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chronicbeans · 1 year

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I Remember

A "Tales from the Iolite Hospital" story.

TW: Themes of Depression/Possible Implied Suicidal Thoughts, Mentions of Trauma-Induced Age Regression, Hospital Setting/Doctors, Medical Procedures, Mentions of Death, Chronic/Rare Illness

I walk through the large halls of Iolite, frowning deeply. Yet another appointment with Dr. Cogsworth. In fact, it is to set up another endoscopy, as well as a biopsy to see if the dupilumab is making anything any better. I hate them. They say that it should only be sore for a day afterward, but my esophagus is so narrow that it takes about a week for the pain to subside even slightly. Too much air gets trapped...

I enter Dr. Cogsworth's office, expecting to hear the usual music form his chest and the creaking clicks of his joints. However, it is silent. Silent and dark. I fumble around for the light switch, not intending to leave until I get the appointment done. I end up bumping into what feels like a body in a chair, leaning over it and feeling the switch. I flick it on.

The body I bumped into was none other than Dr. Cogsworth, himself. His key to wind him up is no longer in his back, instead lying on the floor beside him. His face is lying on his arms, which are neatly folded on his desk, with a look of both distress and peace on his face. Yes, it is contradictory for both emotions to exist in an expression at once... Perhaps it is more of a disturbed peace? Either way, he is unmoving, like he is in a place between both sleep and death. One which is simply called "we gotta wind him up, again, Nurse Janet", by his peers.

I would do it myself, but this is a great opportunity to snoop around. I search every book and cranny of his large office. I go through the unlocked cabinets, the drawers full of medical instruments, and even look at the weird models of different sections of the digestive system. You know, the ones you can tear apart and put back together? The cool ones?

I make my way back over to him, searching his desk, when I take a closer look at him face. I realize that it looks a bit odd. His face seems to be stained with... tears? His tears were always a bit more noticeable, due to the slightly blue-green tint in them. So, I guess that when they dry on his face, they leave little stains? What else would be covering his face in two thin, blue tracks from his eyes to his chin? Then there is the question of what he is covering with his arms.

As much as I hate him, and want to push him violently over to look at the little secret he is hiding, and watch him tumble to the floor... it would cause a commotion, most likely signalling a nurse to check in on him and I. Don't judge me for my want. He has been the bane of my existence. A constant reminder of how sick I am. Anyways...

So, I gently pick his arms up and move them over, then lift his head and pull the paper out from underneath it. For being a.. wind-up man? Doll? For being whatever he is, his hair feels surprisingly real and soft. Whoever made him must've done so with care. How sad it is that he turned out so emotionless and cruel. At least, that is the vibes I get from him. A doctor is supposed to be caring and gentle, with a gentle and warm aura. Not this cold, barren, and overly strict and harsh one that Dr. Cogsworth has.

I look at the paper, realizing that it must be a note of some sort. It is stained with drops of light blue-green, possibly even a turquoise color. The good thing is, none of it has ruined or covered the black pen he used to write it! I can still get the juicy tea from this! I can't wait to tell everyone his little secret. That's what he'll get for all that he has done.

Holding it up to my chest, so that I can read it with the various eyes upon my gown, I start at the beginning.

"To Whoever Finds This Note,

First of all... Please, do not wind me back up. I need a few days to contemplate some things. Preferably, an eternity to do so. I may never truly die, nor do I necessarily feel like I want to... At least, I do not believe I want to... but I must think over my recent actions, as well as the feelings in my chest."

Well... that is the FIRST red flag. That guy basically needs to be wound up to live and is telling people not to? I look over to him, seeing that disturbed, peaceful look on his face. The guy looks like he is in his sixties or something, but I know for a fact that he is younger than me. Doesn't make a difference in his actual mental age, since he was programmed to have the maturity, personality, and medical knowledge of a sixty year old doctor, but he does still hold the naivety of someone younger than me when it comes to the subject of things outside of medicine. Especially emotions, which I find absolutely hilarious, considering how he never shows any signs of having his own. I was sixteen when I came in, meanwhile, he was created five years before I arrived. Add eleven years... that makes him... Oh that makes it so he is sixteen currently. How ironic...

I look back at the note, trying to shake the thought that someone who has only had sixteen years of life experience, even if he was programmed to have sixty in specific areas, is thinking this way. If I had to guess, never being wound up is the equivalent of an eternal slumber. Willingly going through with never being wound up must be like... Resigning yourself to that fate.

"I have a few words I wish to share. I hope that whoever finds this is not a patient of mine, but if it is so, I will not have any reasons to care about it. If I never wake up, I will never know of it. My fellow healthcare providers, however, have been concerned about my recent, outspoken nature regarding the treatment of the patients on the C-Floor, especially my own, in the C-GastEnt ward. They say that I am losing the point. To follow the protocol. That it has been proven to work. I think that they have lost the point, but I have no choice but to follow through with their orders. I wish to address this in this note."

Ah, yes... the C-GastEnt ward. The ward on C-Floor specifically for patients with chronic gastrointestinal and digestive system conditions. The entirety of the C-Floor is for chronic illness patients, but that ward is our own special little hell. Why would Dr. Cogsworth care so much? He doesn't have to live there. No one else cares, either, besides the patients trapped on the C-Floor.

"I have been having thoughts regarding the purpose of the doctor in a patient's care. When I was first created, I was told that, as a doctor, it is my job to make patients feel better. It is my job to make it so that they are happy. Happiness is shown by a smile, if I am correct. I realized a few months back... none of my patients in the C-GastEnt ward have ever smiled at me during their time in my care. None of the others on the C-Floor have, either. If a person shows happiness through a smile, and no one is smiling, doesn't that mean that we are failing? We are failing at our one job in life. I am failing at my purpose in life."

I pause, again, looking back over to him. There is still so much more in his note, which I still plan to read... But this is growing a bit more concerning. "I hate Dr. Cogsworth because he is an emotionless robot with no idea as to how I feel and what it is like to be me" is what I have always said when others ask why I hate him so much. Now, however, as I read this... Yes, these aren't emotions. These are thoughts. The problem is, these are thoughts I know all too well. Not only that, but these are thoughts caused by concerns over his patients, including me. Thoughts caused by concerns I never even knew he was able to have towards people.

"In fact, I have seen many of them smile before. My peers complain about how Aluminum is a main point of obsession when it comes to these thoughts of mine. It isn't just him, but I talk about him often because, like I apparently am, he is outspoken in his dismay. I know his feelings the best, because he tells me about them the most out of all my patients. He is in pain, lots of pain, and he is letting me know it. He calls me a monster, when I am just following protocol. He says I am emotionless, to which I understand, but know I am not. I shall use him as an example in this note, both to accurately explain my concerns, and to spite you all who dare say those concerns are not important."

I can't help but chuckle at the last line. Spite. I love it. The old guy has a lot of courage to spite his peers like that. I then think over the rest of the paragraph, before realizing what he is saying. I am the most outspoken patient? I thought I was being quiet compared to the rest. Perhaps we all are just more open to each other than the doctors and nurses here. It would make sense. The usual response is "I am not a therapist. I can't help that you feel bad" or "let me get you more medicine".

"I remember, eleven years ago, when he first entered my office. We hadn't done the endoscopy, yet. I know how his kind, the Eyeless, work. They see through the eyes on their clothing, have no eyes on their face, and tend to be more modest and show large amounts of hospitality. A large part of their culture is the desire to grow up quickly. They want to act like adults, even when they are not. They try to be mature, independent, and be looked upon with high regards. Clothes that show too much skin, even just short sleeved shirts, shorts, or even skirts are not seen as proper."

Sounds about right. Dad was always fighting with mom, who wasn't an Eyeless, about how she dressed and how she let me dress. The parts about wanting to grow up too soon are right, as well. Kids as young as ten will be left alone, cooking dinner and such, not because their parents want to leave them, but because they want to seem more mature than they are.

"Aluminum walked into my office with his father. He was only sixteen and was complaining of pain while swallowing. However, when he saw me, he smiled. He smiled. He shook my hand, smiling and laughing as he said "for a man made of cogs and gears, you sure look nice! Your hand is also warmer than I expected, too! That's so cool!" His father immediately slapped his hand, saying something about being rude for saying that. It was the nicest thing I had heard all day, actually. In fact, I had just been chastised by another patient for not having any way to help her with her acid reflux. I had given her a set of instructions that she refused to follow. I couldn't do anything if she wouldn't help herself. That is besides the point. The point is, he was happy. He was smiling. Not only that, but his hand was warm. It was nice, warm, and, for a man with problems eating, not too frail or thin."

Raising an eyebrow, I feel confused. I get the first part. Yeah, I was happy before. I also remember saying those exact words to him. What do my hands have to do with anything? Why is he focusing on them? Seems kinda creepy.

"Next thing I know, after getting a barium swallow to check for abnormalities in the esophagus, such as strictures or holes, the imaging department sent in the pictures, alongside a note. The x-rays showed an amazingly horrible sight. The esophagus was proportional, with no sudden dips or bloating. However, the entirety of it was only around a half to a third the width it should be. The note said "Never seen this in my fourth years of working in imaging. Patient smiles when he saw the pictures, thinking it was normal due to no easily visible strictures and no knowledge on the width it should appear as on the imaging screen. When informed, patient began to laugh from a nervous breakdown, trying to play it off by saying "I am special! I am a freak of nature!" in a playful, shaking voice. Please tell me you know what this is, Dr. Cogsworth. I have no clue.""

I look up from the paper, shocked that he would remember the day so well, much less be informed of my reaction to the news. It continues on, too. I am too deep at this point. I must see this note through to the finish. It is multiple pages, at this point.

"When he came back for our next appointment, I told him I would do an endoscopy. His mother, bless her soul for being so kind, comforted him through my explanation of the procedure. She will be missed by many. She even waited the entire two hours as it was done, helped comfort him when he was scared of changing into the patient gown, telling him that he should trust me. There weren't any eyes on it, so he would be blind. He trusted me in the end, though, changing into the gown and letting me guide him to the surgery room. It usually only takes thirty or so minutes to do an upper endoscopy. For Aluminum, however, his esophagus was too small for our smallest endoscopes, including the pediatric ones, to fit into the opening of the esophagus. I needed to widen the entirety of his tract to perform the procedure. I took the biopsy, after seeing type two inflammation present in his esophagus, as well as some slight ringing in one area of it. I found that a high number of eosinophils were present, thus, diagnosing him with eosinophilic esophagitis. When he woke up from anesthesia, the first thing he did was regurgitate blood from his stomach, before trying to get out of bed, screaming in horror about the blood, only for me to have to catch him before he dropped to the ground or tipped over the bed pan used to catch the blood."

I shudder, remembering that moment. It was awful. My mother was there by my side during those days. She passed away sometime later, but I was already admitted as a long-term patient, so I wasn't allowed to visit her or go to her funeral.

"I have the young man his diagnosis, explaining that it was chronic, what I had to do, and how his case is very severe. I also explained how it was a new diagnosis, so there isn't much known about it. In those exact moments, I saw all light leave his face. Two little wings appeared above his head. I knew that it was a sign that the poor man was traumatized. Wings are a telltale sign that an Eyeless has faced a life-changing trauma, good or bad. The look on his face read that it was not only bad, but like I had dragged him through the raging fires of hell, through mountains of needles, and thrown him into a pit of lava. He trusted me. He trusted me and I traumatized him immediately afterward. I felt the worst pain in my chest, piercing right where my heart would be. It pierced right through my music box."

Only one more section to read. One more section, then I will be able to go. I can't just leave myself in the dark. I must know.

"There were no more warm flutters, like when he shook my hand upon our first meeting. Just... an agonizing pain. For these past eleven years, time seems to have begun to move slower for me. I want it to end. I want my world to turn, again. My dreams have been of him leaving this hospital, the building crumbling around me as I watch him go. I get the warm fluttering feeling, smiling in my dreams. I smile. I know I feel happy in those dreams. I feel happy because he always turns back to smile at me. Whenever I get the same feeling in reality, I do not know if it is happiness, sadness, nostalgia, or whatever. But I know those dreams of his escape and my own destruction within Iolite are happy. I know, in truth, that it will never happen. The Iolite Hospital will never fall. It will keep turning around me, watching the patients, workers, and myself with its watchful eyes. Tears have been falling from my eyes more recently, to which I cannot comprehend why, except for the commonality of each incident being the pain in my chest rising to an unbearable level. Is it guilt? Is it sadness? Is it a feeling of unbearable apathy? I fear the worst.

The only times I see him smile are when he regresses in age, acting like a child. He does this to go back to a time where he wasn't aware of his illness, as such, having no care in the world. Back to a time where he never met me. In those moments, the second he spots me, he runs away in fear. He avoids me like I am an angel of death.

The most unbearable part is Aluminum's hands, nowadays. When he shakes my hands, which is a rare occasion, nowadays, they are cold. They are cold, frail, skinny... He is losing weight. His fingers sometimes even look a bit blue, not due to cyanosis, but due to him being so pale and skinny that his veins are visible through the skin. His fingers and body do not have enough fat to hold warmth, making them cold. He even says that my own hands feel as cold as stone.

