#he's got a serious fear of abandonment and that doesn't help

[hollyhomburg]

i know you’re working so hard on bily and there’s a lot to get done for the next few chapters (you’re doing so well mwah) but i was just wondering when the next one would be out?? <3

hopefully this weekend! i have the chapter almost entirely finished and the moodboard completed but...i have life events in the works. heres to hoping that i can like...pull it out in the next two days cuz otherwise we might be off schedule :(

[nkogneatho]

𝐏𝐔𝐓 𝐀 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐎𝐍 𝐌𝐄

: ̗̀➛synopsis: You were scared of falling in love but will you change your mind when you meet someone who actually shows you how you are filled with so much love?

#mlist #commission #taglist

—wc: 1.5k

—cw: gn!reader, fwb to lovers (ig), hurt/comfort, mild smut, cockwarming, receiving head, abandonment issues, past trauma, commitment issues, anxiety and crying, fluff, soft gojo, not proofread (its 2 am im sorry)

—a/n: so my mind decided to remind me of my trauma on a Wednesday night so I pulled this out of my ass. Tell me what you think if you read it :)) Reblogs much appreciated.

It fucked you up. Body fragile as a glass, mind clouded dark. The crippling fear emerged on the surface once again. That same old feeling. The feeling of abandoning someone before they abandon you.

You pitied yourself. What a pathetic person to get walked over by all those people. You despised every single decision you made. That included to kindle a relationship with this man.

Gojo Satoru. The strongest, they say. Hair whiter than snow, eyes glinting in light like the ocean waves turn diamond in sun.

He loved you. In fact, he loved you so much it scared you. The anxiety creeped up your back when he said those words to you.

"I love you."

He loves me. He said he loves me. But so did every other guy. He is lying. He'll leave.

Can you blame the traumatized mind to come to such conclusions?

Gojo did expect this reaction from you. He knew you were scared or love and commitment. Although the man felt the need to confess or he were to regret it for the rest of his life. Your knees met the floor with a loud thud, arms hanging like they were a soft toy.

"Do you know what you're saying?" Your voice cold.

"I do. I love you. And I know it's something you never wanted to hear given this relationship—fuck is this even a relationship?" His palm rubbed his forehead, feeling the rough sensation of his bangs

He was right to ask that question. Was this a relationship? You both started as just fuck buddies. You set a bunch of rules (which were tampered later anyway.)

Rule No. 1, no interference with other party's personal life.

Eh. He broke that when he started coming to your workplace with a bouquet of tulips every Monday. He knew Mondays were harsh. So you didn't complain because it did help to get through the rough day. Rule No. 1 successfully broken.

Rule No. 2, dates are okay sometimes but not a lot. Maybe twice a month.

Now, you were the one to alter this rule. Dates might be forbidden but not coming over to his place and treating it like your own home. His place was way more spacious given his generational wealth. It was easier to focus on work in such a silent and lone environment. The rule only got broken when you decided to move in. Well, you would save the time to call him over or you traveling here just to fuck.

By now, he had probably bullied his dick inside you in every single room. You still remembered his words.

"I want to fuck you in every square inch of this house, y/n."

And he did.

He fucked you on the big navy blue velvet layered couch, not giving a shit if your juices stained the expensive material. He'd just buy another one.

He spread your legs and ate you out on the dinner table on that one evening when the takeout took too long to arrive. Your fingerbeds grabbed his head so hard, it might've broken his skull as you orgasmed. He later thanked the delivery guy for being late to which the boy walked out with a confused look.

He made your wrap your legs tightly around him as you cockwarmed him on the kitchen counter. Brows furrowed, desperately wanting to grind. But your locked thighs around his slutty waist, not letting him do so.

Every square inch, he fucked you in. So Rule No.2 was off the table.

Rule No. 3, No catching of serious feelings or saying I love you.

Gojo didn't recently fall for you. He was caught in this way before you realized. Maybe he even doesn't remember it himself when he did.

"What do you mean? You just broke rule 3, Toru."

"Fuck those rules. I don't even know why we had them in the first place. Look at us y/n," he tried to reason. "We never follwed them so don't give me that crap." His voice was elevating to a higher octave. You hated it. You don't like yelling. It triggers the tinnitus in your ear.

Tears started rummaging down your dry cheeks. "Look at me. I know you're lying."

"Baby, I am not. I know it's hard to believe given your past but just trust me on this one." Yes he knew about your previous failed relationships and the effect it had on you. Which is why he took so long to confess. Each day, calculating the outcome. So at some point, he did know how you'd react. Maybe he'll lose you forever.

"Why?" You questioned him. You felt like you were a broken soul. Used and abused mentally. Taken advantage of the innocent mind and abandoned when you were to ask for the real love. You started hating the word love, ironically.

I love you. It sounds preposterous in your brain. What a fool would someone be to ever believe those words.

"Why? Look at yourself," he said.

"I do. Everyday. Which is why I asked the question. I am nothing but someone drowning. But I do not want to be saved. I don't want a savior, Toru! It makes me feel pathetic and weak." By now, you were wailing and screaming.

But he didn't interrupt. He let you scream your heart out. Maybe that was the last option he could choose to make you face your actual feelings.

"You done?" He asked. You were sniffing, catching your breath from all the yelling.

"Toru, all I see myself is as a broken soul. Why would you ever love...this" you pointed at yourself.

"You fool. Look in my eyes and tell me if I lie, but all i see in you is love. It's funny how you hate that feeling yet you're filled with it, y/n." His gaze softened. "You say you don't want a savior. Do you realize you don't need it in the first place. Because it's you who saves others."

"What do you mean?"

"Remember, Ginger was abandoned in the rain when we saw her the other day? No one cared about her but you did. You fed it canned cat food a took her to a shelter. You named her. You cared for her." He intertwined his hand in yours.

"Y/n. I used to wake up every single day in this apartment feeling absolute shit about what happened with Suguru and others. But when you started barging in on random days, that's when I started to feel a little better." You understood it. It is lonely to live alone with your own thoughts haunting you in this big pace.

"You made this house a home. You don't need a savior because you are one." he claimed.

"When did you—you started loving me?" You asked between hiccups.

"Sweetheart. I fall for your every single second. Everytime I wake up next to you. Everytime I see you smile. Whenever you skip on the same colored tiles on the footpath. I love all of you." That is when you realized how selfish you've been. Taking and taking his love but giving none back. He did so much for you. But you were about to leave him in a fear of something that might never happen.

"What if you leave just like all of them?" you asked.

"Give it one more chance. Who knows? Maybe I'll stick around for the rest of our lives." He wore a soft smile as he said those words, affirming you. You started crying again, but this time, it was due to happiness.

"If you never leave, I promise to love you more than myself."

"Oh, baby," he hugged you a tightly. "I love you so fucking much and I am so happy right now."

He pulled away and his lips crashed against yours. It's weird. You've kissed hundred times before but this one felt different. Maybe, because it was filled with love and acceptance.

You came to a realization. You don't know what the future holds. It is not the fear of abandonment that scares you. It's the feeling of you giving away all your love and them not giving any back. You always swam ocean for people who couldn't even meet you at the shore.

But Gojo never left your side. All this time, he was swimming right behind you, concealing you from all the harm. So if anyone's worth the risk, it's him.

Oh. Gojo Satoru. What a beautiful man you are.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

I got one the follower bishops with someone that they love dearly but when their love goes on a missionary quest by the lamb they return with similar injures to them ( leshy 's love get blinded' hetek's get their voice permanently damaged, kallamar's lose their ability to hear, and shamura's get brain damage.)and survive it. Sorry for the long ask btw it just been in my head for a while now.

It's okay! I don't mind the long ask ^^

...........

Leshy

During your most recent (and probably last) missionary, something went horribly wrong.

All you remembered was a bomb scout attacking you, when they accidentally dropped a bomb in the struggle. It killed them but sent shrapnel flying towards your face before everything went dark.

You thought for sure you were dead. But luckily Ratoo rescued you and brought you to the heart chamber, helping you heal up in the red pool.

Unfortunately, it did nothing to restore your sight, though he guided you back to the cult grounds anyways, informing Lamb of your condition.

Leshy heard your voice and abandoned his current task to run over to you, smelling your fear and anxiety.

He was utterly confused as you called out his name and grasped the air. Surely you would have seen him right there. You were looking at him!

Unless...

All he had to do was feel the scars around your face, realizing you couldn't see him at all. You have gone completely blind, just like him.

He immediately blames Lamb, wanting to put their head on a pike for sending you out on a missionary so ill-prepared.

However you insisted it wasn't their fault, telling him not to be so angry with them...and for once he listens to your pleas, opting to take care of you instead.

Until you're comfortable enough to navigate the cult grounds by yourself, don't expect Leshy to leave your side anytime soon.

You two might get matching blindfolds if Lamb deems it necessary to prevent infection (or if you're insecure about the wounds)

Heket

After retrieving some resources in Anchordeep, you returned to the cult grounds feeling okay, aside from a sore throat you got after unknowingly drinking contaminated water.

However Lamb insists you rest in the Medbay so you didn't spread anything and allowed you to be absent from sermons.

But they quickly realized that camelia tea, the "miracle cure" of all sicknesses, wasn't alleviating your ailment one bit.

In fact, by the end of the week..it had gotten to the point where it hurts too much for you to talk, your vocal cords having ultimately succumbed to the infection.

But you begged your leader not to tell Heket yet.

You've been her voice for so long. What would she think of you if you lost yours now?

Lamb respects your wishes, though it's difficult keeping her away from you as she demands to know what's going on.

You used to join her for meals every day...and now she feels quite lonely and doesn't know why or what she might've done.

Are you really that sick? Were you dying?

While Lamb's crusading, they had a follower guard the Medbay's entrance, but Heket easily shoves them aside so she can finally see you, asking what happened on your missionary.

You resort to writing how you lost your voice, feeling terrible about it as you knew this was entirely preventable.

But to your surprise, she's very reassuring and says you don't have to speak for her anymore, though she wishes you told her sooner. She was sad about you missing dinner with her :(

She's been reading a book on sign language (recovered from Silk Cradle by Lamb), promising to teach you so communication is easier.

The two most important phrases she wanted you to know are "I love you" and "are you hungry".

Shamura

Regardless of how you received brain damage (be it a serious concussion or your head getting split open like theirs), it's going to be a difficult and painful healing process.

Lamb, Shamura, and even you had no clue how you survived the journey back to the cult with blood pouring down your face...but your leader immediately treats your wounds and orders you to rest up.

Whenever the arachnid visits you, seeing your head wrapped in bandages just like them, it breaks their heart to see you such a state.

While their memories get jumbled up at times, the one thing they always remember is how much they loved you.

However, your own memories got so badly scrambled that all you could recall is the Shamura from before--as the Bishop of War--and you begged them not to kill you.

Lamb ordered them to leave the Medbay so you'd calm down, but they're quite devastated over the matter.

For days they could barely go near you without you staring at them in terror.

As much as it hurts, they don't blame you. Only the cruel person who made you (quite literally) lose your mind.

With time and help from the other ex-bishops, they'd slowly regain your trust and explain how you fell in love with them, speaking in rhymes and simple poetry.

Sometimes you'd still forget, but they'll do their best to remind you.

Just as you have always done for them.

Kallamar

You know how followers will sometimes ask Lamb to send other followers on missionary quests?

Welp, this happened with you..and Kallamar was rightfully outraged, trying to convince you not to go.

But you reassured him this journey will be good for your spirit, asking that he sent you off in the evening.

And he reluctantly does, giving you a crystal as protective "charm".

He spends the next 1-3 days anxiously awaiting your return.

When you do come back, you're alive but....not necessarily well.

He realizes this right away when he tries helping you get the bag off your shoulders, asking what happened and where you went.

Much to his confusion, you kindly ask if he could speak a bit louder.

It's not much longer after that when he realizes you've lost your hearing entirely.

If you became deaf due to a loud explosion leaving you with permanent damage, he wouldn't have suspected anything until Lamb confirms it.

If your ears got torn out in a similar fashion to his, he's going to notice that right away and freak tf out, bandaging what's left to the best of his ability.

He's convinced that one follower made Lamb send you away on purpose...and they get into a big argument that's only resolved by the fighting pit ritual.

Although you couldn't hear much of the cheering and shouting, you applaud Kallamar after he beats them up, happy he wanted to defend your honor.

[picafreesita]

🌈6🌈

The afternoon had come to an end and it was time to return.

Like the day before, all the neighbors gathered to have a community meal. I was getting used to having a smile on my face almost all the time, I was already like them.

I was beginning to see my friends' situation as something further from serious, maybe they are even better off without me, wherever they are…maybe…I should stay here.

A small bell rang and in the blink of an eye everything changed, I was no longer at the table surrounded by the neighbors but rather I was sitting in Julie's dining room, it was already night, there was only me under a hanging lamp as the only source of light. In front of me was a whipped cream cupcake with colorful sprinkles and of course with a bright cherry decorating it. Next to it was the same bag that was given to Poppy in the morning with my clothes.

I opened it

I took out my clothes, part of each garment had patches of multiple colors covering what was once torn. I even sewed a new sleeve to my shirt, leaving it symmetrical again, the cape was cut but still remained somewhat long. I could smell the fabric softener emanating from these, it had a jasmine scent.

It was clear that whatever had happened to me was back in my head, it was time to go.

I got up, dressed in my clothes. I took my pair of scissors from under the single armchair in the living room. I headed to Julie's room, who was just fast asleep.

A part of me felt guilty for leaving this way without saying goodbye but I could no longer risk losing clarity again.

I took a lamp from her closet and then headed to the exit. Once outside, I followed the same path in the opposite direction from the first time I set foot in the neighborhood. The few light poles did not help the atmosphere not look as terrifying as it did at that moment.

I passed by Wally's house when suddenly a pang caused me to feel a wave of chills all over my spine, I turned around instantly, there was nothing, I looked at the front of the house.

There were the black figures in the windows.

and what if Wally just discovered me? What would they do if they saw me like this?

Strangely nothing happened, the figures were completely static in my presence. I didn't want to think about it anymore and continued on my way.

The crunching of branches under my feet filled the void of silence. It wasn't until after 5 minutes that I noticed that I couldn't hear anything. I thought that at least inside the forest there would be a greater possibility of hearing the nocturnal creatures, that was not the case.

Inside my thoughts I debated what I was doing, I was abandoning them. I felt like they weren't bad but I had to think about my survival. This place was the same shit as the pink house then… Are they like me, like us? Or are they mere decorations of another hell like the one Lesley rules? What happened with the flowers made me realize.

