#Major character undeath

[minty364]

DPXDC Promp#58 Part 5

When he came too he was in the basement.

A soft hum came from the now activated portal, Danny couldn’t help but stare at it, the swirling green was mesmerizing and something in him felt a little different. He thought about what that might be for a moment but he was unable to tear his eyes away from the swirling patterns that called to him, beckoning him. 

“D-Danny?” Jazz said from behind him her voice was small and quiet, Danny almost didn’t hear her. 

He was sitting so he let himself fall onto his back and looked up at her.

She was right behind Damian and Tim who were watching him apprehensively, their hands held up in a defensive position. Jazz had a look of confusion and dread on her face while Damian also seemed confused but there was an anger there that Danny couldn’t quite place. Tim meanwhile looked like he was preparing to steal his emotions, probably because he was the eldest of the group. 

He wasn’t sure what was going on but he looked around the lab for the sink he knew had a mirror over it and when he found it he got up and walked over to see his reflection. Or well he tried, his body started floating as soon as he stood, he somehow was able to get to the mirror and looked at his reflection.

He was paler than before, almost as white as a sheet, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. His once blue eyes were a vibrant neon green, his hair once black is now white as snow. Even his hazmat suit inverted colors. White boots and gloves and a black suit. 

He fell back from the mirror onto his back as he shifted away from his reflection. It was terrifying that he could see Jazz, Tim, and Damian watching through him, he was transparent like he wasn’t really there.

He had really died, he was a ghost, the very thing his parents ranted on and on about every time he or Jazz was in ear shot. They’d rant about how evil they were and how they’d find one to dissect after the portal was completed. If that wasn’t enough he realized he couldn’t feel his pulse and he hadn’t been breathing this entire time.

He was panicking now, what exactly did this mean for him? Was his parents going to find him in the basement and try to dissect him? Should he go into the portal? If it did go to the ‘ghost zone’ as his parents called it shouldn’t he live there now? 

He could feel himself start to break as silent sobs wracked his body, he still wasn’t breathing but that probably didn’t matter if he was a ghost. 

If his parents were right about ghosts that meant he was a monster now, he probably wouldn’t be allowed near anyone again. He’d never be able to feel the warm embraces of his sisters hugs again. He desperately wanted to feel that warm again. It was the only feeling he could cling onto, and it was then that something happened. 

A bright light flashed around him, a ring around his center that split in two, one going up and the other going down.

When it was done, Danny was back in his white hazmat suit with black accents. He scrambled back up to see his reflection and he was indeed back to normal somehow and he was again tied to earth's gravity.

He could feel tears well up in his eyes again as he turned around to Jazz and their friends, “I-I’m alive?” he couldn’t stop his voice from trembling, his entire body felt chilly and he couldn’t stop himself from crying, sobbing as he struggled from air that he apparently needed again.

Damian and Tim shared a glance but Jazz ran past them as she pulled Danny into a hug. His sister was so warm and he couldn’t help but melt into it as the two cried sobbing and clinging onto each other. 

Danny was here and he was somehow alive, he was sure being a ghost was permanent but somehow he was alive and he could hold, hug, and protect those he loved. A warmth spread from his chest. 

He could tell he was indeed different now, but he wasn’t going to dwell on it at the moment. His sister was here and he was hugging her.

Damian and Tim approached slowly like they couldn’t believe Danny was here alive and well either. Damian scowled at Danny, he rarely got frustrated at him but here was and Danny didn’t get why, “why did you sacrifice yourself like that?!” Damian shouted.

Danny took a few calming breaths before speaking, “I-I tripped, I saw you and figured it was too late for me…”

Jazz and Tim looked at him terrified before Tim spoke up, “you mean they built the damn ‘on’ button on the inside?” 

Before either Danny or Jazz could speak up the door leading to the kitchen opened up, “kids? Are you still down there?” Their mom called before heading down the stairs. When she got to the bottom they could see the elegant green dress she wore that hugged her figure. She gasped as she dropped her purse, staring at the portal. “JACK!!” she shouted up the stairs before running over to the lockers to put her hazmat suit back on.

Jack walked down the stairs sullenly but once he too saw the now activated portal he rushed to put on his suit as well. 

“I thought you guys had left?” Jazz asked, pushing Danny behind her protectively, Danny wasn’t sure if she realized what happened yet but keeping him away from them until they had a better grasp over what happened was probably a good call.

Maddie shrugged as she put her goggles on her head letting it snap against her forehead with a little snap, “I forgot my Fenton-lipstick.” The reply was nonchalant.

The four friends found themselves getting pushed out of the lab as the scientists busied themselves measuring and taking readings from their new portal.

They quickly got out of the suits and gathered whatever they needed for the sleepover over at Wayne manor. Danny didn’t really care what he was packing, just shoving things into his book bag. Whatever had just occurred rattled him a little. He couldn’t help but worry that this was just the beginning. 

“That was quite some time you all took,” Alfred noted once they were seated in the back with Tim in the front and Danny in the middle in the back. Everyone kept glancing at Danny to make sure he was okay but he felt fine at the moment. 

“Uh, well,” Jazz started, “something happened to Danny,” she struggled to say. None of them were quite sure exactly what was happening but the sooner they got to a quiet space to discuss they were going too. 

Alfred glanced at Danny from the rearview mirror as he drove, “will we need to take Master Daniel to the hospital?”

Tim cut in before anyone else could, “that’s quite alright Alfred, we aren’t exactly sure what happened but we might have a code lazarus on our hands.”

Danny and Jazz shared a look, they were both equally confused having no clue what code lazarus meant. Tim normally wasn’t this serious although Danny figured the circumstances weren’t normal either.

They'd discuss thing’s later when they had privacy at Wayne manor.

[hurtthemgently]

Necromancy in whump 1/?

As soon as the interrogator found out what they needed, whumpee was no longer useful. All that torture, they thought they were gonna be set free when they talked- only to be executed very painfully.

And of course as the bodies build up outside the castle walls, it’s for sure gonna attract a wild necromancer looking for parts.

They find a fresh body, and with an attractive face at that. Maybe they even recognize the notorious spy who was announced captured recently. In any case, it’s rare to find bodies this intact without making them in the first place.

The necromancer loads their cart and brings whumpees body to their hideout, beginning the ritual right away.

A newly resurrected whumpee coughs up blood, tears falling down their face from the pain. They can feel the energy flooding their nerves, a feeling a little like being in cold water.

A hand lifts their chin, and suddenly they’re looking into the face of someone they’ve never met- but whose glowing eyes filled with magic unnerve them deeply.

“Nice to see you looking so lively, you’re already much more alert than most of my toys are at first.”

[varpusvaras]

Lying on his back and watching the stars above him, on a far away moon he doesn't remember the name of anymore, Commander Cody dies only a few months into the Clone Wars.

He wakes up soon after, and tries again, after receiving a gift he didn't realise he had asked for.

-

Where suns rise and stars fall, there is light

For @codyday2224! Happy Cody Day!

