#so obviously there’d be a day when the doctor has to move on

[rystiel]

i’m not a fic writer but. concept:

the doctor/yaz and the doctor/rose crossover 🤯 like yaz meeting this younger version of the doctor with a companion that he’s very obviously in love with, and she wants her doctor to be that open with her, but she starts to understand why the doctor ends up more closed off from loving her companions like that as she learns how hard the loss of rose was on her back then etc etc

[disticfiction]

"Are you insane?" you yelled, addressing your superior.

You stared him down, then stared at the man laying on the gyno chair in front of you, his legs spread and strapped to the holders. His wrists were also cuffed to the armrests, preventing him from moving. He looked angry, but mostly embarrassed, his cheeks red as he avoided eye contact. They'd removed his pants, but not his cowl, the flaps folded back to expose his shocking secret.

"That's rather rude, Nurse--"

"I don't care if it's rude!" you interrupted. "That man has a vagina. A vagina! In Tartarus!"

The doctor lowered his head. "Yes, I'm aware."

"Why is he here? This is a men's prison!"

"Look, I'm inclined to agree with you, but it's out of my hands. The Warden said he has to be placed here because of his violent tendencies. If they put him with women, it would make them uncomfortable. There'd be riots."

"If anybody finds out--!"

"They won't. That's why he's here alone, getting a special appointment. Or hadn't you noticed we emptied the entire wing just for him?"

You paused, taking a look around. Regardless, it didn't feel right. Tartaus held the most dangerous criminals in the colony, many of them convicted rapists, and very, very pent up. You weren't even allowed to travel to the main block, lest your own safety be compromised, but you quickly sighed, knowing neither you nor your boss could sway the Warden's decision.

"Fine," you whispered, reluctantly.

"Good. Just give him an examination. Make sure he's not hiding anything up there. Make sure he's not carrying any infections. Oh, and make him cum."

You flinched, thrown by the last instruction. "E-excuse me?"

"Warden's orders. We've never seen anything like this, and if we're to ensure proper medical treatment for anything he may need, we need to know how his body reacts to stimulation."

"Oh, I see. So that's why you called me in today, on my day off." You rolled your eyes, arms crossed. "You didn't want to do this yourself."

The doctor swallowed a nervous laugh. "I admit the thought of working a man's pussy to orgasm is a bit much for me."

"Fine. Whatever. I'll bring you my report when I'm finished."

"Thank you, Nurse."

After that, he couldn't have left sooner. Basically ran out the door. You sighed, miffed by his lack of professionalism, then walked over to the drawers and grabbed the tools needed for the examination. Scraper, thin prep container, gel, speculum. You stopped.

"You're not a virgin, are you?"

The man looked away. Clearly, he planned on being difficult. You didn't exactly blame him, the whole situation must have been absolutely humiliating, but your sympathy was thin. He was a criminal, after all, and obviously a serious one since he'd been sent to Tartarus.

"Sir, I need to know. It effects the size of the speculum I'll use. Or do you want me to use the biggest size we have?"

That got his attention.

"I'm not a virgin," he groaned. "But ... please don't use the biggest size."

Please? That was a word you weren't used to hearing from a convict. In fact, upon taking a closer look you noticed his robe was a vestment.

"You're a clergyman?"

"A vicar," he spat. "How good of you to finally realise."

That was snarky. A sore spot for sure. Frowning, you grabbed the second largest speculum and moved everything you needed to the tray, then took a seat between his legs. He still wouldn't look at you, but that was fine. Upon closer inspection, however, you nearly kicked yourself. He very obviously wasn't a virgin, his entrance slightly loose and worn, abnormally experienced. Without a word, you went back for the biggest speculum, which he noticed, but didn't contend. He seemed embarrassed, facing the wall as you returned to your chair.

"Age?" you asked as you lubed the metal.

"Fourty-three."

You scoffed, tilting your head in disbelief. "I thought preists weren't supposed to lie."

He growled. "Fifty-three. Why does it matter?"

"It matters a little." You kindly covered the blades in gel. "So how long you in for?"

"I'm not a prisoner, I was assigned here!"

That struck a nerve. Pouting, you checked his chart. He was definitely a prisoner. Vicar Maximilian DeSoto, two years for manslaughter resulting from a brawl he instigated. You'd never seen such a profound level of denial, but to keep him calm you played along with his delusion.

"Maximilian. Max? Can I call you Max?"

"If you're the sort that prefers brevity, I suppose. Is it really too much effort to use my full title?"

Now he was starting to annoy you. His attitude, his demeanor, his sanctimonious snapbacks, you could understand how he ended up in prison. Yet another criminal with a high opinion of himself. They were all like that, but he was almost on another level.

He wouldn't be so smug in a few seconds.

"Okay, slight pressure."

"Wai--urk!"

You slipped the apparatus inside him with little effort, though you could tell his walls were trying to resist. With one hand, you spread his folds, which were surprisingly distended, while sliding the tool deeper with the other. He arched back, his legs straining as he adjusted, but his clit almost instantly cut the air, rock hard from the sudden stimulation.

"Y-you didn't even warn me!" he barked, eyes closed tight as you explored.

"I absolutely did. I told you there'd be pressure."

"Architect, you're heartless! It's so cold!"

"Just let me know if there's any pain. That's my only concern."

"Law have mercy!"

The base bumped his pelvis. You reached the speculum's limit, but not his end. That was enough, though. He was deeper than average, which was almost impressive, but you were confident you could conduct the examine without full range. He'd been very active in his sex life, but you could tell he was also extremely sensitive, drool frothing in his mouth as he blushed and melted into his pillow.

"You okay?"

It took him a moment to answer, but he did. "Ugh! Wh-why are you using the big one?"

"Honestly, it's barely big enough."

He cringed. "Whatever. Just do what you have to."

"Okay, opening now."

You twisted the screw, and he shuddered as the stretching commenced. 9mm. 12mm. He moaned. 18mm. You could see his cervix. His insides throbbed, soaking wet as his hole compensated for the intrusion. He was tight, but responsive.

"Is ... isn't that enough?"

You kept going. It was enough, in truth, but the more of his cervix you could see, the better. Basic medical practice. The screw became harder to turn, though. 36mm. He jutted, rattling his chains. He was getting antsy, certainly feeling every movement. 42mm.

"No pain?" you asked, slowing your assault.

"N-no, but ... I think it's wide enough."

45mm. His breathing hastened. You looked up to see his expression. His brow was curled, sweating. You'd never spread a patient so wide before, but you also literally couldn't. He was the first person to take it without complaint. Moreover, he appeared to enjoy it, even though he clearly didn't appreciate being prodded.

"Almost there," you said, reaching the max diameter.

50mm, as far as the tool could open. He was trembling, his walls squeezing down on the blades. You knew it was wrong, but something about it turned you on. Seeing him lay there, helplessly, that prior look of superiority wiped from his face, and his hole splayed open; it was bizarre, yet pleasing. You had never seen anything like it. He was wrinkled and red inside, and throbbing so hard from the teasing that the speculum flicked the air.

"S-stop looking at it," he begged, pulling you out of your stupor.

"I have to look at it," you said, saving your pride. "I have to check for any abnormalities."

"You mean besides the fact that I have a vagina in the first place?"

You shrugged. "Don't put words in my mouth. Now, take a breath while I take a swab."

You grabbed the scraper, then slowly lowered it into his open hole. Gently, you touched the bristles to his cervix and began to brush for cells. Such a process was sometimes painful for patients, sometimes it felt good. Luckily for him, it was the latter. He quickly bit his lip, trying to muffle a boisterous moan. Unusually sensitive, you noted.

"Does that feel good?" you asked, pushing a bit harder and covering a larger area.

You didn't have to do that, but his reaction was alluring. His chest heaved, his teeth clenching and fingers balling into fists. To think he might cum from having his cervix played with. The external orifice oozed with his juices, pulsing along with his walls, which clenched tighter around the blades.

"Y-you have your sample, right?"

Damn. You didn't want to seem unprofessional, even if he was a convict. Better to be safe than sorry. You pulled out, and he sighed loudly, nearly falling off the edge. You'd been told to make him cum, and he heard it, but it was apparently assumed you'd use normal methods. Still, your curiosity was rumbling. As was protocol, you put the sample in the cup, then sealed it, but that's when you got an idea. Hiding your smile, you rushed back to the drawer and grabbed two more cups and scrapers, then returned to the chair between his legs.

"Wha ... what are you doing?" he asked, lifting his head to get a better look.

"Just being thorough. I'm going to test you for additional diseases."

"I don't have any diseases!" he yelled, his patience spent.

"I'm sure that's true, but it's better to take every possible precaution."

"This is ridiculous," he roared, unconvinced. "Just get this over with!"

"That's what I'm doing."

His eyes changed from anger to worry as you lowered the second swab inside him. When it made contact with that very vulnerable spot, he grunted. His voice was so deep and airy. It was hot. Determined, you twirled the brush in full circles, working your way around his wedge several times over.

"E-enough..." he puffed, his shoulders bobbing. "You have to, augh ... stop this."

"Almost finished."

He was so close. You could tell. You'd never given anyone a cervical orgasm before. You looked at his face, but he wasn't looking at you anymore. He was focused on the ceiling, his eyes glazed over. To avoid suspicion, you stopped, collected the sample, then added the final scraper.

"Aauhhg!"

You brushed faster, a little harder. You knew you had to be delicate, but he didn't mind the extra pressure, and it was intriguing. You molested every inch of his dome, using the bristles like a paint brush to trigger every offended nerve.

That was the final straw. He came, choking on a scream as his toes curled and cervix vibrated like a drum. You saw it all, his walls clasping down on the speculum but unable to close. As the pleasure ate away at his sanity, the tool popped out by a few millimeters, shaken loose by the force of his spasms. Cruelly, you pushed it back in, rewarded with a howl as you rode the shockwaves. It was incredible, watching him cum while being held apart. If you hadn't been sitting, you might've crumbled to the floor, your own body weak from watching.

"Easy now. Easy."

As he caught his breath, his head spinning, you carefully pulled the speculum from his hole. As soon as it was out, his walls snapped shut, winking violently. He felt enraptured deep inside, but you wanted more. You wanted him to feel it everywhere.

"I-I'm sorry," he breathed, lost in his moment of weakness.

"It's okay. Perfectly normal."

Lies.

"S-so ... that's it, then? I can go?"

"You did very well, Max, but I'm afraid it isn't over."

His eyes popped. "Wait, what?! But I just--!"

"Just what?" you asked, setting the samples aside. "What did you just do?"

He pursed his lips, then looked away. You knew it, he was too proud to admit you made him cum with such an invasive procedure. You both knew you had, but his denial was so profound he couldn't even acknowledge it. No matter. You were looking forward to making him cum again.

"You don't need to do this," he lisped, his voice shaky as you pinched his clit.

"But I do," you countered. "You heard my superior."

You dipped two fingers inside, all the way to the knuckles, and you both moaned. Max from the sensation of having his still beating hole penetrated for the second time, and you from how hard he clasped down. Mere moments ago you had him so widely stretched. He shouldn't have been so tight, yet he was, squeezing your fingers like a vice.

You began to pump, thrusting in and out as you rolled his clit between your thumb and index. The whole area was red now, and brutally swollen. Even though he shook his head, subconsciously opposing your actions, his chest heaved, his grunts turning into pitiful whimpers.

"S-stop..." he huffed, his ass jutting up off the platform.

"I think you mean 'deeper'. Why else would you be bucking your hips?"

He gasped, ashamed. "I..."

"It's okay. This is the goal, after all. I wouldn't want it to hurt."

You loved being inside him, feeling his vibrant wrinkles rib against your skin, but you wanted more. You wanted him to suffer in the best possible ways. Curling your fingers, you found a rough patch several inches in, which made him jump. That was it. You focused on that sensitive patch, poking and rubbing as you jerked his clit. Just a bit more. Drool stuck to the roof of his mouth as he cried out, gripping the handles so hard his knuckles turned white. Architect, yes.

"Aaaugh! Aah!"

He came, his hole gushing with enough force to wet your sleeve, but you continued to thrust, milking his orgasm as you watched with wicked intent. His tiny nub quivered, held hostage and completely at your mercy. It was powerful, the way his body writhed, ruined by the pleasure coursing through his veins. Even as a doctor, you had no idea a man could cum so ruthlessly.

"Very good," you whispered, slowly slipping your fingers from his hole, a line of his juices following.

You wiped it off.

"That's ... that's enough," he wheezed, his hair damp and disheveled. "Please."

You recorded the incident in your report.

Clit, 4.5cm long, 1.5cm wide. Bulbous. Grey pubic hair. Cervical orgasm during sample collection, plus blended orgasm due to basic stimulation of the clitoris and vagina. Vaginal depth when aroused, 8.5 inches. Further examination required.

"How are you feeling?" you asked, finishing your notes.

"How do you think?" he snapped, his anger returning. "I'm fucking exhausted!"

"I'm going to need you to hang on just a little longer. We have one more test."

"What?!"

You didn't, but you hadn't had this much fun in ages. Working in a prison, especially a men's prison, was taxing. You'd wanted to take out your frustrations for such a long time, and now finally you could. You looked down at the Vicar, who looked up at you with a harmless, helpless gaze.

"Just one more."

"No, please! It's too sensitive now!"

"That's exactly what we need to test."

"Bullshit! This is rape and you know it!"

"I can't rape a convict," you hissed.

The vicar's eyes hallowed, filing with a fear he'd never felt in his life.

"Wh-what?"

"You can deny it all you want, but I know what you did. It's all right there, in your file. I've met so many men like you. Pompous, arrogant, they come through here every day. You all have the same excuses. 'It's not my fault. I'm a good man. They forced me to attack. I don't belong here.' I've heard it all, vicar. You're not the first and you won't be the last to proclaim your innocence."

You stood up and walked to the back wall, no longer content to hide your feelings.

"But we both know you're full of shit. You killed a man and that's why you're here. You're not on assignment, you're not acting for the church, you're just a convict." You grabbed the tossball stick leaning in the corner. "And convicts don't have rights, so they can't be raped."

"What are you saying!?" he cried, yanking on his cuffs. "You're insane!"

Grinning, you removed the metal base from the stick and approached the vicar, then lined the tip with his entrance.

"Just one more. Let's make it a good one."

"Y-you can't be serious! No! Stop!"

His mind blanked as you used both hands to force the length inside. His hole stretched beautifully, accepting the smooth wood as his crease swallowed it, greedily. He couldn't stand it, tears welling in his eyes as you banged into his cervix, reaching his limit. He really was sensitive, ruined by his prior abuse, but you didn't care.

"Please!" he choked, sweat shimmering on his brow as he attempted to adjust to the overwhelming fullness. "D-don't move it!"

Request denied. You began to thrust, violently fucking his hole with the weirdest object you'd ever used. It was exhilarating, watching as 8.5 inches faded into him over and over. The poor priest howled, shaking as you smashed the conceit out of him. You knew it wouldn't last forever, but in that moment he was yours, a begging, blubbering mess. Finally humbled.

"S-stop! Aaugh!"

"Are you going to cum?" you asked, thrusting faster. "Take it. Take it all."

"Aaaughah!"

He came, faster than intended, but you kept thrusting, chasing the first orgasm and working for a second. Tears rolled down his chin, his face blistering. Law, he felt so good. So good he couldn't form a single sentence. The way his walls clenched, nearly coming undone with every pump, it was glorious.

"N-not again! Ahhh!"

You couldn't stop, putting everything you had into one final assault. The length of the stick gave you the perfect view, standing you far enough away you could see everything. His hole, his twisted expression, the way his chest heaved, his nipples poking through his material. There was something so impersonal about it, so disconnected. You were fucking him, but with no regard for his wishes. As a doctor, you knew full well your actions were rape, but you had a job to do.

"Auuugh!"

He came again, clenching down around the stick with so much force you felt the rod wriggle in your hands. His eyes rolled back, his voice breaking into weak, pathetic whimpers. His reaction was nothing like you expected, the sweet but tragic ecstasy warping his mind. His fingers dug into the armrests, his toes flicking as the muscles in his legs strained tight enough to rumple his skin. It wasn't just his hole, he was feeling it everywhere.

"Y-yes!" he shrieked, a crazed smile stretching across his face. "Fuck!"

He didn't know what he was saying. You'd broken him, rendering him a blissful slut, his mouth and tongue hanging. Both orgasms, still careening out of control, found every nerve in his body and strangled them. As his eyes wandered, you smiled and pulled the stick from his hole, which gushed immediately, soaking the chair beneath him. You'd never seen a man in such an unnatural state of bliss, and you had to calm yourself from taking it further.

You dropped the stick to the floor, gulping loudly as you approached. He was ruined. Absolutely enervated, but unable to relax. His hole, somehow, gaped widely, winking in applause. You needed a moment to process it. You were a doctor, yet you did that to him, breaking every rule of ethics, shoving random objects into his cunt until he shattered. You knew it was wrong, but, sinfully, you didn't care. In that moment, all you could do was stare into his beating hole and smile.

When the tidal wave of pleasure finally began to settle, his own smile faded and his body melted into the chair. Before he seemed so confident and proud, but now he laid in awe, slumped against his tiny pillow. His little moans and sobs were nothing short of enticing, a testament to your session. His poor hole. Perhaps you went overboard, but he'd recover.

As his eyes batted, his consciousness waning, you grabbed your clipboard and recorded the experience, as instructed.

Warning, patient is extremely sensitive. Prone to above average orgasms. Inner walls lose elasticity when agitated. Cervix, equally sensitive. Patient's stamina is impressive, but easily depelted with enough force. Recommendation, keep away from other prisoners. Additional recommendation, send to clinic once a week for regular vaginal inspections.

[robininthelabyrinth]

LXC is the legal guardian and adopter for LSZ or LJY, and NMJ has questions.

part 2 of the LJY-adopted-by-LQR fic (now also on ao3)

-

“So, did I knock you up before I went to war or something?” Nie Mingjue asked. “Because I feel like you should’ve mentioned it if that was the case. Possibly in a letter.”

Lan Xichen was so tired that it took him a solid minute to parse what was wrong with that sentence and how to respond, and it was not by following his first instinct to apologize that he should’ve written better letters.

“Stop making fun of me,” he said instead, groping towards some measure of dignity.

Sadly, dignity was in very short supply when you were taking care of babies. Multiple babies. Well, one baby and one toddler, which was somehow worse?

Lan Xichen was pretty sure they’d figured out how to time their crying off each other.

“I would never,” Nie Mingjue said, like a liar, and then he picked up little Jingyi and – Lan Xichen simply cannot find another way to put it – shook him, in a manner not unlike testing a melon for freshness.

For some reason, this made Lan Jingyi stop crying and start making snuffling little giggles instead.

“How did you do that?” Lan Xichen asked, eyes wide.

“Do what?” Nie Mingjue tucked the baby into the crook of his arm and scooped up some food off the table, offering it to him, and Lan Jingy actually ate it. “Xichen, are you feeling all right?”

“Shhh!” Lan Xichen hissed, eyes fixed on the baby, which was neither spitting up everything nor wailing as if his heart was broken. “No unnecessary noise during meals.”

Nie Mingjue snorted in amusement. “Sure,” he said amiably, in the tone Lan Xichen had long ago learned meant ‘nice rules you’ve got there, it’d be an awful shame if someone found a loophole in them’. “This isn’t a meal, though; it’s just a snack.”

Lan Xichen eyed the still-not-crying Lan Jingyi and decided that now was not the time for a spirited debate on the virtues of discipline and fulfilling the merits rather than the word of a rule.

“Where’s monster number one gone?” Nie Mingjue asked abruptly. “He must be very good at hiding, because I looked away for a blink of an eye and he was gone.”

Lan Xichen’s eyes slowly dropped down to where a cloth-covered lump was not-so-sneakily edging towards Nie Mingjue’s foot.

Nie Mingjue was one of the foremost front line fighters of their generation, and possibly the previous one as well. His physical ability was matched only by his incredibly keen senses.

There was no way he was not aware of the lump.

“It’s a real shame, too,” Nie Mingjue continued. “I was planning on doing a test of how far you can throw children, but I think monster two here’s a bit too small to make the test worthwhile. But I guess it just wasn’t meant to be –”

You can’t throw children, Lan Xichen was about to say, except Lan Sizhui was tearing off the tablecloth and jumping up in excitement, shouting, “Here! Here! I’m here! I’m big enough! You can throw me!”

“Why does he want to be thrown,” Lan Xichen murmured, bewildered. He’d never wanted to be thrown around as a child. Had he?

In fairness, he wasn’t sure. No one had ever offered.

Apparently, though, Lan Sizhui did very much want to be thrown around, and Lan Jingyi even condescended to allow Lan Xichen to hold him while he watched.

“Higher! Higher!” Lan Sizhui shouted.

“Really? Is this high enough?” Nie Mingjue held him up at eye level.

“Higher!”

“Like this?” Above his head.

“Higher!”

“You sure?”

“Yes!”

“All right. How about –” Baxia slithered out from her place by the door, zipping over until she was right in front of Nie Mingjue, allowing him to step onto her like a stair, and then zipping upwards to about hip-height, lifting Nie Mingjue and Lan Sizhui with her. They very nearly hit a tree branch with their heads. “– this?”

Lan Sizhui shrieked with laughter.  

“It’s too early to introduce them to flying,” Lan Xichen objected, because it was. “Mingjue-xiong…”

Nie Mingjue hopped down with a laugh. “All right, one last toss,” he told Lan Sizhui. “Then you nap. Okay?”

“Okay!” Lan Sizhui, who had never once willingly succumbed to naptime in the entirety of the time that Lan Xichen had known him, promised earnestly.

Back into the pile of soft grass he went, giggling the entire time, and amazingly enough he really did fall asleep afterwards. Lan Jingyi, too, had fallen asleep at some point.

“I’ve decided that your brother needs more experience running a sect,” Lan Xichen told Nie Mingjue, who raised his eyebrows. “Starting immediately. I promise to allow you to leave when Jingyi is, oh, shall we say five years old..?”

You could reason with a five year old. 

Nie Mingjue laughed.

It was a type of laugh that suggested that he thought Lan Xichen was making a joke. This was incorrect.

“You’d be amazed at how serious I am,” Lan Xichen told him threateningly, “I’m sect leader here, this is my territory, I can have you arrested any time –” but by that point Nie Mingjue was already bundling him off to bed, too, combing out his hair and plying him with snacks and –

This was not helping his argument that Lan Xichen should be allowing him to leave rather than keep him trapped in the Cloud Recesses as a babysitter-slash-love-slave. 

Well, he wouldn’t really do that, of course. He’d let him go. Eventually.

It’d probably be good for Nie Mingjue’s stress levels, honestly.

“Seriously, though, how did you do that?” he asked, his head on Nie Mingjue’s lap. “They didn’t cry once.”

“I’m good with kids,” Nie Mingjue said, his fingers digging into Lan Xichen’s scalp in just the right way. “Now can you explain to me how exactly you ended up with them? Two, no less?”

Lan Xichen groaned and covered his eyes with a hand. “Sizhui’s Wangji’s,” he explained. “Not biologically, but he’s put his name down in the family register under his own. But, you know…”

“I know.”

Lan Xichen appreciated that he didn’t need to go into it. The doctors had estimated that Lan Wangji would regain full mobility within three years, so that was the period the elders had mandated for his so-called ‘seclusion’, but with Lan Wangji being locked away like that – even with visitors, even though he was trying his hardest to care for the child from where he was – meant that someone had to care for the child’s day-to-day life until his brother was ready to resume the role.

“Jingyi is a cousin, I think,” he continued. “His parents are dead, and uncle accepted guardianship for him…I think he’s going to adopt him, actually.”

“Then why is he with you?”

“I volunteered.”

“Xichen, I say this with a full heart of affection and tremendous respect for your capabilities,” Nie Mingjue said. “But why in the world would you go and do a stupid thing like that?”

Lan Xichen sighed. The worst part was, he couldn’t even argue that it wasn’t stupid – he was, quite obviously, terrible with children.