No, I shouldn't have trusted that peace of mind. I shouldn't trust them.

I walked and walked until I felt the furthest away from those houses, I found myself squeezing the pair of scissors in my hand with all my strength, it was clear that they knew that there is a danger at night, I couldn't imagine how big it could be.

I stopped

"It doesn't make sense, it seems like I'm walking in circles," I commented tiredly to myself. I looked down and using the lamp I noticed that there were a couple of dry leaves near my shoes.

It was very strange I just thought…autumn? impossible, this world or worlds? He never changes seasons unless the plot requires it. I continued towards the direction of the dry leaves, it was no longer just my footsteps and the branches but this did not lighten the atmosphere.

Suddenly

Behind me some creaking sounds were present.

Is it the danger that the neighborhood fears?

I walked trying to stay calm, every step of mine was a step for that thing. I was trying to guess what it could be.

But it was impossible for me.

Suddenly, her steps quickened.

He was closer to me

I ran

I collided with everything I could (or couldn't) see in my path, I changed my direction multiple times trying to lose it but it was useless. Scratches marked my skin with each branch that crossed. I ran up a hill until I tripped over my own feet and fell down the hill until I stopped rolling.

My whole body felt great pain, I tried to get up with all my strength until… I felt it.

I couldn't escape the blow to my head.

I had lost consciousness

Little by little my gaze dimmed with a warm light, I noticed that I was lying down and my body hurt a lot and my head even more. I tried to get up but a soft touch stopped me.

"Don't worry, everything is fine, you should rest,"

she laid me down again. My gaze was blurry but I knew that in front of me, there was a giant red spot, the only thing that crossed my mind and I could say was

"Mom?"

Finally when the world cleared up I saw that it was actually Poppy. A few steps behind were the others who looked relieved.

"Jolly, I'm glad you're okay!" With great joy, Julie rushed over and hugged me tightly.

"Julie dear, be careful!" Poppy said worriedly, taking her to separate her from me.

The others surrounded the bed

"Wow, you gave us a huge scare," Howdy said with a small nervous laugh.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Wally found you passed out at the entrance to the neighborhood, you were covered in dirt and scratches," Eddie commented.

I turned to look at Wally and he just blinked back a kind of "you're welcome" smile.

"You gave me a big scare when I went to pick you up for breakfast," said Julie

"Where did you go last night?… Have I been a bad hostess?" In a sad tone, I saw how she lowered her head as if it were a scolded girl All eyes were directed toward me

Maybe the blow had driven me crazy but…this felt genuine. Maybe they were like us.

I sat down quickly

"No! That's not it Julie! You've been very good to me but…forgive me, I just needed to get out of here. My friends are in danger and…" Guilt and despair were getting tangled in my throat.

"Calm down, you should rest," said Poppy, resting her wing in a caress on my head. She helped me lie down again.

"Right, we brought you a gift to make you feel much better," said Sally. "Frank and Julie had seen that you seemed to like them a lot, so we brought you a lot of them."

They placed bouquets of those strange flowers that I saw on both bureaus. There were so many that their smell was the only thing that filled my nose.

Everyone left, the last to leave was Wally, who with a wide smile said:

"Sweet dreams dear neighbor. You will be a new you when you wake up"

Something in me told me that this was clearly a threat in disguise. I tried to get out of bed but it was useless, something was holding me tightly. With each attempt it was suffocating and those flowers, those damn flowers. Her smell had become nauseating again, she wanted to vomit so bad.

They were looking at me.

They looked at my desperation

I wasn't crazy. In her petals there were sharp looks, they were waiting for me, and they had me as the only one she had.

Although she was paralyzed, she could feel tears falling from my face and I dare to think that she was also bleeding from her nose.

The world was spinning dizzyingly for me mixed with a deafening hum, I don't know how long I was like that, the only thing I already knew was that what Wally had told me was clear.

I would be a new me upon waking up.

🌈5<<<<<<<<< >>>>>>>>>💗1

[sammyboyimagines]

A Friend From Work pt. 4

Pairing: Older!Steve x Reader

Summary: Steve is confronted by your father, and he is given two options. Will he regret his choice? 1.7k words

Warnings: mention of smut so just in case 18+ MINORS DNI, mention of sex, breakup, angst, sadness/hurt, swearing, idk what else.

//this is gonna be a 5 part fic. I am making this story into a book on wattpad too! It will be a more detailed and slightly improved plot only available on Wattpad! Requested by the lovely @its-quinns-bread

"Say hi to your dad for me." Steve helped you out of his car, his hand clutching yours. "You better hope he doesn't beat your ass tomorrow when you come into work." you laugh, grabbing his collar and pulling him into a quick kiss. The thought of your father seeing you kissing his best friend frightened you a little, but Steve was there to comfort those fears.

"Hey, no matter what happens, I'm here." he gave you a soft warm smile, glancing at the dim lights in your house from the windows. "Maybe you could come to work with me. He won't hurt me in front of his daughter," he smirks. You roll your eyes. "Fine, but only because I wanna be there to see him chew you out."

"Goodnight, Y/n," he says in a whisper, his large hands holding you against him. "Goodnight, Steve." you smile and manage to break away from his grasp as you approach your doorstep.

You went to bed with your stomach full of butterflies and your head full of memories of how soft he was around you, how his kisses felt, and how much appreciation he had for you.

You went to work with your father under the guise of "helping out". But when you practically skipped over to Steve's desk, it told him everything he needed to know. You were dating his best friend.

"Hi, sweetheart. Can you help me sort these papers? I have so much other work to do since I took that week off. The things I do for you.." he chuckles. You simply nod and take the folders and stacks of papers. "My dad is watching us like a hawk so if I were you, I wouldn't get touchy." you laugh when he pouts. "But you look so delicious, it's unfair that I can't touch what's mine…" he frowns. You roll your eyes and smack his arm with one of the folders. "You're not helping the situation!" you laugh.

After working on sorting and organizing random papers that have little to no meaning to you, you went for a bathroom break. Your father took this as his moment to approach Steve. "Steve. A word please?" he points to an empty office used for holding storage and any extra items for safekeeping. "Mr. L/n. You don't need to worry-"

"Just shut your damn mouth. Where the hell do you get off going after my daughter? You're a fucking maniac if you think I'm letting you manipulate her like this." he was so angry his face was turning red. Your father was mad because he knew how Steve was in his past. A player. But was he playing with you or was he serious?

"Look, you obviously want what's best for her. But you have to understand that I have no reason to hurt your daughter. She's beautiful, and I treat her well! I don't know why you're angry at me! We've grown up together! Would I honestly leave her high and dry like that?" Steve tried to pull himself together. He knew you'd hate it if you heard the fight.

"Yes! You would absolutely abandon her after you got bored. You're gonna dump her like the other dozens of women you've only dated for one month!" Steve's past was often what kept him back. He used to be a womanizer, a different woman on his arm each week. And he's been trying for years to prove that he's changed.

Steve's hands grew clammy as your father chewed him out, just like you both expected he would. "You know what would knock some fucking sense into your head? If I told our boss. He'd like to know how you steal money from right under his nose." Steve went pale at the thought of losing his job. It would surely get him fired.

"No, you can't tell him! I swear to god I'm gonna treat her right, man!" Steve tried to keep his composure throughout the whole ordeal. "She's 22, let her do whatever the hell she wants!" Steve kept his voice at a whisper despite the heated argument unfolding.

"But you're a player, Steve. You've never thought about settling down, marrying, or having kids. I don't want her to be just another woman for you to abandon. Because that's what you do." your father said, pointing his finger in Steve's face.

"You don't fucking know me! You don't know how I feel, have I hurt your daughter yet? I've known her for a month and I've been nothing but nice to her! I've changed." he crosses his arms.

"No. Nobody can change that much. Either you break it off and tell her this was a mistake or I'm telling our boss and you can say goodbye to your cushy job, Steve." Steve felt sick to his stomach. He knew this would wreck you, but losing his job would be detrimental to his life. His job was all he had.

"Dude, I've known you for years. I would never do this to her. You know me." Your dad laughed to himself. "I don't know you. After that stunt you pulled when I got home and saw you two, I don't know you. You're not my friend, you're a fucking creep. Break it off or I ruin you." your dad stormed out, seeing you standing by the door.

"What happened? What did you say to him?" you grabbed your father's arm, to which he yanked it away from you. Your father didn't hold any hatred for you, however, he was very disappointed. That was somehow worse. "I don't want to talk to you. But he has something to say to you, don't you, Harrington?" your father gave Steve a stern look.

Steve looked upset, his face was flushed from the heated argument that could have cost him his job. Steve took you back into the empty office. "Y/n, I need to say something. I know you're not gonna like this, but it has to be said." Steve spoke in a soft voice.

"What did he say to you?" you approached him, but he backed away from you. He knew that if he had you in his arms he wouldn't have the heart to say anything. "This is my choice, Y/n. I was stupid to think this would work." he starts, but you've already heard enough.

"No, we can just keep it a secret! You don't have to do this, I thought you liked me?" you were confused. Just yesterday, he was cuddling you in his warm bed and whispering sweet nothings into your ear until you fell asleep.

"This was a mistake, Y/n! You need to understand that this will never work! We're too different, and you know it! Everything we've done was a mistake, we never should have done this." It was breaking his own heart to say this.

"Did he threaten you? Is that why you've just switched on me? I spent a week at your goddamn house and you're saying all of it was a mistake?! You bought me clothing!" you couldn't believe it. How could he be so stupid?

"I could lose my job, Y/n. Think, for once in your life, think about the consequences of this relationship. We were a mistake, the sooner you realize that the better." you felt tears prick at your eyes as you fought the urge to slap him in the face.

"Seriously? You'd rather keep your stupid job? You think I'm stupid because I don't realize the consequences?" you were yelling at him at this point. "No! You're an asshole! I don't care about the consequences because I like you, I want to be with you! You wanted to be with me, why am I a mistake? Am I just another notch in your bedpost?" you didn't realize you were crying until you felt tears run down your face.

Steve wasn't showing any reaction. "I don't need you anymore, I have to keep my job. You can leave if you want, I don't need your help anymore. I think it's best if we don't see each other anymore." Your father was watching from the window. If he could, Steve would apologize profusely until you were gracious enough to take him back. He desperately wanted to tell you that none of it was his idea. He wanted to fight it, but he couldn't imagine losing his job over someone he met months ago. No matter how important you were to him.

You couldn't respond, trying desperately to hold onto your last shred of dignity. You shoved past him to the door and walked out, grabbing your stuff from his desk as fast as you possibly could. You ignored how your stomach sank when you remembered how sweet he was just 10 minutes ago.

Your father stopped you from leaving. "You don't have a ride, sweetheart." the nickname reminded you of Steve, and you felt tears pricking at your eyes. "I'll find one. Please just let me go home." you shifted uncomfortably in your heels, trying to hold back sobs.

Your father brought you to his car and offered to drive you home. "We need to talk, I think this is what's best for you-"

"You don't get to decide that! Threatening to get him fired? Why can't you just let me be!" you shouted at him, all of these sudden emotions just pouring out of you.

"He's a bad guy, Y/n. Do you know how many women he's hooked up with who were exactly like you? Naive, innocent, pretending to be rebellious. You don't know him like I do!" you scoffed and turned away from him, watching the trees go by in a blur as your father drove home. "Let me make that mistake for myself! What if he had good intentions? Don't you want me to be happy!?" he rolled his eyes.

"Of course, Y/n. But this is what's best. The sooner you realize that the better. " when you arrived home, you practically sprinted inside. Slamming your door like an angry teenager, you cried into your pillow.

You remembered what it was like to go on drives with Steve. His hand would be holding your thigh, inching up your mini skirt to press his fingers against your heat as he accelerated, his eyes on the road as if he wasn't turned on by the way you moaned and sucked on a cherry lollipop.

Steve was nothing like your dad's description, he was kind, sweet, and comforting. But then again, he left you for his job.

[distort-opia]

I always wonder what woud happen if bruce finally got what he wanted and got joker all figured out. Would he get bored of him? I think thats something that joker himself is scared of

It's definitely something Joker fears, yes. In Batman: Death of the Family, he basically jumps off a cliff rather than hear Bruce utter his name or his history, so panicked that he doesn't even consider that Bruce could be bluffing. As to Bruce figuring Joker out... hah. Arguably, he already has.

Bruce has always been obsessed with understanding Joker, and especially during his first decade as Batman. At the basis of it lies both a need for control and the hope that Joker could be rehabilitated, because if Bruce understands Joker, then maybe he could predict him and prevent his crime sprees. Perhaps Bruce could help Joker, have the leverage of Joker's humanity to use in order to reach him.

Detective Comics #1027 -- Many Happy Returns

It's an essential component of their dynamic: Bruce desperately asking "why?" and Joker laughing in his face, symbolizing both Batman's need for constructing meaning and Bruce's need for connection and understanding. Something that Joker eternally resists.

Batman (2016) #67 -- All The Way Down

But the paradox is that, at the same time, Bruce doesn't entirely want to figure Joker out. This is partly covered by a bigger pattern of behavior for Bruce that I talked about before-- the fact that, despite verbally supporting the rehabilitation of his Rogues, Bruce tends to be mean-spirited, distrustful and paranoid when it actually happens. In many ways he thinks of the Rogues as his; they're all in the dark, they're all wrestling with various kinds of demons, and Bruce includes himself in it. This is most apparent in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth, in which Bruce's biggest fear is the fact Arkham would feel like home. So... if the Rogues truly rehabilitated, what then? Where would that leave him? Bruce has a crippling fear of abandonment as a consequence of losing his parents, and it extends to this.

It's true for Joker more than for anyone else, I suppose. Bruce refuses to let Joker die, even in bonkers circumstances in which his code would allow for it. He also has apparently known all along what he needs to do in order to... undo Joker. If Death of the Family established anything, it's that Bruce never needed to kill Joker in order to get him to stop. The end shows that Bruce knows Joker very well, and thus he knows that the thing Joker fears most is the ghost of his own past. All he needed to do was hint that he had uncovered Joker's history, and Joker basically committed suicide. Yet Bruce hasn't used this before, and he hasn't used it against Joker since.

