#how violent was it really? was ashe awake the whole time? does he remember exactly how he killed her? does he remember?

[luck-of-the-drawings]

IMAGINE. working at ur stupid uhhh job or whatever. pulling into your drive way and ready to work on some crazy project in your garage. opening the door to the most unfamiliar silence. did your wife and kid leave for something? could you imagine knocking on your kids door, hardly getting an answer, and opening it to find the splattered remains of your wife across his room your child is scared! hes hardly consolable, in a state of shock and terror. you are too, but youre the adult here. you need to take charge. you need to protect him. you need to do something. you need to do something.

[mytrashcanlife]

Ashes to Ashes Jasper X Reader Part 5

It took four days. Four day for the venom to take over. Four days of absolute anguish for the Cullen family. But when you did wake up, it was so much worse than they imagined. You didn’t panic at first. They weren’t expecting denial, or a sense of calm. You jolted awake and immediately sat up. You look around and notice that you are no longer in the kitchen where you remembered fainting. Rosalie is the first speak to you in your confusion.

“(y/n) you’re awake. Thank god, I’m so sorry this happened.”

“What? Rosalie it’s not your fault I fainted. I was probably just dehydrated. I forget to drink water sometimes. I’m sorry I scared you, but really I’m fine. How long was I out? A few minutes?”

“Four days.”

“What? No. If I was in a coma Carlisle would have taken me to the hospital.”

“Oh no.”

“Rosalie what’s wrong?”

“Carlisle!”

“Why are you calling him?” Carlisle and the rest of the family come upstairs to see you.

“She’s awake! Oh, thank god.”

“She doesn’t know.”

“What? What don’t I know?” Carlisle looks at you with guilt in his eyes.

“ (y/n) something happened.”

“Yeah I know I didn’t drink enough water I over-heated and I fainted. It happens all the time. You know this. Carlisle I’m fine just thirsty. See?”

You grab the water bottle you keep on your bedside table and try to drink it, but you move a little too fast and know over the lamp. “Sorry. I’m a little clumsy when I’ve been unconscious for a few minutes.” You take a sip of the water, but the second you try to swallow it you throw it right back up. Violently coughing on the liquid as it makes its way back up your throat. “Okay maybe I am a little sick. That’s weird.” Rosalie leans over to your desk and grabs a mirror.

“(y/n) I’m going to show you something, but I need you stay calm okay?”

“Rosie what is going on?”

She held up the mirror and you saw yourself, but it wasn’t you. Your skin was much paler than usual, and all signs of your usual acne were gone. You looked like you had died, but then you saw your eyes. Red eyes staring back at you instead of (e/c) ones, and you lost it. Your scream frightens even Emmet.

“CARLISLE!”

“Why does everyone always yell at me?”

“Carlisle my eyes are red! I look like a damn ghost, something is wrong! You’re a doctor fix me!”

“(y/n) I can’t fix this”

“WHY NOT?”

Jasper was behind the others in the doorway. He could feel the fear coming off of her in waves.

The others were obviously not prepared for this conversation. He thought about joining in, but Edward gave him a look and he decided to let the others try first. Edward decides to try calming her down.

“Okay (y/n) I need you to calm down. You want Carlisle to fix the problem right? To do that he has to diagnose it, so what are your symptoms?”

“I…I fainted in the kitchen and then apparently I slept for four days. I feel dehydrated and hungry, but I can’t even swallow water. And my eyes are red. And everything is so loud, and bright. This feels like a bad hangover, but worse.”

“Okay. Now tell me where have you heard those symptoms before? Red eyes, thirst, aversion to light…”

“Edward you aren’t making any sense. That sounds like a…” You look up at Carlisle wide eyed and trembling. You shake your head furiously “No…Don’t say it”

“Yes.”

“I’m a vampire? No! no that’s not possible. Vampires aren’t real. They’re horror stories you tell children, so they won’t sneak out after dark, they don’t exist.”

“They do. We are a family of them.”

“But nobody bit me.”

“You are correct nobody bit you, because we never had any intention of turning you, but you don’t actually need to be bitten you just have to get venom in your bloodstream, and it will take over from there.”

“So, if none of you bit me then how did I end up with venom in my blood?”

“You remember that necklace Jane gave you?”

“Yeah, I broke it. It was so fragile I didn’t realize, I cut my hand on it trying to pick it back up and that’s when…I fainted. NO. You can’t be telling me I turned because I cut my hand on glass that had Venom on it. You can’t!”

“I do believe that’s what happened yes.” You sat there in bed for a few moments in silence.

“I don’t believe you. I’m going for a walk.” You stand up to cross the room but you’re down the stairs before you can blink, with the rest of the family right behind you. “What was that?”

“That was a small demonstration of the speed you now possess.”

Jasper could feel the fear rise up again as the realization of what had happened finally hit you.

“So, you’re all vampires? That’s what you’ve been hiding from me? That’s what all this was about you didn’t want me to know?” Edward answers you

“Yes (y/n), you have to understand, we never wanted you to turn, and we aren’t allowed to tell humans about us unless we intend to turn them.”

“So, what you just thought I was never going to figure it out? You thought I’d grow old get a husband and some kids and never noticed my family wasn’t ageing?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what was the plan? If you weren’t going to turn me exactly how did you think I was never going to catch on?”

“You were going to college”

“So what? You think I wouldn’t visit?” You look around at Your family as they look down with guilty expressions on their faces. Your eyes widen once more in realization “I was never going to get to visit was I? You were planning to never see me again after I left. You were planning to abandon me?” Jasper was concerned now. In the past few months he’d seen you feel a lot of emotions, fear, joy, sadness, but not this. This was pure Rage.

Carlisle tries to defend himself.

“It’s not like that”

“Yes it is Carlisle. You were going to abandon me like everyone else does. Fine then, I’ll just go.”

Alice finally returning from her trip had picked a very bad moment to walk through the door.

“Guys I’m ba-oh my god, (y/n) what happened?”

“Don’t worry about it. I was just leaving.”

You ran. You ran into the woods, and climbed cliff sides as fast as you could. You knew they’d send somebody after you but at that moment you didn’t care. If they were just going to leave you then you might as well save them the trouble. Alice turned to Jasper in shock.

“I didn’t do it.”

Rosalie jumped to his defense for once.

“He didn’t. The Volturi did. Sneaky little bastards.”

