#‘promise?’ ‘promise.’ maybe I should just d [sirens]

[miraclewoozi]

okay no but actually I HAVE SO MANY THINGS. TO SCREAM. ABOUT. i knewwww from the teaser that this was going to be absolutely killer but was i ready for just how good it already is???? no. no i was not.

Bloodhound Pt. I | chs x reader

Rating: T | WC: ~4.5k | Pairing: chs x reader | Genre: romance, supernatural

Life as a vampire isn't the easiest for Vernon, friend-wise or feeding-wise. He's ready to find a solution, and he thinks it just might be you.

Warnings: blood mentions (i mean it's a vampire fic like ...), non explicit sexual advances from strangers online, involuntary thoughts of violence/murder, the briefest angst (it's me lbr), food mention, mention of being unable to eat

Reader Notes: human, has 2 brothers (i don't name or describe them so they can be other members if u want), currently ungendered (will have breasts and vagina in future smut)

It took a while for Vernon to figure out what happened to him. He still doesn’t know all the details, just that he woke up in an alley with blood all over his clothes and a burning in his throat that wouldn’t cease, and even now, he doesn’t know who did this. Who made him like this. 

This being a vampire, of course. 

He knew they existed, but in his short twenty five years walking the earth as a human, he doesn’t think he ever met one. He supposes now he has, considering the fact that he didn’t just wake up like this out of nowhere. He wonders if they meant to change him, or if he bit back and managed to get some of their blood in his system before they left him for dead. 

Either way, he’s a vampire now, and it fucking sucks. Literally and metaphorically. 

There are many cons, and only a few pros, he’s discovered in the six months since he was turned. He can’t go out in the sun anymore, and he’s so strong, he’s broken three phones. Worse than that, he likes the taste of blood now, likes feeling the coppery liquid fill his mouth before he swallows it down, likes the way it soothes his throat and sates his hunger. His brain still screams at him that it’s not normal or right or cool of him to be drinking fucking blood, and the cognitive dissonance gives him a headache every time he feeds. 

That’s another con, the feeding. He doesn’t want to just snatch innocent people and drain them dry like his maker did, but he can’t afford blood bags like the rich vampires, and he also hates the synthetic options available on the market. They all have an awful taste, like too sour grapes, and the weirdest consistency, just a bit too thin to alleviate the burning he still feels. 

That leaves him to find willing donors, which is surprisingly difficult when you don’t want to fuck them too. He doesn’t have anything against fetishists, but he also doesn’t have a lot of experience, and gaining it with people who only like him because he’s a vampire isn’t what he wants.

He’s tried the apps, tried the matching services, but they all lead to people who just want him for his venom, and he’s grown tired of it. So, he does the next logical thing. 

He puts an ad out on Craigslist. 

Vernon wakes from his daily rest to find his inbox completely full, his phone buzzing on a near constant vibration with every email received. He props himself up on an elbow in bed (no, he doesn’t sleep in a coffin), and scrolls through, cringing at all of the sexual subject lines and wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have included pictures. 

He felt like it was the normal thing to do, share part of himself in hopes someone will share back, but it seems all he’s done is made them feel bolder, made them feel more comfortable being open about what they want from him, even though he clearly put NOT DTF in the listing. But maybe that’s a good thing? 

He can easily weed out the people who don’t actually want to help him out, and he doesn’t even have to open every single message to find out who they are. His thumb blurs as he deletes email after email, the amount in his inbox dwindling the longer he swipes, until finally, he’s left with one unread. 

The subject line is innocuous enough, [interested in becoming friends with “benefits”], and he opens it to find a picture of you, with your arms extended on either side and seemingly wrapped around something, though nothing appears in the picture. You begin by saying that your two vampire brothers took the photo with you, which explains the empty spaces, and continue to tell him that they were changed against their will, attacked on their way home from seeing Spiderman in the movies a few years ago. 

That tugs the corners of his lips down, makes him feel sorry that there are other vamps out there like him, other vamps who didn’t choose this life. He knew he wasn’t the only one, but seeing, or he supposes not seeing proof drives the idea home. 

Apparently, they struggled with finding a source of sustenance too, never wanting to turn to you for your blood or your help, and when you saw his post, it made you think maybe you could help someone, in some way. 

He’s curious what solution your brothers found, and curious if you’re really offering to be fwbb (friends with blood benefits), but reminds himself to be cautious - this could all be a lie to lure him in, to get his defenses down so you can go after what you really want. He maintains that thought as he types out a reply to you, trying to play it cool and not get his hopes up. 

Vernon | hey! im sorry to hear what happened to your brothers, my turning was under similar circumstances. ive been looking for someone for a while, someone who i could feed from without hurting, but maybe also a friend too? Idk i lost most of mine when i was changed, even though i didn’t ask for it, and it would be nice to have someone who understands like it seems you could 

Okay, so that didn’t come out cautious at all. He practically laid his soul bare and sent it off to you with a smile (literally he ended the email with his name and a smiling emoji). But it’s already in the void, in the cloud, out of his hands, and now all he can do is wait. 

Vernon doesn’t have to wait for long, he finds. You reply within minutes, the buzz making him jump and glance away from the space he was staring into. He does that a lot now, just finds some point in the room and sets his eyes on it, thoughts running through his mind in circles and zig zags and parallel lines. 

His phone is still lit up with the email icon, and when he brings it up to his face, it unlocks to reveal a new message from you. 

You | Oh no, I hate to hear it happened to you too! Is it still fresh? I know you said you were only turned a few months ago. My brothers wouldn’t even see me for a year after, too concerned that they’d snap and hurt me. I never had that fear, but I never blamed them for it either. 

Funny, that’s the fear that drove his friends away in the first place. It’s nice to hear you don’t have it, that you accepted your brothers’ new forms immediately and also accepted their worries, didn’t get upset or hold it against them when they felt they couldn’t be near you for your own safety. 

You | I think we could definitely make this work! I have blood and friendship to spare, and you’re in need of both. My only restriction is that I can’t offer too much of the first on weekdays, I teach third grade and I need all my energy to wrangle those kids :-)

So you’re a teacher too? Are you just entirely altruistic or…?

If you are, he thinks this might really be good, maybe even great. His heart would be racing if it could still move, and he can’t stop himself from scrolling back up to find your picture. He didn’t pay much mind to it before, didn’t study your face like he’s doing now, and he really should have before responding to you. 

Because you’re beautiful, and he’s in danger. 

In danger of what, he doesn’t know, but he can feel it stirring in his belly, burning like hunger and brewing like need, and before he knows it, his fangs are poking at his bottom lip and his dick is throbbing. 

But he won’t give in, won’t ruin this with his base desires, won’t become something to fear. 

He needs a blood source and a friend, and if he wants you to be both, he can’t be lusting after you like the monster he worries he really is. 

Vernon exchanges emails with you for days after that, going over logistics and preferences and possibilities. You decide together that you’ll meet next month, after some time spent getting to know and trust each other, and he decides not to feed from you that first meeting, wanting you to feel comfortable and safe with him before he sinks his teeth into you. 

It makes him feel giddy almost, the anticipation of having a friend, of having someone to drink from who doesn’t carry ulterior motives, of having you. Emails become texts which become calls, and soon enough, he’s got the tone and cadence of your voice memorized. He learns how you take your coffee in the morning, knows that you’d both die and kill for your kids, hears the love in your voice when you’re talking about your brothers. 

You’re a real, genuine person, and Vernon can’t wait to meet you. 

The days and nights fly by now that he has someone to talk to, and it only hits him the week before your meetup that not only will he be meeting you, you’ll be meeting him. 

You’ll be seeing and hearing and perceiving him, and suddenly, he’s nervous out of his mind. He hasn’t met anyone that stuck around since he was changed, and he’s all too aware that you could slip out of his life just as easily as you slipped in. 

In the days before, he tries to remind himself that you’ve already heard his voice, already seen his face, that you know he’s a vampire and haven’t shown any sign of running. 

It doesn’t occur to him to worry about his own reaction to you, which is mistake number one. 

Mistake number two is going to your meeting hungry. 

You settle into the booth, latte in hand and heart beating out of your chest, and keep your eyes locked on the door. Vernon should be arriving soon, and with so many conflicting emotions razing your thoughts, you don’t know how you feel exactly. 

You’re nervous, of course, as you should be when it comes to meeting online people in real life. You’re scared a little, because what if he’s not as harmless as he seems? He is still a vampire, and he could still easily kill you. But you’re also a bit… excited? He’s cute and sweet and in dire need of a confidante, and you think you could be that for him. 

Over the weeks spent getting to know Vernon, you’ve grown fond of him, fond of his dry jokes and his media recommendations and his fascinating opinions, and you’re interested to see if your easy back and forth will remain in person.

This should be a good environment to test it out, you think. 

You chose this cafe because it’s open twenty four hours, but also because it’s welcoming to vamps, serving a few synthetic options and even carrying donated blood for those with a bigger budget. 

What will Vernon get, you wonder? Will he go for synthetic even though he’s admitted to you that he hates it, or will he spring for a blood bag, drink it in front of you with a straw like it’s expensive cherry cola?

Will he buy nothing, deny his hunger and his state of being?

It’s a shame you don’t get to find out. 

Vernon takes in a no longer necessary deep breath to steady his nerves and places his hand on the door of the cafe, primed to pull it open. There’s a growl in his stomach, an emptiness that reminds him he didn’t have a chance to feed before, and he pushes it down, drowns it out, ignoring it for all he’s worth. 

There’ll be time later, after he finally meets you. 

His hand is steady as he pulls the door open but his ice cold heart is in his throat, lodged there like something he can’t swallow down. 

“Come on in!” The barista calls out, allowing him to cross the threshold and enter the cafe. He nods in thanks and starts to scan the tables for someone familiar, someone whose picture he definitely doesn’t look at before he lays himself to rest every morning. His eyes catch on a hand raised, one that leads down a soft arm to a gently sloped shoulder and up a tantalizing neck to a sweet, kind, open face. Your sweet, kind, open face. 

He grins, beams really, and races over, stirring napkins and shifting chairs with his sudden movement. He’s about to slide into the booth across from you when it hits him. 

Your scent. 

It’s like a brick wall smashing into him, every sane, rational thought in his head scattering like rubble in the wake of your natural perfume, unmarred by synthetic smells and caustic chemicals like so many others out there. 

Instantly, the burning in his throat starts, except this time, it’s an inferno, a supernova of pain and need and desire and hunger screaming at him to take take take. His fangs shoot out, bursting through his bottom lip and making him cover his mouth, frantically backing away from you with his eyes wide and his other hand held out to keep you in the booth when it looks like you might follow him. 

He bumps into tables and chairs as he flees, his blazing red eyes still locked with yours, part feral, part apologetic. The door slams behind him but he doesn’t hear it as he runs, his ears full of a roaring voice telling him that he’s going the wrong way, that he needs to go back to you and steal you and keep you and sip drink devour until you’re his, all his, until you’re glassy eyed and your heart is slow and your breaths are even slower. 

Which is fucking terrifying, the thought of ever hurting you like that, of wanting to hurt you like that, making him shake with rage at himself and despair over likely blowing it with you. 

He’s miles out of the city before he stops running. 

When he finally does, he turns in a slow circle, taking in his surroundings and attempting to find his humanity again even with his mind still screaming at him to find you and fucking kidnap you. His clothes are torn and his bones are aching and his stomach is empty, so very, very empty, but nothing is worse than the shame. 

He wasn’t strong enough for you. He wasn’t in control, wasn’t even capable of sitting across from you without wanting to drag you over the table and either kiss you breathless or suck you dry. 

Numbly, he sinks to the ground, laying himself out on the forest floor and staring up at the moon peeking through the trees. 

He feels like it’s taunting him. 

The moon used to be his friend, back when he was human. He was a perpetual night owl, always staying up late with his curtains open and music blaring and the light of the moon filtering in through the window. His roommates didn’t mind the noise because they were all making their own, and it wasn’t often any one of them would be sleeping before the sun came up. 

He lived most of his life at night and slept during the day, wasting the sunshine and warmth and normal waking hours like the ungrateful bastard he was. 

He can remember the moon that night. The night he was bitten.

It was a blood moon, foreshadowing trouble around the bend, and it’s about the only thing he does remember before the agony blinded him and his memories started to flicker through his brain, going too fast for him to make sense of much. 

Some stood out, like when his baby sister came home for the first time, screaming and crying until she set those big eyes on him and fell silent, transfixed. Or when he was thirteen and broke his arm sledding in Prospect Park, pretending after that it didn’t hurt because all his friends were watching, waiting for tears. Or when he got a full ride at Berklee for music production, every exhausting day sped up and reduced to a flash before he saw himself walking across the stage and shaking the Dean’s hand. 

He succumbed to the encroaching darkness soon after, the red moon growing nearer and nearer in his mind’s eye. He awoke hours later, just minutes before the sunrise, with his throat on fire and his body feeling like someone else’s. 

This moon is full and silver, friendlier looking than the last one he remembers, but no less foreboding. 

This moon is the one he ruined everything under. 

He’s sure any chance he had with you is gone. Any chance to be your friend or maybe even more, as he’s realizing only now that he did want more. Does want more. 

How could he not, when you matched his energy, met him quip for quip, made him a playlist and a hypothetical skincare routine? When you devoted so much of your time to helping others and still made some for him? When you’re so beautiful inside and out, that it would take his breath away if he needed to breathe?

How could he ever not want more with you?

You stare down at your undoubtedly cold latte and furrow your brows, scrunching your mouth to the side as you remember how Vernon ran from you. 

The barista has already been by to check on you, and you can still feel their eyes every so often, concern and pity rolling off of them in waves. You appreciate their empathy, but you feel a bit raw, a bit on edge, and you wish you could just burrow into the booth and go unseen. You’d leave but too many people who witnessed it remain, and you don’t have it in you to walk past them just yet. 

That leaves you to wrap your trembling hands around the mug and bring it up to your lips, attempting to act like nothing is wrong. Like it’s normal for your possible friend and perhaps crush to dash away at one whiff of you. 

You have to assume that’s what happened. He seemed so happy to see you, his mouth stretching wide in a smile and his hand coming up to mirror yours as he zoomed over in a blur. The wind he created made you laugh but it also rustled your hair, blew it away from your neck and probably wafted the scent of your rushing blood toward him. 

You don’t wear perfume or use fragranced products, your brothers’ noses are too sensitive for that, and you bite your lip, considering that perhaps you should have just this once. Your brothers are old enough to be able to control themselves but Vernon isn’t. 

He may be twenty five in human years but in the vampire world, he’s still a baby, and you didn’t approach him as such.

Fuck, this is all your fault. 

You sip down the latte slowly, the rich bittersweetness heavy on your tongue, and take a small bite of the cake the barista brought over while you were stewing in your thoughts. It settles like a stone in your belly and you push it away, unable to eat with the idea that you may never see or hear from Vernon again blaring in your mind. 

It’s only been a few weeks since you started talking to him but he feels… special. Important. Like someone who’s meant to be in your life. You’d hate to go back to not having him in it, especially now that you know what it’s like with him around. 

Everything is brighter, happier, more vibrant. You wake with a smile on your face knowing you’ll have a goodnight text from him, countdown the minutes from sunrise to sunset knowing he’ll call you as soon as he opens his eyes, go about your day wishing you were sleeping next to him instead. 

You don’t want to be a vampire, but by God you really think you could love this one. 

So you’re not going to let him go that easily. You’re not going to let him fade into the night, never to be seen again. And you’re definitely not going to let him be alone anymore, not like he has been since he was turned. 

With determination alight in your veins, you unlock your phone and find Vernon’s contact, pressing call and assuming he’ll send you to voicemail. You have a lot to say, and you’ll be glad to get it off your chest. You’re surprised when a ragged voice greets you, sounding, for all intents and purposes, dead inside. 

“Hello?” 

“Vernon?” You gasp desperately, any thought of a speech gone from your head as soon as you hear his voice. 

“Y/n?” He gasps back, suddenly full of wonder and light and life. “I didn’t check before I answered, I can’t believe it’s you.”

“Why can’t you believe it’s me? We talk every day,” you joke halfheartedly, not even trying to suppress the frown at his response. 

“I thought you’d never want to speak to me again after I went feral like that,” he confesses, shame and dejection obvious in both his words and his voice. 

“Vernon, you didn’t go feral. Feral would have been killing me. You ran instead, hell, you protected me!” 

“Yeah, from myself,” he laughs acerbically, making you roll your eyes at his self-deprecating tone.  

“Listen, you’re still new. My brothers had run-ins like this too, it’s not a sign of your character or your control. It’s just a byproduct of your nature, you can’t help it,” you insist, pleading with him to understand and stop blaming himself. 

“That almost makes it worse! The fact that there’s nothing I can do, nothing I can change. I don’t think I can see you until I figure this out,” he sighs regretfully, and somehow you can picture him shaking his head, his brow furrowed and his mouth tight. 

“What are you going to do until then? How are you going to feed?” You ask in concern, knowing it’s already been a few days and selfishly wanting him to change his mind. 

“I don’t know, I’ll spring for the blood bags and try some synthetic too,” you can tell he’s shrugging, and his nonchalance at being able to fucking eat has you lighting up with anger. You tamp it down, try to temper it, but your anger isn’t just at him. 

You’re upset with the world, with the greedy overlords who decide the price of life, with the asshole who took Vernon’s away from him, with the fact that he may never be able to control himself around you. Talking has been enough for the last month but that’s just with you in the crush phase. 

What happens when you finally fall in actual facts love with him?

“Vernon…,” you start, not knowing where you’re going but knowing where you want to finish (with his teeth in your neck and your body on top of his). 

“Y/n, I’m not risking you.” 

He sounds as firm as you’ve ever heard him, and you feel the anger ramp up and then wash away as you realize you’re simply not going to win. There is still a way you could help him though. It might be tedious and painful, but you’re willing to endure it for Vernon. 

“What if I go to a donation center and have them reserve it for you? You’d just have to tell them your name and show your ID and you could drink my blood instead of paying for bags. You may still need to supplement with synthetic but together they could tide you over until we can meet again.”

There’s silence on the other end for a few minutes, minutes you spend picking at your nails and going over tomorrow’s lesson plan in your head. You doubt he realizes how long he’s been thinking about it, but you’re not going to rush him when it’s likely that his hasty answer would be no. 

“I don’t know… I could still- You’d have to be so far away from me, I couldn’t even smell you,” he sounds unsure, apprehensive, and you don’t want to force him into it but you know this is the best solution.  

“You could wait a day or two before going to pick it up? It’ll be less fresh but maybe by then my scent will have faded,” you offer, nearly ready to beg him to say yes. 

A few more beats follow, your breathing steady and calm though your heart is racing, galloping in your chest as you wait for his response. You just want to know Vernon is happy and healthy and fed, you just want to take care of him. It seems like no one has done that in a long time, maybe since even before he was turned. 

“Okay, we can try,” he still sounds reluctant, but there’s an edge too, a determination that wasn’t there before. 

You bite back the squeal, vibrating in your seat as you look up centers nearby. There’s one just down the street and it’s open twenty four hours, so realistically, you could go right now. 

“I’ll donate tonight, just don’t change your mind in the next couple days, okay?” You rush to say, grinning and relaxing in the booth when you hear him let out an easy laugh. 

“I’ll do my best,” he chuckles, and though you know you should hang up and get going, you can’t help but linger. 

“Did you make it back to your apartment alright?” You ask, realizing you don’t hear any music or TV in the background like you normally do. 

“Ummm, I think I might be in Connecticut actually.”

He’s not nearly as bothered by this as you are, he even sounds almost carefree compared to how he first picked up the phone. 

As if he can anticipate your responses, he says, “I’m not coming back until you’re home safe, okay? With the door locked.”

“You don’t even know where I live,” you remind him, jest in your voice and fondness in your heart. 

“That doesn’t matter. I could find you anywhere with how good you smell,” his admission sounds apologetic almost, like he’s sorry for wanting your blood so bad he could find you by fragrance. 

Honestly, you preen a bit, flattered that you seem to affect him so. 

“Let me go to the blood bank and get you squared away first, then I’ll go straight home and lock all my locks,” you can hear the smile in your voice, hear the affection, and you wonder if Vernon hears them too. You hope he does. 

“Promise?” 

“Promise.”

AN: i was super excited to kickstart baby vamp vernon so i figured i'd post on his (and dk's) birthday!! this was inspired by a series of asks, but mainly this one. it got a bit more plot heavy than i expected but i'm having a good time so far!! i have the second part written already and i'm hoping to write part three before i release part two just so i can stay ahead of it and yall don't have to wait too long!

pls pls pls reblog and lmk how you liked it! you don't know how happy it makes me to see your thoughts and feelings on my work, they're my fuel to keep sharing my writing 🥰

*warnings for this were a bit tricky so if you think i missed anything, lmk and i'll be happy to add it!

