#i am in a constant state of agony because of how much i struggle to carry casual convos ):

[forbiddennhoney]

i hope all my friends who i don't talk to as much as i wish i did know they're constantly in my thoughts

[vrishchikawrites]

Could I have a prompt? 🥺🥺 So WWX is taking bath in the Cold Pond to heal from the wounds by the discipline paddle (which I assume he was punished being clothed in his Black robe or in his Gusu Lan disciple robes or Head disciple Jiangs robes whichever fits). Before going to CR, wwx is whipped by mdm yu and LWJ notices wwx’s raw red scars and many scars across his back kinda overlapping and not yet being healed because maybe MDM yu sealed his core or something. LWJ, or with LXC saw WWX’s many crisscrossing scars and realize they’re still raw and kinda risking for infection because when mdm yu unseals his spiritual energy before going to CR, WWX never thought of healing it. Cue LWJ and LXC gets horrified and ask WWX why he had many scars on his back (or other parts of his body can also be included!) no pressure 💕 I love your writing! ❤️❤️

Anyway, it is set during the period in which WWX studies at CR. Lån Qiren, who is obviously not eyeing Wei Wuxian just in case the boy creates some trouble ends up realizing that he is too non chalant about  not eating (because the food there is for rabbits) and WWX is like "Oh, yeah. Nah its fine, I've been worse".

This one has trigger warnings for child abuse, negligence, and issues related to eating habits. Keep that in mind before proceeding. Nothing graphic, but I wanted to warn nonetheless.

I've merged two prompts here.

Please remember that prompts are closed. Also, remember I do not write self-deprication. All prompts that require WWX to have low self-esteem are not going to be written, apologies but the subject is very uncomfortable for me and I don't believe it is canon accurate anyways.

On to the prompt fill.

"That Wei child is entirely too careless." 

Lan Qiren closes his eyes and prays for patience. That boy has been a menace ever since he stepped into Cloud Recesses. Brilliant but wily and mischievous with absolutely no regard for rules. 

"What has he done?" He asks gruffly, reading over the reports from the kitchen staff. Cloud Recesses always monitors the food intake of their guests to make sure everyone is well-fed and no one is consuming more than their due. It wouldn't do for young cultivators to fall ill in their care, after all. 

The primary healer, a matron of some age, had brought the reports instead of the kitchen manager, which was quite unusual, "He forgets meals. Goes without food for days. Survives on small bits of fruit."

Xichen, who has been working on his own reports, raises his head and looks concerned. 

Lan Qiren crosses his arms, feeling a growing sense of ire, "He dislikes our meals." He's not the first one to skip meals because he considers them 'bland' and 'boring'. It's likely the child has been sneaking down to Caiyi town to have more extravagant meals. 

"I checked with our ward team. When he goes days without eating, he doesn't make any trips to Caiyi town either."

Lan Qiren pauses and studies her. Lan Mingyun nods curtly, "When I first noticed this behavior, I immediately put him on my list." Her list of children with food-related issues, he assumes, "His eating habits are very erratic, erratic enough that I wish to assign one of our senior disciples to keep an eye on him."

"You're that worried?" Lan Xichen asks in surprise while Lan Qiren frowns. It isn't unusual to do so but he wonders if it is really necessary.

"As far as I know, the child lived on the streets for quite a few years," She says and Lan Qiren narrows his eyes, inwardly reprimanding himself. He had forgotten about that aspect of Wei Wuxian's history, "The link between early childhood trauma and behavioural problems are well known to us."

Lan Xichen frowns, "I'll ask Wangji to keep an eye on him."

He glances at his nephew sharply, "Why Wangji?" He demands because surely someone else would be better.

"From what I understand, Wei-gongzi will not welcome an assigned senior. He seems to be someone who brushes injuries or illnesses off. He likes Wangji and will be more willing to accept his company."

While the argument is reasonable, Lan Qiren is loath to involve his precious nephew in this. He's already so bothered by the boy. 

But.

He thinks of Wei Wuxian with his sharp eyes and lingering smile and nods. 

---

Wangji listens to Xichen patiently even as his fingers curl into fists under his sleeves. 

He doesn't like Wei Wuxian. The boy is too disruptive, too bold, too distracting-

Too beautiful.

He doesn't like him, but that doesn't mean he's content to ignore his well-being. When Xichen asks him to keep an eye on Wei Ying's eating habits and general behavior, Wangji agrees. 

It will be taxing for him, but he agrees.  

What he doesn't anticipate is… everything that follows. When he starts consciously looking for them, the signs are alarming. Wei Ying doesn't just skip meals whenever he gets too distracted, he picks at the food even when he is eating. While Wangji is comforted to know the boy frequently seeks something richly flavored at Caiyi Town, he doesn't do it often enough to compensate.

There are also some concerning behaviors in the Jiang contingent. Upon closer inspection, it is clear that while Wei Ying does break the rules, the other Jiang Sect disciples are often complicit. Including Jiang Wanyin. 

They not only let their da-shixiong take the blame for all of their actions, but also encourage it. Wei Ying seems disconcertingly accustomed to it. He makes a scene while being punished but seems alright within an hour. 

Jiang Wanyin encourages mischief and reprimands him in turns. 

Wangji doesn't understand this.

"Xiongzhang, I am concerned," Xichen looks up from his tea, his attention immediately on Wangji, unwavering and comforting, "Wei Ying," He takes a moment to form his thoughts, "I am uncertain. I believe he is in an unsafe environment."

Xichen sets his tea aside, "How so?"

"I happened upon a conversation," He grimaces because it is eavesdropping even if his intentions are noble, "Jiang Wanyin and Nie Huaisang requested and encouraged him to get alcohol into Cloud Recesses. When he complained about the punishment, Jiang Wanyin said 'at least, it wasn't Zidian'."

His brother sucks in a sharp breath, "Zidian? Madam Yu? Spiritual weapon? A high-grade weapon typically used against enemies?"

Wangji dips his head. 

"I'll ask uncle to stop assigning corporal punishments." Lan Xichen says, "They won't have the desired effect in any case and we don't want to damage him permanently. Tomorrow, ask him to practice Cultivation in the Cold Pond as punishment."

Wangji nods, "I'll assign Jiang Wanyin and Nie Huaisang proper punishment as well."

"Wait until we have a better grasp on the situation." Xichen says solemnly, "If we act too quickly, things will escalate and may cause more harm to Wei-gongzi."

Wangji is reluctant because his sense of justice is not satisfied. He remembers how the Jiang disciples encouraged Wei Ying to accept punishment on their behalf. And then to know Jiang Wanyin was also complicit…

"We must approach this cautiously, Wangji."

He nods.

---

Red, irritated, scarred.

Wangji swallows as he sees the state of Wei Ying's back as the Jiang disciple steps into the Cold Pond. There are so many whip scars on his back, so many that have barely begun to heal, that he feels nauseous. 

"Wei Ying," He struggles to keep his tone neutral, "Your back." He cannot imagine the agony that Wei Ying would've suffered when he took more punishment on it the other day. 

Wei Ying glances at him and grins, "Aiya, Lan Zhan, is that concern I see on your pretty face?" He asks, spinning around eagerly, "Concern for little old me?"

His back is out of sight and the way Wei Wuxian is leaning towards him is meant to distract and fluster.

Wangji… suddenly understands. Wei Ying is naturally playful and mischievous, but he uses his personality for disguise and manipulation as well. Not maliciously, but in a way that harms him.

"Wei Ying," Wangji refuses to be moved. There is a significant shift in his mind. He no longer feels annoyed by the person before him. If anything, he feels furious. 

He feels protective.

"Wei Ying, your back."

The Jiang disciple shrugs, "Punishment, you know how it is." 

"For what?" He demands, catching Wei Ying's elbow and turning him around. The willingness to touch him stuns Wei Ying momentarily, enough for Wangji to get a good look at the brutal devastation written on Wei Ying's back. 

Wei Ying clears his throat and shrugs, "It's more of a preemptive punishment? Madam Yu knew I would cause trouble here, of course." He chuckles.

"Preemptive punishment?" He asks softly, the very notion troubling him. 

Wei Ying shrugs again but doesn't attempt to explain when it is clear Wangji isn't willing to indulge him.

"Wei Ying,"

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying starts to move towards the shore, "Don't worry about things that don't concern you. Your head will forever be burdened if you do."

Wangji feels something in him recoil at such a blunt dismissal. 

"Doesn't concern me? How can it not concern me?" He wants to ask but is unable to. 

Wei Ying has made him very uncomfortable with his forward personality and near constant teasing, but Wangji has seen the genuine offer of friendship underneath it all. 

He has always spurned it. 

As Wei Ying climbs onto the shore, his wounds red against his naturally pale skin, Wangji makes a decision, "Would you not feel concerned if it were me?" He asks but he already knows the answer.

He already knows this man enough.

"Of course," Wei Ying says and shrugs on his robes, hiding a wince but unable to help his body's reaction to pain, "But you and I are different." He glances over his shoulder at Wangji, "I consider you my friend," He says, "But you don't consider me yours."

His breath stills at the acceptance in Wei Ying's tone.

"And that's alright." The Jiang disciple waves and walks away, "Don't worry too much, Lan Zhan. This one isn't weak. The wounds will heal within a few days."

---

"The facts are these - Wei-gongzi is punished preemptively with Zidian, often enough that there are deep scars on his back," Lan Xichen explains, "I assume it is his Golden Core keeping him from sustaining permanent damage."

Lan Qiren is still bristling at the very thought of preemptive punishment. What a ridiculous notion! Of course, the child doesn't care about rules and upsetting people! He has already been punished enough to excuse everything but outright treason.  

How is such a method effective? How does it correct a child's misbehavior? 

"The Jiang Sect disciples are accustomed to their da-shixiong being punished in their stead. They actively encourage it. Jiang Wanyin has asked Wei-gongzi to sneak in alcohol. And he refused to come forward when Wei-gongzi was punished." Xichen takes a deep breath, "I believe any lingering issues he may have because of his early days as a street orphan-"

"Are ignored," Lan Qiren concludes grimly, "It is no wonder the child has such strong cultivation. He is facing strife constantly."

"Is there a way to rescue him?" Wangji asks after being grimly silent for the entire meeting, "Get him away from the Jiang Sect?"

Lan Qiren eyes him, "Wangji, the situation is complicated. He's still the Jiang Head Disciple and sects don't just part with their high ranking disciples."

Xichen smiles sympathetically, "We'll find a way to pressure Jiang-zongzhu into taking action. He'll lose face if the other Sects know how his lady is treating their Head Disciple." He shakes his head at Wangji's expression, "Let us think about it. Meanwhile, you just need to be there for your friend, Wangji."

Lan Qiren arches a brow, "Friend? Wangji, I thought you disliked the boy."

Wangji purses his lips, a stubborn light entering his eyes, "Wei Ying is my friend." He insists, resolve lining his every word. 

He looks at Xichen, who just looked amused, "According to Wei-gongzi, he considers Wangji a friend and will be very concerned if Wangji was in a similar situation," He huffs, "But Wangji doesn't consider Wei-gongzi his friend, so there's no need for Wangji to worry."

Lan Qiren closes his eyes and rubs his forehead in an uncharacteristic display of frustration, "That boy is a singular menace."

---

Wangji pursues friendship with all the dedication in his being. He learns to cook savory dishes and gives them to Wei Ying every day. Wei Ying, unable and utterly unwilling to deny, eats it all. 

He glares the Jiang disciples into submission whenever they attempt to draw Wei Ying into mischief. The Jiang Head Disciple is fully exempt from corporal punishment. Instead, he spends hours in the library either copying rules, rewriting classics, or transcribing Buddhist texts. 

All of these activities prove to be much more effective punishments.

Meanwhile, Lan Qiren attends a Discussion Conference and has word with Jiang Fengmian. 

The response is a gentle order from the Jiang-zongzhu for Wei Ying. He asks his disciple to remain in Cloud Recesses for Musical Cultivation training. He also mentions it is time for Jiang Wanyin to take up Head Disciple responsibilities and learn true leadership. 

Wei Ying eyes the smiling Lan Xichen and impassive Lan Qiren sharply but doesn't say anything.

In two years time, the distance between Wei Ying and the Jiang Sect grows. The distance between Wei Ying and Lan Zhan ceases to exist. 

Just like that, Wei Wuxian's destiny changes.

[whump-a-la-mode]

Would you continue the villain nausea whumpee? To show how he is after he is removed from the chair? Do they set him free since he won’t be violent anymore ?

I loved the idea of Villain being set free, and ran with it a bit! I hope you enjoy! Thank you so much for the ask!!

This is a continuation from here, and, once again, the story below is below a read-more to prevent any accidental viewing of content that could trigger emetophobia very badly. I would hate for anyone to see it as they scroll past.

However, this time, the first scene is shown, as it contains no potentially triggering content.

CW//Emetophobia, graphic description of vomit, self-hatred, medical malpractice, low self esteem, hatred of former friends, Stockholm syndrome, whumpee liking whumper, minor eye whump mention, nausea

The auditorium crackled with the feedback of a thousand microphones, shoved towards the stage, frequencies battling and screeching against one another in chaotic choir. From a mass of bodies, of cameras and clattering boom mics, the wire spheres emerged in their dozens, all pointed centrally.

All pointed at the stage, and the podium that lived upon it, glistening in freshly-polished hardwood and media attention.

Behind the platform stood a figure, as equally basking in fame, and equally as glimmering. Upon their face, perfect white teeth glowed as freshly-fallen snow, pressed together in a wide grin.

In Hero’s eyes, it was pride that shone. The pride that came with accomplishment, with recognition, with glory, with perfect hair and thousand-dollar suits and the attention of the world, all upon their face. Their words.

“Thank you, everyone, for being here.” With a greeting alone, the world tucked back in hushed quiet. “Now, we will have plenty of time for questions later, but I wanted to start off with what has surely found itself on every headline this morning.”

A pause. The expected clamor erupted from the horde of media, incoherent shouting and stomping. A rioting crowd.

“Now, now.” It was a practiced ritual, between lion and tamer. “I will be taking all of your questions at the end, but let an old guy speak a little, first.”

Laughter queued.

“Well, then. I’m sure you’ve all seen the headlines-- you guys especially, you wrote them! But, for everyone at home, yes, the rumors are true. A villain is now loose in the city.”

A practiced gasp.

“And it’s a good thing! You see, for years, now, our in-house villainous psychology research has been working on a technique that they have dubbed Reaction-Based Morality Rehabilitation. Now, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

The hero leaned forward, hand cupping the microphone, playful smile clear upon their face.

“They gave me this paper, and it was like, 100 pages long. And I didn’t know half the words in it.” They backed up, smile remaining. “But, trust me when I say, those guys in R&D? They’re amazing. They know exactly what they’re doing, even if I don’t.

But, I won’t leave you hanging. I do understand the just of the procedure, even if I’m not so sure on the jargon.

It’s a very simple solution to a very complicated problem. I am a firm believer in the fact that people are not born as villains. We are all born as heroes. Some of us, through unfortunate means, however, turn rotten. Through this technique, however, me and Organization believe to have found a way to separate the villain from the person inside.

By using innovative methods of therapy, our psychologists are able to help villains reject their evil ways, all the way at the center of their neurology! We have heard many concerns about the possibility of relapses, of a villain turning sides upon their release. Yet, with this technique, changing sides is not a conscious choice. It is as much a thought process as it is a carefully embedded instinct.

Of course.” They straightened momentarily. “That does not mean we are simply allowing once of those who have harmed you return to our beautiful city unsupervised. We ensure you, multiple surveillance methods have been put in place. This is only a trial run.

We at Organization wish to think each and every one for your cooperation and participating in the beta test of this revolutionary new technique. If this run receives positive results, you can all think of villainy as a thing of the past!”

From the crowd emerged a cheer. A cheer for glory, for fame, for progress!

For the destruction of a foe.

For unquestioned success. A villain defeated!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Villain’s fingers brushed over the top of the kitchen’s oak-stained counter, kicking up enough dust to suffocate, even as their tightly pursed lips protected them from such.

This was a house.

Their fatigued, half-haunted gaze turned to move over the surrounding interior. The kitchen was fully-featured, oak accented with shimmering, mottled granite. Not that anyone had bothered to clean in the place. Beyond the room and its attached dining area, a step lower, a carpeted area was positioned, furnished in felt couches and a television.

But this was not a home.

With a scratching nail to their neck, the villain moved forward numbly, to the base of the stairs and up them. Beneath their skin, the tracking chip was an awful feeling. Buried just deep beneath that it could not be seen, yet shallow to the point that its presence was unyielding and unignorable. A constant itch, embedded between twitching folds of muscle.

Maybe they could take it out. Maybe with the right kitchen utensil-

Halfway up the stairs, they dropped, keeled over themself with sickly pea soup filling in the space behind their eyes. In an instant, their mind retreated desperately from the thought, or any semblance of it, even as their stomach heaved with the residual ghost of it.

The tracking chip was fine and they didn’t care about it and they wanted it to stay there forever because it wasn’t coming out.

Legs now taking on an appearance that ever so slightly more resembled gelatin, the villain leaned upon the railing, ascending with a considerable additional difficulty up the stairs. In the very brief tour they had been given, their bedroom had been identified as the dark spruce door at the hall’s end.

Moving to it was a struggle on its own, insides still twitching and squelching with the remnants of acute nausea. Yet, their agony was only internal. They made it, and, all the way, kept their mind empty. Thoughts clear.

Not thinking of anything that could make them fall.

The bedroom was a bedroom. A dust-coated vanity. A small attached restroom. A nightstand. A bed.

At the very least, the quilts had some color to them.

Struggling in an attempt not to clutch their own stomach-- an action that they had learned, time and time again, only made the organ flip-- Villain shuffled to the piece of furniture that had been designed for use when they slept. Dust coughed from beneath the covers as they lifted them, crawling under.

Laying down helped, at least in some slight way that may or may not have been a placebo. It meant they could close their eyes. Make unwise thoughts that much less likely to happen.

For a moment, Villain succeeded in blackness. A blank mind. A world unmarred by the horrible jolts within their brain, the firings of neurons, the innate jostling of their frontal cortex.

Yet, it only lasted a moment.

With a jerk, they curled to a fetal position, legs bent and tucked beneath arms. Their body struggled as though weeping, though they had long ago learned not to cry. It was terribly difficult to produce tears, after all, when the metal drew their eyes to unbroken wakefulness.

This was a nightmare. They were certain of it.

That had been their first thought, of course, when the news of their liberation had been shared with them-- after it had been shared with the wider public. Things did not reach their cell very quickly. They had believed it to be a dream, for there was no other possible explanation.

Villains did not deserve freedom. They knew that. Violent little scumbags.

When they had been driven to the house, that was when the orinique connotations in their mind had flipped-- when dream turned to nightmare.

It was their home. Such had been stated clearly, so many times. Upon a thousand channels of media syndication. They had been given the keys, had stared at them for an agonizing moment. Watched them dangle between their fingers.

Hero had practically had to shove them through the doors, and even so, their attempts at escape ceased only after the fourth time they had been reprimanded for them.

Somewhere, something mechanical twitched. Moved. Buzzed. One of the cameras. They knew they were here, obvious, blocky, black eyes. At the very least, they provided some semblance of comfort.

Of home.

Of safety.

Oh, how desperately Villain wanted to go home. Everything had made so much sense there! Was so fantastically, wonderfully simple! If they were placed in their cell, they stayed in their cell. If offered food, they ate. When seated in their chair, they watched.

It was so easy. So invariable. Strict and stringently controlled, as the life of any vile beast who called themself a villain should be. Not a chance they could make a mistake, that they could do anything wrong. Only the slightest opportunities for their mind to slip, their thoughts to wander, to go somewhere bad.

Somewhere that would send them to their hands and knees, heaving and retching.

Food came often, with how difficult it was to keep it down. They’d counted once. Certainly the chefs must have become tired after preparing thirteens meals in a single day. Yet, in the end, they had only managed to fully digest one.

Especially since that was only the day on which they had counted-- it certainly wasn’t notable.

Now, there were no chefs. No cells. No chairs. No screens to watch. Order was gone, and chaos reigned.

Terrible, bloody chaos.

The house was far too large. So many times, Villain had begged for a schedule. For orders. For what they were meant to do-- when to get up, when to go to sleep, what to do inbetween.

Yet, the answers always came the same: A shrug, and four terrible words. “Whatever you want to.”

That which they wanted was not that which should be carried out! They were a villain! A terrible, retched thing! A monster! A devil! Their thoughts deserved no attention, their wants deserved only the click of the IV.

The sickness.

Somehow, despite the inherent maleficence that it most certainly carried with it, an idea manged to work its way through the folds of their brain. A thought. A plan.

A good one. One that did not incite their stomach to heaving.

Certainly, if they laid here, in this bed, then their freedom could not lead to the harm of anyone else. The world would remain safe, regardless of their liberty. And, when the cameras at last noticed, the heroes would be forced to return. To bring them back to the cell and the chair. To return them to where they belonged.

It was perfect-- though that wasn’t to say that anything they created could possibly be good.

Thus, they put the plan into action. Beneath the chains that were covers, upon the chair that was a bed, Villain waited.

Their plan worked for perhaps an hour.

An hour. Then the door was kicked in. This time, that which seized their chest had nothing to do with nausea, nothing to do with conditioning. Everything to do with terror.

Even their wildest dreams, their most optimistic ambitions, did not expect that the heroes would have come so soon. If they had, they would have knocked.

They curled tighter into their fetal position, fingers gripping skin until both turned white. Desperation and willpower, even together, could not stop their mind from tracking the noises as they moved through the house. Through the kitchen. The living room. Up the stairs. To the hallway outside.

Certainly, they would have noticed the lack of dust on the bedroom’s doorknob.

Perhaps it was a member of the public, come to take their righteous revenge. Such would certainly be deserved. Or, perhaps, a wayward hero, disliking the arrangement that had been made. Having decided to take the matter to their own hands. They deserved that, as well.

But, when the voice came, Villain knew that their hopes were as far as could be from the truth.

“Villain?”

Blank mind. Don’t think. Blank mind. Don’t think. Blank mind don’t think.

Beneath the blanket, they twitched.

“Oh, thank goodness.” Footsteps dashed to the bedside. Hands upon them. There was such a wholehearted relief to the voice, an unimaginable burden relieved.

Yet, such was impossible, as villains did not have hearts.

“We were so worried, so, so worried. You have no idea! Come on, come on.”

A hand, to the top of the blanket.

“There’s about a thousand cameras in here, buddy, so we need to get going. Everyone at base has been so nervous, all day. Ever since we heard... My car’s just outside, we need to go, quick.”

Villain’s only solace was torn away.

“Buddy? What’s wrong?” The voice was practically a whisper. “It’s me. It’s-

Supervillain.”

A blank mind, filled with thoughts.

The initial strike of nausea was enough to make them wail, even as they had no ability to. They hardly remembered getting to their hands and knees, hardly remembered as they began to heave. No. They registered only the horrid, green-and-brown mess that exploded upon the pale white bedspread.

Again, again, a thousand exhausting times, the heaving struck them, until chunky vomit was spilling off the side of the bed, ruining the antique carpeting. It only ceased to spill when their insides were well and truly empty.

That was when they were picked up.

It was a caring, warm hold, tucking them close to the chest of a vile demon. Yet, they had not the slightest ounce of energy to resist. Any muscles not exhausted by fatigue went back to work, heaving and coughing, even as nothing more emerged.

