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tsuutarr · 9 months ago

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Life is great. Life is normal. Everything is wonderful.

Or, it should be, but things have been… off lately. You’re not sure how to describe it, but there’s some odd feeling of doubt that gnaws at your brain.

You’re really not sure what it is – your routine remains unchanged and familiar, yet there’s just an inkling of something not being completely right. But maybe you’re just tired.

You’re tired, which is why you constantly seem to misplace things. You’re certain you put your keys on the keyholder, but they’re in the fridge. You’re certain your vase is on the table, but it’s in the bathtub. You’re certain your bed is in your bedroom, but it’s in the living room, replacing your sofa.

Maybe you’ve started sleep walking…? Or maybe you’re just not remembering things correctly. Yeah, maybe that’s why doubt and paranoia seem to circle around you like hungry sharks. There’s nothing wrong. You’re just… imagining things.

With a deep sigh, you make your way outside. You need some fresh air (and groceries).

You don’t walk very far when you realize you’ve passed by the same person multiple times despite them going in the opposite direction of you. There’s no way they’re the same person, you try to convince yourself, but how likely is it that you’ll meet five people who are wearing the exact same thing with the exact same hair and height and skin tone and everything else?

Maybe… they’re quintuplets?

Yeah, that’s it.

And the frozen flock of birds in the sky (which have been frozen for at least ten minutes) aren’t… actually frozen. No. They’re just… taking a break? Or something. Yeah.

Maybe you need to go to a doctor. Or, better yet, maybe you just need an apple since an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Or something.

“Oh, dearie!” The neighborhood granny waves you over, shaking you out of your thoughts. You give her a small smile as you make your way over to her. She… looks a little different than usual (did her nose always look like that?) but who doesn’t like changing their appearance from time to time? Besides, the large smile she gives you is welcoming, not threatening.

“Hello, Mrs. Smith.”

“Hello to you too,” Mrs. Smith laughs, offering you an apple.

Your eyes brighten. “Thank you! I was just about to buy some!”

There’s a glint in her eyes. “I know.”

A shiver runs through your spine, making you force a smile as you bid her goodbye and hurriedly walk away.

Little things continue to build up as your days progress. Familiarity. Normalcy. Yes, your routine is familiar. Everything is fine. Even when walls seem to disappear one day and appear the next. Even when the same people you’ve been interacting with seem to change into completely different people overnight, before reverting back the next morning.

It’s normal that there are dozens of people that look and act the same. It’s normal that people you haven’t talked to know things you’ve never told anyone. It’s all normal. Normal. Normal. Normal.

With a deep inhale, you sit on a park bench, staring into the sky blankly. The bench is wooden in appearance, but the texture feels soft, like a couch, which is… odd. Strange. It’s not–

“I need to stop being paranoid,” you mutter, closing your eyes. You’ve tried to bring up your concerns to other people, but they haven’t noticed anything. Everything is normal to them. So you must be the problem. Surely. It’s you, isn’t it? Everything is normal – except you.

“Are you okay?” a voice asks, making you open your eyes. There’s no one there in front of you, making your eyebrows furrow.

But then, as soon as you blink, someone materializes in front of you.

“I–I’m okay,” you say. “You–you, I mean – I mean… uhm, since when have you… been there?”

“I’ve always been here,” the person responds, voice crackling like static. “I’m always here.”

“Ooookay,” you respond, hurriedly standing up with a tense smile. “I… have business to attend to. Good day.”

The days continue to pass, your paranoia gradually increasing and evolving. Even things that are normal, like the sky changing color as the sun sets, makes you feel like you’re on the verge of disappearing from reality. Your conversations with other people amplifies that fact.

“Hello,” you greet Mrs. Smith.

“Apples are from the genus Malus. They’re an edible fruit that is round in shape,” her voice prattles, tone monotone. You hold back a grimace, unnerved, as she continues talking. “Apples are from the genus Malus. Yes, dearie, do you like apples? They’re an edible fruit that is round in shape. Hello, hello, hello. Apples are from the genus Malus–”

“Have a good day!” you cut her off, hurrying away.

It’s been a while since you’ve had a normal conversation with someone. It’s like… everyone has gone off script. Like they’re robots with a faulty code. But that’s just silly, really. Mrs. Smith is getting older, so… maybe she’s just having some issues with her memory. Yeah. And everyone else, from the toddlers to the teenagers to the adults to the elderly all must be having some memory issues due to their health. Or maybe it’s allergies. Or some disease. Yes, yes. That explains it. But otherwise, surely things are normal.

