kid called him an idiot for getting a math question wrong, and Shizuo didn't remember much about what happened after that.

He was always sorry for it, but it never mattered.

Kasuka wandered in, and he moved to Shizuo's side. He didn't say anything, but he gripped Shizuo's sleeve loosely, and it was a comfort all the same.

“Oh, Shizuo...” His mother noticed him at last, and immediately moved to hug him. Shizuo could see her eyes were wet. He didn't know why it made his eyes wet, too.

“I'm sorry,” he said again.

“I know,” his mother said, and together, they wept.

***

Going to Shinra's, annoying as it can be, is always a comfort, as well.

He didn't mean to stay away for so long. If anyone would understand what Shizuo's going through, it would be Celty, and by extension, Shinra. It's just not an easy topic to discuss, and Shizuo hasn't discussed it with anyone other than Izaya, who never has anything nice to say. If anything, every conversation with the fucker just feels like rubbing salt in an open wound. An infected open wound. Shizuo would rather amputate than deal with it anymore, but he knows he doesn't have a choice in the matter.

He knocks at the door of Shinra's apartment, his hands going into his pockets while he waits for an answer. There's clattering behind the door, footsteps, and then the sound of various locks being unlocked. Celty got a lot more paranoid after that stalker attacked Shinra, so Shizuo waits patiently.

“Sorry, sorry!” Shinra says as he throws the door open. He pauses upon seeing Shizuo, and then a wide smile spreads across his face. “Shizuo-kun! What a nice surprise!”

“Yo,” Shizuo grunts, stepping around him and taking his shoes off in the entryway. The apartment is warm, the scent of something cooking wafting from the kitchen. It feels like a home, even more than Shizuo's own place does.

“Celty is in the bath! Oh, she'll be so excited to see you! She's missed you so much! Ah! I need to stir my stew—“ Shinra runs towards the kitchen, disappearing from sight before his voice calls out. “Will you stay for dinner? There's plenty!”

“Yeah, sure,” Shizuo says, plopping down onto the couch. He leans back against the cushions, closing his eyes as the feeling of belonging washes over him. He thinks of his parents, and he decides he should call them soon.

There's the sound of a door opening, and then soft footsteps. A pause. And then—

“Shizuo?! Where the hell have you been? How are you? Do you know how worried I was about you?! How are you feeling? How—“

“Celty.” Shizuo pushes the bright PDA away from his face as Celty bounces on the couch next to him, bombarding him with questions. “Can we ease into the interrogation part?”

“You can hardly blame her!” Shinra calls. “We've barely heard from you for months. The chatroom she frequents was full of terrible rumors.”

“You could've come to see me,” Shizuo mutters, and he feels guilty for it when her shoulders droop.

“I didn't want to bother you... I thought you had enough to deal with.”

“Yeah.” Shizuo leans back, sighing loudly. “Yeah, you weren't wrong.”

“So!” Shinra lilts, walking back into the room, soup ladle in hand. “Are we finally going to talk about the whole 'you being a werewolf' thing?”

“You knew,” Shizuo says, waiting to feel surprised. Celty is busy attacking Shinra, jabbing at him while Shinra wails apologies for being blunt. “Of course you fucking knew.”

“Well, yes, of course! Celty could sense it, and then you weren't around, so—!” Shinra whines again as he doubles over, Celty's fist in his stomach.

“We didn't want to invade your privacy! I thought if you wanted me to know, you'd tell me, so we weren't there for you as we should've been. I'm so sorry, Shizuo. Please forgive me.”

“Don't apologize. You did the right thing. I...didn't want to talk about it. I still don't, but I'm also tired of running from it.” Shizuo looks down at his hands, clenches them into fists before he continues. “I'm a monster just like everyone always said.”

“Technically yes, but it's not like you're wreaking havoc every full moon! As long as you aren't spreading the curse, I'd say you're handling it very responsibly,” Shinra says. “You haven't bitten anyone at all, and it's been half a year!”

Shizuo glares up at him, and Celty steps in between him and Shinra, her arms outstretched.

“Ignore him, you know he always says the wrong thing. I'm really glad you're here, Shizuo. I wish I could do more for you, but I don't know much about werewolves aside from the folklore.”

Shizuo pretty much assumed that, already. Without her head, Celty doesn't have memories from her past life. The only one who can really help him is...

“Surprised Izaya didn't tell you about it,” Shizuo snaps at Shinra, who shrugs.

“Oh, he doesn't like to talk about you. I already knew from my dear Celty, here, but Izaya-kun is surprisingly secretive about your transformations. He doesn't offer anything that I don't explicitly ask.”

“Is he really helping you?” Celty's body language reads incredulity, and Shizuo can't exactly blame her for that.

“He's giving me potions. I don't know if I'd call it 'helping' so much as him being a smug little fucker.” Shizuo huffs before he crosses his arms over his chest. “Always knew something freaky was up with him, but to think he's actually a fucking witch. No wonder he was always able to know exactly where I was, and exactly how to get on my nerves.”

“You would think you'd be at least a little grateful to him,” Shinra says, a cool edge to his voice. “It's thanks to him you aren't rampaging every month, after all.”

Shizuo and Celty both stare at Shinra, who suddenly turns around, saying something about his stew again. He flounces from the room, and Celty turns back to Shizuo.

“Is Izaya being absolutely terrible to you? I can't imagine how he wouldn't be.” Celty types, and Shizuo grunts in irritation.

“The flea's as shitty as ever, yeah. I'm kind of surprised he hasn't told everyone what I am. Maybe no one's paid him enough money for the information yet.”

“It's not really up to him. Humans aren't meant to know much about the other realm. Besides, he couldn't out you without outing himself, too.”

“It's not like it's a huge secret, what he is. He has all kinds of people visiting and asking for help with things.” Shizuo remembers being there during one full moon, Izaya busy clacking away at his desk when some white-haired vampire just appeared. Izaya seemed annoyed by it.

“Actually, it is a secret!” Shinra says from the kitchen. “Izaya-kun is one of the last of his kind. A lot of the other witches were wiped out.”

“Why?” Shizuo asks.

“They're hard to control, usually mad with power. At least, that's what I was able to find out,” Shinra replies.

“Sounds about right.” Shizuo grimaces, thinking of Izaya's eerie smile and his cat-like gaze. “Surprised he's allowed to just do whatever the fuck he wants, then.”

“I wouldn't say that,” Shinra says, and then he smiles. “Dinner's ready, by the way.”

Despite the huge lunch Shizuo had, he's able to scarf down three bowls of stew, as well as some bread. Shinra chatters on and on about increased appetite being the most common side effect of 'lycanthropy', and he doesn't shut up until Shizuo throws a spoon at him.

“I hear enough of that shit from the fleabag,” Shizuo hisses.

“Well, at least you only have to see him for a few minutes every month! It could be worse,” Shinra says as he pries the spoon from the wall.

“Try hours,” Shizuo says.

“Huh? Hours?” Shinra turns to him, adjusting his glasses. “Are you staying the night there?”

“Izaya didn't tell you that?” Shizuo asks.

“Of course not. That's just— Wow. I'm shocked he's allowing that. No wonder he gets so annoyed when I ask about your transformation.”

“You don't have to suffer in his company, anymore.” Celty types. “You can stay here next time. If anything happened, I could restrain you. Even if you did bite me, I'm immune.”

“I'll think about it,” Shizuo mutters. Truth be told, he doesn't want anyone to see him that way, even Izaya, but at least Izaya couldn't possibly think less of Shizuo than he already does. They hated each other on sight, after all.

