#one of them will get to HURTING. like deep in the gum throbbing sharp ache hurt. bad enough to keep me up at night even | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

inkykeiji · 3 years

Text

hope you don’t stop running to me, cause i’ll always be waiting

character: dabi | todoroki touya - raver!dabi

genre: extremely sentimental fluff + smut with a sprinkle of angst

notes: okay so essentially, this is raver!dabi, but like the piece isn't really focused around that. the piece is about this all encompassing, ravenous love the reader feels for him, and it really borders on unhealthy obsession; it's about how he's the happiest she ever sees him at raves, but it's bittersweet because he's so fucking high, and it kind of contrasts his love for raves and drugs with her love for him | title cred: cinema by benny benassi ft. skrillex and gary go

warnings: 18+ minors do not interact, daddy kink, size difference, drugs, obsessive unhealthy relationship, extreme codependency, manipulation if u squint, minimal prep, a sprinkle of degradation

words: 6k

synopsis:

And he’s so fucking breathtaking—striking sapphires and stunning smile more spectacular than any piece of art you’ve ever seen, the combined melody of deep grunts and trembling groans rattling around behind his ribs better than any piece of music you’ve ever heard, endless words streaming from his swollen ruby lips lovelier than any piece of fine literature you’ve ever read.

He’s walking art, talking art, living, breathing, feeling art—and he’s all yours.

There’s nothing he loves more, no where he feels more at home, more at ease, more himself, than at a rave, you’re absolutely sure of it.

He sniffs them out like a hound, manages to find them no matter what city or country he’s in; loves them indiscriminately, regardless of how big or small they are; and drags you to each one he attends. Because he’s addicted to every single thing about them—irrevocably hooked on the pounding music that throbs like a beating heart, the marvelous colours that sear through the venue like vibrant flares of blood, the pretty pills and dazzling tabs and soft, soft powder—it all turns the party into a living entity, breathes life into the crowd, intoxicates him like nothing he’s ever felt before; and he’ll never be able to get enough of them, enough of how they make him feel, how they make him forget.

But he wants you there with him every time.

Sometimes, he’s hauling you into dingy basements full of wispy smoke and blaring speakers, staticky as they thrash out beats over a crowd, atmosphere saturated with sweat and the sickly sweet smell of hard candies. Others, he’s pulling you along on a lush field or cracked concrete tainted with brilliant flashes of crimson and violet, through thousands and thousands of people adorned in spiky fur and holographic latex until he finds the stage he’s looking for.

You don’t mind, though, unbothered by the pulsing music and the glistening crowds. You don’t mind, because this is your only chance to get these fleeting little glimpses of what true, pure happiness looks like on him—and you’re fucking addicted to it.

This weekend it happens to be a two-day-long EDM festival, set up far away from society in a large grassy meadow, embellished with wildflowers that dot the tangled jade strands with pops of pastel pinks and yellows and ivories—and it’s enchanting, whimsical, almost surreal in a sense. You can feel it, the atmosphere that drapes the masses of people scattered across the rolling hills, an energy unlike any other that envelops the patrons and lulls them into a state of soothing bliss.

He loves it. You love him.

And you’re not sure you’ll ever be able to accurately explain what the feeling of accompanying him to a rave is like; you don’t think the words even exist—the essence and aura, the feelings that swirl around in your chest, fuzzy and fluttery and fierce, transcending any and all languages. Because they’re something bigger, something better—they’re something higher, something stronger, something more than any word could ever describe.

No, there’s no way to define it, to portray it, nothing to encapsulate or summarize it, the genuine happiness that encompasses him, the way his pinched and stern features finally, finally relax, a special, gentle type of carefreeness seeping through the permanent mask of trepidation irrevocably sown into his strong face. It’s beautiful, mesmerizing to watch as they morph, the way his lips transform before your very eyes, from a firm, thin line into a loose, easygoing grin, sharp eyes liquefying as his lids droop a little, thin ring of sapphire outlining gaping onyx pupils, voracious in the way they observe, inhale, devour everything, blown and massive from whatever he’s high on—E or coke or acid; possibly a mixture of all three. You aren’t allowed to have any, of course, but it’s okay.

It’s okay, because as cheesy and stupid as it sounds, you’re high off of him—off his smell, spicy cinnamon and sweet campfire, laced with just a hint of Marlboros; off his taste, mint and smoke and sugar; off his touch, large hands caressing the natural curves and contours of your body, calloused fingertips rough and ragged as they drag across your soft flesh, skin pebbling with each graze.

It’s intoxicating, the way it invades your senses, overwhelms your receptors and has you yearning for more. It’s dumbfounding, the way your mind goes numb with him, infused with thoughts of DabiDabiDabi as he seeps and soaks and stitches himself into the tissues of your brain.

And you’ve never seen him more content than he is here, high out of his mind and entirely absorbed in the music, embraced in it like it’s a protective blanket, like it’s the arms of an old, treasured friend, like it’s home. Bitter acid creeps up your throat, blends with his saccharine spit ever-present and saturating your tongue, the thought that he’s only truly, genuinely, substantially happy when he’s high off his ass at a festival procuring a muted, blunt ache in the middle of your chest, dull blades that dig and burrow into your beating heart, shoved a little deeper with each bubble of laughter that escapes his lips.

Nevertheless, you can’t ever bring yourself to put an end to it, no matter how much it hurts him, hurts you both, because he looks so lovely, so elated—and you just can’t bear to take that from him, to take that from yourself.

Because he’s so fucking pretty like this, hair undone, careless and free as fluffy tufts of black bounce and sway with his movements, sticking to his temples and his neck—and he almost looks soft like this, strands of onyx hanging in his eyes and curling around his ears. Because happiness looks so good on him, so gorgeous on him, with those bright smiles that span his face, across his cheeks from ear to ear, and those stunning sapphire irises that glow with pleasure, contentment, bliss—and you wish, wish so desperately that you got to see it more often, that you had the chance to experience it without the drugs steadily coursing through his system, that they weren’t necessary, mandatory, in manufacturing these emotions.

But you’ll take what you can get. And he will, too—because you both love watching, both love feeling him this ecstatic, this relaxed, all his anguish and trauma forgotten, those chains that shackle him, that weigh him down and confine him, disintegrated by the synthetic emotions, burnt to ash just for a night or two.

And so, you aid, you help, you enable—because while you’ll take what you can get, you can’t ever get enough, either, eyes wide and unblinking as they place a pretty pink tablet stamped with a heart on his tongue, entranced by the way his lips close around your fingers and suck. And it’s so fucking hot, a rush of warmth flooding between your thighs and furling tightly in your belly. His eyes are shining as he stares at you, stuffed full of so much love it nearly hurts, and you want, you want, you want.

It isn’t long before drug induced euphoria is rushing through his veins and colliding with the constant, steady bass oozing from the speakers, vibrations travelling through the grassy earth beneath him until they reach his feet and flood his body. He tells you he can feel it in his chest, in his heart, in his very soul, seeping into his bloodstream like the sweetest poison, forcing a pleasant buzz through his limbs.

And it’s the best—it’s better than anything he’s ever felt, anything you’ve ever felt, hands roaming across bodies as music pours from the mammoth speakers, tracing soft lines and hard edges, fingers committing them to memory through touch alone; foreheads knocking together as he giggles into your mouth, as you suck his laughter from him and let it bloom in your chest, bright and buzzing and full of him, so full you feel as though you may burst; tongues dragging against one another as you both lick either side of a heart-shaped lollipop, sticky crimson candy sparkling in the waning sunlight, before he pushes his gum into your mouth, endless huffs of amusement spilling from one throat into another as you pass it back and forth—a game of sorts—smiling into the messy, slippery kisses, lips sliding and slurping and sucking.

Colourful beads embellish his arms, slender wrists and sculpted forearms peaking through the gaps, plastic droplets smacking together delicately with his movements. The brilliant colours are vibrant in contrast to his smooth skin, ivory tainted gold by the August sun, to later be painted by the lively splotches of aquamarine and lilac and lime and fuchsia as the lights dance through the night sky, spraying across the crowd.

His body glistens under the setting sun, varnished in a thin layer of sweat, gleaming droplets decorating his skin, catching in the beams and glittering like tiny diamonds. Strands of inky hair cling to his neck and white cotton hugs his torso, outlining the firm muscles of his back, the plains and contours that glide almost gracefully under scarred skin and soft fabric with each of his movements.

He’s a horrible dancer; truly, but he makes you giggle—which makes him giggle, large hands finding your waist and tugging you towards him, forehead bowed to yours again as he stares at you, cavernous pupils flitting from each of your features—your eyes, your cheeks, your mouth—with his lips slightly parted, as if he’s in awe. Tiny thumbs run over his clammy cheekbones, and his eyes close briefly with the motion, body swaying a little as he leans into you, further pressing his forehead into yours. His molars are grinding again, you can feel it, the rhythmic clenching and unclenching of his jaw under soft, tender palms, and you tsk softly.

“You need another lollipop, Daddy,” you tell him, and although you’re practically shouting over the music, it feels like your whispering, wisps of your adoring voice caressing his skin, curling around him and sopping into his flesh, warming him to the core of his soul. Little fingers are pressing into the hinges of his jaw as you speak, their gentle touch instantly diffusing the tension, and he nods.

The whine that catches in his throat when you pull away is one of the sweetest, most valuable sounds you’ve ever heard, and it makes your chest flutter, eyes flicking up to look at him through your lashes with a beaming smile. He’s still leaning towards you, slowly falling forward, a magnet drawn to magnetite, and you love it, you love it, you love it.

“You look so fucking cute in your tutu, princess,” he’s chuckling as you root through your tiny bag for more candy. And you can tell he really means it, a dopey smile decorating his face, eyes shimmering with mirth, with drugs, with love.

A giggle slips past your lips, hands smooth down the tufts of tulle adorning your waist as you shyly murmur your thanks, his own smile growing. Lidded sapphires float around your body, slow and belated as they take inventory, words unhurried and sluggish as they tumble from his mouth.

“I-I should…Uh, I should put some sunscreen on my baby, sh-shouldn’t I? Don’t want your shoulders or that pretty face of yers to burn, y’know,”

You really don’t need to—the sun’s sunk halfway below the horizon by now—but you indulge him anyway, would never be able to deny him a fucking thing.

It’s fumbling, clumsy and messy in his inebriated state, but it’s still so cute, so considerate, so caring, rough hands slathering the thick cream across your skin, rubbing in awkward, blundering circles—and it sends sizzling sparks shooting through your bloodstream, alighting your entire body with a blaze that is so specifically him.

The sky turns from coral to navy all at once, and then you’re clasping onto him tightly, hugging your body to his as hands roam, as fingers tangle and tug and tow, as lips latch and lick. Salt mixes with his usual taste, tongue tingling with it as it laps at the dips of his collarbones. The sharp smell of sugar stings your nose, and you inhale deeply, face nuzzling against his damp neck. He smells sweet, like sunshine and burning hickory wood, like a summer breeze grazing freshly washed linen, carrying with it a sprinkle of cinnamon.

And you can’t stop, powerless to your urges and void of all control as you nibble at the column of his throat, as you suck the prettiest galaxies of violet and periwinkle into his flesh, as the tip of your tongue traces the jutting bones at the base of his neck, over and over and over again until they’re saturated in thick layers of your gleaming spit.

Because he’s fucking delicious, and it’s never enough—will never be enough, regardless of if you spend hours kissing, until your lungs are burning and your jaw is aching and your mouths and chins and cheeks are coated in each other’s sticky saliva.

Because you’re fucking greedy, needy, hungry, limitless in how much you desire, more and more and more.

Because even when he’s pounding into you, it still isn’t ever enough. You want to consume him the way he consumes those pretty little tablets, want to breathe him in and hold him in your chest, in your heart, in your soul, forever. Not all of him, you promise, you swear, you’ll settle with just a piece—just a piece you can carry around everywhere with you, always. It’s the worst addiction you’ve ever suffered, it’s the sweetest heaven you’ve ever felt, it’s the only semblance of home you’ve ever known—you’ll keep chasing that high he gives you forever, keep chasing him as he chases drugs, and he doesn’t mind one bit.

And eventually, eventually it becomes too much to bear, just as it does every single night, this seething desire that roars and rumbles within you, rattling the cage of your ribs as it demands more. Eventually, it has you yanking on his arm, both hands clasped around one of his, shrill begs and pleads beginning to claw their way up your throat.

Strong hands manhandle you against him, a thick thigh slotting between your own, and you whimper, burying your face against his neck. With such a large crowd, and such thunderous music, and so many people higher than the clouds, no one can tell what you’re doing; no one can tell how naughty you’re being.

He knows exactly what you need, exactly what’s got you so restless, pressing his muscled thigh into your core and chuckling at the instant moan it procures.

“Daddy,” you mewl loudly against his ear, curled fingers giving another tug on his t-shirt, cunt already grinding steadily against his thigh. “I need you,”

He snickers, the sound vibrating against you, head tilting curiously and lips molding into a cocky smirk. “You need what, baby?”

And the whine that breaks in your chest is absolutely pathetic, bottom lip jutted out into a deep pout, grinding against his thigh becoming more erratic, more urgent. You hate that he’s gonna make you say it, face crumpled up in adorable irritation—his favourite expression on you, you’re sure, his smirk growing into a grin as a growl rumbles in your chest.

“Your cock,” shimmering eyes, glazed with want that reflects the flashing lights in their glassiness, stare up at him, blinking twice in enticement. “Please?”

He hums in thought as he pretends to think, to consider, as if his leg isn’t pressing further and further into your core as you aimlessly hump it, as if his cock isn’t already hard and pressed up against your hip and throbbing through his jeans, as if he isn’t grinding against you in infinitesimal motions, little gyrations of his hips that almost feel subconscious instead of intentional—as if he can’t help himself.

“Daddy!” you squeal, barely audible over the heavy bass, eyebrows scrunched in the way they always do when you don’t get what you want. “Now!”

Normally, if he wasn’t higher than the full moon hanging in the sky and flickering stars scattered in uneven clusters around it, such a bratty request would’ve earned you a hefty punishment—something that would’ve left your skin raw, cunt abused, and completely unsatisfied—because bad girls don’t get to cum, now, do they?

But tonight it only makes him laugh harder, cooing about how fucking cute you get when you’re all needy like this, like it’s the most endearing thing he’s ever witnessed, cobalt eyes shining with delight and adoration as he laces his fingers through yours, pulling you along behind him as he weaves in and out of the sea of bodies.

But the car’s too far, you’re whining as you trail behind him, a deep pout carved into your face, eyebrows knitted so firmly they weave creases into your forehead. I can’t wait, Daddy, I can’t wait!

And it’s true—you can’t wait any longer, you need him inside of you this very instant or you’ll fucking combust—a deprived addict vying for their favourite vice; a raving, ravenous fire that burns bright and blistering in the pit of your tummy, constantly starved for him.

It’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before, this intense, insatiable craving; one that has your thighs clenching so tightly it’s painful, that burns through your veins and scalds the insides of your stomach, that has your blood bubbling and nerves buzzing, whole body feeling electric in his presence.

It’s a gnawing urgency, one that tears at the pit of your belly and roars in your chest, filling your ribcage until it feels like it’s about to burst, until it has you choking on botched gasps of air and his name, nails digging into his hand as you tug on his arm, pleading, begging, needing.

It’s going to devour you from the inside out if you don’t get what you want soon, if it isn’t fed with what it wants soon, expletive filth spilling from your lips in frenzied little huffs as Dabi tries in vain to drag you to the car—please, Daddy, I feel like I’m gonna die, need your cock, Daddy, need it right now, right now, right now, fill me with your cum, Daddy, I’m so empty without it; warm me with your cum, Daddy, please, please, pretty please, I can’t wait!

Such sentiments, woven together between threads of high whines and broken gasps, evoke a dark snarl ripping through his chest, his true persona cutting through the manufactured euphoria for just a moment—and then you see him, you see your Daddy, you see your home, blazing in his glassy eyes as he whirls around on you and crashes his lips to yours, large hands splayed on either side of your face, nimble fingers gripping your head so tightly it hurts.

But the pressure is welcomed, little hands pawing at his thick belt again, pathetic and desirous, and the sheer force has you stumbling backwards, feet catching on your own ankles as the two of you tumble to the ground.

“You are such a fucking brat, y’know that?” he’s nearly moaning between kisses, lips never leaving yours as he spits the words into your mouth, hips snuggling into their favourite spot between your thighs.

“You love it,”

“A spoiled little bitch,”

“Y-Your fault,” you giggle into his mouth, a large palm colliding with your ass half a second later, knocking a yelp from your throat, a pitiful little squeak that he readily swallows down.

Calloused fingers twist in the lace of your panties and he yanks, holes materializing in the delicate fabric, lithe digits hooking through them and unceremoniously jerking the ruined remains down your thighs. It’s graceless, movements inept and cumbersome in his attempt to remove them from your body, stubbornly refusing to break your kiss, hovering body supported by one hand and his knees. The material finally snaps, fingers tearing through it, like fire blazing through intricate spider webs. A whine catches in your throat and he laughs darkly, tongue lapping at your neck, your jaw, your mouth itself, drenching you in sugar-infused saliva.

Lips part immediately, eagerly, ready to greet his tongue with your own, and he huffs another chuckle into you, breath scorching as it floods the cavern of your mouth, and God, he’s got himself such a good girl, such a good slut, doesn’t he?

The words are mumbled out, slick lips gliding against yours, a little slurred and stuffed full of sticky spit as massive, rough hands run up your thighs, grabbing healthy handfuls of your flesh and squeezing.

A sharp gasp escapes from your throat, hips instinctively bucking against his from the sudden pain, and he laughs, deep and sinister and reverberating against his ribcage.

You can feel the dull thud of the music in the distance, bass burrowing its way into your chest, pulsating beat slithering through the pliant earth and oozing up through the dirt against your back. Magnificent glows of azure and amethyst blanket the festival in their embrace, bleeding into one another before they morph into and emerald and magenta, haloing the grounds and all of its inhabitants.

But all of those colours, the almost ethereal beauty of the party itself, is nothing compared to the sapphire gazing down at you, the ivory skin that almost glows against the grass and the pines and the night sky, the fluffy onyx tufts your fingers tangle in.

Teeth sink into his plush, scarred bottom lip and you suck harshly, taking it into your mouth, the tip of your tongue toying with it, laving over the supple flesh and dousing it in your saliva. A snarl clatters around in his mouth as he pulls his lip from between yours, teeth scraping against it in the process.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” you’re chanting, muffled by his mouth, muddled by his tongue as it aggressively pushes against yours. “Need’a, need’a,”

The words snag in your throat, evaporating into ghosts of the sentences they were supposed to be, fading into pathetically breathy moans.

And it’s hard to think, when you’re like this, when you’re ensnared in him, consumed by his touch and smell and taste, tongue shoved so far down your throat you’re choking on it, brain gone numb—dumb—from it all, incapable of knitting together words and forming a sentence. Instead, your hand snakes between your bodies to cup his cock, a loud moan hitching in his chest as he immediately grinds against your touch.

“Want,” you mumble, groping at him and forcing a whimper from his chest. “Now, now, now,”

“So fucking needy,” he’s teasing, none of his usually heat to his voice, peppered with moans and the sweetest giggles as he rests his forehead against yours. Reaching down, two slender fingers prod your hole, giggles fading into groans as his eyes shut. “Soaked, huh?” he asks, voice strained, your head nodding almost ferociously in response. “Always drenched for me, aren’t you, my babygirl,”

But you’re too impatient to be properly prepped, to be thoroughly stretched out, impetuous legs kicking and squirming from underneath him, whining and pleading for him to just fuck you already!

They’re uncontainable, the words barreling past your lips, high and cracked and rapacious as you beg—beg for him to fill you up, to make you feel whole again, to stretch and shred and slash you to pieces, to put you back together, part by painstaking part, to complete you.

And he’s practically keening at the sentiments, hips rutting ungracefully against your soft palm, cock twitching through the denim of his jeans.

“Alright, baby, alright,” he’s hushing you, words slurred, heavy and unhurried despite his frantic actions. “Daddy’ll give you what’ya need,”

“Wanna ride,” you nearly wail, little fingers clawing desperately at his broad shoulders, fingertips sinking into his flesh through the thin cotton.

“Ch-Christ,” he nearly chokes on the curse, head nodding in choppy movements as he allows you to push the two of you over.

Because, well, baby gets what baby wants.

Or, at least, that’s what he’s telling you as you straddle him, lilt void of its normal derision, replaced with a kind of admiration.

Nails dig into the toned, smooth planes of his chest as you sink down on him, an involuntary hiss escaping gritted teeth, features scrunching in a cute wince. A hitched expletive escapes his throat, lidded eyes falling shut as his head lolls to the side, angular jaw on display.

The stretch is a welcome one, feels like home, so familiar it’s almost comforting, little cunt throbbing as you split yourself open on his cock.

Cool, refreshing air rushes into your lungs the moment he bottoms out, cockhead pressed snugly against your cervix, and that ache, that addiction, that animal tethered to the very core of your soul is immediately satiated, immense pressure deflating and the strain on your ribs easing up.

It feels perfect, feels right, feels whole, and suddenly, you’re alive again, intense sparks shocking your system as they sear through your veins, invigorated and revitalized.

It doesn’t last long though—it never does.

Because you’re just as famished, just as voracious, just as avid as that entity birthed from obsession and addiction inside of you, satisfied only for a moment before you need more.

It isn’t slow, isn’t sweet or soft, because neither of you can take that right now, neither of you need that right now. And the very moment he bottoms out, the minute you feel him nudging against your cervix, your hips begin to rock forward, rough hands finding their usual place on your hips, aiding you in your motions as he bucks up, falling into an instantaneous rhythm together

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he’s panting out, bleary eyes watching you as his words knot on his languid tongue. “Bounce on m’cock, princess, bounce on it,”

The earth is firm beneath your knees, but you can still feel those faint vibrations travelling though the dirt. Blades of grass tangle themselves in inky tufts as his head falls back, neck arching, jade strands in a sea of black.

He’s so much louder when he’s this high, deep guttural groans rumbling in his chest, broken whines catching in his throat, growled out curses tumbling from his saliva slicked lips. Drool leaks from the corners of his mouth, dribbling down his chin, and you long to lick it up.

“You always look so pretty, s-so perfect taking my cock,” he’s babbling, voice soaked in awe, pupils blown and shimmering as they gobble up your reactions, your expressions—every little sound emitted from your throat, ripped raw and wrecked from the column; every little twitch of your features, the way your lashes flutter and eyes roll back with each roll of his hips; every little shake and shiver and shudder, tiny jolts of electricity, of him, exploding through your veins—calloused hands sliding up and down your thighs in a clumsy caress. “F-Fuck, princess, so gorgeous,”

You should be quiet—really, you should both be quiet, fucking in an open field and committing such a heinous act of public indecency.

But you’re powerless to stop the mewls and cries from prying past your lips, and he’s hopeless to quell the steady stream of words flowing from his own, increasing in pitch and frequency with each gyrate forward, with each rut and rub and grind of your hips.

“Feel good, Da-Daddy?”

And he’ll never understand how you sound so fucking sweet, so fucking precious, as obscene words flow from those pretty lips, punched out of your chest with each rock of your hips, core of your body intimately skewered by him.

He doesn’t answer, can’t answer, words dissolving into a fractured moan as he nods vigorously.

“Want you to cum, D-Daddy—ah—fill me up, please,”

The grin that splits his face is nothing short of spectacular—it’s nothing like those sharp smiles he gives his enemies, or those smug little grins he gifts his friends, or those tiny lopsided smirks that grace his lips when he’s teasing. No, this smile—this smile is only for you; a gentle quirk of his lips, parted just enough to see those gleaming pearly teeth, fluid as it stretches and wobbles with his ragged pants and snapping hips. It’s almost overwhelming, the emotion pouring from that single, simple action alone, has your chest stuttering and eyes blurring, knowing that this is something special, that this is something that is yours and yours alone. And this smile—this smile is genuine, true happiness. This smile cuts through all of the drugs and anguish and rage, shining bright and beautiful as it beams up at you.

He’s walking art, talking art, living, breathing, feeling art—and he’s all yours.

You’ll never get used to this, you swear to God. Such amazement will never cease, makes fucking him a religious experience every single time, always so astoundingly exquisite. You’ll never get used to the way those dark growls claw their way up his throat, vibrating in the column. You’ll never get used to the way your name sounds on his tongue when he’s just about to cum, all pitchy and broken and punctured by hitched breaths. You’ll never get used to the way his thick eyelashes flutter, unfocused eyes rolling in his skull just a little—never fully enough to hide that brilliant sapphire from you—right before he stuffs you full of hot sticky seed.

And you never want to.

—

This is your favourite part, has always been your favourite part, will always be your favourite part, every single time. It’s terribly selfish of you—you know it is, know it’s awful and greedy and so, so obsessive—but you love it, love it as much as he loves the drugs and the music and the ostentatious lights.

Because he clings to you when he’s coming down, nuzzles his face into your very touch, practically purrs out his admiration for you as you pat his damp face down with an old t-shirt, brushing back the stringy strands of sweat-drenched hair from his forehead.

Because you’re his protection when he’s coming down, swathing him in your love, in your gentle caresses and your tender venerations—his very own guardian angel, keeping him from plummeting into the concrete and shattering into a million pieces, cradling him in your soft wings as you ease his feet back onto this earth.

Usually it’s scary, he’s telling you that night in the backseat of his car, eyes still glazed, breathing slow and shallow. Or, it was. It was scary, coming down without you—but not anymore. Because you’re here now. You’re here with him, and you take such good care of him, and he loves you, he loves you so much, he loves you more than anything on this planet—or any others.

He used to feel nervous, he’s babbling on as tiny fingers press into tight, coiled muscles, rubbing the tension out of them in small circles. Used to have memories… he trails off then, and you don’t push, never push, just humming your acknowledgement softly, whispered affirmations falling from your lips as palms smooth over his cheeks before caressing his hair, pulling mewls from his throat as he arches into your touch.

Bleary sapphires stare up at you, glittering in the dim light flittering through his car windows from the flickering lamp posts. He’s tired, he tells you suddenly, face somber, sober, but he can’t sleep.

“I know,” you murmur, petting his hair again. “Just try to relax,”

He is trying, he promises, vigorously nodding up at you, eyes wide as if they’re imploring you to understand.

But words keep spilling from his mouth—involuntary, automatic, reflexive—unfocused eyes staring up at the roof, then darting around the car slowly, distractedly, like there’s a million other thoughts surging through his mind—you can see them, swimming in his eyes, tainted with paranoia, with fear, even though there’s a steady stream of presumably unrelated words flowing from his throat.

He talks about anything, everything, nothing—all at once. He tells you about the festival as if you weren’t there, and you let him ramble, unable to stifle the small smile that forms on your lips. Because it’s cute, and he’s still so excited. He tells you how pretty you look, tells you about how good you ride his cock, how irresistible your cunt is, how much he loves stuffing it with his cum.

And throughout it all you nod and hum and coo, just like you always do, just like you always will.

And it’s nights such as these, at four and five in the morning right before the sun begins to creep over the horizon, navy sky fading into a faint amber glow the only indication that it’s coming—that you are careless with your words, that you are more honest than ever before, because you know he won’t remember it—or, if he does, he won’t bring it up until he’s high like this again.

Because his being high provides this limbo, this purgatory for the both of you to be open and raw and vulnerable under the guise of drugs, with the knowledge that you can always backtrack, always claim not to remember or that you said no such thing, if you ever need to.

You don’t ever need to, but the option’s there nonetheless, like a buffer of sorts—a buffer for him to be raw and real, a buffer for you to be less cautious, to be more reckless and let the words stream from your lips without fear of consequence or punishment; a shield for both of you to use against such susceptibility.

It’s become an unspoken agreement between the two of you, a pass. And that’s what makes these nights the best.

And you will always consider yourself one of the lucky ones, one of the privileged few that are allowed, permitted, approved to experience him like this—to watch that well-worn mask of apathy melt from his face as drug-laced happiness bleeds and burns through it.

It hurts, sends sharp spears searing through your chest, embedding themselves in the depths of your fucking soul, because you can only imagine what true happiness would look like on him.

Maybe it would be too much, you want to trick yourself into believing, desperate to find excuses for the drugs and the artificial euphoria, to sanction this type of behaviour. Maybe he would be too beautiful, too bright, too brilliant if he were truly happy—maybe he would burn out too quickly, if he were too happy, like a shooting star that flies across the indigo sky, sparkling and sizzling and stark in it’s stunning, gorgeous and ethereal and much too short lived as it fizzles out into nothing, into darkness and emptiness, only a moment later—gone forever.

And you suppose, if that were to be the case, that you could selfishly accept this fate—if only to keep him here with you for just a little bit longer. You could help him shoulder the crushing weight of that torture, that agony, that suffering that he’s constantly carrying, spine straining under it, if it means that you get to be with him for more, for longer, for eternity. You could handle that, if it means you get to be greedy, if it means that you get to have him, on this earth, living and breathing and beside you.

Still, you hope, very much so, deep down at the bottom of your heart, that he will one day find that true, genuine, sincere happiness that he deserves—and that it will stick, not just for a moment, for a few fleeting seconds, but for a while, for forever.

He’s quiet when you tell him this. He probably won’t remember it come morning, too high to remember much of anything, but he’s so honest when he’s like this, fucked up out of his mind, and words leak from his lips without his permission as he tells you, grave and serious, that he has…in you.

And you suppose…You suppose he’s right; happiness isn’t exactly a person, or a place, or an object—happiness is a sentiment, an experience, a collection of memories, adventures, evocations.

“Happiness is...it’s when I’m with you,”

#dabi x reader #dabi x you #dabi smut #bnha smut #todoroki touya #todoroki touya x reader #waaaAAAAAAAAH #ever so slightly nerve-wracking hahaha #this is EXTREMELY sentimental you have been WARNED #it's also supposed to feel almost suffocating or overwhelming #bcoz ur reader yk #okay ANYWAY ENJOY #tw drugs #tw toxic relationship #tw daddy kink

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 years

Note

hmmm can vampires get sick? maybe sick vampire chris thinking Jake is gonna pull out or file down his fangs? or just thinking Jake’s gonna hurt him?

CW: Sick whumpee, vampire whumpee, blood drinking, vague implications of past sadistic/creepy whumper, dehumanization, vague tooth/mouth whump (nothing direct, but aftermath)

Sort of a sequel to this piece, part of the Vampire Chris AU

"What hurts?" He keeps his voice low, and carefully doesn't hesitate before he lays a hand over the vampire's forehead. Of course it feels lukewarm, room temperature, but he still goes through the motions of feeling for a fever. It's muscle-memory, instinct, and he keeps forgetting Chris is dead.

He has been dead for a long time, if his occasional comments on what sounds like Prohibition are true.

"Bones," Chris whimpers, twisting where he lays in Jake's bed. There's a bright flush in his cheeks from the blood he'd drained from the two men who broke into the house. Those odd eyes glitter, overbright. "My... m'bones hurt, Jake."

His mouth opens, pulling air in over his tongue and down his throat in soft pants, and Jake is reminded that vampires don't sweat. Not the same way, anyway, although with enough blood they can, in thin sheens of pink-tinged liquid that are even more alarming than their tears.

His fangs are visible this way, razor-sharp canines that come down further than the rest of his teeth, a brighter white than all the others from being pulled and regrowing so many times.

Jake swallows against his nervousness, brushing hair away from the vampire's forehead. His slit pupils are dilated, taking up too much of the iris, and he tells himself that Chris is as scared as he is of the instincts that drive him, barely understands them.

Vampires aren't animals - but when they don't understand themselves, they act like it sometimes.

"Do you think maybe those guys were on something? Like, a drug maybe?" He pets through Chris's hair, fingercombing his hair, and watches Chris's eyes flutter closed.

It's hard not to feel more than a little reassured not having to look at them any longer. Which makes him feel guilty, considering this not-a-kid kid just beat up people for hurting him.

Killed them, his brain whispers. Killed them like he could kill you.

"May, maybe," Chris mumbles, and pants again.

His gums seem oddly dark, where normally they're pale, and Jake frowns. He wishes now he knew more about vampire physiology, that he'd paid more attention in class when they took the safety courses on how to avoid them.

There's not exactly a class on caring for one - not unless you can afford to purchase them outright.

"Well, when you were-... uh, before you found us... did you ever feel like this?"

Chris's eyes blink slowly back open and he nods. "Sometimes. My, my, my, my-... someone would, um, take something before, before the party, and I'd..." He groans and shudders. Jake can see the pain move through his body as he trembles nearly violently. "I'd feel like, like, like this after... for hours..."

"Okay. So... probably you just have to let this get worked out of your system, right? Or... is there a medicine?"

"No... just... just drink more." Chris looks up at him, eyes so wide and sad and scared and hurting, and grabs onto his wrist with one hand. Those cool fingers are never not a little startling, colder than the air around them, than the rest of his body.