[beelzebby666]

Day 4: Heart Have an accompanying song as well. @organsoutsidelovinglydescribed

[lovedbz1]

Hi hi! New fic! A fic I promised @mersei47 a long time ago (Like 4 months ago) ((This was ☹️ btw))

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Marble Hornets, Slender Man Mythos Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jay Merrick & Brian Thomas | Hoody, Jay Merrick & Timothy "Tim" Wright | Masky Characters: Jay Merrick, Timothy "Tim" Wright | Masky, Brian Thomas | Hoody Additional Tags: Alex Kralie mention, Jessica Locke mention, Major Character Undeath, Blood and Injury, Jay still gets shot, Jay Merrick Lives, Brian Thomas | Hoody Lives, ? - Freeform, or do they, Tim is PISSED, POV Brian Thomas, Canon-Typical Violence, No beta we die like Jay, lol, Again maybe he lives, Don't Worry About It, Jam if you squint - Freeform, Bray if you squint harder, Bram if you squint so hard your eyes are practically shut, I couldn't think of a squinting thing for Brim without ruining the flow of it so that's there too Summary:

What can you do when you've barely been conscious the past 7 years and are finally snapped back to reality when your friend is shot practically right in front of you? You have to save his life. You just have to. Or at least you have to try. Try and make up for the hell you caused him.

Brian must save Jay, and in turn, himself.

[imhereformysciencefriends]

@mcyt-yuri-week Day 7, Free day!

Niki/Lady Death for this one, read on AO3 here

MCD but that's like, the premise

Niki was drugged and drunk for it, at least. Hazed into a stupor where she really couldn’t feel anything but floaty, tangentially aware of the hooded and robed figures around her, the torchlight, her own vulnerability, but untouched by it. Like watching it happen to someone else, in third person. The chanting people sent prayers down to Death, and Niki was urged to lay out on a stone plinth. Her flesh prickled at its coldness, but that, too, she barely felt.

The knife they used was sharp. She barely even felt it.

A butterfly landed on the plinth next to her, beautiful blues and blacks and dark purples, and Niki swore she heard it laughing.

Acute awareness hit her like a minecart, but not any pain. In fact, as she glanced down at where the hole in her chest should be, she found herself dressed in her favorite sweater and overalls, no worse for wear. There was an almost… iridescence to her, though, fiery pinks and oranges and reds.

She was somewhere entirely unfamiliar, the clover and flowers beneath her feet all a uniform, night-sky blue. The sky itself was only just a shade darker, barely keeping off black. It stretched out for miles in each direction, the landscape unbroken save for the occasional tree which was also that midnight blue, leaves rustling in nonexistent wind.

The air was unnaturally still here.

Niki realized she wasn’t breathing.

Well, she had just died. It only made sense.

The horizon changed, a massive, black shape taking form so far away Niki at first didn’t see it. But then the form grew closer, and Niki recognized Her Ladyship.

Lady Death wore the wide brimmed hat and veil she was always depicted with, the high-necked dress and long sleeves, the lacey gloves. Much of what she wore was sheer or see-through fabric, providing a beautiful view to her ample bust, the soft curves of her thighs and calves, the warm roundness of her hands and arms.

The nonexistent wind blew her veil just barely open, and Niki caught a glimpse of the picked-clean bone of her skull. Lady Death was soft bodied and long haired and rounded only where her clothing covered her. To glimpse her true form was to see the skeleton only.

Her painted lips were round and soft and black. She smiled at Niki.

Niki hadn’t even realized she’d dropped to her knees.

“I don’t know why you silly humans keep sending me sacrifices,” Her Ladyship said, voice lilting and giggling faintly. “You all will come to me eventually. My power does not depend on your worship like lesser gods.”

Niki realized that this was a conversational beat where she was supposed to respond, but her empty mouth hung open and silent when she tried. Her thoughts themselves were void of words, much less her speech.

Death giggled.

“I do tend to have that effect on people.”

Niki blinked, and tried desperately to get herself to say something. Even something stupid that would embarrass her! Anything to make it seem like she wasn’t ignoring The Literal Goddess Of Death.

But Lady Death was patient (as a goddess of her nature would have to be, most certainly) and let Niki struggle through the mental block of bearing witness to divinity.

“Hi,” she managed, quite stupidly indeed, and Lady Death gave a full belly laugh, her cheeks scrunching up against her eyes and her hair shaking with the bellows.

“Hello, little Niki! It’s nice to finally meet you!”

“Nice to meet you,” she said, her voice very very small, very quiet. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the goddess who’d seated herself next to her, but she didn’t need to blink, so.

“How are you feeling?” Lady Death asked warmly. Niki felt the words in her… body(?) like a physical warmth.

“Shocked, I think.”

“That’s fair. Most people feel that way, even when they knew that this was coming.”

Niki felt a little better at that.

“It’s… an honor to meet you,” Niki tried, angling for polite.

Lady Death giggled again, cheeks warm with a subtle flush and lips curved mischievously. Niki felt a shiver strike through her, clean down her spine.

“The pleasure is all mine, little Niki,” the goddess said, and if Niki had a heart she was certain it would be suddenly pounding. Lady Death reached forward and cupped Niki’s face in two warm, soft hands, the lace of her gloves faintly ticklish against Niki’s now-sensitive skin. Her lips parted, but like before, she was too stunned to speak. Particularly as her Ladyship bent in, face close to Niki’s, the fluttering of her veil so close Niki felt phantoms of its touch against her nose.

“You are so lovely. You know, I’m really not supposed to do this, it isn’t fair to everyone else. But I have been known for being quite the rulebreaker, when it comes to my favorites.”

“Your—” Niki stuttered, now flushed full red. Favorite? But Niki had only just now died, and they’d only just met?

As though reading her thoughts, Lady Death continued, “It’s alright, sweet little thing. You’ll have plenty of time to get to know me later, once you’re all done.”

All done? And what was this about breaking rules, too!?

“Um, Lady Goddess…” Niki started, but the proximity of their faces once again had her at something of a loss for words. “What do you, what do you mean?” she asked, hoping the question wasn’t so vague that she couldn’t answer it.

Lady Death giggled again, then reached one hand up to touch her veil. She parted it—just barely—and Niki would’ve gasped if she’d had any breath, when she leaned all the way in and kissed her. It was the touch of gleaming white teeth to breathless lips, and for only a fleeting moment also, but to Niki it was a kiss more intimate than any she’d ever received in life.

Then Lady Death was pulling back and giggling at her again, catlike and smug, her veil replaced so Niki saw soft flesh and round, plush lips.

“I mean you’re not to be mine—just yet. Not in full, little Niki. Though I do hope you’ll remember this, won’t you sweetheart?”

Niki wasn’t sure she could ever forget, but before she could answer, or ask any more of her thousand questions she sat so blankly on, the goddess was fading from her view, and so was the dark blue place. And so was her consciousness. And her existence altogether.

She gasped awake, hands folded neatly over her belly, in the middle of a flower field, dappled sunlight barely making it through the leaves of the tree she “slept” under.

