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drxwsyni · 3 years

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show me heaven, take me to hell︱okkotsu yuuta x f!reader

“Going so long ensuring that you wanted him and nobody else ended up having adverse effects, all this time spent putting you first had turned him selfish, and he didn’t quite care anymore. He needs you—all of you, anything less for any longer and he might just go mad.” a/n: this is my part for @seita’s corrupt-a-virgin collab! i was really excited to write a fic with this prompt, and this collab was super fun so pls go check out the other writers involved!!! words: 3.7k warnings: ALL CHARACTERS AGED UP 18+, noncon, somnophilia, virginity loss, rough-ish sex, oral (f. receiving), fingering, choking for a quick moment, creampie, a little praise, heavy stalking & obsessive behaviour, gen. yandere themes

Yuuta liked to think he had control over his emotions—but peering down at you, he knew that was far from the truth. How those emotions manifested was what he could control, because if it weren’t for the steely expression cemented into his face, he’d be sure you’d know of all the debased things running rampant throughout his mind.

And yet, he doesn’t fear the falter in his masquerade right now.

You’re fast asleep, none the wiser to the looming figure of your boyfriend, locked onto the way your chest slowly rises and falls in a rhythmic manner. How his eyes nearly gloss over as they travel down the curves of your body, half exposed as you’ve only pulled the sheets up to settle around your waist.

Yuuta reminds himself to breathe, exhaling a little too shakily, wondering to himself how he’s made it this far. He was a damn good actor, and he knows that fact currently stood as the only thing that’s gotten him to where he is today.

If he thinks back, it’s hard to even find one moment out of all the time he’s spent with you in which he’d shown you his genuine self. Hell, the very first time you spoke to him wasn’t even honest. He remembers asking you your name after introducing himself, lying through his teeth because he already knew what your name was. Yuuta knew what rank you were (well below his), your cursed technique (too weak to really protect yourself), how long you’d been working alongside Gojo (two weeks―starting the day after Yuuta had gone overseas). But he still asked, enamoured with the way you bashfully looked down at your feet when he praised you for being able to put up with the white haired sorcerer so far.

Another lie―how he claimed he’d love to team up with you and show you around, when it was just to keep you as far from any real danger as possible.

But you didn’t know that, going along with each and every falsehood that left his mouth. Lie after lie, he’d draw on the knowledge of you he’d spent months gathering, gradually molding his character into whichever form earned those soft little gifts of affection. Becoming the person you wanted, the person you needed, slowly until you recognized him as someone special. Yuuta did everything right—only to be completely overwhelmed now that he had you alone.

Because of course suppressing himself wouldn’t work out in the long run. Burying the desire that felt goddamn near insatiable, ignoring the feeling of it festering, growing into something ugly and uncontrollable—the kind of thing he saw in others, and exactly what he was trying to protect you from. But Yuuta wouldn’t let himself believe that what you really needed protecting from was him, even though standing over you now, proof of that reality was finally beginning to surface.

Just for a second, maybe not even that, it crossed his mind—just a taste couldn’t hurt, right?

The bound passion he could never let see the light of day unraveled in the dead of night. You were just so tempting, blissfully unaware of the danger towering over you, a vulnerability that tore away at the seams of his self control.

Yuuta felt the first thread snap, a barely there fracture to spur his irreversible descent into self-destruction.

Moving without really even thinking of any future consequences, long fingers that were calloused from battle and endless training reached to where the sheets atop you rested. White, silken and gleaming under the moonlight, he carefully, calculatedly pulled them down your body. Letting it pool at the foot of the bed, he slowly appraised your sleeping form.

An almost inaudible curse left him, whispered under his breath—he didn’t even notice the way your sleeping shorts were discarded onto the floor before peeling back the sheets, but he couldn’t miss it now. Maybe...you wanted him to find you like this?

No...he knew you weren’t that daring. The two of you might be dating, but all those past insistences of not wanting to move too fast, dancing around intimacy like it was the bane of all evil alone told him that this naivety was genuine.

There was that, and the fact that you were staying in his guest bedroom. Too shy to sleep in the same bed, how cute. He was all too understanding just a few hours ago, leaving you for the night and planning on retiring to his room. Only he was drawn right back to where you lay, realizing it was yet another subconscious lie to tell you he was fine with taking things slow, giving you your space.

He wasn’t even supposed to be in this room—there was absolutely no way you planned on Yuuta finding you like this.

A voice in the back of his head warns him, tugging at his subconscious to leave you be. Yuuta ignores it for the first time, crossing a new boundary, knowing that it won’t be the last.

You’re sprawled on your back with the hem of your oversized shirt riding up just a little.

A little too much, he thinks, eyes travelling lower and lower until they land on the lace trim of your panties. Thin, adorned with a small bow at the top. His fingers itch, wanting to feel the fabric for himself, likely soft in comparison to his rough hands.

Yuuta props one knee up onto the bed, the mattress sinking slightly with his weight. With one more glance, just to make completely sure you’re still fast asleep, he allows his fingers to trace up the inside of your leg. Gliding along your calf, then meeting the soft plush of your thigh. Your muscles don’t even twitch, unmoving as his hand gradually creeps higher, higher, higher.

All he needs is to be closer, something to tide him over until you’re willing to let him in. He wants to know just what it feels like to have you under him, little weaknesses you hold that nobody else knows of.

Just a taste, he reminds himself.

Yuuta peers down at you, relieved and on edge at the same time when the tips of his fingers brush against the cotton fabric of your panties. Ever so lightly, his ring finger dips lower, gently pressing against your clothed slit.

The heat between your thighs makes him shiver, warmth pulling him in impossibly closer. Your legs are spread just enough for Yuuta’s hand to fit perfectly in between them, almost invitingly so. He feels like all of his nerves are standing on end, vibrating as just the simplest touch has such a large effect on him.

It’s a familiar feeling, despite always looking at ease, he frequently had to mask these turbulent emotions inside him so that he didn’t scare you away, just as so many others did. This new sensation, not having to worry about constant control, it was unimaginably refreshing. He didn’t want it to end.

You don’t seem to be stirred in the slightest, which is good, because he’s not quite satisfied. The both of you did have a tiring day to be fair—now making you a heavy sleeper. Yuuta deems it a saving grace, curiosity unquelled in wanting to know how far he could push his luck.

That same singular finger travels along the dainty fabric, gently dragging up your folds until stopping at your clit. Experimentally pressing into it, Yuuta spots the way your brows just barely draw together for a moment. The sound of your breathing meets his ears, turned airy as your lips part when he begins rubbing back and forth, a light friction that makes your sensitive, untouched body react unconsciously as you continue to sleep.

Yuuta thinks for a second of how you touch yourself when you’re alone—if you do as he is now, teasing your clit, making you squirm at the light stimulation. You’re not waking up, but your body is still reactive even in this state. With how your panties hug the curves of your body, how he presses them into your heat, it’s not hard to see the small patch of your arousal already leaking through.

It’s cute, you’re so much more honest when you’re asleep.

An idea strikes him, coming more as an intrusive thought than anything helpful, but it’s dangerously enticing nonetheless—if he could make you cum without waking you up. Earn a glimpse of what he hoped you’d let him see eventually.

You look like you want it, chest rising and falling a little heavier, and when he pointedly nudges your clit with the smallest increase in force, your breath hitches.

It would be cruel to leave you like this—Yuuta isn’t a cruel man.

He’s doing this for you now, not himself. It’s repeated in his head, words reassuring as he slinks onto the bed. His grip is delicate, pushing your thighs apart a tad bit more, just enough to make room to lower himself between them.

Eye level with your heat, the scent of your arousal washes over him. He can’t help but place a few ghosted kisses on your inner thighs, a quick nip at the supple skin that leads to a trail of the same before his lips hover over the seat of your panties.

Through long lashes, he focuses on your face, almost shuddering with you as his tongue comes into contact with the patch of wetness, dampness growing as he licks a slow strip up over the cloth. Yuuta repeats the action—once, twice, three times, then loses count. His movements are slow, soft and steady, taking what he can get but soon becoming frustrated with the barrier in his way.

The hands placed on your thighs twitch, and it only seems logical that if he wants to finish what he started, he needs to make things a little easier for himself. An unnatural strength imbued with cursed energy flows through his palms. He’s eager, doing it without thinking, not realizing the force he puts behind his actions until the seams of your panties tear with almost no resistance.

Yuuta’s eyes widen slightly, because his plan was to merely push the fabric aside. But that problem can wait, especially when he can’t.

The offending fabric is casted aside, and Yuuta knows he wants to take his time. Testing the waters, his thumbs come up to spread apart your soaked folds, taking in the way your hole clenches around nothing as he gently blows cold air against it.

He’s not shocked to find your muscles twitching so easily now, reacting to every little thing he does. Not shocked, but it does make him greedy. It makes him want to abandon caution entirely. Taking his time turns out to be a lot easier said than done—when his tongue places a few kitten licks onto your clit, the near sinful whimper that escapes you has his lips latching on and sucking instead.

You’re always so quick to flee from him, Yuuta can barely get a lasting kiss in before you push him away. To hear that leave your mouth, intentional or not, it’s dangerous. He’s starved for intimacy, starting to lose sight on why he’s worked so hard to become close with you, drowning in the thoughts of why he instead wants to rip that safety he provides from you entirely just to see the things you keep hidden from him and everyone else.

There’s his own personal heat building, hips grinding into the mattress now and then to relieve the ache you don’t even know you’re causing in him so quickly. It doesn’t do much, if anything it only makes his resolve weaken, low groans making their way up his throat and sending soft vibrations onto your sensitive nub.

His tongue darts back out, flattening as your hips buck against his face, trying to gain more friction.

And all it tells him is that you want this—just as much as he does. You’ve never told him, but you don’t need to. Your body speaks for itself.

The wet muscle pushes past your entrance, Yuuta’s nose bumping your clit every time his head jerks when his tongue curls against your walls. From how your body tenses, the feeling unmistakable under his large hands, he can tell you’re getting close.

All the breathy sighs and whines leaving you, the overwhelming taste of you on his tongue and in his mouth, it clouds his judgment more and more as each second passes.

Yuuta forgets about the hard work he��s put in to keep you safe, to make sure you ended up choosing him over everyone else. You’re intoxicating, and he can’t get enough. There’s no such thing as just a taste, not when he’s stopped trying to hold back and instead starts trying to devour you.

You deserve more, he thinks, coating his ring finger with your slick, teasingly swirling it around your entrance before letting it sink into your heated pussy. It reaches far deeper than his tongue, and with a few thrusts, curling his finger inside you, Yuuta finds what he’s searching for as you tense hard around the slender digit. His mouth returns to your clit, sucking and flicking it with the tip of his tongue.

Yet no matter what he does, it’s still not enough. He wants to watch you finally fall apart, wants you to stop pushing him away.

And he realizes, it’s not a want, but a need. One that can’t be satisfied as easily as he thought when he first removed the sheets from your unsuspecting body. Going so long ensuring that you wanted him and nobody else ended up having adverse effects, all this time spent putting you first had turned him selfish, and he didn’t quite care anymore.

He needs you—all of you, anything less for any longer and he might just go mad.

Yuuta can’t think straight to save his life, he’s hooked on the way your body shakes beneath him, adding another finger pumping in and out of you, groaning against your clit as he desperately ruts against the bed.

You’re responding so well, it only confuses him more as to why you haven’t let him take care of you sooner, as clearly you needed him like this. He can practically hear his name fall from your lips, airy and begging him for more.

His eyes are screwed shut, and yours are open.

“Ahh—Yuuta...wh—ngh”

Those calloused fingers know just how to make you shake in pleasure, not relenting as you suddenly cum around them. He feels your swollen clit throb, over and over against his tongue.

When you start to convulse, near pained whimpers leaving you, he finally stops.

He’s frozen for a moment, your full awareness dawning on him.

A sheen of sweat clings to you, chest heaving, heartbeat going a mile a minute and hammering against your ribcage. You were falling back down from the high that made you see stars, the closer to reality you got, the more you understood what had happened.

The fear would hit you first, and it’d be fast—you’d scream, fight, try to leave him.

Yuuta knew this, he knew you, and so he moved faster.

Before you could make another sound, panic rising in your throat, a firm hand clamps over your mouth.

And god, you look fucking terrified. Both hands flying up to push him away, nails biting into his wrist while tears begin to well in your eyes. Irises swirling with fear, confusion, betrayal.

It should make him feel guilty, it does—but it’s not enough to stop him from wanting to make it worse.

His palm stays cemented over your mouth, muffling your cries. “Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

It’s not, all your squirming does is grind against his aching cock. And he’s so far gone that he might as well go further—he doesn’t even try to stop you. The hand over your mouth pins you down well enough, your body so much weaker compared to his.

“M’sorry, just—fuck…”

You’re not calming down, struggling harder with each second that goes by while Yuuta fights to hold you still.

“It’s alright, baby, you’re okay.” With everything running through his mind, the only thing consistent and true is that he has to be inside you.

His free hand grips the waistband of his sweats and boxers, hastily pulling them both down at the same time. He hisses when the cold air of the room meets his cock, slapping against his abdomen. He’s already in between your legs, and you’re still trying to get away, hips lifting off the sheets as your legs helplessly kick. Your movements are uncalculated, frantic—it’s an accident when his cock brushes against your heat.

You squeal at the contact, but there’s nothing you can do to stop him from rutting against you, length sliding between your folds and coating him in your slick. A slight shudder runs through you as the tip of his cock catches on your puffy clit, repeatedly nudging it with each thrust.

It’s not enough. Not before, not now, he can’t seem to satisfy whatever want inside him has broken loose, and you’re forced to deal with it all because he couldn’t keep himself in check.

“Just relax, okay? Gonna make you feel good...promise you—”

Yuuta practically chokes on his words, lining himself up with your entrance, unable to stop his hips from pushing himself inside you all in one go. Blood rushing behind his ears drowns out the sound of your whimpers, lost in the way you keep sucking him back in when he goes to pull out. So goddamn tight—Yuuta’s glad he’s made sure he was the first to get to you, despite the circumstances.

He’s a mess, you’re a mess, it’s sloppy and it’s perfect, because the quick back and forth of his hips goes so deep that he’s grinding against your clit with each thrust. Your whines are in tandem with his movements, pain mixing with the building warmth spreading throughout you.

The body draped over yours is so much larger, broad shoulders blocking out the moonlight as Yuuta keeps himself propped up above you with a hand beside your head. The one over your mouth disappears, lightly wrapping around your throat for better purchase instead.

It’s too easy to lose himself now, letting his guard down—and you jump at the chance.

There’s a shove to his chest, and then he’s being kicked down the bed. The door is on the adjacent side of the room and so to make quick time you scramble across the bed sheets. Of course, a hand too cold clamps around your ankle, and it feels like he’s about to crush the bone beneath when Yuuta drags you back.

All your pleas go ignored, and he’s suffocating as your body is pinned against the bed by his own.

A lanky yet toned arm snakes around your waist, lifting your hips to meet his. “Just a bit—” there’s a pause, groaning as he drives his cock right back into your pussy, “—bit longer…”

Yuuta hasn’t completely forgotten why he decided to take things this far, his free hand reaching down to toy with your clit. With the new angle, his cockhead hits that soft, spongy patch that has your walls fluttering around his length.

Your fighting spirit diminishes more and more, not much strength to begin with in how you were woken up, only worsened by the way the coil in your stomach keeps tightening. When you go to shove the arm wrapped around your body, it’s not genuine, not completely at least. You’re overwhelmed just as much as him, and letting it happen doesn’t seem all that bad.

Slick is dripping down your thighs, the sounds of skin slapping against skin echoing throughout the room alongside his grunts and your airy moans.

There’s a shake in your body, legs unable to keep themselves up as your voice breaks through the noise. “Yuuta...p-please…”

It doesn’t matter what it is you’re begging for exactly, but he tries to console you anyways. “I’m right here, baby. Just let go for me…”

The pads of his fingers press harder circles around your clit as the cant of his hips picks up.

You’re reaching your end, unmistakable in the way you tighten around his length, your muscles contracting and releasing. Yuuta is right behind you, thrusts growing erratic, barely pulling halfway out before sinking in again.

“Ah—that’s it, cum for me, good girl—”

There’s a moment where you go quiet, body locking up and mouth opening into a silent scream. It’s enough to have Yuuta’s body reacting much the same, a harsh ‘fuck’ leaving his lips before painting your walls white. There’s no thought to pull out, just that he wants to relax with you in his arms.

You’re trembling, aftershocks washing over you in waves, especially when he slowly drags his cock out and past your g-spot before leaving you empty.

Yuuta finally releases you from his hold, watching as you slump pitifully into the mattress. There’s a trail of his cum leaking down your slit, a little pool of it forming on the sheets. You look absolutely ruined, face turned and smushed against the bed—he can see the tears heavily wetting your cheeks, mouth agape as your chest heaves.

And he just...stares. Somewhat out of breath himself, hunched over, unmoving otherwise while realization crashes down on him.

You’d never forgive him, you’ll leave the second you get the chance. What Yuuta’s done to you is irreversible.

...As far as you know.

It’s always been like this, he thinks. Yuuta keeps you endlessly in the dark, meticulous pre-planning to make sure you’re protected always. And so he steps away, tucks himself back into his boxers, pulling up his sweats and grabs his phone. It looks like you’ve pretty much fallen asleep, which makes his job easier.

Plan A through Z, Yuuta has something to fall back on no matter what.

The screen illuminates his face, fingers swiping until Inumaki’s contact shines back at him. The cursed speech user owes him a favour, and there’s no time more perfect in Yuuta’s mind than now to cash it in.

A deep sigh from him sounds throughout the room—you won’t remember this happened, none of it. Yuuta will clean you up before Inumaki arrives, use reverse cursed technique to handle any wounds you may have, and then he’ll have his friend make you forget anything past going to bed.

While he still wants to keep you safe, keep you pure—it’s no longer for the same reasons.

Darkened eyes land on your weakened form, and Yuuta knows this won’t be enough for him. You’ll push him away, he’ll get impatient...the rest is predictable, to say the least.

His message sends, phone turning black.

Somehow, he’ll need to find a way to earn more favours.

#yandere jujutsu kaisen #yandere yuuta #yandere yuta #jujutsu kaisen smut #yuuta smut #jujutsu kaisen x reader #tw noncon #tw somnophilia #tw choking #tw stalking #tw virginity loss

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shreddedparchment · 3 years

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A Wife for Thor Pt.18

Annulment

03/06/2021

Pairing: King!Thor x Reader Word Count: 6,291

Warnings: angst, pregnancy, broken marriages, depression, abandonment, little bits of fluff, supportive Loki

A/N: After I finished the last chapter, I went right to work on this one because the mood was good and I’ve been wanting to get these chapters out since the very beginning. These are the moments that drive me to write fics. The point of contention when everything gets messy. I hope you enjoy it, thank you so much for your comments and reblogs. Since I posted this one so quickly after the one before I will be replying to the comments on this one instead of the one before. I hope you can forgive me! <3 Thanks for reblogging if you do, it seriously helps SO much. xoxo

If you were ever in question as to whether you had a fight or flight instinct when faced with stressful situations, you now know that your instinct is to freeze.

You’re immobilized by the terror that’s tearing through you. Nothing feels real at this moment when your whole world has suddenly come crashing down.

Only seconds have passed but you quickly push your meltdown as deep within you as you can.

One hand placed on your belly in an absentminded caress of the baby growing inside, you reach for the door to go in and tell Thor you’re pregnant. It doesn’t matter that Jane is pregnant too.

You’re his wife. This little one inside you is the heir to the New Asgardian throne. And yet, your mind starts to add up the time that Jane might have become pregnant and her baby would come first.

Her child would be heir, not yours. Legitimate or not. These days, that stands for nothing.

So, despite knowing that you’ll have to deal with Jane for the rest of your life as she is the mother of your husband’s first child, it’s really not all that bad.

He loves you.

Thor loves you.

While you process this sudden revelation, the conversation on the other side of the door continues not waiting for you to come to get a grip.

“Are you certain?”

“Do you doubt her?” Thor demands, sounding frustrated and stressed.

“Yes,” Loki says passionately, “I would doubt anyone that I have not seen in several months.

“What reason would she have to lie?” Thor begs, genuinely looking for an excuse that will make this untrue. “She has never wanted the responsibility of the throne. She has always spoken of having children as a distant possibility. Not an assurance. The last thing Jane would want is a baby.”

“When did you even have the opportunity to bed her? Did you secretly make her your mistress?”

“No!” Thor gasps, as if the idea of cheating on you is ridiculous. “No, I-it was the day I went to end things with her when Y/N accepted my proposal.”

“So, you slept with Jane and then came back home and bedded your new fiance on the same day?”

“I’m not proud of that fact,” Thor admits.

“Regardless, even if you did sleep with her, you need to have her examined, Thor. You cannot take her on her word, not with so much on the line.”

“Fine,” Thor agrees, “But I’m certain that she isn’t lying. She’s been tired and sluggish since she arrived, her appetite strange, and this past week she’s been sick at every meeting, unable to hold down any of her lunch.”

A deep sigh from Loki tells you he’s resigned to Thor’s judgement. Jane is pregnant.

“What will you do?” Loki asks.

The quiet tone of their voices more dire than the passionate denial Thor’s voice had been just a moment ago.

You should go in now. You’ll tell him that you don’t care that Jane is pregnant. You’ll support him and assure him that if he wants them to move into the palace or maybe one of the houses on the palace grounds, you won’t mind! In fact, it will be better so that your babies can grow together as true siblings.

“Y/N is not pregnant yet,” Thor says slowly, his voice calculating.

He’s thinking hard.

“What is your point, brother?” Loki demands, sounding defensive.

“If-” Thor breathes in deep, but when he speaks, the words tumble out sure and decided. “If I am to do right by Jane’s and my child, if I am to legitimize my heir, I’ll-”

He hesitates, your heart thrumming so fast and hard that you can hear it’s beat in your ears as your brain throbs.

“I’ll get an annulment. The basis of which will be that Y/N has been unable to provide me with an heir. I’ll get sworn statements from her doctors that our-our bodies are not compatible and since Jane is already pregnant-”

You take a step as if to run but freeze because you know you can’t do this. No. You can’t face this. Not here. Not this close to him and her and all of this stupid royal bullshit that you never asked for but got anyway.

As you fracture from the inside, you paint a calm smile on your face and while you pull it off, you can’t disguise the exhaustion that pokes through. You take several feet back from the door, giving yourself a good length of hallway to walk.

You straighten up, stand as tall as you can, and move towards the parted door, “Thor?”

There’s a rush of movement from inside as you reach the war room and you try to keep your hand from trembling as you reach down and pull the door open.

Inside, Loki stands ramrod straight, hands behind his back and his face carefully devoid of any kind of expression other than his normal neutral.

Thor turns away from his desk, forcing a smile for you until he sees your face and his own falls quickly.

You know he doesn’t think you overheard him because you’d given yourself plenty of distance so that he and Loki could stop talking before you were close enough to hear anything.

But he knows something is wrong and he moves towards you, right hand extended to take hold of your arm.

Trying not to make it obvious, you meander towards one of the tall wooden chairs by the war table and sit down before Thor can touch you.

“What is it, cherub? Are you ill?” Thor wonders, moving towards you.

Feigning interest in the small models of the outposts that the Warriors Three occupy across the planet, you get up and move away from him again as you lean down to look at the one in the United States.

“I’m-to be honest, I am feeling a little under the weather,” you nod, sighing as you give him a quick pained smile.

You clear your throat, hoping that it sounds like you’ve got a tickle.

“I’ll send for the doctor,” Thor moves towards the cord by the door but you stand up straight quickly and shake your head.

