#all my layers are gone and it is barely holding and alright shape

[arsonistman]

I’m going to kms if I don’t cut my hair soon

[echo-bleu]

Number 5 with Fingolfin, please! I imagine it would be sometime during the crossing of the Helcaraxë. 💙

Thank you for the prompt!

I thought it would turn out angsty as usual, but somehow it didn't! (Well, don't think too hard about things to come.) A sweet moment between Fingolfin and Idril on the ice.

I'm using their Quenya names since they haven't encountered Sindarin yet, so Ñolofinwë=Fingolfin, Itarillë=Idril, Turukáno=Turgon, Findekáno=Fingon. With surprise guest appearances.

On AO3.

5. Trying to walk on ice

Sometimes, thinks Ñolofinwë, Itarillë’s laughter is the only thing that gets him through the day.

She’s now spent nearly half her life on the ice. She barely remembers Tirion, or the light of the trees, or anything but the cold and the stars, and yet her laughter warms the frost out of their hearts.

She’s too young to walk all day, so she spends most of her time in one of the horse wagons sliding on wooden blades or, when it gets too cold to risk staying still, being carried on someone’s back. Turukáno and Elenwë take turns, with Findekáno and Ñolofinwë himself sometimes pitching in when they get too tired.

Or when they want to spend time with the only person still able to brighten their days, like now.

They’ve made camp for the night – or for the time being, at least, because with the Trees gone, night blends into day. It’s a good spot, the ice is thick enough here to hold everyone without fear. They might stay for a while until the horses are properly rested.

The snow glows under the stars. Were it not so cold, not so bleak a journey, Ñolofinwë would find it beautiful. He sits at the edge of his tent on thick layers of furs, little Itarillë in his lap, and together they watch a group of Turukáno’s people who appear to be doing something with batons and some sort of overshoe. They move back all at once to give space to the two they have equipped, who – somehow – start gliding on the ice.

Itarillë squirms in Ñolofinwë’s lap to look up at him. “What are they doing, grandfather?”

“I don’t know, but we could go ask them.”

“Can we?”

Ñolofinwë smiles at her and lifts her to her feet, after checking that she hasn’t kicked off her boots again. In Tirion, she went barefoot everywhere and she chafes at the need for shoes even here, but having any skin bare but their faces is folly. Even her ears are carefully hidden into the crown braid Turukáno has carefully folded her blond hair into this morning (evening, night – no one remembers to keep time any more).

They approach the group in the short, waddling stride that they’ve learned to take. The thin layer of snow over the ice crackles under their feet, treacherously hiding the slippery surface.

“My lord,” one of the elves immediately bows to Ñolofinwë.

“The princess is curious about what you’re doing,” Ñolofinwë says. “Ecthelion, is it?”

The elf nods. “We’ve devised a new method for moving faster on the ice!” he answers excitedly. Bending down, he picks up a piece of leather, to which is attached something that Ñolofinwë first takes for a wooden slate. “It’s a horse leg bone,” Ecthelion explains. “We drilled some holes into it and shaped the ends, and we tie them under our shoes. It allows us to glide, and push forward with the batons.”

“It’s fun!” another elf tells them with a large grin. He has a thick mane of unbound golden hair flowing around his shoulders, in the manner of the Vanyar – one of Elenwë’s, then. Ñolofinwë gives him a dubious look.

“Maybe the princess could try!” Ecthelion offers. “We’ve perfected the technique, it’s fairly safe. The ice is thick all around the camp, we’ve checked.”

Ñolofinwë thinks about it for a moment, but Itarillë looks up at him with such pleading eyes that he can’t resist. “Please, grandfather?”

“Alright, as long as you make sure she’s safe.”

Itarillë squeals and claps her gloved hands together. Ecthelion goes down to one knee on the ice to tie the pieces of bone to her boots, picking a pair that’s a little shorter than most of the others. It’s still a little too large for her.

“Stand carefully with your feet apart, Princess,” Ecthelion tells her, patient and gentle. He stands up again and holds out his hands. “Here, hold onto me.”

Her small hands are engulfed in Ecthelion thick gloves. He starts walking backwards, careful not to slip – he doesn’t have bone overshoes of his own – and pulls her with him. Itarillë glides forward on the ice.

“Oooh!” she exclaims. “Do it again!”

Ecthelion chuckles and obeys. Then, “Do you want to try too, my lord?” he asks Ñolofinwë cheekily.

“Maybe not today,” Ñolofinwë says. “But I can at least entertain my granddaughter and let you get back to your race.” He gestures at the rest of the group, who seems to have started a sliding race on the edge of the camp.

Ecthelion takes it for the request that it is. With all the care in the world, he pulls Itarillë closer to Ñolofinwë until she can transfer her grip from one elf to the other.

“Gradfather, it’s fun,” Itarillë says excitedly.

“I can see that,” Ñolofinwë smiles.

He gently pulls her around the ring of ice that the gliders have cleared from snow. She’s stable enough, so he speeds them up until he’s going as fast as he safely can walk.

Itarillë laughs her heart out. The sound seems to Ñolofinwë like the most beautiful thing in the world. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots Turukáno and Elenwë watching them with smiles on their faces.

Even in the coldest night, he thinks, there is warmth to be found.

-

I'm not sure that I quite filled the actual prompt here but I couldn't resist elves inventing ice skating. They're using horse metatarsal bones here, which is one of the oldest recorded type of skate. I figure that they might invent metal skates at some point but they don't have a forge on the journey, so it will have to wait until they're in Beleriand.

The elf with golden hair is of course Glorfindel. Tell me he wouldn't love ice skating.

[everybodyknows-everybodydies]

The sun is low when a shout goes up from the lookouts. Long shadows stretch across the mountains. The evening light catches on a sunset-bright red head against the snow. She’s trekking up the faint and winding path more slowly than usual.

“Is that a… stick?” Baurus squints, shielding his eyes for a better view as they venture out to meet her. “Is it from the Deadlands?”

“It looks very much like a normal branch to me.” Martin cups his hands around his mouth. “My friend! Are you limping?” She’s tied something to her leg below the knee; he thinks it resembles a splint, a bit.

Her face scrunches up in a scowl. The stick thuds into the ground with a little more force than before on her next step.

Baurus offers an arm. Martin does not tell him he should probably be closer if he actually wants to help, because she does very much look like she might bite right now, fox in a snare. “Is it closed? Did you get the stone?”

“Yes,” she says, leaning heavily on the stick, “but, um. It hurt. A little.”

---

“Even a simple healing spell would have kept it from getting this bad,” Martin says reproachfully, unpicking the splintered bone where it’s begun to fuse back together the wrong way. The faint golden glow warms his cold fingers, crooked like a child making shapes with string.

Around the pair of socks stuffed between her teeth, Molly croaks, “Yep.” It comes out more like yet. The muscles have gone rigid, misplaced and inflamed, around the bone to try to hold it steady; he rearranges the layers as carefully as he can. She slams a fist into the ground with a strangled little noise anyway.

“You should have said sooner that you didn’t know any restoration. I can teach you at least a—”

“Understand the theory behind it just fine.” Her face screws up as he slots a piece of bone into place with an unsettling, grinding creak. “Nnngkk—just can’t do anything with it. Never have. —can’t you get it over with any faster—!” One of the smaller pieces snaps into position. She doesn’t yell, but she does jerk her knee towards her chest to pull the leg away from him.

“Stop that. Give it back. What do you mean you can’t do anything with it? I thought,” he starts, and then stops, because she’s cracked one eye to shoot him a monstrous, bloodshot glare.

“Don’t.”

“It’s just that,” he attempts more delicately, hands hovering over the fresh bruise blooming on her shin (he’ll have to be more careful; he’s usually very good about not causing new bruising), “I would have thought… er.”

“No, fine, go on now you’ve started.” She yanks the wadded socks from her mouth, rubbing at her jaw. “Maybe if I’m benevolently reminded there’s a Breton or six in every mage hall from here to Blackwood, my lifelong incapability will be overcome at last, miraculous—”

“Alright, alright. You are very unpleasant as a patient, you know.” Cross, he sits back on his heels. “Try standing now.”

She props herself up on her elbows, bracing herself for the lurch forward and upward with a grimace. “Did they already take the stone off to—wherever they put them?”

Rising to his own feet and offering a hand she doesn’t take (and she may never take it, he acknowledges, but he doesn’t know how to stop offering, all the same), he says, “Yes. They’re very keen on the enchanting properties, it seems.”

It takes her a moment to answer, all her focus caught up in the act of standing. After a series of movements reminiscent of some barely-born wobbly-legged animal and a truly impressive dedication to pretending he is not standing there with his hand patiently outstretched, she manages it, panting and tentatively stretching her leg out in front of herself, leaning on the table beside her. “Good for them. Have these stones got—souls—in them?” And then, before he can reply, she says miserably, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Thank you.”

“Oh,” he says, eyebrows shooting upwards. “Does that mean it doesn’t hurt now?”

“No, it does.” To prove it, she puts all her weight on the leg and jumps back to the other almost immediately with a hiss.

“Don’t do that, then. You ought to get some rest.”

“Hm.”

“At least try.” He folds his arms as she sits on the edge of the table and pulls her leg up to poke at the bruise. “Stop.”

Making a face, she pokes at it again anyway. “It looks smaller than I thought it would be.” She leans over the table to drag her bag closer. “I will try,” she says, “to sleep. Before I forget, though.” Emerging with a small paper-wrapped and string-tied… something, she holds it out, not quite meeting his eyes. “Tried to keep it from getting crushed.”

He takes it, curious. “What, is this from Dagon as well—”

“No, Skingrad. Just—I don’t know what it’s like when I’m not here, but they never seem to have anything sweet. Blades, not bakers, or something like that.”

A sweetroll. He almost laughs. “They don’t,” he admits. “You broke your leg and stopped to buy a sweetroll?”

“Brother Martin,” she says defensively, “you should think better of me. I broke my leg and stopped to buy two sweetrolls. I ate mine already.”

This time, he does laugh.

[squids-comics]

Dual Identity Dysphoria Chapter Three: Rocky Roommate 

Seamstress slinked down the fire escape on the side of her building, quickly opening her window and hopping into her apartment. She placed the two briefcases on the floor and stealthily entered her closet. She undressed, getting changed into the clothes left sitting on the floor. The Seamstress was gone. Lewis was back. 

The change back to Lewis always hit hard. It felt like getting punched in the gut. He had been so happy and free all night, now he was back to his normal, boring life. The life he didn't care much about. He felt trapped. Trapped in his small apartment, trapped in his dead end job. All his fears and stressors that melted away at night always came flooding back in the morning. He hated it.

Lewis grabbed the briefcases and plopped them down on the bed. He opened the one the tall man was holding. It contained ten vials of a purple liquid, secured in layers upon layers of a protective foam. Lewis wasn't sure what it was. Some kind of drug maybe? Whatever it was, a man was murdered over it. It was probably bad. 

Lewis opened the second briefcase. It was full of cash. Like, full of cash. He grabbed a stack. It was all 100 dollar bills. There were ten bills in the stack. There were fifty stacks in the briefcase. Lewis couldn't believe his eyes. He had stumbled on something truly bad last night. But now he had whatever substance they were trying to sell, as well as half a million dollars. He had to do something, and fast. He grabbed his phone and made a call.

"Oh Lewis! Is everything alright? You never call. Especially not on Saturday..."

"Oh yeah I'm great! I just wanted to call to say I quit. I won't be working on Monday. Goodbye."

No more dead end job for Lewis!

Lewis his the two briefcases in his closet. He threw on his usual, greasy black hoodie and stepped out of his room. His roommate Andrew was in the hall. They nearly bumped into each other. 

"Lewis? You're never up this early?"

"Oh, uh yeah! Figured I'd get up early and try to enjoy my weekend for once..."

"Good idea!" Andrew said with a smile. "Hey are you growing some stubble? It looks good on you!"

Lewis' heart sank. He ran his fingers over his chin. Sure enough, there was some hair growing there. Thousands of hairs stabbed his fingers, like tiny little needles. His heart sank deeper with every stab. He felt all the energy drain from his body. But he couldn't let it show. Men were happy when someone complimented their facial hair. And that meant Lewis had to be happy too. He felt his cheeks bend upwards, forcing a smile onto his face. His cheek muscles ached with the effort. He squinted his eyes, trying his best to make the joy seem genuine. He could barely see anything anymore. What little space he had between his eye lids became muddled with a quick inpour of tears. Lewis forced his lower down, as if pulling on it with an invisible string, forming a toothy grin to seal the deal. 

"Thank you! I'm glad you like it!"

Andrew walked off.

Lewis' façade crumbled as soon as Andrew was out of view. His cheek muscles relaxed, dropping his smile. They bent the opposite way, quickly turning that smile to a frown. His eyes continued to water. His lower lip quivered slightly. He put his hood or up. He didn't want anyone else to see his stubble, or his shame.

Lewis went into the bathroom, leaving the light off. He had used that bathroom enough to use it with his eyes closed. And he didn't want to see the mirror. He hated it. He walked to the sink. The mirror stood over the sink. He could see the outline of a dark figure standing on the other side of the glass, watching him. He couldn't see it, but he knew its size and its shape. He had seen the figure hundreds of thousands of times. He knew every detail of its face, the way its eyebrows were shaped, the colour of its eyes, the wrinkles on its nose, the Adam's apple protruding from its neck, the stubble Andrew had been so fond of. Even with its face hidden by the cover of darkness, he could see it plain as day. He could see the way it glared at him, as if to say "You'll never be good enough. This is all you'll ever amount to.". He hated it. He didn't want to look at it anymore. He didn't want it to look at him. He looked down at the counter as he turned the sink on. He closed his eyes as he cupped his hands around the stream. Cold water pooled between his fingers. He splashed it on his face. He dried his hands as quick as he could and ran out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Lewis went back to his room. He had tried enjoying the day. It wasn't for him. He went to sleep instead.

Yes, this week's story is ten minutes late, but it's still here!! And I know I said I'd do Planet this week, but I had a dysphoria episode this week which led to me painting my nails which led to my family being a bit more distant with me which made me feel worse, all of which gave me some good inspiration to work on Dual Identity Dysphoria instead! I'll get a chapter of Planet out for next week, I promise (I already have a 150 word head start!!)!

[mandoocpace]

(v)

Mason woke with a start.

The room was empty. He knew it even without needing to look around. On the pillow beside him there was a folded piece of scrip and Mason picked it up, reading the note Archer had left him to advise he had gone to get them both a bite to eat for breakfast but that a pot of caf already brewing on the nearby counter. His head felt heavy but he swung his legs around and planted his bare feet against the cold floor and steeled himself to get up like he was going into battle.

Cayte was leaving today. Heading back to the clan where she would raise Reelis as a foundling in the Mandalore way. Mason half wondered how a Wookie would even be able to speak Mando’a with their vocal range until he realized it wouldn’t matter as long as he could understand it. Reelis wouldn’t be the first in their ranks, and he wouldn’t be the last.

He rose and dressed slowly, beginning the arduous task of pulling on his armor and layering his weapons after refreshing in the bathroom. The door opened just as Mason was fastening his vambraces and sliding a vibroknife into the side of his boot.

Archer seemed disappointed to find him dressed. “Good morning, love. Did you sleep well?”

Mason’s answer was rueful but his mood was much improved at the sight of Archer’s face.

“Not as well as I would have liked, kar'ta, my heart,” he said, crossing the room to steal his hands against his lover’s waist from behind. He brushed his nose against the line of Archer’s neck. The assassin smelled like a new dawn and bright suns. Like home.

Mason’s hands gripped him a little tighter. The last vestiges of the dream that woke him still clung to him like cobwebs. Even if didn’t care to remember the specifics, he remembered the unsettling feeling of the man he loved being just out of his reach.

Just a dream.

“Maybe this will help then,” Archer hummed. He turned in Mason’s arms, something rustling in his hands but Mason took it from him and dropped it lightly on the nearby table. Archer allowed Mason to gather him close.

“It does,” Mason whispered back as Archer’s layered robes and warm body pressed against his cuirass. It couldn’t be comfortable hugging him with all his armor but Archer rarely complained. There was peace there, inside the circle of Archer’s arms and Mason nosed it out eagerly. “You do.”

There was smile in Archer’s voice. “I meant food.”

“I know. We’ll eat in a moment. I need… I need this right now.”

--

“Maybe we should have gone with Cayte,” Mason said, looking up at the remains of his ship. It would fly, but it wouldn’t be comfortable and he didn’t hold a lot of hope it could get them from one point to another without leaving them stranded somewhere in between. But Archer had risked it, getting him out of the fight that nearly killed him. “Yours was in better shape. Where are we going to find a transcoil demodulator on this junkyard planet?”

“We will,” Archer responded easily. The droid at his feet beeped and chirped and Mason pulled a face behind his helmet.

“Jawa? I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

Archer’s droid beeped again and Mason turned to him. “Really?”

An easy shrug of his shoulders and a dry tone. “You’d be surprised what they can scrounge up.”

Mason looked back at the ship, dusty and silent where it had been hauled back out of sight in the workshop. “Alright, but let me do the talking.”

--

Like vermin, the Jawa scurried around on the edges of the city in their little packs. It wasn’t difficult to find them, even less difficult to get their attention and Mason had to slap away more than one set of hands reaching for his weapons and beskar.

“No! Give that back,” he plucked his blade back from one and ignored the furious chittering and glowing eyes as it shook a fist at him. He also ignored Archer’s chuckle from behind him.

“Are you sure you want to do the negotiating, love?” Archer asked. Mason could hear the laughter in the beats between his words. He had never had much luck with Jawa. They were attracted to his gear like a moth to a flame but Mason would be damned if he let these furry little cretins get under his skin.

“I’m sure,” he grit out, and shoved another one back. He was tempted to flare them all with a burst of flame from his vambrace but he suspected that wouldn’t do much for negotiations. “I said no! Back off!”

The Jawa crowded him scattered backwards a few paces. Archer moved closer, standing at Mason’s side. He caught a subtle shift of his features out of the corner of his eye and then Archer was leaning in.

“Be careful, love,” Archer murmured, so low Mason only heard him through the amplification in his helmet.

“What?”

Archer inclined his ever so slightly towards the huddle of Jawa, now crowding Archer’s little droid. The droid wobbled and beeped furiously and one of them shrieked when it met an unfriendly zap.

Mason smirked, his expression safe behind his helmet before quickly sobering. “What is it?”

“That one…” Archer said quietly. “-Is not a Jawa.”

Mason’s eyes narrowed. He watched them carefully, the pack of Jawa chittering and apparently squabbling amongst themselves. With their glowing eyes and squat bodies, draped in the same rust coloured hoods, they looked interchangeable.

Almost.

Mason didn’t need to activate the heat reading on his helmet’s sensors, it was their hands that gave it away.

Three big strides forwards sent the clustered Jawa screeching and scattering. All but one that he snatched up by the back of its coarse cloaked neck and dragged forward. It protested, spluttering Jawanese curses that quickly turned to a loud shriek of anger in clear, unmistakable basic when Mason ripped the hood back.

An irate human male shook a furious fist at him. The rest of the Jawa squealed.

“What did you do that for?” the human flailed. A pair of glowing goggles covered his eyes but he threw them off in his scramble. “Do you see me going around ripping your helmet off, Mando? Let me go!”

He tried to scramble back, tugging on his robes, trying to pull them out of Mason’s hands but Mason refused to relinquish his hold. He stared at the boy. He couldn’t have been more a teenager, small and slight, unruly dark curls over brown skin and even darker eyes. His sharp jaw was jutted out into a furious pout but he didn’t bother trying to pull the hood back over his head.

“You’re human,” Mason said in surprise.

Another yank. Mason half expected a kick to the shin while the kid railed. “Yeah, and you’re rude! Take your helmet off, Mando. Fair is fair, right?!”

Mason looked at the assassin beside him, ignoring the kid’s flailing and hissing. “How did you know?”

Archer only gave him an enigmatic rise of his brow and Mason huffed. “Right. You just knew.”

He turned his attention back to the squirming human glaring up at him. “Why are you with Jawa?”

“Why not?” The boy? Man? Mason couldn’t tell, he seemed caught somewhere between, not quite either but older than a child. When Mason didn’t respond for a long moment, the kid sighed. The fight eased out of him and he slumped under Mason’s grasp. “My family’s ship crashed. And... They.. uh. Took me in,” he said but his eyes shifted sideways like he was hiding something. Mason got the sense the boy was choosing his words very carefully. 

The Jawa pack shrieked again, their confidence building. One of them pressed closer, jabbering something Mason couldn’t understand and waving a short staff.

“What are they saying?”

The kid stared up at him and for the first time Mason noticed a mark on his throat, some kind of symbol, like a brand. “What are they saying?” he demanded again, harsher this time.

“They want you to let me go. I’m… um.”

Even through his armor, Mason felt the air around them change when Archer suddenly shifted his stance. “You’re a slave?”

The kid looked panicked, but he didn’t struggle any further. There was something else in his expression, a lift to his features that might have been hope. Hope for freedom.

Beside him, Archer sighed. A blaster was in his hands before Mason had even set the kid behind him.

“Looks like we’re going to have to find our parts somewhere else, love.”

[nnatsume]

∑(o_o;) THE EVENT… THE PROMPTS… SUNSUN YOUR BRAIN… CAN I REQUEST CINNAMON WITH NATSUME? ;;;;;;; IM CRYING /pos ☁️

💌; HALLOWEEN NIGHT

a / n: hi cloudnon, i just made them up last minute.. someone in the feedback form suggested prompt events and i saw it and. “hell yeah let’s do one rn” and it was like. the 29th of october. anyway! yes. just yes.

and hi nya!! ahh long time no see too!! we haven’t talked at all haaa..i think i have like an internal alarm in my head that goes “oh! nya is about to send in a natsume request in abouuuut.. now!” i could SENSE IT. and i’m not complaining one bit, no no.. happy halloween!! remember to take your own advice..!!

vanilla — “i heard this place was haunted..”

cinnamon — “aren’t you a bit cold? take this.”

back to the prompt list ✦ event masterlist

✦ vanilla & cinnamon ft. natsume !

at midnight, you found yourself in the most ominous place in town, at natsume’s request. the sky was pitch black, and you could barely see your own hand if you weren’t holding your lantern to it. you could only recognize vague shapes in the distance–a big, big house, old and rotten, concealed by a thick fog. you gulped. what was he thinking?

“i heard this place was haunted.. the spirit of the old inhibitor, a vengeful banshee, is roaming the halls, waiting for the next curious visitors.”, he whispered into your ear, trailing a hand over your shoulder–a shiver went down your spine, and you nearly dropped your lantern. you could feel the grin on his face–he was amused. “and if you get too close.. snap! and you will never see daylight again..”, with that, he dragged a finger under your chin in a cutting motion.

you shuddered, and he felt it, a chuckle sounding next to you. “are you scared? don’t you worry. you have me.”, he spoke. in all honesty, you had no idea if he was trying to reassure you or to tease you. being with him is a guessing game. “let’s enter, shall we?”

with that, you found yourself being pulled along by your hand. natsume held the lantern towards the front–you could only see a silhouette, the back of his head, as you dove into the darkness of the mansion. the wood creaked under your shoes when you walked–natsume pulled you along as if he knew the way by heart–stepping over certain floorboards, taking detours, warning you of loose stairs. has he been there before? he whispers about the place as if he’s been there before.

you didn’t quite know where he was taking you, but you put your trust in him. hallway after hallway, littered with faces that you’ve never seen before, long gone from this world. porcelain painted by hand hung across the walls, bitten away by time. the higher and farther you went, the colder it started to get. the frost tore at your shoulders–perhaps your costume wasn’t the best choice. you had to grit your teeth until you reached the destination.

at the highest floor, natsume started to slow down, swishing the lantern left and right, revealing ancient sculptures of glass and stone. at the end of the hallway, there was a single, tall door. he finally lowered his lantern, pushing down on the handle. the door creaked, dust starting to swirl around you both as he pulled the door open, leaning it against the wall. “you first, kitten.”

“alright.. so this is it?” you held your lantern into the room–there was only one bed, sheets eaten away by animals and insects. a furnace, a carpet, and a table to the side. there were paintings on the walls, but none of them had a face. the room was icy cold, much colder than the others, spiderwebs layered with a bit of frost.

suddenly, the door behind you slammed shut. “natsume?”, you called out. “don’t slam the door like that, it’ll break.” but no response came. you called out again, only to be met with silence. your light was starting to flicker, and you felt your heart sink when your flame threatened to fade away. you were starting to run low on wax… and the replacements were neatly tucked into natsume's pocket.

a click from behind you made you jump again–a few candles lit up, revealing what you thought was the old woman's bedroom. natsume popped up next to you again, nearly giving you a heart attack. he casually placed his lantern next to yours, as if nothing happened.. “yes. see? you’re safe with me.”, he gloated, taking a look around as well. “this is where she died if i recall correctly. i can feel death in this room. say.. aren’t you a bit cold? take this.”

with that, you found yourself enveloped in a cape. it was not much, but it did keep a little bit of the cold away. the high collar reached up to your cheeks–you buried yourself in the fabric. it smelled like home. but you’re not so easily swayed. was he trying to charm his way out of it? you shook your head. “what the hell, natsume? you’re so mean!”, you spoke through grit teeth, punching his shoulder.

