#if you want me to go more into detail about his injury and how exactly it happened i would be happy to | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

akutasoda · 9 days

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hold my hand, lean on me

synopsis - jiaoqiu adjusting to domestic life with you

includes - jiaoqiu

warnings - gn!reader, spoilers for 2.5, angst w/ some comfort, fluff, maybe ooc, wc - 1.3k

a/n: i actually cannot get this darn foxian out my mind :( shouts to @thelightofmylife for some vv helpful pointers and information ^^ tbh i feel like this is just 1.3k words of word vomit HAHA

the healers finished informing you of the situation, thanking them you then closed the door to the shared abode. a sigh you didn't know you were holding back escaped alongside a glance down to the papers the healer's handed over. you could read them later, the news followed by the details of it wasn't exactly a pleasant thought, if anything it might be a final push for the tears to start falling.

your thoughts were distracted by the sound of hesitant, shuffling footsteps. turning around, you were met with the sight of jiaoqiu standing idly not too far from you - almost as if he was taking in the surroundings, although now it was more him trying to piece together the memories of what it looked like.

jiaoqiu had arrived back at the yaoqing not too long ago, admittedly rather late, but the luofu's alchemy commission had kept him for a while. he'd been forced immediately to the yaoqing’s alchemy commission as they were now the ones responsible for his treatment plan for the future. a short talk with them had then led to him being escorted back home. to you.

upon arrival, some of the alchemy commission healers explained to you about the entire situation. they kept it short but soon handed you a full document containing everything from “patient’s injuries” to “doctor’s post-charge advice” - each and every sentence pained you more and more, you refused to acknowledge what would've happened if moze hadn't found him, you would have to thank him later.

the healers had asked you to take upon the responsibility of looking after him at home, and in most day to day life scenarios - at least until he adjusted properly. they asked you to keep strict to the “post-charge advice” as otherwise it probably would cause more harm to him, making his healing process longer and maybe even worsening it beyond healing.

“jiao-ge” you called out, to let him know that you were still near. it pained to see the somber look on his face. the last thing jiaoqiu saw wasn't anyone, anywhere or anything he loved. no. it was something he hated, someone he loathed in unfamiliar territory surrounded by no-one he knew.

now he stood in familiar territory, with the person he loved the most. but he couldn't bask in the sights or even see you. all he had was memories to cast images in his mind, to help pretend that nothing was wrong and that he could see what he remembered.

you knew that he wouldn't want you doting on him. jiaoqiu needed to adjust, to learn how to go about his life as usual and you overly fussing over him would only probably annoy him and prolong that.

it had been a long day, any proper conversations could be held tomorrow. to no surprise, jiaoqiu insisted he could get ready and do everything by himself. you granted him that independence. eventually, admittedly with some help, you two were ready for sleep. and even though you were right there beside him, jiaoqiu never felt further from you.

---✩

the process was slow. nobody would've said that it was going to be anything other than that. jiaoqiu very clearly wanted independence. he didn't want to seen as a burden, he chose to do this, and knowing that people were constantly doting on him instead of continuing with their lives made him feel awful.

one of the first things you did was help make your shared abode more compatible with his needs. an easy step was making sure that everywhere was clean and free of obstruction, normally moze always

showed up and helped with cleaning as well. another step was helping jiaoqiu become able to navigate the home on his own, mainly he acted on memory but you needed to make sure that where he frequented was always obstruction free.

occasionally you could hear a bump or hurried shuffling from the room over, each and every time you dropped what you were doing and checked up on him. it was never anything major and if anything it always resulted in jiaoqiu silently cursing at the piece of furniture he walked into.

you two always adopted a verbal calling system at home. should you need to leave the room he was in, you would tell him exactly where you were going and what you were doing - that way he knew where you were. jiaoqiu would also inform you of where he planned on going just in case something happened or he got lost.

although, admittedly, for the first couple of weeks jiaoqiu stuck to you like glue. to him, it was a way to quickly adjust and therefore he wouldn't have to be a burden for long. however jiaoqiu subsequently had developed a rather interesting habit, one neither of you addressed - you because you thought it was sweet and didn't want to embarrass him, him because he didn't want to admit it.

and that was him using his tail as a guidance. at home, it was either curled around your waist, wrist or leg. in public, it lingered around your wrist, so much so that it constantly tickled you. it was a way of him making sure you were there with him, you hadn't left him and he was okay.

although most admittedly it was worse at night. he would hold you close, an ironclad grip that usually you would ask for him to let up but you knew he needed this. tail curled around your waist, preventing you from escaping. in his opinion, you helped him sleep easier, much easier than any fragrances he was prescribed.

however, this always came with a risk. due to residual lupitoxin still in his body, jiaoqiu became frequently prone to nightmares which plagued him constantly. everytime his mind was tricked into believing that the borisin were waiting, patiently looking for an opening to get revenge.

he wakes up because of them, drenched in fear and swear, and because he's so fearful the lupitoxin can take hold easier. suddenly he's tricked into believing that the borisin have found him. unbeknownst to the fact that it's you. so you sometimes take the liberty of sleeping away from him, but then he wakes up to an empty bead but he can hear someone in the room over and when he finds out it was you, sleeping away from him, he becomes consumed with guilt.

a major change for him was his inability to cook anymore. jiaoqiu was determined to do so with his impairment but he needed to learn. nowadays you cook with him. instead of being hushed out of the kitchen, you stood closely beside him, handing him the tools he needed, telling him where you put them so he could find them again on his own.

gently reminding him to lay off the spices when he requested more, he was to avoid spicy foods at all costs for the time being. a hard change, one that he absolutely despised but he knew better than to go against a doctor's order. helping him go out and buy ingredients, listening to what he told you and carrying out the tasks diligently.

---✩

and that was a shortlist of changes. you were very happy to accommodate anything for him, so long as he felt comfortable and loved. it wasn't uncommon for jiaoqiu to experience major lows, it was only natural and you needed to be there for him.

to listen to him, to show him that the support he needed was always a simple ask away - you didn't want to push to dote on him for many reasons. but that was different to showing genuine care and love to him when he started seeing himself as a useless, dependent person.

life would be different. for a while or maybe even forever, perhaps feixiao would strike lucky in her search for a healer that knew how to help. but for now, you two would have to learn how to adjust. to be there for eachother.

taglist - @little-miss-chaoss, @frankiesteinn

#—stellaronhvnters.#x reader #x gender neutral reader #honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #honkai star rail x gender neutral reader #hsr x gender neutral reader #honkai star rail x you #hsr x you #jiaoqiu x reader #jiaoqiu x you #hsr jiaoqiu #honkai star rail jiaoqiu

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jaytalking · 2 months

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So first thing, love your ecto AU Danny’s design is amazing and I love how you draw Sam too!

I do want to ask, how is Danny treated at school by Dash and the others? (both pre and post accident if he’s more into ghosts like his folks, and he comes in with a really hurt eye and partially paralysed arm with all the scaring)

Thanks ☺️ 👻

I am working on a comic about this! but I don't mind explaining it here (hell, it'll probs help me get my ideas in order better), questions about this Au are very encouraged so don't be shy guys:

Danny has been interested in ghosts for long enough that most of his peers know, even if from 6th grade onwards he attempted to hide it because it wasn't exactly "cool" or "normal". He was bullied a lot, and most of it probably called back to how he was from a family of "crazy people ", I can also see adults playing a part especially in his younger years by trying to gently dissuade him from being like his parents.... All in all this Danny is Isolated more than anything else, he feels alone in his interests with only his parents to turn to. Jazz? Uhhh that deserves it's own thing.

The injury. Ok. The dynamics of the incident are intentionally fuzzy, what you need to know is that Yes. The Fenton parents KNOW the incident happened, they just don't know the full consequences of it (Danny being half ghost). He was taken to the hospital and stayed there for... About a week. I'm not going to get into too much detail here, but the rumours around town were going wild; saying the Fentons had gotten their son injured or worse due to their work, and when Danny eventually went back to school in a sling and with half his face fucked up... Things didn't exactly get better.

In short, Danny isn't really bullied anymore, at least not physically- if anything the popular kids have just taken to pretending he doesn't exist. The teachers and other adults just look at him with varying levels of pity and honestly Danny is just sick of it, on top of dealing with a ton of other things mentally. Thank god for Sam and Tucker.

#dp #danny phantom #batt's blathers #danny fenton #dp au #ectoscience au

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starkidmunson · 5 months

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glitter & crimson

Steve comes home from his first post-injury workout drenched in sweat and throws himself onto the sofa on his back. Robin winces as she watches him go, raising an eyebrow.

“That bad?” She asks, to which Steve groans in response.

“They want me to wear a bubble.” Steve responds, digs his hand around inside the gym bag still attached to his side and lifts out the full face mask.

“Wouldn’t be the worst idea, protect your face at least.” Robin observes, only to be met by a glare from Steve. His facial expressions are making a triumphant return as he regains more control over his face as the wound heals, and he’s taking full advantage of his bitchy looks whenever he can.

“Says the one not blowing hot air back into their own face as they work out.” He grumbles, flopping back and dropping the mask onto his stomach. “Everything hurts. You’d think I’ve been out for months, not just a few weeks.”

“How’s the headache?” Robin predicts, and Steve gives her another look before he sighs.

“It’s not bad, don’t overreact. It’s not the concussion.” He insists, ignores the way her eyebrow rises again and instead pushes himself up again. “I’m going to shower,” Steve announces, making a quick escape from Robin.

It’s not exactly that he’s lying, because he’s not. He doesn’t think anything he’s feeling is concussion-related. The soreness in his muscles is from suddenly being weighed down with his hockey gear again, after weeks without. It’s a similar feeling to the first workout of the pre-season. The headache is a little trickier to convince everyone around, so he’d avoided mentioning it and done his best to hide it at the rink. It’s no surprise Robin can just tell he has one, though.

He lets steam fill the bathroom before he steps under water so hot his skin turns pink. He lets the shower spray target the middle of his back, shifts so it settles between his shoulder blades, and rests his forehead against the cool tiles in front of him.

Eventually, he emerges back into the apartment in sweatpants, his hair air drying. Robin is setting a cup of hot tea down on the coffee table, her own tucked onto an end table beside her on the sofa. Steve smiles softly and mumbles his appreciation as he sits and takes a sip.

As he drains the cup, the headache eases a bit and he feels a bit more human than he had after returning home from his workout.

“You got mail from your parents today,” Robin eventually offers over the New Girl re-run neither of them are particularly paying attention to but have on for familiar background noise. Steve just grunts, uninterested, and instead busies himself checking any messages he may have missed from people he actually cares to give the time of day.

Dustin had demanded a “family dinner,” which Steve agrees to and warns Robin when to expect a full house. Max, traveling with the Blackhawks for a game tomorrow night, had sent him a detailed threat to not push himself too hard while working out. He responds with a video clip the trainer had taken of Steve nailing a series of wrist shots.

Steve tries hard not to be too disappointed that he hadn’t heard from Eddie. They’d texted about their plans for the day, Steve knew Eddie had said he’d be spending the day in his studio working on a few new tracks he was putting together. Still, though, he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t hoping he’d have found a text or two from the other in the time he hadn’t been looking at his phone, something that was quickly becoming a standard for the pair.

Biting back his pride, he decides to send the first text, figuring the other will answer whenever they’re wrapping up in the studio.

Steve: Hope you’re having a good studio session.

After a long few moments, Steve can’t help the little sigh he lets out as he buries himself into the throw pillows filling out the sofa beside him. Robin nudges him with a foot, eyebrow raised, and he shrugs back at her, turning his attention to the television. It isn’t long before he zones out, though, thinking and overthinking.

His injury has given him a lot of time to think about a lot of things; primarily what landed him off the ice. He’s only mentioned it to Robin, but he has been considering coming out to his coaching staff and league officials to give background on what seems like an otherwise unprovoked violent streak from Billy Hargrove. Steve learned, in the days he spent in LA after the attack on the ice, Billy had taken to calling him names and slurs with press and on social media. The trash talking had landed him another fine from the league, but it wasn’t slowing him down. It was more than enough to prove the attack was premeditated, if everyone who needed to know the background was read in on their history.

And while Billy was staying on the attack, his teammates were apparently squared up and ready to defend Steve in a way he probably should have expected but hadn’t seen coming. Each of the players who had gotten physically involved in fighting Billy after Steve had taken a stick to the face had made comments with press about how Hargrove plays dirty and mean. Several had also spoken out about Steve’s leadership and sportsmanship on and off the ice, throwing their support behind him through his recovery.

Coming out to the league and his coaches also had the potential to alleviate some of the anxiety he was feeling around his personal life. There had always been concern about coming out, getting kicked off the ice and ending up without the one thing he knew best. Long before he’d joined the league, his father had impressed upon him that he would have to settle and make sacrifices if he wanted to stay with the sport, but Steve wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to keep his sexuality bottled up and hidden away from the public.

In large part, it was easy to place blame on Eddie. The rockstar blew into his life and changed his perspective on what it was like to be a public figure, out and proud. Steve knew their status didn’t translate equally. Sports fans were different from fans of a band; Steve had joined a team with supporters who would cheer him on so long as he wore their colors and made them proud. Eddie’s fans had sought him out, decided to listen to his music and support him on their own. But for Steve to see Eddie carrying on with his life, not having to hide any part of himself or worry about not posting certain photos from their days in LA on social media (because what if they looked too suspicious and got people talking and asking questions?) was what Steve longed for.

Chicago was a pretty open-minded town; it’s why he and Robin had first moved to the city to begin with. But it still wasn’t a guarantee that everyone would continue to support the team if he did publicly come out. And Steve was working to reconcile that in his mind; to gauge how much he should even care about it. A part of him knew the greater majority wouldn’t give a shit as long as he still scored goals and played a clean, fair and exciting game whenever he hit the ice. But the thought of those few who might push back too hard and how it could impact his teammates - his friends - in the long term is still what ate away at him.

“I can hear how loud you’re thinking over there.” Robin eventually says while he’s deep in thought, and he shoots her a small smile in response. “Look, Steve, you have to do what you think is best for you. Who gives a shit about anyone else.” She says.

He wishes it was that easy. He knows it could be, but he cares too much about the fallout to stop overthinking. They fall back into silence again, until Robin eventually closes her laptop and leans close to press a gentle kiss to Steve’s hair.

