#blood killing not me but enough its bleeding closing eyes nightmares but not always bad bleeding through

[schismexe]

blurred thinkin. try n block miasma bt not possible. think. ttrpg so dont go crazy n can know can feel budding lifething

alice? smth. sweet name. misplaced feelin. blonde wavy too innocent looking n feeling n some ways stuttery meek mumbley sorry sorry sorry takenpossessed by thing not sorry no guilt will do can kill and then after a panic the memories are in intense flashes and its notmenotme but too too too too close merging together

[rogueshadeaux]

Chapter Thirty-Four — Vengeance

My heart was hammering away in my chest, and I was hoping, praying that this was a bad dream somehow. A classic nightmare, where no matter how fast I tried to run, the monster would always catch up. Maybe I'd be lucky enough to wake back up in the van.

6.8k words | Godspeed soldier | TRIGGER WARNING: monsters [imaged below, sorry], injury, blood, guns.

We both turned and stumbled, more out of shock than fear; the little curled up bodies of the crab-guys in the other testing chambers were stirring, shaking off the permafrost as if the wailing of the Ravager was their alarm clock. The floor shook hard as the Ravager broke through the ground just under the glass, a blast of cold air attacking our ankles. “Dad!” I screamed, stumbling over my feet a bit as the vibrations threw me off. Brent caught me by the back of my shirt and yanked me straight, pushing me forward as his skin turned silver, steel overtaking his body. 

Dad stood at the end of the hall, trying to look past us at whatever was making that noise as we ran as fast as we could. The Ravager was faster, though; it hooked its claws under the glass and yanked, making the tempered glass shatter like it was nothing. It seemed like nothing, compared to the creature — I guess it just needed to find the right angle. I looked forward again to Dad, who caught me in his arms when I ran close enough to look me over, checking me for injuries. “What happened?” he demanded, looking between Brent and I. Zeke was beside him in an instant, storing the centuries-old phone away as everyone’s newer models came up to illuminate the hall just in time to catch the gleam of the Ravagers’ shell as it ran left, shoulder checking the glass of one of the other testing chambers and shattering it with the hit. 

“It’s releasing them,” Brent realized, looking over at me, scared. 

Zeke huffed, almost surprised. “Those are Bertrand’s swamp monsters,” he said, looking at Dad. “We need to go, now!” 

Dad’s hand gripped my back and he pushed me forward, the softness of them quickly becoming violent pokes as he pulled concrete out.

But I didn’t wince. I didn’t care about anything except getting out of there. 

Garbled, monstrous screams bounced off of the pristine walls again and again until I swear, my ears were bleeding with the sound. Zeke was surprisingly fast for his age and stature, vaulting over an overturned desk as he led the charge to the exit, Brent and I hot on his tail with Dad close behind as we flew through the damaged entrance to the lab, leaving behind every crash and scream. There was another sound layered on top of that, a compound, stacking bricks sort of sound, and I glanced back to see Dad stopped by the entrance, trying to seal it up with concrete. Brent skidded to a stop beside me, pointing his phone’s light back and catching the glowing glint of the crab-like swamp monsters’ eyes as they galloped towards the gap, Dad barely sealing it in time. He took a tentative few steps back as the creatures' muffled screeches of protest bled through the man-made rock, asking, “Do you think that’ll hold them back?” 

Zeke, behind us, shook his head. “It won’t be enough,” he said, so surely that all Dad could do was turn and motion at us to get going. 

“Is there any way to kill them?” Dad asked. 

Zeke nodded. “Two: hit them with UV rays, or with enough force.”

We dashed down the hall, passing the rounded doors for every other experimental laboratory that we had planned on looking through. “What about the other rooms?” I huffed, trying to keep up with the men as I ran. God, I needed to work cardio back into my life. 

“That doesn’t matter!” Dad insisted. There was a horrible grinding sound, and then crumbling as the concrete wall welded into the open doorway began to crack, gaps making the screams of the creatures behind it all the more clearer. “Shit,” Dad growled. 

My heart was hammering away in my chest, and I was hoping, praying that this was a bad dream somehow. A classic nightmare, where no matter how fast I tried to run, the monster would always catch up. Maybe I'd be lucky enough to wake back up in the van.

But I wasn't known for my luck, as of late. Especially not right now, as a portion of the concrete wall fell away and a swamp monster forced itself through the gap, blundering for us as the others tried to follow. 

It used its front claws to launch itself forward, rushing towards Dad and catching a slab of concrete to the face just before we entered the atrium of the underground base. “C’mon, we’ve gotta get to the elevator shaft!” Brent shouted. 

Zeke stopped in place, turning to wave Dad forward as he turned away from the swamp monster he just chucked concrete at. “Go with them, I’ll be right behind you,” he said, pulling a gun from some hidden holster in his jeans. With a click, a little flashlight on it turned on, illuminating the path to shoot. 

Dad nodded, running to catch up with us and moving to grab me by the elbow, Brent just a few steps ahead as we dashed down the crescent shaped stairs. I didn’t dare turn to look at what was happening behind me; there were more monstrous screams now, and a few gunshots before the entire earth seemed to shake. The rumbling got stronger until fissures began cracking the floor between Dad and I, the concrete crumbling apart. 

“Jean—” Dad tried to warn me. Didn’t matter; we were both suddenly thrown in either direction as something crawled through the floor, tripping Brent as well. I rolled, my arm twinging in pain as the cast cracked against the ground. Thank God whatever Dr. Sims made it of was strong enough to not break. My phone flew off somewhere in the distance, the bleak light from its flashlight disappearing in the kicked up rubble. That giant creature, the Ravager, burst out of the ground, shatterings of concrete and moist dirt and soil flying away as it clawed its way to the surface, blocking the way to the elevator shaft and immediately eyeing Brent who was three feet away and on his ass. It opened its mouth to hiss, the entirety of what wasn’t shell emitting a bioluminescent glow as it began to trample towards him. 

Brent was all steel, sure, but I wasn’t sure that was a good thing when the Ravager could shred through concrete like it was playdough. Its clubbed front legs straightened to reveal blades as sharp as a stinger for claws as it reared back on hind legs, prepared to pierce Brent where he sat splayed on the ground. My arms were out before I even fully registered the thought, water spiraling down their shape and out towards the monster, combining in their dance into a spray with the strength of a fireman’s hose. Not that it did much to the creature; it didn’t go flying back like Augustine did when I used this move on her, but it did make the upper half of the creature’s body snap back, throwing off its strike and giving Brent enough time to burst into a halo of steel and fly off on the wings they created when they rewelded back to his body. My stream stopped in time to allow the Ravager to be hit with three of Zeke’s bullets, the man shouting over the deafening ringing of gunfire, “Behind us!” 

The swamp monsters were now barreling to meet their ringleader, six of them storming into the atrium and immediately honing in on Zeke, who turned to empty his clip out into them. Brent landed from the skies and was letting the wings melt away into his hands, creating two spears that he immediately threw at the creatures. 

My eyes scanned the floor for the one thing that would help with this fight — my phone. There was next to no lighting in the atrium save for the weak emergency lights, and while Dad had the benefit of his concrete powers glowing and Zeke’s weapon light was bouncing around the area enough for Brent to see a little of what he was doing, I wasn’t so lucky. I was nearly blind in this fight, barely able to tell concrete from creature. 

But there, a few yards away, laid my phone, lilac phone case blackened by dirt and rock. I ran towards it without hesitation, scooping it up and looking at the shattered screen in dismay. Goddamnit, this was a new phone! I hissed as my thumb caught the corner of a piece of glass, moving to try and pull the little piece out with my teeth when I heard “Jean!” behind me.

The Ravager’s six beady red eyes seemed to zero in on my form before it dropped a shoulder and charged, intending to mow me down like a linebacker. 

I yelped, my heart dropping out of my chest as the Ravager thunder towards me — and I couldn’t think of anything better to do than to turn into water. I didn’t even move; my watered form stayed standing there until the Ravager cut through it and crashed into the wall behind me headfirst. The bits of me ripped apart by its impact stitched back together, and I was running away towards Dad before those parts of me regained skin, falling into his arms still wet enough to leave stains on his sleeves. 

His hands came up to cup my face, and he turned it each way a little, flashlight shining down in one hand as he checked on me. “You okay?” 

I nodded vigorously; I wasn’t hurt, but god, I was scared. “What do we do?” I asked, the panic in my voice making the words fly quick. 

Dad looked around at the chaos before quickly pulling me around him, using himself to shield me. “Stay by me,” he said, tone fierce. 

The Ravager had run into a wall, shaking its head and turned back around to look at Dad and I and hiss out a very loud and absolutely angry snarl, unphased. In fact, it didn’t look hurt at all; its hard shelling was strong enough to keep the wall from even giving it a bruise. It took a few tentative steps forward, gnashing its teeth and those horrifying pincers around it. There were a few more pop offs, and I glanced over to where Zeke and Brent were. They stood, backs to each other, one mowing down the creatures with bullets while the other used a longsword he still managed to swing around with one hand, the other haphazardly holding up his phone to light the way for the slashes. 

Most of the swamp monsters were preoccupied with Brent and Zeke, but two looked over as the Ravager hissed again, turning to charge towards us. “Dad!” I warned, lifting my hand to let water overtake the cast on my arm. 

I sprayed one in the face, intent on waterboarding the thing while Dad lifted his arms, concrete returning. It spun, faster and faster until the shards of cement were whistling as they rotated, and when he flexed they exploded from him, a fanned out row of rock hurtling towards the creatures and cutting them at the knees. One’s backwards knee cap snapped back until it ripped clean out of its socket like a shelled crab, leaving behind a sad bit of dangling tendon and a wailing creature that immediately teetered sideways. The other, the one I was hosing down, took the brunt of the hit to the chest, stumbling back. Blood came oozing out of its cracks…pure black, sticky and slick and tar-like. 

Dad and I glanced at each other, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing. “Do you have anything that could hold a sample?” He asked, before raising his arm to send a shot of rock towards a creature that got too close to Brent. I shook my head. 

To the left, the Ravager straightened, raising its upper body high as if it was presenting itself — but it didn’t move to charge. It wasn’t even looking at us. Its maw opened wide, the screeching now replaced by this gross gastric gurgling as it coughed once, twice, three times before shooting off glowing spitballs of phlegm towards Dad and I. 

I raised my hands, pushing my water forward  until it created a wall and catching the gross spitballs before they could splatter on us. Or, I caught most of them; some slipped through with their velocity and splattered beyond the wall, only slowed in their arcs. Three splashed on the ground in front of us, one so close to Dad’s shoe that he got the splashback from its impact — and he immediately cursed as the green-tinged phlegm began to burn pinprick holes in them, making him kick the shoe off as it worked past his sock and threatened to chew through his foot. 

Oh, great. Acid reflux — literally. 

I threw the wall of water back at the creature, letting it become a wave that smacked it in the face. Not that it reacted to that hit; it barely reacted to any of our hits. Nothing seemed to be able to cut into its exoskeleton — even the acid slipped away from it, turning the leathery skin at the joints raw but refusing to eat through the creature’s body otherwise. 

The Ravager shook off the pain and growled, digging its feet into the ground to prepare to charge. Dad pushed me away. “Go to Brent,” he commanded. The concrete that was circling his arms paused in place and snapped to his skin, seeming to birth more rocks from it as they overtook his body, giving him his own hard shell. “You two get a sample of that…blood, and then we’ll all make a break for it,”

Dad folded in on himself until he was a ball of broken concrete, rolling away like some messed up Sonic the Hedgehog. His form jumped from the mass, the excess concrete piling under him to vault him forward, letting him land his encased hands directly into the Ravager’s chest. It was almost like I could feel the hit in my own chest as the sound of the impact vibrated through the air, the Ravager falling back. It reached out and grabbed Dad by one of his ankles as he tried to jump away, chucking him across the room until he hit a pristine white wall so hard it bent around his frame. 

And as Dad slid down the wall unmoving, the Ravager’s eyes zeroed in on me once more, and it screamed. 

“Shit,” I muttered, turning to run towards Brent.

The Ravager raked at the ground with surprising speed, burrowing under it like it was a foamy bath and not actual concrete as I dashed towards the pair of men fighting against the smaller monsters, praying Zeke wouldn’t stick a bullet between my eyes in the crossfire. Not that that fear was warranted; he was landing every shot with almost near precision, the only issue being that the swamp monsters’ skin was so leathery it took a few bullets to weaken the skin enough to let some brass pass through. There were still four standing, all giving Zeke and Brent a run for their money.

And I wasn’t in a good position to defend them.

It wasn’t even about healing — I couldn’t think of a good way to protect them both from the creatures using my water. They’d slice through any waves I’d make, and I didn’t have enough power to continuously spray them down without needing something to drain. And using my powers to look for a drain source proved fruitless; there was water flowing through the pipes behind the walls, but the biggest issue was they were behind the walls.

But I didn’t need to be the heavy hitter right now. I just needed to get Brent, get a sample, and get out. 

So I brought my hands together and pushed, the powerful hose that came out knocking a swamp monster away and clearing the path for me to make eye contact with Brent, who was quick to pull me beside him. “Where’s Dad?” he asked, looking around. 

I glanced back to where I last saw him to see him amid a pile of concrete rubble, shakily getting into a standing position — and to see the ground begin to crack again as the Ravager began burrowing its way closer to us. “Look out!” I called.

Brent pushed me back and watched the Ravager's burrowing, timing its breech as the steel around his arms grew wide. The moment its ugly little head popped out followed by its huge front arms, Brent shoved his arms out, creating a huge saw that spun so rapidly I could hear it whizzing. It zoomed towards the Ravager like a woodshop machine gone rogue and slammed into its chest, a webbing of fissures ripping through the exoskeleton. 

He was strong enough to hurt it.

The Ravager shook the hit off with ease, though; it pulled itself out of the hole the rest of the way, slamming its hands against the ground before moving to return the favor to Brent, who dodged the hit. 

“Dad said we need to get a sample of the thing’s blood and run!” I shouted over the noise of the Ravagers’ screaming, watching it in case I needed to humidify and dip. Zeke aimed for its back and lodged three bullets in the hard shell, the Ravager spinning in place to concentrate on him instead.

“Why the fuck would we do that?” Brent demanded, throwing a hand out to shoot another saw at the Ravager’s back, cracking the shell along its spine. 

“It looks like tar!” 

Brent glanced over at me, bewildered, before his eyes traveled over my shoulder and he shouted, “Behind you!” while roughly pulling me into him. His arm coming over my head and the shrapnel that shot off of it swiped painfully at my head, making me yelp. 

“Don’t fucking scalp me!” I complained, watching the steel form into sharp curved boomerangs that spun before connecting with the swamp monster, slashing away at its body.

“That’s what you’re worried about right now?” Brent demanded, glaring down at me as the creature stumbled back. His eyes shot everywhere, considering his next move “I’m gonna pin down the thing,” he told me as the swamp monster shook its head, trying to recover. Brent’s hand came up and some of the steel in it slivered away, coupling in his palm until it was a small vial with a screw top. He held it out for me to take. “Get that sample when I do.”

The Ravager screamed behind us both, taking our attention; Zeke was trying his best to stand against it, but he was a fly to a horse in a situation like this. Miniscule, barely bothersome, and at risk of being squashed. The Ravager swept a claw at Zeke and he barely rolled out of the way in time. There was a blur of rock and amber and Dad was suddenly behind us, hands sweeping out to let off this row of concrete shots that barely flew over Zeke’s head as he stayed down, knocking into the Ravagers’ knees and forcing it to fall flat on its face. “Go,” Dad commanded over the noise of its screams. “Get the sample and then get out of here.” 

“But Dad—” Brent and I both began to object. 

“Go!” He insisted louder. 

He pushed Brent back, hard shell against firm steel, and that was enough to get us both moving. Brent zeroed in on the swamp monster when we turned, hands twitching as he decided on what to do. “Stay behind me,” he commanded, passing me his phone. 

Brent balled up his fists and began to jog towards the swamp monster, who had righted and gave one long, chittering scream before rushing to meet him halfway. Steel was crawling down his arms again, welding to his knuckles before bubbling up to create studs along them, sharp dusters he used to uppercut the creature’s chin. Its head snapped back and he roughly pushed into its chest, making the swamp monster lose its balance on those weird arms it had. A shot of steel followed, slicing away at the grayed skin on its chest and sending a large splatter of that black blood everywhere, soaking us both as the hit tripped the swamp monster further. The moment its claws came up to try to stabilize itself, Brent finished by throwing out his hands, silver stripping away from the extra build on his arms and shooting out and stretching as they torpedoed towards the creature and wrapped around its wrists like snap bracelets. The monster fell back with the force and its shelled back cracked against the white cemented ground.

“Get it, now!” He yelled, keeping his hands extended as if holding the steel was the only thing keeping the swamp monster down. 

I nodded, trying to keep energy in my feet as I ran towards the swamp monster. This was horrifying in a way, like approaching a shark with a bloody hand out to pet it; I was sure I was gonna be monster mash — and not the annoying Halloween song. But getting closer, close enough to look the swamp monster in its cataract-covered eyes, made me feel bad for it. There were parts of its face darker than others, and in the illumination of Brent’s phone flashlight, it took me too long to realize it had freckles splashed across its nose. Like I did. Something normal, something human, stayed with the transition to whatever this was.

This swamp monster was once an inactivated Conduit. This creature was once a normal person, damned to a life of whatever this was. Left forgotten underground for almost twenty-six years. 

Even with its pincered face, I couldn’t look at it as I unscrewed the steel bottle Brent gave me, holding the lip of the vial close to its chest and waiting an annoyingly long amount of time for enough blood to drip into it. 

Well, they’d have to take what little I got, because as I sat there, mere inches from the swamp monster, the cuffs on its wrists began to shift with its struggle, threatening to dislodge from the cement. Brent growled behind me with that same groan he’d make on the final reps of his exercises, straining to say, “Jean, move—”

Too little, too late, though. 

I barely turned before I was being hit in the side, the same one with the barely healed slice, being thrown like I weighed nothing. I rolled a few times, my already-burning side lighting up even further as it hit the broken ground again and again, leaving me to writhe in pain. I could barely register the vibrating in the ground until the swamp monster was hovering over my form, gnashing its pincers as the black on its chest dripped down onto my abdomen. It screamed, bringing it's claws up and preparing to stab through me. 

And hilariously, the only thing I could manage to think was Ah fuck, this is gonna hurt. 

I could barely see the swamp monsters’ figure through the tears in my eyes, but my ears picked up on something as Brent yelled, “Heads up!” 

I groggily turned my head, wishing I had enough wit about me to ask Brent what the hell he thought I could do in a position like this, but it didn’t matter — he wasn’t talking to me. His hand shot out and with it came ribbons of steel that parted from his arm like some weird Spider-Man webbing, shooting over me and distracting the swamp monster, making it stagger back. I watch the ribbons gather close and latch to each other, bending and twisting into a chain link that Dad caught, the end whipping around to lash the creature’s face and make it wail. He leapt between the swamp monster and I, concrete slithering down the chain and welding to the end like those medieval weapons, using it to beat on the creature until a blow to the head was enough to cause it to crumple in place, either dazed and damaged or dead. 

Dad rushed over to me, forcing me to sit up as he demanded, “Are you okay?”

I coughed hard a few times as he pulled me to my feet. “Y–yeah,” I replied shakily. 

 Dad inspected my cast before seeing what was in my hand. “You got the sample?” he asked, eyes scanning. There were still three swamp monsters and the Ravager, who seemed to be trying to square off with Brent now. Dad threw a look over his shoulder. “The exit’s clear,” he realized, before looking at me with earnest eyes. “You need to go.”

“I can’t leave you guys—” I began to plead.

“We’ll be right behind you, okay?” He reassured me. “But you go while we have them distracted.”

“But—”

“Go!” Brent screamed, insisting. He was throwing sharp blade after sharp blade at the Ravager. 

I looked between them, heart hammering in my chest; I didn’t want to leave them. I didn’t want to even risk not being by their sides in case something happened. But realistically, what use was I here? The middle of my back was spasming in pain, and not just from rolling against the ground — I was running low on power supply. I needed to drain, and there was simply nothing to drain. 

So, with the tears in my eyes more from fear than pain now, I nodded. “Okay,” 

You’d think, when you get amazing superpowers, that you’d be able to stop just about any force that comes your way. I thought I would be able to, and was sure of it after the fight with Augustine. But water wasn’t the weapon to use against these things. To distract and maybe trip them up, sure. Defeat, though? I couldn’t think of a way to do it. 

And I think that was the worst part of it all as I began to run towards the exit: that I was failing in keeping my family safe. 

I turned forward and put all my strength into my running, feet beating against the floor and jumping where it was broken by the Ravager. The popping of the gunshots stopped, and I could hear another set of footsteps pounding after me, glancing back to see Zeke hauling ass. “Go, go, go!” he chanted at me, waving me forward as he vaulted over another fissure in the ground. I got to the entrance hallway just before Zeke, turning to watch Dad and Brent both try to tackle the two remaining swamp monsters and the Ravager on their own. Dad wrapped the chain twice around a swamp monster’s neck and pulled so tight it snapped the creature’s spine, Brent putting a clean shot of silver rebar through the chest of the other one. The last thing to contend with was the Ravager, who looked very ready to make itself their problem. 

Zeke ran past me, moving to grab me by the elbow. “C’mon, we need to get you to—” he started. 

“Not without them!” I insisted as the Ravager turned to face Dad again, spitting out more acid. Dad flinched and instinctively shielded his face with his hands, the acid that landed on them immediately beginning to eat away the skin. He howled out in pain, and Brent’s head snapped to look at Dad, not seeing the Ravager swing towards him its clubbed foot hit his chest, sending him sprawling back. 

Brent flew back, Dad shaking his arms to try and get the acid off — and pulling the full attention of the Ravager. It screamed and moved to go after Dad, and my scream was only eclipsed by the loudest popping known to man, my ears immediately ringing in protest as Zeke shot a few bullets towards the Ravager, trying his best to give Dad a distraction to get away. 

But he was too distracted to take it. 

Brent dashed forward and shadowed Zeke, grabbing Dad by his elbow as he struggled to concentrate on anything but the pain in his forearms and yanking him along as he dodged the Ravagers’ downward slam of its fists. Brent pushed him forward, urging him to run before turning to face the Ravager fully. 

“Brent!” I tried to scream over the Ravager’s own wail. That fucking idiot, what was he doing?!

Dad nearly stumbled over broken concrete in his haze, barely able to concentrate on anything as he fought through the pain in his arms. Zeke let me go and was gone in a flash, rushing to meet Dad halfway and help lead him towards the exit. 

Meanwhile, the Ravager unfurled its clubbed claws to slash at Brent, who was too busy watching Dad be pulled away from the action to realize the move until it was too late to dodge. The claw raked across the back of his shoulder just as he went to turn, shredding the shirt and raking against his steel skin. 

And with a horrible, teeth grinding scrape, the claw caught on some invisible part of his steel and sliced into him, revealing just how thin the skin was. 

Red on silver was always a favorite composition of mine. How could you not love it? Almost any sort of red was accompanied by silver; Christmas trees, bedrooms. Dad even had a red guitar back in Chapman and the silver pickups and bridge were far better than the black pickguard, in my opinion. But watching blood slowly seep out of the slice in his steel, red ebbing the edges of the silver and sinking into his shirt, did nothing but fill me with dread. Brent cried out as he was thrown aside with the claw and I swear I could feel my soul slip away from my body as the Ravager hissed at him.

Zeke and Dad entered the hall just as I rushed to leave it, Zeke barely catching me in time as I passed him. “Where the hell you going, kid?” He asked me, holding onto my arm firmly. 

“He’s hurt!” I retorted, glancing back to watch Dad stumble into the hall. He was hurt too, bad; I could almost hear the pops as acid ate away at his arm, becoming red in rash, tissue and blood. 

Shit, they both were hurt. 

Zeke didn’t let go of my arm, his grip surprisingly strong. “You go out there, you’re gonna give us a lot more trouble than we have now.” 

I glared at him. “I’m not just gonna leave my brother out there!” 

Zeke looked forward, blinking in surprise. “I don’t think he needs the backup,” he muttered. 

Brent had righted and was now staring down the Ravager, who was standing on its knuckles and hissing at him as he stood between us and the monster. Neither moved, though — it was like they were in a standoff, waiting for someone to draw first. 

And Brent was quicker. 

The shine of his steel seemed to glow silver as it slowly peeled away from his body, leaving him in normal skin as it flittered like paper in the wind. I’d never seen his power move so slowly before, and while it was pretty and all, I wasn’t exactly happy seeing it happen while he was facing off with a creature from Resident Evil. 

But it didn’t just pull away and flutter to the ground; it caught some invisible wind, picked up by the force and began to swirl around Brent’s feet as more steel flaked away from him, adding to the swarm. 

Meanwhile, Zeke pulled me into the entrance, and motioned to Dad, immediately saying, “Rinse that acid off of him, it’ll help,” like he had experience with these burns. I guess, in all honesty, he probably did, considering he’d dealt with these creatures before. I coaxed Dad to sit down, trying to make eye contact with him and not exactly feeling good that his eyes were so glazed over that he couldn’t. Water began to pour down my arms, clearing out the gaping and angry red wounds that littered his arms in a spotted fashion. 

Dad hissed, face pale, and I hummed. “I’m almost done,” I said, trapping the acid in bubbles and letting them float away back into the atrium and to the side, away from everyone else. 

Zeke was standing guard, looking into the atrium and muttering, “What on earth is that kid doin’?”

I glanced over at Brent, surprised to see him now surrounded by this spinning spiral of shrapnel, a stairwell of jagged razors from over his head down to his feet, swirling like a shield around him. Steel was crawling up his back like some stiff symbiote, building on his arms in a kite-shaped bend that let the long triangular ends lay on each other like scales, the tips flared out to make him the world’s most dangerous armadillo. The Ravager moved to swipe at Brent and its clawed hand instead met bladed steel, slicing off the tip. Brent’s arms pushed out like he was trying to shove something away, and the sharp blades around Brent suddenly went from a rotating shield to lying flat, ends spinning as they coupled up like the blades of a saw as they flew outward from him in all directions. 

Including ours. 

“Delsin!” Zeke shouted, gun lowering. Dad looked to the side, eyes barely widening through the pain as he registered the claw-shaped metal spinning in circles as it flew towards us. His hand shakily raised and with a pained gasp, concrete digging up from the injuries in his arm and reminding me way too much about the pain I had felt when Augustine made those a nice feature of my leg. 

A short concrete wall came up almost immediately, the three of us having to duck behind its jagged edge to avoid the slivers of steel that thudded against it only seconds after. The sharp end to one cut through the concrete and threatened to stab Zeke in the knee, missing by centimeters. 

Beyond the barrier, the Ravager screamed like it was in pain and I peeked over it to see the monster stumble back as razors of steel embedded in its chest — but it wasn’t enough to stop it. Brent wasn’t ready to stop either, though; those reinforced arms came to cross his chest before swinging out diagonally, the kites on his forearms flying off with the throw and folding in on themselves until they became dart shaped. They spun like discharged bullets, each at least a good three feet long as they rushed towards the Ravager and pierced its shell, forcing it to stumble back. He threw his arms again and again, dart after dart shooting away and impaling the creature as it wailed, flinching away like a wounded animal. I guess it technically was. 

Brent was unrelenting; the reinforcements on his arms slithered to his back and he was gone in a flash of silver, soaring towards the domed, tall ceiling. He reached the summit of his flight and seemed to hover there in space, barely perceivable to us on the ground in the dark. His silver caught the shine of an emergency light just as the wings ripped away from him, the panels shifting around his form as he came back down to earth. The panels around him gathered close, shreds of steel coming from nowhere to build on them until he was surrounded by giant misshapen spikes, metaled fist in its center and directing the missile drop straight on the Ravager. 

The impact was so violent that the entire room shook, dust being knocked off of places that hadn’t seen a human’s touch in years. That horrible sound of scraping metal coupled over until it was more comfortable for me to press my cast against my ears in an effort to stifle the screech, bruising the side of my head with the push. We were lucky nothing collapsed with the shaking, and I was sure the wedding party above ground was feeling it too. There was more kicked up rubble where Brent and the Ravager had disappeared, a cloud of debris spreading wide and fast, leaving us to cough and wave it from our face as we tried to look through it for Brent’s form. 

“D’you see him?” Dad asked me weakly, twinging with each cough. 

I squinted, the cloud of dust slowly dissipating to reveal a pile of black and red in the center of a crater, the Ravager skewered a dozen different ways by steel, dead. In front of it, Brent was breathing hard as he stood shakily, trying to take a step forward and barely managing two before falling to his knees.

Zeke waved me forward and I was running for Brent, meeting him where he stayed on the ground and trying my best to pull him back up — ‘trying’ being the key word, as he was heavier than anything I could lift. But I could help prop him up as we staggered back towards the exit. “C’mon,” I huffed, trying to help him find his footing as he used my shoulder as a crutch. “Let’s get outta here,”

Dr. Sims pulled away from Dad. “There. Hopefully it’ll be fully healed in a few days,” 

Dad was laying on the couch, wincing with every movement as he tried to get comfortable. I was sitting on the floor by his head with my hands in his hair, speeding up its drying process from his emergency shower by absorbing the water so the throbbing in my back would stop. That didn’t matter though. What mattered was that Dad looked like he was in so much pain. I hated it. 

Dad looked over at me as Dr. Sims rose from his crouch, walking off with the remains of whatever was in Zeke’s first aid kit. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked me. 

Why was he worrying about me? He was the one with bone visible in some spots. “I’m fine,” I said, trying to smile. 

“No pain in your shoulders or anything? Promise?” 

I shook my head, ignoring how the motion made my back twinge. “Promise,” I lied. He didn’t need to worry about me right now. 

Brent stepped into the room, toweling away at his wet hair. His bruises were already that sickly yellow they get right before disappearing, road rash from the concrete cleared. I was a bit scratched up at the knuckles and my elbow was raw, but it was all minor stuff. 

Better than what Dad was experiencing. 

“How many other messed up creatures do you think they had in there?” Brent asked, moving one of the chairs at the small table to sit in. Dr. Sims was in the other one, reading away at the notes we stole from the First Sons’ base. 

Zeke was in the kitchen, finishing up with cleaning out his gun. “I can tell you, for a fact, those weren’t the only monsters he could make. Who knows what else was down there.”

Dad huffed. “Probably a lot more information that could have helped us,”

“We have enough,” Dr. Sims tried to say in a positive voice. For the first time, though, I could hear his voice waver. “We at least know now that there’s powers that can corrupt Conduits, to varying degrees.”

Dad sat up a bit, wincing. “Yeah, and none of them are like what Jean’s experiencing.”

Dr. Sims slowly put down the x-ray, biting his cheek. “I suppose, now with this information, I can tell you I may have a lead that could help us.”

