#and that same night she kills a homeless man in a hit and run

[theriverdalereviewer]

please tell me someone here has watched 90210 (the cw remake)

[krashing-starz]

hey dude i'll be back in a minute. yeah i'm good ive just got to explode my mom w/ my mind, yknow how it is

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

room for one more troubled soul

A belated fill for Day 5 of @charles-rowland-week! This is set in the Dead Girl Detectives AU I wrote about in tell them I was loved, featuring ghost!Crystal, ghost!Niko, and psychic!Charles, but it works fine as a standalone. You can either read it below or here on AO3.

Prompt: AU

Rating: M

Warnings: Child abuse, homelessness, David-typical unpleasantness, canon-typical violence

Word count: 7.5K

Relationships: Charles & Crystal & Niko

Summary: After running away from home, Charles ends up captured by a demon who he’s pretty sure is going to kill him. It seems like a fitting end for a short, shitty life until two ghost girls show up and rescue him from David.

Or, how Charles Rowland—psychic medium, unwanted son, and runaway—becomes a part of the Dead Girl Detective Agency.

***

Charles is twelve when he realizes that his father doesn’t love him anymore.

His father has always been a storm cloud of emotions that hangs over the whole house. There’s usually anger, resentment, fear, and a strange sort of grief, but there used to be love too. Charles used to feel it, even as Dad was slapping Mum across the face or taking the belt to Charles’s back. He knew that Dad cared about them in his own way, that he wanted them—especially Charles—to be better. And he could always tell that he was sorry after he hit them, even if Dad never said it.

The love ebbs away so slowly that Charles doesn’t notice until it’s gone, until his father shoves him against the wall hard enough to knock the breath out of his lungs and send a framed family photo falling to the ground, where the glass cracks on impact. Charles stares at his father, hands raised to protect his face, and realizes that there’s no love left in Paul Rowland: just rage and the bitter disappointment of a man whose life is nothing like he expected. Dad isn’t even a little bit sorry as he pulls his belt off.

The hatred hurts more than the belt.

***

Charles is fifteen when he realizes that if he doesn’t leave, his father is going to kill him. He touches the coffee table in the middle of the living room and sees it clearly: a fist to the face, Charles reeling backwards, the crack of a skull against wood, blood soaking into the already-stained carpet. He stands there, frozen, until his father barks at him to demand what the fuck is wrong with him and Charles can only babble and excuse before scrambling away from the coffee table so fast that he trips over his own two feet.

That night, he sneaks out after his parents are asleep with nothing but but a backpack full of essentials, his cricket bat in case he runs into trouble, and the money he stole from his father’s wallet. He doesn’t need his powers to know that he’s never going to step foot back inside this house and that he’ll probably never see his parents again. He doesn’t know how he feels about that, so he doesn’t think about it.

For a while, he stays with his cousin, Liz. His uncle is cut from the exact same cloth as his dad, so she knows why Charles would need to run. But after a few weeks, Liz’s boyfriend starts making noise about how bloody inconvenient it is to have a teenager sleeping on their couch and eating all their food. Charles sees the writing on the wall, so he leaves before Liz has to make a choice. She’s his favorite cousin, so he doesn’t want to learn how she’d choose.

After that, he stays with a mate from school, Henry. That’s fine for a while, until Henry’s parents get it in their heads that what he needs to do is sit down with his own parents and tell them how he really feels about his dad beating the shit out of them, as if talking it out will help. He only has one set of parents, they tell Charles, and they won’t be around forever. Wouldn’t it be better to forgive and forget?

Charles leaves in the middle of the night without saying goodbye. He feels a little bad—Henry’s always been a good friend—but it’s only a matter of time before his parents call Charles’s, and that’s the last thing Charles needs.

He goes to London, because it seems like exactly the sort of place you should go when you’re trying to hide. In a city of millions of people, who will notice Charles? Plus, he’s always liked the city. His dad took him to a couple Arsenal games when he was a kid and it’s the only time he ever remembers Dad looking truly happy.

But London is a different place when you have nowhere to go. It’s winter and the shelters are full of other people needing a place to stay for the night. Plus, Charles keeps telling people he’s nineteen, but he knows he doesn’t look it. He’s not sure if he’s been reported missing—his parents probably wouldn’t bother, but Henry’s parents may have—so he’s not sure if anyone will be looking for him. Still, it seems safer not to linger in one place for long, even if that means being cold and hungry.

It’s the ghosts that keep him alive. London is full of them and once he gets to talking to a few of them, they help him find safe places to sleep. Janice, the ghost of an old lady who spends her afterlife knitting a child-sized sweater on a park bench, steals food for him sometimes. Charles doubts he would have made it a week here without them.

He meets David in the park that Janice haunts. He seems like a nice sort of bloke, a uni student who says he goes to school nearby. He buys Charles a sandwich and a cup of tea and listens when Charles talks about the father who didn’t love him and the mother who did love him, but not as much as she loved his father. He seems sympathetic, so much so that Charles gets the feeling that maybe he really understands. Other people, like Henry, have tried, but David seems to really get it. Charles has been so desperately lonely for weeks now, or maybe for the last fifteen years, and it’s such a relief to meet someone who sees him.

“Something’s off about that boy,” Janice says, eyeing David’s back warily as he walks away.

“Nah, he seems an alright sort.” Charles looks into his nearly-empty cup of tea. It’s the first hot drink he’s had in weeks and the warmth still lingers in his chest.

She makes a skeptical noise and he smiles at her fondly.  Janice doesn’t seem to like most people. He’d be pretty sure she didn’t like him either, if she didn’t keep making sure that he doesn’t starve or freeze to death.

“Don’t worry,” he tells her, smiling fondly. “I’m a psychic, yeah? I can tell when people are up to no good.”

He sees David in the park a few more times. David’s always friendly and willing to lend an ear and a few pounds for a sandwich. It’s the fourth or fifth time that they see each other, that David mentions that his roommate just moved out and he has an extra room.

“It’s too fucking cold to be sleeping outside, mate,” he tells Charles. “You can crash for a bit, just until you get your feet under you.”

Charles shakes his head. “Don’t want to be any trouble.”

“You won’t be.” David’s smile is kind.

“I can’t pay rent.”

“Sure, because you don’t have a job. You need a good shower and a shave before you go looking for one. Let’s just get you back on your feet and then we can talk about rent.”

Charles is a psychic. He’s been able to read other people since before he could talk. And all he reads from David is worry and compassion, no hint of malevolence or ulterior motives. A shower and a shave sound bloody brilliant. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to accept a helping hand. Once he gets his life together, he can pay David back. 

“Maybe for a night or two,” Charles says hesitantly and David’s smile widens. It’s only later that Charles will recognize the triumph in his eyes.

***

David does let Charles out to shower and shave occasionally, but that’s only because he smells when he doesn’t. Charles isn’t sure how David can smell anything else over the reek of dead fish that permeates the entire flat. At least the remembers to feed Charles every other day or so and has gotten pretty good about bringing pitchers of water after the time Charles nearly died after not having anything to drink for two and a half days. Mostly, he leaves Charles alone in his little room, the door locked and the windows boarded up.

Charles huddles on the little air mattress in the corner and tries not to think of anything. He tries not to think of David slipping into his mind and using him as a puppet, being locked inside his own mind as his body traveled around the city without his say so. He tries not to think of the venom David spits at him: “sad excuse for a psychic” and “fucking useless” and “should have just left you to starve on a bench.” He tries not to think of how fucking cold he is; if there’s heat here, David never seems to turn it on. It feels like he’s still sleeping outside.

He tries not to think of the vision he had earlier when David grabbed his wrist: himself tied up on the ground while David stands over him, knife in hand.

David is going to kill him.

It’s probably been a month since Charles trailed David back to his flat, trusting as a sacrificial lamb, and realized the moment he stepped inside and saw David’s eyes turn black that he’d made a mistake. Charles has spent most of the last month terrified and furious with himself for being so stupid. He would think the fear would have dulled by now, like it used to when he lived under the constant threat of his father’s belt. But right now, he’s so scared, he thinks he might be sick with it.

Charles doesn’t want to die. He left home because he wanted to live. It seems so fucking unfair that he escaped his dad only to end up captured by a worse monster than Paul Rowland could ever dream of being. And now Charles is going to die here and no one’s ever going to know what happened to him, if anyone even tries to find out what happened to him. Most likely, he’ll just be gone, with not even a missing poster left for people to ignore.

He might be crying a little when the door opens, but he quickly wipes his cheeks on the filthy sleeve of his shirt before David steps inside. Rising to his feet on shaky legs, Charles faces the demon head on. If he’s going to die, he’s not going to do it cowering on the ground.

“Here you go,” David says in his mocking voice, wearing a smile so unlike the one he used to convince Charles to follow him home. Charles can’t believe he ever saw kindness there. He tosses a greasy paper bag on the ground at Charles’s feet. “Eat up.”

Charles doesn’t bend to pick up the bag, even though his stomach is hollow with hunger. He figured out weeks ago that if he acts like he wants something too much, David will take it away just to see him squirm. “What do you want?” He’s asked it before. It was one of the first things he asked when he realized that David wasn’t the harmless uni student he was pretending to be. He hasn’t gotten an answer yet.

David chuckles. “Nothing you can give me.”

“Then you can let me go, yeah?” It’s not begging, Charles tells himself. He already tried that. He tried fighting David. He tried escaping while David thought he was taking a shower. He tried stealing David’s phone to call 999. Nothing’s worked. But maybe he can try negotiating. He’s been told he can be pretty convincing.

Anything that might save him from ending up with a knife in his heart.

“And why would I do that?” David steps closer, still wearing that predatory smile.

“Well, I’m no use to you, am I?” Charles asks desperately. “So why not just let me go? It’ll save you money on burgers and chips.”

David clucks his tongue. “You know, maybe you’re right. Here I am, spending all this time and money on a pathetic excuse for a psychic who’s barely any better than a carnival fortune teller. What a waste of my fucking time.” He tilts his head, regarding Charles coldly. “Maybe I should just cut my losses.”

Charles swallows. He doesn’t need his powers to know he’s made another mistake. “Please.”

“Do you know why I’m here in London, Charles, instead of in hell where I belong, torturing souls for all eternity?” David’s voice drops to a whisper.

Charles shakes his head.

“There was a psychic medium and she was everything you’re not. Strong and fascinating and so, so powerful.”

“And what happened to her?” Charles’s voice comes out a croak.

“She died.” David runs a finger down his cheek in a mockery of tears. “And I took her to Hell, because she was a really bad girl, but then she went and escaped. And you know, Hell really doesn’t like it when you let a soul escape you. So I got banished too and I don’t get to go back until I bring her back too. That’s why I thought I could use you.”

“I’m not going to help you,” Charles growls. He doesn’t want to die, but he won’t stoop that low to save his own life. 

“Oh, I know.” David scoffs. “You’re not nearly strong enough to be useful to me. Your powers are…” He kicks the bag at Charles’s feet. “A cheap, greasy burger to her Wagyu beef. You’re hardly worth the time it’d take to break your neck.”

Charles can’t help it; he flinches back.

David laughs. “But maybe you’re right. Maybe I can find something to do with you so you won’t be a complete waste of my time.”

As the door closes behind the demon, Charles sinks down onto the air mattress, hugging his knees to his chest in a vain attempt to stop himself from shaking.

***

Charles’s head is pounding, his thoughts slow and sluggish as he wakes. He doesn’t remember the last time he slept deeply, but he feels like he’s been asleep for a thousand years. His eyes are gritty, the inside of his mouth bone dry, and he aches all over. He tries to stretch, but he can’t move. The fog in his mind clears as fear rushes in and Charles’s eyes snap open to find himself tied up on the ground in the middle of his room. David is nowhere to be seen.

Frantically, Charles wriggles around, but the ropes don’t give. The last thing he remembers is eating the container of soup David brought him for dinner. He knew it tasted funny, but it’d been days since the burger and chips and he’d been starving, so he’d gulped it down anyway. There must have been something in it. How long was he unconscious? And where is David?

He doesn’t have to wonder where David is for long; the door opens and the demon comes in, the knife Charles saw in his vision in hand. Charles goes cold for reasons that have nothing to do with the icy chill in the air. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” He wants to sound defiant. He just sounds terrified.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about our talk the other day.” David moves towards Charles in an unhurried saunter. “And I realized that I really haven’t been thinking outside the box about how I could use you to get back to Hell. I’ve been so focused on Crystal for years and I forgot that just maybe, I don’t need her at all. Maybe you’ll actually be less useless than you look, Charles.”

Charles can’t look away from the knife. “Sorry, not sure I can get you to Hell, mate. Unless you want me to stab you with that. Happy to try.”

“No, I think I have another idea.” David comes to stand by Charles’s head, twirling the knife casually. “You know, when someone dies, either Death comes and sweeps them off to a peaceful, boring afterlife, or Hell comes and snatches them away. Which do you think will happen to you?”

Hands pinned between his back and the ground, Charles tries frantically to loosen the knots around his wrists, but his fingers are clumsy with panic.

“You know, don’t you?” David smiles almost indulgently. “Your own father didn’t love you. You told me when we first met. We both know that there has to be something very, very wrong with you if your own father couldn’t stand the sight of you. You being born destroyed his whole life.”

“Fuck you,” Charles grits out.

“And you get angry sometimes, don’t you? Just like him. You think if I let you out of here, you’ll go on to have a perfect life with a nice wife and a couple of cute kids? How many black eyes will your wife have to cover up with makeup? How long will it take your kids to be terrified of the sound of your footsteps coming down the hall? You can fool yourself all you want, Charles, but I can see right through you. I can see the kind of monster you’ll become if you live.”

Charles closes his eyes. He can feel his heart pounding frantically against his ribs, like it knows it only has so many beats left and wants to get in as many as it can.

“We both know where you belong,” David croons. “And I really hate doing good deeds, but we both know I’m doing one when I put this knife in your heart and stop you from becoming just like dear old dad. And then when Hell comes to collect you, I’ll hitch a ride.”

The floorboards creak next to Charles’s head as David moves closer and Charles braces himself. He doesn’t have to open his eyes to know that David’s raising the knife, ready to plunge it into Charles’s chest, just like in his vision.

Hands grab Charles by the legs and yank. He yelps, eyes flying open in surprise, as he’s dragged across the ground, out of the range of David’s knife, which sinks harmlessly into the ground. When he glances down, he sees hands with pink-painted nails wrapped around his ankles. Behind him, David curses and Charles looks up to see the demon snatching up the knife, face twisted into a snarl. His eyes have gone entirely black.

David’s back is turned to the door, so he doesn’t see when a ghost steps right through it, book in one hand and the other hand outstretched. She’s about Charles’s age, wearing an old-fashioned sort of long light purple skirt and matching jacket, both embroidered with flowers, over a high-necked white blouse and an eye-shaped brooch at her throat. Her eyes are fixed on David, a grim look on her pretty face, as her lips move silently and a flame appears in the palm of her hand.

Charles doesn’t mean for his expression to give anything away, but it must, because David whirls around. When he sees the girl, he laughs. “Well, look who it is. I should have known you’d turn up, Crystal. You never like it when someone else is the center of attention. Still pining after me after all these years?”

“Hi,” a voice whispers in Charles’s ear and he turns his head, swallowing a surprised cry when he finds a girl’s face only inches from his own, her head and neck sticking out of the floor. Smiling, she says, “I’m Niko. And that’s Crystal over there with the fire. We’re the Dead Girl Detectives and we’re here to save you.”

“The Dead Girl…” Charles trails off as one of her arms phases through the floor and she hauls herself upwards like she’s climbing out of a pool. She’s wearing a short, bright pink dress with poofy sleeves and a giant bow tied around her waist. Bizarrely, she’s wearing a Hello Kitty backpack.

“Don’t worry, babe.” David takes a step towards Crystal, not even seeming to notice Niko and Charles, like she’s the only one in the room. “He means nothing to me. You’re the one I really want to drag kicking and screaming to Hell.”

“It’s been thirty-five years, David,” Crystal says. “Are you really not over it? This is getting pathetic.”

“Turn over,” Niko tells Charles and he complies, flipping onto his side so she can untie his wrists. “You’re Charles, right?”

“How did you know?” Charles tenses. The last time he thought someone was doing a good deed for him, he ended up locked in a room for a month.

“Janice hired us to find you. She was worried about you when you didn’t come back to the park.”

“Janice?” Charles nearly forgot about the cranky ghost on the park bench who stole food for him and knew the moment she clapped eyes on David that he was trouble.

“I’m sorry it took us so long to find you.” With a final yank, the ropes around his wrists come loose. “Can you untie your ankles? I need to help Crystal.”

Charles nods, sitting up with a wince to fumble at the ropes around his fingers. Crystal and David are still facing each other, Crystal with the flame in her hand and David wearing that same mocking smile. When Niko stands up, he turns that smile on her. Charles wants to punch it off his smug fucking face.

“Still keeping this one around, Crystal?” David asks. “I keep waiting for you to get bored of the sunshine and rainbows thing. You used to have standards for the company you kept.”

“I still do,” she says. “I’ve just raised them.”

“You know, I’m glad she’s here. Now, when I drag you down to Hell, we can bring your annoying little sidekick too.”

That seems to be enough for Crystal, who says another word in a language Charles doesn’t understand, making the flames leap off her palm and right at David’s face.

“Charles, you should probably run,” Niko says as David and Crystal lunge at each other.

Charles kicks away the last of the ropes and stumbles to his feet. There’s definitely a part of him that wants to bolt for the door. But these girls—the Dead Girl Detectives—came here to save him and leaving them to face a demon alone seems like a shit way to repay them. Not that they seem like they need his help. Crystal is throwing around fire with the skilled ease of someone used to it while Niko pulls a piece of chalk from her backpack and kneels to draw symbols on the ground. Charles may want to help, but he has no idea how.

Then he thinks of his cricket bat. Did David get rid of it, or is it still somewhere in his flat? Charles runs for the door, bursting out into the living area, which is bare of furniture and reeks of fish. He finds his backpack, jacket, and cricket bat by the door, right where he set them down a month ago right before he realized how badly he had fucked up by following David home. He picks up his cricket bat, examines it to make sure it’s undamaged, then rushes back into the bedroom to join the fray.

He finds Crystal fighting against a web of fire that’s surrounded her, pinning her to the wall, while David rounds on Niko, who is still focused on drawing a circle of symbols, her eyes wide as she hurries to finish. Charles crosses the room in two steps and hits David across the face hard enough to make his head snap around. Charles has taken a lot of swings with his cricket bat, but this might be the most satisfying one yet.

“I’m an ancient demon, Charles,” David says. There’s blood on his mouth and a burn on his cheek. “You can’t defeat me with a cricket bat.”

“Maybe not.” Charles shrugs. “But I’m going to try, aren’t I?”

He hits David again, this time in the stomach, and again in the head. A month worth of terror, grief, rage, and hopelessness seems to explode out of him as he just keeps hitting. David laughs and taunts him, but he stumbles with every hit, which is enough to keep Charles swinging. He wants to obliterate that smug, grinning face. He wants David to be half as afraid as Charles has been for the past month.

“Just like Dad, aren’t you, Charles?” David asks in a mocking voice and for an instant, it’s not the demon’s bloody face staring back at him, but Charles’s mum, looking at Charles with scared, betrayed eyes. Even though he knows it’s a trick, Charles’s swing falters.

It’s the opening David needs to reach out and grab the bat, yanking it out of Charles’s hand and breaking it over his knee. Charles stares in dismay as David tosses the broken bits of wood to the ground.

“Oops.” David steps on the remains of the cricket bat as he rounds on Charles. “You know, I think I’ve had enough of—”

A glowing golden string wraps around his wrist and David and Charles both look over to see Niko standing outside the circle of symbols, string in hand.  With a flick of her wrist, David is yanked forward like there’s a hook in his chest. He stumbles into the circle, struggling against the string with all his might. It doesn’t look like much, but he seems as trapped as Charles was earlier. Charles will have to ask Niko how it works later, if they make it out of here.

“Ready, Crystal?” Niko asks.

“You have no idea.” Crystal strides to her side and takes her hand. Burns criss-cross her arms and torso, but they already seem to be healing. “See you in another decade or so, David.”