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My Masterlist

[elliespassagerprincess]

Hello darling! Is it alright to ask for an ellie work? Something with just someone overhearing ellie and readers...extracurricular activities and ellie being like:GOOD MORNING :D

Jessie: yes for you maybe? I swear, it cannot be THAT good

Ellie:oh i beg to differ

Reader:JESUS CHRIST

soundproofing not included - ellie williams x reader

hi anon!! i deadass got second hand embarrassment while writing this. I hope you enjoy:)

pairing: ellie williams x fem!reader

requests are open, send me your thoughts and ideas:)

warnings: none

summary: The night was unforgettable—Ellie made sure of that. But the morning? Even more memorable… for everyone who heard it. You were just trying to survive breakfast. Ellie, on the other hand, couldn’t stop grinning. And Jesse? Jesse wanted earplugs and a lobotomy.

masterlist

You wake up to sunlight cutting through the blinds, your throat scratchy, body sore in the best way, and Ellie snoring softly into the pillow beside you. Her arm is draped across your waist like a dead weight, and she’s warm, stupidly warm, the kind of warmth that almost convinces you to stay in bed forever—until the mortifying memory of last night punches through the fog of sleep.

“Oh my god,” you whisper, dragging the sheets up to your nose.

Ellie stirs. “Mmm. Morning, baby.”

You don’t respond. You can’t. You’re too busy reliving the exact pitch and volume of your voice when she— nope. Nope nope nope.

Ellie peeks one eye open and grins. “You sound like you’re trying to astral-project out of your body.”

“I want to die,” you mumble.

“Why?” She’s stretching now, clearly pleased with herself, still smug even with bedhead and pillow lines on her face. “Was it not good for you?”

You shoot her a look, and she laughs—open-mouthed and utterly unrepentant. “Oh right,” she teases. “It was that good.”

You don’t get a chance to deny it. Because then—

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

You freeze.

“Don’t,” you whisper, eyes wide.

The door creaks open, and Jesse’s voice rings out: “You guys done traumatizing the entire fucking lodge or should I come back after breakfast?”

You bury your face in your hands. “jesus christ.”

Ellie props herself up on her elbows like this is a casual Wednesday morning and not the social equivalent of a nuclear bomb. “Morning, Jesse!” she chirps. “Sleep well?”

“I would’ve,” he says, walking into the room with a mug in hand, “if someone hadn’t been trying to audition for a goddamn opera from down the hall.”

You groan.

Ellie shrugs. “Can you blame her?”

Jesse turns to you. “Yes. Yes, I can blame her. And you. Equally.”

You peek out from under the blanket. “It wasn’t that loud.”

“Oh,” Jesse deadpans. “It was loud enough that Manny went outside and stood in the rain for twenty minutes. Said he needed to ‘recalibrate his spiritual energy.’”

Ellie chuckles. “Tell him I’ll make it up to him.”

Jesse stares. “With what? Noise-canceling headphones?”

You’re about to roll off the bed and onto the floor just to escape your own shame. “Can we never talk about this again?”

“No promises,” Jesse says, turning for the door. “Breakfast is in ten. Try not to make any more... soundtracks before then.”

He’s gone before you can throw a pillow at him.

You flop back onto the mattress and groan into the sheets.

Ellie turns to you, all faux innocence. “So... round two?”

You stare at her. She just wiggles her eyebrows.

“Ellie.”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

She leans in, presses a kiss to your jaw, and whispers, “You didn’t seem to mind last night.”

Breakfast is halfway done by the time you and Ellie walk in, and Jesse doesn't even try to be subtle.

"Ah, the siren awakens."

You roll your eyes. Ellie just salutes with her fork and steals a sausage from Jesse’s plate without shame.

Manny's there too. He looks at you both, sips his coffee like it's laced with holy water, and mutters, "Sinners."

You glance at Ellie. She's perfectly relaxed, legs sprawled under the table, hoodie half-off her shoulder like she’s trying to look casual when she knows she’s the center of attention.

And that smug smirk? Still there.

So you decide right then and there — she deserves some payback.

You lean in, just enough so only she hears, and murmur, “Didn’t know you got that loud when I bite your ear.”

Ellie chokes on her orange juice.

Jesse looks up. “You good, man?”

Ellie clears her throat. “Yep. Peachy.”

You smile sweetly, spearing a piece of fruit. “Weird. You look flustered.”

She shoots you a look that screams don’t start something you can’t finish — but you just give her an innocent blink.

Later, when everyone’s clearing plates, you brush behind her, just barely pressing into her back, and whisper, “You gonna be loud if I do it again tonight? Or should I bring duct tape?”

Ellie visibly jumps. Jesse raises an eyebrow.

“Something wrong?”

Ellie glares at you, pink creeping up her neck. “Nope.”

You pat her shoulder like you’re proud of her. “Good girl.”

And that does it. Her jaw clenches. Her hand tightens around a fork.

You grin.

Payback achieved.

After everyone filters out, Ellie corners you against the kitchen counter, all intense eyes and clenched teeth.

“You think you’re funny, huh?”

You blink up at her, all innocence and mischief. “A little.”

Ellie leans in, lips brushing your ear. “Keep it up and I’ll make sure they hear you all the way across the field.”

Your breath catches — and her smirk returns like it never left.

You push her away gently, heart pounding, face warm. “You’re evil.”

“And you started it.”

She kisses your cheek like it’s a promise.

[pnutbutter-n-j-elyy]

Cross My Heart, I Regret It

Bangchan x Gn!Reader

<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3x<3

Chan awoke to the dull throb of a headache pressing against his skull, the remnants of last night’s drunken haze still weighing heavily on him. His limbs felt unreasonably warm, cocooned in something soft, something that smelled vaguely familiar- like vanilla and lavender.

Like you.

He shifted, the feeling of the sheets...different. 

Missing the protective barrier of clothes; the sheets tickled his skin.

His breath hitched.

His eyes snapped open, and the moment he registered the dim morning light filtering through the curtains, the familiar yet unfamiliar dresser besides, and his lack of clothing his stomach twisted with unease.

This wasn’t his apartment.

This wasn’t his bed.

This was yours.

A sinking feeling settled in his chest as he sat up slowly, scanning the room with growing dread. As he pulled the sheets up to his chest.

"What the hell. Why am I..."

Before he could fully process the implications of where he was, the state he was in, and what exactly had happened, the door creaked open.

There you stood- arms crossed, expression unreadable, fatigue evident in the subtle droop of your shoulders. Your gaze met his, cold and steady. Hands gripping pain killers.

A throb went through his head.

“You’re awake.”

Your voice was devoid of any inflection that would give him an hint of what you were feeling.

Chan swallowed thickly. “Y...Yeah.”

A heavy silence stretched between you, dense with unspoken words. He searched your face for something—anything- that might clue him in on how bad things - or what things - had gotten between you two. But you gave him nothing.

He shifted again, the feel of your sheets way to prominent to not ask.

"D-Did we-"

"No." You said slamming the medication onto the bedside table. "You just get too comfortable don't you?" You say, irritated grin settling in your face. "And you listen as well as a 2 year old when your drunk."

"H-huh...?"

Then, it hit him.

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You had been kind enough - reluctant, but kind - to let him sleep on your couch. Since by the time you got to the dorms from that spot on the sidewalk he had yet to sober up. And he felt like a bit much to just hand off to the boys.

And a small part of you wanted to dissect that look in his eyes, that tone of voice when he promised he was okay.

Maybe because it reminded you of yourself.

And, in his drunken stupor, he had agreed to stay on the couch, much to his dismay.

Or so you had thought.

Somewhere in the midst of his hazy, liquor-clouded mind, Chan had decided that the couch was too far, too cold, too unfamiliar.

He wanted to be near you. He knew in the back of his mind you were still mad at him.

YN-ah will be mad...but...they won't care that much right?

He pouted.

YN-ah is nice...they'll let me sleep on the bed too.

As he made his way towards your room, he decided needed to use the bathroom. 

I should brush my teeth...hmm...

He grabbed the one and only toothbrush on the counter and as he brushed decided he wasn't comfortable enough.

Do I always leave the heat on? I thought I usually turn it off around this time...

He took off his jacket and then shirt. Rinsing his mouth, opting to put the unrinsed toothbrush on the counter rather back in the cup and made his way towards the bedroom. Stripping of his socks leaving them in in a small trail. 

He had stumbled the bedroom instead, stripping away the last constricting layers of his clothing with the singular goal of seeking comfort.

He crawled into the bed and sighed, comfort surrounding him like a hug.

The next thing he remembered was your scream, sharp and panicked, piercing through the darkness like a siren’s wail.

“CHRISTOPHER BANG, WHAT THE HELL?!”

His vision had been blurry, his limbs heavy, but he had barely managed to register your horrified expression before-

Smack!

Your palm met his bare shoulder with enough force to sober him up by half.

“What is wrong with you?!” you had seethed, your hands flailing as you shoved a blanket at his very naked self. “I told you to sleep on the couch!”

Chan, still half-conscious, had only mumbled incoherently, attempting to pull the blanket higher over himself. “S’cold.”

“Oh, you’ll be cold when I throw your stupid ass outside.”

Despite your rage, despite the deep scowl on your face, you had begrudgingly dragged the blanket over him and turned on your heel, muttering curses under your breath as you stormed out, slamming the door shut behind you.

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Chan groaned, rubbing a hand down his face. Yeah. That explained a lot.

He cleared his throat, shifting awkwardly under the blanket. “Y/N...”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

The sharp finality in your tone made something in his chest tighten. He exhaled, watching as you rubbed your temples, as if just the sight of him was giving you a migraine.

Which made him rack his brain for other explanations of your behavior.

Did I do something worse...? Say something worse?

“There’s a hangover cure on the desk,” you continued, motioning next to him. “Drink it, shower, get dressed, leave, and pretend this never happened.”

Chan straightened slightly, tension creeping into his posture. “Can we-”

“No.”

His jaw clenched. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

For the first time, something flickered across your face. Something unreadable, something almost hesitant. But it was gone just as quickly.

“I don’t have to know what you were going to say.”

It shouldn’t have hurt. But it did.

He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “You really hate me that much, huh?”

Silence.

And then, softer than before, you murmured, “I don’t hate you.”

Chan stilled.

His breath caught, his body going rigid at the weight of your words. But before he could speak, before he could even think to reach for you, you took a step back. creating distance, setting an invisible line he knew better than to cross.

“Just…don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

"Y/N hear me out-"

"I can't do this-"

"Y/N I'm sorry-"

"Chris, I said no-"

"Y/N please just give me two-"

"You said you loved me!" You blurt out loudly. Your voice wavering and tears almost immediately spilling.

"Wait-what...what do you..."

His mind was reeling.

Did I really...

He took a breath.

"You know how you always used to tell me drunk actions are sober thoughts..." You said, trying to bring levity to the situation. But Chan knew there wasn't much to the humor you tried to project in your voice.

“You said…you loved me last night,” you said, your voice shaky as you spoke.

Your chest tightened with the weight of the words, but you forced yourself to say them anyway. Your throat knotted with tears.

“When you were drunk. You said it all the way home. A-And you clung to me and...and I- I hate myself, you know that? Because..." You swallowed. "When...when you said it, I actually believed you for a second. I wanted to believe you. I wanted to hear it. I needed to hear it. After everything, I thought maybe, just maybe, you were finally reciprocating my feelings.”

Chan's chest constricted as he saw you look at him. 

"YN-ah..."

You swallowed hard pressing the heels of your hands to your eyes.

“But I’m so stupid, Chris. I’m so fucking stupid for even considering that you meant it. Because you didn’t, did you? You were drunk, and you probably didn’t even know what you were saying. Theres no way you could have meant that...right? And I hate myself because I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, things could be different between us. That maybe you could be more than my friend but- but it was so final when I confessed and I know that. I know it's not like that between us, that it can't be-"

By this point your emotions were getting a hold of you and Chris quickly pulled on the pants he thrown to the side in habit last night, ignoring the dizziness and deep throb that hit his frontal lobe as he made is way towards you. 

He wrapped his arms around you as you cried.

“You don’t know how hard it is to love someone who doesn’t love you back, though. To stand there, day after day, giving every piece of yourself, hoping one day that they’ll see you. The same way. The same way you see them." You sobbed into his chest, your tears slicking it. "And when you say things like that, when you tell me you love me…it makes me feel like a fool. I feel like I’m the joke, like I’m being played with. And that’s on me, isn’t it? Because you already told me you couldn't - didn't.”

You tried pulling back but Chan held you to his chest.

"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..." He murmured, running his hand through your hair.

“I can’t do this. I can’t let you come in and out of my life, like it’s nothing. I told myself I wouldn’t take you back. Not even as a friend. Because I can’t keep wanting to give when you can’t even reciprocate. I can’t keep putting myself in a situation where I’m constantly drained by someone who isn't capable of loving me the way I love them.”

Chris swallowed, and the one thought that came to the forefront of his mind-

I can.

I...

Do.

He realized that here, holding you.

But he couldn't admit it in a setting like this.

Your voice broke with the weight of everything you had been holding in, and you almost couldn’t say the next part, as you pulled back. “Do you know how much it hurts to wait for something that’ll never come?”

"I regret it. Everyday, I regret it Y/N-ah."

Why was I so fucking dumb? Did I ruin what could have been? Why am I only realizing now Y/N is all I want. All I need.

"Every. Single. Day. I swear on it."

You stood there, trying to draw in a shaky breath. 

"I was wrong, to say that. To lie so easily." Chan let out. "It's only obvious that I was lying to myself now. And I don't know how to fix this. I want to. But I don't know how." He bit his lips nervously, as you guys stared at each other for a moment.

You shook your head, tears finally threatening to fall as you met his eyes.

His brown eyes harbored much too many emotions that you had the capacity to unravel at the moment.

“I...can't do this right now." You shook your head. "I need to think and..." You swallowed. "I just...give me time, okay?"

Chan pursed his lips then opened them to say something more, but you shook your head.

"Please."

"Of course." He whispered.

As you made your way into your room to grab your jacket and make your way outside for a walk you hesitated. 

"I...won't ghost you this time." You licked the tears off your lips. You turned to look at him.  "I shouldn't have to begin with. I'm sorry."

"You promise?" He asked quietly.

It seemed as if you were back in time. The night that was catalyst for some of the most miserable weeks of your life. 

You nodded once. "Cross my heart."

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@abovenyx @wolfs-archive @oddracha @iyeeeverydee @parisanmorovati @seungmincenteric @panbish-1209 @fxiry-vtt @sseawavee @shuporanporang @amarecerasus @softkisshyunjin @whoa-jo @meanergreener @rikibun @ayyonoona @shinywombatcrusade @y4yayael @skzstan12345 @mariteez @allys-reads @jazziwritesthings @skzstannie @yongbokkiesworld @kkkeopi @neverendingstay @moony-9 @minsungsthirdwheel @everlastingspring143 @joyofbebbanburg @leezanetheofficial @tr-mha-fan @bubbly-moon @night-storm7 @missmajdastark @axel-skz @rockstarkkami @emilyywhyy @my-neurodivergent-world @notastraykid @vietjeb @laughatdanger @shuporanglinos @getyoassoutthetrunk @laine2353 @juliettejwnewinesa @lililixie @captainchrisstan

[trafalgarlawsfeathercoat]

Survivor’s Guilt

based on some MESSED UP (i loved it) art i saw on here (like this and THIS that made me cry)

WC: 895

CW: death, suicidal thoughts, religious imagery (i HC law as a former catholic because of the nuns on Flevance idk)

-

Trafalgar D. Water Law learned very early on that everything and everyone he loved would eventually be ripped away from him, washed away like footprints in the sand by high tide.

He was born to live this checkered life, cursed by the middle initial forced upon him at birth. He had no choice, no say in the matter. They say the Clan of D were meant to bring the Dawn, to usher in a new age, but all Law wanted to bring about was some peace and quiet. Just for a single moment.

But that was apparently too much to ask for.

Law craved nothing more than the everlasting promise of death as he tripped over the still bodies of his friends and family, corpses piling up with every step he took, but he was urged on by a will not of his own. He had to keep going. He must keep going.

He trudged along reluctantly, day after day. Life wasn’t so cruel as to only deal him bad hands- no, they had the audacity to give him hope every once in a while. A light at the end of the tunnel before that tunnel caved in too.

Being saved by Cora-san, meeting Shachi, Penguin and Bepo on Swallow Island, forming the Heart Pirates, his tentative friendshi- alliance with Straw Hat and his crew. All these moments deluded him into believing that maybe, just maybe, he could dare to dream of a better life. A happy life, even.

Law didn’t have any lofty ambitions such as becoming King of the Pirates like his Worst Generation rivals, contrary to what others believed about him. What could a place called ‘Laughtale’ offer a man like him anyways? Up until recently, he lived for the singular purpose of fulfilling his savior’s wishes, but he couldn’t even do that right. For as many messes as he had to clean up for others, Law could argue he left behind more.

Left behind. The one thing he could count on being.

The hands that touched him all faded into a distant memory, specters that haunted him whenever he closed his eyes at night. They called out to him like a siren’s song, caressing his face as they asked why he wasn’t strong enough to save them. It was no wonder Law gave up on sleeping a long time ago.

He closed his eyes now, begging to the higher powers he no longer believed in to please, please, finally grant him this one mercy. Salty sea water flooded his lungs as his body lost all its’ capabilities, any energy he had left after facing Blackbeard sucked dry as he was dragged deeper below the surface. This was all his fault. Law should have known better than to have hope for the future, to have deluded himself into thinking things were finally going according to plan.

Damn that man in the Straw Hat for giving him something to believe in back in Wano. He should have known better. There was no God; that’s why the nuns of White Town were all dead.

In the depths of the murky water, faces began to appear behind his eyelids. The other school children, begging him to come with them to safety. His parents, love shining in their eyes as they reached out their hands. Lami, looking up at him with so much trust and adoration. Cora-san and his stupid, crooked smile.

‘Wait for me, I’m coming.’ Law thought as his body sunk lower and lower beneath the waves. He could finally go home, after all this time.

As the abyss called out to him, so did another voice.

“Captain! Captain, please! You can’t die!” It wailed.

Law was suddenly pulled back above the water, dragged by the collar of his shirt to safety. He wrenched his eyes shut even harder, refusing to open them and accept reality. He had been ready to rescind the borrowed time he’d been living on since Flevance if it meant never having to deal with the loss of his loved ones again. He coughed once, twice, expelling the foreign liquid from his body as a large paw pounded on his back repeatedly.

“Bepo.” Law groaned out miserably, recognizing the Mink’s cries anywhere.

“Bepo, we have to go back.” He pleaded pathetically, his desperation apparent. Law didn't have to open his eyes to know that they were the only ones here, wherever ‘here’ was. There was no use pretending to be strong anymore, for he no longer had a crew to be strong for.

“I’m not going back! Trust them, Captain!” The Polar Bear Mink refused Law’s orders outright.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his crew, it was that he didn’t trust the world. History was repeating itself as it always did.

Law threw himself backwards onto the sandy beach they’d washed up on, shrugging off Bepo’s attempts at comfort with more force than necessary. It was only a matter of time before he was dead too.

He should’ve known better than to let anyone in, to think for a second he could walk through life anything less than alone. He should have known better than to hope that this time, surely, he could be happy.

Once again, Trafalgar D. Water Law was alive while everyone around him faded into dust. After all, the weak don’t get to choose how they die, do they?

[izzysarchivedblogs]

THERE'S A LOT OF HABITS AND NON-HABITS HE SHOULD BE FORMING AND NOT FORMING.

Clint knows somewhere in the realm of the back of his skull that they didn't needed to maintain a barrier of being roommates and friends first, and Clint not ending up sleeping in Tony's bed every night because as much as they flirt they were not a couple living together but friends.

It had just been a major day, first full day out of rehab, with all the mood swings and serious conversations with Tony about the status of them and the importance of Clint's sobriety recovery remaining as the center focus of these next few months. On top of that, struggle with calling therapy offices, than first aa meeting and running into Carol and it's all a lot that chalked it up to an emotional rollercoaster of a day and having the extra comfort was helpful.

The next few nights he would go back to sleeping in his own bedroom like he had when they landed the other day. As mobility returned to him, he would do something about the rotten bow laying in spoil, and fix his relationship with the object as well as figure out what his whole physical therapy and workout routine because he needed to stay on top of the archery game.

He's the better archer than Kate was, not the better Hawkeye. There's a distinction there even if Hawkeye and archer is synonymous to many people. To keep at his mastery level of all his skills, he needed to get back to keeping at them.

DEVELOP BACK GOOD HABITS AND ROUTINES. Not develop bad ones and screw up this promise of a future he could be having.

The sleep that he had was long, good, and absolutely dead. No dreams, no nightmare, no thoughts, no worries. IT WAS SLEEP. Something he had been crucially needing, but it does get interrupted when the bed starts to move more than the dip he had felt somewhere in the vague realm of earlier (tony getting up out of bed), and persists for a few moments that he realizes it's his promised alarm system.

Bed shaking, moving, and that means he's got to get up to stop it. Reminder to self to have either his bed shaker from home brought here, or simply get a new one for his bed here. Fall back into the routine that he had been in at rehab, but sleeping in and sleeping late felt so nice these two days so far. DON'T MAKE IT HABIT.

