#and you have this nauseous feeling and a fuzzy disgusting mouth

[zecretsanta]

To: @kayzero

From: @wherestarsarestillasleep

Hi! The prompt I went with was “Aoi and Hongou during 999 while Junpei is solving the incinerator puzzle. (Akane optional.)” I hope you can enjoy it!

As you push the cold metal barrel harder into the back of his skull, you have the weirdest thought. You’re keeping him on such a short leash, there’s a disgusting kind of intimacy to the moment. You can track the tired old rhythm of his breathing, smell sweat drowning out expensive cologne.

Things you don’t want to know, too average human, too mundane. It’s bizarre. Almost disorienting. You’ve dreamed about having a gun to his head or a knife to his throat for so many years. You’ve thought of this so many times while he’s been far out of reach.There’s a grounded level of reality in the irrelevant minute detail that only makes it all the harder to connect in your mind, semi-hazy with disbelief of the moment you’re in.

Hard as you worked for this, some part of you saw it as a fantasy storytale, that you’d make it to this point someday, that this future would become your present. All the times you swore it over to each other. Same promise you’d always made. You’d be her Santa. Whatever she needed to believe in.

All that time selling the story to Akane, did you ever really buy it yourself? It’s surreal.

But here you are. All three of you standing outside this door, Junpei and the others locked in that incinerator, loaded gun in your hand pressed to Gentarou Hongou’s head.

God, you want to pull the trigger so fucking bad. Every unfiltered instinct you have’s telling you to do it, take the chance, take the shot. And you could do it. Right here, right now. You could do it. You picture it now, in that weird fuzzy headspace. All you have to do is squeeze your finger and he’d be dead. Fall heavy to the floor by your hand, the blood’d leak red and wet and metallic out of his head and you’d leave him to rot. Your body stays steady, but your mind’s having trouble computing the reality.

Felt the same way when you kidnapped him. Sometimes you’d take on the mask and grab ‘em, sometimes Akane. You did the whole Nonary Board, much as Akane wanted to herself, just to completely ensure it. That however this would all end, there could be no rewriting the reality of those bastards being put in a death game with four very real bombs in their stomachs. You broke into where he lives, past all that CEO security, gassed him so anticlimatically, and took a moment to just look down at his body crumpled defenseless below you. To take in tossing a grenade was all it took, and you had him physical and mortal and meat you could cut through right then and there.

But it’s not up to you. Some other world, you’d have set yourself on a bloody nauseous revenge quest to murder him yourself. But you’re not doing this for you.

You’re not the man that passes judgement, you just help carry it out. You’re a servant, or an assistant, an extension of her will. You’re a guard dog, and that’s how you feel right now. The need to keep him away from her is visceral, hair on edge electricity fight or flight, having the bastard near her you hardly blink. But your sight falls on her past him now.

It’s an experience to watch on her face as Akane slowly loosens the mask, June stepping off the stage. The way it drops carefully in stages from innocence to hatred, shining in her eyes like the moon reflects on blood or the chapal’s candlelight off your gun. Her skin’s clammy and her breathing uneven, she holds herself up with one arm on the wall, looking up through loose hair. There’s a curl of triumph in her mouth, some kind of exhausted exhilaration in her eyes where they fall on Hongou. Most of all, you see hate.

She wants him to suffer even more than you do. That’s why she chose for him to get out of here alive. You want him dead and gone and his name meaningless but Akane wants it tarnished, she wants him humiliated and wretched and aging in a cell. The idea of leaving him alive in the world crawls on your skin, of having him right here right now and walking away, letting him live on.

But if anyone should get to decide, it’s her.

So you cattle-stick prod him onward, and you don’t take your eyes off him until he’s bound in the trunk, and you slam it down together with your sister, leaving him in darkness.

And you leave him behind.

[halinski]

.

[daryl-dixon-daydreams]

Words: 2,193 Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader Reader pronouns: she/her Era: the prison Warnings: none really Summary: Y/N falls ill and Daryl goes to make sure she's okay, only to discover her cell is empty. A/N: Just a short and sweet fic! For all you fellow migraine suffers out there! Requested by: @winchestershiresauce and anon!

Your name: submit What is this?

“Gettin’ real sick of staring at these ugly fuckers,” Daryl said, smashing the end of the metal rod in his hand through the chainlink fence and into the brain of a particularly loud walker. He watched carelessly as it crumpled to the ground and was immediately replaced by another.  “Yeah, well—” you jabbed the crowbar in your hand into the temple of the seemingly endless infected clamoring at the fence, “someone has to do it.” You paused for a moment as your head suddenly swam. Daryl immediately noticed.  “What? Ya alright?” He thought maybe you looked a little pale all of a sudden, which was strange considering the sweltering heat and humidity. He was sure he was red-faced and he knew he was soaked with sweat.

You squeezed your eyes shut for a moment and shook your head. “It’s nothing. I’m good.” You resumed your thankless and grim task, picking out another infected dead one to put down. You felt Daryl’s eyes on you for a moment longer before he turned back to the fence. You wiped the sweat from your brow with the back of your hand and pushed on, but it was only a few more minutes when you felt your vision start to change and the familiar stabbing pain began to grow behind your eyes. Daryl watched as the crowbar dropped to your side and you froze again, squeezing your eyes shut, a grimace wrinkling your brow. “Hey—s’goin’ on? And don’t feed me some bullshit about how you’re fine,” he drawled. He watched your fist clench around the iron crowbar. “Just—just a little too much sun probably. I’m just gonna go get some water and shade for a bit. I’m fine. Really,” you said, opening your eyes again and turning to look at him. His eyes were narrowed as he peered back at you, concern obvious on his face. “I’ll walk ya up—” “No. No, Daryl, I’m fine,” you reassured him, forcing out a light laugh. “Just keep at it down here. I’ll see if Glenn or Maggie can come down. There’s too many walkers. We need to cut this herd down or we’ll lose the fence,” you said, already walking backwards toward the gate. “I’m fine,” you tossed out one more time, forcing a smile that you knew wasn’t entirely natural. He watched you turn and let yourself through the gate, taking the alleyway between the fences back up toward the prison. Hopefully you just needed to rest a little while... He continued to work on thinning the herd for a while but found himself distracted. Neither Maggie nor Glenn came down to help and it was possible they were just busy, but he found himself fixating on an intrusive thought that you’d collapsed somewhere of heat exhaustion on your way back to the cell block. He finally decided to take a break himself and make sure you were alright. He could see if anyone else was available to help on the fence too. The archer didn’t find you anywhere on his way back inside, collapsed or otherwise. He breezed into the cell block, stalking past Beth who had Judith in her arms. He slowed as he neared the cell you’d claimed and was surprised to see that it was empty. He spun on his heel and headed right back out toward Beth. “Hey. Ya seen Y/N come in here?” “She came through a little while ago, but she left again,” Beth said. “But ya did see her?” Daryl asked again. Beth nodded. “Yeah. I saw her. Why? What’s goin’ on?” She saw worry in the archer’s expression. “Any idea where she went?” Beth shook her head. “No. Daryl, what’s goin’ on?” “Nah, nothin’. She just—she was out on the fence with me and said she wasn’t feelin’ well. I just wanted to make sure she was alright. I was thinkin’ I’d find her in bed but she ain’t there.” “Oh,” Beth said. There was something like a realization on her face and Daryl paused. “What?” “Nothin’,” Beth said again, averting her eyes back toward Judith.  “Ya ain’t a good liar,” he said, a little annoyed that she obviously knew something she wasn’t saying. “C’mon. Spit it out,” he said, flicking his fingers at her. Beth looked up at him again and still seemed unsure. “It’s just—she doesn’t really want anyone to know...” “Know what?” he pressed. Beth looked hesitant, but the look on Daryl’s face convinced her to spill it. “Sometimes—she—she gets migraines. They can make her real sick,” Beth said, bouncing Judith on her hip. “Only reason I know is because I saw her leavin’ with her pillow one time real early in the mornin’ when I was up helpin’ with Judith.” “Leavin’? Leavin’ to where?” “She needs it dark and quiet... so I think she goes to one of the other cell blocks,” Beth said. “But she really told me not to say anythin’.“ Daryl stood stunned for a moment. “One of the other cellblocks?” Beth nodded. “Ya mean with those bloodstains and shit all over the place?” Beth shrugged. “I told her no one would care but she insisted I didn’t tell anyone anythin’.” Before Beth could ask him not to let you know that he knew, his broad shoulders were already disappearing back out the door. Daryl checked two cell blocks before he heard the sound of you being sick. He pushed through the cellblock gate, which creaked lazily on its hinges, and found you huddled over a bucket. You rinsed your mouth out with water and didn’t notice him standing in the cell doorway until you had sunk heavily back down on the edge of the mattress. You startled a little and Daryl watched your expression and body language just sag. 

“Great...” you muttered. “Did Beth rat me out?” you asked, sliding further back onto the bed and wiping a shaky hand across your clammy forehead. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how disgusting do I look right now?” you asked, leaning your head back against the wall behind you and shutting your eyes. Daryl was just about the last person you wanted to see you like this. He watched a flash of pain flit across your face. “‘bout a 5,” he drawled, stepping into the cell. You cracked one eye open to take in his expression and saw that although one corner of his mouth was quirked slightly upwards at his joke, he mainly looked concerned. You closed your eyes again as the light coming in the high cellblock windows made your head throb.

“I’ll be okay. I just need—if I can get to sleep, sometimes that stops it...” You pinched the bridge of your nose, feeling the thudding of your pulse beneath your fingers. “Sometimes?” Daryl repeated. You didn’t respond and he moved farther into the cell until he was standing at the side of the bunk. “I thought it was yer head. How come ya got sick?” he asked. You took in a deep breath and tried to let it out steadily. “If the pain’s too intense sometimes it can make me nauseous.” Oof. Talking was not helpful. “Mmm.” You shook your head. “Can’t talk.”  “Hmm...” Daryl considered you for a moment. “Scooch. And lie down.” You looked up at him, surprised, through bleary eyes, the aura of your migraine distorting your vision uncomfortably. “What?” “Ya heard me,” he said, his tone soft. You obeyed and shifted closer to the wall, settling down on your side. Daryl squeezed himself in beside you, sitting up with his back against the wall, legs crossed at the ankle.  Your eyes were closed, but he still saw your expression tighten as waves of pain crested and fell. “What can I do?” he drawled quietly.  You shook your head. “Just—nothing...” you murmured, feeling a hot wash of shame spread over you. The next moment your eyes shot open as you felt Daryl’s fingers running over your hair, following a strand gently, brushing lightly over you. You peered up at him in surprise and he immediately pulled his bottom lip in between his teeth and chewed it anxiously. His fingers left you for a moment. “Uhh—s’that... help?” he asked, his hand hovering above you. You nodded and closed your eyes again, just in time that you didn’t see how red Daryl’s cheeks and ears suddenly were. “Actually, yeah. That helps...” you sighed. His fingers landed in your hair again and resumed their gentle movements. He watched your breathing slow and deepen, and you seemed to sink more heavily into your pillow. Once you were asleep, Daryl carefully slipped from the cell and returned with a blanket for you, covering you over gently. He debated about heading back to the main cellblock, but the idea of leaving you there alone bothered him. Ya shouldn’t be in a fucking prison to start with, but alone in that cellblock that still held signs of unspeakable horrors? That was out of the question. So, instead, he slipped back onto the edge of the bunk, setting his back to the wall again, and settled in next to you. Maybe it was the hard work out on the fence earlier, but he was soon asleep too. When you woke up many hours later, you were surprised to see Daryl beside you asleep. his head nodded down toward his chest. He’d stayed there next to you? That whole time? He woke as you stirred a little, leaning up on an elbow and peering up at him, rubbing your eyes with your free hand.  “Hey,” he said, feeling suddenly awkward and climbing off the bunk and onto his feet. “How ya feelin’?” You nodded. “Better. Thanks. Just... a bit hungover,” you said wearily. The sharpness of your migraine had faded to a fuzzy kind of ache, and your whole body felt fatigued. “Hungover without the fun of gettin’ lit in the first place? That’s some serious bullshit,” he drawled, leaning back against the wall behind him, arms crossed over his broad chest. “Yeah, tell me about it,” you said, swinging your legs over to sit on the edge of the bed, the blanket falling from over you to land in a soft pile. “Thanks...” you murmured again, feeling that creeping wave of shame rising in you again. Daryl must have sensed it because you could feel his blue eyes on you, studying you, and you glanced up at him. “Why didn’t ya tell me?” he asked. “I mean, why hide it?” He looked around the empty cellblock and his eyes landed on the bloodstains on the floor outside the cell you were in and the piles of trash nearby. “This ain’t where ya should be when yer sick. Ya should be back where—where we can take care of ya...” He’d almost said “I” instead of we, and he felt his heart start pounding.  You hung your head and stared down at your hands. “I don’t want to be a burden...” you said quietly. “It’s better if I just deal with it. Alone.” Daryl scoffed and you glanced up at him. “Tha’s stupid. Ya ain’t alone. Ya got a family. And ya ain’t a burden cuz ya get sick. Ain’t yer fault. Can’t control it. Ya didn’t choose it. It’s the shit hand ya been dealt.” You shrugged and peered down at your hands again, anxious. “This why ya had to back outta that run the other week at the last minute? And—that time when we were out tryin’ to track that horse?” Your jaw clenched and you nodded. “Usually I know when they’re coming on. Sometimes I have more warning and sometimes hardly any at all... Before the world went to shit I had a couple medications that really helped, but—can’t exactly walk into a pharmacy now and fill a prescription,” you said wryly. “It’s fine. I manage them. But... I know it makes me weaker...” “Weaker? Nah. That ain’t true. If anythin’ it makes ya stronger cuz ya gotta deal with that pain.” You shook your head. “No. What if I’m out there and one hits me? That’s a weakness, Daryl. It’s dangerous.” “Mmm,” Daryl hummed, chewing on his bottom lip. He seemed to make some decision at that moment and straightened up. “Look. From now on? If yer gettin’ sick, ya just tell me, alright? No matter where we are, I’ll always make sure yer safe. If we’re outside the fence, we’ll find someplace to hole up. If we’re in here, I’ll make sure ya get to bed and that everyone keeps fuckin’ quiet so you can rest—well, ‘cept Lil Asskicker, but can’t do nothin’ about that,” he drawled.  You managed a half smile. “Daryl, you don’t have to—” “I know I ain’t gotta, but that’s how it’s gonna be. Like I said, yer not alone.”  You were a little overwhelmed at the moment and you felt a bubble of emotion forming in your chest. You cleared your throat and tried to gather yourself for a moment before you looked back up at him. You knew there was no point in arguing. “You’re the boss,” you said, when you finally met his blue eyes. He rolled his eyes at you in response.  “Alrigh’, we both know that ain’t true... C’mon. Let’s get ya somethin’ to eat,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of the cell door.  You smiled and took in his broad shoulders and strong arms, feeling another rush of heat in your chest. The softness inside that badass warrior always melted you and you had readily come to the realization that he was simply your favorite person in the world. And soon you planned to tell him so.

[midearthwritings]

Tongues rip like razors

You should never go to sleep after a fight. But tonight, you will.

Words Count : 1,790

Pairing : Faramir & Reader

Warning : Angst

Author's Note : Again, I couldn't decide if this was going to be platonic or romantic so really it's up to you to decide.

When comes Winter, with it come the frustrated and angry complaints. Those who grumble about the snowflakes stuck in their eyelashes, and those who whine about their almost frozen toes. You never understood them. How could one not enjoy coming home to a warm fire after a long day of playing outside? Blue fingers were a small price to pay to see the big bright smiles painting the little children's faces.

But the winter mornings, when the Sun rises lazily to make the snow glimmer like thousands of diamonds, seem far away.

The sunlight feels heavy on your back. Under all your clothes, sweat covers every inch of your skin, droplets dripping down your neck to your chest. More than anything, you wish to rip the thick cape off of your body. You don't, for you are not a child anymore and don't want to appear as such.

And so you keep walking, the dead looking grass crunching with each step you take. Through your boots, you can feel all the dry earth's bumps and its sharp rocks. There are no trees, and no shadow to make the walk more bearable. What wouldn't you give for the wind to blow on your face, to cool down your skin a little. Sadly, the air is hot and suffocating.

Perhaps, it would make things easier if you were not all walking so close to each other. As you silently curse the man behind you that keeps stepping on your heels, your toes hit something and your body flies forward.

You shut your eyes tightly, waiting for your face to collide with the hard ground. Already planning to blame the weather for your fall, you are pulled back on your feet by a gentle hand.

"Careful, we do not want you getting hurt." He keeps his words low, soft. Never have you heard Faramir raise his voice. He never needed to, at least not with you. He knows you will hear him, that you are listening.

You look up to him, with a small smile. There is no annoyance in his eyes, no anger. Only a plain blue color, comforting, a bit like home. You allow yourself to look a bit longer. Under the burning summer Sun, as you long for the cold winter nights, he is like Spring. The perfect in-between.

"My apologies, Captain." You say, bowing your head slightly to him.