“You’re the best at what you do and if people can’t see that around the fact that you like guys, then that’s their loss.” She says, gently, before excusing herself off to bed.

Steve lounges around in the living room for a while longer, before he turns off the tv, grabs a blanket and makes his way out onto the terrace. He wraps the sherpa around his shoulders and drops into one of the loungers out there, looking out toward the skyline. It’s cold, but not as cold as it’s been, and he’s always found comfort in the winter weather, anyway.

His phone buzzes, catching his attention, and he smiles softly at Eddie’s name. When he answers FaceTime, he’s immediately met by chaos. It sounds like three voices are talking over each other, Eddie’s closest to the phone, making a loud ‘shhh’ sound until everyone around him is silenced.

“Did you mean to call me?” Steve asks around a smile, and watches as Eddie’s face lights up as he draws his attention.

“I did!” He insists, though Steve isn’t entirely convinced. “Want to hear what the track I’m mixing right now?”

Steve raised his eyebrow, only half sure he knows what Eddie’s talking about, before he nods. “Let’s hear it.” He agrees.

“Told you,” Eddie hisses at someone just out of the camera’s frame; probably one of the Corroded Coffin boys. Eddie taps a few buttons below the phone, then a soft guitar tune starts playing. It’s not like anything Steve has ever heard from the band before, gentler and softer. Other instruments crash in, in a more typical Corroded Coffin sound, for what Steve assumes will be a chorus once there’s a vocal track, but it slows back to just a guitar for the next verse. Eddie pauses the song and lifts the phone up again. “Thoughts and opinions are encouraged.”

“It’s different.” Steve says, still a little in awe.

“But not in a bad way!” He hears Gareth’s voice from somewhere in Eddie’s studio, and Steve nods in agreement.

“I don’t think it’s in a bad way, either. Just different. It still sounds like you guys in that middle part, when all the instruments join in. But the guitar, that’s… it’s soft and sweet and gentle. It works nicely, not that I know anything about music,” Steve laughs, and Eddie gives him a little smile.

“I appreciate your opinion,” he says, seeming to inspect the screen. “Your face looks a little less colorful. How was practice?”

“Fine, I’m sore now, though.” Steve admits, shifts and cracks his back.

“Gross!” Jeff cries from somewhere around Eddie, and Steve can’t help but laugh again.

“You should get back to working, I’m gonna head to bed soon anyway. We can talk tomorrow?” Steve asks, and Eddie nods.