He rubs at his eyes, getting the sleep out of them and sees a harness strapped to Tony's chest. He squints before he finger spells « B-R-A-N-D-Y? » and than moves to get up. Stretches himself out, he's a little wobbly on standing on his leg and maybe he should still use the wheelchair until Doc Randy clears him to stand on it and/or give him crutches to work with.

To confirm his own question, he does see little arms and legs wiggle from Tony's back. Clint grabs his hearing aids, but doesn't put them in because he should definitely shower first and get ready. « I shower. Get ready. » He looks at the plate of food on the bedside next to his hearing aids and snorts, rolling his eyes. « You did NOT make that. I will eat in kitchen. » Admonishing Tony nearly as immediately, there is no way he could have learnt to cook over night, right?

He tries to be as careful as he can with walking, which his knee feels like it was alright and goes to take care of himself. Picking out fresh clothes from his room, and reminding Tony that he will shout really loud if he needs help in the shower. Breakfast in bed was nice, but he's clear headed this morning. THAT SLEEP WAS REALLY NEEDED.

And this morning he can respond to the siren call of coffee for pleasure than need of being awake.

HE'S FAST AS HE CAN BE WITHOUT MESSING THE LEG. Back down the elevator to the kitchen within about twenty minutes, and stops to wave at the Avengers team baby (definitely one of the weirder but perhaps more delightful things that the Avengers have ever taken on in their long, convoluted history).

❝ How is the little Miss today? ❞ He asks with his mouthful of food, not even bothering to finish chewing as he sip his coffee as well. Upswing of mood. Wiggling his fingers toward her and smiling, who didn't like babies? ❝ You're growing more hair on your head, nice goldilocks, huh? ❞

Clint goes sad again. Tony's not totally surprised, except for how fast it happened. These swings would be regular for a while and Clint's very tired.

Clint tells him his plan for tomorrow. Tony will let it happen. Tomorrow. Clint needs to not get in the habit of sleeping all morning either. But it had been a big day and tomorrow would too. So he'd let him sleep.

He gets up, and just leaves the dishes in the sink, instead helping Clint get up to bed. They climb in together and Tony holds him without question. He doesn't even think about it. Maybe they needed to not get in this habit either, but tonight was one time, and they both wanted it.

The next morning he slipped out early and showered. He went down and got coffee and went straight to the lab. Immediately working of the cast for Clint. Cutting out the drawings and cleaning off the fabric. He waxed it and then set it in resin and as it set, he went to work on his actual work.

It as a productive morning, not just because of how much work he got done, but also because not once did he worry about whether he was doing the wrong thing by Clint. He felt good enough about where they were to set it aside for now.

At ten Carol dropped off Brandy. He played with her for a while and then as it neared when Clint needed to wake up, he ordered a brunch to be delivered. He decided to be a complete smart ass and he plated it as if he made it, making Clint coffee as well.

He carried it upstairs, with Brandy strapped to his back, and set it down on the bedside table and began to shake the bed next to Clint to wake him.

[queenquinzel715]

Part1 story

2.2 Demon Toran/ Siren reader

Word count 1,245

Part 2

Toran P.O.V.

        She of course is my mate, but I can't be hers. I can't hurt her like everyone else in my life. I can sense Jule in the library, so I walk inside, closing the door behind me. Jule is sitting at a desk, looking over a book.

"Did you know she is my mate when you signed me to be her guard?" I immediately ask.

"Yes." He answers after a deep sigh. "I can't disturb the fate of mates."

"Jule, you know I can't be her mate, so why push us together?"

"I didn't push. I promised her mother to guard her with my best guard, and that happens to be you. I don't see the problem." He stands to put the book away.

"If I lost her I…" I rub my hand over my face. "Jule I just can't."

''Toran, ever since we were kids, you have been the toughest person I know, and that's why you are an important person to me. I've seen you defeat dragons, but now you are scared of happiness." He shakes his head as he stands in front of me. "Well you better hurt her quickly, because I'm unlocking her power tomorrow." He says with a neutral voice.

"She's been through enough." I grumble.

"Then be a man, and go to your mate. Many of us don't get that opinion." He mumbles the last part before leaving the library.

Y/n P.O.V.

       I woke this morning to a maid trying to be as quiet as she can while setting a tray down before lightly stepping out. While I walk to the table I notice Toran isn't here, so I thought maybe he was in the hall. I slowly open the door to look around the empty hall. I get dressed after eating breakfast, and sit for Toran to come. I sat there for an hour before coming to the conclusion he wasn't coming. I remember King Jule telling me the library is next to my room, so I suppose I'll just stay in there today. Maybe I could find something on hybrids.

        I'm stopped in my tracks when I see Toran asleep on the smallest couch I've ever seen, could've been him just making it look that way. I didn't want to bother him, so I just went to the catalog. He must have really needed the rest if he's still sleeping. Looking through the S,W,H and D drawers to find any books that could help. After finding only one book on sirens, a handful of witch history, and a couple of books on hybrids.

        I'm about to reach a demon book when a core tightening growl echoes through the library, and then the doors slamming. I slowly walk to the end of the bookshelf, and notice Toran is gone.

"He must have sensed me here." I mumble to myself.

        With a deep breath I walk to the desk. Where I've started my own collection of books, and as I sit I grab the hybrid book. I'm not even halfway through the fourth page when the library door is broken down. A frantic Toran looked around, causing me to drop  my book to the floor. This caused his attention to snap on me. I sit there in shock as he stomps toward me. He gently grabs my cheeks, making me look up at him, and even though his body is still tense his face softens. He looks me over before letting me go.

"How long have you been in here?" He asks softly.

"An...an hour or so before you woke up." I stutter.

"You should've woken me, love." He sighs as he looks at me. 

"I didn't think I should have. I was just looking for my books." I tell him the, almost, truth. "Why did you growl when you woke up?" I couldn't stop myself from asking.

"I realized I overslept, and didn't want you roaming by yourself." He seems honest.

"And you probably don't want to get in trouble with King Jule." I try to joke with a smile, but he seems confused. "You know… with being my guard you're supposed to stay on top." I stumble to explain.

       He gives me a smirk before walking over to the broken door, and moving the pieces as he orders the other guards to get another door. I try to continue reading, but I can't help watching his arms move as he works. When he looks over at me I almost break my neck to make it seem I wasn't watching him. I did pick up some things as I skimmed the pages. I won't be able to actually learn to control myself until I unlock everything. I slump in the chair in defeat.

"Love, King Jule needs to see you in his work area." Toran tells me from the doorway.

        I follow him out, stopping to tell the other guards to send the rest of the books to my room. As I walk beside him it hits me he's been calling me love. Who knows if he realizes he's been calling me that? We walk into a greenhouse where King Jule is grinding things then mixing it into a mug. Once he looks up he smiles at us.

"Please sit (y/n) I have to discuss something with you." We sit across from each other at the little garden table. "I think it would be best to unlock your true power now instead of waiting." He tells me.

"I feel the same. I've been reading in the library this morning, and learned that since I'm a hybrid I could get more of the siren side or the witch side." I shrug in defeat.

"(Y/n) if you're ready then I need you to go to your room, and drink this entire mug. That's when you'll sleep for the rest of the day, and wake as it gets dark." He informs me.

"When I drink this, if I have a mate close by would they feel me around?" I worryingly ask.

"They would, or if you met them already it will strengthen the bond to be almost complete." He informs me, and I look to Toran.

"I suppose we should get ready." I sigh as I pick the mug up.

       We stand up to follow King Jule, but Toran stops me as King Jule keeps walking.

"I'll be there when you wake up." He promises.

"You don't have to stay with me if you don't want to be."

     He looks me in the eyes before kissing my forehead, and guides me to my room. Where King Jule is sitting on the couch waiting for us. Toran stood next to the bed as I got comfortable, and handed me the mug while softly rubbing two fingers on my cheek. I down the sour liquid that tastes like tea with too much lemon, and get the mug to Toran. I grab his hand as he goes to sit next to King Jule.

"Can you sit here until I fall asleep? I'm kinda nervous." I softly ask him.

       He simply sits on the edge of the bed, keeping hold of my hand, and rubbing his thumb on the back of my hand. I started to feel a headache forming in the back of my head as my stomach twists. I squeeze Toran's hand as everything goes black.

~Part 3 in the works~

[nastybuckybarnes]

In a Heartbeat  -  Six

Pairing: Fireman!Bucky X Reader 

Summary: You’ve always been careful with your heart. With your condition, you don’t exactly have any other choice. The last time you let someone in, you paid the price. A price you don’t plan on paying again. Until Bucky comes in and shatters your carefully crafted world.

Warnings: Fluff, Language, Implied Smut, Angst, Injuries, Angst,

Word Count: 2.9K

A/n: hi here’s the second last part! I hope you guys enjoy. I’m in a weird place mentally right now because there’s been so much going on in my family life that I have no idea how to process. But I hope you guys enjoy this because I really enjoyed writing it. We will have one more part and then this series will be finished!!!

Series Masterlist

~*~

The smell of coffee pulls you from your sleep.

Eyelids flutter open and you’re confused for a moment until you remember last night. A small smile spreads across your face and you stretch in Bucky’s bed, taking note of the sore spots on your body.

You push yourself to a seated position and take a look around the room.

Bucky’s gone, but you can hear him rummaging around in the kitchen.

You slowly leave the bed and walk to the bathroom, stopping on your way to pick up your discarded clothes.

After you’ve finished, you make your way to the kitchen, your heart filling with warmth when you see him.

He’s got his bare back to you as he prepares something, wearing nothing more than a pair of sweatpants.

“Morning,” you whisper, trying not to startle him. He glances over his shoulder and smiles at you. “Good morning.” You walk over to him, wrapping your arms around his torso and pressing a kiss to his shoulder.

He stops whatever he was doing and holds your hands, leaning into your touch and sighing.

“How’d you sleep last night?” He asks after a moment of silence, pulling a pan off of the hot element then turning around to look at you.

You smile up at him and he swears his heart melts.

You're so beautiful. Glowing and angelic in the early morning sunlight peeking through a partially opened window.

“Not too bad at all.” He smiles, leaning down to press a soft and sweet kiss to your lips.

“Yeah, same here. Got far more sleep than I should’ve, though,” he murmurs, trailing kisses down your neck. A soft sigh slips past your lips and your head falls back, granting him more access.

His hands find your hips and he hoists you up onto the counter, knocking a glass off and sending it shattering to the floor.

“Jesus!” You exclaim, jumping at the sound and hitting your forehead against Bucky’s. The two of you groan, the brunet’s eyes widening with fear.

“I’m sorry!” He exclaims, looking between the broken glass, your face, and your chest as if to see if your heart’s about to give out.

You smile softly at him and cup his cheeks gently, pulling his face up until he’s looking at you.

“It’s okay, James. I promise I’m not as fragile as you think. I can handle a few loud noises.”

He sighs and bumps his nose against yours a few times before lowering his head to the crook of your neck.

“I just don’t want anything to happen to you. I worry about you, (Y/n).” You wrap your arms around his torso tightly, one hand finding its way into his hair to massage his scalp.

“I worry about you too. Of the two of us, I think you’re more at risk than I am.” He chuckles against your clavicle and shakes his head, pressing his lips against your skin while mumbling “it’s not a competition to see who’ll die first.” Then he pulls away to stand upright and look at you with those piercing blue eyes of his.

“But just because my line of work is dangerous doesn’t ever mean that I don’t worry about you.” You lean up and kiss him softly, ending the conversation as your lips move more passionately against his.

He pulls away after a long moment, eyes dark and lips kiss-swollen.

“You stay up here while I clean this up. Then... how about we take this to the bedroom?” You nod, bottom lip pulled between your teeth as you watch his muscles flex while he cleans up the broken glass.

~*~

You sit in front of your apartment in Bucky’s truck, his hand in yours as the two of you talk about your heart.

“I’m not as fragile as you think I am, James,” you reiterate for the thousandth time. He sighs, thumb rubbing over the back of your hand.

“I just want you to be safe, doll. I want what’s best for you.” His words anger you far more than they should and you pull your hand from his grasp.

“I wish everyone would stop assuming that they know what I need. Everyone always thinks that they know what’s best for me but they don't! I know what’s best for me. I’m sick of being treated like a child because of my illness. I just want someone to take my side for once and let me be me and live my life the way I want to! Is that really so much to ask?!”

Your outburst has your heart beating hard and, as if sensing that, Bucky tries desperately to defuse the situation.

“Doll, I do have your side, I just-”

“No! That should be it! If you had my side you wouldn’t be justifying treating me like a child, James.” He frowns, reaching for your hand only for you to pull it out of reach.

“I-I’m just gonna go.” You leave his truck without another word, frustrated and flustered but not willing to go back on what you said.

He sits in front of your building, three little words on the tip of his tongue and absolutely flabbergasted with the way the day has taken a turn. Things started off so well this morning.

You rake your hands through your hair, glancing at your phone as it starts to ring.

You can’t talk to him right now. Maybe later, but not right now.

Half an hour later, Natasha is blowing up your phone too.

You don’t want to talk to them.

You feel like shit for blowing up on Bucky like that but you needed to get your point across. All your life you’ve been treated like a child, even into adulthood. Nat hovers around you like a mother hen and now Bucky’s doing the same.

It absolutely isn’t unreasonable of you to want them to treat you like an equal. As much as they say that you’re more than your illness, you know that they still see it whenever they look at you, and you absolutely hate that.

~*~

“Miss (Y/l/n), can I use the washroom?” You glance over at the little girl before smiling softly.

“Not until Tommy comes back, Sammy. We can’t have too many of you out at one time, okay?” She nods, thumb in her mouth as she resumes her colouring.

You’re doing your rounds, making sure all the students are doing well when the blaring of the fire alarm goes off.

A few kids scream in fear, but you shush them quickly, eyes finding Wanda’s as ice shoots through your veins.

You’re not supposed to have a fire drill today.

“Okay everyone, single file. Follow me. Leave everything where it is, okay? We’ve gotta get out just like we always practiced. Right outside onto the field, c’mon,” Wanda says, standing up and leading the way out of the classroom. You stay at the back, waiting until all the children are out of the room before closing the door and following after them.

You descend the stairs, dark clouds of smoke already filling the hallways and making kids cry.

The school is hectic and chaotic as all the teachers try to get their students to safety.

As you reach the field you stop dead in your tracks, looking at Wanda with wide eyes.

“Tommy’s in the bathroom,” you whisper, horror plain as day on your face as you turn back to the burning building.

Smoke is pouring out of a few open windows, and the last few people are trickling out, some of them crying, some of them laughing, thinking it’s a game.

Sirens fill the air but you’re already running back to the building, knowing he’d be far too terrified to leave the safety of the bathroom.

“(Y/n) no! Wait for the fire department!” She shouts, but it’s too late. You’re already back in the building, a wall of heat slamming into you.

You take a few careful breaths then take the stairs two at a time in your haste to find the boy.

Your heart is already beating far too fast, you know that, but you can’t stop. Not now. Even as the smoke rises and the air gets stuffier you continue up the stairs.

Tommy’s somewhere in the burning building and you’re not going to leave him.

“Tommy!” You shout, squinting as a cloud of black clouds your vision right as you reach the second floor.

You crouch down, pulling the hem of your blouse up to cover your mouth and nose. It’s both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it prevents smoke inhalation, but on the other hand, it’s preventing you from getting the oxygen you need.

“Tommy!” You try again, pushing your way through the familiar halls until you get to the boys’ bathroom.

You hear faint crying and you swear your heart shatters in your chest.

“Tommy!” You push into the bathroom and find Tommy cowering against the far wall, tears staining his cheeks.

“M-Miss (Y/l/n)!” He scrambles to his feet and launches himself at you, hugging you around your waist and sobbing against your chest. You kneel down with him, hugging him tightly and rubbing his back.

“I-I didn't know wh-what to d-do and I was s-scared!” He cries, sniffling against you and holding onto you for dear life.

“Shh, it’s okay. I’m here. You’re okay. But we need to leave. Do you remember what your daddy told you about fires? Cause I’m gonna need you to be my personal fireman, okay?” He sniffles a few times then nods, pulling away to wipe the tears from his eyes and take a few deep breaths.

“Alright. Let’s go.” You push out of the bathroom and are instantly hit with intense heat and the stench of smoke.

You push Tommy’s head down and as out of the smoke as you can and lift your other hand to shield your eyes as you try to find an exit.

The staircase has been engulfed by the fire, the flames devouring the only exit besides a window. But those are bolted shut to prevent any accidents.

Your chest tightens and your vision blurs, heart hammering much too hard in your chest. Your ears begin to ring and your knees buckle and you know you need your pills. Or at the very least, you need to sit down.

“The art room! It has the big windows and the heavy doors! Daddy says that heavy doors block out the smoke better!” You nod and follow him into the art room, collapsing on your knees as soon as the door is closed. You can’t breathe. The air just won’t find your lungs.

“C’mon miss (Y/l/n)! The window! We need to break it cause then they can hear us.” He grabs your hand and yanks with all his might, and his determination is enough to have you forcing yourself to your feet and banging on the window with as much strength as you can muster.

Tommy’s pounding against it with all his might, and you can’t help the tears that finally fall down your cheeks as your legs give out.

“Keep trying, Tommy,” you rasp, chest aching and heart pounding. He looks at you in complete fear, not sure what to do.

“Miss (Y/l/n)?” He asks softly, crouching down next to you as you cough softly. You take a few slow breaths, your heart stuttering in your chest.

“Keep going, Tommy. You’ve got this. You’re a fireman, just like your daddy and your Uncle Bucky.” Bucky. More tears fall down your cheeks at the thought of him.

Your eyes fall closed, head lolling to the side as the last of your energy leaves you.

You wish you could apologize to him. Tell him that you love him, that you appreciate everything he does for you.

The ringing in your ears grows until it’s deafening. Until the sound consumes you and pulls you gently into darkness.

~*~

The fire bell rings and the men are all on their feet, grabbing their gear and pulling it on as swiftly as they can.

“Rogers! I want you to sit this one out,” Chief Fury says, his arms crossed over his chest. The men all slow for just a moment before resuming their haste, Steve the only exception.

“What? Why?” He’s never been asked to sit out of a job before. Fury waits until the other men have piled into the firetruck.

“Now, it could very well be nothing but the call... it’s for the elementary school. I know your little one goes there and I can’t have you on the cal- Rogers!” Steve’s got his suit on and he’s in the truck in record time, jaw clenched hard and hands balled into tight fists.

The men are silent, having pieced it together and not wanting to argue with their captain.

Steve will take the heat from Fury after. All that matters is making sure his son is safe.

Almost as if realizing that there’s not one, but two people emotionally invested in this case, the eyes turn to Bucky. The brunet has his own eyes pinned between his boots, fingers of his flesh hand trembling slightly.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Sam whispers, his usual joking demeanour long gone.

The rest of the ride is silent, but as soon as they pull up to the school the men are jumping out and Steve is barking orders at them.

“Sam, you go make sure the building’s empty. Buck, you-” but the brunet is sprinting over to Wanda, a look of desperation on his face when he sees the tears on hers.

“Where is she?” He demands, his chest heaving and his entire world on the brink of collapsing.

“Sh-she went back inside to find Tommy. They never c-came back out.” He stumbles back a step, directly into Steve who waits impatiently for the news.

“She went in to find him,” Bucky whispers, the world around him going quiet as he turns and focuses solely on the burning building, searching for any possible sign of you.

Steve’s face falls, his heart crumbles and his whole world shatters.

“Tommy.”

The two race to the building only to be stopped by Sam and Clint.

“Entire entrance and staircase are up. There’s no way to get in there unless we break a window.”

Steve takes a few careful breaths then nods.

“Work on getting it as contained as possible. We’ve got at least two still inside.” Sam’s heart hurts for the blond as he races around the building like a chicken with his head cut off.

“Tommy!” He shouts, hands cupped around his mouth to amplify his voice.

“Wait, Steve! Look!” Bucky points to a spot on the side of the building where a second thinner stream of smoke is leaving the building, this one in a different direction than the others.

A second opening in the building.

The two are running to investigate, and Steve’s heart bubbles.

“Tommy!” The little boy is crying in the broken window, head completely out to suck in as much fresh air as he can.

“Daddy!”

“Hold on, Tommy! We’re gonna get you!” He drops his head to his radio and calls for the truck to be pulled around.

“Daddy, Miss (Y/l/n) won’t wake up!” The little boy cries, his face dirty with tears and ash.

Bucky can’t breathe. He thinks he might be sick.

He’s definitely going to be sick.

He stumbles away from the building, away from the people and anyone who can see him and collapses on his knees, dry heaving into the grass while the others pull the truck around.

Steve's up the ladder and at the window, telling his son to move out of the way so he can break the window further.

“C’mon Buck. We’ve got a job to do. C’mon.” Sam helps him to his feet and Bucky nods, grinding his teeth together in a pathetic attempt at hiding his tears.