Niki sat up slowly, examining herself. She was breathing. Her heart pulsed in her chest. She was no longer in that in-between place. The fiery pinks and oranges that hazed around her were gone.

Had it all been—no, it couldn’t have. She yanked down the neckline of her dress and found a massive scar where they’d cut out her heart, and fingers pressed to the tissue reassured her once again that her heart was beating there.

What had happened? Why was she alive? She had passed into the domain of the Goddess of Death, the eternal garden from which no soul was ever meant to return. How was she back here, in the domain of the living?

She raised her fingertips from her heart to her lips. She could not feel the cool press of bone against them, but in her memory, she was able to summon the phantom of it. The sensation of kissing Lady Death.

Niki’s freshly forged heart skipped a beat.

[the-sand-guardian]

From My Rotting Body - Slimariana

Death is something Mariana was never fond of. He'd never given it much thought aside from what might happen to Flippa if he died. So, when he finds himself, well- dead, he swears to get back to her as soon as he can. To his surprise, this happens much faster than he originally expected, and even he's not sure how he pulled that one off.

A friend and I started working on this fic almost a year ago but recently I was reminded of it and wanted to pick it back up!

[quarantineddreamer]

As a Shadow | Chapter 1 - Don’t go

Oh my god I cannot believe I am actually posting this. I’ve been working on it for months and I am nervous (but excited!) to finally have it out in the world. (Click title for AO3, read below the cut). 

There is the soothing music of waves lapping at the shore, in and out, a gentle sigh repeating…

Sand tickles her palms, and sunlight her face. Across her skin runs a cool breeze that she pulls into her lungs gratefully…

Jyn opens her eyes to scattered clouds chasing each other across a sapphire sky.

It’s not that she was expecting anything, but as she sits up to look around, her surroundings seem wrong. The clump of sand she takes into her hands and lets run through her fingers isn’t silky and white, it is coarse and black. Behind her are dramatic cliffs, jagged and covered in lichen. There is not a trace of warfare to be found, even the acrid smell of smoke is absent. The horizon she gazes upon is empty, peaceful, and sitting beside her is…

No one.

She is alone.

Somehow, this seems the most egregious error of all. Where are you? she wonders, but she doesn’t quite know who she is wondering about, only knows that a deep and aching loneliness has made itself at home in her chest.

She thinks she knows this place. There is a part of her that recognizes this beach and longs to rush into the waves like a child, savor the thrill of the frigid water as it swirls across her feet. Still, another part of her is overwhelmed by the feeling that she doesn’t belong here. That she is meant to be someplace else.

“Jyn,” a gentle voice calls, and this, too, is familiar. Painfully, impossibly so.

She doesn’t dare turn to the sound, doesn’t know what she will do if it proves to be only her mind playing tricks on her.

But the voice calls again, “Jyn.”

“Mama?”

And suddenly there she is, just like before, kissing the top of her head and squeezing her tight…

He’s holding her so close and still closer, clutching her with a fierceness that hurts, because they both know it is the first and last time they will embrace one another. They both knew it might end like this, but knowing is not the same as accepting, and now that they are here every part of her is raging against the injustice of their fate.

She wants more time, they should have had more time.

The world is growing bright, and…

“Jyn, what are you doing here?”

Her head is spinning. “Here?” She pulls away to stare at her mother’s face. Stars, how she missed her kind smile. The sight of it now brings tears to her eyes. “Mama, it’s so good to see you,” she breathes.

Lyra hugs her again. “I’ve missed you, Stardust,” she murmurs before releasing her, “but you shouldn’t be here.”

Jyn’s eyes scan the beach again. Lah’mu . Of course she should be here. “I’m home, Mama.”

But Lyra is shaking her head. “No, my love. Not yet.”

“Not today! Come on, move it, move it!” someone is screaming at them.

The temperature around them is climbing, her skin feels like it will burst into flames, but he is still with her, his hand in her own as the completely unexpected appears on the horizon. A ship. A chance. A miracle.

She helps him to his feet. Every muscle in her body complains as his weight falls against her, but she won’t leave him. She can’t leave him.

"Hurry!”

On Lah’mu nothing hurts except for this aching loneliness in her chest but she wonders if even that could fade in time, if the comfort of home might smother the memory of him enough for her to move on. Especially with her mother here, holding her hands and staring at her with… “Why do you look so sad, Mama? Aren’t you happy to see me?”

“More than you could ever know,” she replies. Her cheeks glitter in the sunlight and it takes Jyn a moment to see that Lyra is crying. “I wish you could stay, but you are needed elsewhere, my love. The Force is calling for you.”

“What do you mean?” Jyn clutches at her mother’s hands. They are warm and alive and real. She doesn’t understand, she doesn’t understand any of it. How can something so wonderful feel so wrong? She wants to want this. She just needs a minute to catch her breath, to settle in.

“I know, my love, I know.” Lyra is wiping tears from her cheeks that Jyn did not realize were there. “We will all see each other again one day –me, you, and your Papa.”

“Papa?” He’s here too? “I want to see him. “Please, let me stay.”

There is a shattered expression on her mother’s face. Jyn remembers this look. It is the look Lyra gave her as she thrust her kyber-crystal into her too-small hands and kissed her forehead goodbye. Trust the force.

“I won’t leave.” Not again. Not this time. “I’m staying with you.”

“The decision was made before you arrived. Jyn, I’m so sorry, but you have to remember.”

“Jyn!”

No. No. She shakes her head against the current that threatens to pull her under. No one has ever needed her before, why now? This is the best she has ever felt, except for…

“Help me!” she shouts, voice hoarse and throat burning.

He’s growing heavier as his strength gives out.

“Stay with me, we’re almost there,” she urges him as they stagger forward. “Don’t you dare give up now.”

Maybe he laughs, maybe it’s just his lungs rattling as he fights for air.

She grasps the kyber-crystal that hangs from her neck and gives a hard tug. Once it is free, she shoves it into his hands. “Hold on,” she insists, and even though she’s never been much of a believer, she finds herself hoping that the Force might come to help him.

Someone is rushing out from the ship towards her, screaming over the roar of the rushing inferno. They wear goggles atop their head and panic all over their face as they take his weight from off her shoulders. “I’ve got him! Come on, come on!”

They begin to run as fast as they can with the injured man on their back

And Jyn starts to follow, but something red and violent bites the ground just beside her.

The enemy doesn’t want them to make it. The enemy wants to drag them down to hell to rot with them…

She can’t let that happen. They can’t have her friends. They can’t have him.

It’s already questionable if he will make it to the ship as slow as he is moving, even with the aid of a friend. Any further delay could mean death.

The blood in her veins is the same blood that had given life to the monstrosity looming in the sky above them; she won’t allow her friends to pay for that which is her burden.

She has run from this truth all her life, she won’t run anymore.

Jyn stops and turns to shoot at the Troopers. Her heart is hammering, it feels vulnerable without the kyber to absorb its vibrations and reply with warm reassurance. For most of her life the kyber had been a constant companion, at times, her only one. Now, there is a loneliness to her mind, nothing and no one to convey her thoughts to as she wills her friends to make it –make it to the ship, make it off the planet, make it out alive…  

A bolt strikes her side, sends her crashing to her knees.