The Iolite Hospital has made us both cold."

I finish reading in, placing it back down on the desk. I am speechless. I always thought he never cared. I look back to him, seeing that he is still as stone, of course. I hesitate, before picking up his key, winding him back up. He has a lot to explain. I have a lot to explain. I have a lot to apologize for.

#Tales from the Iolite Hospital #passion project #my stories #My ocs #my ocs are my babies

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alsjeblieft-zeg · 2 years

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070 of 2023

What’s your definition of weird?

Beautiful.

Do you use shaving cream?

I mean, I only shave my face and maybe somewhere else, but sure.

When was the last time you cleaned your room? Is your room clean?

Yesterday and nope, but it looks better already.

Have you ever personally known any girl who shaved their head?

I know one who had to have her head shaved for the same reason as me. I met her in the hospital last year.

Have you ever known anyone who committed suicide?

Yes. It’s a painful story, he was only 16, but severely mentally ill.

Have you ever tried to commit suicide?

No, but I used to think about it.

Have you ever coughed up blood?

No, never.

How do you wish you could die?

Dying is overrated, I want to be immortal.

What’s the longest phone conversation you’ve had lately?

Five minutes, no kidding. Too long for me already.

Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?

My husband.

What were the last words you said?

“Ik hou van je” ^.^

Who was the last person you hugged?

Also my husband.

Do you have any apps on your Facebook? If so, what?

I don’t use Facebook.

What’s some of the worst pain you’ve ever felt?

Pain after surgeries. Horrible.

What kind of mouse pad do you have?

The green one, from ACV.

What color is your mouse?

White and grey, it’s wireless.

Do you or have you ever had an eating disorder?

Yeah, I do. Sadly.

Do you think you’re fat?

All the time.

Do you know any who might be anorexic? Do you know anyone who has bulimia?

Some people over the internet forums, but no one in person. I do have EDNOS, though.

Did you ever want a pony when you were little?

Yeah, I used to. But when I was very little.

What’s your favorite cheese?

Gouda, but young. Dutch chreese ftw.

What’s your favorite cake?

Cheesecake, but I’m not a big fan of cakes.

What are you having/what did you have for dinner tonight?

Chicken wings and fries.

What’s your favorite dessert food?

I don’t like dessert.

What’s your favorite candy?

I don’t like sweets.

Have you ever had a Nos?

What’s that even? A olish word for nose? If so, then everybody does, I suppose.

How long have you been taking this survey?

Too long already.

What are you listening to right now?

There’s TV in the background, as usual.

What is the closest thing to you right now that is alive?

My older cat.

What’s your worst fear?

Failure and losing.

Are you an outcast?

Kind of, but not 100%, I’d say.

Do you exercise?

Every day. I walk a lot and I work on my arms.

Do you hate it when people repeat themselves?

Nah. I do it as well XD

Do you say like a lot?

Yeah, like... You see :P

What’s your favorite carnival food? (cotton candy, corn dogs, funnel cake)

Fries and frikandels, but you can get them in every fries shop. We don’t have anything separate for carnivals :P

Do you have a good memory?

Nah, my memory is horrible. At least short-term. My long-term memory, as in things I’ve been studying, is great.

Do you dislike writing school essays?

I hate it. I have no literacy skills, really.

Are you a very open-minded person?

I am. In my eyes, everyone is equal. I’m not judgemental either.

Are you modest?

More than I should be, possibly.

What kind of guys/girls do you usually fall for?

With good personalities. For appearance, I don’t seem to have a type. All I need is beautiful, expressive eyes.

Do you skate?

I don’t, but it sounds fun.

Are you in a band?

Nope. It was my dream when I was, like, 12.

Can you play the guitar? If not, what other instrument do you play?

I don’t. You need two good hands for it, and I’m physically disabled.

If you were to make it big with your own band, what would its name be?

Mzake it big... that’s commercial. No.

What’s your favorite kind of pasta?

Penne. But most of all, I like that mushroom tomato one from Bavet.

Would you rather a friend come over to your house or you go over there?

Either. Both sound fun.

What’s the perfect first date?

Guys night in a pub, with lots of beer.

Have you ever had rabies?

It’s deadly, I wouldn’t be tyoping here if I had it.

Do you know anyone who ever had to get a rabies shot?

My mum because she got bitten by a dog.

Have you ever gone hunting?

No, but it doesn’t sound appealing to me.

Ever eaten deer? Duck? Squirrel? How about lamb?

Duck and lamb. Duck is okay, lamb I difdn’t like much.

Are you a vegetarian?

As close to it as possible. Not fully, though.

Do you know any vegetarians? What about vegans?

I do, but not in person.

Do you know what a vegan is? How about fruititarian?

Do you think people are stupid?

What’s your favorite search engine?

Google by default, but it doesn’t mean I like it.

Internet Explorer or Firefox? Safari or Firefox?

Opera, yup.

Do you have hair in your nose?

Doesn’t everyone to some extent?

How long, in miles, is the width of your fingernail?

In miles? Maybe in kilometres?

Are you a math wiz?

Yeah, but I prefer physics anyway.

What’s your favorite subject?

Physics, as I said.

What is your locker number at school? Do you have a lock on your locker?

I’m not in school, I do work, our work lockers don’t have numbers and my uni doesn’t have lockers. Yeah, all my work lockers have locks.

Have you ever received a note in your locker?

Yeah, long ago.

Do you like to laugh?

I do. I laugh a lot, actually.

#survey #q&a survey #random survey

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mirandamckenni1 · 3 months

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youtube

Nessa Barrett - la di die (feat. jxdn) [Official Music Video] download/stream la di die (feat. jxdn): https://ift.tt/kzJRoe8 ✰ MY SOCIALS ✰ ⭑ instagram: https://ift.tt/5qtUwL4 ⭑ tiktok: https://ift.tt/2X6Sct1 ⭑ twitter: https://twitter.com/nessaabarrett ⭑ snapchat: nessaabarrett xoxo, nessa CREDITS: Director: Andrew Sandler Producer: Connor Gould Production Company: UnderWonder Content Executive Producers: Frank Borin, Ivanna Borin DOP: Eric Vera Prod Designer: Wes Dogan Editor: Jordan Orme Color: Kinan Chabani AD: Mike Roque VFX: Kawika Banis 1st AC: Matias Wajner 2nd AC: Chakarra Johnson Steadicam: Jose Espinoza Gaffer: Taylor Huddleson BBE: Matthew Tokuno Key Grip: Tigran Tsolakyan Grip: Jesse Guzman Art Director: Will Havertape PA: John Avila PA: Malachi Barnes PA: Adrien Hinijos CCO: Clayton Johnson Lyrics: ok does it rain in california only dream i’ve ever known will they love you when ur famous where you'll never be alone hope someday i’ll find nirvana i’ll be looking down below ill be dead at 27 only 9 more years go i got a bully in my head fake love, fake friends i was broken when you left now you hear me everywhere you go la da di oh la di da gonna be a superstar be the girl you used to know playin on the radio la da di oh la di die loving me is suicide i’m a dreamer, i’m on fire la da di run for your life jxdn ya jxdn ya jxdn said i’m going to be a rockstar ya (x3) told her i don’t wanna war ya (x3) i don’t see me going far ya (x3) that’s what happens when i fall apart all of me wants all of you but i’m far away and i can’t choose i got lot of lessons that i need to learn got a lot of lessons my depression and misconceptions and all the mistakes that lead to lessons my depression it makes me question my depression it makes me question la da di oh la di da gonna be a superstar be the girl you used to know playin on the radio la da di oh la di die loving me is suicide i’m a dreamer, i’m on fire la da di run for your life does it rain in california where the angels cry for me want the drugs that taste like candy and blood diamonds in my teeth la da di oh la di da gonna be a superstar be the girl you used to know playin on the radio la da di oh la di die loving me is suicide i’m a dreamer, i’m on fire la da di run for your life ya i’m gonna be a superstar #NessaBarrett #jxdn #ladidie via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0MuToADnt8

#IFTTT #YouTube #Youtube

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bigbroadvice · 8 months

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Just a warning there are a few sensitive topics in this

I really need to talk to someone about this but I'm too scared/embarrassed to talk to someone irl and I just suck at talking to people in general.

For years I've been having frequent suicidal thoughts and have been self harming but I didn't really do much about it. Now though, things have gotten a lot worse. I've attempted a couple of times just in the past month and my self harming has gotten really bad/frequent and I think it's becoming more noticeable (I always wear a jacket now to hide my scars).

I just don't feel like anything is worth it anymore and no one that I know irl would care if I was gone. Sometimes I make subtle mentions about my thoughts when I'm talking to online friends and they all tell me that they would miss me and that they care about me and when they do it makes me feel better but it still doesn't change my mind about wanting to die.

I feel like maybe if I really did talk to someone irl about it though, they would ask why I feel like this and tbh, I'm not quite sure. I guess it's just everything? But honestly my life isn't terrible, I have a few close friends and I have things that I enjoy, but inside I just can't convince myself that anything is worth it.

I feel like maybe its could be because of my mental state possibly. I have really bad anxiety/depression (undiagnosed but I'm positive there's something going on) and I have panic attacks every day and sometimes multiple times a day. That could be a contributing factor but I also don't know why any of that happens either. It's like I'm living a whole other life in my brain that makes everything just awful.

Anyway, I'm sorry this was so long but I really felt like I needed to explain this and maybe ask for some advice or help? I really just don't know what else to do anymore.

Hey friend, I’ve been where you’re at and I know it sucks. Sometimes brain chemistry just gets a bit wonky and makes you feel down no matter what’s going on in your life. The feelings are still very real and can hurt just as bad though.

I know it will be hard, but you need to let some people in real life know what’s going on, people you can depend on to look out for you. Trying to find the words when you’re talking face to face can be really difficult so it might be helpful to write it down to give to them instead (either a letter or a text works just fine).

The good thing about wonky brain chemistry is that it’s fixable. I’ve personally never been on any antidepressants, mostly because I never had access to them as a kid when I really needed them, but I’ve known people that they’ve been really helpful for. It’s just like any illness where your body isn’t producing enough of the chemicals you need so you take medicine to make up the difference.

Again, I am not a mental health professional, but I’d highly reccomend you see one. In general, they’re very lovely people and can be so tremendously helpful. Look up your local suicide helplines and they can help you get connected from there.

I spent most of my formative years where you’re at and I remember how bleak everything felt. It was like the whole world was painted in gray and I couldn’t imagine how anything could make all the hard things worth it. But then one day it was like a veil was lifted and I looked around me and saw the colors, and it was beautiful. I still don’t really understand what happened, weather it was something different happening in my life or the brain chemicals finally evening out, but I’m so glad I made it through to that day. I had no idea this whole other world of colors and feelings and dreams was out there waiting for me, but it was, and I’m so glad I made it through to see it. It’s waiting for you too. Don’t give up before you’ve had the chance to see what it really means to be alive.

#tw depression #tw suicide #tw suicide mention #tw suicide attempt #cw depression #cw sui mention #cw suicide mention #cw sui ideation #cw sui thoughts #suicidal thoughts #mental health #anxiety #please let me know if there’s anything else i should tag this with #big bro advice

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pyrrhiccomedy · 4 years

Note

Hi! Would you ever consider doing that spirited TED talk about why Lovecraft now appeals specifically to the marginalized people he hated? I'm trying to make sense of it myself and it would really help to hear your informed opinion!! Sorry if you have already written about it or if it's maybe too personal! Hope you guys are doing well during the lockdown :)

Yeah, sure.

Lovecraft’s work deals intimately with the pain and fear associated with feeling alienated from your community, your ancestors, and even yourself.

A lot of his stories are about how there is something ‘different,’ about you or the people around you, that fills you with unease, but is also difficult to define. Your family feels malevolent to you; you feel like everyone in your small town is watching you, or has bad intentions towards you; you know that there’s something that just isn’t RIGHT about yourself.

Your community might want to force you into a religion, or even a partnership, that seems unspeakable to you, and which fills you with horror.

Sound familiar?

These themes are relatable to LGBT people, to disabled people, to non-neurotypical people, to biracial people, or to people of color who are being raised in communities in which they are an overwhelming minority.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth is probably Lovecraft’s most famous story. It’s about being trapped in a small town where everyone is a part of a terrifying religion that personally hates you, everyone is being forced into horrifying heterosexual couplings of in which one of the partners is a literal monster, for the purpose of breeding, and in which the protagonist survives, escapes, and the government bluntly condemns his tormentors.

As a gay little kid growing up in conservative Maine, this was big for me.

In the end, the narrator of Shadow Over Innsmouth realizes he’s descended from the cultists of this town, and that he is becoming the thing he previously hated and feared. I also was afraid of never getting out of my town, and one day turning into someone just like the people who made my life miserable. To me, it read like a horrible cautionary tale: get out, and don’t look back. What’s going on here is wrong, and you need to pull yourself away, before the pressures of your family & community turn you into one of them.

But that’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth: a story which features alien miscegenation, sure, but not usually one of the stories that gets specifically called out when people talk abot how racist Lovecraft was.