“Sam! Come give me a hand!” Steve’s voice says through the radio. Bucky follows to the truck, mind numb, body numb, and ears ringing.

“She’s in here, but her pulse is sporadic. We’ve gotta get her out now.” That lights a fire under the brunets ass and he’s nearly throwing himself to the truck right as Steve starts climbing down, Tommy clinging like a koala to his back with one arm, the other wrapped in a sloppy sling.

The ambulances are ready, lights flashing and stretchers at the ready.

Steve rushes his son over, his oxygen mask pressed against the six-year-old’s face.

“Set him down, c’mon.” He does as instructed and takes a half-step back to allow the paramedics room to inspect him.

Bucky’s eyes move from his nephew up to the window where Sam disappeared, his heart in his throat as he finally sees movement.

Sam emerges, his oxygen mask on your face and your limp body strewn over his shoulder.

A familiar head of red hair is pushing a stretcher right to the ambulance, ready to take your body as soon as Sam’s down.

He lays you down carefully and Bucky’s immediately at your side, tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Buck, give us some space, okay?” Nat whispers, her voice fully professional, though he can see the pain in her eyes. He takes a deep breath but nods, stepping back and watching as you get rolled away.

A hand is on his shoulder and he glances over at the person.

“C’mon. We’ve got a fire to put out.”

[aubreyprc]

The Call

summary - emily gets hurt, hotch can’t let her go.

word count - 2.2k (i am currently taking requests. find the prompts here! feel free to leave a plot as well as dialogue if you so choose!!)

It was supposed to be a simple, easy day. A day off. Their day off. Spent under the covers. Spent watching her walk through his home as if she belongs there, because she does. They were supposed to spend it wrapped up together in his sheets, whispering small confessions, promises of a future, smiles and chaste kisses.

Instead he spends it holding her body closer to him while she struggles for breath, gripping at her hand, whispering small pleads for more time through tears while she chokes, gasping for air that just will not reach her lungs.

Instead of spending their day off wrapped up in each other he spends it begging her to hold on before she’s whisked away, sirens and muffled voices surrounding him as he watches the blue lights fade into the distance while he’s pushed into the back of an SUV, his teams voices sounding far away as they rush to their own vehicles.

“I should have ignored the call.” he mutters to himself, staring down at the blood covering his hands, his shirt. “I should have..” he trails off, staring at the hand that latches in his and he turns, JJ’s eyes burning into his, the same pain he feels reflecting back at him.

“She’s going to be okay.” She whispers, a smile on her face as tears roll down her cheek.

Both of their eyes drop to his hands, ones that are coated red with her blood, and he swallows.

Is she?

Twelve Hours Ago

He wakes first, the soft light of the sun poking through the blinds interrupting his peaceful slumber. He peels an eye open slowly, staring daggers at the harsh light as though he could force it to disappear. He turns his head towards the alarm, the early hours of the morning staring back at him as he groans, turning onto his side away from the window and draping an arm gently over the sleeping woman next him, still peacefully resting as she faces him, her hair spread out across the pillow, thin small strands tumbling down her face. He can’t help but smile, gently brushing away the hairs from her face while he looks at her, as he does every morning that he wakes before her. And just like those mornings, her eyes flutter open at the feel of his gaze and he smiles.

“Stop staring at me.” she mumbles, her voice groggy as she closes her eyes once again, sleep still calling her back under. “It’s our day off.” she tells him, her lip curving upwards as she feels his soft fingers trace her arm. “Go back to sleep. Embrace it.”

He goes to protest when she moves, curling her body into his chest and he smiles, resting his chin on her head as his arm wraps around her and he can’t help but close his eyes, drifting back to sleep once again a few moments later, the feel of her in his arms enough to send him back under peacefully.

She wakes up first a few hours later, still safely wrapped in his hold, his arm across her waist and she smiles, tilting her head to find him still asleep, his face peaceful as he rests. Slowly, she moves out of his arms, picking up his shirt from the bedroom floor and tiptoeing to the bathroom. Appearing from the room a few moments later, buttoning his shirt over her small frame she looks at him once more, smiling as she watches him sleep peacefully, something he had only started doing recently, no longer clouded by night terrors that pulled him awake during the night, no longer awake at dawn and unable to fall back under, he now rests, completely, and she can’t help but smile as he does.

Emily pads over to the kitchen, pulling out two mugs as she boils the kettle, looking out of the window as the day starts, she glances at the clock at rolls her eyes as eight o’clock stares back at her, cursing their jobs for their unpredictable sleeping pattern, and their inability to sleep in; The whistle of the kettle is was pulls her out of her thoughts.

Grabbing both cups of coffee she walks back into the bedroom, smirking as she finds him waking up, his arms stretched over his face. She sits on the bed, her legs tucked under her as she sips on her coffee.

“Good morning.” she smiles as he sits up, taking the coffee from her with a grin before leaning towards her, catching her lips in his.

“Good morning,” he whispers as she smiles into their kiss, “You look good in my shirt.”

“So you’ve told me.” she grins as he pulls away, “Many times.”

“And as I will continue to do.” Aaron smirks back, sipping his coffee. “Seeing as it’s our day off I assume I have the luxury of seeing you in this attire all day?”

“Hm.” she shrugs, eyeing him over her cup as she looks at him, “Maybe a little less if you’re lucky.”

He laugh, nodding his head as he smirks back at her, taking her hand and slowly leading her into his arms, as her back rests on his chest he smiles, kissing her temple as she leans into his side.

“I love you.” he whispers, watching as she smiles shyly, dipping her head before tilting to face him.

“I love you too.” she whispers back, pressing her lips into his, smiling as his arm wraps around her front.

His phone rings at half twelve and it makes the two of them groan in contempt. Sighing, she pulls her lips from his and drops it into his shoulder while he chuckles, running his fingers up her spine.

“Ignore it.” she tells him, turning her head and running a finger down his cheek. “It’s our day off.”

“Emily...” he says, laughing as she lifts her head up, looking down at him. He goes to speak again, but instead is silenced by her kiss.

“Ignore it.” she whispers as the phone stops ringing, he catches her lips in his again, dragging his fingers across her shoulders as he rakes his fingers through her hair.

The phone rings again and she groans, rolling off him and flopping onto her back, rolling her eyes as he chuckles, throwing an arm over her gently while he grabs the phone.

“Hotchner.” he says, looking at Emily as she sits up, resting her chin on his shoulder while he talks.

“It’s my teams day off, I don’t know if-” he says, just as displeased with the distribution, “Yes I understand that but surely there must be another team that-” he stops again, the voice on the other line over taking, he rubs a hand over his face then and Emily fake cries, dropping her forehead onto his shoulder as she pouts.

“Really?” she asks as he puts the phone down.

“Unfortunately.” he replies, “Something about a warehouse and a kidnapping. D.C task force asked for us specifically.”

“Maybe we should all just stop being good at our jobs, we’d get a day off.” she comments as he stands, grabbing her hands and lifting her off the bed with a dramatic huff.

“I’ll call JJ.” he says, “Coffee?” he asks on his way out of the bedroom and she nods, before walking into the bathroom.

It all falls apart pretty quickly after that. Four armed unsubs, three girls held hostage, all have been in captivity for over a week. After an hour of discussion and back and fourth with the armed men, a decision is made.

“We’ve got three snipers on the roof of the surrounding buildings, all have clear visuals through the windows but can’t make the shot without hurting the girls. We need someone in there, a distraction, as soon as the girls are out of shot my guys can take the men down.”

“All three girls at brunettes, dark eyes, slim.” One of the task force agents say and everyone’s eyes move to Emily, who stares straight back. “He has a type.”

“Which is exactly why she shouldn’t go in.” Morgan says protectively, “Sure they’ll loose their hold on the girls with enough time for at least one sniper to act but the minute one falls it’s over. They’ll take everyone down with them.”

“I’ll go in,” Emily says, looking back at the building, “I don’t think we have another choice.”

“There’s always another choice.” Aaron tells her, “You can’t go in there.”

“The girls have been in there for almost ten days.” she replies, “Do you have another option?”

“You’re not going in.” he tells her, his voice stern but only she catches the fear behind it, the way his voice shakes as he looks at her with pleading eyes, eyes that beg her please not do this but all she can do look back at him apologetically, already knowing there is no other options. That she has to do this.

“Emily are you sure?” Morgan asks her. Shifting her eyes from Aaron and back to the group she nods.

“You guys better have my back.” she tells the task force, who nod.

“Snipers are at the ready. The minute they turn their backs you grab the girls and you run.”

“This is far too risky.” Hotch says as he shakes his head, “They’re armed. There’s no way she can grab three teenage girls and run out of there-”

“Not alone.” Morgan tells her, “But in a pair it’s easier. One of the unsubs get shot by the sniper, they’re distracted, the girls have the opportunity to run, and while one takes them from the building the other takes the two men.”

“Sending someone else in is risky-” A task force agent says.

“So is sending anyone in alone.” Hotch says, agreeing with Morgan. He turns to Emily, “I’m going with you.”

“You can’t,” She says softly as she looks at him, “HR made is very clear-”

“I don’t care about HR, Emily-” He goes to argue before stopping himself. “I’m going in with you.”

“Okay.” She says, refusing to argue with him.

“Are you sure?” Morgan asks, “If Strauss finds out-”

“She won’t.” JJ says, raising an eyebrow at everyone and they nod. “As far as anyone will be aware Morgan and Prentiss went in.”

“Okay.” they all agree, and they look back at the building.

“Ten minutes.” someone says and the couple nod.

“It’s going to be okay.” sbe whispers, smiling gently at him.

“It’s going to be okay.” he smiles, but there’s a feeling in his gut that argues with him as he watches her walk off.

And it was okay, they walked in the building, guns out as they followed the voices.

All four men were, as predicted, taken aback by Emily’s presence, her appearance fitting their type almost too accurately for Aarons liking.

They dropped their guards surrounding the girls after a few moments as Emily walked closer to them, and as discussed, as soon as the girls dropped to the floor at Aaron’s silent request, a shot came through and a man flopped to the ground, blood pouring from him. The girls quickly ran towards the Agents, the two rushing them out and towards the medics waiting around the corner. Aaron was just three feet away from Emily, gun pointed at one man as he turned to face them, the smirk on his face sending shivers down his spine. He clocked the third man too late, his gun already fired by the time he’d shot his, the man hitting the floor while the other laughed, before Aaron shot him as well, both falling not half a second after the other and he looks towards Emily and he swears he’s never felt fear like it.

Ripping out his ear piece as his team scream down it he runs to her, the word no leaving his mouth more times than anyone could ever count as he rushes to her, grabbing her as he hits the floor, his arms holding her head up as her body limply falls, her head resting in his arms as she gasps for breath.

“No, no.” he says, tears already falling down his eyes as he cups her face, “Stay with me.” he tells her, his eyes on hers as her body shakes, fighting for oxygen that she can’t inhale.

He watches as blood pours out of her abdomen, he removes his hand from her cheek and presses into him, whispering an apology as she cries out.

“Stay with me, sweetheart. You’re okay.” he whispers, she swallows, her hand dropping onto his chest as she tries to reach his face, gasping for air as she shakes her head.

“I’m sorry.” he whispers.

She takes a sharp intake of breath, her voice hollow and harsh, “It’s not your fault.” she stutters shakily, her fingers tracing across his jawline.

Aaron shakes his head as he hand turns a violent red with her blood, looking at her as tears fall from their eyes. “You’re going to be fine.”

She chokes then, gagging for air that she can not inhale, her lungs crying out of the oxygen she just isn’t strong enough to breathe in while they start burning with intensity as she bleeds out.

He can hear the team rushing towards them and he looks up for a millisecond, before dropping his head back down her as head falls into him.

“No,” he whispers with a cry and she looks at him.

“I love you.” sne tells him with a breath that’s hoarse and dry while nodding her head with a smile. “I love you.”

“Please.” he begs, “Just hold on, okay?”

“It’s not your fault.” she says again, gasping for breath, making sure he knows that he couldn’t have changed this. Couldn’t have saved her. Her blood that leeks from her body and clings to his hand as he holds her, shaking his head as tears fall down his face.

“I love you,” he whispers, a sad smile on his face. “I love you… please, please stay with me.”

Her eyes drift closed as her body shuts down, whispering an i love you too as her head drops into his chest and he cries, pulling her into him.

Arms come around him, lifting him off the ground and he shouts as he feels her be taken from him, can only watch as she is placed on a gurney and he rushes to follow. He can hear people talking to him but it’s muffled, unable to understand the words being spoken as he follows her.

“You can’t go in the ambulance.” Morgan says, holding him back and Aaron turns.

“What? Why?” he stutters, watching as the door of the ambulance closes.

“Come on.” Morgan says, pushing him gently towards the SUV, he can see the blue lights fading into the distance as he stumbles into the vehicle. “We should be right behind them.” Morgan tells the team as he rushes into the drivers seat, slamming the door before speeding off behind the ambulance.

“I should have ignored the call.” he mutters, looking down at his blood stained hands. “I should have..”

“She’s going to be okay.” JJ tells him, grasping her hand in his and he looks at her, pain written all over his face.

He turns away to stare back at his hands, red with her blood and shakes his head.

“I should have ignored the call.” he whispers, “she asked me to ignore the call.”

[haikwritings]

We’re Over | Part Two

Side Note: A continuation of this one.

Character Mentions: Atsumu Miya

A year had passed.

“Good luck on the game today!” Osamu said to his brother.

“I don’t need luck, I know we’re going to win.” Atsumu answered confidently.

Three hundred sixty five days and he still couldn't forget the day she left.

“Always a prick, huh?” Osamu asked sarcastically.

And no, he hadn't gotten over her yet.

“Just need a sec.” Atsumu said as he grabbed his phone.

Because since the day she left—he hadn't stopped looking for her.

“Alright.” Osamu said as he smiled to his brother, walking away from the locker rooms.

And that's why he called her every day, even if only her voicemail was the only thing he heard from her.

“Hey? Hello? Ha! Just kidding is my voicemail!—" *beep*

“Hey, again. Is been a year since our last talk...” Atsumu said.

For some reason it made him feel like he was talking to her.

“I have a big game today with the Schweiden Adlers—” Atsumu continued saying.

Since it was the only thing he had left of her.

“I wish you were here—supporting me and screaming for me.” Atsumu chuckled, remembering the old times.

He didn’t have anything left of her...

“I- I’m going to win this game for you.” Atsumu promised and smiled.

He just had the memories...

“The game is about to start!” Bokuto yelled happily as he entered the locker room.

And her voice mail.

“I will call you tomorrow again.” Atsumu murmured as he finished the voicemail.

His dream was to see her again.

“I want to see those losers faces!” Atsumu said jokingly.

“Totally.” Bokuto muttered sweetly.

And he didn’t know that his dream would come true.

“Wait.” Bokuto said surprised.

“What?” Atsumu chuckled while looking at the stadium.

“T-That’s your ex-girlfriend!” Bokuto said, pointing the girl out.

Not in a million years.

“Y-Y/n.” Atsumu stutter nervously as he saw her.

“I-It is her?” Bokuto asked confused, seeing that she was wearing the opposite team shirt.

“W-Why is she wearing that?” Atsumu asked confused, looking around the other team to see if anyone was looking for her.

But he never thought that it would be a nightmare.

“She has Ushijima’s number.” Bokuto pointed out.

Instead of a beautiful dream.

“W-Wakatoshi’s number.” Bokuto pointed out again.

He never thought his heart was able to break again.

“W-Wakatoshi?” Atsumu whispered to himself.

He never thought she would break his heart like that.

“I-It seems like it.” Bokuto muttered sadly.

He knew he broke her heart before.

“D-Don’t let this affect you, we have a game to win.” Bokuto tried to calm him.

“W-We will win this. Is a promise.” Atsumu stutter nervously.

He knew she deserved to be happy.

“I-I promised her.” Atsumu stutter sadly.

But seeing that she was supporting someone was...

“We need to greet the other team.” Shūgo said.

Unbearable.

“Y-Yeah.” Atsumu stutter, trying to compose himself, which it made Shūgo worry about him.

“Atsumu? Are you okay?” Shūgo asked worried.

It was heartbreaking.

“Y-Yes, Captain.” Atsumu answered sadly.

It had to be a lie.

It had to be a confusion.

“Kageyama!” Hinata yelled happily as he saw his best friend.

“Hey, idiot.” Kageyama answered as he smiled.

“I’m going to win this time.” Hinata said confidently.

“You can try.” Kagayema answered smirkingly.

There was no way she was with him.

“Let’s just calm down.” Bokuto said as he saw Atsumu looking at Ushijima.

Because why it had to be him?

“Don’t make a show, people are watching.” Bokuto said.

Was it because he was in the opposite team?

“The news are here, please calm down.” Bokuto pleaded, knowing the immature attitude of his friend.

Was it because Ushijima was better than him?

“Good luck.” Ushijima said.

“Thanks, man.” Bokuto answered.

Why Ushijima?

“We don’t need luck.” Atsumu answered coldly.

“Oh, ok.” Ushijima answered bluntly.

Why him instead of him?

“I always get what I want.” Atsumu said.

“Ok.” Ushijima answered bluntly, walking away.

Just...why?

“I said you should control yourself.” Bokuto said disappointedly.

“I- She’s mine.” Atsumu murmured.

As expected, Black Jackals won the match against the Schweiden Adlers.

“Great game.” Hinata murmured to Kageyama.

“Whatever, I’m going to win the next.” Kageyama promised.

He thought that maybe it was time to claim the what he thought it was his.

“She doesn’t like losers.” Atsumu murmured, trying to be funny.

“Excuse me?” Ushijima asked confused.

“She doesn’t like losers.” Atsumu repeated.

But unfortunately— he couldn’t claim her anymore.

“Atsumu Miya, am I correct?” Ushijima asked bluntly.

“Obviously, you know who I am.” Atsumu answered confidently.

He had no right.

“Yes, I do. You have a twin brother—” Ushijima was saying but was interrupted by him.

“Yeah I know, tell me something I don’t know.” Atsumu said with attitude.

“And you cheated on your ex girlfriend with her best friend.” Ushijima said bluntly, which made his skin bristle.

He had to remind himself that he had NO right— even if it was almost impossible.

“It was a very low move.” Ushijima said.

“I- I—” Atsumu stutter embarrassedly.

Because after all, it was his own fault.

“Atsumu Miya, the real “loser” here—is you.” Ushijima said.

And he was right...

He was the real loser.

“At the end of the day you won a game, I win a happy life.” Ushijima said.

He lost the real happiness.

“You should really look after—” Ushijima was saying when suddenly—

He stopped breathing.

“Babe?” Y/n asked, suddenly flinching by seeing her ex-boyfriend.

“Honey.” Ushijima called sweetly.

Hearing her voice again—

In person.

“W-What is going on?” Y/n asked nervously.

“Is nothing, my love.” Ushijima said as he kissed her forehead.

But...

The nightmare was still there.

“Y-Y/n.” Atsumu murmured.

“Atsumu.” Y/n said coldly.

A nightmare he was living.

“Ready to go?” Ushijima asked as he grabbed her waist protectively.

A nightmare he couldn’t escape.

“Yes, babe.” Y/n answered sweetly.

A nightmare he couldn’t control.

“Atsumu?” Bokuto asked as he saw his friend.

And he knew that second...

“I- I- Lost her.” Atsumu stutter.

That he fucked up things way more that he imagined.

“H-Hey, hey—” Bokuto said as he tapped his shoulder.

“Come on, let’s go.” Bokuto said as he grabbed him.

He couldn’t have her back.

“I- I lost her.” Atsumu murmured.

And he knew...

“I- I loved her.” Atsumu said as he closed his eyes out of pain.

It was time...

“I- I fucking loved her.” Atsumu murmured again.

That he had to accept...

“I- I still do.” Atsumu murmured.

That he had lost her....

And he knew now that he couldn’t have her.

“I- I still fucking do.” Atsumu murmured.

Forever.

General TagList:

@elianetsantana @pillowpets @boosyboo9206 @chagi-nana @melacholy @kara-grayson04 @sangwoosashyashes @milkawabread @answer-the-sirens @habi20212 @thelilyflowersworld @kellesvt @yuueisteria @dai-tsukki-desu @saeranoppa @wompwomphq @jupiterbloop @peteunderoos @chestercheeto

[air-in-words]

My Sorting Hat Chats Journey

So, hi! I'm back!

I've been doing fun stuff off in the real world, but I decided to talk a little bit about my own Sorting Hat Chats sorting journey, and how it says a lot about self-acceptance, and how understanding who you really are can sometimes only come from being an active participant in life. Here we goooo...

The Beginning

So, my initial sorting was a Burnt Badger/Bird. This had struck me, because I'd never considered myself a Badger in ANY media. I was seen by my friends as a borderline loner, someone who didn't need anyone else. And yet, all the signs were there.

Looking back on my life, I've always migrated in groups, always looked for a nesting ground, and truly that's all I want. A place to nest, a place to rest, where I can feel safe and surrounded by people who love me. But, after a childhood filled with bullying, I found myself embarrassed of my bold face need for friends, and, for some reason, decided getting too close to people for too long was unwise, so I could probably never have a permanent home. And yet, I always found myself in these little "groups," little packs of people that all travel together.