Dad slowly turned his head to regard Dr. Sims fully. “You what?” he asked slowly. 

“There was someone I found while doing that conducrinopathy study, for the old DUP soldiers,” Dr. Sims began, before holding up a finger. “Well, no — Sia found them. A Conduit, a Prime Conduit, whose powers are turning against them.”

Dad glared up at Dr. Sims. “And you didn’t think to tell me this before everything?”

“I’m not in the habit of breaking doctor-patient confidentiality, Delsin,” Dr. Sims said back just as cooly, crossing his arms. “But that’s…what Sia emailed me about. She’s the patient’s power of attorney, and she’s giving me permission to evaluate them. And the person I sent the sample to? She’s got some results, and she wants to talk to us. She wants us to bring along Jean too for an evaluation.”

Dad looked unsure, throwing me a glance before regarding his friend again. “‘Bring along Jean?’” he repeated. “Where?”

Dr. Sims sighed. “Boston.”

[vox-ex]

For Now the Universe Relents (supercorp)

part 2 (Alex POV) part 1 (Kara and Lena)

please enjoy part 2 of this ask from I original ask below I got from @kmkalan​ , it was nice to get a chance to write some protective Alex moments with Kara and Lena. Also thanks to everyone who read the first part and asked for this follow up, here you go :) 

Character A helped Character B into a sitting position. The sirens were getting louder and soon this nightmare would be over.

---- ---- ---- ----- 

Alex finds them huddled together — Lena with her back pressed into Kara's chest and Kara with her hands held firmly around her waist, and her head tucked into the hollow of her neck.

She kneels down in front of them, brushes a trembling finger along Kara's cheek as her eyes linger on the dark patches that litter her suit.

"Are you okay?" And Alex hates the words even as she says them. Because she can see the look in her eyes. Can still see the war she's just fought still lingering inside of them, can see everything she is trying to do not to fall apart.

But the words are a reflex, something to say when there is nothing to say. Something to fill the air with something other than the fine layer of ash that is coating the both of them.  

"I'm fine," and Kara's words are just as much a reflex as her own, just as much a distraction from the horrible truths of the world around them.

But between them, Kara has always been the worse liar.

"Kara?"

Alex runs her thumb over the back of her knuckles, finds them beaten red and broken.

Her shoulders tense, and she tries not to jostle Lena in her arms, but she must still feel the quiver in Kara's body, and Alex watches as she reaches up to grip Kara's arm, cupping the back of her hand.

"Kara?" Lena tries to whisper, her voice muffled against Kara's chest.

"It's okay," she soothes; but her attempt at a smile is ragged, painful, and she has to tuck her lips between her teeth to try and hide just how much as tears finally slip free, falling onto her suit and into Lena's hair..."I'm still here."

For a moment longer, Kara just holds her, lets her hand rise and fall with the breathes Lena takes just a few more times before her shoulders loosen a bit, and she pulls one of her hands away hesitantly, wiping her cheek with a shaky palm, ash, and soot streaking down across her jaw.

"I-I need you to take a look at her. She, she's bleeding. And she hit her head when I, when the...I tried to shield her, but we-we were still too close and...and.."

"I'm okay," Lena looks up at the both of them, gripping the back of Kara's hand again when her words start to spiral, "Just, just uh hurts to breathe a bit still."  

And Alex can't help but laugh a little. The three of them are going to have a talk about the actual definition of both "fine" and "okay" when this is all over.

She glances up briefly at Kara and then back to Lena's half lidded gaze.

"How about I take a look anyway? At least at that hole in your side, Kara is currently holding together so we can make sure you don't bleed all over the van when Kelly gets here, huh? We can wait to deal with that big brain of yours until we get back."

Lena rolls her eyes at the look on Alex's face but still can't stop herself from wincing as she tries to shift a little in Kara's arms.

"Where are the others?" And Alex knows Kara's getting nervous, knows like her, that more people will be here soon and that more people will mean more questions they don't have answers to yet — mean more expectation for her to be stronger than she can possibly be right now.

"They are containing the last of the phantoms, now that...with the orb gone..."

And Alex doesn't know why she can't just say it. Can't just say that with Lex and finally dead, there's no one to control them anymore. Maybe it's because he died 50 feet from where they're sitting. Maybe it's because even after everything she knows he was still Lena's brother. Maybe it's because she knows Kara is the one who killed him. Maybe it's because neither one of them deserves to feel any kind of burden for his death.

Instead, she takes Kara's hand in hers and, as gently as she dares, eases it away, wishing there was more of this day she could take from her too.

"I'm just going to look, and then we're going to get out of here, okay?"

"Yeah," Lena's voice is weak, and it stutters a little as she tries not to lean back into Kara when Alex lifts up the torn edges of her shirt.

Kara squeezes her hand again, "You're doing good."

Alex quickly realizes that Kara's efforts haven't been able to stop the flow of blood from the puncture, but also, thankfully, that it's not nearly as bad as it could be.

"We've just got to put a pressure dressing on this. Then I promise we'll make it good as new with some stitches."

Lena nods as she tries her best to stay still as the pain forces her body to attention.

"Alright, just keep this there for a second, Okay?" she says, gently placing Kara's hand back to Lena's side so she can hold the gauze.

Alex reaches back into the first aid kit at her side and then carefully cleans around the area best she can before securing the dressing in place.

She leans back on her heels and runs her palms along her thighs to try and settle that slight tremor that has come back once more.

"Okay, it's not pretty, and it's going to hurt, but it'll do."

Lena nods again but makes no move to sit up further or move from Kara's arms; the ups and downs of adrenaline are a hell of a thing.

The watch on Alex's wrist beeps, telling her Kelly is a minute out, and she doesn't want to push them, but they really do need to go.

She gives her sister an apologetic look before pulling her jacket off and holding it out like some kind of peace offering.

Kara takes the jacket and wraps it around Lena, keeping it in place as best she can as she helps her sit up.

"I'm sorry," she whispers when Lena squeezes her eyes closed, and Kara looks at Alex again, her eyes pleading with her.

Alex leans in closer to them, and Kara gently guides Lena's hands onto her. She wraps one arm around her waist and lets the other brace itself under her forearm so that she can press into her hand. Alex nods to let her know she's ready and squeezes her hand gently when she feels Lena's fingers grip hers. Slowly Lena, makes it to her feet, careful not to lean into Kara as she pushes herself up. Alex steadies them there, Lena's weight pressing into her until they feel like they can take a couple steps.

"I'm sorry" That's the first thing Lena says when they're far enough for Kara not to hear.

"I know, I know I shouldn't have gone after him alone."

Alex feels her shakes her head, watches as she clenches her jaw.

"He...he said, he said he would kill her if I didn't come."

Lena grips her hand so hard that she can feel her nails digging into her palm. She wishes, just like the guilt she wants to take from Kara, that it could be that easy to take the rest of her pain too.

"Thank you for keeping her safe."

And Alex doesn't know everything that happened. Isn't sure she ever will. Thinks that maybe there are things that only belong to the universe and the people that bore witness to them. But Alex knows that her sister is alive, and she knows that Lena is the reason she is.

"Thank you also for keeping yourself alive."

And that's the other part of it too. Not only because Alex has things left she wants to make right between them, to find the right time and the right words for her own forgiveness with Lena, for their own way back, their own way forward, but because she knows too, that if Lena had died, a part of Kara would have still died just the same.

When Alex gets back to Kara, her head is resting against the wall behind her, her eyes closed. One hand reaches blindly across to her shoulder like it's trying to unclip her cape from its latch, while the other rest across her stomach, fingers opening and closing, as if testing their strength just in case.

"Hey, hey, let me do that."

Alex's hands slide up to Kara's shoulder, but her head tips even further back with a small grunt of protest when she finally reaches where the cape crosses her collarbone. And Alex can feel the break underneath, can see the darkening bruise forming underneath the edge of her suit as the cape pulls away.

She quickly finishes unclips the latches on the other side, letting its full weight fall from her shoulders.

"Keep your arm there."

Alex runs her hands up and down her back, trying to see what else she missed.

"Are your ribs broken too?"

But just as she brings her hand across Kara's chest, she feels it stop. Feels as the too fast rhythm of Kara's heartbeat is replaced by the just barely there of her name.

"Alex?"

She looks down, sees Kara's hand on her wrist. Sees the blood on it — on both of them. Hates this day a little more all over again.

"He's really gone right. I-I told Lena it was over. I told her...Please don't tell me I lied to her again. I told her, I told her, I wouldn't li-lie to, to her again." Kara's voice goes from quiet to quivering, rambling into every next word until her lungs are pulling in more air than they can hold.

Alex opens the hand that's on Kara's chest just enough so that she can feel just the pressure of it, feels her fingers squeeze back just a little.Tries to get her to breathe slower, deeper, tries to think of what the fuck to say. Because goddammit, this isn't how they were supposed to have to get through this. Not with blood still on their hands, not with the ground still broken underneath them. She swore she was going to let Kelly help them do it right this time.

But Kara needs at least this now.

"I-I need you to listen to me okay..." She leans forward just enough that her forhead is resting against Kara's.

She feels Kara take one stuttered breath, then two.

"The heat, the sound from the explosion, that's how Brainy found you, how I knew you were here" — the next two breaths are a little deeper, she tries to ignore the tears that fall onto the back of her hand — "Lena disabled his portal watch. There was nowhere for him to go. When the orb exploded, it took him with it."

When it's done, Kara leans back but she's still holding onto her.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I-she-I had to stop her from doing something stupid."

"Yeah well, I think we can agree you both did something stupid."

"I knew you would come, and I couldn't- I couldn't. Losing one of you feels impossible Alex, but losing both of you feels even more..."

"Hey, Hey...it's okay." Alex squeezes Kara's hand, doesn't let her get too far away inside her own head again.

"But we're going to have to work on that because if you're going to keep wearing that crest, you're going to have to remember what it stands for from time to time right?"

Kara nods. Holds onto Alex's hand even tighter.

"El Mayarah."

"Right, stronger together, so—" Alex loops Kara's still good arm around her shoulder and they stand up together, each balanced against the other —"lets go get you to your girl."

[mindofasupernova]

Someone you loved

Kaz Brekker x reader

Mr. Sandman Part 2

Inspired by the song "Someone you loved" by Lewis Capaldi

I'm going under and this time I fear there's no one to save me

This all or nothing really got a way of driving me crazy

Kaz's mind was a raging storm, an ever-shifting landscape. His heart was madly racing and he feared that if it didn't stop soon, it'll burst out of his chest.

Two days had gone by and yet there was no information about Y/N's whereabouts. No one had made an effort to contact him asking for money in exchange for her safety, no blackmail, nothing. Kaz knew the probability of Y/N being alive was shrinking as the days passed.

Kaz felt terrible, guilt crushed his heart in a vicious grip. If he hadn't kicked her out, if he had taken back his words, if he had just... No, thinking about what ifs wouldn't bring Y/N back home. If she's still alive a cruel voice whispered in the back of his mind.

His mind drifted to his darkest memories, horrible images plagued his mind. Rotting flesh beneath his fingers, icy hands grabbing at him, threatening to pull him under the waves. Water filled his lungs, consuming his oxygen and living him in the dark. His head broke the water, gasping for air, Kaz looked around, trying to find something, anything to grab to avoid drowning. Only that now instead of his brother's corpse, he saw Y/N's limp body floating above the water.

Kaz fell to his knees, the pain brought him back to reality. He was trembling, sharp gasps left his body, black dots covered his vision. Y/N would have told him to focus on reality, take in the details, count every little object he could find in the room. But Y/N wasn't here, and it was all his fault.

___________

I need somebody to heal, somebody to know

Somebody to have, somebody to hold

Y/N talked passionately about her latest read, making wild gestures with her hands as if to prove a point. Jesper's arm was slung across her shoulder, head thrown back in a laughing fit. When his cackles died down, Jesper leaned his head on Y/N's shoulder and started mocking her for being able to remember the exact place where phrases were in the book.

Kaz watched silently from his seat in the Crow Club, he knew those touches were purely friendly gestures, and still he couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy.

On many sleepless nights, Kaz thoughts had wandered down a treacherous path, always finding their way to Y/N. His mind had been invaded by images of her: the smile she always wore when she was about to make a witty comment, the way she pursed her lips whenever he asked her to memorize an important document, the furrow of her brows when paying close attention to Kaz's plans.

He snapped out of it, angry at himself for thinking about her, he couldn't afford those thoughts. Kaz's life was dangerous and he had many enemies who wouldn't hesitate to use anything or anyone against him. If he left himself feel, if he let her in, he knew there was nothing he wouldn't do for her.

He had tried. He had tried to distance himself, push her away until his feelings dissipated to nothing. However, every time Y/N appeared in his office late at night just to talk about her day, every time she called his name, every time she sent a glorious smile his way, Kaz couldn't bring himself to say no.

And now, looking at Y/N from across the room, a sense of longing clouded his vision. Thoughts of sitting next to her, no space between their bodies, with no fear of touching reminded him of how miserably he had failed.

____________

It's easy to say, but it's never the same

I guess I kinda liked the way you numbed all the pain

Since Y/N's kidnapping, Kaz had gone completely feral. He had looked for anyone who could provide information. He had kidnapped, tortured, and even killed members of any other gangs he had his suspicions on. He was unstoppable, he wouldn't rest until his Y/N was safe. She isn't even yours because you kicked her out a scornful voice reminded him.

Kaz's whole body hurt, his limp was more prominent than usual, his knuckles were bloodied and a purplish bruise contrasted against his pale skin from a blow he had taken when he was beating the life out of one of the Dime Lion's informants.

How he wished Y/N was there. No matter how many times he came back to the Slat, covered in blood and clutching at his wounds, Y/N's gaze always turned into one of horrified worry.

Y/N had always healed his wounds after a mission, wiping the blood away very carefully in order not to touch his skin. Even when he wasn't bleeding and it was just his leg giving him a bad day or a headache that refused to leave him, Y/N always brought him medicine or tea depending on the situation.

But Y/N was gone and he might not ever see her again. His thoughts lurched him back to the ocean, dead things suffocated him. He clutched his cane tighter, he couldn't have a panic attack now, he needed to find Y/N.

_______

Now the day bleeds into nightfall

And you're not here to get me through it all

The night wrapped the dirty streets of Ketterdam in its wicked hold, the moon loomed ahead casting a palish glow through Kaz's window. Another day had passed and he was no closer to finding Y/N.

He was alone in his office, clutching his cane tighter by the second, its sharp edges bruising his skin, and yet, the pain wasn't enough to keep the waters from rising, Y/N's form surrounded by corpses.

No, he couldn't think of her this way. He had to remain positive, he needed to hope Y/N was still alive somewhere, but for someone like Kaz, remaining positive wasn't something he strived on. Instead, Kaz looked inside his brain, searching for a memory of Y/N to avoid passing out and when he found it, he seized it and hung to it for dear life.

Kaz had heard people say love arrived at the most unexpected times, bloomed in the most unlikely places. People said love wasn't something you chose, something you could control, not a concept you could welcome or shut out of your life at your convenience.

Kaz deemed those people foolish, weak for not being able to control themselves, and as the cold mastermind he was, Kaz brushed off all of their comments. And he would have kept thinking that way if it hadn't been for Y/N during a warm summer evening.

The Crow Club was surprisingly empty, everyone was in a relaxed state, currently resting after a successful heist. Kaz had been working in his office, signing contracts when a soft knock sounded against his door, Y/N peered inside and after receiving Kaz's consent, stepped through the threshold.

Y/N sat in front of his desk, a small smile playing on her face, ensued by a moment of silence, Y/N started talking. Kaz's head perked up at the sound of her voice, eyes leaving the papers to direct his whole attention to her but he had been completely caught off guard by the sight before him.

Y/N's mouth was moving but Kaz's couldn't hear a thing, it was as if someone had stolen the sound so he could only focus on Y/N's heavenly form.

Y/N's hair was slightly disheveled, gusts of wind occasionally brushing lonely strands into different directions, soft locks swishing in compass with a nonexistent melody. Sunset rays filtered through the window, lighting up Y/N's features. Sunlight beams fell gently down the slope of her nose, gently caressed her long lashes, and kissed her tender lips giving them a reddish hue.

At that moment, Kaz realized how dreadfully unjust the world was. How come was the wind able to run his breezy fingers across her beautiful hair? How could the rain brush her skin lovingly without repelling at the idea of skin contact? Why could the Sun kiss her graceful lips and he couldn't?

Kaz wanted to hold her, reach for her whenever he wanted without fear of drowning. He wanted to hug her and nuzzle his nose in her hair affectionately. He wanted to know what her skin felt like under his fingertips. Kaz wanted to know the taste of her lips.

Because he was in love with her.

________

I let my guard down and then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

Y/N laid immobile in his bed, her skin almost as pale as his sheets, soft breaths escaped her lungs. Kaz sat in a chair near her fragile body, his frown deepened every time his eyes landed on a different wound.

Kaz felt like in a déjà vu, a vision that had happened exactly three weeks ago. This was the reason why Kaz had pushed her, why he had evicted her from the Slat, the one home she had ever known. But did it matter? All his efforts to keep her safe had been in vain.

That fateful night, when she had been the distraction in a supposed easy heist, everything had come tumbling down. The nightmares had started back then, where he first saw her all bloodied and beaten and unconscious. They didn't know if she would ever wake up. Kaz had refused to visit her, images of his nine-year-old self seeing her amongst the corpses in the Reaper's Barge haunted his days.

When she had woken up he'd wanted to see her, but he couldn't bring himself to because he knew what he had to do. Kaz couldn't bear the thought of her dying, he couldn't imagine her gone, but if he gave her hope, if she saw how much he cared, she would refuse to leave. He needed her to stay away for her safety

So he had done that, he had ruthlessly yanked his heart out of his chest when he had kicked her out. The words he had said to her tortured him since that day: "Do not think that just because I have kept you around for this long you're irreplaceable." And when he thought he couldn't feel more pain, Y/N had started crying. Silent droplets fell down her cheeks and Kaz felt as if the most savage assassin had ripped his heart into shreds.

I let my guard down and then you pulled the rug

I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved

Seating there, silently watching Y/N's closed eyes, he was experiencing it all again. When they had found her she had been tied to a chair, unmoving, in one of the Dime Lion's warehouses. He swore his heart had stopped beating, she couldn't be dead, when Nina had checked for her heartbeat and announced it was still there, Kaz's heart reanimated.

Nina had done her best to heal her and now the only thing there was to do was wait until she woke up. This time Kaz had refused to leave her bedside. This time he would do things differently.

He had been a coward, he now realized. He should have never let her go. He should have been braver, stronger, he should have protected her. Now he realized he wanted, no, needed her with him. He had been too scared worrying for the future that he had forgotten to enjoy the present. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

"Kaz?"

His head shot back to Y/N. She was awake, she was alive and he would never let her go.

And with such a fervent emotion, he couldn't have thought himself capable of expressing, he said "Please, don't ever leave me again. "

Thanks for the song recommendation @itsemy01

Taglist:

@getawayfrommewerewolf, @lady1505, @rika90, @thedelusionreaderbitch, @coffeewithoutcaffeine, @aleksanderwh0r3, @princessleah129, @subjecta13-thefangirl

[dancingamongstdust]

Creepypasta Scenarios - First Meeting (Part 3)

I’ve opened requests now, if anybody is interested. Here’s the post:

Requests

Lost Silver

As stupid as it sounds, the game didn’t scare you.

It had started as a joke, something passed around your friend group after it had been discovered. The cartridge was just a janky version of a Pokémon game that was apparently spooky and so, everybody had taken turns messing around with it. They all said creepy things started happening but nothing too bad.

When it was your turn, you had been fully expecting something out of a horror movie. Instead, you had gotten a game that just had audio cut offs and weird notes warning you to stay out. It wasn’t all together scary.

You mentioned this to the next person you gave the game to in your friend group and they had laughed, saying it would probably ring true for them also.

But for some reason, your ally didn’t manifest.

Less than two days later, they practically threw the game at the rest of you and ran away sprouting things about curses. After that, the appeal of playing it kind of went away.

Nobody wanted to buy it and apparently throwing it out wasn’t a suggestion. So you ended up getting it.

Curiosity soon got the better of you and you booted up the game again, really sure that it would do something absolutely crazy but it never did. It ran like it always had with only that one file being completed.

So you deleted the file.

And nothing happened.

The next day, when you booted up the game, the file had simply returned as though you hadn’t deleted it in the first place. A similar thing occurred the next time. And the next.

Eventually you gave up and just started your own game. There, everything ran like it was meant to and you were beginning to think that your friends had all been imagining stuff. Maybe their paranoid got to them or something like that?

But eventually, the nightmares started. And they were bad.

You couldn’t remember exactly what happened during them. They were a swirling mess of games and glitches, horrible things spelled out in letters and blood covering everything. You would always wake up right when they seemed to be coming to a pivotal point. You’d find yourself dragged into a graveyard and then you’d wake up screaming

It was awful. You hardly got any sleep during them and they seemed to haunt you every night, keeping you up until the early hours of the morning.

But the worst only came when you didn’t wake up.

When you were dragged to the grave and looked down to see the ellipsis where the name should be. A punch to the gut that reminded you of what the game file was called. A confirmation of what was causing this dream.

You stared at it for ages before your eyes drifted up and you met his gaze. He was covered in blood, it leaked from every orifice and limb. It stained his dirty clothing even worse.

While you were staring, the world seemed to distort even though he didn’t. The game world melted away and your bedroom slowly reappeared.

It wasn’t until you saw car headlights move past your window – casting awful shadows across the room – that you realised you were no longer dreaming. He wasn’t a figment of your imagination.

The temperature in the room plummeted and you began to slowly reach for a weapon of some kind. He turned to look at what you were watching. His head tilted to the side and a glitch raced across his body before he vanished into thin air. Flicking on the lights didn’t show him hiding or cowering.

Perhaps your friends weren’t crazy after all.

Masky

“You know, if we had been a little more patient, none of this would have happened,” your sibling lectured. “We could be relaxing inside the car without having to worry about a bloody flash flood coming down from the sky.”

You shoved their back, forcing them to stumble a little as they went through the door. “Chances are the river’s going to burst its banks anyway. We would have been stuck in traffic for hours because the bridge is blocked off.”

“At least we would have been dry,” they muttered, running their fingers through their hair. “And not trapped inside an abandoned building.”

You rolled your eyes and made your way over the rubble to settle down on a camping chair. “Don’t even start. This place has been a hangout for my friends and I for ages. There’s never been a single problem bigger than a few spiders.”

“Till a landlord shows up,” they scoffed.

“Then we’ll move to the forest,” you joked. “I’m sure there’s a good bear cave we can use.”

“I’m going to be an only child,” they said, rolling their eyes. Still, they made their way over and sat. “How long do you think we have until the storm dies down?”

You relaxed back into the chair and smiled up at the asbestos-filled ceiling. “From the sound of it, a while.”

It wouldn’t have been the first time you had taken a nap in the building. You were scared of giant cockroaches coming to eat you once. You had gotten used to it since then but this time when you woke up, you were uneasy.

Glancing around, nothing was out of the ordinary. Your sibling was snoring in the chair next to you and outside the rain was pounding the roof.

You sat upright. Sometimes was definitely wrong.

Pulling your phone from your pocket, you got up from the chair and began walking as quietly as you could through the house. It had always been tiny and practically void of furniture, but the few rooms provided ample hiding spots.

Nothing but rubble was in most of the rooms but, in what you presumed had once been a bathroom, you found a person.

He had his back to you but when you pushed the door open to peer in, he spun around, his hand flying to his side. He was wearing a white mask, dark features etched onto it, and an orange jacket. A dark stain ran up the right side of it, emanating from under his hand. The oddness of his clothing made you immediately back away from the door, finger twitching on your cell phone in case you needed to call for help.

The two of you stared at each other in silence.

You were lost about what to say or do. The stain on his jacket was spreading and the more you stared at it, the more you became convinced it was blood. “Are you okay?” you finally managed to ask.

It took him a while to respond but then he nodded. The mask was unnerving you. You didn’t like not being able to see a person’s facial expressions.

“I don’t mean to pry or anything, but it really looks like you’re bleeding,” you said. “And quite badly. I can call for an ambulance or something although…” you turned your attention to the window behind his head. “I’m not sure they’ll be able to get anywhere with this weather.”

He stepped backward. “I’m fine,” he said, so soft you barely caught it. “I thought this place was abandoned.”

“It normally is,” you answered. “But we had to avoid the storm. I’m guessing that’s why you’re here also?”

“Yes,” he responded.

You waited or him to say something more, but all you got was silence. He had moved further away and now he had his back against the window. Part of you wanted to turn around and go back to your sibling but you were unsure about turning your back on the strange man.

The mask made you scared he could stab you or something.

Somebody calling your name made you turn your head on instinct. Your sibling must have woken up and realised you were missing.

Quickly, you turned back to the man, but he had disappeared. Rain spat through the now open window.

Nurse Ann

Everybody always warned you about exploring old buildings. They would yell about how many things could injure or kill you. Stray animals, drug addicts, old equipment, and all that. You had heard just about every warning imaginable. Ghosts were pretty commonly mentioned also.

But killer nurse was a new one.

“Come on, just give me a little more information,” you nagged. “I’m going there whether you’re with me or not so you may as well just tell me what you’ve heard.”

Your friend (and partner in crime for most ventures) groaned. “It’s not much. They just say that she guards the place and if you get too close, she’ll run you off with a chainsaw. Some people have died from injuries they got while there. Let’s just give this one a miss, alright?”

But you were not in agreement at all.

“Maybe she’s cute though,” you teased.

They didn’t find that funny and you didn’t push them to come with you. So later that evening, you snuck in by yourself.

The hospital was old with crumbling walls and smashed windows. It was hidden from the public by means of a tall barbed-wire fence and a substantial distance of open garden. Nothing too extreme for you and definitely worth the potential items you’d find inside. When hospitals went under, they often left tons of awesome stuff just scattered around.

You’d never sold anything you found in your abandoned building dives. They were more collectables than anything else but they meant quite a bit to you.

There weren’t any signs of crazy nurses as you approached the place. Nobody came running at you with a chainsaw at least. You didn’t even find evidence of squatters who could sometimes pose some danger.

After deciding it was safe enough, you lifted yourself through one of the windows and began to explore.

Honestly, it was creepy. Everything was way too old to be worth collecting and there were too many unidentifiable stains for your liking. The water damage was bad. It looked like the ceiling was there for aesthetics only and several rooms creaked too much for you to comfortably cross them.

And that was even without the awkward feeling of being watched.

You told yourself that it was just superstition but you couldn’t shake it. Every few seconds saw you looking over your shoulder in anticipation. It distracted you from keeping your eye on the path in front of you and the loud crack reached your ears too late.

The floor gave out and you fell through. Your shoulder hit some kind of metal object as you landed in the room below. Painful shocks ripped through your body and your head knocked against the floor with a heavy thud.

Stars danced in front of your vision and you raised your hand to the top of your head. Blood coated your hand when you lowered it to look.

Shit.

Shakily, you tried to pull yourself up but quickly found that your arm was too sore. Instead, you pulled your phone from your pocket and sent off the emergency text to your friend.

The world faded to black not long after that.

When you woke up next, you were in your room with a bandage wrapped around your head. You had felt like absolute crap but still gotten up to thank them for the save. They had nodded and warned you to be more careful, happy that you had been outside the hospital so they didn’t have to look for too long.

Before you could even think about how you had crawled there, they asked how you had managed to do your own stitches so nicely.

Puppeteer

Your camera was on 10% battery.

Grumbling, you shoved it into your bag and cursed your past self for forgetting to put it on charge. In order to get the best sunrise photos, you had found yourself waking up earlier and earlier. It was tiring but it was worth it… most of the time.

You just hoped that at least one of your pictures was usable but you could only check on them once you got home.

The streetlight above your head flickered as you walked past. It wasn’t unusual but when you were the only person awake for miles around, it was awfully creepy.

Putting your hands into your jacket pockets, you continued strolling back home. The neighborhood had never been dangerous and despite living in the area for your entire life, no incidents made you want to stop walking around at night.

Deciding that you wanted to take a precautionary shot, you headed for your neighbour’s house first. They had an arch covered in jasmine flowers that made for some perfectly safe photos and they never minded your presence.

After making your way there and getting a few photos, you were treated to the fright of your life when their began howling and barking. It wasn’t aimed at you but you didn’t like the noise regardless.

As you rounded the corner of the house, planning on racing back to your own home, you encountered the dog’s target.

A man – cloaked in the darkness and barely illuminated by the streetlight – opening one of the windows with ease. Irritated by the dog, he didn’t notice you until your finger twitched around the shutter of your camera. There was a flash.

His head snapped up and you screamed.

The man’s complexation was literally grey. He wasn’t just ill, he was the colour of storm clouds. Golden eyes with no pupils glared at you and froze you in place. Whatever he was, this man was the furthest thing from human.

Your scream woke your neighbors. The sound of movement began coming from inside the house.

He abandoned the window, stalking towards you. The air tingled like it was expecting a lightning storm. Golden tendrils grew from his fingertips and shot towards you. They had you pinned in an instant.

You struggled against them and opened your mouth to scream again but they wrapped around your head, forcing your jaw shut.

This was how you died… tears spilled down your cheeks at the realization. You were going to be an unsolved murder. All you hoped was you got a good picture of him.

Your neighbor’s front door opened and great dane let out an ear-splitting bark as he raced toward you.

The man, or creature, or monster, or whatever he was, released you to face the dog. He let it approach before vanishing into a cloud of smoke as its jaws reached him.

“What was that?” the timid voice brought you back into reality.

“It was trying to get into your house,” you said. “I screamed when I saw it and then it grabbed me.” Your voice changed to a whimper as reality hit you. You nearly died.

The small child of the house came over to hug your leg. “I’m sure Puppet didn’t mean to scare you,” she said. “He always comes to visit but he doesn’t like it when people make noise. You shouldn’t scream when you see him again.”

You made eye-contact with the parents and they wore expressions of horror at their daughter’s words.

“Puppet?” you asked in a small voice.

She nodded rapidly. “He says he stops by because he likes watching people. I think that he’s watching us all right now! But he can hide in the shadows too well.”

“I’m going to go and call the police,” somebody said.

You weren’t all too focused. The feeling of being watched grew heavier and you clutched tightly at the camera in your hands.

Slenderman

You couldn’t tell if they were being serious. You hoped that they were joking. They weren’t genuinely going to…

“No,” you stated.

The two younger children both turned to look at you simultaneously. Guilt flashed across their faces as though they weren’t aware you were listening. It was as though you were asked to babysit them because you didn’t pay attention. These two should have realised that by now.

“Do you think all the stories are true?” the boy asked. “I think that they are. One of my friends said she saw a huge dog in the forest and then it ran away after eating a whole cow!”