“No, Thor, don’t. I think maybe I just need some rest?” you nod, smiling at him again but it still just looks painful. “I came to ask you if it would be okay for me to go stay at my house for a little while? Maybe a week or so? Just so that I can get some proper sleep and-and maybe find out if it’s really me getting sick or I’m just stressed out about this park project?”

“I thought the park was almost done?” Loki checks.

“And it is,” you nod at him. “But we’ve had so much trouble with the import of several of the plants that I’d wanted to have in the wildflower corner of the park and the fountains are still giving us trouble so, I-I just need a few days to get away from it.”

You turn back to Thor who isn’t looking at you anymore but has his hand pressed to his mouth as he loses himself in thought.

As you watch him contemplate and weigh his options, wondering if he should seize this very convenient opportunity you’ve intentionally given him to make up his mind on what to do about Jane and her baby, you very nearly break.

Your lip quivers and in your desire to hide it, you move back towards the door and feign a quick peek out as if looking for someone.

“Thor?” you prod, getting a hold of yourself and turn to fix him with your expectant gaze. “Is that okay? Can I take a few days to just rest up?”

He snaps out of his thoughts and his face softens. You see the Thor who’d just had you perched on his lap, arm around your waist.

“Of course, cherub, if you need some time then you should take it.”

The sadness that fills you is urged on by the knowledge that before Jane’s pregnancy was revealed, Thor would have insisted he come with you.

There is no way that he would have let you go off on your own.

As he moves towards you, this time you make sure not to budge as he places his hands gently on your arms.

He cups the left side of your face, stroking your cheek with his large thumb before he makes to lean in towards you.

Instead of pulling away or making it look too obvious, you press your face in against his chest and he strokes your back as you successfully juke his kiss.

“No, don’t kiss me. I-I threw up and I haven’t brushed my teeth,” you pretend to fuss.

“You know I don’t care, cherub,” Thor nudges you back a little.

“Well, I do.”

You shake your head at him, delving deep into your soul to scrounge up whatever pieces of it you can find and give him a small pout instead.

“Alright,” Thor gives in, but he still leans down and presses his lips to your cheek and then your forehead before you’re pulling away from him to edge towards the door.

“I should go if I want to catch the next flight out,” you tell him.

“Y/N,” he calls and you stop by the door to look back at him, wishing he’d just let you go so that you can fall apart alone and away from all the eyes of the palace.

Thor clenches his hand into a tight fist, gently tapping it against the war table as you wait.

“I love you.”

You blink, give him a quick forced smile, and sigh because despite the heartache you’re drowning in, “I love you too, Thor. So much.”

As you walk away, you know that nothing will ever be the same. In a week’s time, you might not even be Queen anymore. Wouldn’t that be something?

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re given a bodyguard. Well, more like a friend who can kick serious ass. Hilde was happy to volunteer.

“Something’s up,” she observes as she escorts you into the airport gate.

Normally you’d have set up for a private plane, or Thor would have.

But he has other things on his mind.

“What do you mean?” you ask her, clearing your throat again for the fifth time since you left the palace in order to uphold the pretense of feeling sick.

“Your face is all wrong, you’re not saying something.”

“I have nothing to hide, Hilde. I’m just tired. I feel weak and beaten. I feel like I can’t catch my breath. Like I’ll crack if I’m not careful enough to hold myself together.”

All of this is true. You do feel like you’re about to crumble to pieces. Nothing you just said is a lie. You’re not hiding anything, just waiting. In a week’s time, you’ll know where you stand. And then you can tell Hilde everything.

“How long have you felt this way?” Hilde wonders, real concern painting her tone.

“Not long,” you tell her. “It just started today, actually. About two hours ago?”

“There’s something more,” she refuses to believe that you’re only sick. “It’s like you’re running from something.”

“What would I be running from, Hilde? My luxurious and comfortable life? My loving husband? My sweet and loyal people? My life is perfect. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.

“I have a family. The only thing I’ve ever wanted. Why would I run from that? Unless of course, I’m being kicked out?”

Hilde fixes you with a look of complete confusion.

As you hand over your ticket to the man at the gate, you force a smile on your friend.

“If I were being kicked out, I’d run before they could get the chance to give me the boot. Then at least it was my choice and not someone forcing me to go away.”

“Why would anyone kick you out? It’s not possible, Your Majesty. You are Queen of New Asgard. Or did you forget?”

“I don’t think it’s possible for me to ever forget my time as Queen. I think I’ll remember it until the day I die.”

Hilde takes your arm, turning you to face her with subtle force, “Oi, what aren’t you telling me?”

You swallow hard, pushing your sorrow down until you can ignore it a little better.

“I’m-I’m not hiding anything, seriously. I’m just tired, Hilde. Being Queen is harder than I ever thought it could be and even though I love being married to Thor, the stresses of doing my job as Queen have reached a point where it’s boiling over.

“I just need a break...from everyone, Hilde. Even you.”

“What did I do?!” she demands, offended.

“Nothing. You’ve been one of the good parts of being Queen, but I just need a little break from Asgard as a whole. I spent my entire childhood and teenage years alone with no one to rely on me but me.

“I just need to be alone for a bit. One week. That’s all I want. So...I know that Thor won’t be happy about it but now that you’ve seen me onto the plane-”

“I am not leaving you alone,” Hilde frowns, almost angry at you for even asking.

“David is meeting me when the plane lands and then driving me home himself. I’ll be fine being alone for just the flight,” it’s a plea as much as it is a reassurance. “Please, Hilde. Please? Please?”

The higher your pitch gets, the more she breaks, turning sympathetic.

“Please, Hilde? Please?”

She growls and rolls her eyes, holding out your carryon bag--a large brown duffel bag stuffed with clothes--so that you can take it.

“Thor is going to be pissed at me,” she grumbles. “And it’s all your fault.”

You take your bag, hang it on your shoulder, and quickly pull her in to kiss her cheek.

“Thank you, Hilde. I’ll text you as soon as I land. I promise.”

“You’d better, or I’ll come find you and stick at your side like paste.”

A stewardess comes out to peek down at you and you hurry off before Hilde can change her mind.

In no time at all, you’re in your seat, the plane up and the air, and New Asgard--Thor and his annulment of your marriage--is fading fast behind you.

When you land, no one is there to meet you.

A necessary lie. You'll have to call David in the morning and let him know what's happening. He's your lawyer and if Thor goes through with his plan, you'll need to be legally ready.

You're hit with a stab of hurt that your previously loving marriage has taken such a shift.

Still, you feel bad for lying to Hilde, but when you’d said you needed your alone time, you’d meant it.

You rent a car with your own money, ignoring the shiny black credit card that Thor had given you during your honeymoon shopping trip. The last thing you need is them tracing your movements when you just want to be left alone.

The drive home is lengthy but the peace it brings you is welcome.

Four hours of no one but yourself, the music on your radio, and endless grassy hills and small town charms streaking past your windows like long lost friends.

After an hour of driving you stop at a roadside diner. You buy a bag full of fries, smear them in lines of ketchup, grab a lemonade to go, and text Hilde that you’re with David and on your way home.

After another hour, you stop again. This time at a decently sized convenience store, newly built. It's a truck stop really and you take the chance to use the bathroom then loiter by your car as you tap the screen of your phone with your thumb, waking it up over and over again. Unable to make up your mind.

Your wallpaper taunts you. A picture of you sitting between Thor’s legs on your massive bed, his arms wrapped around you as your left hand is placed to his cheek as he kisses yours, your other arm extended as you take the picture.

It’s difficult to find the courage to unlock your phone, scroll through your contacts, and press the little phone to dial Thor.

He doesn’t pick up right away.

Sadly your marriage already feels like a past life. It feels dead. Like a good dream you’ve woken up from and you just know if you try and go back to sleep to keep it going, it’ll only turn into a nightmare.

The phone rings and rings. It goes to voicemail.

It hurts. So much more than you expected it to hurt and your tears overflow leaving salty trails along your cheeks as you hiccup and try not to sob out loud.

You lean and cry against your car for the longest two minutes of your life before your phone is ringing and vibrating in your hand.

It’s Thor, and for a second, you consider not answering. You consider disappearing. Just fading into the wilderness. Abandoning your car right here. Never making it to your little house. It's so tempting in the moment to give up your throne, which will soon be taken away from you, and start your life again.

How long would they look for you? Would they eventually assume you're dead?

Still, you know that Dr. Wilson and Dr. Alric would spill the beans and if Thor knew...

You press your free hand to your stomach and know that you can’t just vanish. This life will follow you wherever you go and as painful as it is, you’re not sorry for the baby you’ve made.

You swallow your sobbing and with all of the other things you’re not allowed to feel right now or you’ll give yourself away, bury it deep down inside.

Gliding your finger across the screen, you answer the phone and press it to your ear.

“My love,” Thor gasps, sounding stressed or tired? Labored breathing.

Your mind goes to dark places and you chase away the nasty images your mind thinks up before you can let them hurt you more.

How can he still call me that?!

“I’m sorry I didn’t answer. Forgive me. I'd left my phone on my desk and I had my hands full of books.”

Your mouth won’t open. It won’t speak.

You realize all of a sudden that you don’t want to talk to Thor. You’re so angry at him. You’re hurt and betrayed and everything he’s ever told you is a lie.

“Y/N?” he sounds so confused.

“I’m here,” you manage.

“How are you feeling, cherub?”

Stop calling me that!

“I’m not great,” you sigh, sagging against the car. “I just wanted to call you to tell you that I’m with David and we’re on our way to my house. We stopped at the store to go to the bathroom, so I thought I’d call you.”

“Wait, David? Why is David with you? Where is Brunnhilde?” Thor asks, his heavy breathing still loud.

“I asked her to stay behind,” you explain. “Look, Thor I don’t really feel well enough for talking. I just didn’t want you to worry. I promised I’d call.”

“Why would she let you go alone?” Thor demands, shouting into whatever room he’s in. “Loki! Where is Brunnhilde? Get her up here!”

“I have to go, Thor. David’s waiting. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Wait. Don’t hang up yet, cherub. Do you have a doctor to see you close to home?” Thor frets, and you can’t stand it.

“I’m coming, David!” you pretend to call, the convenience store clerk currently throwing the trash looks at you then turns his head back and forth as if searching for who you might be talking to. “Bye, Thor.”

“No, wait, love. Don’t hang-”

His voice is cut off and yet his deep tone still rings in your ears as if he were standing right beside you.

Your heart cries out for him. You wish he was there with you but then your brain reminds you that your time with Thor is already over.

The clerk is still looking at you and you give him a quick shake of your head.

“Sorry,” you start. “Bad breakup.”

He nods sympathetically as you get back in your care then gives you a wave as you drive off, setting back off into the night.

You’re not driving twenty minutes before your phone dings. A text.

Then again. And again. And again. Too many texts come through and you can’t stand it.

You reach over and completely shut it off.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s midnight when you finally get up from bed.

There’s no escaping Thor even here in your own home. Your honeymoon memories are everywhere here.

The bed. The shower. The closet--Thor was eager one morning. The kitchen. The backyard. Every room has a memory. Not all of them sex, but all of them just as poignant and meaningful.

Or so you’d thought.

You wander down the hall to your kitchen, flipping the switch as you enter and make a beeline for the vintage fridge.

“Shit-” you sigh, not even opening it as you remember that there will be no food until you go shopping for some.

You take a peek, just to confirm, and all that's inside is a half empty jar of pickles on the door.

Irritated, you move towards the pantry and grab the first box of cereal you see, pop it open and plunge your hand inside.

You scoop a bit into your mouth but just as you begin to crunch, your mouth falters at the sight of Loki sitting on one of your island stools where he clearly wasn't before, a gentle smile to compliment the knowing sharpness in his eyes.

“You heard us, didn’t you?”

You try not to react to his question, because it’s not a question. Just confirmation of what he clearly already guessed.

“You’re not really here, are you?” You finish chewing, taking more cereal into your mouth after you swallow.

You’re starving. You should have bought some burgers at that diner to reheat and eat tonight and tomorrow.

“No,” Loki confirms. “I'm...checking in. Thor doesn’t know. He’s pretty oblivious, actually. Other things on his mind.”

“Like pregnant ex-girlfriends whose baby will have a stronger claim over the Asgardian throne than mine?”

There’s a bitterness in your voice but you don’t feel sorry for it. You’re not going to hide how hurt you are.

Loki’s face finally breaks as he realizes what you mean. He gives you a small startled blink before he’s got control of his expression again.

“Don’t tell him, Loki.”

“He deserves to know.”

“Does he?” you demand, voice rising in your anger. “And I don’t deserve to know about Jane being pregnant?”

“He would have told you,” Loki assures you.

“When?” You demand, eyes stinging. “When he needed my signature on the annulment papers?”

“He’s not decided on anything yet.”

“Oh, my god! As if that even fucking matters!” you get up, throwing the box of cereal into the garbage.

They’re stale.

“The point is he thinks it’s a good idea. I married him. I thought he welcomed me into his family. I thought I belonged with him, and you and Hilde and Heimdall, but I’m just some fucking guest after all, aren’t I?”

“You’re overreacting,” Loki chastises you.

You pick up a nearby mug and chuck it at him. It goes through him and breaks against the wall behind him.

“Don’t tell me that I’m overreacting when my husband is thinking about legally erasing all traces of our marriage!

"I trusted him," you reach up and jab at your own chest somewhat painfully.

"I thought what we had was worth keeping and protecting. I was already making plans to move Jane and her baby into the palace so that our kids could grow up together, as a family but he doesn’t want that.

“He doesn’t want me in his life if he’s already got another heir lined up so why should I tell him? If he doesn’t want me without this baby then he has no right wanting me with it!”

Loki lets you shout, he lets you break down. He doesn’t judge you for it either, but he reads into it. Too much, and you hate him for it.

You don't want to be reasonable. This doesn't feel like the time for reason. You're shattered.

“He loves you, Y/N. His choice is made-”

“For the child, yes. I get that. That doesn’t make it hurt any less. And maybe I shouldn’t be angry for him doing right by his baby when I’m carrying one of my own, but I am angry. It hurts to know that in moments he was able to make the choice to end our marriage.

“He’s my husband and I am his wife. Does that seriously mean nothing?”

Loki shakes his head, “I’ve already told you that he hasn’t decided anything, yet.”

“You don’t get it, and I don’t know that you can understand what even considering the option of annulment means for us as a couple.”

Loki sighs, “I want you to listen to me very clearly, Y/N. I say this with as much love as a brother can feel for his sister. You need to understand and you need to accept that you and Thor are not a normal couple. Thor is, first and foremost, a king.

“He is beholden to his people and he needs to ensure our position on this planet because we don’t have a home anymore. We are refugees and this is our home now. It is Thor’s job to protect that on behalf of all of us by any means necessary. Choices like these are the reason that my brother resisted the throne for so long.

“As a King, all of the love in the world cannot keep him from making the choices that will benefit our people, even if the choice should hurt him in the process.”

You’re shaking with tears as Loki speaks, shaking your head as you press your hand against your tummy. Your thoughts are full of the baby growing within you and the helpless feeling that presses down on you.

“That’s why this baby changes things, Y/N. You must tell him that you’re pregnant if you are going to keep him for yourself. If you want your marriage to survive this, you can’t keep this from him.”

Shaking your head, you turn away from him to fill a small glass with water and take a small drink.

Yes, you need to tell Thor that you’re pregnant. As wounded as your pride is, you can’t keep him in the dark forever.

“My Queen?” Loki urges you, calling you by your title probably to remind you that like Thor, you have obligations even if you don’t like or want them.

“Fine,” you sigh. “I’ll tell him, but not yet. Just give me this week, Loki. Please.”

When you turn to look at him again, he’s softer with his gaze.

“You’re going to let him suffer for his idea of the annulment,” he guesses.

“No,” you shake your head. “This isn’t for Thor. This is for me. Just because I understand the reason he thought of an annulment doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt anymore.

“If I saw him right now, I couldn’t even talk to him, Loki. He might have betrayed me for good reasons, but he’s still betrayed me. He still accepted, even for a few moments, that giving me up was the best thing he could do.

“And maybe it’s because he’s the-the first person that I’ve ever loved, and maybe I’m still looking at our very arranged marriage with some girl’s view of romance but I can’t separate his duty from my hurt and I-I don’t know that I can ever forgive him.”

"I suppose that's fair," Loki sighs. “I won’t say anything, I promise. But I’m going to make sure that he’s here on Friday. From there, it’s your duty as mother to a future prince or princess of Asgard to tell Thor about your pregnancy.”

You move to sit next to him, giving the bits and pieces of the mug you’d thrown at him a look as you settle.

“I’m sorry I threw a cup at your head.".

Loki smirks, “Would you believe me when I tell you that it’s happened before?”

You almost smile, “Yes. I believe it.”

Loki chuckles but you can't return the sentiment. For you, the world is still ending.

“Can you do me a favor, sister?” Loki asks, his term of endearment warms you a little.

Even if Thor found it easily to cast you off, you’re happy that Loki sees you so permanently a part of his family.

“Something tells me I’m not going to be happy about it, but sure.”

“Turn on your phone,” he glances at the phone sitting at the center of the island only inches away from you where you’d left it to avoid temptation. “Thor won’t shut up about how you’re not replying. If you really want to cherish some time alone, it would be better if you answered him. If he’s worried, he can get here within the hour. I don't suppose you want that."

"No," you shudder..

"Oh, and make sure you use your black card. He’ll be checking to make sure that you’re taking care of yourself.”

You roll your eyes, the rift between you and Thor already so big you can’t see a way to fix it.

“This contradiction of Thor loving me so much he’s worried to death and his ability to decide on annulling our marriage is hard to swallow. What’s he going to do when we’re not married anymore and I’m living here and he’s married to Jane?”

“That will never happen, Y/N seeing as you’re going to tell him that you’re pregnant and he won’t go through with an annulment.” Loki insists.

“What if he does?” you wonder. “Jane’s baby was conceived first. They’ll be heir to the throne. Not mine. What if Thor decides that an annulment is still the best course of action?”

“Then I think I’ll have to reconsider my pledge to serve him as my King. But he won’t go through with it, I promise you. Trust me. I know him. Thor is too soft hearted to hurt you like that.”

“He already hurt me, Loki. It’s just the finality of a follow through that I’m waiting for.”

“You’re so eager to be abandoned,” Loki observes, frustrated with you.

“It just feels like I already have been. I’m sorry if that bothers you, but I can’t help how I feel. Haven’t you ever thought you belonged somewhere only to find out that you’re not as accepted as you thought?”

Loki thinks for a moment, his silence heavy with memory, “I have.”

“And how long did it take you to get over it?”

Loki grins, meeting your eyes with a bit of resignation.

“A long time,” he admits.

“And mine just happened today. You expect me to be over it already? Get bent, Loki.”

Loki chuckles.

“You have a point. I’m sorry, I’ve been looking at this through the lens of being my brother’s advisor. I’ll try and do better.”

His promise is genuine and it makes you feel better that you have at least one person on your side.

“Thank you, Loki,” you sigh. “I know this isn’t an easy spot for you to be in, between me and Thor. I appreciate you coming to check on me.”

“It’s my pleasure. Thor might not have noticed the way you refused to touch him when you left today but I was instantly sure that you’d heard everything. Does it bother you that he slept with her and you on the same day?”

“Not as much as I thought it would,” you admit. “Even without him explicitly saying it, I knew that he’d been with her. I knew that it was likely that he’d slept with her. They were in love. Maybe him more than her, but they didn’t break up because they wanted to. They broke up because he needed to get married and Jane wasn’t ready to do that.

“If Thor had made more of an attempt to delay our wedding, maybe Jane would have come to him sooner with her news and Thor and I would never have gotten married. I wouldn’t be pregnant, and this would all be much less messy.”

“I’m glad he didn’t wait. I’d rather have you as a sister than Jane. She’s nice but you’re much better suited to be Queen.”

“Until my King pisses me off and I run off for a week,” you tease.

“This is an exceptional situation,” Loki nods. “I don’t think if anyone else were in your shoes, they would be any less hurt than you by the news of Jane’s baby. If she is pregnant.”

You look at him, interest piqued.

“You said something like that before, that Jane should get tested to make sure she’s pregnant. What makes you think she might not be?”

“Nothing in particular. She might be. I just really don’t want her to be. I like you for Thor, Y/N. As far as I’m concerned, you’re Asgardian now.”

“I wish Thor thought like you do.”

“He does think it, Y/N. He’s just thrown off balance right now. Give him a little time and tell him about your child. His child, and it will clear up his mind. His judgement is compromised by the fact that he has an heir from the woman he once loved and the woman he now loves has had no luck in conceiving one. Or so he thinks.”

“I already told you that I’ll tell him, Loki. I just want some time.” you sigh.

“I know. We’re talking in circles. I’ll go, let you get some rest.”

You turn to watch him, slowly he begins to dissolve into slow moving golden swirls mixed with a tinge of green.

“Oh, and check your fridge again. I’ve left you a present.”

Just as quickly as he’d shown up, he’s gone.

With a heavy heart you remember the favor he asked of you and turn on your phone.

Twenty texts chime in and you quickly scroll through them.

They’re all from Thor, save for two from Hilde.

Hilde: Thanks. Be careful.

Hilde: Snitch!

All of Thor’s are variations of the same message.

Thor: Please reply, cherub.

Thor: Are you asleep?

Thor: I’m sorry if I’m waking you up.

Thor: Are you home yet?

Thor: Are you safe?

It isn’t until the last few messages that his frenzy of worry seems to change. More resigned to your lack of response. Probably believing that you are actually asleep.

Thor: I miss you already, cherub. I can’t tell you how strange it is to lay in our bed without you.

Thor: I don’t think there’s been a night since we married aside from my visit to the outposts that I have not had your perfect body pressed to mine.

Thor: My heart aches without you.

Thor: My body craves in your absence.

Thor: My soul is empty. You are my very essence now, my sweet cherub.

Thor: I hope you’re not very ill. I could not stand to lose you.

You sob, reading his texts through paints a drastic contrast between his deep voice crying for annulment and the loving, doting, sweet husband who sent you these messages.

His text voice is also so different from the way he talks. You can hear the way he might have talked to you if he hadn’t spent so much time with the Avengers and other humans here on Earth. Jane probably heard him speak like this out loud when they first met.

She’d been his first contact with this planet.

Wiping at your tears, you clutch the phone to your chest for a moment before focusing your blurry eyes on the screen again to keep reading.

Thor: I’ve never known how essential you are to my life until this moment. I need you at my side. I am most certain of it now.

Thor: I would give my life for you. I will keep you close from now on. I don’t know if I can last a week without you, my love. Don’t hate me if I come to you tomorrow.

Thor: Loki has just told me that he’s come to see that you’ve settled into your home safely. I really need him to teach me that trick. He says you need rest and that you already have a doctor coming by in the morning.

Thor: Please tell me what they say once they’ve seen you.

Thor: Loki keeps yelling at me to let you sleep.

Thor: Goodnight, cherub. I love you. More than my life.

Thor: Please text me in the morning.

Thor: It’s Loki. I’ve taken his phone. I’ll make sure he leaves you alone for the full week. Thank you for turning your phone on.

Y/N: I’m fine, Thor. Just very tired.

And because it’s true and if you don’t say it, he’ll get suspicious:

Y/N: I love you, too.

You sniffle and lock your phone.

“Jerk,” you grieve, and move to the fridge.

Opening it again, you’re surprised to find it fully stocked this time with all of your favorite foods and treats.

Loki is seriously the best brother-in-law in the universe.