***

Shizuo always tried to keep in mind that even if people were afraid of him, it didn't mean they didn't love him.

His mother still doted on him when he hurt himself and wound up in the hospital, would still kiss his bandages and comfort him even after ducking away in fear when he lost himself to his rage. Kasuka told him once that none of them were scared of him, that it was just something they were used to, and Shizuo decided it somehow hurt even worse that he was something to 'get used to'.

There was never really anyone in his life that wasn't at least a little afraid of him, even if they hid it well. Shinra was, well. Himself. He would stay by Shizuo's side, but he definitely was in it for his own morbid curiosity. It was obvious he was terrified of Shizuo by the way he'd cower in fear and apologize if Shizuo so much as blinked at him too long. Tom was a good friend, but even he would duck and cover, scared of getting hit in the crossfire when Shizuo really got going.

Shizuo never blamed any of them for it. How could they not be scared of him? He was uncontrollable when he got past a certain point. The static in his mind drowned out everything, even the screams of terror. He wouldn't know if he was hurting someone he cared about. He was never able to stop himself. How could he get angry at them for being afraid of him when even he was afraid of him?

No, it wasn't until he met Orihara Izaya that he truly faced someone who didn't know fear.

Shizuo was livid as he stared at Shinra's friend. He'd heard of Orihara Izaya before. Shinra positively gushed about the boy, as much as Shinra could gush about anyone that wasn't Celty. Shinra's words were always peppered with insults, but it was clear he cared about this other friend of his, and he was constantly trying to get Shizuo to meet Izaya, would call Shizuo's house and invite Shizuo and Kasuka both to hang out with them. From Shizuo's understanding, Izaya was as against it as Shizuo was. Neither of them seemed to want to meet the other, but there Izaya was, sitting next to Shinra, eyes full of mischief and wonder as he clapped his hands together from the display of violence, the thing Shizuo hated most about himself.

“You piss me off,” Shizuo had said, and something in Izaya's eyes changed, but Shizuo couldn't name it. He only knew he didn't see fear when Izaya looked at him, and in the end, that might've been part of what made Shizuo hate him so much.

“It's a real shame,” Shinra said once. He was busy patching up Shizuo's wounds after one of his more brutal matches with Izaya. “I really think you two would get along if you tried. You have so much in common!”

“What could I possibly have in common with that fucking parasite?!” Shizuo snapped, and Shinra immediately bowed his head in apology. “Did you know he sent those fuckers after me? He was there, watching me fight them!”

“Yes, well, I never said he was a good person!” Shinra straightened himself after Shizuo huffed and turned away from him. “You both always reminded me of each other, is all I meant.”

“I don't see how,” Shizuo said, angry at the comparison, and also at how much the ointment Shinra was using stung.

“You're both incredibly stubborn,” Shinra said. “And you're both someone I wouldn't want mad at me.”

“Great.”

“It seems you're also both determined to be alone.”

***

As he walks down the street, returning home after leaving Shinra's, Shizuo stretches his arms above his head, feeling better in spite of himself. It's true he's changed, but he isn't alone, is he? He still has his friends, even if they're afraid of him. It's the same as it's always been.

“My, my, don't you look content.”

Shizuo growls as he turns to look at Izaya, who is walking along the wall next to him, arms held out to balance himself.

“Why're you still in my city?” Shizuo barks, instantly annoyed. This is what he gets for not chasing Izaya out earlier.

“So you did see me! I thought you did. And you kept walking! Are you finally learning restraint?” Izaya grins down at Shizuo as they walk in step with each other. “I work here, Shizu-chan. You know that, already.”

“Tch. Nothing good comes from you being here.”

“But you let me go! Tell me, are you growing fond of me all of a sudden?” Izaya asks, and Shizuo stops in his tracks to look up at Izaya with as much disdain as he can muster.

“Get the fuck away from me,” Shizuo says, and Izaya leers at him.

“There's my monster,” he coos. “You're leaving Shinra's, right? Did you confide all your beastly secrets in that headless friend of yours?”

“You're the monster,” Shizuo says, starting to walk again. “Shinra said he was surprised you're helping me. Come to think of it, I'm surprised, too. What's in this for you?”

“Pardon?” Izaya asks, his grin sharpening.

“You hate me. I know you do. Why would you help me, then? Why aren't you telling everyone what I am?”

“Oh, it's enough that I know it,” Izaya says, waving his hand. “Besides, me keeping this secret for you seems to have allowed me passage to Ikebukuro without you throwing things at me. Isn't that payment enough?”

“No,” Shizuo says, knowing Izaya too well to buy into that.

“Then consider this,” Izaya replies, looking at Shizuo with such contempt it actually makes Shizuo take a step away. “Maybe it's not my choice.”

“Yeah, right. I know you had something to do with all this. Everything bad in my life has always been because of you, in some way. You sent that guy after me; I know you did.”

“More like you need someone to blame, and I'm an easy target,” Izaya lilts, going back to balancing along as he walks. “You and I finally have something in common, don't we? We're both part of both realms, all at once.”

“I never fucking asked for this,” Shizuo hisses angrily. “I wanted a peaceful life, something far away from you. I never wanted to be part of this otherworldly bullshit. I didn't want to be this thing.”

“Yeah,” Izaya says, and his voice sounds a little tight. “I know what you mean.”

Shizuo pauses, turning to face Izaya, who is looking up at the sky with a thoughtful expression on his face. Izaya hums before he looks back down at Shizuo, his usual smirk back in place.

“Anyway, you think I send everyone after you. You're an anomaly, Shizu-chan. That makes you a target all on your own. You really think you'd ever be able to live a peaceful life when everyone in this city has seen what you can do?” Izaya fucking giggles, and it makes Shizuo's teeth clench. “What a simple mind you have.”

“Stop talking to me. No, just get the hell away from me.”

“I'm teaching you something!” Izaya says, and he jumps down in front of Shizuo, arms waving as he talks. There's a manic look about him, and Shizuo somehow feels pity mixed in with his hatred for the person before him. “You aren't considering human nature at all, are you? You say you hate violence, but everyone has seen you in the middle of one of your rampages. You've proven yourself to be a key player in the city, so of course people are going to go after you. Everyone who wants power is going to target the most powerful. It's how humans are.”

“What's up with you?” Shizuo asks, narrowing his eyes at Izaya. “You're being crazier than normal.”

“You blame me for ruining your peace, but you ruined it for yourself before you even met me. Sure, I sent people after you, but they were after you even before high school, weren't they?” Izaya prattles on, ignoring Shizuo's question. “You're incapable of accepting your role in ruining your own life.”

“Where's any of this even coming from?” Shizuo asks, more confused than angry, but growing angrier by the second. He's never liked any of Izaya's stupid psychobabble, especially when it's directed at him.

“You've trapped yourself in this endless loop, you simplistic cretin.” Izaya's eyes are wide, his pupils blown and Shizuo finds he can't look away. “This city is like fly paper, isn't it? And you've gone and thrashed around so much that you'll almost never be free.”

Shizuo frowns down at Izaya, once again failing to understand a single word out of his mouth. Their ways of talking are just so different, Shizuo usually opting for a direct approach while Izaya never gets to his point. Still, Shizuo can tell something isn't quite right with Izaya tonight, and he finds himself actually looking for injuries on the flea. Maybe he's concussed or something, and there's dried, matted blood in that wild hair of his. But then, wouldn't Shizuo smell it?