The taste of blood is in her mouth and every breath she takes is a slow agony.

The last thing she hears is his voice. Cassian’s voice. “JYN! NO!” it fades, lost to the rush of the engine and the crash of the planet disintegrating all around her.

Jyn sees the ship disappear above her, winking out like a star as it jumps into the open arms of the galaxy. The sight chases away all her pain; they made it.

He made it…

Jyn smiles…

“I love you…” Lyra’s voice recedes, lost to the rushing tide that has come to steal her away from the dark, ethereal shores.

There is the jarring scream of a machine, holding one long screeching note.

Her body tingles all over, humming with energy. She tries to inhale; her chest rises, but she cannot seem to capture any air…

Jyn opens her eyes to a nightmare.

She is standing beside a bed in an unfamiliar room with harsh fluorescent lighting and an unpleasant chemical smell. There is a tension to the atmosphere of the space that winds her stomach into anxious knots.

People and droids surround the bed, but her gaze passes over all of them to find his face, too-pale and too-still.

Cassian.

“Jyn?” His lips don’t move, but it’s his voice she hears, clear as can be.

She moves closer, slipping past the medical team to crouch beside him. “Cassian, what are you doing?”

“You’re gone…” his voice breaks on the words.

No… “I’m right here.”

A droid shoves a needle into Cassian’s arm, a med-core tears open his shirt to expose his bare chest to stick shock pads to it. Jyn ignores them, and they, much to her relief, ignore her.

The bed rattles. Cassian’s entire body jolts. The machine continues to scream that awful, piercing sound.

“Going again,” the med-core says, and again Cassian is shaken.

“Come on, Cass. Wake up…” Her hands curl into tight fists.

“Cass?” he chuckles. “You’ve never called me that before…”

“Do you want me to call you an idiot instead? Come on!” she says more urgently.

“I’m glad you’re here, Jyn…”

“Go one more time!”

“It’s good to see you, too… ”

The machine resumes a rhythmic beep.

Jyn sighs in relief as Cassian begins to stir.

His eyes open and instantly lock onto her face. “Jyn,” he rasps.

The med-core do not seem to find his speaking as encouraging a sign as she does, because they exchange meaningful glances, their faces tight with worry and something else she cannot place –something that unsettles her.  

There is an awkward beat where the team appear to each be hoping the other will talk. When one of them shuts her eyes and turns away, shaking her head, Jyn is confused. What’s wrong?

The machine is still steadily beeping, the patient breathing. Cassian breathing, and staring at her so contentedly that she quickly forgets her worry.

One of the droids finally breaks the silence, prescribing logic to the moment, “You need to rest, Captain Andor.”

Jyn gives Cassian a lopsided smile. “They’re right, you know.”  

“Don’t go anywhere, okay?” he murmurs, eyes already fluttering shut again.

I won’t…

The medical team attending to Cassian depart without comment once he is asleep. To Jyn’s surprise, no one looks twice at her or tells her to leave, so she settles in a chair by his bedside and waits –for what, she’s not sure.

After everything that happened on Scarif, she expects to be exhausted, ready to rest like Cassian is doing. Instead, she’s more awake than she thinks she’s ever been before, aware of every molecule in the room, and pulsing with an energy that lacks her usual restlessness.

Though she can’t remember visiting them, somehow, she knows her friends are alright –that Bodhi, Melshi, Baze, and Chirrut are all recuperating nearby. She chalks the gap in her memory up to a concussion, but the pain she has come to associate with such an injury is remarkably absent.

She figures she owes the med-core team a thank you for that. At some point, they must have given her some medicine, and it must have been strong, because it’s the only explanation she can think of to explain the humming in her body. To explain why she can’t feel the chair beneath her body or the texture of her clothes where they rest against her skin. She pulls at the sleeve of her jacket, and she can see her fingers clutching the material, but it is like her hands have gone completely numb and weightless, making it impossible for her to tell where her surroundings end and she begins. It’s disorienting at first, but she can’t seem to bring herself to panic despite how strange the sensation is.

Her mind is elsewhere, occupied by a thought that repeats over and over again, everyone’s okay, we’re all okay. It is all that matters. It is enough –it is everything.

To be watching over Cassian’s sleeping form, measuring each breath he takes, is a gift. So, Jyn curls up in the chair and appreciates the simple rise and fall of his chest while the world around her passes by in a distant blur to which she pays no mind, just as it seems to pay no mind to her.

When Melshi appears she’s somewhat perturbed to realize she has no idea how much time has passed. Another strange side effect of the meds? she wonders, as she slowly stretches her arms above her head and turns to give a soft smile in greeting.  

But the man only seems to have eyes for Cassian, and she tries to take no offense when he walks past her without a word. Instead, she gives them space, playing the observer as he comes to a stop by the bed and reaches to give his friend’s arm a gentle squeeze.

The touch wakes Cassian, who blinks heavily before offering a small smile. He has to cough to clear his throat, before he says, “Melsh…you look like shit.”

“I should get you a mirror, Keef.”

Cassian grimaces heavily, his breath catching as he tries to sit up.

“Be careful, your back…”

“Hey, take it easy.” Melshi stops him with a hand to his shoulder, which Cassian grudgingly obeys.

He rolls his head in Jyn’s direction, but his stare is strangely unfocused, empty, as though he’s seeing past her. “Where’d Jyn go? Is she okay?”

“Very funny, asshole.” Now he decides to become a jokester?

“Cass…” Melshi’s face has gone white, his shoulders drop.

“She said she wouldn’t go anywhere. What happened? Did she say when she’d be back?”

He’s not joking. Why is he not joking? She feels sick, there’s something surging at the back of her mind, something ugly and horrible that tries desperately to keep it at bay. “I’m right here!”

“Cass, I-. I’m so sorry.”

Cassian doesn’t respond, just studies Melshi’s face with an intensity Jyn recognizes. It’s his truth-finding stare– the keen, knowing gaze that always made her feel like he was reading her mind. “No,” he breathes, shaking his head.

“You might not remember, but she…”

“Don’t.” He attempts to cut him off, utters the word with all the force of a command, as though stopping Melshi from uttering his next words will be enough to keep them from being true.

“Cass...she didn’t make it off Scarif.”

It hits her like lightning, cuts through her and strikes her core with a ferocity that makes a blaster shot feel like child’s play. Lah’mu. Her mother had been there. And then…

“Melshi, don’t fuck with me. She was here. I saw her.”

He had seen her. He had talked to her. She was sure of it. “Cassian!” she shouts, rising from her chair to seize the railing of his hospital bed and give it a hard shake. The bed remains perfectly still. Her eyes wander to where her hands lie, wrapped around the metal, her palms feeling none of its chill, feeling nothing at all. “Please look at me…”

“You’ve been out of it since we got back, Cass. They had to operate on your back, they’ve got you on a lot of pain meds…”

“She said she wouldn’t go, she said…” Cassian’s voice breaks, Jyn feels a part of herself shatter with it.