“Uncle’s still injured from the war,” he admitted. In fact, his injury was probably even older than the war, dating as far back as the burning of the Cloud Recesses – his uncle had never been much of a fighter, his impressive cultivation strength stemming almost entirely from gentler arts like music and learning and meditation, but when his home and his family and his students were at risk, he’d fought, while Lan Xichen ran. Not just fought; he’d kept fighting long past the point that his body allowed. It only made sense for the bill to need to be paid. “He had a recurrence of an old complaint, not long ago; he started coughing up blood. The doctors insisted that he try to avoid anything that might cause him  stress.”

“Stress. Like, say, a rowdy infant?”

“Exactly like a rowdy infant,” Lan Xichen agreed, glad that Nie Mingjue did not mention that what had happened with Lan Wangji was also likely a source of stress. At least the two of them had slowly started to repair their relationship recently – the heartbreak would kill their uncle sooner than anything else, and Lan Xichen might be weak, but he really couldn’t tolerate the idea of suffering any more loss.

And also, if Lan Wangji could see his way to forgiving their uncle, he might one day agree to forgive Lan Xichen, too.

“I see. So you ended up with the little one, too.”

“Yes. And they hate me.” Nie Mingjue coughed a little. “No, don’t deny it. They clearly hate me. They always cry and spit and yell -”

“They’re children, Xichen,” Nie Mingjue said. “Traumatized children. They do that.”

Lan Xichen didn’t need to open his eyes to know that Nie Mingjue was frowning in memory of pain long past. Lan Xichen remembered, with painful clarity, how young Nie Huaisang had been when Lao Nie had died, how badly he had taken it.

There’d been a lot of crying and vomiting and yelling there as well.

“You’re good with kids,” Lan Xichen said instead of commenting, trading delicacy for delicacy; he would not touch Nie Mingjue’s still-bleeding wounds just as Nie Mingjue avoided his own. “Very good.”

“Well, I like to think so, anyway.”

They remained in blissful, comfortable silence for a while.

“How would it have even worked?” Lan Xichen finally asked. His eyes were still closed, Nie Mingjue’s fingers running through his hair; he never wanted to move again.

“Hmm?”

“If you knocked me up before you went to war. I mean, they’re not even the same age.”

“Well, one of them’s from the affair, obviously.”

“I’m sorry, am I cheating on you now?” Lan Xichen opened an eye and pinned Nie Mingjue with a fierce look that instructed his lover to reconsider.

“Of course not,” Nie Mingjue said, mock-solemnly. His eyes were dancing. “You were so distraught after receiving incorrect news of my untimely demise that you conducted a ghost marriage with my spirit, and then went and had a child to continue my name.”

“…they’re both surnamed Lan.”

“So what? Are you saying I’m not good enough to marry into your sect, is that it?”

Lan Xichen’s cheeks were hurting from trying not to laugh. “I wouldn’t dream of implying such a thing.”

“There you go, then.”

“Can I ask why I felt the need to have a child to continue your name if I had one already?”

“…well, fuck,” Nie Mingjue said. “I’ve got nothing.”

Lan Xichen burst out laughing.

[sequencefairy]

shyan + the moon

how dare you ask for something that is so me?

---

Ryan can feel it already, the shifting starting under his skin. The calendar says the full moon will rise on Friday, but the pull of it has already begun, hooking like pins behind Ryan’s navel and dragging his eyes up off his computer monitor and towards the big windows to look at the sky. Ryan forces himself back to looking at the screen in front of him and resettles in his chair. The chair creaks, and Shane looks up. Ryan ducks his head to avoid Shane’s shrewd gaze. 

Shane knows. He has since that long haul trip to Ohio early on the BFU days. Ryan had always prided himself on being so very careful, so very cautious, so very aware of making sure not to schedule filming trips during the weekend when the moon would rise, full and fat, and drive him into the nearest woods and turn him into a rippling mass of fur and teeth and claws. Except, that filming trip had been rescheduled three times already by the time they were finally able to go, and there’d been nothing Ryan could do. It’s awfully hard to keep something like not exactly being entirely human under wraps living in each other’s pockets like they do on the road. 

So. Shane knows. He’s never really asked any questions, and seems content to let Ryan never have any kind of conversation about it. Ryan has noticed, however, that Shane has always been very good about not scheduling anything the weekend Ryan isn’t available. 

Ryan sighs, and tries to rein his focus back towards the video he’s editing. It works, more or less. 

Later, Shane corners him near the fridge along the back wall of the office.

“You’re fidgety,” Shane observes, not looking up from the coffee he’s doctoring to his particularly preferred shade of caramel.

Ryan drops the spoon he’s holding and it clatters to the floor. Shane still doesn’t look at him, but Ryan can feel the flush crawling up the back of his neck as he bends down to retrieve the spoon, gripping it tightly in his fist. He watches Shane look up at the calendar tacked onto the whiteboard over the sink, and nod to himself. 

“It’s this weekend, isn’t it?” 

“What’s this weekend?” Brittney asks, pushing between them to get at the basket of snacks set next to the sink. 

“Nothing,” Ryan says, taking an involuntary step back. This close to the moon, his senses are starting to heighten and the sugar-sweet scent of Brittney’s shampoo lingers on the back of his tongue. It makes him want to gag. Shane watches him over Brittney’s oblivious head, a calculating glint in his eyes.

“Do we have any more of those shrimp crackers?” she asks. 

“Dunno,” Shane says, his weighted gaze sliding off Ryan’s face and attention turning towards Brittney. It gives Ryan the out he needs and he takes it. 

The office is suddenly smothering. 

Ryan stalks back to his desk, drops the spoon onto his mousepad and grabs his coat off the back of his chair. He shoves his hands through the sleeves and then he’s gone, before anyone can say anything. 

Outside is better. Outside is fresh air and not a bombardment of smells that normally don’t bother him, except for when the moon gets close. Ryan takes a deep breath, and forces himself to relax into the exhale. He walks around the building towards the loading docks at the back and leans against a stack of pallets, tilting his head back to let the sunshine touch his face. 

Shane finds him there. 

“You okay?” Shane asks, approaching carefully, the way he might if Ryan was already sporting claws and teeth and not still passably human. 

“Just needed some air,” Ryan answers, leaning more fully against the stack of pallets. 

“Sure,” Shane says, in that way that means he’s agreeing with Ryan because he doesn’t want to argue with him. It makes Ryan bristle a little, to be dismissed, but also they already don’t talk about this so it’s entirely irrational. “You need to take the rest of the week off?” Shane asks. He’s got his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. 

“No,” Ryan replies, shortly. He’s fine. He can handle it. It’s not like he hasn’t been handling it for years already. 

Shane lifts his hands in surrender. “Okay, man,” he says, “just checking. You seem, I dunno, extra--” he cuts himself off with a twist of his mouth. 

“Extra, what?” 

“Something’s different this month, is all,” Shane says, after a moment. “Look, I’m not an expert, obviously, but like, you’re--there’s something more happening here.”

“It’s nothing, Shane,” Ryan says, suddenly exhausted and wishing they could go back to never talking about this like they haven’t ever before.

Shane hums, unconvinced. Before Ryan can blink, Shane’s stepped forward and into his space. Ryan’s reaction is immediate and instinctive. His hands come up and push, palms flat against Shane’s chest. 

“Don’t--don’t crowd me,” Ryan complains, when Shane doesn’t step back. This close, he has to crane his head back to look up into Shane’s face. There’s a flush riding high on Shane’s cheekbones and Ryan doesn’t understand why. 

Shane’s own hands wrap around Ryan’s wrists, fingers encircling them easily. Ryan sucks in a breath, getting a lungful of all the smells that Shane carries with him. The sharp clean scent of his deodorant, the musk of all the shadowed places on his body that never see the sun, the bitter caramel scent of the coffee he’d been drinking, the sticky-sweet funk of pot that barely clings to this coat. Ryan’s eyes slide shut, unbidden. 

Anyone else this close would send Ryan’s other senses into overdrive, but Shane’s still holding his wrists, and Ryan can feel the thump of Shane’s heart under his palms. It’s calming in a way that it shouldn’t be. Ryan wants to lean into Shane, and the thought brings him up short and makes him open his eyes. 

When he does, Ryan finds that Shane’s crowded in closer, that now he’s lose enough that when Shane blinks, Ryan can see the fall of every eyelash against the barely there freckles on Shane’s cheeks. He can see the silver coming in through the brown of Shane’s beard. 

“Ryan,” Shane says, something strained in his voice. 

“You--what’re you doing?” 

“I don’t know,” Shane says, and he looks as confused as he sounds. “I can’t--” Shane cuts himself off with a frustrated noise.

“I think--” Ryan moves to step back, but finds he has no where to go and that Shane’s hands tighten around his wrists instead of letting go. He pulls, flexing his fingers against Shane’s chest. “Hey! Let me go, asshole.” 

“No,” Shane says.  

“Shane,” Ryan says, very carefully, “what the fuck are you doing?” 

Shane steps closer, and Ryan finds himself bending his elbows to let him. Ryan’s heart thuds against his ribs, the pallets dig into the small of his back. 

“I can’t,” Shane says, maybe to himself, but he’s close enough now that Ryan can feel the breath of his voice. “Ry--” he says, eyes flicking down to Ryan’s mouth and then back up to his eyes. “I don’t understand what’s--I can’t--”

“Are you--what’s going on? Talk to me,” Ryan says, almost frantic. Shane’s tongue darts out to wet his lips and Ryan’s gaze snags there, heat blooming through his veins. His fingers tingle where they’re still pressed into the fabric of Shane’s shirt. Shane blinks. Ryan’s stomach turns over.     

“You just--Ryan, Christ,” Shane swears. 

“You too,” Ryan says, before he can stop himself. The heat in his blood has a purpose now, and it’s all running south. 

“Stop me,” Shane pleads. The tone of his voice makes Ryan’s head swim. He could no sooner stop Shane than he could stop the full moon transformation and lord knows, Ryan’s tried to stave that off at least a hundred times. It feels like Shane can’t stop himself either, like they’re locked into the riptide of whatever this is together, and Ryan stops fighting it the moment Shane’s mouth finds his. 

The relief of this surrender is sweeter even than giving in to the transformation after trying to hold it off, and Shane tastes like coming home.

Ryan’s hands slide from Shane’s chest up around his neck, pulling him in. Ryan tangles his fingers in Shane’s hair, and Shane’s hands find Ryan’s waist under his unzipped coat, fingers bunching in the fabric of his shirt. 

When they break apart, Shane doesn’t lift his head immediately, just presses his forehead to Ryan’s. “What’s--is this some wolf thing? What’re you doing to me?” 

Ryan swallows. He shrugs. “I don’t know, I don’t think so?” He looks at Shane’s mouth again, and then watches Shane’s throat move as he swallows. “God,” he says, “you have to kiss me again.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yes,” Ryan says, and pushes up on his toes to make sure that Shane does. 

.<>.

“Oh,” Beth says, when Ryan asks her about it at the community meeting a week later. Her blonde hair is pulled back off her face in a high ponytail, and her tawny eyes sparkle. “Yeah,” she says, curling her hands around the styrofoam cup of coffee on the table in front of her. “That happens.” 

“What happens?” Ryan asks, leaning back in his chair. He reaches up to tug at the bandana he borrowed from Shane’s collection that morning. He’s not used to having his neck covered and the sensation of the fabric against the still purpling bruise Shane left and keeps going back to worrying every time he gets anywhere near Ryan’s neck, makes Ryan want to squirm in his chair. 

Beth lifts her cup to her mouth to hide the smile. “Pheromones,” she says. 

“Pheromones?” 

“Yeah, you know, like, they tell people like us that we’re aroused,” she answers. 

“Shane’s not--” Ryan says, and then clamps his mouth shut. He’s not, right? He couldn’t be. Ryan would have noticed. He’s sure he would have noticed. Absolutely sure. There’s no way. And anyway, it’s not like--well, he and Shane did spend the entire weekend attached to each other at the mouth and several other places besides, so he guesses he can’t say anything about how Shane’s not the other thing that Beth’s implying. 

“Not everyone’s tied to the moon, like you, Ryan,” Beth says, knowing. “You should bring him next week.”

“No. Nope. Not happening.” 

Beth shrugs, and her ponytail slides over her shoulder. “Your call,” she says, “we’d love to meet him though.” 

[quidfree]

prompt: tdbk in a post-apocalyptic setting (HEHEH)

self-servicing AND a helping hand to a friend in need, we love a good strat

this got incredibly out of hand but i hope you enjoy!!

--

it’s been two months and five days since he last saw someone that katsuki lays eyes on him. two months and five days, and yes, he is fucking keeping score, why wouldn’t he be?

two months and five days is long. two months and five days is long enough that he’s taken up the habit of muttering to himself to fill the air, because dead silence makes him paranoid, always expecting sudden interruption, and he chooses to ignore the fact that muttering to himself is a quirk he might have picked up elsewhere. jesus. if deku, scrawny and asthmatic and perennially, psychotically self-sacrificing, is somehow still alive, he thinks he might be glad to see him again, just out of sheer disbelief.

there’s other people he’d be glad to see. perfect timing, for the zombie apocalypse to erupt right when he’d been on a summer internship in tokyo. to think the old crone had been bitching about it before he’d left- don’t get mugged on the underground, all that shit. like he was some hare-brained tourist. like people didn’t expect him to mug them. whatever. he thinks his parents are safer, out in a smaller city, than anyone has been in tokyo, tells himself it’s not blind hope that makes him explain the radio silence away. it’s statistics, and the geography of the outbreak, and the memory of his mother beating a would-be pickpocket over the head with her shoe until he passed out.

six months ago he’d first walked into his cramped rental flat in tokyo, barely the space to unroll his mat. six days later the pandemic had begun. slowly, first, confusingly, two weeks of shadowing jeanist to court and back while the news got increasingly weirder, and then by the third things took a turn for the fucked, and his parents were calling frantically telling him to come home stat, but by then it was too late. tokyo’s the new york of japan- in sci-fi movies it’s always struck first. the city was on lockdown before he could so much as book a flight out.

that was five months ago. by four and a half his phone carrier service had gone dead.

he doesn’t like to linger on anything, but he especially doesn’t like to linger on what happened between the start and the middle of it, the slow descent from incomprehending disbelief into hell on earth. he doesn’t throw the term around- not one for flowery prose. for the first while there’d been something almost rewarding to it, the whole survival strategy, him and the interns and lawyers at jeanist’s office taking scope of their resources and planning their ways out. now it’s been two months and five days since he’s run into anyone alive, he fails to see the bright side.

the media called them the infected, or the walkers, or some other dumb shit, but everyone knows they’re zombies. it’s some kind of chemical weapon- americans, if you ask him- that’s mutated them, but they’re zombies by anyone’s definition. lumbering, decaying, dead, very keen on extending the invitation. the first time he’d seen one up close- whatever. he’d killed it. he’s killed so many by now he’s lost count, and that’s not an exaggeration. these days he’s not so big on those.

the office had been overrun, in the end. some of the other interns, panicking. bitten. dead. jeanist had held them off while katsuki dragged hysterical staffers out of the window, and the last he’s seen of the man he was catching his unflappable gaze as the doors burst open and jeanist slammed the window shut.

they’d scattered. maybe he would have stayed on, tried the group thing out of a sense of responsibility alone, but there were too many subgroups for him to rotate around. he’d split off, eventually, cut his losses. sometimes he catches someone he recognises walking the streets, wonders when and how and what. he’s still never seen jeanist. he thinks probably he offed himself.

if it ever comes to it that’s what he’s doing. he has a gun ready for it. one bullet. in the apartment he’d stayed in for a while, some forensic doctor’s place, he’d studied the angle that worked best. straight through the temples, angled down.

then there had been that thing with the league. he doesn’t want to think about that, but he does, constantly, because that’s how he knows. two months and five days. the last person he spoke to was that fucking girl.

like zombies weren’t enough- criminals who fancy themselves cultists roam the streets in packs. it’s like every shitty blockbuster movie he’s never bothered to see packed into one.

two months. five days. there’s no way of communicating with the outside world. after he’d shaken off the league he’d had jack shit on him- lost his bag in the initial fight, and his apartment was a lost cause. in the end he’d made his way back to the firm, but that had been a literal dead end too. he’d managed to retrieve, of all things, his phone, skirting the streets around the firm, probably dropped in their original escape. it’s functionally useless but he’s managed to charge it once or twice, stare at old photos and texts that fail to send. he has nothing else of his own except the clothes he’d worn that last day with jeanist.

he’s remade his belongings, obviously. he’s competent, as it turns out, in apocalypses. somehow it doesn’t surprise him. he works out a routine. when he’d first found a hole to burrow himself in post-league he’d spent days just picking up patterns- when, who, from where, how. once he was entirely sure he’d gotten it down to a science he’d risked it back out, mapping the area out incrementally, one rotation at a time. two months and five days in he has it down to an art instead.

he moved regularly for the first month post-league, avoiding anywhere that seemed inhabited by zombies and people alike. can’t trust anyone, and besides it’s way too much of a liability having other people around to get themselves bitten. he can look after himself, but he’s not signing up for charity work. by the second month he’d found his current address, the top floor of a mid-rise apartment complex in meguro city. apartment complexes are risky, but this one’s door locks are still functional, and once he’d cleared out the ground floor and made the rounds to check for stragglers he’d wagered it about as secure as it could get. the stairs are a bitch, but the zombies don’t like them either, preferring to straggle in lobbies, and for another thing the height is convenient. the roof’s close by for a way out, and it gives him a good view of the surroundings.

the apartment itself is nothing special. residential. he picked the cleanest one, which also meant the one half-moved out in a hurry. he pretends like he thinks the owners got out but he spotted a suitcase with their name abandoned in the elevator. the guy was a teacher at the university. the woman was in sales. it’s decent for a tokyo flat, two bedrooms, a bathroom, good kitchen, nice living area. the fridge had been full of expired goods, but the shelves had some cans in them- soup, rice, beans. pots and pans. he’s been working through the floors of the place one room at a time taking inventory, lugging the useful shit back up. nothing beyond the strictly practical- he takes food, medecine, clothes, someone’s watch once, binoculars. he’s not making a home for himself, just stocking up. he sleeps with his bag on his back, the essentials locked and loaded. the gun was an apartment find too.

his biggest problem is transport. he recognised this early on, because so could anyone with half a brain. tokyo’s teeming with public transports overrun by the undead, cars abandoned on the streets, but the actual streets are packed day in and day out. whatever movie said zombies hate the sun was full of shit, because as far as he can tell the only time they actually react to the weather is when it rains. all night and day they’re shuffling in tireless motions around the city, gaining numbers. there’s a rhythm to it, sure- they’re more sluggish at night- but it’s an incessant flow. he can’t drive a car, has found no convenient manual stored nearby, and google went and croaked on him when the electricity did, so there’s no way he can just take advantage of a lull and jump in. by the time he’s figured out how to get any given vehicle to start he’ll be surrounded. even if he could find a way in, there’s no way out- driving through streets packed with zombies is a doomed exercise, especially given that half of the cars in the city are busted or low on fuel.

his current plan involves boats. he’s not sure if zombies can swim yet, but they don’t like the rain so he’s betting no, and even if they do they’d fare no better than a human at climbing a boat from the waters below it. if he can make it to tokyo bay somehow- at least off the coast there’ll be room to manoeuvre. but he needs to figure out the basics of ship-operating first, and also to relocate his supplies nearer to the bay somehow. if he ends up on the open seas he’ll need the food to last him the journey.

so he’s been doing this. rounds, collecting shit. taking inventory. scoping the streets out. he spends the nights planning, the early mornings reading. there’s no power in the building. it’s freezing. six months since his internship, winter rolling in. if he gets to tokyo bay the waters will be frigid, but the sea doesn’t freeze over.

his biggest concern at the moment is hypothermia, if he’s being honest. he’s collected every fucking duvet in the building, it feels like, but there’s only so much he can bury himself under. he’d be warmer if he didn’t insist on bathing in melted snow, but he went so long without washing in autumn that he fucking refuses to waste the opportunity. he smells like some ridiculous apple berry blast bullshit because he’s cycling through shampoos, but sometimes he thinks he’s only sane when he’s brushing his teeth in the mornings so he’s not about to let up on the hygiene.

three and a half months ago he was meant to be back at school. he has no idea what’s happened to his classmates. most of them were home for the summer. he thinks yaoyorozu was abroad. lucky her. kirishima was the last he heard from, all suppressed terror, and even now it makes him feel sick to think about it, because he knows full well the asshole was scared for him. sometimes he thinks about what it would have been like facing this shit as a group, but he never dwells on it. he’s better off alone.

he’s cold. he’s tired. he needs to get to the nearest library, because no one in the building has shit about boats. he doesn’t want to leave the building yet, but he needs a book. can’t go into this shit blind, not without knowing what he’ll need once he gets there. and besides he needs to stay sharp on the streets- get back into the swing of it, literally. one month since he moved in and he’s barely seen a zombie in the rotting flesh. the doors have been holding up, and he’s far up enough that none of the regulars outside can smell him, decide to unionize and break the door down.

he’s had an assortment of weapons, since the start of this. most effective was the gun, also a heavy chair once. his trusty hockey stick had snapped on his way into the building, a month ago, leaving him to fend the last three tenants off with goldfish bowls and doors to the neck. he’s found a sturdy baseball bat since that he’s claimed as new weapon of choice, though never used. he takes this, when he goes. the bat, the backpack that never leaves his back, the longest coat he can find in his collection. not the heaviest, despite the biting cold, because that restrains movement, but the longest, to minimize contact. hat and gloves for the same reason. balaklava just for the cold.

the apartment is empty as he winds his way down, footsteps loud, and it’s dusk- just late enough that the zombies are slower, though not late enough that it really makes a difference. it’s be too dark if it were; he’s trying to save flashlights for real emergencies.

the setagaya library is the only actual library near him, as the maps inform him, but too far to risk. in the address book he finds a local bookshop three blocks away, and it’s there that he heads, already cold to the bone as he grits his teeth and locks the complex door assiduously behind him. there are zombies just across the street beginning to moan in his direction. he ignores them, breaking into a jog.

maybe because their blood doesn’t flow to their brains, maybe because their muscles are deteriorating: zombies aren’t incredibly fast or incredibly intelligent. what they are is resilient, and single-minded. but outrun them and outsmart them he can, and so he does- runs the paths he’s memorized, sticks to corners and shadows and scales ladders and crosses rooftops and just about manages to get to the street in question without even having to swing his bat.

once he gets there, though, he gets swinging. the bookshop is in an unfortunate position, and there’s an entire group parked in front of it. he lets them spot him first, so they break off in his direction, then climbs onto the overturned truck they’ve shifted to and springs back down into the doorframe of the bookshop, kicking the door in before they can register his itinerary. he slams it shut just before a greying hand scratches at it in outrage, heart pounding a steady tattoo, then glances around rapidly. no sign of life, but that means nothing.

there is, then, an unmistakable jingling sound from the very back corner of the room, behind rows and rows of antique-looking books. keys, or metal on metal. movement.

company, katsuki thinks, between anticipation and trepidation. his bat sits comfortably in his hands as he raises it.

jingling, closer, and he moves in on instinct, breathing feeling loud as he brushes past the anthropology section. he can just about see around the corner when a sudden sixth sense makes him whip around, bat swinging down heavily, and just in the nick of time- wood connects with metal, hard, knocking him back a pace as his teeth snap together from the impact, but he’s swinging again in self-defense just as there’s a sharp intake of breath and his brain catches up- red, white, painfully familiar. the bat makes an aborted spasm.

“bakugou,” shouto todoroki says, in disbelieving tones, crowbar lowered but not dropped. katsuki gapes.

“am i fucking hallucinating?”

the crowbar lowers further.

it is him, unmistakably. maybe with someone else he would have hesitated longer, but todoroki's hard not to single out. his red-white hair is tousled, long behind his ears like he's absently tucked it and forgotten about it, and he's grimy, smells sour and dusty, but it's him. katsuki's own hands stay gripped around the bat, their gazes playing some odd symmetrical game as they catalogue each other for the same exact thing- looking for bite-marks. todoroki's less covered than katsuki is, but there's blood on him, old, dried. too old for recent bites, anyways. inconclusive.

"what are you doing in-" todoroki starts, maybe having concluded that there's no way to assess his status with the layers he has on, but then his frown twists. "oh. your internship?"

which answers katsuki's own question, sort of, because now that he thinks of it enji was on that high-profile murder case in the high court. still- still, his brain is stuck on the incongruity of it, shouto todoroki in the apparently living flesh, and it's been two months and five days. he just keeps staring.

