#the line where one of us ends and the other begins is mentally Very blurry .

[2-wuv]

btw fun fact if we had a nickel for every time we had a duo of sysmates heavily associated with black and white who'd often confuse themselves with each other because of similar aesthetics who also almost always fronted together and such then we'd had At Least three nickels but i would not be surprised if it's happened more than that!

[winter-soldier-vibes]

Burnout (Bucky x reader)

“Burnout”

Bucky x reader

Warnings: burnout, overworked, mental breakdown/panic attack

Word count: 3377

A/N: Take care of yourself, burnout is real and you CAN get sick. Trust me. I’m always here if you wanna talk to someone about anything or want another friend. Stay strong <3

Includes: Lyrics from the song “Weight of the World” by Citizen Soldier

Tags: @buckys2thicc @thatfangirl42 @thundering-barnes @abitgryffindorky @ladyfallonavenger

---------

These nights were becoming more common. And that wasn’t a good thing.

You sat at your desk surrounded by papers, empty cans of energy drinks, and a bright laptop screen. You held your head in your hands and you tried to keep your eyes awake, turning the screen brightness higher. 

1:46 AM

You sighed and rubbed your eyes, trying to rub the sleep out of them. You took your hands away and looked back at the screen briefly before covering your face again. 

You lived with the Avengers and were a huge asset to the team. Not only were you enhanced with powers, but you were incredibly intelligent. That being the case, you worked with Tony and Bruce in the lab either developing new ideas or fixing suits after missions. As well as being on the mission yourself. Therefore you trained early every morning with Steve and Bucky. You also did most of the mission reports, switching off with Steve once and a while.

Most nights you could be found either working through paperwork, down in the lab working into the morning with Tony, or researching for new projects in said lab. You never meant to stay up as late as you did, but no matter how hard you worked, more work kept appearing. Every 10 PM soon turned into 2 AM, and you could never quite catch a break. You had turned to caffeine not long ago, quickly using it as a crutch to supplement sleep. 

You had just gotten back from a long mission with the team, and were incredibly sore. Steve hadn’t gone on this mission, leaving you to finish the report. Add to that, Tony wanted to make a better suit for Peter, and Sam’s wings were busted. Tony was working on Peter’s suit, wanting to make it perfect, leaving you with fixing the wings for Sam. 

You decided to work on Sam’s Falcon suit first, seeing that you lived on Planet Earth and he could be scheduled for another mission at any time. What seemed to be superficial damage turned out to be extensive, and required much more repairing that you had anticipated. What you had planned to be a 2 hour process had turned into just over a day of work in the lab. 

Not wanting to lose your place and needing a distraction from the soreness, you had worked for hours straight, only breaking to relieve yourself every so often. You were exhausted and ready to fall asleep when you laid back in your bed. Only to check your notifications and see an email from Fury requesting the mission report immediately.

Sent hours ago.

Which led you to where you were now. You hadn’t slept in almost 48 hours, sore from the mission, with a tedious mission report to fill out. Taking a deep breath, you removed your hands from your face.

 2:07 AM.

You groaned, but brought your hands back to the keyboard and began typing. The words were blurring together and you shook your head a few times trying to stay awake. Somehow, you finished the report and sent it off and looked at the time again.

3:13 AM

You rubbed your temples before climbing back into your bed, sighing out as your eyes filled with tears. It wasn’t uncommon for you to go to bed this late/early. Lately Tony had been coming up with more ideas and would ask you to help. Since Tony works through most of the night, you had learned to do the same. You don’t remember the last time you had more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep. 

You were off the hook for training for a few days, due to having just gotten back from a mission. And while you had been hesitant at first, you were grateful now that you had a bit more time to sleep. Despite the caffeine you had consumed to stay awake, you were absolutely exhausted. Tears threatened to fall from your eyes but you tried to breathe through it. You just wanted a break but couldn’t seem to catch one. 

You curled into yourself as your stomach began to growl. ‘When was the last time I ate?’ you thought. Not that it mattered, there was nothing that could bring you out of your bed at that moment. You drifted off to sleep.

-----

You woke up to your phone chiming and groaned, picking it up to see what was so important. Your eyes find the top message, informing you that the mission report you had submitted was incomplete. You jolted out of bed and over to your desk to begin working on the report again, biting back tears of embarrassment at such a ridiculous error on your part. How could you have been so tired that you missed an entire section of a report?

You cracked open another energy drink that you kept in your room and began guzzling it. You were still in the same clothes as the day before and you hadn’t taken your hair down from it’s bun in days. Your stomach grumbled but you answered it with more of the energy drink. You would deal with hunger later. This was much more important. 

Your head was pounding and you could barely sit up straight. You had barely gotten a few hours of sleep and somehow felt more tired than you had before it. Your sight became more blurry as it became harder to suppress the tears. You were angry at yourself, why couldn’t you just get this one fucking thing done?

You worked through the section quickly, or at least, you tried to. You kept having to reread sections, not comprehending what the words were saying anymore. You rubbed your eyes aggressively and shook your head, trying to concentrate. You reached to grab the energy drink again, but instead accidentally spilled it all over yourself. Letting out a “Fuck!” as you stood up, something inside you snapped. 

You threw the can across the room, not caring how much was left inside of it. You flipped your chair and crumbled the miscellaneous papers on your desk. You let out a scream of frustration, and threw a picture frame across the room. After which, you bent over and placed your hands on your knees, small sobs beginning to wrack your body. You were just so tired, you had work to do, but you couldn’t do it no matter how simple it was. 

You walked around the mess and into your bathroom, closing the door. You turned on the shower and got in, not even bothering to take off your clothes or wait for it to warm up. You didn’t care. You couldn’t. You sank to the floor, tears streaming down your face as the shower began to warm. You couldn’t bring yourself together, every time you tried to calm down a new wave of frustration and exhaustion would hit you and you would start crying all over again. You held your hand to your chest, trying to catch your breath a little, not having much success. You were gasping for air, it felt like you were breathing fire. Unable to fight it anymore, you started choking out lyrics to one of your go-to sad songs.

Feel the weight of the world over me tonight.

If I break, if I break down this time

You took a shaky breath and choked out the next line

Hope you know I tried…

Meanwhile, Bucky had been thinking about you. The two of you were very close, you had been ever since Steve had introduced you to him. He was in awe of how you could both rival Tony in the lab and himself in the training room. That and how much you did for others. You had helped him a lot when Bucky had first come to the compound. And he was very grateful.

He knew you had gotten back from a mission a few days ago, and were probably exhausted. From what he had heard it had been a brutal mission. However, in the past, you had usually gotten back into the routine of daily life pretty quickly. He hasn’t so much as seen you since you got back. 

He couldn’t help but worry.

He decided to go to your room to check on you, seeing as it was later in the morning and you had had a chance to sleep. Little did he know, you hadn’t. When he got to your door he knocked and waited for a response. He was met with nothing. However, with his enhanced hearing, he heard muffled singing from inside. He couldn’t hear the words, but you sounded in pain. 

My mind’s such a mess, I can’t handle it, I’m at the end of my rope.

Worried, he let himself in and took in the state of the room. It was completely trashed, shattered glass, overturned furniture, crumbled papers. He heard the shower running and could hear your cries through the lyrics

My neck is breaking body shaking

Sometimes it’s so hard to breathe

But no one sees it follows me i always end up underneath

The weight of the world…

You began coughing, still gasping for air and holding your chest. Bucky came over to the bathroom door and opened it, concerned you were in pain. You were sitting on the floor, drenched and shaking. Steam filled the room, fogging up the mirrors. He came over to you, trying to get your attention but you couldn’t hear him. Worried, he stepped into the shower as well, swearing as it burned his skin. He crouched down in front of you and took your face in his hands, trying to guide your face to his.

“Y/n, y/n can you hear me? Can you look at me?” he said. 

Coming back to your senses slightly, you tried to figure out who was in front of you. You grabbed one of his forearms and focused your eyes, still struggling to breathe. You found Bucky’s blue eyes looking back at you.

Bucky, knowing you were now aware of his presence, reached to turn off the water while still maintaining eye contact. You were coughing, choking on each breath, still shaking and crying. Bucky had never seen you like this. You tried looking around again, forgetting briefly where you were and what had happened, breath picking up again in confusion.  “Hey, hey, y/n? I need you to keep your eyes on me okay?”

“It...hurts..” you gasped out, feeling like fire filled your lungs. Your arms had gone numb and in the absence of the warm water your wet body was now shivering from both the cold and anxiety. 

Bucky quickly looked you up and down. “What hurts, y/n?” he said calmly but firmly even though he was freaking out internally.

Fresh tears spilled out of your eyes. You tried to talk but couldn’t speak through your panic. You rubbed your chest, willing your heart to slow down but it wouldn’t. 

Bucky, still keeping his eyes locked on yours, said “Listen, y/n, I need you to try and breathe with me slowly, okay? Like this,” he breathed in deeply and let it out slowly. You tried to copy him and after a few breaths lost your pace. You shook your head. “I can’t…. I...I…”

. “It’s okay, you’re okay, you’re safe y/n. Try again, I’m right here okay? Look at me.” he said, still breathing deeply. Eventually, you were able to find a rhythm and catch your breath, becoming aware of the situation and everything that had happened. Now able to breathe, you felt new tears of shame rush to your eyes. There were a few moments of silence

“What happened?” Bucky asked, concern etched on his face. 

You let out a small sob and covered your face, and Bucky’s heart shattered. He had never seen anyone this upset, nevermind you. You had always been so strong, energetic, joyful. And here you were, soaking wet and shaking on the shower floor. What the hell had happened to you? 

He stood up and got out of the shower, also soaked, but he didn’t care about that right now. He leaned down and put one arm behind your back and the other looped under your knees and he picked you up. He placed you down on the vanity and stood in front of you. He carefully took your wrists and pulled them away from your face, you looking at him through bloodshot eyes. 

“You - you’re soaked,” you said, both out of shock and in an attempt to deflect the attention from you.

“Wh- I mean, yeah, so are you,” Bucky said. “Y/n, can you tell me what happened?”

You looked down at your hands and swallowed thickly, embarrassed. “I, uh…” you cleared your throat. What had happened? You closed your eyes and rubbed your head. 

The shower

The song

Your room

The report

The energy drink

Oh fuck

You sighed out “Shit, I just…” again, shame began to overtake you. “It’s stupid, forget about it,” you said, trying to stand up. 

Bucky stopped you, confused. “Y/n, whatever just happened, that…  That’s not caused by something stupid. I’ve never seen you so upset before. Hell I’ve never seen anyone so upset before. But I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“Really, Buck, I’m fine,” you said.

“Then why are you trying not to cry?”

You sighed. There was no other way out of this. You looked at him and said, “I was just done.” You looked back down at your hands, and continued trying to keep the waiver out of your voice. “I just, um...After the mission I had to fix Sam’s wings, and it took me longer than I expected. And then I still had the mission report which took me all of last night and then I found out that I had missed an entire section. And I got mad that I couldn’t focus or stay awake and I just kind of...broke.”

As you looked back at him, face not as red, he could see how tired you seemed. “Are you sleeping?”

“I mean, a little bit it’s not like I’ve been awake this whole time but -”

“Y/n.”

You looked at him. “A couple of hours a night at most,” you said quietly. 

Bucky nodded sadly. “Anything else?”

You opened and closed your mouth a few times. “I mean it’s not a big deal -”

“What I just saw was a big deal,” Bucky said gently.

“I haven’t really made time to eat either,” you tried to laugh it off a little. “Just kind of chugged energy drinks. But then I spilled it all over myself, so...bad idea I guess.”

Bucky wasn’t laughing. But he wasn’t angry either. He was, but not at you, never at you.

“I’m sorry,” you said. 

“Why didn’t you say anything? The days off after missions are there for rest.”

You shrugged. “I had important shit to do.” 

“Well you’re pretty important shit too,” he said a little more firmly, but still not angrily. He sighed. “But really, if you’re not okay then nothing gets done. You’re going to get sick if you keep doing this to yourself. When was the last time you had more than a few hours of sleep?”

“I don’t know,” you answered honestly. 

He sighed once again. “I’m sorry,” you said, fearful that he was angry with you.

“No, it’s not your fault I just…” he looked away for a second before looking back at you. “I don’t like seeing you like this. I don’t want you pushing yourself so hard and getting hurt.”

You sighed sadly and rubbed your eyes. “Every day I tell myself it’s the last day I’ll stay up so late. I always tell myself I’ll eat after my project is done. But no matter how hard I work there’s just more and more work that needs to get done. And I can’t keep up. I feel like I’m drowning. But no matter how much I hate it I...I always come last,” you said. 

“You shouldn’t have to,” Bucky said.

After a few moments of silence, Bucky pulled you in for a hug, you still sitting on the counter. You closed your eyes against his chest and sighed out, feeling good finally getting all of that off of your chest. 

“You’re taking the next few days off.” he said. 

You pulled back and looked at him. “But the report -”

“Is mostly done and Steve can get the rest of the information from Sam.” Bucky finished for you.

“But -”

“Nope. There is not a single thing you could say right now that is going to prevent me from making sure you take care of yourself for a few days.” he said, and you knew he was right. Nodding, he pulled you back in for a hug. 

“We should get out of these clothes.” you said softly, shivering a little. 

Bucky laughed a little. “Yeah, we really should.” 

You moved to stand up from the counter, still a little weak as you leaned on Bucky a little. You walked slowly out to your room and were met with the mess you created earlier. “Shit,” you said, taking in the broken glass and furniture.

Bucky turned you around and said “Do you want to come to my room? We can deal with this some other time.”

You simply nodded, stepping around the broken shards of glass and to the hallway. Bucky’s room wasn’t far from yours, and luckily no one was in the hallways to comment on how both of you were in wet clothes. Once in his room, he closed the door after you and went to his dresser. He pulled out a pair of sweats and one of his T-shirts and handed them to you. “They might be a little big but -”

“Thank you,” you said, taking the clothes and heading to his bathroom. You closed the door and peeled your current outfit off of you. You found a spare towel and dried off the rest of you, and pulled on Bucky’s clothes. They were huge on you, but you didn’t mind. You took your hair down and redid your bun before splashing some cold water on your face. Deeming you looked more presentable, you came back out and saw that Bucky had also changed. Smiling warmly, he pointed to the bed. 

“So you are going to lie down, and I am going to go make you some food. I’ll be right back.”

You started shaking your head. “No, it’s okay, you don’t have -”

He raised his eyebrows, still pointing to the bed. Swallowing a laugh, you nodded and sat down on the bed. Bucky then left the room and returned a few minutes later with a sandwich. After you had eaten it, you laid back in the bed, melting into the softness of the mattress. You faced away from Bucky, who was sitting next to you on his phone. He was (slowly)  texting Steve to finish your report, which took very little convincing. 

After a few minutes, you asked “Can you lay down with me?”

Bucky smiled a little to himself. “Sure, doll,” he said, and he moved to lie down next to you. Unsure of what exactly you wanted, he gave you space. Not soon after, you turned over and scooted closer to his side. After a moment of shock from Bucky, you asked “Is this okay?” Readjusting a little, he wrapped his arm around you and pulled you closer. “Yeah, is this okay?” he asked in return.  You merely hummed in approval, already feeling safer in his warm embrace. He let out a small laugh. “Try to get some rest, y/n. I’ll be here whenever you wake up.”

It was the most peaceful sleep you had ever had.

[deluluass]

hi

could yoy do please some yandere kuroo and kageyama headcanons? 💕

nsfw is welcomed 😊

My first headcanons 🤞🏽

Yandere! Kuroo Tetsuro

Content warnings: markers of a toxic/emotionally abusive relationship; dumbification; daddy kink; sex toy(s); mild public play/exhibitionism

😇SFW😇

This boy has a fascination for messy people.

And by "messy", I mean that Kuroo has a soft spot for those who put up some sort of front. A performative mask to hide their crumbling psyche.

Oh.

Those are his favorites. (Especially when they're not even aware that they’re hiding something.)

Maybe it's because they're so easy to manipulate? (Or perhaps it's a mild case of schadenfreude?)

It's the instigator in him.

He knows which buttons to push and at what time to exactly do it.

Kuroo lives for being that guy who causes a full blown fight by simply dropping a backhanded comment or two.

For being the final straw that eventually breaks the proverbial camel's back.

And then slipping back into the shadows to watch the Drama unfold.

So it's not unlikely for him to form an obsession for someone who's so emotionally vulnerable.

Someone who has the weight of the world on their shoulders; who has everything locked up inside to the point of bursting.

Because then it won't take much to have them falling apart and unraveling before him.

But he's also a caretaker, you know.

He's opportunistic and covertly callous and mischievous, yes.

But you've seen how much he tends to those close to him.

So when you do fall apart, you will do it in his arms.

He will take care of you.

He'll say everything you've always wanted to hear.

You're beautiful and wanted and loved and you don't have to be brave anymore.

Kuroo's here and he understands you.

From the barest changes in your inflection to your most subtle facial expression.

Other people won't catch it.

To Kuroo, though? Tell-tale signs that you're hiding your feelings again.

He understands you in a way that no else had; that no else cared to try.

And eventually that’ll be the very thing that you’ll hold onto.

Never mind that his every word has become an indisputable fact (when it shouldn’t be).

Never mind that the line between Kuroo just being a mindful boyfriend AND Kuroo disregarding your boundaries has become too blurry that it’s impossible to tell which is which.

Never mind that your entire world has narrowed down to just him and you.

Because all your friends have, one by one, made their way for the exit.

They tell you that they're so tired.

They've warned you- begged you, actually- to end this insidiously suffocating relationship.

"I know he's only been nice to you and to us, but there's just...something wrong about that guy," they say.

But until they pinpoint, exactly, what that "something wrong" is; and until you see it for yourself, you're sticking by his side.

Damn whatever people say.

So.

Kuroo's not the yandere who'd chain you up in his basement or something.

Not that he's above it, but because he doesn't really need to.

Not when he has you bound right where it really matters.

😈NSFW😈

Kuroo has perfected being a dom down to a Science.

He knows exactly when to be mean and hurtful and sweet and kind and giving to you.

Kuroo's very generous, methinks! But only if he believes you deserved it.

So you better prove that you earned it!!

He'll having you cumming and gushing into his hand if you pleaded just enough!!

Looked into his eyes all pouty and teary and pliant to all his wishes.

Very into treating you and talking to you like you're not capable of comprehending words.

Oh, darling. I know I'm hurting you. I know I am. But you like it, don't you? That's right. Fuck yeah, you do, you fucking slut.

That's because you're just a dumb little baby, aren't you? You'd be happy as long as daddy makes you cum?

And you'd nod and say yes so obediently as he pounds your little hole even though you can't hear him over the sound of your own moans.

ALSO!!!

HE IS A TEASE!!!!

A FUCKINGN!!!!!!!!! TEASE!!!!

Every seggsy time is edging time!!

Has a thing for slapping your ass until your cheeks are bruised and tender under his palms.

And for sticking a vibrator inside you while you're out in public.

Just to teach you a lesson whenever he feels like you're not learning enough.

"Do you want me to come back until you're ready?" the waiter droned, obviously suppressing the urge to roll his eyes when all you did was grip the napkin in front of you.

You couldn't even look at poor kid; couldn't even make out a sound. You're too busy stifling the tingling within your walls, prompting you to cross your legs beneath the table and squeeze your thighs together.

And Kuroo's just...scanning the menu. Sitting idly before you. He's resting his chin against his open palm, long fingers brushing under his nose, while you're practically grinding down the chair.

You feel yourself leak into the crotch of your underwear, sticky liquid squelching against the crack of your ass as the toy continued to vibrate, burning you up and melting your insides, the buzzing a white noise only you could hear.

His indifference was unflappable. Kuroo even managed to call out, "Excuse me. Sorry about that earlier. We're ready now," so smoothly despite your desperate attempts to catch his attention. Then, he recited a bunch of dishes that you didn’t have the appetite for. Like you’re not outright writhing and earning a few disconcerted looks from the table next to you.

All you wanted was for him to put an end to this. You've learned your lesson. You're not gonna disappoint him again.

Instead, you watched in agonizing fear as he reached for his pocket. And immediately, without a warning, you felt the toy shake violently inside you.

"Ah!" you cried, sharply folding your arms and legs, making the plates and utensils clink against each other as your wrists chafed against your hard nipples.

Your boyfriend halted, leaned closer, and looked at you in a convincing display of concern.

"Are you alright, babe?" he muttered, caressing your knee, his nails pressing down just a tad. Not too hard. Just enough for you to hiss in a heady mixture of pleasure and pain.

You managed a small, quivering "uh-huh" as you begged him with your eyes. Conveying as much message as you could.

"Daddy, I'll be good for you. I swear. I won't lie anymore. I won't make you angry. I won't do anything that you wouldn't be happy about. Everything I do from this moment on will be just for you, daddy. I promise, daddy-"

But Kuroo only huffed out, a small, faint grin tracing his lips as he turned back to the waiter and said, "One cream pie, please."

Yandere! Kageyama Tobio

Content warning(s): rape/noncon

😇SFW😇

Fourth wall break, if you will: thank you, anon, for putting these characters together because I Believe that they’re each other’s foils in terms of yandere-isms. And this is gonna be an interesting contrast to see (at least, I hope it would be).

So Kuroo’s all subdued mind games, right? Like, you have to do a whole routine of mental gymnastics if you want to dig deep and analyze how he had your head spinning. 

But Kageyama? 

Kageyama says fuck that.

Kageyama, genius though he is, is about as subtle as a metal bat to the head when it comes to his darling.

He has no qualms about tying you to his bed once the opportunity presents itself to him.

But it didn’t start out like that.

At first, perhaps Kageyama was just an aloof classmate whose entire life revolved around volleyball.

The one who couldn’t even take a time out of his day to hang out with the rest of the class on a weekend.

Though Kageyama has a knack for attracting hostility from other people, there comes a time (rare it may be) that it is offset by people who are sympathetic to his idiosyncrasies.

His darling falls under the latter.

That's what draws Kageyama to you.

Hearing stuff like "D'you know what they used to call him before? King!" and "King because he's an arrogant dickhead who thinks he's better than everyone" are not new to him.

But hearing these are: "Stop that. It's rude to talk behind a person's back."

"Kageyama's passionate about volleyball. More than anyone we've ever met. Ok so it's alienating for us! Whatever! But isn't it admirable that he's doing his best at a thing that he loves?"

Kageyama did not get it.

You're not his teammate.

You're not his..anything.

You had no cause to try and be nice to him and defend him and..understand him, really.

So the rest was history.

The beginning might have been awkward.

Every time he tried to talk to you, Kageyama, for some reason, always blurted out the wrong things.

But you didn't mind. You just liked being his friend.

And Kageyama liked having you by his side.

Kageyama liked it, especially, when you're in the sidelines and cheering him on. (This caused quite a ruckus in Karasuno.)

It should have been weird. Kageyama had not known anything else besides volleyball.

Your presence should’ve been that of a stranger encroaching on someone else’s property.

Somehow, though, you fitted in so perfectly.

Like you’re made to be there.

So he tells you: “You’re free, aren’t you? You should be watching me play by now” and “You should be waiting for me after class” and “Stop making excuses. You’re not tired. You can still drop by practice” 

You’ve tried to reason with him. (Even contemplated about ending your friendship.)

But it’s not like you’re ever gonna shake him off.

Besides, you know that he wouldn’t accept anything less than perfect.

😈NSFW😈

His darling was his first sexual experience. 

And like any beginner, Kageyama was pretty...uh..bad at it ngl.

Add that to the fact that he’s on the bigger side and your first with him wasn’t consensual.

At that time, all Kageyama knew was that he really, really wanted to touch you and kiss you and fuck you senseless until you acknowledge that there’s no running from him. 

Trust, though, that Kageyama will not settle for being bad or, heaven forbid, mediocre at it.

Nope.

Not. a. chance.

Doesn’t matter that you’ve spent the entire day fucking.

Kageyama will not rest- not let you rest, until he drags out a moan from you; until you’ve ruined the sheets with how much he’s made you cum; until he has you begging for more. 

Will experiment a lot.

Will test out how fast and hard he has to fuck you to get what kind of reaction he wants from you.

Very attentive even to your quietest gasp.

If you so much as show a sign that you’re finding whatever it is he’s doing to your body pleasurable- curl your toe or arch your back- Kageyama will amp it up to the point where you’re screaming.

He’ll have this haughty, shit-eating grin while doing it too.

“Yes, you can,” Kageyama growled. “Spread those legs and show me how you do it.”

You shook your head, your body protesting at the slight movement. You’re already on the verge of blacking out. And you don’t have to check the ticking wall clock to know that, by now, Kageyama, too, should be knocked out and dozing off beside you.