“I’m sorry.” With a broken voice, Supervillain spoke. “I’m so, so sorry. Let’s go back to base, okay? Everything’s going to be okay, I promise, I promise, buddy.”

No.

With evil like this in the world, nothing was even going to be okay again.

[rinharu-purple]

Relationship Goals: Ch 15

Flows of tears being wiped away by the fingertips of love- dreamless night skies full of stars - a heavy heart washed clean by the rain - hot sweat and cold droplets of water-  a simple “good night” and a “good morning” - that all too well known scent - the excruciating pain of yet another “goodbye”- a blood drenched jacket that’s long lost its owner’s warmth...Name of Faith 

Being the solidifying chapter of my Gavin stanness, chapter 15 has a very special place in my heart. On the other hand, the whole chapter is the very embodiment of “relationship goals”, ensuring that in the MLQC universe MC and Gavin’s relationship is the most harmonious, mature and loving one. The chapter is about an hour-ish long so you could guess how long this analysis will take to read but it surely will be much less than it took me writing it, I promise ;)

At the end of chapter 14 MC had to say goodbye to Kiro without knowing if he would survive the fight against tens of BS men and carry the burden of being the key individual who can put an end to the out of control EVOL outrage. She was heartbroken about Lucien’s betrayal and was worried as hell about Victor’s whereabouts. She was still struggling under the overbearing weight of having to play the role of the “Queen” all the while being one of the last remaining people who still bear to think about the whole TV- tower incident. She’s found herself doubting the meaning of her existence and couldn’t help but feel as though she wouldn’t belong there. At the beginning of Ch 15  we find an MC that hit the rock bottom and is therefore deeply depressed. This is the first time she’s shown such a distressed psyché. So this is how the chapter starts...MC wakes up in her room after being hospitalized for a while, lost in thoughts and looking for reassurance in the gingko leaf bracelet on her wrist.

To have and to hold...

While she is buried in negative thoughts Gavin shows up at her place to give her the good news that there are no more signs of EVOL fluctuations and that STF’s investigation ends as of that day. This results in a real smile blossoming on MC’s face and then her concern switches to Gavin’s well-being. This first dialogue between them is already an embodiment of the foundation of their relationship. Gavin and MC’s main concern is always the well-being of the other. Sure, Gavin and MC always put others before themselves so they both have an altruistic character, however if protecting any other person would mean their s/o getting hurt, then they prioritize each other. We get to see what it means in the second half of the chapter. MC is worried about Gavin’s injuries, Gavin is worried about MC’s emotional state, MC is worried that she makes Gavin worry about her, Gavin is worried that MC worries about him worrying about her, thus keeping her real thoughts inside- not- opening up about them to him. That’s a vicious cycle which needs to be broken and that is exactly what our best boi does by reassuring her that she doesn’t need to put up a front and that she could tell him whatever is eating at her...anytime at all. That guy is already 3 steps ahead of her when it comes to worrying so he pulls her out of her self-agonizing overthinking bubble with those simple words which work like a charm. MC feels as though her heart was slowly lifted up by two hands out of a ravine. So she finally tears down the walls surrounding her agony and lets her tears flow and Gavin wipe them away and he brings the sunshine back into her heart.

Ever since her father’s passing MC didn’t much have anyone to open up to about her most bothering concerns or a shoulder to cry on. Gavin sees this crystal clear and encourages her to tell him about it all, cry it all out and also manages to lift her spirits up. He knows instinctively what she needs at that moment. She is broken, she is lost and she is stripped of her self-worth. Gavin can relate to this state all too well, because he too has been there when his mother died. He knows that she doesn’t need any encouraging talks or sweets or a scientific explanation to her feelings. At that moment, all she needs is warmth and a safe space to process what she is going through thoroughly. Which is why Gavin simply offers her to share what’s eating at her with him and cry all she wants. He doesn’t do anything beyond that. He NEVER EVER PUSHES HER TO DO ANYTHING! He just stays by her side in silence, giving her space...a warm space and the rest unravels from itself.  GOAL #1 Find someone who can feel your troubles, address them with care and share your burden with you. Someone who gives you a safe space to feel down without feeling ashamed of yourself. Someone who makes what’s yours theirs. 

For better, for worse... 

Gavin is aware of the fact that his words can give her comfort, but he also knows that she hasn’t told him the whole story yet. She needs to feel self-worthy again and go back to her true, kind and brave self. So he arranges a Ferris wheel ride in the middle of the night to show her the bright side that she fails to see at the moment. If MC had been asleep then he would’ve just tried another night but much to his luck she was standing on her balcony, lost in her thoughts, gazing at the bracelet he gave her and confiding in it. So he sweeps her off her feet once again and takes her to the construction site. He shows her from the cabin the world she succeeded in saving and that the world which is still turning thanks to her. She is the savior and not the burden and most certainly not a burden to Gavin. Neither with her negative feelings nor with her presence. She belongs there where she is and Gavin appreciates her existence. Because she didn’t only save the world but also him, many times, she caught him while he was falling. However, MC believes that its always been Gavin who was always there to catch her from falling. Their feelings and thoughts are again mirroring each other. Both of them are invested equally in their journey together, both have saved the other. Hearing this, MC finally opens up about her true feelings and lets the tears flow, and those tears are again wiped away by Gavin. When the wheel reaches its zenith, MC and Gavin are in a tight embrace and MC is finally almost back to her usual self: “With it, he took all my tears, all the unsaid words, all my worries and regrets. At that moment, it felt like the walls around my heart had fallen, letting in countless rays of sun. All the unease, suffering, doubt, pain and hesitation just evaporated”. Once they get off the wheel and they run/fly hand in hand under the summer rain, MC feels like Gavin has always been by her side all over the past years and her heart’s worry and gloom is washed away by the rain. This is a very crucial thing for their relationship, because they were separated for six whole years and yet now MC feels like he were always by her side, watching her from afar, accompanying her in her journey. 

On a side note, Ferris wheel and the gingko bracelet have become the main symbols of their relationship. The bracelet represents their bond with each other regardless of the distance separating them and I am certain that the bracelet doesn't have any tracker on it to be honest but it helps MC to cool down when feeling upset or sad by reminding her of Gavin, her precious moments with him, his love for her, and that he will always be there for her. The Ferris wheel on the other hand is their journey. Each time they ride the Ferris wheel together their spirits are lifted up alongside with the cabin. Once it reaches its zenith they consummate their love for each other once again, no matter if it's on a date with a kiss or in CH 15 when MC tells Gavin her true feelings and Gavin addresses them directly resulting of them reciprocating their importance for each other. GOAL #2: A relationship is much like a Ferris Wheel. It goes up, it goes down, then goes up again. It's not always a bed of roses, there are many thorns during the ride. The important thing is to go through both phases hand in hand. 

This whole episode names Gavin as the source of MC’s sense of safety, courage and faith. MC feels herself the safest and most serene around him. Their night together at MC’s home is a strong evidence to this. Up to CH 15 and in the following episodes, MC has constant nightmares almost every night.  But when she sees the faint ray of light from the crack of her bedroom door, she finally enjoys a night’s sleep without nightmares or worries. Knowing that Gavin is on the other side of her door gives her the deepest sense of peace. This happens again in CH 26 btw. and I think the original idea was for them to sleep in the same bed in CH 15 but then abandoned due to obvious reasons... As far as I know Gavin is the only LI who sleeps in MC’s apartment so it shows the level of trust she has towards him. No matter what’s happening during the dates, in the mean story MC is not canonically that close with any of the guys, so it truly shows how safe she feels around Gavin, knowing that he wouldn’t overstep his boundaries. And she couldn’t be more correct, since Gavin leaves before she wakes up, making sure that none of them feel awkward in the morning and leaving the place as he found it, but not before leaving a note which gives her a reassurance that he is going to send somebody to keep an eye on her and ends with a simple “good morning”. Gavin is a very considerate guy, who doesn’t miss any hint thrown at him. After hearing MC not being able to sleep without wishing him good night, he realizes how important this simple wish is for her. So he makes sure to wish her a good morning, whether he is there to say it face to face or not. GOAL #3: Be with someone, with whom you can fell safe and be yourself around them. Someone whose presence chases your fears and nightmares away . Someone who knows what your values are and respects them.

In sickness and in health...

Not long after having a heart to heart conversation, MC and Gavin find themselves in a dispute over Perry. MC wants to stay by Perry’s side with the hopes of being able to help him but also come closer to the truth about her father. Gavin is not happy with the idea since he’s lost his EVOL and is dubious about Leto’s intentions so if any danger were to strike, he might not be able to protect MC. Despite this he agrees with MC’s wish in terms of her not putting herself in danger and that he would stay by her side. The second time the topic comes up, Gavin outright forbids her to get involved with Perry and MC in return, for the first time ever, tells him that she is going to do otherwise. This dispute arises because Gavin doesn’t tell her full story, that he’s lost his EVOL and that the STF is executing the Evolvers. MC on the other hand fails to see the situation from Gavin’s perspective or to trust him when he is so strict about keeping out of the whole ordeal. But right before they temporarily part ways she finds the courage to ask him about his worries and troubles, since she too can feel his distress, much like Gavin did hers at the beginning of the episode and offers to share his burden with him and that’s the thing. MC isn’t upset that Gavin doesn’t want her to see Perry anymore but that Gavin isn’t open with her and that he is still keeping his problems to himself. MC was hoping that he would trust her to face the truth and take on everything with him. That’s what actually hurts her the most. And Gavin is lost in this unexpected argument since he’d never had a situation like this with MC so he is torn between telling her the truth or leaving it be. Unfortunately he decides to just leave their dispute at that and leaves, not willing to have a fight with her. So they give each other the good old silence therapy for days and only after Perry reminded MC of Gavin’s good-will that she finally sends him an SMS (but only at second try, she wouldn’t send the first SMS in which she tells him that she is worried about him). Gavin is not  better either, since he is already at the hospital to check on her from afar, but is not ready to face her yet. Its a typical “earlier in the relationship dispute” so much so that MC even literally sleeps with her phone while waiting for Gavin’s text/ call/ any response at all. Even I am shocked by his level of stubbornness at this point.  The next day MC receives the bad news about Perry and leaves the hospital, letting herself get soaked in the rain. This time around without Gavin by her side, with completely different feelings, thinking that the rain can’t wash everything away. This is a pivotal realization on MC’s end, because at that very moment she realizes that Gavin was the reason of her being able to overcome her worries and face her troubles with faith and courage. Luckily for her, right when she was thinking of him, she senses his scent behind her aaaand cue “Rosy Mirror”...

Its such a lovely moment for the maturity of their relationship, despite them still getting to know each other and being the youngsters they are. So MC apologizes to him (but only going through the reasons why in her head so Gavin only hears that she is sorry) and then Gavin finally opens up, since he has realized that was the mistake on his part, not telling her about his true worries. So without further ado he tells her about his insecurities about the possibility of not being able to protect her since their downfall from the TV tower, about him losing his Evol, about following her for a while from behind without knowing what to do. And that’s pretty much all it takes for them to overcome their dispute, since it was a relatively small dispute and so MC again fells warm and dry inside, not caring about the rain. GOAL #4 There are disputes in all relationships. What’s important during those disputes is not to hurt each other’s feelings irreparably and communicate in honesty. It’s about trusting in each other’s good intentions and resolving the problem in hand with care and understanding. 

Till death do us part...

Our pair makes up and are ready for the next move but there are no happy endings in the MLQC universe...nö nö nö. Of course drama ensues as MC and Gavin find out that Perry has been kidnapped while MC’s precognitions start getting worse. But remember folks, Gav-babe is back so he calms her that as long as her precognitions are about the future, they can still change the course of events and that He trusts in her, so she also should put her trust in him too.  “That was his absolute faith in me, and his absolute reassurance for me”. We could actually roll the credits here without going further with the heart wrenching end of this chapter. 

Not long after though MC and Gavin has to face the worst of the worst...They have to witness Perry getting shot in the chest and leave him in his state, only to be greeted by the STF aiming at them by the exit of the warehouse, leading Gavin to resign from the STF. While on the run from the STF/NW, Gavin realizes that his Evol becomes extremely weak, so much so that he cannot even raise a barrier to hold back the bullets, which then results in MC getting shot on the back while trying to protect him. Not only MC’s precognition is coming true, but also Gavin is at his limit, both physically and mentally. So he is left with no choice, but to sacrifice himself and once again get separated from MC. For Gavin is Ch 15 is the worst-case scenario. The justice he has always believed in turned out to be a façade, he had to witness another child’s suffering in front of him and his raison d’être comes to the brink of losing her life because he failed to protect her. Everything that keeps him alive, everything that makes him who he is , is shattered right in front of his eyes. MC doesn’t have it any better as she can only watch as her worst nightmare comes true. The last 15-20 minutes of this chapter covers MC’s perpetual fear of being left by Gavin. She says thrice that she doesn’t want him to leave and begs him to stay (unfortunately Gavin doesn’t hear any of it). The have just built their faith in each other and yet got separated again after a brief moment of togetherness. IT becomes one of the issues that MC struggles with for at least 10 chapters, namely her fear of being left alone by Gavin.  

Here is a small comparison: All other LIs relationship with MC are doomed because of their choices: Kiro’s alternate personalities as Key (no time) and Helios (no love), Lucien’s involvement as Ares in BS or his values contradicting that of MCs, Victor’s pride and dominance as the research topic for my Phd at Boston College. Those guys actions and personalities conflicting with that of MCs are whats standing on the way of a harmonious relationship. With Gavin, these two are doomed by the seemingly endless external threats. Both Gavin and MC are constantly the main target of somebody’s plans and are under attack. Those poor babies cannot have a second of peace. As if it wasn’t enough, those parties constantly use their bond for their own means. Its Shaw using MC as a bait to provoke Gavin, its Josie telling MC that she is going to kill Gavin, its Gavin’s father using MC to convince Gavin to accept the NW plan. MC and Gavin don’t have any obstacles with regards to their own personalities or choices. They trust each other, stand by each other, understand each other’s perspective and love each other. In this chapter Elex even shows us that they could even take care of a child together for God’s sake. They...just...fit...

Unfortunately once again things unwind to their demise and Gavin, once again, has to leave MC for her sake. Before leaving her, Gavin repairs the gingko leaf bracelet brand new, so that MC can find the reassurance she seeks for on it in his absence and remind her that he will return to her side. He also leaves his jacket behind so that she can still feel his warmth. That’s his promise to her. That’s his reassurance that this is not a goodbye and that he is not ever going to leave without saying goodbye.  GOAL 5# True love is selfless, true love never dies and if two souls belong together, then nothing can keep them apart. because true love prevails. 

The chapter ends as its started. MC wakes up in her room after being hospitalized for a while, lost in her thoughts and finding reassurance in the gingko leaf bracelet on her wrist. The only difference this time around is that she wouldn’t find Gavin in her living room or hear three knocks on the door and find him standing tall in front of her... for this time around Gavin is gone...

[thisbitterbastard]

You know, I don’t talk about things like this on here, but it’s time. 

I am so incredibly angry, and disheartened, and exhausted. 

You guys don’t know this, but I’ve struggled with an anxiety disorder (and a panic disorder) my entire life. It started when I was 7. I’m now 29. It’s been a while. 

It affects things like eating, traveling, socialization, general happiness, shopping, loud situations...honestly, there are more things that trigger my anxiety than things that don’t. I live in a constant state of stress and anxiety. 

Most people don’t understand this. They think they have felt anxious or get stressed in certain situations, so they expect me to cope in the same ways they do. But they don’t understand it. Let me break it down for you.

I’ve had four breakdowns in my adult life. Why? Who the fuck knows? Once it was from travel. Once it was from partying too much. Once it was from a fight with a friend. It can come from anywhere at any time. And, when this happens, I am out of commission for a YEAR. I’m not shitting you. 

I lay on the couch and try to breathe through every waking second. I can’t see people. I can’t go to the store. I can’t work. I panic when the sun comes up, and I panic when the sun goes down. I panic when it storms or the lighting is a little off. 

These breakdowns destroy my life, and I have to build it back up. It’s a nightmare, and I live in constant fear that the next panic attack could be the one that destroys everything I have fought so hard to build. 

Anxiety has manifested itself in physical symptoms for me as well. I have had TMJ for thirteen years from grinding my teeth. I have a specialized form of eczema on my hands that is stress induced. My muscles are so tight that a massage feels like agony. I’m exhausted all the time.

I have done everything right, guys. I’ve been to therapy for two decades. I’ve taken my meds, on time, every day. I’ve meditated. I’ve studied Buddhism. I’ve challenged my fears and survived them. Still, this is my life. It is joyless.

And now, I have a job that I love. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do, and I’m so good at it, you guys. It pays me (almost) like I’m a human. And you know what? I had to lie to get it. 

When I was interviewing, my boss told me that we have quarterly retreats all over the US for teambuilding. He asked if that would be a problem, and I lied. I did. I said, “No problem.” You know why? Because it ticked off every other box I had. It’s remote. It pays enough. It’s my dream. I thought, “I’ll figure something out before I have to take one of these trips. I’ll get better. I have to.” 

Well, it’s here. The company has announced that they’ll tell us where we are traveling to within two weeks. And guys, I am so defeated. I am so angry. I can’t tell them who I am because jobs don’t give a fuck about mental illness. 

If I had an illness that manifested physically, you know, besides the sweating, shaking, hyperventilating, vomiting, eczema, headaches, malnourishment, and exhaustion, then any job would be happy to accommodate my illness. But they can’t see it. It doesn’t show as a broken bone or an open wound, and it doesn’t receive the same treatment.

I spoke with my dad about it today because I was so deflated. He said, “I don’t want you to use this as an excuse.” And you know what? I apologized to him like a fucking idiot. I apologized. For being ill. THAT is how deeply ingrained shame and dismissal of mental illness is. I feel like shit because I’m sick, but I’m not allowed to be sick. 

I’m stuck in this loop of self-hatred. Why is my life like this? Will I ever actually experience joy? I don’t think so. I really don’t. It’s been so long and nothing has changed. I feel hopeless. I won’t harm myself because it won’t fix anything, but God do I feel like it. 

I’m tired of being punished by myself and the world at large. I deserve more than minimum wage and shitty jobs with no chance to progress and grow. I am talented and driven; I’m just ill. I can’t quite do everything everyone else can, but that doesn’t mean I’m useless. I have value. I am so fucking tired of throwing myself into tailspins to make the outside world happy and destroying myself in the process. There has to be a space for us. Someone, make a space for us. It’s literally a matter of life and death.

[maxrev]

For the kiss prompts: "in the snow" and "life or death" if I can combine them like that? your call) for an otp of your choice.

IT IS DONE...I had no idea this would explode into such a long prompt lol. I mean, I gave it a title and even added a quote xD. Anyways, here you are :) Thanks SO much for the prompt! A bit angsty but I figured the prompt called for it! 

Under the cut because...wow...

I’d like to thank @spaced0lphin for her wonderful musical work, as it provided inspiration to write this piece and @theoriginalladya for checking it over 

When I Took to the Sky 

Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time… It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other. Leo Buscaglia

Arcing through the debris, the drop shuttle came to rest amidst the debris of a ship, snow puffing up into the air as it landed; flakes sparkling as they danced and whirled in the air before once again coming to rest on the ground. Pulling on his gloves, the pilot reached for his helmet resting on the passenger seat and tugged it on, twisting it snug with a snap. 

He took a deep, steadying breath...and stepped out onto Alchera. 

Ever since Niall had received the message from Admiral Hackett about placing a memorial here, he’d been pushing it aside. A memorial to honor those who’d laid down their lives for the Alliance. Hardly seemed enough, considering how dismissive the findings the crew of the Normandy had presented. But the fact he was employed by Cerberus now was cause for surprise in being contacted. Other questions followed though; why had the Alliance waited so long to decide on a memorial? Had he not rose from the grave like Lazarus, would they even have bothered? 

Once he’d agreed, he continued to push it aside. There were other missions to take precedence, a ragtag bunch of crew members to hunt down and recruit, and the Illusive Man to annoy - his personal favorite agenda. Anything took precedence over coming here. He simply wasn’t ready to face the part of his past which had changed everything.  There was hope coming here would heal old wounds, rather than deepen them.  

His steps were measured, faltering when he came upon a piece of the Normandy, his mind thrown back in time invoking memories he’d suppressed of a life changing event from over two years ago.

Two fecking years! 

It was a constant struggle to process the passage of time; dying and then being resurrected without any knowledge of it.  

Pausing at the mako, he was thrown into the past, scenes flashing behind his eyes…Kaidan's white knuckled grip as Niall slid the tank through snow and ice up the mountain on Noveria; Ashley yelling with uncontained glee as he'd skidded close to the edge of the lava pools on Feros; Garrus' mandibles twitching when he'd observe the mako on return to the Normandy; Kaidan's resignation upon being turned down again upon his request to drive...the near kiss they'd shared inside the cab a few hours before their last drop when their world ended.

Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t hear the approach of another drop shuttle.

A sound came from behind him, out of place in the absolute stillness around him. Niall whirled, one hand reaching for his maglocked weapon, the other erupting in a blue glow. Setting eyes on the source, both hands dropped to his side in shock. 

Kaidan.

Right away, he noticed he LT had changed. They’d spent so much time together; on the ship, off the ship, on the battlefield, he’d learned the LT’s subtle mannerisms. Gone was the quiet, sensitive marine soldier with stars in his eyes, the romantic he’d claimed to be back on the SR-1. In the eyes staring back at him carefully, in the posture of the man before him, there was a confidence and maturity he’d not had before. There was also doubt. 

It's me, Niall wanted to say, to reassure. It just wasn't so simple.

He watched the play of emotions in the deep brown eyes he'd dreamed about so often. Their eyes locked and he was thrown back in time. Although for him, it was only a few months ago...not two years, when they’d been sitting in the mess on the SR-1, drinking coffee and going over their notes on the Terminus. Niall had been going on about the goose chase they'd been sent on...

“I cannae believe they sent us out to the arse end of space for nothing! Wasted two fucking weeks looking for something which isnae even here.” He slammed his fist on the table, other soldiers in the mess startled at his outburst. Niall ignored them. 

“I’m sure they just wanted us out of the way but we’ll find something, Shepard. We just have to be patient.” 

Niall snorted, “My patience ran dry about an hour inta this mission. I’ll contact those doaty bampots and tell 'em what I really think.” 

Kaidan chuckled, took a sip of his coffee before answering, “Not your best idea by a long shot.” 

Winking at him and enjoying the slight blush across the cheeks, Niall smiled, “Aye but it’ll be fun and blow off some steam.” 

In the end, nothing came of it as the ship rocked hard to port and alarms began to blare around them...

A cough brought him back to the present, watching the brown eyes change in the light, the initial confusion fading to doubt, then replaced with wariness. 

"Who are you?" The first words to be spoken aloud between them, in the same velvety rasp which had haunted Niall’s dreams.

They cut deep, hurt worse than any wound he’d endured. He straightened up, pushing the pain away and answered. 

“Who d'ya think it is? Jolly ol' St. Nick? Tis me, Kaidan. Niall.” He felt like he was stating the obvious, words coming out sharper than intended. 

Silence followed his outburst, the sound of wind wailing in the distance filling the stillness. As the quiet stretched on, Niall reflected on the situation, quickly realizing if roles were reversed, he'd be suspicious as well. Indignation sailed away like a balloon on the wind.