“I’m still here. I didn’t leave you, I promise.” But there’s a small part of her that wishes she had, because whatever twisted game the Force is playing she wants no part in it. This afterlife is pure torture, a fate worse than death, and she knows she hadn’t always been the best person, but she cannot imagine what she did to deserve this.

She has to watch as Cassian begins to accept the truth. She has to watch as the carefully controlled expression he always wears to mask his true feelings slips away, and she sees every bit of the pain and sadness that washes over him. She has to watch, and she can do nothing about it.

If she weren’t dead already, she thinks it might just kill her.

[what-if-i-just-did]

(Ok I know I still have like three or four things I SHOULD be working on, but it's Destiel Day so I just had to celebrate)

Taglist: @ldthegreen @violettavirus

Trigger Warnings: Severe grief, self-harm in the form of wrecklessness, cutting, alchoholism and refusal to numb pain, mentions of death wish, mentions of drowning, relapsing, not speaking/eating/performing personal hygiene as result of grief

"You're home."

"Cas.. Cas Cas!!!"

Three years. Three goddamn years.

"Castiel, where are you!!"

The first.. month or so, was the easiest. It shouldn't have been, but he was still numb. He was hopeless, borderline suicidal, but he was numb.

"Cas, You fucking bastard!"

One night, he just broke, and all the memories he'd been repressing flowed back and drowned him. Every single word Cas had said. God, how could he have been that wrong? About.. about everything... That night, Sam found him trying to drown in Jack Daniels. Drunk, and crying, but Sam pushed and he finally got the story.

"Come back here! I need you!!"

Dean spent the better part of the next half year in his room, in a bottle, spiralling. The drinking got worse at first, and then it got less. He didn't get it, because despite rarely drinking anymore, he still felt worse and worse and worse. Then he realised he was just punishing himself by not getting numb, by making himself feel. He stopped drinking. Cas deserved that much.

"You were wrong Cas! You were so goddamn wrong!"

He wasn't eating, or talking, or taking care of himself. He hadn't realised that until he walked past a mirror one day and saw his hair was long and he had a beard. He didn't like it. He cut it himself, and if one accidental nick during shaving developed into a concious habit, then. Well, that was between him and his God, right?

"I fucking need you! I can't do this shit without you!"

Sam tried to help, of course. Tried to get him to eat or talk or stop drinking. Dean barely noticed anymore. He hadn't even realised that he hadn't spoken in a year, hadn't eaten in five days. His mind was mostly blank and foggy, even without the drink. There was a huge sinking, heavy hole in his chest that never left. He was tired all the time, regardless of how much he slept. He didn't keep track of time, barely even knew if it was day or night.

"Cas!!! Come back!"

At some point, cutting and not drinking wasn't punishment enough. He hadn't had a bruise, or a fight, or a broken bone, in one and a half years. He started hunting again, wrecklessly. Sam was worried but he couldn't care. He just wanted it to be over- he'd have killed himself if that wouldn't be the worst betrayal he could possibly do unto Cas.

How could Cas possibly have thought he could do this alone?

"You fucking assbutt, you come back here!"

So he got angry. He got into fights. He got hurt. He yelled, and screamed, and raged, and never said a word about the only thing he was thinking of. He got angry at Cas for leaving, for thinking he wasn't loved, for saying that and then dying, for making Dean live with the weight of those words on his shoulders.

"Don't you fucking get it, you were wrong!!!!"

He got angry untill he couldn't anymore. Until he fell, until he broke again, until he cried again. Until he drank again, cut too deep, locked his door again. Until he just wanted to end it, and couldn't.

"Cas!!!!!"

Until Sam decided, enough was enough. Until he made Dean realise that, Cas was a Winchester. If they wanted him back, they were gonna get him back. So, Dean Winchester had hope again. He had determination. So he ate, and he showered, and he drank water, and he researched. And if he couldn't shake the cutting, then, at least he did it way less and way safer. And if he still barely spoke, then, at least his ASL was making large progress.

"Come back", and his voice breaks.

Sam still went on hunts. Sam was together with Eileen, and now that Sam saw his brother doing better, Sam would leave for longer periods of time. Dean found some real estate websites open on his laptop one day, and he was glad Sammy was finally getting more of the life he deserved. And maybe.. when he got Cas back.. maybe they could have that, too.

"Come. Back!!!!!! Dammit!"

Finally, they found something. Three years. Three goddamn years, and they found something. So they got what they needed, called in some favours, did the spell. Exept, Dean had no idea how to find Cas now that he was in the Empty. So he just started yelling. And yelling, and yelling, and eventually something was going to wake up. And if it wasn't Cas, he could deal with that.

"Cas- !!! Cas!?"

He ran. He ran, and he ran, and it seemed like he was running for days or seconds or hours but then he fell to his knees by his angel's side and the first touches of his finger tips to Castiel's coat and hair felt so electric and a dozen times better than any other sensation he had ever known.

"Dean?" Cas asked, groggily, confused.

Dean gripped his coat, his head, lifted Cas so they were eye-level. "Cas."

"What are you- Wh- How-"

"Cas, shut up" He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against Cas's. Breathed in his scent and it was enough to have him on the verge of tears. It was Cas, it was Cas, it was Cas and he was okay and alive, almost, and breathing and here and okay. "You're an idiot. A- You- You just.. it's my turn, okay?" He opened his eyes again, saw Cas nod.

"You fucking dumbass, I love you too." He said, and it was like his heart broke again but this time there was hope, there was promise.

"Dean?"

Dean smiled, exhasperatedly, huffing out a breath, and leaned forwards a little. Not a lot. Just enough to touch their lips.

The way Cas responded, you'd have thought he was receiving something holy, a lost man in the desert finding water. A drowning man finding air. So that's how Dean kissed back- like he needed, he wanted, he loved. Because he did, he did, he did and he had Cas back now.

"We're good, we're good, we're good... we're getting out of here, Cas, we're going home. You're home."

[lana7779]

The tags speak for themselves. Hahaha just a very VERY fluffy Breakbert fic to fix canon events and live in blissful ignorance forever more.

Part 2 of Fools trilogy, but can be read as standalone for those not interested in the smut prequel and sequel.

@phmonth @i-prefer-the-term-antihero @this-idiots-left-eye

@filzmonster tagging you as well in case you're interested <3

Death Bed (No More) (9645 words) by lana7779 Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Pandora Hearts Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Xerxes Break/Gilbert Nightray Characters: Xerxes Break, Gilbert Nightray Additional Tags: Pandora Hearts Month 2023, Rose - Freeform, Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Major Character Undeath, Fix-It, I FOUND A WAY TO KEEP HIM ALIVE, Canon Divergence, Canon goes YEET, Comfort No Hurt, Established Relationship, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, OTP Feels, I Will Go Down With This Ship, True Love, Romantic Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Have I mentioned fluff?, Gil goes on an adventure, attempt at plot, no beta we die like… hahaha nope. Series: Part 2 of Fools Summary: Gil finds a way to save Break for good. PH Month 2023 Prompt: Rose

[thewhumpcaretaker]

The Broken Veil: Chapter 3 - Miracle

Image source from Pinterest

Unfortunately, I've had a mental health crisis while writing this story. I'm planning to stop immediately and to post all my existing chapters at once to prevent myself from returning to the project again and again. That's somewhat good for you because it means you get more chapters at once, but it's also a shame because it means we'll only get to chapter seven. It has to be done, though.