But he only grabbed your wrists, making you howl in pain as soon as he touched the cuts and bruises across the skin. Remnants of the nylon rope that bound them together not too long ago.

“Touch yourself,” he repeated.

Kageyama’s voice is a rasping noise to your ears, his hot breath causing goosebumps all over you as he pressed his lips against the shell.

“No-no more, Kag-Kageyama,” you forced yourself to say, though your throat was dry and aching from all your screeching. 

He clicked his tongue. 

You flinched.

And you didn’t think it possible for Kageyama to be more frightening than he already is. Until you’d done as he’d told and, like a wolf patiently waiting to pounce, Kageyama zeroed in on how you moved your hands, his own reaching for his cock.

He didn’t take his eyes off of you, groaning as you trembled and mewled under your featherlight touch. Kageyama stroked himself, grinding into his fist until pre-cum dripped from the head.

“That how you like it, huh,” he croaked.

Before you could even reach an orgasm, Kageyama had already pushed you on your back, mimicking the way you pleasured yourself. Only this time it was rougher, more unforgiving, and indifferent to your cries of “Stop! Stop it, I can’t- Enough, Kageyama!”

[sitaarein]

None Stand Equal In This Dark World

A/N: Officially my largest ever fic so please. Just read it and be nice sob because I’m kinda proud of some of it

Written for @grishaversebigbang 2021!!!

Corporalki: @homicide-depot​

Materialki: @generalnabri (x), @kolarpem (x), @aivicart (x), @maximumbluebirdpatrol , @niadrawing (x)

 (Summary: A murder mystery AU featuring Zoyalai, twists and turns, moral dilemma, and then some more

Read on AO3

Chapter One

The apartment door was wide open.

 In retrospect, that alone should have set off the alarm bells in Zoya’s head. No one left the door to their place wide open. She can’t imagine why she simply dismissed it. 

 Scratch that, she knew why. She’d been tracking this idiotic Grisha for a month now. She was tired and desperate. 

 But it appeared that- who would’ve thought- not being at the top of your game has consequences. 

 Consequences like staring down a man who’s been tied to a chair and gagged in the middle of, what Zoya guesses is, the lounge, eyes wide with terror.

 Zoya is mad at herself for not managing to guess it was a red herring- the damn door - and very, very mad at the Grisha who has, once again, slipped right through her hands. 

 She nods to one of her men, and he immediately drops to the man’s level to untie and presumably interrogate him. Zoya doesn’t stick around for the details- she trusts her people to give her good reports. Instead, after a cursory look around, she tips her head back to face the ceiling, taking in a deep breath, and leaves the apartment. 

 The weather outside took a dramatic turn in the fifteen minutes she was inside- it had been sunny before, or at least as sunny as Ravka ever could get. But now, the sun has all but ceased to exist, and the bitter cold is back once more. 

 Zoya prefers the cold. 

 (She doesn’t, not really, but no one needed to know that.)

 Zoya starts walking, pulling her coat tighter around herself. Her mind races, trying to connect all the dots, trying to figure out where her investigation had gone wrong. Start from the beginning. Don’t miss anything. The most minor of details are the most important.

  The beginning. A woman showed up to their headquarters about her missing family. Those cases were usually dismissed completely, handed over to the police forces- Zoya’s force was Grisha-centric, other cases, no matter how large or important they were, did not concern them. But this case was different.

 The woman was Grisha. 

 Her family weren’t, evidently- and neither did they know that she was. They’d been missing for six weeks, and the odds were pretty heavily stacked against them still being alive. The woman was detained (she was Grisha, this was Zoya’s job ) and a group of officers were dispatched for a search and rescue.

 The officers never returned.

 Alarm bells were now ringing, and the General assigned Zoya to the case. In the time since she officially took over, twenty more disappearances were documented, and all of them in Os Kerva alone. Saints knew what was happening in the rest of the country.

 But Zoya had never believed in Saints, so she found out what was happening in the rest of the country.

 The total number of disappearances in all of Ravka that had this case’s signature mark- an eclipsed sun left wherever the victims were seen last- was an estimated three thousand . Zoya couldn’t believe no one had connected the dots before her. Then again, the entire of the force were filled with incompetent idiots, so maybe it shouldn’t have surprised her. 

  The series of events . Zoya travelled up and down the country with the best of her underlings, talking to anyone who knew the victims, searching their last known places with tooth combs, building up working hypotheses, using all the resources they had available. Zoya was not an idiot. She knew exactly how capable she was. 

 And she also knew when she was fighting a losing battle.

 And so, when she got a call from one of her top detectives about a confirmed Grisha she’d been trailing for some time now who’d begun suspicious activity, she was clutching at straws and willing to take anything that came her way. She met up with her agent, and a few days later, they got the address of the apartment she was currently pacing in front of.

  The present . This part could be summed up fairly quickly. Zoya is, once again, at a fucking dead end . 

 Before she can kick something (or someone) out of frustration, A faint ringing reaches her ears, and frowning, Zoya stops in her tracks. Her phone is never not on silent. Calling Zoya Nazyalensky for anything was utterly pointless- she never picked up. 

  But the GIA has ways of getting into contact with its members regardless.

 Muttering a curse, Zoya digs around her pockets, looking for the infernal device with its grating, high-toned ringing. Finally locating her phone, she jabs the answer button without looking at the caller ID.

 “Yes?” she asks bluntly. 

 “Zoya,” Alina’s voice greets her.  

 Zoya immediately forgets everything that had been on her mind. When Alina calls, it’s rarely for a friendly chat. 

 “What’s wrong?”

“You need to get back here. As soon as possible.”

 “Understood. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

 Alina hangs up immediately, and Zoya pockets her phone, mind racing.

 She orders one of her lackeys to send her a report when they're done, grabs the keys for the van they’d used to get to the apartment from a rather distracted officer, taking off.

 Zoya reaches the Grisha Investigation Authorities in approximately half the time she’d given to Alina, and she may or may not have disobeyed quite a few traffic laws to get to her destination as quickly as she did, but that was frankly unimportant. 

 She strides through the doors, not bothering to acknowledge the many who’ve halted their paths to nod to her or, in the case of a few particularly stupid (or courageous, however you wanted to see it) people, attempt to strike up a conversation with her. She didn’t break her pace even once, until she’d reached the door to the meeting room they usually used to meet up for serious issues. After taking a moment to compose herself, Zoya pushes the door open.

 Inside, she finds all of her fellow Commanding Officers assembled- Adrik, Leoni, Alina, and Genya. Frowning, Zoya scans their faces, and mentally shifts whatever’s happening even higher on her scale of terrible shit to take care of immediately.

 Because not even Leoni, who can find positivity at a funeral, is smiling right now. There’s barely a hint of her optimistic and eternally cheerful personality in her countenance. 

 Zoya carefully takes the seat left for her around the circular table. Her gaze flits from one worried face to another, and she decides to be direct.

 “How bad is it?”

 The question seems to jolt Alina out of her reverie. She looks up, and Zoya feels her breath catch, because she looks so… helpless. Terrified.

 Genya takes it upon herself to answer Zoya’s question with another question, her mouth set in a grim line. “How’s your investigation going?”

 “We lost the suspect,” Zoya admits, her earlier frustration returning with the reminder of the infernal case. “We’re right back to where we started- but without the hope and the general idea of where to start.”

 “I’m not surprised,” Adrik mutters. “Considering who your delightful suspect is…”

 Zoya furrows her brow, and glances back at Genya. “Explain.”

 Genya looks as if she would rather do anything else, but after coming to the realisation that no one else is about to, she sighs and does so.

 “I’m presuming you remember Alina’s case that went cold about two years back?”

  A little too well. Even years later, that case haunts her- the truly horrific killings, from corpses with their body parts stuffed down their throats, to children who had clearly been still alive when burnt, the utter dead ends, Alina’s far too close brush with death, and… the person behind it all.

 “You don’t think it’s the same person??” Zoya demands, horror spreading through her veins.  She can not handle another Kirigan. 

 In lieu of replying, Genya nods to Leoni, who pushes forward a large envelope. Dread pooling in her gut, Zoya opens the package to find pictures from Alina’s investigation.

 “We revisited these when your disappearances started,” Genya says. “And… found more similarities than we’re frankly comfortable with.” 

 Zoya shifts the photos around, and then freezes at one, having caught sight of a mostly blurry but still distinctive calling card. “That’s…”

 “The eclipsed sun,” Adrik provides grimly. “You’re screwed.”

 “Hey, now,” Leoni protests. “We don’t know that.”

 Adrik snorts. “Don’t we? Need I remind you of the damage this person wrecked to the GIA and our country?”

 “How do we know this isn’t just a copycat?” Zoya breaks in. “None of the bodies of the victims this time around have been discovered,”

 “Copy cats still tend to have their own twists on kills, a signature, a mark that’s theirs. While none of the killings for either case have many similarities, they also don’t vary in terms of said signature.” Genya says.

 “Killers are proud creatures,” Adrik inputs.

 “And this one’s no exception,” Leoni says, eyes grim. 

 Zoya looks up. “What do you know?”

 Leoni hesitates, but then gives in. “We got a note this morning. A photocopy should be in the envelope too.”

 Zoya overturns the envelope, and sure enough, a piece of paper falls out. She picks it up, reads it, and crumples it up. 

 “You’re sure this isn’t a stupid joke?”

 “It was in the Director’s office.” Leoni says. 

  Shit.  Zoya glances back down at the crumpled mass she’s still clutching. You will burn on your mistakes. What mistakes? 

 She ignores the faint voice in the back of her head. You know what mistakes.

 Zoya takes a deep breath, focuses her thoughts, and then exhales. “How’s the Director doing?”

“He’s terrified.” All of the COs seemed to be equally startled to see Alina was the one to speak. Her mouth is set in an angry line, and Zoya can guess the track of her thoughts, because they were the same ones that had crossed her mind upon hearing the words- who is he to be terrified? What right did the Director even have to feel scared, when he himself never so much as interacted with the cases???

 Adrik sighs, leaning back in his seat. “Which is what has led us to our current predicament.”

 “And what do you mean by that?” 

 Genya exhales in a huff. “He wants the Mentals on this case along with all of us.”

 “He what.” 

 Alina, lips twisted in a sardonic smile, gestures to nothing in particular. “You heard correctly.”

 “Why ??? This is my case, and I will handle it.”

 “He doesn’t want a repeat of the bad press that came with my failing last time, I’m guessing.”

 “Bad press,” Zoya spits out. “I wonder how much bad press he’ll get when I-”

 “Do not,” Genya warns. “This could be helpful to us.”

  But also a personal disgrace , Zoya finishes the sentence in her head. The Mentals were practically a legend of the GIA- they were special, elite investigators, a whole mix of people ranging from scientists to- if the rumors were correct- ex-spies, who ended up with the cases no one else in the force could solve, and somehow, without fail, solved each of them within a week at the least. 

 It was irritating as hell.

 And having them assigned on your case meant that the Director did not trust you to be successful on your own. 

 Absolutely wonderful.

 “So when are these... spectacular detectives arriving?” Zoya asks. 

 Genya opens her mouth, and then closes it, before starting, “Well-”

 “I hope I’m not too late to this marvelous party?”

 Zoya swivels to see who this truly abnormally cheerful person is, and then blinks. She turns back to face the others once more- Adrik still looks glum, Leoni is smiling her most polite smile, Alina seems to have perked up and Genya is genuinely smiling. They all look… unsurprised.

 Of course they were hiding more secrets up their sleeves.

 “ What,” Zoya finally breaks and asks. “Is the damned PR guy doing here?”

 The aforementioned PR guy pouts. “Is that really what I’m known for around here? My PR duties? That’s quite depressing. Why would you focus on that when you could talk about my stunning good looks, or my undeniable charm, or even my ability to-”

 “Nikolai,” Alina interrupts. “Shut up.” she looks at Zoya, a hint of dry amusement in her eyes. 

 “Zoya, this is Nikolai Lantsov, and he is indeed our PR guy, but he’s also… head of the Mentals.”

 Zoya blinks. He’s what??? And then, wait… they knew who the special investigators were? How long have they known? Why was I not informed?

 She doesn’t voice any of her thoughts, choosing instead to stare, unimpressed, at the blond, who grins at her in response. 

 “If I had known you possessed such astounding grace and beauty, Miss Nazyalensky, I would have made your acquaintance sooner! I’m sure these upcoming days will prove to be an absolute pleasure, provided I get to spend them in your delightful company.”

 “Saints save me,” Zoya utters faintly. “The Director assigned an idiot to my case.”

 “Hey, now!” Nikolai protests. “You haven’t even met the rest of my team yet!”

 “An idiot who talks too much,” she deplores. 

 Genya and Alina both snort at that. In fact, all of her fellow COs seemed to be taking far too much pleasure in this situation. Zoya hates all of them. 

  “Well, now that we’ve gotten the pleasantries out of the way,” Nikolai says, to which Zoya distinctly hears Adrik mutter “pleasantries?” under his breath, “I think now would be a wonderful time for me to introduce you to my brilliant team,”

  Genya sits up immediately, looking eager. Zoya wonders what that’s about. 

 She finds out fairly quickly.

 Nikolai ushers in a group of people, and she recognises one in particular, one who she has, in fact, known since her college years -

 David. Genya’s husband, David Kostyk, is a part of the Mentals. Harmless old David. Zoya can’t believe her eyes. 

 She scans the rest of the group, but the others barely seem familiar. The two Shu right in front of David look similar enough to be twins, apart from the height difference. Right next to David is a woman that, with a jolt, Zoya recognises as Adrik’s sister from what she’s heard and seen of her. Bringing up the rear is a man who vaguely resemblesNikolai himself, ducking his head shyly as he enters the room. 

 “Now that your merry party is all assembled,” Adrik says glumly. “Any ideas where to start?”

 “Shouldn’t we at least get to know each other first?” Adrik’s sister asks.

 Adrik stares at her. “I’ve known you since I was born.”

 “We’re not the only ones in the room, Adrik.”

 “Oh, aren’t we ? I can’t say I noticed.”

 Nikolai interrupts their glaring match to finally provide Zoya with names to all the unfamiliar faces. 

 “Tamar, Tolya, Nadia, and Isaak, meet the officers we’ll be working with for the next few weeks or longer- Alina, Genya, Zoya, Leoni, and Adrik,” he gestures towards each person in turn. Zoya briefly wonders how he already knows their names, before realising that just because the GIA didn’t know who the special investigators were didn’t exactly mean they didn’t know the GIA either. 

 “And now,” Nikolai beams. “Let’s get comfortable. It’s time to discuss our present conundrum!”

[cinnamonrusts]

together, we can make it out alive - 1

[a/n: originally posted on my Ao3 and I decided to revamp my series some with my updated writing techniques. Hope you enjoy.]

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*BEEPBEEP BEEPBEEP*

The electronic chimes from your alarm clock blared loudly in your ear. Groans escaped your dry throat as the clock stirred you from your slumber, "Not yet--," your hand fished for the large snooze button on the top of the clock. Five more minutes, that is all you would need. Well, five minutes came and once again the alarm beeped in your ear. Your eyelids slowly lifted as you read the blurry red digits that stared in your face. "3:45 PM", it read. "Shit..." you cursed as you knew that you needed to get up and get around for your nightshift turn.

Your legs swung around the edge of your bed as you stretched with a loud yawn. Daylight peaked in through your blinds and shined directly into your eyes, "I really need some black out curtains," you mumbled to yourself as you made a mental note. This was just your daily routine now. You slept in the morning after getting off work from the Raccoon City Police Department and woke up around 3:00 PM. Ate, exercised, showered, and relaxed all before you pushed pencils on the clock at your desk.

Don't get it wrong. It was a job and you were thankful, but your duties weren't exactly what you expected them to be after the headache that was the police academy. You didn't hate your job, you just didn't -- like it. Also, you really fucking hated Raccoon City. It was not the same place that you remembered as a kid, not to mention all the weird things that had been going on lately. You just really wanted out of there. Maybe go to a warmer city... like Los Angeles or something.

You pushed yourself to a stand and turned around on the balls of your feet to head to the bathroom. When you reached the shower, you turned on the faucet and ran your fingers under the warm water. Just as it reached the perfect temperature, your phone rang. You ignored it and waited for the voicemail to pick up. But it just rang again.

"I'm coming! I'm coming!" you yelled at the telephone as you stomped through your apartment to the device on the wall. "Hello?" you answered.

A familiar, yet unwelcomed voice barked from the other end of the line. "[L/N]! Where the hell are you?!" It was Lt. Branagh. "Home. My shift doesn't start until 10." your eyes rolled as you pinched the bridge of your nose. "Get your ass over to the station! We've had reports all day of violent attacks all over the damn city!" He couldn't be serious -- it was 6 hours now until your shift! "I don't come in until--," Branagh cut you off, "I expect to see you soon, [L/N]." the call ended.

You kicked the open moving box that sat in front of you in anger. It flipped onto its side and the contents spilled out onto the floor. It was a bunch of papers that you failed to file away and as you picked them up, you noted a familiar picture on top of the mess. The photo displayed two very recognizable faces that had smiles displayed happily.

You and Leon S. Kennedy.

He was your partner in crime during the police academy. Leon was the only one who didn't see you being a woman as a weakness. The two of you hit it off immediately after he introduced himself and complimented your skills.

On top of your heads were colorful party hats that seemed to be a bit too small. Both of your arms were slinked around his shoulders as you pulled him in for a close hug. His right hand was rested on your waist and the left held up a large mug of beer that was about to spill out onto the floor. Your thumb caressed the image of his handsome face and a smirk spread across your lips. You flipped the picture over and in faded pen was your handwriting: "Graduation Celebration! JULY '98"

Leon crossed your mind often. The two of you lost contact with one another after something happened between the two of you. It was as if that party happened yesterday -- the night that he kissed you. Your eyes closed and you could picture Leon's face perfectly - the way that his lips puckered and the way that they felt.

The two of you stood outside of the bar on that warm summer night. Leon was leaned against his shitty blue car that was wrapped in faded paint and rust. You stood in front of him with your arms crossed and your eyes focused on the clear sky that hovered above. Then the sensation of fingers over your skin drew your attention from the sky, to the man. Your gazes locked and his lids were half shut but a smile was on his lips. "Leon, you're drunk, aren't you?" you chuckled. His fingers wrapped around your bicep, "Maybe," he cooed as he brought you close to him. You could feel and smell his breath, it was warm and stunk heavy of booze.

With his free hand, he moved it to your cheek and tickled it lightly with his knuckle. Your [E/C] eyes stared deep into his moonstone ones, Leon's pupils dilated before they closed. His lips met yours. They were smooth but a bit chapped - he must be an avid user of Chapstick, you thought. The kiss was quick but meaningful. When he pulled away, you grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him in for another. When the two of you broke apart, you noted the way those moonstone pools in his head looked at you -- you could get lost in them -- forever.

The fond memories brought warmth to your heart that you lost the track of time. Pounds from beneath you interrupted your reminiscence. Your neighbor below screamed through the floorboards. "Hey, you fucking idiot! Stop using all the hot water! You're not the only one who fucking lives here!" he continued to pound and yell. "Shut up, you fuck!" you screamed back as you scrambled to your feet. Your clothing was stripped from your body as you dashed to the shower, and jumped directly into the lukewarm stream.

You knew that Branagh was most likely boiled over in anger because of how late you were already. Once you finished your shower, you pulled on your police uniform, styled your hair into a neat bun, grabbed a bagel, and ran out the door. Your car was parked pretty far down the road and rain began to fall from the sky. What a perfect start to the day. You shoved the bagel into your mouth and dashed for your car. The key slipped in your hands as you fiddled with them to get the door unlocked. Just as you grabbed the correct one, they fell onto the ground and so did your bagel.

"I've already had enough of today," you cursed and sighed to yourself as you bent over to pick them up. When you stood back up, a woman came from nowhere and threw herself onto you. She cried in panic and spoke incoherently. You noted the large wound on her shoulder and blood was seeped heavily into her shirt. "P-Please! Help me!" she grabbed onto your shirt with blood stained hands. "Ma'am!" you yelled and pushed her off of you for your own safety. She stumbled back and fell to her knee, "Let me call an ambulance!" you started to run to a nearby pay phone but she stopped you with a stutter that it was too late. "There's more of them!" her head turned in the direction of an alley to the left, then she took off from the ground in a haste. "Ma'am, wait!" you yelled as you watched her run away around the corner and into the city.

"Who's coming?" you whispered. With curiosity, you walked toward the alley that the woman had looked down but saw no one. Maybe she was one of the crazy people that were noted to be around the city and around the Arklays... If you saw her again, you'd probably call in some backup... the crazy look in her eyes... it unsettled you. You managed to shake the image of them from your mind and focused on getting out of the rain.

As you walked back to your car, you noticed the red stains that were now stained into your uniform. Whatever. You would worry about it after you made it to work. Once you got into your car, the radio started talking about more and more unrest that had spread more and more through the streets. Your finger pressed the power off, "Enough of that." the news was just the same and you just knew that you had to deal with it first hand once you arrived at the station, it just made it worse.

In front of the parking garage for the RPD were several cars that seemed to have been in an accident. Your car couldn't go any further than where you were at, so you hopped out of the vehicle to walk the rest of the way. People dashed around the streets in a panic and it seemed as if it were the apocalypse. You tried to flag people down to stop them but they all ignored you. What the hell is going on?! When you entered the station, there was even more chaos. Officers ran around like wild and some seemed to be injured as well. You felt anxious and confused by everything that was going on. What had gone on in your brief time away?

Phones rang, people yelled, doors slammed, and everything soon overwhelmed you, you could feel yourself going into an overload. But a strong hand on your shoulder was a saving grace. "There you are, [L/N]!" it was Branagh and a brief look of relief washed across his face. "I left a stack of paperwork on your desk. Sort through it and then you're going out on patrol. Some crazy shit is going down..." he gave you a light push in the direction of your desk.

As you walked to the back of the office, you noticed the banner that was spread across the ceiling in blue and yellow.

"WELCOME LEON"

Your heart pumped in your chest and you could feel your skin begin to turn clammy. There was only one Leon that you know of that was a cop. The man that you shared a kiss with and so many more feelings... Leon -- Kennedy? Was he actually on his way here? He always told you that after the academy he would eventually come find you in the city and be your partner again. You thought that it was just a joke -- but now, it didn't seem that way. How could he come here without saying anything to you? No call? No email? Nothing?

Your eyes remained on the banner and you asked your co-worker who sat on the desk beneath it, "Hey, Rita. Who's this, Leon?" She didn't look up from her desk, "I dunno. Some new guy from out of town. Last name starts with a K or something like that. Ask Neil, I'm sure he knows." You could feel a knot in your stomach and you darted to your chair. The desk that was across from you was normally piled high with boxes of paperwork, but now it was cleared off. You leaned over the divider and snatched the piece of paper on the desk. Your eyes darted across the text:

"Leon S. Kennedy, we're putting you on a very special case for your first assignment. Your mission is to... unlock your desk! The key to your success is in the initials of our first names."

The note confirmed it. It was indeed that Leon. You plopped back into your seat and gnawed on the nail of your thumb. Your thoughts were now consumed as to how both Leon and yourself would react when he arrived. You could see it now...

He would laugh with the other officers as they shot the shit with him. He would be in the center of the group, they would slap him on the back and tell him how happy they were to have him on the force. His gaze would eventually land on you and he would excuse himself from them. Leon would smile and show off his perfect teeth. He'd saunter over and slowly shake his head, "I didn't expect to see you here, [F/N]."

You swallowed hard but your thoughts were interrupted when the sounds of glass shattered right outside of the office's door.

The chatter and hubbub in the office halted as everyone's attention turned toward the door.  An officer who wasn't much older than you rushed toward the noise, he couldn't make out exactly what it was from behind the glass of the door but drew his gun in preparation. He looked back at the office filled with you and your co-workers before opening the door slowly. "Hello?" he called out. His gun was pointed out into the hallway but found that there was nothing there. Then a sound of something you had never heard before or ever would forget echoed loudly in the empty hall.

It sounded like a monster, there was no other way to explain it. It pierced through your ears and then the sounds of the officer's shrieks shook your core. A loud gurgle erupted from his throat as he was tackled by a person onto the floor. This - person, dug their teeth deeply into his throat and proceeded to rip it out. Bright, red liquid sprayed from the wound across the floor. Two male officers threw themselves onto the assailant and tried their hardest to pull him off but soon were attacked as well. Gunshots blasted off in the office which then were accompanied by more sounds of broken glass. The assailant dropped dead beside the officers on the floor and everyone exchanged glances of pure terror.