As the mechanical symphony of the group's steps rise again, you feel his eyes still on you. You dare not look, nor even think too much, afraid he might be able to read your thoughts. Heat spread in your cheeks and you cannot decide if it is because of the Sun, or because you feel naked under his piercing gaze.

"What is it that troubles your mind?" He does not ask if wether or not you are troubled. He knows you are. Turning to glance at him, you see his arm is not resting against his body. It is only then that you realize his hand still holds you. You smile again, and like a disease it infects him and he smiles back.

"Too much." You admit pensively. The warmth of his touch spread throughout your body. Unlike the Sun's assault, it is a very pleasant sensation. "The weather, mostly. I miss the snow greatly."

He nods, as if he understood. Perhaps he does. "We all do. Until winter comes. And then we wish for it to go away."

Some do. But you don't. And the puddle of sweat on your lower back, dampening your clothes in the most uncomfortable way, only confirms the thought.

Time passes too slowly to your taste, and your mouth is getting dry. Drier even than the dirt you're walking on. Looking behind you, careful not to fall again, you observe the men following the captain's steps. They do not look much better than you do, some of them fighting to simply keep their eyes open.

In the middle, you glance at your prisoners. Blindfolded and tied up like beasts ready to be slaughtered. They are so small. Never before had you seen such small creatures. And they aren't even wearing shoes. If your feet are in pain, you cannot bring yourself to think about theirs.

Slowly, carefully, you reach for your leader's arm tugging lightly at his sleeve.

"Faramir." The pleading tone makes him look at you fully. You almost get yourself lost in the ocean of his eyes again. With a movement of your head, you indicate the two little men's position. "Shouldn't we give them some water? If I feel as if I could melt, surely they do too."

When your question is met with a firm shake of his head, you frown. For the first time, you don't understand him. Does he want them to get dehydrated and pass out? Someone would have to carry them until your next stopping point. And under such heat, it would be torture to whoever would be designated.

"They will be provided with food and drink when they have answered my questions." The tone he uses is unusual and it sends shivers down your spine. Slowly, you feel the soft Spring breeze be replaced with a snow storm. And suddenly, you understand what he had meant earlier, for in this instant, you wish more than anything for the cold to go away.

"Faramir." You try again, more desperate. It is not your life that depends on him, but it is still a life. "It is not fair to have them keep going without a bit of water."

"Is this treason I hear?" His words are now hard and sharp enough to cut stone. But they cut through your heart, better and deeper than any blade could. "Defending possible Orc Spies and doubting my ways?"

You wish to talk back. Tell him you are simply acting as a proper human being. But reason tells you not to. You would get into unnecessary, and unwanted trouble.

"No, my apologies Captain." You whisper, shaking your head.

Hanging from the Halfling's pale neck, it shines in all its golden glory. The One Ring. How easy would it be to snatch it and keep it all to yourself. The power you would be granted would be feared by all, and they would look up to you with admiration and envy. You could press Faramir's sword deep into the Hobbit's throat and it would be yours.

You force yourself to look away, anywhere else. Inside your chest, your heart is racing. You know it is evil. It calls to the weak minds and possesses them, leads them to their ultimate death.

Standing close to Faramir, you hear him speak softly. He craves it, and you wonder if his mind feels fuzzy, like yours did. In his eyes, usually filled with tenderness, burns the fire of desire. His breath is short, erratic. Does he, too, think of murdering the poor ring bearer?

Standing on the tip of your toes, you bring your mouth close to his ear. Your fingers find their way around his arm, once again.

"Faramir." You see his head tilt slightly at your words, his golden locks tickling your face. "I must talk to you. Privately."

He is reluctant to follow, his feet planted firmly on the ground. And when he finally complies, his eyes linger on the piece of jewelry a bit longer.

You drag him further away, hidden from any curious ears. It is only when you can barely hear the others talk that you stop, satisfied with the distance between you and them.

You cannot bring yourself to face him. Partly because you are ashamed. So easily, you had let the Ring take over you, the most disgusting thoughts merging in your mind. Another part of you is terrified. Of the Ring's power or Faramir, you do not know.

"You wished to talk, so talk." He is right. You were the one to bring him here. But now, you doubt yourself.

Gathering your courage, you turn around. He is changed, as if you had not seen each other in years. He gazes upon you as if you were a stranger.

"You should release them. Let them leave." At your suggestion, rage fill his eyes. In less than a second, he is standing so close to you, invading your space. You don't look away. The urge to defy his authority makes your guts clench, and you feel nauseous.

"You have no idea what it is that you are implying." He spits the words in a manner that is not his. Yet, his voice remains low.

Like a vivid memory, you see your hands around his throat, strangling him to death. Your blood boils in your veins and you feel hotter than you ever did.

If you cannot convince him to free the halflings, you will go insane before morning comes. Best case scenario.

"Faramir, this ring was not called Isildur's Bane for no reason." You hiss. What is on his mind? Is he thinking of burrying his sword in your stomach? "Bring it to Gondor and it is death that awaits us all."

He does not understand, does not want to. Gone are the soft smiles and fingers brushing against your skin. They now dig into your shoulder, and it almost hurts. Almost. But the pain in your heart is greater, and so you barely flinch.

"It will give us great power, and strength. We will slay the enemy and earn everybody's respect."

Slowly, the pieces come together and you close your eyes.

"It is not the Ring that poisoned your mind." You whisper, and his thumb presses harder into your shoulder.

All his life, Faramir had to live in the shadow of his brother. Not one day passed without his father looking upon him with disdain. Given the chance to prove his worth, he would blindly take it.

He does not speak, but he does not step back either. His breath hits your face, hot, burning. Nothing like the perfect Spring.

"You seek the recognition of a man who could not care less about you." Another missed opportunity to keep your mouth shut.

The cold steel of his sword caress the skin of your throat menacingly. You know he will not act on the threat. But you think better than to provoke him again, and you remain silent.

"Careful with the words you speak." He warns. And maybe, it is of him that you are afraid. "We do not want you getting hurt."

The blade is gone as fast as it came. The sound of his steps as he walks away are barely audible. You stand there, paralyzed. When you reopen your eyes, you are alone.

[stag-bi]

hate cooked vegetables. The only time I can remember liking a cooked vegetable as an adult was the time I was absolutely drunk on fuzzy navels and they were cut in slices and it was the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten. Otherwise cooked veggies always just taste like stringy fibrous mush. I feel bad for my nephew because he's got the same texture issues and tends to not like to eat food that he's not 100% sure he likes. My mom got insulted when I said he likes the baby food squash better than hers because hers is 'stringy' and what i meant was 'has the texture of actual food' which is actually not even remotely insulting. I think its why when I make food for myself I overcook everything especially potatoes and eggs. Like scrambled eggs that are too runny? Blegh. It's not shocking that autistic people tend to eat the same thing all the time until that gets boring and then move on to some other thing for a few months and then another. It's SAFE.

ppl w/o sensory issues rly dont understand that its not like were spoiled or childish, our mouths genuinely feel several times more sensitive to texture and taste, and when you have that problem, you become super dependent on your safe foods bc literally everything else makes you physically nauseous. its not an attitude problem, its literally how our brains have developed in the uterus to interpret our nerve signals :(

i wish i could eat stuff w/o feeling vaguely disgusted all the time

also big mood on the overcooking! pasta al dente and runny eggs? literally registers as The Enemy in my mouth

[atlas-of-a-human-soul]

PLS i just read amnesia au ethan i need a part 2???? does his memory of y/n come back???

Part 1

Warnings: angst, language

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"It's pretty cool, right?!" Ethan's hopeful smile made her melt, even more so when he kinked his eyebrow like he does when he's trying to be cute. He never really had to try, her was always cute in her opinion.

"Well, yeah, but a sun? I thought we agreed you'd get meaningful tattoos, not things that look cool." She brushed his ribcage with the tips of her fingers, gingerly so she wouldn't hurt him.

Ethan held his breath as he felt her touch, he always does. It's an instinctual thing, she always steals his breath away. For the longest time, Ethan wondered if she were but an angel sent to keep his head above water. He feared she's just going to disappear from his life, from his memory once she saved him from darkness, from himself.

"It's the most meaningful one I got in a long time." Ethan's sincerity halts her heart, stopping her in her tracks. Looking up, her doe eyes meet his solemn gaze and she could have sworn she found a sliver of heaven in him. If he's not a part of heaven, she didn't want heaven at all.

"What's it about?" Her voice is shaky, her lips parted just enough for her to draw short, shallow breaths.

"You. You're my sunshine in the darkest days. You're the most meaningful person in my life."

Hollow and alone, she tried to forget the heartache. As busy as she kept her mind, memories always found their way in. It's impossible to forget the way Ethan made her feel, even though she wished to God she could.

"Will you come back to the hospital. He might be ready to see you."

Grayson wasn't giving up easily either. He'd call every day, he'd send updates and photos, but Y/N never opened any. She couldn't see him. Too much pain would drive her insane and Ethan is the source of it.

"He's having a really bad day. The doctors say he'll need a lot of physical therapy to get his left side working again, but he's really frustrated. Could you come and help me?"

She wished she could. She wanted to be ther every step of the way, but to face him and see the way he looked at her again? The disgust and hatred in his eyes as he deemed her to be nothing more but an insane fangirl ripped her apart.

"He's asked about you. His memories are fuzzy, but he remembers kicking you out that day. I told him who you are and he's been watching your photos and videos on his phone for a week now."

She finally paused, sitting down before her knees give out. Listening to the voicemail had made her chin quiver and eyes fill with tears. The hole inside her chest opened, whatever healed was once again an open wound and the stitches she placed on her heart in order to survive had ripped.

Staring at her phone, she wondered if seeing Ethan would be a smart idea. She missed him more than words could say, more than she believed was humanly possible. Missing him was made worse by knowledge he was hurting too. She knew he must have taken it hard, losing function of the left side of his body, more so since he is left handed. She wanted to help, she did. But who will help her if it all comes crashing down again.

Feeling the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, she frowns. She didn't even realize she was biting her lip.

Looking down at the E letter on her charm bracelet, she sighs. If there is a chance that Ethan would want to see her, no matter how minuscule, she had to take it. For her sanity.

So, sooner than she expected, she found herself back in the hospital with cold, shaky hands gripping her bag filled with scrapbooks she made throughout their relationship.

"Grayson." She breathes out as she notices him waiting for her at the door. "I missed you."

In moments, she found herself engulfed in Grayson's arms. He doesn't even smell like himself anymore, he smells like disinfectant. He smells like a hospital.

"I told him you'd come to see him." Grayson clears his throat, "He wasn't against it."

Raising an eyebrow, she shrugs, "But he wasn't for it either."

"He needs time, Y/N/N. I mean, he did remember your last name all on his own." Grayson smiles as her eyes flood with unshed tears.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I think he's excited to see you again, he's just told stubborn to admit it." Grayson places a hand on the small of his back as he leads her through the hallways, to an entirely different ward than before.

Soon, she could see Ethan sitting on the bed, his back turned to them. She didn't really know what to say or do, all she knew was how much she needed him with her. So, she let her feet carry her to him.

"Hi." She spoke, her voice muffled through the mask but he heard her.

Ethan turned to her, his eyes a little darker and sadder than before, but she didn't break under his gaze. His hair was much shorter too, a visible scar on his head showing where they made the cut to save his life.

"Hi." He croaks, clearing his throat only to repeat himself. "Hi."

"I, uh, don't really know what to say." She smiles. He could tell she smiled.

"Just don't treat me different. Okay? I'm still me." Ethan looks away, down to his hands folded in his lap.

"I won't." She nods, stepping toward him. "I missed you." She continues as he flinches with the words like they hurt him physically, "Maybe it's too much to say, but I did."

Chuckling dryly, Ethan glanced at her, "Maybe treat me a little bit differently. Like when we first met."

Pulling down her mask, she licks her lips before smiling. She had not even left her apartment since the last she saw him, she figured it would be safe. "You kissed me before you even knew my name. That might not be the best way to go about it."

"I did?" Ethan pales, wondering what the hell made him do that.

Nodding, Y/N chuckles, "And you got slapped for it. But it was a dare, as you later admitted."

"I sound like a dick." Ethan sighs, reaching for a cup of water.

"You kinda were." Her tone is light but her smile falls. She can tell he is struggling to take the cup, his hand isn't open and his fingers aren't exactly moving the way they're supposed to do and before she realizes it, she's there, helping him take the cup by opening his hand.

She made a mistake.

"DON'T!" Ethan shouts, pushing the glass over on the floor, the water spilling over. "I'M NOT AN INVALID!"

"I'm sorry", she tried but he was too lost in his own anger to truly hear her apologize.

"This was a mistake! You shouldn't be here!" Ethan turns away from her, livid with her actions and while she knows she did nothing wrong, it felt like someone punched her in the gut.

"I just wanted to help." She raised her voice ever so slightly, enough for him to snap.

"WELL YOU CAN'T HELP ME! STOP FEELING SORRY FOR ME AND STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE I'M YOURS BECAUSE I'M NOT!"

Swallowing thickly, she stepped back. Nauseous and lightheaded, she felt as if her heart would break. You can die of a broken heart, it's scientifically proven, and her heart has been breaking for weeks now. She can feel it ache deep behind her ribcage, beating a desperate rhythm: love me, love me, love me.

"I don't know how to look at you differently." She gives him a tight lipped smile, tears from her eyes flowing freely and he couldn't help but soften at the sight of them.

"I can't be who you want me to be."

Wiping her tears she shakes her head, "I know."

PART 3

[howdoyousleep3]

you lean into me like you know

A/N: Hi so I’m feeling super wack right now and it’s really hard for me to write or to even get to that point, but this is something I wrote a while back and didn’t have the courage to share and then never finished it entirely to the extent I wanted to. There isn’t explicit smut but it’s implied or glossed over. The vibe I had in my head was very retro, not modern day, “The Outsiders” vibe. It is very different than what I normally post but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. I’d love to hear your thoughts. 

After his second year of college Bucky comes home for the summer. His heart desires to stay in the city, yearning for the chaos, but he acknowledges how important it is to come home for his Ma. It’s a mild June morning, air already growing sticky, and it’s the first time Bucky sees Steve Rogers. 

Seeing Steve makes him realize he’s never seen sunlight before. Looking at Steve makes Bucky hopeful again, makes him want to smile, makes him want to be a good person. He’s the most beautiful thing he has ever set his eyes on and Bucky wants to fucking break him. Perfect little Steve Rogers with his rosy cheeks, golden blonde hair, his seemingly-always broken glasses, his full-ride scholarship, and his perfectly-keen artistic eye.

 It’s disgusting.

 Bucky’s pretty sure he’s in love. 

The sight of Steve makes Bucky short of breath and that isn’t even because of the cigarette between his lips. He sucks more nicotine into his lungs to shove down the growing ache in his chest and throws it to the concrete so he can stomp on it like he wants to do his own heart.

Once Bucky sees him coming out of the library that afternoon he sees Steve Rogers everywhere. He most definitely doesn’t blame that on the fact that Steve takes up every empty space in his mind, fantasizing about every which way he can make Steve cry. He sees him in the grocery store, walking down the road, at the local diner; Bucky sees him everywhere and it feels like he is drowning. 

He’s never been in love, not even close, never wanting to do more than fuck and move on. The foreign feeling in his chest and brain makes him comprehend why history is full of people who go mad over love, spend their days mourning, harm themselves, even die, for love. Bucky’s a tough kid. No one messes with Bucky Barnes. But one Steve Rogers is slowly cracking him open and Bucky’s doing what he can to protectively keep all the pieces of himself together.

The first time Bucky talks to Steve is a critical moment. If he’s shattered inside without even having heard Steve’s voice, he can’t imagine what hearing it will do to him. It isn’t planned. Bucky has no warning. He is standing outside the diner sucking down another cigarette, his date for the night (Sherry? Sarah? Stacey? Shit.) waiting far too patiently inside. It’s a decent summer night aside from the rain that’s been meandering down from the sky nearly all day. Bucky registers the bell on the door signifying the entrance or exit of someone, but he has no intention of lifting his head to acknowledge them. People usually like it more when Bucky doesn’t notice them.

“You know those things are awful for you,” a deep voice says to him and he’s ready to square up with the person who belongs to said voice when he looks up and—

Ah fuck.

He’s looking over at Steve, perfect little Steve Rogers. If Bucky felt like he was drowning before, he’s dying now, hanging on by a thread. Bucky opts to not immediately respond and instead takes in the kid and savors the moment. Steve is so small up this close and Bucky wants to squeeze him, wants to hurt him, wants to touch him. He swears he can smell him but that’s incredibly unrealistic given the distance between them and the humidity. 

He can see a smattering of summer freckles starting to form across the bridge of Steve’s proud nose and he aches inside at the sign of youth. He just knows that that smooth creamy skin would bruise like a peach, all sweet, under Bucky’s chaotic grip. Bucky’s palms begin to sweat and once again he finds himself flicking the butt of his cigarette to the ground, blowing out smoke into the heavy air between them, smashing and grinding what’s left of the cigarette unnecessarily into the pavement beneath his feet.