Ready to apologize, Kaidan spoke before Niall could ready his words, “I thought--” voice hoarse with agony, he choked on whatever he’d been about to say, unable to continue. Looking away from Niall, he composed himself, took a deep breath and despite his attempt to remain calm, blurted, “You...you were dead.” 

Biting his tongue against voicing the LT’s mighty powers of observation, Niall fought for something a wee bit more serious and relatable. Now wasnae the time for jokes. 

“Aye," the words ‘but now I’m not’ still echoing in the air between them. How could he begin to explain what he dinnae understand himself? As if he were stuck in quick sand, he felt the more he tried to climb out, the deeper he sank. 

“So, the rumors were true.” 

“Och, aye, guess they were.” 

“When?” 

The wealth of emotion in the single word struck Niall right in the heart, nearly making him stagger from the pain. He fought for an answer, disregarding one after another as they came to him. 

With a heavy sigh, he decided on the truth, “Several months ago.” The dark brows inside the black helmet furrowed downwards into a frown he was all too familiar with. Even to his own ears the response sounded lame. “I dinnae know until then. I was...uh...I doonae even know what to call it...brought back to life?” He threw his hands up in frustration. 

Disbelief followed his statement, turning quickly to suspicion. He could see the change in Kaidan's eyes through the visor. Tone flat, he echoed, “Brought back to life." At Niall’s nod of confirmation, his voice rose, "How is such a thing even possible? Who is...capable of such a thing?” 

Knowing how Kaidan felt about the organization, Niall didn't spare him the facts. He'd find out anyway. “Cerberus.” 

The climate of Alchera was cold and frigid, unfit for flora or fauna to sustain life. Even inside his armor, Naill could feel the chill in the air and had simply wanted to walk through the ruins and leave quickly. He’d never expected to find a dog tag or get lost in memories. 

And now, with his confession, the temperature seemed to drop even further; at least where the two of them stood. Kaidan stared at him for several long, agonizing seconds. He didn’t bother answering, turning around and walking away.

Niall jumped forward, his gloved hands capturing Kaidan’s stopping him, “Wait, please. Don’t go.” 

His gaze dropped down to where their hands were joined; Niall's did as well, heart skipping in his chest. “Please.” He wasn't above begging, not when it came to Kaidan. 

Pulling his hand from Niall’s, Kaidan turned away; yet, he didn’t leave. Several minutes went by; Niall held his breath. “How could you? It’s...they’re Cerberus! You know what they’ve done. The...the things we saw!” 

Fully aware of what his impassioned words implied, Niall felt his anger rise in response, “Did ya think I had a choice in this? As if I could pick and choose who would ha’ the honors of...of fixing...of rebuilding me? Fuck! I wouldnae have chosen this at all...if anyone had ever bothered to ask me first. But here I am and will damn well make the best of it, ya ken?”

Silence stretched on around them. “Are you…you?” Kaidan whispered.

How many times had he looked in the mirror wondering the exact same thing? “I doonae know, Kaidan…" He repeated in a whisper, "I doonae know."

With the admission, he could not look at Kaidan anymore, gazed around them instead. He saw a glint of something shiny; another set of dog tags perhaps. 

To fill the void, he explained, “Saw something sparkle in the sun shortly after I landed. Walked over and found a set of dog tags belonging to Pressly. As I wandered among the wreckage I found more from the crew...the ones who…” he couldn’t say it out loud, felt a hand settle on his shoulder. 

Startled, he turned to stare at it, unable to process the gesture with Kaidan’s protests from a few short minutes ago. Did he believe him now or was it all just for show? Yet, Kaidan had never been superficial. Something Niall admired about him, then and now. 

“We’ll do it together.” The words startled him even more than the touch, but he was grateful. 

“Aye. Tapadh leat.” **

Searching the pieces of the Normandy side by side. As the looked, Niall noticed the sky darkening overhead. Caught up in the past, neither of them had paid any attention. A storm was approaching; a large one. Seeing another glint of metal, Niall brushed off the snow and wrapped the chain around his gloved fingers. 

The storm had intensified and was coming at them fast and furious. There wasn’t time for them to get to their drop shuttles and leave.

He turned and tapped on Kaidan’s helmet. “We need to take cover. Now! Get inside one of the drop shuttles!” Niall took off at a dead run towards the one closest, Kaidan hot on his heels. 

Jumping inside, Niall slammed his fist against the touchpad, shutting the door just as the storm growled over them, ice chips beating a staccato against the steel hull. Wind buffeted the Kodiak, causing it to rock before sliding a few inches along the ground. Unable to radio out and with no one able to contact them, they were sitting ducks at the mercy of the storm.  

Niall reached up and took off his helmet, scrubbing his shorn, itchy scalp with gloved fingertips. 

“You...you’re...the scars?” Kaidan finally managed. 

Niall had forgotten. Not completely healed when the Lazarus project had been sabotaged, he was left with scars where his skin hadn’t had time to knit back together. Chakwas told him by remaining calm they would eventually heal and fade but with stress, they would remain...or get worse. 

Well...

He turned towards Kaidan, their eyes locking. Niall wasn’t the man he’d been the last time they’d seen each other. 

“Aye, scars. I wasnae fully healed when...well, when I was brought out of my coma.” He went to replace his helmet. 

Kaidan stopped him, hand on his arm. “No, don’t. I don’t care what you look like, Niall. I just...I was surprised.” 

He nodded. No moreso than he when he first looked in the mirror. The image staring back at him had been a great shock. That mirror had been replaced. Niall went and sat down on the bench in the back; Kaidan remained standing, neither one speaking as the storm raged on outside. It might last an hour or maybe days. 

“Look, Kaidan--”

“Niall, I--”

Both of them spoke at once. Niall gave a weak grin as Kaidan chuckled and he noticed the pink hue covering the tips of the ears. Some things hadn’t changed. He felt as if a weight had been lifted and he’d been granted a boon. 

Looking at Kaidan straight on, he began again, “I ken how it looks. I do. But, before you draw and quarter me, I dinnae now what to do, where to go. The Alliance won’t ha’ me now and I talked with Anderson and Hackett. They know what’s going on with the human abductions. The Council won’t listen.” He spat the name, no more enamored with them than in the past. “What would ya ha’ me do?” 

“Plead your case, push them. Be relentless like you were before. They have to see reason.” 

Shaking his head at Kaidan’s blind faith, he countered, “Do they? Have they ever? Have ya forgotten Sovereign? The Citadel doesnae even remember, the damage wwept away like so much garbage, forgotten and moved on.” 

The shoulders slumped. Niall studied him, drinking in the sight of a man he hadn’t realized how much he’d begun to care about. Until he was gone. Yet, here he was right in front of him. And they were arguing, Kaidan too blind to see what was so obvious. He stood up, stepping forward until they were nearly nose to nose. Kaidan looked up. 

Niall lost himself in the brown eyes, a golden amber when the light overhead caught them just right. How had he never noticed before? The laugh lines spreading out from the corners of his eyes, the freckles above his right eyebrow. So many details he’s missed. No, he’d never bothered to find. Now, he noticed them all...and more. 

Adrenaline surged in his blood, excitement unfurling within him. He remembered the scars over Kaidan’s lips, wanting to touch them, see how they felt beneath his fingertips...against his tongue. They were right there in front of him now. Overcome with a tidal wave of pent up emotions, he acted on impulse. 

Leaning forward, he captured Kaidan’s mouth with his, losing himself in the scent and taste of him, in the soft lips, his tongue tracing the scars...finally. 

Lost in a longing he had no name for, it took Niall several seconds to register there was no reciprocation. His heart twisted painfully inside his chest. So, this was it, then. He took a deep breath, ready to apologize. But, as he stepped away, he stumbled, Kaidan surging forward to initiate the kiss this time. 

The Kodiak faded away, as did the storm outside. Only the two of them existed in this perfect moment and Niall drank it up like a parched man in the desert until they both broke away, simply in order to breathe. 

** thank you, Scottish Gaelic, informal

[lilixloveswhump]

“Everything is okay.”

Whumptober Day 6 (Prompts: “Get it out”, “Stop, please”)

Fandom: X-Men

Characters: Erik Lehnsherr, Peter Maximoff, Charles Xavier, Raven Darkholme, Hank McCoy, Kurt Wagner

Word Count: 1980

A/N: IHATETHISSOMUCHOMGGG and it’s FUCKING LATE it’s 12:12 AM and I have a class tomorrow at 9:05 AM and I still need to shower and I might have a breakdown so much for getting this out on time hAhA. bUT aT lEaSt iTs dOnE!!1! I didn’t proofread because I hated it while writing it and I go back and read it in the state I am I might really actually cry :) So please excuse any errors, my mental health and self confidence literally cannot handle fixing them right now. We will try again tomorrow :)))

TW: blood (like a lot, but not all that graphic cuz i got lazy with description), guns? bullets? one swear word (poop), peter gets shot

He swore to God he was cursed. Why else was everyone around him constantly dying? It was God’s punishment for something, he just wished it didn’t always have to involve the people he loved; His mother, his wife, his daughter, and now…

Erik was going to watch his son die too.

It was supposed to be a simple mission. Some mutant children were being held hostage by a group of Purifiers; they were just supposed to grab them and get out. Kurt, Raven, and Peter had volunteered to go first and Charles was happy to send them. The only reason Erik was sent along was that the kidnappers were armed, Charles had said with guns. For once, Erik was there just in case things got out there hand. 

Of course, he didn't let it get that far, disarming them as soon as they'd arrived but restraining himself from aiming their weapons back at them, as he didn't want to traumatize the children anymore than they already had been. The underdeveloped mind was a fragile one, and Erik thought it important to look out for the kids.

Turned out he was focused on the wrong ones. 

How could he have not felt it? The one, lone gun hidden in the bushes on the edge of the woods, why didn't he check the woods? He didn't even know it had fired until Peter cried out in pain, clutching at his calf as Kurt was bamfing them all back to the jet. He was immediately checked on once inside, but he insisted he was fine, instead concerned with getting the children buckled safely in their seats. There was a little blood, but Peter barely seemed to be affected, so they believed him.

That is, until his leg gave out. Right out from under him, he crumpled to the ground, seeming just as surprised as everyone else by the paralysis. Panic had slowly begun to take over his face as Kurt and Erik moved him to a chair, and by the time he was strapped in he was sweating bullets. They hadn't been in the air for longer than ten minutes before he'd started seizing.

Hank met them when they landed, though Erik would have preferred Kurt to bamf Peter straight to the medbay, the blue mutant was tasked with settling the rescued children. 

It was quite the monstrous task, wrestling Peter onto the stretcher as he squirmed and shook, seemingly completely out of control of his body. Raven helped to push it, as did Erik despite their constant complaint of him going too fast. In his opinion, they weren't moving nearly fast enough. 

He was cut off by Charles, nearly tripping over his chair as he came zooming around the corner. Raven and Hank raced on, and Erik scoffed as his attempts to follow were constantly thwarted by Charles's maneuvering. It was when the doors to the medbay closed when he got desperate, a devastated gasp leaping from his tongue and he was suddenly acutely aware of the layer of sweat on his palms.

"Get out of my way!" Erik shouted, taking another step to the side, his path immediately being blocked. "Charles-"

"Erik, I'm sorry, if you're in there-"

"Charles, he's my son!"

"Which is exactly why you shouldn't be in there with them. You want Hank to be able without you breathing down his neck-"

"CHARLES, PLEASE!" His plead clawed its way past his throat, leaving the extent of his vulnerability on full display. A rational Erik Lehnsherr would never dare let anyone perceive him to be weak or emotional, but right now that was the furthest thing from his mind.

Something changed in Charles’s eyes before he moved to the side, finally allowing Erik to pass through. Not that it mattered, if he’d said no, Erik would have simply moved him himself. 

They had the doors open in a matter of seconds, and Erik was quickly at  Peter’s side, though Charles seemed hesitant to allow him in the room. Raven pressed another sticky pad to Peter’s face, lighting up yet another machine before moving on to the next. Hank on the other hand was rushing around doing God knows what, Erik wished he was paying more attention to his son. 

“Hank, what are you doing? Put him out!” Raven scolded the doctor, clearly struggling to clip the restraints as Peter thrashed on the table.

“I can’t! His blood pressure is too high!” Hank shook his head, scoffing as he pulled the thermometer away from Peter’s forehead. “His temperature is 104, Erik what the hell happened out there?”

“I...I don’t know. He was shot-” Erik breathed, suddenly faced with the difficulty to form a coherent sentence.

“And you didn’t stop the bullet?!” Hank whipped around, preparing a syringe as Raven finally tightened the buckle on Peter’s left arm.

“I didn’t…” Erik whispered, flashes of the scene playing out in front of him like a projector screen. He could never stop anything, not when it mattered most. He only ever brought pain to the people he cared about.

“You can.” He couldn’t.

“Everything is okay.” No, it wasn’t. It never was, and it never would be no matter what he did. Peace, war, pacifism, genocide, it all ended the same: with the people he loved caught in the crossfire.

“ERIK!” Hank snapped at him, adjusting the IV bag as it rapidly filled with Peter’s blood. “Did you see what hit him?”

“No, I-” Erik shook his head maniacally, his fingers finding themselves ripping away at his scalp. Didn’t Hank think that if he’d seen what hit him he would have stopped it?

“Did the bullet come out?” Hank asked, turning his attention to the makeshift tourniquet on Peter’s calf, blood dripping from the ends onto the floor.

“I...I don’t-”

“Come on, Erik! What the hell am I working with here?!” God, how Erik would have quite literally killed to know.

“Erik, think.” Charles’s hand on his arm brought him a bit of clarity, and he momentarily wondered if Charles was in his head, but his mind was too much of a mess to tell.

“I-I...no. No! No, it didn’t.”

“There’s no exit wound.” Raven said, Hank working at the knot of the gauze they’d wrapped around Peter’s leg, and though he was tied down, Hank’s fingers continued to slip as he writhed in agony.

“Hank, why is there so much blood?” Charles asked and Hank huffed, a shrug falling off of his shoulders.

“I-I don’t know. There aren’t any major arteries the bullet should have hit. He shouldn’t be bleeding this much unless he was on blood thinners, o-or maybe...bitten by a snake or-”

“Wait!” Raven silenced him, and they all turned to her, eager to hear her input. “Like...like poison?”

There was pause...then, “Shit.” Hank tore off the tourniquet, stuffing Peter’s oozing wound with gauze. “How long has this been in his system?”

Erik and Raven exchanged a glance, neither of them seemed able to latch onto a sense of time since Peter had been showing sign of decay.

“How long, Raven?!” Hank snapped, the panic in his voice doing absolutely nothing to quell Erik’s continuously rising anxiety.

“I don’t know, maybe twenty…?” Raven stammered, blinking down at Peter rolling his head around in pain as anguished moans tumbled from his mouth. Charles moved to sit behind him, shushing him quietly as he placed his fingers to the boys temples and shut his eyes, likely in an attempt to provide him some kind of comfort.

“Thirty.” Erik jumped in with confidence at the sight of his son’s face screwed up in pain. “It took about ten minutes for him to show symptoms.”

Charles flinched, a quiet gasp escaping his mouth as Peter’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, his jaw clenching up with the rest of his muscles as he quaked severely on the table. “He’s seizing!”

Hank cursed, waving Raven over to take over where he was putting pressure on Peter’s leg before springing up and rushing back over to his desk. He yanked open drawer after drawer, slamming each closed before moving on to the next.

“Hank, what are you doing? Get it out!” Raven shouted and Hank growled, slamming his fists on the desk after yet again searching through another useless drawer.

“I can’t just take it out, it obviously wasn’t a normal bullet. It could have attached itself to multiple arteries and veins, he’s already lost too much blood, we can’t risk anymore he might go into shock.”

“Well, how long does he have left? If you don’t do something now, the poison will kill him before you can even worry about the bullet.” At her words, Peter’s body went limp, and Erik felt his heart stop. Charles placed his fingers on his head again, the room completely silent before a Peter gasped shakily, his heart rate monitor screaming as it raced to keep up with his pulse. The boy began to sob, his silver locks sticking wetly to his forehead as he banged it into the cold table beneath him, glassy eyes flying open to desperately search the room for help. They land on Erik, whose heart shatters when the lost look in them grabs hold of his soul, even more so when the words that follow leave Peter’s mouth in a tortured sob.

“Please, make it stop.”

It froze him for a second, their locked gaze slowing the entire world around him as Erik moved his feet, his calloused hand falling to Peter’s hair and his thumb brushing away the stray tear running down his cheek to his ear. The boy whimpered creakily at his touch, and Erik pressed his forehead to his son’s, shutting his eyes and taking a deep breath before whispering so that only Peter could hear, “Everything is okay.”

He pulled away, eyes still shut as he relocated to that place Charles had helped him find so many years ago, the pull from his hand to bullet buried in Peter’s leg like that of a magnet. “Hank.” He started, tuning in on the feeling, emptying his lungs of air and stilling the shaking that had raked through his veins. “Get his bleeding under control.” Before any questions could be asked, Erik gripped onto the bullet, enveloping it in his magnetic field and ripped it out of Peter’s leg, with it a hoarse shriek straight from the boy’s core. Multiple “ERIK”s rose from his friends, Peter once again falling limp as an ocean of blood poured out onto the floor. It was all blur after that, lots of shouting and moving and the beeping of Peter’s heart rate monitor slowly growing slower until Erik found himself in a shroud of indigo smoke outside of the emergency room.

“Hey man!” A pair of golden eyes stared up at him, his head bobbling as the blue mutant jostled him about. “Wake up!” Kurt snapped in his face and Erik knocked away his wrist. He glanced around the hallway before stumbling over to the wall and leaning back onto it, sinking to the ground as his hands dug their way into his hair. He heard footsteps approach before catching a blur of blue in the corner of his eye as Kurt sat down next to him.

“...It’s my fault if he dies.” Erik whispered, and he could see Kurt turn to look at him before he pushed himself up on his knees, bowed his head, and pressed his hands together.

“Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” He mumbled, just loud enough for Erik to hear and join in if he so wished, but not too loud as to be overbearing.

And for the first time in a long time, Erik was glad that someone had faith. Even if it wasn’t his own.

[datawyrms]

Structure

Dannymay 2020 Day : Bones Bones were a foundation. A constant one could rely on when making assumptions about a species. Humans had theirs inside, the small insects of the world electing for the reverse. 

Ghosts did not have bones. The ectoplasmic entities could vary and change immensely, even when found in similar habitats. So of course they did not feel pain, they were closer to large glowing slime molds than any living creature. To be so flexible and be so vulnerable to changes in state simply wouldn’t work if they could not do so without painful feedback.

Which sounded logical enough, but Danny was pretty sure he still had bones, or more importantly still felt the pain shuddering up his spine when slammed particularly hard into an unforgiving building.

Yet they insisted ghosts did not feel pain. The screams and reactions were fake. A ghost could only pretend. They might even fool themselves, but every ghost could be forcefully condensed to fit in a thermos and not be in agony, so all the pain was an illusion. They expected pain, so they ‘felt’ it.

Did it matter if the pain wasn’t real, if it was real to the ghost? He struggled with that argument, both wanting to bring it up and possibly have Jazz back him up with all her focus on psychology.  Yet he knew it would be waved off as a silly optimistic take. Ghosts were just monsters, and not very bright ones at that. Worrying about how his parents would be ‘hurting’ the ectoplasmic fiends should be put aside for more important things.

Would they consider the heavy choking weight that fell on his chest when he heard his parents had found another ghost to experiment on fake too? Maybe it was, if he couldn’t decide if he felt that way out of pity for whatever ghost it was, or if it was only selfish terror that hissed that could be him. Would be him, if they caught him. He just had to be more cautious, act faster.

He noticed the muted sounds more often now. The bones in their fleshy prisons, moving and sliding so people could move. The cracking snap of tendons, or the audible pop of gasses escaping when he cracked his knuckles. The way his Dad put too much strain on his knees at times, forcing the half ghost to bite back warnings. A human wouldn’t be listening for that, wouldn’t notice that. He couldn’t hear a difference between his own and his family’s. They felt real enough when curiosity had him probing inside his own arm in ghost form. He was only half ghost, maybe the others were different. Yet the argument hinged on how malleable ectoplasm was. He couldn’t explain where his leg bones went if he formed a ghostly tail. He couldn’t refute that being crammed into a thermos was only terrifying, not painful, and he doubted he had any structure like that. He couldn’t be that different. Not in a way that would matter.

“Danny, maybe you should consider telling them? Even Mom’s starting to catch on that you’re always on edge lately.”

He could only stare at her. “I can’t.” Can’t she see he’s not human enough to tell them? That the green that was ever present in his blood could be justification that he wouldn’t feel real pain?

“Danny, you know they love us too much to hurt you, if they knew they were scaring you-”

He shook his head “Ghosts don’t feel pain, remember? I can’t really be scared.”

She frowned at him, trying to catch his eyes as he instead focused completely on the tiles of the floor. “You know that isn’t true, you can’t let them get to you like that,”

“What if I’m wrong?”

“You aren’t,” She forced him into a hug, ignoring the seeping cold and how he muttered a number before hugging back. “You haven’t changed that much, little bro.”

How could Jazz know how much he’d changed? She wasn’t an expert. Yet the genuine warmth was comforting, even as it reminded him how cold he’d been lately. At least his movement had made as much noise as Jazz’s had. Something normal, even if counting the sounds of bones was distinctly not.

A ghost acts instinctively. It will do anything to accomplish whatever post-human desire caused it to form. A ghost’s structure does not depend on it’s formed body, instead it’s catalyst or ‘obsession’ will be reflected in how it takes shape. In this way, it is the closest thing these beings have as a ‘structure’, and it is as chaotic, messy and twisted as one would expect from a ghost.

It was strange to him that they could say a ghost’s mind had the most influence on them, while still stating they did not truly think or feel. Didn’t they feel the obvious itching contradiction in that? Though thinking ‘the bones are in your brain’ would probably be weird. He had always checked what his ghost form looked like after the incident with Clockwork, a habit that soothed his nerves when he awoke in the middle of the night with the reminder ‘I am inevitable’ ringing in his ears. Checking more often now, wary of changes he might not notice wasn’t that weird.

He wanted to be rooted, to be grounded. Stable, consistent. Firmly in line with the bones he had always had as a human.

Even if he knew he wasn’t all human anymore. He wasn’t even sure how human he was anymore as his powers grew. He could use more, do more without changing shape. Getting punched by Dash was almost reassuring. A real pain, a noticeable if not long lasting bruise. Still human. Still terrified it wouldn’t be enough when he was found out.

Tucker was the one who noticed the change to his ghost form first. One he had not even considered, not even thought of as an option.

“Are you really okay? How deep did he cut you?” his voice was higher than usual, rushing to his hybrid friend bandage in hand.

Danny had furrowed his brow at the question, removing his hand from the gash on his shoulder. It wasn’t leaking that much ectoplasm, his glove wasn’t that stained. “It probably looks worse than it is. Doesn’t really hurt, promise.”

Tucker had still looked disbelieving, but kept quiet until the wound was out of sight. Yet something was obviously still bothering him.

“Is something wrong Tuck?” His silence basically confirmed it, leaving him to fret over what sort of thing he’d managed to do to weird out one of his best friends now.

“Well nothing’s wrong.” The stress on the word ‘wrong’ was the opposite of encouraging. “Just uh. How long’s your skin been missing?”

“What?” he searched Tucker’s face for the hint of a joke, but wasn’t able to find one.

