#adrian chase oneshot

[multifandomfanficss]

F*ck You?

Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader

and the rest of the 11th Street Kids

Adrian Chase Masterlist

Prompt: Adrian has his own secret way of asking you to sleep with him.

Warnings: Mentions of sex, but no actual sex. The team bullying Adrian as per cannon ☹️. Peacemaker typical language.

A/N: Just a silly little thought I had at 5am during a text convo with one of my best friends when I couldn’t sleep. Shout out Tyler for letting me bounce this idea off you. Thanks bestie! Just a short little fic. The italics are flashbacks. Crossposting on my AO3 adriansglasses.

Adrian stuck his middle finger up, pointed at you. You were going through some files on the other side of the room unable to see him behind the papers you were focusing on. Those who saw were giving him questioning looks.

“Dude why are you flipping off, (Y/N)? I didn’t realize you were mad at them” Economos decided to be the first to question him. Usually he didn’t care enough to ask, but even he was curious as to why Adrian was enthusiastically flipping you off.

“Oh! That’s because I’m not. I just wanna have sex when we get back to my apartment. I was saying can I fuck you.” Adrian says, as if it’s obvious. Chris begins to laugh, having overheard the conversation.

“Oh my god. I’m not sure if you’re insane or an idiot.” Harcourt rolls her eyes, walking away.

“I’m pretty sure he’s both. You know that’s not what that means right?” Economos questions.

“It has two meanings.” Adrian says in a very matter of fact way.

“No, it doesn’t.” John argues.

“Then how do they always know what I mean?” Adrian asks, as if he’s proving his point.

Chris continues to laugh to himself as Adrian and Economos argue.

You’re deep in thought, not paying them any attention when Leota passes you the file you were looking for.

“Thanks!” You smile at her.

“Why is Adrian flipping you off?” She asks.

You look over at him, blushing. You nod.

“See!” Adrian yells throwing up his arms. “Two meanings! I told you!”

“Oh god.” You blush, hiding your face in one of the files. You didn’t need the entire team knowing you were going home to have sex after this, but it’s not like it was that big of a surprise. You’d been dating Adrian for a while, of course you had a sex life. “I don’t know how or why he got it into his head that fuck you means can I fuck you- but like I personally think it’s very clever and very cute so I just don’t correct him.” You laugh, deciding to be honest with Leota.

You thought back to the first time he flipped you off in such a manner. You were out with the team celebrating with drinks after a mission. He threw up his middle finger, drawing a question mark in the air with the other hand. You looked at him with a confused look and mouthed. ‘Are you asking me to have sex with you?’ and he mouth back, ‘Isn’t it obvious?’. Only Adrian could think something like that was obvious. Only Adrian would even do something like that. You smiled, laughing quietly to yourself. It was so uniquely him.

Chris was still laughing uncontrollably in the back. He was thinking of the first time he’d seen Adrian do this too. Little did everyone else know Chris had been the one to teach it to him long before you were dating.

“You really wanna know how I pick up chicks across the bar?” Chris asked with a shit eating smirk.

“Please!” Adrian begged. He could pull girls as Vigilante no problem, but it was a lot harder without the suit.

“Be direct. Just ask if she wants to go home with you. The most subtle way to be direct is to flip her off.” Chris falsely informs.

“Wait… you want me to be subtle and direct? I’m confused.” Adrian asks.

“Well, yeah. You want her to know, not the whole bar.” Chris quickly lies.

“I always thought flipping somebody off was an insult.” Adrian is rightfully cautious.

“It has two meanings. It’s like special. Special can mean you’re one of a kind, cool, awesome, or it could be used the other way.” Chris explains.

“Oh! Okay!” Adrian smiles, before pausing, with a pondering facial expression. “Wait! You call me special all the time.”

“You should hit on that girl over there!” Chris redirects.

“Okay… here goes nothing…” Adrian says, slowly raising his middle finger. The girl looks shocked and starts to walk up to the two men at the bar. “Oh wow! I think it worked!”

Her pace picks up. She walks up to Adrian, slapping him, hard.

“Wait! This is positive! I’m hitting on you!” Adrian says frantically with his finger still up, as she walks away.

“Aw! Fuck! Do you think maybe she had a boyfriend?” Adrian asks, adjusting his glasses and rubbing his jaw.

“Yeah, maybe.” Chris laughs hysterically.

[modern-vellichor]

Hii!! I stumbled across your account after reading the most recent Adrian Chase/Vigilante angst fic and let me just say, I read your whole masterlist and practically sobbed all the water out of my body 😭. I was wondering if you could possibly make a follow up to “couldn’t” or even just anything angsty vigilante. Maybe something that involves like the reader feeling unloved and they have a hard time adjusting to his affection in a sense, like an inner conflict. Love ur work it’s amazing <3

-a/n; it's been do long since I wrote that I had to reread it and I broke my own heart a little ngl (broken heart is inversely proportional to inflated ego)

-warnings; angst 😎, uncommunicative reader, lots of cursing bc im a big girl

You stopped coming into work. Adrian waited at your desk every morning and you never showed. The others said you were sick. He didn't believe them. He gave you the benefit of the doubt for the first few days. But the feeling of your lips was haunting him, he could still taste you. He couldn't sleep.

He rolled over and the alarm clock next to his bed flashed at him.

03:00 AM

He rolled out of bed. He didn't even bother getting dressed. He just slipped out of his home. He walked the streets, kicking pebbles. He knew where you lived, not that you had told him. He may have been harbouring a secret obsession for a while before your kiss. He snuck up to your window, standing, shivering on the fire escape. You didn't notice him as you moved your couch from one side of your cramped living room to the other. He didn't knock. Adrian just watched you. You looked sick. Your eyes were dull, your skin looked grey. You had lost the sense of life that once permeated the office, your body, your home.

You finally looked up from the floor. Your eyes met. You weren't shocked. Adrian seemed like the kind of guy to do this sort of thing. You sighed deeply. You tugged at the hem of your hoodie and opened the window for him to clamber through. He stumbled into your apartment. You ran a hand through your tangled hair. Adrian pushed his glasses further up his nose.

"What do you want, Chase?" You whispered.

"I- I don't know."

Adrian felt small, suddenly. He felt little and bare. He felt vulnerable and unprotected. And you looked big. You looked tired and worn thin. You looked angry. You were scary. You had a knife bared at his through, you had the threat of unbearable rejection, and what did he have? Carelessness? Callousness? No. He had nothing to fight against your icy tone, your harsh words. Your lack of care. He was small, he was frightened. He was in love.

"Why did you come here? You're not hurt. No one's in danger. You have no reason to be here?"

"I don't know," he uttered.

"For fuck's sake, Adrian!" You hissed.

Adrian winced. You softened your tone. You leaned back against the arm of your couch. He looked small. He was shaking. He was nervous. You were tired, wrecked. You reached out an open hand, beckoned him quietly towards you. You know Adrian can be odd sometimes, clueless. Maybe no one had taught him these things, taught him about feelings, and emotions - the gushy stuff. You didn't like gushy things, or gooey things, all the worst things were sticky. Like blood and guts, love and care.

Adrian took a few tender steps towards you and reached out his hand. You wrapped your fingers around his wrist and pulled him gently towards you. Things had fallen still in the apartment. He crowded against you. Suddenly, you couldn't breathe. Adrian dipped his head, his hands trailing up your neck. You pushed him away. Shaking and panting, you shoved him back towards the fire escape.

"You need to get out of here."

"What?" He nearly cried.

"This is so fucking unprofessional, Chase. You need to get the fuck out of my house. Like, right fucking now."

You gave him one last push. Adrian clambered out the window and escaped down the rusty, unstable stairs. He avoided your block for the next few days.

When you returned to work, you were quiet and drained. You looked tired. You sulked around the office. You worked late. Far later than anyone else. Adrian always noticed. He noticed you sitting at your desk, no light other than the light of your computer. He stood in the shadows, watching you type away on a tuesday night. His watched flashed midnight, wednesday.

He skulked out of the shadows and towards your desk. He had finally ditched the costume and that stupid helmet you always made fun of. You rarely saw him in anything else. You didn't see him as he snuck up behind you and placed a tender hand on your shoulder. You didn't make a sound. You just stopped tying as Adrian turned you around. He stood between your legs and held your face in his hands.

"Adrian-" you begam.

"Just- Don't say anything," he begged.

"please," you whispered.

"Shut the fuck up," he laughed breathlessly.

You smiled. It was s small, tired, somewhat pathetic smile, but it was a smile nonetheless. Adrian pulled you up and out of your chair. You stood on shaking legs. You trembled beneath his grasp. Worry, adoration, anticipation all in one.

He kissed you.

It was all consuming and it felt like it lasted forever. You were breathless by the time he pulled away. He leaned his forehead against yours. You laughed quietly.

"You're so fucking difficult, you know that?" Adrian whispered.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"Why?"

"'Cause it's fucking hot."

[vigsilantes]

movie night (adrian chase x reader)

Pairing: Adrian Chase x Reader (one shot) Summary: You and Adrian have a movie night and watch Shaun of the Dead. (I have a hc that Adrian loves watching horror movies, specifically zombie movies, and discussing the logistics of the kills in it lol) Word Count: 536 Tags: Established Relationship, Fluff, Swearing, Comfort, Idiots in Love, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Post-Canon, Zombie Movie, Reader-Insert, Post-Canon, Post Season 1 Warnings: swearing, gore, blood, zombies

>>>(read on ao3)<<<

After a long shift at your café job, and Adrian just coming home from Fennel Fields, you two were exhausted, and you both didn’t feel like going out to patrol tonight, so you decided to have a movie night. Looking through your gigantic, shared collection of DVDs, Adrian suggested Shaun of the Dead, which is one of his favorite movies. Whenever you two watch it, or any zombie movie, he goes into so much detail about the zombies, and the kills, and you love it. He knows how some of these kills should look like, and he loves talking about the logistics of it. And he loves seeing if he would survive given the circumstances of each zombie flick.

“Oooh like right there, the blood should’ve splattered differently, and there would definitely be more blood too! But that kill was insane!” he smiled, getting antsy on the couch, you could tell how much he loved this movie. You both had an immense amount of film knowledge, but this was where Adrian shined. Normally while watching movies, people get quite annoyed with you and Adrian sharing facts or talking while watching. The 11th Street Kids always throw popcorn at you guys or heckle you when you ramble too long during a movie. But together, you two love to discuss what’s happening, and hearing what the other has to say. “These zombies are mad slow walkers though, which gives them all at least some kind of chance. In that one movie we watched, those ones ran, which would just make it even more impossible to survive.”

“Yeah, man, in a regular zombie apocalypse, I think we’d have some chance of survival,” you started, Adrian looked over at you, “you know we have some experience defending ourselves,” he giggled, “but if they ran, it’s game over for me… You know I’m not the fastest runner,” you chuckled. “You on the other hand, might have some odds in your favor, you are such a fast runner, babe,”  

“You’re fast!” Adrian instantly came to your defense. “Remember when we outran the cops that time? You were super fucking fast, I think you’d have a chance,” he nudged you.

“Eh… if they’re like the ones in that movie though, I’d be a goner,” you joked, “you’re on your own, Ade,” you tapped his thigh.

“Nooo!” He screeched. “I could carry you whenever we needed to run, or give you a piggyback ride,” he suggested, fully serious. “Ooh or I could tie you to my back like I did with Goff a while ago,” you started laughing.

“Wouldn’t I slow you down?” you said in between laughs.

“Nah, like you said, babe, I’m fast,” he gloated. “I don’t wanna live through an apocalypse without you," he said as he rubbed your hand. “It’d be superrrr boring, and like who would I even talk to?”

“That’s true, I am pretty fun to converse with,” you smiled, and he nodded in agreement. The night continued like this, watching the movie, making up fake apocalypse scenarios, and seeing how or if you would survive. In every fake scenario, no matter how insane it was, Adrian always made up some crazy, irrational way to save you.

[practically-an-x-man]

Pit of Vipers (Nikoletta x Abner)

Summary: While in Belle Reve, Nikoletta realizes that a fight broke out the night before - and Abner didn't even try to fight back

Tags: pre-relationship, angst, violence, depictions of injuries, brief references to suicide

Word Count: 3.1k

____

“Adrian.”

She appeared out of the shadows and slid onto the bench beside him, and Adrian just about jumped out of his skin. 

“Jesus Christ- don’t do that!” he blurted, glaring at her from behind his glasses, “Do you know how close I get to punching you in the face when you do that? It’s a reflex.”

“But you never have.” Nikoletta pointed out, giving him a slanted grin.

“Yeah, ‘cause I stop myself every time. Those aren’t exactly the knuckle tattoos I’d want,” Adrian said, wringing his hands together as he imagined it. Nikoletta scoffed. He talked a lot of big game, she thought, but she’d only ever seen him fight when it was premeditated. He didn’t strike a single blow without considering it first. It was part of why she chose him as a confidant. He wasn’t reckless like the others were. 

“So… what sends you popping up over my shoulder like my sleep paralysis demon this time?” he asked, seemingly recovered from his bout of shock, and shot her a broad grin. Someone else probably would have found it charming. Nikoletta just pressed her lips together. 

“Someone’s missing.” she said, dark eyes scanning the cafeteria around her, “One of the newbies.”

“Hm. Yeah. The skinny one, right? With the-” Adrian guessed, gesturing vaguely at his own neck, “The one who always looks like he’s sad he can’t hang himself from the bars of his cell like the guy in Goonies?”

“He doesn’t-” Nikoletta started, but cut herself off with a huff, “The guy from Goonies didn't actually hang himself. But… right. Him.”

“Oh, yeah, he’s in medical,” Adrian pressed on, his voice just as light and conversational as it had been in the moments before, “Couple’a guys jumped him late last night. Didn’t see who, but they got some good hits in before the guards got there. Looked pretty bad.”

“Bastards.” Nikoletta growled, “They know the rules. He wasn’t marked.”

“Maybe they thought nobody would care.” he guessed, casually picking through his French fries without a care in the world. Sometimes he scared her. “I mean, the guy doesn’t even talk, why’s he even worth protecting?”

“It’s not about being worth protecting,” she said, “Why do you pay your insurance premium if you never get sick?”

“Ah, I never had insurance. Even the cheap ones denied me. I get in too many fights.”

“But you know how insurance works, don’t you?”

“Sort of.” Adrian said with a one-sided shrug. Nikoletta rolled her eyes. 

“Good enough.” she decided, “What I’m saying is… whether he’s ‘worth it’ or not, everyone gets my protection, whether they need it or not, unless they decide to stir up trouble. And he hasn’t stirred up any trouble. They shouldn’t have gone after him.”

This was far from the first time something like this had happened. Even with her system in place, there was no way to control every stroke of violence in Belle Reve. People got… pent-up after a while. Marking the unruly prisoners kept things peaceful in more ways than one - removing some violence from the pool entirely, and giving the others a chance to release their frustrations - but it wasn’t a perfect solution. She doubted there was any perfect solution to be found. 

And it was always the quiet ones who seemed to slip through the cracks.

“I need to find out who did this,” Nikoletta said, standing up from her seat in one decisive motion. Adrian twisted around to look at her, giving her a strange look.

“Y’know, if it were up to me, I’d just mark him now. Just to get it over with. His blood’s already in the water. I’d be willing to bet someone’s gonna rip him apart eventually. Might be better just to let it happen, save yourself a bigger fight. I mean… you’ve seen him, Nikki, the guy’s a walking target.”

This was the side of him that Nikoletta had to keep on a very short leash. Underneath his lighthearted and even charming exterior was the same thirst for violence as anyone else in Belle Reve, and she knew that. And as much as she liked having Adrian as her right hand man, she had to be careful about that ruthless streak of his. She had the sense that if it was a matter of his safety, even his escape from Belle Reve, he’d would break anybody’s neck without hesitation. Even hers. He was only loyal to her because she set her terms clearly and followed them.

In a way, that was more comforting. Loyalty based on emotion always felt… shaky. At least here, she didn't have to worry about some social faux pas meaning the difference between ally or enemy. She didn't need an emotional bond with Adrian. Really, she wasn't sure he formed emotional bonds with anyone. But as long as she kept her rules transparent, consistent, she could trust that he had her back.

Even when his ruthless side showed its face.

“No.” she replied with a shake of her head, “He hasn't done anything to deserve being marked.”

“C’mon, Nikki. I know you like him, but-”

“It’s not a matter of liking him. It's a matter of principle.” she huffed, “If I mark him without warning, people are going to start to wonder if they’re next. That’s just the fast track to me losing what little control I’ve managed to scrape together in here- and if I go down, you’re coming with me. And it’s a Band-Aid over a bullet wound. The ones who attacked him are just going to find another target if he’s gone. It doesn’t solve anything.”

She took a step back, comforted by the brush of shadows against her skin. There she paused, just for a moment, and met Adrian’s eyes. 

“And I don’t like him. He’s just another prisoner.”

“I dunno, you didn’t get this mad about the last guy who got beat up.”

“You were the last guy who got beat up.”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

Nikoletta rolled her eyes and fell into the shadows. 

