#the fact that he's so ridiculously overpowered makes sense

[catiuskaa]

Game On, Game Boy.

SUMMARY: dating someone from the opposing team is banned? So what? Minho isn’t dating that cute girl with the purple headset, they clearly hate each other! …wait, what? You never said it was her? O-oh… um, well…

REQUESTED! here by my pookie dookie @15092000volcano, who OMG LOVE YOU GOT SOME IDEAS™️ and i’m 100% here for it!

WC: 3.8k

CW: extensive use of curse words, use of petnames, gaming lingo that i won’t explain (sorry), a sneaky mention of changlix and a ridiculously explicit mention of hyunin because idk broski i just felt like it

[♦️★ 🎯 ★♦️]

“Are you sure this is the section you’re supposed to be in, Lee?”

Minho’s eyes turned darker and he chuckled a cold laugh that could’ve frozen the Han river over a hundred times.

No one noticed the slight smile he let out that was quickly hidden again.

“Look who it is,” Minho beamed a newly found energy, as if a dark, bad, and rude soul had just taken control of his mean smile. “If it isn’t other than the wrongly chosen personality hire of… mhh… I don’t remember… sorry, dollface, what’s the name of your team again?”

Behind him, a blond guy stared at him, eyebrows shot up, eyes wide. He turned around and faced one of his other team players.

“Hey, hyung. Does Minho know that girl?” Felix asked in a low voice. “He… doesn’t look too happy.” That was a nice way to put it.

Changbin rolled his eyes at the encounter, throwing his arm over Felix’s shoulders.

“Her username is something like ‘soondondori25”. Minho and her met a while back, in high school. As little as he’s said, one thing’s for sure: they really don’t like each other.”

Despite it not looking too good for the team the fact that its leader wasn’t behaving with their opponents, Seo huffed, not paying any mind to the arguing pair, unlike Felix, whose eyes stayed glued to his other hyung and the new girl, still going at each other.

"I bet you’re still using the overpowered weapon. Can’t really get past Nerf Bastian, can ya?” You stated mockingly, your cheeks red as you kept arguing. “I guess you need all the help you can get."

"Says the one who relies on camping. Can't face me head-on, huh?” Minho grinned with a sense of superiority, stepping forward. “Scared, dollface?”

You bit your lip, your eyes locked on his.

"You won’t need to worry about my team’s name, sweetie. I’ll make sure you never forget it.” Your stare would’ve burnt a forest just by staring at the grass for a bit too long.

“Still can't win without relying on cheap strategies, can you?"

Minho settled his hands on his pockets, halfly staring down at you, as if mocking your height.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” You chuckled lowly. You said it with a smirk, which Minho was fast to return. “Still stuck on that low-tier character, right? It seems like you need to step up your game, buddy."

“Oh, please!” Minho passed a hand through his hair, his tone hinting mocked amusement. He bent down lightly, his face in front of yours. “You're just a sore loser who can't handle a fair fight. Go back to your corner and cry some more, dollface.”

“Keep telling yourself that. We both know you're just jealous I'm better at this game than you."

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, dollface. I still manage to win against you. Seems like you're just bitter about losing."

The battle of comebacks kept going on, both of you stepping closer to each other with each sentence, as if about to throw hands.

“Ah, fuck! They do this every year!” Someone from your team approached the both of you while cursing. You ignored him at first, but then halfly gasped, facing your teammate.

“Jisung, I swear he started.”

“Yeah, Jisung. I started.” Minho cackled mockingly. “Tell Santa so I don’t have toys this Christmas.”

Han squinted at Minho. “Sure. As if I fucking care.” He then turned to face you, handing you a red shirt. “Yours. We’re red for the first round.” He stated seriously, taking on the role of team leader.

Minho and you stared at each other deeply just as Jisung flew the scene, missing how you two were basking in the glow of shared secrets.

“I’m team red, bunny,” you snickered at him in a smug tone. “You know what that means.”

“Superstition is for the rookies, dollface,” he said, his smile confirming the nickname you gave him was well justified.

No one knew the troubles the both of you had gone through. That’s why you smiled, knowing that when the round ended and you were both done for the day, —when you won, of course—, your boyfriend would still owe you a kiss.

All this mean smack talk was purely for the benefit of the other rival teams. Minho was happy to let you prove yourself to those who couldn’t grasp the idea that a girl in sparkly, cute dresses and what some would call ‘over the top’ makeup belonged in the competition. Minho and you both knew that one of the toughest rounds would certainly be against one another. You know exactly how good of a gamer he is, and likewise, his team had already heard about how your team had broken records during trials —named team Levanter, even if your endearing opponent pretended not to know it—, but there was no real animosity here.

Not an easy thing to hide, considering that to you it was obiously noticeable how Minho’s eyes hadn’t left your lips in what seemed like ten minutes. But yeah. No animosity. Just a knack for competition. And a bet that decides who’s making dinner for the night, but right now…

Right now was about the fight.

Both team Levanter and team Thunderous were sat in places, red vs blue once again as several cameras from the streaming platform that broadcasted the event were turned on, recording each player while the ref briefly introduced them with a loud tone for the crowd.

“Levanter, ready?” He asked with a smile meant for the thousands and thousands of viewers streaming online as the camera focused on him shortly.

“Ready,” Jisung smirked, to which everyone in your team logged in the computers before you as a response.

“Thunderous, ready?”

Minho smiled in your direction, holding back a chuckle when he noticed you had already been staring, then threw a wink at him.

“Ready,” he said.

You two exchanged a glance, openly competitive, any other meanings hidden between you two and the red thread that joined your little fingers, a silent agreement breaking the rules —the same ones you broke barely half an hour ago, when his lips consumed yours, or that you’re probably going to be rehashing the whole gameplay in your shared apartment and no one will know.

(And sure, you might do other things, too.)

The sound blasted in your headset when you settled it in place. You gave one last look to Minho, and he mumbled towards you with a smile.

“See you on the other side, dollface.”

“You’re the worst.” An easy shorthand for love you.

He smiled, and there was a knowledge that made your heart smile too, because winning or losing, in the end, you were coming back to his arms.

Your hands tightened and you cracked your knuckles, settling them back in place, one over the keyboard and the other on the mouse. You were nervous, yeah, but not afraid. This was your comfort zone. This is your comfort zone.

“COUNTDOWN,” the ref shouted, the numbers showing up in the complete view in the big screen behind him. “STARTING IN 3…! 2…! 1…!”

[♦️★ 🎯 ★♦️]

The vehicle shuddered when you closed the door with a thud.

You two stayed in silence for a bit, merely listening to the rain as the droplets hit the car nonchalantly.

“Can I be smug about it?” You smiled cheekily.

“Just ‘cause I ain’t that much of a sore loser, you get two minutes.” He scoffed with fake annoyance, which wasn’t truly worrying because he didn’t put any effort on hiding his smile, too.

You snickered, turning your body to face him, teasing him even before starting.

“But you owe me something first, dollface.”

You rolled your eyes. “It ain’t even that good of a nickname, Min.”

But then his hand, always a little colder than yours, swiftly gripped you by your neck, fingers stroking your nape as you held back a shiver, easily less than an inch away from him now.

“Would you rather I call you buddy?”

You smiled, eyes wondering where to focus, in a trance between his eyes, deep and enticing, or his lips, sweet and so stupidly kissable.

“Hurt much?” You pouted mockingly. You were obviously not expecting him to bite your lower lip.

He laughed, a menace he was, but he was quickly winned over —dare I say once more— when you pulled him towards your lips by tugging at the collar of his shirt.

Minho smiled as you let him take control.

“Your two minutes are over.” He whispered over your lips, leaving a small peck on your forehead before turning to the steering wheel.

You were about to complain, but that was before his hand, a bit warmer now, was strategically placed just a bit further up your knee.

He gave you a playful side eye.

You rolled your eyes again, to which he chuckled.

“Before you start snickering and bitching about what you want for dinner, princess,” Minho started speaking with a smile, his hand not leaving your leg as he started the engine, “seeing as I didn’t go to the grocery store and neither did you, we’re doing take-out.”

“That’s so unfair!” You argued as he manoeuvred to get the car out of the parallel spot. You stayed silent until he did, faking a pout. “You made me buy groceries last time I lost.”

He cackled. “Because I drive, silly.”

You glared at him. He grinned.

“I’ll call your mom.” You threatened. “I’ll make sure she takes the cats with her the days you have free.”

He gave you a stare with wide eyes once he encountered a red light.

“But honey, those are my children too.” His fake tone of worry was too funny to not burst out in laughter, to which he happily joined in.

“Shits and giggles aside, don’t,” he smiled. “Last time you did she told my dad and he still makes jokes about it.”

You acted smugly as you fetched for the aux cord and plugged it to your phone, scrolling down through your music app.

“Of course he does,” you snorted with a toothy grin. “I’m amazing. And even if we’re doing take-out I will beat the shit out of you if you don’t make lasagna before Friday.” You threatened again with a silly smile. “You know I can.”

He snorted too, his hand playfully squeezing your leg for a second.

“I know,” he mumbled absentmindedly, tracing patterns over your knee. “But we’re getting sushi tonight.”

The idea seemed nice enough, so in a silent agreement you settled on a playlist you knew he’d sing along to. Just as Wonder Girls started to play, he giggled, his hand tickling your knee —something as ticklish as confusing, really—.

“Cheeky.” He snickered, unable to not join in to your efforts into making the korean lyrics make sense, singing for a fun time, not a long one, specially when after Tell me finished, the next songs calmed down the upbeat vibe and soothed it sweetly, your boyfriend humming only when he concentrated on the road ahead.

He shoved you one of his hoodies that he had kept in the seats in the back, because he knew you’d show up with clothing that as beatiful as you looked with it, he just clicked his tongue and tutted at you when you tried to enter the restaurant after he parked, and sneakily locked the doors. You squinted your eyes at him.

“Put that on, missy.” He snickered, eyebrows up. “As funny as the idea may seem, cold as a concept isn’t psychological.”

You chuckled at his commentary, and quickly threw it on, a silly smile on your face when you realized that it smelled like him.

“Sure, Mr Charmer.” You shook your head sideways, smirking once he unlocked the car and you could open the door. “For the record, pretty boy, I’m just doing it cause you left money on the pocket.” You cackled and skipped inside the restaurant, with him chuckling just a bit behind you.

The restaurant was fairly empty, saving a couple of tables that were reserved for later and other customers that had barely started to eat.

You hid the twenty bucks bill you found in your phone case, and Minho pretended to forget about it when he saw you grin. You smiled at him gingerly, thinking where would it be a good place to put the it in where he could find it later.

He let you choose from the menu, trusting your taste and letting you pick the items for the both of you, doozing off slowly, distracting himself with the strange tipping device that the restaurant had on the counter top. Upon inspection, it was clearly a lucky cat figure, that when coins were placed on its hand, he’d just… eat them…?

“To go, yeah?” the young man at the counter asked with a tiny smile, wearing a small name tag that read “JEONGIN” in big letters.

You nodded, but noticed ‘Jeongin’ gave your really-interested-in-the-stupid-ass-tip-animal-robot company a look, and you stared at Minho too, scratching your cheek absentmindedly.

“Is he with you?” He asked nonchalantly, merely starting small talk.

You smiled. “Yeah. A girl needs a wallet from time to time.”

He snorted, nodding in agreement. “He’s… something.”

“Thanks. He’s rescue.”

You felt a hand slither into the pockets of your hoodie. Well. Technically his.

“Stop telling people that.” He huffed, laying his forehead on your shoulder.

Jeongin snickered at the two of you. “My boyfriend is a rescue too,” he winked. “This is his uniform, because he used mine by mistake and stained it with soja sauce.”

“Oh. So you’re not Jeongin, I guess?” You chuckled gently.

“I’m Hyunjin.” He corrected with a smile. After a bit, he handed you your order in a plastic bag. “It was nice to meet you two!”

You waved back with a sheepish smile as you two exited.

[♦️★ 🎯 ★♦️]

“WHAT?!” You screamed, the mic on your purple headset able to catch it flawlessly, as in response you started hearing laughs.

You stared at the screen, the music lowering as your character approached your house —or what used to be your house—.

“Y-yeah,” Seungmin’s voice chimed in, who tried to explain once more in between laughs, “Changbin added landscape mods o-or something,” he chuckled. “The storms can start fires.”

“B-HUH?” You frowned, trying to extinguish the fire that remained around. “Fuck that! What the fuck was Notch onto with this bullshit?”

Felix and Changbin still were unable to speak, as they continued to laugh loudly in the call. You went to Discord for a second, and muted them both. “You guys, shut up!”

They were muted, so you couldn’t possibly know if they had listened to you —most likely not—. Going back to Minecraft, you went in your house, and started looking around in your chest room if you had any wood to spare to repair the ceiling.

“Motherf- I gotta go chop wood?” You scoffed. “Brother.” You were starting to get pissed off, so you breathed in, fixing your glasses in position and your mind went back to the stream, and you started talking to the chat while getting the materials.

“Shit, I ran out of torches,” you cursed, going on your inventory to see if you had more. Oops. You didn’t. And you didn’t have much food either. Suddenly, zombie noises started to blast in your headset, several arrows hitting you.

“Fuckfuckfuck,” you used your shield, trying to find your enemies. “Where is this bitch?”

Minho went to the kitchen, that was a door away from your streaming room, able to hear loud noises coming from inside. He raised his eyebrows, wondering what could be happening in the gameplay.

“MOTHERFUCKER?! I DON’T— FUCK THIS SHIT! IT’S DISGUSTING. HEY, IT’S DISGUSTING THAT- THIS FUCKING ASSHOLE. HE’S AN IDIOT. HOPE HE CHOKES ON LENTILS, FUCK!”

You stormed out of the room, encountering Minho barely a couple steps away from the door.

He blinked, puzzled. “I’m making lasagna…?”

You struggled to calm down, just knowing you didn’t want to lash out at him.

“Time-out?” He questioned, wondering if you wanted some time on your own.

You flinched when you finally realized he was in front of you, your shoulders lowering and your body physically relaxing as you sighed and shook your head sideways.

“A storm burned down part of my roof and then a creeper blew me up when I was trying to fix it.” You sighed. “And then Changbin stole all my materials.”

“Did you turn off stream?” He wondered soothingly, his hands cupping your face and lightly scratching the back of your head.

You shook your head again. “I just turned the camera and the mic off, but it’s still on.”

“And you want to keep playing?”

“Yeah.” You smiled, one of your hands traveling to his. “Thanks, Min.”

He entered the streaming room with you, his arms over your shoulders.

“Where is she though?” Changbin questioned. “She’s not answering.”

“Dude.” Felix let out in shock.

“Lix?” Seungmin questioned.

“Guys, look at her stream.”

Minho left a peck on your head and ruffled your hair.

“Text me if you need anything, yeah?”

You smiled. “Thanks, bunny.”

You put your headphones back on, moving the mouse to turn on the screens again.

…maybe the camera hadn’t exactly been turned off.

You stared at the stream, eyes wide open as the chat started going wild.

…oops.

[♦️★ 🎯 ★♦️]

catiuskaa, may 2024 ©

~kats, who now wants to go play some minecraft.

[shxtodxroki]

𝙲𝚘𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚍

Summary: Shoto has a meltdown after having a nightmare of you leaving him, telling him that you no longer loved him and felt suffocated in your relationship. Luckily you’re right beside him when he wakes up from the awful dream, there to hold and reassure him that you love him more than he could ever know.

Warnings: Angst (with a happy ending), insecurities, Shoto has a meltdown

Pairing: Shoto Todoroki x Gender Neutral! Reader

Word Count: 1.9k

Almond - Roommate AU

Sweet Pea - “Character has a nightmare about reader leaving them, reader comforts them”

- Shoto hastily pushed the door to his home open without much thought, shoulders drooping from exhaustion as he immediately dropped his bags at the door

- It had been a particularly long day of hero work, and he felt as if he was running on empty in that moment, craving a warm embrace from you that he could melt into as he finally allowed himself to rest

- After he had closed the door behind him and moved to take off his shoes, however, he noticed how eerily quiet the apartment was, seemingly lacking your presence entirely

- You would almost ALWAYS greet him at the door of your shared apartment once he arrived home, placing a heartfelt kiss on his cheek as you wrapped your arms around his waist, but he tried not to dwell on these details as he assumed you had simply fallen asleep early this evening or were otherwise preoccupied at the moment

- As Shoto made his way to the kitchen, though, quickly pouring himself a glass of juice and re-heating some leftover noodles from the dinner you had shared together the evening prior, he felt a sense of bitter dread growing in his stomach that was difficult to ignore. It started off barely noticeable, just a small gnawing inside of him, but it left him feeling uneasy and quickly began to grow as he attempted to push the anxiety out of his mind and enjoy his meal

- Shoto was unable to shake the unease he felt at the fact that you had yet to come see or acknowledge him at all, however, and he quickly found himself unable to think about anything else as he set his glass down and quickly sped over to the bedroom door

- He tried to convince himself that he was being ridiculous, that nothing was wrong and you were most likely just in the shower or something like that where you couldn’t rush out to him right that moment

- But you had ALWAYS kept the routine of greeting him at the door when he came home. You had never missed it, not ONCE throughout your entire time living together, so it was difficult to convince himself that this was something simple and innocent

- When Shoto pushed open your shared bedroom door to see an empty bed, he only felt his worry grow as his eyes shifted around looking for you

- Instead, however, as his eyes glances hastily around the room he was met with a sight that caused a pit to form in his stomach, eyes welling up with tears faster than he could control as the realization of what was happening began to hit him

- The majority of your belongings had been removed from the room, nearly all traces of you in the house suddenly bare despite having been there just this morning when he had left for work. All of your trinkets on the nightstand, the posters you had begged him to help you hang up on the walls, the clothes hanging on your now opened side of the closet, all gone without a trace

- It was as if Shoto’s lungs were collapsing, eyes filling so heavily with tears that he could only make out mere blobs and shapes in front of him as he noticed a sleet white sheet of paper resting atop your bed

- He didn’t want to read it, every cell in his heart was begging him to spare the heartbreak he already knew he would find in the letter, but his anxiety overpowered all else he was feeling

- He had to know for sure, had to know that what he thought was happening was TRULY happening as he felt his world crashing down around him, causing him to reach out and begin scanning the paper through his tear-filled eyes

- “Shoto,

I’m sorry to have to do this to you, I really am. I wish I could give you a proper goodbye at least, to tell you this in person, but I’m a coward. I’m far too much of a coward to own up to the consequences of my actions and the heartbreak I know you’ll feel in person, so I hope this letter suffices, at least in some way. 

Even though I know it won’t.

Honestly, I don’t think I can say I’m in love with you anymore. I don’t think I have been for quite a while now, in fact. I care about you, quite a lot, which was why I avoided this for so long. But I feel so suffocated, stuck in a relationship I don’t want to be in, living together every day and not being able to say anything. So I had to leave, and I had to do it fast before I could talk myself out of it.

Please don’t try to find me. I no longer love you, and I’m completely done with this relationship. I'm washing my hands of it, and nothing can change my mind, I’m just sorry I had to do this in such a cowardly way. You don’t deserve this, but i just can’t pretend to be happy like this any more when I know I’m not.

-Y/n”

- Loud, guttural sobs echoed through the room, the sound bouncing off the walls and into Shoto’s ears as he collapsed on the floor in pure agony. Your note was covered in tear stains at this point, his hand shaking violently as he clutched it and sobbed into his knees

- Shoto felt like he was burning, all of his emotions were overwhelming his senses and he could feel his vision going black around him. His chest hurt, his head hurt, everything hurt, and as the reality of you breaking up with him fully set in, Shoto felt as if he was falling, sinking deep into a black abyss where he could feel nothing but pain all throughout his body…

- Sweat covered Shoto’s body as he shot awake in his bed, eyes opening wide in a frenzy as he breathed rapidly. He could feel tears staining his cheeks, still falling at rapid speed over the pain he felt as he began to panic once more, before you gently reached your hand over to hold his own

- Shoto’s eyes immediately shot over to yours, stunned to see you laying beside him, eyes still groggy and heavy from sleep as you looked at him with a confused expression and held his hand carefully in yours

- “Sho, what’s going on? What happened?” You asked, concern immediately covering your features as you noticed the tear tracks along his cheeks and the visible signs that a meltdown was near for Shoto

- As your boyfriend looked at you, still glancing at him with all the love and concern in your heart and gently rubbed shapes along the back of his hand in a gentle attempt to soothe him, Shoto realized that you breaking up with him had just been a nightmare. A horrible, devastating nightmare

- Shoto couldn’t possibly be more thankful than he was in that moment

- The sobs almost immediately returned at the realization, though, the memory of the dream and the pain it caused him still so vivid in his mind. He knew it wasn’t real, but the insecurity it was founded from was so hard to shake, even as Shoto pulled himself into your very real, very loving arms right beside him

- Shoto was burning up, losing control over his typically well-regulated temperature even on his cool side due to his panic, and you could see that it wasn’t time to ask questions in that moment

- You could resolve the issue he was dealing with later, but right now, you just needed to be there to comfort and console him, to help Shoto come down from the ledge of fear he was stuck on in his mind

- This wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar situation to you. Though your boyfriend typically tried his best to quell his internal fears and worries, he still found them slipping through on occasion, so you luckily knew exactly how to comfort him in moments like these

- You swiftly pulled the man into you, allowing his tears to stain your shirt and his sniffles and sobs to ring throughout the bedroom as you used one hand to gently run your fingers through his soft hair and the other to rub his back soothingly

- You knew you needed to get him some water to cool him down before he got too hot and gave himself a fever, but with how panicked he clearly was in that moment, you figured you could wait just a few minutes before tending to that need. You kept it at the front of your mind, knowing that you needed to get him physically taken care of as soon as you were able, but you knew Shoto couldn’t handle you leaving him right now, so you tabled that matter for the moment

- And so you simply sat there, cradling your boyfriend in your arms and attempting to soothe him however you could as you let him cry until his sobs were reduced to small sniffles and he finally felt ready to talk, not wanting to rush him whatsoever

- “I… I had an awful dream.” Shoto started when his heart had finally eased enough for him to speak, the comfort of your arms around him reminding him that what he had seen was nothing but a dream, a subconscious manifestation of his unfounded insecurities

- "You left me. You left while I was out at work, didn’t even say goodbye. You just wrote a note, telling me that you didn’t love me any more and couldn’t live in a relationship where you felt suffocated.” The tears came back to Shoto’s eyes as he rememebred the harsh, piercing words of the imaginary note, nuzzling his face into your chest in order to prevent himself from falling back into a panic

- “Oh, baby.” You responded, cradling your boyfriend’s head tightly in your head as you immediately jumped to soothe his insecurities. “I would never do that to you, you hear me? I love you so much Shoto, I always will and I couldn’t be happier than I am with you. I hope you know that”

- “I do, angel.” He replied, the last embers of anxiety leaving his body as he was finally rid of the terrible nightmare and its effects on him. 

- You were here you were happy, and you loved him. He knew that, he truly did, despite his worries and insecurities sometimes trying to contest that truth.

- “I know that you worry sometimes, Sho. But please know you’re more than enough for me. You’re all I could ever ask for in a boyfriend, and I’d never do to you what that imaginary, awful version of me did in that dream.” You reminded him in a halfhearted attempt to lighten the mood, eyes brightening when you saw the softest, smallest of smiles cross your boyfriend’s face.

- Seeing that Shoto was no longer in a frenzy, you found the time to slip out of his hold just enough to reach for the glass of ice water you kept on your bedside table, immediately returning to his hold and pressing the glass to his lips to cool him down once you managed to reach it

- “You’re more than I could ever ask for angel, I’m so happy to have you.” Shoto responded, feeling exhaustion seep back into his body as he finally released the energy he had been holding in over the dream and realized just how late it was

- The yawn your boyfriend quietly let out as he continued to cuddle with you on the floor made you realize that it was probably time for the two of you to be getting back to bed, now that Shoto was content and relaxed once more

- “Come on baby, let’s get you back to sleep.” You muttered, standing up before reaching out your hand to help Shoto up as well. “And this time, only dream of good things, okay?”