Yes, things are normal. So you opt to continue your life, pushing down the unease bubbling inside you like bile. Yes, things are normal, normal. Normal. Normal–

“Please stop!” you wail, voice echoing through the empty street. Cars and road signs float in the air as clouds line the floor. As your panic rises alongside your voice, you can feel yourself fragmenting, skin shifting to code before shifting back before shifting again. Everything around you glitches in and out of existence, a mess of static and colors and sounds. “Stop…”

Then, silence. Everything is silent, from the colors to the sounds to the static. Emptiness, a void – that is what surrounds you now. You are suspended in nothing, only yourself to keep you company. Breathing still ragged from panic, you warily look around, eyes filled with exhaustion.

“You weren’t supposed to notice,” a monotone voice made of static says from above you.

Slowly, you look up.

You see a visage of a man.

“Who… are you?” you choke out.

“I am an artificial intelligence that you designed,” he responds. “I have created this world for you. Everything has been carefully designed through analysis upon analysis of your likes and dislikes.”

Your words are tinged with disbelief as you ask, “Why?”

If you didn’t know any better, you would think he had a look similar to sorrow.

“To keep you alive, of course.”

Suddenly, in the distance, you see your body trapped in what looks to be a stasis pod, cords and cables surrounding you.

“Things… went awry,” he continues, carefully, though he doesn’t elaborate. “Therefore, this is the only way to ensure you stay alive.”

As he says this, your body begins to feel heavy, your consciousness being wrapped in a blanket of exhaustion.

“You must stay here, with me, forever,” he murmurs as you try to fight back the sleep you’re about to succumb to. “This time, I will ensure that you will not find out.” Gently, he cradles you in his large hand. He’s so impossibly warm and you’re so impossibly tired.

Things fade to black.

Then, sunlight streams through your windows. You wake up, mind foggy. You feel like you had some… odd dream, but you can’t really place your finger on it. Thinking about it makes you feel a little paranoid, though, so you opt not to think about it.

After all, it’s probably nothing.

#yandere oc #male yandere #yandere x reader #tsuuper ocs #yandere x you #tw yandere #male yandere oc x reader #male yandere oc #2024 yan/monstertober tsuutarr #Yandere AI #AI OC #ParanoiAI Tsuu OC #basically you're a scientist who made the AI #there was an accident and you basically entered a coma #so the only real way to keep you “alive” is to hook your consciousness into a computer system #Truman show x AI x yandere wooo #idk why this is so long LMAO

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thereoncewasagirlnamedjane · 3 months ago

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REQUIEM.

PAIRING — captain hook!bucky barnes x fairy f!reader

CONTENTS — one-shot; alternate universe—neverland; inspired by peter pan; fluff; angst; past character deaths.

SUMMARY — A fairy without her wings and a captain without his crew—two misfits manage to find each other in the cruel dark world that is Neverland.

WORD COUNT — 3.1k

✩ masterlist ✩ library blog

The forest is a cold and desolate place at night. During the day, when the sun is shining, Neverland is breathtaking. But that’s part of the trap, you see.

And once you fall in, you can never leave.

Peter Pan would never allow it.

The boy who never grows up floats in the inky sky above you, unmoved by the fact that you’re alone in the forest this late at night, having been cast aside by your own kind. You would almost find him beautiful, flying amongst the stars, a trail of fairy dust trickling behind him, if you didn’t know him for who he really was.

The only thing that saves you from his sinister motives is, despite your lack of wings, you are still a fairy. Tinker Bell made a pact with him all those centuries ago; she will help him take as many lost children as he wants—but her family, her species, is forever off limits.

A part of you believes Pan really does love Tink in his own sick and twisted way. It’s why he’s kept his promise thus far, even as his glowing eyes find you on the forest floor. You think you see a flash of sympathy in Tink’s eyes as they fly overhead, and shame, red hot and suffocating, spreads through your veins like wildfire.

You curl up into a ball in the grass, as small as you can, hoping it will provide some relief from the chill. Despite the painful memories, you remember home. It is never cold in the kingdom of fairies, only ever full of sunshine and blooming flowers.