She reemerged from a pool of darkness in the corner of the medbay, suddenly enough that a nurse in the hall flinched at the sight of her. Most of the staff had grown used to Nikoletta’s habit of slipping between rooms, but that didn’t make it any less startling to see her suddenly appear in a once-empty room like some kind of apparition.

It didn’t take long for her to find Abner. He was in the bay closest to the wall, far away from anyone or anything else. Ever since he’d arrived, she’d gotten the sense that the staff was a little afraid of him. She didn’t understand it - aside from the power dampener, he was about the most unassuming guy she could have imagined in a place like this. She doubted he even tried to shoo away the rats that sometimes scurried through the halls.

But the staff were afraid of her too. She didn’t usually give it a lot of stock. 

Abner’s eyes were closed, but the faintly pained expression on his face told her he wasn’t asleep. She didn’t blame him. Half his face was swollen in a brutal black eye, and the rest of his skin was equally littered with bruises and dried blood. Nikoletta wondered, briefly, if he’d even fought back. From the nature of the wounds, harsh and dark and from every direction, she guessed that he hadn’t. The power dampener had been removed from his neck, showcasing a dark band of bruising around his throat - like he’d been shoved to the ground and landed hard on the dampener. Nikoletta couldn’t help but wince at the sight. Some of the bruises were almost dark enough to look like her shadows, save for the faintest purple-red tint.

“Who attacked you?”

She must have been moving more quietly than she realized. Abner’s eyes snapped open with a sharp gasp, and he jolted upwards in the bed. A faint light glowed from somewhere near his wrists, but he tamped it down with a grimace just a moment later.

“Nikoletta?”

“Who else?” she replied, planting her hands on her hips and frowning again at the bruises painting his skin. She waved a hand vaguely in his direction, every movement sharp. “Who did this? Who attacked you?”

He opened his mouth to respond, then frowned and shut it again. He shook his head. 

“You won’t tell me.” Nikoletta guessed, clenching her jaw in anger, “Goddammit, Abner, I’m trying to help you! I’m trying to make sure this doesn’t happen again!”

“It won’t fix anything.”

“This isn’t like grade school bullies,” she insisted, “If you tell me who did it, the problem will go away. Permanently. I need to know who did this.”

“So you can kill them?”

“I haven’t killed anyone.” Nikoletta snapped. The words came out too harsh, and she wanted to wince. Abner flinched, but there was something deeper in his eyes. He raised his eyebrows. Nikoletta resisted the urge to scoff. “Listen. All I do is mark the ones who have it coming to them. I don’t sponsor any violence of my own, I just… rescind my protection. Anyone who’s marked has to fend for themself. That’s how it works.”

“But they all die anyway, don’t they?” he asked. His voice had gone soft. It sent a maelstrom of emotion through Nikoletta’s chest. She wanted to be angry - with him for poking holes in all the rules that should have kept him safe, and with his attackers for sparking all this to begin with - but strangely couldn’t find the emotion within herself. Abner’s eyes were tired and sad, the effect only magnified by the fact that one was nearly swollen shut. 

“Yes.” Nikoletta finally hissed, “They die. That’s the nature of Belle Reve. If I didn’t have my system in place, they’d have killed you too.”

“Maybe that’s not so bad…”

If it were up to me, I’d just mark him now. Just to get it over with. 

Nikoletta grimaced as the words echoed in her mind. Adrian wanted her to mark him. Whoever had attacked Abner wanted her to mark him. Hell- it seemed like Abner himself wanted her to mark him, just to rip the Band-Aid off. 

For the slimmest moment, she was tempted. 

But only for that one moment. 

“Stop that. You’re in pain. Death won’t bring you the relief you want.” Nikoletta muttered, “Trust me, I’ve been there myself. The only way to make things better is to fix them yourself. Now tell me who attacked you.” 

“STAR Labs?” he asked instead, apparently ignoring her demands, “Is that what brought you there? Is that why you… you hurt like that?”

“Of course it was fucking STAR Labs.” she said, reaching for the sleeve of her jumpsuit and tugging it up to expose the silvery track marks at her elbows, “You think I had these before STAR Labs? You think I was in prison before STAR Labs? You think I had to cover every fucking inch of my skin before STAR Labs?”

“Why are you angry?”

“Why aren’t you?” she fired back, “Look at yourself. Look at the bruises. It’s going to happen again if you don’t tell me who gave them to you.”

Abner was quiet for a long time. He stared down at his hands with a distant look in his eyes. Nikoletta shifted on her feet. It shouldn’t have been this difficult of a decision to make. It was a choice between safety or pain, and he didn’t have to do anything but give her a name. There wouldn’t even be any guilt in it, she thought. They’d struck the first blow. The Queen of Belle Reve had very particular rules, and those rules had been broken. It was all fair play.

Finally he looked up and met her eyes. Nikoletta lifted her eyebrows, awaiting his response. 

“Will you do me a favor?”

“Hm?” 

“Will you get me a glass of water? Please?” Abner asked, his voice falling back to that near-whisper of his, “The nurses don’t like coming over here. Not when I don’t have the…”

He trailed off but gestured vaguely at his neck. Nikoletta nodded. She still wasn’t sure what power it was that had the nurses so afraid of him - something to do with that odd light when she startled him, she was sure - but it must have been something big. Most things that came from STAR Labs were. 

Nikoletta took a step back and melted into the shadows. She was back a moment later, a half-filled plastic cup clutched in one gloved hand. She held it out, and Abner took the cup with a faint but grateful smile. He sat up and took a sip, grimacing like every motion hurt. Looking at him, she believed it. She hoped the nurses had at least given him some sort of painkiller before they vanished.

“I don’t like killing people.” Abner mumbled after a few long moments of silence. His fingers worried at the edges of the cup. He refused to meet her eyes.

“So you’d rather let yourself get beat to shit like this than tell me who did it? None of the blood is on your hands here, Abner. They attacked someone under my protection, so they deserve to have their own protections stripped away. It’s all just turnabout. Fairness. Really… if you tell me now, they’ll probably be gone before you get out of that bed. Why the fuck are you protecting them?”

“Because it’s still…”

Abner trailed off, shaking his head with a low sigh. 

“I’m sorry, Nik. I can’t.”

Nikoletta scoffed and took a step back from him. She couldn’t believe this - beaten so badly he’d landed in the medbay, covered in blood and bruises, so severe they’d even removed his power dampener, and he still refused to give her a name. Did he really have so much guilt for something he hadn’t even done? How had he managed to take down STAR Labs, with a hyperactive conscience like that?

The sadness in Abner’s eyes only deepened as Nikoletta took another step back. It was hard to look at. She sighed. 

“Do you need anything else? Before I go?”

“Um… no. I don’t think so.” he said, “But if you… if you wanted to come back sometime? Just to talk for a while? This place, it reminds me of the lab. It’s hard to be here.”

She could understand that. Normally she avoided the medbay like the plague for that same reason. She didn’t like her cell much either, but this was… worse. Nikoletta pursed her lips but gave him a singular nod.

“I’ll be back in a few hours. Try to think of some things you want to talk about before I get back.”

She took a final step back, returning to the familiar not-quite-comfort of her shadows, and had already begin to slip into that other realm when she heard Abner’s soft voice one more time. 

“Nikoletta. Thank you.”

She was back in the cafeteria before she could even think to respond, but the words rattled around in her mind much longer than they should have. That whole interaction had been… odd. He was an odd man. In a lot of ways. She didn’t quite mind it, but it was certainly different from the interactions she was used to. 

“Any luck?” Adrian’s voice, deceptively chipper, pulled her from her thoughts. Nikoletta shot him a lukewarm look, irritation bubbling just underneath the surface. 

“No. He won’t give them up. For whatever God-forsaken reason.” she said, shaking her head, “Lands himself in a hospital bed but won’t even tell me who put him there.”

“I’m telling you, Nik, you could save yourself a lot of trouble if you just-”

“I’m not marking him. Especially not now. That sets a precedent I don’t want to set.”

“Suit yourself.” he muttered, though he clearly didn’t agree with her decision in the slightest. After a moment he shrugged, tossing it aside like water off a duck’s back. He waved a hand towards the opposite side of the cafeteria. “Well, in that case… I’ve been doing a little recon-”

“I’m assuming that means you walked straight up to their table and dared them to give you the gossip?”

“It was recon. I was very subtle.” Adrian repeated with a huff, “And it sounds like one of the guys that jumped him was that calendar guy, with all the tattoos? Heard one of the cameras got footage of it, just a couple frames. Y’know, it’s probably not a great idea to attack a guy in the middle of the night if you’re one of the four prisoners in here who can be recognized from the back si-”

“Thanks.” she said, cutting him off before he could get into one of his diatribes, “I’ll take care of it.”

____

“Julian.” 

This time, she meant to be startling. The tattooed criminal sat bolt upright in his cot, frantically scanning the shadows for where her voice had come from. Nikoletta took a step forward, allowing herself to be lit by the dull yellow bulbs that shone in from the hallway. The sight of her didn’t ease the fear on his face. 

“I heard you broke my rules.” Nikoletta continued, drawing each word out, “You attacked a prisoner who wasn’t marked. You know what the punishment for that is.”

All lingering dredges of sleep had vanished from his posture, and he looked at her with wary eyes. His fingers were curled tightly into his bedsheet, as if he were debating trying to smother her with it. Surely he had to know he was outmatched here. Surely he had to know that was why she confronted him in the dead of night, blanketed on all sides by her shadows.

“So what? Not like I did anything big, just knocked him around a little. Fuckin’ creep deserved it, too.” he replied, the words so loud and barbed that she could hear cots creaking in the neighboring cells. Tension drew into Nikoletta’s posture, both from the words and the growing audience to them. She took a step closer, aiming to administer her punishment swiftly and potently. With a mark, and with all the gossip that had been swirling over the ordeal, he’d be gone by breakfast. 

But they all die anyway, don’t they?

I don’t like killing people.

Nikoletta froze on the spot, jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. It was a matter of principle. Julian broke her rules, she administered punishment, it resolved the conflict that landed Abner in the medical wing and secured Nikoletta’s reputation as a strict but objective ruler. Half a second’s action to repair a host of issues. All it took was one little death. 

But she found herself stepping back. Confusion crested across Julian’s face, in equal share with the same sharp wariness. 

“No more second chances.” Nikoletta warned, darkness dripping off every word, “Do better. This will be the only mercy you’ll get from me.”

And with that, she vanished into the dark.

[frankiethedarkangel]

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@notyourkennedy

Last Updated 1/4/23

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[placeinthemiddleofnowhere]

Yo! Adrian

Pairing: König x Reader

Summary: You’re determined to find out why everyone thinks König is so scary, afterall he’s just some guy that’s taller than most people right? He’s probably harmless! Well, he’s a little scary, but you still like him anyway.

(No use of y/n or mention of gender/race)

AN: It's finally here, the LAST CHAPTER! What a journey this has been from a silly little oneshot to a whole fucking series that so many people have sent me so many kind messages and fanart of 💕 I'm so excited that I get to share this with you, and I'm so glad that I've been able to complete it and give you guys a full story. Thank you so so much to everyone that has sent me their support and kept the story going. Love you all sm, please let me know what you think whn you're done. I can't wait to see your reactions ✨🥰

Part 10 of A Rocky Start - Full Masterlist Here

-☠️- 

You swore you could feel König’s fingers caressing your face. 

You could feel his heavy digits tracing over every tiny pore and for a second you could breathe calmly, you felt light. In the shadow of his phantom’s presence you smiled airily and thought of better times. It was as if a rift had opened in the room and you were no longer part of it, you were somewhere far away and lying in an unfamiliar bed, naked under the pale sheets in the shine of moonlight.

Just like always, you fell into each other's arms and drank in each other’s bodies just as greedily as the last time you’d met. His heady piney scent would soothe your tired nerves and his hands would roam your body, chasing off every stray piece of worry that dared linger. It was your memories of comfort that you were clinging onto the most, holding them high above your head as you sunk into the depths of your mind, cold flesh tingling with the thought of König’s fiery warmth. 

You weren’t in some hole in the middle of nowhere. You were with him. 

There’s nowhere you can be sent to that I won’t find a way to reach you.

You kept repeating those words over and over in your mind, throat constricting as you remembered those whispered promises that he’d given to you in your bunk. He was with you, you and he were joined together inextricably. It didn’t matter if he was actually there or if you were simply losing your mind to lack of sleep and sustenance, he was with you always. 

All of a sudden König’s fingers stroked a wave across your cheek, a thin airy line that swung across your face like a breeze. It made you frown. What was he doing? Was he playing a game with you? It was so late, you both needed to sleep. Why was he doing this? 

When you opened your eyes again, it was as if you’d been woken into hell. Rousseau grinned down at you, his metal pole hanging loosely from his hands, shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Reality was breaking down in front of your eyes, pieces of it glitching in your peripherals. The bedsheets and moonlight fell away and all you were left with was your dirty sheet in the middle of a crusty smelling shithole bunker. 

“Where’s… wh- where’s König?” you croaked.

Getting those words out was like fighting through a sandstorm to talk. Your throat had never been so scratchy, and your head was so clouded and heavy. Everything was such a jumble you couldn’t understand how you were lying with König one moment and then back with Rousseau again tje next, it didn’t make sense. 

“What’ve you done with him?” you cried, swaying with the effort it took to speak. “Where’s König!”

Rousseau shook his head and nudged your shoulder with his weapon, the thick metal bar barely even prodded you and you were sent spiralling. Your body tipped like a glass full of water and you spilled onto the floor, lurching onto your hands and knees as soon as you were able. Though you were shaking helplessly even as you steadied yourself, it felt like your muscles were rapidly atrophying in real time, tearing apart and wasting away like bean bag stuffing pouring from a tear. 

“You’re not doing very well, hm?” Rousseau taunted, walking around your pathetic crawling form. “There is no König here. Just you and the Captain, Sergeant.”

The way he said König, it sounded like a curse. 

You shrank back at his spitting venom and swallowed the bile that threatened to erupt upward from your throat. It was all too much. You couldn’t understand where you were anymore, couldn’t remember what was happening. 

You closed your eyes and opened them again, executing the world’s slowest blink. Finally looking around properly, you saw Rousseau and when you swivelled you saw his faithful guard dogs, the men that always seemed to haunt the corners of your vision. A further glance had you finding Price on his knees, swaying gently as he tried miserably to stay upright. He was dancing to the same sick death drum that you were. 

Your eyes lit up in recognition. 

“You were…I was…you were going to kill me,” you said dumbly, holding your head as you rose to your knees. “Why do you keep playing with us like this?”

Rousseau stood in front of you and tilted his head, watchful dark eyes cascading down your shivering body. It was like looking back at a bear. A vicious giant towering above you, threatening to charge at any second and shred you to pieces. Though he never did. He always stopped just before he could truly break you. 

Break your body anyway. You were more convinced by the day that your mind was gone.

“Are you really so eager to die, Sergeant?” He questioned.

His voice was light, playful as a cat batting a mouse around.

“You recorded a video teeing up for a final death blow…It doesn’t look very good if I’m said to be alive after that. Makes your threats look empty.”

Rousseau raised an eyebrow. His gaunt features slackened, but he didn’t look as angry as one might expect a scorned warlord to look. It seemed more like he was considering his next move carefully. Probably gauging what you could take after everything you’d endured already. 

“You think I don’t mean to kill you?”

His voice had a harder edge to it now.

“I think that you’ve taken far too long to do it.”

It was true. As much as you still clung to the hope of rescue, you knew well enough that being constantly on the move between decrepit holes and dank pits meant that you weren’t going to be easily tracked. The only other release you could be certain of was death, and at the stage you were at, it felt like it’d be a mercy. 

Your stomach constantly ached with clawing hunger, the kind that had you hallucinating little hands inside your belly - scraping at the lining just to try and find scraps. Your lips were dry and cracked and your eyes were always struggling to stay open. Your lids weighed so heavy on you, your entire body did in fact. It was becoming more and more of a chore just to keep breathing, nevermind trading barbs with the torturer in chief. 

Soon you’d be as out of it as Price was. 

“You are a government dog. All you know is ‘go fetch’,” Rousseau said eventually, straying from your side and leisurely working his way over to Price. “You do things quick and dirty. We are playing the long game, I am building something, I’m heading a revolution. Those aren’t built on quick decisions - no, they are chess moves. I am just aligning my pieces.”

He came to a stop behind Price’s back, his long legs were almost touching Price’s bare body, his black trousers were almost the same colour as some of your poor captain's bruises. Rousseau still held the length of metal piping in his hands, he was swinging it gently in his grip, meaningfully gazing at you and down to the bat. You stared between them from under your hooded eyelids and licked your lips.

What was he going to do?

You winced when you heard the crack. 

“Sneak,” Price gasped.

He tumbled forward, his back crumbling as he’d taken on another hit. The Captain's mangled body was only getting worse by the hour, his cuts were weeping again and his bruises looked like animal markings, like something that had become inherently part of him. You had no idea how he was still going. 

Even still, you flew forward and urged him up, looking into his tired eyes and trying to coax him back. At least if he was up he couldn’t be trampled. You’d learned that lesson the hard way. 