#king!thor x reader #thor x reader #royal au #arranged marriage au #a wife for thor #king!thor x reader fic #king!thor x reader fanfic #king!thor x reader fanfiction #king!thor x you #thor x reader fanfiction #thor x reader fanfic #thor x reader fic #thor x you #marvel au #marvel fanfiction #a wife for thor pt18 #loki #loki laufeyson

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aethelflaedladyofmercia · 3 years

Text

Face the Darkness

Prompt 2 for @greenfiredragonfly's Angstember prompts-- "Go. But I'm not Leaving." This time I've gone for some War in Heaven angst! Technically a slight AU as you'll see in the end, but I'm assuming most of the rest works out as in canon.

The Fortress trembled as the ground shifted once more, cracks splitting the desiccated plain in an ever more complex spider web. Solid stone walls vibrated, pouring streams of crushed stone from every corner of the ceiling. The air was thick with dust. Already the loyal forces of Heaven had withdrawn to the distant hills to watch, silent and impassive.

The War had ended. The Fortress of Lucifer had begun its Fall.

The first of the four watchtowers collapsed, shattering across blasted plain. From the wreckage crawled the rebellious angels, bodies already twisting into more animalistic shapes: talons and fangs, scales and gills, rotten flesh and oozing sores.

Outside the walls patrolled guards in solid plate armor wielding swords and spears and whips; in an instant, they descended on the few who had escaped, driving them back towards the gates, towards their fate. More beings inside fought and screamed, clawing at the guards only to be pushed back again and again. Voices raised, accusations shouted at soldiers, at leaders, at God Herself.

The guards were not of the heavenly legions. When Lucifer’s last army was routed, he had declared that all of his rebels would share in his punishment. Those who kept the frightened masses in check had been promised prominent positions as the Lords of their new domain, while the would-be deserters risked punishments more gruesome than anything the enemy had done.

Still, they tried.

Some few managed to pass the final ring of guards, to strike out across the plain that moved and reformed under their feet, cracks and crevices opening wide, whole sections of land suddenly dissolving, raining down into the realm of darkness.

They fled, running across uncertain ground, leaping treacherous drops, praying for forgiveness with every breath, holding out their arms to the loyal armies, beseeching their friends to intercede, to stay the Hand of Judgment.

Those who reached the hills and were welcomed into the protection of Heaven found themselves restored, their flesh returned to normal, bodies untwisted, souls pardoned.

The rest… well, they reached their final destination a little sooner than the rest.

One angel stood alone on a watchtower, eyes scanning the chaos below through a shifting curtain of bright red hair.

The scuff of a footstep, barely audible above the screams. The angel turned slightly—a single glance back—just enough for a glimpse of familiar white feathers.

“Shouldn’t be here,” the angel said, turning back to the destruction.

“Neither should you.”

“This again?” A twist of lips, too bitter to be called a smile. “You’ve already told me what you think. Eons and eons ago.”

“And I haven’t changed my mind.”

The angel clutched at the stone parapet, or tried to; it fell apart, sending another rain of dust towards the frightened crowd below. “And, what, you’re here to offer me salvation? Take my confession and determine if I’m worthy? Enact vengeance for all those I’ve destroyed?”

“My dear friend. I’m here to save you.”

Briefly, there were tears in the angel’s eyes; but already those eyes were changing, restructuring into a new shape. “Don’t deserve it.”

“I say you do.” A soft hand landed on the angel’s shoulder, offering a squeeze of comfort. “There is no wickedness in you. No cruelty. Even at the height of the War’s atrocities, you never lost your kindness. You are only here because you were manipulated by Lucifer, caught in his lies. That is no judgment on you. He could just as easily have swayed me, or Gabriel, or anyone else.”

“I know. That’s the problem.”

“What do you mean?” With a rumble louder than any thunder, the ground below fractured once more. The fortress rose and fell, another tower crumbling to a chorus of screams. “Come, we don’t have time.”

“What must I do?” The first angel didn’t move, but the second breathed a sigh of relief at the question.

“Cross the plain, no more than that. If you reach the other side, if someone is willing to intercede on your behalf, you will be forgiven.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, my dear, oh, it’s so simple. I will be beside you every step of the way, to guide you, to keep you safe. You can’t possibly fail.”

The angel nodded, still looking down into the broken courtyard. “Tell me this: why me? You could save anyone. Why me?”

A brief, shocked silence. “That’s—why would I…? Because I love you.”

“And what about them?” Down below the future Lords of Darkness moved through the crowds, grabbing weeping angels by the jaw or the neck, inspecting them, claiming their favorites. Torments would begin soon, pains that would become familiar to them all. “They were tricked by Lucifer, the same as me.” One pale, scruffy creature grabbed a trembling, crying being by the hair, dragging them towards a dark door. “Do they deserve this fate because they don’t have the love of a Guardian?”

Flinching, the pale figure pulled back towards the shadows. “That isn’t fair.” Little more than a whisper. “You know they don’t. But I can’t save them. Only you.”

With a deep, shaking breath, the angel finally turned, eyes now glinting gold, pupils stretching into lines. “No. You can’t save me. Not if I don’t want to be saved.”

“What are you talking about?” Hazel eyes shining like earthlight as the darkness closed in. “How can you not—”

“How can I go back? Tell me that! How can I ignore the things I learned? Not everything Lucifer said was a lie, that’s why he was so successful. How can I be happy when I’ve seen things for what they truly are?” In a softer voice: “How can I follow a God who would throw so many away just because they’re unloved?” A sob shook those narrow shoulders, but no tears fell. Never again. “If there’s a way, please, tell me. Because I can’t—”

The entire plain rippled like a wave. Another tower fell, and the one they stood on tilted perilously.

“Dearest, we can talk about this later. We need to go now.”

“Go.” The angel turned back to the courtyard. “But I’m not leaving.”

“No!” The Guardian hauled the angel back, as if ready to fly them both to safety or be destroyed trying. “Don’t—you can’t! Don’t you understand what’s happening? What it all means?”

“Better than you!” The angel turned with a furious growl. “I’ve spent countless ages among them already. I know what they’re like, I know what they’ll do to us, and I don’t want that. But I can’t go back.” Narrow hands reached out, clutching the other’s elbows. “Aziraphale, please understand. I can’t go back. Not with… everything I know…”

They embraced, the Guardian blinking back tears. “You could… you could ask God to take your memories. It would be as if you’d never…”

“I can’t.”

“Not… not even for me?”

“I would forget you, too.”

“But I’ll remember.” Aziraphale leaned back, eyes pleading. “And I will still love you. Nothing will change that.”

“But I will change.” The angel scowled again, though this time not from anger but from the desperate search for words. “It’s… not the memories themselves. I might lose them anyway. I’ve already lost my name; I’m losing my form. I’m Falling. And whatever Falling does to me, whatever I become, I will still be me. But. But to willinglygive up the knowledge I’ve earned. To turn my back on it… I wouldn’t be me anymore.”

The next tremor started, and didn’t end.

“I don’t understand,” Aziraphale wailed. “But I don’t have to. If… if this will make you happy…”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be happy again.” One last desperate embrace as the surrounding plain began to crumble. “It’s time. Go.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“Aziraphale!” But the Guardian only held the angel tighter. “You—you can’t Fall!”

“I do not believe I will. God knows Her own.”

The outer walls vanished, tumbling into the nothing below, bringing wave after wave of bodies with them. “No, She’ll just rip you out of my arms at the cruelest possible moment.”

“Where you see cruelty, I see kindness. Every second with you is a blessing.”

“Aziraphale!”

“Quiet, love. I’m praying.”

The ground shook, lurched, dropped away—

The Fortress and all within it Fell—

All except two angels, wrapped in each other’s arms. Held aloft by Aziraphale’s wings, they did not Fall but meandered gently downwards.

“What?” The nameless angel looked around in confusion. “How…?”

“I told you. Kindness.” Aziraphale’s eyes were closed. “I asked Her for a few more minutes with you. And a chance to spare you from some of the darkness you must face. I know you don’t think you deserve it, but I think you do. And in the end, that is what mattered.”

“Aziraphale…” Quite without meaning to, the angel smiled in wonder. “I love you.”

When the Guardian’s eyes opened, the tears rolled upwards, leaving a trail of droplets back to Heaven. “I love you, too. And it was worth any price to see you smile again.”

“Price? Wait, what price?”

“All my memories of you.”

“No!”

“Oh, yes. I was quite happy to exchange them to buy you these few minutes of peace and a guarantee that we will meet again. Though I’m afraid after that, things will be up to you.” Aziraphale’s incongruous smile began to fade. “What is it?”

“I… I just… I told you I wouldn’t… and then you…” Golden eyes drifted, staring into the suffocating darkness on every side. “What must you think of me?”

“I think you are the most wonderful being in all Creation. I wish for you to be you, in whatever way feels most genuine, as an angel or… otherwise.” Far below, the Fortress ruins came into view, lit by a strange blue glow. “I think you will have a hard enough time ahead of you without such complicated regrets. And I think,” another tear floating upward, glowing like a distant star, “I truly think, this way things will work out for the best.”

“You’ll forget me! Forget us! Everything we ever talked about, or… or…”

“But you’ll remember.” A gentle kiss on the forehead. “And I will still love you. Nothing will change that.”

The Fortress had landed in a boiling pool of sulfur. Aziraphale carefully set the former angel down on solid ground, a safe distance from the edge, then immediately began to float upwards again.

“Wait!” Desperately clinging to those soft hands, the last bit of comfort in the entire realm. “Don’t go!”

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t belong down here anymore than you belong Upstairs. We will meet again in the world to come.”

“But what if… without your memories… you’re different? More like the others?”

“Oh.” For the first time since the Fall, Aziraphale looked troubled. “I suppose you… may see some changes you don’t like…”

“No, not that. I’m not going to love you any less. But… you’ll think I’m just another Enemy.”

“Nonsense. I love you, dear boy. And I have the opportunity to fall in love all over again.” The upward pull began to draw their fingers apart. “Only, I don’t know how long that will take, so… be patient?”

“Aziraphale…”

“Take care of yourself, love.” Their grip on each other failed and Aziraphale drifted away, rising faster and faster. “I will see you again! I promise!”

“Aziraphale!”

Silence, broken only by the stirring of creatures rising from the sulfur and slinking into the shadows.

Hands still warm from the loving touch of an angel, the demon turned to face the darkness.

#good omens prime #good omens angst #angel crowley #angst #angstember2021 #prompt challenge #ineffable husbands #good omens #aziraphale and crowley #aziraphale #crowley #war in heaven #amnesia #my writing #is it too sad #it might be

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vanderlindemorgans · 3 years

Text

Cross My Heart (Chapter 5)

Pairing: Agent Whiskey x Reader

Rating: Explicit/18+

Summary: A traitorous Agent Whiskey returns to the United States on the run. Being cast out by Statesman, he soon finds that you’re the only person he can turn to - the embittered former flame from years long passed

Word count: 7.5k

Warnings: Eventual smut, some references to alcoholism and drug use. Reader is in her late twenties but there is an age gap between her and Whiskey. Chapter specific warnings: one scene takes place in a hospital, some medical talk, more heavy drinking, talk of death and alcoholism (specifically related to drunk driving), mentions of drug addiction, Whiskey being a dick, lotta heavy topics in general.

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“Alright, so the X-Rays have come back and as you can probably already guess your left arm has been fractured”.

The news hadn’t been a shock to you at all - it was only logical that the result of being thrown off the back of a horse was your arm breaking from the impact of the fall, nevermind the sheer amount of pain that it had already caused you was even more indication that something was definitely wrong there. All things considered, it still wasn’t a pleasant piece of news to receive, causing you to let out a low groan as you settled back into the hospital gurney they had allocated to you after the ambulance had pulled you in. Dressed in only a hospital gown, you felt the chill from the room's air conditioning prick the edges of your skin, the coolness of temperature making the whole experience even more foreign to you. Of course, it wasn’t like you’d never been to a hospital before - an unlucky bout of croup had sent you to the emergency room as a little kid when you’d almost stopped breathing. At the resurgence of that particular memory you felt yourself shudder, recalling the hours spent passed out in a brightly lit room and being forced to drink gross tasting liquid that was meant to clear up your airways. At least you weren’t choking on your own breath this time round.

“Well that’s just fantastic. How long will it take to heal? I kinda got a ranch to run” you asked the doctor, who was standing off to the side consulting the clipboard nestled against his arm. Sighing, he looked up at you with a look of sympathy while he ran through the information he’d jotted down on his notes. “Usually it takes twelve weeks for fractures to heal - given the fact that a good part of your arm has been displaced you’ll need to be put into surgery to shift the bone back into place, which we’ll have scheduled for you in the next twenty-four hours. Afterwards, I’ll be putting you in a cast for a couple of weeks and you’ll have to come back in for checkups weekly. I’ll also give you a list of rehabilitation exercises you can do to ensure the recovery process goes as smoothly as possible” he explained. “After your surgery and subsequent discharge, I heavily recommend a few days bed rest due to the concussion you have sustained”.

“So I’m guessing most physical labour is out then” you muttered under your breath, sighing once you realized how heavily this would impact your ability to keep things running smoothly back at the ranch. Yes, you had employees but without you to oversee everything things would slow down and descend into madness real quickly. You wished you had allocated some sort of second in command for times like this, a manager of sorts to keep things in place while you recovered but you’d just never gotten around to it, brushing the thought aside every time it sprung up with a simple “Why would I need extra help anyway? Nothing ever happens around here”.

“You’d be correct on that. Now, I have some other patients to check on but I will be back in about 20 minutes or so to prep you for surgery, though I will send a nurse to give you some painkillers so you can stop feeling the worst of the pain for at least a little while” he replied. You went to thank him but before you could you felt a light touch graze along your right arm. Your eyes glanced over to where Jack’s hand was placed, his touch delicate and comforting, sparking that same feeling in your chest that you’d felt when he’d stroked your forehead back at the ranch. His eyes met your own for a moment, deep cedar brown looking at you with nothing more than concern and worry, somehow pulling at a single string of your heart even though you wanted to fight against it with all your might.

Snapping you focus back into place, you nodded back over to the doctor and thanked him for all he was doing, listening to his reassurances that he’d have you fixed up as soon as possible as he hurried on out of the room to his next patient in need. Once he was gone, you exhaled in annoyance and went back to staring aimlessly at the ceiling, mulling over the inconvenience of your predicament.

“Everything ok, sugar?” you heard Jack ask you, feeling his enchanting eyes study your expression, his anxiety over your wellbeing plain as day. Letting out a small laugh, you returned his question with a small smile of your own. “Does it look like I’m ok?” you joked, gesturing vaguely to your fractured arm.

He chuckled at your sarcasm, always enjoying that certain fire you had to your character that refused to silence itself. Unbeknownst to you, that was one of things that drew him towards you in the first place - his own air of cockiness and confidence was equally matched by your spitfire and sarcastic wit. Finding out the sweet disposition that lay behind that harshness the first time round had taken him by complete surprise, but only did more to endear himself to you. God, he was such a fool for losing that. He was certain that your sweetness was still there, closed behind even more layers of hurt and pain that he’d caused such a large hand in.

From the moment the ambulance had arrived, Jack had stayed beside you, refusing to leave for even a single moment. It was quite endearing, truth be told, a feeling that attempted to worm its way through your steadfast reasoning against him. He’s a liar. Don’t fall for his shit again, you repeated to yourself. Though it was becoming harder and harder to continue regarding him as your greatest mistake when he was behaving so kindly and gentlemanly towards you. Just a part of his deceptive charm, I guess, you thought bitterly.

“Y’know, you don’t have to worry about things gettin’ outta hand down at the ranch. I’m more than happy to step up and help” he spoke up, snapping your attention back to his words and out of your own contemplation. You thought about his proposal for a minute, the temptation to say yes seeming very appealing towards you, though somehow that felt like admitting to weakness. The ranch wasn’t his responsibility, it was yours, left to you by your dear parents. It was your obligation to run it in their stead - there’d been difficulties along the way, sure, including the occasional nasty cold every now and then but you had pulled through without any trouble. You didn’t need help or any sort of handout, and you were more than capable of taking care of business by yourself, even with a broken arm.

Then again, it is gonna be kinda hard to run a business while being confined to bed rest. Briefly you thought about just closing the ranch for a couple of days while you got back on track yet once you thought about the loss in profits you discarded that idea quickly. It wasn’t like you were struggling to make ends meet but a dip in profits could cause a bit of issue.

“Yeah but...It’s my responsibility. I can’t just ignore that because I got a stupid broken arm” you rebuffed, though you didn’t sound entirely convinced of what you were saying yourself. Sadly, stubbornness was your nature and even if you knew you were fighting a losing battle, sometimes it was more about the principle of having a position rather than whatever thing you were debating over. Some would say that was quite a counterproductive way to look at things, and you’d agree with them, yet you still remained stubborn in spite of them, feeding back into the cycle.

“Darlin’, with all due respect, I think what’s best for you is that you take a step back and let someone else take the reins. You need to allow yourself to rest a lil. Tell me, in all the years of runnin’ the ranch by yourself, have you ever once taken a day off?”.

“No, but-”.

“Exactly as I thought. You’ve been doing an amazing job at keeping things together for all these years, sweetheart, but you gotta relax a bit. Let me help you” he interrupted, gazing at you with those heart-meltingly sweet eyes of his, a look which made you seize up ever so slightly in minor fake annoyance. Little shit, he had to be doing that on purpose.

“Fine, only if it’ll get you to shut up” you relented, rolling your eyes in a dramatic fashion and hitting your head back down into the pillow below, eliciting a playful smirk from him in return. “That’s my girl, stubborn as always” he jested.

To that you cocked an eyebrow at him in disbelief. “Your girl? Careful there, Jack, for a minute I thought you were capable of genuine compassion and care. I may have once been your girl, cowboy, but not anymore. Or did you happen to forget?”.

His own expression softened slightly in regards to your snide remark, his mischievous grin faltering while he turned his gaze to the floor, looking somewhat sheepish towards what you had said, a far cry from his usual air of arrogance. “Yeah, I guess I deserve that” he murmured. “Tell me, sugar, do you ever think one day you’ll believe me when I say that I’m sorry?”.

“When pigs fly, dearest” you smiled with a shit-eating grin, though you couldn’t miss that momentary flash of hurt in his eyes that made you pull back, a sharp pang striking through your chest that hurt harder than the agonizing ache in your arm, which really, was saying something. Could that be...guilt, perhaps?, you thought, searching Jack’s face for any further sign of offense. If he was feeling hurt, he was doing a pretty stellar job at hiding it. Maybe it was nothing, and even if he was hurt, well, he said it himself, he deserved it. Without giving you another minute to ponder your own feelings, a welcome interruption in the arrival of a nurse found you, shifting your thoughts towards the relief of finally getting some painkillers into you.

___

The surgery had gone over well, and after a grueling day spent hanging out in that hospital room hopped up on painkillers you were finally discharged late afternoon the following day. The worst of your concussion had cleared itself up too yet you were still confined to your bed for those first few days - the doctor was insistent on that fact, saying you could never be too careful. You’d begrudgingly complied, not wanting to cause any further problems to your health, and even if you had tried to go against the doctor’s orders, you knew that Jack would be there to send you off back to bed if you dared lift a finger.

Jack had doted on you the entire time, making sure you were well hydrated and cool enough in the midst of the hot Texas summer, fetching you snacks and whatever else you needed from downstairs. In his own words, what kind of man would he be if he didn’t take care of an ailing woman. You’d rolled your eyes and insisted that he didn’t have to go all out with looking after you yet he’d insisted. It was somewhat heartwarming, and it felt nice to be taken care of again after those last few years alone. It reminded you of when you’d come down with the flu back in third grade, staying home in bed lazily watching television and barely being able to keep your eyes open while your mum made soup in the kitchen. You could feel your heart drop at the mere recollection of your parents, pain that stayed beneath the surface rising up in full force. Usually you pushed those feelings down, not wanting to become distracted from the business, but today, you allowed yourself the indulgence of missing them. What would they think if they could see you now? Would they be proud, or disappointed?

Feeling your stomach grumble, you shifted over in bed and reached your only good arm out to grab onto the half-eaten grilled cheese Jack had brought in for you five minutes before, letting out a low wince at the pain that writhed through your other arm, which had been placed into a cast and sling for the time being. Already you couldn’t wait for the day you could get the damned thing taken off - you hadn’t been able to shower and you felt grotty and gross. It wasn’t like you had to impress anyone, it was just you and Jack lying about the place. Still, you could only take so many days of waking up with unwashed greasy hair. And it was itchy too. Oh dear god, it was fucking itchy. You’d heard about how itchy the plaster could get second-hand but you never anticipated it to be that bad.

Directing your eyes to the clock on your bedside, you took notice of the time and let out a small relieved sigh. You could finally take another one of those painkillers, the fourth and dismally last one for you of the day.

Your relief quickly fizzled out into disappointment when you realised the packet of painkillers that had been sitting by your bedside was empty. “Seriously? It’s only been a few days, I couldn’t have gone through them already…” you muttered to yourself in annoyance. Nevermind, there was another packet downstairs. You may have been perfectly capable of getting out of bed and retrieving it yourself, though you found yourself not wanting to be bothered with such a task. “Hey Jack, you there? I ran out of painkillers, could ya run some up to me?” you called out.

“Sure thing, sweetheart” you heard him shout back, and no more than two minutes later he was striding through your bedroom door, carrying exactly what you had requested within his palms. “How are you feelin’?” he asked.

“No better than six minutes ago when you last asked me that. Thanks for bringing these up though, fuck that stupid horse for bucking me off” you grumbled, sniping the blessed white packet out of his hands and into your fingers. “Pain making you grumpy, sweet girl? You seem a bit more full of spitfire than usual today” he joked.

“Nah, you’re getting the discounted version today. If I wanted to vocalise exactly what I was feeling right now you’d be obliterated in a second” you laughed, chucking a tablet into your mouth and washing it down with a large gulp of water, anxious to feel some semblance of relief.

“You don’t say. How’s your head doing, though? No dizziness or anything like that?”.

“I’m fine, Jack, I promise. You don’t have to fawn all over me just because I broke my dumb arm” you assured, rolling your eyes at him.

“I wouldn’t call in fawning, I only want to make sure you're comfortable and all that. Not only because of your arm and all” he smiled gently, reaching out to brush a stray hair off your forehead. It could have been the heat of the room but you could have sworn your skin felt on fire the moment he touched you. You could feel him press the back of his fingers against your head, unconsciously allowing your breath to hitch at his touch. And just like that, the warmth of his hand was gone, leaving an invisible searing mark in its place and your own head full of frenzied and confused thoughts.

“Like I said earlier, just call out if you need anything else, alright darlin’?” he said as he was leaving, words that you didn’t care to take notice of as he left you to yourself again. Blinking slowly, you couldn’t even fully begin to describe what had just taken place, or why one little gesture was throwing your mind into somersaults. Why did his mere touch have to affect you like that? Why couldn’t he just leave you alone? Groaning loudly, you settled yourself underneath the sheet covering you and huffed at nobody in particular, cursing both yourself and him for even existing. For fucks sake...

___

Taking a sip of bourbon from your glass, you leaned against the side of the stairs of the veranda with your gaze fixated off into the distance, though you didn’t take any notice of what lay ahead, lost deep in your own thoughts that clouded your mind. It’d been a couple more days, and you’d finally been able to get out of bed and get back to helping out around the ranch - not that you were still of any use to anyone, given the state of your arm. It felt good to be back overseeing things, albeit a bit more behind the scenes than you had been in years. It’d be a good month or so before you were able to move your arm properly and have things back to normal. At first that fact did nothing short of irritating you, since you weren’t one to lie about helpless when work needed to be done. Over the last few days though, seeing the ranch go about with business as usual with Jack’s extra help had put you at ease a little. It still bothered you somewhat that you had to be asking any sort of help from Jack Daniels of all people, though really, he was the one offering it in the first place so you hadn’t so much as asked him to do anything, moreso conceding to his instistance at the behest of your stubbornness.