Vampires have poor circulation, Jake knows, even when they're filled up on a fresh meal. He's seen Chris heal his own wounds before with his tongue, had him explain that they don't heal on their own with time if they're on hands or feet.

"Chris-"

"You, you, you, you-... can, um, you can take my teeth after. You can. I'll hold still. I'll, I'll be good." Chris's plea is barely a whisper.

His nails, which must have been a little too long when he was killed and turned, dig painfully into Jake's wrist in his desperation.

"I'll be so, so, so so so so good, Jake. So good for you, and then, you can, you you you can take my teeth-... Sir always liked it, it makes me me me cry, we we cry blood, Sir liked to take photos of it-"

"Sssshhhh. Hush, Chris." Jake's mind races. There are others in the house, but-... he can't ask them to give up blood to Chris. They've already taken over cleaning the blood up from the hardwood floor. Nat's already dealt with talking to the cops and the EMTs and the coroner before the bodies were taken away. They already handled hiding Chris in a false-backed closet while Jake was interviewed by police officers who looked interested and excited,, not disturbed.

It's not every day you see a vampire attack, after all.

Mostly they're under control, kept on leashes and muzzled like dangerous dogs, the property of rich celebrities looking for novelty in a world where they already have everything. The few ferals are killed pretty fast.

Or so everyone says.

Jake is starting to wonder if there are more vampires out there than he knows about.

The cops had even insisted on checking the attic, as if Chris was a bat they might find hanging upside down. That had been ridiculous, but it's not like Jake could say he knew better without being asked how he knew so much about them in the first place.

Oh, because we keep one like a stray fucking puppy. That wouldn't go over well.

He feels a little woozy from the adrenaline crash, and still aches from the bruised ribs where he was kicked around. His mouth aches from the duct tape they'd put over it, and he'd got a hell of a rash starting around his wrists. He's so exhausted he might collapse.

But... Chris really did show up right on time, and maybe saved his life.

Chris pulls Jake's wrist to his face, nuzzles into the inside of it against the pale blue veins that show through the thin skin. Jake shudders at the feeling, swallowing back a low-level disgust.

He wonders how old the teenager really is - he wonders that all the time.

"You c-can have my teeth, after," Chris whispers, lips moving against Jake's skin. "You can keep them. Sir used to, to, to keep them in a box and show m-me. Just, please, please help me feel better, Jake, please... It won't hurt."

Jake closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "If it'll help... fine. But I'm not taking your teeth. They're yours."

"Thank you," Chris breathes out. "That's, that's, that's okay. I can still fix it for you. Thank you, Jake." His fangs slip back into Jake's skin as easily as a heated knife through warm butter.

The venom hits his bloodstream before the pain hits his nerves, and Jake feels himself slump over, head falling onto Chris's shoulder as all his limbs go dead.

It almost feels good, as his ribs stop aching, and the bruises stop throbbing on his skin. He can see why rich people love it as a party drug. You could drift in this place of perfect no-pain for a long, long time.

He feels only the wet movement of Chris's tongue, the shift of his fangs, the soft pressure of the other teeth pushing down. Chris purrs softly, drinking his blood like a kitten lapping milk.

It goes on and on, and for one terrifying second Jake thinks he's not going to stop until he's dead.

"Ch-... Chris-"

Those fangs slip suddenly out of his skin, the wet cool tongue licks rough over his wounds - closing them instantly.

The venom slowly fades, the aches and pains settling back into his body. Jake groans, feeling weak and exhausted.

Chris has to push him up off his shoulder, with unnatural strength moving him to lay on his side on the bed. Jake can barely keep his eyes open.

Chris, leaning over him, could rip his throat out and he couldn't even raise a hand to try and defend himself right now. Jake sees the body of the first dead robber behind his eyelids, the expression of horror written in eternal rictus in his expression, the blood down his shirt and puddled beneath him on the floor. The other man, fighting until he stopped, slumping until Chris had drained him to death.

"I feel better," Chris whispers, kneading at Jake's shirt briefly. "I, I, I feel so much better. Go to, um, go to sleep, Jake. I'll fix it so you're safe."

Jake can't even begin to understand what that means before he's already slid into something more like unconsciousness than actual sleep. The world around him simply goes black, and the last thing he feels is Chris pulling a blanket up to his chin.

The last thing he hears is those soft padding footsteps leaving the room.

When he wakes, he finds two fangs, pristine white with bloodied roots, sitting in a washcloth next to where his head lays on the pillow. he finds a pair of small pliers on the bathroom sink, with droplets of red around them.

The sun is shining outside the window, a bird singing loud enough to drive a drillbit into his head, and Chris is curled up asleep in the dark at the back of a closet, mouth slightly open.

Jake stares down at the empty spots where his fangs should be, and wonders if he's grateful, or horrified.

@burtlederp @finder-of-rings @endless-whump @astrobly @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband

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zmediaoutlet · 4 years

Text

in support of Texas relief, @mystifiedgal donated $10, and requested Sam developing mind-reading and learning what Dean wants. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post.

(read on AO3)

It starts as dreams, the night after they lose Ava. They drove straight from Lafayette to Peoria and after Peoria they move one town over so as not to be newcomers in a town that just had a homicide, and they work all through that day, in Bloomington, calling contacts and putting out feelers, trying to see what might've happened to a short sweet dark-haired girl, a secretary, who'd never done a thing to deserve this. Sam couldn't stop thinking that, no matter how stupid it was. How Ava, how all the rest, hadn't done a single thing to merit this kind of punishment.

He falls asleep though he didn't think he would. Dean's reading at the table with the lamp turning the backs of his ears, his neck, pure white, and Sam's looking at him and thinking about Ava's face shocked-white in the neon from the motel, and then he's asleep, and he's dreaming but it doesn't feel like dreaming. It doesn't feel like a vision, either, how that vicious sharp reality climbs down his throat. In the dream he knows he's dreaming, and he isn't really there, and not even the vague protagonist-body that's usually in his dreams, when he dreams he forgot to study for an exam, or is standing in a rotting house with an empty gun and ghosts slipping through the walls, or smiling at a clever girl with her blouse unbuttoned just right. Instead this dream is—feeling. A wash of dark, and water lapping at the edges of a boat he can't seem to see beyond. Dean, sitting in the stern, his head in his hands, and because Sam isn't really here he can't yell or act or splash the dark water into Dean's face, but—as soon as Sam thinks that, about splashing the water, the surge of fear is so overwhelming that the world turns black. Dean's fingers curl against the side of his head, his ring flashing, and his lips are parted and wet and something unknown flashes through Sam's gut and when he wakes up, dragging in air like he's been running a mile, the room is dark and Dean's a curled lump on the other bed and Sam carries that strange, fearful feeling with him all through the next day, like a fresh-broken bone, throbbing.

Dean frowns at him when he's snappish at lunch, but doesn't call him on it. Dean's being careful with him, which Sam—hates, is grateful for. So Sam maybe didn't have the best reaction to finding out their dad's last words, and maybe the thing with Gordon was—a lot. Gordon was a lot. Ava, poor Scott Carey, Andy and Ansem, Max. It's all been a lot. Dean maybe has been struggling with the secret he was carrying but Sam's struggling with how his mouth tastes like metal all the time, thinking of yellow eyes looming up out of the dark, and so he'll take some concessions, maybe even a little pity, if it makes Dean focus on what they really need to focus on. Dean's letting him direct, not looking for other hunts, staying right here in Illinois and keeping his nose to the ground for Ava or for any hint of another 1983 kid with unexplained powers, and Sam doesn't need anything else, beyond that, not right now. They'll work out the rest later.

Trouble is: Sam's focus is split. He spends the day casing details of Ava's life, job and fiancé and family history and any single second where her life might have brushed against the dark, and at night his dreams are a flood. Black water, rising. Dean, terrified, and his skin that kind of white that comes from a flare of too much exposure, and his eyes dark hollows, and the bones standing out in his hands, clutching at his head. On the fourth night of everything the same choking claustrophobia Dean turns his face and Sam sees that he's bleeding, from the ears and from the corner of his mouth, and the blood is so dark it looks black, too, and Dean covers his mouth with one hand and then though the surrounding water is the same endless expanse the boat becomes that cabin where Azazel rode their dad's body, the shift seamless and unexplained in the way of dreams, and Dean's got a hole in his stomach, the blood flooding out onto the dry wood of the boat/cabin floor, and he puts lax fingers against it that don't stop the bleeding at all, and Sam wakes up that time and has to scramble for the bathroom, retching, although when he clutches the sides of the sink nothing comes up and his mouth just tastes like—saltwater.

That day Dean brings him coffee in the morning and tries to be circumspect. He's bad at it. "Starting to smell like a dorm room in here, man," Dean says, mouth quirked. "Laundry stank and BO and, uh, making like the Lone Ranger?" He makes a vague gesture around his lap, but his heart's not in it. "Gotta air it out, dude. See some sunlight for twenty minutes."

"I'm working," Sam says, but to be honest he's not. He's sitting there with Ellen's half-remembered list of demon sightings in the last six months and instead of working the map he's been staring at the closed curtains for the whole time Dean's been gone. He drags his good hand over his face and lets his heavy casted arm thump down over the notebook. Dean raises his eyebrows, letting a glance over the empty map make his point for him, and Sam sighs. "Making like the Lone Ranger?" he says.

Dean's smile gets more real. "Unless you've got a pretty little Tonto around here, somewhere—" he starts, and Sam rolls his eyes and flicks a crumpled ball of wasted notes at Dean's face, and while he's sputtering Sam says, suddenly desperate for it, "Yeah, okay, we could use some air. Laundromat around here?"

"Hey," Dean says, sitting up, "I don't think I heard myself volunteer for laundry duty—" and then, twenty minutes later, they're installed at a laundromat, empty at nine on a Tuesday morning, Dean bitching still about whose turn it is to fold the whites but looking decently happy, stretched out in one of the shitty plastic chairs with coffee resting on his belly and a morning talkshow on the crackling TV mounted in one corner of the ceiling, and Sam feels it.

Sam feels it. There's a chair between him and Dean, piled with a box of donuts and the police folder Dean went out and stole yesterday, and Sam grips the armrest on the side Dean can't see and squeezes so hard the metal edges hurt his hand, and it's welling up in him. A grey clouded day with a shaft of sunlight slipping through and warming a patch of cold dirt—that's what it feels like, Dean's happiness. Sam licks his lips and breathes shallowly, controlled. When he glances over Dean's watching the show—some sponsored segment about a special vacuum for pet hair, in which he seems completed absorbed—and he's relaxed, in that way that Sam's only ever seen Dean relaxed when they're alone. Completely in his body, unselfconscious of how he's taking up space, boots kicked out on the grimy floor, his eyes clear. A fleck of pink donut frosting on his top lip. There are shadows under his eyes because he doesn't sleep enough and there's a bruise at his temple where Gordon hit him, but he's okay, for this moment. Sam can feel it, in a completely distinct way to how he feels his own body, his own aches and tiredness and worry, and he sits there in ringing panic until the washer buzzes. Dean blinks, the spell of the daytime anchors suspended, and frowns at him, and says, "Hey, earth to egghead, I am here in a strictly supervisory capacity," and Sam has to roll his eyes again and stand up and deal with the laundry, and there's Dean, again, the happiness muted and rolled under—a dragging pull at the chest, an ache long-held and familiar. Worry, concern. Annoyance, too, and then as Sam's dumping their load of jeans and jackets into one of the rolling baskets that twinge of annoyance slips away into guilt, and he has to brace his hands on the sides of the basket and breathe again, slowly, trying not to crawl out of his skin with the violation of it.

"What?" Dean says, while Sam's silent over the wet clothes. "Did I leave gum in my pocket or something?"

He knows Dean. He has known Dean, from when he was little and running around after him thinking his big brother was the coolest smartest person in the world to when he was a sad kid thinking his brother didn't actually like him that much to when he was an angry teenager wishing his brother would take his side in anything, ever, for fucking once. Dean was always a known quantity, no matter what. No surprises. Sam knew when he was cheerful and angry and hurt and he knew how to deal with every version. This is—more than that.

No signs, still, of Ava. They move outward. Day trips, stretching out into different towns, different precincts. They split up, Sam renting a car, and on the state highways with the radio silent Sam tries to think, with Dean not around with his thoughts filling up the air between them.

He catches hints, with other people. A sheriff who's not sure why some U.S. Marshal is asking questions, and he's clearly annoyed but there's an undercurrent Sam catches, a sapping weariness and sorrow that Sam blinks over before he excuses himself, wondering. A search: a wife, recently dead at forty. Sam chews the inside of his cheek raw on the drive back to Bloomington, and Dean texts and says dinner? back in thirty and Sam replies I'll pick up pizza and he waits in the lobby of the pizza place with his knee jogging and a waitress smiles at him, professional, and Sam takes a deep breath and looks at her, taking in her sneakers worn around the edges and her muscular legs and the greys pulled back into her ponytail and she says, "Can I get you a Coke or anything while you wait, hon?" and a swirl of heat curls into Sam's stomach, slants down queerly low, and he sits up straight and watches her eyes flick over him, his chest and lower, and he blurts out, "No," and then, too late, "thank you," and she frowns and the heat fizzles out into disappointment and he thinks, fuck. Fuck. What now?

With Dean the feelings bloom raw and real and present. Sam doesn't have to look. A day of frustration and no leads but Dean doesn't actually feel the frustration, not really, because he's humoring Sam's obsession over finding this girl Dean never even met—and there's a little satisfaction there, too, something that makes Sam set his beer down a little too hard on the table when he recognizes it, because they're spinning their wheels here, Dean thinks, and that means that Sam's being kept here, safe, away from demons and whatever plans there might be, so he's getting what he wanted, after all. The second Apes movie is on the motel TV and Dean's watching that, scratching his belly idly after too much pizza, and Sam goes into the bathroom and sits on the closed toilet and presses his fingers into his ears so hard he can't hear anything but the beating rush of his own heart, and even through a closed door and quiet and dark behind Sam's eyes he can feel it: his brother, content to be here with Sam, on a night where nothing's yet gone wrong. Little does he know.

Is this some new shift, in Sam's visions? Not only to see the future but to see—what? He doesn't know how to define this. He's seen in movies when people read minds, like that terrible Mel Gibson thing that Dean loved even if he pretended it was shitty—it's always narrated dialogue, someone's thoughts piped directly into the psychic's head. What Sam's getting isn't as useful as that. Emotion, shifting sensation, the ebb and flood and draining drag of how people move through the difficult world. Guilt, misery. Contentment. Fury, brief and shocking, enough to make Sam snap the pencil he's holding, and he looks up to find Dean leafing through Dad's journal, his face a calm mask, and Sam thinks, jesus, he has to tell Dean. He has to, and yet: what can he possibly say?

The dreams are still bad. Sam comes awake like out of a sucking bog and he breathes slow, eyes on the ceiling. Dean's small snores in the next bed. The fear's a pool, lapping against Sam's skin, and he turns his head and says, very quietly, "Dean." There's no answer because of course Dean's deep asleep, of course he's dreaming, and Sam rolls over, watches the slow rise of Dean's chest, concentrates. The dark rises thick, miserable, but Sam already knows that part.

He gets up, keeping quiet, and takes the step between their beds. The room isn't all that dark, the parking lot lights seeping bright behind the curtains, so it's easy to see the gilded line of Dean's cheekbone, his lips parted in sleep, his eyes closed and still. His face tipped toward Sam's bed. Sam wants to touch it so abruptly that his fingers are already reaching out but he stops himself. He leans over, instead, bracing a hand on the headboard, and tries to focus, tries to pin down the amorphous shifting haze of Dean's thrumming head. When he closes his eyes he doesn't see the black lake, the creaking boat, but the fear slips, slides, lapping against him. Against them both. Sam can't grasp it. He's not Andy, to push thoughts into someone else, and he doesn't see how he could get control of this—to ease the fear, or tell Dean somehow that it's going to be okay even if, really, Sam's not sure that's true. He stands up and turns away, goes to the window to look out at the silent parking lot and breathe, waiting it out. The dream swells and subsides, around him, and maybe that's Dean slipping down into a different REM cycle or something but it's a relief. Sam presses his forehead against the cool glass. Visions, and now this. His pointless, stupid powers, that don't let him do anything except see shit he can barely hope to change. Whatever powers the yellow-eyed demon was after them for, Sam hopes he won't be disappointed that Sam's in particular are completely impotent.

By the time two weeks have gone by Sam's—used to it is maybe not the phrase, but he can deal. Still in Bloomington, still searching. Waiting around, now, mostly, for Ellen's contacts to get back to them, for Ash to come up with anything on a scrape of, as far as Dean could relate, the entire internet. If Sam's honest with himself he thinks they're never going to find Ava, and if they do certainly not alive, but they're looking anyway. Dean doesn't suggest they move on, doesn't argue for anything else. He keeps them fed and caffeinated, finds new badly bowdlerized action movies to watch on the room's TV, follows Sam's leads when Sam suggests a new avenue of searching. His dreams are a little calmer, maybe just from the fact that they're stalled in place—a vacation, of a sort, like Dean asked for even if they're doing nothing remotely fun—and during the day Sam sits surrounded by his thoughts and it's… comforting. Sort of.

Happy isn't the word, Sam realizes, for that thin sunlight feeling. Contentment, maybe. Dean has it when they're quiet together, when they're doing stupid chores like laundry or taking a break in research to make some salt rounds, when they're arguing over Stallone versus Van Damme for the tenth time. When they're working Sam's gut tightens without his say-so in random spikes of anxiety, of worry. His heart clenches and he actually puts a hand over it, and he's just reading the police blotter in the paper, so when he looks up and Dean's got his half open to the obits, Sam frowns and says, "What?"

Dean jerks, like he was caught at something. "I didn't say anything," he says, and his face is calm but his hand's spread over some thin column, some family's sadness, and when he gets up to piss Sam pulls the paper around and sees it's an obituary for someone's father, dead a little too early, and Sam sits back and puts his knuckles into his eyes and breathes out, trying to shake the lingering ache of it.

Coming out of the shower that night, Sam wraps a towel around his waist and steps out into the bedroom. "What's for dinner?" he says, thinking he'll argue for Chinese whatever Dean says, and thinking that he might try searching up more information about Ansem's family, in particular, to see if there were any patterns there they could use, and he's in his own head enough that it takes him a minute to feel how the room has shifted around him. He pauses, leaning over his duffle bag, trying to pinpoint.

"There's that cheesesteak place over on 15th," Dean says, easy, but he's not at ease. Sam's feeling that same unexpected swoop in his gut, that low achy pull, and this time it's not from a woman but from a guy and so it's a tightness in his nuts, his blood heating. Sam grips his t-shirt in both hands, tight enough that his broken wrist aches. His cheeks have flooded hot and he stands up, shrugs his shoulders and feels the cold air on the water still on his skin, and the—the lust, because that's what it is, this thick wanting that's pulsing up through his stomach—it swoops low, shifts, and the flooding rise of guilt and fear that follows is so fast that Sam coughs, shocked.

"Yo, Marlee Matlin," Dean says. "Cheesesteak?"

"Yeah," Sam says, not turning around. He doesn't want to see what face goes with this feeling. "No onions on mine."

Dean snorts. "Heathen," he says, and there's a rattle of the keys being dragged off the table and Dean swinging into his leather coat, and he says, "Have clothes on by the time I get back, you exhibitionist," and the tangled mix of wanting and terror and shame is so thick that Sam can still feel it when the door's slammed behind him, when the car's rumbling on, fading only when the sound of the engine does, and Sam turns around then finally and looks at the empty room and thinks—nothing. His brain doesn't know what to do with this.

The cheesesteaks are decent. They watch the local news for any blood-and-guts, and then Frasier reruns. Dean's content has been blasted away by what happened earlier but he's acting fine and Sam's wondering, now, how often he's been fine when something raw and bizarre was rearing up in him. How long it's been in him. "You okay?" Dean asks, at some point, light but careful, really asking, and Sam dredges up a half-smile from somewhere and shrugs, says, "Just thinking," and Dean rolls his eyes and says, "Oh, god help us all," and Sam throws a balled napkin at him, and Dean grins and swings into the bathroom and Sam hears the sink go on but when he closes his eyes his head is full of Dean's head, and he can almost see it: Dean braced over the sink, his head hung between his shoulders, his cheeks hot and his hands clenched and him saying to himself something like stop.

Sam blinks, back in the room. He did hear that. Stop, Dean says, inside his own head, loud and deliberate, but his thoughts swirl somewhere else and he's imagining—there's Sam's back, broad and damp and golden in the light, and the low line of the towel around his waist, and the wet curl of his hair around his ear, and how Dean wanted to put his mouth there, so badly he could almost taste the water—and then the harsh wave of recrimination floods the image out and Dean looks up into the mirror and thinks to himself, in clear words that he doesn't say out loud, you pathetic fucking freak, and Sam has to get up off the bed and slam out of the room and stand in the parking lot with freezing air on his bare arms and he holds his hand over his mouth so he doesn't curse out loud and he thinks jesus, bad enough that one of them is thinking it—the self-hatred that's tightening up his chest is hardly easing, from getting some distance, and soon he'll have to go back into the room because Dean will wonder what the hell he's doing, standing outside in his socks like a weirdo, and Sam has to say—he has to—this isn't fair, to either of them—but how can he say it without Dean knowing exactly what Sam must have overheard—overfelt—and Sam knows his brother, always has, and he knows what'll follow. A freakout, to say the least. Recrimination, reflected blame, anger and then fear—always the fear—that Sam's slipping further away, or worse that Dean will have pushed him further away—and Sam can't do this, he can't live like this, without Dean. He can't handle this stupid, terrible year, not without his brother on his side.

He takes a deep breath, cold in his lungs. Jesus, is that what he's going to do? Just live with it, because—

"Dude, what the hell?" comes Dean's voice, behind him. Sam turns and finds Dean, yes, standing in the open doorway, his hair a little damp at the edges like he splashed his face, his eyebrows high because here's his little brother being a weirdo like always. Except that he's more worried than his face lets on, and there's a rising tide of is something happening, is this something about the demon, the tang of fear that fills every night.

"Thought I heard something," Sam says, trying to interrupt it before it gets too bad. "By the car. I think it was just a dog or something."

He's a better liar than Dean gives him credit for; already it's working, the fear sliding into warm exasperation. That thin, frail beam of sunlight. "Freaking out Fido, now?" Dean says, while Sam walks wincing back across the parking lot, scattered gravel poking through his socks. "New low, bro."

"Yeah, yeah," Sam says, brushing past where Dean's holding the door open, and there's a thrill—in his chest, in Dean's—that he clamps down on, ignores, but he can't ignore the misery around it. That's a problem.

Sam stays awake that night, waiting for Dean to sleep. The black lake, the blood. Sam turns on his side and watches Dean's face and closes his eyes slowly, thinking of that moment just before the guilt, the shame—the clear, unadulterated want—and when he dreams they're in the cabin, again, and Dean's bleeding with his unconcerned hand holding nothing inside, and the water surges hard against the sides of the boat, floods the floorboards, and Sam opens his eyes and slides off his bed onto the floor and lays his hand onto Dean's stomach where in the dream he's dying, and he presses his forehead against the mattress and shudders, aching with how much it hurts, and the dream—shifts.

He breathes in, still halfway in sleep himself. Dean's hand covered in blood and his shoulders hunched up, but his face turns up and he sees Sam, standing there in the doorway watching him. He says something but Sam, the real Sam, can't hear it; the Sam-of-the-dream comes closer, looms. He looks a foot taller than Dean, broader. Monstrous almost. Sam catches his breath and the dream-Sam puts his hand over Dean's hand, holds it tighter against the wound, and Dean tips his head back and murmurs something and the Sam of the dream presses their hands tighter, hard enough that it should hurt except in the way of dreams there's no real pain but only the knowledge of being torn open—and then the Sam of the dream leans in and presses his mouth to Dean's, a chaste strange kiss, like kissing marble—and their hands sink into Dean's stomach, tearing—and when the kiss ends Sam lifts up and Dean opens his eyes and Sam's eyes are yellow, from edge to edge, and Sam shoves away from the bed, scrambling so fast he slams his shoulder into the frame of his own, and by some fucking miracle Dean doesn't wake up so Sam's left panting, alone on the carpet in the dark, a remembered warmth against his lips and his hand feeling an echoed-ghost slickness of black, dripping blood.

He puts on his sneakers, a hoodie, sticks his phone in his pocket but turns it off. He goes for a run. Three a.m. is silent around here and he needs that, needs no people. He runs hard enough and long enough that it's hard to think beyond the burning in his thighs, his lungs. His hurting shoulder where he's going to have a bruise.

When he gets back Dean comes awake at the door opening. "Where were you?" he says, bleary, and Sam says, "Out for a run, go back to sleep," and Dean's tired enough that he blinks at Sam heavily and mumbles, "Okay, freak," and subsides, turning over and hugging the pillow close. Sam stands with his back to the door, his hands fisted around the knob, watching as Dean slips back down into sleep, and it's deep, dreamless, a relief.

Sam showers and takes his time about it. He's not getting back to bed today. He washes his hair and his face, not bothering to be careful about keeping his cast dry anymore—it's almost time for it to come off, anyway—and his brain won't empty, won't let him forget. He can't get the image of his own eyes out of his head. Glinting gold. The version of him in the dream wasn't cruel, because it wasn't human. Peeling Dean open and giving him what he wanted and killing him, all at once. It's not hard to interpret.

He washes the rest, streaking soap. Takes his limp dick in hand, running his thumb under the foreskin, and then holds himself, his cast braced against the tile wall. He hasn't jerked off in—he can't even remember, the last time. It could clear his head. He squeezes, sliding wet up to the head, but what he imagines is—Dean's mouth, in the dark, barely parted. His own shoulders, gleaming inside Dean's head. He lets go of his dick and wipes his hand over his lips, trying to get the sensation out, and shuts off the water. It can't go on like this. Not like this.

He dries off in a half-assed way and tugs on boxers and nothing else. Out in the room Dean's still asleep and dawn's not yet rising. Sam shuts off the bathroom light and in the mostly-dark goes over to Dean's bed and sits on the edge of the mattress, and puts his hand on the back of Dean's neck. A blurring shift, coming on like a slow dimmer switch, as he rises up out of whatever dreamless space he was in. "Dean," Sam says, very quietly, and Dean's eye slits open, gleaming. He turns his head, rolls back a little, and Sam's hand drags along to his shoulder, fitting there on the smooth warm round of it. Dean blinks and is still almost entirely offline, the fog of his thoughts nothing but grey sleep, and Sam leans down and kisses him, then, catches his mouth a little off-center with his lips dry, his breath sour, his body warm and loose and unable to stop him.

No reaction for a few seconds, either in his body or his head. Sam opens his mouth and presses Dean's lips wider and gets the morning-taste of him, thick and strange, soft. He touches Dean's chin, the damp edge of his cast dragging against his skin, and it's that which seems to wake Dean up—his body going stiff, his mind flooding with—god, Sam can't untangle it all. "What," Dean says, against Sam's mouth, pulling back, but Sam grips his shoulder and presses him flat against the bed, leaning over him, keeping him here. Flicker of his eyelashes in the dark and his mouth's shining now, too, from Sam's mouth. Sam's stomach turns over to see it.

Sam doesn't say anything. Dean's breathing hard, looking up at him. Fear, pooling around the bed, flooding the room like the bed's the boat and the room's the lake, and Sam maybe doesn't get it entirely—he thinks of his eyes, yellow in Dean's mind, and his hand clenches hard enough on Dean's shoulder that Dean cringes away, grips Sam's wrist. "Sam," Dean says, uncertain—wondering if he's still dreaming—and Sam leans down and kisses him again, ignores Dean's stiff scared lips and licks inside, knocking him open, his cast heavy on Dean's chest, his wet hair dripping cold. He feels it, of course, when it starts to wake in Dean—the sensation of his body, his mouth, the warmth rising south, the shock of getting this—the confusion—and he pulls away, enough that he can look into Dean's eyes, says, "Feel this," and breaks Dean's grip on his wrist and slides his hand down under the blanket and past Dean's flinching belly to his dick, heavy in his underwear, swelling. Dean takes a shuddering shocked breath and the rise of want is so thick that it chokes out the fear, the guilt, his mind going full and focused at getting his dick held by someone he wants as badly as he wants Sam. God. To know that.

The want is so intense that Sam knows it won't matter that he's never done this before. A dick is a dick, though, he figures, and he slips his fingers inside the waistband, finds the pole of it—thick, the skin unexpectedly soft—and Dean's body arches under his, his breath hot and fast already. Sam doesn't want this, not in the same way, but it hardly matters when Dean's desire roars high between them. "Touch me," Sam says, and Dean goes for Sam's chest, his shoulders, grasping in fumbled shock, while Sam gets a better grip, pumps, finding a rhythm. Awkward with his left hand but clearly doing the job, from how Dean's already shaking, his thighs spreading for it under the blanket, his fingers tight in Sam's skin. Sam leans down, finds Dean's mouth again, and Dean opens for him easy, letting Sam inside, his hands finding Sam's jaw. His fingers careful, uncertain—sliding up into Sam's damp hair, holding—and his hips jerk—and Sam licks into Dean's mouth and pumps him faster, his shoulder sore and aching, his fingers getting slick—jesus, Sam runs his thumb over the head and feels the wet leaking—and Dean jerks under him like touching a live wire and comes just like that, hips shoving up into Sam's grip, wet heat that spills over Sam's hand and against his wrist. Sam gentles his grip and Dean jerks into his palm, getting the last of it out. His chest is heaving, under Sam's cast. Sam kisses him, again, and Dean's teeth drag against his lip, and Sam slides his hand up out of Dean's shorts and presses his palm firm against his bare belly, heedless of the mess.

When he lifts up Dean's staring at him, fixed. The room's inundated with his thoughts, a whitewater crush. Sam's mouth tastes like metal. Dean's fingers reach up, white, and touch his cheek, and Sam drags in air and lets himself be touched, and Dean doesn't know what to do with this. He wants to tackle Sam back to the bed and he wants to crawl under something and he wants to be not who he is because who he is has ruined—

"Stop," Sam says, pressing his palm harder against Dean's belly. "Stop thinking."

Dean licks his lips, looks back and forth between Sam's eyes. Distracted from the misery but just as bewildered, and worse. "What are you thinking?" he says, after a few seconds. Scrape of voice, thick and unsure.

"I'm thinking I want you," Sam says, and Dean blinks and this terrible curl of hope goes through him, another kind of light like a brush of rose-fingered dawn at the edge of a dark landscape, and Sam hasn't felt that, hasn't come close to that, this whole awful time. Sam bites his lips and hopes Dean doesn't hear the next part as qualification: "I want you here. With me. Not—freaking out. Not worried about—whatever it is you're always worrying about."

Dean swallows. His face turns away a little. "Me, worry," he says, breath of a scoff, and there's that rawness again, the shame pulling at his gut. Afraid of this and afraid of Sam in equal measure.

Sam can't stand it. He won't have it. "Don't," he says, and Dean's eyes flick at him sidelong, his mouth turning to some unhappy shape, and Sam pushes in and spreads out over the top of him and kisses him again, his wet gross hand sliding up Dean's side, his mouth crushed hard against Dean's mouth. Dean kisses back this time, for real, and he's—softer, tenderer, than Sam would have ever imagined Dean would kiss, if he had ever imagined it.

It's Sam who breaks the kiss—every part of Dean, body and mind, is full of the feeling that he would never, ever stop unless the room was on fire, and maybe not even then—and when they're breathing against each other Dean's hand worms up out of the blanket and finds Sam's side, over his ribs. Squeezes there, very lightly, his heart thrilling terrified at the presumption. "Sammy," he says, one word a complicated snarl of a question, and Sam shakes his head, can't answer. He moves his right arm, bracing the cast instead by Dean's head, and Dean's chest rises under the release of the weight. A release, all over, and that dawn keeps rising, though the lake's still black and its depths are impossible to see.

Sam tucks his head down, his face in Dean's throat, like they're hugging, like something familiar at least, and Dean's arm goes around his back, holding him. "Sam," he whispers, against Sam's hair. Sam closes his eyes and feels the surge of it: tender, violent, aching. A glut that presses against the back of his teeth with all he wants to say and won't.

He doesn't know if that feeling is his, or Dean's. Behind his eyes it's black and dawn's still not here. On a lake, in the dark, there's a boat creaking, the water surging high but not yet spilling over the side.

#ffcc #wincest #pining!dean #psychic sam #mildly dubious consent #my writing

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angstyaches · 4 years

Note

“Someone shyly asking, “Could you rub my tummy?” while groaning with pain because who doesn’t love that?” This scenario for Felix and Elliot please. With Fee being the sickee

Here it is! It was supposed to be a drabble, but in true Flick fashion I could just Not Stop. I might even write a part two about the car ride back to the townhouse (if I feel like it / if anyone expresses an interest). Also, I can’t believe I’ve written like ten sickfics for my vampire boys but in not one of them (?!) have they actually been sick because of drinking blood?!