"More are out there!" yelled Branagh as he held his weight against the door to stop any more of these "people" from killing everyone his subordinates. "Pistols aren't going to keep us alive for much longer," Rita cried out. "But Irons insisted we hide everything else away, remember!?" your fellow officers shouted at each other as tension rose - fear and panic began to set in.

"I know where some are," you piped up. "I have the keycard for the weapons locker," you reached into your shirt pocket and pulled out a white, plastic card. "Perks of being the newbie, I guess. I'll go." you walked toward the back door but stopped when Branagh barked at you, "You can't go alone!" You shook your head, "I will be right back, I promise." you disregarded his arguments and with a deep breath, opened the door and took off on your mission.

The hall was dark and quiet, the electricity must had been cut out in this section of town. You swallowed hard and with your pistol in on hand with the flashlight in the other, you took quiet yet brisk strides down the long stretch of hallway. All you could hear was the sounds of your bootsteps and the groans of those things that lurked just outside of the fences that kept the building somewhat safe. You needed these guns, no matter what. Or you and your co-workers would end up just like those officers - dead. Your breathing was heavy and your heart raced which could be felt in your skull, "Easy girl," you spoke out, "Just a few doors and you'll be there."

Time was not on your side, so you took off in a sprint. The feeling of being so vulnerable next to a stretch of windows worried you as you could fall victim to whatever those things were at any time. They weren't exactly "things" they looked human and most likely were but maybe they were deranged with some sort of illness. But nonetheless, they were dangerous and deadly... Just as you feared, one of them crashed through the window. Their greedy palms reached for you over the broken glass and managed to snag you by your hair. You screamed in pain and terror as their strength pulled you in but when you pulled away, you only pulled them closer. Your pistol flew from your hands and slid across the floor, too far for you to reach.

Their bloody jaws snapped as they tried their hardest to sink their teeth into your soft flesh. You could feel their breath on your skin and you struggled but could feel your strength giving way to theirs. There was only one thing you could do and it was to grab the knife that was attached to the side of your right leg. Your fingertips were just barely able to reach the handle but with one quick lunge of your body, you grabbed hold of the weapon. The desire to survive charged your strength and you began to saw through the strands of your hair that were gripped tight in the clutches of the creature. Tears poured down the sides of your face as you sawed through the strands that were the barrier between you and certain death.

The creature was now halfway over the window and their hand still had your [h/c] hair in between their fingers, jaws still snapped at you as they begged to taste your flesh. You scrambled on all fours as you attempted to gather yourself so that you could press on. Your foot slipped on a large piece of broken glass which sent you across the floor, you then landed onto a large chunk of broken glass. The sharp piece embedded itself deep into your knee and you cried in pain as you held your leg close to your chest. The creature dug its nails into the tile floor and started to crawl toward you with dead eyes, and bloody teeth. You took several deep breaths as you prepared to yank the glass from your leg and with one last deep inhale, you yanked it out. You cried in pain but knew that you had to keep going, your muscle burned as it now was exposed to the air. You made sure to grab your pistol from the floor before you continued on.

Your sprint was now resorted to a quick limp but you managed to make it to the locker room. To your dismay, it was mostly empty besides a couple of shotguns and some ammunition. "Fuck! Fuck! This isn't enough!" you screamed as you pounded your fist against one of the lockers. Inside one of the open lockers was a weapons bag which you were able to fill with the lackluster amount of supplies. As you zipped up the bag, the metal door to the room opened and the sound drew your attention. Your pistol was ready and you limped around the corner to hide behind a row of lockers to hide from who or whatever it was. The room was dark but a flashlight flipped around the room, whoever it was, they were there to look for those guns or you. Your thumb slowly pulled the hammer back on the weapon and rounded the corner, "Stop right there!" you yelled.

It was a man and he seemed to be normal for the most part. He complied and raised his arms in the air. "Turn around!" Again, he complied and did a slow 180. Through the faint glow of his flashlight, your eyes caught a glimpse of a set of familiar moonstone pools.

"[Y/N]?!" his voice raised in shock. The entire city was faced with an apocalypse scenario or even the whole world for all you knew and the one person you run into is Leon -- Leon Kennedy.

He dropped his arms and grabbed hold of your, then pulled you into a tight hug. Leon smelled of sweat and cologne, the very cologne that you bought for him as a graduation gift. You breathed him in as it registered to you that this was real, he was really here. But you pulled away, "Leon, we have no time for chit chat. We gotta get moving, people need these guns!" you pointed to the bag that sat on the floor by your feet. As you tried to throw it over your shoulder, you winced in pain. "Here, let me get it." Leon attempted to take it from your hand but you paused before you surrendered the precious cargo, "I can trust you with this, right?" your grip was tight on the strap, "When have you ever doubted me?" he asked with a smile, "You don't want to know that..." your grip released as you responded but also pointed the fact that your leg was injured.

"Sorry to be a liability," you apologized, but Leon pulled you to his side, "Nonsense. I got this and you, just keep an eye out for zombies."

You led Leon down the hallway that you had your close brush with death in, the zombie, as Leon called it, was now gone. But when the two of you reached the door to the office, it was eerily quiet. Not a good sign. You pushed the door open to find the office void of any life, nothing but blood. Lots and lots of blood. Your heart hurt as you felt a pain in your chest, was everyone dead? The lifeless body of Rita laid on the floor with her eyes opened, her brown orbs were absent of the vibrant life she once had.

Tears welled in your eyes but as you turned to flee, you bumped into Leon's chest. A look of horror on Leon's face matched yours, "I-I left them not even an hour ago..." you cried into his shirt for a moment as he held you lightly with one arm. When you pulled away, you wiped your eyes and Leon took your hand from your face.

"I'm happy you're alive, [Y/N]," you examined your matured features and you did his. His hair grew a little longer than when you had seen him last and he examined your frazzled locks. Just as you opened your mouth to speak, a door behind Leon opened and shut. A man walked out from the shadows and into the light, it was Branagh. He held onto his side and you could see he was injured with his shirt heavily stained with what was most likely his blood.

Leon pulled his pistol out and pointed it at your superior while he had a protective hand on your arm. Branagh coughed a wheezed laugh and shooed his gun out of his face. He looked over to you and smiled, "Good to see you're still breathing, [Y/N]." The Lieutenant approached your male companion and placed a bloody hand on his shoulder,

"You must be Leon Kennedy -- well, son, welcome to Raccoon City."

[whentommymetalfie]

Home to you -chapter 4

-Held under-

Prologue//1//2//3

Pairing: Tommy/Alfie

Summary: Alfie reaches out for help. Tommy reaches a breaking point. 

Warnings: disordered eating, mental instability, hallucinations, self harm

Wordcount: 4,4

“Well, I can only know so much without examining him, but I believe this bout of sickness was mostly due to eating more than he’s currently used to. So I wouldn’t worry too much about that in itself. Even if the issue of his appetite and weight is of course concerning.”

Hearing doctor Adelman’s familiar voice on the other end of the line anchors Alfie to reality where he sits by the phone in his study, tapping his fingers against the wooden surface of the desk. This is good. He’s doing something. Taking some goddamn control of the situation.

He felt somewhat foolish when trying to explain the state of affairs (after scaring the doctor’s poor secretary half to death with his threats when she tried to explain the doctor was busy) But doctor Adelman is a wise man and asked just the right questions until he was satisfyingly up to date with Tommy’s condition, up until the very moment Alfie left him in the bathroom downstairs.

“From what you’ve told me, it sounds like he’s improving in many ways,” Adelman continues. “Perhaps you’re just expecting too much of him? There are bound to be set-backs. I believe this to be one of those. And his issues surrounding food are no doubt very deeply rooted.”

“It’s not just that-“ Alfie begins to protest, but It feels too difficult, saying it out loud. That Tommy recoiled from his touch. That he didn’t want him close, didn’t want to be held. Tommy always wants that. If the things he’s done so far to help stop working, then what is he supposed to do?  “He’s… He needs help. From a doctor. Someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing.”

The line is silent as Adelman thinks this over before slowly answering, “As we discussed before, I think he could benefit from seeing someone whose expertise lies within this field. I’d be happy to refer you-“

“No. No fucking way. Don’t want some stranger poking around in that precious head of his. And we don’t have time for the vetting process any new prospect would have to go through. I want you to do it.”

“As I’m sure you know, while I do have some knowledge on the subject I’m far from the expert he needs.”

“Better than fucking no-one, isn’t it? I’ll pay you three- four times your usual rate-”

“Money isn’t the issue here,” Adelman says with that rare but biting sharpness in his tone. It makes Alfie feel like a fucking school boy.

“I couldn’t trust anyone else with this,” he admits. “And Tommy is- he just needs someone.”

The desperation must be clear in his voice because can almost see the doctor’s features soften as he silently considers this.

“Well, I suppose one initial meeting wouldn’t hurt-”

“Brilliant. Tomorrow?” Alfie cuts him off, unable to summon any of the usual curtesy a man of Adelman’s stature arguably deserves. Thankfully Adelman lets out a good natured chuckle.

“I believe you should speak to Thomas himself first and agree on a day.”

Now it’s Alfie’s turn to be silent. Adelman lets him squirm (figuratively of course, Alfie doesn’t fucking squirm) for a moment before speaking up, “If I may ask, have you told him you’re calling me?”

Suddenly his perceptiveness feels like a fucking nuisance. But all the same, it’s what makes the doctor draw the right conclusions from only his continued silence.

“I understand your worry, Solomons. But if this is going to be at all beneficial Thomas has to agree himself to see me. I really have to insist you speak to him and let him weigh in on the matter.”

“He’ll never fucking agree to it. Absolutely terrified of doctors, isn’t he? You saw him last you were here-“

But the thing is when he says it out loud he realises how fucking dumb it sounds. What exactly was the plan? It’s honestly all a bit blurry now, his thought process. Mostly he remembers the desperate feeling of having to reach out, do something, anything to help Tommy, get someone who knows what they’re fucking doing to help because he sure as fuck isn’t enough-

Adelman’s voice breaks him out of his increasingly erratic thoughts as he calmly states,

“You can’t force someone to undergo treatments like this. Quite the opposite really. It can cause great distress. And enough harm has been done to him already. If he agrees I’d be happy to help in any way I can but-“

“Fine. I’ll have a word with him.”

And just like that, Alfie hangs up. And he’ll be paying for that later but right now he can’t be bothered to care.  

….

He goes for a walk to clear his head. It’s a blustery day with bright sunlight that seems to pierce his eyes like needles. The seagulls screech and the wind howls and it does little to untangle the web of conflicting thoughts and feelings. Stop, stop touching me. He hears the words in his head, over and over. The feeling of helplessness that threatened to drown him. Once again he feels it: he’s in over his head.

When he returns home, not a bit wiser, Esther meets him in the hallway.

“Tommy is resting in the living room,” she tells him. “I made him some mint tea to settle his stomach, but he’s rather weak and tired after what happened.”

He nods slowly as he hangs his coat up and takes time to straighten the collar just to have something to do with his hands. Then he just stands there, fingers still wound into the fabric and eyes caught on a piece of lint on the shoulder.

“You should go to him,” Esther adds.  

“Not sure he wants me there.”

“He does.”

She says it with such utter certainty and Alfie wants to believe her.

His fingers clench tightly into the fabric.

“God I don’t know if I can fucking do this,” he tells the coat.

Esther comes over, bats his hands away gently, and straightens the shoulders over the hanger. He eyes her suspiciously and waits for a response.  

“Isn’t this where you say I don’t have a choice?” he grunts when none comes. “That I’ve put myself in this situation. Something of the sort.”

Esther smiles gently. “I don’t think that’s what you need to hear right now, Sir.”

Somehow the softly spoken words make his throat cease up. But fuck it’s been a rather demanding fucking day, hasn’t it?

“I called the doctor,” he says to move them away from the strange moment. “He agreed he’d come by. Have a little chat. If Tommy’s up for it”

Esther nods sagely and studies him closely, apparently not entirely pleased with what she finds. “You could sleep for a bit, if you’d like. I’ll look after him.”

The offer is tempting, but he knows for an absolute fact that sleeping without knowing that Tommy is perfectly safe and preferably within arm’s reach isn’t an option.

He’s pretty fucking far gone, isn’t he?

“No, no ‘s fine. Doesn’t take much energy sitting in an armchair and waiting for him to perk up. Which is what I’ll be doing for the rest of the afternoon, I assume.”

“He wants you there,” Esther nods towards the living room. “I know he does. But you should only go to him if you think you can behave yourself.” She wags her finger at that last part, eyes glinting, and the lighthearted gesture actually drags a dry laugh from his mouth. Loosens something in his chest, if only a tiny bit.

…

Esther has tucked Tommy in under several blankets on the sofa, where he lies curled up as tightly as possible, face half obscured by said blankets. His eyes dart briefly towards Alfie when he enters before turning back to stare listlessly at the teacup on the table.

Alfie seats himself in the armchair opposite him and spends an inordinate amount of time preparing and lighting his pipe as he tries to come up with a good opening line to start untangling this mess, but Tommy surprisingly speaks first.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. I’m sorry. Fucking hell.

“The fuck are you sorry for, eh?” Alfie scoffs and knows that was the wrong thing to say the second the words leave his mouth. He adds quickly, tone softened, “Nothing to be sorry for, alright, treacle. Nothing at all.”

Tommy shifts a little underneath the blankets, drawing his knees tighter against his chest.

The distance between them feels like an ocean. Frozen over. Impossible to tell how thick the ice is. He needs to cross it somehow. Well aware that it could give way at any moment.

“I called the doctor.”

One step out on the ice and it already creaks underneath his feet.

Tommy sits up and the fear is clear on his face.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “It won’t happen again. I don’t need- I- ”

Alfie goes to sit on the sofa. Several steps. Fine cracks like a spider’s web underneath his feet. Doesn’t touch him.

“I called because I’m worried. Alright?” He navigates the cracks as well as he can with words that are soft but firm in equal parts. “And all he’d do is come here and have a little chat with you. See if there’s something he can do to help.”

Tommy wrings his hands into the blanket and his chest rises and falls in quick breaths. He looks over Alfie’s shoulder towards the corner of the room. Shakes his head to someone and mouths something imperceptible.

And what does crossing that fucking ice safely mean if Tommy is already underneath?

Alfie takes Tommy’s hand when it flies up to the side of his head to scratch at the scar. This time, Tommy lets him. Squeezes his hand back. Takes it in both of his and holds it tightly. Presses forehead against the knuckles and curls inwards until its resting on the back of the sofa. There, he stays, clinging to Alfie’s hand like a lifeline.

“I’m getting better,” he whispers.  

Alfie cradles the nape of his neck and rubs gently. Tremors run through him like tiny ripples.

“Yeah, you are, love. Know it’s… fucking difficult, alright, but there’s no rush- You’re getting better. Some things just take time and help. That’s all he wants to do, ‘s help. We can pick a day, any day, and he’ll come here. Just for a short chat. Alright?”  

Tommy nods. Curls up a little closer to him, inch by inch until he’s tucked himself into a tightly wound ball of limbs right by Alfie’s side. Alfie keeps the hand firmly on the back of his neck until he feels the tremors slowly subside.

….

Thank fucking God it wakes him up, the sound of glass shattering, smattering onto hard tile. Alfie bolts upright in bed, heart hammering violently and eyes darting around the dark bedroom. Certain for a moment that the noise was just in his restless dreams.

But then he sees the faint light coming from under the bathroom door. Sees that Tommy is missing from the bed. And he’s absolutely wide awake, then, unsteadily climbing out of bed and cursing when his stiff back halts his step.

“Tommy?” he calls out, softly not to frighten him- he might’ve just dropped a glass of water or something in there. Except he feels with every fiber of his being that something is wrong.

And when there’s no answer-

He doesn’t have to pick the lock this time, thankfully.

Alfie’s walked in on and caused many a violent scene in his day. Maimed, shot, crushed skulls, severed various body parts. Seen it all, hasn’t he? So it really shouldn’t fucking faze him. It’s just blood on white tile. But the sight of that blood, the smell of it, coppery and thick, brings up a sudden sickness in the back of his throat, fear that tastes like sour bile.

Tommy is on the floor, kneeling in the midst of a thousand mirror shards that reflect pale flesh and crimson stains and white porcelain, curled in on himself and clutching at his head, fingers like talons in the dark locks. He’s making a noise, quiet and pained in the back of his throat as he rocks back and forth. There’s so much fucking blood. Seeping in stark trails down his frail wrists. Dripping onto the tiles and the remnants of the mirror that hung over the sink.

“Fuckin’ell, Tommy-“

Alfie rips several towels down from a rack, throws them haphazardly on the floor over the shards, he’ll be no fucking use to Tommy if he cuts his feet to shreds, logic states, instinct, that practical thing that kicks in despite the scene before him.

Moving with the frenzy of a terrified animal, Tommy scrambles away over the glass when he comes closer, whining and shaking, smearing blood on the floor. Eyes wide and frightened, looking in Alfie’s direction but failing to see him. Darting around the room, catching on one of his ghosts presumably.

Alfie wishes he could turn around and bash the skull in on that ghost.

“Tommy,” he says instead. Stays where he is, hands outstretched in a placating gesture. “Tommy, look at me.”  

But Tommy won’t look at him, sits there bleeding all over the tiles and where is all that fucking blood coming from?  

Alfie realizes, finally, that he’s holding a shard of the mirror clutched in his right hand. It’s about then he stops trying to keep his distance. In two strides he’s across the floor and kneeling in front of Tommy. He grabs his wrist in one hand -whole, thank God, both of them, it’s fine, the blood isn’t coming from there, he hasn’t, fuck- takes hold of his fingers with the other.

“Tommy, let go of that,” he says. “You don’t need it for nothing.”

Finally Tommy heaves a sharp breath and his gaze snaps into focus, turning to Alfie. Alfie breathes too. Calmly. Has to at least seem calm. He begins to carefully unfurl Tommy’s fingers from the sharp edges of the glass.

“There you go, I’ll take care of it. No need to hold on so tight.”

Tommy’s fingers clench around the glass once again and Alfie winces at the fucking sight but Tommy doesn’t seem to feel a thing. He holds on harder to his fingers trying to minimize the damage.

“Tommy, let go,” he repeats, a firm command this time. And Tommy does, blinking dazedly at him as Alfie tosses the cursed piece of glass to the opposite corner of the room. It’s done some damage, but he’s bleeding too much for him to properly assess it.  

Alfie does the only thing he can think of and picks him up. Tommy doesn’t struggle as he navigates through the glass and out of the room, wanting to take him as far away from anything sharp as possible.  

He carries him through the house, into the guest room, towards a bathroom without shattered glass all over, where he can get a good look at him. But Tommy’s eyes snap up when Alfie tries to bring him inside and he instantly begins fighting weakly against his grip.

“God, will you just cooperate for one fucking second!” Alfie growls and holds him tighter, which only increases Tommy’s struggle. He catches a glimpse of them both in the mirror. What a sight they make for: him oddly pale and with sharp lines of worry all over his face, Tommy hollow eyed and shaking, covered in blood.

He can’t understand what the hell Tommy wants, but he’s not calming down and it’s going to be fucking impossible to look after him in this state.

“Right, bathroom’s a problem now for some reason? Eh? Fine, fine, we’ll go to the kitchen. How about that?”  

The promise seems to do the trick, Tommy settles down and allows Alfie to carry him to the kitchen where he sits him down on a chair, letting go only when he’s made sure he’s not in immediate danger of collapsing. He’s gone somewhere else entirely by then, eyes glassy and distant, but Alfie has to focus on the more pressing issue of all the cuts.

He sets about cleaning the wounds in his palm first, and finds two deep ones where corners of the glass has dug deep into the flesh. Had there been a doctor within three hours that he trusts he might’ve called one to put some stitches there, now Tommy will have to do with surgical tape.

Then he begins picking the glass out, the worst of the panic settling with every cut he takes care of. The rest of them aren’t deep, thank God, thank fucking God they aren’t deep. Could’ve been worse, could’ve been a lot fucking worse, could’ve found him in a pool of his own blood already too far gone to save and fuck what if he hadn’t found him until the morning-

“Yeah, this could’ve been- could’ve been worse, eh? Seen much, much worse, I have,” he mutters, mostly to himself. Tommy says nothing.  

“Need to take a look at your feet too,” Alfie says once he’s finished bandaging both hands. Tommy doesn’t react when he grabs and pulls one of them into his lap. It ignites a strange sense of déjà vu, from a different night that seems so long ago.  

Everything is different and yet exactly the fucking same

He finds a few small cuts that he takes care of before he can finally give Tommy a onceover and state that he’s all patched up. Least on the surface. He slumps back in his chair and rubs his hands over his face. Takes the first truly deep breath since he found Tommy there in the bathroom.

Now on to deal with the truly big issue.

But what is he supposed to say? What is he supposed to ask? He barely knows what he’s feeling -the anger that usually comes with the panic is nowhere to be found. In its place is nothing but a bone deep weariness. And worry, the goddamn worry that’s become a solid fixture in his life. Always there. Flaring up and settling again with every shift in Tommy. Now it’s wrapped so tightly around his chest it might crush his fucking ribs.

“What the fuck was that about, eh?” he finally asks.

Tommy picks at the bandages around his right hand and stares at his lap.

“Right. I promise I won’t get angry, but I’m gonna need you to be honest with me here. Were you trying- were you going to hurt yourself? More than you already had.”

Tommy cradles his hands against his stomach and says, “I don’t know.”

There might be more questions he should ask. But right then, they all seem useless. All he can think, all he can feel, is an overwhelming urge to take Tommy back to the bedroom, tie him to the bed and never let him out of his sight again. Anything, fucking anything to keep this from happening-

But his little bird isn’t the kind that can live in a cage.

Reaching out, he cradles Tommy’s face, as careful as if holding a Fabergé egg, and Tommy closes his eyes tightly but doesn’t recoil. They sit there in the dimly lit kitchen and he runs his thumb over his freckles. Allows the space between them fill with nothing but the faint buzzing of the lightbulb and the sound of their breaths -Tommy’s, unsteady and shallow and his own, calm and slow. As if it’ll help soothe him. Animals can sense things like that, when you’re nervous they are too. Humans aren’t too different, he reckons.

Finally Tommy swallows tightly and looks at him with so much pain in his eyes it seems to knock the wind out of him. “How can you- how can you stand it?” he asks and it takes him a while to gather enough air to answer with a dumb, “What?”

“Touching me.” Tommy swallows thickly. “Look at me. I’m-“ He turns away again, blinking rapidly. Biting at the inside of his cheek to choke down a sob. Alfie takes his face between his hands.

“I am looking,” he says. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed but I do that a lot. Look at you. I am after all a man who knows to appreciate beauty.”

“Don’t,” Tommy grits out, grabs his wrists but Alfie doesn’t let go. “Don’t fucking say things like that.”

“I’ll say whatever I fucking please, I’ll have you know.”

“I know what I look like,” Tommy snaps.  “I know that’s why- that’s why you don’t want to-“

He’s trying to turn away, tense underneath Alfie’s hands.

“Don’t want what?”

Tommy lets out a bitter laugh and shakes his head.

Alfie does the only thing that seems to make sense right then and kisses him. For just a second of bliss Tommy relents and seems to long to give in fully, but it only lasts a moment. Then he’s ripping himself away from Alfie. Stumbles from the chair and stares at him, eyes wild and desperate.

“I don’t want your fucking pity,” he cries. “You don’t have to pretend that- you don’t have to pretend to want me when I- when I look like this. When I so-”

His voice breaks and he blinks up at the ceiling, eyes welling with tears. Wraps his arms around himself the way he does when he wants to disappear.

It sinks in slowly, his words, the raw pain in his voice.

The thought that Tommy doesn’t realise, that he’s failed so completely to show him-

“Tommy, sweetheart, I thought I made it abundantly clear that I-“ he scrambles to find the right words. “That you’re the most beautiful creature God has placed in this little fucked up world of ours. And of course, fuck, I couldn’t want you more. Have you any idea how many times I’ve imagined taking you right here against one of these counters?”

“Why don’t you, then?” Tommy challenges between the tears, words dripping with spite and quiet desperation. Well, if that’s how it’s going to be…

Alfie can move quickly when he wants to. In one swift movement he’s grabbed Tommy and lifted him up onto the counter behind him. Fingers wrapping around his neck to feel the pulse underneath his skin, holding his waist tightly, he kisses him like he fucking means it. When Tommy doesn’t open his mouth for him he squeezes tighter until he does, biting at his lips before licking against the roof of his mouth. Deep and sloppy and with a possessiveness that he so often tries to control. Forcing Tommy to give in, let go.