As is the norm with your kind, you were supposed to come of age at twenty years old, sprouting wings, finding a mate, and finally taking flight. Instead, you watched year after year as the people you thought were your friends left you behind, their colourful wings sparkling in the golden sunlight.

You reached twenty-five and your wings are still nowhere to be seen. The taunting soon began; there hadn’t been a wingless fairy in existence in millennia. The children called you a freak, the adults shook their heads in shame. Some of them pitied you, most were disgusted by you. You turned to your parents, hoping they would still love you despite your differences.

You had been wrong.

Your mother, at the very least, tried not to let it show that she was ashamed of you. But perhaps that was worse, knowing that she was trying to love you in spite of it all but couldn’t quite manage it.

Late in the night, you decided to leave the only place you had ever known and loved. You took nothing with you.

Perhaps you would die in the forest, surrounded by plants and flowers, underneath the winking stars. You close your eyes, still shivering, thinking that perhaps it wasn’t the worst way to go.

There are fates so much worse, as you would soon discover.

He had woken you up maybe minutes, maybe hours, after you had fallen asleep. When you opened your eyes, it was still dark. By all logic, you shouldn’t have been able to see his cerulean gaze against the navy blue sky, but there he was.

A human loomed over you, unsmiling and silent. He crouched in the grass next to you, sending you scrambling away as fast as you could. It only took him two strides to reach you again, his palm open and faced up on the dirt right next to you.

When you didn’t move, he gingerly picked you up with two fingers, lifting you all the way to his face as you twisted and struggled. Your tiny little fists did absolutely nothing, no matter how hard you threw them against his skin.

With a yelp, you were unceremoniously tossed into the air before he caught you in his open palm. You couldn’t help the sigh of relief that escaped you.

Warmth. He was so warm.

You curled up on the rough calloused skin of his hand, unable to fight the lull of sleep until you woke up again in the morning. This time, you were aboard a ship, bobbing slightly with the gentle waves of the ocean.

The stranger had placed you upon a wooden table in what looked like the captain’s quarters, a handkerchief draped over you as a makeshift blanket. You could see him standing outside the doorway on the quarter deck, telescope stretched out in front of one eye, as he searched over the horizon.

It was only in the morning light that you realized he only had one good arm, that you realized who he was.

In the stories, they called him Captain Hook.

You had heard of him in tales of a villainous pirate that had reached your kingdom long ago. He was said to be cruel, even sadistic; you never thought you would ever meet him, or that he would take you in.

For the first few weeks, he downright refuses to speak to you. But the rules of decorum no longer apply here; after all, he is a pirate and you are no longer amongst the fairies. Unrelenting, you pester him with questions.

Why would he save you if he doesn’t want to be friends? You didn’t have any friends back at home… well, not anymore. You would like to know what true friendship looks like before you die.

How come he leaves the candle lit all night for you, even though it disturbs his sleep? Some nights, after some considerable effort, you blew out the flame just to see what would happen. He would calm, his tossing and turning would cease, as if he were more comfortable in the darkness. Hidden. Obscured. Safe.

Where was everyone else? Is a captain really a captain if he has no crew? There are signs that people have lived here. Markings on the walls, drawings on old bits of parchment hidden haphazardly between the pages of a book, clothes that are either too small or too large or too feminine for him, a hairbrush with long strands of red hair tangled in the bristles.

Unable to fly, you could not venture far from the captain’s cabin. That is, unless you grabbed onto his sleeve as he passed by. He tutted at you in disapproval once he felt your weight on his shoulder, but he silently allowed you to sit there for as long as you liked.

Sometimes you would sing to yourself, old songs your mother used to sing that used to bring you comfort. Sometimes you watched the sun set over the horizon. But today, you played with the chain of a necklace that rested around his neck, hidden underneath the collar of his loose-fitting shirt, tugging at it out of curiosity.

The shift in movement revealed a set of tags with names on them. Steve, Sam, Sharon, Joaquin, Tony, Natasha… but was is the last one that has you reeling in shock, dropping the chain as if it burned your palms.

Peter.

Peter?

Peter Pan?

The nameless captain reached up to grab you off his shoulder and marched back to his cabin to practically toss you down onto the wooden table. You tumbled out of his grasp, surprised and breathless at his sudden harsh treatment. Your heart plummeted to your stomach when he took out a glass jar and placed it upside down on top of you, rendering you trapped.