Izaya, predictably, snorts, and then he turns on his heel, starting to walk away.

“Oi! Where are you going?” Shizuo asks, hurrying to follow after him.

“I don't know why I bother. Logic is wasted on you,” Izaya laments.

“Maybe I'd know what the hell you were talking about if you ever made sense!” Shizuo counters.

“Get away from me now, monster, I've had all I can tolerate of your presence,” Izaya says, still not looking at him, and Shizuo finds himself grabbing Izaya's wrist and pulling him back.

“What's wrong with you? Why're you acting even weirder than usual?”

Izaya scoffs up at him, and then he pauses, his brow furrowing like he's trying hard to listen to something. “You're wondering if I'm hurt,” he muses. He rolls his eyes at the sour look Shizuo gives him. “Yes, I'm reading your mind. No, I don't do it very often. I'm just trying to get away from you, and you're making it very difficult.”

“Bullshit you don't do it all the time,” Shizuo huffs, but he releases Izaya all the same.

“I don't. It's no fun always knowing exactly what to say to someone to push their buttons. I'd rather make an educated guess. Sometimes leaving things up to chance is the only true way to play.” Izaya turns and starts walking away again. “And anyway, I'm not hurt. Even if I was, I'd already be mostly healed, just from the course of this pointless conversation.”

“Apparently you can't heal yourself from being crazy!” Shizuo calls after him, but Izaya doesn't stop walking, and soon enough he's out of Shizuo's sight. Shizuo stands in the middle of the sidewalk, gnawing his teeth together. He can't help but wonder how much of this is actually Izaya's fault, but that was the flea's point, wasn't it? He growls lowly after Izaya, at another night of shattered peace.

“FUCK!” he shouts at the sky, drawing stares from everyone around him, but he can't bring himself to care. Izaya has ruined so many things in Shizuo's past, and he's ruined all hope of serenity in Shizuo's future.

Shizuo's stuck, just like Izaya said.

#with teeth fic #shizaya #werewolf shizuo #witchy izaya #Shizuo Heiwajima #Izaya Orihara

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lotrfics · 4 years

Text

IMAGINE: Kili braiding your hair because you are unable to after an orc twists your arm during an ambush

Pairing: Kili x Female Human Reader

Requested: Yes, by @the0maddest0hatter. So far, this is the longest request I have ever gotten. This is not the entire request, I erased some parts. This was also sent through my messages, not in my ask, so I am unable to copy and paste it here because they sent their request in different messages. Sorry if I mess up your request a bit, I didn’t want to go back to the messages and search for every single detail

Summary: Being ambushed by orcs sucks. What sucks more is when you get your arm twisted by them. It doesn’t help that you have a habit of braiding your hair every night. Kili helps you out, but you don’t know it’s a dwarvish custom for courting

When this is over, Thorin will no doubt pull you aside to begin scolding you how you were foolish to wander off on your own. Your curious nature made you walk around the forest, with the entire company as your friends, they all freaked out then split into groups to look for you.

Unfortunately, their obnoxiousness led to some nearby orcs hear them. An orc sniffed before smirking. “I smell dwarf scum!” But then the same orc smelled something different, that brought confusion to his face. “And... human flesh!”

Meanwhile, Fili and Kili, who were obviously together, why wouldn’t they be, were debating where you could have gone. Both disagreed, they spent more time arguing rather than actually looking for you.

You weren’t really sure whether you should stay where you were so you don’t throw off any members if you leave your spot only for them to arrive right after, or leave to find them yourselves. You were at a dead end, there was the edge of the cliff, and if you took a few steps forward you would fall off. There were many of them, so it seems you could easily find one if you do leave.

But an orc suddenly roared at you, startling you. You turned around to see it about to swing its sword at you, but you managed to duck in time before you could be sliced in half. The orc growled at you, and you two began dueling, trying to best each other.

You heard familiar voices calling out your name, making you stop for a moment. The orc saw a chance and took advantage of it, so it knocked your sword of out your hand, roughly grabbed your arm and twisted it. You screamed in pain as tears began forming from how much it hurt, and the orc cackled.

You screamed so loud Fili and Kili, who were unknowingly the closest to your location, heard. They managed to figure out where exactly you were, and they sprinted and arrived in time to see the orc about to push you off the cliff. Both brothers ran right at the orc, tackling it, and Fili held him down while Kili decapitated him.

“What did the orc do to your arm?” Kili asked, running over to you where you stood, knees bent, holding on your arm as if it was about to get amputated.

You hissed in pain. “Twisted it, of course. How else would I be in pain like this?” You doubted you were going to recover soon. Good thing your dominant arm wasn’t twisted, you still knew how to use a weapon with just one arm, as long as it could be used with one hand only.

Soon enough, the rest of the dwarves plus Bilbo arrived. The hobbit winced when he saw your twisted arm. Some of the dwarves were still confused. Thorin sighed loudly. “At least nobody died. Now put her arm in a cast, then we keep moving. Don’t ever bother wandering off again, (Y/N).” He said, and some of the dwarves pulled out the equipment needed for your poor arm.

You sat on a rock annoyed. You were annoyed at the fact that you couldn’t braid your hair, something you always did before you went to sleep. You looked around to see if any of the dwarves were awake and were able to help you out, maybe they could be great at braiding.

Only Kili was awake. He didn’t look tired at all, so you decided to ask him for his help. “Kili?” He looked at you after hearing you call him. “Do you mind braiding my hair for the night? With my arm like this, I can’t braid my own hair. You know I do it every night before I go to sleep.”

At first, Kili was taken aback by your request, but he acknowledged that you didn’t know braiding someone’s hair was a courting tradition for the dwarves. It’s not your fault the dwarves don’t really share their culture to others. He agreed to braiding your hair anyway, whatever you don’t know won’t hurt you or anyone else.

Besides, it would seem like he was courting you by braiding your hair, but because you don’t understand what it actually meant for dwarves, it was a little fun braiding someone else’s hair that only wants you to braid it for no traditional reason.

“You are a human, therefore I am an ant compared to you. Go sit on the ground by that fireplace over there to make things easier for me, would you please?” He said and you chuckled, hopping off the rock and sitting on the ground, right by the fireplace, as you were told.

You stared at the fire and keenly listened to the sounds it would make while Kili took some time making sure your hair was neat. You can’t really remember how much time has passed, you were just interrupted during your thoughts when Kili suddenly spoke up again.

“It looks good to me, I hope you think the same, even if you can’t see it.” He said, backing up a little bit as you stood up. Even if his work looked horrible, you didn’t care, you just needed your hair out of the way while you sleep. You were satisfied enough.

You nodded in thanks. “Don’t worry about it, if it really does look bad, at least I won’t have it on for the rest of the journey. I’ll be letting my hair down tomorrow morning, anyway.”

A few days pass, and Kili took the pleasure in braiding your hair every night. You didn’t have to ask him to ahead of time, he would come up to you and ask if you still wanted your hair braided by him. Of course you accepted. You could not help but notice he always braided your hair whenever everyone else was asleep, but you never thought much of it.

Then one night, Kili fell asleep earlier than usual. A few of the other dwarves were awake, namely Gloin, who was the most energized out of all the awake dwarves, so you thought it wouldn’t be so bad to ask him to braid your hair for the night.

You approached him and he looked up at you. “Why, hello there, (Y/N). Is there anything you need?” He asked you.

“Not much, but would you mind braiding my hair for the night?�� You asked. All of the dwarves that were awake stared at you in shock. You frowned, not sure what that really meant. “It’s okay if you don’t know how to braid-”

“I am a married man with a son, lassie! You don’t go around asking any dwarf to braid your hair, especially if they are not interested in you!” Gloin said.