“Night, Stevie.”

~~~~

He hangs up the FaceTime, steals a pizza roll off Jeff’s plate, and re-opens the notes app on his phone. Scanning over the rambling notes he’d made himself about how he imagined the song would work out, he starts a new paragraph.

And he stares at the blank line before him.

“You’ve composed, like, 4 tracks and you can’t come up with a single lyric for any of them?” Freak asks, takes a pull from a joint burning in an ashtray near the sofa, and blows the smoke out away from the group.

“Very helpful insight,” Eddie grumbles, and Jeff leans forward.

“Do you want us to help? Like, do you have a theme for the songs, or is this just going to be your own little pet project?” He asks.

“Well, I guess it depends. If you want to drop a surprise EP or double album after the one we’re putting out, I’m probably going to need help. But if you’re cool with letting me sit on it, I can probably figure it out on my own.” Eddie offers.

Gareth twirls a drumstick between his fingers. “I think we let Eddie handle the love songs about Steve Harrington, and if he comes up with enough to make into something to drop, we drop them whenever he’s ready, and if not, we throw them onto the next album or whatever when he’s ready to release them.”

Eddie sighs and drops his head back against the rest of his swivel chair. “Can we stop calling them love songs about Steve?”

“Guess you have extra incentive to write lyrics to them, then,” Freak teases, and Eddie groans back, making the other boys laugh.

It isn’t much longer before they all excuse themselves to the rooms they claimed around the house. Eddie spends a few extra hours in the studio, working on as many lyrics as his brain allows and even sorts out bridge for the song he’d played for Steve before he heads off to bed.

He isn’t surprised to wake up the next morning to a text from Steve, who routinely gets up hours before Eddie and is always the first to send a text wishing him a good day ahead.

Eddie: Go easy on yourself on the ice today, you were up too late listening to headbanger music.

It’s a while before he gets a response, which isn’t uncommon. They both have their own lives which responsibilities to get up to. But Eddie would be lying if he said he wasn’t waiting not-so-patiently for Steve’s next response. Freak flew out this afternoon, heading back to visit family in Ohio, leaving Gareth and Jeff at Eddie’s. They’re playing video games in the living room when Eddie’s phone rings with Steve’s name and ID photo.

“Hey, how was today?” Eddie asks immediately, launching himself off the sofa and away from the boys and the noise from the television.

“Well, that’s part of why I’m calling,” Steve says, sounding a little out of breath and hair damp with sweat, glancing off camera before he flashes a charming smile down at Eddie. “What are you doing Tuesday?”

His brain short-wires for a second, thrown off course by the response. Is this Steve, asking him out on a date? That can’t be it, right? There’s no way, not with the back-and-forth they have going on. There would be more to it than that, and Steve seems like the kind of guy to give more than 4 days notice for a date that requires at least one party to travel several states. So Eddie does his best to quickly calm and compose himself, hoping he hasn’t taken an alarmingly long time to answer, before he responds. “I don’t know, what am I doing Tuesday?”

“I think you’re coming to watch the Blackhawks play the Predators in Nashville. I’m allowed to travel and suit up, but I probably won’t play just yet.” Steve is grinning, and Eddie can’t help but smile back.

“Hell yeah, I’ll be there!” He agrees, already pulling up the link to buy tickets for the game. “If I get shamed for wearing my Harrington jersey to a Preds game, you get to take the blame for me rooting against my home away from home.” Eddie teases, and Steve lets out a breathy laugh.

“Bring it on,” he challenges, finally seems to Eddie like he’s caught up and gotten back the quick wit and sharp humor which had been on a slight delay since the injury. A sign of recovery, Eddie’s sure and it helps to see him returning to normal.

They catch one another up on their days, and Eddie lets Steve listen to a few more of the tracks they’ve been working on over the last few days, but stops before the lyrics start in the only one he and Jeff have crafted words to so far, not ready for Steve to hear it yet.

As they’re talking, Eddie gets a notification he almost swipes away without reading, but Steve’s name catches his attention, so he drags it down and reads over the words.

“You okay?” Steve asks, and Eddie realizes the face he must be making is ridiculous.

“Oh, uh. I just got a notification about you?” he mumbles back, and texts the link to Steve.

Now it’s Steve’s turn to look confused as Eddie reads over the headline again.

Hockey Legacy Harringtons to Host Joint Fundraiser

Steve reads the words and seems to immediately understand them in a way Eddie can’t, and he closes his eyes in a heavy sigh. “I promise you, my life is not usually this dramatic.”

Eddie hates how miserable Steve seems all of a sudden; regrets passing the link on but knows he would have found out eventually and gotten upset anyway. “Dude, really, I don’t even know what that means, so it’s not a big deal.”

“It is, though. This is my parents, deciding that I’m worthy of being their son again because I’m getting a bunch of positive press after the injury. So my name gets to be included in the gala invitation, which I have been excluded from since juniors, by the way.” It’s still piecemeal, the information Eddie is able to take away from Steve’s explanation, but it’s enough to get the general gist of the issue.

“Ah. So, the dad who convinced you to self-sabotage is now trying to take credit for your sportsmanship?”

“Something like that,” Steve grumbles, and Eddie can see how he’s holding the phone differently, typing out a text. “I think I have to get Robin and we need to figure this out, sorry to jump off like this. But, I’ll see you at the Preds game? We can grab dinner after?”

“It’s a date.”

Eddie physically can’t stop the words before they’re out of his mouth, and immediately waits for a hole in the ground to open up and suck him in and put him out of his misery. But Steve just raises an eyebrow, smiles and shrugs. “Not yet, but. Sure.”

Then, Eddie stares at himself in the reflection of his phone after Steve ends the FaceTime call and he has no idea what he’s supposed to do with Steve Harrington, who keeps finding new ways to catch him off guard.

#glitter & crimson #starkidmunson writes #it's a little longer as an apology for how long it's been #steddie #rockstar!eddie munson #hockey player!steve harrington #simultaneously the slowest of burns and the most obvious flirting #anti-steve's parents

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floppydiskettess · 1 year

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VALORANT AGENTS REACTING TO THEIR S/O GETTING INJURED ON A MISSION

featuring - sage, killjoy, cypher, yoru, sova, gekko, viper

a/n : cyphers part contains a lot of angst and alcohol talk. i couldnt let it ALL be fluff 😋

✮~ Sage ~✮

literally the sweetest ever, but this doesn't need to be said

if its a minor injury, she will definitely be giving you a talk about being safer and how to prevent that from happening

"but what if it was something more serious? something even I couldn't heal? you must be more careful angel."

if her s/o was harmed badly, she would do two things.

one, she would immedietely drop everything and rush towards healing you, this woman will stay up all night trying to heal you and make sure that there is not so much as a scratch left on your body. she would definitely overwork herself but making sure you are alright is all that matters.

two, the second you are stable and resting, she is going to find out whichever enemy agent hurt you and fuck. them. up.

im talking full battle sage, she will have no mercy if the injury they caused was threatening enough.

she may excude sweet and kind energy but she is one scary lady when the people she loves are harmed

she knows exactly how damaged a body must be for it to be unfixable.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't be there my dear, but they won't be hurting you again."

she will be watching you carefully, even asking brimstone to take you off of missions for a short time or asking him to keep an eye on you.

she doesn't know what she would do if she lost you..

☻︎~ Killjoy ~︎︎☹︎

she blames herself, how could she not? she designed most of the stuff...it must be a error in her inventions.

she will work night and day trying to figure out what happened. was it a weapon error? did the gun she designed for you malfunction? oh no was she to blame for anyone elses injuries?!

it would take a lot of reassurance for her to calm down. after all, this wouldn't have happened if she had been more careful...right?

"Mein gott...you scared me. I thought I lost you schatzi..."

she is going to be by your side after sage discharges you from her infirmary. expect lots of physical affection (if your comfortable with it.) and care.

she will treat you as if you were glass about to break. you will not be doing any chores while you recover.

oh you need to work on a mission report? its already finished and submitted. you are hungry? she would cook a lovely meal her parents would make her when she was sick. (with the help of some other agents...shes probaly not a great cook lets be honest..)

"KJ...Sage gave me the all clear! I can do it!"

" Nein nein! You are going to rest mein Häschen! I don't want you straining yourself!"

♖~ Cypher ~♖

if you get injured, be it minor or major. this man will WORRY.

he already lost everything, he cannot lose you either. if he did...he would have nothing.

when sage showed up at his door covered in blood and bruises. he knew something went wrong.

you told him you were going on a small mission. just an in and out radianite extraction at an abandoned lab. he had no reason to worry...right?

when he heard what had happened, he was devastated. what was supposed to be a quick mission turned out to be a setup. what makes it worse? you were alone at your site.

he will be thinking the worst. what if you...? if he had only done a more detailed check on the lab...maybe he could have protected you. but he didn't. he feels like he failed.

you spend weeks in the recovery bay, lying unconcious.

he spends those weeks without you in his lab drinking the memories away and trying to figure out what happened.

he just cannot function with the thought of losing you at the back of his mind at all times.

he knows he was caught when viper appears at his doorway with a concerned glare and a solemn looking sage in tow. he can't remember most of it, but viper was worried? about him?

soon he was also transported to sages infirmary. getting put on nutrients and oxygen. it was obvious he was not taking care of himself without your presence

when you wake up, he would be right there cradling your cheek with his hand. his mask nowhere in sight. all that matters was that you were safe now

"يا حياتي..i was so scared i lost you"

he will never forget his past, but he looks forward to his future with you.

can you tell i like cypher guys :)

☁︎~ Yoru ~☁︎

do not even get me started on this man

he would be extremely angry.

but is it at you, the others, or maybe himself?"

upon hearing the news, he would immediately check on you. seeing your unconcious body just makes something in him snap. the thought that someone had done this to you...he plants a soft kiss to your temple, before storming out of the infirmary.

for the next few days, he would lash out at everyone around him. sage came around to bring him some food as he had not left his room and he just...lost it.

he wasn't even sure who he was yelling at, who he was blaming for what happened. poor sage looked petrified and the others seemed to gather the idea yoru didn't want to be talked too right now.

with no word from anybody about your condition, he lay down on his bed and cried numbly. every night he would teleport into where sage had kept you to heal. he would sit in silence staring at your asleep face before always kissing your forehead goodbye. in hopes that somehow, you would wake up.

he went to your room and grabbed some sweaters of yours, every night he slept with them for comfort, clinging onto them as if they were going to leave him too.

when you wake up, he won't care about keeping his mysterious "badass" persona up. he will be at your side holding your hand and crying.

"please be more careful 私の日光...i don't know what i would do if i lost you."

when sage discharges you, he will be glued to you. he will simple little things for you (such as opening doors for you.)

his love language is definitely acts of service

if you teased him about this though, he will never admit to it.

he will be doing simple things such as cooking meals, cleaning up, and helping you finish any work you have

he is so domestic

he may not be super outwardly affectionate, but with each small favour he does for you he is putting all of his love into it.

𖦹~ Sova ~𖦹

sova is literally the most caring boyfriend...like ever..

if its a minor injury, he will treat it (if sage and skye are off on a mission).

he will definitely lightly scold you, not to be mean! just because he hates seeing you hurt and in pain.

"ангел. please be more careful next time..you know i hate seeing you upset."

if it was a major injury though, he is relatively the same.

he isn't scared to cry infront of the others, when he gets the news that your mission went south he was crying into sages shoulder.

he would stay with you the entire recovery. sage had to keep kicking him out at nighttime but eventually she realized she couldn't stop him. she simply would bring meals for him whenever he would forget to eat.

he would sit and tell you about his day, how the missions were going, even the silly schenanigans that the younger agents were pulling

"yoru tried to get revenge on phoenix for his prank but it went so bad ангел. he entered his rift and jumped out to scare him, but reyna happened to have just been passing by! she was absolutely livid родная. i have never seen our dear riftwalker so terrified!" he chuckled

when you woke up, he was still there lightly snoring against the chair sage had brought him.

when he woke up, he was thrilled, his eyes immediately lighting up like a childs

"have you been sitting here the whole time?"

"of course my dear. as if i would leave you."

߷~ Gekko ~߷

as the newest agent, he hasn't known you for very long. your relationship was coming up to a few months old but he hadn't told you how much he loved you yet.

so naturally, when he heard you were injured he was terrified

he knew this job was dangerous! he just never thought it would be you getting injured...he also never really thought of anyone getting badly injured

he was training with harbour when he overheard a mission going wrong...a mission you were on.

he would rush to the infirmary overloading sage with questions about you

"Sage!! Finally...que pasó?? Neon told me something happened on the mission?!"

Appariently, you had gotten caught in a fight with the enemy Breach and he hit you with his aftershock.

He didn't know much about Breach, but he knew that man had quite a bit of strength in his abilities (being like...bionic you know?"

After some skillful and strategic convincing (pathetic and annoying begging) Sage agreed to take him to see you.

When he caught sight of you lying in the bed staring up at the ceiling, he let out a big sigh he didn't even know he was holding.

"Mi sol! Oh mierda I was so worried! What happened?"

He would be sitting patiently listening to you explain what happened. All while staring at you softly.

"Shooottt...sounds like you had a busy mission! I am just happy you made it back cariño."

☠︎︎~ Viper ~ ☠︎︎

if you were minorly injured, it was probably from tinkering with her poison vials and one leaked onto your fingers

after hearing your grunt in pain, she turns around and her eyes widen, rushing towards you.

"Idiot, I said not to touch anything!"

she swears under her breath before wiping it away and rubbing some sort of cream onto your hand

"Honestly..who would touch something containing poison WITHOUT protection?"

her biggest fear? her poison causing you harm.

so what if a mission were to go wrong and you happened to step into a bubble of her poison?

it was a genuine wrong place wrong time situation. she had a poison bubble deployed and sitting on the ground, as she activated it she looked up to see your frame walking overtop of it.

she shouts to get you to move, but you don't hear her in time. next thing she knows, you are on the ground out cold with green and purple lines all over your face.

she quickly would call for backup, holding you tight but trying to avoid the chemical burns.

when she is back to safety, she rushes to sage's infirmary with your barely warm body in her arms

unfortunately, the poison had seeped into some open wounds you had. causing it to spread throught your body. viper leaves sage alone to do her job, pacing back and forth outside.

she knew how strong her poison could be, but she also knew how strong your body was. you would survive. you had too.

after a few hours, a tired sage walks out and nods, signaling it went well.

viper rushed into the room and immediately looked at your sleeping face, wincing at the fading bloodshot lines on your face.

"i'm so sorry love..please wake up soon"

she would wait by your side holding your hand and occasionally planting soft kisses to the back of your hand.

she knew you would be ok, but she couldn't help but feel bad that her miscommunication and carelessness caused this to happen to you.

when you wake up, she would be whispering soft apologies into your ear

"i promise...you will never feel this pain again my dear."

a/n : holy shit guys!!!! this took a while!! i spent a good 4 hours writing all this JDJSBSJSKSKSN its probably cringe im sorry

but yeah! i tried my best to write this with a gender neutral reader in mind but in some of these its definitely a bit more fem reader leaning! also i do not speak any of the languages spoken in this so if i made a mistake or used something wrong PLEASE let me know so I can fix it!!!

#valorant headcanons #valorant x reader #yoru x reader #viper x reader #sage x reader #sova x reader #cypher x reader #gekko x reader #killjoy x reader #valorant #valorant x y/n #valorant x you #y/n not used #but its implied #headcanons #ooc post #valorant fanfiction

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eowynstwin · 2 months

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Hi everyone. It's been a while—exactly a month since I last posted to this blog. How have you been?

A month isn't really all that long, but it's enough time to be able to look at everything that happened and understand it better. In the end, the whole situation (I've been calling it The Fuckening in my head) really didn't have anything to do with me. I was unlucky enough to run across someone willing to hurt anyone they could for attention, but also lucky enough that everyone who mattered to me in this fandom went to bat for me.

So I’ve decided to come back to this blog. I'll be posting about call of duty again as well as posting my writing. I also plan to blog about other fandoms (I’d already been doing it anyway); I've been getting back into rdr2, for example, and there's some writing I'd like to do for that.

There’s more context which I’ll put below the cut, but that’s the most important part of what I have to say; I often regret how long winded I can be, so the rest is just self indulgence if you can forgive it. I’ve thought a lot about this choice and I’m satisfied with my decision. I hope none of you will mind.

So, lol, things were not great outside of fandom stuff when it all kicked off, though I didn’t mention it publicly because we all know by now that asking for any sympathy when you’re the target of a mob is more likely to just get you raked over the coals harder. I’m still not entirely sure about talking about all of this, but I have a bad tendency to clam up when I really should be asking for support. So:

I mentioned briefly before the accusations started flying that I was dealing with bedbugs—turns out it was actually something else, but leading up to a doctor’s visit I was convinced I had an infestation, and I was stripping my bed every day to look for them. I had alarms set to wake me up twice a night to see if I could catch them, so I was not sleeping all that well. I couldn’t find anything, but I had no other explanation, and it was driving me fucking crazy. Post doctor visit it turns out I had a viral infection. No idea where I caught it, and nothing to do but wait it out. I had a massive, gnarly looking rash all over my body, and to add insult to injury I developed a fever that took me out for a whole weekend. (I’m recovered now but I have a nifty new scar on my hip from getting a biopsy.)

Next to that, I was having some PTSD flareups of my own. This was (mostly) unrelated to The Fuckening. Now, I understand that that might be hard to believe, given “Myka’s” claims, and I can’t make you believe me. Nor will I provide details to convince you, other than to say there were some things going on in my neighborhood that recalled a period of time in my life that was extremely unstable, and I found myself irrationally terrified to go home every day. For those of you who don’t experience the symptoms of PTSD, I think it’s appropriate to note that it isn’t just emotional turmoil; I, personally, experience physical pain in my entire body that lingers for hours, days, or even weeks after being triggered. (Everything regarding this, too, is fine now. I have a great therapist and a supportive family.)

All of this to say, I wasn’t exactly thinking rationally when I decided to leave this blog and fandom. And I regretted the decision almost instantly.

However, I didn’t want to let grief make any decisions for me, and also I was still VERY scared Myka was going to hunt down my personal information and either dox or harass me elsewhere. I think this fear was justified; it has happened to other writers in this fandom before.* So I decided to take some time to cool off and watch the situation develop without me.

I don’t think I need to get into the details—although if you’re interested in them, @fulltacs has been keeping track of the drama. Given the most recent development with the four obviously sock puppet blogs that popped up and immediately began stirring shit up again, I realized Myka probably would have done what she did with or without me. I just so happened to give her the ammunition she needed to do something REALLY big. It was pure bad luck.