"i came for a book," is what leaves his lips, eventually, rough, and his voice sounds hoarse with disuse. it jars him into action, moving past todoroki on auto-pilot, because somehow he can't quite register his presence, doesn't know where to begin. he wasn't factoring this into his day.

it's dark inside, books hard to discern, so he gets his flashlight out, hits it against a shelf so it alights. there's a section on travel near the back. nautical travels of the eastern seas. useless. a map book of the japanese seas- maybe. he mechanically slides it into his bag. his fingers feel rigid. he's still cold. what the fuck is shouto todoroki doing holed up in a bookstore? where is his father? how long has he been here? what is he doing, alive, talking, walking, in the apocalypse, ambling into katsuki's routine with a crowbar in hand?

he can't see or hear him at all. now he's back here he can tell the ringing was rigged up- tiny trap-wires set around the store, what looks like fishing wire with bells attached. smart. of course it is. he's losing his mind. where has the bastard gone? is he even here? it's fucking freezing in the bookstore. where does he sleep? he hadn't looked starving. actually he hadn't looked anything- just blank as usual, barring the surprise. fuck! he's been staring at the same book for a good thirty seconds without registering the title.

beginner's guide to boating. miraculous. he nearly breaks todoroki's kneecaps when he sees his legs appear silently next to him.

"fuck! don't sneak up on me, you asshole!"

"boats," todoroki says. "that's your plan?"

it makes him flare hot with something like rage, because he doesn't fucking want input on it, doesn't want to be told odds, and it has him on his feet, slamming todoroki back into the opposite bookshelf within seconds.

"mind your own damn business!"

todoroki seems mildly startled at best, shifting a little so a book isn't digging into his neck, and for a moment katsuki is distracted by the scalding warmth of him under his arm. he doesn't know when he last came into contact with a living body. it's disorienting. he thinks probably it was the senior partner who fell down the stairs, minutes before the zombies swarmed the lobby, pulse skittering frantically with fear.

he drops todoroki, steps back. two months five days. maybe he's gone a little crazy.

whatever! whatever. he's fully functioning, he has his book, he's leaving. he's going to be off-schedule at this rate, times gone muddy with distraction. even without touching him he feels like there's residue warmth on his palm, making the rest of him shiver by contrast. if the zombies could have just gotten properly active in summer...

he's halfway to the door when he remembers- again- todoroki is actually there, watching him inscrutably from the bookshelf, swaying a little on his feet. despite himself he turns to stare back. he doesn't know what to- this wasn't in the plan, he doesn't know. he's going anyways.

it's because he's staring-cum-glaring at todoroki that he sees his eyes widen, and then he's leaping forwards on instinct as the window in the door shatters, decaying arm bursting through as loud moaning suddenly fills the dead silence.

"shit!"

"it's because there's two of us," todoroki reasons, in a tone like he's annoyed with himself for not realising this, which would make katsuki feel marginally better about his own stupid lack of thought if he wasn't so pissed. he'd counted on the zombies losing interest on his presence once he was out of sight, but the smell of two live humans in close proximity would obviously keep some of them near.

"is there another way out of this place?"

"back entrance, but it leads into a dead-end alley," todoroki retorts, suddenly functioning, eyeing the creaking door as thumping intensifies from the other side. "there's a way to scale onto the drain-pipe above but it wasn't made to take two people's weight."

"shit," katsuki curses, feelingly. "where's the drain-pipe lead?"

"roof. i don't know if either of us could scale it fast enough for the other to follow before they get there."

katsuki looks at him, crouched calmly stacking something or other into a loose duffel bag, rusty crowbar by his feet, then looks back to the groaning door. his gut tightens with a sort of pissed off fatalism.

"how long 'd it take you to get to the roof? five minutes?"

"i could do it in three, maybe less," todoroki estimates. "it's slower with the frost."

three minutes. katsuki hoists the bat higher, takes a step then two back from the door.

"fine. go. i'll follow."

"bakugou-"

"it's the most logical fucking plan of action," katsuki snaps, eyes still on the door, adrenaline spiking. "if you get up there before i get outside i can make it to the drainpipe before anyone nabs me. i can hold them off for three fucking minutes. and you're the one who knows the way up. you go."

"i know," todoroki says, which makes katsuki glance back at him, finds his face set with nothing but fixed determination. "i was going to say to give me your bag. it'll make it easier to climb."

there's something about this that makes katsuki's head briefly thud with something like a pounding headache, lungs gone tight, but he refocuses, blinks away the dizzy spell. the last fucking thing he wants is to give the bag away, but unless the plan goes as hoped he's dead anyways, so there's no point in arguing.

he shrugs his backpack off, slides the gun out, shoves it into his back pocket. todoroki fastens the straps around his shoulders without comment, then turns and runs, not wasting any time. it makes something in him-

the door breaks in.

there's five of them at least, the ones from before. the first one goes down with a direct hit to the head, skull caving in with a crunching sound, but he has to retreat immediately, make them spread out of their pack formation as he zig-zags back through the rows of books. they're slower than humans but not slow, breaking into a fast paced shuffle after him; he turns a sharp corner, doubles back as fast as he can to catch a second one from behind. crack, snap. the one in front lunges back before he can swing again, sending him running back; he jumps onto the seller's counter, dodging an arm, then brings the bat down full-force onto the zombie's neck. three. there's another one nearing the broken door, the other two circling back to the front at the commotion. he jumps over the counter, ducking under an arm, knocks into the nearest bookshelf with all of his weight, sending it sprawling towards the door, books flying and frame landing awkwardly across the doorframe. it doesn't block entry, but it befuddles the would-be incomers.

there's an arm grabbing his shoulder; he dodges a gaping mouth, bat spinning to hit at the rotting jaw, once, twice, bones splintering decisively on the second hit, but the last straggler is on him and the others are crawling in through the door. he runs, down to the back of the store, nearly trips over todoroki's traps himself as he goes, miraculously jumps clean of them as his pursuers stumble. it gives him the seconds to jump up to the back portion of the shop, grab a nearby chair and throw it at the advancing huddle, knocking them back a step, then turn sharply into a row, sprinting down to the back of the room where the emergency exit sign hangs half-broken. it's closed, likely behind todoroki, but he slams through it before any of the zombies near, staggers at the sharp gust of cold air that hits once he's out. the sun is nearly set, casting a red haze over the alley, and there's a pack of six zombies right beneath the glinting drainpipe, still trailing after todoroki's scent, moaning around the corner signalling backup. fuck.

there's a loud scraping from above, then todoroki's head appears over the edge of the roof, something grey and unwieldy in his hands; a satellite dish comes falling down, catching speed as it goes. it hits the pack dead-centre, crushing two of the zombies into pieces on impact, others reeling backwards in confusion, and he doesn't have the time to question his odds four-on-one. he runs in while they're still dazed, beats one into the wall, head splattering, turns and swings into the second as it zeroes in on him, head collapsing inward and drenching him in blood. the other two are too close to hit; he twists, jumps back, curses, eyes the alley entry where others have scented blood. fucking- no, two on one, god, he's not dying two on one, not after the bullshit he's been through. he kicks heavily into the one's chest, just missing the hand trying to nab his ankle, which sends it knocking into the other, and like that they're just aligned enough that he yells and slams the bat through the first one's head, in three rapid blows, hitting the one behind it on the third as bits of skull go flying. it's not enough to take it out; he hits again, manic, and it gets him on the second go. then he's scrambling to the drain pipe, mindful of the others closing in, shoves his bat down the back of his shirt and under his waistband before he throws himself at the drainpipe.

"brace against the wall," todoroki calls, almost in the moment he does so, hands slip-sliding on the damp pipe as his boots hit concrete; there are arms nearing, outstretched, but he bunches his stomach and drags himself up, feet first then arms, side of his arm scraping heavily against the wall as he moves almost horizontally upwards, fingers clenched around metal. the fucking gloves are no help; he pauses, braced and shaking with tension, to rip his gloves off with his teeth, one hand then the next, dropping to the floor below as his bare palms hit the freezing metal.

he's so cold it hurts, but he's halfway up the wall. methodically he moves. one foot. other foot. one hand. other hand. stomach muscles, straining, arms pulling. up a fraction. then another. then another.

"wait," todoroki says, closer than he feels, and he glances up for the first time, finds him an arm and a half's length away. "you'll slide at the top."

"then what the fuck do you suggest i do?" katsuki bites, half a yell, too strained to scream. todoroki leans, heavy, arms outstretched.

"do one more. then take my hand."

katsuki wishes he could spit on him. todoroki's expression has gone tight like he knows what he's thinking, like he's not sure katsuki won't let himself fall all the way down rather than put himself into the uncalloused hands of shouto todoroki.

the pipe creaks. katsuki moves up, ignores the way his blood boils, eyes the outstretched hands. he can hear todoroki breathing, hot against the cold air.

"drop me and i'll turn you."

he braces. one hand leaves the pipe, and for a godawful moment he's grasping at nothing. their hands connect, rearrange themselves; todoroki has a death-like grip on his wrist. his foot slides. the second hand is thrown rather than extended, and todoroki's eyes flash alarmingly as their fingers brush and miss, but he doesn't fall, hangs there by an arm for a heartbeat, jolt like he's dislocated his shoulder before his boot catches something and he shoves upwards, todoroki grabbing hold of his hand and yanking full-body at him.

katsuki falls over the top of the roof in disjointed movements, the both of them half-hitting each other as momentum carries them down, lands with an elbow in todoroki's stomach and a hit of tile to the jaw.

his head spins; he shoves up immediately, falls back down when his arms protest, adrenaline pounding hysterically. his limbs are shaking with belated exertion. todoroki is still holding his wrists, punishingly tight, his breaths heavy nearby. his body is still hot beneath him.

he scrabbles backwards, onto his knees, todoroki dropping his hands and dragging himself up to his elbows. for a moment they stare at each other, panting loudly.

he wants to yell at him but the words don't come. two months, five days. it's not even todoroki's fault, really. he was living there unperturbed. there's a flush of exertion over his cheeks now, and maybe he's just gone crazy what with the constant thinking about unbeating hearts but he feels a little obsessively interested in the visible flow of blood beneath his skin, wants him pink all over if that'll prove him living a minute longer.

he shakes himself, exhales in a burst.

"are you all right?" todoroki asks, and up close katsuki realises his voice is hoarser too. in the shop he'd been too dumbstruck to register it, but it's there beneath his normal cadence, a scratchy undertone. he hasn't spoken in a while either. something about it-

all right, he'd asked. unbitten, he means. katsuki shakes his head.

"we need to get going."

he hadn't meant the 'we', but he thinks at some point when todoroki's fingers dug into his arm hard enough to pierce flesh the message had gotten under his skin too. they're not fucking splitting up now. of course they're not. this isn't model un or a baseball match; it doesn't matter that the guy drives him insane. and this is todoroki, too- excruciatingly hyper-competent at every challenge life throws at him. if there's anyone less likely to rely on katsuki for the next however-long until one of them is forced to shoot the other, he hasn't met them.

"where?"

"my place. 's not far. how d'you get down from here?"

"the next building over has a fire-escape."

"fine. let's go then."

todoroki hands him back his backpack. he hits his bat against the wall to shake some bits of bone and flesh off, eyes unfocused on the task. he thinks desensitisation is the word. it's maybe the third or fourth time he's fought them off without registering anything about them once. usually he gets stuck on some detail or other, schoolgirl shirt or smile wrinkles. freckles. proof of life. there's that movie he watched once with kirishima and the rest of them, some kind of sci-fic thing, and at the end when the monsters come the dad shoots his whole family dead to spare them. turns out it's the military instead, come to rescue them. kirishima had cried.

questions pile up in his throat. he forces them down.

they jump from the rooftop to the next with relative ease, the gap narrow, his foot just catching on the edge before he rights himself. the fire escape is solid where the drain pipe wasn't. he wonders how in the fuck todoroki ended up here, in some old bookstore.

he's gotten good at scaling shit. he thinks in another life he'd have made a top-grade gymnast, or a superhero. when he'd broken out of the league's hold he'd made a spiderman worthy leap onto a clothes-line.

they make it back to the apartment as the sun vanishes, late, and because they're late his perfect scheduling is off, leaves them facing a pack of easily a dozen zombies swarming around the doors. there's another way in through the side, but it requires forcing a door open that he doesn't have keys for, and that means an entry-risk.

"i'll clear a way to the door," he says, hoisting his bat higher. "you keep them off my back."

todoroki follows his gaze, nods.

they advance in the dark, close together, and it's bizarre having someone breathing down his neck after so long, makes him on edge, expecting a bite that never comes. when the first zombie starts turning their way he breaks into a run, brings the bat down fast and heavy so it connects with a sick thud, flashlight clicking to life where he holds it between his teeth. it blinds one zombie long enough that he gets it too, and then it's chaos, flashlight swinging drunkenly as he batters this way and that, fighting off the clawing arms with irate kicks and loud swearing. if there's one thing he fucking loathes about the apocalypse it's how touchy-feely everyone is, all endlessly grasping hands and drooling maws straining for a piece of him. it makes his skin crawl, which makes him see red, which makes him go through fights like this, all furious movement, too keyed up to feel afraid. he never goes into a fight expecting to lose.

behind him, around him, wet crunching and moans track todoroki closing the pack; in off-beat synchronisation they move their way through the group, dropping bodies as they go. he's by the door before he knows it, light catching the heavy glass, switches the bat to one hand as he drags out the keys. the first time he'd gotten in the door had been open; his luckiest find since was the functioning key, sealing him out of harm's way. he's efficient with it, no fumbling, has it in and open in the time todoroki exhales sort of shortly as their backs connect. bakugou yanks the key out in the same movement he grabs blindly at todoroki's collar with his bat-holding hand, hooking a finger to swing him through the door and diving after him to slam the door shut on a wrist, bone snapping and the hand falling limply to the floor as they put their weight on the door for as long as it takes him to lock it again.

todoroki's crowbar is sopping red, guts in his hair; he casts a look around, doesn't even ask if katsuki thinks the door will hold, if katsuki has thought of their scent luring zombies in. most people would have.

he has, obviously. thought of it. that's why he lives on the top floor. the scent doesn't linger. doesn't matter if there's two of them up there. the door holds for as long as the stragglers press up against it, but as soon as they're out of sight the zombies will drift again.

they make their way up the stairs. he's warmer now, purely from the exercise. heat rises. another reason he lives at the top. doesn't feel like it when he's freezing his ass off at night, but he knows his science.

they make it to the top floor in silence, and he pushes his door open (unlocked, this one, because by the point anyone reaches him up here he'll be long gone), goes for the camping lamp on the floor, trudges along with it in hand. remembers his houseguest.

"kitchen's there. there's a bathroom. two rooms. living room. no power or running water but i have some water in the bathtub if you want to wash."

"it's nice," todoroki says, and the worst thing is he sounds like he means it, almost politely. it makes katsuki stop dead to look at him, struck again by how unreal it all feels, but it almost feels reassuringly normal, staring at todoroki in disbelief. in the bad lighting he looks otherworldly, even despite the filth and zombie gunk he's covered in, all half-lit and angelic like something out of a hazy dream.

"i can't fucking believe it's actually you, half 'n half."

it escapes him unthinkingly, but it's true, and besides that it has the unforeseen consequence of making todoroki's composure fracture, shoulders rising and falling on a mute laugh, exhausted wryness in the tilt of his head. for a split second his gaze is dizzyingly and uncharacteristically frank, almost intimate.

"the feeling is mutual."

if the moment stretches he might do something wholly deranged; he rolls his aching shoulder, gestures to the bathroom.

"you go first. you reek."

todoroki says his thanks to his back as he retreats.

he returns to routine. strips, despite how fucking cold he is, wraps his shoulder tight enough that it hurts, rubs alcohol onto the more worrying cuts and scrapes. drags some bedding to the second room, then drags himself to the kitchen, shivering, mentally redoing his maths, then pulling out his notebook to jot down the edited stock. pauses, hesitates. in the margin under the date he writes: found half 'n half. it's not a diary, but he feels like he should make note.

todoroki appears silently in the doorframe, wrapped in a towel and scrubbed red, and there's something reassuring about how clean he looks, balanced out by how disturbing it is to see him so casually bare. he's barely glanced up at him that he drops the towel.

"the fuck-"

todoroki just turns in a neat 360, then wraps himself back up. katsuki snaps his jaw shut, ears burning but head clear. no bites. right. the previous times- whatever. reluctantly he stands and turns. when todoroki eyes his boxers he glares.

"you don't think you would have noticed if i got bitten on the dick today?"

he's not entirely sure todoroki won't fight him on it, but he concedes after a moment's assessing stare, shifts from foot to foot.

"you can have some of my shit to wear," katsuki says, pointing to the wardrobe he's requisitioned. "some of it's too big. should fit."

todoroki just nods, follows suit.

he wonders, as he scrubs himself down with a bucketful of water, teeth chattering and bath-tub still half full, if todoroki was always so goddamn quiet or if he's traumatised or some shit. the guy was always the annoying silent type, but he doesn't remember him this monosyllabic. habit, probably. what does he know.

he dresses, layers up, shoves his dirty clothes with todoroki's in the basket. when it fills he'll dunk the whole lot into a tub of his used water, but until there's that many dirty clothes he leaves them out.

todoroki is sat on the couch wrapped in blankets and wearing someone's dad's heavy knitwear, illuminated by (of all things) a gas lamp that katsuki had found but never managed to light. so the asshole has matches.

"you hungry?" katsuki asks, really only to make him speak. todoroki nods, counter-productively, but he's talking next.

"don't waste your food on me."

"shut up, asshole," katsuki mutters, on instinct, fatigue setting into him. jesus. the martyrs he's surrounded with. "you can make the next grocery run."

todoroki only looks at him longly, but he follows him into the kitchen, eats the cold soup without complaint. he likes cold food, katsuki thinks, then stops at the thought. he has no idea how he knows it. it feels like a memory from a different life. he likes cold food. like that matters.

it's not very late, though it's pitch black out. he goes to bed early these days to make the most of the sunlight. he's not sure what to do with todoroki, though rationally that's not his concern.

he can't find it in himself to ask the obvious questions. it's partly because he doesn't want to hear the answers and partly because he doesn't want to have to give his own. it's not like they were fucking bosom buddies before this all went down- he's past hating the guy, despite how unbearable he finds him, would call them something adjacent to friends under duress, but it's not like they make a point of hanging out outside of class. and todoroki's a terrible conversationalist, always.

even so. two months, five days. he wants to talk, if only for the pleasure of getting to call him a superior bastard, if only to know that he's still the same confounding weirdo whose face he wears. it's not even the words, really- he wants to hear a pulse beat near him, to catch alert eyes on his, to watch his chest rise and fall. alive.

he can't believe the asshole stripped naked like that. pale flesh all over, but not that diseased grey tint, just regular winter cold, like the inside of a peach. bruises and scratches littering his limbs. nasty half-healed scar like someone had tried to gut him with a knife.

his lips are peeling when he licks them. he found vaseline in someone's drawer but he uses it sparingly. whenever he goes outside his lips crack to the point of blood. against the glow of the stove he can see only half of his new flatmate where he sits surveying his newly clean crowbar.

"what's in the duffel?"

he'd have bristled more at the invasion, pragmatic though it is, but todoroki only shifts obligingly to raise it to his lap.

"medical kit- bandages, aspirin, tweezers, needle and thread. three water bottles. instant noodles. biscuits. matchbox. a city map. a change of shoes. a space blanket. my wallet. wire. rope. an alarm clock. a mechanic's manual." he pauses, feels around, drags out a glass bottle. "this."

it's vodka, of all the things. katsuki half wants to laugh.

"you drink now?"

"kept me warm," todoroki shrugs. which is, maybe, all there is to it. maybe not.

"i'll run you through inventory in the morning," katsuki says, if reluctantly. best todoroki knows what they have on hand, despite how little he feels like letting him into his notebook. it's not like he's deku, writing down his little feelings all over it, but it feels revealing anyways, for todoroki to know what he's been tracking.

there's nothing else for them to talk about without heading into dangerous territory. todoroki packs his things back into the bag, careful, and katsuki is sick of his own weird emotional breakdown, doesn't know where this sudden needy cloying bullshit is even coming from.

two months five days, his brain says, chipper, and then offers to rewind the days preceding that. he hisses through his teeth before he remembers he has company.

"i'm going to bed. 's fuck all to do without wasting light. stay high up if you want to go exploring."

todoroki has gone back to muteness, because he only nods as katsuki glowers at nothing in particular and makes his way back to his room, unhappy at the sight of his diminished bedding. it's not like he's actually able to use the whole apartment's bedding anyways- too unwieldy, too heavy, whatever- but the three duvets and two quilts had been working well enough to insulate him against the chill, and with two sacrificed he's resigned to a night of tossing and turning.

fuck his life. he thinks maybe the reason he's been having these fits of weirdness across the days is just fatigue. between the nightmares and the cold and the actual zombie break-ins over the past six months he doesn't think he's managed a single night's good sleep beyond the times he's blacked out. he feels untethered, at times both more and less emotional than he's used to being.

no surprise that having a real life human being around- and one that he knows at that- is making him almost ill with conflicting urges. part of him wants to lock todoroki out in a cold sweat and never lay eyes on him again. part of him wants to cut him open and grab at his beating heart just to confirm he's not alone. the rest of him lies there wondering what the fuck is wrong with his brain.

he lies there for maybe an hour trying to get to sleep, but his mind has kicked into overdrive in the way that it does every goddamn night nowadays, replaying scenes he didn't even notice in the moment. one of the zombies by the bookstore had barely reached his shoulder. when he'd washed his bat there had been bits of an eye clinging to the base.

he's too busy being cold and annoyed and possibly hysterical to notice the soft footfall until it's close, jerking up on instinct to brandish his bat, but he can tell by the moonlight filtering in slivers through his blinds that it's todoroki, if the lack of shuffling hadn't given it away.

"what the hell is wrong with you?"

"i didn't mean to startle you," todoroki says. monotone, but in an off way, almost dreamy, like he's asleep. it makes katsuki's skin prickle with foreboding; he stares at the little he can see of his face, alert now.

"then what do you want?"

"you sound cold," todoroki says. still in the doorframe, unmoving. he wishes there was more light.

"it's the middle of winter, jackass, of course i'm cold. can you fuck off?"

"my father is dead," todoroki says, completely unprompted, voice not changing in timbre in the slightest, and it makes katsuki's heart jump before he sits fully upright, trying harder to make his face out.

enji todoroki, gone. he guesses he'd known that on some level, for todoroki to be roaming around like a ghost, but it doesn't compute. jesus. maybe todoroki's actually fucking lost it since. he imagines two months and five days tracking back to losing his father, feels that gut-punch of paralysis in his stomach.

he's so caught on processing it that he doesn't even register todoroki is climbing into the bed before he's halfway under the sheets.

"what the fuck are you doing?" his voice half-breaks on it, rising in sheer disbelief as he jerks violently back, because seriously- there's insane and there's insane, and he's starting to suspect todoroki is so out of it he'd snap his neck in his sleep.

todoroki has the audacity to shush him, distracted, and it takes katsuki actually grabbing him hard by the shoulder, braced to hit at the slightest flicker of intent, to stop him in his tracks.

"hey, asshole, i'm talking to you! are you out of your goddamn mind?"

where he's stopped now todoroki's one eye catches the moonlight, big and dark and eerie. he blinks slowly like he's coming out of a trance.

"oh, i-" he pauses. his pulse is sluggish under katsuki's hands, skin fire-hot. feverish, maybe. shit. feverish, very possibly. he'd had no layers in that shitty bookshop. "sorry."

he says it like he's not sure he means it. katsuki doesn't let up with his grip.

"how long you been sick, icyhot?"

"sick," todoroki repeats, processing it. his gaze sharpens. "days. i think maybe- what day is it?"

"wednesday. thirteenth."

"six days, then," todoroki says, quiet. their gazes catch, more consciously now. "i'm fine. the adrenaline helped."