- “I hope I will, love.” Shoto replied, making his way back to his side of the bed and immediately cuddling up to your side as you turned off your bedside lamp. Holding you always helped ease him into sleep, content knowing you were safe in his arms even in your most vulnerable state

- “Goodnight, Sho. Sweet dreams.” You whispered into the darkness of the room, closing your eyes and pulling him tightly into you as Shoto pressed a light kiss to your cheek in response before quickly drifting back off into dreamland, nightmares long gone from his mind this time as he slept peacefully beside you

A/N: I haven’t written for this event in so long oh my god, I never finished all the requests so hopefully I’ll get through them soon! When I looked on this doc today and remembered the prompt, though, I knew I HAD to finish it, I really enjoyed writing this and I hope you guys enjoy it too! This event is currently closed lol since it’s from quite a while ago, but I’ll probably be doing more like it soon so be sure to be on the lookout for that! My requests ARE open right now, though, and I’m currently working on making a request list, so if you have a request feel free to send it in to me! :)

Taglist: @rebloglikeyouneedtoo @pasteldaze @yeagerfushiguro @papijean @deadmans-toe @trashy-bowtie @palenightmarepersona @thekaylahub @applepie-macaroon @lady-juliette @ghostofscarley @swiftbyul @shinsosmatcha

If you’d like to be added to any of my taglists, you can fill out this form here! Thank you for your support <3

[emisprocrastinatingbywriting]

Alone and Forsaken

Chapter 10 Summary:

Joel's body has become depleted from countless bouts of torture and violence. His fellow prisoner tries to encourage him but the situation continues to deteriorate until he meets someone new in the arena. Meanwhile, the bodies have been piling up as you hunt for Joel. After witnessing a familiar face being beaten to a bloody pulp, will you risk your life to save them or focus on your own problems?

Warnings: Past Trauma, Violence Inflicted on and by Joel and Reader, Threats, Angst, Joel Needs a FAT Hug, Paul Needs to Die, Mention of SA (not on reader or Joel), Cooper also probably needs a hug, Joel misses reader and reader is completely feral.

A/N:

Welcome back y'all. I said I was going to be dropping soon and I meant that shit!

This chapter has a lot of violence towards literally all of the characters we love dearly (sorry lol). Additionally, Joel gets a look in a darker side of the camp. This side of the camp is v gross, the implication being that omegas are SA-ed there. If this is a trigger for you, stay away friend! Keep yourself safe and maybe check in the chapters to come, or message me and I can spark-notes it for ya. As always, keep yourselves safe.

Chapter 10/20

Chapter 9: The Oaf, The Matriarch & The Reunion

Joel didn’t know how many days had passed in this hellhole. Every moment blurred together in an endless cycle of cruelty and pain. His body was depleted, starved despite the small bits of food that Jake shared and bullied him into eating. Joel tried to refuse but the younger man was persistent and badgered him until he finally relented. He slept at times but it was never peaceful for long with the guards coming to drag him back to the arena every time he managed to get comfortable. 

Three times they had thrown him down that hole and three times he had escaped by the skin of his teeth. Joel wasn’t sure if a fourth time was in his wheelhouse. He was too old and too tired to keep getting tossed around. After he had ripped through most of their prisoners in the first two rounds, the last time he had been faced with nothing but riled up clickers. That trip was too close. One had almost got him but Joel barely managed to slip out of its grasp. 

If they took him down there again, if Joel was forced into another round of mindless violence, he couldn’t survive it. Not with the way his back was blackened from the harsh landings. His knuckles were busted from the constant fighting and bled anytime he moved a finger. Not to mention the fact that his pulsing headache had slowly shifted into an ear splitting migraine that warped the corners of his vision. 

Worst of all was the isolation. Jake was right across from him and Cooper came every so often but their presence didn’t help. Isolation had been nothing to him at one point in life but it now grated on him. It wasn’t just anyone his heart called for, it was you. He had heard in some health class long ago that a bond between mates linked people together forever. If the bonded pair were to ever part, it would send both parties into a spiral. 

Joel remembered how he had scoffed at that, making all of his friends around him crack up as the teacher turned from her place at the board to scold him. The notion that a grown man needed anyone other than himself seemed absolutely ridiculous at the time but as he sat alone in his cell, he understood it to be true. He was past the point of desperation, allowing himself to become cloaked in gloom. It felt like all of the safety pins that had held him together for years were being pulled out one by one as time passed. 

The omega across from Joel sensed it, as did his mate. Or maybe they smelled the putrid stench wafting from his pores. The stench of an alpha separated from his mate was unmistakable and it overpowered any other smell in the room. They tried to encourage him, or at least Jake did. Mostly Cooper just avoided eye contact and gave him an awkward thumbs up anytime his mate elbowed him in the ribs. Their support was more compassionate than he deserved and he tried to appreciate it but it was also futile. 

The bond he shared with you was betraying him, forcing him into a state that he had never been in. After Sarah died, he tried to follow her into the abyss and he failed. Joel had the scar across his nose to prove it. With no other choice, he had kept on living in spite of himself. Joel numbed the pain with pills, liquor and violence, hoping that one of his vices would eventually take him out. 

Later on, when Ellie died, his survival served as a punishment for his inability to do the one thing he was created to do. The grief he felt began to hold a different meaning after Ellie’s death. Joel had to live, it was what he deserved for being such a failure. For four years he was alone and miserable, locked away in a prison of his own creation for his downfalls. 

Both times that Joel had been separated from those he loved was brutal but this was different somehow. In between his second and third round in the arena, Joel slowly became catatonic. He had given up on trying to escape. It all seemed so pointless if you were somewhere safe. All he did in the hours he was awake was think of you while he laid motionless in his bunk. 

The curls on the back of head were matted but he let them be. The last set of hands to run themselves through his locks were yours and he wanted to keep it that way. He knew it was stupid but so was the fact that Joel had lived 56 years without a mate only to lose her almost immediately. How much time could he have had if Paul hadn’t found his cabin? 

“C’mon man. You can’t just roll over and die. Talk to me at least. We could try to get out of here. We could go find her! Please,” Jake called. 

Joel remained still in his bunk, facing the wall with a tensed jaw. He knew it was childish to ignore his fellow inmate and pretend to be asleep but he couldn’t help it. How could Joel possibly escape from this place? And if he did, what was the point? If you truly had escaped Paul and found your way to somewhere safe, he couldn’t possibly chase after you. He knew that they would just follow him, capturing you immediately because of him. Joel couldn’t have that. 

Better he die here, lonely and broken, just as he was before he met you. It was almost poetic. A tragic lead doomed to repeat the same cycle over and over again. Joel would find a reason to live and dilute himself into thinking it could last forever, only for it to be torn from him in the cruelest of ways each time. Rinse and repeat. Love and then grief. He was exhausted by it. 

“She’s still alive, you could see her again. Don’t you want that?,” the omega begged. 

What a stupid question. Seeing you again was the only thing in the world Joel wanted. If he had a time machine, he would go back to your first encounter and confess his love immediately so that he could have more time at your side. Joel remembered trying to keep his distance. He wanted to keep you safe from the mess that inevitably came with loving a man like him. The chivalric restraint all seemed so stupid from behind bars. That time had been wasted and now it was the only time with you he would ever spend. 

It was funny how he did that. Everytime Joel loved someone, he took the time with them for granted. The days spent with you had seemed like they would last for eternity, spanning on and on until the sun eventually imploded or the oceans dried up. Maybe that was what it meant to be human, to have the arrogance to believe that life would be that kind to you. To predispose your own destiny without taking the cruelty of the world into account. 

A drawn out sight came from the other side of the room before Jake piped up again

“Christ’s sake, okay listen up you dumbass.”

The harshness in Jake’s tone got his attention. It had been nothing but endless encouragement from him and Joel found himself interested in what he had to say. 

“I know how it feels to be without your person, alright? Cooper and Allie were gone, I had no idea where he was or if my daughter was alive. So I fucking get it, but you can’t just curl up and die! Do you think for a second that she would want that?!” 

Joel turned in his bunk and faced him. His gaze was heavy. He knew that the younger man didn’t deserve the weight of it but he couldn’t help it. A darkness like he had never felt before was suffocating him and a glare was the best he could do. 

“She would kick your ass for even thinking about giving up. And don’t you dare say that she wouldn’t, because I know my best friend,” he snapped.

Joel huffed. It wasn’t a full laugh but it was something and Jake seemed satisfied by it, sitting back on his bed as his eyes raked over Joel. 

Joel’s eyes turned glossy and the mark on his neck throbbed. It felt wrong for the eyes on him to be anyone’s except yours and suddenly his skin felt itchy. He knew that your best friend didn’t mean anything bad by it, he was just trying to make sure that Joel survived. But the distance between the two of you was wearing on the alpha and the attention of anyone else, innocent or not, was almost unbearable. 

“I can’t,” Joel mumbled. 

An empathetic noise came from Jake and he stood, walking to the edge of his cell before he spoke again. 

“There really isn’t any can or cannot with this. It’s either you do everything in your power to survive for your mate or you don’t.” 

Joel was furious at the statement. It snapped him from the darkness he dwelled in and forced him to his feet in seconds. He felt dizzy, the lack of food and the pressure in his skull nearly knocking him flat on his ass but he held strong. He fumbled for a second, catching himself on the bars before he looked up to scowl at the omega. 

“You have no right t-” he started before the omega cut him off. 

“I have all the right Joel. Who is going to have to tell their best friend that the love of her life is dead if you keep it up? Me. And what do you want me to say? Oh, he gave up because he thought it would be easier. Do you have any idea what that would do to her?!,” Jake hissed.  

Guilt seeped and Joel fought hard against it to remain poised. How would you react if he died? The more self conscious side of him whispered that it wouldn’t mean anything to you. If anything, it would be a day for celebration. You could finally be unshackled from the old man that weighed you down, free to roam and find someone more suitable. Perhaps you would find someone who wasn’t locked within himself and weighed down by a lifetime of disappointment.  

However, despite Joel’s self doubt, he knew how you felt about him. He felt it through the bond. His death would leave you devastated. Despite the demon on Joel’s shoulder reminding him of all the ways that you would be better off, he knew that he couldn’t be the cause of your pain. Plus, the thought of you with anyone else sickened Joel and made him clench his jaw in an effort not to scream at the threat he had just made up in his head. 

“I… I just,” Joel stopped to collect himself, trying to find the right words to express how he felt. 

“Like I said man, you don’t have to explain it to me. My pup and mate were MIA for a year and now my pup is somewhere without the both of us. Believe me, I get it,” Jake sighed. 

The two men locked eyes for a moment. Pain was etched onto the omega’s face, shattering the usual hopeful front that he put on, and Joel found himself softening. It was true. Jake understood the agony that he felt better than anyone.

“I’m… I’m sorry about your daughter. I hope -,” Joel cut himself off. 

Hope held no weight in this world, he knew that, and it certainly held no place in the heart of a father whose child was missing. 

“Yeah… Yeah, me too,” the younger man said dejectedly. 

Joel nodded, recognizing the faraway expression that tightened the edges of his usually smirking mouth. 

“Thank-,” the sentiment was halted in Joel’s mouth. 

The door swung open. Jake scrambled back to the furthest corner of his cell, making himself tiny as an unfamiliar man walked in. Joel stayed leaned up against the bars, refusing to allow the guard to see any deterrence from him. 

He waited for the guard to unlock the door and take him down to the arena once more but instead he stopped in front of Joel’s cell, glaring at him with a hatred that he wasn’t sure he deserved. 

“She killed my fucking sister,” the man seethed. 

“Who?,” Joel asked incredulously. 

The accusation was bizarre. Joel racked his brain for what it could mean. The only “she” that he could think of was Tess. That was the last woman he knew to have a penchant for bloodlust but it seemed unusual for this man to be bothered so long after her death. Tess had died four years ago, soon to be five. Did the alpha truly expect Joel to remember one of her victims from who knows how many years earlier? If she had lived, he doubted that even Tess would have been able to remember. 

“Your slut has killed twelve of our men. TWELVE! They say it could be more. Fuck, the bodies just keep piling up. And one of them was my sister. Fucking gutted her like a fish and left her out in the snow to bleed to death,” he spat. 

No. 

No, you couldn’t have. Joel refused to believe it. The omega he knew was funny, smart, and so sweet. His mate wasn’t violent. And she certainly didn’t have it in her to gut a fully grown alpha. It wasn’t about strength, he had seen you lift enough things while working around the cabin to know that you were physically strong, it was about brutality.  

“My MATE had nothing to do with what you’re talking about. She would never,” Joel stated. 

The man cackled but the sound didn’t meet his icy stare.

“Thought you might say that,” the alpha said, reaching to pull a rumpled flannel from his coat. 

Joel’s breath caught in his throat at the sight. It was his flannel, the same one that you had donned the day he was knocked out. The green fabric was soiled, red splotches dirtying nearly every inch of it. The man shoved the shirt through the cell and it fell to Joel’s feet. He stooped down, knees creaking as he gathered the fabric and pressed it to his face. 

There was no denying who this fabric belonged to, not when the smell of peppermint and lavender made his lower lip tremble with longing. He caught the plush skin with his teeth, forcing himself to remain strong despite the fact that your scent was polluted with the smell of other alphas. 

“This can’t - You found her shirt and poured it on. There’s no way. You’re fucking lying to me.” 

The man laughed, “Am I?” 

He wasn’t. 

Joel saw it as plain as day on his face and it shocked him. He wasn’t sure how to feel. A million emotions whipped through him. Surprise at your viciousness, grief at the thought that you now knew what it was like to take a life, pride at your bravery, and fear for the target that had undoubtedly been placed on your back. Paul might want you for himself but Joel was unsure if the alpha held enough power to convince a group of pissed off brutes that you were not to be touched. 

“Paul isn’t the only one looking for her now ya know. A group of the guys have already banded up and left town early this morning. You would not believe the things they were talking about doing to her,” he whistled as he stepped closer to the cell. 

Joel hardened his stance and glared at the leering alpha that raised his hands out in front of himself. 

“Hey man, not my style. I prefer to take it a bit slower, make them really feel it as I break 'em in. That way you can see the light fade from their eyes. The little bit of spark that makes them rebel just goes poof,” the man said as he snapped his fingers together. 

Joel’s hand reached out and grasped the guard by the scruff of his neck, pulling him forward to slam into the bars. The man hissed as he leaned in to whisper in his ear. 

“Anyone who touches her is going to die. Maybe it’ll be me or hell, maybe it’ll be her, but they will be killed by one of us.”

Joel fumbled with his waistband for a moment before he withdrew the tool that had been saving him in the arena for days. He smiled as the blade sunk into the hollow of the man’s throat, cutting off his response and turning him to a gagging mess. 

Blood splattered over the front of him when he pulled it out of the guard’s throat but Joel didn’t care. This was the first person that he had killed in his time imprisoned that he felt actually deserved it. The others had just been helpless bystanders that stood in the way of his escape. 

The alpha fell back onto the floor, twitching and retching blood until he finally stilled. Joel watched in sick satisfaction until he heard a voice from the other side of the room. 

“What the fuck did you just do?,” Jake whispered, mortified at the sight before him. 

Joel started to answer him but the sound of footsteps coming towards the door stopped him short. He looked down at the weapon in his hands, unsure of what to do with the evidence. With the proof of his guilt splattered over his chest, he knew that it didn’t take a genius to figure out who had killed the guard. Joel swallowed and made a snap decision, sliding the blade across the floor until it skidded into Jake’s cell. 

Jake’s eyes widened and Joel responded with a quick nod. The omega reached forward and snatched the blade, tucking it into his shirt before he scrambled back into the corner of his cell just as the guards marched in. 

There was some commotion at the dead guard. Men were running in and cursing at him for killing the man but he was somewhere else. It wasn’t until a set of hands pushed him from his cell that Joel realized how much shit he was in. He stumbled over the corpse and landed in the pool of blood that leaked from its side. Gagging at the stickiness coating his face, Joel tried to push himself off the floor and was knocked down by a boot to the ribs. 

Pain erupted from his chest and he wheezed at all of the air being forced out of him. As Joel tried to draw himself up from the concrete once more, he felt hands patting him down for weapons. They were particularly grabby and he growled at their invasiveness but the guards ignored him. Coming up empty, he was lifted by the men and dragged from the room. 

They didn’t even bother to cover his eyes this time. Instead, he was dragged out of the store into the streets with his view completely unobstructed. The stripmall was abandoned, leaving broken down stores that the group had shoddily remodeled into homes. The street was fenced in with bits of scrap metal, planks of wood and wire. It was a poor excuse for a perimeter, with the youngest alphas all seemingly forced to be on patrol duty for the camp. 

The stench that filled the streets made him gag again. It was sickly sweet and he grimaced at its familiarity as he was dragged past the source. Emaciated and tortured bodies were being thrown on a roaring fire. The skin bubbled with the heat and he gulped down vomit as he watched it melt off of the bone into the coals below. 

The guards dropped him and Joel balked at the sight of the store he was placed in front of. It was a women’s lingerie store with cursive lettering enticing potential clients to come in and look at their products. Dark fabric was placed over the glass door, hiding the contents from the outside world as the guard rapped his knuckles on it. 

They waited until the door flew open, revealing a very disheveled Paul with his fly hanging open. The alpha glared at the two guards before his eyes landed on Joel. 

“He fucking killed Mark, stabbed him with something but we couldn’t find it on him. What do you want us to do?”

The noises that came from inside were revolting and Joel craned his neck as far back as it would go to get away from it. The scent of the place alone was enough to make sweat break out on his forehead, nothing but the stench of distressed omegas and perverted alphas swirling in the air. Worst of all was that Paul stood proudly before all of it, grinning down at him from his place in the doorway. 

“Feeling handsy are we?,” Paul sneered at him. 

Joel scowled. There was no retort that would be strong enough to fully encompass the hate he felt for this man. 

“Mmmmm… Shame, I was just in the middle of the sweetest little thing but it's no matter,” he sighed wistfully. 

“You’re fucking sick,” Joel gritted out. 

Paul stooped down to meet his gaze, his breath soured with whatever liquor he had consumed. The only consolation to having the alpha this close was the fact that Joel could see the damage you had done to his face once more. The bruises hadn’t faded a bit. In fact, they looked worse now that the edges were turning green. 

“Look, I’m a little busy with her right now but I’ll send her down to see you soon. It’ll be a nice little family reunion. You can thank me later,” Paul said with a wink, nodding to the guards to drag him away once more. 

The guards cussed as Joel fought them every step of the way. Yelling and thrashing in their grasp, he used every bit of strength he had against them. Who did Paul mean? Were you here? The memory of Paul’s open fly and his smirking face made fury flare up inside of him. The group of alphas that transported him were forced to call for backup and the several men still barely managed to get him up the stairs, using all of their strengths to heave him into the top level of the store as he shouted profanities at them. 

They shoved him towards the hole in the floor, expecting him to fall back but Joel surprised them as he launched forward. His arms wrapped around the slowest looking one as he fell back, pulling the man right over the edge alongside him. The alpha thrashed mid air, unwittingly positioning himself to bear the brunt of Joel’s fall. 

A sickening crunch resounded throughout the room as the two landed. The sound of his skull hitting the pavement was akin to an egg being cracked open against a pan. Rolling off of the other man, Joel watched as blood poured from his nose and his body twitched. His life dripped from the back of his head until an endless gaze settled on the ceiling above. With the guard dead, Joel turned his eyes towards the towers of boxes surrounding him. His ears were peeled for any sign of danger. 

Most of the bodies had been rounded up to be burned, leaving only the biggest or messiest individuals to rot amongst the merchandise. Sickened by the smell, Joel lifted himself from the ground and crept along the outskirts of the room. He didn’t even try the double doors. After three trips in the arena, he understood that the key to the doors had to be earned through some act of violence. 

The first time it had been around the neck of a clicker. The second time they had given it to one of the prisoners, creating a wild goose chase for the poor beta who had alerted both the infected and the alphas by trying to unlock the doors immediately. The third time was the worst in his opinion, with the key hidden in the stomach of a runner. It had taken him a whole day to figure it out amongst the rotting bodies of the horde he had slashed through. 

After tripping over one of the bodies, he had been outraged as he spied the awful sewing job someone had done on its abdomen. Joel gagged at the memory, remembering how he had to wrap his arms in garbage bags to keep the infected tissue from tainting his skin as he fished them out. 

After circling the entirety of the room, Joel straightened up as he realized that he was alone. The fact that he had no opponents should have been comforting but instead he tensed up even more. Never had they sent him over the edge without anyone to fight and never had Paul threatened him in a more terrifying way. With his heart pounding in his chest, Joel placed himself with his back to the wall as he waited for what was to come. 

A shriek echoed from above and Joel saw the outline of a body fall to the floor in one of the aisles. He slinked towards the aisle, careful to keep his steps quiet as he pricked his ears for any sign of life. The closer he got, the more his heart rate picked up until he skidded to a stop in front of the shaking heap on the concrete. 

The scent was the first thing he noticed. It was almost overpowered with the smell of sweat and despair, but the underlying notes of jasmine and crisp apples still remained. Joel wasn’t sure how he knew this omega’s scent and it confused him. Pausing before the lump, he leaned down and carefully tried to turn the woman over. 

Her screech scared him and he jolted back, stumbling over himself until he fell back. Tailbone smacking against the floor, Joel groaned and cussed as the omega jumped to her feet. She shakily held a knife out in front of her and moved towards him, causing him to raise his hands in defeat. 

“Hey, I’m not gonna hurt ya. If I - shit -  Look, I don’t even know where I know you from ma’am. I didn’t mean to get you sent down here, I swear,” Joel soothed. 

The woman glared at him, deepening all of the frown lines in her face. Her nose scrunched up and Joel racked his brain as a wave of familiarity washed over him. How did he know this woman? 

She looked to be the same age as him with streaks of gray throughout the mussed strands. Her eyes were sharp and framed with heavy bags but the shape of them made him cock his head. A heavy sense of deja vu was all he felt as he focused on them. 

“Why do you smell like her? Who are you?,” she hissed. 

Joel gawked but said nothing, which was clearly the wrong choice as the omega launched herself at him. He grunted as the weight of her body slammed into him. He held his hands up in defense just in time for her to slash into his fist. A gasp was all he managed before the woman reeled back to plunge the blade into him but Joel surprised her. 

Not wanting to hurt the feeble woman, he pinched the skin on her side between his fingers. The slip that barely covered her beaten body couldn’t guard her from the pinch and she whined in pain, reaching down to swat at Joel’s hand. With her distracted, he snatched the blade from her other hand and flipped her over. 

She thrashed beneath him, screaming the most proper insults he had ever heard. Never in his life had he been called an oaf in such a ruthless way. Without even having to ask, Joel knew that it had not been you that Paul threatened him with. The woman that fought against his hold was your mother. 

“STOP IT,” Joel roared, shaking her in his grasp until she stilled. 

She glared at him, poisoning him with her pointed gaze as he sighed. 

“I’m your daughter’s mate, okay? My name is Joel, Joel Miller. I ain’t gonna hurt you ma’am. M’trying to get to her before she gets herself killed, alright? Now stop fussin,” he scolded. 

A snort flew from her mouth as he stood up, backing away slowly to give her some room. 

“Ma’am? You look to be the same age as me,” she snapped, “Which leads me to my daughter, are you her mate or her keeper? Because the last time a keeper was chosen, I distinctly remember aiding in the escape. If she has only fallen into the hands of another then I fear it was all for nothing.” 

Joel shook his head, “M’not her keeper. She don’t belong to me or anyone else. I know that I ain’t exactly right for her but I-I love her, alright? I can’t explain it but I’m not like those men, I don’t - fuck - I would never hurt her.” 

A flash of something softened her eyes for a moment, making her appear more like you for just a moment before she hardened again. Joel sighed. He knew he needed her to trust him somewhat so that he could get them both out alive. 

“She claimed me first. I wanted to but I couldn’t until she did and she knew that ‘cus she loves me. Now, I don’t know why she loves me but she does. And I love her just the same,” he said with more confidence. 

The woman sighed and shook her head. 

“They told me that I needed to kill the alpha in here. If I did, they said they would let me out of the pleasure house. I could cook or clean instead of…”

Joel swallowed at the admission. He didn’t judge her for the way her eyes darted to the knife in his hand. If it had been him stuck in that god forsaken place, the knife would already be wedged in between the ribs of anyone that stood in his way. Carefully, he placed it on the ground and slid it over to her. She looked at it but didn’t move to pick it up. 

“And you believe them?,” Joel questioned. 

Sighing, your mother shook her head and dropped down onto the floor. She groaned at the effort as she scooted her back against the shelf. Joel hissed at the sight of handprints bruised up and down her legs. He couldn’t imagine the pain she had endured at the hands of these men. The thought of it made his skin crawl. 

“Mind your manners,” she scolded. 

Caught red handed, Joel moved his eyes away from her with his cheeks pink. He felt awful for gawking at her in such a vulnerable state. 

“Apologies ma’am,” he stammered, carefully easing his coat off to hand it to her. 

Joel kept his gaze elsewhere as your mother wrapped herself in his coat. The bulky fabric did more to cover her than the slip did and he could sense the tension in the air dissipate slightly.  

He wasn’t sure why, but the tiny bruised woman sat beside him was somehow the most intimidating person he had ever met. She exuded resentfulness, with a bitter pinch to her features constantly set in place. Unwilling to look at her again, he scanned the room for anything to help them escape. 

“How was she? Before Paul came for her I mean, how was she? Was she… well?”