But I absolutely need to mention the controversial and dubiously-canonical Batman: The Three Jokers (intended to be a spiritual successor to Batman: The Killing Joke) that explores the idea that Joker might've been separate people over time (but not really). This comic is disliked for very valid reasons, but it does something very interesting, at least in the realm of the hypothetical: it shows that Bruce has known who Joker was and where his family is all along. Coupled with the fact that this comic specifically connects The Comedian to New 52 and Endgame... it implies that at least in this story, Bruce wasn't bluffing when he said he knew Joker's real identity in Death of the Family.

But he doesn't use it. Not in Endgame, not in The Three Jokers. I talked about this story more extensively here, but the reasoning that he does it to protect Joker's hidden family is very weak, because Bruce could just omit the fact Jeannie and her child survived. If he's worried about the paper trail, it's ridiculous to assert that Batman doesn't have the resources to fake their death certificates or bury the clues. Hell, the press wouldn't need to find out, he could only tell the truth to Joker and watch him unravel as a result. But he doesn't! In his own words...

Batman: The Three Jokers #3

So... this comic basically goes to show that Bruce wouldn't get bored if he figured out the "mystery" of Joker. Rather that he'd just keep it a secret, and maintain the status quo (even though it's painfully selfish and destructive of him to do so). And even if you see The Three Jokers as out of main continuity, Death of the Family remains as a testament to the fact Bruce knows Joker. He knows what might get Joker to stop, but he's only ever threatened it and never resorted to it since, despite seeing proof of it working.

At the end of the day, Bruce getting bored with Joker is unlikely. It would be a real possibility if their dynamic was based only on Bruce's curiosity and obsession regarding Joker, but it isn't. That's simply a component of it, one of the pillars. Bruce needs Joker in other ways-- bigger ways, that overshadow knowing Joker's name. Joker needs to remain an equal who can oppose Batman... and thus, he keeps coming back, whether he likes it or not. Bruce drags him with him; and I wish I was being metaphorical, but this is literally what Bruce did in Going Sane and the nebulous time between Batman (2011) #48 and Dark Days: The Casting.

The tragedy, though, is that Joker would never trust Batman to still be there outside of the murder and the mayhem he thinks Batman needs. The thought of Bruce caring about him outside of his Joker persona is an impossibility... because Joker utterly hates who he used to be, and sees no value in himself (or anything, for that matter). He can't comprehend Bruce valuing him as a human being, worth knowing or saving.

[warriorofthought]

Saving a Poisoned Half-Vampire

Summary: You are one of Lord Elrond`s favorite vampire friends, he loves you, but one day his mansion is attacked during a festival by humans. You are injured and poisoned. It hurts you much more than other vampires because you are half vampire. Lord Elrond finds you alone in a room a little later when the other vampires have already left. He has been looking for you but has not found you yet.

Word count: 2.521

Warning: mention of injuries

Lord Elrond x Reader

You are laying on the ground in a pool of your own blood.

The blood seeps deep out of your wound and hurts. You try to breathe normally but the pain is too strong.

You hear some footsteps outside and then Lord Elrond walks in the door.

You see how Lord Elrond's eyes  surprised. His beloved half-vampire was hurt by the humans. He tries not to look too worried after all he's a vampire lord, but he's always had a special place for you, especially since you're so powerful even if you're only half vampire.

Then your eyes meet his.

Lord Elrond can see that you are really hurt. He walks over to you and helps you sit on the bed. He looks at your wound with fear, and after a while he removes your top and cleans the wound carefully with a cloth.

He is worried but he is trying to be strong for you.

"I'm sorry" you squeeze out under pain.

"They had me surrounded and I was too surprised to react" you say slightly ashamed.

"Shh shh, it's not your fault" Lord Elrond says, he sounds calm and tries to comfort you. "But we have to take care of it before it gets infected". He cleans the wound again.

Then he looks at you, "Can I ask you a question?"

You nod.

"What were you doing all alone here?" Lord Elrond says, "I thought you would be with the other vampires for the festival".

He is worried that something happened to you before the attack. And he also wants to know why the other vampires abandoned you.

"I was, but we got separated. And you know how they are, they have properly forgotten that i was with them, I'm just a Half-vampire." You say softly.

"They are stupid for forgetting you, you are valuable for me and them" Lord Elrond says, his anger is evident. "But I won't leave you like them, I will take good care of you".

He keeps cleaning your wound but seems to be very angry with the other vampires.

You see a slight flesh of worry go through his eyes as he sees the like black roots lines spread from your wound and decorate your white skin.

"It's worse than it should be, huh? It's because of my human side, because I'm not a full vampire?" You ask your vampire Lord Elrond.

"Yes, it's because of your human half, the poison spreads quicker in your blood" Lord Elrond explains.

He takes your hand, and you feel how worried he is. And how much he loves you.

"Don't worry, I've got you, I'll get you through this"

He looks at you and gives you a reassuring squeeze to your hand before he continues cleaning your wound.

"My dear... my little flower" he says, his voice is full of love and care.

You nod and can feel how your heartbeat calms down. Lord Elrond hears it too.

"I have tried to heal it myself, you know with my power. But my hands got burned" you say confused. Lord Elrond knows that this is because of the poison, the poison doesn't let your vampire Magic work.

Lord Elrond grabs your hands and looks at the burn marks, then he heals them.

"Yes, that is a bad sign, if your power can't heal it, it means that the poison is too strong, we have to do something"

Lord Elrond checks your wound again, it seems like the poison has spread more and it looks really serious. He seems worried.

"I don't have any powerful healing spells that could heal something so strong, because I never needed them. The vampires who are injured, always heal themselves", he says with a worried look.

He checks you for other injuries but he finds none.

You nod softly " s'not your fault" you whisper and you lean your head back against the pillow.

Lord Elrond looks at you and says "We have to talk about something... Important". He pauses for a moment and looks at you with a worried look.

You know that when Lord Elrond is this serious, something must be wrong. Suddenly you hear a knock on the door. "My lord?" you hear someone say.

"What is it?" Lord Elrond answers and the person outside the door says "The other vampires are here, they want to speak with you".

Lord Elrond looks at you but he does not seem happy about having visitors.

"you can go, i won't die quick" you say and slightly shove him on his arm

Lord Elrond looks at you concerned and he says "Are you sure?".

"I'll be back in a moment" he says.

Lord Elrond gets up and you hear him walking to the door, then he talks to the vampires outside the door, they seem to have something important to talk about.

You are alone in the room, and you don't know how long it takes till the vampires are finished talking. You notice how your head is starting to become dizzy, and the black veins have started to spread even more.

The fever is strong and you feel very hot.

After a long while the door opens and Lord Elrond comes in. He walks over to you and sits on the bed. With his hand, he lays a cold cloth on your forehead. You notice that the black veins have spread a lot and the poison seems to spread very quickly.

"My dear Flower..." Lord Elrond says, you can see how worried he is. "I'm afraid I have to tell you..."

Your eyes focus on Lord Elrond. And you hand reach out to him.

You touch his hand. It feels warm. You also feel how your heart beats fast and your head is spinning. You look at him with scared eyes. You are afraid of what he wants to tell you.

"You are sicker than I thought, the poison seems to be a little too strong for you" Lord Elrond says, he sounds sad and worried. He is holding your hand.

"I don't want to lose you..." You hear him say.

"Lord Elrond, can you call me again your Flower" you ask weakly, wanting to hear it one last time from him.

"My dear Flower" Lord Elrond says as he looks at you, "My precious and wonderful Flower."

His voice sounds so loving and his eyes are filled with tears.

"I love you, and I am so sorry..."

"What if we burn the wound" you ask, knowing it would hurt badly but it would stop the poison from spreading further for a while. It would give time to find an Antidote.

Lord Elrond listens to what you suggest with hope in his eyes.

He thinks for a second but looks at you worried. "It would hurt you much more, but it might delay the poison. But I don't know how much time we have..."

Lord Elrond looks sad but is still determined to help you.

"I'll do it if you want, my dear flower."

You nod and see how Lord Elrond quickly gets the things he needs. Then he puts a cloth in your mouth so you don't break your teeth or bite your tongue because of the pain.

your hands hold on to the duvet cover. you don't want to accidentally hit Lord Elrond in pain.

You hear how he puts the stone in the fire and then look at you as he waits that the stone is hot enough.

You feel the temperature in the room get hotter and hotter. The stone in the fire is getting brighter and hotter.

You wait with your teeth clenched and your hand on the duvet cover. You are prepared for the worst pain you've ever felt.

After a while you hear Lord Elrond say "I think it's hot enough now..."

And then he places the stone on your wound.

The pain is unbearable and you scream as loud as you can, even if you don't want to make a sound.

Your back arched slightly in pain but Lord Elrond held the stone to the wound. You can feel how tears run down your face, but you don't try to stop Lord Elrond. You know he does the right thing.

You feel the heat burning your skin and you are in so much pain that you can't stop yourself from screaming.

Lord Elrond holds the stone on your wound, he looks at you, he knows that you are in so much pain.

"You have to be strong my dear flower" he says, he sounds worried and his voice is filled with love. "One more minute" he says.

Then as he is finished he quickly puts the clothes away from your mouth and helps you take deep breaths.

Finally it is over. Lord Elrond looks at you, the black veins and roots are still on your skin, but they are not spreading as bad as before.

Lord Elrond wipes your tears, and says "How do you feel?"

You can feel how weak your body is, the poison really affected you. But you say as calmly as you can "I feel better, thank you...".

"Love you" you whisper breathless.

Lord Elrond smiles at you and holds your hand. "I love you more than anything in this world, my dear flower".

He looks happy to see you get a little better. But still, he is very worried about you.

"Are you going to search for a Antidote now? Maybe the human that poisoned me had it " you ask softly and with innocent eyes.

You know that Lord Elrond has not seen that human who poisoned you.

"Yes, I have a human servant looking for him now. I'm sure we will find him and I will make him pay for what he did to you."

Lord Elrond says, and he actually looks very mad. He has never had this much anger towards a human.

"You will get better and stronger, dear Flower. Don't worry" he says with a reassuring smile.

You nod softly " i know, i trust you" you whisper breathless and smile at him.

Then you hear Lord Elrond suggest that you should drink a little bit of blood, because your skin is so Pale. He knows you hate to drink blood.

"I know you don't like to drink blood, but you lost a lot of it, so you must regain your strength. Just a little drink, to get back to full strength. I need my little flower to be healthy again", Lord Elrond says with a loving voice.

He gets up from the bed and walks over to the table where a cup of blood is just waiting for you.

He holds the glass to your mouth and look gentle but firmly at you

"Just a sip, it will help you. Trust me." Lord Elrond says to you.

You are not sure about this. But you also know that the poison took a toll on your body.

Lord Elrond says with a soft voice "Come on, my little Flower. I know you can do it."

He holds the glass to your lips and waits for you to drink.

You open your mouth and Lord Elrond quickly forces you to drink the blood. You swallow quickly and your eyes travel over his face.

Lord Elrond continues to press the cup against your mouth until the cup is empty. Then he puts it down, and looks at you.

You swallow the blood and the taste of it makes you feel nauseous. But you try to ignore it.

Lord Elrond smiles at you and says "that's Good" he then takes your hand.

"How do you feel?" he says as he looks into your eyes.

"a bit better" you nod slowly

"That's good" Lord Elrond says, he looks happy that the blood helped you.

You can feel how you are getting stronger and healthier again. The poison starts to leave your body. But you are still very weak.

Lord Elrond sits on the bed beside you. "I'm staying with you until you feel better" he says with a kind voice.

"That's how I want to see you. You are getting better, my dear Flower." Lord Elrond says, he sounds happy.

"I think my human servant is almost back from finding the poisoner. When he is here, I'll kill this human for what he did to you."

He looks a little angry. You know that he won't let this human get away with this. But he is still happy to see you get better.

Lord Elrond looks relieved and happy.

"I know you are not fully okay yet, but the healing process is starting and slowly the poison is getting weaker." He says.

"Now we can focus on finding the antidote for you. I'm sure it will be very helpful for you".

Lord Elrond smiles at you, "My dear Flower" he says.

Lord Elrond is happy to hear that you feel a little bit better. "Good, good" he says and gives you a gentle kiss on your forehead.

"But you should rest, you need to regain your energy" he says and looks at your pale skin again.

"Just rest a little more, and get back to full strength."

"Good" Lord Elrond says, and gives you a gentle kiss on the forehead.

"We will find the antidote and you will be fully recovered. You'll become stronger than ever."

He looks at you with a confident look. "I believe in you, my little half-vampire. You are strong".

He puts his hand on your hair and strokes it gently.

"You see, a drink of blood can do a lot of good" Lord Elrond says, he still sounds worried.

Now that your strength is back, you notice that he is still holding your hand and he is not willing to let go. He says "Take a little rest, I will stay here just in case."

Lord Elrond is not willing to leave you alone.

After a while you fall asleep. In the meantime the servant finds the human who has poisoned you and brings him back to Bruchtal. The servant even looks for the antidote and finds his description on a letter, which he immediately took with him.

Lord Elrond is immediately informed about that and the servant hands him the receipt.

Lord Elrond quickly gathers all ingredients and mixes the Antidote. 

Then he comes to you and lubricates you on the wound. 

Your condition until then has deteriorated and you are no longer responsive, so Lord Elrond hopes that the Antidote is attacking the Poison. 

After a few hours, Lord Elrond can see a recovery, the black veins fade and disappear slowly. 

Then you open your eyes again and you look directly into Lord Elrond's face, who is smiling happily at you. 

Your fever has fallen and your other symptoms also disappear slowly. 

Soon you are with full power again and support Lord Elrond again in his activities and as a loved one.

Later, you will learn that Lord Elrond had put the Human in court and he has received a violent punishment.

[unusannusbracket]

I’ve had some curious people, so here’s the seed. (Warning that all 366 videos are in a list here, so it’s very long)

Cooking with Sex Toys

Ethan Finally Becomes a MAN

Recreating Every Single Unus Annus Video

Mark and Ethan Attempt an Escape Room

Hunting HeeHoo

Pee Sauna

Goodbye.