“No way!” his twin sister shouted. “Dogs don’t eat cows, so it can’t be true!”

You put on your best intimidating expression and crossed your arms. “I don’t care if they’re true or not. There is absolutely no chance that either of you are going to go running off into the woods with bears, wolves and all kinds of other creatures.”

The two children glanced at each other and bolted for the tree line before you could grab their shirts.

Thankfully your legs were longer even if they had a head start and you managed to catch up pretty quickly. Once you caught the boy and picked him up with ease, the girl dashed behind a tree.

“Can we please just leave?” you asked nicely. “If we forget about the forest adventure thing, I promise I won’t tell your parents and I’ll get you ice cream.”

The boy was trying his hardest to get out of your hold. You were starting to think babysitting didn’t pay enough.

“I don’t want ice cream,” the girl said. “I want to go and find a unicorn.”

She darted off into the forest and you let out a deep groan. Shifting the boy’s weight over your one hip, you started walking after her. If you wanted to give chase via running, you would have to put the kid down and trust him to follow or stay.

It was obvious that wasn’t happening.

It didn’t take you too long to find the girl. Mostly because she had stopped in the middle of a weird grove in the trees. She was just staring off into the dark shadows beyond it.

As you approached her, static popped in your ears. You shook your head in an effort to displace it but the closer you got, the louder it became.

The child in your arms whimpered, clutching his head.

You softly called her name and then it appeared. It was a man-like monster, standing just in the shadows of the trees. Easily over 7ft tall and insanely thin with no facial features. Your heart jumped into your throat and your stomach tied itself into a knot.

Without taking your eyes off it, you reached out a hand and fumbled around until you grabbed the girl’s shirt.

The static was getting louder and louder. You tried to shut it out as you started moving backwards, tugging the child along after you. She wasn’t willing to move her legs. She was entranced but whether by fear or magic, you couldn’t tell.

And then it was much closer.

You stumbled in fright, letting go of the girl’s shirt and landing on your ass. The boy fell on top of you but scrambled away and hide in the bushes within the blink of an eye. You sent a silent prayer to him to run back home to the other adults.

Once again, the creature was stationary but now the static was growing to such a volume that you could imagine your ears were starting to bleed.

You reached out for the girl again slowly, but something wrapped around your leg and yanked you into the air.

It took almost a full second for you to realise that the screaming ringing in your ears was you. Whatever was holding you tightened and whipped your body through the air. It was like your leg was being ripped away.

Then you were falling.

It was some feat of luck that you managed to twist your body, so you didn’t land on your head. You lay there for a while before something poking your back made you unbury your face.

The twins were staring at you with wide eyes and the monster was nowhere in sight.

“What was –“ you couldn’t finish.

“Slenderman,” they said in perfect sync.

Splendorman

Another stop…

You couldn’t help yourself. Every time you walked past one of the posters fluttering lightly in the wind you had to stop and stare at it.

A few days ago, your dog, your beautiful and sweet puppy, had disappeared from your house without a trace. The missing posters were depressing reminders that he wasn’t home. It hadn’t taken long for your mind to spiral into the negative thoughts about how close the road was.

Damn your coworkers. One of the had suggested the road in the first place and while they hadn’t intended anything malicious, it was definitely not helping your fears.

The dog had been with you through thick and through thin… if it was dead, you may as well have lost a close family member.

Hanging your head, you dragged your eyes away from the poster and kept walking.

People bumped into you, but it was your fault. You refused to look up in case another poster distracted you. Getting home before the sun set was your only focus now.

You had tried going out and searching in all the places where your dog once spent time to no avail. Always willing to try again, you chose to drop off your bags and head out later that evening when you ran out of distractions.

As you walked through the gates in front of your house, a gust of air gently messed up your hair. A gust of wind suspiciously similar to a laugh.

Your logical mind told you it came from the street, but something made you stop in your tracks.

The walls around your property towered. There’s no possibility that somebody could be in your garden. To try and scale one of the walls, they would have been in full view of your neighbours who would have undoubtedly called the cops.

“You’re sad,” the wind whispered before you could brush off your suspicion.

Spinning wildly, you searched around for the source. You backed up until your entrance gate was behind you. You could run down to the main street with ease if you could just get your fumbling fingers to unlock things.

“Don’t run,” the wind said, this time blowing from a separate direction. “I promise I’m not going to hurt you. I just wanted to know why you’re upset.”

Is this what going insane was? Nobody around and the wind was talking to you. You had always feared losing your mind and now it was happening.

“I’m real,” the wind said. “I’m hiding because I’ll scare you if you see me.”

“I’m going mad,” you muttered, shaking your head. “If this is somebody pulling a prank on me I swear….”

The wind quietened for a bit and then it picked up again, ruffling your hair as it spoke. “If I show myself, it’ll prove that you’re not going crazy, but I don’t want to make it worse by frightening you… you’re so sad already.”

“I lost my best friend and people have been telling me he’s most likely dead,” you hissed. “Obviously I’m not in the best mood. Now I’m losing my fucking mind and talking to air.”

The atmosphere around you dropped, like it does moments before lightning strikes. You glanced at the sky in confusion. As expected, no clouds in sight.

You lowered your gaze and a 7ft tall creature covered in bright polka dots stood in front of your house.

Once you screamed, it disappeared.

“I’m sorry,” the wind said. “I knew I would scare you, but I had hoped it would show you that I’m not imaginary. I’m just trying to help.”

The gate finally opened behind you and you stumbled backwards through it, your heart sitting in your throat. A monster was in your house and it was probably going to kill you. Spinning on your heel, you took off full speed back towards the main street.

You were fully expecting it to give chase now that you hadn’t fallen for its claims of harmlessness but it didn’t.

Instead you reached the main road and only got a few strange looks because of how much you were shaking. Nothing followed you.

The wind picked up once more. “I’ll try and help,” it promised.

People walking around you should have heard it as well but none of them so much as blinked.

Ticci Toby

While you had been told that a noise limit for the forest existed, your laughter refused to cooperate. It rang through the trees and probably chased off all the animals nearby. A picnic out in a national forest was a fantastic way to reconcile with nature and to scare it all away.

With eleven people in your picnic party, chances of any creatures coming into view were already slim though so you didn’t worry too much.

“We didn’t bring nearly enough fruit,” you muttered as you dug in the basket.

“Excuse you, I brought a whole watermelon but you ate it,” somebody answered your grumble. “If you want fruit, it is spring. Go and forage for some berries.”

You snorted. “Yeah, right. I’m going to go out by myself in the middle of the one season where bears are irritable as fuck. I know I sometimes act a little impulsively, but I don’t exactly have a wish to die at the claws of a grumpy teddy.”

Your friend leaned towards you. “Is that so? What if we split into teams and made a bet? Loser has to take a dip in the river.”

“A bet?” you asked. “I’m interested.”

She grinned and snapped her fingers. “Okay, there are eleven people so I’m feeling groups of two with one impartial party as a judge. We should be fine if we make enough noise and stick within close vicinity to each other. See how many berries we can gather?”

Tipping out the picnic basket’s contents, you smirked and pushed it into her chest. “Oh, I hope you brought a swimming costume.”

Everybody teamed up with ease and grabbed one of the many containers lying on the blanket. You headed out with your partner and gave a wink to the other teams. All you needed was to find one good bush first and you had it won.

“We should split up,” your partner said. “Cover more ground.”

You nodded. “We meet up back here once we’ve found a good bush,” you agreed. “And we shout if we find any animals.”

Obviously, your plans hadn’t involved losing your footing almost directly after the two of you split.

Tumbling down the small hill, you tried your hardest to protect yourself from the bushes as you went through them. At some point, you lost your basket and by the time you had finally rolled to a stop, you had no idea where it was.

Grumbling, you stood up and started searching until something dark caught your eye. Thinking it was your basket, you made your way over.

The clearing you walked into housed a scene you could never have imagined.

A dead bear lay slumped against a tree, its fur being what had caught your eye earlier. A hatchet buried in its neck was spilling blood onto the floor around it. All that hardly compared to the man leaning against a tree.

“Oh my god!” you exclaimed. “Are you alright?”

His head immediately snapped up, allowing you to see that he was wearing a mouth guard and a pair of goggles. Blood seeped from between his fingers where they clutched against his chest, but he hardly noticed. A hatchet was hanging from his belt.

Suddenly, you were wishing you had kept your mouth shut.

He stared at you blankly for a while, an occasional twitch minorly affecting his body. Reaching up, he took off his mouthguard. “I can’t feel any pain,” he said. “So, I’m fine. Why are y-you out here? The hiking trail is far.” He struggled with one of the words, seeming to hiccup a little on it.

“I was searching for berries and I slipped down a hill,” you answered. “Are you sure you’re okay? It looks like you got into a fight with a bear. Your shirt is all bloody.”

“I did fight a bear,” he laughed, gesturing to it. “I won.”

Your eyes grew wider. “I think you should get to a hospital. What’s your name? I can call somebody for you and we’ll get you medical attention.”

“Toby,” he said. “That’s my name. What’s yours?”

You gave him your full name and pulled out your phone. “My friends are close by,” you said. “Don’t worry, they’ll be here to help soon.”

When you raised your attention from your phone, he had disappeared and so had the hatchet from the bear’s neck.

Trenderman

Work was hard. It made your feet ache, it made your back click and crack, and it felt like the problems would never end.

Would you give up working in the fashion industry? Not a chance.

Your boss walked past where you were calming down an irate customer over the phone and dropped the keys to the front of the building in front of you. “Close up for me,” she mouthed as she left.

Nodding, you moved them to the side of the desk where they couldn’t be lost.

Once you had finished calming the customer, you glanced around to check how many people were left in the room. Three still working and one in the process of leaving. You were technically going into overtime at this point, but you didn’t mind.

There was a reason you were promoted so quickly.

“We need to set up cameras!” one of the floor managers snapped, storming into the office. She marched straight over to your desk and glowered at you. “I put this request in a week ago.”

Scrolling through the documents, you quickly opened the file. “I see but it looks like it’s been bumped due to a shipment malfunction, I’ll flag it. What’s the problem?”

“Customers or members of staff are moving items around and throwing things out without warning. We need to catch the culprits!” she snapped.

“What has been thrown out?” you asked. “I’ll add it into the information.”

The woman started listing quicker than you could type. “I’ve found crocs, toeless thigh-high boots, bellbottomed jeans, coloured faux fur jackets, luminous lipstick, w-necks, and jeggings all in vast numbers in the trash can. Every time I put them out on shelves, they disappear again.”

It took everything in you not to snort. “I’ll mark this vital.”

She stalked off and you went back to inputting the shipping requirements. You were meant to be organising what was coming in for the latest line and subtly omitting anything that wouldn’t sell well enough.

Slowly but surely, your co-workers trickled out of the office after finishing off their daily tasks. You kept going, trying to make sure you could have a longer break the next day.

Finally, when the sun had already set, you relented and started getting ready to go home.

You sung as you finished packing up for the day. Being the last one in the building (thus having to lock up) made you a little more confident as you danced around getting everything together. You slung your bag over your shoulder and happily trotted over to the door.

It made you so happy that your boss entrusted you to be the last one around. She was so hyper-protective of company secrets that you were proud of yourself for winning her over.

Your talent with people was something you attributed to dealing with painful customers.

As you passed through the store-part of the business you stopped to rearrange a mannequin. Every morning when you came in, you always noticed something had been changed with this specific one. You figured you could move something small and see if it would be a good place to set up a hidden camera.

Though you weren’t expecting it to suddenly grab your arm.

“You may be one of the few workers here with good taste, but I advise you don’t try and change my outfit,” it said. It didn’t have a mouth, but the words rang in your head, nevertheless.

You screamed and pulled away, tearing your arm from its grip. Shelves were knocked over and clothing was sent flying as you tried to escape.

The mannequin just watched you as you fumbled madly for the door.

The glass rattled in the frame from how hard you slammed it shut behind you. You sped off down the street, moving faster than you ever had before. You collapsed on your lawn by the time you reached the house, taking deep breaths.

Nothing had followed you. Everything was okay.

With shaking fingers, you dialed your boss’ number and told her you would be taking a sick day. There wasn’t a chance in hell you were going anywhere near there again.

Not to mention the mess you made… you were definitely getting fired.

[writersmorgue]

Nightmare Material

15+ for graphic descriptions of violence, blood, and gore

can be read as slash or platonic

not proofread

-

“SHUT UP DEKU! OH MY GOD, CAN YOU BE QUIET FOR FIVE FUCKING MINUTES?!”

The common room goes silent.

“Woah, Bakubro, he just asked if you were busy,” Kirishima chuckles nervously.

Katsuki looks over to Deku who, as expected, already has tears welling in his eyes.

“Shitty crybaby, of course I’m busy can’t you fuckin’ see? Go bother someone who cares.”

Deku sniffles like the pathetic little child that he is, and nods, “Ok Kacchan.”

“Fuckin’ annoying ass-” Katsuki mutters, ignoring the glares as he stomps out of the room. Taking the stairs two at a time before slamming the door shut behind him, imagining the flinches of his classmates as he does so.

Fuck that fucking nerd, always looking down at him. Asking him for help on math of all things, when he fuckin’ knows that’s Katsuki’s worst subject. Fuck him.

The little shit shouldn’t even be here, he’s not on Katsuki’s level. Just gonna get himself killed.

After a few minutes of grumbling into his pillow, there’s a knock at Katsuki’s door, followed by a meek, “Blasty?”

He groans dramatically and flops over onto his back, propelling himself up with a few controlled explosions.

“Fuckin’ what-” He swings the door open and comes face to face with the entire idiot squad.

Sero, Kirishima, Mina, and Kaminari all stand in front of him, Sero nervously wringing his hands, Kaminari avoiding eye contact, and Kirishima giving him a look.

Mina steps to the front of them, patting Kirishima’s shoulder as she does so.

“Blasty, you really gotta stop.” She stares him straight in the eyes, not backing down no matter how hard he glares.

“Stop fuckin’ what.”

Kirishima places a hand on Mina’s chest, stalling her step forward into Katsuki’s space. “You know what, Bakugo.”

Katsuki rolls his eyes, “Oh please, like the little shit can’t handle some yelling. I’ve seen discount hot topic make his ears bleed-”

“This isn’t about Jirou. This is about you. You need to sort your shit out.” Sero’s frowning, a rare sight.

“Oh?” Katsuki quirks an eyebrow, “Or what?”

There’s a tense silence before Kaminari sniffs. “Or- or we won’t be your friends anymore!!” He stutters, bottom lip wobbling.

The rest of the group nods, one by one giving him a last glance.

Katsuki stands there for a few minutes, mainly thinking, but also fuming

How dare they treat him like that, like trash. He’s not trash, and he’s not the bad guy. He’s just trying to save Deku before it’s too late. Stupid idiot won’t last a day in the hero business, even with his new freak quirk. All it’s good for is hurting the nerd.

“Stupid Deku and his stupid protection squad, fuckin’ blind idiots.” He grumbles, slamming the door and returning to his lair.

He changes his clothes, resigning himself to finishing his weekend at the gym instead of on next week’s homework.

Bakugo stomps through the common room on the way to their practice room, a few of his classmates shoot him glares but he’s ignored for the most part. Something noticeably purposeful since he’s not exactly being quiet. Even Kirishima refuses to acknowledge his presence.

Yeah, that hurts.

He runs for two hours, lifts for one, and finishes with core for thirty minutes before his post-workout cooldown ritual. Thoroughly satiated and tired to the bone, he heads back to his dorm. Ignored this way too, he doesn’t bother saying goodnight to anyone. Not that he would usually. Not that he misses Ashido’s “Night blasty!!” on his way up the stairs.

He doesn’t give a shit.

He scrubs at his body with his last bits of energy and brushes his teeth half dead on his feet. Exhausted, he flops down on his bed and passes out almost immediately.

…

Someone’s screaming.

Katsuki lunges toward Shigaraki, whose hand barely grazes Izuku’s neck.

Izuku? When did he ever call the nerd something other than-

“DEKU!!!” Oh, he was the one screaming. He blasts himself forward and pushes Izuku out of the way, his dusted skin flaking off into the breeze as green hair skids to a stop on the ground below.

“Damn BRAT-” Shigaraki mutters, angrily scrunching his hand in mid-air before turning his attention to Katsuki. “YOU.” He points a cracked, pointed finger at Katsuki.

“Yeah, what are you gonna do about it old man?” He snorts, preparing his arms to blast again, he can feel the resistance from his last jump.

“You saved the little shit,” Shigaraki mutters to himself, nails dragging roughly down his neck, “must have a relationship, must be close to my enemy. Must die-”

Katsuki raises his hand, palms crackling in defiance, but he’s geared to go anyway.

Nothing happens.

“Fuck goddamnit!” His one fucking chance to get a drop on the guy and he’s out of juice? Fucking really?!

He’s so caught up in his fury he doesn’t notice the mad glint in the enemy’s eye. The way he smiles brokenly, bloody tongue barely peeking out.

“Poor little hero.” He mutters.

Katsuki jerks his head up just in time to see five fingers inches away from his face.

Well, this was fun.

“KATSUKI-” There’s pressure on his side and he falls, belatedly realizing he was pushed out of the way.

He looks hits the ground hard, hearing the reverberated snap of his ankle as it breaks.

“FALL HERO!! FALL BEFORE ME! YOUR NEW GO-”

Shigaraki falls to the ground as Todoroki whacks him over the head with a piece of rebar.

HIs normally stoic expression is frantic, he’s got fresh tears streaking down his face, and his forehead is covered in dried blood.

He tears his eyes away from the downed villain as Kirishima comes to cuff him, and screams in anguish at the sight of Izuku- Something Katsuki is still trying to wrap his head around.

A startled, almost pained sound escapes Katsuki as he half limps, half runs towards his best friend.

...best friend?

“IZUKU!”

Izuku has long since crumbled to his knees, clutching what remains of the left side of his face. Still slowly crumbling away. Blood pours down his arm and neck, making it difficult to see, but the sight of his eye frantically widening as Katsuki sits next to him is enough.

He removes his hand and sobs, throwing himself onto Katsuki.

“Eih- hgo-” He chokes, blood soaking Katsuki’s own suit as he rocks them both.

“Shh, it’s okay, Izuku.” He whispers, making eye contact with a sobbing Todoroki, who nods in approval.

“Izuku you’re gonna be fine.” The shock has yet to remove itself from Katsuki’s voice, and his words are filled with cracks and sobs, but he hopes it’s what Izuku needs.

“Aa- aah” Izuku’s broken kacchan followed by a fresh flow of blood down Katuski’s neck.

“I love you, Izuku. It’s gonna be alright.”

Izuku whimpers, clutching onto the blond’s neck for dear life.

And then he goes limp.

Katsuki’s eyes bug out, and he pulls Izuku arm’s length away. The gruesome sight that greets him is one he’ll never forget.

Izuku’s left eye hangs loosely down the side of his mangled cheekbone and jaw. Katsuki can see teeth starting to crumble as the decay works its way through his face. His nose is completely exposed, with no flesh left. No cute freckles. No scrunch when he smiles. And his other eye, possibly the worst part, stares lifelessly at Katsuki. The last remnants of tears make their way down his face.

He looks… terrified.

He died scared in the arms of his abuser. Someone who never even apologized to him. For fucking anything. Some vile part of Katsuki reminds him.

He saved me because I couldn’t do my fucking job.

He thrusts Izuku’s lifeless body into Shouto’s arms, who lets out a heartwrenching sob. Katsuki scrambles back, and can vaguely register the sound of pink cheeks vomiting behind him.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck-” becoming increasingly more desperate with each utterance of the word, “FUCK!” Kirishima comes up behind him, picking him off the dust-covered ground and holding him to his chest. “This is all my fault!!!” He wails, “He fucking saved me, I couldn’t- this isn’t right no no NO-”

“Shhhh Katsuki-” Eijirou soothes him through his own tears, always the constant in Katsuki’s life. Well, after Deku.

Deku Deku Deku.

Dead Deku.

Because of you.

Katsuki takes another good look at Deku’s face where Shouto had freaked and discarded him on the ground. The unnatural bend of his arms, the bloody drool escaping his parted- if you can even call that a mouth anymore, his eyes.

And he screams.

He screams and he screams and he screams until someone shakes him so hard he wakes up.

Wait-

“BAKUGO!!! WAKE UP PLEASE-” Shitty hair screams at him, shaking his shoulders desperately as he thrashes in his sheets.

He stills, staring up at Kirishima with a shocked expression.

“Wh-”

“You were having a nightmare,” Kirishima explains, gasping for breath like he just ran a marathon.

Katsuki looks to the doorway where half of the boys in their class stand, expressions varying from worried to shocked.

He looks back at Kirishima, a pitiful whimper escaping his throat, “It- it wasn’t real?”

Katsuki looks to the door, half expecting to see Izuku there.

Missing an ear, you can see his tongue through his cheek.

Katsuki gulps, “Where’s Izuku?” He murmurs into the quiet room.

“Izuku?” Someone in the hallway mutters.

“Uh,” Kirishima catches himself before he can say something dumb, “Izu?- Uh- Midoriya is probably in his room. Didn’t think you’d want him here, but he knows. You kinda woke up the whole dorm.”

Kirishima has barely finished the sentence before he’s jumping out of bed, pajamas be damned, and sprinting toward the stairs. When he gets to Izuku’s floor he makes a hard right, Icyhot shouting something about being nice behind him.

Katsuki can yell at him later.

Running gives him time to think, and the more Katsuki thinks the more he realizes that his nightmare might as well have been a prophecy. Izuku would pull some martyr shit like that, but it was only Katsuki’s fault in the first place that he was put in that situation. He’s the only one to blame. Izuku had done everything right, and Katsuki managed to fuck it up.

Hollow socket, tendons hanging, blood turning his green suit a muddied brown.

Katsuki knocks on the door frantically, scared about what he’ll see when Izuku answers.

There’s some rustling from inside before Izuku peeks out, green curls messy from sleep.

“Wh- I thought Aoyama said you were having a nightmare.” His eyebrows furrow.

“I was,” Katsuki breathes, taking in how whole his rival is. “But it wasn’t real.”

He reaches out hesitantly and brushes an unruly lock of green out of Izuku’s left eye.

“Everything’s where it should be-” He chuckles almost in bewilderment.

He drags his fingers gently down Izuku’s cheek, tracing where the decay had rotted away skin, now whole.

A few of the classmates who followed him gasp in surprise when Katsuki clutches Izuku’s shoulders and buries his face in soft green hair. Completely breaking down as he sobs.

Izuku freezes, terrified of ruining the moment, even though he really wants to ask someone what the fuck is happening.

He gives Kirishima a questioning look as he hesitantly rubs along Katsuki’s back.

The redhead just shrugs.

“I’m sorry Izuku.”

Aaaand the damn breaks.

Izuku sobs as Katsuki clutches him tighter, their friends begin to awkwardly back out of the hallway after witnessing whatever that was.

“Wh- Kacchan?” He pulls away reluctantly, but he needs to see Katsuki’s face.

The blond’s eyes are red and puffy, same as his cheeks, but he’s dead serious.

“I’m so fucking sorry. You don’t deserve any of the shit I put you through, you’re a really good guy.” He heaves in a breath, “And- I know you’ll be a great hero someday.”

“Kacchan… why?”

Katsuki looks away, “I just- thought about some things,” He doesn’t mention that the thinking involved seeing his classmate’s bloodied corpse, “realized how full of myself I am. You really did just want help on that math homework, huh?” He huffs, shaking his head at his past self.

“I did. What else would I have wanted?”

Katsuki sniffs, angrily rubbing at his eyes, “I don’t know, Izuku. I’m a fucking idiot.”

Izuku smiles sadly, “All I’ve ever wanted is to be your friend, Kacchan.

The blond nods, “Yeah, I think I see that now. Can- can we still do that? Be friends?”

Izuku beams, rubbing his own tears away and pulling Katsuki into another tight hug.

“There’s nothing I want more, Katsuki.”

[white-collar-lawmen-and-conmen]

Pulse Point

A/N: Requested by anonymous. Warning for canon-typical violence; minor character death, nightmares, and post-traumatic stress. Also: borrowed Dr. Sweets from the show Bones.

Summary: A near-death experience leaves you with recurrent nightmares. Neal offers some comfort.

Word Count: 5,154

The steady beeping of hospital equipment was driving you insane. It had been hours now of nothing except the monotonous noise of your own heartbeat. If it didn’t shut up soon, you would claw your ears off. With a stiff body and an ache that penetrated down to your bones, you forced your body upright and pinched open the pulse monitor on your right hand.

You let out a relieved sigh as the equipment went silent and dropped yourself back onto the well-padded pillows behind you. The pulse monitor clattered to the floor on its long white cord and you settled down for a nap. The ache in your bones made you feel heavy, like lead. There was nothing quite like a well-deserved nap.

In mere seconds after you had closed your eyes, the equipment started acting up again, this time blaring one long, constant shriek. The surprise made your heart skip a beat, but your eyelids were too heavy to look and see what had happened. Then your heart kept skipping, and your throat tightened. You couldn’t breathe. Your chest burned. It wasn’t a heartbeat; it was a flatline.

You were dying.

The leaden feeling in your body doubled. Your muscles didn’t respond to trying to move and you couldn’t force your lungs to take in a breath. Footsteps pounded around you, incoherent shouts going in one ear and out the other. You were desperate for your paralyzed eyes to open. Was this what you’d have for the rest of your life? Nothing but darkness and unintelligible, mind-numbing noise, punctuated by electrical humming and the pain of a vice clamping itself again to your finger?

The flatline paused for a second. Your ears rang and you thought, for a moment, that you were safe, your heart was beating again. Instead, your stomach twisted and you realized you were losing feeling in your toes. No blood. No life. When the screech of your flatline came back again, it was louder, more piercing. The shrillness reminded you of screaming.

As soon as you remembered it, it was there – the same screaming as before, somewhere in your room, echoing from every corner. In the next pause of the flatline, it turned into a hoarse shriek and a plea. “No! Please!”

You couldn’t hear anything underneath it, no more overlapping voices, and your panic increased. Where were the doctors? Did they think you were gone? Help me!

Your eyes opened with a sudden snap, the droning of your alarm clock replacing the flatlining of the monitor.

As you stared at your ceiling, you panted for breath. Rationally, you knew, you had probably never stopped breathing, but in the panic of your nightmare, it felt like you’d been smothered. Terror powered your desperate gasps and convinced you that your feet and hands were numb, even as you could feel that one foot was poking out from the end of your blanket. After a long moment, you dared to move your arm, ready to scream if you weren’t dreaming after all and still couldn’t move. You turned your alarm off easily.

Soft rain pattered against the glass windows, creating shiny-looking streaks as droplets collected and streamed down the side of the building. It was much more soothing than the silence that usually reigned in Dr. Sweets’ office when he was waiting for you to talk. Maybe he should invest in one of those noise machines with rain as an option. You thought about making the suggestion, but knowing him, he would probably call you out on the procrastination, or deflection, or whatever else he wanted to call it.

You broke the silence. “I’m certain I can wait you out for the next…” You checked the clock. “Twenty-seven minutes.”

Dr. Sweets raised his eyebrows, still leaning his head on a closed fist, propped on the arm of his chair. “I’m equally certain I can recommend you remain on desk duty for the next…” He pretended to check his watch. “Twenty-seven weeks.”

You scowled.

Psychological clearance was a bureau mandate after something traumatic occurred during the course of the job. You’d been lucky enough not to need it up to this point, but after… that, you hadn’t been given a choice. Dr. Sweets was a highly qualified psychotherapist, and you were sure that he did amazing things to help a lot of people, but so far you felt neither amazed nor helped.

“Agent L/N, you went through something incredibly harrowing that you were very close to not walking away from.” The psychologist finally took his head off his fist and put his arm down in his lap. At least he’d taken the bait and you weren’t the one starting the discussion. “You were a half-inch or couple minutes from bleeding out.” He pinched his fingers to demonstrate as if you didn’t have a scar on your body that distance from your femoral artery. You’d never be able to forget what half an inch looked like.

“But I did walk away, and the person who did that to me is in prison for the rest of his life.” You crossed your legs, trying to look more comfortable than you felt. You weren’t sure how effective you were going to be at convincing a therapist that you didn’t need therapy, but it was worth the try.

He looked utterly unconvinced. Actually, the jerk looked like he knew exactly what you were trying for and thought it was cute that you thought you could trick him. “Justice, or even retribution, which it feels like you’re leaning towards, doesn’t erase a wrongdoing or its associated harm.”

“I didn’t erase it, I healed from it. I took medical leave, now I’m back.”

“Physically, you healed. It takes a lot longer to heal mentally from those kinds of wounds.”

“Does it?” You challenged.

“I think your nightmares speak for themselves,” Dr. Sweets said pointedly.

You glared at him, at a loss for a quick comeback. You knew you didn’t look like a million bucks, but you hadn’t thought it was that obvious you were losing sleep. If he knew, then the coworkers who spent a lot of time with you must know, too. Especially Neal – nothing got past him. Oh, that was embarrassing.

The nightmares had been recurring for weeks now. They had started once you had a return date to the office, but after actually resuming your work, they had increased in frequency and intensity. They weren’t identical, but they did all share some similarities: some fatal injury had you dying, alone, in the dark, like you almost had in real life. You never got to the point of actually dying in your dreams, you didn’t think, but you were just fine with that. They were bad enough as they were. Yes, they were a sign of trauma and anxiety. But if your mind didn’t heal itself from weeks safe at home, then you knew returning to normal as fast as possible was probably your best bet at getting over what had happened.

“I’m not your enemy here,” the therapist said to you more gently. You couldn’t say he was heartless, even if you didn’t enjoy the half-hour sessions where he tried to talk about your feelings whether you wanted to or not. “My goal is the same as yours. I want you back at work, safely, able to sleep through a night so you don’t jeopardize yourself or the people around you.”

You let out a deep sigh. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me about the affect this has had on you.” Dr. Sweets encouraged, not for the first time. “You’ve accepted what happened. I can see that. But the next step is processing what it means for you, as an agent, as a person… maybe both.”

You felt helpless. What was that supposed to mean? You couldn’t very well tell him you were terrified your job was going to actually get you killed or cost more lives on your watch. When your employer paid your therapist’s bills, you couldn’t fully trust doctor-patient confidentiality. Maybe it was just paranoia, but you couldn’t bring yourself to risk it.

“I can’t sleep,” you admitted. Your tone sounded mournful. In a way, you were mourning for a time when you could sleep through the night and enjoy your days at work. It wasn’t like white-collar crime was your passion, but you did like puzzles, and you did like being around the people you worked with, especially a certain blue-eyed felon. “I keep having nightmares that I’m… injured, and I’m alone.”