The White Ape is probably the most racist thing Lovecraft ever wrote (also titled Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family). It’s about a man who goes to Africa, falls in love with an ape, successfully reproduces with it, and then all of his descendants are criminals and madmen, with unpleasant, twisted appearances. It’s told from the POV of one of his more distant descendants, who uncovers this information while researching his own geneology, and, upon discovering that there’s an ape in his lineage, commits suicide by dousing himself in lighter fluid and setting himself on fire.

Yikes.

And yet...this story speaks to me, too. There’s a history of serious alcoholism in my family. My mother was an alcoholic. I asked questions: her father was an alcoholic, and suffered from hallucinations as well. His father was also an alcoholic, and he beat his wife and children savagely. And his parents? I don’t know. No one was ever willing to talk to me about it. But every generation I looked back, there was more abuse, more mental illness, more violence.

The idea that, if I could look back far enough, I could discover a progenitor that had poisoned our entire family was something I dwelled on, as a kid. Would I want to know the truth? Would it make any difference? Would I have some kind of crisis if I found out that I was a descendant of a rapist, or a murderer? How would I react if I learned that I was a part of a cycle of violence and substance abuse that no one before me had managed to escape?

The White Ape is super, super racist, obviously, but it’s not just racist. Taken another way, it’s a story about dysfunction being passed down within a family. It’s a sins-of-the-father story. And if you come from an abusive home, that’s compelling.

Look, Lovecraft was a mega racist. He was also a man who struggled with mental illness his entire life, who had watched both of his parents die in mental asylums, and who never found success in his life. He was afraid all the time, and he wrote about how frightening the world was to him, and how he never felt like he was truly a part of it.

The racism sucks.

The rest of it, if you’re a person who has been mistreated or marginalized, can really resonate.

#callofcthulhu #needlessly-unkind

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willowser · 3 years

Text

pleased to meet you—

dabi x reader

wc: 6.5k+

warnings: hurt/comfort, explicit language, implied/referenced drug abuse, implied/referenced suicide attempt(s), suicidal ideation, canon divergent, implied/referenced sexual abuse, heavy mentions of severe mental illness, touya needs a goddamn hug, and some therapy, eventual smut, post paranormal liberation war arc, AU

—hope you guess my name

CHAPTER 1/?

Please draw a picture to show how you feel about being here today:

Gotta be fucking kidding.

If the world were a perfect little cage, Touya might’ve been better at art. The new pack of unopened markers that are taunting him from the edge of the table: if only he had the talent to illustrate himself burning down to his bones, the ability to show a sack of meat rotting in a field, turning green and growing putrid with time. Enji without a face; an azure flame smothered; headless Shouto; Matsui, the smug fucking bastard, with his heart on a platter.

Bon appétit, fuckhead, Touya would say, it’s important to open up.

But, he’s not supposed to be like that anymore, not with all the medication he's on. And he's not that good at drawing, anyway, so he just stares at the smiley faces looking back at him. There are eight in total on the print-out, two in every corner, encouraging him to create more to join their little party. Touya thinks that in this moment, he would rather die than draw a stupid fucking smiley face, anything, really, that would somehow make him a willing participant to this crackpot evaluation.

(Touya thinks that in this moment he’s being awfully taxing, but he’s a Todoroki after all, and the men in his family tend to have a flair for the dramatic.)

Convenient, that blue is missing from the pack of primary colors. Red, too. In the back of his mind he thinks, what a goddamn psycho, can't even stand to look at the color of blood anymore after all the shedding of it he's done. At one point in time, he could have bathed in it, probably did after a decent night out, but now—now it just makes his scabs itch. Makes his wounds fester. What a joke.

Touya glances up from the page and at the fucking dolt, the absolute tool with the PhD sitting like a badge of honor on his wall. Congratulations, people probably say, you've come so far.

Touya says, "gotta be fucking kidding."

Matsui makes the face of an ugly fish, shrugging as if he can agree it's stupid as fuck to do this exercise, as if he isn't the one that pulled the paper packet from his drawer the minute Touya walked through the door. Fingers laced, ever the patient saint—he just wants to be friends, you know? Pals. That’s why Touya is in here, is at home and not in the goddamn nut house, because of his buddy Hayate.

"I think illustration could be very helpful for you."

Matsui Hayate—thirty-four, MA in psychology and social care, real proud of himself, has great parents, single, small guy. So far, he's the youngest person Touya's talked to, which is probably the whole point, to see if they can bond or whatever—and Touya is the oldest patient Matsui has ever counseled.

Because this program is designed for fucking kids.

The staples in his face pinch when he grins but he does it anyway, since it adds to his charm and all. The pages slap against each other as he waves the packet around, showing off all the negative space. “C’mon, it ain’t that hard to tell this is the inside of my cell, is it?” Matsui is a champ at not rising to any bait, which is what makes him the best, worthy in Enji’s eyes. “You wound me, really wound me.”

“Would you like to talk about Tartarus?”

In the movies, when triggering words are used, the subtitles do something like (%^#^$&%&); in a perfect little cage, Touya would just hear a bunch of static or beeping or noises that soften the blow a little, but Matsui thinks that shying away from these subjects will only “make his symptoms worse”. In a cage like this, which isn’t so much a cage as it is a hand around his throat, Touya doesn’t hear the echo of classical music or the twinkling of fairies or whatever the fuck; he hears the sound of rushing water, can picture it when it comes out of the hose, when it forces him into the corner of the room. Can feel it when it tears at his naked skin, the skin that’s still skin, the parts of Dabi that are still Touya.

(In this moment, he thinks he would rather die than be ripped open again. Probed. Assessed. In this moment, he thinks he would rather take his own heart out himself.)

People probably tell Matsui, you're doing so well for yourself. You're amazing at what you do.

"This event is causing me to feel," Touya squints down at the page; something else of Enji that is trapped within him: a shit eyesight, "very afraid, upset, and helpless."

"It's good that you're able to recognize that, Touya. Why don't you draw what that looks like to you, on that paper there?"

People probably say, I'm so proud of who you've become, Hayate.

They probably tell him, your parents must be so happy.

Touya takes the brown marker—because there isn't a black either—and draws a big X in the middle of the page.

—

3. Recreate Relationships

Positive social experiences are imperative for reintegration to be successful, and these can be provided by individuals that will offer support, advice, and the friendship you may need to move forward in life.

Touya isn't allowed to walk down the block without Fuyumi.

In the beginning, he thought this would be fine because he had no interest in going down the block, up the block, or even leaving the house, really. In ten years, when they finally came into the musty, forgotten sector that is his childhood bedroom, he wanted them to find him under the desk, a skeleton with a middle finger raised. A fuck you from the grave; it’s what they all deserve. All of them.

But it’s turning out to be not fine because Fuyumi likes to do things. Together.

"We used to eat dinner at a place just like this! Don't you remember? They had a waterfall in the corner, just like this one!"

No, he doesn't remember.

Touya tells her, "no, I don't remember," and she presses her pout into the rim of her glass so he doesn’t see—but he does, he always does. Natsuo doesn’t say anything, only copies her frown emphatically, swiveling his head around to show off the roll of his eyes.

Sometimes Natsuo tries too hard to be an asshole, as if Touya will appreciate it and slap him on the back and say, you get it, you get why this shit sucks! You, little brother, totally, for sure get why things went south and why I had to try and murder our dad. I am so relieved to be a captive in your presence.

It never works out that way, though, and Fuyumi doesn’t ever say anything because she knows he’s just trying too hard. Coping, or something, that’s what Matsui says.

Fuyumi has ordered some cherry-floral-espresso-thing, one she keeps trying to give Touya a drink of, probably because he looks like shit even though she won’t say that, but he wants to order a beer. Or any alcohol, really, since it’s on the menu and just within his reach. It churns the acid in his stomach, revives his addictions like a roach that can’t be killed, even when you cut the head off—and Touya thought he’d cut the head off, that (%#@&*#!*) had cut the head off, but the little beasts are still there.

Reminding him of all the things he could be, with just a sip. Reminding him of all the things he’s been.

Touya doesn't drink anymore, not with all the medication he's on—and because he's been locked up for three years. Sober by force, not by choice, but it doesn't matter because he's different now. Touya is better now.

Touya doesn't do that anymore.

(Natsuo says, "cut it out, Yumi, he doesn't want any of your espresso crap," and Fuyumi still doesn't say anything, only presses her lips down into a thin line and shrugs like she doesn't mind; Touya really, really wants a hard drink. Or to blow his brains out. Either would work.)

There's yogurt from a doughnut in the corner of Natsu's mouth and Touya tells him it looks like cum, which turns his little brother's face red, which makes Touya laugh for the first time in a few days. Not a real laugh, not the kind that lights him up from the inside or makes him feel like these strangers mean anything to him, but enough that it placates them—for now. His sister turns her nose up at the joke (a joke, goddamn), but she eyes him all the same, that way she always does, that little triangle.

Left eye, right eye, chin, left eye. Observing him. Searching through all the ugliness to find someone she recognizes, someone that’s not a stranger to her, either. Touya wants to say, he's dead, Yumi, let it fucking go. Release me.

But he doesn't, just tapers off his laugh and then plays with a loose string from his sweatshirt, the same one he’s been wearing all week.

They're not even supposed to be here, because he isn't allowed to be within 300 feet of alcohol but Natsuo says, “this ain’t a bar”, in that tone, that kind of voice that tells everyone he doesn't care because he's an asshole, too, just like his brother. The kind that tells Touya they aren’t strangers.

This ain't a bar, and you're here Fuyumi, so what do we have to be worried about?

The royal douchebags two tables down keep nudging each other and nodding their heads toward Touya, probably asking each other if he's the guy, you know, the one that…? And the school girls that left when he'd walked in, they're wondering it, too. And the waitress that looks at his face too long and the couple walking by the window. They're all wondering, can’t believe it, rethinking their faith in the justice system because isn’t he the guy that…?

But what does Touya have to be worried about anyway, with his sister-slash-guardian here beside him.

"You should order something, Touya," she says, crossing her arms on the front of the table and smiling at him. "My treat." As if that's supposed to persuade him and not make him fucking sick.

The staples pinch again, but it's okay, because of the charm. "Y'know, I used to scrape mold off the bread I found in the dumpster."

Natsuo puts his doughnut down and looks up and away, as if whatever sports thing on the television in the corner is suddenly interesting (maybe it is, maybe Natsu likes that kind of shit, Touya wouldn't fucking know), and his sister just stares because she doesn't get it. She doesn't hide her frown this time, either.

"s'good, you should try it, Yumi."

There's a wanted poster outside the door of this place, pasted onto the red brick walls, this portrait of a blonde girl and her two little buns. Touya noticed it the second he rounded the corner.

"Probably could find some out back, if you wanted."

Maybe that's why he's in such a bad mood.

Maybe it's that, and maybe it's because he's a prisoner in his own skin now. Always was, really, but now he and Dabi have been lumped into the same meat husk, forced to fight it out day-by-day just so Touya isn't in a straight jacket for the rest of his life.

"I know this area pretty well, actually, think I got the shit kicked out of me two streets that way."

"Touya."

Matsui says not to dwell on that stuff, or talk about it with his family. Families are triggers, he says, for people who have suffered from this kind of trauma. So close to home, robbed of a safe space.

Touya is the first to break eye contact. Natsuo doesn't say anything, just stares at the television and furrows his eyebrows, because he's still just a kid that doesn't fucking get it, or listen. And Fuyumi doesn't want this, want Touya, as bad as she thinks she does; she doesn't say anything, either.

Matsui says Touya has a problem accepting help, even with all the medication. Even though he's better now. Maybe he’s in a bad mood because that makes sense—because Touya never needed their fucking help anyway—and he’d rather color a little rainbow in his workbook than admit his psychiatrist is right. The air at the table settles and the urge to disturb it rushes like the blood in his ears, but he just lets Natsuo order him a doughnut, too.

The guys two tables down start squaring their shoulders and shaking their heads, saying something about if he fucking tries it, dude, I'll take him out, as if Dabi isn't a killer.

As if he hasn't turned people to goddamn ash in the alleyway and laughed about it, as if he hasn't ruined families and killed heroes and orphaned children and tried to burn his own brother alive. As if he hasn't loved every sick fucking second of it. As if he wouldn't melt their eyeballs into some kind of jelly to put on Natsu's doughnut.

Yes ma'am, I would love a to-go bag, thank you.

Touya isn't like that anymore, though, because he's on medication. Because he's better now. So he's able to tuck his chin back into his arms and ignore them—for now, at least—and count the wood grain on the table. Fuyumi notices the conversation happening and tenses her fingers around her cup in the most minute way, in the way a criminal would around a knife they were getting ready to slash, or in the way a mother would around a boiling teapot she was getting ready to pour.

Matsui says it's important Touya learns how to "chill out". Chilling out, checking in, that's what he calls it and all the details are on page 23 of his workbook. Whenever he's experiencing intense emotions, he's supposed to ground himself.

That's how you chill out, you ground yourself.