Ethan Gives Mark a Viking Funeral

Playing Children’s Games in Total Darkness

Preserving Ourselves in Wax

DIY Geriatric Simulator

DIY Bungee Jump (please don't try this)

2 Truths and 1 Lie -- Waxing Edition

Mark Teaches Ethan to Read with Hooked on Phonics

Duct Tape Crucifixion (Amy, Please Don't Watch This Video)

Bear Trapping 101: An Elegant Knot For an Elegant Beast

The Unus Annus Annual Sleepover

Reacting to Your Hilarious Green Screen Memes

Creating Mark FISHbach

Goat Yoga

Chickens Teach Us About Life and Death

Unus Annus Try Pole Dancing

We Made Nude Paintings of Each Other

Being Brutally Honest with Each Other

2 Absolute Beginners Experience the Dancing Glory that is Salsa

The Unus Annus Annual Costume Contest

Mark Turns Ethan into a Mummy to Prepare Him for the Great Beyond

Mark Conquers His Fear of Night Swimming

Pee Soda

We Got Pepper Sprayed

The Truth of Unus Annus

Mark Teaches Ethan How to Play the Trumpet

Hiding Our Sins from Amy's Holy Peepers

The Wubble

Mark Cooks Blindfolded While Ethan Guides Him Through FaceTime

W​​​​​e Had To Drink Each Other's Pee

We Accidentally Made an SCP While Amy Was Away

Santa's Mukbang (Drinking 1 Gallon of Eggnog)

Beer Sauna: Turning a Portable Sauna into a Portable Hell

Literally Eating Fire

All Our Video Ideas That Never Happened

Mark Reviews The Impossible Burger But There's a Looming Sense of Impending Doom

2 Grown Men Attempt the Presidential Fitness Test

Nutball: The Most Dangerous Game

The Unus Annus Last Supper

We Force Mark to Swim in the Ocean (HIS GREATEST FEAR)

Fixing Mark's Hole with Ramen but Every Time We Add Glue We Get 5% Closer to God

The Koala Challenge: TikTok’s Intimate Couple’s Trend

Pitching a Tent in the Woods But There's a Bear 15 Feet Away

We Tried a Labor Pain Simulator

We Will Churn Thy Butter

Mark Breaks His Nose On An Aerial Hoop

Beating Inanimate Objects to Death

Mark's Outdoor Escape Room

Donating Toys to Charity w/ JackSepticEye

Baby Hands Operation

What in the Hell is a Pink Trombone?

Mark Teaches Ethan How to March in a Marching Band

Drawing on Each Other's Backs in Total Darkness

Crushing Watermelons Betwixt Our Mighty Thighs

Making Our Own Sensory Deprivation Tank

We Lubed Our Floor for a Sliding Competition

A Serious Conversation Under the Stars

Drawing Memes from Memory

1 Man 100 Accents

How to Start a Fire (except don't...)

DIY Chiropractor

Mark Needs To Rub Ethan and Only His Mom Can Help Him

We Pierced Each Other’s Ears

Mark and Ethan Go Casket Shopping

Unus Annus

Mark Punishes Ethan

We Force James Charles to Run a Military Obstacle Course

The Sensory Overload Tank

Mark and Ethan Are Now Fathers

We Made Every YouTuber Battle in the Hunger Games

We Bought Every Grinch Costume on Ebay

Turning Mark Into an E-Boy

Helium Therapy

Everything's Legal If You're Dead

How to Safely Bury Your Friend

Who’s Cutting Onions In Here???

Recreating the Miracle of Childbirth

We Play the Newlywed Game While Consuming That Which Will Kill the Other

The Beginning of The End

We Attempted to Create THICC Water

DIY Boob

2 Idiots Get Crushed by 18-Foot Giant Snakes

Mark and Ethan Get Into a Fight

The Painful World of Aerial Silks

You Blink You Lose

Ethan Will Be Kicked in the Balls

We Looked at Unus Annus Memes

Poopsie Sparkly Critters (a slime surprise...)

Unregulated Axe Throwing

10 Strange Amazon Products Ethan Bought Mark Because He Doesn't Know How to Spend Money Responsibly

The Secret Unus Annus No-Touchy-Touchy Hand Shake

Taped and Afraid

We Played Strip Poker

REAL Ghost Hunting at an Abandoned Zoo

This Video is Completely Unedited

Eating Only Onions for 24 Hours: How Many Onions Does it Take to Kill a Man?

Ethan Teaches Mark Gymnastics

Mark and Ethan Look at a Puppy for 10 Minutes

Pressure Washing Our Sins Away

The Ultimate Trolley Problem

Recreating Mark's Childhood

2 Men in a Trench Coat Teach You how to Save Moneyat the Movies

Mark Teaches Ethan to Wrestle

What Was the Most Painful Thing We've Ever Endured?

Drinking Real THICC Water... How Bad Does It Taste?

This is What Being Tased Feels Like

Only UNUS-es May Watch This Video

We Take a Lie Detector Test to Uncover our Darkest Sins

Transforming Mark into the 8th Wonder of the World

This Is The Most Dangerous Children's Toy Ever Made

Saying Goodbye to All Our Guests

Ethan Destroys Mark's Van with a Bat

BEYBLADE NUTBALL

We Turned our Bodies into Art

Drunk College Party Simulator

Doing Each Other's Makeup in the Dark

The Candy Bra Challenge

A Bear Attacked Us in the Middle of the Night

Too Many Pickles

Making an Indoor Tornado to Flex on Mother Nature

2 Adults Take a 4th Grade Math Test

We Took the Polar Plunge

Brick Soccer

Only ANNUS-es May Watch This Video

Blood Bath

Ethan Kidnapped Mark

How to Rescue a Cat from a Tree

Literally Finding a Needle in a Haystack

Only Watch from 2:15 to 6:11 --- DO NOT WATCH ANY OTHER PART OF THIS VIDEO

Team Building for 2: Trust Fall, Tug-of-War, and More!

Building IKEA's Hardest Piece of Furniture Without Instructions is Impossible

How Many Slaps Does It Take to Cook a Chicken?

Floating in a Real Sensory Deprivation Tank

Ethan Teaches Mark How to Swim

We Eat Bugs

Accepting the Truth

The Annual Unus Annus Dunk Contest

Grip Strength Test: Loser Becomes the Winner's Butler for a Day

7 Minutes in Heaven | 7 Minutes in Hell

Help Us Break a YouTube World Record

Becoming One with the Horse

Mark and Ethan Go on a "Drum Date"

Bobbing For Apples But the Water Keeps Getting Thiccer

Who Can Teach Their Dogs a Trick the Fastest?

Mark Knows What Ethan Did...

We Buy a Professional Hypnosis Video and React To It

Mark and Ethan Learn About the Human Body

Tearing a Phone Book in Half with Our Huge Manly Muscles

How to Escape from a Hostage Situation

Being Attacked by a Fully Trained Bodyguard Dog

Puberty Simulator

Breaking Glass With Our Screams

Dunking Oreos In Literally Anything But Milk

Hydro Dipping A Baby

Attempting to Build IKEA Furniture Without Instructions

Can You Bake a Cookie from Cookie Dough Ice Cream?

The Bad Kind of Cupping

Ethan Explores Mark's Haunted Basement

Would Chica Save Us From Drowning?

Was 2020 a Bad Year for Unus Annus?

Shooting Archery ON A HORSE

This is For FUN and NOT a Fetish

Mark Teaches Ethan Korean

Building the World's First IKEA Boat

Purging Our Sins with a Neti Pot

Discussing the Idea of Murdering Each Other but it's Just a Joke and Definitely Not Serious Haha

Momiplier Teaches Self-Defense

The 1st Annual Unus Annus Roast

Mark and Ethan Share a Drink

The Barrel - Official Music Video

Popping Popcorn with a High-Powered Laser

Is Mark a Masochist?

We Wrote a Hit Pop Song in 30 Minutes

We Attempt to Make UNHOLY Water

We Give Each Other Tattoos Blindfolded

The Ultimate Paper Airplane Showdown

Judging Your Terrible Unus Annus Ideas

Top 10 Worst Things Your Friend Could Possibly Spend Their Money On

3 Big Boys Attempt the King's Royal Fitness Test

Reddit 50/50: Two Player Edition

We Attempt Pottery Without Amy's Help

Mark and Ethan Build a Scarecrow

Learning the Ancient Art of Chinese Archery

Ultimate Horseshoes

This Video Went Completely Out of Control

Cryptid Olympics

Hot Dog'd to Death

Recharging Our Phones Using Only Brute Strength

Becoming a Master of Mime

Harnessing Our Dogs' Unlimited Energy

We Explore the Unus Annus Subreddit for Your Delicious Memes

Forcibly Turning Mark Into Santa Claus Against His Will

Literally Laying On Literal Broken Glass

The Good Kind of Cupping

Blowing Our Souls Into Some Hot Glass

Who Can Make Themselves Taller?

DIY Bed of Nails : OH GOD, PLEASE DON'T EVER TRY THIS

Mark and Ethan Summon a Ghost

The Great Meat Mistake

Recreating Ourselves as a Cursed Mannequin

DIY Wine

We Played Mad Libs and Ran It Through Google Translate

Bobbing For Literally Anything But Apples

Acupuncture Is NOT Painful

Mark Gives Ethan a HOT (stone) Massage

We Cryogenically Freeze Ourselves

Ultimate YouTuber Boxing Showdown

10 Miracle Products to Give YOU the Thiccest Jaw on Planet Earth

Dummy THICC for Dummies | A Tale of 2 Butts | Pushing Our Butts Even Further Beyond

We Attempt to Make Holy Water

Mark Steals Ethan’s Face

DIY Teeth

Our Perfect (and last) Valentine's Day

Mark Builds a Pillow Fort for the Very First Time

The Egg Smashing Game

Ethan Redefines Male Beauty

Learning to Breathe Underwater

The Great Ice Cream Cake Race

Preparing a 5-Star Meal for Our Youtube Famous Dogs

We Finally Drank Our DIY Win

2 Dirty Boys Wash Their Filthy Mouths Out With Soap

Professional Fire Cupping (Going Even Further Beyond)

Morphing Our Bodies Into Superhero Poses

Bad Bad Beans

We Hired a Real Hypnotherapist to Analyze our Darkest Dreams

This is Goodbye

God's Fitness Test

Edible Slime was a Mistake.

DO NOT TRY THIS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES

You Breathe You Die

Long Hair, Do We Dare?

Mark and Ethan Desperately Try and Name a Single State in the USA

The Most Dangerous Shave

Two Male Men Judge Female Women on Their Beauty

5 Products to Grow Your Patchy Beard

How to NOT be the Perfect Boyfriend

Learn to Jump Higher in 16 Minutes and 16 Seconds

Playing Cards: The World's Deadliest Weapon

DIY Cheese

We Found Websites That the World Forgot About

Play-Doh Thanksgiving

Ethan Watches as Mark Achieves the Impossible

2 Men 200 Accents

1 Gallon of Jello Nearly Broke Us

Desperately Trying Not To Touch Our Faces

Mark and Ethan Milk a Goat

Edward Pumpkin Hands

Nutball Extreme: Taser Edition

The Unus Annus Space Program

Having an Adventure In VR Chat Because We Can't Go Outside

Using Google Maps to Find the Lost City of Atlantis

Mark and Ethan Desperately Attempt to Feel Something

Ethan Turns Mark into a Werewolf

Looking at Long Lost Memes

The Human Mop

An Extremely Sour, Not-At-All Sour Meal

Going on an Internet Scavenger Hunt

Making Soda With Literally Anything But Soda

Mark and Ethan Become United States Citizens

Consuming the World's Hottest Chip

Learning How to Lockpick (FBI Please Don't Watch)

We Made Fanart for Each Other

There's Something Horribly Wrong with This Picture...

Strange (and legal) Things You Can Do With Your Body After Death

Professional Fetish Scientists Rank the Best/Worst Fetishes of 2020

Recreating Childhood Photos

Fighting Fish to the Death in the Deep Blue Sea

Wikifeet: A Tale of 2 Tootsies

We Google Each Other to Find Our Darkest Forgotten Sins

The Worst Kind of Cupping

The End of Unus Annus is Almost Here...

Middle School Science Experiment Teaches Us About Life and Death

Momiplier Tells Us True Scary Stories from Korea

Making Snow Cones With Literally Anything But Normal Flavors

We Have the Best Bellies on Youtube

We Ate Dog Treats So You Don't Have To

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Are We Already Dead?

[bungobble-my-balls]

Yosano's not having a good time

So this started as a scene idea that basically turned into a mini fanfic. It's still worded more like an idea than a fanfic though.

The premise started with Mori offering to treat Dazai after the events of the current arc since he needs very skilled medical help, and Yosano stepping in and basically telling him to fuck off because Dazai is her patient and to get his grimy little hands away from him. It spirals on from there.

Also despite how some things are worded, in this story Mori didn't molest Yosano or Dazai as kids or anything like some fanfics or headcanons have him do. Just the general abuse we see in canon and some medical abuse with Dazai.

1. Damage

After Dazai is freed from Mersault, he's unconscious on a medical table and in need of serious immediate medical attention, but the procedure to help him needs a professional.

Mori offers to treat Dazai, until Yosano appears with a look of absolute murder in her eyes, grabbing his wrist before he can even touch Dazai. She tells Mori that he won't be touching him. Dazai is her patient and she is his doctor, as it is with all of the agency members, and she will be the one to treat him.

Mori tells her that Dazai has injuries so severe and complicated that only a truly experienced doctor could have a chance of bringing him back to a stable condition. He says she can try if she's confident, or if she's fine with bringing Dazai back to her agency as a mindless living pile of flesh.

Yosano holds her ground and doesn't flinch, still looking at him as if she were ready to kill if he didn't back away in the next minute. She affirms that she is confident in her abilities, and has spent years studying in a field that he himself abandoned years ago.

Mori calmly backs away, and Yosano stands between him and Dazai until he's left the room. Her skin is crawling where she touched him and she wants to curl up and scream, but she has a job to do and a patient to save, so she ignores it and gets to work.

After hours of surgery Yosano sits next to Dazai. It was difficult, more difficult from the fact that she had to do the surgery in an unfamiliar room and not her usual infirmary (Dazai needed immediate attention, so once they got him she had to use the closest medical room they could find). His heart is beating at least. She's exhausted, but can't bring herself to sleep or leave the room until she's stayed with Dazai long enough to make sure he's OK. And that eeriness and Fear that Mori might come back if she leaves or sleeps won't leave her. Even after they're able to transport Dazai back to the agency infirmary, she stays with him.

Yosano knows how Mori affected Dazai. Of course she does. They spilled their guts to eachother once, then never mentioned it again, but their general relationship became better after they understood eachother. Yosano had tried to never think about it since then, but after Mori offered to 'help' Dazai alarm bells went off and she wanted to protect Dazai like she wanted to protect her younger self.