Joel turned at the question, opening his mouth for a moment before he snapped it shut. He knew that your mother, despite all of her mistakes, must have loved you. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t have aided in your runaway bride act. Still, it surprised him that she would ask him about you while in such a dangerous place. 

“She was okay, happy. WE were happy,” he tried. 

Seeing the unsatisfied look on her face, Joel searched his mind for another answer. Laughing when he found it, he couldn’t help but smile as he continued. 

“She had started drawing but it always turned out super warped. Like, psychedelic almost. I don’t know for sure but I think she was only doing it because she knew they made me laugh.” 

The wonky cat above his nightstand at home flashed before his eyes and Joel sucked down air, trying to focus on the present to keep himself from crying. 

“And you… You cared for her too?” 

Joel nodded thoughtfully, “I tried to, I AM trying to, as hard as I can.” 

Nodding, your mother made an affirmative noise and leaned back once more. She looked slightly less peeved, with the crease still present between her eyebrows but her shoulders relaxed. Joel decided to count it as a win. 

“She gets that from her father. Not Josiah of course but her ACTUAL father. He was light and soft, like her. I tried to make her tough but it only backfired. She hated me but what was I supposed to do? They would have had her hung if they knew,” she sighed. 

Joel blinked, “Knew what?”

“That her father was a Jew. That alone would have ensured her damnation in their eyes. Aside from that, I never told Josiah or her that her father and I never married. We were mated so marriage seemed pointless but again, they killed bastards in that community, so…” 

“So she had to be perfect,” he answered. 

She nodded, “I might have been cruel but I was not without my reasons.” 

He hummed at her words. It wasn’t as if he completely agreed with her actions but he understood the fear involved with trying to keep a child safe in this world. Perhaps her cruelty was just a means to an end, a way to keep you alive. Joel completely understood where she was coming from but he still bristled at the lengths she went to achieve her goals. 

Ma’am-,” he started. 

“You can call me Mrs. Y/L/N, nothing more. It is not correct to keep calling your mother in law ma’am after we have already been acquainted,” she snipped. 

Joel wondered if he should correct her. You were mated and that was as good as any ceremony in the eyes of any potential suitors, with his scent covering your own for the rest of your life but that didn’t mean that the two of you were married. Joel hadn’t even thought about it and you had never mentioned it to him. Still, with the strict guidelines that your mother was used to in her previous community, he felt that bringing it up may sour things between them prematurely. 

“Is… I mean, was that her last name too?,” he asked dumbly. 

“You claimed my daughter and you don’t even know her last name?!”

Joel cringed at the reaction. It became clear to him that admitting he didn’t know your last name was not the smartest thing to do either and he kicked himself for it. Before he could diffuse the explosion of rage that pushed your mother from the floor and into his personal space, the click of the lock forced the both of them to turn towards the doors. 

Light poured into the space, blinding Joel for a moment as a figure hobbled in. After blinking a few times, his vision cleared and Jake appeared before them. 

“Jacob?!,” the omega at his feet screeched, turning in an instant to launch herself at the younger man. 

Jake gasped as she crushed his body against her own, blanching at the affectionate embrace. Given the reaction of the younger man and all of the stories he had heard about her, Joel gathered that this was not a regular occurrence. He tolerated the hug for a moment, even awkwardly patting her on the back a few times before he withdrew. 

“Your daughter, I met her. She’s so sweet that one and I promise, I-I do everything I can when they bring her,” she stammered. 

Jake gasped, “You’ve seen Allie?!” 

Your mother nodded, “Paul brings her sometimes, drops her off with me and the other omegas. She is such a darling Jake, they all love her.” 

“They bring the kid to the pleasure house?,” Joel wondered aloud. 

Panic broke out on Jake’s face and Joel cringed as your mother turned to glare at him. 

“Don’t be ridiculous Joel. They don’t keep us there all the time. He brings her to the place we sleep whenever Cooper gets too close to finding her. Once he lays off, Paul takes her back to wherever she was before,” she explained. 

A gust of air left the omega’s mouth at the admission, the worst fears being washed away and releasing the tension from his shoulders. Jake shook his head as his worst fears left him, rubbing his eyes tiredly before he looked back up again. 

“We have to go, right now. Cooper released the prisoners and they are burning this place to the ground. Quick, there’s not much time,” Jake urged. 

The two omegas took off and Joel stumbled after them, mind reeling with a million questions. The muscles in his legs ached as they bounded up the staircase but he ignored it, focusing on keeping his head clear as he followed Jake towards the exit. 

Just as the key slipped into the door, it was ripped open and Joel shoved the two omegas behind his back. Puffing up his chest and barring his teeth, he was met with the sight of a bloodied Cooper holding a very teary eyed toddler in his grasp. The younger alpha winced at his stance and hugged the girl tighter to his chest, making Joel relax immediately in response. 

“Oh my baby,” Jake cried out, bypassing Joel completely to pluck his daughter from his mate’s hands. 

Allie threw her chubby arms around his neck, blubbering nonsense into his ear as he cooed at her. The moment was heartwarming but it also had to be cut short given the circumstance. 

“We have to get out of here. Paul is fucking gone but this place has gone nuts. Keep your heads down and follow me, okay?,” Cooper paused until the group nodded, “J? You got her or do you need me to carry her?”

Jake shook his head and squeezed Allie closer, “I’m not going to let her go Coop, I promise.” 

They shared a look before Cooper nodded, turning on his heel to lead them towards the exit. Joel’s heart slammed against his chest as he walked along the edges of the ground floor. The anarchy he heard from outside set him on edge. The smell of smoke and the sound of screams overwhelmed his senses. Nothing could have prepared Joel for the scene that played out in front of him as he exited the arena. 

Freed prisoners sprinted away from their captors, only for the alpha chasing them to be struck down by another newly freed individual. Most of the buildings were consumed by flames, with the untouched ones being licked at by the blaze. He watched as omegas and betas tore through the street, crawling under the wire to get to freedom. Overwhelmed alphas tried to shoot them down as they rushed through their defense. Half of them missed the moving targets and ran from their position, while the other half were knocked down and trampled by the survivors.

“LET’S FUCKING GO!,” Cooper yelled over the chaos, rushing in the other direction. 

The group followed closely behind, dodging distressed camp members and traumatized prisoners as they ran. Joel watched as Jake shoved his daughter’s face into his chest, shielding her from the world as they raced towards the final exit. She fought weakly against him but he murmured softly in her ear as he ran, calming her down enough that she stayed put. 

Despite the fact that his lungs burned from the exertion, Joel kept his pace until your mother stumbled and fell. Cooper and Jake stopped, yelling at the woman to get up as she struggled to her feet. She tried twice and then fell, much too weak to stand up by herself any longer. 

“We have to go!,” Jake cried out in a panic. 

Joel debated for a moment before he stooped down to lift her in his arms. She squawked and kicked out her legs, yelling at him to put her down but he ignored her, nodding at the others to continue. 

“Hush up right now unless you want me to leave ya behind,” he snapped as frustration overcame his patience. 

Joel would never do that but she didn’t have to know that. All he needed was for her to allow him to help her but she was making it incredibly difficult. If threats were the way to make her shut up, then threats it would be. 

“You are a mindless brute! I don’t know what my daughter sees in you but put me down now!” 

Annoyed at the cantankerous woman that sat in his arms, Joel glared down at her as he resumed his pace. 

“From what I hear, you’re not such a walk in the park either lady. If you were anyone else, I’d leave ya here but luckily you’re my mate’s mother. Now shut the fuck up and survive this with me so that I don’t have to explain to your daughter why I let you die,” he seethed. 

Her eyes widened at his sharp words before she nodded once and relented, staying silent as the crew raced towards an opening in the fence. Jake squeezed through first, holding the back of Allie’s head as he crawled through the space. Next went your mother, who required a helpful hand on both sides to make her way through. Then Cooper, who went through with ease before it was Joel’s turn. 

The cracking in his knees made him groan as he made his way to the other side but he managed to slip most of the way through the hole before he felt a hand grasp his ankle. Joel turned over onto his back, only to see the face of an infected clawing at his boot. He gasped and kicked it in the face, scrambling through the last few inches to burst out the other side. 

“Infected coming!,” Joel shouted as he scooped up your mother, making the entire group hasten their pace. 

Looking back, he saw the face he had kicked crawling under the metal. Judging by the hands that reached out front around the edges, Joel had a feeling there was more to come. 

“What’s the plan here guys?,” he panted, his breathing no more than wheezes as he tried to keep up with the younger men. 

Cooper pointed his finger at a rusted sunfire and tossed him the keys, the group quickening their pace once more as a roar tore through the air. Joel didn’t need to look back to know that sound. Any shoddily made barrier would be no use for a bloater and as the beast slammed itself against the wall, everyone threw themselves into the vehicle. 

Joel tried the ignition once as the first layer of barrier collapsed. 

“Come on, come on, come on, come on,” he mumbled to himself as he tried again to no avail. 

“Flick the headlights on and off, that might give it some juice,” Cooper called. 

The woman to his right scoffed, “That’s a myth.”

“And how would you know? I’ve never even seen you drive,” Cooper sassed right back. 

“I’ll have you know little boy, that I had a full license and was driving before you were even a thought so why don’t you-” 

“SHUT UP!,” Joel shouted as the last bit of barrier broke down, revealing a bloated body that was running towards them. 

A horde of infected, some newer and some gnarled with age, stumbled in pursuit of the giant. He swore and tried again, holding his breath until the car finally turned on. With the infected hot on their tail, Joel slammed his foot all the way to the floor and sped off. He grimaced at the burst of cordyceps that the bloater flung to his right, jerking to the side of the road before he righted the car once more. The next burst of infection exploded somewhere behind them, the distance between them too great for it to be of any danger and finally Joel relaxed in his seat. 

“Is everyone okay?,” Cooper asked. 

Given the frantic hands that poked and prodded at Allie in the rearview mirror, Joel figured that question was not for him or your mother.  

Jake sighed, “We’re okay Coop, aren’t we Allie-girl?”

The little girl sprung up from her father’s chest, gurgling in response and hooking her fingers around her other father’s finger. Cooper visibly relaxed, falling back against the seat before he scooched closer to his mate. Joel looked away, letting them have a moment as he looked over at the passenger seat. 

Your mother sat ramrod straight, with her chin lifted high in the air. Even with all of her injuries, she remained almost regal in the way she presented herself and turned to glare at him for his gaze. Joel sighed and looked forward, keeping his eyes on the road instead. 

There would be no winning her over until you were found and Joel didn’t blame her for it. If Sarah or Ellie had been missing only for an older alpha to show up unannounced, apparently bonded with one of them, he would have reacted way worse. The nasty looks were, if anything, a courtesy. 

An hour of driving passed before Cooper directed him towards a side road, bringing the car down a terribly shoveled entrance before an old house came into view. Joel pulled the car up and parked, keeping the engine idling as he turned towards the other alpha with an eyebrow raised. 

“Come on, you three out while me and Joel have a little chat,” Cooper said carefully, never breaking eye contact with him. 

Your mother sighed and left the vehicle without another word, too tired to fight against the men around her anymore. She heaved herself up and moved towards the front door, hobbling off until her figure disappeared from the doorway. 

“I’m not getting out unless you tell me what it is that you’re going t-” Jake started. 

“Out of the car and into the house with our daughter. Right now. I am not asking,” Cooper demanded, his clipped tone leaving no room for retort. 

Joel winced at the way Jake balked and heeded his request, leaving the car with the little girl on his hip. He looked back at the car only once before he frowned and followed your mother’s path inside. Cooper sighed when Jake was gone and rubbed at his eyes. He exited the car as well, rounding the front of it to plop himself into the passenger seat. When the door slammed shut, the alpha turned himself towards Joel and began. 

“About 50 clicks south is where our old camp was. I can’t be sure but if I know my brother, that’s where he is taking her. Go down the old service exit before I-80. If you go now, maybe you can save her. I don’t care that she asked me not to, I would want to know,” Cooper rushed out while twisting his hands together. 

Joel froze. 

“Who has her? Wha- What did she ask? I-I don’t,” he sputtered as his heart lurched in his chest. 

“I found Allie and I went to get her but they caught me,” he winced at memory, “She busted in and saved me. I tried to get her to come with, but she wouldn’t listen. She said it wouldn’t end unless she went to him and made me promise that I wouldn’t tell you what happened.”

The world crashed down around him. Paul had you. He had you and he had taken you somewhere 50 kilometers south. All of Joel’s worst fears had come to life. You were going to sacrifice yourself for the safety of everyone else. Memories of a hospital and a little girl who wanted to save the world with her gift flooded his mind, drawing out a sharp gasp from Joel as he clutched at his chest. 

Joel felt so many things, with anger being the first. He was selfishly mad at you for allowing yourself to be taken rather than sacrificing others. Then he felt guilty at that, knowing that it was against your character to ever let harm come to those that you loved. But he was also angered by the alpha that sat beside him for leaving you behind. 

“Don’t look at me like that when I know that if you were in my position, you would’ve done the same. I am not going to sacrifice my daughter for her or anyone else,” he argued. 

Straightening his back at the statement, Joel nodded once in response and motioned for him to leave. 

“I’m sorry Joel, I’m really fucking sorry. I don’t even know what we are going to do now but I have my own family. There is a mate in there that I don’t deserve and a pup that needs me. You have to understand that,” Cooper tried.

Joel sighed and shook his head of the bitterness that seeped in from the corners of his mind.  

“Leave Montana, head into Wyoming and go to Jackson county. My brother’s wife runs a spot up that way, they’d take you in. Tell them that I sent ya. Well, tell Tommy I sent you, not Maria.” 

The thank you was stopped midway by Joel holding up his hand. Cooper nodded and stepped out, wishing him luck as he slammed the door shut behind him. Deep down, he didn’t blame the man for picking his family. Cooper was right, Joel would have done the same in a heartbeat if it had come down to them or you. However, with his mate trapped somewhere alone with a psychopath, Joel didn’t spare him a second glance as he sped off once more. 

Panic bleached his mind of any substantial thoughts and he remained relatively silent as he sped through the streets. The beast within had roared to life and demanded blood, making him tighten his grasp on the wheel until the leather creaked. Flashes of memories, all involving you, were the only things that kept him somewhat human. 

His pulse quickened as he neared your former camp. Sweat dripped down Joel’s face and he noticed that his hands were shaky as he pulled off into the service exit. The fear was overwhelming. Were you alive? Were you hurt? Were you even at the camp? Swallowing every bit of panic that tightened his chest, Joel pressed on towards the clearing before him. 

 - You - 

“I’m not telling you fuck all bitch.”

A cackle echoed throughout the clearing, reverberating off the ice covered trees until it shot back to reach your ears. 

“Oh, I know. That’s not what this is about,” you chuckled, dragging the blade across the other cheek as the man groaned in pain. 

Blood beaded from the slash before it dripped down his cheek. Amused, you watched him thrash against the zip ties for a moment before you stepped back. Red faced and panting, the man called out for you as you stepped away from him. 

“Hey! You can’t just leave me here!,” the alpha yelled. 

Another bout of laughter tore from your mouth as you grasped the hilt of the blade and pulled, tearing it from the chest of his deceased comrade. From somewhere behind you, a twig snapped and you smiled at the sound. 

“I can and I will. They’ll find what’s left of you in a couple days. If you’re lucky maybe they’ll even put a bullet between your eyes. Some of your brothers haven’t been so lucky,” you chuckled and nodded towards the sound of shuffling feet, “Horde just keeps on growing.” 

Without another word, you ignored his cries for mercy as you turned into the trees. The alpha’s insults quickly turned into screams. The sound of a body being torn apart by infected quickened your pace. As swiftly as possible, you scrambled into the cab of the truck and pulled away from the clearing as they finished off your opponent. 

It had been like this for days. After a couple of hours on the road, you had found the first look out and scoped it out. The guards patrolled mostly during the night and kept their weakest alphas on guard during the day while the others slept. Understanding this, you parked in a patch of trees down the road and waited for the right moment. The minute the guards switched out, you were slinking around the perimeter to take out the three men that patrolled the abandoned gas station. 

Thinking back as you drove through the quiet roads, you remembered how surprised the sleeping alphas looked when they had awoken to the feeling of a knife plunged into their chests. Some of them tried to scream but you had gagged them with cloth. It was amazing how much you could accomplish while your opponents slept. Seven alphas were killed at that first stop. You felt absolutely nothing as you watched them die, only a sense of determination to get to your mate. 

Countless men and women had died at your hands since that day, all of them guilty of being associated with the man that had your alpha. It was on the fourth day on the road that you had stumbled across the camp. You had to stop yourself from running towards the strip mall when you saw it. A pang of recognition jolted through the bond at the sight of the repurposed shops, the mark on your neck aching as you overlooked the town that held the man you searched for. 

It was only when you watched a set of guards drag a broad shouldered man from the back of the store and up a set of stairs that you knew for sure. Joel fought against them and you had watched, heart aching at the blood splattered across his clothes and the hood over his face. You had grasped the gun in your waistband, weighing your options before you let it go. 

They might shoot him if you didn’t kill them and even still, you weren’t entirely sure you had the strength to rush the place without the proper fire power. Plus, what if you missed and hit him instead? Joel was dragged up a set of stairs and into another store, while you were forced to do nothing but watch. 

“I’m coming,” you whispered to the air, hoping that it would carry and somehow reach only his ears. 

In the next few days, you had amped up your game. Somewhere between the first outpost and the camp itself was no man’s land, where Paul’s group had left the infected to act as an impromptu defense for them. Leading them towards the camp, you had been the cause of much confusion amongst the alphas. Some bodies you left like a present at their doorstep, mocking them with their mutilated corpses. While others you left trussed up amongst the trees for the infected to find, leaving the group with a growing horde to deal with. 

When you weren’t hunting down the alphas, a handful of houses were scattered around the camp and served as impromptu safe havens for you intermittently. You never went inside, knowing that the second you stepped in that the patrol might catch your scent the next day. Instead, you parked somewhere and rested in the truck for a few hours before heading back to work.

As the days passed, you had slain a good portion of the population but still could not get any closer to infiltrating the space. The guards that patrolled the perimeter were younger and likely greener, but were frustratingly vigilant as they walked along the rickety fence. There were a few holes in the perimeter but you weren’t confident that you would be able to sneak into the store they continuously dragged Joel back to without one of them catching you. 

If you were caught, you knew where they would send you. The lingerie store was frequented by all of the alphas, except for a couple of them that seemed to prefer guard duty over whatever went on in the establishment. Given the screaming omegas that they dragged into the back of the store and the smirking alphas that left out of the front, you had a good guess as to what went on. 

Exhaustion pulled at your eyelids at the thought of it and you sighed, knowing that you needed to rest. Pain radiated from the cuts and bruises that covered your body but you didn’t care. Some of them would scar, especially the wound that cracked open on your cheek with every smile. The owner of the truck had given you that one, her fists slamming into your face until you plunged the blade into her gut. Again, you didn’t mind. It would all be worth it to see Joel’s face again. 

Pulling off of the main road, the truck rumbled down a side street towards the house you had chosen for your nap. Driving closer to the house, you pumped the brakes at the sight of a fresh set of tire tracks in the snow. The truck stopped as you threw it in park, debating for a moment before you shut it off and slipped from the cab. 

Holding the gun close to your chest, you moved into the surrounding trees. With the vegetation acting as a cover, you stepped towards the back of the home only to be greeted with the sight of a group of alphas standing over a beaten man. The sight could have been disregarded if any other man had laid bleeding against the ground, but it was Cooper that gasped for air as a woman kicked him in the ribs. 

“Please! Please stop - fuck!,” Cooper groaned as another boot knocked him from his hands and knees. 

You paused from your place in the trees. Sure, the alpha was not your favorite person but he meant something to Jake. This was his husband, his mate. The mark that your best friend had claimed Cooper with glared at you from above his collar, judging you for thinking about walking away from the scene. A plethora of whispered swears poured from your lips as you watched the group laugh. 

The memory of him allowing you to slam a pot over his head as a guise to escape flashed through your mind. 

“Fucking hell,” you swore, realizing that there was no way that you could walk away from this.  

Four alphas surrounded Cooper, the group snickered as the largest one taunted him. Removing the magazine from the pistol, you counted six bullets left. Since leaving the cabin, your aim had gotten astronomically better but it still left something to be desired. Plus, using all six of your bullets to only possibly kill four alphas was not viable. 

“Just wait until your brother gets here you punk,” the woman spat, “Always knew you were a traitor, hiding your omega from us then conveniently losing the other one when nobody was there to see it. You’re a pussy. Better the kid stays with Paul, maybe she’ll learn her damn place.” 

Cooper growled ferally as he clutched his side, “Don’t you fucking dare bring my kid into this. I will f- oomph.” 

The hand wrenching his head back cut him off, making Cooper whine as his mousy strands were yanked back harshly. The other alpha met his gaze, smiling at the discomfort on his face before another vehicle made its way up towards the house. 

“Looks like your time is up traitor. Doubt big brother is gonna bail you out this time, not when you have been trying to cover up the bitch’s tracks for days.” 

Cooper didn’t say anything. Instead, he bowed his head at the statement, thus proving his own guilt in the matter. You were surprised but it made sense. For days you had been slaughtering their guards or leaving them to be infected in the woods but only the few bodies ever seemed to make it back to them. 

After you had reached double digits in your murder spree, you began to question their patrolling abilities. However, with Cooper’s wordless admission, you realized that their bodies had been hidden by the partner in crime that you didn’t even know you had. 

“What’s this?”

Paul rounded the corner of the home, peering down at his brother as he kneeled on the cold ground. His face showed no emotion towards Cooper’s beaten face, only a look of boredom as he strolled towards the group. 

The alpha that stood over Cooper smiled at Paul, “Asshole finally found the kid, too bad we found a couple of bodies in the trunk when we seared it. Seems our friend here has been using his free time to help out your little slut.” 

A scowl tightened Paul’s face and he stooped down in front of the injured alpha. Cooper flinched at the proximity, his face pale as his brother leered at him. 

“Is that true baby brother? After all I’ve done for you?,” he tsked. 

Cooper’s face snapped up and you were shocked by the uncharacteristically cold glare that hardened his features. 

“All you’ve done?,” he chuckled and shook his head, “And what is that Paul? You have taken everything from me. My daughter, my mate, my life. Even Sophie, our own baby sister, our blood, wasn’t safe from you, was she?” 

Paul reached down, snatching Cooper’s face in his hands and you winced at the way his fingers dug into his skin. 

“You watch it Coop, wouldn’t want to have to teach ya another lesson,” he warned.  

Cooper laughed, “Funny, Sophie used to get lessons too. Maybe that’s why she decided to throw herself off that building. Ya know, you talk a big game about protecting what’s yours but I don’t think you have any idea what it means to care for anything. There’s only one thing you want.” 

“And what’s that?”

“You just want to be the big man like dad,” you watched as Paul’s jaw twitched at Cooper’s words,“Does it make you feel strong to be like him? Does it make you forget what it feels like to be on the other side? Maybe if you hurt enough people, you’ll forget about what he did, huh?” 

Shock was all you felt as Paul slammed his fist into his brother’s nose, making blood pour from it as Cooper groaned in pain. Another punch came down and slammed into his cheek. Then another and another, until the younger man was sprawled out against the snow. Despite the blows, the smile on his face was unmistakable as his brother wailed on him. Paul might have overpowered him but Cooper had read the man so accurately that it had made him lose his nerve. 

Taking a moment to gather himself, you watched as Paul smoothed out the front of his jacket and cleared his throat before turning towards his group. 

“Take him inside. Tie him up in the basement, if he even thinks about escaping you shoot him down. Both of you,” Paul nodded towards the biggest in the group, “With me. If they were working together then she’ll be somewhere close. Let’s go.” 

Two of the men dragged a barely conscious Cooper into the house, hauling him up the steps as the rest of the group piled into Paul’s car. You waited until it drove off, watching until it disappeared. 

As quietly as possible, you crept towards the building and eased yourself into the house. The alphas were nowhere to be seen, likely in the basement with a semi conscious Cooper as you moved throughout the living room. An open doorway led towards the basement but you dodged it and disappeared into one of the bedrooms to wait. The plan was to hide in the bedroom until the alphas re-emerged. You were going to creep downstairs in order to free Cooper but the plan was foiled when the babbling of a small child made you spin around. 

A little girl dressed in a tattered jumper and sesame street pj pants smiled at you from the confines of an ancient playpen. There was no mistaking whose child she was. The golden skin and glossy ringlets made your chest pang, seeing bits of your best friend as you looked upon his daughter. The color was off, closer to Cooper’s light brown, but they still shined in the light like Jake’s did. 

The brightness in her green eyes astounded you and you wondered if the man she got them from had ever been as happy as her. From what had been said outside in the snow, you doubted it. Her mouth seemed perpetually upturned in a smirk, just like Jake, and you smiled as she reached her hands out to you. Slowly, you moved towards her and plucked her from the playpen. 

