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a-reader-and-a-writer-for-all · 1 month

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Sweeter Than Revenge Part 2

Fandom: Twisters, Tyler Owens, f!reader, Scott's Sister!reader Summary: Setting your plan in motion, you flaunt your new "relationship" in Scott's face. However, you didn't think through what happens next as you find yourself in the middle of nowhere alone with Tyler. Word Count: 4401 TW: Family Conflict, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Tears, Brief Mention of Reader's Clothes, Reader's Past/Childhood Explained in Detail, Language Notes: A massive thank you to @blue-aconite and @green-socks for reading this over for me and for all the constant support! And to @mayhem24-7forever for always answering my late-night panicked messages

Divider created by me (please ask/credit before using)

Series Masterlist

Later that night at the motel Tyler had given you directions to, you were just finishing applying a fresh coat of lip gloss when you heard the hoard of storm chasers and their groupies pull up outside.

Showtime.

Stepping back to look at yourself in the mirror, you wondered if you might be taking this a bit too far. Your sleeveless top had a deeply plunging neckline, the practically sheer material hugging every curve, while your jeans were cut so short even you felt slightly uncomfortable with how much they revealed from behind. It was far from your usual attire and you had only packed it on a last-minute whim.

This outfit would have you out of your comfort zone on the best of days when you were only hanging out with friends, but tonight you were wearing it to meet up with a guy you didn’t even really know. It was very possible that Tyler was a total perv planning on taking advantage of you the moment you climbed into his truck. Yet even as that thought crossed your mind, you dismissed it. Though you had spent less than an hour with him as the two of you discussed your plan for revenge, you didn’t think he was that kind of guy. In fact, he had only continued to impress you with how respectful and down-to-earth he seemed, contrary to your original assumptions.

But what did you know? Hell, you already tried to figure him out once and were way off the mark. It seemed like the only way to know for certain was to trust your gut and find out for yourself.

You took one final look at yourself, grabbed your purse off the bed, and headed towards the door.

Stepping out of your motel room and peering over the railing to the ground below, you could see the Storm PAR vehicles clustered at the end near the stairs while Tyler’s truck was parked almost directly below you. That meant you would have to walk past the group of Storm PAR guys filing out of their vehicles in order to reach Tyler.

Perfect. You couldn’t have planned that better if you had tried.

Making it to the end of the walkway, you took a deep breath, held your head up high, and arranged your face into what you hoped looked like a confident—slightly flirty—facade, and headed downstairs. You paused for a second at the bottom to straighten your top and run a hand over your hair, but then you strutted forward towards the red Dodge.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw several members of the Storm PAR team stop in their tracks as they noticed you. One nudged the guy next to him and a few pointed in your direction. Only Javi seemed uneasy as he caught sight of you. His eyes quickly darted from you to one of the trucks labeled “Scarecrow” and then back to you before he turned, running his hand through his hair with a big sigh.

Then Scott climbed out of Scarecrow.

At first, he didn’t notice you. He was looking at a tablet with his head down, but as you got closer and the murmuring got louder, he glanced up to see what the commotion was about. As he did a double-take, you watched the gum drop from his mouth and any doubts you had about this plan instantly evaporated. No longer was the smile on your face forced or the swagger in your step manufactured. Holding your head slightly higher, you let this fresh rush of adrenaline and excitement spurn you forward.

As you reached the front of Scarecrow, Scott stepped out in front of you, blocking your way. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“What do you care?” you scoffed, placing one hand on your hip, cocking it slightly. “You told me to leave you and Storm PAR alone so I’m respecting your wishes. But since I had planned on staying for the next two weeks, I found someone else who’s interested in having me around.” You looked over your shoulder at the rest of the Storm PAR team and wiggled your fingers in their direction. “You fellas have a good night. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

You pushed past Scott, not so gently shouldering him in the chest, and continued on your way. The rest of Scott’s team snickered and “ooo”ed behind you but based on how they suddenly stopped, you guessed Scott gave them one of his death glares.

Sashaying the rest of the way to where Tyler was leaning over the side of his truck, rummaging through a toolbox in the bed, you place one hand on his bicep. Giving it a light squeeze, you asked, “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, just let me—” Tyler lifted his head and his eyes grew wide as he saw what you were wearing. But then he blinked a few times and cleared his throat. “Um, just let me finish putting these away and we’ll be all set.”

“Sounds good.” You leaned against his truck, discreetly glancing back at the Storm PAR team. Scott was staring daggers in your direction but you just pretended to examine your nails like you hadn’t noticed.

A moment later, Tyler slammed the toolbox closed and straightened up. “Done.” Grabbing his hat and pulling it low over his brow, he stepped back to have a better look at you. Letting out a low whistle, he said, “Damn, sweetheart. If I had known you would come down looking like that, I’d have dressed up for the occasion.” He wrapped his arm around your waist, tugging you flush against his side. “You look gorgeous.”

His voice was a little louder than necessary and you know it’s all for your brother’s benefit. Yet, between his words and the feeling of his firm chest beneath his flannel shirt, you couldn’t stop the heat from rushing to your face. A small part of you secretly hoped it wasn’t all for show and he actually meant it.

You flashed him your most flirtatious smile and cooed loudly, “Thank you. But you don’t need to change a thing. You look amazing.”

And it was true.

Not every man pulled off the cowboy look without seeming like he was trying too hard or was going to a costume party. But Tyler must have been born in boots and a cowboy hat because you couldn’t imagine him any other way. His jeans were comfortably worn and seemed molded to his frame from constant use. His flannel long-sleeved button-down was tucked into his jeans, displaying the enormous belt buckle with “Tornado Wrangler” engraved on it. Topped off with his white cowboy hat and dark leather boots, he looked like he had just stepped off the cover of a Western romance novel.

The heat in your face grew stronger.

Tyler squeezed you closer as he asked, “You ready to go?” You nodded so he led you over and opened the passenger door. Holding out his hand, he helped you climb in before slamming the door shut. Watching out the window as he turned around, you noticed all the Storm PAR guys staring at him. Tyler must have noticed too because he touched the brim of his hat and nodded in their direction. “Fellas…..Scott.”

Then he walked to the driver’s side and climbed in. The truck rumbled to life, the vibrations of the powerful engine reverberating throughout your body. Tyler pulled out of the parking lot and onto the dark, empty highway before reaching up and turning on the radio. Low country music filled the quiet cab and he began to hum along, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. You weren’t sure where he was headed or if he even had a destination in mind.

Now that you had properly rubbed your new companion in Scott’s face, you realized you hadn’t thought about what happened next. You were kind of in the middle of nowhere with just a few scattered diners and gas stations within a reasonable distance, and it occurred to you that you had no idea if Tyler already had plans tonight before you barged into his life.

Shifting slightly in your seat, you spoke up. “Um, thanks again for doing this. If you wanna just drop me off at the nearest restaurant and come pick me up later, that’s fine. And take as long as you want. I need to be gone long enough for Scotty to really sit and stew in it.”

Tyler stopped humming to glance over at you for a second and then looked back at the road. “Did you really think I’d just dump you somewhere and take off?”

You blinked. That was exactly what you thought he might do. “Oh…I mean, you’re already doing me this huge favor. I don’t need to take up more of your time than necessary.”

“Sweetheart, I told you, you are doing me a favor by letting me mess with your brother. All those Storm PAR snobs are a pain in my ass, but deep down they seem like alright guys…. except for your brother. He’s the worst kind of hypocrite, and if all I have to do to rile him up is take a beautiful woman out to dinner, my life is going pretty good.”

You turned and looked out the window so Tyler couldn’t see the effect his words had on you. You still couldn’t tell if he actually meant any of the nice things he said about you, if it was all part of the ruse, or if he was the kind of guy who said those things to everyone, But whatever the reason, it was nice to hear.

Once you had composed yourself, you sat up a little straighter, turned back to him, and said, “Okay, but I’m buying dinner. Wherever you want, wherever you want. It’s the least I can do for you helping me out.”

Tyler smiled, his bright teeth shining in the darkness. “Alright, sweetheart. We’ve got a deal. I’ll take you to my favorite spot.”

Thirty minutes later you were sitting next to Tyler on the back of his truck, both of you holding burgers and iced teas as your legs dangled over the end of the tailgate. When he had first stopped for takeout before driving out into a random empty field, you had your doubts. However, you had promised to let him pick so you sat quietly as he stashed his cowboy hat on the dashboard before jumping out of the truck and jogging around to open your door. And as he had led you around to the back of the truck and your eyes adjusted to the darkness, you understood why he had brought the two of you here.

Taking another bite of your burger, you looked up at the clear sky, still in awe of the sheer number of stars that danced and sparkled above you. Growing up where you had, you always thought the night sky was black or maybe dark blue, but seeing it now in the middle of nowhere, far away from any man-made light, you realized that it was in fact a swirling mix of blacks, blues, purples, greens, and yellows surrounding millions of brilliant stars. It was stunning to see.

“So,” you asked around your mouthful of burger, “this is your favorite spot, huh? I can see the appeal.”

Tyler smiled, leaning against the side of the truck bed. “Well, it doesn’t have to be this spot specifically, but yeah. There’s something about the night sky a few hours after a storm has gone through that just can’t be beat.”

“Wait, a storm went through here today?” You looked around. It was hard to tell now in the dark, but thinking back to before Tyler had turned the truck headlights off, you did remember noticing a jagged path off to your right where the grass had been torn up. However, you hadn’t thought much about it at the time.

“Yep. We were out here right before heading to the diner where you found me. It was a pretty big one too. We got some great footage.”

“Guess I could look it up on YouTube, huh, Mr. Tornado Wrangler,” you teased, grabbing a fry from the bag next to you and tossing it at him, which he dove for and somehow caught in his mouth.

Chewing it, he grinned, “I didn’t know you knew about that.”

You shrugged. “I’ve watched a few videos. Scotty wouldn’t stop bitching about you guys and how unprofessional you were so I had to see for myself. Personally, I like your content. It’s fun.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it. Wouldn’t want to find out I was going out with someone who hates what I do. Guess I owe your brother a thanks for introducing you to us…and indirectly to me.”

Just like when he had complimented your appearance, you felt a warm glow inside when he said you were going out (even though you knew that’s not what he meant…or at least, you didn’t think that’s what he meant).

Quick to change the subject, you asked something that had been on your mind for a while. “Speaking of my brother, you said earlier that Scott was the worst kind of hypocrite…what did you mean by that?”

Hesitating, he sighed, “I don’t really know your brother—not personally—so I’m not sure how much I should say…”

You laughed. “If you’re afraid of saying something about him that might offend me, don’t. I know Scotty and I’m sure whatever it is, it's warranted.”

“Well, when you put it like that...” Tyler set his drink on the tailgate next to his leg. “I don’t know how much you know about Storm PAR but they aren’t the humanitarian group of scientists trying to help the world that they try to make themselves seem like. I haven’t figured out all the details yet but I know they’re doing some backdoor business with some not-so-great people. Yet, meanwhile, your brother looks down his nose at us Wranglers, calling us sell-outs and fame-seekers. And yeah, I do use my platform to make money but we put as much of it as we can back into these communities affected by the storms. We try to do what we can to help—he can’t say the same.”

You considered what Tyler said for a moment before nodding. “Yeah…somehow that doesn’t surprise me. Scotty’s always kind of seen the world in 1s and 0s, as an equation only he can solve. But he doesn’t really care what happens with that solution or how it might affect the people involved once he’s found it. As long as he gets the credit and compensation, he’s happy. So if the only way Storm PAR has been able to get funding is by doing something shady, I don’t doubt for a second he would do it.”

“Damn. He seems worse than I thought.” Tyler looked out into the darkness, the two of you sitting in silence for a moment. Then he asked, “If your brother’s so bad, why did you come all this way to see him?”

“He’s still my brother and I love him.” Under your breath, you added, “Even if he does make it hard to like him most of the time.”