"sit still," katsuki warns, and then pulls up quickly, shrugs his backpack off, digs out the medical kit. he has a decent stock of medicine in the apartment, enough that he only hesitates a beat before pulling out the advil bottle, unscrewing the cap to fill it. he knows the dosage by heart. "drink."

he nearly drops the whole bottle when todoroki just obediently sticks his mouth to the rim of the cap instead of taking it himself, hot breath fanning over his fingers as he drinks. it makes his own pulse go skittering with discomfort when he fills it a second time, brandishes it back. the cap is sticky and wet when he screws it back on; todoroki is still half-sitting where he told him to when he's done his bag up and slid it back onto his back.

"why'd you tell me about your dad just then?" katsuki asks, despite himself, if only to fill the silence.

"did i?" todoroki asks, on an exhale, visible eye swivelling to him. "i don't know. i was thinking about the cold, i think. he wasn't cold in the end."

he resists the urge to check his temperature. probably it got worse once he tried to go to sleep, all the residue adrenaline gone. it can't have been peaking all day, or they'd have never made it out in the first place. and it's not from a bite. just a fever. he's medicated. he'll sleep it off.

"i'm not crazy," todoroki informs him, suddenly cool, not so hazy. "just sick. i could hear you tossing and turning. that's why i came."

"why're you in my bed?" katsuki shoots back, on the edge of combative, not really. maybe he's a little relieved. he's a lot pissed off, even though he knows todoroki probably genuinely didn't realise what a state he was in the last week, might have actually been trying to make sense of his fluctuating mood himself. no shit he'd been so weird when they first ran into each other.

"i'm not sure," todoroki admits. "it seemed important at the time."

this makes him want to laugh, though he doesn't. the cracked-open raw part of him that still smarts loudly whenever he thinks of jeanist thinks he missed him somehow.

"glad we solved that mystery. get out now."

todoroki makes to move, stops when they're facing each other, blue eye white-pale on his. "actually i remember now, i think."

"i swear to god, half 'n half..."

"you're cold," todoroki repeats, factual, then back to floaty. "and i couldn't hear..."

he doesn't expect him to do what he does, which is why he doesn't stop him when he puts a too-hot palm directly over his heart, doesn't even pull back when he pushes, knocking him onto the bed.

"todoroki-"

"it's fine," todoroki says, scratchy, sweat-warm. he slides onto his own side in a heavy, graceless motion. face to face, half an arm between them, palm stuck to his chest. "it's fine."

it's the scratchiness that wins him over, or maybe the fever flush of him. todoroki may be fucked in the head but he's not, which is why he knows full well he's being insane by not shoving him out. it's just that on some extremely uncomfortable and deranged level he gets it, because he's been tracking his pulse like a shark since they first ran into each other. there's something less insane beneath it too, pragmatic acknowledgment that it is actually a great deal warmer when there's body heat to share, but he knows full well he'd have toughed it out, six months ago, sent him back to bed and spent the night half-awake in spiteful resignation.

it's six months later, though, and somewhere along the line he's been rewired wrong. he thinks it's not unlikely that he's just this desperate for a full night's sleep.

it doesn't really matter why, though. he lets him stay. in the morning if todoroki is back to himself he'll see right through whatever he says, and on balance he doesn't fucking care.

he's so fucking tired. two months and five days, six months and three. the last time someone touched him for more than a second without trying to kill him it was a crying intern, this bespectacled guy whose name he'd never bothered to learn choking on his own blood as he clutched katsuki's wrist for comfort. before that he thinks it was his mother, exchanging their usual routine of brusque ruffling before he got on the train. he hasn't cried since the start of this, but he feels like crying now, hot throbbing behind his eyes. he sucks in a breath, forces it down. time and place. he's said it like a mantra since the start, like there's ever going to be one.

todoroki is fast asleep, but his hand's still there. his fingers have curled into the wool.

two months and five days, he thinks again, remembering other hands, clutching his face, pinning his arms. that's changed now, he realises. still marks the date, but not the last time he's spoken to someone.

ten minutes, thirty seconds. he reaches to pull the covers higher over todoroki's shoulders, feels his stomach constrict when his hand brushes medicine-sticky lips in passing.

maybe todoroki can sail. that's a rich kid thing to do. he'll have to ask in the morning.

he falls asleep within fifteen minutes, forty seconds of todoroki, and doesn't wake until the sun rises.

[weasleyslag]

i could probably hit your baby mama

summary: Fred's death has been really hard on everyone, especially his pregnant fiancée. George creeps into her room in the middle of the night to retrieve something, and due to darkness combined with her grief, she mistakes George for Fred.

pairing(s): Fred Weasley/ f! Reader (past), George Weasley/Angelina Johnson

wc: 1573

warning(s): pregnancy, grief/mourning

a/n: Oh my god the tone of this story so does not match the title, but I couldn't help myself. I can’t believe I let a TikTok song about sex inspire me to write a grief fic.

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30626528

     You had been having a really hard time lately. Anyone could have guessed that. It was to be expected. Being in your third trimester of pregnancy was hard enough; it was infinitely harder when your partner had passed away. You didn’t have time to pause and mourn, your life was so hectic now. You had doctor’s appointments, maternity shoots, brunches and parties to accept your pregnancy. The doctor’s appointments were obviously a must, you would never dream of missing them, but the photos and parties? There was nothing you wanted to do less. You didn’t want to celebrate. Fred was gone. If it was up to you, there’d never be another party in the whole world ever again. But the Weasleys and all your friends wanted to celebrate and they were mourning too, so you didn’t want to let them down.

     The only person that had the same mentality of not wanting to move on and bring happiness back into their life was George. Sure, the others had lost a friend, a brother, a son, and that was devastating. But George and you had a bond with him that far surpassed that. George had immediately closed Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes (you had to convince him to not sell the space altogether) and locked himself in his room all day, only opening the door to talk to you or Angelina. Hell, Angelina practically had to force feed him in order to get him to eat. You felt like acting the same but it seemed for some reason, most likely your pregnancy, the others expected you to act differently. They wanted you to be the carrier of a beam of light at the end of the tunnel. And you supposed they were right, the twins you carried in your womb (you had never realized before you got pregnant how big the jump in percentage of carrying a twin pregnancy would be when twins ran in the family) were the one joy in a tragic situation. But that was them, not you. You wanted to stay in bed and cry all day. That luxury, however, was not provided for you. Therefore, most of your crying was done late into the night.

     It was close to 2am when George ventured out of his room one night. He didn’t like to be up when other people were around, lest they see the mess that he had devolved into. He creeped into Charlie’s old room that he had let you have. He was bored out of his mind, having read every book and comic in his room, so he was hoping that Charlie’s would have left some interesting books to read. Something about dragons, maybe, or really anything besides a silly romance novel.

     George tried his best to be silent, but as he tiptoed around your room, the floorboards creaked. George cursed under his breath and looked over to you. Sure enough, you were stirring.

“Sorry, I’ll be gone in a second. ‘M looking for a book.” He whispered, hoping that you would go back to sleep and that would be the end of the conversation.

You sat up, bleary eyed. “Fred?” You had always been the best at telling the twins apart but between the darkness in the room and the desperation to see your fiancée again, you mistook George for Fred.

George didn’t say anything. His heart broke for you. He knew he should say that no, it was him, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do so.

“Am I dreaming? Do you need to tell me something, is that why you’re in my dreams?” Your words dripped with hope and desperation.

George hesitated before affirming, “Ye-yes. That’s right.” He felt extremely awkward but you sounded so excited to be able to communicate with Fred again that he couldn’t bring himself to let you down.

“I missed you.” Tears ran down your face. “Only a few more weeks and then our babies will be born. The doctor said it’s a boy and a girl. I would have named the boy after you but I know George and Angelina want that to be their first son so I’m letting them have it. He’s really torn up, you should visit him too."

“I, um, yeah, I’ll talk to him.” It felt strange talking about himself like that. It was heartwarming, though, that even in this moment, you were thinking about him.

“Good. Just so you know, I remember what you said in our sixth year about not wanting me to move on if anything ever happened to you. And I’m not gonna.”

“That was just a joke, you don’t have to do that. I want you to be happy.” George tried to answer the way that Fred would.

“I would have only been happy with you. I love you. I wish you hadn’t left me to go help Harry and them. I know it’s selfish but I don’t care.” You shook as you sobbed. George walked over to your bedside and put his hand on your back.

“I had to do what I had to do. They needed me there.” George found himself getting choked up on his own words. He felt the same way as you, he wished Fred had never come down to Hogwarts that day.

“I know you would say that. What did you want to come here to tell me?”

“Just that I love you. And you’re gonna be a great mom.”

“Oh, Freddie. I know you wanted a big family and now we’ll never have that. She leaned her head onto George’s chest. “Every day is so hard” You admitted.

“I know, I know.”

“Come to bed with me.” You reached for George’s hand.

“To like, have sex?” George looked around the room frantically, not meeting his eyes with yours. Fred would have certainly jumped at the chance if he was there, but he was not Fred. George wanted you to be given peace but he could most definitely not go that far. Fred would probably find a way to strangle him from the afterlife and Angelina would cut his dick off.

“If you want,” you giggled “Or we could cuddle. Then you can feel my belly. It’s huge now, way bigger than when you last saw me. Hopefully you still think I’m pretty.”

“Of course you’re pretty. Here I-scoot over.” You made room for him.

     He laid down and placed his hands over your baby bump. “They’re already kicking!” He said, in genuine surprise.

“Yeah, body movements during the day lull them to sleep. At night is when they’re most active. It’s a pain in the ass, really. But I’m just glad they’re healthy.”

     George nodded. He looked at the ceiling, waiting for you to go to sleep. Then he could finally go back to his room.

Unfortunately, you were full of questions and affection. You wanted to get Fred up the speed with what had been going on with the people close to him. You babbled on and on about how tore up everyone was. How Charlie couldn't bring himself to leave the country again and slept on the couch every night, how Ginny slept with an old flannel of Fred's every night now, how Percy felt utterly responsible for his death and tried everything he could do to redeem himself, putting out new flowers at his grave each day and going to every single doctor's appointment with you (and read every pregnancy book under the sun, making it his mission to give you all the unsolicited advice he could think off, which annoyed you to no end). It took about an hour before you finally fell asleep, and as soon as you did, George gently removed his hands from you and got up out of the bed, before scurrying back to his room. He slammed the door behind him and faced his sleeping girlfriend.

“Angelina, you will NOT believe what just happened.”

                                                             ***

     At sunrise the next morning, George made another rare appearance. Molly was so excited to see him, even though he hadn’t showered for days and looked ragged. She ran over to give him a hug, which he gingerly accepted. He explained he wasn’t up to make small talk, he was going outside to visit the makeshift grave that their family had made for Fred. He wasn’t actually buried there, but the whole family felt better having the symbol of him at the Burrow and hoped that his spirit had followed. Molly was disappointed that her son didn’t want to stay up with her and talk, but she understood he was in pain and let him go.

Upon reaching Fred’s grave, George laughed nervously.

“So…” George began. He felt silly, what if Fred’s spirit couldn’t hear him? What if he was talking to nothingness. “I almost hit your baby mama last night.” He tried to make a lighthearted joke. A light drizzle started almost simultaneously with his words. He didn’t think that it was supposed to rain today.

    George laughed, taking the rain as a response from Fred. “I’m sorry, mate. Just trying to make a joke. You know I wouldn’t.”

“She really misses you. Hell, we all miss you. I wish you had become a ghost instead of moving into the afterlife. But it’s okay. Although if you still change your mind and do that, go right ahead.” George’s voice cracked and a tear ran down his cheek. “Please.”

[andawaywego]

Prompt for a bly manor fic: Your take on what happened during the 13 years jamie and dani were together

oh, anon. thank you for this. it killed me, but i managed. obviously i couldn’t include everything, but i tried to go all the way through. hopefully you like it.

                                           ____________________

It’s funny how the ache in her bones, the pull in her muscles, never seems to go away. When she was younger, she’d always thought of love as something that was finite—expiration date on the horizon, creeping closer with every kiss and touch. Something you grow out of rather than old with.

But it’s a different kind of ache with Dani. A pull forward but not away. Not into the empty future or the lonely present, but into Dani’s warmth and her arms and her acceptance.

Two years and here they are.

It’s more than she could have ever known to ask for.

The first morning in their new apartment—the one they found together—Jamie wakes up to the rosy pink light coming through the uncurtained windows. The only blanket they’d managed to find is loose and messy on top of her body and she sighs. Stretches her arms and legs out. That ache is there—that pull—but there’s another ache, also. A different kind.

Sore muscles. Overworked. Tender from strain or else Dani’s tight grip, her nails digging in.

She stares up at the ceiling for a moment, letting the memories of the night before wash over her. There are boxes stacked around them in precarious towers, and she eyes them fondly—looks at DANI BOOKS and SHEETS JAIME; their names written in thick marker on the cardboard, labeling the things they’ve brought with them. But there’s something to seeing them mixed together as they are.

Dani’s things with her things and so on and so forth.

When she turns her head, Dani is there, sleeping peacefully. It’s funny how someone who spends her days frantic with a thousand different emotions for every situation can be so still. Her hair is an absolute mess, tangled and ruffled from Jamie’s hands and the friction of the mattress. Her lips are dark pink, kiss-bruised, and there’s a love bite right beneath her collarbone.

Jamie looks her over. Smiles. Takes a deep breath as her heart and stomach do this...thing.

She wants to pull Dani closer, kiss her awake, because she misses hearing her talk, laugh, seeing her smile. And love isn’t just that pull, it’s longing for the person lying in bed beside you just because she isn’t awake yet.

So she settles for carefully scooting closer and kissing the crown of Dani’s head.

A little later, Dani will wake up and hum a good morning and run her fingers through her hair in an attempt to flatten it and Jamie will be too smitten to do anything but grin.

Another day, she thinks.

And how lucky she is for it.

.

“It really isn’t hurting that bad.”

Jamie unlocks the door to their apartment and steps inside, leaving Dani to close it behind them. She doesn’t answer.

“I mean...three stitches isn’t too terrible, right?”

Their half-made dinner is lying out on the counter still, a pot of water on the stove. Jamie takes it off and dumps it in the sink, then begins cleaning up the rest of it all.

“I can still do things at the shop.” Dani comes over and stands on the other side of the island. “I’m fine.”

Jamie turns away from her, taking a cutting board of a mostly-chopped or else bloodily diced onion to the garbage bin. She tosses it out and feels it as Dani steps closer.

“Are you really trying to give me the cold shoulder?”

Finally, Jamie turns and, throwing the cutting board down on the counter, looks up to meet Dani’s eyes. “Yes,” she says, “I am. I’m angry with you, Dani. Witness me being angry.”

She puts her hands on her hips and an image of her mother in the exact same pose—back before she’d left them—comes immediately to mind. Her arms drop back to her sides.

“It was an accident,” Dani defends. “And a little one at that. The doctor said there shouldn’t be any nerve or muscle damage.”

Jamie’s jaw drops open a little in surprise. “As if that makes it all better!” she says, a petulant twinge in her voice. “You might have been seriously hurt.”

“But I wasn’t.” She’s not yelling—no never—but she’s taken on the same tone she used to use with Miles and Flora when they wouldn’t listen. Jamie resists the urge to shrink under it. “I’m fine.”

“That’s not the point,” Jamie says firmly, eyes wild with agitation. “The point is that you weren’t be careful and you hurt yourself and you don’t even care—”

“It was an accident. It’s not like I meant to do it. Look.” She holds up her left hand to show off her heavily bandaged thumb and forefinger as she wiggles them a little. “It’s not even that big a deal.”

Beneath all that wrapping, Jamie knows that the stitches are there holding together the skin that was sliced apart by the knife Dani was using earlier. Jamie had been on pasta duty and was focused on that when she heard Dani’s quiet, “Oh,” followed by the dropping of the knife and—a little more frantically— a louder, “Crap.”

When she’d turned, all she’d seen was the cutting board covered in bright red droplets and Dani pressing paper towels to her hands over the sink. There’d been a lot of blood and Jamie has never been good with blood so, yes. Fine. Maybe she’d overreacted, but after two hours in the emergency room waiting around for someone to sew her girlfriend back together, that reaction still seems justified.

Dani smiles, trying to make the mood a little lighter, but there is still a sharp edge of panic in Jamie’s chest that hasn’t gone away and it’s making it a little hard to breathe.

“I really don’t know why you’re making this such a big deal,” Dani says, and she doesn’t mean it to come out the way it does—like Jamie is being ridiculous for caring—but it stings all the same.

And that’s when Jamie starts crying.

Really crying. Loud sobs and hot tears and her face buried in her hands as she leans back against the counter and tries to catch her breath.

Almost immediately, there are arms around her, pulling her into a tight embrace, rocking her back and forth.

“Oh, Jamie,” Dani whispers against Jamie’s hair. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I-I didn’t mean to...God, I’m such a jerk.”

She presses a kiss to Jamie’s forehead and Jamie wraps her arms around her stomach, curling into Dani’s chest. “No, you’re right. I’m being silly,” she says, her voice cracking a little. “I just...When I saw ya’ standing there like that...and all that blood, I just—I just can’t help imagining what might have happened if it were worse. If…”

In all the time they’ve been together, they haven’t discussed what happened at Bly more than strictly necessary. Those concerns that plagued their every moment at the beginning have fallen to the wayside as they’ve built their life together. But Jamie remembers it—remembers Dani’s worry over how many days they’ll have—and now she can hardly think of anything else.

The next few minutes are filled with Dani’s quiet shushing. Saying, “I’m here,” and, “It’s okay,” while Jamie tries to calm down.

“I’m sorry I’m such a full-time job,” Dani says. “I can’t even...make dinner with you without grievously wounding myself.”

Jamie chuckles wetly against the fabric of Dani’s sweater. “No, you can’t, can you?” she whispers back. “Not sure how you ever got around without me, Poppins.” This gets her a full-on laugh and she grins at the sound, wishing she could hear it forever.

“Me neither,” Dani says. “But you’re here now, right? And so am I. And I’m okay. Temporarily a little less ambidextrous maybe. But okay.”

“You’re a bit of an idiot,” Jamie says without a hint of malice.

“But I’m your idiot,” Dani says and Jamie pulls back enough to tug her in for a kiss.

Dani cups a hand behind Jamie’s neck and deepens it, and Jamie can taste the salt of her own tears, but she just keeps kissing her back.

“I love you,” Dani whispers, pressing the words into Jamie’s lips like she’s trying to make them stay.

Jamie sighs. Kisses Dani again. “I love you, too.”

She’s alive. They both are. And that’s enough, isn’t it?

.

And it is. It’s enough for so long.

Four years in, Dani kisses her awake on Christmas morning saying, “Come on, I wanna give you your presents,” and Jamie is still half-asleep as she’s dragged to their Christmas tree in the living room. It’s a necklace with a lock on it—the kind they’d seen at a shop a few months back and laughed about for hours after, wondering why any man would think it was a good present for a woman. Dani has the one with the key on it and Jamie kisses her as they laugh, sliding her arms around Dani’s waist and practically pushing her onto the rug.

And then there is that golden afternoon with that silly plant Dani brings home a year later. The Claddagh ring and Dani holding her in a vise grip that Jamie won’t understand until much, much later.

After the proposal—after she says yes, that’s enough, yes yes—and she’s wearing her ring, Dani hovers over her in their bed, looking down at Jamie, one arm pressed to the mattress beside her head, the other hand slipping between her legs. Jamie presses her palms to Dani’s bare shoulder blades and sighs, and Dani smiles, her eyes catching the light of the sun peeking through their curtains.

“I love you,” Jamie tells her, pressing her knees to either side of Dani’s hips. “God, I love you so much.”

And Dani stops smiling. The sun leaves her eyes. In its place are tears. One of them slips free and drips down to land on Jamie’s sternum as Dani leans in and presses her face into Jamie’s neck.

Kisses the skin there. Silently sobbing. Her hand still moving a little.

“Dani,” Jamie whispers, clutching her tighter. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

After a moment, Dani pulls herself back up and presses their foreheads together, still crying. Jamie cups her face, rubbing the tears away with her thumbs and kissing Dani’s nose, her eyebrow, her chin. Anywhere she can reach.

And she knows the answer. Knows what it is. Feels it too.

That fear. That terror at the thought of losing one another. It’s ever-present, no matter how good Jamie has gotten at talking around it. It’s still there, and she watches as the what-ifs play in Dani’s eyes.

But Dani doesn’t say that exactly. Not at all, really.

She says: “I’m just really...really happy.”

Jamie doesn’t poke. She doesn’t prod. She just smiles, says, “I am, too,” and kisses Dani again and again.

.

But time moves ever on. It nips at their heels whenever they try to linger, pushing them ever forward.

It goes and goes and with it goes Jamie.

Things are good. They aren’t simple, but they are good.

Dani takes up her every moment, everywhere at once, larger than life with a smile like a sonnet and lips that write love letters everytime they find Jamie’s.

There are photographs around their apartment of the places they’ve gone. New York and California and Paris and Spain. Arms around one another. Grinning with the blue sky spinning over their heads.

Dani is still Dani. She is Jamie’s best friend, her partner, her wife.

They have date nights once a week, so regularly that the staff at all the local restaurants know them by name. Other days, they live domestically. Do laundry together. Cook together. Go to the movies. There are still so many weekends spent in bed, too.

But it slips. More and more each day. If she is Dani one moment, she is her Other the next. And there is still some of Dani inside her Other when this happens, yes, but it is dark and hidden, nothing but the echo of that light.

And yet—

Her smile is still a star in the night sky.

And it stays. At dinners, at New Year’s Party’s, on plane rides and train rides and everywhere they go. Dani here and Dani there and nine years before she cannot ignore the ache, the slice.

Cuts deeper each time. No avoiding it, she thinks. Not in the end.

But it is not the end.

Not yet.

Jamie wakes up in their bed a decade into loving Dani and she is not alone. Dani is lying beside her, hair mussed by fingers and friction. Love bites down her neck. Smiling in her sleep with eyelashes fluttering.

She isn’t surprised anymore by the devotion that runs through her veins, the same devotion that has gripped her all this time.

Dani will wake up soon, like she has every day so far, and there will be morning-breath kisses and breakfast plans scrapped in favor of staying in bed. They will say, “I love you,” on the same breath, at the same moment, and laugh at their timing, touching and knowing and remembering and it will be enough.

They will have that moment.

And there is still time for a hundred more like it.

..

[procrastinatorimagines]

Okay

Fandom: One Chicago

Series: Okay

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5 // Part 6 // Part 7 // Part 8 (Final)

Characters: Will Halstead x Halstead!Reader x Jay Halstead, eventual Casey x Reader

Warning/s: kidnapping, assault, drugging, fire, guns

Word Count: 2,542

Request:  If you’re still taking requests can you do a jay x will x sister reader were she ends up getting kidnapped then they save her but she’s badly hurt and they freak out and worry about her when she doesn’t seem like herself please?

Summary: Reader has a comfortable life in Chicago and works a safe job at a library in town, but her life is thrown upside down when she gets kidnapped on her way home from work by people who want revenge against her brother Jay Halstead.

You didn’t really seem to fit the Halstead mould, the your oldest brother, Will, was a doctor, your other older brother, Jay, was a detective, and you, well you were a librarian. Will and Jay hadn’t always been around, Will had gone to New York for his medical degree and Jay had left to fight a war, you didn’t hold any ill will towards them for that, but someone had had to stay in Chicago to take care of your parents, especially when your mom got sick. So that fell to you, the youngest child, which was honestly fine by you, you hadn’t had any big plans for your life anyway, and you enjoyed what you did now... or at least, what you did now was safe and kept a roof over your head.

Your brothers didn’t mind that your job wasn’t heroic, they actually prefered you far away from the front lines, and you couldn’t blame them, there’d been a lot of tragedy for the Halsteads, and you didn’t plan on being the next casualty.

Well, you may not have planned to be, but whoever grabbed you and pulled you into a moving van when you were heading home from your usual week day shift clearly hadn’t gotten that memo. 

One minute everything was normal, the next everything changed.

-

Your attacker wore a mask, and he wasn’t alone, there was at least one other person in the back with you and someone was obviously driving. You tried to kick and scream but they overpowered you, securing your hands and feet. The last thing you remembered before everything went dark was an odd smelling cloth being forced over your mouth.