To anyone out there dealing with maladaptive daydreaming, limerence, mania, or psychotic symptoms, please know that I'm thinking of you. Take care of yourselves and don't let the fantasy pull you in any deeper than you're comfortable with.

Summary: John Wick has just agreed to kill Gianna D'Antonio, repaying the marker that gave him a life with Helen. However, Helen is trying to contact John from the afterlife, to show him that it is possible to stop the cycle of violence – not by forfeiting his own life, but by creating a fundamental shift in international systems and perhaps even the balance of good and evil in this world. But he doesn’t have to do it alone. She’s coming back.

“Heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy.” - Catherine Earnshaw, Wuthering Heights

Time is disordered as it touches the border of a timeless land.

He can almost see her, can feel her within reach.

His soul is pressed against the veil, on the brink of crossing. While there is still direction, he pushes towards Helen, single-minded. He is going home to her. They have not been so close since that day in the hospital. His life…she can feel it throb into her as if only the thinnest sheet of fabric divides them.

It’s time for the final stretch. She lets the force of his consciousness guide her towards him. His heartbeat thrumming in terror, his heartbeat soon to be stilled. She can feel the heat of his skin, his yet-unbroken skull, and the sudden pain of breaking. She has skin, she has a skull, she feels the impact of the bullet. The guilt circulating through his veins, falling forever in his stomach, bringing him down. NO.

Inhale. Helen draws back. Exhale. She slams forward into her husband’s body.

Sound, light, sensation. The veil is broken. She has him in her arms.

The floodlights are blinding, the gunshot is deafening, the air against her flesh is a sensory overload. God, it’s so different to be alive. She had almost forgotten.

She has him in her arms, and something has struck her back and fallen harmless to the floor.

Ares stares. On instinct, she fires again and keeps firing. She empties the clip but Helen has died once and cannot die again. It’s not body armor. It can’t be, because Helen is nude. There is only one small blaze of silver on her ring finger.

“John, open your eyes,” she whispers. “We’re not done.”

He looks so innocent, so confused on his knees below her. He looks only upward, respectful of her body, his chin tilted up into her face, his hyperventilating breath shuddering over her naval. “I’ve come home to you.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I’ve come home to you.” For a moment, she can’t bring herself to turn away from him.

Ares’ backup is stepping out of the shadows, guns trained on Helen.

“Identify yourself,” someone says.

Helen turns, her body frontally exposed to their gaze and they don’t know where to look. His head is still shielded behind her abdomen. She fixes her eyes on Ares. Quietly, “My name is Helen Wick. And you…” she begins advancing, slowly, “You tried to shoot my husband.”

Behind her, John’s eyes range over the ground in a daze, caught by some flicker of light. It’s littered with crushed metal like golden coins. The same shapes he’s seen a thousand times, the same shapes that fell from his clothing earlier. Flattened bullets. It finally registers. Ares tried to shoot him, and she shot Helen. She shot Helen.

John picks up his gun.

***

Another wave of gunfire, but this time, it’s answered by a volley from between the two pale legs that frame John Wick like Roman pillars, and there’s three men down beside Ares. Some begin to flee but Ares orders them to advance. He tries to lunge forward and Helen pushes him back, covering his face. Bullets are slamming into his body, and he’d double over if she weren’t holding him upright, shoving him back down the tunnel away from the gunfire. Her hands are touching him. He’s in physical contact with Helen. The rush of it wrings some strangled sound from his chest. Then a different rush hits again: They shot her, they shot her, kill them all.

He's hurtling down the tunnel to where he stowed the M4, hand in hand with her, firing over his shoulder. He swings her smoothly around a corner, out of sight. She’s protesting but he can’t stand it if she gets hit one more time, it doesn’t matter if she’s bulletproof or not. It’s cocked in his hands and he becomes a storm.

***

John is not aware of how many times Helen saves his life. She walks in his wake, stepping over the dead, her arms open, trying to take up the whole space of the tunnel, breaking into a run when anyone gets too close. The rocks do not cut her bare feet and the bullets do not sting but she doesn’t want to be dragged away from John if someone gets their hands on her, so she keeps moving. She picks up a pistol from one of the fallen and struggles with it, but she’s never done this before and it takes her longer than it should to realize it’s empty. She wonders if this would have been easier if she were still incorporeal, ironically. She could have just slammed into the barrier and what she wanted would have…happened. But now her one power is her body, and she places it between John and the enemy over and over again.

At some point, he runs out of bullets and she watches him throw his gun at a man’s head, then sweep another to the ground and strangle him between his legs. He’s a force of nature. It feels almost like a violation to see this, somehow even more intimate than the time they’ve shared in bed. This is not for her eyes. The sweat plasters his hair against his forehead and he makes low, animal grunts. In the silence of precious moments spent reloading, his panting echoes down the tunnel. She’s desperate to hold him – whether to comfort him or to praise him or to hold him back or to join her hand with his on the trigger, she does not know, but she sees the labor of his body and she wants to be as one with him.

Finally, the shots stop ringing. There’s only his breathing as he still spins in paranoia, checking all directions, ragged waves filling the space from wall to wall with overwhelmingly intimate noise, then gradually slowing. “John.” She approaches him carefully. He has still hardly looked at her yet.

“…Helen?” He stares at her as if for the first time.

“Yes. It’s me.”

Her skin glows angelic in the floodlights. He can barely hear himself speak. “This is impossible.”

“A miracle, maybe.”

His hand moves haltingly toward her shoulder and caresses it. Her touch does not feel distant. Her voice does not come from somewhere impossibly far away. He can smell her scent, that little, warm, animalistic scent that doesn’t even come to him in dreams. He’s speechless. “Are you…what…” He struggles for another long moment. “You were dead.”

“I am dead. But I’m also alive. The veil is broken.”

Again, that strangled sound from inside him, and he throws his bulk against her wordlessly, his head buried in her shoulder. She can feel his face twist up against the side of her neck as he breaks down and just sobs. Her arms pull crushingly tight around his back, fists clenching handfuls of his suitcoat, unwilling to let him go. They stand that way for a long, long time.

“I love you. I love you and you’re gone, you’re-gone,” he gasps, fighting against the hope of what cannot be. His chest is heaving against hers. “I…miss you so much.”

“John.” She lifts his face, which is marbled over with a glaze of blood and water. He half turns away, overwhelmed by the sight of her, but she holds him fast. “I love you so much. I am here.”

She sees something finally register. “God. How?”

“I wish I had answers, but there are no answers on the other side. I just kept trying to get back.”