The pain was getting a little better too, though whether that had more to do with the painkillers or not remained to be seen. For example, you couldn’t feel anything now but you had just ingested two glasses of pure straight bourbon, so of course any type of pain would be numbed. Remember when it could numb more than just that? You let out a small snicker at the thought, sounding as hollow and empty as it felt. Once upon a time you might have been classed as relatively lightweight, a fact that changed after years of the trials and tribulations life had thrown your way. You still got drunk easy, but it took a good few glasses before you actually passed out.

“You know, you should let me sign that for ya”.

Hearing that familiar voice ring out from behind you, you swivel around so see its owner standing right in the opened doorway of your home, his hands casually resting in his pockets and his frame leant against the wall. “What are we, in middle school? I don’t want it getting dirty” you scoffed, rolling your eyes at him for good measure.

He smirked right back at you, letting out a small snicker that mirrored your own. “Why not? It’s not like you're gonna have to be wearin’ it forever. A little scribble in permanent marker wouldn’t do ya any harm” Jack grinned, taking a large step forward to descend down to your level, seating himself right next to you on the veranda. You cocked an eyebrow at him, letting your fingertips trail over the edge of the glass in your hands while you stared at him with utter audacity. “And yet I know you’re only so persistent in signing it because you’ll write something crude or vaguely flirty” you snipped.

“How little you think of me, sugar. I’d never dream of doin’ such a thing. I am nothing if not a gentleman”.

“Oh, do cut the charm, Jack. What is it you want?”.

“Please, can’t a man share a glass of bourbon with a lady without being subjected to the Spanish Inquisition?” he asked, wearing his devilish and frustratingly charming grin as he spoke, the appearance of which you swore made your cheeks flush a little bit hotter. Probably because of the alcohol...and it is hot out here after all...

“Not this lady, cowboy” you stated, gulping down the last dredges of bourbon in your glass and placing it back down to the floor with a thud. You went to go grab the bottle from beside you but found Jack had already snatched it up, pouring you another glass. Mumbling out a small thank you, you considered asking him if he wants a glass of his own, however once you caught sight of his silver Statesman issued flask in his hands you dismissed the idea entirely. With nothing else left to say, you glanced back up to the sky above towards where the moon was hanging over you two, the delicate light illuminating the stretches of countryside around your property in a soft glow, one that was both enchanting and eerie at the same time. Every now and then you would be reminded of how beautiful the Texan countryside could look, whether it be bathed in the rays of that damned blistering sun or the enigmatic glimmer of moonlight. It could pull you back to moments lost in time, years ago sitting right where you were in that very same spot, seven years younger and with the exact same man sitting beside you, head rested on his shoulder and looking out into the vast expanse of midnight black. Funny how things change, don’t they?

Out the corner of your eye you saw Jack shake his head, his eyes quiet, the sparkle of stark confidence bordering on plain arrogance missing. It was a similar look to the one he’d given you at the hospital that night, before he’d tried to cover it up with a certain facade of indifference. “What will it take for you to believe I’m sorry? What happened between us, it was all-” he started before being unceremoniously cut off by your interjection.

“In the past? I’m well aware of that. Doesn’t change how I feel” you stopped him. You’d anticipated him throwing out that line from day one and you’d come prepared. Shut it down. Don’t let him try to swindle you for a fool.

His expression changed to one more serious, a hint of him being slightly miffed that you cut him off in the first place. “Let me finish, darlin’. I’m gonna level with you for a second - what I did to you was one of the worst mistakes of my life. Letting everything fall apart like it did, I never should have let it happen” he expressed, his tone straddling between being firm and also being gentle. Cocking an eyebrow at him, you turned back to your glass of liquor, swirling the liquid around idly in a way that reminded you of that persistent thought running round your head. Did he have a point? Were you being too harsh on him?

Don’t become soft on him. Don’t do it. You shifted back into focus, pushing those thoughts far to the back of your tipsy mind while you took a couple large sips of liquor as if it were a lifeline. “Worse than whatever mistake led you to showing up on my doorstep?” you asked, eager to direct the conversation right back out of that uncomfortable territory and into something a bit more easier to stomach. Maybe later on you could ponder the true depths of your perceptions of Jack. Right now, though, you wanted to get wasted and not have to think about anything anymore. And hey, it’s not like I wasn’t wondering about the events that led him here in the first place anyway.“You never did tell me what happened. I know you said it was none of my concern but...I want to know. Call it a spate of drunken curiosity, if ya want”.

The question alone was enough to draw Jack’s face from being merely serious to an expression more cold and distant. He looked away from you entirely and rested his gaze to the few steps below the two of you, his hand clenching in a subconscious act that alone was enough to tell you his own reservations regarding the topic. “Truth is, I’ve been fucking things up for a good couple of years. What happened to lead me here, well, it ain’t a pretty story”.

“I don’t care, Jack, I wanna know” you asserted, surging with a sense of fiery confidence. It might have been the alcohol giving you a bit more moxie to push the topic. One thing was for sure though: you wanted answers, and you didn’t wanna let this go. Stretching your legs out, you finished off the glass you had while you waited for him to reply, not wanting to cave to your request even if he was looking at you like you’d threatened to kill the President.

Finally, he let out a low groan of annoyance and leant against the side of the veranda, not affording you a single look as he launched into his tale. “Basically what happened is some agents from an English based secret service came over to the states as a last resort - their base got blown up by someone and the two guys that approached us were the only ones left alive. Well, them and this other guy we had at our headquarters, but that’s a whole other story. The people behind the attack were a group called the Golden Circle, and Statesman had already been investigating them for awhile. I was called in by Champ to partner up with the Kingsman fellas, do the regular secret agent spiel of espionage and savin’ the world and all that crap. But, me and these other agents, we had an...ideological disagreement. I was covertly tryin’ to hinder them until the older guy got wise to my shit and shot me in the head. Ginger managed to bring me in and revive me, I went over to Cambodia where the two agents were confronting the leader of the Golden Circle, and to make a long story short things got nasty pretty quickly. I barely escaped with my life” he explained.

You nodded along to his explanation, the load of information being a lot to take in the first time round. You were always somewhat aware of Jack’s position as a secret agent though you were never privy to the nitty and gritty details - in fact, the way you’d found out about it in the first place was by complete accident and Jack had to beg Agent Champ to allow you to become cleared on even knowing the basics of his true work behind the front of being a Statesman investor. “And these ideological disagreements were…?” you pushed.

“Trust me, you don’t wanna know” he deflected.

“Try me”.

He didn’t reply to you straight away, instead staring at you with a stark look of confliction across his face, an inner turmoil brewing inside of him on whether or not he should tell you even more. Being cast out as a traitor, he didn’t have to worry about breaking any sort of rule of confidentiality, so if you had to wager a guess at what his dilemma was, then it must have been that he felt mildly ashamed, or even embarrassed about the whole situation. In your mind though, you’d let him keep his secrets for weeks now, but if he was going to stay in your house you wanted to at the bare minimum know what he did that was so bad that he simply couldn’t return back home anymore. “Well go on then, hit me with your best shot” you prodded further, hopefully enough to get his demeanour to crack and for him to spill what exactly the entire fuss had been about. And sure enough, crack he did.

Running a hand across his forehead, he let out a low exasperated sigh, one that would have been inaudible if you hadn’t been seated beside him, indicating the exact moment he finally decided to break his own silence and reveal everything to you. “The Golden Circle were primarily a drug cartel and terrorist organization based out in the hidden depths of the Cambodian jungle. Their leader had devised a plot that involved lacing their distribution of drugs with a new type of chemical she created that caused death. Since their supply was mass distributed over the globe, they were holding the entire populace of drug users and addicts hostage to their respective governments, demanding a payout for the antidote. They didn’t, however, anticipate the President and other world leaders not really giving a red hot shit about the lives of junkies. Being the noble men they are, the Kingsman agents as well as the rest of Statesman were striving to get ahold of the antidote to save all those people. And that, is where me and them disagreed” Jack elaborated, avoiding your gaze in what appeared to be a calculated move in order to refrain from seeing your reactions to his admittance. In the span of two minutes, your expression had shifted from intense curiosity to straight up bafflement at what he was saying. It didn’t make sense - why was he against distributing the antidote? He was a secret agent, wasn’t he meant to save the world and innocent lives and all that?

“Let me get this straight - you were assigned on a mission to try to save the lives of innocent people, and you chose...not to do that” you asked, your tone laced with judgment. Not that you had intended for what you said to have come across any different. If what he was implying was right, then that would mean...

“Well, when you put it like that, sure, it sounds awful. I will concede, it wasn’t my best move. But all the people who ingested those drugs did so willingly. They knew they were taking a gamble on their lives the moment they stuck a damn needle into their arms” Jack grumbled defensively, allowing you to gawk back at him in utter disbelief. “Jack, no, you can’t seriously believe that? So what you’re saying is that the kid that decided to get high with his mates one weekend at a party deserves to die? Is that right?”.

“No, no, I didn’t mean like that, I just…”.

“Really? ‘Cause it sounds a lot like you’re saying that innocent people should die for their poor choices” you cut in, shaking your head to further drive your point in. “Jesus, just when I thought you couldn’t be a bigger asshole you proved me wrong”.

“Sweetheart, please, I know. It was a mistake, you don’t have to keep rubbing it in”.

“You know it’s a mistake, but do you truly feel it? Do you really feel remorse? Because if you don’t then it’s just a bunch of empty words” you rebuffed, shooting him with a cold piercing glare that could make an entire continent freeze over. Around about this time, you really began to take notice of the dazed feeling clouding you, every glass of liquor draining straight into your brain and making you feel like your entire head was swimming. Maybe take it easy on the next glass, why don’t ya? With that thought, you shoved the glass off to the side with your free arm and bit your lip, debating whether or not you should even say what you wanted to next. That debate, however, did not last very long as you found yourself blurting out exactly what was on your mind within two seconds of your last thought. “Jack, look...maybe I’ll hate myself for saying this later, and maybe it’s just the liquor talking but I don’t think you’re an inherently bad person. I think you’re an arrogant son of a bitch who does cruel stupid things but probably has a decent enough heart. You just...you gotta stop with this shit. Stop with the betrayals, and the lies, and the false promises, all of it, and just be the real you. The Jack I knew may be a prick but he was never one to let an innocent die on his watch. What’s really behind all this?”.

He continued to glare from his position beside you, somewhat intent on making you recant and drop the whole subject entirely. You wouldn’t go down that easy though, and he knew it, for as stubborn as Jack was you were at least ten times moreso, so when he folded first and trained his eyes low to the ground, you knew that he’d finally conceded. You could feel a whole shift in his demeanour from where you sat, the mask of defensive anger slowly falling away to reveal what was truly underneath: hurt. Pure, raw, unbridled hurt. Anguish that felt especially familiar to you and spoke to a part of yourself that you’d been turning away from for years, and even before he said those words you knew exactly what he was going to say.

“Years ago, before I became an agent to Statesman, I was married to the young woman I’d fallen for in high school. I think I told you about her in passing maybe once, or twice, I don’t know…” Jack started, trailing off once he began to fully re-immerse himself in the past, heartache plainly sewn across his features. It was then that you felt an ache of your own in your chest, a heavy feeling of guilt descending upon you once you realised the gravity of what he was saying. “I remember. You said her name was Lily, wasn’t it?” you murmured, your voice small and unsure, with a hint of something else present too. Regret? Guilt? Whatever it was, you couldn’t quite put a name to it, but it was there, strong as anything and clearly wasn’t going away any time soon.

Jack let out a small hum in reply, everything about his composure presumably a million miles away from everything around the both of you.“So you do remember” he muttered, brushing his fingers over the edge of his silver flask that he had cradled in his handles, tracing the Statesman logo engraved on the side with the pad of his thumb. “I remember you askin’ me about her the first time you came back to my apartment in New York - you saw the photo of her I kept on my desk and asked who she was. I only told you briefly that she was long gone, but I never told you how. The both of us were only twenty-three, and she was pregnant with our first child, a baby boy. Last time I saw her she left the house to go to the convenience store a few streets over”. He stopped himself for a split second, the darkness of his eyes being the all-too recognisable sign of falling deep into his own recollection, feeling as if he was reliving every memory that he revisited in his mind. “Twenty minutes later I get a phone call from a cop, saying there’d been an incident. Meth addicts had robbed the store at gunpoint and she’d been caught in the crossfire. She died instantly, and I wasn’t there to say goodbye. I never got to meet our baby boy, I never got to hold her in my arms again and say how much I loved her, because she was taken from me by a couple of meth-addled scumbags”.

You were honestly at a loss for words, not knowing if saying something would be the appropriate option or not. He was right, you knew he was married before - the time with the picture that he mentioned was the most you had heard of her. He never brought Lily up again, and you never thought to ask, since in your mind it wasn’t any of your business who Jack loved before. Now, the pieces were falling into place, the interwoven connections of his past to his actions as an agent making all the more sense to you.

What you wanted to do most was lean forward and envelop him into your embrace, tell him that you understood more than anyone what exactly that felt like, and even permit yourself to pour out your own heart to him. Drunk as you were though, you couldn’t talk yourself into doing anything more than placing a reassuring hand on his knee, letting your touch be soft and hesitant in case he shrugged you off, since you did basically just goad him into revealing his own wounds in the name of having answers. “Jack, I...I had no idea, I-”.

“How could you have known? I never told you” he mumbled flatly. In the dim veranda light, all though it was faint, you could swear that there was a teardrop lingering in the corner of his cedar brown eyes, nudging the dagger of guilt further into your heart. Say something, you idiot.

Starting off softly, you let your hand rest firmer on his knee, trying to catch his eyes into your own. Tearing his glance away from the flask, he looked back at you with the same raw grief that you had seen on your own face so many times. “I know it must have hurt like hell losing her. And you have every right to feel angry, and hurt that she was taken, but that doesn’t give you the right to hate. Every addict in the world is not the same man who took her life. You can’t just-” you started, before the sound of Jack’s harshest tone cut through your words like a knife.

“How would you know? Do you have any idea what it feels like to hurt, to have lost everything because of someone else’s choices?” he spat, anger seething in his scowl that was directed solely at you. It had taken you by surprise at first - as a reflex you withdrew your hand quickly from him as if he were burnt, perplexed at his sudden outburst. That didn’t last long however, as soon enough confusion was replaced by your own flair of anger. Now it was your turn to get defensive.“I think I do know what it’s like to hurt and to lose. In case you’ve forgotten, dickhead, there’s two people who should be right inside this house that aren’t anymore and haven’t been for about six fucking years now!” you yelled back.

Shit. He’d forgotten about your parents. The anger that had been in him disappeared without a trace right then, being replaced by something close to resembling remorse over his behaviour. “I...I didn’t mean...fuck, sugar, I…I’m sorry. I don’t even know what to say” he apologised. You didn’t say anything back to him. You didn’t want to dignify him with any sort of a response. First of all, how dare he? You were only trying to empathise with him, and here he was biting your head off for daring to suggest that he doesn't hate every drug user on the planet. Why do I even fucking bother?

The awkward silence between you hung for awhile, the two of you not wanting to break it for your own different reasons. You could feel Jack stealing glances at you, like he was trying to talk himself into saying something but never had the courage to follow through. Huffing to yourself, you took in your next glass fast enough to make your head spin. You’d have to turn in for the night eventually, and truth be told you were considering doing so right then when you heard Jack speak up.

“I never did ask...if you don’t mind me askin’ that is...what happened to your folks anyway?” he asked hesitantly, as if he knew the question was fat-witted to begin with. Not that you minded too much by then. Drunk you was a lot more forgiving than you were sober.

Taking in a heavy breath, you relayed your tale of woe to him, one hand placed steady to your side to keep you sitting upright. “It was late, and they were coming back from a friend’s 50th birthday party. Their friend lived in downtown Dallas, so they had a fair way to go to get from there to here. When they were almost on the highway, an out-of-control car barrelled towards them, smashing into the front of their windscreen and killing both of them instantly. The driver of the other car had been drinking - according to the local news he was a known alcoholic and had been out having a heated argument with his friend in the passenger seat. The only survivor of the entire collision had been his friend”.

You saw Jack blink at you in silent shock, the weight of your words falling heavily on him while he continued to process it all. “Shit, darling, I feel like an even bigger piece of shit than I already did. If you slapped me clean across the face and kicked me out on my ass after this I wouldn’t blame ya one bit” he replied to you solemnly in a way that didn’t leave you questioning the authenticity of his words - he was genuinely sorry this time round. Taking his apology in stride, you shrugged back at him and acted as nonchalant about the whole thing as possible, not wanting to ponder the topic further. As far as you were concerned, you’d felt enough things for one day and would very much like a break from it all.

“It’s fine. You had no way of knowing. But please, if you take anything from this, at least listen to my words: externalising hate towards random people only feeds your trauma. It doesn’t resolve anything, and the only person left suffering in the end is yourself”.

He furrowed his brow at you, most likely feeling a little defensive that the topic had circled back around to here, but considering his unruly display of anger earlier he wasn’t one to indulge in his own instinctual need to defend his position. “But...didn’t you want the man who took your parents away to suffer? Didn’t you look at every other drunk driving incident in the papers with a little more anger and rage than before?” he asked, earning a single eyebrow raise from you in return. “I mean...I guess what I’m trying to say is...it’s so easy to hate...why didn’t you fall into that trap?”.

“Well, I did, for a little. It was almost tempting to look at every person I saw struggling with alcoholism in red. Since the man who caused the collision was already dead as a result of his own mistakes, at times I’d externalise part of that pain I was feeling onto others, and sometimes that anger became so hot and so burning that it was almost impossible to ignore. I realised pretty quickly that hating alcoholics wasn’t going to bring my parents back and that I’d have to make peace with their passing at some point. Honestly, I still haven’t processed a lot of that shit myself yet I’m still out here living my life as best I can, and really, with my own drinking habits I’d be a goddamn hypocrite to even try to find any true hatred in my heart towards heavy drinkers” you explained. Taking one last sip of bourbon, you discarded your glass off to your side and chuckled lightheartedly. “God, If I drink another glass I’m gonna collapse on the fucking floor. Think it might be time for me to turn in for the night. At least it’s Sunday tomorrow so we can sleep in a lil”.

“Y-you’re goin’ to bed? You’re not telling me to get lost or anything?” Jack sputtered in disbelief, which in turn earned him a minorly strange look from you. “Why would I do that?” you asked.

“I quite literally just admitted to treason against my former organization to you”.

“So? You made a mistake. A pretty fucking big mistake, and a shitty one at that, but still, a mistake. You obviously have some of your own pain you need to work through, and I can get that. Doesn’t mean I agree with what you did, but I get it. I’m not gonna kick you to the curb just because you have issues”.Upon saying that, you hoisted yourself up by latching your free arm onto the veranda’s fenceline, stumbling a little as you fought to maintain your balance while being both drunk and unable to fully utilise one of your arms. Nevertheless, you’d managed to straighten yourself up, and once you’d determined that you were alright to take yourself upstairs you faced on towards the front door and grasped at the brass knob in your hands, taking a brief pause to turn back and nod softly towards the man behind you. “Night Jack, I’ll see ya tomorrow” you called out, leaving him to sit there and watch you disappear back into the house with a certain look of dumbfounded astonishment.

Tag list (lemme know if you wanna be added): @giselatropicana

#agent whiskey x reader #agent whiskey #jack daniels #jack daniels x reader #Kingsman #kingsman fanfiction #cross my heart #Kingsman: the golden circle #Pedro Pascal

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whereflowersbloom · 4 years

Text

Let me heal you

Jason Todd didn’t hate Bruce or Dick. Nah. Waste of valuable energy. In fact, Jason respected, dare he say even admired his ward and brother. What he despised were their inflexible morals, or rather his family forcing their morals on everyone else. Specially him. We don’t kill. Yes, yes. Fine. What exasperated him was when Bruce decided that his morals applied to everyone else that he took issue. Including the black sheep of the family. He didn’t precisely kill, he let himself go for a single minute. He lost it one time. Batman gave everyone unlimited chances at redemption, except the Red Hood. One mistakes and he’s exiled. In the end it didn’t matter. Nevertheless, he was aware that was not the reason he was angry tonight. No. It was entirely something else.

He could hear her anywhere he was, no matter what time of day or night, what state of sobriety or inebriation, critically wounded. In the dark dangerous streets of Gotham, the sparring ring with the smack of fists and bodies, between the breaths he took as he was falling into the arms of Morpheus. He could always hear Raven. Foolish. She was too far from him. He lived and painfully yearned for her. She was soft curves and he was hard edges. She was a fierce and magical Phoenix while he was a fucking jay with broken wings and a delirious mind. What a catch, Jason.

It drove him mad, how much it didn’t make sense, at all. A soldier wouldn’t fall asleep to a lullaby, but rather the drumbeats of wrath and screams of his opponents. But she was that, for in each beat of her heart Jason heard the call to arms. These complicated feelings, he didn’t remember when they started surging in him. He tried to sort out his feelings, even though he knew that would hurt worse than the burning pain emanating from his cracked ribs. Tsk. He could use a cig right this second.

She was probably at the Manor with Richard, staying in the guest room which was Coincidently next to his old bedroom. And here he was alone, in his modest studio apartment. The pain of his bruised and broken flesh and bones was nothing compared to that excruciating knowledge. Jason rubbed his palms over his weary eyes trying to calm himself. Attempt to dampen the burning rage that was about to send him to a dark place in his mind he didn’t want to think about. He had control. He couldn’t lose control over the voices. Feel the boiling anger, burning in his chest, squeezing his heart. Let the eternal agony that burned through his blood and singed his eyes an unnatural green color. He left that fucking bullshit behind. He loathed the Pit for taking his chance to offer her something...relatively normal.

Since Artemis and Bizarro were gone. Officially, Jason was on his own for the first time in a long while. As he pulled his arms up to finish bandaging his wounds, his shoulders stung and in a gasping breath Jason quickly dropped his arms. He was useless. The pain was worse today than it usually had been. Probably from all the previous battles against Black Mask and his personal army of mercenaries. They had become a pain in the ass. Perhaps a short visit to good Doctor Tompkins would have been a better idea. He cursed breathlessly.

A knock at the door was his only warning before he turned around to see her. Raven opening the door and striding in as if this was her room and not his. Not that this was the first time she sneaked into his apartment.

She was here. It wasn’t a vision or product of his imagination or effect of high dosage of painkillers. He swallowed hard as he found himself speechless, mind blank in her presence. With her dark cloak and hood down, serene expression and looking at him with intense amethyst gems.

He paid a high price after using the pit to have his life back and this anew tremendous strength. But there’s something else, something he’d never felt before. A pull in his chest, as though someone had tied a string to one of his ribs and it was tugging on it, gently but insistently, coaxing him towards her...She was his answer. For a half-demon goddess she was the closest thing to heaven to him. The wings of freedom.

“What is it?” Jason growled harshly. It wasn’t a threat. He simply didn’t want her to see him like this. In such a weak position that he couldn’t even patch up his own damn body. Those little bits of his bloody past stopped him from reaching out to her. What right did he have to ask her to love him despite everything? Indeed he paid a high price.

“Came here to gloat, little bird?” He spat poisonous words with a half smirk. Poisonous words and threats were all he ever had. He closed his eyes, breathing slowly, deeply, getting air into his lungs, refusing to be beaten by this, refusing to be anything less than civil and let her see right through him.

There was no answer. She watched him closely for a moment before slowly closing the distance between her and him. As if she was nervous that he would order her away. Like last time she had been here, her palm caressing his cheek with such tenderness he had forgotten it existed. Her breath was warm against his neck and he was dying to mutter ‘please stay’.