CW: blood, slaughter of an animal, vampires drinking blood, spice (?!), nausea, drowsiness

___

Felix’s stomach felt like it was being pinched from the inside, caught in the grasp of something with claws that wanted to drag it right out of his body. It was impossible to tell anymore whether the discomfort was from nausea or prolonged thirst, because the former almost always accompanied the latter. He’d have pressed his hands to his belly if they’d been free, but they were working on another ache.

His fingertips were pressing into his face, just above the edges of his lips. He let out a low groan as he tried to massage away the throbbing pain that had gone from dull to distracting in the space of a few minutes. Pressure piled up on the roots of his upper canines, and to a lesser extent, his lower ones.

Ryan stood up from where she’d been crouched, feeding, and looked over her shoulder, rubbing at the red stain smeared across her pale white cheek. Her sleeve was white too, and as the blood soaked into it, Felix could already hear Nancy yelling about it as soon as they got back home.

“You should have a wee drop,” Ryan said smoothly. Her eyes were golden yellow and practically glowing after the hunt and the kill and the blood. It was always about the blood, wasn’t it? Her white hair looked brighter out here in nature too; back in the townhouse, it just matched the walls. “Just to tide you over.”

Felix looked down at his feet, getting momentarily distracted by his hands, which were trembling horribly by his sides. The ache in his belly was increasing from the sight and the sound and, indeed, the smell of feeding. The pressure building up in his gums was growing more and more intense, and it almost felt like his fangs were jabbing upwards, scraping at the bones below his eyes and making them water.

He knew he could refuse if he wanted to, and Ryan wouldn’t say another word about it, but he did need to drink, and it would be a while until he could get his hands on anything other than blood in its rawest form; warm and straight from the vein. Ryan knew he didn’t like it, so she would never suggest it if she didn’t think it was the best thing for him.

Fingers pressing even more deeply against his gums, he slowly approached the beast that had been breathing minutes before but wasn’t anymore, trying his best not to look it in the eye. He sank to his knees beside Elliott, whose back was so hunched over it looked like his spine had been bent in half. He was slurping and sucking at a wound he’d opened in the creature’s neck.

He didn’t notice Felix sit down next to him, not until Felix reached out to touch his leg, automatically seeking physical contact. He was nervous, and he was in pain, and Elliott understood him better than anyone he’d ever met. He didn’t stop to consider the fact that Elliott was currently a hundred miles away, in feeding mode, and probably could have turned and ripped his arm off without hesitation.

But when Elliott’s head snapped around, all he gave was a sound that was halfway between a snarl and a question. Hmmph? His eyes were practically blazing gold, his lips were furled back over sharp fangs, and his teeth and chin were painted brightly with blood. Spatters of it dotted his face and had gotten into the strands of hair he liked to wear by his face.

Felix, trembling and clean in comparison, couldn’t tell if the sight of his boyfriend giving in to his bloodlust like this was terrifying or beautiful. Either way, he didn’t flinch or move, besides the violent quivering that suddenly set into his lower lip.

The hungry look in Elliott’s eyes softened slightly, and his fangs began to ease back from over his lower lip. He unclenched one hand from the dead beast’s neck and laid it on the hand Felix had put on his leg.

The eye contact didn’t break until Elliott had leaned in close enough for their lips to press together.

Felix inhaled sharply, the sweet, metallic smell of the blood on Elliott’s face already making him dizzy with lust. The pressure inside his skull shifted, almost like a cork had popped deep inside his gums, and he felt his fangs beginning to contract and lengthen.

He let Elliott pry his mouth open for a deeper kiss, tasting blood on his tongue until he didn’t anymore. Their teeth clashed, and there was a trickle of blood that wasn’t animal blood, but Felix didn’t know if it was Elliott’s or his own. Either way, it didn’t put him off.

He needed more. He sat up higher on his knees and sucked the animal’s blood from around Elliott’s lips, barely aware of the low, desperate noises rising in his throat as his body demanded more –

“Whoa, hey – here,” Elliott half-laughed, leaning back and pulling Felix with him, so that the younger boy could drop against the open wound in the animal. Felix sank his teeth into the beast’s still-warm flesh, gasping and drawing in mouthfuls of liquid.

It tasted unbelievably sweet, almost unbearably so, and once he started, it felt like he would never want to stop. His body seemed to ripple with instinct and pleasure and relief. His stomach grew warm and heavy. He didn’t stop until his lungs ran out of air and he began to see stars. He ripped his teeth free and scrambled back on the forest floor, gasping. Elliott put a hand to his back to stop him from toppling over.

“Jesus, that was…” Elliott’s voice was close to a growl. “So fucking hot.”

Felix gave a shuddering sigh. Elliott was a lot more present and coherent now, it seemed. He was grinning breathlessly, jerking his shoulders slightly like he did when he had excess energy. “Are you okay, boo?”

Felix glanced down at himself and gave a shuddering sigh at the sight of his second-favourite skinny jeans and third-favourite green sweater patched with blood.

“I’ve got blood all over me,” he mumbled unhappily.

Elliott laughed at that, but Felix barely reacted. He felt like his brain was hovering somewhere outside his body; his eyes too, so that he was staring at himself in horror. The only thing that brought him back to reality was the loud gurgle that came from deep inside his body, a thing that he both heard and felt.

“Oh, gosh,” Felix gasped, folding his arms gently over his belly and leaning forward.

“Fee?” Elliott asked, leaning in a little closer. “Does it hurt? It probably shouldn’t hurt. Hey, Ryan, is he okay?”

Ryan appeared in front of them, dropping to a squat and lowering her head to get a look at Felix’s face. “Felix, are you going to vomit?”

Am I going to vomit? he asked himself very sincerely. No. Or, at least, he didn’t want to. An animal had lost its life, and he’d taken its blood, and that meant something; it meant he had to hold onto it.

Felix slowly shook his head, gulping hard and wishing he had something to rinse his mouth out with.

“Probably just drank too much too fast,” Ryan mused.

Elliott gently helped him to his feet, but as he stood, it felt like the contents of his belly were still down on the ground somewhere, dragging and weighing him down. He had no idea how Ryan sprang so delicately to her feet, like a pixie on puppet strings. He had no idea how Elliott looked so beautiful when he was such a mess.

He didn’t know anything except for one fact; his stomach was starting to ache. A lot.

He winced as he felt something shift in his gut, but instead of a gurgle, this was a deep, clenching rumble that made his knees feel a little weak. He pulled away from the hug so he could put his hands on his belly. He stared down at it as it cramped again, imagining his organs weren’t quite sure what to do with this amount of blood when he’d only ever consumed a fraction of that amount in the past.

His throat tickled with panic, and a different kind of pressure was building around his eyes.

Elliott hovered a few feet back, like he still didn’t trust Felix not to going to puke all over him. Not that it would have mattered, since he was already soaked in blood.

“You keeping it down, boo?”

“I – I hope…” Felix said weakly.

“I’m a bad influence, aren’t I?”

Felix grimaced through the faint sting of tears. Considering that Elliott was the reason he was half-vampire in the first place, he’d have said that was an understatement. He didn’t say it though, because his stomach and his jaw both clenched in unison, and all he could let out was a strangled whimper.

“Oh, boo,” Elliott sighed, finally coming close again so he could tuck some of Felix’s bangs behind his ear. The tips of his fingers were so gentle against the side of his neck that he shivered and sank his head against his chest again, desperate to be held and comforted.

“You can take it easy for a few more minutes while I’m working here,” Ryan said. She was still licking subconsciously at her lips as she readied the syringe that she used to take blood home for future use. “Then we’re going to have to get a move-on back towards the car, before it gets dark.”

“Mmhmm,” Felix said, nodding weakly against Elliott’s ribcage.

Ryan turned her back and crouched by the dead animal. With his head lowered and with Elliott blocking his view, Felix didn’t see her work after that, but he reckoned she was concentrating enough not to be paying attention to him anymore.

“Elli, darling?” he asked in a small voice.

Elliott touched the back of his head. “Yes, gorgeous?”

“Could you rub my tummy?”

Without another word or a single beat of a pause, Elliott ran his hands down over Felix’s shoulders. His touch lingered along his waist for a second, fingertips careful despite knowing every slight curve in his body like a map he’d studied for decades. He brushed the palm of his hand gently over Felix’s stomach, pausing as he felt the pressure just below his ribs, trying to assess how much pressure would be too much.

He got his answer not too long after, as Felix whimpered again, tensing a hand around Elliott’s elbow.

“Sorry,” Elliott murmured softly, smoothing his hand down over the tight, achy spot and kissing the top of Felix’s head again.

The smaller boy just continued groaning and whining in discomfort. He felt his face flush slightly as his belly bubbled under Elliott’s hand, its contents sloshing unbearably into his oesophagus. Something pinched at the bottom of his ribs and inched its way upwards, and Felix opened his mouth, covering it quickly.

He barely lifted his head as Ryan came back over and stood in front of them, stowing her syringe in her bag.

“Boys,” she said shortly, glancing back and forth between the two of them.

Felix began to straighten up, turning in Ryan’s direction. Along with the pressure leaning down on his internal organs, his bones and muscles were beginning to respond more slowly to his commands, and there was a fuzzy feeling in his head that told him he would be asleep as soon as he was out of the forest.

He felt Elliott keep his hand pressed to his stomach and step around behind him, pulling his back against his chest. Elliott was so much taller than Felix that he had no qualms about letting him take his full weight, and his skin tingled in relief.

Ryan looked at them blankly. “This display is not very dignified.”

“Your face isn’t very dignified,” Elliott murmured with a smirk, now smoothing both hands delicately over Felix’s belly. He could practically feel the heavy liquid sloshing around under his hand, and could only imagine how uncomfortable his poor boyfriend must have been. If the groans he couldn’t manage to suppress were anything to go by, it was quite a bit.

Ryan’s eyes flicked about lazily, not quite reaching the level of rolling. Most people would be too afraid to insult her, even in jest, but Elliott knew she simply viewed that kind of thing as beneath her, and wouldn’t rise to it.

“Love you,” Elliott offered by way of apology, letting his smirk soften into a warmer smile. “Your face is very nice.”

Ryan blinked and began to walk in the direction they’d come from, jabbing Elliott gently in the shoulder with a long, black fingernail as she passed him.

“You can both sit in the back if you’re going to continue with this,” she said, “otherwise I’m going to be losing my well-earned lunch.”

“What do you think, boo?” Elliott asked gently, leaning down towards Felix’s ear. He worked his hand back and forth across the swell of his belly, careful as ever not to jostle it too much. “Are we going to continue?”

It took a few seconds for Felix to register the question and mumble a reply because it seemed as though that post-feeding sleep was creeping in on him much more quickly than he thought.

#emeto mention #vampire emeto #but there's no actual emeto in this fic #blood #felix #elliott #belly rubs #stomach ache #tummy ache #sick boys #sick VAMPIRE boys #sickfic #vampire sickfic #guess you could call it a #SUCKFIC #no Flick stop that #spice #kissing

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maybe-your-left · 4 years

Text

A Case In Need: I Have to Mark You

This chapter has a lot in it... it's not as long as my others but there's a lot that happens.

TW/CW: stepping into more dark territory for this chapter. It may cause you to have anxiety if that's something you get from reading fics that touch on 'physical or mental abuse' if so, I would skip this chapter. Nothing NSFW, but there is some emotional and mental manipulation happening in this chapter.

This chapter hurt me to write but it needed to be done so the two can progress in a 'non-healthy' way in their relationship.

I also wanted to say that I do not condone Ren's actions in this chapter. If you have feelings for someone this is NOT the way to do it.

As always I have a Masterlist so you can read all the chapters and also check out my two other fics, Cowboy Blues and Good Intentions. They are not as intense as this chapter if thats what you are into!

Pain.

Digging, throbbing, gum scraping pain.

Hands were all over you, touching. Grabbing, pinching your skin.

You kept trying to scream, trying to thrash away but the chains kept you still. Ren made sure of it.

You don’t know how long you were held there, you just remember hearing the door open and close. The sound of footsteps entering the room. Ren's voice talking to others, and suddenly you were being touched. Not anywhere sexually, but it felt violating. You didn’t know who they were, how many there were. All you knew was that it hurt.

You jolted from your anxiety-induced fainting, someone was stroking your hair. Brushing it with the cold bristles of a brush. Back and forth over your part, being sure to keep every hair out of your face. It would’ve been soothing if you could speak, but all that could come out were garbled moans. Spit was spilling over the ball gag, soaking your chin, dripping down onto your chest. Whoever was there was quick to wipe the excess while the brush kept combing your hair.

“They’re almost done, Angel.” a deep voice cooed. Lips touching your ear, voice like honey over your frayed wounds. You jerked your head to the side, desperate for reassurance from the assailant. A sharp sting by your side, followed by a separate voice mumbling to itself. “You did so well my princess… I’m so proud of you.”

You moaned, tensing your arms again, trying to break free. But the more you flexed, the more exhausted you became. All you could do was cry, and allow whoever to continue to brush your hair, hoping that the horror would end.

Moments later the pain stopped, in its place was a cold film. Spread across your side, sticking to your sweat-slicked body. Footsteps out of the room. You heard what sounded like a fridge door opening and shutting, followed by someone sitting in a chair opposite from you. Oh how you wished you could see, touch, hear anything except the blood rushing to your brain.

A drink was sipped, the smacking of lips across the room, “Now you’ll never forget who you belong to.”

-----

You were sore. Rolling over in bed, stretching and flexing your arms and legs. Sighing at the popping of joints, a symphony to your bedridden ears. You felt the sunshine flood through the windows, basking the bed in its warmth. You opened your eyes, they were crusted and dry. Probably needed to take out your contacts, you must’ve forgotten to take them out when you went to sleep last night.

Oh.

Your eyes fell to the sheets.

These weren’t yours.

No the ones in your bed were white, these were a charcoal gray.

Something different was in your arms, a soothing softness you hadn’t felt in weeks. You blinked a few times, trying to rehydrate your contacts. Pulling the article up to your face you saw colors. You gasped, it was your tie-dye blanket! The one Ren had stolen from you weeks ago! You held it close to your face, breathing in the scent, familiar and safe. You started crying into the blanket, it had been so long.

“I see you’re awake.”

You stopped, memories of the night before flooding your brain. Dropping the blanket from your eyes you peaked at the man sitting at the foot of the bed.

Ren.

You saw red.

What did he do to you last night? You couldn’t remember, your brain blocking out the trauma he induced. You launched at his figure, stoic and still. He was staring at you, sipping on a cup of coffee. In his sleep shirt and pants, hair tousled so effortlessly you would have forgiven him right then and there. But the moment you moved your side ached with pain. You sat up, instinctively cupping your rib cage.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he instructed. Eyes unblinking, you would’ve thought he was a statue if it wasn’t for his eye twitching.

“What, what do you mean?”

You looked down at yourself, somehow you were dressed in your sleep shirt and a pair of old sweatpants. Both you hadn’t seen since your move to the new apartment, more things Ren must’ve stolen. Your hand pressed to your ribcage, instantly causing you to wince.

“What did I just say?” He set down his coffee on the bedside table, moving closer to you. Reaching out his large paws to no doubt restrain you again. You flinched away, tears forming in your eyes.

“Don’t touch me,” you hissed. Your bottom lip was already quivering, although you couldn’t remember everything. You remembered that he did this to you.

Ren stopped moving towards you, hands falling to his folded legs. Looking at you with dead, unblinking eyes. He hummed and got off the bed, crossing the hotel room to the kitchen. You clutched onto the blanket, attempting to hide from him. Shutting your eyes as you heard him coming back, “Drink this Angel.”

He had a glass of water in his hand, holding it in front of your face.

Your mouth instantly became dry, “Why?”

Ren rolled his eyes, “I can see how chapped your lips are from here just take the water.”

Sitting up again, wincing at the pain, you propped yourself up on the headboard. Grabbing the glass from his hands and slowly sipping. “Good girl, now let’s talk.” He sat back down on the bed, careful not to touch you. Ren ran a hand through his bedhead, sighing as you backed further into the wall. “Before you freak out, I did this for your own good.”

You clung to the blanket again, “What did you do Ren?”

He reached out, stopping when you backed away again. You didn’t want his hands to touch you, afraid of what you might feel. What you might say when he does, how you would betray yourself for falling for him when he was so clearly capable of hurting you.

“You have to let me touch you, I won’t hurt you.”

You scoffed, “Yeah like I’d believe that.” You hopped off the bed, stepping on wobbly legs. Holding your blanket to your chest. You instantly felt dizzy when you stood up, like your body was shutting down all over again. Your vision was spotting, only making it to the couches when you felt Rens arms surrounding you.

“Stop moving, you’ll hurt yourself,” he whispered in your ear.

You threw your arm back, smacking the side of his head, “Let go of me! I don’t-I don’t need your help.”

Smacking him again and again, whatever was on your side was throbbing now with every movement. His arm was trying to keep a loose grip but you kept squirming away from him.

“Angel, stop moving!”

“No!” you sobbed, tears streaming down your face again. You wanted him to let you go, let you fall to the floor, and be at peace. Away from the monster who chained you last night.

“(Y/N)!”

You clenched a fist, swinging up at his jaw. Although you were exhausted and sleep-deprived, you could feel the click of bones smashing together. He fell back from you, hands covering his own face, allowing you to fall on your butt to the floor. Chest heaving, you cried into your blanket, desperate for relief from the aching of your body and soul.

Above you, you heard silent sniffles. Followed by Ren taking a deep breath and probably rubbing his nose on his shirt, “Please. (Y/N), please let me help you.”

Looking up your eyes locked. No longer were they dead, but full of sadness. Regret, pain, just like your own. They were bloodshot, like he had been crying for hours beforehand, his under eyes were puffy and bruised. Ren sniffled again, reaching out a hand to you.

Staring back and forth, the hand and his face, you were torn. An unspoken bond between you two had been severed, and now you were faced with the aftermath.

Slowly you raised your own hand to his, studying how small and delicate it was compared to his palm. Veins scattered across your own skin, discoloration at the wrist, while his own were powerful and callused. Years of work and determination between each muscle, fingers cradling your own. He gently tugged your hand, silently asking you to try and stand up. You raised to your feet, swaying slightly. Ren leaned into you, careful that you wouldn’t fall again. Pulling you back towards the bed, both of you sitting in front of the other.

You redacted your hand once you were settled, holding again to the blanket. Ren brought his hands to his lap, studying his own wrists. Flexing and stretching them in and out of fists before he spoke again.

“Yesterday,” he sighed, “Thing’s got a little out of control.”

You nodded.

“And it is not my fault that you wouldn’t behave and listen to me…”

“So you’re blaming me?” you scoffed.

“Yes.”

You moved to get up again, but Ren’s hands shot out to stop you, “No no no, I’m not blaming you. Please don’t move.”

“I needed you to understand your place in all this…” he looked down at your side.

“And what is my place Ren,” you whispered.

“It’s with me. (Y/N), it’s with me, now and forever.”

You shut your eyes, tears forming once more.

“What happened Kylo?”

He got up, hoisting you into his arms in a bridal carry. Walking to the bathroom. Kicking open the doorway and settling you on the ground between him and the mirror. He said nothing, just grabbed the hem of your shirt and tugged. Understanding what he wanted you lifted your shirt off, closing your eyes, afraid of what you might see. He let out a deep breath, fingers lightly trailing up and down your spine and over towards the affected area.

You opened your eyes and gasped.

You looked terrible.

Your hair was in a knotted mess. Someone, hopefully Ren, had tried to put it in a bun last night but instead maybe tied it in a bow? Your face was splotchy and red, eyes bloodshot like his. Your lips were pink and swollen, puffed up on the inside from the gag being in. Eye makeup smeared across your cheeks and down to your neck.

Your eyes scanned yourself in the mirror, slowly moving towards your left side. Film, you saw a film on your side. Almost like a saran-wrap texture across your skin, taking up the lower portion of your left rib cage and waist. You lifted your arm, revealing the source of your pain.

Gasping, you instinctively went to touch it, Ren grabbing your wrist before you could. You had a tattoo.

Not just any tattoo, but a name. Written in his own handwriting, across your ribcage. The ink was slightly bleeding, along with your skin attempting to pucker under your movements. It was an elegant tattoo, simple and beautiful. If it weren’t for the demon who gave it to you unwillingly you would’ve loved it. But the demon was standing behind you, staring into your soul. Holding you hostage for the second time.

“Why,” you croaked out. Not moving your gaze from the mark.

He swallowed behind you, “You forced my hand.”

“Excuse me?”

Ren stared at the tattoo, his left hand coming across the film. Slowly tracing the lines of his own name, like he had never seen the words before. “Now you’ll never forget how much I love you.”

The words fell on your ears like a curse. All the blood rushing to your head. You felt like you were going to pass out, jerking away from him but he held you still. Breathing menacingly behind you, ready to eat you if you denied his declaration. What kind of sick and twisted game was this? It was fun when you two were fooling around but this, this was wrong. He belonged to someone else and now, now he had gone too far.

He spun you around, forcing you to look him in the eyes. “You’ll never forget that you belong to me, and me alone.” His hand locked on your jaw, forcing you into a kiss. Angry and passionate between both your lips, you tried to back away. You needed air or something to get away from him. Just so you could clear your head. He wouldn’t let go, causing you to sob against him. He pulled you into his chest, pressing your head to listen to his heartbeat. You cried into his shirt, staining it with your tears.

Lifting you to the sink, standing between your open legs he massaged your scalp. Allowing you to cry into his hands. He didn’t try to stop you, only coaxing you to let it all out, reminding you to breathe when you started hiccuping. You weren’t sure how long you cried, but he never left you. Never stopped holding you, kissing your forehead, whispering how much he needed you during the process. Despite his continued movements, your head was pounding. Crying, followed by anxiety attacks and more crying was not giving you the best start to your day. You needed water, a shower and to sleep.

“Please, please stop,” you begged him.

Ren stopped his movements, “What do you need, Angel?”

“Can we shower, and go home?” you heaved, “Please. I need to go home Kylo.”

“Okay.”

-----

Ren showered you, dressed you, and drove you back to the apartment. Neither of you saying a word to each other. Allowing the comfortable silence to bathe the both of you. Once you pulled up to your house he was at your side once more, opening your door and holding your hand up the stairs.

Inside your living room were 6 bodies, hovering over the coffee table. Each one grumbling and laughing with one another like they belonged there. Ren cleared his throat, “We’re back gentlemen. You may resume your posts.”

“Yes, Mr. Ren.” they all spoke in unison. Not one of them looked at you as you clung to his side. Not wanting to get into a petty argument with Ushar or Vicrul after your difficult evening.

“Let’s get you to bed okay, Angel? I have to tie up some loose ends back at the office but the Knights will be here watching over you.”

“Oh, okay,” you whispered. Slowly walking up the stairs. Since your shower, your tattoo has become itchy and hurt even more. Ren wouldn’t allow you to remove the film, telling you that the artist demanded it stay on for another week. That way the skin wouldn’t get infected. Although you hated the tattoo, the last thing you needed was to end up with an infection with your boss’s name on your ribcage.

Ren pulled back the sheets, being sure to guide you to your preferred side of the bed. He tucked you in and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at you. “What are you looking at?”

He sighed, “Just you (Y/N), always you.” he leaned in and gave you a kiss. Getting up and shutting off the lights to your room. Leaving you alone to feel the repercussions of his actions.

TAGLIST: @finn-ray-nal-beads @kirah36 @morby @clumsycopy @onlykyloscenes @candycanes19 @desiraypark @princss-bucky @ghoulian13 @swiss-mrs @douglasdriver @direnightshade @sydneyssmut

#adam driver #kylo ren #kylo x reader #modern kylo ren #kylo trash #Clyde logan #flip zimmerman #charlie barber #phillip altman #toby grisoni #jamie massey

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border-spam · 5 years

Text

Maw

Troy inspects his latest body modification prior to a planned reveal to his followers in a horrific LetsFlay, and considers how heavy the price he’s paid to change his appearance may really be.

Part of my Leech Lord AU series, some OC mentions. Long post. TW - Terminal illness, body image / mental health issues, gore, violence, death

He hissed sharply inwards, then held the breath in his lungs. Futilely willing his heartbeat to calm as he began to mentally count down from 10 like the surgeon had taught him. Every session had been a little better than before, he’d get through it. Stay focused, stay calm, and count from Ten...

Nine… Same as he’d had to do twice a day for the last month, knuckles turning white as his grip tightened on the rim of the stone basin. Eight… Same seemingly endless 10 seconds he’d endured over and over. They would end, keep breathing. Seven… Eyes screwed tightly closed and brow furrowed as the burning pain shot through his gums and jaw. Six… Slowly exhaling through his nose as the fire traveled down his throat and into the root of his tongue. Five… The surgeon had said this would take weeks, not a month. Four… Lower lip trembling as the pain faded into a throb, faster than last time, good. Three… He’d known it would need this care. He’d researched. He’d known. No regrets now. Two… He’d just overestimated how fast he would heal, that’s all. It was major surgery. It would be worth it in the end. One … It would be worth it.

It would be worth the pain.

Letting his head drop forward as he shuddered in a slow breath, Troy slowly opened his watery eyes and took in his reflection in the mirror he faced, softly illuminating him in the dark comfort of his ship’s washroom.

He looked haggard. Cool blue eyes bloodshot and beginning to spill over with the tears he’d held back as the pain subsided, normally rich sepia skin faded to a sickly pallor and glistening with sweat. Some king he was.

“F-fuck..” He sputtered, watching in disgusted fascination as the antiseptic wash gushed over his lips and into the sink under him, leaving strings of blood tinged saliva trailing under his chin. Deep crimson swirls mixing through the blue medical fluid as it splashed up the sides of the basin.

The reaction to the cleaning was a little better than last time, he thought with a sigh as he turned the faucet and watched the medical fluid swirl down the drain. It was healing, and he probably only had another week or so to go before it was fully functional, but shit. It hurt still. A lot.

Running a thumb gently over the swollen reddened seam in his lip, he decided to remind himself why he’d done this as he stared at the dribble of fresh blood it had leaked onto his finger.

Why he’d spent months researching, contacting body mod experts, surgeons, flaunting his name and infamy to reassure them that yes, he was serious. Yes, he had given this plenty of thought. Yes, he understood how major this would be. Yes, he appreciated how much of his jaw and tongue wouldn’t actually be him anymore. That things may not taste the way he remembered after. That his mouth would never be the same.

He had done it, because he didn’t like his mouth in the first place.

It was too soft. Too big, lips too full. It smiled too wide and drew the eye to his delicate cheekbones, he was so sick of being delicate. Troy had been delicate enough his entire childhood, he didn’t want to be as a man too. He wanted respect. He wanted power.

He’d never given it much thought before Pandora. Never really thought about how he looked at all. It had just never been something that required any attention. Why would either have them had even considered their appearances? How they looked had no affect on how well they scavenged, or helped his twin on the nights she was overwhelmed with the reality of her gifts, or change how Pop had acted around him..

It just had never mattered. They were them. They were each other. Why would they need to ever look different? How could it change anything?

He hadn’t cared till Pandora, till other people started to care. And comment. And they had commented plenty in those first few months he and his twin had spent trying to form what was now the planet consume behemoth known as the Children of the Vault. Tyreen had quickly been accepted after he’d designed her imposing outfit and she’d started styling her appearance, but he hadn’t been.

The tattoos had helped for a while, the gauges and piercings he got after too, but he’d had those years now, and he still wasn’t intimidating enough. He was still pitiful. That quiet, stammering, gut wrenchingly gentle voice in the back of his mind reminded him of that often enough on nights when he’d be unable to sleep. When he’d lay in bed staring at the dark ceiling of his bedchamber for hours, and feel his skin crawl while he pretended he couldn’t hear the whispers.

Their rapidly growing follower count had been plenty vocal about which of the twins was the more impressive. Which of the twins they mocked more. Which of the twins had fail collection echo vids of stumbling and looking sickly, and devoted fan forums offering pity and love for the clear underling.

He didn’t want pity. He didn’t want love. He wanted fear, so he changed it. He changed his face.

Troy Calypso is not Troy DeLeon. He does not make rash decisions and be hopeful for the best outcome, everything is planned, everything is schemed. A month out of public eye while he healed? That was fine. He preferred to not be in it that much recently anyway, not while he knew he looked soft…

That had changed now, he reminded himself, watching as his reflection slowly split its lips into a wide, vicious grin that didn’t quite reach its exhausted eyes.

His mouth was razor sharp now.

As the smile melted away, he let his jaw drop open, angling his head slowly from side to side to check the alignment with his skull. Perfect, so much better now that there wasn’t any swelling. Even and balanced, with no lingering stiffness like it had in the last week. If he didn’t know better, he’d think the seams that ran along the center of his chin and the width of his cheekbones were cosmetic, and man... he couldn’t wait to show the galaxy that they weren’t.

Bracing himself with a deep exhale, he lifted his arms, hooked his flesh fingers and prosthetic’s metal digits over the line of teeth on either side of his lower jaw, and snarled deeply as he pulled downwards. The sensation of this exercise had changed dramatically over the weeks. The agony of tearing apart the healing tissue had originally been so bad that the intensely powerful painkillers he’d been doped with for the first few days couldn’t mask it, but now it was more just.. strange. Like the tension of stretching a thick piece of elastic, but inside him. Muscles complained as they shifted unnaturally, despite weeks of training with them daily, but it didn’t hurt anymore. It just felt intimately wrong. Almost arousing in a way, and he noted with an amused snort that this could be a lot of fun in bed once healed up. Well, fun for him. Then again, he was all that ever mattered in that situation anyway. He stored it away as something else to look forward to after the reveal. Slowly easing the jaw downwards, he felt his upper lip curl into a smile as the latches on either side of his cheeks popped open, responding smoothly to the downwards movement on cue. No pain, no stiffness, an improvement at last. It really had been worth doing these exercises. Tilting his head back slowly to allow the jaw to distend fully downwards, he counted to three, a deep breath through his throat for each digit, and slowly… gently… began to pull outward. The shuddering crack that ran through his jawbone as it disconnected at the front seam reverberated up though his skull just like last time he’d done this, and he winced at the sharp jolt of pain. Bad, but nothing unbearable. He’d been through far worse. It still wept blood as it split apart and stretched to either side, but it was clean, and healing, and it looked monstrous.

It was perfect.

Holding each part of his split mandible outwards, he let himself relax, focusing on the muscular movement needed to force the modified tongue out from the depths of his throat and to hang beneath the open maw. This had healed really quickly, he’d been honestly surprised, but the damage in his neck had taken time. The torn and reattached muscle at the connection to his original tongue’s root in his throat still burned and ached like a healing bruise as he forced the slithering length outwards to lol between the jaws, and he slowly removed his hands from them. Keeping the jaws open like this with just muscle control had been something he’d only managed a day ago, and the difference in strength already was incredible. He watched the undulating waves of the extended tongue as it coiled, drool rolling down its writhing length as the mandibles above it twitched with the effort of holding them open without any support. The modified row of secondary teeth hidden inside the line of his natural jaw bone were exactly how he’d wanted them, serrated fangs pointing inwards like barbs. They knit together into a solid plate and rested under his tongue when the mandible closed, but open like this? Beautiful. Terrifying. His mouth looked like a weapon. It looked like he could eat you alive. Let’s see them laugh at him now, let’s see them call him soft when he could crunch their bones between his fucking teeth.

Troy gargled a crackling laugh over the pooling drool in his throat, smile creasing his eyes in the mirror’s reflection as the light caught his distended golden canines, inhumanly long tongue curling at the end in mirth. This was his mouth now. No one else in the universe had a mouth like this, this was unique! This was - “b-broken.”

That voice again...

“… Kkrrokennn... ” he slurred against his palate, tongue grotesquely twitching towards his chest as it attempt to form the word.

Now there was a memory he’d prefer to have not surfaced right now, swallowing the tongue slowly back into his throat as the mandible began to close.

It had been a long time, huh. Long time since he’d first noticed. Long time since he’d last asked why… He lifted his left hand and carefully pressed the lagging right mandible upwards, feeling the click as it connected and realigned with its twin. His eyes locked on his mouth in the mirror’s reflection, and absolutely not on the shape his peripheral vision insisted was standing in the darkness behind him. The one that he was aware was now speaking once more…

“Maybe it was j-just easier for her to not say the truth. Maybe you were less of a burden on her that way, huh. She m-must have been so tired of looking after you, Pop too. They must have been counting the minutes…” He heard it whisper in the back of his mind, that sickening, gentle voice it was getting harder and harder to tune out recently.

“Shut the fuck up.” He muttered under his breath, slowly leaning over the sink and resting his elbows in the rim, watching the water spiral down into the darkness of the drain. He’d made himself.. he’d made himself even more different now. Hadn’t he. Even more broken. What would she think now.

