#eventually stops scratching himself & comes under the blanket ive been holding up for him

[corvidaequeer]

What's your pet's nightly routine?

[forever-rogue]

congrats on the followers milestone! can i request

“You’re shaking.” from prompt list 3 with Javier Peña? ❤️

Ask and you shall receive, my love 💕😌

Javier Peña x Fem!Reader; warnings: depictions of violence & angst

Javier Masterlist

»»————-　♡　————-««

"Javier," you didn't even open your eyes as you reached out for him. You were buried in a cocoon of warm, plush blankets, resting on a pillow that smelled just like him. 

It was late - so late that it was early in the morning. A soft sigh escaped your lips as you listened to him continue to pace his bedroom. The window was wide open, letting in the soft sounds of the lightly falling rain, but it still wasn't enough to drown out the shuffling of his feet. His body was practically humming with nervous energy as he couldn't quite seem to calm down.

"You're going to wear a hole in the floor," you pouted as you sneaked a peek at him, finding him standing at the foot of the bed, shoulders slumped and hanging his head in...shame? Worry? Something was weighing heavy on him. 

He got like this sometimes; but you didn't blame him. While you didn't work for the DEA and weren't completely privy to every aspect of his job, you knew it was hardly rainbows and sunshine. But you never, ever pried, rather, you provided whatever he needed. Sometimes it was silence, a comforting touch as he pondered over his actions. Sometimes it was listening to him as he ranted and raved about his day. Sometimes it was providing a sounding board he posed different theories about anything and everything. 

But most importantly, it was you being you. He loved you more than life itself, and at the end of the day, getting to come home to you, to be yours, was more than he could have dreamed of. You were the reminder that for all the bad that was in the world, there was still some good. There was still a reason to hope, a reason to get up every morning and fight for the right thing. 

Slowly, ever so slowly, he turned around and looked at you, nothing but sorrow etched in his eyes. Those soft brown eyes were often filled with so much emotion, so many things all at once - honeyed and golden - and now? They were tired, empty- hollow. He exhaled slowly, a long shaky thing before he offered you a small nod.

You sat up and held your hand to him, beckoning for him to come closer. Javier stared at your outstretched hand for a moment before caving and giving you his own, much larger hand. Pulling him closer to you, he gave in and sat at the end of the bed.

"I love these hands," you whispered before bringing it to your lips and gently kissed his knuckles, "so strong and calloused, but still soft and tender under it all. One of the best parts of my day is getting to hold one of these hands - or to be held by them."

"Dulzura," it was the first time he had spoken since he'd arrived home. It had been late and you were already in bed. He'd barely alerted you to his presence, only announcing his arrival with a soft kiss to your forehead that had stirred you from your slumber.

"Javier," you reached over and touched his cheek before tracing over his features, "I love you, so much. I want you to always know that. You don't have to tell me what's going on,  but you know I will be here for you no matter what."

Almost as if a weight had been magically lifted from his shoulders, he let out a gentle sigh before closing his eyes and keening into your touch. You were the sun, despite the cold, dark embrace of the night, and he was lucky enough to be in your orbit.

"I love you," he whispered gruffly, his voice catching on each syllable. Before he could think twice about it, he wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you closer, wanting to feel the sacred intimacy of your skin on his, "I will always protect you. Yeah?"

"Javier," you smiled softly before pressing your forehead against his, "I know that. You don't have to tell me what's on your mind, but if you want to, you know I'll listen. I'm not here to judge you; you think you're this monster, but I know you're not. You're a good man, despite what you think."

Javier made a small sound in his throat before gently laying you back down in your pile of blankets; they were soft - so soft - just like your heart. Instead of getting up to aimlessly pace around, he laid down next to you, facing you, as he slung an around your waist and tangled his legs with yours. Reaching over, you brushed a stray curl from his forehead before giving him a gentle kiss. The worry on his face eased up ever so slightly as you closed your eyes and pulled him against your chest before using him as your pillow.

It wasn't long before you were asleep again, delicately snoring in his arms as he tried to ground himself with your presence. But sleep still managed to evade him, and he laid there with a multitude of dark thoughts in his mind.

But at least you weren't one of them.

»»————-　♡　————-««

It was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be a quick in and out of the small supermarket. Another long week had passed and you had wanted to surprise Javi with his favorites for dinner. 

It was all supposed to be so simple.

And now? 

You were lying against a mess of rubble and smoke, your ears ringing out of control as your vision grew hazy. Everything hurt, but you were alive - covered in blood, not all your own, as you tried to make sense of what happened. Abrasions and gashes liberally covered your body as you tried to wipe away the grime from your face.

All around you people were running around frantically, screaming and shouting. You didn't blame them; if you hadn't been so confused and taken aback by what happened you would have been the same. 

You pulled yourself up on shaking, trembling legs, and tried to navigate away from the ruin. Whatever type of bomb that had been used was enough for this building and the next, it had caused nothing but chaos. All you knew was that you wanted to get out. Out, out, out and into safety.

But before you could escape, you heard frenzied shouts of your name among the loud ringing and screams. You looked around and found Javier sprinting over to you.

He stopped as soon as he was in front of you, his hands finding your face as he looked you over. You didn't even realize you'd begun to cry until you felt his hand brush away some of the tears.

He was speaking - asking you questions but you didn't hear a word. His hands went to your shoulders as he tried to shake you and pull you back in reality but nothing worked. It was like you were watching a movie play out, but this wasn’t anything like that - this was a horrifying reality. The worst part? You were one of the lucky ones.

You were in such a daze that you shut down, finding yourself blankly staring back at him. Nothing but fear and worry clouded his expression as he tried to get you to say something - anything - back to him.

The last thing you remembered was him pulling you into his arms and turning away from the horrific scene.

»»————-　♡　————-««

The next time you woke up it was quiet. Almost too quiet and nothing met your ears the harsh ticking of the clock on the wall and the beeping of the several machines. A small groan left your lips as you slowly moved, trying to stretch your stiff limbs as you woke up. 

Rubbing at your heavy eyes, you frowned deeply when you saw all the contusions and lingering scratches on your hand.

Oh. It hadn’t been some sort of wicked dream or nightmare. 

Your throat was practically raw as you tried to swallow, screaming in pain. You quickly spied the pitcher of water and sad plastic cups on the table next to your bed, reaching for it hastily as you poured a cup and downed it in one go. It was warm and almost metallic; you wondered how long it had been there. How long you had been there. 

Studying the IV in your arms, along with other various implements, you sighed as you tried not to cry. Everything hurt, every fiber of your being felt like it was aching to the bone. Pulling back the thin, scratchy blanket, you realized your lower half didn’t look much better. Your legs were nothing but constellations of black and blue tinged with green. As if to test the waters, you moved each leg, flexing your feet and knees, as if just checking to make sure everything still worked. Just in case. Just because.

It hurt now, and no doubt for a long time, but you were alive. You were still breathing, taking in shallow breath after shallow painful breath. But you were still here. That’s what mattered.

You looked around for someone...anyone. But found no one. Your heart fell a little as you had half expected Javier to be there, or perhaps Steve, or maybe even Connie. But there was no one. Half tempted to get up and move around, or at least try, you refrained and hit the call button on the remote on your side instead. 

It was only a few moments before you heard footsteps approaching and a nurse poke in her head. Her face lit up when she noticed that you were awake and conscious, despite the sight for sore eyes that you currently were. 

“You’re awake,” she came over and looked at you, a hand going to your face as she brushed away a few tangled locks from your forehead, “a welcome surprise. How are you feeling?”

“Like death,” you admitted quietly, “but I’m here, and that’s...that’s the important part.”

“You survived a bombing.” she reminded you, “being here is the only thing right now. How’s the pain?”

“Just sore,” you admitted, not quite feeling the full effects just yet, “am I...anything permanent?”

“No,” she promised as you felt a wave of relief wash over you, “you got lucky. You’ll be back to normal eventually, right now you’ll need lots of rest - for your body and mind. We just want to keep you for a few more days to make sure there’s no infection with anything. You had a few good gashes on your legs and abdomen.”

“Okay,” you let out a stunted exhale as you realized that no matter what happened, you were in good hands and had been well taken care of. But that still didn’t solve the mystery of why you were alone, “there was a man that brought me in I’m sure...is he...here?”

“Javier?” she asked as you nodded lightly, “he had to leave on an emergency call. Don’t worry, sweetheart, he hasn’t left your side in days.”

“Days?” you tilted your head to the side in confusion, “how long have I been here?”

“Almost a week,” she gave a tight lipped smile, “go on and rest, and I’ll bring you something to eat. I’m sure he'll be back soon.”

»»————-　♡　————-««

But soon turned into hours and those hours stretched into the wee hours of the night, and eventually you fell back asleep. The amount of painkillers and fluids were enough to keep you drowsy and despite wanting to see Javier, you couldn’t stay awake. 

It had hurt your feelings a little - the fact that no one stopped in to see you. But you decided not to take it personally; work was probably insane at the moment.

Javier didn’t make an appearance until the next afternoon.

His tread was light as he hovered in the doorway, almost as if studying you to see if you were conscious. 

“Javi,” you beamed when you spotted him, slowly sitting up as best as you could. Your heart instantly felt better at the sight of your lover as he shuffled into the room. You’d expected him to be excited, to smile, to cry, to...something. But there was...nothing. You frowned as he came and stood at the side of your bed, “Javier? W-what’s wrong, mi amor?”

“Look at you,” he whispered softly after a few tense moments, reaching up and gingerly touching your cheek. You sighed and reached for his hand but he quickly flinched out of your grasp.

“It’s okay,” you promised softly, surprised by his recoil, “it looks bad now, but it will be better. They said nothing is permanent. I’ll be fine soon enough.”

“You were almost killed and you think this is fine?!” you had never heard him shout before, not like this, not in such anger. His nostrils flared as he ran a hand over his tired face, “you look terrible, you were barely conscious and then in a coma for a week. Nothing about this is fine!”

“Javi,” you had leaned away at the sound of yelling, confused and hurt by his harsh response, “I’m alive, okay? That’s what matters. The rest will get better -”

“What about all the people that it won’t get better for?” he sighed as he turned around for a moment, his shoulders rising and falling heavily, “what if it had been you? If something worse had happened to you, I would never be able to live with myself.”

“But it didn’t,” you whispered, “and I know it’s hard to accept right now, but I am okay and it will get better and this isn’t your fault. Please, Javier, calm down, my love, you’re shaking…”

“This was because of me,” he turned around, an emotionless mask on his face, “don’t you understand that? This happened to you because you know me...because you’re with me.”

“Javier-”

“I couldn’t even protect you,” he hung his head with a bitter laugh, “I promised I would always protect you, and I couldn’t even do that much. What if...I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this every day knowing how easy it is for them to get to you. I won’t have anything happen to you just because you’re mine - because of me.”

“You didn’t….” you paused and tried to reach for him, holding out your hand and offering it to him as you had done countless times before. Except this time...he didn’t take it, “Javier. I know this was bad, and I know that it wasn’t your fault. You did protect me - if you hadn’t gotten me here in time, or came to me, it could have been so much worse. I’m not...I know the risks of your job, Javi, but it doesn’t scare me. Not away from you….I love you.”

“I know,” he answered gruffly, “I know you do. Despite the fact that I’m a bad man that does bad things. And I love you too. That’s why I have to do this….”

“Do what?” you asked as your heart plummeted into your stomach at the tone of his words. This wasn’t good - no this..was very bad, “Javier? What’s...what’s going on?”

“As soon as you’re well enough to travel, you’re going home,” he didn’t even look at you as your mouth dropped in horror and confusion, “you’re getting on the first plane back to the states. And you’re never setting foot back in Colombia.”

“Javier,” your voice cracked as he refused to meet your eyes, “you can’t just do that. You can’t-”

“I have and I will,” he answered gruffly, “it’s been taken care of. The DEA will set you up with a new place and help you find a new job. Please...just don’t argue with me. Just…”

“You can’t do this,” you were crying now, as your whole world crumbled around you and Javier started to walk away, refusing to look at you again, “please...please don’t do this. Please don’t make me leave. Don’t - don’t...walk away. Javier, I love you, and I want to be here with you. I don’t care about anything else!”

“I know, Dulzura,” he whispered as he paused in the doorway, his back still to you, “I love you more than you will ever know. That’s why this has to be done. Please just...do this one thing. For me.”

“Javier...don’t walk away,” you were begging him, your chest tightening in constricting as it got harder and harder to breathe, “p-p-please don’t do this. Please don’t leave me - not like this. Please.”

“I am sorry,” he promised gently, “I’m sorry for everything I’ve put you through. But I do love you, truly, that’s why I have to do this. You will thank me one day.”

“Javier,” he turned and walked out of the small room, pausing for just a moment before he exhaled shakily and walked away. If you had seen him, you’d have seen the most heartbroken look on his face as tears streamed down his cheeks. But you didn’t; instead you sat there, helpless and small as your vision grew warm and bleary with your own tears. 

You hid your face in your hands as you cried and cried and cried until you couldn’t anymore. No one came in, no one said anything, and he never came back. 

This was….it. A new life without your love. 

Empty, hollow, broken. Just like him - and now you. 

»»————-　♡　————-««

Permanent Taglist: @secretsweetscollectionblog  @sheridans-dynamos  @queenbbarnes  @persephonesnebula   @ah-callie  @blushingwueen  @thisis-theway @rosetophighlander  @rae-gar-targaryen    @hiscyarika  @readsalot73  @huliabitch  @ollyoxenfrees @coffeeandtodd  @beepbeepsephy   @scarlettwitcher  @nerdyknightwritersblog  @choicesarcade  @arrowswithwifi  @everythingaboutnothingstuff  @suckerfor-fanfics  @bestintheparsec @javihoney  @aeryntheofficial  @hail-doodles @engineeredfiction @aeryntheofficial  @asgardianvamp21  @keithseabrook27  @karmezii  @dearspacepirates  @thatsuitlooksgoodonyou  @paintballkid711 @mrpascals @kochamcie @lv7867 @artsymaddie @gooddaykate @rosiefridayrogersunday @heyitmelexie @criminalmind1927 @justanotherblonde23 @coni-martina @thewayofthemandalorian @phoenixhalliwell @lucifer @cosmoschick

[ashintheairlikesnow]

A Little Bit Stabbed

Jake Gets Stabbed Miniseries: First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth

CW: Discussion of past child abuse/domestic violence, description of stab wound, painkillers/drugged but in a good way, brief IV needle reference, some short references to Jake’s religious trauma, some trauma response stuff

“Took four of us to get you onto the couch, you know,” Kauri says, fingers moving gently to brush Jake’s short hair back off his forehead. There’s a hint of humor to his deep voice, but Jake catches the tremor in it, too. “You’re heavier than you look.”

“Must be… pretty fucking heavy, then,” Jake manages, voice slightly thin. They gave him something - Nat’s EMT friend showed up with IV supplies while refusing to tell anyone where they’d gotten ahold of everything from, except to repeatedly reassure all of them I know someone, it’s taken care of, I probably won’t go to jail for this. Besides, I’ve been in jail before.

Jake might not have found it very reassuring if he wasn’t halfway to unconscious from the pain alone at the time.

Now, though, there’s a needle feeding a steady supply of something wonderful into his bloodstream, holding the worst of the pain at bay. All he can feel now is maybe a little bit of an itch he knows better than to scratch, and a heaviness to his limbs that keeps them limp and relaxed. 