Touya can see five things: the guys looking at him, the yogurt clinging to Natsuo's bottom lip, the letterbox menu behind the counter, the beer they offer on the letterbox menu, and the waitress behind the counter, trying to pretend like she's not freaked out by him.

Touya can feel four things: the heat from the cherry-floral-thing Fuyumi is drinking, the crinkly paper under Natsuo's doughnut, the woodgrain on the table, and the illicit vibration of the phone in his pocket.

Touya can hear three things: the shitty radio station with today's greatest hits, the guys saying they'll end Dabi if he tries anything, and his sister telling Natsu to wipe his mouth.

Touya can smell two things: sugar on the pastries and his brother’s overpriced cologne.

Touya can taste one thing: ash, like always.

Chilling out, checking in. This is how you ground yourself. This is what stops Dabi from winning the fight this time and coming out of the meat husk. This is what stops Dabi from flipping the table and ruining Fuyumi's game of pretend just so he can burn all the patrons down to their bones. To their own husks, just so he can set himself free.

That, and all the medication.

—

Initially, 0.5 mg to 2 mg by mouth 2 to 3 times per day in patients with moderate symptomatology or in debilitated patients. For severe, chronic, or refractory target symptoms, initiate with 3 to 5 mg by mouth given 2 to 3 times per day.

The home security system is supposed to chime every time activity happens outside the front door, and it does. It fucking sings every fucking time and sends a live feed to Enji's phone, to Fuyumi's phone, and that little shit Shouto.

(Look at this beautiful home, it says, look at this wonderful haven you are keeping safe. Nothing can get in to hurt the ones you love, and nothing can get out either.)

Except when it's raining. Except when a car drives by.

The downpour has to be heavy, real heavy, like sheets-of-rain heavy in order to throw off the camera. In that kind of darkness, at 2:35 am, you can't see shit out there on the lawn, can only see anything at all when headlights go by, and headlights don't trigger the security system. It's a tricky little pickle: can only make a break for it in the rain, in the dark so the cameras can't pick up your shadow, and you have to move as the headlights flash without getting caught in them, or else it fucking chimes.

And Dabi ain't been caught yet.

Not that he's been doing this all that long, heading back out into the streets, two or three times maybe. Touya is lucky enough to have both negative and positive symptoms of his "condition", and that means withdrawal and flattening, means he doesn't want to do shit, like ever. All day long; he's lucky if he has the will to drag himself down the hall and into the kitchen just to eat some rice in order sustain his human body.

Sometimes the medication works and sometimes it makes him so anxious he has to rip out of his skin at 2:36 in the morning, in the dark, in the rain, just so he can breathe.

That's why he's texting Giran again.

Fuyumi, bless her little heart, thinks that Touya should have some privacy. Enji vehemently disagrees, however, but no one is really surprised about that, so that's why he's not actually texting Giran himself, but some asshat-offshoot kid, one that has a friend of a friend of a friend that can find shit for Dabi to do. Ways for Dabi to earn his own money.

Dabi.

Not Touya: Dabi.

Even though he's as good as some born-quirkless loser now: Dabi.

Yeah, he hates the suppressants because they don't get rid of the fire, they just hinder it, leave it with no place to go but up into his nose and throat—but there is something about being stripped of this stupid fucking thing that has ruled his life for so long. Nobody wants him anymore because he doesn't have what they want anymore, this fucking shit he's been cursed with. The makings of his very design.

And if they do want him, they're getting Dabi, without the wildfire. They're getting Touya. And if they want Touya, well—

—here he is, in all his rain drenched, mud and grass covered glory, trying to keep a cigarette lit under a shallow overhang outside a konbini. The lighter in his hand hurts the tips of his fingers every time he strikes it, but he can’t really help that he needs it, can he? And the son of a bitch he’s meant to be meeting is late.

(Or, Touya is just early, considering he only has a limited window to escape.)

(Either way, it’s miserable.)

At least twenty minutes go by before the friend of a friend of a friend shows up, looking surprisingly dry even though the rain is coming down hard, like the concrete when the fuzz has you backed into a corner and you’ve got nowhere else to go but down to the ground, and the first thing he says to Dabi is,

“Fuck, you’re ugly.”

It’s not like he has feelings to be hurt, but it takes him off guard, is all, so he just stares for a minute before flicking the damp cigarette at him.

“You’re late,” Dabi says.

“It’s pissing rain, fuck off,” as the kid says it, little things start coming out of his face like whiskers or worms. It’s not until he picks one out that Dabi realizes they’re quills, and he flicks one at Dabi in return before gesturing to the konbini like he’s waiting for this show to get on the road. “Well?”

Dabi doesn’t have anything, especially not a weapon, not allowed to these days. Every store clerk and their grandma knows what his ugly mug looks like, and he isn’t allowed to hold even a metal fucking chopstick. “Take it away, Needles, I’m followin’ you.”

The porcupine mutters something like gotta be fucking kidding, and it fills him with enough hot anger—embarrassment—that he wishes, just for a second, that he could sear the kid into the concrete, a bloody stain under a fucking streetlight. Yeah, that would feel better than any amount of money he’s set to make for the night.

“If you’re taking this,”

Something heavy, weighted and steel, is shoved into Dabi’s hands. Something that feels like something with a trigger, with a barrel. Something that Dabi has never even held before.

“then you’re leading, so go, before you fuck this up for us.”

The konbini chimes when they step through. Even with all the rain. Even with the street lamps and headlights, it still dings! Touya wonders if a live feed is going straight to Enji’s phone, of his fuck ugly face, holding a gun and pointing it at a man that hasn’t even looked up from the book in his lap.

Dabi hopes so.

Congratulations dad, he thinks, look where all that training got me.

(Matsui once asked Touya if he thought he really was a psychopath, after hearing him use the word over and over again, and Touya said yes. Yes he thought so, because he looks like one, he can tell; the fear living deep within him has become violent, become an ulcer of anger and grief. It’s left him a tragedy, marked, ever present like the staples holding him together.)

The porcupine starts shouting loud enough that the cashier looks up from his book—something in a foreign language, with desserts across the cover—and it crashes to the floor when he sees the gun. A bag is tossed across the glass counter, for the money. A fucking cliche.

Touya thinks about the frosted cookies on the page facing the floor.

“Put your hands down! Get the fucking money, now!”

About the pink rice cakes and the sweet fish pastry.

“He’ll blow your head off, do it!”

About the poached pears, about the kind of delights he’s never known, never had the chance to. That's why Touya can't kill the cashier, who is talking rapidly in a language he doesn't know, because he can’t stop thinking about the kind of things he’s never had. Because he can’t stop looking at the picture on the counter, of the cashier and a little girl in a pink dress.

The bag isn't full yet, but the man is just crying and babbling and raising his hands above his head.

Touya thinks about a birthday cake and a lonely child. About a lonely child. About a fatherless child.

Touya doesn't know Korean, but fear transcends all languages. Can always tell when someone is pleading for their life. He’s seen them do it enough times before their skin melts off their bones and their muscles turn to soot under his boots, smoke on the wind. The worst thing about being sober is having to remember it all.

The quills sticking out of Needles’ face are what protect him from the gun when Touya spins around and launches it at his head, but the surprise of it all gives him enough time to shove the kid over and make a break for the door. It chimes, and he wonders if Fuyumi can see him sprinting through the rain on her phone, if the headlights are bringing attention to the catastrophe that is her older brother. If she’s watching him run from the ghost he’s been.

That restaurant he doesn’t remember is only two blocks down and Touya thinks it’s all Fuyumi’s fault that he dives into the cover of darkness in the alleyway behind it. There’s another wanted poster that he ignores, because he doesn’t have time to unpack all that (Matsui says something about “found family”), and there is one single light shining through the window of the back door.

It’s dim, just enough that Touya can see an idle kitchen through three thick plastic flaps at the end of the short hall. There’s enough blood pumping through his veins and ears that his eyes must be wild, a little savage, a little frenzied, and when he tugs on the door handle, it comes open.

By some rotten luck, the fucking thing comes open, and it doesn’t ding or chime.

There’s enough silence in the place that he can count the beats of his heart, every rapid one, and something like vomit builds up in his throat as he sees dirty plates in the sink, wrinkled paper wrappers, empty espresso cups. The ulcer that sours him burns, like alcohol going down, like alcohol coming back up, and his phone won’t stop vibrating in his pocket.

The worst thing about making an awful mistake is when you realize you’ve made it, when you realize it’s too late to go back and undo it. In the movies, you can rewind, you can stop the tape before it gets to the part when the love interest leaves or when the gun fires, but not in this life. Not in this little cage.

That’s what reminds Touya that he’s crazy, psycho, bat-shit: the guilt. Fuyumi’ll be upset, he thinks. She’ll be disappointed, she won’t think he deserves any more privacy because he’s fucked it all up, just like always.

Congratulations dad, Touya thinks. Fuyumi’ll be so upset.

But he doesn’t have a lot of time to dwell, for his face to puff up like a fish or for the staples in his cheeks to pinch with his smile, with his frown—because plates drop and someone gasps and Dabi has to tackle the waitress, the one who looks too long, near the bar into the dining area.

“Get off me!” She screams, frantic, even though she should be crying, even though she shouldn’t be here in the first place. “Getthefuckoffame!” Stinging, her little hands are stinging as she slaps at his face and his arms; it hurts, just like it always does when someone puts their hands on him.

“Shut up!” Dabi shouts, “Shut up! Pipe down or I’ll fucking kill you!”

One shrill scream nearly breaks all the goddamn windows in the place as she forces all her energy into her throat, to make as much noise as possible in hopes that someone will hear, some fuck in a cape that will save her stupid life, and Dabi has to take his hands from her arms and wrap them around her throat.

That’s what reminds Touya that he’s a psychopath.

It only takes one gag and then she's silent, hands flying to claw at his as her eyes go wide. Teary. Huge, like the plates she dropped when she saw him. It would only take a little more pressure, and then she’d be fucking quiet.

That’s what makes Touya realize he’s making a big mistake: the guilt.

What if he fucking kills her. Fuyumi’ll be so upset.

What if he fucking kills her and gets sent back to (&%@^#*%!) because he fucked up again, choking this waitress that looked too long at his ugly face. Wrong place, wrong time—shouldn’t have been here at 3 am, shouldn’t have been washing dishes or putting up plates—and now he’s going to ruin two lives before this is all over.

There’s a slam in the kitchen, like a door banging against the wall because someone has kicked it open so hard, and then that son of a bitch kid yells, “Where the fuck are you, you ugly bastard?”

The minute the waitress is able to breathe, she does it all heavy and ragged and Dabi—no, Touya—Touya has to clamp his hands over her mouth. Immediately, she tries to scream again and he has to get all up in her face and say, shut up, he’ll kill us, you idiot, seriously, and then she starts crying finally. There’s some more chaos in the kitchen, like that kid is pulling open cupboards and knocking over silverware looking for him, so Touya drags himself and the waitress behind a decorative wall. The one with the waterfall, which isn’t flowing because it’s 3 am.

Fuyumi’ll be so upset, he thinks, if his blood gets in the reservoir for this thing when the porcupine kills him.

"I know you're in here!"

Yeah, no shit, where else would he have gone? Touya has the urge to text Giran—or whoever is supposed to be relaying his messages to Giran—and say, wow, a real winner, Needles is.

The waitress beside him wrenches her arm out of his grasp, but doesn’t make any moves to get up, only leans away and claps her own hands over her mouth. Disgusted by him, with all the touching—he doesn't blame her.

Tables get knocked over and chairs roll; she flinches so hard that her entire body starts shaking, like a little leaf, and the thing that really, finally draws the line is that she cries without making a sound. Just staring dead-eyed at the floor, tears pouring down her face, hard, like the concrete that doesn’t kill you when you jump off the third story building. Like the binds on your hands when they throw you in an institution.

Touya knows that look, feels it.

When he stands, the staples pinch and tug, pull on a mask of falsified surprise up around his eyes and mouth. The girl still doesn't look, because she's past the point of fear, because she's envisioning her death. Trying to swallow the realization that there isn't a scenario here in which she makes it out alive; she sours, already reeking, already rotting.

"There you are," Dabi says, "Been looking for you."

"You cheap fuck!" Three quills come out of the pores on Needles' face, but they don't leave his skin yet. "I knew the minute Renzo mentioned you it would end like this, because you're worthless now."

Yeah, probably.

Dabi says, "yeah, probably," and, "your fault then, for expecting otherwise."

The waitress flinches when he takes a step forward, so he grits his teeth and stills.

"My therapist tells me it's important to take responsibility for your fuck-ups—I'm paraphrasing—so it'll be better for your mental health if you start there."

"You fucking—!" The porcupine starts to dole out another insult, about him being ugly or weak or something, but he can't make it that far before rage is shooting those quills, and a few more, out of his face.

Dabi takes five in the shoulder before he manages to dive behind an overturned table and he knows that if he waits, the kid'll advance, so he flips himself over the top and straight into the son of a bitch.

Not a great idea, in retrospect, considering the guy is made up of pins and needles, but it knocks him off guard enough that Dabi can get a few hits in. The skin of his knuckles gets ruined and the staples on his left hand become loose enough that he loses four.