“No shit, kid,” Bucky manages to bite out before heading back inside the diner, narrowly avoiding brushing shoulders with Steve, bell ringing, hands shaking, breaths rushing. Bucky’s core, his equilibrium, have completely been compromised. If Bucky imagines that the body beneath him later that night, the one he’s fucking into, is comprised of bony joints, a strong jaw, and eyes that take him to oceans he’ll never in his life visit, he can’t be blamed. This is Steve Roger’s fault.

The next time Bucky talks to Steve he is more prepared. He knows it’s coming because he is the one who initiates the brief conversation. He needs to get his feet back under him, needs to be the one with the upper hand, needs to hear Steve Rogers’ disproportionately husky voice hit his ears again. 

He finds himself at the local market indecently early all because his Ma wants fresh green beans from Mr. Walter. He is very aware of the fact that Steve sells his art at a rickety old table, simplistic and pure, sitting behind it all in a near-broken wooden chair. He’s so compact that the splintered chair sees no strain and Bucky’s heart does that achy pull when his eyes land on him. He swears to himself he’s in one of those romance films they show at the drive-in on weekdays for cheap. It makes him nauseous.

He pretends to pick and sort through a barrel of peaches, fingers barely detecting the fuzziness of their skin, eyes trained on the soft blonde. Steve Rogers looks just that, so soft, so gentle, plain white t-shirt and faded jeans, knees tucked to his chest to balance the worn sketchbook on them. Bucky bites the inside of his cheek to feel pain, to counterbalance the warm twinge beneath his ribs but it barely works. Bucky realizes with a wave of panic that he could watch Steve Rogers draw and sketch and focus for the rest of his life.

Bucky has a plan, knows what he is going to say, can only hope what little Steve Rogers replies with. Thick shaky legs take him right up to Steve’s table and before his lips can even part the wind gets knocked right fuckin’ out of him. His words die on his tongue as his eyes rove over the worst thing he could have ever seen—himself.

Amongst all the sketches and drawings, even a painting, there to the left lies a rough sketch of Bucky. He’s standing outside the diner, the point of view of the sketch drawn from within it, and a cigarette hangs between his lips. He looks brooding, dark on the paper, side profile gutting. He’s never seen these emotions splayed across his face before and how dare Steve Rogers, of all fucking people, showcase it to the world.

His brain tries to catch up with his limbs and mouth as he listens to himself mumble, “What the fuck, Rogers?”, fingers reaching to touch at the paper reverently. That wasn’t what Bucky was supposed to say. Bucky’s supposed to make Steve Rogers blush and stammer, conceal an erection, think about Bucky when he closes his eyes at night. He gets the blush and stammer, cerulean eyes wide as he damn near falls out of his seat in an attempt to snatch the sketch from Bucky’s reach and view.

“Fuck, I didn’t…Bucky…” he mumbles and a noise bubbles up in Bucky’s chest at Steve saying his name. Steve is quick but Bucky is quicker, pulling the sketch out of reach. Steve’s small arms are no match for Bucky’s longer ones. Bucky takes a second to appreciate the sketch up close before blinking over at Steve who looks like he is about to burst into tears. He’s fidgeting where he stands, arms crossed over his wisp of a chest, both face and neck a splotchy red mess. His eyes are downcast and Bucky can actually hear Steve wheezing. Bucky wants to wrap him up in his arms and kiss his cheek, to press his lips right there on Steve’s temple like he’s almost damn sure would make him blush. Bucky has absolutely not ever done that or felt this way before. His fingers twitch.

“How much?”

Bucky watches as Steve’s head shoots up, a look of sheer surprise and embarrassment flowing over his features. He stammers and chokes on his words, the strong crease between his brows prominent.

“Fucking Christ, Rogers—how much?” Bucky says in as much aggravation as he can muster, which is a miracle considering his veins feel like thick honey full of adoration. Steve quickly shakes his head feverishly.

“No, it’s…no. Nothing, s’free.” He still won’t look up at Bucky, picking at the hem of his shirt, and Bucky already wishes he could see those eyes again. How can he long for something, someone, when they’re right in front of him?

“I-I usually sell them for like…t-twenty dollars. It’s cool though, I—”

Bucky raises his hand dismissively, Steve snapping his mouth shut with a click, and he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet. He tugs out a fifty-dollar bill and tosses it on the table. Steve doesn’t look up at him. Bucky wants to cradle the sketch close to his chest, to show it to the world, to frame it in glass and get it signed. Instead he turns and says, “See ya later, kid,” and walks away. 

He walks away a fluster of emotions. 

He’s still uneasy and off-balance, angry, but his entire being feels like it’s letting out a sigh of relief. Bucky refuses to think of why his thoughts are forming the way that they are and instead folds up the sketch and places it in his back pocket with shaky hands. He’ll keep it on the table next to his bed and smooth out its creases as he looks over it every night before he sleeps. Bucky doesn’t think about how it’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for him. 

[dxrksong]

Chapter 3 part 2

Things get real

-------

You all ran inside, heading to the kitchen. Things were all fine when the Jims froze at the kitchen door

Y/N: "Something wrong Jim?"

CameraJim: "Uh-well…"

Cherry pushed passed the twins

Red: "I suggest you stop beating around the bush and-"

Cherry froze as well and the moment you heard HIS voice, you knew why. 

Mark: "Now now, let's not all stare at me and hold up dinner!"

Slowly Cherry and the Jims walked into the room and taking their respective seats. Eventually you had to walk in to, looking around and realizing unhappily that the only chairs that were left were either right next to him or still within arms reach. 

Mark: "ah! Y/N! Just the elusive-"

You started walking away. You're not eating with him anywhere NEAR you. 

Actually you might throw up if you tried. The sheer anger and disgust he makes you feel, makes you feel uneasy and anxious and just flat out nauseous sometimes. 

Almost as if you had just downed a whole gallon of alcohol among other things. 

Mark: "Y/N! Oh come on, don't be like that! Why won't you talk to me??"

Dark tried to say something but you drowned him out as Something snapped in your head, nothing but anger so hot it nearly broiled in your mind as You stopped, turning around on your feet sharply as you glared daggers at him

Y/N: "Oh you want to know why I won't speak to a man that's notorious for the partial blame of me being in the mirror? A man that has this downright CREEPY obsession with me when I bearly remember you? Yes, I remember SOME but that's about it. Most of the time you're just a fuzzy little memory in the back of my head that refuses to surface. And with everything I DO remember of you is nothing short of TOXIC!! So You know what?! No! No I won't speak to you!! And do you wanna know why?!"

Your voice started to crack, A ringing in your ears as you didn't bother holding back, feeling you hair stand on end and the ego's seeming to flinch at your outburst 

Y/N: "You killed my friends, forced them against each other, ruined my marriage, forced everyone to go INSANE AND IT'S ALL BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T HANDLE YOUR GIRL LEAVING YOU AND DIDN'T BOTHER TO GET HELP OR DROWN IN ICECREAM LIKE A NORMAL PERSON DOES AND INSTEADS GOES FOR MURDER!!! So No! No, I won't speak to you! You're just a whiney little baby that no one wants to deal with that cries all the time and doesn't bother trying to anything yourself or shuts the fuck up and DEALS WITH IT *BECAUSE YOU'RE OVER A CENTURY OLD!!!!*"

You were panting once you finished your little rant, the entire room speechless. Slowly you realized what you had done and said, Mark's face twisted in shock, surprise, and maybe just a dash of fear, Dark's surprisingly no different 

Even after all this time….

Oh how you'd love to see it more. But you have important matters to attend to. You straightened yourself upright before walking away towards your room, hands behind your back to keep your posture positive even as you slowly broke down in the halls, picking up the pace once you were out of sight from them. 

You can't believe you just did that! You can't believe what you just said!! A ruined marriage…? On top of all THAT?! 

The poor DA…...no wonder they turned to dreaming….it's much better than out here!!

You busted into your room, slamming and locking it shut behind you. You collapsed onto the edge of your bed, burying your head into your arms as you sobbed and bawled. You just wanted this day to end already, maybe turn back time and pick a different route. 

You just need more time. 

"Oh child…"

"We all do…."

You looked up and you saw two very familiar shapes. 

Unus and Annus

"Y-you guys..?"

They smiled warmly at you. 

"Now, you may not really remember us"

"And though our time may be up"

"We got you a little something."

Unus and annus took out an hourglass, setting it in front of you, on your bed. It was black and white, the lids/roofs being in a black and white spiral with the walls being black and the skulls being white. The sand was also black too.

"To always remember us by"

"And just remember."

"Never. Forget the ticking of the clock"

You could hear it in your head, you watching the sand go down in the hourglass as the clock ticked over and over again, progressively getting slower with each second until…..

The sand stopped all together, frozen in time. 

"You have a wonderful gift Y/N! Don't be afraid, to use it!"

"And remember. Don't let ANYONE tell you what you can and can't do" 

You paused before smiling and nodding

"Y-yeah!.....thank you I-"

They were gone. Were they even here to begin with? You looked over to your bed, seeing the hourglass still there. You smiled once more and picked it up, setting it on your dresser.  

You looked up, peering into your reflection. An empty eyed version of you looked back at you and strangely. 

You didn't feel afraid

Your smile turned into a grin as you stared right into your reflection before opening your mouth and uttering your command

"Play!"

------------

The ego's watched tensly as Mark sat at the table. Mark wasn't really welcome here, that fight from earlier being more than enough proof of that. As the last members of the table arrived, they had given a shocked pause like the rest of them. 

Mark: "Now now, let's not all stare at me and hold up dinner!"

The Jims had nodded slowly and unsurely as the Red Googleplier took it's seat. However when Y/N walked into the room, the room suddenly got more intense than before. 

Y/N wanted nowhere near Mark, that much was obvious as they started to walk away from the dining room all together. The Jims were originally going to get up and join them but what happened next practically glued them to their seats. 

They had seen this before, back at the manor before Y/N had woken up from their coma. A kind of feralistic energy made by sheer RAGE that cracked their body from the inside out.

Just like the broken mirror. 

Except it was worse this time somehow, like a predator that had just found it's prey cornered and helpless. 

Y/N screeched at the top of their lungs, the terrible ringing sound they emitted completely drowning out Dark's aura, leaving the man stunned. 

But that wasn't all. Y/N's eyes…...they were dilated like a cat's, a loud growling being heard in the background of their screaming. 

It hurt to hear and see all that at once as Y/N continued on. until finally….they left...leaving the room even more tense than it was before. 

Wil: w-well now…..that was certainly….something. 

Host: the host would like to remind Mark, Dark, and Wil about the warning the host had given the trio earlier that morning. That is no longer the same gentle Y/N from a century ago. And if you three keep pushing them they might do something you won't like. 

CameraJim: wh-what about us BookJim?

Host: The host feels it IS a little nessasary to say the warning only correlates to these three as they had known Y/N longer than the rest of the manor egos. 

The Jims sighed before looking at each other and nodding

MicJim: whelp, we're gonna go to bed!

Dark: Jims, what are you hiding?

The jims froze, looking at each other before looking to Dark

CameraJim: why-what ever do you mean StaticJim?

Wilford squinted his eyes

Wil: are you two hiding something from us?

Bim: mind sharing?

Blue Google: not everyday the JIMS of all people hide things. Suspicious behavior indeed.

CameraJim: wh-what???? No!! Jims would NEVER-

Dark: Jims. Where DID you find Y/N in the first place? 

The Jims once again shared a glance before the one holding the camera sighed and gave up

CameraJim: we call MirrorJim 'MirrorJim' for a reason, Static-i mean *sighs* 

MicJim: Jims….MAY have ignored StaticJim's advice and had gone to the spooky manor-HEAR JIM OUT!!! 

Dark looked to be three seconds away from yelling. 

MicJim: Jim didn't touch anything like StaticJim said but something happened with Jim's ouija board and next thing Jim knew MirrorJim had suddenly appeared!

CameraJim nodded his head vigorously 

CameraJim: But something was wrong with MirrorJim! MirrorJim didn't respond to anything Jim was saying, their eyes were completely empty, and when Jim tried to get too close, MirrorJim would chase us around the house before returning to the area Jim found MirrorJim in!

MicJim: Jims stayed when Jim realized that the story was huge so Jims stayed behind despite Jim instinct and next thing Jims knew, MirrorJim had suddenly woke up! 

Dark: so you knew about this the ENTIRE TIME?

CameraJim: J-Jims didn't think it was important….

Dark's aura began to ring louder and louder, the Jims flinching before running away from Dark's wrath. 

Part 2

[magicianapprenticelyra]

To Pay Our Last Respects; Chapter II [IRIS, SHILOH]

[CHAPTER I]

WARNING: Contains massive spoilers from the latter parts of The Arcana: A Mystic Romance.

[With mentions of: @vesuvianoak‘s fan apprentice Ąžuolas and fan kids, Esther, Hazel, and Noah, the lattermost being to whom Iris is married to.]

IRIS

It’s been a while, but I know I’m in the spirit world. It feels real, but the way I walk is a mite slower. When I move, my whole body feels a bit weightless, and so heavy at the same time.

Once I am out of the woods, I finally get my bearings. In the distance is the hut Grandma Khamgalai and Herm have been staying in. It’s never changed, as far as I know.

There’s smoke coming out of the chimney, so I know either Herm or Grandma are in there.

As I continue to make my way there, I look down at where I step. I don’t want to accidentally step or disturb some of the neighbors.

The closer I get though, I start to get a funny feeling. When I’m within reach of the door, I slow my steps, listening.

Inside the hut, I can hear Grandma talking. At first I think it’s to Herm, but then I realize he’s moving around in the hut, cooking something. Grandma would usually be padding around nearby as he did . . . so why wasn’t—?

I hear the Major Arcana’s feet coming my way in the nick of time. I jump out of the way as the door swings open.

“Oh!” Hermit blinks, seeing me on the other side. His starry green eyes are apologetic. “Hello Iris.”

“Hi Herm,” I reply, stepping back to let him come out. As he shuts the door behind him, I ask, “Is there someone else in there with Grandma?”

“Mm,” Hermit nods, sparing a glance behind him before walking on. I follow.

“Wood pile?”

“Mm.”

“Want me to carry or do you want me to chop?”

“Both, if you are able.”

“Of course I’m able!”

We find the wood pile a ways away from the hut. It is really low, which is surprising.

“How’d this happen?” I ask, grabbing an axe nearby.

“The guest in the hut happened,” he replies.

I blink. “Human or demon?”

“Human, like you.”

I pause, setting the axe down again. “I beg your pardon?”

To be honest, I’m not that special: I know there are people that can find their way to The Hermit’s realm, but there are a lot of hoops to jump through in order to even get to this place.

“He’s struggling with a loss, like you,” Herm explains further. I grimace, picking up my axe and getting to work on getting wood for the pile.

It'll be a bit, because I'm unwilling to let Grandma go without while I'm here.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

After The Hermit and I get the wood pile about 2/3rds the way there, we hear Grandma's voice in the distance: she's calling us to come in for lunch.

I trundle after Hermit, feeling sore. Aunc Asra has told me that if I got hurt here, it's not real. I didn't take my body with me this trip at least, but it's hard not to feel a bit beat up.

Like the gentleman he is, Herm opens the door for me. I see Grandma getting the table ready . . . with our guest.

I pause after closing the door behind me. The person is not that tall. They couldn't be much shorter than Aunc Asra, to be honest.

They got a shock of auburn hair, and a face that strikes me as familiar.

"Iris!" Khamgalai greets, walking over to give me a hug. I gotta bend down really low in order to let her hug me fully. “How are you holding up, sweetie?”

“Uh, could be better,” I reply, giving her a small smile. Grandma ushers me to the table, having me on one side of her, and the stranger on the other.

"Iris, this is Shiloh," she points to the newcomer, flashing a smile. "Shiloh, this is my granddaughter, Iris."

"Hi," they greet, glancing at me before looking away sheepishly.

"Hey yourself," I reply, giving them a little wave. After Grandma lightly nudges them, Shiloh returns the little wave.

Soon, Hermit sits across from her, passing bowls of bantan and cups of tea around. When he also sets down a platter of khuushuur, I grin.

“Thank you for this,” I dip my head to the Arcana.

“It’s no trouble,” Hermit rumbles.

“. . . there’s no pork in this, right?” Shiloh asks, looking at the soup suspiciously.

“No there isn’t,” Grandma replies, patting their shoulder. “Dig in! I knew even before you got in here that you look like you’ve hardly eaten.”

Shiloh blushes vividly, already scooping the thick soup into their mouth.

As we’re all eating, I spare a few glances over to this person. Their clothes make me think of someone with refined but flashy taste, if the long sleeves and gold-colored accents were anything to go by. The material isn’t velvet, but it’s sitting heavily over their body.

What I’m really shocked about though, is their magic. Even if it’s pretty subdued, I can feel the cracklings of . . . something. Given the fact that Khamgalai made bantan, they’re probably a few hours into getting over a hangover too.

After the stranger finishes their soup, Grandma moves the platter of khuushuur over to them.

“This looks like chiburekki,” Shiloh remarks, looking at the offered food.