“What happened? I was gone for a week and I come back to this? This was not the vision!”

“Yes, it was Alice. You just didn’t realize it.”

“Well someone has to go get her before she hurts someone!”

Carlisle spoke up “I’ll go get her. This is my fault anyway.”

Jasper had enough, “No I think you’ve done enough.”

While they were arguing they failed to realize that Emmet was already gone. He was barely behind you for miles.

“(y/n) please just stop for a minute and talk to me. It’s me. Emmet, Your big brother.” You stopped and turned around

“You lied to me. You were going to leave me.”

“No (y/n) we hadn’t thought this through. You remember how you came to us in the first place right? We got into this situation and put our own lives on the line to help you because we couldn’t just leave you. I know you’re starving, and you’re scared but please just come home.”

You were about to listen to him when a man walked by. It happened so fast you barely had time to register what you were doing before you draining the poor man. The hunger was too much, but once it subsided you were left cowering on the ground with the corpse of an innocent and your hands covered in blood. Emmet tried to pull you off of him, but you sent him flying backwards into a nearby tree. Carlisle Caught up to you and looked down at you in disappointment, and pity.

“(y/n) it’s okay.”

“NO THIS IS NOT OKAY!”

“Do you understand now? Do you understand what you are?”

“I’M A MONSTER”

“No. You are not a monster. You are new to this. It’s going to be okay. Please just come home we can help you.”

Emmet joins Carlisle and reaches his hand out to you. You reach to take it but hesitate and pull back. You look down and shake your head.

“I can’t-“

“You can. I did. We all did. Even jasper did. You wanna know why he acted like he did? It’s because he is new to our lifestyle. We don’t feed on humans we survive on animal blood alone. Jasper is new to that. You were a constant test for him. That is why he was so cold around you. He did it. So, can you.”

You look up at the mention of his name. You pause a moment to think.

“Okay.” You grab Emmet’s hand and the three of you rush back to the house.

The second you enter the house the whole family is staring at you. Rosalie and Alice help you clean up and get some new clothes on. Burning the bloodied ones in the process. You wait until midnight to go to Jasper’s room. You knock on the door

“Come in” shut the door behind you and lean against it.

“I need to talk to you. Somewhere the others can’t hear.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

The two of you leave through the window in his bedroom and run off into the forest. You follow him until he climbs up to the top of a tree in the center of the forest. He sits at the top leaning on one branch and you sit on another branch across from him.

“What do you need to talk about?”

“Carlisle said something when I ran off…He said that you were also new to their lifestyle and that the only reason you were cold to me was because you had to try really hard to not kill me.”

“That was part of it”

“If you were afraid to hurt me, why did you pick me up from that gas station?”

“Because you were scared, and I knew I wouldn’t hurt you.”

“How did you know that though?”

“Because I never wanted you to be one of us. You were bright, and happy. You embodied the opposite to everything we are.”

“But you didn’t have to turn me. You could have just killed me.”

“I wouldn’t do that. I don’t think I could if I wanted to.”

“But Carlisle said-“

“Carlisle is wrong. Why did you ask me all the way out here for this?”

“I didn’t. There’s something else I need to ask you.”

“Ask.”

“You never lied to me right?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. Don’t start now. How hard is it?” Jasper looks at you with a sadness in his eyes, while he thinks for a second about how to answer that. Finally, he leans forward and looks you In the eyes.

“It hurts like hell. It’s agonizing. You want human blood so much you’ll go through a hundred lions and it won’t be enough to satiate you. You’ll want to give up and run away, but don’t. Because once the withdrawals subside it gets easier. It gets better.”

“one more question.”

“shoot”

“Will I be okay?”

“Yes.” You lean over to his side of the treetop and he envelops you in his arms. You both stay there for a bit. Sometimes people just need a hug, at midnight.

“Okay. Let’s go home. And don’t tell anyone about this.”

“My lips are sealed.” You looked jasper in the eyes, those golden eyes, and smile. The two of you sneak back in through the same window and Jasper distracts the others while you sneak up to your room. You lay down, knowing you won’t be sleeping again, but as you look up at your ceiling you feel like everything is going to be alright.

[sprnklersplashes]

driver’s license

post-canon, angst ahoy

She gets her driver’s licence on Saturday.

On Sunday morning, she takes her first drive alone, and it’s to the last place she should go.

The roads are empty, the rest of Sherwood sensibly asleep in their beds. Last night was another sleepless one, bolting up in her bed with her hands clamped over her mouth and her whole body trembling violently, not stopping until she had paced the length and breadth of her bedroom about fifty times. She was wide awake by that point, too shaken by her nightmares to even try to go back to sleep. She sat against the window, head against the wall, watching her breath fogging up the glass, obscuring the perfect picture on the other side.

He was there, of course. He’s always here in the morning, especially when she wakes up like this. She didn’t turn around, didn’t see him, but felt the weight of his gaze on her anyway. Pleading, lonely, begging her to turn around and come back to him. To slip into his arms and get lost in his words again, to let him strip her away with his touch. And the worst part is that she wanted to. She wanted to do it; there’s some magnetic force that still sits in her and it keeps pulling her towards JD even though she knows he’s gone. It becomes a game two of them play and she loses every single time; if she resists, it hurts, and if she gives in… she doesn’t know, she never has, but it can’t end up good.

Her keys were in her hand before she even knew what she was doing, and she was pulling out of the driveway as the sun rises.

She’s not dressed for a drive; a pair of black pyjama bottoms and an old, old blue sweater. It’s one of the things from before she was a Heather and most importantly-something JD had never seen her in. That’s one of the worst things about this, about him. His fingerprints aren’t just over her body, but all over her clothes too. Invisible to everyone except her. Lines run up and down her blazers where he caressed her, the outline of his hand on her skirt where he ripped it off her body. When she first saw him, she thought ‘now there’s a person I’m never going to forget’. Now she’d give anything for that to be wrong.

She doesn’t think she knows where she’s going, not until she turns right at one junction and feels her blood run cold. It’s funny, she thinks. She hasn’t been here in months and yet it still looks exactly the same. She avoided this place like the plague afterwards. She still could. There’s no-one here and no-one checks the traffic cameras here, not in a street like this. She could turn around and head in the other direction, and she should. But the wheels keep turning, slow but still forwards, and her hands stay locked where they are. The steering wheel barely budges.