“I wouldn’t know what that’s like—never had any brothers or sisters—and the family I do have has always been really close and supportive. But it seems to me you shouldn’t have to love someone just because you’re related. Just like you don’t have to be related to love someone like family. ”

“I know, but…it’s complicated—or maybe it’s not, I don’t know.” You pulled your knees up into your chest and rested your chin on them, sighing as you wished you had never brought Scott up in the first place.

“You wanna tell me about it?”

“What?” You tilted your head sharply to look at Tyler, your brow furrowed. “You really want to hear me moan about my childhood and how it fucked up my relationship with my brother?”

Tyler shrugged. “I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t wanna, but I have been a little curious. Like, why is he treating you like shit and why are you still trying to get his attention despite that?”

“I’m not trying to…” The words felt so hollow in your mouth you trailed off instead of continuing to deny what he said.

“Tonight—us being out here together—I can see it’s not only about revenge. Maybe you don’t even realize it, but I saw the way you looked at him in the parking lot while you were waiting for me.” Tyler poked you gently with the toe of his boot. “You’re still holding out hope he’ll change his mind and ask you to join him and his team. Why?”

“You really want to know?” He nodded, staring at you patiently. Popping a french fry into your mouth, you contemplated where to start your story. Then, with a sigh, you began, “Of course, I don’t remember any of this, but I’ve heard the story enough times: When my mom was pregnant with me, there were some complications and I was born a few months early. I had to stay in the ICU for a long time and, for a while, they weren’t sure if I was going to make it. Obviously—” You held your hand in front of yourself as if to say “ta-da”. Dropping it with a thump onto the bed of the truck, you continued. “My entire life my parents referred to me as ‘their little miracle’ or ‘their angel on Earth’ because they had been so sure they were going to lose me but I didn’t realize until I left home how much my almost dying actually fucked up their relationship with both me and Scotty.”

“What do you mean?”

“In their eyes, I was this precious little gift that was almost taken from them, but at the same time, there was Scotty. Their other kid. Nothing had happened to change how they saw him. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we have great parents who love us both deeply but they treated us very differently.”

“How so?” Tyler asked, tilting his head slightly.

You shifted on the hard metal. It felt a little strange spilling your guts to this random guy you had only met earlier that day, but what felt even more bizarre was how invested and engaged he seemed in what you were saying. He stared at you as if you had his complete attention, his expression curious yet encouraging, silently urging you to continue.

Clearing your throat, you said, “Scotty was expected to get perfect grades and place first on the track team and help around the house and have an after-school job on top of all of his advanced classes and pay for all his own things. I, on the other hand, was given a car for my fifteenth birthday—about a week after I was nearly expelled from school for multiple counts of cheating and truancy. I couldn’t even have a learner’s permit at that time! My parents gave me literally anything I asked for and let me do whatever I wanted no matter how much I screwed up all while riding Scotty’s ass to ensure he was perfect. In their eyes, he could do no right and I could do no wrong…and I did a lot of wrong.”

“But how your parents treated either of you wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t change that.”

You gave a half-hearted shrug. “Maybe. But I didn’t have to take full advantage of it either. Once I realized I could do whatever I wanted without consequences, I ran wild with it. I partied, went on extravagant trips with my friends that my parents paid for, ignored my curfew, brought boys home with me to spend the night right down the hall from my parents, almost flunked out of school. I know it must sound so stupid but while it was happening…”

Shaking your head, you stared down at your hands, tears beginning to blur your vision. “I was so absorbed in my life, I didn’t see how differently Scott was being treated or what it was doing to him. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Scotty is still Scotty, even back then. He looks out for himself before anyone else and the only emotions he really knows how to convey are pissed off or sarcastic. Yet I can’t help but wonder if he’s only like that because of how unfair things were.”

You paused for a moment to wipe your eyes and collect yourself, then cleared your throat before continuing. “It wasn’t until I moved away to college and got some distance from my parents that I looked back and realized how messed up it all was. And I changed. I stopped asking them for anything, I got a job and worked my ass off to pay for school, I began aceing all of my classes…but I still haven’t been able to make it up to Scotty. I was hoping this trip would be that chance. That I could finally show him I’ve grown and changed. That I understand why he may be hurt and try to heal those wounds. But he wouldn’t even hear me out.”

You scoffed bitterly, burying your face in your hand. “So to show him how much I’ve matured, I came up with this childish plan to throw you in his face. Once again, I thought I could just get what I wanted without thinking about how it might affect my brother or what he would want.” Letting out a deep sigh, you collapsed back into the bed of the truck, staring at the stars dancing high above you. “I guess deep down I’m still that spoiled, self-centered brat I’ve always been.”

The truck jostled beneath you and, a second later, Tyler was lying down too, his face directly across from yours. Without breaking eye contact, he reached out and took your hand. “I might have only just met you, but the girl I’ve seen isn’t anything like the one you described growing up. And if that was how you used to be, you should be proud of how much work you’ve done to become this new version of yourself. Change is one of the hardest things a person can do. It's not an overnight process and we all backslide from time to time. So, yeah, maybe us going out just because you knew it would infuriate your brother isn’t the most mature thing you could have done—” you snorted and Tyler smiled before reaching over to brush a tear off your cheek, his fingers making your skin tingle as they swept across it “—but Scott deserves some blame in this too. Maybe it wasn’t fair your parents treated you both differently, but that doesn’t give him the right to behave the way he did today. He’s a grown-ass adult and should have acted like it instead of throwing a hissy fit when he saw you. So you need to stop blaming yourself for his actions.”

“Why are you being so kind to me?” you muttered, a few more tears slipping down your face. “You don’t even know me.”

“I think I’m beginning to.”

“And?” You tried to chuckle but it came out sounding more like a sniffle. There was no telling what Tyler thought when he looked at you right now—face stained with tears, nose running, eyes bloodshot and watery. You were so embarrassed you had let yourself devolve into such a complete mess in front of him and you were sure he was regretting ever meeting you. “You like what you see?”

Surprisingly, instead of retreating, his hands reached out and cupped your face, his fingers stroking soft circles across your cheeks as he wiped more tears away. “More and more by the minute.”

That broke you.

Whatever composure you had been managing to cling to shattered, and you fell apart. It wasn’t just his words that did it, it was the complete sincerity in his voice that you felt down to your soul. He wasn’t just trying to comfort you or make things better. He had listened intently to every word you said, heard about the side of yourself you tried so hard to forget, and still saw something he liked. Something he said you should be proud of.

Until that moment, you hadn’t realized how much you had needed to hear those words. Your parents never saw themselves as treating you and Scott differently so they couldn’t understand why you wanted to become independent of them or see all the progress you had made while making that happen. And Scott was never around so he hadn’t seen how hard you had worked either. Maybe that was what this trip was really about after all. Maybe, on some level, you had needed Scott to tell you he was proud of who you had become. But he hadn’t even tried to see it. Yet Tyler—this man you had met only hours earlier—had given you all the time and attention you needed to show him how far you had come and he was proud of it.

For a moment, you cried, laying alone on your side of the truck bed under the Oklahoma night sky. But then, you heard Tyler whisper, “Come here, sweetheart” and felt him gently pulling you towards him.

Once he had closed the distance between you, he positioned you so your head was resting on his shoulder, one of his arms nestled underneath you while the other held your hand, his thumb circling the back of your hand just as it had your cheek seconds before. He smelled earthy yet clean, almost like that brief moment just before a rainstorm. It was so perfectly him, that you couldn’t help but smile through your tears.

As you settled against him, you felt his lips ghost briefly against your temple before he rested his chin on the top of your head. And, laying here in this stranger’s arms, the sound of the wind drifting over the plain blending with the beat of his heart against your ear, you had never felt more safe or more seen in your life.

Part 3 coming 8/26!

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knightinink · 9 months

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The first time Fizz messed up an act, Cash blew up on him, shouting & cursing every worst possible thing one could say. It took everything within Fizzarolli to not break down crying until he was in Blitzo’s arms, & Blitzo hates it when Fizz cries.

It breaks his heart more than anything.

#woo angst! I love it so much!#making my faves cry is my favorite pastime but they MUST get comfort after #Blitzo is used to Cash’s bs but Fizz isn’t #& Fizz is a lot more sensitive than Blitzo is #don’t worry Blitzo was able to calm him down with the help of Tilla #Tilla for the win!#fizzarolli #blitzo #blitzfizz #helluva boss #helluva art #my art

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pastafossa · 5 months

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Haunted (Matt Murdock x TRT!Reader, Fic, SFW)🌧️

Right, so close to 3 years ago, I had an ask in my box: 'what would happen if TRT!Reader/Jane Hind lost her memory just before returning to Matt after her three months away', aka: just before point where they both confessed their love and got together in mainline TRT. So I wrote up a fairly angsty, no happy ending sort of fic about it, which you can find here. But there just felt like there was more to the story, and the idea of a sequel wouldn't leave me alone, so I've worked on it in little bits and pieces over the past few years and I'm finally ready to unleash that into the world now that it's been edited to my satisfaction.

This will have a happy ending and hurt/comfort, once we swim through a lot of Matt Suffering. <3 Ship: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Chapter Summary:

Leaving him like that shouldn’t have bothered you as much as it did. You didn’t know him. This man should have been nothing more than a stranger on the street, one you wouldn’t glance twice at, much less feel some ridiculous sense of attachment or obligation to. Yet the memory of walking out of his apartment still left you shaken whenever you allowed yourself to think too long on it. He… shouldn’t have been alone. That was wrong, somehow. There was no memory attached to the thought, no blinking sign you could point to that would justify your growing unease. You just knew it. You knew it in the way you knew how to breathe, how to blink, knowledge etched into your very bones over and over by an unfamiliar hand. And no matter what you did, no matter where you went, you were unable to escape the feeling that… that you’d made a terrible mistake, broken something good, tilted the world on its axis until the whole of the city, the earth, the very sky hung just a little crooked like an off-center painting. Matt was alone. You’d left him alone. It was the right choice, one you’d made dozens if not hundreds of times before. Hell, it should have been even easier this time since there were no memories to hold you back. So… why did you feel so very sick?

Wordcount: 11, 805 words so, hilariously, about 3 times the length of Part 1

Warnings for this chapter: angst, alcohol, matt spiraling fairly badly, he throws some things, LOTS of TRT references and spoilers so I wouldn't do this one unless you've finished the Miami arc in TRT.

Sad Matt gif as a reminder that the angst is pretty heavy here because I'm really going to emotionally beat on this poor man for a bit.

At Ciro’s insistence, you gave yourself one month in Hell’s Kitchen.

A month wasn’t much time, granted, but it would hopefully be enough to see if there was a chance of bringing back the memories you’d lost: memories of friends, of your life here, and of… of whatever it was that you’d had with Matt Murdock. Based on his grief over the loss of Jane Hind—not you, but her surely, the role, the mask you’d worn while here—his attachment to her had been deep and fervent, and those feelings appeared to have been at least partly reciprocated. The dangerously intimate photo you’d found in your memory box was all the proof you needed of that.

Your past self had already been accustomed to his touch when the photo was taken, based on the way she’d allowed him to press his head tenderly to her temple, his dark eyes warm and fond as he'd smiled in her direction even if he couldn't see her, his arm draped over her shoulders. She should have been put off by the proximity, by such a blatant show of physical intimacy, but instead of looking distressed, she’d been relaxed and comfortable where she’d confidently tucked herself up against his side. Try as you might, you hadn’t been able to find any hint of discomfort, any clue that signaled the obvious affection she’d felt was an act, her shoulder angled in a way that made you think she’d wrapped her arm comfortably around his waist, her grin bright and so very real.

This couldn’t be you.

When was the last time you'd looked that happy?

When was the last time you’d let someone hold you close?

And when was the last time someone had looked at you like… like they might…

“Did I… love him, Ciro?”

“I believe that… you might have, yes. Him, and this city. That is why I encourage you to stay, for a time at least. See if the memories return to you. Even should you leave, it would be wise to know of the life you led here.”