“what got into you? did the banshee possess you? i’m innocent. stop making such wild accusations.”, he smirked, “we should get exploring before she finds us. there’s no time for fighting..”

[l4verq]

remnants (3) | r.d

ransom drysdale x reader

in which you have to protect ransom drysdale because he has the same face as steve rogers, your ex who’s gone back to peggy.

warnings : mentions of panic attacks

lmk if you wanna be added to the taglist 💗

ʀᴇᴍɴᴀɴᴛꜱ

*not my gif*

-

“rock, paper, scissors, shoot!”

your eyes frantically looks around the outstretched hands, each holding up a rock.

bucky yells a cry of victory while you groan, glaring at your hands holding up ‘scissors’.

ransom rolls his eyes, “you guys hate me that bad?”

upon arriving to the hydra base after a long, long road trip, ransom grumbling about the music, sam screaming about how marvin gaye remains superior, you just couldn’t seem to catch a break.

because of course, you’d lose in this stupid game of rock, paper and scissors and of course, be forced to stay back with ransom in the car while sam and bucky scoped out the base for “any traps”.

“alright, we’ll be back in a few,” sam puts on his goggles, “but if we’re not-.”

“then we run.” ransom interrupts, pointing at you and him.

you have to bite back a smile seeing sam’s unamused face.

“then we go see if anything’s wrong.” you correct ransom, giving him a look.

“actually, no. he’s right, just run.” bucky ponders over it.

ransom scoffs under his breath and looks at you.

you’re smiling sof-

wait, were you actually smiling? at what that shaggy dude just said or more precisely, repeated?

“we’re obviously not running. it was a joke.” ransom clarifies, glancing over at bucky.

bucky’s vibranium arm locks in place, returning ransom’s stare, air getting unnecessarily tense.

they just look dumb, atleast to you.

sam claps his hand, “ok, so no one’s running. let’s go.”

he deploys red wing, the scarlet gadget humming off into the sky.

bucky gives you a nod, trailing behind sam, headed towards the entry door.

an awkward silence ensues, crickets violently chirping in the moonlit night.

“how’s your hand?” ransom clears his throat, adjusting his stance.

he’d been meaning to ask since yesterday but he just.. couldn’t.

“been better.” you flare your sore hands in front of you, tilting your head.

even though there weren’t any external wounds, you knew all of the damage was inside, lurking behind layers of flesh.

“so, you really did break your hands to get out of the chains?” he questions, eyebrow quirked.

“if you put it like that, i sound crazy.” you cross your arms, leaning against the car next to him.

he chuckles, a loud - almost obnoxious - sound that startles you a little.

steve never laughed like that, even when he did, it always felt like he was holding back, had his guard up.

“y/n, do you copy?” sam’s voice crackles in your ear, courtesy of the ear comm.

ransom springs to his feet, hand on his ear.

he’d asked for an ear comm as well to which everyone respectfully declined.

but after two hours of whines and grumbles about why he wants one, bucky practically flung that flesh coloured, pea sized gadget at him.

“we’re here.” he barks a little too loud.

“yea, we can hear you.” bucky mutters, annoyance laced in every word.

“you can speak normally.” you inform ransom, who flashes a thumbs up with a “got it.”

“there doesn’t seem to be mu-.”

static takes over, cutting sam off, you and ransom both flinching at the sudden blare in your ears.

you immediately cock your gun, reach into the car to pull out a flashlight and hand it to ransom.

“stay behind me.” you order, “we’re going through the back.”

“is there even one?”

“let’s find out.” you grab a flashlight as well.

you’re light on your feet, with careful, calculated steps.

ransom.. you couldn’t exactly blame him, he’s just a normal guy.

a normal guy who’s made it his goal to step on every single fallen leaf, producing this god awful crunching sound in the dead of the night.

“a little quieter?”

he starts tip-toeing, stumbling around.

you walk round the building, well what’s left of it.

it’s in bad shape, the entire building, hanging on by decaying bricks covered in mold.

it looks like it might’ve been around 3-4 stories high but it’s impossible to know now.

“there it is.” you whisper, flashlight pointed towards a door labelled EXIT.

on closer inspection, the knob is broken, only a hole where it used to be.

the hinges creak as you push the door open with ease, uncertain how the door didn’t fall right off because it was barely holding on.

gun in hand, flashlight on top, left foot forward, supporting your dominant one, just like you’ve been trained.

“this is how people die in movies.” ransom whispers, peeking inside the dark room.

you glare back at him, shushing him.

he clamps his forefinger and thumb together, dragging it along his lips, pretends to lock it and hands you the key.

“just search for a switch.” you mutter, looking straight infront again.

you aim your flashlight around, taking small steps inside.

clang.

you damn near jump out of your skin, finger already curled around the trigger, ready to pull when you whip around.

“sorry.” ransom mumbles, hands trailing around the wall, looking for a switch.

“i nearly shot you!” you whisper yell, lowering your gun.

the light flickers on, your eyes nearly blinded by it.

you look around, vision slowly adapting to the lit up room.

it’s a workstation with sewing machines?

the red, white and blue bits of cloth catch your eyes as you inch neare-

thud.

“y/n!” ransom shouts, but it’s distant.

too distant.

“yea, i’m here! i fell.,” you groan in pain, “somewhere. be car-.”

thud.

“fucking hell.” ransom curses, rubbing his shoulder, writhing in pain on the ground.

you’d be screaming at his stupid ass if only you weren’t doing the same, all feelings in your left leg lost.

“didn’t you see me fall?” you grit your teeth, clutching your leg.

he moans, slowly rolling over to his face.

“great! we’re both stuck here.”

you crane your neck to look up at the crack of light at the top, maybe a good four stories from where you’re sitting?

it was a miracle neither of you plunged to your death.

your hands fumble around the cold ground, feeling for your gun when you hear it.

a low, gentle whirring but it’s definitely not red wing this time.

you frantically scramble to your feet, left leg screaming in anguish even at the slightest pressure.

your hands reach out and this time they land on something hard.

something cold, much like the ground itself with ridged lines and creases.

it’s the wall.

but you could’ve sworn it wasn’t there before...

“the walls, they’re caving in.” you breathe out, instinctively backing away.

the familiar dread building up in your heart seemed to dull whatever pain resided in your leg.

“hey! get up.” you hop towards him but he brushes you off with a wave of his hand, still squirming in pain.

the whirring stops abruptly, along with the walls.

“bucky? sam? can you hear me?!” you yell into the ear comm, only to hear distorted sounds.

your eyes are adjusted enough to see the space between the two walls has decreased significantly.

ransom pushes his body off the ground with his shaky arms, slowly getting on his feet.

“am i crazy or did the wall move?” he breathes out, touching it.

“yea,” you exhale, closing your eyes shut, “yea, it did.”

“y/n!”

your ears perk up at the familiar voice.

“down here!” you yell, not sure if your voice can even be heard from where you are.

then like music to your ears, a familiar scarlet buzzes towards you two.

“sam!” you wave your hands at red wing hovering over you two.

his voice crackles “we’re trying to shut the whole place down, we’ll get you out.”

“the walls-.”

the whirring starts again as if reminded about what it needs to do.

red wing bumps against the contracting walls, falling into a heap of metal next to your feet.

you limp closer and closer to ransom, the wall centimetres away from your back, both of you realising the only way to have more space.

he pulls you into his chest, his good shoulder around you.

tears well up at your eyes, the crippling feeling sneaking in again.

these endurance tests are meant to help you get over your fears and phobias.

steve’d lied.

the endurance tests didn’t work.

because you were struggling to breathe, air hitched in your throat.

“it stopped, the walls.” ransom can barely move his body around, back hitting a hard boundary whenever he tries to.

balled up fists hanging desperately onto his clothes, you’re sobbing now, a hysterical mess.

the air only seemed to thin out more and more, your lungs straining for oxygen.

he watches in horror, the tiny space filled with your desperate gasps and whimpers.

you’re having a panic atta-

think, ransom.

what calms you down?

“you know, sometimes i look up at the stars at night when i can’t sleep.” he blubbers out, heart racing.

anything to just get you to stop trembling like that.

“i just lay in my bed - i have this window on my ceiling - and i look up at it.”

he’s unsure as he continues.

“reminds me of the glow in the dark stickers i had back in fourth grade.”

and of his fleeting childhood.

“did you have those? the $1 a pack with all the crazy fonts?” he whispers in your ear, tapping your back for an answer.

you manage a small nod, biting down your quivering lip.

who didn’t have those ugly stickers that seemed to fall off the very day you put them up.

“take a deep breath, can you do that for me?” he cooes, wincing when he brings his other shoulder around you.

he’s pretty sure it’s broken.

“c'mon, i’ll do it with you,” he pats your back, signalling you to inhale.

so you do.

you focus on the pace of his chest rising up and down steadily, willing yourself to do the same.

it was kind of working? whatever he was doing.

with those arms around you, whispers of sweet nothings in your ears, mediating your breathing.

until the whirring started again.

-

a/n : ohshsjsnssjsteysys pt 3 finally uppp :)))

tags : @readermia @inmate-marmalade @randomsevans @xoxabs88xox @thebadassbitchqueen @mypalbuck @natrushman3000 @townwitchbitch

[fairykimseok]

Drowsy nights and the white wolf

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Original Character (Kaitlyn)

Summary: Being an avenger is one thing, being an Avenger with Bucky Barnes is another. A little story of how Kaitlyn met Bucky

Gender: would say fluff with a little action, oneshot

Warnings: a mention of blood

This is written with the intention of being Bucky x reader but I just had to name the character. Time wise it is set along the events of TFATWS

Disclaimer: Marvel owns Avengers, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and all its characters

Before I tell you my story maybe I need to introduce myself. My name is Kaitlyn, I am short of special as my mom liked to say and…I might be an Avenger.

All started in the battle of New York, I was in one of the buildings Loki had taken over, with my mom and a few other people. I don’t really remember what happened, I only know Loki had touched me with his Scepter. I woke up the following day at the hospital, the building we were in had collapsed killing everyone but me. I was 16 back then and that was when I first met Natasha. She was the one who had pulled me out of that building and she kept visiting me in the hospital, she sort of became my family when everyone was gone. Short after when my powers started showing up, powers that were the legacy of Loki and the infinity stone, our sessions started. She would train me in hand in hand combat and I would try to master my powers.

She wanted me to go to the avengers’ compound and I had visited a few times, I had a room next to Wanda whom I had met on a few occasions. But that was when the Civil War between the Avengers started, and Nat went hiding. We would still meet sometimes with Cap and occasionally Sam.

And then the snap happened, and I blipped and when I came back, she was gone. My only family was gone. I called Sam as soon as I found out. He told me I could still join the team just as Nat wanted, that they had a new building as the old one was destroyed.

And that is where I am right now, in the new Avengers compound with whom is left here. Mostly me, Rodney, and Banner. Sam comes and goes, Dr. Strange, Clint, and Scot has stopped by sometimes and they frequently video call with others that are far away.

It is sort of lonely here, but I try to focus on my training. It is not easy being the only one with my kind of powers. Dr. Strange has helped me some with that and Banner had run some tests on me to see how they could progress. I get my “military” training with Rodney and when Clint is here, I get the “spy” training.

Oh right, my powers. Well you could say I have a thing with ice. Provided that there is water around I can create ice in whatever form I want and use it accordingly. I am still very sloppy and most of the time it is only a thin layer, but I am getting better.

It was a typical day, I woke up, got breakfast in the shared kitchen, visited Banner in his lab and went to the gym for my training. One of the first things Nat had told me was that I need to be agile, to be able to move fast even in the most difficult situations, so my morning routine had a variety of ballet, yoga or pilates.

“Looking good”, I heard someone at the door. As I turned, I realized it was no other than Sam.

“Hey Sam, what’s up? It’s been a while”, I said, going to my bug to drink some water.

“Thought I would stop by to see how you all here are and also to drop a friend who I think would help you a lot with your training”, he said.

As on cue Rodney entered the room with one more man, he looked around the room before his eyes landed on me. I knew who he was of course, who doesn’t.

“Bucky this is Kaitlyn, Kaitlyn this is Bucky. Don’t worry he is not dangerous just very old”, Sam joked which led to him getting a punch in the arm.

“Nice to me you”, Bucky said with a slight nod of his head.

“Nice to meet you too”, I managed to say in a stake of a mild shock. No, I wasn’t scared of him, I never had been. Cap had told me enough of his stories with bucky back in their days to know that this man is not dangerous even if he had been brainwashed most of his life.

“Bucky can help you with close up combat. If you are going to learn, better learn from the best.”, Sam offered. “We gonna let you at it and come back later with Rods. You gonna be ok old man?”, he asked before leaving, closing the door behind them.

Bucky only eye rolled as he properly entered the room. He unzipped his jacket leaving it at the bench, his vibranium arm echoing in the empty room. “Alright, let’s see what you got. Try to hit me” he said positioning himself in the middle of the room.

“Hit you?”, I asked confused, approaching him.

“Kick me, punch me, hit me. Whatever”, he shrugged.

Whatever, I thought. How? How do you hit the winter soldier? I took a few more steps, going closer all while I was thinking which could be the best approach, how could I attack him. At first, I just tried to punch as naïve as it looked. Of course, he just stopped my hand midair with his. I tried more complex moves, some of those Nat used to do, wrapping my legs around his neck and trying to elbow him on the head, I found myself pinned to the nearest wall his metal arm in my neck. His grip tight. He got flustered for a moment and for a moment there I really saw the assassin he used to be. He loosened his grip and let me down, mumbling an apology.

“How old are you again?”, I asked out of breath.

“Physical or mental age? Actual or birth wise? Kinda difficult question to ask”, he said with a faint of smile but maybe it was my imagination because it lasted for too short.

“Current?”, I offered.

“Something around the early 30s. Or 106, who counts?” he shrugged. “Again”

We went on and on, each time finding me in a helpless situation. I was pretty sure Ι was covered with bruises in every place possible.

I don’t even know how many times we had done the same thing when I got the idea that hey, I got powers. I let him tackle me into a headlock and when he was about to loosen his hold, I touched the metal arm, ice spreading all over it. I took the mere seconds it took him to realize what was going on as a chance to elbow him in the ribs and punch his jaw. He took a step back and smiled not even fazed by my hits.

“Good, but next time count on your strength and not your powers yet”, he said.

“Do you even feel anything?”, I asked defeated, nothing seemed to hurt him.

“It takes a lot more to make me feel anything”, he grinned. “And ice is not one of them”

“I left you here to learn from him and you go and freeze my man?”, Sam exclaimed entering in the room.

“I am fine”, Bucky said waving his metal arm twice before the ice broke and fell on the floor.

“Once a popsicle always a popsicle,” Sam joked earning a death stare from the older man. “How did it go?”, he asked looking at me

“No broken bones, so I guess good”, I shrugged.

“We have a long way ahead of us”, Bucky said getting dressed. “I am out”, he nodded before disappearing.

“So how was it really?”, Sam asked again, examining me.

“I think I barely touched him. My whole body is sore, and my pride is wounded.”

Sam laughed. “That’s why I brought him here to you. The people we are going up against out there are not easy, they will try to kill you without a second thought. You can always use your powers, but you told Nat you wanted to be like her. If you still up for the close combat, he will be here from now on. You may train with him whenever you want. If not, you are still free to stay here and train on your powers.”

I looked at him with realization. Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough. I was feeling so lost without her. “No, I want to try”, I promised with determination.

“Good. Now go, get ready we will all get dinner together before I leave”, Sam left too, and I was left alone in the room.

I sighed heavily, trying to get up I felt the pain running through my body. I was going to be so sore tomorrow.

  -----------------------

Days were passing by and I hadn’t seen him anywhere which on one hand was good because I don’t think I had improved since our first encounter and on the other it made me wonder where the heck he might be? It is not like the compound is huge for me to lose him. I reasoned that he could be on a mission with Sam and that is why I hadn’t seen him, after all Rodney wasn’t here either.

Apart from the hours of training I did through the day, I had started running some laps in the late hours. It is when the humidity in the air is the highest here, so it makes me feel more at ease with my powers. I was running again today, just a few laps around the compound, when I stopped at a clean spot.

I breathed in the humid air allowing my body to absorb as much water as it could from the atmosphere. I tried to catch my breath as I heard a bike running down the entrance of the compound towards the building. For a moment, I was perplexed as who it could be before I realized it was him, returning from somewhere. He headed to the garage. I didn’t even know he had a bike, but I decided to return at my task no point on focusing on him.

I closed my eyes again, opened my arms in an L shape and tried to focus, focus on my surroundings, on the water in the air. I took a deep breath as I tried to expand the cold emanating from me. I tried to crystalize as many water particles as I could around me, turning the humid air into a frozen one.

And I tried to expand it as much as I could. That’s when I felt it, the other presence close to me, in between all the cold a warmer figure. I turned at once defensively, ice-like awls flying towards the direction of the intruder only to stop a few centimeters away.

“I am sorry”, I said as I made them disappear. “I didn’t know it was you”, my body relaxing a bit.

He stared at me unfazed, as if he wasn’t even scared, I had almost pierced him throughout his body. He stared at me dead in the eyes and I couldn’t really understand what his look meant. It was like he was studying me. “It’s late, you should better go in,” he said before turning and heading back to the building.

“How long have you been standing here?”, I yelled at his retreating figure.

“Enough,” he yelled back without even turning.

I followed him with my eyes until he disappeared behind the doors. I took another deep breath as I headed back myself. There was something about this man, so mysterious, so distant yet I felt being drawn to him.

  --------------------

Wednesdays are usually gun days, I would do the training with Clint, trying different guns and basically learning how about anything could be a weapon if you use it correctly. Hell, one day Clint decided I had to try the bow, but it went terribly. In my defense my eyesight sucks so how was I supposed to do well?

Clint hadn’t been here for a while, so I went to the training room alone, picked a gun, set the target, wore the protective gear, and started shooting. Surprisingly I wasn’t that bad at shooting, I give myself credit, even though I still lack on technique and consistency.

I was halfway through when I felt eyes on me again. I turned to face the room and sure enough I saw him leaning on the door frame. “Not bad,” he commented as I removed the protective headphones.

“Thanks”, I said feeling self-aware, I don’t know why I was getting so nervous around him.

“Need to relax your shoulders a bit” he continued as he walked to pick a gun and went to a nearby booth. “You are going to dislocate it otherwise”.

I nodded as I watched him go, he didn’t miss one, switching between hands and meters away from the target. I was impressed but don’t tell him.

“So, guns are your thing”, I said as he stopped.

“I wouldn’t say I have a thing, just too many years of experience, but if I had a thing, I guess it would be knives”, he said thoughtfully.

“Show me”, I challenged without even thinking.

He gave me a funny look as he picked one, moved back to the booth and while still looking at me threw the knife head on to the target. He didn’t even blink.

He shrugged and I think I saw a hint of smugness there. “Practice makes perfect”, he said as he turned to leave the room. “Keep on practicing”.

“Good to see you too”, I mumbled to the empty room. Cause it was good to see him, wasn’t it? I did want to see him. I had found myself almost searching for him in the days that he was nowhere to be found. I had seen photos of him in the news and back in those years he did seem dangerous but now, with the haircut and his general stance he seemed more like the Bucky Cap was describing in his stories albeit still very distant. Would I entertain myself with the thought that he was hot? I mean, the beard, the toned muscles, the mystery, the eyes, oh those eyes. Nah, I shouldn’t think of that.

“Focus”, I murmured to myself as I started shooting again.

 -------------------

I was back in the gym where we first met, doing my flexibility exercises as he entered the room. He walked straight to me, his eyes never leaving mine. I got up from the floor I was sitting. I was so drawn to him; I couldn’t take my eyes of him. We were too close now, bodies almost touching. He looked down on me and I felt my body shiver. He brought his hand to my cheek and caress it, and I melted to the touch. I raised mine to touch his hand as I followed the muscles all the away till his shoulder and then his face. He used his metal arm to guide me closer to him by my waist. And then he started leaning, our breaths coming as one, lips almost touching…

I woke up with a start, my heart racing a like an f1 car in Q3. I was sweating. “It was just a dream”, I said as I tried to catch my breath. “A very vivid one”.

I looked at the clock on the night stand it was still 3 in the morning, but my glass was empty. I got up, sighing, intending to go get some water from the kitchen. As I left my room, I heard some soft, almost incoherent, music coming from the end of the corridor. I walked towards it, recognized the tune as something from the 30s or 40s maybe, I turned at the end of the corridor and there was faint light coming from a crick of the door of the room in the right.

I wondered who could be up this late at night and I picked in the room. It was luminated by a small lamp on the desk. A pickup next to it and a few records stacked in the bookshelf behind. He then moved into my line of vision. Drink at hand, shirtless, only his bottom pajamas on. I gulped at the sight of his bare torso, not a good combination with the dream I just had. I noticed the scars on his body and those where the metal was fusing with his torso.

He was sipping his drink, occasionally humming to the tune. This must have been the most human I had ever seen him and then it hit me that this is a very private moment for someone like him, with the kind of life he had, and I was intruding. I turned to go to the kitchen as I originally intended, unbeknownst to me at the time that he had noticed my presence.

  -------------------

“Your favoritism is showing”, Sam commented as he followed Bucky’s look.

It was one of those days that we had visitors in the compound. I was just outside the building on the front yard, with Hope and in the middle of the very tiring martial arts session.

Bucky was leaning of the living room windows that had just the perfect view of the front where me and Hope were.

“I don’t get what you mean,” Bucky said to Sam, his eyes still on us.

Sam laughed. “Come on don’t play dumb. It is not so subtle when you mention her while on missions neither how you look at her when she doesn’t.”

“How do I look at her?”, Bucky asked finally turning to look at Sam.

“Well, intently the least. There is some longing, some what if in there”, Sam explained.

“You know it’s true,” Rodney added coming into the room.

“Where the hell did you come from?” Bucky exclaimed finally leaving his spot from the window and sitting on the couch. Anyone could see he was started to get annoyed.

“You know if Steve was here, he would tell you to go for it”, Sam pointed.

Bucky glared at him before hissing “I hate you both”.

Sam laughed loudly.

 -----------------

I had just finished my session with Hope when Sam approached us.

“How you doing ladies?” he chirped.

“Good”, Hope beamed, “It went pretty good”.

“That’s always great to hear”, Sam approved and they both smiled at me making me blush.

“I am gonna head back in”, Hope said, “Is Scot here yet?”

“Yeah he just came with Cassie. You all gonna stay here for lunch?” he wondered.

“Sure thing”, she nodded before heading in.

“So how is it going with you? How it’s going with my boy Bucky?” Sam asked shifting his attention back to me.

“Uuhm, good, I guess. We haven’t talked much but he has offered a few advices here and there which helped me for sure. I was pretty sure he hated me at the beginning”, I laughed.

“I am telling you he hates everyone, but I think it might be far from true in your case”, Sam winked. “But anyway, keep up the good work and who knows you might come with us in a mission soon.”

I looked at him perplexed but didn’t comment on it.

Later during lunch, I tried to pay more attention to Bucky and it did seem that he wasn’t so comfortable in a room full of people but I did notice that there were times he was looking at me for no reason.

 -------------------

True to his words, Sam did invite me to a mission about a month after he said so. They were happy with my progress which gave me the confidence I needed to try more. There were still a lot I needed to learn, and they thought that if I was part of a simple mission it would also give me the experience of handling difficult situations.

I had a fitting with Banner who provided me with a suit, he had coordinated with Shuri for this. It was a black one with blue details, small lines in the shoulders, abdomen, and wrists. My palms and fingers were free so that I would be able to use my powers easily and of course it had parts of vibranium protecting the vital organs of my torso. The part I liked the most was the neck as there was extra fabric which I could use to cover my face up till my nose. I braided my hair in a French style, took the gun and in ear com that Sam had left for me and I was ready to go.

“Nervous?”, I heard Bucky asking me as he joined me at the front yard. We were waiting for Sam to come with the Quinjet and get us. He was also dressed in his suit, with an one-sleeved jacket, leaving his metal arm exposed.

“More than I would like to admit”, I replied.

“It will be fine, we got you”, he assured me.

Up in the Quinjet, I spend most of my time in awe with how it was. I had never been into one and I was marveled.

“So, the mission is to get to the convoy and get the asset out. The asset is a scientist. We plan on ambushing them based on the route they are supposed to follow. I will stop them, and we attack. Bucky and I will take care of the guards and all you need to do is take the guy and go away of the rest of us”, Sam started explaining the plan, showing a map on the screen. “If everything goes according to plan, we will be there way earlier to map the area. Clear?”

“Hmm, how are we going to go there? I wouldn’t assume there is a place to land there”, I pondered.

“Parachutes”, Sam simply offered, studying the map. “We plan on landing around here. And as soon as we get the asset, we have this place here as an exit point. Just a few km away.”

“For us, he would be flying”, Bucky accused him.