She must have been on this street before him. She’s lived in this town her whole life and could draw out a map from memory. It’s not that big after all. She has vague recollections of a birthday party happening somewhere around here, and another of a family barbeque on this street. She trick or treated a few times here as well, first with her parents and then with Martha. But all those are irrelevant now. From here on out this will be known as JD’s street and JD’s street only.

She pulls the car into a sloppy park, thankful for the cautious residents keeping their cars in garages, and leans back in her seat. She doesn’t need to turn that much to see the house beside her.

There’s a new family that lives there now. A mom and dad and two elementary school kids. Both girls. One with dark curly hair in pigtails and the other with a black ponytail, secured with a ribbon. She had watched them the first day they moved in, laughing together, the dad tugging on the girls’ pigtails, the mom organising the move in. What must it be like inside now, with boxes unpacked and furniture sitting proudly. A home, not just a house. A place big enough for all of them. It must have been excited, to have so many of its rooms used.

That’s what struck Veronica when she first went over with him. How big it was, for a family of two. She shakes her head. You could hardly call JD and his father a “family”. Not because of their size, but because of them. They were barely even acquaintances. They merely lived under the same roof and shared the same blood; that was the beginning and end of their relationship. Veronica had wondered why Big Bud Dean had chosen this house, how much it must have cost him, and it was only a week or so ago she had realised; he didn’t care. Why would he, when he’d just leave in the next three months anyway? He picked the first available place, and it just so happened to be a family home.

She had watched him leaving. She swears to herself she isn’t a stalker, but she’s finding that harder and harder to believe. What would you call someone who goes through hoops to find out the day and hour a man is moving out of his house and then skips school just to stand on the street and watch him? What must he think of her, that is, if he even noticed her at all. Too busy wrapped up in himself to notice other people, that’s what JD always said about his father. There’s not a lot she agrees with JD on, but she has to give him that.

She pulls her sweater tighter around herself and blinks, her eyes suddenly stinging and blurry. The last time she went over there, really went over there, rather than hovering on the other side of the street, was the day it happened. She had walked up to that door with ash in her hair and blood on her face, and knocked three times before he had answered. He regarded her with this cool, confused glance, as though he was trying to remember when he had seen her before, and she had bitten her tongue and watched as realisation dawned on his face.

“You’re Jason’s girl, aren’t you?” he had asked. That was the first time she had heard him say his son’s name, she realised. Their little game must end whenever JD wasn’t around. He took a long drink of his beer then and shrugged at her. “Whaddya want?”

Her nails had dug into her palms, leaving burning red marks, and she just about manged to say “your son’s dead” through her tight throat, tears plink-plonking down her face.

He blinked at her, a moment passed, and then another, before he let out an unimpressed-sounding “really?”.

She does wonder what would have happened if Heather Duke hadn’t stumbled upon her at that moment and dragged her away from him, kicking and screaming and swearing all the way down. She pulls her sweater tighter around her. Her throat hurts at the memory. The entire street had come out to see the commotion and what little good standing she still had blew away like dust. Good, straight-A, Harvard bound Veronica had screamed “go fuck yourself” at a seemingly innocent man who just lost his son.

She doesn’t regret it though.

The first hues of blue appear around the edges of the sky now, but according to her clock it’s still far too early for her parents to be up. Her body goes limp in the seat, her head falling to the side, and her eyes flicker up to the window on the second-floor window. On the day they moved in, she saw the light go on in that bedroom and the pink paint going up on the walls. One of the young girls is using it as her room now, and she almost laughs. She plays with her dolls, no idea what two stupid kids did in there, oblivious to how he had pinned her against that wall and she had stripped him down, shivering as he whispered “you’re mine” in her ear.

Or about the soft, stolen kisses they shared on his bed at night, the two of them lying on his bed, their eyes on the ceiling, and talking about the future. Their future, he had said. Where she would go to college and where he would go. Where they should move to, because Veronica was adamant she wasn’t staying in Sherwood forever. And when they’d get their driver’s licences.

“I want mine as soon as I can,” she had told him. “I’ve been dreaming about it since forever. I’ve practiced in my dad’s car.”

“I was wondering how that dent got there,” he had said. She elbowed him in the ribs for that comment. “Suppose I don’t need to. I have my bike.”

“You have a licence for that thing, right?” She turned to him then, studying his profile and feeling a lingering sense of doubt in the back of her mind. That feeling always accompanied them wherever they went, like the hangover to the ecstasy his touch brought. “JD?”

“Course I do, Ronnie,” he had told her, and he pulled her against his chest. “You think I’d take my favourite girl on a bike if I didn’t have a licence for it?”

His favourite girl. He didn’t call her that a lot, maybe once or twice in their entire short-lived relationship, but damn did she love it. He was like that. Good at making her feel special. Like she was made of something precious. Diamonds in her eyes, gold in her veins. To him, she was better than every other girl around and she’s so, so ashamed of the fact that she liked that.

But how much did he really value her in the end?    

She slams her hand on the dashboard, hard, and cries out as the dull pain pulses beneath her skin. Tears run down her face, replacing those from earlier this morning. Those haven’t yet dried. She tucks her knees up against her chest, burying her face in them so that the sound of her cries is muffled. She doesn’t know why; not like anyone is awake at this point to be disturbed by a stupid girl like her crying in her car.

He swore he loved her. Over and over again and you’d think that the words would wear themselves out but they never did. They just kept getting bigger and he kept burning hotter and brighter until he scorched her hands when she tried to touch him. He had whispered it reverently into her hair as she slept and murmured it against her lips and even in that house, with the barrel of a gun pointed directly at her, he said it. That was the moment she realised it wasn’t true. Somewhere amongst the pain and the confusion and the splitting headache she looked at him, and she looked at the gun, and asked herself, how could his lips say he loves her while his hand is ready to kill her? Not that he needed a gun to kill her. Maybe he knew that, and so the gun was just to play with her.

He had promised her. That’s the part that hurts more than anything else. The promise he broke, and how he used those jagged edges to cut her open. He promised her he was going to change, swore to her on the love he claimed was God. JD was nothing if not passionate, and for all she knew he meant that at the time. Or maybe he didn’t, and it was all just a game to him. It’s been so long now and it’s still so hard to tell.