By the time you woke up your head was pounding and your mouth was dry, your ankles and wrists chafing against the ropes that tied you to a beam in the room you were in, where ever that was. You weren’t sure how long you’d been out, but as your eyes slowly focused in on your surroundings you noticed a small window on the opposite side of the room you were in, the night sky partially visible through a crack in the newspaper that had been used to cover it up.

This was bad, very bad, you thought, panicking as you tried to desperately to free yourself from your restraints, which actually seemed to do more harm than good. Taking a very shaky breath you tried to focus, breathing in and out of your nose slowly as you though of what Jay might do in this situation. Jay... he’d come for you, with the full force of the Intelligence Unit behind him; it was a comforting thought, and one which enabled you to steady your heart rate enough so that you could hear your own thoughts without it pounding in your ears.

You could see stairs on the otherside of the room leading up, you were definitely in a basement, but there wasn’t much down here besides a broken games table, and a washing machine and dryer that looked like they hadn’t been touched in years - somewhere abandoned maybe? a foreclosed house? God a drug den even? This place clearly didn’t have a white picket fence outside, and the thought of who might be staying here, who might be staying here, who might have taken you, had your mind racing...

The sound of a door opening snapped you out of your thoughts, jumping as someone came stomping down the stairs, phone in hand and paying you no attention. He was a heavy set man, white and maybe middle aged, and you didn’t recognise him from anywhere. His face was uncovered, which was bad, you knew enough to know that if your captures didn’t go to lengths to hide their identity, then you probably weren’t making it out alive to ID them. What you needed was time, you thought as he slid his phone back into his dirty jean pockets.

“Good,” he said, approaching you as you tried to shuffle away, your wrists and ankles burning from the strain, “you’re awake.” He pulled the gag down from your mouth so that it hung around your neck and stepped back again as another man came down the stairs. He looked considerably younger than the first man, but still in his late 20s at least, leaner and with much more hair, but the family resemblance was clear, father and son you guessed. Which meant the third guy was probably a brother, or uncle. 

“You gonna call him now that she’s awake?” The younger one asked, and you had a sinking feeling you knew who they were going to call, your cop brother.

“Yeah,” he dug a phone out of his pocket, but it wasn’t his own, it was yours. “Get her to unlock it.” He passed the phone to his son who approached you, grabbing your hair to make you look at him. 

“What’s the password?” He demanded, giving your hair a rough tug as you struggled in his grasp.

“Go to hell,” you tried, your voice audibly shaking with fear. He let go of your hair and back handed you across the face, your cheek stinging with the contact as he grabbed you again. 

“Try again,” the father said and you nodded, telling him the number combination to unlock the phone, if you were braver you might have held out, but you weren’t trained for this, you were a librarian for God’s sake.

The phone started ringing and your brother’s voice came through on the other end, “hey Y/N, I’ve been worried, you were supposed to come to Molly’s but you didn’t show, everything okay?” You opened your mouth to say something but the son shut you up, the father taking the phone from him as another man came down the stairs, gun in hand, and definitely another son.

“I’m sorry detective, but your sister can’t come to the phone right now, she’s a little tied up,” he said.

“Who the hell is this!?” Jay demanded, “where the hell is my sister!?” 

“Someone who you owe Halstead, you took my son from me, destroyed my family, and now I’m going to do the same to yours,” he said venomously and you swallowed a large lump in your throat, the pit in your stomach growing painfully large.

“If you harm a hair on her head-” Jay began but the man cut him off.

“Do you remember my son detective? You put a bullet in him! You took my Joseph from me, now I’m going to show you what that pain feels like!” He yelled, face going red with rage. The son on the stairs had come down and his father snatched the gun from his hand. “This is only a taste of the pain you put my family through detective.” He pointed the gun and fired, pain shooting through your shoulder and your entire body as you cried out.

“Y/N!” You heard Jay yell frantically, but it was drowned out by your own screams. 

“You’ll never see her again detective, just like I’ll never see my boy and my sons will never see their brother. Just remember Halstead, this is on you.” He grabbed your shoulder and squeezed the wound, making you cry out again. “Goodbye.”

“No, no!-” Jay was cut off as the man hung up, dropping the phone and smashing it beneath his heel. The gag was put back on your mouth, but it wasn’t necessary, your vision was blurring and you passed out from the pain.

-

You were beaten, bruised, bleeding, so groggy that it had taken you a few seconds to realise what had finally pulled you from your unconscious: the room was on fire. That’s right, you thought, your mind still foggy from the beating, and the smoke probably, they’d doused the room in gasoline when they’d left. 

You struggled to move, realising they hadn’t even bothered with your restraints when they left you for dead; it was too hot, you couldn’t breath, could barely think as the flames got closer to you. You tried to crawl to the stairs but you saw that they had collapsed, the wood hadn’t stood a chance once the gasoline was ignited. 

You stayed as close to the floor as you could to breath clean air, not that you could stand up if you tried. Darknessed threatened to overcome your vision as you tried to stay awake, soundlessly screaming for help. There was movement at the top of the stairs, muffled noises, and the last thing you remember before unconsciousness claimed you again was strong hands pulling you out of the flames.

-

They told you that they’d managed to work out who the perp Jay shot was, that they’d found a car that had been reported stollen by someone matching the description of one of the sons outside a gas station leaving town and caught them before they could make their getaway. But by the time they found out where you were, everything was up in flames. 51 had arrived at the scene at the same time as Intelligence, and Ruzek and Atwater had had to hold Jay back as Casey and Stella had come in to get you out. You had minor burns and smoke inhilation, they told you, three broken ribs, a broken ankle, severe bruising and laserations, a deep gash on the back of your head,  and of course, you’d been shot. 

Will had filled you in the best he could after you’d finally woken up. The bullet hadn’t gone all the way through and you’d needed emergency surgery to save your life. You’d been in and out for a few days after that, when you were awake you were so hopped up on pain medication that you couldn’t tell if you were just dreaming.

But you were fully awake now, and very much aware of the ache in every body in your body, as your brother spoke. You didn’t say much back to him, or Jay, or anyone who came and went, you just felt numb.

You’d grown up knowing all the dangers in the city, in the world, but you’d always been pretty sheltered by your brothers, and to go through what you did... you felt vulnerable, bare, like your world view had been stripped off and you were left seeing the true horrors around you.

“Y/N,” Will said, touching your arm to get your attention. You jumped and he pulled back, face stricken with emotion as he looked at his little sister, God you must have looked as bad as you felt, you thought, turning to face him to show you were at least listening. “We’re going to keep you here a couple more days for observation and then discharge you in the morning okay?” You nodded, “you can go home then, or stay with me or Jay if that’s what you want,” another nod, your eye lids getting heavy again all of a sudden. Will noticed and stood to leave, kissing you on the top of the head. “I love you Y/N, I’m so sorry- it’s going to be okay, I promise, just rest for now.” You knew he meant it, you knew he believed it, but you weren’t sure you believed it too.

-

It’d been a few weeks since the incident, your arm was still in a sling but most of the damage was fading, the external damage anyway. You’d stayed with Jay for most of the first week out before you forced yourself to go home to your apartment, but you still slept with all the lights on. You didn’t know when you were going to stop feeling this powerless, but you’d recently been starting to think that the way to get some control of your own life again was to take charge of something that you could do. You didn’t want to go back to the library, you’d spent the past week shelving books the best you could with one hand, but it felt wrong, you wanted to do something more, something to help people, like you’d been helped when you needed it.

You were meeting your brothers at Molly’s, and you’d finally made up your mind on the way over, you knew what you were going to do to take charge of your life again.

“Hey, there she is!” Jay waved to you from where he sat at the bar and patted a seat next to him, “Will’s just chatting to Maggie he’ll be over in a minute, want a drink?” He was trying to sound normal but you could tell it was strained, he’d been beating himself up for weeks about what had happened to you, blaming himself even though there was nothing he could have done differently, nothing he’d done wrong.

“I’ll just have a water, thanks,” Stella nodded to you from across the bar and went to fetch one as you took your seat.

“You good?” Jay asked, giving you a careful once over.

“I’m good Jay,” you said softly, squeezing his hand as your drink arrived. He opened his mouth to say something else but you shook your head and said more confidently, “I am.”

You could tell he wanted to say more but at that moment Will came over and took a seat on the other side of you. “Hey, glad you made it, I was beginning to think you would show.” He patted your arm, the same concern in his eyes that Jay had. 

“Why would I not? I am the one who asked to talk to you guys you know.” You smiled.

“Uh-huh we know, is everything alright?” Will asked.

“Yeah you said you had something to tell us,” Jay sat up straighter, and both men got very serious. 

“Relax, I’m fine, it’s nothing bad,” you reassured them before continuing, “I know I haven’t really been seeming like myself lately, and I know you guys are worried, but I just needed you to know that you shouldn’t be. I’ve needed some space to think things over, make sense of what happened-” Jay cast his eyes down guiltily and you grabbed his hand again “-and I’ve come to a conclusion, I’ve made a decision about my life that I think will really help me move past this.”

“Oh?” Will said questioningly, “you’re not like, leaving Chicago are you?”

“No, nothing like that,” you said, “I’m quitting the library, not right away, but it’s time I do something else with my life, something more impactful, like you guys.” Jay and Will shared a worried look.

“Are you sure? After what happened, don’t you want to be somewhere safe?” Jay asked.

“I was somewhere safe when what happened happened Jay,” you told him, “and I can’t go back and pretend nothing happened, I want to move forward, make a difference,” your voice was confident and steady, “I’m not a kid anymore, this is my decision, I’ve given it a lot of thought and I know it’s the right one.”

“Okay,” Will conceded but Jay still shook his head.

“What did you have in mind?” He asked, “what, cop?”

“Doctor?” Will followed on.

“No,” you shook your head and smiled, “I’m gonna become a firefighter.”

[xxtraord1nary]

𝕊ℍ𝕀ℙ ℚ𝕌𝔼𝕊𝕋𝕀𝕆ℕ𝕊

𝔾𝕖𝕟𝕖𝕣𝕒𝕝

𝕎ℍ𝕆 𝕀ℕ𝕋𝕀𝔸𝕋𝔼𝔻 𝕋ℍ𝔼 ℝ𝔼𝕃𝔸𝕋𝕀𝕆ℕ𝕊ℍ𝕀ℙ 𝔸ℕ𝔻 ℍ𝕆𝕎 𝔻𝕀𝔻 𝕀𝕋 𝔾𝕆?

Ethan was the posed the idea of them being more than friendly colleagues and delving into what they both wanted, each other without restraint or guilt. It was tough as it was strange territory for Ethan yet a familiarly painful one for Charlotte. One she didn’t know if she was prepared to enter once again.

𝔻𝕀𝔻 𝕋ℍ𝔼𝕐 ℍ𝔸𝕍𝔼 𝔸ℕ 𝕆𝔽𝔽𝕀ℂ𝕀𝔸𝕃 𝔽𝕀ℝ𝕊𝕋 𝔻𝔸𝕋𝔼 ? 𝕀𝔽 𝕊𝕆 𝕎ℍ𝔸𝕋 𝕎𝔸𝕊 𝕀𝕋 𝕃𝕀𝕂𝔼?

Yes they did but with a twist. They both were adamant on planning it and taking the other out so they had two first dates to appease them. The idea posed by Naveen who’d grown tired of their bickering about it. She took Ethan to an opera house and dinner since he was a simple man easily pleased and appreciated thought rather grandiosity. And he’d taken her to her favorite place in the world, the Aquarium and then after they’d had a dinner in the park with fairy lights twinkling and a projector set up playing her favorite movie, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,”

𝕎ℍ𝔸𝕋 𝕎𝔸𝕊 𝕋ℍ𝔼𝕀ℝ 𝔽𝕀ℝ𝕊𝕋 𝕂𝕀𝕊𝕊 𝕃𝕀𝕂𝔼?

For Ethan it was electrifying the only proper way to describe it. He felt so...warm throughout his body. It was a tingly feeling although foreign he couldn’t deny how pleasurable it all felt from the way her soft full lips molded perfectly with his own to the way her manicured to perfection ivory nails softly caressed his day old stubble. For Charlotte it was new, and downright amazing. Her head became so clear and she shivered from the sheer intensity and all the words left unsaid being communicated through a single kiss between two lonely and lost souls.

𝕎𝔼ℝ𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼𝕐 𝔼𝔸ℂℍ 𝕆𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕊 𝔽𝕀ℝ𝕊𝕋 𝔸ℕ𝕐𝕋ℍ𝕀ℕ𝔾?

Although they weren’t one and others first anything they can guarantee they’ll definitely be each other’s last and that’s enough for them. And they wouldn’t have it any other way as both of they’re previous relationships shaped them into who they are no matter the way they ended. And they fell in love that way in all of their perfectly imperfectness and neither of them minded helping their other half put the pieces back together.

𝕎ℍ𝔸𝕋’𝕊 𝕋ℍ𝔼𝕀ℝ ℍ𝔼𝕀𝔾ℍ𝕋 𝔻𝕀𝔽𝔽𝔼ℝ𝔼ℕℂ𝔼 ? 𝔸𝔾𝔼 𝔻𝕀𝔽𝔽𝔼ℝ𝔼ℕℂ𝔼?

Ethan is 6’5 and Charlotte is 5’2 although she will claim up and down that the doctor was wrong during her last checkup and she’s 5’3. But of course her being the size of a Mc Donald’s happy meal toy greatly denounces these outlandish declarations.

Ethan is 38 and Charlotte is 27.

𝕎ℍ𝔸𝕋’𝕊 𝕋ℍ𝔼𝕀ℝ ℝ𝔼𝕃𝔸𝕋𝕀𝕆ℕ𝕊ℍ𝕀ℙ 𝕎𝕀𝕋ℍ 𝔼𝔸ℂℍ 𝕆𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕊 𝔽𝔸𝕄𝕀𝕃𝕀𝔼𝕊?

Charlotte’s dads: Jackson and August were weary of Ethan at first not because he didn’t seem like a good guy because he was and he was obviously whipped, but they were worried for Charlotte. She’d been hurt before and they didn’t know if she was truly ready for what came with moving on. It was obvious that she was happy but the guilt was also incredibly present. August being the absolute sweetheart he was truly just taken with Ethan he was charming and loved their little girl and that’s all he needed. They also bonded over medicine so he was already in with him, August being a world renown surgeon with multiple speacilities. So much so that when he visited the hospital he was always swarmed by excited interns and he was always fond of nurturing curious minds.

Jackson on the other hand was a complete hard ass the exact opposite of his husband who shit rainbows and glitter. He gave Ethan a hard time but even he could admit how plain as day it was that his little girl was loved exponentially, and that’s all he could ask for. He also had a big mutual respect for Ethan and wasn’t a stranger to nursing a good scotch with him. Plus he knew if his husband liked him he had to, or else there’d be consequences like making good friends with the couch. Ethan though has yet to meet her two brothers also doctors, one a psychiatrist who Charlotte’s described as the sweet one and the other one cardiologist a.k.a “lucifer’’.

Alan also is just smitten with his future daughter-in-law he can’t help it, she’s the sweetest ray of sarcastic sunshine and he can’t help but adore her and the bonus is she’s irrevocably in love with his grump of a son.

𝕎ℍ𝕆 𝕋𝔸𝕂𝔼𝕊 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝕃𝔼𝔸𝔻 𝕀ℕ 𝕊𝕆ℂ𝕀𝔸𝕃 𝕊𝕀𝕋𝕌𝔸𝕋𝕀𝕆ℕ𝕊?

Charlotte of course as she is extremely social and can light up a room with her very easy-going and delightful personality. It also helps that she is funny with trying and can really ease things down in social situations. Hence her always being Ethan’s go to rescuer to get out of talking to people. But she doesn’t always help that’d be way to easy she likes to make him suffer a bit first.

𝕎ℍ𝕆 𝔾𝔼𝕋𝕊 𝕁𝔼𝕃𝕆𝕌𝕊 𝔼𝔸𝕊𝕀𝔼ℝ?

Ethan Jonah Freaking Ramsey. But he couldn’t be blamed for how stunning his partner was, she was truly ethereal and her physical beauty spoke volumes it was only natural men and women flocked to her. And her glowing personality made people flirt with her on often occasion sometimes there were those bold enough to do it in front of him. So he couldn’t be blamed when he got snarky and with no hesitation whisked her away. Or...a punch or two was thrown. But not even she could lie and say jealous and territorial Ethan wasn’t a very very sexy Ethan. So she wasn’t too opposed when he made an appearance.

𝕎ℍ𝕆 𝕎ℍ𝕀𝕊ℙ𝔼ℝ𝕊 𝕀ℕℕ𝔸ℙℝ𝕆ℙℝ𝕀𝔸𝕋𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝕀ℕ𝔾𝕊 𝕀ℕ 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝕆𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝕊 𝔼𝔸ℝ?

Charlotte couldn’t lie and say she didn’t find the utmost amusement in Ethan Ramsey the king of composure squirming in a futile attempt to hide his arousal as a result of her teasing which he’d punish accordingly later on. It was no rare occasion for her to just so happen to rest her hand on his thigh and slowly but gradually raise it higher and higher all the while continuing a conversation at a business dinner with colleagues. She truly was a vixen.

A/N: I’m so productive when I’m avoiding school work 😉

[crockettmarcel]

decided to remake and update this because the last one is lost somewhere on my blog! this is going to be Long because I have too many a lot of aus so if you read the whole thing please know I love you <3

#tiny love!au

— this doesn’t need much explaining (I hope) but it’s about Ava and Sarah raising their daughter Lolly, and later on, Crockett (Lolly’s father) and Ethan joining the family as well :) also they have twins later

#single dad!crockett

— essentially a reverse of the original tiny love. for reasons that I don’t have time to go into here, Sarah decided she didn’t want to be a mom, and Crockett ended up moving to New Orleans with Lolly and raised her by himself

#mafia!au

— Sarah’s the leader of a mafia/mob in Chicago, and Ava’s her girlfriend/right hand woman

#royalty!au *

— Sarah and Ava are the queens of a small country called Andenia, and Lolly is the little princess 🥰

#punk!au

— five punks (and Jimmy) living in a house together <3 also there’s a baby and Sarah’s constantly mad at Crockett

#back to school!au

— Sarah’s a popular cheerleader who wants to know more about the cute new South African girl sitting in front of her in English class

#black water!au

— Sarah’s a lighthouse keeper in a small Cornish town, who one day finds Ava wandering alone on the moors, dangerously close to the cliff’s edge. she brings her inside to get warm, and the two of them start spending more and more time together, until Ava reveals that she has to go back home to London

#bloodline!au

— loosely based on a fic I wrote back in 2018. Sarah and Joey’s relationship ended after she found out she was pregnant, and she was left as a single mom until she met Ava a few months before her daughter’s first birthday

#close encounter!au *

— Sarah experiences a close encounter of the fourth kind, and after initially trying to convince herself it was just a dream, decides to quit her job at Med and make it her goal to track down others with stories like hers

#disorder!au *

— Sarah reverts back to her old coping mechanisms from high school to try and cope with the stress of being a doctor (eating disorder tw)

#experiment!au

— Sarah, Ava, April, Crockett, and Jimmy are the subjects in a secret military project to try and develop humans with superpowers, with the intention of eventually creating super soldiers to be sent into warzones

#ghost!au

— when Ava found a beautiful apartment in Chicago with rent so low she thought it was a typo, she didn’t realise it was because there’d been a brutal murder of a med student there four years ago (and she definitely didn’t expect to have a ghostly roommate who kept her up at night and made the walls bleed)

#homesick!au

— chicago med/911LS crossover. Sarah moved to Austin when she was 7 after her parents’ divorce, where she quickly befriended Carlos Reyes, her next door neighbour. they’ve been friends ever since, and when everything blew up with her dad in Chicago, she decided to move back to Austin, because she knew she’d always have a home there

#model!au

— Nat, April, and Sarah are all models (and really close friends). after an injury, Nat was replaced in a show by a South African model, who obviously didn’t get off to the best start with everyone. the only person who’d talk to her was Sarah, who was trying her best to hide her true feelings for the new model in an environment that doesn’t exactly welcome lesbians

#pride!au

— Sarah coming to terms with being a lesbian (and falling in love with Ava along the way)

#roommate!au

— enemies to lovers reesker <3 Ava was living in a really grim apartment when she first moved to Chicago, and after a few weeks of hearing about how awful it was, Connor started getting tired of her constant complaining and told her that Reese in psychiatry was looking for a roommate. they didn’t hit it off at first - Ava thought Sarah was stuck up, and Sarah thought Ava was a bitch - but living together was what they both needed, so they decided to try and make it work

#showbiz!au

— Sarah’s a famous actress, and Ava’s a lighting technician working on the set of her latest film. once filming was over, Sarah asked Ava out, and both of them try to navigate this new normal

#suburbia!au *

— after the traumatic death of a colleague, Ava left her job at the Mayo Clinic and drove down to Burnett, IL. the town seems nice enough at first, and so does her neighbour, the ever-charming Sarah Reese. but nothing’s as it seems, and Ava quickly discovers that Sarah has a deadly secret

#tattoo/flowershop!au *

— Hannah’s a tattoo artist who keeps going to the flower shop across the street to buy roses because she “just can’t seem to get them exactly right”. Sarah owns the flower shop, and she thinks it’s adorable how flustered this scary looking tattoo artist gets around her

#teacher!au

— Sarah's a science teacher who’s just started at a new school, and quickly caught the eye of Ava, everyone’s favourite English teacher. they click straight away, but Sarah’s still recovering from her previous relationship, and is hesitant to rush into things with Ava

#wild west!au

— Ava left her life in Chicago and ran away to Blackridge, WY, hoping for safety and a fresh start. Sarah’s a cowgirl who’s come back to the town after a year spent mostly out on the plains alone. they both have secrets, and as Sarah introduces Ava to her way of life and they grow closer, they’re both able to start the healing process that they so desperately need

#yoga!au *

— Sarah’s an overconfident yoga coach, and Ava’s a cardiac surgeon with anxiety issues who’s decided she hates LA more than anywhere else on earth. after what was probably the weirdest interaction in her life, Ava found herself agreeing to go to one of Sarah’s yoga classes, and from there everything got a little bit gay

[dickspeightjrs]

Fourth of July  - (canon / 1.3k words)

Dean woke up sweaty and alone. His shirt was sticking to his skin and it wasn’t because of the scorching heat of Kansas in early July.

No, he’d had yet another nightmare. They seemed to be becoming more frequent and a hell of a lot more intense recently.

Dean couldn’t say what started them up again. He never got the doctor-recommended 8 hours of sleep but recently he couldn’t sleep more than a couple hours without waking up soaked to the skin, heart pounding like it just might jump right out of his chest. He thought he was getting better.

Obviously not.

He shuffled into the kitchen to put on the coffee machine, setting it to warm up while he took a much-needed shower. It was 3am but he knew he wouldn’t get back to sleep now.

When he returned from his shower twenty minutes later, feeling fresher but no less anxious, he noticed Castiel sitting at the table with two steaming mugs of coffee in front of him. He must have heard Dean moving from his room to the kitchen and left his own room to investigate. He turned to look at Dean with a frown torn between sympathy and worry.

Dean hated it.

He hated feeling weak. He hated making Cas’ face look like that. He hated that Cas knew him so well that all he had to do was look at Dean to know something was wrong.

In classic Dean fashion, he worked to deflect the attention away from himself.

“Dude, the wind changes and your face’ll stay like that.”

And in classic Castiel fashion, he knew Dean well enough to know when he was trying to avoid a situation.

Castiel gave Dean an unimpressed bitch face. (He’d clearly been spending too much time with Sammy.)

“Did you have another nightmare, Dean?”

Dean sat down at the table opposite Cas but regretted it when he couldn’t even meet the angel’s eyes.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. I dealt with them before and I’ll deal with them again.” Dean shrugged and reached for the warmth of the coffee cup in front of him – looking away from Cas’ knowing gaze.

“Perhaps it would help if you talked to someone about it?” Castiel suggested, never taking his eyes away from Dean.

“I can’t see a shrink, Cas, not with the life we have. They’d take one look at me and throw me in the loony bin – I’d know, me and Sam had to do it once for hunt.”

“That’s not what I meant. Maybe you could just talk to me or Sam.”

Dean made an unimpressed snort.

“You don’t want me unloading my crap onto you, Cas.”

“Maybe I do.” Castiel held Dean’s gaze, daring the hunter to challenge him.