He treasures the memory of Leda. He loves her completely, and he knows that’s true, because damn.. the feelings never changed. He’s never stopped. When he thinks about his mother, he feels the exact same way he did last time he saw her. He was what, 8? Yeah. They were 8 when it happened, that’s right. They were 25 now… They had decayed from children into monsters and still, the exact same warmth blossoms deep in his core when he thinks of her now as it did when he was a little boy.

He feels the twinge of a smile pull at the seam on his lip as he focuses on letting his mind wander back to when he last saw her, but he wishes, in a festering way, she could see him now. Not because it would make her proud, no. God no. He knows she would be repulsed by what he sees in the mirror now, the thing with the metal fangs and hatred inked into its skin, but because he could show her how broken he really had been.

That he knew all along when he’d asked over and over as a child. That she should have just told him and not wasted her love and care on something that would become so disgusting.

He closes his eyes, listening to the running water gargling down the echoing pipe below him, and leans heavier onto this arms. Remembering.

God. He had been so sick.

-----

Day after day, unable to leave his parent’s bed, watching Tyreen’s tantrum’s towards Momma and Pop because Troy couldn’t come explore, or Troy was coughing too much, or Troy got to sleep with them when she didn’t, and it had really hurt to see her sad because of him. It had been his fault she was lonely.

He remembers the guilt, wanting so much to get up and go play with his sister, but not being able to stand for too long before the shakes would start, and then the seizures... Remembers being bundled up in Leda’s arms and bouncing against her hard shoulder as she ran back to their home, screaming at Typhon for letting Troy out of his sight. Troy was sick. Troy needed to rest. But he rested for so long that he forgot what it had been like before, and he never got any better.

He remembers the endless questions, and that they never gave him real answers, even though deep down he knew it was just because he was...

“Why do my stripes not glow, but Ty’s do, Pop?”

“Ty-die, how come you can make those sparks but I can’t do anything?“

“Momma how come everyone else has two arms and everyone else isn’t sick and I’m...“

“Broken broken broken BROKEN”

He remembers the gentle jostle of Leda shifting over onto the bed with him, the heat of her big strong hands against his ribs as she helped prop him up against the pillow as he weakly reached for the little wooden Knight he had left behind on Nekrotafeyo when they escaped. The one Sparrow had made for him. He remembers the frustration of not being able to hold it tightly enough to lift it, and how that seemed so very important at the time. Like it was the most unfair thing in the world. He remembers the comfort of her long fingers sweeping the hair back from his feverish forehead as he glared down at the faded wooden Knight with it’s snapped leg and peeling green paint, and the exhaustion in her voice as she wearily answered -

“Well.. not everyone is the same, Moonbright. Some people are sick sometimes, some people have shapes that might not look like other’s. Some people can sing, some people are clever, some people are kind, some people are terrible. Everyone’s different, babe. ”

And he remembers how dumb that answer sounded, trying not to be angry as he frowned, rolling the little wooden Knight on his lap as he stared down at the dull red markings across the fingers that gripped its broken leg.

“Yeah but Momma.. Why am I so different. ”

---

They never answered it. They never just said the truth. "Everyone is different" is obvious, of course he knew that. Kids aren’t stupid, and he had been a clever kid.. he had spent so many days in that bed wondering why they never just told him the reason he was so.. wrong. So many more as an adult wondering why did it take 13 more years of thinking back and questioning for Tyreen to matter of factly state “...Cuz they were waiting for you to die.” while filing her nails one evening in their shared quarters.

He knows now that they did it out of love, but he also knows he harbors some deep, toxic frustration with his parents because of it. He knows they were trying to keep him happy, that they thought the truth too cruel, but… he spent so many nights sick and alone and in pain, wondering that same question over and over as a child.. and they never told him.

Ty did. Ty does. Ty knows he’s just fucking broken.

They had tried to lie, to keep him from the cruel reality, but it had been true, and he wishes Leda could look at him now, see him hunched over a bloody sink having defiled his face, just so that she could turn away from him in disgust. Then he could know she hated him. Then he could stop holding on, just give up. Just let it go. Become this thing he’d crafted himself into, instead of holding on to dying threads of who he wished he still was inside. He lifts his hand to his face and presses his fingers into the bridge of his nose, pinching, the swirling water background noise now against the pressure inside his head.

How much of him was even left, really. How much of him was metal now, how much of him was the God King.

Years ago, when they had first arrived, Seifa had said he could become anything he wanted to make himself on Pandora, that he had a fresh start. A life. That it could be his choice, and that he had as much a say in it as Tyreen… and look at what he had made himself into in the end.

Exactly what she’d sworn to him that he wasn’t.

Less than 6 months since she’d dropped him like the burden he was, and he’d done this. He’d betrayed them both. Would Mom cry, or not have the tears to waste on what he’d chosen to become after everything she did to try and hide it from him.

A broken, monstrous thing.

He sighs, squinting at the faucet before reaching out and turning it off, then rubs at his eyes in the quiet of the dark washroom, smearing eyeliner further across his cheeks. He’s tired. He could have done without remembering this. It’s hard enough to sleep nowadays without getting stuck on shit like this all night. He stands slowly, stretching his back with a series of pops, and touches the tender side of his jaw gingerly. He still had a few of those painkillers, he remembers with a sniff. Couple of those should knock him out. Keep the nightmares away for one more night. He’d be making his big reveal soon anyway… With one last glance at the mirror, confirming he was alone in the room, Troy turned and walked towards the door to his bedchamber. Sleep now. Emotional bullshit later. That was for tomorrow him, he’d fix it then. He could fix everything, after all. Fixing problems was his forte. He only ever needed time.

---

The LetsFlay numbers looked gooood.

3 billion concurrent viewers and rising according to the stream data flickering in the inner forearm of his prosthetic, they were hungry for this. They were hungry to see him, he gloated, easily sidestepping the frantic stabbing of the heretic who’d been unfortunate enough to find themself face to face with God King Calypso in the wild melee of this raid. 3.5 now he glimpsed, grin wide enough to strain the clips at his cheeks as his sword crunched through the man’s torso, the weight of his prosthetic arm enough to make its downwards swing render solid bone to wet fragments. They didn’t even have time to yelp. Shame, that would have been great for the fans watching from home. He’d planned ahead to get the hype built around this specific raid, his media team working around the clock to spread articles and social updates that the King would be making an appearance, the first in the public’s eye in 2 months, and that he had a fun surprise to unveil for his followers. That he would be leading this raid, just him, all him. No Tyreen. She wasn’t needed this time.

The chaos around him is deafening, screeches shrieking over gunfire as COV marauders scream litanies to the Twin Gods while tearing the camp and its inhabitants apart. Heretics, idiots, they brought this on themselves. They should have taken the offer, joined the Children of the Vault when approached, not attacked a protected caravan in response. He laughs viciously over the raucous, grabbing a panicked bandit who’d dropped to their knees to beg for mercy in front of him, stuttering that they were a true believer as his retinue of crusaders slaughtered other heretics around them. Bullshit. Now they were just fodder, fuel for the media machine, playthings to tear apart on livestream and rile up the followers, get those sweet donations coming in, and mannn were those donations coming in, he noted with a chuckle, barely registering the wet popping of the man’s ribs puncturing his lungs as he ground him into the dirt with the monstrous robotic fist.

This was a great score. This was a game now, and he wished she could see him, blood spattering over his bare, toned torso as he marched onwards, pausing only to rip another piece of screeching meat in two, or sink metal teeth into a limb and tear it from its joint, and each new kill made the score go up:

--- 4 billion viewers. ---

His eyes burn with laughter as he crushes another throat, skin flushed and breathing heavy.

--- 4.5 billion viewers. ---

He sensually smears the blood dripping from his gilded mouth over his chest and abdomen with a obscene caress of his hand, maintaining eye contact with the floating cam circling him as he sneers, the adoration of billions of rabid followers flowing back through the flashing lens.

--- 5.5 billion viewers.

25 billion dollars in donations and it was all for HIM, for God King Calypso. ---

He wished Leda could see him now.

She can’t, but if she could, she’d really see. She’d know what he was all along. That she’d been wrong, and she should had killed him when she had the chance. Then he wouldn’t be here now, doing this to these filth.

His heart is pounding and he can’t fill his lungs quick enough, the insanity of the camp being slaughtered around him is just a blur of viscera and violence. It’s a bloodthirsty high he’s not felt in years and he’s lost to it, the carnal pulse of snapping bone and screaming faces, he’s invincible. He’s immortal, a God tearing through paper thin flesh as it laughs through bloodstained fangs. He’s Troy Calypso, Twin God, God King, he’s perf- Breath rushes out of his chest in a forced bellow as fire erupts through his ribs, and everything stops.

No sound, no movement. Just a heretic to his left, a crude bayonet, and a lucky stab. His retinue guard missed the open flank. A crusader is screaming his name but it’s not reaching him, he can’t hear them now. All he can see is this disgusting, meaningless, mortal thing staring into the eyes of a God, and the raw terror in their gaze as they realise they’ve missed anything vital. They whisper something, perhaps an apology, but it’s too late.

In one fluid motion, Troy’s maw splits and engulfs their entire head as he whips to the side.

There is a single second that feels like an infinity as the entire camp seems to draw in a silent breath, as every marauder, every crusader, every piece of bandit scum looks on in silent, horrified awe. Billions of eyes across the echonet watch in shock in that moment that seems to last an eternity. Watch as he feels the man’s muffled scream start against his tongue, as the serrated fangs lock into his flesh, watch as with a guttural roar, Troy bites down…

… and the heretic’s skull is crushed in his jaws.

Bone shards and pulped brain matter burst between the mandibles in a spray of gore, and the bloodcurdling screech that rises up from the followers throughout the camp is like nothing he has ever heard. It’s like a dream.

It’s a swelling hymn from the mouths of hundreds, all to him, to his glory. They shriek his name in a fervent prayer to their hallowed God King, and he closes his eyes as the chanting swells to a cacophony around him, blood streaming down his chest as he lets the mangled body drop from his hanging maw to the ground.

The hysterical screaming rises to fever pitch, and he stands, unmoving. Their God. Eyes closed and arms held open in triumphant welcome as the deafening noise engulfs him, heart pounding through frantic ecstasy as viscera drops from his twitching jaws.

A towering monster standing amongst the corpses of insects.

He glances down, panting, at his stream data. Letting his mind focus on the blinking panel as he yanks the bloody bayonet from his heaving ribs with a grunt.

--- 8.5 billion live viewers.

“God King Calypso” trending across all major social media.

55 billion dollars in donations to the LetsFlay stream. ---

He wishes she could see what he is now, so he could stop pretending to himself she’d still love him.

He just hopes the camera isn’t picking up the tears he can taste as they drip from his cheeks and run down his squirming tongue.

Check out the #my hcs and #my writing tags on blog for more content if you enjoyed this! Comments and reblogs appreciated. :)

#borderlands #borderlands 3 #bl3 #troy calypso #tyreen calypso #calypso twins #my writing #my hcs #ocs #seifa

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syndianites · 4 years

Text

Horns

PLEASE READ THE CONTENT WARNINGS BEFORE READING

CW: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Self-Harm, Body Horror, Broken Bones, Self-Mutilation, Blood, Dismemberment

If you continue to read on you have been warned!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It always happened when he let himself relax too much. He’d be enjoying the moment, having a good laugh, just feeling free now that there wasn’t a big something to worry about. Always when he felt good, when he felt like things weren’t collapsing around him.

Then there would the tale-tell itch in his head. The discomfort in his mouth. A push in his clothes. The feeling for growing, unfurling.

The cracking of bone jutting from his skull, moving out in stuttered movements. A push with a crack, pause, another push of pain, pause, another. Each symbolized a curve, the rough formation of a wave, a wiggle back in forth of bone. It felt like someone was trying to rip it from his body, as though someone were gleefully pulling at an arm, listening to the person scream and cry, bone splintering and disconnecting with each tug, a splatter of blood hitting your cheek-

Horns, blood red at the tips, falling into a gradient of bone white at the base. That was his blood smeared along the growth. His head throbbed, and if he looked at the horns, eyes drifting along their length, he could almost see the blood pulse in time with the pain. Thump, pain, thump, pain.

But this growth wasn’t alone. More bone- always more bone- pushed from his gums. Teeth, fangs, sharp like daggers and meant to kill. They came in the sort of way you pushed a syringe into flesh: a smooth glide accompanied with a stiff discomfort. Just on the edge of painful, but only really for that first prick.

It was when they dug into the rest of his mouth. They grew from both the bottom and the top set of canines, crowding his mouth. They dug into his gums, tore into the inside of his mouth, and tore up his mouth. They’d grow crooked more often than not. Not sideways, but out, like they were trying to escape the confines of his jaws.

They made it awkward and difficult to close his mouth, even if he ignored how the top pair couldn’t fit back into his mouth at all. The bottom he could squeeze in if he held his jaw open and delicately put his lips together- making it look like an idiot put a big chunk of food in his mouth that he couldn’t chew.

There was the complimentary tail, of course. It was more of a prick than anything painful. Uncomfortable as hell, though. Like having your veins pulled out, a long tube that felt slimy and squishy. Not that he knew what that was like, to pull out someone’s veins, or what the rubbery feeling they have from how they bounce in your fingers whenever you pinch them. Like how you’d bounce off slime.

But no, the only part that hurt was the sting of the tip pushing out and the way the spade shaped end forced its way through a far too small hole made just above his tail bone.

The real pain were the wings that always tried to break free from his suit jacket. It was by far the longest transition, the most jerky and unorthodox way of growing wings.

It started not unlike how the tail came out: there would be a prick as the tips began to push past skin. Then a shove, forcing flesh to split open. With a crack, a length of bone would jut out, ripping into his shirt, then his suit jacket. It would pause, wet and gleaming, then just out again. Length of bone after length of bone, the wings would start to form in halting motions, stained red from drying blood.

There would be no feathers, or skin, or leather-y covering until the bone had found its full way out. This would go on for minutes, agony ripping through his back as his muscles squeezed and contracted in response. His body wasn’t made for this.

And when wings of bone were out fully in the daylight, made of segments and points, his divine healing factor would kick in. Skin would stitch its way up the stained bone, growing with slick, slimy sounds. Underneath the skin a thin layer of flesh and blood would work up, nerve endings running along his new appendages.

They would ache, then. If he turned to look at them he would see dark, reddish leathery skin. Like a bat’s wing.

After that he would barely notice the tingle of his fingernails growing into claws. They would turn dark as well, almost black.

Then there would be a moment of euphoria, of pure, pulsing power in his veins. He felt like a god. No, he was a god. Fire and strength and control buzzing at his fingertips.

But then it’d crash. Reality would body check him, steal the breath from his lungs. He wasn’t supposed to be a god. Wasn’t supposed to be his own god.

He was a traitor, hands made filthy and red. There was death to his name and power in his veins and something so wrong about both of those facts. His heart anchored him, drug him down with guilt, with fear, with regret.

What would Dianite think, seeing him now?

Which Dianite, his mind would whisper, The one you killed or the one you brought back to life?

Both. Neither. The one that mattered to him was dead. That should have been his only solace in his pain- no matter what happened his god would never be able to judge him again. But he could judge himself. He could feel a distant feeling of shame when looking at the Other Dianite. The one who wasn’t killed by his follower, whose champion was a loyal, loving presence by his side. Who had a whole world to come back to with people who trusted him, even those who belonged to other gods.

What did Tom have, as a forsaken, forgotten god?

Wasn’t he meant to replace Dianite, the old Dianite, the dead Dianite? Shouldn’t he have taken up the mantle, reinstated his brand of chaos and scheming, caused more trouble? What was he doing here, wallowing away in his own self pity and shame?

So he’d reach up to his horns.

False god

He’d clench tight, feeling the ridges underneath his palms.

Weak

With a crack and a cry, he’d wrench the horns from his head. They’d dissolve into fire in his hands but the pain wouldn’t touch him there. Instead, it radiated from his head. The rest of the horns would follow, dissolving, melting into his scalp.

The fangs would follow in a similar fashion. They were easy enough to snap off, but they didn’t leave as smoothly. There would be a tingle in his gums as his teeth- his actual teeth- would try to remember what they looked like, how they were supposed to function.

Pathetic

His tail would be hard, but all he had to do was pull, pull, pull. It’d hurt. By then it had seamlessly connected to his spine and it would be a miracle if he didn’t pull his own spine out in his desperation to remove the tail. There would be a long ripping sound, muscles getting torn and bone groaning under the stress.

Tears pricked at his eyes, hot and unnaturally bright, and the tail would jerk free leaving a hole behind. It wouldn’t last for long, but it’d bleed steadily and leave a stain against his dress shirt.

Then his wings. He’d hesitate. They were painful enough on entry, stitched with flesh and bone and nerves and blood. Tearing them off was worse. Blinding and white hot and wretched.

So he’d take his time, flex them out, stretch them. He’d pick off his claws- which were hardened but otherwise not painful to remove. His heart would stutter at the thought of ripping them out.

But he couldn’t just leave them there.

You could

So he’d do it one at a time. Not because it’d hurt less, but because it was easier. They were resilient, built to take stress and strain. But so was he. He’d tug, then yank on a wing, use all the godly force he had left in him.

The first one was always easier. Despite the tear of muscle and snapping of bone, he could get it off. The skin would rip away like fabric, like his suit jacket, followed by a burst of blood and a stretch of muscle.

Then he’d cut a muscle. Pain would shoot down his spine, scream at his head. Nerves would start to fray and the bones would creak and groan. Then they’d break, tear into the rest of his muscles, take apart his wings from the inside.

He’d forget to breathe.

The worst part would be if he was too slow. His body would try to heal as fast as it could, pulling skin back together and repairing bone. That wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to be rid of all the shit that reminded him that he killed Dianite. Not to be stuck with it.

So he had to work fast, faster. Break bone from bone, tear muscle from muscle. It was agony, it was fire running along his skin, a cold sweat on his brow.

And then one wing would be gone.

Followed by pure, shuddering anguish. He’d dry heave, gasping for air. The wing itself would dissolve slowly beside him, still try to heal itself as the last of life bled from it. His back would give out, forcing him to slump forward onto his knees.

And he’d sit there, one-winged, chest heaving for air. If anyone saw him now, they’d think he was useless. Can’t even remove wings.

By pure instinct, his hands would resist moving to tear off the next. But he had to. It must go, he must be rid of it. So he’d grip the remaining one, hands shaking. He’d be slower, this time, which was worse. But his mind fought him, screamed at him to let go, to stop.

He wouldn’t.

He couldn’t.

It hurt more the second time, but less. He was already so far deep in pain that it just… didn’t faze him. Tears rolled down his cheeks, but he barely noticed them over the snapping of bone, the ripping of muscle, the-

The same old thing, over and over. He’d done this before. Ripping half his back off and laid on the floor to let it heal over. Had to cut cloth from his wounds before it got trapped under his skin.

With a sob, the last wing dropped to the floor. And with it, so did he. He watched it dissolve in front of his eyes with a sort of detached apathy. It was pretty, almost. Like a fire struggling to light, to stay alive. Flickering about before being snuffed out.

Maybe that was him. A fire trying to survive until he, too, was snuffed out.

#mianite #tom syndicate #body horror #blood #violence #graphic violence #self harm #self-harm #self-mutilation #broken bones #dismemberment #angst #hurt #hurt no comfort #mianitefanfiction #mianite fanfiction #mianite fan fiction

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dreamy-bee · 5 years

Text

what is love

baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more

just kidding! I finally got around to writing some nsfw art the clown x reader!

this was actually so much fun to write and I hope y’all like it as much as I do! reader’s pronouns are never stated but they are described as having breasts and a vagina.

minors dni, sorry but this is s p i c y also im 23 and that's creepy

You cupped the demon’s painted face, white greasepaint smudging off onto your fingertips as you kissed him desperately. You inhaled his acrid breath that tasted dry as soot, pressing your body into his as if you were afraid that he would fade from this physical realm at any moment and leave you naked and yearning in his wake. It’s as though sometimes you couldn’t believe he was real, if you were even really seeing him, or if he was some kind of sick delusion. A shadow on your wall, a wail in the wind, a demon formed from every sin you’ve ever committed, a punishment for every wretched human deed that only you could see.

He kissed you sloppy, black drool pooling from his swollen bottom lip that you had caught between your teeth in a soft bite, and he soon returned the sentiment, hard enough to draw a bit of blood that he swiftly lapped up, savoring the taste and the feeling of the warm, coppery morsels cascading down his throat. One of your hands moved to caress the back of his head, smooth and soft fabric covering his skull with nothing but a little black hat placed delicately atop. Everything about him was soft and delicate, you thought, an odd juxtaposition to who he really was. Soft silk suit and gloves, sweet collar ruffles and pristinely painted white skin, smooth enough that you could barely see an open pore. He soon left your mouth, all puffy and wet and bleeding, in favor of your neck, dragging his own lips from yours down to the pulse of your jugular, leaving a trail of red. He kissed and suckled there, using his teeth to apply pressure with the gentleness of a lover, a kind of softness that you never knew something like him was capable of expressing. With one of his hands on the small of your back, the other made its way to the other side of your neck, clutching a sharp, shiny scalpel that he teased along every twitching vein and muscle. He did not press hard enough to cause any real damage, but enough to leave several small cuts that beaded with fresh blood and sent new, pulsing waves of heat to your core. You were so willing and ready for him to take you, a perfect, pliant little human that accepted their fate so easily. Perhaps this was why he kept you around, why he thought of you so much differently than every other victim that he slaughtered without a second thought. There was a warmth growing in the pit of his stomach for you. It couldn’t quite be called love, but it was a feeling sweet enough to keep him from driving the blade of the scalpel into your neck and ending you right then and there. He was a demon, a being born from hate. You wouldn’t fault him for not being capable of something as pure, and as human, as love.

He brushed his exposed fingertips, rough and blackened with grime, over the fresh cuts on your neck, stinging from the salt and sweat on his skin. Your breath caught in your throat as he brushed a calloused thumb over a particularly deep cut, fondling the broken skin as though he wished to tease it open further, tear the skin on your tender neck open and bathe in your saccharine blood. The hand on the small of your back slid its way up in favor of cradling the back of your head that hung loose and heavy as he toyed with the slices on your neck. He held you oh so gently, soft waves of hair weaving between his fingers, and he looked into your pleading eyes so intensely that you thought you might faint. He was this awful entity that knew only greed and hate, birthed from the belly of Hell, from every wicked human atrocity committed across lifetimes. And you, oh you, led to him like a lamb to the slaughter, practically skipping to your eventual demise. His perfect, sweet little human toy who fell into his arms so easily, who made the air around him hang so thick that it curdled with fear and desire. You needed him, craved the dreadful horror that he brought into your monotonous life, and it made you feel giddy inside that of all people, he chose you to spare, to enjoy and savor and use and fuck, to feel something warm and soft and full of love and life underneath his cold, tainted hands. You were out of your mind, he thought, to allow him to put hands on you, and maybe that’s why he liked you so.

He dragged the scalpel down your chest, stopping at the swell of your breasts, where he tossed the tool aside to have both hands free to explore every corner of your soft body. Your breasts filled his hands so perfectly, kneading them and biting at your nipples, eliciting little gasps of arousal from your parted lips. You opened your legs for him, exposing the heat of your dripping cunt to the cold nighttime air, your slick beginning to pool on the old metal examination table on which you sat. He was enamoured with you, with every curve and dip of your waist and hips, every little twitch of your brow when he found just the right place on your breasts to suckle and bite at, working violet bruises into your skin that he admired like they were the prettiest little things he’s ever seen. With a big smile, he cupped your face in his hands and placed a kiss to your forehead, absolutely smitten with you, and how beautifully you accepted him. You gave him a soft smile back, burying your face into the ruffled collar of his suit. “Art, please,” you breathed, unable to take his teasing any longer. You needed him at your core, where you were so wet, so ready for him to wreck your innocence and taint your purity with every ounce of his corrupted seed. It drove him absolutely wild to hear his name whined so desperately from your lips, your sweet little voice giving him almost as much satisfaction as the sound of a blade being driven cleanly into a still-beating heart. He wasted no time in untucking his weeping cock from his suit, slapping it against your sopping pussy before he slid himself inside with ease, bottoming out as he held you flush against his body. You took a moment to catch your breath, feeling him inside you, blissfully and indescribably full as you felt every inch of his cock nudged up against every sensitive spot within you. You wrapped your arms around his neck, planting soft kisses against his cheek, breath heavy against his ear. “Please, Art, please, make me yours. I’m yours,” you nearly begged, bucking your hips up gently to let him know that you were ready for him. He didn’t need to be convinced any longer, beginning to roll his hips in time with your own, pistoning his cock into the tight, wet heat of your greedy cunt.

You couldn’t hold back, screaming obscenities into the silent night air as he fucked into you, which only seemed to drive him crazier as his motions became faster and rougher, one hand gripping your ass for purchase and the other moving down to your pussy, his thumb beginning to make small circles around your clit that only served to draw you closer and closer to your eventual end. You were never truly certain that he even cared about your own pleasure, only using you as a husk to get himself off when he didn’t feel like murdering somebody, but as he drew firm circles around your swollen clit, pounding into the heat of your cunt and hitting that spot inside of you that made your toes curl and your head tip back, you knew that something inside of him must have cared enough to make sure that you were feeling just as good as he was. You opened your eyes for a moment, half-lidded and hazy, to capture his face, brows furrowed in concentration, black-painted lips hanging open in ecstasy. No matter how close you were to his face, or how silent the world around you was as if you were the only two people alive, you could never hear him make a sound. Not even a soft hint of a breath left his parted lips as he fucked you, as if somebody had ripped out his vocal chords as punishment for his horrific deeds. It only served to remind you that the man, the thing, pistoning his cock into you wasn’t entirely human, and you accepted it without a second thought, allowing him to corrupt you down to the deepest pit of your belly. His name left your mouth like a prayer, begging and wailing for him to fuck you deeper, fuck you harder, make you his, take every last shred of innocence you had left within you and turn it into vile black sin, until it all became too much to bear. Your cunt clenched hard around his cock and you came, and you cried into his silk suit because it was all too much to bear; the sensation in your stomach, in your pussy, reaching all the way to your heart and squeezing like a vice, threatening to black you out as he continued to fuck ravenously into your aching cunt. Tears streamed down your face as you hung limp in his arms like a ragdoll, just letting him use your body until he, too, seized up and poured his wicked seed into you, filling you up until it leaked out around you in thick black globs. His teeth gritted together in a snarl as he came, nostrils on his prominent nose flaring and his dirty nails sinking into your lovely, soft flesh enough to leave angry crescent moon indents. Your pussy continued to pulse around his cock, the gentle aftershocks of your orgasm, milking every last drop of perversion from his body until he stalled his shallow thrusts into you and slowly slipped out of your throbbing cunt, clumsily tucking himself back into his suit. You noticed he didn’t wipe off any of your slick juices and the remnants of his own cum.

He rose to full height, no longer hunched over you on the table, and his lips slowly curled into a fiendish grin, exposing yellow teeth and rotting gums. He was obviously proud of himself, proud that he stole your innocence, your very last droplet of purity, and made you his, made you his beautiful little depraved whore. He held your thighs apart still, watching with a dramatic expression of amazement as his dark seed slowly leaked from your pussy. Your cheeks were hot with embarrassment and you felt a shiver run up your spine from both shame and the cold, dank air of the abandoned warehouse. You let your resolve be broken so easily, you thought, as the clown stood before you and reached long arms up to cup your face in his hands that had just a hint of warmth to them. He began to make a big show of silently laughing at you in your disheveled, shameful state, always taking the most pleasure from somebody else’s pain. He brought a hand down to your pussy and hooked two long fingers into you and you let out a surprised gasp, and he grinned wolfishly at you as he slid them back out, glistening with your mixed essence, and held them up to your lips. You knew what he wanted, and you were not in a state to refuse, so you obediently took his digits into your mouth. You nearly gagged from the humiliation that he seemed to take great joy out of, forcing his fingers further down your throat until you were gagging and spitting, and he swiftly removed them before you vomited. He stuck one saliva-coated finger into his mouth, savoring the taste of you, sweet and warm, on his tongue. He removed the finger from his mouth with an obscene ‘pop’ , and then as if there was a lightbulb appearing over his head, he wagged his finger at you to ‘stay right there!’ And disappeared into the other room, quickly emerging with a rather soft and cozy looking blanket. Probably stolen from a victim, you thought. He draped the blanket over you, and the stomach-lurching thoughts of the unlucky previous owner of the blanket swiftly left your foggy brain as it provided you with a pleasant warmth. He bent over to give you a peck on the cheek, and made a pillow with his hands as he pretended to fall asleep. You giggled a bit at him and his theatrics, and you attempted to make yourself as comfortable as possible on the table to have a much deserved nap. “Thank you, Art,” you sighed, your eyes slowly shutting, and you soon drifted off into a quiet slumber, Art rubbing your head and playing with your hair with gentle affection all the while. Maybe he would keep you around a little while longer, he thought, curling a strand around his finger as if deep in thought. He wasn’t ready to kill you, not yet. He needed to see just how much farther you would go for him, how much more he could break you before delivering the final blow. Just one more night, he told himself, one more night and he can break you, he can tie you up and bash your skull in with a hammer and it would be all over, all over as you would bleed out over the floor, over his hands, over his shoes, over his heart. But, would the strange, bubbling warmth in his stomach that he felt every time he looked at you ever allow him? You weren’t as disposable as the others. You were different.

#art the clown #art the clown x reader #slasher x reader #slashers x reader #clownfucker #clownfuckers #coulrophilia #my writing

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dreamonhunters · 4 years

Text

give me one last kiss while we’re far too young to die

tw // blood, guns, mafia dynamics, character injury

mafia au race & romeo for @heytheywascoronas ! happy birthday luce, i hope you have an amazing day ♡

read it here on ao3!

Suddenly, he’s awake.

There’s a burn in his lungs, the type you get from being deprived of oxygen just a little too long. Romeo gasps for air, one hand clutching at his chest and the other balled into a tight fist by his side. He can still taste gunpowder. Blunt fingernails dig into his bloodied palm. It’s almost grounding. Not enough to offset the pain, however.

His eyes take a few moments to refocus. Above him, a few clouds crawl lazily across a cornflower blue sky. It’s too bright. Romeo squints. Everything seemed a little hazy round the edges, not quite real. That makes his head hurt.

A tacky red liquid coats his hands, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what that is. The tip of his tongue swipes over his swollen bottom lip. Drying blood cakes the sensitive flesh, broken and sore. There’s a metallic taste that fills his mouth. Floods his senses for just a moment. His nose throbs.

At least he’s alive, Romeo thinks to himself. That’s definitely a positive.

“Romeo,” a feeble voice calls. It should’ve been a question, but the inflection to suggest that much is completely absent. It’s a voice brimming with the pain Romeo feels lancing through his own body.

“Tha’s me,” he manages, turning his head in the direction of the voice. Fuck, he sounds rough. He’s barely said a sentence, and already he can feel the way vocalising makes his throat burn. His cheek scratches against the concrete, but the pain barely registers. He’s got bigger issues right now. “You good, Tony?”

The boy in question, Tony, simply groans again. No, he’s not good. Romeo saw him go down. The horrible sound of a bullet pinging off the wall, and Tony dodges narrowly, and then there’s someone kicking him in the stomach. A wave of nausea hits Romeo. He’s powerless. Tony’s arm is yanked sharply backwards, and Romeo hears the sickening crack. That’s a sound he won’t forget.

Now he lays a few feet away from Romeo, curled in on himself. Just slightly out of reach. There’s an almost ghostly pallor to his skin. The sole source of his bleeding seems to be a deep gash high up on his cheekbone. The blood caking his hair and clothing isn’t his own. A dark bruise forming above his left eyebrow. Shoulder twisted at an unnatural angle.

It takes Romeo a several minutes to sit up properly. Well, maybe it’s minutes. His sense of time is a little warped right now. However long it takes to let the nausea die down enough to allow movement. Aching muscles scream in protest as he pushes himself up, elbows shoved beneath him to support his bodyweight. Spits out a mixture of blood and saliva, unable to get rid of that smoky taste that makes his teeth hurt, makes his gums burn. The ache in his chest returns promptly, earning a hiss of pain from Romeo.

“We fucked up, didn’t we?”

It’s not a question, but he asks it like one anyway. Maybe Tony will entertain him. Months of begging and pleading and bargaining can’t end like this. Romeo doesn’t make mistakes, not anymore. Neither does Tony. Neither does Jack.

“Shut your stupid mouth,” Tony snaps, although the usual venomous sting in his tone is missing. It’s actually a little weak. Probably too much effort right now.

They’re not friends, not by any stretch of the imagination. Partners, in a business sense exclusively. He likes to think they’re getting somewhere. Volatility is Tony’s middle name, however, and that makes it rather difficult to gauge where he stands. Romeo isn’t sure how Tony defines the word ‘friendship’, anyway.

Romeo rolls his eyes anyway, face screwing up when he’s reminded of the pain in his chest. Broken ribs, easily. When he pulls his shirt up to inspect the damage, there’s black and blue blooming across his flesh already. Ouch.