How will he explain that to Fuyumi?

There’s no time to figure it out; the kid sends a wave of quills his way, getting stuck in his hair and all his gaps.

There's some instinctive side of him that laughs when he's in pain, maybe because it was all he had at one point, and he does it again, here, beneath this fuck that will probably kill him because he's worthless now. Underneath his skin, between his bones, his whole body is heating up in the way that it's meant to, the way Enji wanted, but it just builds and builds and builds. As if the edge of the cliff keeps extending, never quite letting him meet the end he’s always chasing.

Fuyumi’ll be so upset, he thinks, when they find his body at the bottom of the river in three months. If they ever find it. If they can identify him.

And then there is the sound of plates crashing and another gasp, a wet one, and another curse and the beating stops. When Touya opens his eyes—which are already swelling—the porcupine is still, looking at the decorative wall before easily dodging flying ceramic.

A ramen bowl.

A bunch of wooden spoons.

A sushi tray.

Six quills come out of his forehead as he leaps off Touya, the sound of them getting stuck in the plaster is barely audible underneath the shriek that echoes across the empty dining room.

“Hey,” Touya croaks. Another plate sails. The kid advances, fast. “I said, hey!”

The wall comes apart with a terrible snap and crunch, one that sounds too loud for this time of night, and the waitress scrambles back so fast that all her little weapons spill out of her hands. There’s a mess of black makeup across her face, like she’d tried to wipe away all the tears before facing her own doom, and Touya might have thought it was funny if she wasn’t about to die.

“You little bitch!”

Crawling across the floor and grabbing him by the leg earns Touya a kick to the face and it's—nice, almost. How comfortable the floor becomes, how much heavier his eyes get. Finally, Touya thinks. Finally. It’ll end, every last crack in his being will split open and his organs will be soot under a boot, smoke on the wind. His skin will unravel and whatever still lives, whatever it is that keeps his bones moving, will finally get the ending it should have received years ago.

Finally, Touya thinks.

The sound of screaming is most often the background noise in his dreams. Sometimes it's from a crowd of people watching on as he burns a hole through Enji's skull, sometimes it's his own while he's getting dragged away in quirk suppressing handcuffs, fighting so hard that the muscles in his arms are tearing.

Sometimes it's his mother, when she sees him for the first time in years. How putrid, how fuck ugly.

Very rarely is it from some random woman that's made herself his next victim; Dabi never sought out little girls on the street to grab, to abuse or torture. Matsui says, "the women in your family mean more to you than you might realize," and he must be right, that stupid fuck, because Touya opens his eyes to stare at the ceiling, thinking,

Fuyumi'll be so upset, if she finds out he's come back here. To this life that doesn't want him anymore, to this life he's clinging to, the shadow that has ruined him. To Dabi.

The screaming is all from the waitress, loud, bloody fucking murder, and Touya is thinking of his sister, of his mother, of how the women in his life mean more to him than he realizes, and that's why he's up and falling over the her as quills fly.

They don't hurt bad enough to kill him, but he's already bleeding and he must be getting it all over her. There’s a stabbing pain above his right eyebrow and in his top lip that has him flinching, which only makes it worse. Touya is thinking, we're going to fucking die here, me and you.

They'll think his body laying over hers is because he killed her. They'll paint him as the villain one final time.

"C'mon motherfucker," Touya leans his back against her chest and yanks one of the quills from his lip, just so it doesn't get in the way of his charm. When she gasps, he feels it, the hot breath of her panic right at his ear, and if he had any skin on the back of his neck, it might have given him goosebumps. “Fucking do it already.”

“Whatever you want, if it’s money, just take it!” The waitress sits up a little, bringing Touya with her, and her arms shoot out over his shoulders. “Please, just take it and f-fuck off!”

The porcupine steps closer and the waitress, she, her, crosses her arms just a little, resting them right under his neck. Against his skin, her skin, in the way that always hurts, and her fingers dig into the fabric of his sweatshirt, the one he’s been wearing all week.

“Renzo is gonna put your head on a fucking pike and that’s the only reason I’ll keep you alive, just so I can see it.” The kid kicks Dabi in the knee once for good measure before letting out a pathetic little huff, waving a hand through the air and turning like neither of them are worth his time. The girl doesn’t breathe until the backdoor swings shut.

Even when she scrambles back, she doesn’t say anything, just hyperventilates as his head falls back against the floor. Then she starts all the crying again, though it isn’t the scary silent kind, but the kind where she can’t catch enough of her breath to make the wailing sound that must be building in her stomach.

The women in his family must mean more to him than he realizes, because Touya just stares at the ceiling, thinking, Fuyumi’ll never know. Because he didn’t kill the cashier or the waitress, and Needles didn’t off him like he wanted to. Like Touya wanted him to.

“Y’r fine.” He mumbles, then repeats himself when she wipes her snot and glares at him. “s’fine.”

“It is not fine, asshole!” Her hand swipes through his hair, which has just started to stand out now that it’s drying, but she never actually hits him. There’s a quill stuck in his ear and she tugs it free from his skin without remorse. “We almost died!”

“We didn’t.”

“You were going to kill me!”

“No, I wasn’t.”

It feels like a secret, like an unholy confession he shouldn’t be sharing, and it shuts her up. Her, the waitress, she. There’s the sound of her pants sliding across the tile as she gets closer, and she tugs out the three quills on his neck a little easier. Gentle, almost, if Touya knew what that felt like.

“I don’t do that anymore,” he says, “I’m better now.”

The view of the ceiling is obstructed because she leans forward, sniffs and puts her face above his so that she is all he sees. Her. The waitress. The tears tracking down her face look like they’re going to drip on him, but they don’t, just slide over the edge of her jaw and make a dark trek down her neck. One that he follows with his eyes. It’s hard to see her face, what her eyes are saying, but the dim light from the kitchen gives a hint to the slow blink of her lashes, the scrunch of her nose when she sniffs, the pout dragging her lips down. Touya hasn’t been this close to a girl in years.

“Are you?” She asks. Her. The waitress. Touya doesn’t reply, because he doesn’t know what to say, and she just stares, like she’s waiting. Like she wants to hear the answer.

She.

Her.

The waitress.

You.

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gabseyoo · 2 years

Text

𐀔 — RULES AND MORE.

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blank or ageless blog.

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do not copy, modify, translate or repost my work.

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don't criticize my personal tastes or my taste in men.

i'm a perfectionist, but not perfect at being one, so probably some of my fics might be bad. but please avoid making strong criticisms or throwing hate. i’m just a human.

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writing for : jujutsu kaisen, tokyo revengers, haikyuu and attack on titan. more fandoms coming soon.

i’m a slow writer.

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i tag as drabbles when they’re less than 2k words. above that number they’re one shots.

yes : dark content, angst, nsfw, suggestions.

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i might write what is listed below.

→ BLOG / WRITING CONTENT

to avoid problems, discomfort or inconvenience — please read and pay attention to the tags/warnings.

this blog contains nsfw and dark content — be careful if you can’t handle or are too sensitive to :

explicit smut. explicit language. kinks. dom/sub dynamics, bdsm. dub/con, crimes, blood, yandere themes, gore, violence, death, murder, weapons, etc. manipulation, degradation, cheating, blackmail, corruption, injustices, stepcest, age gap. angst without comfort. mental disorders, depression, suicide, self harm, illness. physical / mental / domestic abuse. pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion. alcohol, drugs, addictions. minor / major character death. aged up characters. your fave being out of character. your fave being written as a jerk. your fave suffering, dying or something.

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cdroloisms · 3 years

Note

Do you consider a possibility that c!Punz never betrayed c!Dream in the first place and whole "I'm sorry, Dream -- but you should have paid me more" thing was a facade and undercover for Punz? Like Dream said that Punz should not associated with him, so it was intentional-

staged disc finale theory my beloved !!! :D it’s definitely one of my favorite theories, though i’m still holding out (for now) as for believing super firmly in one direction or another (tho the staged finale is definitely the one i prefer for Many reasons, haha.) c!punz is so so fun no matter if the betrayal was intentional or not, but oh boyyyy if it was something planned ,,, man .

*c!dream voice, after quackity starts visiting*: the risk i took was calculated, but man am i bad at math.

anyway c!punz and c!dream interactions make me soft as heck so have this !!

tw: implied torture, abuse, violence, blood, injuries, emotional distress, panicking, dehumanization, unhealthy coping mechanisms, unhealthy mindsets, illness, trauma, flashbacks, starvation mention, suicide mention, death mentions, dark content, dark imagery, prison arc/pandora’s vault themes, c!quackity critical/dark portrayal of c!quackity

Dream comes to in vague moments and flashes.

There’s a hand brushing over his forehead, too gentle to be Quackity or the Warden, not Techno because Techno is Gone and he has Left and won’t come again, running through the sweat-soaked locks and pulling them back out of his forehead. He’s unbearably hot, shifting around on the ground, only barely registering it moving beneath him. Water, cool and clear, is tipped in between his lips, quenching his thirst and easing the dryness of his mouth. Someone speaks, voice low and rumbling, and even though he’s unable to make out the words, there’s something about the cadence of them and the specific rhythm in which they move and rise and dip that is bone-achingly familiar, enough to lull him into a fitful sleep. Through it all, there is always something, someone, lingering in the edges of his vision, a shadow standing near and watching over him; part of him remembers Quackity, remembers the Warden, and recoils in fright; another part of him remembers Techno, remembers the barest flashes of a life before obsidian and lava and pain and hell, and wants nothing more than to get closer.

When the fog in his head finally clears away enough to think, the first coherent thought he has is oh fuck, I need to piss.

Which, out of all possible things to think, is probably up there as one of the worst, and he’s sure that when his head feels a little less like it’s trying to actively kill him (ha, let it- it’s far from the first to try) the panic will settle in as it always does. As it is, he’s exhausted, and hungry, and he really really needs to pee- so he forces his eyes open to move away from where he’s probably still stuck in a puddle of dried blood in the middle of his cell.

The second coherent thought he has is this: this isn’t Pandora.

The realization has him thoroughly awake, eyes snapping open out of his previous fatigue to take in his surroundings, feet kicking out to the weight on top of them that he hadn’t even noticed was there, panicking against his restraints that end up not being restraints at all, giving way easily under his thrashing and resolving to what appears to be a thick blanket when he has the mind to look. With the covers gone off of whatever he’s lying on (a bed?) he’s suddenly, unbearably cold - the prison has always been hot, the lava baking into him and leaving his skin sticky with sweat, and he thinks that the room he’s in is probably not meant to feel like a fucking freezer, but after months of being one wrong step away from heatstroke, anything cooler than the goddamn Nether feels like literal ice against his skin. The room is wooden and cozy and oddly familiar, an open door leading to what appears to be a bathroom and a closed one going who knows where, window panes built into the opposite wall to let the sunlight in. It’s a nice room, all things considered, and Dream fucking hates it.

He pulls himself to his feet, cursing at the wobbly edge to his stance when he finally manages to stand, his vision wavering dangerously in time to the spinning of his head. His eyes flick between the two doors - he still needs to go to the bathroom, and using it now will lessen the amount of things to get in the way of his escape in the future - but at the same time, there's no knowing when people will come to (hurt him, beat him, starve him, punish him, leaving him bruised and bleeding and half-dead on the floor just as he deserves) him and he needs all the time he can get to get the hell away. In the end, he slinks into the bathroom, ignoring the thudding in his chest as he does so - at the very least, the cabinets in the thing might provide him with some manner of a weapon.

He’s only just past the door on the way out - a fucking broomstick in his hand because it’s all he could find - when his ears catch on the sound of metal clicking against each other and his eyes fall on the knob of the other door shaking as someone makes their way in. All at once, panic slams into him - goddammit, he should’ve just run when he had the chance - and he directs quick, desperate glances at the window. Maybe, if he’s fast enough, he can book it out of there and disappear into the trees; it’ll hurt, but it’ll be better than getting caught. Anything would be better than getting caught-

“Dream?”

Dream blinks. All at once, the same feeling of getting the air punched out of him returns, but combined with something warm and floaty wrapping around his chest, something almost a little like relief - and hell, if that isn’t something he’s not felt for a while.

“Punz?”

Punz is standing in the doorway, hoodie rumpled, expression more than a little frazzled; Dream’s breath hitches at the sight of the sword strapped to his side, but their face holds none of the harsh edges and cold-dark-hard hatred that had characterized the Warden and Quackity’s visits, mouth slightly parted and eyes shining with nothing but what appears to be shock and concern. The sight of them, again, nearly has Dream dizzy, a swell of tangled, unexplainable emotion rising to the back of his throat as he sways on his feet. He hadn’t thought that he would see Punz again, he realizes, had never thought he’d see his stupid gold chain and his stupid outfit he never bothered changing, ever, or that same lopsided smirk and pale blue eyes- the last time he’d seen them, it was in that vault, their mouth twisted up in the act the two of them had decided on and eyes shimmering with unease and regret; as far as goodbyes went, it wasn’t the worst, not when Punz was one of the few to never leave him, not really, not when something ached in their expression other than the hatred that had colored all of the other expressionless faces watching him die. Months later, alone in Pandora, he must’ve grown resigned, or something, the repeated reminders that he would die alone and afraid and it would be nothing more than he deserved settling into his skin and against his bones; Punz’s expression twists, visible even across the room, and- oh.