After a beat, Dean lifted his hands up in surrender. “Your funeral, I guess.”

“We can start small if you’d like? What did you dream about tonight?”

Dean sighed. He’d rather not revisit it. It felt like the pounding of his heart had only just subsided. But seeing Castiel’s open, hopeful look made Dean want to be brave.

“I was dreaming of that Fourth of July in 1995 – the one I saw in my heaven that time, d’ya remember?” Castiel nodded in acknowledgement but otherwise made no comment.

“Well it started off with that. Man, that was a good night. We haven’t celebrated Fourth of July since, always too busy saving the world I guess.”

Castiel silently stood up to refill Dean’s coffee mug while he spoke.

“It was going just as I remember it, me and Sammy together in that field watching the fireworks light up the sky. Laughing like we didn’t have a care in the goddamn world.” Dean chuckled darkly. “But then, I turn back to look at Sam and fuckin’ Yellow Eyes is there, holding a knife against his throat. And Yellow Eyes just starts fuckin’ cutting into him. I’m screaming and screaming for him to stop but I’m paralysed and my voice comes out silent. And then Sammy’s just… gone.”

Dean could feel tears forming in his eyes. He looked up and blinked, trying to get rid of them and not let them spill over.

“Yellow Eyes has been dead for years, man. I don’t know why he’s haunting me again.”

Dean felt Castiel’s hand come down on his and squeeze softly. Normally, he’d pull away and make a joke to lighten the mood – definitely not letting his brain go there. But he was too tired, too exhausted and Castiel’s hand was keeping him tethered to reality.

It seemed Castiel could sense that Dean was done talking. He let the room be enveloped in silence for a few minutes.

Until –

“We should celebrate Fourth of July.”

Dean almost choked on the last sip of coffee.

“What?”

“You say you and Sam haven’t celebrated it since you were children and it could be helpful to make new memories to replace the ones tarnished by your nightmares.” Dean noticed a light blush appear on Castiel’s cheeks. “Plus, in all my years of existence, and my many years on this planet, I’ve never marked the occasion.”

“You know what Cas?” Dean smiled, hand moving to hold Cas’ where they both still lay on the table. “I think that’s an awesome idea.”

The blinding smile Castiel returned was bright enough to light the twilight corridors of the bunker.

*   *   *

A couple of days later saw Sam, Dean and Cas gathered on the abandoned field a couple blocks from the bunker.

Dean’s just finished getting the fireworks out of the trunk and setting them up on the dehydrated grass when he turns to see Castiel has made himself comfortable on the Impala’s hood – sprawled out with blankets from the backseat.

“Looking cozy there, Cas.” Dean chuckled. “But, I don’t think there’s gonna be enough room up there for all three of us with all those blankets too.”

“It’s fine, Dean!” Sam’s voice came from the side of the car. “I can use my camping chair.” He held said chair victoriously above his head before folding it out and placing it next to the beer cooler Dean insisted on bringing.

“Where the hell did you get a camping chair?”

Instead of giving Dean an answer, Sam just looked from Dean to Castiel and back to Dean again. His face said it all. The shit-eating grin working its way onto Sam’s face had ‘meddling little brother’ written all over it.

Dean shot his brother a glare, picked up and beer, and clambered up onto the hood of the Impala to join Cas. Cas immediately moved to Dean like a magnet – offering Dean part of the blanket he’d wrapped over his shoulders.

Dean took it, mumbling a quick ‘thanks’ and indicated to Sam to light the fireworks.

As the first few rockets screamed into the sky and exploded into beautiful colours, Dean felt a tickle on the side of his neck. He turned his head to look down at Cas just as his head met Dean’s shoulder.

A small smile drew itself across Dean’s face. He could see Sam’s pointed look out of the corner of his eye but, much like the other night, Dean couldn’t bring himself to deny himself this connection.

Dean felt Castiel’s voice rise through this body before he heard it.

“It’s so beautiful, don’t you think Dean?”

“Yeah.” Dean breathed. He couldn’t trust himself to say much more.

Castiel moved his face further into Dean’s neck, taking his eyes off the smattering of fireworks lighting the dotted sky for the first time since the display began.

“I hope this was everything you wanted it to be, Dean.” Castiel hummed.

Dean pressed a kiss into Cas’ dark hair. “You know what Cas? It was everything and more.” He whispered.

*  *  *

Did Dean’s nightmares miraculously disappear from that night on? No, of course not. Dean was pretty sure as long as he had blood pumping through his veins, that there’d be nightmares ripping through his brain.

But those nightmares are a little more bearable when you’ve got an angel holding you through the night.

Thank you for reading! 

If you’d like to be tagged any of my future stuff just drop me a message and let me know. :) 

[bestillmyslashyheart]

part one

Kyle didn’t know what to do. Alex was clearly in a great deal of pain and there was a concerning about of blood coming out of his leg. But Alex had clearly stated more than once that he did not want Kyle to touch him. As much as he wanted to help, there was no way he’d touch Alex without his consent. 

“Alex,” Michael said slowly. He hadn’t moved from where Alex had pushed him away with his foot. His hands were clenched in fists at his sides and there was an unreadable expression on his face but his eyes never left Alex. “Let me help,” he pleaded.

On the couch, Alex shook his head. He took a deep breath and sat up, his hands reaching for the mangled prosthetic. The room was quiet as Alex struggled with it, his unchecked hisses of pain echoing in the room. 

Jenna stood up from her chair. “We need to figure out if the Chief is coming here or not,” she glared at the others until they started to shuffle awkwardly out of the room. Kyle didn’t move. Neither did Michael. Jenna got them as far as the kitchen before they all stopped moving. There was a clear line of sight between the two rooms but it was far enough away to give Alex the pretense of privacy. 

Alex tried one more time to undo the strap holding the prosthetic on his leg before giving up. He sat back on the couch carefully, his eyes closed and his breathing unsteady. “Guerin,” he started, not opening his eyes. “Can you-” Michael was already moving- “use your powers to-” 

He didn’t get to finish the sentence. As soon as he’d said enough to give Michael the go-ahead, the straps were twisting themselves free and the prosthetic fell to the floor with a muted bang. Alex hissed at the relief in pressure. 

Kyle swallowed hard at what he could see. There were small pieces of glass stuck in the fabric of the sock and clearly digging into Alex’s skin but it was the larger piece, longer than a finger but very thin and apparently very sharp that was lodged in the base of his stump that worried Kyle. It was the source of most of the blood and it would make wearing a prosthetic next to impossible until it healed. 

“Okay, hand me the kit,” Alex ordered. He pulled himself into a upright position and shifted so that more of his right leg was braced on the couch. Kyle handed over the kit without a word. Alex placed it, opened, in the small space between his leg and the back of the couch and slowly rolled down the sock. Alex bit his lip as the pull of the fabric tugged the glass out and it was shortly followed by the sound of glass shards tinkling against the floor. “Oh,” Alex paused when it was almost off. He was starting to pale. “That’s not good is it?” He reached down and fingered the large piece of glass again. Kyle looked at it carefully. It was far enough into his skin that it was holding the sock on. To get it off, Alex would have to yank the glass out. And it was already bleeding more heavily than Kyle would like. Alex would have to work quickly to try and stitch it up, though Kyle had no idea how he would be able to from his angle. 

“Alex,” he had to ask, “there’s a lot of blood and you’re losing color fast. I’m worried you might pass out soon. If that happens, can I tend to your leg?” 

Alex didn’t reply right away, obviously considering it carefully. A pained look appeared on his face and vanished just as quickly before he shook his head. “No.” 

“Alex,” Liz reprimanded softly from the kitchen. “You won’t be able to do it on your own if you’re unconscious.” Alex shook his head again. His knuckles were turning white from how hard he was gripping the edge of the couch.

“Don’t touch it,” he ground out. Alex didn’t look away from his leg, though, didn’t even spare her a glance. “Just- don’t.”

“So what would you like me to do if you pass out?” Kyle asked. “I can’t call 911. I can’t take you to a hospital. If you won’t let me touch you, how can I help you?” He couldn’t let Alex bleed out on his couch but he honestly wasn’t sure how to prevent that.

“How handy are you with those powers?” Alex asked, his eyes flicking over to Michael for a brief second. “Can you patch me up without touching me?”

“Probably not,” Michael admitted. Kyle wasn’t sure if he could do it on a good day and he was far from having a good day right now. “That looks like you might need stitches and there’s no way I can do stitches with my powers. Especially not right now.” He looked genuinely upset about it. “I might be able to apply bandages or something but anything more...”

Alex closed his eyes and breathed in carefully. He didn’t look surprised. 

“Alex?”

“I’m thinking,” he spat out.

“Okay,” Kyle said, his voice sounding far more calm than he felt. “Well, while you’re thinking, do you want to get started?” He nodded at the open first aid kit. “If you don’t want to tackle the larger piece right now, I’d suggest cleaning the smaller cuts and putting ointment over them before putting a bandage on.”

“I hate to rush you,” Jenna sounded apologetic. “But I’m pretty sure we only have about 10 minutes before your dad shows up.” She glanced at her phone. “If that.” Kyle spared a thought to wonder just what she was looking at before deciding it wasn’t important. 

“Get everyone in the cars,” Alex suddenly sounded more alert. “There are two bags, one in the hall closet and one in my bedroom closet. Grab them. We can head to the Indian School. If that doesn’t work, I have a secondary location we can go to.”

Jenna headed straight for the closet. “That only helps if you’re conscious enough to tell us about it,” Maria reminded Alex. She slid off of the table and leaned heavily on Rosa. “You can’t help us if you’re-” dead thankfully remained unsaid. 

Kyle was about to say something about respecting Alex’s wishes when Michael suddenly moved. He planted a knee on the couch between Alex’s own and gripped Alex’s knee tightly with his left hand while his right cupped Alex’s neck. He had his thumb under Alex’s jaw forcing him to look at Michael. Kyle jumped to his feet, ready to intervene.

“Don’t be stupid, Alex,” Michael said lowly. Kyle froze and the kitchen quieted. “You can’t protect me if you’re dead or passed out from blood loss. We need you to save us from your father today so you need to decide what’s more important. Protecting us? Protecting me? Or your issues with your leg?” 

“Guerin,” Kyle snapped. “Back off.”

Michael didn’t even look at him. He didn’t look away from Alex at all, their eyes locked. Neither one of them said a word for at least a minute. In that time, the only movement either made was to press their foreheads together. 

Jenna appeared in the entryway, two large duffel bags in hand. “Why are you standing around?” She asked the group at large. “Let’s go!” Before stepping out the front door she spared a glance for the men on the couch. “They good?” Kyle shrugged. Jenna shrugged back and left. Liz and Isobel picked Max up and together they staggered after her. 

“Fine,” Alex finally said. It was quiet enough that Kyle almost imagined it. 

But Michael pulled back and looked Alex straight in the eyes. “’Fine’ is not yes, Alex.”

Alex closed his eyes. “Yes,” he said firmly. “You can touch my leg.” Kyle was already reaching for the kit. “But only you, Guerin.”

Michael looked over at the kit then at Kyle. “I’m not the doctor here, Alex,” he reminded him.

“No,” Alex agreed. “But if I have to have someone touch it, I’d strongly prefer it was someone who already has and not someone new.” A strange look passed over Michael’s face as Alex opened his eyes and met Michael’s in a steady gaze. Something unspoken was exchanged then, something Kyle knew he could never understand. 

“It’s like you people want to get shot again,” Jenna grumbled. She crossed the distance from the front door to the kitchen table in a few quick strides. Maria’s arm was over her shoulder in an instant and, with Rosa’s help, they were soon out the door. “Hurry up if you don’t want to do that in the car!” She warned over her shoulder.

Michael didn’t waste any time pulling the sock all the way off and tugging the final piece of glass out of Alex’s leg. Alex grabbed his shoulder with a grunt of pain. 

“Shit,” Kyle cursed when the wound started bleeding heavily. The piece was larger than it seemed. He looked at the first aid kit but there weren’t any more supplies than there’d been a moment ago. “Guerin,” he said lowly, a soft warning in his voice. When Michael looked at him, he nodded at the kit.

“Shit,” Michael echoed. He moved his left hand from Alex’s knee to cup the other side of Alex’s neck. “Two options, Alex,” Alex blinked at him, his eyes unfocused, “either I do a very terrible job of stitching that up with too few supplies or I heal you.”

“Handprint,” Alex mumbled.

“Yes,” Michael affirmed. “It will leave a handprint.”

“Can you heal him right now?” Kyle had to ask. Michael had already healed Max and used his powers to get them out of the diner and the bullet out of Maria. He’d downed a bottle of acetone but he had to be maxed out.

“It’s Alex,” was all Michael said. Alex blinked slowly, his eyes more closed than open. “Hey,” he said softly, his thumbs stroking Alex’s cheeks. “Look at me, Alex.” Alex looked at him. “Needle and threat or alien magic?”

Alex’s dropped back with a heavy sigh. “Magic.” Michael’s hand was on his leg a moment later, his fingers curving carefully around his leg just below Alex’s knee. Nothing happened.

“Dammit!” Michael grunted. “Come on!”

Still nothing.

Alex brushed his fingers along Michael’s jaw. “It’s fine, Guerin. We can work it out in the car. We need to go.”

“We do,” Jenna concurred. Kyle didn’t hear her come back inside. “We’ve got maybe one minute.”

Kyle hurriedly packed up every remaining supply into one first aid kit and latched it shut before throwing it to Jenna. That done, he turned to Michael and Alex. “Come on,” he urged. “I’ll help you get him to the car.”

“Grab his crutches,” Michael ordered. “They’re by his bed.” Kyle glanced behind him to see Jenna already disappearing around the corner. “I’ve got his right side,” Michael shifted around Alex. Kyle was on Alex’s left in a second. Together they got Alex out to the car and into the front seat. It was a large SUV with three rows of seats but with all nine of them crammed in it was a tight fit; unfortunately they didn’t have any other options. The other car they’d driven here had two flat tires. So Michael got in first and Kyle helped him get Alex into his lap before jumping in the back. Jenna pulled away as soon as the doors were closed.

“Is he okay?” Liz asked from the back. She leaned forward to try and see past Kyle.

“It’s a little worse than we thought,” Kyle admitted. “How many medical supplies do we have at the lab?” Liz shook her head. 

“Maybe a basic first aid kit?” 

“Dammit,” Kyle said. They’d gotten too comfortable having alien healing powers around. “How much acetone?”

“Oh that we have a lot of,” Liz told him. She nodded at the front seat. “Michael kept us well supplied.”

“That’s one thing I suppo-”

“Alex?” Michael sounded frantic. Kyle leaned into Maria trying to crane his neck around the seat in front of him. Alex had gone pale and wasn’t responding. “Alex!” 

Michael wasn’t Kyle’s favorite person in the world but if he never heard his voice sound like that again, it would be too soon.

“Come on, come on, come on,” Michael grabbed Alex’s stump, his fingers slipping on the blood. “Goddammit, come on!”

There was nothing.

And then there was a glow.

[whumphoarder]

Flying Blind

Summary: Tony’s never been one to turn down a mission. Even when he can’t see shit.

Word count: 2,194

Genre: light whump, humor

A/N: Happy birthday @awesomesockes!! Hope you enjoy! Thanks @xxx-cat-xxx & @sallyidss for beta-reading and ideas!

Link to read on Ao3

It starts, as bad things in life so often do, with a series of headaches.

Having been prone to migraines since adolescence, Tony doesn’t think much of them at first. As long as the pain in his head and the slight blur to his vision are content to stay ‘irritating’ rather than ‘debilitating,’ he doesn’t complain. He pops some Advil and chugs a few glasses of water, which doesn’t exactly help, but doesn’t not help either. Pepper’s always harping on him about being chronically dehydrated anyway.

Truth is, headaches are so common for Tony that it takes an embarrassingly long time for a man of his intelligence to connect them with all the squinting he’s been doing lately. Or how he’s having to stand a little further back from his holographic images than usual so that he can make out the letters. Or how he’s had FRIDAY increase his screen font size from eleven to twelve. And then thirteen.

It’s simple: Tony’s going blind.

Well, alright, fine—not blind. But old, which is arguably worse. Vision is the first to go after all, and then it’ll be his six-pack, and his memory, and his hair, and before he knows it he’ll be tuning in every afternoon for a new episode of Jeopardy and soaking his pearly whites in a cup of Polident.

Anyway, that’s why, when Tony realizes he might possibly need glasses, he doesn’t request an appointment with SHIELD’s in-house optometrist, nor does he ask Happy to drive him to the unassuming private office downtown that he contacts instead. He just drives himself—which seems like a fantastic idea until he steps out of the office into the blinding brightness of the spring afternoon to find that he cannot, in fact, see shit.

“Well this sucks,” he mutters, blinking multiple times in an effort to clear his watery, stinging, freshly dilated eyes. His vision is so blurred that he trips over an unexpected half-step and only barely manages to avoid face planting onto the sidewalk. He slips on his high tech sunglasses. “Up the tint by fifty percent,” he commands under his breath. The glasses darken immediately and Tony sighs in relief as the strain on his eyes eases marginally. “Now where’s the damn car?”

A route to the parking lot illuminates before Tony’s eyes. He grunts sharply, squeezing his eyes shut against the flash of pain. “Verbal, FRI!” he hisses. “No visuals, just words.”

“Sorry, boss,” she says, and the lenses revert to dark. “Fifteen paces straight ahead, then a sharp right.” Tony starts moving cautiously forward, eyes focused on what he can make out of the ground. “Would you like me to contact Mr. Hogan or Ms. Potts to pick you up?”

Tony pauses. On one hand, he can barely see—there’s no way he should be driving. But on the other hand, the Audi has so many upgrades and added safety features that it basically drives itself. Not to mention, he’s pretty sure that if he calls Happy or Pepper at the moment, he’s never going to hear the end of this.

“...Or perhaps an Uber?” FRIDAY suggests helpfully.

“Nah,” Tony decides. He taps the housing unit on his chest and the nanotech instantly encases him. “Just keep feeding the meter. I’ll take the Iron Express.”

There’s a hint of disapproval in FRIDAY’s voice. “Given your current condition, I would strongly advise against operating any sort of heavy machinery.”

“That’s why I’m not operating it,” he retorts. “You are.”

“Still, I must caution you—” The AI’s voice cuts out abruptly. “I have just received an urgent incoming message from Captain Rogers,” she informs.

Tony’s heart sinks. There’s only one reason that Steve ever uses the emergency override channel, and it’s definitely not to shoot the breeze. “How bad is it?”

“A wormhole has just opened up over Staten Island. Scronquad are invading as we speak,” she reports. “All the Avengers have been ordered to assemble.”

“Fantastic,” Tony groans. He briefly considers sending an empty suit from the Iron Legion in his stead, but then nixes that idea when he remembers that none of his spare suits have the exact same color scheme as the current model. Steve is nothing if not detail-oriented—probably the artist in him. He’ll notice in a heartbeat.

He heaves out a sigh. “Alright, set the coordinates, FRI.”

“Boss—” the AI begins to protest, but Tony interrupts with, “Override code: 6673.”

FRIDAY goes silent. The helmet materializes around him, the HUD lighting up automatically.

“Gah!” Tony yelps, squeezing his burning eyes shut tightly. “What’d I just say about the lights?” he complains. “No lights!”

“Sorry, boss.” The display goes dark, leaving only a heavily tinted view of the fuzzy world around him.

Tony engages autopilot and blasts off before he has time to change his mind.

X

As far as hostile aliens go, Scronquad are about as annoying as they come. They’re anywhere from eight to twelve feet tall, their scales are a hideous shade of maroon and green, and each one of their ten writhing tentacles oozes a gelatinous slime that somehow manages to smell simultaneously of rotten eggs and expired tuna fish. When they move, there’s an ugly squelching sound as their bodies glide across the ground, similar to the sound of pulling one’s boots out of the mud. They’re nefarious, destructive, repulsive creatures, and never in a million years would Tony have dreamed there’d come a day when he missed seeing their fugly little faces.

First time for everything, he supposes.

“Six o’clock,” FRIDAY chirps. Tony whirls around, head pounding, and catches sight of the blurry outline of a massive purple figure. He fires his repulsor at his best guess of where its head is located and receives a garbled roar of fury in exchange.

“Too low,” FRIDAY corrects. “You’ve taken out his seventh and eighth tentacles.”

“Seventh and— what?” Tony sputters. He fires again, a little higher. “Starting where? He’s a fucking cylinder!”

“Starting at his navel—which is located above his middle eyebrow—and moving clockwise,” FRIDAY clarifies. “Duck, boss.”

Tony drops to the ground a split second before one of the alien’s remaining two-hundred-pound tentacles swings overhead.

“Roll left,” the AI continues. Tony barrel rolls to the side, narrowly missing the appendage’s backhand. “Scronquad at ten o’clock.”

Switching gauntlets, Tony shoots a repulsor beam at the blob approaching on his front left side. The alien blasts backwards. He spins back around and spies another blurry moving purple shape—smaller this time—and instinctively raises his gauntlet towards it.

“Hold fire.” Power to his repulsor instantly cuts out. “That’s Barton, boss,” FRIDAY informs as the figure darts across the street.

“Ah.” Tony winces. “Yeah, good call. That would’ve been a lot of paperwork.”

FRIDAY continues rattling off directions, which Tony follows more or less blindly—firing, charging, and evading as instructed. Every blast of the repulsor results in an explosion of light that shoots daggers of pain through his head. The only thing Tony is seeing at the moment is stars.

Tony keeps the team comms channel playing low in the background under FRIDAY’s verbal directions, and they seem to be making headway. According to Cap’s last update, the wormhole has been closed. Only two of the initial six Scronquad remain, and from the sounds of it, Natasha is close to taking down another.

“Overhead,” FRIDAY warns.

Tony shoots directly upwards, but this time the Scronquad is ready. The repulsor blast ricochets off the protective forcefield that the alien throws up at the last possible second. Tony barely even has time to register what’s happening before he’s blasted backwards and collides with the brick wall of the Wells Fargo office across the street.

Then it’s lights out for real.

X

The next thing Tony is aware of is his helmet being retracted. Then someone is tapping the side of his face and speaking to him. It takes a few seconds before the garbled words clear into intelligible speech.

“...with me? Hey? Tony?” a voice—Steve’s, he thinks—asks worriedly. “Can you open your eyes for us?”

That sounds like a terrible idea to Tony. He expresses this with a low groan of displeasure.

“Anyone have eyes on Banner?” Steve demands.

“I see him—he’s coming down the side street,” Natasha calls back. She sounds further away—maybe a few yards to Tony’s left. “Still looking a little green, though.”

Aw, fuck. Tony hates to bother the guy when he’s coming down off a transformation. He should really say something. Or at least open his eyes. He makes an attempt to flutter his eyelids open, but they seem to weigh at least a thousand pounds each and he only succeeds in letting out a small moan.

“It’s okay. You’re gonna be alright, Tony,” Steve reassures, patting his shoulder with a heavy hand. “Bruce is coming now.”

Rapid footsteps approach. “I got him, Steve,” Bruce says, his voice a little ragged. Poor guy. From what Tony heard over the comms, Hulk really put him through the wringer today. But Tony’s sympathy instantly dissolves when the doctor pries his eyelids open and shines a penlight into them, causing fresh pain to explode through Tony’s already throbbing skull.

“Gah! Fuck!” he gasps out, squirming away from Bruce’s fingers and clenching his eyes shut again.

“Both pupils are blown,” Bruce says grimly. “The concussion must be worse than we thought. How far out is the Medevac?”

“ETA seven minutes,” Natasha reports. “But there’s no space to land in the alley here.”

“Should we move him?” Clint suggests.

“No, definitely not,” Bruce answers immediately. “FRIDAY was obviously wrong about the concussion—I don’t trust her assessment that he hasn’t sustained any spinal damage either. We’ll have to wait for a backboard and neck brace.”

Well, that’s totally unnecessary. Sure there’s a goose egg on the back of Tony’s skull somewhere and he definitely got the wind knocked out of him when he fell, but he doesn’t need a whole evac —that’s ridiculous. To prove it, he starts to push himself up, but is quickly stopped by a strong hand on his chest.

“Stay still, Tony,” Steve commands, his voice grave. “Don’t try to move yet—we don’t know how badly you’re hurt.”