He doesn’t pull back until his head is swimming.  

Tommy stares at him, eyes wide and lips parted to take in quick, shallow breaths. His heart thrums rapidly underneath Alfie’s fingers.

“Like that, eh? Is this how you want it?” he growls “See, I could take you right here. Make you feel things no one has ever made you feel before. I could fuck all those stupid ideas right out of you. Make you absolutely come apart-“  

“Maybe I want you to,” Tommy whispers. But there’s something frightened and broken that seeps out of the cracks in the words. Alfie squeezes his neck and tugs him closer. Allows himself for a moment to imagine giving in. Fucking hell the things he could do. And yet-

With a sigh, he loosens the grip around Tommy’s neck and strokes his cheek instead. “Oh sweetheart, I think we both know that’s not true.”

And with a sob, Tommy collapses against him. Buries his face in his shirt and cries. Alfie hugs him tightly and rocks him back and forth. “Shh, shh, love. It’s not what you need. Not right now, eh? See I think what you need is to be properly taken care of. In a bed with soft sheets and far too many pillows. Where I can take my time with you. Treat you the way you deserve.”  

He holds and hushes and strokes his back, the nape of his neck, his hair. Slow and rhythmical over and over as he cries.

“I wish you’d see yourself the way I do,” he whispers. “Suppose I’ll have to do a better job of showing it. Because I know you well enough to understand you won’t take my fucking word for it.”

Tommy’s broken voice comes from within his shirt, “You don’t have-“

Alfie wrings his fingers into his hair and tugs lightly until he comes out from his hiding place  

“None of that,” he says. “Not a single fucking word implying that I’m doing some noble thing here. There’s nothing noble about what I’m going to do to you. Because I want to. Wanted to for so long. And if that should happen to coincide with what you want, well, that makes me a very lucky man, doesn’t it? But we’re not in a rush. And there’s quite a bit of territory between living in chastity and fucking against a kitchen counter. Which we could absolutely explore further, if you think you’re up for it.”  

Finally, Tommy looks at him with something besides the despair which has been lodged in his gaze. Alfie wipes the remnants of tears from his cheek.

“But tonight, all we’re going to do is sleep,” he tells Tommy. And himself. “Because I think we both need it. You especially, after this little incident. So I’m taking you to bed. Where we’re going to sleep. There are plenty of other nights to fill with all kinds of lovely activities.”  

Tommy responds by falling back against his chest, loose limbed and pliant and finally completely relaxed. Alfie smiles. “Yeah? Sounds like a plan doesn’t it?”

He he lifts him off the counter to carry him back towards his bedroom and Tommy clings to him, laying his head on his shoulder and burrowing into the crook of his neck. Alfie kisses his forehead, the tenderness, a possessive almost feral need to protect and care for him aches in his chest at the happy little sound he lets out.

This, this makes it worth it, the worry the fear and the frustration- this small moment.

Before he even crosses the threshold to the bedroom, Tommy is sound asleep.

[shadowdianne]

Fic writer review [Or a fic writer tag game if you prefer]

I was tagged by @naralanis and I can already see her grin all the way from where I am xd Thank you, dear, for the tag, let’s see what are my answers, shall we.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

*bursts out laughing* Adding both pseuds I have… 535 according to the account info but by counting them all I’m reaching 541 so I’m guessing it’s counting some drafts I need to re-find.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

I seriously hated you for this one xd I was going to do it by hand by I decided one-third there that I value my mental stability a little bit more xd according to the stats page back at a03 that number would be 1257884. It may be wrong. I think there should be a few more numbers up there but the majority of my works are one-shots so *shrugs* There’s also the fact that counting my ao3 things only is shaving off like half of it Xd Anyway, can we laugh at the fact that I’m a pain in the ass and that I’ve written a lot? More than I should have, that’s for sure

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

Trick question because I haven’t crossposted everything I wrote back in ffnet and I actually erased some fics from my account back there so the numbers are a little blurry there.

When I had the entirety of my work posted both in ffnet and a03 I had written for: Twilight (Bella/Alice) Glee (Faberry and there were a couple Pezberry and I don’t fucking remember the pairing name for Santana and Quinn), Harry Potter (Hermione/Ginny, Hermione/Narcissa, Hermione/Bellatrix) OUAT (SwanQueen and several oneshots focusing on the mad hatter and the blue fairy solely back at ffnet that were written in Spanish and never translated), I actually had a veeeery old au prompt of Frozen (Elsanna in where I wrote them as non sibilings), Rizzoli and Isles (Rizzles), Dishonored 2 (Emily Kaldwin/Alexi Mayhew), Lara Croft and Wonder Woman, Supergirl (SuperCorp/Supercat) I had a 100 one -or maybe two??- (Clexa), The Shannara Chronicles (Amberle/Eretreia [Or Princess Rover], Rwby [Blake Belladona/Yang], The Worst Witch (Hecate Hardbroom and Pippa Pentangle), The Half of it, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Madam Satan/Zelda Spellman) and… I think that’s it(?) I may be forgetting some but probably nothing important if I’m not remembering it lol.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

Ah, we are going to go there, uh? Xd My works are not the kudos and comment getting type Xd So I was quite surprised when I went to check this.

1: Cracked it I wrote this one back in 2017, it was a prompt done by an anon: Lena is nerding with one of her projects at home, mumbling mostly to herself because she’s stuck and Kara casually mentions how to solve the problem like it’s nothing. I really had some fun with this. It was back when some us, SQeeners were fully doing the jump between OUAT and SuperGirl (I mean, there had already been some crossover as for fandom is related but this when the girls were actually getting their conjoined voice within the fandom)

2: Dateless I honestly needed to check what this one was about but I think I can see why this one shot has the amount of kudos it has. It’s a short and sweet idea and responds to the Teachers Au that went SO well with SQ. Everyone thinks they hate each other and try to set them up with other people whilst they, in truth, are dating. I don’t remember if I wrote them as married rather than dating but despite being from 2017 as well is one cheeky enough to be cool Xd I probably would edit some lines now *shudders*

3: After you I truly didn’t expect this one to be top 3. Makes me think of a lot of things, if I’m being honest Xd. After you was a one shot written almost feverishly as an answer to the fabulous drawings that Sejic did of both Lara Croft and Wonder Woman back at 2018 or something. It’s just Lara and Diana being himbos but not at all with each other.

4: How about… How about is one I remember perfectly, it was my answer to the ending of the Half of it film. I had SOME thoughts about it, let’s just stop there Xd I really liked the film itself but I think and I thought at the time that my response to wishing for a final scene at the very end of the credits responds to me being in a different personal moment than the characters. I really wanted to explore my feelings about it and so I wrote about them finding each other again after some time passes. It was also something I wrote after quite the hiatus so I took it as something I could write about without focusing too much on the why.

5: Come to me

Ahh, SuperCorp Xd I remember this one actually. A friend of mine and I were talking about descriptions, and she mentioned quite off-handedly how she wanted a fic in where Kara’s back was described. I complied… more or less.

Fun tidbit, despite the big volume of my work is obviously set in ouat there’s only 1 SQ fic there as you can see, the others are either SuperCorp or the random one shots I created for Wonderwoman/Lara Croft and The half of it. *sighs in deep thought* I’m also not going to look too much into how almost all of the fics were posted and written back in 2017. Nope, not at all.

*Small voice screaming you peaked in 2017 and everything else is garbage jumps back and forth*

5. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

I tend to always respond, yup. I truly value comments. I might have gone for spells of time in where I didn’t have the mental capacity to check in old fics because I truly didn’t know what to answer but I treasure every single comment and you all who comment know that I can start to ramble in the answers xd -sorry about that- I really really REALLY love interaction.

6. A fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending:

Ok, Nara, come on, this one is a catch for me. I’ve written angst in far too many fics to remember the angstiest one :P I have the most recent one, though, that is the easy one to think about: Goodbye.Written for @delirious-comfort. I’m just going to say “Kisses with their last dying breath” as an idea of what awaits inside but I’ve written about death and loss and angst quite a lot. There were some I wrote back to SQ with Regina needing to kill Emma during the Dark Swan arc that, to this day, I still love and some others in where Regina is the one that dies, again and again, trapped by magic while Emma watches. I have the loss in mental destruction form and… I REALLY like my angst y’know xd

7. Do you write crossovers?

Not counting Lara and Wonder Woman not really! I think it comes from the fact that I loooove worldbuilding as a whole and some pairings would require all my focus into making the world perfect which in turn would make me self conscious on the OOCness of it all.

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

*snorts* I’ve received hate due to the pairing I’ve written about, how I’ve written about it, the amount I’ve written, how slow or quick I can be, the usage of some tropes, the lack of usage of those same tropes… Let’s just go with: yuuuup.

9. Do you write smut?

I’ve written smut, yeah! But I can already see the pointed looks of some so let’s elaborate Xd I write smut when asked and sometimes when not asked but there’s a part of me I like to call a terrible tease that prefers writing the beginning of a scene, taunt it, focus on what happens before the sex scene per se as I find it more enjoyable to write. The process of escalation is always the best for me to see what can I do it by using both dialogue and descriptors tbh, so I tend to tease more than show.

9. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

A few weeks ago I’d have said: Maybe(?) But trying to follow the trail of some other fics that had been stolen from some friends -I think it was me trying to find more about the page that stole something from your Nara!- I found some pages in where my fics had been reposted. In some it was stated that the person posting the fic wasn’t the author but I had never been contacted in order to see if I’d say yes to such a thing and in some others the page was locked up but I could still see someone was pretending to be the author. I did the thing and got some of those down.

Pointed note: Ask me if you want to post or translate or anything. I will look into you and answer you if you seem honest about the thing. But despite every joke and self-deprecating comment those 500 and then some fics represent MY time so very kindly I say fuck off to those who wish to steal from me and if I catch you… you don’t really want to see me angry, trust me.

10. Ever had a fic translated?

I’ve given permission to some, yeah, but never heard it back from them so I’m guessing it didn’t stick.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

I’ve written series alongside other authors as @stregaomega for example. And some others that are unpublished -looking at you @carsonnieve - I’ve also done collabs… but fics co-written in the sense of two authors same chapters I don’t have anything posted I’m afraid :P

13. All-time favourite ship?

*snorts*, I guess the obvious answer is SQ uh? And I do think they were the ones that allowed me to read and write SO much. The one I feel more strongly about, however, is Bering and Wells from Warehouse 13.

14. WIP you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

All of them counts as a valid answer? But if I only could finish one that would be Arcadia. With A forgotten Promise second and the one I did as an Assassins Creed AU third. (I don’t remember the name so there’s no link, sorry xd)

15. Writing strengths?

Uhhhh, you REALLY want me to say that? I don’t fucking know!! To me everything I write is garbage. I always try to go for the feelings so I guess. Dunno xd I’ve been told I’m good at worldbuilding and to be honest is what I enjoy the most.

16. Writing weaknesses?

Everything Xd Pacing? What I hate the most sometimes is dialogue, I would count it as a weakness but I’m always far too focused on description rather than dialogue. I don’t think it’s a bad thing per se but it’s something that I don’t do as much.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I’m conflicted. Always. Majorly because I think that having bilingual characters in fanfiction is portrayed and expected in a way that I don’t feel it’s honest with how bilingual people -us- talk. So if I go by what I know I do I think it’s not what readers hope to see when it comes to that and if I go for how canonically is hoped to be found I don’t think it’s logical. But that’s me and my overthinking Xd If I have the option I like to do it.

18. First fandom you ever wrote for?

Belice! Or Bella/Alice. Worst first fic ever but oh, well, I’m always saying that :P

19. What’s your fav fic you’ve written so far?

Uhh… Don’t make me do this XD Agh, I don’t know. I’ve always been very vocal about Metallic Ink because I let myself enjoy the process of creating a magic system almost out of zero and that was fun. Despite hating some of the writing process and that I’d do it differently now I think I’m going to stick with that answer. Or anything that had any steampunk-based undertone. To be honest I like more thinking of concepts, I had one in where Emma was a thief and it involved the robbery of a ring that was Regina’s one way ticket to freedom I then later repurposed that I adored thinking about so let’s go with…. Yeah, I love having the option of changing things up a little and focus on how characters would fit in different aesthetics for this one Xd

Annnd… these are four pages, gods. I’m just going to tag @waknatious @carsonnieve @stregaomega here and see what they do- Enjoy the questionnaire ladies :P

[mymelodyheart]

Miles Between Us Chapter 1 ~Stories She Wrote~

PICTURE SOURCE

PART 2 OF  WONDERWALL SERIES

Hey guys, I'm back and thrilled to give you part 2 of WONDERWALL series, Miles Between Us. It is a continuation from my holiday ficlet, All I Want For Christmas Is You. If you haven't read the first part, I suggest you do if you wish to get an insight into Jamie and Claire’s history (Here is the link) Otherwise, this ficlet can also be read as a stand-alone.

I know All I Want For Christmas Is You ending was bittersweet, but it had to be done. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been a Part 2 in this series. I had to leave the story open to possibilities if it is to have a chance of growing. And besides, making this into a series allows me to take breaks from writing and refresh my brain in-between ficlets. So I hope this next part of the story will make up for leaving you hanging all these weeks.

Anyway, before you continue, I'd like to thank you for reading, commenting and giving feedback to my stories. They're all very appreciated even if I sometimes don't comment back. As a hobby writer, I always look forward to your response, and they spur me to continue writing. Without the readers, I wouldn't be here. So thank you for being part of my writing journey.

If you wish to read this on AO3, here is the link.

So now everything is said, without further ado, I wish you all happy reading. ❤️

 Previously ...

Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp and James Fraser met and fell in love during the Holiday Seasons. Unfortunately for their budding relationship, after two weeks of a whirlwind romance, Claire has to return to London to finish some work commitment that could take a year to fulfil. It doesn't help matters that Jamie's PTSD condition prevents him from visiting her as loud city noises can trigger panic attacks. They are both in love with each other and are willing to find out where their relationship will head to. But can they find a compromise to bridge the gap of hundreds of miles to give their love a chance?

    After sitting on her bed most of Saturday working on her laptop, Claire Beauchamp rolled her neck and stretched her back, her arms extending above her head. She flinched when her joints cracked. 

Over the past few days, her boss, John Grey, forwarded manuscripts and drafts from the author she was working with. She hadn't eaten anything all day, and her stomach was beginning to grumble, and her eyes blurry from reading.

She'd read so much in the past hours, she was practically cross-eyed, and the bridge of her nose hurt where her specs rested. Words upon words had sifted through her brain, but now the lines were beginning to blur together.

She glanced back down on her laptop and opened a file in her document folder, her eyes scanning through lines she knew by heart. She'd been going through her own work lately wondering if she had what it takes to be a writer. Someone who would give her an honest opinion ought to read it before contemplating getting herself a literary agent if she was to start a new chapter of her life and take that leap of faith in her dream career.

A sudden urgency took over, and she needed Annalise to read her work, like right now. Which reminded Claire, her friend was away with Willie, shopping and sight-seeing. He was staying over their place for the weekend for the first time since she and Annalise left Lallybroch. After declining their invitation to join them earlier, the loved-up couple left her to her work with the promise of dinner when they returned.

She was about to reach out for her cold coffee from the bedside table when Raiders of the Lost Ark's theme song blared from her phone. At the same time, a picture of her uncle Lamb appeared on the screen. He was wearing a high-crowned, wide-brimmed, weather-beaten fedora hat and had a lopsided grin plastered to his thickly stubbled face. Rugged, she thought, just like her favourite pair of distressed leather boots, and very Indiana Jones.

Smiling, she tapped the answer button and put the phone on speaker. "Uncle Lamb! Long time no speak!" 

"Sweetheart," he started in a deep familiar voice, "how are you?"

She frowned and pushed her laptop aside. Something was off. "Oh you know, same old ...just finishing work and ..." 

"On a Saturday?" he asked, cutting her off.

"Look who's talking."

He chuckled. "You're young. You should be out. There are so many things to do in London ...especially on a Saturday. "

Claire rolled her eyes but opted to change the subject instead. She wasn't ready to give her reason for working overtime nor share her future plans nor talk about the handsome Scot she met during her holidays. Not just yet, anyway. "So ...to what do I owe the pleasure of hearing your voice, dear uncle?"

"What?" he said gruffly, pretending to sound offended. "Can't I call my favourite girl in the world and check up on her?" 

She mentally sighed. Something must be up since her uncle never called. It was always she who usually phoned, and when he did call on a rare occasion, it was either because something had happened or he was in London. She dismissed the latter since she knew he was in Papua New Guinea. The next conclusion she landed on was his health but thought it absurd. Her uncle was strong as an ox, ate healthily, only smoked the occasional cigar and regularly went for doctor's check-up, a requirement in his job as an archaeologist travelling to remote places.

Unless. "You sound suspiciously chipper. Let me guess ...you met someone. There's a woman in your life." 

He coughed like he was choking on a drink. "No! Why would you say that?" 

Alright, he sounded repulsed by the idea enough. Or was that denial? "I don't know. You seem so ...how shall I say it ...unlike yourself. You normally skip the niceties and get to the point." 

He lets out an impatient breath. "Claire, darling, am I really that awful?"

"No," she replied, ignoring the ache in her throat. She missed their time together but tried not to make it apparent in her tone. He was a busy man, and the last thing she wanted was her uncle worrying. "You don't seem like you're rushing off to anywhere. It's rare you sound this relax."

"It's way past my bedtime already," he sighed. "And besides, work is on stand-by at the moment until we get the license to start digging on site. People here are so damn laid back, and nobody seems to be in a hurry to process the paperwork. I'm not about to hand out cash to speed things along even if bribery is rampant here."

"I see. So you're in Port Moresby then?"

"Yes. As soon as we have the license sorted out, we'll be flying to Lae first thing tomorrow. Hopefully, anyway." He cleared his throat. "Speaking of paperwork, I received an email from my lawyer. Your trust fund has matured, dear. I'll send you the details where to go to and who to contact, and maybe you can start planning your life. Perhaps take a sabbatical and travel with me if you wish."

Ah yes, the trust fund. 

After her parents died, everything they had owned was put into her trust fund by her uncle to secure her future. She'd already received a small lump sum when she turned eighteen, and the money had afforded her, though small and cramped, a decent rental two-bedroom apartment in London with high windows, which was premium in this expensive city. And Annalise, her best friend and roommate made enough money to help pay the ridiculous expensive utility bills. Her own wage just about covered the other expenses with almost nought left for savings, but she hadn't worried knowing there was money in place in her name. She was counting on it to support herself when she pursued her dreams of writing.

"About that, I think I'll let that sit in the bank for a while. It's not like I need the money right now, nor do I have the time to spend it."

"As you wish," her uncle replied. "And another thing I need to discuss with you ...South Lodge ..."

"What about South Lodge?" South Lodge should have been her family home if her parents hadn't died, and she knew it was a highly coveted property because of its historical significance. It was never put into the market for sale since her uncle thought it wasn't his place to decide. It was put on a twenty-year lease to a high profile politician, its payments going towards her trust fund.

"The lease is up, and the occupants will be moving out soon. Unfortunately for you, that information made it to the local news and you were mentioned as the legatee. So don't be surprised if you're bombarded with offers now that your name is out. I'm willing to bet, property investors and developers will be itching to get their hands on it."

Claire took off her specs and pinched the bridge of her nose. God, she hated adulting, paperwork and dealings with lawyers. Maybe she should just sell South Lodge and be done with it, so she could concentrate on her future plans. What do I need a five-bedroom house with one acre of garden in Oxford for? "I'll think about it, uncle. I just have a lot of things going on at the moment. I'm quite sure those things can wait."

"Of course dear."

"Thank you for letting me know." She thought of Jamie, and the Highlands and how much life was a lot simpler there. She really needed to double her effort to tie up loose ends in London and have a heart to heart talk with Annalise. Is her relationship with Willie serious? If not, her friend would have to eventually find a new roommate. After quickly glancing at her bedside clock, she realised they would be here soon and hopefully with a takeaway. Annalise did mention something about sorting dinner out tonight.

"And Claire?"

"Yes?"

"Your upbringing hasn't been the most ideal. Enjoy the money and treat yourself. Don't spend your life doing things that don't bring you joy."

She smiled. Her uncle must have had a rude awakening of some sort to sound so philosophical. Or probably, he did meet someone special. Either way, she wasn't going to push for any answers for now. She really needed to get out of bed, do a few stretches and have a shower before Annalise, and Willie arrived. "I'll try," she finally said.

"Good. I'll let you get back to whatever you're doing."

"Sadly, yes." She shut her laptop and got out of bed. "Take care of yourself, alright? And I'll phone you sometime next week after I've figured out our time differences." 

"Absolutely, sweetheart. Talk soon." 

"Love you, uncle Lamb." 

"Love you, too." 

She terminated the call with a swipe on her screen and rubbed her eyes. She'd been working for seven hours straight, and her eyeballs felt like they're made of sandpaper. Glancing at the corner table, she smiled when she saw Jamie's gifts. Willie had brought them with him when he arrived last night from Inverness. She knew Jamie was making up for his absence, but it couldn't be helped when there's the danger of his PTSD condition worsening in the city. To her delight and surprise, he'd sent her a leather-bound journal, a framed selfie photo of them together, driftwood bookends he made and a box of her favourite Lindt chocolate.

With a contented sigh, she made a mental note to call Jamie after dinner. And to ask her boss first thing Monday morning if she could take her work to Scotland the following weekend to surprise her boyfriend. After all, she was just taking her uncle's advice, and after the work, she'd put in the last couple of weeks, and the extra hours she planned to do the next few days, she deserved a little joy in her life.

..........

Claire leaned forward, and nervously examined her best friend's face. Annalise was hunched down, scrolling her laptop, tongue darting out as she read the paragraphs on the screen. 

What's that look for? Doesn't she like it? She couldn't tell. It was the first time she's showing her work to anyone, one of the stories she had written during her spare time before embarking a career as an editorial assistant for Dreamcatcher Publishing Company. She needed to hear her friend's opinion to know if she even had a small chance of becoming a writer.

Annalise took her sweet time, and Claire wasn't sure if her inscrutable expression was a deliberate act to prolong the suspense, or if she genuinely had no reaction to what she's reading. If it was the latter, Claire would definitely kiss her dream of being a writer goodbye. If it's the former, she's going to strangle her friend for making her suffer. 

She heard the door to the apartment open and close, followed by the sound of keys jangling and heavy footfalls, announcing the arrival of Willie. He'd stopped by to order some food at a local Indian takeaway while Annalise headed straight home to prepare the table for dinner. Instead of calling out to him, she held her breath for Annalise's response. 

Just when Claire was starting to accept her hope of being a writer would never amount to anything other than a pipe dream, she saw the reaction she impatiently waited for. Annalise's mouth formed a comical O, followed by her eyes' widening and random shallow sighs. 

Yessssssss! 

This was massive. Despite Annalise having seen works from established authors Claire had edited for, she'd never witnessed her friend looked this excited. Annalise simply couldn't hide her gobsmacked expression, even if she tried.

"Oh, dear Lord," she whispered, her gaze flicking to Claire and then back to the screen. "Why didn't you tell me you had this? I knew you wanted to be a writer, but this ..."

"So?" 

Annalise took a massive deep breath, her fingers almost shaking. "Oh my God, Claire." 

"Oh my God, wot? Oh my God good or oh my God, bad?" Claire asked, even though she already knew deep in her bones, what the answer was. But she desperately needed to hear the words.

"This is bloody good," she said, as she went back to a previous page, and reread it all over again. After a couple of minutes more, a slow smile started to spread across her face, as she stole a few cheeky glances over at Claire.

Claire knew she could rely on her friend to tell her the truth. If her work had been bad, friend or not, Annalise would have been forthright and told her the hard facts. Nevertheless, she tamped down her own growing excitement. "The question is though ...is it good enough for the mass?" 

Without hesitation, Annalise nodded vigorously, her blue eyes big as saucers. "Oh, Claire, are you kidding me? You really have no idea, have you? Of course, it is! I need to read the rest. Please tell me it's finished." 

Claire relaxed for the first time and slumped back against the headboard of her bed, relief soothing her wild heartbeat. "It's finished."

Annalise let out a whoop as she gripped the laptop tightly. "Oh my God! Give me everything ...I won't be able to sleep tonight if I don't read at least one more chapter of this story." 

"I've got ten more finished materials."

"Oh my God, oh my God! You're killing me. I want it all."

Willie poked his head by the frame of the doorway to her bedroom and eyed them suspiciously. She wasn't sure what he expected to find, but his eyes narrowed when he saw Annalise's flushed face. 

"What are ye both up to?" he asked, frowning. "Ye sound like ye're looking at porn on the internet." 

