#protest til your feet bleed

[their-name-is-fake]

Just a reminder that Israel has attacked the West Bank. There is no Hamas in the West Bank. They attacked and killed an unarmed child. This was never about Hamas. This has always been about the systematic wipe of Palestinian people.

Let France ban protests, let Britain and Germany make waving a Palestinian flag illegal.

We are going to do it anyway.

For Freedom. For honor. For the people whose voices have been replaced with sounds of heavy machinery and of the wind before the bomb drops. For the people whose cries went unheard behind the paywall that is western media.

[skbeaumont]

Just a Graze | Joel x Reader oneshot

One-shot Joel/Reader. Previously posted in two parts but thought I'd make a masterpost for this one.

Summary: Joel comes back injured, and while you patch him up the tension that's been building for several months threatens to break.

Tags/warnings: dirty talk, explicit content, language, injury detail (not explicit), MDNI, sexual tension, PIV, oral (F receiving), FILTH

Word Count: 4.3k

Joel’s bleeding when he gets back. The screen door clatters shut behind him, wire shuddering against the wood, and you look up from the table. His face is set, a solid frown painted across his features – nothing unusual – but there’s a downward turn to his mouth that you recognise as a pained expression. He steps in and leans against the counter, one hand on the warped wood, the other pressed against his shoulder. Blood seeps through his fingers, clotting around his knuckles, staining his jacket red.

“I’m okay,” he says as you spring up from your place at the dusty kitchen table, “it’s just a graze.”

“Bullet?” You ask, ignoring his attempts to wave off your concern.

“Barbed wire,” he says, letting you lead him further into the cabin, toward the misshapen couch, “stupid mistake, I didn’t see it.”

The shotgun clatters onto the floor at his feet as he collapses onto the couch with a groan. He doesn’t protest as you pull his fist away from the wound, your hand warm against his wind-chilled fingers. The cut isn’t deep, but the wire has torn through his jacket and shirt down to the flesh of his shoulder, leaving a jagged cut that’s oozing blood.

“You must be getting old,” you say, standing to search through your pack for the first aid kit, “your eyes are going as well as your ears.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with my eyes. Or my ears.”

“Sorry?”

“I said, there-” he notices your grin, the glint of mischief in your eye. He sighs heavily. “You’re a damn pain in my ass.”

You huff out a laugh and pull a kitchen chair across to sit opposite him. You open the first aid kit – which is really no more than a small washbag stuffed with a bottle of Lysol and a handful of bandages – on your lap, pull out the disinfectant and start unscrewing the cap. “Can you take your jacket off?” You ask, and he nods, starts unzipping it and pulling it off of his uninjured arm. He winces a little as he peels it past his bad shoulder, shakes it down his arm and lays it over his lap, frowning at the gash in the fabric.

“I can patch that up when we get back to Jackson.” You say.

“Ain’t going back ‘til we’ve something to bring back.” He replies, and now it’s your turn to sigh.

“We’ve got two deer and a whole family of rabbits, Joel. There’s nothing else out here for us to get.”

“We both saw that clinic complex, and I ain’t arguing with you about this again. Winter’s well on its way, and we need as much medicine as we can get to make it through. I almost got in today – would have, if I hadn’t got caught on that damned barbed wire. We’ll both go back tomorrow.”

He fixes you with a hard stare, one that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, though whether it’s through fear or something else, you’re not sure. You’ve been partnering up for a couple of months now, going out on hunts and supply runs, growing slowly closer over long hikes and cold nights camping out under the stars.

At first, he intimidated you. He was cold, harsh; a solid bulk of a man who never smiled and rarely spoke, except to tell you to keep your voice down or stop walking so loudly. But then, gradually, he’d started loosening up around you. A few weeks ago he’d cracked a smile at a joke you’d made – something stupid about a bird in a tree, the kind of joke your dad used to make when you were a kid – and then that smile had grown into a deep chuckle a couple of days later, and then a conversation, whispered and illusive, under a starry sky last week.

This latest trip outside Jackson had been the most enjoyable yet, conversation flowing easily between you, and you were starting to suspect that the strange swooping feeling in your stomach that arose each time he looked at you, or bumped against you as you walked had a lot less to do with how intimidating he could be, and a lot more to do with him.

Now, locking eyes with him over the opened bottle of Lysol, his eyes dark and with an argument boiling up between you, that feeling blossoms into something hot and delicious, stirring a fire in your belly that makes you bold.

“From where I’m sat,” you say, tipping the bottle of Lysol so that the disinfection pours out onto a clean swab, “you don’t seem to have much choice about what we’re doing next. You’re hurt, and I need to patch you up, so stop arguing and take your shirt off.”

He opens his mouth to argue but shuts it again, eyes flicking up to your face. A hint of red creeps up his neck, settling high on his cheeks, tinging them scarlet in the low light of the cabin. You keep glaring at him. He lets out a long breath through his nose and moves to unbutton his shirt. The shirt is old, vintage, even – probably older than you – with mismatched buttons and a crumpled, frayed look. It comes apart easily, Joel’s fingers working down the buttons nimbly until he reaches the bottom. He pauses there, looks up at your face. You look away, because heat is creeping up your own neck now, hot and unbridled, as he pushes the shirt off of his shoulders and lets it fall open onto the couch behind him.

After his dark eyes, the most notable thing about Joel is his stature. He’s tall, and broad enough to fill any room he’s in. You’ve seen him lift grown men like they weigh nothing, watched him pick up a dead deer and throw it over one shoulder without so much as a stumble. Last month you went out on horseback to scope a potential hunting ground, and, sitting behind him in the saddle, you couldn’t see anything past the triangular bulk of his shoulders, your hands clasped easily around his waist. So, yeah, you know he’s strong, could tell anyone that the man is built. But when you look at him in the half-light with his shirt off, uncovered by layers of leather or plaid, the sight still sends blood rushing to your face.

His shoulders are broad, curving into thick biceps that tense as he raises a hand to scratch, self-consciously, at the back of his neck. There are small scars littering his chest, running down in narrow white slices to his belly, which is softer than the rest of him, sloping and scattered with coarse hair that continues below the buckle of his belt. You want to press your face into it, kiss the contours of his bellybutton and the plains of his chest, up to the juncture of his throat, which bobs as he swallows, eyes shifting to catch yours.

“You gonna patch me up or just stare?” He asks, and there’s something teasing in his voice, something that causes heat and slick to pool in between your thighs. “I- you’ve got a lot of scars.” You say, stupidly, tipping more Lysol onto the cloth you’re holding.

“Had a lot of run-ins with barbed wire.” He replies, the words turning to a hiss when you press the wet cloth to the cut on his shoulder.

“Should be more careful.”

“Now where would the fun be in that, darlin’?”

Oh, that’s new. You’ve heard him call Ellie pet names before, laughed when she rolls her eyes and shirks away from his affections, all fifteen years old and too cool to be coddled. But he’s never called you anything but your name – never so much as shortened it to a nickname like almost everyone else does. You flick your gaze from his wound to his face. His eyes are dark, expression unreadable, but the intensity of his gaze makes you look away, cheeks reddening. You pull the cloth away from his arm and start wrapping a clean bandage around his shoulder.

“Sorry,” he says, after a pause. “I forget, sometimes. Recently.”

“Forget what?”

“That you’re young enough to be my-” He cuts himself off here, “that you’re a hell of a lot younger’n I am.”

This makes you laugh out loud, a huff of breath exhaled. You’re still opposite each other, him on the sofa, knees spread wide, you in the kitchen chair. If you inched forward only slightly your own legs would be between his.

“Old days I’d have been old enough to drink and drive, and more than old enough to flirt, Joel.”

“That what you want? You want me to flirt with you?” His voice is low, almost a whisper.

You shrug and hold his gaze. “I think it’s what you want too. I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I can’t see you.”

You have. He thinks he’s being discrete, but you’ve seen how his eyes linger on your legs, how he can’t help but drop his gaze to your chest when you wear something low cut. A few weeks ago you’d seen him adjust himself in his jeans when you stripped down to your underwear to bathe in a stream you’d come across after two days out searching for supplies.

“And how’s that?” He asks. You have to hold yourself back from leaning forward and kissing the worried crease of his mouth.

“Like you’re a man dying of thirst and I’m an oasis.”

He scoffs at that. “Shoulda been a writer, sweetheart.”

“And how does this story end?”

“Ends with you walking away from me like you should’ve months ago. This,” he flicks a finger at himself and then you, “ain’t happening.”

“Why not? You want it, I want it. I don’t see what the problem is.”

“Problem is,” he slides his arms off the sofa, reaching back to pull his shirt back up over his shoulders, “you think you know what you want, but you don’t.” He starts buttoning the shirt, fixing you with a stern look. “Trust me.”

He tries to stand but you put your hands on his knees, holding him in place.

“No way,” You say, your heart thumping in your chest, “you don’t get to decide what I do or don’t want.”

“What do you want? You want me to fuck you? Want me to spread your pretty little legs out across this couch and make you come on my tongue?”

Yes. God, yes.

“What if I do? What if that’s exactly what I want you to do?” You slide your hands further up his legs, holding him down on the couch. If he wanted to, he could push you off easily, but he doesn’t. When your fingertips reach the tops of his thighs he slides his hands over your wrists and pins them where they are, stopping you moving any higher.

“Find someone your own age, sweetheart. Someone whose knees don’t creak when the stand up. Someone who can make you happy.” And then he’s standing up, moving your hands off of him with ease, stepping around you in the kitchen chair to stride to the other side of the room, the tension collapsing in on itself as he tells you to get some sleep, that there’s more work to do tomorrow.

*****

The next morning brings rain. It hammers against the walls of the cabin and drips in through the leaky roof. Joel stands at the window, one hand on his hip, silently looking out at the downpour.

“Tell me you’re not considering going out in this?” You say, moving up behind him to peer out at the lashing rain.

“Might ease up later.” He says, turning to face you. “There’s enough to do in here to keep us occupied, anyway.”

“Guns?” You ask.

“Guns.” He agrees.

Joel’s fanatical about keeping the guns clean and working. It makes sense, you suppose. You don’t know much about his past, about how he and Ellie ended up in Jackson, but what you’ve heard, the snippets Ellie’s confided in you over quiet conversations, makes for grim listening. To Joel, those guns mean the difference between life and death.

And so you both sit at the kitchen table, meticulously cleaning Joel’s shotgun and your pistol, passing cloths and gun oil between you. You make casual conversation as you go, neither of you touching on the events of the previous evening. After he dismissed you last night you’d gone straight to bed, tucked yourself into the dusty single bed in the bedroom while Joel took the couch. Your dreams had been hazy and pleasant, and you’d woken up flushed.

You’re sliding the magazine back into your pistol when Joel jumps and swears, pulling his hand back from where he’s trapped his finger in the loading mechanism of the shotgun. A tiny bead of blood wells up and spills over his fingertip and he sighs heavily. You reach out and take his hand in yours to examine the cut. It's tiny - you've seen paper-cuts do more damage - but Joel's frowning like he's in pain.

“You’ve gotta stop being so clumsy.” You say.

“I’m not clumsy.” He replies, letting you turn his hand in yours, watching you watch his thick fingers, take in the breadth of his knuckles.

“No?”

“No. It’s-”

You're not sure what makes you do it - maybe it's frustration still boiling over from yesterday, maybe it's the way Joel looks at you as you clasp his large hand in your own smaller one -  but before he can finish speaking you pull his arm across the table and wrap your lips around his finger. You snake your tongue over the pad of the digit and the noise he makes then - a breathy, broken groan - sends fire surging through you, heat coiling between your thighs.

“Distraction.” He finishes.

When you pull your mouth away and place a wet kiss to the palm of his hand, he slides his fingers across your jaw and up into the mess of your hair. His hand is hot against your scalp, curving around the back of your neck, leading you forward so that he can fit his mouth against yours across the table.

Pleasure flutters out from the pull of his fingers in your hair, and his lips are soft and dry until he opens his mouth to you, guiding your tongue into his mouth, pressing his into yours. It’s slow at first. Tentative, as though he’s waiting for you to push him away. But you’ve never wanted anything more, and when you moan against his lips he stands, bracketing your face with both hands to pull you up from your own chair.

It’s a messy walk backwards from the table. You bump against the broken coffee table, pull away from his mouth to curse and rub your shin, but then he’s falling back onto the couch, pulling you down into his lap so that your thighs are bracketing his legs.

You pause like that, looking at each other, both breathless and dazed, lips bruised.

“This what you want?” He asks again, placing his hand at your jaw gently. His fingers are thick, hand so large that his thumb rests at your temple and while his index finger sits under your chin.

“I want you, Joel. Please.”

When he kisses you again, it’s hungry and animalistic. All pretence of hesitation is gone. He presses his mouth to your throat, lets his teeth scrape the delicate skin below your ear.

“This is still a bad idea.” He says, voice breaking when you roll your hips against his. ”Shit.”

“Please, Joel.” Your voice sounds tiny, shrill to your own ears, desperate and pathetic, but Joel bites at the juncture of your neck and it doesn’t matter, nothing matters except the feel of his hands on your hips, guiding you against him, pulling your clothed cunt against where he’s impossibly hard in his jeans.

“I’m gonna take this off.” He says, pulling at your shirt, tugging it up over your head. “And this.” He runs a hand over your covered tit, pinches your nipple beneath the thin fabric of your bra, rolls it between his finger and thumb while his other hand slides up your back and unclasps it. It falls between you, forgotten immediately.

“Fuck, darlin’, look at you.” He says, running the knuckle of his index finger over the swell of your chest, down along your ribs and across one hip. He lets his hand fall away, brings it back up to the side of your face, pulls your lips back to his and drags your bottom lip into his mouth with his teeth.

Pain and pleasure blossom through you, make you scrabble at the buttons of his shirt, fingers shaking as you try and get them undone. He helps, slides the shirt off of his back, careful where his shoulder is still sore. He balls it up and casts it across the room, then grips your hips and lifts you, turning you onto your back on the sofa, pressing himself between your open thighs. The change in angle presses the seam of your jeans against your clit, a jolt of pleasure rocking through you.

“You ever done this before?” He asks, hovering over you, dipping down to press a chaste kiss against your collarbone.

“I ain’t that innocent, Joel.” You reply, gasping when he pulls your nipple into his mouth, teasing it with his teeth. “Have you?”

This earns you a deep chuckle, a hushed whisper against the back of your neck, “I’ve been doing this since before you were born, baby.”

And, fuck, that shouldn’t turn you on so much but it does. It has your hips lifting up, seeking out friction. Joel notices and slides down your body, dropping onto his knees on the floor. He runs one hand up the inside of your thigh, presses his thumb expertly against your covered clit.

“I’m gonna take these off now, and then you’re gonna come on my tongue. That sound okay?”

You nod, voice lost as he undoes the button on your jeans and pulls them down in one motion, pushing them away in the direction of his discarded shirt.

“Look how wet you are for me already.” He glides two fingers over the front of your soaked underwear, up to the waistband to hook them off.

And then he leans forward, presses light kisses up your thighs until he reaches your cunt. He pauses, blows a cool strip of air against you that has you trying to close your legs, but his hands are there, pinning them open for him. When he seals his lips over your clit and drags his tongue over it you thread your fingers through his hair, pull at the black-grey strands. You squeeze your eyes shut but he pulls away, chastises you gently.

“Eyes on me, sweetheart.” His voice is like molten chocolate, rich and dark, pulling you back so that you gaze down at him.

He swipes his tongue over your slit, gathers the slick that’s pooling there. He’s like a man possessed, eyes dark, hair standing up on end from where you’ve run your hands through it, cursing and moaning as he slides his tongue over your clit, starting up a firm and consistent rhythm that has you bucking against him. His hands are gripping your thighs hard enough to leave bruises, his forearms corded with muscle, biceps flexing up to those impossibly broad shoulders.

“You gonna come on my tongue?” He asks, hardly breaking away from you to grunt out the question.

“Yes, Joel, fuck, please.” You can’t seem to form a coherent sentence, can hardly force yourself to keep your eyes on him where he kneels between your thighs like you’re an altar and he’s a lonely priest begging for repentance. It’s this thought – the idea of him worshipping you, tongue lapping over your clit, his eyes blazing with lust – that tips you over the edge. Your cunt clenches around nothing, body wracked with pleasure as you come, hard, on his tongue. He grins into your cunt as he feels you come apart against him, continues pressing sloppy, wet kisses to your pussy as you come down from the high, limbs shaking. When you finally push him away, overly sensitive and buzzing with pleasure, he rocks back on his heels, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Your pleasure is painted across his face, his greying stubble wet with your slick.

He crawls back up onto the couch between your thighs, dips his head to kiss you. You taste yourself on his lip; on his tongue when he sweeps it against the back of your teeth, heady and sweet. He presses himself against you, drags the front of his jeans over your bare skin. The buckle of his belt catches against your bare stomach and you hiss into his mouth, reach down to unbuckle it. It comes off easily, falls to the floor with a dull thud, and then you slip your fingers through the buttons of his jeans, undo them quickly, desperate to get them off. He stands briefly, pushes them the rest of the way down his thick thighs and then kneels back between your legs. Immediately you slide your hand into the waistband of his briefs. He feels like velvet wrapped around steel, hot and delicious in your fist. He groans into your mouth as you palm him desperately, sliding delicate skin over the head of him, feathering the pad of your thumb against his slit. When you draw his cock out you break away from his needy mouth to look. He’s big: thick, curving slightly to the left, head already weeping precum.

“Fist feels so good wrapped around my cock, sweetheart.” He tells you, “You gonna let me fuck you?”

It’s the easiest yes you’ve ever given. He chuckles darkly at your needy reply, pushes his briefs the rest of the way off and wraps his own fist around his cock. He slides himself over your cunt, coating himself in your juices. Then he’s notching the blunt head of his cock against your entrance, sucking in a breath as he pushes in gently, slowly, stretching you out deliciously.

“Good girl,” He murmurs, easing himself deeper, feeling you flex and clench around him, “good fucking girl.”

He stills when he’s fully seated inside you, sucks at a spot under your jaw that makes you gasp with pleasure, runs one big palm up your body to paw at your breast, trying to collect himself, twitching inside you with the effort of staying still.

“Cunt’s so goddamn tight, baby.” His voice is broken, pitchy and breathy against your ear.

You run your hands over his back, feeling out the breadth of his shoulders, the thin scars that lace across them, his muscles bunching and flexing beneath your fingers when he finally – finally – starts to move inside you, rocking his hips into yours, dragging himself all the way out and then gliding back in. The head of his cock hits something inside you that sends white hot pleasure jolting through your belly. The cabin is silent now – the rain has stopped – the only sounds are your frantic breathing and low, breathy moans, and Joel’s whispered praises as he rocks against you.

Good girl, so fucking good for me, letting me fuck you like this, cunt so tight around me, could come just thinking about it.

It’s dirty and sloppy and fucking incredible. The power you’ve seen him exert on infected and drunkards and raiders suddenly coiled over you, his muscles pulling you taunt against him when he changes the angle, sits up, pulls you with him so that you’re riding him, his cock somehow buried deeper in your cunt, your thighs bracketing him. You can feel yourself growing closer to release again, pleasure notching up in your belly like fire spreading. Joel shifts slightly again, makes space for his hand to come between you, places his thumb against your clit and presses, draws out slow, gentle circles that match the pace of his thrusts.

“Need my thumb on you clit while my cock’s buried inside you, sweetheart? Gonna come again just like this, huh? Dirty fucking girl.”

His words are like fuel on the fire and within seconds you’re moaning and shaking, cunt clenching around him as you come, harder than before, on his cock. Joel fucks you through it, keeps the steady pressure on your clit.

“Gonna make me come in this tight little pussy,” He says, and you know you shouldn’t, know you should make him pull out, but he feels so good inside you that you grind down on him telling him yes, please, fist your hands into his hair to pull his mouth against yours. The kiss is desperate and messy, all teeth and tongue. He hisses into your mouth as you buck your hips and drive them down on him, and then he’s swearing, fingers digging hard into your hips.

"Jesus, you feel so fucking good, baby, I’m gonna come. I’m gonna- shit.” He pulses inside you, painting your cunt with his come, hot and wet inside you.

You continue rocking against each other, slowly, coming down from the high. When he slides out of you and shifts away the old sofa groans out in protest, springs creaking. It makes you laugh, breathless, racking laughter than drives away the sudden realisation of what you’ve just done, of how you’ve indelibly changed the way you look at each other, the relationship between you.

“That was… fucking hell, Joel, that was incredible.”

He’s looking at you sideways, his hair still a mess, stubble still coated with your slick. He’s naked and vulnerable and you think it might just be the hottest thing you’ve ever seen. When he leans across to slot his lips against yours you grin against him, trying not to think about what happens next.

[beskarandblasters]

Waiting Room

No Outbreak!Joel x F!Reader

Inspired by Waiting Room by Phoebe Bridgers

Main Masterlist | Joel Miller Masterlist

Summary: After spending two years at a local community college you’re getting ready to transfer to a four year school away from home and have the “true college experience”. That is until Joel Miller, a 30 year old single dad, moves across the street and you find yourself fixated on him.

Word count: 5.3k

Warnings: reader is able-bodied, canon divergent, age gap relationship (10 years), fingering, vaginal sex, reader is on birth control, no mentions of physical description of reader besides the fact that she has hair and is shorter than Joel (doesn’t specify by how much), angst

“If you were a teacher, I would fail your class

Take it over and over 'til you noticed me

If you were a waiting room, I would never see a doctor

I would sit there with my first aid kit and bleed”

“What a beautiful ceremony,” your mom says as your dad pulls onto the freeway.

“It was alright, I guess. It’s just community college, mom,” you sigh.

“Community college is still something to be celebrated,” your dad chimes in, looking at you in the rearview mirror. 

You don’t respond. You lean against the window and let out a small sigh. The end of community college meant one thing; leaving home and going to school. You’re going to the University of Houston which is roughly three hours away from home. Albeit, not too far away but you’re excited to have the true college experience. You’re hoping to make new friends and hopefully meet someone. You had a boyfriend in high school but that was it. Dating is hard when you’re a commuter student who lives at home. But that’s all about to change. 

You think about your new life come the end of the summer the whole drive home, not really paying attention to what your parents were saying. But you’re snapped out of your thoughts when your dad turns onto your street and your mom says, “Look, honey. The neighbor across the street is moving in today.”

You look over and see a man standing by a truck in his driveway, holding a baby on his hip. Your dad slows the car down and stops at the end of his driveway. Your mom rolls down the window and says, “Hi! We live across the street. It’s nice to meet you.” 

Your mom tells him your names and he smiles at you. You make eye contact but look away quickly, feeling shy.

“I’m Joel Miller. And this is my daughter, Sarah,” he says.

“Let me park the car and we’ll come over and say hi properly,” your dad says. 

You groan slightly. You’re not really in the mood to socialize right now. But before you can protest your mom opens the car door and motions for you to get out. The three of you walk over to Joel’s driveway and shake hands. 

“I see someone graduated today,” Joel says, commenting on your graduation gown. 

“Oh it’s nothing special,” you say, looking down at your feet, “It’s just community college.”

“She’ll be going to the University of Houston in the fall,” your mom says.

“Going away to school, huh? That’s when the real fun begins,” Joel says. 

You look up from your feet and look at him. He shoots you a wink and you can feel your cheeks heating up. 

“If you need anything at all let us know,” your mom says.

“Thank you, ma’am. I guess I should get this one down for a nap. I’ll see you guys later,” he says smiling at you. 

Before he turns to go inside you get a good look at him in the sun, lighting up his features. You look at his form and his arm wrapped around Sarah. He looks strong and muscular, his biceps straining against the sleeves of his shirt. Before you can ogle him anymore he’s back inside his house and your parents start walking home. You turn and shake your head a little before following them. 

You don’t see Joel again for another week. During that time you were a little disappointed but you couldn’t put your finger on why. It’s around four o’clock and you’re just about to finish your routine walk and head home when you see Joel on the opposite side of the street heading towards you. 

“Hey there!” he says, walking over to you. His gray shirt clings to him with patches of sweat. He must be on a run. 

“Hey, Joel… On a run?”

“Yeah, just squeezing one in before I pick up Sarah from daycare. Do you normally walk in the neighborhood around this time?”

Has he been watching you?

“Yeah… I guess I do.”

“We could walk together if you want. I get home from work early sometimes and have time to kill before I go get Sarah.”

Why is he being so nice to you? You’re not used to men taking an interest in you, much less men like Joel. 

“Sure. Same time tomorrow?” you ask before turning to your driveway. 

“Sure thing. See you tomorrow!” he calls before heading inside. 

The next day rolls around and you walk to the end of your driveway, waiting for Joel. You feel butterflies in your stomach and your legs feel like jelly. 

Stop. He just moved here. He’s probably lonely, you think to yourself.

You see his front door open. Once Joel spots you waiting his face breaks into a smile. You give him a small wave and meet him in the street. 

“Ready?” he asks. 

You nod and start walking. It’s a bit awkward at first. You don’t really know what to say. You think about the neighborhood; people watching you two from their front windows and wondering what business you have being together. 

“You okay, sweets?”

You feel your heart drop to your stomach. The nickname. Where did that come from?

“I guess I’m just nervous is all.”

“Why’s that, sweets?”

“I’m not sure… I guess I’m just worried about what the neighborhood will think… seeing us together.”

“We’re just on a walk. But if you want we could always head back to my place. Are your folks home?”

Your heart leaps at the thought of being in his house alone with him. But not in a bad way. You want that so badly. You want nothing more than to spend alone time with him while he calls you cute pet names. 

“No they won’t be home until after six… After this street we could go to your house if you want…”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll follow your lead.”

You both go silent again. You pick up the pace a little, eager to make it back to his house already. When you reach his driveway he leads you inside and says, “Make yourself at home. You want a glass of lemonade, sweets? It was a scorcher out there today.”

“Uh, sure,” you say, sitting down on his couch gingerly. 

After a moment, he returns to the living room and sets two glasses down on the coffee table. You sit there in silence, awkwardly sipping your lemonade, waiting for him to say something. 

“So why do I make you nervous, sweets?”

“I guess… I’m just confused as to why someone like you would be interested in someone like me.”

He falls silent. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe he wasn’t actually into you. Maybe he was just being friendly. He sets his glass down on the coffee table and leans closer to you. 

“Someone like me?” he asks. 

“You know… someone older, someone… cooler. Someone attractive.” 

The words were just slipping out. 

“So you find me attractive?” he presses further. You’re facing each other now, trying so hard to read his facial expression and body language.

“I… Yes. Yes, I do,” you admit. 

“Wow. Didn’t think a pretty girl like you would be into an old man like me.” 

You stare at him with wide eyes, in disbelief that he just said that; that he just called you pretty. Your face feels hot and your head feels fuzzy. Without thinking, you lean forward and press your lips against, half expecting him to pull away. But he doesn’t. In fact, he melts into your touch, pulling you closer. His hands find your hair. You’re feeling brave now. Not only did you kiss Joel Miller first but he pulled you closer. You brush your tongue against his lips and he hums into the kiss, parting his lips slightly to let you gain access. He tastes sweet from the lemonade he was just drinking. He pushes against you lightly, coaxing you to lay down the couch. He decides he wants his tongue in your mouth now, pressing it against yours. You part your mouth as he explores it with his tongue. You whimper a little bit underneath him, making him moan into your mouth. You want more. You can’t get enough of him. You reach your hand down to the waistband of his pants but he pulls away. 

“Let’s save that for next time, sweets.

He wants a next time, you think to yourself. 

You nod and he kisses your forehead. You stay there like that for a moment, underneath him and staring into each other's eyes. 

“I guess I should get home,” you say. 

He nods and pulls himself off of you. You stand up and try to fix the back of your hair, a little matted from your couch make out session. You get nervous for a second, worried about what the neighbors will think seeing you leave Joel’s all frazzled. 

“Same time tomorrow?” he asks, leading you to the door. 

“Actually… Can we walk somewhere else? Maybe the park… and maybe a little bit later? Maybe around 6:30?”

You wince, worried that he’s going to be offended that you don't want to be seen with him. But he’s not. 

“Sure thing, sweets. I’ll see if my brother, Tommy, can watch Sarah after work. Wanna meet me there?”

“Sure… See you tomorrow, Joel,” you say, reaching for the door handle. 

But before you can leave he grabs you by the waist and kisses you again, catching you off guard. 

He pulls away and says, “One for the road.”

“I literally live across the street,” you laugh. 

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, pressing a kiss on your forehead, “See you tomorrow, sweets.”

He lets go of you and you leave. You feel his eyes on you as you walk home. You reach your front door and you turn around to get one last look at his house. To your surprise he’s still there. You give each other a small wave before you go inside. You close the door behind you and lean against it, smiling like an idiot. You go to your room and think about what you’re going to wear tomorrow. 

After a while you hear your mom come home. 

“How was your day, honey?” she calls to you. 

“Really great actually…”

“That’s good to hear,” she says. 

You smile to yourself, thinking about how she doesn’t know the reason why. It feels good to have a little secret like this. You go to bed that night finding yourself unable to sleep. You’re too busy thinking about seeing Joel tomorrow. 

You wake up for the day and hope it goes by fast. Between making a shopping list for school, picking out your outfit and eating lunch the day doesn’t drag on too long. You get ready and put on a blue and white floral dress with white converse. Not really ideal for going on a walk but you’re hoping it’ll be more than that. 

You go to grab your keys to leave but you decide to leave a note for your parents. You make up some lie about getting ice cream and seeing a movie with some friends from high school that were home for the summer. You leave the note on the kitchen counter and leave, getting in your car to drive to the park. The whole drive to the park you’re nervous. You never even confirmed if the plan was still on; if Sarah could go to Tommy’s. You decide that you’ll wait until six before going home. You pull into the parking lot and wait, twiddling your thumbs and switching between radio stations. After a while you see Joel’s black truck pull in and feel relieved. The park is a little dead today which makes you feel relieved even more. You get out of your car to meet him and he immediately greets you with a kiss. 

He pulls away and says, “How was your day, sweets?”

“Just got a little better,” you reply, smiling at him.

“Only a little? After tonight you’ll think differently,” he teases. 

You walk around the park together as it gets darker and darker. He tells you he’s a contractor. He tells you about his daughter and how her mom left them soon after she was born. You tell him about school but you choose to not talk about leaving in the fall… He listens to you and makes you feel seen; makes you feel wanted. You haven’t known him that long at all but you can feel yourself falling for him. 

Eventually you two are the only ones left at the park as the sun starts to set. You’re sitting on a bench, thighs pressed together. The anticipation in the air is heavy as both of you know what you want. You want him to act on it first. You turn to look up at him and as if he reads your mind he caresses your face and kisses you. You press against him more, turning the kiss into full blown making out.

 He pulls back and whispers against your ear, “Wanna go back to the truck, sweets?”

You nod and rise from the bench. He keeps a hand on the small of your back on the walk back to the truck. He opens the door to the backseat and you slide in as he follows and closes the door behind him. He wastes no time kissing you again, but this time he pulls you into his lap. You grind your hips against him as his hands roam your thighs. His calloused hands from manual labor contrast with your soft skin. It reminds you how much of a man he is. You feel his fingers tugging at the seam of your underwear so you spread your legs a bit wider. His fingers tease your entrance making you moan against him. He brings his fingers to his lips to moisten them but before he can slide one in you stop him. 

“Joel… I have to tell you something.”

“What is it, sweets?”

“I’ve… never had an orgasm before.”

“Oh baby I’m gonna make you feel so good.”

He slides a finger into your already wet cunt. You rest your head on the back of the seat beside his head and close your eyes in pleasure. He was right; you already feel good. And just off of one finger. He curls in against your walls as you whimper beside his ear. He inserts another finger and you feel yourself expand to accommodate how wide they are. He pumps them in and out of you faster and faster. You feel yourself get close to the edge. And that’s when he brings his thumb to your clit rubbing small, fast circles around the sensitive bundle of nerves. 

“Cum on my fingers, sweets. Let me feel it.”

You whimper and nod against him, so close but not quite there yet. He curls fingers up against your g-spot in a “come here” motion and that’s when you cum hard. Your release drips down to his wrist, leaving it completely soaked. You moan his name over and over again as you ride out your high, grinding against his hand in the process as he whispers words of praise against your ear. 

“You did so good, baby.”

You move your head to look him in the eye after you finish coming, his fingers still inside you.

“Thank you, Joel.”

“I’m glad I could help, baby.”

You kiss him as he pulls his fingers out, whining at the sudden absence inside you. He pulls away and brings his fingers to his mouth to taste you, closing his eyes as he does.

“You taste so good, baby. So sweet.”

You reach your hand between your legs and rub where his cock was straining against the fabric of his pants. He pulls his cock out and gathers more of your release, spreading it on his cock in preparation to fuck you. 

“You ready for me, sweets?”

You nod and lower yourself onto him, feeling his cock spread you apart. You stay still for a moment, letting yourself get adjusted to his size and looking into each other's eyes. After getting comfortable you grind yourself against him, hitting you in the most perfect angles. He hands grip your waist as he looks up at you while you fuck yourself on his cock. You feel yourself getting close again; your walls tensing up around him. 

“That’s it, baby. Cum again for me,” he says, looking you in the eye. 

You cunt pulses and flutters around him as you cum again, ripping through your core. Your hands find his hair as you finish coming, also sending him to the edge. His hands move to your hips to pull you off of him, but you bring a hand to his chest and say, “It’s okay. I’m on the pill.” He nods and you grind against him once more. He shoots his load into you, coating your insides with his warm release. 

You both stay there pressed against each other and panting. The inside of the truck is steamy, condensation hanging on the windows. You look at each other with sweaty faces and pupils blown wide. You kiss again, not needing to say any words about what just happened; you both feel the same way. 

“I wanna be the power ballad that lifts you up and holds you down

I wanna be the broken love song that feeds your misery

And I can wish all that I want, but it won't bring us together

Plus I know whatever happens to me, I know it's for the better”

And so the rest of the summer you and Joel mess around, finding places to fuck where no one would suspect a thing. Your parents are none the wiser at first but eventually you start to run out of excuses. Joel’s brother, Tommy, on the other hand sensed that something was there from the beginning but chose to look the other way. He’s happy to see that Joel is enjoying himself again after Sarah’s mom left but he worries that you’re too young and naive for Joel. And throughout the whole summer Joel never puts a label on what you are despite how badly you want to be official. But it’s not smart. Not when you’re sneaking around behind your parents back and not when you’re about to go away to school. But the truth is you love him so much and you’ve never told him. 

It’s the night before you’re about to leave and you’re laying in the bed of Joel’s truck. He decided to make this time special, bringing you somewhere with less light pollution so you can stargaze and lining the truck bed with pillows and blankets. 

He’s between your thighs, cock buried deep in your cunt as he fucks you relentlessly. You try to take a mental image of him above him above you with the starry night sky behind him. You never want this to end. With one last slam of his hips you’re coming around him, gripping his cock like a vice. He paints your walls with thick ropes of cum, burying his face in the crook of your neck. He pulls out if you and collapses next to you, pulling you against him. 

 “I’m gonna miss you, Joel,” you say into the crook of his neck. 

“I’m gonna miss you too, sweets,” he says, running a hand through your hair. 

You look up at the stars as you lay against him, tears springing in your eyes as you think about leaving him. You both lay there talking about anything but tomorrow. But soon enough it gets late and you have to get home. You have a three hour drive ahead of you tomorrow. You slip on your clothes and get out of the truck bed, dragging your feet to the front. The drive home is silent, both of you not knowing what to say. But as he pulls up to your house he stops you before you can get out. He leans over and kisses you passionately before whispering against your ear, “One for the road”.

You feel tears sting your eyes again as you get out of the truck. 

“Goodbye, Joel,” you say, closing the door behind you. Tears are rolling down your face now as you walk to the front door, stopping to turn around and watch him pull into his driveway. 

The drive to school the next day was dreadful. Realistically you should be excited about this; it’s all you ever wanted. But you’re missing Joel. You hadn’t exactly talked about what would happen with you two once you left. 

The move in goes alright. Your parents stick around a bit too long, just wanting to make sure you’re going to be alright. Luckily, you have a single on the off chance Joel comes to see you. But that seems few and far between. You’re three hours away and he has Sarah at home. When is he ever gonna have the time to come see you?

Two weeks pass and you don’t hear from Joel. He knows how to reach you. He has your phone number and you have his. But you’re too nervous to call him first. 

“I wanna make you drive all night

Just because I said, "Maybe you should come over"

Wanna make you fall in love as hard as my poor parent's teenage daughter

She'll be the best you ever had if you let her”

That is until one Friday night when you come back from a frat party drunk out of your mind. Your feelings get the best of you and you call Joel. His gruff voice answers with, “Sweets?”

“Joellll I miss youuuu,” you say, slurring your words. 

“I miss you too, sweets. Are you alright?”

“I just came back from a party,” you whisper. 

He chuckles, “I’m glad you’re having fun, sweets.”

“You should come over,” you whine. 

“You serious?”

“Mhmmm.”

He sighs, feeling conflicted before answering, “Fine. I’ll leave in an hour. I just have to bring Sarah to Tommy’s.”

“Thank you, Joel. I can’t wait to see you.”

“Me neither, sweets. See you soon,” he says before hanging up. 

You fall into bed, sleeping the best you’ve slept in a while knowing that Joel will be there in the morning.

You awake to your phone ringing. You roll over and look at the contact and see that it’s Joel. You pick up and he says, “Alright sweets I’m here. What building?”

“Building 2A. I’ll meet you outside,” say before hanging up. 

You rush to get changed and smooth down your hair. You leave your room to go meet him, anxious to see him again even though it’s only been two weeks. You leave the building and step out onto the quad and see him there standing in the middle of the grass, hands in his pockets. His face brightens as he sees you. You run over to him and wrap your arm around it. It all feels like a movie. 

“You have no idea how much I missed you,” you say into his chest. 

You feel his arms embrace you as he says, “Missed you too, sweets. You wanna let me inside your dorm? I feel like I’m getting weird looks.”

You pull away and look around to see handfuls of students sitting on picnic blankets in the grass. Some of them were looking at you two, some weren’t. Regardless they were all freshmen and sophomores judging by the looks of them. And they weren’t used to seeing a thirty year old man standing in the middle of the quad. You take his hand and lead him back to your building, signing him in before you take him to your room. 

“Wow, no roommate, huh?” he says.

“Nope,” you say, giving him a smirk. 

That was all he needed. His lips come crashing against yours and his large hands envelope your face. He pushes you back towards your bed across the room and you oblige, falling down on it so he can hover over you. He presses sloppy, wet kisses down your jaw and neck, nipping at the soft skin ever so slightly. He pulls off your sweatpants and trails his hand from your knee and up your thigh. You spread your legs open for him, wanting him inside you already. He stands for a moment to pull off his pants and shirt as you take in his naked body before removing your own shirt. He takes one look at you and says, “Already so wet for me, sweets,” as he rubs his fingers along your entrance. He collects some of your wetness on his hands and slathers his already hard cock before thrusting in slowly. Even though it’s only been two weeks since you last had him you had to get adjusted to his size for a moment, holding your breath as your walls expanded around him. You exhale and he thrusts in you harder, picking up your thighs with his hands and learning down, folding you in half. This angle is intense for you and you never last long with it. He slams his hips into you, filling the room with the lewd sound of skin slapping against skin and your own moans. You’re sure anyone on either side of you can hear right now but you’re too blissed out to care. He thrusts into you one last time and you come undone around him, your cunt fluttering on his cock. The sensation of your release makes him cum too and you’re filled with the familiar feeling of his cum shooting into you. He pulls out and lays down next to you on your shitty dorm room mattress, holding you as you close your eyes and melt into him. 