Price gripped your arm and you huffed under the weight, almost screaming as you tried to keep his body aloft with what little strength you had left. His roughened fingers were scraping at your papery thin skin and you clenched your teeth while you fought to balance him. It was getting harder and harder to set him right with every time he fell, but no matter what you’d keep doing it. 

Even while you’d gone against his orders he still held you up and made you keep fighting. It was only fair that you did the same in return. 

“Price? Price, are you ok? Price?”

He took a moment to reply. His body wobbled a little, threatening to tip again, but he righted himself in the last minute, his scruffy jaw almost swinging as he gasped in a breath. 

“Sneak, you’ve gotta shut the fuck up,” he coughed.

You almost laughed despite the situation. 

“Affirmative,” you grimaced, resting against him as you managed to work out a delicate balancing act. 

“Wait a minute now, Captain,” Rousseau tutted, signalling for his men to come forward. “You should welcome your Sergeant’s words. I’ve spared Sneak for now, but the next video is your final as a pair. I have something special planned…but all in good time. For now you can go back to your crate, dogs.”

The two of you stared at him, looking up through your tired gazes. The news didn’t feel shocking, you’d expected to die minutes ago so you hadn’t been holding out hope to steal time for much longer. It almost felt like a relief for a moment to know that you could be certain of something.

Though the relief didn’t last long. Not when his men finally reached you both and yanked you apart, dragging you along the floor like a couple of retired mannequins. Your skin burned with the familiar feeling of loose gravel and it didn’t take long until you were seething, clawing at the man’s gloved hand just to try and stop his forceful grip. It never ever seemed to help though.

“Try not to get yourself killed from fighting back. It would ruin the plans I have for you, Sergeant!”

The blanket that had previously been slouched on your back was now tangled around your waist. It was gathering itself between your legs and around your hips, snaking around you in a boa like grip. It might’ve felt like a relief earlier on in your time, but you knew well enough the men weren’t bothering about your state of dress, they never did. They would always drag you through the halls kicking and screaming, clothesless and dirty, feral as a child of the forest. Somehow the indignity faded with time, lost to the hurt you were drowning under. 

You looked up at the man and his smug bearded face and snarled. You soon took to scrabbling against the floor and trying to get as much purchase as you could. If you fought hard enough maybe you could work yourself into a semi crawl by the his side, relieve the burning of your back and feet. The man wasn’t having it though. 

He kicked at your legs and threw your arm away, sending you reeling and knocking into the dark wall by the doorway. Your jumbled head was spinning when you slammed into the concrete. The dim flickering light danced in your eyes and after a few blinks, you regained enough vision to see the man advancing back towards you. You cowered. 

You feebly stuck your arms in front of you, blocking your face and hunching up just to try and protect yourself. Even if you thought it was useless, even if you’d tried to do the same thing many times already and failed. You tried anyway.

“You don’t follow orders well, soldier,” Rousseau scolded, voice full of amusement. 

He had no idea. 

His lackey’s steps barrelled toward you, he shouted something in french and with each ricocheting sound that slapped your ears, you shook like a mast in a storm. You shook, but still you cursed at the man, you cursed at Rousseau and you peaked through your makeshift body shield and cursed at the guard dragging Price away.

No matter what they did to you, you revelled in the fact that one day they would be caught. One day König would catch up to them, he and the remaining numbers in the 141 would crash in and they would draw ten times the blood that Rousseau ever could. They would wreak the kind of revenge you would’ve chewed König out for only months ago. 

And you would celebrate it now. 

You gritted your teeth and braced, the man was only steps away from you. Rousseau was smirking to himself in the background, metal pipe discarded as he stood with his arms crossed just as casually as if he were catching the tail end of a sitcom. You waited for the hit. You tensed every screaming muscle in your frail body and shut your eyes tight, scrunching your face in full knowing of the hurt you were about to feel. 

Your heart beat furiously. You waited. 

Boom

The entire room shook and you were sent sprawling and coughing into the smoky darkness. Dust swirled around your eyes and seconds later the room went completely pitch dark. You blinked. 

Was this another of your hallucinations?

Were they really getting that vivid? 

This felt real. 

All of a sudden you were being yanked up and you screamed. Your arm felt like it had been pulled out of its socket and then replaced about five thousand times. It was sheer agony. Though you didn’t have the strength to fight the force. Instead you went along with it, crying out at whoever it was that was taking you further into the darkness. 

“Get the fuck off me!”

“Shut the fuck up!”

The voice confirmed it. The voice and the heavy metal weapon that struck your jaw. 

Rousseau had taken you from your heap and was now ragdolling through the doorway, stealing you both through the trembling tunnels like a wraith. You had no idea how he was able to navigate the place so smoothly with a fighting captive and sheer darkness and yet he was doing it anyway. Unfortunately for you. 

“Come! Gather the Captian!”

More explosions sounded overhead, gunshots rung out like hailstones hitting the ground, all muted and dull. Somewhere up above you there was a fucking massive firefight. The realisation had you grinning from ear to ear, even as blood sluiced from your split mouth. 

With the very little brain capacity you had, even you were able to figure out who it was that was up there. 

Your stomach was churning and your legs were barely able to crank themselves one in front of the other, but still you knew that König was close. You swore you could sense him even through the concrete. Somewhere in the battering of rock and scream of metal you could sense the six foot, ten inches of vengeance tearing up the ground overhead.

“König,” you choked.

Maybe you were going to make it.

You were tugged furiously forward. 

“No one can help you now. Snivelling like that will only make your death worse” Rousseau seethed.

You frowned, stumbling forward only moments later. You tripped over a gap in the flooring and pinwheeled forward, falling through the darkness and onto the ground once again. 

You shook your head, but before you could even think of recovering, you were blinded by a sudden shock of light. You let out a howling wail and covered your eyes, reeling as you tried to deal with the shock of it all.

Your head was pounding, the gunshots in the distance were relentlessly clashing with the swelling in your head. Your eyes felt like they might roll backwards through their sockets. Your nose was overwhelmed with thick dust, your throat was clogged with it too. Your ears were practically shrivelling with the wall of sound. 

All of it combined was sensory overload. 

You blacked out for a moment, temporarily lost. You saw König through flashes, but you knew it wasn’t really him. It couldn’t be. König wouldn’t just stand there, he’d be pulling you up into his arms and taking you away. He wouldn’t watch on as you were dragged around in that new level of hell. 

You blinked back through the spots and the flashes of unreality and you were greeted with the sight of a union jack unfurling high above you. The fabric unfurled like an angry ghost and your eyes were filled with dancing red white and blue. The lines didn’t seem to stay still, they were crossing and uncrossing, blurring softly in and out of focus. 

“What…what are you-”

“What did I tell you? Shut the fuck up!”

The metal pipe came down on your head once more and you gasped at the pressure, losing the breath from your lungs. You sprawled out like a bearskin rug and pasted yourself to the floor, watching dead eyed as Price was thrown by your side. He was equally as jelly-boned as you. 

“What are you doing?” you whispered, too done in to follow the directions you were given. 

Rousseau musn’t have heard you though. You followed the swelling blob that you assumed to be him and watched as it adjusted something and then gathered something else. Fuck. You were too fried to see what was happening. Everything was tinged in red, white and blue, nothing was solid, nothing felt real. 

Well, except maybe the blood that was still threatening to drown you. You hacked away at that and sobbed lightly, feeling the tears dribbling pathetically down your cheeks. Somewhere in the back of your mind you realised that you weren’t going to live through this afterall. Even if you did, was there going to be much of you left? 

Rousseau only confirmed your suspicions as he marched forward and tugged you up by your neck. You screamed and flailed with every little shred of energy you had left, but still it wasn’t enough. He was strangling you with something, wrapping something around your throat while he batted off your hands.

“No! No! No! No! N-” you choked until you couldn’t anymore. 

The thing was tightened around you and soon he didn’t have to hold you anymore. You gazed upwards and watched in horror as a long snaking line of rope was yanked upward - with you along with it. 

The choking and hacking only got worse from that point on. Your throat was constricting, you were flapping like a headless chicken. The pressure was threatening to burst your eyeballs, but even still you were cursed to see, cursed to watch. 

Price was being dragged the same as you, muscles twitching and head swaying like a lolling buoy. The camera was in front of you both, red light blinking ominously from the other end of the room. Rousseau was swinging his arms around and he was proselytising as always, sounding somehow even more passionate than usual. His voice was screeching and booming all at once, it filled the room and attacked the camera, it sent you swinging in his grasp. 

“...and now this is what they die for! They may capture me, but they will never prevail! They will only turn to ash, while we burn on forever!”

Out of the corner of your bulging eyes you could see the flag behind you set alight. You gawped at it like a flapping fish, tongue flailing around uselessly even as you continued to fight the rope. It was no use. Your vision was almost completely fading now, black was corrupting the edges and inch by inch it was taking over completely. Your body was losing its strength. Your arms fell limply to their sides.

“Nein!”

A scream of terrible anguish filled your senses. Your body slumped down. The darkness in your eyes receded for a moment. 

Boots filled your eyes, you coughed roughly upon seeing them, shocked as the two sets of feet got all too close to coming down on your head. The leading set stopped in their tracks and turned, forcing the other set of feet to back away before any final blow could come. You closed your eyes a moment and focused on hauling in tiny lungfuls of air, coughing like an old hag with every dying choke, but nevertheless you took those painful breaths in like they were bitter medicine. 

“You will pay! I will rip you apart, I will stick a knife through every nerve you have! You will suffer for what you’ve done, you self righteous sack of shit!”

You widened your eyes and even through the terrible pain you were fighting, you roared through it and forced your head up. You knew that voice, you knew that high pitched screaming growl. The sight of him only confirmed it. 

Was it really…were you dreaming again?

You blinked furiously and choked on a sob. Please don’t be dreaming, please don’t be dreaming. The mantra filled your mind and expanded into every little piece of you. Even through the dizziness and the labouring of your struggling body, you could recognise that man out of anywhere, you could’ve recognised him in the pitch black of the blown out tunnel. 

König was laying into Rousseau with the fury of a wounded lion. He rammed him into the wall and forced his head into the concrete over and over, the sound of sickening smack managed to break through the barrier of fuzz in your ears. It managed to break through König’s garbled screaming. Even in your broken state the site brought on an unwilling half smile that came slinking sickeningly from your subconscious.

“Don’t you dare move, don’t you dare do anything but keep breathing! You don’t get to leave this world until I make you regret ever seeing the light of your first day! Do you hear me? Your fight is finished!”

König threw Rousseau to the ground and brought his shining black boot hard down into his stomach. Rousseau panted out, a wormy little gasp broke past his lips but nothing more. He was forced to lie flat on the floor, torn between clutching at his cracked head and his flattened belly. The man who had towered over you had finally been brought down, turned into debris. 

You could hardly believe it. You couldn’t move for the shock. You just stared at Rousseau,  wide eyed, unflinching through the battlefield of pain that raged through every muscle and bone from within you. Somewhere above you were sure you could recognise your name being called, but everything was too fuzzy, the inky darkness was taking over, drawing you into its loving embrace. The dust was settling, your heartbeat was stilling. Everything coalesced into one feeling. Relief. 

You’d have never have felt that way before after seeing something so unnecessarily violent, but after all you’d been through… you weren’t so sure you could bring yourself to be upset. 

“…Darling please look at me.”

The faint whisper broke through your spaced out sound barrier. It was anguished, the voice it came from was hoarse and panting. So much emotion was poured into it, it couldn’t help but wash away the patina of death’s touch.

“Sneak, it can’t end like this. You told me you would come to Austria, yeah? You said you’d let me show you home. You have lots still to do. Look at me. Look at me! You said we’d make it through together Sneak, I’m not going to let you get away from me, do you hear me? Look at me!”

You forced your eyes to flicker upward, trying in vain to settle them on your saviour. The light in the room was so bright though, and his face- no his mask was so dark. You could only make out blackness and dark streaks of red. 

You grit your teeth and shuttered your eyes, blinking a few times until you could see König’s own big wet eyes staring forlornly down at you. You smiled then.

“It..is…you,” you croaked, voice all but useless from your injuries. “Not…dreaming.”

His eyes lit up at your garbled words, the dim blue puddles turned to shining icy lakes. The corners of your mouth lifted heavily into a pained smile. Those eyes didn’t lie, they weren’t figments of your imagination. This was real, you thought to yourself. Even if you might die, you still got to see him again, you got to look into his eyes again and hear his voice and bathe in the warmth of his presence. 

“No, you’re not dreaming,” König confirmed, hastily looking from you and to your surroundings, “you can't dream now, you have to listen to me, you mustn't close your eyes. Hold on for me, darling.”

“Kö…Kön-”

You launched into an ugly coughing fit, your head lit up an alarm system. System failure, everything was red. Your concentration broke and already you disobeyed König. You closed your eyes and lost yourself to the hacking and choking. It felt like your lungs were closing, like they were balloons getting filled so completely they might pop. Every nerve, every wound, every cell in your body was on fire. 

You just wanted it to end. Why couldn’t the suffering end?

“Shh, c’mon breathe. Darling, breathe for me and take control. C’mon! Breathe for me!”

König drew you into his arms and wrapped something thick and warm around you. It might’ve been a comfort if not for the sparkling firecracker that was being set off in your chest. The endless coughing that was tearing up through your throat. 

Tears filled your eyes. No matter how much you wanted to cling to life, if even just for König, you weren’t sure you were strong enough. You weren’t even sure how you’d made it that far to begin with. Raw hope, you’d supposed. Though it didn’t feel like enough anymore. The agony was too much. 

“Sneak, you have to hold on,” König pleaded, rubbing his hands as firmly as your battered back would allow. “Please…don’t leave me alone.”

Dammit. 

You wheezed and cried, clenching your fists with all your might. Your ears rang with a high pitched sound, something you imagined to be angel screams ripping through your ears. You were turning away from death and running, you were sprinting towards life again, toward the scrabbling ugly beast that ran through the chambers of your crumbling body and clawed down at the walls. Pain. 

You gulped in what felt like a litre of air and held on, falling silent for a second until you slowly let it go and felt quiet once again. König’s arms stiffened around you, you could feel his fingers carving grooves into the melted clay of your skin. 

“Sneak?”

You opened your eyes again and settled them on König’s, blinking a few times so that he could still see proof of your presence. He didn’t look as relieved as he did the first time, but there was still a glimmer of hope in his face, still detectable no matter how small. His breaths seemed to resume too, you could see the faint puff start up from behind the dark material of his hood. 

“Sneak! Price!” A voice broke through the strangled calm. 

You blinked again and directed your eyes toward the sound, only daring to crack your neck just a little so that you could see. It was Gaz.. Well, Gaz and Soap. Gaz was thundering over to Price in seconds, squatting over him and grabbing at him, begging him to come to. However Soap was torn, he was frozen in silent horror in the doorway, barely there even as he stood. His face seemed to hollow as he surveyed the two camps that filled the room, though something dark seemed to fill him again when he settled on looking between your groups. 

He was looking at Rousseau. 

“Soap, help me with Price!” Gaz demanded.

He didn’t listen to Kyle. He ignored him in fact and strided over to the centre of the room, grinding to a stop in front of Rousseau’s unconscious body. He knelt down and checked for a pulse, lips pursing when he must’ve found what he was looking for. Still alive, you guessed. 

Why else would he be pulling zip ties from his back pocket? You hazily watched as he tightened them soundly around his wrists and ankles, double checking each one.

“He seems to be alive. How’re they?” Soap grunted, shooting over to Gaz and settling at Price’s other side. “König, how’s Sneak?”

Watching everyone felt like streaming on a bad connection, your vision was lagging, the frames kept flickering. It was a struggle to concentrate on their movements and breathe at the same time. You were faltering toward the darkness again. 

“Not good,” König whined, tightening his embrace on you. “Sneak’s fading fast, we have to get out of here and get to a medic.”

“Price isnt much better,” Gaz grunted, huffing as he lifted Price into a standing position.

Just then another shadow filled the room, it grew and stretched from the doorway like a blight. 

“Alright, halls are clear. How’re we looking in here?”

Ghost’s gruff voice echoed off the chalky walls. He looked between you all, eyes darting around and checking in on everyone, gun angled low to the ground. He looked like he was ready to destroy an entire army, his eyes were set hard and his stance was tense and ready. He was breathing fast.

“Bad. We gotta go,” Soap answered.

“Fucks sakes, get Price covered will you?” Ghost growled, throwing one of the discarded blankets toward Gaz and Soap. 

You looked down at yourself then, only suddenly realising that König had stuck you into one of his sweaters earlier. He must’ve brought it knowing that you’d be naked…he’d seen the videos. A grim thought took hold after. At least if you’d died then, you weren’t dying knowing that everyone was staring at your naked body anymore.

“Wrong thing to fuss over, mate,” Price coughed, finally piping up after his long silence. “We just need to get out of here - quick.”

He sounded better than you for once. They clearly hadn’t been choking him quite so badly during the filming, he sounded reasonably clear after everything he’d been through. He accepted the blanket that was being draped over him nonetheless, but it was hard not to spot the annoyance that overtook him. His brows were knit together tight. 