Ciro had sent a check to your office, booking you for the month and clearing your schedule. Just like that, you were free to focus on looking for something that might trigger the return of your memories. Though what that something might be, you weren’t really sure. A more thorough examination of the apartment had been your first step. Unfortunately, there’d been nothing there that seemed familiar beyond the same cheap decor and calculated set pieces you’d always used. You’d quickly ruled those out. They were meaningless distractions meant to reinforce the lie of whatever pre-planned identity you’d taken on. In this case, that identity was Jane Hind—practical, professional, detached, likes sailboat paintings and the color grey. Based on the fine layer of dust you'd found coating everything but the kitchen counter and a neat stack of mail, no one else had spent much time here during your months away. That, at least, fit your pattern. You weren’t in the habit of making friends or putting down roots. There was no point in doing so when you’d just wind up cutting them loose and running again.

What had unsettled you far more were the hints of connection you’d found quietly tucked away:

A fleecy stuffed bear holding a plush crystal ball, the threads connecting the two uneven as if hand-stitched. That kind of time and effort wouldn’t have been spent on anyone but a friend, and the bear’s prominent position on the counter lent it far more importance than any of the other decorations.

A tacky ‘Handsome Devil’ coffee mug, the curling red script and clichéd devil horns design bizarrely out of place amongst the rest of the plain white mugs in the cupboard. An identity like Jane Hind wouldn’t have been caught dead drinking from it, which meant someone else was here with enough regularity to have a mug of their own. Further digging revealed a second decorated mug, this one adorned with the name of the law firm co-run by Matt. You could have written off one mug, but two? Two was a pattern.

An entire drawer in the dresser devoted solely to a pile of dangerously soft shirts that clearly didn’t belong to Jane Hind, the fabric threadbare and worn. They looked about the right size to be Matt’s, though, the faint traces of scent a match for him. The fact that they took up an entire drawer indicated he’d visited often enough to need a space for his clothes.

You’d… made space for him in your false life. That wasn’t something you did.

Or had you been the one wearing them?

Maybe…?

You’d spent a long moment holding one of the shirts in your hand, rubbing at the fabric in hopes of stirring something. When that hadn’t worked, you’d even brought it up to your nose to inhale slowly, just in case the traces of scent brought some memory back.

Clean soap. Salt. Copper. Faint cinnamon.

All it had done was remind you of holding a grieving Matt in his kitchen after he’d realized your memories weren’t coming back. It was a gloomy enough memory, but ultimately unhelpful.

You'd tossed the old shirt on top of the dresser and moved on.

While you didn’t know who exactly you’d been here in New York, the longer you searched, the more it became clear what had happened. You’d started to slip, your years of isolation forming a crack in your layers of armor. That fracture had allowed an attachment to form, an insidious connection worming its way in through the open gap like poisonous roots through crumbling pavement. You’d grown weak, and careless. There was no other explanation for why you’d broken so many of your rules, dominoes tipping one by one until it cascaded into a waterfall of mistakes. You’d slipped before, of course—loneliness was natural and expected, which was why you had so many contingencies—but you’d never let yourself get in this deep. Not until now.

What you didn’t know was…

Why?

Why here?

Why these people?

And why the fuck hadn’t you followed your rules and run?

If there was an answer to be found in Jane Hind’s apartment, you couldn’t seem to find it, no matter how hard you look, no matter how many of her belongings you dug through. Even your memory box had failed you, the photo of you and Matt at the back of your stack of pictures an outlier you couldn’t explain, this fruit of an as-yet unidentified poisonous tree. You had no real leads, no faint ringing of memory to guide you beyond a vague sense that, somehow, this started with Matt. You didn’t even know where to begin.

At least, not until some shaggy-haired guy named Foggy—what the fuck kind of nickname was that?—showed up entirely and rudely unannounced at your front door, dressed in a cheap suit and wearing a bizarrely determined look. Despite your doubts, you reluctantly allowed him in. He made it pretty clear he knew you, and if you were lucky he could tell you more about your life here.

“So I know you usually skedaddle when things get uncomfortable, which I imagine they are at the moment. How long are you trying to stay?”

“One month.” You shrugged casually, a cover for just how warily you were watching him as he paced in your—in Jane Hind’s living area. He knew far more about you than you knew about him, a reversal you were uncomfortably aware of. That vulnerability was almost enough to trigger a retreat beneath that cold, brittle shell you’d used long ago, though you quickly caught hold of that instinct and buried it back down deep where it belonged. Still, you couldn’t quite hide the cool clip to your voice, your walls firmly in place. “Leaving after that. Don’t see the point in staying if the memories are gone. Truthfully I’m not sure why I stayed in the first place, especially once it was clear I was getting attached. No offense.”

“None taken, my hopefully-still-friend-when-your-memories-come-back.” He abruptly swiveled on his feet to face you, squinting at you thoughtfully. “How badly do you want your memories back?”

You thought of out-of-place mugs and hand-stitched psychic teddy bears; of faint cinnamon and a worn photo frame; of the way you’d held a broken Matt in his kitchen until he’d carefully pushed you away and asked you to leave, his face closed off and distant despite the tears on his cheeks and yours.

You’d… been someone here. Someone cared for. Someone whose loss was mourned.

Even if you left, you needed to know just who that someone had been, if only so you could make sure this never happened again. Not until you reached your island in the sun.

“Badly enough to stay for the month,” you said quietly.

“Then put some shoes on. We’re going on a memory hunt.”

Over the next few weeks, Foggy took you all over Hell’s Kitchen.

You visited Jane Hind’s office, abandoned warehouses, and empty rooftops covered in thick blankets of snow. He reintroduced you to Karen, to your upstairs neighbors, and to a bartender who didn’t seem all that inclined to be introduced to anyone. You drank crappy beer and slightly less crappy vodka, played pool, and went to the zoo to stare for far too long at penguins, which Foggy refused to explain no matter how much you pressed. He had you focus on sights, on smells, on sounds that might trigger a memory. He joked with you in between, and he was just funny enough, friendly and clever enough, that for the first week or so, you were consistently cracking a smile. Hell, you even laughed now and then, much to your surprise. He really did know you, enough so that you gradually began to relax around him, just a little. He was likely hoping the addition of a friend’s voice would bring back what you’d lost, especially when paired with all the other sensations.

But no matter how much you both tried, your memories remained lost.

God, you hadn’t thought this would… would hurt as much as it did. Yet with every day that you failed to find your way back to who you’d been, the more that fierce ache, that old longing inside you grew. Your smiles became brittle, your laughter fading, until both finally dried up like withered, crumbling leaves beneath a bitter frost. You couldn't help pulling away really, not when your soul curling up in the dark might protect you from the agony of knowing that maybe, just maybe, you’d finally found what you'd always wanted. How fitting that it had been ripped away from your bloodied, desperate hands like so many times before, one more square for the filthy patchwork quilt of shredded lives and possibilities you’d been forced to leave behind. What was worse: even your memories of that seeming joy had been stolen, too, leaving you with nothing left to carry but the tattered scraps of a ghost and the photograph of a stranger wearing your skin.

It shouldn’t have been possible to miss what you couldn’t remember. Yet here you were missing it all the same.

It didn’t help that Matt was avoiding you in every way that mattered. You’d thought about calling him if only to ask him questions about your life here, but you could never quite work up the courage to do it. He must have felt the same since he hadn’t reached out to you, either. And why would he? He knew as well as you did that your memories likely weren’t coming back. It made sense to cut that connection, tear it away like a weed before the roots could do more damage—something you should have done sooner, for both your sakes. What you hadn’t expected was just how good he was at dodging you, somehow absent no matter how many places Foggy took you to, places he swore Matt frequented with you when you’d lived here, as if Matt’s mere presence might be enough to trigger some memory in you. Had he been that important? Either way, it didn’t matter. You hadn’t seen Matt once since you’d walked out, doing your best to ignore his hitched breath as you’d opened the door. You’d forced yourself to ignore, too, the broken, agonized sound of grief that he’d let out as you quietly shut the door behind you, leaving him alone.

He… shouldn’t have been alone. That was wrong, somehow.

There was no memory attached to the thought, no blinking sign you could point to that would justify your growing unease. You just knew it. You knew it in the way you knew how to breathe, how to blink, knowledge etched into your very bones over and over by an unfamiliar hand. And no matter what you did, no matter where you went, you were unable to escape the feeling that… that you’d made a terrible mistake, broken something good, tilted the world on its axis until the whole of the city, the earth, the very sky hung just a little crooked like an off-center painting.

Matt was alone.

You’d left him alone.

It was the right choice, one you’d made dozens if not hundreds of times before. Hell, it should have been even easier this time since there were no memories to hold you back.

So… why did you feel so very sick?

Sympathy.

That was all you were feeling. Matt was grieving a woman he’d cared about, one who’d died and left a cold stranger in her place. It was normal to feel for someone in that much pain, and no one should be alone while grieving. Maybe this was for the best. The sooner you were fully out of his life, the sooner all his friends and family could step in, and the sooner he could move on. He wouldn’t be alone, then. And even if he was, his loneliness wasn’t your goddamn problem. You had more than enough troubles of your own.

Protect yourself.

Protect what you might one day have.

All else was irrelevant.

You just… hoped he was doing alright.

He did his best to avoid you, but that only grew more difficult once your ghost began to haunt his every step.

Even Josie’s quickly became off-limits—something he discovered one night when he stepped through the front door where he was promptly met with the familiar, comforting scent of you floating like a haze beneath the smell of cheap beer and sour sweat. His body went rigid the moment he recognized it, your presence across the room a sharpened knife that only widened the wound carved into him by your death. And if the scent of you was a knife, then your bark of laughter was a cruel twist of the blade, one that left him gutted and shaking there in the doorway. He drank in his apartment after that, waiting for that blessed moment when he would feel nothing, waiting for the very second the glorious shroud of night fell. Only then could he finally escape to the streets and drown himself in a far better kind of pain, taking his rage and his grief out on whatever piece of shit had the misfortune of falling into the Devil’s path.

But Foggy seemed determined to shove the specter of you directly into his face.

“You need to talk to her!” Foggy snapped, his voice only just shy of a shout. Matt ignored him as he headed for his office, desperate to retreat from your scent lingering on Foggy’s clothes. Foggy had taken you to a coffee shop that morning, one you’d frequented when you’d lived here, and now each inhalation was a vicious torment. It felt like breathing in shards of glass, the sharp pain of it throbbing with every stuttered, choked breath he drew in. If Foggy noticed, he didn’t seem to care. “Christ, Matt! You love her and we both know it. If you talk to her, it might trigger something—”

“Stop,” Matt grit out, reaching up to scrub his hand angrily over his face. He stalked his way over to his desk, still desperate to escape somehow, even if it was into his work. “Just stop, Foggy. I did talk to her, and you know what happened? Nothing. She didn’t remember anything at all. She’s gone, and you dragging this out is just making everything worse for all of us.”

“So what, you’re just gonna roll over?” Foggy scoffed, crossing his arms as he planted his feet in Matt’s doorway. “Are you sure you actually loved her? Because I’m pretty sure she loved y—”

Matt slammed his fist down on his desk, the furious crack of it echoing through the office like a gunshot as he shouted, “Don’t you fucking dare!”

Tension hung thick in the air as Matt’s chest heaved, his teeth bared, blood and adrenaline running hot in his veins as if Foggy were some sort of-of threat. Everything in him shook with rage, or maybe unshed grief, the burden of them both impossibly twisted and tangled beneath the sea of his guilt and his self-loathing until he couldn’t tell which was which. He just couldn’t—how was he supposed to force it all down when Foggy had just come so close, so dangerously close to shattering what few pieces remained of Matt’s crumbling armor?

