Steve’s bat bites start to bleed again during the drive out of The War Zone.
It’s a slow realisation, a creeping dampness on his skin.
He stays as still as he can, keeps his movements small and contained when turning the steering wheel; he thinks he mostly gets away with it, manages to park the RV and pitch his voice on just the right side of normal as he tells the kids to scram.
Awareness of his surroundings grows a little fuzzy around the edges, but he senses enough to know that he’s alone—the silence feels heavy, makes his ears ring.
He lifts himself up out of his seat, one hand clinging onto the headrest for balance. The ringing gets sharper, more high-pitched; he shakes his head to try and clear it.
One step forward, then another, and another.
There’s a slight rocking motion under his feet. It feels a little like he’s in a boat that’s docked, constant movement even in the gentlest of waters.
His palms brush against the bathroom door.
“Okay,” Steve whispers to himself.
He hangs onto the sink to keep himself upright—feels the room sway, as if the waters underneath have suddenly become stormy.
With one hand, he finds the knot in the bandage.
“Okay, okay…”
Pulls.
Steve doesn’t think he blacks out, not quite, but there’s a shift, a dizzying tilt… and then, somehow, he’s sitting on the closed toilet seat.
And…
The bat bites must cause hallucinations or something.
Otherwise, Steve cannot explain why Eddie—who notoriously threw up and passed out during a dissection in Biology—is currently pressing a clean bandage against his stomach, staring down at the blood like he can’t look away.
“You’re good, you’re good,” Eddie’s saying.
He’s clearly trying to sound calm, but it’s just coming out strained, like what he really means is this is all a fucking nightmare actually, but we’ve gotta find something to be optimistic about.
“Think it just needs some more pressure,” he goes on. “Yeah, there, see? It’s stopping. Oh, thank God.”
Steve feels more gauze getting wrapped around his middle—if he wasn’t injured, it’d almost be a nice sensation, Eddie’s touch somehow the perfect mix of both firm and gentle.
As he works, Eddie hums nervously.
“Talk to me Harrington,” he says in a shaky sing-song. “Come on, don’t leave me hanging, man, gimme some awkward small talk. Got any hopes? Dreams? Anything I should know?
Oh, so many things, Steve thinks, still light-headed.
But then he really does mull that over: his mind goes to The Upside Down, to belatedly telling Eddie about the hive mind, and oh shit.
“Hey, weird question,” Steve says, “but I’ve not been, like, asking you to make it cold in here or, um, anything like that?”
Eddie blinks. “Uh. No?”
“Okay.” Before he lets the relief of hearing Eddie’s answer sink in, Steve adds, “If I ever do, you need to lock me in here and get out. Tell Nancy.”
Eddie’s staring at him like he’s grown a second head. “Sure. Cool. Cool! Uh, for any particular reason or—?”
“Just in case—like, I don’t feel any different, but—one time, Will Byers, when he was in The Upside Down it, like, infected him? Like a virus. Except more… possession. And they had to kinda… burn it outta him.”
“Ha,” Eddie says. A beat. “Oh fuck, you’re serious.”
“I really don’t have the energy to be messing with you, dude.”
“Sorry. Sometimes you all just say things, y’know? And if I don’t get it, I’m like, well, they’ve been living through this for a while, maybe they’ve got a code going on.”
“I mean,” Steve says, “we kinda do.”
Eddie shakes his head. “So when Buckley said she dealt with a human-flesh-based monster, and the one before that was smoke-related, that wasn’t just, like, a really fucked up metaphor?” Eddie’s eyes are wide, pleading. “Please say it was a metaphor.”
“Sorry,” Steve says sincerely.
Eddie sighs through a lacklustre chuckle. “You’re fine, Steve. As for, uh, being possessed, I don’t think so. You’re no weirder than usual, but—”
“Wow, thanks. Means such a lot coming from you.”
“—you were a bit, like, out of it for a few seconds, but it just looked like you were gonna faint on me. Um. How’re you feeling now?”
“Good,” Steve says. When Eddie raises an eyebrow, he tacks on, “As good as I can be, I guess. Still.” He groans slightly as he stands, goes back over to the sink. “Better check.”
“Check? What?”