Annalise grinned and motioned him over. "Sort of." 

Willie hesitantly entered the room. "Sorry?"

"In actual fact, much better than porn ..." Annalise announced, smirking at Claire.

"Annalise!" Claire wheezed when it dawned on her, her friend must have been reading the sex scene part.

Annalise reached out and reassuringly squeezed Claire's hand whilst looking at Willie. "Take a look at this. Claire wrote it."

Annalise handed the laptop to Willie, and both of them earnestly watched his face to gauge his reaction. As he sat down on the edge of the bed and read, Claire knew he would be the real test. Willie being a bloke, she didn't expect him to have the same reaction as Annalise, but she hoped he would appreciate the storyline and plot. Claire already understood, if her story was going to be good enough to be published, its success would be based on women's purchasing power. If he liked her style of writing even a smidgen, then she would be laughing. 

Claire held her breath in anxious anticipation, and approximately a minute and a half later, she got her response. 

His eyes bulged out, and then the tips of his ears glowed with red. In all sort of ways, he was so similar to Jamie but yet so different. But there's no mistaking how vibrantly their ears always lit up when they're embarrassed. Or moved. 

"Kind of explicit," he commented hoarsely, before tucking a tongue into his cheek as if trying to find the right words to say. "But it is an intriguing story with great flow and interesting characters. It's no' the genre I would typically read, but the first few paragraphs of what I've seen so far are riveting. It makes me want to read more."

Annalise, enthusiastically nodded in agreement and waved a hand in the air. "There it is." 

"Ye have a gift, Claire," Willie added, eyes still fixed on the screen and working overtime as his focus became more intense. "The dose of mystery ye've woven into the lines is remarkable and intelligent."

She felt herself beaming in vindication. "Thank you." 

He briefly glanced up at her. "Now that I remember, Jamie did vaguely mention ye wanted to be a writer."

"That's the plan," she beamed.

"Good. Because if ye can produce something like this, then yer talent is wasted on editing other people's work."

"She's got ten more finished stories," Annalise piped in.

Willie arched an eyebrow at Claire and continued reading, and when he finished, he shook his head and let out a low whistle. "Is Jamie the inspiration for this story?"

Her face heated. "I ...ah ...wrote that years ago. And ...um, I've revised and edited it a million times in the past. I wanted Annalise to read it first and find out if it's good enough to be published."

Annalise grinned at Willie, still looking a little flush like she was having a physical reaction to the few lines she'd read earlier. "So what do you think?"

Willie didn't miss Annalise's excited reaction to the story. "It's verra good but I didnae realised graphic scenes affected ye so much. Ye're beet red!" 

"Only when it's very well written," Annalise smirked, taking the laptop from his hands and moving towards him to sit on his lap. 

Willie pulled Annalise closer and kissed her, and Claire sighed. It's both beautiful and terrible being in the presence of people, so in love. While she's ecstatic to see her best friend smitten and happy, it made her sad that Jamie couldn't be here with her. She missed him terribly, and it's only been a fortnight since she had last seen him.

After a few seconds of watching them unashamedly snogged in front of her, Claire clapped her hands, and they both immediately pulled away. "Right, that's enough you two. So, where's the dinner I was promised?"

Suddenly looking self-conscious, Willie promptly lifted Annalise from his lap, plonked her down onto the bed and jumped up, and Claire couldn't help but grin at him.

"Right on it," he muttered, before disappearing from her bedroom.

Annalise laughed and playfully shoved her shoulder. "Passion killer."

Claire ignored the jest. "So you really think I should publish my story?"

Her friend nodded excitedly. "Absolutely! You should have let me read it sooner. From what I've seen so far, you have good, solid material, and I'm convinced, when I read the rest, it will not disappoint." She stood up and smiled. "Come on, in as much as I'm all fired up after reading your story, I'm famished." She got up and left the room.

Instead of moving from her position, Claire stared at her work for a few seconds and just breathed. Although Willie and Annalise were sincere with their praises, she couldn't help but still feel nervous. This next step in her life could either turn out to be huge, or it could get her mocked out of a dream career she loved. 

Pushing aside her doubts and thinking of Jamie, she quickly compressed a copy of her story's file and sent it to him via email to read, hoping he would like her written work too. Who knew, maybe, after reading it, he would be as fired up as Willie and Annalise. 

After hearing the whoosh of the email sent, Claire launched herself off the bed to join her friends, looking forward to Jamie's reaction later and daydreaming of a future in Scotland with her love.

[firecooking]

CONTINUATION ON MY PREVIOUS CALL OUT POST

I didn't want to go here AGAIN, but engines-and-gin [new username and I have them blocked so I can’t fully tag them] is making posts about the situation

They've been harassing me and others for *months*, this whole situation started in early to mid 2020.

It started with this person following me and several others [@merciresolution included] and when we investigated there blog initially [as one does when followed by someone you don’t know, you take a few glaces at there blog], we found it full of spam about Thomas characters being age changed as infants and this person obsessing over them to a very high degree, including reblogs of posts that where not clear if they where from age play or agre sources [and this whole situation was taxing on me enough to begin with to do any further digging], there where also untagged posts with nsfw and major triggers [blood, needles, violent situations]. We talked to them about agre and asked them to a.) Keep it out of the main tags due to it being super sensitive and triggering to many people, an b.) To please stop refollowing people to spam there accounts with notifications, we THOUGHT the situation ended there but the person started posting on the main tag after a few weeks on a new blog, and with that they started spamming asking others to do agre role play with them while claiming they needed it for mental health reasons [they’ve claimed they have depression, severe enough they are in fear of hurting themself, but that they also refuse to talk to a mental health professional for it for various reasons]

After these events, and several attempts at reaching out to them through different channels, asking them to stop spamming other, they took a break for a few months. However, these behaviors started up again in last 2020 early 2021.

They once again started following, unfollowing, and refollowing me on my main account [this one] and @\logging-locos  every day for almost a month while I sent them several asks for them to PLEASE stop doing so, before they deleted the account in question and started up again with *another* blog, at this point I blocked them for the second time [the first time being on the first account earlier in the year]

In the interim between early 2021 and this latest, they made several new accounts, I repeatedly blocked after realizing it was the same person *over and over*

Are latest follwing was a final straw for me. Opening this persons blog and seeing Agre, untagged nsfw, and many untagged common triggers is finally taking enough of a toll on me that I cannot handle it anymore. 

Seeing them and there content is constantly putting me into bad spells of intrusive thoughts, and seeing agre not only is affecting my mental health with intrusive thoughts but ‘Age Regression’ is often a technical term used in courts or by law firms that is used against autistic adults and teenagers. Being Autistic and Neurodivergent in other ways I’ve seen ‘mental age’ and ‘age regression’ both used in the context of abusing autistic and other neurodivergent peoples. Forcing them into situations where they lose there rights as adults. It happens more than you think, and age regression and mental age are both terms that are touted by anti autistic organizations as ways to de power autistic’s and spread misinformation. Any information I’ve found about Agre as a form of therapy is either from unsourced materials on tumblr and other blogging platforms, or very specific mental health practices that I have not found to be a general consensus. As far as I’m concerned, the content I’m seeing from this blog is not a major therapeutic practice, I cannot find any research papers on the concepts, and the blurry line between Agre and Age play is very large and not one I have the mental capacity to deal with

I have a backlog of information screenshots of interactions with this person and I’m willing to share them, but I’m really exsaughted right now

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REPORT AND/OR BLOCK THE USER ENGINES-AND-GIN, BUT ALSO PLEASE STOP INTERACTING WITH THEM AND PLEASE DO NOT GO AN ANTAGONIZE OR HARASS THEM

At the end of the day, I really REALLY hope that they are just a misguided person who is dealing with some mental health issues, and just needs help, harrassing them will never help them. I may want them to stop harrassing me and others, but I’d never wish for them to get harassed in return. If we could all just leave eachother alone that’d be the ideal solution

ALOS Under the read more is some misc evidence of NSFW on there account which they CLAIMED they never posted which is STILL ON THERE BLOG UNTAGGED they’ve also [VERIFIED BY A MOD] reblogged posts from @nsfw-ttteconfessions

There are more posts than this but I’m getting sick about it and digging is making me and others uncomfortable

[nxrthmizu]

| the detective and the blue-eyed fox | ch.5

»»——⍟——««

title | all her fault 

pairing | Damian Wayne x Marinette Dupain-Cheng 

warnings | mentions of death, death, but nothing explicitly described

words | 3.1k 

author’s note | im emotionally invested in this series, i have ch.6 and ch.7 planned out too :3 prepare yourself for more twists and (maybe) a major death :))) also this wasn’t proof-read,,, lmk if there are any mistakes! enjoy :3 

»»——⍟——««

| beginning | previous part | ao3 | 

»»——⍟——«« 

Three walls of cement and one wall of two-inch glass. Gabriel Agreste faced the four blank slates of his confinement everyday for three months, pondering on how he was going to endure the remaining of his days in his dreary ‘home’. They wouldn’t even provide him with paper to create some sketches on- (What were they afraid of? Paper butterflies? He was powerless without his miraculous). 

“So, what business do we have today, Ms. Rossi?” He asked smoothly, business-like as ever despite not being able to remember the last time he had a conversation. Three months of complete isolation- The guards wouldn’t even spare him a single word, and to be fair, he couldn’t blame them. 

“Did you hear about Adrien?” 

Being straightforward when she wanted to be was one of Lila’s strong traits. Her words were driven to the point, cleared from the lies that typically shrouded them. A borderline sadistic smile traced her vermilion lips when a spark of curiosity glimmered in the man’s eyes- Oh, she was going to enjoy being the bearer of the staggering news. 

“What about Adrien?” She could tell- He was expecting something perhaps along the lines of his son screwing up the company he inherited, or perhaps his son making a public statement about- 

“He’s dead.” 

Gabriel froze from where he was seated on the cement block they provided him with, red draining from his already-pale skin and his bloodshot eyes. “What?” His voice was but a hoarse whisper, a denial, a beg, a plea for the woman to laugh and tell him that it was all some cruel joke. 

“He was murdered.” Oh, how she enjoyed seeing the anguish dawn into his eyes. The pain seeped into his body like a parasite, leeching away any will of survival the man had left. “Two weeks ago.” 

If getting stripped of his miraculous and being arrested was the sky crashing upon the world he tried so hard to bring his wife back into, then the revelation of his son’s death would be the universe collapsing into itself, becoming a black hole that self destructed from the very core of Gabriel Agreste’s heart. 

“Felix Graham de Vanily is combining the Agreste and the Vanily companies with a horizontal merger,” Lila continued, enjoying the acidic pain that burned through the heartless man’s soul. “Oh, and did I tell you? From the day Adrien died, Chat Noir stopped patrolling the city.” 

The rush of ‘What if he was murdered because I was Hawkmoth?’ and ‘There are no more Agrestes left...’ smashed into him like water reaching the bottom of the waterfall. There was no mercy behind the strong wave of despair; no mercy behind Lila Rossi’s cold eyes and satisfied smile; no mercy that the world had left for him as a punishment for all his crimes. 

“I think I might know who killed him, but I need you to be honest with me,” Lila said softly, enjoying the view of the man’s bowed head. The swollen red of his teary eyes made something inside her heart stir, and it wasn’t sympathy. No, not at all. Her heart swelled with a triumphant laugh, a satisfaction that can only be achieved through the means of revenge. “What happened to the peacock miraculous?” 

»»——⍟——«« 

[Paris, three months ago] 

In the midst of destruction you could easily find pain, agony, and despair, because wherever you looked, there was someone who had no time to mourn, but still mourned nonetheless. Ladybug had lost count of how many Paris lost after the hundredth- And the count was only increasing exponentially by every passing second. The former city of love was doing its’ best impression of a society undergoing an apocalypse- In fact, it was a society undergoing an apocalypse. 

Exhaustion clawed at Paris’s heroine like a monster that wanted to be released from its’ cage. It tore at her without pause, releasing soreness into her muscles and weariness into her mentality. How much longer did she had to fight? How much longer until she couldn’t go on anymore? How much longer until Paris would fall into the hands of the man who could only focus on what he wanted? 

And what would happen to Paris if she couldn’t stand any longer to defend it? 

Smoke painted every inch and corner of the skyline in an abstract painting, which would’ve been beautiful if it wasn’t because of the direness of the situation. The clouds were stained a dirty red and firetrucks wailed in the distance, too little of them to keep up with the demand of damage control. Screams echoed across the city, a painful reminder to the heroine of how many lives she had let down. Nothing pained the heroine more than the fact she had been trusted with so many and ended up failing just as many.

A little distance away, shrouded under the same red sky that Ladybug stood under, was the Le Grand Paris. A section of the grand hotel had caved in, leaving the top half of the building in ruins. The golden embellishments of the hotel were caked in dust, the grandeur of Paris’s greatest hotel submitting to the chaos and destruction around it. 

“Come on! Get in here! Hurry up!” 

Chloe couldn’t believe her eyes. 

There stood Mayor Bourgeois, urgently yelling out orders for as many people as possible to get into the hotel’s wine cellar, which would be underground and as safe as it got at the moment. The endless stream of Parisians flowed continuously through the open doors of the hotel, the hotel’s large wine cellar being able to accommodate about half of Paris’s (surviving) population. 

For once in her life, Chloe was proud to call the mayor her father. 

“Daddy! I’ll go get more people here!” She yelled over the bustling noise. Worry clumped over the mayor and butler Jean’s eyes, but her father nodded nonetheless, a smile slipping over his lips. 

“Be careful, my dear!” 

On the other side of Paris, Alya was holding onto her younger siblings as tightly as she could, all four of them hidden under the dining table. A loud ring startled all of them, the second-oldest Cesaire turning her attention to her phone. Earthquake-like vibrations made multiple household objects topple and smash onto the floor, much to the twins’ terror. 

“Chloe?” She breathed, picking up the call. 

The voice that came in response was panting, taking hurried, shuddering breaths. The consistent thump-thump-thump of footsteps also echoed through the phone, accompanied by the distance rings of destruction. “Where are you? Get your family towards Le Grand Paris, you can hide in the wine cellar!” 

Alya couldn’t believe the blonde’s words. 

“And if you’re up to it, spread the word! The wine cellar is the safest place we have right now.” 

The call ended, Alya blinking back her surprise in exchange of a courage that surged forward all of a sudden. “Nora, take Ella and Etta to Le Grand Paris and hide in the wine cellar.” 

“And where are you going?” 

Alya steeled her jittering nerves. “I’m going to get out there and help.”

Not too far away from the Cesaire’s apartment, Ladybug was swinging through the city, surveying the damage. The whizz of her yoyo felt deafening to her ears, and everything hurt. Her muscles were sore, her legs were shaking, and her vision felt blurry. Half of Paris was a rubble of cement and dust, and the other half was on the verge of collapsing soon. 

Ladybug’s eyes widened in horror as she jerked back, catching sight of a familiar building that was so burdened with destruction that she could barely recognise it if it wasn’t for the fact that she knew she was on the right street. 

“No. No, no, no. Nononono-” Her breath caught in her throat, suffocating and strangling her from inside. 

The bakery had collapsed. 

She prayed with all her heart that her parents had gotten out, but from the looks of it, the bakery was hit fast and the chances that- 

No. 

“Think positive thoughts, Marinette.” The heroine whispered to herself, desperate and unwilling to face what she was sure was the truth. “Maybe they got out. Maybe they got out. They’re fine.” 

Even as she swung off, Ladybug knew in her heart that despite the lies she insisted on telling herself, her parents’ dead bodies were somewhere underneath the rubble. 

»»——⍟——«« 

“Mamma!” Tears streamed down Lila’s face as she tugged and pulled at the portion of their ceiling that had chosen the diplomat as its’ victim. There was no use- Both of them knew as well as 1 + 1 that there was no way Lila could lift the concrete block by herself. 

The diplomat looked up with a weak smile, already having come to terms with how her life would end- With her lower half crushed by a ceiling. “Leave me here, dear, the building’s going to-” 

Lila shook her head stubbornly, desperately trying to lift the concrete again, only to look up in surprise, not having expected a pair of spandexed hands to join hers. Ladybug let out a grunt as she tried to nudge the collapsed ceiling even just a little, her suit tearing due to the rough surface of the collapsed ceiling. 

“Come on, we’ll push at the count of three!” The hero instructed, groaning and giving all her strength to the giant piece of debris, but it was no use. Ladybug was tired and worn out, and the little strength she had in her was not enough to overcome the concrete’s stubbornness to stay put. “I... I could...” She flung out her yoyo, trying to think of a way to use the concrete’s weight against itself. 

“Ladybug, the building is collapsing, please just leave me be.” The diplomat pleaded. “Lila, please get out of here!” 

The building groaned, supporting the woman’s statement. Ladybug bowed apologetically, guilt lurking in every corner of her eyes. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance, ma’am.” 

“You’ve done a lot for Paris. I should thank you.” The woman whispered, smiling painfully at her daughter. “I’m sorry, Lila. I love you, forever.” 

The girl sniffled, pressing her lips into a thin line. “I love you too, mamma.” 

“Come on, Lila.” Ladybug whispered gently, pulling the teen away. It was as heart-wrenching as abandoning a puppy on the side of the road on a rainy day, but the diplomat was right- The building was giving in, and if they didn’t get out themselves, Paris’s death count would only increase by another two. 

The escape from the building was quiet, only filled by the whizz of the yoyo. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have done more.” Ladybug said softly. 

“It’s not your fault.” Lila sniffled bitterly. Now that they were soaring over the city, Lila could see just how much of it was crumbled and broken- At least 70% of the city was reduced to rubbles, and the Eiffel tower, who had once stood tall at the core of Paris, had now bowed down to the wrath of the man who knew nothing but his own wants. 

It was at that moment that Lila Rossi decided that the person she hated the most was Hawkmoth.  

»»——⍟——«« 

You never know the true meaning of horror until you live that one moment that crushes you inside. 

It freezes your blood, it makes your heart stop, and your chest feels like its’ being constricted. You can’t breath, and your field of vision just narrows to the one point that defines the cause of all your pain. Sometimes, you don’t even know what you feel. All emotion has been drained out of you, and your brain has lagged behind, unsure of how to react. 

Chloe stood in front of Le Grand Paris- The remains of it, anyway, and came to the conclusion that her father saved at least a thousand lives that day. All by putting aside his own safety and shepherding millions of his citizens into the wine cellar. 

It was over. 

It took hours for the firefighters to dig out the entrance to the wine cellar, millions and thousands of relieved Parisians crawling from the hole. The daughter of the mayor sat and waited, helping wherever she could. There were too many tears shed, too much blood bled, and too many people dead. 

She watched the line of Parisians trickle from what was formerly Le Grand Paris’s wine cellar. She waited and waited until the sun finally had mercy on Paris and ended the day that would be marked as the end of the city of love. She prayed and hoped until she saw the last man crawl from the cellar. 

And then she faced the truth that neither her father nor butler Jean made it into the wine cellar themselves. 

»»——⍟——«« 

Adjusting to the bright light shining around her was difficult, to say the least. Paris had been shrouded in semi-darkness for the past twenty-four hours. 

Marinette sat up hurriedly, groaning at the piercing pain that shot thorugh her spine at the action. All around her were her friends’ worried faces, Alya’s, Adrien’s, Nino’s, Chloe’s- Were those tears on Chloe’s cheeks? And was that Lila comforting her?

“Alya found you passed out in the middle of the street after it ended.” Nino explained quickly. 

Ah, that was what they were calling it now, Marinette thought. The battle she had fought for over fifteen hours without pause was now labelled ‘It’. 

“What were you doing out there, you could’ve died!” Alya scolded, but despite the tone, the teen was more glad than anything to see that the bluenette had made it. 

“Where... Are we? And why is everything so... Destroyed?” 

The classmates shared looks that practically spelt ‘Who’s going to break it to her?’. 

“Ladybug disappeared after the battle was won. She never got to use her miraculous cure.” Chloe supplied the explanation coldly. “Thousands are dead. Almost every building needs to be rebuilt.” 

Adrien offered her a weak smile that was on the verge of breaking. “Hawkmoth is gone for good.” There was a faint suggestion in the boy’s eyes that he was going through much more pain than any of them knew. “Hawkmoth... My father. My father was Hawkmoth. He was arrested a couple hours ago. Nathalie was Mayura.” 

Silence shrouded the teens like a  black rain cloud. “I’m sorry, Adrien.” Marinette whispered. It was coming back to her now- Chat Noir’s anguished screams when they discovered Gabriel Agreste, decked out in his purple suit, standing in the attic of Agreste Manor, Mayura’s escape- Feeling like she couldn’t go any further. The last thing she remembered was her transformation dropping, and contact with the cold hard ground. 

“Don’t be.” Lila responded nonchalantly. “I think I can speak for everyone here when I say that this whole shit was Hawkmoth’s fault and no one else’s. Almost everyone has lost a family member. Some of us lost more than others. It’s no one’s fault, so don’t you go apologising, Dupain-Cheng.” 

Her friends murmured their agreements, giving her soft smiles despite the devastation that tore at each of their hearts. 

Marinette wanted to laugh. 

Thousands dead and it was because she couldn’t hold on for two more seconds to use her miraculous cure. 

Thousands dead, including her own parents, Lila’s, and god knows how many others’ parents, siblings, lovers, and friends. 

Thousands dead and it was all. Her. Fault. 

»»——⍟——«« 

“Well?” 

Impatience decorated Lila’s tone as she tapped her heels, waiting for the terrorist’s answer. The click of her heels echoed through the room, bouncing off the concrete walls to create the loudest noise Gabriel had ever heard in a long time. 

“What happened to the peacock miraculous?” She repeated one more time for good measure, irked and irritated by the lack of answer from the other side of the glass. 

“It’s gone.” Gabriel answered softly after a while. “When they found Nathalie passed out in that alley, she didn’t have her miraculous on.” The man’s former assistant had fled after Ladybug and Chat Noir confronted them in the Agreste Manor, but two hours later, she was found unconscious in a back alley, and it was later discovered in the hospital that she had fallen into a coma. 

Bewilderment lit inside the woman’s eyes, burning beside the fury that blazed inside her soul. “Are you telling me someone stole them?” She hissed, resisting the urge to slam her hands on something. 

“No.” Gabriel answered reluctantly, slightly afraid of the woman’s fury. If it was any consolation, he knew the two-inch glass wall would prevent her from inflicting any harm onto him. “I’m telling you that Duusu probably ran off with her own miraculous.” 

The woman sucked in a deep breath, regulating her breathing to regain her composure. “Then do you have any idea where she went?” 

“Duusu is corrupted and manipulative, but she’ll need a host to operate through. She’d probably look for someone emotional, someone who’s lost a lot and is in a lot of pain.” Gabriel sighed, looking up to be met by Lila’s annoyed expression. 

“Oh wow.” Said the woman sarcastically, hands propped on her hips in a pretentious, thoughtful manner. “Someone emotional, someone who’s lost a lot and is in a lot of pain. That just about defines everyone that survived the apocalypse you laid on us three months ago.” 

It was at that moment Lila’s sarcastic attitude brought Gabriel to a terrifying conclusion. There was no amount of sympathy in her eyes, and judging from the hate and loath in her eyes... The revelation splashed him like a cold bucket of ice water, waking him up from the small smudge of hope he got to hold for a couple of seconds. 

“You aren’t here to get me out.” He whispered. Just when he thought that the sly woman was going to get him out of the four walls he was trapped in- She slammed her true intentions back into his face with no mercy. 

“You killed my mother, you bastard.” She smiled so sweetly that he wouldn’t be surprised if she was instantly cast as the beautiful but wicked stepmother from Snow White or perhaps the enchantress from Sleeping Beauty. “As well as the friends and family of thousand others. I hope you rot in jail forever.” 

»»——⍟——«« 

If anyone’s confused on the timeline of the story, this is how it goes: 

3 months before current time, the final battle takes place (ch.5). Thousands die because Ladybug didn’t get to use her miraculous cure. Hawkmoth is arrested and Nathalie falls into a coma. Ladybug/Marinette leave Paris after the battle is over.