They must’ve thought the same thing, too.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Punz asks, finally, and Dream decides not to point out the way his voice cracks harshly in the middle, especially when the other man strides forward and starts to awkwardly herd him back in the direction of the bed - covers still thrown to the floor - in the middle of the room. Dream lets them, not replying because he doesn’t really know where to even begin describing the tangled knot of panic and shock that had strung his muscles tense when he woke up in a room he didn’t recognize, not knowing if he can really describe it all at all, trying his best not to flinch at the hands flitting in the corners of his vision as he falls back into a sitting position onto the bed. His fingers settle into the mattress, pressing into the bedsheets cautiously and marveling when they fall away under the pressure. Punz watches him, expression odd, gathers the blankets from the ground and presses them over and around him in a way that’s entirely awkward but does leave him warmer than he’d been before, before walking back on his heels with an odd expression that makes Dream’s insides twist.

“You,” Punz says after a long second, voice wavering, “are a fucking idiot,” and it’s all the warning Dream gets before a white-and-black blur is rushing towards him, arms wrapping around his chest and his vision whites out in alarm and panic. When the pain doesn’t come, he comes back to his senses enough to realize that Punz’s arms are still wrapped around him, shoulders shaking as he holds him close but not painfully, careful not to pull too much against the places on his ribs and back that leave him gasping with small shocks of pain, head pressed against the crook of Dream’s neck and hair tickling his face. Dream can feel his heart hammering in his chest, but as the panic dies something warm and long-neglected stirs in the middle of his chest, and he melts forward with a quiet hum. This is- nice. Really, really nice.

“What were you thinking?” Punz mutters, too quiet to really be directed at him, hands curling tighter into the folds of the hoodie - oh, he’s wearing one of those, not the same stiff, bloodstained material of the prison uniform that had chafed against his skin, another constant source of pain and discomfort of thousands in the hell that had been Pandora’s Vault - on him, and Dream doesn’t really know what to do except sit there and blink dumbly, listening to the heartbeat of the person leaning against him rumbling against his ears. It’s oddly calming, has the pressure on his chest lightening enough to take a full breath, and then another, the warmth of someone leaning against him almost too much but not enough at the same time - his eyes burn, and he ignores them.

“I-” he doesn’t really think that Punz was really asking a question, but just ignoring his question seems rude, too, and even despite the fuzzy warmth settling into his skin and into his bones from the pressure of Punz’s arms around his body and their head against his shoulder, he’s still unable to shake the anxiety of leaving a query unanswered, a constant murmur to listen obey do as you’re told or you’re going to regret it put on a damn good show or suffer the consequences remaining no matter how hard he tries to push it away. He wets his lips when his mouth feels too dry to keep speaking, eyes fluttering closed as he leans forward further, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You-” Punz cuts themselves off with a wet, incredulous-sounding laugh that has Dream jerking back despite himself, meeting their ice-cold eyes when they pull themselves back to look at him. He doesn’t really recognize the expression he wears, Dream realizes with a jolt, the way his lips are pressed together and the churning in his eyes, and his lungs seize in his chest.

“Sir-”

If anything, Punz’s expression only seems to harden, and the warmth disappears as Dream looks into their eyes - cold, two polished shards of ice, frosted over pools of water in the middle of the tundra, flinty and sharp and brilliant blue. His hands shake as he pulls them back to his chest, trembling from the chill that’s made its home in his muscles and frozen them in place - sir sorry sir please don’t hurt me im sorry please I didn’t mean to

“Fuck, Dream,” he shakes his head, and only then does Dream see the slight wobble to their bottom lip, the waver to their words like they’re struggling to keep themselves together, “why didn’t you say anything?”

What?

You almost died, you know,” he keeps going, not meeting his eyes as they direct their gaze out the window, “Several times, honestly. Fucking hell- when Techno brought you out- I didn’t think you would survive. I didn’t think anyone could survive that.”

Dream swallows. He doesn’t remember getting out, doesn’t really remember much at all if he’s being honest; there was the black of the cell, the heat of the lava, Techno promising to get him out before disappearing in a flash of purple, Quackity throwing him against the wall (Where the fuck did Techno go? You better have a fuckin’ answer, pal, if you want your death to be anything resemblin’ quick-) then nothing. Everything. His heart hammering in his chest and blood slick against his skin and the press of metal against his windpipe and pain, the only constant within it all, the only thing that made any goddamn sense when the room seemed to flip and turn and twist and his feelings knotted and frayed between anger-betrayal-distress-sadness-fear-grief, when reality swirled into a dizzying blur of colors and feelings and sounds carving themselves into the inside of his skull- then here. Dream flexes his hand experimentally, marveling at the feeling - the pain is almost gone.

He’d forgotten how it felt, really, to live and not hurt.

“Dream,” Punz calls again, voice low and worried, and Dream can’t help the way his head snaps up to meet their eyes and can’t help the flinch that twists his neck back when their frown deepens. It’d been a show, at least he tells himself, because Quackity would stop earlier if he screamed more, but- his hands tremble at his sides, twisted into the sheets of the bed, a near-constant litany of reminders and rules beating like they have a heart of their own in the back of his head. It was a show- he feels himself almost buckle, give in under the force of the stare leveled at him, and hates himself for how weak he feels, pinned under the eyes trained on his own. He’s not sure how much of a show it is anymore.

“Dream,” Punz repeats, words even softer, and the ugly feeling of shame and anger twists inside Dream’s chest again. Punz- ever unflappable, deadly with almost any weapon and never letting anyone see him as anything but deliberately apathetic - is watching him with an expression so uncharacteristically and unbearably gentle that it makes his breath catch in his throat. “You could’ve died,” he says once again, and the look that paints his face is so terribly vulnerable, feelings pouring over like a cup overfilled, bubbling forward and bleeding from every corner, and Dream- can’t. He doesn’t know what to do in the face of such stark emotion, doesn’t know how how to handle the way his eyes burn and his heart throbs like an exposed nerve, the way everything yawns wide in the middle of his chest into void and emptiness and pain so deeply carved in the space within his ribs that he half-thinks he’s been hollowed out entirely.

“But I didn’t.”

Punz pulls back, but Dream isn’t looking at him, is staring at the scarred surfaces of the backs of his hands and the knobs of his knuckles sticking out against the thinned-out skin and the yellowed nails he’s pushing against the blanket, the fourth and fifth ones of his right hand missing. They shake, no matter how long he looks at them and how hard he tries to make them stay still, and he can feel a voice whispering in the back of his mind, tone too familiar to ignore. Weak.

“I didn’t die,” he says when Punz doesn’t reply, looking at his scarred hands, weak hands, broken hands. “So it’s okay. We can keep- we can keep going.”

“Dream-” their voice is a blade scraping against an anvil, nails scraping over his ribs, his hands clamping over his ears before he’s realized he’s moved and his brain screaming at him for doing so once he realizes that he has, “-what the fuck are you talking about?”

Still, he hadn’t survived months of Quackity’s visits by bending over the second he was pushed, so he forces his tongue to move from where it’s fallen to the bottom of his mouth like lead, feels his eyes go steely even from under the way his vision has already begun to wobble.

“It’s not over yet,” he continues, trying to keep his words even, “‘cause I didn’t die, so we’re not done. I gotta- we have to reevaluate, of course,” he can’t stop, because the second he stops talking is the second he falls apart, so he ignores the way that Punz stiffens and stills and doesn’t let anything stop the flow of words spilling out of his mouth, “because the vault and the prison- um, obviously didn’t go as planned, but it’s fine. Just a minor- um, minor inconvenience. A setback- but it’s not- it’s not unsalvageable- we just have to-”

“Are you kidding me?” Punz cuts him off with a sharp laugh, disbelieving and just on the wrong side of desperate, and the air in Dream’s lungs freezes into a solid block of ice in the middle of his chest, “you- you’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Punz?”

Dream’s voice comes out small, himself shrinking back into the bed, keenly aware, suddenly, of how there is nowhere he can go to run - Punz doesn’t seem to notice that he’s spoken at all, one of his hands moving up to tug through his hair, which is - now that Dream is looking - fluffier and messier than he remembers, sticking up in all directions like they didn’t bother to smooth it down.

“You think this is fine? You think that because you didn’t fucking die, that this is all okay?” Punz’s voice rises in volume slowly, not loud enough to be a shout but enough to go hard and unyielding like a threat, and with each word every remnant of the vault comes crawling, clawing back up to the front of his head, a pounding reminder to play his role, put on a show, behave behave behave-

“Goddammit, Dream,” Punz startles him out of his own thoughts, looking straight into his eyes with their ice-blue ones, “have you seen yourself?”

Have you seen yourself? Lying down in your own goddamn filth like a fucking mutt- prime, you disgust me.

“Your ribs were basically shattered. Your legs had fractures on both sides, and your back was so fucking torn up that it looked like more blood than skin. You’ve been starved- enough for me to see every goddamn bone in your body, it feels like. Your throat was bruised to hell- I wasn’t sure if you were gonna be able to speak again, fuck, and like a day after we got here you got fucking pneumonia.” Punz’s breath hitches, “Your skin was a literal fucking oven- I thought you’d bake yourself from the inside out. You could’ve died- you should’ve died.”

You should’ve died a hell of a long time ago, pal- should’ve saved us all the fucking trouble and offed yourself like Wilbur fucking Soot.

He flinches, and this, Punz seems to notice, eyes widening a fraction before they pitch their voce lower, clearly taking a few breaths to calm down and reaching forward to take one of Dream’s hands loosely in his own, thumb smoothing over the bumps of his knuckles.

“You’re not fine,” he says after a long while, shaking his head. “Hell- I’m not fine. But we’re not doing anything like- like the vault or the prison again, dude. I told you they were shit ideas- fuck. We never should’ve done that.”

“It was worth it,” Dream butts in, because he can’t imagine a world where it wasn’t, can’t imagine a world where all of that was for nothing, “it was worth it-”

“No it fucking wasn’t, are you out of your mind?” Punz replies immediately, voice overlapping over Dream’s own, “have you listened to a single thing I’ve said? You- look at you! How was that worth it?”

Dream shakes his head stubbornly, already feeling the way his jaw is trembling around the words he forces himself to speak. “The server- it was all for the server-”

“Fuck the server!”

Punz seems startled by their own shout, drawing back at the same time Dream does, breathing ragged. He takes a few seconds to compose himself, bringing his hand to his face as Dream sits stock still, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe.

“Fuck the fucking server, okay?” Punz says, finally, voice cracking in the middle, “You lost two damn lives for this server. You got fucking tortured for fucking months for this shitstain of a server. Just- fuck them. I’m not watching you tear yourself to fucking shreds for this- not again. I can’t sit around and watch you fucking die again, Dream, I can’t drag you out bleeding out in my fucking arms again- fuck-” Punz shakes their head, and oh. They’re crying.

“No more. Fuck the server. I’m done, Dream- we’re done with them.”

Dream blinks, so thoroughly surprised that he thinks the shock knocked him straight out of the building panic attack, leaving nothing but a slight thrumming of anxiety still simmering beneath his skin. Almost instinctually, in a motion he doesn’t really remember but still has the muscle memory for, he opens his arms- and in a similar, near-unconscious response, Punz tumbles into his arms.

He blinks, not moving his arms to curl around the other, feeling the weight of another person against his again and the sound of their breathing and relearning them both. This is- new, for both of them. Dream was never emotional, not before the prison, not that he wanted to be after it either- but Quackity always had a particular affinity for tearing him apart, shard by shard. And Punz- he’d never been like this, even back in the day, when things were easier and they didn’t bear the constant burden of netherite against their backs. They’d always been stoic, sharp, sarcastic, cool and dry in a way that chafed against Sapnap’s fire and always led to Dream laughing at them sooner or later. He sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth, feeling the heat behind his eyes finally sear too hot and boil over, tears squeezing through his closed eyes and falling down his face.

“Okay,” he says, finally, and there’s nothing easy about the acquiescence, not when he had poured blood and sweat and the better half of himself into this place, salted the earth with his tears until no more would come and nothing else would grow. He thinks that he will have more to think and more to say and more to protest come the next days, that the binds between him and his goals have been weaved too deep with the fibers of his soul for him to tear them free without sacrificing what broken pieces of himself he has left, but all he can think right now is how fucking tired he is. He remembers Techno’s voice, going through myth after myth to pass time in the prison, and thinks with something like humor and something like grief - let someone else be Atlas for a day. The sky is too heavy right now. Punz’s arms tighten around his body, enough to remind him that they’re there but not enough to press at his still-healing ribs, and he thinks that they might understand. “Okay.”

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ieatsuffering · 3 years

Text

‼️Ok so some obvious trigger warnings ahead‼️

❗️tw: Graphic depictions of suicide and death❗️

If you are struggling with this please seek help!