“Hi baby,” you whispered, “You must be Allie. I’m Ja- I’m your dad’s friend, it’s nice to meet you.” 

Allie blinked up at you and smiled brightly, seemingly unbothered by the fact that a complete stranger held her. She continued to babble, gesturing wildly with her hands as she answered you in her own way. You bit back a laugh, seeing nothing but Jake as she gave an explanation that was complete nonsense but still dramatic as hell. Her words meant nothing, but the tone of Allie’s voice was chalk full of sass. 

“Tell me about it,” you sighed and Allie nodded as if she understood. 

A pair of footsteps walking up the steps popped the bubble of warmth in the child’s room and you panicked. There was no way you wanted to confront these men in front of Allie, but you needed to get her father out of the basement. You gulped and placed the girl back in her playpen carefully. She whined, trying to get you to pick her back up as she began to cry and your heart broke. 

Nobody in Paul’s group seemed like they would be caring enough to look after the child. That meant that she had probably been alone in different rooms since being separated from her parents. You wondered how Allie had remained so cheerful despite her isolation. That was no way for a child to live. Fat tears dripped down her cheeks as her lower lip trembled and you brushed the curls from her face. 

“Shhhh Allie, it’s okay. I’m gonna go get your papa okay? Stay right here baby, I’ll be right back and then we’ll go get your other daddy,” you soothed. 

Allie sniffed and nodded, babbling more jumbled nonsense that sounded vaguely like an affirmation. You leaned down and kissed the top of her head, smiling at her again before you slipped out of the room. 

The house was still but you kept your ears peeled as you moved towards the basement. Just as you reached the stairs, a door clicked behind you and you wheeled around. The alpha that stepped from the bathroom looked more surprised than you, stumbling back against the wall as you reached towards your waistband. Before he had the chance to grab his own, your gun was already out, firing two shots into his chest. 

The other guard yelled out for his partner from outside and you swore, hurrying into the kitchen and hiding behind the island as the alpha raced into the house. The man tore through the place, completely unaware that he had bypassed your hidden figure to get to the dying man. He stooped down in front of the alpha, questioning him as redness seeped into the fabric of his shirt. It was no use, the alpha was too weak to answer as he drowned from the blood filling his lungs. 

The final breath rattled out of the man’s chest and his body stilled, causing the other man to swear. The remaining alpha hung his head for a moment, still unaware of your presence as you switched out the gun for a knife. It was quieter and you had more experience with it. Almost hovering over him, it was the creak of a floorboard that gave you away. 

The alpha’s head snapped up and you gasped as he whipped the gun from its holster in a flash. The shot rang out and you could’ve sworn you heard it as the bullet grazed the side of your head. The force of it buckled your knees, making you fall to the floor in shock as the excruciating sensation forced tears from your eyes. Blood poured from the area and you whined as the red liquid dripped into your eyes, blurring your field of vision while you tried to lift yourself from your stomach. 

Dizzied from the shot, you struggled to get your bearings and were knocked back down by the man. You screamed as he kneeled against your back to keep you down, the sound being cut off as he put more weight into his hold. With your lungs crushed, you coughed and struggled against him. 

“Oh you’re in trouble now baby,” he chuckled, running a heavy hand down your backside. 

The feeling of it was revolting and you tried uselessly to buck him off. The alpha laughed at your protests, unperturbed as he fiddled with the waistline of your baggy jeans. This was it, you thought, this was the end. Dread filled you as you felt fingers dip under your shirt. 

“I will say. The amount of us you’ve taken out has been quite impressive,” he pinched your hip and you whined, “You’ve become a sort of white whale for us all. Can’t believe I get to be Captain Ahab.” 

You laughed, remembering yourself with his stupid statement. 

This man was nothing. All he wanted from you was fear, that’s all men like him ever wanted from omegas. Understanding this, you laughed harder despite the weight pressing you into the floorboards. A growl came from behind and the man flipped you over, glaring down at you as you continued to giggle. 

“The fuck is so funny?,” he snapped. 

“Moby Dick bites off Captain Ahab’s leg you fucking idiot. The whale kills everyone except for Ishmael and survives the crew hunting him. So according to your own metaphor, I’m going to kill you,” you laughed, wriggling your arm from under him to rip the gun from his grasp. 

The man reached forward to take it back but you were too quick, pressing the barrel of it against his gut and firing another shot into his stomach. He groaned as he bled out onto your clothes and you shoved him off. The man held the hole in his stomach closed with one hand and you sighed. Reaching backwards for your knife, you grabbed it and slid it across his neck. He bled out in seconds. 

Rolling away from the mess, you groggily got to your feet and stumbled towards the basement. From somewhere in the distance, you heard the sound of Allie crying but you ignored it. The sight of your bleeding face would only make it worse, so you trudged towards the person who might be able to comfort her. 

The basement was freezing with dripping ceilings and unfinished floors. You hobbled into the space, ears ringing as you moved towards the alpha that was tied to the chair. Cooper was unconscious, or at least he seemed to be, and you paused to collect yourself. 

Nausea forced vomit up from your mouth and you retched, puking onto the concrete before him. Bits of it splattered against your pants. You groaned and swayed on your feet while holding the bleeding graze mark on the side of your head. Breathing in deeply, you slapped at your cheeks to keep yourself alert. 

“Jesus Christ, what the fuck happened?,” Cooper called out. 

You laughed, spitting out the remainder of it from your mouth before you smiled back up at him. 

“Should see the other guy,” you coughed, spitting up blood as you kneeled beside the chair. 

As quickly as you could, the ties around his wrists were loosened until Cooper could break free. He gently pushed your shaky hands away, reaching down to speedily work his feet out of the restraints. You sat back and watched through bleary eyes. Cooper spoke to you as he released himself from the chair but his words were faraway. Everything was distorted, like you were seeing the world through one of those funhouse mirrors at the carnivals your father used to take you to. 

“Hey! I said, is my daughter okay? Did you see her?!,” he asked, shaking your shoulders to break you from the haze. 

You swallowed down more puke from the sudden movement, “She’s fine. Upstairs in the playpen. She - Look, I don’t even think she’s old enough to know what’s going on.”

Cooper nodded, looking relieved as he helped you to your feet. You expected him to drop his hold on your arm but instead he tightened it, leading you from the basement and towards Allie once more. You stumbled after him, delirious from the blow to your head as Cooper dragged you behind him. 

“Allie-girl! How are you honey, Papa missed you,” he cooed as he entered the room, swooping down to gather his daughter in his arms. 

You leaned against the doorframe, lowering yourself onto your bum and hugging your knees. Queasiness filled your mouth with water and you turned your face away, emptying the contents of your stomach once more until only bile remained. 

You weren’t sure how much more you could take. 

Suddenly, the cooing and soft words halted. The vibe of the room shifted and Cooper swore as he peered out of the curtains. Even in your disjointed state, you could tell that whatever he saw wasn’t good. Slowly, you stood up and followed his gaze out the window. 

In the driveway, Paul shoved the door of the car closed behind him. He stopped and began to dig through the backseat of his car as the two of you watched. 

The alpha beside you looked terrified. Any confidence he had previously was lost with his pup in his arms. Allie’s hands smacked against his chest, trying to get her father’s attention as sweat dampened his hairline. Cooper’s face was as white as a ghost as he watched his brother walk towards the house.  

You swallowed the lump in your throat, realizing what you had to do. He couldn’t bear the weight of this for you, nobody could. It was time to face your demons. 

“Take her out the window. Go back to camp and get everyone out, then leave. I’ll hold him off,” you instructed. 

“What?!” 

You shook your head at his incredulous reply, “Paul isn’t going to stop until he has me, so I’m going to give him what he wants. Just… Just promise me you’ll take Joel when you get Jake out. Tell him I love him. And please Cooper, don’t tell him what I’ve done.”  

Cooper shook his head wildly, hugging his daughter closer to his chest as you backtracked towards the hallway. He stepped forward to grab your arm and you whirled around, glaring at him before he could touch you. 

“Joel Miller is the best person I know, okay? And I dragged him into this. Fuck, I-I dragged you all into this. Which means it’s up to me to finish it, alright? Whatever happens just… Just please get him out without telling him what happened here. He’ll come after me and I can’t - fuck - I can’t be the reason for anyone else’s pain anymore,” you pleaded desperately. 

Looking over his shoulder, you saw that Paul was almost all the way to the front door. Cooper stood still, torn as you mouthed the word please. Allie babbled in his arms and he looked down at her for a moment before he looked back up at you with his mind made. Slowly, he swallowed hard and nodded. 

“Thank you,” you whispered, turning away from Cooper and Allie to march towards the front door. 

This was it. Everything that you had been through culminated in this moment. You thought back to your first week at Josiah’s camp. Paul was there, although a young man, and he had leered at you from the barn as you played with Jake outside. Flipping forward, you thought of your wedding day. He had looked victorious as Josiah dragged you down the aisle, like a hunter who had caught his prey. It was the same look Paul had given you when you were caught outside the diner. 

Would he look at you like that again as you opened the door? You didn’t care. The thought of his gaze didn’t hold the same effect it once had. You had grown and now, as you gripped the handle with steady hands, there was no fear as you stepped out into the afternoon sun. 

[sad-endings-suck]

Blue Eye Samurai: regarding Mizu’s “plot armour” or her “ridiculously over-powered” abilities.

“Mizu is way too overpowered, it doesn’t make sense.”

I feel like a lot of people don’t realize just how much the mind over matter mentality plays a roll in Mizu’s “abilities”. Mizu isn’t the best because she’s physically the strongest, or had the best training, or the most experience, or whatever. Mizu is the best because she has single-minded focus and immense tenacity that borders on psychotic due to how intensely dedicated to revenge she has been for almost all of her life. All the years she spent training, all the time she spends taking out enemies, she is being driven by single minded focus and iron willed determination that never wavers. She has been sharpening and honing not just her body, but her mind, for exactly this. She has dedicated her entire life to her quest for vengeance, and in her own words, there is no room in it for anything else.

People also seem to be making a lot of assumptions about what kind of training and how much training Mizu has or has not had. As the audience, we’ve only been shown bits and pieces of Mizu’s past, which includes her experience learning martial arts. Asking shit like “how is she so good with a sword if she’s only self taught?” is like asking “how can she read and write if Master Eiji is blind?”. The answer is that Mizu has obviously learnt these things from more than one source, but documenting her entire education in detail doesn’t exactly serve a purpose to the narrative. We are explicitly shown in one of Mizu’s flashbacks that she’s been practicing with a wooden sparring sword since she was very young. It’s actually her child self that we see in that brief particular flashback. Not her teen/tween self, her child self. She’s also following the movements and instructions of an older man that is clearly a skilled samurai or warrior of some kind based on context (which y’all love to ignore). Besides, who else would want/need a sword from a master sword-maker besides an expert swordsman? How many skilled fighters from all over Japan have come to Master Eiji’s forge hoping for a blade, and wait with nothing better to do but train while their blade is being made? How many of them have divulged information about certain fighting styles (like Shindo-Ryu, which Mizu was familiar with despite never having been to the dojo before). Or practiced around her and with her? We are clearly shown through Mizu’s flashbacks that receiving training from a visiting client has not been unusual for her throughout her apprenticeship with Master Eiji, and her little spar with Blood Soaked Chiaki was no one time event. Yet Mizu is never given the benefit of the doubt by the audience, despite context clues indicating that she should be.

“Taigen has way more training in an actual dojo, so why is Mizu better?”

Whereas Taigen, while he was determined to become more than just a fisherman’s son and was driven to rise through the ranks of the Dojo and become a skilled samurai, did not have that same desire or determination to hone every part of himself to be the most deadly weapon he could possibly be, like Mizu did. Taigen believes in the samurai code of honor and upholds it in his own way (preventing him from learning how to “fight dirty” so to speak) and he also had a life outside of his training (he had a social life, he drank, he partied, he snuck around a lot to see Akemi presumably, etc). In fact, we actually never see Taigen practice, train, learn, hone his skills, or anything (to my recollection) throughout the whole season, until he’s bested by Mizu in combat. I’m assuming Taigen had to work quite hard for several years to become as good as he is, but I get the sense that ever since he has been regarded as a prodigy he has allowed himself to get cocky and maybe a bit too comfortable. He has always been the best and always thought himself to be the best, so he never needed to give 150% effort when he fought. In fact, as he got older and more practiced, and it became more and more apparent how much better he was than everyone else, he probably stopped giving his 110% and allowed himself to get a bit comfortable putting in 100% effort, and then eventually 80% effort (which is part of the reason why I think he’s so pissed he lost to Mizu in their first fight, because he knows he could have done better: been less cocky, been more tactical, more driven, etc).

We also never see Taigen meditate or mentally or physically prepare himself the way we do with Mizu. Mizu will pray before a major upcoming battle, not because she’s religious, but because she’s mentally, emotionally, and spiritually preparing herself. We even see Mizu submerge herself in very cold ocean water (during the winter mind you) as a ritual/practice of sorts that serves to center herself and prepare mentally and physically for what’s ahead when she feels herself getting “too emotional” or too stressed or unfocused or even just slightly off kilter. Mizu sacrifices every part of her life, so that she can be the deadliest version of herself possible. She has no social life. She has no friends, or significant others (Mikio aside). She has no other activities to participate in, because she’s been completely alienated and thus being anything but the best is not an option in her mind because she has no options. She tried married life. She had the best possible life that she could have had as a biracial woman in Edo era Japan. She did as she was told by her “mother”. She showed her true self to Mikio, just as he desired. Yet the blood and vengeance still caught up with her. She has no other options anymore. Pursuing revenge is the only thing she knows how to do, because every other avenue in life has been cut off from her. So she has to be single-mindedly focused on her vengeance, which means being as skilled and as dangerous as she can possibly be. She has no hobbies or jobs or responsibilities beyond sword-making (which allows her to become as familiar with the blade as possible) and training herself. If she has extra time, she uses it to practice, to train, to improve, to simply maintain peak performance. Such as when she was hacking through those trees in episode 2. Afterwards, we see Taigen attempt to replicate her training (by cutting down trees with his sword). Though even then, it was more about curiosity and trying to suss out Mizu so he could gauge her skill level, then it was about actually honing his own abilities (until episode 3 when he practices with Chiaki’s broken blade). Which does count as training in its own way (assessing your enemy), but my point still stands. Taigen does not have the same unwavering focus and force of will that Mizu does (partially because he does not actually want to kill Mizu, as we do see Taigen go cold blooded with focus when he kills Heiji Shindo, but those are whole other discussions).

“Mizu just has ridiculous plot armour, that’s the real reason she survives every encounter.”

I feel like people that think Mizu has ridiculous plot armour are just not at all familiar with the Samurai or Western/Cowboy sub-genres at all, or even action as an overarching genre on its own. I don’t believe I have ever engaged in a single piece of action media in which the protagonist didn’t have “plot armour” in some way. Basically half of all male protagonists from any and all modern western action movies ever, have been way too over-powered and been able to take a ridiculous amount of damage that should have killed them multiple times over. These action heroes (who in western media are almost always cis-het white men) have ridiculous plot armour in the most classic sense. Yet no one complains when it’s a white man. Only when it’s a queer-coded biracial woman of colour. Shocking.

In fact, you could argue that every main character in every fictional story ever told has plot armour to a certain degree, because having an entire narrative revolve around one character is inherently “unrealistic” and therefore the main character has plot armour, yes? No? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Oh, and on the topic of the samurai genre specifically (and many martial arts based action media) there are certain genre specific tropes that are nearly integral to the genre. One of the most prominent being the samurai/ronin/warrior/martial arts master that is “ridiculously over powered”. It’s literally part of the genre. In fact, the western/cowboy genre is quite similar to the classic samurai genre. Now, how many westerns have you watched in which Clint Eastwood or John Wayne shoot 5+ guys with one pistol before any of the guys they shoot even get a shot off? A lot I bet. Is that not the definition of “over-powered” and “unrealistic”? Or is it just a genre trope, or even perhaps, a genre staple? No one thinks Arthur Morgan (Red Dead Redemption 2) is over-powered. No one thinks that Joel (The Last of Us) is over-powered. In fact, when the TLOU show came out, people actually complained that Joel, the fifty-something year old man that has been living in a post apocalyptic wasteland for 20 years, was not badass or strong enough (he kills dozens of humans and super zombies and he’s legally a senior). So, who is the “judge” of what is and is not realistic in action media that borders on sci-fi/fantasy based on how “over-powered” the protagonists “realistically” are?

“It’s just weird that Mizu is so powerful when other characters within the story are not. It makes Mizu such a Mary Sue.”

Okay… so, with all that in mind, let’s circle back to where I started when referring to Mizu as someone driven by unwavering determination, and how that affects her “abilities”. That facet of her personality and motivation is nothing new when it comes to the action genre, especially for protagonists of revenge storylines. Think of Kill Bill or John Wick. Why does John or the Bride keep going and keep winning even when they are constantly getting injured and always fighting. Is it because they are simply that much better than everyone else? Yes and no. No, because they are not superheroes (technically), but also yes. Because their single minded determination and need for revenge drives them to push that much harder than anyone else on their skill level. They are the best, but they win against everyone else that is also “the best” because they want it more. They need it more. Mind over matter. They are willing to endure what others are not through sheer will and pure cold rage. Mizu, Beatrice Kiddo, John Wick, and so many more similar protagonists in action-revenge narratives don’t keep winning and keep getting back up no matter how inured they get because they are just “that much stronger and more talented than everyone else”. Yes, they are extremely skilled and would probably be one of the strongest and most deadly combatants/killers in their respective universes regardless… but their refined skill and raw talent and power are not the only reason they win. Their unwavering force of will, extreme determination, ice cold fury, and single-minded focus on revenge is what drive them to be that much tougher. Their tenacity is their superpower. They want to win more than their opponent does. They need to win, because this is their one and only goal in life as of now. Mizu (Blue Eye Samurai) Beatrice (Kill Bill), John (John Wick), they all share a philosophy in life when it comes to their revenge, which basically boils down to “Either I kill you, or I die trying. There is no middle ground, there is no negotiating, no other choice, no path of least resistance, no other goal or motivation. You will die, because I ain’t fucking dying until you do.”

Mizu doesn’t have plot armour and she’s not over-powered. She is an archetypical protagonist of the action-revenge narrative and the samurai/western genre as well. She arguably even has better reason to be completing the feats that she does than John Wick or The Bride, because the medium of Blue Eye Samurai is animation and not live action, and the genre borders on magical realism far more than Kill Bill or John Wick. Now, how many anime protagonists (probably almost all male) can you think of that are “ridiculously over-powered” especially compared to any live action counterparts, but no one complains about it? Why does no one complain about it (aside from misogyny)? Because the medium of animation inherently has different “rules”, expectations, and set standards for suspension of disbelief, than the medium of live action film or television. For example, is it ridiculous and unrealistic when you’re watching a Looney Tunes cartoon and Bugs Bunny’s legs pinwheel in super-speed for 3 seconds straight before he starts running, or when he runs off a ledge and gravity just lets him hang there for a sec so he can look straight at the camera before he falls? No, it’s not “unrealistic” or emersion breaking, not even a little, but why? Is it because any of those things seem even remotely probable or “realistic”? Of course not! It’s perfectly acceptable because the medium, genre, target audience, atmosphere, art/animation style, narrative choice, storytelling style, and more, have all established that Bugs Bunny defying physics is normal in Looney Tunes, and therefore not a “plot-hole” or “unrealistic”. In fact, if Bugs Bunny or Tom and Jerry didn’t defy physics in ridiculous ways all the time, then it feels far stranger and off-beat than if they did. Same goes for pretty much all action anime. If the characters in those stories were strictly limited to what is 100% humanly possible in real life, most of those animes wouldn’t even have storylines anymore. They’d be turned into completely different content that may be unrecognizable from the original source material. Or wouldn’t even have any material anymore because all the characters would be dead after their first fight scene. So why is Blue Eye Samurai being held to a different standard?

Now, do y’all get it yet?

[destiny-in-the-universe]

Dealing with the Stank

Okay, so- I had this idea cooking in my head for a little while and decided I might as well share my thoughts as part of a little treat!

After reading "Dog and Phony Show", I began questioning why the show never alluded to Randy getting stanked- of course, this is likely only due to him being the main character, but in context of the canon - this is quite an interesting thing to not have included within the show. Do Ninjas simply not get stanked because the suit is protecting them? Of course, there's also the fact

Stanked! Randy Headcanons

So, genuinely this whole thing happens because Randy either gets distressingly overwhelmed with being the Ninja OR it has to do with a ridiculous feeling of inferiority- (think something like what happened during the whole Lucius O' Thunderpunch fiasco, but you know, if it had done a little more realistically)

He does try to fight off the stank, but ultimately the Sorcerer manages to take over and Randy remembers briefly blacking out before ‘waking up’ in a daze- of course, he doesn’t have the foggiest what’s happening and feels this overwhelming urge to break free, and run… so he bursts out of wherever he’s in

I do view Randy as being this quadrupedal creature and has this fluffy mane but okay- first things first…

Stanked! Randy Headcanons

🧣 Randy would be themed either after an oriental dragon, a lion of sorts, or even… some sort of cheetah-looking creature. For some reason, this just makes sense to me-

🧣 He's going to be fast and that makes him harder to catch, but at the same time- I feel he might be slightly uncoordinated, letting himself be governed by present emotions

🧣 Randy will have purple somewhere on his stanked form- at least to make sure that it's him and not someone else. If I remember correctly, Dog and Phony Show had it as a mane and I think it would be a pretty cool feature to have!

🧣 I also feel that Randy isn't going to be easy to be destanked, but he also did attempt to resist- purely because he knows that as the Ninja, him getting overpowered by the Sorcerer is not ideal

🧣 He obviously doesn't have any of his powers as the Ninja- apart from being agile and lithe

Additional Thoughts + Analysis

If we're speaking on the angle of him getting stanked because of being overwhelmed, and that is putting it mildly, I imagine he's just full of anger and frustration which means the only way to destank him is by convincing the boy what he's doing is important- that he's capable, that he's a good Ninja. I honestly think that if the show were done for a more serious angle, he would be a little bound by the mantle he carries.

At some point, he reaches breaking point- feeling he can't juggle his own career, so to speak, as the Ninja and his own life as a high schooler which is what leads to his own 'demise' so to speak. In doing so, probably the only people who have the power to reverse the stank are Howard and Theresa for reasons to say the least- one being more obvious than the other.

As a bonus! This idea was cowritten between myself and a lovely mutual of mine @just-animaxiz featuring a non-canon take on "Into the Ninjaverse" - in an alternate reality where Spike, the leader of the punk bots, is the Ninja and Randy's a regular human... our favorite boy deals with a certain ahems loss to keep from spoiling the story too much. Overcome by grief, he falls pawn to the Sorcerer and goes on a violent rampage to the point he nearly ends McFist. This AU of course, is a lot deeper but I'd hate to ruin the fun so early.

Out of curiosity, and a quick show of hands- would anyone be interested in me writing a fic where Randy's stanked?

I might honestly do both versions- the one where he's stanked in a canon divergent timeline, and one for my beloved (/p) mutual.

I'll be back later tonight with more! Until we write again, my lovely readers~)

~ Destiny & Erin (They/Them)

[bcbdrums]

Soul Eater NOT - part 7 (MAJOR SPOILERS)

Akane and Clay. Much opinion here amid canon explanation.

These are characters with massive potential that don't make sense ultimately in execution, and undermine other characters in Soul Eater.

I'll start with saying, I adore Clay and everything about him. A goofball. A loyal and competent weapon. Clever, creative, ridiculous, and fun. He feels extremely Soul Eater and is very likeable. I've truly no complaints about him as he's written. Akane, however...

Akane randomly reveals to Tsugumi (someone he has no reason to trust or tell) that he's a member of the Star Clan (the side of them that aren't assassins and run a legitimate dojo apparently) and then...literally nothing at all is done later with this information.

It directly contradicts that Black Star states he is the last of his clan, full stop. The last of the infamous, ruthless assassins. And everything that Black Star is, overcomes, becomes in the end... Becoming his own person apart from his heritage... AUGH.

This fact about Akane was tossed in to grab reader attention and try to make us care about him, and in my opinion it deeply undermines the power of Black Star's journey. I won't go into Black Star anymore here because that deserves its own post (if anyone would like that, let me know) but yeah...

Akane also flirts creepily with Tsugumi and says he's just joking, but it comes up more than once. This comes across as out of character and yeah, creepy. So if the author's goal after trying to make him likeable and relatable and interesting (just by making him Star Clan) was to create a creep, well, he succeeded. This flirting honestly feels self-inserty or...trying to establish something hetero in a story that is otherwise girls girls girls.

Also, Akane has powerful soul perception as a meister (okay makes sense I suppose) but he can also use a soul force/menace attack... Which again, I think is undermining something about Black Star and Stein that make them special and unique in their stories. Maybe Star Clan can all have soul force/menace? But again...that is undermining the special-ness of it for Black Star and Stein.