It was bad enough loving you the way he did only for you to slip through his bloodied, desperate grasp like whispering grains of sand. What was worse, this entire disaster was one of his own making, a series of mistakes whose snarled, winding paths led inevitably back to him just like they had so many times before in his life. This loss of someone who’d truly understood him, accepted him, cared for him had already broken something inside him he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to repair. But that fracturing inside him would surely rise up to consume him if Foggy were right, if you’d truly cared for him that deeply before your memories were taken, so deeply that you might even have…

I miss you, sweetheart.

…loved him the way he loved you.

Abruptly Matt’s surge of rage drained away and his head fell, leaving him feeling all the more empty and broken. He braced his arms weakly against his desk, drawing in a shaky breath as he forced himself to confess, his voice gone hoarse and ragged with grief. “I loved her, Foggy.” He lifted one shaking hand to his face. “God, I loved her so, so much. I can’t… I don’t know what to do without her now that she’s gone.” “I know, Matt,” Foggy said gently. “I know.” “I loved how she always smelled a little like coffee, and the way she always managed to wind up climbing into the oddest places for a case. She had one of the foulest mouths I’ve ever heard, but I swear she could use it to talk her way out of almost anything or to bring someone up out of whatever dark hole they were trapped in. She was… far kinder than she’d ever admit.” His lips quirked, but there was no humor in it, the expression miserable and gutted. You’d have likely argued with him about how kind you were if you’d been here. But there was no chance of that now, no matter how much the scent of you on the air told him otherwise. “Some days it felt like she was the only thing holding me together, like the only time I could breathe was when she held me in her arms. She was always there when I fell apart, or when it all… when it all started to hurt too much. And I tried to give her whatever pieces of me the Kitchen hadn’t already taken, to be there for her like she was for me, to keep her safe. We were finally going to make our relationship official when she came back, her and me, even if there’d… already been something there for a while now if I’m honest.”

And it had, it had been there, this soft, tender thing that had developed slowly but surely between the two of you, a tangling that came by degrees rather than all at once. It had sprouted, grown, and blossomed so gradually that even now he struggled to point to any one moment where it had truly begun—the night he found you in the warehouse, maybe, or that first game of Devil Hunt, or when you’d both almost taken the leap before he’d realized you were drunk. But the question of where it began didn’t matter. All that mattered was that it was there, something nameless yet still so good and warm and perfect, a connection nurtured in the low light and the blood-soaked soil of the Kitchen. You’d felt it just like he had, and you’d been willing to take that chance with him despite the baggage he carried behind him like an anchor destined to drag him down. You never would have agreed to kiss him when you came back otherwise. Now that chance was gone.

“How much did she know before she left?” Foggy asked quietly, leaning against the doorframe.

”She knew that I-that I wanted to be with her, but I never told her that I loved her.” Matt blew out a slow, heavy breath. “I was too scared of chasing her away, I guess. I thought maybe when she came back, if she still wanted me, I would… I decided that I would tell her. But I waited too long. Now she’s gone and I’ll never be able to tell her. All because of me.”

He finally lifted his head, tipping it at Foggy. Neither of them dared mention the wetness on Matt’s cheeks. Even speaking about this—about how much he’d loved you only for him to ruin it—was almost more than he could bear, the edges of the wound still fresh and raw. Then again, maybe he deserved that pain after how miserably he’d failed you, just like everyone else in his life. “I miss her. And what’s worse is even when she’s right there in front of me, she’s not. She’s not, Foggy. Because I-I fucked up. I’m the reason the woman I knew, the woman I loved, died. I’m the reason she’ll never remember what we had, why I’ll never hold her again, and why she’ll leave New York at the end of the month like she does whenever she’s afraid of forming a connection.” He let out a bitter laugh, waving towards the windows, towards the place you’d once held dear. “I couldn’t even keep her here before. She almost ran last summer and the only thing that stopped her was being kidnapped. That was what slowed her down long enough for our thread to turn red, not me. She won’t let that happen a second time, not now that she’s seen what happens to people I care about. Do you understand?”

The door to Nelson and Murdock creaked open, Karen’s voice making its way in first. Her voice was followed only a moment later by another’s, one still so familiar.

“—I mean, winding up in a pool while chasing a kid sounds about right for me, so even if I don’t remember, I won’t argue—”

“I had to keep you here somehow.” Foggy’s voice remained quiet, but there was no disguising the ferocity in it now, the fervent belief. “Get out of your own head and talk to her, Matt. Fight for her. She would want you to.”

No.

No, no, no.

Your body may have been here, whole and real, but the woman who’d known him wasn’t. The song of your voice, your sweet scent, the flames of heat and stirred air currents around you flaring into a familiar shape: all of it was nothing but a lie, a snare for his senses, a ghost of his own making, and he wasn’t about to be caught by it again.

He darted back around his desk, shoving his way past Foggy on the way toward the front door, his heart racing. If he was quick, if he just put up enough of a front, he could get out before they trapped you here with him like they’d planned. He wouldn’t relive this grief again, he couldn’t, not without falling apart. The moment he’d had with you in his apartment had been enough agony for one lifetime.

“Hey, Matt.” You cleared your throat, shifting awkwardly on your feet where you’d stopped by the front door. Your stance was cautious and guarded, almost wary of him. It was just one more reminder of how uncomfortable he made you now. “Are you—”

“Heading out,” he said stiffly, only belatedly remembering to trace one hand along the wall as if his heightened senses hadn’t given him a clear map of the room the moment his adrenaline spiked. That spike was a curse all its own. It made the scent of you so much stronger, the lie of it fresh and present as it twined around him. His chest hitched just once before he forced himself to breathe his mouth. But that route of escape had been cut off, too. All it did was shift his focus to the taste of you on the air, and the taste of familiar fabric once so tenderly given.

You were wearing one of his shirts.

He fumbled for his cane, his hands starting to shake before he finally found it where he’d left it against the wall. He couldn’t let you see him like this. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t remember him, nor was it your fault that he’d lost you. He’d done enough damage without adding a layer of guilt to what you were dealing with, too. But despite his attempts to hide what he was feeling, his face a hard mask, your fingers still brushed gently against his arm a moment later. It was an offer of help, or maybe an attempt to reach out, to slow him down, to connect. It was a kindness, a sympathy he didn’t deserve. Even now, you read him far too well, this touch the same as it had been that first night he’d met you when you’d gently brushed your hand against his arm. “Hey, do you need… I could walk you home.”

He shied away from your touch, finally managing to roughly unsnap his cane before going for the door. “I’m fine. I just—I have things to take care of. Excuse me.”

He went straight home and showered, but no matter how many times he scrubbed, he couldn’t seem to wash the ghost of your scent away.

You slowly wandered around Matt’s office, taking it in. This was another place you’d supposedly frequented, a place that should have been familiar, and one you'd avoided until now.

Even though Foggy had assured you it was alright, it felt… almost wrong to explore a stranger’s space like this without them present. But you couldn’t help but brush your fingers across the battered desk and the small labels in braille you couldn’t read, run your hands along the chair for clients that you might have sat in once, and trace curiously the small seashell next to Matt’s laptop. The base scents of Matt were stronger here where he spent so much time, only partly erased by the smell of coffee and paper. The room was clean, cared for, and well-organized despite how rundown the office was. Important to him. You could tell that much, even if the scents and sights had failed to spark any memories.

Maybe… knowing his space wasn’t enough.

This was about more than just figuring out who you were, now. For some reason, you needed to know who Matt was, too: this man Jane Hind had cared so much about and who’d cared so much about her. You told yourself it was practical. Matt was your best bet when it came to remembering who you’d been. But some part of you deep down recognized the lie. No, there was something in you inescapably drawn to him, a pull you couldn’t quite explain. Maybe that strange, unnatural gravity was what had started this whole mess in the first place. What was it about him that was so different, that had driven you to break every last rule you’d lived your life by for over a decade?

And why… did you spend so long wondering if he’d ever climbed out his office window?

It had been twenty-nine days, and not a single memory had returned.

Oh, there were beats now and then when you thought that maybe, just maybe something was coming back, but those moments were painfully few and far between. Even in those moments, you couldn’t say remembered anything, exactly. It was more a frustrating sense of deja vu, a fleeting little itch at the back of your mind like you’d forgotten something important, flashing road markers to warn you of the dark, empty gaps in your memory. That sense was probably driven at least in part by Foggy’s growing desperation as he frantically hunted for something that might trigger a return of your memories.

But the rest of that feeling… the rest was all you.

There was no denying a traitorous part of you wanted to remember no matter how ill-advised it might be. You wanted to remember this bizarre little family you’d stumbled into and then lost, just like in Los Angeles. You wanted to remember the love you’d had for this place, this city, this taste of mutual affection that had grown up around you after going so long without. After endless ages and ages of drought, of starvation, you hungered for even these bare crumbs of connection, something to tide you over until you found safe haven on the distant horizon. What a tempting thought it was to slither back into the life of this woman who’d been so cruelly murdered and replaced by a stranger wearing her skin.

Was this what a demon felt like when it took over a body? To walk around with someone else’s face, to speak with the unnatural voice of the dead, tormenting the loved ones that remained?

That, ultimately, was why it didn’t matter what you wanted. Your presence in this city only spread rot and suffering. It would be better for everyone involved if you left like you should have long before now. Then they could all grieve without you tainting the very soil around them.

Especially Matt.

You’d seen him once or twice in passing as your time in New York wound down. Even at a distance, you’d marked the growing circles under his eyes, dark enough to be visible despite the glasses he always wore. The rest of him wasn’t doing much better. It seemed like every time he crossed your path, there was another bruise, another cut across his face or knuckles, a shifting canvas of pain painted across skin grown pale and drawn. He didn’t just look tired—that wasn’t what this was. This was something far worse, a haggard exhaustion, a weariness that couldn’t be solved with sleep, if he slept at all. This was someone being haunted.

Probably because the ghost of Jane Hind kept crossing his path. But that would be solved soon enough.

You’d already packed up your things, not that you had much to take. Just your bag and your memory box. You’d be leaving the next day. Foggy was still convinced he had a few more days, but you had other plans. You couldn’t give Matt back the woman he’d lost, nor could you give him a body to bury, a grave to lay flowers across, but you could give him what Jane Hind had carried with her until her dying breath.

“I thought you might… want these before I left tomorrow,” you said quietly. “I… sorry, it’s… it’s a bag with my—with her things.”

Matt took it carefully from you, the motion mechanical and stiff. He hadn’t really invited you the rest of the way into his apartment, the two of you now stalled out in the hallway just beyond the closed front door. He hadn’t taken his glasses off, either. It made it harder to read him, his face closed off and impassive, a wall of red glass placed firmly between you. Come to think of it, you hadn’t seen his eyes even once since that day you’d first come back, and you didn’t blame him. You didn’t like feeling vulnerable, either, though that was just a guess when it came to what he might be feeling.

“It’s the shirts from her apartment, which I think are yours. And the stuffed bear.” You bit your lip and released it slowly, shifting uncomfortably on your feet. “And the… the mug, which Nelson said was yours, too. The one you used at her place. I also put the hoodie in there, the one she had with her while she was traveling. And…” You reached into your pocket, fumbling for a moment. God, you were bad at this, unsure of just how to do this without hurting him any more than was absolutely necessary. It wasn’t a concern you usually dealt with since your goal was almost always the exact opposite, a precaution meant to destroy any threads of connection they held with you. Unfortunately, he wasn’t giving you much to work with, though you didn’t miss his subtle flinch when you drew the key from your pocket. “I thought you might want this, too.”

You cautiously edged forward, daring to breach the ring of radiant heat that surrounded him, the closest you’d come to him in almost a month. He went stiff as you approached, his jaw growing tight as the gap between you both closed. Another step, and his head cocked as if he were listening to your footsteps, or maybe… maybe he was just waiting to find out what you had to give him. But he wasn’t telling you to fuck off or just set your gift aside, which was a good sign. So you hesitantly reached out and brushed your fingers lightly against his bicep, a signal so he knew you were about to pass him something.

A breath.