What a joke. Jason Todd. Unapologetically and insanely in love with the little Raven. A Titan. Each atom of his body breathed longing into the space between them, aching to be with her, love her as a whole as it should be. But with a fractured mind, chained with firm mania cuffs. So hateful and yet insanely in love with this creature capable of drowning him in his ashes.

“I came to offer my help healing you but if you don’t want then...” She studied throughly his figure for a solid minute but at his reaction, furrowed forehead formed a thin line. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to regain her elegant composure, taking a step back.

He quickly wrapped his hand around her wrist to stop her from leaving. It was our of instinct or his body ice cold starved for a ray of light. He kept his face clear of the pain his shoulders felt at the movement, but Raven’s eyes flickered to them. A flash of genuine worry. Why he couldn’t apologize and be a gentleman like the golden boy. Damn it. Manners Todd.

“Are you mad at me?” Raven asked serious. She twisted her body around to face him yet she didn’t pry her wrist from his grip that had gentled as soon as he halted her.

Did she want the truth? No. He was mad at himself for not fighting for her. For being weak. For his wickedness. For all his bullshit. But the beat in his chest was now pounding like a hammer against an anvil, erasing the other sounds around him. He could only focus on her.

“No.” Jason forced a chuckled though it lacked the usual mirth. “I’m not mad at you. Which is surprising considering we are usually infuriating each other every other day, sunshine. Missing me much?” Letting her go was far more unbearable than his cracked ribs. She continued staring at him deciding whether he was telling her the truth or guessing what game he was playing tonight.

He felt his body tense in anticipation of her answer. Did she miss him? Did she think of him as often as he did? He considered briefly sending her away though every fibre of his being rebelled against the action.

Raven knew she shouldn’t be here but yet she found herself coming anyway, despite her rationality telling her to run, to flee, to hide, to forget that she ever came here…But something deeper, something stronger, urged her forwards. She didn’t dare fight it any longer. Yes. She missed him every second since their last encounter. She bit her lip out of habit. She was a Titan and he was an outlaw. Different sides of the coin.

“Jason.” Her free hand stretched for his that had loosened from her wrist. His callouses scraped across her skin and she found herself enjoying the touch perhaps too much for her own good. She recalled the last time they made contact. First he gave into it like a malnourished kid offered a piece of bread, but then he rejected it unreasonably. So adamant on pushing her away. Not this time.

Raven let out a heavy and deep sigh.

“How long do you plan to continue this ridiculous dance? Running around in circles.” She asked him openly with a soft voice. Her heart seizing painfully tight in her chest.

As long as it takes for you to leave me, he thought to himself. No answer.

“Jason” Raven repeated his name until his eyes met hers, it was a combination of lake blue and cyan. Impossibly beautiful and perfect, usually brightening with amusement or laughter, slightly shadowed by regret. Except now they were dull with contained sorrow. Let me heal you. All the hurting parts of you.

“Are you ashamed of me? Is that why you reject me?” She spoke with a cracked voice and glassy eyes. Doubting her worth snd pride wounded.

What. No. No. Hell no. The least he ever wanted was to hurt her. His fists clenched with frustration. How could she ever think he was ashamed of her? He adored her with his broken and dammed soul. He was ashamed of himself.

“I’m not ashamed of you.” Jason said with a shake of his head. “I’m disappointed in my own weakness. I could never be whole...” He admitted out loud with the weight of his past deeds and his unpredictable future. He inhaled deeply as he ruffled his dark curls.

She narrowed her eyes in understanding, wetting her lips before speaking. “Jason. You’re stronger then you think. You can deal with this. Don’t let this ruin who you are and what we could have.” She whispered softly, words caught between mustered courage and steady resolve. Voicing the possibility of a ‘us’. There was no point denying their attraction at this point.

One moment he was standing there. Motionless. Then he was moving, moving towards her, closer, before he’s quite given his body permission to do so because he couldn’t just stand there and not hold her.

At that Jason stopped breathing for a moment and his eyes shot to her. He wrapped his arms around her frame, tightening a fraction. His eyes were filled with something Raven was unsure of how to describe even with her empathic abilities. It was a mixture of emotions she couldn’t keep up with. Something she’s seen in him before but no one else.

Surprise. Fear. Worry. But over all happiness. Yes happiness and divine peace.

He stared down at her, a rational protest rising in his throat, the terrified assertion that she can’t help him, she can’t put up with this side of him. The rage and the voices and his uncontrollable anger. But in her eyes he found the answer. She’d already made up her mind. As if she was saying ‘I choose you’. Him. The damaged not charming and righteous Dick.

She could feel Jason’s volatile emotions call to her, voice hoarse and raw from his injuries but distinct and sharp, piercing straight to her soul. Pleading with his spirit. “Please…Stay with me.” She automatically snaked her arms around his neck. Her touch. Merely touching her used to be enough but now he couldn’t get enough.

He had been terrified by what her touch had inspired in him at first, terrified of what he might be able to do to her body if she let him…The things he wanted ro do to her. But unable to stop thinking about it, craving it, his lips on her neck, his strong, hard body pressing hers into the wall of his apartment, not caring anymore about his own physical pain. He pressed a passionate kiss to her lips.

Jason had never believed in soulmates, that was folks tales for mindless romantics. This didn’t change his mind about the topic. One thing was certain, if there was a person whose edged fit his perfectly regardless of the roughness, that would be Raven. She was darkness herself but in his mind she was the sun encasing him in gentle warmth. The stars were meant to reflect in her eyes. If there was a heaven, Raven was the owner of his.

Small jayrae prompt for @alerialblu @ravenfan1242 @amaati @niahti @jasonrae117 @catyypss 💜💖

#jayrae #jason todd #red hood and the outlaws #dick grayson #teen titans #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #batfam #dc fandom #dc universe #raven roth #writeblr

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boldycrazygirl · 3 years

Text

Most People Think You Go To Either Heaven Or Hell, What I Experienced Was Much, Much Worse

By Elias WitherowUpdated June 26, 2021

Forest Simon

I slowly opened my eyes. My head was swimming and a dull pain surrounded my throat. I was thirsty. That was the first thing I noticed. I licked my dry lips as my surroundings faded into focus. My body ached and I realized it was because I was tightly bound to a metal chair in the middle of an empty room. The barren concrete walls were stained and dirty, the floor beneath my bare feet was cold and slightly wet.

A single bulb lit the room, dangling from the ceiling by a string. It cast moving shadows and I blinked back darkness. An open door stood before me, but I couldn’t see anything but the wall of a hallway.

I tried to clear my head, tried to remember how I got here. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced myself not to panic. I slowed my breathing and focused my thoughts, desperately trying to summon some recollection of why I was here.

I couldn’t remember anything.

I opened my eyes and exhaled, my parched throat throbbing. I could hear sound echoing off the hallway walls outside the door. Screaming, clanging, howling, all very distant but that did nothing to help calm my nerves.

“Hello?!” I cried, the word tearing at my vocal cords. I felt my chest hitch in pain but I cleared my throat and yelled again.

“Is anyone there!? Hello!?”

The dark hallway remained silent except for the constant echoes. I shut my mouth and tried to wriggle free of my bindings, but the rope was knotted impossibly tight. I fought back against my imagination as it flooded my mind with horrific scenarios of what awaited me. If I could only remember!

Suddenly, footsteps erupted from outside the door, a rapid patter of small feet. My hopes rose and I trained my attention on the door, praying it was help.

A young boy ran into the room, dressed in a red onezie, complete with padded feet. Stretched over his face was a plastic Devil mask. The eye holes revealed massive blue eyes that greeted me curiously. Taken back, I opened my mouth to speak but that’s when I noticed something was off. His eyes were huge, impossibly round and bulging from their sockets. It sent a shiver of unease down my spine, but I shook it off. This child might be able to free me.

“Hey!” I hissed, urgently, “Hey kid, can you get me out of here?!”

The boy took a step closer, cocking his head, but remaining silent.

I rattled my bound arms against the chair, “Cut me free, please, I shouldn’t be here, this is some kind of mistake!”

The boy eyed me behind his strange mask and stopped directly in front of me. He leaned in close and whispered, his voice like wet silk, “You did a bad thing…”

Confused, I shook my head, “No! No this is a mistake! I didn’t do anything!”

The boy’s enormous blue eyes suddenly filled with sadness, “Oh, you did a really, really bad thing…”

I shook my head again, violently, “No! I’m sorry! I don’t remember, just please get me out of this chair!”

Suddenly, before either of us could speak again, a man came charging into the room. He was overweight and dressed in overalls, his grizzled face twisted in seething anger. He was holding a sawed off shotgun in his arms.

“I didn’t do anything!” I cried as he advanced on us, my voice cracking, “I’m not supposed to be here!”

The big man ignored me and instead grabbed the kid and shoved him hard against the wall. The boy grunted as his back struck the concrete and his eyes rose to meet the grizzled man’s.

Wordlessly, the man raised his shotgun, placed it against the boy’s forehead, and blew his head off. Chunks of gore splattered the wall as shock slugged me in the stomach like an iron fist. My ears rang and time seemed to slow as I watched in horror as the headless body crumpled to the ground.

My breath rushed back into my lungs and time seemed to readjust.

“Jesus fucking CHRIST!” I screamed, straining against the ropes, my eyes bulging in horrific shock, “WHAT THE FUCK!?”

The man ignored my screams as he bent down and picked up the boy. He slung the ruined corpse over his shoulder and walked out the doorway.

Suddenly, the hallway erupted with malicious laughter, a chorus of voices all howling in glee. I shut my eyes, the noise deafening, as absolute terror filled my every pore.

After a few moments, the laughter faded and I cautiously opened my eyes, unable to believe what I had just witnessed.

“Hello.”

I jumped as I realized there was another man standing before me. He was dressed in a simple, white button down shirt and jeans. His brown hair was cut short and he appeared to be in his early thirties. His green eyes were dull and lifeless, his full lips pulled down at the corners.

“What is going on!? Where am I!?” I cried, new fear pooling in my stomach like hot blood.

The man crossed his arms, “So you’re the new one huh?” He shook his head, “You people disgust me.”

Questions bubbled on my lips but he waved them off with a sharp chop of his hand, slicing the air and demanding my silence.

He ran his tongue over his teeth, sneering, “You look like you’ve already seen some of the horrors this place holds huh? Yes, I can tell by the look in your eyes. You’re terrified. You’ve seen something haven’t you? It doesn’t seem all that bad now does it, looking back? You’ve been here five minutes and already you’re shitting your pants.”

“Where am I?” I gasped, unable to hold back any longer, “What do you people want?”

The man crossed his arms behind his back, “I bet you want to get out of here don’t you? I bet you’d like to go back to your home, your family, everything.”

“Please,” I interrupted, “Whatever I did to you…I’m sorry, I really am, but I don’t remember!”

The man rolled his eyes, “You didn’t do anything to me. You did it to yourself. You really don’t remember anything?”

I shook my head and felt tears brimming in my eyes, liquid fear.

The man looked at me with contempt, “You waited until your wife left for work and then you went out to the woodshed and hung yourself. You’re dead.”

The recent memory rose in my mind like a monster from a bog. My eyes went wide. As much as I wanted to deny it…he was right. I had killed myself. The incident tore through my brain like a bullet train and left me reeling.

“I’m Danny, by the way,” the man said, ignoring the shocked look on my face, “And I’m number two here. I run the orientation process. I want to make this quick because I’m tired of repeating this fucking thing to you pathetic Suicidals. You get one question before I begin.”

He stared down at me and I scrambled to organize my thoughts into something cohesive. This was all horrifying. Why had I killed myself? I fought against the fog and panic and the mists of confusion slowly began to lift. I had just lost my job. Yes…that was the start. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced more of the memory to emerge. I had lost my job and I was about to lose the house. My wife…Tess…she found out and was going to leave me. I didn’t have any way out, didn’t have any options. Getting fired had come out of the blue and I didn’t have much in savings. I was broke, soon to be homeless, and my wife hated me for it. There was something else…yes…that’s right. She had been cheating on me. I had seen texts on her phone while she slept one night and confirmed my suspicions. My life had degraded to shit and I had run out of options. Humiliated and ashamed, I had decided death was my only option.

“Hey, fucker, do you have a question or not?” Danny said, snapping his fingers in front of my face.

I was sucked back into reality and I asked the only question that mattered.

“Is this Hell?”

Danny snorted, “That’s always what you people ask.” He began to pace back and forth in front of me, “No. This is not Hell. It’s not Heaven either. This is the Black Farm. And no, I didn’t name it that. This is where God sends the souls who have ended their own life. Suicidals. You see, he doesn’t really know what to do with you…and neither does the Devil. There are genuinely good people who kill themselves. Seems cruel to banish them to Hell for all eternity for a moment of weakness right? Personally, I think God and the Devil were just tired of arguing about it. And so, they send them here, to the Black Farm.”

“Did…did God create this place?” I asked, growing more and more confused.

Danny spit on the floor, chuckling, “Sure, at some point. But he lost control of it when he put The Pig in charge.”

“What’s The Pig?” I asked, unsure I wanted to know the answer.

Danny held up a hand, annoyed, “Can I fucking finish? God created this place, eons ago, put The Pig in charge, and then forgot about it for a while. Well, when his back was turned, The Pig decided to use his new powers to try and create his own little world. This mess you see around you is the fractured remains of that experiment. The Black Farm use to be a lot nicer, but The Pig wanted things to be different. He wanted to create his own vision. These people you see, these monsters? They are The Pig’s attempts at creating functioning life. Instead of mirroring God’s Earth, these mutated horrible creations are full of sin and hatred. They run rampant here, unabashed. This place is chaos. The Black Farm is a circus of freaks and monsters. And it’s your eternity.”

Fear boiled in my gut like thick oil. No. No this couldn’t be my end. I didn’t believe in stuff like this. This wasn’t real! I would wake up soon and realize I was just having a nightmare! That had to be it!

Danny stood before me and lightly slapped my face, “Hey, hey! Don’t go into hysterics on me. I haven’t finished yet.”

I raised my teary eyes to meet his.

Danny smiled, “You can always Feed the Pig.”

My breath pushed from my lungs like burning steam, “W-what does that mean?”

Danny spread his hands, still smiling, “It’s as simple as that. Feed the Pig. If you do so, there’s a chance he’ll send you back to your life.”

“A-and w-what happens if it doesn’t?” I bumbled.

“You get sent to Hell. So flip a coin if you have one. Stay here with us or Feed the Pig. If you choose to stay, I’ll let you go…I’ll let you go out there,” he said, pointing towards the door, “But let me assure you…what awaits you at the end of the hallway…well…let’s just say Hell isn’t that much worse.”

I swallowed hard, trying my best to digest everything. Why wouldn’t I try Feeding the Pig? Whatever that meant. If there was even a sliver of hope, I would take it. An eternity in this place, the Black Farm, be sent to Hell, or…or Feed the Pig? I would do anything for a chance to go back. This nightmare made my problems seem nothing in comparison.

Danny raised a hand before I could speak, “I’ll let you think on it a while. I’ll be back later.”

“I want to Feed the Pig!” I cried, not wanting to spend another second in this awful room. I could hear a woman screaming down the hallway, her cries rising as something meaty pounded into her. My breath came in sharp pulls and my throat burned. Danny noticed the noise and grinned.

“Sounds pretty bad huh?” He said softly as the woman’s voice creaked with agony. Something was still slamming into her, the sound of beaten flesh igniting my imagination with horrors.

“Please,” I gasped, breathless, “Just…just let me Feed the Pig. I don’t want to stay here any longer.”

Danny turned away from me, “I’ll be back later. Enjoy your time alone. Really think about your situation. Weigh your options. And remember…you put yourself here.”

And with that he was gone, leaving me in the dim room.

Tears streamed down my face.

The woman didn’t stop screaming for hours.

At some point, I fell into a semi-sleep. The darkness in the room seemed to press in on me and my eyes fluttered shut. My body ached and my throat was a halo of fire. Thirst raked at my windpipe like sharp glass. My lips felt like crumpled paper. My head thundered like a drum. The room swam in and out of focus and my mind drifted towards the horrific sounds that never ended.

I was lost in a haze, unaware that something was sliding into the room until I felt a sharp prick on my big toe. I jolted out of my daze as my bare foot ignited with pain. I screamed and tried to move, but my bindings held me tight.

The room rushed back into focus and I blinked in agony as I felt blood trickle between my toes. I looked down for the source of pain and I felt a scream claw up my throat.

Staring up at me was an armless man. He slithered on the floor like a worm, his bald head scabbed and filthy. His legs were wrapped together in barbed wire, forcing him to wriggle his body to move. His eye were lidless and wide, two bloodshot white orbs that stared up at me with hungry intensity. His teeth had been removed and replaced with long screws which jutted from his bleeding gums like a broken rock formation.

Around his neck was a chain leash, which I followed across the floor to the open door. The end of the leash was held by a tall, naked man. His body was hairless and flabby, covered in similar scabs like his pet. A dirty bag was pulled over his head that hid his features except for a single red eye that peeked out at me from a crude cut in the cloth.

He stared at me and groped his engorged penis, his breath heavy and labored. As the armless man wriggled towards me again, his master started to masturbate. I screamed as the screw filled mouth bit at me again and my cries seemed to stimulate the naked man even more.

“Get off of me! Stop it!” I screamed, horrified. I tried to kick at the man, doing my best to avoid his sharp metal teeth. I brought my heel down on his head and he screamed as his face bounced off the floor.

A moan of pleasure escaped the bagged man’s mouth and I turned away as a mist of black sprayed out onto the floor. There was a rattle of chains and I turned back to see the two of them leaving, the armless man dragged by his neck out the door. I looked at where the bagged man had ejaculated and saw a puddle of dead ants. I vomited onto myself, thick chunky curtains of bile and slime.

“GET ME OUT OF HERE!” I screamed, strands of puke running down my chin, “I DON’T BELONG HERE!”

I listened to the two men retreat down the hallway, the clank of chains accompanied by the sound of flesh being dragged across the concrete. I screamed again, but I knew no one was going to help me. I spit a wad of phlegm and bile onto the floor, ridding my mouth of its sourness. I forced myself to calm down. It wasn’t easy.

After some time, I heard someone else approaching. I had been in a miserable lull, my mind a blank canvas of dark despair, but the noise roused me from my trance like state. The muscles in my arms burned from being restrained for so long and I shifted them desperately, trying my best to prepare myself for whatever horror was about to walk through the door.

Footsteps drew closer and then a woman walked into the room. She stopped at the doorway and looked at me. One of her eyes was missing, a dark cavernous hole in her skull. Her hair was ratty and wild, a brown tangle like a forgotten nest. Her skin was pale and filthy and she was dressed in rags. I couldn’t tell how old she was, but there was maturity in her one good eye.

“Still thinking?” She asked, her voice course and brittle.

“What?”

She took a step closer, “Are you still deciding whether you’re going to Feed the Pig or not?”

I looked at her cautiously, “Yeah…I am. Who are you? What do you want?”

“I was once where you are now,” She said, “trying to decide my fate. I couldn’t believe that this was what happened…what happened after we die. It wasn’t what I was taught…religion didn’t warn me about this place.”

I tested my bindings again before asking, “You killed yourself too? You’re a person like me? You’re not one of those…those creations?”

She snorted, “Breaks my heart you have to ask, though,” she touched the hole where her eye should have been, “Though I can understand your caution. Yeah, I’m a Suicidal. I’ve been here a long, long time. But that was my choice. I decided to chance it here.”

I motioned with my head towards the door, “What’s out there? What is all this?”

She exhaled heavily and leaned against the wall, “I can’t even begin to describe this place. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. You walk down that hallway and go out…into it…and…” she swallowed, “You’d have to see it to understand.”

“How bad is it? Why are all these mutated people hurting and killing each other?” I asked.

She let her head loll back against the wall, “It would take years for you to fully understand this place. Years you don’t have. Right now you have to make a decision. Stay or Feed the Pig. They tell me Hell is worse than here, but it can’t be by much. Monsters and Suicidals roam the Black Farm…killing, raping, brutalizing…and then you wake up and wonder how long you can survive before something else kills you. It’s an endless cycle.”

“So why did you stay?” I pressed, “Why didn’t you Feed the Pig? I don’t even know what that means, but I would do anything for a chance to go back. I can’t stay here, I…I just can’t!”

She smiled sadly at me, “Why? Why did I choose this? It’s simple really. I’m a coward. I was a coward when I was alive and I’m a coward in death. When it came down to it, when the moment presented itself, I chose to stay here. I didn’t know what awaited me outside. It boiled down to a simple choice fueled by my own fear.”

“What is The Pig? What does it do to you?” I pressed.

She suddenly turned to go, “I’m afraid that’s for you to find out. But let me warn you. Think hard before you make a decision. Sometimes suffering through your fear is better than suffering for eternity. Be brave.”

“What do I do!?” I yelled, shaking in my chair as she walked out the door.

She paused and took one last look over her shoulder. Her eyes darted around and she dropped her voice to a whisper, “Feed the Pig.”

And with that she was gone.

I sat in silence once again. My mind was spinning, desperately turning over my options. I still couldn’t fully understand the situation I was in. It was too much, too overwhelming. The other side of death wasn’t supposed to be like this. I didn’t know what I had expected, but it wasn’t this nightmare. Questions crashed over my mind like cold waves onto a sinking ship. How was I supposed to make a choice when I didn’t even know what my actions entailed?

This place, the Black Farm…I couldn’t stay here. But what if I went to Hell? What if I didn’t get sent back? I would be out of the fire and into the frying pan. My existence would forever be damned to unending misery. Here though…here there were people like me. Suicidals. It wasn’t all monsters and mutilated murderers. Maybe I could hole up somewhere with them, try to scrape together a passable existence. Surely that would be better than getting sent to Hell!

No. No this wasn’t going to be how I spent my eternity. I refused to let it be. If there was even the slightest sliver of hope, I would take it. I didn’t want to wonder what could have been. I didn’t want to be tormented by doubt. I would Feed the Pig and accept whatever fate chose for me. When I boiled it down, that was the only option left.

I would Feed the Pig.

“Hey! Hello!? Danny!” I yelled, rattling in my chair. “I’ve made my decision! Danny!”

After a couple seconds, I heard footsteps echo down the hall towards me.

Danny walked through the doorway, an annoyed look on his face.

“I’ve made my choice,” I said, “I’m going to Feed the Pig.”

“Sounds like you’ve really thought a lot about it since I left you,” Danny said sarcastically.

I licked my lips, “You’d do the same thing if you were in my place.”

Danny walked behind me, “I was in your place once. And I chose differently.” My eyes widened and then Danny wrapped my entire head with a strip of thin cloth, blinding me. I sucked in as much air as I could, but each lungful felt empty.

I felt Danny cut me free from the chair and my body sighed as my stiff muscles were released. I rolled my shoulders as my hands were released and I moaned with relief. I dug my fingers into my back and I stretched, my bones creaking.

“Keep your blindfold on and follow me,” Danny said, pulling me up.

My legs shook as I put weight on them, my thighs trembling after their long cemented position. I groped blindly in front of me and found Danny’s shoulder. I rested my hand on it as he walked us out of the room.

As were entered the hallway, I could suddenly hear sound I hadn’t before. The clank of metal, a long fleshy tearing noise, something vomiting…these sounds sprang to life in my ears, painting the darkness before my eyes with imaginary scenes of horror. I gripped Danny’s shoulder tighter, stumbling behind him, my heart thundering.