(Also—and I’m sorry if this is just stirring the pot, but after everything they did to me I feel I deserve to make the accusation—I’ve suspected for a while that the two loudest blogs leading the witch hunt against me were far more involved in this farce than anyone has assumed. I have no proof and I do not want anyone to do anything about it on my behalf, leave them the fuck alone. But I will not forget the distress they caused me for a long fucking time, and the only way for me to let this go is to say my piece. So there. Done. Let that be the end of it.)

Having this hindsight, I feel comfortable coming back. I’m still very touched by everyone’s support, which in the end was louder than the harassment. I also think it’s important for people who care about fighting racism in any community not to run at the first sign of trouble, which I did, and I feel pretty sorry for.

That’s the gist of things. If you’ve read all of this, thank you for doing so!

*I was going to add a paragraph about halfmoth-halfman’s situation but decided against it. For one thing, she wants to be left alone, and for another, talking about the experiences of fans of color, particularly black fans, deserves its own post separate from my white experience, if I should even post about it at all.

#state of the knee brace #the fuckening

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tenaciousbouquetearthquake · 1 month

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Shall I tell you how many Nazis I killed today?, pt2

Read it on ao3 / Check out the story’s masterlist

Anders *may* have been faking injuries to come and see you in the infirmary, but this time he's actually been shot. In the leg. By Freddy.

Humor, angst, mentions of violence, and Anders Lassen backstory. Also, Anders has a dirty mind and is a bit of a lovable asshole.

Anders Lassen is bored . Bored, bored, bored , bored , bored .

Anders is so bored that he's been silently writing a novel in his head for the last two days. A thriller, of course, about a man and a bear fighting to the death in the wilderness in Denmark. It's a psychological thriller, a great story about man against nature, about the animal within the man, and about a man facing down his demons.

There's also a woman.

A beautiful woman. Strong, smart, kind, intelligent, and way too good for the hero of the story, but like all great love stories, she’ll decide to settle down with him in the end because he can fight off a bear with his bare hands, and also because Anders is writing the story and the woman in this tale of his looks remarkably like you. Although she's much happier to see her hero than you are to see him as you scowl down at him from his bedside.

Your arms are crossed over your chest in a delightful move that pushes your breasts out just enough to catch his eye and Anders grins at the sight at it, mentally returning to the last time he had you—and, by extension, them —all to himself. Now that , he thinks, was a damn good night, and a far better story than the novel he’s been writing in his head.

“What the hell are you doing here?” You're scowling, your mouth pinched in that particular way that always gives Anders a little thrill when he sees it. He loves it when you're angry, loves it when you're scowling, loves it when you're damn near ready to murder him for glaring at the other patients in the room who are eyeing the pretty medic like the last time he showed up here. You could make that look at him all day long and Anders would still love it.

Of course, he'd also be making a mental list of all the ways he could wipe that scowl from your face and replace it with something a little more inviting. An endeavor, he mentally adds, that would also be far more entertaining during this visit than his half-written novel that currently sees his alter ego about to be mauled by a great mama bear.

“Who, me?” Anders asks, gesturing toward himself as he looks up at you, thoroughly amused by the look of annoyance on your face. “I just came to visit my favorite medic. It's been a while since we’ve seen each other, you know, and I can't stop thinking about that time you threatened to cut my balls off with my own knife.” He watches your face go a little red, cheeks warning with embarrassment at the memory. “You remember the time, don't yo–”

“ Yes ,” you hiss, and Anders grins widely again, propping his hands behind his head to lean against them in a relaxed pose. You were a nurse then, too, he remembers. Right after he came to England. Right after Eric was killed. When Anders didn't know what he was going to do and didn't have any other direction or purpose than killing as many Nazis as possible. Not that that detail has changed, of course, but somewhere along the way, that plan came to involve you, and then you were removed from the team on a temporary assignment, and ever since Anders just keeps ending up in the infirmary. One injury after another.

What an awful string of bad luck.

“You know,” Anders drawls, making a show out of eyeing you up and down and even wiggling his eyebrows at the sight of you. “I like this outfit, but I don't think it suits you.”

You give him a look that says exactly how unimpressed you are with that statement, but for Anders, every look you give him just makes you more enticing. More exciting. More irresistible. Really, the sight of you angry or annoyed with him is just a big turn on for him and he can’t help wanting more. Needing more. To numb the pain of existence with the heady balm of your body and soul. “I don’t believe I asked for your opinion on my uniform, Lassen .”

His grin doesn’t falter for even a second, although he does have a small internal debate about whether the sound of you saying his last name with such frustration is more arousing than when you were moaning it that first night you were together. “Ja, you look much better wearing my shirt and coat,” he says, watching your cheeks turn bright red as you glance around the infirmary quickly, wondering how many people can hear him. It’s not many—or there aren’t many who would dare to acknowledge it, anyway. Anders has all the men in this tent thoroughly terrified. That happens when a six foot plus tall bear of a man with a reputation for blood lust glares at you from across the room. Somehow, people decide to find other things to be interested in. “But I like you best wearing nothing at all.” The way you look at him with such absolute fury then, the color in your face and creeping down your neck, the narrowing of your eyes.

Has any woman ever looked as sexy as you are, glaring at him like that?

That’s when you decide that you’ve had enough of this and Anders, well, Anders can’t help but stare at you as you close the distance between yourself and his bed, picking up his chart to look at it. “So,” you start primly, apparently having decided that you’re not going to let him bother you anymore—something Anders won’t stand for at all. “What the fuck is wrong with you today?”

Anders pulls his hands from behind his head and affects his most sullen, pained look. “Gunshot wound, Nurse. It hurts terribly. Perhaps,” he drawls, looking up at you through his eyelashes, “you can do something for the pain?”

He watches you swallow, the subtle movement of muscles in your throat and neck, the way you’re trying hard not to show that he’s bothering you. He thinks that he’d like to kiss you there next time, to pay special attention to that particular spot and to hear you moan his name when he leaves small, sucking kisses there. He’d like to see how your neck looks all marked up by him, to see you physically claimed by him.

He thinks about that a lot.

“You shot yourself in the leg?” You ask dryly, letting your hand with the clipboard fall against your leg with a quiet thud as you look at him with complete exasperation, and strangely, Anders is quite in love with that look, too.

“Ja,” Anders says, feigning embarrassment—as if he were capable of such a feeling. “Ja, it was terrible. We were fighting Nazis. There was blood. My finger slipped on the trigger.” He deliberately leaves out any more details, looking down at his wounded leg and shaking his head. He finds that people tend to believe this story more if he seems as though he’s too embarrassed to tell them everything . “And now, I’m stuck in the infirmary until I’m well enough to murder people again.”

There’s a moment when you’re silent and just gazing down at Anders, and he’s close, so very close, to looking up at you again. Just to see your face. Whether you believe him (you probably won’t). Whether you care (he hopes you do). Whether you’re worried about him (god, please let you be concerned for his well-being). Whether you’re overanalyzing this situation and he needs to run damage control (he’ll probably have to do this anyway, but it’s more fun when he gets to do it with you). Whether you’re anywhere close to figuring out what actually happened (Freddy did it—it really was an accident…probably…but maybe Anders should stop coming onto him and otherwise fucking with his head for a while?).

“Oh, come on,” you practically snap, gesturing toward his leg with your free hand. “You can’t seriously expect me to believe that? What, you couldn’t come up with a better story this time? You weren’t fighting off a bear in the wilderness somewhere and he took a bite out of you?”

Anders perks up like nothing else now, literally shoving himself up in the bed, purposely putting enough extra weight on his arms to make his muscles bulge and—he notes with satisfaction—draw your eyes there. “You want me to fight off a bear?” There’s real interest in his voice, real excitement. He’ll fight a bear for you. He’ll fight a hundred bears for you. He’ll fight an entire bear army as they march through Denmark in the dead of winter with no shoes on his feet because that’s the only handicap that will make it a fair fight for the bears, if it impresses you. God, you’re even more attractive now than you’ve ever been before. “I can do this for you. Do they have any bears here in England?”

Your eyes only faintly pull away from his arms, from the sheer bulk of them, to his face, and he can see the second the annoyance with him slips back into place. Or, at least, the second you try to be annoyed with him again. It doesn’t quite take this time, not completely. “That’s not the point,” you respond, and Anders notes that you don’t really answer the question about whether he should fight a bear for you. He wonders briefly how he can arrange your next meeting so it involves bears. Maybe he can find one and let it loose in the infirmary? “Last time you were here, you said you broke your foot and could barely walk on it, and it needed immediate medical attention or you wouldn’t be able to keep working with Gus.”

“Ja,” Anders says, sighing as he remembers. He’d stubbed his toe on a rock while he was helping to train some new recruits for Gus. The pain had been excruciating. It had clearly required medical attention. From you. “The mission, it was a dangerous one. I was lucky to come back alive.”

Your eyes narrow at him, but Anders can see that hint of a smile near your eyes, the way they crinkle and sparkle at him. “And the time before that, you said you’d taken a hit to the side and had been gravely injured and needed to be examined.”

“ Oof ,” Anders makes a dramatic noise of pain. They’d helped liberate a community of people on the Nazi controlled Channel Islands. A child ran up to him in excitement and hugged him too hard in thanks. He’d barely been able to breathe the whole trip home. Obviously, he needed to be examined. He could’ve died. “The pain,” he says, clutching a hand to his side. “It was unbearable. If you hadn’t been there, I don’t think I would have survived.”

Your mouth is still pinched in that delightful way Anders likes, your gaze just as sharp. But your lips are twitching. He can see it—he’s getting to you. “And the time before that,” you say, tucking the clipboard back into its customary spot at the end of his bed. Anders watches you, sensing that you’re about to do something from the way you’re moving. “You had a terrible pain in your chest and thought you were having a heart attack and needed emergency medical attention.”

Anders’s meaty palm immediately goes to his chest, splayed over his head, as he gives you a pained look. “My heart,” he says, closing his eyes in a dramatic expression. “It was so frightening. I didn’t know if I would survive.” He looks up at you through those glasses he wears. “Luckily, you were there to make it better or I might not be here today.” He ate one too many bowls of a really spicy Greek dish at dinner. It felt like his chest was going to explode. The only remedy he could think of was to come and see you.

You’re trying to be subtle, to be stealthy in how you move. Anders can see it. Anders has a pretty good idea of what you’re about to do. He’s a hunter, after all—half of his job is to know how animals and people think—and as much as he adores you, he can read you like a book. He can see the way you inch forward, the way you lean in just a little over his leg. He knows exactly what you’re about to do.

He also knows the pay off afterward is going to be worth a little pain. Or a lot of pain. Mentally, he prepares himself.

“Of course, I was,” you say sweetly, enjoying Anders’s game as much as you try to pretend otherwise. Anders can tell this, too. “I am a trained nurse and a medic, after all. My job is to be here for everyone who comes in with an injury.” Anders is scowling at the implication in your words that he's not special when you come down hard on his injured leg, the weight of your body pressing down straight on the wound that he knows you were expecting to be fake. At this point, most of the intake people don't really ask him too many questions—he just grumbles at them in that big, bearish way of his, and they give him a bed and track you down to figure out what the hell is wrong with him. So, it really shouldn't be so satisfying when his body jumps in the bed at the pain that shoots up his leg or he growls and lets off a string of words in Danish that his mother most certainly would not have approved of.

But then you're yelling, too, and you’re moving back and forth between his leg and his face with a look of absolute horror and concern, and it is satisfying. It's so fucking satisfying that Anders thinks it's worth every second of pain. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't know. I'm sorry,” you’re saying frantically, uncertain what to do or where to start because you're not usually the person who causes pain. You're usually the person who makes it better. This must be so unsettling for you.

Anders obviously has to take advantage of it.

When the screaming calms down and you’re still distraught enough to not look too closely at him, he leans back in the bed and looks pained. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he says in a faux attempt to soothe you, even as he appears to be in agony. “It’s only a little pain. Just the whole leg. It’s not on purpose.”

“It’s not okay,” you argue, looking between Anders’s face and his leg. You gently readjust the bed around it, then the blankets, looking like you’re nearly in tears as you glance back up at him. “You’re actually hurt and I just made it worse. I’m supposed to be a nurse, not a torturer. Your poor leg. Are you okay? What can I do?”

“Ja, ja. It’s fine. I’m fine,” Anders says, pretending to be fighting back a groan of pain as you shuffle to try and make him feel better. You’re leaning forward to help him adjust himself comfortably at the head of the bed, moving his pillows for him, moving the blankets. Anything you can think of. Leaning over just enough that Anders, blessed, innocent soul that he is, can just peek down the top of your dress to those breasts that he’s oh so fond of.

It takes an awful lot of effort not to grin as he ogles them.

“No, it’s not fine. It’s not fine at all,” you insist, although Anders is actually only half listening at this point. “I’ve been so stressed with everything happening here, and we’re constantly busy, and I just assumed that you were being a pain in the a— what are you doing ?”

The question takes a few seconds to register, Anders is so caught up in the sight of your cleavage and all the other wonderful parts of your body nearby. When it finally does, he’s equally as slow to respond, his eyes only gradually moving upward, dragging casually over the other parts of you he can see—the perfection of your collarbone, the curves of your neck, that place just near your ear where he kissed you one time and discovered that you’re extremely sensitive and ticklish there. When he finally meets your eyes, he can’t even affect a look of anything approaching innocence, instead giving you a shameless grin. “Have I ever told you, min elskede,” he says, lowering his voice to something husky and clearly meant for seduction, “what a lovely figure you have?”

Your jaw drops open and you just stare at him for a long, long moment, as if your brain can’t quite compute what’s actually happening. That Anders Lassen is not only wounded ( actually fucking wounded , for once), but that he’s here and apparently determined to be a pain in your ass. Which, to be fair, is not an area that Anders is particularly interested in.

Unless you’re into that sort of thing, of course. Or you’d like to be in pain.

Anders is really quite flexible when it comes to the interests of his sexual partners, if he’s completely honest. And his choice in partners, in general. He’s not coming onto Freddy just to fuck with his head.

Well…not completely, anyway.

Long enough time passes that Anders is actually wondering if you’re okay. He’s about to say something when your mouth closes abruptly and you pull back, leveling one more glare at him before you turn to leave.

“Oi, min elskede,” Anders calls out to you. “We were just having a lovely moment. Where are you going?”

You pause midstep, stand there long enough to get control of your temper, and turn back to glare at him with the most beautiful, most delectable look of absolute irritation that he’s ever seen in his entire life. “ To get your knife and make good on my threat from before .”

Anders’s grin is so wide as you leave that his face actually hurts, but it’s a good pain.

The problem is that you don’t come back for the rest of the day or, more importantly, after dark. It’s not that Anders is afraid of the dark. He left behind those kinds of childhood fears a long time ago. There wasn’t really room for them in the space of his childhood, filled as it was with both the luxuries of extreme wealth and the hardships of choosing a life as a hunter. As a boy, he often spent his days attempting to appease his mother by acting like a gentleman and attending his school lessons, only to sneak out after dark and venture far enough from the family estate that he could get away with all sorts of trouble. Usually, he’d find somewhere quiet enough and with enough natural light to be able to practice his archery for a few extra hours. Sometimes, he’d run into a wild animal and nearly get eaten or mauled but manage to escape with his skin intact and his parents never the wiser. In the years that existed somewhere between boyhood and manhood, before Anders eventually wandered away from the fineries of the estate to a harder, more rugged life, his nightly adventures began to involve the opposite sex—or the occasional boyhood friend who shared a curiosity and attraction that they were willing to explore with him.

Anders Lassen is not the type of man to be afraid of the dark. Not then and not now.

But he is afraid of his dreams, as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, even to himself. In his dreams, he goes back to that place . To the dark room, where shadows dominate every corner. To the scent of vomit that’s been sitting, the air acrid and sour. Anders might have vomited, too, except that he didn’t have anything left in his stomach to throw up—not after he’d killed the guards outside this place, taken his first human lives. His throat still burned from when he’d doubled over and emptied his stomach right afterward, his hands thick with their blood as it dripped from the blade of his knife.

It’s always somehow too big and too small a room in his dreams. It feels cramped and claustrophobic, but the path to the center of the room is endless, stretched before him in a distorted vision of violence and its aftermath. When he gets here, Eric is still somehow alive, even though his heart is missing. He’s strung up by his hands, his face battered and bloody, his body broken and bruised, his heart cut out, but he’s still alive.

Eric looks up from where he’s hanging and sees Anders, his beloved older brother who always protected him as a body, standing there. He looks at Anders in accusation.

“ You’re too late . See what they did to me? ”

Anders wakes with a start. His heart is pounding, palms sweaty, hands clenched so tightly that his nails are cutting skin. It’s a few breaths before he even realizes that he’s not in that room anymore, that this place is bright and sunny and sterile, and that it reeks of rubbing alcohol and scrambled eggs. His eyes are wide open before his brain has time to process that the sudden light is too much for them and he winces and clenches them closed again, blinking them open slowly to adjust to the morning light that filters in through the window. It gives him time for his heart to stop pounding, to catch his breath and bring himself under control before you come into view.

“You’re running a fever.” You frown as you gaze down at him, your hair framing your face in that way that catches the highlights of the sun and lets rays fall gently over your face. It's almost angelic, and in the nightmare rattled mind of Anders Lassen, the effect is even more powerful. In that moment, you're the ray of light, the angel of mercy and goodness, the ultimate salvation. “How do you feel?”

Anders take a deep breath, then another. One more. He quietly tells himself to push past it, to leave the dark behind and walk into the light, into you. Somehow, though, he never takes that final step. A part of Anders Lassen remains in the dark, in the shadows and nightmares. A part of Anders Lassen really doesn't believe he can ever come back, if he was ever fully there at all. “Like I could fight a bear,” Anders replies, but he can feel that something is off.

Like looking at a painting that's been hung on a wall and you know that it's not straight, but it looks perfect from where you're standing.