Akane is overpowered, plain and simple. I feel like there's a specific fandom term for this type of character, but I forget what it is.

And here again... Akane and Clay are drawn as adults but just said to be EAT students...who are working with the academy's internal CIA??? I'm sorry.... They would not have students doing that. This again undermines things in Soul Eater canon, where they bring in the special agent BJ from Oceania for example and make a huge deal out of that... Yes Akane and Clay were undercover, but they should have had them be entirely undercover and not just higher-grade students. It's illogical. And they come across as adults, so it's just more weirdness.

Again, I adore Clay. And if Akane hadn't had unnecessary Star Clan association and the advanced soul abilities that diminish Black Star and Stein... He could have had potential too. In the end he comes across as flat and kinda just nothing.

Oh yeah by the way these guys are the secret bodyguards for the princess all along assigned by her family. Which...how?? They got contacted at the academy as students and contracted by her family?? None of this is explained. It just makes them more confusing as characters and doesn't help the story at all except to explain why they're always hanging around these glrls. This is where it should have been that they were posing as students...but they're just EAT students.... AUGH.

Oh yeah and Akane's full name? Akane Hoshi. "Red Star." I really can't with this...

[deliciouskeys]

Hi! I'm late to the party, but you still doing the fanfic trope meme? How about Butchlander for #9 -- amnesia? (no pressure tho)

It’s never too late for rambling runon Butchlander fic ideas! (Meme link)

Ooh this is a good one, so have two scenarios, depending on who’s saddled with amnesia. Both start out with canon-like no established relationship, so they’re on the long side

9, Butchlander, Amnesia: Homelander’s the one with amnesia

The Boys manage to wipe HL’s memory using some overpowered telepath supe (like Cate heh). He forgets so much, he can’t even remember how to use his powers, but he’s still got his superhuman defenses, so they still can’t kill him.

They take him to the Boys’ HQ and try to figure out what do with him. Billy is a little bit dismayed to see that making HL’s mind into more or less a clean slate also dramatically changes his personality. He’s unsure of himself, clinging to Billy for guidance as the person he sees as the leader of this group, and honestly not really much of a cunt. They try to plan whether he can actually help them take down Vought (they feel bad trying to find ways to kill him when he can’t even remember any of his crimes and is like an ignorant, innocent babe). At the end of the day Billy puts him in civilian clothes, baseball cap and sunglasses and takes him home as incognitoly as possible. Homelander mopes around the house, starts asking Billy what it is they’re trying to do and why they need his help, and Billy can’t believe he’s actually encouraging HL to recall how to use his powers, asking him to try to incinerate a target or lift off the floor. HL, for his part,thinks it’s preposterous that Billy thinks he can fly and shoot lasers, and can’t seem to remember how to do it.

Depending on how slow or fastburn the story goes, they end up having sex eventually and Billy’s brain breaks because it’s good, dammit, but he also sees HL’s eyes light up on orgasm. HL also eventually sees himself as missing on the news, starts asking more questions and when Billy tells him the truth gets revolted and depressed.

9, Butchlander, Amnesia: Billy’s the one with amnesia (why’d this get so long)

Billy’s TempV illness gets so bad that he’s already in hospice care, about to die, and so much of his brain has deteriorated that he’s losing motor functions, his speaking faculties, and his memory. He wakes up to find himself in a sunny room with tall ceilings and very strange decor. A man wearing a ridiculous superhero uniform approaches him, asks him how he’s feeling. Billy’s feeling fine, in fact he can vaguely recollect that he felt much worse at some point earlier, but he seems to have huge memory gaps. Even this man in front of him looks very familiar, and the name he introduces himself by elicits a strange angry feeling in him, but trying to remember who he is is like grasping at bubbles and the man is being very pleasant if a little patronizing, so maybe the anger is misplaced. Whoever he is, Homelander seems to be living in this opulently garish apartment, and for some reason has bothered to place Billy’s hospital bed near his window-wall.

Billy is physically very weak, he’s not quite sure when he’s been out of bed the last time, but his body looks wasted away, and he has to brace himself against furniture to hold himself up when he tries to walk under his own power. Homelander leaves him in his apartment, but gives him a number to call should he need anything. Billy just sits and watches TV for hours to try to piece together some of the really fragmented information in his mind. At the very least he pieces together that Homelander is probably the most important and famous superhero on the planet, but can’t figure out why he’s taken him in (he said he arranged for his cure and recovery) and can’t quite place why he keeps feeling anger rise whenever he sees him on screen, his lizard brain remembering something his higher one doesn’t. It doesn’t make any damn sense, but Billy does ask Homelander why he saved him. Homelander shrugs and says rescuing people is his job, but it seems like a deflection, and he looks amused as he says it, in an irritating way.

Homelander’s original plan was to just get his nemesis back to life, and maybe gloat a little. He put in him in his room to maintain secrecy, but maybe he shouldn’t have put his bed right where Stormfront’s was, because his mind is getting a little crosswired too. He doesn’t ask Billy for handjobs, but mentally things start to blur.

Days pass, Billy recovers physically more and more. He puts aside his strange, unprovoked ill will towards Homelander, and they eventually become physically intimate. “Were we… together before I got sick?” Billy asks, a little bewildered that he could have forgotten something like that, and Homelander smiles and nods, as if that was the real reason he saved him this whole time. He can’t keep Billy locked away forever though, and eventually Billy walks around Vought Tower. It becomes a creepy thriller because he runs into a weird kid in the hallways who seems to know him and seems very surprised to see him alive, but Homelander is there to quickly steer him away.

Billy eventually goes out into the city, old buried memories kicking in to make him find Central Park. He finds a quiet area with an inviting bench to sit on (the place seems so familiar? But Billy is tired of sorting out all his deja vus), taking in the view when a tall skinny guy walks by and seems to recognize him, and seems to be shocked that he’s alive. And when Hughie sits down and starts explaining everything, it’s like the Matrix and Memento all in one, and Billy breaks out in a cold sweat when the whole demented-sounding story does start clicking into place and he does remember about Becca’s existence.

But he decides it’s to the Boys’ advantage to pretend he doesn’t remember, because now he has incredible access to HL… just as soon as they figure out how to do him harm. He goes back and tries to pretend everything is fine, but of course it’s hard, especially when HL can hear his pulse rate and see him sweat. HL may be noticing something but he’s happier pretending everything is fine too, because at least he has the semblance of a loving relationship. Billy is basically a honeypot in this operation now.

[i-me-mine]

As time goes by | Chapter 10: Beware of the demo-dog

Pairing: Eddie Munson x fem!reader

Word Count: 4.8k

Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next chapter | AO3

Chapter Summary: As if dealing with Eddie kissing another girl wasn’t challenging enough, you are dragged into the craziness of dealing with the upside down.

Note: Don’t mind me; this is just me putting season 2 into the story while I continue working on the chapter with more of how the outcome of the Halloween party impacted Eddie and reader’s relationship

You stumble out of your house, still feeling groggy. Your head pounded with a fierce headache, and your stomach churned with nausea due to hungover and the lack of sleep after crying the whole night about Eddie kissing another girl.

Eddie is waiting for you at his van in his denim jacket, his worn-out jeans, a bandana on his neck, and a shy smile on his face, trying to hide the fact that he is as hungover as you are, not looking into your eyes as he opens the door for you. 

His hand shakes slightly when he lights up a cigarette, resting his arm on his open window, your eyes meeting and then quickly darting away while he drives. The silence between you grows increasingly awkward.

You think of easing the mood by mocking his ridiculous bandana fashion sense that morning, but when you look at it more closely, you see it. Eddie has hickeys on his neck and tried to hide them with the bandana. Love bites and sucks so intense that left bruises on his neck - just thinking about it makes you wanna throw up. 

As Eddie pulls into the school parking lot, he asks, "Can we please talk?"

"Sure," you sigh deeply.

Your eyes meet, a sense of longing and hesitation in the air. You both want to say something, to break the silence, but the words just don't come, and you fall into a heavy silence again, making you climb out of the van. 

"Look, I know things got a bit out of hand yesterday." he follows you.

"A bit?" You counter, raising your eyebrows. 

"If you just let me explain…"

"The same way you let me explain yesterday, Eddie?" your voice shaking.

His face twists. "Don't. I know what I saw."

"Fuck hell no, you don't." The fact Eddie jumped to conclusions without hearing your side of the story and that he is still not giving you a fair chance to defend yourself hurts.

"I haven't started it, don't act like I'm guilty of anything here."

The pace of your breathing increases - while a part of you would like to communicate calmly to resolve the situation, the other part is fueled by anger and wins.

"No, guilty is not the right word here" you step forward and pull the bandana out of his neck, exposing his hickeys. "What's the boy word for slut?"

He opens his mouth - but before he can say anything, he is interrupted by a girl who throws her arms around him. "Hey baby, I missed you," she says before kissing him on the lips. 

Samantha Stone. You didn't recognize her at the party, but clearly, she was the girl who kissed him yesterday and is again doing it right before you. 

"Screw this," you leave, pressing your lips, staring at the floor, hoping this will conceal the emotions starting to boil up inside you. 

When faced with a problem, your first instinct is to flee rather than confront it head-on, and your situation with Eddie is no exception, with the sense of unease and anxiety overpowering you. The classes seem to drag on longer than any other day, and lunchtime is even worse. Samantha is sitting next to Eddie at his table while you wait alone on yours as neither Nancy nor Jonathan has shown up yet. You can't stop yourself from occasionally peeking through the screen of your hair at their table. 

"Why are you pouting?" Steve asks while sitting right in front of you. "Oh…" he exclaims when noticing what you are looking at. 

"How are you, Steve?"

"Awful. Do you believe that Nancy didn't even remember what she said to me yesterday? I gave her one more chance to tell me if she loved me, and guess what… she couldn't say the words."

"I'm so sorry… We are having a hell of a morning, huh?"

"I'm always nothing but nice to people... So why is it that I keep getting screwed over?"

"Welcome to the club," you shrug. Steve used to be a douchebag, but you have seen him changing recently, and no one deserves to go through heartbreak. 

"So it wasn't just a one-time thing then." he discreetly points to Eddie and Samantha - she is now holding his arm and twirling her hair while he chats with the boys. 

"I didn't want anyone else to have him… but what I want is irrelevant now." 

"Well, you are just one broken heart closer to your happily ever after." Steve tries to cheer you up with no success. 

It's not only a matter of what you feel about Eddie - It's what you don't feel for anybody else. You are not ready to deal with this, so you ditch your last classes and don't show up in school the next day, afraid of seeing Samantha with Eddie again. You know avoiding problems will only make them worse in the long run, but the fear of conflict and the unknown outcome of confronting Eddie is so overwhelming that you cannot bring yourself to face it. It's Friday, so maybe Hellfire will make things normal again.

When you get to his trailer to prepare dinner as you usually do, you notice that he is not home. You nervously cook anyway, aware that Wayne looks at you occasionally while he reads the newspaper. 

"You know I'm here for you, right?" Wayne asks, concern written on his face.

"It's all good, uncle Wayne."

"I don't want to be nosy, but I think things were better between you and Eddie when you told each other everything."

You keep silent - how could you explain to him that things were not that easy? 

"The secrets are not mine to tell… but I think you two need to talk." he insists.

You wait for Eddie to have dinner, and when he opens the door, you open a smile just for it to die on your lips a few seconds later - Samantha enters the trailer right after him. 

"Sorry, I know I'm late… Sam insisted she wanted to go to Hellfire today."

"Eddie loves this game so much; I want to learn it. I'm glad I won't be the only girl there; Eddie talks all the time about how you are the best player he has ever met." she turns to you, smiling while pulling herself closer to him. No way you will talk with Eddie, not with her there. 

You all start to eat, and Samantha tries to keep the conversation going, giggling at anything Eddie says and touching him at every opportunity. 

You wonder if it is too selfish to crave Eddie like he was yours to miss. You catch him looking at you a few times, but you do your best to pretend you didn't see and that all is ok - but the girl sitting quietly in her chair with a neutral expression is actually screaming very loudly in her head. 

"I'll get some things in my bedroom, and we can go," Eddie says while standing up, Samantha following him. 

When they are out of view, you let out a sound that is something like a short, quiet scream while running a hand over your face. 

"You need to communicate your needs, kiddo, not only think about them." Wayne insists again. 

It's not fair. You don't have to torture yourself like this. You begin to gather your things, trying to block the feelings filling you up for fear that your eyes will tear up. You leave the trailer and hear Eddie calling your name when you are almost at your door. You breathe deeply before turning to face him. 

"Why are you leaving me?"

"I'm not going to Hellfire today, Eddie. I'm not feeling well. I think I'm sick." you lie. 

"I can stay and take care of you."

"That's nonsense. Go, the boys are waiting for you." you pause while frustration, jealousy, and anger fuel your words: "Your Samantha is waiting for you." 

Eddie takes your hand and looks into your eyes, "Sweetheart, I need to know what's wrong."

And he sounds so sincere. But you wonder what he would do if you said that everything wrong had to do with him. 

"Nothing, Eds. I'm just giving you space so you can enjoy your time with Samantha."

"Sweetheart, that's…"

"That's ok, Eddie." you interrupt him. "I understand. More than that, I'm glad you found someone you like and who likes you back. I'm happy for you. I really am." - there you are again, lying through your teeth.

"You're… H-happy?" he stutters, letting go of your hand. 

Your stomach is in knots, and you can only force a smile and pretend you are happy for him when you want to scream inside. You just nod and turn again to enter your house before your tears betray you. 

"You told him you were HAPPY for him? What the hell is wrong with you?" Max looks at you as if she would kill you if she could. 

"What you wanted me to say, Max?"

"What you were really feeling, for a change!"

Shame takes over you, and the only sound in the room is you ripping the duct tape you used to help Max repair her broken skateboard. 

"Listen… if you ever love someone someday… say it. Go for it. Don't be like me."

"As long as you are around to remind me how miserable a person can be if she is that stupid… I won't make that mistake." 

You both chuckle, being interrupted by someone at the main door. Lucas begs Max to come with him, as he has proof to show her. However, you don't want to let Max go alone for something that may be dangerous, so you all bike your way out. 

Upon arriving at the junkyard, Dustin and Steve are already there, and Steve briefs you about what's going on. You and Max are not totally convinced but agree to help with the plan anyway. You keep yourself busy helping transform the school bus into a shelter, creating the metal barricades in the windows and pouring gasoline from the pile of meat onto the school bus. 

"Hey, dickheads! How come the only ones helping me out are the girls here?!" Steve scolds the boys.

"Wicked weapon," you say to Steve, pointing at his bat. 

"Wanna one, too?" he smiles.

"That doesn't suit my character class" You see the puzzled look on his face, and remember that he doesn't play DnD, so he doesn't understand. "I'm not an attacker… I'm more of a protector."

"So, what do you use?"

You look around the junkyard and find a trash can lid. "As magic isn't an option… help me put some nails on this; it could be a nice shield." 

You get to work and open a wide grin after getting it done. It doesn't look like much, but you are proud of your improvised shield. 

"I'm just humoring you; you won't have to use it." Steve bumps your shoulder. 

"Sure, my hero, Steve Harrington, will save us all."

"We both know your real hero is not me." 

You shrug before explaining to him the thoughts that have been bouncing around your head during the last few days:

"I have realized that Eddie is just a guy, Steve. Don't get me wrong, he is the most special one for me, for sure… but he is not mine. And I don't need to do things to make him love me because if he wanted to, he would. So as much as it hurts to admit… I have to let him go."

A small smile of understanding crosses Steve's face while he gives you a one-armed hug. "Let's go to the bus; it's getting dark soon."  

"I've got eyes! 10 o'clock!!" you hear Lucas warning you.

"There!" Steve points to Dart approaching the junkyard. 

"He's not taking the bait. Why is he not taking the bait?" you bite your nails.

"Maybe he's not hungry?" Dustin replies.

"Maybe he's sick of cow," Steve adds, and you see him back away with a calculated look, heading toward the door. He picks up his spiked bat and holds up his lighter.

"Just get ready," he says, tossing the lighter to you.

"Steve, don't," you try to say, but he has already stepped off the bus, swinging his bat while he walks through the junkyard, whistling to get Dart's attention. Max comes down to where you and Dustin are.

"What's he doing?" she exclaims.

"Expanding the menu," Dustin replies. 

Dart comes into view, opening his petal mouth covered in teeth. An involuntary shiver makes you tense, but Steve continues holding his ground.  

"Steve, watch out! 3 o'clock! 3 o'clock!" Lucas yells, desperate. 

"Shit," you gasp. More creatures are approaching, and they are flanking Steve. "I'll get him back," you tell the kids, picking your shield. Dustin opens the bus door for you. 

"Steve, Abort!" Dustin yells. 

One of the creatures dives on Steve, but he ducks right on time, and it goes inside a car. He hit the other one with his bat at the same time that there's another one jumping on him, but you get in front of it, blocking the attack with your shield, 

You grab Steve's arm and run back to the bus. Inside, Steve holds the door with his feet to stop the creature from entering, and you cover the holes done by the creature's claws. Then, following Max's gaze, you notice a creature in the ceiling. "They need you," you say, switching places with Steve. 

Chaos ensues, with Max screaming when the creature gets into view. Steve protectively puts himself in front of the kids, and when you fear that all may be lost, they flee. You all exchange confused looks, wondering why the creatures left.

Cautiously you and Steve guarantee that the creatures are not around anymore, and decide to take the kids back, walking along the train tracks, until you hear a noise. You approach it with Steve and see you are at Hawkins National Lab gates, finding Nancy and Jonathan also there.

"What are you doing here?" All 4 of you are asking at the same time. 

Quick updates flow in the conversation until the gate finally opens. Jonathan and Nancy hurry to the lab while you convince the kids to wait there with you and Steve. 

"You didn't have to rescue me," Steve says, nudging your shoulder.

"I know… but I couldn't risk losing you."

"Thanks. It's nice to know I'm not alone."

"Alone? What about us?" Dustin says, offended, making you all laugh. 

The laugh is short-lived as soon you hear the cars approaching fast, the Byers car speeding off and Hopper stopping to open his SUV, so you can all enter. Hopper updates you on all that has happened, making you realize that the horror is bigger than you first imagined. 

Back at Byers' house, everything happened so fast. From Dustin explaining his mind flayer analogy, to all the preparations to interrogate Will, to the message in morse code, to the ill-fated phone call that put all of you at risk with the demo-dogs coming, to El saving you and the plan of closing the gate and taking the mind flayer out of Will's body taking shape.

You are at the back door when you see Nancy and Steve talking, Steve insisting that she should go with Jonathan while they share a knowing, emotional look. Steve is letting Nancy go - in more ways than one.

"Pretty brave what you did there," you congratulate Steve as he approaches you. 

"Well, I learned from a wise person… that no matter how special I think Nancy is…I have to let her go."

"We're a pretty messed-up pair, aren't we?" you chuckle.

"Tell me about it … At least we have each other," he said, clearly comforted by the thought.

You helplessly watch the others drive away while you and Steve stay with the kids. Later, you, Lucas, and Max are sweeping the broken glass in the living room while Mike paces back and forth, on edge, worried about El having to face the demo-dogs at the lab while you all stay there, doing nothing. Then, a heated discussion between him and Steve starts. 

"If we get their attention, we can drive them away from the lab and clear a path to the gate," Mike exclaims. 

"Yeah, and then we all die." Steve completes. 

The kids ignore him, continuing to detail the plan of getting to the entrance of the tunnels, finding the hub, and setting it on fire, allowing El to close the gates without worries. 

"Guys!! HEY!!" Steve's hands raised in disbelief. Steve is in "dad" mode, and he's not happy. He points to the kids angrily. "This is NOT happening."

They start to argue all at the same time. You don't want to contradict Steve in front of the kids, so you stay quiet, but you think they have a good plan. 

"I promised I'd keep you shitheads safe, and that's exactly what I plan on doing. We are going to wait here. Does everybody understand?" No one says a thing. "C'mon, I need a yes."

Before anyone gets a chance to give Steve his "yes" there is a growl outside, not from a demo-dog, but from a car engine.

Max races to the living room and open the curtain. She spins back and locks eyes with Lucas, panicked. "It's my brother. He can't know I'm here - he'll kill me, he'll kill us." 

"Oh shit," you gasp. 

Steve's eyes go to each of you, realizing the situation. "I'll handle this." 

Smoking, Billy climbs out of his car. As he looks towards the porch, the corners of his mouth curl into a smile. "Am I dreaming, or is that you, Harrington?" 

"Yeah, it's me, don't cream your pants." Steve counters while Billy strips off his jacket. 

You decide to look for Steve bat. "Stay hidden!" you tell the kids.

When Dustin says, "Shit! Did he see us?" you hurry back to the living room. You take a quick look and see Billy shoving Steve to the ground, kicking him in the gut. 

"We have to get out, NOW!" - But the front door opens, and Billy bursts inside. You stand in front of the kids protectively. 

"Well, well," Billy slams the door behind him, "You are here, honey. What a surprise."

Billy starts to move toward you and the kids, his eyes locking on Max. "You disobeyed me. And you know what happens when you disobey me. I break things."

Billy suddenly grabs you by your arms, slamming you into a kitchen shelf. You feel a sting in your head, pots and plates scatter, and you hear the kids screaming.

"Get off of me," you growl.

But Billy doesn't get off. He leans in. "Since Maxine won't listen to me, maybe you will. Keep them away from her. You hear me?" he hard-pressed your arms.  

You then meet Max's eyes. It isn't just fear swimming in them - it's terror. She has already seen and suffered too much today. 

"I said get off me!" you kick him in the balls, leaving him stunned. 

"You'll regret doing it, honey!" He headbutts you.

Dark spots start to cover your vision, you feel woozy, your eyes flutter, and your consciousness starts to fade, but you still see Steve saying, "No, you will.", grabbing Billy and punching him hard in the face.

A pounding sound and the kids shouting wake you back up. You shake your head, trying to focus, and see that Billy straddled Steve, repeatedly throwing one punch after another. You've seen your father like this before; you know it's a frenzy hard to stop. "He's going to kill him," you think. You put yourself between them, curling your body over Steve to protect his head. Rage is blinding Billy, so he doesn't notice - his punches are now hitting your back while you pray you don't end up with a broken rib.

Just as things get unbearable, it stops. You turn to see a needle in Billy's neck, with Max staring at him. He falls back onto the floor, and Max picks up the spiked bat and stands over her brother with fire in her eyes. 

"From here on out, you leave my friends and me alone. Do you understand?"

The bat goes down, with its nails digging into the wood floor, right between his legs. Max raises it again. 

"Say you understand! Say it!!" 

"I understand," Billy says before dozing off. 

Max exhales, shaken. She tosses the bat aside, kneeling to pick Billy's keychain from his pocket. 

"Let's get out of here," she says. 

"Wait a minute, guys," you try to calm them down. 

"No way, we are heading out!" Mike bursts.

"Let's be smart, ok? We're getting into dangerous shit here; we can't go in blindly."

Thankfully the kids understand your point, and you start to assign tasks - Max will prepare the car so she can drive, while Mike and Lucas will get protective gear and fuel to put fire into the tunnels. You ask Dustin to help you nurse Steve. You can't find the first aid kit, only some band-aids, so you clean Steve the best you can, Dustin putting band-aids in him. He then helps you take Steve to the car.

"He's not coming!" Mike protests, "He'll freak out; we can't bring him."

"He won't, Mike. He'll be cool, I promise." You beg him, "I can't do this without him. We all need him; you know that. Please." 

Max may not be the best driver, but she's getting you to your destination. The cold sensation of the bag of ice you are holding on Steve's head doesn't bother you. His face is a little less swollen but still bruised, with dried blood under his nose. 

He murmurs, "Nancy?" and you see him looking at Mike. 

"Wrong Wheeler, dingus," You laugh.

His hand makes its way to his face, but you stop him. "No, don't touch it." 

Steve realizes that Max is driving and begins to panic.

"Steve, they wanted to leave you behind; I promised you'd be cool, so please, calm down."

Max speeds up, and Steve is now in a full-mode panic. "Oh my god, no, no, stop the car." 

"Max, that's not helping. Slow down," you ask. Soon everyone in the car is arguing.

"Everybody shut up. I'm trying to focus!" Max yells. 

Some sharp turns and a sudden stop later, you arrive. 

"I told you. Zoomer", Max says while turning off the car. You smile proudly at her.

You leave the car and start distributing the supplies from the trunk while everyone puts the plan in motion. You ensure everyone has goggles, a bandana, gloves, and a flashlight. You see Steve, still dazed, holding on to the car door. He tries to talk with you, but you ignore him. You know he will try to talk you out of the plan. 

You call Dustin. "I'm taking the others down there; here is your kit and his. Do your magic."

Steve drops into the tunnels a few moments later, fully geared up. "You look badass." You compliment him.