“Your wire was jammed and your team didn’t hear you signal for backup.” Dr. Sweets talked slowly, patient and pragmatic as he validated your nightly anxieties. “You expected help, but they didn’t know to come.”

“They did come,” you said with a shrug. “It just… almost wasn’t in time. I know it wasn’t their fault.”

Your words about time felt glued into your ears. Yours had come really close to running out. And for what? Insurance fraud? No amount of money justified murder, and you likewise couldn’t put a price tag on a life. So why were you so eager to leap back into the same job that almost cost you yours?

It was something you had been mulling over since it happened. Your job was dangerous. You had always known that. You’d been shot at, been near explosives… your partner had been abducted by a murderer not that long ago, and your best friend had had guns in his face so often that, honestly, you’d lost count a while ago. Somehow it just hadn’t clicked, you supposed, that you could legitimately die. You were protected by the bureau and your body armor, until that wasn’t enough. Other agents had learned that lesson in a much harder way; being confronted with that was hard to simply get over.

Apparently, your use of the word “fault” led Dr. Sweets to talk to you about guilt and anger around the incident. You didn’t blame your partner or feel angry, except at the man who shot you, but you let him continue around your noncommittal, half-assed answers. You knew he at least suspected you were putting him on again, but you also knew you hadn’t given him much to work with. Then again, he didn’t call you on your bullshit replies, either, so you weren’t quite sure what he thought.

While Dr. Sweets had yet to approve you for field duty, there was still plenty to do at your desk. You pretended not to notice the itch in your legs to go somewhere while you kept yourself busy, preparing documents, performing research, helping delegate and manage case files, and topping off your team’s coffee whenever they got low. You had become even more of a desk jockey than Neal; at least he got to go out with Peter when given the green light. You missed outings with your partner, or really with any other agent.

Comparing yourself to a caged tiger was likely on the dramatic side, so you put it out of your mind and refused to feel sorry for yourself. You understood the protocols and the routines and they were for your benefit as much as the bureau’s. Besides, your team wasn’t treating you like you were fragile or demoted. They leaned on you to help just as much as they ever did, the assignment of duties just went a little differently.

You doodled a cat on your notepad during a meeting. Everyone had great ideas and you tossed in some ways you could contribute when you’d been quiet for a while. Peter’s proposed field op was going to go smoothly. Odds were high that any hiccups could be taken care of by Diana’s swift running of interference. Neal was raring to go and Jones was a little too excited to play the part of an intimidating brute, in your opinion, and Peter was appropriately apprehensive (someone ought to be, after what had happened to you).

“Let’s sleep on it,” Peter decided after looking out the window and seeing how low the sun had sunk. “If we’re all still in agreement in the morning, we’ll set the ball in motion.”

Jones graciously commented, “Good idea. We can all think on it.” He was probably the most cautious of all of you.

“Y/N?” Neal asked. You immediately looked up from your (admittedly lopsided) cat drawing. The forger was still in his chair, even while the others were pulling on their coats and blazers. “You’ve been quiet. Do you have any concerns?”

You shook your head, but not too quickly that it raised suspicion. You could get away with doodling – Peter often turned a blind eye to it; after several years, he’d developed a soft spot for you – but only if you were still paying attention and participating, so you didn’t want to give him a reason to suspect you weren’t.

Peter, Diana, and Jones all said their goodbyes. The two younger agents left the room, but Peter lingered at the doorway.

“Neal, do you want a ride?” He offered.

Neal looked from you to Peter, and then shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ll find my way. You don’t want to be late for roast,” he added when Peter looked unconvinced. After glancing at you, your partner decided that he really didn’t want to be late for roast and left without another look over his shoulder.

Now that you were alone, Neal softened his expression. “Seriously, Y/N, what’s going on?”

“I told you, I’m not worried. We’ve thought of just about everything we can predict.” You said with a straight face, pretending not to know that Neal wasn’t just talking about this specific case anymore.

He wasn’t having it. “Don’t lie to a conman, Y/N,” he chided you with a small, fond smile. “Come on. It’s not just today, you’ve been quiet ever since you came back. It’s not like you.” You raised an eyebrow and pursed your lips, uninterested in talking. Neal reached partway across the table for you but stopped there. It was an invitation but not a command. “I’m worried about you.”

The thing about your history with Neal was that it was a close one. You went from strangers when Peter got him out of Sing Sing to best friends within the span of two years. You trusted him more than you trusted just about anyone, and there hadn’t been a time when one of you needed the other and was turned away. He didn’t come to you when he was upset – seeking out reassurance and comfort was not Neal’s strength, because it involved professing vulnerability – but he never turned you away when you came to offer it, either. Now it seemed to be his turn to do the offering, as he had realized over the last few weeks that you weren’t going to ask.

You reached for his hand and silently sighed in relief at how solid and warm it was to the touch, so unlike the few dreams where you screamed and cried for someone to help and found yourself grasping at tricks that weren’t there. Neal turned his hand to hold yours and gave it a squeeze.

“It’s been so hard, Neal,” you told him reluctantly. “I have no idea how you do it. How you just walk away from all the close calls.”

Neal frowned a little. “I don’t just walk away,” he objected. “I have bad nights. I have bad days. Sometimes I have a whole bad week, or a few bad months.” You knew the latter was a reference to losing Kate, and you sympathetically gripped his hand tighter. “But, you know… there’s always something I can find to focus on instead, and after a while, the things go in the past. I let go.”

That advice was entirely unhelpful. “I’ve been trying to let go,” you said sourly. It wasn’t directed at him, exactly, but moreso at your brain, which was failing in its task of moving past what happened. “It’s not working. I can’t sleep. Sometimes I don’t think I can breathe.”

“It’s not easy,” Neal agreed, stroking the back of your hand with his thumb. It was an intimately affectionate gesture that comforted and eased the nerves beginning to bubble in your stomach. “Company helps. The reminder that I have backup, even when it doesn’t come right away. I’ve got Peter, Moz. You.” He met your eyes with a small smile and raised your hand to his lips, gently kissing your knuckles.

“Company?” You echoed uncertainly. If you were unconscious, how was company going to make a difference to what you dreamed about? Then you remembered what you had said to Dr. Sweets about your nightmares always ending with being alone. If you knew, on some level, that you weren’t alone, maybe you would feel safer. “Like, overnight?”

His expression didn’t change to give away whether you were right or wrong. Instead, he just asked, evenly, “Is that what you need?” The way he looked at you then, without judgment in his eyes, but with determination in the set of his jaw, you just knew that whatever you said you needed, Neal would move a mountain to give it to you.

“I’m not sure, but… maybe?” You hesitantly guessed. If it worked, it would be worth the awkwardness. Even just one night of solid sleep would do wonders for how you felt, and it wasn’t like it would be the first time you had stayed with Neal overnight. Long marathons on slow weekends, and the less pleasant nights after Kate’s death, meant he kept an extra toothbrush and a set of your pajamas in his penthouse.

“Okay,” he said right away with nothing but quiet matter-of-factness. It was so comforting to be proven right that you could rely on him to help you with what you needed. His tone just said, you need this, so we’re doing it, full-stop. You just hoped you were right, both so you could finally go eight hours without fearing for your life and so you weren’t inconveniencing him for no reason. “Let’s get dinner on the way. We don’t have to talk about it,” he quickly said, seeing your face. “Whatever you need.”

Everyone should have a friend like Neal, but everyone should find their own, because this one was all yours. If it weren’t for the table in the way, you would’ve launched yourself at him in a tight hug. As it was, you settled for a squeeze of his hand and a grin as wide as you could muster. “Dinner sounds great.”

The stickiness of your pants along your thigh made your hands shake, unable to bring yourself to look at your palms. You knew what you would see all over them. The fire lancing up your thigh told you what you already knew. So did the weakness in your body and the fog in your mind. It was done. The hourglass on the desk was trickling through the last of its sand. Moretti was nowhere to be seen. You couldn’t even die in the presence of a murderer.

There was screaming coming from another room. It was the desperate wail of another agent begging for their life. “No! Please!”

“No,” you mumbled, using all of your energy to turn your head to the doorway. He couldn’t… not now that you were down… you couldn’t even raise your voice to cry for help. You were completely helpless. You couldn’t save him.

Your chest burned with the effort of your heart, ironically helping you to bleed out faster. Your breaths came labored, and then they couldn’t come at all as your vision faded. The dark carpet blurred from a mass of pilled fibers into a solid navy sea. The pain in your leg was excruciating, it was all you could feel; the idea of feeling peace ever again slipping away.

Screaming. Banging. Footsteps. More screaming. Pounding. Shouting. It was all indistinguishable, a mess of men’s voices and loud gunshots. Then, you heard it. Just your name, barely audible above the rest, in a voice that made you strain to see past the blackness.

“Y/N!”

You’d give the rest of your precious seconds away just to see him one last time, just to know he was beside you and you weren’t alone.

“Y/N!”

Footsteps came closer and the pressure on your chest intensified. The blood loss made you dizzy and your body shook.

“Y/N!”

You jolted awake, eyes snapping open in time to see Neal leaning out of the way just in time to avoid your hand flying at his face. You processed slowly that his hands were on your shoulders – had he shaken you? – and it was still dark. You could barely see his face, but his figure was lit from behind by the lamp next to his bed. You could tell from his messy hair that he had been sleeping not long ago, and you felt awful for waking him up.

After cursing, you sat up and gripped the warm blanket on your lap tightly. “I’m sorry,” you said remorsefully, feeling like a fool. Not only hadn’t you been able to sleep through the night, but now you’d ruined his rest, too. You cussed again. “I really hoped being close… just not being at my apartment, alone…”

It had felt like a safe bet off to a good start. You had gotten dinner together near Gramercy Park, then watched a lighthearted movie before turning in for bed. Neal offered to let you take his mattress, but you didn’t want to put him out and you had slept over enough that he didn’t feel like a bad host for letting you insist on the sofa. You’d been out by ten, but now you could guess it had been less than four hours. Your heart was still racing, your leg still tense with an imagined pain.

“It’s okay,” Neal said, sounding unsettled. He kept his hands on your shoulders like he was keeping you grounded on the earth. “Don’t worry about it. It’s okay.”

Neal’s eyes must have already adjusted to the low light, because his aim was spot-on when he lifted a hand from your shoulder to cup your neck instead. His profile ducked and you felt his lips land on your forehead, checking your temperature, signalling forgiveness, and administering reassurance all at once. He rubbed his thumb across your jaw as he stood up straight, releasing you, and walked away around the couch.

You put your legs down in front of you and rubbed your face, exhausted mentally and physically. Helplessness made you want to cry. Time wasn’t healing. Sleeping pills just made it harder to wake up, letting the nightmares ravage your psyche for longer. Not even the proximity of someone you trusted and adored was enough to let go of the past.

The light in the kitchen came on, bright enough to illuminate the studio but far enough away not to be blinding. Neal came back to the couch holding a bottle of water and offered it to you before sitting down. He looked so adorable, still sleepy and with a bit of pink in the side of his face from sleeping with his arm under his pillow. You scolded yourself for even thinking about how cute he was when you were the one who had woken him up.

You sipped at the water. It was so nice and smooth on your throat. You felt fine, now that you were awake, but the vividness of your nightmares always left you feeling parched and you always expected swallowing to hurt as if you had strep. Neal leaned into the back of the couch and put his arm up along the cushions. You capped the water, bent your knees to pull your feet back up onto the furniture, and let yourself lean into his side. Neal dropped his arm softly on your shoulders, holding you in a tender sideways hug.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized again after a couple of minutes. You felt much better, much faster than you usually did, thanks to him, and if you were being fully honest, you were not ready for him to get up and go back to bed, but it wasn’t fair to ask him to stay up cuddling you at god-knows-what-time just because you were a wreck.

“I told you, it’s okay,” Neal said, his voice firm. If you apologized again, you figured he would start scolding you for it, so you let it go.

“I just – I should’ve expected this,” you said with frustration, feeling like you were confessing to knowingly bothering him. “I haven’t been able to sleep well in ages. I keep having these nightmares, I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

Neal was quiet for a few seconds, making sure you had said all you were inclined to. Then, knowingly, he asked, “This is about the Moretti case, isn’t it?”

“I can’t let it go,” you said with a whimper. “It won’t leave me alone. Every night, it’s a little bit different, but at its core it’s always the same.”

Neal’s voice cutting through the fog of your nightmare had been a saving grace, giving you peace even in your unconscious, but now that you were awake, you realized with clarity that his voice saying your name wasn’t the only voice you could make out. In fact, you always heard the same thing, every night, no matter what else changed.

“What’s the same, Y/N?” Neal asked you, trying to help. He stroked your upper arm with his open hand. You were already shaking your head. Neal could comfort you all he liked, but he couldn’t bring back the dead. In grief and shame, you turned your head and bent your neck to bury your face in his shoulder. Neal tilted his head so his cheek was resting gently on your hair. “Tell me, darling,” he coaxed in a whisper.

You felt like someone’s hands were wrapped around your throat, strangling your reply. “Agent Flynn,” you answered dryly, barely more than mouthing his name. “In every nightmare, I hear… I hear his last words. Begging Moretti not to take the shot.”

Neal was quiet for a long time, but never pushed you away. He held you closer when you started to shake, crying against him as quietly as you could manage. The artist rubbed your arm and periodically kissed your head, but he knew that there was nothing he could say to erase the horror of what you had heard or take away the guilt that you had survived because Moretti was distracted by taking out the other agent.

Moretti was part of a family gang, often in conflict with the Barellis, who, interestingly, paid a little deference to the white-collar division ever since you and Peter had recovered a stolen Book of Hours. The Morettis had no such connection or gratitude, so their response to the FBI sticking their nose into an embezzling scam was violent and bloody. Moretti shot you in the leg and intended to finish you off, but one of his own men had reported you came with someone. He left you to bleed out, and only a few rooms over, you had heard Flynn’s pleas – and the subsequent gunshot. Your team, wising up to the dead signal, arrived for a takedown before Moretti could make his way back to you, but it was too late for your teammate.

Neal shifted after what felt like forever, only to pull you closer to his chest and wrap both arms around you. You trembled in his embrace, but that just made him hold you closer, like you were delicate and breakable. When he next talked, his low voice was quivering, just like your body.

“I thought we lost you,” he said, cupping the back of your head in a gentle hand. He massaged his fingers into your scalp, even as he kept you cuddled in his lap. “I thought I lost you, Y/N. Two gunshots. I thought…” He struggled to find his words and you hiccuped, trying to stop crying. “I was the one who found you, and I was so scared I was too late.”

You sniffled and uncrossed your arms to melt against his chest and hug him tightly around his waist instead. “I didn’t know you…”

“We found him first, but you weren’t there and I needed to find you.” Neal now sounded equal parts frightened and furious. “If he had taken you away, I would’ve…” He shook his head and pressed his forehead to yours, as desperate to be close to you as you felt to be close to him. “I would’ve shattered. I can’t lose you, Y/N. I just can’t lose you, too.”

“I’m so glad I didn’t die,” you blurted, almost in a sob. You felt so safe with him, but now you knew for a fact that your own safety wasn’t what had been tormenting you. It was a nearly debilitating case of survivor’s guilt. “I just wish I hadn’t been the only one who survived.”

“No one wants that,” Neal promised you, untangling his hand from your hair and stroking it down instead. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could fix this and take it away, but all I can do is be here and hold you and tell you it’s going to be alright. It wasn’t your fault.”

You sniffed. Neal’s words were more of a comfort than you had thought they would be. They changed nothing about the situation, but… you weren’t alone. You hadn’t been alone since you met him. You just agonized that Flynn had been. “Neal, I can’t lose you, either. I love you, you’re… you’re who I’m going to heal for.” You had to find a way.

Neal seized your lips with his in a searing kiss. It wasn’t as sexy or patient as you may have imagined, but you gripped his shirt and gave as good as you got, and wow, the man gave verygood. It was a desperate kiss, needing to bring you together and reaffirm your life. To you, it was the seal of a promise that you wouldn’t let the past crush your spirit. When you could sleep through the night and had a handle on your post-traumatic stress… if he would just be patient, you would be his the way you wanted him to be yours.

He released you to breathe, eyes opening wide as if he only just realized what he had done. Before he could pull away, you pressed your forehead to his again, urging him to stay close. Your breaths mingled between you and you were sure you could feel his heart beating through his chest.

“I love you, too,” he said once he had caught his breath.

[lexpressobean]

Thoughts on Kikaichu as actual Parasites.

Knowing how skin and the body generally works on a medical level, the "hive" aspect of the Aburame clan really drives me crazy. 'Cause parasites are real, obviously, but the size of Kikaichu beetles makes absolutely no sense in comparison to irl skin parasites. At least not in a bee hive sort of way lol

rambling because my mind craves logic and I'm specializing as a wound care nurse but it's literally anime so what do I expect lol

No, wounds don't freak me out, I'm more terrified of generally handling vomit and babies than I am a dehiscence of a 15cm long surgical site lol. The human body can literally take so much abuse before it really starts to give and try to alert you that you need help! And once you give it help, it really can come full circle to the wound 100% looking like it was never there. The body is an amazing thing <3

However the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the word "parasite" is always going to be "tapeworm". That's not gonna change. However, kikaichu are not worms and CERTAINLY don't grow that fucking huge or live that long. (A tape worm can live long enough to graduate with a fucking PhD. Can you believe?) I haven't been exposed to any urgent situations involving parasites yet, however, the one I would compare a Kikaichu to that is (unfortunately) also common is the scabies mite.

Very briefly, scabies mites (Sarcoptes scabiei) are technically a type of arachnid that grow no bigger than a bout 0.5mm in size, but CAN be seen with the naked eye if you're looking for them. They crawl around the skin and burrow specifically in the top layer of skin, called the epidermis. The epidermis is that protective layer of skin and can be between 0.5mm to 1.5mm thick depending on which part of the body you're looking at. After the epidermis, you have the dermal layer, which is where sweat glands, nerves, and capillaries are found. Scabie mites will not burrow that deep because they only burrow to lay their eggs and such. As they do this they can cause visible tunnels and other marks that can be mistaken for acne or other skin conditions if not properly identified. You'll most likely know because the itch is VERY BAD.

They're very easily spread by close contact and a scabies infestation needs to be treated with a prescribed pharmacological means.

However, kikaichu are definitely a lot bigger than 0.5mm. In the case of size, I would compare them at minimum to fruitflies/medflies, which grow up to 3-5mm and maximum to ladybugs 4-7mm.

3-7mm > 0.5-1.5mm... obviously. And the holes which Kikaichu swarm out of that the audience has seen before are about a size comparable Shino's nostrils, IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!!

You're telling me those things were in his mouth?????????? S H I N O N O

That would mean, in realistic terms, the Kikaichu are fucking around in Shino's body to the bone and muscles and THAT'S A REALLY SCARY THOUGHT. Even just passing the epidermis to the dermis is alarming! Compared to the dry, protective epidermis that can and does take damage, the dermis can be 1-4mm thick depending on where you're looking and is where skin does it's business. All together that becomes 0.5-5.5mm of space BARELY big enough for a fruit fly do mess around in. It makes just enough sense in terms of THAT size, but last time I checked, having the skin penetrated to the dermal layer is just asking for infection to happen. You're first natural line of defense has been breeched, there's a pretty good chance you're gonna be bleeding (blood vessels) and general body fluids are going to be draining, which is bad for a multitude of reasons, and there's damage that gonna affect the nerves, and realistically this shit is going to be ABSOLUTELY painful if they're constantly manipulating those areas near nerves. These kinda of things CAN make new connections and things like that, sometimes damage is forever. (Case by case basis).

So my first thought to more or less "magically" solve the problem with anime logic, is that first of all, it's an anime and logic doesn't have to apply haha.

On a more sci-fi level, in which kikaichu are smaller than we've seen them shown, maybe they have been purposefully been allowed to burrow into the dermal layer of the skin at least because the blood vessels seem to be in direct contact with the chakra system. Kikaichu's prefered food is chakra, but they WILL mutiny and eat their respective Aburame from the inside out if they don't balance their chakra smartly. So it's safe to say Kikaichu are at least carnivorous as well, and so I only imagine these absolute nightmares would swarm their prey in the wild, and actively bite through and burrow into the body of the prey until they found the chakra system and went to town on that poor unfortunate soul. Eaten alive, how the hell did they "tame" them in the first friggin' place??

I like to think two things:

1) Kikaichu are passed down from parent to child, and the parent has control over the Kikaichu until they have been RIGOROUSLY trained for generations to comprehend that this baby/child isn't food, it's a new hive. If bees can comprehend time, Kikaichu can comprehend what an Aburame is. If they insist on trying to drain the babe or the babe just can't tolerate them, the parent takes the Kikaichu back and the babe is assigned another insect or position in general. Like hell they're gonna try to force a relationship like that.

2) As part of the successful symbiotic relationship, Kikaichu regularly debride the tunnels and borrows that they carve into their respective Aburame, and are naturally intuitive in avoiding as many nerves and blood vessels as possible. The chance of infection is never 0%, however, kikaichu are pretty good about taking care of their tunnels, and so it gives the Aburame more time to focus on their things, like increasing the amount if chakra in their system. To ensure that they stay healthy, Aburame are encouraged to eat as much protein and Vit C possible every day, whether it be meat, beans, lentils, eggs, oranges, tomatoes, or even supplements as times modernize. The dermis is living tissue and as long as debridement/tunneling is going on, it needs to be nourished as much as possible.

I don't know how the hell Aburame deal with the obvious drainage that would be coming from their bodies, assuming the dermal layer really is free game for the Kikaichu. But the magical solution is that... they don't? Because... drainage is minimal. The Kikaichu just do such a good job lol. Maybe they purposefully... carve entrances to be flappy, or they purposefully create pocket spaces underneath seemingly healed areas of skin to easily burst open when necessary. That's the biggest thing for me, leaking body fluids. There's no way around that shit besides straight up denial lol Maybe they wear a special kind of dressing underneath their clothes, or that's directly applied with their clothes. Maybe that's what that cute little backpack is filled with, who knows!!

Idk man. I'm sure the Aburame authority forces encourages many of their non-hive members to pursue medical nin training in order to give the clan more privacy in general too. All medics that claim the Aburame name are exclusively used by the Aburame Clan. A non-Aburame medic may end up healing tunnels and burrows that were meant to stay open because "oops" and now you have an X amount of insects possibly suffocating within a completely sealed pocket of the skin, and also now there's a very good chance that after those insects die, that whole area is gonna frickin' abscess and cause infection induced tunnels the longer it's left alone and GROSS THAT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! THERE IS A DELICATE, ORGANIZED, SELF-SUFFICENT PROCESS TO ALL THIS!! A PROCESS!!!

Like... the other ninja in the NartVerse can make as many jokes, jabs, and comments about the Aburame as they please (INO? BITCH??? but to be honest I still love her lol). But these MFers are constantly playing Russian Roulette with these high maintenance demon spawn from hell, and there are VERY little defences against Kikaichu, virtually none. Like the only thing I've ever seen actively thwart Kikaichu across all media is killing them with mass fire, countering them with large amounts of poison gas (both very exterminator like) or literally just feeding them chakra until they're so stupid full, they can't move, the little gluttons. As far as genjutsu, it's been stated that it's both effective and ineffective, so idk about that. But the Aburame are just SO set up to be the living breathing embodiment of Shinobi as defined by the NartVerse. They're whole clan culture relies on the threat of enemies. If they have no enemies, the whole relationship is an exhausting endeavor for literally no reason. It's not worth it if there's no one to fight or protect! But when there is a threat, you want them on YOUR side.

I suppose the best bet is to incapacitate the Aburame individual asap and the Kikaichu will tend the individual, making escape easier. But, if you DID manage to kill that Aburame right away, that particular Aburame's swarm is now suddenly without its food source and without restraint.

What do you THINK is gonna happen, bro?? The second an Aburame loses their grip on their consciousness due to external influences, the bugs go bonkers because I'm pretty sure Kikaichu are simply persuaded to be in this relationship and have NO tolerance for bullshit like alcohol and overheating temps. If their Aburame dies, they probably cause just as much chaos as they would as a wild, unattended swarm. Then YOU BETTER HAVE fire or poison gas or SOMETHING handy. The only way to calm them down is to offer them chakra and a new host with equal or even more chakra reserves. Otherwise the mutineers must be eradicated.

And for serious... Like, any deeper and the kikaichu would be in the hypodermal/subcutaneous layer of the skin and that's where a lot of connective tissue is located. Let's NOT mess with that shit, shall we? NOT a good idea. It's called connective tissue for a reason first and foremost...

[iboughtaplant]

I tried to write angst! Here is a short Geraskier fic I wrote based on the Regina Spektor song Samson. 

A Pair of Dull Scissors in the Yellow Light 

Rating: T

Warnings: no archive warnings 

Relationship: Geralt/Jaskier 

Tags: Established Relationship, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst, Fluff and Angst, Blood, Head Injury, Haircuts, Sort Of, Songfic, Song: Samson (Regina Spektor), a lot about Geralt's hair, I love Geralt's long hair so idk why I wrote a fic about his hair being chopped off

Read it on AO3

Geralt’s hair had always been long the whole time Jaskier knew him. Granted, Jaskier hadn’t known Geralt for very long compared to how old the witcher was.

When he first saw him, Jaskier was drawn to the quiet witcher seated in the corner. His long silver-white hair framing his handsome face. He was then of course drawn to the medallion and swords that marked him as a witcher. Not just excited to talk to a pretty face, but to hear the stories he could tell.

They might not have got off to the best start, but Jaskier...he loved Geralt. It might have been a bit of hero worship at first, this brave, strong witcher with a heart of gold. Branded as a mutant, a butcher, the stuff of nightmares in stories told to small children. But Jaskier loved him first. He loved Geralt above all else. His lute might be a close second, but that didn’t detract from the fact that he loved Geralt first.

It also meant he was already head over heels in love with Geralt when Geralt finally confessed that the love was mutual a few years into their friendship.

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

Soon after Geralt confessed his feelings, Jaskier also learned about how Geralt’s long hair was linked to his witcher abilities. He already knew that its silver-white color was due to Geralt’s mutagens, but he hadn’t known there was more to it.

They were in Oxenfurt and Jaskier’s hair was getting too long for his liking, so it was the perfect excuse to spend some of the coin he earned playing in a tavern the night before on a proper haircut from a barber.

“Geralt, you should come with me. I am sure I have enough coin to pay for you to get your hair trimmed.”

“It’s fine, Jaskier. It doesn’t need to be cut.”

“Well maybe it doesn’t need it, but a haircut can be nice and relaxing. I know you love when I wash your hair for you, and they will do that at the barber’s as well.”

“No, Jaskier, it doesn’t need to be cut because it is always the same length.”

“But doesn’t your hair grow? Is it magic that keeps it from growing out of control?” Jaskier asked.

Geralt answered with a “hmm.” He took a long pause before saying more. “It must be tied to the spells the mages used, however they might have changed the mutagens. I don’t know. I don’t cut my hair. And it doesn’t grow past a certain length.”

Geralt then told Jaskier that due to some odd reaction between his body, the extra mutagens, and the magic of the mages his hair was cursed to be tied to the abilities and heightened senses the mutagens afforded him.

Jaskier had thought that Geralt’s long hair had been his one vanity. But of course it was yet another thing out of his control. But it made him curious if Geralt was the only witcher whose hair was tied to his powers.

“I’ve never heard of another witcher with white hair like yours,” Jaskier said. He didn’t want to ask a more pointed question.

“Because I’m the only,” Geralt said, voice thick with emotion. “The only one to receive a second dose of mutagens. Well the only one to survive it at least. The mages experimented on others before me, but I was the only one to survive the ordeal.”

“That’s awful, my love. I’m sorry you had to endure that.” He paused. “And I know it won’t make you feel better about it, but it is quite dashing, if I do say so.” Jaskier said, edging closer to Geralt and running his nimble fingers through the soft strands.

“How about I forgo the haircut and we can spend our coin on that nice soap you pretend you don’t like. I’ll wash your hair for you. And then we can braid it. A bit of a change even if you can’t cut it.”

“I’d like that,” Geralt said in a soft voice.

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

The yellow-orange light of the campfire made everything glow. The atmosphere felt far more comfortable than the current situation. But Jaskier was thankful for the light it granted. Jaskier scrambled to dig his scissors out of his pack and make his way back to Geralt, unconscious on the ground, only his thin bedroll under him.

“I’m sorry, my love,” Jaskier whispered through his tears to Geralt’s unconscious form as he took the scissors—considerably duller than he would have liked, he had forgotten to ask Geralt to sharpen them for him recently—and began to cut away Geralt’s silver locks that were stained red by blood and gore matted in them.

Unfortunately, most, if not all, of the blood belonged to Geralt, the gore belonging to the beast he killed, but not before it almost killed him.

Jaskier’s hands were shaking, he had to grip the scissors with both hands, one hand supporting the other. He had to cut Geralt’s hair. He had to. They were in the middle of a forest, in the middle of nowhere. No towns were close enough to travel to with an injured witcher. Not to mention the fact that Geralt had already been running low on potions. They were going to restock on potion ingredients in the next town they visited. But again said town was too far to travel when Geralt was severely injured and Jaskier was only human, and would not make it there and back with help in time.

The gash on the back of his skull was nasty. Jaskier knew that head wounds bled profusely regardless of their severity, but this one was quite bad and even a witcher could die from bleeding out.

He kept whispering apologies to an unconscious Geralt as he cut away, piece by piece, the tangled, matted hair and clumps of monster gore to better see the wound. The bleeding had hardly slowed, and Geralt had also lost blood from a thin slice down his side. At least the bleeding of that wound had slowed and Jaskier had been able to crumple up one of their shirts to put pressure on it and wrap a bandage around it.

The head wound was much more worrying. Once Geralt’s hair was mostly cut away, Jaskier was able to clean the wound with the water from his water skin, some alcohol from a flask as an antiseptic.

It was a rough job, but at least the wound was cleaned and the bleeding finally slowed. From his kneeling position, Jaskier finally sank down onto his heels. He could feel the sticky tear tracks down his cheeks. He ran his hands through his hair, pushing it back from his face. He felt the tackiness of the blood still on his hands.

Geralt’s hair had been covered in blood, only fitting that his was now. Geralt’s blood. It was Geralt’s blood on his hands and he hated it.

Once the adrenaline started to wear off, Jaskier realized his hands were shaking again. Or maybe they had been shaking the whole time. It was still an odd sensation as his hands were always steady. Geralt pointed it out many a time when he had to guide Jaskier through stitching him up over the years.

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

Once Jaskier was done stitching and bandaging, all he could do was wait. Sit and wait for Geralt to wake up. He felt anxious and tired at the same time. Excess energy thrummed through him while his limbs felt heavy like lead.

He looked at his lute, but felt no compulsion to play it. He should probably eat, but any food would probably taste like ash in his mouth.