He sinks against the wall, his eyes ranging over the mass of bodies lining the corridor in horror. “You saw…” He hides his face in his hands and chokes out, “I’m so sorry. You were never, ever supposed to see me like this.”

She drops beside him and pulls him back into her arms. “No. No no no no. You don’t understand. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

When he’s calm enough she pulls back and looks at him with fire in her eyes. “You were right to kill them. I’ve wanted to say this to you for so long, ever since I died, but I couldn’t speak. You’re allowed. You’re allowed to be angry with the people who are caging you in, who are trying to take lives like ours and twist them into a wreckage, who are forcing you to do what you know to be wrong. The fact that people have made you kill your own friends, kill just to be with me, kill just to keep breathing...it's an atrocity.” He’s shaking with tears but she doesn’t even pause for a breath. “They've backstabbed you, treated you like a human weapon, took your childhood, took your peace. It's not your fault. They tried to twist you up in every way they could and STILL you never became a monster underneath, STILL you're tender and uphold your ethics and care so much about people that it scares you. I love that about you. And I love you. I love you so much. That is what I meant to tell you with that damn rose. I wasn’t saying you should pay with your life. I want you to fight back even harder. Don’t do a god damn thing they say.” He presses his face into her shoulder again and wails with anguished joy.

At length, gasping, he lifts his head and manages to speak. “I love you too. I need this, I…you have no idea how much I need to hear that from you. I can’t-I can’t live without you. I fall apart.”

She corrects him gently. “You can, but I don’t want you to have to do it alone. I’m here with you.”

“But I don’t know what to do. What choice did I have, other than completing the job or accepting my fate? I’ll die for not fulfilling the marker. I will be HUNTED, Helen, you don’t understand. Santino will take out a hit on me. The only way that stops is when he’s dead. Then I’ve killed the marker holder and it’s High Table jurisdiction. That’s international, and there will be thousands-”

“Not if you take down the entire High Table.”

For a long time, he just stares. “That’s an army. That’s war.” But he’s almost smiling. She IS smiling.

“You want things to be different. I want to help you make them different. I didn’t understand this when I was alive, but there are things you and I are capable of…there are things that need to change…We’ll talk. But for now we need to keep you safe. We can’t stay here. Are you…okay? How bad are you hurt?”

He just looks at her, struggling to speak. He thought the only person who would ever care to ask him that was dead. She waits. It’s like old times. He always seemed to have trouble starting a sentence, let alone finishing one. “…Nothing that won’t heal.”

“And are you okay? How are you feeling? I’ve given you quite a shock.”

“I…” His vision blurs over with tears again. “I…” At first it seems that this is too difficult a sentence to finish altogether. “I will remember this day for the rest of my life.”

She pulls him up, taking the weight of exhausted muscles and he can’t resist embracing her once again when he’s upright. He starts to give her his suitcoat and she stops him. “No, you need that. I can take any clothes, I just need to be decent for the street.” He starts pulling the jacket unceremoniously off of the nearest corpse. It engulfs both her hands and hangs just below her privates, making her look like a smitten teenager wrapped in her boyfriend’s hoodie. She picks up the body’s handgun. John peeks at her sideways and downright blushes, then insists they take the pants and boots too.

He exhales, still trying to steady himself. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

She kisses his cheek lightly. “Believe it.”

He’s laughing, actually laughing. He feels young again. Waves of giddiness keep washing over him. He takes his wife’s hand in his – his wife’s hand! – and they pick their way through the catacombs towards the clear Italian night. He would skip if he weren’t limping, but instead, each time he stumbles, she takes his weight and keeps him walking. He has never been supported by someone after killing. Never, even when she was alive. He would come home two days later, mostly mended, and she would tend to him then, but the exit from battle itself had always been a long, painful march of shame. It is so humbling to see how she steadies him, waits for him, pauses now and then to hold him again, staving off shock with the warmth of her body, even knowing everything he did. This may be a dream, but he doesn’t care to wake up.

Standing at the mouth of the catacombs, there’s a figure, leaning against a car. Helen can feel John go tense as he recognizes Cassian. The figure’s arm stays at his side, but it’s close to his gun. “Who’s with you, John?”

They’re still hidden in shadow. “First, why are you here?”

“I’m curious why you lied to me.”

“…Felt like getting shot.”

“You got over that pretty quick.”

“Yeah.”

Helen steps forward, the light breaking over her features as she does so. She extends her hand to Cassian. “Helen Wick. Pleased to meet you.”

Cassian doesn’t move. He looks straight at John. “The fuck?”

“Shake hands with my wife.” It’s not a request.

He does. “I apologize for the incredulity. I’ve been told you’re dead.”

“It’s quite alright.” She makes no further explanation.

“For what it’s worth…good for you. Both of you. Love is unlikely in our circumstances. I understand that on a personal level.” He steps up to John. “John, you spared my ward. Someone close to me. She and I both want to know how we can repay you.”

“Gianna wants to know what I expect from her.”

He stiffens. “I genuinely am grateful to you. But yes, that is the chief reason I’m here. We appreciate what you’ve done. But I hope you understand that she can’t single handedly make the marker go away.”

“I don’t need to be spared by the High Table. I didn’t do it for a debt.”

“Then why? I get it, you have a death wish, but…this puts both of you in danger.”

“I’m not dying. And sure as hell no one is killing Helen. We live on our own terms now.”

He frowns with pity. John will be executed, that’s unavoidable. “Fair enough. You’d better take your head start then. The hit hasn’t been placed yet. Gianna went underground immediately, and we’re about to tell her brother that she’s dead. I don’t know how long it will take him to learn the truth, but some time is better than none. You still have my thanks. If you need to contact me…” He passes John a slip of paper with a phone number. “I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to help. But don’t hesitate to call.”

He nods. “Thank you.”

“Goodnight, Mr. and Mrs. Wick.”

Cassian steps into his car and he’s gone.

Helen twines her arm through his again. “Point the way, John.”

They start to walk. Rome is gold, gold, gold, even at night. Again he says it, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I’ll never be able to say it enough. I thought I could never tell you again.”

“But you did, many times. I was listening.”

“You could hear me?”

She pauses. “I’m trying to figure out how to describe it…I couldn’t hear words at first. I could feel what you felt, from the moment I died. That felt…inviolable. I can still feel it now and I know that it will never be broken. Words emerged over time as I started trying to come back. And images. But it isn’t like seeing and it isn’t like hearing…it’s very strange. It takes so much effort to bring them to the surface.”

“You told me to let go. But you didn’t.”

“Neither did you.”

“I tried. But then…” He falters and his footsteps halt. “Helen, I have something to tell you about the…dog you got for me…”

“I know. She appeared to me when she crossed. Probably looking for someone connected with you. That’s when I knew something was wrong and I couldn’t leave you alone. I guess you could say she sent for help.”

For the fourth time that night, John is sobbing into his wife’s chest.