“Bitch.” David bears his teeth into a snarl. “This time, it won’t take me long to find my way back. And when I do, you and this dumb little cunt—”

Charles is about to pick up the shattered remains of his cricket bat and give beating the fucker to death another go, but then the girls begin to chant. A wind picks up around the room and David howls. He thrashes against the golden string, hurling himself at the edge of the circle, but he can’t escape. As Charles watches, wide-eyed, David begins to flicker in and out of view, like a candle guttering out. With one last scream loud enough that it seems to vibrate through Charles’s bones, the demon vanishes. The string falls to the floor, its golden glow gone.

“What happened to him?” Charles asks into the ringing silence.

“We banished him to another dimension.” Crystal snaps the book in her hand shut and hands it to Niko, who slips it into the Hello Kitty backpack. “Not Hell, because they’re not going to let him back there without me, but somewhere he’ll have trouble finding his way back from. Last time, it took him a decade. This time, I’m hoping for two.”

“Right.” Charles nods, like he sees demons get banished to other dimensions every day. “Brills. So he’s gone?”

She smiles at him tiredly. “As gone as David ever is.”

***

Look, Charles knows he probably shouldn’t follow Crystal and Niko back to their office. This is how he got into trouble in the first place, following someone home just because they were nice to him. But Charles is exhausted and when he steps outside for the first time in a month, he finds that London’s being hit by the bloody blizzard of the century, so he decides that if Crystal and Niko are going to kidnap and murder him, they’ve probably earned it. He just hopes they let him have a nap and a proper wash first.

When they arrive at the abandoned building they call their office, Charles doesn’t even look around for any signs of danger before he collapses onto the sofa and falls asleep. He’s not sure how long he sleeps. A few times, he’s vaguely aware of Crystal and Niko talking, but it’s never loud enough to drag him fully back to consciousness. When he does finally open his eyes, which are gritty and sore from sleep, he finds that it’s dark outside the window. Niko is sitting behind the desk, typing on a laptop, while Crystal stands at the window, looking out at the snow. 

He glances around the office. It’s small and cluttered, every surface covered with trinkets ranging from crystal balls to old-fashioned clocks to a bobblehead Godzilla. The walls are covered in more posters of anime boys than he’d expect from a supernatural detective agency, but who is he to judge? There’s an overflowing bookshelf in the corner that seems to hold a mix of serious-looking, leather-bound tomes, mangas, and paperback mysteries. It seems like a home and Charles has to swallow down the knot of jealousy that rises in his throats.

Both Crystal and Niko look up when he groans and sits up. 

“Good, you’re awake!” Niko smiles at him brightly. “How are you feeling?”

Charles rubs at his sore eyes. “Like shit, really. How long was I out?”

“Fifteen hours,” Niko says. “It’s okay, being kidnapped is tiring. We got you some sandwiches.”

“You’re a lifesaver.” Charles descends on the pile of sandwiches on the little table next to the couch, hardly even noticing what kind they are as he devours them. He’s vaguely aware that he’s in a room with the two fittest girls he’s ever seen in his life and he probably looks a mess—it’s been at least a week since David let him shower and shave the scraggly patch of hair that grows on his chin—but he doesn’t much care. He thinks he might be well and truly safe for the first time in months and he’s almost ready to weep with relief.

“Better?” Crystal asks after he eats three sandwiches and downs one and a half bottles of water.

Charles smiles sheepishly. “Better. Thanks for getting me out of there, yeah? Pretty sure I was well and truly fucked before you came along.”

“We know how to handle David by now,” Crystal says, like banishing a powerful demon is nothing. Charles guesses that for them, it might be.

“Well, thanks.” It occurs to Charles that he’s been crashing on their couch, probably getting in the way of them working their cases, for fifteen hours. One thing he’s learned from relying on the charity of strangers for months now is that it’s best to get out before they get tired of him. “Do you have somewhere I can have a quick wash before I go?”

“Go?” Niko’s forehead creases in a frown. 

“Where are you going to go?” Crystal asks.

Charles shrugs, trying for a smile, though it seems stiff and false on his face. “Probably back to the park, yeah? Janice will be worried about me.”

Crystal doesn’t seem to be buying it. “I went to see Janice while you were asleep. She knows you’re fine.”

“Brills.” Charles bobs his head in a nod. “But I don’t want to overstay my welcome, do I? Sure you don’t need me underfoot.”

“We’re ghosts,” Crystal says. “If you’re in the way, we can pass right through you.”

“Not that you’re in the way,” Niko adds quickly. “You can stay here as long as you need.”

Liz said that to him when he first showed up at her flat. So did Henry and his parents. None of them meant it. 

Niko presses on, smiling. “We don’t get a lot of guests. It’ll be like a sleepover! Except, we’re ghosts, so we can’t sleep. Or eat junk food. But we can stay up late with you watching movies.”

Charles looks away, unaccountably embarrassed. It’s nice of Niko to offer, but he can tell from the look on her face that she just feels bad for him. He reaches down to trace a finger over the swirls in the wooden table and a vision hits him.

An angry, shouting ghost, his face screwed up in a snarl. The table flying through the air, right at Crystal’s head. Niko shrieking in surprise as the table passes right through Crystal and splinters against the wall.

He blinks and the vision is gone. Crystal and Niko are right where they were an instant ago, both staring at him. “You should move that table,” he tells them. “Someone’s going to throw it at you and it’ll get smashed up.”

“You can see the future?” Crystal asks, like she’s surprised.

“Well, yeah,” Charles says. “I’m a psychic, aren’t I? Like you.”

“I’ve never been very good at seeing the future.” She shoots Niko a loaded glance. “More the present and the past.”

He shrugs sheepishly. “Only see a few seconds at a time. Not very useful.”

“You saved my favorite table.” Niko crosses the room to pick up the table, moving it behind the desk. “I think that’s useful.”

“Can you read people?” Crystal asks, watching Charles curiously.

“Yeah.” Charles grimaces. “Whether I want to or not.”

She nods. “I remember that. It was a ton of fun sitting in a classroom full of girls in 1916 and knowing how much they all hated me.”

“Been there, mate.” Charles remembers the last time he kissed a girl and realized she was thinking about his best friend. Or the time his favorite teacher handed him back a paper he thought he’d done okay on and Charles felt the utter contempt the man held him in. “Some days, I get why so many of us go become hermits in the woods. I would, but I’d miss spaghetti.”

Her lips twitch. “These days, I can only read the dead. They’re less noisy.”

“Sounds aces,” Charles says, then wonders if he’s put his foot in it. “I mean, not having to read everyone sounds aces. Not being dead. Sorry, that sounds rough.”

“I’ve been dead since 1916,” Crystal says. “You get used to it.”

“Did David…” He trails off, wondering if that’s a rude question. He doesn’t know the ins and outs of ghost etiquette.

Luckily, she doesn’t seem offended. “He didn’t kill me, exactly. The exorcism the school chaplain performed to try to get him out of me did.”

“And dandelion sprites exploded out of my brain,” Niko adds. “But that’s how I met Crystal, so it’s okay.”

Charles jumps as muffled shouting comes from one of the desk drawers. “What brains?” a squeaky voice yells. “We didn’t see any in there.”

Crystal pounds on the desk drawer. “Shut the fuck up in there, or I will drown you.”

“You always fucking say that.”

“Yeah, bitch. Maybe you should shut the fuck up, or we’ll drown you.”

Niko giggles. “They’re not so bad. They grow on you.”

“They really don’t.” Crystal looks at the drawer in disgust.

Charles stares. “The things that killed you are in that drawer?”

“Dandelion sprites,” Niko says.“They’re not so bad. They don’t really mean to kill people. That’s just what happens when they exit their host.”

Crystal rolls her eyes at the ceiling. “They’re toxic little shits, Niko.”

“They feed on attention,” Niko tells Charles, ignoring Crystal. “We keep them in the drawer most of the time, but we take them out sometimes so they can eat.”

“And they eat... attention?” Charles asks, bewildered.

“They seem to prefer negative attention,” Crystal says. “Otherwise, maybe they wouldn’t be such little assholes.”

“See?” Niko slides the drawer open, eliciting shrieks and protests from within, and pulls out a jar. Inside, two tiny figures, each no taller than Charles’s thumb, shield their eyes from the light. “These are Litty and her… well, we actually don’t know what they are to each other. This is Litty and Kingham.”

Litty catches sight of Charles and wrinkles her nose. “Oh, ew.”

“Really?” Kingham puts his hands on his hips. “You won’t let us out of this jar, but you’ll just let anyone walk into the office? Where has he been, snorkeling in a pile of fish guts?”

Charles should probably be offended, but he just grins. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Guys, don’t be mean to Charles,” Niko tells the sprites. “He’s our new friend.”

“Figures, the only friend you’d be able to make is one that smells like fish.”

“Okay, that’s enough sprite time.” Crystal plucks the jar out of Niko’s hand and shuts it back in the desk drawer.

Something like hope is kindling in Charles’s chest. He likes Crystal and Niko and they don’t seem to be in a huge rush to show him the door. Niko even called him a friend.  “Look, you two saved my life. I owe you, don’t I? Maybe I could stick around for a bit? Use my powers to help out on cases where I can? I can read the living, which might come in handy sometimes, and I can see the future. And…” His mind races, trying to come up with a reason to let him stay. He remembers Niko saying, “being kidnapped is tiring,” like she knows from experience.

“I helped with David, didn’t I?” he adds. “Kept him busy with my cricket bat so Niko could draw that circle.”

“He did,” Niko says, glancing at Crystal. “I wouldn’t have been able to finish the banishing circle if he hadn’t distracted David.”

Charles has a feeling he has Niko convinced, so he turns to Crystal. “I’m pretty aces at defending myself. I can get another cricket bat and if you’ve got clients who want to throw tables at you or who won’t pay, I can sort ‘em out. I’ll have your back. And I won’t be any trouble. Promise.”

Niko leans down to whisper something in Crystal’s ear. Crystal nods and murmurs something back, then they look at each other for a loaded moment. There’s history in that look, two people who have known each other for many years and don’t have to say anything to communicate. Charles feels another twinge of jealousy. He’s never had anyone to exchange looks like that with. He’s never had anyone who cared to know him that well.

“We have a room we let living clients stay in sometimes, when they have nowhere else to go,” Crystal says after a long moment. “It’s not much and everyone tells us the hot water heater is worthless, but there’s a bed we can make up. It might be nice to have another psychic around.”

“And someone who can hit demons with a cricket bat,” Niko adds.

“You two deal with lots of demons?” He doesn’t see either of them taking on the forces of Hell, but they handled David and Crystal escaped Hell, so maybe he shouldn’t assume anything.

“Not as many as you’d think,” Crystal says. “Mostly, we help ghosts with any unfinished business that’s stopping them from moving on. It doesn’t involve many demons.”

“Except for David.” Niko wrinkles her nose with distaste.

Crystal mirrors the look. “David will be a problem for the rest of eternity. At least until we find a way to trap or banish him for good.”

“Well, next time he shows up, I’m happy to hit him with a cricket bat,” Charles tells her. “Just need to find a new one.”

“Ooh, hold on.” Niko picks up the Hello Kitty backpack and reaches into it. And keeps reaching. Charles stares in astonishment as her arm vanishes up to her shoulder. “I think I have something in here. I told you our payment from the Case of the Floating Lockers would come in handy, Crystal.”

“You let people get away with paying us anything,” Crystal says with a huff. “He promised us a cursed diamond and he paid us with—”

“A cricket bat!” Niko pulls the bat out of the bag and hands it to Charles. “Maybe we can enchant it so it won’t break so easily.”

Charles weighs the bat in his hands. It’s a bit battered, but so is he. It’ll do. “Thank you,” he says, swallowing hard. “Wait, how did this fit in that little bag?”

Smiling slyly, Niko opens the bag and shows him the inside, which is nothing but blackness. “It’s a magical void. I can fit anything in here. There’s a bicycle floating around in here somewhere. And at least one severed hand.”

Charles decides not to ask.

“I can show you how to use it later, if you’d like,” Niko says. “Crystal never got the hang of it.”

Crystal eyes the bag warily. “It doesn't like me.”

“But maybe you will,” Niko says.

Charles finds himself unable to do anything but smile at her. “That’d be brills, Niko.” He looks between them hopefully. “Does that mean I can stay?”

Crystal and Niko exchange another look. “Yeah, you can stay,” Crystal says. “It never hurts to have an extra set of hands around. And we’re not going to kick you out in the middle of a snowstorm.”

Niko claps her hands and to Charles’s surprise, pulls him into a hug. It’s a bit odd, hugging a ghost. She doesn’t feel so much like a warm, living body, but more like the memory of one. He can almost feel the silkiness of her dress under his hands, but not quite. “Welcome to the Dead Girl Detective Agency!”

***

One year later

“And that’s a wrap on the Case of the Creepy Monk,” Charles says as he steps into the office, soaking wet, hurting all over, and exhausted, but warm with the success of a successful case.

“We’re not calling it that,” Crystal says, closing the door behind her. Unlike Charles, she doesn’t have a drop of water on her. The perks of being a ghost, he supposes.

“You got a better name for it, do you?”

“Yeah, the Case of Charles Almost Getting Eaten by a Hellhound Because He Wouldn’t Fucking Listen To Me.”

“That doesn’t really roll off the tongue,” Niko says.

Charles’s mouth drops open in offense. “I didn’t nearly get eaten by a hellhound!”

“So it wasn’t about to rip your throat out when Niko banished it?” Crystal raises an eyebrow.

Charles considers. “Right, maybe a little, but better me than you, right? I’m the brawn. It’s my job to take the hits.”

“Because what we need is an extra ghost on the run from Death.” Shrugging off her coat, she settles down behind the desk.

“But you did a great job getting the monk out of the way,” Niko says brightly.

Charles smiles at her. “Thanks, Niko. Nice to be appreciated.”

“I appreciate you,” Crystal says. “Alive.”

Charles’s smile widens. “Love you too, Crystal.”

She rolls her eyes, but it’s her fond eye roll. Charles knows all Crystal’s eye rolls by now. “Just try not to get mauled by a hellhound.”

“Sure thing.” Charles spots a pile of mail on the desk. “Looks like the postman came, yeah? Maybe our next case is in here.”

“Hopefully one with no hellhounds,” Niko says. “Or creepy monks.”

“I preferred the hellhound,” Crystal grumbles and Niko giggles.

Grinning to himself, Charles picks up the pile of mail and starts sorting through. It’s pretty standard stuff: a love letter from a ghost from Brighton who’s in love with Crystal—that one goes straight in the bin—a flier from the local apothecary, a death threat from a ghost who blames them for his wife moving on without him—that one’s funny, since two-thirds of their agency is already dead. Charles tosses the death threat out, then picks up the flier under it and finds himself plunged into a vision.

A house on a quiet, tree-lined street.

Darkness.

A little girl with her back turned to Charles, standing in the middle of a room filled with bones. An enormous snake circling her, drawing back to strike.

Charles blinks and he’s back at the office, Niko and Crystal both watching him.

“What did you see?” Crystal asks.

Charles looks at the flier and finds a little girl smiling up at him. “Missing,” it reads. “Have you seen this girl? Becky Aspen, 10.”

“Charles, what is it?” Niko takes the flier from his hand.

Charles shakes his head, trying to clear the memory of darkness. He can practically feel Becky Aspen’s terror hanging in the air. “You two fancy a trip to the States?”

***

If you read and enjoyed, please consider leaving kudos and/or comments here on AO3!

[lylakylie609]

Back - Chapter 8

My dad didn't know what to do. He was constantly in a trance, staring at a wall or a photo of the person he fell in love with. He rarely slept between taking care of me, working, and worrying about dad. 

One day a ministry worker came to expect our home due to my father not having shown up for a few days. The house was a mess; there were bottles of beer and cigarettes covering the floor. My father was sitting on the couch in a trance with a mug of cold tea in his hands. 

"Where is your daughter?" the worker had asked my father, but he never responded.

The worker went around the house trying to find me until he walked into the bathroom. I've been told that he had found me covered in blood, skinny to where you could see my bones, and barely breathing. 

As soon as the worker found me, he took me to Saint Mugnos and took away the custody my father held and gained custody of me. That man was Lucius Malfoy.

Narssisa didn't like the idea of me at all. That's why she sent me to America. As I grew older and learned on my own, I started wondering: one day I was in California, the next in North Carolina. I never had any money, and Narssisa always gave me clothes, and I was able to get into people's houses to shower. So I didn't look homeless, and technically I wasn't.

Once a week, Narssisa would come to a small cottage where I could sleep, and she would give me food and clothes. Then she would yell and start hitting me. Maybe that's why I don't remember much of my childhood, because I was scared and it was always the same. 

Once a month I would have to go to a meeting, and every season a ball. I never understood that wasn't normal until my dad got custody of me. He didn't hit me, he rarely yelled, he gave me food every day, and we didn't go to the meetings or balls.

When I was nine, my father was able to gain custody of me again. I got away from the life that almost killed me over 100 times into a safe one that didn't try to kill me. I finally felt safe, but I wasn't free.

"I want my freedom back," is what I would think every night before bed. I couldn't run in fields or explore the woods anymore. I couldn't play my instruments as I pleased. I couldn't be me.

At first I wanted to run away. I wasn't used to this life, and I didn't know how to live it. But after time I leaned into my father, I knew he was there and he always would be. 

Somehow I always knew my life was going to be dark but happy, challenging but free, alone but powerful. Maybe that's why Dumbledor and Snape wanted me to do it.

[sandeoki]

His to protect pt. 1

summary: Y/N a hero, loved and respected by all. Seonghwa a villain, feared and frowned upon by all. both have been enemies ever since they can remember but what happens if Y/N appears at Seonghwa's doorstep at the middle of the night, all bloody and bruised?

t.w: blood, mention of near death, slight yandere themes, violence

< pt.2 >

all Y/N could see around herself was endless darkness. her clothes were soaked due to the rain pouring down, or it could be her tears too or maybe the blood oozing out of her head. she wasn't sure. all she knew was, she had to run.

she had to get away from them. get away from the corrupt government officers who were currently chasing her. she had heard too much, she wasn't supposed to know their plan.

the same plan which involved making thousands of innocent people homeless just so they can have more land for building malls and hotels. she wasnt supposed to find out. but she did, and now she had to run.

Y/N was getting tired, her feet felt heavy and her head felt as if it was going to explode, she couldnt run anymore. she looked around her just to realize she was standing 2 blocks away from her sworn enemy's house.

how she reached here or why did her feet carry her here was something beyond her. all she knew was, she needed to hide before they saw her.

Seonghwa wasnt a stranger to late night visitors. heck, his gang members often visited him at the night to avoid getting caught. but the thing was, his gang members would never knock, they all had a spare key.

this made Seongha feel a bit strange. no one except his members and that puny little hero knew his address and it couldnt have been the neighbors as he didnt have any.

regardless, he got up from his couch where he was reading just moments ago and made his way towards the front door, a knife hidden behind his back just in case if a surprise attack took place.

the familiar rush of adrenaline greeted him as he went to open the door only to be replaced with shock once the door opened to reveal the person he had tried to kill multiple times, standing before him in all her bloody and bruised glory.

it should've made him feel happy to see her hurt, to see her look as if she was going to pass out any second now. he should be overjoyed at the fact that the little menace will be off his back.

but that wasnt the case. it was quite the opposite actually. he felt as if he was going to puke. it felt unsettling. sure he had seen her in similar condition before.

heck, he had seen her in even worse condition after one of their fights. he had seen her nearly die when he had been the one squeezing her neck. but it wasnt the same.

sure she nearly died then and she looks like she's about to die right now but there was a difference. it was him who had hurt her before. now, it was someone else.

someone else dared to touch her. to hurt her. to see her cry oh so prettily as she tried to survive. this was unacceptable. Seonghwa couldn't allow this to happen. he wouldn't allow this to happen.

his inner monologue was cut of by the sound of something hitting the ground, or well someone hitting the ground. he bent down towards the hero and tried to locate the source of bleeding.

a sigh left his lips as he looked at her frail body, laying on the floor all beaten and broken. it made him shiver. he felt angry. no no, he felt furious. someone dared touch something that belonged to him and him only.

she was his to torment, his to tease, his to touch and his to hurt. Seonghwa was a man of many disciplines but sharing nature wasn't one of them. whoever dared touch her was going to pay. pay with their life.