“Under your suit, I mean.”

That didn’t help. He looked down, grabbing the edge of one glove and pulling it up, barely managing to keep down the strangled cry of shock. No wonder Tucker had thought he’d been seriously hurt, with only bright green ectoplasm clinging on to cracked, faintly glowing bone in place of a layer of skin. He pulled it back sharply, not even wanting to think about how that had happened. No idea Tuck.” he forced out, trying to suppress the panic with a laugh. “Guess I’m really oblivious.” 

“You want to just go chill? I can put homework off if you need a goof off bud.”

“No, no. I’m fine.” He wasn’t fine; he had barely felt that because he didn’t have any skin,  what was wrong with him? “Just another weird ghost thing!”

“Danny. I can tell when you’re freaking out dude.” Tucker grabbed his shoulders, apparently oblivious to how completely gross his friend was for having a hazmat suit for skin. “You need anything?”

“My skin back would be a start but I don’t know where that is. Guess I left it in my other costume.” He couldn’t change back fast enough, one hand instantly on his arm as if his human skin would run off if he didn’t keep a hold of it.

“Sam would approve. Very goth.”

“Gross. The word you’re looking for is gross.” Or more like a ghost. Ghost’s bodies didn’t need to make sense. Only having skin on his face absolutely qualified as not making sense.

Tucker shook his head, dragging his friend along so he wouldn’t just stress out in the middle of nowhere for hours. “It’s not like anyone can tell, if you’re worried about that.”

“I didn’t even notice! That can’t be good.” His parents were right, he didn’t feel it because of course he doesn’t feel his suit taking damage and if they’re right about that-

Tucker snapped into his thoughts, clapping his hands. “Danny, look at me.”

He did, trying to keep his fingernails from digging further into his skin.

“You know we’re your friends no matter what, right? So focus on that for me, okay?”

Tucker had been there since the beginning. Same with Sam. Even after the future that didn’t happen. His breathing finally slowed, though he couldn’t get himself to relax his hand. His friend was still waiting patiently, though he’d somehow guided them out of the way of any other sidewalk traffic without him noticing. “I’m okay.”

“Dude, it’s okay to not be okay sometimes. You need another minute?”

“...Another wouldn’t hurt.”

“Cool.” He leaned against the building, glancing upward. “Games or movies tonight?”

It was just a distraction, a way to keep him from going back down the mental paths again, but it was genuine and it helped. “Should probably play something, dono what.”

“I’ll find some new thing so we can suck at it all night.” Tucker fished out his PDA “I’m vetoing horror, since I’m a wuss.”

The half ghost managed to crack a smile. “I guess I can survive that.”

His parents might be right about ghosts. About him, not having his own structure or bones. He did have people that provided that structure though.  It would have to be enough, for now. Though he did not care to dwell on what would happen if those ‘bones’ broke.

[watchingtheroad]

Be Your Run-To

Damen struggles in the aftermath of his injury and the reality of losing his remaining family. Laurent helps him cope. 

Post-Canon | Hurt/Comfort | Mourning | First Time Bottoming | 

POV Switches:  Damen >> Laurent >> Nikandros >> Damen

+

Damen watched as Laurent dissected another letter from Arles over his makeshift desk at Ios, a table and chair he had dragged into what was now Damen’s office space. Laurent loved it for the massive library attached. He had already brought in an entire new shelf on which he would display the books he planned to read separately from the ones he did not. It was very charmingly involved. 

Damen loved it for the memories of his childhood—sitting on the King’s lap and reading as a boy, growing and studying alongside him as he worked at his desk—and hated it for the exact same reason. 

Reality was strange to think about, stranger for it to be so. That was his father’s desk. His father’s books. His father’s rooms. His father’s throne. His father’s crown. His father’s city. His father’s kingdom. 

His father was dead. His brother was dead, buried in the royal crypt with family rather than treated as the gullible traitor he proved himself to be. 

Damen had thought he could save them both, will them to life and reason. 

He had been wrong. 

Grief crashed over him in inconvenient waves in the weeks immediately after his own injury and Kastor’s bitter end. It was different without the constant drama of plotting against the Regent and running around the continent with Laurent. Forced to endlessly sit and heal, Damen had time to dwell in his misery—entirely too much, arguably, that drained him to exhaustion in moments meant for rest—all while continuing plans to stabilize his own government and attempting to solidify an official unity with Vere. 

It was quite a lot of work, investigation and tedious conversation: drafting documents, arguing more treason and laws, deciding which policies would be adopted kingdom-wide or remain independent to either Akielos or Vere. The matter of slavery was the most pressing to attend to, and one on which Damen and Laurent vehemently agreed. Total abolishment was the goal. It was a matter of implementation, and not every kyros in Akielos was as amenable to change as Nikandros. 

They spent the majority of their days in grueling meetings once Damen was lucid, which began at his bedside, then expanded to common rooms as Damen grew stronger. Laurent had done an invaluable job at handling things when he was not, but there was still substantial progress to be made. He had named Nikadros Kyros in Ios, summoned the few, trustworthy members of the Veretian Council, new appointments included. 

It added another layer of difficulty on both sides, given Vere’s chaotic political climate and Kastor’s treason. It was hard to know exactly all the places evil had touched their kingdom, and Laurent’s extended stay in Ios was a disadvantage in finding out and achieving true peace for Vere. None of the Veretians in Ios liked it there, and none of the Veretians in Vere liked that their future King was still away. Laurent’s focus should have been that, not shouldering Damen’s burdens beyond necessity.

As it was, Laurent refused to be parted from him until he was well again. Damen had been adamant for some time that he was well again, despite some moderate discomfort during his deep breathing exercises and soreness that lingered with certain movements. He seemed to be singularly convinced of that. Even Nikandros was on Laurent’s side, a rarity of astronomical proportion. 

Under different circumstances, Damen would’ve already progressed his training to more rigorous levels, used physical exertion and pain as a distraction for everything else, then pushed through until it became tolerable. The lack thereof was making him incredibly irritable, but Laurent insisted he take it torturously easy, fretting about him every step. 

From the look on Laurent’s face, it appeared whoever wrote the latest letter from Vere was returning the favor in making one irritable. 

“What’s the matter?” Damen asked. 

With reluctance, Laurent said, “I have to leave for Vere. The people have started congregating outside Arles, which I suspect is diplomatic phrasing for rioting. Resistance from the Regent’s leftover filth. Fucking brilliant.” 

Innocently enough, Damen noted, “Going back sooner would have eliminated that.” 

“Just what I wanted to hear, Damianos,” Laurent said, voice like the edge of a knife. “Thank you for your helpful counsel.” 

“Laurent, I didn’t mean—” Damen started, then stopped, closing his mouth with an internally audible clack of teeth. He took a deep breath, blew it out. “I only meant that Vere needs to see its King. They’ll settle as soon as you enter the city.” 

“Do you want me to go so badly?” Laurent asked. “If it will help, you can say it. Let us not pretend I haven’t been worrying you mad.” 

“You haven’t,” Damen fibbed. 

He had, at times, but only regarding certain things. Being fussed over had never been something Damen was particularly keen on.

Damen said, “You’re the best part of every day I live.” 

The former did not make the latter untrue. Their stolen moments were the only thing that kept Damen holding himself together. The source of his foul mood wasn’t Laurent; his concern came from a place of love, Damen knew well enough. It was the circumstances, a result of sadness and lethargy and days and days of complete uselessness that Damen was unaccustomed to and despised to his core. It wasn’t fair to lay his frustrations on Laurent simply because he had nowhere else to aim them, but it’s what he had done. 

“Am I?” Laurent asked, the prick self-deprecation clear and sharp. “You haven’t even pretended you want me to stay to spare my feelings.” 

Laurent was talking nonsense. Damen ached to erase the doubt in his voice. He went to him, yielding before crossing completely into Laurent’s space where he sat at his table. It was clear when Damen needed to tread more carefully, when Laurent’s defenses were momentarily raised. Damen fancied himself safely inside them, not out in the cold. Still, he waited, until a nearly-imperceptible nod and a softening of eyes gave him the permission he sought. 

He slid Laurent’s chair away from the table to better get at him, kneeling in front of him on the floor. Laurent looked at him as though he might break during the mere act of kneeling, but thankfully, held his tongue. 

“Laurent, I don’t want you to go,” Damen explained. “These cuffs on our wrists?” He held Laurent’s hand in one of his, and with the other, let his fingers trail across gold. “Everything they stand for, I want. You, I want. But I don’t want you to stay here to the detriment of Vere because you think I need to be watched like an invalid. I am fi—” 

“Don’t. Don’t say you’re fine,” Laurent stopped him. “You’ve said that since the moment you very nearly bled to death under my hand, through every complication. Are you so stubborn you cannot see you’re the least reliable regarding your own condition? Your physical state is not my only concern—” Laurent took his face in both hands, his touch gentle as he leaned forward to press his lips to Damen’s forehead, murmuring, “You’ve not been yourself, Damianos. I’m worried about your mind, your spirit.” 

Damen clutched Laurent’s wrists, letting out a ragged breath. The whole truth spoken aloud unsettled him to the bone, made everything he fought to bury swell up inside, threatening to burst through his skin. His voice was strained, on the verge of disproportionate emotion, “It’s not you, Laurent. I swear it. It’s me. I’m—”

Broken.

He thought he had been managing, that the moments of shared happiness between them would disguise the torment in his heart. 

Laurent cradled Damen’s head to his chest, and Damen’s arms found their way around him. 

“You’re grieving, Damen. Your opportunity was stolen from you after your father was killed. It’s perfectly normal to need that time now, after everything. When Auguste died, I—” Damen sensed Laurent hit a wall and bear through it in the next breath. “It took months for the agony to subside enough that I felt I could breathe again.” 

It only added to Damen’s guilt. 

“Your brother was good, Laurent—” And I took him from you, Damen thought. “Mine tried to kill me more times than I’m likely aware of to accurately count. And my father— You hated my father. He was a ruthless conqueror, and I worshipped him in blissful ignorance.” 

“My opinions about Theomedes are irrelevant. He was your father, your only living parent, your King,” Laurent listed, pressing a kiss to his hair, then another. “What you feel is acceptable, no matter how conflicting…There’s no proper strategy in mourning, my love, but you do not have to do it alone in silence. I am here.” 

Damen felt his cheeks wet with tears he hadn’t known were trickling free. He buried his face in Laurent’s chest, a choked sob escaping with his words. “It’s impossible to be here, Laurent. Everywhere I look, I see them. I feel like—”

An imposter. 

Laurent was the last person who needed to hear that from him. Damen had been groomed for kingship his entire life and felt fraudulent when faced with it now amidst his sadness, particularly having evolved so drastically from who he last was in Ios. Even so, he couldn’t fathom having it thrust upon him as a boy as Laurent did, his grief unimaginable and obstacles unnumbered, the unspeakable abuse he endured. 

“Tell me,” Laurent coaxed, his fingers moving in soothing strokes against his scalp. “Let me inside this head of yours.” 

A deep, steadying breath. 

“There are times I feel Ios doesn’t belong to me. It’s as though my father’s still here, alive in every hall and chamber. I’m so far from the Prince Akielos once knew,” Damen confessed. 

Laurent lifted Damen’s head to meet his eyes, delicately wiping beneath them with his thumbs. His smile was soft, compassionate. His eyes shone with love Damen felt unworthy of receiving. 

“Damianos, my King,” Laurent said, with a reverence in his voice that throbbed in Damen’s chest and ached through his ribs. “You are twice the leader and ten times the man your father and brother were. Not all change is unwelcome. If you stepped onto the balcony now, Ios would chant your name in the streets. Not your father’s. Not Kastor’s. They adore you. I adore you. Your effortless confidence, the power you hold in your body and words… I aspire to it. Your brother played at ruling. You were born to it. Akielos is yours. These ghosts won’t haunt you forever.” 

His words were fleeting warmth wrapped around Damen’s body. He longed to feel it deeper, for them to speak to something solid inside him and hold.

“You’re kinder than I deserve,” Damen said. Then, eager to shift the conversation away from himself, split open as he was, he returned, “It was born in you, too. You’re brilliant, Laurent. I’ve never known a mind like yours. Arles will receive you with open arms, whenever you choose to return. I’ve seen how your people look at you.” 

They had lined the streets of every town in Vere, ecstatic to catch a mere glimpse of Laurent as he rode through on their journey to Akielos. If there was residual unrest in the capital due to the Regent, Damen imagined the faction was small. 

“If it hasn’t been ripped apart brick by brick before I arrive,” Laurent mused, with an exaggerated sigh. He caressed Damen’s face from brow to jaw. “You look exhausted. Let’s have a hot bath, shall we? Wait for me in your chambers, and I’ll attend you? I have one thing left to do here.”

Damen nodded. That did sound nice. 

He shifted to stand, pausing to kiss Laurent on his way. His breath caught, lips trembling as the kiss deepened. His emotions were all out of sorts. Nothing meant more to him than making Laurent happy, merging their lives into one as Damen felt bound to him. He wished to feel better, and he wished to do it beside Laurent. 

“Thank you, Laurent… Hurry to me,” Damen said, and because it was all he could muster while keeping his composure, he hoped it conveyed everything he meant.

+

[THE REST IS HERE]

[dreamcatcherfication]

Stargazing

So anon asked for Anne getting hurt and needing the help of the other queens (you can read the full request here), and here it is! I wanted to do a balance of everything because I love getting into Anne’s trauma. Don’t have much to say about this fic, but I hope you all enjoy! Sorry for any spelling/grammatical errors, I’m multitasking with an adult coloring book and it’s pissing me off. 

Writing Masterpost

If you want to send a request or a prompt, my inbox is always open! I publish a story at 8:00 AM PST everyday, so I’m always in need of new ideas. If you want to be tagged in my works, just let me know and I’ll be sure to tag you!

Prompts | More Prompts | The Trifecta of Prompts | Original Prompts

Trigger Warnings: Nightmares, blood, descriptions of pain

There were so many voices, all of them too loud to fully register. Only stray words could be heard from the masses around her. “Witch!” One man yelled. “Unholy!” Another. “Temptress!” They continued to shout. Anne wanted nothing more than to claw her ears off so she wouldn’t have to hear their voices. She knew she had made mistakes, she knew there would be consequences, but how could they do this to her?

The guards holding her arms shoved her to her knees, forcing her head down towards the chopping block. Weren’t they supposed to blindfold her first? But Anne could still clearly see everything around her. The jeering of the commoners, the dried blood on the block, the blade on the executioner’s shoulder. Oh God, have mercy, Anne prayed, reliving her worst trauma. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. 

She wasn’t supposed to see the blade being raised. Terror bubbled in her stomach as it seemed to descend on her in slow motion, the sword glinting as it sliced through the air. The cheers only got louder as the blade grew closer and closer to her bare neck. “Please no!” Anne screamed right as the sword touched her neck, a fiery pain enveloping her body. 

Jerking out of her bed, Anne fell to the floor in a tangle of sheets. Her head made a soft banging sound against the hardwood floor, loud enough to jar Anne, but soft enough that no one else would hear it. As she adjusted to her surroundings, Anne put a hand to her forehead and softly groaned. Her head was a jumbled mess, her eyes blurring the walls together until her room looked like one giant circle. Every little thing around her was so stifling, choking the breath out of Anne. 

Untangling herself from her sheets, Anne struggled to her feet and stumbled out of her room. The house was dark, but Anne didn’t care. It wasn’t like her head was clear enough to make sense of anything she would see. Making her way down the stairs and to the front door, Anne grabbed the nearest coat. Putting it on, she realized it was small on her - most likely Kat’s jacket - but she didn’t shrug it off for another.

Leaving the house, Anne didn’t bother to lock the door behind her. She would be back soon, and no one was going to try and break in. The streets were silent, not even the occasional midnight car driving by. It must have been two in the morning, she guessed, with how akin everything was to a ghost town. Still, Anne let her feet guide her wherever they decided to take her.

The bright lights of the town began to fade away as the wilderness started to creep in around Anne. As trees started popping up instead of stop signs, Anne realized where she was. “The old tree house,” she murmured, staring up at the rotted tree house above her. She didn’t know who built it or how long it had been there, but one day she and Kat had found it whilst playing hide and seek in the woods. It became a safe haven for all the queens when they needed silence and a place to hide from the world. It was always the old tree house.

If there wasn’t such a sense of sentimentality attached to the structure, Anne would’ve never considered climbing up it. The wood was rotted and there were leaves growing around the boards, but it still held the old feeling of safety that Anne longed for. The ladder up to the tree house was just a bunch of wood planks that had been nailed to the tree, so Anne was able to hoist herself onto the floor of the house pretty easily. Once she was stable on the boards, Anne leaned back and stared up at the stars.

She had never considered stargazing before. It took too much time and it was so simplistic that Anne couldn’t focus long enough to grasp the beauty of it. But being able to watch the blank sky, so simple and constant, Anne started to understand the appeal. The way her mind quieted to take in the black and white blanket was such an inexplicable relief. As if some hidden switch had been flipped, Anne started to notice the twinkling of the stars and their formations. It no longer looked like a bunch of far away dots, but a masterpiece created by God himself for her and her only.

Anne wasn’t used to thinking so deeply. She enjoyed reading and knowledge, but she wasn’t usually a philosopher who dived into the moral questions of humanity. Slowly, her body fell into a state of numbness as everything faded away except for the sky above her. 

Maybe if Anne wasn’t so enraptured by the sky, she would’ve noticed the way the wood started to bend beneath her. Perhaps she would have heard the snapping sounds before it was too late. But Anne was blissfully unaware of anything wrong, her mind fixed on the faraway points in the sky. And then she was falling.

It took a moment for Anne’s mind to register that she was no longer on the floorboards of the tree house, but rather falling quickly to the ground. Reaching her hands out, Anne tried to grab anything that would stop her fall. Instead, her leg went flailing into the side of the tree, one of the wooden boards catching on her skin. The giant nail tore at her skin, leaving a giant gash as Anne passed it.

Landing on the side of her body, Anne let out a shrill screech of agony as her leg twisted at an awkward angle. The pain that shot throughout her body was like a rake being dragged over her skin, leaving behind scratches that itched like hellfire. Opening her eyes slowly, Anne glanced quickly at her leg, praying it wasn’t broken. By some miracle it wasn’t, the bone still perfectly in place. She couldn’t say the same for her skin though. Her leg was covered in blood, the muscles twitching and spasming as Anne whimpered in pain.

“Help,” Anne croaked out, hoping that someone would come. “Help?” She should’ve known coming to the middle of the woods at night was a bad idea. 

A thought struck Anne and she froze. She was wearing Kat’s jacket, wasn’t she? Shoving her hands into the pockets, Anne silently begged there to be a phone somewhere in the pockets. Kat had a tendency to put things in her pockets and forget they were there. More than once she had come to the queens apologizing for losing something important only for the thing to be in her coat pockets the whole time. 

Gasping in relief when she found the phone, Anne turned it on, knowing Kat’s password (6-2-5-6, in honor of her and the queens), and pressed the first contact she could find. The phone rang, almost going to voicemail before the other person picked up. “Kat, why in the world are you calling me at 2:30 AM?”

“Anna!” Anne shouted, her heartbeat picking up. “Thank God, okay, I need you to come get me.”

Anne could feel Anna’s confusion through the phone. “Anne? Why do you have Kat’s phone?”

“It was in her pocket,” Anne replied, “And I’m wearing her jacket. Look, I’m,” she hissed in pain, her leg twitching again, “I’m at the old tree house and I hurt myself - ah - really badly. You gotta come help me,” Anne pleaded.

“Okay, okay,” Anna agreed. The beheaded queen could hear shuffling on her side of the line as Anna presumably got ready to come find Anne. “I’m going to bring Cathy and we’ll help you.”

Wincing, Anne asked, “Don’t tell anyone other than Cathy.”

“Hang in there, Anne,” the German queen made no promises, and then she hung up the phone. Breathing heavily, Anne attempted to right herself. Every movement was another shot of pain through her leg, but she ignored it.

Dragging herself over to the tree, Anne sighed in relief when she leaned against it. Her muscles kept clenching in pain, begging her to do something to fix her leg, but Anne had nothing. Her hands were dirty, so she couldn’t cover the wound with them unless she wanted to risk infection. She had no cloth to cover her leg with and stay the bleeding. All she could do was wait for Anna and Cathy.

It felt like an eternity before two shadows appeared in the treeline. “Anne!” Cathy called, rushing forward to help Anne. Cathy was still in her clothes from earlier that day, having been awake all night. Anna was in a flannel top and pajama pants, her hair unkempt and sticking up in different places. 

Both queens kneeled down beside Anne, cringing at her cut. “How did this happen?” Anna asked as Cathy pulled out a cloth she had brought, wrapping it around Anne’s leg.

Pointing upwards, Anne hissed and shifted when Cathy put too much pressure on a soft spot. “The tree house,” Anne breathed in heavily, “it broke when I was up there. One of the nails scratched me when I came down.”

Scoffing, Cathy squeezed Anne’s leg with her makeshift tourniquet. “Scratched is an understatement.”

“We need to get you home,” Anna stood up from her kneeling position. She put a hand under Anne’s arm and started to lift her. Cathy followed, taking Anne’s other arm so that she and Anna could equally support the beheaded queen. Practically dragging Anne between them, the three queens slowly made their way out of the trees. It was a long walk back to the house, but none of the girls had any other way of returning.

Each step was painful for Anne, but she said nothing. Biting her tongue so she wouldn’t let out any noise of distress, Anne internally cursed herself for getting into such a bad situation. It was her fault they were struggling to get back to the queens’ house.

As they were limping down the street, a car drove up beside them, its light blinding. For a moment, Anne feared that her executioner would step out with his blade and Anna and Cathy would hold her down unsympathetically. But when the door to the car opened, it was Aragon in the driver’s seat, her expression neutral. “Get in, I’ll drive us home.”

Without protest, the three queens piled into the back of the car, Anne sitting between Cathy and Anna. Aragon didn’t ask for an explanation, she just drove steadily and calmly, occasionally checking on Anne through her mirror. The only sounds in the car were the grunts of pain Anne tried to stifle in order to keep the others from worrying about her.

When Aragon pulled up to the street beside their house, she parked the car and turned around in her seat. “Jane and Kat are awake, but they don’t know what’s happened. You know how they’ll react when they see you, Anne, so be prepared.”

Nodding, Anne wrapped her arm around Anna’s neck, leaning on her in order to get out of the car. Cathy came around the car and took her place at Anne’s other side. With a nod, Anne let them lead her to the door and into the house where Kat and Jane were waiting. 

As soon as the door was open, Kat was standing in front of Anne. “Annie!” she gasped, her face going white, “What happened?”

Anna and Cathy pushed past Kat and laid Anne on the couch, elevating her leg with some of the throw pillows Jane had bought. “She fell from the old tree house,” Cathy answered, checking her makeshift tourniquet.

“Should I call an ambulance?” Jane asked, wrapping her arms around Kat. Everyone knew the teen was sensitive to blood, and seeing her cousin’s leg covered in it wasn’t a welcome sight.

Aragon shook her head, entering the room. “No, the bleeding isn't that bad. Once we clean her up, I’ll drive her to the emergency room.”