Steve runs the water as hot as it will possibly go, until the steam is evident. He sticks his hand right into the stream, hears Eddie hiss as the water scalds his skin.
“Okay, yup. Not possessed.”
“Fucking fantastic. Now I want it cold,” Eddie says.
He takes control of the faucet, nods for Steve to put his hand under the now cold water.
After a minute or two, Eddie sighs and collapses onto the toilet seat himself.
There’s a squeak as Steve turns the faucet off—his skin’s probably not had the good of the cold water for nearly long enough, but it’ll do.
Eddie’s tipped his head back so he’s facing the ceiling, eyes closed. Steve watches him with sympathy; he really must hate blood.
“Eddie. You can go.”
“Mm, nope,” Eddie says without opening his eyes. “I’m fine right here.”
“Suit yourself.”
Steve turns back to the sink, frowns at the tiny mirror above it; there’s black spots on the glass, but he can make out enough. Christ, the bags under his eyes are horrific.
“Relax, Casanova,” Eddie says, almost as if he’s heard Steve’s thoughts. “You look good.”
“Uh-huh. Think your brain’s fried from being on the run.”
Steve leans against the sink with one hip, finds Eddie looking at him with a small smile.
“Yeah, probably. Or maybe being on the run just suits you.” Eddie’s eyes flicker down. His smile falters. “You know, in an ideal world,” he says conversationally, “you’d be in a hospital getting stitches.”
Steve scoffs. “In an ideal world, I’d be in bed sleeping.”
“Amen to that,” Eddie says lightly. But he still looks sombre. “Seriously, though. If it gets… you know. I’d drive you.”
“To the hospital? What are you gonna do, Eddie, wander up to the front desk? Sounds like a real interesting way to get arrested.”
But Eddie doesn’t leap at the chance to make a joke.
“Steve,” he says softly. “I mean it. I wouldn’t care.”
“That would sorta ruin the whole priority of hiding you.”
“That’s—” Eddie huffs. “That’s not the priority.”
“Huh, that’s funny, cause it is in my book.” Steve nods at the door, to his whole world just outside. “One of many.”
Eddie’s eyes narrow. “And your name better be right at the top, Harrington.”
Steve hums.
“In bold. Underlined.”
“Whatever you say.”
Eddie groans quietly, runs a hand down his face. “You worry me, man.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“I know. Just…” Eddie hesitates. “Don’t go off alone. You know?”
Steve thinks it over. He steps forward and offers Eddie his hand.
Eddie takes it.
When Steve pulls him up, he stumbles a little, as if he feels like he’s on a boat, too.
“Oops, sorry.” He grabs onto Steve’s forearm for balance. “Think this should be the other way round, man.”
“Hmm, I don’t think so.”
Steve leads the way out of the bathroom—doesn’t mention the fact that, really, they’re both holding each other up.
There’s a bottle of water left in the back. Steve twists the cap off. Drinks.
“You too,” he tells Eddie.
“Huh?”
Steve considers him—thinks of the little flare of panic he felt when watching Eddie walk through the woods, tiptoeing around vines. How he had a sudden instinct to catch up to him, to make sure he wasn’t alone.
“I’m making a deal,” Steve says. “I won’t go off alone if you don’t.”
He lifts the bottle up as if making a toast—drinks again then passes it over to Eddie.
For the slightest of moments, their fingers brush; Eddie’s rings skim over Steve’s knuckles.
“So what’s this?” Eddie asks. “Legally binding magical water?”
Steve shrugs. “Cool metaphor,” he replies.
You say you just turn heel and run, Eddie. But sometimes I think if there was a fire, you’d run towards the flames if it meant no-one else got hurt.
Eddie smiles. Tilts the bottle towards Steve.
“Guess it’s a promise, then,” he says.
He drinks.
Steve prays that it holds.
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goodbyes & waiting | luke castellan
pairing : luke castellan x aphrodite!reader
request: happy holidays! could you write a luke x aphrodite reader? (maybe with angst?) <3
IN WHICH — there are the moments you shared and the sadness that came after.
"trust that you betrayed, confusing that still lingers. you took everything I loved and crushed it in between your fingers" - o.r.
w.c. 1k
warning(s) : lots and lots of angst ゜✭・.