“Not wanting to be that person, but I have never used a parachute”, my stress levels were increasing by the second. Not only I was in charge of another person making it out alive, but I had to jump of a plane, not to mention my fear of heights. Maybe this was a bad idea.

“Don’t worry we will jump together”, Bucky offered which unknowingly to me earned a playful wiggle of eyebrows and a look of approval from Sam. Bucky on the other hand only glared at him.

When it was almost time for us to jump, we started getting ready. Sam left first, flying to the place to make sure we didn’t have any company. It was the first time I had seen him with Cap’s shield, and it was not as weird as I expected it to be.

“You ready?” I heard him ask.

“As ready as I can be”, I smiled nervously.

“Look it is your first time and it is reasonable to be nervous. But it won’t help you down there. You are ready just believe in yourself. We will be there, and we won’t let anything to happen to you. Ok?” he comforted me giving me a pat on the back. And there was something there in his eyes, a bit of worry, of determination, I couldn’t really tell but I believed him.

“Ok”, I said with confidence. “So how do we jump?”

“Well, since you have no experience, we will do this together. Here tie this in your belt and around your waist and clip it to my belt”, he proceeded with wearing the parachute and fixing the ties and held as together. This was the closest we had been since the first day that we trained together. I had made the mistake of looking up at him as he checked the equipment. We don’t have that much of height difference which has as a result my eyes to be at the same level with his lips. Which was a great distraction for my nervousness. “You can put your hand here to be steadier”, he said as he guided my hand to get in between the ties of the parachute at the front of his chest. “And the other should probably go behind my back”, he suggested.

“Ok”, I said as I did what he proposed. I did feel steady like this, but it was super close. I could smell his cologne from this distance.

He took a step behind and an agent opened the airplane door for us. “Want to count to 3?”, he asked, wrapping his hand around my waist holding me closed.

I did make the mistake to look at him in the eyes which created a new kind of tension, but I nodded. “One..Two….AAAAAAhh”,  I screamed as the jerk jumped of the plane without a notice. I hid my face in the crook of his neck as we were falling, letting him take care of the rest. The one instruction they had given me was to stay as still as I could so that he could guide as without problems.

And somehow miraculously I felt my feet touching the ground and him starting to untie as from the parachute. “See we made it”, he remarked with a rare smile.

I let a loud breath. “I can’t believe we did. Now what?”

“Sam you copy? We are moving to the meet up point”, he talked to his in-ear com as he gestured me to follow.

“Copy”, I heard Sam replying.

We walked carefully to the place we were supposed to ambush them. Sam informed us that he could see the convoy coming. The asset being in the 3rd of the 4 cars.

We had positioned ourselves as we saw the cars turning towards our direction. As they were passing by us, Sam shoot the first one causing a collision and the rest came to a stop. “Go go go”, I heard him over the radio.

Sam was already flying towards our direction eliminating as many guards as he could. A lot more people than I expected came out of the vehicles. I saw Bucky running easily taking out the first 3-4 guards that came out of the last car as stealthy as possible. Sam threw him the shield and with a jump Bucky swiftly caught it and landed on top of the Jeep that was supposed to have the asset, starting to shoot.

I run behind him going to the other side of the car where I could see an man trying to hide. With the guards of the car gone I was able to take him “Follow me”, I shouted taking him by the shoulder and leading him to the forest in the direction of the exit point.

But as I turned to go that way, I saw another vehicle coming to us, probably a backup. They were driving fast directly at us. “We got company!”, I yelled in the com getting the others attention. I tried to shoot at the driver, but the windshield was bullet proof.

Sam flew past by and shoot at the tyres. Even though the van crashed to the side a bunch of guards came out and started shooting at us. “Kaitlyn, go!” Bucky yelled moving past me.

I took the asset and started running in the forest unfortunately though a few guards saw us and started following. The first bullet flew right past me and I stopped abruptly. “Get behind me”, I demanded as I tried to shield him. I created an ice shield as thick as I could to shield us both. The guards kept shooting as I tried to take steps backwards. I drew my gun and tried to shoot back getting one of them on the leg. My shield had started thinning as bullets kept coming to our direction. One passed through and I felt like it hit me, but I didn’t have the time to think of this.

I looked up on the trees to see how heavy they were with snow and I got an idea. I lifted my hand and closed my fist as the snow fell heavy on the guard. I lowered my shield to see if the danger had passed and thankfully there was no one else. Sam flew next to me and Bucky came behind running. “We are clear”, Sam confirmed. I looked back at the man hiding behind me, he wasn’t hurt which was the point so that meant I had done a good job.

We took him to the exit point where the Quinjet was waiting. I sat down at a sit to catch my breath. I had never used my powers for so long and I felt drained now the adrenaline levels were falling.

“You are bleeding”, Bucky exclaimed as he run towards me, kneeling in front of me and taking my arm in his. There was a hole in my suit, and there was a scratch on my upper arm I hadn’t even notice. There was some blood there, but it had mostly dried. “How did this happen?” he asked.

“Hmm, I am not sure I didn’t really feel it, but I think there was a bullet that passed the shield I had made”, I flinched into the touch.

“We need to clean this”, he answered with worry as he went to take the medical kit. He kneeled again and cleaned my wound, patching it.

“Thank you”, I whispered as he sat next to me. I took in his state, eyes closed, sweat dripping from his temple. There was something raw in him like this yet so beautiful.

“Good work Kaitlyn”, Sam patted me in the back. “We are proud of you”.

“Thanks Sam”, I smiled.

We left the asset to a safe place where some agency they didn’t care to tell me, would take him and put him into some kind of protection. We flew back to the compound.

“Are you staying?” I asked Sam.

“No, I got something to do. See you guys in a few days”, he waved before flying away.

I turned to look at Bucky “Come, let’s get in”, he responded.

I followed him in, each going to our respective rooms. I took a bath washing away the blood and tiredness. It was long into the am hours and I couldn’t get myself to sleep after all this. I headed back to the living room, gazing out at the night sky. A few stars visible.

“Here, I made you this”, Bucky said, and I jumped in shock.

“I didn’t hear you coming”, I faltered taking the mug he offered. It had some hot tea.

Bucky grinned. “It’s linden and chamomile. Will help soothing your nerves”.

“Thank you”, I smiled bringing the mug to my lips.

We stayed silently for a few moments, sipping our drinks, and looking out as night shifted.

“I am sorry I didn’t protect you”, he started.

I turned to look at him “Bucky, I- there is no need to be sorry. I…I didn’t expect you to. You had to fight so many people and protect yourself. I was just clumsy, and you were there the whole time. Hell, we jumped of a plane and walked out alive,” I laughed to show him that I was just fine.

“Still I told you that I wouldn’t let you get hurt and you did”, he countered meeting my eyes. There was dare I say hurt in there.

I took a step closer, taking his hand to mine, which took him by surprise, his eye fixating there for a moment. “Don’t worry, I am really fine. I am glad we are all ok”, I said squeezing his hand lightly.

He cleared his throat as he removed his hand. “It’s time for some sleep. Good night”, he said.

“Goodnight Bucky,” I responded as he turned to leave, and turned my attention back outside.

“Kaitlyn?”

“Yeah?”

“You can call me Buck”, he encouraged and with a small smile he left.

I was left standing there with my mouth open, not knowing what to do. Ι bit my lips not knowing how to handle the new emotion of excitement I was feeling for no apparent reason. I went to my room and slept a peaceful sleep.

  ----------------

 There had been a month since our mission, I was still training daily, each day feeling more confident with my skills and powers.

Sam and Bucky were in another mission for almost a month now, we didn’t really have news of them. Last time we had checked they were in Prague. Ι was worried, I didn’t want to admit it to anyone else but I was listening to the news everyday wondering if they would be mentioned.

“Hey Bruce”, I greeted as I entered the lab. “How is it going?”

“Hey kiddo”, he greeted back, leaving whatever weird thing he was working on.

I walked around the lab indifferently, “Any news from the guys in the field?”

“I spoke with Sam yesterday, they somehow ended in Madripoor. I personally haven’t been there, but I hear it is an interesting place. They met Sharon in the way”.

“Who is Sharon?”, I perked up.

“Oh, you probably haven’t met her. I only met her once briefly a few years ago. She was a friend of Steve’s and an old agent of Shield”, he explained.

“I see”, I said thoughtful, for some reason the idea of a woman travelling with them in troublesome situations didn’t make me feel very at ease. I mean if she was a friend of Steve’s, was she also a friend of Bucky’s?

I tried to shake away any unwelcome thoughts that came to my mind.

“Thank you, Bruce. Want to try the new blasters?”, I asked trying to channel my energy to something else.

  --------------------

 It was a Saturday evening; it was raining, and it was relatively cold. I was in my room, listening to some music and absentmindedly looking out the window. My tea still warm in the mug.

I heard a knock on the door that shook me out of my trance. “Yes”.

“Hey”, I barely saw a head behind the semi closed door. “May I come in?”

“Please, come”, I smiled to the familiar face. “When did you return?”

He got in closing the door behind him. “Half an hour ago probably. I just wanted to check up on you”, Bucky said scratching the back of his neck.

“I am good”, I offered going closer, my eyes try to take all his features. “Is this a bruise? Were you hurt?” I tried to reach with my hand right below his eye where I could see some shades of purple and yellow, but he stopped me midair.

“Yeah but it is nothing. Don’t worry. I ‘ve been worse”, he gently lowered my hand not completely leaving it though as our fingertips were still touching.

“That doesn’t really make me feel better about it. Neither should you. You shouldn’t get hurt”, I shook my head in disagreement.

He snorted. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry”, he smiled and for moment I think – I THINK – my legs turned to jelly. A bit my bottom lip and his eyes darted there directly.

I opened my mouth to say something, but words weren’t really there.

“It’s late”, he said. “I ‘ll see you tomorrow”. He opened the door and left with a last smile.

  ---------------

A few days had passed, we had shared some training sessions. I had run into him in the kitchen a few times in the morning where I would go to make breakfast and he would usually drink coffee with Rodney before they both left for a meeting they did with the rest of the team that was spread around the world.

Sam stopped by occasionally and they could train together or go on a mission together. I was worried why they hadn’t asked me to go with them again. I had been to a few simple ones with Rodney but never again with Bucky and Sam.

That day, it was late at night and I had just come back from my evening run. I took a shower and after drying up I endeavored to the kitchen to find something to munch on. He was sitting at the living room, the only light coming from the full moon outside. Soft music was playing and he appeared to be playing with a knife. He was throwing it in the air and catching it again and again.

At first, I thought whether I should approach him or not, maybe he needed some alone time. I went to the kitchen and got some almonds and water. I thought that maybe he would hear the noise and either come or leave if he wanted to be alone. When I was done eating, I gave a look to the living room to see if he was still there.

Naturally my eyes went straight to the couch that I had left him but found nothing. Only then I noticed that he had moved to the windows and he was looking at me. I jumped “You scared me”, I muttered.

“What are you doing up at 3 in the morning?” he asked.

“Right back at you? I was just about to go to sleep”, I retorted getting away from the shadows of the kitchen and closer to the windows. The moon light was accentuating his features. He had a week-old beard and was wearing a simple black t-shirt and pj pants.

“Tried the sleep, didn’t work. Came here to relax”, he explained while still looking at me intently.  

“Do you want me to make you something? A tea? Some milk?” I offered.

He moved from the windows and met me halfway. “No, I am fine”, he murmured. He brushed a few stray hairs with his hand and put them behind my ear. His eyes never leaving mine. “Didn’t really tell me why you were still up”.

“I – I came back from running and wanted to eat something before I go to sleep”, I could feel his breath merging with mine, and I was feeling so lost.

He brought his metal arm to my waist and with his other arm he caressed my cheek. Ι couldn’t but lean into the touch, momentarily closing my eyes.

He started leaning towards me when a noise came from down the corridor. Someone had opened their door and was making their way to us. He immediately broke contact, gave me one last look, and left. “Sup Banner?” heard him saying somewhere away from my line of vision. I was just left there, frozen, not knowing what to do and utterly confused.

“What are you doing in the dark kid?”, Bruce asked, and I almost jumped.

“Ah you know, night cravings. Going to sleep. Goodnight Bruce”, I faked a yawn and practically run to my room.

  ------------

The next day I intentionally went for breakfast later than usually. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him yet neither did I know what to do if we met.

Of course, with the good luck I always have, I almost fell on him as I turned to enter the kitchen. He caught me as to not fall murmured an apology and left which as I saw from the kitchen, he rode his bike and left the compound whatsoever.

I spend the whole day in the training room unleashing all my nerves using my powers. At some point Bruce had to come to tell me to stop because the temperature in the compound had decreased by 10 degrees and apart from the room I was using, crystals had form in two rooms radius.

I apologized and we spend the rest of the afternoon trying to unfreeze the rooms and increase the temperature. Thankfully the compound has top notch systems.

I ate a quick dinner right after and locked myself in my room.

I was laying in my bed, cocooning with my blankets, watching a movie when I heard a knock on my door. I looked at the clock, it was almost midnight. “Who is it?”, I questioned.

“Bucky”, he cleaned his throat, the nervousness in his voice evident.

For a moment I pondered if I should really go and open or not but my curiosity and well the eagerness got the best of me. I got up and unlocked the door, opening it enough to see him. “Can I come in?”, he wondered, anxiously giving looks to the rest of the rooms in case anyone showed up. I just moved aside for him to get in without saying anything, wasn’t sure what to say either.

I moved to go and sit back on my bed and he followed but hesitated to sit, he only did when I gestured him to. He cleaned his throat again. “This isn’t easy for me”, he started and I then felt bad, because I was giving him the silent treatment but I was failing to understand that for a person like him, that had been through so many horrible things it surely wasn’t something easy. I relaxed a bit and gave him a reassuring look as to proceed.

He fidgeted a little more before he tried again. “Firstly, I need to apologize for how I left yesterday, I just panicked. You know it is funny because Steve had told me that I had my way with the ladies back in our time but all this”, he gestured between us, “is fairly new to the current me. And I pretty much have no idea what to say or do”.

“Well, thank you for apologizing”, I smiled and took his hand in mine to show him that everything was ok, and he could feel more comfortable. He clenched back which I took as a good step. “You can always start by telling me what you feel, if you want”.

“You would think that it is easy”, he snorted, yet he intertwined our fingers. “I just feel better when I see you and when I am with you. And I feel excited every time we meet. And I feel eager for the next time”.

“Well if it helps, I feel the same”, I mumbled.

His shoulders seemed to relax a bit to the sound of my words.

I lifted my arm and tried to turn his face gently to look at me or else he would make holes to the floor from how intently he was looking at it. I smiled and he grinned.

“So…”, I started.

“So, we could maybe try and spend some time together one of these days…”, he trailed off.

“Well, it is not like I have something to do now… we could always start with watching a movie?”, I questioned.

“Yeah I would like that”, he smiled.

We picked a movie and sat on the bed, at first apart but as the movie was progressing, in between laughs and comments, we came closer and ended up cuddling. I am not sure when but at some point, I fell asleep in his arms.

“Sshh, go back to sleep”, he whispered as he was trying to get up and leave the bed, my hand instinctively holding him in place.

“Don’t go”, I mumbled, eyes still close.

“I can’t stay here, and you are asleep”, he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

I opened my eyes, as awake I could be “Stay”

He looked me again, eyes full of adoration. I could see he was thinking of it. I sat up, and gently pulled him close to me so that he could sit back again in the bed. “Stay”, I repeated.

“Ok”, he said “I will”.

He moved to remove his sweater and close the lights and came back to the bed. I moved enough to make him space and he got under the blanket, the mattress moving under the extra weight. I looked down at him and a feeling of completion, of happiness filled me. I couldn’t believe that those blue eyes were staring back at me.

For a moment I wasn’t sure if I should do it, if I was overstepping but my eagerness took a hold of me. I leaned in, placing my hand above his heart, feeling it moving fast. He looked at me inviting, his hand moving to my cheek, guiding me closer. I stopped just centimeters away, our lips almost touching, to give him one last look, as if I was asking for the final permission. He closed the gaped and I felt the softest lips against mine.

After a moment we parted and he caressed my cheek. “Sleep now.”

I laughed at him but obeyed, getting back in position, my head on his chest as he wrapped his arm around me. And just like this we fell asleep.

 --------------

 After this night, Bucky was a totally different person. He was constantly smiling to me, hugging me with every chance he got, kissing me when he thought no one was looking. And in the compound, he was totally different, he would help me clean around, sing while he was doing chores.

Sure, there were also some bad days when he would wake up in his sleep screaming from the nightmares and I had to hold him in my arms and remind him that everything was in the past. That no one was here to hurt him and even if they tried, they would have to go through me first. After a while he would usually calm down, we would lay down again, he would put his head on my chest, and I would caress his hair. He, then, would fall asleep and I would let him sleep as late as he could even if he would be grumpy about it afterwards.

But everything felt so dreamy. And I would trade everything in the world for a smile of his.

[johaerys-writes]

Hi! I had an idea for a one shot about Achilles and Patroclus. You don't have to if you don't want to, I totally get it lol. But there's this one scene in the book where Patroclus cuts his wrist to take a blood oath, and tells Agamemnon Achilles' plan. When Patroclus comes back bleeding Achilles says "Will you tell me who hurt you?" --- I would like to request a fanfiction where someone hurts Pat and Achilles gets angry at them. Okay, thank you for your time lol. Love your writing btw. -Sienna

Awww thank you! When I first saw this, my brain instantly went: Modern AU!! I just couldn’t resist writing angry and frustrated teenage Achilles, and this quickly took on a life of its own. So have a one shot where Patroclus is bullied at school and Achilles goes on a rampage. 

I hope you like!! Only part of it here, the rest is up on AO3 because of length. 

CW: graphic depictions of violence, explicit language 

********

Patroclus is hiding something from him. Achilles has had his suspicions for a while.

First, there’s that day after spring break. Achilles is waiting for him outside the school gates after the classes are over, and Patroclus shows up late with his hair dishevelled and his glasses a little askew. When Achilles asks him what happened, Patroclus just tells him that it is nothing, that he dropped his glasses on his way out of class and they got bent out of shape. There's no reason not to believe him — Patroclus would never lie to him— but there's something in the way he says it that gives Achilles pause.

Patroclus insists that it’s nothing when Achilles asks him again, and gives the same answer when Achilles keeps asking him all the way back to the house, and then some, until Patroclus’ gaze takes on that resigned and detached look it usually does when Achilles presses him too much.

Achilles lets him be, just this once.

It is only a few days later that Achilles notices something else. It is a warm Sunday afternoon, and the hot and humid southern winds that blow through the oval stellated globes of the flowering lilacs send the white-purple petals cascading around them like snow. Achilles is lying on the warm grass with his arm curled under his head, and watches the dappled light that filters through the leaves overhead play languidly across Patroclus’ bare back. It is still a little damp from their swim in the stream beyond the olive grove, the drops of water on it shimmering in the sun, and there’s something about the way his tan skin prickles when the breeze blows that’s so captivating.

It is then that Achilles notices a bruise on his left shoulder, yellow bleeding at the edges of the dark purple of its core.

“What’s this?” he asks, and reaches out instinctively to touch it. “Where did you get it?”

Patroclus jolts slightly, recoils from his touch. “It’s nothing,” he mumbles.

“It’s something.”

Patroclus just shrugs and reaches for his shirt that’s lying beside him. He makes as if to pull it on over his head when Achilles catches him by the arm. Patroclus gasps when Achilles rolls over him and pins him to the grass, holding him down by the shoulders.

“What is it?” he asks. “Where did you get it?”

“It’s nothing, Achilles,” Patroclus says again. His eyes dart away, but then they quickly snap back to him, wide and panicked when Achilles leans down close enough that their noses touch. He fixes him with a hard look, unblinking.

“Tell me what it is. Tell me where you got it.”

Achilles can feel Patroclus’ shaky breath on his lips and the heat emanating from his skin, the cold tip of his nose pressing against his own, and he doesn’t know why that sends a shiver down his spine. Patroclus inhales slowly.  

“It’s from a wall,” he whispers. “I tripped and fell.”

“On a wall?”

Patroclus swallows, nods. His gaze slides away from Achilles' again, and Achilles can see the flush that creeps up his cheeks, the embarrassment. There’s no reason why Achilles shouldn’t believe him. Patroclus is rather clumsy after all, daydreaming and walking about with his nose stuck in his books. It could well be that he fell on a wall, though there’s something, something that's not sitting quite right.

“You’re hurting me,” Patroclus says quietly when Achilles tightens his grip on his shoulder without realising it.

“Oh. Sorry.” He lets him go and rolls off of him, and then simply watches as Patroclus hurriedly pulls on his shirt and stands up.

They don't talk much on the way back home, but Achilles knows there’s something wrong, something Patroclus isn't telling him. But Patroclus is silent and closed up like a clam now, and he blushes and averts his gaze whenever their eyes meet, like Achilles has done something to offend him.

Achilles doesn't press him anymore, after this.

~

It is late spring, and school usually finishes early. No one wants to stay in class for too long, not when the sun hangs hot and bright over the flat plains and rolling hills of Phthia, and elderly Mr. Phoenix is always getting terrible allergies from the pollen, so he lets them go early more often than not. Patroclus has extra classes in the afternoons, so Achilles hangs out with the lads from the football team behind the school gym until he’s done. Agamemnon sometimes brings beers, and Menelaus often carries weed with him, and Ajax just tags along.

Achilles finds them all a little dull, but he indulges them every so often because they all look up to him and want him around. All save for Agamemnon, that is; they’ve always had a bit of competition going on the two of them, and Agamemnon has been giving Achilles the side eye ever since he learned that both Clytemnestra and Helen fancy him, but what fault is it of his? Achilles can’t help that he’s the best in the track team and the captain of the football team and that the cheerleaders like him, or that Agamemnon looks like a cave troll and smells worse than one. That, least of all.

The conversation today is the usual — they talk about football, about the team, about Helen and Clytemnestra and their new cheerleader outfits, and Achilles listens with half an ear— until it isn’t.

It is Patroclus that steers it away. Agamemnon and the others see him crossing the yard with Briseis by his side, and that’s when the whispers start. First, they comment on the fact that he’s older than them but they’re all still in the same year. It’s old news now, but Achilles gets why it would still seem odd to them. He is the only one that knows that, when Patroclus first moved to Phthia, he was going through stuff and wasn’t studying much, so Mr. Chiron, the headmaster, insisted he repeat the whole year. Then they comment on his appearance, his quiet demeanour, his glasses, or the fact that when he’s not with Achilles he only hangs out with girls. And Achilles gets that too, because Patroclus isn’t like them, he’s not like any of them, he’s different and has always been. They could never hope to understand him or know him; they're not worthy.

That doesn't stop Achilles from speaking up and telling them all to shut it or else. No one speaks like this about Patroclus when he’s around, no one, get it?

Agamemnon is stunned only for a brief moment by his outburst, blinks up at him when he sees him looming threateningly over him. Then, he smiles.

“Why? Do you fancy him, Pellides?” He grins as the others start snickering. “Do you fancy Patroclus?”

The question gives Achilles pause. No, he doesn’t fancy Patroclus, that would be absurd. Patroclus is his friend. He likes spending time with him, yes, much more than he does with anyone else in the world, but that’s to be expected, considering that they’ve practically grown up together and all. And Patroclus is not like them, he’s not like Achilles either, he’s his own person and has his own thoughts that are too big and unusual for this sort of place, and he makes Achilles feel at home. He has this way of knowing exactly what to say, when to say it, and he knows Achilles better than anyone, better than his mother, his father, himself, even. And yeah, maybe, sometimes, when he goes to bed and deft hands slide under covers and layers of fabric as if on their own, it’s Patroclus he thinks about, and the soft sound of his laugh and the contemplative curl of his lip, his large doe-like eyes that seem to know too much, and the way the dappled light plays across his bare back when they go swimming together, but what of it? Friends do that.

Right?

Agamemnon’s knowing smile grates at him. Achilles punches him in the face and breaks his nose, for good measure.

He gets detention for it, of course. He knows they’ll tell his father, but he doesn’t care. It’s not like he’ll tell him anything, Achilles knows he will understand. To insult Patroclus would be to insult him (because Patroclus is part of the family and an extension of himself, and they’re together, together always) and no one insults a Pellides lightly, not around these parts. So Achilles grins when Mr. Chiron sternly orders him to sit in class for an extra two hours and write essays that no one has need for, then proceeds to glance at the papers before him with disdain and prop his feet on the desk like a punk because he feels like it.

Time glide by slowly, really slowly, and Achilles is bored. For two hours, Agamemnon’s question plays in his mind in a loop.

Do you fancy him, Pellides?

Achilles scoffs to himself, rolls his eyes. No, of course he doesn’t, of course. That’s not what this is about. Patroclus is his mate, right, his best mate. He’s more than a friend, actually, he’s more like a brother, he’s—

Look. It’s complicated, alright?