You were more confused. You weren’t interested in Gloin at all, why is braiding someone else’s hair considered taboo to the dwarves? Did it have a significant meaning?

“I braid my hair every night, to make my sleep easier, you know? Come on, you’ve seen me braid my hair before my arm got twisted. I’ve had someone braiding my hair for a while-”

But Gloin interrupted you. “And who would that be? I know you have a broken arm, but I always believed humans could still do many things with just one hand.”

“Kili.”

Bofur cackled. “Of course he has been. Why am I even surprised?”

Before you could question was Bofur was talking about, Gloin started talking again. “Obviously, you don’t know much of dwarvish culture. In fact, we much prefer you know nothing about it. But you need to understand why we some of us may find it offensive if you ask us.”

“Braiding someone’s hair is a part of courting tradition. Whenever someone asks you to braid their hair, it means you are interested in them and want to court them sometime. And if choose to braid your hair, then it means they accept to be with you.”

“There is a specific bead, that I know for sure Kili does not have with him, he has no reason to, that specific bead is used to ask someone to marry them. They ask the one they have been courting if they would let them braid their hair, and if that person accepts, the other person will pull out the special bead.”

“Every single dwarf knows what that means. If you are offered that special bead, they are asking you to marry them. You already know how it works by now, girl, if you accept, then they will braid your hair using that special bead.” Gloin finished.

“I can tell he braided your hair for fun, and if he had that bead Gloin just talked about, he would use it as well without you knowing what it truly meant.” Bofur said.

You could only nod your head at this. You didn’t know what to say, you still found it weird how braiding someone’s hair was enough to court someone for dwarves, but you were not one to question it out loud.

You needed to know why Kili agreed to braiding your hair the first time you asked him. Did he feel guilty and couldn’t say no? Or did he really want to court you? You couldn’t tell, he can be a complicated guy at times. You found him sitting alone one day, and you took that chance to ask him about it.

“Would you care to explain?” He turned around when he heard you and saw you walk towards him. “You braided my hair when it clearly meant something serious to dwarves like you.”

Kili only shrugged. “I saw no harm in doing it, you didn’t know what it meant and you truly needed someone to get your hair done, anyway.”

“Yes, but you should have still told me anyway.”

“Doesn’t matter. Unless what you feel for me is the same as what I feel for you, then it only matters, in the slightest.” He said grinning at you. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes, he was always so confident and straightforward.

“Now tell me how it matters, because I like you too. I thought it would be a good thing for you if I did feel the same way, so you can continue to braid my hair, even if you are not really supposed to. That is not to say I am complaining, I think you do hair quite nicely, if you ask me.”

Kili chuckled and pulled out the special bead Bofur and Gloin told you about. You involuntarily gasped, you honestly had no idea where he got that from. “I wonder if you know what this is?” He asked you. You nodded. “I am not asking you to marry me, that is a little early for that. However, I cannot deny this would look nice on your hair. I shall use this on you, despite its secret meaning, it is nothing to you humans” He said.

You sat down on the ground. “You know what to do.” Kili began to get a little nervous, though he would never admit that to you, because if you ever braid a dwarf’s hair horribly, they won’t like it and may possibly turn your proposal down. He reminded himself you were a human, it didn’t matter, but you were the first human, or non dwarf, that he has fallen in love with.

Many minutes have passed and he still hasn’t finished. You were beginning to get annoyed and impatient, you wondered what made him take so long. You understood doing hair can take long, and he wasn’t the fastest, but he was never this slow.

“What’s taking you so long?” You asked, clearly irritated.

Kili sighed. “Perfectionism runs strong in dwarves. I just told you braiding a dwarf’s hair with this type of bead is a proposal. If the hair looks bad afterwards, then they will turn you down.”

You smirked. “I thought it was too early for marriage, eh? If I recall correctly, you said that bead is nothing to us humans, you just wanted to see if it looks good on my hair.” He didn’t respond.

A few minutes later, he finally spoke up. “Done,” mumbled Kili, “I do hope you like my way of doing hair.” At this, you couldn’t help but laugh slightly.

“You have been doing my hair for a couple of weeks now, I supppose? I did like it the first time, you think I would suddenly hate your style all of a sudden? With this bead of yours, it does look much more better than usual.” You said.

Suddenly, Kili randomly leaned in and gave you a kiss, before quickly pulling away. It took you by surprise, it was random without warning. “Why did you do that?” You asked him, making him embarrassed, because he thought you meant why he randomly kissed you.

You really meant why did he pull away.

“I know I shouldn’t have-”

“No. I meant why did you pull away?” You said, interrupting him.

“Oh. Well-”

You interrupted him one more time by returning the kiss. It was as sweet and short as the kiss he just gave you.

“You should at least let me finish talking and not interrupting me every time.” Kili chuckled.

Taglist: @kata1803 @moony-artnstuff @aspiring-ginger

#the hobbit imagine #kili imagine #kili x reader

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moonlit-jeno · 4 years

Text

love sick

Chapter 7- Donghyuck

pairing: nct dream ‘00 line + reader

genre/warnings: angst, character death, mentions of blood/ vomit

words: 2k

summary:

Donghyuck tells himself that it’s the merciful thing to do.

masterlist | prev | next

When Donghyuck is six, Mark Lee is seven. It’s not a big difference, that one year, but it’s enough to give Mark that sense of superiority that the older kids always have. and Donghyuck had just wanted to play on the swings, had just wanted to touch the sky like he’d seen the other kids doing.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Donghyuck looks over his shoulder, the chains still bunched in his fists as he tries to figure out how to get onto the seat. The other kids can do it, so he can do it.

Donghyuck opens his mouth to answer, but the question’s rhetorical. “You’re not going on the swings, are you?”

He nods. The boys standing with Mark laugh, one of them falling to the floor in hysterics. Donghyuck’s eyes fill with tears, but his mom had told him to be strong so he refuses to let them fall. “Can you even reach the swing?” Mark grabs the piece of plastic, yanking it out of Donghyuck’s hands and lifting it out of reach. “Go on then, didn’t you say you wanted to swing?”

It’s cruel and obviously Donghyuck isn’t going to win, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He jumps with his face burning, reaching for the swing. The boys all laugh and Donghyuck feels the tears start to spill, frustration and embarrassment clawing at his insides.

“Aww, he’s crying? Look at this, he’s crying!” Mark laughs, throwing his head back.

“Give him the swing.” The voice comes from behind him and Donghyuck lifts his head and looks over, surprised to see a boy even smaller than him. He’s short and skinny with a weird hair cut, but his eyes are sharp and his hands are clenched into fists.

Mark looks at the new boy curiously. “Or what? I’m older than you, do you know what that means? I get to do whatever I want.”

The new boy just rolls his eyes, bending low to pick up a handful of woodchips. “No it doesn’t. It means that you’re going to give him the swing back.”

He pulls his arm back like he’s getting ready to throw the woodchips and Mark’s eyes widen. He lets go of the swing and runs away with his friends right behind him.

Donghyuck watches him run before turning to look at the boy. “Why’d you do that?”

“You looked scared.” The boy shrugs. The girl who’d been on the second swing gets off and renjun replaces her, plopping down on the seat easily and starting to pump his legs. Donghyuck watches in awe.

“What’s your name?” He should’ve asked earlier, and he knows his mom would be yelling at him for not having manners, but he’s forgetful.