“We’ll get out, Price, we’ve got things handled,” Ghost assured, finally strapping his gun onto his back. “König, is Sneak going to be alright? Can you get them back to transport?”

“Yes,” König answered, his response harsh through his gritted teeth. “I’ll get Sneak back.”

“Good. I’ll handle Rousseau.”

The way that Ghost said that sounded like Rousseau might not make it back to the transport with the rest of you. Not that you could argue sense into him. Your vocal chords were fried. Though even if they weren’t, you couldn’t be sure you’d have much strength to speak. Your body felt like it was balancing on a knife’s edge, swaying too and fro between darkness and life. 

Closing your eyes and accepting darkness wasn’t an option however. You had to keep fighting. You kept blinking furiously and breathed in however much air your struggling lungs would allow you to. You focused on your heartbeats, clung to König’s hard body and willed yourself to keep going. You weren’t going to let yourself fade out. You couldn’t face knowing that you’d leave him alone, couldn’t face knowing you’d break your promise. 

“Darling, I know you’ve been through so much, but you have to hold on for a bit longer, ok?” König whispered.

His mouth was lowered to your ear. You could feel the roughened material of his hood caressing your skin, lighting a fuse just beneath the surface. You could feel it feathering through to the surface of your skull.  

“Ok,” you whispered. 

He stood up at that, your single utterance spurring him on and forcing him to go. Unfortunately you didn’t feel quite the same way, in fact you screamed out raggedly the moment you were forced to change position. It had him apologising furiously in your ear, but you could only shake your head at him, urging him on with a faded look. 

“Just stay with me, Sneak.”

You nodded your head this time, though it was easier promised than done. You were aware that König was taking you through the shot up hallways, but you knew yourself that you weren’t staying conscious the whole way. 

There were entire sections that seemed to be cleared without your knowledge. Some moments you’d only just be turning corners and the next you would bob your head past König’s shoulder and acknowledge an entire straight corridor behind you both. 

Hold on. 

You continued to blink sleepily and breathe. 

Don’t leave me alone. 

Time ran like slow honey. Each breath seemed to span hours. König was talking to you, but you weren’t entirely sure what it was he was saying. They seemed like affirmations, you were sure at some point he was promising to buy you things from that deli that you liked in town, but you weren’t awake for long to hear it. 

Towards the end you must’ve been gone for a solid few minutes. You went from almost total darkness then violently awoke to four terrified faces surrounding you at once, all bathed in the yellow light of day like they were standing under buttercups. There was a whirring sound all around you and your body felt like it was smothered in bubble wrap. You could hardly feel a thing.

“The drugs must be helping!” Soap shouted hopefully, his voice almost lost under the loud whooshes of air all around you. 

Were you on a helicopter?

You blinked up at the ceiling and smiled euphorically, almost laughing until you were forced to choke back more coughs. It forced your face to scrunch and the light around you to shatter. 

Why were you coughing? What was happening? Why were you in a helicopter? 

Oh no, it’s happening again I’m dreaming, you thought, absolutely horrified at the thought of waking up in the darkness again. It was the only explanation. How did you go from being beaten to being in a helicopter with all of your boys? It simply couldn’t be real. 

“Not…real,” you croaked sadly, “Not…real.”

“Sneak, save your throat,” König roared, his voice sounding similarly distant as Soap’s. 

His hand felt so heart shatteringly solid, like something that was really there. Hadn’t you felt him like that earlier and awoke to find it was all fake? His voice as well. The realisation brought on a violent sob. You were reduced to tears in seconds, shivering violently into the hard floor beneath you. You just couldn’t tell what was happening anymore, you couldn’t feel anything properly. Your skin felt fuzzy and your mind was filled with pillow stuffing.

“You’re safe, Sneak. It’s alright!”

You jumped when you heard König’s voice come through loud and clear. A weird snug feeling encapsulated your head and you frowned, not understanding that you’d been graced with a pair of headphones. The drugs really were doing their work, but you were too gone to even think of that. 

“Sneak hold on for me, ok? Just a little bit longer, my love,” König begged. 

His voice was so hoarse and scratchy. However you heard it loud and clear. 

“Mm…love you,” you whispered. “Been…dreaming bout…you.”

Even if it was a dream, you were happy to fall into it now. The warm fuzz was spreading further through your veins, cushioning your insides pleasantly from all the misery and strain. The idea of this being one of your last dreams tickled at your brain and you almost felt like giggling again. The sunshine was returning to the edges of your vision. 

“Sneak, listen to König and stay awake, alright? Don’t close your eyes Sneak!”

“Soap?” you frowned.

He’d never been in your visions before. Not that you were angry to hear his voice again, but you were thoroughly confused as to why he’d appeared all of a sudden. 

“Stop talking, Sneak. Your throat’s fucked.”

Ghost? 

“Yeah, you can relax for a little bit, ok? Just concentrate on us.”

Gaz?

“Stop overwhelming them,” Price growled out. “All of you shut it.”

Were they all there? You strained your head, moaning when you couldn’t move very much. Something was preventing you. Were you strapped down? You struggled and huffed out a few heavy breaths and soon found that it was no use. You couldn’t move. You could only face ahead. 

That wasn’t so bad either. Soon König was filling your sights and he was leaning above you, floating into frame like an angel. He was wearing his half mask, allowing you to see his uncovered eyes and messy blonde hair. More than ever you wanted to reach out and stroke it, though you knew well enough that you couldn't in your restrained predicament. You pouted. 

“Wan…feel…you…”

“Shhh, darling. Don’t talk. I’m right here, just stay with me. Focus on my voice and keep your eyes open. We’re getting you to a hospital, alright?”

You moaned. 

Why couldn’t you just reach out and touch him? You wanted to feel his hard body against yours just one more time, even if you weren’t sure you’d feel him properly in your dreamstate. It didn’t matter, you figured you could convince yourself of anything. If only you were enjoying the spread of his thick fluffy blonde locks beneath your fingers. Even the thought was enough to send you tingling. 

“That’s right, you’re going to be ok,” König smiled, gently holding your cheek and stroking it. “You’re going to be ok and you’re going to recover. You’re going to get seen to by the doctors, and you’ll rest up and before you know it you’ll be coming home with me. Yeah? You remember our trip? You’re going to be ok. You’re going to come back to Austria with me, ok?”

Finally you were in heaven. It felt so so real. It felt safe. You inhaled deeply and relaxed back, smiling contentedly to yourself. That was everything that you’d wanted for days. You craved loving gestures like a ravenous addict, the yearning had burnt in your heart for days. 

“No! Stop that, keep your eyes open!”

You hadn’t even realised you’d closed them. You blinked sleepily and drew in a deep breath, but the yellow light couldn’t compete with the cool darkness. You craved the shade of rest, wanted to nuzzle into the black. 

“Darling please. If you fall asleep now you might not wake again and I don’t know what I’ll do. Please! Please stay with me! You told me you wouldn’t leave me again, Sneak, you promised! Stop this!”

You frowned. Through the last dregs of light remaining you could see his eyes streaming with tears. His chest was heaving with effort to keep himself upright. His hand was wrapped around your shoulder now, and his other had joined your other side. König was clutching onto you like a little boy lost, but you could do nothing to help him. You felt so weak. You could barely hold your lids open anymore, never mind comfort anyone. 

Why couldn’t he just relax into the warmth like you? You could both lie in the darkness together, bodied fused in the nothing, just floating. You frowned. 

Why was he trying to make you hold on? Didn’t he know that if you woke again you’d be back inside the cell, tied up and shivering like a beaten dog. You didn’t want to go back to that. You wanted to stay in your dream forever now. This was it, you decided.

“Nein! Bitte verlass mich nicht. Ich flehe dich an, bitte bleib!” König sobbed, his voice overtaken by sad gasping breaths. “Please…keep your eyes open. Bitte…please…stop…bitte…Nein…”

Distantly you wanted to remind him that he needed to talk to you in English, but even talking seemed like some far off concept.

You shook your head and lay back into the darkness fully, swaying into the eternal night. You wished König wasn’t so sad. You wished your last dream had been a more pleasant one…but it didn’t matter.

It was just a dream.

Don’t cry König… you’ll find me no matter where I go…

-☠️-

I got pain an' experience... an' you got heart -- kinda remind me of Marciano, ya do.

“How’re things? Any progress?”

“I’ve noticed some twitching, but the doctors keep saying I’m seeing things. They keep blaming it on lack of sleep.”

Rocky, when I was fightin' it was the dirtiest racket goin', see. Pugs like me was treated like fightin' dogs -- throw ya in the pit an' for ten bucks ya try to kill each other.

“...I know it’s difficult, but you need to rest too. You’ve been holed up in here alone with these movies on repeat for god knows how long now. It’s not good for you, mate.”

“I don’t need you to tell me what’s good for me. The doctors said familiar people and sounds will help. Rocky will help. Being here will help.”

“I know but...If-”

“Don’t you dare say ‘if’ Sneak wakes up.”

-

Do you feel you have a chance?

Maybe

“König, enough's enough. Get yourself downstairs, jump in that fucking taxi and go to the hotel. Don’t come back till you’ve gotten that wretched smell off you and do something about the bags under your eyes.”

“For the last time I’m not going! I saw a finger spasm. It really moved!”

“I’m sure you’ve seen pink elephants and all sorts by now, sunshine. Fuck off and go look after yourself. You’re no good to anyone like this.”

“No! I won’t do it!”

“For god’s sakes do you want to stink Sneak awake? C’mon, look at yourself. Don’t you think you’ll scare them if they wake up and see you like this?”

“I don’t care! I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care!”

-

Get outta my life both of ya's.

“Look, I know we don’t really get on but…I bought you a tea. Can I sit for a bit?”

“Are you going to try and make me leave too?”

“Jesus, no. Just wanted to come check in. They keep sayin’ you’re seeing movement…”

... It's cold outside, Paulie.

“I am seeing movement. Today it was a blink, I’m sure of it.”

“Well, that’s good, hm? What’re the doctors sayin’? Do they think there’ll be any change?”

“The doctors never want to reveal much.”

He's scum from the corner, I didn't raise ya to hang with no bum!

“Do you ever get tired of Rocky being on all the time? It’d drive me nuts watching the same thing over and over all day.”

“I barely notice it anymore.”

“Huh.”

-

“Sneak please, I’m begging you. You have to give me something…I’ve been watching you for so long now and you’ve never been so still. Just give me something so I can keep going, yeah? Anything…bitte.”

-

“You know I was looking out at the stars a minute ago. It reminded me of when we sat together that night and looked up at the sky together. Remember that, darling? You fixed my hair for me. I could use that again now. I almost broke my comb trying to put it through my hair yesterday. I suppose maybe I should listen to your team, hm? Garrick and MacTavish offered to sit with you for a little while tonight… Maybe you’d like to have some company with someone else for a bit. Maybe you’d be better off without me, hm?”

-

It don't matter if I lose... Don't matter if he opens my head...The only thing I wanna do is

go the distance -- That's all.

“I’ve tried it all and still you won’t wake up for me! What will it take Sneak? What will it fucking take! I’ve done everything and still it isn’t enough! Why am I not enough! Is it because of what I did that day? Is this my penance? Are you running away from me again? Goddamn it, I can’t take this, wake up Sneak! Just open your eyes!”

-

I love you -- I love you -- I love you…

“Fuckin’ hell, is this still on?”

“Ghost!”

“You know why it’s on.”

“Think I could recite it from memory by now.”

“You’re not helpin’, LT. Leave him alone.”

“Fuck me, there’s only so many times you can listen to that numbskull’s voice. Let the arsehole say Yo! Adrian and turn it off.”

“Well then, it sounds like you can’t recite it from memory then.”

“What?”

“‘Yo! Adrian’ - That’s from Rocky two. He didn’t say it in the first one, see? The movie is over now.”

“Oh, fuck me.”

-

“I was thinking earlier…you said before that you hated not knowing my name. You said that I shared everything with you, except that and it…it killed you not to know me completely. I don’t know why I had to be so stubborn about it now, I suppose it's just not a name I like to hear very much. Apart from my mother, it just reminds me of people I’d rather not think about…but I think if i ever heard you say it I’d like it. Do you still want to know it? What if I told you now, would you wake up?”

-☠️-

Swirling mist danced behind your lids. There was an electric current somewhere sparking in a breeze, you were floating along on it, your skin tingled and your spine burned with the fizz of it. You felt yourself twinge, felt a groan building in the back of your throat even though you couldn’t hear it. There was a vibration running down your body, it built and thrummed through you, undulating with the electricity. 

You liked it. You enjoyed getting to float freely, loved the temporary bliss of your shadowy escape. There was no pain there in the darkness, just whooshes and whisps of feeling and giddy deliriousness. An endless drifting cycle that felt like it could go on for the rest of time. However implausible that would be to a sane person. 

Ultimately it didn’t last forever though - eventually you felt yourself sinking.

You frowned. No. You didn’t want to sink, you didn’t want to go into the depths, you wanted to remain in the clouds. You hated the falling sensation, you hated the burning that built in your throat, hated the aches that broke out all over your back as if it were cracked glass. You especially disliked the crusty feeling behind your eyes. 

You scrunched your eyelids furiously, gritting your teeth when you couldn’t relieve the sensation. With a strangled moan and no small amount of effort you cracked your eyes open. Somehow you resisted the urge to scream. Maybe you were too weak to do anything like that just yet, but your body wasn’t above holding it in, waiting to survey your surroundings first. 

You blinked furiously into the light. The room you were in was disgustingly fucking bright, clinically bright. The shocking white glare flooded your vision and kept you fluttering your eyelids for a moment, continuously disturbing the layer of gunk that had built in the gloopy corners of your eyes. The world was in stark contrast to the one you’d just emerged from. What was painless and empty before was now bursting to life with sensation. 

Fuck. 

There were so many acidic scents and weird feelings around you. Your body felt like it was repressurising, your lungs were reacclimating to your surroundings. Through it all, you wanted to reach up and wipe your face so badly. There was no way you could muster the strength though. You didn’t have enough energy, it was all being used toward your growing awareness. 

Why were you so weak? Why couldn’t you move? Where were you? 

The questions clawed at your mind and had your brain scrambling until it burnt. There weren’t many memories to help you out. When you tried to think of where you were last, your head came up just as blank as the ceiling above you. That’s when you realised there was only one way you could get any answers. 

You would have to move.

For some reason your instincts were telling you not to talk, not to draw attention to yourself. You weren’t sure why, but you sure as fuck weren’t going to go aginst your gut at a time like that. 

You sucked in a silent breath and steeled yourself. Then you took in another. Then another. You breathed in and out and kept up a steady rhythm until you felt you’d gathered every miniscule ounce of strength you had and finally you put it all into twisting your neck around. You grunted out in pain, but kept yourself quiet, swivelling and sighing all you could until you were greeted with something other than ceiling. 

A lightning shock of messy blonde hair. A black mask. A big scarred face gently slackened into a sleepy frown. 

Your heart leaped in your chest. You couldn’t remember much, but one thing was for sure - you knew exactly who was sitting across from you then. 

It brought a smile to your sore cracked lips. The corners twitched up and your heart jumped around in your chest like a parading cheerleader. Next thing you knew, something from somewhere next to you, something started to furiously beep. It filled your head and ricocheted through your ears, and more importantly startled the man across from you out of his slumber. 

“Ah Oida! Doctor, nurse! The monitor its-”

König looked at you then and you could’ve sworn his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets. The world went still. 

You smiled softly at him and watched on as he stayed frozen in his tracks, looking like a perfect picture of fear and disbelief. The room felt like it’d been filled with gas, like it was seconds from ignition. He gaped at you in the heavy silence. 

“Am I…Is this…Is this real?” he asked fearfully. 

You smiled wider then and blinked a couple times. You couldn’t rely on your voice to work, it felt like your gullet was filled up with gravel. Talking was going to be a luxury, you could tell. It already felt like a miracle getting to lay eyes on your man again, but it wasn’t one you were taking for granted. From the few moments you’d had, you could tell you’d been out for a while.

“My love! It’s really you, you’re really awake!” König laughed. 

You mustered a tiny nod from your depleted energy reserves. The second you moved you sent König running toward you. 

His boots slapped down on the squeaky tiled floors, with the force he sped to you it felt like he was going to put his foot through the floor. Though you couldn’t focus too much on that, because soon enough he was on you, arms clamping around you as if he’d never let go again. 

It hurt so bad to have him wrap himself so tightly round you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to complain. Strangely it was comforting to feel pain from something good. And man did it feel good. It felt like you’d been pulled from the ice, like you were warm again. Safe. You were home. 

It made you all the more aware that you really were alive. 

“König what the fuck are you doing? You can’t squeeze sneak awake! The doctors are saying you’re causing a commotion in here, what’s going on?”

You smiled wider than you ever thought possible and looked past König’s heaving body and toward the source of the gruff commanding voice. It was a voice for sore ears. 

“I don’t need to squeeze Sneak awake, Captain,” König giggled, his entire body vibrating with his maddened laughter. 