It all started that summer after first form. It was the worst summer of his life, by many accounts, not because it was the rainiest summer in the history of Phthian summers, nor because they hadn’t gone to Skyros like they always used to as a family, not even because his mother had packed her bags and finally left the house and Phthia for good. It wasn’t because of that. Achilles had expected that to happen at some point, perhaps not as soon or as abruptly, but she always used to tell him about her family up north and how she wanted to go back to them, and how little the warm and humid climate of Phthia agreed with her, and how much of a waste of air his father was.

Those weren’t the reasons why he had disliked that summer so much. It was because of the silence.

It was steady and deep, permeating every inch of the space, slithering under the door cracks and the half open windows. It wasn’t the tense and icy sort of quiet like before, when it felt like his parents were only a breath away from tearing at each other’s throats. It was more of a lull, a bubble of stillness, the calm before the storm. Achilles had expected it to break, had waited for the bubble to pop, but it never did. His father had disappeared into his work, and even when he was at home he would retreat to his office for ‘phone calls’ that would last hours, but Achilles could smell the whisky and cigar smoke that drifted down the long corridor.

And that was fine. Achilles didn’t need him anyway. He had his friends at school, Agamemnon and Menelaus and the others. They would all take their bikes and roam the town and the endless cotton fields beyond, miles upon miles of fluffy, snow white blooms; they even rode down to the beach once or twice. He had always found their company dull and Agamemnon had been loud and annoying even then, but Achilles hung out with them because to go back home would be to return to that silence and solitude, and he didn’t want to do that.

So he stayed out, for most of the summer. He continued staying out long after the summer had gone and passed, after the school had started and most of his friends, even Ajax and his brother, would go back home early to study. Achilles would stay out and just wander, wander.

He was failing classes. He was wasting away, and he knew it.

And then in his life wandered... him.

Well, not technically. His father had taken the car one day, and then he’d come back, and there Patroclus was, sitting in the passenger seat. He had only brought a single suitcase, which apparently held all of his belongings, and a small and peculiar guitar that used to belong to his mother, as Achilles learnt afterwards. Standing next to his father, who was tall and blonde and broad of shoulder, with his bronzed brow and his jade green eyes, Patroclus seemed like a lost child Peleus had picked up from the side of the road. He was small in stature, his dark curls falling over his eyes. He hadn’t looked Achilles in the eye, not even when Achilles had stood right before him.  

“Patroclus will be staying with us from now on,” his father had informed him merrily, then picked up Patroclus’ luggage to bring it up to the upstairs bedroom he would be staying in, next to Achilles’. “You two be good now, you hear?” he’d said before he left, and ruffled both of their hair.

And that had been it. Not much of an explanation, but Achilles hadn’t bothered looking for one. There was finally someone in the house besides himself and his father, who wasn’t there at all, really, and that was enough for him.

“Can you ride a bike?” Achilles had asked him.

Patroclus had looked up at him then for the first time, his round and dark eyes somewhat fearful, before he had given him a slow nod.

They didn’t spend much time apart, after this.

Read the rest on AO3!

[primatechnosynthpop]

Wow! Against all odds, I finally got around to actually writing the follow-up to I'm Gonna Be The Anti-Hero that's existed exclusively in my head for months! Well uh here it is :3

---

The secret underground room beneath Plymouth rock was dark and silent as always, save for the faint dripping of water through a crack in the ceiling. It figured that, after living there for countless centuries, the structural integrity would finally begin to erode. That dripping sound, although highly irritating when it first started a month or so ago, had now settled into background noise which John Smith paid no attention to. He was a pilgrim, not a witch; it wasn't like the water could hurt him.

Then again, he realized a few moments too late one rainy spring day, perhaps he should have reevaluated that statement. He was minding his own business sitting in his chair and reminiscing about the very old days (that was the only thing he could really do anymore, slowly decaying as his body was) when the soft and steady dripping suddenly escalated at an exponential rate into what sounded like a small waterfall. He turned his head to see a semi-transparent humanoid figure taking shape out of the water pooling in the corner--strangely tinted red, as though the water were mixed with blood. As the old pilgrim watched, jaw agape, the figure strode purposefully toward him, taking on a more solid form as it did so.

"What are you doing here, intruder?" John Smith demanded, one hand tightening around the hilt of his sword while his other hand reached behind his back to fumble for his musket.

"This secret underground room isn't government sanctioned," the stranger hissed. (Although... was he a stranger? John Smith somehow felt that he'd seen this youngster once before, but he couldn't quite place where or when.) "And you have no official identification registering you as a legal citizen. Not to mention, you haven't been paying taxes... disgraceful."

Before John Smith had the chance to concoct a retort or draw either of his weapons, the masked man's hands were around his throat and crushing his windpipe with a force that could only be driven by an inhuman amount of bloodlust. And within seconds, the life of a pilgrim that had been extended for centuries past its expiration date was finally put to an end.

*

"I can't believe they want us to make a clown movie at a time like this."

"I can believe it," Neil replied without looking up from the shopping list in his hand. "The studio wants a lot from us, remember? They're not going to care how sad we are. Anyway, it's been four months--" The emotions bubbling up within him refused to let his voice stay level, so he gritted his teeth and hissed out the rest of his sentence rather than let himself start crying in the middle of the dollar store. "We should be over it by now."

"Neil..." Kevin began in the way he'd often addressed Neil over the past few months--brow furrowed, voice edged with an obvious and vaguely patronizing concern--only to trail off and shake his head with a sigh. Apparently he'd finally given up on trying to make Neil feel better, which was just fine by him, because things are never gonna go back to the way they were before and it's my fault and I don't deserve to feel good about it.

"Anyway, we've got what we came for," Neil muttered, waving his hand in the general direction of Kevin's shopping basket without looking him in the eyes. "Let's go."

At the checkout counter, the cashier frowned and shook her head when Neil offered her a five-dollar bill. "Sorry," she told them, "But all this is going to cost $29.99."

"What? But we don't have that kind of money!" Neil lamented. "And we got this stuff from the clearance section... plus this is the dollar store, so shouldn't everything just cost a dollar?"

For a visual aid as he spoke, he grabbed one of the items they were ringing up--a bargain pack of multicoloured clown wigs--and shook it in the cashier's face. Apparently unmoved by his bargaining, she pursed her lips and crossed her arms.

"Maybe you should have checked the price tags first, sir."

"Huh? But, but..." Neil trailed off when he looked down at the price tag on the item in his hands. The bright orange tag had the original price, $7.50, crossed out and replaced with $2.35... but then below that, scribbled in tiny and barely legible font, it read "just kidding, it's actually eleven dollars now." "Aw, man," he groaned, tossing the pack down on the conveyor belt and sticking his hands in his pockets. "Just our luck."

Kevin had a thoughtful look in his eyes while he drove them home empty-handed. When he pulled up outside the clubhouse a few minutes later and they climbed out of the truck, he suddenly laid a hand on Neil's shoulder.

"Say, Neil, let's not get discouraged," he said. "I've got another idea for how we could get our hands on some props."

"Really?" Neil asked, perking up despite himself. "How?"

"Well, I think--" Kevin broke off as unexpectedly as he'd started, encouraging smile briefly dipping into a grimace. "...You know what, I'll take care of it myself. You can hold down the fort here, okay? I won't be long."

Neil's brow furrowed. "Okay, but what are you...?"

Without explaining himself any further, Kevin clapped him firmly on the back, hopped back into his truck, and drove off. Neil watched him recede down the road with bewilderment. Being all secretive like that wasn't like Kevin... Unless he's trying to protect me from something, he realized with a twinge of bitterness. That would be just like him, the way things had been recently. Ever since the past winter, and what had happened with Ryan, Kevin's latent big-brother-ish tendencies had escalated; now he watched over Neil like a hawk and freaked out every time he so much as stubbed his toe. Under different circumstances Neil would have relished being fussed over, but now it was more annoying than anything else. The thing was, he didn't deserve it. If anything... his fingers strayed up to absentmindedly fidget with the four-leaf clover pinned to his shirt. I deserve to have bad luck. I deserve to suffer, after what I did to Ryan.

Still, there wasn't much he could do about it now, and he wasn't going to say no to having the clubhouse to himself for a while. With a sigh, he disentangled his fingers from the clover's leaves, ran a hand through his overgrown bangs, and turned to head inside. Maybe he could play cards or something to pass the time.

*

A thick layer of dust had settled over everything in Ryan's house. That made sense, of course. It had been four months--no, five, since Ryan hadn't come home once while he was being a vigilante--since anyone had set foot there. Even so, Kevin was unprepared for the full-scale assault on his lungs when he opened the door, and promptly broke into a coughing fit.

"Man, good thing Neil stayed home," he thought aloud as he batted thick, swirling clouds of dust and spiderwebs out of his face. "The way things have been going for him lately..."

He'd probably choke to death on all this dust, he thought but didn't say aloud, and then felt bad for thinking it in the first place. Kevin didn't understand what had happened to Neil in the course of the past few days, but ever since picking up that clover, he seemed to be having a run of uncharacteristically bad luck. Whether it was random chance or something more suspicious was afoot, it sure wasn't doing much for his already thoroughly frayed nerves.

"Alright, calm down, James," he muttered to himself, shaking his head to clear his thoughts and ideally dispel the rest of the dust. "Focus. Concentrate. What are you here for? Props for your webisode. Right."

Keeping that objective in mind, he made his way past the front entrance and into the living room. There, a few objects were strewn around that caught his eye: a mannequin bust wearing a colourful wig; an eccentrically patterned jacket draped over a chair; a brush dipped into a rusted metal container filled with what he hoped was red paint. After looking around a little more he found a large cardboard box filled with mutilated stuffed animals, which he mostly emptied out and started filling with the useful items he came across.

All the while, a persistent feeling of unease stirred in his gut, becoming increasingly hard to ignore with each belonging of Ryan's he packed away. This is wrong. I shouldn't steal from him. Kevin paused and looked down at the box in his arms with a frown. One of the items sticking out the top, a blank-faced doll head, seemed to stare accusingly back at him. For a moment he saw it not as a plastic figure, but as a human form encased in ice and then broken apart. He blinked and the illusion quickly vanished, but an unsettling feeling remained in its wake. Neil was right; it had been months already. So why did going through Ryan's things make him feel so dirty? Ryan didn't need any of this stuff anymore. He was gone. Wasn't he?

With a weary sigh that, had anyone been around to ask, he would have accredited to the physical exertion of carrying heavy stuff around, Kevin set the box down and stepped back to survey the room he was in now. If he remembered right, this kind of room was called a study--there was an armchair with a few suspicious stains lurking beneath the dust, a desk strewn with papers all scrawled full of nonsense like the ravings of a mad scientist, and an ornate bookshelf. He wandered over to the latter furniture piece and ran his hands along the spines of the books, letting their leathery texture ground him in the present. He noticed several unusual bibles and other ancient texts, and a stash of calendars, some of which he was pretty sure had originally belonged to him or Neil; the up-to-date calendars and one of the more normal-looking bibles went into the box, while he decided everything else was better left where it was.

There was one other set of books he recognized: a teen fantasy series that Neil had often gushed about. Thinking back to the previous fall and all the events he normally tried not to think about, he experimentally lifted one of the fantasy books off the shelf. At once, just as he remembered from when Neil showed him, the bookshelf rumbled to the side and revealed a narrow staircase descending into the basement.

If anyone asked him, Kevin couldn't really say what compelled him to go down those stairs. The secret chamber was as empty as he remembered, with nothing down there that could possibly be of use for the webisode. And without a lantern, he could barely even see the only things that were there to speak of: the paintings of Ryan's ancestors.

"Ryan..." The name manifested on Kevin's lips unexpectedly as he stared, squinting through the dust and darkness, at the row of portraits grinning lopsidedly back at him. He knew the paintings couldn't hear him--hell, they weren't even paintings of Ryan himself, just his relatives. But their faces were practically identical to him, that face he hadn't seen in person for nearly half a year, and that alone was enough to clog up his throat with unbearable emotions.

The thought of It's a good thing Neil isn't here for this surfaced again, and this time Kevin had to agree with himself. Losing a close friend was... well, there was no way not to take it hard. But Neil seemed to have taken it particularly hard, even blaming himself, to the point where any mention of Ryan would immediately send him straight back into a depressive spiral no matter how happy he'd been a moment earlier. That was why Kevin had kept this idea a secret from his friend in the first place--that, and he wasn't sure if it was going to pan out and didn't want to get Neil's hopes up. He figured that if Neil asked where he got all the stuff he'd found, he'd just say it was from a garage sale.

Now, looking into the achingly familiar manic blue eyes of those portraits mounted on the wall, Kevin thought of those news reports about the mysterious killings that had been going on around town. If that really was Ryan, and he was somehow still alive...

"Why?" he whispered. Without really thinking, he reached out and pressed his hand against the painting as if to cup its cheek. "Why haven't you come home, Ryan? Where are you?"

*

The target was at home, alone in her bedroom playing video games. Casual, unbothered by any harm her actions may have caused. Shameful. In an icy swirl of perhaps not-so-righteous fury, the vigilante took form in the corner of her room and crept up behind her. With an average build and no weapons at the ready, she would be no trouble to dispose of.

"Playing dead in order to toy with an innocent man's feelings," he growled. "Some people would call it ghosting. I call it a crime punishable by death."

"Jesus christ, what the fuck?!" Wendy yelped as she spun to face the vigilante. "How'd you get in here?"

"You shouldn't worry about that," he told her, gloved hands already flexing in anticipation of tightening around her neck. Or perhaps this time he'd thrust his hand straight through her chest and rip out her heart--an appropriate punishment for her crimes. "You'll have plenty of time to figure it out once I send you to hell."

"Okay, seriously? What is happening here?" Eyes narrowed, Wendy put her game on pause and got to her feet to stare the vigilante down. "You said something about me playing dead..." Her eyes suddenly widened with recognition, and the vigilante waited for the fear to set in along with it, but instead she shook her head and laughed. A pitying laugh. "Wait, you're not friends with that, uh, that filmmaker guy, are you? Geez, I seriously must have dodged a bullet there."

"Filmmaker..." the vigilante murmured as the word echoed in his mind. Yes, that's right. The man she stood up was a filmmaker... of a sort. (How did he know that? How did he even know who this woman was? Those questions weren't worth dwelling on, he decided.) "You may have thought you dodged a bullet back then, but I'm here to see that the bullet circles back around and destroys you like you deserve."

Wendy crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow, any trace of fear on her face outmatched by her sad, pitying smile. "Sure, keep the edgy sayings coming, Mr. Hot Topic. And what's with the getup, anyway?" she added with a nod to the vigilante's predominantly dark outfit. "Must be kinda warm."

Warm? The vigilante snorted derisively. No, of course he wasn't too warm. His blood, as it always had for as far back as he could clearly remember, ran cold like that of a snake. He couldn't remember a time when he'd been warm. And he certainly couldn't remember a time when he'd worn anything other than his current ensemble. Rather than waste time telling this insufferable woman as much, though, he simply took a few purposeful strides to close the distance between them, hands extended and more than ready to kill.

"Ugh, get away from me, creep!"

In a startlingly swift motion, Wendy's leg shot out and connected with the vigilante's ankles, sending him toppling to the floor. He hissed in irration, though not in pain--when his sensations were already perpetually numb, it would take a lot more than that to hurt him--and got to his feet, dusting himself off with a scowl. In the few seconds this took, Wendy grabbed a baseball bat from the corner of the room. Now she stood brandishing it in perfect athletic form with a battle-ready glint in her eye.

"Not another step, you hear me?" When the vigilante didn't dignify her with a response, she gritted her teeth and gave the bat a twirl--attempting to show off, it seemed, but her hands shook slightly and she nearly dropped the bat, only barely managing to regain her grip on it. "My mom is in the other room right now, and... well, she hasn't done anything wrong, so you don't want to punish her, right? And if anything happens to me..."

He stiffened at Wendy's mention of her mother. An innocent citizen? That was the type of person a vigilante was meant to protect at all costs; otherwise vigilante justice was no better than the police. But no one is innocent in this city. Even so, he understood the implicit threat--not that Wendy's mother would bring him down herself, but that either woman could very well call the police. And the last thing he wanted was to get law enforcement involved.

"...Fine," he snarled at last, turning on his heel with a twirl of his vigilante cape. "You can live a while longer. But I'll be back, and then you'll regret your sins."

He heard her gasp but didn't bother sparing her another glance as he let his form dissolve into a splash of red-tinted ice, sinking through her floorboards and off to thwart another criminal.

*

Slowly and carefully as a technician deactivating a bomb, Neil set the three of spades down across the top of the three other cards he'd lined up on the table. The humble beginnings of a tower stood for a moment, and he held his breath eagerly as he reached for another card to place on top, only for it to suddenly shudder and collapse like an anime girl who'd stood in the rain for too long.

"Dang it!" Neil threw his hands in the air in exasperation. When he did, a droplet of his own blood landed on his glasses, and he realized with a start that his hand was bleeding--just a paper cut, but still, he'd better wash up.

As he ran his hand under cold water, transfixed by the sight of the blood swirling down the drain, a sudden cracking noise rang out just above him. His head snapped up to stare at the spontaneously cracked bathroom mirror. His reflection stared back, stricken and gaunt, as shards of shattered glass rained down into the sink, where they mixed with the water and the blood. Neil shivered, his breath quickening.

Icy water... ice, blood, broken mirrors. All mixed together. Shattered. Blood, guts, ice, mixed together, down the drain. My fault my fault my fault my fault--

"No," he whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut and digging his nails into his scalp as hard as he could. "No! I didn't do it, I didn't... I didn't mean to..."

Deep breaths, a voice in the back of his head reminded him. It sounded like Kevin's voice, worried to the point of being slightly patronizing. Neil grimaced, annoyed at his own brain for manifesting its self-preservation in such a way, but he complied nonetheless. Keeping his eyes wrenched shut, he took several deep breaths in and out until his heartbeat slowed to normal--he hadn't even noticed it speeding up--and his hands didn't shake when he lowered them away from his head.

"Hey, you know what'd really make me feel better?" he said aloud to nobody in particular, putting on a broad smile and wiping his hands off on a towel. "A nice hot bath! Yep, that'll counteract my blood running cold, alright..."

He ran his hands up and down his arms as he spoke, although he didn't know who he was trying to fool; the chill that had settled into his bones had nothing to do with the temperature. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure who this whole performance of forced cheerfulness was meant for... the studio, maybe. He wouldn't put it past them to hide cameras everywhere. Either way, even if it wouldn't fix his psychological issues, a bath really would be pretty nice. He put the plug in and started running the tub, with the water temperature set just hot enough that it would scald him a little at first.

He wasn't sure exactly what happened when he sat down on the edge of the tub to take his socks off, whether he slipped on something or leaned too far back or what, but suddenly he lost balance. And by the time he realized he was falling backward, he only had a split-second to curse his rotten luck before his head connected with the wall and he blacked out.

*

In the end, Kevin managed to get a pretty good haul from Ryan's house. In addition to the stuff he and Neil could use for their webisode, he'd retrieved the calendars and a couple other things it looked like Ryan had stolen from them, as well as their old communicator wristwatches. (He wasn't sure if the watches fell into the camp of things Ryan had stolen, or if they'd just brought them over to his place for a sleepover once and forgotten them there. Either way, Kevin figured it could come in handy to start using them again.)

"Hey, Neil," he called as he stepped into the clubhouse with the box in his arms and kicked the door shut behind him. "I'm back."

There was no reply. Frowning, Kevin set the box down with a slight grunt of effort and wandered through the living room and down the hall. There were a few playing cards scattered on the table, suggesting that Neil had been trying to make a house of cards but given up halfway. Kevin couldn't really blame him for that; assembling cards in such a way that they'd actually stay upright was yet another thing that had been more in Ryan's ballpark than in either of theirs. Still, that didn't explain where Neil was now...

"Neil? You there, bud?" Still being met with no answer, Kevin came to a stop outside the bathroom door, which was ajar with water pooling out from inside. "Oh, man, that's not a good sign..."

He gave a tentative knock, and when there was still no response, grabbed the handle and pushed the door open. The sight that met his eyes when he did so immediately made his breath hitch and his blood run cold. The broken mirror over the vanity reflected his slack-jawed expression as he stared at the overflowing bathtub, the pair of still-clothed legs dangling over the rim, and the smudge of blood on the wall leading down to the head of the man those legs belonged to, slumped inside the tub with his head submerged in the water.

"Neil!!"

Kevin sprinted across the room to lift Neil out of the tub. It then took him a few seconds longer to turn off the faucet and pull the plug, as by that point the shock had turned to dread and his hands were shaking. Once the water was slowly starting to drain, he fell to his knees and pulled Neil tight to his chest, one hand clutching at the back of his soaked-through t-shirt while the other fumbled across the back of his head searching for the source of the blood. It didn't take long for him to find the slightly matted patch of damp hair indicating where Neil had banged his head against the wall. Kevin swallowed hard as dread leapt up to claw at his throat. The only question is... how long was he submerged?

"Neil," he whispered, and was almost embarrassed to hear how hoarsely his own voice came out. "Wake up. Please."

No response. Kevin reluctantly pulled back to hold Neil at an arm's length, and shuddered at how limply his friend's body flopped forward. He noticed, with a white-hot jolt of irrational anger, that the four-leaf clover was still in place. Fat lot of good that thing's done for him. He grabbed the clover and crumpled it in his fist, all the while tears pressed against the back of his eyes; he struggled not to let them fall. Damn it... first Ryan, now Neil... What kind of protector was he? What kind of friend?

He slammed his fist, the useless clover still clenched within, against the drenched floor tiles. At that moment, the lightbulb above his head exploded and sent sparking wires raining down around him. As soon as electricity met water, it sent a nasty shock through Kevin's veins; he screamed out of equal parts surprise and pain and scrambled up onto the countertop, which was barely wide enough to support him.

On the floor below, Neil's body convulsed. Then his eyes snapped open and he drew in a gasp that turned into a scream halfway through. Although touching his friend's hand sent the current through his own body for a moment, Kevin was quick to grab him anyway, and he managed to pull Neil safely out of the electrified water and into a fierce embrace. Neil kept shrieking, and he squirmed frantically around, not seeming to recognize his surroundings at first.

"It's alright, Neil," Kevin assured him despite how hard his own heart was pounding. "I've got you."

"Oh..." Neil's body slackened, and he pulled back to blink slowly at Kevin, realization dawning in his eyes. His cheeks coloured with embarrassment and he ducked his head. "Uh, thanks."

Neither of them said anything else, for lack of ability or perhaps willingness to put it into words. After a moment, Kevin realized he was still holding the clover, and he handed it back to Neil, who took it with a dip of his head and a murmur of acknowledgement, and pinned it to his soaking wet t-shirt.

Somehow out of everything in the room, themselves included, that little scrap of plant matter was still intact. And although he wasn't superstitious, that simple fact was what would stick in Kevin's mind for the rest of the day, turning it over until he could only conclude: Yep, there's definitely something weird going on with that thing.

*

Despite the many months he'd prowled the city, this was the vigilante's first time in the hideout of a proper gang. It looked about the way he expected: dimly lit, no windows, weapons hung up on the wall and cigarette butts littering the floor. The gang members, dressed primarily in leather jackets with a few in denim, lounged in chairs leaning too far back, or on top of tables, or on their motorcycles parked right in the middle of the room. Most of them didn't even notice the vigilante as he approached. They were too caught up chattering and cackling amongst themselves like a nest of overgrown crows. The one gang member who did seem to notice the vigilante from the get-go simply looked up at him with raised eyebrows and addressed him once he got close enough to strike.

"Hey, haven't seen you around before. Looking to join the club?"

"Hardly," he snarled. "This whole place is crawling with criminals."

The whole room broke into laughter at that. The vigilante gritted his teeth, fists clenching at his sides. These people were different from the criminals he'd taken down before; between their numbers and all the weapons they had easy access to, they might just pose a serious threat if he wasn't careful.

"You're the ones, aren't you?" he went on once the laughter had died down and the gang members were all watching him with a mix of bemusement and curiosity. No trace of fear amongst them yet, but that would change... "Throwing bricks at innocent people, even seeking to damage their property. Absolutely detestable."

"Woah, hang on," another of the gang members cut in sharply, reaching for a weapon as they stood. "First off, the whole brick throwing thing was months ago. Second of all, we never did that to innocent people, you know!"

"Yeah!" yet another gang member cut in, pumping her fist in the air. "Only to those losers who blew up our boss!"

...Boss?

The vigilante slowly turned, a deeper chill than normal running down his spine, as a strangely familiar smug cackle echoed from behind him. He came face-to-face with a man in a tank top and baseball cap, sneering at him with his arms crossed. Max. Gulping, the vigilante took a step backward. He's their boss?

(How did he know that name? How had he known Wendy's name either, for that matter? Why, out of all the criminals in the city, did a select few ignite disproportionate resentment within him? He'd dealt with some of these people before, he knew, but when he tried to remember when and how it all just turned to slush in his brain.)

"Yep, those losers got what was coming to 'em," Max said. "Except not really, 'cause they didn't suffer enough. But it's okay, we'll get 'em extra hard next time."

"No..." For reasons he couldn't quite explain, the vigilante's voice shook with equal parts fury and sudden fear. "Don't you dare hurt them."