[shizuokadivision]

Sakura's Thoughts on 3rd Members

Saburo Yamada 

“So then there were three.” Sakura snorts. “Unlike his two older brothers, Saburo doesn't venture out to the underworld… physically, that is. I've heard rumors that the kid is a terror cyber-wise. The kid has to be skilled to pull that off. I almost want to see this kid go against Kanon, but that would be a cruel and unusual punishment. Although from what I've heard, his personality is a real piece of work.” Sakura shrugs her shoulders. “After knowing Kanon for as long as I have, I’ve learned how to deal with geniuses with unflattering personalities. Especially considering he's more angry chihuahua than a deranged madwoman.” 

Rio Mason Busujima 

“Busujima is perhaps the only member of MAD TRIGGER CREW I can safely say I’m on friendly terms with even if he lives like a hermit in the middle of the Yokohama forests. I can respect a man who shows such loyalty as Busujima does. I actually wouldn't mind going against him once. I’ve seen him battle, and he is ruthless, but I guess the same could be said about me.” 

Dice Arisugawa 

Sakura groans at the photo of the gambler. “Fucking Arisugawa is at our gambling rings so often that I would assume he would call it home. I swear he's got one of the worst gambling addictions I have ever seen. Lucy seems to find him entertaining at least. If it weren't for the fact that those teammates of his are constantly paying back that debt of his Arisugawa would be in hot water with the Kito-gumi. How he lives the way he does, I'll never know. Although if I had a mother like he does, I'd run away and become a homeless gambling addict too.”   

Doppo Kannonzaka

“It's Kannonzaka. I met him one night when he came to Shizuoka something about his job? He had been cornered by some punk trying to rob him, and just when I was about to step in. He fucking goes off.” Sakura laughs. “He starts screaming about how he's gonna kill the punk and I swear Kannonzaka was about to fight him. The punk nearly pissed his pants in fear when I stepped in. Then he decided that it would be better to run away while he still had a chance. Smart of him. Kannonzaka snapped out of his rage and just started apologizing for inconveniencing me. I waved him off and told him not to worry about it. Hell, I even bought him a drink afterward. For a pathetic salaryman, he isn't too bad. I wonder if he’ll be open to working for the Kito-gumi. It’ll be an upgrade, at least, and I can safely say he’d be treated better than at his current job.” 

Rei Amayado 

“The moment this man steps foot in Shizuoka, he's dead. I’ve told my men should they ever see this man that they are to bring him to me. This man is the reason Kanon is the way she is now. I will make sure she has the chance to get revenge on this man even if I have to drag him to her lab by his gold chain myself.” Sakura stands from her seat and walks over to an area where a photo of Rei Amayado was placed on a target. Quickly pulling out her gun, Sakura takes aim and fires several bullets. Each one hits the center of Rei’s face with deadly accuracy. “That son of a bitch is extremely lucky that the only reason I'm not putting a bullet between his eyes is that Kanon claimed first dibs on him.” 

Hitoya Amaguni 

“Never met the guy, and here's to hoping that I never will. Why? I'm a yakuza, and he's a lawyer. Put two and two together. I already deal with that lawyer from Ueno. I’d rather not deal with another one. So I’ll keep my distance.”

[bright-eyes-strawberry-lies]

Mrs. Chase is a fucking saint. She should be offered immortality for putting up with all the shit she does. In no particular order, here's some things Mrs. Chase just has to live with.

On their wedding night, Frederick confesses he's a virgin. But yes, Annabeth is his biological daughter. It's complicated. No, he won't explain further.

Speaking the name of Annabeth's mother will summon her so it's better if Mrs. Chase just doesn't know at all.

Her new stepdaughter is suddenly having frequent nightmares about spiders for no apparent reason and keeps saying there are cobwebs on her.

Strange people keep attacking Annabeth and Mrs. Chase's sons, but especially Annabeth, with alarming frequency. It's scaring Bobby and Matthew but if she keeps the kids separate, only Annabeth is a target.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE AND WHY DO THEY KEEP ATTACKING HER STEPDAUGHTER?

Mrs. Chase has no clue what's going on and now her stepdaughter is talking about monsters and weird shit and Frederick do something about this. Frederick does not do anything about this.

Seriously why are these people going after Annabeth? Is it a trafficking ring? Did her mysterious mother who has not been named and is in no photographs put a hit out on her own daughter? WHAT IS HAPPENING?!

Annabeth ran away. Frederick does not file a police report.

Months (or years) later, they begin to get letters in the mail from Long Island saying that Annabeth is at some camp. Frederick asks her to come home.

Annabeth hates all of them and wants them all to die, including her father. She will not come home.

She does come home and the random attacks by random people start all over again but this time Annabeth has a dagger and SHE'S KILLING PEOPLE.

FREDERICK, I SAW THAT DAGGER! WHAT IS GOING ON? WHERE IS SHE HIDING THE BODIES? FREDERICK, DO SOMETHING.

Annabeth runs away again. Frederick still refuses to file a police report.

Annabeth decides to live with them again and this time they're driving up to the camp but they aren't allowed to actually visit the camp and see what kind of place it is. For some reason they can't seem to move past the giant pine tree and the valley is covered in fog.

"My mother gave me this cap," Annabeth says about the Yankee's cap. She doesn't let anyone near it. She won't tell Mrs. Chase what her mother's name is or when she saw this woman.

Sometimes Mrs. Chase cannot find Annabeth. She was right there.

A boy Annabeth's age and an older girl from Annabeth's mysterious camp come and pick her up for something but no one is saying what. Their eyes are shattered and almost seem to glow from within. Frederick doesn't ask where Annabeth is going or when she'll be back.

The same kids, plus one more who has a bow and arrow on her back, come back a while later to inform them that Annabeth is in terrible danger. They talk about battles like they were there. They say that they need to borrow the Chase's car.

Frederick agrees. Mrs. Chase calls the insurance company. By the time she's off the phone, Frederick tells her that he's going to take his plane out for a while. Just for a short flight. It has nothing to do with Annabeth. He has a belt of bronze bullets slung over his shoulder.

Frederick comes back. His plane has been damaged. The bullets are missing. He says Annabeth is fine. Annabeth does not come back for several more days.

She has a streak of white in her hair when she gets home.

Annabeth and her father get into fights about moving to California.

Even more people in California want to attack Annabeth. By now, Mrs. Chase has accepted that this is her life. She becomes a wine mom. She still doesn't know what Annabeth does with the bodies.

Annabeth runs away again several times. She comes back after a few days. There are tickets to New York stuffed in her shorts pockets. During summer, she goes back to New York to go to the camp. She laughs at the suggestion of attending a different camp in California.

Mrs. Chase does not know where the money for all these plane tickets is coming from. At this point, it's probably better not to ask.

A handsome young man with a scar on his face comes to the door asking for Annabeth. They sort of have the same facial structure but when asked if he's somehow related to Annabeth, he just sighs. Which isn't a no. He's carrying a sword. He and Annabeth fight when he asks her to run away with him. Shockingly, Annabeth refuses to run away for the first time in her life. He tells Annabeth to kill him. Shockingly, Annabeth refuses to kill someone for the first time in her life. The young man leaves. Mrs. Chase never sees him again.

When Mrs. Chase asks Frederick about the young man, he just tells her that he's one of Annabeth's mother's people. This does not clear anything up.

Annabeth's boyfriend - the one with the shattered eyes who asked to borrow the car - has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. No one is sure if he's dead or just missing. Annabeth refuses to come home when summer is over. It's been over a year since she's been home.

When Annabeth does finally come home, she looks like a walking corpse.

Frederick and Annabeth fly to Boston to look for Annabeth's cousin because he's apparently in danger. Magnus dies under mysterious circumstances and Frederick attends the funeral. Annabeth does not fly home with him because she is apparently doing important things with Magnus. Who is dead. Frederick, he's dead, what is she doing with him?

Annabeth finishes school and moves back to California (with her boyfriend who barely looks like a person anymore and no one should have eyes that broken) because apparently there is a camp there that she can live full-time at and it also has a college. The family can't visit her there because their type aren't allowed.

Mrs. Chase wonders if Annabeth is a white supremist or in a cult or both. The attacks on Bobby and Matthew have stopped completely. Frederick still writes letters to Annabeth but he doesn't see her even though she's within driving distance. His letters occasionally mention Magnus, the aforementioned dead cousin, who has somehow opened up a homeless shelter for teenagers called Chase Space despite being dead and only sixteen.

A search reveals no information about Chase Space's owners. The phone just rings endlessly when you dial the number. There is no listed address.

Mrs. Chase sits on a chair and stares into her wine glass. "This is fine," she says.

[lo-55]

The Skin Cabaret

It’s here! This was that murder mystery I mentioned working on around Halloween, finally finished and nothing like I first planned it.

In the city of Westchase, people were diisappearing. Anna Hemlock, a private investigator, took it upon herself to find them, dead or alive. What she found was more than even she ever expected to, for the skin cabaret has strange music.

TW : death, ghosts, mild gore

When you kill someone two people die; them, and the person you used to be. To take a life is to break a part of your soul off, however big, however small. In the city of West Chase, people were disappearing.

It was hard to notice at first. The people who vanished all lead ‘at risk’ life styles. The homeless, the down trodden. Run aways, sex workers, gang members. Folks who are hard to keep track of at the best of times, who really would just skip town now and again and never tell a soul. Running from something. Hunting for something. A mobile lifestyles means its hard for anyone to notice if you’re in more trouble than usual, no matter how many people try to look after one another. 

But someone was keeping track. 

Adelaide Fox did her best to keep an eye out on the young people who worked the nights in her neighborhood. She couldn’t do much, but she could try, in her own way. At the very least she could bear witness to those who passed through. Remember them as best she could. The folks who lived there lead hard, cold lives, and Lord knew no one else was watching over them. 

But she wasn’t a policewoman. She wasn’t a hero. She was just a witness.  

And right before her eyes they were going missing, and bodies were turning up but none of them were the ones she was desperately afraid to find out about. 

(Polly, Daja, Antoine, Jasmine)

It was through a very short grape vine that amounted to overheard gossip at a ballroom competition that lead to a gentle knocking on Adelaide Fox’s dressing room door after the last walk of the night. 

She pulled it open and looked down to see a young woman, her hands shoved in the pockets of a leather jacket and running shoes on her feet. 

She didn’t look like she belonged backstage at any drag show, let alone a ballroom. But there she was, and her mouth was twisted in a facsimile of a smile. 

“Miss Fox?” she asked, tilting her head up to gaze at the tall woman. “I’m Anna Hemlock. I’m a detective. I heard you’ve got some folks missing.” 

Well, Adelaide was no friend of cops. But this girl wasn’t in blue and she didn’t flash a badge, and she was a chance to find them. Even if she was a cop, whatever trouble they might be in the law could very well be the lesser of two evils. 

So she brought the young woman into her dressing room, and told her everything she knew. 

It took Anna Hemlock a week to find the house. It wasn’t listed on google maps, and the only hard copy maps of the area that even showed the over-glorified deer path to the house in the woods were old and hard to read. 

But she found it all the same. She got the license plate number and the car description from the last ones who had seen the missing people, and when she brought that to her friends in the police station that came up with a few more hits on it. A dented grey hatchback, that belonged to an instrument repair man. 

Suspicious activity, a drunk driving record, reckless driving, aggressive behavior, solicitation. His wife Delores had reported him for battery, and accused him of abusing their son, Sam, but the charges were dropped and the pair skipped town. Anna hadn’t found any other record of them after that. Probably (hopefully) they had changed their names and were living happily in canada. 

She was surprised that the man hadn’t been brought in already. 

But with her list of missing people, it brought the number up to eleven. Eleven missing people over the years, and all of them either tied to this car or to the man who drove it.  

Grover Kroll. 

Adelaide Fox had given her the name of four working girls. Polly, Daja, Antoine, and Jasmine. And there were more who were ‘last seen’ with him. Moira, Mary, Trevor, Sarah, and Kim.

Anna parked her bike around the side of the house. The dented car was missing, and the house was quiet and still in the rustling trees. They loomed above her, bore witness to the horrors that were to come. 

She found a window in the back unlatched, and slipped inside. 

There was a gun strapped to her hip, and she had made a call to the police station on her way out to the house, but a fire in the dockyard was taking up most of the resources. 

It would have been smarter to stay in the city and wait until she could get back up. Real police officers, preferably, instead of Private Investigators like she was. 

But here she was. 

And really, she had always been a tad too reckless for her own good. 

The climbed in through a side window, and kept a level eye on the drive way, where no beat up car was sitting. She didn’t know how long he was supposed to be gone, but she wanted to make sure that he was the right person. 

She knew he was the right person, of course she did. But she needed concrete evidence or else he could get out of jail and flee. And she absolutely could not let that happen. 

So she crept in. 

She knew the kind of person he was. He was someone who beat his wife and son and who preyed on the most vulnerable members of society. Someone who was, at this moment, tuning a piano at a church that had mysterious gone completely wrong. 

(Anna didn’t know a lot about instruments, really, but she figured if she undid enough screws something was bound to happen) 

She picked her way around the house. It was only one floor, with two bedrooms. One bedroom still had dust covered childrens toys, and a broken hole in the wall beside the window. There were red stains smeared across one wall, at roughly head height. 

Anna wasn’t a very tall person. It would have been shoulder height on most people.  

Brown. Red brown, actually. The color of old blood. 

Anna moved on. 

The kitchen was a mess, full of take out containers and trash that needed desperately to be taken out. 

And a whole pantry full of protein shake powder and pedialyte, for some reason. 

A look at the expiration date and she knew that they weren’t old purchases either. He’d bought them recently. 

What did he need with pedialyte without a kid? 

Anna’s stomach twisted in worry. Air blew, cold around her. She rubbed her arm and looked around, but all the windows and doors were shut tight. 

Weird… 

The house wasn’t in good shape. There was probably a crack in the walls or gaps in the doors. 

From the kitchen she checked the bedroom, which reeked of sweat, unwashed sheets, and bleach in an unholy combination that made ever her own stomach churn. 

Anna was no stranger to bad smells and horrific sights, but the combination set her teeth on edge and made all the hair along her arms stand on end. 

The bathroom was the only clean part of the house, and the smell of bleach made her yes water it was so intense. Every surface was scrubbed white and there wasn’t a single towel or any soap or shampoo in sight. 

The place was awful, but there was nothing here to prove that he was a murder. The dried blood on the walls wasn’t proof, the freaky bathroom wasn’t proof, and the cold air that kept pushing against her only proved that the house needed some serious work done. 

None of it was proof. 

She needed to find his dumping ground. 

She needed to- 

Leave. 

Anna bit the inside of her cheek. The word struck her so hard it was like someone had shouted it in her ear. 

Something was telling her she needed to leave, and now. 

She looked out the window. 

The car wasn’t in the drive way, but the sun was starting to set. 

She turned back to the house and rocked on the balls of her feet. Cold air rushed across her. Leave. 

She shivered, and took a step back- 

The floor creaked. 

She stopped, and looked down. 

There, in the floorboards, was an almost invisible line between one and the next. 

A trap door. 

Leave. Leaveleaveleaveleaveleaveleave- 

She ignored the hissing in her mind, against her ear, and crouched on the floor. She was shivering. It was so cold. Colder inside than it was outside. 

She prodded the edges, looking for a latch or a catch or anything. 

She finally managed to get the wood to give and there was a creak of hinges. A loud creak. 

She pulled the trap door open and looked down at the gaping, shadowy maw that awaited her. The scent of unwashed man and bleach was immediately overwhelmed by the horrible smell of chemicals, overpowering urine, rolled flesh and stagnant water. 

Down there. 

Something horrible was waiting for her down there. 

Her hands shook. Anna stared at them, bewildered. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t sick to the stomach. 

She was goddamn freezing. 

Anna grasped the edge of the door and slowly stepped down onto the staircase. She groped at the wall with gloved hands until her fingertips brushed the bump of a light switch. 

She threw it, and light flooded a workshop. 

Very carefully she pulled the trap door down, but didn’t let it shut all the way. She didn’t know if it opened from the underside, and she wasn’t willing to find out. 

She very carefully crept down the stairs, keeping to the sides to avoid them creaking under her weight. Her running shoes were quiet on the staircase. She barely made a sound as she stopped on the hard cement floor and looked around. There were windows, but they were all either boarded up or painted over to keep any light from coming in. She hadn’t seen them on her way into the house. There was only a single overhead bulb to offer her any light to see. 

The walls were lined with instruments. A hanging violin, a viola, guitar and cello. A small harp, a thin pan flute, a full sized flute, maracas and a drum with sticks. She saw tambourines, a xylophone of all things, and against one wall was pressed a piano. 

There was something weird about the instruments too. 

Anna picked her way through the room, avoiding small buckets that smelled like urine and one that held smeared matter that looked suspiciously like a liquified brain. 

She stopped in front of the violin. The strings were taught and thin, and they didn’t look like the metallic string she was used to seeing. They looked… organic. 

And the pegs, at the top of the instrument? Were pale ivory. Each one had a strange marking engraved on it. Hanging beside it was a bow made with long, straight black hair. Not white. 

Above it was a  bronze plaque. Engraved on it read a single word. 

Daja. 

Anna chewed the inside of her lip. 

Leave! Shrieked the same voice in her head. It sounded like it was in her ear. And along with it? Was the high ringing of a violin. 

She made her way down the line of instruments, reading each name in turn. 

A viola with finely polished wood and long leather strings read, Polly. A guitar made of fine white material held together by glittering gold like a macabre kintsugi belonged to Antoine. The cello, with a peg extended from the bottom made of the same white material as the pegs was called Moira. The panflute? Mary. The full sized flute, all polished white and gleaming, was Trevor. Maracas, tambourine, and xylophone were titled Sarah, Kim, and Amara respectively. 

Amara. 

She didn’t even know who Amara was. And with each name she read, each instrument she looked upon, the chorus playing behind her grew louder. Leave, set to the whistle of the flute and the howling of the strings and the clash of a tambourine. 

The piano keys were far too white, and a peak inside revealed the strings had the same leather look to them. 

The drums looked small. Smaller than anything else, and the skin stretched across the top was thin and light and cracking. Like it was poorly done. 

And it said Sam. 

Drums pounded in her head. Rhythmless. Frantic. 

Like a little boy beating against a locked door. 

Like a heart stuttering its last. 

There was a name missing. 

Jasmine. 

She turned from the wall of instruments and stopped when she saw the bed. 

It was a cot in a corner, and there was a body laid on it. Emaciated, more skeleton than flesh, lay what had once been a woman. Her hands were bound to the headboard and her legs were spread and tied apart. Her mouth was taped shut. There was a tube leading into her nose, and on the other side was an empty plastic bag hung from  a wall. 

Anna walked forwards, slowly, stepping around buckets and over tarps, and past a bass propped against the wall. It had no strings, and the bow beside it was naked. There were no pegs. 

She looked down at the body. 

Jasmine. 

She didn’t know her last name. Adelaide Fox had never said, if she even knew it herself. The girls had been pretty once, with strong features and straight teeth. Here, her black hair was even longer than it had been in the one picture Anna had seen of her. 

Long and well cared for, she realized. And there was a basket of oil and lotion beside the bed, 

Jasmines wrists and ankles were clean, but she could see where they had been cut into by the rope and rubbed raw. 

The frantic drumbeat was a sharp contrast to Anna’s steady heart. 

A dead body was nothing new to her. 

Her father had told her once, When you kill someone two people die. Them, and the person you used to be. How many times had Grover Kroll killed off little pieces of himself? Was there any humanity, and soul left in him? 

She looked at the empty bass, and Anna had her answer. 

It was so cold in the room that fog was starting to gather in the corners of the room.

 Gravel crunched outside under tires, and the rumble of a car came distantly through the ceiling. 

It wasn’t the fast, skidding roll of someone coming to catch a serial killer. It was the slow roll of someone coming home after fixing the piano in a church. 

This time, her heart did change beats. 

 Her hand moved to the gun at her side. 

She had never fired it at a person. She knew how to, and she was a good shot, but Anna had never shot someone. Never taken a life. 

When you take a life two people die. Them, and the person you used to be. 

Leave! Leave! Leaveleaveleaveleaveleave- 

Thumb-ba-dum-thum-ba-ba-dumb-ba-ba-thum-ba-ba-ba- 

Her fathers voice. Someone telling her to leave. Sam’s drum. 

She held the heavy gun in hand and the air was so cold that it shook. 