"Chiburekki?" I echo. Why is that familiar?

"Mhm. A fried dumpling thing." Shiloh picks up one with a wooden fork. They pop it into their mouth, and chew. The khuushuur settles into one of their cheeks as they eat, taking a few moments to savor and chew.

“What’re you in for?” I ask them, chuckling when they’re startled by me addressing them.

After stopping themself from choking, Shiloh swallows, replying with, “I dunno."

I raise an eyebrow and look at Herm. When he shrugs, I look at Grandma.

“Were they the one that got all your wood?”

“Not intentionally,” Khamgalai replies plainly. Shiloh shrinks in their chair, red to their ears as she continues with, “From what I understand, it’s something like this: when he landed in the Hermit’s realm, he got knocked into the wood pile. He smacked into it so hard it scattered to the four winds!”

“How were you drunk before even getting here?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “Had a night out with your friends?”

Shiloh shifts under my scrutiny, lips pressed tightly together.

“I’m pretty patient, kid,” I forewarn, “I can wait a pretty long while.”

Hermit gets up and leaves us alone. I don’t blame him: these are really weird circumstances. In the meantime, Grandma and Shiloh end up doing dishes together while I tidy up the living area. The two of them exchange a few words here and there. Given Shiloh is stage whispering, I can’t hear much.

After a bit more poking from Grandma, Shiloh finally caves.

“It’s . . . complicated,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He dries his hands and stumbles back over. He seats himself on a low stool.

Slowly, Shiloh leans down, stretching. As he touches the tips of his shoes, Shiloh strategically pops his back. I sit down on a low stool too, settled beside my grandma as Shiloh begins.

He talks about after he went to sleep last night, he woke up in the Arcana realms. When I ask how he knew, Shiloh responds with, “Lamps don’t just grow out of nowhere,” he laughs wryly. “It’s . . . it’s a little fuzzy but I was drinking with this demon I ran into . . .”

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

SHILOH

Hours ago, The Hanged Raven . . .

“ . . . do you get visitors often?” I murmur, nursing my pint of ale in my hands.

“Mm . . . yes and, uh, no,” he replies.

I mm in understanding, trying not to stare. It’s really, really dark in here, but I can make out the outlines of his silhouette. The demon before me . . . he’s humanoid, but massive. From head to taloned feet, he’s covered in black feathers. There's some swathes of dreadfully pale skin—almost grey!—in between rows and rows of said feathers. Thanks to him handing me this pint what I think ale, I can tell he’s got claws at the ends of his massive hands too.

“So, uh . . .” I look to the ceiling, noting the cobwebs. “Have you been out much?”

“Only to hunt,” he replies. He gestures to some bones in the corner of the room. The sight makes my skin crawl.

There were still some chunks of meat on the osseous matter.

“It disgusts you, doesn’t it?” the demon looks into his massive tankard wistfully. “I know I am . . . I can’t change it however.”

“Hey you need to eat to live,” I reply, taking a swig. As the taste of Salty Bitters collides with the back of my throat, I gag. Shaking my head furiously, I heave a strangled, “Oh gods—!”

The demon has a lopsided smile as I dig into my coat pockets, bringing out a handkerchief to hack into. I stuff the cloth into my mouth, trying to soak up whatever remains of the Salty Bitters in my mouth.

“I should’ve uh, forewarned you,” the demon murmurs. “I’ve had them for so long, I don’t taste it anymore. I still feel the effects though,” he laughs, placing a taloned hand over his face.

I spit out my handkerchief, opting to drink out of my canteen of water from then on.

“It’s, cough, okay,” I reassure. “My first drink when I was of age was Salty Bitters. It’s been a while since I had any, haha . . .”

The demon lifts his cup up into open air. One of the ever-floating bottles of Salty Bitters swoops over, filling up his tankard.

“What’re we drinking to?” I ask, steadying the canteen in my hand.

“To better times,” the demon murmurs. He immediately downs the tankard in one go.

It’s after that that I excuse himself, feeling nauseous. This sort of Salty Bitters is far more potent than the ones back home . . .

“Safe travels,” the demon bids me.

As I stumble out, the scenery outside The Hanged Raven has changed. It wasn’t full of red-lit mangroves—

It’s the very edge between a forest and a massive field. I trip, knocking over a wood pile. As I lay on the ground, confused, I decided to sleep it off . . .

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

IRIS

". . . and that’s how I’m here,” Shiloh concludes.

I stare at him, amazed. I look to Grandma, who looks back at me. Then, together, we look at Shiloh.

“How often do you travel the realms?” I ask, my mind racing.

“Often enough that demons don’t faze him,” Grandma replies.

“What your Gran said,” Shiloh nods.

“Um . . .” I rub my neck, trying to calm down. “That demon . . . did he tell you what his name was?”

“They don’t tend to.”

“Did he look familiar to you?”

“I rarely meet the same demon twice,” Shiloh explains, raising an eyebrow. “Why?"

“Salty Bitters is my father-in-law’s favorite drink,” Iris explains. “Julian Devorak’s his name. The fact you said this-this demon was drinking so much to cope—”

“Wait, what?” Shiloh stares at me. “That’s not possible.”

At this point, Grandma decides to get some water for the three of us. As she leaves her seat, Shiloh repeats that it isn’t possible for Julian to be my father-in-law.

“What makes you say that? Do you know Julian?”

“First off: everyone knows my dad,” Shiloh uses his fingers to mark each of his points thereon. “If my Dad is your father-in-law, you’d either be married to me or one of my siblings, if I had any. Since that isn’t the case . . .” He shakes his head some more, looking like he’s suffering another headache.

I rack my brain, trying another avenue: “Do you know Muriel?”

“Barely. He doesn’t like my dad much, so he tends to stay away unless it’s just my mom and/or Asra around.”

“Is your mom Lyra Nguyen?” I feel a strange weight in my chest. The weight is clammy, fueling my crumbling disbelief in what’s happening.

Grandma finally hands me a mug of water. I set it on the nearby table instead, my eyes flicking between the furniture within the hut, and Shiloh’s face.

“ . . . how . . . ?” Shiloh stares at me, expression matching my own.

We both look to my grandma, needing answers.

“Would Herm know?” I ask her.

“He should have some kind of answer,” Grandma nods. “We may need to wait a while, though.”

“Fine by me,” Shiloh sighs. He drinks his water, thanking Khamgalai. “May I sleep on the floor?”

“Let me get you some blankets young man. Please remove your shoes.”

Shiloh nods, immediately unlacing his long boots. I help Grandma get the blankets down from a storage closet, setting up an area for Shiloh to sleep off his hangover some more.

Pretty soon, he’s out to sleep. As for me, I take a moment to just . . . set my head on the table.

Grandma stands beside me, gently smoothing her hand over my back. “You should sleep too,” she recommends.

“I’ll sleep after we hear from Herm,” I softly reply, resting my chin on top of my crossed-over wrists. Satisfied with my answer, albeit a touch worried, Khamgalai leaves me alone.

The truth is . . . I do need sleep. Damn, forget mourning my mother and all for a minute . . .

I fight off my exhaustion with questions. When Mom was still alive, she said for every question I had, The Magician had about thrice as many in turn for me. It feels that way right now . . .

What did Shiloh’s mom see in Julian? According to my own mom and dad, he’s a hell of a nuisance at times. This was extremely so when Mom, Dad, Asra and my uncle Julian went into a crumbling Vesuvia to oust the late Pontifex Vulgora.

Is Nadia still the Countess?

Where’s Portia in all this? She’d be Shiloh’s aunt, right . . .?

What about Asra? Who did he end up with? For some reason, the thought of him travelling all on his own makes me unbearably sad . . .

“Not everyone ends up with someone, and that’s okay.” Mom always told me that. That was her comforting words to me when I was having difficulty finding a partner I wanted to spend my life with.

Considering Shiloh now, that made me wonder . . .

Did Noah exist with Shiloh’s world? Did Uncle Ąžuolas exist? What about Esther and Hazel? Having a world without them, it feels so wrong . . .

Before long, I’m fully asleep.

NEXT: [TBA]

[banashee]

Part 19 of my @badthingshappenbingo​

Square: “Survivor’s guilt”

Please mind the tags and warnings in the bottom notes!

 Moving on while being stuck

 Ironically enough, after waking up from being mind controlled and being partially responsible for almost ending the world, Clint’s first thought is that he should be dead.

 It is his fault, at least he thinks so, that New York is in shambles. People are either dead, hurt, or at the very least terrified out of their minds. Giant aliens gliding through buildings like a knife through butter - screaming.

 Oh god, the screaming. It’s burned into his brain and keeps him up at night, trembling and nauseous. The screams of terrified civilians haunt him, and he can’t drown them out. Even when he lies in the dark, hearing aids on the bedside table and unable to make out the rustling of blankets or the low sound of his own breath - the screams echo in his mind for hours.

 Clint has never been good with shaking off the suffering of innocent people. It stays with him, long after a battle has ended, despite his job and despite the fact that he himself if capable of levels of violence that most human beings are simply not equipped for.

 Clint knows how to hurt and kill people, and he’s good at it. It is not something that comes to him naturally, but he’s done whatever he had to in order to survive for most of his life. Punching, shooting or stabbing his way out of a situation is something he could do half asleep by now. When SHIELD hired him as their asset, it had been a big step up from other, way more shady jobs. The memories of those days still leave him sleepless with guilt, even more than a decade later.

 But Clint has never knowingly or willingly laid a hand on innocent people. That is, until Loki deemed him worthy for his plans and scrambled his brain without as much as the touch of a staff.

 Clint wishes he was dead, but he is very much alive, although running on fumes.

 The minutes (or hours? He really doesn’t know) he was unconscious after Nat knocked him out on the bridge have been the first time he's been asleep in days. Those days he spent mind controlled leaves him jittery and exhausted. It’s not like Loki really cared for the human shells of those he turned. Although he doesn’t have any proof aside from his own feelings and spotty memories, Clint is very much convinced that he and Eric Selvig and all the other nameless, faceless people have been forced to keep going and held upright and alive by nothing but magic. Days without sleep or food take its toll on human beings, and it catches up to him fast.

 Needless to say, Clint is exhausted, hungry and hurting all over, but there is no time to dwell on any of it. When Captain America knocks on the door and tells you to suit up, you do. No questions asked.

 So he walks out of there and fights off the alien attack that he is partially responsible for. Even when he is about to shut down, his body keeps moving through nothing but sheer spite and will power, and Clint fights like never before.

 The grip on his bow is strong, as it always is, fingers flexing with impatience as he thinks of putting an arrow right through Loki’s eye socket, wiping the smug grin off the bastards face and Clint doesn’t hesitate.

 He doesn’t get to take his personal revenge, but he still fights with everything he’s got.

 It’s the least he can do, and if it kills him then so be it.

 Clint walks into the battle alongside a group of people he doesn't think he belongs to, but when he tells Natasha this later that night, she just scoffs and tells him to stop overthinking. If he wasn’t so goddamn tired of everything he’d laugh - he is either overthinking all the time or not thinking at all - there really is no in between with him and Natasha knows it.

 But Clint knows that she means well, so he just nods and agrees halfheartedly without any intentions of taking care of himself. Whatever horrors wait for him, he quietly vows to deal with it and not bother anyone.

 ‘      You don’t deserve the comfort    .’ the icy cold voice in the back of his head whispers, and that alone is almost enough to leave him shaking again.

 Natasha watches him from the side, not even bothering to hide the fact that she’s keeping a close eye on him. Nat is suspicious of his easy agreement to take it easy, and rightfully so. They have known each other for too many years to be able to keep up any false pretense.

 Clint can't stop thinking that he should have died, if only to spare the world the horrors he helped bring on to it.

 He wakes up around noon the next day, feeling guilty for waking up at all. Nausea rises up in his throat and a dull pain hammers through his entire body - most of all the headache, which is probably the concussion that Nat gave him to knock Loki out of his brain.

 Clint forces himself to get up and get into the bathroom. He’s on his knees and dry heaving into the toilet just seconds later, and nothing but bile comes out. He hasn’t eaten in - well, not since before his watch shift on base in New Mexico before everything went to shit, then nothing but water for days, and then picking a bit on the shawarma before deciding it would be better to      not    be sick all over the place.

 Nat doesn’t deserve to deal with this mess on top of everything else, and neither does the rest of the team, because they seem like decent people. Genuinely nice even, as far as Clint can tell with his fuzzy mind and questionable social skills.

 So he picks at his plate, eating just enough so it looks like he’s trying, but he stops soon. His stomach is revolting by then.

 What little he managed to force down then, he’s now losing just after waking up.

 Disgusted and exhausted once again, Clint strips out of his clothes and steps into the shower. While he is standing under the hot spray of water, the room fogs up and the mist wavers all around the place. Despite being hot as hell, it leaves him shaking and suddenly everything is blue and cold and freezing and Clint slides down onto the floor. Water keeps running all over him, scalding hot but he doesn't feel it as he's shaking apart and gasping for breath.

 It’s the first time he’s alone and in private in way too long, so he doesn’t give a shit how much time he spends panicking on the shower floor.

 When he slowly gets back to himself, the water is still hot because Stark Tower tech, and it doesn’t help the throbbing headache he now has from crying.

 It’s not like he’s able to hear himself without the SHIELD issued hearing aids and no one else is in the room with him, so that’s okay.

 But Clint stays there, sitting in the shower for even longer, once again wishing he’d died.

 Thankfully or unfortunately, depending on who you would ask, he’s too tired to do anything about it.

 Clint can't eat. He wants to, kind of. But just the smell of anything edible is too much for him right now, so he leaves it be.

     'You shouldn't be alive to eat anything. You don't deserve it. Thousands of people are dead because of you and won't ever eat anything at all. You don't deserve to be here.'  

 The mean voice in the back of his mind keeps whispering, and yes, he thinks, it's true.

 Staying here really isn't something he wants to do right now, but he doesn't want to go outside and see the damage, either.

 Clint is still staying in the Tower, not SHIELD.

 It is a safe place and at least here, unlike the helicarrier or New York office, people don’t look at him like he’s about to murder them all.

 They’re right to do so, and Clint is more than sure that he deserves every single glare and insult thrown his way. But it hurts, and he’s so tired of it all - when Tony offers him a place to lay low he doesn’t has to think twice and takes him up on it.  

 If he's completely honest with himself, he didn't think Tony was serious when he offered everyone a standing invitation to crash there whenever, given that this was right after the battle, adrenaline dropping and eating shawarma.

 But as it turns out, he really is offering them all a safe place to crash, for however long they want to (“Just move in whenever, might as well. There is plenty of space, with and without holes in the walls and floor.” Tony had shrugged and went right back to shoveling french fries into his mouth and occasionally slapping out sparks that fly from his suit as if all of this is no big deal at all. To him, it either isn’t, or he is too far away, mind still stuck in space. Clint understands a little bit about that, and just hums non committedly.)

 It’s been weeks since the battle, and Clint is… Not okay, to put it lightly. He’s hiding a lot, keeping to himself and they let him.

 Natasha seeks him out sometimes, to drag him out and into the company of other human beings. He can’t remember her ever being this social, and he’s not entirely sure if she’s doing this because she thinks it might help him, or because she’s growing fond of the team. When he asks her some time, Nat gives a small but honest smile and simply says,

 “Both.”

 Sooner or later, Clint socialises a little bit with the others without being dragged out of his quarters. They’re all happy to chat with him or cook, clean their weapons or just share a space on silence. Clint finds himself liking these people, and well, it is kind of terrifying.

 Steve is polite and kind, a little bit lost really, once he’s out of his uniform and trying to scrape by in this new and modern world. He’s curious with a sense of wonder that reminds them all of how young he really is, and when he’s finally comfortable enough to drop his walls, they get along beautifully.

 Clint knows the risk their Captain took willingly when he asked him to join the team in this battle, and he is not entirely sure how he could ever thank him for it.

 Thor isn’t around much, what with him travelling back and forth through the planets, but he is a good man and fun to be around. Clint had been a little bit scared that he’d remind him of Loki all the time, but he’s proven wrong soon. Thor is his own person, and loyal to a fault to those around him.

 It doesn’t take long for Clint to look at him and simply see a friend instead of anything else.

 Bruce hides a lot in the lab, and Clint understands that, too - he doesn’t bother him, until one day the scientist catches him in the elevator and chats to him about - what even was it again? he doesn’t remember - all the way down and Clint just finds himself walking with him, until they’re back in the labs. Part of him wants to leave and let Bruce get back to work in peace, but he’s got such a nice and calming presence to him that Clint just finds himself walking along and hanging out in the back of the lab, that day and on occasion ever since.

 When Tony walks in a while later, he doesn’t blink and eye at Clint being there and simply pulls a third mug from the cupboard. Then he starts to brew a pot of coffee that’s strong enough to wake the dead.

 The thing with Tony is, he’s surprisingly easy to get along with, as long as one can deal with constant chatter, cheesy puns, casual poking every once in a while and dirty jokes. That and coffee that sends most people into cardiac arrest. Brewed by the man with heart issues himself.