"Huh?" Max tilted his head, already slightly squinted eyes narrowing further. "Heyyy, wait a minute, aren't you one of--?"

Before he could finish that thought, the vigilante was upon him with a karate chop to the windpipe. It was a more reckless attack than he'd planned, and even as Max stumbled backward coughing, he could hear the rest of the gang grabbing their weapons and running up behind him. But it was fine; the vigilante could take them all on and then some. He could kill any number of people if it was for the sake of defending his friends.

(Friends? Did he have friends? Somehow it felt that he must have, once. But that was strange, because the only thing he could clearly remember himself ever being was a cold-blooded vigilante.)

*

"Don't you see? Society's the one to blame! It's society's fault that he had no choice but to become this way!"

As Kevin delivered this speech, waving his arms dramatically toward the focus of the scene, Neil spun the video camera around to point it toward himself. Hopefully the studio would think of the disorienting cinematography for this webisode as a bold artistic choice rather than thinking of it as amateurish and embarrassing. He then leapt back, breaking into maniacal laughter with his prop gun raised in the air. Under ideal circumstances, this role might have been better suited to Ryan, but... well, they couldn't stay hung up on him forever; they had a job to do.

"Eh-heh-heh! Thanks to society, I have the urge to kill!" Neil twirled around to show off his clown costume, while just out of frame, Kevin hastily put on a wig and fake mustache. "And now... I'll kill this innocent man, who's different than the guy who was talking a minute ago!"

(It was fascinating--fascinating and dumb--how a broken mirror and a bit of blood could set him off, but something as heavy as a gun in his hand only brought him the faintest twinge of discomfort, easily ignored for the sake of making a webisode. After all, as Kevin had assured him many times over the past few months, it was the gun and its villainous weilder who were to blame for what had happened to Ryan. On an intellectual level Neil knew that was true--and besides, if he hadn't deflected that bullet, all three of them would have died. But knowing that did nothing to redirect when and why the darkness in his brain manifested.)

Now, much to Neil's surprise as he took aim with his prop gun, Kevin shouted "Cut!" and walked across the abandoned lot they were filming in to turn the camera off.

Neil lowered the gun, confused, as his costar removed his costume with that now all-too-familiar look of concern etched across his face. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know... somehow I've just got a bad feeling about this," Kevin muttered. "Maybe try firing into the air a couple times first."

Neil complied, and was met with the expected result from the prop: a couple of clicks indicating an empty chamber. "You worry too much these days, Kev," he said as he fired one more blank into the sky and then lowered the prop again. "It's not a real gun; it can't--"

As he spoke, his finger accidentally pressed the trigger again, and he broke off with a yelp at the sudden burst of pain in his right foot. He dropped the apparently very real gun with a clatter and clutched at his injured appendage, losing his balance in the process. Kevin swore under his breath and rushed forward to catch him. Before his friend could reach him, Neil's other foot came down on a wide crack in the pavement. A chill ran through him, momentarily distracting him from the throbbing pain, but it passed as quickly as it arose without seeming to trigger any effects.

"By god, what's happening to you?" Kevin exclaimed as he grabbed Neil by the shoulders and held him upright. "You've been so unlucky lately, it... it almost seems like a curse."

"A curse?" Neil stiffened, but quickly forced himself to shrug and morphed his grimace into a dismissive eye-roll. "Pfft, what are you talking about? There's no curse! I've just been, y'know, having an off-day..."

"Neil." There was that concerned look again, that almost parental tone of voice, as Kevin stared him down and tightened his grip on Neil's shoulders. "A couple hours ago you almost died, and now... you can tell something weird is going on, right? And, look--" He sighed, gaze darkening. "I don't exactly know how to fix it, but whatever's happening, I can't just sit back and watch you succumb to it. I can't lose you, too, Neil... not after..."

He trailed off with a faint warble in his voice, lowering his head. Neil gulped, a heavy weight surfacing in his chest. It was true; though he hated to admit it, at this point it was hard to deny that he was cursed. And yet, even as his foot throbbed around the spot where the bullet was lodged and his shoe was slowly stained from within by his own blood, it was hard to convince himself that he should accept help. On some level, didn't he deserve this? Wasn't this a fitting comeuppance for getting one of his friends killed?

Yet here was his other friend, clutching at him ever tighter to the point where his grip on Neil's shoulders was nearly as painful as hitting his head or getting mildly electrocuted or shooting himself in the foot. I'm not the only one who lost Ryan, he reminded himself--another thing he knew perfectly well on an intellectual level, but easy to forget in practice. Kevin is hurting too. I shouldn't make him hurt any more.

"Fine, I admit it," he sighed, letting his tensed-up shoulders slump. "I'm unlucky, okay? And if you think it's possible--" He tore the clover off his shirt and glared down at it-- "then we're going to beat this thing."

*

For as tough as the gang presented themselves, it must have been most of these people's first time in an actual fight. The vigilante swerved to avoid weak punches, clumsy kicks, poor attempts at stabbing. It all blended together after a while, and he stopped thinking of the gang members as individuals; they were just an indistinguishable swarm of insects whose attacks were easily dodged. Unimportant, save for their leader.

The vigilante had Max pinned to the floor now, holding his thrashing form in place with one arm while he brought his other fist down on the ruffian's face, over and over, as hard as he could. Not every blow connected cleanly, and Max had managed to bite him several times already, but that was irrelevant. Criminals must be brought to justice. That was why the vigilante hated these people, wasn't it? Because they were criminals. Yes, what other reason could he have, when this was all he'd ever been?

And then, just as he managed to land a blow to Max's jaw that left him defiantly spitting out blood and a couple of teeth, the vigilante's spine snapped.

It took a moment for him to register what had happened. He just heard a loud crack, and a sharp pain shot through him, and suddenly he couldn't hold his legs in place and collapsed. Max wasted no time taking advantage; he delivered a kick to the vigilante's gut that sent him flying back across the room, where he hit a wall and slumped to the ground, gasping in breathless agony. At once the other gang members closed in on him. Grimacing, the vigilante drew himself up onto his hands and knees, then braced himself against the wall and, with a far greater strain of effort than expected, dragged himself upright. By the time he'd managed to get to his feet, dozens of knives were inches away from him.

Then, to his surprise, Max pushed through to the front of the crowd and held his arms out to hold back his underlings. "Nuh-uh, this one's mine," he told them, sneering as though oblivious to the blood dribbling from between his lips. "I said I'd get him twice tomorrow, and I meant it."

The vigilante flinched as Max took a swipe at him. But rather than a fist connecting with his face, he was met only with the shock of exposure as the bully grabbed his mask and triumphantly yanked it off his face. He was left dumbfounded, blinking, as his vision readjusted to the light.

Wait a minute, I remember--

And then came the punch, square in the nose. Ryan yelped, pressing his gloved hand over his nose to stop the bleeding. When he dodged another punch, his body failed to cooperate and he crashed to the ground again, back aching furiously and heart pounding against his ribcage.

How and why his back had broken, he couldn't say, but one thing was clear: he was horrendously outmatched. Max was saying something now, gloating as he advanced on Ryan with a dagger in his hands, but Ryan couldn't make out the words over the blood rushing in his head. Why on earth had he gotten into a fight like this in the first place? What was he doing? He had to get out of there!

With that thought, yet another thing happened that Ryan didn't entirely understand. (Ryan didn't understand, but the vigilante did. It was one of the few things the vigilante knew: dissolve, reform, enact ruthless vengeance, dissolve again.) His body shuddered, and suddenly he found his solid flesh and bone giving way to a slurry of blood and ice that slipped through the cracks in the floor and disappeared. Then he was formless, freefalling through the dark, or at least that was what it felt like. When he took shape again it felt like dragging himself out of quicksand. Yet when he raised his slowly resolidifying head and looked around, he found himself in the basement of his own home, staring up at the portraits of his ancestors that had started it all.

No. Not started it all. "I had a life before this," he whispered, voice raw with the shock of memory and too many months spent speaking in an inhuman growl. "My name is Ryan, I have a life and a job and friends, I..."

Yes, that's right. Friends. Where were they? He closed his eyes and tried to remember. Each recent memory that took form in his mind was accompanied by a crashing wave of guilt and regret, and soon his body shook and tears pricked at his wrenched-shut eyes. That's right... I became a vigilante, and I teamed up with such a horrible person, let him manipulate me, all because I was too afraid to go back and apologize. And then...

The last thing he remembered, just after the flash of light and shock of paralyzing cold, was the sound of a gunshot, something shattering, and Neil screaming.

"Oh, dear god," Ryan whispered. He raised his head, opening his eyes and lowering his hands from his newly tear-stained face, and sat back on his heels as though worshipping the paintings before him. "What have I become?"

*

The ropes were just slightly too tight around Neil's limbs to be comfortable; he couldn't resist squirming a little as Kevin laid out the open bible on the end table next to his proton pack and began reading from it.

"Okay, um, let's see... ex-or-ciz-amus te, omnis immunde spiritus..." He squinted at the yellowed, faded pages, biting his lip. "Omni satanica pot-es-tas, omnis incurs--incursio infernalis adversarii... uh..."

"You're doing great," Neil called from his position tied to the bed frame; Kevin gave him a weary smile and thumbs up.

As Kevin continued reciting the verse, occasionally stumbling over a particularly tricky Latin word, the room's temperature eventually dropped a few degrees. Neil shivered, but his heartbeat picked up in excitement. He could feel something stirring in his blood like ripples on a lake, and when the furniture in the room began to quiver, so too did his body in eager anticipation.

"...Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux..." A chill wind swept through the room; Kevin gritted his teeth, one hand pressing down on the bible to hold its pages in place while he grabbed his proton pack with the other. "Vade retro Satana! Nun-quam-suade mihi vana!"

The furniture rumbled louder. Neil's eyes widened as an entire bookcase lifted off the ground. "Kevin, watch out!"

"Hang on, Neil, I'm almost done. Uh, where was I... sunt mala quae libas..."

"No, Kevin, the--"

"Just one more line, okay? Ipse ven--"

"KEVIN!"

That last terrified yell was what it took for Kevin to finally turn, just in time to see the six-foot block of polished oak fly directly into him. Neil shrieked and thrashed against his bindings with all his might, but even if he weren't tied up, there was nothing he could have done. The bookcase came crashing down, its contents spilling out onto the floor around it in a flurry of paper. And when the dust settled, Kevin was pinned beneath it, unmoving.

"N... no..." Neil whimpered. Dread tightened like a noose around his throat as the horrible thought seeped into his mind: This is because of me. Now I've gotten them both killed.

"Oh, yes, what a tragedy... just your luck, isn't it?"

Neil's blood ran cold. He raised his head to see the translucent, smoke-shrouded figure of a giant clover looming over him. Its four leaves, dark green tipped with crimson and speckled with barnacles, opened down the middle to reveal a row of needle-sharp fangs. For a second, "Where did you come from?" was on the tip of Neil's tongue. But it was just as well that he was too terrified to speak, because no sooner than the question appeared in his mind, he realized the obvious answer. Oh, right. This is the demon that cursed me.

"Don't worry, your friend is alive... for now," the demon jeered. "But that could change. It's so easy for accidents to happen, you know?"

As if to demonstrate, the demon's leaves fluttered and suddenly a fire sprang up dangerously close to the scattered pile of books on the floor. When Neil screamed in protest, the demon laughed, and part of the ceiling gave in, sending down a controlled shower of debris to put out the fire before anything flammable could catch.

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Neil exclaimed with a shake of his head; he'd be almost exasperated if he weren't so terrified. "You're really powerful and want to hurt people, geez, not exactly a challenging concept. So, what do I have to do?"

That question seemed to give the demon pause. "...Do?"

"You know, to appease you or whatever. If you're threatening me with Kevin's life, then there must be something you want from me, right?" An idea occurred to Neil just then, and his already hammering heart beat even harder, to the point where he hoped the demon couldn't hear it and tell how freaked out he was. "Hey, it must suck having to be a clover. What if a lawnmower or forest fire had gotten to you before I did? And if you like hurting people so much..." He paused, smirking as the demon leaned toward him with obvious interest. "Wouldn't it be easier just to possess my whole body instead of wasting time messing with my luck?"

"That's..." The demon hesitated, its leaves curling up in what looked like excitement. "Ah. Ah-ha-ha! You're a clever little mortal, aren't you?"

"But don't get it twisted," he put in, glaring defiantly up at the demon despite hardly being in a position to threaten anyone. "You have to promise not to hurt anyone else. Especially not Kevin."

"It's a deal!"

Before Neil could stop and reconsider whether this was really a good idea, the demon dove toward him, row of fangs wide open as though it were going to bite his head off. He flinched a split-second before something cold and stinging like nettles clamped around him.

When he opened his eyes again, the world was tinted dark green as if viewed through a dingy screen, his head felt hazy... and he couldn't move, at least not of his own volition. Even opening his eyes just then wasn't his decision. He heard himself cackle, felt his arms and legs flex far harder than he'd known he was physically capable of flexing, breaking the ropes that bound him to the bed frame and setting his body free to do whatever the demon wanted.

"Hah..." the demon muttered in his voice as it made him walk over to where Kevin lay, still trapped and unconscious. The demon knelt down and poked experimentally at Kevin's shoulder and forearm. "This one has more muscle. It might have been a better choice for possession, if it wasn't so damaged already..."

For one petrifying moment, the demon grabbed Kevin's head and stared intently at him, stretching Neil's face into a grin so wide it made his whole face ache, and Neil's mind raced with horrible thoughts of things the demon might make his own hands inflict upon his poor helpless friend. But the demon simply laughed and dropped Kevin, who let out a low groan as his head lolled to the side--an indication that at least he really was still alive. But all of a sudden Neil had trouble believing that small mercy was really worth it.

"Ah, well, this body will do," the demon decided. "Let's take it out on the town and see how long it lasts!"

*

This time when the vigilante materialized in Wendy's room, she did little more than roll her eyes and move to grab her baseball bat. However, rather than try to attack her or even growl out any threats, the vigilante took two shaky steps and then collapsed, catching himself against her dresser. Wendy's eyes widened as she took a closer look at his face. His mask was off now, revealing a pair of striking blue eyes glistening with obvious distress, cheeks flushed with exertion, and a streak of half-dried blood running from his bruised nose. And when he spoke, it wasn't in the gravelly tone she'd heard from him before, but in a quiet higher-pitched voice--almost a whimper.

"Please... tell me..."

Wendy hung back, caught between a sharp tug of sympathy in her heart and a very rational wariness based on their previous encounter. The vigilante tried to walk again, and again nearly fell; his face wrenched up and he let out a pained hiss. At that, sympathy won out over rationality. Wendy edged toward him with her baseball bat in hand, and when she was close enough, held it out to him.

"Hey, uh... here. It's not exactly medically sanctioned, but maybe you could use this like a cane?"

"Oh... good idea, thank you!" He broke into a grin, and Wendy shivered; somehow he was far scarier when his eyes were bright and cheerful. "Terribly sorry for how I treated you last time, by the way. I really wasn't myself."

"Uh-huh?" While the vigilante tested out the makeshift cane, Wendy sat down on her bed, arms crossed. "And who are you, anyway?"

"I'm Ryan... or at least I think I still am." His smile faltered, and he looked away, anxiously running a hand through his hair. It was starting to come unpinned, and his hat was askew; evidently he'd been through a lot in the few hours it had been since their first encounter. "It's been... strange, lately. I don't think I'm entirely human anymore, if I ever was. But I came back here because there's something I want to understand."

"You want to know why I ghosted your friend?" It was just a guess, but Ryan nodded; Wendy smiled privately to herself for having figured it out. "Alright, I can tell you..."

She uncrossed her arms and leaned back on her bed, thinking back to the disastrous date she'd gone on several months prior. It was a story she'd recited many times to friends, relatives, other first dates as sort of a half-joking warning ("So, as long as you don't blow it as much as that guy did, we should be good...") and the more she told it, the more warped and exaggerated it became within her memory. But when she really thought back on it now, it hadn't been so disastrous at all--pretty damn awkward, sure, but not even close to the worst date she'd been on.

"Kevin actually seemed really sweet," she recalled, smiling despite herself at the memory of his big dorky grin. "I would have gone on a second date with him. But then, first thing the next morning, I read in the news that some guy got arrested right outside the restaurant while we were on our date. And the criminal's name? Neil. Same name as the 'friend' Kevin had said was helping him out." She shrugged, lips twisting into a frown. "I just got kinda freaked out, you know? Like, 'oh geez, did I go on a date with a drug dealer or serial killer or something?' Of course it probably wasn't anything that serious, and pretending to be dead was probably an overreaction, but... well, what's done is done."

Wendy was so caught up in her own memories as she explained all this that she wasn't really observing Ryan's reactions. Once she concluded her story, she glanced over to find him sitting on the floor with his legs tucked up awkwardly beneath him, the baseball bat in his lap; he was staring at the floor, expression unreadable. He stayed like that for a long moment, not seeming to notice that Wendy had stopped talking, until she cleared her throat. Then he jumped to attention, eyes flashing like those of a woodland cryptid in headlights.

"Ah! Yes, of course... well, I still don't entirely understand, but I think I resent you less now." Ryan tilted his head and shot her another shiver-inducing grin. (Whether it was supposed to be threatening or not, she had no idea.) "And you're right; I almost forgot--we're all criminals too, Neil and probably even Kevin and especially myself! So how can I be a vigilante?" He answered his own rhetorical question with a shake of his head, manic grin softening into a melancholy smile. "It's ridiculous. I've been so foolish."

With that, his body began to ripple, losing a little of its solidity. But before he could break apart and dissolve through the floorboards like last time, a chirpy little beep-beep-beedle-beep noise rang out. Ryan's eyebrows shot up, and he glanced down at an accessory around his wrist... Wait, is that one of those communicator watches like the one Kevin had?

If it was, Ryan wasn't quick to answer it. He simply stared, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at the beeping device in silence. Although she knew even less about Ryan than she knew about his apparently only slightly more normal friends, and she didn't normally care to get too involved in the personal affairs of strangers, he was still in the middle of Wendy's bedroom. And the longer that little jingle repeated, the more annoying it got. So she cleared her throat again and asked, in as polite a tone as she could manage given the circumstances,

"So, are you gonna answer that, or what?"

*

It was a stupid, pointless idea. Not an idea at all, really. Just the last scraps of... not even hope, that was pretty much deplenished at the moment, but effort. The effort not to let everything fall apart even further than it already had.

Kevin had woken with a throbbing pain throughout pretty much his whole body. Judging by the crushing weight pressing down on his torso, he was lucky to have woken up at all. The only parts of him not pinned down were his head and right arm, and even those hurt to move, though at least the spinning in his head put some degree of separation between himself and his broken body. Forget about trying to wriggle free when it hurt just to breathe.

So there he was, stuck, the shelf slowly crushing the air out of him, and Neil was gone. Where to, he didn't know. When he craned his neck he could see the empty bed frame, and the ropes broken and discarded at the foot of it. The bible he'd gotten from Ryan's house was facedown beside the tipped-over end table, next to a crushed and twisted lump of metal and plastic that he was horrified to recognize as his beloved proton pack. So wherever Neil was now, he must have still been cursed... or worse. And there was nothing Kevin could do about it.

Unless. Grimacing at the way his joints twinged, he raised his unpinned arm above his head. There on his wrist, perfectly intact despite everything he'd been through, was his communicator wristwatch. In all the hubbub of that day, he'd never gotten around to mentioning them to Neil, so his friend wouldn't be wearing his. But what if...?

It was stupid. It was pointless. There was no way in hell. But it was the only thing he could do. In a display so lacking in dignity that he was grateful nobody was around to see it, Kevin used his teeth and tongue for lack of a free hand to dial in the frequency and send off a signal. The watch's screen flashed in affirmation; he let his head flop against the floor with a weary sigh. Now all he could do was wait.

When he was at Ryan's house going through his things, and he found those communicator wristwatches, he'd only found two of them. And although that could have meant a dozen different things, there was just one wild, far-fetched possibility that any last semblance of hope now rested upon: that the third watch was missing because Ryan was alive, and he was still wearing his.

He didn't expect to get a response. By the time he did, he was struggling to stay awake--funny thing, trying to breathe with fifty pounds of wood pressed directly on your chest really takes it out of you. But he snapped to attention, or the closest he could get when his head was swimming and his body was beginning to go numb from lack of circulation, the moment he heard that voice crackling through the speaker.

"H-hello? Kevin?"

The relief that coursed through his veins was so overwhelming, especially on top of everything else, that he could only laugh--only for it to quickly turn into hacking as his ribs offered a sharp jab of protest. He raised his sleeve to wipe away a streak of blood that dribbled from his lips before speaking into the watch.

"Ryan. Where are you?" He regretted wasting time with that question the moment he asked it; he could tell from the way his organs felt like they were curling in on themselves as he spoke that he didn't have the energy for a full conversation. So before Ryan could stammer out a proper response, Kevin continued: "Neil is in trouble. You've gotta help him."

"What?" The shrill uptick of anxiety in Ryan's voice was palpable, and even just hearing that voice in and of itself stirred up a whole miasma of feelings that there was no time to properly react to. "What's going on? Are you okay? You sound--"

"I'm fine," Kevin lied through gritted teeth. "And... I don't know exactly where Neil is, but I know he's in trouble." A choking mix of emotions and his own blood swelled in his throat as his slowly blurring gaze wandered to the facedown bible. "I've tried to do some stuff today that I couldn't do without you. I-- we need you, Ryan. So, please... help."

With that final plea, something broke within him like a dam that he hadn't even realized was cracking. His arm flopped to the ground, wrist landing near his ear, where the communicator watch kept emitting Ryan's voice as it slowly rose in pitch until he was almost shouting. But even as his friend called frantically out to him, Kevin found it harder to make out the words. He groaned, letting his head loll to the side and his eyes fall shut. The last sensation he was aware of as darkness closed around him was that there was something wet on his face.

*

"Kevin, are you still there? Hello? Kevin!"

He wasn't responding. Why wouldn't he be responding, if the situation was so urgent? Maybe because he couldn't respond. Because he was--

"What are you going to do?" Wendy's voice cut into the swirl of panic Ryan was rapidly descending into. She hovered over his shoulder, peering down at the watch with wide, anxious eyes. The watch's screen had gone dark. No signal. Yes, indeed, what to do?

"What else? I have to save Neil."

If Kevin didn't know where Neil was, then there was no way that Ryan should have been able to instantly find him. But when he closed his eyes and let his vigilante instincts take over, he found that he didn't have to know where someone was. Whatever dark magic was infused in him now, letting him exist in this not-quite-human state even after what should by all accounts have been his death, it was hardwired for vengeance. And saving Neil meant exacting vigilante justice on whoever or whatever was harming him. With that in mind, the vigilante dissolved in a flurry of blood-tinted ice and reformed seconds later in the place it somehow knew it needed to be.

The first thing Ryan noticed when he appeared on the rooftop was the storm brewing overhead. He raised his eyebrows at that; earlier that day there hadn't been a cloud in the sky--and for that matter, when he looked around, it appeared that most of the sky was still perfectly clear, with the storm clouds being localized around this building. The second thing he noticed, upon peering over the edge of the roof, was that he wasn't on just any rooftop, but a skyscraper that towered above every other building in the vicinity. Lastly, he noticed a flagpole at the far corner of the rooftop, several feet away from him. And that was when his gaze fell upon Neil.

Neil was laughing as he swayed back and forth, clad in a brightly patterned jacket that wasn't his usual style at all, his arms and legs wrapped tight around the tall metal pole. Above him, the dark clouds lit up in a flash, followed almost instantly by a rumble of thunder. Although these particular stormclouds didn't come with rain, Ryan shivered. An incredulous exclamation was on the tip of his tongue (What on earth are you doing, stop it, you'll be killed!) when Neil locked eyes with Ryan, and he realized with a jolt of horror that this wasn't Neil at all--his body, yes, but someone or something else was controlling it. His mouth was stretched into a grin far wider than what a human face could normally achieve, and rather than their usual brown, his eyes glowed a sickly shade of green.

"Why, if it isn't my dear friend Ryan!" Neil--or whatever was piloting him--called, raising one arm off the pole in an exaggerated wave. "Oh boy, the guy I got this body from is sure surprised to see you alive! And as much as I'd love to send you plummeting off the edge of this building, I did promise not to hurt anyone else, so..." He waved his hand in a circle, unnaturally glowing eyes crinkling with amusement. "How about instead I pull you in a little closer so you can get a nice good look when your friend's body fries?"

With that, a sudden gust of wind blew into Ryan from behind, sending him stumbling forward. When he attempted to regain his footing, his broken spine betrayed him once again and he flopped to the ground with an undignified oof just a few feet away from the base of the flagpole. Grimacing, he pushed himself up and crawled the remaining short distance to grab Neil's ankle. As he did so, he noticed there was a bloodstained hole in his friend's shoe, and that his pant leg was slightly damp and already bore a few singe marks. Between that and whatever had happened to Kevin... he shuddered at the thought of what his friends had gone through in his absence.