She sobs again, a heavy pain tugging on her torn-apart heart. She’s an idiot, and a fool, and a fucking moron and every other damn thing Heather Chandler has called her these past months. Not that she had much of a backbone before but now she can’t even bring herself to be annoyed at her. Because it’s true. Because what kind of person lives through all that, lives through JD and all manipulation and all his lies, and watches as he points a gun at her with nothing but coldness in his eyes, and is still in love with him after that? How does she spring awake from nightmares in the morning and spend the afternoon missing the feeling of his lips against hers? If she loves JD, despite everything he was, then what kind of person does that make her? What gives her the right to lie awake at night and mourn the future she would never have, when three people are cold in their graves because of him?

Her hand finds its way to the glove compartment and suddenly the little plastic card is in her hand, her eyes staring up at her. No-one has commented on it but surely everyone sees it; the look in her eyes that’s hung around ever since that day. She flinches sometimes, when she sees herself in the mirror. What’s become of her; thin, hollow cheeks and shadows beneath her dull, dead eyes, clothes hanging off her shoulders. JD didn’t just end his life when he took that bomb. She might still be breathing, but most days it feels like that’s all she’s doing.

She slams her hand on the dashboard again, and then it happens again, and again and again until she’s banging against it in a fierce, fast rhythm, her mouth open and a burning, broken scream pouring out of it. It tears out of her throt and fills the car, shaking the glass in the windows and ringing in her ears. This isn’t how it was supposed to have happened. She was supposed to run out of the DMV and into his waiting arms, have her feet swept off the ground as he tells her how proud he is of her. She was supposed to drive through the streets with him in the passenger’s seat, sneaking sideways glances at him as the wind tousled his hair. They were supposed to drive up to the hill together and sit over the town, her head on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around her, making more stupid plans for the future. She was meant to tease him about getting her licence first and he was meant to roll his eyes and kiss her to shut up her up. He should have been something else, and she should be waking up with butterflies in her stomach rather than lead in her lungs.

She sits back and shakes her head at herself. Her hand is red and pulsing with pain from where she smacked it. She’s ridiculous. Since when does she have the right to decide what was ‘meant’ to happen? JD thought that. He declared it on the other side of her closet door- “I was meant to be yours, we were meant to be one”. As far as he was concerned, the universe is, was, theirs, and they were the masters over what happened in it. And she’s not that person, she’s dragging herself away from being that person every day, even if it means her nails are caked with blood and dirt. She doesn’t get to choose what happens, not or herself or anyone, and she doesn’t get to sit here and claim what that he should have been something different.

It doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.  

Her mom told her she’d love someone again, a few weeks after the pep rally when she was in a particularly bad state of mind. She had sat on the edge of her bed and run her fingers through her hair and told her that he might have been the first, but he wouldn’t be the last. Her heart won’t be broken forever. She had nodded and murmured something in agreement, and waited until her mom smiled and patted her head before she left. What her mom doesn’t know is that JD didn’t break her heart-he put a bomb in it and blew it up. And whatever she felt for him, there’ll be no feeling it for anyone ever again.

She looks back over at the house. There’s a light on in the kitchen and she slides lower in the seat, despite being safe from view already. Who could it be? The dad maybe, or the mom, getting ready for the day ahead, or maybe one of the kids catching the morning cartoons or treating themselves to cookies for breakfast. It doesn’t really matter, what matters is they’re in that house now and neither Jason nor Big Bud Dean are. For better or worse, there’s no trace of him left in Sherwood, Ohio, not except her memories and one page in the yearbook. One day she’ll make peace with that fact.

She turns the key in the ignition and the car rumbles into life again, annoyed after being neglected for so long. She lets out a long, steady breath, the last of her tears running down her face like rain down her windshield. She turns the wheel, peels away from the kerb, and hopes she’ll never come back to this street for as long as she lives. She doesn’t know if her heart can take it again.

[calamitascalliope]

Vriska and Rose=====>Make Them Pay

My submission for @ladystuck2020​, written for @haruspeks​. You can also find it on Ao3 here. Enjoy!

From the day she was born, everyone knew Rose Lalonde was a peculiar child.

Most children, when brought into this world, scream and cry and generally make a huge fuss about things. Rose, on the other hand, made not a single sound as the doctor brought her out into the light. No screaming. No wriggling. Nothing.

It was so alarming that Rose was immediately placed into intensive care, fearing that her lungs had not developed properly. But after multiple tests and several weeks of head scratching it was discovered that no, Rose was perfectly healthy in every way. Aside from the strange fact that she never cried.

While this certainly made her mother’s life easier, a poor woman who was woefully unprepared for raising a child, it lead to a lot of concern as this pattern continued into Rose’s older years. When she began eating baby food, she never made a mess of things. When she fell over while learning to walk she shed not a single tear. When she became a toddler, she never threw a single temper tantrum.

On paper, Rose would seem like a perfect child. A child who never fussed? What more could a new parent ask for! In practice however, Rose was exceptionally unnerving.

It was on Rose’s thirteenth birthday that her existence took a turn from unnerving to terrifying. 

It had been a small affair. Some family had been invited, but all that really amounted to was her uncle Dirk and cousin Dave. Dave was what you would expect from a thirteenth year old boy. Loud, full of energy, and never staying in one place for too long. He was everything Rose was not.

As Dave tore a path through the living room, playing with a small toy bird he had brought with him, Rose sat delicately at the table, taking careful bites of her cake. Rose’s mother was chatting with Dirk on the couch, with Dirk having to occasionally tell Dave to not try and jump off of high places. It was a rather peaceful scene.

Until Rose was lying on the floor, completely unresponsive.

One panicked rush to the hospital later, and Rose was in a hospital bed, dozens of monitors hooked up to her small body. Her heart monitor was the chief among them. Every so often, her heartbeat would begin to beat sporadically, nearly tripling in speed for less than a second before returning to normal. It had been decided that these palpitations were what caused her fainting spell, but they were still trying to figure out why they were happening.

After a tense couple of hours filled with tests, tears, and nervous pacing, Rose opened her eyes and did something she had never done in her thirteen years of life.

She screamed.

Rose screamed with a fury far beyond her age, and began to violently try and tear apart the many apardi that was attached to her body. A panicked nurse rushed over to try and calm her down, to tell her she was safe, but Rose snapped at the woman like a mad dog. When the nurse tried to approach her again Rose kicked her in the stomach causing her to stumble backwards, doubled over in pain.