Ladybug/Marinette heads to Gotham, where Marinette gets hired into GCPD and becomes partners with Damian. She also becomes Gotham’s newest vigilante, Lan, who exposes corrupt politicians 

2 weeks before current time, Adrien Agreste is murdered and Chat Noir stops patrolling Paris. (This is when Marinette learns from Tikki that Adrien and Chat are the same person even though the conversation wasn’t written) 

Current time (ch.1) Lan asks Damian to help her find the miraculous of the black cat 

Damian, the next day, finds out that Plagg and the black cat miraculous have been in his apartment the whole time (He then emails her and asks her to go to his apartment to discuss things) 

(ch.4) Damian and Marinette talk 

At the same time, in Paris, Luka visits Chloe, who is apparently in kahoots with him 

Also at the same time, Lila breaks into the highest security prison in Paris and talks to Gabriel Agreste/Hawkmoth (also partly ch.5) 

That’s about it for now :3 

taglist. @demonicbusiness @animegirlweeb @roselynfey @2confused-2doanything @insane-fangirl-of-everything @promiswords @galaxylightmoon @fusser90 @ira-sairain @liquid-luck-00 @glastwime859

gen. daminette taglist. @maskedpainter @animegirlweeb @missmadwoman

»»——⍟——«« 

| next part | ao3 | 

»»——⍟——«« 

[romiithebirdie]

From the Furthest Tether: Part Three

Harsh rainfall pelted down from the black sky above, fast droplets hitting Tomura Shigaraki's bare chest that exposed the faint scars littering across his body from the battle at Jaku. Narrowing a hardened scarlet eyes down at the decaying wreckage as he stood high and mighty in mid-air, courtesy of the Nomu who had transported him to Tartarus.

Bullets screeched through the air, some connecting with his skin and blasting his arm into a mangled, bloody mess as crimson liquid spilled over the smouldering brickwork. He barely flinched, immediately activating his Regeneration power that had saved his life on multiple occasions when he was facing the recently disgraced Pro Hero Endeavor.

Behind Father, he spread his chapped lips into a gleeful grin. Oh, how he hoped Endeavor was suffering both physically and mentally in the aftermath. He honestly couldn't wait for Round Two where he'd succeed in reducing the Flame Hero to nothing more than dust in the air.

Jumping from his Nomu's back, he casually strolled past the destruction while rejoicing under the loud blare of the prison alarms that howled out in a melancholic chorus. To the Guards and staff inside, they cowered in fear. But to Tomura Shigaraki? The unbearable sound marked the beginning of his deathgrip on the hero society.

Criminals poured from every entrance and window below his spot above them all, the tattered clothes covering the lower-half of his body billowed in between the whistling air and thick black smoke, like a flag flying high in the night sky.

Tomura's eyes wandered over the stampede, recognising Muscular and other villains crowding together as they beat back a futile stand by a few foolish Prison Guards. A cold shiver ran up his spine which seemed to spike his fury further as he slowly turned around, his senses overwhelming him under the image of All for One standing across the platform.

"Master…" the student rasped, suddenly feeling the urge to scratch at his neck. He glanced down at the body held in All for One's grip with little emotion, noting the small line of blood running from the guard's head.

His teacher began speaking to him, though Tomura could barely understand the words coming out of the villain's mouth as his ears filled with the sound of loud static. A possible reaction to their twin Quirks, perhaps?

"I told you…" Tomura's voice was rough, almost as if it was physically hurting him to speak, "That this is my body, my will, Master…"

"Hmm?" Japan's most feared man glanced down at Shigaraki like he was a small toddler. "You need rest, Tomura," his voice cooed, dripping with faux-warmth as he bared his teeth in a wide grin, "that regeneration Quirk will not work unless your body is at full health."

Don't talk down to me like I'm some weak little child!

Shigaraki's eyes flashed in rage, gnashing his teeth together at the large mocking smirk adjourning his teacher's face.

"I...I am not going to be your pawn," he growled out. Not anymore. He had his own goals, his own desires now.

"Oh?" All for One's grip on the eerily-unmoving guard's jacket tightened. "Now why would you think such a thing? No. To me, Tomura Shigaraki, you are an important successor."

The breathing apparatus floated in the air, held up by an invisible force as Japan's most feared man took another couple of steps towards his protege. "See how those below us desire to submit?" he asked, unfazed by the Tomura snarling at him like a feral animal that had been backed up into a corner. "This will be the story of how I become the greatest demon lord in existence."

His large hands then slowly reached out, akin to a puppetmaster controlling the strings of his lifeless, wooden marionettes…

Until Izuku's eyes shot open, cutting off a gasp which caught in his already-aching throat that felt as if somebody had their hands gripped around it with the intent to strangle him in his sleep.

His blurry vision registered the sickly white-coloured walls and scratchy sheets covering his body…

Ah, right.

He was in the hospital. Recovering from injuries that could- should have killed him back in Jaku. He leaned back against the singular pillow supporting the twinge in his neck.

Tick, tock.

Izuku glanced up at the clock across the room as it clicked back and forth in a monotonous motion. The window blinds of Izuku's ward had been put down, blocking out the strips of orange and red rays of sunlight that left the ward remaining a dark and sombre surround.

He reached forward and slowly picked up his phone that had been left on one of the plastic visitor chairs at his beside. Blinking tiredly with eyes that were heavy from lack of sleep, Izuku found himself slowly scanning over the screen of his mobile device. His thumb was brushing repeatedly over the cracked screen while it continued to illuminate his freckled face with a dull, bluish hue.

He swallowed thickly, still feeling the dizzying wave of nausea hit him every couple of minutes. The teen had been given a large amount of strong medication to minimize his body aches and the sharp throb of surgical stitches littered over his broken body. Izuku moaned to himself softly, muscles protesting the small movements as he slid his phone back on his bedside cabinet.

Since the previous night, he had barely heard from All Might. After his outburst in the middle of the hospital waiting area, he couldn't really blame the retired Pro from steering clear. Deep down, Izuku mused that the hospital staff possibly had more to do with the lack of visitation as it had taken a couple of nurses to return him to his ward the night prior. His mother had followed quietly behind the medical staff as they wheeled her son back towards his ward while trying to conceal her flowing tears.

She'd held his hand while Izuku was hooked back up to his IV, where another nurse had then quickly provided morphine. Whether it was just to help with the pain of his recovering injuries or played a part in settling him down, Izuku had no clue.

He glanced down at the cannula attached to his drip with a small whine, regardless of the hospital's reasoning, it had worked a treat last night and still had Izuku feeling like his head was full of cotton wool.

Izuku's phone buzzed atop the cabinet, the volume completely muted to prevent his head from pounding more than it was. Thankfully, his plump pillows gave him enough height to squint over at the name trying to reach him.

All Might.

Complete with a picture of the grinning Symbol of Peace that Izuku had screenshot from an interview stream several years ago. A bandaged hand gripped the phone and swiped across the screen to answer;

"Hello?"

"Ah, good morning, Young Midoriya!" even though Izuku couldn't see All Might's face, he could hear the smile that his mentor was forcing himself to wear. "How are you feeling?"

"Mm," Izuku shifted his legs through the thin bed sheets, legs tangled slightly as he flopped them down in defeat. He'd been way better but; "I'm getting there, thanks."

This response seemed to be enough to satisfy Toshinori from the other side of the phone line as he bobbed his head in a nodding motion before letting out a soft hum of agreement.

Izuku's eyes returned to his bedsheets, thin pupils scanning over the scratchy patterns running across the thin fabric while the retired Pro breathed heavily over the phone, the silence between them soon growing awkward as they both waited for the other to speak up again.

"So," Toshinori let his voice drag along the 'o' sound for a few moments before swallowing thickly, "any updates with the doctors?"

"Mhm, not really," Izuku switched hands, pushing the receiver against his other ear, "I think they're getting Recovery Girl in today."

Izuku hadn't been told that, he'd listened in on a conversation between hospital staff from outside his door. Not that All Might needed to know about his sudden interest in eavesdropping…

"So I think I'll be able to return to the dorms soon."

"Ah, good," Toshinori paused for a second. "Good…"

Izuku frowned, he recognised that tone.

"Is everything okay?"

He heard the hero splutter from the other end of the call, "E-Everything's fine, why wouldn't it be?"

Izuku's bandaged knuckles tightened around the phone, the plastic making small little cracking sounds of protest. Even without using his Quirk, Izuku's physical strength was more amplified due to his daily workout routine to maintain his Quirk-control.

"Well I-" Izuku's claw clicked shut. Could he bring up what he'd seen while he'd been asleep? Shigaraki and All for One...The villains breaking out of Tartarus… Was that even possible?

"Young Midoriya?"

"I saw more of the First User of One for All," Izuku belted out before he could stop himself. He wondered whether or not he should mention Nana Shimura being there too… Maybe it was better to tell All Might in person than over the phone?

"You did?" there was a small rustle in the background.

"But Shigaraki was there," Izuku chewed his lip before continuing; "And All for One."

"Oh?" Izuku cracked a dry smile at All Might's attempt to mask the concern in his voice. "How very...interesting."

"He could see me, All Might," both of Izuku's hands gripped the phone. "All for One."

"I see," there was a brief silence, the only sound coming from a soft buzz of phone static. "Do you recall anything that could have been said?"

Izuku winced, his chest tightening once again as All for One's cruel taunts forcefully entered back into his thoughts.

"No."

"Midoriya…" there was a slight edge to his mentor's voice and Izuku slumped his shoulders, sighing softly while still holding the phone in both hands. All Might knew he wasn't being truthful so what was the point in trying to hide it, aside from his own pride?

"He, uh," Izuku pushed his head against the wall that his bed lined up against, "mainly spoke to the First User but he saw me there and probably figured it'd be fun to mess with my head too."

Which could possibly explain the cause of his outburst last night and waking up from that weird haze-fuelled dream this morning. From everything that All Might had told him and the things he'd witnessed in the past, All for One was an extremely petty individual. For some reason, that scared the teen even more.

"What did he say?" All Might dreaded the answer, while Izuku dreaded reminding himself of All for One's hysterical tirade.

"Could we do this face to face?" Izuku whispered, bringing his knees up towards his chin and shrinking into himself. "Please?"

All Might was silent on the other end, biting his lip due to the fact that he had upcoming meetings with Tsukauchi and the Hero Commission over the recent events in Jaku. Endeavor was still unconscious but an investigation was already underway…

"Young Midor-"

"It's fine. I understand," Izuku swallowed thickly, understanding his mentor's silence. "It's just…"

"Hard?"

Izuku blinked, taking in air sharply from his nostrils, "Mhm," he shrugged, not caring that All Might wasn't able to see him do it, "his words...Struck a nerve, I guess?"

"Young Midoriya, whatever that monster said to you, do not let it deter you from the path you wish to take," All Might suddenly sounded furious. It made sense. All Might was the villain's nemesis, of course he'd know how Izuku was feeling. "He uses his words and power to emotionally shatter people, either to hurt them or to bend them to his own will. Do not let him succeed in doing that to you."

"I won't," Izuku answered, far too quickly for All Might's taste. The blond had a rough idea that he knew exactly what that bastard had said to his successor. After all, he himself had fallen victim to All for One's influence back in Kamino when he had dropped the bombshell that was Nana Shimura's legacy;

"Oh, surely you remember Tomura Shigaraki? My student?" the masked villain had goaded casually, as if he were simply discussing the weather to the Symbol of Peace. "He's Nana Shimura's grandson."

Toshinori had to admit that after hearing those words, he'd almost shattered upon impact, losing momentary composure in front of the demon opposite him. Thankfully, his mentor and father-figure had been there to keep him grounded and that was what Toshinori intended to do with Midoriya. Despairing was what that creature wanted and he wasn't sinking his claws into his student.

"Izuku, listen to me."

Izuku said nothing, prompting Toshinori to continue;

"You are my successor and the rightful owner of One for All. He wants you to feel this way, so that you'll be more likely to attempt to give up your Quirk willingly. Please remember that."

That...actually made sense, in a way.

Izuku knew the cruel taunts wouldn't leave his thoughts right away, but All Might had offered the teen comforting words that he'd needed to hear, as much as he was currently unaware of it.

"I will, All Might," the teen swallowed thickly, eyes prickling as he tried to force his tears back. "I promise."

"That's my boy," Izuku's heart squeezed hearing those words and this time, he allowed his tears to spill down his freckled cheeks. "I'll come and see you as soon as I can, deal?"

Gulping back a small shudder, Izuku's lips pressed into a wobbly smile, "Deal."

"I'll try and make time either this evening or tomorrow at the latest. You take care until then."

"Same to you too," Izuku breathed out shakily, "hey, All Might?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks."

Izuku swore he heard a soft chuckle before the phone was put down and his phone screen shut off. Setting it back on the cabinet, Izuku picked up the remote control to the television inside his ward. Perhaps some daytime television could lift his spirits?

Flicking through channels, he almost dropped the controller in surprise at the sight of a reporter clinging to the wide-open door of what Izuku assumed was a news helicopter that was hovering over a massive smoking island.

A smoking island that felt vaguely familiar to the teenager…

"-Seems to be a surveillance breach at this supposed maximum security prison!" the female reporter yelled over the loud chopping sound of helicopter rotors slicing through the rough sea wind. "Footage shows various villains fleeing the island, including Tomura Shigaraki, the young man who was the ringleader for the devastating attack in Jaku City!"

The remote slipped from his hands and clattered to the tiled floor, pieces of plastic scuttling across the ground along with the batteries that had flung out in opposite directions. One ending up rolling under a medical cabinet while the other hit one of the ward wall's skirting boards.

Tight knots began to curl tightly inside his own stomach as Izuku's pale face stared at the television in utter horror.

He hadn't been dreaming.

They were out. The villains. Probably including the ones Izuku had a hand in defeating.

Overhaul, Muscular, Stain...All for One.

"No, no, no," he whimpered. He couldn't take them on now, for God's sake he could barely move! His eyes moved back towards the cabinet and his hand reached back in the direction of where he had set his phone...

[multiverse-sya]

Here I'll talk about my spiritual beliefs on how it's possible to be something that doesn't necessarily exist here as well as a hypothesis on how all of this is possible. Yes, I'm aware that this can be explained psychologically and I'm not discounting a psychological explanation, but that isn't what I'm discussing here. Under the cut, I'll be talking about hard core metaphysics in great detail and how I use it to explain how things work in a spiritual sense. So if you aren't into philosophy, ignore this.

Ever since figuring out I was a protoss, I kept trying to figure out how that was even possible from a spiritual perspective. Such as how it's possible to be something that was created for a video game, or anything deemed fictional. I quickly started questioning what the difference between fiction and non fiction was. And from a philosophical perspective, I realized that the line could get very blurry.

My own spiritual beliefs are based on a couple of different philosophies, including metaphysics, ontology, pantheism and idealism. The idealism I'm explaining here is different from the way it is used outside of philosophy. In philosophy it is defined as " a diverse group of metaphysical views which all assert that "reality" is in some way indistinguishable or inseparable from human perception and/or understanding, that it is in some sense mentally constructed, or that it is otherwise closely connected to ideas." I view this from a Platonic perspective, where the mind perceives only figments of the true nature of reality from a 'higher' realm. I will talk more about this a few paragraphs down.

I'll talk about another important aspect to my spirituality: creativity and energy. As I mentioned earlier, I consider myself a pantheist. I don't view god as a single sentient person. When I say god, I'm talking about the god that was responsible for creating everything in Abrahamic religions. I view 'god' as an energy that flows through all of reality. Everything and everyone is considered god. Nothing was ever actually created but was always in existence.

That way, I eliminate questions like who created god, on what existed before the 'beginning' (such as the big bang), and how could everything be created out of nothing. The answer I came up is that nothingness never existed. I believe the true nature of reality is pure entropy. In this pure entropy, everything exists and that there is never a beginning or an end to reality as a whole. Rather, time exists as an infinite cycle of circles. Reality feeds itself to continue to exist. Because of all of this, everything is permitted to exist, even the unimaginable here. This includes multiple universes. Much of my spirituality involves energy work and manifestation by pulling what I want into this reality. I also believe that souls, afterlives, and reincarnations exist based on the thought that nothing dies due to it being energy.

Another thought experiment that I think about is that you can't divide 0 by 0. The answer is undefined mathematically. In a similar way, you can't destroy anything to create true emptiness and true unreality.

Next I'll move on to talk about the multiverse. I've done my research and heard many times that the multiverse theory doesn't necessarily accept or prove the possibility of fiction existing. Because under one framework on the multiverse theory accepted by the scientists who believe it, is that the laws of physics can't change from universe to universe; it has to be consistent with this one.

My response to this is that other universes aren't necessarily bound to the same laws as this one (obviously I don't know for sure but I'm leaning towards the possibility that different universes are bound by different laws of physics. That is why I'm holding a position of skepticism). But by making this assumption that other universes have the same laws without a doubt, the burden of proof is heavy because it can't be empirically provided. At the same time, the multiverse that fictionkin do believe are talked about in philosophy and in thought experiments. In philosophy, it's under modal realism and possible worlds. Even though the multiverse theory that is accepted by scientists is different, the belief is still heard about in philosophy.

As I mentioned at the start, I'll talk about platonic idealism and how it shapes how I view the nature of reality: that it is unknowable and impossible to know it for sure.

The brain and all of your senses have limitations in what you can perceive. For example, one limitation is that you can't think of a color you've never seen before even though other colors exist outside the visible spectrum. No matter how much you could try to think of a different color you've never seen before, you can't imagine it. So there are innate limitations when you use your 5 senses. I think that is the same thing with anything else. That is why I feel that the true nature of reality is undefinable and that you can only get glimpses of it's nature.

I'll use Plato's cave allegory as an example to help explain this belief. If you don't know what the cave allegory is, now you'll learn:

Imagine a cave where people have been trapped all of their life. These prisoners are chained so that they can only look in front of them. Behind the prisoners is a fire, and between the fire and the prisoners is a group of people making shadow puppets basically.

The prisoners cannot see any of what is happening behind them, they are only able to see the shadows cast upon the cave wall in front of them. In the allegory, it's suggested "that the shadows are reality for the prisoners because they have never seen anything else; they do not realize that what they see are shadows of objects in front of a fire, much less that these objects are inspired by real things outside the cave which they do not see."

I think the way reality is perceived in the empirical, physical world are just shades of what is actually real, just like the shadow puppets. You are able to get to a 'closer' understanding of reality by using your imagination and other abstract concepts to help you out because those concepts aren't necessarily bound to the physical, concrete world. As to what I think can exist out there that isn't right in front of you physically could be entirely different realities and realms.

With creativity, whether it's drawing, writing or music, you can take those abstract concepts from other realities (including things that don't exist here) and bring it to the concrete world through manifestation. When it comes to fictionkin, there are two possibilities. 1: The writer managed to pull up an idea through their imagination and manifest it here, or 2: The multiverse is close to infinite and what they wrote was one possibility of many. In both of these cases, the universes exist by themselves.

I've had very strange experiences that I feel go beyond purely empirical and psychological reasons for it being possible. These experiences include memories before I knew about the source I'm from, strange coincidences throughout my life, which includes things I find too close to be coincidental. This is an entirely different topic however which is an essay all by itself. In my mind, I have the need to find a justification on how all of these things are possible. After many years of thinking on my beliefs from even before I knew about otherkinity, I came up with a coherent conclusion.

If you don't agree with my beliefs or find them stupid, then I don't know what to tell you other than accept that I believe these things and leave me alone. I've already gotten into arguments with people because they don't like my beliefs. I'm tired of that.

[ambivalentmarvel]

so the story behind this is that @sreppub​ arrived in my dms saying “sitcom starring two uppity, former rich guys and a regular poor college kid who follow up an online ad and become roommates” and i said something along the lines of “your MIND” and here we are. she does the art, i do the fic, and we both yell a lot along the way. read it on here or ao3 and enjoy!!

The Sitcom Supreme

If Peter or Stephen were around to hear Tony tell the story of how they all ended up rooming together, they would have plenty of objections, to which he would call them both dirty liars, to which they would gang up on him because they’re terrible and like that, to which he would probably throw up his hands in exasperation and/or make the mistake of engaging them in a debate, to which they would grin like wolves because, once again, they’re terrible and like that, but Tony’s the asshole who put up the Craigslist ad, so he gets to start—because he’s terrible and like that.

It’s a common trait amongst the three of them, what can he say?

The beginning of the story does not involve either of the other two, however. It begins with Rhodey, who is only occasionally terrible and like that. Rhodey has been Tony’s best friend since the tender age of fifteen. Considering Tony at age fifteen was a greasy little douche bag with too much money and a whole bunch of daddy issues that were somehow more obvious then than they are in the present, this is an impressive feat. 

Where things start, Rhodey and Tony are roommates at MIT, which is Howard’s school of choice to shove his problem child onto. Tony is supposed to get a single dorm room, but there’s a cockroach problem in that building. Administration has to get creative, which is how Rhodey, fresh out of boot for the fall semester, gets saddled with approximately one hundred and fifty pounds of neglected teenage boy who has only kind of gone through puberty.

The first words out of Tony’s mouth are blunt: “Any chance you have plans to drop out?”

And Rhodey looks at him with a raised brow, efficiently unpacked and totally unimpressed with the enormous stack of Tony’s things wavering in the doorway. “You have any plans to quit being annoying?” he retorts, which set the tone for their entire relationship.

Tony loves him to pieces. 

He’s the older brother he never knew he needed, yanking him by his collar from frat parties on the weekends and to his house for holidays because getting swamped by Rhodey’s six younger siblings is infinitely better than having to wear a suit and tie for Christmas dinner with six CEOs and maybe some senators, depending on the year. In return, Tony sees him through every finals week of his collegiate career, during which Rhodey gets so nervous he usually pukes at least daily and pulls so many all-nighters Tony memorizes the exact shade of red his eyes are at the end.

So, it’s safe to say they get along well. They get along so well, as a matter of fact, that when they stare at each other after their graduation ceremony for their Masters—a two-year process for both of them, and Rhodey receives two degrees to Tony’s four—surrounded by Rhodey’s family and Jarvis, Tony’s lips curl in a smirk Rhodey knows spells the best kind of trouble. “What do you say we keep the roommate streak alive, yeah? Howard’s building an office in New York, and I’m thinking of doing a doctorate at NYU.”

Rhodey’s brows raise, but he’s grinning, so Tony already knows his answer. “Depends. Are you still gonna’ snore?”

“Are you still gonna’ have a stick up your a—”

Mama Rhodes shoots Tony a look from where she’s trying to corral the rest of her kids.

“—butt?” he finishes with a sheepish glance her way.

Rhodey does not even remotely have a stick up his ass, but of the two of them, he features in tabloids far, far less, which Tony somehow uses to his advantage.

“You know it,” Rhodey replies, and so they find a fancy penthouse that Tony mostly pays for, with the excuse of Rhodey satisfying his part of rent via generally covering Tony’s ass to the best of his ability. And he has a lot of ability, honed from years upon years of Tony self-destructing at the drop of a hat, but there’s only so much he can do, especially as his military career just keeps flying higher and Howard just keeps pushing Tony harder.

A few sex tapes, especially wild benders, and crashed cars later, when Howard cuts Tony off and tells him, quote, “I won’t speak to you until you learn to do something other than disappoint me”, Rhodey very gracefully still shacks up with him in their considerably less fancy apartment.

This is all important to know, contrary to what someone whose name may or may not rhyme with Tephen Trange might say about Tony’s “long-winded” and “overly-complicated” storytelling tendencies because it explains exactly why Rhodey is a traitor.

Is Carol a very cool lady who could kick Tony’s ass? Yes. Is she sickeningly cute with Rhodey and not just because a smile from her makes him melt into a pile of fucking goo on the floor? Also yes. Does it probably make more sense for Tony to find roommates who will actually be around to monitor his—allegedly—poor mental health and self-care habits? Okay, fine, yes, but the bottom line is, Rhodey is moving in with Carol and abandoning Tony, and nobody said he had to like it.

(This is not strictly true, what with the approximately ten conversations Rhodey and he have had about his happiness and how, if Tony needs him, all he has to do is say the word and he’ll be back, but Tony has always had a flair for the dramatic.)

The whole idea is that Tony will find someone gone less than Rhodey with all his military business to enjoy having around the apartment. It’s technically a three-bedroom, but he and Rhodey use the extra one for storage. Fortunately or unfortunately, that storage area has become a lot of junk they go through before Rhodey makes his grand exit, and Tony suddenly has the option of having two roommates.

The ad is a low point, he can admit that, but there is a flaw in what Tony loudly calls Rhodey’s master plan to leave him alone to wallow in misery: Tony doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends, nevermind people who he’d want to live with.

“Rhodey. Honeybear. Platypus.”

“The nicknames are old, and you need to stop using them around Carol. She called me Platypus last night during sex, and it ruined the whole mood.”

“You poor thing.”

“She thought it was hilarious.”

If Tony has to lose Rhodey to anybody, by God, Carol is his first choice by a long shot.

“Anyway, as I was saying, Sourpatch—”

“I hate you.”

“—how am I supposed to find someone else to live with?”