"We'll have a conversation later, little lady," he whispers before addressing the whole party. "Ok, from now on, I'm leading the way! Come on, let's go!"

He takes the lead, and you high-five Dustin when he gets near you.

The fog is dense in the tunnels, with spores dancing in the air and strange vines everywhere. Finally, you arrive at the hub and spread gasoline around everything. Steve tosses his lighter into the chamber, and the hub goes up in flames. The way back is not easy, with stops to save Mike from the vines and Dustin helping you to sneak past Dart.

You then hear the growling from behind and start seeing the shadows. Demo-dogs are coming. You all race through the tunnels the fast as you can, finally seeing the rope that leads to safety. You and Steve start to help the kids, one at a time, escape the tunnel.

Then your eyes widen - you see the demo-dogs turning the corner across the tunnel, charging right into you and Steve. Time is running out. You see Steve raising his bat, ready to fight back, even though you cannot win. You hold your position and put your shield up, squeezing your eyes shut. 

And Eddie comes to your mind. A thousand happy memories of you together flow through your mind. You hear his voice, feel his arms, and deep in your heart, you feel as if it was obvious the whole time that he loves you back; how could he not? It's probably a trick of your brain now that you face imminent death, but you don't care; you gladly accept it. "Eddie, I love you," you whisper, wishing the words could reach him somehow, but you know it's too late.    

But the demo-dogs are passing right through you and Steve. You open your eyes in awe. They run fast, making you lose your balance and almost fall, but Steve wraps his arms around you protectively. You don't know where they are going, but you couldn't care less now.

"We are alive. We are alive!"

You and Steve climb out, laughing hysterically. The kids share stunned looks, worried that you both went into shock. But you are just happy to have survived that.

"Will you be ok? Do you want me to stay with you?" you offer Steve as everyone leaves.

"I'm ok, I've survived worse… and I know you wanna go home to see him." 

You wonder if you are so easy to read that Steve knew the persistent thought in your mind. After all you've gone through, you have to see Eddie at least once. He would help you ground back to the earth again. 

You thank Steve when he leaves you at the trailer park, and you walk to Eddie's trailer. It's late, but you see his bedroom light on, so you knock on the door and wait. When he opens the door, you can see the surprised look on his face.

"Shit, sweetheart, you look awful. What happened?" 

"Life," you reply with a shaken voice. You have yet to think about a cover story and know you can't explain what happened to him. You hope your appearance won't scare him off. 

"You were gone… I was worried you had given up on me" he gives you a bear hug. 

You close your eyes, inhaling his scent and letting the comfort of his hug penetrate your skin. After all that has happened, the feeling of having him in your arms again is unmatched.

"As much as I missed you, I have to say, sweetheart… you stink," he says, kissing the top of your head, making you giggle.

"Everything ok, baby?" you hear Samantha asking.

Ok, so the universe gave you one minute of absolute bliss before throwing reality back on you again. You let go of him and see when Eddie closes his eyes and murmurs to himself, "Shit." 

You turn to leave, but he follows you, asking you to stop, grabbing your hand. "You came to see me tonight. Why?" he asks. 

You struggle with your feelings, feeling overwhelmed and helpless simultaneously, paralyzing you. You want to tell him how much you already miss him. But that wouldn't be fair. 

"It doesn't matter; it was a mistake." You take your hand out of his, giving him a teary smile, and hurry inside your house before you break down in front of him, repeating your bad behavior of avoiding difficult situations and doing anything to prevent conflicts from arising. 

In your bedroom, you let yourself cry, feeling trapped in this cycle of fear and avoidance. You are desperately jealous of Samantha as she has everything you ever wanted, and you hate yourself for being such a coward, unable to fight for Eddie's love, even if it's a lost cause. What's wrong with you? Shouldn't the hero get her true love at the end of the story? 

But that's ok. You helped to save the day, and the gate is now closed. This means that the horror is over, and Eddie is safe. He will never have to worry about creatures of the upside down. He may not be yours, but he is fine, and that's enough for now. 

So you put on your headphones and press play on your walkman, hearing Eddie's voice singing to you. You pray that, as a reward for your services, after crying yourself to sleep, the heavens will give you a dream where you and Eddie are happy together.

Read next chapter

❤️ Thank you for reading! As usual, feedback, likes, reblogs, and comments... are appreciated and warm my heart! 🥰

@sidthedollface2 @bimbobaggins69 @roxy9295 @aftermidnightwriting @ghosttownwherenoonegoes @basketcaseeeeee @chloe-6123

[zeroducks-2]

(Espero que se me sea entendible)

Que opinión tienes de que Eo haya dicho:

"because it's the only time you'll spend with me."

En vez de:

"because it's the only time I'll spend with you

Te entiendo sì :) Sorry my Spanish isn't good enough for a complete answer but I do understand it well enough.

So the reason why Eo says "It's the only time YOU will spend with me", and not "the only time I will spend with you", is because he does spend a lot of time with Barry even if Barry is normally not aware of it.

Eo follows him around, spies on him, literally stalks him day and night and keeps him under control, he does spend a lot of time with him. It doesn't work the other way around though! Barry doesn't know Eo is there (and even when he suspects it, they don't really interact), so he doesn't in fact spend time with Eobard in return. It's a one way thing in which Eobard watches and looks and observes but never acts, like when he came back from the however many years he was tortured in prison and started just following Barry around, watching him without ever interacting (Eo was being ridiculously shy about it, and the funny thing is that at that point, Barry would have likely been happy to see him and greeted him like an old friend).

Conversely, when Eobard is actively making his life impossible, Barry is forced to react to the things he's put through, therefore he will "spend time with him".

See, Eo has this distorted view of relationships in which spending time with a loved one means that the ONLY WAY he has to be noticed and get the other person to give him attention, is through breaking things. As a child he was ignored by his parents who locked him in a playpen and never even turned towards him, and the only way he had to get them to pay attention to him was to break expensive toys. That would get his father to finally notice his existence and beat him up, which hey, I'm sure it won't traumatize a small child at all!

If you can go past the terrible art, this is what his life has been like for a good chunk of his childhood (then his parents genetically engineered another child and forced him to be his little brother's primary caretaker, while continuing to treat him like garbage).

And sure, now Eobard isn't a child anymore, but the 25th century is a bleak place and beside for the Flash comics he found refuge and comfort in, he didn't have any other guardian figure (or any friend really) who taught him how love even looks like. So, when Barry loses his entire shit in Running Scared, absorbs the Negative Speedforce and beats the everliving hell out of him, from Eobard's perspective he's still giving him attention! It worked, he broke "enough toys" to get Barry to spend time with him! ... In the sense that he was a menace for long enough and threatened Iris enough times, and it's interesting to me how in Running Scared he is so disoriented and so overpowered that he could do 200% more damage, but truly his only goal is getting Barry to spend time with him therefore he keeps said damage to a minimum.

He could have killed Ace, but he just tossed him around a bit. He could have killed Iris, and he barely even touched a hair on her head. He brought her to the 25th century after realizing that she didn't remember barely anything about him (unacceptable! One of the most important people in his life forgot shit about him!!), but beside scaring her, the whole RS arc ends with Iris sporting not even a bruise. The entirety of Running Scared could be summarized with "local time traveler gets brought back to life by his crush, is disoriented as fuck and in his need for attention makes a mess and gets himself killed again (by his other crush)". And in my strictly personal opinion, the reason why his antics look especially childish in Running Scared also comes from the fact that he's indeed extremely disoriented, both by the whole flashpoint paradox situation (he can't forget anything while everyone else has altered memories!), and by the fact that he literally just died and came back to life. Imagine the headache.

[mythica0]

Old returned feelings

🎂: ROTTMNT - more specifically MNMC

🧁: Leon (future leo)

🍫: leo and Donnie

Summary: Leon gets a lee mood for the first time in a long time.

A/N: Leon is future Leonardo and Leo is present Leonardo. Also, damn this is long . But it was also so fun to write.

TW; a single cuss word

Old returned feelings.

Well, this is new..Not really, it had happened to him before, but it had been so long. It felt unfamiliar. A lee mood.

That’s right, the depressed Leon..wanted to be tickled.

It makes a little sense if you think about it, a depressed middle-aged man going through a lot and feeling tremendous guilt….

It’s no surprise that he wants to get out of his head and laugh for a while.

No, the surprise comes when you think about the fact that this isn’t an ordinary lee mood. It’s a lee-onardo mood.

Leo’s lee moods are simultaneously well-known and completely unknown.

Everyone knew that Leo got these “episodes” where he would be more annoying or immature, somehow make even more ridiculous one-liners and also never leave his brothers alone.

This was Leos way of provoking his brothers into satisfying his lee moods, without them ever knowing.

Sometimes , it would work. One of his brothers (usually Donnie) would get fed-up and tickle him until he couldn’t breathe.

But most of the time, they didn’t. And he would spend all his free time thinking about it until it either went away (which could take weeks) or he got what he wanted.

While the obnoxious behavior is the most noticeable, there are other signs of a classic Lee-o mood.

These are very strange to see in a normally somber person. Things like always having a small smile, needing to struggle to stifle a constant urge to laugh, flinching away in anticipation when one of his brothers passed a little to closely.

He hadn’t felt it in a long time. Leon supposed a dangerous war made even the most uncontrollable happy moods disappear, leaving them as a distant memory .

Despite that, Leon knew what was happening to him as soon as he woke up.

His ticklish spots buzzed with phantom sensation, and although his normally sad thoughts were still present, this massive bubbling feeling in his chest overpowered it.

His Lee moods always did trump his other emotions.

The other turtles were still asleep in their little pile, breathing softly and wearing relaxed expressions .

Leon, on the other hand, was wide awake. Visions of scrub brushes taken to the edges of his shell, or fingers working their way under his arms, leaving him holding back snickers underneath his brothers.

The older slider gently climbed out of the pile to go train a bit, maybe take his mind off his tremendous lee mood.

He was still plagued with these giggly visions as he stood up, having to leave the small snickers in his chest to avoid waking his family.

He was still smiling and slightly giggly when he left, not noticing the smaller sliders eyes watching him walk away.

💙💙💙💙(time skip)

As soon as the rest of the turtles woke up, and Leo actually saw the older version of himself doing daily activities, he knew what was up.

He would recognize the signs of his own lee moods anywhere .

All the tells were there.

Small smile? Check

Slight mirthful gleam in the eyes? Check

Looks like he’s penting up laughter? Check

Absolutely amazing one-liners? Double check.

The rest of Leo’s brothers were a little surprised at Leon’s sudden cheery demeanor and oh so very Leo-esk behavior.

But not Leo, he knew exactly what was going on.

—————-

Donnie knew something was up. What exactly? He didn’t know.

All he knew was that Leon wanted something.

He was being extra annoying and telling a bunch of very dumb jokes at breakfast. He kept staring at the turtles with a smile , not of fondness, but excitement. There was a hint of hope in his eyes, as if he was just waiting for something to happen.

All signs that he wanted something, but what?

What is going on?

Donnie decides to ask Leo , he’s the one most likely to know what’s up with future-him.

—————-

Leo was about deciding to help future him out with his little issue, when Donnie knocked on his door.

“Come in” he called, waiting to see what his tech-genius of a brother wanted.

“What’s up, DonTon?”

“I was going to ask you that, but, about future you.” Came the monotone response. Donnie always got straight to the point.

“You noticed too, did ya?”

“Yeah. But what is it?”

“Simple. He’s in a lee mood. Can see it plain as day, checks aaaaallll the boxes.” Leo says, dragging out the all for emphases

“Y’know. I thought he just wanted something. But that actually makes a lot of sense. It would explain why he keeps flinching slightly whenever I walk past.”

“Yup!” Leo says, popping the p, “did you also notice the fact that he’s holding back laughter and smiling like crazy?”

“I did notice the smile, although I can’t say I realized he was holding back any sort of laughter.”

“Yup! I was actually about to go help him out. Would you like to join me?” Leo smirked, offering his hand as if to ask for a dance.

“I would love too.” Donnie returns the tone, not taking the hand but walking towards the med-bay where Leon was staying, whispering under his breath “so you get these too, huh?”

“Oh, sush, you.”

—————-

‘I’m going to go insane if I don’t do something about this soon’ Leon thought, after another round of visions and giggles poured from him.

He just couldn’t. stop. thinking. about it.

He wanted to be tickled already god dammit.

Specifically, his underarms and the shell around them was buzzing like no tomorrow. Light laughter was pulled from him, stored all throughout his body and lungs.

He didn’t know what to do about it. His old methods of provoking weren’t working, because he was older and not the annoying brother the other turtles were used too, acting more like a father figure.

He was stewing in this feeling, almost like a carbonated soda that’s been shaken. All bubbly and tingly and nearly ready to burst.

Then, the door to the MedBay opened. He was expecting Casey coming to greet him or Mikey telling him it’s dinner time.

What he wasn’t expecting was younger him and Donnie.

“Sup old man” Leo called from the entrance, giving a slight wave of his hand, “we came to help you with the little problem you’ve been dealing with today.”

Wordlessly, Leon looks over to Donnie, a silent question.

“He already knows.”

“Indeed. I have become aware of your … conundrum… And have agreed to assist you in the matter.”

A small, anticipatory smile forms on his face, only growing wider when Leo says,

“Hey Donnie, get his arms, will ya?”

“My pleasure. Anywhere specific, Nardo?”

“No need to ask him, I already know. I can see the signs,” he speaks before pointing to the areas the buzzing is strongest, unrelenting now that it was actually happening-

“Here.. and here? Right?” He continues with a cheeky smirk.

Unable to respond, not trusting his voice to not break, Leon just gives the smallest of nods. It’s enough for Leo, who gives Donnie a signal.

Donnie takes it , and pulls out two little metal claws from his battle shell and ‘oh crap that’s gonna tickle like hell’

Not that Leon really minds, of course.

Donnie situates the claws above his underarms, poised and ready , like a scorpions tail.

Leon giggles more in anticipation.

Leo places his hands on the edges of his shell, before whispering (intentionally loud enough for Leon to hear him)

“Three…..” ‘why is he dragging it out?!’ Leon’s whole body is fizzing at this point. And he’s silently begging for his young counterpart to hurry up already

“Two….” The air is filled with anticipation and small giggles “ONE!” Leo shouts, and as soon as he gets the word out, both smaller turtles touch down their weapons.

Immediately a wave of ticklish bliss washes over Leon, happy giggles rolling out one after another.

His laughter is falling on top of itself, because it’s been waiting all day just at the surface of his throat, leaking slowly, waiting for the floodgates to open and come spilling out.

That wonderful feeling of pure, unadulterated glee, transferring from the others fingers and tools, bleeding into his body and straight to his brain.

The tingly sensation he’d been feeling all day is replaced with the euphoria caused by the metal arms under his and the clawing at his shell.

The metal arms start moving down the rest of his side . Moving quickly and in such a tickly fashion, up and down his side, leaving him in stitches.

Leon feels like he is going to burst with happiness at this point, filled to the brim with the amazing feeling of uncontrollable , unfiltered, unstoppable laughter that he hasn’t experienced in so long.

Tears of mirth spring to his eyes as he lays there , laughing out of his mind and lungs. He is having so much fun and he never wants it to stop.

Both of the younger turtles smile, it’s wonderful to see their grumpy , depressed version of Leo smile, and laugh, and be oh so happy.

Leo, knowing he’s revealing one of his own weaknesses, gives Donnie a significant look, before taking a deep breath, and giving Leon the biggest raspberry he can muster on to the center of his plastron.

Leon screams with pure joy, followed by insane laughter and cackling, still filled with happiness. The tears that were collecting in his squeezed shut eyes stream down his face. He’s smiling so wide the others are worried he’ll split his face in two.

This is the greatest feeling ever, Leon concludes. He was giddy, pure laughter and amusement flowing through his veins, replacing the oxygen in his lungs and the blood in his heart.

He wants this feeling to go on for ever and ever.

But, he needs to breathe at some point. He slightly taps the table underneath him and Leo takes the signal, gesturing to Donnie to stop.

He does so, retracting the metal claws and looking down on Leon, his face split by a wide grin and tear tracks down his face, leftover mirth still glittering in his eyes.

Leo comes back with a glass of water, Which Leon gratefully drinks and smiles. He’s so full of smiles.

“Thanks guys, I had a lot of fun. “

“We could tell.” The others say in sync.

Leon glances up in memory. “I’ve missed these old returned feelings.”

—————THE END——————————————

[bangtanstanst]

Once a Killer | 12

prologue • part one • part two • part three • part four • part five • part six • part seven • part eight • part nine • part ten • part eleven • part twelve • part thirteen • part fourteen

When you left your hometown, you left behind everything you knew and you never looked back. Now, years later, you’re living life on your own terms. But when your past comes back to haunt you, you find yourself at a crossroads once more. There’s just one thing you know for sure – you will not run away anymore. No matter how hard it gets.

≽ pairing: taehyung x reader ≽ genre: mafia/cop au, angst, hints of fluff (but more so in the other chapters oops) ≽ warnings: swearing, alcohol consumption, guns, hints/mentions/threats of death ≽ word count: 4k

a/n: hi friends, I hope you're doing well!! I'm still not quite over the fact that seokjin has now officially enlisted oh god iT'S STARTING, but alas – two years to go😞✊ Anyways, I hope you enjoy this new part of oak; things are really ramping up!!

›› tag list: @fjerdae @qualityjoonie @annoyinglyhopefulcarrot @afangirllikeme-blog @jazzytfw @flamingorosette-blog @majestikblue @sugashearteu @imagining-constantly @lvrseok @busansgloss​ @hell-is-here-and-now ‹‹

masterlist

You’re staring down at the glass of water in your hands, the chatter – or rather, shouting – of the bar’s patrons hammering at your ears, overpowering the music that’s playing in the background. A sense of exhaustion has settled in your muscles; you assume it’s the adrenaline of the day finally starting to wear off. You’re yet to muster up the energy to get up and go home, though– you don’t even know if you should go home at all, considering how you left things with Taehyung, but you can’t exactly stay here all night socialising with– with–

“Welcome back.”

You jolt out of your thoughts and look up, lips parting when you see Yoongi has slid onto the bar stool next to you. He’s still in his all-black outfit, his baseball cap now discarded. A strange feeling bubbles in your stomach, and you can’t help but mentally repeat the loud gunshots that had pierced the air mere hours earlier, his latest victim collapsing to the ground right in front of your eyes.

At the same time, the small grin tugging at his lips and the glint of happiness in his eyes bring back memories you never thought you’d ever let yourself relive. Staying up late into the night to finish a movie marathon you severely underestimated, enduring early-morning runs together, eating pizza on the floor of the apartment he helped you move into, trying out Seokjin’s increasingly ridiculous attempts at creating new drinks, making dinner together at his place, your place, his place again…

The warmth in your chest quickly douses when those memories are followed by bloodier, more violent ones. Gun ranges, combat training, days spent preparing for assignments. Sitting on a windy roof for hours on end, waiting for a target to show up before –

“Thanks,” you reply, interrupting your own thoughts and pasting on a bright smile. You suppress the aggressive shivers threatening to run down your spine. “I guess we’ll be working together again soon, after all.”

Yoongi’s grin widens and he nods slowly. “If you kept up on your target practice,” he returns casually, gesturing to Seokjin to ask for a refill.

You tense involuntarily at the implication of his words, though you hide your scowl behind your glass as you take another sip. “I uh… I heard you took another job tonight,” you start slowly, not quite sure why you’d even want to bring it up.

Yoongi softly thanks Seokjin when the man pours more Scotch into his glass. “Jealous, are you?” he asks, his eyebrows raised as he sips from his drink.

You laugh, shaking your head. “Curious is more like it.”

“You’ve got too much cop in you,” he remarks with a teasing smile.

Clearing your throat, you shrug, trying to calm your rapidly increasing heart rate. “Well, I have been working as one for a couple years now.”

“Touché,” Yoongi admits with a smile. He falls silent for a moment, looking at you before turning to stare into his glass. “I can’t tell you much anyway. I don’t really know a name, or a reason,” he elaborates, swirling the amber liquid around before taking a sip. You nod, pretending to understand. The usual, then. “Don’t really need to, though – Jimin said he had it coming,” he finishes, shrugging once more as he puts his glass back down.

“So you still don’t question the things he tells you?”

As soon as you see the look on Yoongi’s face, you know you’ve fucked up. His eyebrows furrow and he tilts his head, ignoring the group of Scouts members cheering in the background for someone to down an entire pint of beer. “I trust his judgement,” he replies slowly. “But I guess we’re different in that sense.”

You hesitate, not wanting to add fuel to the fire you inadvertently started. “I guess there really is too much cop in me,” you joke, which makes him laugh. The tension eases, and you subtly let out a breath.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be back to normal before you know it,” he reassures you even though his words aren’t reassuring at all, and he pats the hand you have resting on the bar.

“As long as I get to go out soon,” you lie through a forced huff. “I’ve been hating the desk work lately.”

He tilts his head, a small smile pulling at his lips. “You should come with me on my next assignment,” he offers. When you blink at him for just a moment, he clears his throat and averts his eyes, shrugs. “I could use the company.”

“I mean, I doubt Jimin would let me do anything of importance this early on,” you return. “So, what– you want me to sit and wait with you on some cold-ass roof just to watch?” you add with a smile, raising a brow. It’s too easy. You’re slipping back into this too easily.

Yoongi takes another sip, his lips curled into a smirk. “I’ll bring snacks,” he offers innocently, setting the glass back down on the bar.

You snort. You notice Seokjin dash past you in the corner of your eye, carrying three giant pints of beer without spilling a single drop. “You’re really desperate for that company, huh?”

“What, I can’t miss you?”

You fall silent and focus your gaze on your water, biting on the inside of your cheek– you would’ve guessed this was coming sometime soon, but you weren’t quite prepared to hear him say it just yet.

He clears his throat. “We’ll talk shop some other time,” he offers, breaking the short silence. “Just drink! Switch that water out for some vodka or something.”

You quickly shake your head in reply, waving his offer away with a small smile. “I’m fine.”

He doesn’t take your word for it, and he narrows his eyes and tilts his head at you instead. “You’re sad,” he concludes after a moment. It’s not a question – he knows he’s right.

Letting out a sigh, you nod slowly, looking at your hands as they wrap around your glass. You don’t feel the need to deny it; he’ll know you’re lying, anyway. “Boy trouble,” you reply with an awkward laugh, glancing up at him.

“Seriously? You and that Taehyung guy?” Yoongi inquires, his eyebrows furrowing. When you nod once more, he hums, seeming surprised. “Didn’t think he’d be capable of causing any sort of trouble.”

You grit your teeth when you realise he must’ve seen more of Taehyung than you assumed to confidently form a conclusion like that. That he was probably among those Jimin sent to follow your every step. “Yeah, well, you’re right about that,” you say through a sigh, trying to shake off the eerie sensation weighing on your shoulders. “It was my fault.”

“How come?”

You look up from your glass, your hands tightening around it. “It’s, uh… complicated.”

He chuckles, throwing back the last of his drink. “Always is,” he says, leaning towards you. He puts a warm hand on your arm and sends you a small smile. “You’ll figure it out. You always do.”

The look in his eyes is empathetic and his words are confident – it’s both reassuring and horribly off-putting. You fake a smile. “I guess so.”

Yoongi’s eyes narrow almost imperceptibly, but he doesn’t pry. “Hey, believe me, you’ll –��

Someone shouts Yoongi’s name and the both of you turn to the source of the voice. You don’t recognise the person that waves him over, but Yoongi waves right back before he turns to you again. “Business,” he tells you, pulling a face that, despite everything, makes you laugh. “I’ll be right back,” he adds, slipping off his barstool. You watch him saunter off, enthusiastically greeting the man that had called him over – an enthusiasm that, you figure, is almost completely faked.

Looking away from Yoongi, you let your gaze glide around the bar, seeing Scouts members chatting to each other, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes they’re most certainly not allowed to even light inside. Jimin is somewhere in the corner, cloaked in the shadows provided by the low lighting of the bar, and you can just make out the subtle frown adorning his forehead. Three people are sitting with him. You vaguely recognise the person he’s talking to and you’re sure he would recognise you, but you’re too tired to walk up to them and put on a show, to pretend to be happy that you’ve returned ‘home’.

Finally, your eyes fall on the door that leads to the back, marked Private. It’s next to the bathrooms, inconspicuous enough that it goes ignored by most.

You glance at Jimin, at Yoongi, back at the door. You’re alone, and no one would bat an eye if you disappeared into the direction of the bathrooms for a few minutes – you could just slip upstairs and see how far you can get.

“Hey,” Seokjin calls from behind the bar, sliding over a glass of beer resting on a napkin. You frown momentarily, though that quickly fades when you notice four numbers scribbled on the flimsy white material, the black ink of his pen bleeding at the edges. 6387. Next to the numbers rests a small, golden key, one that’ll grant you access to Jimin’s office. “Just be careful.”