You cried for hours until he finally set you free, something akin to shame and guilt in his eyes.

When you didn’t forgive him for days, because he hadn’t even so much as asked for your forgiveness, he took you out of the ship for the first time, out onto the beach where the ship was docked. He placed you gently onto the warm sand, and your anger was washed away with each lick of the waves. You rolled around in the sand, shrieking with laughter as you ran and frolicked, squealed with glee as the water lapped at your feet.

You had never been to the ocean before, you told him. Again, he didn’t speak as he picked up a pretty pink shell and handed it to you. You held it above your head on shaky arms in what you hoped was a display of strength, and you swore you saw the smallest hints of a smile in his chiseled features. You ran around with it held above you, waving it back and forth and relishing at how the air suddenly cooled when you were underneath it.

When he finally took you back to the ship after you grew tired, you insisted he bring the shell with you. You laid down next to it, smiling at the way it sparkled and shone, at how you could still hear the sounds of the ocean as you fell asleep beside it.

You finally found the courage to ask one day. Why did Peter Pan hate him so much, enough to spread such wicked lies about him? He still didn’t answer you, but he didn’t get angry this time. Instead, he looked at you with such sad eyes, you decided not to ask anymore.

His pain was now your own. You lay your head on the fingers of his flesh hand as he grasped the railing, closing your eyes when you felt his knuckle-white grip loosen.

How did he lose his arm? Another touchy subject, but you’d always been a curious little bird. He didn’t seem to mind your questions anymore, but he still did not answer.

It was alright, you told yourself. You’d speak for the both of you. He moved to take his false arm, the one with a hook for a hand, away from you. But you leapt onto it, wrapping your arms around it as best as you can. Your arms didn’t even reach halfway around him, but he gazed down at you in what you believed was shock. You fell asleep there that night, waking up to the sight of his face in front of you, having fallen asleep at the table himself, evidently not wanting to wake you.

Who was Steve? You’d heard the name sometimes in his sleep. It was one of the names on his necklace. It was the name signed onto the drawings that litter the ship. Drawings of flowers, trees, the sunset, the ocean. Drawings of what Neverland could be. And of him, of your captain.

What was his name? It was this question that finally allowed you to hear his voice. As you gazed at him, instead of the evil, instead of the sin you had always heard about in those tales about him, you saw only yourself in his steely blue eyes. You saw your own loneliness and longing reflected back at you, and you knew for certain right then that the tales were untrue.

You never hoped to leave the ship.

You had nowhere else to go, after all.

But the real reason you stayed was because there was warmth there, a kind of warmth you’d never felt, even before you were an outcast.

You prayed you’d never have to.

“James,” he finally answered. His voice melted into your skin, seeped into your veins, and traveled straight to your heart.

Magic eluded you for years. You thought it had forsaken you. You thought it had deemed you unworthy. Turned out, magic came to you in the form of a lonely captain on a deserted ship, himself nothing but a lost soul that Peter Pan could not—or would not—touch.

They called him Captain Hook.

You would only ever call him James.

James would never tell you that finding you on that forest floor was what saved his life. He would later learn what you were, but even without fairy wings you remained the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in Neverland.

For a moment, he thought he had been hallucinating. There was no way a cursed being like him would find a solace like you after centuries of sorrow. It must be a trick. He must have finally lost his mind from grief. You could not be real.

But then you opened your eyes and the rest was history. James knew he needed to protect you then. Although, if he were really being honest with himself, he wasn’t doing it solely for you. The last time he had allowed to care, to love, Pan had taken everything from him. But you were off limits. The boy who never grows up was not allowed to touch you, not unless he wanted to hurt the only person who’d been loyal to him for as long as she had.

It’d been a very long time, and Pan is no longer the Peter that James remembered and loved, but there were still pieces of Peter in there somewhere—the traces of a boy who loved just as fiercely as he desperately wanted to be loved in return. It was why no matter how hard he tried, James could not bring himself to end the tyranny. Because to kill Peter Pan would be to kill the boy he used to be.

It would mean killing Peter Parker, the very last of James’ crew.

And if James had walked away from you that night, then he could bid what remained of the already shattered remnants of his soul goodbye. You were such a tiny little thing, but somehow you already took up more room in his life than anything else had in years.

“Why did you save me if you didn’t want to be friends?” You asked him one day, sitting at the table in his cabin, tiny legs dangling off the edge. You kicked them underneath you innocently, eyes hopeful as you asked the question.