She also knew that if they had let Mori operate on Dazai, even if it all turned out well, he would never trust the agency the same again. He would rather do a lot of things than be Mori's patient again, than to be left alone in a vulnerable state around that man, than to have his life and body in that man's hands.

To add onto this, maybe this is all taking place with Fukuzawa dead, and Yosano not making it to him before he died. So the Agency is already in a vulnerable position right now, and Yosano is already in an awful state but is trying SO hard and basically forcing herself to hold it together. She just lost her father and is dealing with the guilt believing she failed to save him, her brother is a wreck (not an outburst type of grief, but a quiter moving like a ghost type grief), she had to interact with, argue with and even made physical contact with the man who stole her childhood from her, and she's just been through hours of a risky surgery that she's not even 100% sure went successfully. She's practically praying that Dazai makes it out of this ok, because even if they weren’t too close, if she loses anyone else and is responsible for it she's going to break. It's not fair to Dazai, but her mental state is basically riding on whether or not he comes out of this alive and conscious.

She stays with him for days. Atsushi tries to stay for as long as he can too, but there's still work to deal with in the aftermath of the battle. After Dazai's surgery Yosano was given time to rest, but she just used that time to keep monitoring him.

2. Unofficial member

Sigma is not an official member of the agency, as there's been no time for an entrance exam and Kunikida is still just trying to focus on keeping the Agency together and going. He has however been working with the Agency since the end of the battle. Obviously it took them all a while to trust him considering who he was, but he'd told them crucial information twice that helped them end the battle (information on the page, and information on Fyodor), and Atsushi vouched for them and offered to help them fit into the Agency like he did with Kyoka. So Sigma is not an official member, but after some time he was able to prove that at least for now the agency could trust him to help them.

Despite his worry over Dazai, for a good while they couldn't see him because Yosano didn't trust them yet to allow them into her infirmary. Sigma was updated regularly on his condition by Atsushi and the other members as they got more used to him, but that antsy feeling that they couldn't believe Dazai was there and OK wouldn't leave them until they could see him.

So on one of the rare moments where Yosano leaves the infirmary, Sigma got her attention. They told her that if she allowed it, they could prove to her that they didn't have bad intentions with their ability. Of course it was a risk to her too, since Sigma could learn whatever he wanted to about Yosano. It was a gamble, and all Sigma could really do was try to show his sincerity to her and hope she'd take the chance. She's cautious. Despite the agency growing to trust him, Yosano has spent barely any time around them. But she sees their sincerity, and grabs their hand tightly. She tells them that if this is a trick, this arm and every other bone in his body gets broken. The threat doesn't sound as harsh with her tired voice and expression, but Sigma understands the severity, and activates his ability for a brief moment.

Yosano learns of how Dazai saved Sigma, and how much Sigma feels indebted to him. Sigma learns again of Dazai's current condition, because that's all their mind has been wanting to know for a while now. Yosano understands now, but she's still cautious. She tells Sigma to follow her and shows them to where Dazai is lying. They sit on the chair next to Dazai's bed, silently watching him, not even daring to touch him. Dazai's here. His heart is still beating and he's alive, and maybe one day soon he'll wake up and Sigma can thank him properly.

From then on Sigma is allowed to see Dazai in the infirmary, but only if Yosano's in the room as well.

3. Relief

After her rest period, Yosano was nervous to leave him, but Atsushi was monitoring him in her stead while she went round to help out any injured or critical condition victims from the outbreak (just in yokohama for the time). Whenever she got back she wouldn't go home. She would stay at the agency and just keep monitoring Dazai. Sometimes his eyes would open, but he'd remain unresponsive, and they'd close soon after. Each time it happened she got a little less hopeful.

After a few weeks, Yosano is in the infirmary while most of the ADA are out. Dazai's eyes open again. And Yosano holds her breath, but isn't too hopeful as this has happened before. Then his pupils move to look at her, then he speaks. It's quiet, and hoarse, but she hears it. He's responsive, he's awake, and he's alive. The surgery was a success.

Yosano's eyes immediately start watering, and then she's sobbing with relief and just rests her head on her hands on Dazai's bed.

Dazai is still drowsy but a little more awake now if only out of confusion of just waking up and then seeing Yosano suddenly start crying next to him.

But he sees her face after she lifts her head up, and despite the fact that she was just sobbing she's also smiling, so Dazai doesn't ask.

Immediately after she's able to calm down enough to talk she explains to Dazai the situation. How he's been unconscious for weeks and the aftermath of the battle and the outbreak. She also tells him, still smiling and with tear stains on her face, that he's lucky he's injured or she'd be kicking his ass over his wrecklessness with Mersault. She let's Dazai take what he needs to in before she tells the agency that he's awake.

Then once she's told him what he needs to and he gives her the OK, she goes out to the office. The rule has always been to leave Yosano's infirmary alone unless she allows you to come in, so she's been able to isolate herself in there for a while. When she steps out everyone's attention is drawn to her. She tells them Dazai is awake. A bunch of them immediately rush from their seats to go see him, and before she let's them in Yosano gives them the rundown on his condition and to not bombard him too much.

Atsushi and some others are out on missions at that point, so she doesn't tell them until they get back so that she doesn't end up distracting them midcase.

Atsushi and Sigma are the last two to come back, both coming back late after a case that took a difficult turn. Both are physically OK, just exhausted.

Before telling him anything, Yosano checks on Atsushi to see how he's doing, to make sure the mission wasn't too hard on him and that he's ready to hear the news. After some talking, Atsushi realises what's off and questions Yosano on why she's out of the infirmary, since she'd usually be keeping watch of Dazai. Yosano smiles at him, and Atsushi immediately understands and races to the infirmary. He barges through the door before Yosano can tell him to be careful and he freezes when he sees Dazai, still lying down, but awake and looking at him. He smiles at him, and Atsushi lunges at him and hugs him (he is so close to sobbing).

Dazai makes a pained noise at the sudden weight and Atsushi immediately panics and gets off him, remembering that Dazai is still in bad condition. Dazai just pulls him down again cause he knows Atsushi needs this, and Atsushi more carefully lays his head half on Dazai's chest, trying not to put to much weight on him. He's Gripping Dazai's hospital shirt and he's just fully sobbing now. Dazai rests his hand on Atsushi's head and strokes his hair and Atsushi tries to talk through his sobbing about how much he missed him and how he thought he wouldn't make it, and how sorry he was that he couldn't get there sooner. Dazai will have a talk with Atsushi later about how it wasn't in any way his fault (and it's kind of ridiculous how he thinks it is considering he was in a different country), but he just let's Atsushi get it out for now.

Sigma stands by the door. They rushed to the infirmary seconds after Atsushi, looking at Yosano first to check if it was OK to see Dazai even without her in the room. She was still sighing but smiling over Atsushi probably giving Dazai a heart attack with how quick he seemed to run into that room, but she waved Sigma to go and he bolted just as fast. When he gets there, he sees Atsushi clinging onto Dazai and sobbing and they suddenly feel like they're intruding on a personal moment they have no right to see.

He's stuck between wanting to give Atsushi space with his mentor, and wanting to go to Dazai too. Dazai notices Sigma, and smiles at him too, and stops petting Atsushi for a moment to wave at Sigma to come over as well. That's really all it takes for them to make up their mind. They slowly make their way over to him and sit down in the opposite chair, heart beating the whole time at a reaching moment they've been waiting for since Dazai pushed them out of the elevator. He doesn't say thank you then. He doesn't speak at all for now. He just sits next to Dazai like he's done for the past few weeks. Until Dazai's free hand reaches out to them. Sigma takes it and just holds on tightly to his hand and his arm. Not tight enough to hurt, but hopefully tight enough for Dazai to feel their gratitude until he can bring himself to speak it.

The three of them just sit there for some time. Atsushi no longer babbling apologies and concerns but still quietly sobbing and gripping onto Dazai, Dazai keeping his hand on his head, and the other hand holding onto Sigma who's still silently gripping him.

So that's the first part! I ended up writing more than I thought I would so I'm splitting it up and wanted to end it here on a good note.

Second part will be Mafia related

[lovebillyhargrove]

Part 3 of Billy knows his limit Part 2

Steve knows he can be a coward. He's fought monsters and gone through hell and back but he can still be a fucking coward.

Just like that time, at the Byers' when he first saw the lights flickering and unbelievable shit happening right in front of his eyes, he ran. He was terrified. The instinct told him to get out of there, and he did.

Steve knows he can lose if he's fighting fear. It's possible.

That's the reason why Steve ignored Hargrove on the following Monday after jerking each other off in Tommy's bathroom. Steve had wanted to touch this popular Californian asshole for months, get his hands burnt a little on the hot unfamiliar sun, and it happened so that the stars aligned - he crossed Billy's path, took Billy's hand.

And Hargrove followed.

Did Steve want to do it again?

God, yes. More. More.

Did Steve approach Hargrove in broad daylight in front of the whole school knowing what they did?

He didn't. He panicked and he didn't and maybe he shouldn't have led Billy to that bathroom in the first place.

Steve laced up his Nikes and ran.

Steve'd wanted to touch Hargrove for so long, but after he did, the level of magnitude with which his usual beliefs and ideas were shaken, terrified him. Left him running for his life.

But only. The secret that they shared. It was scorching him. Wasn't letting him be.

Steve did come back to the Byers' that night though. Couldn't leave Nancy and that weirdo in trouble.

~

This Sunday Steve wakes up and goes to the garage. His parents are in their apartment in Indianapolis. As most of the time. He slides the door up, and there it is - the gift his father bought to himself for his 45th birthday

the red 1983 BMW r65. His dad spent a fortune on it. And it is,

A beauty. Steve's sliding his palm over the cool fuel tank and the soft leather seat.

Yeaah

His father would have a fit if he knew Steve's even looking at it.

"No, son, you cannot ride it. You don't have a proper driving license for that. You are absolutely not allowed to ride it and you cannot touch it."

Little did he know, but Steve could, in fact, ride a motorbike.

Indianapolis was only 70 miles away from Hawkins. In summer of 1984 Steve went to Indianapolis to take motorcycle classes. Hawkins was too small to find those. He dropped it the moment he understood he could ride a motorbike without being a major road safety hazard, and since then he couldn't help but take the BMW out for a ride a couple of times. Or more than a couple. Dad didn't have to know.

His father practically never rode the bike himself. He was seldom in Hawkins, didn't have the time. The bike was like a valuable possession, treasured and abandoned in the garage. Stood there all alone.

Was kinda unfair, in Steve's opinion. So he kept it company.

It's the last week of school. Tomorrow is Monday, their last basketball practice.

Steve's gonna skip it.

No more hiding.

~

After dodging practice Steve got into his beamer and drove home. Took a 5-minute shower, changed his clothes, put on a light jacket, went downstairs and slid the garage door open. The BMW was already waiting for him. He took care of it yesterday, checked if everything was okay. The black helmet was right there on the shelf. He didn't have the second one, but who knew if he would actually need it. His plan could go sideways and end up in a crash.

~

Steve slowly pushes the bike outside and closes the garage door. His palms are sweaty and his heart is racing. Fuck, it's worse than any of his prior little adventures. It feels too big, and it certainly doesn't feel like an adventure. Steve's as serious as a heart attack. He's gonna have one, soon, if his heart doesn't slow down. His breath catches in his throat, and he hasn't even got to the school/best part of it yet.

He gets on the bike and turns the ignition key. The engine comes alive, and its rumble sends a thrill down Steve's spine.

Nah. Hargrove won't be able to resist this baby. He doesn't stand a chance.

When Steve gets back to the school parking lot, the first thing he notices is that the camaro is still there. People are starting to spill out of school. It's the last week of studies, and there's an undertone of excitement to everything that's happening.

He parks the bike not far from Billy's car, gets off, takes off the helmet and leans on the bike, waiting.

Steve's heartbeat becomes too loud when he sees Hargrove go out of the school building. He's afraid his legs are gonna give in and he's gonna fall down together with his fancy BMW and make a sight out of himself. What the fuck is happening, has he never been after a girl before? He has, but this shit's a million times more intense.

The heart beats and beats and beats and then stops when he feels Hargrove's eyes land on him.

He's read it in books and seen it in the movies. When two people are surrounded by a crowd, but they say "the world stops turning" and the two people only see each other, only have eyes for each other. The world didn't stop, but it definitely became slower and the time seemed to turn into some kind of a viscous syrup that takes forever to pour out from a narrow-neck bottle.

Steve's heart is pounding in his head again and Hargrove's looking as if not sure what to do, as if he's still figuring out if this message is meant for him. It's obvious he wants it to be for him.

It's a cliché, but they are standing there like they are alone in the parking lot. In the universe.

It's a cliché, but now Steve knows that the cliché is real and so true.

Steve smiles.

"Hey Hargrove!"

Billy snaps out of it, comes up to him, slowly

"Nice ride, Harrington."

There's no bite to it. Steve feels the envy though. Billy's just a boy who likes cars and bikes and anything fast. Except, maybe .. kissing? Steve wants to find out so bad.

"Yeah, not bad, huh? That's not mine though. My dad's. But I thought, why not, you know .. take it out for a spin?"

Billy's checking out the BMW. He's gonna say yes, he can't resist, it's too much of a temptation.

"You should. Do you know how?"

"Yep, I do. Took classes and shit. You like it? I can give you a ride, if you.. want."

Billy's eyebrows rise just a millimetre

"Oh yeah? I have my own wheels, Harrington."

"I know, but I figured .. we could.. Max has her AV club till 4, right?"

"You know the brats' schedule better than me."

"I could drive you around, go to the quarry. Or to .. a lake."

Billy snorts

"A lake, Steve?"

"Yeah. Lovers' lake. Ever been?"

"Maybe. And I'm gonna, what? .. Sit behind you like I'm your bitch?"

Steve's blushing.

"More like my.. partner in crime? My dad will kill me for taking his bike. But.. bitch is also, uh. An option."

"Wow wow wow, Harrington. In front of the whole school, no less. Everyone's looking, King Steve."

Everyone is looking.

"I uh.. I don't give a fuck. Let them look. Okay it's not like I'm gonna be running around telling everyone I've held your dick.. and not because I'm ashamed or anything. It's because.. that's only between me and you. But I'm also not gonna act like a stranger around you. And .. I was stupid for acting like that, Billy. I know you're angry."

Steve takes a deep breath. Billy's silent. He can feel the I'm sorry written all over it.