“We had to turn the stupid thing into the pull-out bed just to make sure your feet wouldn’t be higher than your head.” Kauri smiles at him, but there’s worry in those warm blue eyes, and Jake uses every ounce of strength to lift his good hand, the one on the uninjured side, and take Kauri’s, pulling his knuckles to his lips to brush against them. 

“I’m okay,” Jake says softly. “I am, Kaur. It’s not so bad.”

“It’s not-... you got fucking stabbed in your own kitchen, Jake.” Kauri’s lips thin and he looks away, over towards the TV, playing Clue.

Funny, Jake thinks, woozy and untethered to any kind of focus. My mom used to play Clue when we were alone, after. Made her feel better for a while.

“Just a… a flesh wound,” Jake manages in a terrible approximation of a British accent.

Kauri just looks at him, expression serious, and leans over until their foreheads touch. He’s warm, and Jake’s eyes close, basking in the body heat that comes off of him, surrounds them both. “Don’t,” Kauri whispers. “Please don’t make jokes. I thought-”

“It’s okay,” Jake murmurs. 

Eventually, he should probably tell someone he can only sort of feel the hand on the injured side. But not now. 

“It’s okay. It’s not s’bad. I got the good drugs, right?”

“Antibiotics and…” Kauri squints at the label on the bag attached to the IV, then winces and shakes his head. “Sorry. Can’t read today. It, uh. It kind of comes and goes when I’m worried, and today-”

“I get it. But… you don’t have to worry about me, Kaur. It’s over, it happened… I’ll feel better pretty fast. It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Kauri says softly, but he relaxes beside Jake, keeping a hold of his hand. His fingers are slightly chilled, but they warm against Jake’s. The two of them settle into silence for a while, a woman in black on the TV with eyes blown wide in comic exaggeration of anger speaking in a blur of sound Jake knows by heart but can’t really pick apart from anything else, not just yet, not right now. 

He knows this movie by heart. He and his mom used to curl up under a blanket while she closed her eyes and prayed for things to get better and Jake prayed for his dad to die in a car accident or some other terrible way, and make it slow, and then pray with terror not to go to hell for thinking like that.

If men like his father go to heaven, Jake would rather burn in hell.

At least my favorite bands would be there, he thinks, and laughs to himself, shoulders shaking a little, sending a ripple of pain down his arm and spiking into his skull. He winces, but the thought still strikes him as too funny to quit circling woozily around his mind, and he keeps laughing a little.

Kauri turns to look at him, eyebrows raised. “What are you laughing at?”

Jake blinks over at him, those wide blue eyes. It had been hell not to be able to hold him for so long, with eyes like that. Real hell, the kind where you spend your days wishing for a connection that seems too hard to make. “Nothing, just… thinking about shit with my dad,” He says, finally. “My mom and I used to watch Clue all the time. It’s her favorite movie.”

“Yeah?” Kauri looks over his shoulder, back at the television, and Jake’s eyes move lazily over the slight bump in his nose where it was broken by someone years ago, the dip of his lips, the roundness of his chin, angling a little with age. The way his neck would feel to trace with just one fingertip, how he smiles when Jake does it, asks him what the fuck he’s looking at when there’s way more to Kauri that needs attention right now than just his face.

There’s a lazy wave of warmth in Jake, a steady thrum of something that goes much deeper than arousal, at the memory.

Adoration.

“Yeah,” He says, softly. “She’d put it on when he left the house, we’d make popcorn and watch it. Saturday night special, popcorn and a movie, Mom and Jake.”

“Where’d your dad go?” Kauri asks, then the answer catches up with him, and he winces. “Wait, sorry. I think I know where he went.”

“Church.”

That is clearly not what Kauri expected to hear. “I-... what?” He turns back to Jake, eyebrows furrowing. “I thought-”

“Nope. He went to church. Fish fry on Saturdays, he volunteered.” Jake is dimly aware that this might be more than he’s ever told Kauri about his father, at least more than he’s ever said that wasn’t laser-focused on the hurts, the bruises, the concussion, the ER visits where Jake learned to lie. “He was a magician with a deep fryer. Best fucking fish I ever ate.” He laughs, then coughs a little against the new round of ache in his shoulder. 

Kauri is quiet for a moment, his eyes searching Jake’s face, maybe looking for an idea of how to respond the right way. Jake knows that look - he’s seen it less and less over the years, but it never fully stops.

Kauri never stops looking for the safe answer, the one that won’t get him hurt. Jake never stops being ready to fight his way out if it happens again. Kauri is still ready to say what the abuser needs to hear, placate and please and keep himself alive.

Jake is still ready to pick up a weapon and use it if his father ever comes near he or his mother again. Not that he ever will. Not that he even wants to, sixteen years after Jake last saw his face. 

But he’s still built, deep within, to fight the threat. And so is Kauri, in his own way. 

“I love you so much,” Jake says softly. “I hope you didn’t pull anything dragging my ass around.”

“Mmmn, guess I’ll find out,” Kauri says softly, snuggling back up to him, then. “Should we change the movie? If it’s, like, a thing for you-”

“Nah.” Jake smiles, slightly. He feels pleasantly drunk, on whatever the painkiller slowly drip-feeding into his arm is. A little woozy, a little bit in love with it. “It’s like a comfort thing, really. I should call my mom-”

“I already did,” Kauri says, gently pushing him back down as Jake tries to make himself sit up. “She’s driving up. She said she’ll get here in the morning, she had to find someone to watch her dog.”

Jake blinks twice. “Mom has a dog?”

“I think it’s new. But, um. You can’t exactly meet her at her hotel, Jake. She’s gonna have to come here.”

Jake feels a rush of old nerves prickling along his arms, the hair of his neck trying to stand up. He closes his eyes, tries to push it back down. “I’ve never given her my address. It’s not safe for us. What if-... I don’t know. I’ve just never… I’ve always worried that if he found her, you know, that he’d… convince her to tell him where I live. He’d turn us all in just to feel like the big righteous moral hero all over again. Probably hard to feel that way when you’re hitting a teenager. Easier when you’re turning in vigilantes with stolen property.” He spits the words, and Kauri flinches a little. “Shit. Sorry, Kaur.”

“No, it’s. It’s okay. I get what you mean. But I don’t think your mom would do that. She loves you.”

“She does.” Jake exhales, closes his eyes. Inside him there is still an angry child that wants to point out that it hasn’t always been enough. But there’s a grown man, and a decade of fucking therapy, telling him there’s a whole lot more to it than that. “And she’s finally come around to understanding why I do this. Yeah… yeah, we’ll tell her where I am. It’ll be fine. Honestly, it’s not so bad. Jameson really did a great job on the stabbing.” Jake tries to laugh again. “Fucking surgeon with a butcher knife. He managed to miss every fucking bit of me that would have killed me.”

“Except for if you bled out,” Kauri points out, voice small. 

“Yeah… but I didn’t.” Jake thinks of Antoni’s face, the focus in his dark eyes, the quick movement of his hands, the blinding agony of the cloth being forced into the wound to soak up the blood, the way Antoni had leaned all his weight forwards to put enough pressure to staunch the bleeding. Jake had never felt pain like that before, and he’s not sure he could handle feeling it again. “Ant was there. It’ll be okay. Where is he?”

“In his room.” Picking at the heavy thick blanket laid over Jake, not quite looking at him now, Kauri asks, “How are you so calm about this?”

“Drugs,” Jake answers right away. “Like ninety percent drugs.” He groans as a throbbing ache travels from the stab wound, up into his skull, all the way down to his toes. “Fuck. The… whatever’s in there helps. But also…” Jake sighs, letting his eyes drift to the ceiling, over the popcorn-texture there. He’d meant to scrape it clean and smooth, when he bought the house, but other stuff kept taking priority, and he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. “This isn’t th’ first time, you know?”

Kauri frowns. “Jake, I have licked just about everything on your body, I’ve never seen a scar from-”

“Not… not stabbed. But… stuck here, on a couch-bed, tryin’... tryin’ to heal from shit. That’s not new.” Jake exhales. Above him, the blades of the ceiling fan circle lazily, and his eyes follow the movement of the shadows. 

“No, I guess not.”

“In any case… I haven’t s-seen… Jameson’s upstairs, right? Can you get him down here?”

Something passes over Kauri’s face, a shadow, a discomfort and darkness that Jake can’t quite read. “Jameson’s not in the house, Jake.”

“What? Why?” Jake starts trying to sit up again, and this time Kauri’s gentle push isn’t enough to get him back down. He grinds his teeth against the pain and forces himself upright, trying to shift his legs over the side of the bed. The room spins around him, dizzy-sick flip in his stomach, but he ignores it. He’s felt worse than this and kept moving before. “Shit, fuck, I should’ve made sure he didn’t leave-”

“He didn’t. I made him go.”

The look Jake turns on Kauri is baffled, but there’s anger, too, welling up inside him. “You what?”

“I told him he can’t stay here if he’s a danger to you and the others,” Kauri says, but he cringes back from Jake’s expression, instinctive fear. Jake hates how he looks like his dad - huge and muscular, a threat inherent in his existence that he might not give off if he were smaller. But his bulk and his strength is also the thing that makes him capable of withstanding the danger he puts himself in for them. It’s the reason he could come home and pick Chris up with a broken rib and carry him after they raided the last safehouse he’d lived in. It’s the reason he could finally fight back with his dad. It’s the reason the kids at his new schools, one after another after another as he and his mom moved constantly to try not to be found, left him alone. 

“Kauri, he can’t-... Jameson’s not. He can’t live on his own.”

“That’s a lie,” Kauri says, lips barely moving. “That’s a lie they tell us-”

“No, that’s not what I-... Jameson’s like Chris,” Jake says, softly. “Like Chris used to be. He was treated like an animal, Kauri. He didn’t get to use fucking utensils to eat in the last two places he was held, he told me himself. He can’t live on his own yet. If you kicked him out… Jesus Christ, Kauri, do you not remember how it felt when you were kicked out?”

Kauri looks like he’s been slapped. “Wait, Jake-... I didn’t mean-”

“We found you half-dead under a goddamn bush, Kauri, you can’t do that to someone else just because I got a little bit stabbed! Shit. Fuck. I gave him a burner phone, if he’s still got it on him, maybe I can call-”

“Jakob fucking Stanton!” Kauri yells so rarely, and Jake goes still, turning to look at him, seeing the anger written across Kauri’s face. Kauri angry is electric, and immensely sexy, and something Jake had gone so long thinking he would never see unless Vincent Shield showed up with a new idea for how to make up for all his failures by forcing himself around someone who hated him. “Will you fucking listen to me?!”

Jake just sits there, staring at him. He can’t even find the words. Eventually, he just nods.

“I didn’t kick him out on the street, I’m not that awful, and fuck you for thinking I am and we’re going to talk about that later when you aren’t half off your head from painkillers. I don’t want him here until you’re feeling better in case it happens again, so I-... so I sent him home with Nat. She doesn’t have anyone living with her right now, and she said okay, so he’s going to stay with her.” Kauri swallows, reaching slowly out to lay his hand on Jake’s leg. “He and I talked. He said it’s always been men, Jake. All of the ones who hurt him were men, one of them was... was really big like you, I guess. So I thought-... if he’s with Nat, maybe it won’t happen again for long enough for him to, to work it through in therapy and Dr. Berger maybe can give him, give him s-something to help. So maybe he won’t, um, hallucinate or… or w-whatever the next time.” Kauri’s eyes well up, glimmer with tears that don’t fall. “I was trying to help. I thought he’d feel safer with only a woman, maybe, and I sent him alone so that he’d know he can’t hurt Allyn, he was really scared of that, and…”

Jake’s mouth hangs open.

Kauri slumps over, his forehead slowly resting against Jake’s back where he sits slightly behind him now that Jake is nearly off the bed. “I had to make sure everyone’s safe. I didn’t know what else to do. I sent Chris to stay with Laken overnight but he’ll be back tomorrow, Antoni’s fucked up but he’s in his room and he’s safe, and all the rescues promised to stay in their rooms and Allyn tried to go with Jameson and I think they hate me now because I said no, but I didn’t-... I tried to think of what you would do, if it had been Chris or me he’d hurt. I was trying to be like you. I’m s-sorry if I fucked it up, I’m sorry, please, I thought you were going to die, please don’t be mad at me-”

“Kauri.” Jake turns, and uses his good hand to lift Kauri’s chin, meeting his eyes. 

Blue on blue, always. 

“I’m not mad,” He says, gently. “Not… not now. You’re right, I shouldn’t have… just been a shit deciding what you did without asking. I’m sorry. So, let me just… you spent the last couple of hours really fucking busy, huh?”

Kauri nods, kissing Jake’s fingertips, one by one. “I’m sorry,” He whispers. “I’m not… I’m not good at this, I’m not... not... I was so scared. I didn’t know what you would do, Jake, and Nat said she thought it was a good idea, so-”

“It is. It is a good idea.” Kauri blinks, surprised, and the tears that have been threatening finally run, clear as crystal, down his flushed cheeks. He looks like a fucking sculpture, Jake thinks to himself, like some artist’s idea of the perfect beautiful person. “Kauri, just. Now that I get what you were trying to do… Shit. That’s really smart.”

Kauri huffs a laugh, a kind of half-sobbing sound, and shakes his head. “It’s just, I was just guessing-”

“That’s all we ever do, too,” Jake says, voice soft. “We guess, at what we can do to help. Nat always says we make the hard choices when nobody else can. Kauri, that’s the smartest fucking idea. I’m… that’s some grace under fire shit. That’s amazing.”

“It… it is?”

“Yeah.” Jake kisses him, and Kauri tastes like mouthwash, like mint, kisses back with desperate intensity. “Yeah, Kaur. That’s even better than what I would have done. You’re so fucking smart. What made you decide to slum it with me?”

“You have a really good d-dick and I don’t w-w-want to lose access,” Kauri says, and he’s crying or laughing or maybe both. “You’re my eye candy.”

“You’re my Einstein.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me yourself,” Jake says softly. 

“Heal a little first.” Kauri sighs, half-smiling, pulling Jake back into the bed to lay down again. “Everyone’s safe, Jake. At least for now. Everyone’s okay. You need to rest, and everyone’s going to be okay.”

Jake lets his head be maneuvered back onto the pillow, feels Kauri settle back down next to him, pulling the blankets back up over them both. He’s silent for a while, lets the soft sound of the end of the movie wash over him, showing the different endings.

“I love you,” He whispers. The way the adrenaline is fading makes him sleepy, drifting in a new drowsy haze, ready to dose off again. “So much.”

“Love you, too,” Kauri murmurs. 

He knows this - the couch-bed pulled out, watching movies and stand-up comedy at a low volume, a throb of pain somewhere that will heal only with time - by heart.

With Kauri’s weight and warmth beside him, it feels entirely, completely new.

-

@astrobly @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @moose-teeth @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @eatyourdamnpears @boxboysandotherwhump @whumptywhumpdump @whumpfigure @outofangband @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @thehopelessopus @butwhatifyouwrite @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @newandfiguringitout @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whumpiary @endless-whump

[sweetiejunie]

Txt reactions when they realised they unintentionally left marks on you from the night before.

[legal members only!!!]

Genre: fluff, slight smut

♡ Request from anon: Can you do a second part of ‘Marks’ where they react to marks on Y/N instead??? ♡

Pt1

=====================================

Marks

Part 2 • [Y/n edition]

You hadn’t seen boyfriend or the boys in a while. School work was catching up with you and honestly you were just too tired to go out anywhere. The moment all your assignments were handed in, you decided that a perfect reunion would be to watch movies together.