 If anyone asks, it’s that last part that wins Clint over to him in the first place.

 In the privacy of his own mind he knows that this actually happened way before that. It was the second that Tony, exhausted, hurt and dirty like the rest of them, opened up his own home to a group of near-strangers without a thought and never asking for anything in return.

 Natasha is Natasha. She is his other half and Clint loves her dearly just for existing. The two of them have been through too much together to be anything less than they are, and no matter how hard things are, they still have each other.

 Having lost Phil wrecked Natasha just as much as Clint, and the thought nearly losing him as well sends cold dread down her spine. The two of them remain close, and when the nights are cold and lonely, there is always a warm body to crawl close to.

 They can’t always be in the same place - but they know, the other is just a phone call away.

 Clint is not alone by any means, but despite everything, he still feels lonely. On those days, he can’t find it in him to reach out to the person next to him, to say anything or touch them in an attempt to find ground to stand on. Messy thoughts eat him up from the inside, and despite being physically present, his brain clocks out.

 In the back of his mind, there is always that mean voice, whispering to him how he doesn’t deserve any of the company or support, how he should just go and eat a bullet instead.

 On a particularly bad day, Clint just leaves the tower instead of sitting there and feeling alone in a room full of people.

 He doesn’t think about where he’s going, but his feet carry him to central park.

 The air is fresh here, what with fall coming up, but Clint is still wearing sunglasses in an attempt to casually hide himself away. Without the uniform, no one looks twice at him, and he is relieved for it. He doesn’t have the desire or energy to deal with anything right now. Clint doesn’t really look where he is going, despite the repair works still going on in the city.

 Suddenly, something hits him in the head and the shades get knocked off his nose. Clint nearly flinches, but no blows follow, and the hit wasn’t nearly as hard as any attack he’d expect would be.

 Just a second later, a small voice calls,

 “Oh no! I’m very, sorry, Mister!”

 Clint blinks confused, then a small boy with wild curls and big dark eyes appears in his field of vision, a group of other kids on the grass near him. A colorful ball is lazily bouncing near Clint on the floor. His sunglasses are not far away, either. He picks up both items, and lightly throws the ball back to the child approaching him.

 “No problem, kiddo. Have fun,” How on earth he manages a genuine smile, he doesn’t know. But then again, he’s always had a soft spot for kids - animals, too.

 The boy grins brightly and waves a quick thanks while calling out,

 “Thank you! Have a nice day!” and runs back to his friends, hurling the ball in their direction and then they continue their game.

 Clint walks along and doesn't think much of the interaction. Except, his thoughts then suddenly run wild.

 What if this kid had been killed due to him? What if any of the other children there, or any of their families had died in the battle, what if they       have    , and he just doesn’t know?

 ‘      I should have died. I should be dead. I should have died. Not them. Me. I should be dead right now.    ’

 The words echo in his mind again and again, hammering inside of his head and it leaves him breathless. Clint stumbles to a bench and sits down, arms propped up on his knees, eyes locked onto the floor at first and then squeezed shut.

 He’s shaking, and the heart in his chest is racing enough to hurt. Is he having a heart attack?

 Thoughts keep running wild and he can’t grasp any clear conclusions. Cold sweat is running down his back, soaking his shirt and cause it to cling uncomfortably to his skin. Logically, he knows he’s having a panic attack, but the fear in his throat sits there, hot and overwhelming.

 For a moment, he thinks he might have to throw up again, but then, he doesn’t want to do any of this in public and      oh fuck     why did he leave the tower in the first place?

 “Breathe, Clint. Keep breathing, you’re okay.”

 A small but familiar hand slowly reaches out, and he takes it into his own, violently shaking ones. Natasha keeps talking to him, and her grip is firm, reassuring. Safe.      Home    .

 Clint is so happy that she’s here, he doesn’t even asks how she knows where he’d be. Maybe she just followed him. It is entirely possible and something she’d do in a heartbeat if she’s got even a hint of a reason. This is admittedly more than just a hint though.

 “‘m fine.” he forces out, and it sounds hollow even to himself. He wants to reach out further, hug her or simply hide, but he won’t. Not here, not now.

 It’s not fair that she keeps having to come after him to save his sorry ass, he thinks. But good luck suggesting that to Nat.

 She does whatever she wants, and if that includes taking care of her best friend and dragging him home when his own legs would probably give out under him if he tried on his own, who is he to stop her from it?

 Clint doesn’t have it in him to argue, and he doesn’t want to, either.

 “Come on.” says Natasha, when his breathing has finally calmed enough for her to be comfortable to pull him up and wrap an arm around his waist,

 “Let’s go home.”

        *+~

Square: Survivor's guilt

                             Notes:  

Warnings:

- PTSD / Panic attacks - Depression - Survivor's guilt - Suicidal thoughts - Passively suicidal character - violence - implied killing of people on the job - insomnia - Mind control via magic aka Loki - vomiting - food issues

[imagine-the-fanfics]

"I’m Here.”

Pairing: John Wick x Reader

Request:

Hi yes hello sooo request tiimmeeeee. I kinda want a john wick one where you get taken by someone and they send pics to him of reader in provocative ways just to rile him up if that makes sense and he has to come get you and he's angrryyy. ❤️❤️❤️

A/n: @fanficsrusz Goodness, I hope this lives up to your expectations! Thanks for the request! Italicized sections are memories.

Warnings: Trigger warning. Use of date rape drugs, assault, and kidnapping!

The sound of muffled gunshots and shouting pulled you back into reality.  Your head pulsed as you looked around what you could only call a cell, and it took you a few minutes to really process what you were seeing.

You were sitting on a nasty looking mattress on what appeared to be some kind of metal-frame cot. A relatively short chain connected one of the legs of the frame to your ankle. You’d be able to get out of the bed and walk, but you wouldn’t make it to the door. What hell happened?

More gunshots brought your attention to the door and slowly some memories started flooding back. They were only flashes of images at first, but slowly they connected themselves into semi-coherent clips, and you found yourself transported home to your bed. 

They had come for you in the night while you slept. You had been startled awake when your bedroom door broke open, chunks of wood clung to the hinges, but mostly your door was in pieces. There was shouting, and soon you could feel hands on you.

The memory made you nauseous as you realized you had been kidnapped. Quickly, you got off the cot and tried to get to the door, but you had been right in guessing you wouldn’t make it. Instead, you went to the wall where a bit of light came into the cell, and you tried to get a better view of it. Your height was the biggest kink in that plan, and made it impossible for you to see out of it. 

Adrenaline surged through you as more gunshots could be heard. You decided to try and drag the cot over to the part of the wall with the tiny window, but even with the adrenaline you were weaker than normal and only got it to budge a little. You cursed under your breath and another memory floated in. 

You were on the cot, dazed and confused. Men were surrounding you, posing with you and even removing some of your clothes. You saw flashes of lights, though you weren’t sure where they were coming from. Things were fuzzy and you were so tired.

Camera flashes. 

Those flashes of lights had been camera flashes. Memories crashed into you like a speeding train into a brick wall, and you felt yourself lurch. Instinctively you made your way over to a corner that had a bucket in it and whatever was in your stomach was heaved out in manner so violent you saw stars. 

Laughter. 

You couldn’t focus enough to understand what was being said except a few words and phrases. “Baba Yaga,” “my turn,” and other phrases that made your stomach churn. Someone had a hand up your nightgown. Another shoved their finger in your mouth, and you bit down. This got you a hard slap across the face and it left you gasping. You could feel something between your legs, though you weren’t sure what, even as it entered you you weren’t coherent enough to really think about it other than the sleepy “make it stop.”

Another wave of vommiting before you finished, and you were panting as you wiped your mouth on your arm. Breathing wasn’t easy, and you still felt like you weren’t fully in your body, but you had to keep it together. 

More gunshots, louder and closer this time.

You watched the door, waiting and wishing for John to open the door and save you. Would he even want to save you from this? Sure, you had a relationship, but it wasn’t exactly like you were officially anything to each other. No titles had been assigned to your relationship, despite the many different definitions that would apply, and John wasn’t much of the sharing type. He had seen another man making eyes at you and the man was found beaten and bloody in the alley early the next morning. 

How would he react the fabricated intimacy shown in those photos? Had they been sent to him? Of course they had. What would have been the point if not to taunt John? Worry filled your gut, along with disgust. These people were monsters, and if John was going to save you they deserved no mercy.

The closer the gunshots got the more you could feel yourself normalizing.

“I’m in here!” You shouted as loud as you could, shuffling over to the door. “Help! John! Please! I’m in here!” 

“I’m coming!” The sound of his voice made your knees weak. He was coming to save you, and you felt foolish for doubting him. Of course your demon was coming for you, he always would. Gunshot. “Where are you?” 

“I’m in here! I don’t know where!” You called out, looking around. “There’s a metal door and the walls are cement and I don’t know what’s going on!” 

Shouting and gunshots. The grunt of a man shot made your heart skip a beat. 

That was John. John was injured. 

Tears welled in your eyes as you covered your mouth, horrified at the thought you wouldn’t let yourself finish. More gunshots and a few screams and shouts. Before long, a gunshot came from outside your door.

“I’m in here!” You choked out. “I’m in here! Please! John! Please be alright! I’m in here!” The tears rolled down your cheeks, and you realized just how dirty you were. You could feel the dust mixing with your tears into something resembling mud.

“I’m here. It’s alright now.” The sound of John’s voice made you make a noise you didn’t recognize, and your body jolted with relief. He had come for you. He had saved you. “Get away from the door.” You obeyed, and there was another gunshot before something hit the ground outside and your door flew open. 

Your eyes connected, and you watched as the anger, hate, fear, and pure evilness that had found refuge in his eyes dissipate into a look of relief. He walked over to you and he wrapped his arms around you. 

“I killed them, Y/n.” He told you. “They’ll never touch you again. They’re dead, and I’m here. I’ll never let anyone do this to you again.” You couldn’t tell who he was trying to convince, but you didn’t care. John was warmth and safety and you were in his arms again. 

“It’s alright. You’re safe now, I’m here.”

[split-n-splice]

I have no comment other than awkward spindly teens who turn into kick-ass adults pull my heartstrings. Anyway~

[Chapter Guide]

Chapter 2

She was shaken awake but was reluctant to blink open her heavy eyelids. Dazed, it took her a moment to gather she was in a car – but not the family station wagon – and she was in shotgun for once – and those weren’t her dad’s fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror. And the driver with a hand on her shoulder was definitely not her dad.

She startled, slamming into the door with a shout of surprise at the stranger beside her. The binding around her hands was a grim reminder then, and she took a deep breath to calm herself as recent events came back to her through the fog.

Her new abductor was staring at her, perturbed. The spectacled man shook his head in exasperation and held out an offering. A disposable cup with some 24-hour coffee shop logo printed on the side. She only narrowed her eyes at it in questioning, and then up at him.

“Cocoa moo,” he said, taking a sip of his own. “I give you my word I didn’t tamper with it.” He gave the offering a shake to slosh the contents, as if to tempt her.

The girl twisted to get a look at her surroundings. It was dusk, and they were idling at the exit of a drive-through coffeehouse. “What?” she uttered, for lack of a better word.

She didn’t miss her phony doctor rolling his eyes. “Chocolate milk,” he reiterated with a heavy sigh. “With whipped cream.”

Grimacing, she turned her nose up at it. “I don’t like chocolate,” she said. It was a kneejerk reaction to reject candy from a stranger. Her stomach pleaded with her to reconsider.

“All kids like chocolate,” the man scoffed.

“Well I’m not like other kids.”

“I can see that.” He grunted irritably and shoved it toward her face again. “Take the damn thing before you pass out on me again. I’m not hanging onto it forever. I don’t have cup holders.”

“I’m lactose intolerant.”

The man stamped a foot in irritation. “What did I say about being a pill?” he groused. He held the cup toward his open window instead. “Be that way. If you don’t want it—”

The need for sustenance finally got to her, catching even her by surprise. “No!” she sputtered. “I’ll take it.”

The cross man cocked his overgrown eyebrow at her. “Still lactose intolerant?”

“I lied,” she admitted shamelessly, but was rewarded nonetheless.

“That’s a relief, because I’m not making any more pit stops.”

She fumbled clumsily with the drink held between her wrists, glaring out the window and hating seeing her new captor’s reflection here. She supposed she had better get used to it though, and after a while she decided to turn her head to look straight at him instead, glaring at the man faintly illuminated by the dash and ever-shifting light of fellow travelers on the dark highway.

He couldn’t take her staring, or maybe the grating slurping noise when she reached the bottom of the cup, for long before shooting daggers over at her. “Do you mind?” he ground out.

“Not at all.” She resumed making noises with her cup for the sake of being a nuisance now, watching his eye twitch and the tendons in his hands flex.

His lips pressed tight to stifle a retort and his face scrunched as he clawed at his hair with one hand, the other securely on the wheel.

“So, Doc, you figure out what you’re gonna do with me yet?”

The man made a noise of exasperation, throwing his hands up for a second before slamming them both firmly back on the wheel. He otherwise didn’t answer her. His eyes were wide but tired. She had a sneaking suspicion he was scared, that he’d bitten off more than he could chew.

She hoped he choked.

He hadn’t thought this through at all, she was sure, and she was determined to savor that idiocy until he inevitably turned on her as could be expected of any typical kidnapper. “Say, uh, Doc?” she called over, reveling in watching him edge closer to insanity. “You got a real name, or an alias or something, or am I just supposed to call you the Doctor? Because I’m gonna say it now, calling you the Doctor is gonna get real old real fast.”

She peered down morosely at the clumps of whipped cream she couldn’t reach, and gave up on it, dropping the otherwise empty cup to the floorboard.

The man’s eye twitched again. “I’m not yet sure if I even want to keep you,” he hissed. “So I’m not giving you that information, Subject B.”

She mulled it over briefly, an inkling of hope rising that she wouldn’t soon to be a murder victim – but didn’t let those hopes get too high.

The girl shrugged and slumped against the door again. “Fair enough.”

She went quiet. It wasn’t much longer before her stomach began to turn. Her mouth watered, precursor to the inevitable. “Yo, Doc, you need to pull over.”

“Not a chance,” he replied, oblivious to her nausea.

“No, really—” The first dry heave – she doubled over, head between her knees, and she clasped her hands tighter in the cast and tried to focus on that rather than the nausea stirring up her insides. “I’mgonnabesick,” she gasped. The breeze from a cracked window chilled her clammy skin.

“What?” the man practically shrieked. And by a stroke of luck, he didn’t take her warning as a bluff, but the swerve of the car crossing lanes and onto the gravel shoulder nearly made her lose her stomach contents on the floorboard. He leaned over to shove her door open in time for her to lean out to hurl. Her seatbelt was all that kept her from falling out.

The man was cursing and complaining behind her as the chocolate milk was evicted.

Eventually, she sat back in her seat and wiped her mouth on her arm with a miserable groan. Throwing up was decidedly worse than spitting fire, not that she was keen on doing either again terribly soon.

“You lied about lying, didn’t you?” accused the man. She glowered over to him, no longer keen on conversation. He’d taken off his glasses to rub his eyes, and she sensed he was close to blowing up. He barely kept a lid on it.

“No,” she croaked, and squirmed in her seat to sink down in her mortification and misery. “I just haven’t eaten in…a while.”

She could feel eyes scrutinizing her. “Are you anorexic or did they just not feed you?”

“It was by choice.”

“Why?” The man shook his head incredulously and waved a hand to dismiss the question. He unbuckled himself and twisted around to shuffle on the floorboard in the back. “I think I have some water around here somewhere…”

The girl eyed him with a grimace of disgust, leaning away from his shoulder nearly touching her, but as she was glaring, her seatbelt caught her attention – the red release button, specifically. It was worth a try. And if it proved futile then there was no harm in it – so without giving it another moment of consideration, she shoved her plaster-bound conjoined fists down on the release a couple of times before he could even notice her wriggling. The man was too busy rummaging through junk in the back, but he must have heard the click.

The seatbelt snapped off her, and out the door she went.

She became instantly aware of the lack of strength in her legs. She took two strides and fell to her knees, crying out at the sharp gravel digging into her. But she hefted herself back to her feet nonetheless – because what other option was there? – and willed herself to be ignore to the rocks underfoot as she ran down the highway with vain hope someone would see her plight.

Dry grass was whipping at her shins, and she turned to glance back to see if she was being pursued – and suddenly – suddenly she was falling again, and it wasn’t unreliable legs failing her this time. She hadn’t been looking where she was going.

The black ground took a sharp dip downhill and she lost her footing with a shriek, tumbling down the embankment. The world spun round and round until finally she slid to an eventual stop. She may have stopped, but the world was still spinning.

Dizzy, nauseous, and aching all over, she lie face-down in the dry grass to catch her breath, foxtails caught in her torn dress and smears of fresh blood hot and wet and unmistakable on her skin. With a groan, she got her knees and elbows under her, and heaved herself onto her back instead only to cringe upon the discovery she must have received more scratches and scrapes there too.

If she was cursing out loud, she couldn’t even hear it.

The girl closed her eyes for a moment, mentally preparing herself to get back to her feet, though the very thought of continuing made a twisted ankle throb.