He remained absolutely still amidst the sudden, crackling tension in the air as your fingertips skated gently down and around his forearm, stirring all the little hairs, his skin shockingly warm. All you’d intended to do to take his arm and guide it up so you could place the key in his hand, but you quickly found yourself distracted by a ragged scar along the back of his forearm, one your fingers seemingly made their way to on instinct. It was a deep scar, the original cut likely made by some sort of blade, the edges of it rough and uneven from messy stitching. Your curiosity got the better of you, so much so that you missed the way Matt had begun to hold his breath.

“Who fucked up the sutures on that?” You furrowed your brow, your thumb smoothly marking out the jagged line of it. “They did a terrible job. No offense.”

Matt’s face fell and you only realized too late just who it was that must have patched him up.

Before you could blink, he’d yanked his arm out of your grip as if your touch had burned him. “Don’t,” he grit out, his chest heaving as he put a few steps distance between you both. “You can—just put your key on the bench.”

“How did you know—” “Because there’s only one thing left it could be.”

You nodded weakly, taking a few steps back towards the little bench beside the door. That unfamiliar ache, that sense of wrongness was back, the weight of it settling uneasily in your chest like a stone until you almost wanted to retch. It didn’t help that Matt was just barely holding himself together while you were here.

Best to say what you’d come to say and leave him be.

You gently set the key down, and the quiet click of the brass against the wood seemed to echo in the hallway, a graveyard bell tolling with a looming sense of finality. What you were about to tell him would hurt, you knew it would, but maybe one day he’d find comfort in it. This—a sign of what she’d felt—was the real gift you’d truly come to give, the only true token of her you could offer. Your words, when you spoke, were almost as hoarse as his. “I thought you should know I… she wore it. The key. I asked them. She wore your key and she never took it off. Not once. Whatever you both had, she treasured it, and all she wanted was to get back to you. She didn’t leave you by choice, Matt. I hope that… that helps.”

Of all the things you’d said and done, it was this that finally seemed to break him. His face twisted in a sudden wave of grief, and regret hit you all at once. You quickly took a step towards him, one hand out, though you weren’t sure what you’d do if he reached back—it wasn’t like you knew how to comfort him, and you sure as hell didn’t know if he’d tolerate you holding him again, nor whether he was someone that needed some sort of touch when he was hurting. But before you could take another step he’d flinched away from you, retreating quickly back into the darkness of his apartment, his voice ragged. “Just go. Get out.”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, backing away towards the door. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

It shouldn’t have hurt as you closed that door one last time. But you cried all the same.

Somewhere within the apartment came the sound of splintering furniture and a hoarse scream wracked with grief.

“Look, Nelson.” You tiredly adjusted the strap of your duffle bag over your shoulder, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of your nose as if it would stem your growing headache. “I know it’s a day early. But another twenty-four hours isn’t going to make a fucking difference.”

“I don’t need another day!” he pleaded, his arms spread wide where he’d blocked your front door, ensuring you couldn’t leave your apartment until you’d heard him out. You’d had no idea he even had a key until today and, not for the first time, you cursed Jane Hind’s apparent lack of common sense. You did not give out keys, or at least, you hadn’t before coming here to this ridiculous fucking city. “Just five minutes. That’s all. I’ve got one last thing to try.”

“Maybe I don’t want to try one more thing!” you snapped bitterly, dropping your hand. That anger was a good cover for the way something sharp and prickly had begun to catch in your throat, the incident with Matt still fresh in your mind. “I’ve tried for a month, and it’s gotten me nothing. Fucking-fucking bars and random rooftops and a shitty little duck, goddamn penguins and keys, and none of it did shit! Jane’s gone, ok? She’s dead. And I’m sorry, I know you all cared about her, but I’m done—”

“Have you climbed inside a thread?”

“...What?” you asked in sudden bewilderment, your rage abruptly faltering in the face of pure confusion. “What the fuck does that even me—”

He let out a whoop, practically dancing on his feet. “Yes! I knew it! I can’t believe no one told you!”

“Told me what?!” You chucked your bag back onto your couch in sudden exasperation. If this was thread-related, at the very least you could stay long enough to listen. “There’s nothing to climb!”

“Ok, so stick with me.” He rubbed his palms together eagerly, a bright light in his eyes. “Because I’m about to get really metaphysical.”

It took you what felt like hours to climb inside the shimmering honey-colored thread that lay between you and Matt—a thread that sang with his sorrow and your reluctant sympathy.

It wasn’t right having your soul constricted like this, all of who you were narrowing down into something so small as you squirmed through a barrier that tasted and felt like dirt and earth, chasing after the sound of trickling water. There wasn’t supposed to be anything on the other side. It was an emotional connection, nothing more.

And yet here you were, standing in a place that had no reason to exist.

“Holy shit,” you whispered in amazement, spinning on your heels to examine your surroundings. “Holy shit, he was right.”

Despite the late hour, the air was full of a muted light that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, tinting the world a hazy, eerie green. High up above you roiled thick, sullen black storm clouds, silent flashes of red lightning carving their way between swirls of charred smoke. It wasn’t much light, but it was enough to see by.

And what you saw was heartbreaking.

You stood in a dry, stony riverbed. The ground beneath you was cracked and brittle where the water had receded, leaving behind nothing but dust and broken branches. The river itself remained though just barely, the thin trickle of flowing water down the center of the riverbed a far cry from whatever immense force had carved its way through the landscape until the banks were a good ten paces from one side to the other. The terrain beyond the river didn’t look much better, wilted, drooping cattails dotted up the bank before giving way to endless forest that stretched farther than your eye could see. Like the cattails and scrub, the pine and fir trees stood withered and brown, casting their empty branches up toward the sky.

If it had been beautiful here once, whatever had happened to you had destroyed that beauty.

“Jesus,” you whispered.

“Can you hear me?” Foggy’s voice sounded distant and far away, tinny like he was talking through a long tunnel.

“Yeah. Can you hear me?”

“...Ok, if you’re trying to respond, I can’t hear you. But according to Matt, whenever you were here, it felt like memories. So poke around, see what you can find.”

You sighed and started down the riverbed. “Not super helpful, but ok. Let’s give it a shot.”

The water was the most obvious place to start, and you made your way over to the thin stream that ran raggedly across the parched soil. Much to your fascination, you quickly discovered that what you’d thought was one current was actually two, one layered over the top of the other, each flowing in the opposite direction. The first of those currents hiding on the bottom was fairly calm, steady if a little restless, swirls of pale color that almost felt like curiosity, though how you understood that translation was a mystery. The second current seemed far rougher where it roiled atop the first, its section of the stream cloudy and thick with swirls of black and the red of an open wound. You hovered over the second current for a long moment, working up your courage, before you finally knelt and hesitantly brushed against it with one finger. It was just water. How bad could it be?

The moment your skin made contact, your chest seized on a sudden swell of agony. Your mouth filled with the taste of grief, with the sound of an empty home, the lack of some familiar scent that meant affection and warmth and softness and safety, the ache of an old wound reopened just when it had started to heal. Alone, always alone, I deserve it, so many gone, he was right, when will I learn? There was no hope for comfort from that pain, no escape from the darkness into tender arms that could hold you just right when it all hurt. All you had to look forward to was more—

You threw yourself backward, scrambling away from that terrible current as if what you’d felt might rise up and chase after you, snapping its teeth the whole way. You didn’t stop retreating until your back slammed against the dry soil of the riverbank. Only then did you stop, panting, your eyes wide in shock as you cradled your hand against your heaving chest.

Emotion. It’s emotion.

That was what the water was. Matt’s emotion. Which meant the other current—one now shifting back to yellow despite a momentary surge of twisting, roiling black—was… yours.

Right. So you could rule the water out. But if that was emotion, where was memory?

Examining the rest of the river was the most obvious next step now that you’d ruled out the water. Based on what you could see, the original riverbed had been a mix of silt and stones of varying sizes, a firm foundation beneath a once-powerful river. Now, though, the grey, dried-out silt was covered in a strange sea of divots and dips, as if something—a lot of somethings—had been plucked up and removed. You traced one of the indents in the soil curiously, lifting your hand back up to consider the grit as you rubbed it between your fingers. Another glance around revealed the answer.

The stones.

There were still plenty of stones remaining in the riverbed, but the divots in the dry silt told you there’d once been far more. If that was what you’d lost, then maybe…

You rocked up eagerly to your feet, pacing around breathlessly as you searched for a promising stone to start with. Eventually you made your pick, plucking up a stone just small enough to fit in your palm, flat and smooth save for a little groove in it as if someone had run their fingers over it endlessly. Strangely, it smelled like honey and herbs, the surface oddly warm against your hand like the brush of a thumb against your mouth. You waited for a long, impatient moment, and when nothing else happened, you tapped it a few times.

Still nothing.

And something inside you… cracked.

“Fuck!” you screamed, hurling the stone back down the river in a sudden rage. The pain and the loneliness you’d been suppressing for the last month, the last year, the horrible, endless eternity since leaving your family in Los Angeles began to claw its way up your throat, the clouds churning wildly above you in response. A wild rain came next, each droplet sharp and cold and edged like the blade of a knife, bitter and biting as it beat against your skin. You grabbed another stone, one that tasted like shitty beer—Josie’s beer. You threw that rock, too, then another and another, throwing stones that smelled and tasted and felt like your shriek of laughter as he grinned and caught you against his chest, like torn flesh and a needle held by tender hands, like your face nuzzling fearlessly against Matt’s throat as he whispered comfort into your hair and held you close, like synced breathing and hearts and dances between binary stars as you both fell into sleep, fell into safety, fell into one another, phantom sensations that only made the fierce ache in you grow stronger because with every stone you snatched up it became clear that…

You’d been loved.

Not your identity.

Not the image you showed to the world.

Not the walls you’d put up in front of him before he’d found some way past them.

You.

And he’d loved you with every part of him.

You weren’t sure when you started crying, a violent, vicious stream of tears that was just as much a product of rage as grief. Here was someone who’d loved you fully, loved you despite every asterisk and bit of baggage and sharpened edge that came with being a broken hound, with being a former experiment still on the run. But you barely noticed your tears, spitting up at the unforgiving clouds and the howling wind, because you could howl, too, just as violent, just as much a threat as any storm in this place. “I want my fucking life back! I want him back!”

You hadn’t wanted it before, or maybe you had and you’d just been too afraid to ask for it. But now? Oh, oh, now you were furious, furious and hurting and screaming, because you’d denied yourself connection all these years only to find it in the last place you’d expected. That was what this had been—home, family, love. That had to be why you’d stayed in New York, why you’d risked everything for these people, for Matt. You weren’t an idiot. You’d have run the numbers and the math, made your calculations.

You couldn’t bear to lose this. Not… not again.

You threw stone after stone, hunting frantically as your fingers bled dry, desperate fury into the air, reddened drops disappearing before they ever hit the ground. The trickle of water in the center of the riverbed had churned itself into a frenzy, but you ignored it. There had to be something here that would trigger a memory, something that would let you remember being loved again, something big enough, important enough, so you grabbed and you grabbed and grabbed and grabbed and grabbed until at last, you found a stone the size of your fist. You snatched it up with a ragged sob, cradling it greedily against your chest as if doing so might let you carry it out of here, because you wanted it, you wanted him, wanted to remember more than anything in the world.

“Let me have it!” you snarled, snapping your teeth at the howling winds of the storm as if you might catch this place between your jaws and tear it open until you at last found what belonged to you. “Give it back!”

And with a blink—

He tore one of his bloodied gloves off, his hand shaking as he reached out to you.

You stilled the moment his fingertips brushed tenderly against your cheek, so very gentle, affection layered over blood and earth and hurt. And god, your skin was so terribly dry and cold, the beat of your heart uneven as it struggled to pump blood through your body, but he could feel you react to him, the barest parting of your lips as you dragged in a startled breath. He didn’t want to startle you further or risk you fighting him, so he let his voice drop into a whisper, soft as the brush of a feather.