"You want the truth? I'm still afraid of you, Hargrove. Scared shitless, if I'm honest. But I'm done hiding. So .. if you're still uh .. interested.."

Steve falls silent too. They are looking into each other's eyes and Steve can swear he feels the time stop. Just like they say it does. It's Billy who breaks the gaze, eyes cast down for a second, smiling quietly more to himself than to Steve, standing there in the Hawkins High parking lot, so unspeakably beautiful under the warm late spring sun rays.

"So.. Lovers' Lake, pretty boy?"

[brandwhorestarscream]

for writing suggestions, what if skyfire stayed with starscream and got preggers, then one of the lambo twins tries to fuck around and find out for funnies?

Ok so, my mind immediately goes to working out the relationships between Skyfire and the cons. Starscream is their leader, their rightful Winglord even if he hasn't technically undergone the ceremony to inherit the title. He's already bonded to Skywarp and Thundercracker, so hear me out 👀 pretty prized consort Skyfire. He wants nothing to do with the fighting so Starscream keeps him safely confined to the seekers' makeshift aerie, and even if his favor wasn't enough to make the others leave him alone, his sheer size is.

Thundercracker doesn't mind his presence at all. He knows how badly his alleged death affected Starscream; though he'd never admit it aloud, he still had nightmares about Skyfire plummeting out of the sky and then being accused of murdering him. To have him back has soothed a million-year ache in his bondmate's spark, and for that he is grateful. Plus, he shares Starscream's passion for scientific discovery, and having someone to share it with has resulted in a lot less unethical, potentially disastrous experiments in the lab

Skywarp, on the other hand, is very wary of Skyfire. He's jealous, honestly. It's not a secret that the Winglords and nobility of Vos were free to have extra mecha to entertain themselves, harems full of lovely concubines considered a status symbol to many. But with the war, Starscream had never even glanced at another pair of wings. He was always satisfied with his trine mates, and why wouldn't he be? They were tied at the spark and a perfect fit, he shouldn't need anyone else.

But now he's brought this strange shuttle into their lives, and Skywarp quietly despises him. He feels... inadequate, I suppose, and threatened. Irrational fears about Starscream abandoning them and running off with his old fling from school. Probably tries to sneakily terrorize him, lbr.

When Skyfire turns up carrying, Skywarp is chartreuse with envy. Starscream's been fragging him that much?! Filling his gestation tank to the max and sharing such excess spark energy with him that they've kindled?! How much attention is Starscream going to give some lowly consort?! He's never been so angry and hurt in his entire life. Thundercracker has been watching this slow moving trainwreck from afar, trying to keep Skywarp on a leash but, well. He has a right to reassert the hierarchy, if that's what he wants. And having the Winglord's baby is a pretty serious status elevation. He knows Warp is only lashing out because he's scared, and Starscream isn't making it better by staunchly ignoring him. The whole thing is a mess

Now, onto the lambo twins fucking around and shortly thereafter finding out. They already have Beef™ with the seekers (ik their jet judo is just a fandom thing but still), so it's no surprise they'd go after their new big scary shuttle if the opportunity arose. Skyfire's never present on the battlefield, and certainly not in his condition, so how they end up in the same place is up for debate. Maybe Starscream granted him permissiom to go out for a joy flight, to stretch his wings and get some sun. Carrier of his sparklings needs to be healthy, after all, and a caged flyer is hardly a healthy one. Maybe they've landed in some secluded spot to rest and let Skyfire observe the natural wildlife; he is a xenobiologist, after all. Maybe Skywarp and Thundercracker are there as extra security (or maybe Skywarp doesn't want them to be alone, who knows).

Regardless. The twins show up and cause a ruckus and Starscream goes nuclear; daring to attack his consort while he's carrying! People have been executed for less! He beats them to slag and the only reason he doesn't kill them is because Skyfire begs him not to. If Skywarp and Thundercracker are there, they definitely help. Skywarp probably teleports Skyfire out of there because while he may not like him, those are Starscream's bitties and he'd never do anything to endanger them.

[namusthetic]

Marauders' Era

The Slytherin Skittles

From the Marauders' Era fandom. Decided to lounge about in the Slytherin common room? Join the Skittles for a late night Slytherin chat.

Regulus A. Black

"From far away I wish I'd stayed with you, but here face to face, a stranger that I once knew.

I thought if I wandered I'd fall back in love. You said distance brings fondness, but guess not with us."

- Astronomy, Conan Gray

Doesn't ask for help

Overachiever

Covers his deep insecurities with a god-complex

Abandonment and trust issues

Suffers panic and anxiety attacks, the others know exactly what to do when it happens and huddle around him, holding hands and grounding him, until he starts breathing normally again and stops shaking

Protective of his chosen family

Instead of fighting to keep people in his life, he lets them go because in the end he thinks he's never enough to stay for

Hates loud noises and making noise when moving or walking

Deeply misunderstood

Tries to remain detached and cold as much as possible because knows he'd end up caring too deeply

Self-isolates when he doesn't know how to deal with his feelings, luckily, whenever that happens, the others storm his usual hiding spots and force him to go outside and enjoy himself

Escapes from his own thoughts by reading or listening to music compulsively

Barty Crouch Jr.

"I used to like liquor to get me inspired but you look so beautiful, my new supplier. I used to like smoking to stop all the thinking, but I found a different buzz.

The world is a curse, it'll kill if you let it I know they got pills that can help you forget it, they bottle it, call it medicine, but I don't need drugs. 'Cause I'm already high enough, you got me, you got me good."

- High Enough by K. Flay

covers his need for attention and approval with loudness and chaos

Fear of missing out

Afraid that people will forget about him and leave him behind

Avoids talking and thinking about his own feelings

Cannot control his emotions when overwhelmed

Hides it when deeply hurt

Clingy drunk, cries if left by himself

Has a soft spot for pets, especially dogs (once he even accidentally cuddled Padfoot without knowing it was actually Sirius)

Hopeless romantic when in a serious relationship

Incredibly intelligent, he just doesn't want to please his father in any way so he acts out

Jokes about his trauma in public, but ends up sleeping in Evan's bed whenever he has nightmares

ADHD kid

Makes dirty jokes all the time but is afraid of having a stable relationship and not being enough for his partner

Evan Rosier

"And hey, you, don't you think it's kinda cute that I (I) died (died) right inside your arms tonight? That I'm fine even after I have died? Because it was in your arms I died.

I cry in the afterlife, I cry hard because I have died, and you're alive. I try to escape afterlife, I try hard to get back inside your arms alive."

- Arms Tonite by Mother Mother

Calm and collected most of the time

Silent anger

Insomniac, spends the nights reading and listening to chill music

Deadly afraid of spiders, always asks Pandora to take them outside

Energy drinks and caffeine

If looks could kill

Tries to keep everyone from getting in trouble together with Dorcas

Doesn't pay attention in class but gets good grades anyway

Grew up too quickly

Joins Barty and Dorcas whenever they are tipsy and start a singing contest

Likes nights out with friends, randomly walking with no precise destination, a few drinks in hand and the warmth of chosen family around him

The observant, silent one

Always carries small perfume vials since he can't stand smells (sweat, cigarette smoke, etc.)

Pandora Rosier

"You don't have to be like everybody else, you don't have to fit into the norm, you are not here to conform. I am here to take a look inside myself, recognize that I could be the eye, the eye of the storm.

I am not my body, not my mind or my brain (ha), not my thoughts or feelings, I am not my DNA. I am the observer, I'm a witness of life, I live in the space between the stars and the sky."

- Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land by MARINA

Already figured who was going to end up in a relationship with whom years before it happened

Has a private gardening spot where she grows their own plants (especially herbs)

Follows the lunar calendar instead of the solar one, they all celebrate both new years with big parties

Wears long airy dresses with flower patterns and a dozen crystal necklaces and rings

Talks enthusiastically about everything she's passionate about with no restraints (and everyone loves listening to her talk)

Knows weird knowledge nobody knows from where

Walks Hogwarts' halls singing and with a spring in her step

Spends afternoons in the forest sketching fantastic beasts and feeding them treats

Loves making flower crowns, Regulus wears them whenever she makes one for him and hexes anyone who dares say something about it

Always has paint on her hands or face

Dorcas Meadowes

"Say my name, as every colour illuminates. We are shining, and we will never be afraid again.

And when we come for you, we'll be dressed up all in blue, with the ocean in our arms, kiss your eyes and kiss your palms.

And when it's time to pray, we'll be dressed up all in grey, with metal on our tongues, and silver in our lungs."

- Spectrum (Say My Name) by Florence and The Machine

Hates small talk and superficial friendships

Direct, immediately cuts straight to the point

Politically active against all kinds of discrimination and violence

Strong and determined to achieve what she wants

Ready to argue with anyone, anytime, anywhere

Knows exactly what she wants

Stays up late to read and listen to music in the common room

Has everything planned out

Neon lights and cocktails, loud music and cherry flavored lip balm

Travels a lot but is ready to return home immediately if one of her close friends needs her help

Elegant style, always impeccably dressed

Storms out of the dorm and takes a long walk whenever she feels she can't control her anger

Loves to listen to true crime podcasts

------------------------💚🐍

So I love the Marauders' gang, but (I don't know if you guessed it) I really have a soft spot for the Skittles. To me they feel like the ones who never really even had a chance to be saved, who were left to fend for themselves and to die just because of their families and house. They were damaged as much as the others but found no one to help them but each other.

[messyhairdiaz]

Fuck It Friday!

Tagged by @sibylsleaves and @rewritetheending ☺️

Continuing my fuck it Friday tradition of sharing something I started and then more or less abandoned. I’ve posted pieces of this before, early last year I think? For various seven sentence sundays, but I figured I may as well post the whole 4.7k I have. This is an au for the show From, and who knows, it comes back for season 2 in April so maybe my interest in it will return

Tagging! @elvensorceress @fiona-fififi @gayhoediaz if you feel like sharing something

It says a lot about the last few hours that Eddie’s day is already well and truly fucked even before the car crash.

The accident is just the cherry on top, really, the pièce de résistance to this shit-tacular day.

The tree across the road should’ve been his first sign that things were about to go south, but he brushed it off. Trees fall. It happens.

The black birds filling the sky didn’t exactly set him at ease, but they’re birds. Birds fly around.

“Did you know a group of crows is called a murder?” Christopher had helpfully supplied from the passenger seat of the RV Eddie had spent a stupid amount of money renting for the Diaz Boys’ Great Summer Adventure.

“I did not. But hey, maybe they were ravens,” Eddie had said as he’d carefully turned the RV around to find a detour.

“An unkindness then.”

“What?” He’d asked, distracted as he tried to get the stupid vehicle turned around on the narrow road without getting stuck in a ditch, but he got it done, and had looked at his son, the seven year old’s face uncharacteristically serious.

“A group of ravens is called an unkindness.”

And Eddie didn’t know then, why that had unsettled him worse than a murder, but by the time they’d driven through the same tiny town for the third time, passing by the same unsmiling faces, it starts to make a little more sense.

The near collision with a speeding Mercedes stops them from driving through a fourth time, as does the tree that spears through the windshield and traps Eddie in his seat, clipping so close to his ribs on the left side that it tears his shirt and probably takes some skin with it, but miraculously doesn't impale him.

He’s disoriented, a warm trickle of blood on his brow reminding him that he smacked his head on the steering wheel on impact. He blinks, the medic skills ingrained in him already running a checklist over his body. Possible concussion, likely mild, superficial cuts and scrapes from broken glass and the tree, his right wrist hurts like it might be sprained, possibly fractured, and there’s the matter of the RV being on its side, but he’s otherwise unharmed.

But very, very stuck.

He jerks his head to the side, panic rearing when Christopher isn’t in the seat next to him. His brain catches up, and he remembers sending Christopher to sit at the dinner table the second time around, when he’d stopped and asked a man for directions, only receiving a blank look in return.

“Christopher,” he gasps, voice breathy and weak with fear. How could he be so stupid as to send his son into the back of a moving RV, where there are no seatbelts. He hadn’t allowed it the whole trip, so of course the moment he does they’re in an accident.

“Christopher!” He tries again when he gets no answer. He takes a couple of breaths, forcing himself to remain calm. He stayed calm on the ground in Afghanistan, he can stay calm here.

He tries to twist in his seat to look into the back, but the tree hasn’t left him a lot of room to work with, and gravity in a sideways RV isn’t helping him either. He draws in a deep breath and shouts, “Christopher!”

There’s a moan, and the sound terrifies him and electrifies him in equal measure. “Daddy?” Christopher asks, sounding so small.

“Hey, hey, I’m here, buddy. Are you hurt?”

“My—my leg hurts, and I can’t move it.”

“That’s ok, if you can’t, don’t try to. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“My head hurts a little. I think I hit the table, but it’s not bad.”

“Ok, that’s good, Christopher. Can you see what’s wrong with your leg?”

There‘s a pause, and Eddie has to fight down the instinct to start throwing himself against the tree to try to get back there, but then Christopher answers him. “I can’t see. I’m on my belly, and when I try to look it hurts,” he says, and Eddie can hear the tears and pain in his voice.

“Ok, don’t try to look anymore, I’m gonna call for help.” Eddie’s phone is clipped to the dashboard, easily within reach when there’s not a tree pinning him to his seat, but achingly far now. He curses himself for never enabling hands free mode when he last upgraded. He strains against the tree, reaching as far as he can, wrist flaring with pain, and his fingers brush the corner of the phone, but he needs another inch to grab it. He stretches harder, grimacing at the pressure on his ribs, but he manages to push himself up just enough that he’s able to snag it and pull the phone out of the clip, ignoring the burst of pain in his wrist. He leans back, ignoring the dull ache in his chest that’s sure to be a hell of a bruise tomorrow and unlocks his phone.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. No signal. It doesn’t even say emergency calls only. He tries anyway, punching in 911 and holding it to his ear, but there’s just silence as the phone attempts and fails to dial out, connecting to nothing. “Fuck,” he says louder, and it speaks to Christopher’s state that he doesn’t tease his dad for swearing.

He pulls up the phone’s camera and switches to selfie mode, wincing when he gets a look at his face, more blood than he’d realized caked down the side. He allows himself one quick look at the cut above his eyebrow, deems it nothing pressing, and then holds the phone up, angling it this way and that, searching for his son on the screen.

It takes a moment, but when he finds him he sucks in a breath.

There’s a piece of debris jutting out the back of Christopher’s thigh, a dark ring of blood circling it.