“How was the drive?” you ask after a moment. 

“Uh, not terrible,” he says. 

“… Maybe we could do this more often?” you say, nervous to hear his response. 

“Maybe, sweets,” he says, pressing a kiss to your temple, “But I can’t stay that long, baby. Tommy can’t watch Sarah that much longer.”

“Okay… How much longer do you have?” 

“Probably another hour until I have to leave.”

You nod and lay back down against him, sadness washing over you again. You lay there together catching up until he has to go. You tell him how school is going and he tells you how home is. He checked on your parents after you left, making sure they weren’t too upset in your absence and you thank him for that. But the talking comes to an end as he gets to get dressed. Before he leaves you kiss him and say, “I love you, Joel,” not really expecting an answer back. Which you don’t get. He kisses you again and says “Bye, sweets.” You spend the rest of the day in bed, feeling emptier than ever. 

And now you’ve sort of fallen into a routine with Joel where you call him to come over. And he does when he can. Normally you just have sex and lay in bed together. Occasionally you’ll go out for breakfast before he has to go back but that’s as far as dates go for you. He can never stay for more than a few hours with Sarah at home. You start to feel hopeless with the whole situation. You wanted more than this; you wanted a real relationship and he just can’t give it to you. He hasn’t said I love you back at this point either and you’re growing frustrated. You’re in college with a sea of available men and you’re pining for the thirty year old dad who’s three hours away. You decide that if the opportunity comes along for someone else, you’re not going to pass it up. 

It’s November now, right before Thanksgiving break. You called Joel in your drunken stupor the night prior but he didn’t pick up. At this point you can’t take it anymore; you’re done with being strung along. You always thought to yourself if he’s driving three hours a couple times a week to come see me, he must love me right? But you never get any confirmation. 

You’re pacing back and forth in the lobby of your building, your mind is going in a thousand different directions. You’ve barely been able to focus on school during all of this and the friends you’ve made so far have noticed a change in you. You’re spiraling, wondering why you even put yourself in this situation to begin with. 

But you’re snapped from your thoughts when the cute guy from your philosophy class taps you on the shoulder. You turn to look at him. He seems nervous. 

“Oh, hi,” you say, feeling shy. The only man you’ve really interacted with at this point has been Joel and you’re not used to talking to someone new. 

“Hey, um I’m Sean. We’re in Philosophy 315 together.”

“Yes I remember you. How are you doing?”

“I'm good… I was just wondering… After the break did you want to go out sometime?”

Fuck it. Why not? You have someone here in front of you telling you directly that he wants to take you out. 

“Sure,” you say, pulling out a piece of paper and writing your number on it, “Call me when break is over, okay?”

He takes the piece of paper from you and nods. But behind him you notice Joel who just witnessed everything. He doesn’t say anything, turning on his heel and leaving. 

“Would you excuse me?” you say to Sean before running out of the building, not waiting for a response. You follow Joel all the way to his truck before he turns around and asks, “What the fuck was that?!”

“He asked me to go out. Big fucking deal.”

“And you said yes?!”

“Why not? I’m getting really sick and tired of this. You don’t get to continue fucking me after I tell you I love you when you don’t say it back. You don’t think I’m not going to try and move on?”

He sighs. He realizes he’s in the wrong. But instead of confirming his love for you he says, “Sweets, I don’t think this is working out for us anymore. You’re away at college like you’ve always wanted to be… and I think you deserve the full experience… with someone your own age.”

Tears spring to your eyes and he grabs your hands. Deep down you know he’s right. You know this is for the better. 

“I know, Joel. I’ve been thinking about this too… it’s for the better.”

“It is, sweets,” he says, pulling you in for a hug and kissing your forehead. 

“I’m sorry,” he continues, “It was wrong of me to string you along like this.

You nod against him, your tears staining his shirt. He caresses your face and gives you one last kiss.

“One for the road,” he murmurs against your ear.

He gets back in his truck and you walk back to the edge of the parking lot. You turn to watch him leave, tears rolling down your face. You watch him until he’s out of sight. You sigh and walk back to your building, feeling a weird mixture of sadness and relief. It was for the better. 

“I never grew up with you

And you're not my waiting room”

End note: I hope you liked the lyric header with Phoebe's handwriting!!! Love my queen🖤 Let me know if this ripped out your heart like it did to mine 😍 xoxo

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[witch-and-her-witcher]

soft place to land

yenralt | G | bed sharing, hurt/comfort

ao3

--

“What are you doing here at this time of year? You’re far from your Keep.”

The countryside of Aedirn in the time just before Samhain called to Yennefer like a phantom’s wail. The nostalgia of watching changing leaves fall and scatter along freshly harvested grounds echoed in the empty chamber of her heart for her homeland as it had been in her childhood. Right alongside the space in that barren chamber which held the pangs of her father’s desperate pleas to be spared at her hands when she returned to seek the justice she deserved so many years before.

“I didn’t – didn’t intend to be here so late. Whoreson trolls got the upper hand, got a … got a foot stuck.”

But it also made her restless, Yennefer often finding herself riding about the countryside deep in thought yet unable to recall her musings, only the image of deep crimson red currents amidst autumnal orange leaves and nutty brown acorns.

The sun beginning to dip behind the horizon, Yennefer had no desire to test if the patrols had kept the brigands at bay in the region. She’d forgotten to turn around, and so instead settled for a small village in her sights.

It had taken her all of ten minutes in the local tavern to hear of the White Wolf holed up in the inn – had been for a week now, bartered off most of his goods to afford the bill.

“Unless you’ve been kept up in this inn for two months, you knew you wouldn’t make it out in time. The pass must be snowed over by now.”

The strained expression from the shirtless and still profusely sweating Witcher looked caught. Satisfying.

They were in the “off again” portion of their relationship and Yennefer had no interest in seeing Geralt of Rivia. Her blood had still not cooled from the rose and letter left on her bedside table. The heavy-handed letter, in typical Geralt fashion, had tried to shroud his anxiety with settling down as Yennefer’s own need for space.

Coward.

“I know how this time of the year affects you, I wanted to be close – hell, I don’t know why.” The pinch of his brows, the grimace exposing his canines, the obvious pain overcoming him despite the black ladened swell of veins carrying toxins to undue whatever the trolls had managed before meeting their ends.

The sentiment wouldn’t warm her heart to him, but it would allow an irritated huff to escape her lips and her feet to move to his bedside. Fever, the toxins, whatever internal bleeding or broken bits were struggling to heal and the protruding ribs from malnourishment – all difficult to ignore unless Yennefer truly wanted to see through the most malicious of her thoughts surrounding the Witcher.

“What have you poisoned yourself with? When’s the last time you ate?” She scoured the room and saw only an overturned, empty waterskin cast on the floor. “Or drank? Am I interrupting a suicide?”

Geralt hissed at the brisk examination without answering, but Yennefer knew the answers anyway. She would have her work cut out for her in the next couple of hours – how had this massive idiot survived for so long on his own? There was no waiting for her unexpectant patient to provide consent for treatment and for the sake of his own wellbeing, Geralt was aware enough, perhaps desperate enough, not to protest.

Well into the evening, as much healing as she was going to get done accomplished, Yennefer commandeered a portion of the bed for herself. She considered her now cold portion of dinner waiting along the bed for her, wrinkled her nose in distaste, and handed the plate to the only barely conscious Witcher.

“Yen – “

She cut him off with a lifted hand, uninterested in whatever apology or explanation he had to offer, especially in such a compromised state. “After some rest, you should be just fine to Axii Roach and step through a portal to your Witcher’s Keep in the morning.”

Geralt gave her a lopsided smile around a bite of bread. Avoiding reprimand, he waited til the bit was swallowed to respond. “You want me out of Aedirn that desperately?”

“That desperately.”

“But not desperately enough to get your own room?”

“I can’t abandon my ward until I’ve seen treatment through, with your abilities I want to smell the infection cleared in a few more hours – easier to do without trudging back and forth.” The extra pillows she had conjured to prop her back felt like heaven after the day of riding and the rousing evening’s work. “Besides, the insulation is shite here. Least you can do is keep me warm.”

Typically, she would have felt the need to head-off a childish remark on her last statement, but after treating the Witcher’s assorted wounds she knew there would be none. As if he were the one who could read minds, Geralt glanced down at the sheet covering his massively bruised pelvic region.

“Likely have no children after this.”

Yennefer snorted. “A winter away from the temptation of overuse will do you good, as long as you can keep your own hand at bay.” Geralt’s expression turned smug and now she could hear the childish remarks, but at least he didn’t put them to spoken word.

The thoughts drifted away as he splayed himself selfishly across the bed, invading Yennefer’s personal space and paying no regard to the contact of his abnormally warm skin pressing against her. It would have been infuriating - if she hadn’t been telling the truth about the quality of the structure they were in and instead the extra warmth was much welcomed.

When the co-occupant of the bed was breathing steadily, Yennefer allowed herself to study him once more. She traced a thumb over Geralt’s sleep relaxed forehead, casting a deeper, healing sleep over him, before grabbing the empty plate abandoned on his chest and leaning over his body to set it on his bedside table.

Cheek bones too pronounced, jawline too sharp, the hollows under his eyes deeper and darker than they should been. Yennefer let her fingertips trace familiar patterns along his pale skin, resting on her side in the space left for her on the bed. Maybe the tenderness would seep into his bones, telepathically improve his self-preservation without her having to compromise her justified anger towards him by admitting genuine concern.

It was with a startle she awoke: hand still cupping Geralt’s face and her own face pressed into his slowly rising and falling chest. Damnit, if his proximity didn’t settle the restlessness within her as he knew it would. Yennefer hadn’t slept so fitfully in weeks.

A quick scan confirmed he was sound enough for a portal, although he would need every bit of rest his home had to offer. It was difficult to pull herself from him, but now that she was convinced she could be good and pissed off a while longer without him keeling over on her, Yennefer stood to busy herself preparing the medicaments he would need to use for a while longer.

“Yen?” The groggy voice called from the bed where Geralt blinked blearily. “Is that really you?”

The sorceress sighed, finished cinching closed his potions bag (pocketing the useless hallucinogens that would burn through her healing antidotes when he stubbornly tried to use them). “Not for much longer. I want to get out of this shithole and back to my home, if you so care to get dressed.”

Geralt followed the terse command and they were out collecting Roach shortly after. Cloak tugged around him, Yennefer hesitated before stepping forward and wrapping her arms briefly around his too lithe frame.

"Spend your free time writing me enough that I can’t help but breakdown and invite you to Vengerberg in the spring, will you?”

“I’ll have to keep my hand busy some way, hm?”

The sarcastic arse. Yennefer lifted her hands, waited until Geralt cast his sign over his tempestuous mount, and opened the portal that abruptly kicked cold air and stinging snow into their faces. Gone into the blustering cold without a moment’s hesitation, the thought of “I love you, Yen” lingering much longer.

[ceo-of-sloppy-men]

Do Your Worst To Me; 'Til The River's Running Red

Chapter 1

Ship: Cullen Rutherford/Lavellan/Raleigh Samson Rating: Explicit (for mature themes, gore, lyrium addiction/withdrawal, injury, Samson's potty mouth, etc.)

A defeated Raleigh Samson is taken prisoner by the Inquisition after the battle in the Arbor Wilds. He wanted to die on the overgrown cobblestone, unfortunately, Cullen Rutherford and Neros Lavellan don't give a flying rat. Samson is determined to make them regret it.

Link to AO3 if it's your preferred platform.

I decided to post this here for funzies. CW: blood, injury, dying, lyrium addiction, etc.

Samson feels like someone doused him in oil and lit him on fire. It would be easier to list what doesn’t hurt rather than what does. He lays defeatedly in the dirt, a mere few feet away from the shattered Eluvian, staring at with a hollow gaze. Footsteps echo around him, pounding in his ears. He can smell the metallic scent of blood wafting off the dead bodies of his soldiers – fellow templars he had led into their final battle, so sure of his triumph he hadn’t anticipated failure. Yet, he’d failed all the same; he always failed. It was all he could hope to bleed out into the unforgiving, cool dirt, and let his life seep away into Thedas. Perhaps his sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain, even if his body was only meant to nurture flowers that would no doubt regrow in this Elvhen temple.

Warm fingers worm their way between his armour and matted hair, pressing against his pulse point. In his drugged-out haze, Samson barely registers the kneeling figure in front of him. She’s – no, they’re – one of the Inquisitor’s companions, a lithe elven mage with long ginger hair and skin covered in freckles. He stares up at them, losing himself in the golden halos of their eyes. A hiss screeches inside him that he shouldn’t find the enemy so comforting – so beautiful – but the protest is overwhelmed by the rest of his stupefied mind that finds Andraste’s kindness in their actions. The red lyrium in his veins sing at their magic, tucking him inside the safety of their warmth. He leans into their touch, shame coiling in his stomach that he could be so easily subdued. His only saving grace is that they don’t notice, talking over his shoulder as they pull their hand away, taking the warmth in his bones with them.

“He’s alive,” they relay tentatively to someone standing behind him.

A heavy sigh echoes through Samson’s ears, and sorrow returns to blanket him. He knows that sigh – he’s heard it a hundred times in this state. The only thing missing is the cold cobblestone pressing into his cheek. Even the roar of starvation – of his body eating itself from the inside out – he knows that voice.

“Of course he is. The Inquisitor should have just killed him.”

Yes, he should have. Finally, they agree on something! He should be bleeding out with his men – Cullen should put him out of his misery instead. Finish what the Inquisitor started.

“Galerius has his own way of judging things,” Neros shrugs, rising from their crouched position. Samson feels the pit of his stomach eating away at itself, fusing with the newly rendered anxiety. Just leave him here to die, damn it! “Do you want my help carrying him?”

“I’ve seen him walk in worse states; I’d prefer not to give him the luxury of being carried again,” Cullen bites and Samson can feel the glare he’s fixed on him. He wants to curl further into himself, wants to die here, wants to plunge his blade between the cracks of his armour and stop his own feeble heart. An unforgiving hand grabs his shoulder and pulls him to his feet.

“Walk,” Cullen demands.

Samson stumbles forward, tripping over his own sluggish feet and promptly crashes to the ground. His arms are too slow to catch himself as his face smashes against the overgrown stone floor. Somehow, his face still manages to hit a stone tile, and he feels the splitting pain echo in his bones as the blood trickles down his forehead.

“Seriously?! You can walk just fine, stop play-acting and fucking walk!” Cullen shouts, bitter heartbreak colouring his voice. Samson wraps himself in those words, letting the anger seep into his bones and remind him exactly why he’s not worthy of anything more.

“Cullen,” Neros says gently, and Samson hears Cullen sigh once again. “We do not need to stoop to his level. Do not become the villain simply because he did first.”

Hah.

Someone grabs his shoulders again, pulling him back to his feet. They flank him on either side, Cullen’s hands reluctantly bracing him from falling again and Neros’ hands tentatively examining the head wound he sustained.

“Leave it – just let me die,” Samson growls, pain lancing through his throat with each syllable. He squeezes his eyes shut, willing himself not to cry. Every ache in his body has been amplified as he feels his red-lyrium high dwindle away, slowly leeching from his body. He can almost picture the sores in his throat splitting open, and regret paints his bones the moment he speaks.

“The Inquisitor wanted you alive, so he’ll decide what happens to you. Until you’re up on a gallow, you don’t get to die,” Cullen sneers and Samson can remember the aching, teary-eyed gaze staring back at him all those years ago. He wants to go back to that moment more than ever right now. Maybe it would be different – maybe he could’ve joined the Inquisition and actually done some good with his pathetic life.

Instead, he manages a hollow laugh that ends with him coughing blood onto the undergrowth beneath his feet.

The sudden, startled noises from both of them aren’t worth the effort. Shame berates him as Neros scrambles to check him for injuries, and Cullen finally picks him up. He wished they’d left him to stumble back instead. It isn’t the first time he’s coughed up blood, and it won’t be the last – until…

White spots swarm his vision rapidly, and he blacks out before he can finish.

~*~

Cullen drops the limp, shaking body of Samson down on a cot inside the healers’ tent. He slumps into the chair next to it, feeling the weight of his armour pinning down his bones, exhaustion finally catching up to him. Two guards appear and whisk away Samson’s weapons, leaving him in nothing but his armour as Neros returns with freshly watched hands. A healing potion is thrust into his hands, and he can barely grip the bottle. He relies on their help to tip it to his lips, feeling utterly defeated as they cradle his jaw.

“You should rest, Cullen,” Neros attempts to persuade him.

“I’m not leaving you alone with him.”

There’s a soft understanding in Neros’ gaze that Cullen hates. He hates that they know. He hates that he told them. He hates that he didn’t keep it bottled up and to himself. No one needed to know about his entanglement with Samson – let alone his current lover. Yet, they knew all too well and still kiss his forehead gently.

“My brave knight,” Neros hums, knowing that’s all he wants to hear.

He manages a smile, and that somehow satisfies them. They turn to Samson’s weak form, hands on their hips, leaving him to his own thoughs. Cullen sits back, letting them know their own limits. Instead, he admires their diligence as they pull on leather straps and undo buckles, deftly removing foreign armour. A small pile forms on the floor that a soldier gathers up to store in a nearby crate until all that’s left is the cuirass. Cullen cringes as the scars and sores that scatter Samson’s body – countless lyrium burns, war injuries and even a few he doesn’t want to know the origin of. He remembers finding him on the streets, nearly as bad, beaten and bloody from attempting to steal Lyrium when begging didn’t work. He trembled then too.

“Lyrium withdrawals,” Cullen mutters absent-mindedly, one hand curled around Samson’s ankle to try and stop his leg from shaking.

 Neros’ head snaps to him instantly, and they nod quickly:

“The shaking? I was thinking the same thing! Okay, I have something for that – it’ll help for the moment, at least.”

He’s grateful he doesn’t have to explain to him why he smiles. He hates Samson – he swears he hates him – but he wouldn’t wish raw-dogging lyrium withdrawals upon his greatest enemy… Samson is his greatest enemy. Isn’t he? Or isn’t it Corypheus? Or the Chantry? Can it be all three – or is that too much? Maybe he’d wish lyrium withdrawals on Corypheus… does that make Samson less of an enemy?

Neros returns shortly, pulling him from his doom spiral. He watches as they mix a potion by spinning their wrist rapidly until it changes from bright yellow to a deep purple. Cullen shudders at the memory of the taste – a cheap wine-like body with sharp undertones of what could only be described as cat piss. Not that Cullen had ever tasted cat piss, but he’d bet money that’s what it would taste like.

Cullen gets the satisfaction of watching Samson’s face contort in disgust as Neros coaxes it down his throat… it’s not nearly as satisfying as he had hoped.

He pats Samson’s leg and mumbles a quick:

“It tastes like shit, but it’ll help.”

“What the fuck is that?! Spoilt milk mixed with sewage?” Samson coughs after Neros lets go of his nose.

“It’ll help with your withdrawals,” Neros states, unbothered by the insult hurled at their potion. “Let me know if you keep shaking, experiencing hot and cold flashes, constantly feel like you need to pee without actually having to pee, or if you can still hear your veins singing. This potion is technically made for lyrium withdrawals, but I’m not certain how much it’ll do for red lyrium.”

“Always knew Rutherford was a weak little bitch; I didn’t realize he couldn’t handle withdrawal symptoms without whinging,” Samson jabs because that’s all he knows how to do. That’s all Cullen wanted to do as well – jab and insult him, maybe even kick him a little while he’s down. But then he’d seen him lying in the dirt… Somehow it didn’t give him the satisfaction he was chasing.

He still wants him dead… at least, he thought he did.

Neros steps in before Cullen can come up with a retort:

“Actually, while Cullen has only taken a few of these. He’s relatively reluctant to accept any medication – which is understandable given… everything. This was designed for the templars the Inquisition took in. Many of them wanted to follow their Commander’s example and the Inquisitor asked me to design a potion to make it easier on them. As I haven’t treated any red-lyrium templars, any insight into the potion’s effects you can give me will help future red-templars the Inquisition helps.”

Samson just stares at them with wide eyes. Cullen smiles at that – there’s a satisfaction in seeing Samson rendered silent instead of getting the rise he expects.

“… I can still hear it singin’, but that might have more to do with having it in my chest. That and it feels a hell of a lot colder here than it did earlier,” Samson finally says, and Neros smiles softly.

“Thank you for your honesty,” they chirp, and Cullen has never loved them more. Even when faced with impossible odds they still manage to retain a staggering air of kindness. Maker preserve him, for their gentle heart will always weaken his knees.

“Now, um, what did you mean about it being in your chest?”

Samson barks in rough, ragged laughter as if they just told the funniest joke he’s ever heard. Cullen frowns, exchanging a look with Neros that he can only describe as concerned.

“Take a look for yourself, softy,” Samson invites them, gesturing to the cuirass still buckled to his torso.

Cullen can see them hesitate before reaching for the straps – he doesn’t blame them. Part of him wants to turn away from what he’s about to see… but the other part of him knows that he has to see this through. He has to know. He just has to.

Regret hits him like a truck the moment Neros pulls the cuirass away, hefting it like they expect the red-lyrium to come free with it only for it to slide off, leaving the lyrium impaled in Samson’s chest. The area around the wound is an angry red, oozing ever so slightly; Cullen doesn’t know if it’s blood or puss, and he’s not sure he wants to. Neros, for their credit, keeps a straight face, pulling the cuirass off carefully and setting it to the side. The soldier moves to take it away and they chide him, worried they’ll need to replace it in a moment. Samson, on the other hand, looks like he’s in agony. Cullen helps remove the back piece just to make sure he’s not impaled all the way through and can’t fight down the sigh of relief when he finds he isn’t. Neros is already futzing around, pulling Samson’s shirt off to get a better look at the wound – it peels away like he hasn’t taken the armour off for weeks (and smells like it too).  

The moment Neros attempts to examine the wound, Samson whimpers, sounding like he’s biting back sobs. Cullen catches Neros pulling their hand back like they’ve been burnt. It’s too much to bear – Cullen takes his leave swiftly, kissing Neros on the cheek before stepping out of the tent. He has soldiers to check on, orders to give, and an army to lead back to Skyhold. Maybe a little distance and some fresh air will clear his head – help him recognize that he loathes Samson, that Samson is the enemy and the villain and the absolute worst and that he should not be pitying him. He hates him.

Doesn’t he?

~*~

Samson wants to curl in on himself – wishes he was still curled up in the dirt. They stand there, staring at him, scrutinizing him; the picture of beauty peering at him like he’s a mangy dog they found stumbling through the woods. He’s not sure what stings worse, the lyrium in his chest or the kiss Cullen left on their cheek. Cullen. His Cullen. The one he’d waited for, who’d dashed him across the rocks and left him for the scavengers. Bitterness returns to him in full force, curling in the pit of his stomach. How come Cullen got everything he ever wanted – his happy ending, his perfect daydream that he’d clung to like a child clings to a teddy bear? He’d still cling to his teddy bear his father hadn’t burnt it before sending him away. Is this it? Is he doomed to watch Cullen have everything he ever wanted right in front of him until the lyrium eventually claims him?

Fate was a cruel mistress indeed.  

“I need to examine you to know how to help,” Neros says calmly, their voice a warm blanket for his weary mind. Calloused hands try to urge his hands away from where they’re plastered to his chest.

“It hurts,” Samson protests. “You’ll only jostle it!”

“I promise, I will be very careful not to jostle it. Do you know if it’s impaled in any of your organs? Have you tried to remove it before?” He almost believes the sincerity in their voice. As if he was just another patient they were tending to and not the prisoner that he is.

“Haven’t bothered; what good would it do? I’d just grow more.”

“And your organs…?”

“Beats me. Probably not – Corypheus kept tellin’ me I could pull it out and grow a bigger one. Not that I don’t think he wouldn’t risk my life like that. Just never bothered risking it myself,” Samson shrugs, allowing them to coax his hands away. “Just don’t jostle it.”

“I won’t,” Neros assures him, having paused to take notes in the notebook open near his head. He’d already made an attempt to read it, but the blasted thing was written in Elvhen. Unfortunately, Templars aren’t trained in Elvhen and he was never good at trying to pick it up during his time at the circle (boring days will drive you to real dead-end hobbies).

So, he lets them examine his chest – even if they do move it slowly, giving him fair warning so he can brace himself. It hurts less knowing that it’s coming, but pain still roars through him like he’s being stabbed. He’s just gotten used to it. They’ve got some sort of magical glasses on, peering at him and taking notes. Turning his head to his side he can just barely squint at the drawing of his chest cavity in their notebook. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t make him feel less like an overly scrutinized, dying animal. If he was less concerned with jostling the shard in his chest he would have curled into a ball of shame and yelled at them to leave him alone by now. Instead, he lets them poke and prod him so the damn thing doesn’t stab him in the lungs from moving around too much without something holding it in place.

“Okay, so the good news is that’s totally removable. But, the bad news is I’m going to have to keep it in for a while longer. Major surgery is not something to be attempted in a tent in the middle of nowhere… Think you can hang on until Skyhold? If you can’t I can try to remove it today, though it would be a major infection risk.”

That’s… not the news he’d hoped for. He’s not sure what he hoped for – death, probably. It would be fairer to everyone involved – Cullen could go on living his pretty, fairytale life; the Inquisitor could judge him to rot in prison until he succumbed; the world would go on, better without him in it. Yes, a life expectancy would have been perfect. “Oh, Samson, I’m so sorry to tell you this, but the lyrium is pressing against your heart and is sure to grow right through it.” Or maybe “Samson, the lyrium crystal will pierce your lungs and you’ll slowly suffocate on your own bodily fluids.” He had been prepared for those. He had been ready to jut his chin out and make some snide remark about already knowing he’s dying.

Instead, he stares blankly at them:

“What?”

“You’ll live,” Neros repeats and Samson marvels at how simple it is for them to say.

You’ll live.

It’s starts as a scoff, then a little snicker, devolving into a chuckle then full-blown laughter as he clutches his gut, wheezy laughter escaping him. Neros startles, blinking owlishly at him as he laughs like a madman, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. He sees them take a step back as a particularly harsh laugh escapes him and can’t blame them. Then, as quickly as it started, he’s coughing, hands pressed over his mouth as he leans over the edge of the bed on his side. Blood splatters the floor beneath him as the tears in the corners of his eyes finally trickle down his face.

The speed in which Neros is at his side is strangely comforting. They rub his back until he stops coughing, passing him a handkerchief to wipe his mouth on and offering him a glass of water when he’s done. He gulps it down, finding himself suddenly parched. They give him another, but not a third and he can’t blame them – he’s certain if he has another it’ll come right back up.

“How do you feel about healing spells?” they ask tentatively, sitting next to him. Samson searches them for that same snideness any templar would wear when taunting another about magic. Staring back at him is a patient, reserved kindness that he could confess the worst to without fear.

“So, Cullen really found himself a mage-healer, eh? Someone’ll manage to look at him without grimacing at all of his sickness. Thought the reports were lying and you were just some elf who could heal like magic. Figures, he’s always been soft,” Samson vituperates to hide the security that flares in his chest. He doesn’t get this – he doesn’t deserve this. This isn’t for him. They’ve treated templars before; they probably have some rehearsed speech for the whole magic-fearing conundrum.

“That’s not what I asked and you know it,” Neros deflects, their expression never wavering.

“Oh come on, knife-ears, admit it; he saw you were a healer and knew you’d make a great hospice nurse,” Samson pushes, smirking, each word feeling like agony, cutting through his raw throat.

“You get it all out of your system yet, or do you still have more?”

Samson pauses at that. Get what out of his system? He’s just – actually he’s not sure what he’s trying to do. Cullen’s not here to get a rise out of anymore and Neros is apparently impervious to his usual material. Wait, why is he being mean to them again? It’s not like they left him back in Kirkwall. They’re just the nice… lady? Sir? Bah! They’re just the nice healer who’s taking care of him on his not-deathbed. He probably shouldn’t be angering his healer or they might walk off and leave him to it. Is he doing it because he wants them to walk off? It would certainly be easier to roll over and die than figure out what to do next.

“I’ll take your silence as you’re done. Now, back to my original question: are you okay with healing magic? Or should I prepare a potion for you? It won’t reverse all the damage that has been done to your body, but it’ll at least stabilize you while I figure out a treatment plan,” Neros reiterates with the patience of Andraste herself.

“I ain’t afraid of magic, if that’s what yer implying. That’s Cullen’s shtick, not mine.”

“Now, now, you know that’s not fair. Cullen has a valid reason to be afraid of magic and he’s worked very hard to get past it. Besides, he’s not even here right now, so what does it matter?”

“You’re probably comparing us to each other – we were both templars and all. Plus, it ain’t exactly a secret we were close. You know I’ve even seen the cute little mole just above his rump; bit it a few times too,” Samson tries, searching their face to see if that’ll earn him the rise he’s been chasing.

He almost curses when they roll their eyes with a smile at his attempt. What the fuck is it going to take to get a rise out of them?!

“Give Cullen some credit here; he’s already told me all about the two of you. But no, I’m not comparing you two to each other, or the two of us together. I am perfectly secure in my relationship with my lover and do not need to get into a dick measuring contest to prove it,” Neros says, taking Samson’s face in their hands. “Now, say ‘Ah’.”

Perplexed, Samson opens his mouth, sticking his tongue at them so they can peer down his throat. If they want to scrutinize the scabs in his throat that’s their problem. The cringe it earns him is worth it, though he could do without the pitying look that follows.

“I’m going to have to ask you to refrain from talking from now on, please,” they request, tilting his head left and right.

“Your loss,” Samson shrugs.

They look a little baffled that it had worked so easily – and Samson will take it. Even if it’s not the rise he was hoping for.

“Good. Now, I’m going to bandage your chest so that the lyrium stays in place and then I’m going to replace your cuirass for the time being. Nod if you understand me –“ Samson nods – “Thank you. After that I’m going to find a friend who’ll put you out for the journey back. We don’t exactly have enough supplies to treat your throat right now, but I do at Skyhold. It’ll just be easier to keep you unconscious until we get there. Nod if that’s okay.”

“I’m your prisoner, softie. Do with me as you will,” Samson shrugs, earning himself a glare. He rolls his eyes and nods his head.

“Thank you.”

He watches as they move about the tent, gathering bandages and making a salve. Light brushes of healing magic ghost over his skin, careful to repair what they can of his throat and alleviate some of the ache in his joints without sealing his chest around the red lyrium. He can tell they’re working as cautiously as possible to not seal his chest and he’s almost grateful – if only he was capable of gratitude at this point. Which he isn’t. Not at all. But, he does try to be compliant so they bandage him correctly; there’s no sense in sticking himself with poor bandages to get back at them. In the end it’ll just be uncomfortable for him. So, he lifts his arms when they ask, winces openly when something is moved incorrectly, and bobs his head when they ask him questions.

He doesn’t see who knocks him out afterwards, but it doesn’t matter as he drifts into hazy unconsciousness in the bottom of a locked cell. It’s easier this way; now he doesn’t have to spend the trip back stewing on his quick, pathetic defeat at the hands of the Inquisitor. A fucking mage had brought him down while his companions stood and watched, only adding insult to injury. The very thing he’d trained all his life to be able to defeat and they’d cut him down like he was wet parchment! His judgement won’t come close to rivalling the shame he’s already harboring.    

~*~

Neros barley manages to wait until the soldiers to lock Samson’s cage before stumbling a few feet away and promptly puking. Bile passes through their throat and onto the unsuspecting grass as they grip their staff, biting back bitter tears. They squeeze their eyes shut, swaying lightly on their feet as they will themself to not puke again, their stomach churning.

A strong, sturdy hand rubs their back and they don’t even need to move their head to know the Iron Bull’s standing next to them (they can see his shoes). A bubbling, broken sob escapes them as they turn and collapse into him, weak hands feebly gripping his leather brace. The Qunari makes a murmuring noise in an attempt to soothe them, rubbing their back slowly.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“I don’t know what to talk about! He’s just – he’s horrible!” they sob, hot tears rolling down their cheeks.

“Some people are just born mean. Trick is to learn how to not let ‘em get under your skin,” the Iron Bull reminds them, continuing to hold them for as long as they need.

“No, it wasn’t that… I can handle mean – a lot of templars are mean their first few days. I don’t take it personally and I knew Samson was his own special kind of rude thanks to Cullen. But –“ Neros chokes down a sob, trying to gulp air into their lungs – “The state he’s in is horrible! It’s painful to look at and the way he just stares a thousand yards away to cope with it – I tried to tell him he was going to live and he laughed so hard he tore the lyrium burns on his throat. Like I’d told him a cruel joke rather than good news!”

“You’re too soft for this world,” the Iron Bull chuckles, shaking his head. Neros feels the ground disappear from beneath them as he picks them up, cradling them in his arms. “Wish the world had more like you in it. You’ve got more compassion in you than most experience in their whole lives. What do you say we go find your beloved and get you the comfort you deserve?”

“I’d like that,” they sniffle, wiping their face on their sleeve. “Gods, I must look like such a mess. We finally win and what do I do? I cry over the state of our enemy!”

“Better than what most would do. I’d say you make us more deserving of the victory – it’s really good for the Inquisitions whole ‘we’re the good guys’ image.”

“I wish we weren’t so good – maybe if we weren’t Corypheus wouldn’t be so evil.”

“Nah, he’d just look better in comparison and then people would be sympathetic. At least this way we balance him out – we may even be putting more good into the world than he’s taking out of it. Better than the alternative of having more people join him.”

“You’re probably right… Thanks, ‘Bull. How do you always know what to say to make people feel better?”

“Ben-hassrath training. I know how to read people, which helps me know what they need to hear. Comes in handy when you’re trying to calm someone down,” the Iron Bull shrugs lightly.

“Oh… that makes sense.”

The Iron Bull chuckles lightly as he stops walking and jerks his head to the side, presumably to someone else. Neros peers over their shoulder to see Cullen rushing over to them. Concern is painted blatantly across his face, and they cringe; he probably thinks Samson hurt them or something. They should’ve just told the Iron Bull they could walk on their own to avoid worrying him so much, everyone’s under enough stress as it is.

“They’re fine, Cullen. Just a little shaken up by the state Samson’s in. Figured it was best to just come find you,” the Iron Bull explains, helping Neros to stand on their own two feet, using their staff as a crutch.

“Thank the Maker, I thought something had happened,” Cullen sighs, pulling Neros into a tight hug.

“Yeah, don’t mention it. Chargers are ready to head out when you are,” the Iron Bull relays.

“We’re ready too. Do me a favour and let Scout Harding know to go ahead; I just gave the order to for my men to get on their horses.”

“Will do,” the Iron Bull grunts before walking off.

“We’re leaving already?” Neros inquires, letting Cullen wrap his arm around their waist to support them.

“No one wants to stay in these woods overnight and I don’t blame them. Corphyeus took most of his men with him, so there’s no point in sticking around to round up stragglers for a few days. A team is staying out here just in case, but we need to get back to Skyhold,” Cullen elaborates as he helps Neros walk over to their War Nug.

“Does this have anything to do with Samson’s condition?”

“… I shouldn’t make decisions based on the state of a prisoner –“ Neros places their hand on his shoulder and he sighs softly, leaning closer and dropping his voice to a whisper – “A little, okay? The Inquisitor should judge him while he still can.”

Neros arches their eyebrow at him.

“Okay, fine, maybe I am worried about him and I want to make sure he can get back to Skyhold where we have all our medicine. But can you blame me? He has sensitive information on Corypheus’ forces and their battle tactics, not to mention he could be the first red templar we cure which could save hundreds of lives!”

“Cullen, I wasn’t accusing you of anything. I want to get Samson back to Skyhold for treatment just as much as you do – strictly for medical reasons though. But, you don’t have to get so defensive –“ they take his hand, cradling it gently in their own – “I know.”

Cullen bristles and pulls away, knitting his hands together.

“I’m – there’s nothing – I don’t want to talk about this.”

“I understand. I didn’t expect you too, I only wanted to let you know I am here for you,” Neros concedes, watching as his gaze darts around the camp to various soldiers gather together on horseback. “Not exactly a private place to discuss this.”

Cullen simply nods his head and Neros tentatively takes his hands back. He gingerly allows them to pull him into a hug with a defeated sigh. The hug is warm and comforting, despite the armour pressing in on them, smudging their elven robes with dried blood. The weight of the world seems to sluff off their shoulders, pooling around their feet, waiting for them to pull apart again and readjust the mantles upon their respective shoulders.  

“Am I a bad person for… this?” Cullen whispers quietly as they try not to bury their face in the blood clotted in his mantle. “I hate him – but I don’t. It’s all so confusing, like I’m caught aboard a ship in a storm of my own emotions. I should hate him – I hated him all the way up until… it’s just hard to hate him when he’s like this.”

“No, empathy doesn’t make you a bad person,” they state firmly. He smiles weakly against their neck. “You’re exhausted, everything is going to seem overwhelming to you right now. I can’t speak for what you’re thinking right now, and I won’t pretend to know a way out. However, you need time to process what just happened – all of it, not just the recent events –“ Neros pulls back just enough to plant a gentle kiss on his cheek – “ We’ve got a long ride back, why don’t you start there?”

Cullen responds by smudging a kiss across their lips with a light smile.

“You’re right – how do you keep doing that?”

“Magic,” Neros giggles and Cullen chuckles softly.

A soldier runs up to them and they break apart to hear the news: everyone’s ready to head out. Mounting their respective steeds (a war nug and a shire horse) they set off to head the long trek home.

[kythed]

I have a fic request for Kuroo! A childhood friends to lovers situation based off the song Take my Hand by Picture This! (Just a cute song that has been haunting me because Kuroo ❤️)

I have been through and stalked your blog and I love it! I also saw the ficmas prompt list and I’m looking forward to requesting those too!

I hope this is okay and thank you so much! Your stuff is a joy to read! ❤️❤️❤️✨✨✨

take my hand

kuroo tetsurou x reader

hope you enjoy <3

five.

“You’re my best friend,” he tells you, swallowing the heart that keeps straining to burst from his throat, to lay itself at your feet in all its humiliating devotion. “Of course I love you.”

And he does love you, he reassures himself, letting you walk ahead of him. Just not in the way you think he does. He struggles to keep his eyes above your waistline, tearing his gaze from the hem of your skirt and pointedly pinning it to the back of your head, where your hair is loosely tied with a glossy silk ribbon. His efforts succeed for nearly thirty seconds before he again finds his eyes tracing their way down your neck, down your back, down to the arch of your waist and the flare of your hips, relishing the curve of your--

Damn it. He abruptly stops in his tracks, rubbing his eyes until he sees only stars. (Maybe if he rubs his eyes with enough vigor he’ll stop noticing things he shouldn’t notice while looking at his best friend.)

“Tetsu,” you say, turning around with a laugh. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says gruffly, blinking hard.

He’s not fine.

four.

Life is painful when you’re in love with your oldest, dearest friend. Let Kuroo Tetsurou be the first to testify that when you’ve grown up with someone your entire life, when you’ve made the long, tedious trek from diapers to graduation gowns with them, it feels almost sinful to find yourself slipping into daydreams about pressing that person against your wall, about hearing them whisper your name on soft linen sheets, about kissing them breathless and glassy eyed until the sun plunges beneath the horizon with a brazen wink.