It was supposed to an innocent movie night with him and boys. You guys munching on popcorn whilst having a netflix marathon of your favourite shows. Eventually, once everyone had gone to bed, one thing lead to another and the night became more physically exhausting than what was initially planned.

—.*•—

Yeonjun

He woke up with you in his arms, snuggling your head in his chest.

Smiling to himself as he studied your sleeping figure, admiring the peacefulness on your face.

He laid there for a while, not wanting to get up, afraid he would wake you. Just wanting to make up for the weeks of not having you with him.

If he could, he would stop the time just so he could keep this moment forever.

Brushing away the hair that fallen across your face and neck, he smirked when he saw little red patches leading down your neck and to your body.

Smirking as images from the night before started coming back to him. Neither of you had bothered to get dressed again before falling asleep. Simply choosing to cuddle up under the blanket.

He loved marking you. Not for flaunting or showing off that he got laid but for the simple fact that it showed whose you were (he possessive boy)

As he continued gazing, he could help but untangle himself from you and started placing gentle kisses on the areas, slowly following them down

He had made it down to your chest when he heard a little whine from you. He stopped and looked up to see you already staring at him through your sleepy eyes.

“Good morning, my love,” he said smiling, his chin resting on your stomach, his hands caressing your sides.

“Yeonjun, what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he relied, with an innocent pout.

You whinned as a response, “junnie, not now. I’m too tired.”

“Dont worry about it, you just looked so lovely with my marks all over you. Just let me take care of you.”

With that, he covered himself back up with the covers as you felt his kisses travel further south.

All ill say is that, that morning, was the best meal he had in weeks and probably one of his favourites.

—.*•—

Soobin

As you step out of bed, you looked over to the sleeping boy next you. Tightly tucked under the blanket, looking like a giant teddy bear.

You couldn’t help but smile, lightly stroking his messy hair.

You put on your shorts and reached for soobin’s tshirt that had been thrown on the ground the previous night. Only to notice the red marks on your wrists.

‘Ah shit’ you mentally cursed at yourself. Guess no short sleeves for today.

You didn’t mind. You just didn’t want to know or go through what the other boys may have to say. Knowing that they would never let soobin, or you, live it down.

Instead, you grabbed a hoodie from soobin’s closet, knowing it would practically cover your entire hand.

Roughly 30mins later, you were in the kitchen. About to grab yourself a glass of water when you felt a pair of arms wrap around your waist tightly.

“Morning,” he greeted, his voice hoarse, still filled with sleep.

“Hello bin. Sleep well?”

He nodded, lying his head on top of yours

You giggled at his drowsiness, reaching up to grab one of the glasses on the shelves. The sleeve of the hoodie falling, exposing your wrist.

Of course, it didn’t go unnoticed by soobin.

“Baby, what happened to your wrist? Did i do that? I’m sorry,” he said pouting, holding your wrist in his hands, gently rubbing the red areas.

The previous night, soobin had pinned your arms above your head and might have tied them a bit too tightly. Slightly scratching your skin as you struggled against them.

“Its okay, it doesn’t hurt anymore,” you replied, trying to assure him you were fine.

But soobin still pouted and gave you a kiss. He hated knowing he had hurt you in anyway. So safe to say, for the rest of the day he didn’t leave your side, practically glued to you.

—.*•—

Beomgyu

Beomgyu woke up, tossing his arm around what he expected to be you. But was only greeted by emptiness.

Combing a hand through his messy hair, groaning as he sat up to go find you.

Instead, he heard the shower in his bathroom start running and figured that must have been you since the other boys wouldn’t dare enter his room when you were around.

Grinning, he got out of bed, planning to join you in the shower.

Opening the door, he heard your lovely voice singing to one of his favourite songs. You didn’t acknowledge his presence, so he thought you mustn’t have heard him enter.

Out of nowhere, he popped his heard through the shower curtain, “hello baby.”

You jumped at the sudden intrusion. “Oh my f-. You scared me.”

Snickering, he stepped in, studying at your naked figure up and down. Stopping at your hips when he noticed small bruises caused by his nails digging into your skin just a little too much.

“Guess i was too rough last night, huh?” He stated, grabbing your hips as his thumbs ran across the bruises.

You laughed, looking down to his hands. “These? Don’t worry about it, i actually forgot about them.”

“I’m sorry, I won’t be so rough next time,” he apologised, kiss you lightly.

But you could only chuckle at that statement.

“What do you mean?” You said, shooting him a look of disbelief. “You always say that, but you’re always rough anyway.”

Hearing that, he smirked and gave you another kiss, longer and more passionate this time.

“Challenge accepted. I guess I’ll just have to show you how gentle i can be when i want to. But don’t start whining when you don’t get what you want, baby doll.”

=====================================

Omg if this shit doesnt work im going to kms ahhdskallalajshska ive reposted this so many times im so annoyed

Masterlist • Pt1

[oddsnendsfanfics]

Holding On for Dear Life

Genre: Fan Fiction (Vikings) Pairing: Hvitserk/OFC Warnings: Medical, Illness, Sexual Content Rating: M Length: Multi Chapter Disclaimer: a strict work of fiction, I own nothing except the original characters and the plot line. In no way am I affiliated to any of it.  

A/N: Okay, this is something that I have been wanting to write for a long time, but never got to it. It’s not exactly polished a I would like right now, but wanted to posted the first part to see how it went over. Keep in mind, I am doing my best to go about Emmer and her illness as correct as possible, but a good portion of her is actually personal. I mean sure I can bog us all down with medical by the book, but personally I like my own life experience better. 

thank you @flowers-in-your-hayr for the header

Catch Up Here

Hospitals, yuck!

Hvitserk wasn't a fan, then again was anyone?

Ironic that they would be there on the anniversary of them meeting, in this very hospital. Waiting for his best friend – sometimes girlfriend, Hvitserk had sat quietly watching a news programme on mute with captions scrolling across the screen. After what felt like ages, Emmer emerged, slightly sore and exhausted asking Hvitserk if he could take her home.

Cozy in her apartment, Emmer yawned and insisted that Hvitserk was fine to leave her. She'd been through this before, it was nothing new. Bed rest, only fluids, and pain meds only when the label dictated. Although Hvitserk admired her trying to ship him off, he knew better. The last time he listened to Emmer, she had gone and ordered a large pizza and proceeded to eat half of it. Landing her back in the bathroom sicker than when she'd gone to the hospital.

This time, he refused to leave.

“Hvits, I'm fine.” Emmer rubbed her eyes, yawning from the cocktail of medications that she'd received at the hospital.

“Nope, you're not getting rid of me.” Hvitserk shook his head, fluffing the pillow on her couch. He had zero intentions of moving, besides he was too tired to drive again. It didn't matter that his apartment was only a block away.

Hands on her hips, head cocked, Emmer scowled. “I'm not Ivar.”

“Thank fuck for that,” Hvitserk smirked laying down on her couch and yawning.

His baby brother was a far worse patient than Emmer ever thought of being. Although their diseases were nothing alike, they'd both had their fair share of surgery and hospital visits. It was during one of Ivar's stay overs that Hvitserk had wandered the halls of the ward, bumping into the frail girl with the IV pole. Emmer had recovered, gained strength, and a Hvitserk all in a few short months.

“Hvits,” Emmer whined.

“Bed, Emmy. The doctor said you should be on bed rest until tomorrow. You know the drill. If you need me, I won't be far. But I need some sleep, first.” Closing his eyes, Hvitserk took a deep breath, snuggling into the blanket that he'd pulled down from the back of the couch.

Ignoring her would eventually work, growing bored of sitting in the kitchen alone, Emmer would go to bed. If this were under any other circumstance, Hvitserk would have gone to bed with her. Knowing that she'd been in so much pain a few short hours ago, he didn't want to crowd her. Giving her space to wrap her head around the night's events.

Emmer was unfazed and not at all bothered by what had happened, but spending hours in the ER with a blocked stoma took a lot out of a person. Ulcerative Colitis was a cruel mistress, not only causing severe abdominal pains and cramping, but leaving one swollen joints, ulcers in various places, and fatigue. One time Emmer had told Hvitserk on top of that, it was literally the shittiest disease ever. Pun and no pun intended. Tonight's trip had been courtesy of something causing a block in Emmer's small intestine. Unable to pass, sending blinding pain shooting through her abdomen.

She'd called Hvitserk around the third hour of vomiting, asking for him to come over and keep her company. Arriving to find Emmer in the bathroom on the floor soaked in sweat, complaining that she was dizzy Hvitserk grabbed her emergency bag and escorted her to the car.

“Damn peas,” Emmer mumbled leaning against Hvitserk on the way to the car. She'd known better than to eat them, but she couldn't resist. They were there in all their green glory taunting her.  

Home and somewhat comfortable in her bed, Emmer laid looking through her phone. Hvitserk on the other side of the door, stretched out and sleeping on the couch. Outside in the morning sun, the birds sang and the city slowly came to life. Oblivious to what some people were going through.

Each person lived their own life on their own path. Emmer had always believed that, even more so now. Her path had taken a turn, sick for months on end without reason or cause. Doctor's office after Doctor's office. Specialist after Specialist. Disease had nearly ruined her life. Easily, she could have allowed it, but why?

So she'd had some surgeries, a ruptured bowel, no large intestine, and had a bag on her side which was now her new bowel. It wasn't the end of the world and certainly wasn't the end of her life. Emmer enjoyed the freedom it had given her, now she was able to go places and not worry about whether or not she would be left in tears, over not being able to find a public restroom.

Meeting Hvitserk days after her first surgery had been another weird little blessing. He was quirky, sweet, and his own kind of funny. Not to mention he was a pretty good boyfriend. He was patient and gentle, even sticking around to be the supportive best friend when they weren't dating.

Rolling on her right side with a slight wince, Emmer rubbed her tummy above the spot where her bag resided.

“Really Eir?” She rolled her eyes at the grumbling stoma. “Now you're talking?”

Whatever. She shook her head, closing her eyes. Hvitserk would be in shortly, she was sure of it. His love for her plush bed would eventually take over, once he realized the couch was a tad to short.

Stretched out on the couch, his feet resting on the arm rest at the end, Hvitserk was surprisingly comfortable. Although he wished Emmer's couch was about seven inches longer. It was plush, comfortable, and like a cloud, until his ankles began to go numb. Curling his legs up, Hvitserk shifted over onto his side trying to stop his feet from tingling.  Picking his head up, when he heard the bedroom door open.

No matter how hard she tried, Emmer wasn't exactly stealthy. The bottom door hinge and the floor board right outside of her door gave her away. Hvitserk pushing himself to sit up, scratching the back of his head, he looked like he'd been the one in the ER all night, in pain.

“Hey Hvits,” Emmer raised her hands over her head, stretching her shoulders, then dropping them. “What's for breakfast?”

“Why are you out of bed?” Hvitserk scowled with concern.

“Because I'm not tired? The day awaits us, Hvits.”  She'd slept for three hours, it was almost 10AM. Time to be awake and out doing something.

“Your day is going to be spent in bed, binge watching cheesy sitcoms, while drinking tea, and eating broth.” Hvitserk smiled wide at her. “I'll even join you, once I clean up a bit.”

“You don't have to clean my apartment.” Emmer rolled her eyes at him. “I can do it.”

“I know, but I want to help. Besides, if I stay here it's an excuse not to go home. Ubbe had a new lady friend over, I should at least give her time to get out.” He shrugged. His older brother really needed to pick one of his rotating women and settle.

“He still on the rebound?” Emmer dropped onto the couch beside Hvitserk. Leaning over onto his shoulder, glancing up at him.

“Yep,” Hvitserk nodded. “Margrethe really fucked with his head. We have a talent for picking bat shit crazy women, you know. I think it's genetic or some shit.”

“Your mom isn't bat shit crazy.” Emmer countered. “She's just angry that your dad kept fucking around on her.”

“Understandable, although what did she expect? He did meet her, while he was married.” Rubbing his face, Hvitserk sighed. His family would never be up for any sort of Family of the Year awards.

“Your dad still seeing Yidu?”

“Nope, she grew some common sense and left.” Rolling his eyes, Hvitserk scoffed. “Did you know she's the same age as Bjorn?”

“I had a feeling she wasn't your dad's age.” Emmer shrugged. “Every family has their bullshit, what can I say?”

“There is family drama and then there is the Lothbroks. But, enough about my parents. How do you feel, now?” Leaning his head on top of Emmer's; Hvitserk nuzzled his nose into her hair. “And for the record, you're not bat shit crazy.”

“Thank you, I think.” Emmer laughed. “And I'm still a little sore, but feeling better. Really, I'm hungry. Can we eat?”

“Sure, but you're not getting anything solid.”

“Well, ice cream isn't solid. Oh! Let's go get ice cream.”

“Or, you can stay here, in bed while I go get some ice cream and bring it back. What kind do you want? Chocolate?” Hvitserk slowly lifted his head from Emmer's. “I can also bring back some coffee. Iced latte with almond milk and one shot of caramel syrup?”

“Yes! Yes that sounds amazing!”

“Alright, I will go get previsions. You stay in bed and rest. I shouldn't be long. Promise me, you won't try to do anything until I am back?”

“Well, I may shower.” Emmer shrugged, pretending to smell herself. “I stink like hospital, you know how much I hate that.”

“Fair enough, but nothing else. I will do the housework, when I get back. Okay, Em? I don't want you to get hurt or over strain yourself.”

Rolling her eyes, Emmer nodded. “Okay, fine, I will behave. Now go, I want my latte and ice cream.”

“Bossy Britches,” Hvitserk mumbled, grabbing his phone, keys, and wallet.

“Damn right I am!” Emmer called after him, gently tossing a pillow from the couch at his back.

Turning to blow her a kiss, Hvitserk laughed, closing the door behind him. A click indicated that he'd used his key to lock the door, saving Emmer from having to get up and walk twenty feet to the door. Hvitserk was always that way, making sure she was taken care of and he did anything to make her life easier.

Sometimes, it was annoying. Others, it was welcomed. Especially on days when Emmer had no energy. Some days she could barely make it out of bed, those were the days when Hvitserk's overbearing need to cater to her were welcomed the most. He was good at knowing when she needed him to take over, but not so good when knowing he had to back off.

Emmer adored him, but had no problems telling him when to lay off or go away.

In a family of six children, Hvitserk was number 4.

Since an early age, he had been the caretaker. Right after his older, half, sister Gyda. He was constantly taking care of his younger brother Sigurd while his mother focused on his baby brother, Ivar. Gyda kept her brothers from killing one another, while Hvitserk kept Sigurd from somehow killing himself. A task and a half to take on as a five year old. If they wanted Ivar to see his 10th birthday, it was a small price. Twenty years later...

Hvitserk had the ice cream in the car, thankful that the coffee shop wasn't overly busy. Along with their drinks he had gone ahead and ordered brown sugar oatmeal for Emmer and a bacon sandwich for himself. Food in hand, he tapped his foot lightly to the music that softly played through the shop. Lost in his thoughts and tiredness, he jumped when his phone rang.

“Hel-”

“Where are you?” Ivar huffed over the phone.

“I'm getting breakfast and heading back to Emmer's.” Hvitserk smiled his apology to the barista as he accepted the iced latte and the flat white. “Why?”

“You were supposed to drive me to that appointment, this morning. I tried calling you.” Ivar grumbled. Hvitserk didn't have to see Ivar's face to know it was twisted in a scowl. “I had to get an uber.”

“Sorry, fuck. Shit.” He hissed. “Ivar, look I'm sorry. Em had to go to the emergency room. She wasn't well and I had to stay with her.”