"Nice try, vigilante," the thing in Neil's body jeered. "But I've gotta say, you don't pose much of a threat since I broke your spine."

He stomped his other foot down on Ryan's hand; Ryan yelped and instinctively released his grip. And at the very instant he let go, in such perfectly unlucky timing that only a supernatural entity could orchestrate, the stormclouds above them opened up with a searing, crackling, blindingly bright lighting strike.

Neil tilted his head back and laughed at the top of his lungs as countless volts of electricity tore through him. That horrendous laughter drowned out Ryan's screams of protest, not that there was anything he could do anyway in his current state, when he couldn't so much as get to his feet. All he could do was lay there and gape in horror as Neil's body shuddered and his flesh began to sizzle and burn.

Though it felt like an eternity of torture, the lightning strike couldn't have lasted for more than a few seconds. When it ended, Neil dropped like a ragdoll into Ryan's arms. Ryan, too stricken to even check for a pulse, simply stared blankly into his friend's glazed-over eyes. Then Neil blinked, and his eyes were glowing green again, and he laughed, the sound rougher now that it was being produced by a charred set of lungs.

"Ah-ha-ha-ha! I wasn't expecting this body to survive that! Can you believe Neil is still kicking in here?" He tapped a finger against his head, then sat up with a playful kick of his legs. "...Or is he? It would be just like a demon to lie, wouldn't it?" He grabbed Ryan's chin with his burnt and blackened fingernails and forcefully tilted his head up so their gazes met. "You can't tell, can you, vigilante? So, how hard are you willing to throw your broken body around to try and save someone who might already be toast? Maybe you should just give up and go on with your day, hmm?"

While the demon taunted him, Ryan's mind raced to concoct a plan. Some miraculous last-minute solution that would fix everything... Neil would be able to think of one. Perhaps he already had. But that wouldn't do them any good when Neil was trapped and helpless within his own mind. If this really was a demon, and a powerful one at that, the only thing that might work was an impromptu exorcism.

"Crux sacra sit mihi lux! Nunquam draco sit mihi dux! Vade retro Satana!" Reciting the passage from memory as rapidly as he could without tripping over his tongue, Ryan grabbed Neil by the wrists and held him tight while he hissed and tried to jerk away. "Nunquamsuade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!"

An ungodly noise somewhere between a shriek and a roar erupted from Neil as he tossed his head back and convulsed. It was far too visually similar for comfort to his electrocution less than a minute prior, and Ryan wondered if the demon was doing it that way on purpose in an attempt to scare him into stopping. If so, it wouldn't work. Even if this process was as painful for Neil as it was for the demon possessing him, it had to be done.

Sure enough, as the final line of the chant echoed across the rooftop, Neil shuddered and slumped to the ground next to Ryan. When their gazes met this time, the demonic glow was gone, but Neil was breathing fast and shallow and his eyes were wide with lingering terror.

"Ryan," he whispered. "You're... alive."

"I think so," he replied with a tentative smile. "It's all a little confusing. But we're going to be okay now, Neil."

However, no sooner had those words left his mouth than Neil stiffened up again, eyes momentarily flashing green. "No," he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head as if to dispel the demon's grasp. "Not yet. Still gotta... get rid of it..." He grabbed Ryan's hands and held them desperately tight, like a scared child clinging to their parent or older sibling. His eyes flashed once more, and this time when the glow faded, his face bore a strained smile. "I've got an idea. Ryan, don't freak out."

And with that, before Ryan could process what was happening and reach out to stop him, Neil sprung to his feet and took a running leap off the edge of the building.

*

For a while now, Neil had been having unusually vivid dreams. They weren't always nightmares, but they often were. Dreams about different worlds, different realities, different lives. Ones where him and Kevin and Ryan weren't all friends. Or worse, ones where they still were, but that wasn't enough to save them. One of those recent dreams, which began as an exciting fantasy only to devolve into a nightmare, was about some kind of flying vehicle. Ever since having that dream, Neil had made two vows to himself. Firstly, that as soon as he gathered the funds to afford it, he'd go back to school and complete his aeronautical engineering degree. Secondly, to always carry a parachute, just in case.

But the demon possessing him had no way of knowing that, now did it? And it wouldn't want to still be trapped inside a host body that was splattered all over the pavement. That was what Neil was banking on, at least. Otherwise he might really be in trouble.

As he fell, a stinging sensation rippled through his body. He shuddered, yet there was a smile on his face--no longer a grin stretched unnaturally wide, but an expression of his own volition--and his heart pounded not with terror but with exhilaration and boundless relief. Sure enough, the demon leapt forth from him and departed in a swirl of green smoke. And with it gone, he wasted no time in engaging the parachute--just in time to slow his acceleration enough that the fall wouldn't kill him.

Admittedly, he didn't exactly come down gracefully. He landed in a tangle of limbs and fabric that he had to shrug off the borrowed jacket, parachute and all, in order to escape, and the landing was just rough enough to deliver a painful reminder of the electrical burns covering the better part of his body. Still, Neil couldn't stop grinning as he gingerly picked himself up and dusted himself off. He was alive and no longer possessed; that was a win in his book.

When he craned his neck to look up at the roof, he thought he saw Ryan still sitting there. Neil grimaced as he recalled what the demon had said about breaking Ryan's back; hopefully that injury was undone with the demon being vanquished, but since Neil's injuries were still there, maybe that wasn't so. Either way, he couldn't just leave his friend up there alone.

As quickly as he could run with a bullet wound in his foot, he entered the building and took the closest elevator to the rooftop. But by the time the elevator chimed and its doors slid open, the rooftop was abandoned, with no sign of Ryan save for an abandoned hat, cape, and gloves, and a slowly fading dark red stain.

*

If Kevin hadn't already been surprised to wake up alive the first time, he sure as hell was now. The only reason he knew he was alive at all was the deep, persistent ache that wracked practically his entire body. That, and the warmth of the hand laid atop his own.

Forcing his eyes open with a pained groan, he turned his head to see the man sitting at his bedside. Ryan squeezed his hand and flashed him a sad smile when their eyes met. His vigilante costume was gone, traded for a simple dress shirt and tie, and his hair fell unpinned around his visibly tired face; the chair he sat in, upon closer inspection, was an old-fashioned wheelchair.

With some effort, Kevin pushed himself into a sitting position. Looking around, he found that he was laying on the couch in the living room with his chest bandaged. How Ryan had managed to pull him out from beneath the bookcase, he had no idea, but he sure wasn't going to complain about it.

"Ryan, you... you're hurt?" It was a stupid question--why else would he be in a wheelchair? "Did the demon...?"

"It's gone now," Ryan responded. "But..." His gaze lowered, and he dropped his hands into his lap to fidget with the blanket draped over his legs. "It was a costly victory, I'm afraid. In order to defeat the demon, Neil--"

His tearful speech was interrupted by the distant bang of the front door being thrown open.

"Geez, you could've told me you were going straight home!" Neil's indignant voice rang out down the hall. "I wandered all over town looking for you."

Ryan's head snapped up, and he and Kevin turned in unison to see their friend running toward them with a slightly crooked gait. With a cry of joyous disbelief, Ryan opened his arms, and Neil tackled him in an embrace that nearly sent him toppling over; Kevin had to lean forward to grab the back of Ryan's chair to keep him upright as he and Neil clung to each other.

"Neil, you're alive! I-I thought..."

"It's okay, Ryan," said Neil. Then, pulling back and glancing at Kevin with a melancholy smile: "I think we're all going to be okay."

*

"So, what do you think?"

As the ending credits rolled on their latest webisode, Neil and Kevin turned to face Ryan with matching expectant grins.

"Well..." Ryan drummed his fingers against the keys of the laptop and tried to think of something positive to say. "The costumes you used were a lot more fashionable than usual--wait, hold on. Weren't those my clothes?"

They were in Kevin's truck parked outside the studio's headquarters, with Neil in the passenger seat and Ryan in the back. It had taken a little over a week for them to recover to the point where they could comfortably climb inside a vehicle, let alone Kevin being able to actually drive, and the studio had already sent them several notes warning them that their pay would be docked for submitting their webisode behind schedule.

"Ah, yeah, sorry about that," Kevin muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

"To be fair, if he hadn't broken into your house and stolen a bunch of stuff from you, he couldn't have called you on your communicator watch," Neil interjected cheerfully. "Or tried to do an exorcism... but I guess that didn't really work out for him anyway."

"Hey, c'mon, it wasn't stealing!" Kevin gave Neil a gentle shove, prompting him to briefly wince but laugh anyway. "If we'd known you were still alive, we wouldn't have taken your stuff, Ryan, honest."

"Ah, I'll have to remember that for next time," Ryan quipped. He closed the laptop and handed it back to Neil, who tucked it away inside an oversized shoulder bag. "Well, that may not have been the best webisode we've made, but I can tell you two did your best."

"Yeah, it'll be way better once we get back to making them as a trio," Neil said.

It was still amazing to Ryan that his friends were so quick to accept him back after all he'd done. If anything, it made him feel worse about his prolonged absence, because he knew now that he could have come back at any point and they would have been glad to have him. It was easy to fall into regret when thinking of all that had gone wrong, and all that could easily have gone even worse. But the fact was, they were together again now--altered by what they'd gone through, and not entirely for the better, but still themselves.

And despite it all, the preceding events and the possibility that another horrible thing could happen to them in the future, he found himself agreeing with Neil's hopeful statement.

"Indeed..." Ryan reached out and took Neil and Kevin's hands in his own. They smiled back at him with the same residual traces of relief in their eyes that Ryan had felt every so often over the past week--relief that they were still there to smile at each other. "Gentlemen, I look forward to working with you again."

¤--END--¤

[finrelia]

Warm

Request: Yes! From @yanginthere​ (Request is too long to have in header)

Summary: You get a mild case of hypothermia working at noonans one winter day and Alex comes home to find you in bad shape. She comforts you, and a little bit of hurt/comfort occurs.

Warnings: Mentions of illness/hypothermia. Self doubt, depressing themes. Cursing. Hurt/comfort slightly.

Word Count: 1,709

A/N: I’m not as happy with this one as I wanted to be! But I rewrote it about three times before it was good enough to post! I hope this is alright! 

“Off to work already, Y/N?”

“You know me!” You say with a light laugh as you place a quick but loving kiss on your girlfriend’s cheek.

“Oh no you don’t” Alex says, as she wraps her arms around your waist, pulling you into a close hug. You smile sweetly and soak in the hug as much as you can. You look up into her eyes, and grin widely before grabbing your car keys off of their hook by the apartment door.

“You’ve been working an awful lot lately.” She says from behind you.

“You know how noonan’s gets around the holidays… Especially with Kara as out number one customer. But hey! It’s not like I’m out saving the world or anything!!!”

“Hey… Saving the world or not, It’s still cold outside, and I know the kitchen heater broke last week. Just- be careful for me, alright?” Alex responds, her tone more serious than you expected.

“I’ll be safe if you will, Agent Danvers.”

With one final firm kiss you say goodbye to your loving girlfriend and make your way out the door to head to work.

The second you left your apartment building, the shocking cold air slammed into you with a forceful gust of wind. You pulled on your coat, and wrapped your arms around your sides, sprinting on your tiptoes to your car. You pull hard against the wind to slam the door to your car as you sit down on the chilled leather. Your car sputters slightly before finally starting, the cold weather making it difficult to get going. It seems like it takes ages to heat up, but eventually you start to drive towards noonans. It’s only about a seven minute drive, and you take your usual parking spot on the street next to the staff entrance.

You wave hello to your manager and immediately get to work. It seems pretty okay at first, but the cold of the kitchen starts to get to you a bit, with your nose beginning to run, growing numb, and your fingers get sore. To make matters worse, it was an incredibly busy day, and you simply didn’t have time to take a break, fulfilling constant orders. It wasn't long before you developed a pretty nasty headache, and your coat simply wasn't warm enough for you.

Six hours later and your shift was finally coming to a close, thankfully. It was the middle of the afternoon, but it was so incredibly overcast it seemed like it was dusk. The cold outside was somehow worse than inside, and you said goodbye to your coworkers before beginning the walk to your car. You could barely walk in a straight line, the pounding from your head making it feel like you were about to be sick. You placed your hand against your left temple in a protective motion, stumbling as you walked. In the time you were working, it had begun to rain, which is NOT what you wanted to hear, seeing as your rickety old car tends to refuse to start when it gets frozen over.

Sure enough, the second you turn your key in the ignition, your heart sinks. You are met with a rattle, a grind, a rattle again, and then nothing. Sighing loudly, you put your head in your freezing cold hands, your fingers numb to the touch. You tried all day to keep your stress in, but things just keep getting worse. You sit there, and erupt into tears. You end up crying in your car alone for upwards of ten minutes, before deciding to check your phone, contemplating calling Alex. Shit… she’s on a mission with Kara today… You felt like your day was getting away from you, forgetting even the most recent conversations you had. You shake your head and decide to set off on foot to head home, hopeful to make it relatively quickly, despite the rain. You were just looking forward to curling up in a warm bed with Alex.

Low and behold, it starts to not snow, not rain, but SLEET as you get about four minutes into your thirty minute walk home. You bow your head and clench your jaw, walking quicker, willing yourself to make it. Your clothes dampen up pretty quickly, the cold of the water seeping into your skin, coating you uncomfortably. The sound of the rain on the streets intermingling with the honking of cars, falls on deaf ears, as you begin to experience some kind of cloud over your consciousness. Barely able to walk straight, you begin to walk at a slant, slamming your shoulder into a corner store brick wall, but this barely elicits a whimper out of you, almost entirely unable to process what is happening.

You must’ve walked through four red lights, and you’re lucky you weren't hit by a car, but you finally made it home. Mostly frozen water drips off of your pants and pools into your boots as your shaky hands fumble through your pockets to find your house key. Eventually you manage to unlock the door, but you are shaking so profusely that you are barely able to even turn the knob.

You figured you should probably get out of your wet clothes, but you were so tired… you just didn't have the energy to slip off your jacket. Actually, you didn't even have the energy to make it to your room. You place your hands on the kitchen counter and sway slightly, shaking your head trying to snap out of your freezing daze. The breath leaves your chest and the world goes dark around you as you collapse onto the tile floor.

“Y/N?” Keys jingle together as Alex walks inside, a tired smile on her face, relieved to finally be home to see you.

“Baby? Are you home?” She calls out, bummed at the thought that you might’ve gone out to get food without her.

She rounds the corner to walk into the kitchen, and her coat falls out of her arms as she sees your sopping wet form completely motionless on the floor. She rushes over to you, sitting on her knees, and takes your head in her hands, brushing your hair out of your face.

“Y/N?!” She says, panic clear in her voice. You murmur slightly in response, barely coherent.

“Oh my god you’re freezing cold.” She feels your cheek with the back of her hand. “Let’s get these wet rags off of you.” She scoops you up into her arms and carries you to the bathroom, slowly beginning to peel layer after layer of clothing off of your limp body. Your eyes flutter open and closed, occasionally letting out a slurred comment or two.She shushes you and cups your face in her hand.

Your eyes open slowly and you take in your surroundings, confused. You had no idea how you got home, or how you ended up wrapped in your favorite blanket with a warm cup of tea in your lap, but what you did know is that you were with Alex, and that she was taking care of you. You found yourself cozied up in bed, with your favorite show put on, and Alex holding you in her arms. She feels you slowly coming to, and rubs your arm saying: “Hey… how’re you feeling?”

“I- I’m okay I think…” You say, confused. “What happened?” “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“The last thing I remember is my car breaking down outside of work, and then this.”

“Your car broke down?” Alex says, sitting up to get a better look at you..

“Yeah I-” “Why didn't you call? You walked home in the rain, you could've died!” Alex sounded frustrated, but there was no anger in her voice, just concern.

“I didn’t want to bother you… you and Kara were out there doing heroic things and actually making a difference in society, I was just working in a stupid kitchen without a heater.” Your voice cracks slightly as you speak.

“Still no heater? I’m going to have some choice words with your manager…” Alex says more to herself than to you. “You could’ve called, baby. It doesn't matter what I’m doing, your safety is far more important to me.” She turns your chin up to hers so that you are staring directly into each other's eyes. You pull away gently, looking to your feet. Causing a small frown to show on Alex’s face.

“I don't like bothering you. I dont matter half as much as you do anyways, I mean, why would someone like you take the time to help me? I’m not even out of college yet, and I can't handle myself. You’d think a soon to be ER doctor could self diagnose hypothermia, but apparently not. I’m too busy bein-” You hadn't even noticed yourself derailing until you were already sobbing.

“Hey hey hey, it’s okay.” Alex says as she pulls you closer, wrapping her arms around you. You cry silently into her arms as she begins to think about everything you just said. You sit there together, shaking and sniffling until she finally pulls away and positions herself directly in front of you. She puts your face in her hands and locks eyes with you.

“You, Y/N, are far from the burden that you think you are. You are so incredibly important to me and to others. Never, NEVER think less of yourself. Especially in a situation where you could have gotten hurt. You can always call me, no matter what. Supergirl can handle herself. I love that you are strong. I love that you are hard working, despite those terrible conditions. I love that you put others first. I love that you care. I love YOU so incredibly much-” She stops, realizing that she just said that she loved you for the first time since you had started dating.

“Alex…” You respond slowly.

“Hey it’s okay. You don’t need to respond. I just want you to know that you matter to me.” She pulls you closer.

“I love you too” You mumble, cuddling up against her chest and closing your eyes. You were so comfortable in that moment. You were finally so… warm.

[tooomuchtofu]

It’s denial at first, Tubbo thinks in retrospect, that kept him upright where he sat. Denial, along with a healthy dose of the same sort of emotional vacancy that’s gotten him through the past few years in this fucked up world. 

He sees the message on his communicator—of course he does, so does everyone—but his eyes skim over it. It’s just another accident. A bit too long of a fall. A friendly spar. An argument gone sideways. It didn’t stick, surely; whoever’s name he just read in chat felt the death slither down around them like a shed layer of snakeskin, stepped into another life just as easily as taking another breath. Whoever that was is probably sitting up in bed right now. 

It’s fine. It’s alright. Never mind the buzzing that’s started at the base of his skull. Ranboo cracks a joke and he laughs. Jack pokes his head out the doors of the Big Innit Hotel, shooting Tubbo a wary look. Tubbo nocks another arrow and the door slams shut. He puts the bow away. 

His hand drifts back to his communicator, because of course it does. He picks it off his belt, flicks it on and glances at the messages. Did he see that right?

Tubbo has to blink before the screen focuses, his eyes blurring. He’s never been a great reader, really. Even after he’s picked his way past every letter, though, the message above Jack’s most recent death blurs still. The words have flipped themselves on their heads, twisted into monstrous glyphs. Maybe Ranboo sent something in enderspeak. Maybe he’s asleep. 

“Guys, I think Tommy just died,” is what he hears himself say.

Maybe he did read that wrong. Maybe he did. Ranboo’s hand on his shoulder—out of nowhere, wasn’t Ranboo just on the other side of the path?—is the only thing aside from the letters. He still can’t make them out. He blinks again. That might help. 

“Oh my gosh,” Ranboo says, and for a breath, the death message might be real. He can feel his fingers shaking, can feel the cold edge of the communicator where he holds it. 

“Wasn’t he like, your best friend or something?” It’s Jack Manifold. Tubbo doesn’t know when he came outside. 

Tubbo stands, then, from where he’d, at some point, sat on a stray piece of scaffolding. Everything is all bright colors. All of it. There’s sun in his eyes. He thinks it might hurt. He’s looking at it. The white is better than the red or the blue or the green or the tawny, rough oak beneath his feet, because all of that is real. And this isn’t real. 

Ranboo is in front of him. He’s taller. Tubbo can’t see the sun anymore. A shame. It was nice and bright. 

Ranboo is real, too. Black and white like a panda or a cookie or something. Red and green, black and white, rumpled suit and prickly ears. Tubbo giggles. Maybe Ranboo isn’t real; his whole face is speckles with black, swimming and swirling. That doesn’t usually happen. 

“Tubbo, are you okay? Tubbo, why are you laughing?” Ranboo’s brows are all drawn and furrowed. He looks so worried. But that’s okay. That’s okay. 

“Ranboo, you silly… silly man…” Tubbo reaches up, lets his hands find his husband’s, his friend’s, ears, feels the weird fuzzy spots at their bases. 

Ranboo flinches back, grabbing Tubbo’s wrists and pushing them down. “No—Tubbo, why—” He makes a weird hissy sound. Silly funny enderman. “Do you need to sit down?”

“No, it’s fine! I’m alright, big man.” He rubs his hands down his face, pulling at the scar tissue across his nose and jaw. He remembers when he got those scars. Tommy was there. He sat in Tubbo’s room in Pogtopia every night after for weeks. He always woke Tubbo up whenever Tubbo started screaming. That was a permanent death, the festival was. Tubbo is one slip away from dying. So is Tommy. But they’ll be okay, because Dream is in prison. It’s all okay now. Tubbo’s palms are sweaty and sticky, so he takes them off his face. 

“What the hell happened?” Ranboo mutters, fiddling with his communicator. Tubbo isn’t sure he’s ever heard Ranboo say “hell” before. That’s kind of funny. They’ve pretty much spent the entirety of the past few weeks together. Ranboo doesn’t seem to swear much. Tubbo hasn’t done anything but hang out with Ranboo since Tommy finished his hotel. They’ve barely left each other’s sides. Ranboo and Tubbo, Tubbo and Ranboo. 

“Tubbo. Hey, Tubbo.” Ranboo’s hands are on his shoulders again. “Tubbo, where are we?” 

Tubbo hums under his breath. “We are on the Prime Path, big man.” Outside the Bee and Boo. It’s very bright today. Everything looks a little blurry, though. 

“Sam says he’s at the prison,” Ranboo says. “Do you want to go talk to Sam?” 

“Sounds good.” Tubbo looks over at the prison. It’s just past Skeppy’s mansion. The prison, where Dream is. Something… something is wrong. He thinks. 

As he follows Ranboo down the path, he frowns, trying to remember what it is. Something… wrong. At the prison. 

“Wait, but Sam hasn’t died,” he says. “Sam is still there. Dream is still in Pandora’s Vault.” As long as Dream is in prison, they are all safe. Everything is fine. Everything is perfect. They won. They have the discs. It is okay now. 

“Yes,” Ranboo says. 

The approach is long, with the path he walks stretching into infinity. It seems forever that they spend walking towards the prison’s hulking shape. Sam is waiting for them when they get there. 

“I made a mistake,” he says in a shaking voice. “I’m so sorry. Tommy is… Tommy’s dead.” 

And Tubbo is seventeen years old. He is standing in the world he calls home near the path his best friend built out of oak, standing next to his friend-husband-business partner, and he is not crying, because Tommy cannot be dead. Because Tommy does not die. Because Tommy survives. It is what he does. 

And Tubbo did not spend the last week his friend spent in prison falling in platonic love, building a hotel, playing chess, singing and cracking jokes and making pancakes and playing his ukulele. Because Tommy is not in prison, because there is no reason for him to be, and if he is, there’s nothing Tubbo can do anyway, is there? What is there, really, for Tubbo to do, aside from forget what has him curled up in his bed some nights, hugging himself as tight as he can so his stomach will stop eating itself out of helpless guilt? And now everything is fine, because the time is up, and Tommy is fine, because Tommy is always fine, even when there’s lava and holes and fireworks and Dream. 

Tubbo is not crying. That is not a lie, but maybe it is wrong nonetheless. 

xxx

To Tubbo, Dream has not taken all of Tommy’s lives until Tommy is standing outside the hotel the next morning. 

He does not remember falling asleep, but it must have happened somehow, because he has just woken up. He has a splitting headache and an aching heart and dry, blurry eyes, and he thinks he’s seeing things at first. 

Tommy is staring up at his own hotel, but he turns around when Tubbo opens the door, grinning when he sees him. 

“Big man!” he shouts. “You seen this thing yet? Pretty proud of it, I am.” Tommy’s grin is glinting white, his face greyish, his hair silvery pale. He is soft and fuzzy and not-all-there. Tubbo blinks once. Twice. And then he is crying. 

Sitting on the path, crying. His face is in his hands and Tommy’s touch on his back is cold and staticky. Tubbo remembers when Tommy’s touch was warm, like fire, glowy and bright and wonderful for a cold winter’s night.

“Tubbo? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” 

Tubbo gasps in a breath, chest spasming for air. His face is drenched and raw. There is a gaping hole in his chest, his ribs shattered into jagged knives. It is Technoblade with withers and fireworks and TNT laying waste to his heart. Tubbo does not move when someone cold and full and real picks him up, cradles him in too-long arms, and lays him on a bed. Tubbo does not move. Tommy is not fine.

xxx

“I didn’t come,” Tubbo forces out one day when everything is numb again. He’s sitting in the Big Innit Hotel’s lobby, slumped in a chair beside the front desk. He’s still wearing his Snowchester jacket, fiddling with the strings of one of the buttons. He’s vaguely aware of red concrete stone bricks and Tommy’s faint form somewhere in his periphery, but it’s mostly just the button and the string. “I’m sorry. 