Vaguely, there’s the memory of taking a crowbar to the chest. Feels distant, almost like he watched it happen to somebody else. It’s a little jarring to consider this happened to him. Suddenly the bruises don’t feel all that strange. A few broken ribs is a small price to pay.

“You want some help?” he asked, letting the thin fabric drop back down.

Tony shakes his head defiantly, of course he does. He’ll die before he accepts Romeo’s assistance.

So Romeo doesn’t make it optional. He takes a few deep breaths and forces himself up, teeth gritting. The taste of blood is stronger now, and it’s almost dizzying. He stumbles, grasps for something to keep him upright, leans against the wall heavily. The pain is nauseating. Just that small movement has a thin sheen of sweat covering his forehead, mixing with the blood and sticking to his skin uncomfortably.

“Idiota,” he hisses, glaring sharply at Tony. The blond is motionless, hair matted with blood and sweat and dirt. “You shoulda kept your mouth shut.”

“Oh, this is my problem now?” Tony shoots back, eyes narrowing. There’s an edge of ice in his voice, a familiar one. Romeo knows that tone all too well.

Any other time, he wouldn’t push it. Arguing with Tony is pointless and stupid and gets neither of them anywhere, but there’s an anger flaring up in Romeo’s chest that’s more than a little difficult to force back down.

“If you let me do my job, we’d be outta here, and not bleeding to death in the fucking dirt.” Romeo seethes. “I was doing the talking, Tony. This shit is basic.”

“Badly,” the blond retorts. “You needed me to cover because you couldn’t get your fuckin’ words out properly.”

“I was doing just fine.”

Tony doesn’t bother responding, grunting unintelligibly instead.

Does he really blame Tony? No. The guilt is overwhelming, actually, because Romeo knows it’s on him. He shouldn’t push it further.

“This is why Jack doesn’t fucking trust you.”

Tony’s expression darkens immediately, eyes flashing dangerously. Romeo regrets it already.

“Jack trusts me a whole lot more than you. Because he knows you might just run off the second he lets you out.”

Romeo opens his mouth, ready to shoot off some spiteful retort, but he catches himself. He doesn’t hate Tony anymore. They’re not rivals, they’re not friends, but they’re somewhere between those two points.

He relents, kneeling down beside Tony. It’s such a simple movement, and yet every contraction of his muscles is fucking agony. He bites down on the inside of his cheek. Hard. The taste of blood is there again, but for a completely different reason now. Sharp pieces of gravel dig into his knees.

“Just let me help you,” he requests. Tony grunts, but he doesn’t bother trying to fight it this time.

“I don’t need your help,” he spits. At this point, that suggestion is almost laughable. If Romeo liked him any less, he’d maybe laugh.

“I think you’ll find you do,” Romeo defends easily, placing one hand on Tony’s shoulder. It’s a feather-light touch, barely there, but it’s a reminder. Tony can work out what that means for himself.

He scowls at Romeo, eyes dark. Juxtaposes their brightness. They’d be so pretty if he smiled more often, although Romeo never voices those thoughts. Tony would murder him the moment he opened his mouth. Such angelic features, constantly contorted with rage and irritation. Jarring.

Tony doesn’t verbally respond again, although he hisses in pain when he slowly tries to stretch out his aching limbs. Honestly, the silence is nice. Unusual.

There’s the silent acknowledgment between them that, had this happened months prior, Tony would be left for dead. Romeo would leave without a second glance. Tony holds this flawed ideology of needing help equalling weakness, and Romeo could never quite fathom why.

But now he feels responsibility. Guilt tugs at him, sour. It weighs heavy on his shoulders. The anger dies away, still smouldering somewhere deep within him, but now it’s easy to ignore. He watches the way blood trickle down the side of Tony’s face with an almost sick fascination. It’s mesmerising, the way it soaks into the fine creases and stains his skin crimson.

Romeo is slow to accept his own faults. Doesn’t like to be the one at fault. It’s a vice he's always known about, but his ego has a tendency to get in the way of any real self-improvement there. He has many virtues, anyway, and he’ll say it with that trademark bright smile. But no, it’s not really Tony’s fault. If he’s completely truthful, their failure is more indicative of their joint weaknesses. Romeo is too quick to react, pushes too hard for little gain. Tony is abrasive and snappy, immediately rubbing people up the wrong way. It’s really no wonder why Jack didn’t want them out in the field just yet.

“Jack’s gonna kill us,” Tony murmurs. Speak of the devil. He sounds agitated, maybe. Difficult to tell when he’s speaking through gritted teeth, biting down hard in an attempt to suppress his groans of pain. “He’s gonna fuckin’ murder me.”

Romeo shakes his head, and maybe there’s just a little hint of introspectiveness there. “It’s not just your fault, Tony, I’m sorry. I fucked up, y’know?”

Of course, Tony argues back. His voice reminds Romeo of glass crunching beneath his feet. Scratchy. “You’re the one who said it. I fucked up. Jack wanted me to prove myself. All this did was prove I couldn’t do it.”

“Yeah, well, can’t do much about that now,” Romeo concludes. He’s too tired to fight.

Acknowledging failure makes Romeo’s skin crawl, the sudden urge to scratch becoming almost overwhelming. Mistakes like this are for other people. Rookies. It’s been a long time since he was last considered a rookie.

He sets about his work in silence. The rush of blood in his ears serves as a nice way to tune out his thoughts. White noise. His stomach roils as he moves, nausea threatening to render him useless for a little while longer. Tony lays limp beneath his fingertips, letting Romeo do what he must. There’s still a scowl twisting his face up. The fight died from his eyes moments before.

Fortunately, nothing looks too bad. The shoulder is nasty. It’s not career-ending. Now Romeo’s good, but he’s not that good. Wouldn’t dare to try resetting that on his own. It’s a job for someone else, someone a lot more qualified. That gash on Tony’s cheek is slowly scabbing over. Romeo winces, secondhand pain. Someone is gonna rip that back open to clean it later. Everything else seems like superficial damage.

“Can you sit up?” he asks, taking one of Tony’s hands in his own. It’s calloused and sticky with blood. The warmth is oddly familiar. Again, Tony doesn’t dignify that with anything more than a grunt. Shoves his good arm back, wincing at the jolt in his bad one. Uses his elbows to gain a little leverage. It’s not quite sitting up, but it’s a start.

Romeo chews at his lip. By now the taste of copper in his mouth is practically second nature. He’s guilty. It gnaws at his stomach and he hates the way it burns. “Better than nothing,” he muses quietly, rocking back to rest his weight on his haunches. Tony pulls his hand away. The muscles in Romeo’s legs throb.

“You got any smart ideas to get us outta here?” Tony snarks, and Romeo doesn’t miss the bite in his voice. Clearly, he’s feeling a little better already. It’s not got that malicious ring to it, though. Not like usual. He could put money on Tony being more pissed at himself than Romeo.

“Pick-up point isn’t far away,” he muses, using his hand to shield his eyes from the bright sun overhead. “If you can walk that far, we—“

“I can.”

Tony doesn’t wait for Romeo to argue, and he doesn’t ask for help. Instead, he uses his good arm to push him up, just enough to sit. Even then, he’s panting, slightly breathless. Romeo doesn’t miss the way he winces.

“Let me carry you,” Romeo suggests.

The blond’s face twists into an ugly scowl. “No.”

He sighs, lips pressing into a tight line. “So you gonna walk? ‘Cause it’s not gonna be the shortest walk.”

Tony’s answer isn’t so immediate this time. He’s thinking about it, considering his options. Romeo can tell by the way his eyes cloud with an uncharacteristic thoughtfulness. Tony always tends to shoot first, ask questions later.

Finally, he answers. “Fine. But I swear to God, if you tell anyone about this,” Tony snarls, weakly jabbing a finger at Romeo’s chest. “I swear I’ll kill you myself.”

Romeo just shrugs. They both know the only person he talks to is Tony. He has nobody to tell, even if he wanted to. Telling people would only bring about questions, and Romeo feels far too guilty to answer those. Or think about them. Even something as simple as reporting to Jack would be a struggle.

Silently, he shifts, one arm scooping underneath Tony’s legs and the other supporting his back. Avoids his bad shoulder. They both know Romeo isn’t strong enough to manage this, but at least he can walk. He stumbles to his feet, sways a little, fingernails digging into Tony’s flesh. Not enough to hurt, but more than enough to feel.

“Careful,” Tony mutters. It’s the most concern Romeo’s ever heard in his voice. Almost unsettling.

He manages to straighten up, though, remaining still for just long enough to catch his balance. Tony is long and lanky, but he’s also light. The height difference makes it a little awkward, but Romeo’s too determined and too proud to forfeit now. Can’t. He’s made enough mistakes to get them both to this point.

“I’m good,” he assures, adjusting his grip on Tony’s lithe body. For just a second, their eyes meet, and Romeo swears he’ll never see a prettier shade of blue than the colour of Tony’s eyes. Blond curls frame his face, tangled and stained with blood. That trademark scowl has melted away, and it’s one of the rare occasions where Romeo sees his face completely relaxed. He looks up at Romeo with something akin to childlike innocence.

If he were somebody else, and they were in a different time, Romeo might call him beautiful.

He pushes that thought down. Locks it away for another time, preferably when he’s alone, not staring into Tony’s crystalline eyes. Starts walking, instead, because pain is a surefire way to distract him from his own internal monologue.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. If Tony wasn’t listening closely, he’d miss it. Romeo’s eyes are fixed firmly on the horizon. Barely audible above the incessant background noise of cars and people and city life. Even on the outskirts, it’s noisy.

“Shut up,” Tony mutters. “This ain’t your fault.”

For Tony to admit fault so easily is wrong. Leaves a strange taste in Romeo’s mouth, and it’s not the taste of blood.

“Maybe if I did my job properly, we wouldn’t be like this, y’know?” Romeo persists, although there’s a lightness to his tone. Jovial, maybe. Doesn’t want to get too serious, not when he’s holding Tony’s broken body in his arms and trying to ignore the way his knees threaten to buckle with every step.

“I said shut up,” Tony warns. There’s a brief flash of irritation in his eyes, but it’s gone before Romeo truly registers it. “I jumped down your fuckin’ throat. Didn’t give you enough chance.”

“And I could’ve reacted better,” is Romeo’s immediate response. “Seriously, Tony, this isn’t your damn fault. An’ when we report to Jack, I swear if you don’t keep your mouth shut—“

Tony scoffs. “Why? So Jack can refuse you fieldwork for the next three years? Because he will.”

“I don’t really care,” Romeo lies.

Being refused fieldwork is getting off lightly. Jack doesn’t make mistakes.

“Yeah, you do.” Tony informs. “‘Cause you’re the one who spent fuckin’ months trying to get us this job, an’ then I went and fucked it up.”

Romeo lets out a small sigh through his nose. “It’s not even that bad.”

“You gonna tell Jack that? ‘It’s not even that bad, Tony just fucked up everything you asked’?” he snarls. “That’ll go down well. I’m sure he’ll love that.”

“Why the fuck do you want me to blame you so bad?” Romeo asks. The irritation melts away, replaced with nothing but a genuine curiosity. “You’re his favourite. You could say anything, an’ he’d probably believe it.”

Tony huffs, turns his face away. He’s staring at nothing.

“Because it’s weird when you get hurt. When Jack screams at you, I don’t…” he trails off, shaking his head. “Forget it.”

“To—“

“I said forget it.”

And like that, Romeo drops it. Has to, because Tony has made it pretty damn clear he’s not talking about this anymore.

“Just let me take the fall for this one, okay?” Tony asks, and now his voice is softer. There’s a finely veiled edge of authority, and Romeo has to laugh. Tony barely outranks him, and he’s only ever seen them as equal in that regard.

“No,” Romeo murmurs. Soft, but not without the urgency of a demand. “This ain’t your battle, Tony...”

“I was here, wasn’t I?” he scowls. “I’ll do what I fuckin’ please.”

“What if we don’t blame anyone, and let Jack decide who’s guilty?”

Because they both know it’ll be Romeo. Jack thinks highly of Tony, always has. He’s the favourite. Romeo doesn’t have to take the fall to be blamed, and he came to terms with that a while ago.

“What if he kicks you out?” Tony asks, voice real quiet. Finally betrays the terror running through his head. It’s a much more realistic expectation.

“Then I pack my shit and go,” Romeo answers. There’s a rueful smile on his face. The only way he’ll be leaving is with a bullet through his brain. Ditched in an unmarked grave somewhere. No need to do any packing. “Wasn’t cut out for a place like this, clearly.”

“You can’t—“ he begins, but those words seem to catch in his throat. Can’t say what he wants to. Tony never loses his words like that.

“That’s up to Jack. His call.”

“You can’t just back down like that, asshole! What happened to not goin’ down without a fuckin’ fight?” Tony demands. He’s not covering the upset in his voice well.

“Jack would just have me killed, Tony.”

Those words are heavy. They hang in the air unpleasantly. Romeo isn’t wrong, and he’s pretty sure that’s what makes that sentence so disquieting.

“I wouldn’t let him,” Tony mutters defiantly. It’s a pathetic suggestion, because Tony doesn’t control Jack, nobody does, and even his status as favourite wouldn’t hold much weight there.

Romeo sighs, holds Tony a little tighter.

“No point getting worked up ‘bout what he might say,” Romeo points out. They’re close now, he can see the getaway vehicle across the street. The outskirts of town are quiet. The gun on Romeo’s hip has most people looking the opposite way anyway, golden metal glinting in the light.

Tony meets his eyes again, and there’s an undeniable anxiety there. There’s tension in his jaw. “Let me take the fall,” he demands.

“I can’t do that, Tony,” he sighs.

“Please.”

“No. Let’s not argue, Tony, yeah?”

Tony is quiet. There’s another voice now, and suddenly the weight of another person is lifted from Romeo’s arms. He blinks. A dark-haired woman is talking, commenting on their injuries, asking questions. He can’t focus for long enough to answer. An overwhelming exhaustion hits him, and he slides into the backseat without a fight. Tony is beside him a few moments later. There’s that familiar hum of an engine beneath him, and Romeo swears he could pass out here and now.

Tony doesn’t speak again until they’re in the back of the car, fingertips brushing against each others’. He’s still tense, particularly in the face, although he can’t hold much tension in his bad shoulder. Romeo is less so, because he’s already come to terms with what could happen. He’ll do what it takes to keep Tony out of harm’s way. That kid’s been through enough.

“Don’t go,” Tony whispers. Only Romeo could possibly have picked that up. Their driver doesn’t even flinch.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere,” Romeo assures. He’s lying, and they both know it, but it’s a bittersweet reassurance.

His eyes flicker to the outside, and suddenly Romeo isn’t Romeo anymore. He has a freedom he never had, snatched away from him as a child, crushed by the crippling need for money. It’s another time, another world, and it’s one his fingertips brush over occasionally. The way his brush against the rough skin of Tony’s hands. Just out of reach. Something he can never have.

Something he will never have.

#rayray writes #my writing #newsies #mafia au #race/romeo #racetrack higgins #race newsies #romeo newsies #jack kelly #jack newsies #hurt/comfort #angst #friends tag

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garbagewhump · 5 years

Text

Live Feed - Teeth

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TW: Unwanted touching, the beginnings of a panic attack, mouth and dental trauma, victim blaming, self-loathing

Thom woke up in no less pain than he’d passed out in. Of course it would be too much to ask for the simple, deep aches and pains of muscles overexerted in the best possible way. No.

His body throbbed like one giant bruise. He was equal parts stiff where he’d been tightly bandaged or a limb or joint had been immobilized — and, Christ, he still couldn’t stop thinking about how his mind had narrowed to those wet thuds and how his own labored breathing had sawed and caught like a serrated knife through rope, and how neither of those facts had distressed him at the time because of the onset of shock — and all too disturbingly limp, where muscles and tendons lost the fight against boots and fists and improperly applied physics.

The man — Dale — was semi-conscious, but then again he’d been in such a state for a while now. Thom wondered if the first person to show him kindness, who willingly took a brutal punishment to purchase him desperately needed medical care, was dying. It wouldn’t be fair. On a purely selfish level, Thom couldn’t stand it if Dale died saving his worthless ass. On a more philosophical note, Thom deeply valued human life and would never wish anyone dead, not really. But this event alone was pushing him to the very extreme of his so highly prized idealism and endless forgiveness. To kill a man who was only trying to help, how could he countenance that?

How often had they done this? They already had Dale here. Oh God, he almost had sex with two people who kept captives in their basement. Oh God, he’d nearly had sex while someone was suffering not twenty feet from him, and he wouldn’t have known.

He only realized he was hyperventilating when Shannon walked in.

“Oh, baby boy,” she cooed. “You missed me.”

If Thom had better control of his body he’d have scrambled back, far away from her reaching hands, but as it was, her too tender touch caressed his face and burned, burned with shame and disgust and loathing and a deep need to get away from her touch her hands her skin pressing against his—

“D-Don��t you touch me,” he hissed. “D-Don’t!”

She laughed at the shrill note of desperation in his voice and gripped his face harder, nails digging in. “As if I’d actually want to touch you,” she spat. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

And yet she still touched him. Low. Lower. Fingers trailing over fabric and bandages to follow the patterns they’d made before.

He drew in as deep a breath as his wrapped ribs allowed.

And he bellowed.

Hands found their way over his mouth and nose, rough, but he bit down, catching skin in his teeth. It tasted of salt and dust. The lingering bitterness of soap. Thom screamed louder, turned every inch of his lungs inside out.

They weren’t too far off the main road. He remembered passing a few houses as he drove here. Back when he foolishly though the worst that could come of the night could be solved by a round of antibiotics.

If he screamed for help, someone had to hear him. Someone had to be close enough. If he screamed, someone had to save them. Someone had to save them.

His throat tasted like copper. Raw and sore and shredded to bits. His voice frayed and split apart like wet tissue paper.

“Shut up, shut up!” Shannon shook him. “Jesus Christ you little pussy, you’re gonna get us—”

Pain exploded to life in his mouth. Wet and warm and gushing over his lips. A raw pocket of stinging pain burst in his gums. Something hard and small followed the arc of her fist from his mouth to the floor.

Dazed, he stopped screaming. His whole mouth and throat felt like someone had shoved a fork in there and twisted. When he swallowed, he swallowed blood and another small, hard bit. When he felt around in his mouth with his tongue, he found a hole where a tooth used to be and a sharp edge where part of one chipped off.

“God you’re pathetic,” Shannon complained. “Fuck! That hurt my hand, you little bitch. Look at what you did!”

He blinked. Twice. She waved her hand in his face. Her knuckles were red and inflamed, but her palm had obvious bite marks. He opened his mouth, tried to speak, then closed it as the pain spiked and his head throbbed.

“You little bitch,” she repeated. Then, gripping his jaw hard and digging her nails into his cheeks, she brought their faces inches from each other.

In her eyes he saw only rage. His heartbeat thundered in his ears and each thud pulsed in the empty socket in his mouth. Her breath smelled of cigarette smoke. He hadn’t had one in years but God, he wanted one now.

“You’re gonna regret that, Tommy boy,” she promised with a hiss.

Then, her nails leaving ragged, burning scratches, she shoved him backwards and stormed out.

Hugging his middle despite the pain movement brought, Thom curled around himself and pressed his forehead into the concrete as tears streamed down his face. The saltwater stung in the cuts.

“Y’alright kid?” Dale asked, voice weary and waterlogged.

Thom let out a hysteric, bubbling laugh, even though he’d never wanted to less in his life. Fighting with his destroyed vocal cords, he croaked, “They hurt you.”

Dale didn’t have any sort of commentary about that. Thom opened his mouth again, wanting to thank the man for his humanity, but then shut it.

If the noises that escaped him were more like sobs than anything remotely intelligible, well, that was between him and the floor.

#tw blood #tw injury #tw dental trauma #tw mouth trauma #tw mouth horror #lf dale gibson #lf shannon pierce #lf thomas grisham #live feed series #29 days of whump

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skiller0dani · 5 years

Text

Love and Learn | Part 2

Summary: You come from a family of Werewolves that lived in the French Quarter when the Crescent and Kenner Families were in charge. Seeking revenge for Klaus’s family taking over once the Werewolves were driven out your Family plotted to murder Klaus, you begged Klaus to show them mercy. He didn’t.

Pairing: Klaus Mikaelson x Werewolf!Reader

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: Yelling, Arguments, Swearing, The Originals Spoilers, Violence, Physical Fighting, Mentions of Blood, Mega Fluff, Angst, Mentions of Death,

A/N: I haven’t done a TVD related one yet!! Send me requests if you want me to write more! Klaus is my absolute favorite character, he’s so complex and broken and has so many layers. Every time you peel back one, there’s another one to unfold. Love him. He’s my precious angel baby. I should mention I haven’t finished the entire Originals Series, I’m barely in Season 2 so I might just make up my own little plot that works with this little thing I’m writing. I’m sorry if it’s not correct or doesn’t line up with the Show!

Also I use the nickname ‘dove’ in this story. I just don’t think Klaus would say ‘baby’ but he would say something cute like ‘dove’. Plus I think that nickname is really precious and adorable.

“She’s dying!” A voice snaps, pure panic laced in the tone, the voices you hear sound faraway- echoing like you’re standing in a tunnel. “I’m fully aware brother but until Genevieve arrives there is little we can do.” Another voice says calmly, but with just as much worry in the tone- Elijah? “Why won’t it work?” The other voice says, and you can tell it’s Klaus by his scent when the bed dips next to you. Blood is dripped into your mouth and you swallow it, but your pain doesn’t ease, “I suspect the bullet has been hexed. To disallow vampire blood from healing the wound.” Elijah wonders aloud. There is a thin layer of sweat over your entire body, making you feel sticky as you feel the beads roll down your forehead. Your eyebrows are creased as the sharp aching and throbbing travel through every nerve in your body. It feels like you’re on fire, you’ve never felt this kind of pain from a regular bullet.

You will your eyes to open but they’re so heavy it’s nearly impossible. Your vision is blurry when you finally manage it and when it clears you see Klaus pacing a hole into the floor. Elijah leans against the doorway, watching you carefully his eyes lighting up when he sees your eyes have opened. “Niklaus.” He says simply and when Klaus turns to him, Elijah’s eyes land on you. Klaus turns, his eyes softening as he is by your side immediately. Klaus takes your hand, gazing down at your wound. Instead of looking red and bloody, it’s oozing a black substance, and the blackness is travelling up your veins- it almost looks like something is infecting you. “Is she here yet?” Klaus snaps, the panic seeded deep in his tone. “Relax, move aside.” Genevieve says as she practically pushes him out of the way. Her hands hover over your wound as she closes her eyes, focused on figuring out what kind of hex it is.

“You’re not going to like this,” Genevieve says and Klaus looks at her expectantly. “It’s not made for a Werewolf, and it’s not meant to kill whoever it hit- just weaken them. As you’ve already figured out, Vampire blood has no affect on this wound. This bullet was meant for a vampire, to weaken one and cause immeasurable pain.” She explains and a look of anguish and rage fill Klaus’s features. “It wont kill a Vampire, but I have no idea what it’ll do to a Werewolf. It could kill her, but I can’t remove it. This hex needs to be removed by the witch that cast it. You need to find whoever did this, soon.” Genevieve finishes, looking genuinely guilty that she can’t do anything. “Nik,” You stammer, and he’s by your side- leaning down so he can kill you. “My Dad, it h-has to be him,” You stammer, spitting blood up as you speak. Klaus gets a venomously angry look in his eyes before standing, “Nik wait,” You say again. This isn’t the first time your Father has done something like this- you’ve hated him for as long as you can remember. He’s tried to kill Klaus multiple times, you’ve had enough. “Kill him,” You wheeze, your voice dry and your throat raw.

Pressing a kiss to your forehead Klaus marches out of room, craving the taste of your Fathers blood. His fists are clenched as he appeared in the Bayou, super speed being one of the perks Vampirism comes with. All eyes are wide when they see Klaus, looking healthy and frighteningly enraged. “Bring him to me.” Klaus snapped, and they all knew exactly who he meant. Your mother leaned back against a tree, watching with careful eyes but grew concerned when she smelled your blood. “Where is Y/n?” She asks and Klaus turns his attention to her, “if you gave a damn about her you’d know.” He snapped. The other Wolves back away from him, the way he’s holding himself making them nervous- like he’s unhinged. The way he’s standing makes them feel like he’s about to murder each and every one of them, he looks dangerously unstable. Your Father comes into view, his eyes going wide in fear to see Klaus standing before him. “Whatever you’ve done to her, you’re going to undo or I’m going go drown you in the Bayou with your own intestines.” Klaus said, his voice low and dangerous- with an edge to it.

“I haven’t done anything to anyone.” Your Dad snaps with a confident and relaxed expression, “You didn’t try to have me shot with a hexed wooden bullet?” Klaus asked, no cocky smirk on his face. It’s been replaced with a dark look in his eyes and a clenched jaw, showing them that he’s way more than annoyed. “Well they missed, and right now Y/n is dying with that bullet inside her, so I need your witch because I can’t heal her.” Klaus snapped again, his fangs burning beneath his gums and his fingers itching to wrap around your Father’s neck and squeeze the life out of him. “You shot Y/n?” Your Father boomed, his angry expression turning to his right hand man, Max. “I didn’t even know she was there! I only saw Klaus I swear!” He desperately tried to explain but your Father was already turning back inside his house.

You wriggle in pain on the bed, and Genevieve is doing her best with herbs and spells to ease your growing pain. The blackness is still inching upwards through your veins, to your heart. “If the spell touches her heart, she will die.” Genevieve tells Elijah, who’s eyes have grown tense and worried. Elijah looks up to see dark figures approaching the house from the outside, “they probably think they’re collecting my brother. Allow me to show them the error of their ways.” Elijah snaps, turning out of the room as Genevieve presses a cool damp rag to your forehead. Your fever is reaching temperatures that would kill a human, luckily you’re not. Elijah appears in front of the Wolves, “I’m sorry but my brother is already gone- you’ve just missed him actually.” He says and a look of worry and confusion cross over their faces. “Oh don’t worry the spell is working, it’s just working on Y/n instead of Niklaus, so I strongly recommend you leave before I rip your still beating hearts out of your chests.” Elijah warns, a dark look crossing onto his face as he begins to roll up his sleeves.

The Wolves practically trip over each other trying to get away from Elijah, but he freezes when he hears a pain scream erupt from your lungs. He races back up to your room to see Genevieve getting ready to move you, “I need the moonlight, if I can channel it, I may be able to slow the hex. It’s beginning to touch her heart.” She explains and Elijah lifts you into his arms as you scream again, wriggling in his grasp as a white hot pain shoots through your chest. “Call Niklaus,” He tells Genevieve before they all make their way for the cemetery. Elijah lays you down on the stone underneath the half-moon as your eyes begin to glow, “her body is trying to shift, to heal.” Genevieve explains as she begins to channel the moon, her hands hovering over you. The hex is crawling into your heart, you’re dying.

“This is Angeli,” Your Father explains but after getting off the phone with Genevieve, Klaus is damn near frantic. The Witch moves next to your Father when Klaus turns to them, she’s young in her early 20s maybe. Klaus moves to kill your Father but stops himself, “mercy this time. If you ever hurt her again- intentionally or not it will be the end of you.” Klaus warns, grabbing Angeli and they disappear in a blur. They stop in the cemetery and Klaus can hear your strangled screams as your body thrashes around in pain. Angeli inspects the wound and a haunting look crosses her face, “The hex has already gripped her heart, the kindest thing you can do for her is to kill her.” She explains and Elijah steps in front of Klaus immediately, to stop him from killing Angeli. Klaus approaches you, cutting his wrist and bringing it down to your lips, “Niklaus what on Earth are you doing?” Elijah asks and Klaus pauses, “I can’t let her die Elijah. I fear if she did, the monster inside me would become me.” He explains as he presses his wrist to your lips, and you drink his blood. “You’re making her a hybrid?” Genevieve asks, horror on her face and panic in her voice.

Klaus looks into your eyes, “sleep my love,” he compels and in a moment you’re asleep, the screams and thrashing stopping. Klaus feels the gravity of what he’s done, and he knows what he needs. “Elijah call Hayley, get her here now.” He instructs and reluctantly Elijah brings his phone out of his pocket. Angeli stands, unsure of what to do. She’s too afraid to speak or even move, scared that reminding Klaus she was still standing there would cause him to kill her for what she’s done. She didn’t mean for this to happen, she wanted to kill Klaus, not you. “What would have happened if I was shot?” Klaus asks into the silence, “the spell would have dissipated once it reached your heart. It would have given them hours to figure out how to lock you up or kill you.” Genevieve explains, “but it wouldn’t have killed you.” She finishes and Klaus feels an immeasurable amount of guilt weighing inside his heart. He takes your hand, rubbing circles with his thumb as he watches your chest rise and fall. “She’s on her way.” Elijah says and they all stand in silence, watching you die.

You’re still barely alive when Hayley arrives and she stops in her tracks, seeing your veins the color of the inky night sky and silent tears wet on Klaus’s cheeks. Elijah takes a needle and extracts Hayley’s blood, before handing it to Klaus. He carefully inserts the needle into your neck and pushes the blood inside you, the blood of Klaus’s baby. He watches, his heart breaking piece by piece as your breathing grows more shallow. You suddenly gasp and sputter as the hex takes root in your heart, Klaus drops your hand as Elijah pulls him away, he knows that Klaus shouldn’t see this part. It would break him if he watched you die. Hayley rushes forward, tears flowing heavily as you release your last shaky breath, your arm dropping numbly besides you. Klaus stands far away, so far he can’t see you. Tears are in his eyes and a look of pure pain and anger crosses onto his face before he rips a tombstone out of the ground and throws it across the cemetery with a pained and frustrated yell.

Hours pass and Klaus still hasn’t looked at you, he sits against a tomb. His arms resting loosely on his knees. His expression is empty, and he hasn’t said anything in hours. Elijah stands near your body, hoping against all hope that it worked, that you’ll wake up and drink from Genevieve and be okay. Klaus needs you to be okay. Klaus rests his head back against the tomb behind him, remembering the night you stayed up to watch the rain. You didn’t know he saw you, wearing only one of his t-shirts as your eyes twinkled in the moonlight. He remembered your surprised squeal when you looked over and saw him watching you with a small smile on his face. “Nik! You scared me!” You sighed, a blush dusting over your cheeks. “I’m sorry love, come back to bed. It’s getting cold without you.” He wished he could rewind time and take that bullet instead of you, this is all his fault. He wished he could change everything, but he can’t and that kills him. All he can do is sit here and hope you wake up, and all he did was sit there and watch you die.

“I can’t sit here any longer.” Klaus blurts suddenly, causing everyone to look at him. Elijah moves towards him, “Niklaus-” “It’s obvious she’s not going to wake up and I can’t watch her be put in the ground I can’t.” Klaus interrupts, his voice broken and his gaze cast downward. “So if you need me I’ll be drowning my sorrows in a bottle of whatever is strongest.” And before any of them can stop him he’s already gone. Elijah lets out a sigh and moves back next to you, Angeli has already done and so has Genevieve. Hayley sits on the other side of you, both of them watching your cold lifeless body- praying to whatever God they can think of to just give you back to him, begging they give you back to Klaus. And as each hour ticks by, slower than the last they begin to lose hope until your eyes fly open and you shoot upwards, chest heaving. “Y/n!” Hayley sighs, tears of relief in her eyes. Elijah smiles and lets out a breath, overjoyed you’ve awaken. You remember being in agony, the worst pain you’ve ever felt and then Klaus compelling you to sleep, and now this. “What happened?” And Elijah took a deep breath before sitting next to you.

“Y/n, your Father had another scheme in mind to capture Klaus when the first one didn’t work,” He began and your eyes widened, your heart sinking. You look around you, noticing Klaus isn’t anywhere to be seen, oh God did your Father get him? “so he had a Wolf shoot you, with a hexed bullet that doesn’t allow Vampire Blood to heal it. He was aiming for Klaus, but you were standing in front of him.” Elijah continued- you’re heart beginning to hammer in your chest. Elijah wrung his hands, looking down. “Klaus desperately tried to find the witch who hexed the bullet in time, but he was too late and you were going to die so he fed you his blood. And then injected you with Hayley’s blood to turn you into a hybrid.” Your heart continues to hammer in your chest, everything beginning to feel dizzy. “Klaus thought it didn’t work, he thinks you’re dead.” Hayley says and you shoot up- if Klaus thinks you’re dead then he’s extremely unstable right now. “Where is he?” You ask and Hayley exchanges a look with Elijah and then shrugs. “Just said he was going to go drink.” She said, and as soon as the words left her lips you were gone.