I've always had these friend groups, where everyone knows each other, we all hang out together, and yet it always manages to eventually fall apart. I asked one of my friends how this keeps happening, and who keeps setting up these groups. She blinked sort of vaguely and said, "uh, you do." It was such a strange realization to look back and see myself as the "shepherd" I was, always creating a flock wherever I went. I had always been the spoke of my friend wheels, the only one that was friends with everyone, or actively tried to be friends with everyone. And I would attempt to hold it together, but it would always ultimately shatter, and I'd leave to find and form another. Family is important to me, and it isn't enough for me to bond with one person. I like for all my friends to be friends with each other, for us all to hang out together and enjoy each other's company.

So, although I still struggle, Burnt Badger came out on top, and I believe is still at the top to this day. I still search for belonging. I still search for family. And, yet, my heart seems to have no intention of unburning. Until recently, I had no idea why.

On the other hand, the secondary I received, Bird, seemed to fit like a glove, and was very obvious to me. I've been called the Encyclopedia before, I was made fun of for being caught reading the dictionary like it was a book, and I always seem to have a "fun fact" for every occasion. And all of this seemed to flow directly into me trying to use these facts and this knowledge to win people over, to get to see me as someone that could be their friend, or that I could be reliable as a member of their "group." So, Burnt Badger/Bird simply made sense. The reasons for me avoiding unburning my primary were irrelevant.

The Now

I'd been gone from this side of Tumblr for a bit, and decided to return on a whim. Saw @wisteria-lodge still posting as much as ever, and saw a lot of my posts had been passed around in the meantime (thank ya by the way) and decided to dive back in, because since then, so much of my life has changed. I've had certain people out of my life for a while that were a hindrance on my self-acceptance, I've moved out of my childhood home, and left a job I've had for the past 5 years. I've been forced to constantly LIVE, to make choices, actual choices, and have been offered the chance to be who I truly am, unapologetically.

So, I took the quiz again, curious if I would come up any different.

I got Burnt Badger/Burnt Snake.

This time, I was almost insulted. A flush of memories, of past feelings came to me, most of all the need to push back, to insist in exasperation I'M NOT A LIAR, as though I was tired of defending myself. As hard as I tried, I somehow couldn't seem to get Bird secondary to reappear.... at all. Which was so crazy, because before, that was pretty much all I could get.

So, I went to the experts, the aforementioned wisteria-lodge and @sortinghatchats .

I looked through the Snake secondary tags and found myself lost in memories I had pushed down, so far down even I couldn't find them, wracked with shame and a need to hide this side of myself, something I'd hidden so well I'd pretty much convinced myself it had never existed.

Being a Bird had always been a choice for me. I decided that was what people must want, becoming intelligent, knowing all of these things, showing off, that would make people like me. But, although I can devour books like nobody's business, and I tend to worry and whinge before every major decision, feeling unprepared, I would always find myself falling short of my own expectations. The amount of times I'd promised myself and others to create a plan and study hard, ultimately fail to do so, and then lie to everyone about it was astounding. My public image continued to be "air-in-words the smart girl" but my private image was still LIAR and FAKE.

I would still somehow get all A's. I was very good at remembering facts and excellent at taking tests. I always thought of them like little tricks themselves, meant to trip you up, but if you paid attention, you could figure out the patterns and be able to bluster your way through stuff you might not even fully understand. You can figure out certain words through context clues, and I was always very comfortable trusting my memory with little preparation beforehand. And yet, I still lied and told everyone I'd studied, at least as a child, before high school.

Math was what eventually messed me up, and sent my self-image whirling into the ground. My grades suddenly went from straight A's to D's and F's. My parents were aghast, what had happened??? I was so intelligent, so smart, such a good student. What had gone wrong?? And, although I never admitted it outloud to them, I knew the answer. With math, you can't trick your way out. You either know how to do it and give the right answer, or you don't. And I had never studied a day in my life, never practiced, never worked hard at all. It was my horrible little secret and math had outed me. It continues to out me, because rather than actually work at it and get better, I managed to keep my grades through high school afloat by leaning on my other grades and taking remedial math courses with a teacher who loved me very much and would let me off easy. To this day, honestly, I can barely count. I might actually have some form of dyscalculia, but I know that if I were willing to try a little harder I could get better. But, why would I do that, when this way works just fine? Just coasting through? But, again, no one could know. Not even myself.

Through high school, I began letting people in on my secret Snake, because being a "slacker" was suddenly cool. I still couldn't let my parents know, or the teachers, but coming clean about not being a keener was what earned me new friend groups. I wasn't some weirdo who actually studied all the time: I was a kid who maybe did 60-70% of my homework and slid by on my good memory and general interest in learning. And my reputation. My reputation was key to my success.

College would be the thing that completely threw me to the ground. There were simply too many sirens singing at me, distractions pulling me away from my work. I'd never looked less like a Bird than in college. I was always skipping class, always not studying, and in fact, would openly fail most of my courses. And I just didn't seem to care. I slid into what I guess must have been a sort of neutral zone, but I wasn't happy. The mask was slipping off and I needed out. I couldn't keep up this charade anymore. It was stifling, trying to be a Bird, going to college for a very Bird degree, surrounded by actual Birds, it was all very much what I didn't want. I wanted something less "academic," less, well, boring. Maybe more Snake like.

And, so, here we are. Currently dropped out of college, living in an apartment with my friend, away from my parents' prying eyes, and with a new job that I chose for myself. On the brink of finally understanding myself, and maybe accepting myself as I am.

My Badger primary is burned because of my Snake secondary. Because I thought I was a sham, a liar, a con, and I didn't feel like I deserved to have people close to me. Those traits are bad, and I was a bad person. No one should be tricked by me.

But, after reading some of the stories from the experts and other Snake secondaries, I found this crazy thought, that perhaps being this way isn't a bad thing. Maybe I'm not a bad person. Maybe it's okay to be who I am. Maybe I can use these "powers" for good, and they aren't inherently evil.

So, at least for now, I'm choosing to identify as Burnt Badger/Burnt Snake with Bird Model. Seeing how it feels to accept myself and not try and force myself to be who I think I should be, or who others want me to be (which is a Snake secondary thing in the first place. Lol!)

For Fun, Here's Some Crazy Actual Snake Secondary Things I've Done That I'm Trying to Be Less Ashamed of Now

When I was little, I used to make up crazy stories about things I'd done to seem more interesting. The one that makes me cringe the most is that my uncle has a statue in his backyard that comes to life and goes on adventures with me. My uncle DID have a statue in his backyard that I really loved but no, it didn't (and still hasn't) come to life.

Some of these, I can't explain, like this one, where I somehow had more than one teacher convinced I'd handed in every piece of homework before the one I was giving them the sob story about that day. I literally had a teacher look me in the face, tell me I'd been handing in my homework really well thus far and knew I was trustworthy, so they'd let me slide with no mark against me. Meanwhile, I had missed the homework for the past THREE WEEKS IN A ROW. I just smiled and let it go. Variations of this situation happened throughout high school and college. And, no, I had no good reason not to do the homework. I just didn't want to do it. Lol.

I usually live in the "neutral state" around my close friends, since I think it's disrespectful not to be straight with them, but I have had to turn it on to help them occasionally. One of my friends was having issues with an ex of hers, she was thinking that maybe she should go back out with the guh, and I had been my blunt, neutral self the whole time, telling her flat out that that was a bad idea. But, it wasn't working. "Neutral state" isn't like a Lion's forceful natural state, I guess. So, I decided I would have to push her in a certain direction to help her get through it. I told her she should go back out with him, and although she did sort of call me out for lying, knowing I didn't actually want that, I told her she should if she really think she should. The dude didn't last one date without showing his ass again, and she thanked me for making her do that. Lol.

Finally, at least for this list, my most prized shameful memory, is when I was taking an acting class in college. We were supposed to create a wordless scene as our final, and I hadn't prepared anything, so I just skipped the day we were supposed to do them. But, I decided to show up for the last day to see if I could still somehow pass. She's going through the grades, and looks up and asks me, "I don't have anything written down for you, I can't remember, did you give a performance or not?" I knew I hadn't then, but decided to give one now. I told her yes I had done one, don't you remember came up with a name on the fly. The same friend from the last story was staring at me like she was about to burst. She thought for a moment, then exclaimed, "ah, of course! Yes, I think I remember. I remember you'd done pretty well. What grade did I give you?" I hedged my bets and said A-. Lol. I had never been filled with more pride shame in my life.

[kileyrose-2003]

Tina’s Tuesday Night Mini Fic Pt. 1

Word count: Who cares? Lol

A/N: Hi lovelies! I am back!! First thing, I know. You're probably saying Kiley, wtf? It's not Tuesday. I know. Life happened. I've had a busy past few days and a final today. Anyways, this was something I did with @merci-bitch when the U.S originally went on lockdown. It was a fun way to keep me busy and get my mind off of stuff. We both decided to restart this about a week ago. So, I dedicate this to my dear friend Tina. Love you hun and hope you enjoy this! And please, if you haven't been to her blog to read any of her work, go do so. She works so hard on what she writes and is amazing.

Pt. 2 will be coming next week

To everyone waiting on fics: I'll get there. Eventually. And I'm not going into reasoning. But anyways, love you all and I hope you have a great day!

"...This is the greatest show!" You slammed your hands down on the piano keys and breathed in sharply. "God damn it, Jenny!"

"What?" You let a groan and handed her the sheet music. "Look there at that line there. Do you see that note?”

“I can see, can’t I?” Her bright green eyes lost their cool shade of arrogance when she seen how pissed you look. "Not F!” You pointed to the paper in her hand. “D! You hear that note there?" You pressed down on the key repeatedly. "D!"

"Sorry." The red head smiled at you impishly. "No, you're not. This is the fifth time we've done this and yet you still insist on doing this your own way." She sat next to you on the piano bench and gave your shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Well, I think the change makes it sound better.”

“Phineas liked it better this way,” you seethed through gritted teeth. “But what does he know of art?” You could feel your face slowing turning a distinct shade of cherry red and you bit down on your tongue.

"He must of known something with how much you tried to get in his pants," you mused to yourself.

You rolled your eyes. You loved Jenny to death but how you couldn't stand her at times. You tried and tried so desperately to get along with her and compromise when she was like this but no matter what you did, she was stubborn and so..cold at times.

Sure, Jenny was a bit of a snob but she was a genius when it came to music and you respected that. She was what inspired you to take up music in the first place.

Your childhood was far from easy. Before you even joined the circus, you were bounced all over the place. You never belonged anywhere. From the deteriorating cottage in a small, seaside village in Sweden to the cramped one bedroom apartment in London that no one would dare walk past at night. Your father was no where to be seen and your mother was an actress, always struggling to meet ends meet. She was never home, but that wasn't always a bad thing. That meant you got to explore.

That was how you got to hearJenny sing for the first time. Hiding out in the musty attic of an old Swedish theatre. Even before she hit extreme levels of fame, her voice was like a siren's call. Drawing you in further and further in. It still was in a way. She was so beautiful and even as much as she pissed you off, you loved watching her sing. Like the time at the palace. She was eye candy in that dress, the way it hugged her hips and how the bust showed the slightest bit of clevage when you looked at her at just the right angle-

"Stop it, Y/n!" You told yourself. "She's not interested in you."

Or was she? The way she looked at you when you spoke to Phineas was always with such contempt or such jealousy. You could never understand why though. It was her who tried to steal Phineas away. Not you. He was a close friend who gave you a chance when you had nothing and you never so much as even thought of eyeing him in such a manner. Phineas clearly wasn't interested in her or any other woman but his wife. He pushed her away numerous times. Jenny had no reason to be jealous of you. Yet, she was.

‘But it is of me or others though?"

One could never be sure with Jenny. Sure, there was a bit of a rivalry between the two of you when it came to music. But she was your friend. 'Very clingy for just a friend,' you noted.

'That's normal though, isn't it?'

Maybe you were just over thinking things. Besides, the relationship between the two of you seemed to be getting better lately. Ever since the scandal went public, it seemed the two of you were spending more and more time together.

You were the only one who listened to her side of the story, held her when she cried, made sure she wasn't drinking her emotions away, and tried to help her through it. Even as much as she pissed you off. You warned her in the first place not to seek out Phineas but despite the nasty arguments, the constant bickering she became your friend. Maybe even your best friend. Which you got alot of shit for.

Nobody liked Jenny and you were starting to get the feeling you weren't so popular anymore either. Everyone thought after the affair went public, the two of you would of left. Her name as well as yours, was slandered all over the paper simply because you associated with her. You had been called it all. The ring leader, the mastermind, the mistress to the two.

But neither of you resigned. Yet. Part of you wondered how long it would be until either would receive letters of negotiations to end your contract. But either way, you knew Jenny wasn't leaving without you. She promised you that.

'So maybe she does like me.'

Then that small voice came in the back of your head. 'Or maybe you just want her to like you back.'

Either way, you couldn't let that haunt your conscience for now. Even as much as you'd like to visualize a future with her, it wouldn't work. You could feel the heat pooling into your cheeks as you came back to reality and bit down on your lip. Jenny's hand was lingering up and down your back, rhythmically making shapes with the tips of her fingers. Damn her and her touch! You shouldn't be feeling this way.

"Are you okay?" You shook your head and covered your face with your hands, trying not focus on all the pain you felt inside. "No. No, I’m not."

You felt tears burning in the sides of your eyes. "This isn’t working!” Jenny furrowed her brow and tried to move your hands away from your face. “What do you mean?” She was trying to be gentle even though you could tell from the look in her eyes she had no clue what to do.

“This..all of this!” You ripped the sheet music out of her hand and flung it on top of the piano. “Something's got to give,"

She rolled her eyes as if she seen it all before and stood up, walking hastily over to the ice bucket. "Do you not have what you want?" She opened up a bottle of red wine. "Fame? Recogniton?"

"It's not enough and I don't know if I even have any of that anymore." Jenny eyed you as she poured the liquor heavily into both glasses. "I'm not liked here, Jenny."

She handed you your glass and sat down next to you. You eagerly took a sip of the wine, just wanting to forget everything for a little while. "That's not true. I like you." She leaned in closer to you.

You cracked a small grin filled with cynicism. Maybe even a little bit of hostility. Never had you felt so much love and hate towards someone at the same time. "We could both leave." Jenny's voice pulled you out of your head.

"And go where?"

"Back to Sweden with me for the time being." You noticed the intensity in Jenny's eyes growing and she reached out and grabbed your hand. You could feel her nimble gently squeezing into the palm of your hand. "You know I care for you, Y/n."

"Do you?" You tried your hardest not to sound sarcastic, you were still a little mad at her. But god! How close she was to you. You could smell her expensive perfume, see the slight hint of a shimmer radiating off of her lips. "You're fiery and you don't take my shit."

This couldn't be real. You had to be dreaming. "Jenny, this...there's a possibility this couldn't work." You tried to scoot away from her, a little intimidated by the proximity between the two of you.

"We can try to make it work."

"How?" You eyed her skeptically. "Let me take you out. Let me show you I can make this work." You furrowed your eyebrows. "Why? Need a new fling after Phineas?" You teased.

Jenny wasn't amused by that all. If anything she was pissed but she smiled anyways. Seeming to stoop down to your level with a smile that was sickly sweet. "More like a date."

"And why should I do this with you?" She let go of your hand and placed it on your thigh. "Because I probably understand you alot more than you think." As you looked into Jenny's eyes, you found some level of sincerity mixed into those deep lustful orbs. You wanted to trust her so badly.

"What do I have to lose?" You thought.

Everything. Everything to lose.

"Fine." You gave in, despise everything in your mind screaming not too. "But you have one shot and one shot only."

Jenny nodded and leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on your cheek. "And it won't take me more than once to impress. After all, I already made your career." You felt the hair on your arms stand straight up as her hands lingered on you, gently squeezing your hips.

"I'll see you tomorrow at 6. Sharp."

"Yeah," you watched as Jenny walked away, her hair flowing behind her like a beautiful sheath.

You felt a pit growing in the depths of your stomach. What the hell had you gotten yourself into?

[hypnoticwinter]

Down the Rabbit Hole part 34

“Roan?” Elena repeats. “I thought I heard – Roan? Are you - ?”

I’ve dropped the radio. I kneel and fumble at it with my nervous hands. My breath is coming too quickly and my nose is plugging and hot tears are welling in my eyes. I reach up and slap the quick-release on the helmet and it clatters to the ground, leaving a wet thud ringing in my ears as it squashes into a fatty outcropping of flesh pooling on the third step down.

“El-Elena,” I mumble. My fingers are sweating so badly inside the suit gloves that I can’t push down the transmit button.

“Roan?” Elena asks again. All of the sudden cheer that had burst in her voice like a newborn sun when she had heard me calling her name is rapidly draining out of it. “Roan, is that – is that you?”

I can’t bear to listen to the agony in her voice, I have to, I have to push this fucking button…

I rip the glove off with my teeth and squeeze the radio tight enough that the hard plastic cuts into the soft flesh of my thumb. “Elena,” I say. I swallow hard and then try again. “Elena, I’m here. It’s me. I came down to get you.”

For a moment I hear nothing, just the crackling hiss of static and, a little muffled but still audible, the wailing of the siren down in the baths. “Elena?” I ask, trying not to let terror creep into my voice. What if something happened and right now she’s –

The radio squawks and inside it I can hear a sob. “Roan,” she manages to get out, “Roan, y-you came back?”

“To get you, yes,” I tell her. I can’t stop smiling or crying. I want terribly to hold her. “I’m coming to get you, don’t worry.”

“You should have stayed –“

“I wasn’t going to leave you,” I tell her softly. “I’m never going to leave you. I promise. I’m going to get you out. But Elena, where –“

“I’m at DUSA,” she says.

“At DUSA?” I ask, stupidly.

The autodoctor unit. Of course.

“Yeah,” she says. I hear her sniff. “It’s a – well, it’s sort of a secret installation down here where they –“

“I know what it is, I was there just seven or eight hours ago.”

“You were here?”

“Yeah, Makado came down to get me so I could take the fall for her, but I was pretty fucked up so she had to get me to DUSA so she could use the autodoc to heal me and set my leg and –“

I hear Elena splutter for a moment. “You used all the ballast? That was you?”

“Yes, Makado threw me in it, I was poisoned and I’d been breathing spores and it was – it was a lot. Listen to me, I remember seeing it when she took me out, I know there was ballast left in it, are you okay? Was it able to fix that gunshot wound?”

“It got the bullet out,” she says, “but there wasn’t enough left to heal it fully. It’s –“

“Are you okay?” I blurt, feeling a sudden clench of desperation in my gut. “Elena, are you - ?”

“I’m okay,” she tells me, “I’m okay, but I need to see a real doctor. Soon. I was down in the pleasure domes, or what’s left of them, for a while, but there are a lot of fucking critters down there and I needed to get the bullet out and I couldn’t – I couldn’t make myself do it with a knife. So I –“

“Okay,” I tell her. “Okay, I’ll come get you and we can haul ass all the way back up and get you to a doctor.”

“Roan, you –“ I hear a note of steel return to her voice. “No, I’m okay. I need to just rest a little and then I can try to make my way back up. If you got hurt or if you died –“

“No!” I bark. I wipe my eyes and sniff hard. “No,” I say, a little calmer. “I came this far to get you, I am not going to turn around now.”

“What do I do if you die?” she says. For the first time, I can hear fear in her voice. “What do I do, huh? If I know that you died down here, got eaten by a triocanth or a shamble or something, because of me?”

“What do I do if you do?” I murmur, and for a long while, long enough that I check to make sure my radio hasn’t died, Elena is silent.

“I thought you were going to be safe,” Elena says finally. “When I said goodbye to you two days ago I thought you would be safe. I got to a call box as soon as I could and told Makado what was going on and she said she would send a team down and get you out. I thought –“

“That bitch,” I spit. “She came straight down here and –“

“Hang on, what did she set you up with? What do you mean –“

I blow out my breath. “Look,” I tell her. “It’s a long story and we don’t have any time. I’ll tell you everything on the way up. I’ll be down to get you, I don’t – I don’t know if I can make it today but I’m going to try. I’ll be there.”

“I’m okay here for now,” she reminds me. “You don’t have to rush, I’m okay. If you want to go back up to the surface and –“

“That just – that isn’t an option right now. Just trust me. Please?”

“Okay. Do you even know how to get down here?”

“I have a map, I can figure it out,” I bluster. I’m tapping at the map trying to orient myself but the three-dimensional model is just giving me a headache.

“Are you sure? The map can be a little tricky –“

“I think I’ve got it. I’m at the ballast bulbs right now so –“

“You’re at the bulbs? Roan, be careful, there’s a fucking enormous siren down there.”

I laugh a little wryly. “Already found it, thanks.”

“Okay. Just – be careful, you know? They can be really nasty.”

“Don’t worry, I made it all this way, I’m not going to let myself get eaten.”