She felt herself slipping away from the miserable waking world just as a light shined over her, and all at once she remembered that she was fleeing for her life. She tried to roll to her feet, but her breath caught at the sharp pain in her ankle and she fell back once more with a whimper.

The source of the light reached her then, and then an arm around her waist was dragging her up and pulling backwards. She screamed, but there was no one listening for desperate cries above the traffic, not even a single porch light to be seen anywhere in the darkness ahead of her. There was no help coming for her.

“Let me go! Let me go!” she howled, writhing. Her shrieks for help into the night were answered only by annoyed grunts and huffs of exertion as she was hauled back uphill. The flashlight was dropped, rolling down the steep embankment, and a hand clapped over her mouth. She bit it with the hope of taking off a finger, but he freed his hand and held her mouth shut with a nearly crushing force so she couldn’t get find the same leeway a second time. She tried elbowing him in the stomach, tried being a dead weight, but nothing was working. Her cheeks were wet with tears now that being kidnapped was a reality setting in all over again with full force.

When they reached level ground, the man changed his hold, dragging her by a wrist instead. She didn’t have much choice but to stumble along after him and her stupid cast. He was rushing her to the car he’d parked at the top of the embankment. She was stuffed inside before he stopped to give her a once-over. His face twisted, and he gestured to the fresh scrapes and bruises, and then down to the traces of blood smeared on his suit, and said nothing as he shook his head and slammed the door.

She almost punched through the window with her encased hands, and maybe she should have, but he’d hopped in behind the wheel before she could, and then he was flooring it.

She went quiet, fighting back tears. She drew up her knees and tried not to look too hard at the grit caught in her cuts.

She wasn’t expecting him to laugh. She shot him a heated frown, her eyes stinging with hot tears as he gouged a metaphorical knife deeper into her. What a—

“You must feel pretty stupid,” he guffawed.

Jackass. “Fuck you.”

“Hey, that’s adult language, kid,” he jeered. “Ah, I’m kidding. Have at it while you can. Don’t suppose you have much longer to anyway.”

Her eyes went wide. She tensed, heart hammering. Was that a death threat? “What do you mean? What are you planning to do with me?” she demanded once more. It wasn’t idle chitchat this time, and her desperation and panic leaked through.

“Calm down. Nothing yet.” He gave her a side-eye, his delight in her suffering beginning to wane. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Don’t know what?”

“You think I don’t know anything about you,” he stated, smug.

“But you didn’t read my file—”

“Not all of it, no, but I did skim it.” The man chuckled sickeningly, and he shot an ugly albeit unhappy grin at her. It was more of a grimace. “Reportedly, Subject B is liable to breakdown in a matter of years, maybe months, due to erratic behavior and something about recoil damaging the subject during the transition. Whatever that means.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

“So what are you saying? It’s gonna kill me?” She was clammy again. This day was just getting better.

The man shrugged. “Well I don’t know what exactly it is yet, but I’m sure I can figure it out.” He didn’t sound so sure. He fixed his eyes back on the road.

The girl swallowed back bile. She looked to the dirty lump of plaster her hands were bound in and began to regret not cooperating with the researchers. Maybe they really were trying to help? Help find a way to keep her from destroying herself maybe, or find a way to remove her freakish glow altogether.

If those had been the good guys, she shuddered to think what bad guys were like. Real bad guys. Not this loser driving a secondhand rust bucket – not that he didn’t pose a sufficient threat to her at the moment. So far, this particular wrong-doer wasn’t a whole lot worse than the researchers. Just a little ruder and grumpier and smelled like pickles rather than hand sanitizer.

She snorted in disdain and slumped against the door once more, sick again but not quite on the verge of upchucking. He’s just trying to scare you, she told herself, internally repeating the mantra.

The night was soon filled by radio static. The stations came in poorly, but her captor didn’t seem bothered by the crackle. She watched his fingers tapping to the beat of hits from yesteryear, the same sort her dad listened to. They were still good tunes, but she couldn’t find the pleasure in it in a situation like this.

Her eyelids became heavy once more, but she was determined to keep her guard up. It was thanks to that determination that she spotted a road sign for a familiar history museum she’d once been to on a field trip. Her heart leapt and she perked up, twisting to watch the sign disappear into the dark behind them. For the moment, her fatigue had lifted some.

She furrowed her bow as she gauged how far away she might be from home. It seemed they might actually be heading toward Go City, which gave her a fleeting flicker of hope. She didn’t dare ask to confirm, just in case he changed the route.

She didn’t manage to keep her mouth from asking other questions though. “Where are you taking me?” she said, and became immediately aware how much energy it took just to work up the nerve to speak when she yawned.

“Mind your own business.”

The girl groaned. She leaned forward, resting her chin on her knees. Crusty damp cuts from her earlier tumble brushed against her lips, drawing her attention, and after considering it long and hard, she eased her boredom with what might boarder on self-mutilation. Her toes curled on the edge of the seat at the sting as she picked out grit from the cuts and scrapes on her knees with her mouth – since she’d lost the privilege of having the use of her hands.

It took the man a minute and a double take before he reeled, the car swerving. “Augh!” he squawked. “Are you chewing on yourself? That is disgusting! Were you raised by animals?”

Before he could go on, she spat a bloody pebble at him, which tinked off the window instead. “Mind your own business.”

He made a noise like he was about to vomit, but regained his composure, or tried to at least. “Just – ergg – stop – stop that right now. I order you—”

“Or what, you’ll kill me?”

“There are things worse than death—”

The girl snorted. “Don’t I know it. I spontaneously combust and burn myself alive sometimes,” she sneered. “Try again.”

Her captor jerked back away from her as if it were a threat. “Y-you do?” he stuttered, and tore his eyes back to the road. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He muttered something under his breath, but all she caught was “recoil.”

She rolled her eyes. “You think I gave myself a buzz cut on purpose?” She kicked her heels up onto the dash, crossing at the ankle, and sank down lower in the seat with a sour grunt. She noticed the man was watching her again, and she almost folded her legs back up.

He hummed. “It looks fine,” he said, almost as if to reassure her. “A little choppy. Could use a wash,” he added.

She huffed and stared out the window, but was met by her own reflection glaring back at her. She turned her stare straight ahead instead, but was faced with bad decision written all over her legs in the form of scratches, bruises, and dirt.

“My hair used to be longer,” she grumbled, something ugly bubbling up in her chest. “My mom used to help me brush it.” There was lump in her throat she wanted to blame on the collar practically gagging her.

The man stole another glance. “Odd.”

“What?” she gritted out.

“Nothing.” His gaze was fixed firmly on the road, mouth zipped shut for a solid three seconds. “Just odd.”

“What’s odd?” groaned the girl impatiently, and held up her cast in a meek gesture with her hands. “The igniting thing or – or what?”

“The having long hair.”

“What’s odd about that?”

“It’s just odd for a boy.”

She stared, dead silent. Even the radio seemed to have cut out. She stared for several long moments, her face scrunching in disbelief. How this idiot had the competence to infiltrate her initial captor’s research center and snuck out with her remained to be seen. It must have been sheer dumb luck.

“Um.” She blinked. Looked down to her knees, and her chest. Back at him. “Does the dress say nothing to you?” she asked tersely.

“It’s more of a hospital gown, really,” he said, utterly missing the point.

“I’m a girl,” she blurted. In hindsight she considered that maybe she shouldn’t have brought that to his attention.

His eyes locked on her for an uncomfortably long minute, studying her, but thankfully not staring at her body so much as he was reading her face. She squirmed under his skeptical stare. “Are you sure?”

In perhaps any other situation under the sun, the oversight might have wounded her ego. But as it was, she was too incredulous to be stung. If her hands were free, she’d be rubbing her temples. She decided to appreciate that he had the decency not to gawk at her, though she still wished she could cross her arms over her chest to cover herself.

Her unobservant kidnapper focused back on the road. “This keeps getting better,” he grumbled, not sounding particularity pleased with the new information.

The girl tensed when he reached under his seat. She braced for the worst – a gun, chloroform, a mix tape – but he pulled out a water bottle, cracked the seal, and held it out to her. She stared at it for a second, baffled, and took the offering awkwardly between her wrists before he could revoke the generosity.

“Don’t guzzle it,” he all but begged.

She barely managed not to dump it on herself and was tempted to ignore the warning. The cool liquid washing down her throat brought little relief, but a little was better than none. Resisting the impulse to down the entire bottle was easier said than done, and she lowered it reluctantly. Her stomach didn’t particularly like it, but she’d have to tough it out.

She sighed miserably and turned her head toward the driver, mustering up the energy to put on a suspicious scowl. “Hey, Doc? If you’re a bad guy, why are you being nice to me?”

“I’m not nice. I need Subject B alive, and frankly,” he glanced to her again, “you look like you have one foot in the grave. You say you did this to yourself? Willingly? Are you insane—”

“I was trying to make them let me go,” she explained as she slumped to the window. “And if they wouldn’t, I wasn’t going to let them have whatever I have.”

“They would have still had your cadaver,” he reminded.

[phoutube]

while the rhythm of the rain keeps time

ao3 link (kudos appreciated!)

Rating: General Audiences (subject to change) 

Pairing: Dan Howell/Phil Lester

Words: 3,906

Summary: Dan loved the rain. He loved how it made the world just a little bit duller, but not in a bad way. Never in a bad way. When the world seemed to get a bit too intense, too noisy and crowded and chaotic, Dan could always count on the rain to melt the colors together, blending them and morphing the scenery around him into something dull and comforting. It would only make sense that - on a day that was wet and cold and drizzly and perfect--Dan would meet someone who would change his life in so many amazing ways.

a/n: a special thanks to my beta readers, @freckliedan, @shrugs-are-kinky, and @edgylester for making this fic possible! Go show them some love!

likes and reblogs appreciated!!

Chapter One: Water Washes It Away

Dan loved the rain.

He loved how it made the world just a little bit duller, but not in a bad way. Never in a bad way. When the world seemed to get a bit too intense, too noisy and crowded and chaotic, Dan could always count on the rain to melt the colors together, blending them and morphing the scenery around him into something dull and comforting.

He loved how it made the world smell, how the rain made all the scents spring from the earth and dance in the air, bringing forth a vivid fragrance that lingered in the air and reminded him of woods and rivers and freshness.

He loved how it sounded, the steady metronome of rain drumming on the roof of his house, the sporadic but peaceful rhythm caused by drops cascading through the trees, and even the occasional rolling of thunder in the distance.

Dan even loved it when the rain would come all at once, in fierce gales and howling winds and big cracks of thunder and flashes of lightning that lit the entire sky. He loved how it made the world look afterwards, when the rain had stopped but drops hadn’t quite ceased dripping from the trees, when the sky was grey and beginning to clear and the world had a distinct waterlogged look about it.

Most of all, though, was how it gave him every excuse to stay at home, warm and cozy and wrapped in his favorite blanket. He’d sit, sipping a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, content with the world outside. Maybe he’d read a book or sit on Tumblr or watch a show on Netflix, but sometimes Dan would just sit outside under the balcony, headphones in his ears and at utter peace with the downpour around him.

Dan wasn’t the most superstitious, but whenever it started to rain, he knew instantly that his day would be a good one.

It would only make sense that - on a day that was wet and cold and drizzly and perfect--Dan would meet someone who would change his life in so many amazing ways.

--

It began sometime in early June. Dan could never remember the date (he’d always joked about how warped his sense of time seemed to be), and he’d harboured the vague idea that his birthday was nearing as the days dragged by.

Dan had woken up in a despondent state of mind, a unique sort of exhaustion weighing in his gut and a fuzzy feeling that started in his brain and wormed its way through each of his limbs.

Days like this were ones he immediately chalked up to be useless and hollow, days that were empty and futile and meant that there was no point in getting out of bed because he knew he’d only be an echo of himself.

The rain drizzling outside was calming in a way that nothing else was--a steady downpour that matched his melancholy state of mind.

Depression. That was the word for it. Disgusting.

Glancing out the window once more, Dan debated calling in sick to work or just not bothering at all. Would he get in trouble again if he ditched? It was hard to remember what the policy was for that. Also, Dan was finding it hard to care.

Should he get out of bed and try to fill this gaping void with a hot cup of steaming caffeine? He could even scrawl down some bullshit in his journal (the one his therapist insisted he keep) about the steam tendrils curling through the air like a hot breath on a winter’s day, injecting the warm scent of coffee into the air around him. He probably wouldn’t. Just drinking it was enough for now.

Coffee, Dan thought, was probably the only thing that was worth making on one of these days. He had never been a breakfast person (eating so soon after he’d woken up always made him nauseous), and besides, clutching something warm gave his hands something to do. Occasionally the caffeine was even enough to jerk him out of this stupor so he could do something productive, like the dishes. Or maybe the laundry.

Ugh. Even thinking about laundry was almost enough for him to burrow his head under the covers and never emerge again. Almost.

He sat up in bed and swung his legs over the side. His head pounded with the beginnings of a migraine, and his hair was greasy--probably due to the fact that he hadn’t showered in… shit, what day was it? What day had it been when he last showered?

Sometimes the days got like this. They seemed to drag on forever on their own, but if Dan wasn’t paying enough attention it seemed months could go by without his noticing.

He threw on a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie that didn’t exactly smell clean. It wasn’t like he cared.

He padded out of his room, tucking his hands into his pockets and muttering to himself as he went. The hallway was sparse, devoid of any decoration (save for the plastic potted plant sitting in the corner--Dan couldn’t trust himself to take care of a real one), and the tile was cold beneath his toes.

Rounding the corner into the kitchen, Dan went through the motions of making coffee--pouring water into the machine, getting a coffee filter out of the cabinet above his head, drifting away while his hands were busy. In a few minutes, he had a warm cup sitting in front of him and only the vaguest memory of actually making it.

He did that sometimes--floating away, phasing through the day like some sort of lanky ghost. Some days were better than others. Most were the same, though.

He hummed along absently to a song he hadn’t bothered to listen to in months, his scratchy vocals accompanied by the drip, drip of the tap and the slight creaking of his chair as he shifted around. The rain outside drummed a sparse beat onto the window pane, the clouds above not quite enough to hold back the weak sunlight now streaming through his curtainless windows.

His brain felt fuzzy, and Dan lifted the cup up to his mouth for the first time. It had gone cold. When had that happened? How long had he been sitting here, while echoes of Reinventing The Wheel To Run Myself Over bounced around in his head? Was that even the name, or had he gotten it confused with another, equally angsty title? Dan had to admit it was off a pretty decent record, but it reminded him too much of his awkward teenage years and hating himself and everyone else.

God, being a teenager was such shit. He didn’t even remember much of it, his brain clouded in a haze of My Chemical Romance and hoping that he would ever mean something to anybody and the first bitter realization that he wouldn’t. He could practically taste the first sip of lukewarm beer he’d had (he’d nearly spit it out), his first kiss with a girl (which, ironically, was exactly the moment he decided he didn’t like girls very much--at least, not in that way), and especially the day he realized that his friends seemed to have grown up without him--feeling separated from his peers and wanting desperately to figure himself out, et cetera. Fuck, was he spiraling? He was spiraling. Damnit.

Dan was suddenly jolted away from wherever he was by the buzzing of his phone on the table beside him. He didn’t remember bringing it out to the kitchen with him, but he supposed he did, at some point or another. He reckoned that was his boss calling, wondering where he was and why he hadn’t bothered to call in sick and why the hell he thought it was acceptable to miss another day of work and still expect to keep his job.

Dan answered it, not bothering to mask the apathy in his voice.

“Hello?”

“Dan. Where are you? Your shift started ten minutes ago, and I can’t ask Leslie to cover it again, she did that last week and she’s out of town today. You know this. Why aren’t you here?”

Dan sighed, quickly realizing that he had been breathing directly into the speaker. He cringed. “I’m sorry, Matt. I- I guess… Well, I don’t know what I guess but-”

Matt’s voice was tinny through the phone speakers, but the exasperation in it was clear. “This behavior isn’t acceptable, Dan. You know it isn’t, and I don’t want to have to let you go, but you realize that I don’t have much of a choice, you know that, right?”

“Sorry?”

“I’m going to give you one more chance to get yourself together, and then I’m afraid you’re going to lose your job, and you know more than anyone else I’d hate to do that.”

Dan’s boss assumed that Dan knew a lot of things, when really, he didn’t. He’d always got the impression that Matt had only put up with him because he did his job half-decently. When he showed up.

“You know I like you, Dan, but letting you go is really my only option, and if you can’t get your act together by the end of the week… Well, let’s just say you won’t be working at Asda any more, you understand what I’m saying, right?

“You’re lucky you don’t have to come to work today, because Tom just got here--but please, Dan, you know you have to come to work sooner or later.”

Matt hung up before Dan could say anything else.

Dan frowned, staring contemplatively at the wall opposite him. He was going to get fired, and Matt was probably going to do it both by finding ways to say the phrase “you know” a million times and also without saying the word “fired” at any point in the conversation. How would he pay the bills? He was already relying on pity checks from his parents to help with the monthly expenses that came from renting a tiny flat in the middle of London.