Biting her lip, Jane agreed and went to the kitchen to pull out the first aid kit. As Anna and Cathy made sure Anne was comfortable, Kat approached her cousin. “Anne, you’re going to be alright,” she whispered, holding Anne’s hand. She brought it to her chest and held it there so that Anne could feel her warmth.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily Kat,” Anne chuckled, then scrunched her face in pain. “It hurts more than it should,” Anne grumbled, closing her eyes and rolling her neck. She opened her eyes and stared directly into Kat’s worried ones. Glancing around at the other distressed queens, Anne sighed. “I’m sorry for going out and not telling you,” she addressed them all. “I was stupid, like usual, and I paid the price.”

Standing up, Cathy towered over Anne. “That’s not true. Sure, you got hurt, but you don’t have to apologize for it. You’re going to be fine, and that’s what matters.”

Jane reentered the room, carrying the first aid kit under her arm. She set it down and pulled out rubbing alcohol for Anne’s leg. Before Jane could start applying it, Anne spoke again. “But I am sorry. It’s two in the morning and I’ve pushed you all to the edge of your wits.” The soft gazes of her friends made Anne’s heart start to calm down. “I… just - thank you. I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

“Anne,” Jane put her hand on Anne’s shoulder. “Family always comes.”

“No matter what dangerous situations you find yourself in,” Anna added.

“Or how many stupid things you do,” Aragon tacked on.

“Family is here for you,” Cathy whispered, her voice soothing Anne’s nerves.

“We love you Annie,” Kat finished, her eyes twinkling like the stars Anne admired so much.

Feeling tears begin to form in the corner of her eyes, Anne hastily wiped her face. No one was laughing at her or cheering for her pain. None of them grinned with malice at her bloody leg. They weren’t cruel like all the people Anne once knew. No, they were like stars, all shining down upon her, reminding her of true love and beauty.

For the first time, Anne finally understood the meaning of stargazing.

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

Tag List:

@radcowboyalmondtree @boleynhowards @annabanana2401 @babeebobo @dont-lose-your-queerhead @everything-insanity @mindless-pidgeon

[waywardwrestlewritingwaif]

Shelter (Part Three)

The adventure (?) contines... I’m pretty certain that this is part three of five but I could be wrong about that. 

Pairing: Jay White x OFC (Estella)

Word count: 3,554

Content advisory: some smut (finally?) in this one

To make any sense of this, you’ll want to read Part One and Part Two. 

I had no idea how long I drifted in and out of consciousness. When I woke, I was in agony but I was also starving. Sometimes, there would be some meagre food left for me, bread and water. Other times, I cried in the darkness by myself. Sometimes, I believed that Hannah had come to comfort me, or to warn me not to eat or drink what they gave me because they were trying to poison me. I was convinced that she told me that she and the others had a plan to escape but she returned again and seemed to know nothing about it. Other times, there were different women sent to watch over me. The youngest one grew terrified as I tried to force her to admit that I was being poisoned. The older women paid little notice, although I was certain I heard them extolling the virtues of their master for taking care of me. 

Sometimes, it seemed like there would be days without another person entering my rooms. Others, it felt like I was under constant surveillance. The one thing that seemed certain was that Jay White never came to me. In my lucid moments, I could hardly fault him for refusing to see a woman who had threatened his life, however innocent her intentions. But much of the time I longed for him and even cried for him until my watchers bid me be silent in no uncertain terms. 

I know that this must have gone on for some days, simply because I caught glimpses of light and dark at different times. I lost all ability to differentiate between what was happening and what I imagined and I could feel myself becoming physically weaker and weaker. Sometimes, I believed it was because I was being poisoned. Sometimes, I believed that I was losing my mind and refusing to eat was killing me faster than poison ever could. Every time I thought that I might have figured out what was actually happening, it seemed like a wave of sickness would drag me under again. 

So it was almost frightening when I woke up, lucid once again, as if nothing had happened. I was drenched with sweat and my chest ached with the labor of breathing but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I struggled to raise myself up on my elbows, something which took all my strength and made my head spin. 

“Oh goodness, ma’am,” came a small voice from the doorway, “you’re up?”

A young woman who looked familiar entered with a tray of food, her bright blue eyes fixed on me. Something in my gut warned me not to be too trusting but at the same time, she had such a sweet expression that I couldn’t help but respond with a weak half-smile. 

“Don’t you go struggling,” she chided, setting the tray on the table next to the bed. “You’re weak as a newborn kitten. Will you eat?”

Hearing her say that stirred some memory of the past days; the others had tried to force me or had just ignored me. This woman had always asked if I would eat. 

“I think I might…” I murmured, shocked at the effort it took me to shape the words. “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.”

“I don’t know that you asked it before now. It’s Millicent. Or Millie, if you like.”

“Which do you like?”

She giggled a little and brought a chair up so that she could sit with me. “I’m not bothered either way, ma’am.”

She delicately took a piece of bread and dipped it into the bowl of milk she’d brought. 

“You’ll never be able to take it dry,” she responded to my curious look. “And we do so want to see you eat.”

“Who is “we”?”

“All of us have been to see you.” She extended her hand so that I could take a bite of the bread. It took an embarrassingly long time for me to pull off a small piece and then I almost had to let it dissolve in my mouth. Food felt strange and threatening and once again I grew anxious that it might be poisoned. I saw the change in my expression reflected back at me by Millicent. 

“Oh now you’re not going to start in again about how we’re poisoning you, are you?”

I dropped my head and sulked a moment, feeling a fog of self-pity close in on me. No one had come for me. The man on whose mercy I had counted had me locked in here. If he were set on killing me, what earthly difference would it make to anyone else? And if it made no difference, why couldn’t I at least die with a full stomach? I gave her a little shake of my head and she proffered the milk-soaked bread once again. 

“I know it seems rough and these chambers are not fit for a lady. I make no wonder you’ve caught a chill.” She gave me a sincere, sad look. “His Lordship’s just suspicious with all that’s been going on.”

“What’s been going on?”

“All this mischief and politics with your father and brother-in-law.”

“Mischief?”

Her rosy cheeks went white. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me speaking above my station like that.”

“You’ve nothing to apologize for, Millicent. I just meant that I don’t know what you’re speaking about.”

“Oh, well then… I don’t know that much about it myself. I just know that there’s been some noise of your father and the Earl of Louth trying to push my master into an alliance with them. There was talk of marrying him to the Earl’s sister, but his Lordship won’t go along with it. Says he doesn’t trust them from what I’ve heard.”

“I promise that this is the first I’m hearing of any of this,” I whispered, trying to recall any such stories I might have heard. 

“Will you take some broth?” she asked sweetly, lifting the bowl to my lips. 

I nodded and swallowed as much of it as I could manage, which was very little. 

“I know it’s been bad for him lately,” she continued in a soft voice. “We’re not supposed to say such things but you hear about it whether you want to or not. The more he tells them no, the harder they push. You know how the gentry can be.”

I couldn’t help a little laugh at that one. “Did you forget who you were speaking to?”

“Oh, ma’am, I didn’t mean-”

“It’s alright. Being part of the gentry doesn’t blind me to their ways. I know how politics can be.”

“The Earl himself tried suggesting that he make a visit here a few months back but nothing ever came of it.”

“Because your master declined?”

“I can’t say for certain but that is what seems likely.”

She seemed pleased when I took a slightly larger mouthful of broth. 

“So my arrival probably appeared suspicious to him?”

“I imagine so, ma’am. Not that you did anything wrong.”

“Millicent, I promise you that I mean no one in this place any harm. And although I know it might be difficult, I would be in your debt if you could somehow get word of that to your Master.”

“I cannot promise but I will try. I believe you have a kind heart.”

It was late at night, hours after she had left when the fire was reduced to a few embers. I was still awake, more alert than I’d felt practically since I’d arrived in this place. Was she right? Was there some political intrigue that had made Jay suspicious of me? If so, I needed to find a way to convince him I had no part in it. Or was this girl just sent to win me over with her sweet demeanour and get me to devour the poison they couldn’t force on me. 

If I had still been in my feverish state, I would not have thought much of hearing sounds at the door but this time, I was keenly aware that there was someone entering and that I might be in danger. 

“Who is it?” I croaked, my voice failing me. 

There was no answer but the dark figure moved into the room and even though the rays of moonlight offered only faint illumination, I could feel in my breast who it was. 

“I need you to know that I mean you no harm,” I assured him in a soft voice. “One of the girls told me something of the matters between you and others in my family but I swear that my only purpose in coming here was to ask you for shelter and assistance. My father is gravely ill and my mother is sick as well. I have not seen them in so long and it would break my heart to lose either of them before I could speak to them again.”

He sat down on the bed next to me, his eyes glittering in the dim light, sharp and suspicious. 

“And yet you deliberately took the most dangerous route,” he mused. “You could have had safe passage by travelling to the south-”

“It would have taken much longer! We took the shortest way!”

“It’s only the shortest way if you can get through it. These parts have been nearly impassable for two years. But oh no, you thought that a party of two noblewomen and a handful of servants could pass safely where soldiers fear to tread.”

“I am uneducated on the safety and condition of the roads,” I retorted. 

“Tell me,” he hissed, leaning a little closer, “was it you who chose the route you took?”

“No. My sister came unexpectedly and it was her people who set the route.” I shifted uncomfortably, not knowing quite what he was implying. 

“Your sister and her husband know a great deal about these parts. They’ve even made offers of money for me to help secure the marches if I were to agree to certain conditions. You’ll forgive me, lady, if I am a little skeptical that she was oblivious to the dangers.”

My pulse quickened a little. Elizabeth had never been a political or designing creature. Was it possible that she had changed in a few short years of marriage? She had everything that she could ever want. What fascination could these social machinations have had? Yes, her husband was a shrewd man known for his ability to consolidate and guard his power along with his wealth. But even he never struck me as a schemer. I had always considered myself a good judge of character and it was humiliating to think that I might have been so wrong about him. This was nothing, however, compared to the horror of doubting Elizabeth. Jay was misinformed. Whatever was happening, she was not involved. I who knew her better than anyone could understand that in a way that he could not. 

I was about to protest in my sister’s defence but as I opened my mouth to speak, Jay leaned in close to me, his face resting against mine, his lips grazing the tip of my earlobe as he spoke. 

“How very clever of Elizabeth to send you,” he sighed, “knowing how I felt about you.” He slid one hand slowly over my lap and up my side until he was cupping my face. At the same time, he dragged his lips ever so lightly over mine, the sensation making me quiver. Our mouths danced delicately over and around each other until he flicked his tongue between my lips and teeth. I gasped a little and he took the opportunity, his kiss growing more passionate, his tongue sliding against mine as mine moved instinctively in response. His grip on me tightened, pulling me flush against his chest, my heart hammering away. This was how I had imagined my own romance when my books would stir my imagination. 

“What do you mean, how you felt about me?” I breathed, reluctantly pulling away from him. 

“I was quite infatuated. I was still a child but I was so taken with you and she saw that. She confronted me about it while we were there. And even afterward, she would write to me and always mentioned you, how beautiful you were growing, how many suitors you had.”

His expression darkened and one of his hands slid around my throat, squeezing tightly enough that I felt myself starting to panic. 

“I suppose you counted on your beauty and charm being enough to distract me while you took stock of how prepared I was to fend off an attack from your father and brother-in-law,” he seethed. 

I tried to speak but he squeezed my throat tighter, so that I could only shake my head, wild-eyed. 

“I should kill you. I should kill you and send your pretty head back to your father so that he knows what it means to have made an enemy of me.” 

I tried in vain to bend his fingers and pull them away from my neck. I could feel my body growing heavy and weak, my chest aching for air. At the same time, Jay’s face seemed to stay in focus, his expression such that I truly believed he was weighing the benefits of killing me as if I were an animal. I was actually surprised when he released me and let me slump against his shoulder, noisily gulping at the air. 

In one motion he jerked at the top of the shift I was wearing, revealing my breasts. I immediately tried to cover them but he swatted my hands away, lowering his head and licking at my nipples, one after the other, alternating the rough top of his tongue with the soft underside. Without meaning to, I whimpered out loud, the sensation of his mouth making me feel weak and dizzy once again. He glanced up at me with a dark smile before sucking one nipple into his mouth. 

“You’re wrong about me and about my sister. I’m going to prove it to you,” I gasped. I had no idea how I was going to do that but at that moment I needed him to understand that putting him in any kind of danger was anathema to me. He responded my biting down sharply on my nipple, making me cry out at the sudden pain. 

Nonetheless, he did not cease his ministrations, twisting and plucking at my other breast with his fingers and running his mouth, hot and moist, up my chest to my throat. His tongue softly traced the line where he had choked me before and once again, a series of sounds, like the mewling of a newborn kitten tumbled from me. He pushed me down on the bed like I was nothing, slipping off his shirt before he leaned over me. 

I was a little overwhelmed, a chorus of feelings raging through me, and I stared dumbly at his body, how perfectly sculpted it was, like he was cut from marble, how powerful he looked as he hovered over me. He seemed amused at my reaction for a moment before he pressed my head to his chest. I felt instinctively what he wanted me to do and proceeded to kiss and lick over the broad expanse of skin, quietly delighted at the soft moans this drew from him. I nipped a little at his flesh, making his whole body twitch. 

He raised himself up a little more, taking my hand and guiding it between his legs. I could feel something swollen there, something that felt alive. I let my hand rest against it, only to have him press it closer and rub it against the bulge. He chuckled softly, moving his lips to my ear. 

“Does your husband not show you what he likes?” he murmured. 

“My husband…” I suddenly felt very embarrassed to admit it, “he does not touch me.”

Jay stilled his movements, smoothing his dark hair away from his face and fixing me with a confused look. 

“What do you mean?” he asked sharply. 

“He has never… What I said,” I stammered. 

Jay’s eyes narrowed. “You mean to tell me that you have been married this long and the marriage has never been consummated?”

“I don’t think so?”

“How can you not know?”

“I know that there are… things that are supposed to happen… I’ve never understood, exactly.” I felt my face growing unbearably hot under his scrutiny. I knew that something was supposed to happen between a man and wife to produce a child but no one had ever explained to me what it was. I knew only the vaguest of details and what I’d heard seemed confusing. I had assumed that my husband would show me what needed to be done since I’d heard that men pursued it for pleasure whereas women only wanted it to conceive a child.

Jay gave a sardonic laugh in response to this and raised himself so that he was kneeling over me. He loosened his trousers and withdrew his prick, rigid like a bone. 

“Have you seen one before?” he crooned, pumping his hand along its length. 

I shook my head. I knew what it was but I’d never imagined a scenario like this in which I would encounter one. I’d always thought it would be something I’d feel under the covers in a bed when I was ready to give a man the pleasure he desired. I shuddered a little as I realized that I did want to give this man what he desired but that I didn’t understand what it was. 

He grasped my shoulder, digging his nails in hard enough that I cried out, something he didn’t seem to hear over his own moans and grunts. Truthfully, I was terrified, which only grew more intense as he held himself close to my lips. 

“Lick it,” he growled. 

I complied, running my tongue up the full length of him, lingering a few seconds at the tip when his moans of pleasure increased. He responded by pressing the mushroom head past my lips and into my mouth, the pace of his strokes and the volume of his moans increasing as I timidly sucked and swirled my tongue over the forbidden flesh. 

After only a few seconds he raised himself up on his knees, staring at me with a frightening intensity as a hot, milky liquid spilled out of him, onto my bare breasts. I could see his body relax, whereas mine felt like I’d been struck by lightning, like I was burning from the inside. I had no idea what I wanted but I grabbed hold of his wrist hoping that he would understand. 

He gave me a crooked smile and used my dress to mop up the mess he’d made. He tucked his detumescent prick back in and stared at me a long moment before pushing my clothing out of the way, exposing my most private parts. I closed my eyes, caught between shame and arousal, the pulsing of my cunt sending strange vibrations through my body. I was jerked back to reality by a light slap to my face. 

“Look at me,” he ordered. 

I struggled to follow his instruction as one of his hands probed the sensitive flesh between my legs, easily sliding along my slit because of the wetness that had accumulated there. His fingers pushed inside me just a little, finding something, a spot I had never realized was capable of bringing me such sensations, such that his touch made me cry out. He continued to stroke at this magical point while his thumb pressed hard against the hard little bump on the outside, something I knew was there, something I knew felt good when touched but never anything like this. I could feel a fire building in me, my body thrashing against his hand until he suddenly stopped and moved away from me, sitting once again on the side of the bed. 

I had no idea what he’d done or why it had felt so good, better than anything I had ever experienced, but somehow it felt unfinished. The stimulation left me aching, wanting more although I wasn’t sure why. He watched as I tried to steady myself, thoughtfully pressing his fingers, the ones that moments before had been inside my body, to his mouth, licking them clean like they were a succulent dish. 

“We’ll have a talk tomorrow.”

With that, he gathered his discarded clothing and was gone. I assumed I was supposed to sleep afterwards but I could not. The aching between my legs was unbearable and even as that faded, I could not stop my mind from obsessing over what had happened. I knew on some level that it was filthy, disgusting, and yet somehow every time I thought about what he had done, I found myself almost convulsing with a need I didn’t understand. Everything that I was feeling seemed to emanate from that part of my body that I had always kept a stranger. That night, I found myself intimately acquainted with it, grinding it against my arm, against the bed, against anything that granted me some friction without sating my sense of need. 

[teenwolfseason7]

Teen Wolf and Shadowhunters Crossover

Hi!  So, for anyone interested, I have been inspired to write a TW and SH crossover. That being said, I did not read the original books, I’ve just seen the Shadowhunters TV-show, therefor this might not be completely accurate to that storyline. This fic is set after a few years after Teen Wolf season 6 and mid season 2 of Shadowhunters. It will focus on Scott (main), Alec (main), Stiles, Lydia, Liam, Izzy, Jace, Clary, Simon, Luke, Monroe and Valentine. Other characters might occur, however, even though I love me some Malec, in this fic they start broken up, and who knows what might happen? Magnus might make an appearance or not, I haven’t decided that yet.  I have not forgotten about my Teen Wolf Season 7 fic, I am simply working on the storyline, and more chapters will evidently follow. But for some reason I need to get this out of my system first.  Now enough rambling, here’s chapter 1: collision. TW and SH crossover Chapter one: Collision It was chaos, pure chaos. Blades clashed together cascading with the roars and grunts of people fighting each other. His hand clutched around the blade harder after slicing into one of the demons ambushing Izzy, before swiftly tucking it away and running back towards his hide-out on top of the small hill. He provided cover, shooting arrow after arrow into the sinister black creatures, effectively causing them to perish. The circle had somehow managed to unleash them onto the seeliecourt, targeting all downworlders as most of them were seeking refuge in the sanctuary. He wasn’t paying much attention to his own surroundings, as his focus was mainly on the protection of his family. Therefore, when he heard a short click a few feet away from him, he instantly turned around, startled, and aimed his bow in the direction of the sound. “Drop your weapon!” A trembling voice announced. It was then that he spotted the guy, hiding halfway behind a tree, pointing a gun at him. Alec internally groaned at the sight of the mundane meddling and clenched his teeth in an attempt to refrain himself from releasing an arrow anyway. The young and inexperienced looking guy slowly emerged from his spot and started closing in on the shadow hunter. “Drop it!” Alec sighed; he didn’t have time for this bullshit. How could the mundane see him anyway? He aimed for the humans’ hand, so it wouldn’t be a fatal shot, but a fair warning to stay away. He locked onto his target, the guy’s fingers that latched onto the handle of the gun, and slowly breathed out, simultaneously releasing an arrow. Seconds before the head could pierce the skin, another hand caught the arrow in mid-air. He saw the eyes before he could even see who they belonged to. They were bright red. Instantly, he reached for his blade again, rotating his bow onto his back, assuming that it hadn’t been just a mundane but rather a possessed one or maybe even a circle member working with a demon and charged towards it. To his surprise, it moved a lot faster and more…graceful than a mundane possessed by a demon would. In between the constant maneuvering, ducking, deflecting and striking, he could barely make-out how young his opponent actually looked. Yet another life destroyed by Valentine and his men. As the thing continuously blocked and diverted his attacks, Alec grew impatient and frustrated. His moves were too predictable, he realized. So fueled by anger, he unexpectedly rotated to his left, but bounced back mid-turn, planting the base of his blade into the jaw of the demon. Annoyingly, it quickly recovered and tackled his with a low growl sending chills down Alec’s spine as he roughly plummeted onto his back. A huff escaped him as his bow and quiver on his back made the crash a lot more painful. For a split second, the thing that was attacking him seemed distracted as well, the red eyes flickering. Alec took the opportunity to slice it’s back with his blade, but somehow it didn’t even wince. Instead it furiously grabbed his wrist forcing his to drop it. He was one step ahead of him and used all his strength to roll them over grabbing at its neck with his free hand, planning on taking an arrow from his quiver and stabbing him with it as soon as he saw an opening. However, the motion had gained more momentum than he had expected it to, because they were at the edge of the glen formed by the forest hill. Consequently, causing both of them to tumble all the way down, neither of them letting go. As the world around them was vigorously spinning, the shadowhunter caught a glimpse of what seemed like sharp white fangs, which he immediately associated with those of a vampire, but amongst the all the confusing sounds and disorientating motions, the questions why and how were quickly banished to the back of his mind. When they finally came to a stop, Alec managed to get the upper hand, and forcefully grabbed at the creature’s throat, whilst attempting to pin its wrists down into the forest ground. He struggled for a moment, but then the downworlder suddenly gave in, as if he went limp. Alec took advantage of the situation, instantly pulling out an arrow and pointing it to its throat, finally taking a glance at the face underneath him. By now it seemed to have transformed, having grown more facial hair, more fangs, whilst sporting the facial characteristics of both human and wolf. What confused the archer even more, was that the young wolf wasn’t looking at him, but behind him. He quickly caught on, and let go of his wrist, planning on turning around to face whatever was lurking behind him. Before he could do just that however, the wolf surged upward with astounding speed, snatching an arrow from his quiver. His chest tightened and eyes widened, as the werewolf’s torso was now pressed against his own, punching the air out of his whilst the demon behind him screeched in agony as it was banished. Ichor splattered onto the back of his neck and jacket, and with a huff the guy fell back into the grass and mud. Within a second, Alec got off of him, creating distance. In one swift movement he was aiming an arrow to the wolf’s chest, still somewhat distraught from the strange contact just then, but adamant on getting answers. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” With a quick glance he saw that once again the mundane was pointing his gun at him from his left, this time however, another person stood next to him. A woman with strawberry blonde hair, pursing her lips and holding her hands up, as if she was going to blow him away with magic or something. “Who are you?!” Alec yelled authoritatively, looking back at the guy lying on the ground. The bright red eyes slowly faded out, and he was now met with an inquisitive stare as all wolf-like features disappeared. Now he could clearly see how young the wolf actually was, and estimated him to be in his early twenties. “Sorry man, but I don’t think you’re in a position to be asking any questions. You might not die from a gunshot, but this unbearably pretty face next to me is capable of screaming that annoying head of yours into pieces”, the mundane rambled. “Just drop the bow and arrow, and then we can negotiate”, the woman added indifferently after a short eyeroll. Alec cocked his brow and made the same face someone would when being told that one plus one did not equal two. He scoffed, “You are the ones breaking the accords by attacking a shadowhunter. Whilst- may I add- we are in the middle of protecting downworlders from a demon invasion. You should know, the clave isn’t exactly forgivi-” “Alec!”, his parabatai yelled from behind him, blade at the ready as he ran towards them. Instantly, the mundane pointed the gun towards Jace, who froze scanning the situation.  Luckily, before things could escalate any further, the werewolf spoke up. “Stiles, wait!” Alec frowned even more, wondering what the hell was going on. “Seriously Scott? Were about the be severely outnumbered here, Monroe is out here somewhere. If we’re going to get Liam back, we have to get to her now!”, the guy with the gun argued somewhat annoyed, animatedly emphasizing the words “severely” and “now”. He spoke so fast that it took a moment for Alec to actually understand what he meant. The woman, did lower her hands though, ignoring the mundane. The two already started to annoy him, as they somewhat resembled Simon and Clary, which wasn’t a good thing, but maybe the situation was just aggravating him which was a sensation usually caused by both the vampire and/or the redhead, and that might’ve been the reason for the association rather than actual resemblance. “What’s a shadowhunter?” she inquired, whilst cocking her brow and moving her head sideways intrigued by the situation. Alec’s eyes jumped back to the man on the ground, who was in the process of standing up. “Don’t move”, he ordered, pulling the arrow even more backwards. The werewolf held his hands up, surrendering, and calmly and carefully stated: “Stiles, put the gun down.” Alec realized that he was probably their leader, since the “Stiles” guy reluctantly obliged, and put his weapon back in its holster. “Now explain”, the shadowhunter demanded impatiently with a nod of his head towards the wolf, wondering why his eyes were red and not green. 