Suicide hotline: tel:+18002738255

So the game plan is to have an Mc with poor mental health, express their su*icidal thoughts to the Li’s, then get found unconscious from an ob, with both a good and bad end! I can do this!

**Lmao I’ve tried writing this for so long but I ran into some major writers block so all I could get out was Asra and Julian**

Asra

He knows somethings wrong, he can feel it with your shared heart

You’re just not your self, random fits of crying, spacing out constantly, not eat, spending whole days just laying in bed staring at the ceiling. Even the things you once loved bring you no joy.

It tears him apart to see you like this, an empty shell of who you used to be

He tries so hard to help you, to cheer you up and care for you, but nothing helps

He can feel your pain

One morning he lays with you in bed as you stare into nothingness. “How are you feeling today Mc, do you want to go for walk?”

“Asra...” you start to speak not looking at him “... I want to die...”

His blood runs cold

“I’m sorry Mc, I don’t think I heard you right...”

“Life just feels pointless, I’m done”

He can’t swallow the lump in his throat, his pulse is in his ears. This must be a bad dream

“I’m so sorry Mc...” he cries, it’s all he can do. Just hold you and cry

After you two manage to calm down and have a long talk he’s determined to heal you

He’s nose deep in spell books, never leaving you side desperately searching for something that may help you

Slowly with his support you start to do better, crying less, moving around more. Things start to go back to normal

Or so he thought

One night while he’s out visiting Muriel he suddenly feels this deep blinding pain in his heart.

“Friend?” Faust ask

Asra blots back to shop shop with heart in his throat runnings as fast as he can tripping over his own feet

“Mc!” He call your name as he busts through the shop door

When you don’t answer he freezes

Not again gods please no not again

Slower now he makes his way to your shared bedroom

There he finds you still and motionless on the your bed purple faces with foam bubbling out of you mouth clutching an empty bottle

Asra good ending

With out even thinking he rushes to your side pressing an ear to you chest, he almost breaks down when he hears the slow faint beat of your heart

He’s not too late

Asra springs into action pouring all of his magic into the most potent healing spell he knows

You jolt up right vomiting the potion as the magic forces you to purge it from your system

Both you and Asra are weak and shaking as you lay together

You’re barley conscious but alive

Once again you’re under asras constent watch however this time instead of trying to help you himself he reaches out to Nadia and Julian

With their help he’s able to get you on a medication for you’re mental health

Slowly but surely you start to be your best self again

Asra bad end

With out even thinking he rushes to your side pressing an ear to you chest, but there’s nothing. You’re pulse has stopped

He’s to late

He just lays there hoping you’re heart will start again

He’s in shock

How could this happen again he lost so much to have you back

He just lays there with you as your body grows cold

Until Faust leads Muriel leads to him holding your corpse

He won’t let you go he can’t. If he lets go you’re truly gone forever

Faust finds Nadia and Julian, it takes all of them to separate Asra from you

They all sit in the floor and hold him as guards come and take your body away for burial

Nadia makes sure you have a grand funeral, that you and Asra get the goodbye you deserve

He keeps up a strong front but Muriel knows, he won’t let Asra out of his sight

Between Muriel, his parents, Faust, and your friends everyone takes turns making sure Asra is never alone, no one wants to loose him too

He never truly heals always looking for someway he can give what’s left of his heart to have you back

Julian

He may ignore his problems but he’s very sensitive to others emotions

Between his own experience with depression and working with soldiers, he’s very informed on mental illnesses. PTSD, general anxiety disorder, depression, substance abuse... he’s seen it all

Out of everyone he knows how to help you the best

He’s seen suicide on countless occasions, he knows to signs

You haven’t expressed your suicidal thoughts to him yet, you don’t have to

He’s already watching you like a hawk, constantly by your side. When he can’t be with you he has people he trust watch you.

Of course he doesn’t tell them why just that your feeling down and he’s worried about leaving you alone

On day while he’s working at the clinic he has you spend the day at the palace which is usually the safest place for you between Nadia and Portia

Today however the palace was in chaos. Portia was running around as Nadia is in and out of meetings. You’ll be fine for a few minutes right?

Julian’s face looses it color as he starts to panic when neither Portia or Nadia know where you are when he goes to bring you home

The look on his face is all they need to know that something is gravely wrong

Nadia orders everyone in the palace to search for you and Portia follows with Julian as he runs through the halls screaming your name

Mercedes and Malachoir run up to him howling and crying. Portia tried to chase them off but they nip and bark at julians coat trying to get him to follow

The dogs lead him to a locked pantry in the kitchen

Portia turns to fetch the keys but Julian throughs himself at the door until he breaks it open

There he finds you laying on the pantry floor in a pool of blood with a knife you had grabbed from the kitchen

Julian good ending

He switches in to war surgeon mode rushing to your side to assess the wound on your arm

In truth it was really a pool of blood, but your life was still in danger as the deep gouge on your arm continued to spout blood

He rips his jacket into strips and calls to Portia to bring him wooden spoons for a make shift tourniquet

He uses the rest for the strips as a bandage your arm

He shouts orders to the servants to starilize a room and to fetch the things he needs to mend your arm

Even after he has your arm stitches up and is certain you’re not in any immediate danger , he stays calm and vigilant

Like a machine he cleans your wound, changes your bandages, and makes sure you don’t develop a fever

It isn’t until you come to that he let’s himself break down

He throughs himself around you holding you tight

He cries and screams in agony but also in relief. Heartbroken and furious that you would try to leave him but relived that this time he was there to save you

After this he never really trusts to leave you alone even years after when you’re healed he’ll still get anxious if he doesn’t know where you are

Julian bad end

He goes into war surgeon mode rushing to your side

He can tell it’s to late, he’s seen enough people bleed out in his life to know how much blood is too much

But he won’t let himself believe it. He was too busy the first time you died to save you he couldn’t let it happen again. He couldn’t loose you again because he couldn’t be bothered to care for you

Despite it being a hopeless effort he applies pressure to the gushing wound as your body grows cold

“Come on darling please you can’t leave me”

His hand are shacking covered in your blood

“Nononononono...please.... PLEASE... MC NO DONT LEAVE ME!”

Portia knees to his side placing a gentle hand in his shoulder, “Ilyushka, she’s gone”

He lets out a chocked sob holding your stiff body covered in you blood

He manages to stay strong just long enough to attend your funeral

But the moment they put the last bit of dirt on your grave he’s a wreck

He spends all day in bed and all night wasted getting into fights hoping someone and one will put him out of his misery

One night after getting into a fight with an especially rowdy thug he gets his wish

#the arcana #the arcane game #the arcana hc #the arcana headcanons #julian x apprentice #the arcana julian devorak #the arcana julian #julian x mc #julian devorak #asra x mc #asra imagine #asra x reader #asra x apprentice #tw suicide

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elrielsdaughter · 2 years

Text

Waltz of War pt.2

pairing: elain x azriel (elriel)

summary: while elain tries to distract herself from azriel's fate something exciting happens

word count: 1k

taglist: @swankii-art-teacher

a/n: this is just to say that the chapters will be indeed short, but i hope that doesn't have any negative effect on the rhythm of the story, enjoy!

Elain had asked, begged Azriel to change his mind so many times that she couldn't count them, so many times that Azriel no longer tried to make her see the good things it would bring, it was enough to give her a pitiful look that made her stomach settle.

She was trying to catch her breath sitting on the floor while she remembered how she had said goodbye on the bus two weeks ago, two weeks that had been the longest of her life, her life seemed to have drained of colors, her flowers and plants were duller and sadder, it seemed that she couldn't dance because she had such a heavy head full of worries, and that had all her close friends and especially her sisters worried, although they themselves had sent their partners to the same collective suicide that her beloved Azriel had been dragged into.

“Elain, I need to close the place now” Nesta's voice had snapped it out of her head so suddenly that her present seemed too much, almost overwhelming.

She was standing in the doorway of the ballroom where she taught ballet, she was not a prodigy dancer like her sister but dancing was something she liked, and sometimes she would find herself on stage again, dancing a new piece for a new show.

"I'm almost ready, let me rehearse again"

"At this rate you're going to break your legs, you need to rest," she said that with the tiredness in her voice being sonorous, but she was the one with more bags under her eyes than any of the three.

She didn't sleep and spent her time drinking away when she didn't have to teach, the departure of their partners had been difficult for all of them in their own way, Feyre had it more difficult now that she was a mother, the plan was that she would stay in the house that Rhysand had bought for them before leaving, but the first night she had arrived in the middle of the night with Nyx in her arms crying because she couldn't stand being there alone.

We all hugged each other that night, we slept in the same bed leaving Nyx in a makeshift crib.

"I don't need to rest," she said that but her legs were numb, her head was spinning and her body was crying out for her to take a nap at least "I want it to go perfect"

"I'm not going to let you hurt yourself, get up and let's go home, father must be waiting for us"

She couldn't argue with Nesta in her mood, so she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other to get to the dressing room and put on her clothes, only then did she realize how wrinkled her dress was, how drawn her face was and disheveled hair, if Azriel saw her like that he would be so worried. And that was the only reason she pulled her hair into a high ponytail, washed her face with cold water, and put on some lipstick that Nesta lent her.

They only spoke when they left the Dance Academy.

“You can't go on like this, Elain."

"Neither do you, Nesta."

"I don't think Cassian or Azriel would like to see us like this, we can't lose ourselves in their absence."

"I'm losing myself, because I'm afraid of losing him, losing him forever," it irritated her greatly that even though they were both in the same situation they had such a divided opinion "Because that's the reality Nesta... They can die"

"I know the probabilities, stop bringing it up," that was said with some annoyance in her voice, she had pressed her buttons too much "But... Feyre needs us, Nyx needs us, remember the promise we made to Rhysand"

"I would never break that promise, I help her with all the pleasure in the world, Nyx is my nephew and Feyre is my sister, they will not lack love and comfort as long as we are with them"

"I understand that, but between the classes, the flower shop, dad's illness and the boys... I'm afraid we'll lose sight of affected number one"

She had never heard her open up about things that worried her, but she had never thought that there would be a war, there was a first time for everything, Elain understood that perfectly and she didn't like the idea that Feyre would have problems to survive, now that she lived in the house again they could help her as much as they could so she was perfectly fine.

They turned the corner into their street as usual, only they stopped when they saw their father sitting on the porch smoking a pipe smiling at Nyx in his arms and Feyre screaming like crazy, holding several letters in her hands. Fearing it was bad news Nesta and Elain ran as fast as their legs would carry them, colliding as they climbed the few steps to their home.

"Letters, letters from them!" the happiness in Feyre's voice made them cry as much as the good news.

Elain allowed herself to take the letter very quickly and go up to her room until after kissing her father's and her Nyx's foreheads and giving them a hug that left Feyre breathless. Her legs resenting the run she had given her trembled like jelly, she step by step she climbed the stairs past the family pictures and paintings until she entered her room and closed the door behind her with a with a slam.

It was sealed and gave the address of the military base and her name in Azriel's beautiful calligraphy, she cried just seeing the handwriting on the paper and being careful not to break the envelope she took out the letter at the same time her heart stopped and her sobbing began.

—

My dearest Elain,

Two weeks have passed since I started my training and since I left my home, these two weeks were enough for me to realize how much you mean to me. I am not going to try to capture in this letter how much my soul misses you or how much I crave you, I could not do justice to the pain that my heart feels not having you here.

My training is going well, it's a bit fast, but I've gotten used to the plane assigned to me for my practices, although fear sometimes comes to me and I don't think I can bear another test, your memory always gives me strength, I hope everything is fine in the academy and that you have time to spend time surrounded by your flowers and plants (tell Rose that I send her a kiss) of course I hope you spend time with your sisters and send them a greeting from me, I hope they are in the best possible state. As for you, I need you to wait for me, I'm trying to get back to you.

Always yours, Azriel.

—

Several tears began to fill the paper and she quickly moved away, her heart a huge and thunderous emptiness that hurt her physically, she needed him by her side, she needed him as much as the moon needs the night and the day needs the sun, her dear Azriel, caught between the conflict.

She collected herself slightly and went to her dresser to get paper, a pen and an envelope, with her soul aching she began to write.

#elriel #elriel fanfiction #waltz of war

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vintagedaydreams · 3 years

Text

Hey guys- not a TLNRS update, I know. But not something I’ve been writing instead either! I actually found this on my phone.

It’s not complete- more of a scene. And it won’t ever be completed. But if you want to run with it- go for it.

Sorry it’s so long without a page break.

Warnings: some strong language, talk of suicide. Not as dark as it sounds.

You work at MI6 in the Admin/Research dept. working on cover stories and recon work for locations/marks/etc.

You work with a handful of other people in the dept and you have a good pal in your desk mate: Katelyn.

All of the agents-Double Ohs included - go into the Research Dept frequently to get folders on their missions and their marks. Everybody knows you-everybody likes you. You’re competent and your peers usually have you look over their work as well when dealing with difficult marks or missions.