“It’s me. I’m here.”

‘I heard you,’ he tried to say. ‘I heard you. I’m here.’

And your weakened heart… skipped.

He wasn’t sure if he reached for you or if you reached for him. All he knew was it was the sign he’d been looking for. In a heartbeat, he scooped you up off the floor, stealing you back from that dry, filthy cement and crusted blood that had tried to take you from him. He cradled your cold body against his chest, then, held you there where it was warm and where you were safe. You made the softest little noise, the sound choked and dry, but there was no disguising the heartbreaking relief in it. He pulled you in further, pulled you up until you were curled up in his lap, not an ounce of air left between your bodies, your head laying against his shoulder.

He would never let you touch the floor of this place again.

“D…” you mumbled, not one hint of fear in you despite what he’d just done, the blood on his hands and the burning heat of violence that still lingered in his bones. You wearily slid your head over, inch by inch, until you’d buried your face against the sweat-slick line of his throat, nuzzling in against him with a hoarse sigh that only made him hold you tighter. You inhaled slowly then, heedless of the blood and dirt and sweat that coated his skin, your fingers coming up to hook weakly in the collar of his shirt. “You came.”

And you… smiled.

He buried his face against your hair and let out a shaky breath. As he did, he dug down past blood and dust and dirt, dug and dug until he found the sweet, familiar scent of you, a scent he never wanted to leave him again.

The stone fell from your limp hands, a ringing in your ears you could barely hear beneath the sound of the water nearby, frothing and wild.

The increased sensory feedback had been bizarre, and there was… there was no reason he should have been covered in so much blood, his body burning as if he’d been fighting before coming to you. But…

“Hey, you in there?” Foggy called.

“D.” The letter felt strange, and yet… natural, as you cradled it on your tongue. “D?”

And you knew what came after that letter, shaping the word again in your mind.

You knew.

You… remembered.

“Always,” he’d said.

“Always,” you whispered, casting your eyes up the riverbed towards another large stone. “Always, D.”

He didn’t know what you were doing or why you’d climbed inside the thread.

“Always, D.”

All he knew was that it hurt.

“You’re stuck with me, unfortunately for you.”

He’d thought catching your scent, hearing your laugh, being forced to take back the key he’d given to you had been the worst of it. But no. It was far, far worse having to relive these memories of your time with him over and over and over without pause, his senses filled with you: with your touch, with your scent, with the taste of you on the air. He heard you whisper, laugh, and sigh; felt the brush of your fingers in his hair and your body shaking with laughter when he snatched you up during a game of Devil Hunt and the safety of you as you’d held him so tenderly after his fight with Foggy. All of it was a reminder of what he’d lost, what he’d never get back.

“Don’t you give up on me, Matt. Ok?”

He was in agony. There was no blocking you out like this, no escaping your memory no matter how much he tried to push back or retreat, until he wound up trapped and spiraling in his kitchen.

“Kiss me when you come back.”

On and on it went, memories snapping at his heels until all he had left to hide behind was rage. He swept his arm across the counter, glass shattering as he screamed himself hoarse. Eventually he found himself backed up against the wall, sinking down as he hitched out something like an agonized groan, his hands over his ears, his eyes shut tight. “Don’t do this to me, sweetheart, please—”

“Adoringly yours, because I do adore you, you ridiculous man...”

“Leave me alone,” he whispered. “Just leave me alone.”

“...Remember that. if nothing else.”

In hindsight, it was a really bad idea to give back your key.

“Matt!” you shouted, pounding frantically on his front door. “Matt, let me in! It’s me, I swear, I can-I can—”

Silence.

And you weren’t willing to wait any longer. This wasn’t something you could explain through the door, out here in the hall where the neighbors could hear. You needed to get inside. You knew he was in there somewhere.

Red threads never lied.

You wiped the blood away from your nose and took off for the stairs. It was only one flight up to the roof, and sometimes he left the rooftop door unlocked. Even if it wasn’t unlocked, you’d use the key under the mat. You didn’t remember everything. But you remembered that. And if the key wasn’t there? You’d break that fucking door down.

He sat unmoving in his meditation pose on the floor, the sound of your attempts to get into the apartment distant and far away. Meditation had been the only thing left he could think of that would allow him to escape the pain and the memories of you that had flooded his thoughts. Like this, with his mind and his focus withdrawn until it lay deep within himself, he’d hoped he’d be far enough away from the world that the ghost of you couldn’t reach.

Yet even deep in meditation, his instincts were set off by the crack! of his rooftop door slamming open.

He was on his feet in a heartbeat, his heart racing as he bared his teeth, his body prepared to face whatever threat had just broken in. The sensations of you, at the very least, had quieted during his meditation, which should have left him enough space for some small margin of peace as he threw himself into a fight. But that peace was nowhere to be found, because you were here again.

He recoiled from that thought the second it crossed his mind. This wasn’t you, that much had become painfully clear. You’d passed away somewhere far beyond his reach, away from the home, the life you’d lived here. The woman that stood on his landing now was nothing but a ghost, a fading memory and a terrible reminder of what he’d had and lost, what he’d earned by daring to reach for something good. There was no undoing it, no washing away the blood on his hands. If anything, how he felt for you had doomed any hopes of you staying long enough for him to reform that connection with you. He knew how you operated—hell, you’d tried to run on that hot summer night so many months ago after seeing just how much he’d cared, even if you’d ultimately changed your mind. At the time, he’d thought it was Destiny, the hand of God ensuring you remained in the Kitchen where Matt could keep you safe from the Man in the White Coat, here in this place where you both might… might shape something good out of all the broken pieces you’d both been left with. He knew better, now. Even the hand of God couldn’t break the curse Matt placed on those he loved. You would leave, leave like all the others, and he deserved it.

The only question that remained was why you seemed so, so fucking determined to make him suffer.

“Matt.” Your voice cracked as you stumbled down the stairs. “Matt, I—”

“Why can’t you just leave me alone, sweetheart?” he grit out, reaching up to fist his hands tightly in his hair. He’d never known you to be unnecessarily cruel, but there was no other explanation. “God, I-I can’t—you can’t keep doing this to me.”

“Matt, just let me—”

“Do you even care how much you’re hurting me?” He hitched out a broken laugh, something bitter and tormented, the sound absent all humor as you made it down the stairs. “All those months, all I wanted was for you to come back. I begged. I prayed to God, over and over again, that he would bring you back to me. And now that you’re gone, you just won’t leave. I can’t get away from you no matter what I do. Do you know what that’s like? To lose someone you love only for their ghost to haunt you every time you turn around?”

A soft intake of breath.

There it was. Now that he’d said it, you’d leave. There would be nothing more frightening to the You he’d first known than a word like love.

“I just…” His breath hitched again, something thick building in his throat. It was just another sign of his weakness, the same weakness that had gotten you killed.

‘I warned you, kid,’ came Stick’s voice, so smug that Matt bared his teeth. ‘I fuckin’ warned you the night I opened up her eye. But you didn’t listen.’

He started to pace wildly, ignoring your voice as he hunted for some opening through which he could escape, flee from Stick’s voice hiding in the corners of his thoughts, from your ghost. With every step his movements grew more frantic, more furious as his rage built like a rising wave: rage at himself, at God, at the monster who’d taken your memories and the possibility of a life for you here with Matt, and at you, too, because you just didn’t get it. “I just want to grieve, and God can’t even give me that much, can he? Is that what this is? Punishment? Revenge? Congratulations. Job well done. You can go.”

You tilted your head as you watched him pace, the same cock of your head you got when considering your potential routes forward. As far as he was concerned, the only route he’d give was a route out the door.

“I don’t know why you came back, and at this point, I don’t fucking care,” he told you hotly, nothing but burning smoke and thick venom in each word. “We don’t have a red thread anymore. There’s nothing to keep you here. Leave. Now. I’m not asking.”

Your soft response was a single letter, one that struck directly at the open wound inside his chest.

“...D.”

He snatched up an empty beer bottle from the kitchen counter in a sudden rage, turned, and hurled it past you.

You didn’t so much as flinch as the bottle came within inches of your head. Nor did you react to the distant shattering of glass, the sound of it barely audible over his anguished roar.

“Leave me alone!”

And then he froze in sudden horror at what he’d done, his heartbeat almost drowning out the soft sound of your steps. All he’d wanted to do was scare you away, frighten you away so he could break where you couldn’t see, because it had hurt, it had hurt to hear you call him—

Wait.

You’d… you’d called him…

“My Devil Man, my Saint Matthew,” you whispered, the touch of your hands cool and endlessly gentle as you cupped his face. His skin was wet, damp beneath your thumbs as you swiped them across his cheeks, when had he started crying? You brought his head down until you could lay your forehead against his, the taste of salt hanging in the air. Your voice grew achingly tender, so longed for that he swayed helplessly on his feet, wanting nothing more than to be held like you’d held him so often before when he was hurting. “I’m so sorry, D. I’m so sorry I left you alone, sweetheart.”

He closed his eyes tight, his breath growing shaky. You couldn’t know that he was two steps away from crumbling in your arms, fractures widening with every breath. He had no energy left to fight your touch, your misplaced mercy, but giving into the lie was another thing entirely. He couldn’t bear to hope again, not when it would crush him if he were wrong. “Foggy told you to… he told you to call me that, didn’t he? To see if you’d remember. But I can’t—you’re going to leave me, you’ll—” “Do you remember what I said before I left? Because I do.” You swiped your thumb gently against his cheek, your uneven breathing skipping and falling into rhythm with his as his hands shakily rose. They hovered hesitantly a few inches away from your face, terrified that you might vanish beneath his hands like a ghost. “I don’t leave my box behind, and I won’t leave you behind, either. I told you that you were stuck with me after Nobu. I meant it. It’s really me. I know you’re tired and hurting, sweetheart, but listen to my heart. What does it say? Truth or lie?”

…Steady.

Truth.

Could it really be you?

He held his breath as he dared at last to touch your cheek, stirring the fine hairs as he stroked his way along the familiar shape of your face, one he’d traced so often in his dreams. Your skin was damp with tears just like his, another sliding down to bump against his thumb as your lips quirked up into a brilliant smile. And the moment his trembling fingers passed your lips, you kissed the tip of each with a warm fondness, a mirror of that night you’d held his broken, torn body and he’d kissed your fingers and palm.

“How much do you… do you remember?” There was a ringing in his ears as the world beneath him seemed to roll beneath him. “Everything?” “Not everything. Some pieces are still missing, with Foggy and Karen and my job, but I-I remember enough. I remember you, and what I had with you.” Your voice grew fierce and fervent then as you drew in a sharp breath, preparing yourself. “I remember you, D. And I remember that I love you. I love you, Matt Murdock, all of you, so, so much. And I will never leave you alone again.” You loved him.

You loved him.

The weight of it—being forced to let you leave the city, the ensuing months alone, the agony of the past few weeks thinking he’d lost you entirely, and now this, this, knowing you loved him like he loved you—hit him all at once, and with a sudden groan he started to drop. You caught him in your arms, the two of you sinking to your knees as you held him tight and he wound desperately around you in return. Only then did he start to fall apart in your arms, shaking in your hold, his grief, his hurt, his relief spilling out in choked gasps where you’d tucked his head down against your neck. He fisted his hands in your shirt as you both rocked, and a ragged moan tore free from him, spilling against your skin when you lifted your hands to trail your fingers lovingly through his hair. You knew, you remembered just how to hold him when he was hurting, a balm across every last wound. His shivering, touch-starved body remembered your touch, too, drowning beneath the sudden surge of good, warm, safe, soft after months of nothing but pain, so much so he couldn’t help but gasp out your name.

“I’ve got you now, D,” you whispered, burying your face against his shoulder until he could feel the heat of your tears against his shirt, too. “I’m here, now. You’re not alone. I’ve got you, Matt.”