Anders tries to pick up a detail to focus in on, something to draw his mind back to the present and away from the things he doesn't want to think about. The feeling of your hand on his forehead, a subtle weight he didn't notice at first but that now feels like it's always been there and like it should always be there. The flecks of green and gray in your eyes when the light catches them as you lean forward, odd strands of hair catching in your eyelashes when you move to examine him from a new angle.

Your hair is longer now than it usually is. He wonders if it's still as soft. His fingers flex on instinct at the thought, muscle memory taking over, and if he didn't feel so tired, and if you didn't look too perfect to touch, he'd indulge his senses in the feel of your hair. And your skin. He wants to touch your lips, tinted lightly with whatever balm you’ve managed to find. He wishes he had a pencil and some paper so he could sketch you while he’s here, cataloging all the details of you that he doesn't want to forget as he recognizes them.

Instead, Anders lets you examine him with the grace of someone who’s examined far too many soldiers. “You're burning up,” you say, moving methodically as you take his temperature from his forehead with the back of your hand, then feel his chest. It's a testament to how not good Anders is feeling that he doesn't make some smartass about it. He doesn't even try to grab your hand and steal a kiss on the inside of your wrist, right over the delicate veins there. “How's your leg?” He feels you lift the blanket to examine it, the bandage being unwrapped as he hums and only half follows your movements with his eyes.

“Still there.” Anders snorts. It’s not his best line, but it’s the best he can come up with, given the circumstances. Besides, he can’t think past how sticky he feels in the bed and the droplets of sweat on his forehead and the feeling of cool air against his burning leg. It’s almost too much until he feels your fingers gently above the gunshot wound, the same featherlight touch that always seems to bring him back from whatever dark hole he finds himself in. He almost thinks he imagined it when he sees you move to look at him, both of your hands in view, but Anders doesn’t waste any time on self-doubt. He’d know your touch anywhere.

“The infection is getting worse.” You’re trying not to sound worried. Anders can hear it. “I need to get a doctor. I’m going to be right back.”

He tries to protest—he really does. But your hand feels cool against his forehead and his cheek when you caress him there briefly before you disappear from his view, and he’s too lost in the sensation to argue. It feels like an age before you come back, but as he smacks his lips and notices how dry his mouth is, Anders realizes he’s losing track of time. It’s disorienting, this lack of control, the feeling of drifting in and out, as if he’s back on the Maid Honor, that night you spent above deck, and he’s feeling the boat rocking back and forth, but he wants to reach out for you and can’t quite make it.

“Min kærlighed.” The words are a whisper, a sigh into empty air. “Min kærlighed.” He remembers an old saying in Danish, something he heard his uncle say once when he was a young boy. The memory is disjointed, the words seeming to come out of nowhere, drifting through his mind the same way the Maid Honor was drifting in the sea. He’d repeated them, some of the very first words he spoke, tasting the sk sound of some of the words on his tongue, testing his grasp for a new form of communication.

His father and his uncle had laughed when they heard him. A very young Anders had laughed, as well, delighted to have caused such good humor.

His mother, however, had not been pleased—gentlemen didn’t say such things.

“Min kærlighed.” He taught the phrase to Eric once. Anders was twelve and Eric was—how old was he? Anders had only recently discovered the full meaning of the saying, something bawdy and irreverent. He couldn’t wait to teach it to his younger brother, his fellow conspirator in whatever trouble Anders was able to get into. True to form, his mother had not been impressed…but his father and uncle had laughed themselves into tears.

Anders can still remember the look his mother had given his father when she’d caught them laughing. It reminds him of the way you look at him when he manages to really piss you off.

“Min kærlighed.”

“ Shhhhh .” The feeling of your hand on his forehead is heaven. The cool, wet cloth you place there afterward is even better. “I’m right here.” You’re holding his hand. You’re touching his face. You caress his cheek gently with your knuckles, smooth back his short bangs from his face, trace a line from his forehead down the bridge of his nose.

He used to do that with Pippin, his childhood dog. A small, ratty thing. He wasn’t supposed to keep her. She wasn’t exactly hunting dog material, more like a ratter, and the Lassens didn’t really keep dogs as pets, anyway. They were there to help with the hunt. But Anders didn’t care—he snuck the dog into his room and by the time his parents and the servants in the house realized he’d taken her in, he was too attached to the little ball of fur. His parents didn’t have the heart to take her away from him.

“Min kærlighed.”

The comparison amuses him. Is that what it’s come to—Anders Lassen, a dog? A mere animal of a man? He supposes it’s an appropriate description. The Nazis and even most of the men he’s met would agree with it.

“Min kærlighed.”

You scowled at him the first time he called you that. It was just after you met, back when you didn’t really trust him or anyone else. You were newly qualified as a medic. Anders was newly arrived in England and had volunteered to help rid the world of Nazis. “ I don’t speak Danish ,” you’d snapped. “ But I’d appreciate it if you’d call me by my actual fucking name , thank you. ”

No one respected a female medic—no one wanted you in the field or trusted you to have their backs. It was actually the nicest thing any of the men had called you, although you didn’t trust that when he told you so.

“ Min kærlighed .”

Pippin died. It was Anders’s fault. He’d taken her with him on one of his late night adventures. They ran into a wolf. Anders froze, the only time it’s ever happened in his entire life. Pippin stepped in, charged the wolf, tried to protect him.

Is this how he dies? But who looks after his family, if he does? Who looks after you?

“ It’s okay .” You sound so far away. “ I’m right here. ”

Eventually, you asked him what all the things he called you meant.

Min kærlighed. Min Skat. Elskede. Min blomst. Smukke. Yndling.

You were both in bed. It was a rare occasion when you’d been able to get away, disappearing into a hotel room and not coming out for an entire weekend. He was stroking his fingers up and down your arm, your lips pressed to his chest in a kiss—something soft, reverent. Chaste. He could have told you the truth, but somehow giving you the words in English simultaneously made it too real and too unreal. It would mean admitting an emotion that he was determined not to experience. It would lose some of its magic in the translation.

“Ugly fish,” he’d declared after a long moment of silence. He felt you freeze against his side, felt the weight of your glare on him.

“Ugly. Fish.” You bit out the words.

He hummed the affirmative.

“All this time,” you started, placing an emphasis on every syllable, “all those names, and they all translate to ‘ugly fish’?”

“Ja,” he’d said on a heavy sigh, as if the subject were a burden to have to explain to you. “Ugly salmon. Ugly trout. Ugly tuna.”

“ Ugly tuna? ”

You’d scowled at him for days. Anders had loved every second of it, knowing without needing to ask that you weren’t really mad at him. You knew he was lying.

He knew that you knew he was lying.

It was a game and Anders Lassen so loves to play.

“ You can’t just stay by his bedside the whole time. You have other patients. ”

“ And you have other nurses. ”

“ May I remind you that you’re only here because you have a job to do. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near his hospital. ”

“ You can remind me all you like. It won’t make a difference . I’m not moving from this bedside. ”

Who are you arguing with?

Anders dreams about Appleyard. It’s the day of the mission to rescue him from the German garrison. Anders is fighting his way up the stairs, down the corridor. He charges into the room where they’re keeping him, killing one of the Nazis through sheer, brute force. But it’s all in vain. They got here too late. Appleyard is already dead. There’s no battery attached to his nipples, just Appleyard hanging from the chains around his wrists, his chest carved open, his heart cut out.

Just like Eric.

In a fury, Anders attacks the remaining Nazis. He kills them. He cuts out a heart. He tries to put in Appleyard’s chest, hands frantic and slippery with blood as he tries to replace the life that they stole, to save Appleyard from his brother’s fate.

It doesn’t work.

“ You have to hold on, Anders.”

“ I won’t forgive you if you leave me like this .”

“ I can’t lose anyone else. Please. ”

He dreams again, but this time, it’s you. He’s running through the corridor. He can hear you in that room, that place that’s somehow where Eric died and where Appleyard was kept, dark and light at the same time, waiting for him at the end of that hallway that seems to stretch on forever. You’re screaming—dear god, you’re screaming, your lungs emptying of air as the sound claws its way through the hall toward him. You’re screaming his name.

Anders…Anders, help me!

He can’t reach the door. Why is the door so far away? Why aren’t his legs working right? He’s faster than this. You’re screaming and he can’t reach you.

“ Anders, please .”

Anders, please!

He’s nearly there—he’s nearly there. He can make it. He can make it.

“ Anders… ”

Anders!

Anders doesn’t reach the door in time. He never reaches the door in time. Not in any of his dreams. He never saves anyone, especially the people he cares about most. Anders fails in the only task that matters. He was built to protect.

But all he does is kill.

Death will be a blessing, a sweet release. He’ll see Eric again. He can apologize for not getting to him in time. He’ll apologize for not saving Appleyard. He’ll apologize for not protecting you. He can sleep. God, he can sleep without any more nightmares or seeing the eyes of the men he’s killed staring up at him, their blood on his hands, the weight of their murders pressing down on him. He wants to die.

He wants to die.

…he wants to die…

“ I need you .”

The world comes back into focus in minute details, one after the other. The ticking of a clock, the sound steady and constant like the metronome his music teacher used to use. The warmth of sunlight on his face. The feeling of linen scratching against his bare arms, sheets threadbare from too many washes. The sound of someone breathing near him, the quiet exhales like the air against his face in the seconds after releasing an arrow, the string of his bow reverberating near his cheek. The scent of something feminine—not soft or gentle, but crisp like the morning chill that bites against the skin of his face in the autumn back in Denmark. A weight against his arm, heavy like a body, the way his own body feels heavy in the bed as he slowly becomes aware of each separate extremity.

His toes wiggling, the one that was broken a few weeks ago still popping at the joint. The throbbing in his leg, the wound deep and fleshy where Freddy accidentally shot him. The base of his spine, stiff from staying too still for too long in a bed that’s too hard on his back. His heart beating a steady rhythm, as calm now as when he’s hunting elk, a quiet beat beat beat in his ears. The shoulder that’s been sore the last week after using it as a battering ram against a Gestapo agent. The twitching of his fingers, first one, then another, curving incrementally without Anders consciously thinking about the movement.

You. You, like an extension of his body, the beating of your heart against him from where you’ve positioned yourself over him to sleep like a blanket. Your hair against his neck, one arm draped over him in possession, your lips as they move in sleep and form soundless words that Anders will think about later and wish desperately that he had some way to know what you were saying. The tension in your arm, even in your sleep, holding onto his body like a lifeline, as if you could drag him back from whatever darkness was drawing him in, as if you could protect him— you could protect him , the Danish Hammer, a motherfucking Viking, a force of nature, who’s wrestled down bears with his bare hands.

His head feels fuzzy, too tired to concentrate and too stubborn not to try, turning slowly to look down at you and letting the weight of his head gradually droop in his pillow so that it settles naturally into a position where he can see you without effort.

Your eyes move behind closed eyelids as you dream.

What are you dreaming about?

Anders wants to touch you, to pull you closer against him and cradle your body against his, but he can’t bring himself to disturb you. Not when you’re holding onto him like that. He just stares at you and watches you sleep until you begin to wake up, as if you can sense that he’s awake and his attention is entirely on you. Everything about you is light and silken—the color in your face from sleep, the light catching in the highlights of your hair, the curves of your lips, your expression relaxed. Everything about you is alive.

Everything about you makes him want to be alive. Everything about you makes him wish that the world was a very different place and that he was a better man.

“Hello,” you say, breaking the silence, your voice barely audible. It sounds like the lightest note on the violin his sister plays, the one she refused to give up when his family left for England, the first hints of sound when bow meets string.

“Du er så smuk.” His mother would be amused if she could see this. She’d be sizing you up and planning a wedding and picking out names for her grandchildren.

You blink away sleep and practically climb your way up his body, not satisfied with how close you already were to him. A hand settles on his shoulder, your arm on his chest, your face next to his, your body claiming him completely, and distantly Anders thinks that he can’t remember the last time he was claimed by a lover. “You know I still don’t speak Danish.”

“Ja.” A large part of Anders is selfish and hopes that you never do. That these truths he can’t say any other way will never ever be revealed. “Ord kan ikke beskrive min kærlighed til dig. ”

You swallow, your throat bobbing. You’re not going to ask what he’s saying. Whatever’s transpired since the last time he spoke to you consciously, neither of you is ready to deal with it. “Maybe you’ll teach me one day,” you whisper. “Once we get back.”

Anders couldn’t make himself look away now if he tried. “Get back?”

You nod, careful about putting too much pressure against his body. “I’ve been reassigned back to Gus’s team as the medic. Once you’re ready to leave, we’ll be going back together.”

Anders smiles as the two of you settle back into a comfortable silence.

Fucking finally, he thinks. He was running out of ways to pretend to hurt himself.

#anders lassen #anders lassen x reader #anders lassen imagine #alan ritchson #the ministry of ungentlemanly warfare #ministry of ungentlemanly warfare fanfiction #x reader #henry cavill #gus march phillips #geoffrey appleyard #alex pettyfer #guy ritchie #henry hayes #freddy alvarez #henry golding

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graveyardlifeguard · 5 months

Text

Survivors Part 2

Summary: Occurs during the events of Season 4x13 and Season 4x14 of 9-1-1.

*This is my first attempt at writing after many, many years so please go easy on me*

Warnings: Shooting, Injury, Blood

Notes: This one's going to be a touch long so I don't have to break it so awkwardly, but the next part will be out really soon!

Strictly Angst with a teeny tiny bit of Fluff

Eddie Diaz x Paramedic! Reader

Later that night at home, Chris and I stood by the door and watched as Eddie fiddled with the couch pillows. Carla was coming back tonight, and Eddie was only slightly excited about her return. He had been fussing over intricate details since we had gotten home from work.

“What do you think? That looks better right?” Eddie asks, still fussing over the same two pillows he has been playing with for the last 5 minutes.

“I think it looks exactly the same.” Chris laughs as we watch Eddie continue to fluff the pillows.

“I just want everything to be perfect. It’s been over a year” Eddie finally turns around to look at Christopher and me.

“It’s going to be awesome!” Chris says. He had missed Carla more than anything in the world. With Eddie obviously in the number 1 spot, there was no doubt in my mind that Carla was number 2 on his list of favorite people. She had always been a steady female presence in his life that I knew that he needed. Whether he knew it or not. My thoughts are quickly interrupted by the knocking at the door that Chris excitedly moves towards. Opening the door, Chris all but screams Carla’s name before she laughs and wraps him up in a giant hug. The smiles on Christopher and Eddie’s faces are bright enough to light all of California with. Letting Christopher have the first hug, Eddie and I move slowly towards Carla before joining in the hug. If Carla didn’t feel missed based off of the giant hug, I don’t know how else we could have shown her.

Sitting around the table just like old times, eating and laughing together brought back a lot of great memories. Christopher had just gotten done telling Carla one of his crazy stories from school. “I’m sure your teacher was thrilled.” Carla laughs in return at his story. Noticing that the plates are empty, Eddie leans forward to grab them up as I quickly jump up to grab them for him.

“No, no, no let me grab those” I say, hurriedly moving to gather up the plates.

Carla tries to offer her help with Chris jumping in to stop her, “You can’t go in the kitchen!” Chris exclaims.

Carla gives him a funny look while I try to cover out tracks, it’s a secret that Christopher is very adamant on.

“That’s right,” I start as Eddie smiles and nods is head in agreeance, “we have some business to take care of." Carla chuckles as Christopher and I head off towards the kitchen.

We dump the dirty plates into the sink before I grab both of the cakes we made out of the oven, where we left them to sit until the right moment.

“Can we yell surprise when we come out of the kitchen?” Chris asked.

I laughed and before responding, “Well of course, how else would we surprise her.”

Christoper had begged us to make Carla two cakes, one for each birthday we had missed with her while she was away. He had chosen the colors of the cake, pink and blue. He had explained to Eddie and me that we needed both colors to split between the two boys and two girls. Opening the kitchen door and stepping out, we both yelled surprise, catching Carla off guard. Christopher walked up to Carla and wished her a Happy Birthday; we all knew her birthday is in March, but it felt right to celebrate the ones we missed together. Plus, who didn’t love extra cake.

“Light the candles dad.” Chris says to Eddie with Eddie magically pulling out candles from thin air. Carla looks over the two cakes, quickly counting the number of candles that were scattered across both tops.

“Okay that is a disturbing number of candles.” She laughs as Chrisopher moves to stand next to me.

“Thank goodness there’s a firefighter and paramedic in the house.” I smile up at Christopher, loving the way he had absolutely lit up with Carla back around. I know he had missed her and had certainly taken it hard when she had to leave to be with her dad. He was sad but also understood that she needed to be with her dad just like he needed to be with his. Looking back towards the table, I couldn’t help but notice the way that Eddie was already smiling at me. He looked at me the way that every girl wanted to be looked at. The smile that he gave me made it hard for me to not smile back. He and Christoher were my entire world and there was nothing that I wouldn’t do to keep them with me.

————

The next shift was exactly like the last one, busy and filled with paperwork. I was at the station for maybe thirty minutes in total, all day. And somehow not once did I run calls with the 118. Which meant that I did not get to see or talk to any of them, excluding Hen who had called to get advice about a call they were on, until it was time to pack up and go home for the day. Luckily, my relief had shown up early, meaning that I was able to shower and change before I normally was able to. Walking out of the dorms, I find Eddie standing at the bay door, a contemplative look on his face.

I make my over to him before asking, “What’s got you thinking so hard my love?” He looks up, startled, as if I had completely snuck up on him. He gives me one of his dazzling smiles before shaking his head.

“Just a call we went on today, something seems off but I’m not sure what it is.” he replies.

That’s understandable. I feel like most of the calls we run nowadays are just off. I had honestly chalked most of it up to being my paranoia from the crazy Covid calls we received.

“Do you want to talk about it on the way home? Maybe I can help you work it out.” I ask him.

He smiles and shakes his had before saying, “We’ve both had a hell of a day, work is going to stay at work. It’s my time to have you all to myself.”

He bumps his shoulder into mine before grabbing my hand and leading us to the car. After the shift we had, it was nice to know that no one needed us. At least for the next 9 hours that was.

At home, I had opted to start the laundry while Eddie moved into the kitchen to start dinner. Carla and Christopher were in the living room reading together when we got home. After receiving a huge hug from Chris, I started into the bedroom to collect our laundry basket. Once laundry was started, and I was in much more comfortable clothes, I made my way into the living room. Only to find it empty with voices being heard in Christophers room. Inside, Christopher, Carla and Eddie seemed to be sorting through old toys of Chris.’

“Wow, someone’s feeling generous.” I comment after finding the trio, moving to sit down on the floor near Chris’ bed.

“I got to talk to a boy that Dad met at work, he’s sick and can’t go out much. I want to give him some of my old toys.” Christopher replies. He hands over an old police car and book that I know he hasn’t played with in a while. Looking up at Eddie, he notices the hint of confusion on my face. I know we hadn’t talked much, but I hadn’t heard of his new friend he seemed to have made today.

“Did you happen to see the structural collapse call were on around lunch time?” He questions. I shake my head ‘no’ as I lean over to help go though toys.