“Nah, ‘m fine…” Tony groans. He forces himself to open his eyes again and squints up at his worried looking teammates hovering over him.

“Jesus…” Clint whispers, peering down at Tony from above. “He looks like the dolls in that horror film Lila loves. The one with the creepy mother who replaces everyone’s eyes with black buttons.”

“Coraline?” Natasha asks, raising an eyebrow. “That’s a children’s movie, Barton.”

Clint shudders. “It was terrifying.”

“Hey, guys? Keep it down, alright?” Steve reprimands. “He’s concussed.”

Tony would roll his eyes if they weren’t currently drilling holes into his skull. “I’m not concussed,” he mutters.

Steve scoffs. “Sure, Tony.”

“I’m not,” Tony insists. He props himself up on his elbows and this time Steve doesn’t stop him. “My eyes are just dilated. It’s not a concussion.”

Bruce’s expression knits into a worried frown. He leans in closer to Tony. “Wait, does that mean you, uh…”—he lowers his voice—“fell off the wagon?”

“What? No!” Tony retorts, sitting up straighter. “I’m not high, and I’m not concussed! I had an eye exam, but I must be allergic to those stupid drops or something because I can’t see shit right now, alright?”

A collective snort of disbelief issues from the little group around him, but Tony just continues to glare at them. Well, it’s more of an annoyed squint, really. Then all at once, they all start talking over one another:

“Are you telling me you just flew a mission blind?!” Steve demands.

“Tony!” Bruce admonishes, looking somehow personally hurt by this. “What the hell were you thinking?”

Nat crosses her arms and fixes him with a blank expression. “That’s insane, even for you.”

Clint scoffs. “Is that why you were briefly planning on barbecuing me back there?”

“Well, you shouldn’t wear purple shirts on Scronquad days!” Tony retorts hotly. “Everyone knows that!”

“Why don’t you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up right now, Stark?” Clint says, making a rather rude gesture.

“Alright, that’s enough!” Steve declares over the squabble. He turns toward Clint and fixes him with a stern look. “Barton, from now on, you need to avoid color coordinating with the homicidal aliens.”

“What?” Clint balks. “You’re taking his side?”

“And as for you,” Steve goes on sharply, glaring straight into Tony’s blown pupils. “No more flying blind.”

Tony snorts. “Isn’t that the whole job?”

Natasha smirks. “He’s got a point there, Cap,” she says, eliciting a small chuckle from Bruce.

Steve looks unamused. He grabs hold of one of Tony’s arms and hoists him to his feet.

The change in elevation does nothing to help Tony’s swimming vision. He blinks several times, feeling suddenly dizzy and sick. “You know, on second thought...” Tony mumbles, swaying a bit. “I might be a bit concussed after all.”

Steve sighs and adjusts his grip to bear more of Tony’s weight. “Alright old man, let’s just get you home…”

Link to all my fics

[mando-chicken]

War Dogs | Clones and Their Cats

“Hardcase has come up with a flawless plan to get their brother a gift. Kix isn’t so certain that it’ll be a good idea. Jesse just wants to see what sort of chaos he can encourage Hardcase to create.”

A fic focusing on our boys in the 501st in the ‘Clones and Their Cats’ universe. The basis is literally just what it says on the tin - some of the clones have cats (and some other pets too) - all these fics will largely focus on the clones and their animal companions. Not all chapters/works are in chronological order, this one is set just after the Citadel.

Other works in the series:

Cat Sitter

Tiny Spots

Read on AO3

Tag List:

@cxptain-rex​ @spaghetti-666​

“I still think this is a terrible idea.” Kix was doing his best to soothe the headache that was already threatening to rear its ugly head by massaging his temples, but the very thought of what Hardcase was suggesting was utter madness and would undoubtedly end in nothing but more stress for the already overtired medic. The fact that Jesse was actually agreeing with Hardcase’s mad scheme certainly wasn’t helping either.  

 Hardcase simply chuckled at his brother’s plight, grinning from ear to ear like his plan couldn’t possibly backfire and get all three of them into some serious trouble. “Ah c’mon Kix, you said it yourself, the poor guy is barely eating, won’t speak to anyone, and only sleeps when he drops from exhaustion,” the heavy gunner reminded him, his smile faltering slightly for the briefest of moments, “if he won’t let any of us in to help then maybe this little fella can help where we can’t.”  

 “Y’know, ‘Case does have a point. It’d take his mind off what happened for a little while at the very least, and you were the one to bring up the topic.” Jesse simply placed a hand on Kix’s shoulder, offering what he hoped was a reassuring smile, before leaning back into the waiting room chair.  

 Kix merely subjected his brother to a harsh stare, crossing his arms with a huff, “all I said was that animals were good for lowering stress, I never said that we should up and get one on a whim.” He was glad that the vet clinic was otherwise unoccupied – they'd thankfully chosen a quiet day when there were neither clients nor vode coming and going – he only pitied the receptionist who had been subjected to almost an hour of their back and forth arguments. Before he could continue to counter his brothers’ madness, the door to the adoption section of the clinic slid open, one of the resident veterinarians stepping through accompanied by a medium sized crate.  

 Hardcase leapt to his feet, energy radiating off him as he beamed up at the vet, “Is it all done? Is he ours?” 

 Dalthic simply laughed good-naturedly at his enthusiasm, holding out the crate for him, “He’s officially been registered to you,” she confirmed as the clone gingerly took the crate from her arms, “I know you said he was a gift for one of your brothers, and he doesn’t have a name yet, so feel free to drop in again soon and I’ll update his details for you.” 

 Hardcase seemed just about ready to run for the door and sprint back to the barracks, but Kix managed to keep a hold of him long enough for Jesse to confirm a few last questions. “You did it discreetly, yeah?” he asked, unable to stop his brow from crinkling slightly.  

 The doctor nodded, her expression becoming serious, “Of course, I’m well aware of the potential risks you’ll face if the GAR find out that he belongs to you, I’ve taken care of the details so that nothing can reveal that he is registered to clones, it just shows up like any other patient file.” She waited until they all breathed a collective sigh of relief before continuing, “however, we’ve only been able to adopt out Tookas to you boys since they can easily be hidden; this guy will not be quite so easy to hide, so if you do have any dramas feel free to bring him back and I’ll see if we can arrange something else.” 

 Kix knew that Dalthic was a friend to clones, he’d heard plenty of stories of her helping brothers adopt pets under the table, and she’d even helped Denal to adopt Torrent, the sweet kitten in the barracks next door to theirs, but it was reassuring to have her confirm it in person. “That’s great to hear, we’ll make sure he’s taken care of, ma’am.” 

 Apparently, that was as much talk as Hardcase could stomach, eager to get back with the newest member of their squad as he already began walking towards the door, “thanks again, Doc!” he shouted back, his signature grin firmly back in its rightful place.  She offered him a brief wave and then he was gone, already out into the bustling streets of Coruscant. Jesse tried to offer an apologetic smile on behalf of their rather excited brother, but the vet simply waved him off with a genuine smile of her own. “I’ll see you boys later,” she hummed, offering Kix and Jesse a nod in farewell.  

 The two brothers were quick to go after Hardcase, managing to weave their way through the lunchtime crowds with little difficulty. They caught up with him soon enough, and from there it was only a short walk back to base. With it being noon, most of their brothers were already in the mess, so there wasn’t anyone to stop them or to question the strange crate one of them was carrying through the barracks and soon enough they reached their destination.  

 It had been almost two weeks since the Citadel and Fives was not doing well. He had survived and managed to escape, yet it felt as though his very heart and soul had been abandoned on the platform alongside his missing batcher.  

 He hadn’t cried. There’d been no time for him to actually let down his guard enough to process what had happened until they had been safely whisked from the planet’s surface, and then he’d been swarmed by brothers trying to offer their support. They wanted to do right by him, to keep him surrounded by caring people at all times, yet he’d never found himself feeling lonelier. In truth he wasn’t sure he even wanted to stop feeling lonely. 

 The numbness was better than the agony that twisted through his chest every time he so much as glanced at Echo’s empty bunk. It was better than having his emotions raw and spilling over the threshold where the Captain and the rest of his vode could see it. It was better than accepting that his brother was no longer by his side where he’d promised to always be.  

 He was tempted to ignore the knocking someone was doing on the outside of the barracks. All of the other brothers were either training or in the mess hall, so whoever was knocking was obviously looking for him. Knowing that they’d likely just try and track him down later, Fives shouted for whoever was seeking access to enter, not bothering to glance up from the datapad he was looking over – and by looking over he meant staring mindlessly at the display while he allowed his thoughts to run rampant – he was, however, snapped from his trance when he heard something heavy being placed on the floor.  

 Rolling over onto his side, Fives regarded the three brothers who’d entered the barracks, taking note of their rather sheepish expressions. Hardcase was clearly anxious or excited about something, Jesse kept glancing between the aforementioned brother and Fives, and Kix looked as though he was half a second away from snapping at the other two troopers, or perhaps slapping them both upside the head.  

 “Well, are you going to tell him or not?” Kix crossed his arms over his chest, assuming his ‘irritated medic’ stance, which was usually enough to send most men running for the hills, “you geniuses came up with it, I’m not going to be dragged into it with you.”  

 Fives simply rose a questioning eyebrow while Jesse spluttered out an indignant sound, “Excuse me? This was Hardcase’s idea, I just encouraged him.”  

 Kix looked just about ready to argue the statement, but Fives was able to stop him from going any further by raising a hand. He’d already pulled himself up into a sitting position, allowing his legs to dangle freely from the edge of his bed as he frowned up at the three brothers gathered before him, “what do you guys need to tell me?” Hardcase was grinning and Fives was briefly worried by what sort of mania his brother had in store.  

 “Well, I saw something the other day and we-” Kix shot Hardcase a foul look, “I, thought you’d like to have it.” he finished, fingers itching to get on with it. When Fives didn’t say anything further, he continued, “but you need to, uh, close your eyes.” 

 Fives’ frown only deepened, he really wasn’t in the mood for any surprises – he was tired and just wanted to be left to himself – but he knew better than to try and argue with a brother as stubborn as Hardcase once he’d set his mind on something, and closed his eyes, albeit with a slightly defeated sigh. He heard the sound of the crate being opened, followed by something scrabbling against the smooth floor for purchase.  

 “Okay, okay, hold out your hands,” he could hear the energy in the other clone’s voice, followed slightly by a poorly concealed chuckle, probably from Jesse.  

 He held out his hands as instructed, suddenly wishing he’d been wearing his gloves, just in case. But to his surprise, what his hands met was warm and soft, and Fives suddenly jerked, eyes snapping open when he felt the thing move. “What the kriff–” looking up at him, whole body squirming with uncontained energy and excitement, was a small Ring Dog, and not just any dog, but a puppy. It was wriggling about, its rear end swaying from side to side from where Fives held it, dangling in mid-air as its tail wagged at about a mile a minute.  

 “Hardcase, where the hell did you find a puppy?” the ARC trooper near enough choked out, still reeling at the thought that his brothers had somehow not only managed to find a dog, but somehow also sneak it into the barracks. At his words the puppy made a soft bark, only growing more excited when Fives looked away from the other trooper and back at it again.  

 Hardcase himself looked to be absolutely beaming yet again, pleased that Fives had asked, “well, you see, I was out with Jesse and Kix the other day at Seventy Nine’s and we overheard one of the Guards talking about his pet Tooka, and that reminded me of Denal and how he has Torrent, and how happy she makes him, and then Kix mentioned something about pets helping to lower blood pressure, and then—”  

 “We adopted him from the vet clinic a little ways down from the Guard base.” Jesse suddenly said, cutting off whatever lengthy rambling Hardcase was about to spiral into, much to the aforementioned clone’s disappointment if his expression was any indicator. Fortunately, Jesse didn’t seem to be too worried by the glare being pointedly levelled at him.  

 “Yeah!” Hardcase quickly continued, “we thought that maybe ya could do with some company.” The longer Fives actually stared at Hardcase, the more he could see that, while excited, the trooper was rather nervous, his fingers twitching restlessly at his sides. Clearly, he was worried about what Fives would think of their ‘gift’, but before he could speak up Jesse once again chimed in.  

 “But hey, we’ve already disturbed you enough, we’ll just leave you to it.” Neither Kix nor Hardcase were able to argue, for Jesse grabbed both of their arms and began hastily dragging them out of the room.  

 Fives blanched for a moment, looking between his retreating brothers and the puppy still swaying in his hold, “wait, ‘Case, Jesse, what am I supposed to do with this thi—” he was cut off by the door to his quarters being abruptly closed as the other three clones made their escape. Still slightly stunned, it took him a moment to finally come back to his senses, gently placing the puppy down on the floor. Immediately it began to sniff at his feet and legs, occasionally making a pleased huffing noise, before looking back up at the ARC trooper with its big brown eyes.  

 The puppy just about reached Fives’ knees when stood, covered in a thin, oak-coloured fur, with several rings of chocolate brown wrapping around its legs and tail. A small blue collar hung around its neck, and Fives was quick to reach out and inspect it, turning it around in his hands to try and find if it had a name on its tag.  

 Finding no tag he was forced to assume that the dog had yet to be given a name. He recalled that Jesse and Hardcase had called it a ‘he’, and with a quick glance underneath the happy pup, he could confirm that it was indeed a male. He still had no idea if he’d be keeping the animal – clones weren’t exactly the sort of people who could keep pets – but he couldn’t just leave the poor thing nameless, regardless of whether he would be keeping it or not. He would have to speak to Echo, he had always been better at picking names than— 

 His face fell as a quiet voice inside reminded him that no, he wouldn’t be receiving any help from Echo. Not now, and not ever again.  

 With a sigh Fives dropped back onto his bunk, staring up at the bunk above as his thoughts quickly began to sink their talons into his mind, dragging him down into the deep abyss. He had no one to help him, Echo wasn’t there to grab his hand and pull him from drowning in the pitch-black waters of his inner thoughts. But someone else was.  

 Fives was jerked from his trance-like state by a cold nose nudging at his hand, followed briefly by several slobbery licks to his fingers when he still didn’t respond. He looked down to the puppy, meeting its eyes and watching as its expression exploded into joy the moment he did so, tail already back to wagging at its ridiculous speed.  

 “What can I do for you, dog?” he asked quietly, moving to run his fingers over the puppy’s head. The dog simply offered him a bark, attempting to lick his hand the moment he stopped his petting motions. “Why don’t you come up here?” Fives asked, patting at the top of the mattress to try and encourage it to join him. The moment he stopped the Ring Dog did just as he was asked, springing from the floor and landing on the bunk beside the clone, already shoving his head under Fives’ arms and trying to reach the ARC’s face to give him a good licking.  

 Fives wasn’t able to stop the laugh that suddenly escaped him, trying in vain to try and swat away the determined pup and save his face from slobber. A single lick to his chin was the closest the dog got, but he seemed to be satisfied with his efforts, plopping down on Fives’ chest and huffing in his face. “Stars, your breath stinks, dog,” he groaned, scrunching up his nose and trying to turn away. The dog merely wagged his tail again.  

 “You think that’s funny?” The dog simply wagged his tail faster. He had only a moment to brace himself before the puppy launched at him again, this time trying to lick at Fives’ ears. And for a long, blissful moment, the mourning ARC trooper is rendered a laughing, happy child.  

 The next morning, Rex is more than relieved to see Fives wandering around the base. He’s still not interacting with his brothers as much as usual, still a little withdrawn from his surrounds, but he’s not completely closed himself off, and for that, the Captain is willing to overlook the small puppy following around at Fives’ heels. If continuing to pretend he is completely oblivious to the animals ‘stealthily’ being acquired by members of the 501st means that his men have the chance to actually heal and have some sort of joy in their depressing lives, then it’s something he would happily do a thousand times over.  

[johannstutt413]

(continuing from this post)

While they continued to spend as much time as they could with each other, it was some time before the Doctor and Ambriel went on their third/fourth/fifth date (depending on where one starts counting). Partially because they didn’t feel the need, because simply being in each other’s company was all the blessing they needed; partially because neither of them were sure where to take things from where they were; and partially because both were nervous that, somehow, making it an official date would change something about the experience for the worse. So, rather than make a big deal of it, Ambriel became the Doctor’s assistant so she didn’t have to leave his side, and while she didn’t have much in the way of work to do, she certainly kept him company, and frankly, that’s all he needed her to do to make him more productive than he’d ever been.

So much more productive, in fact, that he earned a raise, including a hefty one-time bonus, and it was receiving this that got him to thinking of another proper date in celebration. The only question was...well, there were a few, but among them, “Is there anywhere you want to go?”

“Hmm?” Amy was in her chair, as usual, spinning in circles until her halo started to wobble. “You mean, like, to eat?”

“Or travel, or whatever. Is there somewhere you’ve just been dying to see?”

Her first few thoughts weren’t terribly helpful, so she dug deeper to try and find something. “Not...really, no. I’m not much of a sight-seer; if we went anywhere, I’d just want to walk around the shops all day.”

“Hm...” That did give him an idea, actually. “I hear Siesta’s got some good shops this time of year, and since we helped out with the Obsidian Festival last time, I think they’d give us a good discount or two.”

“Obsidian Festival? What’s that?”

He smiled. “A big, long concert with some of Terra’s best musicians performing. It was great the day or so we got to watch, but we spent most of the time trying to stop a giant Originum Slug living in a volcano from causing an eruption and destroying the city.”

“That...” Ambriel shook her head. “You should get the movie rights for that. I’m sure you could get good money out of something like that.”

“Oh, we did, actually. One of the company’s FEater worked with in the past is gonna produce it...Where were we?”

She rolled over to him to set her head on his shoulder. “You were talking up Siesta to me, for some reason.”

“I was thinking we could go somewhere nice to celebrate my promotion.” The Doctor booped her nose. “You made it possible, so if you have a place you want to go, I want to go there, too.”

“Oh, well...I don’t know, Doc. All that really matters to me is being with you.”

While there’d never been a doubt in his mind that was how she felt, hearing it out loud was something else. “Amy...Well, is there anything you think would be nice to have?”

“You just want to spoil me, don’t you?” Guilty as charged. “There’s a dress that arrived at the Procurement Division recently that I’ve had my eye on. It’s way out of my price range, so I didn’t have a hope of getting it myself.”

“We can swing by there today after work and get it, then. Sounds like a plan to you?”

 Ambriel nodded. “Yeah, that works...You don’t mind if I keep my head here, do you?”

“Not one bit.” He tilted his head so they were touching. “You’re the best.”

“Aww, don’t go filling up my head with that...C’mere, you.”

Later that day, the Doctor, true to his word, took Ambriel to the Procurement Division’s base of operations - aka, the base’s Penguin Logistics corner. Croissant, watching the register so to speak, waved as they came in. “Ev’nin, Baws! You and ya lady friend need som’in?”

“Amy saw a dress the other day she liked.” He turned to her. “Do you see it anywhere?”

“Uh...Hey, Croissant, do you still have the star print dress that came in a few days ago?”

The Forte shrugged. “I ‘unno, but I’ll take a looksie for ya. Wond’r ‘round while I’m inna back, kay?”

“Sure thing.” As she opened the door behind her, and the creaking echoed ominously into the back of an absurdly large warehouse, Ambriel and the Doctor walked through several aisles of special deals courtesy of Penguin’s not-always-still-alive-by-delivery customer base. “While we’re waiting, see anything you like?”

“This place has everything, doesn’t it? Electronics, clothes, camping gear- oh my God.”

He followed her eyes to what he knew was the dress she’d been talking about. “Oh my God is right...I completely understand the price tag on this thing. Do they have a dressing room or something around here?”

“Yeah, in the back. Wanna see if you can get her back to the register while I try it on?”

“If you don’t need my help with the dress, sure.” The Doctor smiled as she gave him a look. “It’s a zipper-back, after all. Aren’t those hard to close yourself?”

Amy shook her head. “I’ll be fine, Doc. See you soon.”

“I’ll miss you~” A quick kiss, and she was off. He wandered back to the counter, rang the bell a few times, and when no one showed up, he decided to wait by the closet door he’d seen Ambriel walk through.

“Hey, Doc?” She half-shouted through the door. “Could you come help me with this?”

The Doctor opened the door to a shocked Amy. “She didn’t show, so I figured I’d wait out here. What do you need?”

“...I need you to zip it up in the back.” There was a note of defeat in her voice, but he couldn’t quite place it.

“I’ve got you covered.” He closed the door behind him and moved behind her to get to the offending strip of metal. “Huh. It’s broken, I think. Yeah, there’s a knot in the back; it’s not you, believe me.”

She sighed. “That’s good. I thought maybe the sugar was settling in places.”

“I mean, we could get it tailored if that was the problem, I bet...Not the right thing to say?”

“Not really.” Ambriel shook her head. “Well, we can’t get it fixed if we don’t buy it, so...Are you still okay with paying for it?”

He nodded. “Not an issue whatsoever. Besides, we might be able to convince them to give us a discount.”

“Maybe...Doc, are you gonna let me change back or no?”

“Oh, right.” The Doctor left, closing the door behind him. “I’m gonna try to get Croissant’s attention again.”

At this point, the Forte was back at her post, a sly smile on her face. “How’d the fittin’ go, Baws?”

“The zipper on the back’s broken - as in, there’s a major knot in it. We want the dress, but I don’t think I should have to pay that much for it when we’ve got to get it fixed afterwards.”

“Well, we price ev’r’thin’ as-is, Baws.” She crossed her arms. “Trust me, you don’t wanna haggle wi’ me. I know all the tricks.”

He smiled. “Really? What about this one: three days paid vacation for you and a plus one.”

“...70 percent retail.”

“I’ll take it.” The Doctor pulled out a card as Ambriel walked out with the dress folded in her arms. “Here you go.”

As they left the department, Amy’s eyes were focused on the dress in her hands. “Hey, Doc? Can I ask you something?”

“Anything you want, Amy.”

“If...If it turns out I am too big for this dress,” she managed, “what are we gonna do with it?”

He shrugged. “If you didn’t want to get it tailored to fit you better, then I guess we could find someone else to give it to. Are you really worried about it?”

“I’ve been eating a lot of sugar lately. You don’t think I’m gonna get fat, do you?”

“Huh?” The Doctor shook his head. “I haven’t even thought of that. Why do you ask?”

Amy shrugged. “I dunno, I just...I’ve never felt insecure about myself like this until the other day. I’d just gotten out of the shower, and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I wondered if I was the kind of girl you really wanted to...you know...”

“Oh. I can understand that.”

“Huh?” She frowned at him. “Doc, now you’ve got me worried.”

He shook his head. “I mean I have the same kind of thoughts about myself. I’ll cuddle you like there’s no tomorrow, but there’s this niggling doubt in the back of my head that says if we decide to do anything more intimate, you won’t like what you see.”

“That’s...that’s exactly it. Sorry I doubted you just then.”

“It’s no big.” The Doctor stopped outside the door to her place as she unlocked the door. “You want to come over later?”

She was about to say yes, but another voice prevailed. “Actually...you want to come in?”

“Sure. I don’t think I’ve actually seen your place before.”

“Well, yeah; I was kinda doing it on purpose.” Ambriel blushed as they crossed the threshold. “Sorry about the mess.”

He chuckled. “This is more like how my place was before our first date. You even have the same baking sheet in the sink I did.”

“Heh. I’ll be right back - gonna put this away for now - so make yourself comfortable.”

“Sure.” He looked around, found a spot on her couch that wasn’t filled with pillows, clicked on the TV, and waited. And waited...and started to wonder how her closet was set up if it was taking this long to hang up a dress.

It turned out, there was a bit more going on, as when she returned from her room, she was in a bathrobe instead of what she’d had on before. “So uh...comfortable yet?”

“Pretty much.” He turned the TV off. “What’s up?”

“I was wondering if you, um...wanted to stay the night. With me. In my room.”

The Doctor was walking through his options. “I...I don’t not want to.”

“It sounds like there’s a but coming after that.” She frowned. “Am I moving too fast?”

“Do you think you’re moving too fast? I mean, are you trying to prove something to yourself, or do you really want to...might as well say it, are you really DTF tonight after that conversation we just had?”

Ambriel shrugged. “We won’t know unless we try, right?”

“Honestly?” He looked down at the floor in front of him for a moment before turning back to her. “You know I’ll love you even if we’re never physical, right?”