“I thought you were gone.” There was no way for him to truly sync his breathing with yours, not with the way you were both crying, but still his body tried on instinct, tried and failed over and over again. He closed his eyes tighter, burying his face deeper against your throat as he pulled you in even closer, until there wasn’t an inch of space between your body and his, where he could feel every beat of your heart against his skin, as if to make up for the way he’d almost… almost chased you away. “I thought you’d left me and I was alone. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t try harder, and that I didn’t-I didn’t go with you, but I couldn’t—I’m so, so—”

“Hey, hey, it’s ok.” You kissed shakily at his hair, his shoulder, and whatever other parts of him you could reach, your breath, your tears, your absolution washing over him like rain. “It’s not your fault, D. It’s not your fault sweetheart. None of this was your fault.”

“But—” “Hey. Listen to me, before you get any further down in that hole.” You lifted his head from your shoulder, cupping his tear-stained face in your hands again. For a moment you both simply breathed with one another, your forehead to his, soaking in the contact, the affection that you’d both dearly missed and needed. “What happened to me outside New York, my memory loss… all of that is not your fault. It never was, D. There are-there are a lot of things we’ll have to deal with in the future, things I need to tell you. Consequences of what we’ve done, and—but this isn’t one of them. Never this. You’re what helped bring me back.” “How? I didn’t…” He let out a breathless, watery little laugh. “I didn’t do anything but try to chase you away.” “Some part of me couldn’t help but be drawn to you. I remembered, deep down, I think.” You gave an amused little huff. “And once Foggy showed me how to get into our thread, all your memories are what brought me back, helped me remember, because I could feel it, how you loved me. That was the key. Speaking of which…” You leaned in to nuzzle up against his cheek, your voice lowering to a whisper. “I think I made you a promise, you ridiculous man. And it’s one I intend to keep.”

And with one small tip of your head, and a single slow breath…

“Kiss me when you come back.”

…your lips brushed against his for the very first time, tender and achingly soft, and so full of love that it would have stolen his breath away if he’d had any left at all.

It wasn’t the first kiss he’d envisioned months ago just before you left, something triumphant and wild. Nor was it anything like the first kisses he’d imagined before that, the first kiss he’d thought this journey with you might lead to. And God only knew he’d considered kissing you for the first time more than was healthy.

Your first kiss with him was, instead, shaky and gentle, tasting of salt and tears and the fading shades of grief retreating like streamers of night before a welcome sunrise. Slowly, and then more surely, his lips began to move against yours, finally allowing himself to truly taste you for the first time, his eyes slowly falling closed as your fingers ran fondly through his hair, you, it was really you, you remembered. With a quiet moan, he breathed you in deep, calling your grace, your love deep into him until it settled there against his heart, knowing that, no matter what else might come, he would never lose it again, one of his hands rising to tenderly wind around your throat, his other hand finding yours so he could lace his battered fingers tightly with yours.

It wasn’t the first kiss he’d expected, but it felt perfect all the same.

Because all that was left was him…

And you.

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incorrect-fnaf-quotes · 5 months

Text

I have no idea if I’ll write it, but I started thinking of Springtrap x reader plots, and then I started talking to @ravenmccookies about like... the main idea that I have.

So, imagine: Y/N is one of those people who likes to restore old things. They never worked at the attraction, and never actually knew about it, either—but they heard about something burning down.

While out walking, they end up discovering Springtrap, and they’re like: “Oh, a cool robot bunny. I’ll take it back with me and fix it up. Should be fun.” And they drag him back home.

And they basically start streaming on what they plan on doing—and when they go to the room that they were sure they left the rabbit in... he’s just gone.

Y/N manages to find him, but in a panic, ends up hitting Springtrap with a bat that they happened to have brought with them.

And that’s just how the two actually meet. I have a ton of other ideas involving this potential thing—including ideas for how it could actually end. Something angsty, I’m thinking.

But anyway: shenanigans occur.

#Not a quote #Springtrap #Y/N #They’re just wandering in their house trying to find where this rabbit could have possibly gotten #And viewers are like: ‘Xnxjdjfu I see it’ but every time Y/N goes to see. He’s just gone #They make a lot of videos about the rabbit—a lot of them are during the time that Y/N is still scared of him #But then when they’re more comfortable they still make the same kind of videos: Him doing whatever (with spooky music)#I like the whole thing... but I have no idea how to write him that well #But I have so many ideas that want to release #The potential endings... xjqjwjrjnc #Like. There’s one that’s a fluffy/nice ending for the whole thing—Springtrap just remains at the house and the two have a nice time with #-each other #But all of the other ideas for the endings of this? All Angsty #Ones more of just... a bummer—nothing too bad?#Like: A happy one—a bittersweet(if that’s the right word?)—a complete angst-filled one #Etc #Something always happens to the bnnuy man by the end #It’s post FNaF 3 fire—but he remains looking like Springtrap—rather than Scraptrap #Although. Maybe he still lost an arm during it?#I have thoughts.#Rabbit Restoration Project (R.R.P)

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l4long-winded · 3 months

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So this is somewhat inspired by the other anon about Carmy with the girl he can’t believe chose him. Maybe on a bad day, he’s just asking her why she’s with him and hes listing his bad traits and after every one she’s saying“I love you” until he stops. My man needs love, I want him so bad 😭😭

it's a culmination of it all. the piling stress from work, from this incessant need to prove himself, grief he has yet to fully process, capricious thoughts vying for his attention, exasperated expressions continuously staring daggers his way as if he's not running around without a sense of what he's doing, despite his brain instructing him this is the right path, while his heart isn't in any of it. he's having trouble breathing, to which you're there because you're always there for him at times like this as he's grasping at his chest, protecting it, and shielding it in case his rapid heart pounds its way out of his ribcage.

when he turns his head and observes the concern in your face mixed with the calming energy he really doesn't fucking deserve, his world tilts. the onslaught of it all shifts into his doubts, his insecurities, pointed at him with veracity he believes is consuming him the longer he stares. overwhelmed with emotion and panic, his fears surrounding you bloom full on his skin, thickening petals and branches crushing into the crevices of the veins in his arms and neck.

you could do better. so, so much better. you're not supposed to be here with carmen. he's kept you to himself, a caged bird he can't bother to let go of when you'd sing with access to the sky and new horizons ahead.

"i'm-i'm a fuckin' mess," he blurts, "what are you doin' here? with me? out of everyone?"

it's hard to decipher how heavy his words are when he's panting and his voice is close to cracking. it's as if he wants the answers to his question, but he's far too afraid of confirming the vicious betrayal of his doubt. he's convinced he doesn't sound ridiculous.

"because i love you."

"i-i-i fuck things up. i'll fuck you up. m'gonna ruin you and and and y-you're gonna hate me one day, n'won't blame you for a second-" he sputters, his words mashing together, strings of linguistics that don't sound like proper english. his mouth keeps opening and closing to release these incoherent ramblings, his ears bubbling with alarm bells.

"carm, i love you."

"i'm not right. i'm not fuckin' crazy," he gasps, "but i'm no good f'you. for anyone. not for my family, or, or, or my friends, if i fuckin' even have any at this point." his throat is tightening up, eyes shutting, the memory of you planted firmly behind his straining eyelids. he can't breathe.

"bear, listen, i love you so much."

"fuck, fuck, fuck this, fuck me, fuck everything, fuck the fucking restaurant, fuck, fuck, f-fuuuck it all—"

carmen flinches feeling your warm hands steady themselves on his cheeks. his lips and eyelids part, meeting your gaze. you're standing there in front of him, the combination of concern and calm remaining, as well as an affinity he will never, ever be able to understand. something about it soothes him, his breathing still ragged, but he inhales and exhales steadily out of the habit of this. it's not the first time this has happened, where he's so out of his mind that only few can pull him out before he's drowning in it. he shifts his face towards your palm, opting to press his lips against it. he should focus on breathing, but this action grounds him, muffling his worries, smothering them with the scent of your body lotion and the soft texture of your skin.

"i love you, carmen," you whisper. he hears you this time. the roar of his head dwindles down, fading in favor of hearing those words come off your lips again. he suddenly realizes how long you've been saying it while he was busy berating himself aloud with the secrets he buries deep inside.

he thinks he's going to say more shit if he tries to respond. this kind of thing has always been hard for him. pressured into it at times by his family, their defensive nature yanking it out of him by cutting at him and having it bleed out instead of nurturing it until it slips and that's all he can think about like it does with you. it spills like an inkwell. dripping over his skin. more permanent than the tattoos he's accumulated.

he nods. it's a slow and gradual thing, but he's accepting it. he wants desperately to say it back, but his lips shake with the threat of spewing more of the poison rattling in his lungs. he just keeps nodding, eventually hiding his head into your neck, lulled by the repetition of those beautiful, pacifying words.

"i love you, it's okay, breathe for me, i love you."

you love him. he's a mess and you love him. he's convinced he's going to hurt you, but you love him.

his arms tighten around you. he's positive you're capable of being better off without him, but he's not letting you go. he loves you too much to do that. he'll tell you later when he can breathe and when you inevitably render his thoughts into mush, replacing them with devotion, reassurance, and structure. yeah. yeah, he can do that. even if it's painfully obvious to everyone and you already know.

#l4l.writes #l4l.blurb #l4l.carmy #i wanna hug him and love him and never let go #this is unedited #but i felt like it needed a little more than my usual ramblings #carmen berzatto angst #carmen berzatto comfort #carmen berzatto x reader #carmy berzatto x reader #dialogue not my strong suit #we move regardless #i hope this sufficed anon #tw self hate

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demigods-posts · 29 days

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sometimes it's the grief that keeps you awake at night. that guides you out of your cabin and toward the docks. that places you careful on the edge and allows the water to rise just above your ankles. sometimes it's the helplessness that reminds you of how fragile life can be. of what a miracle it is that you're alive at all. of every time you wished you weren't. sometimes it's the gratitude that pulls you deep into the memory of when he saved you from that irreversible decision. of that late-night conversation about how you deserved to live a good life. of how he'd do anything to make sure you got that chance. sometimes it's the guilt that replays that phone call in your head. that reminds you of when you failed to return the favor. that eats you alive when you know he'd never hold it against you to save yourself every once in a while. that he'd be proud of you. sometimes it's the regret that rips you apart. that reminds of you that every breathe you take is one he won't get to. that let's the tears fall silent and slow. oh, what percy would do to spend one more day with jason.

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starry-bi-sky · 2 months

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Blood Blossom Au: before the nightingale sings

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for my batdad blood blossom au, the one where Vlad poisoned Danny with blood blossom extract and Danny ran away from him and ended up tumbling into the care of one Pre-Robin Battinson Batman :). A quick oneshot telling the tale of the tragic deaths of the Fentons

TW: Major Character Death Warning

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Not all deaths are created equal.

That is a valuable lesson in life to learn. One that Danny learns when he is eleven years old, standing in the pit of his parents’ creation; the culmination of their life’s work. The portal to the other side, the realm of the dead. To the infinite.

He learns that when he’s eleven years old, in a hazmat suit that sags on him, and boots that clunk when he walks because the only ones that fit are his mom’s, and even those are too big. In gloves that he has to clench his fists in because otherwise they fall off. In goggles that slide down his nose even when he’s tightened them the farthest they can go.

He learns that when he’s eleven years old, choking on giggles that harmonize with the laughter of his friends’ who stand at the mouth of the tunnel. Sam’s holding a polaroid in her hand. They’re just being kids.

They’re not laughing when Danny’s hand hits the safety lock — the one with faulty wiring, the only one in the tunnel. The only one he could possibly hit. They’re not laughing when the portal buzzes to life, and the lights inside switch on row by row as the generator begins to rumble and hum.

They’re not laughing when Danny dies. They’re screaming. They’re not screaming when he comes back.

Not all deaths are created equal.

Some are poetic, beautiful. The satisfying close of a book as it comes to an end, of the hardback thumping soft against the pages like the sound of a door closing. A train run its course.