“So getting laid, because you played the hero, is more important than family?”

“No, Emmer had an emergency. Listen, I'm sorry. I am. Where are you now? I can come get you, before I go back to Em's.”

“Gyda came to get me. Unlike some people, she cares.”

“I care, Ivar.” Hvitserk defended himself. His younger brother was so dramatic. It came with being the baby. “Tell her I said hi.”

“Fuck you.”

Hvitserk sighed, the line went dead with a beep. Whatever. Ivar would get over it. Eventually.

It wasn't like Hvitserk intentionally forgot about his brother. Had Emmer not needed him, he would have drove Ivar as promised. Ivar was more than capable of getting places on his own, he simply refused.  Unlocking the car, Hvitserk groaned and shook his head. Ivar was petulant, but still his brother.

Whatever, he could worry about that later. Right now, Hvitserk had to deliver ice cream and an iced latte, before Emmer sent out a search party or put a bounty on his head.

@danceyreagan @gearhead66 @supernaturalvikingwhore  @funmadnessandbadassvikings ,  @smutgoblin , @nickysurfer28 , @igetcarriedawaywithyou , @lif3snotouttogetyou, @akamaiden, @laketaj24​ @neeadinghugs, @thoughtsmeander2tumblingblindly, @ilvebeenabad , @naaladareia, @tephi101 , @sdcyumyum  , @imgoldielikehawn , @sparklemichele , @titty-teetee  , @smolasianwinterbean  , @sweetvengeancee , @capitanostella , @ateliefloresdaprimavera , @branflakes82 , @lordavanti , @vvigilantes  , @angelswannawearmyredshooz​ , @kawennote09​ , @bluearchersstuff​ , @lisinfleur​ , @fumblingthroughchaos​ @pebblesz892​ , @angelaiswriting​ , @kiiiimberlyriiiicker1995​, @unacceptabletatertots​ @itsspecial-itsnotforeveryone​, @captstefanbrandt​, @writingfromasgard​, @happydaysandersen​, @letowolfie​, @alicedopey​, @beautifulramblingbrains​, @equalstrashflavoredtrash​, @rosepetals-flyingbirds​ , @ivarswickedqueen​, @oqueequesentes-borboletas​, @sodanova​, @groovyzombiellama​, @therealcalicali​, @rekdreams-fandom​ @grungyblonde​, @nevlahhh​ , @natalie-reader​, @ivarlothbroks​, @lol-haha-joke​ , @medievalfangirl​ @fictionbanshee​ @thisisabigmaze​  @ethereallysimple​ @emilie1993​  @mariaenchanted​ 

*I am operating on an old tag list, if you wish to be added/removed, please let me know*

[mikaa-mina]

At Garden’s Edge- ch8: A Day in the Life of a Newt(on Pulsifer)

The lights are too bright, and Newt can’t quite hear what the lady in front of him is saying over the cacophony of beeps. His head also feels quite.... strange. He’s pretty sure that it’s not supposed to feel like it’s floating half a foot above his neck while also feeling like it’s stuffed full of cotton.

Some of the beeping suddenly stops, making it so much quieter in the ER, and Newt can finally understand what the nurse is asking. He tells her he thinks he’s fine, only he managed to hit something in the middle of the road with his bike and that sent him sailing towards the curb, which his bike tire hit at the wrong angle, and that quite firmly ejected him from his seat. And actually, he’s not at all quite sure how he got here, or why he’s here.

The nurse comes closer before he realizes she’s holding a tablet to enter his information in. By the time he realizes, it’s too late.

There’s a sound much like a mosquito hitting a trap lamp with a bright Bzzt! and then tablet goes dark in her hands. Newt grimaces.

It snowballs from there.

She shushes his apologies and uses the flip hospital phone that they use now instead of chargers/beepers to call the nurse station and request a backup one. It, accordingly, powers off halfway through her phone call. She shakes it with a frown and grumbles about the board of offices being cheap with their equipment, turns a sunny smile on him, and brightly says “well, I’ll just take down the basics and get your vitals while we wait. Do you have records here?”

“Uh. Maybe?” probably, “Which hospital is this?”

“The Brugmansia Hospital.”

“Oh! Yeah. I was born here. Uh. I changed my name though. Still Pulsifer for the last name though, figure there’s probably not too many of them around,” he laughs nervously, overly conscious of how awkward he is and how unable he is to do anything about it.

She still smiles, ever professional, and jots down his information. “First name?”

“Oh! Right. Sorry. It’s Newton now. Newton Pulsifer.”

“Thank you Newton, now I’m just going to take your vitals now.”

“Oh- I, uh, don’t really think-”

It’s too late, she’s come up to take his temperature with their new wireless, laser thermometer and it promptly errors out. It continues to error out no matter how many times she restarts it. The heavy seed of dread in Newt’s stomach grows larger. This is exactly why he tries not to go to places like this.

“I’m sorry. Uh, do you happen to have something maybe not, uh, electrical?”

She gives him a funny look for that and he shrinks back.

“Well. Let me get your blood pressure and o2 readings.”

Newt looks dubiously at the machine setup she wheels over to him. Miraculously, it goes okay when she wraps the cuff around his upper arm, and even when it starts. Everything avalanches when she puts the wireless o2 reader on him. Immediately everything in his room fritzes out, the lights even flickering before coming back, but all of the machines are still down or in the emergency boot up system restart.

“Oh bugger,” he sighs under his breath, quietly enough that the nurse fretting over all the technology can’t hear how resigned and unsurprised he is.

The avalanche continues when a nearby nurse ducks in and his tablet powers itself off. The smartwatch he’s wearing starts having three different alarms go off on it, and then there’s some shouts of alarm from outside Newt’s room that he’s really not sure that he wants to know what they’re about.

There are four people in his room now, in varying states of bewilderment and frustration, trying to figure out why everything’s malfunctioning in his room while also trying to get it back up and working. No one’s listening to Newt when he tries to explain that if he could just leave, it’d get better, but then, he’s mostly used to being ignored at this point.

More and more people trickle into the room, Newt spots the tech support guy he wished to be, frowning and scratching his head as he looks at everything. And then he looks at Newt.

A quick mumble about using the loo and Newt escapes out of the room, IV still attached to the weird metal stand and his arm but at least they’re not electronically powered. Just good engineering and reliable gravity.

He figures if he can put enough distance between him, and the rest of all that technology crammed into one small spot, that everything will boot back up just fine. And if not, Newt could write out exactly how to fix it.

So he heads to the loo, because now that he’s made the excuse, he figures he might as well try and also he’s betting on there being a whole lot less fancy technology in there. If only he could actually find said loo. Or any loo, really.

He’s waylaid by a small girl about ten minutes into his wandering of the halls.

“Oh. Hullo there.”

The girl is missing three teeth, has brown hair, and is looking at Newt as if he’s the newest attraction in the city zoo. Under her stare, Newt almost feels like one.

“Wut’er you doing?”

“Er... looking for the loo.”

She looks at him, looks in the direction he was heading in, looks back at him and matter-of-fact-ly says, “you’re going the wrong way.”

He blinks at her, which she takes as permission for her to reach up and grab his hand and start pulling him in the other direction. Bewildered, he followed.

And thus began a brand new game called “Lead the Newt” which had a revolving cast of characters, all under the age of twelve, each insisting they knew where the loo was, and each hiding him from sight any time an adult employee came near.

This scavenger hunt of a game ended at, not a loo (which made Newt extremely grateful he didn’t actually need one), but at a recreational sort of room. There was an old tv in one corner, an open treasure chest filled with costumes and toys, and a few bookshelves. The floor was spongy beneath Newt’s feat and looking down left him staring at brightly colored interlocking foam mat puzzle pieces.

For some reason, all of the co-conspirators find him funny, and really the only tech he might fry in here is a rather old tv that looks like it’s been outdated so many times it can’t recall if it’s outdated or retro at this point, so all in all... This is probably the safest room for Newt to be in. And certainly more interesting than the loo.

And that’s how he finds himself, an hour later, dressed in a paper hat of some kind (its supposed to be a jester’s hat) leaning against his iv pole, making elaborate gestures with his free hand, and telling terrible terrible jokes to a kid in a paper crown and to the amusement of the other kids around him. It’s most certainly a bizarre scene, but no one has commented on it as of yet and due entirely for the fact that the secondary game they’re all playing is ‘Hide the Newt’ any time an adult wanders by. Closets, corners, and blankets have all been heavily featured by now in this game.

So Newt can hardly be blamed for jumping near out of his skin when, after telling a particularly bad punny joke, he hears an adult’s laughter. So he jumps, jerks, and tries to turn to face the voice all in one motion and ends up somehow practically hogtieing himself in his iv cord and going down.

He ended up in a heap of limbs, metal pole, and iv cord wrapped all around him, and his glasses hanging half off his face. “Oh bugger...”

There was a snickering above him from the adult voice and the children alternating between giggles at his fall and joyful cries of “Crow Crow!”, “Mister Crow!”, and “Miss Crow!”. As Newt struggled to untangle himself, with the help of a few kids who both made things worse and better in turns, the other children began pleading with the Crow? Crow?? to pleeeeease let them keep Newt.

The stranger is crouching down to the kid’s level by the time Newt gets mostly upright, and they look a lot like they’re trying very hard not to laugh. “Now. However did you magpies manage to steal a whole person?”

Laughter sounds and they’re throwing themselves at the redhead and the two bags they set down. As the majority are immediately distracted by the prospect of sweets and the passing out of them, the stranger turns to Newt and raises an eyebrow high above dark sunglasses and says, “well? How’d they manage to kidnap you?”

Before Newt can respond the kids answer with excuses that pile over one another ranging from “he just wandered in!” to the actually mostly truthful “he was lost so we were showing him around!”.

“Oh really now?” they seem to be biting back laughter as they continue, “he was lost so you decided to help him by keeping him here?”

Some of the kids looked abashed while others look outright proud of themselves and to Newt’s surprise the stranger threw back their head with a short bark of a laugh before grinning as if proud of them.

Just in case he was reading the situation wrong, he’d done that with people more than a few times, Newt tried pushing through his embarrassment and awkwardness with an “It’s, uh, alright. Really. It’s been kind of fun, actually.”

“Ah. Yeah, they really grow on you.” The Crow glanced at the kids with a mischievous look, “like a fungus.”

Groans and laughter sounded before all of a sudden a shushing and pointing as an adult was seen wandering their way. Before Newt could blink they had him hidden out of sight shoved in a closet between some coats, puppets, and something slightly sticky that he had no intention of exploring further.

He could hear the somewhat muffled conversation of the kids pleading with The Crow to keep their secret before a new adult voice joined the conversation. The voices dropped away a bit, except for the nervous kids right in front of the closet attempting to whisper between each other, before he can’t make anything out at all. He waits, nervousness beginning to creep in because just how long was he supposed to stay in the closet? Actually, about that, he’d really had enough of closets and hiding in them. Terribly stifling and awful and much better really to be out of them.

Eventually there’s the sound of foot falls coming closer and closer to the closet and for a moment Newt’s heart picks up, certain that he’s about to be found and get in trouble. Then the doors are opened and it’s the red headed stranger who jokes, “ready to come out of the closet?”

And Newt’s still full of nervousness and it expresses itself by making him immediately blurt out “already did that once really. Was sort of hoping to not have to do it again.”

There’s a pause where the red head stares at him and the realization that he’s said that out loud crashes over Newt who flushes hotly. “Oh gods, I said that out loud...” and then The Crow tilts their head back and laughs.

“Been there, done that!” They agree with a grin and reach in to pull Newt out. “C’mon, ‘parently they’ve been running a missing patient code for half an hour looking for you.”

Newt relaxed fractionally, “you figured all that out from the nurse in five minutes?”

“Nah. Heard about it when I snuck in through one of the back windows. ‘s right beside one of the break rooms.”

“Oh, okay, that makes- wait. Did you say window?”

But they were already talking to the kids, “Alright you mischievous little magpies, you had your fun but we need to get him back now.” A chorus of “awwwws” and “but!!but!!”s sounded off but The Crow continued on, “if he’s here, he probably needs some help to get better, and I’m sure once he’s feeling better he’ll come say hi again.” Here they glanced over at at Newt expectantly, so Newt nodded since it seemed expected, and then they continued, “alright, so say bye to...”

“Newt.”

The Crow stilled, tilted their head to the side and asked disbelievingly, “really?” as if they didn’t also have the name of an animal.

“Yeah.”

“Alright magpies, tell Newt bye.”

There’s goodbyes and promises to come back and right as they’re leaving the first girl that had caught Newt comes up to The Crow and, in a whisper so very loud she might as well be talking, says “you hafta be nice to him!”

“Oh do I now?”

She nodded furiously, “he doesn’t ree-lize his jokes are reeeeally bad!”

The Crow seemed to choke on something before spluttering into a laughter the kid shushed them for.

“Sorry, sorry,” they managed, fighting back their grin and not looking sorry in the least as they chanced a quick glance at Newt.

The girl frowned, “you’re not sorry at all!”

“I am, I am!”

She looked unimpressed but when bribed with an extra pastry she let it, and them, go.

They’re on their way back to the nurse’s station (Newt didn’t even know what room they put him in) when he breaks the silence to ask, “is your name really Crow?”

“To the kids, yes. You can call me Crowley.”

“Oh. Nice to meet you Crowley. Did you really come in through a window?”

Crowley grinned at him, “trade secret.”

[snickletastic]

My Boyfriend's Back {Jason Todd x Reader + Batfam}

warnings~ SEXUAL ASSAULT, uncomfortable situations, seriously don’t read this if you have any problems with sexual assault scenarios!!! cursing, and extreme angst.

summary~ inspired by the song my boyfriend’s back, by the angels, reader is waiting for jason to get back home from a mission, but comes upon some serious problems when a boy begins throwing accusations with her name in them around the school and super duper angsty things follow.

a/n~ im back! hi! at first i must admit i felt really rusty at first when writing this, but i cranked this whole thing out in one sitting because i was having so much fun. i actually love how this came out, and ive had it in mind for some time now. its a bit cliche, but cliches arent always bad. hope you guys like it! :)

54 days of school left until graduation. Then that’s it. You’re finally out of highschool. You rapidly tapped your pencil against your desk while staring at the old wall clock, daydreaming about summer and the beach and finally getting to spend time with Jason again. He graduated last year, leaving you behind to fend for yourself in a school of vile beings. Lucky asshole,  you thought to yourself. You kept your relationship under wraps because of the infamous reputation the big bad Jason Todd had at your school. You both knew people would be scared of you if they knew he was your boyfriend, so you decided to keep it a bit of a secret. It made things more exciting, anyways. As the clock continued to march towards the time the bell, your pencil tapping became faster and faster. That is, until the boy in front of you grabbed the pencil from your hand. 

“Hard to focus when someone is beating up an innocent pencil behind me,” Jacob sarcastically whispered, careful not to catch the attention of the grumpy math teacher. 

“Sorry,” you apologized, “I totally tuned out…but let’s be real. You totally weren’t focusing on the lesson to begin with,” you teased. 

“Well let’s just say it wasn’t the pencil distracting me in the first place,” he said in a low voice, “you’ve been breathing down my neck for the past 20 minutes.”

You blushed, “I-sorry, I-,” you stammered, “I-”

“Don’t be sorry,” Jacob interrupted, “sorta turned me on,” he snickered at your facial expression and gently put the pencil back into your hand, then turned back around in his seat.