Klaus sits back against a park bench, sitting in the middle of a stone courtyard somewhere deep in the French Quarter. A nearly empty bottle of Whiskey in his hands, and for the first time he doesn’t have the desire to murder your Father for killing you- instead he feels nothing. He looks up and sees you, smiling and skipping while the two of you walked home. “Why are you so grumpy?” You smile, reaching out to take his hand. Truth be told this whole city gets to him- especially with Marcel in charge of the town Klaus built with his siblings. You know that look, the look when he’s too deep inside his own head so you take his hands and pull him close to you. You can feel his body relax when you wind your arms around his neck. Nothing is said, but you here with him- that’s enough. Klaus takes another long drink from the bottle, staring up at the empty courtyard. What is this world without you? What does he have here without you? Who is he if he doesn’t have your love and constant reassurance? “Where is she?” Your Father demands from the shadows as he emerges from the ally. He looks over Klaus, slumped, drunk and all alone. “Dead.” Klaus says simply, his eyes downcast.

Your Father physically stumbles back, heavy with the realization that his hatred for Klaus has killed you. He looks up at Klaus, feeling the deep panic seed in his gut- Klaus is going to kill him. But Klaus doesn’t even move, doesn’t even look up at him. “You’re not going to kill me?” He asks cautiously, and Klaus looks up at him. “The thought crossed my mind.” Klaus says simply, taking another drink from the Whiskey- the bottle nearly empty. Your Father moves to the bench, sitting down next to Klaus. “You know when Y/n was a little girl, we told her the story of the Original Vampires,” Your Father began- gaining Klaus’ attention. “She always had a great interest in Vampires, having never seen one as a child her curiosity only got stronger. She wanted to find you. Y/n was very interested in you in particular.” He continued, and Klaus listened to his every word intently. “When she discovered nobody had seen you in sometime, she concluded you were dead. Broke her heart- she wanted to meet you, to know you so badly. I won’t lie when I say I was relieved she couldn’t track you down. She was 8 or 9 years old, but she really tried to find you.” Your Father smiled, remembering your cute little tear stained cheeks upon discovering she wasn’t going to be meeting Klaus Mikaelson.

Klaus tried to imagine it, you at 8 years old trying to track down one of the most dangerous Vampires to have ever lived. Somehow he isn’t surprised- you’ve always been completely fearless. He chuckled to himself, realizing how you that is, you always were a free spirit, doing whatever you desired to do- no matter the danger. Drove him insane with worry, having to constantly be concerned for your well-being, and making sure your curiosity didn’t get you killed. Unfortunately your curiosity when it came to him was what got you killed. He always warned you being too curious and wondering of the world was dangerous. Turns out Klaus was right. When you’re a Vampire- the really old ones don’t get to just turn off their emotions, but right now he really wished he could. The thought of having to live without you, forever was absolutely unbearable to him. If he remembers correctly, there’s a dagger in his possession, and a coffin with his name on it. He gives your Father a little nod before turning back to the Mansion.

You pace around yours and Klaus’ bedroom in the cottage, hands pulling at your hair. Where could he be? You’ve looked everywhere. You feel panicked, you have no idea what’s going on in his head right now. Murder spree? Self destruction? You have no idea what horrible thing he’s going to do to innocent people or to himself, you need to find him. Then, you remember one place you haven’t looked- the courtyard. When you arrive, you see your Father sitting alone, “Dad?” You say- surprised to see him alive and he stands. He whirls around, his eyes glossing at the sight of you. He pulls you into his chest, “Klaus said you were dead-” “Where is he? He thinks I am dead.” You ask, desperately looking around for him. Your Dad shrugs, “saw him go off that way maybe an hour ago.” He says, pointing back towards where the Mansion is. You squeeze his hand and you’re gone in a blur. When you appear in front of the Mansion you push open the doors, “Klaus!” You call, but you’re met with silence. You run up to your shared room, “Nik?” You ask into the air, heart beating. Your heart drops when the room is empty, that’s when you notice the note.

Elijah,

I’ve taken the dagger and my coffin. Please let me sleep, for a little while. I’ll see you when I wake. You can wake me, if you can find me but I suspect that will take some time, so until then Brother.

-Niklaus

Tears build in your eyes as you run to the basement with bleary eyes. Tears spill over your cheeks, he can’t do this. What if you can’t find him? He needs to know you’re alive. Sure enough when you arrive in the basement, you see Elijah and Rebekah’s coffins, but Klaus’s is missing. You pull out your phone and call him for the hundredth time this evening, but like all the other times- you’re send to voicemail immediately. You are about to pull out your phone to call Elijah when he appears in front of you. “He’s taken his coffin and the dagger, we need to find him Elijah please,” You cry, your legs giving out as you collapse in tears. Elijah thinks for a moment before his eyes widen, “Mystic Falls. He’s going to Mystic Falls.” He says and you look up, “how do you even know that?” You ask, unsure of how he seems so sure. “Klaus said it would take a long time, so maybe he’s going somewhere else because he knew you’d think of Mystic Falls.” You say, and Elijah lets out a frustrated sigh. He places his fists on the desk and hangs his head, “oh Niklaus,” he mutters quietly as he thinks.

You stand and march out to where the Vampires have gathered in the Mansion, “Klaus has gone missing with his dagger and his coffin. I need you to help me look for him, will you help me?” You plead and they all look at each other- murmuring among themselves. “Look I know not all of you are fans of Klaus, so don’t do this for him, do it for me. I’ve done nothing but be a friend to you and I love Klaus. He needs to be found, so please. Please help me.” You beg with tears in your eyes. Diego looks up and nods, and in a blur all the Vampires are gone, searching the city for Klaus. Elijah emerges from the bedroom, smiling at you. “You wouldn’t make a bad Queen.” He comments, but you can’t think of anything besides Klaus. “I can’t be a Queen if I don’t have my King.” You say sadly, and Elijah places an arm around your shoulder, pulling you into his side. “You can’t think of anywhere else he would go?” You ask and Elijah shakes his head, “When Niklaus doesn’t want to be found, then he can’t be found.” He says and you feel a tear drift down your cheek.

You pace around the Mansion and one by one all the Vampires return, with no sign of Klaus anywhere. You feel your heart stop when Diego returns, and with no idea of where Klaus is. You want to scream and rip out your hair in frustration, you want to find him, you need to find him. The sun begins to rise and you don’t know what to do, you don’t know where he would go. You bring out your phone and dial Rebekah’s number and on the 4th ring, she answers. “Y/n, lovely to speak to you.” She says, and she sounds happy. “Klaus is missing, and he’s taken a dagger and his coffin. Please, if you know of anywhere he would go...” You blurt and you hear nothing but silence. Rebekah sighs, “there is one place he might go...” She trails off and your breath hitches in your throat, waiting for her to continue. “When we were here in the 20s, he met this young girl named Penelope, there was a meadow of flowers that Klaus planted in the Bayou for her. It was her favorite place. If you haven’t looked there- you should.” “Thank you Bekah!” You say, hanging up and already heading for the door.

You search for the Meadow and finally find it, out in the middle of nowhere and you recognize the flowers from his painting. Yellow daisies. You look around the flower bed when between two trees you see his coffin, and a rush of emotions build up and you’re running through the meadow to get to him. You lift the lid of the coffin, to see him lying inside it with the dagger buried in his chest, his face gray and lifeless. You take the handle of the dagger and yank it out of his chest, but nothing happens. You know this might take a while so you sit in the flowers, next to the coffin, his hand in yours. Slowly the gray fades away and his eyes flutter open, and when he sees you his eyes widen as you help him sit up. “Y/n?” His voice is quiet, unsure and you wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him close to you. “Is this real?” He asks, his voice soft as his hand reaches out to take yours. For the first time in so long, everything feels okay and you just hope it will stay that way. You need it to. He presses his forehead against yours, his eyes closed. This place is so beautiful and you can’t help but absorb the beauty of it all, the peacefulness. And for once, everything feels okay.

#the vampire diaries #vampire diaries #the originals #originals #mikaelson #klaus mikaelson #niklaus mikaelson #klaus mikaleson imagine #niklaus mikaelson imagine #niklaus imagine #elijah mikaelson

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ancanosaur · 5 years

Text

•Without a shadow of a doubt•

Chapter one: A Temple of Memories.

The temple was building of old creaks and sounds that echoed through the halls in the night. Despite their past reputation and the swollowing cold that surrounded their temple, the Lin Kuei had welcomed you with great open arms and the warmth of family.

You don't remember much of what happened. You remember the roaring engine and slashing blades of a helicopter. The wind was warm on your cheeks, the sky giving off a golden glow of orange that signaled dayligh'ts final hours. Your body ached, temples were throbbing. "We're in the clear General, mission accomplished." A woman's voice spoke over you, your (E/C) orbs searched up, finding a blonde looking down at you. "Don't worry, we got you." She smiled softly. Her eyes were an ocean blue and filled with hope. "Cassie." A man's voice was heard, making the blonde look up at an older man, his hair a light brown with a bit of salt and pepper in the sides. "Let's get them hooked up." He said.

You suddenly felt your body lift from the ground and onto what felt like a hospital bed, your finger tips finding soft thin sheets as the buckles around your waist were tightened, a soft prick in your arm made you give a gasp of weak air, looking over to see the man placing an IV needle in your arm and sticking a bit of tape over it, keeping it in place. "Sorry kid, gotta keep you alive and hydrated." He patted your shoulder, giving a smile. "It's good to have you back." He said finally. "Let's head out, Jacquie!" Cassie called to the front of the copter.

That's all you could remember. Besides landing at base and being greeted by many smiling faces. The ones that rescued you saying that they were close friends and teammates of yours. You thought back to their happy faces, sitting around you in the hospital room. They all said that you were all close, the best of friends, and yet you couldn't think of their names. Their features all gained a veil of grief as you shook your head at them. The older man spoke up as the youngers went qiuet. "That's okay Y/N." He gave a smile. "You just get a chance to get to know us all over again." It gave the others a bit of hope.

A knock at the door pulled you out of your thoughts. You sat up from your spot on the bed and quickly made your way over to slide open the door seeing a young woman's face. "Frost." You gave a smile. She returned it in more of a small smirk. "I brought you dinner." The snowy haired girl spoke, holding up a trey of steaming food. You gave her a gracious smile, taking the trey from her and allowing her in as you sat the trey down on the dark wood of your night stand. "So when are you going to get back to helping me with the kiddies?" She said, her bare feet making icey patches on the stone floor. "You're bothered." You meet her cool blue eyes as you sat on the bed. Frost looked at you for a moment before letting out a chilling sigh, the air from her lungs thick and smokey as she took a seat beside you. "Grandmaster send me, wanting to know are you're doing and everything," Her posture was hung low, her arms crossed over her knees. "See if you remember anything."

The food on your night stand still smoked with freshness as you eyed it. You looked back at Frost, trying to find the words. You wanted to be truthful. But another part of you simply wanted to tell her the things she and the Grandmaster wanted to hear. "You don't eat as much as you should." She commented, seeing you just looking at the plate of meat and vegetables seeming unbothered.

"I just feel like i dont need it." You answered after a moment, moving your gaze to the cold tile floors. "Well, you do." The Cryomancer said in a caring yet slightly forceful way, something that was just part of Frost's charm. She see's your jaw clenched for just a moment. "It would hurt a lot of people's feelings if you starved to death." She nudge you, making you gain a low smile for just a moment.

You wish you could remember being apart of the clan and the your team, you wish you jad those memories. But you simply didnt. "Ill feed you if you dont eat." Frost finally said. That made you shake your head and give in with a smile. "Alright, alright." You pulled the trey into your lap, picking up the spoon and stirring around the small bowl of stew that was on the side before taking a bite. "There, now we can keep you." She gave a smile.

You finished your plate and sat it to the side. You and Frost had began talking about the temple gossip that you had apparently missed. Like that one of the guards, Tao had the hots for a Shiria Ryu memeber that always came with Master Hasashi for sparring training, she said his name was Atomu and that you should ask Takeda about him once you join back up with your SF team.

"Frost?" You ask after a moment of silence between the two of you. "Hm?" She looked up at you. "What..." you puased, unsure of how to really word the question. "What happened to me?" You looked at her, metting her gaze.

Frost's shoulders tighted up for a moment before loosening g up again. Her crystal eyes looking to the grey brick of the floor for a moment like she was hoping the carving in the tile would answer for her.

"You died."

She finally answered, and you felt dizzy for a moment. "I-i what?" You looked at her, "Frost, i couldnt have. Im right-" "here. You're here now." She looked at you firmly. "And thats all that matters." She let out an irritated huff but her sharp features began to soften as she looked back at you.

You just sat there, looking at the ground. Chewing on your lips like gum. "How?" You finally asked, not meeting her eyes. "You," she looked down at her hands, picking at her nails, a nervous habbit of hers. "Were with your team, everything was going smoothly and then an ambush happened." She sighed. "You took a knife and...that was that." She said abruptly, not wanting to talking about the details.

Your fingers were clutched tightly into the bed below you, the world feeling like it was spinning around you, until a hand found your shoulder. "But we got you back." Frost said, her grip firm on you. "That's all we wanted."

Time passed and Frost had left you for the night. The wool blankets wrapped around keeping you warm as you begin to drift to sleep, the candle at your bedside still burning.

Everything was nothing but pitch black around you, your body was just a drift in nothingness, it was warm nor cold. Just nothing until a pair of large hands found their way to gripp your arms, seeming to hold you in place in this endless darkness. You're eyes were open, but they saw nothing in this dark place as the hands traveled up, sliding against your skin and up to hold your face. "A lost little spirit..." the voice was deep, yet it echoed like the hissings of snakes. You felt fingers run through your hair and tilt your face to the side. "I'll take you in..." the voice whispered.

You sat up in your bed, letting out a gasp as if you had been under water. Your hand found your heaving chest, your heart desperately trying to escape your ribcage as it pounded against your sternum.

You looked around your small dark room, recognizing it as yours, aiding you in calming from your dream. You let out a deep sigh, closing your eyes for just a moment before the smell of smoke caught your attention.

The candle that was one lit was now out and it was still smoking as if it had just been blown out. You eyed it for a moment, until you were able to tell yourself that your sudden movment from waking up had blown the candle out. You shook your head. It was just a dream, a weird dream that had left you with this chill of familiarity. But a dream nonetheless.

You sank back down in your bed, until you felt something cold on the side of your face, making you feel for whatever it was against your skin. You lifted you hand up into the moon light to see somthing dark on your fingertips making you jump and rush over into the bathroom, flipping the switch on, thinking you were going to see the crimson red of blood once you looked in the mirror. But what you saw made you shiver. A Jet black hand print was perfectly framed against your jawline, the thumb was smeared as it had been rubbing against your cheek.

You didnt know what to think or do, so you simply grabbed a wash cloth, turning the water on in the sink and soaking the cloth til it was dripping and looked back up into the mirror to wash the hand print away only to see it already disappeared.

You dropped the cloth into the water, backing up into the wall giving a shaking sigh with your hands to your head. Maybe you were losing it? Maybe you were slowly dying again. Maybe- you took a deep breath. Remembering what Grandmaster had taught you, 'In a time of storm, find a shelter. In the time of doubt find hope.' You took a few deep breaths. 'In a time of panic, find peace.' You gained control of your breathing, calming your racing heart. Being thankful for your master's words.

Then a thought popped into your mind. If there was anyone to talk to about this, anyone who would have knowledge about life after death, it's him.

You flipped the light switch off, casting the room back into darkness once more as you made your way back under your sheets. It was decided then. You would speak to him first thing in the morning.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

I hope you guys like the first chapter. I wanted this to be kind of a Slowish kind of burn maybe. We'll see. We get to talk to Subby in the next chapter so that should be fun :) and like let me know if you want a smut chapter because lmao idk tell me

Ill also start working on other characters i wanna write for becuase theres a big lack in MK reader inserts my doods. I feel like this chapter is a bit rough, but i havent written a full length fic like this in a hot minutes. So hopefully it'll get better. And all fics i write and will write are gender neutral reader becuase like all genders have the right to fuck hot shadow wraiths and that's just tea☕

Please forgive any grammar/spelling mistakes!

-Onyx♤

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 6 years

Text

with you [5/6]

Summary: Clementine pops the question.

Preview:

“Ruby’s going to see Clem, and the others are in the music room, so steer clear.”

Louis doesn’t know how he did it, but he actually convinced Aasim to let him wander off.

Of course, he promised that he wouldn’t go near the music room or go see Clementine, and he practically got on his hands and knees and begged to leave the comfort of Aasim’s room.

Aasim eventually gave in once Louis was dressed in the attire picked out for him; a dark green button down shirt tucked into his jeans and his signature jacket.

The yard is empty with the exception of Willy on watch. Before the young boy spots him, he makes a quick turn to the right and heads down the sidewalk towards the graveyard.

All the graves have fresh flowers on them, white ones with long stems. Louis places himself on the ground, not bothering to care if dirt clung to his jeans or jacket.

“Hey, Marlon.”

Warnings: Louis has a disturbing nightmare. Aasim can’t dance. Ruby’s super oblivious [or is she...?]. Mitch still doesn’t know how to handle gross feelings. Marlon’s grave makes an appearance. Clementine and Louis are separated because Ruby’s superstitous about bad luck, I guess.

Author’s Note: Y’know, it’s amazing any of you still follow me because I am a big dummy liar pants. After playing ep4, I went back to work on this and get more ideas to fully tie it together but as I was, it became ridiculously long. Too long to even be enjoyable to read. So. Here we are.

Thank you for all the nice comments and messages I’ve gotten for this story. The support you guys have given my dumb ass has turned me into a little ball of feely mush that can’t express words, so... thank you. Really. Every read, every like, every comment has meant so much. Hope you enjoy, and I’ll see ya next time!

---

There’s a heavy pressure building up in his ears, damn near deafening the sounds of excited voices and off-key piano. The weight of his own head brings a throbbing ache along his neck, falling forward to gaze through lidded eyes down at the wooden floors.

He’s in the music room. No question there. Several pairs of feet shuffle by in a blur of muted colors, stopping in front of him every so often before turning away to continue their business.

Whoever’s playing the piano clearly has never pressed a proper key in their life, instead opting to slam both hands over as many of the keys as they possibly can. The sound, so awful, so quick it’s enough to make him sick, spoiling the insides of his stomach until the acids are boiling up.

Louis swallows, though his mouth is so dry and sore that nothing goes down to ease the bitter burn bubbling in his throat. His tongue feels swollen, too heavy for his jaw to handle, too plump to allow the necessary amount of air to push through.

The stress pulsating in his ears and head worsens when the music grows louder, harder with each slam of the keys. Louis’ legs buckle, giving out and sending him backward. No one wandering around seems to take notice of his fall, still hurrying and still chatting gleefully. He tries to fully open his eyes, to see their cheerful faces, but the effort to even do that has left him drained, sore.

The shoes that approach him, oddly pristine, take hold of his focus. The figure standing before him isn’t threatening, nor is it kind. It’s just there, waiting patiently for his undivided attention.

Louis can’t bring himself to look. His arms, the only things holding his upper body up, tremble violently with his vain attempt to not completely crumble.

The figure kneels down before him, a gentle hand reaching out to lift his chin.

His father smiles at him.

It’s cold, unnatural.

His once handsome face is practically gray now, gaunt and leathery, and his teeth are rotten right down to his bleeding gums. His eyes, now sunken and bruised, are dull, clouded over.

Louis’ chin quivers as the heat spreads behind his widening eyes and down his nose. He takes a shaky breath, lips trembling without a sound as he tries to say, ‘Dad?’

He coughs, tries to clear his throat, tries to speak.

And that’s how he knows none of this is real.

He never has a voice in his dreams. He never makes a sound, no matter how hard he tries.

‘Dad…?’

His father’s boney thumb brushes his cheek, leaving a chill and a rise of goosebumps along his flesh.

Louis reaches out an unsteady hand to grasp the front of his father’s suit, trying to hold on with all his might, but he’s just too damn weak. His whole body shudders as his father fixes the tie around Louis’ neck, straightens his suit jacket, and stands. Louis’ arm falls useless into his lap as he hunches over.

‘Da-dad…’

He’s sobbing, unable to breathe as he silently wheezes and coughs. The tears burn hot against his skin, slipping over his cheeks and jaw, down his neck. His nose runs, and no amount of sniffling prevents it from dripping.

Blurred through his teary vision, he can make out his father’s offering hand. Louis blinks up at him, trying to see his face, his smile.

“C’mon, Lou, get up.”

His father’s voice is garbled, almost robotic.

Something glistens, catching Louis’ eye.

It’s the dented and loose band around his father’s finger. A wave of emotion crashes over him, shooting straight through his heart as he holds up his hand to admire his own ring. He’s horrified to find it rusting, tainting the surrounding flesh down to the bone.

The keys pound, harder and harder, and the chatter grows louder to compete.

Something hits his thigh, and when he looks down, he sees his father’s severed finger with the ring still attached, oozing dark blood and staining his pants.

He gasps, chokes and kicks his leg out to get the finger off him, snapping his eyes up to his father’s.

That cold, pseudo smile stretches unnaturally, his jaw dislocating and slowly gaping, tearing the flesh of his cheeks before falling onto Louis’s lap.

As Louis tries to find the strength to scoot himself away, crying out in both silent terror and agony, his father falls apart, limb by limb, soaking his suit and beating down against his legs.

‘Shit! Shit-no! Dad!’ he tries to scream. ‘Please, no!’

Squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head so hard it rattles his brain, putting him in a dizzy haze, Louis tries to wake up.

‘I’m sorry! I-I’m sorry!’

There’s clapping, sharp smacks that beat in time with his hard and fearful heart.

They’re standing, all of them, applauding. Faceless figures, familiar and slathered in shadows.

Banging on the doors. Shaking wood, muffled crying. More bangs.

Louis covers his ears by tucking his head between his knees, frantically murmuring, ‘Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!’

The doors open, and there’s a heavy thud of a body crashing through.

When Louis dares to open his eyes, that dread rushes black, heavy and throbbing, through his veins.

Clementine’s beautiful white dress is shredded, hanging loosely over her shoulder and falling over one side of her torso. On her hands and knees, arms and legs bruised and scratched, she’s crawling towards him with pleading, golden eyes. The wound, the bite, rots the skin around her neck and shoulder.

She gasps out, “Louis!”

But, he can’t move. He can’t go to her. He can only watch her collapse in front of him.

He’s shaking, shaking, shaking-

“Hey-!”

-shaking, shaking, shaking-

“Louis!”

-shaking-

Louis jerks up, gasping for air.

Firm hands grip his arm. Instinctively, he pushes away, crashing to the ground and taking the chair he sat upon with him. His calf smacks hard against the leg of the table, sending a jolt of pain through his thigh and up his side.

“Dude, shit!”

Louis scoots away disoriented until his back hits the closet doors. Heart racing, smashing brutally heavy in his chest as he takes in as much air as his lungs can handle. The muscles of his neck and back are tense, tightening with each movement. He grasps at his throat as his wide, teary eyes search desperately within the dark room for his father, for Clementine, but all he sees is Aasim’s panicked face.

“Louis, calm down!” Aasim kneels in front of him and raises a trepid hand, hesitating to actually touch him.

“ Shit -” Louis croaks out, coughing. He rubs at his face, wiping away the cold sweat clinging to his skin and tries to settle his breathing. He can feel Aasim move close, tentative and confused.

Under that questioning gaze, all Louis can give is numerous heaving huffs as he tries to calm himself down.

“You knocked over my pencil can,” Aasim says slowly, leaning forward to try and read Louis’ expression. “It woke me up. You were freaking out and- shit, you scared the hell outta me. I thought-”

The sudden pause is obvious, as is the confusion melting into deep concern. When hotness drips down his cheeks, Louis realizes that he’s crying. Not the choking, can’t breathe kind of crying, but one stemmed from shock and humiliation. Quiet, slow tears.

“Hey…” Aasim’s voice is soft, unsure. “Hey, it’s okay.”

Shame warms his skin as Louis glances away, lowering his head and wiping his eyes.

“I-I’m sorry.” His throat is so unpleasantly hoarse that it hurts to speak too loud. “I’m sorry.”

Aasim scrambles to a stand, pausing only briefly to shoot Louis another apprehensive look before grabbing his water bottle off the nightstand. This time he sits cross-legged in front of Louis as he offers him the drink.

“Here.”

Louis only looks at it until Aasim motions it towards him, silently telling him to take it.

He takes a small sip, grimacing at how hard it is to swallow, but after a few attempts, he’s chugging the whole thing, no longer caring how desperate or foolish he looks.

Louis breathes in deeply, mouth and throat sated and his pulse beginning to calm. He avoids Aasim’s eye, instead glancing over at the mess of pencils on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles again, sniffling.

“Uh,” Aasim scratches at his scruffy chin, “Are you- uhm…”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, coughing, “I should’ve warned you, but,” he cuts himself off, biting his bottom lip.

Fuck.

It was stupid to think he could have a peaceful rest the night before his wedding. Luckily, the dream wasn’t one that paralyzed him, unlike ones he’s had in the past. Parts of it were already beginning to fade, leaving only the prominent details to haunt his mind.

His father, or rather, the thing that resembled his father and the rotten finger, Clementine crawling towards him; those are the things standing out now, engraved in his memory.

“Warned me?” Aasim mumbles to himself, cocking his head curiously.

“About… this.”

“Wait, this happens a lot?”

Louis hesitates. “...Yeah, uhm, it’s- I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you up.” He gives him back the empty bottle, murmuring, “Thanks.”

“Yeah,” Aasim says, but makes no move to get up.

They sit there in awkward silence, and Louis can see that Aasim’s racking his brain for something to say.

“You had a pretty bad nightmare, I assume?”

Louis nods.

“That makes sense,” Aasim says slowly, eyes sliding awkwardly, almost afraid of contact. “What was it about?”

Death. Misery. Guilt. Everything else in between.

A manifestation of what he’s truly afraid of.

It’s definitely not the first time he’s dreamt of his father. Back when he was younger, he had much fonder dreams about his parents; eating dinner together, going on vacation, swimming in their pool on the hottest days of summer.

God, he had loved that pool.

On weekends, when his father was home, Louis would drag him outside and beg him to throw him in, sometimes crying fat tears when his father snapped a “no” at him.

But, on rare occasions, his father would laugh and say, “That’s what the diving board’s for,” but it was never the same as when his father picked him up and tossed him in himself.

Sometimes he could even convince him to swim with him, teach him how to float on his back, how to flip himself around off the diving board, have contests to see who could hold their breath the longest.

After he ruined everything and they sent him to Ericson, and the world went to shit, he forced himself to only think about good things. He’d pretend that he hadn’t destroyed his parent's lives, pretended that they were on their way get him and apologize for leaving him there in the first place.

And they never did.

So, Louis’ willpower to only think about the good things cracked, then shattered.

Spoiled, vindictive, unapologetically cruel.

That’s the kid his parents left behind and next looked back.

That’s who Louis was.

And that’s only the beginning of the universe punishing him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Aasim tries again.

“Do you really wanna hear about it?”

“Yes.”

Louis shoots him a skeptical look.

“Sometimes you feel better when you get it all out on the table,” Aasim elaborates. “As I said before, it’s probably the pre-wedding jitters that’s got you freaked out.”

“And you want to listen to me?”

“Yeah,” Aasim frowns. “I haven’t seen you this scared since-” he bites his lip, glancing away, “-since what happened on the delta.”

“When I killed Dorian.”

“...Yeah.”

There are times where Louis forgets he wasn’t the only person there at that moment, that Aasim and Omar watched him as he pulled the trigger that sent the arrow right through her mouth and into her skull.

He didn’t see their reactions or even hear them. The moment she fell onto the ground before him, motionless and bleeding out, nothing else existed.

That’s where the real swelling shame came in.

He just sat there in absolute shock, frozen and nearly faint, and even tossed away his weapon.

In those seconds of hesitation, had Minerva not been distracted by the death of her apparent delta family member, Clementine could’ve been killed.

All because he couldn’t do one goddamn thing right.

“Was it about her?” Aasim softly asks.

“No.”

For once, Dorian left him alone.

Aasim shifts then crawls over to sit beside him with their shoulders touching.

“You’re not a murderer, you know.”

Louis scoffs. “No?”

“It was self-defense.”

It was self-defense.

She would’ve killed you if you hadn’t reacted.

It was her or you, Louis.

“That still doesn’t make me feel good about it,” Louis brings his knees closer to his chest, resting his chin on them and closing his eyes. “The one thing I’ve always been afraid of after the world went to hell was that I’d have to kill somebody. Doesn’t matter why or how, it’s just something I never, ever wanted to do.”

He stares forward, focusing on the darkness behind the window’s thick curtains.

“You’ve never had to do it,” Louis mumbles.

“We killed the rest of them.”

“Not like that, not personally. We injured and left them to the walkers.”

“Some might say that’s worse, but we couldn’t just leave them alive. Shit, just- just like how we couldn’t take Minnie with us after she passed out.”

“I know.”

Aasim stretches his legs out, leaning forward in an attempt to de-stress his stiff back. “Look, you’re right. I don’t know what it’s like,” he admits, “but it doesn’t change the fact that what you did helped break us out. Who knows what would’ve happened if you hadn’t shot her. We would’ve blown up with the boat, just like the rest of them.”

“I know,” Louis repeats, this time more harshly. “But that also doesn’t change the fact that I still have fucking nightmares about it, some so bad I can’t breathe or see straight. You have no idea how many nights I’ve woken Clementine and AJ up because I still can’t get my shit together and- fuck, they deserve a peaceful night of sleep, not a blubbering idiot who can’t get out of his own damn head.”

His throat’s tightening again with each emotionally bitter word he spits. Meeting Aasim’s wide eyes, he adds, “I know you’re trying to help, but there’s nothing you, or anyone- not even Clementine- can say that will ever make them go away.”

Aasim listens, really listens to every word he says, never once looking away from him. He’s hesitant but places a wary hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Louis sighs. “Ruby insisted I stay here, but I should’ve just slept in my old room. I’m just sorry that you had to see that.”

“I’m not,” Aasim replies. “I had no idea this was even a thing for you.”

“No one does, ‘cept Clem and AJ.”

Aasim pulls his hand back, curling his fingers together to rest in his lap, staring down at them with a contemplative frown.

Then, he shrugs and quietly confesses, “I have them, too. About the delta.”

Louis lets go of his knees, his legs sliding down to stretch out into a position similar to Aasim’s. He cocks his head, waiting for him to continue.

“They’re fuzzy, most of the time. I’m back in that cell by myself and Lilly comes in to ‘talk.’ She always tells me that she killed you guys, all of you, and once I see your bodies, I’ll ‘understand,’” he grimaces. “She’s going to ‘turn me into the best damn soldier the delta’s ever seen.’”

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Aasim rubs at his tired eyes. “But, then I wake up in my own bed. No Lilly, no boat, you guys are alive, and I’m not a soldier. I’m still me.”

“Does it ever keep you up at night?”

“It has. Usually, I can’t fall back asleep. Too scared,” he shrugs. “So, I just grab my book, write down what I remember, and get an early start on the day and try not to think about it.”

“That easy?”

“What else can I do?”

Louis chews on his lip, turning away again. “You’re a lot stronger than me.”

“No, we just- we’re different. We saw and did different things, and, as you know, we’re not exactly two peas in a pod when it comes to thinking or reacting.”

That gets a breathy laugh out of Louis, which Aasim’s pleased to hear.

“No, we’re not,” Louis agrees.

It feels good to laugh, even if it’s barely a chuckle. The exhaustion that usually grabs a hold of his after a nightmare is present in each of his limbs, weighing him down.

“Sorry I scared you.”

“It’s okay.”

The boys stand now, muscles sore and stiff from sitting on the ground too long. Louis moves to pick up the pencils he knocked over, slipping them back into the can and placing it back on the desk.

The notebook he’d been writing his vows down is still open. He glances over the works with a tiny grin, hearing Aasim sit on his bed with a huff, repressing a yawn.

He doesn’t want to think about nightmares anymore. He wants them all to go away, leave him alone and let him live in peace. It’s the night- or is it early morning now?- of his wedding, his marriage to the love of his life. He shouldn’t be here thinking about his father or Clementine dying or the repercussions of what he did as a child coming back to haunt him.

He should be smiling, worrying about not getting enough sleep because he can’t wait to see her walk down that aisle towards him.

He needs a distraction.

“Can I ask you something?” he asks, turning back to Aasim.

“Sure.”

“How come you never told Ruby you liked her?”

The question isn't teasing, but genuine.

Aasim’s silent, but even in the dark Louis can tell from the thoughtful raise of his brows that he didn’t know that answer himself. He ponders on the idea, drumming his fingers on his knee.

“Honestly?” he finally says.

“Yeah.”

“I was scared. When I stayed with her to patch up Omar’s leg, she hugged me and told me how happy she was to see me alive and- and I knew I probably could’ve told her, but it didn’t feel right. It never feels right.”

“I don’t think there’s a single right moment, Aasim,” Louis says. “You should tell her. She might like you, too.”

“Doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Have you met me?”

“You’re a bit of a sourpuss, but it’s part of your charm.”

Aasim scoffs.

“And you’re smart,” Louis continues. “Like, really smart. You’re reliable, honest, a damn good hunter, you know how to be kind, and you’re not bad looking.”