The boy looks at him for a moment before extending his hand. “Renjun.”

It’s been twelve years since he first sat on the swings with Renjun, and he can still see that day as clear as if it happened yesterday. Donghyuck’s never had a great memory. That’s why he’d struggled with school, why his skin would be filled with marker scribbles reminding him to “grab groceries” or “tell Jeno happy birthday”. It’s not that he’s stupid, it’s just that there’s always so much going on, he can’t possibly be expected to remember that many things.

And in his 18 years of life, there are few memories that stand out as vividly as that one does. A dry sob leaves him when he realizes that that might be the only clear memory he’ll have left of his best friend. Well, the only good clear memory.

He takes a deep breath and looks over to where Renjun is sitting on the lawn of a house they’d haphazardly checked, staring blankly ahead of him. You and Jaemin are sitting at the kitchen table, pretending that you can’t hear Jeno in the bathroom where he’s crying so hard that he’s throwing up.

Donghyuck’s stomach is twisting so violently that he wishes he was throwing up, but all he can do is stand there numbly and think about the fact that he’s about to lose his best friend. He can’t even imagine what Renjun’s thinking as he sits there alone, picking at his ankle.

He’d never seen Renjun like this before, though he’s also never seen Renjun stare death in the eyes. The normally level headed boy had started screaming out of nowhere in the car, throwing himself against the door and yelling for you to get away from him. Donghyuck had thought that he was joking, but nothing any of them said had calmed him down.

“Fuck, what’s happening?” Jaemin asked, the car swerving as he turned around to see the commotion.

“You can’t- you can’t be around me!” Renjun was screaming, drawing into himself. “I’m a fucking zombie!”

And of course, none of them knew what was happening because Renjun was still Renjun, he wasn’t trying to rip their faces off. Donghyuck remembers the exact look of confusion he had exchanged with Jeno as he pulled you into his lap and away from the distressed boy. He remembers thinking that maybe everything was just registering now, that Renjun was having a delayed reaction. And then he saw the cut.

A small scratch, no longer than an inch, on renjun’s ankle. It looked like the type of cut Donghyuck sometimes got when he got careless and forgot to trim his nails for too long. Except, of course, for the way that the veins along his ankle were black. The limb seemed to be pulsing, too, throbbing in a way so unnatural it seemed fake.

You all saw it, except for Jaemin, who was driving maniacally, looking frantically from the road to Renjun as he tried to figure out what was happening.

“He grabbed my ankle.” Renjun explained later, once he’d calmed down. Jaemin had only driven for another 15 minutes before they’d found a house that seemed decently safe, tires squealing as he pulled into the driveway. “I was running from the greenhouse and he grabbed my ankle but- but I thought it was okay, I thought I got away. He must’ve- he must’ve broken the skin without me noticing.”

Renjun’s last sentence had ended with a sob and Donghyuck’s heart squeezed so tightly that he thought he was going to die right then. You’d all looked at each other helplessly, so clueless as you tried to figure out what to do.

“You have to shoot me.” Renjun had said, looking Donghyuck directly in the eyes. “You can’t let me turn into a zombie, please.”

Donghyuck had held his gaze, throat thick with tears, and nodded. Jaemin had been begging, pleading with Renjun as if Renjun was in control of anything, as if Jaemin saying “please, no” would cause Renjun to say “well, since you said please” and be fine.

“Can’t we just amputate it?” You’d asked, voice frantic. “Only the veins in your ankle are black, it might not have spread that far.”

“Yeah, but I also might turn into a zombie and kill all of you.” Renjun had shot back, shaking his head. “We can’t take that chance.”

It’s the merciful thing to do, Donghyuck tells himself. He doesn’t want Renjun to suffer. He most certainly can’t let him live as a zombie. But he also- how is he supposed to shoot his best friend?

That had been an hour ago, and Donghyuck doesn’t know how much time they have. He figures there can’t be much left. The gun is heavy in his hands, and he takes a couple of deep breaths before he turns to you and Jaemin. “Go tell Jeno I’m doing it.”

Donghyuck doesn’t wait for the others before walking outside, tears falling steadily down his cheeks. Renjun turns to face him and the sight he makes is heartbreaking. His knees are drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them. His face is pale and his eyes are puffy, cheeks stained with tears.

“Renjun,” He starts, pausing to collect himself when his voice breaks. “Renjun, I love you.”

The other boys shakes as a sob leaves him, nodding forcefully. “Love you, Hyuck.” A pause, a sniff, a laugh. “I’m glad I was the one to teach you how to swing.”

And that absolutely breaks him, knowing that that same memory he was just thinking about is also engraved in Renjun’s mind. “I hate you for making me do this.” He isn’t supposed to say that, but it slips out anyways.

Renjun manages a weak smile. “Take care of everyone, Hyuck. I’m ready.”

Donghyuck raises the gun as Renjun closes his eyes. He starts a mental countdown, breathing as best as he can through his runny nose. Renjun turns his head just as he’s about to shoot. “Hyuck? Everyone includes you, too.” Donghyuck doesn’t respond, just waits for Renjun to close his eyes again

He pulls the trigger.

Blood splatters all over the grass and there’s a moment where Renjun remains sitting. Donghyuck panics, wondering if his best friend has already turned, but then his body falls limp against the ground. Donghyuck stares at Renjun for a moment before spinning around and promptly puking all over the red stained grass.

You’re all crying when Donghyuck walks back into the house. Jeno has blood dripping from his knuckles, a few scratches on his forearms, and Donghyuck knows that he would find the mirror shattered into a thousand different pieces if he were to walk into the bathroom. There’s a towel blocking the little window, blocking the scene just outside the house, and he stares at the cloth blankly.

And Donghyuck feels the wetness of his face, he knows that he just killed his best friend, but at the same time, he doesn’t feel anything. He sets the gun down and it makes a hollow noise, but even that doesn’t feel real.

He registers you sobbing, babbling about how it’s your fault and that they shouldn’t have fought. Jaemin’s holding you tightly, jeno stroking your hair. and then all of the sudden he is feeling something, all of his hurt and guilt manifesting into something uglier.

“Do you ever do anything besides cry?” Donghyuck snaps. The three of you look up at him in confusion. “Jesus Christ y/n, you’re so fucking self important. I just shot my best friend in the whole wide world. I’m never going to get to see him again, because of you, and what’s the best that you can do? Sit here and pity yourself?”

He doesn’t recognize his voice, barely even hearing himself as he continues. “God, we should’ve never fucking stayed at your house in the first place. I wish we never fucking met you.”

Jaemin lets out a warning call of his name, Jeno shaking his head pointedly. He scoffs, turning his attention to the two boys. “What, you’re going to tell me that I’m wrong? What good has she done for us? Look at the two of you.” Donghyuck motions between them. “You’re best friends, practically soulmates, and what’s the first big fight you get into? You’re really going to argue over her?”

He steps up close to the table now, and you stare up at him silently, eyes swollen and glazed over with tears. “You really tried to play four separate guys, huh. And look what happened. Renjun’s dead because of you, you fucking whore.”

“That’s enough.” Jeno says, stepping up closer to Hyuck. his voice is level but his arms are crossed and even Jaemin’s glaring at him.

Donghyuck steps back, hands held up in surrender. “Hey, I’m just telling the truth. Even now she’s got you whipped, turning you against me.”

“No, Hyuck, you’re just being an asshole.” Jeno shoots back at the same time that Jaemin says “You should go lay down.”