He hates himself for staring at you and hoping to catch you staring back. He hates himself for letting your words wash over his head, unheard, in favor of watching the way your lips curve and curl when you speak.

Most of all, he hates himself for loving you so fiercely in a particular way that would surely sour your stomach and send you running.

“I love you too,” you say, waiting for him to catch up and fall into step beside you. You take his hand and lace your fingers with his as you make your way up the street to your house. The windows glow a domestic orange, dimly illuminating the patch of asphalt before your front door.

It’s nearing seven now-- the gentle clinking of silverware and some sort of faint, savory scent from within inform you of dinner’s impending commencement.

“I know,” he says, cracking a crooked smile. You roll your eyes as he brushes a mocking kiss over your knuckles. “I’m hard to hate.”

three.

Most of the summer passes uneventfully, according to Kuroo’s standards. He manages to keep himself in check, even as he spends each and every day with you, dawn til dusk, savoring your presence the way a starving man savors his last ration.

He manages to treat you almost exactly as he’s treated you his entire life-- like a best friend. He tells his silly jokes that make you giggle and groan simultaneously. He pushes you off the pier when you least expect it, howling with laughter as you resurface, sputtering and flinging fiery invective. He shares an earbud with you as he walks downtown with you by his side, arm slung over your shoulder with carefully calculated composure.

He almost makes it to autumn without incident.

The small, hidden moments are what gives him away, though, layered within false nonchalance and easygoing grins like brightly painted matryoshka.

The way his chest constricts almost painfully when you laugh at a pun he’s ad-libbed on the spot, sending a flurry of butterflies freewheeling in the pit of his stomach.

“It really wasn’t that good,” he chuckles, tenderly watching as tears of laughter prick at the corners of your eyes and you grip his forearm in an attempt to steady yourself as giggles rack your body.

“No, it wasn’t,” you agree, struggling to catch your breath. “It was awful, and that’s what made it so funny.”

(He makes about a dozen more puns that day, feeling like he’s won the lottery whenever you so much as smile at his pitiful attempts at wordplay.)

The way his hands tremble when you turn around and ask him to tie your bikini string before you jump into the lake, the way he bites his lip so some horribly incriminating comment about how he really thinks you’d “be better off without the bikini at all” doesn’t slip out from his mouth.

“Thanks Tetsu,” you chirp after he ties the string around the back of your neck in a neat double-knot. You give him a wink and take off towards the water, kicking up sand in the process. “Last one in buys lunch!”

(He was already planning on paying anyways.)

The way he sits up a little straighter when you lean over and slip a hand under his arms to press ‘skip’ on his phone while you listen to his playlist-- you’re so close he can smell your lip balm.

“Sorry,” you say, smiling apologetically. “I don’t really like that band.”

(Later that evening, Kuroo goes through his Spotify and deletes every single song from that band he has on all of his playlists.)

Yes, he manages to keep himself in check outwardly. But inside, he can feel himself digging his grave a little deeper with each passing day. He watches the sands of summer run through his fingers with the dread of a man counting down the days to his funeral.

He just knows that one of these days he’s going to slip.

two.

He’s right, of course. There’s only so much emotional torment one person can humanly endure. It’s just that he’s hoping he can extinguish this inconvenient, one-sided flame before August comes around. Maybe then everything can go back to normal, whatever normal might entail.

Needless to say, Kuroo’s hopes are dashed before summer comes to a close.

It’s a sticky July evening when you and he drive out to an empty parking lot at the edge of town, a blanket and an old transistor radio in tow. You’re wearing a pale yellow sundress that falls to just above your knees-- he’s glad it’s not any shorter, and that the breeze isn’t quite strong enough to lift your hem.

“I think I can see Orion’s belt,” you say, pointing towards somewhere far into the cosmos. Kuroo squints, trying to follow your finger.

“I don’t think that’s Orion,” he says. “Looks like a cat to me.”

The two of you are sitting on a blanket spread across the hood of his car, craning your necks to make out vague shapes in the stars. Between you, slow, muffled music trickles out from the radio’s small speakers, some sort of vintage tune from the forties.

“How in the world are you seeing a cat?” You shake your head, giving him a hard poke on the shoulder. “Looks more like a swarm of astral bees than anything.”

“Astral bees,” he repeats with a laugh. “Laziest constellation interpretation I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s not lazy,” you protest. “It’s accurate.”

Kuroo just smiles and shrugs, sneaking a glance at you. Your face is bathed in milky starlight, eyes wide as you peer up at the cloudless sky with a blend of wonder and appreciation. There’s some competition, but he thinks this might be the prettiest you’ve ever looked in a single moment.

As if you can feel his stare, you turn to catch his gaze. A gentle smile breaks onto your face, and you absentmindedly tuck a strand of hair behind your ear with the endearing shyness of a schoolgirl. “What is it?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he says, mirroring your grin. “You just… look nice right now.”

“No, seriously,” you laugh disbelievingly. “Is there something on my face?”

“I am being serious,” Kuroo insists, fidgeting with the blanket beneath his palms. “You look good. Yellow suits you.”

You flush, glancing down at your dress. You bought it two summers back, and he’s seen you in it a million times before. This is the first summer where he’s really seen you, though. “Well, thank you. It’s a warm night, so I figured I was better off in a dress than pants.”

“Yeah,” he says softly, breaking eye contact to squint up at the stars. He grins and points, finger trembling slightly. “I think I can see where you’re coming from, with the bees.”

one.

A staticky, syrupy waltz comes on the radio, bleeding into the cracks in the comfortable silence. You sigh contentedly, leaning back onto the windshield. “I like this song. It’s… nostalgic.”

Kuroo cocks an eyebrow at you. “You’ve heard this before?”

“No,” you laugh, biting the inside of your cheek. “But it reminds me of times gone by, you know? Like, this is the sort of music I imagine playing when a soldier reunites with his wife after the war.”

“When he comes running out of the train and drops his bags on the platform,” Kuroo continues, watching you carefully, “only to sweep his girl off her feet and spin her around wildly.”

You nod, sneaking a glance at him. “You really know me that well, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says, eyes crinkling with humor. “But I get it, too. It has that old fashioned romance thing goin’ on.”

“Mhm,” you agree. You reach over and fiddle with the radio’s volume, turning it up just enough to round out the sound completely.

Kuroo sits for a moment, watching you close your eyes and hum along to the music. Then, a sudden boldness taking the reins, he hops off the hood and walks over to you, extending his hand. “Take it.”

“What?”

“Take my hand,” he insists, so you do, gingerly placing your palm atop his. “We’re going to dance.”

“Oh, no,” you laugh, nonetheless letting him help you down from the car and resting a hand on his shoulder. He lightly places his own on your waist, leading you out into the parking lot. “You know I can’t dance.”

“I can’t either,” he reminds you. “But I want to dance with you right now.”

As you begin to sway slightly to the music, Kuroo pulls you a little closer to his chest, letting his chin brush the top of your head. “Why are you into that whole idea?”

“What idea?” you ask quietly, letting him lead you in slow circles around the lot.

“The idea of an old fashioned love.”

“Oh,” you say, laughing as Kuroo spins you in his arms, catching you before you stumble. “I’m not sure… maybe because it seems more constant than love today. Like, today, if you tell someone you love them, it’s a compliment, not a promise. But back then, it was a vow. It meant something.”

Kuroo swallows, looking down at you. His heartbeat pounds in his ears, threatening to burst out of his temples. I’m about to do something I might regret.

zero.

“I need you to do something for me,” he says, voice low and thick with caution. “Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Please,” he says, voice breaking. He knows that if he doesn’t do this now, he never will. You look beautiful to him in this moment, dancing with him in the empty parking lot to the faint melody of an old waltz. Your eyes glisten with life, your lips gently parted, hair slightly curling over your cheeks.

You roll your eyes once but nonetheless close them obediently, relying a little more on his arms to steady you. He swallows. “Okay. So, imagine we’re living in the 1940s.”

“Okay,” you say, smiling slightly. “I’m imagining.”

“Imagine I enlisted in the war, and I just got back home. Imagine you’re waiting for me at the train station.”

“Mhmm,” you say, trying your best to envision the platform. “You look good in that uniform, Tetsu.”

He chuckles. “I look good in anything.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you say, squeezing his hand. “Get on with it.”

“Imagine I come sprinting out from the train and you’re waiting there with open arms. This song is playing on the platform speakers. I ask you to dance just like we are now.” Kuroo watches you grin, feeling his heart flutter. “Then, imagine I tell you something.”

Unconsciously, you shift closer to him, almost pressing your body flush to his. A breath hitches in his throat. “What do you tell me?”

He leans down, brushes his lips against your ear. “I love you.”

You open your eyes, head cocked, slight confusion cloaking your features. “You mean, like…?”

Kuroo shakes his head. “No. I mean, like, I love you. Not just in a friend way. In that old fashioned way you were talking about. I love everything about you. I’m in love with everything about you.”

“Tetsu…” you breathe, searching his face. He gazes down at you seriously, not a trace of humor tainting his stare. He takes a deep breath.

“I love the way your hair falls in the summer. I love your stupid, annoying laugh. I love how your hand fits in mine. I love the way you rant about anything and everything and expect me to listen, and I do because I can’t help but get excited about what you get excited about. I love you like a soldier loves his wife,” he says, the words flowing out like a river bursting from a dam. “I love you so much it hurts, and it scares me, and I’m sorry if this ruins stuff between us, but I just had to--”

“Shut up.”

He blinks, mouth gaping. “I-- what?”

“I said,” you whisper, gripping the back of his neck and guiding his face down to yours. “Shut up, Tetsu. You talk too much.”

Then suddenly you’re kissing him, and he can’t believe it, but he kisses you back like it’s what he was born to do. He lets you crash your lips into his and watches as shooting stars burst forth and the planets align. Somehow, your hands find their way up into his hair, tangling themselves in his dark locks, and his own travel down to your lower back, pulling you as close as humanly possible, so tightly he never wants to let go. He revels in the warmth of your skin, the icy, tingly sensation of your lips, and when you pull back, it’s all he can do to refrain from pulling you right back in again.

There’s a brief silence. His lips are swollen, his lungs are devoid of air. “I… wow. Just, wow.”

You grin wickedly, slipping your hand into his. “I’ve been waiting to do that for a while now.”

“You have?” he asks, eyes wide in disbelief. “I didn’t notice.”

“Of course you didn’t,” you laugh. “You were too worried about not letting me notice you staring at my ass every chance you got.”

Kuroo flushes but gives a sheepish smile, massaging the back of his neck. “You know, I really thought I was being smooth about it.”

--

As it turns out, you love him back. And not just in the best friend way. You love everything about him, his stupid jokes, his loud, booming laugh, his teasing, his smile, his successes and his failures. You love how your hand fits in his. You love that it took him years and years to admit to himself that he loved you, too.

Kuroo Tetsurou may not be the smoothest guy in the world, but he’s certainly the only one you want. And you’re certainly the only one he wants.

And that’s really the most you could ever ask for.

[blonde-freckles]

And darling I will be loving you 'til we're 70

He can feel the building begin to shake under his feet before it comes down. He only has a split second to dive under the closest table, with barely a moment to check his surroundings before it happens. The room shakes, windows rattling as the walls come crumbling down around him. It’s all a blur, thick dust clouding his vision. He can hear the screams echoing out across the building before it falls to silence, he’s trapped encased in rubble and dust. He hears the faint squeak of his radio struggling to pick up a channel through the collapse.

He can feel the panic starting to crawl up his lungs as he shifts his weight, so he's no longer holding it all on his knees.

He’s half way through calling in his location when Hailey’s voice cuts off the radio. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? What the hell Jay? I thought you were waiting.” He can hear the desperation in her voice as he squeezes his eyes shut trying to control his breathing.

“I’m okay...really, it’s barely a scratch. I’m just a little stuck right now.” He lets out a shaky breath before pulling the radio close to himself, he’s not sure who’s he’s trying to convince, himself or Hailey. “I thought...I thought I could talk him out of it.”

He really thought he could. He thought he had this. There was something about military cases that stirred something up in him, something no amount of hour sin therapy could ever fix. His need to help his brothers. The belief that what they’d seen bonded them in a way that would never be able to be broken, and no matter how many times he got burnt by this belief he never gave up trying.

The radio falls silent but he knows she’s there, he can hear her quiet breaths through the radio. “Fire is on the way Jay.” Her voice is quiet and controlled and in full work mode but all Jay can hear is her quiet breathing. This morning he’d spent the first few minutes of his day just watching her breathe, his arms wrapped so tightly around her, their legs tangled under the soft white sheets as the sunlight filtered through. Their warm little bubble, so safe and secure.

“Help...” A quiet voice breaks out drawing Jay's attention, it’s faint but he can hear it. “Help me please...”

His eyebrows furrow as he tries to work out the direction the pleas for help are coming from. He makes out a small gap in the distruction where the light is filtering in, carefully he reattaches his radio to his duty rig, shuffling down on his stomach, he pulls himself forward through the gap.

A steel beam lays across an elderly gentleman's legs, he looks late 70s maybe, with light grey hair now covered in dust, his hands holding tightly around the beam desperately pushing against it.

“Sir...” Jay jumps into action, crawling faster as he makes his way through the gap. “Sir are you all right?”

His brain kicks into work mode, shutting off any lingering thoughts on not making it out of here alive as he assesses this situation. The mans bleeding pretty heavily, his legs crushed on the beam that might be the only thing stopping him from bleeding out. It’s far too heavy for Jay to lift or even try to shift, instead he manages to use his belt as a makeshift tourniquet.

He calls through the radio, listening intently as Brett comes over the air waves to get an idea of the gentleman’s injuries. When Jay does manage to finally slow the bleeding the radio crackles back to silence and Jay looks down at his blood stained hands, wiping them on his jeans in the hopes the gentleman won’t see just how much there is as he sits beside him.

“You’re a detective you say?”

“Yes...erm sorry I never got your name.”

“Arthur Brady...I would say nice to meet you but...” The man half chuckles as Jay gives him a short nod wondering how he could be so chipper in a moment like this, surely he can feel the extent of his injuries, even if he can't he can definitely see the severity of the situation.

“Whatever you do Jay keep him talking until we get there.”

Bretts words echo in his mind.

“Arthur...Arthur talk to me...tell me what brought you here today.”

Time seems to tick by slowly, the faint crackle of Jays radio fading in and out every so often. Fire had arrived, but it was gonna be a long wait until they could get to them. The building was not on steady ground and the aim was to get as many people out alive as possible, however long that took. Hailey's voice had only come through the radio once more in that time, just to say the bomber's body had been pulled from the wreckage near the exit...he hadn’t made it. In the meantime Jay continues to probe Arthur with more questions in the hope it will keep him awake, but he’s also glad for the distraction that it provides him. Sitting still, having nothing to do...that’s never been Jay's speed. He learns that Arthur was at the bank to get some cash out for his granddaughters 21s birthday, he has two daughters and a son and 6 grandchildren. He was a wedding photographer for 47 years before he retired 10 years ago.

“My wife Katherine...oh she’s beautiful. You know we’ve been married 53 years this year..." Arthur explains as he pulls a worn leather wallet from his top pocket, handing it over. Jay could see the old photo inside, it’s slightly faded but he can make out the image of a bride on her wedding day, the vail thrown back over her hair to reveal her smiling brightly at someone behind the camera.

"So what's the secret to making it work?" Jay questions, his gaze falling back to his own phone and the photo of Hailey that lights up his background. He’d dragged her along on a hike a while back, with the promise of getting doughnuts after. She’d been laughing at something he’d said as the sun went down behind her, making her blonde curls glow and he’d snapped the pic before she’d had a chance to protest.

"Marry your best friend. Marry someone you can laugh with. The kind of laugh that makes your belly ache, and your nose snort. Marriage is hard. Life is harder. There are days when you'll wanna walk but as long as your relationship is buried deep in friendship you'll always find your way. You think you might know someone like that?" Arthur asks with a slight twinkle in his eye as he nods towards the phone in Jay's hand.

Jay nods, a soft smile growing on his face as he runs his thumb across the photo on his screen, handing Arthur back his own photo. “Yeah I think I do...and she’s almost guaranteed to be just outside this building right now, she’s gonna be so pissed at me for being here.”

“I don’t think Katherine will be too happy either...will you...will you tell me about her?...what’s her name?” He nods down towards Jay's phone again.

“Hailey.” Jay whispers softly, he can already see her arms folded across her chest, tapping her foot impatiently on the street, eyes trained on every person emerging from the wreckage. Honestly what he wouldn’t give to hear her knowing tone telling him that she’s sick of hospital waiting rooms right now.

“She sort of came out of nowhere, I wasn’t really looking for anything when we met, actually...there was someone else when we met. I couldn’t even tell you the moment everything changed...trust me I’ve tried to work it out but it’s just like one day she was my partner and friend and the next she was the one person I could never live without. I remember looking over at her years ago and thinking I could lose all this...this job. This job that I’ve let define me for so long but it wouldn’t matter as long as I was with her.”

“Sounds like you’re in deep...How come you’re not married?”

“Oh we haven’t been dating that long...I...we still have some things to figure out.” Jay swallows, if he’s honest he’d marry Hailey tomorrow. He’d have married her six months ago given the chance. As soon as they started dating he knew he couldn’t ever imagine spending his life with someone else. He knew it a week in, he’d come in from an early morning run to find her sitting on the kitchen island coffee cup in hand, his t-shirt hanging loosely on her body as she read the morning news. She’d handed him his coffee without so much as a second glance and he’d known in that exact moment. It had taken everything in him not to get down on one knee right then and there.

Things had changed since their first I love you, he was even more careful with her. He didn’t want her to be overwhelmed, he wanted to help her in any way he could. She was trying, really trying and she had gotten good at letting him know when she felt flustered by their relationship, when she needed space or when she needed reassurance. He was all too happy to comply, he was happy to do whatever it took to make this work.

“Don’t waste time...not with the people you love.” The sad look on Arthur’s face like he’s almost defeated makes Jay think the elder man might be close to giving up as his eyes flicker shut briefly.

“Tell me more about Katherine.” Jay urges, he wraps a hand around Arthur's wrist, checking his pulse as he does. It’s weak.

“She’s the dream. I was a New Yorker you see, born and bread...was only here for a wedding 54 years ago when I saw her through the window of a cafe”

“And you knew right then and there?”

“God no.” Arthur begins to laugh but it turns into him choking as he struggles to catch his breath. “I don’t believe in love at first sight. Love...real true love takes work and a lot of it. You’ve got to choose that person every single day.” He croaks out, his eye sparkling as he recalls the memory in his mind. “What I did know was she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I was a young man at the time, full of a confidence I had no real right having.” Jay chuckles, he’s been there, the cocky confident guy in his 20s thinking he knew it all. “I could never have known the love that would’ve formed, so deep it almost shook me to my core. I’d never been in love before, but I’d seen others, especially in my line of work and then I got it, I got why people behave the way they did. I remember thinking if this is what love feels like I get why it starts wars.” He’s words trail off and Jay watches the way his head drops slightly.

“Hey, Arthur...Arthur we’re almost out you hear me. Stay with me now Arthur. Katherine is waiting, she's still waiting for you.”

“Will you tell her...”

Jay shakes his head furiously. Leaning up as he twists his radio, calling out for an update. “No no...I’m not going to pass on any messages.” He mumbles, grabbing hold of both Arthur’s shoulders. “You’re gonna tell her Arthur...Katherines waiting for you.”

“You tell her I loved her and that she made my world a better place.” He mutters before his eyes roll back and Jay begins to bark down his radio desperate for anyone to respond.

It is only seconds later the loud ringing of a drill sounds and Kelly Severide’s voice echoes around them. Jay can feel the relief flooding through him as the familiar uniform comes into view.

-

“Jay...” The bright sunlight is a stark contrast from the darkness he’d been buried in the last few hours, the buzz of the scene hitting him is almost deafening as he hears orders being shouted out. “Jay...” Hailey’s voice stands out amongst the noise. As he steps out away from the building, he’s ushered past the destruction zone and he can hear Brett asking him to sit but he’s too focused on finding Hailey as he scans that area.

He hears more commotion behind him watching with bated breath as Arthur is pulled from the rubble, he’s attached to a bodyboard, as the next set of paramedics rush to his aid.

He doesn't even see her approach before he feels her arms wrapping tightly around him, he releases a breath he’s been holding since the building first blew as his arms wind themselves around her waist, he sticks his face into the side of her neck letting the wisps of blonde that’s fallen loose from her ponytail tickle his face as he does. They’ve never been ones for any type of public affection, while they’re on the clock anyway but right now he can’t bring himself to care. He breaks away after a while, already missing her touch but he knows they have an audience. He watches as they lower Arthur down onto the gurney wheeling him their way.

“Is this her...is this your Hailey?” He coughs, struggling as they place the oxygen mask over his mouth.

Jay can see Hailey glance his way, shooting him a silent question. “Yeah, this is her.” Jay nods, crouching down closer to Arthur.

“I’m gonna go get Katherine okay? I’m gonna bring her to you Arthur so don’t go anywhere.” Jay grips hold of Arthur’s hand, making sure the man sees the sincerity in his eyes as Sylvie lets him know that they need to move now. “Take care of my girl and I’ll take care of yours okay?” Jay asks, glancing back at Hailey who’s just watching silently.

“Deal...”

He steps back letting them get him into the ambulance as he turns back to Hailey. He can see from the look on her face she has a lot to say and he’ll happily listen to everything but just not right now. “Hey I’m okay I promise I’m okay and I'll sit and get a full checkout at the hospital just to please you but first I have something to do, please just trust me and keep Arthur company until I get to the hospital.”

“Erm sure okay...”

Jay smiles as she agrees without question, pressing a firm kiss on Hailey's forehead surprising her before he’s rushing off through the crowd without another word.

-

Hailey loses sight of Jay almost as quickly as she finds him, her heart is still thumping in her chest as she tries to keep reminding herself that he's alive, he’s alive and safe and doing whatever the hell he does. She'd done as he asked, joining the man he'd been pulled from the rubble with into the ambulance.

The ambulance roars into life and she watches as the elderly man begins to pull down his oxygen mask much to the dismay of the newest recruit to 51, his hand shaking as it reaches out for Haileys.

She takes his hand in hers. It’s cold but it squeezes onto hers tightly. She’d heard the tail end of their conversation. “You take care of my girl...I’ll take care of yours.” She’s not sure what Jay has planned but she trusts him, no questions asked.

“That man loves you more than life itself dear.” Arthur croaks and the tears that she refused to let fall in front of all their colleagues finally fall, splashing against her cheeks, his words catching her off guard.

-

The E.R is a mess, overrun with victims from the blast, no one can tell her anything as Arthur is rushed off for surgery, she’s not family, she has no right to know. So instead she takes a seat in the corner out of the way of the chaos.

She thinks she might be dreaming when he finally emerges through the doors, still dressed in his blood-stained clothes, an elderly woman holding tightly to his arm as he leads her through the crowd and towards the front desk. His eyes find hers quickly like he doesn’t even need to search for her, he just knows where she is and the small smile that plays on his lips as their eyes meet is enough for her.

-

It’s hours later when Katherine and Arthur are finally reunited. Jay helps Katherine towards his room, stopping in the doorway as Hailey hangs back. She’s still not sure what the infinity with this couple is but she’ll go along with it if that’s what Jay wants.

“That’s gonna be us one day.” He mutters quietly as the door slips shut and he steps back out into the hallway. Hailey raises her eyebrows in surprise as Jay makes his way around her, his arms encircling her waist as he leans his chin on top of her head. Both of them watching the elderly couple through the window. The way Katherine caresses Arthur’s face as he presses a kiss to her hand. The look of pure joy to see each other is so evident in their faces.

“Minus the major bleed and building collapse I hope.” She hums, leaning back into his embrace, finally feeling at ease as the weight of the day seems to slip away.

He nestles his face into her neck, pressing a light kiss to her skin. “I make no promises...”

“Hey...” she laughs, shaking her head as she places her hands on top of his, she can feel his lip quirk up into a grin against her neck and it makes her own lips turn up. “How are we going to grow old together if you keep being so reckless?”

“That’s what you love about me.”

Hailey turns in his arms, slipping her arms around his waist, one hand stroking his back softly. “I assure you it’s not...but I do love you.” She whispers the last part, she still struggles to say the words but each time she does it feels a little easier, like the words that were once so dark get a shade lighter each time she says them or hears them fall from his lips.

She watches as Jay takes a sharp breath, before resting his forehead against hers, closing his eyes softly just breathing her in. “I’m gonna say something. It’s not a question it’s just a thought...okay? I’m giving you fair warning for when the time comes.”

Hailey narrows her eyes but nods anyway, letting him pull her to the side as the hallway becomes busier. “I love you...you’re my best friend and...”

“And?”

“And I’m gonna marry you one day.”

Her blue eyes widen for a second and Jay bites down on his lips to stop the smile that comes every time he looks at her. He can see the thoughts whirling through her mind like waves crashing around the ocean. He feels her arms squeeze his waist a little tighter before she simply shrugs. “Okay...” she mumbles , laying her head back against his chest as she turns her gaze back towards Arthur and Katherine. They stand there for a moment in silence and he wonders if she can see what he can...a glimpse at their future. His thoughts are confirmed when he feels her lips pressed to his cheek curling up into a smile against him. “Okay...I’ll marry you one day.”

[abarbaricyalp]

handholding- 10/12/13

hugs - 34

kisses - 7/13/27

touching - 47

sambucky :)

Buddies, I literally cannot believe I managed to get all of these done without being too repetitive.

Handholding 10: Happily doing everything with one hand if that means they don't have to let go is already posted on my blog and on AO3: ElisabethMonroe: (til i carry you home) Your Hand in My Hand

Reblogging with AO3 links in a second

Kisses 27: Desperate Kisses

Inhale My Soul

(Listen, listen y'all, you don't know how many different universes of them dying and bleeding out in each other's arms y'all aren't reading here. I didn't do that to you. You're welcome)

Dissolving hadn’t felt like anything. Sam wasn’t sure he even understood what was actually happening. Maybe he’d thought it was just a trick of the reality stone. Maybe human minds weren’t meant to comprehend anything close to what had happened.

Coming back felt like dying.

He woke up on his back and he couldn’t breathe. It was like he had no lungs at all, just a trachea spasming in his throat without air, like a gills with no water. He grasped for the ground and the feeling of dirt was horrifying, a grave waiting to swallow him down into the Earth. The wind was knives on his skin. His suit felt like it was trying to pry his spine from his ribs. His legs ached like someone was trying to stretch the bones on a crank.

He must’ve screamed but there was no air to make a noise.

Finally sight came back and the first thing he saw were the trees falling over him, ready to crush him and hide him again.

Had anyone seen him disappear? No one was by his side. No one looked for him.

No, the trees weren’t falling. They were swaying in the wind. The sun kept gliding down through them with every shuffle of the leaves.

It was so quiet he felt like he could hear the leaves sighing as they grew.

It took him too long to realize the ragged breath that broke the silence like a gunshot came from his own chest. The hands digging his own grave shot to his chest, felt the rise and fall of his ribs and lungs, the proof that he was breathing. He was alive again.

He rolled onto his side and heaved until his ribs creaked, still firmly attached to his spine. There was nothing to come up, but the noise was comforting, the ache that he could name and handle was safe. Human. Living human.

His knees were in his legs when he leaned back on his haunches. They sank into the earth but the grave didn’t swallow him down. No unwilling sacrifice to be taken from him. He brought his dirt covered fingers--firm and whole and attached to him--up to his face. He found his cheeks, a beard with edges that were too straight for a man who had died and been put back together, his teeth. They throbbed in his gums like they were all about to fall out but they were there in his head. His tongue.

He could speak.

“Steve!” he shouted and his throat screamed in protest, the air in his lungs turned to fire. “Steve!” he called again and forced himself to his feet. His boots were tied. His pants were still tucked into them. There was no blood, which seemed wrong. He felt flayed open and left to soak into the ground. How could there be no blood?

“Steve!”

God, if Steve was dead…

Sam couldn’t lose more people. He couldn’t fight his way back. Not after this. Not while everything hurt so fucking much.

“Steve, please, God, where are you?!”

“Sam?”

Sam whirled around at the tired voice. The trees danced in his vision. The grass clutched at his legs, which still felt like they were being stretched out and sunk into the earth. The trees were going to take him over. The grass was going to eat him again. No one was looking. No one would find him. Why wasn’t anyone ever looking for him?

“Sam?” the voice called again.

Footsteps. Crushing grass. A metal screech in the bark of a tree. A colorful curse. “Sam, fuck, shout again!”

Sam stumbled forward, breaking free of the natural world trying to take him away again. He shoved himself away from a tree and crashed into a warm, solid, human body.

“Jesus, Sam,” Bucky breathed and wrapped his arms around Sam tightly. It hurt in the best way. Sam held him back, face hidden in Bucky’s shoulder. He didn’t even care about what gore he was smearing all over himself. Bucky’s hand came to the back of Sam’s head and Sam almost expected it to hit exposed brain but it didn’t. Instead his calloused fingers brushed over Sam’s short hair, smoothing over the natural lines and divots in it until goosebumps erupted over Sam’s skin.

Right. Things could feel good. That was part of being human and alive.

He had no idea how long they stood there. His shoulders were aching, but in a pleasant way that reminded him that there was something he loved right in front of him, in his arms.

Bucky was the first to move, stepping back half a step, a quarter of a step, barely any at all, just enough to bring his hands up to either side of Sam’s face. The cheeks and the mouth and the skin that was all there and new again. He tilted Sam’s head back, eyes intense and clear in front of Sam.

Had it not felt the same for him? Was he not grappling with his ridiculously weak claim to existence? Or, fuck, was this how he always felt after being frozen and woken up? Had he been going through this for seventy years with no one to run to? With no one to hold him and remind him that things could feel good?

Sam’s fingers tightened in Bucky’s vest and just as Bucky was starting to say something Sam couldn’t honestly answer--something about how he felt, if anything hurt, if he needed medical attention--Sam hauled him down into a desperate kiss. Their noses smashed together and pain bloomed across Sam’s face, made his eyes water, made him want to sneeze, made him want to lean into it all the more, like the pressed-on-bruise ache of Bucky’s arms around him.

He felt Bucky’s teeth notch a split into Sam’s lip by accident, crushed together with nowhere to go. Finally it softened. Bucky’s mouth pressed against his until Sam felt like he could actually breathe, until he could make his mouth do what he wanted, catch Bucky’s lower lip between both of his, wring out a noise he’d never heard the other man make before. Bucky’s hands on his face kept him close and Sam’s fingers tightened in his vest. He wanted to crawl into Bucky’s chest--felt like, maybe, he could after being unmade and remade. Their noses knocked together again as Sam tried to turn his head, kiss the other side of Bucky’s mouth, let Bucky bruise the rest of his lips.

Bucky pulled away, but didn’t let go of Sam’s face. Cool air flowed into Sam’s lungs until all of his bones and muscles felt like they slotted back into place.

“I can’t tell you how fucking happy I am to see you alive,” Bucky breathed.

We should talk about this. That. Later.

“I thought everyone was gone. I don’t know… I didn’t know how I came back. I thought it was just me.”

Bucky shook his head. “No. There’s hundreds of people. Not everyone, but at least half of us.”

Half of them.

“Oh my God,” Sam said. “Thanos won. He wiped out half of the universe.”

“I think that was us. I think...someone brought us back,” Bucky said. Pain flashed over his face as he looked at Sam and then pulled him in for another kiss. Sam tried to understand a second chance in it, but all he could feel was Bucky and relief and adoration. He wasn’t sure where that one came from more--him or Bucky.

“There’s still a fight,” someone said from behind them. Another magic shithead. Terror clutched at Sam’s chest like magic itself was enough to unmake him again, take him away again. “There’s still a world to save.”

Bucky’s hand found Sam’s between their bodies. Sam took a breath with lungs that almost seemed to work again. “What’re we waiting for then?” he asked.

Kiss 13: Frustrated Kiss

Better Than None

“Barnes, you wanna jump in? Any time’s fine,” Sam called out, though the volume wasn’t actually necessary, since he had an earpiece in and Bucky was only a few feet away, leaned on what was left of a building’s wall.

“Nah, you seem to be handling it just fine,” Bucky called back with a nod.

Sam ducked under the robot arm that had been flung at him. “Barnes, I swear, as soon as I get my hands on you--” he threatened.

“Y’know, normally that gets me going but seein’ as you were so anti-giving me a good luck kiss, I don’t know if I believe you anymore.”

“We don’t have time for this!” Sam threw the shield to cut through seven wire-y necks and caught it at degree 355 of its arc.

“It’s just a kiss. Takes two/tenths of a second,” Bucky said.

“I meant this dumbass argument.” Sam jumped out of the way of an electrical charge and Bucky watched it sail dangerously close to his head.

“Damn, maybe I am lucky without you,” he said and didn’t move at all.

“Bucky,” Sam sighed and ripped the head off of the nearest robot.

“Hot. Wish I could show you my appreciation.”

“How does me not giving you a good luck kiss translate you into not giving me any kisses?”

“It only seems fair. You’re putting my well-being at risk. There should be consequences.”

“That’s not how it works! You’re the one not--” Jesus, he didn’t have time to fall for the bait. He freed a mini-EMP from his utility belt and hurled it at the cluster of robots trying to scale the debris that first responders were using as a barricade to the rest of the street. A few seconds later, the robots fell away, powerless and useless.

“I kind of felt that in my arm,” Bucky said.

Sam growled out a huff and stalked over to Bucky. He shoved the front of the shield against his chest a little roughly and leaned in to kiss him, mostly teeth and irritation. The bastard still looked pleased when Sam pulled away.

“Good luck. Now will you please go do your job?”

Bucky grinned, all teeth and victory, and bolted into action.

Kisses 7: Passionate Kiss

Hand holding 13: Linking hands during s**

Bring Heaven to You

Sam swore he could feel Bucky’s mouth all over him. Every inch of his skin felt electric and alive. Frankenstein’s creature surging to life after a bolt of lightning, every nerve and muscle singing at the same time, overwhelming sensation in the best way. Like a freefall that keep him tethered to the mismatched hands clutching at his hips, his ribs, his chest, his shoulders, his thighs, the backs of his knees. Like Bucky couldn’t decide where he should be shocking Sam back to life either.

Bucky dragged his hand down Sam’s side, flat and steady so Sam could feel the golden band on his finger scorching his skin like it was made of fire. Like vows and rings and heavy promises weren’t enough to prove they belonged to each other, like they needed it written in flesh and blood like everything else about their lives.

Hahahaha, no. The rest is on AO3. Link in the reblog

Hand holding 12: Possessive hand holding

A Green Monster, And No We Don’t Mean The Hulk

“Welcome back to the show, Captain America!” a bubbly, young talk show host greeted. Bucky assumed he’d watched at least a few seconds of the program at some point when he was making it his life mission not to leave his apartment, but he couldn’t place her name for the life of him. “And you brought Mr. Barnes with you!” This she said with much less genuine enthusiasm and didn’t seem all that thrilled to have to look away from Sam to address Bucky.

“Well, you know I can’t stay away too long,” Sam said with a friendly smile. He held out his hand and the host took it in both of hers. It was less a hand shake and more an excuse for her to hang onto Sam, it looked like.

Sam and Bucky sat in the cushy seats for guests and, even though they’d already walked through the staging of this whole farce, Bucky was still deeply tempted to take Sam’s seat so he was between Sam and the host.

“So, Sam, last time we saw each other, you weren’t yet Captain America.”

“Funny how fast things like that can change, right?” Sam asked with twinkling eyes. Bucky wondered if the cameras were bolted down and if he could wrench one free even if they were.

“Well, I think it’s still not soon enough,” the host said and tossed her long hair over her shoulder. “You’ve always been Cap to us here. You’ve been so vocal about your mission statement as Captain America, so I won’t make you repeat yourself.” Sam nodded gratefully, though Bucky knew he’d repeat his goals and wishes until he ran out of breath if it meant one more person heard them and got inspired. “So I thought we could focus on what’s going on behind the scenes with you. Has anything else changed for you since you’ve been back?”

As if coming back to life wasn’t enough.

“Oh, definitely,” Sam said. “Buck and I just finished flipping a house down by my sister. Y’know, we got decent temporary accommodations--Buck still has his in New York--and staying with my sister again was nice, but there’s nothing like having a house to come home to that’s just ours. No pre-teens stealing all the food outta the fridge immediately after grocery shopping.”

The host laughed along with Sam, though her eyes couldn’t quite keep from flickering to Bucky. “It’s fun that you’re rooming with Mr. Barnes. Does it feel like having college roommates again?”

Sam frowned, opened his mouth to answer, ran through a bunch of diplomatic ways to say what should’ve been obvious but wasn’t because this lady was into Sam. Which, like, Bucky couldn’t blame her for. But he was anyway.

He reached over to grab Sam’s hand where it was picking at a loose thread in his pants. “Actually, it’s more like just living with a partner,” he answered for Sam. “That’s something else that’s changed too, huh?” he directed at Sam. “Turns out, with consistent showers and therapy, he thinks I’m pretty charming.”

Sam frowned again and scoffed. “No, I do not. That hasn’t changed.”

The host laughed again, forced but a decent show anyway. “Sure, we all love a good bromance,” she said.

Bucky’s eyebrows shot up.

“Don’t,” Sam warned.

“It’s a lot like a bromance, yeah. Just without the B,” Bucky said. “We kind of figured my name had enough Bs to last us for a while.”

“Sam, are you saying--”

Sam sighed and brought his other hand up to the bridge of his nose. “Unfortunately. And, yeah, he’s always like this. Some kinda puffed up bulldog or something.”

Bucky’s fingers tightened around Sam’s. “You’re my partner. I’m allowed to tell people that.”

“You don’t ever stop telling people.”

“Can’t blame him,” the host pointed out. Okay, maybe some of the hostility was misplaced, Bucky thought. Only some of it. “How did we not know about this, Cap?” she asked jovially, though Bucky thought she was still a little upset.

Sam shrugged. “Guess it’s not as exciting as superheroing. And cameras keep ending up destroyed,” he added pointedly.

Bucky narrowed his eyes at the accusation. “Half the places we go could be classified as an active war zone. It’s not always on me that media cameras get crushed under debris or aliens or something.”

“Every single one that catches you touching my face?”

Bucky shrugged.

“So...how long has this been a thing?” the host asked.

“Since before Sam took the shield. It’s actually a package deal. If you want the shield, you have to have me.”

Sam rolled his eyes and let out another long suffering sigh. “I’m sorry he’s ruining this interview.”

“Oh, no, I’m about to win an investigative journalism prize, I think,” the host laughed.

“I don’t know how investigative it is when your subject is physically incapable of shutting up,” Sam said, looking over at Bucky with a glare and the smallest pout that made Bucky want to kiss it off of his face.

So he did, holding their interlaced fingers next to their face to hide from the cameras at least a little bit.

Hugging 34: Hugging while grabbing butt

Get Sprung

(Man, I meant to put this in the fr@ story and forgot :/ )

The building came down faster than Sam expected it to. He supposed well placed explosives would do that. What happened to uncertain, uneven dynamite? Why was everything electrical and precise nowadays?

He had no idea how Bucky managed to get Sam and the shield bundled in his arms before the ceiling came down. He didn’t know how Bucky had managed to kick a piece of wall upright and then locked his metal arm to hold the shield in place above them. He had no idea how Bucky knew it’d make the perfect alcove for them. For someone who pretended not to know what math was when AJ asked for help on homework, he was very calculation savvy.