“Dude.”

“Looks, brawn, kindness, and smarts. You’re the complete package. In fact, how come Ruby's not the one who's head over heels?”

“She doesn’t care about any of that,” Aasim rolls his eyes. “Why are you asking, anyway? I think I’ve made it pretty clear I don’t like her anymore.”

Even Aasim himself didn’t believe the words as he spoke them.

“I was just thinking… I have someone to help me through the nightmares, but you don’t, and that kind of sucks.”

“And, your point is?”

“My point is I think you should go for it.”

Aasim looks away, scowling.

“I’m serious. Look-” Louis approaches the bed, hands on his hips, “-you’re not fooling anyone. Admit it, you still really like her. I’m not saying you have to confess your undying love, but maybe you could show your interest a little more? Like, for example… asking her to dance tomorrow?”

“I don’t dance.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Aasim refuses to look anywhere but the floor now, absently scratching at his wrist.

“I don’t know how to dance,” he timidly admits.

“So? Ruby can teach you. It’d be a nice bonding moment for the two of you.”

“That’s embarrassing.”

“How?” he laughs. “She’d probably think it’s cute.”

“Or lame.”

Then, Louis gets an idea, and Aasim must see the gears turning in his head because he thrusts his hand up towards Louis’ mischievous face.

“Whatever you’re thinking, no .”

“You don’t even know what I was going to suggest!”

“I don’t need to because the answer is still no!”

“That signature sourpuss isn’t going to win over sweet Ruby’s heart, y’know.”

Louis moves across the room, leaning against the bookcase and folding his arms over his chest. “Now, seeing how I’m probably not going to be able to fall asleep anytime soon after my freakout, why don’t we play a little game? I’m going to stand over here and pretend I’m Ruby-”

“Dude, no -”

“-and you’re going to ask me to dance.”

“Uh, no, I’m not!”

“ Oh, Aasim, ain’t this just the most rootin’ tootin’est hootenany you’ve ever seen ?”

Aasim gapes up at him, on the verge of a dry laugh at the terrible accent Louis’ trying to pull over.

“That’s- that’s not what she sounds like!”

“Close enough,” Louis winks. Dramatically pressing the back of his hand against his forehead, he laments, “ Oh, look a Lou and Clem dancin’ so perfectly together! If only there was a devilishly handsome -”

“Oh my god-”

“- young fella who would come ‘n sweep me off my feet -”

“You’re fucking ridiculous-”

“- and dance the night away with me !”

Aasim can’t help it.

It might be from lack of sleep or from nerves, but he’s wheezing at the stupidity before him. Louis has said some idiotic things before, hell, some that even got a chuckle out of him, but this-

How the hell did they go from exhaustion-inducing nightmares to this ?

Louis breaks character to laugh along with him, not caring if they’re being too loud.

Of course, if anyone walked by their room, they might think two madmen live inside, one with a very poor, very fake southern drawl and the other an old chain smoker who can’t breathe.

“We’re not doing this,” Aasim coughs, chuckling into his hand.

“C’mon, man, it’ll help! I swear!”

“Do you even know how to dance?”

Louis proudly grabs the openings of his jacket, shooting him a wide smile.

“Nope!”

“Awesome.”

“Hence why we should practice. It can't be that hard,” Louis clears his throat. “ If only Aasim would notice me over here all by my lonesome !”

“This is so stupid.”

“ All by my lonesome! ”

Aasim rests his head in his hands.

He can’t believe that he’s actually considering going along with this nonsense.

But he does.

"Now, ya just put yer hand here-"

"Please stop talking like that."

"Makin' fun of a girl's accent is really rude, mister."

"Louis."

"Don't go steppin' on my toes!"

"Louis."

Aasim presses his heel into Louis' boot.

"Ow! Okay, I'll stop."

It's strange, a little unpleasant, but at least Aasim learns what not to do when dancing within the hour or so of dance practice before the exhaustion send both of them plummeting down into their respective beds.

---

“Alright, Willy, yer all set.”

Ruby pulls the sheet off from around Willy’s neck as the young boy excitedly hops up from the stool, his eager hands reaching up to feel his head.

He agreed to a haircut on one condition: mohawk.

Ruby didn’t fight it. Anything’s better than the dirty, scraggly mess he had before, and the style did actually look charming on him. Studying him now, she thinks it makes him look tougher, meaner. In a good way, of course.

“Woah,” Willy grins far too wide as he feels the short, prickly hairs on the sides of his head. The top strip, still damp from Ruby’s spray bottle, lays flat until he runs his fingers through it, spiking it up.

“See? Don’t’cha feel much better?”

“It looks cool, right?”

“Real cool.”

Willy gives Ruby a big smile before hurrying over to the ladder in the center of the room where Mitch is quietly working on attaching the smaller string lights to the chandelier.

“Mitch!”

“Hm?”

Mitch’s tired eyes glance away from his work and down towards the young boy. Upon seeing him, he smirks.

“Shit, look at you,” he says. “Badass.”

“Yeah? You should do it, too!”

“Pfft, yeah, probably not- shit !”

One of the small battery packs comes loose, causing it and the lights attached to it to fall to the ground. Willy’s quick to move around the ladder and examine the battery pack.

“Did it bust?”

“No, it's okay.” Willy reaches up to hand it to him after wiping it on his shirt. “Do you need help?”

“Nah.” Mitch shakes his head, pausing to suppress a yawn. He jerks his chin over towards the doors. “You can start lining the aisle.”

When Willy doesn’t respond or move, Mitch peers back down at him with a raised brow. Willy’s gazing up at him with his head cocked, a question lingering in his eye. When he opens his mouth to speak, Mitch cuts him off.

“Make sure the batteries are near the doors, then line them up coming this way.”

Willy frowns, but nods and does as he’s told.

With a small sigh, Mitch rubs his eyes and nose on his sleeve, mentally cursing himself to snap out of this haze. Grabbing more black tape from his belt, he secures the battery pack to the chandelier. He leans away to study his work, keeping his grip firm on the ladder as to not wobble backward.

He decided that they’d use the small, dainty lights to hang down above their heads, figuring that when it got dark enough, it’d look like little stars or fireflies floating in the air.

He reaches into his pocket to pull out the last one. He doesn’t have enough room to attach it, but he’s sure he can find another use for it somewhere in here.

Before he climbs down the ladder, he checks to make sure the other lights he has attached, the bigger ones, are fixed tight.

He stayed up late attaching all the lights to the chandelier before sticking the batteries to the walls. When he checked to make sure they were all still working, lighting them up one at a time, the room lit with a golden glow prettier than anything a candle could give.

It’d been quite a sight to just stand there alone, staring up at the bright ceiling.

“Mitch!” Ruby calls. “Yer turn!”

He scowls, lowering his head. Another yawn builds in his throat.

Without a word, he drags his feet over to Ruby and plops down on the stool, crossing his arms and staring off at the wall covered in white and gold hearts.

Ruby waits for the complaints, the argument, the curses but they don’t come. Mitch just sits there, waiting.

She drapes the sheet around his front and secures it behind his neck, pulling out the locks of hair caught under.

Dampening the hair with her spray bottle, she combs through it to work out any knots. Surprisingly, his hair isn’t that tangled. It’s the longest it’s ever been, damn near touching his shoulders. In fact, when was the last time she gave him a haircut? A year ago? Year and a half?

He’d really complained then. She remembers having to threaten to shave his head in his sleep to get him to cooperate. That threat prompted the little mishap in the greenhouse the next day, but she tries not to think about that. If she does, she’ll end up pissed and ready to yank the brown locks right out of his head.

So, instead of that, she attempts to make conversation.

“The lights turned out better than I thought,” she says, gently pressing his head forward to give better access to the nape of his neck. “Gotta say, I’m real impressed.”

Mitch grunts, grumbling, “And you wanted to use candles.”

“We’re still usin’ some, and I got the box over there incase any’a them go out.”

“They won’t go out. Checked ‘em last night.”

“That why yer so tired?”

Mitch doesn’t reply.

She can’t help but notice how off he’d been acting since he walked into the music room this morning. She’d been bursting with energy, thrilled that the day’s finally here. She listed off all the things that still needed to be done and all he did was look at her. He’d heard her, sure, but didn’t say much.

Usually, they would’ve been snapping at each other about this or that, but no.

Mitch didn’t even mumble to himself the entire time he worked. He always mumbles to himself when he’s working.

What could he be so sore about on a day like this?

It’s not like she could ask him how he’s feeling; for whatever reason, that always pushed the defense button for him.

Of all the kids she’d grown up and survived this nasty world with, Mitch was one she could never truly figure out. Sometimes she can guess his next move, other times he does something so bizarre that it actually hurts her brain when she tries to wrap her head around it.

“Gonna go see Clem later,” she says. “Fix up her hair real nice. Wonder if she’s picked out her shirt yet.”

Mitch shrugs a shoulder in response.

“Oh, and don’t ferget, I left some clothes in yer room. I’m thinkin’ that black button down shirt’ll look nice on ya. If that one don’t fit, wear the blue one.”

“Fine.”

They finish the rest of the haircut in silence.

Ruby brushes off the chunks of hair from his shoulders before pulling off the sheet. Mitch stands, rolling his shoulders and neck before turning to her.

He looks so much better, she decides. While still short in the back and on the sides, she let him keep some of his bangs, which he now pushes back. With it still being damp, it stays that way, revealing his whole scowling face.

Ruby smirks. “Y’know, you could be real handsome if ya smiled more.”

He doesn’t find that amusing.

“Shut up.”

“Jus’ sayin’.”

They hear Willy snickering over by the door, covering his mouth to try and hide it as he lines the aisle with lights.

Ruby sets aside her scissors, keeping an eye on Mitch as he feels around his neck.

Boy, he does look tired.

Now that she’s seeing him up close, the darkness lining his eyes is prominent, and his sunken posture is more than noticeable. She didn’t think working with those lights all week had taken that much of a toll on him, especially since he seemed perfectly fine yesterday.

She lightly hits his arm. “Hey? You okay?”

“Fine.”

There goes the button.

Ruby sighs. “Said ya were up late last night, right? Why don’t’cha go rest a while.”

Mitch crosses his arms again, glaring down at the floor. “No. I-” he glances up at the chandelier, “I got other things to do.”

“Like what? Aren’t’cha done with the lights?”

“Yeah.”

“Are ya gonna help the boys with the arbor?”

“No.”

Ruby quirks a brow. “So…?”

“I’m goin’ hunting. Someone’s gotta catch something for Omar to cook tonight, right?”

“Oh,” Ruby raises a curious brow. “I was gonna send Aasim and Louis out. Y’know, make sure Lou don’t try ‘n sneak a peek at Clem before the weddin’.”

“Doesn’t he have groom stuff to do?”

“Like?”

“Shit, I don't know, groom stuff. And, isn't Aasim’s his babysitter?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that-”

“Then, they’re busy,” Mitch says firmly. “I’m going. Besides-” he finally meets her eye, “-been cooped up here all week. Need to get outta here a while.”

“Well,” Ruby frowns. “Alright. Who ya takin’?”

At that, Mitch’s shoulders slump further.

“I can go,” Willy volunteers.

“No,” Mitch snaps harshly, startling the both of them. Upon seeing Willy’s wide eyes, his face softens just a bit. “I mean, you gotta stay and help Tenn and AJ with the arbor. I-” he breathes a frustrated sigh and heads for the door, “I’m taking James.”

Before either of them can say anything, he’s gone.

“Any idea what’s up?” Ruby asks, sharing the same concerned look as the boy beside her.

Willy shrugs. “No clue. But, is James even back yet? He left last night without telling anybody.”

“Haven’t heard.”

“Oh.”

Willy returns his distressed stare back to the open doors, thoughts still stuck on Mitch.

“Is- is he gonna be okay?”

Ruby turns to peer up at the chandelier with a thoughtful look. “I think so. Nothin’ bothers him fer too long, right?”

“Maybe,” Willy frowns. “He was being weird last night, too.”

When Willy got off watch and went to check on him in the basement, he’d heard a small crash followed by a string of curses. When he rushed down there in a panic, he found one of the shelves on the bookcase they kept down there broken in half and Mitch sitting on the stool, holding his foot.

He hadn’t hurt himself too bad, but that did nothing to ease Willy’s growing worry.

“That so?”

“Yeah… didn’t wanna talk about it.”

“Whatta surprise.”

Ruby decides not to fret. Whatever it is that’s bothering him, he’ll work it out. Maybe it’s a good thing to send him and James out instead. The fresh air will perk him up and he can blow off some steam, and if James is with him, she doesn’t have to worry about him getting hurt.

If he came back with that sourpuss still tugging on his face, then she’d talk some sense into him. Right now, she has to focus on getting everyone ready and working on the final touches of the music room.

If Clementine and Louis thought the place was beautiful for the proposal, then they’re going to be floored at how downright gorgeous it’ll be for their wedding.

As she sweeps the clumps of hair off the floor and into a dustpan, she realizes that she won’t be able to do anything with her own locks, at least, not by herself. While she was fairly good at doing the other kids hair, she could never seem to do much with her own.

However, there’s an easy solution.

The only person she’s ever dared let cut her hair in the past is Aasim. To make matters even better, she knew Aasim could do lovely braids. She watched him to it to Sophie’s hair years ago.

A smile stretches her lips at the thought.

“Willy, go out ‘n help the boys. I’m gonna go check on Lou and Aasim.”

---

The ceiling slowly comes into focus.

Clementine’s laid awake for a while now, comfortable on her back with eyes kept shut, only blinking up at the dust particles floating through the air whenever the curtains flutter, letting in more light.

She hasn’t woken up so calm, yet so restless in a long time. Even in her empty room, her empty bed, she finds herself at peace with a tiny grin adorning her lips. When she sits up, there’s no grogginess, no temptation to cover her head with the pillow and try to find sleep again.

Talking to Lee always makes her feel like this, even though she knows it's not real.

Even so, the images of her dream fade in and out, bleed together into an emotional mess.

She wonders to herself, or more so worries if Louis slept as well as she did.

Not that she could go find him and make sure. Ruby would throw a fit if they saw each other before the wedding. She doesn’t know if it’s really bad luck, because how could it be?

Then again, the bad luck might come in the form of a wooden spoon, courtesy of Ruby.

The door inches open noisily. AJ slides in, attempting to close it as quietly as possible. He’s carrying a cup of steaming coffee, the strong, bitter scent wafting through the air. When the hinges of the door continue to make more awful creaking noises, he shushes the inanimate object.

“It’s okay, goofball, I’m awake.”

AJ jumps at her voice, nearly dropping the hot mug. Whipping around, he pouts, “I told you I don’t like that name.”

“You’re right,” she smirks, leaning up on her elbows. “It’s okay, shitbird , I’m awake.”

“Hey!” AJ giggles, playfully glaring as he hands her the coffee. “That’s mean! You’re a shitbird!”

“Not as much as you are.”

As she sips the coffee, AJ hops up beside her.

"Today's the day!"

"It is."

“I’m excited. Are you excited?” he asks eagerly, practically bouncing. Seems he’s already forgotten about the shitbird insult, his zealous anticipation of what’s to come later today taking over.

“More than you know, kiddo,” Clementine beams. She downs the rest of the coffee, savoring the heat as it fills her belly and spreads warmth throughout her. “You know everything you’re supposed to do?”

“Yep! I’m helping the others and keeping an eye on you until we’re ready, then when it gets dark enough, I gotta come get you so I can walk with you and, uh, give- give you something?”

“Give me away,” she corrects.

“Give you away,” he says firmly, then cocks his head to the side with that thoughtful look he gets when he’s attempting to understand something alien to him.

“Give you away,” he repeats. “That sounds weird, like you’re a toy or something. Give you away.”

Clementine laughs, saying, “Well, you’re not literally giving me away, AJ.”

“I know. It’s just a weird thing to say. Why do they say that?”

She studies him for a moment, trying to piece together the right way to explain it to him.

“Remember when I first told you that I was going to propose to Louis?”

“‘Course I do.”

“And remember when I asked for your blessing to marry him?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, think of it like that, but this time you’re giving Louis your blessing to marry me . That’s basically what it means, like, you’re ‘give me away’ to him to show that you’re okay with us getting married.”

“Oh,” AJ nods. “Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes more sense. I’m giving you guys my blessing.” He smiles brightly, leaning over to hug around her waist. “I’m gonna give you guys my best blessing!”

She holds him back, chuckling. “How’s everything else looking?”

“Well, I can’t tell you too much because it’s a surprise, but me and Tenn made something super awesome last night and- and we’re working on something even cooler today!” he gushes.

“Well, I can’t wait to see it.”

“You’re gonna love it! Louis, too!”

“Have you talked to him this morning?”

“No,” AJ shakes his head, pulling back to look up at her. “He and Aasim are still asleep.”

“Really?”

Clementine stands to look through the window. The full daylight shines brightly over the school, leaving behind any chill morning brought. While not quite noon, it’s still a little late to sleep in, even for Louis. That knowledge does nothing to ease the anxious tightening within her.

“Can you go check on him?”

“Yeah, I can.” AJ presses his fingers together, picking at the skin around his nails as he asks, “If he had a bad dream, he’d come get us, right?”

“Well,” she starts, glancing back at the boy, “given what’s going on, he might not. He’s probably fine, I just want to make sure.”

“I’ll go after I help Tenn. I told him that I’d meet him out there soon, but I wanted to see you first,” AJ says, then his brows knit together earnestly. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

“Oh yeah?” Clementine asks as she leans against the dresser. “About the wedding?”

“That, and some other stuff. I know you said not much is gonna be different afterward, but I don’t think that’s true.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean- well, I was thinking- actually, Tenn and I talked,” AJ stumbles over his words. “You and Louis like to be alone, right?”

“Sometimes,” she replies hesitantly. “Why?”

“Tenn was telling me some stuff, like how married people like to spend more time alone together in their rooms.”

Heated dread tingles along her neck.

She knows her mind might be rushing straight into the gutter, but the possibility of Tenn telling AJ about certain things isn’t unthinkable, and if he’s about to ask her questions referring to-

“And I realized something,” he stands up from the bed and walks towards his own, “I bother you guys sometimes, don’t I?”

“What? AJ, you don’t bother us.”

“Yeah, I do. Sometimes I walk in and you two move away from each other really fast and you say weird stuff and it’s… weird.”

“Uh, well-”

“I know you guys like to kiss. A lot.” AJ crosses his arms, staring up at her with a ‘don’t even deny it’ look. “And I know you don’t like to do it in front of me, and if I’m always coming in here and bothering you…”

“AJ,” Clementine sighs. “Look, Louis and I do like to spend alone time together, but that doesn’t mean we don’t like hanging out with you, too.”

“I know.” AJ unfolds his arms, glancing over his shoulder and back at his bed. “I’ve been spending the night at Tenn’s a lot. Having sleepovers, I mean.”

“Yeah?”

AJ faces her now, saying, “Tenn asked if I wanted to move in with him, like as roommates.”

Her brows shot up in shock.

That’s nowhere near what she had been excepting.

“When did that happen?”

“Last night. I’ve been thinking really hard about it, and it might not be a bad idea. I mean, I like sleeping in here with you guys, and- and it might be scary sometimes sleeping away from you for more than a night, but I’m gonna be brave.”

AJ stands up straight, chest puffed out with confidence.

“I’m getting older, and I gotta do things on my own.”

“AJ, are you sure?” she asks. “You don’t have to feel bad about being in here with us. Does Tenn even have room for you?”

“Yeah, he’s got another bed and lots of closet space. I can move my things in today, after we finish our secret project, spend the night there. This is a good thing, Clem.”

“I-”

Clementine doesn’t know what to say. The thought of AJ one day moving out never actually crossed her mind. She always assumed that he’d continue having sleepovers with Tenn every so often, but now that she looks at him, he may have a point.

He is getting older.

Now, around the age of seven- hell, maybe even eight at this point- he’s grown taller, lost a little of that baby fat in his cheeks. When she really looks at him, studies his face, she can almost see Rebecca in his every feature.

Except for his eyes.

He has his father’s kind eyes. Even when they’re angry, or sad, or tired, the shape and color are Alvin’s.

He’s not the same child who first walked in through the gates with her two years ago. He doesn’t always look to her for all the answers. He makes his own decisions for himself, regardless of her input.

Eventually, AJ would be a preteen, then a teenager.

Somehow, that thought quivers her chin, tightens her throat.

“I think being Tenn’s roommate will be fun,” he says. “And, maybe one day, when I’m even braver and stronger… maybe I could get a room of my own? With just my stuff?”

Clementine swallows thickly, saying, “Think you’ll be able to handle that?”

“One day.”

She nods, biting the inside of her cheek.

“But, if there is a night when I’m scared, or mad at Tenn, then I can just have a sleepover here, right?”

Clementine grins. “Of course, but do you really think you’re ready for a change like this?”

“Yes,” he answers assuredly.

The way he looks at her, so sure, so confident in himself, it swells such an emotional pride in her chest that she can’t help but pull him into a hug.

“Okay, shitbird, if it’s what you really want, we can give it a try and see where it goes.”

“ Hey !” AJ’s hands move to his hips, teasingly glaring at her. "Quit calling me that!"

“You’re the one who said you didn’t like goofball.”

“Shitbird isn’t any better!”

“I think it is,” she smirks.

“Because you’re a shitbird!”

“Maybe. But, you know what you are?”

“Not a shitbird?”

“No, you're ticklish!”

“Ah- haha, hey!”

---

James slept in the woods last night.

If the wedding wasn’t today, he would’ve stayed out there for the rest of the week.

Back inside the walls of the school grounds, Tenn’s decorating the arbor with leaves and flowers, weaving them through the small openings to try and hide any of the fencings they used. Willy’s standing on a stool and using old fishing wire to dangle some of the white and gold paper hearts.

AJ’s running from the entrance of the school, waving at them and excitedly telling Tenn something before getting to work with the arbor.

It brings a small smile to James’ face watching the three boys work together. They’d been so thrilled to decorate it after he and Mitch finished shaping and securing it for them.

Willy happily waves at him, shouting, “Hey! Whattya think?”

“Looks wonderful,” James calls back, giving them a thumbs up.

He spots Omar sitting on the couch with Rosie resting beside him, a faraway look lingering in his eye and a subtle grin tugging on his lips.

Figuring the boys are okay for the moment, James wanders over to Omar.

Rosie’s head jerks up, ears stiff and alert, but upon seeing it’s him, she relaxes, laying her head on Omar’s leg.

“Hello,” James quietly greets, sitting in the chair beside him.

“Hey,” Omar smiles. “Noticed you didn’t come back last night. Willy was worried you’d miss the wedding.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that,” he shakes his head. “Just… needed some time alone.”

“Too much socializing?”

“You could say that.”

He watches AJ stand on his tippy toes, nearly off balance as he tries to swat at the dangling hearts with his cheeks puffed out in concentration. Tenn’s giggling into his hand, amused at his friend’s attempt to prove how tall he’s gotten.

“Had watch with AJ last night,” Omar says, pointing over at the chortling boys. “Know what he said to me?”

“Hm?”

Omar smirks, recalling the night before. “He was telling me how much fun this week’s been, planning for the wedding and all. He said he’ll be sad when it’s over, when we have to go back to ‘boring’ stuff.”

“It has been an exciting time for him. Makes sense that he’d be sad when it’s over.”

“I told him that maybe we’d throw another party in the future. I suggested a Halloween party, since Willy pulled all that stuff out.”

James perks up. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Omar sighs. “Then I had to try and explain what Halloween was.”

AJ nearly falls over, almost taking the arbor with him. Luckily, Willy’s there to grab the back of his shirt and pull him to his feet. Even from far away James can see the clear fluster in his pout.

“He said he can’t wait until one of us gets married next so we can throw another one.”

James’ quirks an interested brow at that. “Did you have to explain how that works to him as well?”

“I did, and all I got back in return was ‘Omar, when are you getting married?’” Now he’s really laughing. “I think he forgets it takes two.”

James laughs along with him, relieved as the tension leaves his shoulders due to the pleasant conversation. Feeling brave, he jokingly asks, “Well, when are you getting married?”

“Oh, soon, soon ,” he nods, rolling his eyes. “Very soon. I’m thinking any day now Ruby’ll finally throw me over her shoulder and make an honest man of me.”

“Pfft!” James has to cover his mouth before he spat as the laughter rocks his body. He can’t help it; the image is just too hilarious not to laugh at. This catches the attention of the boys, all three of them staring at them with curious eyes.

All of the humor in the air gets Rosie’s interest, as well. She slips off the couch, moving to sit at Omar’s feet and observing him with old, fond eyes.

Omar smiles down at the dog, reaching into his pocket to pull out a busted tennis ball. Rosie’s ears shoot up and her entire body becomes tense. She’s off in a flash when Omar tosses it towards the gate.

“I’m just teasing,” Omar says before eyeing James with a smirk. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

“She probably wouldn’t find it so funny anyway.”

“Neither would Aasim.”

Rosie comes back with the ball, dropping it in Omar’s hand and readying herself, eyes stuck intensely on his every move. As he sends it soaring through the air again, Omar sighs, saying, “In all seriousness, though? I just don’t see it in my future.”

“No?”

“Nah,” he shakes his head. “No disrespect to our group, but there aren’t a lotta options. Then again, even when our group was bigger, I could never see myself feeling that way about someone, y’know?”

“I suppose it’s not for everyone.”

Omar nods, humming. “I’m happy for them, though. Clem and Louis are good for each other. I can only wish them the best from here on out. Truth be told, I think I’d rather be an outsider to it all anyway. A witness to it happening, you know.”

“There is something about watching two people fall for each other.”

“There is,” Omar agrees. “‘Course, it can be pretty frustrating, too.”

“How so?”

Omar glances around. Then, as he throws the ball once more, he gives James a smirk and whispers, “Do you ever see Aasim talking to Ruby and think to yourself, ‘Aasim, buddy, just go for it! You’re killing me over here!’”

Oh yes.

It’s no secret around the school that Aasim has feelings for Ruby, even though he bends over backward to deny it.

When James first became acquainted with the group and they worked out their system, no one had to tell him about it. It was as clear as pure water that Aasim’s gaze always lingered on the girl, his lips curved into an involuntary grin. There was something about the way he spoke to her, so soft but alert, like he was ready to hang onto her every word.

Which is why it’s so odd that he denies it so fiercely.

Perhaps it’s due to years of Louis’ harmless teasing, or because Aasim, despite being vocal when it came to important matters and unafraid to voice his opinion, is actually shy when it comes to things like this. Maybe that’s why he becomes so defensive when someone teases him about it.

Which, they do.

A lot.

The only one who doesn’t seem to notice is Ruby herself.

Which, yes, is frustrating to those around them.

Mitch once said that someone should tell her so she can put Aasim out of his misery. Of course, James had argued that Ruby might like him back if she knew he were interested, but it’s best not to interfere in the first place.

“Maybe he’s not ready,” James finally says.

“Not ready? How much time do you need?” Omar asks. “It’s been, what? Three, four years? You’d think Ruby’d at least get the hint.”

“She might not be ready, either.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Omar shrugs. Rosie drops the ball again. Her long tongue hangs out the side of her mouth as she gleefully pants. For a dog of her age, she still moves as well as a young pup. It’s rather impressive, James thinks.

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“Ever think about it?”

“About… telling Ruby?”

“No, I mean-” Omar throws the ball again. This time it bounces and hits Willy in the leg, earning them both a “Hey!” and a glare. Rosie doesn’t run this time, she strides at a comfortable pace. “Just, about romance in general, I guess.”

Of course he does.

After leaving the basement, he headed straight through the gates and into the forest, spending most of the night drawing stray walkers back to his barn. As he meandered through the trees, he found himself becoming increasingly distracted several times because he kept thinking about Charlie.

Or, rather, the Charlie he had fallen in love with all those years ago.

Then, he thought about Mitch again.

Charlie and Mitch.

Back and forth.

It still stung, a fresh wound torn open just last night, but James couldn’t stop hearing the harshness of Mitch’s voice in his head. He regrets ever bringing up Charlie.

He thought, or perhaps assumed, that he and Mitch had become real friends over the course of the week. Maybe Mitch would understand that it wasn’t just Violet who’s still coping with the loss of a lover, and how that loss isn’t just something a person could forget. Maybe he’d be sympathetic to his friend, apologize for all the mean things he said.

However, that backfired.

Omar notices his silence, leaning over to get a good look at his face before saying, “Hey, sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”

James meets his eye, cutting loose his thoughts and returning to reality.

“Don’t wanna bring up bad memories.”

“No, it’s okay,” James gives an unsure smile. “I had someone in my life once, but we’ve since parted ways. I, uh… I used to think these things all the time when we were together.”

James looks down at his hands, a sad grin pulling at his lips.

“It’s pretty silly, but… back when all this happened and we were surviving together, in the quieter moments I would imagine us running away, finding a safe spot in the middle of nowhere, away from people and the walkers. Just the two of us, safe at last, ready to grow old together.”

“That’s not silly.”

“It was at the time. Should’ve been thinking about survival, not… that.”

“Survival isn’t everything,” Omar offers before twisting his mouth. “Well, these days I guess it sort of is, but it doesn’t always have to be the only thing. We’re lucky to have a place where we can have quieter moments, like this one. Where we can talk about things like this with each other.”

“Yeah.”

“Can’t let it take over,” Omar says. “It’s good to remember happier times. Keeps us human.”

James nods slowly, chewing on his bottom lip.

“I do like to think about Charlie sometimes,” he admits quietly. “Talk about him.”

Omar’s sympathetic eyes fall on him now. “Do you miss him?”

“I-” James sighs. “Yes, but I think it’s more I miss the him from before, not the him that I left.”

Omar nods thoughtfully. “Understandable.”

He doesn’t pry any further.

The boys are finished decorating the arbor now, and even from far away he can tell it’s made with love. Fresh branches with green leaves weave throughout it, and little white flowers seem to bloom all over it. The hearts dangle down at different lengths, lightly swaying as the boys carefully lift it up and carry it across the yard.

James can already picture Clementine and Louis standing beneath it, hand in hand, ready to seal the deal with a kiss.

“I ever tell you I had a brother?” asks Omar suddenly.

James turns his attention back to the boy beside him, shaking his head. “No.”

Omar’s grin grows wide. “His name was Marcus, and when I say older brother, I do mean older. We were nineteen years apart.”

“Oh,” James says, eyes widening. “That’s… quite a gap.”

“You’re tellin’ me,” he nods with a smirk. “I was a ‘happy accident,’ if you will.” He uses finger quotes to emphasize his point. “My parents only wanted to have one, then Ma got sick and found out she was pregnant with me and months later, I popped out.”

“Wow,” James breathes out. “Nineteen years.”

“Marcus was my hero,” Omar beams. “You’d think we wouldn’t have seen each other much, given how old he was, but for a long time it was the opposite. He was still living at home and going to school. I can still remember him coming into my room to tuck me in after getting home. And, even after he moved away, he visited plenty. Always made time for me.”

He sighs then, staring off towards the trees with the ball held firm in his hands.

“It’s weird. I don’t miss my parents nearly as much as I miss him.”

James’ brows raise, surprised. “Really?”

“My parents were… older, I guess. Had a lotta opinions, were very honest. Brutally so. If they thought it, it was right. Couldn’t change their minds. Heh, think that’s why they stayed together. No one else could put up with them beside each other,” Omar frowns. “But, Marcus was different.”

“I can tell you loved him very much.”

“He’s what’s kept me going. His voice in my head telling me what to do. ‘Don’t use all that pepper! You’ll ruin the stew! No, Omar, cook it a little longer! Don’t want your friends to get sick! Kid, go to bed earlier, you know you got watch in the morning.’ Shit like that.” He chuckles then, smirking over at James. “You know what he grew up to do?”

“What?”

“He was a baker. Cakes, cookies, bread, candies, and everything else.” Omar throws the ball, sending Rosie out towards the tables. “Everytime he got an order or when it was someone’s birthday or anniversary or whatever, he’d make the best cakes. And he’d always give me a big spoon full of icing to eat when no one was looking. He’d say he couldn’t ice it ‘til I tried it, said my opinion mattered.”

James studies the tenderness resting in Omar’s eyes, something different that he’d never seen before.

“That why you always cook for us?”

“Oh yeah. When shit really hit the fan and we were eating bland, nasty scraps, I knew that I could make something better, something enjoyable. And-” Omar’s smile dies, becoming a disheartening frown. “-and I told myself that if I keep everyone fed, we’ll survive. We’ll survive a long time and when Marcus comes to get me, he’ll be so proud.”

There’s a tightening in James’ chest, one that almost makes him wince.

“‘Course, I-I’m not delusional. I know he’s not coming. Not because he wouldn’t want to, or because he didn’t try, or because he didn’t love me.” Omar look back at the school building with sullen eyes. “When… when I got sent here, he was working in another country, somewhere in Europe.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. He was still there when all this happened. He was so excited to go, him and his buddy, gonna take over the place. They’d be making all sorts of stuff for some crazy expensive bakery. He used to write me letters about his job there and everything he saw, send me pictures and stuff. Still keep ‘em in my room. Read ‘em when things get tough.”