“Fuckin’ hell you’ve finally crossed the border fully into looney land,” Price growled. 

“No! No, see for yourself. See!”

König detached from you, allowing you some more space to breathe again, and you took the opportunity gratefully. However you couldn’t help but wrinkle your nose when you finally caught the pungent smell that had clung to the air around you. Was that…König?

“What are you talking about? What- fucking christ alive!”

You broke out of your hazy thoughts and made eye contact with Price, almost breaking your silence with a fit of laughter when he did the same thing as König. His mouth hung open, his unusually clean shaven face looking thin and haunted from the second he realised that König hadn’t gone mad from grief. He dropped his shivering skinny arms and his whole hospital gown clad body shot up stick straight. 

“Bloody hell It’s really…Sneak’s really…”

“See! I told you! I told you all!” König grinned. “I said there had been movement. I told you that Sneak would fight.”

König’s stance was victorious, his eyes were ablaze with pride. It made your chest wrench to see him so happy. Something told you that he hadn’t been doing well at all. If his greasy hair and fierce aroma were anything to go by. At least he would be able to fix that. 

You weren’t so sure that you were going to be fixed anytime soon. 

All of a sudden, as if awakened by your thoughts, a horrible tearing jolt worked itself through your throat and splintered down your back. It forced a pathetic squeak of pain from your lips and soon the two men were rushing to the door screaming and shouting for someone to come do something as your body heaved and trembled. The alarm and the crazed beeping from the machines only made your condition worsen, the shouting rattled your ears and rung through your head like a gong. 

A nurse was by your side in minutes, shaking a little as König stood beside her, urging her to do something. You were in too much pain to pity her though. Your entire being was in atrophy. Chills and hot flashes worked their way through your skin and horrible zipping sparks jumped all around your body, directing themselves toward your tired lungs. 

Though soon the trauma ended, and your pain dulled down into a light throb until eventually you felt like you were on a new plane. All the edges in the room appeared hazy and everything seemed to ebb and blur. At first it didn’t feel much better than the agony, but eventually you grew used to it, letting yourself lay back into the soft sheets and smile dopily into the skinny pillow you’d been given. 

“Sneak? Sneak!”

“König,” you mouthed, floating steadily back into the darkness. 

 -☠️-

You’d had a few more encounters like that until you were finally able to stay awake without being shot up with drugs like a dying horse. 

The pain started to get more manageable with time, and of course you were able to motivate yourself with seeing all of your loved ones again. König was always there, bar the times you had to raspily whisper shout at him to go take a bath or to go get some rest. He never would leave you alone to sleep though, opting instead to lay down on the empty hospital cot next you. He’d strong armed a young doctor into getting it into your room of course. 

Price visited quite a lot too. He was in the room next to yours, thoroughly displeased that they weren’t giving him the all clear to go back to work. He groused that he was just fine and that the bloody doctors didn’t know what they were saying, going on about how he’d been a Captain long enough and he knew better than them that his body was ready to go home and heal there. You both knew it was a lie though. Price was as sick as you, even if he was mostly able to walk and talk. You could see it behind his eyes. 

You knew well enough what was lurking in there, because you had the same sickness yourself. It was there when strangers came to touch you and check up on you, the doctors that were only trying to care for you. It was there when the lights went out at night. It was there lurking in the shadows. It was there every time you were forced to get a wash. You screamed bloody murder the first time you were awake for a sponge bath, almost choked up blood you were so terrified of the water. Even the sound of it sloshing at the edges of the bucket was enough to send you into a panic attack. It was a nightmare even having to drink the stuff. 

König took it upon himself to look after every facet of your wellbeing after that wash. He bathed you, he fed you when you were finally able to have solid food, and he practically barked like a rottweiler at anyone that tried to touch you without letting him know what it was for. As much as you tried to tell him it was alright and that he didn’t have to do all that for you, he’d shake his head with indignance everytime and shush you with a million platitudes. He said he’d do anything for you. He would serve you until the minute you sent him away, which wasn’t very often, but it was necessary to tell him to eat or get himself a shower. 

Price had confessed to you one night that he had reacted much the same as you after they’d brought him in. König had been sent away, and so your Captain sat on the foot of your bed drinking tea from a wonky paper cup, occasionally grimacing with his weird naked face as the bitter after taste sunk in. You were still getting used to seeing him without a beard, even after all you’d been through, that was still completely out of the ordinary. 

“It’s the only reason I drink this utter shit,” he’d remarked, drawing the tea close to his lap. “I’d rather have something with a taste to it. Something with a bit of colour.”

“Glad to know its not just me,” you’d said bitterly. 

Your voice was still raspy when you spoke, the doctors told you it would take a while to heal, you just had to keep your voice to a whisper for a while. Apparently your throat had suffered so much trauma that you were lucky you were getting to speak at all after what you’d been through. Not that you felt particularly lucky. 

“You know…when we go back we’ll have to get tested…medical tests, psych evals.”

Your lips parted and you sucked in a low breath. In the back of your mind you hadn’t forgotten that Price was going to waive your little misstep with König. You were technically allowed to go back. That aside though, would you really be capable? Could you pass a psych eval? You screamed bloody murder most nights because of the awful nightmares you were having. Your body was frail and your scars were deep. Not all of them would heal. 

“You’d let me back?” you asked slowly. 

“Well, if you managed to pass - of course,” Price shrugged. “I was serious when I said that the whole mess with König didn’t matter, I think we’ve been through enough together that none of that means anything anymore. The most important factor is, do you want to go back?”

You caught eyes with him then, locked into his hard stare. His blue eyes were shining dully in the dim yellow night light. You could see the hollows in his cheeks more prominently now, the shadows were digging their palms into his face. He was right - you had been through a lot together.

You weren’t so sure about your abilities anymore, if you would have the nerve to get out on the field again. A dark part of you also wondered about the alternative, what if you’d enjoy it too much? What if you’d want to take your vengeance out on those who hadn’t even done anything to you? 

Even through the haze of your memories of being rescued, you could still remember the way you stared at Rousseau's crushed up body and the feeling of your smile still haunted you.

Of all the things that that man had done to you, the most horrific of all was the taking of some small part of your humanity. It brought a shiver to your core each time you thought of his head being smashed against the wall, and how you couldn’t even imagine telling König to stop even if you’d had the ability at the time.

It was something you desperately tried not to dwell on, lest your chest cave in from the pressure. 

Both you and Price wordlessly let the uncomfortable silence linger. Soon enough he cast his gaze away and flickered his attention over to the TV. It was playing a crappy sitcom that neither of you had seen before, nevertheless you were both as captivated with it as if it were your favourite. Neither of you brought up coming back again that night. It made for too many questions that you didn’t have the answer to yet. 

It was easier to pretend that everything was going to be fine. Your head felt clearer when you plastered on a smile and acted like everything was normal. That was the tactic when Ghost, Gaz and Soap finally came to visit and it worked well then.

They’d all flooded into the room with faces like slapped arses. Gaz and Soap were fighting each other to apologise to you first while Ghost stood solemnly by your side giving you one of the sorriest looks you’d ever seen from those hard blue eyes of his. You weren’t going to have any of it though. They didn’t deserve to drown in their guilt because of a series of reckless choices that you’d made. 

“All of you have got to stop apologising. You already did enough getting us out of there, there’s nothing more to be said about it,” you rasped, quickly looking over to the jug of water placed strategically away from you. 

Ghost gave Soap and gaz a withering look, before he turned and fetched a small glass, filling it only a third of the way before steadily handing it to you. It barely shifted in his careful hands - it made you realise that someone must’ve filled him in. The realisation had your heart stuttering, it had revealed a crack in your normal facade. 

Despite that though, you gave him a small nod and gently tipped the water back, greedily letting the water soothe your burning throat. Drinking it never completely relieved you of course. Your throat remained scratchy no matter what you had, it would still take some time before you fully recovered. 

“We played our part in your capture, Sneak. There’s no denying it,” Ghost said. “Me more than anyone else. I put you in danger and I can’t let you dismiss that. I let my feelings get in the way of the mission, and ultimately that was the whole reason Price had set the rules he did with you in the first place. I’m truly sorry for what happened, and there isn’t anything that’ll make my part in what happened alright.”

“Aye, we all did, we all put you in danger. It was a fuckin’ big shock, Sneak. It didn’t feel good knowing you might’ve been leaving the team for someone we thought was…well it doesn’t matter what we thought. Point is we acted out of line and we do have to apologise,” Soap said seriously, placing his hand by yours on the bed. “Im sorry too.”

“It wasn’t our place to punish you,” Gaz said firmly, “We acted like fucking children and it almost cost your life. I can’t say sorry enough.”

“You were barely even with me on that mission!”

“Well I didn’t exactly stick up for you when I got the chance, did I?”

You started to roll your eyes, but the look that Gaz gave you was enough to stop them before they peaked at the skyline. You closed them instead for a second and then pursed your lips, taking a moment to consider their words.

Everything in you wanted to tell them all to shut up about it so that you wouldn’t have to think too much about that awful day, but you knew well enough that you couldn’t ask everyone to put it behind them just so that you could deny it. What happened happened. You had to face it. If not just for yourself, then for the men that had risked their lives coming to get you and Price back. For your brothers. 

Though you didn’t have to unravel right at that exact moment, you decided. That could wait for a time that you could at least fetch your own water for yourself, or when you could take a shower without König standing outside of it. 

“Well, seeing as we’re talking apologies…” you sighed, opening your eyes again and looking at each of them with serious measure. “Let’s get into reparations. What’d you all get me?”

“Get you?” Gaz repeated. 

“Yeah, where are my ‘sorry you almost died, woops!’ balloons?”

“Oh, away n’ bile yer heid!” Soap groused. 

“You didn’t even get a little bear with hand marks round it’s neck?” you grinned. 

“Well we found one, but it had big red handprints on its arse as well, and that just didn’t seem appropriate,” Ghost remarked. 

“Jesus, LT!” Soap snapped. 

“Yeah, König might take it as us flirtin’ and snap our arms off,” Gaz sniggered. 

“Oh for…” Soap groaned, and put his hands over his eyes. 

You laughed properly for the first time in a long time, and most joyously of all you didn’t fly into a coughing fit straight after. It flowed freely from you like notes from a tuba, still not quite your usual timbre but fuck it, it was music. Your body lightened and your head cleared, it was like an oppressive fog was beginning to lift. 

Even if you weren’t coughing by the end of it, your throat still dried up again though you didn’t need to worry. Ghost got you another glass of water and handed it to you with a softened expression.

You took the glass from him once more and sunk into a familiar rhythm with the guys again, transporting yourself away from the four stark white walls of the hospital room and away on their adventures. They filled you in on what was happening back at base, told you about their latest antics with the recruits and by the end of it you were so delirious from happiness, the nurse had to shoo them out so that you could rest. 

König came in shortly after them, freshly washed and fed, and he lay down in his cot across the room. His footsteps had woken you, even when he hadn’t meant to, you were still so hypersensitive to movement. Even in the darkness you could make out his mountainous shape as it rose and curved from the bed and it brought a little smile curving onto your lips. Your protector was never far. 

You sleepily invited him over and gladly he came speed walking to your bed. His messy was flopping in his excitement and the site of him reminded you so much of a cartoon you couldn't help but laugh a little.  

The trilling sound of it had him smiling, and soon after he poured you a cup of water and let you drink before fastening his arms around you and cuddling into your back. Your personal stove was on full heat. He was assuming his faithful position by your side. 

You sighed and relaxed into him, wiggling to get yourself right before frowning when you felt something sharp poking into your leg. What was that? You drew your hand back and stopped at König’s pocket, tilting your head when you slid your hand in and found the source. 

“Oh, Scheiße,” König huffed.

“What?”

König’s body went stiff as a board and you could practically feel the air harden around you. You were confused as to why he was there until you brought your hand to your face and discovered the cause. 

It was the wooden bird from the market. You tilted it gently and inspected it, quickly realising what the cause of his sorry state was. It’s little wing had been broken and glued back on, a permanent scar had been left on its frail body. Something that was all too familiar. 

“It’s just like me,” you joked.

“What?” König somehow managed to get stiffer. 

You turned around and faced him, gasping when you realised how upset he was. His entire expression soured, his eyebrows knitting into a deep frown. His shoulders sagged with grief and from behind his bandana you swore you could see his lips trembling, could sense his breath puffing out raggedly from behind the material. The pain on his face struck through your skull like a mallet. 

Shit. 

“You know…It’s got a little damage, but its ok. You put it back together,” you shrugged, trying fruitlessly to keep your tone light and even. 

“It was only broken because of me,” König whimpered. “And I haven’t even properly fixed it.” 

His eyes glazed over, spacing out into whatever terrible thoughts had been tugging at his subconscious. You’d felt your heart break then, cracking down the middle at the thought of him blaming himself. It was bad enough when the 141 were filling up the room with their apologies, but it was a whole other thing to see König folding under the pressure of his guilt. The boys had each other, but he didn’t have anyone other than you. 

“Hey,” you said gently, voice still a little rough. “Listen to me. C’mon look at me. König I need you to know that it’s not your fault, what happened wasn’t because of you…I don’t even know why you’d think it’s your fault, but ultimately it comes down to me. My stupid actions. You tried to do your best by me that day and I fought you because I was scared. I couldn’t stop worrying about all the damage I’d done and in the end I only made it all worse. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, frowning as he searched your face. 

“Of course I’m sure. That day I got captured was a shit show, König. After you did everything you possibly could to make sure I got back safe and sound again, and… well I don’t even know if I can even count on myself not having more dreams or hallucinations, but I’m sure I heard you everyday that you were by my bedside. I could feel you when I was asleep. You were there with me even when I was getting moved around all those prisons. You’ve been my anchor König, you’ve been the one that’s kept me here fighting. You’re my reason to go on, so don’t you lie there blaming yourself for what’s happened.”

“How can I not?” König sighed. “It’s my fault things got so complicated between us in the first place. I was the reason that Price banned you from having a relationship with me, It was my fault for being so bloodthirsty. Fuck, I could barely even stop myself from killing Rousseau, I thought- I thought that, well I worried that you would’ve spent your last moments horrified with me for what I’d done to him that day.” 

“Oh fuck no, don’t be stupid!” you snapped. 

König’s brows shot up and his eyes grew big as saucers. You swore you could see your hardset gaze reflected clearly in the blue of them, burning holes through that layer of guilt he’d shrouded himself in. How dare he think that he was your ruin when he was the one that saved you? 

“Don’t you dare put all the blame on yourself, König. You can’t think like that. I have just as much freedom over my actions as you do, it was equally my fault for getting Price on my back, and it was down to my actions that day that got me captured. As for Rousseau, well, I would’ve splattered him on the concrete myself if I had the energy.”

“Sneak!”

“It’s true,” you spat. “I know I shouldn’t think like that, but it’s true. I know I’m normally the one that tries to do right, but do you know what? After all the wrong I’ve done, I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’m not capable of the same things as you. We both have violent jobs, and we both carry horrible truths that haunt us. Don’t turn me into one of your ghosts König, don’t let the guilt fester and eat you up. I love you and I’d do anything to make sure you were safe, and I know that you’d do the same for me. You brought me back from the brink and now because of it we can lay here together and we can make a future for ourselves. We can go to Austria and we can decide to do whatever we want with the time that we have König. That’s all that matters. Don’t shrink from the past and get upset at the scars left behind. We have to learn to accept it.”

You thrust the bird toward him and he took it, scooping it into his hands ever so delicately. It was as if you’d handed him your heart. His breaths were soft and his eyes were filled with tears. 

There was a single beat where you worried he might try to walk away, but instead he gently placed the bird down on your over-bed table, wood hitting wood producing a soft whispery sound in the near silent room, and then he wrapped his arms around you again. He held you tight and kept you melded to him, fusing you with his shaking body. 

He cried soundlessly and let his body shake most of it out, all of the terror and the pain and the stress he’d been holding onto was slowly being released through you. His tears ran thick and hot and collected at his mask, reddening his cheeks at the edges of it. You slid it down for him eventually and cleared away the salty tracts, dabbing at his cheeks with the corner of your crisp white bed sheets. 

“You have no idea…I…I feel so selfish saying this, but you don’t know how lonely I’ve felt this past month. I’ve just felt like I’ve had all of this pain trapped inside and every time I’ve seen you suffer since waking up I just- I’ve felt like shit for thinking that I deserve an ounce of comfort when you’re the one that’s been through the worst.”

“Don’t think like that König, please. You always have me to turn to, you’re not being selfish for feeling hurt in all this. You got burnt too and it’s not fair you going it alone ok? You can talk to me, König. You can always talk to me. I love you, I love you so much, and I don’t want you bottling everything up just to protect me. I’m not broken, you don’t have to turn me into your next mission. I’m healing, and I think- I think we both need to heal. Y’know?”

König took a stuttering breath and nodded, his lips curling downward in a unique kind of sadness you’d never seen on him before. Now that his hair was flopping over his forehead and his half mask was wound down and dishevelled on his neck, he looked so young. His face was shadowed with his innocence, it shone out across his eyes. 