Bucky slowly freed his arm from the straps of the shield. The rubble shifted a little, pressed a little closer, and then stilled again. They both let out a small breath. There wasn’t enough room to lay out totally, or to stand fully, but they weren’t being crushed. Bucky’s arm joined the other around Sam’s waist. Sam dropped his face to Bucky’s shoulder and let Bucky’s pulse drum against his cheek for a second.

“Are you grabbing my ass?” he finally asked and Bucky coughed out a startled laugh.

“Yeah, you better hope it’s me and not some darkness monster.”

“Couldn’t blame the monster if it was,” Sam said.

“I gotta make sure it’s still there. Would be a shame to lose America’s ass, y’know.”

Sam shook his head and pulled away from Bucky enough to light up his wristlets. He shook them off and rested them on pieces of concrete and rebar to light the space.

Bucky sank down to the ground, legs bent a little to accommodate the space and Sam followed him down, settling between his legs.

“So, now we wait, huh?” he said, reaching for Bucky’s hands to tangle their fingers together.

“Guess we gotta,” Bucky agreed. “Are you hurt?”

Sam shook his head. There was still a ringing in his ears from the explosion and he was sore from Bucky tackling him out of the way, but nothing felt crushed or cut or broken. “You?”

“I’m fine,” Bucky said and then let out a breath at Sam’s arched brow. “I mean it. I’m not playing tough or anything. We got lucky. It came down on us, not sideways into us. I think there’s something lodged between the plates in my arm, but I don’t want you to do anything about it until we’re safe. It’s functional right now. I don’t need to be down an arm if we have to dig out.”

“We’re not gonna have to dig out,” Sam said. “Torres’ll track Redwing to us.”

“How’s your dumb robot?”

Sam reached for a wristlet and navigated to the Redwing menu. “Operational. Some exterior dinging, but nothing serious. He’ll be functional if we need.” Sam set the wristlet aside again and sighed. “Fuck, that was close, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. C’mere,” Bucky said, opening his arms. Sam shifted forward on his knees and leaned against Bucky’s chest, hugging him close. “‘M glad you’re okay,” Bucky murmured, lips brushing Sam’s temple.

Sam nodded and rubbed Bucky’s waist for a second. “Buck?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re grabbing my ass again.”

“I know.”

“Alright.”

Touch 47: Touching their elbow to get their attention

Quiet Birds Circling in Flight

(Jeez, the only thing that came to mind for ages on this prompt involved a spaceship but these men have SEEN aliens and spaceships so that’s not as fun :(((((( )

Sam stood outside the cenotaph long after everyone else had left the service. And that was quite the feat in and of itself. It felt like the mourning could go on for years. There’d been enough tears around him that he wasn’t sure what his own would add to the spectacle.

To everyone else, the cenotaph was a mausoleum. But Sam had been next to Bucky when he told the military to quietly bury him in the cemetery where his parents were both buried. “You know,” Bucky had said one afternoon while they watched the cenotaph being built stone by stone, engraving by engraving, “I’d wager that most mausoleums are just cenotaphs. Grave robbing and reactions to grave robbing mean probably everyone just got moved somewhere safer.”

“Plus decomposition.”

“Well, shit, Wilson. When do you stop being you after death? When does dirt become dirt again? When isn’t it your resting place? Does it even matter where your body is when alls said and done? Is that ever actually you or just a space filler?”

Sam had elbowed Bucky’s ribs and they’d each taken a piece of stone and pretended they didn’t see.

Sam weighed the shield against his shin, knocking it slightly to the side, and then looked up at the stone one ten more feet above his head.

Steve would hate this so much. Sam felt like he could feel his raging blush from the after life. Sam and Bucky had both asked for something more muted, something quieter. Hell, something that would do good for the world Steve was always trying to save. All this money and work and art, for what? A place to take pictures for likes on the internet?

No, Sam had to remind himself, it was a place for memory too.

As much as Sam kind of hated the whole thing, he couldn’t deny that looking up at the effigy of his friend inspired him the same way glancing over at him had in life too. The words wrapping around and around the base of the cenotaph sparked the same intense pride and righteousness they had the first time he heard them.

Maybe he didn’t hate the cenotaph. Maybe he just wanted the real thing back.

He startled at a gentle touch at his elbow. He thought it might’ve been another mourner come to offer condolences, though those mostly went to Bucky when someone was brave enough to approach him. Most people hadn’t looked at Sam twice. Not when Captain America was, in theory, laying in rest thirty feet beyond.

Sam was not in the mood to listen to anyone else talk about the time Steve smiled at them in a cafe or grabbed their cat out of a tree. If he heard his name again, he was going to break down.

But he had the shield now. He had to do the things Steve did. Smile when he didn’t want to. Hide any sign of weakness, lest it reflect poorly on the red, white, and blue he carried now. So he ground his teeth together until his gums ached and turned with a screwed on smile.

But it wasn’t a mourner. Not a random one anyway.

Bucky still had his fingers on Sam’s elbow, a sad look on his face. Dawn was creeping over the horizon and Sam realized with a start and a bloom of despair in his stomach that he’d spent the entire night in the park.

“Think if we wait two more days he’ll shove that stupid stone shield out of the way and come out?” Sam asked, voice wavering like a flag in the wind.

“We would literally never hear the end of it if he did,” Bucky pointed out.

Neither of them smiled. Neither of them really meant their jokes.

Sam finally broke down.

He collapsed against Bucky’s chest. It wasn’t until he lost his breath in the middle of a sob that he realized he wasn’t the only one shaking. Bucky was crying too. They clutched at each other, both terrified they might drift away, that the other might decide this was too difficult too and go back to something better at the first opportunity.

Sam didn’t even blame Steve. He’d laid awake in the temporary accommodation the government had put him up in and tried to convince himself that if he was in Steve’s shoes, he wouldn’t have saved Riley and stayed in that timeline. But he couldn’t. He knew he would have, almost certainly. And it wasn’t fair to ask Steve to give up a happy, quiet ending after more than a century of fighting and hurting.

But understanding it and accepting it didn’t make it hurt any less. “What are we supposed to do, Bucky?” he asked with an irritatingly genuine hiccup at the end of his words.

“I don’t know,” Bucky said, sounding for all the world like he was grinding his teeth together, trying to pull himself back together. “You have a lot more options than me.”

And it was true. Sam had had a job. The Air Force had reached out since he’d been back stateside. He had a family who missed him, who he missed. But it felt like something heavy and tethering had been locked away in that empty cenotaph. He didn’t want to walk away yet.

Bucky stepped back, kept a hand on Sam’s elbow. “For now, we should get back home. You need to sleep.”

Sam didn’t want to sleep. Everything hurt too much.

“Sam, come on,” Bucky insisted. “You don’t have to make any decisions right now.We could both use a few hours of being quiet, right?

Sam reached up to wipe the tears from his face. He had the shield. He had to act like it. “My place or yours?” he asked, still watery.

Bucky pretended like he didn’t notice. “Yours is nicer than mine.”

“And I have a bed.”

“I have a bed.”

“It’s unassembled in a box.”

Bucky squeezed his elbow and then tugged him into a brief hug that Sam was pretty sure they’d never speak of again. “Let’s get out of here. He’s not goin’ nowhere.”

Sam rubbed at his face again and nodded. “We-- We should order in. When’s the last time you ate?” he asked as they walked away.

“I had a better breakfast than you.”

“You didn’t have to give a speech.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised you didn’t throw up in front of everyone.”

“Shut up, I’m a great public speaker.”

“Sure, Wilson.”

“Screw you, Barnes.”

The dawn bloomed before them.

Do not stand

By my grave, and weep.

I am not there,

I do not sleep—

I am the thousand winds that blow

I am the diamond glints in snow

I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

I am the gentle, autumn rain.

As you awake with morning’s hush,

I am the swift, up-flinging rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight,

I am the day transcending night.

Do not stand

By my grave, and cry—

I am not there,

I did not die.

[my-brothers-corrupted]

Chapter Four - Part 7

Dapper wakes up beside Red disoriented and upset and decides to take him somewhere he barely remembers to help him come to terms with their situation.

Tws for hospitalization, bruising, manipulation, and imprisonment.

Part 7 - Aftermath

aether-mae asked: Ok ok hear me out Dok- what if you were to make a deal with Dark, for him to off a certain someone for you. That way he won’t hunt you anymore and you take the opportunity while he’s undertaking the deal to run away

Dok sits stroking Noodle, staring at the ceiling, lying across his bed. He has nothing else to do. Nothing to do but wait and think and wonder. His mouth parts. He looks young and casual in his boxers and t-shirt, his usual semblance of professionalism and normality having faded away with his stress and the torn white coat lying beside his bed.

“Oh, yes, that would work,” he mutters, a gleam coming back to his eyes. “If that Dark thing can kill Anti and we could turn them against him… I mean, Anti’s pretty fucking terrible, so it couldn’t be too hard to switch the side that Dark’s on, yeah? Unless they’re equally terrible… damn. But I think I’d ally with just about anyone at this point if they told me they could kill him. But who would even know how to do that?”

He sighs, shaking his head against his pillows, mussing his hair. He hasn’t eaten. He wants his siblings, all of them. All of the real ones. Safe and sound.

“Doesn’t someone have to know? Was there ever anyone? Did you ever know, back when you knew us, from before? Does Dapper remember anything? I have to find a way to make him stop hurting us…”

Anonymous asked: um. so hey dok! things are... stable for now. trick's alright, he's with anti, who did possess blue. red has a cut on his throat but trick said it wasn't lethal. dapper got hit pretty bad. they're both in the upstairs bathroom, um, sleeping/unconscious? they were just now coherent, though. anti is... not as angry as he could be, which is good at least! we're working on keeping everyone safe. i'm sure it's not been easy. how are you?

The door to the downstairs guest bedroom creaks open. Dok shoots up, staring at the entryway - and there, unharmed, is his twin.

“Trick,” breathes Dok, reaching out for him, and Trick has rarely looked as relieved to go crashing into his arms, halfway tackling him onto the bed.

“Is that all true?” asks Dok, muffled by the closeness. “Red’s not going to die? You’re okay? Dapper, what’s wrong with him? Where’s Blue?”

“Anti was still wearing Blue last I checked,” says Trick quietly. “I think I heard Red talking to Dap, but I’m not sure. He was pretty busted up, Dok. Are you alright?”

“No one touched me, Trick, I’m alright. It’s been days since someone’s laid a hand on me.”

“I was so scared Dark would send people into the house while we were all distracted, but I knew the cameras would tell me if someone tried to take you.”

“Thank you for going up there,” says Dok, wrapping him in his arms. “You’re my hero.”

Trick’s face flushes with pride, scooping Dok close to his body, though fear lingers in the whites of his eyes. He runs his fingers over the ravens on Dok’s chest without even having to look down at them, his other hand in Dok’s hair. Noodle jumps on top of his stomach and makes him yelp - and then laugh, accepting kisses on his nose from his kitten.

Anonymous asked: Yeah, you're both okay. Everyone's okay. You're all alive and okay.

“What are the chances?” murmurs Dok, and it makes Trick laugh. He wants to build him nests out of t-shirts and blankets and buy him fish and chips. He wants to give him coffee at Christmas and deliver babies with him. He wants to make him smile.

“Let’s go get some breakfast,” says Trick. “I bet you haven’t eaten.”

“Okay.”

Anonymous asked: Dok, still got your necklaces?

“And wouldn’t take them off for anything,” he says, pulling them out from beneath his shirt - three little black raven talismans, arranged one two three from his collarbone to the curve of his chest. Trick doesn’t react, heading upstairs without looking back.

“The animal one, the light weapon, and the one that protects my head and my heart,” says Dok gently, plucking at his ravens one by one. “From my friends.”

Anonymous asked: JJ, I know you're beat to hell right now but we're running out of time. Anti's done playing around. Red and Dok are basically out of his control and he sees that, if he starts cutting losses, he's going to kill them. He's gonna hold onto Blue for usefulness, and trick out of favoritism, but JJ, somehow you've fallen in the middle. This damn twin system is throwing everyone's judgment but I think you have a better glimpse of the whole picture. We don't want to cut losses but we need a plan.

“Noooooo,” protests Dapper unhappily, shaking his head. “Nooo, don’t make me decide things, am tiredddd.”

He draws out his signs in long motions and flops down against the side of the tub, silver chain around his throat. At least he’s been able to get out of the bathtub and move around a little with only his neck chained - Red is not so lucky.

“Don’t shake your head so much, buddy,” he coughs, sallow and pale with the coming of the morning, his neck as white as the t-shirt strip wrapped around it. “You might still be concussed.”

“I want off my collar,” protests Dapper, struggling to get up to his feet, only to crash back down to the floor. “I should have been a good boy, I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” whispers Red. “He’s been like this all night. Anti hurts him and it snaps him back into his sugar-sweet, obedient little brother mode. It’s not healthy. Dap, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Reddy, lemme go.”

“Just try to lie still.”

“I wanna go home, I wanna go away, I wanna go somewhere nice.”

Red shudders, both of them struggling to take care of each other while they deal with their own shit. Dapper is spacey and injured, wheezing when he breathes, and Red has been over-stimulated and uncomfortable for about nine hours straight. He ran himself a bath for the blood and Haldol and everything on the floor of the filthy tub, but he hates it when his clothes are wet almost as much as he hated sitting in his own blood. He wants to cry again but he’s too tired. He’s just got to stay strong and get through it, like he always does. Tomorrow, this will be over. Tomorrow, this will be over. Tomorrow, this will be over.

“Wanna go home,” repeats Dapper weakly.

Anonymous asked: i know, buddy. i'm sorry, dap, jamie, love, you didn't do anything wrong, you don't deserve this. but i don't think you'll be stuck like this for much longer, okay, bud? i don't think you'll be stuck right there for more than a few more hours, and i think in a week or so things will have been figured out. hold on, okay? you're doing great, and i know it's hard, but just hold on, buddy. we're doing our best to help you guys.

“I do not want to hold on.”

He is grumpy and tired, childish in his fear of Anti, because it’s always been the best way to protect himself.

“I want my bear and my friends and pasta and Jack. I don’t want to hold on. I don’t feel good. Red, come home with me. Can’t we?”

“We’re kind of stuck right now, bud.”

“Not stuck, never stuck. I wanna go. If I can think of something. Take you with me so you’re not so unhappy.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Dippin’ Dots. Want to look for Tylenol or something in the drawers?”

“Anti took everything out of the bathroom in case I try to overdose,” signs Dapper. “I can’t even die to escape him.”

“Hey, we don’t talk like that,” warns Red with a thrill of fear down his back. “Don’t have to die to escape anyone. We’re going to be okay.”

Dapper plays with his clock distantly, running it between his hands.

Red sighs and turns back to you. “Is my twin okay?” he asks. “Please? Can you see him? Is he awake?”

Anonymous asked: Anti if you're going to be wearing Blue, march him to a hospital. You're only making him worse.

Anti is running his hands over the flesh of Blue’s arms, standing in front of the mirror in his bedroom.

“You know,” he says, his voice a fine low rumble. “I’m almost getting used to having skin.”

He strokes his throat, his fingers drifting down his esophagus.

“With the sickness I get otherwise, it’s a lot more comfortable. And with Blue breaking down and always turned against me… I’m starting to wonder.”

He cups his face in his right hand, his left resting on his caved stomach. He listens to Blue’s heartbeat in his skull. Thump, thump, thump. Quiet and tired, but reassuring in its steadiness.

When he was small, he used to sit in the back of Jack’s head, only half-formed, and listen to the beating of his heart. The only rhythm he knew.

“I could maybe just wear him all the time,” he says. “And only leave when I needed to glitch. He scratches a little. Doesn’t fit quite so well as Dapper. But still, I could just… rest.”

He touches Blue’s image in the mirror.

“Change this body til it feels like my own.”

There’s a sly light in his eyes as he turns to you. You know that look by now. He’s trying to get a rise out of you, to wind you up, to piss you off - but he could be serious, too.

Blue shudders faintly, Anti’s eyes gleaming in his head.

Anonymous asked: You really think that'll impress Dark? Okay then.

Anti rumbles out a laugh. “Dark’s always impressed by me. Even when I thought they were a total creep they looked at me like I’m the prettiest little killer in the world, right down to the essence of me. Sometimes people tell you to go kill yourself with enough emphasis that you can tell they got it bad.”

It’s difficult to tell if he’s joking or not.

“But I’m glad you agree Blue’s unimpressive right now too.”

Blue’s body drops like a sack of flour as Anti steps out of him almost literally, backing away from his body and regarding him coolly, popping bubblegum in his mouth as he looks down at him.

“Got something on your face,” he says, nudging Blue with his foot as his eye begins to bleed.

“F - fucker!” gasps Blue, clawing at the hardwood and drawing in huge lungfuls of air. “What did you do to Red?”

“I’ll give your precious twin back to you when he’s learned his lesson. Get out of my sight, you little witch.”

pine-storm-season asked: Hey, Dok and Trick? Anti just unpossessed Blue, he's in Anti's bedroom and might appreciate help leaving the room and stuff.

Trick puts his cereal down right away, turning to head upstairs. Dok makes to follow and Trick shakes his head at him, warning him off. “You’re still not allowed up here.”

Dok can’t say he really minds staying away from his torture room. He waits for his siblings at the bottom of the stairs.

“Hey,” says Anti, pleased when Trick comes up to him.

“Hey, Green. Can I have him?”

Anti rolls his eyes. “If you want him, you can have him, but you don’t have to look after him if you don’t want to.”

“It’s okay, I just want to get him out of your hair,” says Trick nicely. Anti relaxes against his bed, watching Trick pull Blue to his feet. He isn’t looking well.

“Red, Red,” begs Blue.

“Maybe we can have Red and Dapper back too?”

“Don’t worry about them. A little later.”

Anonymous asked: (Dok, while you're alone, Anti hypnotized the ever-living FUCK out of Trick and told him that he has three days to get the necklaces off you or else he'll kill you. I'm really sorry to drop this on you so bluntly but it's really important you know. If you don't want Trick to know you know, you can probably play off your reaction to this news as reacting to Blue looking like shit, Trick's bringing him back now)

Dok’s mouth parts so softly you see his chapped top lip cling to the bottom for a second, revealing his slightly crooked front teeth. He doesn’t answer you - barely looks at you - for a good thirty second. A deep breath passes in and out of him without conscious thought and his eyebrows fall into a dismayed sort of terror.

“Oh, he - he said he’d kill me? Anti did?”

And how stupid it is - how utterly and painfully stupid - that after all the realization he went through, after all the growth, after all of his own hopes to kill his little brother - the thought of Anti killing him still burns like a betrayal.

He never loved him at all.

He spent so long being so good for him - gave his whole life up for Anti, loved him no matter what he did to himself and his siblings - and Anti would cut him open and leave him dead on the grass of the lawn just to punish Trick.

Dok has to go. He gets up and he leaves you there, racing away and back down the stairs.

Anonymous asked: well on one hand dok is totally entitled to that reaction on the other hand FUCK

“What reaction?” asks Trick, and then his twin isn’t at the bottom of the stairs.

“You told him!” he accuses instantly, whirling on you. “You - he shouldn’t have to know that! He shouldn’t have to think about it! Why would you - ugh! I was going to keep him safe, like I always do! He’s got enough going on right now, he - Blue?”

He catches Blue as he begins to slide off Trick’s shoulder, sinking towards the ground. Trick heaves him up in his arms, huffing with the weight of him, and, determined, he carries him to his and Red’s bedroom, setting him down on the bed.

“N-no, I’m okay,” stammers Blue, wiping at his forehead. “I’m okay, Dok.”

“It’s Trick, Blue.”

Blue pants, looking up at him. His foggy eyes are squinted nearly into slits, blinking fast.

“Can you see me?”

Blue closes his eyes and turns away, burying his face in his hands.

Anonymous asked: Can we set the cameras to transmit audio? If not, Trick, can you pass it on to Blue if he can't read these? It's gonna be alright, Blue. Right now, you're downstairs in Red and Trick's room. Trick is in the room with you, and Dok is I think also downstairs? But not in the room. Anti, Red, and Dapper are all upstairs. What's one thing we or someone else can do for you right now to help?

“I want Red!” snaps Blue, turning suddenly on Trick and shoving him away. “Get out! You’re just Anti’s little pet! Leave me alone! What can you or somebody do? Fucking nothing, that’s what! I’m just disgusting and sick, leave me the fuck alone!”

“Hey, Blue, calm down,” Trick snaps right back, real fear in his voice. “You’re panting way too hard, okay? Just try to breathe.”

“Then get out! Get out of my room! I don’t want you here! I don’t want anybody but Red and even he can’t save me so go away!”

Trick’s never really been snarled at by Blue, but he won’t let it get to him while everyone else in the house is in worse trouble than him. He decides his sibling isn’t joking about wanting to be left alone. Trick knows the feeling. He gives you a meaningful look, tilting you towards Blue. Keep an eye on him.

Trick leaves Blue alone. Blue tries to get up to draw the curtains closed for himself, but even this one little thing he can’t do for himself - he crashes to the floor, his legs giving out, and grits his teeth as the blurry image of his pale hands holds his shaking body off the floor.

Not even his hands. Not even his skin. Not even his body. Oh, fuck. His head swims. The world is falling away from him. He sits up, trembling, and falls back against the bed, gripping at his head. Gripping at the head. Not even his skull. Not even his fucking body.

“This isn’t me, this isn’t me, this isn’t me,” he whispers, his voice faltering back into despair. “Where did my body go, holy shit. This isn’t happening. This isn’t Blue.”

.

Trick finds Dok downstairs, hiding under the bed.

“Dok?”

He’s never seen him under there before.

“Dok, I’m here.”

He crawls down beneath his twin, reaching for him. Touching Dok does not make him look over or speak. He’s just still.

Trick’s heart sinks.

“One of your zone-outs, my brother?” he asks quietly.

Dok stares at nothing, breathing a little too slow, a little too deep. In. Out. In. Out.

“I’m here,” Trick repeats quietly, even though it never seems to be enough. “I’m here.”

Dok lies still. Lets him hold onto him.

He’s scared. No matter what he told himself, it all seemed to come down to this - in three days, he’ll most likely be dead. Yeah, he’s scared. His brain decided to give him a break. He’s far off in his head. Trick doesn’t think he feels anything at all when he’s like this. It’s a defense mechanism.

For a moment, Trick reaches up and touches Dok’s necklaces. The talismans burn his fingers dark red, but he doesn’t draw them away until he has to. He doesn’t think he can get them off with just his hands, but if he got a knife…

He sighs and leans against Dok’s shoulder, closing his eyes. Not right now. He can’t even think about it right now.

“I’m here,” he whispers. “I’m with you.”

They lie beneath the bed, in silence.

.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

“Dap,” begs Red, panting through his discomfort, trying to keep his calm. “You gotta stop rambling, little brother. You are okay. Okay? I’ll get you out of here.”

“No, I want to go home! Now, now, now!”

“Dap, we’re stuck! Come on, please take it easy!”

“No, we’re going now,” says Dapper, determined. He brushes at sweaty curls on his forehead and shivers, scrambling around the bathroom, his silver chain jingling. “We’re going away. Maybe we don’t have to come back. Where, I don’t know. I have to remember something. We can go home. I want to.”

His hand finds his little clock in the corner of the room. Red’s eyes widen.

“Now - hey, hold on a second, Dapper. I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.”

“Where do you want to go?” asks Dapper, barely seeming to hear him, staggering back towards him in the tub. “Who should we go see? I just have to remember… I just have to… we’ll go somewhere it doesn’t hurt so much. I’ll be good then. I promise. He won’t catch us. He can’t smell it, not in here. Where do you want to go, J-happy?”

pine-storm-season asked: I don't think that's a good idea, Dapper. He's already irritable and angry, and the chances of making it worse seem too high. I'm sorry, buddy, I think you have to stay here.

“I don’t want to, I want to go away, my whole body really really hurts.”

He crashes down besides Red and his big brother does his best to catch him as he falls, but this only makes Dapper gasp in pain as hands make contact with his bruised side. For a second, it seems to startle him out of his frantic determination. He collapses against the side of the tub, his head falling against Red’s. Red holds his shoulders and tries to make him breathe in time with him, rubbing his arm.

“It’s okay, Dap. It is. I promise. It will be.”

Dapper shakes his head, low, low, his eyes haunted.

“He really beat me. Like he used to back when I was never good.”

Red just holds onto him, shaking his head. He doesn’t know what to say anymore. He just knows - they have to go. They have to. He has to get his family away from Anti. He hopes Anti will forgive him someday, but he can’t worry about him now. Not when he’s treating them like this.

“I loved that big house in the forest,” signs Dapper quietly. “I only got to live there about a year.”

“Some day I’ll find a place where we can live and you can feel safe again. I promise.” He presses their foreheads gently together, minding the dark bruises across his little brother’s tired face.

“I want to go see Jack,” signs JJ gently, pressed against Red’s head. “I really want to talk to him. I think I need to talk to him. I miss him. He doesn’t remember me in reality. But I still remember him in my own timeline. I want to go see him.”

Maybe Red should protest more. But the truth is he’s filthy and hurt and in a lot of discomfort, something that translates directly into distress and pain for him.

And that one time when Dapper sent him back - when he saw them all again - when they were so healthy and clean and safe and Blue laid beside him and told him he was a good man -

Yes, Red wants that.

So he whispers:

“Are you sure you can make it? Even though you’re hurt?”

“Jackie,” signs Dapper, like it could be the sign for love or brother or family. “I’m sure.”

“And Anti won’t catch us?”

“Not if we’re quick. He didn’t catch me before.”

Dapper has eyes like suns faraway, big and bright. Red has had trouble saying no to him ever since he began to see the little recluse trapped in the attic as his baby brother again.

“Okay,” says Ro. “Let’s go home.”

He touches Dapper’s hand.

Anonymous asked: He, Dok, I doubt you'll be up to reading cameras right now, but however you're feeling is okay. You've done incredible work getting as free as you can from him, but not even magic can undo the effects of months of conditioning, abuse and hypnosis overnight. He's a master manipulator, you've done so well getting this far. Please don't beat yourself up for how you're reacting. Also Trick, this is a crazy stressful time for you guys, and you're doing your best, and we thank you sincerely for that.

“You know what?” says Trick, a little weakly. “We’ve gone through worse times together and come out okay, right, Dok?”

He’s managed to get Dok out from under the bed. They’re curled up on the couch in the basement, playing Lord of the Rings on the big TV. They don’t have internet, but they do have a DVD player.

“Look, Aragorn,” Trick prompts his brother, patting Dok’s arm. “You love this movie, right? When was the last time we saw it?”

Personally, Trick doesn’t really get the appeal, but he likes the monsters and the fighting scenes and things. Dok’s really into it, though, most of the time. But right now he’s just burrito-ed in all the blankets Trick gave him, staring down at the floor with a truly miserable expression on his face.

Trick hovers unhappily, patting his arm.

“It’s okay, buddy,” he says. “They’re right, don’t gotta blame yourself. It’s okay. You’re doing great.”

He curls up against him and keeps him company. Dok’s eyes don’t start to re-focus until they’re on their way to Mordor.

Anonymous asked: Yeah, you both are doing so well handling all this. Dok, however you're feeling is okay. We're going to do our absolute best to protect you guys, yeah? It's okay.

Dok lets out a small, tired sigh at Trick’s side.

“Hey,” whispers Trick. “Are you with me?”

Dok looks wearily over at him, meeting his eyes at last, but he doesn’t say anything.

Trick scoots forward and presses their heads together, lying against him. Dok glances over at you before lying back again. Faintly, his hand moves to rest across Trick’s.

They do not speak about the talismans. They do not speak about the death threat.

“Gimli is my favorite,” says Trick, after the dwarf says something funny, and Dok is grateful that he’s pretending to care.

“Can we watch all three?”

“We can watch all three.”

Dok will be asleep by the end of the first, but Trick doesn’t mind that either. He slides the second DVD in and goes back to his place at his side.

Anonymous asked: Hey Dap, Red, I'm all for you guys doing that, but are you completely sure you're going to be safe? If anything goes wrong, things could go even more south for you guys, and it's already really bad at the moment. Again, not trying to dissuade you, but please please make sure it's going to be safe. Or, as safe as anything in this family can be.

Ro comes to spitting and coughing.

He finds himself on his hands and feet - mid push-up, he thinks? He lets himself go down and then rises again, and, with a burst of pride, he feels taut muscles raise and lower him as though his weight were nothing to them. Another push-up. Another.

Jackie was strong, he realizes, and he blames the flash of jealousy on his old counter-part for being this fucking ridiculously fit, and then notices how strange it is to think of the person he used to be as someone else entirely.

He gets to his feet, glancing around.

Was this his room?

A lava lamp bubbles in the corner. His eyes get fixed on it, watching the colors rise and fall and float. His windows are open and cool air and birdsong float into the room. The walls are a nice light blue, the bed is a Queen with thick black blankets, and everything else - oh, fuck - it’s neat! It’s clean! Everything he owns is packed politely into drawers, a row of nice running shoes tucked in a perfect line in his closet, Spider-man decorations and pictures of his family arranged in clean lines on his dressers and drawers.

This is like Heaven.

For a long time, he sits in the middle of his floor, just breathing. Just watching. Just trying to remember.

A slow breath fades from his chest. He closes his eyes and he opens them again.

He remembers you and looks down, smiling.

“Safe, huh?” he mumbles, feeling the cool breeze through his hair. “What’s the fun in that?”

Anonymous asked: Oh alright, you made it safely!! Your room does look pretty cool, and damn wish I could do push ups like that. Way to flex, hero man. If you're able, would be be able to look for Dapper? You both weren't exactly doing super well when you left, and the magic might've taken a toll on him. (Hope this trip goes well for you!!)

“I’m not even flexing, this is just how I be,” purrs Ro, letting himself revel in the pride of it for a second, standing up and looking down at himself. He feels immortal like this. He looks into the mirror and his face is flushed with health - though he finds one deep scratch across his collarbone that surprises him, bandaged by neat hands, but stinging across his skin.

“Weird… wonder what that’s from? Oh, geez, yeah. Where is Dap?”

cest-mellow asked: it’s good to see you so healthy, red. but where is jameson? is there anyone else in the house with you?

“I better find him,” mumbles Ro, looking around like he expects JJ to crawl out from under the bed. “I don’t know if anyone else is here. I’m assuming this is the same house I was at last time he brought me back, the house in the woods he always talks about.”

He glances out the window. The trees are swaying in the wind.

“I don’t know how to get home without him, so he has to be around here somewhere. Right?”

“Hey, Jackie, are you coming?”

A voice with a familiar accent startles Ro out of his thoughts. He turns towards the door. “Uh… yeah, Dok, sorry, give me a second!”

“I know you’re just visiting, but I have a shift to be on time for, you know.”

“Right, sorry,” says Ro, a little startled. Did Dok just give him sass? Dok? “Oh, fuck, that’s not his real name. Uh… H, something German.”

cest-mellow asked: henrik! his name is henrik. where is he trying to take you? maybe jamie is there too? you should ask tho O_o

“Henrik! Right.”

“What?”

“No, I was just - uh - ”

Henrik pushes open the door to his room, leveling a look at him.

“Oh,” says Ro. “Hey.”

He’s got this clean white coat on and a dorky, cute blue turtleneck. His hair is very short at the sides, soft and dark on the top. He raises his eyebrows at Ro in a way that is both bemused and challenging. It’s not a look Ro is used to.

The Dok he knows is quiet and submissive, scampering back to his nest every time Red used to raise his voice at him, slathered in scarring and always trying and failing to keep his hands clean. But Henrik has this light in his eyes like nothing in the world has ever made him afraid, and his back is held so straight that for a moment Red thinks that he’s taller than him. Maybe he is taller than him, and Ro just never noticed before.

“Come on, dummkopf,” laughs Henrik, nudging his head towards Ro’s shoes. Ro doesn’t think Dok has ever insulted him out loud and to his face, even as a joke. “Let’s get going. Don’t you want to visit Jameson?”

Anonymous asked: Oh wow, guess this is happening, cool! What do you want to do while you're here, Red? (Is there anyway you could get information on Anti or any weaknesses? Or not, goodness knows you guys deserve to just have a nice time without worrying about him)

“One second, Henrik, I’ll be right there.”

“Oh, Henrik,” he says, and it takes Red a couple seconds to realize he’s being teased. “Today I’m Henrik, huh? Well, of course, Jackson, take all the time you need.”

There must be something else he’s supposed to call him, but Ro doesn’t remember what. Henrik grins at him like he’s waiting for him to say something back, but Red’s at a loss. Henrik blinks and steps back.

“Sorry,” says Ro. “Really, I’ll be right there.”

“Um, okay,” says Henrik. “I’ll just be on the porch.”

Henrik leaves and Red smacks himself in the head. “Two seconds in and already I’m acting weirder than usual. Okay, what do I want to do while I’m here? Geez, I gotta leave most of this up to Dap. Sounds like he had somebody he wanted to talk to. But, uh.”

He pauses, cocking his head.

“Well, if we have time, I would like to see Blue and Trick and… well. Blue and Trick. And just - yeah. Well. Probably don’t have time for anybody else, but I really liked last time seeing how healthy everybody looked. Kind of jarring. But right now especially, I really want to see that Blue’s okay.”

Anonymous asked: Ro, Dok's name is Henrik (von Schneeplestein)! If you run into Trick, he's Chase, you know Blue's name, and Dapper's with you, and oh if there's another guy you haven't seen before, he's Jack or Seán, I think JJ might be looking for him. Also, from what I can remember, yeah expect some sass from Henrik haha! These guys are probably going to pretty different to who they are now, but regardless of all that, you're still their brother. Best of luck!

“Holy shit,” gasps Red. “Holy shit!”

Schneeplestein, holy shit!

And it’s funny, first things first, just because that seems like such a ridiculous name on the surface, but Red isn’t even laughing, not for a second, because shit, that was his name, wasn’t it?

“Schneep,” he breathes, and it doesn’t matter how silly of a name it is, it’s a memory alive again on his tongue. “Holy shit… we were friends.”

He doesn’t remember the things they used to do or the way they used to get along, but with that name he knows that they did used to get along, that they did used to love each other in a way he’s long since forgotten, that Schneep was his brother long before Dok and Trick were bound at the hip, that that’s not just his tired, struggling little brother with the haunted eyes - that was Schneep, his Schneep, the doctor who always kicked his ass when he came home hurt, the man who would patch them up while grumbling in German the whole time, the arms he would come back to when he was in pain. That was his brother.

Ro has to sit down for a moment.

“Shit,” he whispers, biting on his nails. He lets his eyes slide shut for a second. “Schneep…”

Because it’s one thing to know that they used to know each other better and that their bodies used to be healthier. But to know that they used to be different people who loved each other, deeply, in different ways than they do now -

Fuck, it’s a lot to have stolen from them. It’s not fair.

It’s not fair that Schneep is dead.

He wants to see the others right now.

hollenka99 asked: Just a reminder for if you bump into them, Trick is Chase and Blue is Marvin. I'm guessing you used to call Henrik by a nickname. Try 'Hen' and see how he responds. After all, you're still shortening people's names now like Dapper being Dap etc. Can't hurt to try. Worse that will probably happen is that Henrik may tease you again.

“Okay, right,” mumbles Ro, getting to his feet. “Yeah, I’ll just… Chase. Right.”

And then he can’t bring himself to say the name Marvin out loud.

He tugs on sneakers - nice sneakers, red and white - and finds thin black gloves near the door, slipping them on despite a warm fall outside his window. He loves having gloves. Jackie is wearing a long, heavy red hoodie and long black and white sweatpants. He feels covered and comfy and - for the first time in a long time - handsome.

But somehow even that realization is painful, and he turns away from the mirror, swiping at a place on his forehead where a scar will one day exist.

He pushes out of his room, glancing down a short hallway towards a homey little living room with a couple worn-down couches. The house is quiet. He wanders through the kitchen and the laundry room, where faint voices waft in through an opened window. Pushing through the back door, he sees a pair of siblings working on a pretty little garden together, helping each other tear up weeds and chattering about nothing.

He’s never seen Blue and Trick spending time together alone.

“Hey,” he calls weakly.

Their heads turn up together, both smiling at him. Chase sticks his tongue out at him. Marvin winks. Ro hears a laugh bubble out of him, shaking his head in amazement.

pine-storm-season asked: Here you are, yeah! This is good, I think, to see them again like they are. You doing alright, Red?

“I feel weird,” he says, with a fluttering laugh. “But after being stuck in that fucking bathtub, I can’t be upset with anything. Hey, guys.”

“Hey, J-man.”

“The king, the legend!”

“Your shift at the hospital?”

“We’ll be there after lunch to give you a break.”

“He likes those Twix bars in the little shop out front if he gets upset.”

“I love a little shop.”

“Look how my mint is coming in!” Chase and Marvin both lean back to give him a view of bunches of herbs growing up from the ground. Ro shakes his head, laughing.

“Why don’t you just grow it with magic?” asks Ro.

“I’m still so tired from the fight,” says Marvin, grinning up at him and pushing long, dark hair from shining eyes. “But even if I wasn’t, it’s good for me to work the earth a little sometimes.”

Marvin buries his fingers in the soft damp earth, breathing in the deep richness of the smell like a worshipper breathes Easter incense. He closes blue eyes. The wind brushes across his soft hair. He smiles back at Ro and Chase follows their gazes.

“You have freckles,” says Ro faintly.

“When I get enough sun,” answers Chase warmly, touching his cheeks.

Anonymous asked: I think Schneep is a common nickname for him, maybe try that? This is probably going to be painful, seeing how much you guys have lost, and remembering things too, but hey, you can still reach something like this again. Healing is possible, and while you're not likely to be the same, you can still all make progress and learn to love each other like that again. While you're here, do your best to make the most of it!! Love you Jackie <3

“Hey.”

A hand descends on Ro’s shoulder and he turns to ice eyes behind thick glasses.

“Are you okay?” asks Schneep, frowning. “How’s the cut?”

Ro touches his chest uncertainly, feeling the faint burn of a clean wound. “Um. Okay.”

“Ready to go to the hospital?”

“Yeah, okay. Is Jack coming?”

Henrik blinks. “He’s still there from last night.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, let’s go.”

Anonymous asked: So... are you guys going to visit Jack at the hospital? Is he okay?

Ro doesn’t know how to start asking about it without alerting Henrik to the fact that something’s wrong. He trails after his little brother towards the door of the house, next to which hangs a great silver mirror.

Schneep takes his wrist without preamble, making Ro startle, but all his brother does is say “amo, vale,” and then -

Hold on a second.

Ro is too startled to protest when Henrik pulls him through the mirror after him.

Gone is the forest. Red closes his eyes in shock against a strange sensation, feeling the world give an odd lurch around him, and - well, it’s not unlike the time travel, but his body has moved instead of changed. Brick walls rise on both sides, birds chittering around the rooftops. It might have been a dirty alleyway, once, but so many flowers and weeds and grasses have grown up through the broken earth and brick and pavement that it makes a tiny pocket in the back of the alley, hidden from the world. Henrik pushes through a curtain of vines and Ro sees people and cars rushing down the streets around them, feels the burn of city electricity, hears the laughter and the noise and the life of lived-in places. He takes one last look back at an abandoned mirror sitting in a dirty rectangle of painted blue wood and moves after Henrik, counting his breaths to keep them steady.

“What did you say?” he asks shakily, hurrying after Henrik to catch his wrist. “Those words, like a spell?”