The from door creaked open. Heavy footfalls beat against the floor overhead. She hadn’t left a single trace of herself upstairs, had replaced every single thing she had touched. 

But she was in the basement. 

With a cracked trap door. 

And the light was on. 

And the footsteps stopped. 

Anna held the gun in both hands, her finger was on the trigger and she put her back to the wall. All of her attention was on the door, and the unsteady, frantic beating of the drum in her head (in her ears?) matched the frantic thumping of her heart in her chest. 

She couldn’t leave. There was nowhere to run. 

If she shot, what would happen to her? How much if her would die with Grover Kroll? 

He deserved it, surely he did. The evidence was all around her. 

But her own soul? 

Could she splinter it for the dead? 

Could she kill for the sake of her own life? 

The door in the ceiling opened. Heavy boots came down, step by step and each one creaked and groaned under the weight of Grover Kroll. 

He was a big man, and he held a tire iron in one hand. He held it like he knew how to use it. 

His hair was cropped short, and his jaw was set tight. He was still dressed in his repairman’s uniform. 

Kroll stopped when he turned and saw her there, small and quiet and holding a gun. 

Her teeth were bared in a facsimile of a smile. 

It was so, so cold. 

Maybe she could kill Kroll. But could she kill herself? 

Her back touched the cement wall. Kroll turned to her. 

He looked deceptively normal. Plain brown eyes, brown hair, clean shaven. His hands were steady and his fingers were calloused. 

He looked like any other person on the streets. 

Except his eyes. 

There was something very, very wrong with his eyes. She couldn't see a man looking out at her through them. She saw her own reflection, and the flashes of fog around her. 

Like a mirror, set in a skull. There was no soul left beind those eyes. 

He looked between her and the unfinished bass. Wet his lips. 

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said slowly. His words sounded precisely chosen. Exact and purposeful. “I don’t need fourteen instruments.” 

“I’m not here to play,” she said in turn. Her attention stayed fixed on the tire iron in his hand. 

“You’re wrong for it all anyways,” he looked her up and down. Not seeing a person. Seeing parts. Pieces of instruments he could make. Skin, sinew, bone, hair. 

“All wrong.” 

She kept her hold on the gun, but ice was creeping into her veins. She breathed out mist. Why didn’t he look cold? 

“Everything you did here is wrong.” She tried to listen past the beating drum and the screaming orchestra. Prayed to a god she didn’t believe in that a car would come screaming up the driveway with the cavalry inside. 

But the fire. 

No one was coming. Not soon enough for it to matter. 

Two people die. 

Kroll took a step towards her and she kicked out, knocking a vat of reeking fluid back at him. He stepped away, and the chemicals hissed against the tarps and spread, noxious and overpowering across the covered floor. 

“I needed that! Do you know how much it cost?” he looked irritated. 

She should shoot him. She knew she should. 

Her fathers voice in her head. Drums in her veins. Violins and voices in her ears. 

Anna’s words puffed out with fog. 

“Ask me if I care.”

There was a gurgle from the bed. 

Anna glanced over, just for a second. Just long enough to meet eyes that her suddenly turned towards her. 

And then a tire iron smashed into her ribs. 

The gun went off, blasting a hole into the wall and another into the ceiling. It took out the lone overhead light and plunged the room into darkness. Another strike hit her opposite arm, sending her tumbling while the gun went off a third and forth time. A window splintered and exploded, showering the room with shards of glass and moonlight. 

She was left on her hand in darkness filled with white fog and strange music. 

Glass cut her palms and chemicals stung into her skin, and she tensed, ready for the tire iron to come down again. 

It didn’t. 

The music sang, no longer disjointed and frantic. 

Instead it swelled in a crescendo of fury and she realized that it really was coming from all around her. It was no longer echoin in her head. 

It came from the walls. 

From the instruments made of flesh and bone and death. 

Anna looked up to see the mist swirling. 

There were faces in it. Men. Women. 

And a single little boy. 

Her fingers found the cold steel of her gun. 

Kroll stared at himself, and tried to cover his ears, but it was no good. The music was everywhere and Anna no longer heard, leave. 

She heard denial. 

Heard refusal. 

Not again.  

And the moonlight glowed across mist and spirit, and the music swelled and sang while a man without a soul tried to fight his own sins. 

Anna didn’t fight the phantom woman, nearly identical to the single little boy, when she took the gun from her hands. It hissed and Anna smelled iron faintly where it touched the womans ethereal skin. 

Delores lifted the gun and fired it twice. 

And Grover Kroll fell with a hole in his head and his already empty heart. 

The report of the gun cut through the music, and the instruments leapt from the walls and crashed into the ground, shattering wood and exploding shards of bone. 

Moonlight and mist swirled and broken music screamed until everything went silent. 

And dark. 

Anna stayed crouched in that silence, as heat slowly came back to her fingers one at a time. She couldn’t hear anything. 

She didn’t even heard it when the front door was kicked down and footsteps pounded down the stairs. Didn’t hear someone shout for an ambulance. 

But she saw the light when it burned in her eyes and felt the hands that grabbed her shoulders. 

Someone carried Jasmine out in a stretcher. 

Someone else dragged Anna away from the body. 

The cold was gone. The music had vanished. Her fathers voice was quiet once more. 

She sat in quiet moonlight, on the porch that had once belonged to a monster, and looked through dense trees and brilliant headlights. 

Anna Hemlock had found the missing people of Westchase, for all the good that did most of them. 

Each bronze plaque would live forever in her mind, along with the memory of strange music and moonlit mist.

[cherienymphe]

Joke’s On You (Joker x Reader)

WARNINGS: DUB-CON, NON-CON, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP, knife play, blood play, murder, violence, 

IF ANY OF THIS OFFENDS YOU, PLEASE DNI

➥ {page breaks done by @whimsicalrogers​}

summary: you’re a part time thief who keeps getting in the Joker’s way. What starts out as rivals quickly turns into something hot and heavy, and before you know it, you’re J’s girl. Whether you want to be or not {based off of this headcanon}

~

The first time you ever come face to face with the Joker, the clown king himself, is during one of the first night’s you first started to execute your grand idea. You went through a klepto phase when you were a kid, but you never expected you’d return to it, and definitely not on a bigger scale like this.

It wasn’t like you were homeless or right on the poverty line. You had money, quite a bit in fact. One of the perks of being a stripper in the most popular club in Gotham, but there came a certain thrill from stealing from the rich in this city. Sure, you took their money on the stage, did everything you could to make them empty their pockets, but taking their money right out from under their nose was different.

You’re not sure when you came up with the bright idea, but you knew that if you wanted to keep this up and stay out of prison, you had to get smart about this. That was where the Joker came in. That clown ran this city, and you knew that with him around, no one would dare to even notice you. If you made your hits the same time as him, you could get in and out to no one’s knowledge.

It was a solid plan.

Until it wasn’t.

You almost ruin his plans to send a bank up into flames, and your eyes briefly meet his cold green ones before you’re taking off. You half expected to hear the sound of gunshots, even expected to get hurt or worse, but you can hear him telling his thugs to stand down. He doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by your presence, no real threat, and you’re unsure if you should be offended or not.

You had never seen the man himself up close before, and you’re shocked to realize that he’s taller than you imagined. More intimidating than you imagined. Despite the fact that he barely paid you any mind, you can’t help feeling like he’s going to break into your apartment and slit your throat. You’re a petty thief, nothing like the big criminals in this city, and your run in with him spooks you. It takes a long time for you to fall asleep that night.

You quickly put it behind you though and tell yourself that you just have to be more careful from here on out. It soon becomes obvious that that’s easier said than done. You hadn’t meant to get in his way when he was taking the mayor hostage. It was an honest mistake when you almost kept him from breaking some other danger to society out of Arkham, but the nail in your coffin finally comes when you do prevent him from robbing a bank truck.

You barely ducked in time as a bullet came flying past your head. You’re shaken up, but you manage to force yourself to get the hell out of there before the cops showed up and before the Joker took another shot. You should have known that he was going to be expecting you. The Joker was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them.

You walk right into a trap, and you’re in the bank vault, hands full of money when you feel a sharp tug on your hair. You swallow down a yelp as you’re yanked back into a bare chest, and your eyes widen when a hand curls around your throat. You may not be the best villain in the world, but you’re one that can defend yourself, and the walls of the vault shake as you fight back.

He’s stronger than he looks, but you’re stronger than you look, and you both realize this when he has a gun pressed to your forehead while you have a knife at his throat. Your heart is hammering inside of your chest because not only are you once again face to face with the Joker himself, but he’s seconds away from killing you. You feel like you’re about to throw up, and he’s clearly amused.

He tilts his head at you, red lips parting to reveal a shiny grin, a laugh bubbling in his throat as he presses the barrel of the gun even further into your skin. His purple coat hangs off of him, pale chest heaving and that’s how you know that despite his grin, he’s irritated. Maybe even mad.

“…and what do they call you?”

His voice is deep, and that takes you by surprise. A lot of things about the infamous criminal are taking you by surprise.

“What does it matter? You’re going to kill me anyway, right?”

He hums, stepping closer with a sneer.

“I haven’t quite figured that one out yet…maybe I will when you tell me your name…”

“Well, I haven’t quite figured out what I want to be called,” you honestly told him.

No one but him and his goons knew about you, so you had never counted on anyone else knowing about you either. The thought of an alias never crossed your mind.

“Trying to steal my shine or something? You want to be the big dog around here?”

“Oh, please,” you scoff, and if he had eyebrows, you were sure he’d be raising one at you right now with the look he gave you.

He narrowed his eyes, and in one movement, he ripped your mask from your eyes, making them widen. He looked down his nose at you, taking in your all black attire before finally resting his eyes on your face.

“…or don’t tell me…you’re one of those girlies who thinks she can run around with me?”

You frowned at him, and he continued.

“I take it you’re a big fan.”

His tone was mocking, and you had the urge to spit in his face, but you knew that would surely put a bullet in your head, so you simply rolled your eyes.

“Hardly. With you around, no one will even look my way. Your taste for the dramatics allows me to stay below the radar,” you told him.

He hummed at that, tilting his head from side to side as he weighed your explanation in his mind.

“That’s smart, and I gotta hand it to ya, I didn’t think you were smart.”

Your frown deepened at his backhanded compliment, but it was quickly wiped from your face when he tightened his hold on his gun, and your eyes widened.

“Smart, but not smart enough to stay out of my way-.”

He was interrupted as the building shook, and you both turned as gunshots reached your ears. While he was distracted, you slipped out of his grip, ducking in time to miss a bullet before turning the corner. A recognizable shadow passed over the walls, and you ducked into a nearby hallway just as the winged vigilante himself met the Joker as he stepped into the hall.

The air hitting your face reminded you that your mask was gone, and you quietly made your way to the back exit as the sound of fighting and gunshots grew fainter. You released a sigh of relief when you made it outside, and although you didn’t have anything to show for your excursion, at least you had your life.

A thin layer of sweat clings to your skin as you step down off of the stage, feet aching in your heels. A coworker of yours winks at you as she takes your place on the stage, and you wish her luck. Customers were being a bit stingy today, and considering your last heist granted you with nothing, your lack of cashflow today had you more annoyed than usual.

Sure, it was a Tuesday afternoon, but it was still the hottest club in Gotham. Customers of all types of backgrounds frequented the place, and although the old money crowd practically lived here, you had a love hate relationship with their kind. They tended to be the stingiest with their money despite having more than you could ever dream of.

“What time are you off?”

You turned to another girl who worked at the place, Mandy, and threw her a grim look.

“12.”

She grimaced, blue eyes filled with pity as she shook her head.

“Sheesh. Well, that’s what happens when you’re the best dancer in this place,” she said with a shrug. “Your demand is high.”

“High demand and low pay. What a treat,” you sarcastically replied.

She chuckled, but she quickly swallowed it down, eyes glancing past you. The club was already loud, but there seemed to be an uptake in noise, and you turned to find the cause. You froze where you stood, eyes wide and lips parting at the group of people who just stepped into the place.

All of the men varied in size and shape, all dressed in black as they made their way inside like they owned the place. You supposed that in a way they did. Anyone following the footsteps of the Joker probably felt like he could get away with anything. The man in question led the bunch, strutting past patrons with a dark look in his eye, green hair contrasting against his dark red shirt.

You quickly turned back around, squeezing your eyes shut as Mandy let out a low whistle.

“I haven’t seen him step foot in here in forever,” she commented.

You looked to her with a confused frown.

“What?”

“Oh, yeah. You’ve only been here for what, half a year? The Joker used to come in here all the time. They’d get a bit rowdy but what is that when he’s the highest paying customer?”

She shrugged, reaching for a tray of drinks, completely unaware of your internal dilemma. It was almost time to get back on stage.

“Have fun,” she purred, walking past you.

You took a deep breath, forcing yourself to calm down as you stewed over what you should do. Sure, you were a thief in your spare time, but you couldn’t lose this job. As much as you wanted to, you couldn’t walk out of here, so you straightened your shoulders and made your way back to your stage.

You kept an eye out for pale skin and green hair, and you were thankful to find him far on the other side of the room. He and his crew were occupied by another dancer, Mandy serving them drinks. You were thankful and carefully stepped onto the stage.

As usual, you attracted a nice sized crowd, and you made sure to keep your face turned away as you moved around the pole. You were pleased to find that this crowd was more generous with their money, but your satisfaction was short lived when your turned to find your boss gesturing for you to come off the stage. You were confused but did so anyway. He nervously scratched his dark beard as you approached, and you had a sinking feeling in your gut for some reason.

“What is it?”

He grumbled and jerked his head towards the other side of the building, and you hesitantly looked over his shoulder. The Joker’s goons were having a good time tossing money at the dancer on stage, a few of them clearly drunk. The green-haired man, however, wasn’t partaking in the festivities. His unreadable gaze was focused on you, and your heart sank when he didn’t break the stare. You were forced to when your boss spoke.

“He wants a private session with you,” the older man mumbled, and you’d be dumb to miss the fear and concern in his voice.

You internally cursed.

“You’re kidding…”

“…’fraid not. He was very clear in his…request,” he responded.

You both knew that it wasn’t a request. The Joker never requested anything, and you briefly closed your eyes, positive that this was going to be your last night on earth. Your boss placed his hand on your shoulder, gaze sympathetic…and pitying.

“Just do what he says, alright?”

He wasn’t just telling you that to make more money, but to keep you from becoming the clown’s next victim. You didn’t have the heart to tell him that your fate was already sealed. With a nod, you strutted past him and made your way to the other side of the room. The Joker’s expression didn’t change as you approached him, and you nervously swallowed. His cold green eyes seemed to follow the gesture, and you took a deep breath.

“Someone request a private room?”

Again, he said nothing, simply tilting his head to the side as his trailed his eyes over your scantily clad form. Some of his posse was still enamored with the dancer before them, but the rest had turned to not so discreetly eye you. They all looked away when the green-haired man stood, and your eyes fell to the sliver of skin that peeked through the top of his shirt, unable to hold his gaze.

“Right this way…”

You didn’t hear his footsteps, but you could feel his presence behind you as you led the way to the back where the private rooms were located. The walk was quiet, thick with tension, and you wondered if it was too late for you to start saying your prayers.

You went in first, blinking at the red glow of the room that came from the neon lights. You were shaking, stomach churning as the door clicked shut behind him. You turned to tell him to get it over with when his hand wrapped around your throat, forcing you to swallow your words. You let out a pained squeak, eyes watering, but his lips swallowed any other noise you threatened to make.

Your eyes were wide as he roughly kissed you, shock coursing through you while his mouth moved against yours. You stumbled back in your heels, but he quickly followed, teeth nipping at you so violently that you tasted blood. You wanted to tell him that this wasn’t that kind of club. This was not in your job description and was not allowed, but you remembered your boss’ words and wondered if he knew that this was what the man wanted?

Even still, you couldn’t go through with this, but his tattooed hands were ripping at your attire before you had the chance to voice what you wanted to say. Your lips were finally free to tell him off, but the only thing that came out was a yelp when his teeth sank into your shoulder. The pain you felt was quickly overshadowed by the pleasure that warmed your stomach when his fingers brushed over you.

You pushed against his chest, but his other hand grabbed your wrist, spinning you around so that your back was pressed to his chest. It happened so quickly that you didn’t have time to ponder what was happening until he was already inside of you. One hand was tangled in your hair, face pressed into the seat of the sofa as broken moans escaped your trembling lips.

His free hand was pressed into the skin between your shoulder blades, holding you down while his hips snapped into you over and over again. He was far from gentle, but every harsh stroke only seemed to stroke that fire inside of you. Your lashes were fluttering as he thrust into you, eyes rolling while you tried to make sense of everything.

You could feel his nails pressing into your back as he pinned you down, and your own scraped against the fabric of the couch while choked moans climbed out of your throat. This was far from how you expected your day to go. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that this man was trying to kill you. You fluttered around his unrelenting cock and tried to remember why that was a bad thing.

He let out what sounded like a growl above you, the fabric of his pants pressing into your skin as he ground against you, and his hand in your hair moved to the back of your neck just as the tightening in your stomach snapped. You came around him with an embarrassing scream, going limp beneath him as he fucked you through your climax, diving headfirst into his own.

You collapsed the minute he let you go, vision blurry and throat sore as you heard him zip his pants. You were still shaking, and he was already gathering himself together like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just fucked you delirious. You moved to stand, ready to give him a piece of your mind, but you collapsed back onto the couch.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d say you heard a low chuckle in his throat. Either way, you didn’t get to ask him because the sound of the door slamming shut reached your ears seconds later.

The next time you ran into that stupid clown, you took great satisfaction in striking him square in the face. You didn’t care that he was surrounded by his band of hired muscle nor that you were currently standing in the middle of a jewelry store, alarm blaring in your ears almost painfully.

He gestured for the men around him to continue looting the place, seeing as they had paused to take in the scene. You knew they would have killed you without hesitation had he told them to. You glared at him as he grinned at you, bat perched on his shoulder.

“We’ve gotta stop running into each other like this,” he lowly said.

“That was for the last time we ‘ran into each other’,” you sneered. “I don’t care who you are, you don’t get to-.”

“Consider it my way of letting you get off easy.”

He chuckled at his play on words, but you weren’t amused in the slightest.

“Get off easy? Are you even crazier than everyone thinks?”

His grin was gone in a flash, and he stepped towards you, tapping his bat against his shoulder as he leaned in. His lips were parted as his eyes bore into your own, and you forced yourself to stand your ground as the scent of him invaded your nose.

“If you recall,” he slowly began. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

You swallowed, jaw clenching as he tapped his finger against your nose.

“The plan was to put a bullet in that pretty little mouth of yours. Does that…ring any bells?”

You pressed your lips together, glancing away as he let out a breathy chuckle.

“Fucking you brought me more satisfaction than killing you ever could,” he deeply said.

You felt heat rise to your face, and he tilted his head, lips brushing against your own as he spoke.

“So…I suggest you keep me satisfied…”

His coat flew behind him as he spun away, stomping towards one of his men to bark orders at them. Anger and humiliation coursed through you as you stomped outside, and you narrowed your eyes as the sound of police sirens drew nearer. With a sneer, you grabbed the knife in your holster before slashing the tires on his van.

That kept you satisfied throughout the rest of the night, but you paid for it dearly the next day at the club. This time, he hadn’t even waited until you were in the room. His hand had curled around the back of your neck as soon as you got to the door, forcing you inside as soon as he opened it.

You had stumbled in your heels, falling to your knees, and he was there before you could even rise. His hand was on your neck the entire time he slammed into you, the carpet scraping against your back. You could hardly breathe, let alone moan as he had his way with you, and you knew that he was genuinely angry this time, and you wondered how he managed to escape the police.

He was punishing you for your little stunt, but God did you love it. Your hands fisted into his bright red button down as he slid into your soaked walls, trying to pull him closer. You heard him hum every time you clenched around his throbbing member, the sound of your arousal reaching your ears. You should have been embarrassed at how wet you were, but the Joker seemed to enjoy it just fine, and besides. You saw no reason to pretend.

Like the last time, he was righting himself as soon as he was done while you lay on the floor, still trying to catch your breath. You let out a soft chuckle as he slammed the door behind him, and you wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t even able to talk in the morning.

This little game between the two of you became something of a regular occurrence. You’d make your hits when and where he did his to avoid exposure, and sometimes things would go wrong on his end. Some mishaps were genuine accidents, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy the way he’d take out his frustration on you.