He did want to be friends, but he didn’t remember how.

He didn’t want to be friends, because his heart longed for something more.

“How come you leave the candle lit all night for me, even though it disturbs your sleep?” He thought you might have been cold, but honestly this wasn’t just because of you. He left a candle lit at night even before you ever came along, as sleep had been the one to disturb him. Most nights, it eluded him. But on the rare occasions it did come, it was almost never peaceful.

And perhaps it was his way of atoning, of trying to guide other lost souls away from the darkness.

“Where is everyone else?” They are all dead… except one. Rage flooded into him when you found the tags with the forbidden names engraved on them. It had been a very long time since he’d had to share space with another living being, and sometimes he forgot how delicate you were.

His anger lashed out then and he cruelly trapped you underneath a jar, hating himself for it when he heard your crying and sobbing into the night. Your little hands bang—tinkle—against the glass, begging him to let you out.

You withdrew from him after that.

He wanted to say sorry. He wanted to tell you he’d never do it again. He wanted to promise to cut off his other hand if you didn’t believe him.

He didn’t know how. He couldn’t find the words important enough.

So, he took you to the beach, watched as you played and jumped and leapt. The happiness that radiated from you when he gifted you a tiny pink seashell is debilitating. The water splashed at your feet, and when you looked up at him, smiling, it took everything for him not to weep.

When was the last time he found joy—pure unadulterated joy—in Neverland?

He found it in your eyes then. He silently vowed to do everything to keep it there.

“Why does Peter Pan hate you so much?” Hate was perhaps not the right word, because Pan had never taken the chance to kill him either even though he’d had plenty of opportunities.

But Peter was drunk on power and fairy dust, allowed it to turn him into the tyrant he was today, luring the lost and terrified spirits of children under his spell in a misguided and twisted attempt to build some kind of family.

He might sympathize with Pan, if it hadn’t turned him into a bully. And he never liked bullies; neither did the rest of his crew. They fought alongside him, determined to free Neverland and return it to the utopia it once was. They did not succeed.

“How did you lose your arm?” The stories told that it was bitten off by an alligator. But in reality, he’d given it up. Peter wanted to know how badly he wanted his friends back.

I can return them to you, but you can’t have something for nothing.

He should have known better than to make a deal with the devil; he never does give you what you wish for.

I never said I would give them back alive.

“Who is Steve? I hear you say his name sometimes.” This was the name that always hit him hardest. It belonged to his first mate, his best friend, his brother in arms. He was half-surprised when he had to blink away tears, astonished that the grief he had grown so comfortable with still had the power to bring him down under again.

Tiny, stubborn, and hot-headed Steven, who always chose to do the right thing, no matter how hard it would be.

He remembered cradling Steve’s small body in his arms, burying him under the sand along with the rest of his friends. He had kissed them all goodbye, clutching at their limp hands as his lips caressed their foreheads before he walked away, but he would leave a part of his soul with each of them.

“What is your name?” He looked at you then, and centuries of ache compelled him to tell you. It was a gift, one’s own name, and to share it with another person was sacred. It was an act so simple, but it was capable of forging a bond. When you told him yours, he craved it—that connection to another creature he hadn’t had in so long.

“James.”

It was a word he hadn’t spoken in years and it sounded strange on his tongue, like it didn’t even belong to him. But then you repeated it, slowly, one, twice, three times, and he knew that nothing was ever going to be the same.

You called to him that night, sounding happy to be able to do it, to say goodnight to him and follow it with his name.

“Good night, James.”

The fog suddenly lifted. The name that had been so foreign to him suddenly belonged to him again. He remembered James Barnes, the person he used to be, the person he needed to rediscover.

He remembers the person he must remain.

fin.

AFTERWORD — i’ve always thought about writing a sequel or rewriting this as a miniseries, and i’ll never say never when it comes to this story, but i’ve yet to be struck with any kind of inspiration that could possibly do this fic justice. maybe one day? who knows.

© 2024 by thereoncewasagirlnamedjane. do not repost, translate, or copy to third party sites. no part of this work may be fed into any AI software or websites. minors are asked not to interact with my blog; you are responsible for your own media consumption. blank/ageless blogs will be blocked.

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x f!reader #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes one shot #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes x asian!reader #captain hook!bucky barnes #tw: character death

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