Eddie continues on after seeing my answer, “This boy’s mom semi-fell through her balcony and her son, who’s around Chris’ age, called it in. He has an auto-immune disorder and isn’t able to leave the house much. I ended up staying with her son while she went to the hospital.”

The story quickly catches my attention. My head shoots up and can I tell my face is giving away my thoughts. It so often does as Eddie continuously points out to me.

“Would this call happened to have occurred at The Regal Point Apartments?”

Eddie looks up at me and nods, “Yeah it was, I thought you didn’t see the call? Well anyways the mom was telling me that since she has to stay home and take her of her son, people have been generous enough to donate to them through online donation sites. Chris here had the great idea of donating some of his toys to the son.”

There it is again.

There’s that red flag, waving now at the forefront of my mind. This has to be Shiela and Charlie. I think it over before standing up and telling Chris how proud I am of his generosity. “I’ll be right back.” I state to the group before exiting the room. Eddie gives me a questioning look as I leave.

————

Making my way into the kitchen, I sit down at the kitchen table, open my laptop, and begin doing some research on Sheila and Charlie Leute on a local Fund Me page. Although I began my search locally, I quickly find multiple Fund Me pages scattered across the West coast. The most interesting detail is the fact that each account with their first name ends up coming back with a different last name. The red flag initially waving in my brain is now the size of a football field. I knew it. Jumping up from the kitchen table, I walk back towards where I know the trio still sat. Leaning up against the door frame, I look over to Eddie, knowing that this would hurt his feelings.

“Hey Eddie, can I talk to you for a second?” I ask, starting to walk back towards the kitchen.

Eddie glances up at me before he stands up and starts making his way towards me. He stops short of the doorway and turns back to Carla and Chris.

“Don’t let him give away the whole house while I’m gone!” Eddie continues behind me where we start back towards the kitchen. I can hear Carla laughing at Eddie’s comment, she knows that Christopher is just that generous to do so.

“What’s going on?” Eddie questions.

“I was thinking about what you said, how that family supports themselves through their Fund Me page, so I started looking around.” I sit back down at the laptop while Eddie chooses to lean up against the cabinets. It was hard to stay focused on the task at hand when he did things like that. Something about him leaning against things had an unnecessary affect on me.

“You went snooping?” I can feel the questioning look aimed towards the back at my head. I swivel in my seat so he can see the serious look on my face. Although the hint of a smile on my face certainly doesn’t help my case. I begin fiddling with my ring finger, where my actual engagement ring sits on full display. Being able to see it and feel it helps me relax, my body already knowing how important this situation is.

“The family and story just seemed really familiar to a call I had the other night. At the same address. I was hoping for it be a coincidence but that’s unfortunately not the case. Alicia and I went out there the other night for the son and something just didn’t seem right then. I thought I was just being overdramatic, so I let it go. But I think there is something wrong with this woman. I think she lied to us”

Eddie gives me yet another confused look before pulling out the chair beside me and sitting down. He throws his arm over my shoulder and slides the chair closer to me. I can tell that he understands how strongly I feel about this just by the look he is giving me.

“Well,” He starts “you know I trust your instincts so what do you have?”

#911 imagine #eddie diaz #angst #ryan guzman #eddie diaz x reader #imagines #eddie diaz imagine

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bcyhoods · 1 year

Note

LOVEFOOL 💌 — “you feel like home to me” with tasm!peter PUH-LEASE I ALREADY KNOW IM GONNA GET EMOTIONAL

muah ha ha. angsty spidey is my favorite spidey, how did you know | 0.9k

warnings: injuries, brief mention of reader being used as leverage but no explicit/graphic detail

“I don’t know if I can do this, Peter.”

Your hand hovers over the scrape on his cheek when your gaze drops to the mask that’s clenched in his hand. He sits on the edge of your bed, looking up at you as you stand in between his legs.

He’s bathed in the dull, orange glow of your lamp. It highlights every welt, every cut, every matted strand of hair that sticks to the damp skin of his forehead. It makes your eyes sting.

“What do you mean? You’re a natural,” he says. His hand settles on your hip to give it a gentle squeeze. The gesture makes you believe for a second that he’s genuinely clueless.

But his eyes refuse to meet yours. The smile that he wears is uneasy as he wrings his mask.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

He hangs his head low. Guilt tightens its grip on his throat making it hard to breathe.

You were already well aware of his secret identity before you’d started dating. He warned you of the risks and used them to try scaring you away before you could break his heart. But you stayed. You stayed and, god, he was so glad you did.

Though, he blames his adoration for what happened to you.

He would keep a close eye on you to make sure you were safe. His routine neighborhood watch would consist of making sure you got to and from work safely, occasionally dropping by on your lunch breaks to check on you. He was careless, but he didn’t anticipate things would go south so quickly.

The guy wasn’t a super villain, nor was he anything special by any means, but he was observant. And why would Spiderman be visiting some random bodega cashier so often unless you meant something to him?

It was practically over as quick as it started. The guy couldn’t even finish demanding his ransom before Peter had arrived to web him to the ceiling. You escaped with a few injuries, the worst being a palm-shaped bruise on your wrist. But Peter was fuming.

You were used as bait. You were leverage against Spiderman because he’d been so reckless. You got hurt because of him. You were lucky this time, but there was no telling if that luck would run out and the thought terrified him. Despite your gentle words of reassurance, he had made up his mind.

He would never forgive himself if he lost you. So he broke it off.

“I know.”

It would’ve been easier if you didn’t see each other after that. You think you’d feel differently if you weren’t frequently in his presence, nursing him back to health. Maybe if you didn’t exchange longing gazes and soft touches that were reserved for people that are more than friends. If he didn’t look at you like you held his heart in your hands, maybe you’d be stronger.

“Why do you keep coming back here?” He feels his chest tighten at the crack in your voice, even more so when you push his hand away.

“You leave your window open,” he whispers.

A scoff falls from your lips and you turn your back to him to wipe away the rogue tears that run down your face. He stares at your figure with a frown and hands that ache to reach out for you.

Peter Parker then decides he doesn’t want to be a hero. Heroes can’t afford to be selfish and put their own happiness above the wellbeing of others. Being with you would jeopardize your safety. It’d be selfish of him. He could never be with you like he wanted, craved, so long as he wore that suit. Can’t he have both?

He’s exhibited enough altruism to last him a lifetime, anyway. Certainly it was enough to hold you just for one night.

“I just needed to see you,” he sighs, voice meek.

“Peter, I think you should—”

“There’s never a day that I don’t think about you,” he interjects. He doesn’t exactly know when he started to cry. Suddenly his eyesight was blurry and he couldn’t breathe through his nose.

“Please.” The word pushes out like a sob. Your hand shoots to clamp over your mouth to hush the whimpers, but he can hear them.

“I’m serious, I…” He stands and moves to put his hands on your shoulders. His mask is forgotten on the floor. “Being away from you, it makes me feel crazy. Like I can’t breathe.”

“Don’t say that.” You turn in his hold to shrug his hands off, but you don’t try too hard. A sob racks through your chest once more when you see his pained expression. His nose is red and his cheeks are wet and his brows are sewed together. “Don’t tell me that, just go home,” you plead.

“You feel like home to me!” There’s a humorless laugh that accompanies the confession, it’s one of frustration. But the softness in his glassy eyes is unmistakable and it makes you melt under his stare.

“Please don’t cry,” he begs with a deep frown. He reaches to hold your face in his hands as he wipes the tears from under your eyes. The material of his gloves is rough and pulls at your skin uncomfortably, but you can’t help leaning into his touch.

He crowds your being. He towers over you so closely that you can feel his bated breath fanning your skin. You reach to hold onto his forearms, letting your eyes close to revel in the closeness. Peter presses a chaste kiss to your forehead, then to each of your cheeks, then your nose. He stops short of your lips.

“Say the word and I’ll leave. You know I will.”

“Don’t go,” you concede.

You’re not really sure what repercussions this will have tomorrow morning. You can’t really bring yourself to care when he kisses you.

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marlynnofmany · 5 months

Text

Loud Darkness

“Before you go,” said Captain Sunlight, stopping us at the open door. “The client sent a last-minute warning.”

“Oh boy.” I gripped the small delivery package a little tighter, braced for bad news.

Zhee was less tactful. “Those are never good,” he said, waving a pincher arm about. The package he was carrying was strapped to his bug-alien back, so his pinchers were free to gesture with. “Is this a hazard that they should have mentioned up front? Something we might have charged extra for?”

“Possibly. Hopefully not.” Captain Sunlight didn’t have eyebrows exactly, but her scaly browridges were frowning anyway. “If anything seems hazardous and you feel like you should return to the ship, please do. The client hasn’t answered any of my messages for further details. All we know is that this continent has something called ‘screamers,’ which come out at sunset, and are dangerously loud. The warning was not to get close to them if you can help it.”

“Screamers,” I repeated. “And they didn’t think to explain that a little?”

Zhee waved his pinchers some more, hissing in irritation. I stepped aside so I didn’t get whacked in the head. Captain Sunlight didn’t bother, since she was too short to be in range.

“No, they didn’t explain it,” Captain Sunlight said. “And there isn’t a settlement nearby to ask, other than this little camp site or whatever it is. I didn’t ask why the client is out here, but I got the impression they’re on some science mission. I could be wrong. They could be just enjoying nature, or on the run from their own planet’s law enforcement. Who knows.” She sighed, looking out the door at the alien forest. “It’s not our business, until it is. Try not to get hurt while delivering the shipment.”

“Should we bring anything for protection?” I asked, pulling the flashlight from my pocket. “This isn’t going to do much good if the things bite when they feel threatened. Or is it just an eardrum risk?”

While Zhee muttered “eardrum” like someone with alien ears who was encountering the term for the first time, Captain Sunlight shook her head. “The warning just said not to get close, because they’re loud. It didn’t sound like a physical danger. And it’s only around sunset. Unfortunately.”

“Sunset!” Zhee exclaimed. “Of course! The exact time the client wanted to meet us! They really could have mentioned this screaming before now.”

I peered out the door to see how dense the trees were. As promised, there was a path made of flat rocks, but the plantlife loomed over it. Shadows were already dark among them. “And they really couldn’t meet us out here?”

“They paid extra for the delivery away from the landing pad, at least,” Captain Sunlight said. “They were specific about the location as well as the time. You’d better be going.”

Zhee stepped onto the ramp. “What a delightful trip this will be. If anything screams at me, it had better be prepared to face my blades.” He brandished his pinchers as he stalked down onto the landing pad.

“Thanks for the warning,” I said to the captain, then followed.

“Be careful. Kavlae will be waiting at the comms in case you need to call for any reason.”

“Got it.” I waved goodbye and caught up with Zhee while the ramp retracted behind us. With our boxes ready and our wits about us, we followed the path into the darkening woods.

I’d thought I wouldn’t need my flashlight until the walk back, but it was worryingly dark under those trees. I lit up the ground and shifted the box to one arm, glad that I had the smaller case. Zhee had a different model of light strapped to his hip. He poked it with a pincher-tip, and it lit the way nicely, with no further pincher action required. He waved them threateningly instead.

I passed my own light over the bushes, searching for threats, while the ground remained bright enough not to trip. Of the two of us, I was the only one who needed to worry about that. I made sure to keep an eye out for troublesome rocks that could lead to injury, embarrassment, and damage to the package. (Mostly embarrassment. Zhee had strong opinions about the evolutionary wisdom of multiple legs.)

Despite all the lovely things we had to think about, the walk was pretty boring. Shadowy alien trees, too dark to see many interesting details. Rocks on the ground. An impressively straight pathway. No animals moving around that we could detect.

But something had started making noise. A faint one at first, far ahead of us, a kind of vague static that was hard to pin down. I looked at Zhee to see if he’d heard it. His expression was hard to read.

It got louder as we walked, and I could almost make out distinct sounds among the overall wash of noise. Chattering? Short screeches? I didn’t like it. And it didn’t help that things were very dark now, with only the occasional glimpse of colorful sunset through the trees.

“What do you think it is?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Zhee said in annoyance. “But it is offensive.”

Not the word I’d been expecting. “Like it offends your sense of hearing, or offends you on a personal level?”

Zhee snapped his pinchers. “It sounds like skreeking. Very badly done, by misbehaving children.”

“Sk—? Oh, that leg-music you guys do. Right.” I hadn’t heard Zhee himself perform any traditional Mesmer tunes, but the whole ship had heard Trrili’s efforts. They were, well … Yeah okay, they were horrible. At least as far as my human ears were concerned. And now that I thought about it, I could kind of pick out individual threads of sound that seemed insectlike.

While I was thinking all that, Zhee complained heartily. “It is clearly not actual children, misbehaving or otherwise, but it has the poor taste to sound like it is, when it could sound like anything else. Like it’s trying to be as aggravating as possible.”

“Reminds me of a parrot I used to know,” I said, shining the flashlight around for any sign of the noisemakers. “He could have sounded like anything too, but his favorite noise to make was the sound of someone chewing with their mouth open.”

“Yes yes, I’ve heard of those creatures from your world,” Zhee said. “Freakish specimens.”

“It’s not just the one type of bird that can do that,” I told him. “There are a bunch of mimics. Mockingbirds, lyrebirds, starlings, even ravens — and that’s just the birds!”

“Yes yes. Fascinating.” He didn’t sound like he cared, but it was a distraction from the increasing volume of the whatever-they-were, so I continued.

“There are other animals that can make a couple humanlike sounds too. Like goats; the little ones are called kids because they sound like our own little ones sometimes. And a few of the adults can scream like a human, which is both startling and funny.”

“I’m sure.”

“Oh, and mountain lions too. They’ve been known to sound like adult humans, baby humans, and little chirping birds. Rumor says they’ve used that as a way to lure in prey more than a few times over the eons.”

Zhee tilted his head toward me at that sharp praying-mantis angle. “Impressive,” was all he said.

“That’s one word for it.”

“But this is not impressive. This I hate. We’d better be there soon.”

“I think it’s getting brighter up there.” I aimed my light to the side, squinting as if that would do any good. It did seem less shadowy, but more like the trees opened up, not like anyone had technology running.

Zhee walked faster. I walked faster. The mysterious screamers screamed louder. It was an oppressive drone now, vibrating the air on all sides like I was near the speakers at a concert. A really bad concert. Where the singers were bugs.

“It sounds kind of like cicadas!” I said, raising my voice enough to be heard. “They only come out every seventeen years where I’m from. It’s quite an experience. Once a generation, the summer is full of bugs that scream, mate, and die all over the place.”

Zhee gave me another sharp look. “And how does human culture regard this skreeking-like orchestra? I imagine early societies worshipped or feared them.”

I shrugged, adjusting my grip on the box. “Probably? Sorry to say most people consider them an annoyance now. Kind of interesting scientifically, but obnoxious to clean off your car. Oh, and they’re edible. But not if you’re allergic to seafood.”

The expression on his face now was a complicated dance of antennae and mandibles, which I chose to interpret as vaguely horrified.

But before he could come up with an answer, a voice called out from the clearing ahead.

“Hello hello! Are you the delivery people?”

I aimed my flashlight, hoping to light up feet instead of a face. Never good to blind the client. “Yes, we have your packages!” I could just make out a two-legged shape, and judging by the shape of the head, I was pretty sure she was a Frillian with large head fins.

“Great! Set them right over here! I’ve got my ID somewhere.” She dashed off into the droning darkness, making sounds of rummaging around that I could barely hear.

When we reached the clearing, we found a very thin Frillian wearing clothes with pockets everywhere, head fins just as large as they’d seemed, and the exuberant attitude of a scientist who’s getting to study something they’ve waited for.

“Thanks! Right there, yes. I suppose I could stand to turn on a light or two, but that might scare them away. Sign here? Got it. There you go. Thanks so much! I can’t wait to see how these work.”

Zhee and I stepped politely back while the client tore open the smallest box, where it was set on a table covered in miscellaneous equipment. She pulled out something that looked kind of like a medical scanner. It lit up with red light and some beeps that might have been piercing under other circumstances.

“Oh, it even comes charged! Excellent! Now show me what you’ve got…” She ran over to a bush and passed the scanner slowly through the air, for all the world like she was diagnosing the plant with something terminal.

The scanner probably beeped, but I couldn’t hear it from here. She ran back in excitement and opened the other box.

Those I did recognize: a surprising number of gravity wands, of a high-precision model. I had a theory what she was going to use them for.

Zhee did too. “Will you be catching the screamers, then?” he asked. “Studying how they make their obnoxious sound? Perhaps ready to teach them to make a better one?”

“Oh no,” she laughed. “Screamers are delicious. I have so many people waiting to buy them back home, but only as long as I get the ones that have already finished with egg-laying! Sustainable, you know?” She brandished the scanner. “This way I can be sure, and catch them while they’re fresh!”

I gave my most tactful customer service nod, not looking at Zhee. “You’ve got it all thought out.”

“Yep! I don’t really need this many wands, but they were the best deal in bulk, and this way I don’t have to worry about keeping just one charged. Let’s see how they perform.” She dashed back over to the same bush, and after a moment with the scanner in one hand and the gravity wand in another, she made a happy little hop then ran over to show us.

Wriggling in the gravity field was something tiny with compound eyes and kicking legs. I didn’t look at Zhee, just nodded politely and congratulated her on her catch.

She thanked us again and hurried over to the table where something that looked like a portable stasis box waited. The sunset was fading into pure dark, but the droning calls of the screamers were as loud as ever. She flicked on a red light and muttered happily about lanterns that didn’t make people’s eyes adjust. Then she waved at us and went back to work.

We walked back down the path. When we were a little ways away, I looked at Zhee. Yup, antennae angled into a frown.

“So,” I said. “A lot like cicadas, then.”

“If you decide you want to eat the screamers, I don’t want to know about it.”

“Nah, they creep me out too. But don’t tell my old college friend I said that; she was always trying to get me to be a more adventurous eater with exotic foods. I don’t know where she got half of that stuff.”

“And I don’t want to know what kind of foods an omnivore would find exotic.”

I smiled through the loud darkness. “You sure? Most of ‘em are meat; they probably wouldn’t be that strange to you.”

“Such as?”

“Well, there was the fermented shark—”

“Nope,” he declared. “No rotten sea creatures, thanks. Today is vile enough already.”

“Yeah, that one was pretty extreme,” I admitted. “Just opening a can of the stuff could clear a room in three seconds flat.”

Zhee pointed a pincher at me. “If you ever bring any of that onto the ship, you will spend the entire voyage living in the airlock.”

I smiled. “Noted!”

“No disgusting things on the ship,” Zhee grumbled.

I shined my light on the bushes as we walked. “I wonder if these are safe for cats. Telly would have a great time chasing one.”

“No.”

“You’re right; we wouldn’t want it getting stuck in the engine or something.”

“Also that. Just a general ‘no’ for you.”

“Party pooper.”

And then we discussed human idioms, and the anecdote my parents had told me about a diaper incident when I was an infant, and it kept us distracted from the sound of the screamers all the way to the ship.