——

Buck’s heart had sank when the RV had rolled through town the first time, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself from sending up a prayer to any god that will listen that he wouldn’t see it come through again.

It did, of course. And he’d watched as it stopped, and the window had rolled down, revealing an absolutely gorgeous man. He’d listened as the man had asked the closest person how to get back on the highway, and his heart had sunk further, remembering just two years ago when he’d leaned out the window of his jeep and asked the same question.

He’d watched as the RV had come through a third time, turning around at the diner and going back the way he’d come, just like they all try at some point.

The RV doesn’t come back immediately this time, and Buck doesn’t think a lot of it because that too, is par for the course. The man is probably pulled over on the side of the road, consulting a map, or trying to get a signal. If he doesn’t come back before long someone will be sent after him, probably Buck, and that’ll be that.

But then he sees the bloody woman.

“Oh fuck,” Albert says, sitting up straighter on the porch steps they’d been lounging on, and Buck’s up like a shot.

“Go get your brother, or Hen,” Buck demands, and Albert takes off, heading for the small clinic. Buck goes the opposite direction and intercepts the woman. Her knees buckle just as he reaches her, and he’s barely able to morph her collapse into a slow sit down.

“Miss, can you tell me what happened?” He asks, brushing her long red hair out of her face to try to find the source of all the blood. It’s almost funny how quickly he falls back on his firefighter training despite rarely having cause to use it in the past two years.

“RV,” she manages, her eyelids fluttering.

“Did your RV crash?” He asks, looking back down the road where she’d come from.

“Almost hit the RV. Both of us crashed,” she answers, and then passes out.

Buck’s hands go numb. She can’t possibly mean that she wasn’t in the RV. Two cars on the same day? It’s never happened before. He’s not sure there’s ever even been two in the same week. In the two years he’s been here only five cars have come before today, and the last one was months ago.

“What’ve we got, Buckaroo. Did that RV crash?” Chimney asks, dropping to his knees next to Buck and the woman, Albert right on his heels with a backboard.

“Yeah,” Buck answers in a daze. “But she wasn’t in it.”

Chimney and Albert’s attention snaps to him in unison. “What?” Chim asks disbelievingly.

“Before she passed out she said she almost hit the RV, and they both crashed. Fuck.” He shoots to his feet, his brain finally catching up with him. “There’s just a couple hours til sundown.” Buck looks at the sun and grimaces. They’ll be lucky if it’s even two full hours. “Albert, help Chim get her to the clinic and then get Athena and a med bag and come find me.”

“Where are you going?”

“To find that RV.”

——

It’s not hard, thankfully. The stretch of road doesn’t go very far in either direction outside of the town proper before you’re looped back in on the other side, and the woman’s Mercedes isn’t hard to spot wrapped around a tree. Buck checks it to make sure no one is inside, taking a moment to pop the trunk and grab a small first aid kit and roadside toolset before taking off again. Not much further he finds dirt kicked up in deep tire tracks, and if he peers through the trees he can see the back end of an RV on its side.

He slides down an embankment and runs towards the front of the RV.

“Hello?” He calls.

“Oh thank god,” someone says, and Buck recognizes the voice as the man who’d been driving. Buck’s got a half-formed thought that he hopes the man is the only person inside when the man dashes that by saying, “Please, can you help my son?”

Buck stops in his tracks and closes his eyes. The guy hadn’t looked much older than Buck, so his son must be a child. Buck wouldn’t wish this town on anyone, but a child? Fuck. He won’t be the first, and almost certainly not the last, but it aches to think about regardless.

Buck takes a steadying breath. “Yeah, I just gotta figure out how to get in there.”

Buck tosses the first aid kit and tool kit onto the side of the RV now serving as the roof, backs up a few steps, and then runs at the RV, jumping and grabbing anything he can hold onto to pull himself up. He looks around, but there’s just the driver’s door, the camper door presumably now on the ground. He carefully makes his way to the driver’s door, grimacing when he sees the tree speared through the windshield, sure he’s about to get a gory eyeful, but he’s thankful when he looks in the window and finds the tree has just trapped the driver and not run him through.

His eyes find the man’s face, sees the gash above his eyebrow, and the blood, but it doesn’t look too bad, and the man is lucid, his eyes clear and bright.

“Hey, my name is Buck. Are you hurt?”

The man shakes his head. “Not really, just fucking stuck. My son though…” he trails off, and he gets the sense that the man doesn’t want to say it aloud, whether he feels like that makes it real or if he doesn’t want his son to hear, he doesn’t know. “I’m Eddie. My son’s name is Christopher.”

“Ok, Eddie, I’m gonna get you guys out of here.”

——

Buck does not get them out of there. He climbs over Eddie and checks on Christopher, and Eddie hears him talking soothingly to his son, returning to the cab after a couple of minutes.

“How bad is it?” Eddie asks quietly, cutting right to the chase.

“It’s not great, but it could be a lot worse. I’m confident the debris missed the femoral, and I don’t think it hit bone either. But it’s all the way through and embedded in the RV. It’s going to have to be removed before we can get him out.”

Eddie won’t be truly satisfied until he’s out of this fucking seat and checking on Christopher himself. He eyes Buck, really taking him in for the first time, and his eyes narrow when he reads Buck’s t-shirt. “You seem to know what you’re talking about. Guess I’m lucky to be run off the road by LAFD. Awfully far from home though, huh?”

Buck looks puzzled for a second before glancing down at LAFD emblazoned in large letters on his chest, and then his eyes widen as he catches up with the rest of Eddie’s statement.

“Ah, no, I wasn’t driving the other car. A woman was, she managed to walk back into town.”

“Is she ok?”

“I don’t know. I left her in the care of one of our doctors, so hopefully. She told me the RV crashed, so I came running.”

Eddie’s brow furrows, and he feels a fresh round of blood squeeze out of his cut. “You live in this place, but you’re wearing an LAFD t-shirt. Are you even a firefighter?”

Buck shrugs and starts testing the tree for weakness. “As in, am I certified? Yes. Am I currently employed by a fire station? No, because we don’t actually have one. It’s—complicated,” he finishes, finding a weak spot where the tree forks. He pulls a small crowbar from the toolkit and goes to work, and after a few minutes of both of them pulling and pushing and levering, the smaller portion of the tree cracks loose and falls against the passenger side window, allowing Eddie to get free of the driver’s seat. He’s barely got both feet planted before he’s rushing to his son’s side.

“Hey, buddy, I’m here now.”

“Dad,” Christopher breathes, relief coloring his tone. “It hurts,” he adds, turning his little head to the side to look beseechingly at Eddie.

“I know, honey. We’re going to make it better as soon as we can.” Eddie feels Buck’s eyes on him as he carefully checks Christopher’s neck and spine.

“You a doctor?”

“Former army medic,” he answers, moving down to Christopher’s leg now that he’s satisfied he doesn’t have a spinal injury. The debris appears to be a twisted piece of metal, maybe part of the table, Eddie’s not sure, but it’s like Buck says, it’s embedded all the way through Christopher’s leg clear through to the wall of the RV beneath him.

The blood soaking into Christopher’s jeans has barely expanded since Eddie first saw it, and that’s good. Buck seems to be right about the femoral artery not being hit, and he’s pretty confident it hasn’t hit bone either. But getting it out is going to suck, and they’re going to need more than the little first aid kit Buck has.

“I couldn’t get a signal to call 911, can you go back to town to call for help?” He asks as he takes Christopher’s hand and runs his fingers through his hair, his heart aching as he takes in the tear tracks on his face.

“Albert should be here any minute with a med bag,” Buck says, as if that’s reassuring or a response to what he’d said..

Eddie blinks at him. “A med bag? That’s—no, we need to call an ambulance, get rescue out here with equipment, and an ambulance to get him to the hospital.”

Buck grimaces. “Yeah, so, that’s not really possible.”

Eddie shakes his head. “I know this is in the middle of nowhere, but someone will come. We can keep him comfortable until then.”

“No, Eddie, you don’t understand, I can’t go call for help. You had to have noticed you drove through town three times while driving in a straight line.”

Eddie snaps his mouth shut, because, yeah. But that’s not how the world works, that’s the stuff of cheap horror novels. “I just kept missing the turn is all. Must’ve been a switchback road, and the curve was so gradual I didn’t notice I was circling back around.”

Buck’s eyes crinkle with so much compassion that Eddie wants to puke. “Yeah, that’s what I figured too.”

“What the fuck are you saying?” Eddie demands, but before Buck can answer there’s the sound of someone coming through the woods.

“Buck?” A voice calls, and Buck stands, moving back into the cab.

“We’re in here, Albert!” Buck calls.

There’s the sound of someone climbing up on the side of the RV, and then Buck steps back for a young Korean man to climb down, a med bag thrown over his shoulder.

“Where’s Athena?” Buck asks, taking the med bag and dropping to his knees on Christopher’s other side.

“She’s coming, she said she had to get something. Buck—” Albert cuts himself off and both Eddie and Buck look up at him expectantly and he sighs. “It’s going to be dark soon.”

Eddie doesn’t miss the way Buck pointedly doesn’t look at him when he answers, “I know, Albert.”

Buck digs through the med bag and produces a small pouch. He pulls out a syringe and a vial, holding it up so Eddie can see that it’s a sedative. Eddie nods, and Buck fills the syringe with the appropriate amount.

“Hey, buddy, I’m going to give you a little shot that’s going to help you feel better, ok?”

Christopher’s face screws up, unhappy, but u fortunately the kid is already far too accustomed to needles for someone so young. “Ok,” he answers, and squeezes Eddie’s hand as Buck administers the shot.

There’s the sound of someone else approaching, and Albert scrambles up out of the RV to help a small but imposing Black woman climb down. He assumes she must be Athena.

“It’s getting dark, Buck,” she says, and Eddie watches as his shoulders tighten.

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” he asks, but that just makes Buck’s shoulders tighten further.

“These woods get dangerous at night,” Athena says, but Eddie knows they’re all hiding something, and although he’d found himself wanting to trust Buck from the moment he saw him, he feels like he’s on the defensive now.

But he buttons down his distrust. These people are clearly hiding something, but they do seem like they want to help. And he’s currently in desperate need of it.

“Can we move him? Get him to the clinic and deal with his leg there?” Athena asks, observing the scene.

Buck shakes his head. “No. The debris is pinning him to the wall of the RV, and it’s not as simple as just lifting him off it and carrying him out. Even without femoral damage we don’t want to risk that kind of bleeding.”

Athena nods. “Alright. What’s the timeframe then?”

“It won’t be done until well after dark,” he says, and Eddie watches as he and Athena seem to exchange some sort of silent communication. Athena sighs, and digs something out of her pocket.

“Guess you’ll be needing this then,” she says, letting the item drop from her hand. It’s a talisman of some sort, and it hangs by a piece of string from her middle finger.

Albert’s eye widen. “Will that work here?”

Buck grimaces, but accepts the charm from Athena. “No way to know but to do it. You two better go home.” Buck finally looks at Eddie again, meeting his gaze head on. “You need to go with them.”

Eddie can’t help it, he laughs. “Yeah, like hell.”

“Eddie, Athena’s serious. You don’t want to be out here at night if you can help it.”

Eddie raises his eyebrows. “You think hearing that will make me be willing to leave my injured son? With a stranger? Over my dead body.”

Buck looks like he wants to argue but Athena just says, “Buck,” and shakes her head when he cuts a look at her.

“I’ll stay too,” Albert says, and Athena barely gets out a snort before Buck’s arguing.

“No, you absolutely are not.”

“What if the talisman doesn’t work, Buck? I could help.”

“No you can’t, and you know it. Chimney’s probably going to be at the clinic tonight with the woman from the Mercedes, so you can help by staying with Maddie. But do not tell her where I am. The last thing we need is her storming off in the middle of the night to try to drag me home.”

Albert scoffs. “Like she won’t figure it out when I show up instead of you.”

“Then you’ll just have to make sure she stays put, won’t you?”

Albert looks like he wants to keep fighting, but it’s clear even to Eddie that it’s a lost battle, and Albert’s shoulders slump in defeat. “Fine.”

“Glad that’s settled,” Athena says. “But let’s get the windows covered before we go.”

“Good plan. Eddie, do you have any camping lanterns?”

——

Buck can read the helplessness written all over Eddie’s face. He’d told Buck where to find the lanterns and had sat, silent and stony faced, holding Christopher’s hand as Albert and Athena had stripped the bed for sheets and blankets to cover the windows with. He’d remained quiet as Albert had climbed out, as Athena had pulled him aside in the cab to squeeze his shoulder and mutter a quiet be careful, Buckaroo, and make sure he is too before hanging the talisman on the tree and accepting Albert’s hand to climb out.

It’s only once they’re gone, and Buck has returned to kneel at Christopher’s side, that Eddie speaks again.

“We have to focus on getting this thing out of my son’s leg. But once we have, you’re going to talk, and you’re going to tell me what the fuck is going on in this place.”

Buck meets his eyes, reads the determination there and knows there’s no getting out of it. Besides, Eddie probably hasn’t caught on yet, but they’re not leaving this RV until morning. There will be plenty of time to talk.

“Let’s get to work then,” Buck says, so they do.

It’s rough, and time consuming. The sedative Buck gave Christopher isn’t anesthesia, so he isn’t saved from the worst of the pain. More than once he sees Eddie wiping his own tears away seconds after wiping away Christopher’s.

Buck can tell it’s killing Eddie that he can’t be much help, but Buck takes on look at Eddie’s purpling wrist, on his dominant hand, of course, because why wouldn’t it be, and vetoes Eddie providing much more than moral support and occasional instruction.

It’s unfortunate, because as a former army medic Eddie most likely has experience with injuries like this, and while Buck did have to have emt certification to be a firefighter in Los Angeles, he’d only been on the job for two weeks before he’d gotten a call from Pennsylvania that had culminated in being stuck here.

But, eventually, it’s done. It’ll most likely need to be cleaned again in the morning when they can get to the clinic, and he’ll need antibiotics, but the obstruction is removed and the wound closed and wrapped. Buck sits back and wipes the sweat off his brow, glancing at the tiny gap in the sheets where the tree made it impossible to block the windshield entirely and is met with pitch black darkness.

“We’re not leaving until daylight, are we?” Eddie asks as he carefully arranges Christopher in his lap, the boy curling against his dad’s chest.

“We wouldn’t make it ten feet out of this RV,” Buck answers, gaze automatically finding the talisman. He hasn’t heard them yet, but he knows they’re out there. They’re always out there, once it’s dark.