You jumped on the couch as the door slammed open, bouncing off the wall. Scrambling to your feet, you looked over to see James Bond filling the doorway, blue eyes spitting sparks. You took a moment to admire him, his aura of danger and confidence dark and practically pulsing around him, before you realized with a start that he was glaring at you.

“…Bond?” you asked hesitantly and, apparently taking that as permission, he stalked into your small apartment in the heart of London. The door was shut in much the same way as it was opened and you gave a wince for your poor neighbors.

“Did I interrupt something?” he asked, voice pitched low and dangerous. You shivered at the tone, though it wasn’t in fear. Oh dear. You were in trouble.

“Um,” you looked around in confusion at the half eaten tub of ice cream and the movie playing quietly in the background, “no?” It was stated more than asked. Especially since he seemed to have an answer to his question already.

“Then you won’t mind if I join you,” he almost snarled, making his way over to you. Your eyes, about the size of dinner plates by now, widened even more.

“What?” you squeaked out. Bond, the James Bond was all but foaming at the mouth and he was going to stay?

“Going to interrupt any plans of yours?” he bit out and you blinked.

“Plans? Um, no…” A low rumbling sounded through the apartment .

“Are you….are you growling at me?” you gaped in disbelief. Suddenly, you found yourself gripped by strong hands, Bond an inch away from you.

“Don’t lie to me, Y/N,” he ground out and the anger that had been slowly building at all his growls and snarls finally sprung forth.

“What are you talking about, Bond?” you growled right back. He blinked for a moment before his face darkened even further than before.

The man stepped closer, if that was possible until you were flush against each other. You felt your stomach flip and you gulped, looking up into his eyes.

Blue eyes stared down at you and the hands gripping your shoulders loosened ever so slightly before he gave you a small shake.

“Katelyn told me about your conversation,” he intoned darkly, an eyebrow rising in a challenge to deny it. Your brow furrowed.

“Conversation? What conversation?” Katelyn and you had had many conversations, the most recent of them centering around the man in your apartment, but you had no idea what topic could have Bond so…well, upset was a bit tame for his current mood….

“Did you really think that I wouldn’t find out?” he growled out, effectively bringing your thoughts back to him. Find out….? Find out!

Your eyes widened. Katelyn wouldn’t…she wouldn’t have told him about your conversation yesterday when you’d said that you were pretty sure you were attracted to 007! No, she wouldn’t have thought that was a big enough deal to tell the Double-Oh in question. Everyone thought that man was attractive.

Then what…?

“You should know by now, that when I claim people as mine, I take an interest in their lives,” Bond continued, eyes glaring down at you. Apparently your silence had already condemned you.

You fought the major blush that threatened to make itself known at his wording. Claimed you as his? Oh, if only!

“Bond,” you started, voice mellow and as soothing as you could make it.

“Don’t,” he interrupted, low and dangerous. You sighed.

“What are you so worked up about? I’m sure everyone’s thought it at least once!” you defended yourself. Really, the only possible answer to his mood was that Katelyn had told him, for whatever reason, that you found him attractive. And apparently, he didn’t like that.

Ouch. There went your pride and self esteem.

“That’s your excuse?” he demanded, voice sounding almost incredulous. “So because everyone else has thought it, you can too?”

“Not quite what I meant,” you muttered as his grip tightened once again. “I just meant that it shouldn’t be a big deal to you! I’m not the first!”

The room went deadly silent and you hesitantly gazed into the glacier eyes above you. You didn’t understand what was so terrible about you finding him attractive, (were you that repulsive?), but he really was making too big a deal out of it. You were shy! It’s not like you would’ve ever said or done anything to him!

“Never say it shouldn’t be a big deal to me,” Bond suddenly hissed and you felt a bit uneasy at the look on his face. You weren’t afraid of him, but you knew what he could do and you also knew that he had a reputation for being unpredictable and out of control. You were in hot water and just starting to realize it.

“Really, Bond,” you murmured, trying to salvage the situation before somebody, most likely you, got hurt, “it’s really not that big of a deal. Can we just…forget I ever said it and you ever heard it?”

His hands tightened on your arms even further and you knew there’d be bruises there tomorrow.

“No,” he answered, voice deadly soft, “I will not forget it.” Suddenly he ripped himself away from you and started pacing the floor furiously.

“Damn it, Y/N! Why can’t you take this seriously?! Do you have any idea, any idea at all, what was going through my head when Katelyn told me? No, of course you don’t. Well, let me tell you something, Y/L/N,” he snarled, “if you want to commit suicide and ‘end it all’ then I suggest you find yourself another job. Because if you stay at MI6, you’re mine and I am not going to let anybody, least of all you, take you away from me!”

Once again, silence rang out in your apartment and you stood there, gaping at Bond.

“Commit…..what?” you asked, mentally going over all your conversations with Katelyn. You telling her that you were going to ‘end it all’ was never part of any of them. YOu were actually quite happy with life where you were, thank you very much. Granted, it’d be better if you had a certain someone to share it with, but suicide? Yeah, never touched on that topic.

“I know your vocabulary is better than that,” Bond spat, finally stopping his pacing. You flinched at the acid in his tone.

“Bond, I never—“

“Expected her to squeal? No kidding. I figured that you didn’t want her to, if our little conversation a minute ago was any indication.”

“No, Bond, I was under the impression—“

“That I didn’t care? Yeah, got that one too. Well here’s a news flash for you, I do. And I will. So I suggest that you take up some counseling because you’re not going to die on my watch.”

“Bond,” you sighed, “honestly, can I get a word in? I’m not going to commit suicide.”

“Damn right you’re not,” the agent in front of you growled. He was suddenly right in your space again. “I’m going to stay here tonight with you and tomorrow, you’re going to a therapist.”

You backed up a step, feeling a bit…flustered, not to mention frustrated, with his close proximity.

“Will you just listen to me?!” you yelled, throwing your hands up in the air in ill repressed ire. “I am not going to commit suicide because I don’t want to! I never planned to and I never talked about it with Katelyn!”

The silence that descended on you was thick and you crossed your arms against your chest, glaring at the agent in front of you. He looked torn between not believing you and wanting to.

“You never mentioned suicide to Katelyn?” he asked finally, voice lower and not quite so angry this time around.

“No,” you said quietly, relief coloring your voice that he finally seemed to be listening to you.

Blue eyes bored into your own, but you stared back at him, refusing to show anything that could be taken as guilt or uneasiness. You’d finally gotten the man to listen to you. You didn’t want to give him any reason to doubt you word.

You were not going to a freakin’ therapist.

“And you’ve never thought about committing suicide?” he pressed, once again stepping forward until he was in your space.

“No,” you repeated, with only a hint of impatience. Really. Why did he believe Katelyn so readily but not you?

“Then you won’t mind if I stay here tonight,” he suddenly said, eyes once again daring you to challenge him. Which, normally, you wouldn’t. But tonight, he’d broken in, interrupted your coveted “alone with a movie and ice cream” time, yelled at and accused you of shit you didn’t actually do and now demanded you house him for the night.

Yeah…not in this lifetime.

“I do mind, actually,” you shot back, eyes narrowing at the agent. “I don’t need a babysitter and now that I’ve told you that I’m not suicidal, there’s no reason for you to stay.”

You turned to the couch and went to sit back down. “Especially with that attitude of yours,” you muttered under your breath. Really, there were days it was like dealing with a five year old. Pretty sure he was supposed to be acting older than you.

“Y/N,” came the warning growl from behind you and you rolled your eyes.

“Seriously, Bond, you can relax, okay? I’m not suicidal, I don’t want to ‘end it all’ and I’ll see you tomorrow at work.” You finally turned to look at him over your shoulder. “Unless you’re going on another mission…?”

The Double-Oh stared at you for a moment before shaking his head. “No mission yet.”

You nodded once, “Good. Then I’ll see you at work tomorrow.” You turned your attention back to the movie that had made quite a bit of progress since you’d been so rudely interrupted and pretended to not hear the soft cursing behind you or feel the glare being shot to the back of your head.

There was blissful silence in the apartment for a few minutes, (aside from the movie), before Bond finally piped up, “Really, Y/N? Harry Potter?”

You shot your own glare at him over your shoulder. “For your information, I happen to like Harry Potter. And you’re not even supposed to still be here, so no dissing the movie that’s playing.”

To your surprise, annoyance, disbelief and, you admit, slight pleasure, Bond moved around the couch arm and sat down not two inches from you, grabbing your tub of ice cream off the coffee table and spooning some into his mouth.

“At least you have good taste in this,” he muttered, blue eyes locking onto yours. It took you a second, but you realized he was teasing you. You weren’t aware the man had a playful bone in his body!

Once you got over your shock you managed to answer back, “It’s been known to happen.” You plucked the spoon out of his hand and took your own bite of the chocolate ice cream. “But this is mine. Go grab your own.”

“Now, now, Y/N. I think you should share.”

“Ha!” You barked a laugh, “Whatever for? You broke in here, remember? I didn’t bust into your house!”

“I would advise you never trying that,” he said, suddenly serious. “Good way to get shot.”

“Bond,” you said back just as serious, “I don’t know where you live and I don’t want to know.”

He tilted his head. “Yeah? And why’s that?”

“Because I’d probably be tempted to come over and try to shank you in your sleep,” you said with an angelic smile.

Bond met your smile with a dastardly smirk of his own.

“Are you sure it’d be to shank me?”

You gave him a shove with your shoulder as you spooned more ice cream out of the tub still in his hands.

“Yup. Perv.”

His chuckle made a shiver run up your spine and you realized he needed to leave. Like, now.

Putting the spoon in the tub, you leaned back onto the couch and turned back to the movie. “When you leave, would you put that in the freezer and lock the door on your way out?”

He leaned back as well, putting one arm on the back of the couch behind you before he answered. “I’ll put it in the freezer and lock the door, Y/N, but I’m not leaving.”

You turned your head, unintentionally pressing your cheek against his forearm. You had to physically stop yourself from jerking away as if burned. With Bond, showing any kind of weakness wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

And he was definitely a weakness of yours.

“Whaddya mean you’re not leaving? I thought we decided that I didn’t need a babysitter.”

“You mean you decided you didn’t need a babysitter.”

“Bond,” you growled and he shrugged. Shrugged! As if you were discussing the weather!

“Don’t call me a babysitter then. Call me something else.”

“Oh, believe me, Bond, there are several things I’d like to call you,” you muttered hotly, “and none of them are particularly flattering.”

The grin he gave made you almost give in and do pretty much whatever he wanted you to. Someday, this thing you had over Bond was going to get you into so much trouble.

“How about we just say that we’re two friends hanging out, alright? You don’t have to call me anything.”

Since moving to England, you didn’t have a whole lot of friends you hung out with, but you were still pretty sure that it only qualified as ‘friends hanging out’ if both parties were willing. But, you’d already missed about a third of the movie and could feel a headache coming on so you just nodded.

“Fine. Whatever you say, friend.”

Bond gave a small grunt of triumph and relaxed further into the couch after depositing the ice cream on the table once again. Your head was still in contact with his arm, but he was warm and solid next to you, so you decided to just enjoy the rare closeness you had with the man and focused on the rest of Harry Potter.

It wasn’t until the movie was over and Bond was putting the ice cream away that the shit hit the fan. Again.

You were in the middle of stretching when Bond came back into the living room, barefoot and no tie.

“Hey, Y/N, you want—“ he cut off abruptly and you stopped stretching to look at him expectantly.

“Do I want what, Bond?” you asked after a few moments of silence, but the man wasn’t paying attention to you but rather looking at your arms.

Looking down, you saw why.

“Wow,” you murmured to yourself, “I thought I had until at least tomorrow before those showed up.”

“What happened?” Bond demanded, narrowed blue eyes never leaving the dark bruises around your upper arms.

You’d never been good with taking things very seriously, especially if you didn’t find them to be a big deal, but even you had to admit that saying, “Considering the work you’re in, I’m surprised you don’t recognize your own handy work,” was a bit too…crass.

But, it’d already been said so you just gave a small rueful smile and apologized.

Figures, the apology would be what set him off.

“You’re apologizing to me for hurting you?” he demanded, voice loud once again. And here you’d thought you had met your quota for yelling today.

You groaned. “Oh for the love of…. Really, Bond? My neighbors are going to think I’m in some kind of domestic situation if you keep yelling. So, shush and help me get the house ready for sleeping.”

The super secret spy agent looked at you for a long moment while you patiently, (or as patient as you could be), waited for him to come to his senses already so you could get some shut eye.

“I should go,” Bond said after a moment. You crossed your arms.

“James,” you said softly, taking a step towards him, “I really would appreciate it if you stayed.”

The man in front of you scoffed, though blue eyes didn’t leave your own.

“A few minutes ago, you couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

You scoffed yourself. “That’s because you were going to babysit me and thought I was suicidal of all things. Which I’m not. But I would like you to stay if you’re willing.”

Bond regarded you for a moment before stepping forward until he was directly in front of you. Warm fingers gently trailed over the darkening bruises on your arms.

“You’re sure you’d like me to stay?” he asked quietly, eyes boring into yours.

You gave a gentle smile. “I really would like nothing better.”

#james bond x reader #james bond imagines #reader insert

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