“What do you mean?” Tommy asks. He’s sitting behind the desk, ready for customers. He’s usually ready for customers these days, when he isn’t committing arson or wandering up and down the Prime Path or sitting on a bench on a hill, hands fidgety and unsure, like he’s missing something. That is, if he’s to believe Ranboo: Tubbo hasn’t left the Bee and Boo much. Ranboo says that’s what Tommy’s been doing, though. 

A few people have even stayed in the hotel. People will stop by to visit, to see if it’s true, to say hi to Tommy or to talk to Tubbo or just to gawk, even, and usually end up staying in a room at Tommy’s insistence. 

Tommy always acts like he’s going to charge them for it, but he never actually does. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t need money. Maybe he just forgets. He forgets a lot of things. 

“In prison,” Tubbo mutters. “Sam might’ve let me in. I didn’t even try.” There are tears at the corners of his eyes, suddenly, but he rubs them away. He’s sick and tired of having a wet face. It’s sticky and awful and he always ends up with a headache and a stuffy nose. 

“...What are you on about?” Tubbo glances up. Tommy is giving him an odd look. “Prison? Dream is the only one in prison. We put him in there, remember? I kicked his ass with the—with—” He frowns, making a swinging motion with his hands. “With—with that axe. You know?” 

Tubbo sighs. “Yeah, I know.” He goes back to his button. 

xxx

Ranboo comes for him later that evening, when the sunset has just begun to filter through the windows. Tubbo hasn’t moved from his chair, even though Tommy went somewhere below the desk a while earlier. 

The vest’s button came off. It’s still on the floor where it fell, and Tubbo’s started on a new one. 

“Tubbo,” he says when he walks through the double doors. Tubbo glances up at him. “Tubbo, can we go home now? You’ve been here all day.”

Tubbo doesn’t say anything. Maybe he doesn’t have to. Maybe they can just leave. 

Ranboo walks over. Sinks down in front of Tubbo. He looks away.

“Tubbo.” He takes Tubbo’s hands in his own. “Hey, Tubbo. Can you look at me?” 

Tubbo does not look at Ranboo. Tubbo squints his eyes shut and ignores the prickly wetness. It is not there. It has already been there too many times in the past however-long-it’s-been.

Ranboo sighs. “Tubbo, you can’t do this forever.” He squeezes his hands. A tear trickles down Tubbo’s face. “I know it hurts. I know it hurts. It’s going to hurt. It always will. But you’re not alone, I promise. He might not be here anymore, but you’re not alone.” 

Tubbo breaks the breath he’s been holding to gasp in a new one. It shudders against his lungs, painful and loud.

“Can you talk to me?” Ranboo asks. “Please, Tubbo. It’s been weeks. Please.”

And that’s where he breaks, where all the air comes out in a fragmented sob, where the tears are back again, and he throws himself at Ranboo, collapsing into his chest and tucking his face into Ranboo’s shoulder. He must be startled, Tubbo notes absently, because his hands take a moment to find Tubbo’s back.

“I’m sorry.” Tubbo gasps. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry? It’s okay to be sad.” Ranboo is rubbing circles. It’s an awkward, stilted motion, but there’s heart.

“I can’t—” He blinks hard, swallowing a knotted lump. “I can’t. I can’t. He wasn’t supposed to leave me. He wasn’t supposed to be the one who left.” 

Tommy was the queen, and Tubbo the pawn. This directionless pain that festers at his core isn’t supposed to be here. Maybe if Dream had just killed him none of this would have happened. Tubbo would be dead and Dream would be free and Tommy would be in prison but he’d be alive, and maybe Tubbo could visit him as a ghost and keep him company. And neither of them would be this confused because Tommy always knew what to do. He’d get out of the Vault and he’d tell Tubbo what they needed to do next to take down Dream, and it’d be them against the world, the two of them, together always, Tubbo and Tommy, Tommy and Tubbo. 

Ranboo has always ran a little cold, which Tubbo found unnerving at first, but right now, his cool skin is soothing and better than anything else could have been against Tubbo’s face. His head is aching and it feels like it’s burning from the inside. 

“It’s okay,” he’s murmuring. “I’m here. I’m here.”

What am I without you? Tommy asked one day, in a vault swamped in glimmering darkness. And Tubbo said, yourself. It’s an easy solution to the question that leaves Tubbo paralyzed now, but one that hurts and aches and doesn’t help at all. 

He’s been here before, back when he was still president. Back when there was still a nation to be president of. Back when nothing was okay and Tubbo was a monster, the next Schlatt, a tyrant who had only doomed a nation that was doomed from the start. Back then, nothing was okay. 

Everything was supposed to be fine now. And it isn’t. So Tubbo cries.

xxx

A few days later, Tubbo goes out. 

Ranboo is with him, at his side, holding his hand. Tubbo is wearing a green button-down shirt that’s only a little bit green at this point, holey and worn. Tubbo is hazy-headed with tears. Nothing is okay. But today, he has decided to try. 

The sight of the prison made him break down once before, a week or so ago, so when they walk out of the hotel, he fixes his gaze firmly to the right. Stares at the planks of the Prime Path, puts one foot in front of the other. They’ll maybe go to the Community House. Stop by Captain Puffy’s place, or visit Eret, or something. Both of them have a sort of calming presence Tubbo can’t deny wanting to feel again, and Ranboo mentioned something about Puffy wanting to talk to him. He isn’t really sure. For now, it’s easiest just to walk. 

Step by step by step. Tubbo watches the edges of all the builds on the path scroll by. A pattern of blood vines webs its way across the grass. He’s glad there’s none on the path; he’d probably trip. 

The Targay is somewhere on the edge of his vision when he hears it. Plattering, bouncy notes, dancing through the air. He hasn’t heard this song in a while. He isn’t even sure he’s hearing it now. But each step up the staircase has weight, suddenly, as he makes his way towards the embassy. 

He sees it when he crests the hill, of course; it’s hard to miss. Someone cut down the trees that used to stand in the way a while ago, and now it’s just grass and flowers and the bench. That and Tommy, sitting there, staring out at the view, with one arm over the back of his seat just like always. Cat is in the jukebox, spinning just the same as it always has. Tommy must hear him or something, because he turns around, face lighting up when he sees Tubbo.

“Tubbo!” he cries. “Ranboo! You’re here! Come sit with me!” 

Tommy. On the bench. Waiting for him.

Breath caught somewhere in his head, Tubbo stumbles over, feet only kind of there. The grass is soft and the sun is bright and the view is beautiful and he sits down and Tommy is there and there’s music and oh, he thinks he might be crying again. Ranboo sits in the grass to their right. 

Tommy slings an arm around Tubbo’s neck.

“Hey Big T,” he says. “It’s good to see you again.” It’s almost easy to pretend like everything is the same. “You doing okay?” 

Tubbo looks over at him, blinking hard and mustering a smile. “I’m fine,” he says. “How have you been?”

“Good, good!” Tommy says, flashing a grin. “It kinda sucks being dead, though.”

“Oh, yeah?” Tubbo swallows. “Why’s that?”

“You never hang out with me anymore!” Tommy complains, kicking his shin. “And when you do, you’re always so mopey. I know you didn’t want me to die, but like… you could at least spend time with me, eh? There’s no point in just forgetting.” 

Tubbo remembers a muttered rant a few months back, something about Jack Manifold and a trident accident and a joke that turned real (count from ten backwards, don’t let this ruin your life), and he exhales. Leaning into Tommy’s touch, he tries again at a smile. “You’ve gotten a lot wiser, haven’t you?” 

“Nah, I’m just dead,” he says. “Seriously, though, Tubbo. It sucks, really, it does. But you can do this. I believe in you. You are—quite possibly—the coolest person I know. And you will be okay.”

Tubbo can’t see past his tears. “I—I just—” He stops. Takes a deep breath. “I feel so lost without you. It was always for you, all of it, I don’t—”

“No, no, Tubbo—” Tommy catches his hands where they’ve flown up to rub away the tears— “Thank you. Please. Thank you. For everything. I would have never made it half as far without you. So please. Keep going for me.”

Cat ends, the final note ringing out into the midmorning air. Tommy stands, grabbing the disk from the jukebox and giving it a spin on his finger. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow, alright, Tubbo?” he says. “I’m gonna go put this away. And then I’ve got to go make sure I haven’t missed any cli-enteys.”

“Okay,” Tubbo whispers. “Okay, Tommy.” 

Tommy starts off down the Prime Path, whistling a senseless tune to himself. Ranboo wraps his hand in his cool grip. Tubbo takes a deep breath.

“And Tommy?” he calls.

Tommy looks over his shoulder. “Huh?”

“I love you.”

“Ew.” Tommy squints at him, but he’s grinning. “That’s gross. You’re gross. You’re really—you disgust me sometimes, Tubbo, you know that?” 

Tubbo laughs, then, for real, for the first time in weeks. And he thinks, then, that maybe, maybe, it’s going to be okay. 

[cherienymphe]

Claimed (Alpha!Steve x Omega!Reader)

WARNINGS: NON-CON! {IF THIS OFFENDS YOU PLEASE DNI! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED}, Jealous!Steve, hints of college!Peter x Reader

Summary: A mission goes awry and Steve loses control.

~

“Alright, Tony. We’re heading back, now.”

Steve released a tired sigh while Peter raked his hand through his hair, and even you fought to hide your own annoyance. Another bust, another waste of a mission. You didn’t know how, but Tony had gotten intel on a terrorist group, possibly HYDRA related, that was plotting an attack.

The three of you were practically in the middle of nowhere, Sam and Nat waiting back on the ship, ready to jump in if needed. The only thing you’d found was an abandoned rundown cabin full of weapons but was otherwise empty. This wasn’t your first mission that turned out to be a waste of time, but this was the first time you’d been annoyed by it.

You were antsy. On edge.

“Let’s go. Tony’s on his way to clear out the cabin,” Steve commanded.

You blinked, squirming a bit at the authoritative tone in his voice. Peter noticed and tilted his head at you with a frown.

“Are you okay?” he asked, falling into step beside you as the both of you followed Steve.

You swallowed, unsure if you should be honest or not.

“Yeah…yeah, I’m fine.”

“(Y/N)…,” he trailed off when he placed his hand on your arm, frown deepening.

You noticed the look on his face, and you frowned too, eyes wide.

“What? What is it?”

The two of you had stopped walking, now, and Steve had yet to notice. Either that or he was unconcerned. Peter took a deep breath, lips trembling as his eyes flickered from you to Steve and back.

“Peter…”

He was worrying you, and the familiar ache that was beginning to bloom in your stomach started to worry you too.

“I can smell you,” he whispered.

You stumbled back, eyes comically wide now as you registered his words. That couldn’t be possible. Had your suppressants worn off? Was something triggering this unexpected heat?

“A-are you sure?”

Peter nodded, pulling you close as the two of you resumed your trek.

“I don’t think he can smell it yet, but my senses are going crazy,” he whispered.

You forced your heart to slow, blinking away tears as a fear like no other began to fester. Peter, Tony, and Nat were the only ones to know that you were an Omega. Tony somehow knew everything, and Peter and Nat were your best friends. You told them everything, and in Peter’s case, he sometimes even “helped” you through your heats. To be honest, there was no reason for anyone else to know. It’s not like you lived at the compound and you were always more than careful on missions.

“I thought…I thought they helped you sense danger?”

Peter didn’t respond, allowing you to put the pieces together, and you sharply inhaled.

“Hey.”

The two of you looked up, slowing to a stop as you realized that Steve had done so. He was frowning slightly, looking between the two of you, lingering on your close proximity for a brief moment.

“Everything okay? We need to hurry back.”

“Yes sir,” Peter chirped, almost too quickly, and you threw him a look. “(Y/N)’s just feeling a little sick.”

Steve’s frown deepened and took a few steps towards the two of you. Peter mirrored his steps, taking you with him, and Steve tilted his head, obviously confused.

“Can you walk? Maybe it would be quicker if I just-.”

He’d approached you again, reaching out when he suddenly cut himself off. He reared back, slowly inhaling as his eyes fell closed. Peter had already began pulling you back before Steve even opened his eyes again. When he did, they were focused entirely on you. At least they were at first. Then they moved to Peter.

“Steve…,” you called.

His eyes were icy, hard and imposing with something you didn’t want to name. They settled on you again when you spoke, and you felt your body heat up.

“You’re omega,” he said, and he almost sounded angry that the information had been hidden from him.

“Cap, we have to get her back. We need to get her home-.”

“Get her home,” he repeated. “So you can help her?”

Neither one of you responded, not missing the edge in his voice, almost accusatory as he glared at Peter. Peter slowly let go of you before taking a cautious step in front of you.

“(Y/N)…run.”

You barely heard Peter, but when the words and the danger you were in finally registered, you turned and ran. You gasped when you heard commotion behind you, pausing briefly to look over your shoulder. Peter had one of Steve’s hand webbed to a tree, but Steve’s other hand was wrapped around Peter’s throat. You hesitated, reaching for your gun when Peter noticed you.

“(Y/N), run! Run!” he repeated. “Mr. Stark is on his way!”

You did as he said, reaching up to your ear.

“Nat?”

“(Y/N), what’s going on? Why aren’t you guys here yet?”

She sounded worried, and you were sure she could hear the fear in your voice.

“I don’t know what happened. My suppressants- something’s wrong! Steve, he-! Peter’s holding him off, but I don’t know how much longer-!”

“We’re coming,” was all she said, and relief immediately filled you.

That relief was short lived when you were knocked to the ground. You rolled, a weight rolling with you as you landed in a heap at the bottom of a small incline. You grunted, immediately pushing yourself to your feet, only to be knocked back down. You reached down, but Steve was faster, grabbing your gun and tossing it away.

His arm swung around your neck, forcing a gasp out of you as you struggled to breathe. A panic was building inside of you when he leaned down to bury his nose in the crook of your neck. You heard a low rumble come from within his chest, and you could feel a thin layer of sweat forming under your suit. At this point, you were positive that if he were a mile away, he could still smell you.

“Does Tony know?” he suddenly scoffed. “Of course, he does.”

“Steve-!”

You struggled beneath him, whimpering when he pressed himself more firmly against you.

“You smell…divine,” he groaned, lips brushing against your neck.

“Steve, you don’t-.”

“I knew there was something about you, you know. There was always a scent, so subtle, but I could always smell it,” he murmured.

You slid your hand beneath you, trembling.

“Steve, please…”

You tried again to push yourself up, but it was useless.

“You’re burning up. I can help you much better than Queens can-.”

You cut him off when you slid the pocket knife out of your belt, slicing his arm in the process. He hissed, loosening his hold and allowing you to bring the blade behind you and into his side. He grunted, and you slid from underneath him, taking off.

You suddenly gasped, keeling over as you clutched your stomach. You could hear Steve’s footsteps behind you as you struggled to even walk. Where was Nat and Sam? Tony? You took another step forward, and your knees buckled, forcing you to collapse. The closer he got, the more you felt yourself wanting to submit. You were full on shaking, now, fingers digging into the dirt.

You suddenly felt him at your back, and you whined when he grazed his teeth against the skin of your neck. Before you could register it, he flipped you onto your back, hands tearing at your suit. The cool air hit your feverish skin, and you cried out. Another rumbled escaped his chest, and he pressed his nose against your skin, licking patterns into the exposed flesh.

You blinked, reaching up to push against his arms when he pinned both of your wrists down beside your head. He pressed himself against you, and you arched your back into his chest.

“Steve, where’s Peter?”

He harshly nipped at your chest, and you yelped.

“Steve!”

You didn’t know whether to sigh in relief or groan in annoyance as Nat’s voice reached your ears.

“Let her go, Steve,” Sam yelled, and you could hear him landing near wherever Nat’s voice came from.

The ground shook as something heavy landed above your head, and Steve lifted his head, eyes venomous and threatening.

“Cap, don’t make me hurt you. Get off of her,” he commanded, and you could feel him stepping towards the two of you.

“She’s mine, Tony,” Steve’s voice was low, a warning there.

“Tony-.”

The rest of what you were going to say was lost in a scream as Steve suddenly tangled his fingers in your hair before sinking his teeth into your neck. Peter had never bitten you, ever, and even if he had you were sure it would never be like this. When Peter helped you through your heats, he was sweet and protective in a way that you liked. Everything was about you. Steve wasn’t biting you for you. You don’t even think he was biting you for his benefit, but to show everyone else that you were his and there was nothing they could do about it.

Your vision began to swim as you fought to stay conscious. There was a lot of commotion, and suddenly the weight was gone. You saw red, and then Nat was there, taking you in her arms.

“It’s going to be okay…”

Her sincere words were the last thing you heard.

 ~

The next time you woke up, you were drenched in sweat. You were in a room that you didn’t recognize, sheets thrown haphazardly on the floor as you squirmed on the drenched mattress. You didn’t know how long you’d been out, but it had to have been at least hours, because it was dark outside through the window. You tried to drag yourself along the bed but whined at the effort it took.

As soon as you had indicated that you were awake, there was yelling outside of the door, followed by a thud that shook the walls. Your thighs rubbed together, smearing your slick along your skin, and you gasped at the sensation. There was more yelling, the words unintelligible, before the room door swung open. You could hear more yelling down the hall, like someone protesting, but all you could focus on was the broad shape of Steve standing in the doorway.

“Steve,” you murmured in confusion.

The door was slammed shut and locked with a resounding click, and he was suddenly there. Your thighs parted, welcoming him as he settled against you, mouth finding the mark on your neck. He worked to rid himself of his clothes.

“I’m going to take care of you from now on,” he instructed. “Not Peter, not anyone else.”

He didn’t give you time to voice your opinions about that before he was sliding into you to the hilt. You gasped at the intrusion, tears springing forth as he stretched you. He didn’t give you time to adjust, thrusting into you with vigor, thighs slapping against yours as you cried out.

The commotion outside was growing, several people yelling now, but you could only focus on the way Steve’s cock dragged against your walls. His teeth were everywhere, one hand gripping your waist hard enough to bruise while the other hand your hands pinned above your head.

“S-Steve,” you stuttered.

“Alpha,” he corrected with a growl. “You’re mine, now. Say it.”

His voice left no room for discussion, but you could only moan as he slammed into you. Your mind was all over the place. You knew this was wrong, but you couldn’t argue with the pleasure that he was bringing you. You also found it hard to ignore the arguing that was still going on outside, and you briefly wondered where Peter was and if he was okay.

Before you knew it, your orgasm had washed over you, leaving you a whining and panting mess beneath Steve, but he wasn’t done. He continued to slide into you, hips rolling against your own as he fucked you through your high.

“Yours, yours. I’m yours,” you mumbled, the words sounding slurred.

He rested one forearm beside your head, your hip aching from his previous grip. His teeth dragged along your neck again, a shudder passing through you.

“I’m going to fuck the memory of Peter Parker out of you,” he growled.

~

Tags: @mcudarklibrary @darkficreposter @xoxabs88xox @sebabestianstan101 @sherrybaby14

[fortune-fool02]

Painting in His Mind

Robert E.O Speedwagon x female reader

Requested by: anonymous 

A creepy Lovecraftian story of a character of your choice featuring a slow transformation into a non human or half human being and the reader trying to help them cope.

Lovecraftian AU

I love this idea! Throwing out all cuteness and fluff, we are losing sanity like adults! This is a bit long. Please enjoy!

There was only so much that the human mind could comprehend. Only some beliefs that could allow them to live happy, simple lives; oblivious to truths beyond their capability of understanding. Things impossible outside of stories and myths. Things that melted reality and belief together into one absurd painting of mass dark greens. 

The painting was something that was so strange and abstract that it captivated Speedwagon from the moment he laid eyes on it. He had found it during a robbery of some abandoned mansion that had been left to rot after the owners had died in an accident. Carriage rode right off the cliff and down into the rocks below from what he heard. No one survived and they barely found enough to bury. A collection of things had already been taken by anyone who could get their hands on it and yet the paintings were left untouched. 

Speedwagon had gone in one night, searching for something to take when he stumbled upon the cloth covered canvases, tucked away in the studio that was once a supply room or storage room. Curious, he had removed a sheet and saw the painting. 

Dark shadows merging with the blackness behind it, distorting and shifting into the light to be seen. Gaping maws inside gaping maws, lines of white stained red, both fresh and dried. Something stirring deep within him, a primal sense of fear that had never been felt before, not when he was held at gunpoint nor when he was in inches of his life. Hollow orbs blacker than the ocean’s darkness with twisting shapes and empty sockets staring out into his coffee brown eyes, piercing pass them and worming their way into his mind like a parasitic worm feasting of a fresh, ripe host. Something silently cried in his mind, as if the painting itself was speaking through a veil of water, muffled and distorted but there. Whispers, whining and whimpering, aching to be heard by ears not for them. 

He did not know why but he had to take that painting back home with him. He wanted it. He had to have it. The need and hunger for money was all but forgotten to Speedwagon when he returned to his home and practically stripped down an entire wall in his room for that painting. It didn’t deserve a simple spot, no, it deserved the entire wall. Shelves ripped from their place and cast aside, forgotten, replaced. All in favour of that painting. 

Every day, Speedwagon sat and admired the painting. Tracing his fingers over every brush streak, every melt of the colours, over the maw and teeth. Something deep within him was drawn to this painting, a tugging in his core like a string, no, not a string, stronger. A thread, a rope, a chain. A chain to a boulder dropped in the ocean, pulling him down with it. Sometimes, he could hear the whispering, soft singing below water; deep in his mind, faint but there, wanting to be heard, to be louder. He wanted to hear it. 

His friends came by to check on him and he reassured them he was fine. His friends swallowed his answers after some convincing and left him be but [Name] was kinder than that, more concerned, and thus remained with him. Wanting to make sure he really was alright. She was always so kind in his eyes, always so sweet and generous, thinking of those before herself. That was why he showed her the painting. He had expected her to be awestruck by it but, instead, she was unsettled by it, she even took some steps away from it. 

Then again, they did have different tastes in preferences and art so that could just be it. But her face, she looked so concerned for him. She even questioned him as to why he had such a thing. He told her how he felt about the painting, how he found it oddly captivating. 

“Robert, you have never once been interested in something like this style before. It’s not right at all, it’s....unsettling.” the [Hair colour] woman told him, her eyes glowing with honesty and concern for him. Speedwagon sighed at those eyes, such beautiful eyes. Sighing, he told her everything. The odd dreams that plagued his nights since he got the painting, the images of something reaching out of the inky blackness to him, dragging him down deeper into the darkness. His lungs filled with water whenever he tried to scream or call out in these dreams. Her expression painted into many different layers of concern for him and tried to think of some way to help him. 

No matter what advice he took, Speedwagon could not shake this painting. Couldn’t shake the pull he felt towards it. His dreams would spill past his eyes and into his vision, seeing the twisted things crawl towards him in his own home, no longer bound to his dreams alone anymore. His growing need to be with some kind of water. First starting off as drinking more, and more, until it was no longer enough and the blonde man would lay in the bath for hours. Even after the water had gone cold. [Name] recalled coming to see him one time and finding him trying to strangle himself while trying to call out for help then saying that something had wrapped around his throat, refusing to believe it was his own hand. 

That was when [Name] decided enough was enough. 

The sun had long set when she arrived at Speedwagon’s house unannounced. She knew that this would be foolish but she was doing this for Robert. Her pick-locks soon allowed her entrance to his house and was greeted by a breeze of coldness. It had been a few days since she last saw Speedwagon and, by the looks of his house, whatever has happened has only gotten worse with the thrown about furniture and broken objects. Especially with the lit candles all over the place and drawings. 

Slowly making her way upstairs, [Name] peeked into Speedwagon’s room to see the bedroom in almost perfect condition. Clean, well-kept, well-lit, the only room in such way. In the centre of the room, Speedwagon laid, bowing to the painting and praising it as one would the Holy Spirit or Christ. Robert Speedwagon was not a religious man so this was something unsettling for her to witness. The door creaking caught his attention, making him smile. 

“[Name]. My wonderful darling, please, come in, come in.” His tone sounded so...at peace. Like he was welcoming an old friend in who he hasn’t seen in many years. The second she got a better look at him, she knew something was off. His coffee brown eyes were hazy, glossed over with a bleakness to them, like his mind wasn’t there. 

“Robert? What....What’s going on?” He only smiled more at her words. 

“Nothin’. I’m just enjoyin’ the beauty of it. Can you see it, [Name]?” He asked, motioning to the painting again. Uncertainty flooded her, mixing with the concern for his odd behaviours. The man’s skin looked paler, drained of colour almost, like he was sick and only sparked more concern. 

“Robert, are you feeling well? You look dreadful.” [Name] spoke, taking a step closer to him only to have him smile more. 

“I’m fine. I have never been better.” Refusing to accept his answers anymore, [Name] shook her head, 

“No, you’re not. You’re sick and I’m taking you to a hospital. Now.” She said, reaching to him to lift him up. As cruel as this seemed, she was doing this for his benefit. Robert refused to leave, squirming out of her hold and remaining in place. 