✩ ‧₊˚ author's note this act hurt me so much in the feelings. I've never written something so angst, hope you enjoy it tho, love :)
your heart didn’t hurt, it burned.
you wished you could tear the wretched thing out and never feel anything again but it remained there, silently killing you from the inside out. in your palm lay a small pendant, not the prettiest thing by any means and resembling more like something you’d find at a second-hand store. the chain was thin and dull but at the center lay a small heart of twine and charms. your finger brushed over it, as if attempting to soothe your own heart, a manifestation of your pain literally.
god, you wanted to burn it to the ground. you wanted to scream so loudly and raw that you’d scream your vocal cords out of your throat. you wanted to scream at the gods–fuck them and fuck the fates–and most of all, at him.
had it meant nothing to him? this…whatever it was between you two? how could he have left you so brutally? without a second thought.
the pendant burned in your hand but you’d sooner kill yourself than part with it. it was the last thing you had of luke castellan. the boy who had loved you at your lowest, who once would have rather burned the world than let it hurt you. but he had hurt you and with the blow of godliness that ran in his blood.
you never did see it coming.
✩ ‧₊˚
you had first arrived at camp a year before percy jackson appeared. no sooner than you did, were you claimed by your mother, the goddess aphrodite. and unlike how the poets and half bloods describe it, children of aphrodite were not all inherently blessed with grand beauty. rather you were made to be beautiful in the way extraordinary things are: ingrained into the brain like a itch in a way so profound.
something about you entranced others, maybe the way you spoke or how you approached everyone like they were someone you had known since forever, you were just always a shining light for others to flock too. something so incredibly enchanting, gentle like the breeze of the camp waters.
luke was the first person to approach you after being claimed, the same boyish smile you’d later fall in love with on his face.
“the names luke castellan. yours?” he breathed out, something about the way he looked at you like you were every enchanting thing in the form of a person made your heart sing.
you knew that your heart would belong to him every moment after.
something in the way he looked at you like you were his forever after made you feel complete. like you weren’t so alone in this world made of monsters and man, godless beings of hunger and pain. and it seemed like he knew it too because there was a knowing in his eyes, a connection between you too that would hurt for every lifetime and the next.
you and luke only grew closer after and where you went he followed. where he strayed, you wandered. secrets moments shared beneath candlelights with his hands on your waist and yours bunched in his hair.
“your my forever, you know that right?” he’d whisper against your lips, trying to breathe you in like you’d disappear from his arms.
you’d just kiss him harder like his words could burn themselves to your lips. like he could burn himself into your very being and never leave you. one day you’d tell him he’d already had.
moments by the lakes where he’d hold you against him and you’d rest on his shoulder like it was the only place you’d ever need. trinkets you’d find when you’d go exploring with the littlest campers that you gifted to him and he kept like they were the grandest of treasures. times when he’d cry into your shoulder and you’d just hold him all the more closer like you could take the pain. the pendant he had spent months and late nights learning to craft from hand to give you. you planned out your future together late, late into the night when you couldn’t sleep: maybe someday he’d whisk you away to visit paris or to see the great big apple–only later you’d go without him.
holding you so tightly, he’d ask, “where would you want to go if we ever leave here?”
“anywhere you go.” the late nights near the lakes always made it seem like your cocoon, a safe haven from everything else. nights like these only made you fall in love with him more.
“yes, but if you could pick anywhere, where would you want me to take you, “ he huffed out, chuckling.
you grab his hands and press a kiss to his lips, tasting freedom and fire all in one breath. kissing luke was always electric, every want and lightning burn in one breath, one touch.
you leaned back, before contemplatingly saying, “i’ve always wanted to go to see the city lights in the big apple.”
“i’ll take you one day.” it was a promise. a future for you both.
“i’ll hold you to that.”
✩ ‧₊˚
but it never did happen.