He laid back on his bedroll and tried to relax. He would be no use to Geralt when he woke up, if he was keyed up and anxious. He sighed and stretched out, his arms pillowed beneath his head as he stared up at the sky.

The stars were bright, twinkling spots of light speckling the inky sky. It made the world feel big, and made him feel small. He was but a small speck in the grand scheme of things. He glanced over at Geralt and felt a smile cross his face. Geralt was more beautiful than all the stars in the sky and twice as bright. The stars were just old light.

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

Jaskier was woken up by Geralt sitting down on the edge of his bedroll. He didn't even remember falling asleep. Geralt was slow to sit down as he leaned against Jaskier’s legs, his injuries taking a toll. Jaskier wasn’t sure if he wanted to know if it was more than usual. Was Geralt human now? Did his witcher healing at least do its part before Jaskier cut his hair?

He was pulled out of his spiral when Geralt spoke. “Your hair’s red.” Geralt said in a slur.

“What?” Jaskier asked, scandalized and afraid. Of course of all things Geralt was focusing on his hair, oh the irony. Jaskier also had the thought that somehow Geralt was seeing the blood in his hair from when he ran his hands through it earlier.

“In the light, looks red,” Geralt mumbled. “You’re beautiful.”

“Oh, Geralt.” Jaskier sobbed. In the light of the fire—that he somehow managed to keep burning—his hair looked red. He buried his head in his hands, still curled up on his bedroll. He felt his tears plastering his hands to his face. He couldn’t look at Geralt. He couldn’t face his honey-golden eyes, full of softness that betrayed his hard edges.

He essentially killed the man he loved. Maybe that was a bit dramatic. But Geralt is, well was a witcher. Jaskier just took that away from him when he chopped all of his hair off. His beautiful silver hair. Jaskier knew that Geralt was more than his hair, he almost cried when Geralt admitted that he loved when Jaskier told him all the things he loved about him and his hair wasn’t near the top of the list.

Geralt leaned more heavily into Jaskier and sighed. Jaskier removed his hands from his face and looked up at the love of his life, his greatest downfall. He stifled another sob that threatened to come out and looked at Geralt.

“My head hurts.” Geralt said in a small voice that was out of character for him. He sounded so vulnerable.

“You had, well have, a head wound. It was bad. Oh Geralt it was so bad. There was so much blood. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You saved me.”

“But at what cost, my love?”

Geralt didn’t answer his question. He just said, “My hair’s gone isn’t it.”

Jaskier sat up and wrapped his arms around Geralt, situating himself behind him so Geralt was in the vee of his legs, still on Jaskier’s bedroll, Geralt’s abandoned a few feet away.

“I’m so sorry,” he muttered wetly into Geralt’s shoulder, lightly trailing his fingers down Geralt’s arm.

“You did good, Jask.”

“Don’t tell me that. How can you say that? I took it. I took your strength. I took it all. I-I, I hurt you.”

“No, the monster hurt me, you saved me.”

“Are you even a witcher anymore? Can you tell? If I took that away from you, I-”

“I never wanted to be a witcher, Jask,” Geralt said as he leaned his head back against Jaskier. He let out a slight hiss of pain and Jaskier felt a hand was squeezing his heart at the sound.

“I’m sorry. I am. But I had to save you. I couldn’t watch you bleed out. It was the only way.”

“You did alright, Jaskier.” He paused. “Wanna see you, help me turn around.”

Jaskier sucked in a breath. He knew he would have to meet Geralt’s eyes eventually. He helped Geralt turn around in his arms and supported most of his weight as he leaned into Jaskier. He looked into Jaskier’s eyes and Jaskier looked back. He looked into those honey-gold eyes and he felt settled. Geralt wasn’t mad. Jaskier took in Geralt’s face. It was clean, Jaskier had made sure of that. And his hair, of course, was short. Silver strands cropped close to his scalp, uneven in a few—well many—places. The bandages wrapped around the crown of his head. He was beautiful.

Geralt kissed Jaskier then. And Jaskier kissed back. Geralt kept kissing him. Soft, gentle kisses. Comforting kisses. They laid down on Jaskier’s bedroll, Jaskier pulling Geralt’s body on top of his own so he could support him, so his head wouldn’t touch the ground. Geralt insisted on kissing him more. He kissed him until the morning light broke through the trees of the forest surrounding them in golden light.

[piracytheorist]

Till I Can Stand On My Feet Again (1/1)

Fandom: Resident Evil Village

Summary: One simple change; Heisenberg is the one to show Ethan what he is, and drags him to watch his fight with Miranda. Scared of himself but determined to protect his daughter, Ethan’s path takes a different route. (Basically, an Ethan Lives AU cause my heart and soul need it)

Word count: 5.3k AO3

~

“Not bad, not bad, Winters!”

Ethan’s hand rose instinctively, gun aimed directly at Heisenberg’s head. He was walking down a series of metal pieces from the chamber that he moved to resemble a staircase.

“You would’ve made a useful ally in my fight against Miranda,” Heisenberg said. “Too bad your feelings override your logic.”

“Fuck you!” Ethan shouted, firing two bullets at him. He wasn’t surprised they ricocheted off a metal shield Heisenberg put up just in time, but he was too stubborn to regret the wasted ammo.

“You amuse me, Ethan. You’re so hard-headed you can’t even see what’s right in front of you.”

“I’d never join you!” He hadn’t lowered his pistol.

“Sure, sure. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Before Ethan could see it coming, a pair of handcuffs flew and wrapped around his wrists. He managed to fire once before his pistol was snatched from his hands, but the bullet didn’t seem to hit anything. Heisenberg threw away the gun without even looking at it, or the rest of Ethan’s guns as he pulled them off of him.

“Damn it,” Ethan said under his breath. “What the fuck do you want from me?!”

Heisenberg’s gloved hand jolted up and Ethan was flying backwards, grunting as his back met with the metal door he had just attempted to open. His hands went up and he sighed exasperatedly. At least he wasn’t hanging from them this time.

“I’m returning the favor,” Heisenberg said. “You’ve been giving me quite the show since you stepped foot in this village. How long has it been now? Barely a day, and you’ve survived so much.” By now he was right in front of him. “Did you even count the amount of injuries you sustained?”

Ethan stared at him in confusion. “What?”

“I have been watching. And don’t forget, one of those was my initiative.”

Without a warning, he grabbed Ethan’s sweater and the t-shirt under it and raised them up to Ethan’s chest. He extended the index finger of his free hand and he touched the place where he’d stabbed him with that metal pole… indeed, barely twelve hours ago.

“Look at it, it’s already scarring.” His voice sounded less amused now; more focused, serious. “It should have taken days to close, weeks to heal. You shouldn’t have been able to walk, let alone run or fight, until it stopped opening and bleeding every time you took a step.”

Ethan shrugged; if he were honest, he hadn’t actually given himself the time to wonder how it all had worked. “What can I say? The healing stuff found around here works wonders,” he said, a bitter tone in his voice.

“What? This junk?” With another move of his fingers, Ethan’s last bottle of healing salve flew from his inner jacket pocket to Heisenberg’s hand, probably manipulated by the metal cap. “Some fucking disinfectant?”

Despite the confusion setting in his mind, Ethan couldn’t ignore the relief at Heisenberg not touching his naked torso anymore. He shook his head. “It’s not- AARGH!” His sentence was cut short by a cry of pain as something stabbed through his finger. Before he even had time to raise his head to see it, a particularly sharp metal piece had pierced through the index finger of his right hand, completely cutting it off. His knees gave out and he slid down the door, his haunches dropping to the ground.

Heisenberg picked up the fallen digit, saying, “See, I was even generous to not remove more fingers from your crippled hand. But you wouldn’t need worry, even if I had. See?”

Ethan whimpered, curling his right hand into a blood-soaked fist as Heisenberg turned the finger so that Ethan could see the inside of it. “What- what am I supposed to see?” he said between gasps of pain.

“The mold, Ethan.”

His throat went dry. “The what?”

Heisenberg leaned down to him and brought the finger even closer. The lights in the room suddenly turned brighter, and in his absolute horror, among the mess of blood, muscle and bone, Ethan could see small, black tendrils across the inside of his finger, moving. His voice shook in a breathy whimper.

“Don’t tell me you think that’s normal,” Heisenberg said. Ethan gasped as the handcuffs moved suddenly; Heisenberg grabbed his right hand, keeping it steady with physical and magnetic force as he brought the finger back to its place.

“Wh- What are you-” Ethan started.

“Patience,” he interrupted.

Ethan swallowed past the lump in his throat. It couldn’t… no, the BSAA had tested him… maybe Heisenberg was toying with him, the way Donna Beneviento had?

“You think it was that liquid you carried around that healed you, right?” He lifted his head, sunglasses moving away from his face through magnetic powers. “I suppose you’ve heard of the placebo effect.”

“No…”

“No, you haven’t, or no, you can’t believe it?” His eyes were boring into him. Whatever Heisenberg was trying to tell him, he was dead serious about it.

“You’re lying. You’re just messing with me.”

“Am I?” Heisenberg shrugged, raising his hands as well.

It was then Ethan realized he had actually let him go. He looked down at his hand; his finger had been perfectly reattached, though with a visible scar around the connection.

“Even if it had been a top-notch surgeon to reattach your finger, under perfect hospital conditions, it would still take weeks for your finger to regain its full mobility, if even that.”

Panting hard, Ethan tested his digit. Though the skin around the scar itched a little, it moved as perfectly as before. He looked up at Heisenberg, who was now smiling wide.

“Wha- why…” Ethan tried.

“Why else do you think Miranda was after you?”

“What? How would Miranda even know about us?”

“Oh, she knows some powerful people.”

Ethan shook his head. “No. Only the BSAA knew where we were living, about our involvement with the Dulvey-” He cut himself off, then looked at Heisenberg, feeling like an idiot. “The BSAA?”

Heisenberg shrugged. “Weren’t they the ones who’d made you feel safe and protected enough to start a family? To have a child? The ones who probably told you you were safe from whatever shit you went through in America?”

“Wh- what shit are you talking about?”

“I stabbed you, for fuck’s sake!”

Despite himself, Ethan shrunk backwards a little.

Heisenberg went on. “The now-dead tall bitch drank your blood, strung you up with hooks from the ceiling, cut off your whole hand! Only now you’re wondering?” He shook his head, amused again. “Talk about denial, Winters. No healthy, living man should be able to reattach limbs just like that.”

“Living?” Ethan said in a weak voice.

“Well… as living as the mold inside you keeps you.”

“No, no, that’s impossible. I stopped Eveline. I killed her.”

Heisenberg smiled. “You know as well as I do that sometimes, a dead man can still kill.”

It was then that it hit him; how Dimitrescu, upon tasting his blood, had said that it tasted “stale”.

His head fell down to his hands again; she’d stabbed him with hooks, her claws, cut off his hand… and there he still was. It would be impossible, unless…

“You’re dead, Ethan Winters,” Heisenberg said.

“You know he’s right.”

Ethan didn’t have to move his head to see who had spoken; he’d had enough nightmares haunted by Eveline’s form, either as a child, old woman, or transformed mold monster, to recognize her voice.

Still, he moved it, to see the girl standing just behind Heisenberg, the same, patronizing smile on her face as always. “Stop lying to yourself already,” Eveline said. “Do you think Zoe had any real idea how to reattach your hand?”

“B-but…” Ethan tried.

“Just like Lucas reattached his cut hand. But Lucas had been alive, when I infected him. You?” She moved instantly right next to him, leaning down to whisper in his ear. “Remember, when you first met Jack?”

Could he ever forget? He was welcomed to the family with a punch in the face… and Jack stomping on his head.

“That hit was stronger than Jack had intended. You were already dead when he dragged you back to the house.” Ethan shivered at the sound of a smile in her voice. “When I took you too.”

His hands were trembling; he could already feel tears pool in his eyes, and the first, stupid question to form in his mind was how he was even able to make tears. How… how could he not know? Everything else had been normal, had it not? He experienced everything he had before, hunger, thirst, heat, cold, pain… He bled. He cried.

“How exactly do you think your little Rose would be able to survive what happened to her?” Heisenberg asked.

Ethan snapped instinctively at the sound of his daughter’s name. “What ‘happened’ to her?! Or what you did to her?!”

Heisenberg raised his hands again. “I just stood by and watched. Can’t say I was really bothered to do anything.”

Stood by? He’d seen it– Heisenberg and the other Lords reaching to touch Rose… “You fucking bastard-” Ethan started, cut off by Heisenberg’s hand pressing against his mouth.

“Ah, ah. But don’t you wonder? You think she just happens to be able to crystallize and be brought back unharmed? Don’t you wonder whether she takes after you?”

After him?

His eyes widened. Mia had had the vaccine. He had not. The BSAA had reassured them both the mold hadn’t left any lasting effects on their bodies. But he… Rose…

New tears formed in his eyes, this time starting to run. To his surprise, Heisenberg seemed to show understanding, as he pulled his hand off and stood up, turning his back at him.

Was that what Mia had kept from him? Did she- had she… when… how…?

Was that why Chris had killed her? Did he want to isolate Ethan, and had he feared Mia would protest, and decided she had to get out of the way? If the BSAA had told Miranda… she would get Rose, and they would get him…

It was all because of him. Rose was… infected, because he was. Because he was too stupid, and too worried about Mia instead of himself, to notice that something was wrong with his body, before deciding to bring her into this world.

“Seeing as those old news have shocked you, I will extend my last chance,” Heisenberg said, still turned away from him. “I am going to use Rose’s powers either way, but you can choose to stand by my side and enjoy watching that bitch Miranda dying.”

Within the waves of panic and sorrow, Ethan was nearly surprised to feel rage build back up in his chest. He looked up as Heisenberg turned to face him, and actually spat at his direction. “My ‘fuck you’ still stands.”

Heisenberg shrugged. “I tried.”

Ethan’s shoulders hunched forward as he felt his rage wash off, his previous feelings surfacing again. He didn’t bother watching as Heisenberg moaned and roared, his body fusing itself with steel and iron in yet another horrific body transformation. Ethan had seen enough of those in a day that he couldn’t be bothered to feel shock at it.

The shock at realizing his own condition was enough.

Instead of throwing Ethan in a cell, Heisenberg simply passed a chain around his handcuffs, secured it to his metallic body and forced him to walk beside him and his metal army towards the ceremony site.

It seemed the asshole was still enough of a drama king that he wanted Ethan as an audience to the show of him taking revenge on Miranda.

Not that Ethan minded the idea of Miranda being taken care of. But with Heisenberg transformed into an iron giant, surrounded by hordes of soldats and zombies that for once weren’t trying to kill Ethan, he couldn’t help wondering how the hell he had any chance of saving Rose.

He was still determined to, no matter the potential cost to himself. Though, with him being already dead, what were really the limits?

He had none, he realized. First chance he’d get, he’d grab Rose and run. To where, he didn’t know.

He was nothing but a corpse full of mold. How could he ever raise his daughter properly? With the BSAA coming after him?

He had to. He owed it to Rose to find a way to save her and keep her safe.

~

The village looked nearly unrecognizable now. Trees made of mold had broken out of the ground in various places, ruining any house that hadn’t already been ruined by the lycan attacks. Heisenberg was leading, his tank form flattening any obstacle on the way to the ceremony site.

Ethan’s chest grew heavy; he had no weapons, his hands were literally tied, and he would be surrounded by enemies.

Just let Rose be fine. Just let Rose be fine.

When Heisenberg pushed aside the mold trees isolating the ceremony site from the outside, Ethan stopped listening to what anyone else was saying, though he could hear voices speaking, because she was right there; Rose, in the flesh, fussing and crying, in the arms of that psycho monster.

“Rose!” Ethan screamed and tried to run to her. His body twisted as the chain pulled at his hands, and for once he found himself wishing he could cut off his hand on his own. Mold wrapped around Rose, carrying her behind Miranda, to safety, as Miranda herself transformed. Ethan couldn’t bother turning to see what she looked like.

The fight started. Ethan was being struck by stray swings of swords, drills, and mold branches. Heisenberg and Miranda groaned in effort and pain, as he would try to move to grab Rose and she would move to stop him. And still Ethan pulled at the chains that kept him restrained to the metal tank, out of reach of his daughter.

The first sound that caught Ethan’s attention was the one of gunshots being fired closeby. Three shots found Miranda, and though she cried in pain, she still kept standing and resisting Heisenberg.

And then, with the sound of metal breaking and a bullet ricocheting, the pull at Ethan’s hands disappeared and he was dashing straight ahead. He wasn’t looking, he wasn’t listening, he didn’t even care much to understand what was going on. His hands were still cuffed, but that didn’t stop them from stretching forward as soon as he saw Rose, lain on top of the Giant’s Chalice behind Miranda.

“Rose!” he shouted and ran to her. She was crying softly, small feet fussing under the blanket she was wrapped in. Ethan’s breath shook when he finally reached her. Picking her up with restrained wrists was hard, but he managed to lean her against his left shoulder. A feeling of warmth rushed through his limbs when he felt her hook her tiny hands on his jacket.

She was safe; she was whole, and she was back.

He allowed himself one shaky sigh of relief; and then he was running.

With both hands covering Rose’s head, his shoulders hunched to protect her from stray attacks and gunshots, Ethan bolted towards the exit.

“No!” he heard Miranda’s distinctive wail.

Tendrils of mold sprang out of the ground, wrapping around Ethan’s ankles. He screamed out as he fell, turning to the side so Rose wouldn’t be hurt.

“You will not take her from me!” Miranda cried.

Ethan turned his head to see, terror pulling at his heart as Miranda started stretching her mutated arms towards him, until more shots found her, along with a punch from one of Heisenberg’s chainsaw hands.

The mold retreated from Ethan’s legs to protect Miranda, but then another chainsaw hand appeared right in front of him as he stood up.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Heisenberg’s also distorted voice rang out.

The ground shook as a blinding flash of light erupted, centered on Heisenberg’s form. He screamed out in agony, chainsaw hand twitching wildly. Crouching down, Ethan barely avoided it as it scraped against his right bicep. He clenched his jaw, his throat shaking with a restrained grunt of pain, then ducked away from it and once again, ran off.

He felt hot blood run from the gash down his arm. He was probably bruised in multiple other places, and his right ankle complained at every jolt as he ran down the rocky steps. His vision was starting to go dark, but he chanced one look behind him. He was out of the ceremony site.

And then another flash erupted, along with another pained scream from inside. He saw it clearly now. It was some sort of laser from the sky. He didn’t care to wonder where it had come from, or to decipher the timbre of the voice to understand who had been struck. The gunshots were multiplying now, as were the screams.

A small sound from Rose made Ethan turn to her, carefully moving her so he could see her. She wasn’t crying anymore, her face was calmer. She was still grasping on his jacket, somehow realizing the safety he was providing her.

“Oh, Rose,” he said softly, feeling a lump in his throat again.

He squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing through the lump. He didn’t have time for that now. He still had to get out.

He secured Rose back against his shoulder, turned around and kept running.

His knees were shaking when he reached the square where the Giant’s Chalice was first, where the Duke was too, not that long ago. In his panic, Ethan realized he had considered him his only hope of escaping. Did he have any chances now?

“Ethan!”

His blood ran cold as he immediately recognized the voice screaming his name.

It couldn’t be…

He turned to where the sound had come from, where it kept coming as she kept shouting his name. The voice he would recognize anywhere was joined by a face and figure he'd also recognize anywhere, now running towards him.

No. Donna was dead, she couldn’t be still toying with him-

He saw Chris appear behind Mia, a rifle in his arms, and Ethan wanted to scream at her to run away from him.

But his head was dizzy, he could barely keep it up.

Mia was now standing in front of him. One hand was grabbing his free shoulder, the other was frantically rubbing at Rose’s back. She was talking to him. He couldn’t understand a word, but still her voice felt like a soothing balm on his wounded soul, nothing like the fear, guilt and anxiety Donna’s hallucinations had caused him.

When Chris spoke, however, he understood him. Because Chris said “Take the child,” and Ethan couldn’t… he couldn’t let him take her… Not again…

And then his arms were empty. Too empty. As if Rose had been a lifeline keeping him steady and afloat, and now he was about to drift off below, down into darkness and nothingness.

His eyes had already closed.

His head spun and his stomach rolled as his balance shifted; he was being pulled up, leaning on something stiff and warm, his head, arms and legs dangling.

A warm hand touched his cheek.

“Stay with us, Ethan.”

He wanted to call out for her. But his lips felt heavy, heavy as his whole body did.

“I love you. I’m right here. Stay…”

~

“You can’t stay with them! You can’t have a family! You’re a monster, a corpse, made of nothing but mold!”

Eveline laughed. She mocked and she giggled and she laughed.

And he could only stay there, kneeling on the cold ground, looking at the black tendrils of mold spread across his body, even over his clothes.

At least, he had made it. Monster or not, he had saved what mattered the most, his everything.

His daughter.

~

He was lying down on his side. For half a second, instinct was about to kick in to send his hand jolting down to his hip where his gun was.

Or would have been.

But that instinct was immediately taken over by the feeling of familiar fingers brushing through his hair. His head was resting on something warm and soft with a soothing scent.

He opened his eyes.

He saw a row of seats across from him, and he could guess he was lying on a similar set of seats. His hands were still restrained by Heisenberg’s cuffs, making him grunt in frustration.

“Ethan? Baby, can you hear me?”

Mia. Of course. Her scent. He looked down to see his head was lying on her lap. He recognized Mia’s home clothes, the ones she’d been wearing… Fuck, had it been just yesterday? That she’d been shot?

“Ethan?”

He slowly turned his head towards her. She was right there, a worried expression on her face, Rose resting on her shoulder. One hand was holding her, the other was still brushing through his hair, dirty with muck, sweat and blood as it was. Perhaps he ought to tell her, but it just felt so good…

He was struggling to keep up; Mia was alive. Rose was safe. It hadn’t been a dream; he had truly saved her. It hadn’t been a simple, easy-to-ignore nightmare either. The entire day, from watching Mia get shot, to being attacked by lycans and undead monsters, to fighting the Lords, to learning about what he truly was, it had all happened for real.

“Mia…” he managed.

“Oh, thank God.”

“How? C-Chris…”

“It wasn’t her last night,” Chris’ voice rang from the side, as he approached and sat on one of the seats across from them. “It was Miranda.”

“What?”

“She had taken my form, made herself look like me,” Mia said. “She kidnapped me yesterday and pretended to be me, wanting to take Rose too. Chris found out about her plan and tried to kill her.”

“She… she took Rose…”

“Rose is safe now. We all are,” Mia said, touching his also blood-stained cheek. “Thanks to you.”

He looked at Chris. “Why didn’t you just fucking tell me?” he asked, only remembering his promise to himself to not swear in front of Rose after the words were out.

“I should have,” Chris admitted, lowering his head. “But it all happened so fast. As soon as we realized Miranda was in your home, we had to take immediate action. I feared she might have infected you, so we didn’t know if we had the time to explain.” He sighed. He sounded really tired too. “I hadn’t expected her to survive being shot and make her move so soon. I’m sorry.”

“You were the one shooting at them?”

“Miranda and Heisenberg? My team, yeah. They were watching, waiting until you were out of the ceremony site so they could attack without any stops.”

“Where are they now?”

“Blown to bits.”

“Blown?”

“I told him you were sleeping too heavily to hear the explosions,” Mia said. “They blew up the whole village.”

Something pulled at Ethan’s heart – as much of an actual heart as he had now. Everyone in the village had been a victim of Miranda. So many lives, wasted and lost. The few villagers at Luiza’s house, the ones that had turned into lycans, even the Lords. He, the dead outsider, was the one to come out in one piece. Only Rose came out actually alive – or at least he hoped she was, in some form.

Tears prickled his eyes as he looked up at his daughter.

“You want to hold her?” Mia said, recognizing the expression on his face.

He nodded, swallowing hard against that persistent lump in his throat. Chris stood up, offering to help him sit up, but Ethan shook his head. Moving carefully, he managed to sit up on his own. His body still ached, and the longer he was awake, the more places he realized were hurting. It felt like he was all out of the adrenaline that had kept him running all day, and now the effect of everything he'd gone through was becoming more apparent.

Chris was holding a set of bolt cutters. “Let me see if I can take those out.”

Ethan turned his head towards Mia and Rose, not wanting to look at those fucking cuffs anymore. He didn’t realize tears were streaming down his face until Mia reached to wipe them away.

With a definite clank the handcuffs broke loose, and Ethan flexed his wrists around as his arms reached out for Rose. Mia handed her over.

Rose was awake. She looked up at him and smiled, hands reaching up to touch his face.

A sob escaped him. “You’re here,” he whispered. He kissed her forehead, then brought her even closer to him, nearly squeezing her against his chest.

His body started shaking with sobs. He felt Mia’s hand tentatively touch his back, and he turned towards her to lean his head against her shoulder. Mia’s hand didn’t move.

“Hold me,” he whispered, voice breaking.

He heard Mia’s shaky sigh as she wrapped her arms around him. Through his current outburst of piled-up emotions, he was somehow recognizing the irony, of a baby being calm and smiling with her parents being the ones crying.

Biting his trembling lips, he tried to focus on the sensations he’d believed he’d never feel again; Mia’s fingers in his hair, her lips on his temple, her warm breath landing on his skin.

She was never dead. He hadn’t even given himself proper time to mourn her, but he’d missed her enough for those sensations to start calming him down a little now.

His sobs were slowing down; he was still leaning his head against her shoulder, but he finally took a quick look around. He was just realizing they were in some sort of a plane. He could see the pitch black darkness outside the window, and all he could think was how everything had happened in barely a day. It had just been yesterday that he’d been home, putting Rose to bed, with fucking Miranda having invaded their house…

“Are you okay? Where were you?” Ethan asked, his voice just a little steadier.

“Miranda took me yesterday. She kept me in an underground cell in the village.”

“You were there?” He raised his head to look at her.

Tear tracks were on her cheeks too, and he secured Rose on his chest to wipe them away, feeling stupidly guilty at his fingers smearing dirt on her. But she didn’t seem to care, as she retrieved her hand to hold his.

“You were in the village, the whole time, as I was…” His voice trailed off.

“As you were rescuing our daughter.”

He shook his head, dropping his gaze. “I was only a pawn to Miranda’s experiments. I wasn’t given any choice in the matter.”

“You chose to save her. You chose to fight for her.”

A choice that had led to so much being revealed. Too much. “Mia… I…” He looked up at her; he hadn’t blamed her for keeping that secret, and it was then he realized how terrified she must’ve been of it breaking their family apart. He was as scared to admit it now as she must have been ever since she realized it herself. “You knew. About what… I am. Didn’t you?”

Her eyes widened, filling with new tears. He saw his own fear reflected on her face. However, she closed her eyes, sighed, then opened them to stare on her lap as she took her hand away, guilt clear on her face. “I did. I’m sorry, I wanted to tell you.”

“I know.”

“I should have told you…”

“I’m not sure it would have changed anything.”

She looked up at him. “What?”

“I think the BSAA had something to do with all of this. How else could Miranda have known about Rose?”

Mia’s face fell even more. “She knew about me.”

“What? How?”

“She was involved in the E-series project. I only saw her once, didn’t even speak to her, but she probably found out what the outcome of that project was.”

His head spun again. He didn’t care to hear more about that project. Knowing wouldn’t have helped him, either way. “Then the BSAA must be compromised. They wouldn’t have helped us. And I wouldn’t have acted differently myself, had I known.”

“Why-” Mia started, almost upset, then collected herself. She hunched her shoulders, dropping her gaze again. “Aren’t you mad?”

His only reaction was to breathe out a laugh. “Waiting for the other shoe to drop, aren’t you?”

“More like waiting for the storm to hit.”

“You were afraid. Of how it could break us apart.” He looked away. “Just like I am now.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw her turn to look at him. “Ethan…”

He looked down at Rose in his arms, already sleeping by now. “You didn’t… you didn’t know before we…”

“No, of course not.” She sounded almost shocked. “It was during the pregnancy that I started suspecting, and when she was born I was almost certain. I was in denial for some time myself. I’m sorry.”

“Mia…” He looked at her. “How… how did you stay?”

“What?”

“I’m dead.” He let out a shaky breath. He didn’t know if he would ever voice those words without feeling how heavy they weighed. “I’m no different than the monsters in the Baker house. Even the Bakers were probably better off than me.”

“No, Ethan, what are you talking about?” She touched his arm in a gentle grip. “Do you realize what you just did? You went in there, you fought, you saved our daughter. Do you have any idea how quickly, and how intensely, Jack Baker, or Marguerite, or Lucas, started to want to kill Zoe? And the monsters didn’t even have a consciousness…” She started brushing her fingers through his hair again. “It’s different. You’re still you, baby.”

“But what if that changes? What if I lose control?” He looked down at Rose, once again terrified at just how vulnerable she was, her mold status notwithstanding. “What if Rose…”

“We can deal with that, okay? Look at me.”

He did.

“I stayed because I saw you. I know you. And I love you. I was never worried you might lose control, I was just scared you would feel you don’t belong with us anymore, if you knew.”

“How... how can I belong? How can you want me with you?”

She smiled. “Who the hell else am I gonna choose?”

Hearing his own words thrown back at him was so jarring he found himself laughing out loud. New tears were forming in his eyes, and when Mia leaned forward to rest her forehead against his, he didn’t feel as dirty or unworthy as before.

“We can work with it, okay?”

He sighed, but then nodded.

“For now let’s just take a breath.”

He nodded again. Waves of guilt spread through his chest when she closed her eyes and kissed his lips. But that feeling of holding her close, of feeling she was really there, after he had spent a day – that had felt like an eternity – thinking she was dead, fearing for their daughter’s life, was enough to turn them into small ripples. Easy to manage, easy to wade through.

He had really had a long day. With Mia holding him close, and with Rose’s reassuring weight and warmth against his chest, he couldn’t help feeling that, finally, he deserved a break.

He was still terrified. But this was the first moment he could allow himself to not feel that, to let himself feel something better, lighter.

And he’d be a damn idiot if he didn’t take the chance.

[whalesfallmoved]

soft descent

Wedding vows for the dead. Neither of you ever had a chance. 

chargestep. rated m. twisted memories and revenge and nightmares of all kinds and ricardo ortega, starring as sidestep’s poorly repressed self-doubt, in a manner of speaking. 

or, sidestep sees nothing clearly, and her head has never been a pleasant place to be.

warnings: implications of suicide, slight body horror, violence, injury. hurt, without comfort, because of course. 

ao3 link.

——

“Oof, that’s going to leave a mark.”

You’re standing next to the window in the dark the sun blistering overhead and the glass shattered underfoot. He’s looking down. You’re looking at him. It’s always been like that. When you look down you’ll see— no. You’re not going to look down. You’re going to look at him.