Rose’s heart rate, obviously high due to her sudden physical exertion, spiked higher than it had ever gone. Rose fell back in her bed, going unconscious once more.

After that they got permission from Rose’s mother to strap her down.

When Rose next awoke, she was her usual self. Confused at her location, but nowhere near the violent state she had exhibited earlier. A few doctors spoke with her, asking if she was okay and if she was calm. Asking how she felt. Asking why she attacked that nurse. Rose answered all the questions with her usual calm demeanor. All except the last one. To that question she simply gave a confused look, and said that she did not remember that happening.

The doctors were stumped, but Rose seemed to be doing fine. The palpitations had stopped, and while her behavior was not normal by any stretch of the word, she was her usual self once more. Rose was prescribed some medication that would hopefully stop this from happening again, and she was to make regular checkups to ensure that she was doing well.

Exhausted, Rose’s mother took her straight home. She held her daughter tight, trying her best to ignore how detached and cold Rose felt in her arms. She eventually fell asleep, but Rose did not. When her mother’s breathing leveled out, Rose carefully slipped out of her grasp. She planned to head to the kitchen to find a snack, but her plans were put on hold when she saw something that would change her life forever.

Floating lazily near to the ground was a small girl. Well, girl would not be the proper term. Sure she was small, and sure she had a messy tangle of long hair, but no one who saw this thing would describe her as just a girl.

Her skin was a mottled grey, flaky and ashen. She looked as if she was a snowman made of ashes. Her tangled hair was not just dark, it was the color of the blank night sky. The color of nothing. Sprouting from between her impossibly colored hair was a pair of brightly colored horns that clashed heavily with the darker tones of the rest of her body.

She had eight eyes, but they were not arranged in the way a spider’s were. Two of her eyes were in the places one would expect them to be, and the remaining six were placed in a circle around her left eye. The sclera of her eyes was not the typical white, but instead a bright orange, and her iris seemed to be missing in its entirety. Her pupils were slits, much like that of a reptile, and all eight of them were darting around the room sporadically.

Rose stared at this strange figure for several seconds, and a few moments later the figure took notice of Rose’s attention. She gave a cautionary glance behind herself, before turning back to Rose.

“You can see me?”

The creature’s voice was deep, and had a chittering to it that Rose could not fully understand. A good comparison would be trying to understand someone with a heavy Scottish accent when you have never heard of Scotland in your entire life.

“Yes.” Rose said, a bit hesitant. “Who are you?”

“Vriska. I think. How did I get here?”

“I’m not sure. Um, give me a second.” Rose turned towards her mother, and gently shook her awake.  “Mom?”

“Oh, uh, yeah?”  Rose’s mother woke up with a start, looking dreary eyed around the room.  “Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Do you see that weird grey girl?”  Rose asked, and could immediately tell by the lost expression on her face that the answer was no.

“What do you mean Rose?”

“It was nothing, just a, uh, dream I had.”  Rose assured her, and within a few moments her mother passed out once more. Rose turned back to face the strange girl, Vriska apparently, who was nodding.

“So only you can see me. I guess. That is real fucking weird.”

“Your flippant use of crude language is....Interesting. Although not surprising given your situation. ”  Rose spoke with the voice of a sixty year old woman, and Vriska scoffed at it.

“And who’s gonna fucking st8p me? You’re the 8nly one who can see and hear me, so try it 8itch.”

“How did you say the eight with your mouth.”

“Fuck y8u that’s h8w.”

Rose paused, her rational mind slowly turning to try and fully comprehend this situation and figure out the best way forward.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to be antagonistic.”  Rose said.  “It has been a weird day for me, and I’m assuming it has been a weird one for you to.”

“That is putting it lightly.”  Vriska’s words still carried a sharp tone, but Rose could tell that she was settling down a bit.

“I know your name, it is only fitting you know mine. I’m Rose Lalonde.”

“That’s a pretty long name if you ask me.”

“Well, it is usually just Rose. Lalonde is my last name.”

“What’s that?”

“Well,”  Rose was prepared to go into a long winded history lesson on the use of last names in ancient times, but she figured that she had better things to do.  “Never mind. So….What exactly are you?”

To that Rose received a lazy shrug from Vriska.

“Hell if I know. All I know was that I woke up inside of a tiny pink monkey’s 8ody and I felt extremely pissed a8out the whole thing. Then I passed out again and woke up here, talking to you.”

“So you have no memories about why you are here? None at all?”

“There is nothing 8ut my own name in my head.”  Vriska said.  “That and a lot of anger, 8ut I’m not exactly sure what I’m angry at. As we’ve been talking its been going away though so now it really is just my name.”

“Can you….Do anything?”  Rose asked, and upon realizing the vagueness of her question she clarified.  “I mean we know that no one can see you except for me, but can you interact with the world around you?”

“Dunno.”  Vriska contemplated for a moment, and then reached down to try and pick up a toy bird Dave had left behind in the panic after the party. Her hand phased right through it, but the toy trembled slightly. Almost as if it had been blown by a slight breeze.  “I guess the answer to that question is kinda 8ut not really.”

“To be perfectly honest, I am not entirely convinced that I’m not hallucinating right now.”  Rose said.  “I have just undergone an extremely traumatizing experience, my brain playing tricks on me should almost be expected.”

“Well I am very much real, 8ut I have no clue how I could possi8ly convince you. I can’t touch anything, and….”  Vriska paused for a moment, her eight dark eyes focusing on Rose much in the way a cat does when it is preparing to pounce.

Vriska pounced.

Rose jumped at the sudden movement, and was doubly shocked when she   felt her  . Vriska’s body crashed into Rose’s, toppling them both to the ground.

“Okay! You’re real! Get off!”  Rose said, but Vriska did not seem to be listening to her. Vriska’s eyes were still massive, all eight of them looking directly at Rose’s chest. Vriska raised one clawed hand, flexing her fingers before burying them into Rose’s chest.

There was no blood, there wasn’t even a wound, but Rose felt Vriska’s sharp nails burrow into her chest. Rose screamed, thrashing about to try and get Vriska off of her, but it was no use. While Vriska seemed capable of attacking her, Rose’s own blows passed right through Vriska. 

The screaming did alert Rose’s mother. The poor woman woke up with a start to see her small daughter screaming her head off and flailing about the floor for no apparent reason.