Tony is thirty-two and regularly speaks out with all of four people: Pepper, Rhodey, Carol, and Happy. Unfortunately, Happy works in Stark Industries’ California branch and has stated rather firmly that he’s not interested in transferring to the city, Pepper wouldn’t live with another person for love or money, and the other two are spoken for.

It’s a terrible situation to be in, honestly.

“Craigslist,” Rhodey deadpans, fighting with some packing tape.

Tony feels his heart stop beating in real time from his place folding some of Rhodey’s clothes into a plastic tub. His head snaps up, and his jaw drops, absolutely affronted. “You would suggest that I, even disowned and stripped of my former glory—” Tony has several million dollars in the stock market, but that’s neither here nor there and isn’t much compared to the fact that he was supposed to be a billionaire. “—would stoop to looking for live-in friends on Craigslist?”

Rhodey looks up to meet his eyes, unfazed. He’s used to Tony’s antics after nearly two decades of friendship. “Well, I’m not moving out until you have at least one person guaranteed to take my place, so unless you have any better ideas, yeah.” He shrugs—just shrugs, as if he isn’t advising Tony to scrape the bottom of the fucking barrel in terms of reliable people to regularly fall asleep around.

It’s insulting.

“I’m not putting out an ad for a roommate on Craigslist,” he protests, shoving the next horribly colored polo into the tub with disdain.

That night, he tears up thinking about stopping Rhodey from being happy with Carol, and the post is up by the time Rhodey gets up—stupidly early, like normal—for his morning run. Along with his contact information and a few blurry pictures of the place, it includes a blurb about the circumstances.

Best friend moving out. Need a roommate or I will die of Sadness. His girlfriend is cool but hewas mind first. Carol, I am watching you. Two rooms open for business. But not sketchy business. You can just lve there. Current resident (me) is cool and very charming. I am a man. No dumb fuck offers. Thanks.

It could use some work, but Tony’s never been great with words, even less so when he’s crying to rock ballads at two in the morning. He edits it when he wakes up, and by noon that day, it’s looking better.

At seven o’clock that evening, he receives one of two messages that actually work out.

Enter the first offender: Peter Parker.

Peter, Tony will learn, is nineteen, attending NYU—like Tony did, which is a sign, really—for a double major in biochemistry and physics, and has the worst luck of anyone Tony’s ever met.

Rhodey’s moving out in a week—he’s been putting off finding a roommate for a while, alright—and Peter has to legally be out of his dorm in three days. That is quite the predicament, and Tony, by nature, is a curious creature. He is not, however, one for beating around the bush. That results in a text that reads exactly this.

Tony: What the hell did you do?

He could hack through the university files, but explanations are always more fun with a personal touch that’s lacking in, say, an incident report. Tony watches a bubble with three blinking dots for a long, long time, and the reply is surprisingly sparse—sparse enough, in fact, for Tony to have more questions than answers when he receives it.

Unknown Sender: theres been a few things but the kicker was the fire

Tony: The fire?

Unknown Sender: i tried to make popcorn and the microwave blew up

Now that is some problematic behavior Tony can get behind. He amends the kid’s previously non-existent contact information.

Tony: How can they kick you out for that? That’s not your fault.

Roommate (?) Peter: it blacked out the power on the entire first floor

Tony: And?

Roommate (?) Peter: last month i got the blame for contaminating half the campus water supply

Roommate (?) Peter: so i was already on thin ice

Tony: Accidentally?

Roommate (?) Peter: idk sometimes things just happen to me

Tony doesn’t know how to respond to that. If Rhodey knew, he’d never let him live it down. He can hear his annoying laugh in his ears like a premonition—“Hah—Tony, speechless?”—but then there are the dots again and a simple message to follow the last, a touch pathetic.

Roommate (?) Peter: please let me move in

Tony likes him.

Peter shows up on the stairs of the complex thirty-six hours after Tony posted the ad with a backpack and a meager total of six beat-to-shit boxes. The backpack holds nearly all of his school supplies, which makes Tony, in retrospect, genuinely fearful for the integrity of his spine, and the contents of the boxes are sorted, as Tony will learn, into three categories that each have two boxes in them. The categories are fairly simple—clothing, necessities, and whatever other shit he could fit from his dorm—and leave Peter with thrilling possessions such as an entire collection of truly atrocious shirts with science puns on them, a gallon of hand soap, and any food he had in his cupboards.

Thankfully, Rhodey is out furniture shopping with Carol when Tony goes out to meet him, which solves the problem of Rhodey going into overbearing caretaker mode at the sight of a beanpole of a kid failing to manage their life successfully. As someone who has been made many a you-haven’t-eaten-a-meal-in-two-days-and-I’m-secretly-a-panicking-mother-hen casserole, Tony counts his blessings.

Tony waves. “Peter?” he asks, reluctantly changed out of his pajamas for the day.

The kid nods. “That’s me. And you’re Tony?”

“Guilty as charged. Want a hand with those boxes?” he asks, watching Peter lift three at a time.

“No, I got it,” he insists, and then the box on top slides out of his grip and onto the sidewalk.

Peter stares at it for a second before he lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“Maybe I could use some help,” he admits, and with much struggle, the two of them, each with three boxes, waddle inside. There is a moment and only one moment where Tony thinks that it might be nice to have some extra assistance, but with another thought of the things Rhodey would do at the sight of a woefully inept college kid, Tony decides it’s for the best.

Tony leads the operation, considering he has the key and also knows explicitly where they’re going, and he would have to say his biggest complaint about the ordeal is that Sam, who lives in the apartment below Tony and Rhodey with Steve and Bucky, happens to open his door as they walk by.

Being an asshole, he has something to say about it. “Need some help, shellhead?” he crows.

Tony wishes he had a free hand to flip him off.

“Watch your back, Wilson,” he growls in return, a continuation of the beef the five of them have maintained since they met approximately seven years ago, when they all moved in on the same day and kept knocking into each other’s shit in the halls.

When they reach the top of the next flight of stairs and Tony starts to fumble with the key, Peter asks about it. “So—uh—who was that?”

“That was Sam. Part of the deal with moving in is that you harass him and the other two idiots who live with him. He also responds to jackass, douchecanoe, or birdbrain.”

“Birdbrain?”

“It’s an old joke. He had a rather—” Tony grunts, forced to set down his load to unlock the door, “—spectacular run-in with some pigeons a few years ago.”

“Oh.”

“They shat on him. A lot.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a good nickname,” Tony assures him, throwing open the door with his arms flung wide for dramatic flair. “Welcome to Casa Stark. I mean, I guess it’s Casa Stark-Parker now, but if we’re hyphenating, my name goes first because I lived here first.” He holds up a finger as if to stall Peter, who has yet to speak from where his mouth is decidedly blocked by the aforementioned three boxes he is carrying. “And I know what you’re going to say—that Parker-Stark works better because it’s alphabetical—but that is where you are wrong because letters have no place in this house. Numbers are much preferred, and we play by seniority here, anyway.”

He gives Peter a meaningful look that he cannot see because, once again, boxes.

“More on that, by the way—”

“Hey, Tony?” 

He cuts him off which is, objectively, rude, but Tony rarely gets along with people who aren’t a little curt with him from time to time. This is a positive sign, really, so he allows it.

“Yeah?” 

“This can be Casa Stark-Parker, but can we get to somewhere I can set these down? My arms are, like, going to give out on me.”

Not even ten minutes in, and he’s already learned the art of bargaining. Tony’s proud, and he ushers him inside without any more monologues and a grin stretched across his face.

Peter, by virtue of moving in before Rhodey is out, ends up with the room that is no longer being used for storage. Tony has several questions for him, beginning with the fact that, despite the six packets of instant noodles he bothered to bring, he does not appear to have a mattress. Or a desk. Or a dresser. Or anything that’s supposed to go in a room.

His solutions for Tony’s concerns are as follows.

In place of a bed, he has two blankets, one to put on the floor and one to cover himself with. He was planning on sitting on the floor to do schoolwork instead of using a desk. And finally, he was going to leave his clothes in the boxes.

This is all relayed to Tony with an earnest gleam in his eyes and a smile.

Tony blinks in disbelief. Then, very eloquently, he says, “Kid, that is the saddest shit I have ever heard. Aren’t your parents helping you with the move to an apartment?”

The kid shifts from foot to foot, shoving his hands in his pockets and glancing to the side.

Tony’s eyes narrow. As someone who is extremely well-versed in avoidance tactics, he feels very confident in saying that is definitely a fucking avoidance tactic.

“About that,” he begins, “first of all, I’m an orphan.” Jesus Christ. “Second of all, my aunt doesn’t exactly—uh—know I got kicked out of the dorms.”

That is all interesting information, to say the least, but luckily, Tony thrives under pressure.

“Alright. I can respect that.”

It’s not like he never hid anything from his parents. Evading his aunt is Peter’s problem, not Tony’s. None of this is Tony’s problem, really, except then he looks around the room and wonders which of Peter’s boxes are holding his two blankets.

Tony was concerned about Rhodey, but he can’t stop himself.

“But I’m also gonna’ level with you—you’re not sleeping on the ground. You can take the couch.”

The until I get you a proper bed frame and mattress goes unsaid, but sometimes things like that are better as surprises. It’ll be a fun housewarming gift, Tony thinks, and by the time the shipment from IKEA arrives containing both of those things and the aforementioned missing dresser and desk, there will be a third roommate to help put it all together, not that either of them know it yet.

That night, Rhodey and Carol show up with enough ingredients for lasagna to serve four, and Tony delights in showing off Peter as they cook because now he has a “super cool roommate too! Take that, Platypus.”

Rhodey glances to Peter. “If you’re being held hostage, blink twice.”

“Hey!” Tony protests. He is a perfectly lovable roommate, thank you very much, and he’s so offended, he’s not even going to let Rhodey know about his mission to furnish Peter’s room.

God bless her, Carol just laughs.

The four of them get along with surprising ease, considering Peter’s only been around for a few hours. Peter even tries to help with the lasagna, but Tony has a near-photographic memory and has not remotely forgotten the popcorn incident, however vaguely it was described.

“You just sit there and be a nicer person than Rhodey,” he urges him, and Peter nods, hiding his grin behind his hand at the argument that starts.

Once everyone is done, he and Rhodey get suckered into dish duty while Carol spirits Peter off to the living room, claiming she has to warn him about what he’s getting into. Tony doesn’t care enough to complain, and when her back is turned, he splashes a plate of suds onto Rhodey’s front. 

Rather than rise to the bait, however, he raises his brows, slipping into what Tony affectionately calls his big-brother-giving-a-stern-talking-to mode. “You have to be a good example for him, Tones.”

Tony blinks. “I’m sorry, did you just say—”

“I’m serious!” They keep their voices mostly down, but Rhodey’s rises a bit with the declaration.

“He’s nineteen—an adult, in case you forgot. He signed the lease all on his own and everything,” he hisses back incredulously.

He thought he dodged the bullet by not disclosing just how underprepared Peter is to live in an apartment, but Rhodey’s head dips. Tony braces himself for the part of his big-brother-giving-a-stern-talking-to mode where he tells Tony he’s making a bullshit excuse and needs to get it together. “Don’t give me that. He’s a baby adult at best, and you know it.”

Yep, there it is.

“That’s still an adult!”

It is! Tony was on his own way earlier than nineteen. This is not a big deal, no matter how outlandish Peter’s circumstances are for moving out of NYU’s dorms.

“Watch his back.”

Tony scoffs. “It’s not like I was going to feed him to the wolves. I’m barely thirty—I’m not his dad.”

“Tony.”

Ah, the final, crushing blow of this version of Rhodey: his name—but with emphasis.

Tony sighs. “Fine,” he acquiesces. “I solemnly swear I will not let him get up to no good.”

A beat. Rhodey squints at him, slowly lowering the plate he’s holding into the sink. “You told me you refused to read Harry Potter.”

Shit.

Back when the books were first coming out, Rhodey was insufferably obsessed with them, and Tony loves him, but emotionally, he couldn’t handle having Rhodey think he was willing to discuss anything having to do with the series for longer than thirty seconds. Thus, he read the books—everyone in the world was doing the same, okay, and he cannot stand being out of the loop—but lied to Rhodey about it.

And now, he’s been made.

Rhodey and he launch into a very spirited discussion that draws Carol and Peter back to the kitchen, and despite the vein throbbing dangerously in Rhodey’s forehead, the promise has been made.

The day after Rhodey moves out, he and Peter manage to flood the bathroom.

In Tony’s defense, he only promised to look out for Peter. He said nothing about curbing his own dumbass tendencies, and it’s not like Bucky’s bedroom is all that damaged by the leak that Tony fixes before it’s really even a problem.

He and Peter settle into a nice sense of camaraderie, and Tony, content with his situation, forgets to take down his Craiglist ad that, logically speaking, someone would have to dig to find at this point, over a week after initially posting it.

Then, he receives a text that is as simple as it is effective: Is there still an available room in the apartment?

Enter the second offender: Stephen Strange.

Ahem, Doctor Stephen Strange, technically, but Tony has six PhDs. Nobody sees him going around making people call him Doctor Stark, and that’s because it makes him sound pretentious and stuffy, both things Tony prides himself on not being. However, Tony likes to push buttons, and very little gets Stephen worked up as fast as someone ignoring his credentials.

It’s a fun set-up, really, but annoying the piss out of Stephen is something that comes a little later—Tony’s not there yet in the story.

He humors the text, and after getting a read on things, he bursts into the living room, startling Peter nearly off the couch. He’s been doing his homework there and on the coffee table in front of it because the Swedish have many things but fast shipping is, apparently, not one of them, not that Peter knows there’s anything to be waiting on, but he’s getting off-topic.

Peter lets out a short yelp and presses a hand over his heart, both things that Tony ignores.

“We have a situation,” he announces.

“I swear I didn’t do it,” Peter defends pleadingly.

Tony is trying to teach him that messing things up is expected and, especially in particularly magnificent cases, admired in Casa Stark-Parker, but it’s a work in progress.

“I know you didn’t—don’t be ridiculous,” he waves his concerns off. “We are talking bigger than setting things on fire by accident. I bring you, my young protege, the proposition of—” A pause for dramatic effect. “—another roommate.”

“Ooh,” Peter says appropriately, setting his textbook down to examine the texts Tony brandishes. He begins to scroll, but while he does, Tony figures he can go ahead and fill him in on the essentials. It’s a very juicy situation, after all, and he can’t help himself.

“His name is Stephen Strange. He’s a neurosurgeon, but he got into a pretty bad car wreck that messed up his hands. He’s trying to save money while he goes to physical therapy—he apparently has a chance of recovery, but it’s a ways off—and that includes downsizing on where he lives.”

“I mean, yikes, but that’s an oddly specific backstory.”

“I’m glad you think that too, but I am intrigued. I looked him up, and he’s a real person—has a basically flawless reputation, or at least he did before his accident. Thoughts?”

Please say yes, please say yes, Tony thinks. The chance of a competent human—not including Rhodey, who looks more put together than he really is next to the chaos Tony perpetually dwells in—choosing to live with him is too fascinating to pass up, and he needs Peter to see that too.

Peter shrugs. “I’m down if you are. How old is he?”

Victory!

Satisfaction floods Tony, but he tries to maintain his cool.

“Thirty.”

Peter blows out a long breath, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling. “I didn’t anticipate moving into a nursing home,” he remarks dryly.

What a little shit.

It’s worth noting half the reason Rhodey left so easily is because he said he trusted Peter to keep Tony on his toes. Then again, that Tony likes being snarked at is a large part of why they get along so well despite only knowing each other for a matter of days.

“You’re the worst, Parker. I’m going to feed you to the hooligans downstairs. Steve has a monster appetite, you know.”

Peter hums, picking his textbook back up. “Not if I feed you to them first. And, Tony?”

“What?”

“Only old people say hooligans.”

Tony thinks about that one book, Give a Mouse a Cookie or whatever. Except in his case, it’s Rent a Teenager an Apartment, and Tony doesn’t have to adhere to the literary equivalent of a G-rating.

His response to the dig is creative and colorful, and Peter laughs.

Four days and a brief conversation at a coffee shop later—a formality he and Peter did not do and probably something Tony should’ve thought of as the older adult before giving him the address—Stephen’s team of movers invade the apartment.

The man himself stands like a drill sergeant at the last flights of stairs it takes to get to the apartment, arms crossed, beard wild, conducting activity.

Peter and Tony share their evaluations, peeking their head out from the doorway when it’s unoccupied by movers and Stephen isn’t looking their way. This involves quite a bit of ducking, but they are very careful not to be caught.

(Someone’s whose name may or may not rhyme with Tephen Trange later informs that “they were not at all subtle” and “were, in fact, very embarrassing”, but that’s how things with the three of them generally are, so Tony figures it was a good crash course to how life together goes.)

“He’s kind of scraggly,” Peter whispers, his head under Tony’s because he’s the shorter of the two of them, something Tony delights in refuting Peter’s quips about his age with.

“Kind of? He looks like a hobo.”

It’s true, okay? Facially, at least, the guy is a wreck. He’s not quite to Einstein levels of bad hair day, but he’s getting there.

“Be nice,” Peter chastises him. He’s gentler than Rhodey when he does it, but considering neither of them ever shut the hell up and they have thus bonded very easily over the course of their short relationship, it’s gotten to feel as natural as most of their interactions.

“All I’m saying is that I am happy to retain my place as the most attractive person in the apartment, okay?”

They’re forced to retreat from the entryway as another load comes through, and Peter looks at him disbelievingly. “Dream on,” he replies bluntly.

Tony gasps in offense.

Peter shrugs. “Look, I’m just gonna’ say it—you knew Rhodey before me, and now that I’m here—” he trails off, looking at Tony in faux-sympathy that doesn’t match the mischievous glint in his eyes.

While it is true that Rhodey is a fine specimen of a man—yet another reason Tony can’t, in good conscience, be truly angry Carol mooched him away from the bachelor lifestyle—Tony can’t cede that easily for the sake of his pride, and he scowls. “I am going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

They’re still bickering as the movers finish up and Stephen enters the apartment, dressed in what Tony recognizes as the latest from Armani and Tom Ford.

He may not get invited to fashion week anymore, but he still has taste, alright, even if Rhodey limits him to one designer purchase a month.

(Rhodey isn’t around to see what packages he orders now, Tony thinks but shelves the thought for later.)

Tony and Stephen met over coffee, and all three of them said hi to one another before the moving business officially began. However, there is a little stiffness in the air, make no mistake. It’s not Stephen’s fault, exactly, because he’s just kind of a foreboding guy, but still.

It figures that Peter would break the ice. As Tony’s found and will continue to discover, Peter is just as talkative as him. Granted, that trait usually appears in the form of rambling about something from class, but it’s not surprising that his natural passion for life comes through with someone about to be very, very involved in it. 

“Hi!” he begins. “Are all of the movers gone now?”

Stephen raises an unimpressed brow. “Yes.”

His reply is seriously lacking enthusiasm, but Tony isn’t allowed the opportunity to jump on that as Peter keeps going. 

“Sweet! Okay, so welcome to Casa Stark-Parker.”

Woah, woah, woah—timeout.

Tony frowns, raising a hand in a motion for Peter to stop. “I thought that was my thing?” he interjects.

“Well, it has my name in it, so it gets to be both of our things,” Peter replies, then furrows his brow, looking to Stephen. “Actually, since you’re here now, I guess it’s Casa Stark-Parker-Strange. Order’s based on who got here first, sorry,” he explains with a smile that Tony, now familiar with the fact that Peter has more to him than meets the eye, notes is a touch impish.

Tony is pleased to see, despite his generally wholesome appearance, the kid has at least picked up on the power of staking a claim.

Stephen blinks. His hands, Tony has noticed, don’t stop shaking, not even when he folds his arm across his chest, like a physical barrier between him and Peter’s excitement. “Okay?” he drawls slowly, confusedly.

“Tony’s rules, not mine,” Peter assures him as if he doesn’t just want the satisfaction of having his name not be the last in the line-up.

Tony scoffs. “Oh okay, so now we’re throwing me under the bus?”

“You have to take responsibility for your actions, Tony.”

“Oh, sure thing,” he replies, tone betraying that he does not, in fact, think any responsibility is at all necessary. He looks to Stephen, rolling his eyes. “Can you believe what I have to put up with? And it’s barely been a week.”

Stephen blinks again. “I see it’s a lot,” he says measuredly.

Peter gasps, unaffected. “Oh my God, we should make a sign for it,” he enthuses. “We can put it up on the door, and we’d be so much cooler than Sam and them.”

To say that Peter rose to the challenge of bothering their downstairs neighbors with zeal is something of an understatement. 

Tony is, honestly, a fan of the sign idea, especially if it were to light up, but that is where Stephen cuts in, his hands still trembling as he gestures. “Can we slow down for a moment?” He looks carefully from Tony and Peter and back again, bearing the appearance of a man in the throes of realizing he has made a bad decision. 

Tony knows that look well. It usually shows up when Rhodey agrees to one of Tony’s ideas and doesn’t realize just how badly constructed it is until it’s too late.

“First of all, I am fairly certain my car is parked illegally, and before we get too far, I need to fix it before I get towed. And secondly,” Tony watches Stephen’s lips curl in a self-satisfied, I-totally-think-I’m-better-than-you-even-if-I’m-not-technically-saying-it smile, “I am not here to be part of any Casa. I am waiting for physical therapy to work for me, and then I will be out of your hair. I appreciate being able to live here, but—”

Yeah, Tony’s had enough of that. Personally, he would like to thank Rhodey, who, in a way, begins and ends the story, and truly is the greatest best friend a man could have for teaching him how to properly deal with pompous rich people.

“Nuh-uh, none of that. If you’re living here, you’re a part of Casa Stark-Parker-Strange whether you like it or not.”

Stephen looks downright appalled that someone would dare to interrupt him, which, Tony knows from experience, is exactly the kind of shock rich people need to go through. He splutters for a second before he manages to get out a reply, “That was not in the lease.”

Tony spreads his hands as if to say what can you do? “And you didn’t mention in your texts that you were going to try to be a bump on a log, but here we are.”

Perhaps sensing the mounting animosity in the room or maybe just as excited as Tony to have someone to bother, Peter takes advantage of Stephen’s overwhelmed and bewildered state.

“First day with all three of us!” he shouts. “Picture!”

And before anyone can protest—including Tony, who would prefer to be documented in something other than a Black Sabbath tee and his work pants—Peter leans in with the camera on his phone ready to capture the moment.

In the resulting photo, Tony looks vaguely alarmed, Stephen looks pissed as hell, and Peter wears a grin that stretches across his whole face. The whole thing is blurry, and they eventually get it framed.

It’s a beautiful and fitting start to their time as roommates, and in the humble eyes of the asshole who posted the Craigslist ad, that is how the story of how they came to live together went.

[oceanivoxjoquainx]

i also love samquin thanks to you 🥺 i gasped when i saw danny ramirez fine self with facial hair. it was just *chef's kiss*, you know? 🤤 elevated the whole look. i want to know your headcanons about sam seeing joaquin with facial hair for the first time. maybe they're meeting up after a long time. what's his reaction? does the hair tickle him when they embrace? 😄

I am soooooo so glad you asked about this anon! I have many an idea 🤭 Also glad you love samquín now because of me! I love when other folks fall in love with them like i have!

With that everyone get ready forrrrr

Samquín Headcanons ☀️🌈: The Beard

Sam had decided that it was best for his mental health and his and his families safety if he left the military, quit the Avengers, and left the name of The Falcon behind three years ago. He did it once before when he lost Riley, and he figured it was time to do it again. He and Joaquín argued about it the last time they spoke and it ended in Sam flying away before trashing the wings. Little did he know Joaquín was following him and salvaged them.

Sam did his best to stay far away from anything avengers or super solider or world threatening and focused on supporting and helping his family down in Lousiana. He finally had the peace he always wanted and the safety he had wanted to give to his sister and nephews.

He was able to reestablish himself in the community and continue the work his father started all thos years ago. He went back to his job as a social worker and made sure everyone in his neighborhood was fed every week, slowly expanding his outreach every month until everyone knew that if you were hungry you could just go to the Wilson house and you were taken care of. It was the life he was used to and at that moment what he wanted.

Until some old enemies showed up right on his door step.

He fought until the end but there was only so much a man three years out of practice could do. He could only buy his family enough time to get far away and he determinedly got up every time he was knocked down.

He was down on the ground, about to succumb to his injuries, vision blurry through sweat, blood, and tears, until he saw a figure fly down and begin incapacitating the hostiles one by one. The person had a familiar build with a long mullet but was wearing a green and yellow suit, outfitted with a pair of what looked like bronze wings.....

Sam was in disbelief as he studied the persons fighting patterns and the wings attached to his back. The wingspan, the missiles, and even the stabilizers were all known to Sam. Those were HIS wings!