~~~

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.

The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).

#The Token Human #the Patreon is live! go check it out!#that free tier is pretty cool #and the paying ones are even better #got so much cool stuff to share #my writing #humans are weird #haso #hfy #eiad #humans are space orcs

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thetarsier · 1 year

Note

okay. hear me out.... lockwood helping with hairwashing because your side is injured and you can't stretch your arms.... and you just have a little chat to keep it from being awkward but the way he's holding your head is really gentle and you've never quite been touched so lovingly before

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: none, injury, but not much detail, nakedness (*shocked face*)

<3: anthony lockwood x reader

“Lucy!” You called through the house from your spot securely hidden behind the bathroom door, “Luce?”

“She’s out,” The voice of the one person you didn’t want to ask for help filled your ears, “So is George. What’s up?”

Lockwood appeared, raising a teasing eyebrow at your position. You glared at him the best you could with your hair dripping steadily down your back and the door being your only protection from him seeing your naked body, but it was hard to feel anything but embarrassed.

“I’ll wait for Lucy to get back, thanks.”

“Let me guess,” He ignored your comment but didn’t come any closer, “You can’t lift your arms to wash your hair - which is exactly what I said would happen.”

“No,” You shook your head, “Okay, fine. Yes. Yes, I can’t reach up to wash my hair, alright? Good enough for you? You were right.”

He watched you for a few moments, dark eyes focused on yours for a time that seemed to stretch on. He wasn’t wearing his usual formal attire, just a shirt and joggers, and it made him seem more boyish - you preferred him that way, he tended to be somewhat nicer when he wasn’t putting on the appearance of Lockwood, when he was just Anthony.

“Lucy said she won’t be back for a while. Do you want me to help?” He offered, and you slid yourself further behind the door at the thought of him getting into the shower with you.

“No.”

“You’re just going to leave all the dirt in your hair? I’m all up for challenging beauty standards, but I’m not sure that’s hygienic. Come on, let me help you,” He seemed more sincere when he followed with, “I want to.”

“I’m naked.” You tried weakly.

“Who stitched up the gash on your side?” Lockwood posed the question, and you sighed, caught.

When you’d been injured by one of the Fittes agents on the latest mission that they’d ambushed, Lockwood had ripped the agent responsible a new one and reduced the boy to tears before taking you back home and taking the wound into his own hands. He cleaned it, wiped up the blood, and bandaged it - all without your top on.

You’d been in too much pain to care about the loss of the garment, but you had to admit that even once he was done, and you were in considerably less pain, you didn’t care that he was seeing you without your shirt on. It seemed… natural, in a way.

“I’ll give you my shirt to put on if you want,” He offered, hands already tugging at the hem of his grey shirt and pulling it over his head, “Here.”

You groaned before closing the door and tugging his shirt over your head. It was a feat with your injured side, but two seconds of pain was worth Anthony not seeing your bare chest. Having him help you wash your hair was enough embarrassment for the month, let alone him seeing you naked. Luckily, his shirt was long enough on you that it fell to just above your mid-thigh, meaning it covered everything else, too.

Closing your eyes and gathering your strength, you opened the door to Anthony, who was waiting patiently on the other side of the door, topless and no longer smirking like an idiot. He seemed bashful, and it was obvious that he was trying not to look at how his shirt was already sticking to your body thanks to the amount of time you’d already spent in the shower.

The shirt wasn’t offering you much more modesty, but it was enough.

Anthony entered the bathroom and shut the door behind him, and you begrudgingly stepped back into the shower, keeping your back to the boy behind you. He reached over you and pulled the shower head from its hold to wet your hair, and then he held it out to you to hold, and you took it, happy to have something to do with your hands.

“Where did George go?” You asked just to fill the silence as Anthony bent down to pick up your shampoo.

“The library,” He answered, his voice quiet and soft, reverberating in the confined space of the shower, “Lucy is out shopping, I think she said. I don’t know, she left quickly.”

His fingers made contact with your scalp, and you jolted, your back knocking into his front unceremoniously. He made a noise deep in his throat at the contact, and you moved forward again, though you could never escape his touch in the tiny space available to you.

“I’ll give you more warning next time,” His comment almost sounds sarcastic. Almost. But as his fingers begin to slowly massage the shampoo into your hair, all thoughts of rebuttal dissipate from your mind.

“Do you think I’ll ever be respected by the Fittes agents again?” You half-joked, “I mean, how many of us are injured by a rapier and down for the count?”

“That Fittes agent won’t have a job tomorrow if I have anything to say about it,” Anthony’s voice had slipped back into the soft tone, though there was an undertone of possessiveness that took the air from your lungs, “Any deeper and you would have needed stitches. Stitches. All because someone couldn’t watch where they were going…” He paused, exhaled deeply, “I should have never let it happen.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” You wanted to turn to him, despite the fact that his shirt was doing nothing to cover your naked body now that you were back in the shower. You wanted to look him in the eye so that he knew you were sincere when you reassured him, but he took the shower head from you to start washing the shampoo out of your hair, so you knew that it wasn’t the time.

One of his hands raised to your forehead, gently resting there to protect your eyes from the spray of water and soap as he rinsed your hair out, and your eyes closed in bliss. You’d never had somebody else wash your hair before, and you weren’t sure whether you would ever be able to go back to doing it yourself after Anthony’s treatment. Embarrassing as it was, you were becoming putty in his hands the longer his fingers stayed in your hair.

“Did you see the message on the table?” He asked as he bent down to collect your conditioner from the floor of the shower.

“Yeah. I’ll get on that as soon as I’m dressed.”

“Take it easy,” He advised, tugging all too gently on the ends of your hair as he ran the conditioner through it, “You’re to stay out of the field until your side heals.”

“What? But-”

“George will be happy to finally get some action,” Anthony interrupted you, “And you can stick to the researching for the next couple of weeks.”

You went to protest, but Anthony’s fingers drove over the top of your head, not putting conditioner on your roots, but lightly coating the hair there, too, and you melted under his touch. His hands were so gentle, his touch so loving and relaxing, that you were powerless to stop your body’s reaction to it.

It was his intention, of course, to get you to relax, but he hadn’t expected your head to fall all the way back until it met his bare shoulder, and he certainly didn’t expect it to stay there, your lethargy removing your inhibitions.

He washed his hands off with the shower head but kept hold of it as his free hand came up your arm to hold your jaw tenderly, supporting you even more than he already was. He kept his eyes securely on your face, watching it relax under his touch, and his own body relaxed more at the visual proof of your trust in him.

Maybe he wasn’t who you’d wanted to help initially, but there he was helping you, and if you wanted to spend the few minutes that your conditioner needed resting on his shoulder, he would stand there silently, willingly. Lovingly.

#anthony lockwood #lockwood and co netflix #anthony lockwood fluff #anthony lockwood x reader #anthony lockwood imagine #anthony lockwood comfort #lockwood and co fic

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copperbadge · 1 year

Text

I am now home, fed, rested, and festooned in cats.

I had a lot of opinions about the case I was jury on, but I don’t know how much of it I’ll write up; I kept a kind of disjointed journal, but it’s not super coherent. Turns out if I don’t document my thoughts in real time I get bored of my own mind very quickly.

We were jury for a complicated medical civil case; we heard testimony from six doctors and two nurses and saw so much imaging. I’m sure the plaintiff suing the medical center had bigger concerns, and it’s not like you get detail with the internal imaging we had to examine, but it must have been rough on him that in the course of learning about his injuries, which were on his lower body, we also had to look at multiple images of his dick. It certainly startled me when I realized what we were seeing for the first time.

Most of the trial I was kind of okay with just keeping things to myself, writing and thinking about it privately, but I was dying inside that I couldn’t talk to you guys until now about the asshole juror I mentioned earlier. I had intended to use writing about him as a safety valve -- a sort of “Hey I can’t talk about the trial but wait till you hear what That Guy did today” -- but uh.

So I didn’t actually bully anyone off a jury, but for the rest of my life I am definitely going to claim I did.

The second day of trial, the bailiff grabbed me before trial and said the judge wanted to talk to me; I thought I was in trouble but it turns out that he wanted to know about my interactions with the other juror. Apparently the bailiff had seen me step in when he was pestering a fellow (female) juror the previous day. Later he got super aggressive with the bailiff herself, and I guess she saw me watching and gauging whether to step in then, too. (I didn’t end up getting involved because she handled him just fine and also she has a gun.)

The judge questioned me about what I’d seen and done and why I’d done it, and then informed me he was removing the juror from the case based on what I’d told him about the man’s behavior. I’m given to understand there may be a charge of contempt of court and a fine, but I’m not clear on the details and it appears I won’t have to get involved further.

But yeah, that’s why you didn’t hear any more about him. Realistically he was removed for harassment, but I like to think a small part of it is that I fucked with him so visibly and thoroughly that they knew “this jury box isn’t big enough for the both of us.”

Anyway, I’m glad it’s over. I would have liked to have spoken to the plaintiff and his wife after the verdict and expressed my sympathy for what they’d gone through, but I think perhaps understandably they didn’t want to linger. Besides, we found in his favor; he seemed pleased with the outcome and his wife was happy-crying as we left, so I expect the message was understood.