[caffeinated-yearning]

Oh perhaps I got a wee bit carried away. Here’s some follow-up to the one that byte posted a bit ago, following Oliver’s side of things since he’s the Me One. Featuring a little of Byte and a little of the byte-verse Doctor Octavius. Tagging @werewolfpine because it’s a continuation of his fit and features a little of his S/I at the end (and also because I did do a little reformatting since the doc oop)

Word Count: ~2.2 k Warnings: violence, angsty narrative tone, probably difficult to read because it’s very stream of consciousness

- but he swung a metal bar at Byte’s head- “Ollie! Why are you doing this? Please, talk to me!”-

Doc Ock’s tentacles, in constant motion, seemed to slow behind him at this new information. Rippled and writhed with the horror of it. “...Nate?”

Oliver glared at this person that wore the costume of New York’s beloved vigilante; glowered at this person that wore Nathan’s face in the New York night; felt downright malevolent at having guessed this twist a hundred times prior and every time having filed it away as ludicrous because there was simply no way that fate would have woven Oliver into Nathan’s foe. He was furious, because he should have known it even if it had all seemed just a little too poetic for the universe to do. He didn’t want it to be possible, which was exactly why he had discredited each piece of evidence and chosen to believe the thin and frail excuses he’d been handed.

“Listen,” Spider-Byte raised his hands to his chest- pressing them to his heart only leaves an opening, “I can explain. I… I know what you’re thinking.” Writhing, agony-stricken, claws and tentacles that lashed with unspent energy away from him. “Or, I guess I don’t, I never do, but… Just-.”

A hideous rattling crunching ripping and tearing as Doc Ock pulled scaffold apart. Bitter and bitter and bitterer still. “Nathan..?” And how dare the vigilante be wearing the face of his best friend and how dare he tell Oliver that he was in the wrong and how dare he be right when Oliver had always had to be the right one before?!

How the HELL DARE HE?

“wAIT! Just-just listen to me!” And Nathan ran at Doc Ock; if Ock had his glasses still, perhaps he would see the desperation in that so-human face. A metal bar swung at Nathan’s head- get him away, get us away, get me away,- and Nathan caught it and and Nathan has had this sort of strength for who knows how long at this point. “Ollie! Why are you doing this? Please, talk to me!”

Oliver hated that perhaps worst of all; that Nate was Nathan was Spider-Byte, that he wanted to talk, that he called him by that stupid diminutive nick-name that Oliver loved because Ollie was a softer version of himself, a version that he didn’t let himself be, because he’d been taught for so long that softness was weakness. That Oliver was going to be better than most, and so he didn’t have time to be soft. Hated that Nathan had kept being Oliver’s friend despite every effort of Doc Ock to destroy Spider-Byte. He hated every blasted domino in the whole tower of his life that now came crashing down around him, and every little bread-crumb that now made perfect sense.

Oliver swiped at his eyes to clear the salt and water/dropped the metal beam still clasped in Byte’s arms/lashed out to knock Nathan off his feet in the span of three seconds. Turned tail and ran, down the streets, searching for the start of where his internal map made sense and where he could start to make his way back to his dungeon-like domain.

And tomorrow, Byte-who-is-Nathan will still be in class like he has been every other time that someone was causing a problem and the Spider had to step in, and Nathan has known who I am for months, and he still tries to save me.

-

“I think I’ve made a grave mistake.”

Doctor Octavius looked up after a moment’s pause. “Well, do you care to elaborate?”

“I… I think I’ve lost one of my dwindling few friends.”

“Well, that does sound grave.” Uncle Otto pushed his computer aside, turning to his student and nephew with one part easygoing authority figure and two parts sincerity. “From what little I’ve heard from you, you really don’t have many friends to spare, even at the best of times.”

“No.” He grit his teeth, held his breath, pressed his nails into his palms with the faint hope that they might break the skin and let him focus on something else. They didn’t, of course, because he had too strong an instinct against pain. Seconds that always seemed to pass too quickly while he struggled to say anything; “I just found out… That one of the people I considered a friend… Probably hasn’t thought of me as anything more than an enemy.” He shook his head; that wasn’t quite right. Nathan wasn’t… He wasn’t like that. “Or maybe I just… Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I made an enemy of my friend. I really am insufferable.”

“Have you spoken to this friend about this yet?”

“Not… As such.” He tried to forget that Oliver/Doc Ock/both of them/all of him had reacted so violently when the Spider had taken off its mask and revealed that the enemy of Doc Ock was the closest friend of Oliver, that both halves were the same thing, that in a world of horrible coincidences this was the worst of them all.

“Listen,” Nathan raised his hands to his chest, “I can explain. I…I know what you’re thinking. Or, I guess I don’t, I never do, but…Just–”

Tried to forget that he had tried to blot it out that he had tried to get rid of it that he had tried to make it go away.

Shook like a leaf in a tempest against the emotions that he had been crushing away for years and years that burst forth at the memory- but [Oliver/Doc Ock/he/they/all] swung a metal bar at [Spider-Byte/Nathan/his sworn enemy/his closest friend]’s head- “Ollie! Why are you doing this? Please, talk to me!”-

Otto nodded, eyes closed behind his tinted glasses. “Perhaps you ought to start with that, then.” He stopped, then added; “or rather, perhaps you should give it a little more time to settle before you do that. You don’t seem to have recovered altogether from the shock.”

Oliver gave a subtle tilt of his head. A half-nod that was all he could muster with his voice threatening to crack like glass in his throat and his body barely responding to any input from the central processor/brain. His mouth struck against incoherent shapes of half-words and syllables and desperate prayers to gods he did not believe in, and was entirely silent.

“Pull that chair over and set your backpack down. There’s no reason for you to stay standing this whole time. You don’t look like you’re in any state to leave, in any event.” It was only by a very slim recollection of sensibilities that Oliver remembered not to let his backpack fall from his shoulders with a heavy thud that even textbooks would not explain. To take it off, set it down. To turn to the chair and pull it over and set it up right and sit in it and make sure the desk was clear and set his glasses aside and then to set about the difficult task of crying in front of someone that was his superior, according to the law of school, according to the law of familial structure. Ugly, a little voice that sounded like a spider or a seraph whispered in the dark of his murky mind. How ugly it is, to cry. You are… weak and ugly, to cry. And it was, in part, calculated, like all things are- this to make him cry harder so that everything would be done with as soon as possible. It was, in part, that he didn’t have any more control over the voice that seemed to be him and not-him than he had over the actions of the people of New York, who thought that he was purely evil, who thought the world of his friend who he thought the world of and had tried to harm. “Wh-what if my-- s-sins are a-already too-o much to bear-?” he asked, in as low a voice as he could, despite the tears and the snot that were going to demand his jacket be washed tonight to prevent anyone seeing that and extrapolating anything with respect to the possibility of Oliver the iron-hearted having cried. “What if I- a-am conde-emned before I ever s-speak?”

“Then the worst case scenario is that you’ve lost a friend. And think how many more people there are; you’ll find other friends. They won’t be the same, but sometimes it can’t be helped. Sometimes you just have to accept that it’ll hurt for a long time, and that there was nothing you could do to change what already happened.” Otto put a hand on Oliver’s shoulder, despite the flinch that he felt even in the midst of that much of what was certainly a humiliating experience already. “But then, that’s the worst case scenario. The best case; want to guess what that will be?”

“I want to be-e a miserable herm-mit who lives in a grotto and n-ever sees the sun.”

“Then I’ll just tell you, since you’re being a miserable little hermit right now.  The best case scenario is that it was all a misunderstanding-.”

“Due to circumstance-es that I won’t g-o into, that’s not a po-osibility.”

“-Or else it will be worked out, like a couple of adults and friends ought to do. After the dust has settled, and you can talk about it without fits of hysterics.” The weight of Otto’s palm, the heat of it, the fact that Otto didn’t try to move or change the sensation at all, so that Oliver could focus on that, keep his attention on that; pull himself out of the bog by that little lifeline that had been extended. “The best case scenario is that everything goes back to normal, or as close as it can get, and your friendship doesn’t change.”

“You’re going to tell me that the most probable thing is… Something in between.” 

“That your friendship is significantly changed, and that you’ll have to both work on fixing it, or else let it fall apart.”

“Mm.” Oliver rolled his head to one side, his whole face salt-stained and puffy with the awful fact of having cried so much in so short a time. “Are you sure I can’t just change my name and live in a cave?”

“You could, but I’d hate to see my nephew go.” Otto lifted his hand, pulled it back toward himself. “So what did happen between you and Nathan?”

Oliver flinched.

“Really, you two sit side-by-side every day and you expect me to not notice when you choose to sit on the opposite side of the classroom?” Doctor Octavius tsk-ed twice. “You ought to realize that I do have eyes by now, even if I happen to wear these glasses often.”

-

| One text message from Ollie Ollie Oxen Free |

Nathan looked at the phone blankly. A week and a half of this... of avoiding each other in every conceivable way. He had just gotten to his apartment not ten minutes ago. A week and a half of seeing, occasionally, that bubble (Ollie is typing…) and watching it vanish without anything to show for it. A week and a half of Nathan being that bubble (Nathan is typing…) with nothing to show for it, until the time between Oliver’s little attempts at speaking became days apart, and Nathan’s also slowed, and he assumed that was the end of it.

And now there was an entire text message (!) from Oliver.

What the hell did he want?

‘Have you heard of the man who spent his whole life mining through a mountain range to make sure medical care would be accessible for his village? The trip around the mountains to get a doctor from the next town over took too long and as a result his wife died. In his grief, he cut a path through, so that no one else would have to die due to the length of the path that he had had to travel. I can’t remember his name, but I think that was pretty noble of him. How strange it must be, to have death be the motive for such a drastic change in the physical world? He literally moved mountains.’

Nathan read, and re-read, and tried to figure out just what the fuck this was supposed to mean, because he was tired after a long day of classes, and he still had homework, and there was a constant threat that someone, somewhere, would decide that breaking half the city was a fine way to spend a Wednesday afternoon.

But what the fuck was that supposed to mean? Obviously it meant something, because Oliver always hid his stupid feelings under layers of allegory and associative story-telling instead of being open and honest (or perhaps that was him being as open and honest as he knew how, and if that was the case he needed to learn that sometimes saying what you mean is better than metaphors).

‘I hadn’t heard of that.’ Nathan really tried to say something more, but found that no words came. Well. At least this was almost a dialogue.

‘Do you think Doc Ock will show up in the near future? He’s been quiet for a while I think.’

And if Nathan had never heard a warning before he’d still have understood that this was one.

Spider-Byte stepped out of the window, swinging through the city without a clue as to where he had to go, but knowing he had to go somewhere soon.

[rosethesongbird]

Alone

Content warning: violence, abuse, mentions of amputation, blood, vomit (emeto), drug abuse, temporary character death... this is a rough one, guys. 

Day to day life (if you could call being imprisoned in a basement with no windows “life”) was not easy, for Serizawa. Crawling around on the floor on amputated stumps with no companionship or help most of the time. One meal a day, at best. Bouncing back and forth between being so drugged up he couldn’t think straight and withdrawals that made him vomit until his throat bled. And on top of it all, living in constant fear of further violence—sometimes because of something he did. Sometimes because of something someone else did. Sometimes random, unprompted. Like he was a human punching bag. Sleeping on the floor like a dog, often in a puddle of his own blood, sweat, and tears. It was, quite honestly, hell.

Getting sick down there?

That was worse. 

The first sign was the fact that he slept. Most people lose sleep when they aren’t well. However, when you’re plagued by horrifying, vivid, realistic nightmares six or seven times a night, you don’t sleep well, ever. And yet there he was, getting shaken awake by Minegishi. 

“Serizawa, wake up,” he frowned. “Are you alright? It’s lunchtime,” 

“Mh,” he blinked his eyes open, using his bandaged upper arms to rub the sleep from them. “Must’ve been tired,” 

“Apparently. Come on, sit up. I’ve got okayu for you today.” Minegishi reached out his hand, gently lifting him off the floor, cautious when touching constantly bruised ribs. “You feel warm.”

“My head hurts.” Serizawa desperately wanted to squeeze the pressure points at his temples, strong fingertips rubbing all over his scalp, alleviating the headache. Really, that was what he missed the most about not having arms. It really made him realize how seldom he was touched. 

“I’ll ask President Suzuki if I can get some medicine for you. Here, eat. We’ll both get in trouble if he notices I’m down here too long.” 

He opened his mouth obediently, going through a few spoonfuls before wincing and turning away. “No more. I feel sick.” 

Minegishi frowned again. “Are you sure?” 

“Mm-hmm,” he squeezed his eyes shut, laying back down onto the cold concrete floor, supporting his head on what was left of his arms as he curled up into a ball. “I feel faint.” 

“I-I’ll try my best, but—he’s in a really bad mood already,” Minegishi hung his head in shame. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back until tomorrow.” 

He took in a shaky breath. His headache was getting worse. “Not your fault, M’negishi,” he whispered, slurring. “Don’ worry.”

He heard Minegishi sniffling as he rose, wordlessly, and left the room, door clicking shut behind him. 

Probably nothing, he thought. Maybe a weird one-day bug or something. Mama always said it was good to sweat a fever out, anyway.

I’ve handled worse. 

He lay there, face down on the floor, for what felt like hours; the only indication of his life being the slow, shaky rise and fall of his back with every breath. Focus. In and out. In and out. Don’t throw up. Focus. His head was pounding stronger and stronger, and he felt beads of sweat dripping off his forehead. 

He deeply regretted the few bites of porridge as they finally came back up, burning and stinging his mouth and nose until there was nothing left in his stomach. The motion of gagging and retching ignited a burning pain in his stomach.

He slowly crawled away from the vomit, spitting in a desperate attempt to get rid of the disgusting taste. The burning pain did not subside, and he felt an intense need to rub his sore stomach—like Mama did, when I was little, Mama, I don’t feel good. A sensation of freezing cold came over him as he started to shiver, cowering in the opposite corner of the room, his back to the door. Several short cycles of sleep went by, interrupted by waves of nausea causing him to gag, his curls sticking to his sweaty forehead despite still feeling like he was in a freezer. Focus. Focus. Breathe in, breathe out. You’re okay. Mama, help. It’s okay. You’re okay. Focus. In, out. Throw up. Don’t throw up. Breathe. Mama. 

He flinched, yelping at the sudden touch on his shoulder. The burning pain had graduated to an excruciating stabbing pain, with a feeling like someone twisting a knife every time he moved, and he realized his breathing was shallow in an effort to minimize it. 

“It’s okay, it’s just me,” said Minegishi. “I got some medicine for you. Open up.” 

“Mmmmh. Can’t,” he whined. “Throw up.” 

“Just try. It’s all I can give you.” 

He cautiously opened his mouth, allowing Minegishi to place a few pills on his tongue, as they had so many times before. Usually, it was a blessing, but to his fever-addled mind it was a source of barely contained panic. He swallowed anyway, hoping it would cause the pain to stop. 

The back of Minegishi’s fingers brushed gently across Serizawa’s face. “You’re burning up. Where does it hurt?” 

“Stomach,” he whimpered, already feeling the medication trying to rise in his throat. 

“Let me see.” Minegishi went to pull up his shirt, revealing the multitude of bruises all over his body in various states of healing. It’s okay. You trust Minegishi. Minegishi won’t hurt you. Breathe. Breathe in. Breathe out. “Right here?” 

Serizawa screamed, seeing stars at the light pressure. Minegishi jerked his hand away at the sudden movement as the ailing man vomited from the pain, sobbing as he fell to the ground, curling in on himself in an effort to quell the waves of pain still emanating from the sore spot. 

“I-I’m sorry,” Minegishi stammered. “I… let me see if the President will let me—“

“No, no, please, please don’t,” he coughed, wincing. “Please, I’ll be fine, please don’t tell him, please—“ 

“Serizawa, I barely touched you and you screamed. You need a hospital.” He got up from the floor, walking toward the door as Serizawa exploded into feverish pleas of no, no, Minegishi, please, he’ll hurt me, please don’t, please, no, no no no. He began to weep as the door shut behind Minegishi. 

Mama, please. Please save me. Help. I need help. It hurts, I’m dying. I’m going to die. I have to protect myself. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t trust Minegishi. Minegishi wouldn’t hurt me on purpose. I have to, I have to. I have to trust Minegishi. I can’t trust anyone else. I can’t. No one cares about me. I’m dying. I’m dying alone. 

“You’re sick, Serizawa?” Touichirou crouched to the ground where he was curled up. Please. Please help. 

“I-I don’t know, sir,” 

“Minegishi here says you are. What’s wrong?” 

“M-my stomach, sir, it hurts—“ he gasped as Touichirou pulled up roughly on his shirt. “P-p-please, please be g-gentle sir—“ 

Touchirou’s two fingers pressed—hard—into the sore spot. It did hurt, but not the way Serizawa had expected. 

What hurt was when he let go. Excruciating agony, pulsing, burning, squeezing, he was screaming, he was wailing, he was dying, help, Mama, help me. He lost all inhibition as he continued weeping in front of the President and a horrified Minegishi. 

“Huh. It’s been a while since I heard you scream like that, Serizawa. Too bad you aren’t sick more often.” He jabbed his fingers into the spot once more as Serizawa shrieked before his eyes rolled back, going completely still as he blacked out. 

—

“Mama,” he cried, breaking into a sprint.

“Katsuya!”

They met in the middle, embracing, sharing tears of joy between them, his mother’s fingers in his hair. 

“I missed you so much, Mama.” 

“I missed you too, my heart.” 

She pulled back, looking at him, confused.

“Wait…you aren’t my son.”

“Mama, I am, I’m Katsuya,” 

“No,” she said, stepping back. “You’re disgusting. My son’s not like you. He’s not a cripple. He’s not a coward.” 

“Mama, I’m not—“ 

He reached out to her as his arms crumbled into dust, starting at the fingertips. 

“Look at yourself,” she said, bitterly. “You can’t comb your hair. You can’t wash yourself. You can’t feed yourself. You can’t do anything. You can’t even embrace your own mother.” 

“Mama, no, please, it’s me—“ he fell, kneeling, to the ground, losing sensation in his legs as they too faded away in the wind like ash. 

“You’re not my son.” She turned and walked away as he began wailing. 

“Mama, no, please, please come back Mama, please—“ 

“Mm… m… mama… pl… m…” 

“Shh, shh.” Shimazaki gently stroked the side of his face with the cloth Minegishi had given him. 

“How is he?” Minegishi walked in, summoned by the small pained sounds Serizawa was making.

“Delirious. He’s not really asleep but… not really awake either.” 

He crouched down to eye level with the man, now mercifully lying in a bed. “Serizawa, can you hear me?” 

Half-lidded eyes flickered, blinking, struggling to open towards the voice. “Ma…ma?” 

“No, it’s me, Minegishi. Can you feel this?” He began to vigorously rub Serizawa’s shoulder. 

A near-imperceptible lowering of the eyebrows, a shuddering sigh. Eyes dull, blurred, still barely open.

“I think that’s a no,” said Shimazaki. 

Minegishi sighed. “Okay, let’s try this. Can you feel this, Serizawa?” He steeled himself, gingerly placing a hand on his stomach and pressing lightly. 

His eyes shot open, screaming until his throat was raw, sobbing, back arching off the bed, coughing, retching, pleading, stop, Minegishi, stop, it hurts, stop, please. 

“Damn.” 

“Can’t you give him anything else?” Shimazaki cautiously began stroking him with the cloth again.

“I’ve already given him more than the max dose. Any more could kill him.” 

The excruciating touch had brought a few moments of awareness to Serizawa. After Touichirou’s rough handling, he had allowed Minegishi to move him to the infirmary as his condition worsened. The inordinate amount of pain medication he was given was enough to make his face and the tips of his stumps numb, tingling, buzzing like static—yet it still hadn’t touched the agony that had spread throughout his whole stomach. 

“Is this really okay?” He flinched as the tips of Shimazaki’s fingers brushed his sore abdomen. “His fever’s worse, and look, it’s starting to swell here.” I can’t move it. It hurts to move. It feels weird. 

“What do you want me to do, Shimazaki?” Minegishi snapped. “I’m not a surgeon, and even if I was the President won’t let me do anything.” Surgeon? I don’t want to have surgery. I’m scared.

“So what, then? We’re just going to let him die?” 

“Don’ wanna die,” he whimpered. Scared, I’m scared. Scared scared scared scared don’t wanna die. Don’t let me die. Can’t. Can’t die. Please. Mama, please. Scared. Help me. He began to panic, his breathing growing faster and shallower. 

“Shh, it’s okay, we won’t. We won’t let you die. Go back to sleep.” Shimazaki looked toward Minegishi pointedly before returning his focus to Serizawa.

“Can’t,” he moaned. “Hurts.” He would have given anything to have his hands back, or at least to have someone touch him gently, comfortingly. Mama. The ends of the manicured fingernails scrubbing his scalp. The slow, gentle circles on his chest. Anyone. He began to cry again, the sensation of tears touching his numb, overheating face almost unbearable, yet wiping them away was impossible. 

“We have to at least get that fever down,” said Minegishi, suddenly. “Could you handle a bath, Serizawa?” 

“Don’ know,” he said, gasping. “Could try.” Anything. Anything. Please. 

“Okay,” Minegishi let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Okay. I’ll go start one. Just… hold on.” 

He lay there for a moment, whining like a hurt dog, when suddenly Shimazaki spoke up. 

“I’m sorry, Serizawa.” 

“S’okay,” he somehow managed to choke out. “Not…your fault.” 

“I just…” he sighed. “I just wish we could do more.” 

“Mh, s’enough.” 

“It’s not, though. One of us should have stepped in.” 

“Th’ President’s… scary,” he wheezed. “Don’ blame you.” 

“That’s an understatement,” said Shimazaki, chuckling humorlessly. 

“Shimazaki, I—“ he started to panic, thinking of the suffering he had endured at President Suzuki’s hand— “can’t breathe,” 

Shimazaki laid his hand on Serizawa’s chest, gently, feeling for the rise and fall. “You’re okay, you’re breathing fine. Just slow down. Try to stay calm.” 

“It hurts,” he moaned. 

“Where?” 

“Everywhere,” he began to sob.