“It didn’t feel great.”

He smiles and it’s broken, one hand on the windowsill, one hand on his gut where Catastrofiend’s goodbye kiss drips slowly, wetly, a splash of violence against the cobalt blue skinsuit, Ranger-proud. You want to say you should get that looked at but it wouldn’t do any good, he’s already gotten blood all over the carpet. 

Soft laugh and when he licks his lips you can see a hint of red, waiting to get coughed up, waiting to get expelled, the body killing itself to save itself—you remember the way it stuck between your fingers, the delirium—beg, the monster-thing demanded, and he laughed then too.

You look down at your hands. The way they curl up, clinging to air.

Are you bleeding? You must be. 

“Yeah, I know all about that.” 

“No,” you shake your head and your spine pops, “you don’t.”

“What, are we comparing jumps now?” 

“Are we?” wouldn’t that be something. He never talked about this before, why start now? Trying to get you to forgive him? You won’t.

“It was a longer drop.”

“And there were people there to help you.”

“Depends on your definition of help.” Head jerk to the side, beckoning you to look, look down, look at them, look at you. “Technically, they helped you too.”

Bite down, taste blood and bile. Have you started choking yet down there? You remember the way it sluiced up your throat, the way you could feel the crack and splinter of your ribcage. His brows furrow a little and maybe he feels bad. You hope so. You hope it’s twisting him up inside. 

“Wish they’d helped me to the morgue.”

Exhale, ragged and wet and torn. 

“Yeah, those contracts are a bitch, huh? Nothing like a blood debt.”

“What, you want me to feel bad for you?” You taunt, vision hazy bones aching— pulse in your ribs, they must have picked you up by now, isn’t that nice. He’s still looking down, waiting for something to happen. “Poor Ricardo. The US government branded on his ass till the day he dies. Join the fucking club.”

“Hey—” he hisses, flashing his eyes to you finally, “you could pretend to sympathize.”

“I’m so sorry you have posters and trading cards and get invited to award ceremonies and—”

“Oh, I knew I have trading cards, but how did you know I have trading cards,” a wink, sly, charming and wrong, like a bone splitting the skin. “Collecting them, aren’t you?”

“You wish.”

You want to throw up. His neck is bruised. 

He sighs, knocks his fist against the window. You both flinch. “They’re gonna keep you going till you’ve got nothing left to give, you know.”

And this time it’s your turn to laugh, bitter and cruel and serrated. You want to twist the knife in his gut you want to rake your nails down his skin, it’s the least- it’s the least you can do, god you are so angry you shake, but you’ve always been good at staying still. Hold your breath, don’t scream, fuck that hurts, and now he’s looking at you full on. “I’m already out. No thanks to you.”

Maybe he sees the way your hands are starting to twitch. The smile softens and you want to kiss-bite-punch it bruise blue to match his stupid fucking suit. 

“Are you?”

Are.

You?

I am.

Am I?

A snake in your throat curling up ready to snap bite. Your lips twist, scene hazy at the edges, and when you get your hands around his neck (oh those are the bruises, they look like your hands) you’ll both be sorry—“fuck off.”

Magic words.

Ortega shrugs, pushes the window open like it doesn’t matter, like it didn’t matter, like he can just do that; he always had to make it about himself, can’t even leave you your death, can’t even leave you your place at the window. 

You want to shove him away from it.

You want to shove him through it. 

“If you insist.”

Close your eyes.

One.

Two.

Three.

—

Dr. Mortum does not smile, not until Angel flashes her a wicked grin and a bag of cash and a promise of more where that came from if— if— if—

She flips through the schematics, eyes brightening—the loose design, the necessities, the ideas—oh, you are going to do such great things together. 

“It can be done, I assure you.”

“Excellent. My employer wants nothing but the best.”

— 

The sound of waves takes the edge off the thump of a corpse hitting the ground, but you aren’t ready for it—you aren’t ready for the scent of rotting meat, rancid and cloying under the Los Diablos sun.

You open your eyes and when you look down, a dead girl is mangled, half gone. You think— she almost looks like your target. 

Huh.

“That’s a bad idea, you know.”

Voice soft prying you know it and you groan, twist, turn, the sand uneven and blood-splattered. 

He’s got that loose hold, hip jutted on a rock arms crossed, too casual for the teething gore surrounding them. Suit torn and eaten at, blood drip-drip-dripping down his arm where the skin is all gone, you keep waiting for them to crawl through the sand and eat you both alive. Maybe you won’t save him this time. 

“Which one?” You ask, and when you look down you’re in the old suit, fitted like an infected wound. You yank at the collar, touch your cheek, your face— you’d covered your face here, hadn’t you? Yes. 

He smiles. Shakes his head. 

He hadn’t let them touch you, even when you collapsed, even when they wanted to help. 

Not that it matters. None of it matters anymore.

“So you do care about my opinion?” 

“No,” you murmur, choking down a gag—dead meat, food for the nanovores, food for the flies, “but that’s never stopped you before.”

“True,” he winks, running through the motions; what you remember, what you want to forget. Oh god you want to forget. You want to peel back this body and dig into the marrow and pull, pull, pull until the memories unravel in streams of violent orange. 

He pushes off the rock, kicks his long legs out and walks too easily for a man that almost got eaten alive five minutes ago. “Walk with me?” He asks the way you don’t ask, you order, and throws his wounded arm over your shoulder, locking you hip to hip, no way out. 

You sink under the weight, slotted to his side like a mismatched puzzle piece. Nothing about you fits, disjointed, dislocated. You’ve been shaped wrong for a long time now. They didn’t put all the parts back right. A doll unstitched and gutted for parts, but they didn’t— did they recycle you? Just medical waste and scars.

“You take me to the nicest places,” you say because it’s the only thing you can say when the sky looks like God wrapped his big meaty fist around it so tightly till it swelled and pinkened. 

Black clouds on the skyline. Here they come. Don’t they know how strong you are now? How many webs you can weave? You crack your knuckles and almost smile.

Then you see: Tía Elena crosses herself in the background. She shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe. Why haven’t they evacuated all the civilians?

“Well, you never let me take you anywhere else,” he huffs, ignoring his mother as they walk on by, and that’s not— that’s not right? 

It— no. You don’t want to be here. You can’t do that to him, not even now. 

— 

Fuck that’s good you’re invincible. The reckoning day is coming and when it does you’ll watch out for this one, you’ll remember her, how it felt to sit in her skin and move under it, but she can’t stop you. None of them can stop you now.

You smile and it’s sharp and cruel and silver. You almost almost almost want him to show up but the victory wouldn’t be quite as sweet, and you don’t really want to take a lightning bolt to the chest. Even if it wouldn’t slow you down, it’d still fucking hurt. 

But it doesn’t matter. When you drive your foot into the golden boy’s chest you can feel his ribs crack a little bit and that’s even better. You’ll be riding the high of that for weeks after this. He’s a kicked puppy and you want— you want to kick him again, but there’s no time for that, no time for anything. 

You wonder if Steel recognizes the grin right before you drop her like a body bag.

—

Gasp—jump spin dodge—near miss, fuck—Ortega laughed at the start but he’s not laughing anymore, smoke on the air, electricity crackling over his skin. 

Fire off at its head one two, one miss, one hit. Head jerks, twists.

The thing-beast groans— don’t look at me i’m not here don’t look— “yOu...” guttural ugly it sees you, it sees you.

Run run run don’t touch me— “Noa!” He shouts and you stop drop and roll just in time for a blade to swing down, headsman’s axe, grazing the suit but not quite touching. Space where your body was empty, and it howls rage-snap.

“Mother— fucker!”

This. This you remember.

You remember the way its mind shucked the skin off your bones, all slick-blood drip drip drip. Gory, wrong, wound over wire, dirty fingernails scraping on the myelin, eating eating down down down— you remember: if you let it in it’ll kill you, cut your throat on its twisty edge thoughts as quick as a knife in hand. 

You remember the images in your head— its plans, its ideas, the ways it was going to ply and split him down the middle like a rotten fruit. You couldn’t look at him for weeks. Almost. He was almost.

Almost.

Blink and the scene changes, and backup’s arrived, and you’re holding onto him, your mind pressed up against ITS just enough to make you both disappear. You threw up again and again afterward, but you still couldn’t forget, oil-slick. 

not here we’re not here don’tlookatus

Then: you covered the wound with your own hands. 

Now: you tilt your head to the side, pet his hair. It still doesn’t hurt as bad as the final impact, hitting the ground, or what came next. Suck it up. 

“I told you,” he slurs, eyes half-mast, must be hazy from the blood loss. The human body can only take so much, even with the cutting edge mods. “I know all about that.”

“You don’t know anything. You don’t know anything at all.”

Hand over wound, you push down and he groans. You might as well save him again. You still haven’t had that showdown, and you’re gunning for a win. A dozen to one then, but you’ve gotten better, faster, smarter, your body catching up with your thoughts, and he doesn’t think at all. Doesn’t even matter if he did, you wouldn’t be able to hear it. 

“C’mon, Noa,” that’s not your name, that’s the name he gave you—your name is a mouthful, he’d grinned and you’d rolled your eyes and flushed, but now it sticks like a stove burn—numbers and names and Noa, Noa, no one else has ever gotten close enough to name you— fuck you. “Throw me a bone here.”

“No.”

“Fine.” he gasps, chokes, but the words still spill loose, “but you can’t hate me for what you didn’t tell me.” He says, sounding so fucking reasonable while he’s bleeding out on your lap, and now you definitely have to save him, now you definitely have to make sure he lives, just so you can level him for that alone. Just wait, a feeling builds up in your chest, his day is coming and it’s coming fast.

“Don’t tell me what I can’t hate you for.” You want to snarl, a fighting dog, a dog fit for the ring, but it comes out weak, threadbare, and you hate the way your hands shake, the way your throat hardens up and each word is estranged from your mouth.

“At least give me a chance to prove you wrong.”

“Why?” Is that your voice? Small and weak, a child learning to make a fist, thumb tucked in. But you were never a child. You were never small.

“You know me,” he punches out a laugh and it breaks like a sob, “I love a challenge.”

“This isn’t a challenge, Ricardo. There’s just nothing left.”

—

He.

“November?”

He is.

“I thought you were dead—”

Older. Different. That feels wrong, wrong. He should be the same he can’t have changed that much. Fuck that moustache is ridiculous. He looks so heavy with grief, or is that just you, reflected back? A labyrinth of static. 

It’s all blurry and too much, not enough, but maybe— for a moment— for a moment everything shatters, fingers under a suture, and maybe— it’s just a flash of his eyes, real and in front of you and not blurred by a late night show or security footage fight you only watched to make sure he still leads with his left sucker punch with his right and maybe— 

“Are you still a telepath?”

You say yes and feel like a fool and you tell him a dash of the truth and you feel like a wound and you can’t hate me for what you didn’t tell me.

Your hands are shaking. You make a fist. 

He wants— he wants something.

A raw crack down your spine and you smile and it feels wrong. Maybe it looks wrong. He won’t stop watching you like you’ll disappear if he blinks more than once, if he looks away, and maybe you will. Maybe you’re just ash and graveyard dirt held together with sutures and wire. 

You want to crawl through the floor to someplace small and dark and cold where no one will ever find you again.

You tell him just enough, just enough to keep on hating him. 

It’ll be easier that way.

—

Rewind.

“That’s a bad idea, you know.” He cackles as you thrust out a punch—miss—and dodge his return, feet sliding on the mat. You can’t believe you let him talk you into this, a friendly spar on Ranger soil.

“Which one?” Thrust dodge lock your ankle around his own, slipping up letting you get close like that, rookie mistake— twist of your hip— throw! and the satisfying slap of skin on the mat, his skin, his body hitting the ground, but he holds hard and pulls you down with him (if you go i go) and you land— oof! breathless and grinning and on top, finally, finally.

Fingers lock and you shift, thighs on either side, pin him down, his emitters humming biting pinching but you got him, and you aren’t letting go. A shiver skip-dances down your spine, static-charged.

“I win,” you growl, a winner’s grin biting into your cheeks, free and loose (where’s your mask?)

He squeezes your hand, sends a low-grade jolt up your palms sharp, just to see what you’ll do, jellyfish stings, and you squeeze back harder, lean down till you can feel his breath hot on your lips. You never got this close before, he’s so solid beneath you.

Ricardo, grinning back, a halo of black curls fanned out, sticking to his brow all slick with sweat, “what is that, a dozen to one?”

“Shut up,” he can’t take this from you, not yet, “don’t be a sore loser.”

“Actually, I’m enjoying myself quite a bit right now. I should let you win more often.”

“Fuck you,” but it tears out a laugh far too sweet for your mouth. You feel segmented and gentle, like a scorpion smashed on a rock left out to rot in the sun. Maybe he’ll take you home, run his fingers through your matted hair and not mind the stingers or the venom. You weren’t made for a laughter light like this, and if there was ever a time you could be it’s long gone now, but you still want him to touch you, a want like a scar healed wrong.

“Buy me dinner first— ah!” You let go just to crack your palm against the top of his head, anything to wipe that smug edge off, and— “okay, fine, I’ll buy dinner,” but this time when your hand comes down he catches it, brings it to his lips, soft on your palm— oh god, oh god it hurts. 

“And then what?” You dare, you gasp, you’ve never been that bold—couldn’t afford boldness, always a coward at heart and that’s how he always won, but for a moment you let your fingers curl along his cheekbone. His eyes slide closed, kissing still—dart of tongue, tracing the line of your palm. How long is my life? How many children will I have? What do the cracks in the skin say? Maybe his mouth can divine something human in the shape of your hand, even if the lines there aren’t really yours, just a thing they gave you to play pretend.

“I don’t know,” he murmurs, still not giving you his gaze, a pained crush to his brow, “you did ask me to take you somewhere nice.”

“Did I?”

“Don’t you remember?” 

“Liar. I never asked you to do anything.”

He smiles right on your skin, like a knife sliding under your gut—girl/deer, splayed out on the slaughterhouse floor of his kindness. The world hazes at the edges, curling up set aflame. 

Somewhere nice. Too bad it can’t last. 

Finally. Finally he looks at you. Sees you. How long has it been since someone hasn’t stared through?

“No, you didn’t. I wish you would have.”

—

Choking hard gasp and the phone screams or maybe you do. Your teeth throb.

The room is heavy dark save for the corners of curtained sunlight peeking through, the air scented thickly of cheap candles and candy wrappers. The sheets are sweat-slick and you can smell your own skin, the rawness of sleep on it. Musky. Unsterilized. 

The fabric sticks and itches. Fingers under the hem, you toss the sweater aside, hear it thump damply against a wall.

Breathe. Hand to chest and yes, that’s your heart, rocking in your rib cage, slowing down. You breathe with in—ten—tion. 

One. 

Two. 

Three.

Okay, you’re okay. You can do this. You can still do this.

—

“I don’t want to do this here.”

He holds out a plate of food, tilts his head to the side, the corners of his mouth twitching up. Pushes the plate into your hands, and you take it—just hold out something to someone and nine times out of ten they’ll take it without thinking, asking only after they’ve agreed to carry the burden.  

Silly you, you never had a choice. 

His apartment is soft and safe around the edges, and your heart gets sticky in your chest. You think maybe those are your books on his shelf, the ones you lost after—

“What’s wrong with here?” He shrugs, brushing past toward the table, beckoning you to follow with a grin and a nudge.

“I like it here.” You answer honestly, for once, and he beams, a light bright enough to burn.

“I know.”

“So why are you ruining it?”

“Ruining it?” Hurt. Smile gone.

“Take me somewhere else. Anywhere else.” Somewhere cruel and sharp as a scalpel to the throat. Psychopather or Overlord or the dilapidated construction ruin you jumped out of at the second story and broke your wrist because you made a deal— you agreed to a dare— race you to the bottom down the stairs— if you lose you have to answer my questions— and god, you didn’t want to answer anything, anything at all, and he’d screamed your name, cursed you out, told you don’t be an idiot what if you broke your neck and flinched when you snapped I was just following your lead. 

“I can’t,” he shakes his head and you have to sit down, set the plate on the table before you drop it, wouldn’t want to break the fine china. Did his mother give him this? You think so; he’d taken such care, stacking each plate freshly hand washed before putting them away.

“Liar.”

“Not this time,” a loaded smile, a loaded gun, his fork twirls around on his plate. Shadow of a wrist and a vague gesture to the seams of the scenery. “This is all you. Your shape. What you made. I’m just along for the ride.”

“Then I’m not staying.”

Shrug again. Why won’t he do anything else? A looped tape, a slight glitch. Something’s wrong.

You’re wrong, maybe.

“Not even for dinner?”

You stand up. Pace. There are plans— things to be done— finishing touches— you can’t stay here. You can’t. 

“What do you want, Noa?” He asks, so softly, so gently, it would be kinder if he killed you there, but you know he won’t; it’ll take a lot more than bad table manners to push him to that, but maybe you can do it. Maybe you can get him a little ruthless, even more desperate. You’ve seen it before, in flashes, coiling green under his skin. Won’t it be funny if he breaks before you do? No blood on your hands, not yet. What a record. Fitting, almost. 

“I don’t know.” 

“Are you hungry?”

“Why?”

“Hard to work on an empty stomach,” he shrugs again, fuck, stop doing that. Bare feet silent on the carpet and you find yourself back at the table, back in the chair, sitting across from him and there’s nowhere to go—

Blink.

Sterile antiseptic white walls and doctors— in your apartment— your neighbor? Yes, that’s your neighbor he accused you of staring once, the fuck are you lookin’ at? And you weren’t staring, at least not like that, but it took a soft nudge of don’t look at me for him to go all the same. Strange. You didn’t think a doctor would live here. It’s a bad side of town, but it’s good for sidestepping. 

You think: I am going to wake up now.

Wait. No. You say this out loud. It comes through with the wet ache of drowning. 

No. Wait. Your words roll back down your throat—you didn’t say it. You didn’t say anything at all. You never have. 

All the words roll in but they’re not yours you’re fit to burst. 

It must be nice being able to speak. 

Not here.

Maybe that’s what it is to be human. 

Get real, you think because you stick your fingers in a few skulls and cut your teeth on some gray matter while someone thinks about love you know what being human is? 

I could. I could know.

They gave you a tongue and mouth and lips but you can’t kiss and you can’t make words, you can only patch together the syntax, call it real, call it human—but when you speak it’s always going to be with someone else’s voice, strangled out.

The walls are whiter now and the lights slice your skin like a hot knife through butter. It isn’t a cliff but a door you’ve already walked through and the ocean inside the warehouse inside the apartment is now a table with handcuffs. His table. Her table. You jerk your wrists and the metal clanks hard and fuck no not here not here please take me back i’m sorry i want to go back—

(he’s coming to get you)

(he wouldn’t leave you here)

(no time for the dramatics ricardo just get the door let’s blow this popsicle stand)

She smiles at you from across that metal table (wait) and tells you that you are never going to die (stop) because to die you have to be alive (i am i am i?) and you should know better by now we are going to do such great things together (please)

aren’t we, 

aren’t we, 

aren’t we.

aren’t i?

wake up now- i want to— please. 

—

You’re alone in the dark, the armor fits perfectly, and that’s all that matters.

(when you become a casualty revoked from the grave get ready a revenant coming back to eat them alive oh oh oh just you wait) 

You think you’ll keep the name.

(sidestep and charge reunited again you can see the headlines now and fuck you can’t wait to see the look on his face you were always a pair maybe he’ll stop you wouldn’t that be something)

You don’t sleep.

— 

He doesn’t stop you. 

—

“Noa?”

“Yes?”

“You are... fine, right?”

 “What are you talking about?”

“You’d tell me if something was wrong?”

“Of course I would.”

—

Your dreams are filmy, cracked wombs of (not not not) memories and gummy tissue. Press on it too hard and it moves back just the same but with a muscle deep ache. At least you know it’s a dream this time, and when you go up the stairs and find him there, you don’t hiss or spit or curse. You’ve done enough of that. He’ll carry the scars to prove it.

He’s looking out the window. He’s looking at you.

No, he’s looking at you. You flinch and you don’t know why.

“Really? Even here?”

“What?”

“Take the mask off at least. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen your pretty face.”

You reach up and your fingers find hard armor, not supple skinsuit. When you look back his face is different, older, not the poster-ready Marshal but aged, aching, and you ache with it, bone-deep. 

You’re so tired. You wonder if he is too.

The helmet comes off. Drops with a thump. 

You go to the window. After all, there’s nowhere else left, and he asked so nicely.

“What do we do now?” You ask, so softly. Still can’t look outside. Still don’t want to see what he sees. Better to watch him watch you. Now that you’re on the other side of things, you prefer it when you’re the one doing the bleeding—what a thing.

“I don’t know,” a laugh a sob or something in between, he crosses his arms and turns away, turns toward you. “Did you ever figure out what you want?”

“Yeah.”

You blink and he’s himself again, younger, more angular, a grin fit for the big screen on his handsome, handsome face. It’s easier to talk to him like this, the way you remember, the way it should be. Time didn’t move while you were gone, and you’re the only one still snapped in half.

A pause. Are you smiling now? It must be a sad little thing though, because his eyes soften up and a frown mars his forehead.

“I want to watch you grow old.” 

“What, so you can keep on teasing me? That never stopped you before.”

“Shut up, I’m not done yet.” you whisper, stepping forward, stepping up to the cliff’s edge.

“I want to watch you grow old,” reaching for his hand, and he lets you have them both, cradled so carefully—and your gloves are black and armored and insulated, but not the most protected part of your body. Could he kill you with a surge? Maybe. “And I want to watch you die in a bed. Your bed.”

“A little morbid,” he murmurs but you’ve got to keep going, you’ve got to get it out, because once it’s out you’ll never have to look at it again. “But I guess that tracks.”

Turn over his hands, you thumb at his emitters. Hint of a spark, and you laugh and now it’s sob, now it’s a wound. You won’t look at him. “I want to watch the arthritis take your hands and I want to take you away from this fucking city and we’ll both be so bored out of our minds, we’ll start inventing problems just to fix them.”

“Careful, Noa,” hands turn over, running up your armored wrists, grasping at your forearms. “That almost sounds like a happy ending.”

Wedding vows for the dead. Neither of you ever had a chance. You don’t have one now.

“And we can’t have that.”

You look up. The sun’s on his face now, turning his eyes a shade of deep whiskey, and that’s how you want to remember him; alive under the sun, smile lines just forming, his nose a bit crooked from getting punched one too many times. You’ll be on the ground in a moment.

“No,” he agrees, grasping at your elbows now, pulling you close, and you cling to his in turn. “We can’t.” Flash and grin, and there he is, just like you remember. Challenging, challenger. No chance, and neither of you know when to quit. “Want to up the stakes a bit?” 

“Always.”

You let go first. Of course. You turn to the window. You open it. 

“Whoever falls fastest wins.”

“And what do I get when I win?” When, not if.

“A quick and painless death.”

“Fuck,” you breathe. “That’s a hell of a thing. How do I know you won’t cheat?”

“You don’t,” he winks, steps back, head tilt toward the window. Mirrored. You’ve got one hand on the windowsill and one hand curled around your gut, where he sunk that barb between the plates before you cracked his skull on the ground before all of Los Diablos. “You never do. Isn’t that part of the fun?”

You take your place at the window, you set your shoulders, look down. What’s he been looking at all this time? 

Long way down, and you wait to see her; you, in soft skinsuit, teal and black and bloody and broken, but she isn’t there.

Just an ambulance, an end repeating itself.

“Person who falls the fastest, huh?”

“And hits the ground hardest.”

You climb up, clench your jaw. 

It always ends like this. 

“You’re on.”

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: Baxia and NHS.

Author’s note: this fic ended up having virtually no NHS, sorry

-

“This isn’t right,” Wei Wuxian said. “This isn’t how it should go – you’re not even supposed to be here!”

Nie Mingjue huffed, resisting the urge to roll his eyes only because he needed them pinned on the murderous battlefield the Lotus Pier had become. “No one can predict the future,” he said shortly, and stepped out into the hallway, Baxia lifted high, and another four Wen soldiers’ lives came to an end. “To think that you can is arrogance.”

“You don’t understand,” Wei Wuxian insisted, and honestly, if he hadn’t made himself extremely useful both as guide and back-up, Nie Mingjue would have sent him away long ago to spare himself the headache. “It’s not – you might die here.”

He sounded upset about that. It was flattering, given that they’d never spent any time together before now; he must be basing his impression entirely on Nie Mingjue’s reputation.

Flattered or not, Nie Mingjue still wasn’t very impressed right now. “That’s a risk you take when you fight, yes. Don’t blame yourself – there was no way to predict when the Wens were going to attack, or where; they could have just as easily have come to Qinghe.”

“They wouldn’t have been able to get close,” Wei Wuxian muttered, and that was flattering, too. “It’s just – it’s too early. We should have had another few months!”

Nie Mingjue wasn’t aware the Jiang sect had been taking the threat of Wen aggression so seriously that they’d been making estimates, but it was all for the best. 

Maybe it would help them in the war to come.

“Anyone who says they can see the future is being lied to,” he said. “Man plans and the Heavens overturn; that is the way of things. Anyway, you’re not wrong: it probably would have been later, should have been later, but they were robbed of their victory at the Cloud Recesses. There’s no satisfaction in burning empty buildings with all the treasures and people gone, no victory in it – it’s no wonder they accelerated.”

Wei Wuxian looked stricken by the thought.

“Cheer up,” Nie Mingjue said. “The Jiang sect will survive. That will be bad news for the Wens.”

Jiang Fengmian might be mild-mannered to the point of weakness, but he was an excellent cultivator, and of course Madame Yu’s fearsome reputation had been well earned. After this, they would have no choice but to be on the front lines.

“But you might not,” Wei Wuxian said again.

“A worthwhile trade,” Nie Mingjue said, and shrugged when Wei Wuxian gawked at him. “Haven’t you noticed that they’re following us? Dozens if not hundreds of Jiang sect cultivators that might otherwise have been put to the sword will be able to escape, and between all those lives and one, even my own, which one do you think will be more useful in winning the war?”

“You,” Wei Wuxian said. “You and your Nie sect, holding down Heijan like an iron wall for the Wen sect to waste its strength against.”

Was Wei Wuxian a fan?

Bizarre.

“I appreciate your confidence in my necessity,” he said, and ducked into another small nook when a group of Wen soldiers too large to easily handle ran by. The momentary rest was welcome. “And if it makes you feel better, they’re not aiming to kill me.”

“They’re not?” Wei Wuxian asked, appearing like a ghost in front of one of the sentries to slit his throat. He was surprisingly adept in the arts of warring in confined spaces, the ambush and the merciless kill; it almost made one wonder what purpose the Jiang sect had for him.

“With these numbers, if they wanted us dead, we’d be dead,” Nie Mingjue said. They’d lasted a good while longer than he’d expected, actually, a tribute to Wei Wuxian knowing how to get through the Lotus Pier in a thousand unexpected ways and their united strength, but even that was flagging: he had cuts and bruises in a hundred places, some more critical than others, and Wei Wuxian for all his pointless complaining wasn’t doing that great either. Perhaps his nattering was his way of distracting himself from their imminent fate. “I’ve humiliated Wen Xu before. Wen Chao wouldn’t be able to resist the thought of capturing me – and when he does, it’ll be the Core-Melting Hand.”

A sharp intake of air.

“Are you sure? I can understanding wanting to take you prisoner, but…”

“If he doesn’t think of it himself, I’ll make sure he does,” Nie Mingjue said, and ignored how Baxia grew warm with rage in his hand. He flipped back his sleeve and dipping his fingers into the blood seeping out of wound in his chest – an arrow that had come too close – and began drawing on his right hand with his left. “There are worse fates out there.”

“But –”

“Normal people die faster,” Nie Mingjue said, choosing the least traumatic of the possible reasons. Wei Wuxian was young; he didn’t need to know the worst of Wen Ruohan’s wretchedness. Nie Mingjue’s cultivation was too high and too compatible with Wen Ruohan’s own: his fate, if he were to go to the Nightless City intact, would not be so easy as death. He was counting on Wen Chao not knowing anything about his father’s most vile preferences, or possibly just being too stupid to think about them. “That’ll be an advantage. But more importantly, losing my cultivation renders me immediately ineligible to be Sect Leader, and my value as a hostage will be significantly reduced.”

Wei Wuxian looked shaken by Nie Mingjue’s practicality. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and then focused again, this time on the bloody array making its way up Nie Mingjue’s arm to the elbow and down to the backs of his fingers. “What are you doing?”

“A legacy,” Nie Mingjue said, even as Baxia screamed in his mind like metal scraping against stone. “For my brother. He’ll need all the help he can get…speaking of which, it’s time for you to go.”

“What?”

“The Wen sect isn’t looking for you, however much you irritated Wen Chao,” Nie Mingjue said. “It’s always been my plan to ensure you got away clearly before I was captured – and it’s nearly time, now. No man can fight an army alone.”

His body burned, exhausted and worn out from the hours of fighting; he’d done as much as he could, and everything else left in him was for Huaisang, who deserved better than to be made Sect Leader too young the way Nie Mingjue had. He had hoped to spare him that, but if he couldn’t do that much – he could at least do this one thing.

This one terrible thing, forbidden by his ancestors, abominable anathema – but there was little Nie Mingjue would not do for his brother, and he had faith even if he had no hope.  

Baxia was fighting him over it, resistant and rebellious in a way she hadn’t been since the first time he’d mastered her – the first time he imposed his will on hers, making the inexorable bend before him. They had been partners after that, and that was how he preferred it; but in the end he was the master, as it had to be, and she could not stop him.

“You should go,” he said again to Wei Wuxian. “If you get caught, what’s the point?”

Wei Wuxian’s hands were shaking, but he nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said, as if he were responsible for this somehow. “Thank you.”

And then he was gone.

What a ridiculous young man.

Baxia was biting him, causing his palm to bleed, trying to mess up his design – urging him to fight instead, to fight kill slaughter a way out, any way out.

“I’ll try,” he yielded enough to promise her. He needed to stay on her good side, after all; the array wouldn’t work without her. “I’ll give it a try, with all my strength.”

He did.

It wasn’t enough.

No man can fight an army.

In the end, he’s forced down on his knees, as he’d expected, Wen Chao standing in front of him at a more-than-sufficient distance as if he was afraid Nie Mingjue would leap up and stab him even with four people and suppression array fierce enough to bring down a ghost general holding him down.

He was probably right.

“You’re a coward,” he told him, and Wen Chao laughed nervously. “A coward, and a fool.”

“Well, he caught you, didn’t he?” Wang Lingjiao snapped, her voice shrill with nervousness, and a single glare was enough to have her cowering backwards. “He did! Wen-er-gongzi, you’re a hero!”