I heard something trailing behind us, but Danny didn’t seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn’t care. Flesh slapped the concrete mere inches behind me and I suddenly felt hot breath on my neck and the click of a wet tongue against gums. My breathing became even more labored as fear choked me.

“Go’in ta feed da piggy are ya?” Something whispered in my ear. I felt something press against the back of my head and I tried not to think about what it might be. It was wet and slimy and I heard the thing chuckle.

“Ee’s a ‘ungry piggy, you make shor’ ee gets iz meal now,” the thing whispered again, its voice low and unlike anything I had ever heard before. It was like a series of grunts and moans jumbled together to form broken words.

To my relief, I heard the thing retreat back to wherever it had come from and I continued to follow Danny. He remained silent as we walked and I could feel shifts in the air. The thick heat gave way to a cooler, almost pleasant temperature, but then it kept decreasing and soon I was shivering violently against the cold. I couldn’t see anything but I felt a breeze on my face, like we were outside. I didn’t hear Danny open any doors, but nothing about this place was natural. It was like reality blurred and bled into itself, like reels of film melting together.

Teeth chattering, I was suddenly blasted with intense heat and I gasped. My feet tripped over themselves as the terrain changed and I was suddenly walking on what felt like warm iron. My ears were filled with the sound of blazing furnaces and the clash of working machinery. I couldn’t see it, but I felt like there was a vast open expanse overhead. I smelled ash and tasted dirt on my tongue, sweat already forming along my spine.

Suddenly, I crashed into Danny as he came to a halt. I backed up a few paces, quickly, and muttered my apologies. I could hear movement in front of us, a rustle of chains and an odd clicking sound on the metal floor. Something else too…something…snorting.

And then the room filled with a deafening sound of an immense pig squealing. I covered my ears, head splitting at the high pitched wail. I grit my teeth as the noise echoed off the metal and faded into a series of snorts and grunts.

It sounded absolutely enormous.

“I’ve brought another one,” Danny announced, a slight tinge of respect lining his voice. “He wants to Feed the Pig.”

I waited, expecting to hear some answer, the cloth around my eyes sealing my sight to darkness. I realized my knees were shaking and my back was coated in sweat. I was terrified.

“If that is what you wish,” Danny said and I felt him bow under my hand. Apparently some unseen conversation had just happened and Danny took my wrist and pushed me forward.

“Approach The Pig,” he instructed.

My whole body trembled and my knees locked into place. Robbed from sight, I raised my hands, trying to get my bearings, the heat and ash filling my head with nausea. I felt like I was going to throw up, my stomach rolling like a dead sea. I didn’t know where I was or what horror lay before me. I felt lost and tiny, a fresh splash of tears dripping from my eyes and soaking into the cloth around my face.

“P-please,” I begged, “Let me see what’s happening.”

Danny was suddenly behind me, pushing me forward. He guided my hands towards something as we stepped together in unison. Even with the cloth around my face, I could see a giant mass of towering darkness before me. It was a spot of black on an already darkened canvas.

As we walked forward, I was suddenly assaulted by a horrendous smell and I gagged, turning away. Danny’s grip tightened and forced me to continue. I could sense something just in front of me, a living shifting mass of flesh. The smell increased to a wretched level and I gagged again. Then hot air was being blown on my face, a blast of heat that came in repeated short bursts.

I vomited into my cloth, the source of the smell stemming from the hot air. I choked as the bile gushed over the fabric, soaking it and momentarily cutting off my oxygen. Danny slapped my hands away and I took a few seconds to steady my breathing again. I was opening crying now, fear and misery collapsing my willpower.

The wet cloth stunk as I sucked in soggy breaths. My own stomach acid coated my skin and I begged for all of this to be over.

And then something squealed directly in front of me.

I felt my bladder go. I was standing before The Pig.

It was the source of darkness in my obscured vision; a fat, titanic creature that filled my senses with every breath it blew into my face.

Danny raised my hands and suddenly I was touching The Pig’s snout. I recoiled immediately, but Danny forced my hands back. Its fur was stiff and brittle and as my shaking hands explored up its nose, the size of the animal became clear to me.

It was gigantic and had weight over a ton. Its flesh wiggled under my sweating hands and it opened its mouth slightly. My fingers curled around teeth the size of kitchen knives and I realized its mouth was absolutely cavernous.

The Pig squealed again and I heard its hooves clack against the ground. It sounded like thunder rolling across an open field in the middle of summer.

“Take this blindfold off, please,” I begged, my legs turning to jelly.

Danny had taken a few steps back and I heard reverence in his voice, “You don’t want to do that.”

I jumped as The Pig nudged me with its nose, the wet circle of flesh squishing against the length of my face. I shuddered away, raising my hands and omitting a cry of fear.

“Feed the Pig,” Danny instructed, his voice like cold steel now. “You made your choice. Now live with it. It’s the only chance you have of going back. Or maybe The Pig won’t like how you taste and send you to Hell. Only one way to find out.”

My eyes widened behind the vomit soaked cloth, “Won’t…like…how I taste?!”

“Climb into its mouth.”

My bladder let go again and I felt warm piss run down my leg, “N-no…no you can’t mean…”

Danny’s voice hardened, “Climb into its mouth and don’t stop crawling forward until its done with you.”

“P-please,” I begged, turning towards Danny’s voice, reaching out blindly, “Please there has to be some other way…don’t make me do this!” I was a mess of snot and tears, my words bumbling from my mouth like a toddler.

Danny stepped forward and spun me back to face The Pig, “DO IT! You made your choice! It will all be over soon! This is your only CHANCE!”

I could feel The Pig breathing onto my face, its snout mere inches from mine. The smell and heat it omitted made me want to vomit again but I held it back. This was insane, this wasn’t happening. My mind spun and twisted in chaos and fear. There had to be some other way. I couldn’t do this, I COULD NOT do this!

Suddenly I remembered the words of the woman: Sometimes suffering through your fear is better than suffering for eternity. Be brave.

This was my only chance to get back to the world of the living. I had made such a terrible mistake in killing myself. If I could go back and change my life, I wouldn’t have to spend eternity here. I could change my ways, ensure a spot somewhere else. Somewhere away from The Pig. But what if it decided to send me to Hell? How much more suffering could I endure?

I had to take the chance.

“Please, God,” I whispered, taking a step forward, “If you can hear me…please…have mercy on me.”

My shaking hands reached out for The Pig and I grasped its thick fur. I felt it slowly lower its head and open its mouth. It was waiting for me, its thick, hot breath stinking in my nostrils. This was it. No turning back now.

I slowly gripped its teeth and pulled myself forward into its jaws. Its head was at a downward angle and so I immediately fell onto my stomach at a forty-five degree angle. Its wet tongue squished under me and I was shaking so hard I could barely breath. Tears soaked my blindfold and my heart crunched against my ribs.

I slowly reached forward and found another tooth to grab onto. Gritting my teeth, I pulled my body inward past my knees. The Pig raised its head and I was suddenly completely horizontal on its tongue.

Saliva and mucus dripped around me and the heat was so intense I almost blacked out. My knees clacked against its front teeth as I pulled myself even deeper. Its inner cheeks pressed in around me, squeezing my body like a soaking fleshy coffin.

Crying, terrified, I reached ahead of me and found more teeth. I pulled myself deeper into its mouth and I felt my feet slide past its lips. My whole body was coated in slime and I openly wept, grasping in the darkness for another tooth.

And that’s when The Pig started to chew on me.

I screamed in crushing agony as my body was compressed between its massive teeth. I heard my legs snap instantly and felt wet bone pop from my skin. I shook violently as my body spasmed in shock, a mangled twist of blood and pain.

Its tongue shifted me in its mouth and I felt it bite down on my shoulder. My eyes bulged in their sockets as I howled, a hot pillar crunching down on my collar bone. I threw up violently, unable to control myself, the pain overwhelming.

Keep crawling.

Screaming, bloodshot eyes rolling wildly, I reached forward with my good arm, wetly searching for another tooth. I grit my teeth, blood squirting between them, as my fingers wrapped around something solid.

The Pig bit down again, its tongue twisting my body so its molars could snap down on my knees. The pain brought darkness, but my howling screams forced my eyes to remain open.

“JESUS MAKE IT STOP!” I bellowed, my trembling hand still gripping the tooth ahead of me, “PLEASE MAKE IT FUCKING STOP!”

I ground my teeth together so hard they cracked, screaming as I slowly pulled my body deeper into the mouth.

Something was changing, the tights walls of its throat squeezed my head and I realized I was almost through.

“COME ON YOU MOTHERFUCKER! COME ON!” I begged, vocal cords cracking. I reached ahead of me and grabbed onto a thick wad of flesh. My head felt like it was splitting and The Pig bit down on me again.

I gasped, blood exploding from my mouth in a great gush of red.

It had pierced through my stomach, obliterating my insides like bloated noodles. Darkness rushed in on me and I was in too much shock to even scream.

With the last of my strength, right as the blackness took me, I pulled myself forward one last time and felt myself slide down its throat.

Darkness. Falling…screaming. I was screaming. Heat. Heat so intense I thought I would melt.

Clanging. Something was hammering on a metal. Colors and images flew past me so quickly I could only make out their shape. Blood poured into my eyes.

I felt like I would keep falling forever.

Suddenly, my eyes snapped open and I was falling, my breath rushing back into my lungs in a great wave of purity. My face bounced off wood floor and I cried out as I felt my nose break. I tasted blood and saw stars.

I had stopped falling.

There was a ring of burning fire around my throat and I felt impossibly thirsty.

I was lying on the floor.

I slowly opened my eyes again and the darkness began to fade like morning mist under a hot sun. Colors blended together and shapes came into focus.

I was in my woodshed.

I reached up around my throat and grasped at the source of heat. It was the rope I had hung myself with, but now it was severed, releasing me from the grip of death.

Relief rolled over me in overwhelming waves of thanks. I curled up on the floor and sobbed, tears dripping from my eyes onto the dirty floor. My body shook, unbroken, as I wept, wet horse cries rising from my quivering lips.

I had been spared. I was alive again.

From my spot on the floor, I turned my eyes upward, my voice cracking, “Thank you God. Oh thank you.” I fell into another fit of uncontrollable sobbing, “I promise I won’t waste my life again. I promise I’ll make things right, I’ll fix everything.”

I don’t know how long it was before I got up. Time seemed to stretch for eternity. My mind refused to rebuild, the horrors of what I had just witnessed crushing me.

But I knew I would do everything I could to make the most out of my life. I was going to live every day to the fullest. I would devote myself to helping others in dark times. I would reach out to as many Suicidals as I could and try to save them from awaited on the other side.

I didn’t want anyone else to have to witness the horrors of suicide.

I didn’t want anyone else to have to Feed the Pig.

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About the author

Elias is a prolific author of horror fiction. His books include The Third Parent, The Black Farm, Return to the Black Farm,and The Worst Kind of Monsters.

“Growing up reading the works of King, admiring the art of Geiger, and knowing fiends like Pinhead left me as a pretty jaded horror fan today. It takes a lot to get the breath to hitch in my throat and the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end.. My fiance is quite similar, so when he eagerly begged me to let him read me a short story about The Black Farm by Elias Witherow, I knew it had to be good... And I was not dissapointed. Elias has a way of painting a picture that you can feel with all your senses and plays the tunes of terror created when our world meets one much more dark and forces you to keep turning the pages hungry for more.” —C. Houser

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AFTERLIFE FICTION HORROR HORROR FICTION NO SLEEP SCARY STORIES

2.5m

Thought Catalog

My Arm Was Amputated, And Something Really Weird Is Happening With My Phantom Limb

11 notes · View notes

realkingjjofwonderland · 4 years

Text

tiny fractures | jeon jungkook

pairing: jeon jungkook x childhood friend male!reader

word count: 1485

description: jungkook and (M/n) have known each other since birth, both even growing to have the same dream. But due to busy schedules, things fall apart.

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a/n: the title is because i got the idea for this while listening to fractures by illenium, also sorry if this one isn’t the best, i’m still getting back into the swing of writing these and for some reason inspiration doesn’t hit me until 1 am ??? anywho, there will probably be a part two of this up either this week or next week so check in for that if you want to ^^

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“So, I got a second audition…”

(M/n) and Jungkook had been playing Super Smash Bros Brawl when Jungkook had said that. The news had shocked (M/n) so much that he ended up falling off the edge of the map. “That’s a good thing, right?” (M/n) questioned, glancing toward his friend who didn’t seem as excited as one would normally be.

“Yeah… well, it was until I realized if I do make it then we won’t be able to hang out like this anymore.” Jungkook sighed out, looking at (M/n) as the later paused the game. “I wish you could come with me.”

“Hey, just because you made it through and I didn’t doesn’t mean we won’t ever meet up in Seoul.” (M/n) gave Jungkook a bright smile as he shoved him lightly. “Don’t count me out yet, rockstar!”

“I thought we agreed to stop calling me that?” Jungkook groaned out, slouching against (M/n)’s bed.

“You may have agreed, but I signed nothing.” (M/n) smirked as he scooted closer to his friend, resting a head on his shoulder. “Look, when you make it through-”

“If.” Jungkook corrected, earning a stern look from (M/n).

“When you make it in, you’ll be one more step closer toward your dream. Do not hold yourself back just because of me.” (M/n) turned his gaze to Jungkook’s hand, noticing he was fidgeting with his fingers. “I plan on trying out at SM’s and JYP’s auditions that are coming up, so who knows, maybe I’ll be on my way soon as well. But, even if it doesn’t work out for me, do you really think I won’t make the trip to come see you whenever you have the time?”

“Promise?” Jungkook mumbled, turning his head to look at (M/n) as he held up his pinky finger. (M/n) didn’t even hesitate to wrap his pinky around Jungkook’s, giving him the brightest smile he could muster.

“Promise.”

When Jungkook had given (M/n) the call and told him he passed his second audition and was going to have the third one be very soon, (M/n) really wished he could have been more excited. While he was truly happy for his friend, the looming factor that (M/n) didn’t get to give Jungkook a proper goodbye hung over him heavily.

What if he doesn’t come home before moving into a dorm?

What if he isn’t able to see him again for months, or even years?

What if Jungkook forgets about (M/n)?

The last thought made (M/n) physically cringe, mumbling a ‘Stop that.’ to himself. He knew Jungkook, he knew that he would never let something like that happen. They’d known each other since birth, their parents were best friends, so there was no way their friendship would be destroyed by something as silly as distance or time.

Right?

The day BTS debuted, (M/n) was laying on the floor of the JYP practice room, struggling to catch his breath. He heard a few people mention a new boy group and so (M/n) decided to look them up, not expecting to see his old best friend almost right off the bat. It had been what felt like ages since the two last spoke, even if it had only been barely a year since their last conversation. It was still ironic to (M/n) that they were in the same city, yet the last time he had seen Jungkook in person was the day Jungkook left Busan. (M/n) became a trainee a few months after Jungkook, and after that they both barely had the time to talk. He tried to be understanding, especially since his own schedule was jam packed, but it still hurt to lose such a close friend. Especially when (M/n)’s mother would constantly ask if the two had met up and started talking again.

“Yo, (L/n)! Wanna grab some food with us?”

(M/n) looked up to see a few of his friends standing at the door, all with varying looks of concern on their faces as they looked at him. “Yeah, let me just grab my stuff!” (M/n) forced a smile onto his face, not wanting to worry any one, before standing up. After grabbing his things and making his way toward the elevator as his friends resumed whatever conversation they were having before, (M/n) found himself pulling his phone out to look at the video again.

“Oh, is that the group that just debuted today?” BamBam asked as he looked over (M/n)’s shoulder, an excited smile on his face. “Hopefully we can debut soon too.”

“You kidding me, Bam?” Chan snorted as he turned around, walking backwards. “I’ll be surprised if you guys aren’t in a group by next year.”

“You’ll debut soon too, Chan.” (M/n) grinned softly, watching as Bam draped an arm around Chan’s shoulder. “Maybe you and I will end up in a group together since Bam’s in that group with Mark, Jackson, and Gyeom.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Chan let out a weak laugh at that, but (M/n) made sure to get a smile out of him by poking his cheeks.

Even if (M/n) still felt hurt by the loss of his and Jungkook’s friendship, he was glad he at least had those two by his side.

“Will you just calm down already?” One of (M/n)’s members sighed as he paced around the room. “You do know the likelihood of you being anywhere near him is extremely low? We’re a baby group compared to them.”

“Hey, Chunsoo?” (M/n) stopped his pacing to look at him, waving his hands a bit. “Not helping.”

“I’m being serious, dude. You’re overreacting.” Chunsoo huffed as another member, Taehwan, stood up to grab (M/n)’s arm.

“We should still be able to roam the hall for a bit, let’s go for a walk. Maybe it’ll help your nerves?” Taehwan offered, smiling softly when (M/n) nodded. “We can even stop by GOT7’s room and say hi.”

“That sounds good.” (M/n) sighed out as he let Taehwan lead him out the door.

Almost immediately after they left the room, (M/n) found himself running into someone else by accident. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” (M/n) squeaked out, jumping back to make sure the other person was okay. He nearly screamed out loud when he saw just who it was.

“It’s alright, I should’ve been paying better-” Jungkook seemed to choke on his words when he actually looked at (M/n)’s face, eyes growing wide. “(M/n)? You’re… I didn’t know…”

“Oh, yeah…” (M/n) chuckled nervously as he noticed Taehwan backing up into the room with wide eyes, sending him a pleading look that (M/n) knew was futile. “We debuted a year ago.”

“No I meant- I didn’t know you guys were going to be here.” Jungkook breathed out, a sheepish smile slipping onto his face. “I uh, I actually saw your debut the day it came out…”

“Wait- really?” (M/n) was genuinely surprised to hear that, feeling a bit bad for thinking Jungkook would forget about him. “What did you think…?”

“It was really good. I’m… I’m sorry I never reached out...to uh- to tell you sooner.” They both were well aware what Jungkook actually meant, (M/n) even going as far as to grab Jungkook’s hand when he noticed he was playing with his fingers.

“Don’t apologize, you’re not the only one with access to a phone.” (M/n) mumbled, eyes locked onto their hands. “I should have reached out when you debuted, rockstar.”

“Oh god please don’t start calling me that.” Jungkook laughed, ducking his head down to catch (M/n)’s eyes. “I’m glad we bumped into each other, do you have a line account?”

“Oh, yeah I do-” (M/n) had to blink a few times as his brain short circuited slightly from Jungkook’s face being so close. He quickly pulled out his phone, unlocking it and handing it to Jungkook. When it was handed back to him, he saw Jungkook had sent himself a message.

“Let’s go out to eat some time to celebrate our debuts, on me.” Without giving (M/n) time to even agree, Jungkook was being escorted back to his room by one of the security guards that (M/n) hadn’t even noticed before.

As (M/n) entered his group’s room, they all swarmed him asking various questions about what happened and whether or not they were friends again, but (M/n) was still stuck on the fact that Jungkook still cared enough about him to pay attention to when he debuted. He still checked up on him. He still cared.

And just like that, (M/n) was beyond stoked for the evening his group had ahead of them.

#jeon jungkook #bts #bangtan sonyeondan #bangtan boys #jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook x reader #jungkook x male reader #jeon jungkook x male reader #bts x reader #bts x male reader #imagine #kpop #kpop x reader #kpop x male reader #kpop imagine #bts imagine #jungkook imagine #angst if you squint

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violetwolfraven · 4 years

Text

Then I See You Again

33 w/ sprace— requested by @livininmyhead

You’re in the hospital and I’m pleading with you not to leave me and to please just wake up.

Rad. *cracks knuckles* Angst time. I’m gonna write this in a modern AU. Also, don’t fret about this now, but for future reference, to request fics, please, send me asks. Commenting your requests makes it harder for me. I will fill them, anyway, but please use asks in the future.

Tw: Injuries, I guess?

...

Spot was thanking God that Race’s foster mom was so chill, and he didn’t even believe in God.

He had been planning on sneaking into the hospital room if he had to, but Medda just signed him in as a visitor completely legally, meaning he didn’t have to scale two stories worth of brick to even get to the window. He was definitely grateful for that.

Since the second Spot met him, Race had never once been still. He was always in motion in some way, running dance choreography, moving through the five ballet positions under his desk, fidgeting with a pencil or pen or the hem of his shirt...

He was still, now.

It was a stupid mistake. It wasn’t even a mistake caused by human error. It was caused by insufficient funding to the drama club and lighting equipment that needed upgrading and it might cost Race his life.

Spot was going to kill those morons who didn’t give the club the money they needed.

He was sure he could get away with it. Sure, it would take planning, but Hotshot, Bart, Rafaela, and all his shifty friends on the stage crew would help him and confirm his alibi.

Spot forced himself to take a deep breath. Murder wasn’t the answer this time. Not unless Race actually died, and... and he wasn’t going to die. Race was not going to die.

He was not going to die.

A portion of the stage’s lighting had fallen on him in the middle of rehearsal, but it would take more than that to take out Anthony ‘Racetrack’ Higgins.

Even knowing that, believing that, Spot had never been afraid the way he was today.

Spot had looked down from the catwalk to see what could possibly make Jack Kelly scream like that and seen... seen...

Race, pinned under a huge chunk of metal, moving a little but clearly hurt and scared.

In hindsight, the next scream might have been Spot. He wasn’t sure. But suddenly, Kath had 911 on the phone and everyone else was trying to lift the fallen lighting equipment off Race but Spot was frozen.

Everyone else was trying to save Race, but Spot couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even breathe.

When someone finally shouted his name, Spot didn’t know who it was. All he knew was that he was running down and grabbing Race by his shoulders so he could pull him out while the others lifted the set piece and then he was holding his boyfriend’s hand and his head in his lap and trying so hard to keep his voice calm for him as Race was choking on broken sobs and crying it hurts, Spottie, it hurts, help, please, Jack, Crutchie, Romeo, Spot, help, it hurts—

And everyone thought he was going to pass out, but he didn’t. He just kept drifting somewhere in between, sobbing in pain and keeping a death grip on Spot’s hand but not making much sense or really responding when anyone tried to talk to him.

“Most things just are what they are and not what we wish they could be. But then I see you again and a new world starts spinning.”

Spot had ignored everyone’s shock as he started singing quietly, trying to keep his boyfriend calm, trying to distract him, just... anything to make him more comfortable, knowing how much Race loved musical theatre and the songs that came with it.

“Filled with light, filled with you, and the crazy belief that tomorrow is something worth winning. Keeping faith with a new beginning.”

It was a song he’d heard Katherine singing more than once. Some song he didn’t recognize, maybe from some obscure musical or one Kath was writing herself. He didn’t know. He had to sing it an octave lower, but he sang it anyway, and Race untensed a bit, getting quiet and calmer, at least.

“Most things just are what they are, so why not give in and let go? And then I see you again and I know...”

Then the paramedics got there and Race was taken away from him and even though Spot really should have felt good about that, because Race needed a doctor and the paramedics would get him there, it only made him more panicked and he didn’t register that Jack Kelly was hugging him until he realized he was crying, and what the hell, Spot Conlon doesn’t cry, especially not in front of people.

He felt a little better, now, but also worse.

Because Race had a broken leg and several broken ribs, a few of which had damaged internal organs while breaking. Even if he recovered, it would take months of physical therapy to get back to where he was before this happened.

He was going to recover. Spot had to believe he was going to recover. But...

He knew how much Race loved acting. How much he loved dancing and singing. He wouldn’t be able to do any of it for a long time, now.

He couldn’t even start down that long road to recovery until he woke up, damn it.

“Taken out by lightin’ equipment?” he whispered, “Nope. No. No, Racer, you’re not allowed to leave me like this. If you’re dyin’ before your time, or even gettin’ stuck in a coma, at least make it by somethin’ interestin’. Certainly not by some stupid accident that ain’t even anyone’s fault. Race, come on, wake up.”