He fucked you like an animal, and you loved it because sometimes you couldn’t even form words afterwards. And best of all, he wasn’t trying to kill you anymore…just your vagina.

One day, he didn’t leave as soon as he was done. He stood over you, watching as you fought to control your breathing. When you realized that he wasn’t making any moves to leave, you peeled your eyes open to look up at him from your place on the couch.

“…what?”

You nervously sat up as he dug into his pocket, eyes widening when he pulled out the shiniest bracelet you’d ever seen. He dangled it in front of your face, a low hum escaping him as you admired it.

“Saw this shiny little number in the display. It had my little thief written all over it…”

He jerked it away when you reached for it, so you reached higher, gasping when he closed his free hand around your wrist. You watched as he snapped the expensive piece of jewelry around your arm, and you brushed your fingers over it the minute he let you go.

You were forced to pull your eyes away from it though when he harshly gripped your chin, pulling your head up so that you were looking at him. His green eyes bore into your own, face unreadable as he pressed his red lips together.

“You like it, doll face?”

You couldn’t hold back your grin, and you nodded.

“I love it,” you told him, unaware of the implications behind the gesture.

You started showing up to work with all kinds of new things. A new pair of earrings, a necklace that wasn’t that before, even some new heels that didn’t hurt your feet as much. You figured it was just a perk of fucking the king of Gotham, of keeping him satisfied.

You didn’t know that it went beyond mere satisfaction and thankful gestures.

It was a late night, or early morning depending on how you looked at it. The club was almost at its peak, the early hours of the morning being your busiest. You hadn’t seen J in a few days, but it wasn’t unusual. The man was basically running an empire.

You were servicing a client, a regular who could never stick to one dancer. He had a habit of hopping between the ladies at the club, and it looked like this week, he’d chosen you. The loud music filled your ears as you slid your hands over his shoulder, thighs brushing his as you danced on him. The bass from the music made your body vibrate, and your eyes fell closed as you fisted one of your hands into your hair, chest pushed forwards.

The man had already given you a handsome sum of money, and you knew that if you put on your best show, there was plenty more where that came from. The loud music prevented you from hearing the rise in voices as a new patron entered the club. It also prevented you from taking note of the worried chatter that had only just started to emerge, but it didn’t drown out the sound of a gunshot that you flinching.

However, you didn’t open your eyes because of the gunshot. You opened your eyes at the feel of droplets landing all over your face, hair, and clothes. You faintly registered the sound of screams surrounding you as people fled from the club, tripping over one another. You stumbled back, frozen in place as you stood up straight, hands raised in front of you as you stared at your dead customer in shock.

He was dead.

That much was more than clear, but you were having a hard time wrapping your head around it. Heavy footsteps slowly made their way over to you, and you hesitantly looked over, terrified eyes connecting with familiar green ones. His eyes were wild and crazed, green hair pushed back away from his face, gun swinging back and forth on his finger. He looked good in his all white suit, not a spot of blood on him.

You wished you could say the same.

“Are you insane?” you screamed, legs trembling.

“Well, that’s what they tell me.”

You frowned at him as he threw his head back and cackled, and you shook your head, fighting to clear it.

“Why did you do that? What’s wrong with you?”

He abruptly stopped laughing, slowly lowering his head to gaze at you. His lips parted into a mocking grin.

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? I leave town on business for a few days, and I come back to find my girl practically screwing some punk for the whole club to see,” he slowly said, voice low and threatening.

Your anger kicked you into gear, and you stomped towards him, a frown on your face.

“I am not your girl, and even if I was…this is my job! You know this is my job-!”

Your words were cut off, and you winced as he tightened his hold on your neck. Your feet were barely grazing the floor as he walked forwards, forcing you back. You dug your fingers into his arm, hitting at him with your free hand, but he acted as if you weren’t even fighting back.

“Those nice earrings you’re wearing says you’re my girl…”

Your stomach churned as you began to realize the serious meaning behind his gifts.

“…that pretty little bracelet on your arm says you’re my girl…”

You looked around in fear, realizing that the club was completely empty save for you, the Joker, and his thugs. You kicked at him as he forced your back onto the stage, his firm body pressing down on yours. His hold was still tight, and you felt tears spring forth as you fought to breathe.

“…and I say you’re my girl. Understand?”

You gave a shaky nod, but it wasn’t enough for him. He lifted you by the neck before slamming you back down, making you wince, and a slow grin spread along his face, revealing his shiny teeth.

“I’ve got a whole lotta toys, sweetheart. I earned those toys. I took those toys. Those toys are mine…”

You watched as he pointed his gun at the dead man still slumped in the chair.

“…and I don’t like people touching my toys.”

You didn’t get a chance to ponder on this turn of events before his lips were harshly pressing against yours. He slammed the gun down next to your head, hands pulling at your attire, and the tears finally spilled over as you fought against him. You weren’t alone, and this was a new level of humiliation that you weren’t okay with.

A man was dead. In fact, you were still covered in his blood, and the Joker’s men were just behind him, intently listening to everything, no doubt. His grip was harsh as he took hold of your wrists, slamming them down beside you. He let one go to grab his gun, pressing it into your lips as you shook.

“You gonna be a good girl? Or do I have to use this again?”

His voice was calm despite the violent implications behind his words, and you shakily shook your head.

He was rougher with you than he had ever been before. Biting you, choking you, and holding you far too tight. Part of you felt like it was done on purpose, not only so you’d get the idea, but so that the rest of his crew would get that you were his too. You cried as he pressed your cheek down onto the stage floor, hips snapping against your backside while harsh grunts left his lips.

You couldn’t handle staring at the Joker’s latest victim while he forced himself into you, so you squeezed your eyes shut. His other hand dug into your hip so harshly, you knew it was going to leave a bruise. As the minutes drew on, it seemed like his ministrations were becoming rougher, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d say the sound of your sobs were egging him on.

His grip on your hair when he came had more tears springing to your eyes, and you flinched when his lips brushed your ear.

“Clean yourself up…”

Having only been half on the stage, you collapsed to the floor when he let you go. Your hair and makeup were a mess, and you miserably stared up at him through tear-filled eyes as he tucked his shirt back into his pants, swiftly pulling on his white suit jacket.

“…the cops will be here soon, and you gotta pull yourself together. Huh, doll face?”

He forced your head back as he gripped your chin, and you reluctantly nodded. He roughly dragged his thumb over your lips, smearing what was left of your lipstick before taking his leave, leaving you alone with one dead body, and one bruised one.

You shuffled upstairs, arms aching and eyes tight as you made your way to your apartment. It had been weeks since you’d been back to the club. Your boss, someone you were ever grateful for, told you to come back when you were ready. After all, you’d had someone’s brains blown out right in front of you…on you.

You were fortunate that no one stuck around to see J’s possessive display of ownership, so no one knew what his impromptu murder was really about. Everyone speculated that the customer had crossed the Joker in some way, a business deal gone wrong, but only you knew the truth. Only you knew that the man’s only crime had been paying for your time.

You took a break from stealing from the wealthy too. Not only did you lack the energy, but you couldn’t chance running into the Joker. Had you known what all of those gifts had meant, you never would have accepted them. You didn’t want to be the Joker’s. The last girl who got seriously tangled up with him had ended up almost crazier than he was.

Granted, you heard Harley Quinn was doing better these days, but God. Look how long it took her to get there? The thought of telling him to his face that it was over was a scary one, so you settled for just hiding away in your apartment. He was the Joker, a man who had a lot on his plate, and like he’d said, you were a toy to him. There were plenty of toys out there, and he could easily find another.

You dropped the groceries to the floor as soon as you made it inside, and you groaned as you straightened. Your shoes clicked along the floor as you made your way through your dark apartment. You turned on the kitchen light so that it would be on when you returned, and you made your way through your living room, looking forward to getting out of these clothes.

However, when you turned on the light in the living room, you were startled by the sight of a familiar green-haired villain standing in the corner like some statue. You barely swallowed down the scream that bubbled in your throat, and your eyes were wide as you took him in.

He was wearing a tux, a nice one with a white bowtie and a matching boutonniere. His hair was slicked back, and you weren’t sure where he came from, but you wanted him to go right back.

“I was enjoying a night out on the town…taunting Batsy as I like to do…”

He walked away from the wall as he slowly begun, cold eyes roaming over your apartment.

“…when I realized that I hadn’t seen my little thief for days. Weeks even.”

“What are you doing here?”

He didn’t respond, instead opting to make his way around the living room, running his gloved hands over your furniture. You didn’t realize that he was gradually closing the circle, nearing you.

“You haven’t been at work. You haven’t been in my face while you ruin my plans. You’re not hiding from me…are ya, doll face?”

You clenched your jaw, swallowing down your fear as you crossed your arms over your chest.

“I’m not hiding from you. We’re just through,” you told him.

He froze, glancing over his shoulder at you before continuing to look around.

“Did you hear me? You and I are done. Take your jewelry back, take everything you gave me and leave,” you continued.

He continued on as if he hadn’t heard you, and you stomped towards him.

“I’m serious, J! Do I need to call the police?”

That made him turn, and he wagged his finger at you like you were a misbehaving child.

“Careful,” he purred. “…because I personally know a certain thief they’d love to be informed about.”

You frowned, swallowing before pushing past him.

“I don’t care. At least in jail, I’ll be away from you-.”

You were cut off by your own scream, reaching for his hand as he pulled on your hair, forcing you away from the phone. He pulled you against him, and your eyes widened when he pressed a knife against your cheek, a hair’s width away from your lips.

“You have no agency in this arrangement.”

He threw you to the floor, and you scrambled away from him, nails scraping along the wood as he pulled you back. He cut your clothes away with ease, the torn shreds falling to the floor to leave you bear before him. The knife that grazed along your skin kept you from screaming as he undressed, but you did wince when he pressed it into your thigh, like a warning of what could come.

He took you behind the couch first, holding your thighs so tightly that the skin burned when he finally let go. Your table was next, but unfortunately, it didn’t withstand his rough treatment. The wall shook as he fucked you against it, every thrust rattling the pictures you had hung up to make this place a tad cozier.

Broken glass and broken pieces of wood littered the floor by the time he forced you into your bedroom. His knife remained in between his fingers the whole time he fucked you against your sheets. Your scalp burned from his harsh hold, and your throat hurt every time you swallowed, and you just knew that you’d wake up with finger shaped bruises in the morning. His deep voice was a constant in your ear, calling you ‘his little thief’, tsking at you like you were a confused child, telling you how much he was going to straighten you out.

When you clenched around him for a final time, your legs were thrown over his shoulder while your hands were pinned above your head by one of his. His free hand had fun cutting little nicks into your skin, greedily licking up the blood as tears continued to dampen your cheeks. He continued to push himself into you even after he came, and when he finally pulled out, your legs fell to the bed, chest heaving with shallow sobs.

“Now, wasn’t that a whole lotta fun?”

You glared at him as he sat up, a thin layer of sweat clinging to his fair skin, and your eyes traced the ink that decorated him. His green hair was in disarray, a smug grin on his lips as he pushed the strange colored locks away from his face. You could hardly even move, and you feared that attempting to would hurt worse.

You watched as he leaned over to his discarded pants, pulling out some sparkly piece of jewelry that you couldn’t care less about. You swallowed as he held it up, nearing you.

“…and here I was out shopping for something to compliment those new earrings, and you’re talking about leaving me. That’s a bit rude, but I’m willing to look past it.”

More tears spill over as he slides it around your neck, and it feels more like a noose than a necklace.

“You look like a work of art,” he says, lips brushing your cheek. “…all pretty and marked up by yours truly.”

His hair tickles your face, and he slowly leans away, dragging his fingers over your lips. You wince when he roughly grabs your jaw, pressing his fingers into a tender spot that you know is already forming a bruise.

“Now, I’ll be back in a couple of hours, so don’t do anything stupid.”

He tightened his grip at the end of his sentence, and you flinched. He grinned at you as he lightly patted his other hand against your cheek, grin widening when you recoiled.

“Let’s not do anything like that again, alright, sweetheart?” he purrs. “I’d hate to have to really hurt ya.”

~

tags: @harryspet @sherrybaby14 @darkficreposter @xoxabs88xox  @opheliadawnwalker3 @honeychicanawrites @honeychicana @nickyl316h @captainchrisstan @sebabestianstan101 @readermia @villanellevi @lokislastlove @notyourtypicalrose @coconutqueen21 @hurricanerin @buckybarnesplumwhore @quaksonhehe @nerdygirl8203 @mandiiblanche @cocoamoonmalfoy​

[tenthgrove]

500 Followers Celebration!!!: Part 1 (La Squadra Backstories)

Hey! Thank you so much for 500 amazing followers! Every single one of you mean so much to me!

Part 1 of this celebration is, as the title suggests, my headcanon backstory for each of La Squadra. As some of you know I was at some point in the process of writing a full multi-chapter fic on this, but since that unfortunately never came to fruition beyond the first couple chapters, here is a shortened version of the stories that were originally planned.

Part 2 is going to be a little something I wrote a while back but never felt brave enough to send to more than a few people. That will be seeing the light of day soon. ;)

Risotto

Risotto Dante Nero was born in a small, poor farming village in Sicily, somewhere in the vicinity of Catania. His parents were a young, dysfunctional couple who weren't ready for a kid in the first place. Seeing their newborn son had 'evil' eyes was the last nail in the coffin for them, and they gave the baby up to his paternal grandmother when he was only days old.

Despite being shunned by his family over the aesthetic defect, Risotto was able to form a close bond with his older cousin, Domenico, who would eventually move in with him and his grandmother after being disowned by the family himself. Domenico helped Risotto find friends, and was the main reason why the next few years were the happiest in the young boys life.

Unfortunately, Domenico was struck and killed at age just 19 by a drunk driver, a millionaire from Milan who on top of his intoxication, was driving incredibly fast. Risotto never recovered from the grief; his personality was altered drastically and he eventually dropped out of school. His grandmother indulged him in his revenge fantasies, believing that he would never seriously carry them out. This proved the biggest mistake of her life.

At age 18 Risotto left home to hunt down Domenico's killer. Despite the years of preparation he was in way over his head and was eventually forced to make a deal with Passione for the resources he would need to break into the mansion and not get caught. But the newly initiated mafioso found that revenge did nothing for his grief. Now, he simply had nothing to work for.

Risotto fell into a deep depression for the next two years, doing his duties as a low-ranking soldato for Passione but feeling utterly empty inside. It became so dire that after becoming injured in a fight with a stand user, he welcomed what looked to be his impending death.

But Risotto did not die that day, being saved by an associate of the gang and rushed to hospital. After hearing word that Risotto had defeated a stand user, Prosciutto became interested and approached Risotto for help with a hit he had been assigned to. Risotto agreed and Prosciutto developed a liking for the young man. A few months later, when Prosciutto was tasked with forming a specialised squad for assassination, he remembered Risotto and requested he become the team’s captain. Risotto was put through at once for receiving a stand, and was seated at the head of the brand new La Squadra di Esecuzione.

Prosciutto

Maiale Crepuscolo was born the daughter of a powerful Don in Naples, and his much neglected wife. Raised in luxury, he came to resent his callous father, especially when the man continued to behave adulterously despite his wife’s failing health. The death of Mrs Crepuscolo was a huge blow to her 16 year old son. It was around this time that Maiale discovered his male identity and chose a new name for himself: Prosciutto.

Mere months after the death of his wife, Don Crepuscolo married his pregnant mistress, a young woman by the name of Loreta. Despite the circumstances, Prosciutto and Loreta got on very well together, and the young man confided in her about his transgender identity, to be met with her full support. Any faith that Prosciutto may have had in his father before was immediately lost when Loreta was thrown out onto the streets by her new husband, along with their infant son Pesci. His sole reason for doing this was that he had become tired of her, and the baby's crying.

Without his father’s knowing, Prosciutto continued to wire Loreta and Pesci money through his hefty allowance, and counted down the days until he could graduate highschool and become eligible for his mother’s inheritance. The very day he gained access to it, he cut his father off for good.

The next few years of Prosciutto’s life were the best. He went to a prestigious university to study politics and afterwards found work as a journalist. With his father no longer an issue, he medically transitioned and upped the money he was giving to his half-brother and former step-mother. Everything was going perfectly.

At age 24, Prosciutto received a visit by members of Passione, who informed him they had annexed his father’s gang and killed him. As much as Prosciutto insisted they had been estranged for years, the men maintained that Prosciutto was still considered a threat, and could only be allowed to live if he joined the gang. Worse, they threatened him with Pesci’s life. Prosciutto knew he had no choice.

Over the next few years, Prosciutto worked his way up. By age 27 he was granted the privilege to develop a stand, and was quickly pushed into the assassination business as a result of its deadly power. At that time, Passione had no designated assassination team, and individuals ordered to carry out hits had to go running around for volunteers if they needed help on a mission. This is why Prosciutto had sought out Risotto.

When the order to form a hitman squad was given, Prosciutto was initially primed to become the captain. However, he was strongly against taking this role, as Loreta was starting to show signs of chronic illness and Prosciutto wanted to make sure he could still take care of Pesci if it became necessary. Tasked with finding an alternative, Prosciutto initially approached his old friends Sorbet and Gelato, who had been part of the squad sent to confront him after the death of his father and had kept in touch out of pity. The pair were cleared to join the team, but were not trusted by the team’s superiors to become captain. And so, Prosciutto turned once more to Risotto.

Sorbet and Gelato

Sorbet and Gelato could not have been born in more different circumstances, the former in absolute poverty, and the latter in comparative privilege.

Sorbet’s mother was by no means a bad woman. It was just the case that through her crippling addictions and mental illnesses, she was in no means equipped to care for her 6 children, forcing Sorbet, the eldest, to pick up the slack. Though he loved his siblings the young Sorbet resented this role and was easily tempted by a street gang at age 12, who offered him escape from his miserable life through drug peddling. Sorbet began to drift from his family more and more. He soon disappeared from school, and became completely estranged from his mother and siblings.

By age 17 Sorbet had developed a reputation in the gang for ruthlessness, and was approached by its leader to carry out a number of assassinations. He soon became the group’s designated hitman, and was paid generously for the role. He was still however, functionally homeless.

Gelato was born to an upper-middle class family in Minsk, Russia. The youngest of four boys, his parents had been hoping for a girl, and their resentment only grew when it became clear the young Gelato was both autistic and ADHD. He suffered from extreme emotional neglect.

When Gelato was 13, the family moved back to Italy where his mother was from. Though he preferred it here, the problems with his family continued and Gelato was eventually kicked out at just 17 years old.

Following the word of a friend, Gelato made his way to Naples and found work running an illegal bar for a street gang in exchange for a room to sleep in. The same gang, incidentally, that Sorbet was working for. The two first exchanged words when Gelato found Sorbet beating up a patron who had been abusive to him, and decided to join in. Within weeks, they were lovers.

One night, while Sorbet and Gelato were asleep upstairs, the police raided the bar. In a panic, Gelato shot two, and Sorbet took out a third. The fourth got away. Knowing they would be hunted, the pair begged refuge from their gang but were denied. They were not a powerful enough syndicate to deal with something of this size. And so, with only each other, Sorbet and Gelato fled Italy.

They were on the run for two years, passing through just about every country in Europe at least once. As a means of surviving, they took on assassination contracts from local gangs and became very skilled, but of course this only turned up the heat to catch them. Eventually, it got too much, and in a final desperate bid to avoid capture, the pair went back to Italy to plead their gang to reconsider.

What they found now in charge of Naples was not their gang, but Passione. A capo by the name of Pericolo listened to their story, and agreed eagerly to dissuade the police from pursuing them in exchange for their loyalty to the new gang. Sorbet and Gelato agreed at once, and developed stands soon after.

Formaggio

A Naples Boy through and through, Formaggio was born in the central city to a large, loving family. Owing to their poverty, all the aunts, grandparents and cousins lived in one house. Although many were part of the mafia, it was always stressed to the children they were under no obligation to choose such a life. Nonetheless, many of them still did.

One night, Formaggio’s eldest brother Miguel sneaked off from the house, telling nobody but Formaggio. His goal was to seek initiation into Passione. The young Formaggio pleaded to come as well, but was told he was not ready yet. Miguel returned a couple of hours later, carrying a metal arrowhead. He told his brother that something unexpected had happened, and he needed to go now, but it was vital Formaggio told nobody of this meeting. He promised it would all be worth it in the end.