“Okay, but –“

“Elena,” I tell her. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

“I – okay.”

“I’m going to head out. Call me if you need anything, alright?”

“Alright, Roan. I – “

I glance down at the radio and then set my helmet back down again. “Yeah?”

“Nothing. I’ll tell you when you get here.”

“If it’s something important –“

“It is important,” she says. Somehow, through the static, I get the sense that she’s smiling. “But I’ll tell you when you get here. Out,” she adds, before I can reply, and then the line collapses into a crackly hiss of interference. I get to my feet, snap my helmet back on, and start to climb.

 * * *

 I don’t make it very far before I have to stop and sit down and spend a solid twenty minutes poring over the map to try and actually figure out how the hell I’m going to get down to DUSA from here. I’m no slouch when it comes to maps, I never had trouble reading an interstate map or one of those horrible little area maps you pay out the nose for when you go camping – really camping, that is – but something in my brain just isn’t clicking with the loopy, curvy 3-D model of the Pit displayed on the screen embedded in the arm of the suit.

Part of the issue is that I have no sense of scale. With a little fumbling I can pull up a scale, and then with more fumbling I can use a tool that tells me the distance between two points and will construct a route between them, but trying to use it takes forever, and whenever the line crosses one of the hazy sections on the map where the coverage is either spotty or nonexistent, it screams flashing red warnings at me and won’t let me path my way through those areas. The jargon it uses is intense and multisyllabic. That area there is blocked due to an ambulatory hematomid cluster, whatever that is, this giant hazy spot that looks like an octopus is extremely dangerous due to an outbreak of seven-legged mortuary mites, that spot there is blocked off by a bile geyser eruption (ongoing)…everywhere I look there are errors and warnings and tags and it’s all a bit overwhelming.

If I find DUSA and try to path my way there directly it kicks up about a dozen errors relating to dangerous zones that it’s trying to go through. Begs the question why it can’t just path around them, but there can’t be that much computing power in the thing – maybe it’s easier to have it just kick up an error and make the ranger in the suit figure out how to go around it.

I’m sweating in this horrible suit, even with the climate control kicked up all the way. It’s probably because I’m still breathing outside air. The suit has air tanks so you can turn it into a closed-circuit if you really need to but the tanks are small and I don’t want to waste them. The air intakes go through a filter but even so you can still smell and taste and feel the Pit on it. It’s easy to imagine it coating your throat as you breathe, sending little fruiting blossoms up in the bronchial jungle of your lungs. Something about the image makes me shudder and I shake my head, frown at the map, bring my two fingers together and send it whizzing past the point I wanted to examine. I let out a muffled curse and drag it back to where I wanted to look – the thing is so damn sensitive that even the slightest motion will make the viewpoint do a 360, and then getting control back from there is an exercise in patience.

I wipe my sweaty fingers on the thick orange rubber of my thigh and then resume tapping. I think I’ve almost got it, if I path here first to avoid this annoying blob labeled [signal lost, presumed total muscular infarction] and then down to here, I can –

There is a quiet, subtle noise behind me and I freeze. All of a sudden I can hear my very, very loud heartbeat throbbing heavily in my ears, and it occurs to me just how quiet it is. Sure there are drips and drops and, someplace far off, the groan of stretched, anguished muscle, but right here at the upper landing of the stairs, it’s absolutely still.

I turn slowly and scan the red, inflamed-looking passage leading back the way Fumi and I had came. Nothing is immediately apparent; no big scary monster sneaking up on me, no Leechman peeking his throbbing, writhing head around the corner like Mike Myers.

“Huh,” I mutter. The sound had been almost too quiet to hear but something about its tone had made me prick my ears up – a sort of subtle, wet slipping sound. It was a guilty sound, a sound that immediately made me think whatever had made it hadn’t wanted me to hear it.

Or perhaps my already frayed nerves are giving way a little further. God, it’ll be a miracle if I come out of this without PTSD or something similar. The last time I managed to get some sleep, back in DUSA, I had woken with the fading aftershock of a nameless dream still stamped into my mind, but it had departed quickly and I hadn’t remembered much of it until now. Even now I don’t, but I remember that it had to do with leeches. And Peter – god, poor Peter…

It hadn’t even felt real, when we had happened upon him, down there in the dark, I hadn’t felt like I was there, I felt like I was watching it all happen from a great distance away. When Erica had shone her flashlight on Peter’s face and I had seen the – I had seen the wreckage the leeches had left of it, I felt as though I were going to go –

There’s the sound again.

I whip around, rising into a low crouch, my hand darting down to the holster slung low along my thigh, and when I remember that I had lost the pistol down in the ballast bulbs I try to ignore the icy stab of fear piercing upwards into my throat like a fishhook. Part of me wants to freeze, part of me wants to scream, out of terror and frustration and exhaustion, but I push them both back down and force myself to reach down the other side of my belt and grab the long savage bowie knife from its streamlined scabbard. The edge catches the light as I draw it and it makes an exaggerated swish, the air parting across the blade as I transfer it to my right hand.

I still don’t see anything unusual down the passage. It’s returned to the same level of stillness as before, the same utter, eerie silence. All the way up here I can’t hear the ballast siren any more, its screams are smothered by the overwhelming weight of flesh above us. I shine my flashlight carefully along the ceiling, along the walls, along the floor. There isn’t –

Something I had initially thought was a weird little polypous growth about head-height up on the left wall opens a set of six faceted eyes and looks at me, and my mouth drops open because I know what this is, I know what is about to happen, but the knowledge isn’t enough to save me. The triocanth bursts from its bored-out hide in the wall, trailing ichor and slime behind it and slams like a football straight into my chest. I think I feel a rib creak under the sudden pressure, and I stumble and fall flat on my ass, the air whooshing out of my lungs and leaving me gasping.

It fixes one tentacle like a whip around my left wrist and crunches the other one inward around my neck, but before it can do more than tug itself forward against me I slam the knife six inches deep into its abdomen, the force knocking it sideways and tugging me after it. It vomits a frothy purple bile all down my front, its tentacles writhing in shock, and then slowly its dull eyes turn even duller and the rhythmic slap of the tentacles slows to a writhing stop.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I murmur to myself. I try to haul the thing off of me but its blood has made it slippery and I end up completely covered in it before I can finally toss its weighty carcass off of me and get to my feet. I look down at myself, down at the thing, the hilt of my knife sticking straight upwards like a morbid Excalibur, and then pop the helmet’s quick release and vomit.

“God damn,” I murmur when I’m done. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and watch it tremble. Even when I make a fist there’s still a little shudder there, a little shakiness. A week ago I was fine, I was rock-solid.

Fuck.

I move on. There are arteries and canals and veins and chutes. Some of them have stuff inside, gunk and blood and lymph and other nameless substances that I can do little more than wrinkle my nose at and wade through, while others are crinkled and lifeless and dry.

My leg hurts. It’s a dull, bone-deep ache and just the harbinger of something worse, but its throbbing reminds me that I really only have a limited window to go down and get Elena and get her out. If I stay too long I’ll end up as something’s dinner, I’m sure of it.

Sometimes I see things, down here in the dark, in the tubes and tunnels and vast fleshy protuberances I travel through. The marker on the HUD in the helmet will blink right on top of a wiry, long-limbed copepod (the lesser variety, thankfully), staring at me with a baleful look, but nothing has been brave enough to try me, everything so far has sized me up and then turned and scuttled or crawled or slithered the other way.

It’s an environment that reminds me a lot of the nature documentary I watched that one time over at Thor’s place about the very bottom of the ocean. Something something Abyss. Enter the Abyss? I forget. It had a British man with a soothing voice narrating, but not David Attenborough, because I know his voice and it was someone else.

Everything down there is an optimization monster because there’s such little resources available. Something like a shark wouldn’t be able to survive at that depth, even if you ignore the pressure that would squish it, there isn’t enough energy for a big alpha predator like that. Everything is waiting in ambush, black and midnighted and serrated. It made me shiver a little, watching the crabs clustering over a whale carcass that had fallen all the way down, watching the black, invisible fish that are ninety percent teeth, floating and floating until they happen to spot something or something happens to spot them.

Here is the same, just the same, everything is so – so desperate here. Or perhaps that’s just how I perceive it; I’m sure to one of these overgrown lice there’s no desperation, just calculation and analysis and arithmetic. Can I eat this or will it eat me? Do I have enough energy to just sit here motionless and wait for something stupid enough to walk beneath me or do I have to actually hunt?

It seems like a very clean sort of life but not one I have the stomach for.

I make it to the ranger station I had waypointed at nine at night. At least that’s what the suit tells me; as far as I know it could be three in the afternoon and I’d never be able to tell. The only thing that matters to me is that I’m dog tired. I’ve dodged three (fairly halfhearted) copepod attacks, noticed and avoided two more triocanths, stopped and hit to let a bumble of macrobacteria pass by, and once stood stock-still and trembling as a massive shadow, lit by the pale red glow of – of something, I don’t know what – slipped past, projected on the wall before me, all many-legged and sinuous and nameless. I didn’t know what it was, only that it was big and that it awoke some kind of primal fear within me that I desperately, desperately wanted not to confront.

But it passed me by. And who knows, I reason, thinking of the enormous slimy lizards, lurking down at the bottom of the Pit, feasting on the toxic mushrooms, perhaps it was some sort of bottom-feeder, some kind of thing that just lives off the Pit itself.

I’d seen things like that, here and there, not quite as common as I might have otherwise expected, considering I’m inside an enormous edible environment. There are things like ticks, bloated and heaving, suckered onto one of the pale blue veins that crisscross the Pit’s innards in wavy spiderwebbed patterns, great clusters of them like bunches of hideous grapes, swaying gently with the motion of, I discovered to my horror, their lapping suction at the Pit’s veins. I would occasionally see one or two of them, sated, unhook themselves and scuttle downwards on chitinous legs, their bulbous abdomens bobbing like balloons in the wind, and scurry off to some hidden cranny to hide and digest.

Maybe the Pit’s flesh is just poisonous, or gamy, or…or whatever. Otherwise you’d think this place would be an Eden, or at least a kind of Eden. Eden for the copepods. If they could just pluck a handful of flesh out of the wall and chow down, why bother being that big? Why bother being so cantankerous? Why bother being intelligent? No, it makes sense that the Pit’s flesh isn’t edible except for a couple of these strange little bottomfeeders. And then things eat the bottomfeeders, and things eat the things, and bigger things eat the other things, and…

The ranger station looms ahead of me and I cast my flashlight warily over it. It looks as though it hasn’t seen human habitation since way before 2007. Maybe it hasn’t; maybe it’s just been abandoned, ditched for being too out of the way and hard to get to and so on. There’s grime on the thick safety windows and an enamel-like coating of hardened slime on the sterile grey surfaces. The exposed metal of the beams is rusted to shit, and it looks as though it’s about to collapse if I breathe on it wrong.

I shove the door open, crumpling a horrible crinkly film of ichor behind it, pivoting on squealing, rusted hinges, and move through two dusty, disheveled rooms before I find a serviceable cot waiting for me. I had been expecting that I’d have to sleep on the grimy, moldy floor, but if there’s a bed I can use instead I’m all for it. I’m dog tired, bone tired, and though I had initially planned to just power through it and make it down to DUSA today without having to take any breaks, the deeper down I went the more obvious it became that that was just not going to happen.

I peel out of the suit, down to my panties and my tank top, and then I fiddle with the radio, squawk it on and off. “Elena,” I say. “Elena, come in.”

I wait. Five, ten, fifteen seconds. There’s a little pinprick of fear down deep in my gut but I smother it. “Elena?” I ask again. The radio blares static back at me.

“It’s okay,” I murmur, staring at the radio. “It’s okay,” I tell myself. “She’s asleep, or there’s no signal, or…”

I look away from the three full bars of signal displaying in the upper right corner of the LCD screen on the radio’s front. “Fuck,” I murmur.

I call her name two more times before I give up. She just isn’t there, I reason.

Nothing to panic about.

I fall into the cot and sneeze as it kicks up a cloud of dust. I lay there for a while, trying to get the worry out of my system, before I flick my eyes down to the door and get up again, wedge a chair underneath the doorknob. I look around at my things, holding the flashlight loosely in my left hand, and then settle with leaving the knife underneath the pillow and the flashlight on the floor right by the bed, right where I can reach it. I crawl again into the cot. I think briefly about masturbating so I can get to sleep more quickly but after a few experimental gropes at my breasts I conclude that turning myself on would be more effort than it’s worth.

I shut my eyes and try to think of nothing, but I keep worrying about Elena. It’s pitch-black in here without the flashlight and so I can barely tell the difference between shutting my eyelids and leaving them open. I wonder briefly if I could sleep with them open but then I realize my eyes would dry out and shut them again. Plus, of course, it takes too much energy to just hold them open…

Elena.

God, if I get down there tomorrow and she’s – she’s gone, I’m going to –

In the dark I let my lips curl back in a silent snarl of laughter. I’m going to what? What’s the end of the sentence? I’d kill myself? Pathetic. Even when I thought I had HIV and I…well, I guess I still have HIV. I’d just sort of pushed it out of my mind. Ironic.

I’d toyed with the thought, of course, back when I got the letter. That same sort of weighty finality shifting heavily, like a center of gravity too far over an edge. But ultimately I’d realized I was too much of a coward to ever go through with something like that, or that if I did work up the nerve to give it a shot I’d just take a bottle of Advil, wash it down with a glass of wine and fall asleep in the bathtub after giving myself a small scratch on the wrist with a dull knife. Or would the Advil actually kill me? I don’t know. Somehow I doubt it but I don’t know. It’d be ineffectual and pathetic and a cry for help and attention, that’s all, and I’d hate myself when I woke up the next morning.

I can’t tie myself to Elena, even if I want to. Whenever I love someone my impulse is to offer everything up to them to make them better while asking nothing in return but I can’t keep doing that. If she dies I have to live, out of – out of sheer bloody-mindedness, I guess.

I yawn.

It’s all so ridiculous. Get a grip, Roan. Either she’s dead or she isn’t. If she isn’t, great. If she is, have a cry and then drag yourself out of here. It’s so callous but it’s what you’d end up doing. Even if you really do love her you’re not going to play Juliet to her Romeo and dagger yourself at the end of the play. Or does Juliet poison herself? I don’t remember.

I shift in the bed, roll over onto my side. My leg twinges warningly and I freeze, holding it still, and then carefully maneuver it away so it has space to itself.

I want to burst into tears at the very thought of her even possibly being dead, despite my hard-edged nitrogen queen pep-talk. Instead I fall asleep.

 * * *

 In the dream I’m falling into a very deep pit. I can’t see the sides of it and the light at the mouth is far too dim for me to really make out anything at all, but I know I’m falling, I can feel the lurch of it in my gut, the way I reflexively seize up. I get the sense that I’m falling toward something, there’s a sense of impendingness hurtling at me like a brick wall across a highway. I want to try and twist over onto my back so I can at least see it coming but halfway through the motion I stop myself, wondering if it might be worse if I can see it coming.

I’m in that weird sort of half-state where some part of me is aware that I’m dreaming but it isn’t a significant enough part to override the animal inside of me that thinks that it’s really truly falling to its death.

I slowly force myself to turn, and there below me is a vast plain of slowly writhing leeches, black and inky and horrible, leaving castings of slime on each other as they slop endlessly across the hidden ground. There is a crack of thunder and I scream, and for a moment I think that that is what brings me crashing awake, the sound boiling up out of my throat, but as my brain hurriedly clears the cobwebs from its sleep-dulled senses, I realize very quickly that what I had thought was thunder was really the crash of the chair being knocked to the floor and the creak of the door slipping open. My heart leaps up into my throat instantly but I resist the urge to freeze. Instead I grab the knife from beneath my pillow and dart downwards to the floor next to the bed. My hands sweep over empty space for a moment before after what feels like ages I brush the flashlight with the tips of my fingers and finally gather it up and snap it on.

The beam flashes over the rugose, squamous head of a venous shamble, shoved through the gap in the door and regarding me curiously, and I scream again, getting to my feet on top of the cot. I stumble and nearly pitch sideways but I reach out and steady myself against the wall.

The shamble presses a little more of its bulk into the room, its swaying, delicate tendrils extending stealthily towards me.

This is the point where I freeze. I can feel my eyes bugging out and my voice catching in my throat as it comes even closer, the tendrils slipping up onto the bed and reaching for my foot before I manage to take a faltering step backwards. My back is against the far wall now, and I have to hunch a little to not hit my head on the bulky, crenelated ceiling. I just can’t – force myself to move, I’m absolutely terrified. It’s a miracle I haven’t wet myself like a baby. Something about the thing’s eyes is – is eating at me, there’s a tremendous depth to them, like a fifty-foot-deep vat of red gelatin, with little sparks and currents and intricacies hovering inside it. I can feel my hands shaking, I can see the cone of the flashlight shuddering as I struggle to force my traitorous muscles to move –

The tendrils wrap around my ankle and something about their shuddering, slimy touch wakes me from whatever trance I had fallen into. I can feel my lip curl in disgust. I tug my foot back once again but the shamble holds on tight. More tendrils are slithering towards my arms and legs and neck and torso and from a tiny, plated orifice something like a horrible, sucking proboscis is emerging from the middle of the shamble’s head. Its eyes are still boring into mine but something is different, something about the, about the tone of them is different, and I realize that I can -

I bring the knife sweeping up in a long, wide arc, with as much force behind it as I can muster, and slam it into the underside of the shamble’s head. The light leaves the thing’s eyes as quickly as if it were switched off, and the tendrils around my ankle and my waist fall off of me like coils of rope. There is a horrible sort of jelly leaking from the wound in its head, a great string of it shot outward and splattered onto the ceiling from the force I had used to shove the knife in.

I stand there on the cot, staring, as the thing shudders and writhes and shrivels, and then, ten minutes later, I get down and put my suit back on and retrieve my knife and I leave.

 * * *

 DUSA is easier to get to than I thought it would be. Although the route the suit computer plotted for me looks torturously circuitous, it turned out to be a wide, clean, spiraling ramp of sorts at a very agreeable grade, the flesh beneath seemingly encased in some kind of resin or enamel. I can feel a wide tread evenly spread in two spots all the way down, so I conclude this must have been some sort of route used to construct DUSA to begin with. The reinforcements are wide and clean and strong-looking, evenly spaced every twenty feet or so.

Once again I boggle at the sheer scale of this place. It must have taken so much effort and resources to put all of this in place, and then to lose it just because of a titanic hiccough, because of pure chance…

Two hours of walking and the suit guides me to a branching offshoot of the main route that leads me across a wide bridge over a vein, full with pounding carmine liquid, thick and sticky and glutinous, and then down a steep ramp and into the sordid, fleshy grotto that holds the cylindrical lozenge of DUSA. I’d tried to call Elena two more times on the way down, but the timbre of the static I get back is thicker. A few times I think I hear something between it, some attempt at a reply, but I can’t make it out. I abandon that after a few attempts and try to keep myself cheery by imagining how good it’ll be to see her again, to hold her again, how good her lips will feel against mine.

When my weary flashlight beam finally rakes over the stained, pitted metal of the outpost, I can feel tears coming to my eyes and for a moment, just a moment, I let myself wallow in hopelessness.

Something has stomped into the organ and torn a massive chunk out of DUSA’s side like it were nothing, left the curved blunt metal bury itself halfway into the Pit’s flesh like a knife dropped point-down. DUSA’s innards are ominously dark, but I can see lights flickering inside and for a moment, just a moment, I think I can see something moving within.

I call out for Elena at least a dozen times but nobody comes to the vast rent made in DUSA’s side to see what all the racket is. Eventually, my hands trembling with a horrible, horrible anticipation of what I might find, I force myself to go in.

Inside, DUSA is a mess. It looks as though a tornado has swept through, leaving shelves knocked onto the floor with their papery guts spilling out like crime scenes, leaving dents in the foot-thick metal walls, leaving scattered debris and mess everywhere. The crater I had climbed in through was worrying enough but seeing the trail of destruction leading down to the stairwell in the back, which itself is crushed and mangled beyond recognition, leaves me practically quivering with trepidation. I clamber down the stairs, making a hell of a racket with the clunky boot banging off the crumpled metal steps.

In the floor below me, the room with the autodoctor unit, a trail of rubble leads over to the autodoc, which itself is crushed to hard-shelled plasticky smithereens. There is someone in an orange ranger suit, standing there in the middle of the room, examining a small chunk of something. As I watch they drop it and start towards the autodoc. “Elena!” I call out, my heart leaping, and the person spins, their hand darting down to their pistol and drawing it on me. “Hey, it’s me,” I tell her, my smile losing a couple of molars. I clamber out of the staircase and come fully into the room, my hands held wide, palms out, empty. “Elena, it’s me,” I repeat.

My heart is beating very quickly. I can feel a bead of sweat trickle down the back of my neck and nestle under the lip of my tank top.

I am only just now realizing that the person ahead of me is much, much shorter than Elena.