Henrik quirks his eyebrows at him. “Marvin’s password? That was all.”

“Henrik, how’s everyone doing?”

“I didn’t get any calls overnight, so I’m hoping that means good. No more breakdowns for JJ, I hope, and if Jack got caught staying past visiting hours and thrown out on his ass, well, he can take care of himself.”

nikkilbook asked: .... Jackie, ask how Jameson is doing.

“How is Jameson? How was his last breakdown?”

That light like sunflame in Henrik’s eyes gives its first flicker of the day, and he turns to give Ro a frog-frown look, his mouth tight.

“Look, I promise I won’t let them put him back in the psych ward. I’ll convince them to let us take him home first, once they know he’s going to be okay without the hospital. It’s not his fault. It’s just Anti in his head… soon, things will clear up, and he won’t be saying things like that anymore.”

“Things like what?”

Henrik rubs his arms together, shaking his head. “You know what! Like that there’s messages hidden in his prescriptions and all the doctors are secretly trying to kill him.”

Red’s head clears a little. “Oh. He’s psychotic?”

“No, I told you!” protests Henrik, his upset rising. “It’s just Anti, it has to be! He’ll clear up again!”

“You should put him on Haldol,” says Ro wisely. “If we’ve learned one thing from all this.”

Henrik gives him a despairing look, stopping in the middle of the path. “Bayard, he’s been through too much already. I don’t… I don’t want him to be any sicker than this. Don’t want him to have to deal with delusions. We just got him, can’t he have a break? I want him to not get hurt anymore.”

Red’s chest twists. Dok never did stop trying to look after him, either.

He looks smaller than Ro again, standing in the middle of the street, playing with a loose button on his sleeve.

“We’ll do everything we can, okay?” he says, stepping forward. He slides an arm around Schneep’s shoulders and finds that it feels easy, natural, normal. Henrik pushes gently back against him. “Even if he has got something going on in his brain, he’s still perfect. Can still be happy. You’ll see. I’ll make sure he gets the chance. I promise.”

And Henrik smiles again, small and correct, yes, correct, right, normal, natural, true. Schneep. Like nothing has ever hurt him. Pride in the cold ice of his eyes, in his clean skin, in his head lifted up.

Was Anti the one who taught them all to cower?

Anonymous asked: Oooh they don't know yet about Jamie's psychosis... Red, can you find a way to discreetly ask how long JJ has been with your brothers? Because it either has been not that much or they've all gotten lucky for a big stretch of time

“He’s been in here… what, how many days is it now?” asks Ro, dodging out of the way of harried nurses and - oh, Schneep just slammed his shoulder into the arm of that doctor with the clipboard.

“Watch where you’re fucking going, Kerchek!” he hollers, narrowing a glare at her.

“Hey, everybody look out, it’s Mr. Genius!” snarks back Kerchek, rolling her eyes.

“Still jealous about that botched piggyback, aren’t you?”

“I’ll show you a botched piggyback, Schneeplestein, you check your back.”

“Just stay away from my brother or else.”

“Holy shit,” laughs Ro. “Stop fighting with the other doctors! What the hell?”

“She deserve it,” huffs Henrik, tearing away. “Hey! You two stop snickering and get back to work!”

A pair of howling medical students all but crumple over their assignments, head bent low together.

“Yes, Doc,” they laugh.

Henrik just rolls his eyes and keeps walking.

“You cause a lot of trouble, Schneeps?”

“Please, everyone knows I run this hellhole. Clarissa, how is my patient?”

“Hi, Jackie. Hi, Schneep,” says a dark-haired nurse, glancing them both over fondly. “He’s doing okay. Just slept most of the night. You’ll have to go check if he’s been giving the morning staff as much trouble as you do.”

“Unlikely,” answers Henrik dryly, pulling Ro away again. The hospital is crowded and he dislikes the smell and feel of it, but everyone is smiling at them as they pass - or glaring at Henrik, who snipes right back. He’s a vicious little man and ever since he started working here, any passive-aggressiveness or false niceties died with a bang rather than a whimper. The hospital’s been better for it - and a lot more entertaining.

“It’s been what, a week and a half?” answers Schneep belatedly. “He was so shaken up to begin with. But a nice young man, isn’t he, once you get past the murder attempts?”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around the thought of you being a competent professional,” answers Ro cheekily, and a moment later a clipboard slams into his stomach. He groans out a laugh, snatching Henrik by the turtleneck and dragging him under his arm, making him yelp in protest and squirm to get away. They half-chase each other down the hallway towards Jamie’s room, Henrik fending him off with his clipboard, and Ro can’t stop laughing.

Fuck, when Blue reads him poetry with love in the lines of it, this is what he means.

Anonymous asked: Dang, I almost forgot how much confidence Schneep used to have. It's nice in a way to remember that he wasn't as quiet as he is, or well... will be. Bask in this moment, red. Enjoy that long passed time where brotherhood still held any kind of meaning other than simple hierarchy.

Ro looks at his brother as he pushes open the door to a nice little hospital room with lots of light. He doesn’t think he wants to know what sort of things you have to do to a person like Schneep to turn him into the little brother in a tattered coat shaking beneath the bed.

And this is better, he thinks, fleeting and true. Not that he was a different person. He could love him for whoever he is if he only got the chance. But that’s what was better - the chance to be his friend, and not just his brother. Maybe Jackie got swallowed up, too, the same way that Schneep did. Eaten up by that one role, letting it define him.

I’m more than his protector, though. I’m more than his big brother. He’s more than someone I need to look after all the time.

“Hey.” Henrik’s voice, gone gentle, interrupts his thoughts. “How are you feeling, my dear?”

Letting his legs dangle over one side of the blue hospital bed, Jameson tears his eyes away from the sun through the window and meets their eyes.

He looks exactly the same.

Anonymous asked: How's Jamie doing? Is he alright?

JJ reaches out for Ro.

He moves over to him and wraps his arms carefully around him, pressing JJ’s head to his shoulder. “Did you come to not knowing where I was?”

JJ nods, gripping at his sweatshirt. He doesn’t know what would have happened if he and Ro weren’t together when the timer on his clock ran out. He doesn’t travel like this a lot, or not that he remembers.

“Fuck, you really don’t age, do you? Like, truly. You just don’t.”

“Not until it’s my time,” answer JJ’s hands, a needle taped to the back of the right one. “And I haven’t had much of a chance at being twenty-five yet, you see.”

“I never thought this would be possible, but you might be skinnier now than you are… well, now.” Red draws back to look at him, pushing stiff, overgrown hair from his eyes and touches the back of his head, examining him. “I thought you said there used to be a time when Anti was nicer to you.”

“That time hasn’t come yet,” answers JJ wearily. “When he gets me back the second time…”

He notices Henrik standing by the door, staring between the two of them with his eyebrows up, worried and excited and confused all at the same time.

“You seem better,” he breathes, bouncing on his feet just a little. “Are you, um… feeling safer today? You are hugging today? We are not the enemies?”

JJ smiles, reaching out his arms. Henrik sweeps forward, beaming, and hugs him to his chest, pouring reassurances into his ear.

It’s about halfway through that JJ realizes this might have been the first time in his life he ever hugged Henrik. In the original timeline, he doesn’t think that happened until weeks later, when he stopped baring his teeth at anybody who tried to come close. He holds tighter and closes his eyes.

“You’re shaking,” murmurs Henrik. “You need more for the pain?”

JJ sucks in a breath, feeling at his body bit-by-bit. He does hurt, terribly, somewhere beneath the dull relief of whatever drugs he’s on. He’s beat and fragile, one of his ankles wrapped in a cast and an awful haze of weakness making him feel more like a ghost than a man.

And he’s never been medicated for his psychosis in his life. He knew it from the moment he came back to this moment in time. He miscalculated. He can barely think straight, and he’s afraid, and he doesn’t want to leave this room or face anyone.

“Where’s Jack?” asks Henrik, pushing lovingly at his hair. “Didn’t he stay with you?”

“Went to get me a hot chocolate,” signs JJ. “I really wanted one.”

“Oh, good.”

“Can I stay with Jackie a little while, H-healing? I want to talk to him.”

“Alright,” says Henrik, despite a little disappointment in his face. “Well, I need to get started at work for the day. But I’ll go over what the nurses said and if you need anything at all, I’ll come right back. Okay?”

JJ nods. Henrik cups his bruised face, soothing his thumb over a cut by his ear, and then, with one more look at the pair of them, he sweeps away again.

“You’re going to have to talk to Jack for me,” signs JJ immediately.

“What? No way! I don’t even know who that is. Leave me out of it, Jay. Hey, come on… don’t look at me like that.”

Anonymous asked: Jamie, how about you explain Jack real quick, and then we can also help Jackie talk to him if we need to?

“No, I refuse to explain,” says JJ politely.

“Dapper!”

“What! You might remember as you see him… I’d prefer for you to remember what he meant to you than me have to explain…”

Ro sighs, crossing his arms over his chest.

“This is the person Anti hates so much,” he says. “The old master.”

JJ picks quietly at the hospital bedsheets, watching mice crawl up the sides as he hallucinates. “I guess. Well, yes, he is the person Anti hates.”

“The magician who created us.”

“Something like that.”

“How can somebody have that much power?”

“It happens once in a millenium, my brother. And he has a bit of an energy boost.” JJ glances over at you, raising an eyebrow. “But I don’t remember all the details. Nobody understands the full thing. Usually, we let Jack stay out of it. It’s not really his fault, and he has a completely different life that’s not anybody’s business. We fight our battles without him. But… now I need to know.”

“What do you need to know?”

JJ stares up at him. “I… Dok and Blue have been… I just… I need to know more about… Anti.”

“What, Dap?”

“I can’t say it.” JJ ducks his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “Not while I can hear him whispering to me from the television…”

Ro glances at the TV on the wall. It’s off.

Anonymous asked: It's safe, bud. You can say.

“You should know by now,” says JJ begrudgingly, turning away from Ro. “You want to protect us, do it. I want my hot chocolate and to go back to bed.”

“Oh my goodness.”

“Blue has been sneaking around with Dok ever since Peru, Ro. Hasn’t he told you anything he’s been thinking?”

“No!” protests Ro, offended. “Well, I mean - he’s not sneaking around without me! We sneak around together! Geez!”

“Ro, we all know you haven’t picked a side yet. Blue doesn’t - ”

“Picked a side?” Ro scoffs, pacing at the foot of his bed. “What sort of side is there to pick? You’re talking about Anti. I want to get you away from him, I do, but that’s our brother, Dap, that’s our - ”

“You think I don’t know that!” JJ’s hands tear the air apart. “What, you think I’m naive to his love and his hatred, Ro? Look around you! Do you see Anti back home with you? Does he come to visit me in the hospital, bring me hot chocolate, garden with Marvin, play around like a kid with Schneep in the hallway? Ro, Anti can be your brother if you want him to be, but it’s a choice that we make. Or you, at least… I think I’m bound up in his blood forever.”

“You’re talking about hurtingAnti.” Ro holds onto his wrist, trying to make him look at him again. “You’re talking about hurting him, not just running.”

“He just chained us to a bathtub!”

Ro backs away, gnawing on the nail of his thumb. He shrugs, eyes flickering around.

Anonymous asked: I know he's your brother, Red. But can I ask you a question? If you just met him, and he started pushing people around like he does now, is he the kind of person you would want to be friends with?

“Mh, no, he scares me, but it’s not about friends, it’s about brothers.” He shifts on his feet, hugging his arms over his chest. “And Anti’s protected me before too, even if he’s hurt me to match. He gets lost in his temper… I want us to be away from him, and not to go back until he can stop hurting us. If he can. But I don’t want to hurt him…”

He knows the warmth of Anti’s body in a hug. He knows the warmth of his own blood on Anti’s hands. He shivers.

nikkilbook asked: Jackie, what does “brother” mean?

“Well,” says Ro. “Your blood, yeah? You gotta look out for your brothers. And they’re supposed to look after you. And if they don’t, well, I think you gotta go, at least to keep the others safe. But you don’t turn around on your family. He doesn’t… mean to hurt anybody. Just angry. Right? And hey!”

He whirls on JJ again, wagging a finger. “That’s Jack’s fault! Anti always says the old master made us like this.”

“Anti blames him for everything,” answers JJ bitterly, wiping at his face. “Just because Jack fucked up a couple times when he was younger. It’s not Jack’s fault Anti’s always mean and you know that. Or if it is Jack’s fault - honestly, I don’t remember - then Anti can never change, and it would be better to kill him than to let him keep living so ferociously miserable.”

Real emotion breaks Dapper’s face. He turns away, pulling his hair over his eyes.

He hates Anti. Often. Not always. And no matter what he tries to tell himself, he can’t deny that it hurts to see Anti in pain. Lately, he doesn’t even hold him at night. His condition rears thoughts in his head - traitor little brother. Selfish brat. Turning on him. Something touches his ankle and he gasps, jerking it back to his chest, but nothing’s there. Ro reaches out to soothe him, hand held out in front of him like a shield.

nikkilbook asked: I’m not sure Jack “made” you anything. He created you, but that doesn’t mean he micromanaged your every flaw and personality trait. You are you, you’ve always been you, you’ve never not been you. All he did was give you a way to exist physically in this world.

Maybe Anti’s angry a lot. Maybe that’s outside of his control. But hating is a choice. Turning affection into a weapon meant to hurt and to maim is a choice. And crucifying yourself on the hate of someone who would call himself brother has only ever been the role of one man, and you are not Him.

“Jackie,” signs JJ gently. “Jack doesn’t even remember us anymore because of what I did… so we know for a fact he doesn’t control any of us any longer, if he ever did. You are you. And I… I’m me, for better or for worse. And Anti is himself. The person he’s chosen to be. Ro… how long have we loved him, and he still does things like this?”

Ro tears a strip off his nail, eyes haunted. “You remember better than I do.”

“Well, it’s been a long time,” he sighs. “And all of us have done our best. But it’s not our fault, Ro. It’s not… it’s not my fault. I have loved him, I have… it’s not your fault if that’s not enough to change him… it’s not my fault.”

Ro tilts his head, pressing his lips together, but JJ doesn’t turn back to his gaze. He’s curled in on himself, petting his hands through his hair, face very tired, and very guilty.

Anonymous asked: It doesn't equal out like that, Red. You don't owe a n y loyalty to someone who hurts you, even if they also protect you. And what you said about his temper, and if he stops hurting you? Red, he's had the chance to stop, many times. If he hurt you once when he was angry, and then did his best to work on it and not hurt you again, that would be okayish. But he doesnt, Red. He has no excuse for cutting your throat just last night, or for any of the other things he's done. Nothing justifies that.

“Okay, fine,” snaps Ro, pulling at his hair. “I know that Anti sucks ass and I have for a long time, okay? But I’d be scared, Dap! I’d be scared! It’s always safer to stay away from him or just wait his temper out! That’s always been true… and I… he is my brother, even if he’s the fucking worst and I hate his guts half the time!”

Dapper sighs. “Alright, Red, just - ”

“If we try to hurt him he’ll kill us!” shrieks Red. “He’ll do things to us like he did to Blue at the river while I was running away! I got scared and he put Blue in the hospital and he still hasn’t recovered, Dap! I don’t think he ever will! Anti did that to him just because he hated him and wanted something he had. He can get inside our heads, he can control us. I wanted to attack him in Peru, but I had to protect Max.”

“Ro, I know.”

“And then he made me feel like I loved him again! Even when I know the truth, I still feel that way sometimes. I’m not strong enough, Dap, don’t you get that? I can’t keep him out of my head, can’t convince myself to do anything, can’t protect you from him! He does things like chain us to a bathroom and I can’t stop that, JJ, I can’t, I’m sorry. I’m not… I’m not enough! I’m not what anyone needs me to be! He’s going to keep hurting us… but he’ll hurt us less if I can just get you away for a while or keep shielding you the best way I know!”

“No, that’s not true!” cries JJ, slashing at the air. “Stop, Ro, J-Joy, listen to me. Watch. Watch. Ro, don’t you know why I’m in the hospital?”

Ro blinks, glancing around. “You’re hurt. Anti hurt you. He’s always hurt you. Your whole life.”

“But Anti’s not here.”

Ro brightens a little. “I found a way to get you away from him? You’re hidden?”

“No, Ro, better,” says Dapper, clutching at his aching ribs as he leans forward. “You and Blue beat him. Beat him into the earth and took this past version of me away from him. And that was the night you made Anti terrified of the weakness that would force him to scamper away from a fight like an animal.

We are not the ones hiding right now, Ro - he is.”

Anonymous asked: Red, Ro, Jackie, you're strong. And I'm sorry you've been forced to be for so long. But you can get through all of this. You can win. We've been with you for a long time, haven't we? We know you. And we believe you can do this. We're with you, bud, we'll help you. It won't always be the way it is, because you all can fight, and you can win. He wouldn't beat you all down into dust if he didn't think you could be powerful enough to fight back and win.

Ro sits down at the edge of JJ’s bed.

His little brother’s fingers tug gently on his sleeve, waiting for him.

“I love you,” he says, though the words are ashy in his mouth.

JJ nods, stroking at his wrist. He presses an “I love you” into the mattress as he scoots closer.

“I love all of you. I want to keep you safe. I’ve never been able to do that. And I… still don’t think I could hurt Anti.”

“I know I couldn’t,” JJ agrees. “But I need to find out. For Blue and Dok. Cause, Jackie, I think maybe… when it comes down to keeping all of us safe, or staying Anti’s brother - I think maybe, on that day, we’re going to have to hurt Anti.”

“Kill him?” asks Ro weakly.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I could watch that. But if he comes at us again and tries to hurt us like he did today, wouldn’t you rather that we had a way to stop him?”

Ro bites down on his lip.

“If he tried to hurt Blue like he hurt us today, wouldn’t you rather that you had a way to protect him?”

Oh, yes.

Instead of running away.

He would like to stand tall again.

nikkilbook asked: There is no “enough,” Jackie. There’s only you, and that’s all your brothers—your friends—have ever needed. Not the you that Anti has twisted you into thinking you’ve become, but the you that’s real. The you that says “I love you” by telling the truth. That’s who you are. And sometimes, the truth does mean fear. Because Anti is frightening. You deserve the right to be afraid. But fear does not mean cowardice, and it does not mean shame. You are not shameful for being afraid of him. Remember yourself, Astrifer. You’re the boy who loves by telling the truth.

Red - Ro - Jackie - hell, but he can never make one of them fit quite right. He thinks there used to be a truth to him, somewhere, before all the lines went blurry and his hands spilled so much blood in the name of someone who’s always hated him anyway.

JJ touches his palm.

The contact of skin makes Jackie shudder, but he’ll allow it, just for a moment. Beneath JJ’s touch, with a smell like the earth after rain, Jackie’s clean white hands rise with Red’s scars, revealing his present again.

“Anti always mocked you for being a terrible liar,” signs Dapper. “Because when you knew what was true, Jackie - that was when he was afraid of you.”

“What’s true, JJ?” he asks numbly.

JJ puts his head against his shoulder.

“Big brother, you’ve always known.”

Anonymous asked: Yeah, it's gonna be hard, I know. But we believe in you all, and we'll be right here with you to help.

“Okay,” says Jackie softly, an arm around Dapper’s waist, and he knows what it is to be holding him - natural, right, truthful.

“If you want me to, I’ll go talk to Jack.”

Dapper closes his eyes.

He thinks a part of him wanted Jackie to refuse. To refuse to allow Dapper to betray their false brother. But he said yes, and Dapper has.

“Okay.”

He hides in Jackie’s shoulder and tries to ignore everything else in the world but the feeling of his warmth beside him.

Anonymous asked: Where is Jack?

“Getting me hot choccy.”

“Holy shit. Don’t shorten it to hot choccy.”

“What? You don’t want hot choccy too?”

“That’s - hahaha. The worst possible spelling.”

“It’s the best way!”

“Don’t you have a sign for chocolate?”

“Maybe I like saying hot choccy! What!”

“Jay, haha, I - ”

The door pushes open.

Jackie’s on his feet in a second, adrenaline pumping, fists clenched, body taut.

He knows that face. He knows that energy in the air. It makes all his nerves light up like firecrackers.

Anti stares back at him, holding a little cafe cup in both hands.

No…

No, he was wrong. Not Anti.

He just looks like him.

Down to the second and third tattoo.

Down to the way his fingers move.

Down to the way his eyes gleam in the light.

“Hey, man,” comes his tired voice, coughing a little. He steps past Jackie and hands JJ his hot chocolate, setting a coffee down on the table beside him. “You just got here?”

“Yeah,” says Ro quietly. “Yeah, I did.”

“Mmh.”

Jack adjusts the white cap on his head and lays his head down at JJ’s side without another word, letting half-circled eyes slide shut.

Ro doesn’t move.

The air feels like a storm is coming, faraway lightning playing with the ends of his fingers. The air feels like the birds have flown away and the frogs are hiding.

Anonymous asked: Red, you alright?

“Um, yeah,” murmurs Ro, scratching at the back of his head. “Yeah, fine.”

But he’s nervous watching this person lying beside his little brother like nothing is wrong. Like they’ve known each other their whole lives. And Jack isn’t talking either, which means - worse still - Ro might have to start the conversation.

In all honesty, he just wants to take JJ and go back to the house, to have a few minutes of peace before they’re returned to that goddamn bathtub. He glances at his little brother, whose face has gone dead, his affect flat and his body tired. JJ lifts up his little pocketwatch, where only a sliver of gold, counting mercilessly down, continues to disappear.

Anonymous asked: What are you supposed to talk to Jack about, again?

“Anti,” mumbles Ro.

“Hm?” asks Jack, like a cat uncurling.

“Nothing,” replies Ro, backing off a little.

Anti. His master. How to hurt Anti. Anti, who hates Jack more than anything. Ro shouldn’t be doing this. But he told JJ he would. So they would have a way to protect themselves and each other if Anti becomes violent with them again before they can find a way to escape. Ro can’t watch his brothers get hurt anymore. He doesn’t want to be a bystander in their pain. He doesn’t want to be a coward.

He glances down at his outfit, clutching his hands into fists. A thick hood at his back, strong running sneakers, gloves on his fingers.

He wants to be a hero again.

Anonymous asked: Ro, there is a way to help Blue recover. When we were with Dok and the magicians, a magic book told a story of a girl who had her magic stolen and had the same ailments as Blue does now. The girl recovered and got her magic back when the thief was killed and had blood stolen from him and given back to the girl. There's a way to fix it, but something tells me you won't like this very much.

“Whoa, whoa, hold up, no way!” cries Ro in sudden alarm, making Jack sit up on the bed, blinking. “Nobody said killed, okay, what? What the fuck? Is that what JJ meant when he said Dok and Blue were trying to figure out how to hurt Anti? They’re going to - oh, fuck no! I’m not a part of that, okay?”

Terror and panic and guilt burst like a water balloon in his chest and overwhelm Ro with a sudden ferocity, making his eyes water.

“I’m gone, I’m out. This is fucked up. I know he’s cruel but I would never want to killhim. What’s wrong with Dok and Blue?”

“JB,” calls Jack. “What - what is going on?”

Ro locks eyes with him and gets no comfort from the face so much like his own. He turns and races out the door, needing to cry.

“JB!”

Anonymous asked: hey, red, it's okay. deep breaths, love. i know you don't want to kill him, and that's okay. no one says you have to. it might have to happen eventually, but right now we're just figuring out ways to protect them, okay? no one says you have to kill him, it's okay. we're just protecting your other brothers, that's all we plan to do.

“Might have to?” wheezes Ro, sweeping past a crowd of medical staff to race towards the stairwell. “Might have to happen… holy fuck… I didn’t… I’m not… but then, he’s the one who made me a killer, isn’t he?”

He shoves through the door into the stairwell, racing away, logical thought flown from his head. “But then, I do have to protect them, don’t I? I do, I do. I - ”

“Is this because I couldn’t do it?” cries Jack’s voice behind him, the door clicking open again. “Jackie, I tried, I - he was screaming for me! What was I supposed to do? He’s gone, isn’t he? Isn’t that what matters? I’m sorry.”

Ro stops dead, panting. Jack’s footsteps race down the stairs towards him.

Anonymous asked: red, do you think it's safe to tell jack what's happening? you don't have to, it just might help.

Ro lets out a shaky breath, turning to face Jack.

“Can we talk about this? Are you okay?” asks Jack, pushing a strand of long hair from his eyes and tucking it beneath his cap again.

His mouth is curled with guilt, his voice small and sad.

Ro stares at him, trying to make his heart stop pounding. He doesn’t know why he feels afraid of him - though it’s not uncommon for him to feel confused about what it is that he’s feeling or where it’s coming from. Jack, for his part, makes him feel like lightning is about to come down over his head.

“JB, you’re kind of scaring me,” he admits uncertainly, stepping forward to put a hand on Ro’s shoulder. “Are you - ?”

Ro jerks away from his touch, staring at him.

Jack’s eyebrows raise, a flash of something more sinister than confusion entering blue eyes.

No, wait…

One blue, one green.

Jack takes a step back, green eye swirling. “Is it you?” he asks, voice hardening. “Or is it… no, I would know if it were you. JB, what’s going on?”

Ro swallows. You have a good point - he’s going to have to tell Jack something, unless he’s about to become a much better actor than he’s been the whole rest of his life very suddenly.

“It is… it is Jackie,” he says.

“What’s going on?” asks Jack, the light fading from his right eye, leaving it blue again. “Is it just the hospital? Do you want me to walk you home? Where are your headphones?”

Anonymous asked: Do you think you could ask him what Anti's weaknesses are? That might be a place to start, Red.

“What were you taking about?” asks Ro quietly, taking another step away from him. “Just now, when you said you couldn’t do it. When you apologized.”

Jack’s shoulders slump. He waits for a moment to see if Ro will follow up or move again, but when he doesn’t, he lets out a deep, tired sigh and sinks back against the railing of the stairs.

There’s no walls on the outside of the stairwell. White light streams in as the colors of cars and people and the soft dappled green flickers of a few well-loved trees move around them in a silent dance.

“Look, I… I know you would rather I killed him,” says Jack, pushing round glasses up on his nose. “I’m sorry. If you’re mad, I just… didn’t have the guts for it, JB.”

Ro nods, eyes flickering. “How… how did he get weak enough that you could have killed him? What were you going to do?”

Uncertainty in blue eyes.

Jack stands up again.

“Jackie,” he says. “What year is it?”

Anonymous asked: uhhhh my guess is 2017? i don't know if i'm right though?

Ro bites down on his lip. “It’s 2017, Jack.”

Jack blinks at him.

Then he laughs, burying his face in his hands.

“Oh, my buddy,” he says. “Not even close.”

“Come on,” protests Ro, embarrassment making his cheeks flush.

Jack reaches up to shove his shoulder, making Ro start.

“Just tell me next time he sends you back! What’s up, man, you seem spooked as fuckkkk.”

He draws the word out and grins, his posture loose and relaxed again, bumping shoulders with Ro as he comes to stand next to him.

nikkilbook asked: He created you all, Jackie. He knows what JJ can do.

“Guess that’s true,” grumbles Ro, a little off-put.

“Thought you could get away with it,” teases Jack. “I shoulda smelled it even without you acting all weird. Why’d you hide that from me, Mr. Boyman?”

“You’re making fun of me.”

Jack’s joy falls out of his face. “Oh, um. Sorry. No, I was just playing. I’m sorry, I’ll stop. I didn’t… sorry. Um. What’s up?”

Anonymous asked: Can Jack hear (see?) us? What even are we rn?

I’ve said since the beginning that the camera system requires a suspension of disbelief at times when it’s not convenient. I describe the audience as a camera even when it doesn’t always quite make sense. For now, we’ll assume you’re a little camera clipped to Jackie’s hoodie or in his hoodie pocket, but he can still get your messages. Jack can’t see or hear you and doesn’t know you’re there.

Anonymous asked: He wasn't mocking you Ro. Anti may have used your name to belittle and hurt you, but Jack uses it to love you.

Ro flushes and ducks his head, rocking on his heels, uncomfortable. He isn’t the person Jack expects him to be, and he’s awkward on top of that, and he wants to go home.

“What’s wrong?” asks Jack, flustered.

“I just need to ask you some stuff,” mumbles Ro. “I don’t want to pretend we’re friends.”

Jack’s face falls. He doesn’t move for a second, his eyes flickering. He wraps his arms around himself in a hug, sets his mouth, and nods. “Okay… Fine. What’s up?”

Anonymous asked: It might take too long to explain everything, so maybe try saying you're worried about the others, and that it'd help to know Anti's weaknesses just in case you need to use them?

“I need to know about Anti’s weaknesses,” says Ro.

Jack looks up at him, blinking. “You just kicked his ass a week and a half ago in this year. How far in the future are you?”

“Don’t ask questions, please,” he answers quietly.

Jack rubs at his chest and adjusts his cap again. “I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong. I can help, right? Where am I in the future?”

“Not around, okay? I’m kind of… stuck. With him. I need to get out.”

“Well, it was you and Marv and JJ the other day,” says Jack. “I made sure there’s enough between the three of you to hurt him. Are Marv and JJ with you?”

“Kind of? But, come on, what did we even do to him? I don’t remember the fight well - hit my head.”

“Oh, okay.”

“You were apologizing,” says Ro. “What did you mean? When you said I’d rather he was dead?”

Jack shakes his head quickly, clasping his hands together. “JB, seriously, if that’s why you’re mad, I’m sorry, man. I’m really sorry. I can’t stop thinking about it… if I had just got my phone out and filmed it… but I let him live. He was there writhing beneath your hands, calling for me! What was I supposed to do? I know he took JJ but he’s still… he’s still…”

Jack shakes his head again, turning away. He pulls his cap lower over his eyes and hugs himself.

“You and Marv just beat him up as you would normally, I guess? Marv’s fire and you fighting him and JJ there to make sure it all went alright. And then you… you had him pinned down… you were both bleeding but Marvin had him trapped in his vines and he was too hurt to glitch away. He doesn’t have weaknesses, per say - I just made sure the five of you would be enough to defeat him if you could ever pin him down. And you did. I’m glad. I’m sorry I couldn’t finish him off.”

Anonymous asked: I don't know if telling Jack straight up that you're from a time where you're with Anti is a good idea, but perhaps getting to the point fast would be. How much time do you and JJ have left here?

“Oh, shit,” hisses Ro. “You’re right, I should have stayed with JJ. He has the clock.”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Jack quietly. “Here.”

He reaches into the pocket of his jacket and hands Jackie a clock just like JJ’s, with the little sliver of gold still counting down.

“How’d you get this? What the hell?”

“It’s not really a clock,” shrugs Jack. “Just a piece of his power. Our power. He and I can pull it out whenever we need it. But I can’t use it unless he’s nearby.”

“Why?”

Jack grins wryly. “Hey, I handed that power over when I made him. No use to me anyway. But when he’s close enough…”

“You can tap in.”

“Right.”

“Same with Blue?”

“What?”

“Er, Marvin?”

“Yeah, same with Marvin. And Anti, too.”

nikkilbook asked: All five? Are we talking power of friendship here, or do Schneep and Chase have specific contributions? And does it have to be you that films it, or is it just cameras in general? Would it have to be posted on the channel?

“Anybody could hurt Anti,” says Jack. “It’s just not often that people do because he can teleport and shapeshift. And he’s vicious. And smarter than most of his enemies, though of course he acts like a fucking idiot.”

“Yeah,” says Ro. “I’ve seen him hurt before, Jack, but he never dies. I don’t understand why.”

Jack lowers his eyes, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

Anonymous asked: Maybe ask him that if one of you couldn't do it, if he thinks it would still be possible to beat him again? Because Marvin doesn't have his magic right now, so he can't use it against Anti.

“Would we be able to beat him?” asks Ro. “If we couldn’t fight him like we can now?”

“You might be able to beat him,” mumbles Jack. “Anyone could beat him, even strangers to us, but only the five of you… well. Best chance is always getting the drop on him. Otherwise you gotta muster up enough strength and power to kick his ass, and that’s a lot harder.”

Anonymous asked: Okay, that went well. You could probably tell him that in your time you need to fight him, and so his weaknesses would be good to know?

“What do I need to know, Jack?” asks Ro, beginning to get frustrated. “Don’t cut corners or bullshit me. My family’s in trouble.”

Jack steps into his space, unafraid, eyebrows drawn back in worry. “Okay, deep breaths, okay? There’s nothing special to hurting Anti. You said you’ve seen people do it before.”

“Yeah,” says Ro. “In Singapore, there was a magician who fried him with electricity for about fifteen minutes and then set the house on fire, and he still didn’t die. I’ve seen a whole pack of magicians come after him. JJ says he’s seen Anti take all sorts of blows that should be mortal. He always comes out alive.”

Jack’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t question. He grips at Ro’s hoodie as he thinks.

“Listen, JB. I’m a creator, yeah. But creation doesn’t happen alone. There’s ways to focus power. Ways to make things happen. Like how Marvin can only grow plants if there’s already seeds or bits of them deep in the ground or nearby. There’s limits. There’s ways things have to be done.”

“Be direct,” Ro demands.

“You came to be not just because of my power, but because I shared you with other people,” says Jack earnestly, squeezing at the fabric of his jacket. “When I created most of you, you were pretty clearly human, so you can die like humans do, because that’s what people expect you to do. But Anti…”

“Isn’t human.”

“And that’s obvious about him from the start.”

“So he doesn’t die like a human.”

“No.”

“What does he die like?” Ro asks. “What is he then? A demon? A fairy? If you tell me then I’ll know how to kill him.”

“Right,” says Jack softly. “But that’s the thing. I… didn’t have a clear idea in mind when I created him. And I never told the audience jackshit about what he is.”

Ro stares at him, thinking.

“So…”

Jack clears his throat and closes his eyes. “Anti is confined only by the story that we tell. That means two things - you can’t kill him without telling the story, without building up to it, showing it, making it believable. And, two…”

Jack’s eyes open. His mouth is tight and trembling. He looks up at Jackie.

“It has to be one of the other characters in the story who kills him.”

Ro’s stomach drops.

“It has to be one of the five of you.”

Anonymous asked: why doesn't he die?

Ro clutches at Jack’s shoulders.

Tight.

He can’t help it. His brain is spinning. There’s nothing but a feeling he can’t name driving through his head, pounding against his skull, painful.

“You’re saying that Anti is immortal unless one of us kills him? One of his own brothers?”

Jack squirms a little beneath Ro’s tight grip, trying to back away, looking up at him in alarm. “Yeah. JB - ”

“And it has to be in front of a fucking audience? Like a public execution? No.”

“I made you real, but you’re characters at heart,” says Jack, panting a little as Ro squeezes tighter. “Since Anti’s not human, you have to tell the story.”

pine-storm-season asked: Would we count?

“How?” asks Ro weakly. “How can an audience be there?”

“Most of your story happened on my channel, over video.”

“On your channel?”

“Right,” says Jack, like it’s obvious.

“I… okay. So on video? Who has to see it?”

“Well, I don’t know exactly. The point would be… the point would be that the people who care about you, about these characters, about the people that you are - they would have to believe that something had changed.”

“They would have to believe that Anti had died.”

“Yes.”

“They’d have to see Anti die. See his corpse. See - ”

“Jackie, get off!” cries Jack, shoving at his arms as Ro’s grip begins to bruise, but Ro can barely breathe. He feels himself shove Jack back against the railing of the stairs. “Jackie, it’s okay, ow, you don’t have to squeeze me like that! It’s going to be okay, alright? Tell me where I can find you in the future! I’ll remember and I’ll come get you!”

Anonymous asked: Mmmh, is there really a point to avoiding telling Jack you don't remember him? I get that you didn't want to attract too much attention on yourself but at this point he's aware you're not from now and that there's something wrong. It's probably worth a shot, no?

“I don’t even know who you are!” cries Ro, trying to make himself let go of Jack, though he only seems to feel his fingers squeezing tighter. He can feel his heart racing, fast, fast, and he sees his vision going red. “If you think that Anti should die, why don’t you put his fucking costume on and film it yourself?”

“I was going to film it when you beat him!” shouts Jack. “You had him beat, had him hurt, and I had JJ back again, where he belongs! But he’s my creation too, Jackie! He was screaming for me to save him! How was I supposed to film that? Post that? He’s my boy too! I just wanted him to stop hurting JJ! He’s gone now, why can’t we just let him go!”

“He’ll come back!” screams Ro, shaking him, hard. “He’ll come back and spend the rest of his life hurting us!”

“Tell me where you are,” chokes Jack. “JB, I’ll come get you.”

“You left us the fuck alone!”

He lets go of Jack and staggers back, letting his creator crash back against the wall, panting.

“You’re not coming, Jack. You don’t even know me anymore. You never told the story in this timeline. It’s just the people who actually cared about us who remember.”

Jack stares up at him, shaking his head. “Jackie,” he croaks. “Jackie.”

And Red wonders if it’s the same way he said his name when Max came to his door, asking him where he was, and all Jack could do was stare at him and repeat their names like memories from dreams that were never real.

nikkilbook asked: He already tortures and abuses you in front of an audience. We’re the audience, Jackie. We’ve always been the audience. He rigged the cameras this way so he could make us watch, because he thought it was funny. Let us help you. Let us make a real difference.

“No, no, no,” chants Red. “No, no, no. This is awful. I don’t care if he’s terrible sometimes. He’s my little brother. I can’t… we can’t… not like that. Is that what Blue and Dok have been planning? I can’t, I…”

He needs to go home. Needs to see Anti. Needs to get back to JJ. He races towards his little brother, rushing up the stairs, his heart throbbing so hard it hurts in his chest.

“Let’s go,” pants Red, pushing back into JJ’s room. “Let’s go right now.”

JJ looks up from his hot chocolate, wiping at his tired eyes. “The timer’s almost up. Did you find out - ”

“Don’t talk about it, Dapper!” shouts Red, slamming his hand down on the table beside his bed.

nikkilbook asked: Remember yourself, Astrifer. Even if Ro-Red-Jackie don’t feel like they can fit, you can build a new identity, starting now. You can do this, Hero.

Ro covers his face with his hands, trying to breathe.

He needs to calm down. He can’t do this again. He can’t let his emotions control him so much. Make him so despairing, make him so angry. Make him so afraid. Surely Jackie never felt like this. That’s why he was a hero and Ro isn’t.

No, no.

Even saying that is letting the self-hatred win. He has to be stronger than it.

He slumps back into the hard plastic of the hospital chair at JJ’s side. Pulls the hood up over his head and hides in it, eyes closed, hugging his body the same way Jack did.

Okay. He’s okay. He just needs to calm down. He just got a little spooked. He’s okay. If Blue were here, he’d rock him and tell him he loves him and that it’s alright to be scared. If Max were here, he’d sit with him and talk to him until the terror passed and tell him he’s not going anywhere, even if he does get too angry and too loud and too aggressive sometimes.

And JJ sits with him, and doesn’t go anywhere either.

“Shit,” whispers Ro, beginning to uncurl from his ball when five minutes have passed. “I’m sorry for yelling at you… shit. I shouldn’t have grabbed him like that either. I don’t know why I… I’m sorry.”

JJ nods quietly, staring at him.

nikkilbook asked: Out of... curiosity, what would happen if we were able to help JJ get on meds and other supports from the very beginning? Would that do anything to prevent or weaken the psychotic episode that made Jack forget them?

“No, sorry,” says JJ softly, giving you a fleeting smile. “This is the timeline where Jack did create us and does know who we are. Nothing we do here will change the present. But thank you for thinking of me.”