Soon enough all the fighting stopped and the only person left was the person who had Sam's wings. Sam was barely conscious as the person ran over to him and checked out his body, pressing down and studying for wounds and bruises, before picking him up bridal style and tucking his head into his own neck. The man's beard tickling his jawline was the last thing he remembered before slipping away.

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

Sam woke up to sounds of rhythmic beeping over his head. His eyes opened very slowly to focus on the white, sterile ceiling above him. His body ached in a soreness he hadn't felt in years but he still felt high enough to not feel it too much.

He looked to his left and saw a heart monitor and a IV drip hanging near his head and into his arm, confirming that he was indeed inside a hospital. Rolling his head over to his right he saw a chair next to the bed with but unexpectedly it wasn't empty.

The man reclining with his eyes closed had a massive mullet paired with the most sexiest anchor beard Sam had ever seen. His first reaction was to immediately reach out and touch it.

His feeble attempts at moving his arms seemed to stir the other man from his rest and his eyes opened, locking onto Sam's where they immediately identified themselves to him.

"Joa...Joaquin?" Sam's voice was cracked and croaky and didn't sound like him. Sam tried to cover his mouth only to find his arm still felt like putty.

Joaquín leaned forward and took Sams hand into his own and rubbed his face against it. "Yeah, it's me. Be quiet though, you're still on the mend." Joaquíns voice was breaking itself as he rubbed his face and beard in Sam's hand. At points Sam's fingers would close around a certain section and they'd stay like that for a while before Joaquín began moving again.

"Where the hell did all this come from huh?" Sam asked. He was amazed at how different Joaquín looked with some extra hair on his face. It was a good different. A sexy different. He wasn't sure if it was the drugs or the fact that the man he left behind three years ago was now sitting on at his bedside but he was definitely feeling a 'flip me over and ravage my hole' different.

"Heh thanks, I'll definitely be keeping that in mind." Joaquín answered, his face heating up and a red blush creeping up his neck and onto his face. "It's just something that happened and I liked it so I kept it."

Sam didn't mean for him to hear the last part but it didn't matter in the long run. It was like falling back into old habits.

Sam attempted to sit up in order to properly look at Joaquín before coughing and giving up. The room began spinning and he felt his eyes closing again. With a groan he closed them. He felt Joaquín return his hand to his waist and then rest his own head in his lap, his beard tickling his stomach as he fell asleep.

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

Three weeks had passed since Sam was allowed to be taken home and Joaquín stayed with him the entire time taking care of him and everything he needed.

Sam couldn't remember the last time someone had taken care of him. He was always taking care of other people. Joaquín would get water, cook meals, help him to the tub, even wash his back. It was... nice.

He still had his family in hiding while he stayed at the house to make sure no one else came for him but he made sure Joaquín let Sarah know he was alive and okay when he able to fully sit up in the hospital.

Sam usually kept the same routine each day and as it was sunset he hobbled his way onto the back patio and sat down in the porch swing. The rocking movements always soothed his troubled mind as a child and they did so again now. He and Joaquín still didn't really discuss anything about their last and first day in three years together and he wasn't sure how to bring it up.

He knew he was wrong for leaving as he did with no contact for three years, he just didn't know if he should bring it up since everything seemed okay for now. There was always a hint of tension in the air when the house was dark and quiet and Joaquín had put Sam in his bed, lingering in the door frame as if to say something before just saying Goodnight and leaving. But other than that everything seemed... okay.

As if summoned by Sam himself, the back door opened and Joaquín stepped out onto the back patio and scanned the area before noticing Sam and coming to sit next to him. He had brought a blanket out with him and threw it over the two of them before resting his head on Sam's chest. The hair from his beard piercing Sam's shirt and tickling his chest. It was a routine the two fell into some days ago, none of them moving to break it any time soon.

"Knew I'd find you out here. The sunsets down here are always so beautiful."

"Yeah that's why pops built the house facing east. Best view in all of America he'd say."

The two sat together in silence watching the sun fall ever so slowly past the horizon. Tension was slowly building up again and Sam had no clue what it was from.

He had to say something.

Anything really.

He couldn't go on without saying something.

So he did.

"Jo... Joaquín... I was an ass back then. I shouldn't had left you behind to fend for yourself and I should've called, texted, sent a dam email, something. But I was worried about myself, my sister, my nephew's, I didn't think for a second that I was leaving my other family member behind and alone. And for that I'm so sorry."

"It's... well no it's not okay. It hurt me that you didn't consider me family. We were all but married back then. You were my life. I thought I was at least an important part of yours.... but you left and then trashed your wings and dissapeared. Figured I'd never see you again." Joaquín sighed. He sat up and brought his knees up to his chest and hugged them tightly.

Sam didn't know what to do. He had caused this. He did what was best for him and his family but completely left Joaquín behind and in the cold. He did miss him. He just thought he'd be safer without him around but turns out Joaquín was the one saving his ass anyways.

"The wings?" Sam asked.

"Oh i found em right where you left em. Picked em up, took em home, studied em, reverse engineered my own pair. Yours are still sitting in my workshop. I kept it just in case you... ya know... ever came back..." At this point his head was turned away from Sam.

Sam couldn't see the tears but he could hear Joaquín sniffling and wiping his face.

"Hey...." Sam whispered as he wrapped his arm around Joaquín's back, "From what I saw.... you were awesome, perfect even. I shouldn't have left you. You're my family too..." He began poking Joaquín's side.

"Come onnnn Jojo. Look at me. Please?"

Joaquín replied with a grunt and shuffled his head further into his arms.

"Jojooooo," Sam reached under his face and tilted his head up to face him. His eyes where shining with tears and his face was streaked with tear lines. His lips were visibly trembling and his beard had grown noticeably longer. Sam held his chin in his hands and ran them over his beard repetitively in a soothing motion that lead to Joaquín leaning back into Sam.

"I promise I'll never leave you behind again. The past three years were great but these three weeks with you were the best of my life. I hate that it took getting my ass handed to me for me to realize that but my life with you in it is infinitely better." Sam lamented.

Joaquín finally spoke again, "I've loved spending this time with you too, but it still hurt. It's gonna take time for me but I want you in life too." He rested his forehead against Sams and sighed, "I can't stay here with you for much longer. I have unfinished business to take care of but after that's done I'll come back."

"I'm coming with you." Sam replied determinedly, "Wherever you go I'm going too."

"No... no. You still need to heal and you're still needed here. I'll be okay! I took in the mantle of The Falcon and I'm doing what I have to. Can we just enjoy what we have for now until it's time?"

Sam scanned his face and saw he was serious and decided to let it go. He had no place to make demands of Joaquín and he wanted to give him as much length as he needed.

"Yeah... yeah okay..."

"Cool." Joaquín perked up and kissed Sam in his forehead, his beard ticking his face before resting his head back on Sam's face, wrapping his arms around Sam's waist, and continuing to watch the sunset.

Sam broke the silence again, "I just have to ask though..."

"Hm?"

"Where did this beard come from?" Sam asked stifling a laugh.

"Aw shut up!" Joaquín pushed at Sam's stomach and laughed which in turn caused Sam to laugh. "It just grew out while I was going through it and I liked it so I've been working with it okay!"

Sam chuckled at Joaquín's exasperation and slight embarrassment before saying, "I love it. It looks good on you. In fact its kind of sexy."

Sam felt Joaquín's body stiffen on top of him amd heard his breath hitch. There was obviously some attraction to each other and an innate closeness the two had, but they never discussed what exactly they were to each other. Not everything needed a label of course but they just never talked about it. They always glided into these situations.

"Heh. Thanks."

Sam looked down at Joaquín's head and stroked his hair and carried his hands over the other man's shoulder and down his side repetitively. He heard Joaquín sigh before hearing the rhythmic sounds of his sleep. He didn't know what was running through the other man's mind but he knew that this moment was perfect and if he could, he'd stay like this forever.

He thought his life for the past 3 years was what he wanted but turns out this was exactly what he was missing.

[luque-moreau]

y'know i think its about time ive refurbished my psychonauts headcanons/theories

what??? me??? rewriting my psychonauts headcanons in a more comprehensible and informed way???

ye

alright, i think everyone knows what im talking about, by headcanons i mean headcanon as in singular, and as singular, i mean my "raz is somewhere on the spectrum of adhd".

so lets just get into it:

what is adhd actually?

adhd by definition stands for attention deficit hyperactive/hyperfocus disorder (yes, let me get into the details in just a sec). it is a nerodevelopmental disorder that is almost completely reliant on genetic factors, however conditions during pregnancy can sometimes contribute to certain aspects of how adhd manifests itself.

long story short, people with adhd have a smaller frontal lobe, and therefore less dopamine in general (even though yes, it is more complicated than that).

theres also a little bit of "chicken or the egg first" goin on here, certain behaviors or personality tendencies can also affect how adhd is presented in one individual to the next, however its still not clear if that is because it is an accommodating for a certain thought process or if someones experiences and personality shape their symptoms of adhd entirely. its a very blurry line, and the answer is different for everybody.

hyperactive type

hyperactive type is probably the closest to most stereotypical depictions of adhd, think the 5 year old whos parents brush off their child’s hyperactivity as something that will “go with age”. however, this isn’t only present in children, adults with adhd have to deal with a constant need for stimuli to make up for the lack of dopamine their current activity is providing them. this results in someone fidgeting frequently in repetitive or predictable motions, unable to hold attention to a specific task for long periods of time, or many other of the symptoms associated with adhd.(i sadly cannot provide more information in this area, i am not knowledgeable enough to...)

hyperfocus type

hyperfocus type is a tricky one, it can look like the complete opposite of adhd in theory. hyperfocus can look similar to special interests or hyperfixation, a great deal of time and knowledge dedicated to a very particular thing (although it is important to note that even though hyperfixations and special interests are incredibly similar, special interests is a term more typically used within autistic-circles, and isnt really the best word to use if you happen to be neurotypical). Think of maybe that kid who knows all the cool animal facts and won’t shut up about them. Its because certain trains of thought or activities might release more dopamine then others, so to get more of that dopamine, someone of hyperfocus type will be mentally unable to stop thinking or doing a very specific task or topic. this results in someone seemingly always spacing out, unable to change subjects or changing subjects too fast or with little to no correlation, or being completely unable to have enough motivation to do simple things.

personally i tend to fall under the category of hyperfocus myself rather than hyperactive, however the two are not mutually exclusive, its more common to find people with both types rather than just one. even myself, i might exhibit more tendencies to place me under the label of hyperfocus, but that doesn’t mean i don’t have any symptoms of the hyperactive type. its my personality that affects my mannerisms, which then makes certain aspects of my symptoms more or less apparent. Thats because im an INTP-T, i just tend to be more to myself and constantly in a state of thinking abstractly. I have trouble communicating and even sometimes recognizing my needs, and get to a point where im unable to do the simplest of things without feeling emotionally drained. Thats just my experience though, everybodys different. 

so what the fuck does this have to do with raz then?

well lets think about it, rather than have it just be me projecting myself onto a comfort character:

raz finds issue with connecting to kids his age

lets be honest. none of the campers really like raz that much. or at least some do the bare minimum to be try and be polite. it doesn’t seem like any of the other campers besides dogen, whos also socially outcasted, are really fond of raz. lili might like him, but that can definitely be interpreted as curiosity in someone new and different from the norm. It might not be that the kids despise him, but nobodys opinionated enough to care whether he is around or not.

social isolation is one of the most damning things i had to experience from an early age and still feel even today. there is a sense of feeling that you are different among your peers, whether that is a good thing or bad thing. it feels difficult to interact with other people you are not familiar with, and can really stunt you emotionally and socially. from a really early age, theres somethin in you that knows something is very different between the experiences of your peers compared to your own, and it can feel incredibly isolating.

raz and his borderline stupidity

time to get real again. raz is a fucking idiot. at least in the sense that sometimes his decisions seem incredibly spontaneous and not really thought through. he runs from home to attend a summer camp, not really thinking about the logistics of how he will get there, how the staff will react, how long its gonna take for his parent to find him, and so on. it doesn’t seem like he over or underestimates his abilities, he just goes for it without considering. that doesnt seem like the smartest thing to do, even though we know hes incredibly intelligent when it comes to larger, abstract situations. its the little details that he misses, small minuet things that seem unimportant that he overlooks, which can sometimes make things harder for him in the end.

i think its obvious that impulsivity is one symptom of adhd. however i cannot stress how difficult it is to think at supersonic speed and still feel incredibly stupid. i mean, thinking faster doesn’t inherently mean you will have better ideas, you can always be stupider faster, but being able to realize stupid mistakes or inconsistencies in your own thought process is annoying as hell. it feels like every time you try to recognize the issue, fix it, and move forward, you only end up not paying attention to another issue that gets bigger and more annoying than the first. Its always two steps forward, one step back, constantly making the same mistakes even though you try everything in your power to avoid them or grow as a person. The simplest of facts, ideas, or just things to remember end up being forgotten, and once youre reminded of them you remember them and feel like an idiot. however, arbitrary things and complex issues are much easier to digest and remember for me, things like history and the whole blame game charade of it all, biology and how every minuet thing has a greater impact on others and intertwines with every single factor of its environment, philosophy and theorizing why we think the way we do and what can be changed. but oh shit, im a dumbass i forgot to do my laundry. shit. god fuckin dammit.

empathy over sympathy

one of the basic themes of psychonauts is empathy. simple as that. raz goes around into other peoples brains, and tries to help them as much as he can, even if his efforts are not always successful in the way he intended. he never demonizes anyone to the point of unredeemability, and can empathize and understand other peoples perspectives. hes open to new ideas and

although some studies out there theorize that empathy is impaired due to adhd, from my perspective i feel like that is simply not true. if anything, i would say the sensitivity that comes with adhd (hypersensitivity) only enhances that empathy. i could definitely see social disconnection being one of the reasons it might appear that someone with adhd is less empathetic, however i would doubt that adhd would impair a persons empathy. adhd tends to also entail heightened emotions, this doesn’t necessarily mean a more outwardly emotional person, however it definitely shifts a persons perspective of their own emotions as well as others. the concept of hypersensitivity also completely contradicts the idea of people with adhd be less empathetic.

miscommunication and disconnect

sigh, the dad thing. yup. raz has that very iffy relationship with his dad at the beginning of the game which is eventually resolved. very abruptly, might i add. but thats not what this is about, thats a topic for another day. miscommunication seemed to be the root of the issue, however we only get razs side of the story. not to mention the severity of his claims and willingness to seemingly drop everything afterwards. kinda sus, ngl.

alright this ones a doosey. this, i feel, cements my theory pretty well. like i mentioned before, social disconnect and hypersensitivity are side effects of the symptoms of adhd.  this means people with adhd are highly more likely to either misinterpret someones words or actions if those in question are not completely transparent, its because they tend to overthink and interpenetrate responses with too much thinkin n such. the social disconnect makes a whole lot of it worse, it can just pile on top of already established feelings of inadequacy and isolation. and oversharing as a poor coping mechanism isnt an exclusively adhd related thing, it tends to be shared within similar neruodevelopmental disorders such as autism or even ptsd. i find it incredibly easy to disconnect myself from my own emotions at times and think critically at what i feel and how it affects me. which is a bad thing. if i dont acknowledge my emotions like they are my own for too long, everything falls apart. its not fun. but, that disconnect can make talking about certain more traumatic experiences or instances that had deep personal effects on my life and development as a person much easier to just share. and not always in an appropriate manner, comedic opportunity can be   v  e  r  y   enticing. this also explains why raz might have been able to drop everything about his dad after he apologized. he didn’t really, he probably still suffers just as much afterwards as he did before. but he probably wont realize that for awhile, since logically, the issue has been resolved. long story short, he has not had the time to cope, and to put that off he detaches himself from those feelings. w a c k

of course i have other reasons why i feel like raz could potentially have adhd, or at least be accurately represented in headcanon with adhd, some minor mentions being:

he uses his camp map as a journal to track his in-game progress, list of goals, and notes/snip-its of information. writing down information on some form of notepad or book is a common tool used by kids and even adults with adhd to help them keep track of minuet, individual tasks. its just using a planner, but with a bit more information. 

just from my personal perspective, the lengths raz goes to pursue his dream of being a psychonaut feel more like a special interest/hyper fixation sort of thing. he can jump between having genuine conversations with his fellow campers and just exploring the campground, to investing himself entirely in obtaining his goal, even when it seems almost impossible. thats some serious dedication to one very specific thing, y’know?

this one isnt as solid as the other but: m̶̖̰̯̫̍͝o̵̦͖̟͈̹̤̥̝͐̿̄̀̀̎̓ņ̶̛̭̠̐̊̆̍͝ķ̸̝͈̺̙̰̊e̶͉͚̼̅̔͗̂͐̍̕͝͝y̶̦̖̼͖̪͎̝̖̠̐̑͋̾̔̑́͐͘ ̵̢̲̘͎͉̔̀͒̄͌͊̀͌̀m̴̲̫̮̪̖̍̐͆̕͜͝ͅả̶͙͚͗n̶̗̳̩̙̘̼̦̦͇͝ ̷̡̨̡͔̗͕̘͍̥̑͒̎̐̃g̴͔̔̈̅̐̏́̌̔̈́́o̶̥̱̽̆̂͌̀͗ ̶̝̩͙͕͛́s̴̛͓̥̲̜͓͚̣̠̆̓̌͌p̶̜̹̯̦̫̯̣̎͐̽̉̾ḙ̴͇̬͑̈́̐̈́͘͠ͅȅ̶̡̗̞̩͔̫̪͈͑̓͗d̵̠͇͎̜͔͇͒̈́́̀̅̈́̒͘y̸̡̦̠̻̖̥̿ͅ. yeah, its the most generalizing reason but look, hes moving nonstop the entire game, climbing and running around the entire goddamn place wrecking havoc. a bit of imp can be found in most people with adhd if you look hard enough.

so thanks for reading this far i guess? im oversharing even right now with this, like an i d i o t but yknow what i dont want to read the great gatsby rn, so ive got nothin better to do. who knows, maybe the second game will give us more info to either support/discredit this theory? gotta wait for pn2 i guess

:^)

[runnfromtheak]

tagged by @icosagens!!! such an eloquent and stunning writer with a sharp sense of humor srsly go check him out on ao3! <3 Specifically check out his JayDickDonna fic, CHCl3 which is beautiful and painful and just E V E R Y T H I N GGGGG.

I'll put everything under the cut so there isn't a terrible amount of scrolling for those wishing to skip <3

Rules: list the first lines of your last ten stories. See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line.

Anchors of Mortality

AKA my new passion project where Dick has a savior complex and no self-preservation skills featuring a Constantine who just wants to Tap That, a Zatanna who is tired and also wants to Tap That, and a host of resurrected characters because Dick can't let things lie or die. Ships include JayDick and Magic^2Dick (or Dick/Zee/Constantine)

Life ends and life begins in rain, at least as far as Dick Grayson is concerned. His parents died on a rainy day, ice-cold droplets seeping in through the bright, thick cloth of the circus tents. A drizzle, Haly had called it beforehand, telling them not to worry. But rain is an omen – a warning – of an uncertain future, of conflicting emotions and thoughts. It had been a sign he’d been foolish to ignore, a sign Haly had been foolish to ignore.

everything casts a shadow

AKA SladeDick with Slade being the Worst and Dick straight up not having a good time

Zatanna used to say that rain has a cleansing effect on the heart and the soul – and the cock, Constantine would always interject with a filthy leer of promise. Rain purifies negative energy from a space, murder or magic, and rain settles the anxious mind. The three of them had made love in the rain once, intertwining limbs and the glow of magic refracted throughout the cold droplets. Three hearts aligned in a crystalline world of skin and water, for a perfect moment.

a prayer for which no words exist

JayDick where Dick has issues and needs therapy. Like a true emotional support/projection character, he reads instead.

On nights he can’t sleep, he reads.

Dick’s always enjoyed books, had grown up with yellowed pages musty with the scent of age as comfort and entertainment, but he’d stopped reading frequently when he’d grown up. With everything else, with responsibility atop responsibility atop responsibility as he’d aged, he hadn’t the time or the mental capacity to love reading like he had before. He hadn’t been able to focus or concentrate, always oscillating between too keyed up and too exhausted. The words, when he’d try and sift through the neurochemical adrenaline high and sift through the luring temptress of melatonin and sleep deprivation, would float and float and float away like distant birds migrating to a new land.

i'm addicted to the way you hurt (i don't mind if you fuck up my life)

JayDick where Dick is a female and also depressed but not in a sexy way. Very Spuffy s6 vibes if ya know what I mean.

When she comes back to life, her world is a nuclear green.

She’s embraced by something; it cradles her, like she’s a precious bundle of jewels, like something perfect to be coveted. There’s warmth where she rests her head, breasts pillowed beneath her, and she’s held close enough to feel that rhythmic cadence like a siren call to life.

warning signs can feel like they're butterflies (i won't stop 'till i get where you are)

Johnlock fic because I got into the fandom late where Sherlock just can't say no and everyone is sad.

He shoots her blackmailer on Christmas Day on the front porch of a cold mansion.

It’s a good shot – clean, precise – with an entry wound and an exit wound. Bits of brain matter coated in blood spatter at Magnussen's back, a dead-eyed look of shock in his empty eyes.

hold your breath 'till we're in too deep (my love is a mood ring)

JayDick where Dick just wants to love Jason and people (*cough* Jason *cough*) make this a difficult venture.

The thing is: Jason Todd is dead.

The thing is: Jason Todd is holding a detonator in his right fist and a gun in his left, both pointed in Dick’s direction in a fairly menacing way.

The thing is: Dick’s vision is blurry from what may or may not be a concussion and there are little floating Batmen spinning around his head in diapers like a horrifying rendition of Cupid, so his assessments may not be entirely accurate.

i wanna waste my youth on you

DickDonna where Dick Grayson is a fucking simp for Donna Troy but aren't we all? (the correct answer is yes. if you said no, only god can help you now.)

He’s ten and she’s eleven and she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

heart on your sleeve like you've never been loved (running in circles now look what you've done)

Johnlock and Adlock where Sherlock picks sex over drugs and John is Not Pleased.

It starts right after the funeral dressed up as a wedding. Tables of decorations he’d picked, dishes he’d selected, color pallets he’d painstakingly coordinated and plotted. John and Mary’s song, weaved from his tears and his blood spilt like ink over the dancefloor as his violin grieves with him.

She’s pregnant. Sherlock smiles, as the best friend is meant to, and John smiles, as the father is meant to, and Mary smiles and it’s all normal and proper and Sherlock’s frozen before she pulls John away with something so horribly knowing in her eyes, before they kiss sweetly on a dancefloor he’d helped pick and lose themselves in throngs of friends and family.

light at the beginning of the tunnel (but he tells me that i'm dreaming)

Johnlock where Sherlock pines and does drugs post T6T.

He hadn’t intended to return. Victorian London holds its own sort of allure, delicious danger at every corner, nothing but pure intellect unaided by modern machinations to solve puzzles of every sort—

(a John Watson that still looks at you like you hung the sun and the stars just for him, like you’re the center he orbits, a gravity he doesn’t care to escape. A place where deductions still evoke tenderness, approval. Where John Watson still wants to hear your voice and cares for you, even with Mary.)

—but it had been dangerous. It had been utterly reckless, a calculated OD with no less than five compounds of varying effects, each boosting the others into a delightful failing of his heart that hadn’t lasted because his transport’s tenacity outweighed his mind’s desires. The fanciful realm where his life hadn’t gone to complete and utter shite had never been a conscious plan. Sherlock hadn’t intended for his brain to grasp for a chain, a link to reality in the form of delusions and hallucinations and awful attempts at honesty. He hadn’t planned for a did you miss me? Despite all his claims to the contrary at the time.

me and you are such a beautiful tragedy (in love with agony)

JayDick Jason wants to be a good person but he's horny. AKA the new pitch for evil: come to the dark side, we have great sex or your ex that can and will kill you if you don't.

The thing about the Lazarus Pit is it consumes you. It’s greedy, like Midas’s touch on a cellular level. It replaces the old with the new – with it – carving a home in blood and soul for its will. For its intentions, passive though they seem at first. Mental stability is only one cost of such a bargain, but it’s by far the worst.

I mean, I used rain as a symbol/parallel twice but mehhh. I don't think I'm super duper set in any formula as far as first lines go. I think my fave would either be the Lazarus Pit line or the nuclear green one. I love my Pit consequences, okay?

Tagging @boyblunder-thedarkheir, @behindtherobinsmask, @luthienluinwe, @stevieraebarnes, and @bitterleafs!! <3