“What is it? Bears? Wolves?”

Buck can’t help the bitter laugh. “Bears and wolves are survivable. No, this is something–something else,” he shrugs. “I know you want answers, and I’ll tell you what I know, but the first thing you need to understand is there are no answers. Least not any we know.”

Eddie’s jaw works for a moment. “Ok. Tell me what you know then.”

So Buck talks. He starts with his own story, how two years ago he’d just started as a firefighter in Los Angeles when his sister had called him from Pennsylvania, needing help. He leaves out the details of that, but he talks about how he went, loaded her up in his Jeep, and set out for California, when maybe twenty miles past the Pennsylvania state line, there had been a tree in the road.

“We detoured because of a downed tree too,” Eddie says, and Buck nods.

“We all did. Did you see the crows too?” Eddie hesitates, and then gives a jerky nod. “We all saw those too. And we all turn around, and we all drive through this tiny town. And then we all drive through it again.”

“When you say all…”

“I mean all. No one is from here, we’re all from somewhere else.”

“None of this is possible. You said you were just outside of Pennsylvania? I was in Colorado.”

“And Albert and his brother Chimney were in Oregon. Athena and her family were in Arizona. Everyone here was somewhere different when we drove into this town and never left.”

Eddie shakes his head. “That’s impossible,” he repeats.

Buck shrugs. “Yes, it is. But it’s also true.”

“Say I believe you about that. What’s with the talisman? What’s in the woods?”

Buck takes a deep breath. This is the hard part. If Eddie’s having a hard enough time believing him about the town at large, he’s not going to believe this next part at all. But he’ll have proof soon enough, because Buck knows it’s just a matter of time until they start circling the RV, it’s a wonder they haven’t already.

“There are things out there that only come out at night. We don’t know for sure what they are, only that they look like us, but they aren’t. These talismans keep us safe, keep them from coming into our homes unless we open the door for them.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“Because they talk, Eddie, and they ask us to. And it can be pretty fucking hard not to listen.”

“You know what you’re describing sounds an awful lot like vampires.”

Buck nods. “Don’t say that in town though, makes people jumpy. I don’t know if that’s what they are, but they’re definitely similar. But if they catch you out after dark you’re not going to have two little mosquito bites on the side of your neck. They’ll tear your ribcage open and eat your heart.”

“Jesus.”

“I’m not saying any of this to scare you. You need to know, because you’re stuck here like the rest of us now.”

Eddie looks down at the child sleeping on his chest. “I don’t believe in shit like this.”

“I didn’t either, not really. You learn to adapt.”

Eddie looks past Buck at the talisman. “What happens if it doesn’t work for an RV?”

Buck doesn’t respond for a moment, weighing the repercussions of honesty here. But he can tell Eddie needs the truth, and can handle it, so he says, “We pray it’s quick.”

——

Eddie is awoken by the sound of nails scraping against metal. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but the crick in his neck tells him it’s been a while.

He sits up, careful to not dislodge Christopher. Buck had turned off all the lights but one, but it’s enough light to see Buck standing a few feet away, crowbar clutched in a white knuckle grip.

“Is it—” he cuts himself off when Buck holds a finger up to his lips and nods.

The scratching moves along the side of the RV, and Eddie is all too aware that he can’t hear the sound of footsteps on the dry leaves, despite everyone else’s approach being announced by the crunch.

“Eddie.”

He jumps, because that wasn’t Buck’s voice.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Ough augh uhm uh. Any of the mandela catalogue victims (you can pick!!) with a long-distance friend reader who keeps an eye on them and opens their home up to them and their family they would want to evacuate? They just want to help in anyway they can :(

Yeah! Also in terms of "long distance" we'll say Reader lives in a different county with no Alternates or Alternate activity reported (but they're still aware of the invasion bc they keep up with the news).

......

Adam

As much as he appreciates you keeping in touch, he's dead set on staying where he is and and investigating Alternates.

He refuses to leave. Like ever.

After hearing about Jonah's death your concern over his safety only grows, and you even tell him he can bring Evelin should he change his mind-

Only to quickly learn they broke up a while ago, with him not even caring about her either..

Still, you insist that it's not too late for him to leave, though part of you fears that M.A.D already got to him (or you weren't actually speaking to Adam anymore).

His "obsession" with the Alternates has gone too far and you even threaten to drive down to Mandela yourself to convince him.

But he snaps that he doesn't want to be found by anybody before hanging up.

You haven't heard from him since, as he ignores your phone calls and PMs. You presume he's dead.

Cesar

He trusts you a lot despite the long distance and would 100% take you up on that offer.

But only if his mom is allowed to come along, of course. Though you assure him there's plenty of room for them both!

As much as he hates to leave the town and school, it's simply too dangerous for them to stay any longer.

He thought the broadcasts were just fear-mongering tactics if anything, but if you believe they're serious enough to warrant an evacuation...he'll take it seriously too

He hoped Mark would come with them, but unfortunately he doesn't trust you, an online "stranger", 100%. You understand though.

So he's left behind in Mandela.

And Vol 1 plays out as normal.

If Cesar ever learned that his friend died to an Alternate...he's gonna hold onto that guilt for a while, wishing he could have convinced him more.

Jonah

Your late night texts/calls have stopped him from having one too many panic attacks about everything that's been going on in Mandela.

He confides in you about the pressure he feels running from the law and BPS missions, and you simply listen. You reassure him he doesn't have to keep doing this.

If he ever wanted to leave, you'll let him and his dad stay with you; you give him your address and tell him just to consider it.

Let's say he survives Vol 2 by destroying the radio so Six stopped talking, before driving nonstop until he reaches your place, frantically knocking on your door.

When he finally sees you face-to-face for the first time....he immediately cries into your arms, exhausted.

It takes him a while to calm down, and even longer for him to confess that he abandoned Adam.

He's torn whether he was selfish or not for leaving, but just like always you're on Team Jonah, reassuring him that he did the right thing.

Adam, on the other hand, was like a lost cause. He could've gotten both of them killed.

Mark

Besides Cesar, you became a good friend of his despite only ever hearing your voice through calls and online chats.

You sound like a genuinely kind person, always looking out for him and up for talking into the late hours whenever he felt stressed or depressed.

When broadcasts of the Alternate invasion came out, you invited him to stay with you in your county--which was completely free of those "demons", as he called them.

He jumps at the first opportunity, not caring about school or anything anymore, packing whatever he needed.

Poor guy's far too paranoid to live in Mandela anymore.

He feels kinda awkward staying in your guest room, often asking you if it's alright for him to pray.

Whether you're religious or not, you reassure him it is. He's safe.

[morgana-ren]

Hey, so would Corvus leverage things like vaginismus and chronic pain for his own gratification? I get the sense that he likes to have control over the pain his partner feels so I'm curious if pain originating in the other person would be viewed as a tool or as a challenge to his mastery.

This is something I've thought and asked about quite a bit given that I have chronic pain as well as some other serious bodily issues that would be a direct challenge to his mastery over pain.

I know that in the case of endometriosis, for example, he will back the fuck off. He will actually help you and soothe the pain-- and then hold that over your head the moment you are better. He put so much work into making you comfortable. Now it's time to do the same for daddy.

In my case (tmi warning about me, fyi) all sex is pain. Sex is painful and it hurts no matter how tender. Thank Fuck I'm a type of masochist and it doesn't bother me (sometimes. I don't really have a positive relationship with sex if you hadn't guessed) but it's a complicated issue. Something like that, I feel like he would happily abuse that.

You mean he gets pain right off the bat when he penetrates and he doesn't even have to do anything? Fucking awesome. Fingers hurt? Excellent. He gets to feel your fear and terror knowing even if he fucks you nicely it will still be horrible? Incredible. Sign him up. He will absolutely leverage that. He'll tell you in a little sing-song voice that it's best to behave and do what he wants, because you know how he gets when he's angry. If you don't want him inside you, best to get on your knees and make it count. This doesn't need to hurt any more than it already does (yes it does) and he might play around with it and find fun new ways for him to abuse it. You cannot win.

But not all pain is created equal in his mind, and this tends to warp as he grows closer to you and cares for you. He is still a rat-bastard, but when he loves you, he's going to take much, much better care of you. Oh, he's still going to hurt you, but he's also going to want to be your savior-- and secretly and quietly he doesn't like when you're in that kind of pain, especially when he's got babies and marriage on the brain. You're his housewife. You need to be well to take care of him, so he's going to make damn sure you're well.

He's not going to revel in your back pain. He's not going to revel if your spine or hips are twisted. He's not going to find enjoyment in pain that is not his. Likewise, he's likely to help you cure it (magically, or whatever, he is a very powerful cleric) so that your body belongs fully to him. Pain, for him, is something deeply sacred and sexual in some cases. It is what gets him off. He wants to hurt you. He wants you to beg him to make it stop, not your body. He wants full control. He is the master. Your body is his to hurt; not yours. He doesn't like when you hurt yourself in any capacity. That isn't your right.

I think there's things he would abuse and things he wouldn't. It's more of just getting to know him and understanding how he works. My sexual pain is something he'd go gung-ho with. My back pain? My legs? Not fun for him because he doesn't have a hand in it. It's not the fun kind of pain. He might use it against you during punishments, but that's just for convenience sake. Tying you to the mast is painful because your back is bad. Best to behave because he has an inkling it's going to hurt you more than it should.

Mental issues? Depends. Really depends. He's callous and cruel, but for example, if you've got some... deeper things happening and just want him to end it, he won't do that and he won't use it to make you worse. If you've got abandonment issues, and you're just waiting for him to get bored of you, that actually bothers him (especially if he's gotten very close with you and loves you very dearly.) He will tell you that you need to raise your confidence, for fucks sake. He will compliment you but in a very weird, creepy, twisted way that makes your stomach churn. He gets very weird with it. He's a creepy guy.

Ultimately, it very much depends! Sometimes he will, sometimes he won't! He has specific ideas about different kinds of pain, but that doesn't mean that won't abuse certain things to make his life easier-- or just threaten to. He's a complex guy. It tends to change over time, especially when your bond with him (or his with you) grows deep and becomes something he greatly values. When you become something he greatly values. When he loves you.

Just be careful when he goes into his heats. He gets irrational and very, very, very energetic. Like 'holy fuck grind you into dust with sheer need' type of energetic. He's more likely to be cruel and debilitating to you in that case.

[cryptidcalling]

Making another post about Vesper's awful childhood. Is anyone surprised?

This one's mostly about how his experiences as a child impacted his emotional state as an adult. CW for child abuse, physical and emotional neglect, and intentional self-injury.

I'm going to try and summarize the backstory bits as much as I can, but Vesper (as we all know) did not grow up in a loving environment. He has Venus for a good chunk of his childhood, but she could only do so much before she was taken away from him. With Venus gone, Vesper started seeking that familial love and care from the researchers.

When he was younger they gave him a lot of attention. It wasn't loving attention of course, it was them swarming around him doing tests and medical trials and taking his blood, but with Vesper feeling as lonely as he did he didn't really remember how unpleasant their attention was. He just needed anything. But as Vesper got older, the Stardust-derivative chemical content of his blood lowered and lowered. By around age 12 or 13 it hit a low plateau where it still sits now. As his usefulness dwindled, the researchers turned their attention towards new projects, essentially abandoning him besides providing the essentials to keep him alive.

Vesper tried everything to get their attention. First he begged and pleaded and promised to be good, then he threw tantrums and screamed and broke things, and then he had the idea to try and injure himself. Particularly, he knew he needed to draw blood. When he was young, any tiny cut would cause researchers to flock to him in order to collect what he lost and stop the bleeding. He didn't want to get hurt, and he knew the attention would be fleeting, but it was the only idea he had left. It took some effort, they didn't exactly leave him with access to sharp objects, but eventually he was able to make a pretty big cut right on his cheek (somewhere prominent, impossible not to see). It hurt, and he cried, but internally he was hopeful.

Nobody came. He tried for hours, first calling out that he was hurt and needed help, then that he sure was losing lots of blood, then kicked the door and screamed about how much he hated everyone and everything and he'd just bleed and bleed until he died then, and for a long time he just sat on the floor and cried. He cried and cried until everything just went numb. Like he'd cried out everything he'd ever felt and now there wasn't anything left.

~ Vesper still remembers doing that, vaguely. He remembers it as an embarrassing childhood tantrum. Really, he was way too old at that point to pitch such a massive fit. 12 years old is too old to be crafting petty schemes for parental attention. If people ask him now how he got that scar he tells them he "got it on the job," because he finds the true story too shameful to recount. He remembers it as a day where he was taught a valuable lesson about dealing with his own problems.

Vesper prides himself on being difficult to get a rise out of. He's cold, he's serious, he's logical, all very valuable things for a General to be. When people insult him he gives them no reaction, and in the face of fear and danger he presses forward with an unshakeable bravery. As long as he can phsycally deal with his problem, whether that be through fighting or working or simply walking away, he can handle it no matter how many strong emotions are twisting around in his gut and chewing at his insides. But that changes when he's presented with a problem he has no way to fix. When he's stuck in a conversation he doesn't know how to navigate, or when he's worrying about how others feel about him, everything just keeps twisting and chewing into an inescapable anxiety. How that anxiety manifests can change depending on what's causing it, but either way it can cause some rather childish reactions. Sometimes he'll just hide away from everyone, refusing to talk or let them help him until the anxiety calms down or he finds something to occupy himself with. Other times it manifests as irritation and crabbiness, causing him to snap at people and have a very short temper. He feels guilty about that, but he can barely ever bring himself to apologize.

Vesper hides and downplays his injuries and illnesses. Partially because even the risk of getting medical treatment makes his blood run cold, and partially because he just can't see them as anyone's problem but his own. It's a frequent argument between him and Pansa, and he just doesn't get it. Why does Pansa think he can't take care of his own problems? Why is he so level-headed about everything else, but starts making mountains from molehills when he gets hurt? It's his job to get hurt. Why won't Pansa just let him do what he needs to do? The same tends to go for his hunger or tiredness. They're his own problems, and as much as he enjoys Pansa's attention and pampering, he can't help but feel a little ashamed when Pansa scolds him for not eating or sleeping properly. Those are his problems, ones Pansa shouldn't have to be worrying about, and yet time and time again Pansa ends up remotely clocking him out and putting in an order with the kitchens to make him dinner. So much of what Vesper does is driven by an unconscious need to be valuable, because he's convinced having value is the only way people will still care for him.