Years passed, and Miguel did not return. Then one day- a hastily-written letter, addressed solely to Formaggio. In his final message, Miguel apologised for the absence and announced that he did not expect to survive the next few hours. However, if Formaggio wanted the answers to all that had transpired, all he needed to do was recover the arrowhead that he had last seen Miguel with all those years ago. Most likely, it would have been returned to where he found it, address enclosed. Saddened and eager to understand what had happened to his brother, Formaggio followed the instructions and broke into a heavily guarded warehouse. He found the arrow, just as Miguel had said, but failed to understand how this could solve his problems.

Formaggio looked for a way out of the warehouse, and was suddenly set upon by the guards. He ran for the exit and tripped, impaling himself on the arrow. Little Feet came forth at once, stunning the guards. Not wanting to deal with whatever that was, they called in Risotto and his newly built execution squad, based nearby, to deal with it.

Fortunately, the assassins’ skills were not needed. In spite of the circumstances Formaggio met the assassins with charm and cooperation. Risotto phoned his superiors to see if killing the man was really necessary, and they agreed it wasn’t, provided Formaggio became Risotto’s business. An agreement was reached, and Formaggio was inducted into the hitman squad. It would take two more members for Formaggio to piece together what had happened to his brother.

Ghiaccio

Ghiaccio was dealt an awful hand in life. Poor, and with parents that hated him, he had little respite as a child. He was autistic, but never diagnosed, and had visual impairments that were never addressed. His fondest memory was of a bizarre couple he met as a child, a dark-haired, dour man and his blond lover, who kept him company after his mother walked away from him in anger at a shopping mall. She came back, unfortunately.

When Ghiaccio was 15, a frantic knock sounded at his door while his parents were out. Answering it nervously, an equally frantic man stood on the other side brandishing an arrow-head. He introduced himself exhaustedly as Miguel and begged for shelter- he was being chased.

Before Ghiaccio could answer a squad of men burst onto the porch and attacked Miguel, dragging him out of view. Ghiaccio was thrown to the ground and told in no uncertain terms to speak of none of this to anyone. It wasn’t until later he realised the arrow had accidentally slashed him.

At that time, Ghiaccio’s soul was not fit to manifest a stand, but it was close. And so, Ghiaccio began to suffer the slow, agonising fate that some in his position fall victim to, his half-manifested stand slowly sucking the life from him. His parents didn’t even have the heart to call a doctor.

Two months into this agony, Ghiaccio heard something outside his room. His parents. They were talking about what to do if he died. He’d had enough. He snapped.

And so, Ghiaccio’s soul reached the point where it was strong enough to bare a stand fully, after having already partially manifested one. This unheard of situation created a stand with no physical form, but unspeakable power. A surge of ice broke out around the house without Ghiaccio even meaning it to, killing his parents at once. His sickness gone, Ghiaccio got up from the bed. What the hell had just happened?

Convinced he had lost his mind, Ghiaccio fled, but left a trail of unexplainable events behind him. Realising they were dealing with an unaccounted stand user, Passione had Ghiaccio hunted down and propositioned to join them. Terrified and with no other idea of what to do, he agreed. With a stand like this, there were only 2 options: La Squadra and La Unita. La Unita had no interest in an impulsive teenager, so Ghiaccio was sent at once to La Squadra.

The group was reluctant to house a teenage boy as an assassin, but took him in nonetheless. Formaggio was grateful for the crumbs of information Ghiaccio could give about the fate of his brother. Sorbet and Gelato couldn’t shake the feeling they’d seen the boy before somewhere.

Illuso

He was an only child. There was nothing particularly wrong with his relationship with his parents, but nothing particularly right either. There just… wasn’t a connection. They were a middle class family, well to do but nothing special. An arrogant boy, Illuso struggled to make friends, though he did become somewhat close with a boy in the year below him named Formaggio, for a short time.

When Illuso was 15, his parents came to him with a proposition. A distant relative of theirs was in possession of a large castle, but could not pay for its upkeep any more. The man had asked if Illuso would be interested in becoming a live-in caretaker, to be paid less than industry standards but still a lot by the standards of a 15 year old boy. Illuso agreed at once, and moved out of his parents home in a matter of days.

At the castle, his loneliness only grew. The place was closed to visitors and had no inhabitants apart from his new employer, who even then only lived in the castle 4 days a week. Illuso thought he was okay with this life, but the effect on his psyche was indisputable.

Then one day, the castle had a break-in. Illuso was accosted by a young man named Miguel, who had been squatting in the cellar for days and believed the castle was abandoned. The pair came to an understanding, and Miguel proposed that in exchange for his silence, he would give Illuso something amazing. He pricked him with the arrow.

Thrilled with his new power, Illuso agreed to keep Miguel’s existence a secret and the pair co-existed for many years. Illuso learned that Miguel had stolen the arrow from a gang named Passione, after discovering its power and making the decision to take it on impulse. Passione is still hunting him, hence the need to hide.

But eventually, they found him nonetheless. Illuso and Miguel tried their best to fight but it was an uneven battle. Miguel fled with the arrow, chased by one half of the attacking squad, leaving Illuso to deal with the other half.

But against all odds, Illuso survived, using his stand to eliminate the attackers one by one. Eventually the last attackers gave in and fled, The next people sent to confront Illuso came with a deal: join Passione, and all will be forgiven.

Despite his stand’s power, Illuso’s superiors disliked his attitude. After a few months of being thrown between teams, he was saddled with La Squadra.

Melone

The middle of three children, Melone was born to an upper-working class family in Florence. His parents were eccentric-academic sorts, who encouraged Melone and his sisters to act without regard for social convention. Though intelligent, Melone was never quite top of the class due to his inability to stay on task. Still, he got into a decent university and had plans to become a gynaecologist.

In his second year, Melone was approached by a poor couple seeking antenatal care for their pregnancy. As they explained, they were in a gang and could not go into public care for fear of their identities as criminals being discovered. They pleaded Melone for whatever rudimentary checks he could provide, just so they could have some assurance their baby was okay. Melone agreed, and met with the couple several times.

Over the course of the next year, Melone gave similar services to a couple more women who were recommended to go to him by the first patient. It was only a matter of time before the university discovered what he was doing, especially once he started stealing equipment to improve the quality of his examinations. Melone was expelled and referred to the police, but one of his patients got Passione to bribe away his charges. Unfortunately, this put him in their debt. Melone told his family he was simply going away for a while.

Melone languished around in Passione for a while. Though he did receive a stand, its lethal capabilities weren’t immediately clear, and so he remained in the lower ranks. His main respite was the bar scene, in which he got to mingle with many of Passione’s members from different squads. It was through here that he met Illuso, Formaggio and Ghiaccio of the execution team, and formed a friendship. Through them he even formed links with the group’s leader, Risotto.

The team were eager to help Melone advance to a better position, and aided him in exploring his stand. Eventually, he discovered how lethal baby face could truly be, outshining everyone’s expectations. Risotto was pleased to welcome him into the team.

Pesci

By the time Pesci was 13, it was clear his mother’s illness was terminal. Initially reluctant to involve him around the team, Prosciutto increasingly allowed Pesci to stay with them while his mother was at the hospital, since there was nowhere else for the young boy to go. As much as everyone tried to comfort him, he was terrified.

Two years later, it was clear Loreta was in her final weeks. Pesci dedicated as much time as he could to being with her, sleeping at her bedside more often than not. It was here that he first felt the strange occurrences begin. It would be subtle at first, the peculiar feeling of his mother’s heartbeat in his hands as he drifted off to sleep. It was comforting, then. It assured him his mother was still alive. Then, it got weirder, a long string extending from his fingers and into his mother’s chest. He thought he was just sleep deprived.

When the fateful day came and Loreta’s heart monitor stopped, Pesci felt a surge of panic. Desperate to find some proof this wasn’t really happening, his stand burst forth from his body and shot its hook into Loreta’s chest. Unfortunately, it was all for nothing. Loreta was dead.

As Pesci held the rod in his hands he realised this was far too real to be a hallucination. He could sense everything, the fading metabolism of his mother’s body and the vibrations in the floor. As the nurses confirmed the death, they could not see it. Why couldn’t they see it?

Prosciutto came into the room. With one look, Pesci knew that his brother could see the rod as well. He panicked and ran.

Prosciutto tried desperately over the next couple days to get in touch with Pesci. He knew exactly what had happened- clearly the boy had summoned a stand from the anguish of his mother’s death and had freaked out in confusion. That’s all completely understandable, but if Pesci isn’t informed of what his new power means soon, he could get himself into serious trouble. Especially if Passione found out.

And so, Prosciutto set off with Risotto to hunt Pesci down, eventually finding him at a run down park near his childhood home. Prosciutto comforted him and explained he knew what was happening, but if everything was going to be okay, he had to go with them.

[taylors-writing]

Hello, My Name is Heroin

Hello, my name is heroin. You’ve probably heard about me before. We might’ve even met. I’m pretty popular and I have some friends too. Their names are meth, crack, cocaine, ketamine, LSD, and PCP. We’re the bad guys. We’re found in the streets, and we originate from our friend’s basements. We’re the ones you heard about in school; get caught with us and you’ll go to jail.

We have relatives though that disguise themselves with innocent names like Rx. They originate from labs run by smart scientists and reside in hospitals and pharmacies. They’ll introduce themselves after you’re in a serious wreck and break every bone in your body. Actually, your doctor will introduce them to you. He’ll tell you you’re safe with them as long as you follow the instructions to a T. If you’re lucky, this may be the case, but even if you follow the instructions, those pills might start screaming your name until you finally pop an extra one to make the sound stop.

Maybe you’re still in excruciating pain and take another one after that. Your script runs out and now, no matter what you do, those pills will not stop screaming your name. You can’t eat, you can’t sleep, and you can’t even think. You go back to your doctor, and he gladly hands out more. After all, you do have multiple broken bones. You get a script for the month, but it’s gone in a week. You call your doctor and tell him you’ve lost the pill bottle. He’s heard this before, but he still gives you more; this time though, only a week’s supply.

You get this prescription for two more months, but now those bones are healing and the doctor says no more. You beg him, but he won’t budge now. He won’t admit it, but he knows what he’s done; he’s created an addict.

You quickly learn to buy your pills on the street, but you can’t afford it. It’s so expensive, maybe even $100 per pill. You beg your dealer to lower the price, but he won’t. Instead, he offers you heroin, meth, crack, cocaine, ketamine, LSD, or PCP. He says it’s a lot cheaper and does the same thing. You say okay and make the switch. It doesn’t do the same thing though; it’s so much better. You’ve never felt anything like this before. It’s even better than sex and can cost as low as $5-$10 a hit, even less than cigarettes!

You think you have a new best friend, but the reality is far worse. Your new “friend” will do everything in its power to take over your life and kill you. You’ll sleep or stay awake for days at a time, all while being totally unaware of time passing. You’ll be paranoid. You’ll hallucinate. You’ll think demons are climbing into your house through your windows. You won’t pay your bills because you’ve lost your job and your remaining money has all gone to your new friend.

Your water and electricity will get shut off and your kids will go to school without a shower and get bullied for smelling. Then you’ll forget that you need to get up and take your kids to school. The school will call but you’ll be too high to know the phone is ringing. Eventually, a welfare check will be done. You’ll assure everyone that you and the kids are okay; you’ve all had the flu. Later that week, your oldest child wakes up and realizes it’s time for school. She goes to wake you up, but you’re “sleeping” on the bathroom floor. You won’t wake up, so she gets herself and her younger siblings ready and they walk to school. A teacher sees them and asks what’s going on because you always drive them to school. The oldest says “Mommy’s sleeping on the bathroom floor. There’s something hanging out of her arm and she won’t wake up.”

The police and ambulance are immediately sent to your house. After CPR and multiple doses of Narcan, they are able to revive you. Your kids are taken by DCFS, and each sent to different foster homes. They cry for their mom and sisters every day. You end up losing your house. Now you’re homeless, but you have to get more dope, so you sell your body to man after man in order to get more drugs and maybe a room for the night.

Your kids might’ve been told what has happened by now. Your oldest is in junior high. She’s been taught about the dangers of drugs in school. She wonders how you could possibly do something like that and is angry. She’s all alone and has no one to turn to for help. She starts drinking and smoking with the high schoolers. Then she has sex with a high school boy. Finally, she’s found someone who “cares” about her. She sneaks out of the foster home at night over to his house. He gets her pregnant her freshman year of high school and she drops out.

She’s headed down the same path you are. You were found in an alley severely beaten after a drug deal gone wrong. You get into rehab and the withdrawals are terrible. You’re hot and sweaty and then you’re freezing cold. You puke until you’re dehydrated. Then you even have seizures because you are so addicted now that your body doesn’t know how to function without drugs. Your drugs are like oxygen to your body and your “oxygen” supply has been taken so your brain thinks you’re dying.

You do eventually detox, but you miss your best friend, dope. You yell each other’s names, but you can’t get to each other. Eventually, you stop yelling for your friend, and you friend will stop yelling for you too, but he will still whisper.

At this point, you’re released from inpatient, but you are given a toolbox with tools to help you ignore the whispers of your old friend. The tools in this box might include NA, AA, your HP, your sponsor’s phone number, your doctor’s phone number, your counselor’s phone number, and domestic violence resources. You must keep up with meetings, doctor’s appointments, and counselor appointments because this is a very vulnerable time for you. You will be very tempted to go back to your old friend. You cannot isolate yourself during this time. You must stay in close contact with people who support you and work on getting a job and safe housing. If you don’t, you will almost certainly be pulled back into the grips of addiction.

You will always be an addict, but right now, you are winning. You are in control. You escaped the chokehold dope had on you, as it slowly sucked your life away, and now, you have to fight like Hell to stay out of it’s reach, because those who get sucked back in rarely ever make it back out.

You must stay sober so you can get your kids back.  Reach out to your oldest who is going down the same path you’ve been down and apologize. Make sure she knows you made a big mistake and let her know drugs are not a solution to any problem. Arrange a day to meet up with her and her son. You’re a grandma now, so you have a little one looking up to you and he’ll want to be just like you.

Encourage your daughter to get her license, a job, and her GED. While she does this, you can work on doing something to help other addicts.  Be someone’s sponsor. Become a CNA and work in a jail, prison, or psych facility. Show those people there is still hope. If you want to and are able to obtain more education, become a counselor, a nurse, a teacher, or a social worker.

Become so great no one would ever guess you’re an addict if they didn’t know. Get all your kids back and re-establish a relationship with them. Babysit your grandson while your daughter is at work or at school. Your kids and eventually your grandson will have tons of questions. They’ll ask what those marks all over your arms are or why you have to go to court. They’ll ask why you did drugs or what being high was like. Be honest with them. Using words they can understand for their age levels, tell them that you had problems you didn’t know how to fix, and you mistakenly thought drugs would fix them. Tell them how bad you felt. Tell them everything those drugs did to your body and how they almost killed you multiple times.

Make sure they know that drugs are never the solution, but also let them know that if they feel pressured to do drugs, smoke, or drink, they can come to you. Let them know you are there to help them no matter what and encourage them to come to you with any problems they may have. Don’t ever sugar coat your story to them lest they be tempted to do what you did.

[darkmulti]

𝐏𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐭:

𝐓𝐚𝐞𝐡𝐲𝐮𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐫 𝐕

⚠️: if you’re a softy, keep scrolling. If you click ‘keep reading’ don’t complain.

𝐏𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Pairings: Taehyung x female reader

Do not request for ‘Pick Your Split’

Word Count: 2.9k 

A/N: y’all already know I had to do this with Taehyung. The “Meeting V” part was suppose to be in point form but, I hit the limit and had to change it. So the writing is pretty shitty. Sorry! Not edited 

~ NSFW ~

𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 (𝐃𝐈𝐃) 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐚 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐲/𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬.

This profile is for entertainment purposes only and do not represent the real Kim Taehyung.

⚠️: Murder, mentions of murder, gun play, knife play, blood,

⚠️: dub con, mentions of non con, dark/hardcore kinks (all are in V’s punishment part)

Please Read At Your Own Risk!

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Meeting V:

You were walking home from work after a long, late night shift. The streets were dark and empty. The flickering street lights being the only source of light.

You didn’t live in the best neighborhood or have the best job. But hey, at least you’re not homeless. At least you have a roof over your head.

Violence is normal in this neighborhood. You can hear people fighting or yelling as you quickly walk home. Drug dealers and criminals wondered in the streets.

You were about a block away from your apartment, when you looked across the street and see a man pointing a gun at another man who was beaten down on the sidewalk. You wanted to run away but what if he sees you and shoots you?

While thinking about what to do, the man holding the gun notices you. Right then he pulls the trigger and the bullet goes straight through the man’s head.

Your breath hitched as you saw the man’s head hit the cement. The other man flipped his gun in the air and caught it while walking across the road, coming towards you. You didn’t move or say anything. After all his gun was loaded, he was the one with power.

Damn it! You should’ve just called an Uber!

“Look at what we have here, Taehyung. Isn’t she pretty?”

You visibly gulp and look up into his sharp, dark eyes. His hand came up to touch your face but you flinch and step back. He then brings his gun up to your face and you hold your breath.

“Don’t worry, princess. I won’t hurt you.”

He rubbed the side of his gun along your cheek. Oddly, he was gentle. Almost like he was admiring your face.

“What is a little girl like you doing in the city’s most dangerous neighborhood? You know these streets are infested by criminals and creeps..”

Your heart was beating so fast, it could’ve just popped out of your chest

“I-I l-live here.”

You stupidly stutter, showing him that you’re afraid of him. He frowns at your responses then offers,

“How about I walk you home? So no one hurts you.”

You agreed since he had the gun and pointed to your apartment building. The man tucked his gun away, behind his back and grabbed your hand.

“Shall we?”

Both of you walked and made small talk. He didn’t tell you his name, but you told him your name which again, another stupid move. Once you arrived at your apartment door, you finally thanked him and said goodnight.

“Not so fast, little girl. You saw me kill someone. You have to come with me now. Pack some clothes. I’ll be waiting.”

“What?! I swear, I won’t tell anyone what I saw! I swear! Please don’t.” You begged

“I don’t like to repeat myself, little girl. Go. Get. Your. Stuff.” He said in a stern tone, giving you his dark, intimidating eyes again.

You let out a shaky breath before opening the door and walking in. He follows close behind then shuts the door. This could be your chance to get help!

“You can wait here, I’ll go get some of my stuff.”

He scoffs, “I’m not stupid. I’m coming with you.”

“What do you mean?”

He grabs your neck and brings his face close to yours

“I’m sure you already have a plan on how to escape me. Right now I’m not in the mood to deal with your bullshit.”

He follows you to your room and plops down on your bed. You take out your duffle bag and start packing your clothes

“Wow babygirl. Who are you wearing these for, huh?

In between his fingers hanged your red, velvet thongs

You walk over to him and snatch it out of his hands

“N-no one.”

“Well.. they’ll be for me soon.” He said, biting his lips while looking at it.

The man picked out matching panties and bras for you while you packed the rest of your clothes. He neatly folded them and placed them in your bag.

“That’s all you need, princess. I’ll buy you new and appropriate clothes. One of my men will sell this apartment and you can move in with me.”

“Wait what?! No no no no no no! I’m not moving out of here- this is my first apartment! I’m not gonna leave all my stuff.”

“Hush, princess. I hate it when you talk. You can’t live here. Too dangerous. I’ll give you the best life.”

You sat down on your bed and refused to move, completely forgetting about the gun in his back pocket.

“If you don’t get up in the next three seconds, I’ll kill your whole family darling.” He pulled out your passport from his pocket.

Fuck! You were fucked! You quickly got up and followed him out of your apartment with your bag in hand.

A black BMW waited in the front of the building. He opened the backseat door for you so you hurriedly get in and put your seatbelt on. You noticed that there was a driver. Either you were about to be kidnapped or this man’s hella rich.

During the car ride, you decided to break the silence.

“What do you want me to call you?” You look at him and he looks right back at you. “Daddy”

It was your turn to scoff so you did. “Another name please.”

“Taehyung. My real name is Kim Taehyung. Soon yours will be Kim Y/N, princess.”

‘Taehyung’ you thought to yourself. Isn’t that the name he said earlier. Was he talking to himself?

“Princess, give me your phone.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Stop lying. Give me it.”