“No! I’m stayin’ here! I need to watch this paintin’! Protect it!” He spat out at her, something he had never done since they knew one another. [Name], infuriated, grabbed a knife from her pocket and went over to the painting, ready to drive the blade through the canvas and destroy the damn thing. That did not sit well with Speedwagon as the man screamed in a rage, tackling her down and striking her across the face. His expression and eyes wild with rage. 

“Don’t you dare touch it! You’re not worthy to touch it! How dare you try to destroy it!” He screamed at her, grabbing her [Hair colour] hair and smacking her head against the floor with force. Her cries of pain and pleas fell on deaf ears as he continued to do this before tightly yanking her head up again and glaring into her [Eye colour] eyes.

“Robert, please! Please, I-I’m sorry!” She cried out, trying to move her hands to protect her head and curl up more, though his iron grip prevented that. 

“Not good enough! Not good enough....” He kept his grip, his hand reaching to the side for something and pulling it back into view. The candle-light glimmered against the blade in his hand. Cold panic flooded through her at the sight of it, squirming more under his grip, 

“No! No, Robert! Please!” Again, her pleas were ignored as he straddled her, holding her in place as he brought the blade higher up. 

“Lä. Lä. Cthulhu fhtagn...” he spoke softly, the words foreign and unknown to her as the blade remained still for a moment. Then brought down. 

“Speedwagon pleas-!”  

[raevenlywrites]

The Ties That Bind 20 of ???

As much as I simply wanted to sleep, even my extreme exhaustion wasn’t enough to supersede good manners. I would at the very least catch Zane’s eye as he danced, alert him to my presence--that was good manners, right? I couldn’t think. My head was fogged with the need to sleep, and my thoughts tumbled like so many leaves in the wind.

The crowd parted easily before me and Rei, avians falling back in respect and serpents... well, I didn’t know why the serpents moved before me. Maybe something of that emotional extra sense informed them. I didn’t care. I just wanted to wave at Zane on my way to bed.

Of course, once he saw me, he immediately broke from the dance, another serpiente falling seamlessly into his place. I marveled at the smoothness of it, how not a single beat was missed. If Zane had signaled the change in any way, I had not seen it. Then again, in my fatigued state, I’m sure I missed much.

I took a deep breath, drawing myself up as Zane approached, and felt Rei flinch beside him. Was it the Arami’s approach, or a reaction to my donning my emotional armour? Yet another thing I was too tired for.

“Danica!”

Zane greeted me warmly, face bright and shining from the dance. He was flushed, but it only highlighted the sharpness of his cheeks, the fullness of his lips. He looked right this way, lightly kissed with sweat and firelight, and a smattering of scales.

It startled me to realize I found this form beautiful. Not that I found Zane beautiful--his elegance and regalness were almost a given, at this point--but that I thought the scales suited him, perfected a face that was already so close to perfect... They offset his garnet eyes, made their startling redness seem more at home.

Then he smiled, and the length of his cobra’s fangs ruined the effect. He’d gone from ethereal to infernal in an instant, the flames now a horrifying backdrop to the warrior’s form. This was the shape he wore to kill.

I swooned, the heat and the fangs and the late hour all coming together to be too much. I felt Rei’s arm around me, as the world slid to black.

- Two faces loomed over me as I came to, my avian heritage funneling oxygen to my brain with merciless efficiency. What helped me maintain hours of flight at high altitudes would not allow me the blessed reprieve of unconsciousness now. No, my body had failed me only enough for an embarrassing incident. I sighed and sat up, not even feeling lightly dizzy. It was grossly unfair.

“Sorry to have alarmed you, gentlemen.” I did my best to keep the sigh from my voice. “Clearly I’m pushing too hard.”

“That makes two of us.”

Zane had returned to his purely human form, the only trace of his cobra heritage remaining was the everpresent garnet of his eyes. I still thought them beautiful, but I didn’t think I’d ever forget that smile, the mouth crowded with fangs. How had he kept from piercing his own lip?

Rei offered me a skin of water, which I sipped automatically to appease him. My dear friend could be such a hoverhawk. It was always easiest to just let him take care of me. It gave him something to do, if nothing else.

“If you’re able,” he said gently, “I’d recommend the three of us exit this crowd quickly.”

My eyes flicked past his shoulders. Somehow, I’d forgotten that I’d passed out in front of a crowd of mixed serpiente and avians alike. Better and better.

“Or,” Zane interjected, light tone at odds with the severity of the situation, “you might stay out here a moment longer, and enjoy the dance.” Rei growled, low and barely audible over the murmur of the crowd. Either way, the longer I sat here--flat on my rear in the dirt--the larger a scene it would cause. I nodded grimly to Rei.

“Help me up. We’ll go from there.”

To my surprise, Rei and Zane both looped arms under my shoulders, making me feel like a complete invalid. That alone steeled my resolve, making me chase them away with discretely fluttering hands. I stepped away from the both, turning to face them.

“I’m fine. Just too many days of not enough rest. We should all be getting to bed.”

The roaring crowd around me didn’t show any signs of slowing, let alone sleeping. What had I been thinking, coming out here?

I’d been thinking I’d wanted Rei. And that I’d wanted away from my court.

This was a disaster. I couldn’t do this. I was too tired, too small, too unprepared. This gathering of people, dancing and singing in the woods, had come together without me. And because of me, it now sat poised, ready to collapse into a riot.

All because I’d stumbled.

I was angry, frustrated, and oh so tired--

And then Zane reached out, smiling, not a fang in sight.

“Dance with me.”

“I-- what?”

His smiled broadened, and I felt utterly disarmed by it’s simple charm.

“Dance with me. One dance, to prove you’re alright. To let the day go. There’s a magic in the serpent’s step. Trust me.”

Trust me.

Well, that was the point of all this, wasn’t it?

Zane had trusted me enough to meet me at the Mistari camps, to ride to my Keep, to have Elanor fly his ridiculous ass up to my bedroom. To walk into the heart of my kingdom, with only a relatively small vanguard at his back. Zane trusted me with all that, and all he asked in return was a simple dance, to help reassure the crowd.

Surely I could do at least that much.

I took his hand, offering a smile that held all my fear, all my exhaustion, and all my fondness. This mad cobra’s dreams were infectious, and already, I found myself believing in him. I could easily see why his people would follow him into the heart of my kingdom. If I were allowed to, I think I would follow him, too.

I could at least follow him now, out into the ring of dancers.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I whispered. My mouth felt like a rictus grin rather than a smile. I felt my teeth threatening to crack under the pressure of my grit jaw.

“I do.”

He raised our hands, palm to palm, and with a start I realized it was a dance I knew. It was one of the few avian dances that allowed for touching, where most of our celebrations were more processions of segregated movements in stately lines. I didn’t have time to question how he’d learned any avian dance, or wonder if this was another small thing shared by our cultures, before the first notes of song rose up over the crowd.

Raymond was singing.

Other avians immediately joined, the song well-loved and well familiar. The Wind and The Wing--and the dance that went with it--was lilting and joyous, with words and movements so simple even children could join in. It could be layered with elegant harmonies and counter melodies, but the dance was always the same. Palm to palm, turn a circle, switch hands. At a faster pace, it became a whirling dervish, a wild, swirling thing, with partners switched and tossed and buffeted about as if by the wind. Under the direction of Raymond’s clear voice, it was slower, but still too fast to overthink it.

Zane grinned, hands clapping the beats between the switch, eyes absolutely sparkling in delight. He was so pleased with himself to be able to surprise me like this, and again, his enthusiasm was catching. I shook my head and laughed and clapped, and gave myself over to the dance.

Circles moved around us, dancers joining in where they new, serpiente picking up on the simple steps quickly. More surprising was the voices their raised to join our avian singers. The melody was simple, but still. I hadn’t expected--well, any of this. But Zane had been right. This crowd was ready to dance, ready to follow where their monarchs led.

Where we led.

I held tight to Zane’s hand as he spun me, gripping his fist as his speed and strength whipped me around his still center point. That was a serpiente move, a small twist on our traditional step. It thrilled me, dizzied me, took my breath away--

And then he released me, and for a breathless moment I was falling, falling--

And then Rei’s arms were around mine, a new Wind catching my Wings. He carried my momentum around, turning me to face him, holding his hand up, palm out, waiting for me to touch.

With a smile so large I felt I must be glowing, I pressed my hand to his.

And we danced.

The Ties That Bind Tag list: @thehellinsideyourhead @therecouldbecolorsandlove @adventuresofacreesty @writing-with-melon @rainydaydarling @faithfire

Raev’s Gen Tag List (should I tag you guys in this? It IS a thing I wrote. I’m gonna say yes unless you guys are like “no of course not we’re sick of hearing about your stupid fic for a twenty year old book XD)

No one has complained yet so yall gonna keep getting tagged :P

List is currently: @lordkingsmith @writinglyra @drbibliophile @mperialscribe @adie-dee @lexiklecksi @theramwrites @writinginslowmotion @raenawrites @apollon-arium @anika-writes @faithfire @thehellinsideyourhead @adventuresofacreesty

[walker-journal]

Extreme Noodling (Dave+Adam)

Timing: Near Winter’s end, before Dave got bit

Summary: Dave and Adam wrassle some giant catfish (the google searches for this chatzy changed us as people I’m pretty sure. I know too much) 

Content Warning: lots of fish gore

The frost-flecked marsh water sloshed around Adam’s boots as he waded through the mire. Feathery moss hung in pale sheets from old maples and gnarled gum trees. Vertical clumps of reeds and cattails marked where the sparse islands of solid ground gave way to sluggish swamp water. This particularly frigid winter had touched the murk with thin sheets of ice, the fragile pristine white breaking under the slightest pressure for brackish mulch to pour through the cracks.

Adam was out in the frigid marshland today at the behest of David Herring, a sailor whom Nell has possibly summoned from hell as a birthday stunt. Adam was trying to take his return to Hunting gradually. His powers were slowly returning day by day, although resurgent strength and sharpening senses hadn’t brought any answers along with them.

Even more grueling training and keeping busy at work would have to suffice now, resolved  Adam as he held his rifle dry across his shoulders and waded towards where Herring was waiting.

Dave had braced himself against a nearby tree, his bag hooked over some higher up branches. Despite the frigid early spring weather, he stood in shorts and watershoes, already water and mud logged, but like this he could feel everyone and everything coming, no matter how big or small.

It was always a smart idea to have your back braced against something when you weren’t sure exactly where you stood with the person you’d called for back up. Dave wasn’t the type to calculate who owed who after surviving something together, and you never knew exactly what flavour of hunter you were getting until they had their knife against your throat. Most of the time, it had been alright, but considering the blood that stained Dave’s hands, he wasn’t surprised when things went the other direction fast. But the water in the marshes was even more still than the lakes, so he felt the ripples of Adam wading through the water long before he saw the young hunter approaching, so he was ready and waiting by the time Adam had slogged close by.

“Walker,” he greeted, raising a hand in greeting. “You gone up against a prodigium catfish before?”

Adam had to give mad props to the titanium viking balls this dude must have to go all beachwear in an ice swamp. However, as Adam might still want to have kids someday, these waders were staying on. Manly bayou bonding would have to wait.

“Read about them, never hunted them before,” the young Hunter admitted, the hot hills of California and the holy land having been more alghoul country then noodling holes.  

Dave nodded, watching Adam intently - mostly to be able to read his lips to make sense of what he could hear. At least the swamp was quiet, in the harsh way that winters often were. He didn’t have any kind of teeth guards on this time, his long canines exposed as he talked.

“This’ll be my fourth,” he replied, “but most of the others were juveniles. Feels about… fifteen feet, at a guess. Right now it’s about sixty feet that way.” He pointed deeper into the marsh land. “Fortunately, they ain’t agile creatures at that size, but they’ll crush you if they can. If you’ve read about them, I'm figuring you know about the barbs and arms.” He shifted, unstrapping a machete from the bag he’d hung from some tree branches. “If you think you can land the perfect shot, take it. Otherwise I’m thinking it’ll be better to get it in shallow water and incapacitate its arms for an easier kill.”

“Gothya, watch out for the barbs and baby Kermit arms, we gotta beach it in the the shallows unless there's an opening,” Adam reiterated, looking out at the hushed landscape of frost and brackish silt.

“But before we start I gotta ask,” the Hunter insisted as he knelt on the soggy crust the snowy embankment. He leaned the nonessential gear against the grey trunk of a willow.

“So...are you like sensing the fish right now? Do aquaman powers come with the whole wereseal thing?”

“Selkie. Something like that,” Dave replied, with just one eyebrow raised at Adam, unsure if he was missing out on some youthful slang or that Adam was not as informed as some of the other hunters around. Wereseal. The damn nerve. Not that there was anything wrong with being a werewolf, but Dave didn’t lose control like he’d gotten rabies once a month. It was all this damn tv, now everyone thought that just because you could change forms you’d have to be some cheap knock off were-

Dave hmmphed. Tiny pulses of water against his skin warned him of the large, slow being stirring in its tunnel, its mouth resting nearby the surface, waiting for prey to come nearby. “Any other questions? Ain’t exactly your college classroom.”

Ok, wait...so like, could Dave sense fish? If he could, was that a Dave-Selkie thing or a Dave-Dave thing? A tinge of frigid heat flickered in the back of Adam’s skull as something grew near, farther and larger than the palpable “otherness” that radiated from Dave. The Hunter tensed, but wasn’t going to pass up his last chance here.

“One more question….did uh….a hot Turkish motorcycle chick call you from a Hell Dimension for her sister’s birthday?”

The frosty mire stirred with an upwelling of bubbles that brought the brackish scent of rotting things with them. The dirty ice cracked upwards as an enormous bulk  briefly surfaced fifty feet away.

“Its like..ok if its yes, just been bothering me.”

Dave just… stared at Adam.  Had he heard that right? The words were distinct on the lips, but the sentence made no sense, not even when Dave happened to know there was a Turkish spellcaster who summoned things from hell dimensions. He wasn’t sure if he should be offended or complimented by the idea. “A hell dimension?” Dave repeated, just to make sure he’d heard right.

“The fuck are they teaching hunters these days? No, Walker, unless you consider Texas a hell dimension.” He cocked his head, considering. “Guess that wouldn’t be too far from the truth.”

The turbulence of water under the surface against his ankle had Dave looking around suspiciously, but the giant catfish was just reasserting itself in the water bed much, much to the starting of many smaller fish nearby, that darted away, including in their direction. Whether or not Texas was a hell dimension would have to be debated another day, preferably over a chilled beer.  “If we steer it a little to the left, the water there’s pretty shallow, and lots of land for you to use.” Not sure he was prepared for whatever other questions Adam might have, Dave began to wade deeper into the water, looking to get much closer before he caught the catfish’s attention.

“Not gonna lie,” Adam began with cheerful candor as he parkored his way between the more solid clumps of sodden shallows. “Texas sounds like a rough time for anybody who likes water.”

Dark hazel eyes glanced again towards the breach of a large slick mass against the ice, glimpsing what might’ve been a piscine whisker, before they focused back to Dave, crinkling with suppressed mirth around the edges.

“Waaaaaait,” came the dire moment of revelation. “If you have magic skin...in Texas, did you like accessorize it?”

“Dave, my dude...did you wear sealskin chaps?”

Adam was just in the start of pantomiming the Dave sauntering around Huston in this deviant form of cowpoke asswear when bulky shape burst from the icy murk.

“Hell yeah!”

Dave’s eyebrows raised right into his hairline as he looked over  at Adam, deeply unimpressed at his realisation. For a brief second, he almost knocked Adam into the water to quiet the kid, before remembering what they were here for. Maybe later.

“You’re lucky that thing works better dry,” Dave retorted, looking down pointedly at Adam’s rifle, but the tiny quirk at the corners of his lips belied his grumpy demeanor.

It was one thing feeling it stirring in the muck, and another for the large form  to crash through the crackly thin layer of ice. Dave grinned, his canine teeth bared as the form surged through the water, its wide mouth gaping for prey, not realising that it was no longer the predator. In the water, Dave was the more obvious target, so he started backing into the shallower waters, letting it think it was hunting him.

Considering how big the damn thing was, Dave hadn’t really expected it to be able to grab a nearby tree and use that to propell itself at Dave, barely diving out of the way before its jaw shut around him. When it’s body crashed through the water again, it sent waves of water and mud flying, but in missing it had given Dave an opening to drive the machete into its back, hoping to slice through the spine. The catfish flailed in protest, grabbing Dave with an arm like a tree trunk and dragging him under water.

----

“Aw shit,” Adam laughed as he tried to get a hold on the slick flailing creature that was driving Dave down into the murk, “it's trying to send you back to Texas!”

The icey bog water stung Adam’s bare arms with a cold burn that was soon replaced with an oiliness that seeped between his fingers. Adam gritted his teeth and lips shut to try to to get any of the frigid brackishness in his mouth as the catfish bucked and flailed beneath him.

Adam plunged his combat knife into the creature’s side, grime mixing with pale blue blood and the sudden reek of raw damp chicken. Trying to keep hold, Adam yanked out the blade and brought it down again and again, attempting to get the catfish to favor its wounded side and hopefully roll Dave out of the water.

----

It was fortunate that Dave was both hard of hearing and currently being wrestled by an enormous catfish underwater, because if he had heard Adam’s comment, there might have been a sea creature versus hunter alliance. The heavy set slime on his skin kept the catfish’s hands sliding off him, but as he was knocked deeper and deeper into the dirt, the chance of dying from being crushed by catfish was increasingly looming.

Dave bared his teeth and bit into the scaled underside of the catfish with little success, unable to open his mouth enough to get any kind of hold, but the overhead action above the water seemed to have more of an effect. Dave kicked himself out from underneath the catfish as the catfish trashed and tried to reach for the human above it, more interested in a prey that it could actually drown.

It curled its other arm around Dave as it reached for Adam, distracted by the dagger slashing deeper and deeper into its side. It wasn’t watching as Dave opened his own maw and bit down on its arm, bone snapping under his canines.

When Dave emerged from the water, it was with one of the arms firmly between his teeth, torn off the body and dripping blood into the water, he grimaced, dropping it onto the roots of a nearby tree that had started to sink into the water as the soil beneath it had given way to watery mud.

----

“Holy shit,” Adam effused in admiration of such unmitigated badassery, a grin brightening the Hunter’s grime-covered face as he climbed up the side of the flailing catfish. He hoisted himself up with each deep stab of the knife into the catfish’s spongy flesh as if it were a rock-climber’s spike. “That was fucking ace….hey what’s it taste like? Bet you got like Marsh-Mono now or something…”

Adam’s preliminary diagnosis on what disease Dave had doubtless contracted was cut short as the Hunter accidentally stabbed too deeply and pierced an organ. Greenish black fluid hemorrhaged from the wound and Adam let out a stream of gagging curses as the slimy knife slipped from his fingers into the acrid effluvium.

That momentary loss of purchase was all the catfish needed. Adam plunged into the marshwater as the fish spun into a deathroll and opened its toothless maw wide.

Adam’s world became warm and damply dark.

----

“Ah, fucking hell,” Dave groaned, wading deeper into the water. He couldn’t see where Adam had gone, but he couldn’t feel anything human sized with flailing limbs moving around in the water. If he’d been knocked out, it was a matter of moments before the human risked drowning. You couldn’t heal an absence of oxygen in your lungs. Thick blue blood pumped out of the catfish’s side, murking up the water, but it was still kicking, moving towards him with its still remaining arm. This was going to be tough just by himself, and without Adam moving around in the water, Dave had no fucking idea how to find him.

The catfish swiped, and Dave dodged out of the way with a slash at its side, seeing where Adam had been hacking deep into it, where it was also bleeding and oozing viscous pus into the water, stinking up a storm. Still no sign of the wayward hunter. Shit, shit. Hoping that with its movement he might get a better feel of where Adam was. “WALKER!” He barked, watching the catfish and staying well away from its brutish arms.

Which was when he realised there was something else moving inside the catfish and he realised exactly where Walker was.

“Jesus Christ.” He drove his hand into the deep gash in the catfish’s side, causing it to spasm in pain, hoping he could distract the catfish long enough for one of them to think of a plan to get Adam out of the monsters without… risking killing him while fighting the catfish.

Adam’s silver knife appeared from the catfish’s belly, a brief protrusion of metal followed by an upwelling of dark blue ichor. The enormous fish thrashed as Dave’s hand in its wound exacerbated this new pain burrowing out from the inside. The catfish bucked in spine-twisting arcs on the frosty mire as it instinctively tried to get free of whatever invisible thing was tearing at it.

The knife blade surfaced again when the panicked  flailing no had briefly subsided, the incision growing into a long fleshly tear that spewed gummy stomach lining. Long strips of blue-tinged mucosa and yellowish subcutaneous tissue spurted from the wound each time the blade retreated, staining the marsh ice in a splots of organic dyes.

Adam’s gore-caked right arm snaked through the widened opening, trying to find some kind of grip outside as the fish’s frenzied motions turned his world into a dark barrel-roll hell of sloshing fluids and pythonic stomach muscles. It was a dicey business as the fish’s jostling and this cramped space made accidentally stabbing himself a real possibility. The Hunter had nearly opened up a vein when he’d had to fold into the fetal position to retrieve the spare silver knife.

It was times like these where being trained to abandon thought and focus only on each incremental steps of survival came in handy. The horrid smell, the acrid taste of bloody filth in his mouth, the vertigo of the fish’s thrashing, the burn on stomach acid in his skin and eyes, and the rip-popping compression of the catfish’s spasming stomach messes would’ve made it easy to just panic.

Luckily, Adam had spent enough time being taking  doses of ever-higher concentrations demonic Terevi venom as a teenager that being digested  was no longer an excuse to slack off. It’s really those salt of the earth family values that build character y’know?

Adam stuck out one leg through the widened opening and placed it again one fleshy end of the wound for leverage as he pressed the knife’s blade upward, sawing his way through sinews and fat as frigid marsh water poured in through the opening.

Something suddenly gave and the world spun. Adam hit the squishy sod with a groggy oof but convulsing to hack up catfish blood.

The first time the catfish tried to roll, Dave punched it in the eye. The second, he sliced off one of its barbs and it knocked him into the water with its remained arm. Dave’s head smacked into a tree branch and he briefly saw stars. He got out from under it, and saw a shape tearing through the scaled belly. A leg. Walker. He almost wanted to surge forward and grab him, but the bleeding hole wasn’t enough to fit a whole man through, and yanking Adam out of place might trap him and make him suffocate. Dave couldn’t let the catfish roll  again, or Adam’s leg would snap like a matchstick. Dave hacked at its back with the machete again, blood spewing his body with every swing, now he knew where the hunter was cutting his way out from, keeping the catfish from grabbing at Adam or rolling again. With a final hack and a burst of bloody flesh, its intestines spilled out into the water in large ropes and bobbing in the water like grotesque pool floats. Adam along with it. The catfish spasmed, and twitched, its gills trembling, before at last it became still.

“Jesus fuck,” Dave said, rushing over to Adam’s side. He paused, waiting for the worst of the convulsions to pass before bending down, picking up Adam’s arm and swinging it over his shoulder. If the kid passed out, Dave was worried he’d faceplant into the swamp and breathe water. “Easy does it. Easy does it now,” He muttered, lowering Adam to sit on some firmer ground. “Keep your eyes shut, I’m gonna get this crap off your off your face so you can breathe,” Dave said, not being precious as he wiped the acidic gunk from Adam’s face, pulling a flask of water out of his belt and using it to rinse Adam’s face. He held his hand so that the water wouldn’t go into Adam’s nose nor mouth. Wasn’t looking to waterboard the guy afterall, just make sure that the acid didn’t cause permanent injury to his eyes or anything.

Pressing the half-filled flask into Adam’s hand so that he could drink or wash himself as need be, Dave stepped back, giving Adam space to catch his breath and assess his own wounds. He leant against a worn out tree, feigning a casual demeanor so Adam didn’t feel as intensely scrutinised as he was being. The thick sludge of blood and grime covering Adam from head to toe was mixed with stomach acid, and the little skin that Dave could see was turning pink where it wasn’t battered blue. “Always thought hunters had a flair for the dramatic, but you really take the cake,” he joked with the hint of a smile on his features, but the worry was there. Adam’s injuries would heal faster, but Dave wasn’t the one who’d just been eaten. He just remembered the feeling. “When you’re ready, you’re gonna need to get back in the water to wash the rest of it off.”

He didn’t ask, are you alright. He didn’t ask whether it hurt. He didn’t need to. He knew how trauma was what each hunter collected by the armful, this just another harrowing near death experience out of dozens that Adam had walked away from. This one might not even leave a scar, just a story to tell over a beer. Tomorrow, Dave would feel like he’d been hit by a truck, and in a week his muscles would still give him hell. In a week, Walker would likely be right as rain. But healing hurt, both the mental and physical sort, so he waited for Adam’s cue before coming in to help him get on his feet again. His own legs began to protest under both their weights, his ribs creaking. For right now, the adrenaline rushing in his weathered veins made this just about bearable, but they needed to make a move before the tides turned against them.

“I’ll tell you what, Walker. Once we’re both patched up, I’ll buy you dinner and a beer just to celebrate you not being dinner.”