Anonymous asked: You know the truth Ro. Anti is not, and never has been, your brother. You know the truth of brotherhood, and you've been there every time he's broken it.

It’s a truth that both of them are still struggling to grasp. It cuts Ro deep. He’s made Anti his whole life - his protection, his leadership, his service. But he’s known for a long time that his little brother does not love him. He’s told him things like that to his face, but Red still stays, because he wants to believe something different. The thought that all of this time and this life and this love that he’s given to Anti was for nothing is almost worse than if he had been trying to escape this whole time.

I gave myself over to this monster. I loved him. I never should have. We have to get away from him or I will never stop finding excuses for him.

For JJ’s part, what you’re saying is the truth of not just the last year, but of his whole existence. There was never anything but Anti. JJ tried for years to love him, and it was never enough. A part of him - fuck, more than a part of him - wishes desperately that he could still change his brother. Beneath his anger and his hurt, he just wishes that he had ever been enough to make Anti love him back. Maybe he did, time to time, but it never lasts.

Anonymous asked: Red, I know, bud. I know it's a really fucking hard thing to think about. I wouldn't want to kill any of my little siblings either. But killing Anti could save the life of Dok, or Trick, or Blue, or Jamie, it might be that for one of them to live Anti has to die. I'm sorry, Red, I know this is incredibly hard. And it doesn't have to happen now, okay? No one says you have to go back to your time and kill him immediately. But you might have to later, Red, love, and I'm sorry you do.

“Even if I don’t kill him,” whispers Red, whispers Ro, whispers Jackie. “We still have to go. Like I promised you. I’ll get you away from him. Okay?”

“Okay,” answers JJ despondently. “Okay.”

“I really shouldn’t have grabbed Jack. He asked me to stop and I didn’t even listen. If someone did that to me I’d lose it. I’ve got to go tell him I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have much time.”

nikkilbook asked: You are not to blame for choosing to love him. Either of you. He is wrong for choosing to hurt you with it.

“You know what? You’re fucking right. Especially because he’s a goddamn hypnotist. I just… I don’t understand why he would go to all this trouble of making us feel this way for him if he didn’t really want to love us back. We could be a real family… why not just kill us? I - ”

He catches sight of Jack, still sitting in the stairway, right where Red left him.

His face is covered by his hands. His glasses are abandoned on the ground beside him. He doesn’t move.

Red steps down towards him, mouth opening, but no words come out.

He stands above Jack for a long minute. His creator never moves.

Ro sits down beside him and touches his arm.

Jack lets his head fall against Jackie’s shoulder, face still hidden, crying quietly into his hands. And it’s only now that Ro sees just how tired he is - it’s in the curve of his shoulders, the bow of his legs, the subtle shaking of his fingers.

“Have you… been staying up with JJ at the hospital?” asks Ro softly.

“Don’t want to let Anti get him again,” whispers Jack. “Don’t want him to get any of you again. But now I know I can’t protect you. It’s my fault. I should have killed him when he was crying for me. It’s my fault.”

Anonymous asked: Jack? I don't know if you can see this, if so Red maybe tell him, but Jack, it's not your fault for being kind enough to spare him. I'm sorry that he took that and used it against the others, but Jack, you are not to blame for letting him go. You couldn't know what was going to happen. You're not to blame.

“Hey,” says Jackie, taking his hand in his own, drawing it away from his face. Jack looks up at him with Anti’s eyes. It makes Ro’s heart hurt.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” says Jack, eyes red, voice rasping. “I should never have let this happen.”

And Red wants to tell him a million things, everything you’ve told him to say and more. Things like “it’s not your fault” and “it’s not wrong that you loved him, that you didn’t want to kill him, I feel the same way” and “I know I wasn’t very nice, but I hope you know that I have wondered about you for the longest time and that, even though it hurt, I think meeting you just this once fixed something inside of me - ”

But it’s too late.

Time’s up.

“Jack,” says Red, and then he’s gone.

Anonymous asked: Did any time pass at all? Are we back to the bathtub?

You are back in the bathtub.

Ro struggles for a second, spasming against the ropes that bind him before he realizes his situation and surroundings and forces himself to quiet again, shaking with the pain of his aching muscles and the discomfort of being bound and wet.

That’s when he becomes aware of the screaming.

“Hey, wake up!” Anti shrieks, shaking Dapper’s shoulders. “My little brother, my little brother!”

Time has passed.

Dapper is unconscious, bleeding from his nose - he has been for several minutes.

“What’s wrong with you?” Anti tears the collar off his throat and cradles him against his chest. “He was fine! I was watching, he was fine! Dapper! Jamie!”

“Anti,” begins Red shakily.

“Shut up!” screams Anti. “This is your fucking fault for stealing his medicine! Get the fuck out of my sight! Carver, Monochroma!”

Red yelps as the rope around his body combusts into a short burst of flame, singeing his legs and his blue hoodie.

Anonymous asked: Red? Dap? You guys okay?

Red is shaken and hurting, but no worse than he has been the rest of the night. He still desperately, desperately wants to get out, get a shower, put on clean clothes, and just sleep, but now his little brother is weak.

Dapper has gone frigid pale, but then he’s always so white. This nosebleed is worse than most of his casual ones. It’s like a vessel has popped in his nose, sending streams of red dribbling down his mustache and beard and all the way down to his shirt. Ro thinks he sees him twitch for a moment, his eyes flickering, and he wonders if it’s safer for Dapper to be unconscious as long as his eyes are silver anyway. He recovered alright last time, didn’t he? But he’s still so black and blue from the night before, still wheezing and trapped in Anti’s arms…

“I said get out!” shouts Anti, throwing a shampoo bottle hard at Ro’s head. Ro startles and leaps out of the tub, retreating to the doorway of the bathroom.

Anonymous asked: red, can you go? i don't trust anti at all, but he sounds actually worried for dapper and so i think you should leave him be, i don't think dapper will get hurt worse.

“Okay, okay,” he pants, backing out of the room. “Just… keep an eye on him for me.”

Dripping water, he races away and down the stairs, casting one glance back at that room at the top of the hall. The door slams shut and locks.

Anonymous asked: anti, is he okay?

“Well, I don’t know, I don’t know what went wrong!” he cries, sweeping Dapper into his arms and rising like he weighs nothing. “It’s not catatonia, it’s not a concussion, he’s breathing alright… shit, Dap, what were you doing? Oh, fuck’s sake, this is cracked, and not in the good way.”

He’s gripping at Dapper’s side, feeling the shifting of his ribs.

“Goddamn, goddamn… I barely threw him around! He’ll have to rest. I’ll tape it. It will hurt for a long time, but he’s still breathing well enough. Nothing punctured. Come here, my doll, lie down…”

Anonymous asked: do you think this might be his body shutting down from getting hurt, or something?

“It’s because he time-traveled,” mumbles Red from the bottom of the stairs, looking up at locked door. “Going back a day or so - he can do that maybe a half-dozen times without it knocking him out. But going back so far… it’s like in Colombia, when he passed out afterwards. It takes a lot out of him.”

Ro sighs and rubs at his face, stepping into the hallway, looking around. Everything is so quiet. Where are the others?

“Think I’m going to get a shower,” he mumbles. “I’m gross and exhausted.”

Anonymous asked: Anti, do you know how to help him?

Anti grits his teeth in frustration and turns away from you, setting Dapper down in their bed. He sinks into the mattress and the pillows as Anti pulls the blankets over him and strokes his knuckle down the side of his face, his own expression twisting with fear and anger and exhaustion all at once.

“Why do you keep causing me so much trouble?” he growls, though his voice breaks halfway through. He grabs Dapper’s unmoving face between his fingers, trembling with the urge to squeeze until he leaves bruises. He forces himself to let go instead, sinking down onto his knees beside him. “You used to be so good for me. We never fought. I never had to discipline you. Why did this fall apart…”

He growls again and strikes his own face like he’s waking himself up, letting a shiver run up his spine and then, with a soft sigh that ruffles the bedsheets, letting his head sink onto the bed beside his brother, and closing his eyes.

Dapper’s eyes flicker, showing blue and silver. Anti is lying beside him, touching his hand. It hurts Dapper’s heart.

Anonymous asked: Red, you doing alright?

“Um, no, everything sucks and I’m probably going to lose it later and just… I just need a break. From all this. Hey, at least Blue’s not in bed. Worried about him sleeping so much. Don’t tell him I’m upset. I’m just getting a shower, okay? See you guys later. And… thanks for the help.”

He leaves you on his bed and heads into the bathroom, stripping off his clothes for the hamper as he goes.

Anonymous asked: Is Dap still out?

Anti’s eyes slide open as Dapper’s fingers curl around his own.

They look at each other. Dapper’s eyes, barely open, are tired and silent. He’s joyless lately. He’s numb.

“Where’d my little boy go?” mumbles Anti, pressing his forehead against their joined hands.

Dapper closes his eyes again. The wind is brushing against the screen over their window. The trees sway outside. A clock is ticking.

“Look,” says Anti. “I… I didn’t think about how Dark would scare you. Alright? I should have. I just wanted to see them again. I didn’t do it on purpose to make you upset. I didn’t realize you were still upset about them. I could have asked.”

Dapper blinks, opening his eyes to look at him.

“Dap. I’m sorry.”

Dapper’s mouth parts. He glances away, awake now. Anti doesn’t look up from their hands.

“When I said I wanted us to be friends again,” he mumbles, quiet and begrudging. “I meant it.”

Dapper touches his side, his bruised face darkening with unhappiness and hurt - and something deeper, too.

Anonymous asked: Are you more hurt than before, dap, or is it just still hurting?

“I’m more tired than before,” he admits, drawing his hand gently away from Anti’s. “That’s all.”

“Maybe you just needed a second out,” sighs Anti. “But I couldn’t wake you up. Just rest. You’re such a fucking… I just… just… just rest.”

Dapper nods, not sure what to say.

“I didn’t mean for you to get really hurt. I was just mad. Don’t do that again.”

Anonymous asked: Anti, you're calm now? Not gonna hurt anyone at the moment?

“Why don’t you fuck off,” sneers Anti, turning to you, but Dapper takes his hand and pulls his attention back.

“Yeah, we’re done,” mutters Anti, nuzzling back into his hand. “Quiet time, whatever. We’re going to stay up here and watch the trees so Dark doesn’t try to pull shit tonight. Tonight or tomorrow, I expect. We’re just resting.”

Anonymous asked: Don't fall for his same old excuse Jamie. "I was just angry" doesn't cut it this time. Don't forgive him this time, he could have killed you and Ro.

“Look, you shouldn’t have taken that medicine.”

“I just didn’t want to be - ”

“You have to listen to me, Dap! I wasn’t going to let anything actually happen to you.”

Dapper sighs, shaking his head. Anti squirms, frustrated, and gets to his feet. He touches Dapper’s beard and strokes his fingers through the short hairs. Carver looks up at him, his body aching.

“It’s been hard sleeping without you,” says Anti.

Dapper purses his mouth, but he nods. It’s been hard for him too.

Anonymous asked: He used love as a tool of manipulation. The main reason he bothered with love, with the brother and twin hierarchy, was to ensure you never left him and went back to Jack, was to ensure you never stood up for your true family, to solidify the deaths of your sense of self.

Manipulation. Tools. Weaponry. Love.

The slow death of self.

Red stands in the shower and thinks about it, head bowed, the water running down his skin.

But for Dapper - for JJ, for Carver, for Monochroma - there never was any self before Anti. There was never anyone to go back to.

“You have to be nicer to me if you want to be friends,” he protests weakly. “You can’t keep hurting me.”

“I… I’m sorry about the cracked rib too,” says Anti. “Okay? Fuck. I shouldn’t have fucked around with your medication in the first place. It was stupid. I’m sorry. But you can’t just disobey me either. You’re rebellious by nature because we’re cut from the same cloth, Dap. You and me - we’re the same. But at the same time, I’m big brother, and I’m the one who has to be in charge. Sometimes you make things so hard from me… I’ve been trying to make amends and it’s like you threw it back in my face. We’re supposed to be brothers. You know I don’t have anyone without you… not really.”

Dapper’s eyes water. He turns away, closing his eyes.

Anti sighs, a slight whimper in the noise. He puts a hand on Dapper’s side to be mindful of his ribs, and then he crawls into the bed beside him, and - carefully, carefully - wraps himself around his baby brother.

“Why you’re crying?” he whispers, stroking his hair. “It’s okay now. I’m sorry. I am. I’m right here.”

But Dapper doesn’t know why he’s crying. It’s not even because of the pain of every part of his body being coated in bruising. He doesn’t know.

“You have to stop hurting me, Anti, I don’t understand, I try to be good… I love you, I do, I…”

Anti listens to him. Pressed against his body. Rocking him gently against the bed.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

He holds him for a long time.

“You’re tired. Sleep. We’ll rest. I’ll watch. Go to sleep.”

Anti lays his body down against the bed, pushing the pillows beneath him and tucking him in. He strokes Dapper’s beard, staring at him.

“I love you,” he whispers, his eyes closing, like it’s not a truth he can admit while looking him in the face.

Dapper closes his eyes too, hot with tears. The pressure on the bed beside him could just as well be Jack, watching over him in the hospital, but it isn’t.

It never is.

He’s so tired.

“I love you too,” he signs, and JJ lets his head rest against his brother’s.

Anonymous asked: Trick, Blue, Dok, are you three still alright?

You can find Trick and Dok dozing on the couch downstairs. Trick’s been talking to him and trying to ground him for a few hours now, and he’s exhausted from the emotional toil - but he still figures he’s doing better than his twin, who is only just now coming back from his panic.

At least Dok looks cozy and content now. Trick’s wrapped him up in blankets and made him a cup of the coffee he gave him for Christmas. Dok is so enamored with the smell he hasn’t even bothered to drink any yet. He sits breathing in the smell and holding the warm mug in his hands, his knees drawn up to his chest and his eyes sleeping. Trick lies down on the couch beside him. They haven’t seen Blue in a while when Trick hears his footsteps coming down the stairs.

Anonymous asked: Blue? Dok? Where are you guys? Is everything okay?

“Trick,” says Blue softly, padding towards him.

“Hmmmm,” hums Trick, lounging beside his brother. He lets his eyes slide open and finds himself very suddenly wide awake.

“Blue? Why do you have…?”

He trails off, staring up at him.

Blue holds the big kitchen knife limply in his left hand.

“I was thinking about cutting myself,” he says.

His voice is very dull. His face is numb. He barely looks at Trick. Like he’s seeing right through him.

“But then I thought I should tell somebody.”

“Oh,” says Trick. “Good… good job. Telling. Yeah. Can I have that?”

Blue lets him take the knife from him. Trick is stammering too much to speak. Dok takes a long drink of his coffee and lets out a deep, contented sigh, his eyes glazed.

“Dok looks better,” says Blue, turning to head back up the stairs.

“Come here, bud, come here,” gasps Trick, finding his voice. “Hang out with us a while, yeah, love?”

“Okay, Tricky.”

“Okay.”

Anonymous asked: Blue, you ok?

Blue squints at the camera.

“They asked if you’re okay,” Trick manages.

Blue looks at him like he doesn’t understand the question. Trick reaches out and grips his hand tightly, drawing him down to sit with them.

“What’s, uh. Are you… What’s going on?” asks Trick shakily.

“Not much,” answers Blue. “How ‘bout you?”

“We’re… we’re… Blue, what’s going on?”

“Not much, Trick.”

Trick scrapes at his hair, gritting his teeth in his mouth. “Blue, why were you going to cut yourself? Please help me understand?”

Blue stares down at the silver gleam of the blade in his brother’s hand.

“I was just in the bathroom and I thought maybe it would help. But then I thought, I have to tell someone, because that’s not right.”

“I’m glad you told me.”

“Well, yeah, you’re my darling,” says Blue. At last, Trick hears a little emotion in his voice: fondness. But still no fear or distress. He’s just… numb.

“I just wanted to check,” says Blue.

“Check what?”

“That the blood… that the blood is mine,” answers Blue bizarrely, touching Trick’s cheek. “Oh, dear… I’m feeling a little faint. I’m really far away from you. I don’t know where I am.”

“Roll your pants up a little and let me check you didn’t hurt yourself.”

Blue obeys, unperturbed. His thighs and stomach and arms are all untouched. Trick grips at his shoulder, massaging his muscles, and Blue relaxes a little.

“You like to be touched when you’re like this, right?” asks Trick, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

Blue nods, eyes flickering. Trick pushes towards him and wraps him arms tightly, tightly around him, kissing his cheek and pressing their bodies close together. He can feel his own chest shaking. He doesn’t want to get triggered, but he won’t leave Blue alone.

Anonymous asked: Blue, if you're interested to know, Anti just kicked out Red of the bathroom he chained him in. It's, uh, it's good news yeah?

Blue sighs through his nose, humming a little.

“Better a bathroom than flesh to keep us. Still stuck, though. Still stuck. I’m in the walls of this house. Or nowhere at all.”

You hear Trick swear quietly against him, but he just holds him tighter, rubbing circles into his shoulder with his thumb.

.

“Hey,” somebody whispers, but Dok is really too tired to care who.

“Mpf,” he replies, letting his head lull over to the other side of the couch. This has the chain reaction of stirring Blue from his sleep, but he too only flops back onto the arm of the couch.

The hand that reaches down to brush Dok’s shoulder is warm. He hears a tired little laugh. “Come on, Schneep, wake up.”

“Mmffff…. I’m up, I’m up. Trick?”

“It’s Roser.”

“Where’s Trick?”

“I waited til he went upstairs to cook you guys some dinner. I need to talk to you.”

Dok tries to rouse himself at last, shoving his glasses back up his nose and turning to look at Red. “What’s going on?”

There are eyes crossed out on your cameras. Ro has turned Anti’s sight away. They don’t have long before he notices.

“Dok,” says Red, looking him in the eyes. “Have you really been planning to kill Anti?”

Adrenaline pours into Dok’s blood and he chokes, sitting up quickly on the couch, drawing his knees to his chest. He’s going to flip out. He’s going to scream. He’s going to cry again.

“Red, Red,” he gasps, hiding his face from him. “Don’t punish me.”

“Fuck, Dok, no, no, I won’t, I swear, I just… I just need to know. Schneep, don’t cry…”

“He said he’s going to kill me,” sobs Henrik. “In a couple days. He said he’s done with me, he’ll murder me. I’m scared, I don’t want to die.”

“Okay,” says Red quietly, and it’s shocking enough that he doesn’t freak out himself that it makes Henrik almost stop, looking up at him in surprise, sniffling. Red touches the back of his head. “Okay, come on, then. I want you to go get your shoes on.”

“What?”

“Blue’s not well,” answers Red, drawing away from him. Dok sees a backpack stuffed full on his back, his shoes already on his feet, Blue’s cane in his hand. “And you’re in trouble. Come on. We’re going to the hospital.”

[shiggi-trash]

dabi x reader

word count: 1.9k

warnings: blood, a little gore-y

a/n: it has pained me to wait over a month to post this lol but i’m so happy it’s finally here !! thank you @onyxiana-is-obsessed for making the banners !! 💕

link to the rest of the server collab pieces

The interactions with your neighbors since moving into your apartment building had been little to none, except for the guy who lived next to you. You would rarely ever see him though, usually it was when you were coming home from work and he would be leaving.

The groan that left your lips was heavy, closing your eyes to collect yourself after a long day of work before bending down to pick up your keys. Of course today of all days your lock was giving you trouble.

“Long day doll?”

You jumped, keys dropping again in the process as the voice came from next to you. Looking over at the man leaning against the doorway next to yours, only for your mind to go completely blank.

He was hot, like smoking model hot. And oh god his eyes, the gorgeous blue that popped against his dark hair and heavy scarring on his face.

Suddenly you realized you were staring, eyes going wide as you felt your face heat up. “Oh um yeah.”

He chuckled as he walked off, hands in his pocket as he left you fumbling to open your door again. That basically summed up your relationship other than that there were no real conversations, just stolen glances as he left his apartment and you entered yours.

You thought about him a lot, his blue eyes, lean body, slender hands and piercings, you wondered where he got his scars, not that you would ever ask him. But he intrigued you, he was mysterious, he was quite unusual for someone who looked as good as he did, he left at night and didn’t come back until the sun was up.

For a while you jokingly told your friends you lived next to a vampire but for all you knew he might as well have been. You wanted to get to know him better but you didn’t really have an in.

That was until your fire alarm wouldn’t stop beeping. You groaned, throwing off your bed sheets, your landlord said he couldn’t come fix it for a day or two but that meant a week and you couldn’t sleep like this.

The reasoning behind going to his apartment was stupid, from what you knew of his schedule he was gone by now and wouldn’t be back til morning but still, he was the only option and you had to try.

Now that you were standing in front of his door with your pajamas on you felt a little ridiculous, of course he wouldn’t answer or even know what to do but either way you knocked. Only to have to door open itself.

A little pit formed in your stomach, that wasn’t normal. Standing there you were unsure of what to do, did he just accidentally leave it open or was something wrong ? Peaking your head through the door you decided to atleast check, if he just left it open by mistake then you would go back but if something was wrong you needed to check.

And suddenly you realized you didn’t even know his name. “Hello ?” You called out, looking through the dark apartment. “Is everything okay?”

It was silent in response so you went to leave but you heard a crash. You froze, your mind thinking the worst, that there was a murderer, someone had broken in but it could just be your neighbor, hurt fending off the murderer by himself.

“Hello?” You called again, warily stepping into the apartment. “Are you okay?”

feeling for the light switch you turned it on, getting a clear view of his living room, plain, messy and the most worrying, the trail of blood leading back towards the bedroom.

Walking forward you kept your pace slow, making sure to scan the room for any hidden murderers with knives ready to jump out and kill you.

“I’ll call the cops.”

Standing in front of the bedroom door you hesitated before tapping it with your foot, watching as it swung open with a creak to reveal a dark room, illuminated by a lamp in a corner you couldn’t see.

“Hello?” You stepped inside the room, looking around before landing on a hunched figure sitting on the floor.

“Can’t take a hint huh doll ?” His voice was light toned but strained, trying to hide the pain.

You flipped the light switch, getting a good view of the blood pooling around him. You froze again, head swimming at the sight in front of you.

“What happened?” You spoke but your voice sounded far away.

“Would you believe me if I said It was a bar fight.” He laughed followed by a low groan of pain.

The groan was like a bucket of cold water was splashed over your head. You started to panic because oh god your hot neighbor was going to bleed out in front of you.

“I- uhhh what do I do ? Oh my god you’re going to bleed out and it’s going to be my fault because I don’t know what to do.” You sucked in a big breath. “I need to call an ambulance fuck I don’t have my phone.”

“No!” He protested. “You cannot call the ambulance.”

“Why not?! You're going to bleed out.”

“Stupid pigs are gonna ask questions,” he lazily smiled at you. “I can’t really afford questions.”

“So what do i do?”

“Go to the bathroom there’s a white- ahh box, bring it here.”

Nodding you went to look for the bathroom, which shouldn’t have been difficult seeing every apartment was built identical but right now you were flustered, you felt swimmy, in over your head. When you got there you rummaged through his cabinets until you found the white box he was talking about.

When you got back to the room he had slightly lifted up his shirt so you could see the wound which was still bleeding heavily. It made you freeze, you had never been one for gore you could hardly watch horror movies without cringing away from the effects but up close ? in person it was a different story, you felt like you could puke your guts up at any second.

His pained laugh brought you out of your inner panic. “You just gonna stand there doll? It’s startin’ to hurt.”

You swallowed, cringing as your shoe landed in a puddle of blood. Trying to ignore everything around you, focusing on the man in front of you, swallowing the bile as you kneeled down on the floor unsure of what was worse, the blood soaking into your pajama bottoms or seeing the wound so close up.

Unlatching the white box you looked at it in horror, the bottle of vodka and suture kit staring right back at you.

“Y-you want me to…” you trailed off, not able to finish your sentence.

“Wouldn’t want anyone else.” He winked, leaning close to your face as he reached for the bottle of vodka.

Unscrewing the cap he threw it across the room, taking a big swig from it before pouring a fourth of the bottle on the open wound, hissing in pain.

He held out the bottle towards you after. “Hands.”

You held out your hands letting him pour the vodka all over your hands, grabbing the needles you let him pour vodka all over them too. In that moment it set in on exactly what you were about to do. At this point of the movie you always screwed your eyes shut, holding your ears to block out as much sound as possible.

He grabbed your wrist, making you look up into those beautiful blue eyes you were always thinking about. “You’re okay.”

“W-what if I end u-”

“You’re gonna be okay.” he said more sternly before leaning back, blowing out a breath. “Go ahead.”

Gently touching his skin with one hand you brought the needle closer with the other. Hoping you wouldn’t mess it up you closed your eyes, preparing yourself to stick a needle through someone's skin, but right as you were he stopped you.

“Do you want to mutilate me Doll? Don’t close your eyes, you'll be fine.”

Nodding you forced your eyes open, barely holding back the contents of your stomach as you pushed the needle through. You could do this, you could do this just a few more times and you were done.

As soon as the needle went through the last patch of open skin you stood up, almost slipping on the blood as you bolted to the bathroom, barely making it in time before you threw up into the toilet.

When you had finished you sat back, leaning against the cool wall as you breathed deeply, trying to forget the feeling of sewing someone bleeding wound up.

“So I take it you aren’t a doctor?”

You looked up to the doorway where he was standing, a cocky smile on his face.

“Aren’t you supposed to be laying down?” you asked weakly.

“I brought you clothes, in case you want to take a shower.”

You nodded, closing your eyes as he placed the clothes on the counter before closing the door as he left. You figured you could’ve just gone back to your apartment but a big part of you didnt want to, you wanted answers, to know he was okay.

Your face heated up as you got out of the shower, looking at the pair of boxers and large t-shirt he’d given you to wear. Putting them on you went out to the living room where you heard the tv playing.

Standing at the end of the hall you watched him sitting on the couch with a new pair of clothes, feet propped up on the coffee table. As if sensing you were there he looked over, scanning you up and down before going back to the tv with an unreliable expression.

“Are you just gonna stand there all night doll?”

“I don't know your name.” you spoke softly, playing with the sleeves of his shirt.

“Dabi, are you gonna sit?” he patted the spot on the couch next to him, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t you want to know mine?” you asked, facing him as you sat down.

“I already know it Y/N,” shocked, you were about to speak but he continued before you could. “I like to know those around me, plus I couldn’t help but be interested in the cute little neighbor.”

As Dabi spoke he moved closer, eventually leaning over top of you staring at you with those gorgeous eyes of his.

“You are quite interesting; pretty, quiet, always home, alone and you keep to yourself so it’s my surprise when you wander over here, calling for a stranger you don't know the name of?”

Your face heated up, from a close distance and learning all the things Dabi had learned about you. His breath fanning your face made you nervous, extremely so but in a good way. You hoped at least.

“Same goes for you, you seem to know quite a bit about me.” The bravery of your words masked the fear you felt, wondering if you’d overstepped as your eyes flickered over his face.

It was all gone the instant a chuckle left his lips and he leaned back, leaving you to breathe properly. You noticed that he sat a lot closer than he had been before, arm thrown behind you on the couch.

“Why were you wondering over in the middle of the night?”

Your face heated up even more, staring down at your lap. “My fire alarm, it was broken, I wanted to know if you could fix it.”

Dabis finger went to your chin, lifting your head up to look him in the eyes, a smirk on his face. “That’s cute, doll.”

[beerecordings]

The Forgotten Hour

Part 23 of My Brother’s Keeper (Part 1 l Previous l Next)

Happy birthday, Nikki! hope you like your present :)

Took me a really long time to get this chapter done because it was just so much conversation I didn’t think it was good! But you know what, sometimes they just have to talk. This is what the chapter is and here it is. Now that this chapter is done, maybe I can keep moving again :) thanks to anyone who’s still interested in this story, hahaha.

Jameson ran into the woods trying to escape, but this universe is Marvin, and, as it turns out, all paths lead back to him, even if they had thought he was dead. Now he tells Jameson he can’t explain to him what’s happening - and worst, Jameson can’t even tell the others he’s found their brother alive and well. But Marvin does have important things to tell his baby brother. The journey ahead of him will be a long one, and Marvin needs him to keep going.

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

It felt like

lightning

seizure

mouth full of oil

burning.

He could hear himself

screaming.

But no one else could.

Curiosity, but not his own. Someone else's. Someone else's curiosity inside his head.

Was he always this aware of the sensation of his own flesh?

He watched his hands move, reaching up to touch his face, spinning around so his eyes could peer at each one of his fingers in turn.

He was on fire.

Move, move, move, he told his fingers, but they answered to a different master. Fight, fight, fight, he told himself, but he was beneath mud – his whole body was beneath mud – and the mud was hot and the mud was thick and the mud was in his mouth and in his blood and the mud was filling up the synapse between the neurons of his brain and everything had stopped registering except

of course

the pain.

And the sound of his laughter.

“I love, I love, I love,” he heard Anti chant, almost hysterical, rubbing Henrik's hands along Henrik's skin, rocking Henrik's body in the green chair, tugging at hair and clothes and face, panting with joy, panting with laughter. “Mine, mine, mine.”

He staggered to Henrik's feet, swaying, swaying, and it was Henrik who took the nausea like a blow to the stomach, and Anti who swallowed the vomit back, rubbing at the throat that he had bruised, giggling, spitting a little of the taste out of his mouth.

Beneath them, a man.

Anti stood over him, panting.

“Jack,” their mouth said together, and their knees bent, and then they were kneeling beside him, touching his face.

Henrik, in that moment, was sure that Jack was dead.

His grief was powerful enough to make tears spring to their eyes, flooding, hot and wet, down their cheeks, but Anti did not even bother to wipe them away. Their hands roamed over the side of Jack's head – thick soft hair, Anti liked it – down his forehead and cheeks – Anti had never felt his eyes so wonderfully still – and down his throat, til the pads of their fingers lay still on the firm solid structure of his collarbone.

He trembled, ever so slightly, too ill to wake up. Anti groaned, and an emotion crashed over Henrik's brain which he could not identify, because even in his darkest days, he had never

never, never, never

felt anything close to a hatred that strong.

“Come on, so, come on,” their mouth whispered.

They hooked their arms underneath Jack's body. Henrik's panic woke up again, making their face contort, just for a moment, with terror, but they were already lifting Jack up, they were already holding him close to their chest, they were already turning towards the door –

Henrik, through the fire, heard someone screaming his name.

And then Marvin was there.

Marvin was there and Marvin was screaming.

What does Henrik remember after that?

Nothing.

Except

of course

the pain.

And that's all he knows about what happened to his brother. That's all that Jackie knows. That's all that Chase knows.

But Jameson – Jameson knows.

“You're alive.”

“Yes.”

“You're... bleeding.”

“But not bleeding at the same time. Yeah. Try to keep up with me here, starlight.”

“You should be dead.”

“Maybe.”

“What happened to you?”

Marvin stares up at him, mouth smiling.

Eyes like fading stars.

“What happened to you?”

Marvin's eyelids grow too heavy to hold open. Queenie digs her claws into his chest and he finds the energy to keep breathing, digging his fingers into her fur.

“The monster was trying to take them from me,” he says. “Jackie and Henrik and Jack. We fought.”

“And you lost,” surmises JJ, sitting back.

Marvin laughs.

For the first time in months.

“Well, Asteriscus... I don't know if I'd say that.”

“Tell me what happened!” cries Jameson.

Suddenly he is on his feet in the other dimension, towering above Marvin laid out on the ground, tears burning in his eyes. “Why do you say you can't tell me? Why do you say you can't come back?”

It's not fair – none of it is fair – but that isn't Jameson's first thought, because nothing in his life is fair, and he's stopped expecting it to be, and he isn't a complainer.

“Please,” murmurs Marvin. “Let me speak with you.”

Jameson laughs and sits back on his ankles. Stares at the water. At the cut-up reflection of himself in it.

Guess there's no salvation here either.

Maybe there isn't salvation anywhere.

Maybe there shouldn't have been anything on the other side of these thorns but an ending.

“Jameson,” croaks Marvin, guilt staining his voice. “Say something.”

“You can't tell me anything? Anything?”

“Very little. And we don't have much time.”

“What? Why?”

“You're young. I'm guessing you can't turn time back very far yet.”

A thrill of terror rushes up Jameson's spine and he shrinks in on himself, gripping his palm and digging his thumb deep into it. Marvin had mentioned the clock before but he had hoped it was a chance thing, he had hoped it was a misunderstanding, because no one, no one, no one –

“No one knows about that,” his hands whisper, and he staggers to his feet and stumbles away. “You're not real! I'm dreaming again!”

“No,” protests Marvin.

He tries to move and pain bursts from his never-healing wound. He coughs and blood wells in his mouth but never drips from his lip. There is never the slightest relief. A groan rises from him instead and a daze washes through his head. To stay conscious, he must focus on the feeling of Queenie's body on his own, her hot steady purring, her nails digging lovingly into his chest.

“I'm real,” he begs, because he needs him to believe it. “I'm real and I've been trapped here, alone, for a long time. Please, sit down with me. I don't mean to complain, it's just that – I don't know how much more of this I can take, and I'm always in pain, and – ”

He hears his voice break and he covers his face with his one good hand, trying to breathe. He can't break down now. All he ever does is sleep, and now, given a chance to act, he won't be so much of a mess that he can't bring his little brother comfort in the middle of his suffering.

Jameson comes tentatively back to him.

Fuck, Marvin had forgotten how wary he could be.

Marvin does not rise when Jameson sits back down beside him, pulling his knees anxiously to his chest. Queenie mewls plaintively from his chest, trying to help him stay awake. He's so exhausted. He feels like he's dying. He's felt like he's dying for a long, long time.

Nothing ever changes. Just pain and fatigue, sitting so heavily upon him that all he can do is sleep and sleep and sleep, only roused by the one person who visits him, staring down at him from the mirror-star sky.

“Why can't you go?” Jameson signs, with a little tongue-click for attention, and Marvin drags his gaze back to his hands. “I'll help you. I can carry you if I have to. The thorns will hurt, but then we'll be free, and you and me and Henrik and Chase can all be together and no one will be sad.”

“And Jackie,” mumbles Marvin, confused.

“Yes, okay. And him. But – ”

“Asteriscus – Jameson – listen. I would go if I could. But I can't. I would have come home so long ago if I could just walk through the thorns. But this place is a trap, and not one I can escape on my own. Or even with your help, little brother. Look... we are both trapped.”

Marvin points behind them and Jameson turns to see that the thorns are disappearing. Startled, he rises to his feet and hurries back towards them, reaching out to push through them, but his hands go through them like an illusion. At his feet, a little of the thorns remain solid – perhaps enough for a little cat to slink through – but little else. He can't walk back through nothing.

“What the hell?” he signs, whirling back on Marvin.

“Language!” Marvin coughs, looking offended. “You, swearing, what sort of world is this?”

“That's my question.”

“This place... this place is my magic. A blue ocean.”

“A blue ocean, like...”

“Like your silver river. You need your clock to get in and out. I need my mirrors. But... this one's cracked. I'm stuck behind it.”

“You're stuck in a mirror, you mean?” Jameson frowns, coming back towards him. “Because someone shattered it?”

“Yes. I was always able to come and go to the blue ocean – the place of my power – through mirrors, like you can get to the silver river with clocks. But now I'm trapped. I'm still connected a little to the world I created for you and the others, the world through the thorns, because that place too is my magic. The cats can come and go through that connection. And I always wondered... if maybe one of my brothers could push through the thorns, and find me here.”

“The connection is enough to let me in.” Jameson tries to understand. “But not enough to let anyone out.”

Marvin sighs and shrugs and rubs at his face. “I don't fully understand it. I never got stuck in a cracked mirror before now. But thank God it's only you who came. If Jackie or Chase or Henrik pushed through those thorns, they would be trapped here with me. Which is why I grew them so thick, so no one could come through! Apparently you're a stubborn enough little bastard to make it through all that. But it doesn't matter. You have your clock, unlike the others. You can go back in time, and it will be as if you had never entered this place, and you will be safe.”

Jameson stares at him.

“But you'll be left here.”

Marvin nods, slow and resigned. He hides the shaking of his hand in Queenie's fur, clinging tight to his only comfort.

“Listen. You can turn back one hour, right? It probably took you about twenty minutes to get through the thorns, and now we've been talking or trying to process for another twenty-five, so let’s say, to be safe, in fifteen minutes – ”

“No way,” signs Jameson, returning to his side. “No. You... nobody should be trapped like this... you're – you're Henrik and Chase's brother. They're sad. You have to come back to them. It's not... it's not fair. We have to get you out.”

Marvin swallows harshly and clears his throat, shaking his head.

“Just come sit down with me for a while, before you go,” he says, keeping the tremble out of his voice best he can. “I've missed you so much.”

The loneliness, above all else, is what kills him.

Jameson stares down at him, mouth open in defiance of their fate.

Marvin waits. He knows him. He knows Jameson. He knows he'll sit down. Just give him time. Just give him space. Marvin knows he'll sit down, if he only gives him time to be what he is – kind and clever and always seeking answers.

Jameson sits down next to him.

Slowly, his hand creeps out to touch the side of Marvin's hand. Nervous like a feral cat, but gentle with him, gentle. He knows how to play the survival game, he does. But he's also learning how to be a brother and Marvin sees it in him. Oh, he could cry for that tiny feeling of his fingers brushing against the side of his hand. No one's touched him in a long time. No one's touched him in so long. He wants to grip his fingers tight, tight, and beg for a hug, but he says nothing. He can be patient too. JJ needs him.

“Tell me who you are,” says Jameson. “And how you know me.”

“I'll answer whatever I can,” Marvin murmurs.

“How do you know about my magic? Please. If Anti found out...”

Jameson has told no one, no one, no one, not even Henrik.

“You were good to keep it secret from Anti,” murmurs Marvin. “You're a strong person, Jameson. But part of strength is knowing when to let some of the weight go from your shoulders. You can trust me, JJ. You can trust me with anything.”

Marvin is like him. Marvin is magic like him.

And Marvin is weak and tired and hurting and Jameson is sorry for him, and understands, and wants to bring him home to his family, and trusts him enough – trusts him enough in this moment, in this place – to say “okay. Okay, I trust you. If you say you can't go right now, then you can't go right now.”

“But I'll come back for you,” he adds earnestly, swiping at a scratch of blood on his face. He stings all over but it doesn’t matter now and he’s had much worse. “I'll come back for you. I'll get you out of here. I promise.”

Marvin's eyes fill up with tears and he gives a small, embarrassed groan, turning away from him. Oh, soon this will all be gone away, like it never happened. Like he was only ever alone. Like he was only ever trapped here, in agony, despairing for someone to look at him with love ever again.

“I'm sorry this is how we have to meet,” he chokes out, and then he is sobbing like the world is ending, and Jameson's hand comes back to find his own, and they are holding on to each other under the mirror sky, close together, and Marvin, like always, is bleeding and unbleeding, exhausted and sleepless, dying and paralyzed, endlessly, timelessly trapped in this place.

“I don't want to complain,” Marvin cries, gripping at his hand. “I know you have enough shit going on, but I've just been here for so, so, so long, and if you could please save me, just when you get a chance, I really want to be free again, I really want to see you, and see Schneep and Jackie and Chase and Sean and Stacy and the kids, and not be in pain anymore, maybe, maybe just for a little while, I would like to not be in pain anymore, I'm sorry, I'm sorry – ”

Shaken, Jameson tries to be gentle, reaching out to comfort him. What would Henrik do? Sew him up and stop the bleeding and tell him, very softly, that he's safe? What would Chase do? Feed him and help him wash his hair and hug him close for the duration of a whole two hour movie?