✩ ‧₊˚
you remember the scream you felt bottled in your throat when you found out what had happened. the looks the others had given you when percy told you what luke had done. why he wasn't here with you guys. why he wasn’t here with you.
the betrayal hurt more than anything you had ever felt. parts of the pieces of the future you had made crumbling as quickly as you both had made it. the trinkets you had given him were gone just as he was.
as the months passed, here you stayed as the others left. hoping that by some miracle, your golden boy would return to you. that'd he'd come back ready to make good on his promise. he’d return to the lake where you had once built your future but he never did and the scream in your throat never left.
you promised me, luke.
footsteps approached you and there at the bottom of the hermes cabin stood percy jackson, “y/n, it’s time to go.”
he looked at the pendant in your hands before giving you a sad smile. he knew your history and your pain–once upon a time, luke had been his first real friend.
you wiped the tears that had fallen down your cheeks and slipped the necklace back onto your neck. you couldn’t bear to part with it, not even after all this time, after all these moments.
you looked behind you to the cabin one last time—breathing in the old memories and letting them go one last time—before you turned back around.
“let’s go.”
in the end, your golden boy had been far too much like his father and you were the one to be left waiting.
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All I Ask of You
title from Phantom of the Opera
Summary: You have a nightmare. Neuvillette comforts you
CW: hurt/comfort, graphic imagery
Word Count: 495
Pairings: Neuvillette x gn!reader
A/N: Please pardon any mistakes I made with this. I wrote this while dead exhausted
The night wind whispers as you take a seat on a bench behind the Palais Mermonia. It and the chirping of far off crickets are the only sounds to be heard. This late in the evening, the last of the workaholics has made their way home, leaving the building behind you dark and lifeless. Even Neuvillette has gone to bed, sleeping away the days worries and stress.
But not you. You look up at the stars, watching them dance silently above the city.As beautiful as they are, a pattern of light across the vast, moonless sky, they aren’t enough to distract you from the unease gnawing at your heart.
Faint images--the lingering memories of the might’s nightmares--force their way to the front of your mind. You shiver, curling in on yourself.
“Y/n?”
A soft voice returns your attention to your immediate surroundings.
You look over your shoulder at your lover. “Neuvie…Did I wake you up?”
“No, love. I woke up to drink some water but you weren’t in bed.”
“Oh. I guess I needed some space to think.”
The sky clouds over and a soft rain begins to fall as Neuvillette sits next to you. The sensation, so familiar after all the time you’ve spent with the dragon, is as comforting as his shoulder brushing against yours.
“A penny for your thoughts, love?”
“It was just a nightmare.”
Neuvillette frowns and takes your hand in his. “Again?”
“Mhmm.”
“Will you tell me about it? Perhaps talking will ease your mind.”
“I don’t know, Neuvie. They were pretty graphic.”
“All the more reason to speak. But if you don’t want to, I won’t make you.”
After a moment’s thought, you lift Neuvillette’s arm and tuck yourself under it, resting your head on his chest.
Neuvillette shifts his weight to accommodate the new position, taking the opportunity to start running deft fingers through your hair.
“It wasn’t anything complicated. Not really. It’s just… I don’t think anyone wants to dream about a person literally tearing their own skin off. The agony on his face…it was revolting.”
You shudder at the memory.
Neuvillette wraps his arm around you, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of your head. “You should have woken me, y/n. There’s no need to suffer alone.”
“You spend all day presiding over court, dealing with Lady Furina, and doing all that paperwork. The last thing I want is to bother you over a stupid nightmare.”
Neuvillette sighs. This argument isn’t a new one to either of you. “I’ve said before, my love, it’s more of a bother to wake up and find you gone.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize. I wish I could chase away these nightmares. It worries me, seeing you up so many nights.”
“But you can’t. All I ask is that you hold me when they happen. That helps more than you know.”
“Always, my love. All you ever had to do was ask.”
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This Audio Is SICKENING.
Ya’ll—I don’t even know where to begin.
When I tell you that I physically FLINCHED upon seeing Alex’s face in the thumbnail, the way my heart started beating, the way I started SHAKING while putting my AirPods in—you guys would’ve thought that I’ve gotten some terrible news or something. And—I don’t even know what’s CRUELER—the fact that Saku posted this audio on April Fools day, making us go back and forth between “is this cannon?” or “nah, this is definitely a joke!” Or him making it all lovey dovey at first, giving us a false sense of security—waiting for us to finally let our guard down so he could get ready to strike. But I do know that it broke me, and made me feel for listener even more.