Meanwhile, from Rose’s perspective, Vriska was still tearing into her chest. The pain was gradually growing unbearable, and Rose was beginning to feel the room spinning around her as she grew faint. She was on the edge of losing herself once again when she felt her hand wrap around something solid.

No, wait. That wasn’t her hand. That was Vriska’s hand. Vriska’s hand had wrapped around something solid. Why had Vriska felt Rose’s hand?

Rose wasn’t in her living room anymore. She was weightless, floating in an empty abyss. She couldn’t feel anything, anything aside from the rhythmic pumping of Vriska’s own heart.

No, not Vriska’s heart. HER heart. Why did Vriska keep doing that?

No, she’s not Vriska, she’s Rose. Why was her mind all over the place, where-

The dark void around Vriska lit up into a brilliant gold, blinding Rose’s eight eyes. She saw a sigil, burnt onto the bottoms of her eyelids. A small sun. It was everywhere she looked. She could close her eyes for hours on end, but Rose could not escape it. It pulsated in time with her heartbeat, with their heartbeat.

Vriska and Rose woke up in Rose’s room, already tucked into her bed. It was dark, the small digital clock on the nightstand reading eight pm. 

“What….What happened?”  Rose mumbled, holding her head. It felt as though someone had smashed her head in with a hammer.

“I’m not sure.”  The voice came out of Rose’s mouth, but Rose was not the one who controlled it.  “Something in my head clicked and I just acted on instinct.”

“Vriska? Is that you?”

“Yeah. Not sure how 8ut now I’m, like, a part of you.”

“Why’d you do that?!”

“I dunno! Like I said, something just clicked in my head and I lost control.”

Rose swung her feet off the edge of the bed, and was about to stand up when the same sun sigil flashed into view. Rose her own body stand up from the bed as she was about to, and saw her foot get punctured by a knitting needle that had been thrown onto the floor.

Rose was suddenly sitting back in her bed, just about to stand up. Taking a moment, she peered down onto the floor and sure enough a knitting needle was lying there on the ground ready to stab her in the foot.

“Tell me you saw that too.” Rose asked.

“Uh, yeah? It would have 8een pretty hard not to.”

“Did we just see the future?”

“I think a more correct way of putting it is we saw what   could   have 8een the future, and then we changed it.”

“Were you able to do that before? Was that just a thing you could just do?”

“No! At least, I don’t think so, I,”

Vriska was interrupted by another vision, this time showing Rose’s mother walking into the room. As soon as it ended Rose leapt back into bed and pretended to sleep, getting into position just before the door opened.

Rose held still as her mother walked into the room, and gentle tousled Rose’s hair. She had likely heard Vriska and her talking before, and came in to check on them. Or, to check on her. Rose specifically. She didn’t stay long though, and before long Rose and Vriska were alone again.

“So what now?”  Rose questioned, her voice in a low whisper.  “We are now two people squished into a thirteen year old body, and we can sometimes see the future.”

“What’s a year?”

“Will this ever stop?”  Rose ignored Vriska, continuing with her worrying.  “Are we just stuck together forever? How did this happen? Why did this happen?”

“Okay, I think you are starting to panic. I can tell because it's starting to ru8 off on me. Come on, this isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

“And why not?”

“Well, for one you’ve got some gr8 company with me whenever you want it,”

“Oh, what a relief!”  Rose rolled her eyes.

“And two, you can see the future! Sometimes. How cool is that!”

Rose let out a yawn, and started to feel her body grow weary. Despite all the sleep she had gotten in the last twenty-four hours, her body was still begging for more time to rest.

“We can figure this out another time.”  Rose mumbled, already feeling her consciousness fade.  “Another….Time….”

The following day was school. Rose’s mother tried to insist that she stay home, but Rose wanted nothing more than a sense of normalcy to return to her life. She managed to convince her mother that she was completely fine, and that she just wanted to see her friends at school. It was this last part that convinced her mother to allow it. She had always been concerned about Rose making friends, and was worried that Rose was going through her schooldays sitting alone and silent. She was right to worry because that was exactly what Rose had been doing.

As they had been preparing for leaving the house, Rose ran Vriska through a few ground rules. Vriska was not to speak unless the two of them were definitely alone. Rose was going to handle all of the talking. Vriska found the rules annoying, and a lot of complaining and grumbling came from her, but she eventually promised to keep her mouth shut.

Rose sat in her usual seat on the bus. Three rows up from the back on the right side. It was snowing out, and Rose was sweltering in her oversized sweater due to the constantly humming heater just below her feet. Rose tried her best to deal with it as she watched out the window at the slowly falling flakes.

That was until her eyes flashed with another vision.

This one was short, less than a second in length, and by the time she processed what it had shown her the small wad of paper had already smacked her in the face.

It wasn’t painful, but it was extremely surprising. It probably wouldn’t have been that bad if she hadn’t been disorientated by her powers flicking on. Rose looked up to see a small group of boys giggling and holding an open notebook, a page evidently torn out.

Rose rolled her eyes and turned back to the window, but Vriska butted in.

“What the fuck are y8u d8ing?”  She asked, having the courtesy to at least keep her voice at a low whisper.  “Get them 8ack!”

“It doesn’t matter. If I give them attention they’ll never let up.”

“N8, if you don’t do anything it’ll show them that they can walk all over you.   Then   they’ll never let up.”

“That’s not,”

Another wad of paper pelted her in the face. Rose tensed, and then sighed.

“This isn’t worth it.”

“It most definetly fucking is!”  Rose could see the boys preparing another wad of paper out of the corner of her eyes. As she saw them prepare to toss it she could feel her heart racing in her chest, her muscles tightening as the sigil of light flashed in her eyes.

“ M a k e  t h e m  p a y .”

The sigil flashed brilliantly, and a lot of things happened at once. The boy preparing the wad of paper, a wiry kid with red hair, managed to give himself a papercut, and a pretty severe one at that. His finger began to bleed quite a bit, and his two friends pulled away from him to avoid getting it on their clothes. As this happened, the boy closest to the wall, a larger boy that Rose knew was on the school’s soccer team, placed his hand near the window of the bus. The bus hit a massive pothole at this moment causing the boy in the middle to bounce upwards and hit his head on the ceiling, and the window came undone and flew downwards, crushing the larger boy’s finger beneath it.