Jameson reaches out to wipe away the tears on Marvin's face, his heart aching at the sight of him in so much pain. Anti used to be disappointed in him when he would grieve the sight of other people's pain.

But here he is, and here is Marvin, and they are alone and together, and Jameson feels, suddenly, safe.

“It's okay,” he promises, keeping his hands quiet. “It's okay, just – it's okay to cry. It's okay.”

“I've missed you,” chokes Marvin, staring up at him. The desperation in his eyes is almost enough to make Jameson shake. And he has seen his fair share of desperation. “I've missed you so much.”

He must be mistaking him for someone else. They all look alike, after all. But it doesn't matter. They're family now, one way or another. Jameson smiles and reaches out to rub his thumb across his wrist, the one that still has a hand attached, and Marvin stills, sniffling quietly, trying to keep it together.

Just for a little while longer. Just for a little while longer.

“Just please tell me they're all okay,” he croaks. “My poor brothers.”

Jameson pauses. What is he supposed to tell him? Good evening, brother-I've-never-met-before, everyone you love is breaking down like we're all different pieces of the same fucked-up machination. Henrik's in a hysteria, Chase won't stop drinking, Jackie's obsessed his way to a fever, and I think I just pulled off the stupidest attempt at running away in the history of all my bullshit.

“They miss you,” he chooses finally.

“I miss them too,” he says, closing his eyes. “I've missed you all. So much I thought it would kill me. But they're okay? Henrik?”

He says this like a prayer, his eyes lighting again, full up on starlight. “Is he okay? Tell me he's recovered well.”

“Henrik's... wait, from what? Did you know he was taken?”

“From what?” stammers Marvin, confused. “From – from – from Anti, yes, of course I knew he was taken. Wasn't that what this was all about? Saving him?”

He reaches out and Jameson flinches, but only for a moment. He allows Marvin to touch, ever-so-gently, the string scar around his wrist.

“Isn't that what this was for?” he whispers, tracing the line. “My poor baby brother. For Henrik's sake? All of this – everything you told me – wasn't all of it for Henrik? We had to save him, we – is he okay?”

“Was it?” asks Jameson, because that is something he can understand. For Henrik. His brother. He would do a lot of things for Henrik. “You and someone else were trying to save Henrik?”

“What? No, I... I'm sorry. Just... is he okay?”

Jameson tilts his head back and forth, chewing his lip for a second. “Oh! He'll be a lot happier once I tell him you're alive,” he says, feeling that he's found a safe answer, but Marvin's face only drops.

“Oh... no,” murmurs Marvin, clearing his throat. “You can't tell the others about this, Jameson. I...”

“What?”

“What do you think Jackie would do if he heard that I was alive out here?”

Jameson thinks. “Probably run right out here through those thorns to come see you.”

“Yeah. And what happens to anyone but you who comes through those thorns?”

Realization dawns on him.

“He... would be stuck.”

“Yes. Maybe forever.”

“But I could tell him that!”

“I think he would still come,” whispers Marvin, closing his eyes. “Just to comfort me. Just to see me again. Besides, I... I don't know that there's a way to escape a cracked mirror, Asteriscus. It might be better not to get their hopes up, only for them to find my body one day...”

Jameson sits down beside him, sighing hard. He buries his face in his hands.

Marvin sighs, his eyelids getting so, so heavy. He lets them slide shut. Maybe he can just rest a little while. Jamie won't mind, will he? They've slept beside each other before. They look after each other.

Queenie kneads her claws into his chest.

Marvin inhales sharply, jerking back awake. “Okay!” he shouts, shaking his head. “Okay, we can do this! Jameson, we don't have much time! How long have you been here?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know? Get your clock out. It must have taken you – what, twenty minutes to crawl past the thorns? And then, hell, you've been here, for what, twenty-five minutes more?”

“I guess?”

“What's the farthest you've ever turned back time, love?”

Jameson stares. Big silver eyes. He could be one of the stars in the mirror sky. But he made the decision to trust him and he won't back down now.

“An hour,” he whispers. “Maybe a little longer.”

“An hour! Holy shit. You're so young. You're so young. Get your clock out. Now, Jameson, there you go. Set your timer for ten minutes. When that clock rings, you turn back, and you go home. You understand me?”

“But – ”

“Jameson, every time we have met, I have been the one completely out of my territory, lost and confused, without the first idea what the hell's going on. But today? Today you get to be the one scrambling to figure things out. Because we don't have time to sit down for coffee and chat about boyfriends and deep-seated psychological issues, unless we both want to end up suspended in this living hell that Anti has turned my magic into. So I'm going to say it one more time –  when that timer goes off, you are gone, and this exchange has never happened. Do you understand me?”

He puts his head down. Marvin reaches up, slow and gentle, and surprises the both of them when Jameson allows him to touch him.

“You are so young,” he says. “I'm sorry this is so confusing. Do you understand that you have to go, and that you can never tell the others, and that I will not remember this?”

Jameson nods.

Sinks into his hand.

Lowers himself down beside him and presses their foreheads together, just for a second.

Marvin groans from the relief of affection, tears welling up in his eyes. He strokes the side of Jameson's head, laughing a little.

“Oh, my friend. What are you even doing out here, huh? How did you know I was out here?”

Jameson shakes his head.

“You didn't? Then why?”

“I just... I just couldn't stay there any longer. I... have to go. I have to.”

Marvin's face falls. Jameson pulls guiltily away from him, rubbing at his face.

“You were trying to go back to Anti?”

Jameson nods slowly. This doesn't even matter, does it? It'll be forgotten to everyone but him. He can say whatever he wants.

“Just anywhere.” He feels hot tears slipping down his cheeks. “Even nowhere would have been fine. The thorns could have ended in a cliff and what would it have mattered? I don't belong anywhere.”

“No,” protests Marvin, immediately, certainly, ferociously, so strong it makes Jameson soften again beside him, letting him touch his chin and run his fingers through his beard.

“No, that's not true. You are a part of my family. The home I made – I made it for you too.”

“What?”

“Five bedrooms, right?”

Jameson nods slowly, his eyes widening.

“You've seen your room, haven't you? With your art supplies and your violin and everything I thought you might like.”

Jameson pauses, a little too shell-shocked to admit he's avoided the room entirely, forgoing it entirely for the sake of the warm space next to Henrik's safe, comforting body.

“I built that house myself. It was just Jackie and me back then. But I knew I would need space for the rest of you.”

“You really can see the future?”

Marvin chuckles, a flash of pain across his face.

“Something like that.”

“What... what do you see for me?”

Marvin stares at him. Starlight eyes. Does the light come from inside or from the sky or the mirror or the water? Everything about Marvin seems to glow to Jameson. He curls a little closer to him, clinging to his good hand. He needs someone to tell him where he goes next. How he's supposed to cope with this. Who he's supposed to be. Please.

“Your future is still ahead of you,” says Marvin gently. “No one's seen it because there's too many things it could be. You have to choose who you are, Jameson. If you want to go... well, then, you can go. You can be whoever you want. But what I know of you...”

Jameson scoots forward again. Puppy dog eyes at him. Please.

Marvin laughs.

“You're clever, for one,” he chuckles. “Look at you. You get a grasp on things fast, there's just always so much to grasp. But you roll with it. Tough. Powerful. Who ever heard of somebody changing time? Should be impossible. You're a miracle and a miracle-worker.”

Jameson smiles slowly. Small and shy. Ah, Marvin had forgotten. Marvin had forgotten so much about him. He hopes he'll get a chance to remember it all someday.

“And you're kind,” says Marvin. “Which is the most important thing.”

“Oh, no...” Jameson stares down at his feet. “Sorry, you're wrong.”

“No,” corrects Marvin, glaring at him. “No. If you want to choose to be unkind, you can, fine, whatever. But that's not what I've seen.”

“What have I ever done that was kind to anybody?” snaps Jameson, turning his face away, anger burning in his eyes. “Nothing. I watched people be tortured. I watched people die. I watched Henrik be tortured and I – I didn't say a word. Didn't move.”

“You haven't had an easy life.”

“I'm tired of making excuses for the things I've been and done,” whisper Jameson's hands as he turns back to him, his eyes wide with the earnesty of it, with the fear and the acceptance all together. “I want someone to tell me that I was an adult and I could have stopped it and I didn't. And that that was wrong of me. I want someone to hurt me like that, because at least it will be true. At least it would be true! I wasn't a child. Sometimes I was hypnotized, but not always.”

“Jameson. Listen.”

“No, I want you to tell me the truth! I'm not a kind person and I never will be. What I've done is wrong and horrible and I should be ashamed. I deserve to want to die! I deserve to go back to Anti! And nobody should be kind to me, let alone Chase and Henrik and – and – good people. Nobody should have me in their house. I'm guilty and I deserve that. Don't tell me any different. I know who I am. I pretended I didn't, when I was with him, but... I did. I did. It always horrified me. I didn't stop it. I'm a bad person.”

He puts his head down. The last edges of the teal of his fringe hang down over his eyes.

“I'm as much of a monster as he is.”

Marvin grips his chin and turns his eyes back to him.

The intensity in his gaze almost makes Jameson shrivel. Marvin isn't like Jackie or Chase or even Henrik – he has an intensity like Anti's, a ferocity, and yet it's nothing like Anti. Not enough anger there, though the eyes burn. Not enough hatred.

“You were an adult,” says Marvin. “And some of the things you did, you could have not done. You could have stopped some of the things Anti did too. You could have protected Henrik better. You did bad things. Jameson, Dapper, you did bad things and you helped Anti do more.”

Jameson stares at him. His heart is jack-rabbiting inside his chest and his eyes burn, burn like embers flew up from the fire, and he is afraid, suddenly, that Marvin will hurt him for the truth that Jameson asked him to speak, and he is clutching his hand to his chin so hard he must be bruising him, but he can't let go.

Fuck, he's sorry.

Does anybody understand this? Could anybody understand this? Marvin tugs gently on his shoulders. Jameson folds like a deck of cards and then – then, before he has thought it through, he is lying against Marvin's chest, clutching his shirt, and Marvin is holding him, holding him like he loves him, and he knows Marvin is his brother the same way he knew Henrik and Chase were, like nature, like the choices you know you have to make, even if they terrify you.

“But that isn't the end of the story,” Marvin tells him. “What a shitty-ass story that would be.”

“Language,” Jameson jokes frailly, burying his face in his shirt, and Marvin laughs, stroking his hair.

“There he is... Jameson Jackson.”

“Everyone keeps calling me that,” Jameson tells him. “But I don't even know who he is, or how I can be who he's supposed to be.”

“Well, that's the thing,” murmurs Marvin. “I think you get to choose now, little brother. I think you get to pick what you want to be and do. And the things that you've done in the past – they can just be in the past. And this, this – Jameson, listen to me, there's one thing I do have to tell you, something important. Listen.”

His little brother stares up at him from right there on his chest, warm and present, above Marvin's heart. Eight minutes and the bared teeth are hidden away behind his soft, curious eyes. Eight minutes and the clawed fingers are rubbing slowly together, self-soothing, holding Marvin's shirt.

Marvin wants to cry. But not right now. Not right here.

“I know you've had to protect yourself for a long time. I know you're wary. I know you're angry and in pain and that life sucks ass right now.”

Jameson looks down.

“You never complain much. You never complain at all. You're tough, so when you're hurting, you try to fix the problem on your own, and you never say a word to anyone else. First of all, cut that shit out. I wish I could give you a fucking ted talk on it and slam it into your thick British curls. But to the point – ”

“Am I British? I always thought but I never – ”

“You can't change the past.”

Jameson stops short, his mouth slightly open.

“That's what you have to know. That's what you have to believe. Jameson, you can't change – ”

“I'm a time traveler.”

“I know, star.”

“I can. You're wrong.”

“No, bud – ”

“I brought Chase back,” snaps Jameson, striking his palm down on the water of the river. “I saved him! I did that! This is my power! I can change things, I can control it, I can – ”

“Jameson, Jameson,” Marvin whispers.

Jameson buries his face in his hands. Hiding. “You're wrong,” he manages frailly.

Marvin lies beside him, his face contorted with distress.

“That's why you won't explain anything to me, isn't it?”

Marvin smiles. Slow and weary.

“Because... you think I would try to change it.”

“I know,” whispers Marvin. “I know you would. And, Jameson, my darling – I think it would destroy you. You need to live on your own terms. You'll understand your own power better, soon. One day you'll have a clearer picture. And then, by the time you're ready for me to explain everything – well, you'll understand it all already, anyway.”

Jameson stares at him.

Marvin looks right back.

“Will you do one thing for me?” asks Marvin. “Choose to do one thing for me?”

“What?”

“Go back to the house,” says Marvin.

The stars are shining above and below and around and within them.

“Go back to the house and give your brothers another month. Give yourself another month. If, by that time, you still need to go, then go. But give them a chance, Jameson. I know you can do this. You are my family. You belong in our home, at least until you're well. Go back to my brothers, since I can't. Go back in my stead and try to love them since I can't right now. If they really think I'm dead... well, they might need you more than you know.”

He's hurting, but Jameson knows the smile on his mouth – trusting and safe – is just for him.

And the warmth in his eyes, too.

“You do know me,” says Jameson. “Somehow, you really do know me.”

“Yes,” says Marvin. “A great honor to me, that I do.”

“You're some kind of wonder,” answers Jameson. “It would be pretty nice to see the future.”

Marvin opens his smile at him, laughing.

“Well, maybe someday you will.”

Jameson's timer clicks at him. He stares down, dismayed.

“Time's up,” murmurs Marvin. “Promise me.”

Jameson meets his gaze again.

“One more month. Go in my place and... as a favor, will you take care of them for me, if you can? I need someone to be there when I can't. I need you, JJ.”

A twist in Jameson's gut. But the hand in his own – the one remaining hand – is warm and loving and trembling from the pain of it, Marvin's eyes welling as the two of them realize again that, for him, this conversation will have never happened. No one will have touched him in months. No one will have so much as said his name to him.

“It's okay,” says Marvin softly, seeming to sense his distress. “Time is different here. And anyway...”

He strokes Queenie's head and she meows.

“I have the cats.”

Jameson squeezes his hand one more time.

“You promise?”

He nods. Steady.

“I promise.”

“Good man,” murmurs Marvin, exhausted by all of it, crying in silence, still smiling. “You leave me, then, go on. Won't have you trapped here. So much life you have left to lead, little brother. So much joy you gotta go find for yourself. You've got to choose who you want Jameson to be, so I can meet him when you're more ready. How does that sound?”

“Somewhere where it all hurts less.” Jamie wipes at the tears on his face. “And we'll get a normal introduction and we can make friends like real people do.”

He's made Marvin laugh.

Warm and faltering.

He entertains, at the last moment, the thought that he could take him with him, back, back before thorns, back before the branches, and he's gripping his hands as his clock glows, as the silver river comes crashing in over his head, as he turns time back and back and back, til before he shoved him through the piercing wood, but when he comes back to where he was, he is, once again, without the missing brother, alone in front of the thorns. His hands are inside the first of the brambles, torn to shreds, weeping blood for his foolishness. Any longer and he might not have been able to turn back far enough to undo his own tearing apart.

He's crying and there's a hundred reasons why, but he thinks, most of all, because it's not fair.

Nothing in his life is fair and he's stopped expecting it to be and he isn't a complainer.

But it isn't fair to Marvin, and it's Anti's fault, and Jameson couldn't do anything to stop it.

He never could.

He's crying.

He doesn't want this to keep happening. No more. No more passivity. No more hiding.

“Jameson!”

Screaming in the woods behind him. Chase, racing after him, calling his name.

His name. The one Anti stole from him.

Jameson.

Stole from him. His brother. His brother, the only person he loved in the whole world.

You stole this from me.

No more.

“Jameson, stop! We don't know what's past the – oh, thank God! You scared the hell out of me, holy shit! Oh, your hands, your hands, Jameson, what were you thinking?”

Strong arms encircle him roughly and drag him back from the thorns. He collapses back against Chase's chest and they tumble to the earth together, and he can't do anything anymore but cling to his shoulder and pray he doesn't let him go.

“Oh, it's okay, it's okay,” chokes Chase, gripping him close, close, close on the floor of the forest, seconds away from those thorns and the blue prison beyond them. “It's okay. I've got you. I've got you, Jameson. I love you so much. You don't have to talk if you don't want to. We're going to make this right. It's okay.”

He cries until he doesn't have anything left in him to cry with, and Chase pulls a bandage out of his pocket and begins, with shaking hands, to stop the bleeding.

Okay.

It's okay.

“I love you so much, I love you so much.”

His life isn't over and his path isn't chosen yet.

He doesn't have to be what Anti made him to be.

He doesn't have to run away.

He can try again.

Marvin needs him to.

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

“Jackie, why are you scream - Jackie! Slow down, talk to me!”

She’s already throwing on her shoes.

“Please, please, please,” he’s sobbing. “I’m so overwhelmed, I’m so fucking overwhelmed, please help. Henrik’s freaking the fuck out and Jameson ran away and I don’t feel good at all and Chase - Chase - ”

“Jackie. Where the hell is Chase?”

“Henrik, please, stop, stop! You’re safe, okay, please! He - Chase ran into the woods!”

Stacy’s heart is already racing after him.

“Okay. Okay. I’m coming, Jackie. I’m coming.”

“Please fucking hurry.”

He turns the call off and pins Henrik down once again, stemming the flow of the blood from his arms, and his fever pumps loud, loud, loud inside his head.

“Please fucking hurry.”

[archadianskies]

Whumptober Day 27

Extreme Weather + Power Outage

Whumptober Masterlist | 27/31 of RK900 short stories ↳ on Ao3

Tags: Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900 are Siblings × Post-Pacifist Best Ending × Good Parent Hank Anderson × Exhaustion x Sleep Deprivation  x Power Outage

The RK units are specifically designed with powerful battery cores enabling them to function for longer periods between recharging. If expenditure is kept at a minimum, they can remain online for up to a fortnight without recharging, though given their line of duty they tend to rest for short bursts in order to supplement their cores. 

That is not the case for them currently, not when Detroit’s caught up in a storm that’s knocked out several power grids and they’re at a crime scene with a felled tree crushing an ambulance.

“Power’s completely out for this grid!” Hank raises his voice to try and be heard over the crashing rain. 

“This patient will die without proper medical care!” The medroid shouts in reply and Ronan assesses their dwindling options. Three dead, five injured- one in critical condition. Ambulance damaged, power grid down and no way to power the medvan and keep the injured android alive. Unlike humans, an android runs on electrical impulses of an inorganic nature and cannot be kept alive with medications. 

“We have two manual cars here.” Connor says slowly, and he looks to Ronan who already knows what they must do. “Transfer the patient to Detective Reed’s car-”

“What?!” 

“We will force a power surge into the victim and give their core a jumpstart to ensure it can remain active long enough for you to get them to Jericho.” Ronan continues with a nod. “Connor and I are RK units, we can do this safely and still retain enough power to last us until we reach Central Station.”

“Power’s still online there.” Connor reassures. “We can use the charging bays. This way the patient can survive until they receive medical help at Jericho. The others have sustained only superficial injuries which are low priority and can wait until power returns and a secondary medvan can be dispatched.”

Hank looks them over, and Ronan knows their father isn’t too keen on the idea but the idea is sound; the idea is the only option they have if they want their key witness to survive. 

“We’ll be alright, dad.” Connor says, softer this time as he squeezes his arm. “Just incredibly sleepy, actually.”

“Please do it now.” The medroid grips his wrist. “We’re losing the last of the van’s power rapidly and without a strong electric current he’ll die.”

Ronan tips his head slightly, and Connor follows him to the medvan. The android is in poor shape, multiple gunshot wounds littering his torso. A long thick cable snakes from his power core to the medvan’s life support, and the medroid hurries to detach the heavy black box from the side. 

“I’ll power the core, you power the generator.” Ronan instructs, and Connor nods in understanding. They have to undress partly to grant the medroid access to their chestplate, and connect them to both the android and the generator. 

“Ready?” They prompt, and the two brothers nod. The effect is almost immediate, the drain a sudden, strong pull that leaves them feeling fatigued. 

* 

WARNING

>LOW POWER

>>Power core: 8%

RECHARGE IMMEDIATELY

* 

Ronan blinks away the notification, reaching out to steady Connor as his brother sways on his feet. 

“No complex processes until you’re both at least at 25%.” The medroid instructs sternly. “Consume extra thirium, and run a full diagnostic cycle once you’re at full power.” 

“Understood.” Ronan nods, and even that seems like a gargantuan effort. 

* 

“That thing better not bleed all over my backseat.” Gavin grumbles as he hands over the keys and they load up the injured android in his car.

“That person is our key witness, so their well-being is worth more than your car’s upholstery.” Ronan snaps. “Thirium will evaporate without leaving a stain on this type of synthetic textile. I cannot say the same for your blood.” 

Hank snorts back a laugh, clapping him on the shoulder as Gavin sputters indignantly. “Alright into the car everyone, I’ll drive us back to Central.” 

“We will return your car once it is safe to do so, Detective Reed.” The medroid vows. “We will take every care to sanitise the interior.”

“Then it will be much cleaner than it’s ever been under his care.” Ronan drawls, unable to stop himself. Hank guffaws, hand on his belly.

“Oh shit you’re cranky, I love it.” He snorts back a laugh and makes a shooing gesture. “Alright everyone in- boys at the back, Reed at the front before Ronan can kill you.”

*~* 

Central Station looms ahead, lit only by the recessed ground lights embedded in the steps leading up to the entrance.

“Ah shit.” Hank curses as he pulls up to park. 

“Grid’s out here too.” Gavin groans. “And the storm’s picking up.” 

“We won’t be able to recharge here.” Connor huffs, leaning heavily on Ronan. 

“I mean, Eli’s supervillain lair runs on its own solar grid.” Gavin shrugs. “Could just keep going. Barbie bot won’t mind sharing, I’m sure.”

“Road conditions are not ideal. There is a large margin for human error.” Connor points out, and Ronan notes the way Hank’s hands grip the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles blanche. “Rain radar shows an exponential increase in volume of rainfall over the next five hours, and winds set to rise.”

“Well,” Gavin falters with a frown, “the self-driving taxis should be fine, right?”

“I’m not risking them either way.” Hank declares gruffly. “Safer if we stay inside the precinct and just wait it out.”

“They can’t charge in there!” Gavin protests and Hank shouts in return.

“It doesn’t matter! At least they’ll stay alive!” There’s a beat where no one says anything, and the only sound is the thunderous crash of rain atop the car and Ronan knows Hank is both correct, and speaking from trauma.

“We will stay inside.” Ronan says calmly to break the tension. “There is ample food and water for the both of you, and thirium for the both of us. It is warm and dry, and weathertight.”

“At this hour there shouldn’t be too many staff left anyway.” Connor adds. “And the both of you keep spare clothes in your lockers.”

“Alright alright let’s go.” Gavin groans, bracing himself for the inevitable drenching. Though it’s only a short distance from the parking lot to the entrance, it’s enough for their clothes to become thoroughly soaked. They reach the doors and the doors stay shut. Of course. No power. The lone ST300 at reception spots them and gestures to her left, pointing at the side door. They trudge over and Hank pushes at the handle. Some things are best kept low tech, it seems. 

“Good evening, Lieutenant Anderson, Detectives Reed and Andersons.” Stephanie greets, smile apologetic. “Though I surmise there’s little to make it ‘good’.”

“How long’s the power been out here for?” Hank sighs tiredly, slicking his hair out of his eyes.

“Twelve minutes ago.” She informs them, and Connor whines in disappointment, lips pressed tightly together and curled downward. 

“Who’s still here?” Gavin strips off his jacket, cursing colourfully at the state of his clothes. 

“Officers Chen and Lewis, and assistive units Polly, Justin and Gareth.”

“Thanks Steph.” Hank nods in gratitude before leading them all through the gates. They head immediately to their lockers after giving the others a wave. 

* 

“This is less than ideal.” Connor sighs morosely, coordination clumsy as he strips out of his wet clothing. 

“Power level?” Ronan prompts, hand hovering in case Connor sways again.

“7.1%. Yours?”

“7.9%.” He pulls a clean, dry sweater over his head before taking a moment to steady himself. Removing wet slacks proves a challenge in his addled state, but he manages it eventually and tugs on a pair of jeans. Connor leans heavily on his now closed locker, the petulant pout still there on his lips. 

“I feel awful.”

“They put us through worse.” Ronan reminds him lightly. “Part of our testing phase was to complete an objective with 5% power.”

“They wiped my testing phase.” A brief look of concern crosses his face. “You remember yours?”

“Every single moment.” His brother saddens at the revelation, and he reaches over to squeeze his shoulder.

“I’m sorry.”

“It isn’t your fault.” Ronan reminds him, and Connor nods.

“I know. I’m still sorry, though.” He seeks his hand, and Ronan clasps it securely with his own. 

“You boys alright?” Hank wanders over, dressed in DPD sweats. 

“Tired.” Connor blinks slowly at him, and Hank huffs a laugh, reaching over to tousle his damp hair. 

“Yeah you sure look it. C’mon, we’ll go mope at our desks.”

* 

Officer Tina Chen sits herself on the edge of Gavin’s desk, expression pitying.

“Stuck here til the storm blows over, huh?”

“Fuck I want to pass out on my bed so bad, I’m fucking exhausted.” Gavin groans, slumping in his chair. “Why’re you guys still here?”

“We sent them back to log the evidence and compile the findings.” Ronan reminds him, rolling his eyes in irritation. “Or can you not remember what transpired sixty-five minutes ago?”

“Why bother? That’s what you’re here for, right? Walking computer.” Gavin gestures vaguely in his direction and Ronan decides acting on his irritation will expand battery power the human does not deserve. “God, the coffee machine’s off too isn’t it? I’d kill for one right now.”

“There’s still some left in the pot but it’s lukewarm if you don’t mind that.” Robert pipes up from his desk across the room. “Enough for both you and the Lieutenant.”

“Hey tinc-”

“Finish that sentence and I will pour the coffee for my father and the rest goes down the sink.” Ronan hisses and Hank slaps the table with a laugh. 

“Fuckin’ hell Ronan, I am lovin’ this.” He gets to his feet. “Don’t worry I’ll get the coffees. Just promise you won’t kill Reed while I’m gone.”

“I’ll refrain until you return so you may witness it yourself.” Ronan vows and Hank guffaws loudly as he heads to the breakroom. Gavin shoots him a withering glare, which he ignores entirely in favour of assessing his brother. Connor has his arms folded on his desk, head resting on his forearms. His LED winks a soft red, dimming them glowing periodically like a slow warning he is on low power. 

“You doin’ okay, Connor?” Tina asks worriedly.

“They got used like car batteries to jumpstart the key witness.” Gavin stifles a yawn. “Came back here to recharge since it was closer than Jericho or home but…” He trails off with a shrug and Tina looks at Connor sympathetically. She turns her gaze to him.

“Bad time to ask a favour huh?” Her smile is sheepish. “Rob and I found some sort of substance residue on one of the trafficked biocomponents we were logging into evidence. We’d hoped one of you boys could analyse it for us, but it’ll just have to wait.”

“No.” Ronan sighs. “Give it to me. I’ll do it. The sooner this case is put behind us the better- if this can provide solid evidence linking the trafficking to the suspect then it will be worth it.”

She disappears briefly to fetch the biocomponent from the evidence room, and Hank returns in the meantime, placing a cup of coffee on Gavin’s desk before returning to his. 

“Hey kiddo, you’re not lookin’ too good.” His tone is soft with parental concern as he leans over to smooth Connor’s hair back.

“I don’t like this.” Connor declares with a frown. “It’s irritating and I can’t access the network properly and Jericho is running on a closed circuit at the moment to minimise stress on their generators.” A pause, brows creasing. “And Sumo is home all alone.”

“S’alright, I managed to text Lucy and she went over to make sure he was let out and gave him his dinner.” Hank chuckles, shaking his head. “Don’t worry. We’ll just wait it out and head home and you boys can charge in your beds. Power’s still on over there.”

“For now.” Gavin adds, shrugging when Hank shoots him a glare. “It’s the apocalypse out there versus Detroit’s shitty overworked, aging power stations.”

“Ronan?” Tina reappears at his side holding out the bagged biocomponent; a thirium pump regulator. She is correct, there is a smudge of some sort of congealed substance on the tip of the component where it would usually click into the main arterial port in an android. 

“Power level?” Connor asks, voice muffled in his arms.

“7.4%.”

“Sass is wearing you out.” Gavin sneers. “I think you need a nap.” Ignoring him, Ronan carefully opens the bag and retrieves the biocomponent. It’s a midline model, used in domestics produced within the last two years. Bringing the port end to his mouth, he presses the tip of his tongue to the congealed substance.

* 

Analysing…

Thirium 310 serial #342 541 238

Hydrocarbon solvent: xylene 

Xylene solution: industrial grade xylene, medical grade thirium toluene

* 

Searching database…

Thirium toluene; medical manufacturers within 5km of Detroit city

>R.G. Medical 

/Generating warrant for latest purchase of >gallon quantity medical grade thirium toluene

//Request failed; insufficient power

* 

WARNING 

Power level: 4.2%

* 

“-nan? Ronan?” He startles back into himself, identifying Hank leaning over him and gently shaking his shoulders. “Shit kid you almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Apologies.” He frowns, blinking up at his father. “What happened?”

“You licked the thing and then just blue-screened.” Gavin makes a face. “Mood ring went bright red and then you just slumped in your chair.”

“The substance is a hybrid solvent.” He replaces the biocomponent back into the bag. “It is comprised of xylene and a medical grade thirium toluene. There is only one manufacturer, R.G. Medical, within a five kilometre radius of the warehouse. I tried generating a warrant to obtain a record of their recent sales larger than a gallon but I do not have enough power.”

“System’s down anyway.” Hank shakes his head. “Don’t sweat it. We know now, and we’ll just get it done when the power’s back.”

“Supervillain lair is still the best bet.” Gavin crosses his arms over his chest. “Recharge and access whatever you need to. He has his own internet line too.”

“The storm’s worsening, we already told you the weather-” Connor begins, but Gavin rolls his eyes.

“Better than being here, at least there’s beds and coffee over there and whatever you lot need.” He downs the dregs remaining in his cup. “We can take a self-driving taxi so there’s no ‘human error’.”

“No one’s leaving here until that storm blows over and the roads aren’t an oil slick!” Hank growls and Gavin groans.

“Oh my god give it a rest old man, we’re safer in one of those than with you or me driving!”

“An automated delivery truck was what crashed into Hank’s car in 2035, what part of ‘no one is leaving here’ do you not understand?” Ronan roars, grabbing the front of his shirt and hauling the man off his chair. “You are being asked to do very little, Detective Reed, so surely you can manage staying put?” He shoves Gavin away and his senses blurs with white noise.

* 

CRITICAL POWER FAILURE

>Entering emergency stasis

* 

“Dad-!” Connor’s voice is laced with panic and Hank’s worried face is the last thing he sees before he shuts down.

*~*

Model: RK900

Serial#: 313 248 317 - 87

Bios 7.4 Revision 0483

Loading OS...SAFE MODE

System initiation...

Checking biocomponents...

OK

Initializing biosensors...

OK

Initializing A.I. engine...

OK

Memory status…

OK

Power core: 25%

All systems: SAFE MODE ACTIVATED

READY

* 

When he wakes he recognises the neon blue downlights of the UV charging bay. What was  once installed along the back wall where auxiliary units stood in line awaiting orders, after the revolution one of the storage rooms adjacent to Evidence was converted into a proper breakroom for androids with charging bays modeled to look like reclining chairs with UV downlights installed in the ceiling. 

He also recognises the weight of another android at his side, and he doesn’t have to look to know it’s Connor. There’s a lighter weight atop them both- a soft blanket tucked up to their chins. Though not an android, Hank is in another charging bay fast asleep, mouth open and snoring lightly. 

His HUD tells him it has been four hours since entering emergency stasis but only eighty-nine minutes since the power came back online with Central Precinct bumped to High Priority. Connor stirs at his side, blinking awake briefly and meeting his gaze sleepily; his older brother is seemingly reassured all is well before he closes his eyes and wriggles closer. Charging bays are not made for more than one android to occupy but he’s not about to protest. Not when Connor is a warm, reassuring presence at his side, hand resting on his chest as if to anchor himself to him. 

There is still a case to close. Later, though. He will tend to it later. 

Ronan goes back to sleep. 

[burntwingsandwarpaint]

randomly generated drabbles characters: 8. daryl, aaron, & jesus tropes: 98. Curses & 84. Married to the Job

So this is a loose interpretation of the prompts, more like a general inspo. Also, warnings that this is 1) definitely not a drabble, and 2) definitely not completed. might pop back in with a part two if i’m feeling inspired, but the point of this exercise is to get myself writing again, not to get myself stuck trying to force something, so i’m just gonna post what I have so far. hope you all enjoy nonetheless 😘

In the span of a whisper the blade sank through skin, and the world shattered for all of them.

.-

Paul Rovia was a whirlwind of revelations in Daryl Dixon’s life. Infuriating, frustrating, fucking intoxicating in the span of the first few hours. Daryl’d been hooked in the second their eyes met and Paul had known it. (Hell, Rick had probably known it.) Daryl hadn’t been ready to know it then, though, and so Paul (goddamn Jesus, his salvation and damnation all at once, felt like) had twisted through Daryl in those early days like a thorn in his damn side.

Aaron’d crept up on him slower. Where Jesus had been fire, danger, frustration, Aaron’d always been comfort. From Daryl’s first days at Alexandria Aaron’d melted his way into Daryl’s life, slipping past his walls and filling all the cold empty spaces inside him with endless patience and easy acceptance. Where Jesus had lit him up, Aaron’d soothed him down, a safe space for Daryl to fall into.

If Daryl’d ever thought of himself as someone deserving good things, he’d have thought it was inevitable they’d all find their way to each other. As it was, even if he couldn’t quite wrap his head around what they were getting out of it, he was just grateful they did.

It happened slow, in the aftermath of the war. The years after. They took their time with it. Toeing their way toward each other. Skirting in and back over old wounds. And when they finally did, all three of them for the first time together, it’d felt so damn much like inevitable that Daryl halfway hated every second they’d wasted finding it.

He hated them more the instant that blade slid in, and the fire faded from Paul’s eyes.

.-

There were things you learned, spending years living out in the wild. There were things in the wild that learned you. Daryl’d seen glimpses of Her in flutters and lingering shadows, in shapes of trees warped into the semblance of faces, there and gone the next time he went through. He knew the swamps were Her territory, but he’d never bothered Her much and the things that did seemed to go quiet soon after. So they’d spent the years in a comfortable sort of coexistence. Understanding, distant respect.

Until She came to him in the lonely dark of Paul’s grave.

One hundred dead each day, she’d offered, voice a rustle of leaves through winter forests, a groan of branches in the wind. One hundred dead souls each day for a hundred days, in exchange for your lover’s life.

She’d held it out to him, tempting, like a needle for a vein. A sweetness and a promise of salvation that’d kill him slow in the quest for it. 

And that night, curled against Aaron on their too-empty bed, feeling his lover’s already battered soul breaking a bit more on the pressure of choked, brittle sobs, Daryl knew his answer.

Outside the window, the leaves burst into a rush of laughter, and Daryl curled Aaron closer.

And the next morning, he set to work.

.-

Aaron wouldn’t understand, was the thing. Couldn’t. People who hadn’t lived in the wild, who didn’t have it singing through their veins, they didn’t get shit like Old Ones and Bargains and the things that were possible if you were willing to risk worse things than your soul dealing with Them. Daryl slipped out in the morning after Paul’s death and started tracking fresh Walkers. Found a trickle of them, then a herd, and by mid-afternoon he’d reached his kill count. Felt the caress of a twig nicking the back of his hand –– a deal struck, marked in blood –– and made his way home to Hilltop.

Aaron hadn’t said anything, but there’d been a glint of pain in his tired eyes when Daryl’d found him. A hesitation. And then he’d brought Daryl some food and wiped the blood and filth off him, and dragged him back to bed where they’d tried and failed to learn the shape of the world with just the two of them living in it.

.-

On the fifth day, Aaron parted his lips to talk about it. Said “I know you’re hurting, I get it, but––” And Daryl’d shaken his head, a little frantic, and caught Aaron in a too-rough kiss.

He wouldn’t understand, and Daryl couldn’t stand to hear him say the words on the edge of his tongue.

.-

Sixteen days, and Daryl didn’t make it home that night. The sea of dead around them felt endless sometimes, but even they had their limits. Every day he needed to venture further out to find them. Try new paths, weaving deeper into the wild. Every day he had to work harder to find fifty, then eighty, and by the time he’d hit a hundred he’d been scrabbling frantic, tossing himself too deep into danger, close to midnight.

He’d kept working straight through, fighting his way through the night and past dawn. Found his way back to Alexandria halfway through the next day in a daze of bloodied exhaustion.

“We need to talk about this,” Aaron’d told him, eyes stern and voice achingly soft. And Daryl’d nodded, grunted “in the mornin’” and passed out between that and the next breath. In the morning there’d been no words to begin to explain it and Daryl’d left a still-sleeping Aaron with a back soon scrawled on a strip of paper and a kiss cooling his brow.

.-

Twenty days, and She tripped Daryl with the subtle shift of a root as he dodged back from a Walker’s grasp. Twenty-six and She caught at the dead’s flesh with thorny fingers as a horde chased close on his tail. Her whims shifted with the weather, but as far as Daryl could tell he was paying his way by entertaining Her.

He did his best to give her a show.

Thirty-one days and he killed a mass of dead in an explosion. Felt like a hundred-fifty, easy, ‘til a rush of doubt set in and he spent the rest of the day killing another sixty in a panic and praying to whatever blessed damn Old One might be listening that there’d at least been forty in that first blast.

Midnight came and went, and She didn’t appear to tell him he’d failed his task. After that, though, Daryl killed them by ones.

.-

Two months and Daryl was spending more nights away than with Aaron, tracking herds and then hordes for miles. Picking them off slow where he could, counting kills under his breath like a mantra. And when he couldn’t get ‘em slow... hell.

Then he fought.

He collapsed onto Aaron’s couch (their couch, still didn’t feel like theirs) after eight nights gone. Nearly dozed off ‘til he felt a shadow standing over him.

“We need to talk about this.” Aaron’s tone was all stern this time, that soft understanding of the past weeks scorched out of him. Daryl thought about pretending to be asleep. His aching body begged him to.

He slitted his eyes open.

“I know you’re grieving,” Aaron said, and Daryl’s throat choked on a growl, denial tightening it to something painful. Grief was an aftermath. Grief was acceptance. Daryl hadn’t been grieving.

“I know this is what you do, how you process, but––”

“What I do?” rolled out, and it was clipped, aggressive. Exhausted. Daryl’s body was a wreck of bruises and strained muscle and every inch of it wanted to crawl against Aaron for comfort. But there was a chasm in their chests keeping them separated and Daryl hadn’t even noticed himself digging it.

Aaron didn’t flinch.

“Hide. Run.” He answered plainly. “Cut yourself off, like you did after Rick––”

“This ain’t that.” It wasn’t. Rick had been a hunt. This was a quest. This was different. Rick was blind hope, but this? There was a clear end in sight. Forty-two more days –– not two months, even –– and the whisper of the wind would hand Jesus back to them.