He rolls his eyes, casting one long look at each of you before scoffing. “Fine, whatever. But she’s gonna lead us straight into hell, and you two are going to follow her blindly.” Donghyuck spins on his heel, not feeling better in the slightest as he leaves the room.

They don’t respond

#nct fic #nct dream fic #nct dream angst #nct angst #jaemin fic #jeno fic #donghyuck fic #haechan fic #renjun fic #renjun angst #jaemin angst #jeno angst #donghyuck angst #haechan angst #00 line fic #00 line angst

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imjustthemechanic · 3 years

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The Price of a Soul

Part 1/? - Agent Russel Part 2/? - The Letter Part 3/? - Miss Lake Part 4/? - The Stewardess Part 5/? - An Assassination Part 6/? - Fallout Part 7/? - Face to Face Part 8/? - Deals, Details, and Other Devils Part 9/? - Baggage Part 10/? - Private Funding Part 11/? - Just Passing Through Part 12/? - Party of Four Part 13/? - Resolute Part 14/? - The Wreck Part 15/? - Body Snatchers Part 16/? - Out of the Frying Pan Part 17/? - A Miracle Part 18/? - A Matter of Circumstance Part 19/? - Nome Part 20/? - The Future

Kay has big plans.

Peggy had expected them to immediately board another plane and head south again, but it seemed that the aircraft in question was held up in Portland by a terrible thunderstorm, forcing them to spend the night in Nome. There was only one place in town that could really be called a hotel, and it had only four rooms for let, which created something of a problem.

“Well,” said the proprietor, an aging white man with a steel-gray mustache. “Obviously the best room will be for the guest of honour.” He held out the key to Steve.

Steve held up his hands. “Uh, thanks, Mr. Stanley, but I couldn’t, not when we have ladies with us.” He nodded to Peggy and Kay.

“Oh,” said Peggy. “Well, no, Captain Rogers really is the guest of honour here, and he’s been unwell.” Peggy had certainly seen more soft beds in the past couple of years than Steve had, no matter how anyone defined it.

“Peg, I’m fine,” said Steve.

“And I’m not?” Peggy asked.

Kay cleared her throat. “I believe,” she said, “that the guest of honour here is the hero who’s bringing Captain America home – that would be Mr. Masters.” Her voice was dripping sarcasm, but she gestured to the man with a smile on her face.

Masters frowned at her suspiciously, but only for a moment. Then he stepped up to take the key. “Thank you, Mr. Stanley,” he said.

Peggy and Steve both looked at Kay, who shrugged. “If we had to stand here all night listening to you two say I couldn’t possibly, we’d never get any sleep,” she said.

With the best room claimed, Mr. Stanley gave a second key to Steve and a third to Peggy and Kay, and then offered the fourth and final one to Howard. “Sorry to the soldiers,” he added, “but I’m sure you fellows can figure something out.”

“Guess I’ll go sleep in the Skytrain again,” said Jason. He wasn’t angry or bitter, merely resigned, which Peggy thought was probably worse.

“Don’t be silly, we can share.” Howard clapped him on the shoulder and then approached the counter. “What’s there to drink in this place? I’m buying a round for everybody… Steve and Peg have a hell of a story to tell and we’re all gonna need to be fortified for it!” His glance at Peggy told her that he wanted to hear the tale and wouldn’t let her refuse, government secrets be damned.

Half an hour later found Peggy, Kay, Howard, Jason, and Steve all sitting around a table in the nameless hotel’s tiny common room, refilling glasses from a bottle of something Mr. Stanley had confided he distilled himself. It was pretty crude and burned the throat, and Peggy didn’t want to drink too much of it. Jason had nearly choked when he tried it, Steve looked disconcerted, and Howard blinked back tears, but Kay downed it like a shot of whiskey and held out her glass for more.

Peggy took the men through the story of what had happened after she and Kay flew away with the helicopter, and how they’d dragged Steve down to the boiler room to thaw him out. Although she wouldn’t have done so in front of Masters, Peggy confessed that he, herself, had believed Steve was dead, and it was Kay who’d insisted on keeping him intact.

“How did you know?” Howard asked her.

“I just… knew,” Kay replied with a shrug.

That was enough to tell Peggy not to go into the backstory before Kay herself was ready. “The rest, I suppose is, is fairly obvious,” she concluded. “The doctors poked and prodded at Steve to make sure he wasn’t going to drop dead on them, and Masters stopped worrying about arresting us because he was far too busy calling ahead to make sure everybody will give him the credit.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?” asked Jason, who knew what it was like to have other people claim responsibility for his work.

“I could not care less what Vernon Masters says or does, as long as he leaves me alone,” Peggy replied firmly, though it was an utter lie. Whatever the man had against her, she knew he wasn’t going to drop it just yet.

“What about you?” he asked Kay.

“I’m used to working behind the scenes,” she said. She poured the last of Mr. Stanley’s moonshine into her glass, then pushed the empty bottle away. “Anyway, that already happened, and is officially in the past. I’m worried about the future.”

Peggy leaned forward. “What about it?” she asked. Of course Kay had insisted Masters take the best bedroom, she realized… it was on the top floor, far away from anywhere he could hear this conversation from. “You said you had an extensive to-do list.”

“I do. I’ve checked two items off – Ste…” Kay caught herself. “Captain Rogers is back, and Zola is dead. That’s a good start. The next items are Sergeant Barnes and the Red Room. I want to do both at once, because I know how these people operate, and if I do one first, it’s gonna be much harder to come back and take care of the other.”

Almost unconsciously, everybody else huddled in closer, too. “Bucky is dead,” said Steve. “You said the Russians found his body.”

“I said they found him,” Kay said. “You assumed he was dead.”

Steve’s eyes widened, and Peggy had a sudden vision of him sitting in that half-destroyed tavern in France, trying desperately to get drunk off something that was probably no more than soda when compared to Mr. Stanley’s brew. For him that had been only a couple of weeks ago, and the guilt and grief were still fresh. To tell him he’d abandoned not a dead friend, but a live one… Peggy reached to put her hand over his.

“I lied when I told you they found in him the valley,” Kay went on. “HYDRA found him there. They recognized him as one of Zola’s experimental subjects, and were very interested in the fact that he’d survived the fall with only a few broken ribs and a shattered left shoulder, so they put him in suspended animation so they could keep working on him. Of course, only a few days later the Valkyrie crashed and Hitler shot himself like the sniveling coward he was, and the Russians moved in to search their bases and take anything useful. He was nobody to them, just a nameless POW, but his medical records interested them enough that they took him back with them.

“That’s where he is now,” she concluded. “They’ve been training him up and brainwashing him, trying to create the perfect assassin… something like me, but with less free will and higher necklines. They had to amputate his left arm, and eventually they hope captured HYDRA scientists, people like Zola, can build him a functional prosthesis.”

There was silence at the table. Kay smiled sadly at Steve.

“Don’t feel bad, Captain Rogers, you didn’t know. How could you have known? It’s only been three years. They’re not finished yet. It’ll be much easier to save him now that it would be later, when the only thing he’s known for decades is orders and violence.” She glanced at Peggy, and Peggy realized she was the only other person at the table who knew that Kay was speaking from terrible personal experience.

Steve swallowed hard. “How do you know any of this?” he asked. “I mean… why should I believe you?”

That made Peggy think twice, too… if she assumed Kay’s story of being from the SSR of the future was a lie, then how did she have this information? Either she was making it all up, or else she knew an awful lot about what was going on with both the USSR and possible HYDRA holdouts that may or may not exist. Was that awfully convenient, or just awfully suspicious?