“Yeah, obviously.”

Okay, so it wasn’t about that. Good…“Then I guess it is a me thing, because I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“I can go change back, then,” she said, “and we can just hang out, if you want.”

“...If I say I kinda want you to keep wearing that just in case I change my mind, would that bother you?”

Amy smiled. “Doc, I sit on my couch in this all the time, and I don’t mind you wanting to keep your options open. Move some of those pillows for me; I’ll get us something to drink.”

“Thanks.” He watched her walk to the fridge, open the door, bend down to look for something- and suddenly he had his answer. “I’m ready.”

“Ready? For- oh! Really?” She closed the door and turned back to him.

He nodded. “Yep, totally, hundred percent.”

“Huh.” She looked down at her robe. “That was quick.”

“I want to take it kind of slow, but...yeah.”

She rejoined him on the couch. “That’s fine by me.”

“Awesome.” The Doctor slowly moved an arm around her waist. “So um...I have no idea what to do.”

“Neither do I.” They looked at each other, hoping to find the answer somewhere in each other’s eyes...and eventually, they did, as independently they drifted closer for a kiss.

[amazingflyingdick]

midnight sun.

WHO: Bruce Wayne @justicealwaysprevails, Dick Grayson @amazingflyingdick, Slade Wilson @terminator-deathstroke, & Josh Foley @goldenelixxir WHERE: The hospital WHEN: Backdated to July 4th, 2020 WHAT: Josh is contacted and arrives at the hospital to heal Dick’s injuries

Josh: When he’d been contacted by Bruce Wayne asking him to come to the hospital, he’d assumed that it was urgent, that there’d been some accident, an emergency that needed his attention immediately. It was dangerous for him to leave District X and cross town. He was a known offender, had already been arrested, and NOVA grew bolder by the day with their methods. He went anyway. Of course he did. Dick was one of his oldest friends in the city and one of the few that Josh offered any kind of real honesty to. So much of his existence was focused on other people that there were few opportunities to just be Josh Foley. Dick offered him that. Of course he was going to help.

He had a hoodie on and a beanie beneath it when he arrived. In an effort to attract as little attention as possible, he kept his head down until he got to the room number Bruce had given him. It was a normal room. Not emergency. Not ICU. That already had him frowning as he opened the door and pulled his hood back. Bruce: The last few days were spent on very little sleep. Bruce was no metahuman, but he had an indomitable will and he had trouble acknowledging his own limitations. And regardless of everything he knew to be true, what he'd known for years, he wasn't leaving Dick alone with Slade Wilson. Not for long, anyway. Once they stretched into day 3 in their silent standoff, without Slade showing any signs of leaving, Bruce began to consider more realistic options. He did leave here and there to speak with doctors. A few times he fell asleep in his chair, unaware that he'd done so at all until he checked the time and realized hours had passed in what felt like minutes.

Jason's text completely sent him off balance. Panic and subsequent lack of sleep were the only excuses he had for not recalling an obvious solution. He wasted no time getting in contact with him, without offering too many details, because he didn't want Dick to suffer any longer than he had to, when it was completely unnecessary.

His expression was somber when Josh entered the room. The guilt and exhaustion were more than evident in his heavy tone as he offered a succinct explanation. "He was shot in the head four days ago and in a coma nearly as long. They brought him out of it this morning, but he's only been fully cognizant for a few hours." Slade: Slade had to be forced out of the hospital room. He hadn’t moved for four days, hadn’t eaten or slept, barely drunk anything, and really just refused to leave Dick’s side until he was sure he was waking up. Now that he was up, Dick had pushed him to go and grab a nap, a shower, and dinner. He hadn’t thought much of any of it until he realized how much he had been exerting himself.

Now, in a fresh outfit, clean and newly shaved, Slade returned to the hospital bed and there was some... fucking gold guy standing there. What the hell was going on? He had had his whole home set up to care for Dick, to bring him back to rehabilitate him.

He looked between Wayne and King Midas over there before moving to his spot at Dick’s side. “Hey, little bird,” he greeted, face softening only for Dick. Dick: Dick was sleeping less, but that didn't mean he was fully awake. Sometimes he just drifted in a strange state in between, aware of the people around him even though he didn't actively participate in conversations. He didn't realize Josh was in the room until he heard Bruce speaking to someone. Cracking his eyes open, he exhaled softly. "It's weird when you talk about me like I'm not here, B." The sentence was coherent even though the words were slightly slurred. He blinked when he saw Josh in a beanie, as if he weren't sure if he were actually there. "Josh...? You look like you're about to rob a 711..."

Slade's reappearance distracted him and Dick watched him sleepily, too out of it to be burdened by the fact that Bruce was present. He didn't have the focus to guard his feelings or the tender familiarity. "Hey... you showered." Josh: Four days. Had he really just said four days? Dick had been shot over half a week earlier and nobody had thought to tell him until right then? Josh knew from first hand experience what that was like. He knew exactly what it felt like to take a bullet to the skull. The fact that Dick had survived it at all was a damned miracle, but then he’d just been left to...what? Human medicine? “I could have helped him,” he said in a low voice, not even trying to hide his irritation. “You pay for my clinic. I treated your other son.” There was no go back in time button. It was done. Dick was alive and he could fix the rest. It just made his skin crawl that he’d been left to just suffer through it when there was an alternative.

Josh glanced away from Bruce only when Dick spoke. “You caught me. I figured I’d steal a Slurpee on my way back home.”

The train of thought was interrupted yet again by the appearance of...whoever the hell that was. Obviously someone very familiar with Dick. He caught that name, Little Bird, and the easy way Dick responded to him. It was Josh’s turn to be confused, maybe irritated a little further. Was this the mystery ex in town? If so, it was so far from the image that Josh had conjured up that it would have been funny if the whole situation was something else.

“I need space if I’m finally going to get to help.” What he had to do wasn’t as simple as knitting skin back together or curing infection. Bruce: "I know." There was nothing else to say. Bruce wasn't going to make excuses when there weren't any that would justify his lack of action. The truth was the truth, but it didn't do any of them a bit of good now. What mattered was that Dick was alive and Josh was here to cut his long recovery time short. It was something Bruce dreaded hearing the doctors talk about. He already expected that Dick wouldn't be returning to the manor; the thought of Slade having complete control over his well being would have made it difficult to sleep at night.

Motioning for Slade to move back, he was wise enough to provide an explanation for Josh's sake. He didn't want a tense back and forth if he could help it. After so many hours of sitting in that hospital room with Slade, Bruce had seen how tense he got even when the nurses were doing something as routine as checking vitals. They might appear to have made an uneasy truce, but the reality was that Bruce had been left with few options. "He can heal him." Slade: Slade stared at the golden fairy man in his hat, somehow incensed that he hadn’t been called. Who the fuck even was he? “Am I missing something?” He growled to Wayne. Why should they have called him? And if Bruce had this kid on retainer, why hadn’t they?

He didn’t move. He’d need a little more than ‘he can heal him’. “How?”

Slade looked to Dick. Wayne barely spoke half the time, as if monosyllabic answers and grunts were all he needed for conversation. Dick: Even though his eyes felt heavy, Dick kept them open. He could feel the tension between the three of them and he didn't like it. "It's okay..." he murmured softly, his hand moving from its position on the railing and brushing the back of Slade's arm. "He runs the clinic. Mutant clinic. I trust him." Those words might not say a lot considering the type of people Dick willingly put his trust in, but he knew Josh was here to help. The thought filled him with relief. "He's helped me before." Not with an injury like this, but he didn't imagine it would be much different this time around. Josh: “I’m a mutant. In case you thought the gold skin was an elaborate costume I didn’t finish.” He had about a dozen different questions right then, and high on the list was why Dick needed to reassure a man that Josh had never laid eyes on that it was okay to let him heal the hole in his head. “I’m biokinetic, and nobody here can help Dick like I can. I’d really like for you to move, whoever you are.” Bruce: There was a stiffness in Bruce's jaw as he watched the interaction between Josh and Slade, but he was on edge and ready to step in, if necessary, although he'd rather avoid an altercation. "His clinic is partially funded by Wayne Enterprises. He has assisted us in the past. He’s been friends with Dick for several years." It put the situation in some perspective, at least. Slade: Slade narrowed his eyes. “Forgive me for not assuming you were a mutant. In case you haven’t noticed, there are several different types of people here that could look like you.” He moved only because Dick said he trusted him, even if Slade didn’t. Instead, he rounded on Bruce. “So you mean to tell me that there’s been someone the whole time that could what? Wave a magic wand and fix Dick? And I’m only just now hearing about him? Aren’t you supposed to be a genius?”

Dick: Dick sighed softly, his hand falling back against the railing. This time he couldn't keep his eyes from slipping closed, and his heart rate went up even though he kept his tone light, trying to ease the agitation in the room. "I didn't think of it either." He'd also been in and out of consciousness for the past few hours, but still. It was difficult to be angry at Bruce - or at anyone, especially knowing how stressed they'd been. "It's okay now." Josh: His eyes moved immediately to the monitor, watching the numbers change. “Get away from the bed,” he said with no further preamble. In his actual clinic with his actual patients, he had a good bedside manner. Dick had been put through unnecessary surgery, been kept unconscious for days, and was still barely coherent even as he was talking to them. It was not the time to try to navigate personal relationships. “Neither of you can help him right now.”

Josh took a step closer and laid his hand against Dick’s forehead. “Dick...I won’t lie. This is going to hurt.” He normally warned about discomfort, but typically it was minor. In this particular case, Josh knew exactly what it was going to feel like. He’d lived through it himself. Dick had painkillers on his side, at least, and that might dull the worst of it. “I’ll take care of you.” Bruce: Bruce was outwardly calm, not showing any emotion as Slade rounded on him, but he knew there was very little he could say in his own defense. The truth was that they had all been too shell-shocked to do anything but go through the motions. Dick's survival hadn't been a certainty and even now he wasn't at ease. It still wasn't excusable. Slade's anger wasn't even close to how angry Bruce was at himself. "The oversight is reprehensible, even if unintentional." Slade: Slade ought to kill the other man right then and there. He wasn't sure who the mutant was talking to when he said to get away, as Slade had already moved, but he ignored him for a moment to fix Wayne with a look of death. Perhaps Slade was being unfair if only because Bruce was only human. His distraction was to be expected. Regardless, he was still considering homicide right here in the hospital room. The only reason he didn't was because of what was going on next to them.

His attention shifted to Dick and he stood, tense. I'll take care of you. That... didn't sit right with Slade. Perhaps it was because of how often he had said the very same to Dick. Or perhaps it was because of how badly he wanted to do it. His jaw visibly clenched, but he kept quiet.

Dick: The touch made his brow furrow, but the bullet had gone in near Dick's eye and was nowhere near his forehead. It was just that no one had dared touch his head since the entire thing happened. Slade had gone as far to touch his hair and even then he'd been careful about it. "Can't hurt more than this, right?" He wasn't afraid of pain.

"He's the one I told you about." Granted, when he'd told Josh about Slade it was before everything started back up again and the break up with Tanya had been fresh. Painful. Dick hadn't been in the best mood that night and when he talked about everything it'd been with resentment. "Sorry for being such a jerk." Josh: “Maybe,” Josh ventured. It had to be done either way. Dick had been a vigilante for most of his life, it wasn’t like he was a stranger to something hurting. Josh had faith he’d grit his teeth and deal with it. Still, he hadn’t wanted to catch him completely off guard. He was forcing something to happen in minutes that would have taken months, or never even happened fully at all.

Josh glanced back over his shoulder toward...Slade, apparently, was the name. Dick had mentioned him, though with very little detail, and there was no way Josh would have turned that conversation into a picture of the giant man in an eyepatch. He didn’t really care, though. Dick’s tastes were apparently all over the place, and right then none of it was his concern. “It happens. You can apologize to me when you don’t have a hole in your head anymore.”

He kept one hand lightly against his forehead and laid the other one against Dick’s hand on the bed. He went quiet, focusing all his energy on what he had to do. It was complex, regrowing and repairing bone and brain matter. Complex and exhausting. He kept his eyes closed as he worked, dealing with the bone first. That was the more painful part, and it was the most consuming for him, too. When he’d had to deal with it himself, it had felt like a hammer to his skull, the worst headache It was possible to have. Then again, he’d not “lived” through the gunshot wound.

It was not a fast process. Tissue damage could be quick, but that wasn’t what they were dealing with. It dragged on for several minutes as Josh moved his attention from the bone regrowth to repairing the more internal damage. Golden, warm light grew brighter in the spaces beneath his hands. Bruce: There was no getting around the massive mistake made in not bringing Josh in sooner. Bruce knew he might be able to reverse the damage, but it still meant Dick had been suffering unnecessarily for days. The fact that Josh said it would hurt was also reason for concern. It made him wonder if it would have been less painful had he intervened before now.

Silent, he went to stand at the foot of Dick's bed so he was far enough out of the way, but still able to see what was happening. He didn't know if the machines might alert the nurses, but he was watching the door in his peripheral vision just in case he would have to intercept them. It was risky for Josh to have come here. He didn't want NOVA to be tipped off and be waiting outside the hospital doors. Slade: Slade wordlessly watched the three men, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms to keep from reflexively breaking this guy's arms for touching Dick. Who knew he had jealousy issues. Perhaps Dick just brought it out of him, or perhaps it was just because of the tension of the situation. He hadn't missed the little exchange between Dick and the other. The one he had told him about? So this was a friend of Dick's?

Uninterested in the mysticism of it, Slade pulled his phone from his pocket to send a brief series of texts to Wintergreen telling him to remove every single precaution he had had set up in his home to rehabilitate and care for Dick. The medical devices, any equipment, and certainly the ice cream and other sweets were to be taken out. He wasn't to know that Slade had gone to any lengths. He could just imagine that Dick would feel guilty about it. Like an idiot. The silly films were also to be sent out. If Dick still came home with him--though why he would when he had his own place and wouldn't need any help from Slade had Slade thinking he'd head home alone--it would be like it was the last time he was there.

Dick: The blinding pain hit him before Dick could even respond. It wasn't what he expected at all. Josh had healed smaller wounds on him before. The process never took longer than a few seconds, and it always felt strange, but there was never any pain involved. It doubled the headache he'd consistently had upon waking and he sucked air through his teeth sharply. The effort not to make any noise while Josh worked was substantial. Instead he focused on his breathing, resisting the urge to hold it, but as the seconds passed and the pain continued it became more and more difficult.

He didn't let himself speak. There was no way he'd be able to get the words out right now without giving away how much pain he was in, as if the way he white-knuckled the railing of the bed wasn't indicative enough, or that his eyes were closed so tightly that the tears were partly from strain. Josh: Josh couldn’t let himself focus on the pain. He could ease it when they were through with the rest. Once it was over then it was over, at least in that respect. He remembered being disoriented for awhile and thought it would probably be the same for Dick, but he could help with the hurt. It took a few more minutes. By the time he was finished, the only thing left was for Dick’s body to reorient to being whole again. Josh used a few more seconds to urge the release of various neurotransmitters and chemicals to diminish any lingering pain. He couldn’t do anything for the fogginess or disorientation, but he knew it would pass.

He dropped his hand away from Dick’s forehead but kept the other one where it was. “I can help you sleep for a few hours,” he offered. “It’ll feel better when you wake back up .” Bruce: Bruce watched the entire process closely, his eyes narrowing, but he stayed where he was, his arms tightly folded over his chest. Although he was well aware of Josh's capabilities, he'd never seen him work until now. He didn't know what it was like to heal complex injuries. Situational examples weren't always readily available. If there were any lingering effects or abnormalities, then he wanted to know about them. Now wasn't the time to ask, however. He didn't say a word, although he did manage to relax somewhat when Josh spoke again and he realized it was over, finally, although there was a dull ache left in his jaw. Slade: Slade knew the moment that Dick was in pain, almost like that pain was his own. He knew the tense of Dick's jaw, the tears in his eyes, the white of his knuckles. And he certainly knew that the other was putting on a show of strength for Bruce and probably for him, trying to ensure, as always, that they didn't worry. Slade always did worry, however, even if he wouldn't let it be known. He had believed for years that Dick was competent, however, even if he could sometimes be an idiot.

When it faded, Slade also noted how the healer kept Dick's hand. There was a niggling at the back of his mind as he remembered what Dick had said about previous partners. Was he simply being paranoid? He felt that flash of jealousy again and he suddenly wanted Golden Fairy Boy away from his little bird. Not that he spoke. Slade kept his face completely impassive. If he was right, then Slade couldn't help how he felt about it. If he was wrong, Dick would tell him. For now, though, he forced his arms to uncross. "I'll be here when you wake up, kid," he said to Dick, reaching out to flick the dark hair off his forehead where it had plastered there from the perspiration that came from hiding his pain. "Promise I won't change appearance again." Dick: The pain faded away so quickly that Dick was left dizzy, disoriented, and he kept his eyes closed for another second as he struggled to concentrate on the world around him. While he'd been in a coma he'd been aware, on some level, of what was going on in the room. Sounds and voices worked their way into his subconscious and in the strange, saga-like dreams he'd had. It was easy for him to focus on those things now, even through the incessant beeping of the machines.

His eyes opened when Josh offered to put him to sleep and he shook his head quickly. "No, I don't want to sleep." There was a slightly panicked edge to his voice. He'd slept for days the last time he felt like this, like he couldn't see or hear anything with complete clarity, and his fingers dug into the side of Josh's hand.

Slade's voice made his gaze lift and he struggled to find him in the room. He didn't have his metagene or enhanced senses, so when he felt his hand touch his hair he quickly released the railing and reached to catch it. "I don't want to sleep," he said again, more desperately. Josh: “Alright, alright. No sleep. That’s stupid,” he said, not sugar-coating it, but he wasn’t going to do it against his will. If he wanted to be awake, he could be awake. “But you can be stupid, I guess. It’ll go away soon.” He returned that squeeze when he felt it.

He glanced over to Bruce. “Someone is going to have to move him out of here AMA or they’re going to be asking a bunch of questions about what happened. I don’t want NOVA to have a reason to come looking for me again.” Especially not in District X, which so far had seemed untouchable but Josh knew better than to actually believe that was true.

He was silent for a few seconds, feeling his own personal brand of exhaustion, but decided to make a second offer. “How long has it been since either of you slept?” He looked from Bruce to Slade and back. “My guess is four days. I can help.” Bruce: Dick's refusal made Bruce frown, but he didn't try to reason with him. He knew better than to think it would make any difference. "I will have him released into my custody." It wasn't just his wealth and influence that would make it possible, but he had personal physicians that tended to Dick and the others from the second they stepped foot in the manor. The hospital could at least rest easy knowing medical professionals still had access to him, even though it would hardly be necessary. "You will have to keep a low profile, Dick," he said reasonably, but his gaze was on Slade as he spoke. "No patrol. Minimal public appearances." It wasn't just to keep his recovery under wraps. If NOVA had him in their sights, it was a reasonable belief that a second attempt might be made.

Bruce looked at Josh, hesitating, but he'd read enough about his abilities to know healing extensive damage took its toll. "Thank you, but I know this demanded a great deal from you. It isn't necessary." Slade: Slade narrowed his eyes. "I can take care of him," he said, just a little bit pointed. Had Slade known this guy was an option, he would have called him in. More than once, he had considered reaching out to the people who had healed him when Possum had popped a cap in his own head. However, he wasn't sure the deaging process would go too well for Dick, and an 18 year old Grayson meant that it would look even more suspect with him and Dick together. Not that Slade gave a shit. He just didn't think it was a viable option and he also didn't know where they were even headquartered anymore.

He looked at the other man before shaking his head. "Trust me when I say I can go weeks without it." He had before. "Barely affects my body." Because Goldfinger wasn't the only one with powers in this room, even if Slade's healing factor couldn't help Dick this way. "I'll sleep when he's safe and stable at my house." Dick: Bruce's instructions had Dick sighing, but he nodded, unwilling to argue even though he wasn't about to sit on the sidelines at a time like this. They were all needed in the fight against NOVA. He wasn't going to hide when he was perfectly capable of helping. This had been a fluke. He hadn't been on guard. That wasn't a mistake he'd make twice. "I got it, B." His eyes were closed again, or he wouldn't have mixed the pointed looks. Even if Bruce were the one to orchestrate his release from the hospital, Dick wasn't going to the manor.

Even though he'd turned down Josh's offer to put him to sleep, he was out of it enough to nearly drift there on his own. He kept pulling himself back, directing his question to Slade. "When can I get out of here? Want you to sleep." Josh: Josh felt a prickle of heat and irritation run through him for a whole collection of different reasons. Everyone in that room was being purposefully dense, posturing at each other for no reason. “I don’t know who you think you are,” he immediately cut in on Slade, “but nobody took care of him. And he is safe and stable. Now.” Once somebody, and he wasn’t even sure who, finally remembered that he existed and Bruce made the call.

He let go of Dick’s hand and stood up straight. “Someone take him out of the hospital. He needs to rest for a day and everything should go back to normal.” He turned to Dick, who should’ve just listened to him and let him speed that along. “Do you understand? You have to rest. I just regrew part of your brain and it has to recognize that it’s all there again. Don’t make it harder on yourself.”

“Are we clear?” That was for both Bruce and Slade, who he rounded on to face one at a time. “Don’t make it harder on him.” Bruce: Bruce still hadn't moved from the foot of the bed. As Josh spoke he was silent, but it wasn't a point he could argue with any success and, what's more, he had little desire to. The long days and nights in the hospital had taken a toll on him. He'd caught a few stray hours of sleep here and there, but he knew it was wearing on him in other ways.

Nodding, he approached Josh with a frown, his tone quiet and sincere despite his own lingering doubts. "Understood. Thank you." Slade: Slade wasn’t intimidated by this little whelp. And he was telling Slade that he hadn’t cared for him. How, was he supposed to have ‘taken care’ of him, then? This fucker knew nothing about him and, for one moment, Slade had half a mind to knock his teeth down his throat. He didn’t, for Dick’s sake, but he ignored him entirely to move back to his spot beside the other.

“Looks like you’re better much sooner than we thought,” he murmured as he catch the other’s hand. “How about Alaska? We can tell them you’re recovering.” Dick: Josh's anger was clear, which surprised Dick even through the distant haze that clouded his mind and perception. He'd seen Josh angry before, although it had been just once, and it took him a second to understood what he'd said to him.

"I understand," he finally managed, cracking his eyes open so he the words might come off a little more convincing. "Thanks, Josh..." Dick didn't want to make it harder than it had to be, not when both Slade and Bruce had lost days of sleep watching over him.

His fingers quickly closed around Slade's hand. Any tension he'd been carrying from the minutes of pain faded and he was shocked by how easy it was to turn his head and press his cheek into the pillow. That small movement no longer sent a wave of excruciating agony through his head and neck. "Yeah," he breathed, not caring that Bruce heard. Dick wasn't sure just how serious Slade was being, anyway, but it was a pleasant thought. "Sounds nice." Josh: He considered offering to stay, and he still had questions he wanted answered, but every minute he stayed there increased the chance of one of the hospital staff coming in to check vitals or take readings. Besides, his job was done. Dick would be fine, once the brain fog dissipated.

“Maybe I’ll see you when you get back from Alaska then.” And he might have to seriously question his taste in people at that point, but until then he kept that thought to himself.

With a small shake of his head, he turned away from the bed to walk past Bruce toward the door. “Call me if anything else happens.” Bruce: Dick laying low was one thing, but leaving the state was another. Bruce tensed, but he didn't say anything. There was nothing he could say right now, nothing that would make a difference, and he wasn't going to upset Dick immediately after agreeing to make things easier for him.

Instead, he nodded, agreeing to Josh's request, but waited some seconds after Josh left the room before following. He still had to contact everyone and let them know of Dick's recovery. And as it stood, Bruce would much rather do that outside of Dick's hospital room. Slade: Slade didn’t much care what either of them thought of him taking Dick to Alaska. He had been shot in the head. He deserved to take a week off. If he wanted to. They would go before the plan with the NOVA went off. It was what needed to be done, but Dick had been raised by Bruce Wayne. It was possible he wouldn’t want it even if it needed to be. And that meant that maybe Dick would see the reality of what it meant to be loved by Slade Wilson. And perhaps he wouldn’t want it.

“Whenever you want, little bird. Just give the word.”