Absolutely baffled by the interaction you just had, you sat there dumbfounded for a full minute. Your intentions were definitely not to flirt with him, you really just breathe from your mouth sometimes. You scratched your head and cringed at the thought of Jacob possibly liking you. He wasn’t bad looking at all; maybe he was even sort of cute. But you certainly did not need a boytoy, because your boyfriend probably wouldn’t approve. Only 3 more days until he returns from that damn mission. You shook your head to yourself and sunk into your seat. Should I tap his shoulder and tell him straight up that I’m not interested? you thought to yourself. Deciding it was best to do it in order to avoid any more awkward encounters, you went to gently tap his shoulder and assure him you had a boyfriend. But before you could, the bell rang and everyone stood up and funneled out of the classroom. 

Jacob stood up from his seat and picked up the books on your desk, “I’ll carry your books to your car, m’lady.”

You awkwardly smiled at his pure intentions, “Um-thanks.”

He followed you out to the school parking lot, and the two of you searched for a black BMW. Alfred decided to take it upon himself to drive you to and from school way back in freshman year, but he had never been late before. You worried for a brief moment before checking your phone to see a text message from the man himself.

I’m very sorry, Miss. Y/N, but I will not be able to pick you up from school today. Master Bruce has requested that I help with the surveillance of the most recent mission. You can call for a taxi, and once you get home I will repay you the money. 

Alfred always types out the longest of text messages, and you laughed whenever he sent a paragraph to you about where the car is parked or asking what you would like from the grocery store. 

“So….no ride coming?” Jacob awkwardly bounced up and down on his heels.

“No, I guess not,” you smiled. Before you could tell him that you would call a taxi, he spoke quickly.

“Great! I’ll give you a ride home, then.” 

“You really don’t need to,” you tried to decline his offer, preferring a taxi or Uber rather than an extremely awkward ride home with the teenage boy.

“Nope. I do. Come on,” he carried your books to a silver car and put them in the backseat. He gently removed the backpack from your shoulder and put it next to the books. Then, he opened the passenger door to allow you to get inside. He was being awful chivalrous, which was kind, but it still made you uncomfortable. You almost felt as if you were leading him on, but then decided to speak your mind after he drove you home. It would definitely avoid a tense car ride.

Jacob pulled up to the Wayne Manor, then put the car in park. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, clearly hesitating to ask you something. 

You didn’t want to wait around to hear what it was. “Listen, Jaco-”

Before you could talk, he smashed his lips against yours and put his hand around the back of your hair. You attempted to pull away, but he pushed your head closer to his. Finally you pushed him off of you, furious at what he had done.

“Are you fucking serious right now?” You yelled at him.

He blinked a few times, confused, “What?”

“What?! You practically attacked me! I don’t even know you! I have a boyfriend!” You threw your arms in the air, bewildered and upset.

“Oh come on, we both know that I’m way better than whoever your boyfriend is,” he snarled, “I know you want it.”

You scoffed at him then opened the door to get out, but he grabbed your arm, “Wait-” he tried to stop you, but you broke out of his grip. You slammed the door and angrily marched towards the steps of the manor. 

“Your backpack!” he yelled from the window.

“Forget about it! Fuck you!” you didn’t bother to turn around and continued to walk towards the manor.

He turned his car into the driveway and threw your books and book bag out of the window, and into a puddle of water from the rainstorm the day before. You turned to see your stuff soaked in dirty water, and your math papers destroyed. Holding back tears, you turned away and walked into the front doors, slamming them behind you. 

This caused Tim to turn around from the TV and look at you. He had stayed home sick from school, and elected to watch HGTV shows instead. Springing up to his feet and dropping his blanket, he hurriedly walked towards you to ask what had happened. It would be a bad idea to tell anyone in this family, because even though Jacob was a cunt, you didn’t want to see him get beaten to a pulp. So you ignored Tim’s questions and sulked up the stairs with him following closely behind you. “Y/N-” he whispered sadly, as you slammed the door to your bedroom behind you.

The next morning, the sun shined brightly in your eyes, causing you to groan and pull the pillow over your head. You felt the pillow being pulled from your face, and saw Tims face, staring back down at you. “Y/N. Look, I understand if you don’t want to talk about whatever happened, but could you at least tell me who threw your backpack into the mud?” 

You rubbed your eyes and sat up, looking at your adoptive brother. With a gentle pat on his shoulder, you assured him, “Don’t worry about it. Really,” you made your best attempt to change the subject, “Are you feeling better?”

Tim noticed you dodging the question, but felt defeated. “Yeah. I’m definitely going to school today,” he said, eyeing you.

You could hear that his nose was still stuffy and noticed how red his eyes looked, but you knew it would be useless to argue with him. The two of you got dressed and ate breakfast, and Alfred then drove you both to school. He offered you back the taxi money, but you gently shook your head, “No thank you.”

Tim was noticeably walking way too close, and constantly checking your facial expression to ensure that you were alright. You appreciated how much he cared, but were starting to get a little annoyed. As the two of you walked through the halls, you noticed how everyone was turning their heads to look at you. Two of the cheerleaders even stopped their conversation, to look you up and down. At first you thought nothing of it, until a random boy came up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist. 

You flailed for a moment, being lifted by a boy twice your size, and let out a screech. 

“Me next! Me next!” the guy shouted, “Show Ricky what a bad girl you are! Are you as good at giving head as they say you are?”

Before you could elbow him in the face, Tim knocked the guy down and punched him in the face. You landed on the floor, sobbing as the entire school laughed at you. Once you looked up, past Tim pummeling the the asshole, past the cheerleaders, and past the security guards pushing through the crowds, you met eyes with Jacob, with a wide grin on his face. You knew what he did. And you knew what you needed to do.

It took 3 security guards, 4 of the biggest teachers, and 2 janitors to pull Tim off of the boy who grabbed his sister. Even when they all held him down at once, he was still giving them a run for their money. Eventually you both went to the office, then got sent home immediately. Bruce picked you up this time, and he was not as warm as Alfred would have been on the ride home. You and Tim sat in the backseat, sulking. Every once in awhile, you’d silently reach over and massage Tim’s knuckles, because you knew how sore they had to have been. 

When you all got back to the manor, Tim immediately went down to the batcave to get his hands bandaged by Alfred. Bruce sat in the massive living chair by the fireplace, seemingly distracted by how he’s meant to react to his daughter getting attacked and how quickly Tim lost his temper. The house really was silent.

You snuck up to your room, and dialed your boyfriend. You knew you weren’t meant to call him on missions, because you always distracted him too much. But before the first ring could even finish, he answered the phone call. 

“Hey princess,” his deep voice soothed your emotions.

“…hi,” You fought to hold back tears. You missed him so much.

“What’s wrong?!” His tone changed within seconds and you could almost hear his heart rate going up.

“Nothing….I just,��� you started to cry, “I really really miss you, Jay.”

He stayed quiet for a moment, “Only two days,” he reassured you, “then I’ll be back. And you know what? We can watch your favourite movie and eat your favourite snacks- I’ll bring you back some candy from this place.”

“What place?”

“You know I’m not allowed to tell you until I’m home,” he sighed, “but maybe I’ll take you out to eat at that Italian restaurant you love so much…Alfonso’s?”

You smiled through your tears and played with the hem of your shorts, “I’d really like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Jason’s end of the call was quiet again, but he finally spoke, “Something else is wrong, baby.”

You stayed silent.

“What happened? You know you can tell me anything.” You heard his voice tense up, “Did someone hurt you?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean by that?” He suddenly got worried.

“Jason I promise I would never ever cheat on you. You know that. This guy at school told everyone I had sex with him. Tim and I were walking in the hall-and-and- this guy- he just grabbed me…I-he,” your voice trailed off as you began to cry again.

Jason stayed quiet, but you could hear his heavy breathing.

“Please say something. Oh, Jay…please talk to me,” you begged through your tears.

“I’m coming home right now.” Then he ended the phone call. You threw your phone across the room and began to sob. He sounded so angry, but you couldn’t tell if it was towards you or the boy. Bruce barged into your room, his eyes wide in panic. You looked up at him, but then quickly away, ashamed.

He swiftly sat next to you on your bed and wrapped his arms around you as you cried gently into his shirt.

You heard a loud banging, waking you up. You sat up to look at your alarm clock; 2:46 a.m. The rain was pounding against the glass window, so you just assumed the storm was causing the loud noises. Again, you heard a loud bang, but then a booming voice coming from downstairs. You hastily grabbed an old baseball bat that Dick once gave you for moments exactly like this one, and you ran to see what was happening.

Instead of being met by a criminal, Jason was standing in the middle of the entrance room, drenched in rain. Water was dripping from his hair onto the marble floor. Alfred stood next to him in a robe, trying to calm him down. Bruce and Jason were arguing, loud enough to wake people up on the other side of Gotham. When you stepped down the stairs, they all stopped to look at you. Jason dropped his duffle bag on the floor and opened his arms to you. Swiftly, you ran down the stairs and leaped into them, wrapping your arms around his neck and breathing in his cologne. He lifted you from the floor and squeezed you, unaware of his own strength. You didn’t dare complain; though. You longed for this hug for two months, now. 

After what seemed like an eternity, Jason put you down and held your face, staring deeply into your eyes. “Princess, I need you to tell me exactly who this boy is, okay? Do you know where he is?” He spoke so gently, so sweetly, about something so terrible that he was about to do.

Bruce intervened by putting his arm between the two of you, “No, Jason,” he scolded.

Jason’s soft demeanor vanished and he became hostile, “Look what he fucking did to her! The fact that you have done nothing but sat on your ass since this happened doesn’t fucking surprise me,” he spat.

Bruce remained calm but you could see that the words bothered him, “You can’t go around killing teenagers, Jason.”

Jason narrowed his eyes, “Joker did.”

Bruce’s eyes grew, then he shut them tightly, shaking his head. “Alright. As long as you don’t kill him,” Bruce demanded.

Jason hesitated, before nodding. Then he looked back at you, and his face was filled with a terribly sad emotion. Not anger. Not frustration. It was guilt. 

He planted a kiss on your forehead, then took your chin into his hand, gently pushing it upwards to look at him, “I’ll be right back.” He then took a chocolate bar out of the pocket of his jacket and put it in your hand. Before you could say anything, he was walking out of the door and into the storm.

masterlist

[biillyhargroves]

hi! are fic requests still open? if so, can you do like a kinda angsty post s3 harringrove fic? im in a Feels mood ya know? also i love your writing!!

oh gosh, thank you so much, friend!!! that truly means so much to me!!! and  yes, requests are certainly open. I hope that you enjoy this one- if you wanted something more specific, just let me know and I can do that for you!!

sad savior(fic requests open)

Billy doesn’t like to be touched anymore- not a hand on the shoulder or a pat on the back, not the brushing of Steve’s arm against his; he doesn’t want fingers in his hair or grazing over his wrist or trying to tangle between his own. He doesn’t lean his forehead against Steve’s shoulder, and he won’t let Steve kiss him anymore. He wants distance. He wants as much space as he can get, and in a lot of ways, it makes him worse than before- worse than the angry kid dropped smack dab in the Middle-of-Nowhere, Indiana and shoved into a world he never asked to be a part of. 

It started in the hospital. 

Steve thought it was because of the pain, or the pain medication, or the fact that Billy’s father hovered around him for hours on end screaming at nurses and badmouthing doctors and otherwise making it impossible for Billy to rest. Steve visited as a friend, but Billy never seemed to want to see him. Once, he arrived to find Max sitting outside Billy’s room. 

“Are they changing the dressings or something?” Steve asked, knowing that the nurses always shooed visitors out of the room for privacy when they did care (Neil Hargrove always refused, and would linger as looming outside the drawn green curtain until they were done), but Max shook her head. 

“He told me to get out,” she told him. “In so many words. You can try going in, but he really doesn’t want to see anyone.” 

Steve looked past her into the room and not even Neil was in any of the uncomfortable vinyl chairs lined up at the bedside. Billy was alone, for the first time in weeks. He was lying in the dark with his head turned away from the door. The machines attached to him beeped rhythmically.Steve hovered in the doorway, counting the soft beeps of the heart monitor, before finally stepping inside. 

He thought Billy was asleep. He quietly pulled a chair up beside his bed and sat down. He watched for a few quiet moments- the rise and fall of his chest, the way the bandages stretched taut with every inhale. It wasn’t until he saw Billy’s eyelids start to flutter that he sidled closer. He slipped a hand carefully over Billy’s, mindful of the IV line piercing his vein, but Billy pulled his roughly away.

“Hey-” Steve started, but Billy interrupted him.

“Don’t,” he said. Steve tried to protest, but Billy repeated, “Just don’t.”

Billy wouldn’t turn his head. He wouldn’t look at Steve, and he wouldn’t lay his hand back down against the scratchy hospital blankets. Steve sat there, watching him, for one minute and then for two, but Billy never once turned around or spoke another word. Finally, he softly said, “Okay.” and he let himself out.

“Told you,” Max had said as Steve walked out of the room. “He doesn’t want to see anyone.”

“Did he tell you why?” Steve asked, and Max only shook her head. 

“He doesn’t want to talk to anyone, either,” Max said. “He’s being a real asshole.”

Her tone didn’t sound harsh. It didn’t sound accusatory or angry or bitter. Steve thought she sounded something akin to defeated, like she’d been fighting for far too long and was resigned to a fate she hadn’t quite hoped for. She peered into her brother’s room, where he lay with his head turned away from them, refusing to look. 

“He’s hurt,” Steve excused. 

“He’s something,” Max agreed. 

This lasted for weeks. Steve had hoped that once Billy was released, things would get better, but it’s been weeks since his release papers were signed and it’s been a whole lot more of the same. Steve will stop by the Hargrove-Mayfield house, oftentimes under the guise of picking Max up since Billy is not yet cleared to drive (and, even if he were, his car is sitting in Hawkins Gas & Auto waiting for a helping hand). Billy does not come outside to see him, and barely says hello when Steve pokes his head in Billy’s room. 

“He’ll get better,” Max keeps saying, and Steve thinks she is trying to convince herself as much as reassure him. She updates him as he drives her to the Wheelers, or to arcade, or to Byers’ house to see El. Billy is still in a lot of pain, and he curses more than anything else. He doesn’t let anyone help him clean or dress his wounds because he doesn't want anyone to touch him. Neil has ignored his son’s wishes, and Billy has fresh bruises to prove it. 

“I’m gonna take him to my house this weekend,” Steve declares one day. “My parents are out. You can tell your parents he’s with me or tell them you don’t know where he is. Whatever you think will keep his dad away.”

Max takes some convincing. In many ways, she has become her brother’s keeper. Even when he calls her horrible names or shoves her away from him, even when he refuses to speak to her for days on end, she takes on the role of protector. Steve understands that she might not want Billy too far away, too far to watch, but by the time Steve parks at the curb outside the Wheeler’s house, she concedes. “I think that would be good,” she says. “For both of you.”

Billy, for his part, does not want to go.

This does not surprise Steve, and when he tries to haul Billy to his feet to pull out the door, Billy lashes out. He swears and stumbles backwards, ripping his arm away and scratching Steve in the process. Steve tries his best not to act hurt. Max ushers Steve out of the room and tells him to wait in the car, tells him that she’ll handle Billy. Steve doesn’t know what she says to him, but eventually Billy emerges in the yard in his jacket and sunglasses, almost looking like himself again. He falls heavily into the passenger seat of Steve’s car and says nothing. Steve turns on the radio station he knows that Billy likes, but Billy doesn’t acknowledge it. He tries to strike up a conversation, but Billy only grunts at him. When they gets to Steve’s house, Billy follows Steve to his bedroom, keeping a few feet behind him. 