Kay seemed to think for a moment. “Sergeant Barnes has a sister,” she said. “Rebecca. She’s the one who named him Bucky, because then their nicknames would match – Becky and Bucky.” She thought a little longer. “Before he was drafted he wanted to be a writer. His favourite book is A Princess of Mars but he’d read almost anything in that genre… not just Burroughs but Wells and Verne and Doyle. When you were twenty-one, some relative living in London sent you a copy of The Hobbit as a gift, and you read the first chapter and then immediately gave it to Barnes because you knew he’d like it.”

Steve stared at her, not knowing how to respond.

“I know that because you would have told it to me, in a future that won’t happen now,” said Kay, “and I know it won’t happen because you’re alive in 1948 and Zola isn’t.”

“Uh, I’m sorry,” said Jason, “are you trying to tell us you’re from the future?”

“That’s what she told me,” Peggy put in, “but I didn’t want to be the one who sounded like a lunatic by bringing it up.”

“I’m from a future, Dr. Wilkes,” said Kay. “It’s not the future anymore, and you wouldn’t want it to be, because it’s a future in which you got crushed to death during a demonstration in Baltimore in April of 1968.”

“If you’re a time traveler, how did you get here?” Howard wanted to know. “We worried that some of the stuff HYDRA was building was for altering time, but I did the math and it just doesn’t work. You’d need more energy than even the tesseract could give you.”

“I don’t know,” Kay told him. “I just woke up naked in an alley in San Francisco, and once I figured out I wasn’t dreaming I sat down and made a list of things that have to change. I need you guys to trust me, because I need your help changing them.”

A moment passed in which nobody spoke, and Peggy realized that everybody was looking at her, as if she were somehow the arbiter of truth and lies in this ridiculous situation. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know what to believe. It sounds absurd… but she did know about Steve. I can’t deny that.” How could she, when Steve was sitting right there at the table, in the flesh, as she’d never thought she would see him again.

That seemed to be enough for Steve himself. “Where is he?” he asked Kay.

“That’s the first problem,” she said. “I don’t know. Organizations like the Red Room don’t exactly keep meticulous records, and the details of their history weren’t part of the raise-a-spy curriculum. When they leave a place, they take everything they need and burn the rest.”

“Which is why you need Dottie!” Peggy realized.

“Exactly.” Kay nodded. “She at least knows where she was brought up and who did it, and that’s a start.”

“We haven’t had a whole lot of luck questioning her,” warned Peggy.

“We just have to figure out what she wants,” Kay said. “I’ve picked out a couple of her patterns… she’s collecting money, but also blackmail material on powerful people. I don’t know what she’s planning because in my future she obviously didn’t succeed. But I have a theory, and if I’m right, we’ll have leverage.”

“We’ll have to catch her first,” Peggy said, but for the first time in weeks, she felt as if there were some hope of that.

“What’s my future?” Howard wanted to know.

Kay cocked her head and bit her lip. “You and your wife die in a car accident just before Christmas in 1991.”

He was startled. “I’m going to get married?”

Kay rolled her eyes. “Peggy – you outlive two husbands and die in your bed at nearly a hundred years old, after saving the world over and over but never realizing the enemy you were fighting was within your own organization. Captain Rogers, they didn’t thaw you out until 2012, and then you had to realize that all this time…”

Steve winced and lowered his head. “All this time those people had Bucky.”

“Exactly,” Kay nodded, “but like I said, none of that’s going to happen now. The future is going to be better. I don’t know how I got here but I know I can do that, or at least try… some things I cannot change, but ‘til I try I’ll never know,” she added in a singsong.

There was another silence around the table. Steve cleared his throat.

“If what you said about Bucky is true, then I can’t just do nothing,” he said.

Peggy took his hand again. “We obviously have to try,” she agreed.

“You found Steve,” Howard said. “I owe you one for that.”

Jason hesitated, then appeared to make up his mind. “I’m in.”

Kay smiled. “I won’t thank you yet,” she told them, “but I’ll know when.”

Howard grinned and raised his glass. “To the future!” he said.

“The future!” They clinked their glasses together and downed the last of Mr. Stanley’s bootleg, and Peggy felt a little thrill of excitement in the pit of her stomach. Her work had long ago lost any of that, becoming just what she did with all its secrecy and all its dangers. But for some reason… this must be what Mr. Jarvis felt, when he described it as adventure.

#fanfic #captain america #agent carter #peggy carter #steve rogers #steggy #fix it fic

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alilweirddragon · 3 years

Text

You Will Be Found (Amphibia x Oc)