Race didn’t respond, and he didn’t wake up.

“Asshole. Are ya tryin’ to get me to sing again?”

Race made a pained noise in his sleep and Spot froze.

Judging by the amount of meds the doctors had him on, it wasn’t physical pain. More likely, a nightmare. Spot grabbed his boyfriend’s hand, wishing he could pull him out of it.

“I never said this out loud. But sometimes I just, I get scared. And then I see you again, and it’s like I’m protected.”

Race settled, but Spot kept singing. Because everything he was singing was actually fairly accurate, and... being sappy sometimes was okay, maybe.

It was true that Race had a way of calming him down, whether it was fear he was feeling, anger, or whatever. Race made Spot quiet.

“Seems unreal, you don’t know. Seeing me in your eyes is a prize I ain’t never expected. Makes me feel... what’s the word? Connected.”

Spot had definitely never expected to find someone like Race, who saw his flaws, his rough edges, and cared anyway. Someone who convinced his friends to give Spot a chance. In turn, Spot introduced Race to his crew friends, which meant they both had more people supporting them.

“Most things they are what they are, so why not just pick up and go? And then I see you again, and I know...”

Spot had never been able to admit when he really cared about people. Even friends were just allies, no strings attached, no real caring.

Until Race. Race who blew past all of Spot’s walls and found a way to matter to him so much that he couldn’t deny it. That he felt comfortable starting to let other people in as more than just allies, one by one.

“Up this high, if you try, you could almost believe that our problems are small. Almost believe they’re not problems at all.”

Race was breathing evenly now, his face calm. Spot would never get used to the thought that someone like this, someone who looked like an angel and sure as hell had saved Spot like one, wanted to be with him, some broken kid from Brooklyn.

Well, Race was a little broken, too, but he still managed to mend some of Spot’s fractures and make him feel like nothing was wrong even when everything was.

Spot really wanted to help with the fractures Race had, but... he didn’t really know how. He was still willing to try, though.

“What if we stay really still, and don’t even look at the ground? Not a soul for miles around. We are at the beginning.

How to start, got no clue...

But I know when I’m up here, it’s not about losing or winning. Would you care if the Earth stopped spinning?”

Spot wouldn’t care if the world ended if Race could just be okay, if he could just wake up and heal and smile the way he did when he was actually happy, when he wasn’t performing for anyone and was feeling genuine, unbridled joy.

A truly happy Racetrack Higgins was rarer that it should be, but when you actually got to see it... his smile was like starlight on a clear night, like a sky so blue it’s almost purple, like the warmest kind of sunshine that made everything else just... drop away for a second.

“Not much is certain down there. One thing’s for sure even so. I admit I don’t know when, or how time will pass ‘til then. But I will see you again, this I know.”

That last line felt like a promise. A vow that no matter how long it took, he’d wait for Race to wake up. And no matter how frustrated he got or how much he took out that frustration on Spot while recovering, Spot would stick by him, anyway.

He loved Race enough to stay, no matter what, even when he wasn’t okay, but he really, really wanted him to be okay.

“Please, please, wake up, Racer,” Spot whispered, “Don’t leave me like this. Race, I love you too much lose you like this. Please wake up. Please.”

Amazingly, by some stroke of luck or fate or theatre kid magic, after only a few seconds, Race groaned quietly and opened his eyes.

“Hey,” he said softly, and Spot wanted to laugh at the cliche of it all, but he didn’t.

“Hey. How you feelin’?”

“Better, seein’ you.”

At that, Spot couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“Where’s my family?” Race asked.

“They went to go get some coffee so’s we could have some time alone. I can go find—“

“No,” Race interrupted, “Stay. Please.”

Spot nodded, “Of course. If ya want me to.”

Race was silent for a few seconds, and Spot wasn’t sure if it was because he was preparing to say something difficult or because the pain meds were making him slow.

“How bad is it?”

“You should probably hear it from—“

“No. My mom and brothers’ll try to make it seem better than it is. I know you won’t lie to me, Spot, so tell me. How bad is it?”

Spot took a deep breath, knowing how much Race was trusting him, here, to tell him the truth exactly as it was. He squeezed his hand gently.

“Your right leg is broken in two places,” he said, carefully keeping his voice level, “You’ve got several cracked ribs and some internal damage from where they broke against organs. It’s bad. It might take surgery, and even if it doesn’t, it’ll be months of physical therapy and a lot of drugs to manage the pain.”

Race inhaled shakily, looking hard out the window.

“Hey,” Spot said, “Hey. Yeah, it’s bad, but—“

“Who’s gonna take my role in the musical?”

“That’s what you’re worried about?”

“No, you idiot,” Race chided, “It’s just easier to focus on that cause if I don’t, I have to focus on...”

“Yeah, okay,” Spot said, hoping to interrupt whatever thoughts got Race close to tears, “Okay. Um... we don’t got official understudies, but... I think Jojo could get your part down within a couple weeks. He’s in most of your scenes as ensemble already. He probably knows all your lines.”

Race nodded, “They’ll have to switch around some dance choreography, but... oh, shit. Shit. I’m dance captain. Who will—“

“Tommy Boy. He can nail down more turns than you, anyway.”

“Ya really think Tommy Boy’s a better dancer than me?”

Spot shook his head quickly, “No, no, I—“

“Relax. I’m messin’ with ya. You’re right. Tommy’s better’n me at turns. I’m better at everything else, but... but you’ll all do alright with him leadin’.”

Spot chuckled, “Only you could joke around at a time like this. Jesus, Anthony.”

“Hmm. Anthony? You must be mad at me if you’re callin’ me Anthony. Well, whatever I did to piss you off, I’m sorry.”

Spot scoffed, “Whatever you did? You didn’t do anything. And I wasn’t angry, Racer. I was scared.”

“Scared?”

They both knew how often Spot actually said that he was scared, even if he was.

“I was terrified,” he admitted, “I thought I was gonna lose you.”

“To some fallin’ lightin’ equipment? It takes more’n that to do me in.”

It took Race a couple seconds to realize how serious he was really being.

“I’m sorry I scared ya, but Spottie, you ain’t gonna lose me.”

“Ya can’t be sure of that,” Spot muttered, “This time a stupid accident almost killed you. What about next time?”

“That ain’t gonna happen, Spot,” Race insisted, “Never. I promise.”

“You shouldn’t make promises ya ain’t sure you can keep.”

Race squeezed his hand, smiling softly, “You’re right. I shouldn’t.”

Spot sighed. Not being able to think of the right thing to say, he settled for kissing the back of his boyfriend’s hand.

“I can’t promise forever,” Race admitted, “But I can promise right now that as long as you want me, you have me. And I’ll do my damn best not to leave you as long as you try not to leave me.”

“If you think you’re gettin’ rid of me before it’s my time to go, you’re crazy, Racer.”

“Well, I am probably crazy.”

Spot rolled his eyes, “My idiot.”

Race smiled sleepily, “Damn right.”

...

In case anyone was wondering, the song is Then I See You Again, a deleted song that was once the jatherine duet instead of Something To Believe In. Personally, I think it would have been a great sprace duet instead. (:

#newsies #sprace #spot conlon #racetrack higgins #race x spot #modern au #angst #violet’s writing

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reidingandwriting · 4 years

Text

Till the End of the Line

Word Count: 730 words

Ship: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Car accident mentioned, mention of broken bones and surgery, takes place in the hospital

✨ Masterlist ✨

Bucky sat in the waiting room of the hospital, his leg bouncing steadily as his gaze switched between the clock on the wall and the double doors you had disappeared behind hours ago. Two hours, forty minutes, and thirty-eight seconds ago. Every second felt like hours, it was the most agonizing wait of his life. As he stared desperately at the double doors, his mind drifted off to a better time. The day you met.

~~~

“For a man who thrives on being incognito, you think he’d have a better disguise.” Your voice snapped Bucky out of his daze and he looked up as you sat in the booth across from him. He was seated in the back of a cafe, clad in a cap, the hood of his jacket over his head, and a glove over his metal hand. The cup of coffee he bought hours ago had long gone cold. “Have to say it. Really don’t get the whole hood over the baseball cap look, but it works on you. Muffin? It’s blueberry.”

“Do I know you? ’m sorry if I do, it’s a bit scrambled up here lately.” Bucky tapped his temple before he took the muffin you had set in front of him. “Thank you.”

“You looked like you could use a friend. If nothing else, something to eat.” You leaned back in the booth, a lazy grin on your face. “Name’s Y/N.”

“James. But, uh, you can call me Bucky.”

~~~

The two of you fell into conversation, and it felt natural. Bucky didn’t feel the need to have a front up while talking to you, and you worked your way into his heart quickly. Even when you broke off a piece of the muffin you had gifted him. “Just had to make sure it’s good, Buck.” “You waited until I ate half of it to test?” The sound of your laughter still ran through Bucky’s mind, especially lately.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, but the buzzing faded into the background as he watched doctors and nurses walk through the lobby. He felt his heart skip a beat each time a doctor passed him, hoping that they would stop for him. But with each one that passed, the little bit of hope he had started to fizzle out. Bucky closed his eyes and let his mind drift again.

~~~

“I don’t think I fit in here.” Bucky looked over at you with a smile playing on his lips. The soft smile reserved for you, and you swore your heart would beat out of your chest by the end of the night. You were Bucky’s date for the Stark Industries charity gala, your first public outing since the beginning of your relationship. All of the team was there, although it took endless begging on Steve’s part for Bucky to show up. Even more begging was required before you agreed to come. “Are you sure I look okay? My hair isn’t messed up? My dress fits right?”

“You look stunning, darling. Your hair is perfect, as is the dress. I do know one way we can make it look better though.” There was a playful glint in his eyes.

“James.” You warned, your eyes narrowed playfully.

“Oh, you’re pulling the first name card? Easy, fighter. I do have something for you, though.” Bucky reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a red velvet box. He opened the box and revealed a necklace. Your breath hitched as Bucky lifted the necklace, the delicate silver chain glimmering. There was a single diamond on the necklace, and it sparkled as the lights in the room hit it.

“Buck...” You whispered.

“May I?” You nodded wordlessly, not trusting yourself to speak. Bucky moved to stand behind you and he clasped the necklace around your neck, lightly untucking your hair after. The feeling of his cool metal fingers against your neck sent shivers down your spine, and you looked up at Bucky as he spoke again. “You don’t fit in here. Neither of us do. The difference between us? You’re the most genuine and kind person in the room, and you’re worth more than everyone in here combined, Y/N.” Bucky’s voice held so much sincerity in it, and your heart swelled in your chest.

“Please don’t get all sappy on me, my mascara will be ruined if I tear up.” You looked up at your boyfriend and smiled as you saw the light in his eyes.

“You’d still be the most beautiful person in the room. Now, I believe you promised me a dance.”

~~~

Bucky’s gaze didn’t waver as he heard someone sit beside him. He knew who it was, he didn’t need to look.

“Any news yet?” Steve asked and Bucky shook his head.

“It’s been three hours. Can’t decide if it’s good or bad I haven’t heard anything.” Bucky’s leg bounced, and the tapping of his boot’s heel hitting the floor created a steady rhythm. “What if-“

“Don’t. Don’t go down that path, Buck. It won’t do you or her any good.” Steve sighed as he looked at his best friend. “Can I get you anything? A drink, maybe?”

“A bottle of water, please. Thank you, Stevie.” Steve patted Bucky’s shoulder in a comforting way before he stood and left. When Steve left, Bucky’s mind took him back again. This time to right before the accident.

~~~

You stood in the mostly empty gym, and Bucky continued to work the punching bag. Your voice and the steady sound of his fists hitting the bag filled the room, and Bucky hummed in response as he listened.

“I’ve got to get a few things from the store for date night. I would risk it all for some Ben and Jerry’s right now.” Bucky playfully rolled his eyes, glancing at you.

“You sure you don’t want me to come with you? I can finish, shower, and be ready in half an hour.” You shook your head and Bucky stopped his workout and turned to face you. He pouted at you and you giggled, leaning up to kiss his lips.

“You could use a shower, though. You stink.” Bucky gasped and grinned.

“I stink? Oh, you’ve asked for it. You’re getting a hug.” Bucky grabbed you and pulled you into his arms.

“No! Let me go, let me go!” You laughed and tried to squirm out of his arms.

“But I love you!”

“I love you, too! But you stink, so please go take a shower while I go out.” Bucky groaned dramatically but let go of you.

“Let me finish my workout and shower. I’ll have dinner and a movie ready whenever you’re home.” Bucky pressed a kiss to your cheek and you left as he turned back to the punching bag. You never made it back for dinner.

~~~

“Mr. Barnes?” Bucky was snapped out of his thoughts when an unfamiliar voice filled his ears. A woman stood in front of him, dressed in a lab coat. ‘Must be the doctor,’ Bucky thought. “You’re here for Ms. Y/L/N, correct?”

“Is she okay? Y/N. She’s okay?”

“She’s recovering nicely, Mr. Barnes. She’s pretty banged up, and she suffered a compound fracture of her femur, which we had to fix in surgery. She had some trouble waking up from the anesthesia, but she’s doing well now. She’ll be a bit drowsy, but you’re free to visit her now. We’d like to keep her overnight to make sure she’s okay. One guest is allowed to stay with her, for everyone else visiting hours are over at ten.” The doctor added when she noticed Steve lingering a few feet away. Bucky glanced back and saw Steve, then turned to the doctor with a nod. “She’s in room 508, I trust you can find your way there?”

“I can. Thank you, Doctor.” The doctor excused herself before leaving, and Steve walked up to Bucky.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Steve asked. Bucky shook his head and turned to face Steve.

“I want to see her first. Need to know she’s okay. Just need a few minutes.” Steve nodded in understanding and smiled at Bucky.

“I’ll be here. I’ll come up soon.” Bucky nodded at Steve with a nervous smile before he walked to your room.

———

“Hey there, stranger.” Your faint voice greeted Bucky, and a tired smile played on your lips. “Bet the ice cream’s melted by now.”

“I’ll get you all the ice cream you want once you’re out of here.” Bucky’s voice cracked as he took a seat beside you. “You really scared me, doll. When I got the call...” Bucky exhaled, his breath shaky. “And every minute in the waiting room felt like torture.” You frowned and took Bucky’s hand, interlacing your fingers. “I, I can’t lose you, Y/N.”

“And you won’t. I’ll be by your side, no matter what.” You raised Bucky’s hands to your lips and kissed over each knuckle. “Till the end of the line?” Bucky smiled and squeezed your hand.

“Till the end of the line.”

Taglist: @daughter-of-stark @agent-barnes40 @spideygirl2003 @ditttiii @5aftermidnight ♥️ Taglist and requests are open!

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marlahey · 4 years

Text

I wish I had a steadier hand (or the words to bring you back again)

a little voice fic pairings/characters: sam/bess, my genuine gasps of pained adoration, sam’s truly incredible apartment is a character in and of itself warnings: sad sad sadness, yearning you could make a whole blanket out of episode tags: missing scene(s) set in/immediately after the end of 1.07 (ghost light) lyrical title courtesy of: quiver – lonas notes: I am a fucking wreck. goodbye forever. also I just get the sense that once samuel had tacit permission to touch bess, he’d never stop. can we tell that I am touch-starved sad quarantine bitch or what? dedicated to @moxyphinx who did not bat an eye when I asked her to exchange numbers and immediately listened to several voice notes of rambling, incoherent emotions. thanks for making me feel so seen, shawna. thanks as always to @missgoalie75 for going ‘Fuck you’ at the exact scene I wrote at 3am on thursday. best beta there is. a canon-based mirror to you got a friend in me; they’re very similar because an episode actually gave me nearly exactly what I wanted for the first time in my life and if I tell y’all that I screamed.

* They arrive at Samuel’s apartment. Bess has no idea how they got here. She doesn’t know a lot, right now. The weight of his arm around her back’s been so constant (for the last...hour? How long did it take them to walk back?) that when the door closes behind them and Samuel finally releases her, Bess feels like she might float away.

“Bess.” His voice is distant, distorted, like she’s underwater. “Bess.” She starts. Samuel’s tugged her down to sit on his bed. The soft thread of his blanket tickles her bare legs but that too, somehow, is removed—as though Bess is outside of herself, watching the way Samuel ducks his head to catch her eye. “What do you need?” The full glass windows throw amber streetlight across the apartment, cutting sharp shadows over his face. At least he’s not asking if she’s okay. Bess opens her mouth to reply but nothing comes out. The memory of her father screaming at her in the street crests up, a tidal wave.

Samuel draws her in, absorbing the sound of her choked sob. He cradles her head as she falls into the curve of his neck and Bess has never felt quite so fractured, before. Can she shatter and sink at the same time? His voice pulls her back to the surface, low and urgent just above her ear. “We don’t have to talk about it. If you want me to, I’ll take this to my grave and we don’t ever have to speak of it again. If you want to go home, I’ll take you.”

Panic seizes inside her chest, that urge to flee. Bess shakes her head, trying to stand, but Samuel won’t have it. He cages her in with his body, unyielding, the refusal absolute. “Hey, hey. C’mon Bess. Just talk to me, okay? Do you want to look for him?” He pulls back, his grip still firm around the soft bends of her elbows. The light reflects oddly in Samuel’s eyes; they bore into her. “If you wanna go back out there right now, I’ll help you search all night until we find him.” (She believes him. She can feel the truth of his words in her bones.) Bess hiccups. It feels like she’s gasping for breath. He brushes her tears away, pushing back her hair. Beneath the worry there’s something so tender in his expression that it stuns her into stillness. “Tell me what you need. Just...” Samuel’s voice wavers, just for a second. “Bess, please just let me help you.” She doesn’t know what she needs. Bess just knows she doesn’t want to feel this, like she’s drowning. But Samuel’s there, with his steady gaze and uneven smiles and guitar calloused fingers on her skin. His eyes rove over her face like he’s searching for something. She wonders if he can see her panic before Bess surges forward, catching his very faint breath of surprise with her mouth. Samuel freezes. (She wishes she had the excuse of being drunk. Bess banishes the thought as quickly as it comes.) A beat of perfect silence rings through the apartment. Samuel’s hand slides up to her neck, over her thrumming heart, in a touch so light it’s almost reverent—fresh heat burns in Bess’ eyes. He kisses her just once, like he could break her if he’s not careful, which—maybe he can. Or maybe she’s already broken. Then it’s over, before Bess can even take another breath. Samuel pulls away very gently. She’s slow to open her eyes, more reluctant to face him than she could ever admit aloud. The only word Bess can really land on to describe his face is pained. Guilt rears up in her chest. He thumbs at more tears that she hadn’t even realized had fallen. Bess barely recognizes her own voice. “I’m so—” Samuel silences her with a shake of his head. “Don’t be. It’s okay. You’re okay, right? With—” He falters. She feels unsteady. “With that?” Bess thinks of what he’d said to her tonight, before everything fell apart. You make the bad days okay. She just nods. One corner of his mouth lifts in that way it does when Samuel wants to reassure her. Bess lets it work. “Want me to take you home?” he asks gently. Bess shakes her head, almost surprised at herself. She can’t remember the last time she didn’t want to be alone, so fiercely it could have choked her. Samuel nods towards the head of the bed. “Sleep?” Bess stares at his pillows like they’re alien. Words stick in her throat, raw as they finally come out. “I don’t know if I can.” His understanding is more than she can bear. Samuel reaches for the sleeves of Bess’ jacket. When it slides away and he gets up to leave it on his chair, a question leaps from her mouth. “What about you?” His smile tilts higher on one side as he shrugs out of his button down. “Got a foam mattress in the closet.” “You don’t—” Bess can’t articulate it, suddenly. Their fight comes rushing back. You’re too messed up to let anyone care about you. “Can you...” She doesn’t trust herself to speak anymore so Bess just reaches for his hand. The air feels loaded with something unspoken, but Samuel just follows as Bess leans back onto the bed, curling into herself; he folds around her, tucking himself so tightly into all her spaces that her shoulder blade leaves the mattress to lean on his chest instead. The apartment narrows (she loves his space so much but it’s too big now, like she could lose herself in the emptiness) into the strength of his body, the weight of his arm over hers. Samuel’s breath is warm on her neck. He doesn’t move to take his hand back. “Okay?” he murmurs. Not, are you okay, but is this okay? She nods into the pillow. Bess can make out the familiar shapes of Samuel’s production set up; the memory of Electric Lady stings. The ceiling offers no comfort. “He,” she starts, and finds a lump in her throat. I haven’t seen him since we recorded. “You don’t have to explain, Bess.” Samuel tightens his grip. “You don’t have to say anything.” Yet more tears slide past her nose—will she ever stop crying—and Bess is grateful he can’t see her. Though that may just be his grace, pretending he doesn’t know. The ever restless city sounds just far enough away through the open windows. She exhales shakily. Samuel doesn’t say anything else. He hooks his chin over her shoulder. Exhaustion seeps in her bones but Bess’ mind won’t let her rest, even when his breath goes deep and even. She tries to close her eyes but her father’s face: listless, livid, practically unrecognizable— is seared in her mind. She lays awake for a long time. It doesn’t feel real—tonight, this moment, herself—and then Samuel’s lips press into the only bare skin he can reach. (The dark behind her eyes is safe, now. Just for a second.) Bess can feel his gaze on her face but she has no idea what to say, or do. He shifts against her like an instinct. She’s struck with the sudden, overwhelming fear that Samuel’s about to pull away, to leave, and her free hand is already reaching back for his arm—a plea Bess can’t voice, something in her that’s too fragile to bring into the light. He presses, almost impossibly, closer. Bess can close her eyes, finally. She doesn’t sleep more than she passes in and out of almost-dreams (the apartment women, Louie dressed as Hamilton, Ethan’s grandfather); she returns to herself once to Samuel’s fingers trailing gently up her arm, from her wrist to her elbow and back. The steady rhythm of it is like a blanket wrapping around her. Pale dawn is creeping in the next time she opens her eyes. Bess’ head feels foggy from lack of real rest. She rolled all the way onto her side at some point and Samuel had followed. “Want anything?” His voice is soft, a little hoarse. “Water? Food?” Bess shakes her head. “Did you sleep at all?” She shakes her head again. Samuel leaves a featherlight kiss at the very top of her spine, a wordless empathy. She couldn’t stop the shiver if she tried. Bess almost wishes that they’ll never have to look at each other again, if only so she doesn’t have to face however things may have changed—if only she could just be safe, for once. Are things different? Or is Bess the one that’s changed, now? She rolls over to face him before she can decide. Samuel’s eyes are very soft. He reaches out and brushes some fallen hair back away from Bess’ face. His callouses graze her cheek. Bess knows she should say something. Anything, really. But she has no idea where to begin or how this is supposed to end and Samuel must see the fear on her face, because one corner of his mouth lifts. “It’s okay, Bess.” She feels small, somehow. “Is it?” His expression is careful, guarded even. “It doesn’t have to mean anything, if you don’t want it to.” Do you want it to? She doesn’t have enough courage for the question. Not now, anyway. Maybe not ever (or maybe Bess is just a coward and he’s been telling her something all this time that she’s too afraid to hear). “I don’t—” she starts, then stops. She tries again. “Should it?” I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know what to do. Samuel smiles. He looks almost sad. “I don’t think you want me.” He says it with such certainty, like he’s already resigned himself to the truth. A dull, familiar frustration rises in the pit of her stomach, like smoke from an ember. It’s a feeling only Samuel can ignite.

“How do you know that?” His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Because if you wanted me, you could’ve had me the second you walked up on that stage at Saint C’s alone.”