Minegishi ran back into the room, out of breath. “Okay, okay. Come on, Serizawa.” He slipped his arms under the feverish man, pulling him up quickly. 

Serizawa gasped, keening, writhing in pain at the sudden motion. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s just for a minute. You’ll be okay.” He picked him up with ease. 

The pressure on Serizawa’s stomach from being lifted up caused him to yelp, sobbing, pleading that hurts, Minegishi, please, it hurts— 

Shimazaki jumped up, interjecting “Hold on, Minegishi, slow down—slow down for just a minute—“ 

Serizawa began to slip from Minegishi’s grasp as the two began to argue.

“No, look, we have to hurry and get the fever down,” 

“But he’s really sick, Minegishi, you can’t just grab him like that.”

“What, do you have a better idea?” 

“Don’t you think he’s in enough pain as it is? Who do you think you’re helping?” 

“Well, I’d like to see you try to help every once in a while—“

Minegishi absentmindedly shifted Serizawa onto his hip, trying not to drop him. 

The pain pulled at every nerve ending, every synapse, building—cresting—crashing—he vomited, screaming, choking on stomach acid, pressing his overheating face into Minegishi’s neck, inhibitions lost, desperate for the human contact yet just as desperately wishing Minegishi would put him down, please, please, it hurts, help— 

He heard the two men calling out for him, echoing, muffled, he was choking, hyperventilating, can’t breathe, hurts, no, no, not again, no, no more—

He closed his eyes, disordered speech trailing off, passing out. 

—

It’s okay, it’s fine. It’s fine. He’s really sick. He’s overheating. The water’s not that cold but it’ll wake him up right away. I’m sure. I’m sure he’ll start complaining as soon as he touches it. 

Minegishi’s thoughts seemed to echo Shimazaki’s calm, measured words. Yes, no sense in worrying. Surely, surely Serizawa would wake up from the sensation of the bath. 

He did not. 

The two of them gently—gently, this time—lowered him into the water, curls sticking to his sweaty forehead, old worn sweatshirt billowing in the lukewarm bath to reveal the swollen, bruised abdomen. They started to let go, reassuring themselves, see, there he is, he moved a little—as he sunk, limp, into the water, Shimazaki’s heightened senses coming through in the clutch to catch his head as it lolled to one side, mouth open, breathing through dry cracked lips (but just barely). 

They sat there in silence, air in the room growing thick, heavy with the echoing thought what if he doesn’t wake up?

“If he wakes up, I—we have to take him to the hospital,” said Minegishi. 

“More so if he doesn’t, don’t you think?” Shimazaki responded. 

“I’m just—I don’t know how the President will react, but I can’t… I can’t sit by and watch this. I draw the line here.” 

Shimazaki nodded. He dipped his hand into the water, lightly pouring handful after handful of water over Serizawa’s hair. 

Minegishi approached, cautiously, uncharacteristically nervous. The pain he had caused to the man in the bath—whether by action or inaction—ate at the pit of his stomach like a parasite. He took a deep breath, steadying his shaky hands, and reached out to search for a pulse on Serizawa’s neck. 

“Well?” said Shimazaki. 

“It’s fast, but it’s weak,” he said, feeling around. “And something’s infected. His lymph nodes are all swollen.” 

“Has he cooled down at all?”

Minegishi frowned. “Maybe a little, but not much,” 

He pulled his hands away, swiftly, as Serizawa’s eyelids twitched and a low whine came from the gently parted lips. 

“Ah, there he is. See, I told you. Serizawa, wake up,” 

Serizawa struggled again to open his eyes. 

Sensation. Floating. Floating in water? Cold water. Hot. So hot. Overheating. Dying. Not dying. Breathing. Breathing. Talking? Someone is. Water. Clean—wash—bath. Gentle. Not gentle. Hurts, hurts hurts hurts hurts hurts gone. Sick. I’m sick. Me? My name. Who is it? 

“Mh,” he slurred, eyes opening, vision blurred through long eyelashes that Mama said were beautiful, so beautiful. Light. Ceiling. People, like me. They’re like me. They’re not like me. They have hands, and feet. 

“Hey,” said Shimazaki. Tears fell, unhindered, from Minegishi’s eyes, overcome with relief, I didn’t kill him, he’s alive. He’s alive. 

“Hhh... Shi… m…” lips slowly regaining feeling as the pain medication began to wear off still wouldn’t cooperate. 

“Shh, it’s alright. Don’t talk.” 

“Mm,” he nodded. 

“We’re going to get you to a doctor, okay? So don’t worry. Right, Minegishi?” 

Minegishi sniffed, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “Right,” he sighed. “Right. How’s your stomach?” 

He moaned, voice cracking. Bad, bad, bad. Hurts. Wrong. Something’s wrong. Help. 

“I’m sorry… about earlier. I—well, I panicked.” 

He shook his head, weak, as Shimazaki poured another handful of water over his hair. “Nnn. No. S’okay.” It hurt. Hurt. Hurt hurt hurt. Don’t blame you. Hurt me. Accident. 

“Here, Minegishi. Let’s get him dry.” Shimazaki slipped his hands underneath what was left of Serizawa’s arms, slowly pulling, sliding him out of the bath. 

He whined, weak, in pain despite the careful handling. Minegishi wrapped a dry towel around his shoulders, holding him against his chest as he began to shiver in the cool air. 

“I’ll go talk to the President. See what I can get him to agree to.” 

Minegishi nodded, pulling Serizawa closer protectively. 

A feeling of warmth washed over the sick man’s face as he leaned back, relaxed despite the pain. Despite the uncertainty to come he was safe, for now, in the embrace of a trusted friend. His lips twitched into a smile, and he closed his eyes, sinking into the warmth. 

He awoke what felt like just a moment later, blearily, groggily, gasping, every breath feeling like his ribs were grinding together, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, looking toward an unfamiliar ceiling, and light, sunlight, blessed warm sunlight just barely filtering in through a nearby window. 

“That’s right, just breathe. Just keep breathing, you’re doing great, sweetheart.” A woman standing by his head was patting his cheek with her hand. Someone placed an oxygen mask on his face. Who are you? Who? Where? 

A man standing above him was shining a light in his eyes. He tried to pull his head away but it wouldn’t move. 

“Oh, thank God. I’ll go tell the guys who brought him in,” said a different woman, fading out of focus as she walked away. 

The people still in the room worked wordlessly, like he wasn’t even there, except for the woman at his head, still gently patting his cheek, running her fingers through his hair, speaking soft words of encouragement as he struggled to comprehend what was going on. 

Not… the basement? Where? Suddenly, he noticed the absence of Minegishi and Shimazaki, and began to panic. 

“Shh, you’re okay, you’re okay. We’ve got you.” The woman at his head leaned over, stroking his cheek, cooing and whispering to him. “You’re in the hospital. You’re okay.” Hospital? President Suzuki. Why? How?

Will I get punished for this? 

“Come on, Serizawa-san, you’re alright, you’re okay,” said the woman. “Can we get him some more? He’s getting a little agitated,” she said, turning to look at the man who thankfully had stopped shining a light in his eyes. 

“Yeah, I think we can up it a little. Hold on.” 

Almost immediately, his eyelids began to droop. Fine, everything’s fine. 

“Try your best to stay with us, Serizawa-san. I know the drugs are probably making you drowsy, but try to stay awake for me, okay?” 

Okay. 

A familiar voice faded in, sobbing and hiccuping as the woman from before returned to the room. 

“Thank you, thank you—I just, well, he wasn’t breathing and I, I didn’t know w-what to do—“

“I totally understand. That must have been a really scary experience for you.” 

“Yeah. Serizawa really knows how to scare the shit out of us,” chuckled another familiar voice. 

“Hey, stay awake. Look, see, your friends are here,” the woman at his head rubbed her knuckles into the back of his neck, massaging a knot that he hadn’t been able to reach for months. 

Minegishi appeared at his bedside, eyes red, gripping a very used tissue in one hand like a security blanket; Shimazaki not far behind. He stood there for a moment, sniffling, before blurting out “I thought you were dead.” 

Shimazaki chuckled. “We both did. Thank God for my teleportation. Although I think it scared the nurses.” 

The woman at his head smiled. “We’ll get you fixed up soon, okay, Serizawa-san?” 

He nodded, somnolent. 

I’m not alone.

My friends. 

I have my friends. 

[haiykuties-imagines-blog]

hello! i love your writing so far - good luck on the future of your blog! may i request an angst scenario with akaashi but has a very fluffy ending? thank you very much! also! if you need any help or advice, i'm always free - just shoot me a message! good luck and thank you again! (p.s, you might wanna turn anon on hehe :3)

Hey, Thanks so much! I would just like to warn Akaashi fans that I honestly kinda struggle with his personality, but I hope this will do aha 💓

Akaashi Keiji x reader | Word Count: 1,481

You knew he struggled with emotions. And that he wasn’t the most affectionate. He loved you, but there was never any affirmation, never a sense of love and affection emitting from him. So did he really love you?

Was it all a facade? Well, it wouldn’t be a facade considering the man always looked like a statue, so cold, desolate and hollow to the core. More like a lie. Maybe it was a lie he told you on the occasion because he felt too bad to end it after so long. Either way it all seemed hopeless now.

The soft buzz of your phone rang throughout out the air, shaking the table ever so slightly, surfacing your mind back to the miserable reality you drowned in.

“Sorry”

That was all it read. Your blood boiled at the sight of the one worded text from Akaashi, was this situation a joke to him? You couldn’t even muster the effort to reply, often like himself when it came to your texting stream. Pondering, your mind replayed the scenario back in your frazzled head.

The sun set graced the skys above, the orange and yellow hues spreading like a blanket across the city, it was warm but not over-bearing as you cooked dinner. It was only a simply pizza, you had both had a busy day, like always. It was a constant routine with you two, never fluctuating down to the very second it seemed. He liked it that way. You didn’t mind, but a little adventure is fun every now and then right? Either way you set the timer for 25 minutes, humming to yourself as you scanned through the calander perched on the marble ledge. The 21st of September. Your anniversary. Of course yoh hadn’t forgotten, you had brought Akaashi a watch, simple as it was you knew he would like it. It was plated gold but not necessarily blingy, straightforward, like the man you loved. You couldn’t wait to give it to him! Practically squeeling with joy in your heart.

Akaashi rocked in from work just on time, the alarm Blaring throughout the small apart, the sound was enough to drive you insane after long. You quickly greeted your lover, placing a chaste kiss on the cheek before rushing back to the kitchen. He gave a faint hello back and that was it, no questions about your day or anything. Nothing. It was usually like this, but on a day so special you would’ve appreciated at least a little something back, even a smile. Yet he remained a statue. Lifeless and uninhabited of any possible emotion.

It grated at you and weared you down, you were reaching your limit, yet this day had to be special! So you slapped a content grin across your face and played it out as if there was nothing wrong contorting and eating and your mind slowly.

Dinner went rather fast, small talk here and there, you’d managed to get a vague smile to smear slightly along his lips. ‘Congratulations to me’ you thought, a bit more aggressive and sarcastic than your average in head voice. You were sour but hope begin to sink back into you as you remembered one thing: His anniversary present!

You quickly excused yourself, dashing along the corridor and into your shared bedroom before picking up the matte black box with a little red bow wrapped neatly across it. This was it. You saved and saved for this watch, any extra money going towards it. You prayed he would like it.

Sliding the box over to him, after your return, he stared up at you; blank and confused as to why you have placed it before him. His delicate fingers brushed over the ribbon, then he slowly opened it, revealing the watch in all its delicacy.

His next words destroyed you, completely and utterly.

“What’s the occasion?”

Something in you heart snapped hearing that. You felt like someone just swung punch right into the pit of your stomach, it curdled and raged, you wanted to be sick. Your mind wasn’t racing no more, it was blank, like a blank sheet of paper. All the cogs in your body stopped moving, the emptiness you felt was unbearable and grotesque. For what seemed like an insufferable hour, but was only a matter of seconds, you were uncomfortably tranquil and lost. The slow agonising ticking of the dinning room clock seemed so loud, practically eating the entire room.

For once, you were the statue.

Akaashi stared at you, bewildered in your hurt expression, he truly had no idea what was happening.

“It’s our anniversary Akaashi”, you stated, blunt and with such venom in your words.

“Oh yeah you’re right, I forgot, I’m really sorry y/n I’ll try make it up to you another time”, he replied still emotionless, did he actually even care by this point?!

He forgot.

How could he?

You tried to save up so much

Was it all for nothing?

Where is his effort hiding?

You cracked, every fibre in your body officially broke. You couldn’t feel the seething pain of his words no more, nor the sting wrecnhing at your heart shred by shred.

You couldn’t even control yourself as you robotically edge your way towards the front door, picking up your coat and leaving. You didn’t even glance back, you couldn’t, it would cause to much anguish.

Akaashi just sat there at the table, repent and agony leaking across his face, how could he do this to you? Why was he so stupid? But most importantly he wondered if he’d actually get you back after this, he destroyed you completely due to his ignorance and now he had to pay the price.

It had been about 15 minutes since he sent that text, you took another sip of your coffee and stared at it again. You eyes bored into the message as if it was going to tell you something. People must’ve stared at you weirdly, you looked nuts, eyes puffy and swollen, disheveled hair and practically shaking in your seat. You didn’t know whether to give in or not. Mind clouding up yet again like the brewing of a wrathful storm.

You kept ignoring the text for a few more minutes. The subdued buzz flew into the air again.

“Y/n please come home, I’m sorry, I truly am. I understand if you want to leave me, I haven’t treated you right, taking your affection and emotions for granted; completely forgetting to give you back what you deserved. Can we just have one last chat, i love you”

Shock took over your body, that’s practically the most he’s ever opened up to you in one go, you felt awful about him talking about the idea of you guys breaking up. You didn’t want that. Quickly shuffling all your stuff together, you made a B-line for your apartment, this would not be the end.

Knocking faintly on the door you waited for a response. You heart raced, you felt so overwhelmed, how would Akaashi act towards you now? You just left him on him own, without anything.

The soft click of the door brought your mind back to the present, the door jarred open slightly, but he didn’t open it fully. Instead he walked away, awaiting your entry. You swallowed the lump in your throat, holding back tears as you opened the door further, eyes shut tightly.

After gaining the courage to actually open them, you found yourself in utter disbelief at the sight before you...

Scarlet rose petals lead a trail along the cream coloured carpet, slowly your eyes followed the petals until it came to a halt, you glanced up to see Akaashi. He had matching roses in his hand, fresh and dewy, a smile graced his lips but his whole face showed regret and pain. You jumped towards him practically, embracing him in such a large hug that you almost took the poor man to the deck, tears began to prick at the corners of your eyes as you stared up at him.

“It might not be the best, but don’t worry, your anniversary present won’t be this, this is just the beginning of a new chapter”

You honestly couldn’t believe it, the man that was so stone-like before is now before you, pouring himself and his feelings to you. Honestly you weren’t even listening properly to what he said, you were overjoyed, this was a new chapter, a new time to learn and fall even more in love with eachother.

The rest of the night was just pure bliss, cuddles, kisses and anything in between. You slowly felt your eyes drift, laying on the boys lap was a dream, so warm and comfy. Akaashi played lightly with your hair, appreciating every fibre of yourself.

After all, you were both happy now, starting your new journey together.

[hopelessromanticspoonie]

To Keep You Safe

Title: Please, please, don’t leave me.

Chapter: 20/?

Author: hopeless_romantic_spoonie

Summary: Life as the assistant to Tony Stark was busy, but boring. All of that changed when I touched something I shouldn't have and woke up with strange new abilities. If I thought that trying to figure out my new place in life as an Avenger was tough, I had no idea what was in store for me once I ran into the frustrating God of Mischief, Loki.

Rating: Explicit

Notes: Thank you so much for being patient with my while I try to get my health back on track. Y’all are the real MVPs and I’m so grateful for you.

Also on Ao3 here :)