The bus driver noticed all of this sudden commotion due to the screaming of all three boys, and he pulled over quickly. He grabbed the first aid kit and ran to get them some help. All the while Rose sat in her chair, taking deep breaths as her heart rate returned to normal.

“Did….Did we do that?”

“I don’t….know.”  Vriska mused.  “It certainly felt like we did something. What are the odds all of that happened on its own? Right as we were freaking out and seeing shit?”

Rose looked around the bus. Everyone was either minding their own business with various projects or looking at the three injured boys. Everyone except for one person. A young girl with long, extremely curly hair and brilliant green eyes behind round glasses. This girl, despite all of the chaos, despite being able to do literally anything else, was looking directly at Rose. It was unnerving, and Rose looked away from her as soon as she was able.

“That girl….”

“What the fuck are you worried about? How could anyone possi8ly connect anything that happened back to us? 8esides, they had it coming.”

Rose sat in silence as the bus resumed moving, heading towards the school. Thoughts of the new power she wielded swirling through her mind, and the potential they could have going forward. While Rose sat in silence, thinking solemnly about the potential these new developments provided, Vriska did not work like that.

“Think about what we can do with this! We can get 8ack at anyone we want and there is no way we could ever be caught and punished for it! We could predict what people are going to do! Rose….With this power we could be gods.”

Rose could not see Vriska, but she could picture her smiling deviously at that. That was probably because she was also smiling at the prospect.

[no-goddamn-cilantro]

I've got you, Kid

Or, five times in which Tony Stark has his kid's back, and one time where his kid has him.

*One*

"Hey Penis! Penis Parker! Going to your pretend internship tonight?" Peter heaves a long, slow sigh, hitching the straps of his backpack up a little more comfortably onto his shoulders and attempts to ignore the irritating bully, increasing his pace to the exit. Alas, if nothing else can be said about Flash Thompson, it's that he's persistent.

"I bet it's just an excuse for you to hide that you don't have any friends besides that weird Ned kid." The boy in question takes this opportunity to rise to the bait and while Peter appreciates the continued staunch support of his best friend, on days like today he's nothing short of exhausted. Patrol went way past curfew and he just knew Mr. Stark was going to have something to say about it.

"Peter's internship is real! You're just jealous he gets to spend time with The Avengers." Peter could actually hear the capital letters on the Avengers and he felt a tension headache begin in one temple. Before Flash could continue berating him for the internship, Peter escapes out the door and makes a beeline for where Happy is normally waiting for him. Instead of the SUV with staid coloring, a familiar orange Lamborghini sits with the genius owner of it casually leaning against the passenger door. A single eyebrow ticks up as he meets Peter's eye.

"What's up kid? You ready for the conference this weekend?" One blink, then two. No, Peter isn't hallucinating. Mr. Stark is really here to pick him up from school. In front of God and Flash and everybody and oh my God Mr. Stark is here. Peter's grin lit up his whole face and he bounded over to the car in four long strides.

"Mr. Stark! Yeah, I-I think I've got everything," a little breathless, Peter continues to grin at his mentor, a thousand words jockeying for space in his brain and exactly zero getting air time. Mr. Stark pushes off from the side of the car and saunters around to the driver's side, leaving Peter to scramble to get in and shut the door.

Once they're on the road headed to the compound, Peter breaks the companionable silence.

"Hey Mr. Stark?"

"what's up Underoos?"

Slight hesitation, then a very quiet, "How did you know?"

With a deliberately casual handwave and shrug, the genius billionaire gives a breezy, "That guy in the chair of yours- Ted? Ed? Bread?- is pretty protective of you. I notice these things." Peter's face blooms with a mortified blush and buries his face in his hands. Chuckling, his mentor reaches over with one hand and runs his fingers through the teen's hair, disguising the gentility with a playful ruffle.

"Hey. I've got you, kid. I wish you'd talked to me about this stuff before, but you know I've always got you."

The warm glow in Peter's chest kept him warm all weekend.

*Two*

"-and son, I need you to come along in wave two with Widow and Falcon and work on webbing 'em up while they fall. Let's try to minimize property damage if we can, but civilian safety come first." Peter zoned back in just in time to hear his part, giving the Captain a jaunty wave in acknowledgement before shooting a web to the nearest building, waiting for the orange and green... Giant frogs? Giant frogs, ranging in size from an oven to a Buick, crawled out of the wormhole between two buildings and began attempting to... What was that?

"Uh... Mr. Captain America sir? Are they eating the road? And the cars?"

Over the comms comes the somehow both angry and delighted voice of Hawkeye. "You're goddamn right they're eating cars and road! They just ate a Camaro right underneath me and the asphalt underneath it. That was beautiful!"

"Do we need another talk about language, Barton?" Tony's snark was never going to get old to Peter- he snickered and began shooting webs, lifting the oversized frogs and sticking them to the sides of buildings nearby-

-only for them to begin eating through the buildings they're webbed to. "Heckin darn it!" Thinking quickly (and ignoring the suspiciously Tony-sounding laughter in his earpiece), he shot a web and snagged the underside of one of the alien's jaws, flicking his wrist just so and managing to wrap the strand of web around the- frog? Not-frog? Whatever's- mouth, effectively cutting off the wanton destruction of innocent vehicles and roads. Giving a whoop of triumph, Peter went to work on each of them that he could find, swinging between buildings and city blocks to cover as much ground as he could.

Then one of the largest Asphoads (as Peter had secretly named them in the privacy of his own mind) opened its mouth at exactly the wrong time and caught his web directly on the tongue. Immediately it have a hard jerk of its head, stronger than he'd expected, and pulled him off course. The frantic release of the now-being-eaten web and attempt at sending out a web to the next building didn't arrest his fall in the slightest and before he could do more than panic-flail, a metal arm wrapped around his chest and brought his fall to a very sudden halt. As he was lowered the last few meters to the ground, Tony's amused voice sounded in his ear.

"I've got you kid. What would you do without me?"

"Get squished by a rolled up newspaper?"

A bark of laughter and he landed gently on his feet. The Asphoads appeared to have no interest in eating him now that he was on the ground, but he still went out of his way to finish webbing up the original target.

Later, back at the compound, Barton and Sam put on a dramatic reenactment of the fall for Rhodey, complete with Peter's doe eyes and a tearful, "Thank you so much for saving the day Mr. Stark! You're the best dad a nerd could ask for!"