“Sit down,” Steve says. “Max said your dressings need changing? Do you need help?”

“No,” Billy says, voice low. He is already unbuttoning his shirt. The bandages beneath are thinner than the gauze padding they wrapped him with in the hospital. They don’t go all the way around his body anymore. This, at least, relieves Steve. It means he’s healing. It means he’s getting better, even if he isn’t acting it. 

“I’ll get you the stuff, then,” Steve says, and when Billy doesn’t look up he goes into the bathroom. He grabs everything Max told him he would need: the hydrogen peroxide, the washcloths- Billy will have the bandages in his bag, and Max told him to be sure he took the painkillers she would slip in there when Billy wasn’t looking. He fills up a bowl with soap and water and carries his supplies back to the bedroom.

Billy has peeled off his bandage, and is waiting with the angry red wound open on his chest. 

“That looks better,” Steve says, and he means it. 

“Don’t fucking lie,” Billy says. He reaches out his hand and Steve hands him the washcloth. He balances the bowl on the bed beside Billy, holding it steady as Billy dips a corner of the cloth. Billy lets out a sharp hiss when the cloth makes contact, and the sound makes Steve wince. Billy stills, and on instinct Steve reaches out to help. “Don’t,” Billy growls, and he jerks away. 

“Stop,” Steve says. “Come on, man, just let me help.”

Billy refuses. He continues to blot at his healing wounds as he rounds his back on Steve, moving further from him. He clenches his teeth but Steve can still hear the whistle of pain escaping between them. 

“Billy,” Steve says.

“I said don’t,” Billy snarls. 

“Billy,” Steve repeats, and he reaches for Billy again. Billy rises too quickly in an attempt to escape, and the sudden movement sends a ripple of pain through his chest that makes him cry out. His breath hitches, and his knees buckle, and he stumbles and staggers to the floor. “Woah!” Steve says, hurrying to catch him, and Billy’s whole body tenses when Steve’s hand touch his shoulders. 

“Get off of me!” Billy growls, voice strained, and Steve refuses. He slips an arm around Billy’s shoulders and he lowers himself beside him. Billy keeps telling him to get off, to leave him alone, and his throat gets tighter and tighter as his eyes well with tears he won’t let fall. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Steve says. He eases the cloth out of Billy’s hands, but he doesn’t touch it to his skin. “Hey, it’s okay,” Steve soothes. “I just want to help. Billy, please, I just want to help.”

“Just stop,” Billy pleads. “Just get the fuck away from me.”

“Why?” Steve asks. “Why do you want that?”

Billy just shakes his head. His muscles coil and tighten in Steve’s grip, but he’s stopped trying to get away. He’s stopped trying to make some bold escape. He is not quiet resigned, but there is not a whole lot of fight left in him, and Steve uses that to get closer. 

“Billy?” he asks. 

“You don’t know,” Billy says, “what I did.” 

He is shaking, but Steve does not want to hold him any tighter for fear of scaring him off. 

“What do you mean?” Steve asks him instead. “What did you do?”

“When it was in my head,” Billy says. There is a tear falling down his cheek and Steve wants nothing more than to wipe it away, to catch any others that might fall its wake, but he doesn’t want Billy to spook. He doesn’t want him to clam up again. He doesn’t want to lose him. “All those people,” Billy is saying. “I didn’t want to hurt them. I didn’t want to.”

Billy’s small voice breaks Steve’s heart. He has never heard this kind of despair before, and if there was a way for him to dump the bowl of water over Billy and wash it all away, he’d do it a heartbeat. He lets his thumb rub gentle circles against Billy’s shoulder, and keeps going when Billy doesn’t shake him off or demand that he stop. 

“I know,” Steve says. “I know it wasn’t you.”

“It was my body,” Billy says. “My hands. I did it.”

“It made you do it,” Steve says. “That’s what El said.” 

“You don’t get it,” Billy says and, finally, he starts to pull away from Steve. Steve lets him, though he wants to hold on for dear life. He lets Billy slip out from beneath his arm and draw his knees up to his wounded chest. “I remember it. All of it.” 

“Billy,” Steve says. Billy shakes his head, lowers it into his hands. He doesn’t speak anymore and Steve doesn’t think he should push him. He wants, heart aching as he watches Billy Hargrove fall apart on his bedroom floor. When Billy calms down, Steve says his name again, and Billy looks at him with red-rimmed eyes. Steve silently holds the washcloth out to him. After a moment, Billy takes it. He returns to his work, keeping his distance from Steve, keeping his silence. Steve remains beside him just as quiet, helping in the only way Billy will allow: handing him a bandage, and offering sad smiles and warm bed to rest in. 

[sandysmoved]

Finally finished some lewvithur thank god

Here have an ao3 link if that’s what you’d prefer

I’ve got the first few paragraphs of the prequel to this waiting for me to get my shit together so maybe that’ll see the light of day eventually but anyways enjoy some soft sad kids

Against the brilliant and sterile white of the pillow underneath his messy blonde hair, it was so much easier to see just how pale Arthur was, which in turn made the sickly grey circles under his tightly shut eyes even darker. Even worse, the way the thin sheet clung to his softly shuddering frame, it was impossible to miss how thin he was, how absolutely tiny, how frail he seemed. Laid out on a hospital bed, tucked away in a corner and hooked up to so much equipment, he looked…

Lewis tried to banish the thought with a shake of his incorporeal head, but it lingered like the afterimage of a flash bulb.

Arthur looked like he was dying.

Lewis flinched at the rough, humorless “heh” from his left, and glanced down at Vivi as she rubbed Arthur’s right hand, careful to avoid disturbing the IV lines tucked under paper skin, like a prayer stone. “You think this looks bad,” she murmured, reaching up to swipe at a few stray tears darting down her cheek, “but he’s been worse. You should’ve seen him...should’ve seen what happened after the cave.”

Lewis couldn’t keep the black pits of his eyes from drifting across Arthur’s shallowly twitching chest to his left shoulder. The blanket dropped immediately at his side, the soft cotton barely concealing what he now knew to be a cold steel dock embedded in scarred and tender flesh. The metal arm that hooked into the implant was discarded on a nearby counter, occasionally sparking uselessly, dented and crumpled and shredded in the fall.

God, Lewis hadn’t even noticed it at first, but now he couldn’t tear his gaze from the empty space where his last spot of contact as a living, breathing human used to be.

“He stopped breathing a few times on the table,” Vivi murmured, and Lewis felt his dim, cracked anchor jolt as she continued.

“Died several times,” she whispered in a daze. “Almost lost him too.”

“Vivi…”

She choked out a bitter laugh in spite of herself. “And the worst part? I wasn’t so scared of him dying. I was…”

She carefully sat Arthur’s cool hand back down on the soft sheets, then removed her glasses, wiping her eyes and rubbing her temple. “...I was scared I’d forget him too.”

Lewis dropped to his knees as Vivi choked out a sob, and she let him pull her into his arms. She pressed her wet face into his broad chest and heaved, her heartbroken wails periodically drowning out his frantic, shuddering I’m sorry Vivi I’m so sorry I didn’t know I didn’t think I made a mistake I’m so sorry I didn’t want this I made a mistake -

It hadn’t taken too long for Vivi to fall into an exhausted, fitful sleep, and Lewis c a r e f u l l y lifted her up, crossing the room without a single step to gently lay her down on the visitors couch. Mystery emerged from underneath, hopping up to curl up against his mistress’s side and whining as Lewis bent down to scratch him behind his ears.

“She’s right. He coded several times the first few days. If we had gotten him to the hospital any later than we did…”

The disguised kitsune trailed off with a mournful whimper, and Lewis could feel his heart breaking. “It wasn’t your fault. If you hadn’t done it-“

Mystery looked him in the eye, his too-human voice soft, but steady and packed with emotion. “But it wasn’t his fault either, Lewis.”

Black emptiness and magenta rings clouded over with shimmery pink tears, and Lewis nodded. “Yeah,” he choked out, “I know that now.”

~*~

Vivi and Mystery were still curled up fitfully on the couch, and every gentle sound from them made Lewis jolt in the chair, struck from his grief stricken fugue state. Each time he glanced at the wasting figure in the bed, metaphorical heart fluttering in hope, but each time he was forced to come to terms with the fact that Arthur still wasn’t awake.

Despite the reassurances from the medical staff that his injuries weren’t as bad as they seemed, Lewis was honestly starting to wonder if he ever would be awake again. Hell, if he wasn’t looking close enough for the faint rise and fall of his chest, wasn’t clinging to a hand that occasionally twitched in his grasp, he could be easily convinced that Arthur was already gone, lost to the world forever.

All because of him. Him and his stupid mistake.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, faint words tumbling like pebbles from an illusory frown, “I’m so sorry Arthur.”

He gently lifted Arthur’s hand, carefully pressing his conjured lips against his bruised knuckles. “I’m so,” he choked, holding the calloused hand in both of his as he shuddered in grief and guilt, “I’m so sorry-!”

“Llllewis?”

The ghost jolted, eyes darting to the side, expecting to see Vivi rubbing sleep out of her eyes, but...she remained asleep on the couch, twitching and scrunching up her face in response to an unseen specter of the dream world.

“Llll...Lewis.”

His anchor stilled as the realization hit him, and at the same time the cool digits trapped between his own bony fingers twitched. Lewis glanced back at the bed, blinking furiously to clear the pink-tinted distortion of new tears springing from the empty sockets.

Under bruised, heavy lids, two foggy rings of amber met his own gaze. Arthur drew in a shaky, pained breath, one injured lung protesting the exertion, but he still managed to force an exhausted smile as he wheezed.

“I...I found you, Lew.”

Lewis stared at him like a damned soul finding salvation, and managed a weak, relieved chuckle as he reached out to brush away a stray tear that had slipped out onto Arthur’s cheek. “Y-yeah Arthur. You did it. You found me.”

Arthur leaned into the touch with a contented sigh, and both men flinched a bit at the sudden stunned inhale from behind Lewis. Vivi sat up so fast she almost knocked a startled Mystery off the couch, and she blinked behind her pink lenses, trying to confirm what she was seeing. “Arthur?”

The mechanic smiled, and tilted his head lightly in Lewis’s direction. “H-hey Vivi, look...I found him.”

With a loud, delighted sob of laughter, Vivi scrambled off the couch, hurrying to Arthur’s bedside and throwing her arms around his shoulder. He winced a little at the impact, but sank into the embrace as she buried her face into his neck, laughing and crying and shaking as she held him. He carefully turned his head as she tilted up to press frenzied, ecstatic kisses against his cheek, managing a weak laugh until he found himself suddenly face to face with-

“L-Lewis?”

The ghost was smiling through his tears, only inches away from Arthur’s face, and slowly leaned in to press his own gentle kiss against the smaller man’s forehead. Arthur let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, and Lewis drew back to press their foreheads against each other, closing his eyes and letting his anchor fall into the same soft rhythm as Arthur’s heartbeat.

“M-missed you, big guy.”

“Yeah,” Lewis whispered, one hand still holding his own and the other reaching across to cup Vivi’s tearstained cheek, “I missed you too.”

The hospital bed shifted as Mystery hopped up to drape himself across Arthur’s legs and resume his rest, and before long, the others joined him, Vivi pulling a chair closer to wrap her arms around Arthur’s side as she fell asleep directly above the lullaby of his beating heart. Arthur’s fought to keep his eyes open, desperate to hold on to this quiet moment of togetherness after so many months of confusion and separation.

“Lewis,” he choked out shakily, trembling as the ghost ran one bony hand through his mess of blonde locks.

“Hey,” Lewis murmured in Arthur’s ear, “it’s alright. Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up. Promise.”

His words were like a spell, and Arthur’s battered frame went still almost immediately. With a soft sigh, he finally closed his eyes, weakly leaning against Lewis’s forehead as he drifted off.

For the first time in months, the nightmares of a sickly green cave and violet flames kept their distance.

[lemonnyx]

Your Love Is King 

Nyx x Reader

PART II

Angst/Fluff/NSFW

Word Count: 1796

 The sight of the feminine figure in the light caused your mouth to fall agape. A flame began to burn in your heart, your breathing started to become shallow and sharp as you stare in disbelief at Nyx and this woman lying in the bed you once shared together. With every step closer to Nyx tears attempt to force their way from your eyes. With what little strength you had left in you, you held them back wanting to release all your energy and rage out on Nyx for his betrayal. Now hovering over the two of them you could get a closer look at the woman. Her built was small with a pale complexion, her brunette hair tied in a loose bun on top of her head held together by a large pearl pendant. Though she wasn’t laying on top of Nyx she was awfully close to him, their skin almost touching. Nyx’s back was facing her, his body laying adjacent to the wall, as if he was giving her more room on the bed.  

He looks exhausted, was it because he fucked her?

“Nyx get up”, you commanded faintly. You still couldn’t believe what was happening, that you were literally about to speak these words to him.  Your grabbed the blanket that was covering Nyx legs tossing it violently across the room.

“NYX get the fuck up!” your pupils began to dilate at the sight of his face now staring at you in confusion.

“Y/n, what…what’s happening, what are you doing here? Why… why are you in my bed?” Nyx questioned while almost leaping from the bed at the sight of this woman lying next to him.

Nyx moves his focus back on to you, removing himself from the bed he starts to make his way towards you, attempting to grab your arm. However, you quickly swat it away backing up closer towards the door.

“Who is she, why is she here?” Steeling your heart, you force your gaze to the floor, knowing that if you were to look Nyx in the face as he gave you his answer that you would come undone with emotions.  

Nyx attempts once more to move closer to you, his body almost begging to be near you.

“Y/n, it’s not what it looks like, I swear to you” Grabbing your arm Nyx stops you from moving closer to the door.

“I knew this would happen, that all of this was too good to be true.” You couldn’t hold back anymore, you forced you gaze into his soft blue eyes. Nostalgia of the years that you had spent together, of all the years you had hoped to spend together were now beginning to vanish. Tears now flowing from your eyes. Gripping his arm, you force his hand from you as you made your way to the door to leave.

“WAIT!” Nyx demands as a crushing force grabs your wrist. “Seriously, y/n it’s not what it looks like. That… that is the granddaughter of Camelia Claustra, the Princess of Accordo. I was put on a NTK mission of watching her until she can meet with the King to talk about a possible alliance.”

You stop in your tracks as a wave of skepticism and embarrassment fills your mind at the thought of this truly being a misunderstanding. Nyx’s grip still holding tightly on to you.

“Need to know mission? I…I would have known about the Princess of ‘wherever’ coming here Nyx. Do you forget who my father is? He tells me everything, especially when it comes to something like this.”

Your father had been great friends of Regis since you had been born. Eventually earning him a spot as one of his councilmen and head chiefs of foreign affairs, and although you were not a council member your father trusted your judgement and often called for your opinion in meetings when other territories were involved.

Nyx releases his hold on you, hoping that perhaps now that you understand the situation.

“Call him then. Call you dad and ask him”, his voice full of confidence.

Pulling out your cell you give a haunting stare to the so-called Princess now standing in the corner of the room attempting to make her presence hidden.

A bitter sigh departs you as you see your phone is dead. “Can…can I use your phone?” you ask slightly ashamed. “Mines dead from all the times I tried to call you on my way over here.”

Turning from you Nyx makes his way into the kitchen to unplug his phone that was sitting on the counter. Scrolling through the call log his eyes widen as he remembers what tonight was meant to be.

“Y/n, I’m so sorry. I… honestly with everything that came up last minute I forg—“.