You pressed your palms into his cheeks and smoothed your thumbs over the irritated salty skin, pressing kisses where you could to ease the pain. His face was scratchy from the thick stubble there, but you didn’t care. It was more important that you soothe the burning ache inside König. You had to show him that you could be there for him too, even if you were still physically weak.

He was your reason to remain strong. He was the reason you were taking steps every day to try and get better. He really was your anchor. Your König. 

“Somehow we’ll make it through this…” you whispered, finally giving his swollen lips a much needed kiss.

He closed his eyes and leaned into it. The pressure in the atmosphere seemed to lighten, your lips crushed together like petals and you bathed in the calm that overflowed in you. It finally felt like things really would be ok. You were together now and you didn’t need to constantly think about your next steps, you just had to be. That was all that mattered for then. 

Your kiss ended a little while after, your breath not quite back to normal yet. Your chest panted with the lack of air, but soon you settled again and smiled. König matched your smile and his dazzling blue eyes gleamed like jewels in the low light. He rested against the pillow and stared at you in awe, as if he was finally seeing someone he hadn’t gotten to be with in a very long time. 

“Do you really think you heard me when you were…asleep?” he asked, tentatively breaking the silence as if it were fragile glass. 

He could never bring himself to say ‘in a coma’.

“I dunno,” you sighed. “I think I dreamed a lot, but I can’t really remember. I swear I really could hear Rocky sometimes, but then Price was very eager to make a point of saying how insane you’d driven everyone with it so…who knows,” you laughed. “He’s a vivid storyteller I guess.”

König chuckled a little and shook his head. Looking a little guilty as he thought about the amount that movie had been on. He’d already confessed to you it’d be a long time before he’d ever be able to watch it again. 

“You don’t remember me speaking to you though? Don’t remember the things I’d told you?”

You tilted your head at him, the movement rustling the stark sheets beneath you. 

“I feel like I can remember you saying you loved me and you wanted me to open my eyes, but I can’t really remember anything specific. Nothing I couldn’t have just as well have dreamt,” you shrugged. “Why?”

“I…well I thought…ugh, it’s ridiculous. Nevermind,” he sighed, looking toward the wall and away from your questioning gaze. 

“Aw, c’mon König! What is it? You can tell me,” you pressed, running your hand through a section of his fluffy hair. 

He closed his eyes and leaned into your touch. His face washed with relief, his body relaxed. He let go of his anxieties. 

“Well…I told you my name a little closer to the end of your sleep. I thought that maybe you might’ve remembered it if you were coming to awareness.”

You froze, stopping your calming gestures in your tracks as soon as you realised what you’d missed out on. 

“You what! You told me your name and now you’re just casually throwing that out there?”

“Well I was desperate, Sneak. I thought maybe it’d motivate you to wake up, I dunno. I said it was ridiculous,” he huffed, opening his eyes back up again. 

“Well, do I get to know it now?” you demanded, rolling over him so that he was caged between your arms. 

He widened his eyes, and even in the darkness you could make out the rosy tint that had broken out across his cheeks. He breathed a little quicker. 

“Aw, c’mon!” you begged, giving him your widest doe eyes you could muster. “Please.”

He sighed and bit his lip, trying to avoid your stare, but it didn’t work. He could feel the heat of your eyes on him and so he gave up. He puffed out a defeated breath and he smiled a queasy smile. He was about to speak, but instead found himself opening his mouth and closing it again, sealing his lips shut tightly. 

“Are you really still scared to share it with me?” you asked, softening your harsh stare at him. 

He opened and closed his mouth again and finally he shook his head at himself. 

“I’m not scared, no. It just feels…I’m not sure. I don’t really like to say it. I Will tell you though. I don’t ever want anything to happen again and live knowing that I didn’t hear you say it. I’m sure I’ll love to hear you say it.”

“Well you could always write it down…I can’t promise I’ll pronounce it right if its got some weird Austrian spelling, but I can-”

“No, no,” he chuckled, taking one of your hands in his and stopping you before you could go off on a tirade. “I won’t need to write it down. I’ll tell you.”

“Ok, well…when you’re ready.”

He breathed out and traced your fingers with his thumb. The massive digit stroked featherlight touches into your skin and you smiled at the fizzing sensation of it. His breath was warm on your neck, his chest was beating erratically from beneath you. It prompted you to climb down off him, keeping a grip of his hand all the same, but instead you took to lying next to him again. 

He smiled lazily as you settled by his side and he closed his eyes. You felt yourself strain as you listened to the buzzing quiet in the room, waiting to hear his name after all that time. 

“Matthias,” he whispered.

You instantly grinned, the single word lighting you up like a beacon. Your chest felt like it could burst. 

“Do I get a second name, Matthias?” you asked, pressing closer so you could kiss his cheek. 

He shivered next to you, his entire body buzzing. The static zipped right through the bed. He gave you a look he’d never given you before, the joy indescribable. 

“Luger,” he said gently. 

You bit your lip, not quite believing that you finally heard it.

“Not König then?”

“No, not König,” he murmured. “König was my mother’s maiden name. I started using it when I left the army. No ones called me by my real name in a long time”

“Huh… Matthias Luger,” you said in a whisper, feeling conspiratorial. “It suits you.”

“It suits me when you call me it,” he smiled, cuddling himself into the bed. 

“Should I call you Matthias when we’re alone now?” you pondered, letting your thoughts escape out loud.

He breathed out a laugh and pulled you close to him, forcing you to sink into the bed with him. It didn’t require too much coercion however. You were more than happy to lie there with him.

“You can call me whatever you like as long as you stay with me, darling,” he whispered. “Don’t ever run off like that again, you promise?”

You sighed and cuddled closer into his body, gradually letting yourself fade into the night with him. 

“I promise…Matthias,” you whispered, not helping yourself from saying it just one last time. 

-☠️-

The darkness kept a hold of you both for some time after that, after all was said and done. However during the course of your lying in bed together, it released its hold on you soon enough, and before you knew it the sun was raising its bright arms into the sky and beginning to wave good morning. You could see it out in the hallway, gently tickling at the floors and beginning to shift its eyes onto your room. You were dozing on and off, but now that you’d seen the light you were fully awake, flickering your lashes at the golden rays as they bounced off the blue linoleum. 

“Morning.”

König yawned next to you, stretching himself out and uncurling his arms. His back cracked like a firework seconds later, and he wrapped himself around you again, snuggling into the back of your T-shirt (one of his that he’d supplied you with). You rolled your eyes and smiled, feeling your heartbeat pitter patter. 

“You sure it’s morning for you?” You asked breathily. 

“Mm, I’ll be awake properly in a few minutes,” he grunted. “This just feels nice.” 

“Aw, so cute when you’re sleepy,” you cooed, rolling around so that you could see his shuttered lashes. 

He moaned his disapproval at being called cute, but he didn’t say much. He was verging far too much on the side of sleep rather than waking and you knew it would take far more to prod the bear back to life. 

You grinned slyly to yourself and bit your lip. Something of your old sense of mischief was returning to you.

“You’re just so sweet you’re all tired like that,” you continued.

He grunted again. 

“My little Schnucki cuddle bear…my lil matty watty-”

At that, König wrenched his eyes open and shot you a warning look. It was written all over his face that he had no idea how to take his revenge with you still in your weakened state, but you knew well enough he’d think of something. You took to giggling at his frowning face and lay yourself back against the pillow, innocently staring up at him as plotted away. 

“You know if you’re going to call me disgustingly cutesy names, I will have to leave.” 

“You would never,” you snorted, “I have to shoo you away just to get a shower most of the time.”

“Well, maybe I’m in a showering mood this morning,” he said, smiling viciously at you. 

His eyes were pointed at you like arrows. He pulled up his mask and sat up without breaking eye contact, then he tilted his head at you. A particularly smarmy look crossed his face. He’s clearly thought of a good way to get his revenge. 

“Yes, I think maybe I’ll head out for a little bit,” he shrugged.

“Fine,” you said, playing along with his little game. “I’m sure the nurses will be around with food soon. Price will be up and about too.”

“Mm, that will be good for you,” he said with a nod. “I think what might be good for me is getting myself a lovely breakfast. I’ll forgo the hospital canteen though, that stuff's rubbish. I think instead there's a lovely Italian deli that’ll be opening soon. One that I think you’ve heard of. It does lovely breakfast food!”

You narrowed your eyes at him. 

“And you’d bring something back from the deli then?”

“Why would I do that?”

You shoved at him playfully, too weak and tired to make much impact, but nonetheless enough to send him laughing back onto the bed. The booming sound had you giggling immediately, and even while all the excitement was hurting your throat you didn’t care. He pulled you into him and cuddled you close, forcing you back to the bed, though he didn’t actually have to use much strength. 

He held you like that until Price sleepily stumbled in with his morning tea round and cleared his throat, forcing you both to part. Even if he did say he was fine with König, it was evident he wasn’t in love with watching you exchange affections. Even standing next to König seemed like an issue some days. 

König left then, making his usual excuses, promising to come back with something from the deli after all, and allowed Price to pull up a chair alone.

He was a lot more mobile now that he’d mostly healed, he still stood a little funny under the weight of his crushed back, but according to the physio (and maybe Price overexaggerating his diagnosis) he would be fine again in a few weeks. Judging by the way he grunted when his back connected with the hard leather, you knew you were onto something assuming Price was being unusually optimistic.

“Making noises like that, you’ll be a sure candidate for desk duty, old man.”

Price shot you a glare and you bit your lip. He wasn’t going to abide by your cheek. 

“I can still send you to the latrines, Sneaky,” Price answered, slamming your flimsy takeaway tea down with a little too much force. 

“Oh yeah? I can imagine that’ll be a cushy job if I only have to clean your office.” 

“Fuck sake,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes. 

You couldn’t help yourself. Now that you’d been through all that trauma together, you found yourself braving interactions with him that you never would’ve before. After seeing him bollock naked and covered in his own detritus, the sheen of his title had faded some. You were able to be braver.

You and he both knew that nothing he could threaten you with would be worse than what you’d already faced. It was that universally realised truth that meant you knew the bitter glare that he was directing you from behind his takeaway cup didn’t hold any real malice.

“Seriously though…Gaz told me you were thinking of going back in a couple weeks. Is that true?”

Price stopped mid sip and regarded you awkwardly. His eyes slanted downward to the floor and his palm rested on his sweats in defeat. It was still so odd seeing Price in pyjamas, almost weirder than seeing him naked. It made him look all the more uncomfortable in front of you. 

“Well, just on paperwork to start. I’m not bloody likely to pass a medical and I’ve got a series of psych evals and debriefs to get through, so yeah, I figure I may as well get ahead of it all.”

“You’ve got to tell them about what happened? Do I? Will they ask me to come in?” you asked, breath hitching with fear. “Will they come here?”

“No, no, don’t worry. I’ve told them you’ll not be in until your health improves. Far as they’re concerned you’re barely talking right now,” he soothed. 

Your heartbeat wound down from its highly strung little dance. You breathed out a sigh of relief and picked up your cup of tea, breathing in the warm berry steam that wafted through the little opening in the top before you took a relieved sip. 

“Thanks…I don’t think I could face anything like that right now.”

“I barely can myself,” he muttered. “All those men giving me sorry looks like I’m a whipped dog. It’ll be hell. Still though, it’d be worse if I didn’t get to operate again. Needs must.”

You nodded, looking far beyond the pale white sheets that your head was directed towards. You didn’t have the same worries. You feared more than pitying looks, it was deeper than that for you. The real hell was having to relive what you’d gone through multiple times while blank faced suits noted down what had happened. The very idea made you want to bring up what little was in your stomach. 

“Have you given much more thought to coming back?” Price asked. 

You looked up at him and met his appraising look. His mouth quirked and his body tensed, he knew as well as you the answer was obvious. Obvious but complicated. 

“Honest answer? I’ve thought about it alot. At the end of the day I don’t even know if I’ll heal completely right yet. The fractures I’ve got are still bad and the physios keep looking at me like a tripped horse. I still can’t wash without König there. There’s a lot going on…”

“They’ll put you behind a desk if you tell them all that.”

“Maybe it’s the best place for me…I dunno. I’m not really sure of much right now, but I do know one thing - I’m not going to hide things anymore. I can’t hide my feelings just to try and get the work done, I’m not going to put people at risk because of the shit I’ve got bottled up. I’m never going to repeat the mistakes I made on that mission, Price. I’ve got too much to lose to ever do anything like that again.”

Price sighed and nodded, looking off into his own middle distance. It gave a sort of sagely quality, his crinkling eyes working against his younger years.

“I’ve asked and I can buy you three months,” he said suddenly, “You can take that time to heal and to think about things, see a shrink, do whatever you need to do. Come back to me then and give me an answer.”

“Three months?” you repeated. “To answer what? I don’t even know if I’ll be fully recovered.”

“You don’t need to be fully recovered…physically. You can be trained back to what you were, that’s not the issue. I just need to know if you can still do the job, and if you still want to do it. Take the time, think about things properly, hell go on that fuckin’ trip König wouldn’t shut up about and clear your head. After that, just come to me with an answer and even if it’s a no, I at least know that you got to think about your decision properly. I can make peace with it then.”

“You’re not keen on me saying no then?” you smiled, catching onto what he was doing. 

“I can see you leaning towards it and I’d rather you didn’t while you’re practically chained to the bed in a dour place like this. You’re a good soldier. You can recover from this and you can come back, if you want to. Get out of here as soon as you’re able and go away with König. Believe me when I tell you that I don’t doubt your ability for a second. You’ll get over the water stuff, you’ll overcome the shadows. If I can, then you can too. I don’t want to lose you, Sneak. So please, just promise me you’ll think about it, yeah?”

You sighed and gave him a nod, rubbing your thumb against the hot cardboard that barley kept your tea contained. It was almost blistering your skin, but the burning was a pleasant distraction from otherwise unpleasant thoughts. 

Price got up from his chair and put his hand on your shoulder, making sure that you acknowledged his meaningful look. His soft blue eyes cast a beam of light onto you, the wrinkles at the corner scrunching as he gave you a reassuring squeeze. His touch lingered long after he was gone, leaving you with just enough comfort to last until König returned. 

König did surreptitiously wander in minutes later, looking around warily before revealing his smuggled goods. He’d had to hide them in his hoodie like a pregnant lady, and just the sight of his overstuffed belly had you almost completely forgetting about what Price had discussed with you. You were happy to focus on better things. Afterall, you reasoned to yourself, it was Price that had told you to clear your head in the first place. 

“Ok, I couldn’t bring you Soup because I wasn’t willing to burn myself for you, but I did pick up your favourite panini and I got you a cake that might be a little squashed. Does the royal highness approve?”

You approved indeed. Anything was better than hospital food, but furthermore the deli food was better than anything. Immediately you grabbed for the panini and took a big grateful bite, barely just thanking König before you did so. It was just so good. Your eyelids shut tight as soon as you got your first taste of crusty bread and homemade melty butter. 

This was paradise. 

“Do I say enough how much I love you?” you murmured.

“Not at all,” König smirked, looking around the doorway for unwanted eyes before taking his own bite of panini from out of his mask. “It should be every word that leaves your mouth from now on.”

You snorted back a laugh and finished your bite. 

“I could do that, but your poor mother might think I'm a bit weird if I can only tell her how much I love you.”

König stopped eating and peered over at you, clearly forgetting all about his contraband treat. He regarded you seriously for a moment and pulled his chair closer, attention now completely focused on you. 

“You still want to go to Austria?”

“Well, the flights will need rebooked I imagine, but once I’m better? Of course!”

“But…didn’t you say you might need to report in soon?”

“Well, I spoke to Price about it all there and I told him the same thing I’ve said to you. I don’t know if I’ll go back fully. He didn’t want to accept that right away though, so he said he can give me three months. I figure I can be outta here a lot sooner than that. So what do you say? Still wanna show me home?”

König threw his panini down onto the table and pushed it roughly to the side, immediately taking his chance to wrap around you like a koala. He smiled brightly and he exhaled, his long thick arms not easing up as he constricted around you. 

“Do I say enough how much I love you?” König asked wryly. 

“Mm, I could stand to hear it a little more,” you sighed. 

He laughed lightly at that, you could feel it echoing around his chest. His warm puffs of breath landed hotly onto your neck. It had your eyelids fluttering closed, your own sandwich discarded somewhere next to König’s. You wrapped your arms around him in kind and revelled in the feeling of holding your universe close into your chest, letting everything else float away as you settled into the cloudy abyss once more. 

Even if you were unsure of where your future was going exactly, there was always going to be one constant. No matter what you faced, no matter what you decided, you would always have each other now. It didn’t matter that Price would come looking for your answer, it didn’t matter if the guys would be upset to hear you say no, it didn’t matter if you were nail bitingly eager and terrified in equal measure to say yes to Price.

König would be with you through it all, he could lend you his strength and you could give him your love and vice versa. You were your own team. Together you’d make contenders for anything. He was your rock and you were his light. You were going to be fighters until the end. 