You can’t help but smile. “You read my mind, Seokjin,” you mutter, and he returns the sentiment with a sharp nod as you swiftly stuff the key and the napkin into your pocket. Sliding off the barstool, you glance at Jimin as you walk up to the back door. He doesn’t notice you, and neither does Yoongi, the both of them too engulfed in business to look up. You fix your eyes straight ahead, taking a breath as you walk towards the bathrooms, pull at the door next to them, and slip inside before anyone can stop you.

You have to force yourself not to rush as you make your way down the dark hallway, up the stairs, straight to Jimin’s office where you know the safe will be, where you know you can find the ledger. Act like you belong. Act like nothing is out of the ordinary– just in case.

As soon as you step into the first-floor hallway, two guys standing at Jimin’s office door pause their conversation and stare at you. Their brows furrow as you approach.

“Do you mind? I gotta get something,” you mutter curtly, raising an eyebrow at them.

“Sorry, no one’s allowed in when the boss isn’t here,” the right one pipes up, straightening his back.

The left one crosses his arms and nods. “Yeah, sorry, sweetheart,” he confirms in a low grumble. “Come back later.”

You scoff, rolling your eyes and pulling the key from your pocket. “Would he really give me the goddamn key to his office if he didn’t want me to enter?” you shoot back coldly. “Now go take a piss or something, I don’t need you two idiots spying on me while I’m in there.”

For once, the ‘no questions asked’ culture Jimin has cultivated seems to work in your favour, and the two men fall silent before reluctantly sculking off, moving down the hallway. You stare after them for a moment, eyebrows raised in a surprised expression they might mistake for disdain, and you quickly turn back to the door as they slip into another room.

You fumble with the key for a moment, your hands frustratingly unsteady, but you manage to unlock the entrance soon enough. With a last glance into the hallway, you quickly step inside, locking the door behind you just in case. The key slips back into your pocket and you pause for a moment to catch your breath, the emptiness of Jimin’s dark office only making you much more nervous.

The lights are off and the blinds are shut– it takes you a moment to remember the light switch. As remnants of the loud chatter downstairs penetrate the floor, you quietly flick on the lights and blink as your eyes adjust to the sudden brightness. The room looks about the same as the last time you were here, with the dark, wooden desk taking centre stage – it’s completely empty except for a lamp and some pens stalled out to the right, as if they’re waiting for him to come back. Your heart beats hard and fast as you take another breath and walk around the desk, your shoes scuffing against the dark purple rug. All the drawers are closed and likely locked – but a small safe sits next to one of the legs of the desk.

After a quick glance at the door, you crouch down in front of the safe and take a deep breath, slowly letting it back out. You clasp the dial of the combination lock, turning it to the first number – you don’t even have to look at the napkin to remember. 6. The metal softly squeaks as the dial turns and turns. Your hand goes clammy when you hear voices downstairs, but they’re too far away to truly alarm you. 3. Your nerves are driving you nearly insane, but you keep steadily turning the dial, not wanting to make a mistake that will delay you. 8. Outside, people are yelling the lyrics to Piano Man, drunkenly mumbling the words they don’t remember. You might have laughed, had it been a normal evening, had you been with– you shake your head. Not now, not now, not now. With a fortifying breath, you turn the dial one last inch. 7.

Click.

You pull your hand off the dial, gripping the handle to open the heavy door. You cringe inwardly as the hinges creak, and you peek over the desk at the office door. Staying silent for a moment, you listen intently to the sounds outside until you’re sure no one has heard you and is headed your way. You crouch back down to the now open safe, your eyes widening when you see the stacks of money and the small collection of guns laid out in front of you. You take a moment to memorise the way they’re arranged, then take out some of the stacks so you can look behind them.

You gasp.

The innocuous leatherbound notebook is at the back of the safe. Even though it’s hidden underneath more money, you recognise it all too well, and your heart skips a beat out of sheer relief.

Glancing at the door once more, you pull out your phone and dial Jungkook’s private number. With your phone clutched between your ear and your shoulder, the dial tone ringing in your ear, you reach inside the safe. Your hand closes around the ledger and you slowly pull it out– you allow yourself a moment to file through the pages upon pages upon pages of numbers, names, locations, inventory… You can’t help the shocked breath that escapes your lips, the way your eyes widen. This is it.

And then you hear voices outside.

You jolt into action as the voices are joined by heavy footsteps moving down the hallway, closer and closer to you. You lock your phone screen and slip the device back into your pocket, fumbling with the safe’s contents to put them back into place as precisely as you can remember. Your gaze lingers on the guns resting on the top shelf– but you decide against taking one, and you close the safe and spin the dial, hastily pulling at the handle to make sure it’s locked tightly. As you jump up, you shove the ledger into the inner pocket of your jacket – the voices grow closer and closer. You frantically look around for a hiding place, or perhaps some secret getaway route that doesn’t involve jumping out of a window.

Nothing.

You rush up to the door and flick the lights off before you place your ear against the wood and close your eyes, concentrating on the voices. They’re muffled and you can’t catch what they’re saying just yet, but you count at least three people. Your body tenses as they near Jimin’s office and your flight instinct starts to kick in, but you force yourself to stand your ground, choosing to listen rather than actually leaping out of the window before you know where these people are headed in the first place. The door is locked, anyway. It’ll buy you a couple of seconds, in case –

The group stops right in front of the office.

You pull back, stepping aside to press yourself up against the wall next to the doorway, holding your breath as if that will do anything. Laughter echoes through the walls and the voices move on, floating further down the corridor. Your eyes flutter closed and you deflate with a single relieved sigh as you hear another door open. When it falls closed behind them, the hallway is left in silence once more.

Your eyes pop open and you listen to the silence for three counts before you step back in front of the door, turning the lock and opening it just slightly, allowing you to peek through the crack. Your eyes dart around the dark hallway for only a split second before you slip outside, your heart pounding too fast, too hard as you lock the door as quickly and quietly as you can.

Darting back down the corridor, you dash down the stairs, only slowing down when your feet hit the floor of the downstairs hallway. The noise from inside the bar grows louder as you approach the exit, almost reassuring you with the allure of safety amongst a crowd.

You step back into the bar, loud chatter and music pulling you back into a suffocating embrace, and you let out a breath when you turn around to close the door. Your eyes flutter closed for a moment and your heart pounds. You’re safe. You made it– through this part of the plan, that is.

“Y/N?” sounds from behind you and you whirl around to face Yoongi. His brows are furrowed. “Why were you in there?”

You open and close your mouth again and again, only jolting out of your daze when the door to the bathroom falls closed next to you. “Bathroom, I was looking for the bathroom,” you reply quickly, sending him a sheepish smile. The ledger weighs heavily in your pocket, and you fight to pretend all is well. “Took the wrong door, got horribly lost, and, well… found my way back.”

Yoongi gives you a weird look in return, then glances at the closed door behind you, your hand still on the doorknob, before turning back to you. “Right,” he says, blinking a few times before he lets out a laugh. “You sure you’re not drunk?”

You chuckle along with him, shaking your head. “Just distracted, I guess.”

“Well, un-distract yourself. Jimin wants us outside,” he says, nodding to the exit at the other side of the bar. Without another word, he turns around and heads towards it, leaving you to rush to catch up to him. Swallowing your nerves, you follow him through the dense crowd. You glance at the bar as you pass it, hoping for a chance to slip the key back to Seokjin and let him know how it went with a single look– but you don’t spot him anywhere. I’ll let him know later.

Taking a fortifying breath, you quickly join Yoongi’s side. “What does he want us to do?” you ask, sending an apologetic smile to someone you accidentally bump into.

Yoongi glances at you, opening the door with a push. “You’ll see.”

The night is still pitch black and you shiver when the cold air hits you – you wrap your jacket around you more tightly and cross your arms. Still shivering, you follow Yoongi across the street to a parked car as black as the night itself, its perfectly polished exterior reflecting the flickering light from the street lamps. Jimin is already sitting in the passenger’s seat, staring straight ahead. His mouth is sealed, just like the driver’s, who calmly lets his gaze glide over his surroundings as he lazily drums his fingers on the outside of the car door.

“After you.”

A glance at Yoongi reveals no more information than you already have and you open the car door without another word, settling into the seat behind the driver, right in Jimin’s line of vision. He stays silent, only making eye contact with you once via the rearview mirror before looking back at the road in front of him. The look in his eyes is off-putting – you think you spot a glint of anger, but it’s been too long since you’ve had to read his face. You’ve never been sure of anything with him, anyway.

The engine is already humming and the car drives off as soon as Yoongi sits down and slams the door closed with a thud. For a few minutes, silence fills your ears and you start to feel increasingly jittery. The car isn’t exactly small, but you still feel claustrophobic in it – a feeling you fight to hide as best as you can. You look at Yoongi, who stares out the window, his eyes fixed on the buildings as they zoom past. The pale yellow light of the street lamps flickers across his face in a rapidly alternating rotation of shadows and light, shadows and light. It’s dizzying to look at.

You avert your gaze, looking out of your own window. “Where are we going?” you ask eventually, glancing at Jimin.

He keeps his eyes fixed ahead of him, something fierce burning in them. “Warehouse.”

You frown. “In the industrial district?” you inquire, glancing out your window once more. Your suspicions are confirmed when you notice you’re moving further away from the city centre, into the older, more decrepit parts of town. “So we’re either moving inventory, or…” you trail off, your eyes flickering to Yoongi, who has turned his gaze from the scenery to you. The look on his face has hardened, and you blink at him.

“Taking care of other business.”

Silence. “And am I gonna know what that business is, or what?” you press, deciding not to stop trying to find out more until you get a clear sign telling you to shut up.

Jimin glances in the rearview mirror, exchanging looks with Yoongi. “Something’s been brought to my attention tonight and I thought I might as well resolve it right away,” he replies, his eyes scanning the streets in front of him as the car rolls to a stop.

Even though it’s dark outside, you can see you’re in an empty parking lot behind an abandoned warehouse. A single working street lamp illuminates the area in a sickly yellow glow. The building’s windows are completely shattered, broken glass littering the damp asphalt, glinting in the headlights of the car. You narrow your eyes, noticing the black char marks on the walls above the windows, the sharp smell of smoke that floats into the car through the air ducts. Though your surroundings are completely and utterly deserted, you’d venture to guess this is the exact warehouse Jimin cleared out earlier tonight to preempt the raid.

The silence inside the car stretches out and grows more ear-deafening by the second. Unable to bear it for much longer, you open your mouth, about to ask what the hell Jimin is talking about– but you swallow those words when Yoongi moves and your eyes shoot to him.

He takes a gun out of a holster underneath his jacket, weighing it in his hand. He’s gritting his teeth and avoiding eye contact, and there’s a slight shakiness in the breath he lets out. Your heart stops when you realise why he must look so bothered. Breathless, you turn to face Jimin, your brows furrowed in a silent question. What the hell is going on?

He looks over his shoulder, right at you. As it has been since you stepped into the car, his expression is hard and unforgiving – there’s no mistaking the fury that’s written in every line of his face. “We’ve got a rat in our midst.”

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a/n: thanks so so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!! I'm very much looking forward to uploading the upcoming parts as well😊 Until then, I hope you have a lovely day/night wherever you are💕💕

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[thewhumpcaretaker]

The Broken Veil: Chapter 7 - How to Shoot

TW: blood transfusion, needles, needle phobia, panic attack, fainting, discussions of dying

Disclaimer: I have no medical knowledge and described IVs and blood transfusions purely from Googling and memories from a patient's perspective. This may be highly inaccurate.

This is the last chapter that will be written. I had the fic planned out to the end and I might make a post about what would have followed. Thanks for coming along for the ride, everyone!

Summary: John Wick has just agreed to kill Gianna D'Antonio, repaying the marker that gave him a life with Helen. However, Helen is trying to contact John from the afterlife, to show him that it is possible to stop the cycle of violence – not by forfeiting his own life, but by creating a fundamental shift in international systems and perhaps even the balance of good and evil in this world. But he doesn’t have to do it alone. She’s coming back.

“Her present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping.” - Nelly Dean, speaking of Catherine Earnshaw, Wuthering Heights

The first thing Helen felt was the IV. There was almost no pain. So little, in fact, that she must have been on even more painkillers than the last time. But that swollen sensation (no matter how subtle) cut through even the painkillers, the feeling of something pouring into her veins, forcing her own blood to part and make way, the irrational fear that her body wouldn’t be able to hold it and would spontaneously burst. That fear had gotten worse with each hospital stay. She was always the brave kid when getting shots as a child, but not anymore. Well, at least she didn’t have to feel it going in this time.

The second thing she felt was John’s hand in hers.

There was someone speaking to him. “The initial loss of consciousness was likely due to anemia. To put it in simple terms, when the body fights this hard, it starts to run out of red blood cells. She’s on a basic drip now, but she needs blood. I can see that she’s had this issue before. So we can do a transfusion – “

“I want to be the donor. We’re compatible. I found out after last time.” She wanted to tell him how ridiculously sweet that was, but her jaw wouldn’t move. Maybe she wouldn’t mind the transfusion as much if the blood was his. Maybe it wouldn’t feel so sickly foreign.

“I saw that in the chart as well. So you donated in advance… and it looks like your sample was approved for use.”

“Good.”

The voice became a little softer. “But I need to be very honest about the situation. Can I talk to you outside?”

She could sense his reluctance even then, before they were bound together beyond the grave. It was in the way he lingered, then kissed her hand before slipping away.

So she was dying. Well, of course, she was already dying and knew that, and before the diagnosis, she knew she was dying eventually, as all human beings do. But somehow, it always snuck up on her. It was different for it to be happening eventually, than for it to be happening NOW.

What a good life she’d had. There were problems, sure. She grew up an orphan like John, yes, but an orphan with adoptive parents who brought her up in the suburbs with three cats and a white picket fence and at least pretended everything was perfect. It instilled in her a craving for the innocent, genuine warmth that their manicured McMansion pretended to hold. When that family fell apart too and she went no-contact, it still never affected her love for humanity or for life as a whole – if anything, it intensified the desire to reach out to others and break through their walls with a kind of overpowering acceptance. She had expressed it by meeting people, by going out into the world as a portrait photographer with a particular taste for damaged misfits and unloved vagabonds in seedy bars that contrasted so deliciously with her clean, good-girl image.

That image was truly more than skin deep. She wanted to be good, and she tried to be good, and she was good, she realized – she was able to lay on her deathbed and believe that she had lived her life in accordance with the kindness she wanted to show to others. Unlike John, she didn’t hate herself, maybe because she was so rarely capable of hating anybody…or maybe because she’d been to a lot of therapy, that could be it too…but either way, the introspection and extrospection she’d done over her 48 years of living had paid off. She fell in love with everything and everybody, even the most supposedly unworthy. And she found the perfect receptacle to match that outpouring, the most vulnerable man whose walls she had ever broken down, and dragged him out of the pit of hell to have pillow fights and share milkshakes on Valentine’s Day and watch the cartoons he’d never seen growing up because he didn’t have a childhood. She lived the dream.

But John deserved that too, and she wasn’t done giving it to him. She wanted him to feel this good about himself, she wanted him to die this fulfilled or never at all. She knew better than to assume that he would be alright. Marcus was conspiring with her to keep a foster puppy for John, and would give it to him after she was gone. That would keep him alive at least. But she wished she could be there for him herself.

And her body, her breakability, this was the thing tearing her away from him. Not his work, as they had always expected. No, just this petty, senseless vessel. Just chance, the callous irony of life, and that was somehow worse. The little knot in the flesh of her arm where she had to be physically tied to existence…that was the proof of it, the symbol of it. That hideous bump of plastic… She tried to squirm her wrist, beginning to panic. He was going to be without her. She was not ready, her affection not burned out, her work not done, and her anxiety spiked, and she slipped away into unconsciousness.

***

Fear is irrational. It doesn’t care that Helen can’t die anymore. It doesn’t care that being shot head-on several dozen times ought to be much scarier than sitting in a vaguely medical environment. It just lives in the body, even the undead body, and screams something incoherent about needles from deep in the amygdala.

They were loaded into a shopping cart under a tarp and wheeled blindly to somewhere that reeked of fishy water on the outside and of burning flesh on the inside, and when they ripped the tarp away, she panicked. It barely even looks like a hospital. It’s technically a morgue (much more cheerful). But there’s a row of hospital beds stretching down the hallway from the open glow of the incinerator, and that’s enough to send Helen over the edge. It’s a mercy when the abyss flickers blankly over that scene, blotting out her vision. But it comes and goes.

She can no longer tell whether she’s clinging to John for his sake or for her own. She hasn’t let go of him since they fell to the ground together and isn’t about to start now. John is in and out of consciousness in her arms as she sits on the edge of his bed, his head lolling against her shoulder where she pulled him on top of her, trying to crush out her shaking with the weight of his body and trying to crush out his shaking with the tightest embrace that won’t wring more blood from his abdomen. They took off his shirt and suitcoat and laid a blanket on top of them but they’re both still freezing despite being drenched in sweat.

“What the fuck do you mean we don’t have his blood type on hand? This is Wick. Get it here now. Do a raid if you have to.” The panhandler has stayed with them the entire time. Helen would guess that he’s in charge of their visit. Several equally scruffy men who act as their nurses seem to answer to him, based on the way they’re scrambling at his orders.

She hears herself speak and it sounds like someone else. “I’m his blood type.”

“Finally some good luck. We can do it directly.”

“Put out your arm.” One of the nurses is advancing towards her.

Shit. A wave of dizziness passes through her and she jerks back before she can stop herself.

“Do you need a lollipop, or do I need to tie you down?”

“Don’t mess with her, idiot. That’s his wife.”

“I’m fine, I can do it…” Her voice is so breathy and unnatural. She absolutely cannot do it.

But John moves listlessly, just enough to make his head nod sideways into the hollow of her neck. She feels him slip into awareness of a clammy, dark, blotched-over existence. He’s trying to groan in pain and wooziness but then he registers that her arms are wrapped securely around his shoulders and he relaxes back into numbness, consoled. He needs her. He’s trusting her to keep him safe. It makes her feral.

She could do anything he’s ever done for her. She could kill if she needed to.

This feels like killing.

Her arm is out. Hands on her, antiseptic. The seconds are so long as she awaits that familiar pinch.

Something strikes her and bounces off.

Again. The tip of the needle snaps.

Of course. Her skin can’t be broken.

“So it’s true…what is it? Is it some kind of high-tech skin sealant?” Someone slides a scalpel against her forearm, to no effect, but she’s mostly in the void and can’t see who.

“Hey! I said don’t mess with her!”

Helen doesn’t respond. She’s a human sized bag full of blood and none of it can get into John. Her body is immaculate, inviolable, impenetrable, forever safe…and useless to him. Her other half lies beside her, utterly broken, unconscious, white as a sheet, hair clumped to his cheeks, soaked in sweat and blood, but he still somehow has a capability that she lacks – and when he needs her most, no less. He has the very basic human ability to suffer and bleed and endure. This powerful, noble, compassionate man is in love with her, and she dragged herself all the way back from oblivion, performed a miracle, gained immortality, and walked at his side again just to be useless to him? To cling to his side while he bleeds out, trusting her to save him? No, absolutely not. That can’t be how this works.

“What if I do it? My own intention…”

“What? You gotta speak up.”

“Get another needle and show me how to shoot it. I’m going to try it myself.”

“Why would that matter? Is it magic or something?”

“Just let me try it.”

“…Okay, let’s try it.”

She can barely see the person who’s talking. It’s so hard to focus on anything he says. “This is the activation button, point it here…”

There are people dragging her out from under John to give her full range of motion. And then the little cylinder is in her hand and fear has her completely, rising up from somewhere deep and universal, somewhere in life when she believed death to be permanent and ruin to be possible. It evaporates all the blood from her head and fills her fingertips with stars. She’s either going to pass out or vomit, there’s no way, there’s no way… Hands are pinning her left arm down against the bed so it doesn’t move when she’s trying to hit it, but that will hardly do much good when her right arm is shaking just as much. Someone flicks at her to raise the vein. Something about relaxing her muscles but that’s completely out the question right now. Just do it. Just do it. She keeps rocking forward and backward.

There are two souls, in the corner of the room and nowhere. She only sees them for a moment. They’ve come up from somewhere far more settled than she’s ever been. A woman, with wild dark hair. A man with John’s piercing eyes.

His birth parents. Their gazes pleading with her.

She steels herself. I intend to save him. This is what needs to happen. Whoever and whatever may be, make way for this. Helen lets herself scream and shoots.

Stabbing pain. It feels wrong. She had no idea how much more wrong it could feel when done improperly. But it worked. It worked! There’s blood climbing up the tube. And blood bruising under her skin around the horribly botched entry point. There’s plastic inside her…

Helen faints.

***

The first thing John feels is Helen’s hand in his.

The second thing he feels is the IV. In two forearms. Her blood is mixing with his, and with it, her every sensation. …She did that for me? That must have terrified her beyond belief.

It isn’t so long since he tasted her life back at the hotel, but he realizes he already missed it. She has such a sunny way of looking at the world. To be inside her head is to feel the weight of his own self-hatred and deep-seated jadedness fall away. To feel an overpowering hunger for life.

Through half-lidded eyes, he sees their arms entwined, both covered in smears of red, all of it his. Both pierced by the tubing that joins them, an external vein bridging the gap between them. She holds him, inside and out. He’s trying to say thank you, but she knows. She knows, and it makes her so damn happy.

She’s so proud of what she just did. I’m so proud of you too. You’re so brave for me. She’s so proud of him, for surviving, for calling out to her to help him walk at the very end. I… he can’t say that just yet, can’t even think it. A twist of guilt that she felt the agony he just endured, that she has to be involved in this life at all. No, he’s not proud of himself. But she overwhelms the guilt in a wash of affection for him that makes her squirm closer against his side. Her phobic headiness is still there but its flavor is innocent, kitten-like, as she basks in the consolation of being with him. She’s floating, she’s in the clouds with her favorite person, she’s petting his hair.

He falls asleep to the beat of her pulse.

***

She’s in a chair at his side the next time he wakes up. The panhandler, who she now knows to be The Bowery King’s right hand man, is sitting by her side with a partially assembled handgun. “…And then you pull back, like this. When you hear the click, let go, and it snaps back in.”

John clears his throat. “Having fun?”

“John!” Helen looks up at him delighted. Then she turns back to her new friend. “Please give me a moment to speak to him alone.”

He frowns. “I’m not going far. It’s my job to keep you lovebirds out of trouble.” But he steps around the corner.

She gathers herself and meets John’s gaze. “I need to be very clear about something: I am never going to do that again.”

He’s surprised, but relieved. “Good. You shouldn’t have to see me at a time like that. In fact, if there’s some way we can shield you from what I’m feeling when I’m – “

“No, that’s not what I meant. I am never going to stand by and do nothing while you get shot in the gut. I want to know how to fight.”

That stops him short.

“And as for separating our souls, even temporarily, I couldn’t possibly have less interest in doing that. The more pain you’re in, the more I want to be there for you. Think about how you’d feel if you were sharing my suffering. Wouldn’t you want to maintain that connection?”

The thought touches him deeply. He’s still savoring how it felt when they were joined by the blood. “…Yes. If I can feel you as well, I want to. No matter what.”

“Well, you will in the hereafter. All in due time.” She kisses his forehead and it sends a wave of butterflies through him. “For now, I look after you. I want you to teach me how to understand a fight enough to stay out of your way when you’re attacking, how to shoot, how to throw a knife, how to fight hand-to-hand...all of it.”

“How to kill.” His expression darkens.

“How to save your life.”

“Yeah, that’s what I tell myself too when I’m doing it.”

“And whenever you’re acting of your own volition, whenever you’re free, it’s always true. Let me set you free, John. Show me what I need to know and we’ll start a revolution. We’ll set the whole world free.”

“…Alright. I’ll show you.”

[manofmanymons]

SELF-INDULGENT SURVIVE x TWEWY AU PART 2

Once again, cw: death mentions

Minoru:

Partner - Takuma

Cause of death - drowning

While hiking with his best friend, he ignored a sign saying to stay away from the cliff's edge in order to get a better picture. He stepped on a loose rock and fell into the turbulent water below.

Entry Fee - His Optimism

While in the UG, Minoru is incapable of keeping his spirits up or looking on the bright side. He considers the game already lost and every mission impossible, even after completing several missions and proving himself wrong. Still, he hangs in there for the sake of his partner.

Takuma:

Partner - Minoru

Cause of Death - same as Minoru's

Against his better judgement, he followed Minoru past the warning sign to try and bring him back. When he saw his friend fall, he lunged to grab his hand. He succeeded...only to lose his balance and be pulled over the edge himself.

Entry Fee - His Decisiveness

UG Takuma struggles to make decisions for himself, always coming up with possible courses of actions but unable to choose one. Of all the players, he's the most reliant on his partner to survive.