My job is not exactly mindless, but it also doesn’t usually involve paying hardcore attention to complex medical testimony for six hours a day. I am exhausted. Fortunately this weekend is relatively laid back -- my only commitment is to a Pride beach party tomorrow, and I’ve used some of my jury pay to purchase one of those pop-up shade tents, so the plan is to sit in the shade with snacks and beverages and be the Beach Dad.

#archive

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blushsani · 3 months

Text

solicitude | c.s

⋆ choi san x gn reader ⋆ wc : 3k ⋆ genre : angst . fluff . hurt & comfort . ⋆ warnings : mention of injuries . mentions of financial issues . ⋆ details : happy ending . boxing au . making up (?) . ⋆ synopsis : in which san needs & learns to put himself first more. ⋆ notes : second post we cheer!! hi guys!! i rlly hope u enjoy this <3 / i do just want to quickly mention that i often feel like i word things strangely when i’m writing sometimes so i’m hoping no one can pick up on that through this 😭 if u can, i do apologise! bare with me guys just bare with me

the type of anger that leaves your heart somehow simultaneously light and heavy because of the rage is a type of anger you have never been good at handling.

the type of anger that leaves waves of shakes throughout your body from head to toe is a type of anger you have never been good at handling.

and no matter how hard you try, you just cannot force yourself to stop thinking about how san should know better. san does know better. to say san should’ve brought all this to an end by now is an understatement.

yet here he is, battered and bruised once again. you can’t help but wonder how much longer this is going to go on for. how much further san will let this go.

this is the type of anger you hate feeling and-

“y/n…y/n, hey…”

san’s lowly spoken voice catches your attention immediately, snatching you from your thoughts. and you pay him none of your attention. you don’t even spare him a single glance. the first time you had looked him straight in the eyes was exactly when you first stepped into his personal room backstage, and since then, you haven’t given him the satisfaction of even one look.

“baby pl—”

“don’t call me that.”

“no please don’t pu-”

“san stop. stop talking.” the sound of your words is like an icy blade, swiftly cutting through the air, and it’s more so the tone of your voice that makes san’s heart drop than it is your words.

san doesn’t think this would be much of a relationship if he hadn’t seen you on an unfortunate day when you’re packed full of irritation and pissed off, but between your almost two year relationship, he’s never been the target or cause of any anger this intense.

it goes without needing to be said that arguments and getting on each other’s nerves as a couple is warranted and happens but the anger san can feel from you is suffocating and the knowledge that you’re upset to this degree because of him is a strenuous weight he’s struggling to carry because he adores you and he can’t handle hurting you, let alone the thought of it.

there’s a delay in san noticing you grabbing your things and preparing to leave, too caught up with his thoughts and the nagging ache surrounding his jaw and the sharp pain in his ribcage that’s the current cause of his laboured breathing.

and when it finally does click to him that you’re clearly planning to leave, he internally begins to panic. that panic rises from zero to hundred within a matter of seconds, growing increasingly external as he notes that there’s no longer any belongings left of yours for you to grab. no more denying the inevitable.

“i’ll make sure wooyoung calls me if anything…if anything happens. please just. rest.” you find yourself putting a weak yet clear emphasis on the word “rest”.

if there’s one thing san doesn’t do often enough, it’s resting.

he eventually listens to his body and the signals it gives him, but not without a fight. not without overstepping that line just once.

and it pisses you off.

however, you have a good sense that san is too aware of the damage he’s caused tonight to dare cross that line again, and you can’t help but think to yourself that it’s about time.

as you turn to leave, ready to make a beeline for the door before that voice in the back of your head tells you to stay, san already proves himself faster.

“please stay. please. i want you here.”

it’s like you felt a punch to the gut as soon as the words left his mouth.

the tone of his voice leaves your knees ready to buckle, simultaneously leaving you fighting the feeling.

you put your weight mostly on your left leg as you turn around, looking at him with the right side of your body still facing the door.

your stance was throwing him a message of expectancy. if he truly wanted you to stay, now was his chance to make you want to stay too and his understanding of that was immediate.

so he carefully knocks his head in the direction of the empty space beside him, gesturing for you to sit, and you are almost fully convinced that you’d hear his heart shatter into thousands of pieces if you denied him right now.

you decide to accept him and take up that empty space instead with a deep breath.

as you take a seat on the black, somewhat stiff yet relatively comfortable couch, shifting to your comfortability, you remember how much you were reminded of a doctor’s office when you were first brought into san’s backstage room.

but the room is sadly much more familiar to you now, way more than an office belonging to a doctor. and that truly gets under your skin because you–you and san were never supposed to get used to this room or this routine.

this routine where san gets in that ring weekly with the promise of much needed cash if he wins the match.

san feels your clothed shoulder brush against his bare one and immediately seeks your hand, gingerly grabbing it. truthfully, you don’t think there’s a life out there of you and san where you wouldn’t accept his piece of affection and place a hand of your own over his.

there’s a moment of silence that you know will soon be filled with san’s voice, so you patiently wait for him. you suppose he needs a moment to gather his thoughts, and you understand that.

“i don’t want to keep putting you through this y/n.” san starts off.

“so stop.”

“baby, we both know it’s not that easy.”

“stop for the both of us.”

“y/n–”

“let’s stop talking about me for a moment. let’s actually talk about you.” your tone is firm.

you turn your body around so that your front is facing him entirely, leg propped up.

“these past few moments, i’ve only–i only see you bruised and weak. there’s not a single inch of your body i haven’t seen bruised. i only see you hurt. how much of this are you physically able to take before you–what if your body just fails on you one day san?”

“i can’t keep watching you like this. i can’t keep watching you hurting like this. and you don’t have to san, you don’t have to keep doing this, there’s other ways. it’s not like we’re out on the streets.”

the soft skin of your palm lightly touches against san’s cheek. you’re lifting his face up with a finger momentarily hooked under his chin so that he can look you in the eyes.

the second his eyes connect with yours, turning his body so that he can face you the same way you’re facing him, you can tell so many emotions and thoughts are going around in that pretty little heart and head of his.

he grabs your wrist ever so gently, holding onto you as he digs his cheek further into your palm, all while his gaze never faltering.

for the umpteenth time, you feel your belly swirl and flutter.

you stroke his cheek before continuing, “you know i wouldn’t be able to handle it if something happened to you. and that’s why you need to decide what you’re gonna do.”

you pull away from him. his gaze is dead set on you, eyes widened slightly. it’s the mix of your words and the abrupt lack of contact that he really…really doesn’t like.

he really doesn’t like where this seems to be going.

“if you can’t put yourself first right now, then we need to start thinking about what this means for us.”

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

san’s mind drifts back to how the past week has been.

it’s consisted of so many thoughts, questions, fears and a considerable amount of time to let the deep ache rooted in his muscles ease.

and it’s all brought him to your front door on a sunday afternoon, a sense of uncertainty surrounding him that he can’t seem to ignore.

it was a late afternoon when he received your awaited phone call yesterday. he was too close to missing it, busy washing dishes in his kitchen and having to swiftly dry his hands and then run to his living room where he had left his phone.

he was the quickest you’ve ever seen him to spew apologies to you, and quite frankly, you were just as quick to reassure him through an auditory smile.

but as he stands, waiting for you to open the door, he returns to the feeling of doubt swirling around in his mind.

he’s afraid. he’s afraid because he knows that he will always want you, but he isn’t entirely sure that you still want him. he isn’t entirely certain he’d choose himself either if he were you.

he’s been so stupid.

he finds it so stupid that he’s even in this situation, getting so wrapped into his own head. he finds it so stupid because he’s aware of how avoidable this was.

he loves you and the answer will always be you.

his answer will always be you.

so the next thing he knows, your apartment door is opening, presenting you. san sucks in a deep breath as he finds himself instantly locking eyes with you.

you’re pretty.

he mentally notes how pretty you look. glowing, almost.

“hi.” you’re the first to speak, quick to take notice of how nervous san looks.

a very brief second goes by before he replies, “hi. hi–how have you been?”

“i’ve been okay,” you nod to yourself before continuing, “but how have you been? how do you feel? you been resting up okay?”

san’s heart slightly tugs at the genuine care you show him unconditionally.

“yeah–yeah, i’m okay. i’m, uh, i’m glad you’ve been okay too y/n.”

you give san a small smile. it’s knowing, and so is the smile he gives you in return.

one of the first things you came to love about san is how much his eyes can speak for him, and that’s why you can’t ignore how much he’s expressing to you just by looking into his eyes.

silence thickens over the pair of you. it’s somehow a synchronic mix of awkward and comfortable. unfamiliar but familiar.

it’s one of those moments where words don’t have to be exchanged for two people to know what the other is thinking. it’s such a knowing moment; he sees that just as much as you do.

“i remembered to–uh…grab some coffee on friday. it’s that brand you like. come in, i’ll make us some.”

───────── ౨ৎ ─────────

you place san’s mug down on the coffee table first, followed up by your own white mug.

it’s just as you’re about to take a seat on the opposite armchair that you suddenly feel the familiarity of san grabbing your hand. your train of thought stops, and you raise your head to look at him, surprised at the sudden contact but most definitely accepting of it.

san pats the empty seat next to him on the loveseat, and maybe it’s silly how quick you were to comply. you can’t say you care very much though.

as you both adjust to face each other on the sofa, you slowly take more and more notice of how you and san haven’t stopped firmly holding hands.

it makes you smile.

it makes a tiny but affirmative feeling of hope twitch through you.

you hear san take a deep breath and return your gaze back to him, ready to have this conversation.

things needs to be talked through and san’s just as aware as you of that.

you take notice of the way his gaze is somewhere distant behind you and rub his hand with your thumb. it seems to bring him back to you. his gaze hooks back onto you, giving you a slight sad smile before looking down and looking back up within a matter of a few seconds.

he seems like he doesn’t quite know where to start, but he does seem to eventually find his way.

“you’ve been more than patient with me. and i…i truly owe you an apology for being so patient to begin with.” you cock your head to the side ever so slightly, intently listening.

“i’ve probably thought more than i have throughout my whole life this week,” he laughs for a moment and there’s a small chuckle of your own, “and i kept thinking about how i’d feel if the roles were reversed. if it was you in those rings instead of me. if i had to watch you keep getting hurt. how i’d feel if i came backstage with you and saw you covered with bruises. hurt. and…i know i wouldn’t be able to handle it y/n.”

your lips drew a thin line as you nodded. so much was going through your mind and you wanted to take deep care in putting all the scrambled pieces together. but for now, you’re just focusing on the man before you.

“i took time to think about me too. just…me. not only my well-being physically, but my well-being mentally as well. i took time to actually care for me. properly.”

it’s like you feel a spark of light shoot through you at his words.

you’ve said it once and you’ll say it again, san truly just thinking about himself for once is something you don’t see enough of, and you’ve expressed to him before how important it is that he takes the time to do that.

you remember his exact words when you had a conversation with him about it.

“i’m not used to it. i’m just…not. it doesn’t come easy to me.”

and you remember your exact words in response too.

“well i love you. and if you’ll let me, then i wanna help you get used to it.”

so hearing him say that’s something he finally put some attention on and tended to…

god it makes you happy. relief goes through you from head to toe and you exhale with a fond smile, needing somewhere to let the feeling out before it just explodes within you.

“oh san.” you find yourself deciding words wouldn’t feel like enough and swiftly lean forwards instead, capturing him in a tight hug.

it melts your heart how quick san is to return the hug just as tightly, finding his own little space in your neck.

you rub san’s nape, murmuring a loving “i’m proud of you san” and receiving a gentle squeeze in response.

he kisses your neck before pulling away.

“i’m choosing you. it will never ever be worth putting us both through this anymore. i’m so sorry it took this long. i’m so so so sorry. i will always be sorry for not showing you sooner than i choose and always will choose you.”

there’s so much sincerity dripping from his voice. it leaves your heart throbbing, partly with love and partly with ache. you don’t want this to be something san keeps beating himself up over.

san is a man who never says anything he doesn’t truly mean, so you know this will be a moment he’ll think about even when the grey hairs start making an appearance (and hopefully you’ll still be there to remind him he was always forgiven).

you quickly find yourself overwhelmed by all your thoughts and feelings and before you can even think properly, you’re once again smothering yourself in san’s hold.

your chin digs into san’s shoulder as you speak, “i forgive you san. thank you for being open with me.”

you continue as you pull away, hands gently gripped on san’s shoulders, “and thank you for putting yourself first. i’m proud of you. i know money is an issue right now. i’m here with you. we’re gonna get through it, yeah? that just isn’t the way we’re gonna do it. you were just–in pain all the time. ‘s not fair. you can’t keep putting yourself through that and i told you last week that i can’t keep watching you put yourself through that. i won’t.”

“i know, i know. i’m hearing you.” san gently nods, sincerity swimming in his eyes and full to the brim in his voice. he removes your hands from his shoulders, taking them into his own instead and pressing a wet kiss onto your knuckle.

“and,” you lightly cough, “...i’m sorry for how harsh i was last week. i was just–i was feeling a lot and i was scared and i felt so angry and…i am really sorry san.” your tone is just as regretful as you feel. although you know you were and are justified in your feelings, you don’t agree with how you spoke to san. that’s not a way you’ve ever spoken to him before and you don’t plan to ever make a habit of it.

“thank you. to be truthful with you love, if the roles were reversed, i would’ve been the exact same way you were. you had every right to feel what you were feeling.”

you warmly smile at the response, once again sinking into the realisation of how big the love you feel for him is.

within seconds, you find yourself simultaneously sinking into his arms. and for the umpteenth time, he accepts you. he welcomes you in with arms wide open like he always does.

you don’t think you’ve ever felt so comfortable with someone.

but it’s later on when you’re laid beside him, tracing your fingertips along the bruises that required a little more time to fade than the others, the pair of you warming one another up with the soft holds you’ve had on each other the entire rest of the day that you realise just how comfortable you feel with him.

it’s almost laughable to you how just the previous week, you no longer knew what you and san would look like. and now, he’s in your arms, scattering kisses all over your face, erupting never ending giggles from you.

it’s the first night you’ve been able to drift to sleep with a content chest and mind.

knowing you get to wake up to his presence. knowing there will be a you and san tomorrow.

- yours sincerely, qei ౨ৎ

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