[tiannasfanfic]

Fanfiction Masterlist:

Eddie Munson & Steddie (Stranger Things)

Requests: Closed

Main Blog: @tiannamortis

Other Masterlists:

Adrian Chase/Vigilante (Peacemaker)

Astarion (Baldur’s Gate 3)

Various Characters (Various)

All of my writing is cross posted to Archive of Our Own.

Some of my stories explore dark themes. Any potentially triggering content will be listed in the Content Warning at the top of every post on Tumblr and at the start of each chapter on AO3. Please be sure to read the Content Warnings carefully. Your mental health is more important to me than you reading my writing. 🖤💜

I try to keep everything as gender neutral as possible outside of smut. Smut is from an afab gender neutral perspective. I never describe my Readers or OCs to make it easier to imagine yourself in the story, regardless of race, gender identity or body type. The only time I ever describe clothing is if it’s important to the story.

All dividers in my masterlist and stories are by @firefly-graphics from the goth divider pack.

Enjoy! 🖤💜

Eddie’s Sluts Fanart

Eddie Munson Oneshots

Constitution (Smut)

A Corroded Coffin Christmas (Rockstar AU)(Angst)

Conviction (Angst)

Eddie’s Easter Bucket (Fluff)

Eddie’s Secret Stash (Smut)

Four Fifth’s: Part 1 (Fluff)

Game Over (Modern AU)(Smut)

GossipWeb (Modern Rockstar AU)(Angst)

Hit Points (Fluff)

I Still Believe (Vampire AU)(Angst)

Jackass (Rockstar AU)(Fluff) *NEW*

Jumpstart (Older AU)(Smut)

The Night Before Christmas (Fluff)

Paparazzi (Rockstar AU)(Angst)

Perception (Fluff)

Reunited: Part 1/4 (Rockstar AU)(Fluff)

Reunited: Part 2/4 (Rockstar AU)(Fluff)

Reunited: Part 3/4 (Rockstar AU)(Fluff)

Secret Admirer: Part 1 (Fluff)

Secret Admirer: Part 2 (Fluff)

Secret Admirer: Part 3 (Fluff)

Second Place (Angst)

True Sight (Angst)

Weekend Moments (Fluff)

Welcome Back, Munson (Fluff)

White Wedding (Smut) *NEW*

Wisdom (Fluff)

Eddie Munson Blurbs/Imagines/HCS

Candy (Fluff)

Close Shave (Fluff)

Cutthroat Kitchen (Modern AU)(Fluff)

Eddie Gives You A Tattoo (Fluff)

Eddie Loves Your Tits (Smut)

Eddie’s Baby (Fluff)

Eddie’s Night Cooking (Fluff)

Home Sweet Home (Fluff)

Horror Movies (Fluff)

It’s Over 9000! (Fluff)

Kickstart My Heart (Fluff)

Layers (Smut)

Let It Go (Rockstar AU) (Fluff)

Like a Rabbit (Smut)

Mechanically Inclined Reader (Fluff)

Physical Affection (Fluff)

Presenting (Omegaverse AU) (Fluff)

Reward System (Smut)

Robin Plays Matchmaker (Fluff)

What Happens in Vegas… (Smut)

Eddie Munson x GothReader

Black No. 1 (Fluff)

Cheering Up A Goth Girlfriend (Fluff)

Edge of Seventeen: Part 1 (Angst)

Things You See in a Cafeteria (Fluff)

Fuckboy Eddie Munson x FormerHookup!Reader Co-written w/ @bimbobaggins69 (Smut) (in chronological order)

First Encounter After Hooking Up

An Unexpected Ego Boost

Eddie Makes a Decision

At Steve’s Party

Ghost Eddie Munson x Ghost Reader

Check-In for the Recently Deceased: Part 1 (Angst)

Rock Star Eddie Munson x Hotwife Reader

Happy Birthday (Smut)

Steddie x Chronically Ill Reader

Bad Days vs Good Pain Days (Smut)

Chronically Yours (Fluff)

Steddie x Reader

Blood Doll: Part 1 (Vampire AU)(Angst)

Blood Doll: Part 2 (Vampire AU)(Angst)

Blood Doll: Part 3 (Vampire AU)(Angst)

Corset (Fluff)

Double Penetration (Smut)

First Time Jitters (Smut)

Luck (Fluff)

Sleep (Fluff)

Teaching Steve D&D (Fluff)

Last Updated: 8/1/2023

[femaleboysblog]

had a brain fart and ended up writing a draft for an oneshot? about catwoman!reader x adrian chase

[withahappyrefrain]

Withahappyrefrain Masterlist

Peter Parker

Oneshots & Series ┃┃ Blurbs ┃┃ Mob!Peter

Adrian Chase

Full of Adrenaline

Bob Floyd

Jake "Hangman" Seresin

[apocalypse-shuffle]

DC

──

────

───────

IMAGINES / ONESHOTS

Jason Todd / Red Hood

“Lick” Jason rushes to pay you a visit.(NSFW, 18+, fem!reader)

“The Meet The Bats Series” Jason’s just gotten serious with the Reader when one after the other the Bats (+ friends) find out she exists and - despite Jason’s best efforts - take it upon themselves to start welcoming her into the family. Cue varying levels of absurdity of course. (SFW, fem!reader)

“Potential” You meet an interesting stranger in the syfy aisle. Oh! And there’s a body between you two. (SFW, gn!reader)

“A Word Of Warning” The Bats clock you as a known associate of The Red Hood and Signal ends up tracking you down for some answers. (SFW, fem!reader)

“Home Remedy” You walk into the kitchen one morning, and there Jason is in all his hungover glory—and there are raw eggs in a cup too, for some reason. (SFW, gn!reader)

“In Your Eyes” Jason Todd is gone, has been for years, but his ghost still haunts you. (SFW, gn!reader, Suicide Trigger Warning)

“Past The Time till Midnight” Jason’s a no good bastard and now you’re bored out of your mind. (SFW, platonic!reader/fem!reader)

The Co-opt Series not here yet

Bruce Wayne / Batman

“The Long Overdue Series” Reader was with Bruce in the past but grew distant after Jason’s death. No one tells her when he comes back from the dead until Bruce is forced to bring her in on a raid when they’re overwhelmed. (SFW, batmom!reader, completed)

“Staked Claim” Bruce and the Reader take stock of each other’s scars. That’s it, that’s the story. (SFW, gn!reader & vigilante!reader)

Dick Grayson / Nightwing

“Intruder Alert” Dick sneaks into your apartment after a rough night and the two of you end up scaring each other. (SFW, gn!reader)

Selina Kyle / Catwoman

“The Flow” Selina's suspiciously silent when Reader gets home. Apparently, her menstrual cycle's benched her for the time being. (SFW, fem!reader)

“Harley-napping” Stealing Harley from the Squad and then having a fun night out. (SFW, gn!reader, part 2, GOTHAM CITY SIRENS)

Kendra Saunders / Hawkgirl

“RAGE” You help Kendra out after she goes feral on the pentagon guards. (SFW, gn!reader)

Adrian Chase / Vigilante

“Interesting" Vigilante begs you to team up after seeing you fight once. He stalks you and then refuses to stop bothering you for the rest of one night and so you decide to take him along on a mission. Why not (NSFW, nonsexual, gn!reader)

Al Simmons (spawn 1997)

“Healing” When Al dies it’s Terry who helps you heal through his absence. Too bad he’s in love with you though. (SFW, fem!reader, IMAGE COMICS)

Green Lantern(s)

Hal Jordan / Green Lantern 1.0: “Montra” Hal’s bored but you're really good at capturing his attention (and you’ve been dancing around one another for a while now so why stop now?) (SFW, fem!reader)

Scarecrow / Jonathan Crane

“Freakum Dress” Tasked with going to a gala with your miserable boyfriend things are not looking up, then one of the Rogues makes a special appearance. Whether that’s a good thing or not is…yet to be decided. (SFW, fem!reader)

HEADCANONS / SPURTS

Victor Zsasz

Being one of Victor’s Zsaszettes (SFW, platonic!reader) hc

Jason Todd

Gangster’s wife trend w/ Jason spurt#1

“Light Work” w/ Jason spurt#5

Bruce Wayne

“Stand Up On Your Toes” w/ Bruce spurt#4

Green Lantern(s)

John Stewart / Green Lantern 3.0: “Welcome Back” w/ John spurt#6

Harley Quinn

“Rollin’” w/ Harley spurt#8

[multifandomfanficss]

Stuck With You

Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader

Adrian Chase Masterlist

Prompt: When the team sticks their newest member with Vigilante, everyone feels bad for you, but you’re grateful to have him around when you run into something from your past and lose your cool.

Warnings: panic attacks, human experimentation, referenced child abuse

A/N: I found a couple lines of dialogue in my drafts that I never did anything with and I had the writing bug today so I decided to finally make something with it! I’ll crosspost it on my AO3 adriansglasses as well. Hope you enjoy!

“(L/N), you’re with Vigilante.” Harcourt says, at the beginning of the meeting.

“You’re really gonna stick the newest person with that psycho?” John asks.

“You don’t need to be mean to Adrian just because he’s not here.” Leota starts.

“I would say it to his face too. He’d probably just laugh and call me his 4th best friend.” John retorts.

You hadn’t been with the team for long. This was your first mission with them. After a mission gone too out of control, Waller sent you to the middle of nowhere Evergreen, Washington. You thought she’d sent you here because the environment would be less hectic, but the longer you’re there, the more you realize she probably sent you here because everyone on this team is either highly traumatized or in need of more experience. She was trying to put the training wheels back on. From what you’d been told by the team’s top conspiracy theorist, Christopher Smith, this team was originally supposed to be an expendable scapegoat, but they ended up saving the world. You had no idea what to believe at this point.

“What’s up with Vigilante?” You ask, wondering why this was all such a hot topic. You hadn’t known him for long. He seemed a little odd, but overall fine. If you were being honest you actually kind of liked him. He was sweet and funny, often without trying. There was this comforting air about him and you didn’t really know why. He was a good fighter and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t think he was at least a little bit cute.

“He’s a little…” Chris started moving his finger in a circular motion, trying to insinuate that Adrian was crazy.

“He can’t be that bad.” You smile.

Suddenly Adrian comes running into the old video store tripping over one of his shin guards that wasn’t on properly. He sits down and fastens it.

“Sorry I’m late, guys. They kept me late at the restaurant and then when I was trying to put on my suit in the car I accidentally ran a red light and usually I would kill somebody for that, but I mean I think the more important thing is that I didn’t run over the old lady crossing the street! She was totally fine and I know she’s alive because she screamed at me…I’ve never seen an old lady use to many swear words. It was kind of awesome! Anyway what did I miss?”

“You put on your suit while driving?” Leota asks.

“Yup.” He gives a straight face nod. Adrian often had a way about him, as if what he was thinking should be obvious to other people, when in fact, it was not obvious to most people most of the time.

“You amaze me.” Harcourt says, sarcastically.

“Thank you.” Adrian smiles, not catching her sarcasm.

She rolls her eyes, sighing.

———————————————————————

Later on that night you and Adrian found yourselves walking through a series of tunnels.

“John, I think we might be lost.” You spoke into your coms, hoping he can help you from the van.

“I can’t even hear you in my earpiece and I’m right next to you. I think we lost the signal.” Adrian walks in silence for a few seconds before adding, “I’m sorry you got stuck with me.” He looks at the ground, sad.

“What are you talking about?”

“I know they stuck you with me. Nobody ever really chooses to be my partner.” He lightly kicks a rock, pretending not to be bothered.

“They did pair us up, but that doesn’t mean I was disappointed.” You smile.

“Really? Why would you want me?”

“Well first of all, you’re a great fighter. You were also the first person to attempt to be my friend. I’d trust you in the field over anyone.”

“Really?” You can hear the surprise in his voice.

“Yeah.” You let out a soft giggle. “Why are you so surprised that I like you?”

“Usually everyone just tells me to shut up or fuck off.”

“Well I’m not everyone.” You nudge him playfully as you walk.

Soon you come upon a door. It’s a little rusted, but Adrian shoots the lock off and you’re able to break in.

“What is this place?” He asks.

As soon as you walk inside you see the tubes, the files, the devices, the tables, the symbols. You know exactly what this is. This is an old facility for the for the group that made you leave your old job, the mission that ruined your life. You see files on the table, files no doubt full of details on the children they were experimenting on. The group would take orphaned children or children who were abandoned and unwanted, kids who had no one to protect them, and they would experiment on them. They were human trials to try to find new ways of making superheroes. This must have been one of their old abandoned facilities. Despite the lab being inactive, just the sight of it was still enough to send you into a spiral.

Your heart starts beating rapidly as you grow dizzy. You look down at your shaking hands. You’re starting to lose control of your breathing.

“I- I can’t-“ You walk backwards out of the room, starting to hyperventilate.

“Woah. Hey, what’s going on? Are you having a panic attack?” Adrian slowly puts his hands out towards you. He’s a little unsure of what to do.

“I’ve seen this before!” Your entire world is spinning as your start to cry. You can’t stop thinking about the awful things you saw when you snuck into their active facility earlier this year. Those poor children. Part of you was starting to wonder if Waller put you on this team for a reason. You should have known better than to think she was giving you a break. Waller always had some sort of fucked up motive that only worked for herself hidden up her sleeve. “I can’t fucking breathe!” You sob, sucking in air.

“Tender nice touching.” Adrian slowly approached you, patting your shoulder. You needed pressure on your body. You felt like you were slipping away from earth and you needed to be held down.

“Can I have a hug?” You asked, quietly.

“You want a hug?” He asked, his voice just as quiet. He was speaking softly to not startle you further.

“Yeah…”

“I think I can do that.“ He smiles, slowly bringing you into his arms. A little loose at first, he tightened the hug as you melted into him.

“I’m sorry- I- I just…I know what the did here and- and-“ Adrian shushes you as you begin to stutter, your mind moving much faster than your mouth is able to.

“You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you. Just breathe with me. Don’t focus on anything else, but your breathing okay? Can you feel me breathing?” He rubs your back as you cry into his arms. You nod. “Okay, good. Just…just follow that.” He sighs and then focuses on making his own breathing something you can follow.

“Sometimes it’s hard for me to know what people on the team want because I know Chris doesn’t wanna look weak and Harcourt would kill me if I touched her, so I try to be careful. I just don’t wanna upset you guys more, but if you want me hold you I can keep doing that. Just let me know what you need and I’ll do it.” He says, softly.

“Can you just keep talking?” You ask. The sound of his voice is soothing and grounding.

“You want me to keep talking?” He smiles. “You’re in luck. I’m actually really good at talking. So good, in fact, that people are constantly asking me to shut up. So uh… What can I talk about? Oh! I know. So I have this friend at work. His name is Taylor. Well, he says we’re not friends, but he texts me all time time asking me to help cover his shifts and I would only trust a friend enough to ask them for that, so I think we’re friends. Anyway, so Taylor walked in this morning and…”

The longer Adrian rambles on the better you feel. The pressure of his body on yours and his voice slowly bring you back to earth. Eventually you find yourselves walking back through the tunnels, hand in hand, retracing your steps as he guides you back to the van to regroup. He keeps you distracted with silly stories the entire walk back.

You don’t know what the rest of your team was talking about. Adrian was the best partner you could have had.

[starsofmilos]

Somewhere I go (Adrian Chase x  witch reader)

request: AHHHH!!! so excited about the witch!reader oneshot series, I already have so many ideas. however, don't wanna get ahead of myself so I thought it out and the idea sounded very interesting:so sticking to the fact that reader has dark magic powers in her (essentially has similar powers to raven), reader sometimes uses her powers to meditate or manifest herself into a different little world of her own. while doing so, she envisions herself and adrian in a world where no villains to fight exist nor is the world in a place where it's worth saving, just peace. she and him would have children running and it'd be nice but...she awakens and it's not there however adrian still is and she basically promises herself to keep him by her side and to always love him forever. pleaseee?

So cute!! I’m on it!!

Witch masterlist

Warnings: cursing, mentions of sex, mentions of violence, magic, small amount of angst

Stress. It was hard not to be stressed. Your book shop as of late had been getting vandalized more often. It was times like this you dreaded the town rumors about you being a witch.

You were, but the town shuns you even though they don’t know the truth. It’s been like this your whole life, but lately it went from happening once a month to three times a week. 

Even Adrian was growing tired of it. He had promised he would find who was doing this, but you denied. Eventually they’ll show their faces. They always do. You sighed grabbing your bucket seeing the dreaded words across your window.

‘WITCH!!’

Adrian sighed in annoyance seeing the window once he came down stairs. He’d been spending most of his nights with you. “Again?!” You nodded. 

“They must’ve done it after we fell asleep.” You scrubbed at the giant ‘W’ groaning. 

“It’s red paint this time too!!” You sighed as Adrian shook his head sighing softly before whispering to you. “Here let me help.” You smiled as he grabbed a rag scrubbing the ‘i’. 

“So...” You hummed changing out the water. 

“I have a mission later today. I’ll probably be back by tomorrow night.” You nodded at him.

“That’s okay. I planned on closing the shop tomorrow anyways.” 

“Wait why?” 

“I just need a small break. I’m getting tired of selling books then wiping my windows.” You sighed grabbing the hose to water down the window.