Aaron was riling, though. Tensed tight, his infinite patience worn to rags as he stalked in a step and hissed, “So what is it like, then? You looking to die? Looking to go out like he did?”

It hit like a blade sinking through. That notion. ‘Cause Jesus wasn’t. Wouldn’t be. Not unless Daryl fucked up here.

But... hell. To Aaron he was.

The thought stalled Daryl’s righteous rage in its tracks. To Aaron, he was. Daryl hadn’t been grieving all this time, couldn’t be, but Aaron had been. Alone.

Daryl pushed to his feet, ignoring the protests of his wrecked body. For the first time in weeks or longer, he took in the worn lines of Aaron’s face. How much older he looked now. Exhausted. And that’s how the gulf had gotten there. All these weeks Daryl’d spent chasing the lover they’d lost, he’d lost track of the one standing next to him.

“Hey...” His hand lifted to catch Aaron’s cheek, but Aaron wasn’t ready to be calmed. He catted out of the contact, caught Daryl’s shirt. Held him for an aching beat, then shoved back.

“Paul’s gone, Daryl. He was reckless and restless and went out looking for a fight and it got him killed.” The words were blades. They were wrong. But... they weren’t. Jesus’s soul had been born for the wild, same as Daryl’s. Maybe that was why She’d been willing to deal for him in the first place. But Aaron didn’t know that. And he was all balled up exhaustion and anger and still-bleeding wounds as he snapped: “I can’t deal with you doing that too.”

It was an ultimatum. A wall building. In or out, and Daryl could feel the pressure of it hitting him straight through the middle as he dug for some loophole, some door.

“Ain’t what this is,” he managed, and Aaron looked at him, every bit as wrecked as Daryl felt as he asked plainly: “Then what is it?”

But what could he say?

A second dragged past, then another, in frozen quiet, broken finally by Aaron’s tired sigh.

“I can’t do this again, Daryl. Eric, then Paul... we lose people in this world, I get that. But I can’t just wait around watching you chase it. So you either give up whatever the hell this is, whatever revenge mission you think you’re on out there... You either stay here and figure this out with me... grieve with me... or you go.”

A branch rustled the side of the building. Daryl’s lips parted and shut. Forty-two days left, and Aaron would understand.

Daryl went.

.-

Seventy-six days and Daryl was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, wrapping gauze along his stitched arm. He’d been slow, stupid. Clumsy. Running on fumes. Tripped straight into the edge of a rusted car door and split his skin open.

He’d thought about going to Hilltop. Getting stitched up by Enid, safe and far from the still-bleeding wounds left behind here.

But Alexandria’d been closer. And gods knew he didn’t have time for damn detours.

A lanky shadow fell over him.

“Heard you were here.” The voice was soft. Soft enough Daryl almost forgot the last, brutal words he’d heard from it. When he looked up, Aaron’s eyes were carefully cold.

“Got cut,” Daryl said, like that was any kind of an answer. He watched those eyes shift to the wound, caught the flicker of something in them. Pain, frustration, aching want.

Or maybe that was Daryl, projecting.

“Still fighting, then,” Aaron said, and Daryl wondered when they’d become the kind of people who’d communicated in two and three words. Seventy-seven days ago, whispered through him like the slice of a blade, but he wasn’t sure that was right. The estrangement, the coldness, the endless gulf and the wall Aaron’d built to ward it... all that’d come after.

Daryl wondered for the first time, vague and distant, if this wasn’t the true price he was paying. Not a hundred a day to win Jesus back. Just one. Lover for a lover. Gain one back, but lose another along the way.

It had Their kind of sick humor in it.

And Daryl’d never thought of himself as someone deserving good things. Lived a lifetime of bloodied teeth and hope ground out under cruel, careless heels. He’d dealt with it all ‘cause he could. ‘Cause what the hell else could he do but take his losses and keep moving forward? But now, watching that worn, resigned look in Aaron’s eyes, feeling the gulf stretching seemingly endless between them... that didn’t feel like an acceptable loss anymore.

“He ain’t dead.” It fell out on a breath, barely a rasp of sound. But it was enough to break through Aaron’s apathy. He froze, his furrowed brows pinching deeper. Confusion bleeding past the cold. His lips pursed, a shape of a what rising and fading. And Daryl sighed, pressed his eyes shut, and spoke.

.-

Aaron couldn’t understand.

They were back in their house now. (His house... or was it?) Stood at opposite ends of a too-long couch, squared off. Daryl could see the panicked spin behind Aaron’s eyes the second he’d started explaining. Slow swirl of confusion speeding to something else. Concern. Doubt. He said “Daryl,” just that, and the careful pitch of that tone nearly broke him.

Daryl flinched.

“Don’t say it ain’t real.”

A careful pause. The coldness was gone like it’d never been there, but the thing in Aaron’s eyes now was so much worse.

“I... know you want it to be real.”

“Don’t.”

“Daryl, you just told me the wind whispered to you.”

“Ain’t the damn wind.” Aaron couldn’t understand. Daryl couldn’t explain it. How could a person explain the kind of shapes Old Things took, the subtle ways they let you glimpse them? Daryl’d had a sense of them his whole life, seen shadows and signs since he’d stepped into his first forest. Learned lessons on his mama’s lap back before he’d been old enough to have the rules of real and fantasy drilled into him. Daryl knew, deep in his bones, but there was no way of describing it.

Aaron’s eyes were the eyes of a rational man faced with the notion of a loved one’s madness. Worried. Heartbroken. Eyes of someone debating calling the loony bin on him, if there’d been a loony bin left to call.

“Month left,” Daryl tried, grit and a ragged plea laced through the words all at once. “Twenty-four days, that’s it. Then call me crazy.”

“I’m not calling you crazy,” Aaron said, soft. His eyes begged to differ. He took a step, then another, to close the gulf between them. His hand lifted to brush Daryl’s cheek. “I’m... Daryl. That’s two thousand, four hundred Walkers. That’s over two thousand risks you’re taking.”

Daryl’d never bothered doing the math. What the hell’d math ever done for him but try to stick him up, thinking on it. He pressed his eyes shut, leaned into the achingly sweet warmth of Aaron’s hand. Said, clear as he could manage: “S’one shot to get him back.”

Aaron didn’t answer, but when Daryl opened his eyes again he saw a sickly understanding in Aaron’s own. Lips parted, an argument rising and dying as Daryl watched, and then Aaron was leaning in to press his forehead to Daryl’s.

For the first time in seventy-six days, it felt like coming home. They lingered in the contact for a few seconds, savoring. And then, soft, comforting, Aaron kissed him.

“Your life’s worth something too,” Aaron murmured, and Daryl felt some fractured piece of his soul mending. A smile ghosted his lips. He pressed it into Aaron’s bushy jaw.

“Ain’t gonna get myself killed. Can’t finish savin’ his ass then.”

It was half a joke, reflexive brush-off of those heartfelt words, but he felt Aaron’s body unclench at them. Like he’d really been terrified, all this time, all these kills... really were just a suicide mission.

Daryl led Aaron to bed and kissed him soundly ‘til the last one of those notions left his head.

.-

In the dawn light, as Daryl dragged himself out of bed and dug around for his scattered boots, Aaron offered: “I could come with you.”

“Couldn’t,” Daryl answered, not glancing up from the knot in his lace. “S’my deal. My kills. You takin’ some’s just gonna make it harder.” He could feel an argument building, sleep-fogged but passionate, in the way Aaron shifted against the sheets. And Daryl half-wanted to let him. Wanted to be talked into it. Into the company, at least, or the sensible head on Aaron’s shoulders. Into having someone to watch his back when a herd caught his scent, or flash a grin at after a narrow escape.

God, the loneliness had seeped so deep inside him these past months. He just wanted something to lean on.

He set a hand on Aaron’s knee. Dragged it down his shin, soothing. “And you got Gracie to think of.”

That settled it. Daryl felt the fight go out of him, the tired sigh. Winning didn’t mean Aaron liked it. When Daryl looked over, he saw a helpless war fighting through him. Ache of an almost-plea in those eyes. Stay.

It wasn’t anything to do with Jesus. Aaron still couldn’t believe that, even if he was trying. He was too rational. Too solidly set in what the world was supposed to be like, not what it was. He was looking at Daryl, saw someone grieving. Saw someone sick in the head, probably. Was just trying to figure out what Daryl needed to keep him from snapping harder.

Your life’s worth something too, he’d said the night before.

Daryl let his boot drop, turned to lean over Aaron.

“Hey... You trust I ain’t gonna get myself killed, out there?”

There was a heavy pause. Aaron sighed.

“No one plans on getting themselves killed, Daryl.”

And there was truth in that. Painful, bitter, and too familiar on the back of both of their tongues. If planning to live meant any damn thing at all, the world’d be full right now and Daryl’d have no walking corpses to fill his deal with. Hell, Jesus would be here, wrapped up safe in this bed, and Daryl’d have no need to fill it.

His gaze softened. He leaned down, kissed Aaron. Raw and quiet against the brush of his lips, offered: “Trust I love you?”

Eight years, probably, of that being true, and Daryl’d never managed to utter it. Sure as hell never braved those words to Jesus, before he fell. Aaron stared up at him, eyes a watery gleam in the dawn light. He wet his lips, bobbed a nod.

“I trust that.”

“Good. Hold that, ‘til I come back and say it again.”

.-

[schemingbishop]

the things that they became

so i’m finally posting my gvbb fic, which has been a hell of a ride and i’m super happy to have worked with my very talented gang!! Thanks to @grishaversebigbang for hosting!

Materialki: @hayleylmorgan @laisacordeliaart @starstrucksailor

summary:  two years after leaving Ketterdam, Captain Inej Ghafa infamous on the seas, a name that people go running from. Her life in Ketterdam is behind her, and she's found a new family in her crew, a certain Ravkan ex-first army soldier in particular. Yet when Kaz Brekker has another job he needs her for, none of that seems to matter anymore. Inej was less finished with Ketterdam than she once believed

ao3 link is here

chapter one can be found under the cut

Kara always felt most alive when she was fighting. Perhaps there was something terrible in that, but there was no denying something in her loved to hear the crash of her sword against another. Loved the dance that followed, stepping back, forwards, dodge, strike, and on it went. There was less spinning and twirling and elaborate throwing of daggers than the stories would have you believe, but there was a certain grace to it. Yet no matter how much a part of her loved fighting, loved the beautiful thrill of it, she could never bring herself to love killing. She never had and she never would. Guilt always cloaked her whenever she drove her sword through a man’s heart, or put a bullet in his brain. No matter how terrible the person, to take a life was a cruel thing.

Killing slavers, however, was a little easier to bare than killing innocents (well exactly how innocent they were Kara felt was up for debate, but that was hardly relevant). Currently, she was trying to do just that. She was not doing particularly well at it, however. The short, dark haired slaver she was fighting had cornered her in the captains cabin, and taken her sword to boot. The doors had flung shut behind him, and Kara heart leapt uncomfortably as she realized she had hit the wall. There was no where else to back away to now. She still had her guns, one gripped tightly in her hand. Her eyes trained on the long thin sword trained at her heart. It was doubtless she could kill him if she wanted, but there was also a chance he could kill her. Kara was fond of life, she was not keen to die on a rotting slaver ship at the hands of some spineless asshole and his stolen sword.

“So this is awkward,” She said with a uncomfortable smile, never taking her eyes of the sword.

“It’s not awkward,” The slaver snarled, stepping forwards and shoving the point of his sword against her chest. “Just because that bitch captain of yours thinks she owns the damn seas – ” Oh but she does own the seas, Kara thought, hastily raising the gun in her hand, Inej Ghafa doesn’t loose. He broke off and scowled at her. The sword was putting fair distance between them, so she couldn’t stab or hit him with anything to throw him off. The sword was sharp enough to already be drawing blood at her stomach, where the slaver was jabbing it. Of course it was, it was her sword. Perhaps if she could shoot his hand, he’d be forced to drop it…

It seemed she would never have to worry about it. The doors were flung open again the man with her sword scrambled backwards to avoid being hit by one of them. Kara flinched too, then tripped and fell as she too tried to step back. She had intended to shoot the slaver, but when she looked across to the desk on the other side of the room she forgot all about him. The captain of the slaver ship was tripping backwards over his own feet, and following was a girl with two shining knives. Inej. One of her knives was quickly pressed to the mans throat. She hadn’t glanced over at Kara, but she knew Inej knew she was there. Saving me again. Kara would have been impressed if it hadn’t made her feel so bloody useless.  

“You’re dead Ghafa,” The Captain hissed, trying, and failing to fight Inej. Kara snorted, at that. People said lots of things about Inej. That she was invincible, the curse upon the seas, a goddess or a saint reborn to enact her justice, they were all lies. But they did say she never lost. Once she set her sights on you, you were as good as a ghost already. That was not wrong. People were often surprised to learn Inej was just a eighteen year old girl, no one was supposed to be so formidable so young. Kara knew a little of why, a few spare details of her time in Ketterdam. The reasons Inej was so dangerous were cruel and unfair and nothing anyone deserved. Using the skills Ketterdam and the dregs gave her for good though? It was beautifully ironic.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Kara said before she could stop herself, and that seemed to revitalize the slaver who had stolen her sword. He had spent the last few moments staring at Inej disbelievingly. As the slaver captain looked over at the two of them, Kara picked up her gun, took off the safety and fired a shot. The slaver slumped down to the ground, and Kara looked back to Inej and the captain. He looked afraid now, no more threats. Inej’s dagger was leaving beads of blood at his throat.

“I can give you money, or a share in profits, or the ship, or – ” Kara didn’t know why he was trying. Everybody knew you didn’t bargain with death. Inej drew the knife across his throat and he dropped back onto the desk, lifeless. She turned to Kara then, a subtle sort of smile on her face, wordlessly offering a hand. Kara looked at it resentfully for a moment, but then she sheathed her guns and took it.

“We won?” Kara asked, as she bent to pick up her sword from the dead man. It was only then that she had noticed it was remarkably quieter outside than it had been a few minutes before.

“Of course,” Inej said, pushing through the door and onto the main deck. Some part of Kara still expected bullets flying and men bleeding out and the ship a wreck. But it was never like that. The former prisoners were being carefully led across to Inej’s own ship by the rest of their crew and any remaining slavers were held a gun point. Some were even jumping ship. The Captain of the Wraith didn’t lose, the rumour carried across the sea, Kara had heard it long before she’d joined the crew. Now, two months after she had, it still amazed her. The good guys don’t always have to loose, it was a nice sentiment and a better reality.

“I suppose I should thank you,” Kara muttered, as she and Inej ventured towards Specht. He was leading the last of the slavers prisoners to the Wraith, and seemingly waiting for Inej to return.

“For saving your life?” Inej raised a brow as she glanced back at her, “I suppose you should.”

“Yeah well, thank you. I had it under control though, I would have been fine.”

“Hmm,” Inej shrugged, and before Kara could protest she was speaking to Specht. Kara didn’t make much of a conscious effort to listen, they were likely only discussing where they would dock to return the freed prisoners to wherever they came from. Kara figured she’d find out soon enough. By the look of it there were only five or six, but she wasn’t surprised. They hadn’t targeted the ship because of who they thought it was carrying. It was part of a larger game, a rich merchant turned slaver who ran a whole business of the illegal trade. He’d taken issue with Inej coming after his ships, sent some after her in return. Once they’d sunk those ships, Inej had decided to take out one of his most prized. The one they were on now. Kara would have pegged it for revenge, had she not known Inej better. It was practical, proof nothing was safe. Hunting slavers wasn’t just about playing the hero.

“Oh, and there’s a letter for you,” Specht’s words finally caught Kara’s attention, and she turned to Inej. Sure enough, he had handed her a rolled scroll of paper, tied with black string. A black crow was emblazoned on the side of the paper. The dregs, it had to be. Specht bore there tattoo, a crow and a cup, on his arm. Inej tended not to speak of her time in the dregs, or her time in Ketterdam at all. Kara couldn’t blame her. She knew a thing or two about troubled pasts, the parts of them she would rather not remember. Inej only ever spoke about the friends that she’d had there, and as far as Kara knew, none of them were still there. Besides, who was desperate enough to send letters to the middle of the ocean?

“Why would they send it to me here?” Inej voiced Kara’s thoughts aloud, and specht just shrugged.

“Some little messenger on a rowboat was sent, wouldn’t let go of the letter til it’d been put in my hand or yours,” He explained as the three of them reached the cabin of Inej’s door.

“Hell of a journey for a letter,” Kara remarked, raising an eyebrow at the scroll. Inej sighed and pocketed it, frowning a little at Kara. Kara couldn’t help but think sometimes the Captain looked at her like she was a mystery to be solved. One piece of the puzzle Inej couldn’t quite place. Inej wouldn’t have liked that, she hated a mystery she couldn’t solve.

“Thank you Specht,” She nodded in his direction, and leant back on the wooden double doors leading to her cabin. It was much nicer than the other, now dead, captains cabin, in Kara’s opinion anyway. The main body had several shelves filled with papers and books and various ornaments, a large desk and two chairs, and an inviting patterned rug. Through a door on the left hand side was a little room where Inej slept. There was something comforting about the cabin to Kara, even if it wasn’t her own. There was something comforting about the whole ship. The Wraith felt more her home than anywhere else ever had. She wondered slowly away from Inej and Spetch, leaving them to sort out whatever they were sorting out. Inej would hardly begrudge her for leaving.

Kara cast a glance to the ship across from them, Valeria and Lia were pulling away the ramp that connected the two boats. It left the remaining slavers alone at sea. An undue mercy, perhaps some would survive. It was more than they deserved, yet less than a different person might have given. She had wanted to ask Inej about the letter. She knew it was probably none of her business, but the thought kept nagging at her mind. If it’s important I’ll find out soon enough. If someone from the dregs was back and asking for anything at all it meant nothing but bad news.

Despite having never set foot in Ketterdam before, Kara had heard of the dregs. Her uncle on her mothers side had been swept up into Ketterdam’s world of gangs and Kara had grown up hearing how terrible they were. Her mother had taught her how terrible a lot of things were – if she could Kara now she’d be mortified. The weapons she carried, the company she kept, the things she’d done. At least I’m not a soldier anymore, She thought, you would have hated that the most. It was laughable to her that her kind, pacifist parents had managed to raise someone like her. You do terrible things to survive, and sometimes the terrible things become part of who you are. That was the story of everyone on this ship.

“Are you gonna help? Or are you just gonna stare at the ocean all day like you’ve never seen it before?” She heard Valeria call from behind her. The other girl was a year younger than Kara, only eighteen, and had almost been killed in the Ravkan civil war. Technically she was a deserter, but none of them saw leaving the service of a country like Ravka a dishonourable thing. Kara understood better than any of them.

“I’m coming!” Kara shouted back, realising that she hadn’t notice the boat start to move. Perhaps she had just become so accustomed to the sea it wasn’t the kind of thing she noticed anymore. But more likely thoughts of her mother had left her mind in another place entirely. Thinking of her family wasn’t exactly her favourite pastime, memories are painful when you know you can’t make anymore like them. She followed Valeria along the ships deck, pushing all thoughts of the letters and the dregs and her family to the back of her mind. Later, she decided, she would ask Inej later. Curiosity always did get the better of her in the end.

[whirlybirbs]

⋆    —--   CARHOP COOL, 2.

summary: you see steve at family video. it prompts some reflection, some questions, and some good ol’ memories of your time at hawkins high. you try to stay frosty but it’s hard when steve harrington is being so nice. pairing: steve harrington x reader, post season three word count: 1.7k a/n: here it is, folks! part two! we have a beach, a movie, and a lotta tension. 

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It’s weird. 

He’s weird.

Steve Harrington is weird and he’s changed and you’re not really sure how you feel about it.

As you pull into the parking lot of the Family Video in your beat-up, slate grey Civic Hatchback, you catch a glimpse of the high school legend in question through the front window. 

He looks the same as he always has. Tall, doe-eyed, good hair... 

Stupidly good looking.

Steve was a mythic figure in grade school. High school just... elevated things. It was like Senior Year came and a throne was vacated just for him -- he was the king of Hawkins High and everyone knew it. 

Then, Nancy Wheeler dumped him for Jonathan Byers and everything changed. 

His title of Prom King was snatched by the grubby, freckled claws of Tommy H. with Carol on his arm that fateful night, then Billy Hargrove walked on and booted him from captain of the basketball team, and then he was rejected by, like, every college he applied to -- or so rumor had it.

(Jenny Larson had told you all about it during the spring production of Oklahoma!... She was obsessed with him. It was like she’d opened his mail or something. You wouldn’t put it past her. She had crazy eyes. You and Robin were always a little freaked out by her. Eugh.)

And, so, Steve Harrington and his mighty hair faded into the yearbook pages of Hawkins Class of ‘85 as a fallen king. 

And now, here he is: selling VHS’s alongside his best friend who was also your best friend. 

(You wonder if that makes him your best-friend-by-proxy? You’d rather not think about it. Best friends don’t launch spit-balls at the back of each other’s heads during Spanish finals and laugh about it and never let it go. Best friends also don’t point and laugh at that DIY perm you did sophomore year, no matter how bad -- best friends, like Robin, help you slather your hair in conditioner and relaxers while you sob in your upstairs bathroom at your fried mane. So, no, Steve Harrington is not your best-friend-by-proxy.)

Narrowing your eyes, you drum your fingers on the steering wheel and snap your gum. 

God, you really don’t want to go in there.

But, then again, you wonder what you have to lose. What, the approval of some washed-up cool-kid? Screw him. He’s dumb anyways. He’s... all hair.

Literally.

Cutting the engine (and subsequently the Donna Summer track playing on your radio), you haul open the door and decide to get this whole thing over with. 

The bell above your head chimes as you walk into the Family Video and Steve Harrington promptly chokes on his can of New Coke upon realizing it’s you. 

It goes up his nose. 

Quickly, he tries to rebound.

“Hey! Hi!” he chirps in an uncharacteristically excited tone, “Welcome, uh, to Family Video!”

You freeze in the doorway and squint.

Steve’s been having some thoughts.

Wild, he knows, but Robin had keyed into how spaced out he’d been since he’d seen you the other night down at Roll-o’s and had decidedly not let it go -- “Just like you never let her whole perm thing go, Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington!” -- in a well-aimed play of well-deserved vengeance. 

For the last three nights, he’s been beating himself up over the sudden realization that he’s got cold feet -- and even Henderson noticed it. 

But, seriously? Could you blame him? He was a grade-A asshole for most of high school and now he’s a huge loser (self-proclaimed, despite both Robin and Dustin’s protests) and you’re super cool. You’re all frosty poise and pastel rollerblades. 

And here he is, working part-time at Family Video, spending the rest of his summer indoors.

Steve Harrington, pale loser.

Not to mention, you had a lot of friends in high school -- maybe not swearing loyalty to any one group, but you fleeted around and blended in and you got along so well with everyone. Everyone knew it was you and Robin Buckley against the world. 

Compare that to his own dumb ass and he’s the world’s saddest pale loser.

At least he has Robin. And you do, too.

Which is why you’re here. In Family Video.

Staring at him.

You pull your sunglasses down your nose, furrow your brow and speak slowly.

“Are you... okay?”

Steve plants his palm on the counter, a sudden flare of nerves lighting his chest on fire as he card a hand through his hair and smiles with the gusto of a man living by the motto fake-it-til-you-make-it. “Me? Yeah -- yeah, I’m good. How’re you? What’s up?”

You push your sunglasses up, snap your gum and shove your hands in the pockets of your jean shorts. Frosty.

“Looking for Robin,” you say curtly, shrugging a bit, “Is she around? She called -- we’re catching a movie after her shift.”

Steve deflates a bit. No invite. Understandable, but ouch. “Uh, yeah, she’s out back with Keith organizing the rental returns.”

You pull a face. 

Steve sees it. He narrows his eyes, lips upturning a bit in curiosity. The expression on your face isn’t so frosty as you toe the carpet with your skate shoes and eye the display of comedies. 

“What?”

“Hm?” you blink back at him, eyes wide, “What?”

“That look,” he says, leaning forward onto his elbows, “What was that for?”

It takes you a second to realize that Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington is trying to make conversation with you. He’s really trying. 

You push your sunglasses back over your hair and move to eye around him. When you speak, it’s quiet.

“Y’know. Keith.”

Steve’s brows raise and he blinks fast. “Oh, yeah, yeah, he’s -- uh...”

He pulls his bottom lip in and waves a hand, searching for the words. 

(They’re evading him because he’s seriously not looking to make himself look like more of an asshole.)

“Creepy?” you offer, turning over a copy of Revenge of the Nerds, “Mad creepy. I’m sure Robin is, like, two seconds from emptying a can of pepper spray in his face.”

“Does she carry pepper spray?”

You shrug. “It’s Robin --”

“-- Yeah, good point.”

“I mean, she could carry a taser --”

“-- And I wouldn’t ask a single question.”

... It’s not weird. Whatever this is isn’t weird.

The laugh you both share is short and quiet but it’s genuine and before the moment can bleed into something like non-verbal peace treaty between warring high school personalities, the girl in question bursts from the back with a big ol’ smile.

“Would y’ look at that!” she claps, “My two best friends! Talking!”

You toss her a wide grin, dropping your sunglasses back down to your nose and as she glides over the counter and leaps into the same handshake you’ve shared since the seventh grade. 

Steve watches with a lopsided smirk. Goofballs. It’s cute.

“You ready for Phenomena?” Robin asks, waving her fingers and cooing like a ghost, “OooOOOooh! Bugs! Psychic powers! Horror!”

“Uh, try drive-in popcorn!” you snort, swatting her hands away, “Took you long enough. I’m starving.”

“You guys are seeing Phenomena?” Steve asks, drumming his fingers on the counter, “I heard it’s good --”

A light bulb bursts above Robin Buckley’s head and you swear you saw it, it was that bright.

“Steve!”

“Robin!” he says with a faux amount of excitement.

“Y-You should come!”

You blink.

Steve blinks at you.

Then at Robin.

Guilt flies across his face. He realizes he’s making you uncomfortable. From the way you tense up and look at Robin, he can tell you’re totally not into that idea.

So, he sputters.

“Uh... I dunno, Rob, I gotta close --”

You decide, in that moment, that Steve Harrington has changed and sure it’s weird but... you’re weird, too. And maybe he wasn’t so... terrible. I mean, he was still stupidly good looking -- and that’s why you’re so tense. Because the one thing you’d believed for all those years is being flipped upside down and you’re about to willingly spending time with The Steve Harrington.

“Why not?” you ask slowly, surprising everyone in the room, even yourself, “It’d be fun. Keith can close up.”

Steve jaw drops. “... Wait, seriously?”

Robin’s whole face lights up.

She blinks between you both. 

You’re glad your sunglasses are on. You try to stay frosty. Can’t let the cool-kid know you have feelings.

“Yeah,” you say, trying to keep your tone even, “I mean -- if you’re gonna launch a spitball at the back of my head during it, don’t even bother, but...”

Steve’s face falls.

You see the real guilt there. It shocks you.

“Listen,” he raises his hands, “I was a dick --”

Robin quirks a brow. “A mega-dick, Harrington.”

“Right, a mega-dick. You... You don’t have to invite me. It’s cool. I get it. I’m, uh...” his words falter off, lost as he drops his gaze and pulls his lips tightly together, “I get it.”

There’s a pause.

And then you sigh. 

“Stop looking like a kicked puppy and just get into my car, Steve.”

Brown eyes light up so bright it’s like you’re smiling at the sun.

“Seriously?”

You start for the door with a grin. “Did I stutter?”

Robin peels into victorious laughter as Steve scrambles faster than light, hucking his vest across the room and leaping over the counter -- he’s grinning as he does, pushing you and Robin out the door before Keith can protest from the back room.

You all pile into your Hatchback and the laughter that’s shared isn’t forced.

For the first time in a week, Steve Harrington hasn’t felt so weird. 

For the first time in years, you’ve felt like you’ve peaked.

[collapsingintojupiter]

Sunshine and StormClouds: Chapter 13

Catch up:

Chapter 1  Chapter 1.5  Chapter 2  Chapter 3  Chapter 4  Chapter 5  Chapter 6  Chapter 7  Chapter 8  Chapter 9  Chapter 10   Chapter 11  Chapter 12

I feel like I’m just writing a rollercoaster at this point lmao.

Characters: Roman, Roman’s mother (abusive), Logan, Virgil, Patton.

Trigger Warnings: (Brief) physical abuse; briefly mentioned memories of abuse; references to abusive/unsympathetic Janus/Deceit; descriptions of an RSD episode.

    It had been a long day. Too long, Roman thought, kicking at a rock as he trudged along the sidewalk. School had gotten more confusing than ever, and even with Logan’s help he was struggling to keep up with all of his classes. It just felt like too much, like all he wanted to do was dig a hole and curl up under the dirt for a long, long nap. 

    But...he had to push through. He had to keep pushing through, like he always did, and--

    A whine interrupted his thoughts and Roman spun around, nearly tripping over his own feet in surprise. He didn’t see anything at first, and let out a soft whistle, crouching down and looking around the nearly empty parking lot he’d been passing. Whatever it was whined again and he edged closer to the noise, finding himself on his knees near a parked minivan. 

    And there it was. A small bundle of black and brown fur, huddled up against the tire. It was shivering and tiny...too tiny. Roman hesitantly reached out a hand, his heart dropping at how the dog flinched. 

    “Hey...” he whispered. “Don’t worry, It’s okay...I won’t hurt you, I promise...I just want to help…” Inch by inch he slid his hand forward, until he could ever-so gently run a finger along the dog’s shoulders. I can feel his ribs through his fur. Roman moved slowly and steadily, until he was able to carefully pick the tiny creature up. 

    “Hey, what are you doing!?” Roman jumped, hitting his head on the side of the car with a yelp. 

    “Is that a dog? Is he yours?” He slowly looked up, wincing at his throbbing head as he found himself face-to-face with a stout brunette. 

    “Uh...n-no, ma’am. I don’t know whose dog it is. I was hoping it might be yours.”

    “I’m afraid it isn’t.” The woman’s voice softened as she looked at the tiny puppy cradled in Roman’s arms. “I’m sorry I scared you. I would offer to take it home, but my apartment doesn’t allow animals.”

    “I...I can take him,” Roman lied, flashing a smile at the woman. “Don’t worry, I’m sure my mom will be fine with it.” Also a lie. But...strangers made him nervous, and he just wanted to leave.

    “Hmmm, alright. Might want to put up some Found posters, ‘n case he belongs to someone,” the woman said. “Anyways, goodnight, and good luck with him.” With that she climbed into her car and drove off, leaving Roman alone with a puppy his mother most definitely would not want. And by the looks of the puppy...if it did have an owner, it wasn’t one he’d give it back to. 

    “I’ll take care of you,” Roman whispered. He gently slid off his backpack, putting the puppy beside it as he pulled his sweatshirt off and gently bundled it up in it. “There you go, that should keep you warm.”

    For a brief moment, Roman considered calling Logan. Or Virgil. Or even stopping by their house, but...what if they didn’t want the dog? What if he was just bothering them by stopping by at this hour? They probably didn’t want a dog; maybe Patton would be scared of it, or allergic. He couldn’t risk that.

    Roman didn’t have the money to take it to a vet, or the heart to take it to a shelter. Both were far away, anyways, and it was getting dark. Without his sweatshirt, it was cold. 

    Looked like he’d have to take it home and take his chances. 

    “I hope Mom likes you,” Roman murmured to the puppy, glancing over at Logan and Virgil’s house as he passed by. He could see their kitchen; see the husbands eating dinner, and little Patton in his high chair. For a brief moment, his heart felt warm. He smiled to himself, then ducked his head and kept walking. It was just a dream, and a dream too good for him. 

    Roman continued on, and the streets felt colder and emptier than before as he approached his house; a house where he knew there was no warmth or kindness waiting for him. A house that was only a house; and not a home. 

    Please don’t be drunk, Roman begged the universe, as he reached the front door and opened it. 

    He stepped inside, and found that the universe was apparently deaf tonight. He smelled his mom before he saw her, sprawled across the couch with a glass of wine in her hand...and not her first glass.

    “Hi honey,” she called, as Roman slid off his backpack and hesitantly approached her. “What’s that you got?”

    “I...I’m sorry mom,” Roman swallowed. “I uh, I found a puppy…”

    “You brought home an animal!?” In an instant his mother’s expression changed, a snarl on her face as she staggered up from the couch. “You get that horrible thing out of my house! Now!”

    “Mom, please, I promise I’ll--”

    He was cut off as she slapped him, stumbling backwards and nearly dropping the dog in the process. It whimpered, and if anything the expression on Mrs. Emmerson’s face only got meaner when she heard it.

    “I told you to get the rodent out of the house!” she screamed. “I hate those stupid, worthless things! All they do is cost money! You don’t have money for a dog! I don’t have money for a dog! If you want it so bad, then you can sleep in the street with it! Now go!” she pointed furiously at the door, and before Roman could process what was happening he was outside in the cold again. 

    “I’m sorry,” he whispered, looking at the empty road; at the puppy in his hands. “I’m sorry…” he could feel the exhaustion crawling up his spine; the cold seeping into his tired body. The Sanders’ house was so far away, back down the road...

    With trembling hands, Roman pulled his phone from his pocket. 

---

    “Spajetti!” Patton shouted, his face covered in the red sauce as he stuffed the noodles into his mouth with his hands. Virgil was laughing so hard he was crying, while Logan snapped picture after picture of their ecstatic son.

    Virgil doubled over and fell out of his chair, which made Patton giggle and even got a laugh out of Logan. He started to get back up, still laughing when the phone rang.

    “It’s Roman,” he said in surprise as he pulled it from his pocket, the laughter fading from his eyes as he answered it. “Hey Roman, what’s--”

“I’m sorry Virgil, I’m so sorry,” Roman stumbled over his words; he was crying, Virgil realized. 

“Hey, whoah, sorry for what? What’s wrong?”

“I...I found a dog...I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to do...I...my mom...she...I can’t…I’m sorry...”

“Hey, Roman, listen to me. I’m coming right now, okay? Don’t apologize for a thing. I’ll be right there.”

“Thank you so much…” Roman sniffled, then hung up. Logan looked at Virgil, a look of question in his eyes. 

“I’ll be right back,” Virgil said, pulling himself to his feet. He leaned over and kissed Logan on the forehead; then Patton. “I’ll be back before you know it, Sunshine,” he whispered. 

He went to the car and started it, pulling out onto the street and making his way towards Roman’s house. Thoughts whirled around in his head; memories; memories of the same tremor in his own voice, the same tears in his own eyes. 

No. He didn’t want to think about it. 

He let out an audible sigh of relief when he found Roman on the side of the road, wearing only a t-shirt in the freezing wind. A tiny something was bundled up in his only south of warmth. 

It means you’ll give blood til there’s none left to bleed...

Virgil shook his head and got out, pulling off his patch jacket as he approached the boy. 

“Are you okay?” he asked gently. Roman sniffed and looked up, giving him the tiniest nod. Virgil draped his patch jacket around the teen’s shoulders, glaring at him when he tried to stutter an apology; a protest. 

“You’re cold. Take it,” he ordered. Roman shut his mouth and swallowed hard, getting into the car without a sound when he opened the door for him. Virgil got into the driver’s seat, glancing at the boy as he started back towards their house. 

“Roman, you’re okay,” he said softly. “You are not in trouble. I am not upset. Logan will not be upset. I promise.” He paused, then added: “I’m proud of you, you know.”

“Proud?” Roman asked, sounding both surprised and exhausted. 

“Yes. For caring. It takes a lot of courage to do what you did.”

Roman didn’t answer him; turning and looking out the window as they finished the drive to his house. They pulled into the driveway and Virgil stopped; then turned to look at Roman. 

    “Listen, kid. You may not be able to believe me right now, and that’s okay. But you are brave. You’re a good kid, and Logan and I do care about you. And I--we’ll both do whatever it takes to help you understand and believe the truth.” He sighed; he knew his words were falling on deaf ears, but he had to say them anyways. “For now, let’s take care of that puppy, okay?”

    “Okay,” Roman whispered. He got out; letting Virgil lead him inside. Logan was waiting with Patton in his arms. 

    “Look who’s here, Sunshine,” Logan said, as the child reached excitedly to Patton. 

    “Ro-Ro!” he shouted. “Hi Romin!” At that, even Roman couldn’t help but smile. 

    “Would you like to hold him?” Logan asked. 

    “Y-Yes, please.” Virgil gently took the puppy from his arms, and Logan passed Patton to him while the two fathers looked over the small dog. 

    “He’s not in very good shape,” Logan said, gently pulling back the sweatshirt wrapped around it. “Some food in its belly and a bath should help. We’ll call Remy; he’s good with dogs. I’m sure he’d love to help as well.”

    “Thank you,” Roman whispered. “Thank you.”

    “Of course,” Logan said. “Now, Roman, would you like to watch Patton, or would you like to help with the dog? It’s up to you.” Roman looked at Patton, then at the tiny puppy in Virgil’s hands. 

    “I...c-can I help with the puppy, please?” 

    “Absolutely.” Virgil nodded to Roman, handing the dog back once the boy had given Patton back to Logan. “Let’s start with some food. I’m thinking a scrambled egg, and Remy can bring us some dog food when he comes over. Does that sound good to you?” Roman just nodded, holding the tiny creature close to his chest as Virgil got out the egg carton and a pan. 

---

    “While I’m cooking eggs, I feel like making extra. Would you like some?”

    “Um, yes please, sir.”

“You don’t have to call me sir, kid.” 

    “R-Right.” Roman stood awkwardly by the counter, Virgil’s jacket still around his shoulders as the warmth of the house began to seep into his body. He could feel it chasing the cold and anxiety away, and tried to focus on taking deep breaths.

    Safe. Safe. I’m safe here. It’s okay. It’s okay. His frazzled mind slowly but surely cleared, as Virgil cooked up the eggs and he remembered just how hungry he was. Luckily, Virgil made a lot, and suddenly there was a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him. A small plate was brought out for the puppy, and Roman sat down cross-legged on the kitchen floor beside it as they both ate. 

    The puppy ate eagerly, and so did he. Virgil watched them with a look Roman might’ve called fond, if he wasn’t so exhausted and convinced that everything hated him. He knew it was his ADHD and the accompanying RSD, but he couldn’t control it. He couldn’t make the hurt stop hurting.

    All he could do was wait it out.

    And eat his eggs. 

---

    Remy came to pick up the dog shortly after Virgil and Roman had finished bathing it. The thing was so small it fit in the sink, where it shivered and trembled as the two gently washed it with warm water and brushed out its fur afterwards. The barista promised to take care of it and bring it by to visit once he’d brought it by the vet’s office, and to let Roman name it. 

    Virgil tried to convince Roman to stay with them for the night, but he insisted on going back to his mom. He had school tomorrow, he said, and no amount of convincing would keep him away from the hellhole Virgil knew awaited him at home. 

    He knew it too well. Far, far too well, and he hated it more than words could say. He hated knowing this kid was doing exactly what he had done, and that he couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t make Roman understand, just like Logan and Remy hadn’t been able to make him understand. 

    He had to be patient. He had to wait.

    “At least take this home with you,” Virgil said at last. He pressed a container full of the leftover spaghetti into Roman’s hands; it was still warm from their earlier meal. Roman was hesitant to take it, but eventually he did. Then he pulled his sweatshirt on, tucked the container under his arm, and disappeared back into the cold dark.