“You still forgot though Nyx”, you said swiping the phone from him as you turned to face the door.

You bit down on your lip as you typed in your father’s number. With every ring came ache, embarrassment and resentment that was almost too much for your heart.

What if this is just a joke to him? Does he think my father would have forgotten to tell me something as important as this? And besides he still forgot about tonight, about OUR night.

A deep grumble of a voice finally answered the call. “Ulric…why are you calling me this late? Is something wrong, is y/n okay?”

You let out a slight giggle at the sound of your father’s drowsy voice and his concern about you. “Dad, it’s me I’m okay. I’m with Nyx.”

Edging your way closer to the door, your prepared for your escaped, expecting your father to have no idea of this so called disclosed mission.

“So dad, about Nyx I need to know about this mission—“

“Ahh, yes y/n dear, that reminds me—“,  your father then begins to go on for some time. Explaining in explicit detail of how Ulric is to escort the Princess of Accordo to the safe house, a.k.a. Nyx’s old apartment; until the meeting the following day.  

Your brows begin to furrow as you scratch your forehead after hearing your father’s words. Realizing the seriousness of this mission, while still being slightly pissed that Nyx forgot about what was planned for tonight.

After saying your goodbyes to your father, you turn on your heel to face Nyx pushing the phone slightly into his chest to return it to him.

“So? What did he say?” Nyx asked, a charming smile beginning to form on his face.

“He said that you’re an asshole, and… and that your right” You start to move further into the apartment, your gaze now wandering back towards the Princess.

“Then what was she doing in your bed?” Now glaring intensely at Nyx, waiting to see what his excuse for this would be. 

“I…I don’t know” he said now looking towards the princess almost as if for an answer.

“Don’t look at her Nyx, look at me and answer the question. What was she doing in YOUR bed with YOU? Did you sleep with her?”

“NO! y/n, I don’t know why she—“

“Because that chair is disgusting, covered in filth” a haughty voice answered from the corner of the room.

“What, what did you say” you question her, you full attention now back on the Princess.

“What kind of host doesn’t even offer proper sleeping arrangements for a Princess?” she stated, now walking towards the two of you her arms crossed in a displeasing manner.

“I offered her the bed earlier, but she said no, so I took a nap. She said it was okay.” Nyx said now looking at the princess for reassurance.

Crossing your arms, you swayed back slightly in disbelief at the two’s story. “Still doesn’t explain why you were in his bed though”

“Uhhh, because I got tired, duh, Ive been cooped up in this dingy apartment for 6 hours now! Seriously what kind of arrangement is this where your safe house isn’t even safe!” The once quiet Princess now is eager and intense with her words.

“What kind of guest doesn’t even have a spare bedroom? How is it safe that a Princess has to sleep in a filthy bed next to a stranger?”

For all of her elegant appearance her personality was full of arrogance and entitlement.

“I suggest you two work together to go and find me a proper bed so I can be well rested for tomorrow’s meeting with the King” the Princess commands now sitting crossed legs on the so called ‘filthy bed’.

You hear a relieved chuckled escape from Nyx standing behind you.

“I really am sorry about tonight—“

Cutting him off you take Nyx’s hand in your own, forcing him into the hallway. Pushing him against the cold concrete wall you then turn to make sure the door is closed behind you. Turning back to Nyx his signature devilish smile has returned to his face. A smile that you know all too well, and what is soon to follower after.

Lustful eyes are now piercing at you as Nyx attempts to move closer to you. Unexpecting to him however you aggressively push him back up against the chill of the wall. A sharp tingle fills his body at the sight of you being so domineering towards him. Advancing your body closer to him your lips ruthlessly clash against his. Your hands linger on his warm chest as your tongue connects deliciously with his.

“Y/n” Nyx moans silently into your mouth, as his hand begin to move lower towards your waist.

“Shut up” you respond while slapping his hand away. You pulled back from him, now staring deeply into his sea blue eyes.  

Placing both of your hands on his chest you begin you dig you nails teasingly into him. You start to seductively snake your hands lower and lower until they hover just slightly above his erection. Placing your left hand under Nyx’s chin you bring his gaze back onto you rather than the sight of you about to take him in your hands.

“You, Nyx Ulric", you state while planting a passionate kiss upon his lips.  “Belong to me.”

“I know y/n, I kno–” a low moan stops Nyx’s words as he feel’s your other hand grip slightly around his throbbing member.

“And this”, placing another kiss upon him, “this belongs to me too right?” You ask, replicating that same signature grin of Nyx.

Passion fills him as he grabs your waist, thrusting himself into you. His soft lips attack your own as his cock twitches pleasurably against you.  

Kisses begin to trail up from your collarbone, towards your neck eventually making their way to your ear. A husky tone fills your ears with a soothing confidence as Nyx whispers.

“Always”

Part III

This chapter was a little shorter than I wanted it to be. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to be super smutty or nah. But Part III will be 90% smut. Stay tuned :D

Thank you again to all my new followers I love you all. <3

Tagging everyone who commented on Part I :D

@lady-asuka @swabin10 @sweetstrawberrycandy @schmelscorner @dlb113

[tatooedlaura-blog]

Fifteenth Christmas

the series is as follows so far:

First … Second … Third … Fourth … Fifth … Fifth Christmas, Part 2 … Sixth … Seventh … Eighth … Ninth … Tenth … Eleventh … Twelfth … Thirteenth … Fourteenth … Fifteenth … Sixteenth … Seventeenth … Eighteenth … Nineteenth … Twentieth … Twenty-first … Twenty-second … Twenty-third

———————–

One look at Mulder had her calling her mother to cancel plans for Christmas Eve and possibly Christmas Day. Maggie took it well, considering now Christmas dinner would be without both Dana and Charlie.

“At least Bill and Tara will be there and Dave and everyone else. You’re even getting Sarah and the kids so maybe pretend Charlie’s just in the bathroom the whole time.” She didn’t get the chuckle she was hoping for but at least she heard a resigned sigh that told her enough, “I’ll call you later when everyone gets there, okay? I love you.”

“I love you, too, honey. Please tell Fox to feel better.”

“I will.”

After hanging up, she moved back to the living room, where Mulder was curled on the couch, blankets piled high, sheen of sweat on his forehead but visibly shivering, chin wobbling, teeth clicking together in rhythmic spasm. Settling on the coffee table after having moved a mountain of computer printouts, magazines and newspapers from around the country, she brushed his forehead, the cold droplets feeling even cooler against his flaming skin, “how are you feeling?”

He couldn’t even come up with some kind of snarky comment, giving her a look of complete agony, “if you could shoot me now, that’d be great.”

Her heart squeezed, wanting to make him feel better but knowing that would only come in the next few days. With a small sigh, she tilted her head, a sad smile curving her lips, “they took my gun, remember?”

Groaning into the damp pillow, “then could you maybe grab me a new pillowcase and a towel? This thing is sticking to my face and feels terrible.”

Tucking in the blankets a little closer, she stood, “back in a minute.”

Soon, darkness had encased the house, the heavy blanket of snow muffling the world, the Christmas lights on the porch railing making the blank white canvas outside alive with color while inside, Scully struggled to get the star atop the tree. Mulder had designated himself ‘starman’ on the first Christmas he’d helped her decorate, given she struggled, needing to retrieve her kitchen stool, nearly falling into the tree reaching over to hang it and while Mulder enjoyed the view of her backside immensely, he declared it would be better for him to do it and her to direct him on balance and crooked issues.

This year, they’d waited longer than usual to get the tree up and now, with Mulder sick, she knew she’d have to do it herself.

All she had to say, in the end, was she was very glad she’d decided to do the star first instead of last. There was a miscalculation in distance and one thing leading to the next had her crashing into and through the tree, branches grabbing at her face and hair, poking her hard in the ribs and chest, digging sharply into her thighs as she landed heavily on the tree stand, metal bending, main trunk snapping, everything banging to the ground.

And Scully’s clear, heavenly voice, to Mulder’s ears anyway, spewing forth swears that echoed off the walls.

Mulder sat up in a shot, tangled in afghans, only to pass out from the sudden movement and his fever.

Through the branches, she watched his stand then fall. Her heart thumping wildly, she flailed, freeing herself from the tree and ignoring the bloody scratches all over her skin to stumble beside Mulder, “Mulder?! Mulder? Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”

When he didn’t respond, she slipped into doctoring mode, feeling his forehead, checking his breathing, examining his pupils for reaction. She was confident he’d wake in a minute and scooting to the kitchen to retrieve a wet washcloth and the thermometer, she returned to find him groaning, his limbs shifting haphazardly in ten different directions as he fought to sit up.

“Hey, hey, don’t move. You passed out and I don’t want you doing it again. Stay there for a minute.”

He complied, looking up at her, “did you fall into the tree?”

“Yeah. Apparently, I’m still too damn short to reach the top.”

“When are you going to grow some more?”

Running the cloth over his forehead and cheeks while she held the thermometer in his ear, “January 1st. My New Year’s resolution is to reach a nice 5’5”.” Seeing his temperature up in the 102 degree area, she slid her arm under his shoulder, “come on. I’m taking you to bed.”

“I don’t think I have the strength for sex right now but I could probably just lay there if you want to do the work.”

Shaking her head with a smirk, “still making jokes with a temperature like yours is impressive.”

“Who’s joking?”

Ignoring him now, she helped him sit up and waited while he swayed, then stood him up, working them both towards the stairs and eventually, slowly, up to their room. Settling him under the covers, she pushed his damp hair back, “time for meds and sleep. Back in a minute.”

&&&&&&&&&&

He slept soundly for several hours, giving Scully time to clean up the tree, clean up her numerous wounds, clean up the scattered tissue and other sick Mulder remnants before going to bed herself. Nearly asleep 20 minutes later, she felt his foot hit her calf. Figuring he’d just twitched, she ignored it.

A few seconds later, he hit her again, then his balled fist caught her shoulder. Scooting, sliding, slipping out of bed before she took anymore abuse, she saw him drenched in sweat, legs shifting under the covers, head thrashing about on his pillow.

Mumbling ‘shit’ under her breath, she began her first very long night in many years quieting her partner down, holding compresses to his face, whispering soothing words while she worried beside him. She listened to nonsensical words and mumblings about cases 12 years behind them; heard wild theories about everything from the UPS man spying on them to the possibility that we already colonized Mars but the government refused to tell the public about it.

She knew Mulder as well as she knew herself but that night gave her insight into just how deep his paranoia ran.

By morning, he’d settled down some and exhausted as she was, she attempted, yet again, to get him to drink some water. He was dehydrated at this point, his sweating less, his panting more but when she raised the mug to his mouth, he lashed out, the ceramic shattering as it hit the wall, the water soaking her and the sheets. Knowing she couldn’t leave him alone but that he would need an IV for fluids, she swallowed her pride and the knowledge that when Mulder was well again, he’d probably be thoroughly pissed at her but she called one of the nurses she knew at the hospital, Jenny, and politely asked if the woman could take time out from her Christmas Eve preparations to drop off several bags of saline, some tubing and needles. Explaining about her partner’s severe flu and not being able to leave him, Jenny obliged without hesitation, showing up less than an hour later with the supplies and a sympathetic look on her face.

She stared a moment too long as Scully’s scratched face and hands, however, “Dana, what happened?”

Scully nearly laughed, having sudden visions of Jenny thinking she was in an abuse relationship with a drug addled man who she was withdrawling at home. Ushering the woman off the front porch and inside for a few moments, she gestured to the pile of misshapen artificial tree sitting inside the door, Scully not having been able to get it outside to the garage in the snow, “Fox usually does the star on the tree but since he’s ill, I tried and I’m really too short to do it and I fell right through the tree and scratched myself and well,” glancing down at the metal and plastic heap, “that’s my Christmas tree this year.”

Understanding, Jenny returned to her sympathetic face, “I’m sorry. Your Christmas doesn’t seem to be shaping up well this year.”

With a moment of dawning, she gave her colleague a smile, “it’s okay. I have my Fox and that’s all I need, Christmas or any other time of the year.”

Turning to go, she gave Scully a grin, “glad you feel that way but if I tried to get away without a tree at my house, my kids would tie me up and decorate me with the lights and the tinsel and leave me there for the duration of the holidays.”

With a chuckle, she wished the woman ‘Merry Christmas’ and thanked her again before closing out the cold of the brisk afternoon and heading back upstairs, hoping Mulder hadn’t hurt himself in the few minutes she was gone.

&&&&&&&&

In the middle of the night, Scully, dozing beside him, woke when he began mumbling, hands and feet shifting under the covers, not harshly as before but slow and soft, brushing her arms, legs, knuckles running into her cheek, stopping their pursuit of her once they found their destination. Thinking he was waking up, his fever broken, she froze in utter terror when he opened his eyes to look at her, his head turned, his voice an urgent whisper, “they’re here!”

Scrambling backwards and out of bed in a daze, he tried to follow her, the saline bag she’d rigged to hang from the headboard swinging, then dropping to the bed as he moved. The calm, rational look in his eye made her heart thud heavy, erratic as she wondered how she would get him to the car and on the road, drive to one of the sheltered stashes compliments of the Gunmen that she hadn’t thought about in years.

She would have bet hard money he was awake.

“Mulder?! Mulder? Who’s here?”

Kneeling on the sea of tangled sheets and quilt, he stared hard at her, forehead scrunched in confusion, “they are. They all are. They’re behind the doors and in the closet and coming in the front door right now. Can’t you hear them? They’re breathing through their masks and they’re rattling.” Leaning even more towards her, “they rattle. Our atmosphere is too thick for them but the masks let them move around.” Pointing behind him, he twisted his arm far enough that the tape pulled, the IV slid from his vein and saline began shooting from the tube while blood began running down his arm.

He didn’t seem to notice however and when Scully automatically moved forward, wanting to calm him down but seemingly moving too fast, Mulder grabbed her arms, a triumphant look on his face as he turned his face towards the door, yelling, “Scully!! Scully!! Come here! I got one! He was fast but I got one! Come see him!”

Near tears, all she could do was wiggle her hand until it could press over his leaking cut, putting pressure on it, feeling the blood, from the tension in his muscles, pouring out faster than it normally would. “Mulder? Mulder, I’m right here. It’s me. I’m right here. You have me. You didn’t catch one of them … you have me. Mulder, it’s me.”

She repeated, slowly and quietly, his name, her name, over and over, the syllables becoming a nonsensical stream of sound as she spoke, her brain racking on what else, anything else she could do. He kept yelling over her thought, becoming more and more agitated as he called her name, demanding she come upstairs to see what he had.

Minutes, seconds, hours, decades, moments later, her mouth dry, his voice nearly gone from yelling, she decided she would have to take him down like a suspect, treat him like a common criminal with a kick and a back twist of his arm, unless he responded to one last ditch effort.

“You’re scaring William, Mulder. He’s asleep in the next room and he’s going to wake up. He’s going to hear you and he’s going to be afraid. You need to let me go and be quiet.” Now the tears were pouring down her cheeks, “Mulder, you don’t want to scare William. He’s your son, Mulder, you can’t scare him like this. Mulder, please?”

Something in the name William seeped through the chaos, the scattered remains of Mulder’s sanity and managing to break through, she saw recognition on his face for a split second and knowing she nearly had him back, “Mulder, I need you to lie down, okay? You had a nightmare and pulled out your IV and you need to lay down so I can take care of you? Do you understand, Mulder?”

His fevered mind finally clicked over, “Scully?”