I think one of the biggest reasons why it broke me so much was because we can see how much listener blames themselves. How much they think the breakup is all their fault.
And you can see how much its impacted them.
You see the thing with Alex is that he is really, really bad with communication. He’s rather quiet about how he feels, and doesn’t voice it out loud. A person like this—who doesn’t talk about their own feelings, who’d rather stay silent—usually are alone with their own thoughts. And that’s when things get rocky, especially in a relationship. One of the things that I noted in the break up audio (besides all the gaslighting, manipulation, and reality distortion), was the fact that Alex has had that argument on his mind ever since it happened, and not ONCE has he said something about it until the day they broke up. He was alone with his thoughts the entire time up to that point—mulling over the argument, his feelings, his future—and I feel like him doing this, instead of actually talking to listener to see how things can work out deadass lead him to believing that they couldn’t be together, which lead him to not tell them about the job offer until the very last minute. I wholeheartedly believe that if he sat down with them, and told them—“hey, I know you said sorry, but I still feel like shit because you made me feel this way,” if the thoughts got to be too much, then maybe things would’ve been better. But he didn’t—and just like listener, he assumed the worst, and on top of that— gave up without even trying to fight for the person he claimed to love so much. Instead, all he did was make excuses, act hypocritically, gaslight them, and blame them for everything—all the while not realizing that there was a whole bunch of things HE could’ve done better too.
And we can see how much it took a toll on listener—considering the fact that they were ridden with so much guilt that can’t even sleep well at night.
I can feel how much they hate themselves through Alex’s words as he tore into them, and this is honestly partly Alex’s fault, because he reduced them to a mistake they made. Dream Alex (who will now be referred to as DA from now on) was taunting listener—and throwing the words Alex said to them during the break up back to them. He kept on reminding them of their mistakes, and that THEY are the reason why he left. He kept on reminding them of the worst parts of themselves—and that’s high key what Alex did during the break up too. I feel like we all need to acknowledge that what DA said to listener in this audio is most definitely not a reflection of the way the real Alex would talk and act—simply because DA is a figment of listener’s imagination. And since listener is filled with so much hurt and heartbreak right now, of course their own guilt and self hatred is going to distort how things operate in their mind. So, let’s not take the things he has said at face value.
Listener has a lot to work on. Their trust issues left a wound that ran deeper than they initially thought. In a way, they are too much in their own head as well—and do end up going to the worst case scenario, and this behavior stems from the trauma they sustained from their former partner. This leads them to do irrational things, like invading Alex’s privacy and accusing him of stuff that only happened in their head.
Both of them have a lot of shit they need to work on. Alex needs to learn how to actually talk about how he feels, learn how to take accountability for the things he’s done wrong, and maybe grow a damn backbone, and listener needs to go get some damn therapy, get their trust issues sorted out, and learn all the facts before they come at people with any assumption they might have about them. I feel like this dream was kind of the point where listener realizes that they simply just can’t let their relationship end like this, because through this dream sequence, they realize that there was still a lot of stuff that was left unsaid, and are now seeking for some closure. I think now it’s the best time to go for it, considering that Alex apparently didn’t go to NYC and stayed in London instead (this is still very much unclear). And I am hoping and praying that his ass has the same nightmare listener had as well. Listener can’t be the only one who has a wake-up call (pun intended).
Their downfall was caused because these two idiots don’t know how to convey their emotions to each other properly. They could’ve had it all if one just actually opened their damn mouth to speak, and the other would just simply think before they open theirs.
This confrontation can go two ways: they cut each other loose and go about their own lives, or they find a way to make it work, (granted that they are BOTH willing to work on themselves).
Do I think their relationship is a lost cause? I don’t know. Something tells me that this probably isn’t the end, and a part of me (as much as I talk shit about how much I want listener to be an absolute bad bitch and leave him to drown in his regret), doesn’t want it to be the end.
With this being said, I still don’t like Alex. It’s gonna take much more than a damn walk down memory lane with a bizarre, brutal, dream version of him to get me to like him again.
Oh and by the way, Saku if you’re reading this—sleep with one eye open tonight.
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