No one believed her, not even Wen Chao, but with an effort he puffed himself up anyway. “You shouldn’t have stood against my Wen sect,” he said, aiming for lofty and mostly coming off as cheap. “This is a just punishment.”

The Wen sect would paint the ground blue and the sky green if it got them what they wanted, and Nie Mingjue snorted in disgust, closing his eyes for a moment to find the trigger for the array painted onto his saber arm.

It burned.

Baxia, kicked across the room to get her away from him, seethed. Still not assuaged, still unhappy, still rebellious – but he did try to escape. It wasn’t his fault that he was only human.

It burned.

“Wen Zhuliu,” Wen Chao ordered, as Nie Mingjue knew that he would. “Let’s see how the esteemed Sect Leader Nie likes it when there’s nothing left of his oh-so-great cultivation. When he’s nothing.”

It burned.

Nie Mingjue smiled through the pain, baring his teeth at the cautious approach of Wen Zhuliu. “No matter what I am,” he said, “I am enough to terrify your nightmares.”

“Not for long,” Wen Chao shouted, which was admission enough. “Wen Zhuliu! Do it!”

Nie Mingjue’s cultivation was usually like a mighty river, rushing through his veins – to feel it spill out of order, pouring out of his body and into the array in his arm, was painful to the extreme, like bleeding out but worse. But it had been long enough, he had distracted them long enough.

Nie Mingjue hoped that it would be enough. 

By the time Wen Zhuliu put his hand on his shoulder, reaching down for his dantian, the river had become little more than a trickle.

Wen Zhuliu’s stone face cracked in two.

“What? What is it?” Wen Chao demanded, realizing something was wrong from the look on his retainer’s face. “What did the bastard do?!”

“I don’t know,” Wen Zhuliu said slowly. “But – his cultivation. There’s almost nothing left of it, and his meridians are all burned and twisted…his golden core is faint enough to be almost hollow.”

“That’s impossible,” Wen Chao scoffed. “Everyone knows how powerful Sect Leader Nie is! Even my father…what did he do? How did he – why did he –?”

He stopped, shook his head.

“It’s a trick,” he decided. “Do it anyway. I want to make sure there’s nothing left of him –”

There was a scream.

It sounded like metal against stone, harsh and ringing and shrill; it sounded like rage.

It sounded like hope.

Nie Mingjue smiled, a real smile his time, and shut his eyes.

Everyone else in the room turned to look.

It was the last mistake they made.

Nie Mingjue only opened his eyes again when a hand landed on his shoulder and fiercely shook him as if he were a disobedient kitten, and when he opened his eyes there was a woman glaring death down at him. She was tall, her features more fierce than beautiful, and she was dressed only in blood and guts.

“I knew you’d be lovely,” he said.

She smacked him in the face, hard enough that his head was ringing, and snarled wordlessly at him. There was nothing but rage in her face, in her eyes; the array he had used to give her every ounce of the cultivation he had built up for years, and most of his life-force besides, was forbidden for a reason – it would unleash something terrible into the world.

Something that knew no restraint, no mercy, only the desire to kill –

Well, in theory.

A small smack on the head was very much the least that Baxia could do.

“You’ll take care of Huaisang, won’t you?” he asked her, the remnants of his qi lurching unsteadily within him; he would have a qi deviation sooner rather than later as his body attempted to cultivate at its usual rate with virtually none of the spiritual energy required to do so, and his family did not have a good track record of surviving those – though he’ll be the first of his line to die from exhaustion rather than rage. “He’ll need someone strong by his side, to do for him what needs to be done…to tell him what evil is, in case he can’t figure it out on his own.”

“I don’t think that’s a problem Nie Huaisang has, actually; you’d be surprised,” said Wei Wuxian, who Nie Mingjue had entirely forgotten about, the sound of his voice a sudden shock of surprise.

He jumping down from some rafter where he’d been hiding – planning some sort of insane rescue, perhaps, or maybe just trying to bear witness. He had a flute clutched in his hands, of all things; Nie Mingjue hadn’t even known that he cultivated with music as well as the sword.

“Also,” he added conversationally, “what the fuck was that.”

Baxia hissed at him, a sound like the slow slide of a saber out of its sheath.

Wei Wuxian wisely took several large steps back.

“Sect Leader Nie,” he said, voice suddenly much more polite. “Forgive me my surprise, but – your saber just cultivated into a guai.”

“I wasn’t expecting her to get there this quickly,” Nie Mingjue said, nodding. “I’d been counting on them taking her back to the Nightless City…”

“Where she’d be able to use the resentful energy to cultivate into a guai, and therefore act as a weapon against the Wen from the inside,” Wei Wuxian said, nodding. He was really very clever, figuring out that Nie sect sabers could use resentful energy like that, in a way humans could not. Or, well, should not. “Except she really, really wanted to kill everyone here before they hurt you, so she did it faster.”

Baxia hissed again.

“What?” Wei Wuxian said, lifting up his flute defensively. “Am I wrong?”

She jabbed a finger at Nie Mingjue, who swayed a bit from the sheer force of it even though she hadn’t put any spiritual energy into it. So much saber qi…! Guai were truly different from humans.

“I don’t know what you want – fuck. You look terrible, Chifeng-zun.”

“That would be the blood loss,” Nie Mingjue agreed. “Possibly the impending qi deviation. Hard to tell, really…what?” he asked, seeing the expression on Wei Wuxian’s face. “You didn’t think this type of array is something you’re supposed to survive, did you?”

“But you’re not angry!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, already reaching out to start transferring spiritual energy into him. It wouldn’t be enough. “You’re not – you’re empty.”

Nie Mingjue nodded.

“You gave her everything you had…no wonder she was able to cultivate into humanity,” Wei Wuxian said, and there it was again, that ridiculous admiration. “Mistress Saber, is the only thing wrong with him the lack of qi?”

Baxia jerked her head. If Nie Mingjue lived as something other than a comatose vegetable, he’d have to teach her to properly talk, assuming that guai were capable of that. They weren’t like yao, which had once been animals or plants and familiar with the generalities of things such as eating or breathing; guai were formed from the non-living, and had never known such simple things as mere words.

He missed their connection.

If he had any qi left, he would be able to figure out what she was thinking behind that flat expressionless face that had not yet figured out how to convey anything other than rage.

If he wasn’t going to die, he’d get to see the terrible, wonderful things she would do at his little brother’s side – he’d have to be sect leader now, yes, but he wouldn’t need to change himself, contort himself into something he wasn’t, to have the strength to hold it.

He would have liked to have seen it.

“Chifeng-zun? I know something that might help stop the bleed of your qi. But it’s…unorthodox.”

Nie Mingjue waved a hand, consenting; the alternative was death, so why not?

Wei Wuxian lifted his flute to his lips and began to play.

-

Much later, Nie Mingjue wakes up in the Unclean Realm, Nie Huaisang at his side and Baxia having apparently learned to properly scowl, and – yes.

No matter any of Wei Wuxian’s complaints, it was a worthwhile trade.

[chelseamount]

Enough About Heather! Part two

(gif by: @rafecameron)

A/n: PART TWO IS HERE GUYS! I hope you guys will enjoy it, please comment your thoughts it makes my day! thank you all for the support on part one. I love you all

READ PART ONE RIGHT HERE

wordcount: 3,3k+

Based on: Before you go by lewis capaldi and A little heather by conan gray but that was part one

Warnings: a lot of angst, fighting, crying, yelling, blood, considering of suicide probs more

---

Place: Outer banks

One year before the accident

Rafe's Pov

I fell by the wayside like everyone else I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, but I was just kidding myself

"dude you need to focus on something else than Y/n and JJ," Topper says to me as he takes a sip of his beer

"But look at them they think they're special or something" I scoff

"dude she's your best friend, besides they aren't dating and you know that"

"then why the fuck are they hugging."

"you and Y/n do that all the time you're just friends"

of course, he wouldn't understand, he never does it might be because no one knows about my feelings for Y/n, hiding them is better anyway. Cause Y/n and I have been best friends for longer than I can remember, but as we got older, I started realizing my true feelings for the girl that has always helped me through everything.

"I think I'm heading home," I say as I pick up my stuff

"But what about golf," Kelce says as he raises his arms in the air.

"another day," I walk away, but the sweet voice that I know so well takes over my mind as I hear her scream. I quickly turn around I am now greeted with Y/n in the water with JJ while splashing water at him, we get eye contact as she waves at me. I turn around and scoff.

---

Anger takes over me as I rush into my room, knocking my lamp over.

I sit down on my bed, my hands running through my hair.

"I HATE HER!" I yell as tears start to form in my eyes.

but who the hell am I trying to fool we all know that, that isn't true

---

One year later

Place: The Cameron mansion

Our every moment, I start to replace

'Cause now that they're gone, all I hear are the words that I needed to say

A setup that's all it ever was. I never thought it would go this far. Still, it did, I knew when I asked Heather to be my fake girlfriend it was a bad idea but what the hell could I do Y/n was always flirting with JJ, and I wanted to see how she would react, but I knew when I canceled our trip pretending it was because I had to be with heather it was a bad idea. But what the hell could I do? I knew if I went on the trip with her, my feelings would grow even more. But what I forgot was, of course, that she would speak with Sarah.

days after and here we are me about to walk into our mansion when I hear her laugh, and at this moment I forget everything going on that is of course until it all comes flooding back

'Heather emergency I'll pay you 100 just be quick,' and she indeed is cause ten minutes after she's here.

"What!" she asks as she puts a hand on her hip

"Y/n's in there."

"ugh fine, OMG Rafe your so funny" she yells

"shh, put this on" I give her my green sweater that I fully well know Y/n loves a dick move I know, but maybe that is what needs to get her to remember all our memories. After all, how can I forget that third of December?

'Cause now that they're gone, all I hear are the words that I needed to say

We start walking down the hall as Heather starts laughing loudly.

at the end of the hall, I see her and my sister pocking their heads out from Sarah's room

"Uh hi," I say

"Hi," Y/n says as she quickly looks at the ground

"Hi," Heather says.

We all look at Sarah

"I'm not saying hi," she says.

now I know I shouldn't do this, but I can't stop myself as I see the hurt in Y/n's eyes

"Could we maybe talk Y/n?"

"Sure yeah, let's," she says as we quietly walk into another room.

"What's up?" she asks as she looks at the ground

"Just wanted to hear how you are."

"uhh, not good, it kinda sucks being blown off by your best friend." shit

"I haven't blown you off." I have

"You have. I see Heather is wearing your sweater." shit, okay, Rafe; this is your moment tell her everything.

"Yeah, I gave it to her, she looks better than me in it anyways." FUCK ME! how fucking stupid can I be precisely what I said to Y/n that third of December

"I feel like I've heard that before," she says, and she's right, okay now you can fix this Rafe!

but jealousy from JJ comes rushing over me as I say, "Calm down, its just polyester."

"It doesn't matter what it is. You like her better anyway" she walks out of the room. "Sarah, I'm going home," she yells

"y/n wait" I try to stop her

"what the hell did you do" I hear the voice of my sister say behind me.

"I fucked up."

---

When you hurt under the surface Like troubled water running cold Well, time can heal, but this won't

Place: The Dock

"no please Y/n don't close your eyes," I say as her beautiful eyes close the tears streaming down my face hits the ground as I try to stop the bleeding

"hello 911 what's your emergency."

---

Place: The Outer Banks Hospital

Time it's a thing that you sometimes can't have too much of in this case, that was just the thing, cause as the smell of hospital fills my nostrils, and the blood on my hands starts to dry, time stands still.

Cause I lost her and it's all my fault, if I hadn't hired Heather, we woudn't be here right now.

"Rafe" I hear a voice calling from beside me, I look over as I am met with my sister

"Sarah"

"What happened," she asks as tears stream down her face.

"Barry" I sob

"Barry, your fucking drug dealer, this is all your fault," she screams as she starts hitting my chest with her fists.

"Please don't."

"it is, you have always been the worst brother, but you got my friend shot."

"I didn't know it was gonna happen" I grab her wrist as I look her in the eyes

"Is she gonna be okay."

"they don't know that yet."

"no," she falls to her knees as she puts her face in hands.

Now Sarah and I have never been like normal siblings we hate each other, but at this moment we need each other, I fall to her level as I hug her. The tears start again as my body starts to shake.

"Sarah, I can't lose her. I love her."

"I know."

"no Sarah I'm in love with her" she freezes as she looks at me

"you," a male voice calls from behind us, but before either of us can react, a fist comes in contact with my face.

JJ

"you prick you got her killed," he says as we start to fight

"No, I didn't, you fucking Pouge."

"Guys stop," Kie's voice interrupts as she breaks us apart, "we need to be here for y/n."

"but he killed her, kie."

"no he didn't JJ Barry shot her, we don't know if she's dead, stop saying that"

"but what if she is Kie I can't lose her."

"I can't either you dickhead" I try to punch him again, but Sarah stops me

And with that said, a nurse walks out, making us all go dead silent.

"Miss Y/l/n is out of surgery, but she is currently in a deep coma we don't know how long it will take for her to wake up, or if she will, but we got the bullet removed, and we are pleased to say that the shooter has been caught"

"thank you, " John b says

"So, who's going to go see her first?" Pope asks

"Honestly I think it should be Rafe," John B says to my surprise

"What why he's the one that got her here in the first place," JJ says

"JJ it's barry's fault, Rafe, you should go in," Kie says

So, before you go, Was there something I could've said to make your heartbeat better?

"hi baby, it's Rafe. I'm so sorry that I put you in this situation, y/n I want you to be strong please, I can't lose you, not you. Anyone but you. I don't know if you can hear me, but the doctors said that there was a chance that you could, so I'm just trying okay. Y/n we have been best friends since forever and ever since I started realizing what feelings were I knew I felt that towards you, I remember when we were small we would always hold hands, and I would give you fake lollipop rings asking you to marry me, and you would always say in some years. Y/n I need those years. I need those years with you. You are what makes me wake up in the morning and what makes me fall asleep at night. And when I saw you getting close with JJ, I got jealous, and I hired Heather, and I know it's wrong, but y/n, please forgive me. Y/n, I love you, so please don't go okay. was there something I could have done anything to prevent this, y/n I want to feel your hand squeezing mine again or your lips on my cheek whenever you leave, I need you y/n please."

Why isn't she waking up she should be waking up why isn't it working why am I not waking up from a horrible nightmare by now why don't she squeeze my hand back

"y/n, please wake up... why aren't you waking up, y/n please" the tears fall freely from my eyes hitting her blanket while softly shaking her.

"Rafe stop, don't do that," Sarah says as she storms through the door "come here," and for the first time I think ever Sarah cares and hugs me like a little sister

"it's my fault" I sob

"no Rafe stop it, I didn't mean that."

"But you were right, what if there was something I could have done, to at least just make her stay awake for a little longer."

"Rafe, there wasn't this isn't your fault. let's go home okay you need to wash the blood off you."

"no, I can't leave her."

"Rafe, you need to go home and take a shower, and then you can return again, okay?" I nod softly as we start walking out the door

---

As the water drops runs down my body while the towel is hanging loosely around my waist all I can think about is that they are right this is my fault, what if I had never even started on doing drugs then she would be okay this is all my fault.

The drawer in the nightstand where my gun is at that's my only solution, right? If I don't have y/n, then I don't want to live, and the doctors said there was a minimal chance of her surviving, so who the hell am I kidding, after all, I did this.

As my hand comes in contact with the cold metal, all the memories come rushing back, right from the start to the end. As I lift my arm pushing the gun against the side of my head, the tears start falling again, but it's only when I hear the click signally the weapon was now loaded. I fall out of my trance, dropping the gun to the floor.

I can't just leave when things get rough. She needs me. and I need her

---

Time: a year before the accident.  

If only I'd have known you had a storm to weather. So, before you go, Was there something I could've said to make it all stop hurting? It kills me how your mind can make you feel so worthless So before you go

your pov

A day at the pool sounded like a great idea when Topper laid out the idea, but now when I'm in my bikini looking at myself, it sounds like less of a good idea. My tights look bigger, and my stretch marks are more noticeable, not to mention my ass is not the best today.

Tears start to fill up my eyes as I sit down on my bed.

But before I can even wipe the tears from my face, Rafe comes through my door, smiling, but his smile falls as he sees the tears falling from my eyes.

"love what's going on," he asks with concern in his voice as he wraps his arms around me.

"it's nothing."

"it clearly is, y/n please what is it?."

"I'm just so ugly and fat a-"

"y/n y/l/n you are none of that you are the most beautiful girl on this planet, there is no one more beautiful than you. And I want you to realize that. when you smile, I smile, and you are not fat. You are perfect and beautiful, and you make me a better person, y/n I love you. You are the person I love most in this world, and you are perfect" he interrupts me, I start to sob at his words as I throw my arms around his neck holding him tighter than ever. all I want is to kiss him, but I know I can't, cause, after all, we are just best friends

---

Time: two weeks before the accident

Rafe's pov

Was never the right time, whenever you called Went little by little by little until there was nothing at all

I know what I'm doing is wrong. I should just tell her but, I need the right time and moment, and I need to think things through.

Cause I love her

"RAFE YOU PIECE OF SHIT, DID YOU TAKE SOME OF MY MONEY" here we go again with my father, but another day another fight right

"When will you understand dad, I didn-" before I can finish my sentence, my phone rings, I quickly see who's calling.

Y/n

"Dad, I have do take this," I say about to take it, but before I can press the button, he takes the phone out of my hand.

"the hell you aren't."

---

place: midsummers

Our every moment I start to replay

You know midsummers used to be a decent event, but without y/n by my side, I have realized how fucked it actually is.

cause with Heather now by my side, which cost me money, not a single smile has fallen from my lips, with y/n that was never a problem

---

"y/n please, I hate dancing," I said as y/n dragged me across the dance floor.

"yeah, but I love to so you have to" she smiled a smile that makes the whole room light up, a smile that makes everyone else around smile too. a smile that belongs to my favorite person

---

But all I can think about is seeing that look on your face

"Rafe it's Y/n" Heather pulls me out of my thoughts

"shit do something," and she indeed does cause as her lips capture mine by surprise all I can wish is for those lips to be y/n's, I open my eyes and catch hers. behind the scoff she pulls, there is pain cause I know her better than I know myself and I know that I cause the pain

---

When you hurt under the surface Like troubled water running cold Well, some can heal, but this won't So before you go Was there something I could've said to make your heartbeat better? If only I'd have known you had a storm to weather. So, before you go, Was there something I could've said to make it all stop hurting? It kills me how your mind can make you feel so worthless So before you go

Time: a month after the accident

Place: Outer banks hospital

A month a month has gone, and nothing new. I think people are starting to worry about me after I almost haven't talked to anyone, and I don't think I have left the hospital for two weeks.

Yesterday she stopped breathing for some seconds, and I swear at that moment my world crumbled into pieces, the doctors said it was normal. But holding her pale hand is hard, and not knowing if she's going to wake up is even more challenging.

"y/n, I don't know if you can hear me, but if you can, I need to tell you something. If you're in pain, I want you to know that it's okay. You can let go if the pain is too much, cause you deserve peace, and if that is letting go, then it's okay, but y/n before you go, I need to say something else. I talked with Heather and, I found out that she is actually into girls, and she did it so she could impress the girl she is in love with. they're together now, so that's good, but y/n I never loved Heather."

Would we be better off by now If I'd have let my walls come down? Maybe, I guess we'll never know You know, you know

"But I can't help but wonder if I had just told you how I felt, if everything would be better now, or if you would have been holding me too right now, I guess we'll never know. But before you go know that I love you. I'm sorry."

---

One week later and I'm still here, I heard the doctors talking today about her maybe not making it, but they can't just give up right.

Right?

Every night for the week, I have been having the same dream y/n wakes up, and then I wake up, and she is still not awake.

It's a pattern that doesn't seem to stop.

"Rafe?"

I can't take it anymore I can't go through it again.

"stop this isn't real, you aren't real please" my eyes stay shut as my hands pull my hair

"Rafe what happened, please open your eyes."

"no, it isn't real."

"what? I'm confused."

"you aren't awake; it's just another dream," a pain in my hand makes my eyes open quickly as I see y/n pinching my hand while looking at me.

"I don't think you can feel pain in dreams" she laughs a little, but before I can even think I swing my arms around her afraid if I let go she will be gone again

"your real" I sob as the tears fall down on her shoulder

"yeah," her hands find my hair as she hugs me back "I'm sorry it took so long, but I couldn't wake up. I tried to believe me, but I couldn't."

"it's okay at least your awake now. I didn't think I would ever hear you talk again."

"I heard everything, you know. I'm sorry if you felt like I was in love with JJ I never was"

"you heard everything?" I ask as we make eye contact

"yeah, and you wanna hear a secret" she moves up to my ear as she whispers "I love you too Rafe Cameron" I smile as the tears start to fall again, I hold her face as tears begin to fall from her eyes too, I move closer to her, and our foreheads meet.

"can I?"

"I would want nothing more, Rafe."

And even though it took years and a gun, our lips finally meet, as a new chapter of our lives starts but this time with each other hand in hand

"why did you hire heather? Why didn't you just talk to me," she asks as she breaks the kiss, but I quickly close the gap again, but of course not before I reply.

"Enough About Heather."

taglist/people taht commented last time: @queenieloveswriting​ @drewstarkeyobx​ @butgilinsky​ @obx-direction-sos​ @lotsoflovefromlea​ @prejudic3​ @wannabeactress​ 

[waywardonesfilms]

This is my first time writing something like this and i want you guys to tell me how I did. Also, sad alert

End!verse story

CAS:

Cas made his way across the clearing, bodies scattered here and there. Friends. All killed by a pack of Croats.

He searched the faces, hoping he wouldn't find him. His face, covered in blood, just like his nightmares. Then he heard a voice, quiet and soft

And hurt

"cas?" Dean asked quietly from a few metres away.

Cas turned around to see Dean, covered in blood, bleeding from the mouth

"DEAN" he yelled. He ran over and collapsed at dean's side, sitting him up, leaning his head on his lap "dean..." he said again, dean coughing up blood on his jeans

Dean smiled "Hey cas... Guess I wasn't careful enough huh?" he laughed

"dean, this isn't funny, we need to get u back to camp and fix you up" cas tried to pick him up and move him

Bad idea

"NNNGHH UUHH" he made a pained sound and groaned. He went extremely pale and fell back in castiels lap.

"I'm... Uhh... I'm not gonna make it back to camp cas..." he had a serious yet sad look on his face

Cas refused to hear it "don't be stupid dean. Well get u back to camp" cas needed to get dean back to camp. Without dean... He didn't even want to think about it.

"no, cas." he sounded angry "I'm not"

Cas knew he was right. Dean had already lost to much blood. He was still sort of new to this whole human thing. When he was an angel, he didn't understand why humans grieved so much. Or tried so hard to keep people alive. They were all going to heaven right?

Now he understood. Tears gathered in his eyes, threatening to spill over

"I can't live here without you dean" he choked.

"yes you can" dean smiled "you don't need me to survive cas"

His tears finally spilled over, spilling on dean's face which he now leaned over "I don't want to dean... please..." he grabbed his face desperately clinging to him

DEAN

Dean felt cold, and his insides burned. Dean knew he was about to die. As he looked up at the only person in his life that made sense, he realised what his feelings were.

So he said it

No more hesitations

No more interruptions

No more fear

He lifted his arm with the little strength he had left, staring into the ex angels eyes, the familiar blue that he always associated with comfort.

"I love you" he felt his own tear make its way out of him and he realised. As he was slipping away into darkness, that he was feeling something he hadn't felt in years...

Happiness...

CAS

Cas watched the light fade from dean's usually bright life filled green eyes as he held his face.

"I love you" dean said a small smile on his face

Cas pleaded with the god, the universe, everything to make this all a dream. But it wasn't and deans eyes slowly drooped closed and his heartbeat stopped. He's body fell limp. Cas sat his body up and clinged to it for dear life. His tears mixed with dean's blood, heaving for breath.

"I love you too"

...

[witcher-and-his-bard-archive]

|| on ao3

Three weeks ago now, Geralt apologized and things are... okay. They've mostly fallen back into their old routine, but something is just a little off. Jaskier tries not to notice it, but there are times when it's unmistakable that they haven't quite fit back together the way they used to. When they sit around the fire at night, Geralt doesn't seem quite as calm as usual, doesn't sit as close as he used to and Jaskier doesn't know who or what is to blame for the rift.

He wants to tell Geralt that everything is fine and cuddle up next to him when it's cold during the night, but what if Geralt is distancing himself on purpose? Maybe he's not quite ready to go back to what they had, maybe he doesn't want to. He's become something of an unwilling father since the last time Jaskier saw him, so maybe it will just take some time for things to settle. Either way, Jaskier doesn't want to do anything to make matters worse.

Which is how he winds up with a much worse problem. It's not his fault, either. Geralt has been tasked with killing a cockatrice that's getting too close to the roads and killing travellers, Jaskier is there for the adventure, the exhilaration and... to look after Ciri. The inn won't house a Witcher, so there isn't anywhere particularly far from the cockatrice’s lair that they can get, and Jaskier is there to make sure she doesn't come to harm. Which, to be fair, he does quite well. It's himself that he has to worry about.

Geralt's gone ahead into the cave to try and catch the cockatrice unaware and judging by the sound coming from within, he hasn't done anything but upset it. There's a moment of silence in which Ciri looks up at Jaskier with wide, worried eyes and Jaskier pulls her against his side. He won't let anything hurt her and that means making sure Geralt is okay because Jaskier is not fit to care for a child and he doesn't want Ciri to lose another family.

"Wait with Roach," he says and for a second she looks horrified so Jaskier kneels down in front of her. "I promise everything will be fine, I just think Geralt needs some help. If anything goes wrong, trust Roach, she'll take you to safety. You know how to get her to kneel?"

Ciri nods and Jaskier smiles at her. She's a good kid, she doesn't deserve any of the shit she's been through. Jaskier gives her a quick hug and sends her off toward their camp as he approaches the cave. It's a terrible idea because the only defence he has is a little silver dagger that Geralt gifted him a few years back. It won't do much as far as bleeding damage, but he hopes the silver will be enough to deter it.

He can hear Geralt's grunts and groans echoing from the cavern and he steels himself. This isn't for him, this is for Ciri and her continued happiness - or whatever Geralt can offer her if he lives long enough. As luck would have it - if he can even call it luck - Geralt rolls out of the cave before Jaskier can enter. There's a brief moment when he freezes and stares at Jaskier confused, irritated, worried? And then the cockatrice shoots out of the cave after him.

Geralt shoves him out of the way and Jaskier tumbles to the ground. He scrambles to his knees and gets out of the way as quickly as he can, but something hits him from behind. He draws his dagger, expecting the cockatrice to be right on top of him, but it isn't. It's a few metres back, heading in his direction and Geralt leaps at it before it can take another step. Jaskier watches, frozen and dumbfounded as Geralt plunges his sword into its side.

Jaskier has seen him fight more times than he can count, most times he’s immortalized in song, but this is different. He doesn't know how to explain it, but he feels like Geralt is protecting him which, technically, he always is. But this time it seems like Geralt's anger comes directly from the attempt to attack Jaskier.

As the thing collapses under him, Geralt pulls his blade back, wincing as blood spatters back at him. He double-checks to ensure the thing is dead and walks up to its neck, slicing his sword clean through to remove the head. Later, he'll take it back to town to claim his fee, but for now, he leaves it on the ground and makes his way over to Jaskier, kneeling down before him.

"Where's Ciri?" he asks and Jaskier's heart sinks, but he reminds himself that Ciri is more important.

"I sent her back to camp. Told her to take Roach if anything happened."

"Why?"

"I thought- I was worried about you." Geralt stiffens and looks away. Helpful, Jaskier thinks.

"Are you okay?" he asks and Jaskier looks up at him. There's an odd tingling feeling in his lower back, but he probably just pinched something when he fell. Or maybe he got something stuck under his shirt where it's come untucked.

"I'm fine," he says.

He can't tell him he got hit by something because Geralt will insist on looking him over and making sure and Jaskier doesn't want to be any more of a burden than he already had been. He still hears Geralt's words in his head at night: why is it whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days it's you, shovelling it? For months, those words were the only memory he had of Geralt and he doesn't want to wind up back in that place with him again.

Geralt takes him at face value and he holds a hand out to Jaskier to help him up. He pulls him up and looks him over briefly before starting away toward their camp. Jaskier follows.

Geralt gets a fire started and leaves with Roach to collect his coin and find them something for dinner. Jaskier keeps Ciri entertained with tales of his travels with Geralt - significantly edited to be age-appropriate - and a selection of her favourite songs. He makes her fruit juice and shares the few remaining snacks he has in his pack. By the time Geralt returns, Jaskier is quite ready for bed.

When he stands up to help with the tent, his head is foggy and he feels woozy, but it's been a while since he ate or drank anything of substance, so he doesn't think much of it. The tent goes up easily, but Jaskier leaves the rest to Geralt, sitting down to rest. When everything is ready, he crawls into the tent, curling up on his side and tugging his blanket up over his shoulder. Geralt gives him a worried look, but Jaskier waves him off with a sleepy smile. He'll feel better in the morning.

He does not, in fact, feel better in the morning but last night Ciri had a nightmare and none of them slept well, so he keeps his discomfort to himself. Geralt isn't great at the whole dad thing, so Jaskier leaves them alone in the tent and decides to make himself useful by getting breakfast ready.

It doesn't take him long, but by the time he's finished, his head is foggy again so he sits next to Roach and feeds her apples while he waits. She nudges him with her nose but Jaskier is too tired to do much other than stroke her lightly and hum a tune. He shuts his eyes and focuses on everything he's feeling, most of which is perfectly normal. It's just his head that feels wrong.

The three of them head out after breakfast and Geralt suspects something is off, even if he doesn't say anything. He keeps a closer eye on Jaskier than usual but Jaskier just continually assures him he's fine. It's not even really a lie because it's probably just lack of sleep that's messing with his head. A good nights' sleep is all he needs and he'll be perfectly back to normal.

But before they even stop for the night, things take a turn for the worse. Jaskier tells himself he's pushing his body too hard on so little sleep and that's why it's hard to breathe, but he's not so sure anymore. There's only so much he can blame on a bad night's sleep. It's late afternoon when he starts to feel nauseous, but Geralt is leading them off the path, Jaskier assumes to camp for the night, so he'll be able to sleep soon.

Geralt is having none of that. As soon as Jaskier is horizontal, Geralt is crouching over him, feeling his head and pushing his hair back off his face. Jaskier opens his mouth to tell him he's fine, but the words don't come out and the lines in Geralt's face deepen.

"What are you doing?" Jaskier mumbles.

"I asked you three times to help Ciri," he says and Jaskier doesn't even remember hearing him speak. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I'm fine. What do you need me to do?"