Nearly collapsing against him, she held strong, even as her heart continued to tear at having mentioned her son’s name out loud so many times in such a short span, “it’s me. Can you lie down, please?”

He obliged without argument, his eyes searching hers but finding only despairing fear, he grew scared, “what did I do?”

&&&&&&&&

He insisted she not sleep in bed with him. He insisted she shut and lock the bedroom door with him inside. He insisted that she go to her mother’s and leave him behind, let him damage himself instead of her.

She told him to ‘shut up’ in the politest voice she had, then called the pharmacy with a prescription for something to help him sleep deeper, dreamlessly, as well as something stronger to combat the fever. She reinserted the IV after he threw up the small amount of water she gave him to drink, changed the soaked sheets, re-fluffed his pillow, stroked his forehead and told him it would take her 20 minutes, there and back, to the drug store and she’d need to leave him alone in that time.

She asked him to try to stay awake for her, just so he wouldn’t have another nightmare while she was gone and he nodded his glassy, fevered eyes in her direction, asking for his Rubik’s Cube from the dresser, “if I try that, I might stay awake.”

Leaving him, she made it to the car before she broke, 11:52pm, nearly Christmas Day and she wasn’t wrapping gifts and cuddling by the tree but speeding into the night, thanking God over and over in a constant mumble of appreciation that she found a drugstore open when the rest of the world was shut up tight for the holiday.

Swiping at her cheeks every few minutes, she made it there and home in 1020 seconds, having counted each and every one of them in turn, finally running up the stairs to find Mulder’s toy fallen to the mattress but no Mulder. Panic flooded her until she heard his low groan from the bathroom, his unmistakable ‘I’ve just thrown up all my organs’ sound that had her pushing the door open slowly, medicine in hand, “Mulder?”

He was still hugging the toilet, back curled as his muscles tensed, the sound guttural as nothing came up but not for lack of trying. She could only run her hand over his chilled skin, offering him palpable comfort when words would mean nothing, waiting until he finally sat back on his heels, IV trailing down to the liquid bag on the floor, “ready to go back to bed?”

“Can’t you just leave me here? I can sleep on the bathmat.”

Arm under his, she helped him up, “come on. I’ve got something to help the fever and calm your stomach down. If it works, then I have something that’ll get you to sleep but you won’t dream.”

Looking at her as if she were an angel, “they make things like that?”

“Yeah, they do.” Moving the hair sweat-plastered to his forehead and with a look of complete and utter sympathy, “but since you’re not keeping anything down, I’m going to have to do this a different way.”

Mulder groaned then rolled to his side, “the things you’d never thought you’d be doing to me when you walked in that basement office.”

As she pulled out the pill bottles and a pair of rubber gloves, “I loved you pretty much from the first day so even though I may have never thought about having to do this, I would have still done it in a heartbeat if it would have made you feel better.”

“Suppositories: Bringing together lovelorn FBI agents since 1993.”

&&&&&&&&&&

He didn’t throw up again, managing to keep down water and Pedialyte an hour later. His fever was hovering around 100 by the morning and having refused the sleeping pills, he drifted off on his own, Scully quietly lying beside him, hand on his chest, fingers on his carotid artery, soothed by the now steady, thrumming heartbeat of one finally on the slow mend.

They slept through the day, Mulder only getting up twice, once to pee and responding to a text Scully had received from Maggie, the second to retrieve her unwrapped ornament from his sock drawer. Exhausted, he debated for half a second whether to find some Christmas paper to wrap it up then climbed back into bed, instead hanging the ornament where the galaxy usually spun, putting the older ornament carefully in the nightstand drawer, just in case he went all hallucinatory again and managed to break it.

&&&&&&&&&&

She woke him up with a kiss to the cheek originally intended to check his temperature but he felt her, recognized her, moved towards her unconsciously, breathing her in, “hi.”

“Hi. How are you feeling?”

“Like someone beat me with some rebar, then ran me over with a steamshovel.”

“Oddly, I can imagine what that feels like.” Scooting a little closer, she also ran her lips over his forehead, “you seem much cooler than earlier.”

“The buzzing’s gone and my head isn’t throbbing like it was.” Drinking in her still sleepy blue eyes, “Merry Christmas.”

One side of her mouth curved up, lips pale in lingering exhaustion, “Merry Christmas. I’m glad you feel better.”

Whispering across the inches to her, “I love you and you have no idea how sorry I am for whatever I did. I don’t remember much but what I do remember makes me feel terrible and I’m sorry.”

Warm hand stroking down his cool cheek, “I love you, too. Don’t apologize. You can’t control your fever and what it makes you do.”

“I’m still sorry.” Leaving it at that, not wanting, at this point, to know what else he said or did, he moved his hand, pointing up to the headboard, “look at what Santa left you.”

Moving her head, she took in a dark matte-finished, round ornament, exquisitely painted with their house, trees, hammock, crooked front step, sagging roof painstakingly included down to the tiniest of details. Breathing out, tears prickled, threatened to fall but she held them in, smiling at the beauty, “I love it, Mulder. How did you do that?”

“Actually, I was talking to your mom about something or other a few months back and she mentioned she had a friend who paints and one thing led to another.” Reaching up to take it down for her to look at more closely, “Maggie had her ship it here and it came a few weeks back but I never got around to wrapping it so I decided to give it to you like this.”

In examining it, it suddenly blurred before her just as her head began swimming, spinning, pulsing. Having enough sense, she shut her eyes, handing the fragile glass back to Mulder, “I love it but I’m suddenly very dizzy. Did yours start like that?”

Rolling away and putting the ornament in the drawer with the first one, “yeah, it did.” Standing, he waited for a moment, then turned to her, “why don’t you get your pajamas on and get comfortable. It’s going to be an ugly few days.”

&&&&&&&&&

Mulder felt well enough to take care of Scully and by the 28th, they were wrapped up in blankets on the couch, enjoying their fireplace and hot chocolate and the fact that while Scully slept her fever away, Mulder had decorated. He’d taken the demolished tree parts and lined the mantle, placing other branches behind pictures, in the curtain rods of the windows. He then used their entire collection of stick-on hooks to hang all the ornaments on the large wall of the room, staggering them, arranging them in the most aesthetically pleasing pattern he could achieve, each one dangling from red and green yarn he’d rescued from his knitting bag.

Dozing against him, warm and wonderful, she mumbled into the darkened room around them, “thank you for taking care of me.”

As he kissed the top of her head, leaving his lips against her hair, “thank you for taking care of me.”

“And you like your ornament?”

“Of course. How could I not like a miniature ‘Big Blue’ hanging from my Christmas tree? I’m still amazed you remembered and managed to get them to send you one.”

“I remember everything Mulder, even the mythical sea monsters.”

Kissing her once again, “Merry Christmas, Scully.”

Through half a snore, “Merry Christmas, Mulder.”

[sarashiame]

A Noisy Silence: Attempted Quiet Ch.1

A/N: I wrote this fanfic for @jimintensify and brainstormed the idea with her. It may not be the finest piece you’ve read, but please enjoy it.

Trigger Warning: Attempted suicide and schizophrenia (schizoaffective)

Fans are screaming, so loudly that it drowns out the music. Fire is playing and the pyrotechnics flash before his eyes. Namjoon watches the fans chant with passion, and he sees the smiles on the faces of his members. He knows that he should be happy, but an invisible hand clenches his heart. In a facade that he, himself, cannot break, Namjoon smiles as his heart feels as if it’s being crushed underneath his own foot. Whispers make it so that he couldn't focus anymore, and he nearly missed his part in their song. With that, their last concert in their tour ends.

Namjoon’s studio remains dark, curtains were drawn and blinds shut. With a glass door and wooden floor, it's a messy place. Here in this space, his voice becomes louder and pain shoots through his chest. Rapping that never suits him somehow and the fan’s online hate. He's not who he used to be, no longer an underground rapper. His voice breaks and turns hoarse. A constant whispering, and an occasional shout in his head reminding him of things that he knows. “You should’ve died a long time ago,” one whisper says. “Do you even deserve to be where you are?” Says another whisper. Stress remains along his spine, pain all throughout. Back issues come with his stress and Bang PD won't let him rest. Playing the beats loud, Namjoon drowns out the whispers. He loses himself in music for hours, until a knock on the door reminds him of reality.

Yoongi opens the door at two in the morning, with dark bruises from lack of sleep under his eyes. Bidding Namjoon farewell, he knowingly leaves Namjoon in his pit of madness. Namjoon confessed what was going on with him to Yoongi a while back. Bang PD left hours ago and Namjoon knows the security pin by heart. The building is so beautifully quiet at night. The quietness of it makes the whispers stronger in his ears and Namjoon feels an urge to scratch it out. With an empty stomach and heart, he eventually leaves as dawn breaks the sky.

Walking to the dorm in the stillness of dawn, Namjoon feels as if his ears are bleeding due to the deafening noise of the whispers. A headache appears and Namjoon lets out a tired breath when he finally makes it back.

The dorm is a quiet place within the earliest hours of the morning. Everything seems still and tranquil as it was outside. Despite the quietude, the voices still simmer in the bottom if his ears and taunt him. Wishing for the voices to disappear, Namjoon plugs his ears with his hands only to realize that it's coming from inside his head,

Opening the door, Namjoon throws his jacket onto the couch and walks towards his heavenly bed of despair. Silently opening the door to his shared room, he plops himself down onto the bed after changing into his pajamas. Cracking his spine, he stretches as he worms his way underneath the covers. With his comfy sweatpants and shirt, he cuddles one of his Ryan plushies and closes his eyes. A few seconds later, a blaring noise jolts Namjoon awake. Groggily getting up, he finds himself alone, and the feeling of nausea and dizziness warps his vision.

Stumbling towards to bathroom, Namjoon nearly knocks Taehyung over. Uncaring of the world at such an early hour, neither of them has the voice to excuse themselves as they continue walking. Namjoon enters the bathroom and quickly starts to wash his face, the grime of the previous day sticking to his skin makes him feel icky. Then he remembers who he is and sees the shadows standing behind him.

Staring at them through the mirror, he uneasily smiles before he hears the obnoxious sound of loud footsteps coming towards the bathroom. Hurriedly, he finishes his daily routine before Jin knocks on the door to remind him that breakfast is ready.

The other members and he gather around the table, but suddenly Namjoon doesn't feel hungry anymore. A jealousy that clenches his heart painfully exists within him. So he can't stand the looks of happiness on their faces.

After breakfast, they prepare to go to practice, and Namjoon can't bring himself to do so with his lack of sleep. The members all heard him when he came back, and wouldn't care if he didn't come right? So Namjoon lays down on his bed and closes his tired eyes to fall asleep.

Waking up has always been a hard thing for Namjoon, and today was no exception. True to his expectations, he awoke to find himself alone in the dorm. The voices are loud in the morning too, making him want to scratch his ears out, so it's a hard thing to restrain himself. Trudging to the bathroom, he feels a sense of readiness that could only signify one thing. Still tired, lazy, and useless he prepares a bath. Taking out his box cutter knife, he goes in the bath with his clothes still on.

After turning off the water, he sits still contemplating whether he's going through with it or not. After making his decision, he stares at his arm for an eternity. Raising the blade, he holds his breath as he cuts up his arm, deep enough for bleeding. Pain shoots up his arm, and Namjoon winces at the pain. Peace overcomes him, and he happily closes his eyes for what must be the last time.

Taehyung wasn’t expecting much when he came back to the dorm early, he thought Namjoon would be sleeping or working secretly on something. The dorm was dead silent when he walked in, and something felt off. It felt as if time was frozen, and a dreadful feeling creeps into his mind. He has to find Namjoon, maybe the feeling would go away then. Briskly walking into Namjoon’s and Jungkook’s bedroom, he finds Namjoon’s bed messy but empty. The entire room seemed dreary somehow and a shiver went up Taehyung’s spine.

Looking around the dorm and he makes his way to the bathroom with hope and dread in his heart. His heart hurt so much from the dread, that he found himself hesitating. Then, he heard a sob from the inside. Bursting through the door, he first sees blood staining the clear water. Looking up, he then sees his wrist cut, then Namjoon’s crying face. He makes eye contact, and that spurs him into action. Taking out his phone, he dials the emergency line and then suddenly he can’t breathe. Namjoon closed his eyes and let out a big breath. The operator could hear him struggle to breathe and calmly asks for his location. Answering between heavy wheezes, he feels himself start to cry. He hangs up and rushes to Namjoon. Holding the bleeding hand, he starts to cry harder when he finds it cold. Sobbing, he doesn’t notice the ambulance arriving nor the emergency staff flooding in through the doorway. He only notices when they pull him away from Namjoon, and Taehyung simply lets them. He follows them to the ambulance and gets in.

When Namjoon wakes up, his first thought is, “I should’ve died.” Looking at the white ceiling and the pastel yellow walls, he breathes a breath that releases some pain that he’s feeling. He’s in a room with several other people on beds. An IV is attached to his arm and he feels the pain coming from the bandaged one. A door opens and he sees Taehyung come running through the door, with the rest of the members trailing slowly behind them. He should’ve known. He should’ve known that they would be reluctant to see him if he survived his suicide attempt. Snapping out of his thoughts, he notices the way Taehyung doesn’t immediately hug him.

The meeting blurs and is quickly put in the back of his mind with what comes when he’s healed. Not allowed to return to his life until the doctors are sure that he wouldn’t do something like this again, he is admitted to the psychiatric ward and is among other people like himself. He also is in a daze while he’s there and the doctors can’t keep him there past a week.

When he returns, Namjoon obviously lost a lot of weight due to it fluctuating in the hospital. Jin instantly disapproves with this and cooks his favorite meal for dinner. Namjoon barely eats it, and everyone is careful around him and leaves to let him eat at his own pace. Taehyung is the only exception and stares holes into Namjoon’s eyes. Eating slowly under Taehyung’s watchful gaze, he manages to finish his dinner. Taehyung smiles brightly when he does so. And practically jumps over the table to hug him, but is careful to not agitate his wound. Namjoon feels as if he truly doesn't deserve him.

After cuddling with Taehyung for a while, they decide to go to bed as it has gotten quite late. Namjoon tries to go immediately to their shared room, but Taehyung forbids it by blocking the path with his body. Taehyung laying on the floor with his arms outstretched, as if it would stop him from going to his room. It works and the two go to the bathroom and brush their teeth together.

Namjoon longs for the box cutter knife but doesn't know what his members did to it. And he can't cut himself with Taehyung in the room. His thoughts drift off like that, and he doesn't notice the toothpaste drooling out of his mouth. Taehyung notices the toothpaste falling and he makes a weird noise of disgust which snaps Namjoon back to reality. Quickly spitting it out, he finishes brushing and flossing his teeth.

Namjoon goes to his room again, and Taehyung grabs his good arm and drags him to their shared room. Forcing Namjoon to lay down on his bed, Taehyung tucks him in then grabs another blanket for himself. Then Taehyung lays down and goes under the blanket with Namjoon, putting the other blanket on top of the both of them. Turning towards Taehyung, Taehyung smiles.

“This way you'll be warm,” Taehyung whispers.

Humming in acknowledgment, Namjoon feels his eyes start to close as Taehyung cuddles him by being the bigger spoon. Like this, Namjoon feels protected and falls asleep quickly.

The first thing he hears when he wakes up is a very annoyingly loud agreement. Groggily sitting up, Namjoon gingerly gets out of bed after noticing that Taehyung was missing. With a headache already, he opens his door only to his someone. That someone was Jimin, and guilt floods through Namjoon. Then he notices how red his cheeks and ears are, then he notices Taehyung there too gaping at him.