“Yes,” Makado agrees, slipping her helmet off, revealing a set of hard, hard eyes and a mouth twisted into an ugly scowl, keeping the pistol trained on me with her other hand. “It’s you.”

Continue with Part 35

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[zettabita]

RIVALS: Spark I

Rivals Master List

hi guys! ok so this is becoming more action than romance lmao I promise next time ill make it...fluffier...? 

I need to get this story out of my head HAHAHAH so I’ll just keep writing. :D In this chapter, you might be a lil OP but thats ok bc you’re amazing irl <3 

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a masaki ichijou x fem reader fic

Genre: action, romance Warnings: mild swearing Word count: 2.2k+

Previous: Thunder

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You really didn’t see what was coming when Saegusa-senpai pulled you into a discussion room the night before your first Ice Pillar Break match. You were meandering about the hotel, you see, trying to get rid of your pre-event jitters. You were inspecting the vending machine (Why doesn’t this have milk tea?) at the end of the corridor when Saegusa-senpai suddenly popped out from nowhere and urged you to follow her into a room full of very intimidating Third year students and an expectant Tatsuya. 

The first thing that crossed your mind when Juumonji-senpai told you in that room that you were chosen to substitute for Monolith Code was the horrible image of you tripping over a rock in the middle of a battlefield. The second thing was how you were so unlucky that the first year they allowed girls to compete in Monolith Code and increased the number of members on a team was your year (but hey, hooray for gender equality.) 

Not wanting to embarrass your school, you tried to put up a good fight. But what about Miyuki, you said. They said that she had two events already and Tatsuya scrunched his face a little bit at the idea. But I don’t have combat experience, you said. They said that Monolith Code, a glorified, no-contact capture-the-flag-with-magic contest, isn’t really live combat and your skills were needed in the team Tatsuya was forming. Not wanting to further bother the scary Third years who looked like they were getting more impatient by the second, you grimly added “not get stomped on at Monolith Code” to your Nine Magic Schools Competition to-do list (At the top of your list was “melt a lot of ice”, which you would later tick off in your Ice Pillar Break match with Mutsuba-san the next day.)

And that’s how you found yourself standing in front of a black pillar in the middle of an open field with Tatsuya Shiba, Leonhard Saijou, and Mikihito Yoshida at the Monolith Code finals, trying in vain to gulp down your nervousness. 

At the far end of the field, you see four figures in dark red armor. They had one girl fidgeting more nervously than you were (It was somehow comforting.) You eye the tallest one, the one with the brownish-red hair tucked underneath the helmet before closing your eyes.

“We need you to counter Ichijou Masaki.” Tatsuya says, almost apologetically. 

You almost spat out your drink from the hotel minibar. “You need me to do what?!” (You panic now, but years later, you thank Tatsuya for his decision. Masaki thanks him too.) You were hanging out in your room with your teammates and a few First-year friends, discussing combat styles and strategies for the coming matches in a few days.

Tatsuya sighs as Leo and Mikihito stare at him incredulously. “It will be difficult, but I need to shut down Futatsugi Kei. I can’t do that while also facing off against Ichijou Masaki. At the very least, you have to buy me some time.” You pause to think. Futatsugi Kei was another Third High School ace from a Master Clan. It was absolutely criminal for him, the Crimson Prince, and Cardinal George to be on the same Monolith Code team. 

But then again, Ichijou Masaki was also in a weight class of his own. Or so they say. “But why me?”

“It’s actually one of the reasons why I chose you. The Ichijou clan specializes in medium to long range bombardment. That would make it difficult for Leo and Mikihito,” Tatsuya gestured to the two, “to take him on from a distance with their specialities. But you can.”

Before you could even reply, Erika chimes in from the other side of the room. “And you’re a girl!” 

The four of us gaze at her curiously. You ask, “What does that have to do with anything?”

Erika flashes me a wide grin. “You’re a girl, so he’ll hesitate going all-out. Right?” She looks to the boys for confirmation. 

“I don’t know if I should be happy about that…” you say as Leo lights up in realization. “Oh, yeah! Old-fashioned types like Master Clans people will probably underestimate you, ” Leo blushes slightly and pauses, realizing the implications of his words, “uh, which is, you know, really unfair, but maybe you could use that to your advantage?” 

Tatsuya and Mikihito nod in agreement. “Yes. It’s possible for us to construct a strategy around that,” Tatsuya adds.

You press your fingers to your temple in a gesture of defeat. “Okay. I’ll think of something. But I don’t think my defense will hold…”

Tatsuya reaches into his inner coat pocket. “And there’s another reason why I chose you.” His lips curl into a rare smile and hands me a silver gun-shaped CAD. “Come on. I’m going to teach you Gram Demolition.”

“(L/N)-san.” Tatsuya calls. You open your eyes without looking at him. “Are you ready?” He asks in a low voice. He was obviously most concerned about your state, given that you were the unlucky one to throw down with one of the best first-year magicians around. 

You feel for the CADs in your holsters and pull up your glove, your magic talisman, on your left hand. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” You think back to your first Monolith Code match with Eighth this morning. You did well, taking to the battlefield easily and readily, but you haven’t shown the world your new spell that was learned in a few late-night crash courses with Tatsuya. Gram Demolition, a potent close-range Counter Magic spell, wasn’t a complicated technique, you learned. You only had to have a crazy high Psion count to cast it. It just so happens you had a lot more than most. 

You sigh and go over your magic repertoire in your head for the last time. You do your best to ignore your heart beating annoyingly fast in your chest, sharpen your focus, and lock your eyes on that self-assured red-haired magician standing directly across from you on the field. Masaki Ichijou—your rival for the day.

And with a screech of a faraway siren, the match begins. 

Tatsuya sprints, two CAD pistols in his hand, legs pumping quickly underneath him as he aims at Futatsugi. The air shifts as the other two spread out behind you. Masaki, on the other, strides confidently forward and begins to cast a spell aimed at Tatsuya.

Not him, me, you think to yourself in a split-second. You send a barrage of lightning bolts in Masaki’s direction, the intensity of your thought coloring the strength of your magic, and he deflects it just in time. He turns to you and you see a small smile plastered on his…admittedly handsome face. Smug bastard. You take a quick glance to your left and see Tatsuya engage in a shootout with that Futatsugi character.

Your eyes dash back to your opponent. Masaki raises his two pistols and a few Activation Sequences form around you quickly. Air Bullet: a round of compressed air and Masaki’s go-to spell in this competition (You’ve watched a few replays of his matches. Never can be too careful with a guy who’s killed a bunch of Russians when he was 13.) Strong, but easy to dismantle. Show time. You blast them away cleanly one by one with your newly-learned Gram Demolition technique and counter with your powered-up version of Thunder Child. Masaki’s smile fades and his eyes widen as he puts out a defensive spell, averting the paralyzing effect of your offense. At the edge of your vision, you notice the other Third opponents shoot you a shocked glance.

Masaki regains his composure in an instant. The two of you walk towards each other, pistols raised in a magic gunfight. Lightning and Activation Sequences form and disintegrate around the both of you within seconds, drawing you in, encircling the both of you in a beautiful but deadly light show. (It lit up his face the same way it would the first time he took you to see fireworks at the pier in Kanazawa.) You manage to slip in a few lightning bolts in between shots of Gram Demolition, making him sidestep occasionally, but you were basically locked in a stalemate. 

Now or never. You break your solid stance and run towards him, catching him off-guard. For a second, he pauses, and you press the attack, nearly hitting him with a low-voltage lightning bolt. 

The Crimson Prince must’ve felt the heat quite literally. He flinched at the heat and the close sound of air expanding rapidly like miniature thunder, and, with a flick of his wrist, a dozen Activation Sequences suddenly surrounded you, threatening to let loose. Oh my God, this jerk’s trying to kill me. You catch the horrified expression on his face (his move was a violation of the rules, after all) before you blast away one, four, then seven in a moment, going beyond what you thought you could, and then you take out a few more. You feel the hotness from a nearby explosion. You internally scream at your body to catch up and obliterate the remaining Sequences.

And then, when you’d just were a couple of paces from him, just within range of a lightning bolt, one air bullet hits the ground next to you. The world to your left erupts in a hot flash and the ground simply bursts, soil surging up into the air. You let out a yelp of pain and dive away from the blast.

“And that’s the plan. Do you think the illusion will hold?” You focus on your outstretched hand, gathering Psions and then destroying Tatsuya’s attempt at a spell, the glow from the attempt lighting up his figure in the darkened training field not far from the hotel. Your Gram Demolition was still imperfect, but it was getting there: you had proceeded from mildly inconveniencing Activation Sequences last night to outright blowing them away this evening. 

Tatsuya furrows his eyebrows in mild disapproval as he prepares to cast another one. “At your level, it should.” Another Activation Sequence forms before you and you blast it away easily. “Still...a lot of things could go wrong with that. Are you sure, using yourself as bait?”

You shrug. “You would be too busy to help me. And… to be honest, I don’t think I have a chance at fighting him head-on for too long. So I’m doing what you guys suggested. Using a little psychology.” You grin as you take down a couple of Sequences from Tatsuya near-perfectly. “After all, who wouldn’t panic if they thought they hurt a cute girl?”

You just didn’t expect him to try to kill said cute girl, even if it was an accident. You lie face down in the dirt. Your ears were ringing and your head throbbed irritatingly. Thank goodness your helmet had tough glass or you’d be eating mud by now. A thick mist that looks like dust and steam emanates from the palm of your glove-covered hand and envelops the surrounding area, hiding you from view. You raise your head slightly to look around at it. Your smoke version of Magical Mist, a spell that creates a thick fog, looked a bit unnatural, but it should do. A destroyed CAD, an attempt at a defense spell, a weird natural phenomenon: what created the mist shouldn’t matter, because the opponent should be panicking either way. You take another second to lie on the grass, CADs clutched in your hands, hurting all over from the dive, and then you waited.

You knew that Masaki was just at the edge of the smoke, probably freaking out at the prospect that he killed a girl and a foreign exchange student at First High (Later on, you learn he already had been practicing how to apologize to your country’s government for your death. The nervous wreck.) You knew he would be too busy reviewing his previous steps to see if the excessive force he used would be enough to kill you and definitely too busy to notice that his opponent was very much still alive and kicking. You listen for a rustle of grass or a shuffle of armor. 

After a quiet moment of passing wind and the faraway sounds of magic from your teammates’ own battles, you hear it: a step back, the ground crunching underneath a foot. You raise yourself from the ground quickly and throw your CAD in the direction of the sound. It was a good throw: high and far, the gun spinning away from view in a clean trajectory. More importantly, it was a good distraction at a magic-only battle. At almost the same time, you sprint and emerge from the smoke and into the light. 

You swear the world moved in slow motion in that instant. Masaki Ichijou stood there a few feet from you, pistols lowered, his head turned in the direction of the CAD you threw. He feels the air shift when you emerge and he turns to you slowly, his emerald eyes glinting in the light, his mouth gaped open in surprise. He raises an arm instinctively, probably activating his defenses, but you already cast the final blow: Spark. A seemingly simple spell that creates a small electric discharge but is enough to paralyze an opponent.

As you did, you couldn’t help but flash the Crimson Prince a shameless smile from ear to ear. I win, you wanted to say. He looked on—you couldn’t understand the expression on his face—as he fell to his knees, electricity crackling around him. Far away, the crowd erupts in loud cheers. 

Months later, Masaki tells you that that smile was what made him fall desperately in love with you.

————————-

hope the way you beat him wasn’t too far-fetched lmao. thanks for reading! <3

[writingforevren]

WIP Intro Coming Soon

Excerpt - The boy who fell in

POV - Eros Rosario

Words - 1761

I was twelve or thirteen when it happened; On that day I had gone closer to land. I had always enjoyed watching humans my age hang out together and have fun, though I was too nervous to talk or interact with them- which could be due to the fact I was worried they might judge me for my rather… Unusual appearance. So I just watched them and wished... and watched... and that night I was just minding my own business, floating under the water as you do, when I heard a splash. Somebody was sinking and they weren't trying to stop themselves. I swam quickly and grabbed them, bringing them to the surface. I was worried; What if he’d drowned? I mean he had sunk, so what if something had happened to him or somebody wanted to kill him or something? I had no clue but all I knew is that I wanted to help.

At first he didn't breathe. I couldn’t help but think, Oh crap did he die? Humans needed to breathe right? He was motionless. I leaned forward and gently slapped his cheek. "Are you alright?" I asked softly and watched as his eyes fluttered open and his gaze settled upon me.

"Wh- who are you?" He jumped back away from me as he caught sight of my tail. "What are you? and what're doing to me?" he asked again and I could sense fear in his voice.

"Hey it’s okay! I’m just here to help, okay? I thought you were gonna drown so-” I tried to explain that I was there to help- that I wasn’t trying to hurt him, but… he didn’t get it.

"G-get off of me you're a monster!" he exclaimed and pushed his hands against my chest, sending this feeling of pulsing pain, causing me to fall backward on the sand. My chest throbbed and it was so painfully hard to breathe, I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on steadying my breathing. "What did I just do? What did you do to me?!" He cried, his voice was very shaky and I could tell he truly had no idea what was going on.

"P-please I was just trying to help..." I stammered through the painful pulsing that ran through my body.

"I- but can't you see I wanted to sink... why'd you- why would- why would anyone save me?" As I opened my eyes, there were thick tears rolling down the boy's cheek. I felt bad…  It was obvious he was hurt and fragile so I couldn't blame him for lashing out at me but... a monster? It still hurt.

I took a deep breath and laid back on the sand as the pain subsided. "Nobody deserves to die... we are all a part of this planet and we all have our purpose, now I dunno what yours is, but I promise you whatever is going on in your life is nothing compared to the amazing things that will come in the future." I tried to cheer him up, despite the fact that’s not really something I’d had to do before. Usually I told myself those things when I felt down, I had never actually said anything like that to someone else before.

"I- what's your purpose?" He had asked.

I felt- Well I didn’t know the answer and that’s something I had been trying to figure out. But I couldn’t exactly say ‘i don’t know’ I highly doubt that would’ve worked "mm perhaps it's to help save the world..." "Or maybe it's to save an innocent life that was far before their expiration date." I gave him a warm smile.

"Are you an angel? Are you sure I'm not dead? Is this a test of some sort?" he started asking all these questions that I found himself utterly confused as to where to start.

"Uh-” I paused for a moment. “No, Yes, and No, I'm not an angel, I'm actually a siren.” I replied, I wasn’t exactly thinking, I didn’t understand that he would judge me for being a siren, I didn’t know all the false rumours that humans had spread about us, Which makes me wonder what other false information humans are taught.

"I- A siren? Holy crap a siren? PLEASE DON’T EAT ME!” He yelled and put his hands up in front of him.

"Why would I eat you? I literally just saved your life..." Obviously he wasn’t seeing the logic here, If I wanted to eat him I would’ve just waited for him to drown and then ate him. It would be so much easier than what I had done.

"Because sirens lure humans to eat them?" He answered hesitantly, looking as if he was ready to run away at any moment.

I shook my head. "No... I eat fish also fish eggs are nice they have this sort of popping feeling in your mouth and they have a really strong-”

"So you don't eat humans?" he interrupted, and seemed genuinely confused.

I shook my head again "No I dunno who would wanna eat a human- I think I accidentally bit someone one time and they didn't taste very good."

"Oh..." He looked down.

"Why do you sound disappointed? did you want me to eat you?" 

"Uh- n-no I just uhhmmmm I dunno I wasn't disappointed-" he stammered.

"Why're your cheeks red?" I poked his cheek. Once again I was naive and had no idea what a blush was considering I had never met a human or someone with pale skin; All the sirens I knew had darker skin and were at least tanned.

"This is a really weird situation- I don't know what to say… s-o I'm not dead?" He seemed to have calmed down at least a little bit at this point.

"Nope- you seem alive to me... Also why does this cloth take so long to dry and why do humans always wear them?" I leaned over and started to peel the wet shirt off of his skin.

"D-D'you think you could not do that?" He stammered and pulled his shirt back down.

"Hmm…” I ignored him and leaned closer to his face "you're a nice one~”

"Wh-what's that supposed to mean?" He shrank back onto his hands behind him.

I leaned forward and cupped his face, it was so soft. I briefly pressed my lips against his which were soft and warm. "I mean you're pretty and your skin is soft."

"I- uh- thanks" The boy flushed bright red and averted his eyes.

"Mhm... Wow, legs feel different than they look." I ran my hands along one of his legs "What's this hard part?" I bonked his knee.

The boy quickly retracted his leg "Ow shit that was my knee and that hurt-"

"Oh- sorry-"

"Uhm do you mind me asking what sirens actually do with humans if they don't eat them?..."

"Mm well it’s a bit different, A lot of sirens are just lonely and lure sailors to keep them company for the night. Most of the time the Sirens have no idea where they came from so they just dump them on a random plot of land which is usually pretty far from where they should've been, so a lot of the sailors are reported to have gone missing after going to these parts of the water where there are sirens. Probably some random person came up with the idea that we eat them 'cause he saw one of us and that we have sharp teeth y'know but like worse sirens do to humans is like sometimes we can leave bites- I mean I never have but sometimes there are teeth marks and pretty dark bruises.” I explained.

"Oh-" 

"Mhm..." I smiled 

"Is this a dream?..." He asked, as he looked around the beach.

"Uhm no I don't think so- why?"

"I just tried to drown myself, so technically I could be in a coma- Sirens are mythology- and also you are incredibly attractive and I feel like only my dreams could make you."

"Am I not real enough for you?" I pouted and leaned on his chest

"Uhm- I'm just really confused mate..."

"Mate? but wait, you're a human..."

"I- what?"

"Oh wait- do humans not have mates? Mm ah yeah right I should probably explain that too. Sirens generally have to choose a siren mate before they're eighteen so that we don't go extinct considering we actually don't find each other that attractive compared to humans.”

"I eh... Okay-”

"Mmm do you have a mate?"

"I- ehm no I don't- I mean I've never even- I’ve never even kissed anyone before..." 

"Never? why not? I kiss pretty much everyone I like-"

"Oh eheh- just different for humans I guess..." He laughed awkwardly and seemed to be looking anyway other than myself

"Can humans not sense when someone is mutually attracted to them?"

"No- Sirens can?"

"Mhm I mean I could tell at first you didn't like me but then you realized what was happening and you are now very attracted to me." he smiles. "That's why I knew if I kissed you, you wouldn't reject me."

"Oh-"

"Mhm..."

"So you're on land- how does that work?..." He changed the subject.

"Well I can breathe both air and water so going on land isn't much of a problem however the sunlight does burn our scales so we can't really go to the surface in the daylight also we can't really move around that much without legs" I swished my tail around in emphasis.

"Right but uhm do you need moisture to survive?"

"Mhm we have to be in water uhm I think it was at least 6 hours a day otherwise we'll start to dry out."

"okay cool- ehm..."

"Do you have water at your house?"

"Uhh I mean yeah?"

"Can I come with you?"

"As much as I'd love to say yes- no-"

"... So you have magic right- do you think you could figure out the spell to give me legs? Because I'm bored with the ocean. it's so big and all I do is swim around and eat fish."

"I have magic?"

"Well obviously you just shocked me when you got scared."

The boy was so confused, the look on his face said it all.

"The sun's gonna start coming up soon so I'll see you tomorrow night meet me here 'kay?" I smiled at him.

"Uhm alright I guess-"

"Mhm" I cupped his face and pecked his cheek before turning and swimming away back into the sea.

Thanks for reading!

This is something I wrote about a month ago and just got around to editing, it’s more to introduce you to the characters and the way that sirens work in this world. I probably won’t include all of it in the final story but I wanted to give you a little taste of the story idea.

Taglists

General Writing - @weirdfishy @wannabeauthorzofija @annlillyjose @iespeciallyme @radiomacbeth @opes-magnas (ask to be +/-)

A Song From The Deep - (ask to be added)

[angeliise]

Day 3: I’d Choose You Again and Again

If somebody asked you to choose between me and someone else right now, would you choose me?

And would you choose me again, if they asked you 10 years from now?

Hinata looked up from the soggy ground. Hinata found herself sitting on the swings by the academy as the rain poured down on her every being. People would think she is crazy to be out in this rain in only a mesh shirt but… she didn’t have anything else to cover herself with.

Why?

She had been disowned by her father. She was deemed too weak to be the true successor to the Hyuga Clan. Her father had chosen her sister instead. Just when she thought her sensei had personally chosen her as a student, she found out that it was on the order of her father.

Her sensei had greeted herself as Kurenai and left shortly after, no question asked. Sigh. She was referred to the Hokage to find a new home and was given an apartment, which she had just moved into. She hadn’t met any of her neighbors but even if she did, nobody would pay her any mind.

The former heiress stood up and walked back to her apartment. When she was in front of the door, she lifted her head slightly when the door opened. She looked up to find obsidian eyes staring down at her, holding an umbrella.

“Why are you always wearing so little when it’s raining this much?” He asked. His tone was stern and monotonous, yet Hinata felt an ounce of care from his expression.

“Always?...” Hinata said in a low tone.

“The whole of last week, and now today.”