Adrian nodded in understanding. “Okay are you gonna be okay on your own?” You glanced at him with a small look of disbelief. “I’m just saying the last time I left you alone someone literally broke in trying to kill you.”

“Do you want me to stay at your place tomorrow then?” Adrian nodded. “I’d prefer it.” 

“Fine..You’re lucky you’re cute Chase.” Adrian grinned kissing your cheek. 

“Hmm I don’t think that I’m cute. I think you are absolutely-” You covered his mouth.

“Come on we are not sappy people.” Adrian licked your hand laughing as you grimaced pulling your hand away. 

“Alright I’ll stay at your place since you’re so worried about me. You know your witch girlfriend who can probably kick your ass can’t be alone.” You sarcastically smiled.

“Good girl.” You glared as he whistled drying your windows. The next day, Adrian had left you asleep in his bed as he took off for his latest mission.You sighed once you woke up using your magic to tidy up his apartment. Something was irking you though...

As much as you tried to relax, you really fully couldn’t. A part of you had been worried about your shop. Did it get vandalized while you were gone? Did the person who had been relentlessly attacking your poor window think they scared you into closing for the day?

You groaned before getting an idea. You had only ever did this once and it was at your lowest, but it did help you have a small sense of control. You grabbed some of Adrian’s candles. The scents were very strong.

Using your magic, you lit all of them before sitting in the center. Some mediation should help....

You snapped your eyes open looking in confusion seeing yourself in a small suburban home. “What the...” 

“Mom!!” Your head snapped seeing a small little boy and girl grinning at you. “Look! We made you something!!” You grinned at their words standing up. 

“Guys! I told you not to bother your mom right now!” Adrian ran in behind them sighing. “Sorry..” You shook your head.

“It’s okay...what do you guys wanna show me?” 

“We painted a picture for you!” You gasped excitedly. “I love it! I’ll put it on the fridge!” You ran grabbing one of the magnets. 

“Thank you both so much!” You hugged them both before sending them off. 

 “They said they just had to show you this now!” You laughed a bit as you gave him a hug just taking everything in for a moment before pulling away. “Yeah that’s alright...Come on Adrian it’s a sunny day outside.”

Adrian grinned grabbing your hand to lead you outside. “Damien! Scarlet! Your mom said she wanted to have a water fight!” Adrian yelled out grabbing the hose. You looked at him shock before yelling at him, “I said no such thing!!” 

You squealed as he squirted the water on you. “Go grab the water guns!” They nodded excitedly as you shook your head. “What was that for!?” Adrian grinned as you raised your hand turning the hose to him. “Hey no fair!” The water splashed in his face. 

You laughed screaming out as he ran to you throwing you over his shoulder. Your two children came out water guns full shooting Adrian and you. “No!! I’ve been betrayed by my spawn!!” You grabbed the hose once Adrian put you down spraying the kids.

After a good fifteen minutes of playing, you sighed sitting on your porch swing staring down the horizon. Damien and Scarlet laid on your lap sleeping peacefully as you used your magic to gently sway you all on the swing.

Adrian came out handing you a glass of lemonade. “So this is nice huh?” You nodded. 

“The sun is really nice..no people but us around.” Adrian nodded. 

“I know..No monsters or anything..Just peace right?” You glanced at him a bit confused. 

“Y/N..are you okay?” You turned to face Adrian confused by his words. “Yeah why wouldn’t I be?..”

“You know and I know you only do this when your upset.” You sighed. 

“I just like to do some imagination..plus can you really complain?...There’s nothing bad here..and we have them..” You pointed down at the two children in your lap.

“Just be careful okay?” You nodded giving him a kiss. “I will...now please let me enjoy this for as long as I have it..I really hope one day we do get to have this..” Adrian shrugged. 

“I don’t see us having a farm life like this, but I can see us having them.” You grinned as he pointed at the kids. He picked them up taking them to bed. 

Adrian and you cleaned the living room. You hummed a small tune sweeping the floors. “So...the kids are asleep early..” You nodded. “Okay?..” “Wanna do something?”

“If you’re trying to take me to bed..you’re succeeding..” Adrian smiled pulling you to the couch. 

“I was thinking watch a movie, but if you wanna do the other thing-” 

“No I’m happy just watching a movie with you..Being here made me realize..I’m kinda happy anywhere with you..” Adrian grinned rubbing your back soothingly seeing you yawn.

“I promise I’ll be there when you wake up Y/N..” You smiled feeling your eyes begin to shut. You fought it for a small bit trying to stay awake, but soon sleep consumed you. 

“Y/N!” Your eyes snapped open. Adrian sat in front of you with a small concerned look. “Dude are you okay? You were just sitting here with your eyes closed and muttering-” You grabbed his face kissing him softly. 

“Hey why are you crying?” Adrian ran his thumb under your eyes a bit concerned. 

“No reason..I just had a great dream..” You shot him a smile giving him another kiss.

“Oh wanna tell me about it? I’ll tell you all about my mission afterwards.” You shook your head. 

“No I wanna hear about your day first..Please Adrian?..” He nodded. 

“Okay..come on.” You crawled into his lap smiling as he began to go into heavy detail about his latest mission. “It was so cool Y/N! I finally killed someone with an axe! I know I said chainsaw was my dream kill, but an axe was right next to it.” 

You chuckled as he smiled down at you. “So what did you dream about?” 

“Nothing much. I was meditating. It helps me think and kinda calms me when I’m upset..” 

“Why are you upset?” 

“My shop..I’ve been kinda stressing about it to be honest..” Adrian smiled kissing your forehead. 

“You no longer have anything to worry about.” He booped your nose. You gave him a small confused look. 

Adrian grinned. “I found the people and took care of it.” 

“You did?..” 

“Yeah I didn’t kill them I just gave them a warning. I should’ve killed them. If I knew how upset it actually made you. I would’ve fucking tortured them for you.” 

Most people would be alarmed if their significant other said that for them, but your heart fluttered a bit at his words. There was nothing you wouldn’t do for Adrian. You’d give your life for his in a heartbeat. To hear he actually felt the same about you..made you happy..

You leapt up kissing him. “You’re the absolute best..” You made a small promise to yourself that not matter what Adrian and you would get your happy ending. You’d do whatever it takes to make sure he doesn’t leave you. 

“I love you..” You whispered out hoping he would be able to understand the strength behind your words. It was a promise..You would probably love him until your dying breath. Even beyond that..In any universe, you’d fall in love with him and will probably always be in love with him. 

“I love you too..” Adrian grinned back. You had no idea just how much he resonated with what you felt..

[gloomzi]

RULES ☆

key:

italicized if it's a preference

asteriks if there is a note at the bottom with further context

what i will write :3

canon x canon, canon x reader (if you send a request and want your reader to have specific attributes, tell me, or i'll make it as neutral as possible), canon x oc for friends

readers of any gender (request specific pronouns please! neos, any pronouns, he/they, she/they, whatever floats your boat! if you give no pronouns and no indication of a gender for your reader such as f!/m!/gn!, i will default to they/them or dm you if you're off anon)

queer relationships, het relationships*, polyamory, monogamy, open relationships

dom, sub or verse readers/dom, sub or verse canon characters

most kinks are okay (including stuff like blood, impact play and weapon play) so feel free to get specific in my inbox

neurodivergent or disabled readers (if it's something i'm unfamiliar with i will do research and try my best, but please feel free to leave me pointers in your request to help me!)

oneshots, short series (think 2 or 3 parts), drabbles, headcanons

what i wont write :3

no rape (dubcon is on thin ice), drugging, abuse*, yandere, pregnancy, pedophilia, student/teacher (even if its a college student) or large age gap pairings

nsfw for underage characters

no scat/piss/emeto, no cnc

no comfort works for csa/sa, self harm or eating disorders (writing this would probably trigger me, sorry)

long x reader series

further info :3

you must be +18 to request nsfw or interact with nsfw content (you will be blocked if i catch you breaking this rule)

i wont write verbal/physical abuse between the main pairing but i wouldn't mind doing it as something the reader or the canon character have dealt with in the past (whether that be from a parent/ex partner/friend doesnt matter, you can specify in the request). if the canon character has been abused in their source material i will also include this ofc.

i wouldnt mind writing stuff like codependency or like kill for each other type shit, but there's a fine line between like. guy who kills somebody in defense of their partner bc it makes sense for the story/their character (think characters like adrian chase for example) vs making a character who doesn't rly kill people do that bc then it comes across more ooc and sometimes even yandereish...if that makes sense.

please give me an idea of what you want in a request, don't just send "character x reader" (give me a scenario or at least say like "fluff with [insert character]").

im not the fastest writer unless im really excited about a prompt, please be patient. thanks to adhd i can be a bit of a procrastinator, but if you sent a request please feel free to ask for progress updates (just give me the specifics of what you asked for so i know it's yours). depending on how busy i am irl, if i have writers block and how many requests i have, writing might go faster or slower.

i'll try to do things first come, first serve, but if somebody sends in a new idea that really excites me i might write theirs first even if yours came before theirs bc i have adhd brain and i can write things faster when i'm rly hyped about em

erm idk if anyone cares but im a self shipper so yeah perhaps fics with my f/o's will deranged (in a loving way), if you want a list of my f/o's for those concerned with stuff like sharing, here is a list of mine, i don't mind sharing tho <3 my content is aimed towards selfshippers and i wouldn't wanna exclude anyone who shares so much love for the same lil guys as me

some characters i wont write x f!reader/m!reader for, please check this list before requesting (this is not an issue with any straight/bi/other interpretations of these characters, it just has to do with my comfort level and how i interpret that character)

like i mentioned before, i have adhd and i am specifically unmedicated at the moment, which means sometimes i'll write a lot more of one fandom than the others i'm into. this does not mean you can't request a different fandom! i will always be multifandom, i will always love my past fandoms, it just might take me a bit longer to write your request.

at the end of the day i just wanna keep things fun, writing has been a hobby of mine for over a decade now, so pls try to be kind to me and i'll be kind back! if any of these rules are unclear just send me an ask and i'll try to clarify!

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

&lt;DC Oneshots&gt;

by AttractiveUrchin A collection of DC X readers, Ranging from Superboy to Red Hood, all characters that have been written for or will be are tagged below. If a character is younger, there will be no sexual elements to that individual story, unless aged up. All of these are one-shots and will be updated frequently. Check out my MARVEL or Animation books :) Requests allowed! Words: 5983, Chapters: 3/?, Language: English Fandoms: DCeased (DC Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), DC Extended Universe, DC Animated Universe (Timmverse), DC Universe Online, DC Extended Universe RPF, Superman (Comics), Superboy (Comics), Young Justice (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), Teen Titans (Comics), Justice League vs. Teen Titans (2016), Teen Titans: The Judas Contract (2017), Teen Titans - All Media Types, The Death of Superman (2018), Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020), Justice League Dark (Comics), Peacemaker (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics), The Sandman (TV 2022), Blue Beetle (Comics), Blue Beetle (Movie 2023) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: F/F, F/M, M/M, Other Characters: Blue Beetle (DCU), Jaime Reyes, Reader, The Corinthian (Sandman), Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Superboy (DCU), Raven (Teen Titans), Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Robin (DCU), Jason Todd, Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth, Bat-Cow (DCU), Ace the Bat-Hound (DCU), Poison Ivy (Fortnite), Pamela Isley, Harleen Quinzel, Christopher Smith | Peacemaker, Vigilante (DCU), Adrian Chase, Joker (DCU) Relationships: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus/Reader, Dream Of The Endless | Morpheus & Reader, Kon-El | Conner Kent/Superboy Prime, Tim Drake/Reader, Tim Drake & Reader, Jason Todd/Reader, Adrian Chase/Reader, Jaime Reyes/Reader, Billy Batson & Freddy Freeman Additional Tags: Batfamily (DCU), Protective Batfamily (DCU), Superfamily (DCU), Lazarus Pit (DCU), Caring Batfamily (DCU), Batfamily Angst (DCU), The League of Assassins (DCU), Batbrothers (DCU), Batfamily Shenanigans (DCU), Domestic Batfamily (DCU), DC Comics Rebirth, DC Comics References via https://ift.tt/a0fTo3c

[astromechs]

hey! proud of you for getting back into writing! from one comics nerd (and the creator of the ask game) to another, here's some asks!

1, 6, 13, 18, 23, 31 [you pick], 43, and 47

oh hello!! and thank you so much ❤️ comics nerds unite!

of the ones you've written, which romantic relationship has developed the fastest? how fast is it?

i definitely have had characters fuck in the first chapter more than once LMAO (with, of course, the emotional development taking much longer.) but the answer will probably always be rebelcaptain (jyn erso and cassian andor, for those not entrenched in star wars fandom); their mutual insanity is, like. mutually insane. it's true in canon, it's true in every extension of canon, it's true in all of my aus. they met and were literally instantly obsessed with each other GHFJDSK

6. have you ever started to write a relationship and had it develop differently than you expected? how so?

in terms of a specific story? this au fic i wrote of jyn and cassian having a different first meeting, five years before the events of rogue one, turned out SO incredibly differently than the initial vision i had for it. like they had in canon, i always knew there would be an instant connection and a tension? and yeah, before i wrote this, i knew there would be smut content in it. what i wasn't initially expecting was how gentle and tender this story turned out to be, but — then again, maybe i should have been expecting that! because that's them, really.

13. are there any consistent trends when you write a budding relationship, or does it vary by character? if there are trends, what are they?

i will say, i find myself a fan of what i like to call the "reverse slow burn" — characters in my stories often tend to do something about their sexual tension fairly quickly, but then take a long time to sort out their emotions about it.

18. pick a few characters you've written for (or, for a fun twist, asker chooses). tell me about their relationship in three sentences or less.

for fun, the first character i'll choose is matt murdock, who i've written a lot of different ships with, and here's one sentence that applies to pretty much all of them: it's a trainwreck ghFJDKS

rich rider/gamora/peter quill — sometimes what appears, on the surface, to be years of a messy love triangle is actually polyamory. LOVE WINS.

adrian chase/chris smith (peacemaker) — talk about dicks a lot, but they're actually very sweet? trauma healing.

23. do you think you idealize relationships in fiction, or are your depictions grounded in reality? how often do your characters make mistakes?

at least from what i intend, i do seek to portray both characters and relationships realistically — because character flaws are interesting to me! i also do a lot of work with characters who've experienced heavy trauma and need a lot of healing, and so their relationships are not going to be perfect idealized affairs. a lot of my oneshots may focus on some of the softer moments, but even those i'm really trying to ground in reality.

31. are there any songs that remind you of petermj? Are there any songs that remind them of each other?

ok, i picked one of my oldest otps for this, petermj (peter parker/mary jane watson) — and out of so many songs that remind me of them, i'm going to go with new york by st vincent. "you're the only motherfucker in this city who can handle me" is, like... DEFINITIVELY them.

i've always thought of out of the woods by taylor swift as being from mj's perspective about her relationship with peter. manhattan by sara bareilles has a very early jms run vibe of their relationship, and i feel like it can be from peter's perspective.

43. how do you feel about unhappy endings? unrequited love? major character death?

i think if it fits the story, it's good! i certainly wouldn't have changed the way rogue one ended as a film, for instance. in terms of what i write — generally i tend not to write that stuff because i have other narrative interests? but i wouldn't be opposed to writing it if my story demanded it, and i'm not opposed to reading it!

47. what's the most self-indulgent relationship you've written? are there any particular moments/scenes that you wrote just for you?

out of all the things i've written, probably the wanda maximoff/rich rider ship that i invented wholesale, and wrote this fic about! that was 10k words purely for me lol i also have this ot3 with them and matt murdock that i've invented and... all of that's for me, too.

fan fic couples/relationships ask meme!

[random-imagines-blog]

Fic Recommendations!

It’s time for another long list of fics that I’ve been loving lately, some I’ve read more than once. Feel free to submit some authors that you love as well that I’ll check out, or plug your own to me, I don’t mind. x

Devout Hands and Rubied Apples (Faramir) by @okay-j-hannah

Unnamed Haldir Oneshot by @make-me-imagine

Peace (Fili) by @elvish-sky

Safe Place (Kelly Severide) by @resanoona

Sugar Sweet (Richie Tozier) by @flusteredloser

Being the Youngest Loser (Platonic Losers Club)  by @occasionaloneshots

Carnival Ride of Horror (Steve Harrington) by @kaylathekittykat225

A Heart, A Brain (Jughead Jones Two Parter) by @all-of-the-imagines-for-eve

First and Last Love (Steve Harrington) by @cumonweasley​

Puppy Love (Adrian Chase) by @danny-cordray​

All the words in all the world (Bucky Barnes) by @abovethesmokestacks

Clocktower (Sirius Black) by @earlgreydream​

Unnamed Bo Sinclair NSFW Oneshot by @sunkendreams

Thanks T (Tony Stark - Father Figure) by @raineydays411

A Valentine (Colin Gray) by @writings-n-stuff​

The Last Mission (NSFW Bucky Barnes) by @barnes-n-nobles

Just Between Us (Stan Uris) by @occasionaloneshots

Workaholic (Bo Sinclair) by @visceravalentines