Warnings for this chapter: Description of injuries, blood, language, brief mention of attempted suicide and torture, talk of murder.

~~~

In. Out. In. Out.

I willed him to keep breathing with me. It was as if my fervent thoughts were the only thing keeping him alive. I didn’t know what I would do if he stopped.

His eyes remained closed, clenched tight in agony, but I selfishly hoped that that distressed expression remained on his face. It meant he was holding on, fighting, and that’s all I could ask of him until we could figure out what could be done. My brain couldn’t even begin to grasp what to do next, it had gone frustratingly blank, but someone would have an idea. They had to.

Right?

The sound of boosters winding down filtered through the haze of shock that had settled over my senses. I lifted my glittering eyes to Tony after he dropped a heavy metal hand in between my bare shoulder blades and Thor’s shoulder. The metal was shockingly warm from his use of the repulsor only moments ago. The visor of his helmet had retracted into the suit so I could see the apprehension lining his face.

“He’s gonna be okay, kid. The ambulance will get him back to the Compound. A doctor will be there waiting to get him patched up. Thor, I need you in the first car with me so we can call and tell the docs what we can and can’t do for him, since you guys aren’t human. But to do all of that, you have to let him go,” he said, voice-controlled and patient as he looked back and forth between the two of us kneeling protectively over Loki.

But Thor and Loki weren’t the same. Loki was a Frost Giant. Even if he looked Æsir, he was anything but. They couldn’t give him our blood. Would a needle be able to pierce his durable skin for stitches? What if it couldn’t? What could they do for him? I didn’t know the answer to any of the questions that seemed vitally important.

Two sets of hands clamped down on my upper arms, roughly pulling me away as the EMTs approached with a stretcher. The harsh action reignited the dull throb in my bicep to a searing heat as one hand squeezed down on the fresh bullet wound. I ignored it and threw my weight against their tight grip, kicking and snarling. When my struggling did nothing, I directed my flexed fingers at the ground. All of my frantic energy pulsing beneath my skin poured into the soft earth, lifting roots from deep underground to wrap around my ankles and hold me in place The hands released me like my skin was aflame when I let out a cry of pain; it felt like my ankles were being ripped from their sockets, and I fell onto my back when I was suddenly free. I scrambled to my feet, stepping out of the roots that sank back into the ground, and rushed back to Loki to hover over him once more.

My narrowed eyes settled on Tony since he seemed to be the one taking charge of the situation. “I am not leaving him.”

Nat walked quickly out of the shadows and lowered herself down next to me. She frowned at the dreadful state of the injured god before bringing her attention back to me. Her hand brushed off a bit of debris that had cemented themselves into scrapes on my forehead, making me wince. “You have to let them take him back to the Compound. He can’t stay here. If he stays here, he will die. At least he’ll have a chance at home.”

Die? I glanced down at Loki’s wan face. I couldn’t imagine this being the last I saw of him. Would this be my final memory of him? It couldn’t be. I wouldn’t allow it, not after knowing the beauty of his smile. I kept my eyes on him and nodded. Nat took my hand and pulled me to my feet, and Thor stood along with us. Wanda walked up to the other side of Tony and lifted Loki onto the waiting stretcher gently with the assistance of her magic. My hand sought out Thor’s as we walked just a step behind Loki’s unconscious form, seeking comfort in the only other person who could even begin to feel the anguish that pulled constant silent tears down my face.

Tony came out from behind us to stand by the open doors of the ambulance, his hands raised to halt our progress. “Neither of you will fit in the ambulance, especially not you, Thor. We’ll follow right behind him in our cars. That’s the best I can do.”

Thor looked torn as he shifted his gaze to me, trusting in my knowledge of this world.

I hesitated. Every bit of me yearned to chase after the ruined body of the god that I loved and cram myself into that ambulance, but I also knew that they would need all the space they could get to keep him stable until we arrived at the Compound. It felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest and now rested in Loki’s pale, cold hands.

And I had no choice but to watch him leave with it.

“We stay on that ambulance’s tail, or it’s your ass, Stark,” I threatened, poking him hard in his metal chest for full effect. It hurt my finger a little, but it was worth it.

Tony nodded, mouth set in a grim line. “Everybody load up!”

Thor ran off toward where the vehicles were idling in front of the museum. The rest of the team had slowly gathered around us as the scene had unfolded, and at Tony’s shouted command, they dispersed. I hobbled after them as quickly as I could, but the adrenaline had begun to wear off and the bullet that had lodged itself into my thigh sent surges of sharp agony through my frayed nerves with each jarring step. I powered through and climbed into a waiting SUV behind Tony, glancing around to see Thor, Sam, and Nat already buckling themselves in. Pepper was behind the wheel, and she slammed her foot down the gas pedal as the ambulance turned on it’s flashing lights and sped off ahead of us.

With the numbing adrenaline fully out of my system, I was aware of every bruise and scrape tarnishing my skin. Nat had ended up buckled in next to me, and she used a knife--where she found it I wasn’t sure--to cut off strips of my already ruined dress, tying them tightly around my bicep and thigh as makeshift tourniquets. I gritted my teeth against the necessary field dressings. The siren of the ambulance we followed was so loud that I couldn’t make out most of what Tony and Thor were talking about in the front, but I was too frazzled to worry about that much anyway. My mind was otherwise occupied with racing, disjointed thoughts.

Loki was a god. Gods didn’t die, that’s why they were gods. But gods could die. Odin and Frigga had died. Frigga was assassinated by a stabbing herself. I had watched bullets bounce off of him like they were made of rubber. Surely a lone puncture wound wouldn’t kill him, right? He had lost a lot of blood, though. But the blade hadn’t been that long. I’d never seen him shake like that. He didn’t deserve to die. Not when he might not know how loved he was in this world. I was supposed to stay by his side to protect him. We were a team! I had failed him. I had failed.

I failed him.

An eternity later, we followed the screaming ambulance as it pulled into the Compound. A man in a white coat and another in scrubs were waiting for us next to a rolling metal table at the entrance. We screeched to a stop a few car lengths away from the ambulance, giving it a wide berth so they could get the stretcher out easily. I pushed the door open before the car was turned off, vaguely aware of Thor doing the same as we ran around to look for Loki.

All color seemed to have drained out of pale face during the ride. I couldn’t even see his chest moving for the flurry of activity of the doctors and paramedics, but the urgency in the men transferring him from the ambulance gurney to the metal table had to mean that he was still alive. They wouldn’t be so rushed if he was already dead, right?

Thor stayed at my side as we followed the duo of doctors rolling the gurney inside and down a series of hallways into the infirmary. When we tried to go into the room that they wheeled him into, Tony, Steve, and Nat both pulled us back from the shut doors before stationing themselves in the way.

“Nat, move. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will,” I growled out, head lowered and feet spread apart so I could retain my balance as I faced off against her. The powerful stance shot fire through my injured leg, but I wasn’t about to back down because of a bit of pain when it came to Loki.

Thor took a similar pose next to me. Bloodied and covered in dirt, he was even more imposing than usual, the grime giving credence to his ability to handle himself in a fight. “There is ample space in that room for us.”

Tony, still in his suit but sans helmet, crossed his arms over his chest and pinned me down with a warning glare. “If you and Thor go in there, they won’t be able to get any work done. They need space, but they also need peace and calm to be able to focus. Do you look calm right now, kid?”

With my fists clenched at my sides, tattered dress covered in multiple people’s blood, and desperation shining in my eyes, I knew that I was anything but a steady presence. I couldn’t live with myself I was a distraction to them and that caused Loki more harm. Thor and I hazarded a quick look at each other, and the tension blew out of him with his heavy sigh that puffed out his cheeks.

“We will remain right here,” he vowed with a nod of his head. He dropped down into a metal chair that groaned beneath his weight and tilted his head back against the wall to close his eye.

“You need medical attention.”

Steve’s gruff voice brought my attention back to the slowly bleeding wounds beneath the tourniquets on my arm and thigh, the blistered burn on the palm of my left hand, and the untold number of cuts and scrapes dotting my body that my thin dress had done little to protect against. I sank heavily into the chair next to Thor and my head fell to my chest with a tired sigh. Thor’s large hand lay open on his knee, and I placed my much smaller palm over his and laced our fingers together. His hand overwhelmed mine with its size and warmth, and I drank in the strength it offered like a drug. Somehow, during this ordeal, my doubt of his intentions surrounding me had vanished away.

Maybe that’s what happened when two people are faced with the possibility of losing the most important person in their lives.

Steve stayed posted in front of the doors. He, too, looked fearsome in his dirtied Captain America suit, his blue eyes piercing as he watched Thor and I wait anxiously for any news from the doctors inside. Nat returned some time later, showered and fixed up with a bandage wrapped around her forearm. She kicked two chairs in front of me, plopping down on one and scattering a selection of bandages, gauzes, cleaning solutions, and other medical tools onto the other.

“Pain meds?” she asked, face blank excluding one raised brow as she held out the syringe and the bottle of morphine to me. It was considerate of her to ask, to show me the tools so that I could see what she was doing and know without a doubt what was in the syringe.

I nodded my consent with one caveat, “Just enough to take the edge off.” There was a bullet in my thigh, and I didn’t want to pass out like I had in the past. I needed to be awake for when they finished with him.

She pulled a small amount of morphine into the chamber and plunged the needle into my leg. The cold fluid automatically took me back to a cold, dark room filled with electricity and painful consequences. I shoved the mental image away with a shake of my head. Nothing was going to pull my focus from the present moment, not even that.

But as Nat began to work at stitching up the wounds, a combination of fatigue, drugs, and worry pulled at me until it felt like I was disconnected from my body, watching instead of feeling as she furthered the tears along the sides of my dress so she could move the fabric to get at my thigh. Expertly, she pried the bullet from my thigh and stitched up the wound left behind. It was easier to just tear away the lace sleeve of my dress for her to have enough room to stitch up the graze on my bicep. My blistered hand was left to the open air after it was smothered in burn cream.

Thor turned down any medical attention, but it didn’t look like he had any serious damage that would need any extra help.

The chair was covered in bloody rags and plastic wrappers by the time she finished tending to me. I could only meet her eyes and nod in silent gratitude before she left; I couldn’t think of anything to say. My brain was still firmly focused on Loki, unconscious and bleeding and alive, just on the other side of the wall at my back.

What I wouldn’t give to have our situations reversed, to take his pain away and shoulder it for him instead. Without that as a real possibility, my fears swirled into more terrible thoughts by the second. Would I feel the cool caress of his calloused fingertips on my skin again? Would I ever see the warm, sleepy smile that he had just for me when we woke in the mornings? I couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t hear the pleasing velvet of his voice sounding out my name again. It wasn’t possible. I would track down whoever I needed to drag his soul out of Valhalla if it came to that.

I clung masochistically to the fiery twinge that broke through the grips of the pain medication as I limped back and forth in front of the doors. My repetitive steps pulled on the stitches of my thigh, but I relished the discomfort. It kept me awake, and awake meant alive. I chewed on my bottom lip as I finally came to a stop against the opposite wall.

It had been too long. What had gone wrong? Surely by now they’d be finished with him. There had been too much damage. They didn’t want him to live because of his past and they were just letting him bleed out instead. They were killing him.

Just as I was about to barge into the room, permission be damned, the same man who had taken Loki opened the metal doors that had quickly become my obsession. His white coat and scrubs were dark red with the Loki’s blood; the table he pulled behind him also told the tale of the gory scene we had been denied access to. I pushed passed him and the doctor behind him to burst into the room, seeking out Loki.

My heart lodged itself firmly in my throat as I watched him, waiting for his bare chest to rise with his breath. My knees threatened to buckle with relief when I got my wish. Even shallow, it was there, and that was enough. I couldn’t bridge the distance between us, though, suddenly afraid to touch him. I hadn’t expected him to look so fragile.

The doctor’s tired voice came from over my shoulder. “His skin is so tough that he kept dulling the needles. It took a bit longer than we’d have liked, but we managed to stitch him up. We couldn’t give him any blood, but he does have a saline drip going. The rest is up to him.”

Thor barrelled around us and pulled two chairs up to the bed, one on either side. He plopped down onto the chair at Loki’s left, staring at his brother’s sleeping face. Seeing Thor so close reignited my own need to be with Loki, overpowering my odd fear of hurting him with just a touch, and it wasn’t even a second later before I fell into the open chair at his right.

This close, he looked both so much worse and so much better than I had anticipated. My uninjured hand came on top of his of its own accord. I had to remind myself that he was a Frost Giant, that he was always cold, and it wasn’t because he was dying. The crease between his eyebrows had smoothed out, and if it weren’t for the sterile setting and bandages I could see around his middle, he could have been in our bed, sleeping peacefully.

But there were dark shadows beneath his eyes, and his breathing wasn’t as deep as that of sleep. I had to be mindful of the IV coming out of his wrist as I skated my hand up the length of his arm, stroking the soft skin reverently. My eyes followed the slow movements of my hand, almost hypnotized by the repetitive pattern and speed.

“Will he survive this?” I breathed, afraid of the answer but I needed to voice the question plaguing my mind.

“Were we on Asgard, he would handily. But it is no more, and I do not possess the tools necessary to aid him in his healing,” he said quietly, his rich voice full of despair. “But, my brother is strong. If anyone can survive such an injury, it is he.”

“I’m sorry that you lost Asgard. I can’t imagine how I’d handle it if Earth just…” I searched for the right word, sucking my bottom lip in between my teeth. After a few quiet moments, I gave up. I lifted Loki’s limp hand to my lips and just held it there, memorizing the feeling of his skin against mine--a sensation I would never take for granted again. My tired eyes drifted up to his colorless face. “He’s so pale.”

Thor’s chair groaned as he shifted his weight to rest his forearms on the bed. “I was concerned he would look differently.”

“Hmm?” The curious sound vibrated my lips against his hand, tickling the sensitive, chapped skin.

Thor’s gaze flitted between Loki and me quickly before settling on his hands as he rubbed them together anxiously. “Oh, I was simply expecting him to look…”

I narrowed my eyes and lowered our joined hands from my mouth back to the soft sheets beneath him. “Like a Frost Giant.”

He straightened from his slouched position. “He spoke of his true heritage to you?”

“Of course,” I replied indignantly.

“And you still love him?”

A muscle fluttered in my cheek from my clenched jaw. I tightened my fingers into the stiff, blood-stained fabric over my knee. “Of course I do. He’s the man I love. Not a creature, not a god, not Æsir of Jötunn. He’s just Loki.”

“But surely you know of the Frost Giants. How-”

I cut off what was surely going to some horrible judgment before it could begin, bristling at his inference that I wouldn’t love him because of such a stupid reason. My blood boiled and my powers rushed through my veins. I worked to speak in as much of a measured tone as I could. “He is your brother. He is Odin and Frigga’s son, although I’d rather that Odin hadn’t been part of the picture at all, to be honest.”

“Do not speak of Odin in that manner.” It was a threat, delivered with a low rumbling voice that had never been directed at me before. Anger tightened the lines around his eyes and throbbed in the visible veins of his neck.

I refused to back down. I rose to my feet instead, ignoring the trembling of my legs against the foolish demonstrative stance. I wasn’t afraid of him, even if he could easily wipe me off the face of the Earth. Loki was too important for me to be afraid. “To you, he may have been a great leader, a great father, but take a look at it through his eyes.” I ticked off each point on my fingers as I made them, “Stolen as a baby to be used for political gain, told his entire life that his true self was a monster to be despised, lied to about his identity, locked away for what was meant to be an eternity, cast aside and ostracized by basically everybody but your mother, belittled when he wasn’t ignored, shouted at and demeaned in public. He fought tooth and nail for acceptance and love and to get out of the shadow of his family and it was never freely given.”

I combed a trembling hand through my disgusting hair, having to pull it out halfway through because it was so tangled. “He has every right and reason to be the way he is, to not trust anyone, to act in his own interests. Just as you are the way you are, so is he.”

He crossed his massive arms over his burly chest as he leaned back in the chair, head tilted to the side and lips pursed into a thin line. It was a pose very similar to one Loki frequented, but I’d never tell him that. “And how am I?”

Maybe I shouldn’t have opened this can of worms, but it was too late to take it back. I leaned into my judgemental anger. “Quick to action, sometimes without thinking it through. A little more motivated to fight your way out of situations than think them through. More confident, loud, outgoing. You were raised to be King of Asgard, and you act like it. Like you know your place in the world and take it for granted. You know the effect you have on people, making them trust you, and in some cases, become attracted to you. You revel in it. Because you have never had to doubt your place in the world, except for when your father banished you. But that was only temporary. You never questioned the love that Odin or Frigga had for you, not really. You always trusted that what you did was right.”

I braced myself against the bed, arms straight as I leaned forward over Loki to pin him down with the full intensity of my barely-contained fury and disappointment. “But you aren’t always right, just as he isn’t, just as I’m sure as hell not. Shit like what you did to him on Sakaar? That’s not okay. He could’ve died, been killed actually, and you just left him there, helpless. I know that he’s betrayed you, but so have you to him, every time you let your glorious four talk down to him, the entire time you allowed him to be locked up in those dungeons without even visiting him, when you ignored the obvious signs that he wasn’t okay, when you refused time and time again to even try to see his side of things.”

A cruel, low laugh devoid of humor escaped from somewhere deep within me. “He tries so. damn. hard. He carries around all this crap that Odin dumped on him, the trauma of being tortured for a year after he tried to commit suicide, and I-”

I stopped my own rant, lowering my head to stare down at Loki’s handsome face, forcing myself to take deep, calming breaths. He wouldn’t want me to lean into Thor like this, even after all they’ve done to each other. My hand skirted up his side, over his ribs, to come to rest on his chest. His heart thudded out, strong and steady, no faster or slower than it was when he normally slept. It brought me more peace than I thought it would. “He can’t acknowledge any of it. He tells me these stories of Asgard when he thinks that I’m asleep, or near enough to it that I won’t remember. But I do, because it’s heartbreaking and it obviously hurts him and I can’t… I can’t fix it. I can’t do it on my own; I don’t have enough time. I know that you’ve talked to him about my dying, about how short my life is compared to yours, and-” I swallowed around the lump forming in my throat, “he’s going to need someone there for him when it happens. I’d feel a lot better if you at least tried to be there for him, to help him and listen to him, after I’m gone. He can’t go it alone, even though he thinks otherwise. He loves you. I know he doesn’t really show it, but he does. He just wants to be your brother.”

Thor watched me silently for some time. I didn’t dare look up to him to see what effect my unplanned speech had on him. So it took me by surprise when Thor rose from his chair, swiftly closed the short distance between us, and enclosed me in the warmth of his embrace. I stiffened at first, unused to such affection from him after so many months of pushing him away, but when he didn’t let up, my body slowly relaxed. My hands even reached out to pat him on his broad, muscled back. He tightened his arms quickly before standing back to hold me at arm’s length so he could look down at me.

“Loki is most fortunate to have earned a love so complete from one so strong,” he stated quietly, a warm smile settling comfortably onto his tanned face. It fit better than the worry and anger he’d worn lately.

“Thor, Brunnhilde has called your phone several times. She says it’s urgent,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. said, her voice breaking through the platonic intimacy of the moment.

Thor darted his gaze back and forth between me to his brother, the need to stay by his side while also answering the call from his Valkyrie clearly dueling in his mind.

“I’m not leaving him,” I vowed, reaching my hand up to squeeze his hand reassuringly before stepping away to press my bottom against the edge of the raised bed.

He groaned in exasperation as he backed away towards the doors. “You will alert me if anything changes?”

“Promise,” I promised with a steadfast nod, brows lowered and jaw set. “Thor?”

He stopped his retreat at my soft call.

“I don’t love you like I do Loki, but I could see myself becoming your annoying little sister who doesn’t let you get away with acting like an idiot. So be careful out there, okay?” I offered him the kind words with a good-natured shooing motion with my hands.

“I am entrusting you with his care and protection while I am absent.”

And then he was gone and I was left alone with my slumbering god.

Time passed differently in that brightly lit hospital room. It was measured in the shallow breaths that lifted his chest, the slow drying and cracking of sweat and blood on my skin, the fatigue that weighed down my eyelids and the gradual lightening of the world through the window as the sun rose for the new day. At some point in the night F.R.I.D.A.Y. let me know that Thor had to go to New Asgard to settle some dispute, but I hadn’t cared to look at the clock to check the time.

The sun had fully risen by the time Nat walked into the room, face serious and arms crossed over her stomach. She jerked her head towards the doors she had just passed through. “Go take a shower. I’ll take a shift.”

I shook my head stubbornly. The very thought of leaving him made my heart race in my chest. I lifted my weary, red-rimmed eyes to hers. “I can’t leave him.”

She plopped down in the chair Thor had been in earlier and pulled out her phone. “It’ll freak him out to see you like this when he wakes up. Go get cleaned up and at least grab a granola bar or something. If he finds out that you haven’t been taking care of yourself while he’s taking a snooze, you’ll never hear the end of it. And then I’ll never hear the end of it from you. So, go; I’ll watch Sleeping Beauty.”

I could kiss her for saying ‘when’ and not ‘if’. I hadn’t entertained the thought that he may not wake up since my talk with Thor, but the ball of dread in my stomach had lingered there just the same. He would be pretty upset if he woke up to see me covered in blood and dirt, and probably a little disgusted. She knew just the buttons to push to get me moving. Damn it.

“Have F.R.I.D.A.Y. let me know if anything changes, please.”

She didn’t look up from her phone as she nodded and grunted, “Sure thing.” I gratefully squeezed her shoulder on my way out, my legs tingling from sitting in one position at his side for so long.

I had to admit that it felt heavenly to stand beneath the pounding showerhead and watch the water swirling at my feet slowly change from rusty brown to clear. Even the sting of the scalding water on my healing cuts and scrapes was welcome as it battled against the drowsiness that urged me to just lay down on the shower floor and take a quick nap.

After the shower, I moved about on autopilot. It was the safest option to get me through what I needed to do and back up to his room. I threw on a pair of sweatpants and a matching hoodie that I stole from Loki’s side of the closet. They smelled like him and were luxuriously soft against my ravaged body. My hair was left to air-dry into a frizzy, wavy mess. Only the desire to watch over Loki was enough to keep me from crawling into the welcoming mussed bed. I snagged a bottled coffee that Nat liked to have around and a protein bar before heading back to the infirmary, waving them at Nat to prove that I was following orders.

“Any changes?” I asked, sinking down into my previously vacated chair and stuffing a bite of the bland bar into my mouth. Cookies and cream, my ass.

“None. How are you doing?” she asked, pocketing her phone and directing her pointed gaze at my leg. “Ruining my handiwork, I see.”

“Hm?” Oops. Small spots of blood seeped through the light fabric of my pants. “Well, I guess I ripped a stitch or two coming down here. But it doesn’t hurt too bad.”

It wasn’t a lie. General unease, anxiety, and dread had blanketed my body, only adding to the throbbing ache of my actual injuries scattered over me. I was just one big wound, and pushing it to the back of my mind was the only way that I could cope with it.

I called it compartmentalizing, and Nat called it: “Avoiding the issue again?”

I wolfed down the last of the bland bar, tossing the crumpled wrapper into a trash can by his bedside. “I’ll heal up. I’m not taking more morphine. It makes me sleepy.” I pressed, cutting my eyes to her before surveying Loki for any changes. “I need to check his bandages.”

She stood up in my peripheral vision and then began roaming around as I lifted myself out of the chair to perch on the side of his bed by his hips. Nat wheeled a tray covered with medical supplies in front of me. I looked up and found her watching me with sadness softening her eyes and a frown on her face.

“If you need anything, you know where to find me, okay? Drink some water with that coffee,” she commanded, patting the table of supplies twice before leaving the room.

Alone with Loki, it was too quiet. The only sound in the sterile space came from me as I bustled about getting everything laid out to my liking. In my quick check of the room, as my hands worked at opening packages of sterile bandages, I noticed that he had a new bag of saline solution hooked up to him; Nat must have changed it. That was kind of her and somewhat unexpected. I didn’t know how she felt about him, but she had pushed us together, so she couldn’t think too terribly of him, right? No matter what happened, I was indebted to her for playing matchmaker. It was a debt I’d gladly pay, hopefully over many years with Loki grumbling at my side.

I pulled down the thin blanket covering him to get at the bandages wrapped around his middle. The blood that had seeped through the layers of gauze was dried and dark, hopefully signaling that he was already beginning to heal. Thanks to the remote attached to the bed I was able to leverage him into an upright position, but it would still take some maneuvering to get him situated so I could get my arms behind his back to rewrap the bandages.

I thought the silence might drive me mad, my mind begged for distraction, so I decided to talk to him. Maybe he could hear me and it would help? It certainly helped me, and he wasn’t awake to complain about it.

“You sure are heavy for a thinner guy.” I shifted his shoulder over a pillow with a quiet grunt. “I mean, you do have muscles, I’m very aware of how ripped you are,” a blush bloomed on my pallid cheeks, “but still. This is probably going to hurt, so I guess I’m glad that you’re asleep for this part,” I rattled on, tossing the old bandages that I had carefully cut off of him away.

The white square of gauze covering his stab wound was caked with dried blood, and I winced sympathetically as I slowly pulled it from his skin, knowing that it was tugging on the wound as well. Sure enough, after I had fully gotten it off, a small amount of blood pooled on the edge of the stitches. I took a second to admire the handiwork of the doctor as I dabbed at it gently with gauze covered in antiseptic solution. For having to change needles several times, it was good work. Clean stitches neatly spaced apart, which, if they left a scar, wouldn’t mar his skin too terribly.

“You did this for me before. That was the first time you showed that you weren’t some heartless asshole like I had thought you were. I never thought our roles would be reversed. You're a god who can’t even be pierced by bullets, and a knife from some guy catching you by surprise is what does you in?” I liberally applied some antibiotic ointment over and around the tear in his skin. “When I was in this same situation you told me that I wasn’t allowed to die. Well,” I swallowed the thick tears that strangled my voice, “I didn’t give you permission either. I know that you’re more of an ‘ask forgiveness rather than permission’ kinda guy, except without asking for forgiveness, but I’m gonna need you to follow the rules just this once. Okay?” I attached fresh gauze to his taut stomach with a strip of medical tape before I wound new bandages around his lean torso to help secure and protect my work. “I think I overheard Tony saying in that car that he thinks that was the last of Hydra. So now that we don’t have to worry about that anymore, you need to get out of this bed and take me on a proper date that doesn’t end in people dying. How weird would that be?”

Once I was finished, my fingers caressed the smooth skin peeking out from the top of the bandages gently. The muscles, even in his sleep, rippled beneath my loving touch. I carefully pulled away the extra pillows that I had used to prop him up and piled them at the foot of his bed. It was impossible to resist pushing a stray hair off his forehead and my hand naturally fell to cup his chiseled jaw afterward.

“Come back to me, okay? Please,” I whispered, unable to speak any louder for fear that I would give in to the tears that glittered in my hazel eyes. Crying wouldn’t make him wake up and it’d just give me a headache.

Even though he was a Frost Giant and probably didn’t even get cold, I still pulled the sheet up over his naked torso, tucking it around his shoulders. My aching body protested my twisted position on the edge of his bed, so I settled back down into the cushioned chair I had claimed earlier. An audible sigh of relief rushed out of me. I leaned forward, crossed my arms over themselves and rested them against the outside of his thigh. I would watch him for any changes from this position. I should really sit up and drink the bottled coffee that sat on the floor next to my chair, but that required too much movement. Besides, I wasn’t going to fall asleep this way; it was just more comfortable. That was my last thought before my eyelids fluttered closed and I dozed off.

~~~

Something startled me and I woke up with a gasp, lifting my forehead from where it had fallen onto his upper thigh. I grumbled incoherently, arching my back and stretching my arms over my head as my body made it known that sleeping in such an odd position for so long was not the best idea I’d ever had. Someone had turned off the overhead lights in the room at some point, leaving the room illuminated only by the fading sunlight and a small bedside lamp. I looked around the room with bleary eyes. A glass of ice water and a grilled cheese sat on the table beside me that had previously held medical supplies. When I reached out to grab the sandwich it was still warm. That must have been what woke me up.

“You’re welcome,” Tony commented sarcastically.

I didn’t bother to turn my head to address him. I was wiped, mentally and physically, and even that task seemed too arduous. He could come around the bed if he wanted to talk face to face. I took a bite and suppressed a pleased moan over the simple sandwich. I hadn’t eaten in way too long. I visually inspected Loki for changes as I chewed.

Did he have more color to his cheeks than he had earlier? It was hard to tell after staring at him for so long. His breathing had deepened, though, which I took as a sign that he was in less pain. His measured breaths more closely resembled those of the deep sleep that I listened to in the wee hours of the morning. Surely if he was getting worse, it'd be more obvious, right? Tony’s shoes clicked on the floor as he strolled around to stand across from me on the other side of Loki’s bed. He shoved his hands into his pockets with a sigh. “How’re you both doing?”

“Splendid,” I replied with a too wide, too-bright smile.

His dark eyes rolled in his head before settling back on me, his brows raised above them.

Apparently my satire wasn’t appreciated. Got it.

I scrubbed my hand over the back of my neck. “He seems to be breathing easier, so that’s good. I,” I stretched my arms behind my back, wincing at the pull of the stitches as they got caught in the fabric of my stolen sweatshirt, “I’ll be fine. Nothing a few grilled cheeses and naps can’t fix.”

He nodded and his jaw ticked as he shifted on his feet. “Good, well, then I need you to look at-”

“Tony, if you’re here to tell me that last night with that bastard from Hydra was uncalled for, that the press is having a field day, that we’re supposed to be the good guys, save it. I’m not apologizing and I’m not dealing with it today,” I cut him off brusquely. It was very rude of me, but I didn’t have the fucks in me left to give. Those were reserved for Loki.

He shook his head just a bit at my retort, blinking at the abruptness of it, before clearing his throat and heading toward the door. “Okay then, Poison Ivy. I’ll save it for tomorrow. Drink that water.”

I turned my head to look at him curiously over my shoulder when he called my name.

“I covered for you both, to the press and SHIELD, about that asshole from Hydra. No worries.”

He shot me a kind smile before ducking his head and leaving the room.

I had forgotten all about killing Malfoy after Loki beat him within an inch of his life. He would’ve killed him if I hadn’t gotten there to finish the job. All of the moisture left my mouth.

I had thought that killing him would make me feel better, vindicated and free. But instead, I just felt numb and empty. I had never killed in cold blood before. True, he had deserved death and so much more, but I hadn’t ever made the conscious decision to end someone’s life. I had always acted in self-defense.

Excluding last night. A wave of fierce cold anger had settled over me after Loki had been injured. I didn’t even recognize myself as I looked back at the memory. I had ended the lives of all of those men without blinking an eye. They were trying to kill my friends and kidnap me, but in the past I would have felt at least a bit of remorse or shock at what I’d done. Guilty, maybe.

I’d do it again in a heartbeat for what they did to Loki.

What kind of monster did that make me?