Something in Bess comes undone. But Samuel doesn’t let her reel back. He holds her face so she has to look at him when he says again, “It’s okay, Bess. It doesn’t change anything.” “How can it not change anything?” she demands, horrified to hear her own voice break. Samuel leans a little closer, his face serious. “Because I care about you more than I care about my—” Bess sees a flicker of the boy who’d awkwardly asked, are we good? only a few hours ago— “About us being anything more than together in the music. You’re so good, Bess— Yes,” he insists when she shakes her head, rejection after rejection echoing. “You are. I’ll believe it for you if you can’t, but you are.” She refuses to cry anymore. Bess blinks until she can see Samuel clearly again. He strokes her cheek a little like he’s unaware he’s doing it, like he’d never stop unless she asked him to. “I know you have a lot of shit in your life, okay? I know it’s hard and I know you think you have to do it all on your own.” Her breath hitches. Damn it. Bess wraps her hand around Samuel’s wrist as though it could just anchor her enough. He ducks his chin, looking at her through his pale eyelashes. “I just wanna be here for you, if you’ll let me.” She nods, maybe a little desperately, and that’s apparently all Samuel needs. He pulls her towards him with both arms now and presses his mouth to her forehead. Bess lets him. She lets him trace the edge of her spine, over and over like he could wear a line far enough down to sink beneath her skin. She lets him tuck her into him and curl his hand along the back of her neck, where she’ll never stop feeling at her most vulnerable for a reason Bess still doesn’t understand. But finally, finally... She falls asleep.

#little voice #bess king #brittany o'grady #colton ryan #mine: fic #bess/sam #otp: you make the bad days okay #otp: you've been there #otp: your soul is all over your face #otp: take a minute #this was SO PAINFUL TO WRITE BUT HERE YOU GO FRIENDS

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fingerscrossedtryingsomethingnew · 4 years

Text

Like He Deserves

Note: Sort of AU angsty Steve Rogers x Reader fic. Reader can sense and influence the emotions of those around her. Nat was Blipped. Italicized portions are Steve’s thoughts and reactions.

Summary: Takes place near the end of the 5 years of the Blip. Reader and Steve have been in a relationship for a while, but now the possibility of living a life with Peggy is real. Steve overhears a conversation between Wanda and the Reader about it.

Here’s a gif of a happy Steve because he’s not-so-happy in this story, and Steve Rogers deserves to be happy.

Wanda slid the cup of coffee to Y/N over the kitchen counter. Y/N had taken to spending a lot of time on Wanda and Vision’s floor, even when Wanda was in her room and said she didn’t want to talk.

Truthfully, it did make Wanda feel better to feel that there was someone there, to not feel truly alone. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to feel better, to seek out comfort. She just didn’t know how– how could she hear their grieving in their minds as they sat with her, how could she ask for help when they were just as hurt and lost, how could she reach out a hand for help just to realize that no one would grasp it, that the only one who really knew how to was gone.

Now, for the first time in a long time, there was hope. A beacon of light had appeared at the compound in the shape of Scott Lang. There were few people in the world who understood exactly how crushing the weight of hope could be as Wanda did– none of them more so than Y/N.

“You have become someone that I… cherish,” Wanda admitted, looking down at her coffee cup. She glances back up to meet Y/N’s eyes, seeing very little of the brightness that had been there a few years ago.

Y/N had taken over the mantle, holding the fort down with the world in tatters. Wanda had been surprised when she didn’t accept Tony’s offer to move to the cabin in the woods with him, Pepper, and little Morgan. As the years passed, she had never wavered in her decision, no matter how many times Tony reminded her that a room would always be waiting for her in the cabin. Her dimmed eyes were usually underlined by dark circles, and her cheeks had hollowed.

There had been a lot of heartbreak in the past few years. Through it all, Y/N had always been someone to lean on. There were many, many things Wanda would trade to get Vision back– her powers, the happiest memories of her childhood, the luxuries she now had at her disposal, her life, even– but Y/N’s friendship wasn’t one of them.

Y/N smiled warmly at her, and Wanda was struck by how genuine it was. Y/N clasped the coffee cup in her hands, bringing it to her lips. “I love you, too.”

Wanda ducked her head again, her cheeks warming. She forgets sometimes that Y/N can feel what she feels, knew the depth of her care before Wanda admitted it. She cleared her throat, trying to clear away the lump of emotion that suddenly made it hard to speak. “Yes, well, it’s for that reason that I don’t think I can keep quiet any longer.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow at that. Other than taking another sip of her coffee, she doesn’t twitch. The early morning light filters into the kitchen, and illuminating her face; all at once, Wanda can see how much the weight of the world is wearing on her.

(She forgets that Y/N bears everyone’s weight. She walks around the compound, the world, and has absorbed the heartbreak, the grief, the frustration, the hopelessness, of everyone around her every day for the past five years.)

(A few floors below them, Steve stepped into an ice bath after his grueling run. He had been pushing his limits since Scott showed up, working himself hard enough to drown out the doubtful voices in his head. His heart clenched, almost sending him into a panic.

“FRIDAY, if you could show me Y/N, that would be great.” Steve asked, looking up at the ceiling out of habit (something that Tony had tried and failed to drill out of him. At least he no longer called her “Miss FRIDAY”).

This was a habit he had picked up a little over six months ago. Y/N had mentioned to him one night in their bed that she often asked FRIDAY to show her videos of him, sometimes live, when she felt loneliness or anxiety gripping her. When Steve asked if she would mind if he did the same, she had reassured him–“Steve, sweetheart, you’re welcome to watch me doing anything, anytime.”– before climbing on top of him to straddle his hips.

Steve smiled, feeling almost warm in his ice bath as a holo-screen showed Y/N in the kitchen with Wanda.)

“It’s– I’m aware I might be ‘putting my nose where it doesn’t belong,’ I believe is the expression, but I care for you too much to allow this to happen without warning you, at the very least. It’s about Steve.” Wanda somehow fumbles through her reason, her stomach filling with nervous energy.

(Steve jerks back, wondering if he should stop the video stream. Or mute it. He knows he shouldn’t, but his curiosity overpowers his him. He watches closely.)

When Y/N speaks, it’s in a quiet voice. “I know.”

Wanda searches her eyes, shaking her head. She inhales deeply, prepared to tell Y/N that No, she doesn’t know, but something in Y/N’s eyes stops her. Then, she hears it. It’s a whisper in the wind, the quietest thought in Y/N’s mind. Wanda’s not exactly looking– except that she absolutely is– but it echoes in Y/N’s mind.

Peggy.

“You know,” Wanda whispers softly.

“There are days where his emotions might as well be screaming how much he misses her. Of course, I know.”

(That gives Steve pause. He hadn’t realized that she noticed. He thinks back– to the day of Peggy’s birthday every year, to the anniversary of the day he met her, and to the days he just wakes up with her on his mind.

Y/N always wakes up with him at the crack of dawn before she goes back to sleep for another few hours. It’s the same nearly every day: she presses a warm, open-mouthed kiss to his lips and slides a leg over his hips to straddle him, convincing him to delay his workout by just a few minutes (All it takes is an “It’s a different kind of workout, Stevie” or “What– I don’t make you work for it enough?”)

But on those days, when Peggy is all he can think about… Y/N always has a kiss waiting for him in the morning, but she’ll run a hand across his chest and brush off his questions with witty comments, rolling back over to fall asleep.

On those days, she makes it a point to ask about Peggy. She tells him that he should be able to talk to her about anything, even Peggy, if that’s what he wants.

Looking back, he doesn’t know how he missed it.)

All of a sudden, inexplicably, Wanda’s angry. She’s furious. She slams the coffee cup down on to the table hard enough that it shatters, sending ceramic skittering across the counter in a pool of swirling cream and coffee.

She balls her hands into fists, her nails biting into her palms. She’s yelling, and she’s not sure why. “Why? Why do you stay with him when he’s dreaming of going back to her? How can–” Something breaks. Her voice cracks, but it’s more than that. Something inside her fractures; she feels fundamentally different. “How can you stand him treating you like– like a placeholder?”

(Wanda’s anger and her question both cause Steve to balk. Of course, Y/N wasn’t a placeholder.

He wouldn’t necessarily call it dreaming about a life with Peggy. It was a passing fantasy. At least, it had been until the stones presented him with another option, or the potential for one, anyway. It was the life he was meant to live, and some part of him had never stopped craving it.

Regardless, Y/N wasn’t someone he could ever regret meeting or loving. She certainly wasn’t holding a place for Peggy in his heart. She had a special place of her own making. She must know that, Steve hoped.)

Wanda doesn’t realize that she’s crying until Y/N wipes a tear from her cheek (She loses herself thinking of her mother who stayed with her unfaithful father for years before they both died in Sokovia. She knows that her mother deserved better than a man who didn’t value her, as does her friend).

Y/N pulls her away from the counter and to a lounge chair in the common room. She doesn’t say much, just hugs Wanda and coos reassurances at her until she stops crying. She runs a hand through Wanda’s hair and over her back, the same comforting motion again and again. Finally, Wanda’s breaths are no longer gasps and she doesn’t shudder with every attempt at speaking. “How?” She manages to ask, voice hoarse from crying.

Y/N fixes Wanda with a soft, loving look and even though she’s older, Wanda feels like a child. “Steve Rogers is a good man. Of course, he’s a hero, but at his core, he’s a good man who was given the opportunity to do great things.”

(Steve’s cheeks warmed, and he tipped his head down, shaking it. Even when Wanda was leveling accusations with more than a little truth to them, the first thing Y/N did was praise him.

As he turns over her words, Steve realizes that he loves her more for them. It’s the sort of thing she always does, complimenting the man under the suit, making him feel like she would’ve loved pre-serum Steve just as much.

He doesn’t think he deserves her praise, but she’s so quick to dole it out, so genuine in giving it, that it seems unfair to completely dismiss it. If Y/N sees so much value in him, then there must be some redeemable part of him that has earned this.)

Y/N pauses and tilts her head, considering, a small frown marring her face for a moment. “It’s much easier to be great than it is to be good, Wanda,” she says, finally. “You need people to lean on– people who understand all of you, even the messy parts– to remind you who you are when you start to lose yourself; ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ and all that.”

(Steve finds himself nodding along with her. He’s seen many supposedly great men– wealthy, successful, famous, more of the like– but their character had been lacking.

He’s lucky, he decides. He has people who understand him. He had people who understood enough bits and pieces, until Bucky came back along, to keep him true to himself. And Y/N– she really did know all of him, understand all of him. She accepted the good, the bad, and the ugly all in the same fashion. She kept him true to himself.

If he didn’t have Bucky and Y/N, he’s not sure who he would be now.)

She switches gears so quickly that Wanda wonders if she missed a sentence or two somewhere, but Y/N steamrolls on, oblivious to Wanda’s confusion. “It was so natural, becoming his friend, like breathing. Every time I blinked, I just felt more for him, until I realized one day that I didn’t want to live without him.”

(It had been the same for Steve. In so many ways, Y/N had reminded him of Bucky. It was part of what had drawn him to her in the first place, but it was so much more that compelled him to keep coming back.

It was easy to smile and joke with her, even easier to open up to her. It was so effortless to fight alongside her.

He had always found her attractive but knowing her had only intensified it. From there, things had been messy and complicated, but it was organic. Like breathing, as she had said.)

Y/N halts again, taking a small breath, as if steeling herself for a confession. “There are some days, some weeks, when I think the only reason I make it from one breath to the next is knowing that Steve is out there somewhere– breathing, living, doing good.”

(Damnit all to hell if that isn’t jarring to hear. Steve clutches the edges of the cooling tub, digging his fingers into the metal. It groans slightly under the force of his super-strength.

He thinks that maybe there’s a reason she never told him that, because all of a sudden, the weight of being that reason for her urges him to get out of the tub, to fix the world’s problems, to be deserving of being that reason.

He realizes that it’s the same for him. In those moments that his mind drifts, flirts with the possibility of finally resting and letting the world’s burdens fall to someone else, it’s the thought of her that tethers him to the world. He thinks of her, and he thinks of what she would say– of how she would remind him of Bucky and all the other people who care about him, of the world that looks to him for help, and of his personal crusade against bullies. She would remind him of the Steve Rogers that got beat up in every alley in Brooklyn trying to right the wrongs of the world.

She’s his reason sometimes, too.)

“And he makes it so very easy, Wanda. Sometimes, I think that I was made to love Steve Rogers,” Y/N admits. “It’s an admirable cause, a reward in itself, really. I don’t even need him to love me back– that he does is…in whatever capacity, it’s a privilege to be loved by a good man.”

(Steve tries swallow the emotion that wells up in his throat. She made it easy, too.

And he does love her– so much, so, so much. He was glad that she knew that, somewhat. Why does it matter so much that a part of him will always belong to Peggy?

Steve jerks back, realizing that it matters because he’ll have a choice to make soon. He can’t have them both.

He’ll always be honored to be loved by Y/N, but he barely had the chance to love Peggy. Steve didn’t think the possibility was something he could just ignore.)

Y/N clasps Wanda’s hand in hers and squeezes it tightly. “So, no, I don’t mind being number two, or ten, or ten thousand in his heart. I don’t mind being a placeholder for Peggy Carter, because Steve Rogers deserves to be loved like I love him.”

(Steve’s heart physically aches in his chest, at the idea of how much she cares for him, at how she doubts herself. No matter what he feels for Peggy, Y/N could never be considered a placeholder. How could she be when he was forever changed by her, when he would never be able to forget her? Every day, all the time, he sees her in the world around him.

Steve wasn’t sure there was anyone who deserved to be loved like Y/N loved– irrevocably, unquestionably, and wholeheartedly. She loved as she saw fit.

But she… she deserved better, didn’t she? Someone that loves her the way she deserves to be loved.)

She drops Wanda’s hand to reach for a blanket and throws it over the two of them, turning her head to gaze out the window.

Y/N has given Wanda so many pieces. It takes her a few minutes to process, to fit the pieces together, make sense of what she’s saying. Y/N’s words ring in her head, and Wanda wonders if she loves Vision like that, if anybody has ever loved anyone like that.

Wanda turns her head to look at Y/N whose eyes had shut at some point in the past few minutes. She murmurs, “But he’s going to leave you for her. I’ve heard– he wonders about a life with her. Often.”

Wanda hadn’t expected a response.

Y/N’s eyes don’t even open when she replies. Her face takes on the same soft smile she wore earlier; it seemed like she was on the other side of some gauzy veil, and Wanda was just this side of seeing her clearly. “I don’t think he would be my Steve if he didn’t want to go back to Peggy,” she muses, humming softly. “It might break my heart, but I’ll love him then too.”

(In that moment, Steve loves and hates how well Y/N knows him, how much she accepts him as he is. He almost wished that she would frown, that she would throw a tantrum.

Of course, she would still love him– she doesn’t have a hateful bone in her body. Some dark part of him wants her to hate him for still loving Peggy, wants her to send him away to ease the guilt in his chest at even considering it. Another part of him wants to dismiss the idea entirely. How could he go when she had just confessed that it would break her heart?

But… The idea of going back to Peggy feels like it might break his heart and mend it at the same time.

Steve climbs out of the ice bath, feeling chilled to the bone.)

Wanda says nothing more on the subject. She curls up to Y/N’s side in the blanket and asks FRIDAY to draw the blinds. Comfortable, they allow themselves to be lulled to sleep.

#steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x peggy carter #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers angst #steve rogers au #wanda maximoff #reader insert #marvel fic

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circumstellars · 4 years

Text

This might actually come in two parts, because I thought of a small follow-up I want to do... maybe.

Small ficlet (1600ish words again) featuring Five & Ben, 12 years old. Features my headcanon/theory that Ben was killed by The Horror unexpectedly, not murdered by anyone else. I’m sorry I’m rusty with writing, as I said I don’t often do it anymore. All mistakes are my sad little failures. Inspired by this request by @five-fucking-hargreeves:

1:07 AM

Five hated time.

Literally, time itself. The whole concept is genuinely bonkers and frankly, is an unnecessary evil. Anyone with a mouth will tell you time is like a river, a constant, gentle flow that is quick to escape through your fingers.

1:08 AM

Time was too slow for Five. Time was spilt molasses, a slow trail of amber creeping along a crease in the universe. Instead of swimming through it like water, time threatened to swallow Five up in its viscous, arcane pools.

He stood at its shoreline and glowered. Soon.

1:09 AM

Fucking finally. He held a deep breath in and patiently listened to the gentle orchestra of creaks and groans performed by their century old mansion.

Then, without fail: the timely, brisk footsteps of his father. Five rather thought his father's predictability was his biggest weakness. It's what he hopes will someday be his undoing (whether it should be at Five's own hands or not, he wasn't sure yet).

The steady sound of Sir Reginald's footsteps disappeared into his locked study.

Five rounded the corner, moving as lightly as he could on the pads of his toes. The marble floors felt like never-ending sheets of ice, but he knew he wouldn't make it the whole way in one jump; last time he ended up in the attic... locked from the outside. Honestly, that was pretty scary.

He swiftly made his way down the hall, past Diego, Allison and Klaus' respective rooms, and down the first 3 stairs of the main staircase before he was able to see the nearest entrance to the kitchen. Without stopping, Five took in a breath and jumped.

That wasn't so hard.

He was standing on the coils of the stove, but he was in the kitchen.

Five huffed in triumph and hopped off the stovetop. Studiously and nimbly he moved down the list, though his stomach howled at him to move it along already - he was twelve now and lately the portions at dinner were looking smaller and smaller. Knife. Plate. Mom insisted the only thing changing was Five himself, something about sprouting weeds, metaphors that make him roll his eyes every time. Bread. Marshmallows. Peanu-- Wait, what? Where is the peanut butter?

Five's brow creased with irritation.

'It's in the freezer.'

The yelp that escaped him was completely involuntary. Five snapped around, genuinely surprised to find his brother was sitting just out of reach of the yellow stove light. Ben was folded over on a stool, tucked away between a china cabinet and the freezer box. He inhaled wetly.

'Thanks,' Five said slowly, and he peered at Ben as he shuffled toward the freezer box. Ben didn't return his look. His brother wasn't in his pajamas, the same ones they all wore; Ben was still in the white linen shirt and trousers Mom had put him in earlier that day. Even in the dull glow of the stove light, Five saw the jagged path of dried blood that had soaked a crimson belt into Ben's midsection.

He'd had an accident on their mission today.

Five looked away and pulled the peanut butter out of the freezer box, careful to let the lid drop quietly. 'Why did you know it was in the freezer?'

Ben hesitated. His arms were crossed and he squeezed his biceps visibly tight. Five had always been very patient with Ben - he was one of the least annoying people in this house, and he might even admit he was rather fond of him at times. A decidedly resigned sigh echoed in the large, empty kitchen. 'Klaus. Don't tell on me.'

Five pretended to mull this request over. His brother is naïve; Five would rather chew on nail clippings than give up info to Klaus.

Besides, he liked Ben.

'Klaus is stupid. One wrong move and someone's going to tell Dad he sneaks out to smoke cigarettes.'

'Sometimes it's glue.'

'You can't smoke glue, Ben.'

Ben exhaled, though Five could tell he was stuffy with snot. 'He sniffs it, Five.'

In a rare bout of sheepishness, Five felt his cheeks warm. 'Whatever. Like I care what weird things that lunatic puts up his nose.' He waves the jar of peanut butter in a careless gesture. 'Unless it shuts him up, it's not working.'

Ben didn't respond. Things fell quiet around them.

A dull ache bloomed in Five's chest. He really didn't want to revisit today's incident. Usually they don't finish a mission with anything more than a scrape or a few bruises, so seeing Ben as heavily injured as he was secretly terrified Five. He shook his head and proverbially shed the darker thoughts. He shuffled uncomfortably on the freezing tile floor.

'Five.'

When Ben's voice came, it was painfully thin. He was still stooped over, his soft, black fringe obscuring his face at this angle.

'Yeah?'

'If... if it happens again, like really, really bad... are you-' Ben choked a bit. 'Are y-you going to have to kill me?'

Five's stomach dropped into the floor. The next breath he took in burned his lungs. The kitchen felt like it was shrinking. '... What?' The sound that came out was more air than word, and Five couldn't seem to feel his toes anymore.

'Five-'

'Why? Why would we do that? Why... why would you think that?' Five found his voice, but his words came out far more accusatory than he meant. He realised right away his anger wasn't with Ben: it was with himself. What in any holy deity's name had he done to make Ben think this garbage?

He didn't think twice about closing the gap between them with a jump. Five immediately dropped to his knees, letting the peanut butter go forgotten on the ground nearby.

Ben was sat a little taller than him in this position, and Five tried to catch his eyes with his own. He persisted, 'Why?'

He felt his brow falling and held as firm as he could to stop his expression from collapsing completely.

'I-I-If It doesn't stop, Five, if It doesn't stop you'll have to kill me, won't you!?' This time Ben was powerless against the tears. In the dim light Five caught sight of wayward tracks left from an earlier time dried on his brother's cheeks, but they quickly disappeared under fresh droplets that were racing toward his chin. Ben was sobbing with his whole chest, and Five channeled everything he was feeling into the tight balls of the fists held at his sides.

'Never. Understand me? Never.' He tentatively reached out, and as softly as he could grasped at Ben's knee. He willed as much as he could into that touch, trying as hard as possible to convey his words. 'Never.' If something did happen, Five would have to simply find another way to fix things; they all would have to. It's logical, the only right answer. Killing Ben was never on the table, Five would never allow something so ludicrous to be suggested by anyone in the first place.

Ben finally tilted his head upward, and the look in his eyes sent a sharp fracture straight through Five's heart. Big, fat teardrops were leaking from both of his brother's eyes. 'Please, please don't kill me...'

Faster than even Five has ever moved, Ben flung himself at Five and wrapped both arms in a vice grip around his midsection. It sent both brothers sliding back a bit on the tile, and instinctively Five in turn wrapped around Ben to keep them upright.

'Please, please, please. I'll get better, I will. Please, please...'

The tiny pleas were rough and stuttered and muffled into Five's neck, interrupted by sobs and hiccups. Words would never impart the relentless, tormenting nightmare of dying at his own siblings' hands.

They sat there on the kitchen floor for a time, Five cradling his brother awkwardly but tightly, knitted expression buried into Ben's tangled hair.

As the shaking in Ben's chest slowed, fury gave way to heartache for Five. Dad may have treated them like monsters, but he knew better. They were valuable. They were powerful. That scared Dad.

Five wasn't scared of Ben.

'It might happen,' he began after some time, his chin brushing the top of Ben's head as he spoke. 'But I'll be ready if it does.'

Ben pulled away just enough to wipe a long trail of snot away from his nose with a linen sleeve. 'How do you know?'

Five glanced at him, saying plainly, 'I'm faster.'

In truth, he was already planning to forgo sleep and work on equations in his room as soon as possible. He doesn't actually know how he would stop Ben from losing control of the beast inside him, but of one thing he was absolutely sure: he won't let Ben die. He will practice spatial jumps until every molecule in his body surrendered, until he can manipulate all of space-time itself: Ben will not die.

'Five -'

'I know. Dad doesn't know shit. Just trust me.' Five searched Ben's face, looking for any sign of understanding the confidence he has in this. 'Everything is going to be okay.' His left leg began to ache, asleep under his brother's weight, but he pointedly ignored it.

It took a moment, but following a shaky breath Ben whispered, 'Okay. Can you promise?'

Ben will not die.

"Yeah," Five pressed a feather-light touch to the brownish ribbons of dried blood on his brother's linen shirt, his eyes glazing over and sight disappearing into the fabric. 'I promise, Ben.'

---

Edit: fixed some tense mistakes and a couple spelling errors.

#tua #the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #ben hargreeves #five hargreeves #number five #number six #five #ficlets #mywriting #myficlets #myworks

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