He sighed dejectedly and stood up, draining the cold dregs of coffee in his cup and placing it in the sink. He wasn’t sure whether the dishwasher was clean or dirty, and if he didn’t check now then he wouldn’t have to be angry at himself later for not unloading it if it did happen to be clean.

Dan made his way over to the couch, fighting back a shiver as he sat down. It was plenty warm in the flat--in fact, he could feel a sheen of sweat beginning on his forehead, but it still felt like his very core was freezing. He supposed there wasn’t really anything else he could do except get a blanket from his room and be content with lying somewhere other than his bed for once.

He suddenly resented himself for making coffee, knowing that the caffeine now in his system resulted in his body being physically tired enough to lounge around like a sack of lanky potatoes on the couch, but not enough to warrant actually going back to sleep. He wasn’t even sure whether he would be able to sleep, anyway--he’d gotten about five hours the night before, which Dan considered a luxury he was rarely able to indulge in. He didn’t even have dreams anymore, which he was okay with. Dreams were overrated, most of the time.

His laptop was on the coffee table in front of him. Reaching out and pulling it closer to him, Dan opened it with vague intentions of watching something interesting on Netflix. It was dead. He didn’t know where the charger was. It didn’t matter.

Closing the computer, he set it back down and sat back against the sofa, the sorry-looking couch cushions molding around his body almost perfectly. He could turn on the television, Dan supposed, but the commercials gave him headaches and he was at least 70% sure the only thing currently on were talk shows and football matches he didn’t care about.

Maybe he’d just rest here until his miserable excuse for a body needed food. It’s not like he had to go to work, or anything. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to sleep and that the position he was currently in would make his neck ache for hours afterwards. He couldn’t find it in himself to care.

--

Dan stood in front of the fridge, dumbfounded. The milk had expired six days ago? When the hell had that happened? For God’s sake, he couldn’t even have a bowl of cereal without something getting in his way.

He’d finally gotten his arse off the couch once his stomach started growling--and now, with a refrigerator that was as empty as his stomach, he supposed that the time had finally come for him to leave the house for the first time in what felt like forever but was probably a bit closer to four days.

He was due to go grocery shopping anyway--he hadn’t been in almost two weeks and at this point the only edible things in the flat were (dry) cereal and a half-empty jar of peanut butter that he supposed he could eat with a spoon if he were particularly desperate. The corner store down the street was much too expensive, although nobody looked twice if you wandered in wearing pajama bottoms and looking like you hadn’t showered in a week.

Speaking of showers.

Dan supposed he had to take one at some point, and hadn’t his therapist (who he had sporadic appointments with) said that maintaining his physical health was just as important as maintaining his mental health? Some bullshit like that. He walked back through the kitchen, shucking his shirt off and tossing it somewhere towards the corner of the room. Maybe he’d go to the Tesco that was a bit further away, the one with much cheaper prices and better products. Maybe he’d even stop at the Starbucks across the street and indulge in coffee that didn’t taste like shit.

He padded into the bathroom, humming the harmony of All The Small Things and stepping out of his boxers. Good moods were rare, and came on as suddenly as they went away, and Dan knew he’d have to make the best of it.

Turning the shower on, Dan looked, really looked, at himself in the mirror while he waited for the water to warm. Sometimes he didn’t recognize himself in the mirror. Sometimes it felt like the person he was inside didn’t look like the person staring back in the mirror--which he always had a hard time explaining to other people, ones who didn’t understand the jerk in your stomach and the pounding in your skull when you looked in the mirror and a stranger was looking back.

Today, however, he thought he could see a sliver of himself in the dark eyes of his reflection, in the curly strands of his hair, in the way he held himself. Maybe something would actually happen today. Sticking his tongue out at his reflection and stepping under the hot stream of water, Dan suddenly remembered why normal people showered regularly. It felt fucking great.

He would stay in here forever, if he could.

--

Stepping out of the shower, Dan toweled himself off as he walked out of the bathroom, picking up the clothes on the floor that he’d worn earlier that day. He’d forgotten how nice it felt stepping out of the shower and wrapping yourself in a fluffy towel--and, knowing himself, he’d likely forget it again when it was time to bathe himself again in a few days. At least it was nice to rediscover the feeling.

His room was a mess. Dan really didn’t feel like cleaning it today, and besides--he already had a very important Adult Thing to do that involved leaving the house and spending money responsibly. Picking up a shirt off the floor, Dan surveyed it--there weren’t any questionable stains, and it wasn’t incredibly wrinkly, so that would have to do.

He picked up the first pair of jeans he found (because nobody even looked at trousers anyway) and stepped into them, hopping around about as gracefully as a sack of geese trying to escape from said sack. Dan crash-landed on the bed, muttered a quick, “Jesus Christ,” and stood up once more, attempting to get the trousers up his thigh. At least he was getting some exercise.

When all his clothes were properly on and he deemed his appearance acceptable enough to leave the flat, Dan stepped back into the hallway and immediately tripped over the towel he’d thrown on the floor prior to getting dressed. Cursing loudly and colorfully, Dan slung the towel over the open bathroom door (musty-smelling towels were the worst) and wandered around the flat in search of socks he could wear. He’d already checked his room, and the absence of clean socks only meant that a load of laundry was long overdue--so, naturally, Dan was looking for any excuse to delay that.

Finally locating a mismatched pair behind the couch and putting on his shoes, Dan grabbed a jacket from the coat rack (“A coat rack? Why in the bloody hell do I have to buy one of these when I could be getting, I don’t know, things I actually need?” Dan had asked after his mother insisted he get one--turns out they were actually pretty useful) and stepped outside, keys in hand.

Dan hadn’t taken more than a few steps before he had to turn back into the flat, silently scolding himself for forgetting his phone and leaving it who knows where because now he has to go look for it and- oh, it was just on the table. After a moment of hesitation, Dan grabbed his earbuds and shoved them in his pocket.

Leaving the flat (again) and locking the door, Dan felt a swell of pride in his chest. He was going outside, and he was going to do mature, adult things maturely. It wasn’t like he had a history of going out with the intention of spending his money wisely and coming back home with £50 worth of Maltesers, or anything.

Dan put his arms through the sleeves of his jacket while walking down the stairs (he was great at multitasking) and nodded at the security guard standing by the door once he reached the ground floor.

Striding outside, Dan inhaled, taking in the scent of the rain. The world was beautiful today.

The rain cascaded from the dark grey sky like a waterfall, splattering onto the sidewalk and dripping from trees. Dan was glad he’d abandoned straightening his hair years ago as the occasional drop smacked the top of his head and rolled down his scalp, managing to soak his hair and send shivers down his spine every time it happened.

Dan hailed a cab and spent a few minutes sitting in silence before putting in earbuds. After a few taps of his finger, Spotify was rolling and Dan stared out the window, lost in thought. The rain tapped against the window, and the grey world around him seemed to put his mind at ease.

Dan had created a playlist for days like this, with songs he loved but were mellow enough to create that rare feeling of peace that Dan was so quick to associate with the downpour around him. Using his hands to drum the beat of the music on his thighs, Dan gazed through the window contentedly until it was suddenly time to get out.

Stepping through the doors of the Tesco, Dan was immediately overwhelmed by the superficial glare of the lights on the shiny floors and the fact that there were people everywhere.

Dan wandered through the aisles, picking up packages of food that would last a long time, like instant noodles and frozen dinners. He also made sure he spent his money responsibly on essentials such as chocolate and… chocolate. And more coffee. He was pretty sure he’d used the last of it this morning.

When he’d managed to gather all the groceries he thought he’d need and avoid making eye contact with anyone who passed him in the aisles, Dan got in line behind some bloke in the SelfServ.

The man had an interesting tattoo on his shoulder, and Dan took the opportunity to study it closely as he waited in line. It was very intricate, with swirls of color that starkly contrasted his dark skin. What looked like gears for a machine of some sort were inked onto the man’s skin, and-

“What the hell do you think you’re looking at, mate?”

Dan was jerked back into reality by the stranger, who was now uncomfortably close to his face and glaring menacingly. “Nothing- I-I’m sorry, it’s just, I mean, you have a really, uh, cool tattoo, and I-”

The man, whose cash register had begun to beep, only stared at him for a second longer and returned to his purchases. As soon as he was done, Dan quickly scanned his items and left the store as soon as possible. Heart thundering, Dan rushed into the Starbucks next to the Tesco and collapsed into a booth in the corner of the coffee shop. That had been absolutely mortifying, this is why he didn’t go outside, that poor man had been just trying to shop and Dan had been ogling him like he was a display in a shop window, what had he been thinking?

Dan forced himself to take deep, calming breaths as he surveyed his surroundings. The few customers who had turned to stare at the lanky bloke bursting haphazardly into the coffee shop had returned to their drinks. In fact, it was fairly quiet in the shop, with nothing but the soft murmurs of people not wanting to disturb the peace and the quiet hum of coffee makers putting out the scent of freshly ground coffee beans.

Stomach growling, Dan remembered that after he’d realized that there hadn’t been any food in the fridge, he hadn’t actually taken the time to eat something amongst all his impulsive decisions (such as taking a shower and leaving the house with no prior plans to do so. Who did that?).

In the midst of all this thinking, Dan suddenly realized that he was in a coffee shop and could literally buy something to eat right at this very second. Standing up and walking over to the line, Dan contemplated what he should get. A muffin? He was going to get coffee, obviously, but as his tired idiot brain didn’t realize this morning, caffeine on an empty stomach made Dan want to vomit. Which was a lovely prospect, in all consideration, but Dan still decided to get some food as well.

He’d just stepped up to the counter and turned to look up at the menu when his eyesight was suddenly bombarded with pale skin and black hair and eyes that were blue-green-yellow and a shy smile that made his stomach do backflips.

“Er, hello,” the barista said, completely unaware of the apparent effect he was having on Dan, “I’m Phil. What can I get for you today?”

[maryenette-writes]

You Are My World Pt. 2 [Dick Grayson x Reader]

A/N: You did it folks. You made me write Part 2. Sadly I wasn’t able to include the Batfam’s reaction to it, but I still hope you enjoy this part as much as the first part!

Pairing: Dick Grayson x Reader

Warnings: aNGST

Word Count: 1377

You should’ve known.

Really, you should’ve. After all, you had noticed all the little details. You knew he was falling out of love with you, you knew he was growing distant, you knew, you knew, you fucking knew.

Yet your stupid self chose not to believe it. You shouldn’t even be surprised, but you were. The words made you still as if the blood pumping in your veins had frozen. You felt nauseous all of the sudden, and the world spun slightly behind those tears that blurred your vision.

Swallowing your nausea away, you decided to quietly slip away before Dick could even notice you. For a vigilante and cop, he was surprisingly unaware of his surroundings. Was that what she did to him, whoever your replacement was? Was he so immersed in her that he made himself vulnerable?

Pathetic, you thought bitterly, absolutely pathetic.

Exiting the apartment with nothing more than your handbag, you drove to the nearby shopping center and bought all your necessities along with some spare clothes and pajamas. Then, you rented a room at a hotel and decided to stay there until you could sort things out. A pool of emotions swirled within your chest right now and for this issue, you wanted to be prepared before you dealt with him.

But as you sat on the bed, all alone, in this foreign room, the tears you bravely held back spilled over. You tried so hard to stop them because he was definitely not worth your tears, but it wouldn’t stop. The wet droplets kept falling down your face. A sob erupted from your mouth, the first of many to come. You fell back and curled into a ball.

And that first night, you allowed yourself to weep for a man that didn’t deserve your tears.

It took Dick two days to finally come calling for you.

Two days.

You shook your head in disbelief when you first saw his name appear on your phone. It took him that long to realize you were missing? That you never came home and slept on that bed? That everything was left virtually untouched? Did he care so little for you?

You ignored his calls and texts and continued your work, despite wanting desperately to respond. Over those two short days, you hardened your heart. After crying yourself to sleep the first night you made the decision to be tough on yourself. No more of that lovesick girl making a fool of herself. You were so much better than that and much better than him.

However, Dick Grayson was one persistent man. Because after another day of completely ignoring him, he showed up at the hotel you sought refuge in, a look of concern plastered on his face.

What for though? He didn’t seem concerned when he stabbed you in the back.

“[F/N],” he sighed in relief upon seeing you alive and well, “I was so worried that something happened.” He reached out to embrace you but you held your arms up, stopping him. That made him frown because you never refused a hug from him before. “[F/N], what’s wrong? Why are you even here? Did something happen?”

You wanted to slap him then. Why was he acting all innocent? Why was he so concerned? Why… why did he have to find you?

“Just… just leave, Dick,” you muttered, “I don’t want to see you right now.” You turned to leave but he grabbed your wrist, holding it tightly to prevent you from leaving.

“Hey, [F/N] wait,” he exclaimed, “what’s going on with you? Why are you like this?” When you didn’t answer, he said, “come on, don’t be like this. I miss you… you know how much I love you, I want my girl back.”

Hearing this, you laughed humorlessly. “You… love me?” You shook your head in disbelief. “How could you say that… when it’s not true?”

Dick’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Babe, why would you think that? Of course I love you!” he claimed, rather desperately too, as if he was slowly realizing you were on to him.

“No, you don’t,” you told him in a rather sad voice, “in another time, you did. You loved me like I was your world, like I was a supernova brightening up your universe… but now, I’m just another girl to you.”

“No—no [F/N], I—“ he shook his head repeatedly, refusing to believe your words, “how could you say that?”

“Am I your world anymore, Dick?” You whispered, your eyes glassy. You hated yourself for being emotional. But you told yourself although you were upset, that didn’t mean you were weak. The fact that you still stood tall despite your sadness was what made you strong.

“I—of course… of course you are.” He didn’t sound like he even believed himself.

“No, I’m not,” you informed him, “your world isn’t me, it’s the other woman you have been seeing, isn’t it?” Dick’s eyes widened in shock. “She is your world now, not me.”

“[F/N], please wait. I-I can explain,” Dick stammered, his panic evident in his wavering voice.

“I don’t need your explanation,” you stated bluntly, “I don’t want it.”

“But I swear I—“

“It doesn’t matter,” you cut him off, “what’s done is done. You aren’t in love with me anymore, and that’s fine.” It’s not. “People fall out of love all the time. It’s life, I get it.”

Dick’s grip on your wrist tightened and his eyes were wide with panic and desperation. “W-W-Wait, [F/N], you can’t leave me. I-I love you. Please, I promise I do. You’ve got to believe me.”

“Dick—“

“That woman, she’s a mistake. I’m in love with you, it’s always been you,” he claimed, words tumbling out of his mouth as he tried to keep you. However, his words only made you more frustrated, disgusted even. What of that poor woman? Was he just playing her too? How shallow did he become to throw her away like that?

“Dick, let go of me.”

“No!” exclaimed Dick, “please, [F/N]... this is… this is just a phase. I’ll get over it. I already have!” His eyes were watery now.

“I told you, let go of me.” You repeated, raising your volume.

“But—“

“Richard Grayson, let go of me this instant.”

The icy tone of your voice made him flinch and he did as he was told, reluctantly letting you go. You stared at him, not with anger anymore but with pity. He was so desperate, for what you didn’t know. He made his choice, a choice that broke your heart and apparently his as well.

You were in grief, why wouldn’t you be? But you were also angry, and above all, you felt sorry for your ex-lover. He lost someone who was absolutely devoted to him, who knew who he truly was and supported him, endured him and loved him unconditionally. He lost all of that. He lost you.

“I’ll return in a week,” you spoke slowly, making sure he could comprehend each word, “I want you packed and out by then.” Your words seem to cut him like a knife but he didn’t dare argue anymore. He saw what he did now. He saw the wounds he inflicted, he knew you wouldn’t budge. He may not be with you now but the both of you still knew each other well.

Taking a step back, you memorized all the details of the broken man standing before you. His tousled hair, those sapphire gems you always got lost in, that well-built body of his, and his lips that used to be an instrument that marked your body. You remembered his dashing smile, the way his eyes lit up, the way he always defended his love for cereal and how he made the most effort to pull off the cheesiest things ever. Then he would grace you with that warm laugh of his that made you feel all fuzzy inside.

You memorized all of it, implanted it in your mind because you knew you would never go back to that. Allowing a stray tear to cascade down your cheek, you looked into Dick’s eyes.

“Goodbye, Richard.”

And then you turned around and never looked back.

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[flamboyantly-incompetent]

Neuron Ch.2, Pt.2

Bucky Barnes x Named (Mutant) Reader

Warnings: swearing, some angst, Tony making a sex joke, more awkwardness

Masterlist

It was raining, again.  Pennsylvania in June, what are you gonna do?

“Are you going to explain what just happened?” Bucky shouted, head out the window, still trying to shoot out tires.  You barrelled down the highway, listening for sirens.

“I was hoping to avoid it as long as possible, actually.” 

“Denna.”  You flicked a glance at him, your hands gripping the steering wheel tight.  Bucky had pulled his torso inside to reload.  He was looking at you, how pale you looked.  Growling, he put his head back out the window.  “I’ve had enough of this,” he grumbled before finally hitting his target.  The van screeched as it spun out into the median.  Two down, one to go.