[thethistlegirlwrites]

"You're not delivering a perfect body to the grave"

When he wakes up, everything is dark. He can smell blood and wood and damp soil, which makes no sense. He was in a county holding cell, and unless he’s somehow been hit so hard he’s been thrown back into the past in some wild west jail, he should be smelling metal and piss and weed. 

And if he’s in the infirmary, it should smell like sour chemical cleaners. 

His teeth ache. He’s pretty sure he’s probably missing a few more now, given how many times he was hit in the face, but he was pretty groggy after the first couple, so he doesn’t actually remember.

It’s his stomach that’s the worst. Someone had decided their brand of justice was to stab him the way he’s supposed to have stabbed that kid to death. Whatever contraband shiv they’d managed to get their hands on had only lasted through six times, not the eleven they were aiming for, but it had been effective nonetheless.

When he passed out on the cell floor he’d been bleeding from multiple wounds and he’d definitely had a severe concussion if not a skull fracture.

He hadn’t expected to wake up again.

He was hoping it was over. Why would they even bother and try to save his life? He’s going down for a third strike, murder two this time. He figured whoever found him would probably have been happy someone saved them and the taxpayers paying his room and board for a life sentence.

He doesn’t think it should be this dark, no matter where he is. Unless that hit to the head damaged his eyesight. Panicky, he blinks a few times, but the only thing visible above him is blackness.

Somewhere in all of that, he feels a dull ache, not exactly in his stomach, more like it’s in the core of himself as a whole. It’s not the kind of pain that comes with a stabbing. It’s more like hunger. An ache gnawing from the inside out.

He runs his tongue over his teeth, testing for loose or missing ones. Oddly enough, they’re all accounted for as far as he can tell. His tongue catches on a canine, maybe a broken one from the sudden throbbing in it and the way he feels the skin tear open.

And then there's blood in his mouth and some kind of feral growl that doesn’t sound human in his throat.

The ache inside explodes into a tearing need, and he snarls again, scrabbling at the wood overhead with newly sharp nails, as vicious as the teeth pressing against his lips. 

Wood. Coffin. Earth. 

He’s been buried.

He was dead.

He’s not dead anymore.

A visceral panic joins the hunger, and he can only think of one thing. Getting out of this place. He has to get free. He has to feed. 

He brings his arms down to his sides and then slams his hands upward, as hard as he can manage. Some part of him realizes, dimly, that he should be only bruising his palms. Instead, the whole board over his head moves. 

Wood splinters with a sharp crack and he can smell damp earth and oil and engine exhaust and...sweat. Humans. Blood.

He kicks and smashes his fists against the wood over his head until nails tear loose with screeches and splinters rain down mixed with stale dirt. He has to get out, has to get to the surface.

He claws the dirt away in handfuls, ignoring its ashy oily taste on his tongue. He'll wash it away soon.

You can read this story and more on my Worldanvil here!

@catwingsathena @nade2308 @whumptober

[onhajoon]

I WROTE A FIX-IT TO THE ENDING OF TAXI DRIVER S2

In this house, On Ha Jun shall live- or rather Kim Dan Woo shall live!!! That final scene broke my heart, even though my head knew it was coming, so I wrote this 5k fic out of spite.

If anyone wants me to post the fic directly on tumblr, let me know!

(My story is a direct sequel to this amazing fix it one shot by Happenend on AO3, called "A Good Name". TOTALLY worth the read, it was EVERYTHING I needed.)

[queer-coded-camaro-driver]

if you were good, do you regret it?

Summary: 

“What’s under your arm?” An unknown guy with a truly offensive haircut pointed to the box Steve held tucked under his arm. Steve barely kept a grin from splitting his face as he drew out the long, thin black box and set it on his lap.

He’d been waiting for this moment. For someone to ask, for someone to open the gate. He smirked and ran a hand through his hair – the hair – and said: “It’s a Ouija board.”

[nade2308]

I have waited to post this story for at least a week now, because I was so excited that I finished the new version, I wanted to share it at once. But I made myself wait for the day it was meant for (and then promptly did not post it on the 6th).

Originally this fic was the prolog/teaser for my TMNT 2k3 story, "I'm going home" that since then had two chapters posted after this one and it's on hiatus. I have no idea where I was going to take this story, but I think I want to try and write more of it soon and finally find out. I am looking forward to flesh out my original character as well as exploring the boys' lives without each other.

The major character undeath tag is because Leo doesn't actually die in this story, nor do his brothers, even though they think so. So no MCD tag for this story (Raph is giving me the stink eye for me planning to off him in another ongoing story of mine, but since then that decision has been revised. He still doesn't fully trust me, oops).

I love these bois, and once again my love for them was sparked recently when I started showing the episodes to Thistle and she showed such a big interest that I had no way to escape being pulled back in into the magic of it all. I love them beyond words and the love has been going strong for almost twenty years at this point.

Anyway, without a further ado.

@whumptober

@thethistlegirl

[feral-jackdaw]

Lost and Found

part zero - Max's pov

At first, it seemed that everything went according to the plan, that Vecna was dead and everything was fine. But that was until the others came back.

Max quickly noticed that someone was missing. She noticed how Dustin's eyes were swollen and red, as if he had been crying, how the others were all silent and gloomy. And that was enough, she didn't even need to ask; she already knew that Eddie was not coming back.

...

Tears streamed down Max's face as she sat on the cracked floor of Eddie's now damaged bedroom, thinking about how many times they sat there together, listening to Eddie's tapes. How she always teased Eddie about the nerdy stuff he had all over his room. How Eddie never gave up trying to teach her to play the guitar, even though she was doing terrible at first.

And now his guitar wasn't even here anymore, and he wasn't here anymore and it was so unfair. Max never got to thank him for all he did for her, never even got to say goodbye.

And then-

Max froze in horror at the sight of a pale, bloodstained hand emerging from the cracked ground. She let out a terrified scream and jumped to her feet to get the hell out of there. But then, she noticed something. After taking a closer look at the hand, she realized it was wearing three familiar rings.

“Eddie...?” she called.

“Max?” a weak response came from benath the ground, causing the girl's heart to stop for a second. “Can you... help me?”

Damn, right, why am I just standing here? Max told herself off before stepping closer to Eddie. She grabbed his hand and tried to pull him up, putting all of her strength into it.

And soon, the figure of Eddie appeared in front of her. He was all covered in blood and dirt, shaking like a leaf, and he kept looking around anxiously. Then, his eyes landed on Max.

“Are you... really here?” he asked.

“Yes, I'm here, Eddie,” Max reassured. She slowly stepped closer, trying not to startle him with any sudden movements, before gently wrapping her arms around him. She wanted to scold him, to tell him how she hated him for scaring her like that, but now it was not the time for that.

“Let's get out of here, ok?” she asked after a while, when Eddie seemingly relaxed a little.

They managed to move to Max's trailer, where Max could take care of Eddie's wounds and give him some blankets to keep him warm. Eddie was now much more calm, and he soon fell asleep on the couch.

“I hate you so much,” Max whispered, leaning over to fix his blankets. “But I'm glad that you're back.”

Part 1