"Sleep," Geralt says, "you need to rest." Jaskier doesn't intend to sleep, not now because Geralt needs his help, but he shuts his eyes for just a second. The next time he wakes, they're preparing to leave again.

And he does feel better or, at least, he thinks he does. He goes about the morning as usual, though the haze in his head makes it difficult to focus and he knows Geralt is watching him closely.

They head out early that morning with Ciri and Geralt up front and Jaskier trailing behind. It's a conscious choice, to follow at a short distance, but he couldn't keep up this morning if he wanted to. Soon enough, he'll probably have to make for town and leave Geralt to whatever he's up to.

They've barely made it past the edge of the forest when Jaskier's head starts to throb. He stumbles and his knees hit the ground which is alright really, because he feels better like this, even if his palms sting and his knees shake under him. Geralt is at his side instantly, sliding an arm around his back and asking him something he can't quite understand. He sounds very far away and like he's underwater.

"I'm fine," Jaskier says but even he doesn't believe it this time. Geralt helps him to his feet, but he's unsteady and it takes much more effort than it should to keep himself upright.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Jaskier mumbles, but his vision is starting to blur and his head is heavy.

"Fuck."

Geralt heaves him up onto Roach and climbs up in front of him. He apologizes as Roach gives a snort of protest, but Jaskier is only half aware of what's happening. "Can you hold on to me?" Geralt asks, frantic, and Jaskier doesn't know, but he slumps against Geralt's back and snakes his arms around his waist.

He doesn't know where they're headed, but Geralt is certainly in a hurry to get there.

By the time they arrive, Jaskier is unconscious and Geralt has never been this frightened in as long as he can remember. He dismounts gracelessly, hauling Jaskier down after him.

"I'll be back," he says to Ciri, "Roach will take care of you." She nods obediently, but Geralt can see the fear in her eyes and he wishes he was in a better place to comfort her. His heart races, thuds heavily against his chest and he can barely hear over the rush of blood in his ears.

The house is unassuming on the outside, but as soon as he steps foot in it, he can smell her. Lilac and gooseberries. Yennefer is the last person he wants to see right now, and likely he's the last person she wants to see ever again. But he doesn't have a choice.

She greets him silently and Geralt thinks that he would have preferred hostility. She listens as Geralt tells her everything he knows - very little - and then whisks Jaskier away to some back room, out of sight. Geralt tries to follow, desperately unhappy about having Jaskier out of his sight, but she stops him.

"Wait for him here, I'll tell you when I'm done." Geralt can't blame her for not wanting to see him, but sitting and waiting and not knowing is worse than anything Yen could say to him.

He takes a seat in the sitting room, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and he waits. After fifteen minutes, he goes to check on Ciri and takes her to the inn, paying for a meal and for the innkeeper to look after her for a little while. She's mostly self-sufficient, but he doesn't want to take any unnecessary risks. When he's sure she'll be okay for a little while, he returns to the house.

Yen hasn't returned and Geralt is left alone with his thoughts, all of which are dark and worrisome. What if he didn't get to her on time? Jaskier was already in bad shape when they left and he doesn't know how long it's been going on for. He doesn't know how long Jaskier has - or if it's already too late. His stomach turns uncomfortably and Geralt squeezes his eyes shut. He should have known something was wrong, he should have done something sooner.

But he's been so preoccupied with Ciri. And he and Jaskier haven't quite found a comfortable rhythm since their reunion so he's been more distant than before. And he hates himself for it because if he'd been just a little more attentive, he might have noticed something was wrong earlier. If Jaskier doesn't make it, he'll never forgive himself.

When Yen returns, she's alone and Geralt's stomach somersaults, immediately assuming the worst. Yen looks at him and sits down in an armchair across from him, delicately folding her legs.

"You're lucky you got to me when you did," she says, "another couple of hours and he might have been beyond saving." A wave of relief washes over him, immediately followed by a feeling of guilt, like a punch to the stomach. He was so close.

"What's wrong?"

"Cockatrice venom," she says, "can be fatal in large enough doses."

"Cockatrice-" Geralt echoes, "that was days ago."

Yennefer shrugs. "Slow acting."

"He said he was fine."

"Clearly," she says slowly, unimpressed, "he lied. Take it up with him when he wakes. You can take him and leave."

"Yen-"

"I'm not interested. When I need something, you'll hear from me."

History has taught him not to argue with a sorceress when she's made a decision and Geralt nods, rising to his feet silently. He makes his way back to the room, finding Jaskier laid out on the bed. It's reminiscent of the incident with the djinn and brings back memories and emotions he'd rather not remember.

Geralt leans over him, shutting his eyes for a moment to listen to the sound of Jaskier breathing softly. It encourages him and he slips his arms under him, careful to disturb him as little as possible, and lifts him into his arms. He feels like nothing in his arms, and yet Geralt's whole body shudders at the touch. He's wanted to hold Jaskier, to bring him close and keep him there, but this is all wrong.

Yen is still sitting silent when he returns and Geralt thanks her again as he leaves the house. He doesn't know what he's going to do. He knows he can't take Jaskier to the inn; the last thing he needs is people thinking he's killed someone, but he needs to get him somewhere safe and he needs to collect Ciri, regardless. Cautiously, he makes his way toward the inn, reluctantly going inside with Jaskier in his arms.

A half dozen heads turn when he walks in, but Ciri sees him and hurries over to his side.

"Is he okay?" she asks.

"He needs rest," is all Geralt says, but she nods and follows as Geralt leads her to the stables.

Ciri takes control of talking to the stable boy and if Geralt wasn't so caught up in worry, he'd be proud of her. The boy hands the reins over to her, and Ciri takes them happily, stroking Roach's nose. Geralt makes a clicking sound with his tongue and nods his head to Roach and she kneels, making it easier for Ciri to climb onto her back.

"Good girl," Ciri says, pulling the reins back over her head. She's good with Roach and Roach is shockingly patient with her, but Geralt keeps a close eye on them as they make their way out of town.

He carries Jaskier all the way out of town and they don't stop until Geralt finds an overhang in a cliff face. It will shelter them on two sides and that's going to have to be good enough because it's getting dark and he needs to find something more than bread for Ciri to eat for dinner.

Ciri pulls their bedrolls out and lays one out on the ground for Jaskier. Geralt lays him down, finding a blanket to fold and tuck under his head and he thanks Ciri for her help. Jaskier looks small and weak lying there silently and Geralt has to tear his gaze away because he knows if he doesn't, he won't be able to leave. So he pulls himself away and crouches down next to where Ciri is piling sticks for a fire.

"Will you be okay alone for a little while?" he asks.

"Yes. I'll watch him."

"I won't be long." He says and he isn't. He brings down a deer close to their campsite and returns within half an hour, sitting at the edge of the site to skin and prepare the animal.

He cooks the meat over the fire and feeds Ciri, but doesn't eat anything himself. He's emotionally exhausted and the guilt he feels for not noticing Jaskier’s pain overwhelms him.

After Ciri goes to sleep, Geralt sits next to Jaskier, watching the way the firelight highlights his features. He's beautiful in an eerie sort of way and Geralt reaches out, brushing his fingers along the ridge of his cheekbones. Jaskier is warm and it's the first thing that's given Geralt any comfort since he collapsed that morning. He runs his fingers through Jaskier's hair and sighs regretfully.

"I'm sorry," he breathes, "I should have noticed earlier." He sighs deeply and rolls his head back, staring up toward the sky. There’s more he wants to say, but something stops him. The words are there, right on the tip of his tongue but even with Jaskier unconscious and unable to respond, he can't quite get them out.

"Please," he whispers, "don't leave me."

It's late when Geralt hears a rustle from the other side of the fire and his head snaps up, alert. Ciri sneaks over, sitting next to him.

"Is he okay?" she asks.

"I don't know."

"I hope so."

"Me too," Geralt hums, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

He's still got one hand in Jaskier's hair and he doesn't pull away, even as Ciri curls into his side. The warmth of her small body is comforting and it reminds him that no matter what happens with Jaskier, he has to pull himself together for Ciri.

When he wakes up, Ciri is in his lap and he's hunched over her, both arms curled around her. Geralt blinks awake slowly and as he shifts, Ciri stirs against him. She gets up and Geralt follows after her, stretching as he looks down at Jaskier, still motionless and silent and it hurts knowing he can't stay with him right now. They can't leave either, though, so he gets up and finds something for Ciri to eat.

While she finishes her breakfast and goes off to feed Roach, Geralt returns to Jaskier. Carefully, he sits down next to him and lifts Jaskier's head into his lap. He brushes the hair off his forehead and Jaskier squirms. His eyes pinch tightly shut and Geralt's heart leaps into his throat. He presses his hands down Jaskier's chest, keeping him down and when Jaskier opens his eyes, it's like a weight has lifted off Geralt’s shoulders.

Jaskier sits up, rubbing his eyes and turns to face him, looking blearily at him. He looks so soft and helpless and Geralt can't help himself when he pulls him into his lap. He draws him in closer, wrapping one arm around his waist and sliding the other up his back to slip into his hair.

"Geralt," Jaskier says, muffled in his shoulder, "I'm fine, what are you-" when he pulls back, he stops. Jaskier is barely an inch from his face and Geralt kisses him without regard for common sense or consequence. It's brief and stiff and not what he really wants and when he pulls back, Jaskier's eyes are wide and full of concern.

"I'm dying aren't I?"

Geralt is stunned, the taste of Jaskier's lips still on his and he drops back, propping himself up in one arm. "No," he says, "no you're okay. I thought I'd lost you." His final words come out so quietly he doesn't think Jaskier will hear him at first. But Jaskier takes his face in his hands and smiles softly.

"I'm fine," he says and he sounds utterly breathless, reminding Geralt with a start that he's just woken up and he's been through a lot.

"Shit," he says, scrambling to let Jaskier up and get himself to his feet. He helps Jaskier up and he doesn't have a chance to say anything else, to apologize or to let Jaskier know how worried he was, because Ciri hurries over.

She wraps her arms around him and Jaskier smiles down, slipping an arm around her shoulders. Geralt's lips tug up at the corner and he turns away to let them have a moment.

Jaskier's feeling better now and Geralt has managed to convince him that he's not dying. He's a little quiet, but Geralt is sure it's nothing to worry about, he did just recover from being poisoned, after all. And he's done everything he can for him, making sure he's warm enough and has enough to eat.

He wants to get them back to town. He wants to get to an inn and get Jaskier somewhere warm and comfortable where they can stay for a couple of days to recoup.

Ciri is the first to be ready as usual, and Geralt lifts her up onto Roach, handing her the reins as he finishes packing. When he turns around to fasten Roach's saddlebags, Jaskier is pulling his lute case over his shoulder. Geralt frowns, crossing over to him and slipping the strap out of his hands.

"Get on Roach," he says and Jaskier just looks at him. Geralt reaches out, pressing a hand to Jaskier's shoulder. "You must be exhausted," he says, "I can walk." For a moment, everything is still and Jaskier just looks at him. Geralt grunts and turns away before he can do something stupid and behind him, he hears Jaskier hoist himself up into the saddle.

Geralt doesn't mind walking and from here he can keep an eye on both Jaskier and Ciri. They’ll be safe and if anything comes up on the road, he can handle it while Roach gets them to safety.

They make town by mid-afternoon and after taking Roach to the stables, Geralt pays for a room and sends Ciri ahead of him.

"Wait for me by the stairs," he says and she nods. When Geralt turns, Jaskier is watching him. "Go to the bathhouse," he says, "relax."

Jaskier tries to argue, but Geralt presses a handful of coins into his palm and sends him off. When Jaskier is out of sight, Geralt takes Ciri up to their room. He's ordered food to be brought up to Ciri and he waits for the innkeeper before ducking out of the room. He knows Ciri will be okay on her own for a little while, but he locks the room anyway and promises not to be long.

He slips away, out of the inn and down the street to the bathhouse. Jaskier is in the bath already when he finds him, up to his neck in hot water and scented oils. The room is steamy and Geralt shuts the door behind him, inhaling the damp, scented air.

Jaskier blinks up at him as if he was sleeping, offering a worried look. "Where's Ciri?" he asks.

"In our room. She's fine." Geralt rolls his sleeves, pushing them up past his elbows and circling the tub. Jaskier watches him move, tipping his head back against the edge of the tub.

"What are you doing?" he asks, but Geralt is quiet. He hmms at him, but doesn't say anything. He reaches down, tentatively brushing his fingers along Jaskier's shoulder. It's a question, a chance for him to say no and push him away. He doesn't.

Instead, Jaskier rolls his shoulders into the touch, hums softly. Geralt wants to make him comfortable and he wants him to feel good, but he doesn't want to push any boundaries, especially with their relationship the way it is. But once he gets his hands on him, it's harder to stop than he thought it would be.

He can feel Jaskier's pulse under his hands, steady and confirming. He's okay. He can feel the life in him with every press of his hands and he slides his hands down over his chest, feeling Jaskier's heartbeat against his palms. He almost lost this. He wasn't paying enough attention and Jaskier got hurt and he almost lost him. His hands falter and Jaskier notices.

"Are you alright?" he asks, looking up at him with wide eyes, dark in the low light.

"I should be asking you that."

"I'm fine Geralt. If something's wrong-"

"Nothing's wrong," Geralt insists, but his hands shake against Jaskier's skin and when he moves to pull back, Jaskier twines their fingers together. He runs his thumb along the arch of Geralt's fingers, pressing his hands into his skin.

"You can tell me, Geralt," he says softly, "whatever it is." He closes his fingers around him and Geralt squeezes tightly.

"I thought I was going to lose you," he grits out, "why didn't you tell me something was wrong?" Jaskier's fingers pull away and Geralt worries that he was too rough.

"I didn't want to be a burden," Jaskier mumbles, "you already have so much with Ciri and your destiny-"

"You're never a burden," Geralt says too quickly. He pulls his hands back and moves back around to the front of the tub, crouching down in front of it. "You're all I have."

He looks up at him, soft and pink from the heat of the bath and he can't imagine saying such horrible things to him, but he did and he knows it hurt Jaskier more than he shows. He's the one constant in his life, the one good thing that destiny so far has not meddled with.

Geralt leans in without realizing and Jaskier meets him halfway. Geralt slides his hand over Jaskier's jaw, pressing forward and kissing him softly. He doesn't realize he's tense until Jaskier's mouth moves against his own and an intense calm floods his body, loosening his limbs and pushing him forward.

Geralt draws back after only a second, eager to see Jaskier's face, to see for himself that he wants this and it's not just impulse that has him kissing back. A single glance tells him that's not the case. If anything, Jaskier looks more unsure than Geralt feels, but he shows no hesitance. And when Geralt presses into his space once more, Jaskier is the one to initiate the kiss.

His lips are soft, unimaginably so, and maybe Geralt should have expected that, what with the care Jaskier takes in all other parts of his life. It still comes as a surprise, though not one Geralt has much time to consider. Jaskier makes a soft sound against him and Geralt moves instinctively, sliding a hand back into his hair and kissing him more deeply. Jaskier hums again, a soft little contented sound and he curls both hands around the back of Geralt's neck, sitting back a little in the tub.

Geralt moves with him, adjusting to make Jaskier more comfortable. The edge of the tub digs into his stomach, but it's barely an inconvenience with Jaskier's mouth against his own, hot and eager, and his hands slipping up into the hair at the back of his neck.

Jaskier moves a little quicker, his fingers grip a little tighter, pull a little harder and Geralt loses himself in it. He shouldn't let himself lose focus so easily, but this is Jaskier and he's alive and Geralt has wanted for so long. He's moving before he realizes it, letting Jaskier tug him closer. He gets his elbow hooked around Geralt's neck and Geralt rises up, bending over the tub. Then he's got his knee up on the edge and making the next move is such a natural transition that he doesn't consider what he's doing.

As he steps into the tub, Jaskier pins his legs to the sides, letting Geralt settle between them. Geralt is soaked up to his stomach, but Jaskier's fingers wander, sliding around to his chest and distracting him. And when his legs wind around his hips, Geralt groans softly against Jaskier's lips, slipping one hand under his thigh.

"I can't lose you again," he breathes and Jaskier hums against him, reaching up to run his fingers over Geralt's cheek.

"You won't."

They stay like that, pressed against each other in the tub, until the water has long lost its heat and Jaskier's skin is cool to the touch. Unwillingly, Geralt wrenches himself from Jaskier's embrace and climbs out of the tub. He leans down, pulling Jaskier out after him and if he tugs him close again and lets his fingers run over all that soft, wet skin well, no one would blame him.

Jaskier's head is still swimming as they make their way back to the inn, only a sliver of air between them. Geralt's knuckles brush against his own with each swing of his arm and Jaskier grins softly, looking down at the ground beneath his feet. His lips tingle, swollen from being kissed and bitten and it's the only thing that speaks to the reality of what happened. He might believe it was a dream otherwise; he's had many dreams to the same effect, both waking and sleeping, some of which seemed almost more real than this. But Geralt leaves a trail of bathwater behind him as they walk and his lips are a lovely shade of red that Jaskier swells with pride to know he's the one responsible for it.

When they reach the inn, Ciri gives them a strange look. Fair, considering he was the one sent to have a bath and Geralt is the one coming back soaked - and in his clothes, no less. Jaskier hides a smirk but focuses his attention on Ciri. If he tries to think about too much at once, he might explode, so he focuses on the task at hand which is, right now, keeping Ciri occupied while Geralt changes into dry clothes and arranges for supper for them.

The rest of the night passes far too quickly and they don't talk a lot, but Jaskier knows Ciri suspects something. She keeps side-eyeing Geralt when he's not paying attention and it's all Jaskier can do not to laugh when Geralt notices. They'll have to tell her at some point, he suspects, though that would entail discussing exactly what they're telling her. And that's one of those things Jaskier can't think about right now.

He knows Geralt worries about him, enough to take him to Yennefer according to Ciri, and he knows he wants him around. He couldn't possibly ask for more than that, but then he'd kissed him. And gods, Jaskier has been kissed a thousand times and a thousand more and he's never been kissed like that. Like he was the only thing in the world that mattered, like he might not get another chance.

He shuts his eyes thinking about it and smiles softly to himself. So there's something, something that must have been a huge step for Geralt who still hasn't quite committed to the word friend.

Geralt meets them downstairs, dry except for the ends of his hair, and they sit and eat together before heading upstairs. He's quieter than usual and Jaskier tries not to worry too much about that. He reminds himself that things like this are harder for Geralt than they are for him and that also, apparently, Geralt is still processing the fact that he almost lost him. That much, at least, Jaskier can understand, he'd be lost without Geralt.

So he gives him space. They'll have a few minutes alone to talk soon enough, he can keep from plastering himself to Geralt's side for one night, difficult as it may be. He makes up a bed on the floor as they've been doing for months now; taking turns sleeping on the floor and in the bed with Ciri unless they have a second room. Personally, Jaskier prefers the floor to a separate room to begin with so he doesn't mind much.

Geralt is already in bed and Jaskier tries to be as quiet as he can to not wake Ciri, setting his pack at the end of the bed and laying down on his bedroll. There's a rustle of blankets from above him and when he shifts to look up, Geralt is sitting up, frowning down at him.

"What are you doing?" he asks and Jaskier looks down at his bed, trying to figure out what he's done wrong.

"Going to sleep?" he asks.

"Come up here," Geralt offers, shifting a little to one side. He waits until Jaskier sets down his bedroll, then lies back against the bed.

Jaskier pulls himself up, climbing up the foot of the bed and Geralt reaches out, sliding an arm around his side and pulling him down. He shifts as Ciri stretches under his other arm, and Jaskier lets himself be pulled in, turning to rest his hand on Geralt's chest. He slips on hand up his chest and he could swear he sees Geralt's lips twitch just as he shuts his eyes. There's a soft huff of breath against his hair and when warm lips press against his head Jaskier squirms despite himself.

Maybe things aren't as complicated as he thought they were. Maybe his place is right at Geralt's side where he's always been.

[strafethesesinners]

Tagged by @blissfulalchemist to post a fic from a year or more ago (? I think that’s how it goes). None of my Far Cry 5 is a year old yet, but I’ll take this opportunity to post this Dishonored oneshot I did back in 2016. 

(I’ll tag some people if you want to do it or just want to read @risenlucifer @nightwingshero @chazz-anova @smithandrogers @madsismad @amistrio @chyrstis @consumedkings @faithchel @shallow-gravy)

Spoilers for the Knife of Dunwall Dishonored DLC Warnings for violence and gore Words: 2392  also on AO3

Daud was drowning. The icy, stinking water of the Wrenhaven River grew darker and darker above his head as he sank further into its depths. Daud was a strong swimmer, but something had a hold of his legs, pulling him down. He looked below him and screamed. Hundreds, thousands of corpses clogged the riverbed, clinging to his legs, his arms, and tearing at his clothes with rotting claws. Water rushed into his throat, but he could not close his mouth or his eyes. The more he struggled, the harder the bodies gripped him. They were screaming, moaning, begging for mercy. The water became blood: the blood of every person he had ever killed. It was choking him, yet he could not die. The pleading eyes of the corpses turned black and Daud understood: he was already dead and this was his hell. Still he fought against it, trying in vain to break free and reach the surface, but the ghosts clung on, all of them wailing as one.

“Mommy!”

Daud woke up shaking, his stomach curdling. He sat up and dry heaved over his blankets, but nothing came up. He tore off his sweat soaked shirt and tried to stand. It took him several minutes to regulate his breathing and bring his mind back to reality. It was barely after sunset, judging by the faint light coming through the glass-less windows. Daud lit a cigarette and walked out onto his small balcony on the top floor of the Chamber of Commerce building. He took a deep breath, welcoming the cool air on his sweaty face. The Flooded District smelled of Weepers, dead rats, and whale oil, but it was a familiar smell, and lately, Daud had been latching onto anything even vaguely comforting. He was starting to think his assassins were right, and he was losing it. He could sense them losing confidence in him day by day, and he was grateful none of them were here right now to see him trembling, and sweating, wearing only his trousers: terrified of a dream. But as his mind grew clearer, it seemed odd that no one was around. Daud’s eyes scanned the rooftops carefully. There were no Whalers in sight. A different sort of unease pricked at the back of his mind, as he tossed his cigarette butt away. Instantly, he was alert: listening, watching. He tensed. His scarred hands gripped the iron railing, the Outsider’s Mark glowing faintly on the back of his left hand. Daud was about to turn back into his room when he heard a click behind him, and the cold metal of a pistol pressed against the base of his skull. 

He froze. There were only two people in the world that could sneak up on him undetected. Not sure which one he was dreading more, he spoke.

“Billie?”

“Yes.”

The shock of hearing her voice was colder than the hands of the nightmare ghosts. Daud now knew he would have gladly taken the Royal Protector over this; he would have taken anything over this. Daud’s mind was reeling, but he kept himself absolutely still, and his voice calm.

“You’re here to kill me.”

“Yes,” she said again, although it had not been a question. His dream came rushing back to him, and he was suddenly afraid. All these years he had often longed to die, but now a terrible thought occurred to him. What if these dreams were glimpses of what was to come? He never asked the Outsider, but he assumed that his spirit would go to the Void after his death. What if his fate was an eternity drowning in blood in the Void; tormented forever by those he had slain? 

I don’t want to die, he thought, almost frantically, I can’t die. His heart was beating hard, but still he remained outwardly calm. Billie kept her pistol at his head, but had not moved to pull the trigger. Daud took her hesitation as a good sign. This would not be an easy thing for her. Daud had not become the most feared man in the Empire through violence alone; he was as cunning as he was ruthless, and he had talked himself out of sticky situations almost as much as he had fought his way out. If he could somehow convince her to spare him…..

“Billie…” he began.

“Don’t try to talk your way out of this one, Daud,” Billie said. Her voice was clear; she wasn’t wearing her mask.

“You know me too well, Lurk,” he said wryly.

“Shut up, I know what I’m doing and you’re not going to change my mind.” The slightest tremor ran up her arm; Daud could feel it through the pistol point. 

“Kill me then,” Daud said. She did nothing. Daud took a chance, and turned slowly around to face her. She did not lower the pistol, but neither did she fire. Billie’s eyes were wide, but there was a determined set to her jaw. It was an expression he knew well. She had the same look when they had first met, and she had dared to face him: clearly frightened and yet too stubborn to back down. 

“Can at least ask why I’m about to die?” He looked her in the eye.

“You’re weak,” she replied coldly, “and old. This outfit needs a new leader. Someone to get us through this plague, and the chaos you caused by killing the Empress. I don’t want to do this, but it has to be done.”

“Does it now?” Daud snapped. There was an awful pain in his chest. Worse than any physical wound he’d ever had. It was a pain he hadn’t felt since he realized he would never see his mother again. “I always assumed one of you would kill me and take my place,” he said more softly, “ I just never thought…” He couldn’t finish his sentence. He knew he was too compromised to get out of this one by talking, Billie was much too close to him and had learned all his tricks over the years; the realization made him sick. He had never felt so vulnerable. 

“You’re right, Billie,” he said, “I always thought of myself as clever, but clearly I was a fool for ever trusting you.”

Billie smiled her little apologetic smile; the one she would wear when he scolded her for killing one guard too many, and she knew he didn’t really mean it.

“There’s more to it,” she said, “you deserve to know the truth. The woman you’ve been seeking, Delilah,”

“What about her?”

“She…..came to me, a while back. She offered me so much…...showed me a new way to see; she gave me so much more than you ever did. More than you could ever hope to give.”

Daud could hear the contempt in her speech and it hurt. But now anger was starting to burn in his veins. Of course it all came back to her. Delilah. She had taken his best fighter, his best friend even, certainly the only person he cared about in the world, and turned her against him. A familiar itch clawed it’s way down his arms, making his fingers twitch and ache for a blade. The sun went down behind the buildings, and the Flooded District was doused in the cool grey glow of twilight.

“The power she has, Daud,” Billie was saying, “you can’t even imagine. She’s stronger than you, stronger than anyone I’ve ever known. And all I have to do to be at her side is…..get rid of you.”

She stared at him and her eyes were sad. Daud’s head was pounding.

“I’m sorry, Daud,” Billie said. 

“Me too,” he said. 

Daud’s hand flashed up and grabbed Billie’s arm, forcing it to the side. Her shot went wide, and he twisted her arm hard. She gave a gasp of pain, and the pistol fell over the railing into the muddy water far below. Daud transversed past her back into his room. He snatched his sword up from beside his bed, there was no time to grab anything else. Billie drew her sword. The metal floor was cold on Daud’s bare feet as they circled each other for a moment; the Outsider’s Mark burned hot. Billie sent a wristbow bolt at his head, and he dodged, then drove forward with a quick thrust at her midriff. She blocked it just in time, and pushed back against his blade. She stomped down on the top of his right foot with her boot, the pain made him falter and she beat his sword aside and punched him in the face. Daud hopped backward, ducking as another bolt flew over his head. He spat out a mouthful of blood with a curse, and then transversed behind her and struck. She turned and parried, and he blocked her retaliatory slash. They battled back and forth across the metal walkway that served as Daud’s bedroom for what seemed like an hour. It was hard to measure time during a fight. But Daud was the better swordsman, and he was closing on Billie when she crouched, opened her mouth, and screamed. 

The sound was like a physical force. It lifted Daud up off his feet and sent him tumbling over the railing into his office below. He landed hard on his desk. For a brief moment he lay stunned; the air knocked out of him. Then her heard the sound of Billie blinking down next to him and jumped up as quickly as he could. He wasn’t quite fast enough. Her sword missed its target of his neck, but cut his shoulder to the bone. The pain of it spurred his desperation, and he attacked with everything he had left. Billie was never taken off guard, but his fury did seem to rattle her some. He managed to get in a few cuts of his own in as her first few blocks came too slow. But against her padded leather whaler suit, the damage was nowhere near as bad as when she hit him. Soon he was bleeding heavily from wounds to his forearms and chest, in addition to his shoulder,and his strength was starting to fade. He could barely lift his sword arm high enough to parry her strikes. He curled his Marked hand into a fist and sent a call out through the Void, but no assassins appeared. Billie must’ve told them ahead of time what she planned, and killed anyone who objected. Daud wondered if Thomas was dead, or if he had also turned against him. He retreated across the room. He tried one of the doors, thinking of escape, but they were barred from the other side.

Of course he thought grimly. He spied the open window behind his desk, and blinked over to it, using the last of his energy. He turned to locate her before he jumped. Billie was standing in the middle of the office. She raised her hand, and sent a shower of several shadowy darts flying at him. He blocked some with his sword, and covered his face with his other arm. But there were too many. One went through his thigh, three into his unprotected guts, and one into his chest. It had missed his heart he know, or he would already be dead, but he could tell it had punctured his lung. He fell to one knee, struggling to breathe. Billie came towards him, but stopped at his desk, just out of reach. Daud still gripped his sword tightly. She approached him slowly. He attempted one last weak slash, but she grabbed his wrist and wrenched the sword from his hand. Gently, she set it down on his desk. 

“It’s over, Daud,” she said quietly. 

“Looks like it, huh? I taught you too well,” he laughed, and blood came bubbling up his throat. He choked and coughed, the blood spattering down his bare chest and onto the wooden floorboards. He slumped back against his bookshelf. Billie stood watching him. When he looked up at her again, her eyes were wet. Daud had never once seen her cry. And yet, staring into her eyes, Daud knew she was still going to go through with it. He wasn’t ready to face the Void, but, now that it seemed inevitable, he wasn’t so afraid as before. There was no point. The best he could hope for was that he was wrong, and that there was nothing after death. And the worst…..Daud wondered if it was possible to fight ghosts in hell. He wanted to laugh again, but it hurt too much. Blood leaked steadily from the holes in his gut. 

“It was always going to end this way, Daud,” she said, “You and me. It’s our nature. But you’re not as weak as I thought.”

“Thanks,” Daud coughed again. The pain was agonizing. “Could you find it in you to end it quickly?” he gasped out. Billie continued to stare at him, unmoving. Daud didn’t know how long it was going to take to die, maybe up to an hour depending on how bad the wound in his chest was, maybe even longer.  But maybe that was all part of it. He never thought Billie hated him so much. He tried to reach up to her and she flinched back, still wary.

“I’m not going to fight you anymore, Billie, I just need you to do it now. If you ever had any….feeling for me at all, don’t let me die like this, make it a clean death.” She still did nothing, looking at him almost in disbelief now, as if she didn’t quite trust what she was seeing. “Billie, please,” Daud said, “don’t make me beg.”

Without a word, Billie took his sword from the desk and knelt down so she was level with him. She reached out and cupped his face in her gloved hand, and then drove his sword into his heart with all her strength. He convulsed once as his life bled away.

“Sorry, Daud,” Billie whispered. 

Her whisper went on and on and turned into the haunting hiss of runesong, which became the mournful cry of whales. The pale blue light of the Void crept over his sight, obliterating everything else, and the Knife of Dunwall was dead.