It was gaining on you.  Your stomach churned.

“Can’t you just, make them pull over or something?” Bucky asked.  One look at your face and he had his answer.  “Never mind.” 

God, you hated doing that.  Every neuron that flew from your hand was rapture, it made your head fuzzy with satisfaction, like a really lovely stretch.  It was disgusting.  Hijacking someone’s body. 

You weaved in and out of the lanes.  If nothing else, living in Pittsburgh had taught you how to politely cut someone off.

“Don’t suppose we could get off at this exit?”  Without a word, you jerked the wheel to the right, eliciting a honk from an agitated Honda driver behind you.  The speed limit on the exit was 15 mph.  Shit.

You took the sharp right turn way too fast, and the right side of the vehicle lifted off the ground.  Shit shit shit.  Bucky pulled on your arm, and as you leaned towards him the car sat back down.  A shaky breath escaped you.

“We lost them for now; they’ll probably turn around or get off at the next exit.”

You nodded, “Should probably lay low.  If Hydra still has air support, we are so royally fucked.”

“Pull over here,” he said, pointing under an overpass.  You weren’t sure which county you were in anymore.

As soon as the car shut off, a wave of nausea hit you.  Before Bucky could say anything else, you bolted out of the car and vomited into the grass.  The sound of the deluge around you lulled you out of it.

Bucky looked so concerned it would have been cute if you weren’t convinced he was about to hate you. 

“What now?”

He sighed, exasperated, pushing his soaking-wet hair out of his face.

“Now we hope Steve, or maybe Wilson has something secure in the area and can get us the hell out of here.”  He opened his flip phone with a scowl.

“Stark.  Since when are you manning this line?  Never mind.  Listen, we were made.  Yep, three vans of them.  No, we lost ‘em.  Yeah,” he shot a glance your way as you twiddled your thumbs, “We’re okay.  Under an overpass near... I’ll just send you our coordinates.  Thanks.”  He leaned beside you on the car.  “Steve should be here in twenty.”  Pausing, he crossed his arms.  “Denna..”

“James, I’m a mutant.  I control people’s muscles with neurons that pulse out of my extremities.  I do not usually do this, and, no, it is not physically taxing.  I just hate doing it.  There are very few people that know this about me.  Steve is one of them.  I asked him not to tell anyone.”

“Okay,” he said hesitantly.

You snorted, “Well you’re taking this better than I expected.”

He shrugged.  “Stark has an arc reactor in his chest.  Bruce turns into an angry broccoli.  I have a metal arm.  Don’t even get me started on Vision.”  You laughed, feeling lighter and less nauseous.  “You should probably not tell Bruce I said that.” 

“Duly noted.”

“How long have you...” he wiggled his fingers dramatically, “been able to do that?”

“Forever.  Freaked the shit out of my parents, their toddler making them feed her cookies.”  Bucky said nothing, waiting for you to continue.  “It’s a reflex of sorts, like jerking away from a hot stove, so it was hard to control.  Especially when I was dreaming.  My dad made gloves designed to absorb the electricity.  Wore them everywhere until I learned to suppress it.”

“Sounds like a fun childhood.”

You snorted, “Oh yeah, definitely.  School was particularly fun, oh and gym.  That class was a riot.  This fucking weirdo running around trying to play volleyball wearing fucking gloves.  I can’t complain too much, though.  Everybody that made fun of me for it, I knew that it was for their own good.”  You shot a glance at him and had to laugh.  “Don’t look so sad, Jim.”

“That seems incredibly lonely.”

It was your turn to shrug.  “I’m not alone anymore.  I’m not afraid to be.”

His eyebrows narrowed.  “Denna...”

A man with wings landed under the overpass and shook the water from his head.

“Barnes!”

“Wilson!”

The man with wings smiled, looking Bucky up and down.  “Tony made it sound so serious, but there’s not a scratch on you.”  He looked at you.  “You, on the other hand, look like you’ve seen a ghost.”  He held out a hand, which you shook.  “Sam Wilson, the Falcon.”

“Denna Reese, the... person.”

“Please tell me we don’t have to drive back to New York,” Bucky said.

“New York?”

“Steve parked the jet a little bit that way.  We can walk over when this rain lightens up.”

“New York?”

“I don’t know, Pennsylvania rain never does what you expect it to; we should get going before it gets worse.”  Sam nodded and they trudged out into the rain.  You hurried along beside them.

“Guys.  Why are we going to New York?”

Finally, they acknowledged your question.

Sam started, confused, “I mean, Hydra’s still after you, both of you, probably.  The Avenger’s tower is the safest place for you now.”

He herded you onto a plane and you obeyed, annoyed.  On the plane sat Steve, Tony and the one you remembered as Peter. 

“Glad to see you’re alive!  Where’s my car?” Tony said.

Bucky tossed him the keys.  “It’s under the overpass over there.  Though I don’t think it will fit in here with us...”

Tony chuckled, “That won’t be a problem.”  He hit the panic button three times and stuck his hand out the plane’s door.  Some whirring and cranking noises could be heard in the car’s direction.  A few seconds later, a large, metallic suitcase launched itself into Tony’s outstretched hand.  He patted it cheekily before sitting back down.

“I feel like that definitely voids the warranty,” Sam mumbled behind you.

You pinched the bridge of your nose.  “Hi, what am I going to do in New York?  I am not sitting around playing Life with this guy for another week.”

“Hey!”

“Oh come on, there are only so many unique ways to play that game with two people.”

“Actually, you could probably help Steve convince Tony we don’t need self-driving golf carts.  He’s been spitballing since sifting through Auto-Pilot,” Sam said, removing his wings. 

“What?  Are you saying you don’t want to get from A to B without having to drive?” Tony said.

“I agree with Mr. Stark, I mean, I can never find my way around the tower and,” Peter said.

“Peter, you always agree with Mr. Stark,” Sam observed.

“Yeah, because I’m usually right, right kid?” 

The jet took off into the sky, causing you, still standing, to barrel into Sam.  You sat in a huff after regaining your balance.

“Mr. Rodgers, I really don’t think my accompanying you all back to New York is necessary.”

“Miss Reese, for your own protection, you should stick around a little longer,” Tony said, smug.

Peter gasped, “You guys are gonna wanna see this!”  He handed Tony his phone, you all crowded around to watch the video cued on it.

It was you and Bucky, surrounded.  Your stomach dropped through the floor.

On the screen, your mouth moved silently as the neurons shot out your fingertips and the camera zoomed out.  The Hydra foot soldiers got back in their cars.

“Shit,” said Bucky.

“Denna, is that you?” asked Sam.

“Dude, that is so cool.” said Peter.

“Okay, you should stick around for our protection,“ said Tony.

“What you saying?” asked Steve, gesturing to the video.

You gulped.  “I, um, I said ‘ Cock-sucking, mother fucking, bitch shiting bastard, you goddamned cunt bunt cake‘?“  Steve’s mouth dropped open.  Bucky and Tony burst out laughing.

Sam covered Peter’s ears.  “Is it even legal for him to hear that?”  Peter swatted his hands away.

“I’m almost eighteen!”

Surprised, you said, “Shouldn’t you be in school or something?”

“I’m on summer break!  My Aunt thinks I’m interning with Stark Industries, which is sort of true.”  The video zoomed in on Bucky’s face staring at you.  You blushed involuntarily.  “Mr. Barnes, you look so freaked out.”

“I mean-” Bucky started.

“Oh, so it’s okay for him, is it, Jimmy?” you said, trying to change the subject.  Steve and Bucky shared a look.

Steve, clearly entertained, asked, “Jimmy?”

Bucky opened his mouth to explain, but you were faster.  “I asked him what he wanted me to call him, since Mr. Barnes was out of the question, but he couldn’t decide.  So, Jimmy.”

Tony started “I’m sorry, a woman asked what she should call you and your first thought wasn’t ‘Daddy’...?”  Bucky’s ears turned a darker shade of pink and you burst out laughing this time.

Sam covered Peter’s ears again.

“Stark,” Steve scolded.

“What?  She thought it was funny!”

You wheezed a little, holding your stomach, “That was a good one, Stark.  Once I can breathe I’ll think of a come-back.”

[sserpente]

In a heartbeat (Chapter 3)

A/N: Heyho there my lovelies! ♥ As promised, here is the new chapter! Let’s see what happens next! Thank you so much for your lovely feedback! Enjoy reading!

Find all chapters on my masterlist!

When you woke up the next morning, the space to your right was empty, the bed unmade. Loki was gone. Bright sunlight shone into the room, illuminating the elegant furniture in the room. It all came crashing down on you then, like heavy rocks burying you underneath their weight.

Hela. Susan. Karen. Your job interview. Stephen Strange, Thor, Loki… uncountable thoughts were tumbling around in your head, making your brain all fuzzy and stealing away your balance when you first threw back your covers and stood.

Expecting the worst, you tried for the door and let out a relieved sigh when it opened, tiptoeing barefoot through the hallways. There was no way you would be finding your way back to your own room. You decided to get your shoes later.

Following the voices coming from downstairs, you soon found a large kitchen area. You blushed upon realising you had slept the longest.

“Good morning, (Y/N). How have you slept?” Strange asked cordially, gesturing for you to take a seat at the vast kitchen table. Loki was there too. He was dressed in his black suit yet again, his expression severe and unimpressed. Briefly, your eyes locked with his and for the first time since you first met, he looked away first.

Strange’s question confused you as you sat down at the opposite end of the table to bring about as much distance between the God of Mischief and you as possible. So he had not told them about your nightly visit and your most unfortunate mishap that had forced you to spend the night together.

“I… g-good. Surprisingly good,” you murmured honestly, watching how a plate full of scrambled eggs, toast and tomatoes appeared before you while at the same time, frantically avoiding Loki’s intent gaze.

“Karen knows you’re alright by the way. She’s with her parents in New Jersey right now and the police is aware you are staying with me, so you won’t be in any trouble once you leave.”

Once you leave. You still harboured the wish to do exactly that today, right after breakfast. Instead of complaining, however, you chose to invest your energy for a hopefully successful escape. You nodded gratefully.

“So, Thor, you say once you find your father, all parties involved will promptly return to Asgard?”

“Promptly,” the God of Thunder reinforced, smiling at the wizard.

“Great. Then I will help you. He is in Norway.”

“Norway? Why would he go to Norway?” You tossed in, looking at your plate rather disgusted. In spite of your stomach complaining, you had no appetite whatsoever. You didn’t even want to touch that cup of coffee Strange had set on the table for you.

“Thor can ask him that himself. I will need a strand of your hair, then I can create a portal that will lead you two right to him. Take this with you.” Despite his incredulousness, he handed Loki a strangely shaped ring.

“And then what happens to me in the meantime?” Crossing your arms in a defiant manner, you leaned back, trying to hide your shaking fingers.

“You stay here with me, (Y/N). As long as Hela is out there, your life is in danger. You are free to go as soon as she’s gone.”

Disappointment spread in your body. So he was intending to keep you here for an even longer period of time than just a couple of days. Strange was a likeable man, his company would be bearable to say the least but without Thor and Loki around, it would be, in fact, strange.

The two of them were the reason you had gotten into this horrible shemozzle in the first place. And Loki would be gone. Why on Earth would you bother if Loki would be gone?

“I object.” You muttered quietly, taking a deep breath to remain calm. What made it even worse was that you could practically feel Loki’s hypnotising blue eyes on you. It urged you to scratch the back of your hand.

Strange shot you a compassionate look before turning back to Thor to discuss details. If anything happened, so they concluded, Loki could open a portal with the ring Strange had given him so they could bring Odin back safely and flee and then, within mere moments, they were gone, having stepped through an orange portal leading to an open landscape in the heart of Norway.

“How’s your forehead?”

A weak pounding reminded you of the healing cut on your head. You had already forgotten about it.

“Fine, I suppose.”

“Good. Let me know if you need someone to take a closer look at it.”

He sighed when you said nothing, didn’t even look him in the eye.

“I’m sorry this happened to you, (Y/N) but you really should eat something.” Strange proposed when you gave your food another disgusted glance.

“I’m not hungry.”

“At least drink some water then.”

Gnashing your teeth, you started to scratch the back of your hand. Drink some water. As if drinking some water would help you deal with all of this. As if drinking some water would stop this madness.

“I just want to go home,” you whispered barely audible, adding a sigh. There was an unpleasant headache creeping up your skull, making you massage your temples. “I never wanted to be part of any of this.”

“I know. I trust Thor to take care of Hela. I’m sure you can leave soon. There is nothing personal about—“

“Susan is dead because of Hela.” You interrupted. “Of course, it is personal, Stephen. And I hope Thor and Loki will kick her bloody arse and send her back to wherever the hell she came from.”

Strange nodded. “Helheim. She came straight from Helheim, that’s all I know.”

Helheim. What was that? Hell? Was Hela Satan? His wife or daughter? For all you knew, she could be. You wanted her suffering and you wanted her dead, even if you had to be the one to bring about her demise.

You almost gasped at your wrathful thoughts and you realised only then that your grief had been replaced by a burning, gloating anger boiling up deep in your stomach. It felt good to be angry, way better than to be sad and terrified, though with your mere self-defence skills, you had but your spiteful words.

You spend the next hour forcing the eggs down your throat. Much to your surprise, they tasted abnormally delicious and with every bite you took, your appetite came back. Soon, you had emptied the whole plate, earning you an approved nod by Strange. Only when you watched in awe how the cutlery and the dishes disappeared from the table and had him summon your shoes for you, he suddenly frowned.

“What? What is it?”

“Something’s not right…”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re in trouble. Hela must have found them, I can feel Loki trying to use the ring.” Fear flooded your body, your blood running ice cold. You had seen her fight before but now, Stephen Strange was here with you.

If she harmed them, then… where was that biting sorrow coming from? You should be scared for your own life and mourning your best friend but instead, you dreaded what could happen to Thor and most of all Loki—and that after how distastefully he had treated you yesterday night!

“I’m gonna help them. You stay here exactly where you are, so I can—“

The orange portal opened right before him, the impact knocking him into the kitchen counter while at the same time, you jumped up from your seat so forcefully the wooden chair crashed to the ground audibly.

Hela had found them. Her crude smile was horrifying when she stepped through the portal and studied her new surroundings interestedly. The ring Loki had used had slipped under the kitchen table, the man who had used it himself was stumbling to his feet as graceful as he could muster, quickly followed by Thor who, clenching his fists, turned around angrily to fight the intruder.

“Bring us back!” Loki shouted up to the ceiling. He sounded frightened, triggering your own fear. If the God of Mischief was afraid… Bring us back? Where to?

“No!” Thor roared.

Bright light came smashing through the ceiling, ripping apart several floors in the process. It formed a circle right around the area Thor, Loki, Hela and you were standing before a strong invisible force pulled you off the ground and sucked you up into the sky.

Ice cold air flushed past you, the colours of the rainbow blinding you as you flew, higher and higher. It felt like all air was being pressed out of your body, making you nauseous and dizzy. Panicking, you looked around you, spotting Loki a few feet underneath your own form.

“Loki!” You yelled, barely able to properly open your mouth to shout. Perhaps he was a war criminal but whatever was happening in this very moment, you were not supposed to be here, that you were sure of—he had to help you, somehow, anyhow!

Growling mutely, Loki turned his head around to face you, endeavour glistening in his blue eyes. He seemed to stomp his foot then—and within a matter of seconds, he was next to you, allowing you to wrap your arms around his middle. Cool leather pressed against your cheek, filling your nostrils with a sharp but alluring scent as you squeezed your eyes shut tightly, hoping this terrible ride would end soon.

It did even sooner than you anticipated. Reluctantly, you opened your eyes again in the hopes of finding Thor in the bright chaos of colours but not matter how hard you tried, you were unable to lift your head. Instead, you looked down, sensing how Loki’s muscles clenched when he flung a dagger down at a very enraged Goddess of Death. She dodged it easily and then threw one of her own swords at the God of Mischief in return.

You screamed when you realised that it would kill you both, closed your eyes again to die seeing peaceful darkness instead of this ferocious monster beneath you but the painful intrusion of a pointy blade never came.

Loki ducked just in time, pulling you with him as the impact of the bright light scattered around him and sent him flying through the cosmos. Pain shot through your body, the firm jerk rippling through your limbs like jolts of electricity and then, after what felt like minutes of falling, you clunked to the ground, your nails digging into moist earth and pieces of debris and litter.

It took you a while to manage to breathe again, forcing yourself not to get lost in another panic attack as you rolled off Loki, who had, fortunately, absorbed most of your fall and checked your body for any injuries. Your left elbow felt like it was sprained, other than that, however, you were fine.

Loki moaned as he propped himself up, taking a suspicious look around himself before locking eyes with you.

“Are you alright?” He asked, surprising you with his sudden care. Even if you wanted to, you were incapable of responding in a full sentence.

“Physically,” you stated out of breath, your voice shaking along with your trembling body as you followed his example and examined the place you had landed on.

You came to one conclusion. This was not Earth anymore.