Some are violent; unsatisfying; unfair. The unexpected shattering of an egg as it rolls off the countertop when nobody is looking, the unmistakable crack as it falls to the floor. It is abrupt and messy.

But most are just… unremarkable. Unintentional. Clumsy.

Danny’s family dies one night in late January. He is thirteen years old, barely a month away from fourteen. It is unforeseen. It is preventable. It happens.

It happens like this:

Their water heater breaks one Monday in January. It’s old, sitting in the garage, and has dealt with nearly sixteen years of Fenton-grade chaos and shenanigans. Of parents tossing scraps and junk into the garage as brief storage to come back to later. Of illegal tune-ups on their vehicles that result in something exploding. Of little children running around and knocking things over, playing with poles and sticks they find on the ground, on the shelves. Of being lived and used.

Something had to give.

Jack Fenton notices it immediately when he comes upstairs that very afternoon — his children at school, his wife downstairs — to grab something from the garage. The very same scrap and used material they store like squirrels to use later.

He stops what he’s doing to fix it.

It wasn’t supposed to be permanent.

Despite what many believe, Jack Fenton is not the idiot people make him out to be. He knows what he’s good at, he knows what he’s not. He knows he can be passionate and obsessive and single-minded about things. He knows that he is a scientist, an inventor; an engineer.

He knows that he is not a plumber. That fixing water heaters is not something he knows how to do, not safely. And he loves his family. What he does is only meant to be temporary — a fix meant to only last a few days until they can call someone in who can fix it for them.

So Jack Fenton futzes with the water heater, gives it a temporary stitch to last a short while, and reminds himself to call a plumber later that day to come in and fix it. He turns and leaves the garage with the part he came for — a sheet of metal for his wife to melt down — and disappears back downstairs.

He does not make that call; it slips from his mind.

It is not his fault.

One day passes, then two, then suddenly it is Thursday. The water heater has still not been fixed, the water heater has been forgotten. It is nobody’s fault.

Danny asks his parents at breakfast if he can stay over at Tucker’s house for the night. Just one night. They’re going to study for their math test and then play video games until midnight, but he only tells his parents that first half.

He’s been doing well in school. Really well — better than he has in a while. There’s been a delightful lull in ghost appearances for the last few weeks. The living don’t know why, but Danny does. The Winter Truce always calms the dead down for a while, something about how the Zone cleanses itself twice a mortal year and that fresh wave of ecto clears out the old and brings in the new.

This year Danny got to participate. He’s feeling the effects of it too, and he’s been sleeping consistently well for the first time since the accident.

It’ll never happen again.

His parents agree under the condition that he doesn’t stay up late, and Danny harmlessly lies through his teeth and agrees. He goes and throws overnight clothes into his school backpack, and when he leaves for school with Jazz his parents are already departed into the lab.

The last conversation he has with his sister is in her car on the drive to school. Inane, mindless conversation to fill the air and pass the time. Jazz comments on how relaxed he’s been lately; Danny tells her about the Winter Truce. She listens in rapt attention.

She tells him that she’s glad to see him so well-rested. She thinks her little brother’s been growing up too fast these days. She thinks he’s been too tense. Too caught up with the spinning of the world around him that he forgets about himself sometimes.

When they reach school, before Danny can get out of the car, Jazz looks to her little brother and says; “I love you.”

Her little brother’s cheeks turn an embarrassed shade of red. He makes a scrunched up, grossed-out face, but can’t hide the smile pulling across it. “Don’t be a sap, Jazz. I’ll see you later.” He tells her, yanking his hood up over his head. She hears the bashful, ‘love you too’ before he walks away.

That is the last conversation she ever has with her brother.

Thursday is unremarkable, passing by in its normality as it always does. There’s one, maybe two ghost sightings; shades lurking around in curious infancy that are easily spooked away by the presence of a greater being. Danny doesn’t even have to go ghost.

Thursday evening is even less so. Danny goes to Tucker’s house — Sam has a prior arrangement with her slam poetry club — and the two of them study for an hour before they toss their textbooks aside and reach for the game console.

Danny sleeps in Tucker’s room with one of the extra blankets on his bed, curled across the room in one of the bean bag chairs. It shouldn’t be comfortable, but to Danny it is. He sleeps throughout the night, the portal shut down by his parents before they’d gone to bed.

Early Friday morning, before the sun has even risen yet, before it’s even so much as a concept to grace the horizon, the water heater breaks again. It was supposed to be fixed.

Carbon monoxide is a silent killer. Odorless and scentless, it kills within minutes. It fills the house like a shadow casting over the ground, creeping into the rooms.

Danny’s family die in their sleep; painless and unaware.

It’s not Jack Fenton’s fault. He didn’t mean to.

Nobody wakes up with their alarms.

Danny wakes up to Tucker Foley’s alarm on Friday morning, and he turns his head intangible and shoves it into the beanbag chair like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. Tucker gets up before him, and throws a pillow at him as he reaches for the alarm.

There’s laughter, messing around. The both of them get dressed, and Danny has breakfast with the Foleys that morning. He takes the bus to school with Tucker, and they meet Sam by their lockers.

To him, everything is as normal as it should be. There are no ghosts for him to fight right now, school is as school does, and he’s on top of all his schoolwork.

He does not see Jazz at all that morning, he doesn’t notice. Their schedules are so different, their routes on different paths, that it’s not uncommon for Danny to not see Jazz until he gets home some days. That’s if there’s no ghost attacks.

At lunch, he gets approached by her friends. Worried creases between their brows, they ask him if he’s seen Jazz. She hasn’t shown up to any of her classes. She’s not answering their texts. It’s unprecedented of her; unheard of.

Danny doesn’t admit to the concern that swells in his gut when they tell him this. He shrugs at them, and says he hasn’t seen her either. But it was probably nothing to worry about; she might just be sick and sleeping it off.

He offers to text her and let them know if he gets a response, and that seems to ease her friends enough that they shuffle away in uncertainty. He keeps his word, and does exactly that. He pulls out his phone and opens her contact, and shoots her a message.

‘Where are you?’

He doesn’t get a response back, Danny is left on sent. He puts his phone in his pocket, and with a sense of unease creeping in the back of his mind, goes on with his day. He gets no response by the time the final bell rings; and he tries not to be worried.

The house is quiet when he opens the door. Unusually quiet. He drops his backpack to the floor, it lands with a hearty thunk, and begins to take off his jacket. “Mom! Dad!” He yells. He hangs it up, and slips his shoes from his feet. “Jazz skipped school today!”

A laughable untruth that would get his sister all riled up normally; she should be able to hear him from the front door if she was in her room. The house just stays dead silent.

He can’t even hear the usual banging and crashing from the lab. His unease returns. He reaches for the intercom that leads directly down to the basement, and presses the button to turn it on. A burst of static, and then he speaks;

“Mom? Dad?”

Danny lets go, and waits for a response. He gets none back. That never happens, not when the house is this quiet. Not when he knows they should’ve heard him.

Something sickly and fearful borns in the pit of his stomach, and begins to snake upward. He heads for the lab. The cool metal of the door is familiar in the grooves of his hand, and he doesn’t even need to think about the code as he punches it in; he simply lets muscle memory guide him. It’s been the same since he was little.

The door hisses as the pressure is released, and he swings the door open. He takes the stairs down two at a time. Something is wrong. His parents aren’t answering him. His feet pound against the metal.

“Mom? Dad?” He calls again, more worried, more frantic. More scared. His voice echoes down the stairwell, and he reaches the bottom before it’s fully faded. The lab is empty. The portal is still shut down.

It was four in the afternoon, they should still be down here.

Danny races back upstairs, fear-raised nausea coiling in his throat. “This isn’t funny you guys!” He yells when he reaches the top, shoving open the door with more force than necessary. His head swims, his voice cracked.

He checks the garage, the car is still there.

“Mom!? Dad!” His voice bellows out throughout the first floor, loud enough that it bounces back at him and rings against his ears. He’s never raised his voice this much — mom would scold him if she heard him. But she doesn’t show up. “Jazmine!”

Finally, he goes upstairs, and he can’t tell if what he’s feeling is anger or terror. Something is very, very wrong.

He swings the door of his parents’ rooms open first, and there they are, with the lights still off and the curtains still drawn. As if they hadn’t left their bed all day. Some of Danny’s fear lifts from his shoulders just by the sight of them, but he’s still trembling. Something is still wrong — the room smells… off. Not good, not bad. Just… off.

He swallows dryly, his throat still thick, and steps into the room. “Mom, dad?” They do not stir. “Didn’t you guys hear me yelling?”

There is only room static. Danny’s heart shrivels in his chest with a tenfold return of terror, he feels ill. He remembers, just now, that they’re not heavy sleepers, and his dad should be snoring like a freight house.

Danny reaches their bedside in seconds, hand outstretching for the covers, “Momma? Dad?”

Not all deaths are created equal.

But many of them are accidental. Unmeditated. Shocking.

Danny Fenton finds his family dead in his childhood home. He runs to his neighbors in hysterics, inconsolable, in tears. Nine-one-one is called, but there is nothing that can be done. They were dead for hours by the time Daniel Fenton returned home.

He sits on the front steps of the neighbor’s house beside FentonWorks, his jeans slowly becoming wet from the snow that was unable to be scraped off, and watches the paramedics cart out his family beneath white sheets. There are police cars blocking off the street, yellow tape blocking off his house, red-blue lights lighting up the block, an ambulance on the scene. He is wrapped in a shock blanket, and he is missing his jacket and his shoes. His tears are freezing onto his face, he can’t feel the chill.

Not all deaths are created equal

But all of them are unforgettable.

#dpxdc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dp x dc #dpxdc crossover #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc au #dpxdc fic #blood blossom au #dpxdc ficlet #starry's writing #tw character death #cw death #angst #hurt no comfort #carbon monoxide poisoning almost sounds like a plain way to go when compared to the other batkids. but then you think about it for more #than a second and then the inherent horror of it all creeps in. danny found his family dead. he found their corpses.#i didnt feel comfortable writing it - just a little bit too heavy even for me yet - but just know that danny shook his parents as if he was #trying to wake them up when he realized they were dead. he went into emotional shock and kinda mentally shutdown.#he yelled and screamed and tried to wake them. and then rushed to his sister's room only to find the same thing. rinse and repeat #more time passed between danny finding them and him going to his neighbor's than what i showed #no more than an hour because the house was still full of carbon monoxide but longer than five minutes. long enough that when he finally wen #over - in hysterics and missing his shoes and jacket - he was completely inconsolable. he was having a breakdown.#when i was writing the ending scene with the paramedics and police and stuff i was very much calling on how i imagine Bruce's own experienc #might have gone. different but similar. with a thousand yard stare and water in their ears #two boys wrapped in shock blankets surrounded by police lights and having just seen their families dead. teehee

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a-reader-and-a-writer · 1 month

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Sweeter Than Revenge Part 2

Divider created by me (please ask/credit before using)

Series Masterlist

Showtime.

But what did you know? Hell, you already tried to figure him out once and were way off the mark. It seemed like the only way to know for certain was to trust your gut and find out for yourself.

You took one final look at yourself, grabbed your purse off the bed, and headed towards the door.

Perfect. You couldn’t have planned that better if you had tried.

Then Scott climbed out of Scarecrow.

As you reached the front of Scarecrow, Scott stepped out in front of you, blocking your way. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

You flashed him your most flirtatious smile and cooed loudly, “Thank you. But you don’t need to change a thing. You look amazing.”

And it was true.

The heat in your face grew stronger.

Tyler stopped humming to glance over at you for a second and then looked back at the road. “Did you really think I’d just dump you somewhere and take off?”

You blinked. That was exactly what you thought he might do. “Oh…I mean, you’re already doing me this huge favor. I don’t need to take up more of your time than necessary.”

Tyler smiled, his bright teeth shining in the darkness. “Alright, sweetheart. We’ve got a deal. I’ll take you to my favorite spot.”