“I don’t have one! I can’t afford a phone.”

“You’ve been walking home alone in that neighborhood without a phone. For once, I agree with V.”

“V? Who’s V?”

Taehyung didn’t say anything. A smirk landed on his face instead. “Who’s V? Telll meee!” You whine. “Shut up! You’ll wake him up.”

“Huh? Where is he?” You confusedly check around the car, looking for another person

“Is the drivers name V?” You look back at Taehyung and he’s playing around with a pocket knife

“You woke him up, little girl. You deal with him.”

Just then you arrived at his.. mansion. Your jaw dropped as you saw the 15,000 square foot mansion

“This is your house, Taehyung?” You whispered, still in shock. He didn’t respond. In fact, he looked annoyed “Get out of the car.” You quickly got out and stood next to him, still amazed by the ginormous house.

One of his maids brought you to your new room while Taehyung disappeared somewhere in the house. You were still uneasy about everything. But your curious, naive, little mind wanted to know more

Why didn’t Taehyung kill you too?

What did Taehyung do for a living?

Why did he kill that man?

Whose V?

All these questions clouded your brain until you hear a knock on the door. You open the door and see the maid standing in the door way

“Here sweetheart, I brought you a fresh new pair of pyjamas. Right now V is present. I suggest you lock the door before going to bed, honey.”

“What? Why would I do that? Whose V?”

The women’s eyes filled with fear. “Taehyung hasn’t told you?”

“No! What the fuck is going on?! Who is V?” She pushed you into your room and locked the door

“V and Taehyung are the same person. He has split personalities. Taehyung has been going through a lot ever since he was young. V helps him cope. Taehyung doesn’t hurt people. V does. He does it without any emotion.”

What have you gotten yourself into?

It took awhile for you to comprehend everything. “H-How do I know when V’s out?”

“He’s usually more aggressive and flirtatious. He’s more violent and does all the torturing and killing. Taehyung will tell you if it’s him. He’s more gentle. I wouldn’t say caring though. Taehyung is a fast thinker. He’s very stri- ”

You both hear a loud, desperate scream. Your heart started racing in your chest and you quickly run to the door to see what it is. Before you could open it, the maid quickly shuts it and pushes you back.

“Are you crazy! V will kill you! Leave him! Let him release his anger!”

“But- ”

“Sit down, and don’t make a sound. The slightest thing triggers him.”

The hallway went silent. V was looking for his next target. Bodies laid across the floor. Some not breathing, some barely breathing

You innocently sit on the bed, not expecting it to make a loud squeak. You cover your mouth and your face turns red. V quickly came over to your room and the maid told you to hide

She opened the door and V grabbed her neck and pushed her onto the bed. He almost choked her to death until you came out of your hiding spot, pushing him off of her

“There you are! I’ve been looking for you, little girl.”

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V’s punishment:

He threw you over his shoulder and spanked your ass

“You think you can run from daddy?!”

Another spank landed on your ass, making you whimper

He loved spanking you

And slapping your face while fucking you

V was into hardcore ddlg

Had the biggest daddy kink

V wanted you to call him daddy all the time

He wanted you to scream and cry because of his cock

V definitely pushed your limits

He wanted you to be terrified of him

Had a lot of dark kinks

V can’t control himself around you

Whenever he sees you, he just wants to grab you and fuck you as hard as he can

Your just so pure and fragile

It fucking turns him on

Your little whines and squeals when he thrusts into you are the best

The skin slapping is so hard

You have bruises because V is too rough

Both V and Tae are into ddlg and they gave you the same rules

One of the rules is you can’t say no to them

So anything that V gives you, you take it like a good girl

He definitely has a dacryphilia kink

Tears turn him on so much

He’ll just lean down and lick em off your face

Or make you cry harder

Something that really turns him on is your teddy bear

You would be holding onto your brown, fuzzy bear with tears in eyes while he pounded you

V took your butts virginity too

He wanted all of you

Degrades you no matter what

Creampie

Fuck, seeing his cum overflow in his little’s pussy is everything to his eyes

Size kink

Manhandles you in bed

Lowkey has a blood kink 

Knife play

One of his fav, gun play

You made him jealous 

So he fucked you aggressively 

Then he took his gun out and shot it at the wall the scare you 

It worked 

Fear kink 

There’s no getting away from V

Overstimulation

You wouldn’t be able to function properly after he’s done with you

You wouldn’t be able to talk, walk, eat, stand or think

Your thighs are covered in marks and are soaked in cum

Somnophilia kink

He will keep fucking you even after you black out

You’ll wake up and he’ll still be fucking you

And you’ll feel a painful sting in your lower abdomen

Morning sex

He’ll wake you up by roughly fucking you again even though he fucked you unconscious last night

You would be so weak under him

Your fingers don’t function properly either

It’s like your whole body shuts down

Taehyung comes out for the aftercare

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V’s behaviour:

When V was present, he called you little girl or little one

He was careless

Man wasn’t afraid to speak his mind

He scary and psychotic

He didn’t want anyone to know that you make him feel

V’s known for being “numb”

He is known for not caring about anyone or anything

And he wanted to keep that reputation

So to avoid feeling, V was always cold towards you

Only used you for sex

He still hurts & kills innocent people

You can’t stop him

When V is angry, it’s best to leave him alone and stay out of his way

Taehyung is the only one who can stop V

Every time you try to hug or kiss him, he always moved away and degrade you

Though, there was one thing that didn’t make sense

He was extremely possessive and overprotective

V believes it’s his job to protect and watch you

If you disobey him, he spanks you or sexually punishes you

V gets jealous very easily too

One time, you thought Taehyung was present so you started telling him how much you loved him and how much you hated V

V was burning with jealousy

What’s so good about Taehyung? He thought

V ended up punishing you for choosing Taehyung over him

A couple days later he saw you crying in your pink, princess room one day

When he walked in you quickly wiped your tears and look away like a child

“Why’re you crying, little one?”

“You don’t love me! I want daddy Tae!”

You pouted as more tears glided down your pretty face

“But I do love you. I’m afraid you won’t love me back because I’m a monster.”

You felt relieved and hugged V and for the first time he hugs you back

He picks you up and spins you around while kissing you neck

“You can’t tell Taehyung about this.”

“I won’t, daddy!”

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Taehyung’s Behaviour:

When Taehyung was present, he called you princess or baby

Taehyung loves affection

He hates to admit it

But whenever you cuddled or kissed him, it drove him crazy

He fell deep in love with you

Taehyung was so glad that you taught him how to love

Now he could love you

Tae wanted to marry you

He wanted to have a family with you

The maid said that he wasn’t caring 

Taehyung is the finest gentlemen out there

He took you on romantic dates

Great cook

Husband material

Great fashion senses

Because of you, he’s learned to let go of things for the better life

He’s less tense

Taehyung was strict and professional at work

But he had a goofy side just for you

He sometimes takes you to work 

He gives you paper and scented markers 

You’d draw a cute picture and he’ll either hang it in his office or on the fridge

You had to use the washroom really badly so you whine 

“Daddyyyyyy! Washroomieee pweaseeee!”

He lets you go by yourself since he’s busy with work 

Everything was going smoothly until one of the workers stopped you and started talking to you

Taehyung watched from his office 

He was possessive

Taehyung gets jealous easily 

And when he gets jealous, V comes out

He got up for his chair and told his employee to go back to work in a low voice 

He then dragged you back and spanked your ass

You held onto your bear as you tried to figure out if V was out or if this was still Taehyung 

“Daddy, I’m sorry! He started talking to me and I didn’t know what to do!”

V was out 

V punished you in his office 

To keep V inside, you have to be on your best behaviour

Unfortunately today, you broke a major rule

You deserve a punishment 

Both V and Taehyung have a ddlg kink

They both believe they have to take care of you

Taehyung’s just more gentle and patient than V

Tae buys you clothes

He feeds you

Makes sure you eat enough

Taehyung always wants you to be happy

He even plays with you

Helps you shower

Kisses your boo-boos

He even bought you a tiara for your birthday

He takes care of you after V is done fucking you

He’ll bring you to the bathtub and give you a bubble bath

He knows you love bath bombs, so he lets you choose one

After your bath, he dresses you in comfy clothes and gives you a piggy back ride to the kitchen

He’ll make you something to eat

Taehyung will even massage you if you are in that much pain

The rest of the day, he cuddles with you and watches movies with you

He knows the last thing you want is to be alone

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Taehyung’s Punishment:

Non existent

V punishes you

Taehyung makes love with you

Slow but deep thrust so you can feel all of him

Dirty talking with Taehyung

He praises you

“Just like that princess, gooood girl.”

Your eyes light up when he praises you

He lives for your moans

You live for his deep grunts

Lowkey wants to get you pregnant

So he cums in you all the time

Finger sucking

Taehyung will dip his fingers into you

And make you lick the cum off

Suck his fingers clean

He’ll deepthroat you with his fingers  

Choking kink 

Spanking 

Light bdsm

Thigh riding if princess is needy in public

You have to wear your collar and leash in public

Public blowjobs 

Don’t tell V though

He’ll humiliate you in public

Taehyung is gentle and sweet during sex

If you ask him to go faster, he will happily do it

Heated, saliva full kisses

Passionate sex will always be the best kind of sex

Sometimes he ties your wrist 

Taehyung doesn’t mean to overstimulate you but sometimes it happens

He’s really into marking you

So everyone knows that you belong to him 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You thought that Taehyung was the only one for you.

Therefore, V left forever without saying goodbye. You found yourself heartbroken because of that.

 Everyday you thought about him. You missed him. He wasn’t the nicest person around, but at least he was trying. Now who will protect you from all the bad guys?

 Taehyung noticed your behaviour changed and called for V. 

He told you that you have to choose one of them. 

Who will you choose? 

𝐏𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐒𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐭

[thisisgonnafuxkinkillme]

Save Me, Please!

A Yandere! All Might x F! Reader Fic~

Chapter 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  ...

𝔚𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰:

Stalking, gaslighting, phycological manipulation, anything that has to do with the yandere trope.

Weeks later, you completely forgot about the incident. Your life had returned to its normal, average, exceedingly mundane routine.

One night, you were curled up in your apartment when you heard a stray cat pathetically crying out for help. You’re an animal lover, and hearing that pitiful cry sent you into immediate action.

You rushed outside, still in your house clothes, looking for the animal. You didn’t think to bring your phone, a jacket, or anything else, but you just had to help this creature. 

The cat cried on, leading you towards it. You found yourself walking into a darkened, dingy alleyway.

The meowing stopped abruptly. 

“What d’ya think you’re doing here?” a gruff, disgusting voice whispered out. He seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

“I-I’m...the cat...” you mumbled. You instinctively covered yourself, not being naked but also not being entirely decent. You were hoping to be in and out, just grabbing the kitten and bringing it to safety.

“Oh. Don’t you know better than to be wandering around outside at night, lil lady?” the man smirked, revealing yellowed, worn teeth. At that moment, the light hit him just right to reveal who he was. He was one of the local creeps, the kind you’d see begging for cash and coins on the corner, wondering why everyone passes him by until you see him up close and smell the strong scent of alcohol and cigarettes coming from him.

You said nothing, still wondering where that cat went. 

“...especially out here all by yerself...” the man continued as he picked at his gums with his grime filled fingernails.

You made eye contact with him. 

“It’d be such a shame if something were to happen to ya, little lady...” he drabbled on. Your hand looked for your phone in your pocket as you backed up and away from the alley. 

“Now, where are ya going? I wasn’t gonna hurt ya none!” he teased, grabbing your wrist. You screamed, trying to yank away your hand.

“Ah, now ya can’t be doin’ none of that,” he grinned. Suddenly, he pointed his index and thumb at you, making a gun like motion. You froze, confused yet somehow understanding.

This was the fucker’s quirk. 

His fingers around your arm became barbed wire, digging and cutting and slicing into your flesh. When you looked up from your bloodied arm, you saw that his hand had morphed into an actual pistol, and it was now pointed directly at your skull.

Tears silently streamed down your face as you looked down, now unable to fight back. 

“Yes, I will be coming in tomorrow ... you won’t need to cancel the class. No, thank you.” you overheard someone on the phone. It was a male’s voice, and you prayed with all your heart that it was a hero out on patrol.

He passed the alley, not even taking a millisecond to glance in your direction. Your heart plummeted.

“...What...what do you want with me?” your voice shuddered. The man said nothing. You looked up at him. 

He was staring intently at something outside of the alley, but you were so fear stricken that you couldn’t bring yourself to look at what it could be. 

Without warning, you were thrown to the ground, and the man was running away. You sat up, clutching your injured arm, trying to get answers, but everything happened in a flash before your eyes. 

All you saw was blood. Lots of it. Too much.

You couldn’t worry about that now, though. You had to get away. 

You got up, scraping your soft, white palms, rushing out and away from that damned alley. At this point, you didn’t give a shit what happened. All you know is that you’re alive.

You scrambled up your stairs, slamming and locking your door. You pushed a chair in front of it, switched all your lights on, and slept with your biggest kitchen knife under your pillow.

The very next day, the news reporter plainly read off of her script, letting everyone know that a local homeless man was brutally murdered last night. 

“We don’t have many details surrounding the motive, but we have reason to believe that this was a spontaneous spur of the moment killing,” she stated. 

“Now, back to the weather today with Susan Straham!” a male voice boomed, panning over to a perky weather lady. You shut off the tv and rubbed your arm. The door was still locked and bolted shut, the chair still propped up. You shuddered at the memory. 

Despite your discomfort, the day still had to go on. You left for work, listening to music as you walked.

Up ahead, you spotted a familiar figure. All Might. 

He didn’t notice you at first, but when he did, he basically picked you up, hugging you.

“I told you I’d see you again!” he beamed. People stopped to stare.

You put your hands out in front of you to signal him to tone it down a notch or two. Or a hundred.

He didn’t get what you were hinting at, though, and gleefully continued to absolutely shower you in attention. 

Suddenly, he stopped speaking. You tugged down on your shirt sleeve, realizing he probably noticed your battle wounds from last night. 

His tone completely changed as he monotonly asked if you heard about last night’s murder.

He eyed you, now walking with you to work. 

You didn’t mention what happened. It’s not like it could have been connected or anything, right? ...Right?

Finally, you arrived at work. 

“I hate to say goodbye again,” he frowned. You shrugged.

“Well, it’s not like this is the last time you’ll ever see me, ya know,” you mumbled. 

“What makes you so sure of that?” he asked. Your blood ran cold for a split second.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you never know what can happen. Stay safe, okay? I...don’t know what I’ll do if I never see you again,” he frowned. You were blown away by his sudden change of tone and his seriousness and said nothing. 

You just waved, entering your workplace and taking the elevator up. All Might lingered there at the entrance for a few moments, watching you go higher and higher, until he left, too.

A couple days went by with nothing interesting happening. Your arm was healing up nicely, and you were starting to feel okay in your apartment again. 

Today, you went to your usual coffee shop, and the barista informed you that someone had already paid for your drink in advance. 

“How could they have? I’m the only one in here,” you asked. The barista shrugged, just repeating that you didn’t owe them anything. 

Maybe the barista was just trying to flirt. That’d make sense. 

Definitely. That has to be it.

It wasn’t until that weekend when you realized that you had been seeing All Might patrolling in your area a lot more than usual. No matter how many times he’d see you, though, he’d always have the same over-the-top reaction. It was definitely endearing, in a way, but the attention you got from others was embarrassing enough for you to shrug away from it.

You had to admit, though, feeling another human’s touch was something refreshing. For years, you’ve been locked up in your tiny one bedroom apartment by yourself, just wishing that you could find someone. 

You joined a dating app not too long ago, which has been pretty hit or miss.

Maybe you would meet someone soon. Hopefully, at least.

[kuronanox]

Home is you - Ulquiorra Schiffer

"Hello? Hello~" (Your Name) sings shaking the pale man up from his sleep.

Opening his eyes slowly he blinked a few times looking at his surroundings. "Where am I? Why aren't I in los noches?"

"Jeez you creep! Don't go sleeping around the park like that! I know Japan is safe but I thought you were dead for a second." She says sighing in relief offering a hand.

Ulquiorra slaps her hand away and gets up realizing he wasn't in his uniform but some random t shirt and jeans.

"What have you done women?"

"Me?! I woke you up. That's what I did now, do you have someone you should be? It's getting late."

Looking around he couldn't sense any reistu, he couldn't bring his sword out or use cero. Till he remembered his fight with Ichigo. Ulquiorra remember dissolving into nothing.

"I-I don't understand." He stuttered, frustrated at the emotions he was feeling at the moment. He was lost, why was he here? Was he reborn a human? But why did he remember everything of his past life. 

A salty tear slipped in his lips as he touched his face confused. "Is this the human emotion of feeling frustrated? Feeling hopeless? Powerless?"

"I'm sorry. Do you need a place to stay?" (Your Name) asks more sympathetically watching the man breakdown in front of her.

The walk to a capsule hotel was quiet, she was surprise he asked for help. "I paid for you. I hope you find your way after tonight." She tells him as he looks into nothing and says nothing before taking his leave.

(Your Name) watches his back and sighs. "Maybe he's homeless?"

Ulquiorra laid in the comfy bed lost in thoughts, what had happen to the war? To Ichigo? To Aizen?

Why did he have to be reincarnated as a weak human?

"So this is human emotions?" He says out loud looking at himself in the mirror. He examined his face, was he always this pale and fragile looking?

Pissed he hit the capsule and nothing broke.

He was weak now, weak in mind and powerless.

He didn't know how he was going to survive.

It had been a few days and (Your Name) walked around trying to find the man. She felt a attraction towards him, like she was suppose to help him. She had no luck the past few days trying to find him.

"You have to pay for that thief!" A sales man yelled shoving Ulquiorra out his store.

"I'll kill you stupid human." He says in a monotone voice and raised his finger to use cero but nothing came out.

"You need help man!" The sales man yelled walking away in disbelief as Ulquiorra stared at his finger.

(Your Name) sighed in relief and ran towards him. "Hey! It's you again. What are you doing?"

"Trying to survive." He plainly says walking away still wearing the same clothes she saw him in the day they met.

"How do you plan on surviving with no job?" She asks following him as he walked to random places and examining people. "You will help me find one."

"Me?!"

"As you can tell women I'm not like you humans."

Bewildered a bit she pinched her nose bridge and sighed. "That's what I get for helping a weirdo."

"What do I get if I help you?"

"My protection." He simply says, even though his powers were gone he still was skilled with hand to hand compact.

"Just don't do anything stupid." She says as he follows her.

It was a very interesting few months that passed by, she never understood a lot of things Ulquiorra did.

He lacked a lot of empathy and emotions. He questioned what people did and enjoyed examining strangers on the street. He didn't speak much either.

He also became her protector.

"What is this manga that people are so crazy about?" He asks her one day as they sat and ate breakfast.

"As an manga artist and author it's my job to make my books into a reality. It gives people a sense of escape of our miserable lives." She says shooing him away from her work.

"Humans are weird." He simply says watching the news as she rolled her eyes.

"You know you're a human too?" She states to him and sighs.

"I am now."

There was a silence as she looked at him. He was a bit odd at first. She had to teach how to read, write and proper manners. She never questioned him though.

"So what were you before then?"

"Espada. I was an Espada."

"Huh a what?" She asks a bit taken back and lost.

"I don't know how to be thankful." He then says changing the subject as she sits across from him.

His eyes were green and he did have weird green marks on his face. "I'm starting to believe this guy."

"It's okay. I understand." She tells him as he looks at her with no smile or anything. His face was blank, she couldn't read him.

She knew he was thankful when he learned how to pick up humanity. He would pick up food for them, clean the house and when the rare opportunity comes he would beat up any stalker fans she had.

"I don't know who you were before but I promise you I'm here to help."

It was a cold winter night as they came back from Christmas shopping and picking her up from work, Ulquiorra was holding the bags as she rambled on how work went that day.

Ulquiorra wouldn't admit it but he had grown fond of her after spending everyday together. At first he has no choice to. He had no money or no home but she provided everything for him.

He would find himself smiling softly but frown after realizing what he had done.

"How was your day?" She asks him with a smile as his eyes widen a bit.

"I read books." He answered as she nodded her head.

Ulquiorra never really left the house unless he needed to. She had to admit it was comforting coming home to someone every night.

"I bought you new ones. I hope you like that."