Their dynamic:

They're certainly a very bumbling pair at first. With Takuma unable to act and Minoru unwilling to act, they only survived day one thanks to another pair of kind players saving them. It's this near-death experience that causes Minoru to realize that Takuma almost died because of him again. From there on out, he takes the game very seriously, his desire to save Takuma overpowering the constant sense of hopelessness and dread weighing down on him. Over the course of the game, he learns to be confident in himself and his decisions. Takuma often feels sad, seeing as this Minoru is so different from the one he knew. The new confidence is nice, but he can no longer remember the last time he saw Minoru be truly excited over anything. He can tell that his friend carries around a lot of guilt about their deaths, and while he desperately wants to tell him it's not his fault—it was Takuma's own decision to go after him, as he would've rather died with him than lived knowing he didn't at least TRY to save him—but he can never decide on the best way to do it and shuts down. He'll just have to try again once they win the game.

Aoi:

Partner - Shuuji

Cause of Death - Bus Crash

During an extracurricular school trip, the bus she was on swerved to avoid a car that was driving on the wrong side of the road. While there were several survivors of the crash, Aoi wasn't one of them.

Entry Fee - Her Filter

In the UG, Aoi can't stop herself from saying whatever she's thinking and feeling. This terrifies her because she can't stand stirring up trouble, but it somehow brings her and her partner closer together.

Shuuji:

Partner - Aoi

Cause of Death - Bus Crash

As it happened, Shuuji was a chaperone on the same trip Aoi was on. The two of them had been sitting next to each other, and he'd tried to protect her during the crash. He was devastated to find her in the UG with him.

Entry Fee - his appearance

Much more like Shiki in TWEWY, he takes on the appearance of his older brother. At first, he tries to act more like his brother to sort of fill the role he feels he's been given, but eventually realizes that that's a mistake.

Their dynamic:

Things are a bit awkward at first, seeing as they died together but didn't know each other very well, and how Shuuji doesn't look like himself. Aoi's forced honesty causes a bit of friction whenever they disagree, since instead of politely suggesting another idea or even going along with Shuuji's plans despite her doubts, she'll outright say "I think that's stupid." Still, it actually helps when she says it's ridiculous for Shuuji to want to be anyone else when he's perfectly fine how he is, or when she tells him that it's not his fault that she died. + Her plan is often the better one, so it's good that she says it instead of keeping it to herself. In fact, it was her quick thinking that allowed them to save another pair of players on the first day. A lot of Shuuji's mistakes come from trying too hard to do what he thinks his brother would do, but as he spends more time with Aoi, he learns that the best way for him to survive the game is to do things his way rather than the "right" way.

Anyways shoutout to @not-too-many-eyes for literally the entire idea behind Aoi's and Shuuji's entry fees

Part One

The og crossover post

[demonologue]

When your personal failures as a player become almost as entertaining as the game itself...

This is a series now. What the fuck?

Characters: Astarion, Tav, Gale, Lae'zel, Shadowheart

Pairings: pre-Bloodweave

Rating: M

Summary: Camp should be a place to rest and recharge. But after recent events, tempers are running as high as the stakes. An erotic dream, a nightly feeding ritual, and a sudden explosion of drama. Will someone please pay for these people to go to therapy?

or

Astarion has absolutely had it with Tav.

Why Does He Hate Me So Much?

The crackling of the campfire is the most subtle of ambient noises, yet more than enough to cover the sound of his silent footsteps. A ridiculous ritual, the way the four of them huddle around it each night, bedrolls stacked almost end to end in a circle. The only one who doesn’t have their own tent is Tav, child of the wilderness that he is. But that’s hardly an excuse to make everyone else sleep out in the open.

There are stupid games that go along with this ritual. On clear nights, Tav encourages everyone to gaze up at the night sky and name stars, find constellations. When the sky is cloudy or there is no sky at all, he forces everyone to tell stories. All petty emotional drivel. But Tav is so predictable. Ignorant, self-important, bleeding heart of a fool that he is.

Astarion despised him from the moment he first laid eyes on Tav. His homespun sincerity is revolting. His open honesty anathema to everything Astarion is and aspires to be. By rights, Tav should be ridiculously easy to manipulate. And yet, he did not respond as expected to the mirror pantomime. At first, his sympathy was insulting, and then. Well, he just did as Astarion told him to do. “You’re beautiful.” Of course he is beautiful. The unimaginative boor didn’t even attempt a more florid compliment. That’s just plain insulting.

Astarion should have killed Tav when he first clapped eyes on him. In fact, he would have if it hadn’t been for the girls. If it had just been Shadowheart, he could have overpowered her easily and made a quick meal of both of them, but Lae’zel… Astarion had been so relieved to be quit of her shortly after that. Because Lae’zel can neither be fooled nor sweet-talked. Her mind is like her unsightly alien visage: crude and obscenely obtuse. She is far too literal for Astarion’s refined and subtle ways. And she is strong. She would have torn his lovely head from his shoulders in a moment.

Why this formidable warrior chooses to follow an empty-headed, good-natured git like Tav is beyond Astarion. Where does the loyalty come from? What does she see in him? Well, his physique is…adequate. But surely that can’t be all. Actually, it might be. Lae’zel is a shockingly simple person. But why fawn over an imbecile like Tav when there’s a superior specimen like Astarion within arm’s reach?

These thoughts all flit by in a moment. This is all part of his nightly ritual, where Astarion reminds himself just how much he hates Tav before he feeds on him. Granted, he doesn’t need any more motivation than the endless, unslakable hunger that torments him, but Astarion likes to look down at that sleeping face and wish it ill. He enjoys it, really. Too much of Astarion’s day now is spent pretending to be cordial and agreeable. Someone has to pay for that.

It is this thought which finally makes him crouch down, slinking closer to his prey on hands and knees, fangs bared. There will be no challenge to his feeding tonight. One of the many things Tav does not know and will never question is how Astarion is able to feed on him without waking him now. Every child knows you don’t grant a vampire permission–but not this oafish buffoon, apparently. The more Astarion feeds on Tav, the more control he has over the tiefling, the easier it is to lie to him, to enthrall him, to make him do whatever Astarion wants. Even now, he can cut off Tav’s senses, prevent him from hearing, feeling, waking as Astarion’s fangs pierce his flesh and he drinks his fill.

There was a time he worried that Tav’s stupidity might dim his own wits if he fed from the druid too often. That, however, proved not to be the case. Thankfully. Can you imagine being so dull? He’d sooner go back to stalking the forest for his nightly kill. That bear had been quite enjoyable, in fact.

Across the camp, there is movement, and Astarion’s glowing eyes flick toward it, even as he gorges himself on mouthfuls of Tav’s thick, too hot, half-devil blood. But it’s just Gale. Betimes he likes to watch this nightly ritual. Intriguing behavior which Astarion does not mind one bit, because Gale has the good manners not to interrupt.

He watches now, silently, standing in the shadows cast by the flickering campfire, hands at his sides. One day he will do more than watch. Astarion is certain of it, and he relishes the possibilities. Knowing he has an audience, Astarion plays it up a bit, growling softly as if Gale is a rival predator threatening his kill, gouging Tav’s bedroll with clawed fingers before grabbing his barrel of a chest and jerking the large body closer to his in one feral movement.

The intellectual corner of his mind knows it is time to stop drinking. Tav will be dizzy and sluggish in the morning; he has been feeding Astarion every night for the last week. A stupidly altruistic arrangement which Astarion happily takes advantage of. Let the fool kill himself with his own morally superior generosity.

Gale’s eyes reflect the firelight darkly. Is he aroused by this? Well, who wouldn’t be, really? Every mortal secretly shivers with delight at the thought of a vampire’s kiss. And yet, knowing that it’s Gale Dekarios watching him…enjoying the view…it sends a small thrill through Astarion as well.

He’ll never give Tav the satisfaction of proving the idiot’s theory that he is in fact somewhat of a fan of the famous wizard. Like everything else about Astarion, that’s none of Tav’s fucking business. But it is true. When he was alive, Astarion enjoyed following the wizard’s legendary exploits. To think that very same wizard pitches his tent right next to his own each night now…

Unexpectedly, he is jolted from his reverie by a lascivious moan–and it’s not his own. Not Gale either, sadly. It’s bloody Tav. He knew the chaste do-gooder would succumb to his animal magnetism eventually. And it makes sense–it’s insulting, but it does make sense–that it’s Astarion’s feral side that has inspired such a reaction in Tav. He is a thrice-damned beast-fucking druid, after all.

“Let me…touch you,” he mutters, and Astarion is right off his food. He recoils at the request, seriously considering backhanding Tav for even presuming to ask. But not while Gale is watching. Astarion hasn’t worked out yet exactly what Gale thinks of Tav. He might lose points with the wizard for harming the tiefling, and that just won’t do.

As he sits back on his haunches, the sleeping Tav moans again, and Astarion is not displeased to see how Tav’s body has reacted to him tonight. He has no interest in it, of course, but it’s gratifying just the same to see he’s still got it. Truthfully he was beginning to wonder if Tav was some sort of eunuch, the way he showed absolutely no interest in any of them.

Of course, he claims to have paternal feelings for all of them, but that’s not only repulsive, it's complete rubbish. No one feels warm and paternal for strangers they meet on the road, even if they have all just been infected by ilithid parasites. And how dare Tav suggest he could possibly be fatherly in any way to a superior being more than a century older than his big purple self? The mere thought is preposterous. Utterly.

Tav never consulted any of them first to see if they were remotely interested in having such a relationship with him, or wanted an unwashed druid father-type constantly fussing over them. Astarion would personally rather die. Again.

Shadowheart, of course, completely fell for it. She’s a needy mess, though, that one. Hardly a challenge. Her tragic orphan backstory fits too perfectly with Tav’s do-gooder, adopting lost children persona. Of course she has a daddy complex. Astarion wouldn’t touch Shadowheart’s open psychological wounds with a ten foot pole. Those two deserve one other.

But Tav is still talking in his sleep, muttering, “I won’t fail you. I swear it.”

And suddenly Astarion knows exactly who he’s dreaming about. He throws his head back in a high-pitched giggle, quickly muffling his laughter so as not to wake the others. Delicious. The big buffoon is enamored of their dream visitor.

Astarion knows, because their patron did visit them earlier this evening when he was waiting for the others to fall asleep. They’d had an edifying conversation, as usual, which had ended with the astral prisoner charging them not to make his efforts be in vain.

In speaking with the others, Astarion has discovered they always have the same dream, though the visitor appears differently to each of them. A githyanki dragon rider for Lae’zel, a tall, rugged tiefling for Shadowheart (really, that daddy complex is the size of a city ward), and a sweet-faced half elven youth for Tav. He would be that type. No doubt Astarion looks too old for his tastes. Gale of Waterdeep sees the visitor as his estranged goddess and lover, and Astarion…has been careful not to reveal the form the visitor takes with him. It’s hardly any of their business who he sees commanding him in his mind’s eye.

But the real question is…why is Tav still dreaming of his fey-blooded boy now? The visitor has gone. He must have quite the infatuation, for his tiny mind to still be worrying at this little morsel. The demonic glee that fills him to find such a weakness in their self-appointed leader. What fun Astarion will have tormenting him about his stereotypical crush: the noble knight desperately in love with his liege lord. Pathetic.

“Get away from him, or I’ll spill your innards on the ground at your feet.”

He’s shaken from his machinations by the glaring cat’s eyes of their githyanki escort. Her instincts are remarkable, but Astarion turns the gas lights up high, out of habit. “Lae’zel, I’m hurt. You know I’d never do anything to harm our darling Tav.”

She props herself up on one elbow and gestures with a large hunting knife. “He’s still bleeding, shka’keth. If you’re going to lie openly, do it well. I suggest you close the wounds as you usually do. He deserves at least that much for his foolish sacrifice.”

Astarion tilts his shoulders, defensive, posing. “Well, in that at least we are agreed.” Not that Tav deserves even the smallest amount of kindness, but that the tiefling druid is a fool.

“‘s going on?” Shadowheart sits up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

“The is’tark has used Tav again for his supper, and seems to find amusement in letting him continue to bleed into the dirt.”

Shadowheart is suddenly wide awake. “No, Tav!” She begins to crawl toward him, her fingertips glowing with divine light.

“Stop!” Astarion hisses, throwing out a hand to keep her at bay. “Don’t touch him while he’s under my control.” These magics don’t mix well, to say the least.

“Under your control?” Her wide, innocent eyes darken as shadows race across her pale face. “Release him! Immediately!”

“Friends, please. I believe this is all a simple misunderstanding.” Thank the gods for Gale. If not for him, Astarion would have abandoned this motley crew of imbeciles days ago.

“I must relieve myself.” Disinterested in the camp drama, Lae’zel stalks off into the darkness alone to do her business.

“Don’t you take his side,” the cleric tells Gale hotly. “He admitted to having Tav in thrall!”

“That’s quite the accusation to be tossing around,” Gale remarks calmly. “The vampire has to keep Tav still when he feeds so as not to hurt him. He promised our friend there would be no pain, nor interruption to his sleep.” Keen eyes flick to meet Astarion’s crimson ones. “Isn’t that right, Astarion?”

He sits up straight, looking deeply offended that Shadowheart should accuse him of such villainy. “As I said,” he replies. “I would never harm our darling Tav. He’s kind enough to indulge me so that I can be stronger in the morning. The better to support all of you, of course.” A beatific smile and awkward laugh accompanies these words. She’ll believe it; she has so far.

“Then there’s nothing wrong if I do this.” With a defiant look, Shadowheart reaches across Tav and heals the bite marks closed. Her divine magic sparks against Astarion’s blood magic, and Tav wakes, immediately.

“Here.” Lae���zel appears out of nowhere, handing Tav a jug of fruit juice, from the smell of it. It turns Astarion’s stomach. Both the fawning gesture and the smell of fresh fruit.

“Oh.” Tav stares at it, his dim wits even more dull with blood loss and first waking. And then he does the thing Astarion despises to the roots of his soul: he looks straight at him and asks, “What’s wrong?”

Tav is constantly asking all of them a variation on this theme. Are you alright? How are you feeling? What can I do to help? It makes Astarion positively sick. And just now, he’s too annoyed to mask it.

“Oh, am I supposed to confide in you? Just because you’re a kind soul and purport to care about my well-being? Really, darling. Is that genuinely what you were expecting?”

“Astarion.” Gale’s tone is a warning. Don’t ruin a good thing.

Utterly perplexed, Tav looks to the girls. “What did I do?”

“Nothing,” Lae’zel replies, flatly.

“He had you under some dark enchantment!” Shadowheart accuses, determined to be daddy’s favourite.

Tav looks back at him. “Astarion wouldn’t do that,” he says with frightening certainty. “We have an agreement. I trusted him, and I know in my heart he won’t betray that trust.”

Lae’zel nearly spits out the grog she was in the midst of drinking. Shadowheart looks at Tav as if his naivete has finally caused him to lose some of her respect. Feeling more than adequately insulted for one night, and disgusted by the whole charade, Astarion scoffs and stalks off toward his tent.

Behind him, he can hear Gale speaking to Tav. “Maybe it’s better you let me deal with Astarion for a while.”

“Be my guest.” There’s frustration in Tav’s saintly voice now. “I wish I understood why he seems to hate me so much.”

“You shouldn’t have turned him in to the Gur.”

Gale Dekarios is defending him to the stupid oaf. Him. And he’s saying everything Astarion has been holding back for days in an attempt to play nice and keep himself surrounded by vaguely useful meat shields. He imagines his heart threatening to beat again as Astarion slips inside his tent to eavesdrop. This is almost better than sex.

“I didn’t,” Tav says, defensive.

He knows full well what he did was unforgivable. So much for being the noble hero. So much for loyalty and trust, Mr. ‘What’s wrong?’

“I wasn’t going to let him take Astarion. He’s still one of us. I know he was acting on orders when he did that. But Gandrel deserved to know the face of the man who took his children.”

“We don’t know that they’re dead.” Gale is still defending him. Astarion is so pleased and flattered, he’s almost…aroused.

“Oh, please!” Of course Shadowheart would take Tav’s side. “What else would a vampire lord want with little children?”

There is a beat of silence as the conversation takes this inevitable plunge into darkness. All five of them know what Cazador did with those children.

“I do not make it a habit to speak for other men,” Gale says softly. “But I truly believe Astarion feels bad for it.”

He’s dead wrong; Astarion doesn’t give a damn about children. Awful things! But is it hot in here? He searches for an ivory folding fan he purloined from a jeweled chest in the monastery.

On the other side of camp, Tav’s voice surges to a roar, and Astarion freezes in place. “He should feel bad about murdering people’s children!” It is a sudden and shocking transformation not unlike when Tav explodes into an owlbear. Astarion peers out from behind the tent flap to see their kind, generous, and patient leader shaking with rage before he stalks into the forest alone.

Good. It’s only what he deserves.

“Tav!” Astarion watches as Gale catches Shadowheart’s arm before she can go running off into the forest to soothe her favourite tiefling.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but there are dark places within a man’s heart into which he should not be pursued. Let’s leave our Tav to his thoughts for now.”

“But!” She is so eager to go to him. Weak-willed. Pathetic.

“Just…for now.” Gale nods, firm in his pronouncement.

“Come.” Lae’zel takes her hand and draws Shadowheart back to the fire. “Let us shoot dice to pass the time. I do not believe any of us will return to our slumber soon.”

As Gale returns to his tent, Astarion ducks back into hiding. And listens to the wizard’s bespoke boots making their way straight toward him. His footfalls pause outside the vampire spawn’s tent. Astarion only hesitates a moment. “Thank you, Gale. It’s nice to know at least one person in this party appreciates me.”

“You are a formidable opponent, and a valuable ally. Morality is an odd thing; a bit primitive, one might say. Such codes don’t really apply to people like you and me.”

With a sly smile, Astarion steps out to join Gale. “Hear, hear.”

“Copper for your thoughts?”

Astarion is so annoyed, he breathes. He still forgets sometimes that he doesn’t have to do that anymore. “Do you think he hates me? He really should, by now, you know. I actually hope he does. Do your worst, troglodyte!” He poses, defiant, addressing the direction in which Tav disappeared, but not speaking so loud that the girls will hear him. He’s had enough of arguing for one night.

“No, I think he cares about you. Otherwise he wouldn't be so upset.”

“Well, fuck. ”

But Gale’s not finished. “I think he cares about all of us. For some reason…” The wizard sounds just as puzzled by the phenomenon.

“What in the hells am I supposed to do with that?” There’s an unpleasant sensation in the back of Astarion’s throat. He doesn’t like it, and nearly tells Gale to take back what he just said.

“That, my pointy-toothed friend, is entirely up to you.” As usual, Gale is not sorry. Astarion respects that about him. “And now I will say good night.”

“Good night to you, darling.” He waits for Gale to disappear into his own tent before slipping silently into the forest. He needs to kill something now. Just because. Only one of many things the others will never be able to understand about him. And Astarion is fine with that. Really. Ready or not, here I come.

[lloydfrontera]

have you seen webtoon chapter 71? 😳😳

I HAVE AND BOI DO I HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT IT

i already talked a bit about it in another ask but there's so much going in the chapter. like lloyd being so wary of getting in debt again, he's dreading it and it makes sense! he's traumatized, the worst events of his life started by getting in debt, his entire life was ruined by not being able to pay off what he owed and then he gets isekai'd and there's a ticking clock to save his life and that of everyone around him and fixing all of it starts by paying off a huge debt, of course the man is scared as fuck of starting all over again! idk i just like when characters have lingering trauma about things that happened before, it's always nice to see continuity in that

also he looks terrible, it's like he hasn't been eating or sleeping, he's wrecking his brain to find a solution that doesn't involve putting himself and his estate in danger but it's either putting himself in a vulnerable position by getting in debt again or risking a whole ass plague.

and then people?? decide to help out of their own wish?? because he was kind first so they can be kind in return?? he needed that so bad i've already spoke a little about that before but god did he need that. he's been doing so much all by himself for so long, he needed to see that he didn't have to do it all alone, that now he has people he can rely on, that if he only asks they're willing to help. and of course he doesn't believe it at first, he's wary as hell of it, he doesn't actually allow them to help him for nothing, but just the mere fact that they were willing to? that's already huge for him

AND ALSO confirmation that the frontera estate is strong as hell, way more powerful than a normal territory is and its scary when viewed from an outsider's pov!! lloyd's construction crew is so OP but they already got so used to it they don't see it as strange. and last time i talked about it i completely forgot about the summons (sorry my loves) but yeah! i forgot that people also believe lloyd can summon magical beings that can carve the earth and dig up mountains and swallow lakes, he's terrifying to everyone that doesn't know how completely uninterested he is in grabbing political power lmao

i did love that lloyd being so ridiculous makes alicia look even better in the eyes of other countries. like she has this ridiculous powerful man and his overpowered estate working in construction work so how strong must her army be??? except that no, they decided to use a shovel instead of a sword on their own, she had little choice in the matter asksjaldd

also i'm invested in the orc/maid/worker arc, i wanna see what they're going to do so bad akdksks

[hello-galad]

10 Characters From 10 Fandoms

How to play: Name 10 Characters from 10 fandoms and tag people

I was tagged by the amazing @br-disaster​ , thank you!!! ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

In no particular order. Most of them I have been obsessed with ever since I was a kid. 

Nie Huaisang (CQL/MDZS) - The only reason it took me so long to do this was because I couldn’t decide between NMJ and NHS. Alas, I relate to NHS the most, he’s also an incredibly intricate character that lives in my head rent free. 

Hatake Kakashi (Naruto) - Contrary to most people, I actually watched this show/read the manga until 2020 and I've been obsessed with this tragic overpowered ninja ever since. I think he is the character I have written/drawn the most about. I relate way too much to him, which is...strange. I am in love with his story and character development through the show. 

Louis de Pointe du Lac (Interview With the Vampire) - I must confess I haven't yet read the book, but I watched the AMC show and I FELL IN LOVE. I have Ana to thank for introducing me to this amazing, complicated mess of a man. 

Thranduil (The hobbit) - When I watched all LOTR movies, I was a kid and my aunt was babysitting and obviously I started obsessing over him and the elves when I read every Tolkien book I could get my hands on. I haven't written much about him but I do have a whole AU-Canon divergence for Oropher, Thranduil and Legolas half written on AO3. My version of Thranduil, Oropher’s line and the Greenwood elves is VERY different from the hobbit movies, though.  

Ned the Pie Maker (Pushing daisies) - Tall, sensible, caring, harmless man who loves to bake and is also an accidental necromancer? YES, PLEASE.  

Yue (Sakura Card-captor) - Imagine you are this super powerful supernatural being whose world gets turned upside down when the person you considered your everything dies. Imagine you get sealed inside the back cover of a book for 100 years and then inside the body of a teenager without being asked for consent and without being able to get out to live a normal life. You are also left without much of your power for a long time, and then you are given a ridiculously short amount of time to get used to everything that is going on around you while your twin and your other brothers and sisters get months to understand and process what happened. AND THEN it turns out that the dude that you loved so much didn’t died, instead reincarnated into some annoying bitch (who is now a different person than he was in his past life so meh) because he had some cosmic realization when he turned like 800 years old because being the most powerful magician in the world makes your common sense disappear, apparently...and then this annoying brat creates a cheap copy of you and your sibling, yikes. Imagine you really want to slap everyone but you dont want to set a bad example to the nice, cute girl who you depend on now, BUT DAMMIT IF YOU COULD YOU WOULD. Yeah. He's That Bitch™ and he deserves it. I support you, Yue. 

Azula (Avatar: The Last Airbender) - She is definitively the character I relate to the most, like she was 14 and learned very soon what happens if you get on your father’s bad side. She's a prodigy and what she needed in the end was some psychological help and then the throne, bye. 

Captain James T. Kirk (Star Trek) -  I want to be a Starfleet captain so bad, ISTG. He’s so much, a drama queen, the voice of reason, a disaster waiting to happen, a feminist, queer, The Captain, a nuisance, the smartest person in the room, mister daddy issues, mister “bones get that hypospray off my face”, mister I am in love with this Vulcan, mister I am in love with this doctor, “Dammit Jim!”. Yeah, him.

Crowley (Good Omens) - I read the book when I was in high school, it was the first book I read in one sitting without getting distracted. I loved those two. I love Crowley and the fact that he is always trying to cause havoc through elaborate schemes that inconvenience the human race. Ahaha, he’s the best. (Yes, I loved the TV show).

Dorian (Almost Human) - HE JUST WANTS TO BE SEEN AS SOMETHING MORE THAN JUST A MACHINE. He’s sometimes more human than all the humans he works with. I love Dorian and Kennex, you bet I have read every single fic centered on him or both of them on AO3. I’m forever sad they cancelled that show. 

I tag @pangzi and @dual-domination (only if you want to do it of course. Feel free to ignore this tag if you dont!)