Chapter 1- Anne or Jean? All was quiet in the small town of Wartwood. It was early morning, and Flossie Harveston, an albino axolotl with red hair, sighed as she awaited her mother. Her mother Pebbles, a hard working Newt, was inside one of the shops selling her stock. The young axolotl groaned, leaning over the wagon sides as her snail, Boris, chewed at the grass. All of a sudden, her ears perked up when Wally Ribbiton, the towns local crazy frog, burst out of the bushes screaming. “Monster! Th-there’s a monster in the woods! I seen it! I seen it!” He shrieked. Flossie tilted her head in curiosity. “A monster?” She wondered. After Mayor Toadstool got the hysterical frog to calm down, Wally began to describe its appearance. “It was horrifying! It had a huge head, a weird, stubby bump right in the middle of its face and long spindly limbs!” Everyone gasped, while Flossie’s eyes widened in excitement. “A monster? Maybe I could hunt it! Then I will finally be liked!” She smirked to herself, getting ready to jump off the wagon. “Ehem.” Floss turned to her mother, who gave her a disapproving look. “Oh! Mum! H-how long have you been there?” She chuckled nervously. “Long enough.” Pebbs replied, placing the things she didn’t sell into the wagon. “And YOU, young lady, are not going monster hunting. Leave that to the townsfolk. We’re just here for our monthly visit.” She stated. Flossie huffed in defeat, sitting back down. “Now we best get home. We don’t want that monster to find us. Who knows what it can do.” With that, she ordered Boris forward. The snail let out a coo, before moving forward. Travelling through the woods, the two amphibians were mostly silent. Pebbs hummed to herself, and her daughter hung over the side of the wagon, observing the ground as it rolled by. Bored out of her mind, she almost missed the strange foot-prints in the ground. “Wait mum stop!” Pebbs pulled on the reins. “What is it?! Did we forget something?!” She turned around, only to find the Axolotl child gone. “Flossie? FLOSS?!” She shrieked. Flossie rushed through the woods, following the odd foot-prints. The axolotl paused by a tree, panting for breath. “Geez, I didn’t realise it’d be this far.” She muttered to herself. A loud groan sounded from up ahead. Floss held her breath. Stepping forward cautiously, she peeked out from over a log. A large, gangly creature with spindly arms sat a few feet away. Its back was to her, and all the young axolotl could see was the brown hair tied in a ponytail. She let out a quiet gasp. “The monster!” The “monster” spun around, having heard the axolotl. “Who’s there!?” It yelled. Flossie shrunk behind the log, covering her mouth with her hands. “Flossie, you idiot!” She hissed. Hearing a yelp of pain, she peeked back over the log. The monster was leaning against a tree, holding its leg. Its face was scrunched in pain as it searched the surrounding forest in fear for any sign of life. Flossie’s eyes widened when she noticed the blood covering the monsters hand. Leaning back on the log, Flossie’s brows furrowed. “What do I do? I could just kill it and be a hero. Maybe then the toads will stop bullying me. But…” peeking back over, she looked at the monster one last time. The beast that obviously wasn’t just a monster, but a living, feeling, and hurt creature. Flossie clenched her fists, determination and fear coursing through her. “Alright Flossie, you can do this! Or you could possibly die either one!” Stepping out from behind the log, Flossie, gave a little wave as the creature turned to face her. “Hi! I-i’m-“ She was abruptly cut off, ducking as the beast lifted a stick from the ground and threw it in her direction. “Stay away! You-weird-strange-lizard-thing!” It pointed accusingly at her, backing up. Unfortunately, it tripped over a tree root, falling over as it let out a loud “OOF!” Flossie gasped. “Oh my frog! I’m so sorry for scaring you!” She rushed over, extending a hand. “Here! Let me help you!” She smiled reassuringly. The creature looked up at her, allowing the girl to help her. Flossie grinned as she looked up at the creature now towering over her. “I’m Flossie Harveston! What’s your name?” The monster stared at her warily. “Jean. Jean Goodman.” She replied bluntly. Flossie jumped up and down on the spot. “Are you that monster Wally was talking about?! You…” she put a hand to her chin, seeming to realise something. “…kinda…look like his description, save for the huge head.” There was an awkward silence between the two. Jean glanced at Flossie’s belt. “You’re…not gonna attempt to kill me, are you?” She questioned suspiciously, pointing to the small dagger. The young axolotl shook her head. “Oh no! Of course not! This is just my harvesting dagger!” She stated, pulling the dagger from its sheath and waving it around, much to Jean’s discomfort. “It’s completely harmless!” At that, the amphibian accidentally dropped the knife. It dug into a log, cutting it open as dozens of bugs crawled out. “Ooh! Jackpot!” She squealed, picking up the bugs. Jean glanced down at her in disgust. “Ok…uh, do you know some caves nearby that I can stay in?” Flossie nodded eagerly, trying to hold as many bugs as she could as she pointed in another direction. “A couple of miles that way! Shouldn’t be hard to miss!” She said cheerily. Jean hummed in response, limping away. “Thanks kid.” Flossie watched her go, a look of concern covering her features. “So what happened to your leg?” She asked curiously. Jean stopped, remembering the incident. “Got attacked by this massive bug. Got me in the leg as I ran off. Cowardly, I know.” She muttered. Flossie was concerned. “No, it was a good thing! If it was a Mantis it would’ve eaten you alive! You need to get your wound checked. We don’t want it infected, in case we have to amputate it.” Jean shook her head in confusion. “We?” “Yeah! C’mon, I can take you back home! My mum might be able to help!” She cheered. Grabbing Jean’s hand, she led her through the woods. The tall girl pulled her hand from the axolotl’s grip. “Oh no, I’m not going with you. You’ll probably hand me over to be dissected or something.” Her eyes narrowed as she stared down at the amphibian. The said amphibian looked up at her with innocent, worried eyes. “Why would I hand you over to anyone? I can see you’re no monster. You’re just scared and lost! Here! If it makes you feel any better-“ the axolotl cleared her throat, placing a hand over her heart. “I swear by King Andrias that I will not hand you over to someone who can hurt you! There! Now do you trust me?” She grinned, holding out a hand. Jean hesitated for a moment, before gently taking her hand. “Alright…you better not go back on it.” She muttered, as she allowed Flossie to lead her through the woods towards her wagon. “FLOSSIE! COME BACK THIS INSTANT! FLOSSIE!” Pebbs stopped yelling for a moment, panting for breath. “Frog dangit Flossie-“ “Mum! There’s someone I want you to meet!” Pebbs turned to the voice. Flossie was walking out of the woods, helping a horrible beast over a log. “FLOSSIE! GET AWAY FROM THAT THING!” She screeched, reaching into the back and pulling out a cane. Flossie waved her hands around frantically. “Wait, no! Mum! She’s a friend! And she needs help!” She tried calming her mother down, gesturing to Jean’s leg. Pebbs stared down at the beast, but didn’t lower her cane. Flossie sighed. “Mum, she’s hurt and all alone. I couldn’t leave her out there! She’ll die if we don’t help her.” Pebbs frowned, lowering the cane to her side. “Floss, darl, you’ve only been gone ten minutes. You don’t know it. For all we know Wally could be right! It could be tricking you so it can eat us!” She said sternly, not taking her eyes away from the creature. Jean sighed. “That’s fine. I know when I’m not wanted. I’ll be on my way.” She muttered. She started walking away, as Flossie stared after her. Pebbs felt a pang of guilt as she watched the strange creature walking away. Glancing down at Flossie’s heart-broken expression, she sighed angrily to herself. “I’m gonna regret this, aren’t I?” She muttered. Jean was almost out of view when she heard a voice call out to her. Looking over her shoulder, she realised it was the Newt. “Do you need a place to stay?” She asked. Jean raised an eyebrow. Flossie was smiling widely, her eyes filled with happiness as she rushed over to Jean. “YOU GET TO COME WITH US! YES YES YES!” She squealed. Dragging poor Jean toward the wagon, the creature had no choice but climb into the wagon, a fair bit away from Pebbs and her cane. Jean held her knees to her chest as Floss jumped in her seat. “This is so exciting! Can I ask questions now? 21 questions! First off, what are you and where did you come from? We’ve never seen anything like you before!” Jean leaned away from the excited Axolotl. “Uh…well, I’m a human, and I’ve come from another world. Don’t know how, just woke up here.” She explained. Pebbs listened to the creature’s story, her face scrunched up in thought. Flossie gasped. “Another world?! Is there magic?!” She squeaked. As Jean was about to reply, the wagon stopped. “Well, we’re here. Welcome to the Harveston’s cabin.” Pebbs stated. The cabin stood in the middle of a small clearing. The amphibians hopped off the wagon, followed by Jean. “You can sleep in the spare room. It has a window and we can put a mattress down if you want.” Pebbs said, heading toward the small house. The human was surprised by the newts sudden change of attitude. It almost frightened her how barely ten minutes ago she wanted to hit her with a cane. Jean was now in the guest room of the Harveston’s home, looking around at her new surroundings. The room was small and mostly bare, with a mattress now taking up one of the corners. A desk sat near the window, while a wardrobe took up the left side of the room. Sighing, she took off her jacket. “Guess this is where I’ll be sleeping from now on.” She muttered. Hearing a knock at the door, she turned to find Flossie holding a book. “Haha, thought I’d give you one of my books to read, might learn about our world a bit better?” She asked shyly, holding out the book. Jean raised a brow, surprised. “Oh…thank you.” She answered, taking the book and reading the title, ‘Land of Amphibia: A Polliwog Guide’. A small smile made its way to her face. “That’s…very considerate of you.” Flossie beamed. “No problem, Jean! Well, goodnight!” She waved, making her way out the door. Watching her go, Jean’s smile never left her face. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a photo. It was of Anne Booncuy, Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu, her adopted siblings. Smile falling, Jean felt a lump form in her throat. “I’m gonna find you guys, if your ARE here….” She mumbled, sitting down on the mattress. A/N: first chapter? might redo it as i go. i’ll be writing most of the chapters before i eventually post them, so think of this as a preview?

#amphibia #fanfiction #fanfic #you will be found #chapter 1 #preview?#freshie txt #oc #amphibia x oc #jean goodmen #flossie harveston #pebbs harveston #amphibia fanfic #dont know what else to tag as #anne or beast?#anne or jean?

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jefferoni-quotes · 4 years

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