"I enjoy all the books you've bought me." He says looking forwards at the snowing street.

She gasp a bit as he looked a way a bit confused. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No I'm just happy. Happy your expressing your emotions more."

He didn't say anything afterwards as she entered the warm house and set the gifts under the tree.

"I'm going to get some rest." He says and leaves to his room.

Before she could ask if he ate she saw that he had food already made for her.

"He sure is a fast learner for not being human."

Ulquiorra escaped to his room and laid in bed. He really was growing emotions, the more he stayed here the more he felt every emotions.

The emotions of pain, loneliness, sadness.

Recently he didn't feel any of those he felt happy, safe, secure. Was this the human way of saying he was satisfied of his life right now.

He didn't know but he felt a comfort of having someone by him at times. Unlike los noches, he was alone and don't know how to talk to people.

(Your Name) gave him a sense of living again and he would try to fit in this world. There was no way he could change the past so he decided might as well live for the future.

It was weird for Ulquiorra to have these thoughts, it was a new thing to him.

Before he lived for nothing but killing.

"What did you do before becoming human?" She asks him one night as they watched a movie. Well she had to force him to watch it.

"Kill."

"Okay? More explanation."

"I was created to kill, that was my only purpose in life. My home had nothing but sand and a moon."

"What did you eat?"

"My people."

She wanted to not believe him but every word he said were straightforward and he never blinked once. He didn't tell lies to her. "Interesting. So what happen? Did you get eaten or die?"

"I lost in a battle and disappeared into dust and I woke up here."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?" He asks curiously a bit taken back from her words.

"I don't know you don't seem happy here."

He blinked a few times and tried his best to smile but it didn't come along. "I am satisfied as you humans say."

She sighed in relief and sadly smiled. She never really given the thought of being somewhere new with no one and not being able to fit in.

"I realize how hard it must have been for you, when people call you strange and treat you like an outcast. It must have been hard."

Ulquiorra sits with his legs crossed and tilted his head giving it thought.

"I don't need anyone if I have you."

There was a mutual understanding between the two even though words of expression were rarely ever spoken.

"I'm really glad to have you." She answered back feeling the warmth of her cheeks turn pink.

"As I am too."

(Your Name) had gone to a late meeting with a few of her editors and seeing it was past midnight she didn't wanna wake ulquiorra up from sleep to walk her home.

She lived in a nice part of Tokyo but in a quiet area so people rarely ever walked on her road.

It was raining hard as she made cover underneath a store. Sighing she pulled her phone out and tried to speed dial Ulquiorra number before a loud rumbled hit the floor and she looked up to see a hollow.

At first she didn't wanna believe it but the thing was real and screaming walking towards her.

"(Your Name)."

"Ulquiorra- there's a, there's a monster charging towards me."

The phone line went dead as he rushed out to find her.

Running in the rain he spotted the hollow immediately. "Don't get any closer to her trash." He spoke as it roared.

Ulquiorra had lost all his powers but luckily he knew some move although none of it worked as he was easily slapped away as he hit the floor hard and he groaned.

"This human body is pathetic."

Watching the hollow grab (Your Name) he felt every emotion go through him. The pain, sadness, frustration. She was screaming as she reached out her hand to his.

He called out her name and whined in pain before blacking out.

"Ulquiorra!" She yelled to him but he didn't respond. Looking back at the hollow it open it's mouth to consume her as she shut her eyes a green light was glowing around her.

"I told you I would protect you." He says to her as she opened her eyes to see him in a white uniform and he was standing on air. STANDING ON AIR!

With one smack the hollow diminished into nothing as Ulquiorra settled her down safely on the road.

"You. You got your power back! How?"

Ulquiorra thought back about his fight and realized the same thing happen to Ichigo and he finally understood why he came back.

"Someone important to me is worth protecting." He reply's as she tears up and hugged him tightly as he gasped.

Sadly smiling to himself where no one could see him he embraced her back.

"Ulquiorra?" She asks him that same night as they sat on the roof top and he was still in gear. "Yes?"

"Does this mean you are leaving?"

He doesn't answer and looks down. He thinks back on how life was here in the human world. It was quite fun here. He didn't remember what he did back in the barren sand and dark night.

"No. Unless I have to."

She sighed in relief but still she knew he was different. "Just promise me, if you ever decide to leave... you will without telling me goodbye."

"I won't leave. I have no reason to go back." He plainly says looking up to the moon.

"You promise me? I can't imagine a life without you, the way you are eases me is comforting. Your the peace I needed in my chaotic mind."

He was lost for words, was this a human way for showing love?

"I to."

He wanted to say more. He liked her. Loved her. Even if he wouldn't admit it now, there was a warmth in him he had never felt before and the feeling of being needed was something he might have yearned for.

"I promise you, I'm only yours. Even if there's a obstacle between us there's way we can break it."

She smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder as he stiffen a bit and then relaxed.

He was home. Home wasn't a place for him but someone that accepted him for who he was.

It was you.

(Author note: idk why he's such a hard character to write for me. I know he seemed oc but I put in some thought of how he would be as a human.)

[caribooed]

[cha cha slide voice] reverse!

Freeze! Everybody clap your hands!

Ok so Catwoman Guardian of Gotham was a disaster so I'm taking it into my own hands. Only Bruce and Selina are swapped and Alfred still exists, not. The weird maid lady and Bruce is Not a bloodthirsty murderer

This got Very long so it's under a cut

Selina's parents were murdered by Joe Chill and she vowed to never let anyone feel the same pain she did, hence why she later became Catwoman

Bruce grew up on the streets with his big brother Thomas taking care of them both, but Thomas ended up killing a guy in a mugging and got sent to prison and left Bruce on his own

Catwoman hears about a number of high-profile thefts (museums, aristocrats) springing up and starts trying to track down the cat burglar and ends up interrupting a burglarly from a wealthy woman's penthouse

She chases the burglar down and they have a fight on the rooftops where they kick the everloving shit out of eachother but the burglar throws her off the roof and when she gets back up he's gone

Next night, she attends a charity event and meets an activist and fundraiser by the name of Bruce Wayne and they have a nice chat and hit it off

In the middle of it, a waiter bumps Selina in the side right over where her ribs got cracked from the other night and she doubles over so Bruce helps her out of sight and asks what happened

She tells him she tripped down the stairs of her house but he does Not believe it and ends up sticking by her the rest of the night, at the end of which Selina is like. "He's nice I think" and invites him out for lunch soon

Jump a day or two and Selina runs into the burglar again but this time he's got full body armor and a bat motif and she is Not Happy With This Development

Bruce stole a ton of armor and weaponry from the GCPD and made his own suit because Selina rly messed him up the last time they met

So they fight and Bruce hits her in the side and it floors her and he is like. Wait A Minute, but she recovers and he's forced to run

And then over a period of a month or two, Bruce starts hanging out with Selina in the day (lowkey stalking her to see if his wild theory is right) and while over at her manor he spots a bloodstain on her shirtsleeve from a wound that bled through the bandages she was wearing and when he questions her she says she cut her arm open on a nail accidentally and it's not a big deal but he's just. Hm

Also during this period, Catwoman keeps showing up to stop all of Batman's robberies and he's really getting sick of it because he's been using the money from his stolen goods both to like, feed himself but also to support a gang of homeless kids in the neighborhood he lives in and to help provide food for the local orphanage and it's getting Really Hard To Do That When He Can't Steal Stuff

So basically he knows she's Catwoman and Selina is his friend and he's just. I Have An Idea

Batman starts going out more often just to taunt Catwoman while she's on patrol and he starts going to other rogues like Two-Face and Cobblepit to egg them on and he actively breaks Bane out of prison and the Riddler out of Arkham just to set them loose

He's basically manufacturing a crime wave to try and wear Catwoman out and it's working

She's really exhausted because of all this and every time she has to make an appearance in public she's all tired and struggling to keep it together and Bruce makes a point to be there and to cover for her whenever she's too overwhelmed

Eventually Catwoman gets severely injured during a fight and she's too far from the Cave so, not really having another option, she shows up passed out in Bruce's apartment bleeding out and he's all surprised and helps her and gives her impromptu medical care but never pulls off her mask

Selina wakes up on his couch and he's asleep in a chair he pulled up next to her and she's like :] and leaves him a thank you note before going

So Batman has basically become priority one but he keeps causing so many new problems to spring up that she can't actually go after him while he commits a robbery spree, and every tine she deals with everything else he goes to ground for weeks on end

All the while Bruce is there being Supportive Friend Of The Year and they keep going out to eat and they spend events together and it's Grand

Eventually Bruce asks her out! And she's like. Oh No because while she likes him, she genuinely doesn't know if she can handle being in a relationship at the moment but she doesn't want to say no so she gives a tentative yes and so they're dating

Luckily he is a very understanding man and whenever she has to dip out to be Catwoman or when she's too tired to go out he's all "oh it's fine, I can reschedule" and it's a Very Big Relief

Batman goed to ground after another round of Mess With Catwoman and he stays that way for like three months and she puts all her rogues away so for the first time in a While she has proper free time to spend with Bruce and it's lovely! And shes like. "If this is how our relationship is, I don't want it to end" but because she's Catwoman and she doesn't know that she could hide it from Bruce if they were married and so one night she shows up in his apartment as Catwoman and shows him that she's Selina and he's just "!!!!! Oh that explains a lot, that's really awesome"

He swears he'd never tell anyone about her identity and makes a joke about how because Selina makes herself seem so ditzy at parties, nobody would believe him anyway and so Selina proposes to him the next night and they end up getting married and Bruce moves into the manor ❤️

Unfortunately Batman comes back and he pulls a pro gamer move which involves releasing every inmate from Arkham and Blackgate, including but not limited to her entire rogues gallery

So she's having a Time and literally just can't handle everything and every time she does well against a rogue Batman swoops in out of nowhere to divert her and really it's exhausting and she's working herself to the bone

Eventually she manages to wrangle most of them but the Joker is still on the loose and Batman keeps evading her and she Has Not Slept For Four Nights

While she's in the Cave, Alfred makes a comment about how at night it always gets so nerve wracking, especially since Bruce tends to leave after she does and Alfred is worried he might get caught up in something dangerous considering Batman and the crime wave and Selina is like

"He leaves the house at night??? [wh]" And Alfred gets confused tells her how he can never find Bruce in the manor from around eleven pm to two in the morning so he assumes Bruce goes out to visit friends or to deal with personal business and he tells her abt how he asked Bruce about it and he told Alfred that he and Selina had already talked about it

And Selina is just. "He was lying to you, I had no idea he was going out" which makes her Very Suspicious

She can't Do anything about it because she's trying to track down supercriminals but she checks the manor security feeds and she can't find any trace of Bruce leaving which is Concerning

Basically she ends up finding the Joker and stopping him from bombing the city and he gets sent back to Arkham, but before she can go home Batman shows up and they facedown on the roof

Batman goes all "I really didn't want to do this but you gave me no choice" and then starts trying to kill Selina

He gets a bunch of good stabs in but Selina seems to get the better of him and so he runs and she follows him into an apartment building but loses him in the hallways

She spots a bomb behind one of the doors and realizes the building is about to explode so she gets out of there just before it does and Batman corners her with a gun on a nearby roof

He tries to kill her again but Selina manages to get close and hits the gun away

Batman tries to run but she grabs him by the cape and yanks him back and manages to rip his cowl off before he gets away, at which point she sees that it's Bruce and she's Horrified

And it finally clicks that Batman has been trying to get every other criminal in Gotham to either kill her for him or wear her out so that he can do it himself, which would Also be killing Selina Kyle, and since she doesn't have any other heir, Bruce would get her fortune

And she's all "why would you do all this" and he gets really angry and starts telling her all about the people that aren't as privileged as her and he basically tells her that he wants her money so he can use it to help the people living in the East End and the Narrows, since Selina and the other aristocrats of her stature didn't know the problem like he did and refused to help

So Selina is just baffled that he'd go this far and he apologizes to her genuinely before he tries to kill her one last time because now that she Knows, this is his last chance to get away with the plan

It doesn't work, Selina fights him off and manages to get cuffs on him but he gets away and Selina goes home and Divorces That Man Immediately but also realizes that while he was living with her he'd been stealing things like jewelry she never wore or fancy paintings from rooms nobody ever went into and she is just Not Pleased

But she also allocates a ton of money towards charity projects focused in the more rundown areas of Gotham and actively starts funding all sorts of orphanages, soup kitchens, clinics, etc

She tries to track Bruce down but he's just Gone and so she lets it go even though she's very heartbroken and sad that he tried so hard to kill her

[fnf-brain-rot]

[Whitty x Boyfriend]

chapter 1 - He Forgave Me!

note: This story stems off of my book of one shots and short stories. In order to get the full context, go ahead and read "Whitty&Boyfriend-You're forgiven".

___________________________________________

"You what??"

Boyfriend winced and pulled the phone from his ear. "I just told you not to freak out about it!" He pouted. He had to tell Girlfriend where he was and why he was late for his dinner date with her and her parents. Granted yes, walking into a bad part of town searching for a homeless man with no home and nothing to lose, something bad could have happened. He didn't exactly think it through, but his heart was in the right place!

"He's not mad at me though, in fact we talked for a couple hours and we have a lot in common!" Boyfriend quickly tried to reassure her. A shaky sigh was heard on her end of the phone. "Where are you? I'll come pick you up." She then offered. Boyfriend didn't like the idea of them coming all the way down here to get him, but he wasn't exactly up for walking back either. He told her his location and she hung up, and he sighed. He then turned around to face the alley he walked out of. "Whitty?" He called out. The male looked at him, leaning against the wall. He thought he had left already. "Are you sure you don't wanna come with me? I could... give you somewhere to stay.." Boyfriend shoved his hands in his pockets, while Whitty made an uncomfortable expression. "I think I'll be fine down here." He then told him. Boyfriend puffed one of his cheeks, but allowed it. Man he's stubborn. "Well.. I'm gonna go now. If you need me, you know where I am." He hummed. Whitty nodded, then looked back up at the orange sky.

Boyfriend told Girlfriend his location was a couple blocks away as to avoid Whitty being spotted, and he waited there.

Whitty was a tough nut to crack, however this is just day one of his master plan. He was patient, but at the same time he wasn't, however Whitty will be his exception. He didn't get so much out of him, other than his favorite genre of music, favorite foods, favorite colors, and where he came from, however he didn't elaborate on family or friends, anything of the sort. He was completely alone.

Well we can't have that now can we?

For the remainder of the day, all Boyfriend could think about was his new friend, Whitty. He wondered how he was doing. He couldn't help but feel bad. He's sitting in a mansion, with a family, eating delicious food, and comfortable. Whitty has none of those things. He's probably freezing under a single layer of news paper or something, living off of cheap grocery store sandwiches that aren't even that good. He could probably eat a horse right now.

"Bee?" Girlfriend's voice pulled Boyfriend out of his train of thought. He had been toying with his food unintentionally, and the family was starting to think something was wrong. He looked up from his plate to see Mommy and Daddy dearest staring at him. Her mother looked worried. "What's wrong hun? Do you not like the food?" She asked him. His face went a little red, and he shook his head. "N-No ma'm- I mean yes! I do! I just.. I got lost in thought for a moment.." He sighed at his poor wording. Girlfriend stared at him a while longer while her parents excused his behavior to continue eating and talking amongst themselves. "Is it about that guy?" Girlfriend whispered to him. He nodded. He asked her not to tell her parents, though she didn't really understand why. She respected his wishes though, and opted to keep it a secret for him.

"I can take you to see him tomorrow, so you don't have to walk that far." Boyfriend gave her a wide grin, obviously happy about her offer. He began to eat again, happily chatting with her about how he was gonna tell Pico all about it. Speaking of! It was eight at night! He would need to get going if he wanted to see him before the day ended. He finished his plate, thanked her parents for the food, and bounced his way out, waving at Girlfriend from the front door.

"Pico?? Are you up??" Boyfriend had walked to Pico's house, which only took thirty minutes from Girlfriend's place. His legs were still killing him though. So much walking in one day. He knocked on the door, which soon followed with it opening. "Pi- Oh, hey you two." He hummed in surprise. At the door stood Skid and Pump, Skid of course on Pump's shoulders. "Hello Boyfriend! We are here in place of Uncle Pico for spooky month!" Skid exclaimed. "Yeah, it's spooky in here!" Pump backed up his words. Come to think of it, the hallway to the door was pretty dark. "Uh.. So he's not-" Boyfriend was cut off by Pico's voice. "I told you guys not to answer my goddamn door when I'm in the bathroom!" The ginger was heard calling out. "Uh oh!" Skid and Pump quickly skittered away before Pico could get to them. As Pico walked to the door, he turned the hall light on. He was surprised to see Boyfriend at such an hour. "Oh hey Bee, what're you doing here?" Pico raised a brow and leaned on his door frame. It wasn't uncommon for Boyfriend to visit in the later hours, but he walked for so long today, it's a surprise he'd stop by.

"Can I come in? I wanted to talk to you about that guy!" Boyfriend beeped excitedly, causing Pico to chuckle. "Well hurry up and get in here, I don't trust these little shits to not eventually touch one of my guns." He walked away from the door, allowing Boyfriend to step in. He politely closed it behind him. He had a habit to take off his shoes before stepping onto someone's carpet, even if he wasn't staying long.

"Skid!! Pump!! I told you about touching my shit!!" Pico's voice was heard from another room from down the hall, followed by laughter and dramatic screaming as they came barelling down the opposite direction, passing Boyfriend and running into the living room. He couldn't help but laugh as Pico came walking back, a scowl on his face. "Come on, let's sit in the living room." He grunted, Boyfriend happily following behind them.

They sat down on the couch, and Boyfriend rambled on about the events that led up to Whitty being mad at him in the first place, then explained that he managed to find him and apologized. Pico seemed impressed, honestly, leaning against the chair arm behind him as he listened to the blue hair's words. "We talked for a while and I think I'm gonna go see him again tomorrow!" He grinned. Pico felt a bit skeptical. "Sounds like he's caught up in some shit. I mean, maybe not, but this guy is running away from something and never stays in one place for more than a week. You sure you won't be a distraction?" He made a face of concern. The last thing he'd want to happen is for Bee to get hurt over some guy he doesn't really know.

"He said I could come visit him whenever! Well, not whenever, but whenever!" Boyfriend threw his hands up excitedly. Pico hummed, then reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. "What's this guy's name anyway? Did he tell you that?" Boyfriend nodded, and opened his mouth to tell him, but he hit a wall.

Whitty told him not to tell anyone his name, no matter who they were. He felt like he could tell Pico though! They were best friends! But.. Pico was basically an assassin.. He could be after Whitty too..

"Bee?" Pico narrowed his eyes, and Boyfriend shook his head to focus. "Oh sorry uh.. N-No.. He didn't tell me his name." He laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. Pico stared at Boyfriend for a good minute or so, then sighed. "Guy seems shady as hell, no matter how much you two have in common. I can't stop ya from going, but at least.. Be careful around him." He stated, sticking the cancer stick in his mouth. Boyfriend didn't like the negative view people were having on Whitty right now, but that was to be expected, he supposed. A hobo on the run as a friend? It does sound sketchy. He would prove them wrong though!!

That's when the door bell rang. Boyfriend winced once he stepped back on the floor. His feet weren't ready for it. "Must be Lila. Boys!! Lila's back!" He called out. "Momma!!" The two boys came running back down the hallway, Pico following close behind them to open the door.

Boyfriend sighed himself as he damn there limped to the front door as everyone exchanged their words. Lila looked exhausted, holding both boys in each of her arms. Pico looked behind him as Boyfriend slipped past him and Lila to get out. "You're goin' home?" Pico questioned, and Boyfriend nodded. "Thanks for letting me stop by and ramble! I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?" He grinned at the ginger, who huffed under his breath. "Yeah.." He agreed. "Hi ms. Lila, bye ms. Lila. By Skid and Pump!" Boyfriend waved to them all, the boys waving back.

___________________________________________

Boyfriend finally made it home. Trudging slowly, he threw himself onto the couch, tired beyond belief. Today was such a long day, he wasn't sure he could even go shower. He took off his shirt and sighed heavily, closing his eyes and relaxing on the sofa. "Don't worry Whitty.. I'll prove them wrong about you.." He spoke to no one in particular, but he felt somewhat happy he felt he had to apologise. He had a new goal in mind.

He and Whitty were gonna be best friends.