His grin falls, becoming sad.

“And… when I was shot, locked up on that ship after the delta attacked us,” he starts slowly. “Thinking about him, alive and somewhere safe, kept me sane, kept me hopeful. When you guys finally brought me home and let me rest in my room, the first thing I did was pull that box out and look at his picture.”

James offers a comforting smile. “I’m glad you have something of his to remember him by.”

“Yeah, me too. I just-” Omar sighs. “Been thinking about him a lot this week, with the wedding and all.”

Rosie, tired of chasing the ball, hops back up beside Omar, happily panting. He reaches around the rub and scratch her side.

“I wish I had the stuff to make them a cake, you know? Something sweet for all of us to enjoy. Something Marcus would be proud of.”

James smiles, saying, “You’re making dinner, though. That’s something. Louis and Clementine appreciate what you’re doing for them, and I know everyone else appreciates you for all the years of feeding them, as well.”

Omar smirks. “They better. They could’ve had Lou cooking for them. Imagine the food poisoning,” he shudders, drawing a light chuckle from James.

“Hey!”

Both boys turn towards the front doors where Mitch is standing.

James immediately faces forward, feeling that strange, uneasy sting tug at his stomach. All the relaxing humor is gone, replaced with dread at knowing he’s about to face the boy who had truly hurt his feelings last night. He thinks about excusing himself and hurrying away, but Mitch is already there, standing beside him.

“Hey, look at you,” Omar grins. “Ruby got a hold of you, huh?”

“Did’ja think she wouldn’t?”

“It looks good.”

“Whatever.”

“Why can’t you ever take a compliment?”

“I- she’s gonna be looking for you, too, you know!”

“I already told her I don’t need a haircut. I’m growing it out.” Omar points up at the mess of curls tied up on his head with a smirk. “She’s not gettin’ a hold of these luscious locks.”

“Dude.”

James keeps his focus forward, trying to ignore the banter and Mitch’s presence looming over him until a hand bumps his shoulder.

“Hey.”

The first thing he notices is how soft his voice is, like a switch was flipped. The second thing he notices as he blinks up at him is that Omar’s right; his haircut does look nice. His bangs still fall over his forehead, but the length no longer brushes his shoulders or covers most of his face.

He finds his voice, quiet and repressed, cold. “Hello.”

Mitch shifts his weight to one foot and folds his arms over his chest. “We’re goin’ hunting. Grab a bow.”

James thinks he’s misunderstood the words, repeating them slower in his head.

“You guys?” Omar asks. “Thought Louis and Aasim were going?”

“No,” Mitch replies quickly, glancing away. “We are.”

Omar looks between the two, taking note of the obvious tension. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Mitch scowls. He nudges James again. “Let’s go. Meet’cha at the gates.”

Before any more words can be spoken, he turns on his heel and heads towards the gates. James watches him go, his chest and stomach twisting.

---

Aasim’s the only one awake when the banging on the door starts.

He’d been changing into the clothes he set aside for this particular day: a faded pair of dark jeans and a heavy, oversized burgundy sweatshirt.

Through the muffled brightness of the room, he sees Louis lift his head. Lidded, glazed eyes glance around before he turns fully onto his front and smashes his face back into the pillow with a groan.

Aasim rolls his eyes, smirking. He runs his fingers through his bedhead, smoothing it out as he unlocks the door.

Ruby’s rosy-cheeked face grins at him. “There ya are! Thought the two of ya croaked in there.”

Aasim slips out, shutting the door behind him. “Not quite,” he says, straightening out his shirt. “We stayed up pretty late.”

“You, too, huh? Seems like Clem and I were the only early birds last night. Lou's still sleepin,’ I assume?”

Aasim jerks his thumb towards the door. “Yeah, I’d say it’ll be another few hours before I can even attempt to drag him out of bed. We might have to postpone our hunting trip until later.”

“Oh, don’t fret ‘bout that,” Ruby waves her hand dismissively. “Mitch and James are out there now. I got somethin’ else important fer ya to do.”

Before he can ask, she offers him a bag that he knows all too well. That’s also when he notices that she’s brought along her stool, the tall, adjustable one she uses for haircuts. He takes the bag from her with a timid grin.

“Been busy this morning, haven’t you?”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” she chuckles. “Got up real early ta start finishin’ up the music room and cuttin’ all the boys’ hair. Tenn, Willy, Mitch, and I still gotta find James and Omar, and-” she studies him for a moment before smirking, “Oh, I don’t gotta worry ‘bout you. You always stay nice and trimmed.”

The compliment brings a familiar flutter in his stomach, one he tries to repress.

“‘Cept with that scruff,” Ruby teases, pointedly looking at his chin.

Like a reflex, his fingers scratch at the so-called “scruff.”

He wouldn’t admit it, but for the past few months, he’s been trying to grow a full beard. However, it wasn’t the thick, glorious facial hair he dreamed of.

Instead, he got a patchy mess of bald portions and uneven thickness along his jaw and upper lip. He shaved all that off after some stupid comment Mitch made, but left his chin untouched, it being the only place on his face where it grew perfectly. He’d be damned if he’s going to shave all that hard work off.

His face must be amusing because Ruby’s giggling, winking up at him and saying, “I’ll let it pass, though, since it does look mighty handsome, especially paired with that sweatshirt. Nice color on ya.”

Shit.

Did she just-?

“Uh-”

“Anyway!” Ruby claps her hands together, completely oblivious to Aasim’s internal crisis of having too many compliments thrown at him, grabs a hold of the stool and props herself up on it. “I didn’t come here ta tell ya how good ya look-”

Shit.

“-I was actually wonderin’ if ya could give me a trim? And, maybe ya could braid it fer me, too? I’m not so good at doin’ it on myself,” she says sheepishly as she reaches back and undoes the tie holding her hair together, the curls falling over her shoulders and down her back.

Shit, shit, shit-

“Yeah-” he croaks, quickly clearing his throat and coughing to cover up the crack in his voice. “I can do that.”

“Thanks.”

Aasim can’t help but gawk a little at how long it’s gotten. Last time he did this years ago, it barely touched her shoulders.

He kneels down over the bag, hiding his face from her and counting in his head, trying to quiet his drumming heart. It’s so loud in his ears that it’s a wonder Ruby doesn’t hear it.

Once he sprays her curls wet and combs through it, he takes a steady breath before working on trimming the edges.

“Mitch got the lights ta work, apparently,” she says. “Guess Lou was right. The boy is magic. Haven’t seen ‘em in action myself, but he swears up and down they’ll light tonight.”

“If not, we have the extra candles.”

“That’s what I figure. Oh, and the boys brought up the arch thing-”

“The arbor.”

“-yeah, that, and it looks real nice. I can see it now, Clem and Lou standin’ there while yer marryin’ them- Oh!” Luckily, he’s not in the middle of cutting anything when she turns to face him. “Did Lou finish his vows?”

“Yes. Why do you think we were up so late?” He partially lies, then curses himself for it, but he’s not about to admit what really happened.

He really would croak if she knew he’d practiced dancing with Louis while pretending it was her.

“Good, good,” she relaxes, letting him get back to work. “Jus’ need Mitch and James ta come back with somethin’ fer Omar ta cook and we should be ready.”

“Did you grab the headmaster’s glasses?”

“Aw, shit! No! I fergot- Omar was supposed ta remind me!”

Aasim chuckles, finishing off the back of her hair. He only took off about an inch, figuring she’d want the extra length to make a longer braid. Trying to focus on her bangs now rather than her curious eyes peering up at him, he’s careful not to poke or pull too harsh on them, his focus narrowing down to blending the bangs in with the rest of her hair.

“I really appreciate this, Aasim,” she grins.

“No problem,” he mumbles, still concentrating.

“And not just fer this, I mean. Fer helpin’ me out so much this week. I really couldn’t have made it look so nice without yer help. And I’m real thankful yer marryin’ them.”

He has to stop, noticing that his hands beginning to tremble slightly.

“Couldn’t let you do it all by yourself,” he pulls back, fumbling with the scissors and checking the length of the bangs between his finger.

“You’re just always helpin’ me with stuff, y’know, even when I don’t ask or when I’m bein’ difficult.”

His knuckle brushes against the smoothness of her warm skin.

Shit.

“Yer real sweet ta me, and I feel like I don’t ever thank ya enough fer bein’ there.”

“Ruby,” he tosses the scissors aside, “you don’t have to thank me.”

“Well, that ain’t gonna stop me,” she laughs, reaching up to brush her freshly cut bangs back to beam at him. “So, thank you, Aasim.”

Fuck.

How could not feel anything for her?

The way those sparkling, baby blue eyes stare up at him and how her pretty lips smile like that after speaking such kindness, he’d have to be a brain-dead walker to not see how beautiful Ruby is in every form of the word.

And, god, he hates what it does to him.

“You’re welcome.”

That brightens her smile.

She shifts on the stool, bringing her curls over one shoulder and twisting. “I’m thinkin’ a french braid, maybe? Or perhaps two of ‘em, like pigtail braids or somethin’?”

Aasim searches the bag for a fine pick comb and begins sectioning off chunks of hair.

“I think double french braids suit you.”

“You’d know best,” she says, fixing her posture to let him work better.

As he works on threading the chunks of hair through each other, he says, “I haven’t done this in a while.”

“Not many of us to do it to,” Ruby sighs, then snickers, “‘Less ya can convince Mitch ta sit still in a few months.”

Aasim scoffs. “That’ll just result in another greenhouse incident.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”

“Just saying.”

They chuckle lightly together as Aasim finishes the first braid, tying it off with an elastic band he found in the bottom of the bag.

Ruby admires the braid, running her thumb over the remaining curls flowing past the tie. “How’d ya get so good at this, anyway?”

“I used to do my sister’s hair for school. Mom always had work early, so we had to get ready ourselves.”

“Ah, that’s right,” Ruby smiles. “What was her name again?”

“Aamirah.”

“Pretty name.”

“For a pretty girl. She was a handful, but can’t say I don’t miss her. I’m just-” Aasim’s words hitch as his heart becomes sorely heavy. “-I’m glad she wasn’t around to see the world go to shit like this.”

She peeks back at him with a sympathetic smile and grabs his hand, giving it a comforting squeeze, which he returns. They share the intimate moment in silence, merely staring at each other. Something changes, some minor in her eyes, her brow as she looks at her.

He forces himself to let go of her, otherwise, he might do something stupid.

“Well, it’s done,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck.

Two braids fall over Ruby’s shoulders now. She hops off the stool, shooting him a timid, self-conscious look before doing a quick spin and saying, “Well?”

So damn beautiful.

---

Within the warmth of the forest, the rabbits are eager to forage and stretch their legs.

One, thick with pretty taupe fur, dares dart from the security of it’s bush. It moves slowly, lolloping, grazing as it raises its nose in the air, twitching with every sniff. At the slightest noise, it’s up on their hind legs, black eyes darting around.

An arrow pierces its neck before it could possibly react, killing it instantly.

As they approach the small creature, James can’t help but admire the effective and skillful shot.

Mitch, when focused, is skillful enough that James believes he could pull off that old Robin Hood trick if he really tried.

Yanking the arrow out and stuffing the body in his bag to join the other two they caught previously, Mitch breathes out heavily through his nose. He glances over at James before standing up and strapping the bag back over his shoulder.

James isn’t unaware of the tension, nor is he unaware of the constant looks Mitch keeps giving him, though, he can’t figure what they mean. They’re not hostile, nothing like last night, but they’re not exactly friendly, either. They’re almost thoughtful, maybe. He’s still not sure.

Either way, they make him nervous.

Gurgled groaning echoes in the distance, catching their attention.

A walker moves through the woods, alone and at a slow pace. James’ hand instinctively goes to his mask in his backpocket.

Mitch turns to him with a raised brow and fingers hovering over the knife on his belt, at which James shakes his head.

“Too far.”

While Mitch wasn’t ever crazy about keeping all the walkers alive, even going as far as to actively argue against it multiple times in the beginning, he came around to the idea when James explained it to him as a weapon.

And after said weapon worked wonders towards infiltrating the delta and keeping the forest fairly walker-free, Mitch grumbled his agreement and promised he wouldn’t kill any walkers unless he absolutely had to.

They continue their walk in silence, nothing but the crunching under their boots and the wind sounding through the forest.

And as they’re walking, James realizes that he’s looking over at Mitch just as much as he is him.

Endless stolen glances.

“Willy asked about you this morning,” Mitch finally says, quietly. “Said you left last night.”

His voice is forcibly casual, James notes.

“You didn’t even tell anybody?”

When he doesn’t answer, Mitch stops walking. James comes to a slow as well, just a bit ahead, keeping his back to him.

“No, I didn’t.”

Mitch doesn’t move, waiting for an elaboration. When he doesn’t get any, he tucks his bow behind him, securing it to his bag, and crosses his arms.

“Why do you do that?”

Intrigued by the question, James cranks his neck to peer back at him with quizzical, furrowed brows, asking, “What?”

“Sleep out here,” Mitch looks around with a glower. “You’ve got a room at the school now. It’s stupid to sleep out here if you don’t have to.”

Once again, Mitch doesn’t understand, and James is quickly growing tired of trying to explain it to him.

“Especially for weeks at a time,” Mitch continues. “We don’t know if you’re dead or if someone grabbed you or whatever. Then, you don’t even tell anyone when you leave. It worries Willy sick. AJ, too. And the others.”

What about you? James wants to ask.

“It’s just-” Mitch shakes his head, sighing, “-stupid.”

“I don’t expect you to understand.”

His words come out much harsher than intended, but they clearly have an effect on Mitch, considering that he’s glaring now.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means-” James’ lips press together into a tight line as he breaks eye contact, instead focusing on one of the set traps attached to the trees. “-you choose to not understand something you don’t like. You’re not one for reason.”

Mitch’s glare is gone, replaced with bafflement as such bluntness. He opens his mouth, no doubt ready to spit some sort of retaliation, then promptly shuts it.

James turns from him again, beginning to walk away, which must’ve set some sort of panic within Mitch, because he blurts out, “So, explain it to me.”

With those words, a sarcastic irritation stings in his chest. James stops again, keeping his gaze forward as Mitch approaches from behind.

“Explain it to you?” he repeats. “Yes, because that worked so well last time.”

James turns to fully face him with a glare only to be met with puzzlement, then guilt. Mitch lowers his head, shoulders hunched, and expression twisted with a silent wince. His knuckles turn white as he grips his upper arms.

“Fuck-” Mitch breathes out. “I-”

While still hurt and a bit agitated, James can’t help but soften, just a bit, at the view of him now.

Mitch turns away from him, giving James the view of his profile now.

“I’m a prick,” Mitch mumbles. “A huge fucking prick. Last night, I- I didn’t mean to kick you out like that. I just-” He cuts himself off, biting his lip. Then, glancing at him from the corner of his eye, he asks, “You- why’d you tell me about Charlie, anyway?”

The question catches him off guard, even though a part of him expected it.

“What you were saying about Violet was unfair and ignorant. I thought maybe if I-” James sighs, forcing out, “- opened up to you, you’d see that, but clearly it didn’t work.”

Mitch’s fully facing him again, refusing to break their eye contact this time as he says, “I didn’t mean to do that. I’m sorry, I- you just-”

He stumbles over his words all while James stands there, bewildered that he actually got what sounded like a sincere apology. While Mitch wasn’t above it, James noticed that it took a lot to get him to admit he’s in the wrong, much less say he’s truly sorry.

Mitch moves past him now, walking ahead and grumbling something to himself as he rubs at his neck. James only caught the words, “ C’mon, Mitch, you goddamn- ”

He hurries until they’re walking side by side again, this time a bit closer now that the tension, for the most part, has been broken.

Mitch’s bothered, it’s clear in his twisted frown until finally, with a frustrated sigh, he admits, “I lied.”

“What?”

“I, uh- when we were talking about Vi and you were asking me all those questions…” He trails off.

James watches him carefully but doesn’t push. He can see Mitch’s struggling with his words, an internal debate on whether or not he should continue. It’s similar to his behavior last night when deciding on if he should bring up Violet and Minerva or not.

Something rustles in the bushes, then there’s a snap, causing them both to freeze. One of the traps up ahead, the one in the direct sunlight, is triggered, and from the looks of it, a rabbit’s hanging by its foot.

“Shit-” Mitch curses, picking up his speed towards the creature.

It’s full grown, a pretty, glossy dark brown coat with white spots, struggling against the trap. He takes care of it quickly, squinting at the light seeping in through the branches but not hesitating to put it down. James notices that he seems relieved with the distraction, and he wonders if he’ll take the opportunity to drop the entire topic.

That thought is squashed when Mitch continues to steal anxious glances at him as he places the rabbit in his bag with the others.

“James?”

“Yes?”

“There was someone,” Mitch says slowly. “Once. Kind of.”

“Someone-” His eyes widen. “You mean…?”

“It wasn’t really anything- we weren’t anything. Fuck, we weren’t even really friends- well, okay, we were , I guess, but-” Mitch abruptly stands, tossing the bag back over his shoulder and glaring down at his feet. “But we were never more than that- but, I- I did -”

The jumble of desperate words is alarming, leaving James to put his hands up and say in as calm and comforting of a voice as he can muster, “You don’t have to tell me.”

Mitch rubs at his face now, his eyes and his neck with exasperation at himself, his incompetence to put together proper sentences. Then, with a huff, he forces his arms to his sides as he drops the bag on the ground and takes a direct, intentional step towards James. He remains where he is, despite their much closer proximity now.

“Yeah, I know. I don’t have to do anything.”

With that intense stare boring into him, James quietly curses himself.

He knows it’s not the time to think it.

As inappropriate as it is in this moment, he can’t help but notice the shift in the shade of Mitch’s eyes. Before, he’d always thought they were a desaturated gray with barely a hint of color, nothing worthy of note. This close and in the light, however, they’re far from so. They’re green, a color that compliments his complexion almost too well.

His fingers bite into his palm as his pulse quickens, warmth spreads up his neck and to his cheeks.

Not the time, James. Stop it!

Mitch, those green eyes becoming unbelievably vulnerable, a jarring thing to even consider, speaks.

“His name was Justin.”

For a brief second, James thinks he might’ve misheard him as his mouth parts in a silent gasp.

“He was an asshole,” Mitch says, “but… not all the time. He’d always talk all big about how tough he was or how he could kick any walker’s ass and no one could hurt him and all that bullshit. But, he was scared, just like the rest of us.”

As he speaks, he never breaks the connection of their stares.

“He used to piss me off a lot. Like, really piss me off. One time, I was so mad that I wrote ‘Justin fucked a walker!’ on the wall right where I knew everyone would see it and I knew he’d know it was me. Gave me a pretty good shiner for that one.”

Mitch scoffs, biting hard on his lip.

“I don’t even remember what he did.”

He glances away now, his determinate features falling into one of dejected longing, gaze moving far away in remembrance.

“It wasn’t always like that,” he murmurs. “We liked a lot of the same things and he’d help me watch out for Willy when I needed him to. We graffitied the shit out of the school together. I liked having him around, talking to him and going on watch together and being roommates. But… there were a few times where I think it just-” Mitch shakes his head, “-it just caught up to him, y’know? The world’s over and we’ve been left to rot by the fuckers who promised they’d make us better. It was just us and…”

Mitch takes a deep breath and turns away, leaving James to gaze upon his back.

“He made me feel gross .”

Puzzled by the use of Mitch’s favorite word being used in this context, James asks, “Gross?”

“Not gross like ‘ew, disgusting,’ but like,” Mitch bites his lip, trying to find the right words, “like gross as in ‘I’m thirteen and you do something to me that I don’t like and don’t understand and no one can explain it to me and everything is fucked .’”

James tries to process it all, backpedaling and repeating what he’s hearing in his mind, striving to wrap his head around it.

And when he does, when he fully comprehends just what Mitch is confessing to him out here in the openness of the forest, his insides tie around in knots and his chest squeezes his uncontrollable heart.

“I didn’t really figure it out until the day he didn’t come back from a hunting trip.”

James breathes out, voice barely above a whisper, “Mitch…”

“We’d lost lots of others. I never cried over them, never let myself because it’s pointless. Crying doesn’t bring anybody back, but Justin…” Mitch whips around, startling James. “I was so fucking mad at him. He thought he could take on a bunch of walkers himself and-” his voice cracks “-and he fucking couldn’t. Of course, he couldn’t! He was fucking scrawny.”

His eyes fall shut, and James felt his hands twitch, wanting nothing more than to reach out to him.

“I didn’t let myself cry over him, and to this day, I still haven’t because I told myself to get over it, and I did, okay? But, he didn’t come back and even though I got over it, I still fucking hate him for it. And- and I hate him for making me-” he meets James’ eye again, “-for making me see a part of myself that I tried to hide from.”

James doesn’t know what to say, he can’t think properly.

“Mitch, I… I didn’t know.”

“No one does,” he shrugs. “I really didn’t mean to be a dipshit and say that shit to you, I- I just… None of the other guys ever seemed to deal with this shit so I didn’t think I’d ever meet anyone else who- uh-” he clears his throat awkwardly, “- you know . But, then you told me about Charlie and it freaked me out.”

“That’s understandable,” James tries. “I… I get it.”

“Yeah? Because, really, I can imagine what kind of a fucktard you thought I was for kicking you out because of that.”

“Yes,” James admits. “Let’s just say I’m not unfamiliar with that sort of treatment regarding my, uh, preferences.”

“Fuck. Then I went and- shit!” Mitch crosses his arms again and kicks at the uneven dirt.

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.”

There’s more growling in the distance, another walker aimlessly roaming the forest, but Mitch’s focus is solely on James and the conversation, so intense it quickens his pulse.

“Really, no one knows?” James asks. “Not even Willy?”

“No. It’s not like anyone would care if they found out. Willy sure wouldn’t. Fuck, they probably wouldn’t think anything about it. They didn’t when Vi and Minnie got together. That shit doesn’t matter anymore. But...”

“You don’t have to be ashamed-”

“I’m not,” Mitch takes another step towards him.“I-I know I was raised to be disgusted with this type of stuff, and that I am an asshole a lot of the time, and I say lots of stupid shit I don’t mean, but no, I don’t have any real reason to be ashamed. I know who I am, I know what I like and I don’t give a shit what other people think about me.”

His face falls.

“Well, what most people think of me, I guess.”

Then, as if realizing just how close they are, he takes a step back and turns on his heel, moving back towards the triggered trap.

“Some kids got picked up, you know,” Mitch continues, his voice turning bitter. “Their parents came and grabbed them, hauled them off in the first few days when all this seemed like a short-lived disaster. When it turns out it wasn’t, our teachers weren’t far behind them.”

That…

James thinks back to everyone at the school, imagining them as small children huddled together in the nightmare that was the end of the world, the world of walkers.

How could anyone be so cruel as to leave behind terrified, defenseless children? What kind of monster doesn’t even try and help them survive?

Mitch grabs the bag of rabbits off the ground and shrugging it back on his shoulder, continuing, “One day, a while after we lost Justin, it just hit me. The world’s over and my dad, my brothers, my grandparents, none of them are coming for me. They’re either dead or worse. And, as fucked up as it is, I was relieved. Relieved that they’d never get that chance to tell me who I am, or hate what I like or who I like. They gave up that right the moment they dropped my ass off here.”

There’s something subdued in his expression now as he looks at James again and says, “And after realizing that, after denying it for so long, I finally felt I could admit it to myself.”

Then, he smiles.

Mitch genuinely smiles at him.

And it makes his knees weak.

“Thank you,” James whispers.

Mitch raises a questioning brow, blinking over at him.

“For trusting me,” he elaborates lightly. “I know it’s difficult to deal with on your own and even more so to share with someone.”

“I dunno,” Mitch smirks, scoffing and scratching at his cheek. “There might be something to this ‘sharing your feelings’ crap because I feel pretty fucking good getting that off my chest.”

James chuckles. “This is the most I’ve ever heard you talk.”

“That’s the most I’ve ever talked in my life.”

They exchange another smile, and James admits that this is the first time he’s seen this sort of grin from him.

He’s witnessed his proud smile, the one he always gives Willy.

His sarcastic sneer he has whenever teasing or arguing with Ruby.

His smirk at Clementine whenever they agree on something.

His smug grin whenever he successfully builds or fixes something.

Then there’s this smile, one that’s truly relieved, comfortable.

Happy.

James might be getting ahead of himself, but he can’t help but ask, “We’re friends, then?”

“Shit, we better be after I, uh-” Mitch glances away sheepishly, “- opened up to you.”

That widens the smile tugging at James’ own lips.

“And, since we are,” Mitch glances away, “I actually had a few questions… about it.”

“You can ask them on the way. We still have more hunting to do.”

“Shit, yeah. Omar’ll pop a gasket if we don’t catch enough.”

“We wouldn’t want that.”

---

Violet never thought she’d ever be one to do this, but here she is, standing in front of her open closet and studying the few articles of wearable clothing.

A long time passes as she remains indecisive, constantly debating on just growing a pair and grabbing something or slamming the door shut and crawling back into bed.

Either way, nothing happens until Tenn comes.

“Hey, Vi,” he greets, closing and locking the door behind him. “I just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

All Violet can do is shrug, sighing an honest, “I don’t know.”

Tenn peeks into her closet before turning back to her. That’s when she notices he’s holding something.

A white flower, one of the ones that grow everywhere this time of year around the school.

“I was wondering…-” he starts, “-we still have a few hours before the sun starts to set. That’s when Ruby wants us all there, except Clementine. So… I was wondering if you changed your mind? About going?”

Her gaze remains locked on the contents of her closet.

She doesn’t answer.

And it kills her knowing that, even without looking him, disappointment is spreading across his soft features. He moves past her and sets the flower on her dresser, right on her notebook.

“If you do come,” he says, “everyone’s wearing one of these flowers. It doesn’t matter where, it’s just so we all match.”

Before he leaves, he gives her one final look. “Let me know if you change your mind… so you don’t have to go alone.”

When the door clicks shut, Violet sinks down to her knees, slamming her fist against her thigh.

“For fuck's sake, Vi,” she hisses. “What’s wrong with you?”

She isn’t doing this again.

She’s not moving back into the shadows.

As much as she wants to turn and dive back into her bed, wrap the blankets around herself and pretend nothing around her exists, she won’t do it.

She’s not staring at the door anymore with a hand so desperate to knock.

Not this time.

She knows she has to do this, has to tell all of her fears, her insecurities to fuck off. She has to try.

For Louis.

"Everyone'll be there, and it wouldn't be perfect without you, Vi. You know that, right?"

“You’re fucking better than this.”

If Louis wants her there, then damn it, she’s going to be there.

With a huff, she forces herself back up and yanks the first shirt she sees off its hanger, stretching it out before her. It’s a charcoal color with a purple heart adorning the chest area.

Fuck it, this’ll do.

---

“Ruby’s going to see Clem, and the others are in the music room, so steer clear.”

Louis doesn’t know how he did it, but he actually convinced Aasim to let him wander off.

Of course, he promised that he wouldn’t go near the music room or go see Clementine, and he practically got on his hands and knees and begged to leave the comfort of Aasim’s room.

Aasim eventually gave in once Louis was dressed in the attire picked out for him; a dark green button down shirt tucked into his jeans and his signature jacket.

The yard is empty with the exception of Willy on watch. Before the young boy spots him, he makes a quick turn to the right and heads down the sidewalk towards the graveyard.

All the graves have fresh flowers on them, white ones with long stems. Louis places himself on the ground, not bothering to care if dirt clung to his jeans or jacket.

“Hey, Marlon.”

The wooden cross is faded from constant sun exposure, but the carved letters are still prominent.

“It’s been a while. I know I promised I would visit more, and I did for a long time there, but a lot’s been going on.”

Louis rests his hands in his lap, glancing up at some birds flying overhead.

“Don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m getting married today. To Clementine. Who else, right? You wouldn’t believe it, but she proposed to me. Me. I know, you’re baffled with disbelief, but it’s true. I’d show you my ring, but Ruby confiscated it.”

He points to the naked finger on his hand.

“Anyway, it’s been a long time. I just wanted to see you before it happens, talk to you about some stuff. If you were here, I can only imagine what you’d say. I think you’d be happy, maybe not thrilled about Clementine, since you did warn me against her… though I doubt you had my best interests in mind at the time.”

“Dude, don’t get your hopes up. I doubt she feels that way about you.”

“...Yeah...”

He lowers his head, eyes squeezing shut.

“...you’re right.”

He can always remember that day so clearly. The last moments he saw his best friend before the thunderstorm hit, before he killed Brody and almost shot Clementine.

Before he died.

“Thanks, man. Goodnight.”

“Fuck,” Louis breathes out. After a brief pause, he continues, “The nightmares are still bad. Shit, they’re getting worse, I think. I haven’t told Clem about most of them, and I’m starting to think that’s not the right thing to do. I read once in one of those magazines that honestly is the key to an unbreakable relationship. Which, I guess it is in anything, like an unbreakable friendship.”

A chill overcomes him.

“That’s what really fucked us over, huh?”

Louis looks back up at the sky, admiring the fluffy clouds as he speaks, “I won’t make the same mistake. I know I have to tell Clem how bad it’s gotten, and I will sometime after the wedding. I can’t be afraid of it anymore, you know? I’m sick of waking up like that, of hiding it from her and the others. I’m sure you’d tell me to man up, get over myself and do better. But… it’s not easy.”

Feeling the wetness return to his sore eyes, Louis quickly rubs at them.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about her and our wedding, about my parents. I don’t think they’d like her very much. In fact, I’m pretty sure Dad would forbid me from accepting her proposal, and maybe-” he gives a dry laugh, “-here’s a funny thought, Marlon. Maybe he would be so pissed off that he’d break me and Clementine up.”

He hears distant voices from behind him but pays them no attention.

“How do you think he’d do it? A fake affair, like I did? Or would that be too predictable?”

A warm breeze carries the scent of a floral spring with a hint of dirt, something that’d be more enjoyable had he not been sitting where he is.

“It’d make sense, wouldn’t it?” he whispers. “An eye for an eye, one marriage for another-” he inhales a shuddering breath, “-that’d balance everything out, wouldn’t it? Why should I get to live in this world happily married after I fucked up my own parent’s marriage?”

He sniffles, shaking his head and stares at the mound of dirt before him.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he murmurs. “But I’m going to do what I always do; enjoy this moment. It’s the only sure thing. Maybe the karma monster will rear it’s ugly head one day and hurt me real bad again, but until then, I’m going to smile, go back into that school, marry the woman of my dreams, and have the best night of my life.”

The voices grow louder, and recognizes them as Mitch, James, and Omar, no doubt getting ready to start cooking.

“I love Clementine, Marlon,” he smiles. “And I kept my promise. I’ve stepped up. Really, I have. You know I’ll never stop joking around, but I do take hunting and scavenging more seriously now. And we haven’t lost anyone since you, Brody and the twins. For the most part, everything’s been really good. Things are still tense with Violet- hell, I don’t even know if she’s going to show up today, but that doesn’t change anything. We… we’re all family now, Marlon, more so than we were before. I wish you could be here to see it, all of you.”

Footsteps approach from a distance, so Louis goes quiet.

“Hey,” Aasim calls softly.

“Hey.”

He stands beside him, peering down at the graves.

“It’s almost time. Mitch and James are back, Omar’s preparing the rabbits, and the music room’s officially finished. The boys are in there now.”

“Do I get to go in?”

“Yep, Ruby said you could play the piano while we wait for it to get darker. To calm your nerves, if you need to.”

“That sounds amazing,” Louis grins, looking back to Marlon’s grave. “Would you believe Ruby kicked me out of there? I haven’t touched the piano in a whole week.”

“And you survived,” Aasim rolls his eyes.

“Barely.”

“Well, when you’re done here, go ahead and go in. There’s no rush, though.”

“Thanks, I’m just going to say goodbye.”

Aasim gives his shoulder a comforting squeeze before turning and walking off back towards Omar. When he’s out of earshot, Louis decides it’s time to say his goodbyes.

“Well, guess that’s my cue. I’ll be back to talk to you again, let you know how things are going, what it’s like being married. I don’t imagine it’ll be all that different, right? I will get to call Clementine my wife. Looking forward to that.”

He shifts himself onto his knees and places his palm against the dirt, giving one final moment of peace for his lost friend.

“I miss you.”

A heaviness is lifted from him, a serenity replacing it. He let his doubts have their moment, let them shake his core and attempt to take over, but he leaves them there with Marlon’s grave.

Over the years of surviving in this world, Louis became a master of tucking those thoughts away, leaving them to be explored later, and focusing on the good things.

Like how in a couple of hours, he gets to see Clementine.

He gets to wear his ring, he gets to hold her face in his hands and kiss her, and dance with her. He gets to be with his family.

At least, most of his family.

“Goodbye, Marlon.”

As Louis goes back into the school, he keeps his head held high and adorns a tranquil smile on his lips.

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