Well, Peter didn't exactly disagree. So it all worked out.

*Three*

His kid was gone. His kid was gone. Ash between his fingers, along with almost everyone else that was on this godforsaken rock. He was vaguely aware of a high-pitched, keening noise, before abruptly realizing it was him. He was making that sound, and he couldn't seem to stop until the violent, racking sobs began to rip through him and he bent to push his forehead into the (ash ash ash Peter's ash) dirt beneath him.

In between the sobs he berated himself.

"I've got you," he said

"Liar!" he accused

"Not enough," he knew

"Bring him back!" he demanded

"Oh God, Peter..."

The name sat like the ashes (all that was left of his boy oh my God my boy my kid gone gone gone) on his tongue, terribly heavy and burning.

He clawed at the ground, as if he could dig through the ashes and dust and, like a phoenix, Peter would rise reborn. All he did was dirty his hands and seem to tear something inside the stab wound he abruptly remembered.

Exhausted, he picked up his head and looked dully up at the blue woman that was watching him fall to pieces without so much as a hint of pity. Somehow, this steeled him against his breakdown and he stood, meeting her eye.

"Nebula, right?"

A nod, her gaze unwavering.

"What's next?"

Her voice is rough, the only sign of any emotion from the cyborg.

"We find him. We kill him. We get our families back."

Tony nods.

"We need help. Get us to Earth and we'll have it."

Without a word she turns and stalks towards the Guardians' ship. He follows, after about ten steps realizing that it isn't dust in his eyes, but his vision blacking out. As he hits the ground, he hears Nebula turn and come back, lifting him and carrying him to the ship. She's still eerily silent, but that just leaves room for Tony's last thought before he succumbs to the darkness taking over his sight and his mind.

I've got you, kid. I'm bringing you home. I promise.

*Four*

Tony and Peter are sitting in his workshop, doing what they do best- tinkering. He's letting the kid go nuts with one of his older gauntlets while he works on a new arm for DUM-E. It's peaceful, and he's quietly enjoying the light chatter from the kid as he discusses his latest Spanish test and Mr. Stark, it isn't fair that we have a test every week, it unfairly skews our grade!

He hasn't actually turned and looked at the kid in a few hours, engrossed as he is with this wiring that just isn't working for whatever reason. But the chatter is soothing, a balm to his soul that is deeply weary.

... why is his soul so deeply weary?

... what's going on in the outside world?

What time is it? Shouldn't Peter be tired? Hungry?

Tony shrugs it off and continues for a few more hours, blissful in the unanswered questions. He notices a bit of (ash) dirt smudged on his hand and for some reason (oh God my boy) it's really bugging him all of a sudden.

"Hey Pete, will you pass me a clean cloth from the bucket under your workbench?"

"Mister... Stark...?"

His hands begin to shake.

"Peter. Buddy. Cloth please."

"Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good."

His heart pounds in his chest and he turns around.

And he's not in his workshop anymore. It's Titan, and there's Peter. Bruised, battered, and scared. Looking to him. Reaching for him.

He runs and catches his boy in his arms, lowering him to the ground just as he crumbles to ash.

"Peter! No, Peter... I've got you. I had you... God I'm so fucking sorry... Petey..."

With that mournful cry he jerks awake, met with the darkness of the dead ship he shares with Nebula.

I've got you kid. I'm bringing you back. Just hold on a little longer, wherever you are.

Sick from his injury and exhausted, Tony sleeps.

*Five*

It's over. It's finally over.

Thanos is gone, back where it all began for him.

Back on Titan.

The gauntlet weighs heavy on Tony's arm, not just physical weight but the weight of purpose. The weight of promise.

He breathes deep. Lets it out slowly. Focuses on his exact desires. Personally and as an Avenger. Another breath.

Then. Tony Stark Snaps.

A serene pool stretching into infinity around a tiny Pagoda is before him. In it, stands Soul. Wearing Peter's face, but most definitely Not Peter.

"What did it cost?"

Tony stares at Not Peter.

"Everything."

Burning pain.

Exhaustion.

Then, brightness and relief.

The Infinity Gauntlet, and Tony's entire left arm, fall to the ground, burnt and mangled far beyond repair. Where the stones rested are burnt husks.

Tony doesn't care.

Standing where he fell, looking confused but unharmed, is Peter. His kid, his boy. Whole and healthy. Vaguely aware of the return of the other Fallen, but deeply apathetic to it, he rushes to Peter, wrapping him in a tight hug with his remaining arm. Peter, confused and afraid ("Mr. Stark what happened to your arm?!") but utterly trusting, hugs him back just as tightly, burying his face in Tony's chest.

The genius rests his face in the chocolate curls, whispering fondly.

"I've got you kid. I've finally got you and I'm taking you home."

*And One*

A scream rips through the once-silent hallway, waking up three people simultaneously.

Rhodey sits up, sighing and reaching for his braces again.

Steve rolls out of bed, going to stand watch outside the door with the screaming.

And Peter takes off in a mad dash towards the sound. Even though it's a nightly occurrence, it never stops the spike of terror drilled into his spine hearing Tony scream his name like that.

As with previous nights, Peter and Steve exchange nods before Peter walks through the door, hurrying to the bed where Tony is tangled in sweat-soaked sheets. Another scream escapes his throat, ending with a plaintive whine and rattling sob. Peter sits next to him on the bed, pulling the blankets and sheets off of his mentor and reaching to wake him.

The teen speaks loudly over the sobs, firm as he tries to bring his mentor back from his own personal hell.

"Mr. Stark I'm right here. You saved me from Titan. We're back on Earth. Mr. Stark, I'm right here!"

Finally, dark eyes open and lock on to Peter who opens his arms to the anticipated and much-needed hug. He still jumps a bit at the cold metal of Tony's prosthetic arm, but quickly melts into the embrace, rubbing the genius' back until the shaking stops.

Into the dark, Peter finally summons the courage to say what he's been thinking in the weeks since they returned.

"Mr. Stark, you don't have to try to be so strong anymore. You did it, you saved us. You saved me. Now let us save you. I've got you, Mr. Stark."

Peter pretends to not feel the wet heat of tears in his hair. He adds one last, soft whisper as he pretends to not feel his own tears.

"I love you Mr. Stark. We'll get through this together."