Hinata felt her eyes water again. This mysterious man had noticed her and been watching her since last week? The week she had moved into her new home. Hinata was again taken aback by his action when he tilted his umbrella so that it shielded her from the rain. Her bangs were completely soaked and plastered on her forehead, blocking most of her view. But one thing she would never forget were those obsidian eyes staring into her soul with the most care she had ever received from someone.

****

Hinata and Sasuke were walking alongside the pavement. It was the day they were going to be assigned into their teams. It was also the day she was going to do something she never thought she would have the courage to do. Though she knew she was with Kurenai, she didn’t know of the other members. She looked over at Sasuke for a split second. She hoped that she was going to be in the same team as him no matter what. Her and Sasuke had spent a lot of time together as neighbors.

She remembered when she was only eating ramen because she never learned how to cook in her previous household. When she fell over on her way from hunger, Sasuke had caught her and invited her to dinner. Although he berated her for not being able to cook he never complained about her crashing over for every supper.  

During those times both Hinata and Sasuke had come to learn a lot about each other From their hobbies to their favorite foods to their birthdays and most importantly, their families. They bonded over their strict fathers and the unattainable goal of becoming like their siblings. Although that was it, it was enough.

It was enough for Sasuke because he had finally found someone that knew what it felt like to be inadequate. Although there was Naruto, Sasuke at least knew what it felt like to have a family. A mother. A father. A sibling. So did Hinata, which made for loads of inside jokes and lighthearted jabs at their clan’s persistence of upholding their images. As time went they became each other’s sparring partners and Sasuke was proud to have witnessed Hinata going from a reluctant fighter to becoming a competent opponent for him. But most importantly, she was slowly emerging from the depressive shell she was once in. He was glad about it for he did not want her to descend down the path he had when his clan was massacred.

Naruto’s voice sirened through their eardrums from afar. He was walking with Sakura, who was trying to hide her giggles. Though Sasuke knew that it was because Naruto was saying his name for every other word.

“Since when did-”

“Baka. Sakura would never fall for a guy like that.”

“Really?” It was in that moment she was proven right as Sakura looked away from Naruto and onto them. She shoved Naruto to the ground and enthusiastically waved over to them, more specifically Sasuke.

“Sasuke-kun!”

Sasuke sighed and looked away from the circus as Naruto called him out and was beaten by Sakura again. He looked at Hinata and smirked to himself while she still had her eyes on Naruto and Sakura.

Had he not met Hinata, Sasuke thought, then he would still be spiraling down the void of darkness that had consumed his mind ever since then. Her calm, gentle and kind aura had warmed him. He recounted the time she had invited him for dinner for once and was welcomed to a burning kitchen with Hinata desperately trying to put the fire out with a paper towel. Ever since then he knew…

He couldn’t trust her to be on her own.

He would make daily visits to make sure that she had not or was about to catch herself in fire or wring herself in her laundry and suffocate. He had taken it upon himself to teach her all the basic skills. It was those moments that helped him in opening up to her about himself and especially his past. Something he thought he would never feel comfortable talking about. The voice of Hinata brought him out of his thoughts.

“Huh? What did you say?”

Hinata embarrassingly looked away from his stare. Sasuke had gotten used to Hianta getting flustered out of nowhere. “I-I hope we get to be in the s-same team.”

Sasuke smiled at her and nodded in agreement. “Yeah.”

****

Hinata eyed the floor, trying to muster the tears in as Sasuke’s fangirls roared at the Iruka. She was sitting next to Sasuke and felt a twinge in her heart from not hearing her name in the same team as Sasuke. She twitched her head when she felt a nudge at her elbow. She looked over at Sasuke who had slipped her a note. She folded it open:

You still have something important to do, today.

She eyed him and he nodded at her with a tiny smile only for her. She smiled back at him.

****

The day was over and she was waiting by the swings. When she heard incoming footsteps she turned around and felt her heart rate increase. “N-Naruto-kun.”

“Oh, hey Hinata. So what did you want to tell me?”

Hinata fiddled with her fingers as she always did when she was nervous. She would never forget the times she would run into Naruto with Sasuke and how he would practically shove her in his face. He was always so supportive of her about her feelings for Naruto who he considered a doofus. Although she embarrassed herself every time, she had still gotten to speak with Naurto. She had gotten to know him pretty well and he with her. She had for the first time thought that she might have a chance. Especially when Naruto opened up about his feelings for Sakura and how she might not feel the same way and how he should give up. Hinata would have encouraged him to continue fighting but… Naruot deserved someone who loved him just as much.

“I-It’s j-j-just...” She stuttered. She could not find the right words and resorted to the question Sasuke had suggested her if she ever found herself in such a situation. She locked her eyes with Naruto with a determined look. “D-do you like someone?”

“Someone?”

“Yes, someone..” She said and watched as his face remained neutral as he thought it over.

The corners of Naruto’s mouth faced upwards into a huge smile. Hinata smiled back as he parted his mouth.

“Of course I do!” He started, making the butterflies in her stomach run amok. Was this happening? She might very well have a chance. Maybe. Maybe she- “It’s Sakura-chan!”

“Eh…”

“Don’t get me wrong but Sakura-chan is…” He was about to finish his sentence when two arms embraced him from behind. “S-Sakura-chan.”

“What are you doing over here? You promised to walk me home, didn’t you.” She giggled as she dragged him with her. She waved Hinata goodbye and the Hyuga watched them until they vanished from view.

The sun was setting and the rays of orange dawned on Hinata’s pale complexion. She had not moved from her spot ever since. And she couldn’t care to move herself. Just like always, someone else had been chosen over her. She really was hopeless, right? There was no way anybody would choose her over anything else? A person, a goal, an item. Everything else mattered but her! Ever-

“What are you doing sobbing over a doofus like that?”

Sasuke walked in front of her and wiped a single tear from her eyelash. He then cupped her face in his palms and wiped several tears that fought to slide down her cheek.

“Hinata.” He softly said.

Her silent whimpers turned into loud cries as her dry palms took over the tear cleansing. She just wanted to dry everything off. From her tears. To her cheeks. Her feelings. Her entire being!

“Hinata.”

“Sasuke-kun…!” She wailed. “If somebody asked you to choose between me and someone else right now, would you choose me?”

Sasuke smirked, making Hinata’s lips waver as she was scared that he would leave her too for how pathetic she was.

“What do you think?”

Hinata squirmed in defeat. Sasuke had his goal of killing his brother and restoring his clan. He wouldn’t have time for her as he got stronger. Sooner he would find a stronger partner to spar with. The sooner that happened, the sooner he would leave her. She didn’t want that. Sasuke had been her only source of happiness since she lost everything. Had it not been for him… who knows what she would have done with herself?

Hinata snapped out of her thoughts by the soft touch on her hand. It had been Sasuke who took both her hands into his and raised them up.

“Of course.” He said, looking into her eyes. “I would choose you.”

...

“Always.”  

****

Those had been the last words of Sasuke Uchiha. Hinata unbound her hair and let it fall to her waist.

Yes. It had been 10 years since that time Sasuke told her that he would choose her over anybody else if he had the choice. She hadn’t heard anything from or of him since then for he disappeared without a trace. Naruto and Sakura have since then tried to bring him back. But everytime they returned, they came back empty handed.

Hinata sat by her antique and began combing her silky hair. Naruto and Sakura didn’t work out after all. She wasn’t particularly overjoyed. In fact, she didn’t care. For her heart had longed for someone else since they left.

She wondered whether Sasuke, in the time he has been gone, has found someone. Someone that he has chosen to restore his clan with. She sighed at the thought as it always brought a frown on her face. “Sasuke-kun…” she stared into her reflection. “Would you choose me again, if I asked you 10 years from now?”

Expecting no answer, Hinata lay the brush down. “You should already know the answer to that.”

Hinata gasped as she whirled in her seat to find him sitting on her window frame. His hair grew longer, his body more lean but that didn’t stop his abs from showing through his opened shirt. She couldn’t stop the tears from flowing down her face as she was standing before the man her heart had been waiting for and would continue to wait for until the day it stops beating. “S-Sasuke-kun.”

Sasuke leaned away from the window and made his way to Hinata, who in those 10 years, had become more beautiful than he ever thought was possible. When he stood right before her, he smiled at her.

“Hinata.” He said as he took her hands into his.

“Sasuke-kun…”

“I’d choose you again,” he leaned down to kiss her tender lips, “and again.”

@sasuhinamonth

[jayofmemory]

Orange Sillohette

Hey yall!! It’s been a log time since I’ve uploaded anything, and while I wish I had ideas for Branded, yall’re just gonna have to have this one shot for now lol. Enjoy~

Chase was shocked awake by the sound of something hitting the ground hard. He stumbled to his feet and put a hand against the wall while he steadied his breathing and blinked the dots away. Everything felt like it was spinning. Where was he? He blinked again, leaning against the cool wall and tried to look around, but all he could make out were the muted, bright colors and lights of a city at night. He could faintly hear the voices around him, they seemed panicked, but the ringing in his ears was too overwhelming to focus on anything.

He tried to make his way to a quieter part of town, not noticing that no one was paying any attention to him. If they were, they would probably think he was drunk with his glazed over eyes, half leaning against the wall as he walked. He had been drinking a little, but not so much to make him feel like this... right? He shook his head, trying to remember how he got into the city.

“I... drove here... and-and went up to the roof... to... d-d-drink.” He mumbled quietly as he walked. Soon he was in a park in the middle of the city, finding a bench and laying down on it.

“I drove past here...” He could see the world going dark as a faint siren sounded in the distance. “I...”

-- -- --

Marvin walked through the city, the first few rays of sunlight bouncing off his hair as it flapped behind him in a loose ponytail. His searching eyes scanned the area, but he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for. He had seen what happened, but he wanted to know how, and more importantly, why. Why had he done it? Why did he leave so late at night?

A few people gave him a funny look as he quickly walked past, but thankfully none of them stopped him. Just as the shops around him began to open and people started arriving, he came to the park. He sat down on a nearby bench and turned on his phone, scrolling through the texts from his brothers from the night before. He sighed, pressed his fingers to his temples, and took a deep breath. He was still too tense to really think properly.

“-vin?”

Marvin opened his eyes and looked around, but didn’t see anyone.

“Maybe I’m just hearing things...” He muttered. Just then he noticed that one of the crystals on his necklace was glowing faintly. He held it up and gazed at it.

“Huh, that’s weird.” He blew on it and for a moment the light grew brighter.

“Can y- m-“

“Again?” He whispered. “Who’s there?” He commanded.

The crystal glowed bright again, a little more steady this time, and for a moment, Marvin saw a flicker of a form right in front of him.

“Marvin?” And just like that, the form was gone.

“What do you want, spirit?” Marvin tried to keep his voice steady. It had been many years since this crystal had lit up, the one for souls. There was silence, except for the shuffle of leaves in the wind. Did the spirit leave? Marvin looked at the crystal one last time before standing up and looking around quickly to make sure no one was near before making a portal. As he slipped through the portal to his apartment, he felt a sudden weight around his neck and stumbled forward. 

The portal closed instantly behind him and the weight was gone. He shuffled in place for a little bit before he got an idea. He headed to his bedroom and pulled out a box from underneath his bed. He found the crystal he was looking for immediately. It was a much larger version of the crystal that had been glowing earlier.

He sat it on the ground and inspected it. There was a small dot of light that flashed for a second, on the side opposite from him.

“So you followed me home. Hey, you want to talk, right? Follow my lead.” Marvin placed a hand on the large crystal and after a second another hand print appeared, glowing, on the other side.

“You may talk.”

There was a moment of silence before he heard a whisper. “... Marvin... am I dead?”

“I’m afraid so. I don’t know who you are, but you seem to know my name. This stone lets me talk with the dead so I can hopefully put you to rest.”

“I don’t...” The whisper paused. “I-I can’t be dead... I- Marvin please, can’t you do something?”

“I’m sorry, my necromancy is pretty weak.” He paused. “Stay here please.” He released the crystal and stood up, making his way over to one of the book shelves. After selecting a dusty book from the top shelf, he made his way back in time to hear “why can’t I remember?”

“Remember what?”

“How I... died.”

Marvin sat down and opened the book to a certain section. “Hmm... you must be recently deceased then. I remember my teacher saying that the recently departed have trouble remembering how it all happened. Let’s see... here! I found a spell that might speed up the process for you to remember. I just need your full name and the last thing you remember from being alive.”

“Can’t you recognize my voice?”

“No? You’re coming through as a whisper.”

“Marvin... it’s me. Chase.”

Marvin froze, wide eyed. He looked at where he thought the spirit’s eye level would be in shock. “No... Y-you’re joking.”

“Marvin, I’m serious.” The crystal glowed a little brighter. Marvin could feel tears coming to his eyes but he quickly wiped them away.

“Y-you jumped...”

“What?”

“They found you on the ground out front of a 5 foot building downtown. You- the only way you could have been that badly injured is if you jumped.”

“No, I wouldn’t have!” The handprint glowed brighter.

“H-hold on...” Marvin flipped a few pages in the book and pressed his hand against the crystal again, closing his eyes and beginning to repeat a spell. He opened one eye and looked up. There, in front of him, was the glowing orange translucent form of his brother.

“You’re really-“ He reached out and was relieved when he could touch Chase’s arm.

Chase jumped at the sudden touch and looked Marvin in the eye. Marvin couldn’t hold his emotions back any longer and reached over the crystal to hug his brother, burying his face in his shoulder.

“It’s actually you!” Marvin gasped. Chase went to hug him back and realized he was shaking.

“Of course it’s me...”

After a moment longer, Marvin released him and sat back down, instead placing Chase’s hands in his, as if he was making sure he wouldn’t vanish again.

“Um... what all happened last night?” Chase asked, relieved at the touch.

Marvin drew in a sharp breath before he began. “1:34 am. I received a text from Jameson saying you were in the hospital with serious injuries. In a few minutes he texted back that you were dead. I teleported over and they said you.. had jumped off of a building downtown. The impact had practically killed you instantly, but even still, Henrik tried to save you.” He paused and drew in another shaky breath. “Why...”

“Why did I jump.” Chase finished his question. “I... don’t know. I don’t remember anything after I drove downtown. There was... whiskey next to me.”

“Chase-“

“I know I know, I promised I would quit. I just... it was our anniversary. The day I left... the day Stacy stopped letting me see our kids.”

“It was... wait you said the last thing you remember was driving downtown? We can still try the memory spell if you want.”

Chase paused before nodding, a determined look on his face. There was a sound of turning pages and muttering from somewhere outside the room, but he didn’t have time to question it before a searing pain hit him. He cried out in pain and keeled over, putting his hands over his ears. There was a soft touch on his hands again and the pain ebbed away. He sat back up, dazed and noticed Marvin was holding his hands again.

“Gah... is it supposed to hurt that ba-“ Chase froze as the memories flooded back into his head. He wobbled in place and shook his head, his mind finally clear. His eyes widened and he looked up at Marvin, who had worry and curiosity in his expression.

“Chase?”

“I didn’t jump. I was pushed.”

Marvin’s eyes widened before they narrowed in fury. “Who.”

“I can’t... see them...” Chase closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. “I’m sitting on the roof, looking at the stars. I’m holding the bottle, it's maybe a fourth empty. My cheeks feel wet. I stand up and walk to the edge before sitting down again. There is a noise behind me. I turn around and I feel hands on my back, pushing me. Red hoodie... black gloves and... the green eye...”

“Green eye?!” Marvin interrupted.

“Green. Marvin, it was Jackie. No, it was his body.”

“Anti?!” Marvin shot up. “Crap, of course he was behind this! I need to-“

Chase stood up, watching as Marvin made a portal. He turned quickly back to Chase and removed a bracelet from his wrist and slipped it onto Chase’s.

“This should let you be able to talk to the others outside my body.”

“Wh-?”

“Oh yeah I had you possess me so I could see you, sorry for not asking. Come on.”

Before Chase could blink they were in Henrik’s office. He and Jamie were sitting on the bench, asleep on each other’s shoulders, eyes red from crying. Marvin snapped loudly, awaking the two of them instantly.

“Sorry to awake your slumber, but do either of you know where Jackie is?”

Henrik grunted and slipped over to his desk. “He’s at... that building. Where Chase ju-“

“He didn’t jump.” “I didn’t jump.” Chase and Marvin said together. Henrik and Jamie looked at Marvin in shock and confusion.

“Sorry, no time to explain.” Marvin began making another portal. “I’ll get him and come back for you three.”

“Three?!” Henrik exclaimed as he slipped through and disappeared with a pop. Henrik and Jameson stared at each other in silence, now wide awake.

“Well... would you like me to explain all this now or after he comes back?” Chase broke the silence, startling the other two.

“Wha- who-?” Henrik stammered.

Chase stifled a giggle. He knew Henrik didn’t really believe in too much of the supernatural stuff that Marvin loved so much.

“Chase!?!” Jamie signed, hands slightly shaking.

“Yeah um... sorry to scare you two but you can’t really see me right now cause uh.. I’m kinda... dead? But it looks like you can hear me so that’s good! Marvin’s spells worked!”

Henrik stared at the direction the voice was coming from, contemplating everything he knew.

Before either of them could answer the portal opened back up and Jackie flew through it backwards.

“GRAB HIM!” Marvin yelled as he came flying in after.

Henrik grabbed the hero before he hit the wall.

“Hold him there, I need to get it out of him.”

Suddenly Jackie jerked in Henrik’s arms and a distorted laugh echoed through the room.

“W̧h͟a̴̛t͠,̵ ̷y͠o҉̧ù ̨c̨̡a̴̶n̶͞’͟͟ţ͟ ͝f̸i͟͝g̀́h͡t̶ ҉͠m̢̛é ̕o̡͜n̡͞ ͘ý̕o̕u͡ŗ̛ ͟o͢w͢n̢͜,͠ ̸͜m̡a͟g̡i̵͝c̢̛i͟͏a̸n͏?̧͟” Jamie and Henrik paled instantly, being all too familiar with that voice. Jackie’s left eye flashed green as the whites of his eyes went black.

Marvin’s eyes glowed an icy blue and a sudden gust of wind whipped around the room. He pressed his hand against Jackie’s face and said a spell in a language that none of them could understand.

Jackie’s body spasmed in Henrik’s grasp, glitching harshly. Marvin pulled his hand back but continued chanting as black smog erupted from Jackie’s eyes and mouth, glitching and fizzing as it shot towards the ceiling. Suddenly everything was quiet and both Jackie and Marvin went limp. Jamie caught Marvin and Henrik held Jackie up still, then Jackie started coughing and breathing in heavily. Henrik released him and Jackie fell to his hands and knees, trying to catch his breath. Marvin blinked and looked up before pushing himself gently out of Jamie’s grasp and moving closer to Jackie. He lifted his head up and looked him in the eyes before smiling.

“You’re back.”

“Y-yeah-“ Jackie attempted to respond but ended up coughing a bit. “How did you know he was in me? He was... doing a pretty good job of pretending to be me for a week or two.”

“Are you alright?” Chase asked before Marcin could answer.

Marvin nodded and Jackie’s head shot up, looking around wildly. “Chase?!”

“Sorry, you can’t see me.”

“Yet.” Marvin grinned, all eyes moving to him. “That exorcism took a lot out of me but I think I have enough energy for one more magic trick. Henrik? Where’s the body?”

Henrik, who was standing against the wall trying to comprehend everything, suddenly stood at attention. “This way.”

He led them all down a few halls, slow enough that Jackie and Marvin could keep up, until they reached the morgue. “But Marvin- his vital organs are long dead. How can you-“

“Shush. Lemme work.” Marvin smiled confidently. He approached Chase’s body bag. “Chase, do I have your permission to try a little experiment? This is my first time trying to bring anyone back from the dead.”

“Of course you dummy.” Chase responded from the other side of the table.

“Follow my lead.” He commanded again, closing his eyes and resting his hands lightly on the bag. He started saying an unfamiliar spell, with a hint of melody to it. The other three brothers watched in wonder as an orange light flooded the room for a moment, surrounding Marvin’s silhouette. The light faded as Marvin finished and his arms fell to his sides.

“Oh dear-“ he managed to say before he collapsed again, falling unconscious. Even though he was still recovering, Jackie’s quick reflexes kicked in and he caught Marvin.

There was a cough from the body bag on the table and a muffled voice came from within. “Yo can someone open the bag? It smells bad in here.”

Henrik rushed over and unzipped the body bag and Chase sat up and stretched. Henrik watched in wonder as the previously blue with death body was suddenly pink with life again. Chase looked down before looking at Henrik.

“Uh... got an extra gown around?”

Jamie let out a silent giggle and Henrik tossed a hospital gown at Chase, who quickly put it on. He flexed his fingers, a smile spreading across his face, happy to be completely solid again.

“Ok someone want to tell me what the F*** happened?!?” Henrik finally released the confusion that was building up in him.

Chase looked up at him then down where Jackie sat with the unconscious Marvin. “Yeah, I’ll explain everything. Although it’d probably be a better idea to talk in your office.”